Bedtime open thread

Night night Read More......

I'll be in the audience at the GannonGuckert panel at the Press Club tomorrow, Friday

FURTHER UPDATE: The GannonGuckert Press Club event will be LIVE on C-Span2 Friday at around 9:30AM Eastern. Ironically, they follow with a panel on broadcast indecency!

UPDDATE: Since they're requiring bloggers to bring a copy of their blog to prove we're for real, I'm bringing a copy of my story about Jeff with all the photos :-)

After giving it a lot of thought, it seemed a good idea for me to attend in the audience to keep everybody honest. This way, we'll have a perfect record of everything GannonGuckert says, we'll be able to monitor the "tough questions" the mainstream media is promising to ask, and I'll hopefully get to ask some tough questions of my own.

I'm particularly interested in seeing to what degree the panel does or doesn't turn into a GannonGuckert-fest. Meaning, will it become a debate as to whether HE'S a journalist, or more generally, what are or should be (or not) the qualifications for someone being called a journalist.

As an aside, I had breakfast this morning with Garrett Graff, the "first blogger in the White House" (Garrett will be on the panel). We were talking about the panel, and it occurred to us that the key question isn't really who is a journalist. It's, rather, who is a good journalist, an ethical journalist, a journalist who upholds the ideals of what journalism is supposed to be about (and what are those supposed ideals?).

I say this because anyone can be a journalist. Go to an event, take notes, write up a story, publish it on your computer and pass it out on the corner, and voila, you're a journalist. Not a very good or reputable one, but you're a journalist. Kids who write on the grade school paper are "journalists." And the same applies to other professions. I mean, hell, I'm a "lawyer" by benefit of having gone to law school, but that doesn't mean I'm a practicing lawyer, nor does it say anything about whether I'm a good and upstanding one either. Same goes for doctors. Why therefore impart the world "journalist" with some higher value and meaning, as if the standard is simply whether you ARE a journalist, rather than what KIND of journalist you are?

In GannonGuckert's case, what we're really discussing isn't whether he's a journalist, but rather, is he a credible, honest, good, reputable journalist, or is he the journalist equivalent of a quack - or hack?

It's a bit like being president. Sure, you've got the title. But it says nothing about your competence or incompetence to do the job. And that's the real question that matters. Read More......

Terri Schiavo would be playing tennis today if it weren't for the liberal media

At least, that's what I'm sensing the religious right is trying to tell us in their latest revision of history about the Schiavo fiasco:

Concerned Women for America, living up to its name, is concerned about how polling data was used to mislead the American public during the Terri Schiavo case last month. The group says a "mass orchestration of public opinion, based on profoundly erroneous information" kept Americans in the dark about Terri's actual condition.

Oh really? Oh yeah, that's right, she wasn't a vegetable. Her entire cerebral cortex hadn't turned to liquid, forever destroying her entire core essence. She was in fact only "disabled." The kind of person who would get a job at Wal-Mart and be in their diversity ads.

Then get this:

But CWA says when a new Zogby poll properly described the Florida woman's condition -- something the organization says did not happen in earlier polls -- 80 percent of respondents opposed the starvation order handed down by a Florida judge.

See, now as the religious right likes to do, they never tell you what their poll actually said. Fortunately, I read the poll, and get what it really says:

A poll completed after the controversial death of Terri Schiavo finds that eight-in-ten (80%) likely voters say that a disabled person who is not terminally ill or in a coma, and not being kept alive by life support should not, in the absence of a written directive to the contrary, be denied food and water.

Yes, the poll is talking about whether, for example, some guy who had his arm blown off in Iraq, but is otherwise happy and healthy and out playing baseball with his wife and kids and working his job at IBM, should be put to death against his wishes. Read that poll again. It's about putting disabled people to death who are alive and awake and happy and enjoying life. Well BIG DUH most people don't agree with that. Insert the word "vegetable" and then see what the poll says.

And in fact, once the poll language tracks more closely to the Schiavo case and the intervention of Congress and the White House and the religious right loons, the numbers plummet. But they don't tell you that.

Look at the results in the same poll that they DON'T tell you about:



Even using the fictitious and wrong "disabled people" phrasing, the public isn't on their side. Expect the religious right to spend the next few years trying to spin this issue their way - this is what they do. They're relentless with a message until it finally sticks. Read More......

What's the rape of a few hundred children between friends?

It's good to know that even with the Pope now dead, the leadership of the Catholic church is still trying to ignore the pedophilia scandal. Other than that and his outright bigotry towards gays, he was such a nice Pope... Read More......

More egg on conservative faces

This time it's that nasty Debra Saunders who writes for the SF Chronicle (she interviewed me once about Dr. Laura and was a total rhymes-with-witch). Well, here's what the lovely Ms. Saunders wrote in today's Chronicle:

You remember the alleged GOP memo that talked up how the Schiavo story was "a great political issue" that would hurts the Dems and help the GOP with its "pro-life base." ABC's Web site dubbed it the "GOP Talking Points on Terri Schiavo."

It turns out, as the Washington Post's Howard Kurtz reported, "no one seems to know who wrote it." The Post's Mike Allen explained that the Post merely reported that the memo was "distributed to Republican senators," but he believed the document to be "authentic" and "used to attempt to influence Republican senators." How convenient that a memo, its authorship unknown, that misspelled Terri Schiavo's name, and that said things only a moron would be dumb enough to put on paper, made it into ABC's and the Washington Post's hands.

The kicker: A story that was supposed to be about the GOP running roughshod over a woman's end-of-life wishes isn't about her known wishes and isn't about the GOP, but about both parties.

What was that about morons be dumbing enough to put things on paper? To her credit, Saunders apologized today online for getting the story wrong. Or should I say, for getting caught? Read More......

Open Thread

It's time for another one....what's the latest? Read More......

Jenna Writhes Again

The New York Post has a little tidbit about Ms. Jenna Bush doing some dirty dancing in the Big Apple:

VIDEOTAPE of Jenna Bush in very high spirits at a bachelorette party is being sold and could end up on national TV by the end of the week. Luckily for Jenna, the cameraman missed "the high point . . . Jenna on all fours doing 'the butt dance' — and doing it very well — as guys were ogling her thong," said our source.

Okay, you ask, why would Americablog be at all interested in these kinds of antics by Ms. Bush? To be honest, we're not....EXCEPT there is that whole morals and sex obsession thing coming out of her Daddy's administration and his right wing cronies.

The Bush people spend an inordinate amount of time worrying about the sex lives of other Americans, whether it's their gay-bashing constitutional amendment or their "sexual abstinence for everyone but us" campaign. We just think that if you want the rest of the country to "behave," well, maybe you should tend to your own house first.

Apparently, Jenna's little show will be out on video later this week. Read More......

Open thread

This is a propaganda free zone. Read More......

I'm in shock. Michelle Malkin, um, gets it

Ok, I'm very nervous writing this, because I have a nagging feeling I've been hoodwinked.

But uber-conservative pundit and blogger Michelle "Internment camps are good things" Malkin just wrote a rather incredible, forthright, and honest analysis of where things stands with the Schiavo memo. In a nutshell, she's asking if there wasn't some attempted GOP cover-up surrounding the memo, trying to blame Dems for it when it was really a GOP memo, etc.

Again, perhaps I'm missing something, and I'll soon have egg on my face, but it looks like Malkin just wrote an honest analysis of the situation, an analysis that makes the GOP look pretty bad. Being open to that kind of self-criticsm doesn't happen enough on the left, and it sure as hell doesn't never happens on the right. I've got to say, I'm impressed.

Michelle, don't prove me wrong with my praise :-)

THE SCHIAVO MEMO: GOP COVER-UPS?
By Michelle Malkin · April 07, 2005 05:06 AM

Sen. Mel Martinez told the Washington Times he did not see the Schiavo memo until ABC News and the Post publicized it. But Sen. Tom Harkin told the Post that when Martinez handed him the memo, "[Martinez] said these were talking points -- something that we're working on here."

How could Sen. Martinez describe the contents of the memo if he had not seen it? And who is "we?"

Then there's Brian Darling, Martinez's legal counsel (until last night, when he resigned). According to the Post, Darling is taking the blame for authoring the Schiavo memo.

Readers of this site will recall that nearly two weeks ago Josh Claybourn of In the Agora received a false tip from four people, two of whom claimed to work for Sen. Martinez. (The other two claimed to work for Sen. Rick Santorum.) Claybourn's sources falsely stated that the Schiavo memo was authored and circulated by a young "renegade" aide working for Sen. Harry Reid. Two of Claybourn's sources stated that they saw the Reid aide passing out the memo.

A few days before Claybourn's story broke, the Prowler reported similar allegations, citing "Senate Republican leadership aides to both Sen. Rick Santorum and Sen. Mitch McConnell, as well as the Senate Republican Policy Committee."

Did Darling give a fake tip to Claybourn to try to divert attention from himself? If so, who were his co-conspirators? Who exactly spoke to the Prowler and from whom did the Prowler's sources get their information?

To date, Claybourn has not responded to my suggestion that he divulge the phone numbers of his sources. Will he continue to play nicey-nice with his sources now that they have been shown to be manipulative, lying smear merchants?

The story's not over. Sen. Martinez and his former legal counsel may still have plenty of 'splainin' to do.

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Discredited GOP bloggers STILL say they're right about "fake" Schiavo memo

This is priceless. These guys lost, big time. They called the memo fake, and now it's real. They've got major egg on their tin-foil-hat face, so now they're trying to rearrange the deck chairs on the Titanic, as an old law professor of mine used to say. They're coming up with any excuse they can to say they're right, when they weren't. They said it was a fake and it's real. And the best part is that I still haven't read on Powerline Blog (the "blog of the yeart") anything apologizing for repeatedly labeling this a "fake" memo.

And I quote:

We have written extensively about the fake "talking points memo" on the Schaivo case...

it seems extremely likely that it was produced by Democrats as a political dirty trick...

A reader points out that the Post's original story on the fake memo...

Someone at the Post swallowed the fake memo hook, line, and sinker--Mike Allen, I assume.

Yep, just checked Powerline blog. No apology, no correction. Just more convoluted explanations as to why he's "really" right even though he got it wrong. You called it a "fake memo," Powerline. And you did so repeatedly. Are you going to admit that you were wrong in jumping the gun and calling the memo a "fake memo"? Come on, restore our faith in conservatives. You guys can actually correct something when you're wrong, can't you? Or will that set a bad precedent, and FOX will get mad? Read More......

Read Rush Limbaugh make an ASS of himself

With great joy I bring you the March 24, 2005 transcript of Rush Limbaugh's radio show in which he, at length, makes a total and utter ass of himself crowing about the "fake" Schiavo memo the Democrats created to embarrass the Republicans, and how this issue will blow up in the Democrats' face like they've never seen.

Too bad the memo is real and Limbaugh is, once again, full of shit.

Supposed GOP Schiavo Memo Forged by Democrats
March 24, 2005

RUSH: This is really heating up, but apparently all the Democrats were all excited that they found this memo that Republican senators were circulating on Sunday, talking points, on the Terri Schiavo case -- and it appears it's a forged memo all over again! As the American Spectator reports, "It's Rathergate all over again, and the same vigilant entities that brought about to the collapse of CBS News could now also cause heads to roll among Democratic Senate leadership staffers and further shame multiple news organizations that would appear to have fallen for another document hoax.

"Very quietly, Senate Republican leadership aides to both Sen. Rick Santorum and Sen. Mitch McConnell, as well as the Senate Republican Policy Committee, have been using the Senate recess break to reconstruct the purported distribution of a document that media outlets, including ABC News, the New York Times and a number of regional newspapers, identified as Senate 'GOP talking points' on the Terri Schiavo fight that unfolded over the weekend.

"'There is a process here for documents like this that are passed around down on the Senate floor, which is where the media claimed that the "talking points" were being distributed last Thursday,' says a Republican policy committee staffer. 'There was a lot of stuff going on Thursday, but a document like this one was not being distributed. As far as we know, the only documents being handed out related to votes on a series of amendments being pushed through before the recess. Schiavo wasn't part of that package.'

"The document, which was posted online by ABC News, as well as several Democratic-leaning websites, was unsigned, bore no Senate office letterhead, and was rife with errors, including the incorrect Senate bill number and the misspelling of Schiavo's name. For days, Republicans denied any knowledge of the document, and a number of Republican Senators claimed they had never seen it.

"Republican leadership staffers now believe the document was generated out of the Democratic opposition research office set up recently by Senator [Dingy] Harry Reid, and distributed to some Democratic Senate staffers claiming it was a GOP document, in the hope -- or more likely expectation -- that it would then be leaked by those Democrats to reporters. In fact, the New York Times stated that it was Democratic staffers who were distributing the 'talking points,'" memo, the document.

"'Democrats have tried to pin this document on Santorum's staff, on [Sen. Bill] Frist's staff, on [Sen. Sam] Brownback's staff,' says a Senate leadership staffer. 'Watching the investigation underway on line has energized us enough up here to want to at least confirm that we weren't the source, and everything we have found would confirm that Republicans didn't generate this memo. This is just amateurish. Perhaps Democratic staffers think we put out work product like this, but it's laughable.'" We have a montage of the press talking about this on the Sunday shows we have Tim Russert, Wolf Blitzer, Gwen Ifill of PBS, Chris Matthews of PMSNBC, Mara Liasson of NPR, Linda Douglas of ABC, Chris Wallace of Fox all talking about this memo.

RUSSERT: There was a memo circulated [sic] that this would be good for the 2006 midterm elections with the conservative voters.

BLITZER: There was a GOP memo that's been published [sic] widely circulated [sic].

IFILL: This memo shows [sic] it's something they are very much aware of.

MATTHEWS: There was a memo distributed to Senate Republicans [sic] telling their members that, quote, "This is an important moral issue." It suggests that there's political pay dirt here.

LIASSON: A memo got circulated today [sic] talking about how great a political issue it was for Republicans. I think that makes this whole thing seem a little bit unseemly.

DOUGLAS: You saw the talking about points that were being circulated.

WALLACE: How do you explain, then, these talking points which have been circulated [sic] among Republican senators.

RUSH: Apparently the explanation is it was forged! The memo was made up by Democrat staffers. Even though it's forged it's probably still true so what difference does it make, just like Dan Rather's excuse for the Bill Burkett documents and so forth. You know, it is (Laughing.) You would think that after the CBS incident and somebody starts handing you documents that purport to be a talking points memo from Senate staffers, you would think to go ask the Republicans about it and check it out instead of just running with it given what all happened.

So it is clear that the Democrats wanted to politicize this and make the Republicans look like they were politicizing Terri Schiavo, and pandering. Why would the Democrats do this? Because they're scared of this issue. Make no mistake about this: For all the gloating and all the glee and all the happiness about this woman's death, make no mistake about it, the left as they keep this up is going to cause a backlash against them the likes of which they haven't seen. I mean this is the strangest way to make entreaties to the red states I have ever seen, and it proves once and for all the idea that the Democrats and liberals to want try to make peace with the people in the red states and say, "Hey, we have values, too." It's just talk. It's just talk because when an issue has the rubber meet the road the liberals cannot, the Democrats cannot hide who they really are.

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Santorum assures Right Wingers on Nuclear Option

According to The Hill, Senator Ricky, the emissary to the wing nuts, assured them that Bill Frist will invoke the nuclear option on judges:

Sen. Rick Santorum (Pa.), the chairman of the Senate Republican Conference, has reassured conservative activist leaders that Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist (R-Tenn.) is committed to triggering the “nuclear option,” stripping Democrats of the power to filibuster judicial nominees.

Santorum met the leaders Tuesday to dispel growing anxiety among conservatives that Frist was wavering over what some Republicans call the “constitutional” or “Byrd” option — a procedural tactic that would disallow judicial filibusters by a ruling of the Senate chair and a ratifying majority vote.

This debate is coming. And it needs to be framed around Senator Lautenberg's floor statement yesterday when he blasted John Cornyn:

These remarks are almost unbelievable.

Yet they echo the words last week of the House Majority Leader.

Speaking of the judges in the Schiavo case, the House Majority Leader said, “The time will come for the men responsible for this to answer for their behavior."

These are inflammatory words.

They ignore the fact that our Founding Fathers wanted judges to be insulated from political pressure.

And they are words that could easily incite violence against judges.

Read More......

Don't forget to read last night's posts, there were a LOT and big news

In case you missed it, the GOP memo about Terri Schiavo, the one in which they crowed how her condition would be GREAT politics for the GOP, was proven to be REAL last night. Lots of posts below, scroll down and check 'em out.

And, I'd mentioned the other day that I've decided to every once in a while post a donation reminder (just like they do at Buzzflash). If you like AMERICAblog, please help support AMERICAblog. On fast-breaking news days, like the past several, this is all I do for a living, so your donations are my income (and honestly, the more donations the more I can afford to make this like a real job, i.e., non-stop activism and reporting). Please help out if you can, and thanks as always. JOHN

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Senators Coburn and Brownback drop off of controversial anti-judge conference too

Remember that little conference taking place today, the one that Tom DeLay wimped out of (he was the keynote speaker)? Well, now Senators Brownback and Cobun also have disappeared from the conference list of speakers, and today's NYT makes clear it's NOT because they're going to Rome - they didn't make the delegation.

Gosh, I really do hope our blowing the lid on that conference here on AMERICAblog didn't get all those GOP Senators to drop out :-( Read More......

Worst blog of the year

More fallout from the now-proven-real GOP memo crowing over Terri Schiavo's plight. Read More......

Morning open thread

Have at it Read More......

Mugabe flies in to see Pope's funeral

No word yet on whether or not the Italians are allowing him to enter the country but hopefully the EU will find a spine this time and send the thug back to Zimbabwe. Back in 2002, the EU turned a blind eye for a 24 hour period and allowed him entry into France for a pan-African conference.

Archbishop Pius Ncube of Bulawayo has strongly criticized Mugabe in the past over human rights violations and has criticized this latest stunt by Mugabe as pure theater. Read More......

Spitzer raking in the bucks for election campaign

Despite pissing off Wall Street by, oh heavens, holding people accountable, he has had no problem at all raising cash for his camapaign for governor of NY. Current governor Pataki, the guy who makes a wet blanket look exciting still has not decided whether or not to run. (Please, go ahead and run so we can see you sent packing by Spitzer.)

The president of the traditionally right wing US Chamber of Commerce is less than thrilled with Spitzer, which out to be reason enough to support him. Funny how sensitive some are to corporate accountability and the screwing of the middle class by Wall Street.

Thomas J. Donahue has called Spitzer's investigations of Wall Street research, mutual fund trading and insurance "the most egregious and unacceptable form of intimidation that we have seen in this country in modern time."

Read More......