CNN host says "faggot" on the air - calls it simply a "naughty name." ABC asks same host to do commentary on GMA

"My Two Sense" blog reports that it's now apparently CNN policy that its hosts can use the word "faggot" on the air because it's simply "a naughty name." No bleep, nothing. And the CNN host, Glenn Beck, even went so far as to make fun of the New York Times for not using the word "faggot" in print.

From CNN's own transcript:


A naughty name? Does CNN consider the n-word just a naughty name too? How about the k-word for Jews, or the s word for Hispanics? Just naughty names we can say on the air, and criticize others for not using them too? And what does ABC - the network of Isaiah "You're a Faggot" Washington - think about all of this? Why invoke ABC? Because they just asked this neanderthal Beck to do regular commentary on Good Morning America. Diane Sawyer said she thinks Beck's comments are based in "common sense." Really? Perhaps ABC could explain the common sense behind calling someone a "faggot"?

CNN and ABC are fooling themselves if they don't think there's going to be a massive advertiser boycott of both networks very soon. And as a veteran of such boycotts, I can't imagine any advertiser is going to want to stick with a show, or a network, that uses and tries to diminish the abhorrent nature of slurs like "faggot."

As an interesting aside, CNN deleted an entire segment of an interview with Bill Maher a few months back because Maher suggested that then- Republican National Committee chair Ken Mehlman might be gay. New Rule: Maher would have apparently been fine with CNN if he'd simply said that Ken Mehlman was a faggot. Read the rest of this post...

3 more Republican Senators come out against Bush escalation plan for Iraq

Susan Collins (ME) and Norm Coleman (MN) - two lightweights - and John Warner of Virginia, who is hardly a lightweight. Warner was the former chair of the Senate Armed Services Committee. Collins is worried about re-election, and Coleman can't figure out what to think - one minute he's criticizing Bush's Iraq strategy, the next he's condemning the Dems for opposing it. Pick a team, Norm. But Warner, that's interesting. Warner is part of the old guard, and I mean that in a good way. He's what Washington was - a bit nicer, a bit more genteel. The fact that he's standing up to Bush is quite interesting. His opposition could have coattails among other Republicans looking for cover. More from AP. Read the rest of this post...

Allard and Musgrave chicken out. Religious right congressmen refuse to introduce anti-gay constitutional amendment.

The religious right, and the conservative Republican, agenda has now become so toxic that two of the biggest defenders of the religious right in congress, Senator Wayne Allard (R-CO) and Rep. Marilyn Musgrave (R-CO), have just announced that they will NOT be introducing the anti-gay "ban gay marriage" constitutional amendment this Congress.

In past sessions, Colorado Sen. Wayne Allard and Rep. Marilyn Musgrave were conservative champions of a federal constitutional amendment to ban gay marriage in the last Congress, both sponsoring legislation to do just that.

Not this year.

The two Republicans said last week they have no plans to re-introduce their legislation in the new Congress - another sign that Democrats are now in the majority.

"At this time, I haven't discussed it with anyone," Allard said on Thursday. "If we thought there was a decent chance to bring it to the floor for debate, I would, but with the new Congress, I'm not sure we will ever have that opportunity."

Aaron Johnson, Musgrave's spokesman, said the congresswoman would not introduce the legislation this year.

It won't go anywhere? That's never been an argument against introducing legislation. Congressmen always introduce legislation that they don't think will go anywhere. Allard and Musgrave knew the legislation wouldn't pass when they introduced the amendment in the last two sessions of Congress.

Allard and Musgrave aren't introducing the legislation because the Republicans are scared to death that the religious right, and conservative Republican, agenda will be the death of them. Their colleagues must have told them to stay away from the hate issues that have proven to be toxic to the GOP.

This is rather big. And now the cat's out of the bag. If Allard and Musgrave introduce the legislation, which I think they now will - because the religious right is going to flip - we already know that they're doing it under duress, and we already know that by so doing they're hurting Musgrave's re-election, and the re-election of every Republican member of Congress. Musgrave's opponent in 2006, Angie Paccione (who supports gay marriage), mocked Marilyn's obsession with gay marriage throughout the campaign And, she came within 3 percentage points of defeating Marilyn in a reliably conservative district.

The impact of the November elections continues. Read the rest of this post...

Vindication

CREW: 1
FBI:0 Read the rest of this post...

AP/AOL poll = more bad news for Bush

Highlights include:

- 66% of Americans think the United States is headed in the wrong direction
- 42% think country is better off under Democrat controlled Congress
- 67% oppose decision to send additional troops to Iraq; 63% don't think it will help stabilize situation
- House Speaker Nancy Pelosi earns 51% job approval rating, higher than Congress’ 34% approval rating
- President Bush earns a low 36 percent job approval rating
- 53 percent of Americans say Bush is likeable, 58 percent say he is decisive and 59 percent say he is strong. However, less than half (44 percent) think Bush is honest and only 49 percent think he is ethical.

So he's a nice guy, decisive, and strong. And a crook. Read the rest of this post...

It's such hard work writing speeches for Bush

Quite possibly the dumbest article ever in the NY Times. It's about the hard work it takes to write the State of the Union speech. Bush is sooo demanding about his speeches. That's because all Bush does is give speeches. No policy, just spin.

The life of White House speechwriters is so difficult and complicated that one night -- and you won't believe this -- one night, they had to eat at Fuddruckers. Oh, the horrors:

For his part, Mr. McGurn is a bit tired after a month of 12-hour days and 6:45 a.m. phone calls, and in need of a decent meal. In one eight-day stretch after Christmas, he and fellow writers ate breakfast, lunch and dinner every day in the White House mess, except when it was closed, as it was for dinner on New Year’s Day.

“We went to Fuddruckers,” said the man who puts words in the president’s mouth. “It was, like, 8 o’clock. Nothing else was open.”

What cruelty. This article is pretty useless on so many levels -- I shouldn't even link to it. But it does give some insight in to what's important to George Bush and his team. Food and speeches.

I bet that those 21,000 extra troops that McGurn wrote about -- and the 130,000+ who are already in Iraq -- are also in need of a decent meal. Almost every single one of them would trade eating every day in the White House mess, or Fuddrucker's, for the mess they are in. Read the rest of this post...

Under DC law, it could have been illegal for John Edwards to not sell his home

The Washington Post failed to mention two things in its front page hit-piece on John Edwards on Friday.

First, had Edwards refused to sell his home based on political calculus, he might have been breaking DC law:

Part C. Housing and Commercial Space.

§ 2-1402.21. Prohibitions.

(a) General - It shall be an unlawful discriminatory practice to do any of the following acts, wholly or partially for a discriminatory reason based on the actual or perceived: race, color, religion, national origin, sex, age, marital status, personal appearance, sexual orientation, gender identity or expression, familial status, family responsibilities, disability, matriculation, political affiliation, source of income, or place of residence or business of any individual:

(1) To interrupt or terminate, or refuse or fail to initiate or conduct any transaction in real property; or to require different terms for such transaction; or to represent falsely that an interest in real property is not available for transaction;

Under both "political affiliation" and "source of income" the buy might have had a cause of action against Edwards. The Post didn't bother mentioning this in their hit piece.

Second, and just as important, I talked to a housing lawyer today and he tells me that Edwards could have found himself in a bit of trouble had he turned down a full price offer for his home simply because he didn't like the buyer. Standard realtor contracts include a provision making the seller liable for the sales commission on the property should the buyer turn down a reasonable offer for frivolous reasons. As the standard commission is 5% to 6%, and Edwards' home sold for $5.2 million, that would be a $260,000 penalty that Edwards could have potentially owed his agent - a penalty he'd have owed each time he turned down a potential buyer based of political calculus. That's a sizable, and certainly reasonable, reason for Edwards to not just turn down any buyer who a Democratic constituent might have a gripe with.

Of course, we have no idea if Edwards did or didn't have this in his contract with his agent, nor do we have any idea if turning down the buyer would have violated DC law, because Washington Post reporter John Solomon and his crack editors didn't bother including any of this in their story attacking John Edwards for doing pretty much nothing. Read the rest of this post...

Australian airline Qantas bans anti-Bush speech on airlines

This is rather offensive, and scary to boot. Qantas didn't just ban a guy from wearing an anti-Bush t-shirt on their flights, they defended what they did by banning all anti-Bush speech on their airline, verbal comments as well. Passengers flying Qantas are no longer permitted to say anything that might offend another passenger, including criticism of George Bush, or they are thrown off the airline.

From the BBC:

A Qantas spokesman defended the airline's decision, saying: "Whether made verbally or on a T-shirt, comments with the potential to offend other customers or threaten the security of a Qantas group aircraft will not be tolerated".

They didn't just ban t-shirts, they banned all speech, verbal as well. So if I as a customer find Qantas' policy offensive does that mean we can throw them off their airlines? How about a religious extremist customer who is offended when I tell him I'm gay? Read the rest of this post...

Spying in Baghdad "impossible"

This CQ article is one of the most important and interesting articles I've read on U.S. intelligence efforts in a long time. Unfortunately, for a variety of reasons I can't comment very extensively on the contents, but very generally, I can say that if it is true, it helps explain why tactical military operations can go relatively well while the overall Iraq situation continues to spiral out of control.

The piece essentially says that the U.S. intelligence operations in Iraq are completely crippled by a combination of security issues, political idiocy, lack of planning, and a lack of language and culture knowledge. More importantly, though, it lays out precisely the effects of these problems (if, in fact, the reporting is accurate).

It is absolutely worth a read; here are a few highlights:

According to several well informed intelligence sources, hundreds of CIA operatives have become virtual prisoners in the Green Zone, the sprawling American enclave whose high walls and guards separate the U.S. embassy, military command and related civilian agencies from the raging sectarian violence in Baghdad’s streets. [...]

Multiple CIA sources, who spoke freely only in exchange for anonymity, said the agency’s mission of recruiting and managing human spies in Baghdad was stillborn in the weeks following the 2003 invasion and has never recovered, despite adding hundreds of personnel in the past few years. That failure has virtually crippled U.S. strategic intelligence — inside information on the personalities and plans of the often hostile U.S.-backed government, not just the multiplying insurgent groups and armed militias — in Iraq. [...]

Tactical intelligence — the locations and types of enemy troops and weapons — is also suffering from a lack of access to the population and almost nonexistent language skills on the part of both CIA and military intelligence personnel, say these same sources, all of whom have decades of experience in clandestine operations.

The article makes a comparison to Vietnam, in which the author was an intelligence officer, indicating that then, it was still fairly common for Vietnamese to interact with troops and Americans in general, greatly facilitating the intelligence operations. In Iraq, conversely, it is almost universally unacceptable to interact with an American. It is impossible to run any kind of counterinsurgency campaign without a staggering amount of informants and information, and failures this significant in both tactical and strategic intelligence speaks volumes. While people debate the number of troops, the question of whether they'll be able to complete any kind of coherent or effective mission gets overlooked, and this article starkly addresses that issue. Read the rest of this post...

A new low for the Washington Post

Well, that didn't take long.

You may recall that the Washington Post recently hired embattled Associated Press reporter John Solomon. Solomon was facing increasing scrutiny, and criticism, for his odd brand of "I gotcha" journalism while working at the Associated Press. Solomon's stories, far too often, would report benign facts as earth-shattering revelations - and he got caught, repeatedly, and publicly.

It now seems that Mr. Solomon's penchant for hyperbole is alive and well at the Washington Post. In a front page story Friday, Solomon reported on what he, and his editors at the Post, apparently considered a very important story (or it wouldn't have made page one). Namely, that Democratic presidential candidate John Edwards sold his home to some guy who the Washington Post didn't like.

Yes. You heard correctly. The Washington Post has established a new standard in Washington where you can only sell your home to really really really nice people. That was the gist of the Washington Post's front page extravaganza.

Which begs the question of who John Solomon, and his editors at the Post, and all of his fellow colleagues at the Post, have sold their homes to in the past? Did they do extensive background checks on the personal ethics and likability of the individuals buying their homes? Doubtful.

The Washington Post published a front-page story about nothing. But by making it a front-page story, the Post gave the appearance that this story was absolutely about something, and in the process, they smeared John Edwards all the same.

But this is hardly new for Solomon. In the Post story about Edwards, Solomon used one of his tricks he also used at the AP when sliming Democratic politicians. He cited something correct, and innocuous, that the politician did or said, and then somehow implied that this was evil.

Case in point. The first two paragraphs of the Post story:

When former North Carolina senator and Democratic presidential candidate John Edwards finally succeeded last month in selling his imposing Georgetown mansion for $5.2 million after it had languished on the market, the names of the buyers were not publicly disclosed.

At the time, Edwards's spokeswoman told reporters that the house had been sold to an unidentified corporation. In reality, the buyers were Paul and Terry Klaassen, according to several sources and confirmed by Edwards's spokeswoman yesterday.

Wow, so John Edwards' spokeswoman lied when she said the home was bought by a corporation?! That's really bad, and it does suggest that she just might be hiding something, if she had to lie.

But then you read, in paragraph 9, something that totally exonerates the spokeswoman (this is a classic Solomon trick again - use the lead of your story to make the person sound sinister, then bury the exonerating truth way down in the story):

The paperwork for the sale was handled in such a way that it kept the Klaassens' names off the public deed documents, which show that the buyer was P Street LLC. That limited-liability corporation was created Dec. 22, public records show. Palmieri said the Klaassens used it to purchase the house.

So in fact, Edwards's spokeswoman told the truth. The home was bought by a corporation. But by reading Solomon's lead, you'd be led to believe, incorrectly, that Edwards' spokeswoman lied when saying that the home was bought by a corporation. Get it?

There is a pattern here. It's not just a sloppy lead, it's what Solomon did in far too many of his stories at the Associated Press - and that repitition suggests not error, but intent. The lead implies the politician is guilty, and then buried in the story you find out that the politician isn't guilty at all and that the "facts" as implied in the lead simply aren't true. Solomon played this game at his former job - why DID he leave the AP anyway? - and he's repeating his old tricks now at the Post.

It's fortunate that it took Solomon only a few months at the Post to expose what appears to be glaring partisan bias, incredibly sloppy journalism, or both. After the previous, and repeated, scandals about Solomon's writing, he left the Associated Press. It will be interesting to see how long the Washington Post tolerates a reporter in their midst who might prove a better fit at the Washington Times. Read the rest of this post...

Bush at "weakest point of his presidency"

The Washington Post gives the backdrop of Bush's speech tomorrow night:

President Bush will deliver his State of the Union address on Tuesday at the weakest point of his presidency, with dissatisfaction over his Iraq war policies continuing to rise and confidence in his leadership continuing to decline, according to a new Washington Post-ABC News poll.

Bush's weakness is causing American weakness. As we saw in stark numbers over the weekend, the Iraq war is having life and death consequences for U.S. soldiers. It continues to destroy the lives of people in Iraq -- 75 were killed in bombings today. The war that Bush chose to start is absolutely undermining his presidency. And, no matter how many speeches he gives to spin the country -- it's clear our President has no plan:

Iraq dominates the national agenda, with 48 percent of Americans calling the war the single most important issue they want Bush and the Congress to deal with this year. No other issue rises out of single digits.

The poll also finds that the public trusts congressional Democrats over Bush to deal with the conflict by a margin of 60 percent to 33 percent.

The president will use his speech to try to rally public opinion behind his troop deployment plan, but during the past 10 days he has made no headway in changing public opinion. The Post-ABC poll shows that 65 percent of Americans oppose sending more troops to Iraq, compared to 61 percent who opposed the plan when the president unveiled it Jan. 10 in a nationally televised address.

The president can't rally public opinion. No one believes him anymore. Read the rest of this post...

Monday Morning Open Thread

Bush gives the State of the Union tomorrow night. Another speech of lies and spin. There'll be plenty of build up to the speech -- and lots of deconstruction. We'll do our part

Many, many candidates lining up now to take his place. After this weekend, it's up to eighteen.

Okay, let's get the week started. Read the rest of this post...

Civil war continues in Iraq - at least 65 dead today

From the AP:

At least 65 people were killed and 113 wounded after two nearly simultaneous bombs struck a predominantly Shiite commercial area in central Baghdad Monday, police said.

The first blast occurred shortly after noon when a bomb left in a bag placed among the stalls of vendors peddling DVDs and secondhand clothes exploded in the Bab al-Sharqi area between Tayaran and Tahrir squares.

It was followed almost immediately by a parked car bomb just feet away.

Police and hospital officials said at least 65 people were killed and 113 wounded.

Read the rest of this post...

Bush planning to talk about energy security this week

Maybe he can help us understand why his previous words on the subject have not matched the facts, but hey, why would he want to start addressing reality now? Drilling for natural gas is a financial net loser without massive government welfare to the drilling companies and drilling for more oil raises the issue of destruction of our environment and even then, the additional oil is so insignificant compared to the consumption in the US, it offers nothing in terms of a path to energy independence and only delays and avoids facing important long term decisions.

"President Bush actually cut funding for the key energy-saving technologies," says Joseph Romm, a former head of the renewable fuels and efficiency programs at the Energy Department during the Clinton administration.

The department's requests for renewable fuel and conservation programs have stayed flat at about $1.18 billion annually over the past six years - really a decline if inflation is considered, energy efficiency advocates say.

"Since 2002, the energy efficiency programs at the Energy Department have dropped by a third in real dollars," says Kateri Callahan, president of the Alliance to Safe Energy, a private advocacy group.

Why do the Republicans hate our environment? Read the rest of this post...

Open thread

Talk. Read the rest of this post...