Daily Archives: October 2, 2005

An Incredibly Dark Week for The Republicans

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aka Why the Instapundit is Pork Obsessed, and Why the Rest Want to Focus on Bill Bennett

9/25 Tens of Thousands Protest Iraq War, Only Hundreds Support It

WASHINGTON – Support for U.S. troops fighting abroad mixed with anger toward anti-war demonstrators at home as hundreds of people, far fewer than organizers had expected, rallied Sunday on the National Mall just a day after tens of thousands protested against the war in Iraq. – AP

9/26 White House’s First Veto? An Amendment Requiring the Military to Abide to the Geneva Conventions

WASHINGTON — Sen. John McCain, decrying new allegations of prisoner abuse in Iraq by U.S. soldiers, on Sunday backed an amendment to force the American military to live up to its international obligations under the Geneva Convention and “not engage in torture” of detainees in Iraq and Afghanistan.

McCain (R-Ariz.) was responding to complaints by Army Capt. Ian Fishback and two sergeants, who all served with the 82nd Airborne Division. Their description of routine harsh treatment of captives in Iraq parallels the abuse caught in photographs at the Abu Ghraib prison outside Baghdad and was contained in a Human Rights Watch report issued Friday by the advocacy group.

. . .

McCain noted too that he wanted prohibitions against torture underscored in the Army Field Manual, which he said “is the document that the Army goes by and the military goes by when in the process of interrogation and treatment of prisoners.”

Told that the White House was opposed to such an amendment and that the president might veto the bill if the amendment were included, McCain said he was unsure whether there were enough votes in the Senate to override it.

“I hope,” he said of the Bush administration, “that they will understand why we’re trying to do this and why it’s so important to America’s image in the world.” – LA Times

9/26 Under Secretary Karen Hughes Admits to Not Knowing the Difference Between the Constitution and the Dollar Bill

QUESTION: Going back to the subject of the President, did anyone speak specifically about President Bush — their feelings about him, objections to him?

UNDER SECRETARY HUGHES: I haven’t really heard a lot of that. I had one person at one lunch raise the issue of the President mentioning God in his speeches. And I asked whether he was aware that previous American presidents have also cited God, and that our Constitution cites “one nation under God.” – US State Department

9/27 Brownie Goes To Washington and Blames Everyone but Himself

In a combative hearing pitting an unapologetic Michael Brown against frustrated members of Congress, the former FEMA director defended his handling of Hurricane Katrina and laid the blame for evacuation failures on Louisiana Gov. Kathleen Blanco and New Orleans Mayor Ray Nagin.

Brown, testifying under oath for the first time since leaving the Federal Emergency Management Agency, said his “biggest mistake was not recognizing” two days before the storm hit Aug. 29 “that Louisiana was dysfunctional.” He said it was “not the role of the federal government” to evacuate citizens and accused critics of “Monday morning quarterbacking.”

Nagin said singling out Louisiana was “disingenuous.” “Obviously, Mr. Brown is under a lot of pressure,” Nagin said. “I feel sorry for him.” – USA Today

9/28 House Majority Leader Indicted for Money Laundering

House Majority Leader Tom DeLay was indicted by a Texas grand jury for political corruption, forcing him to step aside as the GOP’s second in command.

DeLay — a pugnacious political practitioner whose hard-boiled approach to politics earned him the nickname “The Hammer” — was charged with one count of conspiring with others to launder corporate donations to state legislature candidates in Texas, where such funds are outlawed.

DeLay faces up to two years in prison and a $10,000 fine if convicted for his alleged role in a scheme to have his federal political action committee — Texans for a Republican Majority — accept money from corporations that were funneled to the Republican National Committee that were then passed along to state candidates. – Newsday

9/29 Federal Court Demands More Abu Ghraib Vids and Pics Released

A federal judge in Manhattan ruled yesterday that the Defense Department must release dozens of withheld photographs and videotapes that show abuse of prisoners at Abu Ghraib prison in Iraq, rejecting an argument by top military officials that publishing the images would endanger American troops.

“Our nation does not surrender to blackmail,” wrote the judge, Alvin K. Hellerstein of Federal District Court.

Judge Hellerstein was responding to a statement by Gen. Richard B. Myers, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, who said publication of the images could provoke acts of terrorism against American soldiers.

“Our struggle to prevail” in Iraq, the judge wrote, “must be without sacrificing the transparency and accountability of government and military officials.” – New York Times

9/29 Pentagon Refuses to Support the Troops

WASHINGTON – Nearly a year after Congress demanded action, the Pentagon has still failed to figure out a way to reimburse soldiers for body armor and equipment they purchased to better protect themselves while serving in Iraq.

Soldiers and their parents are still spending hundreds and sometimes thousands of dollars for armor they say the military won’t provide. One U.S. senator said Wednesday he will try again to force the Pentagon to obey the reimbursement law it opposed from the outset and has so far not implemented. – AP

9/30 NYT Reporter Released from Jail & Fingers Scooter of the office of the Vice President

I. Lewis “Scooter” Libby, Vice President Dick Cheney’s chief of staff, emerged Friday at the center of the federal grand jury inquiry into who inside the government leaked the identity of former undercover CIA officer Valerie Plame.

New York Times reporter Judith Miller testified to the grand jury behind closed doors for more than four hours, after serving 85 days in jail rather than discuss in court her off-the-record July 2003 interview with Libby.

She appeared in court only after hearing directly from Libby by phone and letter that he had no objection to her testifying. Special prosecutor Patrick Fitzgerald also promised to limit his questioning of Miller to only the Libby contacts regarding Plame.

“I served 85 days in jail because of my belief in the importance of upholding the confidential relationship journalists have with their sources,” Miller said. “Believe me, I did not want to be in jail. But I would have stayed even longer.” msnbc

9/30 BushCo Found Guilty of Buying and Spreading Propaganda

Federal auditors said on Friday that the Bush administration violated the law by buying favorable news coverage of President Bush’s education policies, by making payments to the conservative commentator Armstrong Williams and by hiring a public relations company to analyze media perceptions of the Republican Party.

In a blistering report, the investigators, from the Government Accountability Office, said the administration had disseminated “covert propaganda” in the United States, in violation of a statutory ban. – New York Times

9/30 Rumsfeld Admits of Training Insurgents in Iraq

As fresh violence claimed dozens more Iraqi and US lives yesterday, the top US military commander in Iraq backed off previous predictions that a substantial number of US troops would be withdrawn next year, and he warned that a growing political divide over a new constitution could fuel worse bloodshed in the months ahead.

. . .

There are a total of 192,000 US-trained Iraqi forces, including police, soldiers, and border patrol, according to Pentagon figures.

Some lawmakers raised concerns about the loyalties of those Iraqi security forces, citing reports that insurgents have been infiltrating the Iraqi forces in significant numbers. There are ”continuing reports that the Iraqi police and security forces we’re training are substantially infiltrated by insurgents,” Senator Edward M. Kennedy, Democrat of Massachusetts, said in questioning (Defense Secretary Donald) Rumsfeld.

Rumsfeld responded, ”It’s a problem that’s faced by police forces in every major city in our country, that criminals infiltrate and sign up to join the police force.”

However, the top US intelligence official said yesterday that the make-up and organization of the increasingly violent Iraq insurgency remains a puzzle to US officials 2 1/2 years after the US-led invasion toppled Saddam Hussein. – Boston Globe

sorta important news, wouldnt you say?

not if youre only interested in telling the good news to the Righties…

last time the Instapundit mentioned “Rumsfeld”, you know, the Secretary of Defense – we are in a war, one that the professor supports: 9/7

last time he mentioned the bothersome and annoying “Geneva Conventions”?: 1/16

the last three mentions of McCain were all in relation to: pork

last time he mentioned Karen Hughes? 6/10… of 2002 (cant really blame him on that one)

last mention of Michael Brown? 9/23 regarding, you guessed it, pork. meaning his trip to DC to testify was ignorned by the professor

any mention of BushCo being caught for propaganda?

heh.

however he did make time to post about Serenity 6 times this week plus 5 updates. we’ll agree to agree on that one. it’s a good flick. especially during a week that you wish you could escape.

Serenity now? indeed.

more fuckups + dems, youre having the best week ever + matt welch

i wonder what its like to be like the instapundit

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headless horsema hole for anyone from the right to stick their fist into.

do they have to grease it up first?

do they have to ask please first?

thirty to thirty five times a day the right just shove it in and he takes it. but its more than “he takes it”, he loves it. he smiles. hes gleeful.

nobody does anything thirty times a day unless theyre seriously into it – nay obsessed by it.

at first i used to read his page and think, oh great i get to read what a law professor thinks about stuff. how cool that he’ll look at both sides of things and show you and then tell you what he thinks.

that quickly changed and he just showed one side.

then that changed and he only showed you the side that the uber-right wanted to see. and boy did his popularity shoot through the roof.

some would say, damn its scary that so many people agree with him, and others would say they dont all agree with him theyre just watching the spectacle of someone so diluted and insincere faking being openminded faking being an libertarian and trying his hardest to be as conservative as humanly possible.

i used to belong to a gym where these old guys used to have naked competitions where they tried to be more naked than the next guy. youd think once youre naked you’d win, but nope, one dude started brushing his teeth naked, then another guy watched tv in the locker room area naked, then another guy started shining his shoes naked. he won cuz nobody shines their shoes anymore.

at first instapundit was beating everyone at the most conservative in the world by being less balanced than even matt drudge, but even drudge got tired of that game. and now the powerline blog and instapundit are trying to out-conservative each other but its no contest, the professor beats the three lawyers from nowhere hands down cuz hes so conservative he doesnt even bother to write opinions, he lets other people do his dirty work. which is sorta badass, but mostly cowardly, and borderline lazy. if you could call 30+ posts a day lazy.

some people call little green footballs a hateful site. [2016 editors note update, today LGF is a completely different blog] and pretty much nobody knows why i used to call instapundit my favorite blogger or why i am still trying to get a podcast going with charles from lgf, but people often misunderstand me.

for the record instapundit has pretty much lost all my respect, and charles has pretty much kept my respect. both of these opinions are based on the Bill Bennett “if you want to lower the crime rate, abort all the Black babies” scandal which each of the right-wing bloggers have handled quite differently.

charles chose to ignore it, which doesnt mean he disagrees with Bennett, but it’s pretty much the most one could hope for from lgf which rarely criticizes fellow righties for being… themselves.

airplanethe southern professor on saturday made two posts. on the first he quoted powerline who complained that Bennett is “taking unjustified heat for comments he made on the subject of abortion.” (as if any of this is about abortion)

on his second bennett post he linked to three conservative blogs all of whom basically supported the indefensible comments.

it’s a shame that republican Black blogger, baldilocks hadn’t posted earlier in the day because perhaps glenn would have read her post which denounces Bennett, albeit mildly.

her “however clause” is one that any rational person desperately trying to make sense of the idiocy would have, “that Mr. Bennett could have used a different outrageous example and that I found it curious that black babies were the first thing that popped into Mr. Bennett’s mind.”

glenn doesnt have such thoughts. and if he does he doesnt dare utter them outloud on his blog. thats not his job. his job is to echo the rightest of the right. his job is to ignore what needs to be played down, and amplify what most needs to be added to the noise.

Bennett went on hannity and colmes and defended himself against Ted Kennedy’s criticisms by lamely bringing up 36-year-old chappaquiddick and refusing to take back what he said.

“I will — I’ll not take instruction from Teddy Kennedy. A young woman likely drowned because of his negligence. I’ll take no moral instruction with him. That’s much worse than legal gambling what Teddy Kennedy did. He should make no judgments at all about people.” – Bill Bennett 9/30/05

a rational man would have said, “yeah, that was an unfortunate example, and a ridiculous one. obviously it was just downright stupid. and im sorry.” but no he tries to smear sen. kennedy for being just as outraged as the white house.

there’s a reason why Bennett went on hannity and colmes, its the same reason the instapundit never links to the white house when theyre apologizing about something or condeming a repub: because its soft over there.

why didnt hannity and colmes say, “bill, kennedy and dean and pelosi and pretty much everyone including bush said that what you said was inappropriate. nobody gives a shit about Jonathan Swift, nor does anyone think that you’ll ever go down as a famous satirist, and by the way, didnt Swift die of madness and leave his fortune to create a nut house, im sorry a mental institute?”

only a lunatic or a racist would stand behind the statements that bill bennett posed this week.

its one thing to spew them on the radio before your second cup of coffee, its another thing to soberly defend them a day later and then go on the offensive while refusing to apologize.

when asked if he felt he should apologize Bennett said, “I don’t think I do. I think people who misrepresented my view owe me an apology.”

pride is one of the seven deadly sins.

is dumbfuckery?

heres who’s a dumbfuck: Bennett and anyone who tries to pretend that aborting Black babies just happened to pop in his head as a way to fight crime. that after he read that passage in Freakanomics that he didnt think, “oh but what about the largest percentage of criminals: white males.”

waterladythats the problem with Bennett’s bizarre theory: to abort a minority of people from a minority group you only get a small percentage. why on earth if you wanted to seriously cut down on crime wouldnt you go for the highest percentage?

i’ll tell you why, because then he’d be targeting his audience. the white republicans who have the AM radio turned on during the afternoons. sure it would still be reductio ad absurdum but homie dont play that when youre talking about their babies.

black kids didnt blow up the world trade center, black kids didnt shoot up columbine, black kids didnt beat rodney king, black kids didnt blow up oklahoma city or eat people in wisconsin, or bury kids in their driveway in illinois.

yes blacks commit crime. of course we do. everyone commits crime. when i worked at Sears many years ago i saw someone in a wheelchair grab a walkman and slip it under his leg and toss his blanket over his lap.

on hannity and colmes Bennett didnt want to talk about how poverty affects crime, he wanted to change the subject into how colmes had been boohoo mean to him earlier on radio. because bill bennett’s feelings are somehow more important than the root of crime, which is typically poor education, disproportional unemployment, and the fact that the poor have a shitty chance of getting a fair trial in court. and Lord lets not ask the former drug czar what prisons would look like if we legalized drugs, taxed them, and released those convicted of non-violent drug crimes – something the professor claims to support.

but instead of glenn delving into little things like why Blacks are disproportionately in prison he convienently ignores all that and lets the righties have their way with his blog.

“oh we’re supporting bennett? ok, cool. send me links, i’ll post em.”

which is why im through with him and the oldest profession.

Update: Baldilocks says she was misunderstood, she says she has no issue with Bennett, she says she has an issue with the media for twisting his words around.

beautiful art by maggie taylor