Politics: Where we struggle to kneel in the muck.
 

Ladies and gentlemen, start your engines.

Edited to avoid, if only somewhat, being a sexist fuck. -- T.S.

Politics: Where we struggle to kneel in the muck.
 

Sexist fuck.

Politics: Where we struggle to kneel in the muck.
 

An excellent beginning to this installment of the PB, I see.

homicide/suicide bombers
 

I realize "homicide bombers" takes a bias against the people getting on buses or airplanes and blowing up themselves and some mothers and kids. what I don't get is why this is seen as "right wing."

Shouldn't the adjective go to main intent? If what they really wanted to do is commit suicide it would be alot simpler to just stay in Gaza and go boom! See, I think the dead mom and kids are what they're really after, so I sort of agree with the characterization.

homocide/suicide bombers
 

Shouldn't the adjective be an adjective?

homocide/suicide bombers
 

Is a homocide bomber one who blows himself up in the Castro?

New strategy for getting out
 

Rumsfeld uncovers the key to a stable Iraq in last week's news conference.

Getting foreign troops to help out? Unlikely.

Re-taking and crushing the Sunni triangle? Not before November 2, baby.

No, the key in the meantime is to rely on the Iraqis' inner sense of self:

To quote Bill Maher, "well, sure -- it might've been OK before ...."

Selling the news (lost in the shuffle of the thread change)
 

Jesus Christ, people, have none of you realized that THIS IS SEBBY YOU'RE ARGUING WITH!?!

He's just trying to make a point via hyperbole, and y'all are looking at the trees and not the forest. He's like Ronald Reagan telling that story about that lady on welfare who drives a Cadillac -- the specific facts don't matter, they merely serve as the temporary framework for the broader point. His facts aren't meant to be taken literally.

Sheesh. Don't you people read the FB?

Up From the Muck
 

Burger:

You don't see a difference between spin and rhetorical devices as compared to lousy fact-checking coupled with adament assurances that the network stands behind its reporting? But, if you want to equate Dan Rather and Michael Moore, please feel free.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Bob: Jesus Christ, people, have none of you realized that THIS IS SEBBY YOU'RE ARGUING WITH!!!

He's just trying to make a point via hyperbole, and y'all are looking at the trees and not the forest. He's like Ronald Reagan telling that story about that lady on welfare who drives a Cadillac -- the specific facts don't matter, they merely serve as the temporary framework for the broader point. His facts aren't meant to be taken literally.

Sheesh. Don't you people read the FB?

___________________________________________________

Me:

Burger - No. I see no difference. The delivery mechanism does not change the innacuracy of the information.

Bob - You lead me to an interesting point... There have been three effective Presidents in the past 30 years - Reagan, Clinton and Bush II. All men were generally considered to be "loose" speakers who's words were not always as accurate as they could be. And, with the exception of Clinton, who was a micro-manager, none could be considered terribly detail-oriented. And none were known for marshalling facts to their defense. Clinton was a wizard of wordplay - he'd face off against stats with no facts at all and come out winning. NOW, John Kerry and Al Gore are two of the most organized, fact-armed, stat-firing candidates in years. If they can be summed up in one word, "lawyerly" would suffice. Neither found/will find higher office despite going up against a seemningly weaker opponent, and the main reason was/is that people couldn't stand either man. Now, if you look at both men, you'll see two personalities most partners woul LOVE to have in associates of any level. Both men are utterly middle-management types, but not built for anything higher.

SO, when you call me out for speaking interms of forests as opposed to trees, I warmly embrace your assessment. It reminds me I'm not a lawyer personality, which is precisely what I use these boards to remind myself every day. You're a real mensch for providing the compliment.

I mean this in all sincerity. I think you're a pretty good judge of people, so you make me feel pretty damn confident that I'm not another middle manager, even though it feels like it a lot.

homicide/suicide bombers
 

2

So now the flag, caring for the troops, and patriotic music makes them biased? OK, whatever.

anybody remember this>?
 

Joe Lockhart did an interview this morning, related to the Burkett story. Sebby's still crouching in the corner with that one, snarling at anyone who comes in for the kill, so I'll leave it for the moment.

I did see something else in the article, that if true does sort of make a valid point for the Clinton years. He says back in his days, they used to have a press conference every day. Now, Bush's WH has had them twice in the last two months.

As a matter of policy, I sort of do like the idea of a national press conference every day. Maybe just a few questions on a slow day, and certainly not involving the President more than once a month. But communications with the public seems like its probably a good thing.

Is he telling the truth though? I was busy during the Clinton era, too busy to pay attention.

Hello

anybody remember this>?
 

Terry McAwful still has a press conference every day.

anybody remember this>?
 

and Kerry hasn't had one sinse 8/9/04

anybody remember this>?
 

To be fair, Lockhart was saying that McClellan should give more press briefings, not that the President should give more press conferences. I'm sure Kerry spokesmen have been available more than twice in the last two months.

The transcript of the Lockhart thing is on Atrios, and it's fun to read. Very unclear to me why the existence of a telephone call between Burkett and Lockhart should be a story, but he does a good job of flipping it around.

homicide/suicide bombers
 

I think it's seen as right wing because it is most often right wingers using the term (see sgtclub's support of your point).

I personally think homicide bomber is kind of a goofy term because every bomber who takes a life is a homicide bomber. Why not just call them a bomber.

Do you take "homicide bomber" to refer only to those attackers who take their own life?

homicide/suicide bombers
 

The wingers are going to start using the terms "homicide shooter," "homicide stabber," and "homicide killer" as well.

Because they don't want to run the risk that Atticus will nail them for a logical inconsistency.

Bush tax proposals
 

From Kleiman, Kerry's Top Ten list:


10. No estate tax for families with at least two U.S. presidents.

9. W-2 Form is now Dubya-2 Form.

8. Under the simplified tax code, your refund check goes directly to Halliburton.

7. The reduced earned income tax credit is so unfair, it just makes me want to tear out my lustrous, finely groomed hair.

6. Attorney General (John) Ashcroft gets to write off the entire U.S. Constitution.

5. Texas Rangers can take a business loss for trading Sammy Sosa.

4. Eliminate all income taxes; just ask Teresa to cover the whole damn thing.

3. Cheney can claim Bush as a dependent.

2. Hundred-dollar penalty if you pronounce it "nuclear" instead of 'nucular.'

1. George W. Bush gets a deduction for mortgaging our entire future.

homicide/suicide bombers
 

It is odd indeed to have the logic of my post questioned, when only moments before, Ty actually said the fact that the lunatic Bush- hater, who fed Rather's bloodlust, had spoken with high ranking Kerry officials was a non-story.

Anyway, homicide bomber was a coined phrase. It was developed to replace suicide bomber. Larry its not enough to argue "homicide bomber" is inaccurate. You have to show homicide bomber is worse than suicide bomber. I explained why I think it solid.

homicide/suicide bombers
 

Easy, tiger. No one's questioning your logic. I was asking you how you use the term. And if you think Joe Lockhart is high up, you must think Scott McClellan is next in line to replace Rumsfeld at DoD.

I think it's worse simply because it's redundant. Out of "suicide bomber" I intuitively get that the guy killed himself, based on the meanings of the two words separately. If you think it makes the dead guy look worse if you change "sui-" to "homi-", then go knock yourself out.

Bush tax proposals
 

Ya know - this is actually a lot more funny than it seemed when he read it last night. Lummox.

Worlds colliding
 

As a purely tangential point, Jon Stewart appeared on the O'Reilly Factor on Friday. Link is to the transcript, not video, so we can't know if that little vein in O'Reilly's forehead started bulging or not. On the upside, notwithstanding Bill's noted control of interviews on his show, Stewart got O'Reilly to talk about talking puppets, and their eligibility to vote as non-felonious Florida Republicans.

Also, look for the memos on that 87% statistic. Bloggers, get your MS Word packages ready!

• JON STEWART, "THE DAILY SHOW": How are you, sir?
  
  O'REILLY: OK. You know what's really frightening?
  
  STEWART: Uh oh.
  
  O'REILLY: You know what's really frightening?
  
  STEWART: You've been reading my diary.
  
  O'REILLY: You actually have an influence on this presidential election. That is scary.
  
  STEWART: If that were so, that would be quite frightening.
  
  O'REILLY: But it is. It's true. I mean, you've got stoned slackers watching your dopey show every night, OK, and they can vote.
  
  STEWART: Yeah.
  
  O'REILLY: You can't stop them.
  
  STEWART: Yeah, I just don't know how motivated they would be, these stoned slackers.
  
  O'REILLY: Yeah, it just depends if they have to go out that day.
  
  STEWART: What am I, a Cheech and Chong movie? Stoned slackers?
  
  O'REILLY: Come on, you do the research, you know the research on your program.
  
  STEWART: No, we don't.
  
  O'REILLY: Eighty-seven percent are intoxicated when they watch it. You didn't see that?
  
  STEWART: No, I didn't realize that.
  
  O'REILLY: Yeah, we have that there.
  
  STEWART: We come on right after, I believe, puppets that make crank calls...
  
  O'REILLY: Yeah.
  
  STEWART: ... so we are, I think, the appropriate follow up...
  
  O'REILLY: Yeah, and that's a great lead-in for you.
  
  STEWART: It's a wonderful show, by the way.
  
  O'REILLY: Puppets can't vote, but these dopey kids who watch you can.
  
  STEWART: They actually can -- in Florida, they can.
  
  O'REILLY: Puppets can vote in Florida.
  
  STEWART: As long as they vote Republican.
  
  O'REILLY: And they haven't committed a felony.
  
  STEWART: And they haven't committed a felony, that's exactly right.

Did you just read your sentence? Yes, absolutely it does. Its a huge red white and blue flag, and the commentators all but beamed when Iraq started getting bombed. It was treated like a carnival by Fox. Nothing wrong with that, I guess, but it is pretty damn biased. We all had the same horse in that race, but most of us were shaking our heads saying "Fuck, how in the hell has it come to this?" or "I don't know if this is such a good idea, but we'll see soon enough..." Nobody with any brains or conscience was saying "Yes. Lets get Iraq!"... mainly because no one could summon any reason to "get" Iraq. There was nothing to retaliate against. Fox wrapped a cynical strategic move in the flag, and played along with Bush's sale of the war on false pretenses to the lowest common denominator of our society. As Warren Zevon sang, that "ain't that pretty at all." CNN may be left, but at least it tried to show some dignity by just broadcasting the bombs and saying "here's whats going on." Fox could have done that, but instead it cheerlead. I guess it wasn't wrong for them to do so, but it did leave a pretty bad taste in my mouth.

Cheerleading in Afghanistan was fine, but Iraq? I mean, really... what was the cheer? "Yes, we're going to take the war to the shores of a weak third party we knew we could topple! USA! USA!"

Worlds colliding
 

it was tongue in cheek and in good humor. they were goofing on each other.

homicide/suicide bombers
 

I propose suihomi-bomber.

I recommend
http://flakmag.com/books/images/warisaforce.jpg

homicide/suicide bombers
 

Works for me.

Also on the plus side, if Hank wants to keep his beloved "homicide bomber" terminology he will have to show how this new term is worse. The evolution of the English language is mercilessly evenhanded.

Worlds colliding
 

Well, yeah.

[By placing my ear to the screen, I think I actually heard my joke fail. Contrary to earlier descriptions of a "thud," I think mine went "splat."]

Ahem, I invented this concept earlier today with my explanation of the War on Drugs and the War on Poverty. You were a nice whole number. Guess which one?

anybody remember this>?
 

I agree with you that there's not much to the "Kerry Campaign Conspiracy" angle to this story as we speak, and there may never be. I am pretty disturbed, however, that a CBS News Producer is facilitating a contact between her source for an anti-Bush story she's working on and a senior official of the Kerry campaign, for what it says about her journalistic integrity (oxymoron?).

anybody remember this>?
 

You know, I had thought that Lockhart's "why don't you ask a journalist how often this happens" answer was a McClellanesque* dodge, but now that you bring this up and after reading the charges against ABC News producer Chris Vlasto on Atrios I'm wondering if Lockhart was really making a larger point, that this sort of stuff goes on often and it's really the journalists that should answer for it.

Tough time to be a newsie...makes one yearn for the simple innocence of the Jayson Blair days.

* second McClellan ref of the day. I think I may have a crush.

To Wonk
 

Sorry, just reading quickly and making a fast reply in between planes:

When I said "to be a patriot, you have to agree with me", I was joking - indicating that patrotism has a much broader meaning than what has been tossed around the politisphere lately. You'd have to have read it that way to have it make sense in the context of the post in which it resided. As I said, Kerry was being a patriot when he was in his anti-war mode in the seventies, in my mind. A patriot does what he or she thinks best serves their country. We can all disagree on what that it, but that only defines how YOU serve YOUR OWN patriotism.

I need to use more smileys.

anybody remember this>?
 

There has to be an important difference between these guys talking to each other and passing tips and leads, and what they put in the stories they run. The former doesn't bother me a bit. It's their currency. It's the kind of stories Vlasto was running that crosses way over the line.

Bush flip-flops on Iraq, calls for retreat.
 

• MIXED MESSAGES. The Bush administration can't seem to decide on an angle of attack against John Kerry's very effective speech yesterday at New York University. As this article covering the president's response notes, President Bush claimed Kerry's plan is "exactly what we're currently doing." But campaign spokesman Steve Schmidt put out a statement yesterday claiming that "John Kerry's latest position on Iraq is to advocate retreat and defeat in the face of terror." So are we to believe that Bush's policy is to retreat in the face of terror?

Nick Confessore in TAPPED

Rathergate: The Story that Keeps on Giving
 

For those who aren't completely nauseated with the Rathergate story yet, Bryan Curtis of Slate posits the theory that Rather isn't a hack -- he's simply bonkers.

Excerpt:

• In reponse to these brouhahas and the National Guard story, conservative media critics have demanded blood. They charge that Rather's careless muckraking belies a liberal bias, but it's actually much worse than that. Rather isn't a liberal hack. He's bonkers.
  
  What other reporter could get away with the spontaneous fits of rage and the homespun corniness that are his trademarks? Raised in Texas, Rather reads the news in a colloquial rat-a-tat: Paul Harvey as performed by Bill O'Reilly. He peppers his copy with aphorisms—e.g., "that dog won't hunt"—and for a while ended the Evening News with a single, baffling word: "Courage."
  
  Rather's taste for the absurd goes beyond mere oratorical style, according to Peter J. Boyer's excellent book Who Killed CBS? In 1981, Rather decided that he couldn't occupy Walter Cronkite's chair, so for his first Evening News broadcast he read the headlines while crouching behind the desk. When a rival TV journalist ambushed him outside of CBS headquarters—a favorite tactic of the 60 Minutes gang—Rather instructed the reporter, "Get the microphone right up, will you?" Then he barked, "Fuck you." The clip played on television for days. Then there's Rather's odd penchant for costumes. He once trekked across the Afghan border on foot and returned with hours of dazzling reporting—all of which he undermined by wearing a ludicrous peasant disguise on camera. TV critics lashed him with the nickname "Gunga Dan."
  
  Rather's most embarrassing tantrum came during the 1987 U.S. Open tennis tournament. When producers told him a match would run long and truncate the Evening News, Rather disappeared and left the network with more than six minutes of dead air. (Such was Rather's cachet that no executive dared summon a replacement.) And don't forget the 1986 "What's the frequency, Kenneth?" attack, in which Rather was accosted by street toughs on Park Avenue in New York. You can hardly blame Rather for that one, but Boyer notes that such things rarely seem to happen to Tom Brokaw and Peter Jennings. It's as if Rather attracts half the madness in the universe, and the other half comes out of his mouth.

To Wonk
 

We knew you didn't mean it.

I have no doubt, however, that you'd include all thos people who don't agree with you among the targets for your magical mystery bomb.

anybody remember this>?
 

I understand your point about currency, but when a source is (1) handing you an inflammatory document purporting to indict one candidate and (2) asking for the phone number of the other candidate because he doesn't think candidate 2 has been fighting hard enough, I'd like to think that journalistic ethics would discourage making such a love connection.

The CBS story would have been pretty damning if it were true. Turns out it was based on docs faked by an anti-Bush partisan. I don't understand why you think Vlasto is so much farther over the line than Mapes.

anybody remember this>?
 

Why? Burkett asked Mapes for Lockhart's phone number, and she gave it to him? That's not much more than an act of courtesy. He's giving her a scoop, and she's supposed to decline to give him a phone number?

If Mapes did this multiple times, I would quite agree. I don't know anything about her. Vlasto appeared to be pushing the envelope quite intentionally.

Another Anti-Kerry 527 Emerges...
 

anybody remember this>?
 

Terry McAwful is still blaming the forgeries on a Rove operative.