Life Lesson: Don't Mess With Perfection

Now, I'm always up for taking a swing at the Christofascist Right and have been getting a kick out of their collective silence over this Administration's relationship with a Pro 'Mo (read: gay hustler). It's been even more fun than trying to find some of that famous Christian charity in the aftermath of the tsunami.

But when it comes to lambasting the tightest of the Tighty Righties with style, eloquence and imagery that makes you want to cry, I bow to the master. Word of warning, though - if you're in an environment that frowns on outbursts of laughter, read it at your own peril.

Oh, Backbone - Where Art Thou?

No doubt you'll be shocked - shocked, I say - at this bit of information, courtesy of Raw Story. Looks like Joe Biden, former Senate Judiciary Chairman, has once again shown himself to be little more than a tough-talking blowhard who pulls his skirt up over his head like a shy little girl, when confronted with an opportunity to back up the talk.

Biden made waves when he appeared on HBO’s Bill Maher show Friday and said Congress should be investigating [possible security lapses by the White House and FBI related to Gannon/Guckert's credentialing].

“Why isn’t every major network in the country investigating a security breach, forget anything else?” Biden said. “The Judiciary Committee of the United States Senate should be investigating it. The House Judiciary should be investigating it. And if it were the other party in charge, it would be investigated.”

Biden also spoke with the San Francisco Chronicle editorial board Wednesday, expressing support for an investigation.

“As Sen. Joe Biden, D-Del., pointed out during a meeting with The Chronicle editorial board Wednesday, the Guckert case, at a minimum, suggests ’sheer, friggin’ incompetence,’ in terms of White House security,” the Chronicle editorial page declared Thursday. “Biden said Congress should investigate this potential breach of security, but he acknowledged such a probe would never occur with Republicans in control of the House and Senate.”

Editor And Publisher has additional information on the Congressional Dem actions.

In addition, E&P has confirmed an report on The Raw Story that Sen. Richard Durbin (D-Ill.) is circulating a letter among his colleagues that asks President Bush to launch an investigation into how Guckert, who writes under the byline “Jeff Gannon,” gained access to White House press briefings over two years despite having no journalism background and using a false name.

Both letters are just the latest in a string of inquiries by congressional leaders, which have included a previous request by Sen. Frank Lautenberg (D-N.J.) for documents related to Guckert's continued White House access.

In the latest effort, Conyers and Rep. Louise Slaughter (D-N.Y.) sent a joint letter today to Patrick Fitzgerald, the prosecutor investigating who leaked the identity of Plame, a CIA agent, to several reporters. Guckert, who worked for GOPUSA.com and Talon News before resigning two weeks ago, interviewed Plame's husband, Joseph Wilson, last year.

Now, two things.

First, kudos to Durbin, Conyers, Slaughter and the Usual Suspects in both Houses who are actually trying to get to the bottom of yet another White House mess, and

It's time to do something about the pathetic, impotent relics of our spineless Daschle-Gephardt era Dem "leadership." True, Daschle getting the boot and Gep's retirement was a step in the right direction, but more needs to be done. Much, much more. So I'm calling for someone who has a little free time to get busy. It's time to set up a website with the goal of collecting either the money or spare parts to provide our Congressional Dem leaders with the one thing they need: backbones. Time was, I woulda said "balls" but we can't leave out Feinstein, Clinton, Lincoln, Landrieu and company.

I've already checked and both www.spinesfordems.com and .org are available. Setting up a Paypal account is a breeze. Which enterprising Progressive is willing to step up and help a country out?




Please, adopt a Senator today.

MSM... 4M

This is going to be my only entry on the Gannon/Guckert... affair... UNLESS it turns out that he is the link between the Bush Administration and the dirty tricks of the last election cycle.

It's hard to be pissed at the White House for planting a ringer in the Press Room, despite the strings someone had to pull in order to arrange daily WH access for a criminal with an alias. Definitely makes ya go "Hmmm..." Sister Novena put it succinctly:

And none of this even touches on the massive security flaws revealed by this incident -- a man about whose personal background the White House obviously had no clue was regularly allowed to sit within twenty feet of the president. This doesn't bother any of you, conservatives?

Regardless, after their long history of manipulating the media, freezing out reporters and paying 'em off, it's pretty obvious that nothing is beneath them in their efforts to shape the news. OK, nothing is beneath them, period.

It's hard to be pissed at Gannon... or Guckert... or whatever alias he's currently using, too. Hell, he's just an aging Rightwing Rentboy who saw his chance and took it. Fifteen minutes of fame, MVP status among The Powers That Be and a little jingle in his jeans - what else would you expect from an unethical opportunist in a town full of 'em? Besides, in a room full of metaphorical whores, it's hard to really say he was out of place.

Nope. I'm saving all my ire for the complacent imbeciles who sat on either side of him in the WH briefing room. According to various reports, there are about 100 regulars in the James Brady Briefing Room. Also, according to published reports, many of these folks were aware that there was something bogus about Gannon/Guckert/Whoever. These seasoned professionals - investigative reporters who, incidentally, cover the most powerful office in the whole friggin' world - weren't able... or willing... to do a little digging on a questionable "colleague"?

Of course, this isn't the first time the White House Press Corps has blown it, nor will it be the last. I'm not sure which of their sins are greater, though: those of commission or omission. I do know, however, that there are plenty of both.

• The MSM were enthusiastically involved in drumming up public support for Bush's illegal invasion of Iraq and uncritically published any and all speculative bullshit the Administration thought might help advance their case. Their constant cheerleading was pathetic, as were the press releases read as news stories by the "embedded" reporters. Y'know, I finally gave up and accepted their shameless cravenness when I saw their behavior as Bremer announced Saddam's capture. Remember that? "Ladies and Gentlemen - we got him" followed by clapping, cheering and whistling from the various Objective Journalists present. The only things missing from that display of professionalism were beads and flashing titties.

• Election season wouldn't be the same without the breathless overreporting of exaggerated, twisted or contrived stories about the candidates- Dean and Gore come immediately to mind.

• This applies to the MSM as a whole, as opposed to the White House Sycophant Corps. Ever notice how all the real news gets pushed out of the headlines in favor of Chandra Levy, Laci Peterson or the latest celebrity trial? Yeah, they say they're giving the public what we want, and maybe they're right. But I don't know many parents who would regularly feed their kids candy for breakfast just because it's "what they want." Journalists have a responsibility - and I'll be hokey enough to call it a sacred one - to provide us the information we need.

• They served as willing accomplices during the partisan witchunt that was the Whitewater investigation, printing unsubstantiated allegations and leaks from Starr's office, knowing damn well that those leaks were a) politically motivated, b) unproven allegations and c) illegal as hell.

• They continue to cover for another colleague, columnist Robert "Douchebag of Liberty" Novak, who also isn't averse to publishing secrets leaked by Government officials.
(By the way, Judith Miller-Chalabi, despicable tho she is, has no business facing jail time)

On what the MSM didn't do, how 'bout this little nugget: the reason Watergate is still the benchmark of investigative reporting is because they haven't done a Goddamn thing in the ensuing 30 years to equal it. Molly Ivins, who refers to the afternoon WH Press Briefing as "the 4 o'clock feeding", offered her two cents on the problem of press incompetence in the late '80s.

"The list of what we missed during the Reagan years includes everything that mattered — we missed Iran-Contra, HUD, S&Ls, and the entire game plan until David Stockman told us what it was. And then we sat around criticizing David Stockman for a tattle-tale."

Is it laziness, ideology or just a simple desire to earn a nickname from Gee Dumbass and enjoy a little DC Status that earned "Steno Sue" Schmidt of the WaPo her reputation for flatbacking? How 'bout Whoreowitz, David Brooks, Michael Barone, Candy Crowley, Cokie Roberts and the whole gang at Faux News - what's the excuse for their whoredom? These people are to professional journalism what Stacey Koon, Mark Furhman and Bull Connor were to Law Enforcement.

Now, any questions on why the MSM has lately begun to attack blogs? Seems pretty obvious, doesn't it? They've gradually pissed away what credibility they once held and are now facing competition from any schmuck with high-speed Internet access - and they've lost the ability to claim the high ground. They're sweating.

Good.

YEAARRRGGGH!!!

(ed note: i piddled around with this for a few days last week but never quite wrapped it up- then along came Secretary Negroponte, and this fell by the wayside- but i already trashed the Gannon/Guckert and Ward Churchill pieces so it seemed a shame to waste this, too)

Well frost my ass and call me Cupcake - the corporate weenies at the DNC finally did something right. Congratulations to them and to their new Chairman.

On Saturday, the 447 Head Dweebs met and elected Governor Dean on a voice vote, ending several months of acrimony and tremendous pressure from the State party chairs, grassroots activists (both strongly pro-Dean) and the Republicrat / DLC wing of the Party, who aren’t so enamored of the feisty Vermonter. But for the first time in a long time, Main Street pwned Wall Street. God, it feels good. Just an opinion of course, but I’m willing to bet that their actions Saturday also ended several years of asswhuppins by the increasingly religiofascist Republicans.

In case you’re wondering what I think about the DLC and their apologists, these are the cretins who want the Party to back away from its positions on things like women’s rights to make their own reproductive decisions, equal civil rights for GLBT folks, verifiable voting and sensible gun control - all in the name of Diversifying The Party, or Tolerating Intolerance, if you will. They make me sick.

So what, exactly, does Chairman Dean bring to the Party? Depends on who you ask. One of the many, many, many things that the Vichy Dems and Republicans agree on is that he’ll give the DNC a voice. A loud one. In fact, they say, he’ll be a scream. Y’see, like the Republicans, the members of the Corporate, Repub-lite wing of the Democratic Party honestly believe that we, the American people, are stupid fucks incapable of critical thought - we'll complacently swallow any bullshit that Someone In Authority (read: any asshole who meanders in front of a TV camera) cares to excrete. No concept that's too complicated to fit on a bumpersticker or in a 15-second soundbite need apply. That’s why you still find them wringing their hands over selecting An Ultraliberal Madman to run the show. (Now, I’m not saying that they’re entirely wrong in their assessment of my countrymen and -women. Obviously, trolling for the stupid fuck vote has worked well for the Repubs since ’94 - okay, '80. Problem is, it hasn’t been quite as successful for the Dems - mostly because that demographic has already been largely, although not entirely, taken.)

Thing is, anybody with Internet access, an inquisitive mind or just a healthy dose of skepticism already knows The Scream was a creation of the Mainstream Corporate Media. Hell, they owned up to it a year ago.

Short version: Then-candidate Howard Dean had quickly established a reputation as a fiery, outspoken outsider. He called ‘em as he saw ‘em: the Bush Administration, his Primary opponents, even the sycophantic Media. Now, the Corporate Media love a good show - as long as the camera isn’t being pointed back at them (Google "Jeff Gannon softball" and count the number of MSM references).

(ed note: me again- this was last week- since some outstanding bloggers and websites, Stewart, Maher and Olbermann have kept the story alive, Gannon/Guckert's fellow whores in the MSCM actually have taken some note)

When Dean suggested that they were behaving more as lapdogs than watchdogs, they declared war on him.

Shortly after his criticism of them, stories began to appear in the MSM which painted him - invariably in the passive voice, to avoid having to acknowledge their own words - in a less than flattering light. You may remember various reporters sliding in phrases like "some have called him unstable." Yeah, and some say Sean Hannity blows Donald Rumsfeld for pocket change. Some say that Ann Coulter’s downward spiral into madness was due to the pressure of her secret (?) hermaphrodism. Some also say Candy Crowley has been known to get down on all fours in the Oval Office, face buried in tiramisu, while being sequentially, and roughly, serviced by the White House Press Office. In fact, some even suggest that the strain of facing that pale, gelatinous, quivering mass of insatiable lust is what finally drove Ari Fleischer to resign. Hell, it has been said that Brit Hume only feels like a man when he’s doing Bad Touch on adolescent waterfowl.

Where was I? Oh yeah, so the MSM, the Rovians and the DLC were - and, despite being called on it, many still are - all banging the Crazy Howard drum.

Then he came in third in Iowa. (remind me some day to tell y’all what I think about our primary system). That night, he spoke at a rally of campaign volunteers, and the rest is the stuff of urban legends, just like Gore's Internet and Clinton's Runway Haircut.

Dean's supporters obviously have a different view. They claim that he'll bring the same things he brought to his campaign. Grassroots support and activism, passionate populism, a kind of honesty that the Inside The Beltway types are terrified of and a big, shiny, clanging set of brass balls. Remember, this is the guy who took his campaign into Dubya's back yard in the early days.

Now, about the claims that Dean is an ultra-left Liberal.

Horseshit.

Dean's moderate history is well documented. As Governor, he was highly regarded by the NRA. He kept a balanced budget. His environmental record was moderate, at best. Again, even the most hardcore Deaniac will acknowledge that he was a much more centrist candidate than, say, Kucinich or Sharpton or CMB.

See, the problem was that Dean was the only leading Dem Primary candidate who spoke out against the Bush Administration's illegal invasion of Iraq. In Dumbfuck, y'see, against an illegal war = pacifist = hippie . See how easy it is when you allow the spinmeisters to tell you what you think?

Personally, although I never considered myself a Deaniac, I agree with his supporters. Though I don't agree with all his positions, I have a tremendous amount of respect for his straightforward, no-bullshit approach. Too bad there isn't more of that around.

RIP HST

1937-2005

Damn.

Just damn.