Bye, Bye, Roe; a Day that will Live in Infamy

If you're looking for some kind of silver lining in today's Supreme Court decision restricting abortion rights, this is about as close as you're going to get: While John Roberts and Samuel Alito sided, predictably, with the conservative majority, they didn't join Clarence Thomas and Antonin Scalia in declaring that the Supreme Court's "abortion jurisprudence, including Casey and Roe v. Wade, has no basis in the Constitution."

But every silver lining has a dark cloud, and this one has at least two.

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As a Supreme Court justice, Alito has now signed off on exactly the sort of approach he was advocating as a lawyer. As the Center for Reproductive Rights' Nancy Northrup said today, "This opinion is in fact gutting the precedent without saying so."

Link.

The highly principled flip-flopping GOP candidates' opinions are here.

Here's Rudy:

"I could just have easily have appointed Sam Alito or Chief Justice Roberts as President Bush did....I mean, they're sort of a very high standard, and so is Justices Scalia and Thomas. That would be the kind of judges I would look for, both in terms of their background and their integrity, but also the intellectual honesty with which they interpret the law."

The solutions are obvious and difficult:

Significant Dem majorities in Congress, a Dem president and a couple of fast retirements of some of the loonies on The Supreme Court, and making abortion (*sigh*) a state issue again i.e. passing state laws protecting the right.

Mitt's Da Man!

Carl Linder is going to be Mitt Romney's Finance Co-Chair in Ohio.

Carl Linder gave over $425,000 to a group called Common Sense Ohio, which ran deceptive ads and push-polling. And by the way, when Mitt Romney was chair of the Republican Governors Association, that organization gave money directly to Common Sense Ohio. What the H-E-double toothpicks Mitt? A direct endorsement of push-polling and deceptive ads? Nice.

Sam Fox gave Mitt Romney's PAC $100,000. (And just think George Bush made Fox an ambassador for a mere $50,000 to the Swift Boat Liars.) Sam Fox may have had amnesia regarding what scum the Swifties were, but Mitt should know. Evidently Mitt doesn't care.

And last but not least, there's Romney National Finance Chair, John Rakolta. You might think that Michigan Governor Jennifer Granholm is a remarkable woman. Mr. Rakolta thinks that she, and some other prominent Democratic presidents, resemble Hitler.

Link.

Leadership, Leadership and Virginia Tech

Our Beautiful, Beloved Leader:

A lesson learned, or are some victims just maybe more important than others?

Number of days that passed between the shootings at Virginia Tech and George W. Bush's expected arrival for a convocation there: 1.

Number of days that passed between the levee breach in New Orleans and George W. Bush's arrival there for a series of photo opportunities: 4.

Number of presidential guitars played or birthday cakes served in the last 24 hours: 0.

Link.

And I'm, well, at a loss: flags to be at half-mast for this? Speaking of which, from the same source:

The president had participated in a conference on school safety in October hosted by Attorney General Alberto Gonzales and Education Secretary Margaret Spellings. That had produced an agreement that all schools need to have security plans in place – but the White House today was at a loss to immediately answer what actually came out of that conference six months ago.

And a another bizarre mystery: Why does the U.S. Attorney General need to be involved with this -- other than to dodge a public humiliation -- I mean, appearance before a Senate panel? For that matter, why does he need a private PR operation to get his word out?

More Right Wingnut Stupidity

First they came for Don Imus. And now they'll come for Rush.

At least, that was the fear at the Free Congress Foundation on April 13, where a panel discussion of an ancient broadcasting regulation quickly turned into a discussion of Don Imus and how his firing might portend a similar fate for some of the right's best-known media personalities.

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In fact, the prominent conservatives, addressing a crowd of 30 on the ground floor of a Washington row house, described what sounded like a conspiracy. Panelist Ken Blackwell, formerly Ohio's secretary of state and the Republican candidate for governor last fall, said Imus was "not a conservative" and that "the left has sacrificed one of their own to give them a platform to go after true conservative talk show hosts." Cliff Kincaid, of the conservative media watchdog Accuracy in Media, said the Imus firing had been a revelation. "It wasn't exactly clear to me how [liberals] intended to bring back the Fairness Doctrine, but I think now with the Imus affair, we know ... [And it's a] short leap from firing Imus to going after Rush Limbaugh."

Link.

In fact, while the uproar could be described, maybe, buy wrongly, as coming from "liberals", Imus was fired by his employers who were scared of the loss of business from businesses. And of course, Imus had no first amendment protection from being fired by a private sector employer who didn't want to broadcast him anymore.

Duh

One can learn a lot from "fake" news: Daily Show viewers best informed on current events, Fox News viewers finish at the bottom - NYT: "Americans may have more news outlets today than two decades ago, but they still don't know much more about current events than they did then, according to a new survey by the Pew Research Center for the People and the Press. But here's one big difference: the survey respondents who seemed to know the most about what's going on -- who were able to identify major public figures, for example -- were likely to be viewers of fake news programs like Jon Stewart's 'The Daily Show' and 'The Colbert Report'; those who knew the least watched network morning news programs, Fox News or local television news."

Link.

Another GOP Candidate's Undisputed Genius

Did GOP presidential candidate Tommy Thompson just have his "macaca" moment? Speaking before the Religious Action Center of Reform Judaism in Washington today, the former Wisconsin governor explained his financial success after government work this way:

"I'm in the private sector, and for the first time in my life I'm earning money," Thompson reportedly said. "You know, that's sort of part of the Jewish tradition and I do not find anything wrong with that."

According to a report from Haaretz, Thompson subsequently apologized, after realizing that he'd upset some people in the audience. We're not so sure that he made things better.

"I just want to clarify something because I didn't [by] any means want to infer or imply anything about Jews and finances and things," Haaretz quotes Thompson as saying. "What I was referring to, ladies and gentlemen, is the accomplishments of the Jewish religion. You've been outstanding business people and I compliment you for that."

Link (emphases added).

And Fab Freddy here is not alone in his love and respect for the Jews.

Voter Fraud

Let's say it's a legitimate concern and the partisan purge of U.S. attorneys is an attempt to deal with the problem.

What I wanna know is:

What has Our Leaders done in regard to voter fraud by the Jeb Bush administration in Florida leading up to the 2000 election?

Sad, Sad, Sad

Link.

Quotes of the Day

We'd forgive Kirsten for kissing Tom Cruise for this if she hadn't already beaten that rap on the ground being too young for it to even have counted in the first place.

But she gets points for these quotes and bonus points for who her best friend is:

Lots of entertainment websites are breathlessly exhaling the news that Kirsten Dunst has spoken out in favor of reasonable use of marijuana, still considered a taboo subject in her home country, and therefore a guaranteed attention-getter.

What should have billions and billions of science fans investigating the facts on THC, however, was Dunst's quote, "My best friend Sasha's dad was Carl Sagan, the astronomer. He was the biggest pot smoker in the world and he was a genius."

Dunst, like many, believes "America's view on weed is ridiculous. I mean," she added, "are you kidding me? If everyone smoked weed, the world would be a better place. I'm not talking about being stoned all day, though. I think if it's not used properly, it can hamper your creativity and close you up inside."

Hit List!

Of course, the First Amendment is not a guarantee of publishing in the broad sense. Indeed, it relates to public ssector censorship, not a corporation deciding to deny access. And Imus didn't get his involuntary sabbatical until too many sponsors freaked.

But anyway, here's a list of others whom, if deprived of their overly-public forums, would not be missed over here:

Glenn Beck

On the March 21 broadcast of his nationally syndicated radio show, The Glenn Beck Program, Beck called Rosie O'Donnell, co-host of ABC's The View, a "fat witch," claimed that O'Donnell has "blubber ... just pouring out of her eyes," and asked, "Do you know how many oil lamps we could keep burning just on Rosie O'Donnell fat?" On the March 23 edition of his radio show, Beck said, "I'm a little ashamed" for calling O'Donnell "a fat witch" -- then added, "But she's so fat."
On the March 15 broadcast of his nationally syndicated radio show, Beck said: "Hillary Clinton cannot be elected president because ... there's something about her vocal range." He went on to say, "There's something about her voice that just drives me -- it's not what she says, it's how she says it," adding, "She is like the stereotypical -- excuse the expression, but this is the way to -- she's the stereotypical bitch, you know what I mean?" Beck subsequently qualified his statement: "I never said that Hillary Clinton was a bitch. I said she sounded like one."
On the February 28 edition of CNN Headline News' Glenn Beck, while discussing racy photos of American Idol contestant Antonella Barba, Beck asked his female guest: "I've got some time and a camera. Why don't you stop by?"
On the November 14, 2006, edition of his CNN Headline News program, Beck said to Rep. Keith Ellison (D-MN), the first Muslim ever elected to Congress: "OK. No offense, and I know Muslims. I like Muslims. ... With that being said, you are a Democrat. You are saying, 'Let's cut and run.' And I have to tell you, I have been nervous about this interview with you, because what I feel like saying is, 'Sir, prove to me that you are not working with our enemies.' "
On the September 5, 2006, edition of his CNN Headline News program, Beck warned that if "Muslims and Arabs" don't "act now" by "step[ping] to the plate" to condemn terrorism, they "will be looking through a razor wire fence at the West."
On the April 27, 2006, edition of his radio program, Beck claimed that there are three reasons that an illegal immigrant "comes across the border in the middle of the night": "One, they're terrorists; two, they're escaping the law; or three, they're hungry. They can't make a living in their own dirtbag country."
On the August 24, 2006, edition of his CNN Headline News program, Beck claimed that Braille on walls (used to identify rooms for blind people) "drives me out of my mind." When he made his comment, Beck was discussing the "politically correct world we live in." He then said, "Just to piss them [blind people] off, I'm going to put in Braille on the coffee pot ... 'Pot is hot.' "
On the August 10, 2006, broadcast of his radio program, Glenn Beck warned that "[t]he world is on the brink of World War III" and that "Muslims who have sat on your frickin' hands the whole time and have not been marching in the streets" will face dire consequences. Beck made his comments toward Muslims who he claimed "have not been saying, 'Hey, you know what? There are good Muslims and bad Muslims. We need to be the first ones in the recruitment office lining up to shoot the bad Muslims in the head.'"
On the August 9, 2006, edition of his CNN Headline News program, Beck aired a segment mocking the names of several missing Egyptian students in which the announcer said that one "may or may not be accompanied by his camel." The segment showed pictures of crowds and pointed to random, unidentifiable people as the missing Egyptians. It ended with a reading of the students' names in quick succession followed by the announcer pretending to gag as he struggled to pronounce them.
During the March 16, 2006, edition of his radio show, in describing Nigeria's new public education campaign to fight the spread of bird flu, Beck stated that the country has "actually resorted to radio jingles," and then asked if the United States could be "as dumb as Nigeria."
On the January 10, 2006, broadcast of his radio show, Beck called anti-war protester Cindy Sheehan "a pretty big prostitute," later amending, at the behest of his executive producer, Steve "Stu" Burguiere, that "tragedy pimp" would be "the most accurate description."
On the September 9, 2005, edition of his radio show, Beck referred to survivors of Hurricane Katrina who remained in New Orleans as "scumbags." Also, after acknowledging that nobody "in their right mind is going to say this out loud," Beck attacked victims of the disaster and the families of victims of the September 11, 2001, terrorist attacks, saying: "I didn't think I could hate victims faster than the 9-11 victims."
On the May 17, 2005, broadcast of The Glenn Beck Program, Beck said he was "thinking about killing [filmmaker] Michael Moore" and pondered whether "I could kill him myself, or if I would need to hire somebody to do it," before concluding: "No, I think I could. I think he could be looking me in the eye, you know, and I could just be choking the life out -- is this wrong?"

Neal Boortz

On the August 3, 2006, edition of his nationally syndicated radio show, Neal Boortz asked his audience: "I want you to think for think for a moment of how incompetent and stupid and worthless, how -- that's right, I used those words -- how incompetent, how ignorant, how worthless is an adult that can't earn more than the minimum wage? You have to really, really, really be a pretty pathetic human being to not be able to earn more than the human wage. Uh -- human, the minimum wage."
On the July 19, 2006, edition of his radio show, Cox Radio Syndication's The Neal Boortz Show, Boortz claimed that "at its core," Islam is a "violent, violent religion," and said, "[T]his Muhammad guy is just a phony rag-picker." Boortz asserted that "[i]t is perfectly legitimate, perhaps even praiseworthy, to recognize Islam as a religion of vicious, violent, bloodthirsty cretins."
On the March 31, 2006, broadcast of his radio program, Boortz said that then-Rep. Cynthia McKinney (D-GA) "looks like a ghetto slut." Boortz was commenting on a March 29 incident in which McKinney allegedly struck a police officer at a Capitol Hill security checkpoint. Boortz said that McKinney's "new hair-do" makes her look "like a ghetto slut," like "an explosion at a Brillo pad factory," like "Tina Turner peeing on an electric fence," and like "a shih tzu." McKinney is the first African-American woman elected to Congress from Georgia.
On his March 27, 2006, radio program, Boortz suggested the U.S. government should "store 11 million Hispanics" who entered the country illegally in the Louisiana Superdome in New Orleans before deporting them to their home countries.
In a December 12, 2005, weblog post, Boortz predicted that California Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger (R) would commute the sentence of convicted murderer Stanley "Tookie" Williams to life imprisonment because "Schwarzenegger knows full well that as soon as Tookie's death is announced there will be riots in South Central Los Angeles and elsewhere." Boortz wrote that "[t]here are thugs just waiting for an excuse ... not a reason, an excuse" and explained that "[t]he rioting, of course, will lead to wide-scale looting." Boortz added: "There are a lot of aspiring rappers and NBA superstars who could really use a nice flat-screen television right now."
On the October 24, 2005, broadcast of his radio program, Boortz suggested that a victim of Hurricane Katrina housed in an Atlanta hotel consider prostitution. "If that's the only way she can take care of herself," Boortz posited, "it sure beats the hell out of sucking off the taxpayers."
On the October 14, 2005, broadcast of his radio show, Boortz stated that if the country is faced with an impending national disaster, then "hell, yes, we should save the rich people first. You know, they're the ones that are responsible for this prosperity."
On the August 17, 2004, broadcast of his radio show, Boortz, in response to reports from Florida that looting was occurring in Hurricane Charley's aftermath, said: "If they see someone looting, shoot him. They go up there, they just spray paint an 'L' on him and get about their business, and then after everything is over, they can go collect them all and bury them in a mass grave."
On the July 21, 2004, broadcast of his radio show, Boortz referred to McKinney as "the cutest little Islamic jihadist in Congress."

Rush Limbaugh

On the March 2 broadcast on his nationally syndicated radio show, Premiere Radio Networks' The Rush Limbaugh Show, Rush Limbaugh stated that "since [Sen. Barack] Obama [D-IL] has -- on his mother's side -- forebears of his mother had slaves, could we not say that if Obama wins the Democratic nomination and then wins the presidency, he will own [Rev.] Al Sharpton?"
On the February 1 edition of his radio show, Limbaugh responded to a Reuters report on a University of Chicago study that found that "a majority of young blacks feel alienated form today's government" by asserting: "Why would that be? The government's been taking care of them their whole lives."
On the November 30, 2006, edition of his radio show, Limbaugh proclaimed: My "cat's taught me more about women, than anything my whole life" because his pet cat "comes to me when she wants to be fed," and "[s]he's smart enough to know she can't feed herself. She's actually [a] very smart cat. She gets loved. She gets adoration. She gets petted. She gets fed. And she doesn't have to do anything for it."
On the August 23, 2006, broadcast of his radio program, Limbaugh commented on a season of CBS' reality TV program Survivor in which contestants were originally divided into competing "tribes" by ethnicity. Limbaugh stated that the contest was "not going to be fair if there's a lot of water events" and suggested that "blacks can't swim." Limbaugh stated that "our early money" is on "the Hispanic tribe" -- which he said could include "a Cuban," "a Nicaraguan," or "a Mexican or two" -- provided they don't "start fighting for supremacy amongst themselves." Limbaugh added that Hispanics have "probably shown the most survival tactics," that they "have shown a remarkable ability to cross borders," and that they can "do it without water for a long time, they don't get apprehended, and they will do things other people won't do." When the Survivor producers decided to dissolve the show's racially segregated "tribes" after only two episodes, Limbaugh declared that "[t]here can only be one reason for this ... that is the white tribe had to be winning."
On the January 10, 2006, broadcast, Limbaugh suggested that some women "would love to be hired as eye candy."
On the July 17, 2005, broadcast of his radio program, Limbaugh announced a new "advertising campaign" for the U.S. detention facility at Guantánamo Bay, Cuba, in which he would call the facility "Club G'itmo, the Muslim resort," a "tropical paradise down there where Muslim extremists and terrorist wannabes can get together for rest and relaxation." On his website, he sold "Club G'itmo" T-shirts that read: "I Got My Free Koran and Prayer Rug at G'itmo," "Your Tropical Retreat from the Stress of Jihad," "My Mullah went to Club G'itmo and All I Got Was This Lousy T-Shirt," and "What Happens in G'itmo Stays in G'itmo."
On the March 1, 2005, edition of his nationally syndicated radio show, Limbaugh claimed that "[w]omen still live longer than men because their lives are easier."
Limbaugh noted on August 9, 2004, than in recent television appearances, New York Times columnist Maureen Dowd appeared "just joyless," "miserable," and "did not seem happy at all." Limbaugh then concluded: "Must be a guy. Isn't it always a guy when a woman's unhappy?"
On June 14, 2004, Limbaugh shared with listeners his "pet name" for the National Organization for Women (NOW): "National Association of Gals" (his acronym: "NAG"). Limbaugh claimed that the "militant feminists" who make up the "NAGs" "aren't determining who wins elections. White men are."
Responding to an Associated Press report that women had recently been appointed as chiefs of police in four major U.S. cities, Limbaugh on May 27, 2004, referenced the abuse of Iraqi prisoners at Abu Ghraib: "If we've got four new female police chiefs out there, then I guess we can watch out for some naked pyramids among prisoners in these new jailhouses that these women ran, because we had a woman running the prison in Abu Grab [sic]."
On April 26, 2004, Limbaugh claimed that women "actually wish" for sexual harassment, and said he then "laughed [him]self to tears" when Media Matters for America documented that and other sexist remarks he has made. The Media Matters report also noted that Limbaugh used the term "femi-Nazis" eight times between March 15 and April 29.
In 2003, Limbaugh made controversial comments about Philadelphia Eagles quarterback Donovan McNabb, which led to Limbaugh's resignation from his position as a commentator on ESPN. During the September 28, 2003, edition of ESPN's Sunday NFL Countdown, Limbaugh said that "[t]he media has been very desirous that a black quarterback do well" and, therefore, that McNabb "got a lot of credit for the performance of this team [the Eagles] that he didn't deserve."
According to a June 7, 2000, Fairness and Accuracy in Reporting (FAIR) article, "As a young broadcaster in the 1970s, Limbaugh once told a black caller: 'Take that bone out of your nose and call me back.' " In the early 1990s, "after becoming nationally syndicated, he mused on the air: 'Have you ever noticed how all composite pictures of wanted criminals resemble Jesse Jackson?' " According to FAIR, "[w]hen Carol Moseley-Braun (D-IL) was in the U.S. Senate, the first black woman ever elected to that body, Limbaugh would play the 'Movin' On Up' theme song from TV's 'Jeffersons' when he mentioned her. Limbaugh sometimes still uses mock dialect -- substituting 'ax' for 'ask'-- when discussing black leaders." FAIR also reported that "[i]n 1992, on his now-defunct TV show, Limbaugh expressed his ire when Spike Lee urged that black schoolchildren get off from school to see his film Malcolm X: 'Spike, if you're going to do that, let's complete the education experience. You should tell them that they should loot the theater, and then blow it up on their way out.' "

Bill O'Reilly

On the April 6 edition of his nationally syndicated radio show, Westwood One's The Radio Factor, Bill O'Reilly stated that Virginia Beach Mayor Meyera Oberndorf "should be baking pies, not running a major city."
On the April 2 edition of Fox News' The O'Reilly Factor, while discussing the British soldiers captured by the Iranian government, Nancy Soderberg, former U.S. ambassador to the United Nations, stated that "the Arab Sunnis are uniting against Iran" and said: "[I]t's going to be the Arab world against the Persian world. And that's a fight we don't want to have played out in Iraq." O'Reilly responded: "Well, I'd like to see that fight with us out of it. That's what I'd like to see." O'Reilly continued: "I want -- let them kill each other."
On the February 28 edition of his radio show, O'Reilly told co-host Lis Wiehl that "women were treated better than men" at ABC News and CBS News because "[t]hey had a little cabal; and they intimidated the men in the organization and said, 'If you look at me cross-eyed, I'm gonna bring you up to Human Resources and destroy your life.' " O'Reilly added that "every man in the place was terrified of them." He later stated that, "in a lot of places, women have formed cabals to terrorize the men because they take advantage of, 'Oh, we're downtrodden. You're kicking us in the teeth.' " He then discussed how, in every country he'd "ever been to, women are treated worse [than] in the United States. ... Guys are gonna put their hands on you in that society in Italy, in Spain." O'Reilly concluded: "So, all of this whining about American women -- 'We don't have this; we don't have that' -- to me, I'm not real sympathetic. But I am a barbarian."
Discussing Iraq during the January 24 edition of his radio show, O'Reilly claimed that "the Sunni and Shia want to kill each other. ... They have fun. This is -- they like this. This is what Allah tells them to do, and that's what they do." O'Reilly then asserted that the "essential mistake of the war" was failing to anticipate that "these people would act like savages, and they are." Later, O'Reilly said that he had not predicted that the Iraqis "were going to act like savages in the aftermath of Saddam [Hussein]," and added: "[N]ow, Iran, we know they're savages."
On the January 16 broadcast of his radio show, O'Reilly agreed with a caller's assertion that illegal immigrants "bring corrupting influences" to the United States, including "a third-world value system" that "can corrupt the education system." O'Reilly replied: "Absolutely. And that's why the dropout rate is so high."
On the January 15 edition of The O'Reilly Factor, O'Reilly said of Shawn Hornbeck -- who was abducted at the age of 11, held for four years, and recently found in Missouri -- that "there was an element here that this kid liked about this circumstances" and that he "do[esn't] buy" "the Stockholm syndrome thing." O'Reilly also said: "The situation here for this kid looks to me to be a lot more fun than what he had under his old parents. He didn't have to go to school. He could run around and do whatever he wanted." When fellow Fox News host Greta Van Susteren pointed out that "[s]ome kids like school," O'Reilly replied: "Well, I don't believe this kid did."
On the December 13, 2006, edition of The O'Reilly Factor, host Bill O'Reilly dismissed scientific research on same-sex parenting to assert, "Nature dictates that a dad and a mom is the optimum" form of child-rearing. O'Reilly asked "why," if children suffer no psychosocial deficit from being raised by same-sex parents, "wouldn't nature then make it that anybody could get pregnant by eating a cupcake?" O'Reilly declared that by arguing in favor of same-sex couples' right to raise children, "you're taking Mother Nature and you're throwing it right out the window, and I just think it's crazy." In fact, studies have consistently found that children raised by gay or lesbian parents suffer no adverse effects in their psychosocial development.
On the November 29, 2006, broadcast of his radio show, O'Reilly denied that Iraq is in a "civil war as NBC News wants you to think" and asserted that "they're all Muslims, and they're doing what they do. They're killing each other. And they're killing Americans."
On the August 16, 2006, edition of The O'Reilly Factor, O'Reilly argued extensively for "profiling of Muslims" at airports, arguing that detaining all "Muslims between the ages of 16 and 45" for questioning "isn't racial profiling," but "criminal profiling."
While discussing the rape and murder of 18-year-old Jennifer Moore during the August 2, 2006, edition of his radio show, O'Reilly appeared to suggest that the clothing she was wearing at the time helped incite her killer. O'Reilly discussed several factors that contributed to the "moronic" girl's rape and murder, including that she was drunk and wandering the streets of New York City alone late at night. But in addition to those factors, O'Reilly added: "She was 5-foot-2, 105 pounds, wearing a miniskirt and a halter top with a bare midriff. Now, again, there you go. So every predator in the world is gonna pick that up at 2 in the morning."
On the July 12, 2006, edition of his radio program, during a discussion of the development of ethanol-fueled vehicles in Brazil, O'Reilly stated that "they still have people in Brazil running around with their little darts, hitting you in the head with the poisoned darts, with the loincloths."
During the April 12, 2006, broadcast of The Radio Factor, O'Reilly claimed that on the April 11 edition of The O'Reilly Factor, guest Charles Barron, a New York City councilman, had revealed the "hidden agenda" behind the current immigration debate, which was "to wipe out 'white privilege' and to have the browning of America."
While discussing New York City Councilwoman Christine Quinn's decision to boycott Manhattan's St. Patrick's Day parade due to the decision by the Ancient Order of Hibernians to ban the Irish Lesbian and Gay Organization (ILGO) from marching O'Reilly attacked Quinn, calling ILGO's potential participation in the parade "inappropriate." O'Reilly asked, "Why doesn't Ms. Quinn and others who support her wise up?" Continuing, O'Reilly stated: "You have your Gay Day parade. You have your Stonewall celebration. You have your Halloween deal, OK? You don't need this." O'Reilly also asserted, "I don't want these people intruding on a parade where little children are standing there, watching" for fear that children would ask "mommy, what does that mean?" O'Reilly's comments came during the March 17, 2006, edition of Fox News' The O'Reilly Factor.
In a February 27, 2006, conversation with a caller about the disproportionately few jobs and contracts that have gone to locals in the rebuilding of New Orleans, O'Reilly said: "[T]he homies, you know ... I mean, they're just not going to get the job."
On the November 10, 2005, broadcast of his radio show, during a segment on a telecommunications executive who spent $250,000 in one night at a New York strip club, O'Reilly asked Wiehl if "it might be worth learning how" to dance for a $10,000 tip, adding, "You're [Wiehl] a good-looking girl. I mean, if you haven't seen Lis on TV, she's a good-looking blonde."
On the November 3, 2005, broadcast of his radio show, O'Reilly called for "a full-body search" of Wiehl. During a conversation about a New York Sun editorial on a lawsuit over New York City's policy of subway bag checks, O'Reilly said: "Would you please -- would you please bring in some security to do a full-body search on ... Lis Wiehl." When Wiehl repeated, "I said my bags, not my body," O'Reilly responded, "Full-body search on Lis Wiehl right this minute. She asked for it." Wiehl is also an author, Harvard-trained law professor, and legal analyst for Fox News.
On the September 13, 2005, broadcast of The Radio Factor, O'Reilly claimed that "many of the poor in New Orleans" did not evacuate the city before Hurricane Katrina because "[t]hey were drug-addicted" and "weren't going to get turned off from their source." O'Reilly added, "They were thugs."
On April 15, 2005, a caller to O'Reilly's radio show claimed that each undocumented immigrant crossing the border "is a biological weapon." O'Reilly agreed, further stating, "I think you could probably make an absolutely airtight case that more than 3,000 Americans have been either killed or injured, based upon the 11 million illegals who are here."
Responding to a Jewish caller to his radio show who objected to "Christmas going into schools" and expressed his "resentment" that "people were trying to convert me to Christianity," O'Reilly asserted that America is "a predominantly Christian nation" and said that "if you are really offended, you gotta go to Israel." O'Reilly labeled the caller's concerns "an affront to the majority" and insisted that "the majority can be insulted, too." During his December 3, 2004, exchange with the caller, O'Reilly also mistakenly referred to "the seven candles" of Hanukkah.
On the June 21, 2004, broadcast of The Radio Factor, O'Reilly referred to Wiehl as "eye candy ... for me," telling Wiehl that she is on the show "because you're good-looking, so I got somebody to look over" while he's on the air.

Michael Savage

On the March 30 broadcast of his nationally syndicated radio show, The Savage Nation, Michael Savage stated that he "agree[d] 100 percent" with a caller who said: "I'm very concerned that the Jews are now accepting gays as rabbis. And as a Catholic, I can tell you it almost destroyed our church when we accepted gays as priests." The caller added, "[T]hey were raping teenage boys, and if you allow them to come into your churches, I'm sorry, your synagogues, I have no reason to believe they're not going to do the same thing." Savage responded: "The idea of a gay rabbi is an oxymoron. Think about it: 'Rabbi' means teacher. You cannot have a homosexual teacher teaching boys how to be a Jew," adding, "I'm not going to mince words for fear of offending homosexuals. They're everywhere, anyway, trying to tell me what to say and what not to say and what to think. I know what's right and what's wrong. And that's all there is to it."
On the March 20 broadcast of his radio show, Savage discussed a San Francisco Chronicle report detailing the murder of a transgender woman whose body was found naked near a freeway outside San Francisco. Savage read a sentence from the article stating that "it appeared the victim had been in the process of becoming a woman," to which Savage replied: "Yeah, process of becoming a woman -- psychopath. [She] should have been in a back ward in a straitjacket for years, howling on major medication." He went on to say, "And what's this sympathy, constant sympathy for sexually confused people? Why should we have constant sympathy for people who are freaks in every society?" adding, "But you know what? You're never gonna make me respect the freak. I don't want to respect the freak." Savage concluded: "The freak ought to be glad that they're allowed to walk around without begging for something. You know, I'm sick and tired of the whole country begging, bending over backwards for the junkie, the freak, the pervert, the illegal immigrant. All of them are better than everybody else. Sick. Everything is upside down."
On the March 16 broadcast of his radio show, Savage played audio clips from Barbara Walters' interview with Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez, portions of which aired on the March 16 edition of ABC's Good Morning America, and called her a "double-talking slut." Savage added: "She's an empty mind-slut. She'd peddle anything for a ratings point." Savage went on to call Walters a "mental prostitute" and said, "I think that the woman is vermin. I think she's dirt."
On the February 26 broadcast of his radio show, after playing an audio clip of the beginning of singer Melissa Etheridge's acceptance speech at the Academy Awards in which she thanked her wife and four children, Savage said: "I don't like a woman married to a woman. It makes me want to puke. ... I want to vomit when I hear it. I think it's child abuse." Savage later similarly stated: "I want to puke when I hear about a woman married to a woman raising children because, frankly, I think that it's child abuse to do that to children without their permission. What does a child know? Ask them when they're 16 whether they want to be raised by two lesbians or two men," adding: "What are the two men doing behind the other wall? You think the children don't hear it?"
On the February 7 broadcast of his radio show, Savage claimed that Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice "was chosen by George Bush as part of an affirmative action program in order to make his Cabinet look like America" and called her "a schoolmarm who has been pushed up the ladder all of her life because of social engineering." Savage also stated that President Bush's secretary of state "should have been a man because he would have more respect in the Middle East than does a woman to begin with."
On the January 15 edition of his radio show, in a monologue about Martin Luther King Day, Savage called "civil rights" a "con" and asserted: "It's a racket that is used to exploit primarily heterosexual, Christian, white males' birthright and steal from them what is their birthright and give it to people who didn't qualify for it." Savage then said, "Take a guess out of whose hide all of these rights are coming. ... [T]here is only one group that is targeted, and that group are white, heterosexual males." He added: "They are the new witches being hunted by the illiberal left using the guise of civil rights and fairness to women and whatnot."
On the November 27, 2006, edition of his radio show, Savage declared that in order to "save the United States," lawmakers should institute "an outright ban on Muslim immigration" into the country. Savage also recommended making "the construction of mosques illegal in America, and the speaking of English only in the streets of the United States the law."
On the November 13, 2006, edition of his radio show, Savage declared that "[t]he radical homosexual agenda will not stop until religion is outlawed in this county," adding that gay people "threaten your very survival." Savage also stated that homosexuals are "all not nice decorators" and warned: "Gay marriage is just the tip of the iceberg. They want full and total subjugation of this society to their agenda."
On the October 23, 2006, edition of his radio show, Savage said of Ethiopians: "The people down there have flies around their eyes," adding, "I never went into an Ethiopian restaurant. The Ethiopians come here to eat American food." Earlier in the broadcast, while discussing Ramadan and the continued violence in Iraq, Savage suggested that Islam is "a bloodthirsty religion that's practiced over there by a bunch of throwbacks, and we're gonna to kill 'em." Savage called for the United States to say: "That's it, we're leaving them; we're killing them."
On the September 21, 2006, edition of his radio show, Savage claimed that the "average prostitute" is "more reliable and more honest than most U.S. senators wearing a dress."
On the September 12, 2006, edition of The Savage Nation, Savage claimed that "we" were "told" that "before Barbara Boxer [D-CA]... before Dianne Feinstein [D-CA] ... [and] before Hillary [Rodham] Clinton [D-NY] became ... U.S. senator[s], that when women became senators, we'd have a kinder, gentler Senate." Instead, Savage said, the Senate has become "more vicious and more histrionic than ever, specifically because women have been injected into" it.
On the August 7, 2006, edition of his radio program, Savage declared that CNN hosts Wolf Blitzer and Larry King "look like the type that would have pushed Jewish children into the oven to stay alive one more day to entertain the Nazis." Savage remarked that Blitzer "will do the astonishing act of being the type that would stick Jewish children into a gas chamber to stay alive another day. He's probably the most despicable man in the media next to Larry King ... a close runner-up." Savage opined: "The reason they curry favor with the turbaned hoodlums is to gain access to the turbanned hoodlums, domestic and foreign, for their news shows. They need more turbanned hoodlums to build ratings."
On the July 28, 2006, edition of his radio show, Savage predicted Israel is "going to lose in Lebanon" unless it wins a "devastating, catastrophic, overwhelming victory" in which "nothing is left living in southern Lebanon, south of the Litani River." Later in the program, Savage chastised the Israeli government for displaying a "Holocaust mentality" by shying away from his proposed course for victory, adding that Israel cannot continue to "live" unless it "frees itself of the men who are acting as though they are still hiding in the sewers of Warsaw" and "act[ing] like Holocaust Jews hiding in the sewer."
On the July 24, 2006, edition of radio program, Savage declared that Blitzer is "the type who would have let children into the gas chamber in order to stay alive an extra day." Savage accused Blitzer of being "anti-Semitic ... anti-Jewish, and pro-Arab" because he "doesn't want to appear too Jewish ... and too pro-Jewish."
During the April 10, 2006, broadcast of his radio program, Savage warned political leaders not to sympathize with illegal immigrants, whom he described as "vermin." Savage stated: "If you take to the streets with the vermin who are trying to dictate to us how we should run America, even though they're not even entitled to vote or be here, you're going to be thrown out of office." Savage added that Americans are "craving leadership" because "[f]eminism is destroying America. Homosexuality is destroying America. Weepy liberalism is destroying America."
On the May 21, 2004, Savage Nation, Savage expressed disdain for a newspaper article about "what breeds of dogs came first" that did not include that "the Asians still chew 'em [dogs] up."
On his May 11 and May 12, 2004, radio shows, Savage called Arabs "non-humans" and "racist, fascist bigots"; asserted that Americans would like to "drop a nuclear weapon" on any Arab country; and that "these people" in the Middle East "need to be forcibly converted to Christianity" in order to "turn them into human beings."

Michael Smerconish

Substituting for host Bill O'Reilly on the April 4, 2006, broadcast of Westwood One's The Radio Factor, nationally syndicated radio host Michael Smerconish repeatedly discussed "the sissification of America," claiming that political correctness has made the United States "a nation of sissies." Smerconish also claimed, several times, that this "sissification" and "limp-wristedness" is "compromising our ability to win the war on terror."
On the November 23, 2005, broadcast of The Radio Factor, while guest-hosting, Smerconish took issue with a decision by the New Jersey Sports and Exposition Authority to provide a designated prayer area at Giants Stadium. The decision was in response to a September 19 incident involving the FBI's detention and questioning of five Muslim men who were observed praying near the stadium's main air duct during a New York Giants football game. Smerconish stated: "I just think that's [the men's public praying] wrong. I just think they're playing a game of, you know, mind blank with the audience. And that they should know better four years removed from September 11."
On the November 23, 2005, edition of The Radio Factor, Smerconish interviewed Soo Kim Abboud, author of Top of the Class: How Asian Parents Raise High Achievers -- and How You Can Too (Penguin, 2005). Smerconish asserted that "if everyone follows Dr. Abboud's prescription ... you're going to have women who will leave the home and now get a great-paying job, because you will have gotten them well educated." He continued, "But then they're not going to be around to instill these lessons in their kids. In other words, it occurs to me that perhaps you've provided a prescription to bring this great success to an end."

John Gibson

On the May 11, 2006, edition of Fox News' The Big Story, host John Gibson advised viewers during the "My Word" segment of his program to "[d]o your duty. Make more babies." He then cited a May 10 article, which reported that nearly half of all children under the age of five in the United States are minorities. Gibson added: "By far, the greatest number [of children under five] are Hispanic. You know what that means? Twenty-five years and the majority of the population is Hispanic." Gibson later claimed: "To put it bluntly, we need more babies." Then, referring to Russia's projected decline in population, Gibson claimed: "So far, we are doing our part here in America but Hispanics can't carry the whole load. The rest of you, get busy. Make babies, or put another way -- a slogan for our times: 'procreation not recreation'."
—R.D. & J.M.

Link.

Rudy, Rudy, Rudy! Campaigning on Continuing the Insanity

An adviser on Iraq: John Bolton.

So Rudy is campaigning on continuity on a policy rejected by a majority of voters: being led by nutjobs.

Training for Our Leaders' Enablers

Trust me (or don't and Google this) but approximately 150 lowish and middle-ish aides of Our Leaders' are Pat Robertson's organization's law school and here's the curriculum.



Here's the website for the most famous alumna, W's Monica.

And here's Monica's philosophy. As a parent, I believe raising a child to be an idiot with warped judgment is pretty abusive of a child but I wasn't smart enough to go to Regent's Law so what do I know, at least compared to Monica who is now professionally made, so to spek (we all know the rightists take good care of their own).

And here is something somewhere between all you need to about Monica's law school and everything about it....

Nappy Haired Hos

Here's two, all of the "mug shots" can be found here.

Another Moral Exemplar from the Rightist Ruling Class

A woman charged with running a prostitution ring in the nation's capital made good on her threat to identify high-profile clients, listing a military strategist known for his "shock and awe" combat theories as a regular customer in court documents Thursday.

Deborah Jeane Palfrey, who is acting as her own attorney, said Harlan K. Ullman, a senior associate with the Center for Strategic and International Studies, "is only one of dozens of such officials" who will be exposed as she prepares her defense.

Link.

Lido Rips Our Beloved a New One

Of course, W never gave Iacocca a loan guarantee :)

Speaking of jokes, if Our Leader literally ended up with "a new one" as a result if every time he screwed up in his life, he'd look like what? A lawn sprinkler? A sponge? Swiss cheese?

Seriously, considering the source, this is devastating -- or should be. And these GOP nutjobs are running as a continuation of eight years of complete failure and ineptitude....

Had Enough?

Am I the only guy in this country who's fed up with what's happening? Where the hell is our outrage? We should be screaming bloody murder. We've got a gang of clueless bozos steering our ship of state right over a cliff, we've got corporate gangsters stealing us blind, and we can't even clean up after a hurricane much less build a hybrid car. But instead of getting mad, everyone sits around and nods their heads when the politicians say, "Stay the course."

Stay the course? You've got to be kidding. This is America, not the damned Titanic. I'll give you a sound bite: Throw the bums out!

You might think I'm getting senile, that I've gone off my rocker, and maybe I have. But someone has to speak up. I hardly recognize this country anymore. The President of the United States is given a free pass to ignore the Constitution, tap our phones, and lead us to war on a pack of lies. Congress responds to record deficits by passing a huge tax cut for the wealthy (thanks, but I don't need it). The most famous business leaders are not the innovators but the guys in handcuffs. While we're fiddling in Iraq, the Middle East is burning and nobody seems to know what to do. And the press is waving pom-poms instead of asking hard questions. That's not the promise of America my parents and yours traveled across the ocean for. I've had enough. How about you?

I'll go a step further. You can't call yourself a patriot if you're not outraged. This is a fight I'm ready and willing to have.

My friends tell me to calm down. They say, "Lee, you're eighty-two years old. Leave the rage to the young people." I'd love to—as soon as I can pry them away from their iPods for five seconds and get them to pay attention. I'm going to speak up because it's my patriotic duty. I think people will listen to me. They say I have a reputation as a straight shooter. So I'll tell you how I see it, and it's not pretty, but at least it's real. I'm hoping to strike a nerve in those young folks who say they don't vote because they don't trust politicians to represent their interests. Hey, America, wake up. These guys work for us.

Who Are These Guys, Anyway?

Why are we in this mess? How did we end up with this crowd in Washington? Well, we voted for them—or at least some of us did. But I'll tell you what we didn't do. We didn't agree to suspend the Constitution. We didn't agree to stop asking questions or demanding answers. Some of us are sick and tired of people who call free speech treason. Where I come from that's a dictatorship, not a democracy.

And don't tell me it's all the fault of right-wing Republicans or liberal Democrats. That's an intellectually lazy argument, and it's part of the reason we're in this stew. We're not just a nation of factions. We're a people. We share common principles and ideals. And we rise and fall together.

Where are the voices of leaders who can inspire us to action and make us stand taller? What happened to the strong and resolute party of Lincoln? What happened to the courageous, populist party of FDR and Truman? There was a time in this country when the voices of great leaders lifted us up and made us want to do better. Where have all the leaders gone?

The Test of a Leader

I've never been Commander in Chief, but I've been a CEO. I understand a few things about leadership at the top. I've figured out nine points—not ten (I don't want people accusing me of thinking I'm Moses). I call them the "Nine Cs of Leadership." They're not fancy or complicated. Just clear, obvious qualities that every true leader should have. We should look at how the current administration stacks up. Like it or not, this crew is going to be around until January 2009. Maybe we can learn something before we go to the polls in 2008. Then let's be sure we use the leadership test to screen the candidates who say they want to run the country. It's up to us to choose wisely.

So, here's my C list:

A leader has to show CURIOSITY. He has to listen to people outside of the "Yes, sir" crowd in his inner circle. He has to read voraciously, because the world is a big, complicated place. George W. Bush brags about never reading a newspaper. "I just scan the headlines," he says. Am I hearing this right? He's the President of the United States and he never reads a newspaper? Thomas Jefferson once said, "Were it left to me to decide whether we should have a government without newspapers, or newspapers without a government, I should not hesitate for a moment to prefer the latter." Bush disagrees. As long as he gets his daily hour in the gym, with Fox News piped through the sound system, he's ready to go.

If a leader never steps outside his comfort zone to hear different ideas, he grows stale. If he doesn't put his beliefs to the test, how does he know he's right? The inability to listen is a form of arrogance. It means either you think you already know it all, or you just don't care. Before the 2006 election, George Bush made a big point of saying he didn't listen to the polls. Yeah, that's what they all say when the polls stink. But maybe he should have listened, because 70 percent of the people were saying he was on the wrong track. It took a "thumping" on election day to wake him up, but even then you got the feeling he wasn't listening so much as he was calculating how to do a better job of convincing everyone he was right.

A leader has to be CREATIVE, go out on a limb, be willing to try something different. You know, think outside the box. George Bush prides himself on never changing, even as the world around him is spinning out of control. God forbid someone should accuse him of flip-flopping. There's a disturbingly messianic fervor to his certainty. Senator Joe Biden recalled a conversation he had with Bush a few months after our troops marched into Baghdad. Joe was in the Oval Office outlining his concerns to the President—the explosive mix of Shiite and Sunni, the disbanded Iraqi army, the problems securing the oil fields. "The President was serene," Joe recalled. "He told me he was sure that we were on the right course and that all would be well. 'Mr. President,' I finally said, 'how can you be so sure when you don't yet know all the facts?'" Bush then reached over and put a steadying hand on Joe's shoulder. "My instincts," he said. "My instincts." Joe was flabbergasted. He told Bush, "Mr. President, your instincts aren't good enough." Joe Biden sure didn't think the matter was settled. And, as we all know now, it wasn't.

Leadership is all about managing change—whether you're leading a company or leading a country. Things change, and you get creative. You adapt. Maybe Bush was absent the day they covered that at Harvard Business School.

A leader has to COMMUNICATE. I'm not talking about running off at the mouth or spouting sound bites. I'm talking about facing reality and telling the truth. Nobody in the current administration seems to know how to talk straight anymore. Instead, they spend most of their time trying to convince us that things are not really as bad as they seem. I don't know if it's denial or dishonesty, but it can start to drive you crazy after a while. Communication has to start with telling the truth, even when it's painful. The war in Iraq has been, among other things, a grand failure of communication. Bush is like the boy who didn't cry wolf when the wolf was at the door. After years of being told that all is well, even as the casualties and chaos mount, we've stopped listening to him.

A leader has to be a person of CHARACTER. That means knowing the difference between right and wrong and having the guts to do the right thing. Abraham Lincoln once said, "If you want to test a man's character, give him power." George Bush has a lot of power. What does it say about his character? Bush has shown a willingness to take bold action on the world stage because he has the power, but he shows little regard for the grievous consequences. He has sent our troops (not to mention hundreds of thousands of innocent Iraqi citizens) to their deaths—for what? To build our oil reserves? To avenge his daddy because Saddam Hussein once tried to have him killed? To show his daddy he's tougher? The motivations behind the war in Iraq are questionable, and the execution of the war has been a disaster. A man of character does not ask a single soldier to die for a failed policy.

A leader must have COURAGE. I'm talking about balls. (That even goes for female leaders.) Swagger isn't courage. Tough talk isn't courage. George Bush comes from a blue-blooded Connecticut family, but he likes to talk like a cowboy. You know, My gun is bigger than your gun. Courage in the twenty-first century doesn't mean posturing and bravado. Courage is a commitment to sit down at the negotiating table and talk.

If you're a politician, courage means taking a position even when you know it will cost you votes. Bush can't even make a public appearance unless the audience has been handpicked and sanitized. He did a series of so-called town hall meetings last year, in auditoriums packed with his most devoted fans. The questions were all softballs.

To be a leader you've got to have CONVICTION—a fire in your belly. You've got to have passion. You've got to really want to get something done. How do you measure fire in the belly? Bush has set the all-time record for number of vacation days taken by a U.S. President—four hundred and counting. He'd rather clear brush on his ranch than immerse himself in the business of governing. He even told an interviewer that the high point of his presidency so far was catching a seven-and-a-half-pound perch in his hand-stocked lake.

It's no better on Capitol Hill. Congress was in session only ninety-seven days in 2006. That's eleven days less than the record set in 1948, when President Harry Truman coined the term do-nothing Congress. Most people would expect to be fired if they worked so little and had nothing to show for it. But Congress managed to find the time to vote itself a raise. Now, that's not leadership.

A leader should have CHARISMA. I'm not talking about being flashy. Charisma is the quality that makes people want to follow you. It's the ability to inspire. People follow a leader because they trust him. That's my definition of charisma. Maybe George Bush is a great guy to hang out with at a barbecue or a ball game. But put him at a global summit where the future of our planet is at stake, and he doesn't look very presidential. Those frat-boy pranks and the kidding around he enjoys so much don't go over that well with world leaders. Just ask German Chancellor Angela Merkel, who received an unwelcome shoulder massage from our President at a G-8 Summit. When he came up behind her and started squeezing, I thought she was going to go right through the roof.

A leader has to be COMPETENT. That seems obvious, doesn't it? You've got to know what you're doing. More important than that, you've got to surround yourself with people who know what they're doing. Bush brags about being our first MBA President. Does that make him competent? Well, let's see. Thanks to our first MBA President, we've got the largest deficit in history, Social Security is on life support, and we've run up a half-a-trillion-dollar price tag (so far) in Iraq. And that's just for starters. A leader has to be a problem solver, and the biggest problems we face as a nation seem to be on the back burner.

You can't be a leader if you don't have COMMON SENSE. I call this Charlie Beacham's rule. When I was a young guy just starting out in the car business, one of my first jobs was as Ford's zone manager in Wilkes-Barre, Pennsylvania. My boss was a guy named Charlie Beacham, who was the East Coast regional manager. Charlie was a big Southerner, with a warm drawl, a huge smile, and a core of steel. Charlie used to tell me, "Remember, Lee, the only thing you've got going for you as a human being is your ability to reason and your common sense. If you don't know a dip of horseshit from a dip of vanilla ice cream, you'll never make it." George Bush doesn't have common sense. He just has a lot of sound bites. You know—Mr.they'll-welcome-us-as-liberators-no-child-left-behind-heck-of-a-job-Brownie-mission-accomplished Bush.

Former President Bill Clinton once said, "I grew up in an alcoholic home. I spent half my childhood trying to get into the reality-based world—and I like it here."

I think our current President should visit the real world once in a while.

The Biggest C is Crisis

Leaders are made, not born. Leadership is forged in times of crisis. It's easy to sit there with your feet up on the desk and talk theory. Or send someone else's kids off to war when you've never seen a battlefield yourself. It's another thing to lead when your world comes tumbling down.

On September 11, 2001, we needed a strong leader more than any other time in our history. We needed a steady hand to guide us out of the ashes. Where was George Bush? He was reading a story about a pet goat to kids in Florida when he heard about the attacks. He kept sitting there for twenty minutes with a baffled look on his face. It's all on tape. You can see it for yourself. Then, instead of taking the quickest route back to Washington and immediately going on the air to reassure the panicked people of this country, he decided it wasn't safe to return to the White House. He basically went into hiding for the day—and he told Vice President Dick Cheney to stay put in his bunker. We were all frozen in front of our TVs, scared out of our wits, waiting for our leaders to tell us that we were going to be okay, and there was nobody home. It took Bush a couple of days to get his bearings and devise the right photo op at Ground Zero.

That was George Bush's moment of truth, and he was paralyzed. And what did he do when he'd regained his composure? He led us down the road to Iraq—a road his own father had considered disastrous when he was President. But Bush didn't listen to Daddy. He listened to a higher father. He prides himself on being faith based, not reality based. If that doesn't scare the crap out of you, I don't know what will.

A Hell of a Mess

So here's where we stand. We're immersed in a bloody war with no plan for winning and no plan for leaving. We're running the biggest deficit in the history of the country. We're losing the manufacturing edge to Asia, while our once-great companies are getting slaughtered by health care costs. Gas prices are skyrocketing, and nobody in power has a coherent energy policy. Our schools are in trouble. Our borders are like sieves. The middle class is being squeezed every which way. These are times that cry out for leadership.

But when you look around, you've got to ask: "Where have all the leaders gone?" Where are the curious, creative communicators? Where are the people of character, courage, conviction, competence, and common sense? I may be a sucker for alliteration, but I think you get the point.

Name me a leader who has a better idea for homeland security than making us take off our shoes in airports and throw away our shampoo? We've spent billions of dollars building a huge new bureaucracy, and all we know how to do is react to things that have already happened.

Name me one leader who emerged from the crisis of Hurricane Katrina. Congress has yet to spend a single day evaluating the response to the hurricane, or demanding accountability for the decisions that were made in the crucial hours after the storm. Everyone's hunkering down, fingers crossed, hoping it doesn't happen again. Now, that's just crazy. Storms happen. Deal with it. Make a plan. Figure out what you're going to do the next time.

Name me an industry leader who is thinking creatively about how we can restore our competitive edge in manufacturing. Who would have believed that there could ever be a time when "the Big Three" referred to Japanese car companies? How did this happen—and more important, what are we going to do about it?

Name me a government leader who can articulate a plan for paying down the debt, or solving the energy crisis, or managing the health care problem. The silence is deafening. But these are the crises that are eating away at our country and milking the middle class dry.

I have news for the gang in Congress. We didn't elect you to sit on your asses and do nothing and remain silent while our democracy is being hijacked and our greatness is being replaced with mediocrity. What is everybody so afraid of? That some bobblehead on Fox News will call them a name? Give me a break. Why don't you guys show some spine for a change?

Had Enough?

Hey, I'm not trying to be the voice of gloom and doom here. I'm trying to light a fire. I'm speaking out because I have hope. I believe in America. In my lifetime I've had the privilege of living through some of America's greatest moments. I've also experienced some of our worst crises—the Great Depression, World War II, the Korean War, the Kennedy assassination, the Vietnam War, the 1970s oil crisis, and the struggles of recent years culminating with 9/11. If I've learned one thing, it's this: You don't get anywhere by standing on the sidelines waiting for somebody else to take action. Whether it's building a better car or building a better future for our children, we all have a role to play. That's the challenge I'm raising in this book. It's a call to action for people who, like me, believe in America. It's not too late, but it's getting pretty close. So let's shake off the horseshit and go to work. Let's tell 'em all we've had enough.

Link.

The Real Rudy

All these GOP candidates, they flip-flop so quickly they're like dervishes.

Via Rock & Rap Confidential:

In the immediate aftermath of the Don Imus scandal—before there was a resolution, in fact—respectable folks turned their sights on what I guess is the real threat to social harmony in this country: rap music. “A line has been drawn as to what is acceptable and what will not be tolerated,” huffed Today show weatherman Al Roker. “A dialog has been started about race in our country. An opportunity has been created to start holding responsible those who produce and broadcast offensive music lyrics, both rap and rock, that denigrate and marginalizes women." Even more nauseating was the assault—you can’t describe it better—by Kansas City Star columnist, Jason Whitlock, whose position is basically that Imus should have been left alone until the scourge of bad music and out-of-line musicians was repelled. The liberals and progressives I talked to and read mostly thought this a nifty keen thought, though of course Imus had to go, too.

Presumably Roker and Whitlock are merely the warmup acts for the nation’s chief hater of rap, rock and black youth: Bill Cosby, who must have been out making pudding or something during last week’s contretemps. And where was that harridan against hip-hop excess, Oprah Winfrey, all week? The Imus mess certainly has given us a chance to observe the priorities of rich and powerful African-Americans—Cosby, Winfrey, Whitlock and Roker are all black.

Somehow, maybe it would be hard for you to understand why, I found much more frightening than the last Busta Rhymes album (arguably, the best of his career) this New York Times headline

In Alabama, Giuliani Calls Confederate Flag a Local Issue

(from the Wednesday May 11 paper, buried at the back of the A section; you can read it at http://www.nytimes.com/2007/04/11/us/politics/11rudy.html?ref=politics)

That is, the leading Republican Presidential candidate is making a naked appeal to states’ rights. If you’re too young to remember, states rights was the pretext for the Civil War and a hundred years of Jim Crow and lynching after it.

According to the deaf, dumb and blind boys who run the Washington and national political press corps, Giuliani is electable partly because he’s a Northerner and not a “social conservative.” (According to Imus, who hung with all those pundits, Giuliani’s candidacy was appealing because he’s “somebody who's willing to take three big ones and drop one on Mecca, one on Jeddah, and one on…Riyadh.” He said this about eight weeks before his “slip of the tongue” about the women who lost a basketball game for Rutgers.)

Rudoph Giuliani has a history very similar to Don Imus, on whose show he was sometimes a guest, and more pertinently, to the last disgraced NYC talk show mouth, Bob Grant, an even more unapologetic racist. Rudy appeared quite frequently on Grant’s show before Bob got bounced off WABC for celebrating the death of Clinton’s African-American commerce secretary, Ron Brown, on the air. I’d say Rudy’s considerably worse than either Imus or Grant, though.

Grant used to refer regularly on his show to Mayor David Dinkins, Giuliani’s immediate predecessor, as “the washroom attendant,” and got away with it. But Giuliani empowered the racism of the New York Police Department in a special way. Giuliani used Grant’s bigot rhetoric to help make himself mayor. In the midst of his 1992 campaign against Dinkins, Rudy cheerfully appeared at a demonstration (which came closer to the description “riot”) of NYPD officers on the steps of City Hall. The cops were outraged that Dinkins had proposed a police review board run by civilians. Sure enough, one of the angry cops referred to Dinkins as “The Washroom Attendant.” Giuliani stepped to the mic, and said nothing about the slur. So he didn’t actually say the words but his unreserved support for the cops was endorsement enough.

During Rudy Giuliani’s terms as mayor, Amadou Diallo was murdered with 41 shots from gun-crazy cops.

While Rudy Giuliani was mayor, Abner Louima was raped with a broomstick by Rudy’s police.

During his mayoralty, Rudy Giuliani slashed the budget of the Civilian Complaint Review Board that was established over his protests. In its first five years, during all of which Giuliani was mayor, the CCRB received 20,000 complaints—4,000 a year. One cop lost his job—until the Louima rape. Then several went to jail. And having learned its lesson, the system allowed the Diallo cops to be tried upstate, instead of by a jury of New York City citizens.

After the Louima rape, Giuliani characterized as “shameful”…his opponents efforts to publicize and politicize it.

We can probably count on him to do the same if his endorsement of states’ rights in the form of the traitor’s flag of the Confederacy is raised in the Presidential race.

That’s exactly why it needs to be raised, raised again and again.

And when Jason Whitlock writes a column on this, he’ll get some respect from me. Until then, he can kiss Busta Rhymes ass, maybe. I wouldn’t have him near mine.--Dave Marsh, Editor, Rock & Rap Confidential

Another Winner

Mitt Romney: Can get the bucks but can't seem to get too many people interested in voting for him....

First, a history lesson:

Yes, the former Massachusetts governor showed off a savvy fund-raising operation by hauling in $23 million, easily surpassing Rudy Giuliani’s $15 million tally and John McCain’s comparatively anemic $12.5 million.

But Mr. Romney’s political and financial positioning at this early stage actually invites a parallel to Phil Gramm and his lavishly funded—and epically catastrophic—quest for the G.O.P. nomination in 1996.

Mr. Gramm, then a second-term Senator from Texas, entered that race by aggressively playing to the party’s right-wing base voters to capitalize on their well-grounded view that front-running Senator Bob Dole was not a true believer. (Newt Gingrich had dubbed Mr. Dole, a creature of the Potomac if ever there was one, “the tax collector for the welfare state.”)

Mr. Gramm, who was fond of noting that he’d flunked the third, seventh, and ninth grades, crafted a stump speech that doubled as a checklist of every conservative interest group’s pet issues, punctuating it with the assertion that he “was conservative before conservative was cool.”

And then there was his Texas-sized bankroll. In the first quarter of 1995, Mr. Gramm, with his Schumer-esque fund-raising abilities, reeled in $8.7 million. That’s nothing compared to today’s numbers, but 12 years ago it was a haul—nearly double Mr. Dole’s paltry $4.4 million first-quarter yield. The political establishment perked its ears up. Chris Dodd, then the general chairman of the Democratic National Committee, publicly predicted that Mr. Gramm, and not Mr. Dole, would be the Republican nominee.

“I have the most reliable friend you can have in American politics,” Mr. Gramm shamelessly boasted, “and that is ready money.”

***

Since shifting his focus from Massachusetts to national politics in 2004, he has walked away from the positions and pronouncements that served him well in the Bay State in order to hew to the wish lists of conservative activists. To the many Republicans who still don’t trust Mr. McCain and who will never abide Mr. Giuliani’s social liberalism, Mr. Romney’s grinning message is simply the following: “I’m one of you.”

Now, after the former Bain Capital C.E.O. has leveraged his plutocratic Rolodex into a hefty war chest, the pundit class is fast warming up to the notion that Mr. Romney has the perfect combination of money and message—just like they once did with Mr. Gramm.

But keep in mind that Mr. Gramm’s campaign ended up collapsing even before the New Hampshire primary. The reasons were myriad: over-inflated expectations, strategic miscalculations, prolonged blundering on a politically sensitive topic in New Hampshire, and an obscene “burn rate” of campaign cash with no discernible benefits in return.

The simplest explanation for his failure was that, beyond some initially promising poll numbers, voters just never took a liking to Mr. Gramm, whose disposition struck many as egotistical and overbearing. His assumption that the conservative base yearned for an alternative to Mr. Dole was correct, but they ultimately turned to Pat Buchanan and his castigations of “leap-year conservatives.”

There are already signs of the Gramm campaign’s profligacy in Mr. Romney’s operation, which last week reported spending nearly $12 million of the $23 million they took in—a burn rate every bit as unsustainable as Mr. Gramm’s.

And it’s only a matter of time before Mr. Romney, who is blessed with a more agreeable personality than Mr. Gramm, sees his early appeal to conservative donors undercut by YouTube, where a steadily accumulating stockpile of videos documents his years of pleading insistently to Massachusetts’ liberal-leaning electorate (as recently as 2002) that he was no kind of a Reagan conservative.

Link.

Why Rudy Rocks; His Genius

The idea of eight years of leadership by Rudy is, well, absolutely dizzying....

Before Rudolph W. Giuliani started to run for President, he specialized in writing books and delivering inspirational lectures on the topic of “leadership,” which has become the theme for his campaign. He is now telling America that in a time of war and terror, he is the leader we need. And he seems to be saying that the determination and strength of “the leader” matter more than where the leader wants to take us or whether he knows where he is going.

***

Mr. Giuliani is a fervent admirer of George W. Bush, whose election he considers a result of “divine guidance,” and a dauntless supporter of the war in Iraq, which resulted from the kind of leadership he advocates.

***

If he is suggesting that he is a leader who should be trusted to make critical judgments about national security and foreign policy, there is plenty of evidence to contradict him.

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During the months and years leading up to 9/11—as reporters Wayne Barrett and Dan Collins proved in Grand Illusion: The Untold Story of Rudy Giuliani and 9/11, their superb book debunking much of the “America’s Mayor” mythology—he made several decisions as Mayor that would later prove disastrous.

Against the advice of real experts, he stubbornly insisted on placing his immensely expensive emergency-command center in a World Trade Center building, although terrorists had struck there already and were determined to do so again. The command center went down with the rest of Ground Zero, leaving the Mayor and his aides to wander downtown as the buildings fell.

The city’s frantic efforts to cope with the disaster were lethally hindered by faulty communications equipment that the Giuliani administration had purchased—also against the advice of experts who knew better. Both of those fateful errors are more troubling when viewed against the backdrop of political and financial influences that probably distorted the decision-making process.

Yet while Mr. Giuliani is often wrong, he is never uncertain. That same attitude prevailed in his promotion of Bernard Kerik, a truly dubious character, first to corrections commissioner and then to police commissioner. By the time Mr. Giuliani appointed him to head the New York Police Department in 2000, evidence of Mr. Kerik’s ties with a mob-connected construction company had emerged in a background investigation. Mr. Kerik had obtained jobs for his brother and his best friend with that company, and he had interceded with city authorities on the firm’s behalf to win city contracts. Moreover, federal prosecutors had by then indicted Mr. Kerik’s friend, Lawrence Ray, along with a reputed Gambino crime-family figure.

In testimony before a Bronx grand jury investigating Mr. Kerik last year, Mr. Giuliani didn’t deny that he had been briefed on those issues before promoting his former bodyguard to the office of police commissioner. But he insisted that he didn’t remember that briefing—and noted that his investigators had “cleared” Mr. Kerik.

No doubt Mr. Giuliani’s failure of recall allowed him to enthusiastically recommend Mr. Kerik to President Bush as a suitable candidate for Secretary of Homeland Security in late 2004. That potentially ruinous choice was averted only because New York newspapers published timely exposés of Mr. Kerik’s embarrassing past. As for Mr. Giuliani, he says that he “assumed responsibility” for recommending Mr. Kerik, his old friend and business partner, which he termed “a mistake.”

While it is encouraging that he recognizes the error, there is a persistent flaw in Mr. Giuliani that makes such errors inevitable. He promoted Mr. Kerik because he preferred the loyal sycophant to William Bratton, the smart, independent and competent police commissioner whom he had fired. He ignored the threat of terrorism until it was too late, and arrogantly rejected the advice of those who knew more than he did.

Link.

Required Reading

A seconding of the idea that not all Christian "group" (sects?) are right wingnut goose-steppers. Some actually, you know, believe in Christian (as in "Christ-like") tenets or, you know, following Jesus' sayings -- while, actually, Our Leaders, at the end of the day, are extremely unchristian.

The concept makes one think....

Link.

Something Different in the News, which you May have Missed

Really. It's important. It's here.