Come for the politics, stay for the snark.
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Paging Ted Barlow (who has been all atwitter about Harken lately).
Read this. Oh yeah, and could someone tell me why the Democrats never brought this up during the election?
I can tell you why. Because McAullife and Daschle learned from Morris and Clinton (and by proxy, Hitler). Just repeat a lie often enough…
And no one from here better send Ted nasty emails. He is wrong on this issue, but otherwise is a damned good lefty and he runs a damned good blog.
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Bravenet appears to be down again, so the page will be loading slowly.
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John Fund on the true-blue conservative and American Hero John McCain:
President Bush is making the Democratic Senate’s refusal to vote on many of his judicial nominees a major campaign issue this fall. Eminently qualified nominees such as Miguel Estrada and Mike McConnell were nominated 14 months ago and have yet to receive even a hearing. But a fellow Republican is undermining Mr. Bush’s effort to showcase vacancies that the Judicial Conference of the United States calls “judicial emergencies.” Sen. John McCain of Arizona is blocking action on even those few nominees the Democrats are willing to confirm.
Mr. McCain has placed a “personal privilege” hold on all Bush nominees–executive as well as judicial. He says he’ll lift his hold only if Mr. Bush appoints Ellen Weintraub, an election lawyer, to a Democratic vacancy on the bipartisan Federal Election Commission. Mr. McCain is furious at the FEC for a series of 4-2 votes that he feels improperly interpret the McCain-Feingold law by giving candidates more “flexibility.” Democrat Karl Sandstrom, whose term has expired, sided with the three Republican appointees against two Democratic commissioners. Ever since those votes Mr. McCain has joined Democrats in mau-mauing the commission, going so far as to threaten to introduce legislation abolishing it.
Self-centered, self-aggrandizing, immature, childish, back-stabbing, hot-tempered, ill-mannered, prick. My Words. Fund is more eloquent:
It’s understandable that Sen. McCain is protective of his campaign finance legislation. And it’s hardly surprising that he’d try to exert his influence on the FEC. But Roll Call, the newspaper of Capitol Hill, says it is flat-out wrong for him to be “punishing the judicial branch of government for the sins of one FEC commissioner.” For him to hijack the presidential nominating process when several vacancies have been unfilled for over a year, and at a time when the federal government needs all hands on deck to fight a war on terrorism, carries traditional senatorial pique to new heights of self-aggrandizement.
Oops. Did I say self-aggrandizing yesterday and again today? So did Fund. I guess we agree.
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Media Bias, Take 200020238366:
Opinion Journal yesterday, and now Rush Limbaugh (god it hurts quoting him- everyone will imediately dismiss it) today, both point out how the media has ‘mainstreamed’ Larry Klayman and Judicial Watch. It is true that Klayman has always descrbied himself and his group as conservative, but why the disparity in the media descriptions. Why is he now just a member of a watchdog group, when before when he attacked anything Democrats did he was a Clinton Hater, etc?
Don’t believe it? Go google Judicial+Watch+Conservative+Clinton .
The first article that appears is this one with this phrase describing Klayman:
He is a frequent guest and dependable Clinton-basher on CNN and other networks, including a network linked to the conservative Free Congress Foundation.
Others report in more detail.
From yesterday’s Opinion Journal:
Ideology: Now You See It, Now You Don’t
In May 2000, the Associated Press published a dispatch about a Judicial Watch lawsuit against Bill Clinton. The dispatch twice referred to Judicial Watch as a “conservative group.”
Yesterday the AP published a dispatch on a threatened Judicial Watch lawsuit against Dick Cheney. The dispatch makes no reference to the group’s ideology, calling it only “a Washington-based watchdog group.”
From Limbaugh’s Website Today:
Klayman heads a group called Judicial Watch, and all through the nineties he constantly sued the Clinton administration. We did some research, and just to give you a sample, check out the way AP has described Klayman’s group in the past:
November 28th, 2000 – “Larry Klayman, chairman and general counsel for Judicial Watch Inc., said the conservative legal firm…”
October 28th, 1998 – “Larry Klayman of the conservative group Judicial Watch…”
December 4th, 1997 – “Larry Klayman, head of the conservative watchdog group Judicial Watch…”
September 14th, 1996 -Headline: “Conservative Group Sues First Lady in FBI Files Controversy.”
Now, let’s get back to his suit against the vice president. Note this AP headline and excerpt from Wednesday:
July 11, 2002 – Group Called Judicial Watch Sues Vice President Cheney.
“Judicial Watch, which describes itself as a nonpartisan group, has also sued for access to records of the Cheney-led energy task force…”
Now folks, every time Klayman’s name came up in the nineties, Judicial Watch was described as a conservative watchdog group.
Limbaugh Haters- He is right on this one. He goes on:
Just to prove my point further, I went to the Judicial Watch web site and found the following press release from this past February.
For immediate release: Judicial Watch Investigating Democratic National Committee Chair’s Link To Bankrupt Global Crossing. DNC’s Terry McAuliffe turned $100,000 investment into $18 million. (Company’s accounting practices questioned)
Did Peter Jennings, Robin Roberts, Judy Woodruff, or any of the others report this? No! They didn’t report it, and had they, they would have called this a conservative watchdog extremist group in Washington. But Klayman sues Cheney and all of a sudden he’s legit. Go figure.
Mainstream Media- They Report, They Decide.
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Check out this hysterical story by Tim Blair (via the Blogfather).
The World Wildlife Fund used to be one of the more sensible environmental advocacy groups, with a guiding philosophy of “Please don’t hurt the cute little panda babies.” Now they’ve turned lunatic. Let’s see how they compare with that other crazy WWF, the World Wrestling Federation:
World Wrestling Federation: Appeal based on comically threatening entities named the Undertaker, the Rock, Latino Heat.
World Wildlife Fund: Appeal based on comically threatening entities named the Greenhouse Effect, Global Warming, Overpopulation, Kyoto Protocol.
World Wrestling Federation: Supporters mainly young, under-educated and gullible.
World Wildlife Fund: Supporters mainly young, over-educated and gullible.
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Bush tosses a pebble in the water and the ripples spread across the lake; the EU drops a huge rock of conventional wisdom and it sinks without trace. I’ve said before that, if America is Coke, the world could use a Pepsi. If the EU doesn’t have the will to fulfil that role militarily, it could at least try to do it intellectually, with a bit of fresh creative thinking about some of these issues. But instead it clings to 1970s terrorists, 1970s missile treaties and 1970s environmental doom-mongering. Poor old Europe: never mind walking the walk, it can’t even talk the talk.
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I will not apologize to McCain- I was uncharitable about his military record, this much is true- he is a hero. That is as far as I will backtrack, however. McCain has spent the last two decades accomplishing nothing as a legislator except embroiling himself in the Keating Five and the god-awful McCain-Feingold bill. On second thought, now that I have seen some of the stuff he has sponsored and co-sponored, I should be glad he has accomplished little. He is nothing more than the token Republican for every one of Kennedy’s and Leahy’s and Dodd’s bad ideas, and has been nothing but a pompous, self-promoting, ankle-biting thorn in Bush’s side since the year 2000. And probably before.
Feel free to add him to the list below.