Some things you just have to read.
Filibuster Update
As the deadline for a vote over judicial filibusters drew closer, a bipartisan group of senators worked behind the scenes Thursday to fashion an agreement to avoid a dramatic showdown.
The Senate Major Leader Bill Frist, R-Tenn., has threatened that next Tuesday he will move to change the Senate rules to abolish the use of the filibuster that Democrats have employed to block a number of President Bush’s judicial nominees.
The test case for the challenge is Texas Supreme Court Justice Priscilla Owen, whose nomination to the 5th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals continued to be debated on the floor of the Senate.
The day was filled with heated rhetoric. Republican Sen. Rick Santorum of Pennsylvania compared the Democratic protests over GOP moves to have judicial nominees confirmed to Adolph Hitler’s seizing of Paris in 1942 and then saying, “I’m in Paris. How dare you invade me. How dare you bomb my city. It’s mine.”
First guess- Frist doesn’t have the votes or some Senators looked at some polling data and it scared the bejeezus out of them.
Possibly they know they don’t have the votes, and are getting some moderates in safe seats working on a negotiation to avoid getting defeated in a vote. That way they can pretend to have been side-swiped by the moderates and not feel the wrath of the theocon community they have whipped into a frenzyt. If you haven’t paid attention to the last few weeks, the religious righties have been ramping up the rhetoric every day:
Another Tin-Eared Pol
This time he is a Democrat:
Travis County District Attorney Ronnie Earle, who denies partisan motives for his investigation of a political group founded by Republican leader Tom DeLay, was the featured speaker last week at a Democratic fund-raiser where he spoke directly about the congressman.
A newly formed Democratic political action committee, Texas Values in Action Coalition, hosted the May 12 event in Dallas to raise campaign money to take control of the state Legislature from the GOP, organizers said.
Earle, an elected Democrat, helped generate $102,000 for the organization.
In his remarks, Earle likened DeLay to a bully and spoke about political corruption and the investigation involving DeLay, the House majority leader from Sugar Land, according to a transcript supplied by Earle.
“This case is not just about Tom DeLay. If it isn’t this Tom DeLay, it’ll be another one, just like one bully replaces the one before,” Earle said.
“This is a structural problem involving the combination of money and power,” he added. “Money brings power and power corrupts.”
The crowd of 80 to 100 Democratic activists responded by making donations that exceeded the event’s fund-raising goal.
Irony. Dead.
I have no problem with politicians raising money, and, in fact, I hate CFR. The only mandate I would have is make it required that every donation is immediately documented and put on the internet, so everyone can see who is funding what. Get rid of the 527’s, all of it.
And just so we are clear, Earle did nothing illegal or wrong. He should be free to raise as much money as he can for his causes.
But didn’t anyone, not one single person, recognize that the person leading the corruption charges focussing on illegal fund-raising by Tom DeLay probably shouldn’t be the headline speaker at A DEMOCRATIC PARTY FUND-RAISER? Not one person in the decision-making ranks said- “Hey- maybe it would be better to have Al Franken down. Or Ann Richards?”
Not one person thought this might make the DeLay matter look like a politically motivated witch hunt?
Not one person said- “Gee- we might be giving DeLay an excuse to say ‘everybody does it’ if Earle shows up and makes a pitch for big bucks.”
No one?
Sometimes I think that none of them really give a shit what we think, because the prospect of incompents like this running things is really terrifying.
Ah, F*** It All
Not sure where this ranks in the annals of grievous insults to the American image like screwing up a news story about the Koran and a commode, but it can’t be good:
More than 2,500 pages of documents just released by the Army reveal instances of detainee abuse, including mock executions, by U.S. soldiers in Iraq…
In June 2003 an Army second lieutenant from the 1st Armored Division, identified in the redacted documents by the last name Yancey, and an unidentified sergeant were involved in two incidents in Iraq.
Witness statements from his platoon said Yancey took a boy detainee out of a truck and fired his weapon next to the detainee’s head.
In Yancey’s account to military investigators, he had fired at a pack of threatening wild dogs. But a witness from his platoon said they did not hear any dogs in the area.
Further investigation into the incident found that Yancey enjoyed administering “street justice,” according to witnesses who had seen him firing warning shots.
One soldier reported to investigators that Yancey “feels good when he scares people,” according to the documents.
LaShawn is probably going to shit a pink twinkie when she hears about the damned media reporting this. Remember:
Let me clear up one thing. Whether Americans flushed the Koran down the toilet is irrelevant. Newsweek should not have reported it, even if true. It
A Fool And A Hypocrite
By now you have heard of Rick Santorum’s idiotic comments in the well of the Senate in defense of altering a Senate rule. If you haven’t, here they are again in all their glory:
“It’s the equivalent of Adolf Hitler in 1942.” He said Democratic protests over Republican efforts to ensure confirmation votes would be like the Nazi dictator seizing Paris and then saying, “I’m in Paris. How dare you invade me. How dare you bomb my city. It’s mine.”
By itself, likening your colleagues to Adolf Hitler is offensive enough, but it just gets better and better. I offer you, Rick Santorum, two months ago, chastising Robert Byrd for making Nazi references on, of all things, the FRIGGING FILIBUSTER:
A pair of Jewish groups Wednesday accused U.S. Sen. Robert Byrd, D-W.Va., of making an outrageous and reprehensible comparison between Adolf Hitler’s Nazis and a Senate GOP plan to block Democrats from filibustering. And U.S. Sen. Rick Santorum, R-Penn Hills, has called for Byrd to retract his remarks.
Byrd spokesman Tom Gavin denied that the senator had compared Republicans to Hitler. He said the reference to Nazis in Byrd’s Senate speech Tuesday was meant to underscore that the past should not be ignored.
“Terrible chapters of history ought never be repeated,” Gavin said. “All one needs to do is to look at history to see how dangerous it is to curb the rights of the minority.”
Santorum, the Senate’s No. 3 Republican, called for Byrd to retract his statement.
“Senator Byrd’s inappropriate remarks comparing his Republican colleagues with Nazis are inexcusable,” Santorum said in a statement yesterday. “These comments lessen the credibility of the senator and the decorum of the Senate. He should retract his statement and ask for pardon.”
Abraham H. Foxman, national director of the Anti-Defamation League, said yesterday that Byrd’s remarks show “a profound lack of understanding as to who Hitler was” and that the senator should apologize to Americans.
Consistency, the hobgoblin of…
The Pen is Mightier Than The Sword
I have to confess that I thought this week’s edition of pin-the-tail on Newsweek was a bit overdone (and if you have been reading me for a while- you know I have a Master’s degree in overheated rhetoric). I don’t know if anyone has flushed the Koran or not, but it seems to me completely plausible when there are confirmed reports of beatings, broken bones, and the use of nudity and menstrual blood to interrogate prisoners are out there. At any rate, Newsweek was careless, so shame on them.
In general, I find the culpability for riots and violence with those who rioted, and with those who incite the violence. Where we err is by providing them with fodder for their inexplicable rage- in fact, by providing them fodder, we make their murderous actions seem explainable (if you are sick in the head). That is precisely why we shouldn’t torture (along with the fact that it is barbaric, demeaning to both the tortured and the torturer, illegal, and, many if not most times not fruitful), and why we should do everything we can to make sure that rumors like this are squelched, and that they are just that- unfounded rumors.
Again, I recognize that at times this is a fools errand- no matter what we say or do, there will be people who distort our message and our actions for their own purposes. That is a sad reality, but we should at least try not to aid the miscreants. As much as I would like to say F— ’em, we can’t, and with our soldiers in harms way, I have no problem swallowing a little pride and acknowledging that at times we have to be sensitive to others feelings, regardless how absurd they are. Personally, I rank my pride a little bit below the lives of our soldiers.
At any rate, I am not of the belief that all conservative bloggers are at war with the media. Some may be, and some are pretty damn careless- just like Newsweek. But I don’t believe all conservatives are overtly hostile to all media. Many do rail continuously against some in the media, some our of genuine concern, many to advance their own agenda, others (myself included) out of simple disgust and a desire for people to just get the damn story right. In this case, I can understand how there is justifiable anger:
… the reason “conservative bloggers” are upset and angry about the Newsweek screwup is that it cost lives in the Middle East and it could have cost a lot more lives as well. In addition–and this is a somewhat important point, so please pay attention Political Animals and New Republic senior editors–it harmed our country’s prestige and standing on the basis of a story that was entirely false. It is the kind of story that can fan rather vicious flames, and if you want to fan flames, you damn well better make sure that you have your facts right. If you do, feel free to publish the story. If you don’t and you publish the story anyway and people die as a result and your country ends up suffering diplomatically . . . well . . . it ain’t a good day at the office, now is it?
Again, I understand the anger, but I think it is over-stated. The problem lies with the rioters, but I also recognize that no matter how wrong they are, we shouldn’t do anything to inflame their passions. One of the most despicable rumors that runs rampant through the Islamofascist community and, unfortunately, much of moderate Islam is the blood libel, described here:
The Talmud instructions, soaked in hatred and hostility towards humanity, are stamped in the Jewish soul. Throughout history, the world has known more than one Shylock, more than one Father Thomas [the alleged Christian target of the Damascus Jews in 1840], as victim of these Talmudic instructions and this hatred…. Now Shylock of New York’s time has come…. Israel’s matzo will continue to steep in blood, the spilling of which is permitted in the Talmud, in order to glorify the Jewish military.
It is absurd, anti-Semitic, and obscene, but it is also why Jews don’t run deli’s in Israel selling things like Blood Pudding or Hemaglobin Biscuits or Martyr’s Blood Matzo. As vile and offensive as the Protocols of Zion are, you have to recognize that some wingnuts believe it, so you do everything you can to avoid even the appearances of committing the offending behavior. That may seem unfair, and I agree that it is unfair that many Jews have to be extra careful to make sure that blasphemous rumors are not given any credibility, but such is life.
Fast forward to the Washington Times coverage of the Newsweek affair. Today, Helle Dale writes:
How do you put toothpaste back into the tube? If anyone has the answer, please contact Newsweek magazine immediately.
Correcting the damage done by sloppy journalism is just about as hard as getting the sticky stuff back into its container. And a correction, even a retraction, almost never has the same impact as the original news reporting.
All of which should make those of us in the news business intensely aware of the importance of accuracy. It’s not good enough to get the news first; you have to get it right. Yet, in the age of the Internet and instant communication, accuracy and speed increasingly work against each other
Star Wars Comments Thread
This is an open thread for those of you who have seen it and can’t wait to spill your guts.
Warning, there will be spoilers…