This massacre in WestVirginia is so terrible I can hardly watch the footage. There’s nothing much to say at the moment, and the immediate second guessing and criticisms are making me see red.
I find it especially distasteful that the denizens of the right are immediately launching into political polemics saying that this wouldn’t have happened if the students had been armed. That argument is always specious and never more than on a day like today. Sure this shooter might not have been able to kill so many people if someone had killed him first but somebody innocent would still be dead.
Today these people need to STFU. You might believe that an unfettered constitutional right to bear arms is embedded in the constitution (a belief I actually share) but it’s just wrong to downplay what a lethal goddamned right it is. Nobody wants to hear sermons about how many fewer kids would have been shot to death today on that campus if only there had been more guns around. Not before the bodies have even been counted. Not today.
But the USC football coach believes the state would be a better place to live if the Confederate battle flag were removed from the State House grounds.
Spurrier brought up the flag issue Friday while accepting a leadership award from City Year at the service group’s Ripples of Hope banquet at the Columbia Metropolitan Convention Center.
Spurrier said Saturday that he believed he was in an appropriate setting to voice his opinion.
“It would make us a more progressive, better state, I think, if the flag was removed. But I’m not going to go on any big campaign to have it removed. That’s not my position,” Spurrier said in an interview with The State. “But if anyone were to ask me, that would certainly be my position. And I think everyone in there, it was their position, too.”
Spurrier said it was “embarrassing” last year when someone waved a Confederate battle flag behind the set of ESPN’s “GameDay” before the Gamecocks’ home game against Tennessee.
“Some clown or some dude was waving that big ol’ Confederate flag right behind them about the whole time they were on,” Spurrier said.
[…]
Sen. Robert Ford, D-Charleston, who sponsored the bill that moved the flag from the dome to the grounds, said Spurrier’s timing was “100 percent wrong,” given the presidential campaigns coming through the state. Candidates have more important issues, Ford said. “He threw a monkey wrench in this campaign and I don’t like it,” Ford said. “It don’t look right. It don’t sound right. It don’t feel right.”
The 61-year-old Spurrier, who grew up in east Tennessee, said he did not know anyone in South Carolina who was in favor of flying the flag, “but I guess there’s a lot out there somewhere.”
Don Gordon is one of them.
Gordon, a state officer with the Sons of Confederate Veterans, said Spurrier’s call for the removal of the flag was “the moral equivalent of calling our ancestors ‘nappy-headed hos.’”
You have to give him credit. That comment is so outrageous that I’m in awe of the sheer audacity of his actually saying it out loud. I’m sure he believes it too. Who could be more aggrieved than a white southern confederate these days? Why they hardly get any respect at all…
Alberto Gonzales “wrote” an op-ed for today’s WaPo and now they’ve released his prepared statement (for reasons that seem obscure to me as a matter of damage control, but whatever.)
You will find in both of these documents that the Attorney General of the United States has serious problems with his memory and he’s very sorry about it but he really, really means well.
Here’s a good rundown from Michael Sherer at Salon:
But don’t expect Gonzales’ appearance to settle all the outstanding questions about U.S. Attorney-Gate. Gonzales is clearly planning to spend a lot of time Tuesday dwelling on everything that he does not think he remembers, or is sure he doesn’t know, or maybe only knew in some way, for which there was a vague memory he might have had, but now no longer possess, or whatever. The phrase “I do not recall” shows up three times in the prepared remarks, a preemptive strike before any senator has even asked a question. “I have not spoken with nor reviewed the confidential transcripts of any of the Department of Justice employees interviewed by congressional staff,” Gonzales plans to say. “I state this because, as a result, I may be somewhat limited when it comes to providing you with all of the facts that you may desire.”
The memory lapses could possibly include Gonzales’ own role the scandal. At one point in the testimony, he discusses the deliberations that were conducted about the firings. “To my knowledge, I did not make decisions about who should or should not be asked to resign,” he plans to say.
That’s the kind of statement that should give everyone confidence that he’s just the man to run the most powerful police agency in the world. I know I feel better.
(I can sort of understand why he needed all that rehearsal, now. Those are not easy lies to keep straight. Look at the trouble Scooter got himself into…)
While we’re on the subject of phony sanctimonious gasbags, I have been remiss in failing to write about the fact that none other than Ann Coulter appeared before the “Reclaiming America for Christ” conference in Florida and repeated her faggot slur against Edwards. Apparently, she didn’t get the big laughs she got at the CPAC but then again, she was speaking from the pulpit of the Coral Ridge Baptist Church so perhaps it was simply the venue that prevented the full throated applause for such lines that she’s used to.
But that’s not the real news. Coulter has been getting away with her nasty schtick for less than half the time Don Imus did, so she’s got a way to go before the TV bookers and mainstream fans in the media realize that they are actually alienating an audience instead of gaining one. The real news is what others said at the conference that hasn’t been widely discussed, as far as I know.
Adele Stan, of the American Prospect covered the conference and reported back on some very interesting developments. It featured all the usual suspects but with some new arguments that I haven’t heard before. I thought this one was quite clever:
Despite a bullet-pointed sheet from [Southern Baptist Convention head Richard] Land in the conference literature that called for Christians to become “good stewards of the environment,” in his speech he tarred today’s environmentalists with the brush of communism.
“[A]ll the pinks,” Land said, “have become chartreuse; that’s the environmental crowd.” In an America run by “secularists,” Land’s hand-out reads, “[h]uman life would become more commoditized.” There would be clone farms and polygamy, all part of “a neo-paganist triumph.”
Environmentalism leads to clone farms and polygamy. That’s a good one. I think I finally understand why the conservative Christians refuse to believe in global warming. They think capitulating to the commie-enviro chartreusers will lead to a world of science fiction cloning. (But if I’m not mistaken, isn’t the Bible chock full of polygamy? What’s up with that?)
But then the vaguely humorous turns very dark:
[Family Research Council’s Tony] Perkins complaining that the Muslim call to prayer is “now broadcast over American cities.” (The use of the word “broadcast” is a bit of a stretch; it’s most commonly announced over a mosque’s own public address system, much like the digital loops of chimes played in the bell towers of modern churches.)
Perkins read the call to prayer aloud, implying it to be something to which a Christian should take offense since it declares that there is no god but Allah. (He omitted the fact that Allah translates from Arabic to English as the word “God.”) Then he repeated it in Arabic.
“Allah akbar,” he said, derisively. “That’s what Islamic terrorists say before they cut off your head.”
Noting that the call to prayer is “broadcast” five times a day while “Christians have a hard time getting a manger scene put up one time a year,” Perkins asked, “How is it that in our nation where Muslims account for about 6 million of the 300 million living in this country, and Christians comprise 100 million, that Muslims can control the public policy and we cannot? I suggest to you that it is because Christians have become apathetic to our role in shaping the policy in our nation, and it could have deadly consequences, not only for the unborn, but for the living as well.”
“How is it that in our nation where Muslims account for about 6 million of the 300 million living in this country, and Christians comprise 100 million, that Muslims can control the public policy and we cannot?
Poor, poor pitiful conservatives. They are always so put-upon. Even if it’s all in their heads. (It reminds me of an old Phil Donohue show I saw years ago in which a woman rose to protest the civil rights movement by saying “you’re giving my rights away to those people” as if there are just so many “rights” to go around.)
But this is where it’s time to pay attention:
Lest any of the assembled miss the point, Perkins offered up the story of Phineas, grandson of Moses’ brother Aaron, from Numbers 25. Phineas was rewarded by God with an “everlasting priesthood” for killing an Israelite and his Midian lover because God had forbidden the mixing of the men of Israel with the women of that tribe.
The story is, essentially, the vindication of the criminalization of “miscegenation” — a sentiment consistent with Perkins’ past courting of such racist groups as the Ku Klux Klan and the Council of Conservative Citizens, America’s largest white supremacist organization, according to journalist Max Blumenthal. (Perkins bought, on behalf of political client Senator Woody Jenkins, a phone-bank list from former KKK Grand Wizard David Duke.)
Coulter’s rhetoric was no less violent. In describing the murders of doctors and health care personnel who worked at abortion clinics, Coulter said the victims had been shot, “…or, depending on your point of view, had a procedure performed on them with a rifle.”
Perkins use of the Scripture was only slightly less menacing than Coulter’s flippant analogy.
“We read that Phineas arose and he took action…,” Perkins said.
“Not only is prayer required…I warn you that if you begin to pray for our nation that, at some point in time, you’re gonna be prayin’ and you’re gonna feel a tap on your shoulder and hear, ‘Son, daughter, I’ve heard your prayer; now I want you to do something about it.’”
Just in case his message should be misconstrued, however, Perkins offered this caveat: “Now, let me be clear, in case the media’s here,” he said, “I’m not advocating you go home and get a pitchfork out of your storage shed and run into your neighbor’s house.” Phineas, the Bible tells us, used a javelin.
That is some creepy stuff, as was Coulter’s full comment:
“Those few abortionists were shot or, depending on your point of view, had a procedure with a rifle performed on them,” Coulter told her audience, which responded with laughter.
“I’m not justifying it,” she continued, “but I do understand how it happened…. The number of deaths attributed to Roe v. Wade — about 40 million aborted babies and seven abortion clinic workers — 40 million to seven is also a pretty good measure of how the political debate is going.”
This, again, was from the pulpit in a church.
I think it’s pretty clear what these fine folks mean when they say they want to “reclaim” the culture. As they wallow in the epic failure of their movement to successfully govern the nation, they are likely to become more inclined to this kind of talk. That’s usually the way it goes anyway.
The National Rifle Association, citing shifting political winds in Congress after the 2006 elections, urged its members Saturday to unite against “the storm that lies ahead” for gun owners.
“Today, there is not one firearm owner whose freedom is secure,” the group’s executive vice president, Wayne R. LaPierre, told thousands gathered for the annual national convention here.
“You will rise and stand and we, together, we will fight them all.”
And we’re going to need a boatload of money to do it, he added.
Bottom line, I left Pajama so that I could sell advertising. Make a couple of bucks. Hellloooooo. GUILTY OF CAPITALISM. I can’t sell ads under my agreement with PJM but don’t let the facts get in the way of your cheap little obsession. That washer woman just can’t keep out of my drawers. The best was Big Pussy accusing me of snuggling up to the Powerline boys. Huh? They are a blog, they are not competition. They are bloggers not a portal of various blogs. And we were on a panel together addressing the Young America’s Foundation.
I love that about Wolcott, he pretends to be in the thick of things in the blogosphere, jumping on that train as his quasi has been star fades. He doesn’t know jack about the blogs. But he has the temerity to comment so authoritatively.
The pajama story is a non story. But don’t tell the Queen, he/she might have to actually write about something substantial.
Hey Big Pussy, get a clue. Start writing about the beheadings, slavery, misogyny, oppression, hangings in the name of the global jihad. Believe me woman, your fat neck will be one of the first to go.
Keepin it real baby, from your substancialious blogger.
Posted by Pamela Geller Oshry on Friday, April 06, 2007 at 11:21 AM
Yes, I know she’s just another blogger. It’s not like she said that stuff in a church. But you’ll note that she was an invited speaker at the Young America’s Foundation and was privileged to interview the US Ambassador to the UN, John Bolton, numerous times, even in the middle of his greatest challenge — the Israeli Hezbollah war. The Young Americans. certainly got a lot out of her talk and I have no doubt they will enjoy her blog immensely:
Students raved about this exciting weekend program. “I feel more devoted to advancing freedom on campus and in America after attending this Young America’s Foundation conference. With the tools I learned, I’ll be better able to win the argument and amplify the [conservative] majority,” says Nate Swanson of the University of Minnesota – Morris.
Young America’s Foundation is grateful to Alice Cox for her generous sponsorship of the 2007 Midwest Conference. Through Mrs. Cox’s support and the generous gifts of many other Foundation supporters, young leaders from Minnesota, Wisconsin, and nationwide were able to hear from some of the Conservative Movement’s top leaders and meet other young leaders who share their values and beliefs.
HOWARD KURTZ: Over the years, Imus made fun of blacks, Jews, gays, politicians. He called them lying weasels. This was part of his charm…
This is the media critic for the Washington Post and CNN. Do you think maybe Howie has been spending a little too much time around the wrong people lately?
Gwen Ifill was good this morning on Meet The Press. It’s very clear that to me from watching it that part of the problem is, as Jesse Jackson pointed out frequently this past week, that guys like Tim Russert rarely have to face black people on the air who will confront their billionaire boys club assumptions. I doubt that Russert sees himself as an intolerant, racist sexist frat boy jerk. And in most interactions he probably doesn’t behave that way in the least. But he also didn’t see that Imus was feeding a very nasty American Id with his comments, (it was “part of his charm” after all) and since he did it to everyone, it was no harm no foul. Looking Gwen Ifill, his colleague and respected female African American journalist, right in the eye, and having to answer to her concerns is something that could have made a difference long ago.
I believe the head of MSNBC when he said that it was the (shockingly small) cadre of African American journalists, broadcast personalities — and other employees — standing up that really opened his eyes to the issue. He doesn’t like to think of himself as an insensitive creep. Only the true Rush Limbaugh ditto-head embraces such a self-image. So, when confronted directly by one of his high profile employees saying publicly what he’d been thinking privately for years, it made a difference. (Needless to say, it was the corporate advertiser pull-out that was the final straw…)
I have a few quibbles with what she said about the “Culture of Meanness”, however, which I fear will be interpreted as “being rude.” On the McLaughlin Report last night Tony Blankley repeatedly brought up the fact that “liberals” say horrible things about President Bush and Dick Cheney as a corollary to the Imus matter. To any sentient person, this is ridiculous, and Blankley is a total partisan so his views are tainted. But I don’t think it will stop with him. You have to remember that we are talking about the elite political media, which reflexively seeks an equivalency between both sides as a way of appearing impartial. There is probably going to be a concerted effort among many of these embarrassed media types to find “intolerant” language on the left to show that “both sides do it”, even as the right works desperately to hang Imus on us, despite the fact that it makes no sense. Liberals called out the elite media for consorting with jackasses and they aren’t going to forgive us for it any time soon. Just a word of warning…
The truth is that while everybody insults other people (it’s human nature and it’s not confined to any particular group) there is a substantial difference between the political insults that come from the left and those that come from the right: the left tends to take on powerful people and institutions while the right goes after those who have been historically left out of the party. It may not be strictly political — Imus seems to be one of those vaunted “independents” who votes for whichever candidate’s personality pissed him off the least for entirely personal reasons — but it tends to manifest itself along the left/right axis in American politics.
I think this is part of the reason the right embraces victimization by some phantom liberal elite. On some level they know there is something distasteful about their fear and loathing of those who carry the weight of historical discrimination so they have to turn themselves into victims of oppression themselves in order to rationalize their behavior. So, we see incredibly rich, white males like Rush Limbaugh railing against “liberals” (which forms a nice rhetorical umbrella for hatred toward all the historically disenfranchised) even at a time when the entire US government and the media were dominated by conservatives. It’s why they were reduced to creating a laughably absurd “War on Christmas.”
I suspect it’s actually emotionally uncomfortable for them to have too much power. They have a much harder time finding ways to rationalize their loathing of the other when they are running everything. I think they’d hoped that the GWOT would allow them to really get their hate on, but American society just didn’t rise to the bait the way it used to. (The “Mexican invasion” may work where that didn’t, but I’m hopeful that it won’t either.) They are in a bind, with a society that is still human and therefore suceptible to this kind of lizard brain thinking but which is also evolving well beyond the point when a powerful white male can get away with being a rank racist in public, no matter how “charming” Howie Kurtz thinks it is or how “even handed” his jokes are. I expect that the epic failure of Republican rule is going to let loose a very angry conservative beast. They hate to lose but they love to be victims. It’s a powerfully frustrating combination.
One final thought on the Imus matter and then I’m going to put it to bed. The blatant racism of Imus’s comments was the straw that broke the camels back. Everyone recognized immediately just how wrong that was. But, we have a long way to go with the sexism issue, which was never really dealt with openly in this thing and which is so pervasive in talk radio that it’s hard to know where to start.
Listen to any radio talk show discuss Hillary Clinton, Nancy Pelosi or Rosie O’Donnell and tell me if they can stick to substantive disagreements with what they say for more than 30 seconds before they launch into an attack against their looks, their voice, their sexuality— whatever. I dare you. When the Republican party’s cleverest issue framer comes out with a shocking rhetorical clunker like this, you know that there is a serious problem:
FRANK LUNTZ: I always use the line for Nancy Pelosi, “You get one shot at a facelift. If it doesn’t work the first time, let it go.”
It’s stupid, sexist and ultimately self-defeating. It’s a recipe for a political backlash and shows just how out of touch many of our culture’s most powerful men are on this issue.
But rightwing male idiocy aside, let me just say this: I would hope that no decent person of either party would ever, ever think it was ok to appear on a show where someone says things like this:
“Ain’t gonna be so beautiful when the bitch got a bald head and one titty.”
That wasn’t some obscure rap lyric (and I’m not sure I’ve ever heard a rap lyric quite a horrible as that, and some of them are truly horrible.) That comment about an unnamed famous woman who had announced she had breast cancer (I think it might be Sheryl Crow) was made just two years ago by Imus sidekick Sid Rosenberg and it was recounted in Vanity Fair in January of 2006. I’m pretty sure that all his fans in the media knew all about it — the piece featured all of them, after all. I find it completely stunning that anyone could find that “charming” or funny or entertaining, who doesn’t have a real hatred for women in his or her soul. That is the very definition of misogyny. (And you can throw in a despicable loathing toward the sick and disabled too.) I’m not sure it can go any lower than that.
So, when you get into a discussion with a rightwinger about liberal hatred, and they try to pin Imus and his boys club on us, throw that one out there. I guarantee you that it will be a litmus test of what kind of person you are talking to. I can’t believe that people would associate with a man who made his millions saying things like that, no matter how many good deeds he did in his private life to assuage his well deserved guilt. I wish Gwen Ifill had asked old Tim about it today. I’m sure he’d never admit that he knew about it — but he did. They all did. Of course they did.
This isn’t about being “mean.” You can be mean and sharp and edgy and even horribly insulting and still have human decency. That indecently sexist comment said everything I ever needed to know about whether Don Imus was a decent person. The kewl kidz just thought it was their pal Don crossing a line (again) and that says a lot about them too. Some things are simply unforgiveable. I still don’t get the sense that they understand that.
One of my favorite movie lines of all time is from Rob Reiner’s “The Princess Bride”. If I am paraphrasing, forgive me, but the gist of it is: “Life is pain. Anyone who tells you otherwise has something to sell.” (Alas-if we could only remember that sage advice before writing our phone number on a cocktail napkin, signing on a dotted line, dropping coins into a collection plate or punching out a voting chad.) Indeed, the art of the con is at least as ancient as the snake in the Garden of Eden (er-if you believe in that sort of thing).
Hollywood loves con artists (see endless list below), probably because movie audiences never appear to tire of watching yet one more poor sucker being bamboozled and swindled. It makes us feel superior-“Oh, I’d never fall for THAT bullshit!” (Yeah, right.).
Director Lasse Hallstrom has delivered a smashing entry in the genre with his new movie, “The Hoax”. The film is based on the story of Clifford Irving, a struggling writer who toiled in relative obscurity until he stumbled onto an idea for “the most important book of the 20th century”-the “Autobiography of Howard Hughes”. The book was the most hyped literary event of 1972, and would assure Irving the notoriety he craved. Hell, he even made the cover of Time. Unfortunately, his Time portrait was slugged with “Con Man of the Year”, because as it turned out, the “autobiography” was a bit of a surprise to Mr. Hughes, because, you see, Mr. Irving made the whole thing up (oops). The books were unceremoniously yanked from the shelves soon after their debut.
Richard Gere tears through the lead role with an intensity we haven’t seen from him in quite a while (his best work since “Internal Affairs”, IMHO). His Clifford Irving is a charlatan and a compulsive liar, to be sure, but Gere makes him sympathetic in a carefully measured portrayal and never stoops to audience pandering.. Even as he digs himself into an ever deepening hole, and you cover your eyes because you know the other shoe is going to drop at any time, you’ve just gotta love this guy’s pure chutzpah. In retrospect, when compared to some other mass public deceptions that were brewing at the time (the Irving scandal was soon to be eclipsed in the headlines by Watergate), Irving’s fraud trial almost seems like malicious prosecution (he did end up doing jail time).
Hallstrom does an excellent job at capturing the 70’s milieu; especially the insidious paranoia of the Nixon era (almost by accident, Irving uncovered documents that implicated Nixon family members and associates in defense contract bribery scams involving Hughes Corporation while Nixon was VP in 1956. It is suggested in the film that the 1972 Nixon White House was tipped off to the existence of the documents, and that it may have been an impetus for the Watergate break in. Hey-who knows?)
The cast includes Alfred Molina (in an Oscar-caliber turn as Irving’s researcher DavidRichard Susskind), Marcia Gay Harden (sporting a Streep-worthy accent as Irving’s Eurotrash wife), and true chameleon Hope Davis (looking very Mary Richards as Irving’s agent). Also with Stanley Tucci, Julie Delpy and a memorable cameo from Eli Wallach.
Another noteworthy new film examining the art of the con is Brian W. Cook’s “Color Me Kubrick: A True…ish Story” (concurrently on DVD and in theatres). John Malkovich gives a typically hammy, gleefully giddy performance as real-life con man Alan Conway, who flitted about England in the early 90’s, posing as the notoriously reclusive director Stanley Kubrick.
The irresistible hook in Conway’s story is the fact that he had virtually no idea what Kubrick was about, aside from the fact that he was a famous director. What is even more amazing is that he got away with it for as long as he did, scamming sex, money and accommodations with his hijacked nom de plume (ironically, had he actually bothered to watch Kubrick’s films, he could have picked up some pointers from fictional con men Barry Lyndon and Clare Quilty) His victims ranged from easy marks (aspiring actors, screenwriters and musicians) to those who should have known better (film critics!). His luck ran out when a NY Times columnist was tipped to his shenanigans and wrote an exposé.
Malkovich chews major scenery as he minces his way through the role, utilizing a variety of ridiculously funny accents and affectations. Director Cook worked with the late Kubrick, and ladles on the in-jokes with a nod and a wink (Kubrick aficionados should have a blast playing “spot the homage”). Good supporting performances, particularly from comedian Jim Davidson (one of Conway’s real life victims). Two notable cameos to watch for: Honor Blackman (Pussy Galore!) and director Ken Russell, who pops up as a mental patient (not such a stretch, if you are familiar with his work). Not for all tastes; but destined for cult status.
When Bush was elected in 2004 and he swaggered all over Washington proclaiming that he had political capital and knew how to use it, the administration was busily turning the government of the most powerful nation on earth into a second rate used car dealership.
Read this fascinating, candid interview with a former career attorney in the Justice Department in which he tells the sordid story of what happened when Alberto Gonzales took over the DOJ and all the little Bushies ran around furiously padding their resumes.
When you read this, it pays to keep in mind that during the last six years Bush and all of his cronies have been telling us non-stop that we are engaged in the War of the Worlds in which the greatest threat mankind has ever known is upon us. And this is what they did:
Q: You began in the Justice Department during the Watergate years. How would you rank Alberto Gonzales in terms of politicization of the department in comparison to the other AGs you have worked for?
A: Actually, I began earlier, in the first Nixon administration, as a college intern in 1971. But I was there again in the Watergate era, when I worked in part of the Attorney General’s Office during my first year of law school in 1973-1974, and then continuously as a trial attorney and office director for nearly 30 years. That adds up to more than a dozen attorneys general, including Ed Meese as well as John Mitchell, and I used to think that they had politicized the department more than anyone could or should. But nothing compares to the past two years under Alberto Gonzales.
To be sure, he continued a trend of career/noncareer separation that began under John Ashcroft, yet even Ashcroft brought in political aides who in large measure were experienced in government functioning. Ashcroft’s Justice Department appointees, with few exceptions, were not the type of people who caused you to wonder what they were doing there. They might not have been firm believers in the importance of government, but generally speaking, there was a very respectable level of competence (in some instances even exceptionally so) and a relatively strong dedication to quality government, as far as I could see.
Under Gonzales, though, almost immediately from the time of his arrival in February 2005, this changed quite noticeably. First, there was extraordinary turnover in the political ranks, including the majority of even Justice’s highest-level appointees. It was reminiscent of the turnover from the second Reagan administration to the first Bush administration in 1989, only more so. Second, the atmosphere was palpably different, in ways both large and small. One need not have had to be terribly sophisticated to notice that when Deputy Attorney General Jim Comey left the department in August 2005 his departure was quite abrupt, and that his large farewell party was attended by neither Gonzales nor (as best as could be seen) anyone else on the AG’s personal staff.
Third, and most significantly for present purposes, there was an almost immediate influx of young political aides beginning in the first half of 2005 (e.g., counsels to the AG, associate deputy attorneys general, deputy associate attorneys general, and deputy assistant attorneys general) whose inexperience in the processes of government was surpassed only by their evident disdain for it.
Having seen this firsthand in a range of different situations for nearly two years before I retired, I found it not at all surprising that the recent U.S. Attorney problems arose in the first place and then were so badly mishandled once they did.
I have probably not given enough thought to the fact that all these young Pat Robertson U grads were using their government service as a resume builder for the lucrative business and wingnut welfare careers ahead of them. After all, Republican values have nothing really to do with families (unless you come from an important one.)They are all about value$$. So, it stands to reason that there was an element of playing in the DOJ sandbox for these people that at least explains why they are so very childlike and unsophisticated. (The interview goes into some depth about this “consensus” buck passing style and I found it quite amazing. It’s the sort of thing you often find in companies that are on their way down.)
Although the interview doesn’t go into it, it also is quite obvious that the good little Bushies that Gonzales empowered had no problem doing Karl Rove’s bidding. In 2005, if you assumed that you were building a long term career in GOP politics, you would do what Rove told you to do. He was God.
This is a very interesting read. It’s nearly impossible to believe that Gonzales can keep his job, but Bush is famously “resolute” as I’m sure you’ll remember, so I’d say it’s at least 60/40 that he’d rather see the entire US Department of Justice go down in flames than force his pal out.
As we all naturally bless George W. Bush and Dick Cheney for keeping us safe from terrorism and street crime we must be sure to add this to the list of important things the small government conservatives have spent your tax dollars doing:
Federal prosecutors said today they would retry marijuana grower Ed Rosenthal on cultivation charges, even after a federal judge urged them to drop the case and chastised the government for lodging charges solely to punish the self-proclaimed “guru of ganja.”
U.S. District Court Judge Charles Breyer demanded to know who in the Department of Justice made the decision to continue pursuing Rosenthal, who had his original conviction overturned last year.
Rosenthal can’t be sentenced to prison even if he is convicted because the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals upheld the one-day prison sentence ordered by Breyer in 2003.
Newly appointed U.S. Attorney Scott Schools made the decision, said Assistant U.S. Attorney George Bevan, but he was not sure if Department of Justice officials in Washington were involved.
The judge said the government’s position to go forward left him no choice but to hold a trial, which he scheduled for May 14.
“This isn’t a criminal case, this is a political case,” said Rosenthal, who appeared in court dressed in a blue wizard’s robe with a golden marijuana leaf emblazoned over the breast. “I may as well get my money’s worth and have a trial.”
Rosenthal has written numerous books with titles such as “The Big Book of Buds” and “Ask Ed: Marijuana Law. Don’t Get Busted.” He also wrote an “Ask Ed” column for High Times magazine.
Rosenthal was convicted of three felonies in 2003 for growing hundreds of plants for a city of Oakland medical marijuana program. Breyer sentenced him to one day in prison on grounds that Rosenthal reasonably believed he was immune from prosecution because he was acting on behalf of Oakland city officials.
A federal appeals court overturned his conviction last year because of misconduct by a juror who consulted an attorney on how to decide the case. The appeals court also ruled against the government and said that the one-day prison sentence was fair, which means Rosenthal doesn’t face any more prison time even if he is convicted again.
When federal prosecutors indicted Rosenthal again on three growing charges in October over the same marijuana operation, they also added four counts of money laundering and five counts of filing false tax returns.
But Breyer tossed out those additional charges last month, saying they were solely to punish Rosenthal for winning his appeal to overturn his initial conviction. Prosecutors said Friday they wouldn’t appeal the judge’s decision to toss out those charges.
California has legalized medical marijuana. The citizens of the state have expressly said that they do not believe it should be a crime and many jurisdictions have voted to put it at the very lowest priority for law enforcement, even when there is no prescription. But the Pat Robertson U alumni of the US Department of Justice are still on the case, saving all America from the scourge of the ganja.
Thousands of white-collar criminals across the country are no longer being prosecuted in federal court — and, in many cases, not at all — leaving a trail of frustrated victims and potentially billions of dollars in fraud and theft losses.
It is the untold story of the Bush administration’s massive restructuring of the FBI after the terrorism attacks of 9/11.
Five-and-a-half years later, the White House and the Justice Department have failed to replace at least 2,400 agents transferred to counterterrorism squads, leaving far fewer agents on the trail of identity thieves, con artists, hatemongers and other criminals.
Two successive attorneys general have rejected the FBI’s pleas for reinforcements behind closed doors.
[…]
Among the findings of a six-month Seattle P-I investigation, analyzing more than a quarter-million cases touched by FBI agents and federal prosecutors before and after 9/11:
* Overall, the number of criminal cases investigated by the FBI nationally has steadily declined. In 2005, the bureau brought slightly more than 20,000 cases to federal prosecutors, compared with about 31,000 in 2000 — a 34 percent drop.
* White-collar crime investigations by the bureau have plummeted in recent years. In 2005, the FBI sent prosecutors 3,500 cases — a fraction of the more than 10,000 cases assigned to agents in 2000.
In Western Washington, the drop has been even more dramatic. Records show that the FBI sent 28 white-collar cases to prosecutors in 2005, down 90 percent from five years earlier.
* Civil rights investigations, which include hate crimes and police abuse, have continued a steady decline since the late 1990s. FBI agents pursued 65 percent fewer cases in 2005 than they did in 2000.
* Already hit hard by the shift of agents to terrorism duties, Washington state’s FBI offices suffer from staffing levels that are significantly below the national average.
Considering all that, you can see why it’s so important to prosecute someone over and over again for crimes the state they live in don’t even consider criminal. What an excellent use of scant federal resources.
But I suppose it does send a powerful message to criminals: stay away from sick people unless you are committing fraud against them or stealing their identities, in which case the government can’t be bothered. And if you want to discriminate against them, that’s ok too. But grow medical marijuana and we will harrass you until you have nothing left and no federal judge or state law will stop us.
In almost every possible way, the Bush years have been a lesson in sheer irrationality.
I can hardly believe it. McJoan catches Joe Lieberman’s advisor, the civility commissar Dan Gerstein, defending Imus out of a grave concern for the ramifications to the Democratic party.
“This is a real bind for Democrats,” said Dan Gerstein, an advisor to one of Imus’ favorite regulars, Sen. Joe Lieberman (I-Conn.). “Talk radio has become primarily the province of the right, and the blogosphere is largely the province of the left. If Imus loses his microphone, there aren’t many other venues like it around.”
What these liberal bloggers fail to appreciate is that this petty, polarizing approach is not how you ultimately win in politics – especially in an era when most average voters outside the ideological extremes are fed up with the shrill, reflexive partisanship that dominates Washington, and when the fastest growing party in America is no party.
The blogger bomb-throwing may be good for inflaming the activist base, and, as they demonstrated in the 2006 Lieberman-Lamont Senate primary race in Connecticut, for occasionally blowing up the opposition. It’s not bad for bullying your friends, either, as the liberal blogosphere did last week in pressuring Edwards to not fire the two bloggers who penned the offensive anti-religious posts.
But the typical blog mix of insults and incitements is just not an effective strategy for persuading people outside of your circle of belief – be they moderate Democrats, moderate Republicans, or the swelling number of independents – to join your cause. In fact, it’s far more likely to alienate than propagate them.
“I remember when I first had ’em on a few years ago,” Imus said. “The Jewish management at, whoever we work for, CBS, were bitchin’ at me about it.” WFAN is a subsidiary of WCBS radio.
“We had a meeting in my office,” Imus continued. “They were furious, but of course I don’t care what they say and never have.”
At this point, the show’s executive producer, Bernard McGuirk, a regular on-air presence, said of the Blind Boys, “Even if you wear a beanie, how can you not love these guys?”
“I tried to put it in terms that these money-grubbing bastards could understand,” Imus replied. “I said: ‘They’re handicapped, they’re black and they’re blind. How do we lose here?’ And then a light bulb went off over their scummy little heads.”
Imus co-host Larry Kenney, an impressionist who appeared earlier in the program as the Rev. Jerry Falwell, then said: “They probably were trying to push a more Semitic group on you. I don’t know, maybe the Paralyzed Putzes of Poland, or something like that.”
“You can’t believe what goes on behind the scenes, at least with me with these people,” Imus said. “And fortunately, I don’t care.”
No he didn’t and neither did Mr Morality, Joe Lieberman. But then, Joe also loves him some Sean Hannity, which I assume is also outreach to that vast non-partisan middle. He’s right at home there. And I have no doubt that Beck, Savage and Limbaugh will be thrilled to welcome him to their shows too.
And anyway, the Independent Lieberman and his minions needn’t worry their pretty little heads about Democrats anymore. They’ll do just fine without Don Imus’s megaphone. The only people “in the middle” who were listening to Imus were Washington insiders like Gerstein anyway and they are about as relevant as the vast hordes of Mugwumps who voted in the last election.
”, IMHO). His Clifford Irving is a charlatan and a compulsive liar, to be sure, but Gere makes him sympathetic in a carefully measured portrayal and never stoops to audience pandering.. Even as he digs himself into an ever deepening hole, and you cover your eyes because you know the other shoe is going to drop at any time, you’ve just gotta love this guy’s pure chutzpah. In retrospect, when compared to some other mass public deceptions that were brewing at the time (the Irving scandal was soon to be eclipsed in the headlines by Watergate), Irving’s fraud trial almost seems like malicious prosecution (he did end up doing jail time).
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