Half Wrong?
by digby
Just in case anyone is in contact with the NY Times on the Sparling incident, here’s his YouTube appearance with Alan Colmes and it challeges the reporter’s version of events. According to him he didn’t spit back.
Curiouser and curiouser. Will the NY Times stick with its story?
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Yes, Yes, Yes
by digby
Obama makes the bold move and it’s very smart. Not only is it the right thing to do (yes, that should enter the equation) I think it’s the savvy political move.
When the AUMF was being debated and all the presidential club members voted for it, I wrote that it would do them no good. If the war went well, they didn’t have a chance. If it didn’t their vote would hang around their neck.
The same dynamic is at play today except the stakes are much higher. This time it’s McCain or Rudy who will gain if the war is going well next year. (Fat chance.) And if it isn’t, people will be looking to Democrats who took a bold stand to end it, not those who played around the edges.
No Democrat will get any points for being wishy washy on the war at this point. They will get lots of points for being up front and offering a reasonable alternative.
In for a penny in for pound guys. If the presidential club is smart at all they’ll sign on or up the ante. There’s no margin in non-binding resolutions or adding more Friedman Units at this point. Good for Obama.
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More Than One Way
by digby
..to get our message across. And Joshua Sparling won’t have to endure any more vicious peace marchers:
From MoveOn:
On Thursday, February 1st, 2007, we’re aiming to send 1 million messages to Congress. We’ll deliver petition signatures from hundreds of thousands of Americans all over the nation who are opposed to escalation in Iraq. Then, we’ll call our senators all day to let them know that the Senate has to oppose the president’s plan to escalate the war and that we’re counting on them to block it.
Go sign up. It is a great way to keep the pressure on.
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Girl Humor
by digby
Chris Matthews has come up with his working thesis to explain the Hillary campaign. Apparently, this stupid “joke” about “evil men” reveals her entire strategy: she’s going to win by appealing to “the girls.”
From yesterday’s Hardball:
Is there a strategy, Lynn Sweet, for her to simply say, OK, let‘s do it, play it my way, that she knows what she‘s doing, OK, because she can play it the other way, that she doesn‘t know what she‘s doing. And I don‘t want to do that because that‘s unfair. Suppose she says, I‘m going to be in a crowded field with seven or eight men. I‘m going into a Democratic caucus. Half the people, at least, are women. Why not play the gender card right up front and say, I‘m taking my 50 percent away from this table. Let the other guys divvy up their 50 percent.
Cuz them bitches all stick together.
Today he was banging on it again because he is sure that her joke was aimed straight at her evil husband and the people who laughed were a bunch of nasty “girls” who all enjoyed her hitting him below the belt.
Matthews: …it’s an in joke among some women. Now look at that with all that teeth and all those giggles among the girls…you don’t compare a guy who killed three thousand people to somebody who had a little trouble with an intern…
Buchanan: Why is the press all over her?
Matthews: Because she won’t honestly admit what she does
Buchanan: Why don’t they let it go?
Matthews: Because, Mr defender-of-all-women, the problem is she won’t admit a candid joke. Ok, the only reason this is an issue is, after she went back into her football formation, to her huddle backstage with the people around her, Howard Wolfson etc., says “Oh that wasn’t about Bill, that was about Osama bin laden.”
Buchanan: That’s because guys were asking her “what’s that about, who’s that about” and got their pens out.
Matthews: Who’s the butt of the joke?
Buchanan: She should have said, “It was a joke and moved out”
Matthews: But she didn’t. You can defend her all you want but if she doesn’t come clean…
Here’s the problem reverend Sharpton. Everybody knows that Hillary Clinton is a calculating politician, she doesn’t have the street instincts of Bill, she can’t move spontaneously, she has to come with a caravan of onsultants but that’s one thing. If she has to now talk to a caravan of consultants after she cracks a joke, there have been three different interpretations she came out with the other day — is that a problem on the stumpt?
Sharpton: … It’s not like you’re going to have a battle of spontanaity
Matthews: Hah! Yeah that is a problem. But I’ll tell you one thing. I thought the joke was wrong because as much as I have been tough on Bill Clinton over the years I don’t think it’s fair to compare him to Osama bin Laden. it falls flat. It’s a clinker. It’s like never compare anyone to Hitler, don’t compare somebody to osama bin Laden.
Buchanan: A clinker! When everybody in the room was laughting their head off?
Matthews: Because it was girl humor.About girls abnd the trouble they have with men.
And that could be her strategy. “We girls have had a lot of trouble with men. Let’s face it, I’ve had to deal with Bill. Let’s face it. Let’s all giggle together.”
But then if you’re asked, “What did you mean by that?” It’s like “Oh, I didn’t mean that!”
I have never seen any man so afraid of a woman as Chris Matthews is of Hillary Clinton. I don’t know if he thinks she’s going to sign an executive order to castrate all the men in DC or what, but he does seem to be convinced that she’s going to win by garnering the man-hating harpy vote.
After spending the last year telling everyone who would listen that red blooded men all over America might say they would vote for her, but they wouldn’t “pull the lever” once they were inside the voting booth, the codpiece ogling Matthews clearly believes that “mommy party” Dems are fools to elect a person without one, especially when those bulging dreamboats Giuliani and McCain are on the other side.
I don’t know who this guy hangs around with or why he’s got such a problem with women, but his “giggling–girl humor” crap is insulting to decent human beings everywhere.
(And by the way, I would bet some serious money that the butt of the joke was actually evil sexist fucks like Chris Matthews. Perhaps somewhere in his lizard brain Matthews knows that which is why he’s suddenly bravely defending the Clenis against his own wife.)
You won’t believe how he ended the segment. He asked Sharpton whether Bill would go along with this and Sharpton said he would “play whatever position he needs to play.”
Matthews replied:
In other words, if she has to paddle him at every stop of this campaign with a big wooden paddle, he’ll lean over and take it.
Issues?
* Not that it has anything to do with anything, but on yesterday’s show Matthews literally drooled down his chin until a big drop of saliva clung to the bottom threatening to drop off. Perhaps he had some dental work or is on drugs or something, but it was a damned disgusting thing to see. Too much spit for me this week.
Update: Bob Sommerby covers the same ground today and makes another observation that I think is spot on:
What did Clinton have in mind? Empty pundits—people like Matthews—were instantly sure that they knew. The war in Iraq continues to rage—but this was Matthews’ first topic last night. Who was Clinton joking about? He asked Lynn Sweet of the Chicago Sun-Times—and Sweet embarrassed herself:
SWEET (1/29/07): Well, what I think they were laughing at is the thought that cropped into my mind, Chris, and that is Bill Clinton`s name did come into my mind. There are some people who I interviewed, and that`s what they said. It’s a Rorschach. And what is interesting here—I don’t think it matters so much what she was thinking. I think what was instructive for all of us is what people who were out there were thinking. That’s what’s the key here.
What a perfect press corps moment! Bill Clinton’s name “came into Sweet’s mind!” And not only that—she also interviewed “some people” who had the same reaction. (Were these “people” other journalists? Sweet didn’t specifically say.) To Sweet, this pretty much settled the matter. Good God! It doesn’t matter what Clinton was thinking, Sweet told her host; what really matters is what occurred to Lynn Sweet! Let us translate: Sweet wants to talk about Bill Clinton’s d*ck, and because that d*ck came into her head, she assumed that it came into everyone else’s—and she says, therefore, that this is what“matters.” Obviously, Sweet doesn’t know what the other thousand people in that crowd were actually thinking. But it’s perfect! Because Bill Clinton popped into her head, she says that is “what is interesting.”
I just heard Howard Fineman say “The joke was about her husband, OBVIOUSLY.”
Was it?
Truly, I assumed she was talking about the famous “vast rightwing conspiracy” and only realized that it could be taken to mean her husband as she said it. And I also thought she wisely didn’t elaborate later because she had sort of compared them to Osama bin Laden and knew that would really set off a firestorm. But then so has wingnut extraordinaire Dinesh D’Souza, so I actually don’t see why that should be controversial.
The Queen Of All Iraq Takes The Stand
by digby
I just had a chance to catch up on today’s Libby blogging and it’s priceless. Judy’s doing her full-on diva routine, slouching, gesticulating, sniffling and eye-rolling.
M says she doesn’t remember affadvit
J is it true that you were planning to write an article
M Sir I wasn’t planning to write an article [ohh, angry Judy]
J Didn’t you talk to the bureau chief
M I was not going to write the story. It was not my assignment.
J puts up affadvit from Miller
M Yes I signed it.
J You did contemplate writing one or more articles in July 2003, about issues related to Wilson.
M Yes, but not about Wilson and Plame, there were other things I wanted to pursue
J You said you met with several potential sources.
J Who were the others. Can you remember just one of them?
Judy wipes nose.
She’s got her chin in her hand.
Now reading through something–looks like Kristof’s article.
Judy back to looking straight ahead, now lookingfown, back to not breathing, bends forward t oget something. Arms folded. Eyes roll up into head. Looking down. Back to reading whatever is in front of her. Wipes nose.
Haha.
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“They Tried To Kill Me”
by digby
So apparently the NY Times journalist who reported the spitting incident apparently personally saw Cpl. Joshua Sparling getting spit upon.
Hughes for America has the story:
The latest in a long line of controversies surrounding veteran Joshua Sparling, who lost part of a leg in Iraq, started with this New York Times article penned by Ian Urbina, with help from Sarah Abruzzese and Suevon Lee. “There were a few tense moments, however,” the story read, “including an encounter involving Joshua Sparling, 25, who was on crutches and who said he was a corporal with the 82nd Airborne Division and lost his right leg below the knee in Ramadi, Iraq. Mr. Sparling spoke at a smaller rally held earlier in the day at the United States Navy Memorial, and voiced his support for the administration’s policies in Iraq. Later, as antiwar protesters passed where he and his group were standing, words were exchanged and one of the antiwar protestors spit at the ground near Mr. Sparling; he spit back.”
[…]
Adding to these important questions is the account of an interesting encounter Saturday between one protester and a woman claiming to be a reporter for the New York Times. The protester, in a letter to Urbina, wrote, “[Abruzzese] turned to me and told me she had seen a protester spit on a soldier and asked for my comment. I told her I didn’t believe that, and she repeated that she had seen this happen. I told her the peace movement is more supportive of the troops than anyone who supports this war, because we want our troops to come home, while those who support the war are advocating sending them into harm’s way. So I really could not believe that anyone who opposed the war had spit on a soldier. My comments were not included in your story.” She continues, “I was upset when I read your story the next day to see this was an ‘alleged’ incident and the protester had supposedly spit on the ground in front of the soldier (which is quite different from spitting ON this soldier). In other words, what was related in your story was not at all what that reporter had told me. So she either lied to me or your story is false.”
In follow-up call with Urbina, the protester reports that he[Urbina] claims to have received 150-plus e-mails about the story. He also maintained that Abruzzese actually saw the incident and that the protester cited in the story spat on Sparling, not “at the ground near” him, which the Times originally reported.
So there you have it. The NY Times reporter claims that Sparling was spat upon. Why she reported it as she did remains a mystery. But, I’ll take her word for it that it happened. It would now be helpful if the paper of record could clear up some of the Rashoman aspects of this incident since the reporter was in the thick of it and could set the record straight.
Sparling was everywhere relating his tale yesterday. Michele Malkin wrote about it on her blog and went on O’Reilly and talked about it.
Here is the tale Sparling told on Hannity’s radio show:
Hannity: I read the reports that you got spit at.
Sparling: Yeah. That was the worst afternoon of being an American that I’ve ever had in my life. They actually made me ashamed to be a soldier. They kept calling me a baby killer and a murderer and said I was a disgrace, they wish I would have stayed in Iraq, that I have blood all over my hands.
One guy, before the police blocked it off and it was just them on one side and us on the other about 10 yards apart, they were allowed to walk right on the sidewalk where we were and one of the fellas just spit right on me.
The other people were too far away to hit me with theirs. But this guy did — and the worst thing is that he had a little 82nd patch on his little backpack and I’m in the 82nd and that really got to me there.
Hannity: Did anyone see this or did you have any witnesses? Do you know who this guy is? Could you get him arrested?
Sparling: Uh, I don’t know who the fella is. I just know him by his description. But I had my girlfriend there, my father was there and some of the other members of our group, the Freedom group and uh…
Hannity: Here you gave your life for your country, you go off and pur your life at risk for your country for the right of these morons to say whatever they like at their little peace rally there and the thanks you get for this is just like a lot of vets after Vietnam. You get spit at.
Sparling: You know, that’s exactly … I thought back … and sure it wasn’t as bad as it was back then, but it was like, wow, this is what what they felt like.
And speaking to them over the megaphone I had, I was… I believe that if you speak calmly and rationally to people that they’ll listen, that if you scream they’re only gonna scream back and you’re not going to get anything accomplished whatsoever.
And so I was talking and there was people screamin “Oh you’re just upset because you can’t run!” Stuff like that.
People were furious just so much, by me talking and saying that I was a vet and that I believe in my cause, that they were actually rushing the police to get to me and they were threatening that they were gonna kill me and all this. Three of these individuals were actually waiting for me to try to get me when the rally was over. Thety were gonna wait for me and then take me out after it was over.
Hannity: Well look, it’s an incredible story, it’s sad, but it’s revealing.
No kidding.
Sparling appeared this morning on Fox and Friends, where he embellished his story further:
Obviously, I’m not going to judge all of them because there were a couple of peaceful people who just walked by.
But for the most part, there was people just lining the fences, jumping over it, screaming and trying to get at us and there were a couple of people waiting with clubs to meet me with after it was over with and the police had to stop them from bull rushing us on the sidewalk.
It’s a wonder that they didn’t call out the riot squad.
Watch the interview. You will see Sparling’s father appear and complain about being broke, which he has been doing on Hannity’s show since at least January 2005. (Maybe Sean could fork over something more than an Ipod, the cheap bastard — or help the old man get a job.)
Weirdly, while Sparling was telling his tale of slavering beasts jumping fences and threatening to kill him, there was a split screen showing the actual march. (And stick it out to the end, because you just won’t believe it):
That’s sweet, isn’t it? (And I mean that.) I’ve come to believe this kid is just basking in the warmth of his FreeRepublic family and these stories are getting him lots of attention and love. (His father, however, claims he was fired because his son was sick and he’s been in DC for over a year while the kid is in the hospital. I can’t help but wonder if he might have spotted an opportunity.)
But be that as it may, Sparling really is hurling some awful accusations and Fox News, the wingnutosphere and talk radio are airing it.
I would be very interested to know if the NY Times reporter who witnessed Sparling being spit upon saw any of this other violent activity. I wonder if the police remember any of it. Did anyone see this man with the 82nd Airborn patch on his backpack? Is that who the reporter saw, and if so, is it absolutely certain that it was a protestor and not someone who was affiliated with the Free Republic group? Were other protesters spitting from farther away at the time and couldn’t hit him, as Sparling alleges?
Lots of questions, few answers. But the NY Times put its imprimatur on this young man’s story, gave it credibility and now it has legs. They should take a look at Sparling’s frequent run-ins throughout the country with rude and violent anti-Iraq war Americans — people who are such cretins that they scream, “You’re just upset because you can’t run,” to a man who lost his leg. They deserve to be exposed if they exist.
I know that people out there must have video footage of the march and it would be probably be a good idea to start putting it up on YouTube.
Update: Media Matters has more.
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Why Don’t We Just Crown Him King
by digby
…and get it over with:
President Bush has signed a directive that gives the White House much greater control over the rules and policy statements that the government develops to protect public health, safety, the environment, civil rights and privacy.
In an executive order published last week in the Federal Register, Mr. Bush said that each agency must have a regulatory policy office run by a political appointee, to supervise the development of rules and documents providing guidance to regulated industries. The White House will thus have a gatekeeper in each agency to analyze the costs and the benefits of new rules and to make sure the agencies carry out the president’s priorities.
The 58% of the country who just want the Bush presidency to be over with are in for a rude awakening. Bush and Cheney are racing to rape and pillage the country as much as they can until they are term limited out. They just don’t give a damn what the people want, never have, and they know full well that nothing will happen to them. In fact, performance in office is now completely irrelevant.
For the full up-is-down Monty, check this out:
In an interview on Monday, Jeffrey A. Rosen, general counsel at the White House Office of Management and Budget, said, “This is a classic good-government measure that will make federal agencies more open and accountable.”
Will there ever be a straw that breaks the camels back? I’m beginning to doubt it. They are just plowing through everything, domestic and foreign, getting their spoils before they are cashiered in 2009. It’s the most amazing chutzpah I’ve ever seen.
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America In The Balance
by digby
The right has a new obsession with “balance” just like the news media. This even translates into teaching schoolchildren crackpot science so that their cretinous parents aren’t offended by the truth:
Frosty Hardison is neither impressed nor surprised that An Inconvenient Truth, the global-warming movie narrated by former vice president Al Gore, received an Oscar nomination last week for best documentary.
“Liberal left is all over Hollywood,” he grumbled a few hours after the nomination was announced.
Hardison, a parent of seven in Federal Way, Wash., a southern suburb of Seattle, has himself roiled the global-warming waters. It happened early this month when he learned that one of his daughters would be watching An Inconvenient Truth in her seventh-grade science class.
“No you will not teach or show that propagandist Al Gore video to my child, blaming our nation – the greatest nation ever to exist on this planet – for global warming,” Hardison wrote in an e-mail to the Federal Way School Board. The computer consultant is an evangelical Christian who says he believes that a warming planet is “one of the signs” of Jesus Christ’s imminent return for Judgment Day.
His angry e-mail, along with complaints from a few other parents, stopped the film from being shown to Hardison’s daughter.
The teacher in that science class, Kay Walls, says that after Hardison’s e-mail she was told by her principal that she would receive a disciplinary letter for not following school board rules that require her to seek written permission to present “controversial” materials in class.
The e-mail also pressured the school board to impose a ban on screenings of the film for the district’s 22,500 students.
The ban, which the school board says was merely a “moratorium,” was lifted last week, subject to rigorous conditions. Still, the action has appalled the film’s producers and triggered a ferocious national backlash.
Apparently, if certain parents “believe” that 4+4 equals 278 or that the moon is made of cream cheese, the schools are now obliged to teach it in order to create some phony sense of balance.
Is it really out of line for the school district to politely say no to these people? Do they have no professional integrity? But perhaps they actually agree with this claptrap, in which case they have just made a very good argument for standards — not of teachers, but of administrators and school boards.
This is getting out of hand. These fundamentalists are using their religion as a political bludgeon that’s making this nation even less informed than it already is. And it’s very badly informed:
Thirteen percent of Americans have never heard of global warming even though their country is the world’s top source of greenhouse gases, a 46-country survey showed on Monday.
The report, by ACNielsen of more than 25,000 Internet users, showed that 57 percent of people around the world considered global warming a “very serious problem” and a further 34 percent rated it a “serious problem.”
“It has taken extreme and life-threatening weather patterns to finally drive the message home that global warming is happening and is here to stay unless a concerted, global effort is made to reverse it,” said Patrick Dodd, the President of ACNielsen Europe.
People in Latin America were most worried while U.S. citizens were least concerned with just 42 percent rating global warming “very serious.“
The United States emits about a quarter of all greenhouse gases, the biggest emitter ahead of China, Russia and India.
Thirteen percent of U.S. citizens said they had never heard or read anything about global warming, the survey said.
Almost all climate scientists say that temperatures are creeping higher because of heat-trapping greenhouse gases released by burning fossil fuels.
The study also found that 91 percent of people had heard about global warming and 50 percent reckoned it was caused by human activities.
A U.N. report due on Friday is set to say it is at least 90 percent probable that human activities are the main cause of warming in the past 50 years.
People in China and Brazil were most convinced of the link to human activities and Americans least convinced.
The survey said that people living in regions vulnerable to natural disasters seemed most concerned — ranging from Latin Americans worried by damage to coffee or banana crops to people in the Czech Republic whose country was hit by 2002 floods.
In Latin America, 96 percent of respondents said they had heard of global warming and 75 percent rated it “very serious.”
So you can see why it’s such a good thing that there are people out there who are ensuring that American children are taught “alternative theories” to what causes global warming which presumably include the idea that it’s a sign that Judgement Day is coming.
I hope Americans have enjoyed being the richest, most powerful nation on earth because it’s going to be over very soon if this keeps up. A country this willfully dumb cannot stay on top.
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Heads Up
by digby
It looks like the media are going to be dogging Democratic presidential contenders for “botched jokes” this cycle. They managed to run Kerry out of the race with his, so why not try it on Clinton?
Word to the wise, Dems. Remember that you are auditioning before those important arbiters of comedy, the famously witty members of the DC press corps. Recall how sharp they were at the funniest Washington event in recent memory and behave accordingly. (Hint: they don’t get jokes. Too complicated.)
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