Digby's Hullabaloo Posts

Comedia del Morte

Miguel Estrada says that Ann Coulter is “lively and funny.” John Cloud wonders if she is really a “hard right ironist.” She herself thinks that she’s wickedly hilarious.

Well, this certainly is.

And the really, really cool thing is that this is a talking doll. Here’s an example of the hilarious one-liners she gets off: (click here to hear her do a perfect impression of Amber Waves in “Boogie Nights.”)

“Liberals can’t just come out and say they want to take our money, kill babies and discriminate on the basis of race.”

Irony has never been so subtle. Here’s another of her screamingly funny bon mots (again, click the link to hear it delivered as if she’s just swallowed a fistfull of Rush’s Oxy)

“Liberals hate America, they hate flagwavers, they hate abortion opponents. They hate all religions except Islam post 9/11. Even Islamic terrorists don’t hate America like liberals do; they don’t have the energy; if they had that much energy they’d have indoor plumbing by now.”

Cloud says, “the officialdom of punditry, so full of phonies and dullards, would suffer without her humor and fire.” I suppose if you are the kind of person who thinks that tying cats tails together and throwing them over a clothesline is funny, you might think this is too. There’s always a market for that kind of “humor” among racists, bullies and their sycophants.

One thing I notice in all this back and forth is that Cloud and other Coulter defenders don’t seem to grasp the fundamental difference between what Coulter says and what other, allegedly equally vicious, liberals like Eric Alterman say. Cloud is offended by Eric Alterman’s use of the phrase “journalistic venereal disease” to describe the current state of Time magazine. (Apparently, he cannot appreciate the literary imagery of the phrase.) What he fails to understand is that Alterman is condemning a specific article, magazine, person etc, while Coulter is dehumanizing an entire group of people.

To be fair, it isn’t just her, although she’s probably the most egregious offender. Rush has been making this same argument for years. They are fomenting a form of tribal hatred which is not something that Eric Alterman or others are doing when they caustically criticize Time magazine.

There is an overt advocation of group hatred evolving here that should be offensive to everyone. Politics is a rough game and nobody says that we all have to speak as if we are at a tea party for Queen Elizabeth. But you have to look at the substance of what people like Coulter and Limbaugh are saying. They are making millions of dollars selling the message that liberals are enemies of America. Not just wrong. Not just stupid. Not just ugly. Dangerous traitors in a time of enormous challenge and global military action. People are reading and listening to this stuff and if they don’t know better they might just think she isn’t joking. Which I would argue, she isn’t.

I don’t suggest that she shouldn’t be allowed to say what she wants (although Red State quotes her at the CPAC conference saying “this whole free speech thing is a canard.”) But it isn’t too much to ask that one of the mainstream national magazines of record not enable her overt hate mongering with a puff piece.

Cloud ends his letter to Alterman with the convenient chestnut that since both sides are screaming at him he must be fair. Coulter’s defenders are mad at him because the cover doesn’t flatter their gal enough. Liberals, on the other hand, are angry that Time magazine has seen fit to give mainstream credibility to someone who wants to annihilate them. That means he’s fair and balanced.

Check out Sommerby on this subject if you’ve forgotten to. His series is a keeper.

Oh and just for a laugh here’s a classic comment to the Red State post that expresses qualms about Coulter:

I don’t know what you guys are whining about. Ann Coulter doesn’t go on television ranting and raving like the liberals do. Remember Lawrence O’Donnell? Paul Begala? James Carville? Try Maureen Dowd. Ann is nothing like these losers but she does have a sharp wit and biting tongue and knows how to dish it out. These conspiracy theory wingnuts deserve nothing less.

That is the problem with Republicans. They don’t know how to go for the throat while the Democrats are pros at aiming for the head.

I hope Ann keeps it up and never gives an inch. She is a strength for us conservatives, not something to be ashamed of.

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The Incredible Shrinking President

Ezra makes an interesting observation today:

That reminds me: Is anyone else thinking Bush term two looks a lot like Clinton term one? Tough fights on nominations, unpopular cultural battles (gays in the military then, Schiavo now), collapse of primary domestic initiatives (Health Care reform then, privatization now), ethical investigations weakening friendly congressional leaders, and so on. The resemblance is quite close.

As a matter of fact, I’ve been noticing the same thing. Except Bush actually is a lame duck and that means his agenda is toast.

I was struck the other day as he and his cadre of ugly Republican sycophants gathered for the signing of the MBNA Usury Bill that I didn’t see much of him anymore. This after four long years of hearing his fake Texas twang day in and day out like an ear worm. Suddenly, he’s not there all the time.

It’s true that it is reminiscent of Clinton’s first term, but Clinton was always the focus of what was going on, even when they claimed he was shrinking. The press couldn’t get enough of him. Bush, on the other hand, looks lamer and lamer by the day. Now we are headed toward a new version of the government shutdown and Bush isn’t even a player. The action is in the congress and it’s a lot more interesting than listening to him repeat his sub-literate mantras day in and day out. The media isn’t that interested in him any longer.

Clearly, we are going to have to start a new front in the GWOT. It’s the only thing that will save Karl Rove’s legacy.

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The Even Greater Generation

Here’s an interesting little factoid from Utopian Turtletop

WW2 v. WOT — ONE MONTH TO GO

1,347: Number of days from the bombing of Pearl Harbor on December 7, 1941, to VJ Day (Victory in Japan) on August 15, 1945.

1,317: Number of days from the airplane-bombing of the World Trade Center and the Pentagon on September 11, 2001, to today.

If Osama makes it to May 21, he will have survived the self-declared world’s only superpower in a presidentially-declared war longer than Tojo, Hitler, and Mussolini combined.

The 101st fighting keyboarders will soon be able to proudly say that their epic war has gone on longer than the biggest conflagration in human history. And with similar results. Except for the winning part.

But damn, we typed and shopped bravely, didn’t we?

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Falling Star

Arnold is beatable. From the LA Weekly:

Arnold Schwarzenegger could well be a one-term governor. Unbelievable as that seemed at the beginning of the year, which the action superstar entered as arguably the most popular governor in California history, it may end up that way.

[…]

A telling scene came last week at a strange little event at the Capitol. Billed as a “Thank You, Arnold” rally, heavily promoted with blast e-mails, robocalls and talk radio, it was a complete bust. A mere 100 supporters turned up to see the strange duo of Hollywood libertine Tom Arnold (the comedian who was Schwarzenegger’s sidekick in True Lies) and abstemious conservative 2003 gubernatorial candidate Tom McClintock.

Read the whole article for the litany of problems the Governator is facing as his “reform” agenda is resisted by pretty much everybody.

Unsurprisingly, I think that Warren Beatty understands the problem:

“This is an Arnold picture,” says Oscar-winner Beatty. “Superman walks in the room, and shit happens. That can be pretty spectacular. As long as all the characters follow the script. But this isn’t a movie.”

This is another example of the folly of voting for superficial politics. Schwarzenneger is alleged to be a pretty smart guy. I think it was Hollywood hype. He’s a hard worker who parlayed his body into a successful Hollywood career. (Many women have done the same before him, and none of them have been called geniuses for doing it.) If he really believed that he could do something like destroy California’s public employee pension plan purely by dint of his celebrity — a little fallacy that seems to common among big shot Republicans these days — then he’s stupid.

Hollywood is full of delusional people who think that they are geniuses. The worst offenders aren’t even stars like Arnold who can, at least, prove that they can make a movie profitable merely by their presence in it more often than not. The movie executives, who are the only organizational role models Arnold has ever had, are the real offenders.

Nikki Finke has this fascinating little window into the Hollywood boardroom:

Hypocrisy, thy name is EW’s parent company, Time Warner. Chairman and CEO Dick Parsons gave himself a perk that’s a monument to ego: a 5,000-square-foot, 21st-floor, marble-and-rare-wood dream suite (a supposed $25 mil to build out) inside the swankiest and priciest NYC office space, the new Time Warner Center. Parsons and the other heads of the Mammoth Media conglomerates feeding America its infotainment — Disney, Sony, Viacom, General Electric and News Corp. — may gag on celebrity greed, but they never stop indulging their own corporate gluttony.

Wanna hurl? Look at the latest shareholders-be-damned headlines this week about Viacom — owner of Paramount, CBS, MTV, VH1, and Infinity radio — disclosing that it gave its top three moguls a 58 percent pay increase even though the company’s stock price fell 18 percent in 2004. A Viacom spokesman noted that the bonuses for all executives were tied to operating income, not share price.

It’s not just the arrogance of rich, old Viacom chairman Sumner Redstone claiming he cuts costs at every corner while at the same time lining his own pockets at the expense of investors that’s so nauseating. It’s also the profligacy of a public company shameless enough to reimburse Les Moonves, who lives in Los Angeles but also has a New York apartment, $105,000 for the period he stayed in New York at his apartment instead of at a hotel, or Tom Freston, who is based in New York but also has a residence in Los Angeles, $43,100 for the time he spent staying at his L.A. home instead of a hotel.

Years ago, in another life, I used to receive Christmas baskets from Sumner Redstone. Instead of muffins or popcorn, however, he sent Omaha steaks. He was a cheapskate in every other way, but he did know his perks.

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Battlefield Biloxi

Mississippi is among the first states in the nation to make it lawful to allow religious documents to be posted on public property.

By signing the law today, Gov. Haley Barbour “thrills” the Christian conservative base of the Republican Party, which he’ll need if he plans to seek re-election or launch a presidential campaign, said Larry J. Sabato, director of the director of the Institute of Politics at the University of Virginia.

The law gives permission to those in authority of public buildings to post The Ten Commandments, excerpts of Jesus’ Sermon on the Mount and the motto, “In God We Trust.”

“Fundamentalist Christians can be a majority of those who turn up in caucus primaries. This would be very useful in seeking the Republican nomination for president,” Sabato said.

There is only one way to deal with this. Scientologists, fully recognized as a religion by the US government, should insist on displaying their sacred documents as well. If the government of Mississippi isn’t establishing Christianity as the state religion with this act, then it will be open to displays of all religions that Americans practice, right?

I honestly think this may be a better tack to take than constantly fighting purely on the principle that no religious displays should be allowed. People evidently need to have someone draw them a picture of the problems that ensue when the government starts taking sides in religious issues. (They could read European history, but that would take time away from “Desperate Housewives”.) The hard core fundamentalists would not care because they actively seek to wipe out any religious expression but their own. However, there are many people who don’t see the harm in displaying The Ten Commandments in a courthouse. It is those people who need to be shown what happens when the government allows one religion to have official standing over another. Things get ugly. Apparently we need a demonstration of that before people will understand it.

We have been very fortunate in this country to have religions of all kinds flourishing without interference. The establishment clause, it should be remembered, was supported by evangelicals at the time because they were the most likely to be oppressed if freedom of religion was not made explicit in the new constitution. Without the establishment clause, and American government’s overall hands-off attitude, the Mormon and Pentacostal churches would never have become world religions.

I don’t know if the following is true (got it on these here internets) but I think it’s a fair illustration of the lesson:

THERE BUT FOR THE GRACE OF GOD GO I –

“On seeing several criminals being led to the scaffold in the 16th century, English Protestant martyr John Bradford remarked, ‘There but for the grace of God, goes John Bradford.’ His words, without his name, are still very common ones today for expressing one’s blessings compared to the fate of another. Bradford was later burned at the stake as a heretic.” From the “Encyclopedia of Word and Phrase Origins” by Robert Hendrickson, Facts on File, New York, 1997.

Update: Matt Yglesias has more on the difficulties awaiting the new Republican “religious” party/
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Harry Started It

David Brooks says that if it weren’t for Roe vs Wade we wouldn’t be having all this nastiness in our political discourse. And the fight over the judiciary — my gawd — nobody would even think of it:

Justice Harry Blackmun did more inadvertent damage to our democracy than any other 20th-century American. When he and his Supreme Court colleagues issued the Roe vs. Wade decision, they set off a cycle of political viciousness and counter -viciousness that has poisoned public life ever since, and now threatens to destroy the Senate as we know it.

Religious conservatives became alienated from their own government, feeling that their democratic rights had been usurped by robed elitists. Liberals lost touch with working-class Americans because they never had to have a conversation about values with those voters; they could just rely on the courts to impose their views. The parties polarized as they each became dominated by absolutist activists.

I think he’s right. In fact, all those right wingers who agitated for the impeachment (and worse) of Earl Warren in the 1960’s were not actually upset about Brown vs board of education or Griswald vs Connecticut or any of the other decisions that we thought had set the wingnuts aflame during the era. It was because they were anticipating that the Supreme Court was going to find a right to abortion in 1973.

Here’s how The Eagle Forum so cleverly covers their tracks:

The Warren Court (1953-1969) fueled the Culture War into an inferno and then placed the federal judiciary squarely in the white-hot center of the conflagration. “Impeach Earl Warren” signs exploded like rockets across the nation as Americans began to realize what was happening. But the courts and the Constitution have remained at the center of our culture conflict, and much of the Warren Court’s legacy remains in tact.

Clearly, they refuse to admit that until Roe vs Wade in 1973 the right had no issues with the courts. Indeed, everyone got along just great. They bore no ill will for the court that found “separate but equal” to be unconstitutional. Oh no, it wasn’t until poor Harry Blackmun found that a woman had a right to the privacy of her own body that the right decided that the “robed elitists” had usurped their democratic rights. All that impeachment talk before then was just good clean fun.

Thus, the culture war is all about abortion and not, as some have erroneously assumed, a half century of struggle over fundamental issues of social justice, tolerance, individual rights and modernity in general. This whole thing is a simple disagreement between upstanding conservatives saving cute little babies from black robed elitists and lazy liberals refusing to admit that equal rights under the law is a matter for legislative negotiation with Rick Santorum.

That Brooks, he’s a keen social observer and historical analyst. He figured this out, I’m sure, over a Bud light and a plate of popcorn shrimp down at Coco’s.

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Ball Gag

So Howard “I couldn’t even beat a stiff like Bill Jones” Kaloogian has another one of his fun little smear jobs up on his “Moving America Back To The Dark Ages” site. (He is, for those who don’t know, one of the guys who instigated the California Recall.)

Here’s the transcript of the “ad”:

Wife: Honey, were you watching C-SPAN today? Did you hear how disloyal Senator Voinovich was to Republicans and President Bush? Voinovich stood with the Democrats and refused to vote for John Bolton, the man President Bush has chosen to fight for the United States at the UN

Husband: No, I was streaming it on the Internet at the office, but from what I could tell, Senator Voinovich played hookey from the hearings?

Wife: Yeah that’s right. He’s missed most of the Bolton confirmation hearings, but then shows up at the last minute and stabs the President and Republicans right in the back.

Husband: That’s ridiculous – the United Nations needs reform, we need someone who will stand up for the United States and fight the UN’s corruption and anti-Americanism.

Wife: Shame on Senator Voinovich. After the Democrats smeared Condoleeza Rice for Secretary of State and Alberto Gonzales for Attorney General, how could Voinovich side with the Democrats in smearing John Bolton?

Husband: It seems like Senator Voinovich has become a traitor to the Republican Party.

Wife: Enough’s enough. I’m logging on to Move America Forward dot com to register my protest with Senator Voinovich’s office.

Husband: What was that site? Move America Forward dot com ?

Wife: Yep, Move America Forward dot com

It must be awfully uncomfortable being told that either you become a submissive slave to the right wing or you are a traitor. Welcome to our world Senator Voinovich.

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Unlawful Combatants

The word that Moussaoui may be pleading guilty today reminds me that we haven’t heard anything about the alleged dirty bomber, Jose Padilla, for a while. His name will be remembered in history as the the Supreme court ruling that held that the government could keep someone imprisioned with no due process indefinitely simply by moving him or her from jurisdiction to jurisdiction. As it happens, The Talking Dog did a lengthy and interesting interview with Padilla’s lawyer just this week:

Talking Dog: Do you think that, by and large, the American people actually care about this case, and care about what happens in it?

Donna Newman: I’m afraid the answer is no. Most people think that at least they’re taking a terrorist off the street- they’re making ME safer. But they’re not, of course. This makes us less secure– not more secure. What’s that famous statement…

Talking Dog: Ben Franklin’s quip that “they who would trade their precious liberty for a little temporary security
deserve neither”?

Donna Newman: Exactly. What we have here is a decision not made by the people– but by their government. In this country, the Congress makes the laws, and the President executes them. The President MUST follow the laws of Congress. Congress passed a law [18 U.S.C. § 4001(a) (2000) (the “Non-Detention Act”)] expressly prohibiting the President from detaining citizens on U.S. soil without CONGRESSIONAL authorization to do so, and the President had, and has, no such authorization. The President didn’t ask Congress to pass a law to give him such authorization. And even if he did, such a law would probably be unconstitutional. Not because anyone condones terrorism, or anything like that. But there are reasons we do things. In Germany– and I hate to use that as an example, but it’s true– in Germany people turned their backs on the first few infringements and it just kept going. For another thing, we need to protect our soldiers over in Iraq and elsewhere fighting for us. That’s why we’re strong. It’s our laws and that we follow them that make us strong. Without them, how are we different from other countries? I believe in our Constitution. YOu just can’t take someone on the street, lock them up, and say that the rules don’t apply to them. You just can’t.

Well, apparently you can. My favorite part of this is that she had filed the original writ of habeas corpus in New York because that’s where she thought her client was. She did not know for sure, of course, because she wasn’t allowed to see him and the government wouldn’t tell her. And then the court decided that because she had filed in the wrong jurisdiction they could not deal with the merits of the case. Needless to say this opens up a whole lotta possibilities for the government in future cases like this one.

This court has made some doozy decisions and this one will be right up there with the worst of them. Gawd help us if we have another terrorist attack.

Of course, this shouldn’t be surprising considering that the government was sending around requests in Iraq for a torture “wish list.”

Army intelligence officials in Iraq developed and circulated “wish lists” of harsh interrogation techniques they hoped to use on detainees in August 2003, including tactics such as low-voltage electrocution, blows with phone books and using dogs and snakes — suggestions that some soldiers believed spawned abuse and illegal interrogations.

[…]

In both incidents, a previously disclosed Aug. 14, 2003, e-mail from the joint task force headquarters in Baghdad to top U.S. human-intelligence gatherers in Iraq is cited as a potential catalyst.

Capt. William Ponce wrote that “the gloves are coming off” because casualties were mounting and officers needed better intelligence to fight the insurgency. Ponce solicited “wish lists” from interrogators and gave them three days to respond. That message was forwarded throughout the theater, including to officials at Abu Ghraib, where notorious abuse followed.

At the 4th Infantry Division’s detention facility in Tikrit, the e-mail caused top intelligence officials to develop a list including open-hand strikes, closed-fist strikes, using claustrophobic techniques and a number of “coercive” techniques such as striking with phone books, low-voltage electrocution and inducing muscle fatigue. The list was sent back to Baghdad on Aug. 17.

Interrogators used the perception of newfound latitude to interview an unidentified detainee on Sept. 23, 2003. According to the detainee’s statement, he was made to lie across folding chairs while an interrogator beat the soles of his feet with a police baton. He said he was later hit in the back and the buttocks with the baton while in a painful stress position.

This is what we do when we are the ones who invade the country allegedly to liberate the people. Imagine what this nation will do if another catastrophic terrorist attack happens. The Padilla case precedent will undoubtedly be used to justify holding large numbers of people in secret detention in unknown jusrisdictions indefinitely. Since they won’t have access to a lawyer or advocate of any kind, God only knows what will be done to them.

Correction: Original habeas corpus filed in NY. Corrected in the post.
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Speaking of Superstition

Evidently people believe that the water stain on this overpass looks like the Virgin Mary:

Personally, I think it looks like this:

or maybe this:

That water stain brings all kinds of things to mind that are worthy of reverence.

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The Pope Show

My cable has been out for several days so until this morning I hadn’t had the pleasure of watching “The Pope Show” on CNN for a while. In fact, I thought that it might be on hiatus since the old pope was dead and the new one had been named. Not so. The show has been renewed. Now it’s “The New Pope Show.” (They were going to call it “God’s Rottweiler” but it didn’t focus group well among dog lovers.) Episode one was today. He led a mass and had a photo op. He also plays the piano. Wadda guy.

I am not surprised that Catholics like Andrew Sullivan are worried and depressed or that conservatives would be excited and thrilled to see a re-affirmation of their authoritarianism and bigotry. These are the good old days for reactionaries, after all. But liberals needn’t fear. CNN’s Jennifer Eccleston just said that this new pope is “sending a message, saying ‘hey, guys, I’m not as conservative as you think!'”

Like, he is so totally not, like, super conservative, even! Kewl.

John Powers wrote a wonderful piece this week in the LA Weekly about death, declinism the conservative capture of the media. I urge you to read the whole thing, but I think this captures what so enraptures the conservatives and their media handmaidens — simplicity and infallibility. That’s what people like about this papal orgy and that’s why they voted for Dubya.

As often happens these days, the pope’s death and funeral took on a ghastly reactionary tinge. The right tried to hijack everything from John Paul II’s most conservative ideas — you didn’t exactly hear Fox News analysts talking up his criticisms of capitalism or the Iraq war — to his aura of unassailable rectitude. President Bush was especially eager to wrap himself in the papal robes. Whereas Bill Clinton said that John Paul II had been right about some things and wrong about others, Dubya said he couldn’t think of a case where the pontiff had been wrong. That seems reasonable to me. After all, if one infallible leader can’t spot another, who the hell can?

I had heard that the church has trouble recruiting priests these days so it would seem that every single priest in the country has appeared on CNN these last three weeks. Every day it’s someone new with more warm words for the old pope and even warmer ones for the new pope with Wolf and Darryn and the rest genuflecting and squealing like a bunch of 7th graders at an N Sync concert. One of the priests just said that Ratzinger’s election was the work of the Holy Spirit (rather than the result of keen political maneuvering.) This is America, after all, where only most superstitious interpretation of anything is deemed credible. And just now Kyra Phillips showed us how to get to the new pope’s fan club, which is totally awesome. Miles says that we are going to a papal photo-op in a couple of minutes and I’m so excited.

I would really like to hear anyone say with a straight face that the American news media are hostile to religion. To one who is not religious, it’s become an oppressive and suffocating ubiquitous topic that feels an awful lot like proselytising. Whatever. The new supah-star, meaty-cheesy Pope Benedict is saying “hey guys, I’m not so ultra-conservative!” But he is indubitably infallible, so that’s good.

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