Digby's Hullabaloo Posts

Was Ken Mehlman The Maid Of Honor?

Atrios has posted a Drudge story about Arthur Finkelstein allegedly getting married in Massachusetts to his lover of forty years. The couple have two adopted children.

For those of you who don’t know the full extent of Arthur Finkelstein’s heroic self-loathing, read this article:

Finkelstein’s signature style emerges through the ads he creates. Two recent adds brand Democrats as liberals: “Call liberal Paul Wellstone. Tell him it’s wrong to spend billions more on welfare,” one ad states.

“That’s liberal,” says another. “That’s Jack Reed. That’s wrong. Call liberal Jack Reed and tell him his record on welfare is just too liberal for you.”

“That’s the Finkelstein formula: just brand somebody a liberal, use the word over and over again, engage in that kind of name-calling,” said Democratic consultant Mark Mellman.

Arthur Finkelstein, more than any other person in this country, is the one who made the word “liberal” into a dirty word.

In the end, I suppose it’s quite sweet, actually, that the rabid gay baiter Jesse Helms depended on the openly gay Finkelstein to consult on his racist and homophobic campaigns. What a big tent these mean and macho Republicans pitch when they let their hair down.

It would seem that they have no problem with gays marrying each other as long as they are willing to bash other gays who want to marry each other. Arthur’s still very much in the game. Here’s his latest little project:

Stop Her Now,” is the name of the new Web site soon to be launched by Arthur Finkelstein, the chief political guru of New York Governor George Pataki, and one of the country’s most successful yet least known political consultants/spin doctors. The “Her” at StopHerNow.com is New York Senator Hillary Clinton. According to the New York Post, Finkelstein, the longtime master of the political attack ad, hopes the site will raise as much as $10 million from Hillary-haters across the nation and provide a gathering point for conservative activists working to defeat her in next year’s Senatorial election. Hillary’s defeat would likely derail any presidential aspirations she might have.

It’s a mistake to think that Karl Rove is the evil puppetmaster of the GOP. It’s just that Rove had so little to work with that he’s considered something of a genius. There are a whole bunch of evil puppetmasters and they’ve been around for a long time. This modern GOP is Nixon’s party. They like to think they are Reagan’s party, but they are Nixon’s party. Dirty politics is their specialty. And Arthur Finkelstein is one of the Grand Vizier’s of the game.

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Pillow Talking Points

According to TBOGG, Rush said this yesterday about the Darling Martinez memo:

What was wrong with this? What’s wrong with the Republicans having political strategy sessions? They didn’t in this case, but even if they had, so what?

Here’s what the future ex-Mrs Limbaugh (thanks GL) said:

Basically a political memo that said the fight over the removing Schiavo’s feeding tube is a great political issue, and a tough issue for Democrats. News of the day, comes out of Mel Martinez’ office. He’s fired an aide who allegedly wrote this. Ed Henry question — what’s the big deal?

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New Star

For those who didn’t see the NPC blogging, ass-fucking and journalism panel this morning, the great Crooks and Liars has the highlights for you right here.

Gannon has quite the schtick going for him. I don’t know if it’s a natural gift or if he has had help, but he handled it all quite deftly, I thought. He makes absolutely no sense, wanders off into unrelated subjects, claims victimhood at every turn, avoids questions like a pro and appears to me to be incredibly stupid, arrogant and deluded all at the same time. A clown that nobody in their right mind could take seriously. In others words, meet the next GOP nominee for President of the United States.

I spent years right on this old blog screeching about George W. Bush being just as I described, assuming that any sentient person could see that he makes no sense, that he speaks in riddles that he is coached (badly) and that he has absolutely no idea that he is an idiot. It took me a long time realize that that is exactly what a lot of people like about him. He doesn’t need to make sense as long as he claims to represent the “real” people who are predisposed to support him against the pointy headed know-it-alls who lord over them. I have little doubt that they think Gannon really kicked ass.

“And why shouldn’t the president have one person who will tell his side of the story? Fox is fair and balanced, they have to tell all sides. It’s not right that president Bush has to spend tax payer money just to get his story told. I’m so sick of this liberal media.”

“You know he was a marine don’t you, Ethel?” “I heard that. He looks like one too.”

I think Gannon’s assertion that FOXNews is not conservative was his “Christ, he changed mah heart moment.” I expect that he’s on his way to a comeback. The right takes care of its own, even if they sell out the country to the Russian mob or advertise their prositution services with pictures of themselves pissing on the internet. It’s all good.

Matt Yglesias was just great and I especially enjoyed his incredulous amusement at Gannon’s nonsense. It is always difficult to argue with aliens from other planets, but I thought that Matt did it very well. It remains important that as we go into this bizarre new era of elastic truth and contrived alternate storylines that normal, intelligent people continue to operate within the bounds of verifiable reality. Somebody’s got to keep score.

And Wonkette was a big surprise. She was unrelenting with old JG and she came the closest to rattling his bizarre robotic composure. Maybe it takes an aggressive, unflappable female with a sense of humor to get to wierd gay Republicans like Guckert. I saw a little bitchy sneer on his face come forth as she was questioning him and it would have been interesting if she’d been allowed to continue. Unfortunately, all the timorous and delicate old ladies of the DC press club were willing to host a panel featuring a real mediawhore, but they weren’t willing to let the discussion go where it would naturally lead.

I’m not saying that they needed to spend the hour addressing the fact that Guckert has his pictures plastered all over the internet illegally selling his body for money, but it is such an amazing turn around from just a few years ago when the DC press corp had no compunctions whatsoever about spending month after month speculating about the sex lives of the president, first lady and Monica Lewisnky (plus all of her former lovers) without a minute spared as to whether the details were relevant to any particular public discussion. And to the best of my knowledge, there weren’t even any naked pictures.

It’s very nice that they have now decided that these private matters are off limits when it comes to male prostitutes in the white house press corps with connections to Republican operatives and born again Christians who believe that sexual morals should be policed by the federal government. It will be interesting to see if they hold to this new regard for personal privacy when the next GOP pimped sex scandal pops up.

In the end, these panels about “what constitutes journalism” will probably become perennial just as the “why can’t we stop ourselves from only covering the horserace” panels that crop up after every election. The internet is changing all of it and nobody knows where it’s going. All the talking in the world isn’t going to make a lick of difference. Everybody’s just along for the ride — bloggers, journalists and Republican male hookers alike.

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Spine Tingling

Many of you have already read this amazing essay called “Life and Death” by a very interesting fellow named Chris Clarke. If you haven’t, you should. And then read his bio. Some people’s lives are a work of art.

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Book Meme Redux

So Lindsay has passed me the baton in the Book Meme Game. Here goes:

You’re stuck inside Fahrenheit 451, which book do you want to be [saved]?

The Complete Works of Shakespeare

Have you ever had a crush on a fictional character?

Yes, I have. Indeed, so many that it is a miracle that I was able to find a real live human to marry who could live up to the competition.

The last book you bought is?

“The Master” by Colm Toibin (Major Henry James fan here)

What are you currently reading?

“Happy Days Are Here Again: The 1932 Democratic convention, The Emergence of FDR and how America Was Changed Forever” by Steven Neal

Michel Foucault’s “the Archeology of Knowledge”

“Any Human Heart” by William Boyd

“The Plot Against America” by Philip Roth

(I always read more than one book at a time. Don’t know why.)

Five books you would take to a deserted island?

1. Ulysses
2. Brothers K
3. Wilderness Living and Survival Skills
4. Remembrances of Things Past
5. Atlas Shrugged (I’ll need toilet paper)

Who are you going to pass this stick to (3 persons) and why?

Julia at Sisyphus Shrugged because she’s obviously very well read

Avedon Carol because she’s got a very lively and eclectic mind

Ezra Klein because he’s in college so he’s probably reading some really good stuff for the first time.

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Cry Wolf Much?

After yesterday’s post on Powerline’s lack of even rudimentary knowledge of photography, I couldn’t believe it when I read all this over at Atrios’s place this morning. And apparently Highpockets still can’t admit that every document that sheds a bad light on Republicans isn’t a Democratic party forgery.

Someday someone is going to have to go back and examine again how they and the other wingnut bloggers also got every detail wrong on the Rathergate memos and still came to be lauded for their “investigation.” Why nobody has found the irony of that worth exploring I’ll never know.

Of course these “investigative bloggers” are full of shit. They are part of the right wing media and they are just doing what they all do. They have no credibility as “investigators” or analysts because they have no personal integrity. This is clear because they never, ever admit that they make a mistake. Sadly, because the mainstream media are so clueless about what “blogging” is, we all get tarred by the same brush as these GOP tools.

I don’t mind being called partisan because I am. I really makes me angry, however, to be called dishonest because these rightwing scumbags lie constantly and the media can’t be bothered to see what is right in front of their faces — that just like Rush and FoxNews and all the dirty tricksters and Regnery whores, the right wing blogosphere is full of people who just make shit up. It’s one of the things that distinguishes the right from the left generally — the blatent, in your face, “you can believe me or you can believe your eyes” dishonesty. There is nothing new about this but the fact that so many in the press still eat those lies with a spoon and never get tired of being played is just stunning.

Earlier today, Rush’s little galpal Daryn Kagan was questioning the CNN congressional correspondent about the Martinez memo. She said something to the effect of “aren’t people in this town a little too sensitive? What’s wrong with this memo, anyway?” The guy was a little taken aback (probably because he didn’t realize he now works for FOXNews) and patiently explained that it was a big deal because the Republicans had denied writing or seeing the memo and that they had insisted that the Schiavo case was a matter of conscience not politics.

This is what we are dealing with. And the fact that Hindquarter got it wrong again won’t matter at all. He’s in the club and he’ll be back with more ridiculous flights of logic and Howie Kurtz will kiss his ass because Time magazine named him and his partners in bullshit bloggers of the year. And the lines between the mainstream media and the right wing noise machine get blurrier and blurrier by the day.

Update: Here’s the Kagan exchange:

KAGAN: The first one deals with this memo that we now know comes out of Senator Mel Martinez’ office. It goes back to the Terri Schiavo story, which you’re very familiar with, because you were in the state capital. Basically a political memo that said the fight over the removing Schiavo’s feeding tube is a great political issue, and a tough issue for Democrats. News of the day, comes out of Mel Martinez’ office. He’s fired an aide who allegedly wrote this.

Ed Henry question — what’s the big deal?

HENRY: The big deal here is that Republicans were really under fire when they were handling that emergency legislation, because this memo suggested that they were doing the Schiavo legislation for political purposes. As you mentioned, they kept insisting no, and they also suggested this have been a hoax, that maybe the democrats had a little political dirty trick here, and we’ve seen a lot of blogs out there saying that basically this was a fake memo, maybe it was like CBS documents on the National Guard story, and everyone was running around to figured it all out.

I think it’s a footnote to the entire Schiavo story. But it was a big political battle, and now we learned it, in fact, was a Republican talking points memo. It was drafted by an aide to Senator Mel Martinez, the former cabinet secretary. As you mentioned, that staffer has now resigned his job, and it’s a pretty big political black eye for the Republicans, and I think, again, it’s just going to be a footnote in the long run. But it’s not a good day for the Republicans on that.

KAGAN: But here’s what I don’t get it, when I look at it, it just seems — is this town just too sensitive. It just seems the fight over removing Schiavo’s tube, it was a political issue, it did come up, and the Democrats did have a tough time with it. I think a lot of people felt they didn’t speak up like they should have.

HENRY: The bottom line is that Tom Delay and other top Republicans who were pushing this legislation insisted that politics played no role in the debate. They were just trying to save Terri Schiavo’s life. This memo said Republicans felt, in fact, it was going to rally their political base. This was going to be a big issue for them in the 2006 election. The other flip side of this that’s kind of interesting, is that whether or not the Republicans intended it to be a political benefit, the polls now show that overwhelmingly across the country, the American people feel it was a big political loser for the Republicans; they should have stayed out of it. So sometimes the best-laid plans don’t exactly work out.

It sounds to me like the future Mrs Limbaugh’s been getting some very special talking points of her own.

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Powerbozos

You know, I’m a big fan of blogging. I dabble in it myself. But, this absurd notion on the part of some bloggers that they are taking down the big time media brick by brick is just absurd. And by “some bloggers” I’m referring to those schmucks over at Powerline. Jesus, has there ever been a bigger bunch of vainglorious nobodies in the history of the world?

From Clark Stooksbury:

Being a blogger means never having to hold your self to the standards you demand of the big media, or so it seems for some. I noted last year how several bloggers were boasting about their various takedowns of the dreaded MSM, especially over this photo from the Associated Press which “proved” that that organiziation was guilty of working with terrorists because, I think it was Hindpocket at Power Line who said, “the photographer was obviously within a few yards of the scene of the murder, which raises obvious questions, such as 1) what was the photographer doing there; did he have advance knowledge of the crime, or was he even accompanying the terrorists? and 2) why did the photographer apparently have no fear of the terrorists, or conversely, why were the terrorists evidently unconcerned about being photographed in the commission of a murder?” Also, an anonymous source told Salon that the photographer might have been tipped that something was going to happen on that street. High Pockets treats that as an admission of guilt by the Associated Press

[…]

Now Hindpocket’s partner, Elephant Guy has his snout in a snit because the picture won a Pulitzer Prize for breaking news photography. He calls it a pulitzer for “felony murder.”

Apparently they have never heard of a telephoto lens. For all the technical reason why these guys are morons, click here to Dead Parrot’s Society’s embarrassing debunking.

The thing to remember about the Powerline boyz is that they aren’t just some louts who started a blog and say a bunch of dumb stuff. These guys are Claremont Fellows who have been writing for National Review and Weakly Standard for years. They are among those guys who David Brooks was patting on the back yesterday for their deep philosophical understanding of the underpinnings of our democracy.

Gosh, was it Hobbes or Locke who said no free man shall ever admit to error? I can’t remember.

Via Avedon Carol

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Crazed Nurses And Firefighters

Wow. Arnold’s in trouble.

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He’s No Criminal

The left has come up with a target, and his name is Tom DeLay. He isn’t their first and won’t be their last, but for now he’s the Republican they hope to take down.

They’ve tried in the past to do the same thing to others. Vice President Cheney, Defense Secretary Don Rumsfeld and White House adviser Karl Rove have all been portrayed as ethically challenged and sleazy by the same folks who are now going after the House Republican leader from Texas. Trumped-up charges of illegality, paid ads and reports from ethics groups that are little more than fronts for partisan and ideological assaults on their opponents are all part of the now familiar pattern.

If the attacks on those who have come before are any guide, this will go on for some time and then subside as they find new targets on whom to vent their bile.

DeLay is far from perfect, but he’s no criminal and one doubts if any of his colleagues really believes he’s motivated by anything other than his strongly held principles and a desire to win. In fact, the argument that he’s essentially a venal inside-the-Beltway operator is probably the weakest part of the left wing’s case against him because, while one can picture him crossing the line to achieve his ideological objectives, it is impossible to visualize him doing so to make a buck.

uhm…

A six-day trip to Moscow in 1997 by then-House Majority Whip Tom DeLay (R-Tex.) was underwritten by business interests lobbying in support of the Russian government, according to four people with firsthand knowledge of the trip arrangements.

DeLay reported that the trip was sponsored by a Washington-based nonprofit organization. But interviews with those involved in planning DeLay’s trip say the expenses were covered by a mysterious company registered in the Bahamas that also paid for an intensive $440,000 lobbying campaign.

[…]

The 1997 Moscow trip is the third foreign trip by DeLay to be scrutinized in recent weeks because of new statements by those involved that his travel was directly or indirectly financed by registered lobbyists or a foreign agent.

Media attention focused on DeLay’s travel last month after The Washington Post reported on DeLay’s participation in a $70,000 expense-paid trip to London and Scotland in 2000 that sources said was indirectly financed in part by an Indian tribe and a gambling services company. A few days earlier, media attention had focused on a $106,921 trip DeLay took to South Korea in 2001 that was financed by a tax-exempt group created by a lobbyist on behalf of a Korean businessman.

[…]

Untangling the origin of the Moscow trip’s financing is complicated by questions about the ownership and origins of Chelsea, the obscure Bahamian-registered company that financed the lobbying effort in favor of the Russian government that targeted Republicans in Washington in 1997 and 1998. Those involved in this effort also prepared and coordinated the DeLay visit, individuals with direct knowledge about it said.

In that period, prominent Russian businessmen, as well as the Russian government, depended heavily on a flow of billions of dollars in annual Western aid and so had good reason to build bridges to Congress. House Republicans were becoming increasingly critical of U.S. and international lending institutions, such as the Overseas Private Investment Corporation (OPIC) and the International Monetary Fund, which were then investing heavily in Russia’s fragile economy.

Unlike some House conservatives who scorn such support as “corporate welfare,” DeLay proved to be a “yes” vote for institutions bolstering Russia in this period. For example, DeLay voted for a bill that included the replenishment of billions of dollars in IMF funds used to bail out the Russian economy in 1998.

well…

The wife and daughter of Tom DeLay, the House majority leader, have been paid more than $500,000 since 2001 by Mr. DeLay’s political action and campaign committees, according to a detailed review of disclosure statements filed with the Federal Election Commission and separate fund-raising records in Mr. DeLay’s home state, Texas.

Most of the payments to his wife, Christine A. DeLay, and his only child, Dani DeLay Ferro, were described in the disclosure forms as “fund-raising fees,” “campaign management” or “payroll,” with no additional details about how they earned the money. The payments appear to reflect what Mr. DeLay’s aides say is the central role played by the majority leader’s wife and daughter in his political career.

Mr. DeLay’s national political action committee, Americans for a Republican Majority, or Armpac, said in a statement on Tuesday that the two women had provided valuable services to the committee in exchange for the payments: “Mrs. DeLay provides big picture, long-term strategic guidance and helps with personnel decisions. Ms. Ferro is a skilled and experienced professional event planner who assists Armpac in arranging and organizing individual events.”

As with Terry Schiavo, it seems the ruthless liberals are determined to deny Monsieur Tom DeLay the nourishment he needs to survive — the mother’s milk of politics. And all because he loves Jesus.

Why next thing you know they’ll be clamoring for an investigation or a special prosecutor or something. That’s how low they are willing to sink. Is there no end to this religious persecution?

Update: Just as a point of contrast, read this story about the Mike Espy case in which Special Prosecutor Donald Smaltz spent over 17 million dollars to nail Espy for accepting some tickets to a football game and failed to get a conviction when it was shown that not only was there no quid pro quo, but Espy actually tightened the regulations on the people who gave him the tickets and assorted trinkets. Back in those days there was a lot of hugh minded Republican talk about the rule of law and the appearance of impropriety. We don’t hear much about that anymore.

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Mentor, Mentee

So, one of John Cornyn’s schoolmates had wondered if his old acquaintance might have a little problem with the race issue when he ran for Senator against Ron Kirk. Unbenownst to most people, Cornyn had been an avid supporter of George Wallace:

I read a couple of weeks ago that John Cornyn had pledged to keep the issue of race out of his upcoming U.S. Senate campaign against African-American Democratic nominee Ron Kirk. That was a relief, because the John Cornyn I knew in high school was a big supporter of George Wallace and seemed oblivious to the dangers of Wallace’s racial demagoguery.

Cornyn a Wallace supporter? Why hasn’t Texas heard about that before? Cornyn and I graduated in 1969 from the American School in Japan, and I guess word of his early dabbling in right-wing politics never reached these shores. Besides, statements like this are not something I’d want to broadcast if I was trying to step into Phil Gramm’s shoes and join George Bush’s team in Washington.

“With the continuing concentration of power in the hands of the inept Democratic and Republican parties, it is time for a change,” Cornyn wrote in our student newspaper just before the 1968 presidential election. “Cast your vote for a strong America. Vote for George C. Wallace on November 5.”

Well, old George wasn’t just a one note samba. According to Rick Perlstein he had a lot of interesting things to add to the political discourse. Like this:

9/27/63 George Wallace apears on Today for twenty minute interview with
Martin Agronsky and adresses 16th street Church bombing in Birmingham.
Shows him surveillance photos of “known subversives…. The supreme
Court, the Kennedy adminsitraiton and the civil rights agitators are
more to blame for this dastardly crime than anyone else.”

Seems Cornyn was much, much more influenced by Wallace than he ever let on. As are a good many of the southern Republicans (or should we call them Dixiecans?) I’m afraid.

I’m telling you, there is nothing that the mainstream of the modern Republican party is doing today that their most virulent racist, extremist fringe wasn’t advocating forty years ago. I haven’t heard anything about flouridation in the water lately, but it’s only a matter of time.

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