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201k.com, September 01, 2005:

David Brooks--a punch-me-faced prep if there ever was one--seems to understand the political danger that New Orleans poses better than President Bush does, though Brooks is of course too much of a toadie to say it plainly.

Toadies succeed, after all, in the GOP world. Wildly.

The difference between Brooks and the President--the reason Brooks has a slight recognition of reality here while Bush as usual has none--is that Brooks was probably beat up in school a few times, while no one ever dared lay a hand on GHWB's son.

Too bad--he'd have been a better man for it.

The Hill, November 29, 2006:

Son also rises in testy Webb-Bush exchange
By Emily Heil

President Bush has pledged to work with the new Democratic majorities in Congress, but he has already gotten off on the wrong foot with Jim Webb, whose surprise victory over Sen. George Allen (R-Va.) tipped the Senate to the Democrats.

Webb, a decorated former Marine officer, hammered Allen and Bush over the unpopular war in Iraq while wearing his son's old combat boots on the campaign trail. It seems the president may have some lingering resentment.Ê

At a private reception held at the White House with newly elected lawmakers shortly after the election, Bush asked Webb how his son, a Marine lance corporal serving in Iraq, was doing.

Webb responded that he really wanted to see his son brought back home, said a person who heard about the exchange from Webb.

"I didn't ask you that, I asked how he's doing," Bush retorted, according to the source.

Webb confessed that he was so angered by this that he was tempted to slug the commander-in-chief, reported the source, but of course didn't.

Due to spam we've implemented Blogger's "word verification" setting for comments. Sorry -- we know it's a pain in the neck.

Very strange. In today's Times, Maureen Dowd mentions a leaked classified memo -- penned by National Security Advisor Stephen Hadley -- that casts doubt on the competence and/or trustworthiness of Iraqi "Prime Minister" Nuri Kamal al-Maliki.

What's strange about it is that the Times reports on the leaked memo today as well -- for the first time.

Did Dowd use a time machine to write her column?

November 29, 2006
Op-Ed Columnist

Turning on the Puppet
By MAUREEN DOWD

As Mr. Bush and Mr. Hadley head to Jordan to try to tell Prime Minister Nuri Kamal al-Maliki not to go all wobbly, a stunning secret memo from Mr. Hadley has surfaced, expressing severe skepticism about whether our latest puppet can cut it.

Michael Gordon reveals in today's Times that in a classified assessment, Mr. Hadley wrote that the Iraqi leader, who is getting pushed around by Moktada al-Sadr, was having trouble figuring out how to be strong.

Now THAT is some timely reporting. Getting an opinion column in on a subject that was reported for the first time at 6:31 AM the same day? Amazing.

Maybe Dowd could be the next female companion of Doctor Who.

Or, possibly, the Times has had this memo story for a while:

November 29, 2006

Bush Adviser's Memo Cites Doubts About Iraqi Leader
By MICHAEL R. GORDON

WASHINGTON, Nov. 28 -- A classified memorandum by President Bush's national security adviser expressed serious doubts about whether Prime Minister Nuri Kamal al-Maliki had the capacity to control the sectarian violence in Iraq and recommended that the United States take new steps to strengthen the Iraqi leader's position.

The Nov. 8 memo was prepared for Mr. Bush and his top deputies by Stephen J. Hadley, the national security adviser, and senior aides on the staff of the National Security Council after a trip by Mr. Hadley to Baghdad.

An administration official made a copy of the document available to a New York Times reporter seeking information on the administration's policy review. The Times read and transcribed the memo.

Earlier, a senior administration official had discussed the memorandum in general terms after being told The New York Times was preparing an article on the subject.

An administration official made a copy of the document available to a New York Times reporter...

When?

Mass. Governor Wants Anti-Suffragette Vote

By Nathan Ale, Amalgamated Press Writer

November 19, 2006 | BOSTON -- Gov. Mitt Romney said Sunday he would ask the state's highest court to order an anti-women's suffrage amendment question onto the ballot if legislators fail to vote on the matter when they reconvene in January.

Romney said he would file a legal action this week asking a justice of the Supreme Judicial Court to direct the secretary of state to place the question on the ballot if lawmakers don't vote directly on the question on Jan. 2, the final day of the session.

Romney, an opponent of voting rights for women who decided not to seek re-election as he considers running for president, made his announcement to the cheers of hundreds of opponents of women's suffrage at a rally on the Statehouse steps.

People in favor of women's suffrage staged a protest across the street.

The U.S. Supreme Court ruled in November 1920 that women's suffrage was legal. Since then, more than 8,000 women have voted in the state.

More than 170,000 people had signed a petition in support of the ballot question, which would define suffrage as a male-only right.

Romney has criticized lawmakers since they refused earlier this month to take up the question during a joint session, voting instead to recess until Jan. 2 and all but killing the measure.

"A decision not to vote is a decision not to usurp the Constitution, to abandon mob rule and substitute what this nation's founders called "The Rule of Law", that is, the protection the Constitution provides the people," Romney said earlier. "The issue now before us is not whether women should vote. The issue before us today is whether I can force 109 legislators to put the freedoms guaranteed in the Constitution up for popular vote."

Mass. Governor Wants Anti-Miscegenation Vote

By Nathan Ale, Amalgamated Press Writer

November 19, 2006 | BOSTON -- Gov. Mitt Romney said Sunday he would ask the state's highest court to order an anti-miscegenation amendment question onto the ballot if legislators fail to vote on the matter when they reconvene in January.

Romney said he would file a legal action this week asking a justice of the Supreme Judicial Court to direct the secretary of state to place the question on the ballot if lawmakers don't vote directly on the question on Jan. 2, the final day of the session.

Romney, an opponent of mixed-race marriages who decided not to seek re-election as he considers running for president, made his announcement to the cheers of hundreds of mixed-race marriage opponents at a rally on the Statehouse steps.

People in favor of mixed-race marriages staged a protest across the street.

The Massachusetss Supreme Court ruled in November 1913 that mixed-race marriages were legal. Since then, more than 8,000 mixed-race couples have married in the state.

More than 170,000 people had signed a petition in support of the ballot question, which would define marriage as between one white male and one white female only.

Romney has criticized lawmakers since they refused earlier this month to take up the question during a joint session, voting instead to recess until Jan. 2 and all but killing the measure.

"A decision not to vote is a decision not to usurp the Constitution, to abandon mob rule and substitute what this nation's founders called "The Rule of Law", that is, the protection the Constitution provides the people," Romney said earlier. "The issue now before us is not whether people of mixed race should marry. The issue before us today is whether I can force 109 legislators to put the freedoms guaranteed in the Constitution up for popular vote."

As we've said, it's time for subpoenas

Let the Investigations Begin
Op-Ed Contributor

By STANLEY BRAND
November 12, 2006

The Democrats' victory has stoked the fire beneath an already brewing debate within the party regarding the need for investigations of the executive branch during the Bush administration's two remaining years. Some Democratic members of Congress are reluctant to pursue investigations into war profiteering, detainee interrogation or other controversial issues, fearing that such scrutiny of the administration will make Democrats appear petty and partisan and cost them electoral support in 2008.

A vigorous examination of the administration's conduct, however, is not only the appropriate action as a matter of constitutional prerogative, it is the politically necessary response to voters' overwhelming rejection of the current Congress's failure to assert itself in this area.

For the past six years, Congress's oversight function has atrophied in a unitary Republican landscape. To be sure, investigative power should be exercised carefully, thoughtfully and with due regard for the rights of a coordinate branch. But Congress should not shrink from its duty to investigate a reluctant or recalcitrant executive, especially one that, while cloaking itself in secrecy, has boldly asserted unprecedented powers in the initiation and conduct of war å? with disastrous consequences that the electorate has now repudiated.

By performing their constitutional obligations, the new Democratic majorities in the House and Senate will surely do right by the Constitution and the country. But they will also no doubt do very well for themselves.

Part of the reluctance on the part of some Democrats may stem from the illusion -- propagated and maintained by the right's disproportionate share of the public dialog -- that the country is more conservative than it really is.

The reality, as confirmed by poll after poll on specific issues, is that only 33-37% of Americans truly support the extremist right-wing agenda pursued by the Republican party. At least 45-49% are liberal or moderately liberal issue-by-issue -- whether they acknowledge it or not.

The remaining 12ish % are the people who blow with the wind. These are the ones who all too often decide elections, sadly. And this time, even the right's media megaphone couldn't trick them.

Democrats need to look over the wall of right-wing propaganda erected around Washington to see that the country agrees with them. And that the country wants accountability.

Americans live with accountability every day, in every aspect of their lives. They'll have no problem with the same being exercised upon the failed managers of their government.

In fact, they're waiting for it.

We sure that the leaders of the new Democratic majority are getting plenty of suggestions as to where to start saving the country -- and from people who did more for the election than we did, hard as that is to believe -- but we want to put a word in for, well, a word change:

Dump the name "Homeland Security". It's creepy.

Communist Russia had "The Motherland", Nazi Germany had "The Fatherland". Here in America we have "National Security".

It's a small thing, we know, and will cost money, but words mean a lot, and we've always hated "Homeland Security". We're not sure what he was thinking -- the right wing think tank neo-nazi punk-in-a-suit who came up with it -- nor do we want to.

But it's got to go.

This is America. We're a lawful nation, not a "homeland". We have "National Security".

Suddenly, Newt Gingrich has a problem with George Bush's "candor":

Gingrich says Bush, GOP to blame for defeat

By TOM BAXTER
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Published on: 11/09/06

After having watched the majority he engineered in 1994 crumble in this week's elections, former House Speaker Newt Gingrich laid into President Bush and congressional Republicans in an Atlanta appearance Thursday.

"If the president had decided to replace Secretary Rumsfeld he should have told us two weeks ago," Gingrich said. "I think that we would today control the Senate and probably have 10 to15 more House seats. And I found it very disturbing yesterday in the press conference, the explanation that the President gave.

"It's inappropriate to cleverly come out the day after an election to do something we were told before the election would not be done," Gingrich said. "I think the timing was exactly backwards and I hope the President will rethink how he engages the American people and how he communicates with candor."

"I hope the President will rethink how he engages the American people and how he communicates with candor."

Now that's funny. Lie to the country and the world for six years -- no problem. Slightly mislead the Republican Party for political reasons before an election -- unacceptable.

Another GOP blow for Truth, Justice, and the American way.

Jews and Muslims in the Middle East have finally found something they agree on:

Jews, Muslims join to fight gay parade
Jerusalem event sparks anger, riots
By Thanassis Cambanis, Globe Staff | November 9, 2006

JERUSALEM -- Ultra-Orthodox Jewish pop singer Benny Elbaz was so angry about the gay pride march planned for tomorrow that he joined forces with a Muslim man he normally would consider an enemy, to sing a duet he composed denouncing the event.

"Jerusalem Will Burn!" Elbaz croons in Hebrew on the single, released the week before the parade. "There will be no gay march!"

Religious Jews and Muslims are on the opposite ends of the political spectrum on most issues, especially over who should control the contested city of Jerusalem, which Israelis and Palestinians both claim as their capital. But Jews, Muslims, and even some Christians have formed a common front against Jerusalem's gay community, whose planned march they say besmirches the city.

"Only this onslaught of homosexual radicalism could bring together such disparate voices," said Rabbi Yehuda Levin, an anti gay activist from Brooklyn, N.Y., who has traveled to Israel several times this year to rally opposition to the gay pride parade.

Levin has joined forces with Tayseer Tamimi, the head judge of the Islamic Sharia court in the West Bank.

"This march is part of the wild campaign against Islam, the doctrine, the holy sites," Tamimi said. "All religions discredit gays...because it is against the decent human nature created by God."

Islamic religious leaders from the West Bank joined by video link because they are barred by Israel from visiting Jerusalem.

Elbaz formed another of the unlikely partnerships that has characterized the vociferous and at times violent campaign. "I decided to sing with an Arab singer to emphasize that both religions are opposed to the gay parade," Elbaz said. "No religion will have it, especially not in the Holy City."

But the rhetoric of the anti gay religious and secular leaders -- mostly Jewish, but some Muslim -- dwarfs Elbaz's comparatively tame lyrics.

The angry talk and open threats against the march have provoked alarm among gay rights leaders, who recall that last year an ultra-Orthodox man stabbed three people during the gay pride march.

Nice to see that two of the world's foremost religions are doing their part for peace, love, and understanding.

No word if Ted Haggard will be joining the protest.

George W. Bush, November 8, 2006:

I believe that the leaders of both political parties must try to work through our differences. And I believe we will be able to work through differences. I reassured the House and Senate leaders that I intend to work with the new Congress in a bipartisan way to address issues confronting this country.

Amid this time of change, I have a message for those on the front lines. To our enemies: Do not be joyful. Do not confuse the workings of our democracy with a lack of will. Our nation is committed to bringing you to justice. Liberty and democracy are the source of America's strength, and liberty and democracy will lift up the hopes and desires of those you are trying to destroy.

When I first came to Washington nearly six years ago, I was hopeful I could help change the tone here in the capital. As governor of Texas, I had successfully worked with both Democrats and Republicans to find common-sense solutions to the problems facing our state. While we made some progress on changing the tone, I'm disappointed we haven't made more. I'm confident that we can work together. I'm confident we can overcome the temptation to divide this country between red and blue.

George W. Bush, October 30, 2006:

Now, there are big differences in Washington between Republicans and Democrats. Perhaps the biggest difference are on the two biggest issues that we face: which party is going to keep your taxes low and keep this economy growing, and which party will take the necessary steps to protect you from terrorist attack.

This election is taking place in an historic time for our country. Our children and grandchildren are going to look back on this period -- one question will overwhelm all the rest: Did we do everything in our power to fight and win the war on terror? That's the question people will ask: Did this country do everything within our power to protect you?

However they put it, the Democrat approach in Iraq comes down to this: The terrorists win and America loses.

That's what's at stake in this election. The Democrat goal is to get out of Iraq. The Republican goal is to win in Iraq.

Poor Reader MW shares a thought:

I suggest that it is more likely I would put the pounds on, if my husband, whom I cannot divorce for religious reasons, was doing meth and hanging out with a male hooker for massages....

Poor Reader Beth has risen to the challenge:

Try it yourself, and send us your best lines.

"Linda Suellen, I don't know what happened. You gained forty pounds and I found my d*** in the altarboy."

Or maybe this is all because of gay marriage. They WARNED us it would weaken the institution.

Hmm...

Smelly house in South Dakota to be razed

November 7, 2006

RAPID CITY, S.D. --A Rapid City house that's filled with the stench of cats and animal waste was to be torn down Tuesday. Neighbors had complained about the foul smell, and authorities who searched the home found piles of cat waste and dead cats both inside and outside the home.

The city council declared the house a public nuisance and ordered it to be demolished.

The owner will be billed for the $10,000 it'll cost to tear it down, said Kevin Lewis, assistant city attorney.

Democrats capture House

By Susan Milligan, Globe Staff | November 8, 2006

WASHINGTON -- Democrats last night seized control of the House, riding a wave of public anger over the Iraq war, the economy, and the performance of the Bush administration to take power of the chamber for the first time in 12 years.

Well funded and relentless in their criticism of Bush and the long-ruling Republican majority Congress, Democrats knocked off incumbents once considered safe in New Hampshire, Connecticut, Indiana, and Kentucky. Late yesterday, the party also was within a handful of seats of seizing control of the Senate.

Hey, look at this article from just over a year ago:

Santorum resolute on Boston rebuke
Insists liberalism set stage for abuse
By Susan Milligan, Globe Staff | July 13, 2005

WASHINGTON -- Senator Rick Santorum of Pennsylvania, the third-ranking Republican in the Senate, refused yesterday to back off on his earlier statements connecting Boston's "liberalism" with the Roman Catholic Church pedophile scandal, saying that the city's "sexual license" and "sexual freedom" nurtured an environment where sexual abuse would occur.

"The basic liberal attitude in that area...has an impact on people's behavior," Santorum said in an interview yesterday at the Capitol.

"If you have a world view that I'm describing [about Boston]...that affirms alternative views of sexuality, that can lead to a lot of people taking it the wrong way," Santorum said.

Santorum, a leader among Christian conservatives, was responding to questions about remarks he made three years ago on a website called Catholic Online. In those comments, Santorum said, "It is no surprise that Boston, a seat of academic, political, and cultural liberalism in America, lies at the center of the storm" of the clergy sexual abuse scandal.

"I was just saying that there's an attitude that is very open to sexual freedom that is more predominant" in Boston, Santorum said yesterday. Reminded that the sexual abuse occurred across the country, Santorum said that "at the time [in 2002], there was an indication that there was more of a problem there" in Boston.

Santorum has startled Washington in the past. In a 2003 interview with the Associated Press, he linked "man on child" and "man on dog" sex with homosexuality, describing them as deviant behaviors that threatened traditional marriage. Earlier this year, he apologized for comparing the Democrats blocking President Bush's judicial nominees to the Nazi leader, Adolf Hitler.

The Pennsylvania senator recently penned a book, "It Takes a Family," that blasts two-income families, divorce, cohabitation before marriage, and other social trends he considers liberal ills.

The book, set to be released later this month, blames "radical feminism" for encouraging women to work outside the home. "In far too many families with young children, both parents are working, when, if they really took an honest look at the budget, they might confess that both of them don't really need to or at least may not need to work as much as they do," Santorum wrote.

Jay Reiff, Casey's campaign manager, predicted that Santorum's outspokenness might get him into trouble with Pennsylvania voters.

"It's sort of being out of touch," Reiff said. "For hundreds of thousands of families, the option of having a stay-at-home mother is not there from an economic standpoint. "It's not because they are bad budgeters or are selfish."

Hey, look at the election results from last night:

PENNSYLVANIA
9,258 of 9,372 precincts -- 99%

Bob Casey (Dem) 2,309,459 59%
Rick Santorum (GOP) (i) 1,625,875 41%

Heh.

And so we bid a fond, fond, Boston farewell to former Senator and rightwing nutbag Rick Santorum.

So long, you obnoxious, pr&^%$.

At this writing, Democrats have taken control of the House, and are on their way -- though it may be a long wade -- to taking the Senate as well.

Feels a bit like wrestling the steering wheel away from a drunk...after he's gone over a cliff.

Congratulations to Governor-elect Deval Patrick, who ran a classy campaign and gave a truly great victory speech last night. We're genuinely excited about the future of the Commonwealth.

One word: subpoenas.

Media Matters for America is documenting what can only be described as a concerted effort by the media to set the narrative for a surprise Republican victory today.

Again, we hope we're wrong, but it does seem as if any dissent to "surprise Republican victory" is being swept aside:

Olbermann only MSNBC prime-time anchor absent from special election coverage
A Media Matters for America review of MSNBC's daytime Battleground America coverage found that while prime-time anchors Chris Matthews, Joe Scarborough, and Tucker Carlson have all participated in MSNBC's special midterm election coverage, Keith Olbermann has been absent.

Network evening newscasts selectively cited polls to claim GOP is "closing the gap"
On November 6, all three major network evening news broadcasts pointed to "new polling" to assert that the midterm elections are "tightening." In doing so, these outlets ignored several polls released during the same period that indicate the gap between Democrats and Republicans is stable or widening.

MSNBC's Mitchell cherry-picked polls to claim "GOP gaining ground"; CNN's O'Brien ignored own polling to claim race is "tightening"
On the November 6 edition of MSNBC's election special, Decision 2006: Battleground America, host and NBC News chief foreign affairs correspondent Andrea Mitchell asserted that new national polls "show Republicans gaining ground." She went on to cite three recent surveys -- from the Pew Research Center, Washington Post/ABC News, and USA Today/Gallup -- that found Republicans within four, six, and seven percentage points, respectively, of Democrats on the generic congressional ballot. But as Bloomberg Washington managing editor Al Hunt noted in response, there are several other recent polls that show Democrats with leads in excess of 15 percentage points, including those from Time, CNN, and even MSNBC's news partner, Newsweek.

On Today, Matthews touted market as "up around 13,000," misleadingly suggested Bush is popular in most Western states
Appearing on NBC's Today, Chris Matthews claimed the economy is "fabulous" based on his false assertion that the "market's up around 13,000." In fact, the Dow Jones Industrial Average closed at 11,986.04 on November 3. Matthews also misleadingly suggested President Bush is popular in most Western states and that the Iraq war "isn't terrifically hated" in Missouri.

MSNBC's O'Donnell cherry-picked polls that favor GOP
During an interview with Howard Dean, Norah O'Donnell selectively cited polls to suggest that the Democratic advantage in the generic congressional ballot has been considerably reduced. However, several other recent polls show Democrats with leads in excess of 15 percentage points.

Parties Focus on Turnout as Races Tighten

By DAVID STOUT
WASHINGTON, Nov. 6 -- President Bush campaigned today in Florida, where he predicted that a big Republican turnout across the country would dash Democratic hopes of seizing control of the Senate and House and propel his own party to a resounding triumph.

"Republicans are going to turn out," he said at a rainy rally in Pensacola. "It's going to be a great victory on November the 7th."

201k is cautiously optimistic about tomorrow's election.

Well...no, we aren't. We're worried. We're worried that the election will be stolen, plain and simple.

The Republican party has done things in the last six years that they simply cannot allow to be revealed, as they would be if Democrats take control of the House and/or Senate, and between untrustworthy voting machines and old-fashioned vote-suppression tactics, they have the means to stay in power illegitimately.

We're worried about the cover stories being floated in the media -- stories that will provide plausibility if the GOP miraculously wins in key races. In 2004 the cover story was that the so-called "values voters" showed up in record numbers to carry Republicans to victory. No such thing was ever demonstrated actually to have happened; it was a campaign talking point that became conventional wisdom. In reality, the election of 2004 was stolen in the ballot boxes and voting machines.

Similarly, we fear that the new wave of stories about the GOP's vaunted "get-out-the-vote" operation, Kerry's "lame joke", and the Hussein verdict are nothing more than the advanced placement of what will become media-wide talking points used to explain a surprise Republican victory.

That's what they did last time; the "values-voter" cover story not only supposedly explained how the votes could be so dramatically different from the exit polls, but -- in a happy coincidence -- provided a green light for the regressive social agenda the right was determined to embark upon.

What will it be this time? That voters suddenly decided that Republicans are best able to pursue the "War on Terror" -- not only leaving them in power but also supposedly authorizing them to continue their assault on American civil liberties?

We hope we're wrong.

Our mistake. We thought liberalism was to blame for the rash of moralizing right-wing preachers and politicians who are secretly gay, adulterers, drug users, or gay adultering drug users. But it turns out it's really the fault of women. Of course.

It is not uncommon to meet pastors' wives who really let themselves go; they sometimes feel that because their husband is a pastor, he is therefore trapped into fidelity, which gives them cause for laziness. A wife who lets herself go and is not sexually available to her husband in the ways that the Song of Songs is so frank about is not responsible for her husband's sin, but she may not be helping him either.

This stuff really does write itself, doesn't it? There are so many good responses that we'll just offer them multiple choice:

1. Damn women! First the fall of man -- now this!

2. Now that you mention, it, we've always thought the wives of famous right-wing preachers looked like male cross-dressers.

3. It's not just that their wives "let themselves go" -- it's that they don't look like boys.

4. "If you hadn't let yourself go and been sexually unavailable, I wouldn't have been doing meth and taking it up the butt in a parked car! Harlot!"

Try it yourself, and send us your best lines.

Frank Rich reminded us today that Stephen Colbert may be the greatest living American.

Just thought we'd pass the reminder along.

We would like to take a moment to apologize, on behalf of liberalism, for turning otherwise righteous religious leaders into homosexual drug users.

Sure, some people will say that liberalism had nothing to do with it; they'll say that most of America's right-wing moralizers are hypocritical sociopaths. They'll go further, pointing out that a suspicious number of the "values voting" right turn out to be nothing more than sexually repressed misogynists.

But we know better.

These are good, good people -- wonderful, moral, men (most of them) who want what's best for all humanity, even if it means they have to bring riches and power beyond imagination to themselves.

They've simply been subverted by the dominant liberal paradigm.

They're God's own messengers on earth -- and we liberals have ruined them, tempting them from the path of righteousness with homemade narcotics, congressional pages, and hardcore gay massages.

It's all our fault. And we feel terrible about it.

Really.