Friday’s Mini-Report

February 16, 2007

Today’s edition of quick hits.

* A year ago, in honor of President’s Day, former Gannett chief and USA Today founder Al Neuharth rejected the idea that Bush was the worst president of all time. Today, he changed his mind. “I was wrong. This is my mea culpa. Not only has Bush cracked that list, but he is planted firmly at the top,” Neuharth said. (By “the top,” he meant the very worst.)

* Perhaps today’s most frustrating news item was this WaPo piece about the Pentagon’s bureaucracy limiting doctors’ access to important medical files — and, in the process, undermining treatment of seriously injured veterans. Read it.

* Last month was by far the hottest January recorded for the planet since climate scientists started keeping track in 1880.

* Sen. Barack Obama this week endorsed Sen. Russ Feingold’s legislation overhauling the public financing of presidential elections. Good for him.

* To help appreciate just how far Joe Lieberman has gone, I wanted to note that religious right leader Richard Land, president of the Southern Baptist Convention’s Ethics and Religious Liberty Commission, has a new book out called, “The Divided States of America?” Lieberman wrote the book’s foreword.

* Speaking of Lieberman, the Connecticut senator was on the floor today, warning that Congress may be inviting a “constitutional crisis” — which could necessitate Supreme Court intervention — if lawmakers try to set limits on Bush’s ability to screw up the war. He sounded pretty worked up about it.

* David Broder’s column about a possible Bush “comeback” generated plenty of discussion today, including a pretty thorough takedown by Salon’s Glenn Greenwald. Broder responded to some of the complaints in an online Washington Post chat this afternoon.

* What, exactly, is the Quds Force — the paramilitary wing of the Iranian Revolutionary Guards Corps (IRGC) — doing in Iraq? Brad Plumer has some compelling thoughts on the subject.

* I don’t expect Bush to understand much about physics, but he doesn’t seem to understand what a “vacuum” is.

* I don’t want to say that Bush’s new North Korea deal is just like the much-maligned Clinton deal of a decade ago … exactly, wait, that’s exactly what I want to say.

* Sen. Tim Johnson (D-S.D.) has co-sponsored his first piece of legislation since he suffered a brain hemorrhage in December. As the AP explained, Johnson, who is reportedly beginning to work from his hospital room, “signed on to a bill that would pay farmers for losses due to drought and other disasters. Sen. John Thune, R-S.D., is also a co-sponsor.”

* Outgoing Army Chief of Staff Gen. Peter Schoomaker confirmed yesterday what a lot of us have been worried about: a troop escalation in Iraq “represents only the ‘tip of the iceberg’ and will potentially require thousands of additional support troops and trainers, as well as equipment — further eroding the Army’s readiness to respond to other world contingencies.”

* Sign of the Apocalypse: Desperate Housewives dolls.

* He still has a problem with the tubes: A bill introduced by Sen. Ted Stevens (R-AK) would block social networking programs and other popular websites from computers at public libraries and computers.

* I’ve been encouraged by the House Dem leadership since the start of the 110th, but I have to admit, the idea of putting Rep. William Jefferson (D-La.) on the House Homeland Security Committee strikes me as a bad idea.

* And, finally, reader R.S. informs me that former Rep. Joseph McDade (R-Pa.) was accused this week of exposing himself to two women at a beach resort in Florida. McDade must appear in court to face a charge of exposure of sexual organs, a misdemeanor that carries a maximum penalty of one year in jail and a $1,000 fine, according to a summons issued Wednesday. The “family values” party strikes again.

If none of these particular items are of interest, consider this an end-of-the-day open thread.

RE Broder–what a pompous ass. He states he has been a persistent critic of the amdinistration–but his columns sure do not reflect that. He must forget that with internets and the google we can fact check him and force him to face at least some of our criticism.

  • That piece about Dick Land (when you can refer to any of these people with a crudity, you almost have to) includes the following:

    Though Land doesn’t question McCain’s consistency on abortion issues, he said McCain’s involvement in the “Gang of 14” — the bipartisan Senate group that prevented the “nuclear” option on judicial nominees — and his refusal to support anti-gay marriage proposals severely hurts his chances with traditional-values voters.

    In the end, Land said, social conservatives are concerned about the kind of judges a President McCain would nominate.

    “Voting pro-life is not enough,” Land said. “He has got to express himself in other venues.”

    He clearly doesn’t get what Falwell and Robertson–the scumbag radical clerics that a better McCain once criticized–evidently understand: McCain could give a shit about judges. He just wants to win. He’ll probably be, if anything, more deferential to the Christatollahs than, say, Brownback or Huckabee would be; if memory serves, isn’t this why Gary Bauer endorsed McCain after he dropped out in 2000?

    If they get on the Forked Tongue Express now, they probably can pick the judges themselves.

  • …signed on to a bill that would pay farmers for losses due to drought and other disasters. Sen. John Thune, R-S.D., is also a co-sponsor…

    How about a bill to pay investors for losses due to bearish markets? Or a bill to pay home owners with adjustable rate mortgages for higher interest payments due to rising interest rates? Or how about a bill to pay fishermen for losses due to depleted fishing stocks in the oceans? Or a bill to compensate models for getting older and thus not getting those lucrative modelling contracts?

  • Lieberman, “Even as our troops have begun to take Baghdad back step-by-step,…” Yeah right. How many Friedmans will that take?

    * And, finally, reader R.S. informs me that former Rep. Joseph McDade (R-Pa.) was accused this week of exposing himself to two women at a beach resort in Florida.

    And as soon as they stopped laughing they called the cops.

    William Jefferson, now there’s a man who can get refrigerators to New Orleans residents.

    Aw come on CB. One really hot January in 130 years. What could that possibly mean. It’s snowing in NY.

    We just have to explain to Bush that a vacuum is the effect the Swedish penis enlarger has when he pumps it.

    Help, I can’t find the inflation tube on my Desperate Housewives doll. Can I borrow Bush’s pump?

    Thanks for the Quds info, CB.

    Bush makes water. Broder carries it. Oh, piss boy, wait for the shake.

    Social networking sites do take up a lot of time resources which librarie are typically short of. But I’m sure it’s a moral issue with Stevens.

    The phrase “sexual innuendo” contains sexual innuendo.

  • Interestingly, last year Neuharth’s five worst presidents were:

    Andrew Jackson, James Buchanan, Ulysses Grant, Herbert Hoover and Richard Nixon.

    I would certainly agree with all of those, and add in that over-rated, narrow-minded neo-Confederate pig Woodrow Wilson, for his imposition in 1912 of Southern white supremacy/segregation as the official policy of the US Government, leading to the rejection of African-Americans for military service in WW1 and WW2 without great struggles, despite their sterling records in the Civil War and Spanish-American War; atrocities like the Tuskeegee Experiment; and every other crime committed against African-Americans that the Federal Government either condoned or allowed – and condoned by allowing – between 1912-1954.

    So Bush tops all of those scumbags. That’s quite an achievement.

    Also interesting that Democrats are dumb enough to think that Jackson somehow deserves to be compared with Jefferson (well, on their racial hypocrisy, maybe), and that Wilson is someone whose total failure as president is something Progressives should see as a victory.

  • I almost wish you hadn’t posted that link about the Desperate Housewives dolls, CB. I made the mistake of sharing it with hubby (he’s a big fan of the show), and he was all gung ho to get the entire set to add to his collection of unique and unusual dolls. Then he saw the price per doll. Domestic financial crisis averted. Barely.

  • Surprisingly, Lieberman fails to contemplate that one way to avoid his dreaded Constitutional crisis would be for the President to start listening to the will of the people’s elected representatives in Congress, the way a President is supposed to and a King doesn’t have to.

    Well, OK, that’s not really surprising at all, actually.

  • Let me forewarn people. We could have the coldest January on record and we would still have global warming.

    This is a problem that works on very, very long timescales: centuries to millenia. All of this weather is just noise on top of a long term signal.

  • NeilS #8 makes a good point. One article I read (sorry no link) said that although climate change is slow, it reaches a tipping point in which major change occurrs within a decade after hundreds of years of slow change. Given that, 130 years starts to get significant.

  • Pentagon’s bureaucracy limited doctors’ access to important medical files — and in the process, undermining treatment of seriously injured veterans.

    Either someone decided that treating seriously wounded veterans emboldens the enemy or Bush is getting a jumpstart on his promise to bugger up the VA make changes to VA funding.

    * I don’t expect Bush to understand much about physics, but he doesn’t seem to understand what a “vacuum” is.

    The one between his ears precludes his understanding anything.

    …former Rep. Joseph McDade (R-Pa.) was accused this week of exposing himself to two women at a beach resort in Florida.

    Good gods. Krazee Kat Harris, Freaky Foley now this. Quick, someone check the damn water in Florida. I guess we need to check Penisylvania’s water too. It might help Rick “Man on dog on hobbit on Mt. Doom” Santorum.

  • Jesus Broder’s annoying. No wonder he’s the Dean of White House fluffers. After pointing out how Bush’s weakened positions are somehow magically a show of strength, he includes this little gem at the end.

    As (Bush) said, “What really matters is what happens on the ground. I can talk all day long, but what really matters to the American people is to see progress.”

    And whether the American people will see it, no one knows.

    David, it’s heartbreakingly sad to see your long career come crashing down like Skylab, but quit blaming Bush amazing unpopularity on a public that can’t see the progress in Iraq that’s not there. When you finally admit whose fault Bush’s problems really belong to, you’ll be back on the road to redemption.

  • SA-LAM! If you haven’t seen this clip of Tim Ryan (D-OH) debating the Iraq resolution on the House floor, it will restore your faith in open floor debate in Congress –http://www.dailykos.com/storyonly/2007/2/16/11256/2058 .

  • “Support the troops” doesn’t translate into support for vets, especially wounded ones.

    Once a soldier is wounded severely enough that he can no longer fight or even work, he becomes just another “unproductive” unfortunate. And Republicans don’t like unproductive unfortunates, they are just a drag on the economy–so screw them.

    It’s Democrats’ job to look after unfortunates, which is why it’s Democrats who consistently press for better funding for the VA, while Republicans are always trying to cut funds.

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