Monday’s Mini-Report

March 19, 2007

Today’s edition of quick hits.

* House Speaker Nancy Pelosi: “We need a new Attorney General.”

* Asked if Alberto Gonzales would keep his job, White House Press Secretary Tony Snow told reporters this morning, “Well, we hope so.”

* If you haven’t seen it, I recommend checking out the online Iraq Veterans Memorial, put together by Robert Greenwald’s Brave New Films.

* How serious are the abuses at military recruiting centers? It’s reached the point in which a top Pentagon personnel official is “installing surveillance cameras in recruiting stations across the country, the most dramatic of several new steps to address a rise in misconduct allegations against military recruiters — including sexual assaults of female prospects and bending the rules to meet quotas.”

* You may have noticed that a lot high-profile political journalists have married high-profile political operatives. The LA Times has the rundown on the political power couples.

* I didn’t think it was possible, but Fox News’ Brit Hume has reached a new level of hackery. Yesterday, instead of admitting he was wrong about Valerie Plame’s covert status, the Republican hatchet man accusing Plame of having lied under oath about her status in the CIA. Amazing.

* Also yesterday, retired Navy Admiral Rep. Joe Sestak (D-Pa.) and Win Without War director Tom Andrews made former House Majority Leader Tom DeLay (R-Texas) and neocon Richard Perle look pretty foolish during a debate on the war in Iraq on Meet the Press. Favorite moment: when Sestak suggested troops could be redeployed to countries such as Bahrain and Qatar; DeLay said those countries wouldn’t accept our troops; and Sestak calmly patted DeLay on the arm and said, “We have bases there.” Ouch.

* LA Times columnist Gregory Rodriguez observed over the weekend that there’s grumbling about whether Rudy Giuliani is “white enough.” Like Kevin Drum, I have no idea what Rodriguez is talking about.

* Surprise, surprise, Bush’s tax cuts have created a far more regressive tax code.

* South Carolina lawmakers are considering legislation that would force women seeking abortions to view an ultrasound image of their fetus. “Politicians should not require a doctor to perform a medically unnecessary ultrasound, nor should they force a woman to view an ultrasound against her will,” said Nancy Keenan, president of NARAL Pro-Choice America.

* I have no idea how and why Wikipedia chooses to delete entries, but doesn’t “Friedman Unit” deserve a page?

* Good news from the White House press corps: Helen Thomas is keeping her front-row seat.

* And finally, a great column from Leonard Pitts Jr. today: “[W]hen George W. Bush came into office what seems like a hundred years ago, I remember thinking that though I disagreed with his politics, it would be good at the very least to have grown-ups — disciplined, sober, pragmatic — back in charge of the nation’s affairs after the perceived juvenility and shenanigans of the Clinton team. I was wrong. This is not the way grown-ups behave. It is the ways cultists behave. The willingness to bypass critical thought, the tendency to make one’s faith in a man a litmus test, the emphasis on belief, sounds more appropriate to followers of Jim Jones or David Koresh than to high officials of the U.S. government.”

If these items aren’t of any interest, consider this an end-of-the-day open thread.

In case you’re wondering why AIPAC needs to be registered as a foreign lobbying entity, read this article. Where else can you see the Democrats bending over backwards to suck up to a bunch of people who cheer Bush enthusiastically…

http://www.salon.com/news/feature/2007/03/16/aipac/index.html

During the opening night’s events, large video screens behind the speaker’s podium showed a chronological slide show of U.S. presidents and their Israeli prime minister contemporaries, and when the display eventually reached George W. Bush, the room erupted into applause — far more applause than the crowd had given for Reagan, Kennedy or even Truman. And when Cheney first appeared on the stage on Monday morning, the crowd immediately rose to its feet and filled the room with loud applause…

As one delegate standing nearby commented during the vice president’s speech, “This has got to be the last crowd that still greets him this way.”…

  • whoops, forgot to add this interesting snippet:

    …In addition to the many panels at the conference, which often felt akin to pep rallies, delegates also attended “lobbying labs,” where AIPAC staff schooled them on how to effectively persuade their congressional representatives to follow AIPAC policies. These sessions were not open to the media, nor even mentioned on the schedule of events distributed to members of the press. But AIPAC leaders repeatedly urged delegates to attend them…

  • Those power couples are so wonderful./snark Talk about getting close to your sources! It explains a lot about the relationships between the press and the Washington eelight. Problem is the only ones getting fucked are the American people.

    As much as I’d like to give credit to Sestak and Andrews, making the Princeling of Darkness and Cockroach Boy look foolish is not all the hard. In most cases, all you have to do is ask them a simple question.

    As for Wikipedia, I suspect the deletion of the Friedman was probably done at the behest of the namesake of the Friedman so as not to allow poor Thomas to be mocked incessantly on the ‘Tubes by us plebes who know nothing of Olive Branches and Lexus’ or the joys of slavery thru globalization.

  • Hypocrisy, thy name is Republican…

    …commenters at Little Green Footballs have not only expressed surprise, but outright support, for Mohammed’s assassination plot against a former U.S. President. They are out in droves expressing sorrow that Al Qaeda did not have the opportunity to carry out its plot.

    Let us first recall that LGF’s Charles Johnson was one of the leaders of the Outrage Brigade driving the big “story” — that made it into virtually every national media outlet — of how anonymous HuffPost commenters expressed sorrow that the bombing in Afghanistan did not result in Dick Cheney’s death…

    http://www.salon.com/opinion/greenwald/2007/03/15/pro_mohammed_sentiment/index.html

  • Isn’t it interesting that of all the couples mentioned in the LA Times story, only Matt Cooper is married to a Democratic operative? Those Republicans sure like to hook up with journalists

  • ***Hume’s false claim originated from a statement attached to the Senate Intelligence Committee report on Iraq that was released in 2004. In an addendum to that report, Sens. Pat Roberts (R-KS), Christopher Bond (R-MO), and Orrin Hatch (R-UT) wrote definitively, “The plan to send the former ambassador to Niger was suggested by the former ambassador’s wife, a CIA employee.”***

    Awww…ain’t they cute? Those wee widdle ReThug “sennie-wennies” are learning how to do after-the-fact addendums…just like Big Daddie Bush. Before you know it, they’ll be doing post-vote signing statements to change the vote on legislative bills….

  • For those who like to keep up with free speech issues:

    Court hears “Bong hits 4 Jesus” case

    WASHINGTON (Reuters) – In its first major student free-speech rights case in almost 20 years, U.S. Supreme Court justices struggled on Monday with how far schools can go in censoring students.

    In a case involving a Juneau, Alaska, high school student suspended for unfurling a banner that read “Bong Hits 4 Jesus,” several justices seemed wary about giving a principal too much authority at the expense of the student’s right to express his views.

  • Politicians should not require a doctor to perform a medically unnecessary ultrasound, nor should they force a woman to view an ultrasound against her will,” said Nancy Keenan, president of NARAL Pro-Choice America.

    Nice of NARAL to pull its finger out. I seem to recall it slept through the far more explosive and dangerous issue of requireing doctors to offer anesthesia for fetuses that were going to be aborted.

    Brit Hume reminds me that in the not-too-distant past a couple of so-called pundits “forgot” to mention they were getting cash from the government to voice pro-Admin. talking points. Someone check his bank account for Direct Deposits from “KR Inc”.

  • shouldn’t that be “high-profile political ‘journalists’ have married high-profile political operatives…”?

  • I saw this quote in which Bob dole was trying to say Dem were being hypocritical about the attorney purges, because they got upset with Republicans

    “Nearly 20 years ago, when Watergate special prosecutor Archibald Cox and Attorney General Eliot Richardson were fired from their posts, the press railed about the so-called ‘Saturday-night massacre,’ ” said Mr. Dole. ”

    That’s exactly what’s going on now. We protested then and we’re protesting the same action now. Consistent and correct.

  • If these items aren’t of any interest, consider this an end-of-the-day open thread.

    I always feel a little guilty when I use this as an open thread. It’s not that the items aren’t of any interest. They’re interesting I consider it an open thread. 🙂

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