Tuesday’s Mini-Report

March 27, 2007

Today’s edition of quick hits.

* Coordinated truck bombs in Iraq killed at least 48 people today and wounded dozens more. The attacks in Tal Afar, the second in four days, occurred about five minutes apart at popular markets in the northern and central parts of the city, 260 miles northwest of Baghdad. As of right now, these bombings are not mentioned at all anywhere among the dozens of headlines on CNN.com. Mass killings in Iraq are apparently too routine.

* Remember the recent briefing in Iraq on the Iranian EFP bombs? The NYT offers an extensive back-story today. As you might have guessed, the administration’s recent rhetoric was incomplete.

* If you haven’t seen it, the Blogging Heads discussion between Ann Althouse and Garance Franke-Ruta was easily the most “lively” BHTV debate to date. After about four minutes, Althouse appears to completely lose it. Orcinus has a transcript of the anger eruption. These chats aren’t usually so filled with rage, but the good news is, Blogging Heads has never enjoyed this much publicity.

* Why is the Carol Lam’s firing so uniquely suspicious, out of the eight U.S. Attorney firings? Paul Kiel goes point by point.

* A bank robbery spun out of control in Miami today when a suspect was arrested and his sidekicks threatened to start shooting people if he wasn’t released. Just a normal Tuesday in South Florida.

* Alberto Gonzales today “cut short a press conference about Internet safety, leaving the room at the Dirksen U.S. Courthouse in Chicago when reporters questioned him about the firings of U.S. attorneys. The questioning was to have lasted about 15 minutes, but it ended after less than three.” Poor guy is getting shy.

* I want to like The Politico, but they’re not making it easy.

* When the RNC is using an AP article as a press release, chances are, there’s something wrong with the AP article.

* The president tends to enjoy stronger support from Mormons than any other religious group, but a new poll shows Mormons rejecting the war in Iraq in much greater numbers: A poll by The Salt Lake Tribune “showed a precipitous drop in support for Bush’s handling of the war among Utah’s Latter-day Saints. In the survey, just 44 percent of those identifying themselves as Mormon said they backed Bush’s war management. That’s a level considerably higher than Bush gets from Utah’s non-Mormon population and the nation at large, but it’s also a 21 percentage point drop from just five months earlier.”

* Here’s an interesting clip of Karl Rove, in 1972, talking to Dan Rather about his work in helping re-elect Richard Nixon.

* C&L and Cliff Schecter are both hosting fundraisers.

* Blake Hounshell has a good piece about ending unconditional support for Pakistan’s Pervez Musharraf.

* Sen. Mark Pryor (D-Ark.) is less concerned about setting a timeline for withdrawal from Iraq and more concerned about anyone knowing what the timeline says. “My strong preference would be to have a classified plan and a classified timetable that should be shared with Congress,” Pryor said yesterday. A public deadline would tip off the enemy, “who might just bide their time and wait for us to leave,” he added. Um, senator? They’re already biding their time and waiting for us to leave.

* And finally, Rudy Giuliani appeared on Sean Hannity’s radio show today and said, “I support the First Amendment right to carry and to bear arms.” And here I thought Giuliani didn’t take conservatives’ concerns about guns seriously….

Anything to add? Consider this an end-of-the-day open thread.

Gotta remember that to some in the wingnut community, the right to bear arms can be construed as both a religious experience (the right to blow away all the minions of some guy in red pajamas carrying a pitchfork), and a form of expression (shoving one’s beliefs down another’s throat).

AP = Administration Press. They need someone, now that Snowflake’s laid up in hospital….

  • “When the RNC is using an AP article as a press release, chances are, there’s something wrong with the AP article.”

    And the chances of the RNC being responsible for planting that article with AP in the first place so they could gleefully refer to it later are how much, again?

    Oh, that much??

    Well, shave my head and call me Baldy.

  • “I support the First Amendment right to carry and to bear arms.” And here I thought Giuliani didn’t take conservatives’ concerns about guns seriously

    Bullets as Free Speech? Interesting take.

    BTW, who’s this Ann Althouse twit?

  • Sen. Mark Pryor (D-Ark.) is less concerned about setting a timeline for withdrawal from Iraq and more concerned about anyone knowing what the timeline says. “My strong preference would be to have a classified plan and a classified timetable that should be shared with Congress,” Pryor said yesterday. A public deadline would tip off the enemy, “who might just bide their time and wait for us to leave,” he added. Um, senator? They’re already biding their time and waiting for us to leave.

    That last point is something the right really needs to understand. We are in their country. At least the insurgents’, who we have to deal with now. No matter how strongly we suggest we are staying there forever and ever, they will oppose us and continue to wait until we leave.

    And finally, Rudy Giuliani appeared on Sean Hannity’s radio show today and said, “I support the First Amendment right to carry and to bear arms.” And here I thought Giuliani didn’t take conservatives’ concerns about guns seriously….

    Apparantly they’re finally becoming explicit about their belief in only one amendment to the Bill of Rights. Everyone knows it’s the only one they believe in.

  • CB, why bother trying to like The Politico? Even without its journalistic “rookie mistakes,” I have asiduously avoided them for no other region than its principals seem to lack principles. Right out of the gate these guys seemed to be way more enamoured with their skills and potential than their track records seemed to warrant. I think Jim Vanderhei made some comments about the venture attracting only the cream of the crop journalists or something like that. I saw him on C-Span’s Washington Journal and it seemed to be more of the same. Then Bush gives them a plug at a press “conference.” Kiss o’ death in my book. Just let yourself go and don’t like them. They deserve to go under. IMO, they are “competition” that adds no value to the market place.

  • Bush and the GOP in congress are selling a bad deal, whether it’s Iraq or the purgegate investigation. It’s like if I need three days to do something, and you know it and I know it, but you’re only going to give me six fucking hours and let me think I’m going to get the time I need. If you sell me that under a fake deal, then I’ve got to break faith with you three times or so just to set everything straight.

  • As of right now, these bombings are not mentioned at all anywhere among the dozens of headlines on CNN.com.

    No, but there is a prominent story featuring Admiral Whatsisface (CENTCOM CINC) assuring us that there is no civil war in Iraq — just a couple of small factions fighting with each other.

  • And finally, Rudy Giuliani appeared on Sean Hannity’s radio show today and said, “I support the First Amendment right to carry and to bear arms.”

    Ah yes, just what you’d expect from a leading graduate of a leading law school with years and years of experience as a U.S. Attorney.

    This guy reminds me of every bad Italian joke I ever heard – with him as the embodiment of each. “Il Duce” is even dumber than I have been giving him credit for. Let’s see if his campaign car “has one speed forward and four in reverse.”

  • That Dan Rather clip about the Nixon re-election effort is a real throwback to what TV journalism once was. For one thing, the piece is 5:30 in length — imagine that being spent today on anything but a celebrity piece — and doesn’t have one pundit telling us how to interpret what Rather or the people he interviews are telling us quite clearly.

    Seeing Cronkite again? Priceless. Whatever beefs one may have had with him, there’s no one on the tube these days who’s qualified to file his notes at the end of the program.

  • About that CNN issue, CB—doesn’t it seem odd that an allegedly-pre-eminent media outlet would think that tainted pet food killing some dogs and cats is more important than the lives of Iraqi citizens lost in mass-attack terrorist bombings?

    “Iraqis—lower than dogs”—next on CNN.

    Just think of the ramifications of such a concept in the Islamic world. I would not want to be a CNN employee anywhere in the ME right now. No—I take that back. I would not want to be a CNN employee anywhere on the planet right now. Whoever runs their news division needs to be thrown under the bus….

  • As for The Politico, I too am disappointed. Startups can be excused for some early miscues, but these folks seem to have looked to the wrong role models. There are just too many reputable sites on the Net these days, and too many knowledgeable readers to think that you can get away with shoddy reporting.

  • beep52, you have hit on one of my wife’s absolute pet peeves about modern “journalism” — reporters and talking heads interviewing other reporters and talking heads and calling it news.

  • Geez Rudy, I know Bush is trashing the Constitution, but you’re already doing that and you’re not even elected. Echoing Former Dan, I guess Cheney shooting an old man in the face is constitutionally protected free speech.

  • Take it from a New Yorker: Rudy’s not at all dumb. He’s just whoring so fast and so furiously that he doesn’t have time to get the details…

  • Just a normal Tuesday in South Florida.

    It’s calling you back Mr. CB. I mean what’s so great about Vermont? If you want maple syrup, you can always go to Waffle House. Think of all that irrational exuberance you’re missing down there.

    It’s OK to hope good things for The Politico but everyblog that’s anyblog has earned it’s stripes by walking the walk over the last few years including a much respected and often linked to TCR. Nobody’s making them trip over their own shoestrings. If they learn how to tie a decent knot, they can walk. If not, who cares? The world doesn’t need more hollow innuendo. It’s not like there ain’t enough to read these days.

  • * C&L and Cliff Schecter are both hosting fundraisers.

    Seeing as I don’t read either on a regular basis (only when you refer me to something there)… I’d be more interested in contributing my pennies to CBR. How does one do *that*?

    * And finally, Rudy Giuliani appeared on Sean Hannity’s radio show today and said, “I support the First Amendment right to carry and to bear arms.”

    Shows you just how much I know about Amendments, even after 34 yrs in this country… Here I was, thinking it was the Second which allowed us to keep and arm bears…

  • And finally, Rudy Giuliani appeared on Sean Hannity’s radio show today and said, “I support the First Amendment right to carry and to bear arms.” And here I thought Giuliani didn’t take conservatives’ concerns about guns seriously….

    If that isnt a ROOKIE campaign mistake I dont know what is…..yet I am still wating for the Politico, Drudge, Joe Klein and the other wonder boys of the beltway media establishment to expose and heavily publicize this absolutely embarassing admission by Guiliani…..

    PS I am not holding my breath

  • Seeing as I don’t read either on a regular basis (only when you refer me to something there)… I’d be more interested in contributing my pennies to CBR. How does one do *that*?

    Comment by libra — 3/27/2007 @ 11:52 pm

    Check out, (Click), the PayPal/Donate logo between the capitol dome and the “Other Political Sites” list on the left above.

  • Anyone know of another link to the Ann Althouse breakdown? Is it up on youtube yet? thanks in advance.

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