"Only dull people are brilliant at breakfast"
-Oscar Wilde		 Brilliant at Breakfast title banner "The liberal soul shall be made fat, and he that watereth, shall be watered also himself."
-- Proverbs 11:25
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"I came here to chew bubblegum and kick ass. And I'm all out of bubblegum." -- "Rowdy" Roddy Piper (1954-2015), They Live
Saturday, July 31, 2010

I'm only going to say one two things about Chelsea Clinton's wedding
Posted by Jill | 10:24 PM
1) It's not a "royal wedding", for cryin' out loud. We don't have kings, as much as some Republicans still wish we did.

2) All those stories about the $3 million wedding?

Bullshit.

Congratulations, you two crazy kids. Good luck getting your private lives back.

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Tuesday, December 02, 2008

I wonder how they can still say this with a straight face
Posted by Jill | 5:42 AM
It's easy to understand how those who have missed trashing a presidential administration on the front page during the seven years of near-constant fellation of the Faux Flyboy George W. Bush and his Magic Codpiece. But the double-your-pleasure nominations of Hillary Clinton as Secretary of State and Eric Holder as Attorney General mean the good old days of Clinton Derangement Syndrome are back.

In the New York Times today (well-known for flogging Whitewater when no one else was, even though there was no there there), Eric Lichtblau and David Johnston examine Holder's role in the Marc Rich pardon.

I've never really understood what the obsession with this particular pardon was. I think much of it had to do with speculation that Bill Clinton was nailing Rich's ex-wife and that it was a case of making decisions with the infamous and all-powerful Clenis™. After all, sex sells, and God knows Bill Clinton gave the media enough fodder. Marc Rich is certainly a Bad Guy, but when you think about the kinds of shenanigans the current Administration has pulled, and the number of Republicans who have fallen in disgrace over the last four years, and the way Senate Republicans violated long-standing protocol to give convicted-on-seven-counts felon Ted Stevens a standing ovation just a few weeks ago, the continued vapors over Marc Rich seem a bit disingenuous:
By all accounts, Mr. Holder’s role in the affair represents the biggest misstep of his career, and Mr. Obama’s aides focused on the issue before Mr. Holder was selected. Republicans on the Senate Judiciary Committee were consulted to gauge whether the pardon would prove an insurmountable hurdle.

Some Republicans in Congress are eager to revisit the Rich pardon, which was investigated at length in 2001 both by Congress and by a grand jury amid a public clamor that was fueled by hefty donations that Mr. Rich’s former wife had made to Mr. Clinton’s presidential library and to Democratic causes. Critics of the pardon also seized on reports from American intelligence officials that Mr. Rich’s oil-and-commodities company had done business with Iran, Iraq and other so-called rogue states.

“Marc Rich was a fugitive for nearly two decades, wanted by the federal government for fraud and tax evasion,” Representative Lamar Smith of Texas, the ranking Republican on the House Judiciary Committee, said Monday after the nomination was announced. Referring to Mr. Holder’s actions, Mr. Smith added, “If a Republican official had engaged in this kind of activity, he would never receive Senate confirmation.”


Oh. My. God. Rich's company had done business with Iraq and Iran. Mr. Smith, I'd like to introduce you to Dick Cheney. You know, the scowling Angel of Death who crawls out of his bunker to show up there in the Senate every now and then?

On the one hand, one could wonder why Barack Obama was willing to open this door again and provide both the Republicans and the frothing mad dogs of the media with this kind of Clintonian obsession point this early in the game. But Obama has shown during the campaign that while Maureen Dowd may think of him as "Obambi", he is nobody's pushover, and he he made that clear yesterday:
.. I assembled this team because I'm a strong believer in strong personalities and strong opinions. I think that's how the best decisions are made. One of the dangers in a White House, based on my reading of history, is that you get wrapped up in groupthink and everybody agrees with everything and there's no discussion and there are no dissenting views. So I'm going to be welcoming a vigorous debate inside the White House.

But understand, I will be setting policy as president. I will be responsible for the vision that this team carries out, and I expect them to implement that vision once decisions are made.


It's almost enough to make me think that the Holder hearings might be worth watching, because everyone is expecting the kind of groveling, Renfield-like smarminess that has become the trademark of Democratic dealings with Republicans. It's my hope, at least, that Holder has the stones to put this "Buh..buh...but CLINTON!!!" crap to rest once and for all.

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Wednesday, December 05, 2007

Eight years later, Mike Huckabee can no longer hide from l'affaire Dumond
Posted by Jill | 6:23 AM
Tristero over at Digby's place has done a great job on this story, which until now has been (predictably) ignored by the mainstream media. But now, with Mike Huckabee surging in Iowa, the MSM has for some reason decided that the story is important. Brian Ross at ABC picks it up, and will have the story on Good Morning America this morning (video when I find it). CBS News picked it up yesterday.

My theory is that because Huckabee is a theocrat rather than a corporatist, the companies that own the media want to stop him, but it doesn't matter. The Dumond story is so ugly, and so emblematic of the kind of Clinton Derangement Syndrome that infects the entire Republican Party, that whatever the motivation, I'm glad it's getting out.

In 1988, the campaign of George H.W. Bush ran this ad against Democratic nominee Michael Dukakis:



The ad worked, and Dukakis' reputation as "soft on crime" never recovered.

But with Huckabee, you have a convicted rapist not just released for weekend furloughs, but outright released, and for only one reason: because wingnuts insisted that because the woman Dumond raped initially was a distant cousin of Bill Clinton's, that by definition that meant Dumond was railroaded, and therefore should be released. The Arkansas parole board, after being pressured by Huckabee, released Dumond was released, who went on to rape and murder at least one, and possibly two more women.

If there had been exculpatory evidence, Huckabee's decision might have been understandable. But the fact is that Dumond was released from prison for only one reason -- because the woman he raped had the misfortune to be distantly related to the man Republicans hate most in the entire universe -- more than Fidel Castro, more than they did Saddam Hussein, more than they hate Osama bin Laden, more than they hate Mahmoud Ahmadinejad. And therefore that meant anyone who raped her was by definition innocent.

What does THAT say about Republicans' ability to reason?

It should be well-known by now that I have no great love for the Clintons. But the level of insanity that has arisen around them goes beyond political differences and enters the realm of the pathological. And clemency for Wayne Dumond is what happens when Republicans let their fear and loathing get in the way of rationality.

Wayne Dumond should be hung, bodily, around Huckabee's neck for the remainder of this campaign. Huckabee may counter with the notion that mercy is a Christian trait. But when mercy only extends to rapists, but when victims who are related to Bill Clinton can go fuck themselves, THAT lack of judgment is a disqualification for the presidency.

(UPDATE: Murray Waas has even more. No way Huckabee can weasel out of this one. And it's just another reason why not one of these schticks dreck Republicans is fit to occupy the White House.)

(AND ANOTHER UPDATE: The letters Mike Huckabee received from Wayne Dumond's victims -- the letters he didn't take into account while lobbying for Dumond's release because the victim for whose rape he was in prison was a relative of Bill Clinton's, are here.)

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