In case you missed it:

9:13: starts sotu by mentioning Coretta Scott King and hoping for a reunion with her husband at the Rainbow Bridge. Sam Seder: Too bad he named a Supreme Court Justice who's going to reverse most of the gains MLK made.

9:14: Calls for civil tone in debate. OK, Republicans, you go first.

9:16: Invokes 9/11 and mentions terrorism.

9:17: Mentions the fight against terror

9:17: Third mention of the word "freedom"

9:18: Mentions purple ink on Iraqi fingers

9:19: Mentions that half of people live in Democratic nations. Does not mention that the U.S. is no longer one of them.

9:20: Says terrorists are trying to break our will. Could not see if the hula jaw was working.

9:21: Gotta get 'em there so they won't come here.

9:21. Workin' the jaw.

9:22: We will never surrender to evil. Translation: We will be at war forever, and I can do anything I want while we're at war.

9:22: That jaw is really working.

9:22: Lies that we have killed or captured many terrorist leaders.

9:22: Says we have a clear plan for victory in Iraq. Says we are continuing "weconstruction efforts." Does not mention whether it's wabbit season in Fallujah.

9:23: Mentions Iraqis showing their courage. Does not say it's because they might get blown up on their way to work.

9:23. Says work in Iraq is difficult because enemy is brutal. Does n ot say it's because he doesn't know what the hell he's doing.

9:24: Says he's confident in Iraqi victory. Says we are winning. Does not mention "truthiness." The morons present give him a standing ovation. Says Iraqi forces are increasingly taking the lead. Tell that to Bob Woodruff, asshole.

9:25: Closeup of jaw working. He stops when he realizes it's a closeup.

9:25: Brands anything that disagrees with him as defeatism. Works the jaw.

9:26: Says those in public office have a duty to speak with candor. As of when, Georgie?

9:27: Smirks.

9:27: Invokes the sacrifices of the soldiers. Says they know what it's like to fight house to house....to see a comrade killed. That's more than he knows.

9:28: Invokes Dan Clay, who was killed in Fallujah last week. Dan's father Bud is present. Applause. (Snarky trivia note: "Bud Clay" is the name of Vincent Gallo's character in The Brown Bunny, which Roger Ebert regards as the worst movie ever made. In the film, Gallo receives a blowjob from Chloe Sevigny.)

9:29: Mentions terror. Says we support democratic reform across the Middle East. Does not mention that he favors dictatorship here.

9:31: Mentions Hamas. Take two drinks. Says Hamas must recognize Israel. Huge ovation.

9:31: Lauds "first steps to reform" among his buddies in Saudi Arabia.

9:32: Mentions "small clerical elite" holding Iran hostage. Does not mention the small clerical elite which holds our government hostile.

9:32: Says we will not allow the Iranian regime to obtain nuclear weapons. Speaking directly to citizens of Iran, he says we respect their rights to choose their own future, as long as they choose a free and democratic Iran.

9:33: Mentions AIDS again. Does not mention the $15 billion he promised last time that he didn't deliver on.

9:35: Gets belligerent, claims that other presidents have done the same warrantless searches he has. Says that if you are getting calls from Al Qaeda, he wants to know about it "because we will not wait to be hit again." Presumably if you are getting calls from Cindy Sheehan, he will want to know about it too.

9:38: Implies that warrantless spying is going to go on indefinitely.

9:38: Says our economy is healthy, talks about creating 4.6 million new jobs. Does not mention how many jobs were lost and what those jobs pay compared to the lost jobs.

9:39: Implies that everyone who lost a job to India is a bigot.

9:39: Says this economy could not function without immigrants. Republicans applaud politely, confused.

9:41: Asks for tax cuts to be made permanent. Yes, creating an even larger deficit is the way back to prosperity. Says this year he will cut programs that are performing poorly. (Translation: Medicare, Medicaid, Social Security, and Veterans' benefits)

9:42: Jesus H. Christ...he just asked for the line item veto. Under what rock in the Rose Garden did he find that one?

9:43: Whoa. Designated Family Shithead joke. Says that two of his father's favorite people are approaching retirement age -- himself and Bill Clinton. Makes dire remarks about Social Security; Republicans erupt in enthusiastic applause. I wonder how watching these guys go nuts over Social Security privatization is going to play in Peoria. Gets even more hysterical as he continues talking. His bold plan: Create a commission to study the problem. Oy.

9:47: Here comes his health care plan. Make wider use of electronic records to control costs. Calls for health savings accounts "so that people can buy insurance with the same benefits that big corporations get." (How is that going to happen?) Calls for tort reform this year. He spends 1-1/2 minutes on health care, which means he hasn't got a frickin' clue.

9:47: Announces that we are addicted to oil. Announces a 22% increase in energy research, invest in coal-fired plants, wind power, and nuclear energy. Talks about hydrogen and hybrid cars. Wants more research into ethanol. Sounds like Archer-Daniels-Midland got hold of him. Calls for reducing oil imports by 75% by 2025. This is all well and good, but how is he going to do this and keep his contributors in the energy industry happy? Or are they going to get all this government investment?

9:52: Says we're going to keep our edge in education. Announces American competitive initiative, including giving American children "a firm grounding in math and science." Does not say whether this includes the study of so-called "intelligent design." Supercomputing is a "promising technology"? Does the name "Cray" mean anything to him?

9:54. Calls for children to opt for more math and science curricula and institute rigorous standards. Does not say whether this includes intelligent design. Dobson must be having a coronary.

9:55: Talks about the U.S. as a compassionate nation. Touts drop in welfare cases, but does not mention the people tossed off the rolls. Says the number of teenaged pregnancies has dropped over 12 years. Gives credit to commitment to "a life of personal responsiblity" and abstinence education. Does not mention that abortions have INCREASED during his term over the number of abortions during the Clinton years.

9:57: The Alito welcome: Talks about judges who won't legislate from the bench. Gives thanks to Sandra Day O'Connor for her service and for retiring, thus allowing him to name Strip Search Sammy the Stem Cell Alito to the court.

9:58: Calls for a ban on human cloning, including human/animal hybrids. This is ostensibly aimed at Rick Santorum's attempt to locate a cross between a woman and a collie, allowing him to have man-on-dog sex while still not committing bestiality.

9:59: Tepidly says he supports ethics standards strengthening. This is met with equally tepid applause.

10:00: Encourages adults to get involved in the lives of children, including an initiative led by Pickles, who looks drugged. His speech is getting really slurred. Funny...when Hillary Clinton used to talk about this, it was called "It takes a village to raise a child" and everyone laughed at it.

10:01: It's been about 45 minutes. He's starting to head into Clinton territory, with none of the Clinton substances.

10:02: Calls for reinstatement of the Ryan White Act to provide for better access to AIDS drugs. This is met with very tepid applause from Republicans, who want the wages of sin to be death. Talks obliquely about prevention, which may be translated as "keep your legs closed, bitch!"

10:04: He's starting to sound like Bluto, exhorting the troops to a really futile and stupid gesture.

10:04: It's over. Thank God. Brian Williams is already fellating him on the air, Timmeh belabors the obvious by noting the divide in Congress. These guys think he has little chance of getting any of this through. Andrea Mitchell says there was nothing conciliatory about this speech and his military vision is "We can't retreat" and nothing more. David Gregory comes along. He notes the mix of conciliation and confrontation. Wonders if it's too far into the Bush presidency for him to get the parties to come together. Williams says Bush is frustrated with what he sees as a large part of the population that doesn't agree with his message, that this is a nation at war.

Timmeh says that he should then ask for sacrifice from Americans. Notes that he was flanked by the Congressional leadership that Bush says was informed about the eavesdropping. Timmeh says it's going to go to the Supreme Court, and that what the Court says about this eavesdropping will determine the Bush legacy. Of course, with Sammy Alito on the Court, we all know how they will decide.

OK, I've had quite enough of this.

An uncharacteristically somber Joe Biden is just back from Iraq:



Note how Timmeh tries to put lipstick on the pig that is the administration's Iraq policy by parroting Captain Codpiece's line about Anbar Province. And Joltin' Joe shoots him right down (so to speak).

Let's see if he confronts Petraeus on the latter's inevitable positive spin this week.

Labels: Iraq, Joe Biden

Timmeh, Joe, and Pat are tubthumping big-time for McCain this morning. Expect more of this theme, ever-escalating, until November. It's as if Barack Obama no longer exists.

The cocktail weenie-eaters of the Beltway want the Clinton/McCain matchup, and they're bound and determined to get it. The question is whether Americans will do their bidding or think for themselves.

Labels: hack journalism

This is priceless. Watch Dylan Ratigan take that smirking punk Luke Russert to the woodshed:

You can bet your next paycheck that Ratigan got a good hard dressing down from the NBC suits for daring to question the Spawn of Timmeh.

(I guess now I have to start a new blog, "Sweet Jesus I Hate Luke Russert." =sigh=)

(via)

Labels: hack journalism, nepotism, political hackery

Bruce Wilson over at Talk2Action has an entry that will make your hair curl about John McCain's new best friend, John Hagee. While Tweety and Timmeh and the rest of the MSNBC McCain fellaters are demanding that Barack Obama commit hari-kiri because Lewis Farrakhan said some nasty things about Jews at one time, the man they love is embracing an even bigger anti-Semite:

San Antonio megachurch pastor John Hagee founded CUFI in 2006 : ostensibly as a "pro-Israel" non-profit group which would teach American Christian Zionists to lobby for Israel and coordinate their efforts. CUFI holds yearly summer lobbying conferences in Washington DC and also organizes numerous "A Night To Honor Israel" events around the United States on an ongoing basis, as part of CUFI's agenda of strengthening political alliances between American Christian Zionists and American Jews. But CUFI's politics, as compared to average political views of Jewish Americans, veer far to the right, lie along the extreme end of the theocratic spectrum and espouse an intransigent and radically bellicose approach to Mideast politics. CUFI is allied with the hard Israeli right and, most recently, has been organizing to block efforts by the current Olmert administration, writes journalist Bill Berkowitz, towards any Israeli-Palestinian peace deal that would divide Jerusalem. CUFI's extremity goes beyond the politics of its allies in Israel, Benjamin Netanyahu and the Likud Party - one of CUFI's key founding executive board members, Jerry Falwell, once preached that "millions of Jews will be slaughtered", called Jews "spiritually blind" and stated, in 1999, that the coming 'anti-Christ' Falwell expected would be a Jew. CUFI regional director George Morrison has predicted "another Holocaust" and another regional director, Dr. Chuck Missler, currently sells an audio lecture series entitled "The Next Holocaust" and has said that Auschwitz was "just a prelude". In his 2006 book "Jerusalem Countdown", Pastor John Hagee's seemed to blame Jews for the [last] Holocaust (for disobeying God) and identify Hitler, the Nazis and the Holocaust as God's way of driving Jews to settle in Palestine. He has called also liberal Jews "poisoned". The core of the following assembled material I put together, last fall, for the benefit of a potential financial benefactor, to the Military Religious Freedom Foundation, who- as a Jewish-American -was torn between concern over the growing influence of Christian fundamentalism in the US military and loyalty to Jewish groups and institutions in his area which had received financial support from Christians United For Israel and its supporters.

[snip]

In "Jerusalem Countdown", Pastor John Hagee seems to blame Jews themselves for the Holocaust (see passage below):

"It was the disobedience and rebellion of the Jews, God's chosen people, to their covenantal responsibility to serve only the one true God, Jehovah, that gave rise to the opposition and persecution that they experienced beginning in Canaan and continuing to this very day....

[snip]

John Hagee also has written, in "Jerusalem Countdown", that Hitler and the Nazis were sent by God, agents of "God's boundless love... for the Jewish People" :

"The Prophet Jeremiah... paints a vivid picture of the human agents God intended to use to bring the Jewish people back to Israel:

'But now I will send for many fisherman', declares the Lord', 'and they will catch them. After that I will send for many hunters and they will hunt them down on every mountain and hill and from the crevices of the rocks.'

I believe this indicates the positive comes before the negative.....

First, God sent the fisherman to Israel. These were the Zionists, men like Theodore Herzl who called for the Jews of Europe and the World to come to Palestine and establish the Jewish state. The Jews were encouraged to escape while there was still time....

[Then] God sent the hunters. The hunter is one who pursues his target with force and fear. No one could see the horror of the Holocaust coming, but the force and fear of Hitler's Nazis drive the Jewish people back to the only home God ever intended for the Jews to have-Israel.... I am stricken with awe and wonder at his boundless love for Israel and the Jewish people..."( "Jerusalem Countdown", paperback edition, pages 132 and 133 )

The implication of Hagee's writing is that Jews have no legitimate right to live anywhere else but in Israel, where per Hagee's beliefs they will soon be all but destroyed, reduced to a "remnant" and converted to Christianity.

It's time for a swarm of letter-writing, folks. Write to your local papers and demand that John McCain be subject to the same demands for repudiation of hatemongers as Barack Obama. If this is the playing field on which this election is going to take place, then dammit, we are going to play too.

Labels: Christofascist Zombie Brigade, hypocrisy, John McCain, right-wing hatemongers

I hope you all got to see John Edwards on Press the Meat this morning. Tim Russert's absolute, sit-bolt-upright-at-night-screaming terror of a John Edwards nomination was palpable. He was bug-eyed, sweating with fear and practically yelling his questions -- and John Edwards was utterly unflappable.

If you didn't see it, the video is up at the show's site, here. Watch Timmeh have apoplexy as he fails utterly to trip Edwards up.

Labels: hack journalism, John Edwards, Tim Russert

Here's the guy the Republicans want to replace George W. Bush:

MR. RUSSERT: He was asked last night what would he do as president. He said, “Well, I’d do lots of things.” And asked, what if—“Are you prepared to talk about those?” He said, “No.” Obviously wanting to give time to frame his issues. You remember the 1994 Senate campaign when he ran for the Senate in Tennessee. Here he is with the famous red pickup truck. Is this going to be a, a campaign of a lot of style, a Hollywood actor saying, “I’m a good ol’ boy”?

Memo to Timmeh: Yes, that's exactly what this is going to be. Hey, Thompson says he's going to do "lots of things." Isn't that enough? I mean, whaddya want, anyway -- someone who actually KNOWS what's goin on in the world and has a PLAN to address the challenges this country faces? Why do that when he can put on a cowboy hat, or eat some ribs to show he's not some latte-drinking, Volvo-driving tree hugger from the Godless heathen Northeast? After all, real leadership, hard work, knowledge, and planning are SO September 10.

(More at C&L.)

Labels: Fred Thompson, idiocy, Republic Party

If you're supporting John Edwards, or even if you're leaning towards supporting him or are unsure; if you're troubled by Barack Obama's continued insistence on using right-wing framing to sell his candidacy (the latest being to praise Ronald Reagan for bamboozling working people in 49 states to vote for an anti-union, anti-middle-class elitist in 1980); or even if you don't like the fact that Timmeh and Brian and Katie and Charlie and Morning Joe and Tweety are trying to turn the Democratic contest into a steel-cage match betweeen the woman and the black guy (where are the "two Jews and a cripple" (sic), consider donating to John Edwards today.

If your friends and family who don't eat, sleep, and breathe politics the way you do don't know that Edwards is in the race, or if they think that he's a fringe candidate like Mike Gravel, perhaps this is why:





On the Republican side,

I've made no secret that I'm supporting John Edwards in the primary race. Some of the Obamaniacs who spam the diaries at Le Grand Orange trying to squelch all criticism of their candidate, have called for Edwards to leave the race in the name of party unity. I say fuck that. The primaries are the only place (and this year, even New Jersey has a voice) where you can vote for the candidate you want. I haven't wanted to turn B@B into an Edwards campaign blog, because his campaign already has an excellent one. But Edwards' campaign wants to send a message by raising $7 million in one day -- today.

So if you've been thinking you really should donate, today is the day, and now is the time. Click the image above or here.

Labels: 2008 election, John Edwards

Just in case you were tempted to fall for last night's bipartisanship meme as a sign that the Crawford Caligula's ego is in check, Bob Cesca, on whom you may always rely to cut through the crap and get to what's really going on, points out that in his speech last night, Bush referred to the opposition party as "The Democrat Party", which is the Republican Party/Fox News code for "We don't give a shit what you think". He also notes that the Crawford Caligula isn't as chastened as Timmeh and Brian Williams might want you to believe, because he's using his tough-guy rhetoric again, giving marching orders to the troops he's sending to die in Iraq as if they'd been doing nothing but playing canasta over there for nearly five years:

First, before we get into it, anyone else notice that the president said "Democrat Party" instead of "Democratic Party" even though the written text of his speech read "Democratic Party?" In other words, the president deliberately strayed from his prepared remarks just so he could work in a veiled insult. This is the president who never improvises during his public addresses (gaffes don't count as improv).

It pretty much negated all of his phony-baloney kudos to Speaker Pelosi, as well as his pledge to "cross that aisle" in the spirit of bipartisanship. It was kind of like saying to your wife, "I love those shoes. They make you look way sexy. Yeah. I'll call you from my cell when I leave the Spearmint Rhino. Bye!"

Down to it. Of all the remarks by the president, the one that stuck with me the most was the following:

"We are sending an additional 4,000 United States Marines, with orders to find the terrorists and clear them out."

Finding the terrorists and clearing them out. Right. What's the old maxim? Picking gnat shit out of pepper? This represents the same kind of simplified language the president has employed since the beginning of all of this -- the same sloganeering that shoved us into Iraq without a plan to win and get out. Go in there and get 'em, Private Stretch! That's the plan. No details as to how our soldiers might identify "the terrorists" as opposed to "the non-terrorists." This is the brand of euphemistic, misleading silliness that leads certain Americans (Hannity) to believe that it's still a winnable war: all we need to do is lasso the bunch of them. No reprisals, no collateral damage, no blowback. Clear them out. That's it.

It's bullshit. We always knew it was bullshit, but now it's documented. Of course this won't matter wo the whores like Katie Couric, Timmeh, and Chris Matthews, but let's get the truth out there.

A new and extensive analysis of campaign donations from all of Jack Abramoff’s tribal clients, done by a nonpartisan research firm, shows that a great majority of contributions made by those clients went to Republicans. The analysis undercuts the claim that Abramoff directed sums to Democrats at anywhere near the same rate.

The analysis, which was commissioned by The American Prospect and completed on Jan. 25, was done by Dwight L. Morris and Associates, a for-profit firm specializing in campaign finance that has done research for many media outlets.

In the weeks since Abramoff confessed to defrauding tribes and enticing public officials with bribes, the question of whether Abramoff directed donations just to Republicans, or to the GOP and Democrats, has been central to efforts by both parties to distance themselves from the unfolding scandal. President Bush recently addressed the question on Fox News, saying: “It seems to me that he [Abramoff] was an equal money dispenser, that he was giving money to people in both political parties.”

Although Abramoff hasn’t personally given to any Democrats, Republicans, including officials with the GOP campaign to hold on to the Senate, have seized on the donations of his tribal clients as proof that the saga is a bipartisan scandal. And the controversy recently spread to the media when the ombudsman for The Washington Post, Deborah Howell, ignited a firestorm by wrongly asserting that Abramoff had given to both. She eventually amended her assessment, writing that Abramoff “directed his client Indian tribes to make campaign contributions to members of Congress from both parties.”

But the Morris and Associates analysis, which was done exclusively for The Prospect, clearly shows that it’s highly misleading to suggest that the tribes's giving to Dems was in any way comparable to their giving to the GOP. The analysis shows that when Abramoff took on his tribal clients, the majority of them dramatically ratcheted up donations to Republicans. Meanwhile, donations to Democrats from the same clients either dropped, remained largely static or, in two cases, rose by a far smaller percentage than the ones to Republicans did. This pattern suggests that whatever money went to Democrats, rather than having been steered by Abramoff, may have largely been money the tribes would have given anyway.

The analysis includes a detailed look at seven of Abramoff’s tribal clients, and a comparison of their giving with that of approximately 170 other tribes. (Abramoff is often said to have had nine tribal clients. But Morris omitted two of the tribes – the Pueblo of Santa Clara, whose donations were virtually nonexistent, and the Tigua Indian Reservation, because it isn’t listed in Federal lobbying files as having a lobbyist and Abramoff worked on contingency. At any rate Santa Clara’s post-Abramoff donations to the GOP were overwhelmingly higher than to Dems, so including them would have added even more to the GOP side of the ledger.)

The analysis shows:


in total, the donations of Abramoff’s tribal clients to Democrats dropped by nine percent after they hired him, while their donations to Republicans more than doubled, increasing by 135 percent after they signed him up;

five out of seven of Abramoff’s tribal clients vastly favored Republican candidates over Democratic ones;

four of the seven began giving substantially more to Republicans than Democrats after he took them on;

Abramoff’s clients gave well over twice as much to Republicans than Democrats, while tribes not affiliated with Abramoff gave well over twice as much to Democrats than the GOP -- exactly the reverse pattern.
“It’s very hard to see the donations of Abramoff’s clients as a bipartisan greasing of the wheels,” Morris, the firm’s founder and a former investigations editor at the Los Angeles Times, told The Prospect.

Bloomberg News published a similar, more limited analysis last month, which relied on a small amount of data also from Morris’ firm.” But that analysis didn't look at all of Abramoff's tribal clients, and didn't provide a detailed year-by-year analysis of their donations or a detailed comparison to other tribal giving. Since then, some observers, such as blogger Kevin Drum, have argued that a comprehensive look at the donations of all of Abramoff’s tribal clients would help shed light on the scandal.

The Prospect asked Morris to do two things: First, compare the contributions of all of Abramoff’s tribal clients before they’d signed on with Abramoff versus after they’d become his client. And second, compare the contributions of all Abramoff tribal clients with the contributions of all non-Abramoff tribes.

Go here to see the rundown of said donations.

As the above numbers show, four out of seven tribes -- Saginaw, Chitimacha, Coushatta and Mississippi – saw their contributions to Republicans increase significantly, even vastly, after they became Abramoff’s clients.

At the same time, two of those four tribes -- Saginaw and Chitimacha -- saw their giving to Democrats drop or remain static. The other two -- tribes Coushatta and Mississippi -- did see their giving to Dems rise under Abramoff, but by amounts that were dwarfed by the increases in giving to the GOP.

These patterns strongly suggest that Abramoff’s representation of the tribes manifested itself largely in a dramatic rise in contributions to the GOP. And it also suggests it’s likely that Abramoff had little impact on giving to Democrats.

Nor does it appear likely that Abramoff steered contributions to Dems from the remaining three tribes who didn’t see their giving to the GOP climb. Of those three tribes, one tribe -- Pueblo of Sandia -- saw a negligible shift in donations to both parties. The second -- Agua Caliente -- slashed its contributions to both parties, but even so, the percentage of that tribe’s giving that went to Republicans still rose dramatically. The third -- Cherokee Nation -- simply stopped giving altogether.

The big picture is also compelling. Taken together, Abramoff’s tribal clients gave $868,890 to Dems before hiring him; afterwards, they gave $794,483 -- a decrease of nine percent. By contrast, the tribes’ donations to Republicans went from $786,560 pre-Abramoff to $1,845,975 after he became their lobbyist -- an increase of 135 percent. In other words, when Abramoff entered the picture, contributions to Dems dropped, while donations to Republicans more than doubled.

Adding to the case, the Morris firm also did a year-by-year analysis, from 1991 to the present, of the giving of scores of tribes -- Abramoff’s clients included. The firm’s look at the year-by-year giving of his clients is eye-opening. It shows even more clearly that in some cases clients’ giving to the GOP jumped dramatically just after Abramoff signed them.

Let me repeat what is the main source of the use of this meme -- the notion that because tribes that were clients of Jack Abramoff gave LEGAL campaign contributions to Democrats, it is exactly the same as if Abramoff had given the money himself. Another part of this claim is that Abramoff directed the donations to Democrats and the tribes did his bidding. Both of those assumptions are demonstrably false.

God knows there have been plenty of financial scandals involving Democrats, and the issue isn't that Democrats are pure as the driven snow. But the Abramoff scandal involves corruption at the highest levels of government to an extent we rarely see. This scandal is breathtaking in both its breadth and its utter shamelessness. The broacast whores of the mainstream media have been given their marching orders to repeat the false meme in perpetuity. But here in consensus reality, we still call a lie for what it is: a lie. It's not "another viewpoint" or even the Colbertian "truthiness." It's a falsehood, plain and simple.

Amb. Joseph Wilson was on the Today show, unfazed by Jamie Gangel's attempts to whitewash Karl Rove. I'll post excerpts and a link to the transcript when they're up.

Of note following the interview was Tim Russert calling the 49% who do not believe Bush is "honest and straightforward" as "a near-majority."

Funny....I don't remember him calling 49% "a near majority" when that was John Kerry's 2004 vote percentage. Is this an indication that even Bush Administration shills like Timmeh are starting to jump ship? Stay tuned.

“I’m a committed Christian, and I’m not going to have other people tell me how I should or shouldn’t be a Christian. That’s my personal business, and I’m not going to have these Pharisees tell me what to do.” -- Howard Dean, on Timmy the Bush Flack today.

Did any of you see the good Doctor smack Timmeh around today? Yes, he made a few blunders, like saying "Osama bin Laden" when he meant "Saddam Hussein." But Howard Dean is nobody's pussy, and he's not going to let an administration flack like Tim Russert push him around.

Here's Dean after being lectured by Sir Tim the Sanctimonious about "a physician to mock somebody who has gone into therapy and the abuse for drug addiction..." in the context of Rush Limbaugh:

Here's the point I was trying--as most of these things are taken by the Republicans, spun around Washington saying this in a one sentence, which I generally had said. But then they're sort of manipulated around, saying this is the kind of thing he said. The Rush Limbaugh comment was one that I made about Rush Limbaugh, and I also said something about Bill O'Reilly. The problem is not that these folks have problems. They do, and they have problems in the case of a drug addiction. That's a medical problem. And I respect those who clearly, in my profession, who are trying to overcome their problems.

The problem is it is galling to Democrats, 48 percent of us who did not support the president, it is galling to be lectured to about moral values by folks who have their own problems. Hypocrisy is a value that I think has been embraced by the Republican Party. We get lectured by people all day long about moral values by people who have their own moral shortcomings. I don't think we ought to give a whole lot of lectures to people--I think the Bible says something to the effect that be careful when you talk about the shortcomings of somebody else when you haven't removed the moat from your own eye. And I don't think we ought to be lectured to by Republicans who have got all these problems themselves.

[snip]

I will use whatever position I have in order to root out hypocrisy. I'm not going to be lectured as a Democrat--we've got some pretty strong moral values in my party, and maybe we ought to do a better job standing up and fighting for them. Our moral values, in contradiction to the Republicans', is we don't think kids ought to go to bed hungry at night. Our moral values say that people who work hard all their lives ought to be able to retire with dignity. Our moral values say that we ought to have a strong, free public education system so that we can level the playing field. Our moral values say that what's going on in Indian country in this country right now in terms of health care and education is a disgrace, and for the president of the United States to cut back on health-care services all over America is wrong.

Democrats have strong moral values. Frankly, my moral values are offended by some of the things I hear on programs like "Rush Limbaugh," and we don't have to put up with that. Our problem in this party is we didn't stand up early enough and fight back against folks like that who thought they were going to push us around and bully us, and we're not going to do it anymore.

Dean on abortion rights:

I'm not advocating we change our position. I believe that a woman has a right to make up her own mind about what kind of health care she gets, and I think Democrats believe that in general. Here's the problem--and we were outmanipulated by the Republicans; there's no question about it. We have been forced into the idea of "We're going to defend abortion." I don't know anybody who thinks abortion is a good thing. I don't know anybody in either party who is pro-abortion. The issue is not whether we think abortion is a good thing. The issue is whether a woman has a right to make up her own mind about her health care, or a family has a right to make up their own mind about how their loved ones leave this world. I think the Republicans are intrusive and they invade people's personal privacy, and they don't have a right to do that.

Let me tell you why I think we ought to--why I want to strike the words "abortion" and "choice." When I campaigned for this job, I talked to lots of Democrats. And there are significant numbers of pro-life Democrats in the South. And one lady said to me, you know, "I'm pro-life. I don't like abortion. I would never have one. I would hope my daughter would never have one. But, you know, if the lady next door got herself in a fix, I'm not sure I should be the one to tell her what to do." Now, we call that woman pro-choice, but she thinks of herself as pro-life. The minute we start with the "pro-choice, pro- choice, pro-choice," she says, "Well, that's not me."

But when you talk about framing this debate the way it ought to be framed, which is "Do you want Tom DeLay and the boys to make up your mind about this, or does a woman have a right to make up her own mind about what kind of health care she gets," then that pro-life woman says "Well, now, you know, I've had people try to make up my mind for me and I don't think that's right." This is an issue about who gets to make up their minds: the politicians or the individual. Democrats are for the individual. We believe in individual rights. We believe in personal freedom and personal responsibility. And that debate is one that we didn't win, because we kept being forced into the idea of defending the idea of abortion.

Dean on religion and politics:

I don't go to church all that much. I consider myself a deeply religious person. I consider myself a Christian. And I don't--you know, some of the other Christians would dare to say that I'm not a Christian. Frankly, it's what gets my ire up. We get back to the Rush Limbaugh stuff. I am sick of being told what I and what I'm not by other people. I'll tell you what I am. I'm a committed Christian. And the fact of whether I go to church or not, people can say whether I should or shouldn't, I worship in my own way. It came out in the campaign that I pray every night. That's my business. That's not the business of the pharisees who are going to preach to me about what I do and then do something else.

You know, I care about values a lot. And one of the reasons that I care a lot is because of my upbringing. And it was a--I grew up in a Christian household. Now, because I grew up--I'm a congregationalist. People say, "Well, those are liberals." Well, since when do Christians get tagged liberal or conservative? You either believe in the teachings of Jesus or you don't. I do. And I'm not ashamed to admit it. But I don't go around wearing it on my sleeve. And I think that's a private matter. And I'm happy to talk about it. I've been through a political campaign. There are a lot of folks to whom, you know, that's very important. I respect that. But I'm not going to be lectured to about my own private morality and my own private business by people who don't have the moat taken out of their own eye.

Well, that was more than one quote. But DAMN, he's good. They need to let him get out and speak more, except them people might realize that the assorted clowns from which they'll get to choose in 2006 are all inferior to the guy who frightened them so much last year.

Is it possible that there may yet be some justice in this country? Judith "Kneepads" Miller, that wonderful New York Times "reporter" (sic) whose chummy relationship with Iraqi con man Ahmad Chalabi led to many reports that bolstered the Bush Administration's case for war, has been subpoenaed by the grand jury trying to determine who leaked the identity of Valerie Plame to the press.

"Also subpoenaed was NBC-TV's "Meet the Press'' host Tim Russert, who agreed to be interviewed under oath to avoid a court battle", sez the Associated Press.

Kneepads and "Timmeh!!" -- appearing before a grand jury. Schweet.

The department in which I work is largely populated with Yankee fans. This of course makes even our management look askance on those who dare to support other teams, particularly that dysfunctional mess in Flushing. People who support the finely-honed machine that operates out of the Bronx can't understand why anyone would stick with the Mets when one had such a stellar in-town alternative.

One thing about being a Mets fan is that you often have two choices after the regular season -- either forget baseball exists until next year (and this year, until you find out whether they're going to give Sandy Alderson the job or another lackey who's just going to be cover for Jeff Wilpon's ineptitude, Mr. Wilpon not having learned from George W. Bush that ownership of a team should not make the player decisions, see also: Sammy Sosa), or pick another team as short-term good guy. Office politics prevent me from doing this with anyone other than the Yankees, but now that the Yankees' aging on-field presence proved not enough for the younger, hungrier Texas Rangers, the choice is now clear. And as happy as I am that Jeff Francoeur, who was treated pretty shabbily by the Mets, is in the World Series, that's where it ends. Because what we now have is the delicious allegory of a San Francisco vs. Texas World Series, which in this election year, is further proof that baseball really IS a metaphor for life. New York may have not one but TWO pretty damn good football teams this year, one of them boasting a smokin' hot quarterback whose love of musical theatre makes me wonder if he'll show up in the doldrums of February on Glee. But if it's going to be seventy-five degrees on October 27, I want baseball.

None other than Joan Walsh takes a break from MSNBC appearances to wax rhapsodic about the Little Team That Could, led by its flaxen-haired pitching phenom:

So real Giants fans know the truth: It's possible to love the Giants of 2002 and 2010, to see the differences -- and some similarities, too. Leaving aside Bonds and the great Jeff Kent, that earlier team had guys who were (almost literally) left for dead; catcher Benito Santiago hadn't been expected to play baseball again after a devastating car accident in 1998; he was NLCS MVP. Career .257 hitter David Bell, who played for six teams, scored the series-winning run against the Cardinals; washed-up ex-Cub Shawon Dunston (now a Giants coach) hit a two-out single to set up that win. The postseason wasn't all about Barry.

Still, it's not giving into the cheesy media narrative to admit this is an extraordinary team that wasn't supposed to be here (don't believe anyone who said they picked these Giants to win back in the spring). First baseman Aubrey Huff had no offers when the Giants signed him; Pat Burrell had been flat-out released by Tampa Bay; NLCS MVP Cody Ross was claimed in August when the Florida Marlins put him on waivers. Center fielder Andres Torres, clutch in that wild AT&T outfield as well as at the plate, is 32 and never before played a full season in the majors.

It is possible that no Giants team in my years here has been embraced so thoroughly. I just know we've got swag that celebrates this funky team accordingly. You can buy hats with long Lincecum-like locks attached, as well as T-shirts saying, "Let Timmy smoke" (the Cy Young winner was arrested in the offseason for marijuana possession) and most recently, "Fuck Yeah!" commemorating the star pitcher's recent NSFW comments on national television.

You can buy panda hats to honor Pablo Sandoval. There are fake black beards everywhere, thanks to the increasingly strange (and dominating) Wilson. I've even seen a few rally thongs, made famous by Huff, who put on a red, rhinestone studded thong to bust a slump in August and claims to have worn it ever since. You can listen to fan-made musical tributes to Huff's rally thong (to the tune of Elton John's "Your Song" -- that's right, it's "Your Thong"), to clutch pinch-hitter Travis Ishikawa ("Ishikawa da vida, baby") and the entire team: A video using Journey's "Don't Stop Believing" has had more than a million views on YouTube. The outpouring of creative fan-made Giants tributes makes it seem as though these overachieving everymen have brought out the dreamer in everyone.

Tim Lincecum is easy to hate when he's shutting out your team, but in the abstract, when there's no loyalty-since-childhood to deal with (although my father WAS a Giants fan before they packed up and went to San Francisco, leaving him pining for a National League team until the Mets came along), his retro-hippie sensibility makes him exactly the kind of player that gives wingnuts (and Philadelphia fans) fits. Because if there's one thing they hate, it's a pot-smoking, long-haired pitcher who bears a striking facial resemblance to figure skater Johnny Weir, has the kind of weird delivery that makes him injury-prone but has this year developed a truly nasty slider to replace the lost velocity on his fastball, and isn't at all fazed by things like Philadelphia fans' boorish speculation on his sexual orientation simply because he has long hair.

Next year I hope to see a third-place Mets team dominated by a young group of hardworking players, with a front-office determined to take the time necessary to build a system, not patch together a bunch of has-beens. Next year, when Tim Lincecum comes to town, I will hate him again. But for now, as he goes against Cliff Lee the Terminator and Inevitable Future Yankee, it's all Timmeh! in this house.

Labels: Baseball