Come for the politics, stay for the snark.

Live so that if you miss a day of work people aren’t hoping you’re dead.

Their boy Ron is an empty plastic cup that will never know pudding.

There are more Russians standing up to Putin than Republicans.

Why is it so hard for them to condemn hate?

So it was an October Surprise A Day, like an Advent calendar but for crime.

Baby steps, because the Republican Party is full of angry babies.

Too often we hand the biggest microphones to the cynics and the critics who delight in declaring failure.

When do the post office & the dmv weigh in on the wuhan virus?

“The defense has a certain level of trust in defendant that the government does not.”

Michigan is a great lesson for Dems everywhere: when you have power…use it!

We are aware of all internet traditions.

Come on, man.

How can republicans represent us when they don’t trust women?

I was promised a recession.

Good lord, these people are nuts.

Republicans: “Abortion is murder but you can take a bus to get one.” Easy peasy.

Innocent people don’t delay justice.

Republicans want to make it harder to vote and easier for them to cheat.

Fuck these fucking interesting times.

‘Museums aren’t America’s attic for its racist shit.’

I’d try pessimism, but it probably wouldn’t work.

I see no possible difficulties whatsoever with this fool-proof plan.

He imagines himself as The Big Bad, Who Is Universally Feared… instead of The Big Jagoff, Who Is Universally Mocked.

Imperialist aggressors must be defeated, or the whole world loses.

You are here: Home / 2006 / Archives for September 2006

Archives for September 2006

Don’t Blame Us, It’s the Media!

by | 58 Comments

This post is in: , , ,

Glenn Reynolds writes:

AUSTIN BAY ON THE CBS AMBUSH — with further thoughts at his blog. His point on the mutually-supporting relationship between terrorists and the news media is well taken.

Before I comment, let me quote what exactly the CBS ambush is, according to Austin Bay:

Remember the “Arab street,” that riot-in-the-road featuring flammable Israeli flags, Saddam Hussein posters, clenched fists and chants threatening “Death to America”? The street may have lacked pavement and a fire hydrant, but it had beaucoup television cameras.

Flames, clenched fists and death threats — a heart-pounding collage of sensational imagery and rhetoric. What more could a TV exec need to attract audience eyeballs?

Recall the talking heads who told us in 1990, after Saddam invaded Kuwait, that “the Arab street” was going to rise en masse, as an ur-proletariat, which would support Saddam against the West. If you need documentation, check out a few old PBS “NewsHour” transcripts.

But the mass rising didn’t happen. Why? Because the Arab street was, to a great extent, the creation of television cameras. Political operatives — no doubt many on Saddam’s payroll — knew they could attract the sensation-hungry camera crews and use the media to project the operatives’ preferred “image of anger.”

Twenty-first century Islamo-fascist terrorists, however, have refined the model and moved beyond an image of anger to a new form of prepared global ambush that integrates murder, terror and instant media.

***

Pope Benedict’s Regensburg ruminations provided another CBS ambush trigger.

Benedict — in a speech that examined historical relations between Muslims and Christians — quoted the Byzantine Emperor Manuel II Paleologus, a ruler whose empire consisted of little more than the city of Constantinople. Muslim Turks had all but dismembered his realm. Manuel II, engaged in a dialog with a Muslim Persian scholar, challenged the Persian to show him “just what Mohammed brought that was new, and there you will find things only evil and inhuman, such as his command to spread by the sword the faith he preached.”

***

Executing a CBS ambush requires the implicit cooperation of sensationalist media — media that delight in emotional slights and rarely probe beyond the superficial. Until that implicit cooperation ends, the Islamo-fascists will continue to exploit this productive stratagem, achieving propaganda victories designed to ignite a “clash of civilizations” and brutally intimidate their Muslim and non-Muslim opposition.

I don’t even know where to begin.

The notion that the media somehow share some culpability in the murders, mayhem, and chaos that followed the Pope’s speech because they ‘willingly’ work with terrorists to ‘ambush’ the general public is so absurd that it shouldn’t warrant comment. Is the media to blame for the murder rate, because every night I check the television, and they cover it?

Of course not- the murderers are to blame, and the media is covering it because murder is news. Having said that, are there less scrupulous members of the media who have doctored photographs? Sure.

Are there members of the media who daily masquerade as hard news journalists, but who are actuallylittle more than opinion editorialists and policy advocates? Absolutely.

Are there cases in whcih members of the media have acted inappropriately? You betcha.

But to suggest that the media covering jihadist tendencies and calls to arms by radical clerics is somehow working in concert with terorists is not just offensive, it is stupid. And what makes this even more irritating is that Glenn Reynolds, of all people, should know better- at least in regards to this issue. Here is Glenn quoting Anne Applebaum, just the other day, on the very same issue:

ANNE APPLEBAUM: Enough apologies:

None of the radical clerics accepts Western apologies, and none of their radical followers reads the Western press. Instead, Western politicians, writers, thinkers and speakers should stop apologizing — and start uniting. . . .

True, these principles sound pretty elementary — “we’re pro-free speech and anti-gratuitous violence” — but in the days since the pope’s sermon, I don’t feel that I’ve heard them defended in anything like a unanimous chorus. A lot more time has been spent analyzing what the pontiff meant to say, or should have said, or might have said if he had been given better advice.

All of which is simply beside the point, since nothing the pope has ever said comes even close to matching the vitriol, extremism and hatred that pour out of the mouths of radical imams and fanatical clerics every day, all across Europe and the Muslim world, almost none of which ever provokes any Western response at all. And maybe it’s time that it should.

Indeed.

Yes, indeed. Let’s get it right- the people to blame for this are the folks who committed those acts of violence and called for the acts of violence. Not the pope, not Anne Applebaum, not Glenn Reynolds, and certainly not CBS and the rest of the media for covering the issue. Pretending otherwise, no matter how much it fits into a worldview in which the mainstream media is the root of all evil, is simply taking stupid to a whole new level. In fact, by the very standards Glenn and Austin Bay use to blame the media, I could claim that Glenn Reynolds and Austin Bay are giving aid and comfort to the enemies of peace, as they are providing them with cover for their behavior.

The terrorists and the tyrants aren’t doing it because they know they will get press. They are doing it because they are vicious, tyrannical scum set on destroying the western world and transforming it into the stone ages they so desire. They would like nothing more than a world without the mainstream media. I say don’t give them what they want, and let’s save our media criticisms for when the press actually has done something wrong.

*** Update ***

Welcome DKOS readers, but let’s be clear- I didn’t call Glenn Reynolds stupid and offensive. I don’t think he is stupid or offensive, as one of the things that vexes the left about him is he is a pretty nice guy. I think the idea the media is working in cohort with terrorists is, however, stupid and offensive.

Don’t Blame Us, It’s the Media!Post + Comments (58)

See No Evil

by | 13 Comments

This post is in: ,

Your government at work:

Four government auditors who monitor leases for oil and gas on federal property say the Interior Department suppressed their efforts to recover millions of dollars from companies they said were cheating the government.

The accusations, many of them in four lawsuits that were unsealed last week by federal judges in Oklahoma, represent a rare rebellion by government investigators against their own agency.

The auditors contend that they were blocked by their bosses from pursuing more than $30 million in fraudulent underpayments of royalties for oil produced in publicly owned waters in the Gulf of Mexico.

“The agency has lost its sense of mission, which is to protect American taxpayers,” said Bobby L. Maxwell, who was formerly in charge of Gulf of Mexico auditing. “These are assets that belong to the American public, and they are supposed to be used for things like education, public infrastructure and roadways.”

The lawsuits have surfaced as Democrats and Republicans alike are questioning the Bush administration’s willingness to challenge the oil and gas industry.

Just another example of political appointees subverting or ignoring the law.

The irritating thing about all this is, quite simply, the arrogance and the lawlessness of this gang of crooks. I probably would tend to agree with many anti-tax arguments, and might be sensitive to many arguments that the way royalties are collected should be looked at and adjusted. But the way to do that is to make an open proposal, use the appropriate venues, and change the way royalties are collected.

Not to act as lawless brigands, making things up as you go.

See No EvilPost + Comments (13)

Hok a Chainik

by | 66 Comments

This post is in: 

The blogosphere is abuzz about the revelations that Sen. George Allen has Jewish ancestry, represented best by the coverage at the TPM Muckracker:

One of my failings as a reporter, when I was doing that as my full time gig, was my lack of sufficient cynicism: I remember back in 2001 sitting in the home of a retired ambassador and having him lie to my face. Of course, I didn’t realize it then. I couldn’t get my head around the idea he was just straight out lying to me. (He’d artfully bamboozled me by refusing to talk on the phone or have of conversation recorded — only to insist that what I was asking about had simply never happened.) I found out a month or so later when a major paper broke the story I’d been working on with most of the same information I’d known months before. That reporter finally got the ambassador to ‘fess up.

That said, I might be willing to believe that Allen’s mother never told him her family was Jewish. I’m not silly enough to believe he didn’t know. I’ve learned a few lessons.

Who cares?

Whether he is Jewish, or whether he may have not stated he was Jewish is all water under the bridge. None of that changes that he has some pretty sketchy associations with clearly racist folks, none of that changes that he is beholden to the Chrisianist religious right and parrots their rhetoric comfortably and openly, and none of that changes the fact that he is wrong on torture, wrong on virtually every issue, and shouldn’t be the next President, much less a Senator.

So let’s please keep that in mind and stop the crazy talk.

Hok a ChainikPost + Comments (66)

Three Views On Thailand

by | 2 Comments

This post is in: 

As most know, Thailand’s military has once again ejected the democratically-elected prime minister. I have not commented until now not out of any lack of interest or geopolitical significance but simply because I know diddly-squat about the story. You can find up-to-date major media coverage here. Also, three bloggers whom I have found insightful:

Via the Washington Monthly, a creepy parallel (if too cute by half).

An informed essay by a reader at Obsidian Wings.

Billmon points out that former Thai PM Thaksin seems to be made up of equal parts Hugo Chavez and George W. Bush. Billmon speculates about how the Bush crowd will reacts, since some antidemocratic coups are obviously ok (e.g., Venezuela):

It’s easy to see why the Cheneyites might feel a little schizoid about this one. It almost reminds me of the time the Makah tribe in Washington State decided it wanted to exercise one of its old treaty rights and harpoon a whale. I knew some liberals who were really thrown for a loop by that one. They didn’t know who to support: the tribe, or Greenpeace. “But they’re Native Americans! But they’re killing whales! But they have a treaty! But they’re killing whales!!” It was very awkward.

Last night the Daily Show (youtube will be up as soon as anybody finds one) noticed the distinctly velvet nature of the Thai revolution, which probably has something to do with the generals having the support of the Thai king. Constitutional monarchies are strange.

While I agree that military juntas tend to promise a democratic transition and then underdeliver (see, Burma) Thailand has some experience with this. If the saying holds true that history does no repeat itself but it rhymes, then we may be watching the regular death-rebirth cycle of a governing system which while unfamiliar may not necesasrily be any less functional. Or I may be full of it and Thailand will descend into a Burma-style security state. Wait and watch, I guess.

Three Views On ThailandPost + Comments (2)

The Latest Military Crisis

by | 88 Comments

This post is in: ,

According to Red State, the latest military crisis has nothing to do with troop strength issues, retention issues, funding the treatment of the growing number of permanently injured soldiers, but has to do with the right to proselytize:

What Does John Warner Have Against Jesus? Excuse Me, I Meant J***s

Right now, depending upon the branch of the military, etc. some chaplains who take literally Christ’s exhortation to pray in his name, are compelled by the service to refrain from praying in Jesus’ name. The same goes for muslim chaplains and Jewish chaplains. Prayers at these non-denominational services must be just that, nondenominational.

But what of the chaplain who feels compelled by the word of his God to pray as his God dictates? Well, Rep. Duncan Hunter (R-CA) wants to free up military chaplains who are running into conflicts between their conscience and command. Rep. Hunter, the chairman of the House Armed Services Committee, has inserted a provision into the National Defense Authorization Act, which simply states, “chaplains in each of the military services would have the prerogative to pray according to the dictates of their own conscience.”

***

Senator Warner’s provision would not protect chaplains who want to fully follow the commandments of their God. More and more it is the Christian chaplain who is getting into hot water for mentioning Jesus. So, again, what does John Warner have against Jesus?

You can’t make this shit up- John Warner is being accused of hating Jesus because he wants Chaplains to follow military regulations.

Let’s be clear about what is happening here. This is not a case of John Warner (a religious man himself), waking up in a cranky mood and deciding he needs to mess with God. It is Duncan Hunter, using the case of Lt. Gordon J. Klingenschmitt, a military man who was court-martialed for attending a political activity in uniform, to insert language into the National Defense Authorization Act, the bill that authorizes 480+ billion in expenditures for the military, to CHANGE the current standards for behavior by religious leaders in the military.

Get it right- THEY want to change the rules and guidelines to make it easier for the kind of bellicose proselytization we have seen become more frequent (more here) in the past few years. It isn’t John Warner simply hating the baby Jesus, so let’s make that clear.

Apparently, even in the military, these nitwits need all of us to hear about their God for them to really believe. We’ll file this post under the category of ‘faith.’

*** Update ***

The Other Steve has a great catch in the comments:

WHOOP! WHOOP! WHOOP!

The Political Bullshit alarm just went off. So I had to go look.

Duncan Hunter is facing John Rinaldi(Dem) in his reelection in 2006.

John Rinaldi was a Navy Reserves officer during Desert Storm, and…

was a Military Chaplain.

Just another example of the GOP cynically using religion and manipulating the faithful for their own electoral purposes. I can hear it now- so what if John Rinaldi was a military chaplain- DUNCAN HUNTER is REALLY changing lives with his work. Say it out loud so it sinks in- they are futzing with the language in the Defense Authorization Act to get themselves re-elected.

The Latest Military CrisisPost + Comments (88)

The Boy President

by | 42 Comments

This post is in: ,

If Bush does shut down interrogations simply because he does not get his way, there should be hell to pay:

I try hard to respect the Office of the President of the United States, but it is truly a miserable wretch of a man who would threaten to disband the CIA interrogation program if he doesn’t get his wish to eviscerate a good deal of Article 3 compliance thereto, as the President threatened at a press conference last week. This hullabaloo about “outrages against personal dignity” versus “shocking the conscience” is a tempest in a teapot. Outrages against personal dignity are like pornography, which is to say, you know it when you see it (sometimes, indeed, they fuse somewhat, like Rumsfeld’s Pentagon authorized tactic at Guantanamo of having female guards rub their breasts in the face of a male detainee, before smearing fake menstrual blood on him, in a particularly noxious use of our military personnel).

***

Of course, very little if anything surprises me anymore with this White House. If Bush actually attempts to cynically shut down this program, we must all passionately shout from the rooftops for it to be kept active, of course in a Geneva compliant incarnation. And if he does nevertheless shut it down, because he insists on enshrining a right to torture in American law, via Addingtonian subterfuge, and a terror attack does occur, let him not dare accuse those who fought for the preservation of basic standards of American dignity and morality with the bloodshed. We will not tolerate this cynical demagoguery, and if it comes to it we will have to turn it on him, and argue his disbanding of the program, if anything, was more of a contributing factor.

I am afraid to even look, but I am betting the usual knuckleheads in the blogosphere are cheering this as a ‘courageous stand’ by the President. The modern GOP-always shortsighted, and always looking for what gives the most short-term political advantage with no concerns regarding the actual outcome of Presidential behavior.

The Boy PresidentPost + Comments (42)