on YouTube hits.
That, ladies and gents, is today’s front page headline the Washington Times.
I’m not sure who that makes more pathetic – McCain or the Washington Times.
Category: Politics Page 47 of 73
The Olympics are already on my nerves, so we’re going to take a brief detour from the weekly makeover. What happened? Well, some silly cyclists wore some silly masks when they got off the plane in Beijing, which made everyone act silly (I’m trying to be nice here). The national coverage and local conversations that followed were not . . . encouraging. And while all us chickens are pecking at our own little circles, without ever looking up, I’m reminded:
[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Her2M_zZDEI[/youtube]
Yes, that’s Jarvis Cocker’s Running the World. Listen to it. Understand it. Remember it. Probably not kid safe, but they’ll learn it soon enough.
Vivian Paige has the details of this silly mess.
Disquieting Rasmussen numbers this morning–McCain’s crying racism worked. 53% of Americans, including the same % of whites and half of all Democrats, thing that Obama’s “dollar bill” remark was “racist.” Only 22% think the Paris Hilton ad was racist–most of those being black people, of course (only 18% of white people took this view).
I have never ever written here about Paris Hilton, and I was pretty sure I was going to be able to die with that claim intact. But John McCain has decided that if he’s going to win the Presidency of the United States, he needs to do it with Paris Hilton. So sad it’s funny, no? And really, those of you who think it’s reasonable to vote for John McCain, please forgive me in advance if I can’t stifle the laugh next time we talk politics.
Atrios directs us over to Pandagon, who does a great job of illustrating the penchant of the “family values” crowd to go nuts when someone clearly describes what they’re trying to do. In this case, CA Attorney General Jerry Brown has revised the Proposition 8 ballot question to read (in part):
Changes California Constitution to eliminate right of same-sex couples to marry. Provides that only a marriage between a man and a woman is valid or recognized in California.
Well, okay. That’s exactly what it proposes to do. The CA Supreme Court recognized a state constitutional right to marriage (regardless of sex) and this proposal seeks to eliminate that right. What’s to be mad about?:
This completely obliterates the conservative framing of the issue (“protecting marriageâ€, “preserving the traditional family,†etc.) and shows that supporters of the ballot initiative want to repeal a civil right that is now in place. And the fundies are hopping mad. [ . . . ]
Jennifer Kerns of the Protect Marriage coalition told the Los Angeles Times the revised wording is “inherently argumentative.†Kerns said the wording had the potential to â€prejudice voters against the initiative.â€
I saw this over and over again in the time leading up to the vote where Virginia showed the world what a backwards place it really is, in many respects. The proponents of the anti-same sex marriage provision would spit out some of the most vile and obscene things – the usual stuff – and then go nuts when you called them bigots (and I’ll note that more than a few Dems were complicit, as they didn’t like hearing the bigotry of their parents (or themselves) called out for what it is). My response?
If you don’t like being called a bigot, don’t act like one.
Glenn Greenwald has a nifty little piece up in which he highlights the hypocrisy of US lawmakers (like Sen. Sam Brownback (R-Kansas)) who decry Chinese Internet monitoring efforts while supporting parallel programs here in the US.
Waldo Jaquith does a bangup job of examining the gap between the fantasy line that the Bush Administration has been feeding the public for the last eight years, and the reality that’s going to smack the next administration:
There’s bad news on the economic front: Bush’s budget deficit will hit the half-billion dollar mark next year, which is precisely the opposite of what President Bush has been promising since he first sought the office.
Let’s take a look back at each year’s budget news since 2000, the year before President Bush took office.
Well, I can’t say that any of the three names being splashed about this morning – Biden, Bayh, and Kaine – are particularly inspiring.  Joe Biden, in addition to possessing the auto-disqualification of never knowing when to shut up, can be counted on to introduce or support one bad policy position after another. No thanks. Evan Bayh . . . well, if I wanted a warmonger in the VP slot, I’d probably want one at the head of the ticket.  Which then brings us to Tim Kaine. I can’t say that I’ve been particularly enthused by Kaine (I think he’s been a generally competent, though not really a standout, governor). But neither does he elicit a visceral pushback in me the way Biden or Bayh do.
In any event, I’ll be happy to find out that this was just more of the usual campaign misdirection/press overeagerness, and that it hasn’t really been narrowed down to these guys.
I’m sure others will be going to town on this, but here’s a few gems (as ID’d by the Washington Post) from the DOJ IG’s report on the politicized hiring practices at DOJ:
Goodling regularly asked candidates for career jobs, “What is it about George W. Bush that makes you want to serve him?”
And while that might be amusing, this most definitely isn’t:
In my view, the most damaging conclusion is this one from p. 136:
Goodling’s use of political considerations in connection with these details was particularly damaging to the Department because it resulted in high-quality candidates for important details being rejected in favor of less-qualified candidates. For example, an experienced career terrorism prosecutor was rejected by Goodling for a detail to EOUSA to work on counterterrorism issues because of his wife’s political affiliations. Instead, EOUSA had to select a much more junior attorney who lacked any experience in counterterrorism issues and who EOUSA officials believed was not qualified for the position.
There’s the money quote, folks. Bush official endangers national security for political purposes.
Remember, McCain and all his pathetic supporters are telling us that we’re supposed to trust the Republican Party to keep us safe. And they will! You know, unless the wife of the guy that is better at keeping us safe once said something some incompetent young staffer at DOJ didn’t like.