(H/T Ace) You almost had me believing that Lucas was going to do a Star Wars
Picture via Encyclopedia Dramatica, a site that I will never, ever admit to having read in any other context. Just like the rest of the Internet.
Author: Moe_Lane
Ross Douthat to replace Bill Kristol at NYT.
Starting online, then going to print.
A year ago I would have called that a step down for Douthat. Then again, a year ago Andrew Sullivan hadn’t decided yet to start stalking Sarah Palin online. Since the Atlantic is apparently institutionally fine with that, hey, any port in a storm.
Via The Other McCain, who is even now discovering that God is an iron*
Moe Lane
*Goes like this: if a felon is someone who commits a felony, then somebody who commits irony is an…
Crossposted to RedState.
James Carville explicitly expressed a wish for Bush to fail.
James Carville is, by the way, a gutless coward.
Via Hot Air, the explicit quote:
On the morning of Sept. 11, 2001, just minutes before learning of the terrorist attacks on America, Democratic strategist James Carville was hoping for President Bush to fail, telling a group of Washington reporters: “I certainly hope he doesn’t succeed.”
[snip*]
Minutes later, as news of the terrorist attacks reached the hotel conference room where the Democrats were having breakfast with the reporters, Carville announced: “Disregard everything we just said! This changes everything!”
We’ll hold up the inevitable knee-jerk defenses of Carville here – which will probably not start until 8:46 AM tomorrow morning – with a tart comment that hypocrisy is not going to cut it this time. If Carville is to be allowed to use the defense that he merely wished for Bush’s policies to fail, than so should Limbaugh; contrariwise, if Limbaugh’s comments are simply unacceptable, any time, any place, and with no mitigation, then Carville’s must be treated similarly. And Carville is assuredly aware of how that comment would have played out: the way he begged the reporters to not repeat that suddenly-inflammatory statement is diagnostic. So is the way that they covered up Carville’s mess, but never mind that right now. Continue reading James Carville explicitly expressed a wish for Bush to fail.
Charles Freeman: And I would have gotten away with it, too…
…if it wasn’t for those meddlesome Jews:
I have concluded that the barrage of libelous distortions of my record would not cease upon my entry into office. The effort to smear me and to destroy my credibility would instead continue. I do not believe the National Intelligence Council could function effectively while its chair was under constant attack by unscrupulous people with a passionate attachment to the views of a political faction in a foreign country. I agreed to chair the NIC to strengthen it and protect it against politicization, not to introduce it to efforts by a special interest group to assert control over it through a protracted political campaign.
Speaking as one of the aforementioned unscrupulous, passionate people, I offer this response to Freeman – and, indeed, everybody who shares in his, ah, particular ethical stance:
Geh kak afen yam. When I want moral judgments on my motivations I’ll get them from somebody who doesn’t think that the Chinese government should have stepped down on its dissidents harder, thanks.
Moe Lane
PS: Ed’s right, Gray Lady: you mucked up the reporting on this one something fierce. Didn’t want to admit that the President had a catastrophic error on this one, huh?
Crossposted to RedState.
Jennifer Palmieri: Lefty bloggers participating in ‘coordinated echo chamber.’
Interestingly, this was not intended to be an insult.
Mickey Kaus notes this paragraph of a Politico article that probably should have raised more eyebrows:
“[CAP President John] Podesta’s and my experience was in the White House during the Clinton years, and we didn’t have a coordinated echo chamber on the outside backing us up,” she said. “There’s a real interest on the progressive side for groups to want to coordinate with each other and leverage each other’s work in a way I haven’t ever seen before.”
Bolding mine – and Mickey’s, for that matter. The article itself is dedicated to the completely unsurprising revelation that the Left side of the blogosphere coordinates its attacks on what it perceives to be enemies of the Democratic party. While this may surprise a few that weren’t paying attention, the only real newsworthy item here is that somebody’s willing to go on the record as calling it an “echo chamber.” Apparently, this is no longer an insult. Continue reading Jennifer Palmieri: Lefty bloggers participating in ‘coordinated echo chamber.’
Camille’s latest: Brazil agreed with her, apparently.
Hey, she was the one who compared Obama to Leo X.
Send it around, folks.
Yes, free the president from his flacks, fixers and goons — his posse of smirky smart alecks and provincial rubes, who were shrewd enough to beat the slow, pompous Clintons in the mano-a-mano primaries but who seem like dazed lost lambs in the brave new world of federal legislation and global statesmanship.
Send it around to everybody.
If Rush’s presence looms too large for the political landscape, it’s because of the total vacuity of the Republican leadership, which seems to be in a dithering funk. Rush isn’t responsible for the feebleness of Republican voices or the thinness of Republican ideas. Only ignoramuses believe that Rush speaks for the Republican Party. On the contrary, Rush as a proponent of heartland conservatism has waged open warfare with the Washington party establishment for years.
Crossposted to RedState.
Funny or Die brings us “Nationalized Citibank.”
[UPDATE] Via Brother Caleb: Salon is very, very unhappy at this commercial. Savor it, my droogies. Savor.
Via a will-remain-nameless colleague, the language is very rough, but the sentiment is very real:
The New F***ing Citibank – watch more funny videos
Dunno whether to tag this as politics or not-politics. Probably both.
So, where have I been?
Wrestling with video uploading. Which at least I know more about now than I did then.
Suggestions for a good, free substitute for Windows Movie Maker would be welcome right now.
Would you believe that this was Raul Julia’s last movie role?
Honest to God. The hell of it is, I don’t know that Raul Julia wouldn’t have changed things around if he had known that Street Fighter
Senator Menendez (D, NJ) being recalcitrant over spending bill.
He doesn’t approve of the spending bill’s change in Cuba policy (Via Dan Riehl):
:The Menendez rebellion was a jolt of political reality for Reid, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) and Obama, signaling that the solidarity of the stimulus debate is fading as Democratic lawmakers are starting to read the fine print of the bills they will wrestle with in the coming weeks and months, and not always liking what they see.
[snip]
Menendez knew that his hard-line approach to Cuba was a minority view within his party, and that it was at odds with Obama’s approach. But he did not expect to discover a significant policy change embedded in the text on an appropriations bill. His policy aides came across the language when the legislation was posted on a congressional Web site.
“The process by which these changes have been forced upon this body is so deeply offensive to me, and so deeply undemocratic, that it puts the omnibus appropriations package in jeopardy, in spite of all the other tremendously important funding that this bill would provide,” the enraged son of Cuban immigrants said last week on the Senate floor. Menendez even slapped a hold on a pair of Obama nominees to draw attention to the issue.
If you’re wondering why a spending bill has in it a provision that would quietly change our Cuba policy, it’s really very simple: the Democrats want to change our Cuba policy, they control Congress, and they can thus put anything in the appropriations bill that they blessed well feel like putting in. “Appropriate” or “inappropriate” doesn’t really enter into it; what’s important is that they can do something, they desire to do something, and so they will do something.
The article also mentions Democratic efforts to keep subsidizing private student loan companies and farmers (at least, the ones in Nebraska and North Dakota). But that’s just ordinary pork from Ben Nelson and Kent Conrad; what makes the Menendez balk interesting is because it’s supposedly based on a moral objection. Continue reading Senator Menendez (D, NJ) being recalcitrant over spending bill.