8 posts tagged “politics”

Wow--thank you, Captain Obvious.  What was your first clue?  The dismal unemployment numbers?  The Dow jumping around like a roller coaster car on one rail?  The fact that every credible economist has been warning about this for weeks or even years?

This guy is simply a huge, colossal  embarrassment to CNN.  It is unconscionable that they give him any air time or column space, much less make his ridiculous pronouncements headline material.

I really hope that once the country is shaken out of its eight year sensory deprivation experiment, we can finally get back to reality-based journalism and punditry and stop pretending that people like Beck, Limbaugh and Hannity are sages of the right. Certainly, they are entitled to hold any idiotic opinion they wish, but it's about time that those opinions are treated like the foolish rantings of spoiled bullies that they are and not like valid alternative viewpoints.

UPDATE:
Apparently impressed by his keen sense of observation and insightful commentary, Fox News is going to take Beck off CNN's hands.  How will CNN fill this gaping hole in their psuedo-analyst opinionocracy?  I'm thinking Sarah Palin might be looking for a new job soon...

So this is more than a little disappointing, but does it really rate the amount of media coverage it has been given? We already knew that Edwards was a politician and that in his past life, he was a personal injury lawyer.  That is a "two-fer" on the general yuckiness scale of personal character.  Now he has hit the trifecta, adding "philandering while your wife is very ill" to his resume. All he needs now is profiting from arms deals with the enemy to merit the Newt Gingrich/Oliver North Lifetime Achievement in Douchebaggery award. Close on his heels is Senator John McCain, although, for whatever reason, the media chooses not to recognize (or report on) his stellar achievements in this area. Maybe this is because he had help with his douchebaggery; a rich, addicted, much younger second wife (for whom the "maverick"  left his disabled first wife) who founded a medical charity so she could steal drugs from it. In short, she is a "ringer" in terms of douchebaggery, so maybe the media feels he has an unfair advantage.

The list of yuckies is long and equally split between the two parties: Bill Clinton (D), Newt Gingrich (R), Gary Hart (D), John McCain (R), John Edwards (D), David Vitter (R), etc., etc. I wouldn't trust the judgment of any one of these men. If you can't provide leadership for your own reproductive organs, why do you think you would be an appropriate leader for the country?  It's not the moral aspect of this. I don't need to judge their morality--that's up to their families and their maker. It's the absurdity of grown, educated men of significant achievement being unable to grasp that their behavior WILL have consequences that really bothers me. As our current president has amply demonstrated, "Consequence Understanding Disorder" is not a good qualification for the presidency. Right now, only one of these individuals is running for president.  If you don't think Edwards is a fit candidate than you have to apply the same standard to McCain, even if the media refuses to do so. No doubt an Obama bombshell is just around the corner. If by some miracle he has managed to "keep it in his pants," he would be a rare breed of politician. Now THAT would be news. 

I have struggled to reconcile the Neocon's supposed roots in post-World War II intellectualism.  It's not that they are an uneducated bunch, but their arguments, based as they are almost entirely on ideology, would seem to run counter to the great traditions of intellectualism: Debate, reasoning, moderating of positions in the face of new evidence, etc.  When nothing--not even overwhelming evidence that your positions are wrong--can dissuade you from defending them for the sake of ideology, you have lost your right to claim to be an intellectual.

They Knew They Were Right: The Rise of the Neocons

Jacob Heilbrunn

The strength of this attachment to ideal over reality is extremely childlike and I have frequently thought some of the leading Neocon's of the day (Kristol, Wolfowitz, Perle, etc) act more like petulant, spoiled children, than responsible adults focused on the public good.  In the New York Times, Timothy Noah reviews a new book by Jacob Heilbrunn that highlights this strange quirk of Neocon behavior. Heilbrunn, a "reformed" Neocon, looks at the history of the movement, the rigid ideology that informs their foreign policy recommendations while almost entirely dismissing domestic policy issues (this he attributes to the fact that the majority of adherents are Jewish, as he is, and they are inordinately focused on the State of Israel to the exclusion of other geopolitical issues) and their resistance to accepting reality when it conflicts with their preconceived ideals.  From the NYT Book Review, "Heilbrunn nicely compares the Soviet Union’s imminent collapse to “a Christmas present handed to a grumpy child who was not in the mood to accept it.” After decades of proselytizing about the uselessness of diplomacy, they were unwilling to accept that diplomacy was, in fact, important in toppling Communism.  This is a cautionary tale for us today when the leading lights of the Neocon movement are on record discouraging the use of diplomacy as a valid strategic tactic to use in the Middle East. 

I have not read the book yet, but plan to, if nothing else, to answer the burning question "how can so many smart people be so stupid?"  The case of the Neocons (broad brush, here--I'm sure there are degrees of "Neocon-ness")  appears to demonstrate the limitations of education when faced with unreasonableness.  It is just too bad they have their academic credentials to fall back on--false bona fides that make up for questionable reasoning ability and disguise the actual elitist brutality of their cause.

Vox only allows five permanent links (see sidebar) for now.  Hopefully, they will expand linking capability soon (PLEASE!), but until then, I'll keep a running list of some sites I particularly like in a regular post format:

Fun and Entertainment:
Cute Overload--A daily "must" for anyone who likes animals--or who just likes to smile.

Go Fug Yourself--Hilarious fashion (and social) commentary from the Fug Girls. I have followed this site for years and  believe it has some of the best satirical writing in any media--an opinion apparently shared by the New York Daily News who recently gave column space to the Fug Girls.

The Onion--Before the Daily Show and the Colbert Report, there was The Onion, a wildly popular satirical "newspaper" created by students at a Wisconsin college that went mainstream a few years ago.  Not entirely the same as when it started, but still comes through brilliantly often enough to keep it relevant.

Gallery of Regrettable Food--Because, in America in the 50s and 60s, there was no problem that couldn't be solved with Jell-O. This hysterical look at advertising and graphic illustration from the era that marked our indoctrination into the world of processed food is hosted by James Lileks, columnist for the Minneapolis Star Tribune.

This time it's the Civil Liberties branch at DOJ, headed by a nasty piece-of-work political appointee, Shanetta Cutlar.  This is a long piece, but pay particular attention to the letter sent to Paul McNulty (DOJ) from Ty Clevenger, an attorney in the Civil Liberties section who was subsequently fired for speaking out and who now has a "whistleblower" case pending against the DOJ.

DOJ Shenanigans

One thing that strikes me is the enormous amount of time and money going into untangling this endless supply of GOP messes--time and money redirected from other pressing issues. I'm angry that the previous GOP-majority Congress collected paychecks while letting our venerated institutions be gutted by political hacks. They should be required to return their salaries to the treasury.

I agree this all needs to be cleaned up, but wonder what other important current issues are being shunted to the side while Congress is distracted by the avalanche of this administrations previous bad acts. It appears we are only at the tip of the iceberg. How is it possible that one administration could have so severely crippled so many institutions in such a (relatively) short time? That this could happen puts the onus on all of us to build better protections for our most basic government functions (FDA, EPA, DOJ, etc.)

I can't imagine a bigger nightmare for people of reason and morality than this administration. They have have abused the spirit of the law using clever machinations of the letter of the law to achieve political goals and have done so time and again without consequence. I despair the architects or any of their nasty minions ever being held to account.

Interesting side note--Ms. Cutlar is described as "charming and very intelligent," but she shows a clear lack of empathy and disregard for the feelings of others and operates like a petty tyrant. This description fits the criteria for a number of personality (character) disorders, including sociopathic personality disorder. It is more than a little disturbing that a person with sociopathic traits heads up the civil liberties arm of the DOJ. I've said it before, but I'll say it again--sociopaths have dotted the ranks of politics for years, but never before has the preference for sociopathic traits been institutionalized like it has been in this administration. This should scare the s**t out of all of us.

Regarding Ruben Navarette editorial on Gonzales on CNN.com, April 19, 2007:

Hey Ruben, look--there's a gullible on the ceiling.  Come on, dude.  I've read your previous articles about the Gonzales issue being at least in part racially motivated.  I didn't agree at the time and I'm even more convinced now that this has nothing to do with poor Alberto the Hispanic man and everything to do with stupidity, deceitfulness and blind partisanship--qualities that know no racial boundary.  Would it be any less egregious and would Alberto Gonzales be any less culpable if he pulled this crap for a Democratic president?  Absolutely not.  Those of you on the right seem to forget that this works both ways.  How would you feel if a Democratic Attorney General was doing the bidding of the Democratic National Committee on your dime?  

No one, regardless of race, gender or political affiliation who puts loyalty to their party above loyalty to the Constitution deserves to be working in the government.  My tax dollars go to pay these people, as well, and I don't want them doing Republican National Committee business on the people's time.  

You are getting dangerously close to OJ Simpson rationale, assuming Alberto G is being targeted only because of his racial/ethnic background and failing to look at the evidence.  We all see how well that worked for society in the OJ case.

I have no doubt that there is an enormous amount of ugly prejudice in this country aimed at Hispanics.  I don't think that's the issue with Alberto Gonzales, however, and it would be helpful if you could get beyond your personal (and no doubt very valid) objections to the treatment of Hispanics for this particular case.  

As usual, the Republicans have managed to engage our tragically gullible main stream media in the wrong fight.    This time it is over the White House's "lost" emails and the spin is "our poor aides, in an effort to comply with two contradictory laws (the Hatch Act and the Presidential Records Act) may have inadvertantly used the wrong email system, but there was no intent to circumvent the laws requiring that official White House communications be saved.  Heaven's no!" 

The only problem with this spin is that it is patently false.  The two laws are not contradictory unless you are doing something on government time that you ought not to be doing, like working on purely partisan activities.  I suppose in this, the most partisan administration ever, aides may have become sincerely confused about what constitutes official vs. party activities.  The adminstration clearly makes no distinction.  That in itself is a big story.  I can guarantee you that there are millions of us out here who don't want our tax dollars going to salaries for Republican operatives disquised as humble civil servants doing party business on our time--even if that business truly is completely innocent, which it clearly is not.

Which brings up another point:  Would any other employer allow an employee to bring personal equipment from an outside activity into the workplace and use it on their dime?  Of course not.  Why are people not outraged that salaried government employees were using their thumbs in furtherance of Republican party goals while our tax dollars subsidized their income and benefits? 

So MSM, here's the real story:  This White House uses taxpayer money to pay salaries for partisan operatives to further their political agenda and circumvent the law.  Don't know about you, but I want my money back. 

Disappointed, but not surprised.  Here are a couple of things to remember about Coleman:

1.)  He's orignally from New York and is Jewish.  He has only recently (since the Republican ascension in 2000) assumed the mantle of a conservative Christian in what appears to be a pretty cynical total political makeover (see point 3).  

2.)  He and his wife live separately--in separate states as a matter of fact--and he is notorious around Minneapolis for his indiscretions.  Frankly, I could care less about a politician's personal life EXCEPT when they are pandering to the morality Nazi's on the right while living a double-life themselves.

3.)  Norm Coleman began his political career in Minnesota as a Democrat--a Humphrey/Mondale-style Democrat, no less.  When it became clear that the MN Democratic field was full of rising stars and that his prospects were not strong, he switched party affiliation in a stunning display of lack of personal integrity.  People change their minds--happens all the time--but to be able to go from the hard left to the hard right virtually overnight certainly raises the possibility that he has no internal moral compass, only career aspirations. 

4.)  Most egregious of all, the Coleman's have lost children (I believe two) to a rare genetic disease, precisely the kind of disorder targeted by stem cell research.  One would hope that suffering these personal tragedies would moderate even the staunchest of Christian critics (which Coleman is only when it suits him). I wonder how his wife feels about his stem cell stance?  Maybe he should give her a call.  Long distance nights and weekends are free.  

All of which goes to show that he is the consumate, finger-in-the-wind politician.  It is clear from his double life that he has no strongly held beliefs or values and supports whatever is politically expedient.  

Garrison Keillor did a nice expose on him a couple of years ago for the Pioneer Press.  Keillor was frustrated the the MN press didn't do any digging on Coleman's past and essentially allowed him to preach morality for the Republican party while ignoring his notorious personal behavior in the Twin Cities. He had a 'thing' for tall blonds like his wife and a cadre of lackeys who helped him set up discreet dalliances. Despite this attempt to be cautious, he could actually be pretty reckless at times.  I sat with him, a bunch of his buddies and my tall, blond, stunning friend at Zelo in Minneapolis one night. We were invited to share the table because my girlfriend was just his type, even though he was already holding hands with another blond under the table.  I thought it was pretty stupid on his part. He didn't know us from Adam, yet he was clearly flirting with a woman who was not his wife in a public venue in front of strangers.  It was tacky, but apparently so common that no one even thought of it as newsworthy. 

We can only hope he is a one-termer.