First Draft

Please Don't Take Their Midnight Sunshine Away

Can it be?  Is it possible?  No more Sarah Palin?

Nah.  Not at all.  She's like that last five pounds you're trying to lose--annoying, stubborn, and almost impossible to get rid of.

And, not to step on Tommy T's Toes, but I just had to check out Freeperville.  Naturally, they did not disappoint.  I picked the thread with the most replies, and thar's comedy gold in them thar virtual hills:

This is the result of hundreds of billions of dollars of middle east political monies buying a Muslim President that will not quit until he destroys all opposition.

2 posted on Friday, July 03, 2009 7:26:56 PM by Eye of Unk ("If there must be trouble, let it be in my day, that my child may have peace." T. Paine)

Okay.  That's the first goddam reply.  I mean, I understand opening with a bang, but you've gotta keep something held back for the end.  [Insert sex joke here.]  [Insert joke about using the word "insert" here.]

That could go on and on ad infinitum, so I'll just cut it off right there.  [Insert joke about--NO, goddammit!  No more.

But, you know, I'm actually impressed by Palin's resignation.  It is, surprisingly, a sensible thing to do, given what she wants--which, I assume, is more attention (even from THE MEDIA) and a shot at the White House in 2012.  So she won't be disregarding her job herding moose or whatever it is the governor of Alaska does.  (Note to angry Alaskans:  These views are mine and mine alone, and do not represent the other writers here at First Draft.  Please direct hate mail to Jude_T@live.com, where it will be, like most other e-mail directed there, completely ignored.)

So yeah.  A decent move from Palin.  Now she can turn the crazy up to 11, break off the knob, and go around making gabba-gabba-hey noises on TV and radio.  Huzzah!

However, I have created a small musical tribute to Ms. Palin.  These songs express longing and regret, and would represent the feelings of Freepers and comedy-inclined liberals everywhere should Friday's insane, rambling speech actually have been the final curtain on the brief but spectacular national political career of Ms. Sarah Palin.  By the way--did anybody else get a Billy Madison vibe from that speech?  You know what I'm talking about, right?  Well, hell.  Before I get to the music, why not have a video of that, too?

Yeah, that's pretty much it.
And now on to the songs!

Now that's fine.

By the way, lots of people seem to think that "You Are My Sunshine" is a happy song.  It ain't.  Listen to more than the chorus.  Also, in the interest of things we love here at First Draft, I include the following incredibly relevant video.  It involves politicians, heartache, and, of course, the song was written by a governor.  Oh, and it's completely nerdy.  That's how we roll. I present Jeri Ryan and Robert Picardo singing the chorus of "You Are My Sunshine."

Thanks for reading, folks.  Hope you enjoyed the music.

Weekend Question Thread

Because it's been freakishly cold this week, and it was freakishly hot last week:

Summer or winter? Boil or freeze?

A.

Saturday Blogwhoring Thread

Post away.

A.

Happy Birthday, America

A.

So Sarah Palin Quit Today

You may have noticed from the general sense of mourning and misery around the liberal blogosphere.



You know why she quit on a Friday evening before a holiday weekend? Because she hates us. You, me, Wolf Blitzer, all political reporters, all the people who bring the political reporters coffee, the guys who fix the lights on the sets the political reporters sit on, she hates us all. I have a book I'm trying to read, another book I'm trying to write, and most of all some major relaxation to do in preparation for a day of drinking on the morrow to celebrate the birth of Baby American Jesus or something. The Fourth of July is like a citywide Crackhead Holiday where I am and my neighbors have been setting off fireworks for days. By the end of the night tomorrow someone will light a recliner on fire in the alley, so you can see why I needed a little quiet time tonight to prepare myself. Instead, it's All Sarah, All the Time, with a number of wacky theories being advanced that make no damn sense at all and unconfirmed whatevers being blathered on cable news and joyous .gifs being posted all over the place.

Because I was at work when St. Sarah ascended into heaven, I had to rely on the videos Scout and Doc kindly posted below, but eventually the sound of Palin's voice did what it always does to me and I started looking for a) things to throw and b) a transcript. Thank you, TPM. I've culled here some of the things that made me spit my pinot grigio across the table:

Hi Alaska, I appreciate speaking directly TO you, the people I serve, as your Governor.

---

We're strategic IN the world as the air crossroads OF the world, as a gatekeeper of the continent.

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This land, blessed with clean air, water, wildlife, minerals, AND oil and gas. It's energy! God gave us energy.

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We broke ground on the new prison.

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We are doing well! I wish you'd hear MORE from the media of your state's progress and how we tackle Outside interests - daily - SPECIAL interests that would stymie our state.

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And I'm doing that - keeping our eye on the ball that represents sound priorities - smaller government, energy independence, national security, freedom! And I know when it's time to pass the ball - for victory.

---

Um, by the way, sure wish folks could ever, ever understand that we ALL could learn so much from someone like Trig - I know he needs me, but I need him even more... what a child can offer to set priorities RIGHT - that time is precious... the world needs more "Trigs", not fewer.

---

I've explained why... though I think of the saying on my parents' refrigerator that says "Don't explain: your friends don't need it and your enemies won't believe you anyway."

---

Remember Alaska... America is now, more than ever, looking North to the Future. It'll be good.

I'm sorry, but what the fuck was that? I know she traffics in cutesy and I know she's a bubblehead but REALLY? "It'll be good" is what I say to my parents when I'm diving them somewhere and we get lost but I'm still vaguely aware of where we are. It's not what you say to your state when you're basically saying, "bored now, see you assholes later." I've quit jobs that I HATED with more sincere regret.

I have several reactions to this news: Boy, the GOP's implosion keeps getting better. Boy, Tommy's job on Monday is going to be fun. Boy, I hope any one of the seven theories about various scandals is true. Boy, I hope nobody in her family really is sick or something because that would make all this tasty schadenfreude turn to ashes in my mouth. Boy, can she never, ever run for president at all now so it's Jindal or bust. Boy, I wish I had gone back in time and gone to Vegas and put money on this spectacularly gooey kablooie because I'd be sitting on a pile of gold right now that would make Scrooge McDuck faint with jealousy.

Mostly, though, I hope we keep having Sarah Palin to kick around. Every time I think she's getting boring and passé, she does something like this, and it's like Christmas morning, even on Independence Day eve.



A.

Quitting Time Booster Shot

- QTBS NEWS FLASH: apparently Alaska’s gain is going to be our gain as well, as Sarah Palin announced she’ll be stepping down as governor. Implied in this decision is the idea that she’ll make a run at the presidency. Since she was using a basketball analogy in her explanation and since Obama plays a mean game of hoops, let’s just explain the 2012 election this way: If she makes the tourney, it’s going to be a 16 seed/1 seed game.

- As a tribute to Michael Jackson upon hearing about his death, CFL wide receiver Arland Bruce scored on a 21-yard pass and then offered a tribute to the fallen star. Moonwalk? Nah, too cliché. Billy Jean dance? Doesn’t have the proper feel to it. Wear only one glove? Uh uh… Bruce actually removed his helmet, shoulder pads and jersey and laid down in the end zone, noting later he was honoring Jackson by pretending to be buried. His coach said that next time he hopes Bruce will “celebrate in an appropriate manner.” If I die, which I’m sure I will, please don’t let people in a journalism class go dig holes and lay in them as a tribute. A simple “Oh Captain, My Captain” moment will be fine.

- This really pisses me off. Google has decided to block abortion services ads in about a dozen countries. Their rationale is shrouded in PR doublespeak  explaining how abortion is an “emotional subject” and that Google “does not take a particular side.” It’s so nice when you can be all Switzerland about something while clearly engaging in advertising censorship. Feministing is taking on this issue and trying to push Google for not only a better response, but also for them to reverse the policy. My take: You mean that I can get ads for all sorts of bullshit scams on how to make money while being fat and lazy, ads that tell me I’ve won a free iPod and a dozen other things I don’t want, but Google is feeling “squishy” about abortion ads? So Google is banking on the idea that people will be smart enough to avoid the fraud but that the abortion ad will be so compelling that they’ll rush right out and get one? Gimme a break…

- Question: How screwed is California? Answer: They’ve resulted to “Arnie Bucks” in which they’re offering IOUs instead of cash for debts. Answer Number 2: They’ve basically resorted to the strategy of sorting out a crisis that Peter LaFleur used in “Dodgeball” by offering Kate two expired passes to a monster truck rally or something and a coupon for a back rub.

- Lori Drew got a pass this week for precipitating the suicide of 13-year-old Megan Meier. The judge in the case threw out the conviction because he said the statue used to convict her was too “vague.” How about we just create a “You are too fucking stupid to be allowed near other people in free society for at least a while” statute and convict her on that one. It’d be a nice catch all for radio talk-show hosts and certain elected officials.

- From the “Does the state of South Carolina look like a bitch, Brett?” department: An audit has revealed the Mark Sanford didn’t use public funds in his Argentina-travel tryst. In looking at the way everyone is reacting from Sanford’s office, it seems like this scene from Pulp Fiction, where Butch stops Zed from ass-raping Marcellus Wallace. After screwing him out of thousands of dollars, running him over with his car and beating him within an inch of his life, Butch has a straight face on as he says to Marcellus Wallace, “We cool?” Sure, Sanford, we’re cool. But your SC privileges have been revoked. You leave tonight and never come back.

- Amen, brother. Amen.

- I don’t know what the saddest thing is about this story of a former Tampa Tribune reporter who was fired, got hooked on drugs and was homeless for several years. The story itself is heart breaking. The reaction from the former colleague is honest and smacks of survivor’s guilt. The writing is good enough to make me cry. However, maybe the saddest thing is that in reading that story, the first thought that came into my head was that this story might be a fraud, simply because we’ve seen amazingly touching stories revealed as fraud so often, it’s hard to know what to believe.

- Good question: Is there anything left for Gannett to cut? Bad answer: apparently 400 more jobs than we thought. Bill Cosby once joked that when you’re in Vegas, you should never challenge “worse.” Never make “worse” angry by saying, “Things can’t get worse…” Apparently that’s good advice in the newspaper biz these days.

Thanks for letting me share your air. Be back next week.

Doc

I couldn't watch to the end....

....please tell me those birds did fair better than the turkeys?

Everything I need to know, I learned from Boogie Nights

(A.K.A: W.W.D.D.D?)

Sometimes the world doesn’t make a lot of sense.

My last university tenured someone and gave her a distinguished chair position after only about half the time usually required for tenure because she was the last person left with half a brain. Had it given those out to the people who actually did leave, the school would have been better off and wouldn’t be stuck filling three more positions.

A raving psychotic is likely to not only get his way in my current job but destroy our department as well.

My best friend got a jump on her mid-life crisis by doing something she always wanted to do, while my mid-life crisis is stalled because a) I hate tattoos and b) it needs to be fed with a classic Mustang I can’t afford. Meanwhile, the Missus just spent $89 on yarn for three pairs of socks while I’m stockpiling Diet Coke because I found a 5 12 packs for $10 coupon.

The long and thoughtful post I’ve been working on this week on the idiocy that was WaPo and the subsequent fall out has been trumped by Ms. A’s brilliance, thus making it pointless to post my version.

And while it seems like you couldn't name anything any other former VP has ever done in life, Dick Cheney is still creating problems.

So you might ask, “Doc, where can we turn when the world is so bat-shit crazy?”

My answer: “Boogie Nights, of course.”

Never has there been a film that more clearly defines what to do and what not to do in tense times. No other film has been as clearly inspiring or filled with fortune-cookie wisdom as P.T. Anderson’s magnum opus. The Missus and I ended up seeing this on one of our earliest dates, although that was inadvertent, given that I thought it was a story about 1970s disco movements. Of all the great moments, the best was in the theater during the scene in which we finally saw “it” exposed. The guy in front of me scoffed at the mammothity that was Dirk Diggler, saying something to the effect of “I’m close to that big” to which his girlfriend broke out in uncontrollable laughter.

Still, below is a list of all the things you can learn if you watch carefully:

This Isn't Yours

Hey, Mr. President. This doesn't need to be your problem.

The Justice Department argues that the volume of material it needs to go through in the CIA’s 2004 inspector general report is just too great to meet any pre-August 31 timetable. Not only is the IG report itself 200 pages, that’s just one of 319 documents under review as part of the case.

The ACLU replies that the CIA and the Justice Department have already missed three deadlines for the agreed-upon disclosure, and lawyer Amrit Singh writes that she’s “disturbed by the clear trend emerging in the government’s repeated delays in disclosure of documents critical to a complete understanding of the CIA’s interrogation program.” She says that instead of delaying, Judge Alvin Hellerstein should order the “expediting the reprocessing and release of all CIA documents at issue.”

This is the previous administration's fuckup. This is the previous administration's regime of total and complete and nonstop fuckuppery. All this report will reveal is how Bush and his people fucked up, from day one, from the day they were handed a joystick and the keys to a Humvee. How they tortured people, for hours, for months, for no good reason, to the detriment of the very things they purported to be trying to accomplish. That's all that's in here.

So this isn't your deal, this won't make you or even the America of the present look bad. It'll just remind us all how grateful we are that that administration, the one that authorized such things, is no more. It'll just remind everyone that we no longer do shit like this, and won't we all — Americans, everybody all over the world — be happy to hear that?

Unless you make it your deal. Unless you make yourself complicit in this and every other Bush atrocity by continuing to cover up their crimes. Unless you continue to deny and delay and flap around with excuses and have your people blither on about how it's hard to read books really fast, like that's the biggest problem here. Every day you sit on things like this, and send your lawyers into court to argue that people can't handle pictures, or hearing about torture, or how it's hard to do the right thing really, is a day you get in deeper. The more time you spend hanging out with the horrors, the harder they become to disavow.

This isn't yours unless you make it yours. Stop making it yours.

A.

Friday Ferretblogging

So a ferret walks into a bar:

Customers at The Railway in Rhosddu were enjoying a pleasant midweek evening drink and a chat when a furry blond visitor suddenly scuttled over the threshold.

They could hardly believe their eyes, as the inquisitive animal trotted happily about the place.

The pub has given him the nickname 'Fosters' and he is currently being cared for by ferret expert John Rogers.

I'm trying to imagine Riot walking into a bar. He'd most likely scarf peanuts or whatever other human food he could steal until he was stuffed and then find a place to crash:

'Fosters' has found his owner again:

Since the story appeared in the Evening Leader last Wednesday, our newsdesk has been inundated with calls from members of the public who have lost – or have spotted – similar animals in Wrexham.

Some have rung claiming Fosters as their own, others have reported sightings of unaccompanied ferrets on the loose in the town.

It has transpired that Fosters has now been reunited with his grateful owner, who is 14-year-old Adam Masters – a pupil at Rhosnesni High School.

The little creature's real name is actually Fudge.

A.

Up the Post

Having actually looked at the flier, oy. To hear the Post describe it, this was a thing the third intern from the back made up in MS Paint and posted in the local Starbucks, and the problem was that he used Comic Sans instead of Rage Italic and that was what all the fuss was about. Like they were doing a piece on kittens and ran a photo of puppies instead. Like this was a packaging issue. As you can see, this clearly wasn't made in an hour and not by an intern, either. Multiple people saw this and nobody said, "Um, hell to the no?" How hard is this shit?

(Confession: I would have posted this earlier but I'm kind of fuzzy around the edges from a migraine. Because I have ethics and standards and shit, I'm disclosing that to you. Mostly in hopes of staving off the many e-mails about my typos.)

The problem: The Post often decries those who charge for access to public officials. This raised the specter of a money-losing newspaper doing the same thing -- and charging for access to its own reporters and editors as well.

No, kitten, it raised the actuality of you hosting something you un-ironically named a "salon" and were telling people was an off-the-record chance to snuggle with the powerful once they'd put some dough in the kitty. I'm not naive, really. I understand the desire for the head of a newspaper to be not only a person doing a job in the newsroom but also a figurehead to represent the paper publicly in important discussions about the issues of the day. I just don't think hosting "salons" is what that job ought to be.

For example, if I might offer an alternative, there are about a gazillion opportunities every single day to call out some conservative dickhead autowittering on about how the Post sucks and newspapers suck and reporters suck and your mom sucks, such that a person could keep very busy defending journalists and journalism and get nice and famous that way. I hear these dudes keep a running list of scary journalistic shit in which you could get involved, if you feel the need to talk to senators and policymakers to feel important.

See, the emphasis on a fancy pay-for-play party to talk about how fucked poor people are offends me more than the money itself. Mostly because the pay-for-play in this case is just a little more blatant than it is usually. Do you think I could walk into the office of Katharine Weymouth in my Salvation Army dress and Target shoes and get a moment to talk about health care or the rule of law or how John Kerry should have been president? Fuck no. But if I had some numerals after my name and a huge checkbook and carried a Kate Spade bag, that would be different, and it's the way it was before Politico worked up a head of steam about the actual price tag being out there for us to read.

Granted, I thought it would be a higher price than $25,000, to get in a room with Katie, but the fact is that there was a price tag on access to the elite of our punditry yesterday, and there will be one tomorrow, even if there's no flier out there with the number on it for all to see.

A.

Excellent

Broder

Makes me want to just lie down on the floor next to Puck and take a nap:

In the voting rights case decided on June 22, Chief Justice John Roberts signaled that he thinks time has run out on the remedy that Congress concocted in 1965 to overcome the historical pattern of denying blacks access to the ballot box in much of the South. A central provision of the Voting Rights Act, passed originally for five years and repeatedly extended, requires covered jurisdictions to get approval from Washington for any change, no matter how trivial, to its voting procedures.

As Roberts wrote in his opinion, "the historic accomplishments of the Voting Rights Act are undeniable. [But] things have changed in the South. Voter turnout and registration rates now approach parity. Blatantly discriminatory evasions of federal decrees are rare. And minority candidates hold office at unprecedented levels."

Right! Everything's fine now! A hyper-conservative justice says it's all right, so no more thought is required!

And let's talk about Roberts' point in itself: Once discrimination isn't blatant, it's okay. Once X number of minorities are elected to X number of offices, the problem goes away. Could this be more of a textbook conservative point? "I didn't say the N-word, so what's the problem with some watermelon jokes?" Jesus.

A.

What Recovery

America: Still screwed.

This is just my gut sense, but the two nonprofits I volunteer with are just now starting to see the effects of everybody's October-January economic freakout when we thought we'd revert to an agrarian barter economy or something. People's layoffs and pay cuts are starting to bite in; if they had any savings they're gone and the credit card debt's mounting up now, so the cutbacks start. Yes, people lost their jobs before, but it still seemed to me that we were more bracing for what's coming than actually feeling it hit. Now it's hitting. Companies that thought they could avoid layoffs are finding that they can't. Places that had planned to re-hire people by now can't do that yet.

Is that what it's like where you are?

A.

Staying Classy

From 2Millionth Web Log

The way only James Inhofe can.

Standing It

Oh please, baby, please, baby! Bring it ON! 

SCATTERED SHOWERS AND THUNDERSTORMS ARE EXPECTED ACROSS SOUTH CENTRAL TEXAS AND THE HILL COUNTRY THROUGH THIS EVENING. SOME OF THESE STORMS COULD BECOME VERY STRONG...WITH WIND GUSTS NEAR 50 MPH...SMALL HAIL...AND ISOLATED HEAVY RAINFALL.

Unless you hear otherwise, assume I will be out on my deck tonight dancing, making offerings, and otherwise petitioning the spirits in order to boost the odds that we actually get some of this promised precipitation. 

Because this last week, we been hot, ya'll.  Central Texas might as well have been the surface of the sun. 107° — that was the actual temp, not the heat index, on Thursday. The NWS issued a warning that I don't remember having seen before, a Lack of Precipitation Alert, which basically said, "Don't even think about it raining, because it ain't gonna happen. Possibly not ever." 

Had I known, six weeks ago, that we were going to get this kind of heat so early, I probably wouldn't have decided to stop using my air conditioner for the summer. But I did, and I've stuck with it, even last week. 

Most of you have likely just joined the ranks of everyone else I've shared this with and you now think that I've lost my motherf*cking mind, but I haven't. Quite the opposite, even. I feel that cutting down on my energy consumption during peak usage season makes all kinds of sense. Obviously this isn't for everybody, some folks really do NEED air conditioning.  I had heat exhaustion once, years ago in New York (ironically far less hot than Texas and I was younger and in better shape). Trust me, I wouldn't wish that on anyone. 

There's just so many instances, though, when we believe without question that we absolutely have to have some thing(s) to survive. It's been my experience that when I feel that way, I'm usually wrong about it. Sure I might have gotten habituated to something, more comfortable with something than without, but more often than not, those things aren't really essential.  In contrast, I often find I am going without things that I should have in order to thrive, not just survive. Embarrassing as it is to admit, since I'm almost older than dirt, I still struggle with some of the more basic self care issues that many adults of my acquaintance seem to have mastered. Though, one of the upsides to having my life disrupted by my breakup a few years back was that I couldn't keep doing a lot of the stupid shit I was doing before because no one was going to fix it but me. 

Which brings me back to the AC withdrawal. A few months ago, I quit my second job because even though the extra money was nice, the lack of down time was driving me more than a little nuts. Glad I did it but it left me with a bit of a hole in the budget and I had to figure out how I was going to get around that. My two biggest bills each month, especially in the summer, are electricity and water. That's not true for many folks, I know, but it's due in part because I live in a somewhat remote location and also because my utility companies are soulless, thieving heaps of shit. 

So that's when I turned the thermostat off and opened the windows. Luckily I've got ceiling fans in every room, the house is well-insulated, and there's a nice cross breeze.  I'm not saying the worst hot days are a walk in the park but it's been way less disruptive and uncomfortable than I thought and I'm saving buckets of cash. The lack of refrigerated air is costing me far less peace of mind than the lack of cash flow would have, and I love the feel of connection I get from being able to hear the sounds of life outside: locusts droning away the afternoon, hummingbirds zooming around the feeder, coyotes off in the distance at night, the call and response of owls right before the sun comes up. 

But don't think I won't be enjoying that rain and cool breeze tonight.  

  

Ann Miller's tour de force routine from Kiss Me Kate. In 1957, for an appearance with Bob Hope in Morocco, Miller performed this number for 5,000 troops ... in 120° heat.

Today on Athenae's Obsession with the Wonkette Comments: Journalism

It's a shame the Internet keeps killing it:

it is unfortunate that rowdy man interrupted such an important news story.

A.

What It's Going To Take

You know, there are days ... I just ... you need a NUCLEAR TERRORISTIC STRIKE KILLING THOUSANDS to get your rocks off? Really? I can't ...

It's finally happened. They broke my brain.

A.

'May Have Discovered a Business Strategy'

The world began when I opened my eyes this morning:

SAN JUAN -- At news conferences, Puerto Rico Daily Sun news photographer Miguel ''Micky'' Ríos is a 60-year-old veteran shooter with the skimpiest gear.

''I have just a camera, two lenses and one flash,'' Ríos said. ``But I'm an owner, and that's OK.''

Ríos was laid off last year from the San Juan Daily Star, a Pulitzer Prize-winning paper that closed last summer after 40 years. Afterward, its reporters, editors and other union members launched The Daily Sun, a cooperative newspaper project that became the island's only English-language daily.

With its break-even economic model and a mission no greater than to employ people, its managers say Puerto Rico's newest media venture may have discovered a business strategy to keep newspaper journalism alive: no profits.

Sigh. I guess the newspaper where I learned what a lede was and how to do paste-up 15 years ago was imaginary, since nonprofit newspapers were invented in San Juan the other day.

That being said, this is exceedingly cool:

As newspapers across America shut down, cut back and lay off employees, The Daily Sun has taken a gamble. With each of its 85 employees making an $800 investment, employee-owners bought computers, rented space and began publishing a print-only newspaper with no website and few ads.

[snip]

''It's the cheapest way to set up a media enterprise. I know in the U.S. it sounds like socialism, but in this part of the Caribbean, cooperatives are a lifesaver,'' Rafael Matos said. ``If we can keep this paper alive, we are a success.

``All we need is to break even.''

Damn right. Too much of the OMG NEWSPAPERS ARE DOOMED conversation is about how wild profitability is doomed. If the goal was to keep the newspaper alive, even if the goal was for the newspaper to make money, we wouldn't be having this conversation at all.

More, please.

via Romenesko.

A.

A Letter to the Majority Leader of the United States Senate

Hey Harry:

BOOYAH. Touchdown. We make miracles happen. All due apologies to Rod Tidwell, but you're our motherfucker now.

>

Sixty effing votes.

You've got the threshold to pass anything you want now. Anything. You want a bill declaring you have the biggest balls of them all? You got it. You want a bill taking every dollar everybody ever made and putting it in a big pile and lighting it on fire to warm the faces of the indigent and helpless? You got that, too. All you have to do is get your 60 Democrats in line and you've got it all.

What, that's too hard? You want MORE, you greedy fucker? You need 65 votes? You need 100? You need more than both houses of congress and the White House? You need more than that? TOUGH. Nobody said we could get to 60 and we got there for you, so there you are, on a silver platter, is everything you need. If you can't work with that, well then, my God, Harry, I don't know what to tell you. Possibly you need some therapy. I can recommend an excellent woman who will sit you down and tell you, like the sugar-high five-year-old you are, that the world is not fair and we do not get everything we want so on balance let's work with what we've got. What's that? You don't want to appear partisan? You want to grant deference to Republicans? You want to make sure the American people don't perceive you as MEAN?

Let me clue you in to something, Harry. The American people like it when you're mean. They get off on it. They think it's funny when the weaker political kid gets kicked. It makes them feel all tingly in the gonads. If this wasn't true, Bill O'Reilly wouldn't have a job, so stop thinking the American people want warm and fuzzy decency. We don't. We want Mr. Smith and Mrs. Smith to go to Washington, punch that bully congressman in his face and fuck the prom queen on the National Mall. We want the team that wins at kickball and then gloats all the way to the end of recess, and if you think it's any more complicated than that, my God, you're just not having enough fun in show business.

I mean, have you seen this country this week? We are fucked. People are dying of treatable illnesses because of ghouls in suits. Our military tortured a teenage kid until he went nuts and is now claiming he can't be released because he's nuts, like, who'd have thought. We have not begun to rebuild what has been torn down in New Orleans or anywhere else, and Levi Johnston is single and dreaming of a rap career. We need HELP here and you all along have been saying you need 60 votes to get it. Well, there you go.

Democratic voters got that for you. Democratic voters and Democratic donors and Democratic volunteers. Thousands and thousands of people in hundreds and hundreds of precincts kicked ass and took names for you to get you what you need. We were tired and we were pissed and we were busy but in Minnesota's and 59 other senate races we busted our humps and we got you 60 votes. It wasn't easy. Remember, wasn't all that long ago all Democrats were America-hating traitors who wanted babies and soldiers to die.

So we'd like a little gloating. We'd like a little trash talking. We'd like a little you wanna screw with grandchildren and grandmothers and sick people and poor people and baby kittens oh yeah well suck on this in the form of a health care bill that will actually help people, an end to the regime of torture and secrecy justified by fearmongering, and maybe some millions more jobs repairing millions more miles of bad road the previous eighteen administrations were perfectly happy to let sit potholed and rotting, mmkay?

And I swear to you if you come to us now like a college kid who blew his book money on hookers and beer and say you need another $400 for your history textbook, you'll get the response you deserve, which is that if you can't hack it on what you're given, you're just gonna have to go get a job at McDonald's to earn those extra couple of votes, because we gave you way more than you had any right to expect. Shut up and take it like the man you say you are.

A.

Consider Carefully

What message your superhero spokesmodel will send.

A.

Liam

If you're an 8 year old cyclist ...this would be the coolest thing ever

On The End of the Froomkin Era at WaPo

(Apologies to the divine Ms. A for tromping on her turf)

I'm not sure how many times I can say this, but...

Dear Fred Hiatt:  You blew it.  Again.  I had hoped that maybe given the outrage over the announcement that you were dropping Dan Froomkin's White House Watch blog from the Washington Post.com editorial pages, you might change your mind.  (I know, I know, fool me once...etc.)  But no, Froomkin's officially gone from the WaPo as of last Friday, and you have managed to retain your title as the dumbest editorial page editor in the history of journalism (narrowly edging out the NY Times--Ross Douthat?  Really?--and my local paper, which for years published letters to the editor on a weekly basis from a woman named Lillian whose letters were a series of incoherent riffs on "Get off my lawn!")  Congratulations.  You just took one more step towards making what used to be a great newspaper into something I wouldn't use to line my birdcage (yes, I know, it was the online WaPo.  Call it my virtual birdie.)

In reading Athenae's many righteous rants on journalism in the last several years, there's one theme that keeps sticking in my mind about journalism, and I do include editorials in that category (and Froomkin especially, since his was a cross between editorial and investigative journalism).  In my opinion, good journalism makes the reader--and often the subject--uncomfortable.  A good journalist will ask the questions that people aren't willing to ask for themselves, or might never have the opportunity to ask (I'm looking at you, Dana Millbank, you dick).  A good journalist doesn't just let the politicians spout their talking points or hand out a press release for transcription.  A good journalist finds the stuff the politician or the businessman doesn't want people to know.

Froomkin did all that for the WaPo, particularly with regard to the Bush administration, which I'm sure made many people uncomfortable.  But here's the thing--he was still doing it over the last five months with the Obama administration, too.  And that's the thing that infuriates me most about Hiatt.  All the anticipation of blogger fury over this seemed to focus on the idea that we'd be pissed because Froomkin had been so good at exposing the Bush era lunacies.  But I'm pissed because I don't think any president deserves a free pass from the press, and Froomkin still seemed to be one of the better voices in the MSM in pointing out where Obama wasn't all that and a bag of chips.

Fred, honey, lambchop, love crumpet, I don't care if the Washington Post is right, center, left, up, down, strange or charmed.  I want you to do your frakking job.  And when it comes to the editorial pages, online or off, that means publishing the people who keep the folks in charge honest by calling them on their bullshit honestly.  It does nobody any good at all to have people like Krauthammer and Will saying Obama sucks, because we know that's like Neil deGrasse Tyson saying space is cool, just as it didn't really do us that much good to have Huffington or Schultz saying Bush sucked.  What does do us good is when people like Krugman or Waas or Hersh or Marshall and Co. or Wheeler or, yes, Froomkin, say Bush or Obama suck.  Why?  Because they have the goods to back it up.

There's a certain level of cognitive dissonance in the right.  On the one hand, they believe in small government, that government is dangerous and we should always remain vigilant to keep it from sucking out our babies' brains with a straw.  But the right also seems obsessed with shutting down people like Froomkin.  If you believe premise A, why wouldn't you want Froomkin saying, "Hey, that guy's going to suck out your baby's braaaaaiiiiinnnnn!!!!"

Seriously, Fred.  It doesn't matter if the emperor is liberal or conservative if he's naked.  And as long as you keep saying the emperor's a latte-drinking liberal because he's wearing Armani, I'm going to keep calling you frakking stupid.

Meanwhile, I'm keeping my eye on Dan Froomkin.  I'm sure somebody's going to end up hiring him to keep doing White House Watch.  Who wants to take bets on whether it'll be old media or new media?

Make It Stop

The willful denial of reality burns us, precious:

Expanding copyright law to bar online access to copyrighted materials without the copyright holder's consent, or to bar linking to or paraphrasing copyrighted materials without the copyright holder's consent, might be necessary to keep free riding on content financed by online newspapers from so impairing the incentive to create costly news-gathering operations that news services like Reuters and the Associated Press would become the only professional, nongovernmental sources of news and opinion.

The Romenesko commenters have at him:

And one way to reduce CO2 emissions...
Posted by Thomas Lilleston 6/29/2009 12:17:14 PM

...is to stop breathing, and that'll probably work about as well as the No-Link Theory.

...is to stop breathing, and that'll probably work about as well as the No-Link TheoryHowever, the dumbest part of the piece isn't actually the one about which most people are doing the bitching:

Newspaper ad revenues fell by almost 8 percent in 2007, a surprising drop in a non-recession year (the current economic downturn began in the late fall of that year), and by almost 23 percent the following year, and accelerated this year. In the first quarter of 2009 newspaper ad revenues fell 30 percent from their level in the first quarter of 2008. This fall in revenue, amplified by drops in print circulation (about 5 percent last year, and running at 7 percent this year--and readership is declining in all age groups, not just the young), have precipitated bankruptcies of major newspaper companies and, more important, the disappearance of a number of newspapers, including major ones, such as the Rocky Mountain News and the Seattle Post-Intelligencer. Falling revenues have led to layoffs of some 20,000 employees of the remaining newspapers. Print journalism has come to be regarded as a dying profession. Online viewership and revenues have grown but not nearly enough to offset the decline in ad revenues. Even the most prestigious newspapers, such as the New York Times, the Wall Street Journal, the Washington Post, and USA Today, have experienced staggering losses.

You know what someone writing one of these interminable oh God oh God we're all gonna die pieces has yet to tell me? If "less money than we had before" and "not enough money to live on" are the same damn thing. Every time I ask this question I get people telling me I'm oversimplifying the situation and that's exactly my point. I am oversimplifying the situation. I'm doing it on purpose. Is there enough money in any given big-city newspaper today to fund the newsgathering operations we are told are so critical to the survival of life as we know it?

My educated guess based on reading I kid you not everything on the planet about this for the past five years is hell yeah, and there'd be plenty left over, too. And if that's the case, then this is no longer an advertising crisis or a free vs. paid content crisis or a you kids suck crisis. Then this is a WHERE THE HELL IS ALL THE MONEY crisis, and I think we might need to hold another congressional hearing and instead of letting David Simon bitch about HuffPo, we could subpoena Dennis FitzSimons.

News, as well the other information found in newspapers, is available online for nothing, including at the websites of the newspapers themselves, who thus are giving away content. The fact that online viewing is rising as print circulation is falling indicates a shift of consumers from the paid to the free medium.

Not necessarily. It could also be that through nefarious means, like LINKS, people are finding your content and thus your numbers are increasing.

A.

Remember the New Serious Journalism? `

In which we weren't going to be captivated by triviality and celebrity nonsense and poring over every detail of some scandal that had nothing to do with the lives of ordinary Americans?

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They're Finally Throwing Flowers and Candy

AP Photo.

It won't be over, not for a very long time:

So far, more than 200,000 veterans from Iraq and Afghanistan have been treated at VA medical facilities -- three times what the VA projected, according to a Government Accountability Office analysis. More than one-third of them have been diagnosed with mental health conditions, including post-traumatic stress disorder, acute depression and substance abuse. Thousands more have crippling disabilities such as brain or spinal injuries. In each of the last two years, the VA has underestimated the number of veterans who would seek help and the cost of treating them -- forcing it to go cap in hand to Congress for billions of dollars in emergency funding.

Heckuva job, Bushie.

A.

Unless You Cheat, You're a Pussy

Seriously, Ross Douthat:

So which is the real America? Is it Tsing Loh’s dystopia, where everyone “works” grimly on their relationships, and post-feminist husbands happily cook saffron-infused porcini risotto but rarely practice seduction on their wives? Or is it tabloid country: The land of Jon minus Kate, and governors who vanish to “hike the Appalachian Trail” — not to mention gossip-column fixtures like Britney Spears (rumored last week to be contemplating her third marriage in six years) and the mistress-parading Mel Gibson?

First of all, there is no one I want giving me romantic advice LESS than this man. Leave aside that he looks like a young Wilford Brimley, leave aside the creepy idea that either you cheat on your wife or you cook, the dude seems to fundamentally believe we need him to tell us how to be. Which is an epidemic Republican disease, but there you are.

I hate this about writing about relationships, the assumption that you're categories, roles, that you fit into boxes and once you're in, you're in for life. You're either passionate or "post-feminist," which seems to be Douthat's way of saying gay, with the cooking with saffron and all. Is everybody in his world that self-conscious, eager to find a social movement on which to blame their behavior? I honestly do not get this: if you do not want to cook for your wife, don't do it. If you don't like saffron, I know of no one, not even the most doctrinaire feminist, who would force you to eat it.

Yes, yes, metaphor, but that's exactly my point. I don't think we have to make some kind of choice between cheating and having a series of ugly public divorces and shaving our heads and hitting the paparazzi with baseball bats, or having a sexless marriage that you deride in public as being about "companionship." As if having a nice friend is the worst thing in the world, as if that's something about a billion people wouldn't want. These aren't the choices: instability + passion or companionship - sex. And perpetuating that idea just gives license to men and women conditioned to think that stalking, controlling and over-dramatizing mean that love is real. See Twilight, every romantic comedy ever made, and half the novels on the planet.

I so hate relationship trend stories, across the ideological spectrum. I want everybody to have what they want. Women, men, nobody, everybody, whatever. I want to live in a world where everyone can make the choices that suit them best, and I want to work to make that world a reality.

Ross Douthat, apparently, either wants you to cheat to prove you're a Real Man with Passion, or shut up and eat your saffron like a good little wuss.

A.

Today on Tommy T's Obsession With The Freeperati - Odds and Ends edition

Good morning, everyone!
Every so often I get a bit behind on the FR threads, sometimes skipping over ones I saved previously,  for ones more relevant/entertaining/thematic.
This leaves a few behind which deserve your attention, so periodically I'm going to whip them up into a flatulent fondue and serve them up. If the threads appear dated, that's why.

First up is a rank remnant of the Et Tu threads from last week's Obsession:
Freepers luvs them some Olive Garden !!‏

Olive Garden pulls Letterman ads
Politico ^ | 06/18/09 | ANDY BARR
Posted on Thursday, June 18, 2009 12:23:58 PM by BCrago66
Following a week of back and forth between CBS late night comic David Letterman and Sarah Palin over a crude joke he told about the Alaska Republican governor’s daughter, the Olive Garden restaurant says it is cancelling all of its scheduled ads on Letterman’s “Late Show” for the rest of the year.

Now previously, Freepers  always derided boycotts as ineffective. Not to mention embarrassing to the boycottor because it makes them look desperate, and also makes them look stupid when nothing happens except a collective yawn from the boycotee.

Well, they've been pretty much oblivious to their own hypocrisy so far, so why change now?

Excellent. To my knowledge, this is the first TV sponsor to pull its ads from the Letterman show (Embassy Suites pulled its web ads from CBS.com, which is much smaller money.) And this is a big one, too.

1 posted on Thursday, June 18, 2009 12:23:59 PM by BCrago66

To: BCrago66

Keep the heat on.

2 posted on Thursday, June 18, 2009 12:25:42 PM by ExTexasRedhead

To: BCrago66

First the Never-Ending Pasta Bowl, now this. I love Olive Garden!

6 posted on Thursday, June 18, 2009 12:27:57 PM by irishjuggler

To: BCrago66

Olive Garden’s breadsticks and salad are great. will have to eat there.

8 posted on Thursday, June 18, 2009 12:29:00 PM by rwfromkansas

To: rwfromkansas

Olive Garden will now experience an uptick of customers, even in a recession. There’s a lot more of us than there are of them.

15 posted on Thursday, June 18, 2009 12:31:58 PM by BCrago66

Obviously, BCrago66 has already forgotten the last two elections.

I think they really want to believe that rather than being just a fringe subset of the 27% dead-enders, they are the majority in this country. 
You see it all the time in the " I don't trust polls (unless they're good for the GOP) "  shtick that they endlessly flog.
Oh well - back to the celebration!

To: BCrago66

We may have to make a run to the Olive Garden this weekend.

24 posted on Thursday, June 18, 2009 12:32:53 PM by KoRn (Department of Homeland Security, Certified - "Right Wing Extremist")

To: BCrago66

Cant wait to go to Olive Garden!

25 posted on Thursday, June 18, 2009 12:32:56 PM by Ann Archy

And then.......the exploding cigar:

Olive Garden disputes report that ads were pulled from Letterman
Christian Science Monitor ^ | 06.18.09 | Jimmy Orr
Posted on Thursday, June 18, 2009 3:07:52 PM by curth
A spokesman for the Olive Garden disputed a report from Politicothat the restaurant chain pulled its advertising from the David Letterman show due to jokes about Sarah Palin’s daughter.
“Information reported today by Andy Barr of Politico regarding Olive Garden’s advertising on the Late Show with David Letterman was erroneous. No authorized spokesperson for the company confirmed the information in his report,” said Olive Garden spokesman Rich Jeffers in an email to The Vote.
“The Olive Garden media schedule is planned months in advance. The schedule for the Late Show with David Letterman was completed earlier this month. We take all guest concerns seriously. And, as always, we will factor those concerns in as we plan our advertising schedule in the future,” he continued.

To: curth

Oh, oh. Cancel the proposed dinner at Olive Garden.

2 posted on Thursday, June 18, 2009 3:10:31 PM by Tax Government

To: curth

Olive Garden sucks anyway...No “Italian” would be caught dead in there! Their food is NASTY..

3 posted on Thursday, June 18, 2009 3:12:48 PM by mikelets456

To: curth

Damn...and I sent them a nice email!

4 posted on Thursday, June 18, 2009 3:13:13 PM by Czar ((Still Fed Up to the Teeth with Washington))

To: curth

The food SUCKS at the Olive Garden bigtime. There is simply no reason to go there, commercial or not.

11 posted on Thursday, June 18, 2009 3:23:48 PM by BunnySlippers (I LOVE BULL MARKETS . . .)

To: Abbeville Conservative; sleepwalker; Roses0508; feedback doctor; LibLieSlayer; ...

Dump Olive Garden.

I’m not interested in their chicken game anymore. They can cater to the leftists and pervs.

12 posted on Thursday, June 18, 2009 3:27:34 PM by SolidWood (Down with the islamic regime! Freedom for Iran!)

To: Czar

I did too....
aw,man!! ...BETRAYED!
It's really good food, but...I can't deal with that nonsense. (tearfully waves goodbye to cheesecake)

44 posted on Friday, June 19, 2009 9:32:34 AM by gimme1ibertee (For the sake of our Republic....RAISE HOLY HELL!)

I eat your cheesecake!  I...EAT....IT....UP!!!!!

More brain-dead blatherings from the Freeperati after the jump, so let's.....
JUMP!

JUMP!!!

hmmm..

I said, JUMP!!!!!

Leaving

On Tuesday:

BAGHDAD – Iraqi security forces bolstered checkpoints and banned motorcycles from the streets of Baghdad as they prepared Sunday for more violence before this week's withdrawal of U.S. combat troops from the capital and other cities and towns.

Despite the increased checks, a roadside bomb targeting a U.S. convoy in eastern Baghdad wounded six bystanders. It was unclear if anyone in the convoy was injured, police said.

A car bomb also exploded in the parking lot of a police academy in western Baghdad, killing one police officer and wounding six others, police said, speaking on condition of anonymity as they were not authorized to speak to the media.

Iraq's main Sunni political bloc joined Shiite Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki in describing the June 30 deadline for the U.S. withdrawal from urban areas as a turning point for the country.

Al-Maliki's government has declared Tuesday National Sovereignty Day and decreed a public holiday.

A.

Saturday Blogwhoring Thread

Nevertheless, post away!

A.