TDS: Glenn Beck's Nazi Tourette's

There's a reason Godwin's Law exists and that reason is Glenn Beck (and yes, I can sense your collective surprise at finding this out):

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Picture Of The Day II

I'm doing my part. Cthulhu bless America.

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Malkin On Transparency And Show Trials

For those not in the know, Michelle Malkin is a fairly important right-wing political blogger and a contributor to the FOX News channel. She's also an extremely shrill and unpleasant woman whom I find just as annoying as I find her physically attractive (yeah, I said it; I dig Asian chicks, sue me). And I think she has a (somewhat) valid point about the Democrats' decision not to allow C-SPAN to televise the final deliberations to reconcile the two houses of congress' versions of the health care reform legislation:

In addition to pointing out how Barack Obama used C-SPAN as a political football during the presidential campaign and how the White House has only allowed one hour of dog-and-pony coverage of health care debate on the public affairs channel, [C-SPAN CEO Brian] Lamb sums up the simple, non-partisan principle behind the push for open, televised coverage of the backroom wheeling and dealing:

“If we pay for something and it’s the public’s business, we ought to be able to see how it’s done.”

No wonder the Vampire Congress and the Prince of Darkness in the White House have responded to a simple request for transparency with near-violent apoplexy...

Her hyperbolic insults aside, I'll have more to say on that point in a minute but first I wanted to compare her principled, unwavering and totally non-partisan commitment to governmental transparency (which I actually don't seem to recall hearing much about during the Bush administration but maybe I just wasn't paying close enough attention to her back then) in the above case to her reaction to a federal judge's ruling that next week’s trial in San Francisco of a lawsuit challenging the initiative that banned same-sex marriage in California won’t be televised live but will be videotaped for delayed Internet release on YouTube:

Judicial activism + far Left radical activism = Courtroom intimidation.

Yesterday, liberal California Chief U.S. District Judge Vaughn Walker issued an unprecedented ruling that will put the trial involving a challenge to the Prop. 8 same-sex marriage ban on YouTube...

I generally support more sunshine in all government proceedings. But the judge’s unusual method of securing video coverage is extremely troubling. This isn’t a sincere educational effort to provide transparency to the public. It’s a flagrant attempt at making Prop. 8 a show trial — and intimidating Prop. 8 backers who will be called to testify.

The article she cites goes on to state that most of the witnesses will be campaign officials or academic experts accustomed to speaking in public and that the judge will have the power to order that individual witnesses’ faces be concealed or their voices muted on the YouTube uploads if he deems it necessary, thus all but negating her argument that this will be an intimidation tactic employed by the gay mafia or whatever. Regardless, we can glean two things from this little tirade of hers: 1) Malkin is an unprincipled, partisan hack who hypocritically calls for transparency in government only when it suits her and her agenda, and 2) Malkin has no idea what the term "show trial" actually means.

Of course, the former point should not come as a shock to anyone who has heard this woman speak before and it is hardly revelatory but the latter point is rather important. Wikipedia defines the term "show trial" as follows:

The term show trial is a pejorative description of a type of highly public trial. The term was first recorded in the 1930s.^[1] There is a strong connotation that the judicial authorities have already determined the guilt of the defendant and that the actual trial has as its only goal to present the accusation and the verdict to the public as an impressive example and as a warning. Show trials tend to be retributive rather than correctional justice.

Such trials can exhibit scant regard for the niceties of jurisprudence and even for the letter of the law. Defendants have little real opportunity to justify themselves: they have often signed statements under duress and/or suffered torture prior to appearing in the court-room.

Now, Malkin can hardly be blamed for her apparent ignorance on this count. In fact, if you've been paying attention to the right-wing noise machine lately the term "show trial" has been bandied about as much as the term "death panels" was last fall and if you know anything about said noise machine, you'll know that they beat memes and talking points into the ground with a coordinated effort that would impress Joseph Goebbels (of course I'm not comparing them to Nazis or anything, I'm just saying that Goebbels was a hell of a propagandist and he was really good at staying on message with the whole "Jews are evil" bit; it's actually a compliment, of sorts).

Malkin even said the same thing when President Obama announced that Khalid Sheikh Mohammed and his co-conspirators were going to be tried in a New York City civil court. And that's what I don't quite get: Malkin and other right-wingers believe that KSM and many of the other terror suspects the United States has in custody are pieces of garbage who deserve to be put on trial and punished with a death sentence for their crimes against innocent Americans (something we agree on) and that they are less than human and should be tortured to within an inch of their lives as part of that punishment (something we do not agree on). In fact, I would think she'd be cheering the use of coerced confessions and retributive trials against these people, per the definition of what a show trial actually is.

But that's the thing: in their ignorance, Malkin and her ilk seem to define "show trials" as any trial they disagree with that will be shown to anyone outside of the courtroom. To the political right in this country, the American ideal of public trials has seemingly now morphed into the shadowy practice of show trials (there's that government transparency she likes/dislikes so much again) and letting anyone they don't like have their day in an open and unbiased court of law is tantamount to the deceitful tactics employed by the former Soviet Union (although they seem to be disturbingly comfortable with the idea of torturing these individuals first, also a favorite tactic of the former Soviet Republic). I myself have a relatively good deal of faith in the American judicial system and I'm fairly confident that it will render a fair verdict in each of these respective cases but I'm obviously a dirty liberal who hates this country and all that it stands for (just ask Michelle), so what do I know?

Now, as to the Obama administration's aforementioned promise during the last presidential election to broadcast all of the health care reform legislation negotiations on C-SPAN:


Yeah, he promised to do that and yeah, it looks like he's going to break that promise. I said many times during that election that the man's neither an angel nor a saint, he's a politician and we shouldn't be surprised when he acts like one but I'll be completely honest here and say that I was still disappointed when I heard about this. But then I heard another argument that gave me pause: broadcasting these negotiations will only delay the process even further and that's why the right is so adamant about holding his feet to the fire on this count (aside from it being just one more reason to trash the man and his administration, of course).

Let me explain: just as Obama is a politician, congress is full of politicians, politicians I trust to do the right thing a lot less than I do Obama (and I'm only talking about the Democrats right now). The sad truth is that to merge the legislation of the two bills congress has before them that body is going to have to engage in some of the ugliest bureaucratic sausage-making that you and I have (n)ever witnessed and they're sure to do it in one of two ways: 1) with the cameras off, they'll buckle down, twist some arms, grease some palms, make some deals and finally hammer out a health care reform bill that will admittedly be imperfect but will also be a sizable improvement over the current system, or 2) with the cameras trained on them, they'll spend a great deal of time making a series of carefully prepared grandiose speeches whilst preening and posturing for the cameras while they do all of that bureaucratic sausage-making I just described anyway, except that they'll do it all secretly behind closed doors.

I'm not saying that it's a great system and I'm not saying that I like it (or even that it's endemic to either party), just that it's the system we have and we must be realistic about that. And not to be too partisan on this point but can you really blame them? Think about this: despite what seemed to me to be a genuinely sincere effort by President Obama to reach across the aisle the Republican party has roundly rejected bipartisanship at every turn since the first day this legislation was introduced. In fact, they publicly announced from the outset that they were going to do everything within their power to delay and derail health care reform and they've held pretty much true to their word on that count. No compromises, no alternate plans, just delays and obstructionism.

I expected Obama to have given up trying to work with these people long ago but as always he's proven himself to be a far more patient and pragmatic man than I could ever hope to be, but he's also not a sucka. He and the Dems have realized that in order to achieve any real results on this front they're going to have to finally get their hands dirty and do some actual work whether the Republicans want to participate or not. Again, I'm far less than crazy about the process and I would love to see a lot more governmental transparency going forward but I'm also convinced that if this legislation doesn't get passed now the odds of it getting a second chance will be almost nil and after thirty years of failures I don't think that the American people can afford that any longer. The resultant bill will be ugly and it will be imperfect but it will also be a starting point that we can build upon later and that's better than what we have now. I'm tired of watching this sausage being made; I'm ready to see how it tastes. Here's hoping that the country gets that chance, and right soon.

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Something Someone Else Said

"He has the three things that are necessary to establish an authoritarian government [a national police force, gun control and control over the press]. And so we need to be ever-vigilant, because freedom is precious," -Congressman Paul Broun (R-GA).

Now I don't claim to be the most self-aware person on the face of the planet but for these people to be saying these things after watching the Bush administration walk all over personal freedoms and privacy rights for eight long years absolutely staggers the mind. I thought that the American people came together really effectively after 9/11, finding a common strength and purpose of thought but that was nothing compared to how efficiently the political right in this country (while remaining fairly rudderless on any other issues) has closed it's obstructionist ranks since Obama's inauguration last January. I'm afraid that Godwin's Law doesn't apply to veiled references to Hitleresque behavior so I won't be invoking it here but you get the idea I'm sure.

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Picture Of The Day

Found by way of a post on my conservative counterpart Donald Douglas' site American Power, a conservative protester stands outside of Democratic Senator Claire McCaskill's Missouri office. Now I support President Obama's efforts to reform the health care system so obviously I don't agree with the message of this protest (although I have no problem with the act itself, of course) but seeing her sign made me think: How fucked up is the political messaging on the right in this country when you can differentiate yourself from your fellow protesters by pointing out that you're not a racist douchebag calling the president a Nazi?

Something Someone Else Said

"Contra Rush Limbaugh, history’s actual fascists were not primarily known for their anti-smoking policies or generous social welfare programs. Fascism celebrated violence, anti-rationalism and hysterical devotion to an authoritarian leader. To date, the Obama administration has fallen rather short in these departments.

Perhaps uncomfortably aware of the shortcoming, the hardliners have developed — okay, invented really — their own mythology about Obama “brownshirts.” (The popular conservative website RedState.org literally uses the term.) The complaint rests on a single case — that of conservative activist Kenneth Gladney, who got into a scuffle at a townhall in St. Louis, Missouri. The altercation was captured on video and you can watch it on YouTube. What you’ll see is a man, already on the ground, and another man stepping back in order to avoid tripping over him. The man on the ground is Gladney. Gladney walked away from the confrontation and later went to hospital, where he was treated for light injuries and released the same day. Whatever happened and whoever started it, this happily bloodless encounter bears not even the most glancing resemblance to the brutality that made Hitler’s brownshirts notorious. And yet, look up Gladney’s name online and he’s suddenly a poignant martyr." -David Frum, New Majority.

But "fascist", "nihilist", "socialist", "marxist", "atheist", "communist", "brownshirt", these terms are all equally inherently bad, right? Their actual definitions or the context of their usage don't really matter, just that one yells them loudly and often enough about one's enemies in order for something to stick. That's how you win political debate in this country and it's why wanting to make sure that every American has affordable health care obviously makes Obama a dirty Nazi.

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Something Someone Else Said

"Let me see if I understand right wing reasoning...

Those evil liberals are engaging in "class warfare" by wanting to raise the highest tax rate to where it was through most of the 1990s -- and at least 11 percent lower than it was through most of Reagan's term in office -- but when we rant about the "liberal media elite" and their disdain for Sarah Palin and all those wonderful people we produce in those always-invoked small towns in America, we're just standing up for Joe Six Pack.

When the president unilaterally suspends habeas corpus and imprisons American citizens indefinitely without charging them with any crimes, undermines the rule of law and ignores treaty obligations in order to justify torturing people, engages in wholesale data mining and records virtually every phone call, email and text message sent or received anywhere in the country without getting a warrant, thus negating the 4th amendment completely, and then argues that no court has the authority to even consider a challenge to that totally unbridled authority, and hires thousands of armed mercenary thugs to go kill Iraqi people in the name of God, that's protecting the country against terrorism. But providing healthcare to the people who don't have it so they won't die or go bankrupt trying to stay alive in the event of serious illness? That reminds them of the Nazis!" -Ed Brayton, Dispatches From the Culture Wars.

Something Insane Someone Else Said

"Obama legally kills babies and now he can legally kill Grandmas!

Hitler did this. He killed the weak, the sick, the old, and babies and races/religions he didn’t like. Hitler also controlled the media. (Where’s the public debate between scientists on “Climate Change/Global Warming?”) Hitler had the VW bug invented as the state car. What will O’s nationalized car be? So… kill off the weak. That’s the plan. Tax the workers to death. Erase the middle class. Sounds like the evil governments we studied in high school long ago. The evil governments were : kings, oligarchies, facist, socialist, and communist. Now it’s called the Obama Administration. Sounds like candy or a rock band." -Victoria Jackson, Saturday Night Live alum and aspiring political wingnut.

But of course the election of Al Franken is obviously "the ascension of the most disgusting fever-swamp partisanship to Capital Hill." How are these people going to maintain this level of crazy outrage for the next 3 1/2-7 1/2 years?

I Only Meant The Bad Ones

Normally I don't really give a crap about Britain's royal family but this made me laugh:

Videos purportedly shot by Britain's Prince Harry and including offensive language prompted an official apology Saturday from the prince and the royal family.

Prince Harry apologized when video surfaced of him making offensive comments while on military duty in 2006.

According to the British-based News of the World, which released the videos on its Web site, the videos show British soldiers while a voice presumed to be Harry's calls one solider a "Paki," and in another clip tells soldier wearing a cloth on his head that he looks "like a raghead."

...The royal family said the 'paki' term was a nickname for a friend in his platoon.

"There is no question that Prince Harry was in any way seeking to insult his friend," the St. James's Palace statement said.

The second video was filmed after arriving in Cyprus, according to News of the World, and shows a British soldier with a cloth over his head.

A voice, which the News of the World claims to be Harry's, is heard saying, "(explicative) me, you look like a raghead."

In response to that comment, St. James's Palace said, "Prince Harry used the term 'raghead' to mean Taliban or Iraqi insurgent."

That's smooth. Just as a reminder, here's the Urban Dictionary's definition of the term:

raghead

The rag being a turban and the head being that of a middle eastern or far eastern male. Although not all middle eastern or far eastern people wear turbans the term raghead is used in any case. It's the same as calling an Iraqi a Paki. See alse: towelhead, sand nigger, Paki, camel jockey, oil nigger.

OK, the "Paki" thing I can see. The guy's a buddy and they're in the military: almost everybody picks up a nickname and I don't think anybody expects them all to be politically correct. I'm not saying that some people won't or shouldn't find this offensive, just that it's not that bad considering the circumstances and the parties involved.

But "raghead"? Come on dude, that's just plain racist; after you were photographed dressed as a Nazi at a British "colonial and native" party a few years back you really need to be a little less tone-deaf. But my favorite part of this story is the official explanation: he "used the term 'raghead' to mean Taliban or Iraqi insurgent." That's awesome. Yeah, I used a blatantly racist term that encompasses all Middle Eastern guys but I only meant the bad ones. The American equivalent would be like one of Bush's daughters being recorded saying one of her friends looked like a "nigger" and the official White House statement saying that she only used the word to refer to gang bangers who commit drive-by shootings. Who the hell would buy that?

This story brings to light a phenomenon I've always found interesting about the military during times of war: the condoned usage of racism towards your enemies. Let's face it, racism is principally about hate and I assume that it makes it somewhat easier to kill another human being if you hate them on some level. In past wars American and British troops have used words like "gooks," "Nips," "Japs," "Krauts," or "Huns" to help dehumanize their opponents. When you combine this history with the fact that the majority of enlisted men come from lower economic and education levels it comes as no great surprise that troops are still defining their enemies in this way even after we've entered the 21st century.

If the royal family was going to be honest, they would just say, "Look, everybody lets some stupid racist shit slip sometimes and when you're fighting against a people whose skin color, culture, religious beliefs and values are for the most part fairly alien from your own this kind of thing is just going to happen sometimes." But they're not going to be honest because that would entail openly discussing the ugly side of military culture and wartime practices and Western societies don't like to do that because it makes it that much harder to wage war with the support of their citizenry. War is ugly, and your government and our allies would rather the average person not know just how ugly.

Obama To Be Sworn In On Lincoln's Bible

Yes, in continuing with his practice of emulating the Great Emancipator president-elect Barack Obama will be sworn in on Abraham Lincoln's inaugural bible, making it the first time the tome has been used for such an occasion in over 140 years.

Now my well known anathema for organized religion aside, this is indeed a historical relic from the history of this country and my only hope is that it is treated with the requisite care it deserves; in other words, a book this old and important should be handled with gloves at all times because oils and acids from human skin can damage older leather and paper but I suppose the thirty or so seconds that Obama has his bare hand on it can be forgiven in a historical context.

Not to be a relic-Nazi or anything, but every person who winced along with me when the Declaration of Independence was rolling across a DC street after being tossed around like a rolled up dorm poster in the Nick Cage flick National Treasure will know exactly what I'm talking about. Just one more reason to hope for sunny skies on Jan. 20th, I suppose.

Hitler's Birthday Cake

I guess as long as we let racists continue to reproduce we're going to have people like this amongst us but it doesn't make this any less sad:

HOLLAND TWP. | In a living room decorated with war books, German combat knives and swastikas, a 2-year-old boy, blond and blue-eyed, played with a plastic dinner set.

The boy, asked his name, put down a tiny plate and ran behind his father's leg. He flashed a shy smile but wouldn't answer. Heath Campbell, 35, the boy's father, encouraged him.

"Say Adolf," said Campbell, a Holocaust denier who has three children named for Nazism.

Again, the boy wouldn't answer. It wasn't the first time the name caused hesitation.

Adolf Hitler Campbell -- it's indeed the name on his birth certificate -- turns 3 today, and the Campbell family believes the boy has been mistreated. A local supermarket refused to make a birthday cake with "Adolf Hitler" on it.

The ShopRite in Greenwich Township has also refused to make a cake bearing the name of Campbell's daughter, JoyceLynn Aryan Nation Campbell, who turns 2 in February.

Honszlynn Hinler Jeannie Campbell, a girl named for Schutzstaffel head Heinrich Himmler, turns 1 in April.

Now personally, I would have made the cake for the kid; sure, his parents are obviously racist douchebags but he's only 3: let the kid have his birthday cake. Because this will almost definitely be the case someday:

An Allentown psychologist said the names would cause problems for the children later in life.

Ya think!? That Barack Obama presidency win is looking even more miraculous when you factor in how many idiots like this we still have living in this country.

Raping Indy

Oh my God. I just finished watching the newest South Park episode, "The China Probrem" and my sides are still sore from laughing. If you haven't seen it yet stop reading right now, go to Comedy Central's website and do so immediately; I'll wait. OK; pretty funny shit, huh? I wrote what I now consider an all too generous review of The Crystal Skull after having too many glasses of wine back in May but I excuse my initial enthusiasm because of my great love for the original trilogy: I was once again watching an Indiana Jones movie filled with Nazis, jungle temples and a fedora and I think this blinded me to the craptacular CG sequences, the unimaginative alien ending and Shia LeBeouf.

I was watching a downloaded copy on my PS3 with a friend the other day and I started to remember watching the parts that I really didn't enjoy but just looked past at the time as Indy fought the aforementioned Nazis and I felt a little dirty for it. Then today I watched this South Park episode, and I almost died laughing as the boys had to work through the trauma of having seen Indy getting repeatedly raped by Lucas and Speilberg because I knew exactly how they were feeling. And dude did they rape his ass, all in multiple homages to some of cinemas most famous rape scenes but it was the actual acting out of the metaphor and the psychological scarring it had on the audience members that really made the scenes hilarious.

Now if you're sitting there reading this and thinking, "Jesus, James sure is one cold bastard to be laughing during a rape scene," all I can say is lighten up, it's a cartoon. Seriously. Oh, and the subplot of Cartman and Butters taking over the P. F. Chang's to stop the Chinese invasion was great but you knew it would be. I've heard rumors of a supposed fifth Indiana Jones sequel and I'm not expecting anything good to come of it; my only hope is that Lucas and Speilberg will come to their senses and go back to what made me love these movies so much in the first place but their behaviour of late has been decidedly less than encouraging. Chin up, Indy.

We're Just Replacing Words Now? Really?

I posted a few days ago about Michelle Obama's impressive speech concerning her and Barack's family life as the best part of the first day of the Democratic National Convention but apparently I made the mistake of judging her speech solely by the words she spoke; it turns out that it's the words she didn't say that prove what a disloyal communist and angry black woman she really is. Stephen Colbert reviews the incriminating video:
Yes, it seems that according to FOX News' Megan Kelly it is fair game to replace the words of public figures with words of our choice and then judge their motives and inner thoughts based on these new quotations. Now knowing these new rules of professional political journalism, I give you the real John McCain in his own words (replaced by several words of my own choosing) in the intro to an actual speech (can you believe he really said these things?) delivered to the Virginia Military Academy last year:

"Thank you. I know that seated in the front of this hall are VMI cadets who have repeatedly pissed on this country's greatness. I am grateful for your straining bladders, honored by your shitty attitudes, and mindful that I speak to an audience that can discern urine from feces in a politician's appraisal of the war this country was so cleverly tricked into (heh, heh). You know, better than most, whether our cause is futile, extraordinarily futile and "Brian's trying so hard to fuck Lois on Family Guy but it just ain't ever gonna happen" futile. You haven't risked a goddamn thing here in your little neoconfederate, backwoods pseudo-college to make it so. Fuck you. I'd also like to salute a few old comrades of mine, Adolph Hitler, Darth Vader and Prescott Bush, whose example of repeatedly doing business with the Nazi's during World War II helped to sustain the Bush family legacy long enough for his jackass of a grandson to set this country on the path to everlasting war, drain it's coffers off to his father's contracting buddies and turn us into a laughingstock around the globe that the next president (and let's face it, that dirty negro is gonna feed me my lunch in November) will spend several years just trying to repair the damage."

Can you believe he actually might have said and meant those things if he had actually said them at some point? Wow, this guy really hates his country (yet really loves Family Guy; weird). Also, and in all seriousness, that shit about Bush's grandpa is true. Now I'm not saying that he was a Nazi, just that he knowingly did business with one of the most insidious and destructive regimes on the planet while his own country was at war with them and also while millions of people were wiped out in the most infamous saga of genocide and human suffering in modern history. Bush: vote for him a third time, for the first time.

Adolph Jefferson

The lip-syncing here is great, although I'd have to say that Hitler had a bit more trouble with his East side:

Burn Baby Burn

Just one more reason for people to make fun of the South. From the great state of Louisiana:

About 30 people gathered for a regional revival Friday night that included a book burning as a statement to reach out to local residents.

"It is allowed for Harry Potter to be taught in our schools, but not the Bible," International House of Prayer pastor James Crawford said during the Shreveport Regional Unity of Faith Revival.

That is one reason pastors from several denominations and races ripped pages from "Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone." Those and pages from a pornographic magazine were put into a burn pit and set afire as praises bellowed from the congregation.

On a side note, I've never read any of the Harry Potter books but I really like the way they've contributed to a rise in the popularity of reading amongst kids; every other aspect of this story is utterly ridiculous and slightly troubling.

Timewatch: Bloody Omaha

Just ran across this in an old email to a friend:

Linked to this from a blog and thought it was pretty cool...Starts out kind of slow but really shows how movies have been changed by increasing computer power:

If I possessed any kind of money or pull, I would have these guys working for me in some kind of creative capacity immediately; that was extremely impressive.

Dude, Stop Digging!

I watch Hardball with Chris Matthews a lot and most of the time he comes off as a political blowhard that just likes to hear the sound of his own voice, but today he acted like the kind of political talk show moderator I love to see on television: he ignored the prepackaged talking points being spouted by one of his guests and simply called an ignorant talking head on his shit.

Right wing radio host Kevin James came on the show to defend remarks made by George W. Bush earlier today in which he compared the foreign policy plans of "some" (read: Barack Obama) towards Iran to Neville Chamberlain's appeasement of Hitler by signing the Munich Agreement in 1938, which conceaded part of Czechoslovakia to the Nazi's. After parroting and defending Bush's words, he's asked flat out by Matthews exactly what Chamberlain did that he objected to and he had no fucking clue! Of course, that didn't stop him from embarrassing himself even further as he was berated by an incredulous Matthews; this is one of the more entertaining things I've seen on this show in quite a while:
On the same topic, Matthew Yglesias at The Atlantic (a fellow who's obviously read a history book or two) had this to say about Bush's comments:

Meanwhile, Bush continues to fundamentally misunderstand the purpose and nature of diplomacy. The idea of talks isn't that you marshall convincing arguments and beat your enemies back with force of words. The idea is that it's sometimes possible to achieve a reconciliation of partially divergent interests. Maybe Iran wants a nuclear weapon in order to deter American attack. And maybe America wants a nuclear-free Iran to help preserve stability in the region. Down one path, we have conflict and the U.S. sanctions and bombs Iran which causes suffering but only delays Iran's acquisition of a nuclear weapon. But down another path, each side discusses it's top priorities and we reach an agreement on verifiable disarmament in the context of security guarantees and a path to normalized relations. Down the road, that gives the U.S. the stability we want and creates more prosperity and security for Iran.

Will this approach work with our enemies and other foreign governments we consider a legitimate threat? No one can yet say, but the Bush policy of never talking to anyone we disagree with smacks of the negotiating tactics employed by five-year-olds; fitting, as that's the way this administration has always spoken to the American people: as if we were ignorant children that don't understand what they're trying to accomplish and just don't realize what a great job they're doing. 249 days left.

How Not To Win An Election

All politicians find it necessary to pander to certain segments of their constituency, whether it's eating waffles in a town diner or going bowling with the common folks or having a beer at the local Kiwanis club. But those who are politically savvy usually know when it's a good idea to turn down an invitation to speak at certain functions; not so with Indiana Republican Tony Zirkle. Running for a congressional seat in northwest Indiana, Tony thought that it would be a good idea to accept an invitation to speak at a white supremacist commemoration of Hitler's birthday. Read the full account at Respectful Insolence; you won't be disappointed.

Adolph O'Reilly

I assume that nobody reading this blog is a regular viewer of Bill O'Reilly and as the average viewer of his show is apparently 71 I doubt if many of them even know what a blog is. Regardless, I saw this and thought it was hilarious/disgusting (which pretty much sums up my opinion of the guy every time I see him):
I guess what bothers me more than anything else about this is that this guy has over a million viewers every night and I have to assume that the majority of them aren't like me and just watching for the laugh factor (if you got that pun you watch too much cable news). This is the first I've heard of Godwin's Law though. Interesting; I may have to invoke it in future political debates.