Any moderates in the house? MC Steele wants you to join the Sugar (Capitol) Hill Gang and the fresh GOP house party.
Republican National Committee Chairman Michael Steele appealed to the political middle Friday to join his party but added that the party itself wouldn’t moderate.
“All you moderates out there, y’all come. I mean, that’s the message,” Steele said at a news conference. “The message of this party is this is a big table for everyone to have a seat. I have a place setting with your name on the front.
“Understand that when you come into someone’s house, you’re not looking to change it. You come in because that’s the place you want to be.”
“That vote on the stimulus bill was the effectiveness of a party call,” he said. “That was a stand-up moment for every Republican. . . . And so, you voted yourself out of the party. We didn’t kick you out.”
Yeaahh, party call, you heard him.
Steele said under his leadership the party would attract more members - including young people - but it would not waver from its commitment to limiting taxes and spending.
“Lift up the young talent that comes to a convention like this on a Friday night,” he told convention-goers. “Don’t waste them.”
Steele - who appeared to be the only African-American in the room Friday - said when he visited a Maryland Republican Party dinner in the mid-1980s he was “obviously a stranger in the room.” But he said he was quickly embraced and rose to county party chairman two years later. From there, he went on to become state party chairman and lieutenant governor.
Steele said Republicans had to return to their roots to rebuild the party.
It’s reappropriation days in the culture wars. Following the recasting of Thomas Paine as a modern day tea-bagger, Shakespeare is up next. The Wall Street Journal shows pointy-headed academics how to conduct real literary criticism, supreme court style:
In his 34 years on the Supreme Court, Justice John Paul Stevens has evolved from idiosyncratic dissenter to influential elder, able to assemble majorities on issues such as war powers and property rights. Now, the court’s senior justice could be gaining ground on a case that dates back 400 years: the authorship of Shakespeare’s plays.
Justice Stevens, who dropped out of graduate study in English to join the Navy in 1941, is an Oxfordian — that is, he believes the works ascribed to William Shakespeare actually were written by the 17th earl of Oxford, Edward de Vere. Several justices across the court’s ideological spectrum say he may be right.
This puts much of the court squarely outside mainstream academic opinion, which equates denial of Shakespeare’s authorship with the Flat Earth Society.
You can see where this is heading. Promising young literary scholar renounces his budding career in service of his country only to spurn literary study upon his return to the States in favor of law. Actually, it’s a fascinating biography of a distinguished American. And god knows that Republican moderates could use a reasonable figure to rebuild around. Then again an 88 year-old WWII vet isn’t exactly the face of the future that an out-in-the-woods political party needs. But this is the Republic party.
So what’s the WSJ really up to here? Read on:
“Oh my,” said Coppelia Kahn, president of the Shakespeare Association of America and professor of English at Brown University, when informed of Justice Stevens’s cause. “Nobody gives any credence to these arguments,” she says.
Nonetheless, since the 19th century, some have argued that only a nobleman could have produced writings so replete with intimate depictions of courtly life and exotic settings far beyond England. Dabbling in entertainments was considered undignified, the theory goes, so the author laundered his works through Shakespeare, a member of the Globe Theater’s acting troupe.
Nonetheless, the WSJ presses on, having dispensed with the so-called expert who’s the head of such a manifestly extremist organization. Journalism is about being fair and balanced, after all. “The bow-tied, 88-year-old Justice Stevens, who often leads the court’s liberal wing,” continues the article. Hold up one minute. While it is true that Stevens has famously sided with the majority on important decisions regarding abortion and gay marriage, his judicial record is decidedly up the middle. His Segal-Cover score is much, much closer to Clarence Thomas than to those hippies Souter and Ginsberg. Hell, he’s significantly to the right of famously up the middle Sandra Day O’Connor. Did mention that Nixon first appointed him to a federal court and Ford nominated him for the supreme court, both noted liberals. I rest my case.
Justice Stevens admits there’s a “fringe” element of anti-Shakespearians who spin elaborate but unlikely theories. “I think that’s one of the things that hurts the cause — and the fact that the guy who first came up with de Vere was named Looney,” he says.
On the other hand, “a lot of people like to think its Shakespeare because…they like to think that a commoner can be such a brilliant writer,” he says. “Even though there is no Santa Claus, it’s still a wonderful myth.”
Aha! Historical revisionism, favored tool of the liberal academic elite! And of course there’s the “wonderful myth” that originality is never to be found among the chaff of society. Everyone knows that the historical record tells us that only the wealthy and fabulous every did anything worth remembering. But isn’t it quaint to think of ol’ Will penning Hamlet and Frederick Douglass writing his own autobiography? And how did that commoner Keats manage to write some of the best poetry of the nineteenth century?
On this issue, Justice Stevens sees eye to eye with his frequent conservative antagonist, Antonin Scalia, who says that as a child he received a monograph propounding de Vere’s cause from a family friend.
“My wife, who is a much better expert in literature than I am, has berated me,” says Justice Scalia. “She thinks we Oxfordians are motivated by the fact that we can’t believe that a commoner could have done something like this, you know, it’s an aristocratic tendency.”
A plausible argument…if you’re a liberal.
Justice Scalia prefers to turn the tables.
“It is probably more likely that the pro-Shakespearean people are affected by a democratic bias than the Oxfordians are affected by an aristocratic bias,” he says.
Never mind. It’s probably more likely that you, dear reader, saw this move coming. This is vintage Scalia, the frequent conservative antagonist of the notoriously liberal Stevens. Thank goodness Stevens has seen the light on this one and sided with his more reasonable archenemy.
Unfortunately, the “great man” method of explaining history through exemplary figures whose sheer brilliance transcended the cultures that formed them invites these kind of pissing matches. We have access to the most important body of literary work in the English language with the added bonus of mysterious authorship (de Vere’s biography is every bit as colorful as Shakespeare), but let’s not get too caught up in “circumstantial evidence.” Disguise and misdirection were two of Shakespeare’s most formidable literary tools, after all.
You have often
Begun to tell me what I am, but stopp’d
And left me to a bootless inquisition,
Concluding ‘Stay: not yet.‘
Oh Miranda! Let us too drink to the bootless inquisition of discovering the author of Shakespeare’s works once and for all.
How does fascism develop out of (or return to) a democratic state? Look no further than Italy. Last week we followed Berlusconi’s adventures at the G20 (and we didn’t even get to his antics at the NATO meeting in Germany). Predictably, the Italian press has been all over these gaffes, rightly noting how silly Berlusconi looks and how damaging such behavior is to Italian national interests. His response?
Italy’s prime minister, Silvio Berlusconi, has made an ominous threat to the Italian press of “direct and tough” reprisals after unflattering reports of a number of diplomatic gaffes he committed at the round of summits in Britain, France and Germany.
Berlusconi berated journalists for their coverage after he skipped an official Nato photo and kept the German chancellor, Angela Merkel, waiting at the end of a red carpet while he finished a conversation on his mobile phone.
Last week, Italian and foreign newspapers had a field day when the eccentric billionaire appeared to irritate the Queen by shouting out to Barack Obama during a photo call (though Buckingham Palace later denied any ill feeling).
It is the first time Berlusconi, who controls most of Italy’s television networks, has made such intimidating noises about the press. The professional body representing Italian journalists said his comments were of “unprecedented gravity”.
Berlusconi’s remarks come amid mounting concern among opposition politicians over his apparent impatience with democratic constraints. Already this year he has clashed with the president, Giorgio Napolitano, over an attempt to override the judiciary, and with the speaker of the chamber of deputies, his ally, Gianfranco Fini, over his government’s use of decrees to sidestep parliamentary debate.
Speaking to reporters in Prague late on Saturday, Berlusconi said the Italian press had “no other aim than that of saying the prime minister has committed faux pas or gaffes”. In fact, he said: “I am here to represent Italy precisely because there is no one else [to do so], and out of a sense of responsibility.”
After accusing journalists of “defaming me and misinforming readers”, he added: “I don’t want to go as far as to talk about direct and tough actions in respect of certain newspapers and press personalities. But, frankly, I’m tempted.”
His government has already passed a bill handing down jail time for journalists who release portions of wiretapped conversations used in criminal investigations. As I have previously written, this was in response to the embarrassing transcripts of his own backroom dealings that were leaked last year.
But lest you think that this reflects a principled stand for privacy rights in Italy, it is my sad duty to inform you that Italy ranks first in the world in electronic surveillance of its citizens. As Berlusconi famously argued during one of his many corruption trials, that before the law, some people are more equal than others.
But let us continue:
The Italian press may be vulnerable to pressure from Berlusconi, below, on three fronts:
• Because of an 1987 amendment to an Italian law passed six years earlier, many smaller daily newspapers receive subsidies from the state that were originally intended for party organs. A television investigation three years ago found that between them, the papers received an annual €667m (£607m).
• One of Italy’s four national dailies, Il Giornale, is owned by Berlusconi’s brother, Paolo.
• The subtlest, but most serious, threat would be of pressure on media proprietors. The global recession has increased the government’s already considerable presence in Italy’s economy and handed Berlusconi vast powers of patronage over the industrialists and financiers who own Italy’s other main dailies.
Benito Mussolini was a journalist turned authoritarian politician. So was his brother. Uh-oh.
So, let’s make a Fascist pie shall we? Ingredients: Tough-talking anti-establishment blowhard. Check. Wild promises to restore the country to its former glory. Check. Restriction of civil liberties. Check. Oppressive control of national media. Almost there.
Mamma mia, let’s pop this sucker in the oven, I’m getting hungry!
You all know that I can’t pass up a good Berlusconi sighting. In this episode we find our hero making smooth moves at the G20, trying to work his magic on Obama, even as he continues to blame the U.S. for Italy’s economic problems and say stupid shit.
Silvio Berlusconi, Italy’s flamboyant Prime Minister, found himself on Italian front pages today – but more for his gaffe in offending the Queen at the G20 “family photograph” than his performance at the summit itself.
At the end of the G20 photo call yesterday Mr Berlusconi shouted out to the US President: “Mr Obamaaaa! This is Mister Berlusconi!”. The Queen then turned to the gathered leaders and said: “What is it? Why does he have to shout?”
A Polish MP who failed a drink-driving test said he had eaten too many apples, the website of daily Gazeta Wyborcza said today.
Asked why a traffic police check yesterday showed he had 0.7 units of alcohol in his blood, Marek Latas denied having drunk alcohol that day.
“I am diabetic, I ate a few apples before driving.
“I have been involved in no accident, I underwent a routine roadside check. I was confident there was no chance I had alcohol in my blood,” said Latas, a member of parliament for the conservative opposition Law and Justice Party.
The prosecutor’s office is investigating his case, the website said. In Poland, the legal limit for alcohol when driving is 0.2 units. Fermented apple juice can be used to make cider, an alcoholic drink.
The West of which I speak is but another name for the Wild; and what I have been preparing to say is, that in Wildness is the preservation of the World. Every tree sends its fibers forth in search of the Wild.
Completing a journey nearly as rocky as some of the land involved, Congress passed sweeping conservation legislation Wednesday that protects 200,000 acres of popular mountains and forests in Oregon and millions more nationwide.
The 285-140 House vote sent the 1,300-page public lands bill to President Barack Obama, who is expected to sign it as early as next week.
Advocates said the protections bestowed by the bill are the biggest advance in wilderness preservation in a generation — and the signal of a new era of congressional support for conservation.
The final law was a collection of 170 separate lands, parks and conservation bills — including some that lawmakers had been working on for decades — all balled into one. It establishes three new national parks (including one for the birthplace of President Bill Clinton in Hope, Ark.) and protects more than 1,000 miles of wild and scenic rivers and streams from development, including about 9 miles of rivers at the headwaters of the North Fork of the Elk River in Oregon.
The Oregonian
While the bill touches every corner of the nation, its impact will be especially pronounced in Oregon. In addition to Mount Hood, the law will protect 13,700 acres of old-growth forest in Oregon’s Siskiyou National Forest, 23,000 acres in southwestern Oregon’s Soda Mountain region, nearly 31,000 acres of wilderness in the Badlands east of Bend, and 8,600 acres of wilderness overlooking the John Day Wild and Scenic River.
Could this be the best thing that has happened since Obama became president?
Don’t forget to book your seat on the Las Vegas foreclosure fun bus (with complimentary cocktails)! For those of you on the East Coast, you’ll have to settle for the A.I.G. Employees House Tour (with complimentary rotten fruit).
Glenn Beck has been on an historic wingnut bender since January. Our latest installment has him musing about the Obama administration setting up FEMA “concentration” camps for political dissenters (whose capacity for naming evil renders them extremely dangerous). Of course, Glenn wants to get the story “right”, which gives him license to make up outrageous shit without actually taking responsibility for broadcasting it.
Dead people are the newest frontier in debt collecting, and one of the healthiest parts of the industry. Those who dun the living say that people are so scared and so broke it is difficult to get them to cough up even token payments.
Collecting from the dead, however, is expanding. Improved database technology is making it easier to discover when estates are opened in the country’s 3,000 probate courts, giving collectors an opportunity to file timely claims. But if there is no formal estate and thus nothing to file against, the human touch comes into play.
New hires at DCM train for three weeks in what the company calls “empathic active listening,” which mixes the comforting air of a funeral director with the nonjudgmental tones of a friend. The new employees learn to use such anger-deflecting phrases as “If I hear you correctly, you’d like…” New York Times
Telemarketing meets debt collections in the great financial meltdown of the twenty first century.
“In times of illness and death, the hierarchy of debts is adjusted,” said Michael Ginsberg of Kaulkin Ginsberg, a consulting company to the debt collection industry. “We do our best to make sure our doctor is paid, because we might need him again. And we want the dead to rest easy, knowing their obligations are taken care of.”
What ever happened to burying the dead with earthly riches for use in the afterlife?
DCM started a Web site called MyWayForward.com to provide the bereaved with information, tools and, some day, products. “We will never sell death. But it’s O.K. to provide things that could be helpful to the survivor,” Mr. Farsht said. Death will be the end of one customer relationship but the beginning of another.
I’ve been trying to think of something snarky to say about this one, but the more I think about it, the less funny this seems to me.
The descendants of Geronimo have sued Skull and Bones, a secret society at Yale University with ties to the Bush family, charging that its members robbed his grave in 1918 and have kept his skull in a glass case ever since.
Geronimo died a prisoner of war at Fort Sill, Okla., in 1909. A longstanding tradition among members of Skull and Bones holds that Prescott S. Bush — father of President George Bush and grandfather of President George W. Bush — broke into the grave with some classmates during World War I and made off with the skull, two bones, a bridle and some stirrups, all of which were put on display at the group’s clubhouse in New Haven, known as the Tomb.
Prescott S. Bush, I hate that you just stole Geronimo’s skull.
Geronimo, whose given name was Goyathlay, put up fierce resistance to white settlers, fighting the Mexican and United States armies for nearly three decades. He finally surrendered, with only 35 men left, to Gen. Nelson A. Miles on the New Mexico-Arizona border in 1886 and spent the rest of his life in prison, dying of pneumonia.
Not all Apaches want to move his remains to New Mexico. The branch of the tribe that settled at Fort Sill after Geronimo died is fighting to keep the grave where it is.
“There is nothing to be gained by digging up the dead,” said Jeff Houser, the chairman of the Fort Sill Apache Tribe. “It will not repair the damage to the tribe caused by its removal and imprisonment.”
Perfect material for some Ivy league hijinks eh? Disgusting.
While in America, Daschle, Geithner and Killifer have gotten dinged for not paying their taxes, Italy offers a sense of perspective:
A Milan court on Tuesday handed down a ruling that would send the political establishments of many countries into a tailspin. It found the British lawyer David Mills guilty of taking $600,000 in exchange for lying to protect the Italian prime minister, Silvio Berlusconi.
In Italy, the ruling did not even lead the evening news.
That honor went to Mr. Berlusconi’s main political rival, Walter Veltroni, who stepped down on Tuesday after his party’s solid defeat on Monday in the election for governor of Sardinia, where the Democratic Party incumbent lost to the son of Mr. Berlusconi’s tax lawyer. So the story of the day was not of corruption but of Mr. Berlusconi’s ever-expanding grip on power in Italy.
Indeed, Mr. Berlusconi was a co-defendant until last year, when he pushed through Parliament a law granting top officials, notably him, immunity from prosecution while in office.
Yet in the topsy-turvy logic of Italian politics, the ruling seemed less a defeat for Mr. Mills than still another victory for Mr. Berlusconi, who in 15 years of dominating Italian political life has managed to turn every legal setback into political capital.
One supposes that this is what Cheney had in mind when pushing for a full pardon of Scooter Libby in January. Cheney and Berlusconi. What’s the difference? One of them has a sense of humor:
Most Italians can barely keep Mr. Berlusconi’s many legal cases straight. It seems he barely can, either.
“I’m the universal record-holder for the number of trials in the entire history of man — and also of other creatures who live on other planets,” he said last year.
Remember our old drinking buddy FOIA, the one who you could count on to tell you his deepest secrets after you bought him a couple of pints? Then came September 11 and he just turned inward, stopped answering your phone calls and letters. Hell, you even went so far as to subpoena him, but to no avail.
Well, he’s back.
“In the face of doubt, openness prevails,” Obama declared January 21 in a memo on complying with the Freedom of Information Act. “The presumption of disclosure should be applied to all decisions involving FOIA.” He also issued an Executive Order on Presidential Records that makes final decisions about withholding information located in the records of the incumbent president or former presidents or vice-presidents subject to review by the U.S. attorney general, White House counsel, and the courts. “Information with not be withheld just because I say so,” President Obama said at the signing.
And now that FOIA’s returned to the pub curcuit, it sounds like he’s got a lot he wants to get off of his chest.
Ironically, on the same day President Obama issued the order easing access to presidential and vice-presidential records, the Justice Department sought to dismiss a lawsuit seeking the recovery of millions of White House e-mails exchanged between 2003 and 2005. However, the policy change may facilitate the release of information sought by several congressional committees from former Vice President Dick Cheney’s records, whose handover to the National Archives was the subject of a lawsuit lost January 19 by the watchdog group Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington.
I’ll all ears. Welcome back buddy, this round’s on me.
Obama’s FCC transition team suggests that big changes are coming for telecommunications legislation. Susan Crawford and Kevin Werbach, both active defenders of net neutrality and diversity in media ownership:
The choice of the duo strongly signals an entirely different approach to the incumbent-friendly telecom policymaking that’s characterized most of the past eight-years at the FCC.
This March at a telecom policy conference in Hollywood, for example, Crawford bluntly told Ambassador Richard Russell, the White House’ associate director on science and technology policy, that he lived in a fantasyland when he asserted that the United States’ roll-out of broadband is going well.
“I think it’s magical thinking to imagine that we’re somehow doing fine here, and I just want to make sure that we recognize that even the [International Telecommunications Union] says that between 1999 and 2006 we skipped form third to 20th place in penetration,” she noted acidly at the annual Tech Policy Summit, a gathering of top officials in the world of tech policy (of which Wired.com was a participant and sponsor.)
“We’re not doing at all well for reasons that mostly have to do with the fact that we failed to have a US industrial policy pushing forward high-speed internet access penetration, and there’s been completely inadequate competition in this country for high speed internet access,” she said.
And in a final introductory statement during her talk (that’s likely to send shivers down the spines of telecom company executives) she said that she believes internet access is a “utility.”
“This is like water, electricity, sewage systems: Something that each and all Americans need to succeed in the modern era. We’re doing very badly, and we’re in a dismal state,” she said at the time.
You can listen to Crawford discuss telecom policy here, and read Werbach’s columns on tech policy at internet-infrastructure journal Circle-ID.
A key reason the Internet has been such a success is because it is the most open network in history. It needs to stay that way. Barack Obama strongly supports the principle of
network neutrality to preserve the benefits of open competition on the Internet. Users must be free to access content, to use applications, and to attach personal devices…
Barack Obama believes that the nation’s rules ensuring diversity of media ownership are critical to the public interest. Unfortunately, over the past several years, the Federal Communications Commission has promoted the concept of consolidation over diversity. Barack Obama believes that providing opportunities for minority-owned businesses to own radio and television stations is
fundamental to creating the diverse media environment that federal law requires and the country deserves and demands. As president, he will encourage diversity in the ownership of broadcast media, promote the development of new media outlets for expression of diverse viewpoints, and clarify the public interest obligations of broadcasters who occupy the nation’s spectrum. An Obama presidency will promote greater coverage of local issues and better responsiveness by broadcasters to the communities they serve.
This is a lovely exchange. Bill is really trying to find a way out for Palin but Cameron just keeps spilling the gossip:
Update: Articles are beginning to pop up, such as this one from the Guardian:
Fox News, a channel that had been generally flattering in its coverage of the “Palin phenomenon”, reported that aides were astonished when they learned she was unaware that Africa was not a country but a whole continent. She was also said to be unable to name the countries that belong to the North American Free Trade Agreement: the US, Mexico and Canada.
We can thank Rush Limbaugh for reminding us about the longstanding issue of race in American politics and culture. We had almost forgotten. And so on the 150th Anniversary of the Lincoln-Douglass debates, still considered by many to be the high-water mark of American political campaign discourse, we see just how “totally about race” American politics remains.
You see Stephen Douglas thought the 1858 campaign was all about race as well and repeatedly returned to Lincoln’s association with “those people”, especially public enemy #1, Frederick Douglass:
In the extreme northern counties they brought out men to canvass the State whose complexion suited their political creed, and hence Fred Douglass, the negro, was to be found there, following Gen. Cass, and attempting to speak on behalf of Lincoln, Trumbull and Abolitionism, against that illustrious Senator. (Renewed laughter.) Why, they brought Fred Douglass to Freeport, when I was addressing a meeting there, in a carriage driven by the white owner, the negro sitting inside with the white lady and her daughter. (Shame.) When I got through canvassing the northern counties that year, and progressed as far south as Springfield, I was met and opposed in discussion by Lincoln, Lovejoy, Trumbull, and Sidney Breese, who were on one side. (Laughter.) Father Giddings, the high-priest of Abolitionism, had just been there, and Chase came about the time I left. (”Why didn’t you shoot him?”) I did take a running shot at them, but as I was single-handed against the white, black and mixed drove, I had to use a short gun and fire into the crowd instead of taking them off singly with a rifle. (Great laughter and cheers.)
15 September 1858, Third Debate at Jonesboro, Illinois
As you can see, the crowd loved Douglas’s race baiting, especially the cavalier gunplay. “Single-handed against the white, black and mixed drove” Douglas gave us rhetoric worthy of, well, 2008. McCain and Palin may have backed off a bit on the red meat recently at rallies, but the disturbing language of lynching and racial superiority (”kill him”, “sit down boy”) hardly suggests that 150 years of progress in American race relations have yielded as much as we might like to believe. Prejudice has simply changed political dance partners.
Douglas continues:
Now these men, four years ago, were engaged in a conspiracy to break down the Democracy; to-day they are again acting together for the same purpose! They do not hoist the same flag; they do not own the same principles, or profess the same faith; but conceal their union for the sake of policy. In the northern counties, you find that all the Conventions are called in the name of the Black Republican party; at Springfield, they dare not call a Republican Convention, but invite all the enemies of the Democracy to unite, and when they get down into Egypt, Trumbull issues notices calling upon the “Free Democracy” to assemble and hear him speak.
Fitting that Douglas places those subversive Black Republicans down in “Little Egypt” in the Southern tip of Illinois, where it’s much easier to find terrorists to pal around with. That’s right, the Mississippi Nile river runs straight through Cairo, Illinois Egypt, and guess who their U.S. Senator is?
I am almost tempted to post this photo and say nothing else. Apparently acknowledging that you are black is the first step to recovery, the second is to show off your “hip-hop dance moves”. Well, at least it’s a step up from Carl Rove’s performance. Conservatives are reading this “coming out” as an indication of Powell’s imminent endorsement of Obama for president, and of course, yet another sign of the coming apocalypse.
The hidden story, however, is Powell’s complex endorsement of Nigerian 419 scams:
But it doesn’t look as if the former US secretary of state paid too much attention to the lyrics, or he might have discovered that the Nigerian hit is a celebration of that country’s most infamous export, advance-fee email fraud (sometimes called 419 fraud, after the relevant section of the Nigerian penal code). The perpetrators are known as “Yahoo boys” after their email service-provider of choice.
Maintain has claimed his song is social commentary rather than endorsement of a practice that has tarnished his country’s international reputation, but it’s hard to find the critical note in his name-checking of Hummers, dollars, and “Champagne, Hennessy, Moët” as the accessories of a successful fraudster’s lifestyle. As many Nigerians as foreigners have lost their savings to fraud, so how have chancers who sit up late typing random emails requesting peoples’ bank details in the name of “Mrs Maryam Abacha” become anti-heroes?
Partly, says Dan Smith of Brown University, author of a recent book on the subject, it’s the Robin Hood factor. “419 is a reversal of the hierarchies, showing that youths can be as sophisticated and cunning as their former colonial masters.”
So what we actually see here is Powell getting in touch with his inner Jamaican and engaging in a little colonial mimicry. Or is it the other way around and the whole time that we thought he was toeing the line of the Bush Doctrine he was actually mocking Rumsfeld with a healthy dose of counterinsurgent hybridity? This, my friends, is an astounding example of the subversion of imperial authority through the strategic deployment of transcultural liminality masquerading as syncretic nationalism.
It almost makes me feel good about the Iraq invasion, from a theoretical standpoint, of course.
TPM has put together a string of Palin’s Greatest Hits, including the some of her best known ditties, including:
Deer in the Headlights, Coming Home to You
Talkin’ Wasilla Strip Mall Blues
Eyes Wide Shut (Blink and its Over)
Old Man (Take a Look at my Speech)
House of McPain in the Muthafuckin’ House Moon Putin’s Head Over Alaska
And the post debate smash
Doggone it Joe, You ain’t no six-pack
And many, many, more to come. Operators are standing by.
Dancing around questions is stock in trade for politicians, especially when one doesn’t have a good grip on the material at hand. You duck, you weave, you buy time in the hope that the next question will be in your wheelhouse. Or sometimes you figure, what the hell, I’ll drop a few references here and there to make it seem I know what I’m talking about and then move on. McCain’s interview on a Miami radio station illustrates the dangers of option #2.
To recap, tonight we’ve been discussing Sen. McCain’s bizarre interview in which he appeared not to know who Spanish Prime Minister Zapatero was and, in an effort to wing it, assumed he must be another left-wing, anti-American leader from Latin America.
TPM has the best coverage so far as American media outlets wake up to this one.
Recording with Spanish translation of the interview here.
Account of the interview (in Spanish) from El Pais
Self-proclaimed “hockey mom” Sarah Palin had a private tanning bed installed in the Governor’s Mansion in Juneau, Alaska, Usmagazine.com confirmed on Monday.
“She did. She paid for it with her own money,” Roger Wetherell, chief communications officer of Alaska’s Department of Transportation and Public Facilities told Us.
The Narco News Bulletin first reported on the former beauty queen’s penchant for a bronzed body.
“It was done shortly after she took office [in early 2007] and moved into the mansion,” Wetherell told the Narco News.
According to Wetherell, the tanning bed was purchased used, from a health club.
Tanning beds can cost up to $35,000 to install in a home - not including the cost of parts, Color Me Tan manager Erin Weise told the Narco News.
“I don’t think it’s normal for people to have a tanning bed in their house, ” Wiese, who is based in Fairbanks said. “It’s expensive.”
US Magazine (Yeah, I linked to US, bring it on latte sippin’ elitist haters)
Talk about a waste of $35,000! Everybody’s knows that Alaska gets 20+ hours of sunlight during the summer. That’s enough for the whole year. But that tan does feel oh-so-good after a tough day of crushing your enemies and installing high school classmates in state administration.
And most importantly, this is the kind of thing that all good small town Americans can appreciate because they too believe in the god-given right to look like you’ve been on a vacation when you really can’t afford one.
So when you’re on the ropes and its time to come out fighting, the political handbook states: “attack a nonexistent constituency that you can tie to your opponent.” On the McCain report, Michael Goldfarb writes that McCain didn’t lift any lines from Solzhenitsyn as he simultaneously waxed Georgian and prisoner-of-war, what are you talking about? The real issue is this:
It may be typical of the pro-Obama Dungeons & Dragons crowd to disparage a fellow countryman’s memory of war from the comfort of mom’s basement, but most Americans have the humility and gratitude to respect and learn from the memories of men who suffered on behalf of others.
Wargaming nerds in black, tight fitting t-shirts take that! Don’t hate Obama because his Charisma score makes him a more powerful orc slayer than you. You can forget my vote in November Mr. McCain. Oh, and mom, can you bring down some more lemonade–make that hateorade– for me and the boys?
Who do those Europeans think they are, pretending to show us Americans how to brew beer? Hop pellets, rice…ginseng, guarana. B-to-the-E doggg, it’s what fine brewing is all about:
BE is Budweiser’s newest entry in a long line of innovative beers. This remarkable new product combines beer with caffeine, ginseng and guarana giving you a new malt beverage with a variety of ingredients.
BE has a bold and bracing beer taste with lightly sweet/tart tones, and a “wow” factor in the finish. Created for those contemporary adults who are looking for the latest flavors and variety of mixtures to keep up with their fast paced and highly social lifestyles, BE takes beer to the next level.
Anheuser-Busch Companies Inc. will reformulate its alcoholic energy drinks to remove caffeine and other stimulants they contain as part of a nationwide legal settlement, it announced Thursday.
An investigation by attorneys general of 11 states found the largest U.S. brewer was marketing its caffeinated alcoholic beverages to minors and misrepresenting the drinks’ health benefits, New York state Attorney General Andrew Cuomo said.
Though the company agreed to make changes, it insisted its Tilt and Bud Extra drinks were not marketed to minors.
Oh, I’m just getting warmed up Berlusconi today. His latest scandal centers around a series of recorded telephone conversations that show just how hard he’s willing to work to secure policy positions for topless models. This man’s sacrifice is truly mind boggling; why he’s the Jesus Christ of Politics! In response to the incriminating transcripts, Berlusconi did what any self-respecting unreconstructed fascist would do: try to make government accountability illegal. So in America, wiretapping expands while in Italy, it becomes more limited. Excuse me for a moment while I laugh and cry at the same time.
Problem is, the cat is already out the bag on this one, and it is a non-stop quote machine.
First, there’s the case of Mara Carfagna, the current minister for Equal Opportunity. This headline pretty much sums up her situation: Carfagna denies pleasuring Berlusconi. Even better is this long piece from the Guardian:
For more than a week now, Rome has been alive with rumours that police in Naples, working on yet another investigation of Berlusconi for alleged corruption, taped sexually explicit discussions between the prime minister and his 32-year-old equal opportunities minister, Mara Carfagna, a former topless model. The tapes were reportedly made while investigators were probing the relationship between Berlusconi and the head of drama at RAI, Italy’s equivalent of the BBC.
Moving on, it’s the case of the journalist Virginia Sanjust di Teulada, that has the most, ahem, legs. What happened here?
As for Sanjust di Teulada, the intelligence officer’s wife, her role remains mysterious. According to Armati’s version, set out in documents submitted to the Rome court and summarised this week in the daily La Repubblica, the flowers his wife received were the prelude to a lunch the next day at the prime minister’s office and a gift of a diamond bracelet. The intelligence officer claims it was the start of a intense romance from which he initially benefited…
Contacted by a journalist from Corriere della Sera, she replied with a refined ambiguity worthy of a character in a Pirandello drama. “The truth,” mused Virginia Sanjust di Teulada, “is always - but in this case particularly - impossible to explain in words.”
Courts in Naples and in Rome are currently sifting through over 250 hours of transcripts. Stay tuned.
The Italian left Bush Administration pulled no punches during the recent G8 conference on climate change, setting the record straight once and for all on the record of Italian Prime Minister, Silvio Berlusconi.
Italian Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi (born 1936) is one of the most controversial leaders in the history of a country known for governmental corruption and vice. Primarily a businessman with massive holdings and influence in international media, he is regarded by many as a political dilettante who gained his high office only through use of his considerable influence on the national media.
Oops! Picture the scenario. Intern X is charged with circulating a short biography of G8 leaders for a White House press release. Like any other red blooded 21st century American scholar, she hops online and nabs the first thing that looks authoritative, cuts and pastes, and voilà, the job is done.
Hated by many but respected by all at least for his bella figura (personal style) and the sheer force of his will, Berlusconi has parlayed his business acumen and influence into a personal empire that has resulted in Italy’s longest–running government ever and in his becoming the country’s wealthiest man. Bursting onto the scene with no political experience in 1993, he campaigned—using his vast network of media holdings—on a promise to purge the notoriously lackadaisical Italian government of corruption. He won appointment to the office of prime minister in 1994. However, he and his fellow Forza Italia Party leaders soon found themselves accused of the very corruption he had vowed to eradicate.
This is an extremely sloppy mistake for an administration that has been so disciplined in distributing its version of reality. Did someone at the White House forget that Berlusconi and Bush are good personal friends that go way back? Ah, who can forget the good times they had together after September 11, 2001? But why, oh why do they always leave the best parts out?
He released a CD in 2003 of Neopolitan love songs. The prime minister prefers to spend his spare time at his 70–room villa in Sardinia named “Arcore,” whose amenities include a private park, a movie theater, and walls of large–screen televisions.
Bush is just jealous I guess.
Call me old fashioned, but it might be a good policy to actually write the things published under the guise of official government communications. It’s easier to stay on message that way and cuts down on the written apologies, not that it’s necessary to apologize for speaking the truth every now and then.
What else can I say? Our president is a dick who thinks that he’s funny. Sure, you argue, Bush gave some ground at the talks, agreeing for the first time to reduce greenhouse emissions by 50% by 2050 after extracting signatures from China and India. But these targets are well below those set by Kyoto protocol and such emissions are still on the rise worldwide and in the U.S.
Yeah, things are looking up, good times ahead. We’re finally headed in the right direction and the G8 is showing the kind of leadership necessary to get the job done:
One day, in particular, he said, was “gloriously incoherent.” At a meeting in the morning, participants focused on finding ways to reduce gas prices, he said, while a session that afternoon focused on raising them through caps or taxes on fossil fuels.
The most discouraging aspect of the statements out of Japan, for many experts, was seeing the persistent gap between what science is saying about global warming and what countries are doing.
“The European idea is in danger if we don’t protect Europeans,” Mr. Sarkozy said Monday.
What’s the “European idea” you ask? Is it a more moderate, sensible version of the American dream? A collective light bulb hovering over Belgium? What kind of fuel economy does it get? Does it include peeing standing up?
In a surprisingly frank admission, the French foreign minister, Bernard Koucher said the no vote in Ireland illustrated how the European Union had alienated its citizens by conducting politics in a manner they find incomprehensible.
“They understand nothing,” Mr. Kouchner said in comments to journalists in Paris “The institutions interest no one.”
He argued that, in contrast, voters did appreciate that Europe “was not able to respond to the rise in the price of petrol.” As for the jargon in which business in Brussels is conducted, Mr. Kouchner said, “no one understands — including me.”
Ah, who isn’t just a bit nostalgic about the great Gold Rush of 1849? You remember the fun we used to have claim jumping, exploiting Chinese workers, and once we got warmed up, strip mining?
For my money, it doesn’t get any better than the old Amalgamated Copper Mining Company mine in Butte, Montana, now known as the Anaconda Mine with its main attraction, the Berkeley Pit.
Is there nothing better than seeing American ambition from outer space? Yeah those were good times indeed, when men were men, the West was wild and digging massive holes in the earth’s crust was but a glint in the eye of Copper King William Andrews Clark.
So let us then hail the arrival of the next Gold Rush, renew our rugged individualism and place our claims once again:
Today, record gold prices, widespread economic turmoil, and the enduring optimism of America’s entrepreneurial classes have combined to entice fresh swarms of prospectors to head west in search of hidden riches beneath the picturesque hills and ravines of the Golden State.
The “new 49ers,” as today’s wave of fortune-seekers are known, are a breed apart from their historic predecessors, driving trucks and SUVs down the dusty tracks first created by trains of horse-drawn wagons nearly 160 years ago. But they share with them a timeless predisposition for what veterans call gold fever. “It’s like going to Vegas, except with this, we actually get to win something,” said Mike Dunn, clutching almost an ounce of nuggets unearthed from the south fork of the Feather river last Sunday. “We’ve just hit a halo of gold, and this lot alone must be worth between $500 (£250) and $1,500. I’ve just about paid for my trip already.”
Dreams won’t be the only things broken. Last week, three men were killed trying to reopen a 19th-century mine in rural Madera County. Police said the men, all in their twenties, died from carbon monoxide poisoning while using a petrol-powered pump to drain the 20ft-deep shaft.
And no risk.
“There is so much of that stuff out here you wouldn’t believe,” said Ekhard Davisky, who pans for gold near Paradise in Butte County. “The trick is finding it. I think it was Mark Twain who said a gold mine is just a hole in the ground owned by a liar, and I think he just about got it in one there. But if you know what you are doing, and you are prepared to listen and learn about how to do it properly, there’s never been a better time to be looking for gold. Back in 1849, an ounce of gold was $18.80, which was about enough to buy a man a nice suit and a steak dinner. And when you think about it, that’s the price of it now. These are happy days.”
Damn right they are. Meet me and Jedadiah at the Buttercup Pantry in Placerville and we’ll strike it rich.
Cindy McCain cribbing cookie recipes? Color me shocked. Michelle Obama’s amaretto-laced shortbread bombs? Raised my roof doggg! So, now that Hilary is out of the race, the remaining women revert to a fucking bakeoff (not that there aren’t a number of kick ass feminist bakeries dotting our fair country)?!
If John McCain loses in November, his wife Cindy may catch some of the blame after apparently cheating in a high stakes presidential cookie bake-off.
Every four years, in the approach to the presidential election, kitchens across America are busy testing cookie recipes submitted by candidates’ spouses for the Family Circle magazine competition.
The stakes could hardly be higher. In the past four presidential elections the magazine’s readers have successfully predicted America’s next first lady. Hillary Clinton’s chocolate-chip oatmeal cookies beat Barbara Bush’s effort, and Laura Bush’s cowboy cookies triumphed over Tipper Gore’s ginger snaps. In 2004 Mrs Bush won again with oatmeal chocolate chunk cookies.
Of course Hillary once disparaged baking (and, goddamnit, drinking tea, for which I have never forgiven her), but the recipes that she later released to quell the backlash of a horrified American public could never fully dispel the taint of “uppitiness” that so manifestly makes her unsuited for public office.
Update: This story has legs! Mary Todd may have been a Hellcat but her gingerbread is the shiznit.
You might be forgiven for not having registered the significance of the Irish public’s rejection of the Lisbon Treaty, viewed by some as the failed 2005 “constitution” of the European Union in drag, last week. Perhaps you saw an article flit by the New York Times website over the weekend before the issue took a backseat to Kobe’s ongoing experiment in athletic eugenics at the NBA Finals or the latest journalist (yes I’m thinking about you Kristol) to elegize the passing of Tim Russert. And damn, wasn’t that a clutch put Tiger sunk to force a playoff?
Meanwhile, somewhere outside Donegal all hell broke loose in European politics. A relatively small European country, Ireland (the only country to put the ratification of the treaty to a referendum so far) is an exemplary case of what is at stake, as the treaty seeks to further centralize key policy positions–such as labor regulations and foreign policy–at the expense of member state autonomy:
The Lisbon treaty is complex. It offers sweeping changes to the way the union runs—creating a new full-time “president” to represent member states, and a foreign-policy chief to speak for Europe round the world. It also sweeps away national vetoes in some important areas of policy, such as cross-border policing and justice. Many Irish no voters voiced suspicions that the treaty would, in reality, rob their small state of clout at the EU’s top tables.
“EU leaders were to be heard crowing last year that they had made it “unintelligible” in order to smuggle it past voters,” The Economist continues, rightly noting that this was a much easier task in most European countries, eighteen of which had already shoved it through their respective parliaments with little or no debate.
“So pay no attention to the wailing in Brussels,” writes Anne Appelbaum, “If the most enthusiastic Europeans in Europe didn’t care enough to read the treaty they’ve just rejected, then maybe it’s just as well it didn’t pass.” I guess Applebaum figues that libertarianism European-style means more centralized government and concentrated economic and military power. Apparently, European citizens lack the free-thinking gene possessed by all rational, Cato Institute supporting Americans that allow them to cut through hundreds of pages of bureaucratic doublespeak. But I digress.
Predictably, establishment politicians have been wringing their hands over the result, especially from the larger states, who stood to gain the most. Nicholas Sarkozy, the immigrant-bashing-top-model-marrying-archconservative president of France is especially pissed off. He’s threatening to travel to Ireland to learn firsthand why they had the temerity to say no to even more big business payola and the prospect of increased European military integration. Guess which countries would assume effective control of the latter? Now you’re getting the picture. Stay tuned, France assumes the rotating presidency of the European Union in July.
BUMP! The Rocket weighs in on the “dushbag” media as some of his email correspondence with Brian McNamee is released. Nice 22.
Let me first confess, that I have never particularly liked Roger Clemens. Since the first time I laid eyes on his rookie card, my young brain sensed that there was something profoundly douchey about this cocky young lantern-jawed ballplayer. Throughout the 80’s he cultivated a reputation as an intimidating tough guy, whose intensity on the mound seemed almost personal, such as the infamous bat throwing episode with Mike Piazza during the 2000 World Series. And don’t EVEN bring up his asking out of Game 6 of the 1986 World Series. We all know Billy Bucker was the goat of that game right?
Rather than discuss his career as a Yankee, I will only refer to the photograph below as exhibit A as evidence of his serial douchbaggery in the Big Apple:
Yes, there has always been something shifty and mercenary about the career of Roger Clemens, a man who has made going to the highest bidder sound like a homecoming. In sport, where such straightfaced pronoucements are commonplace, Clemens went the extra mile when he trotted out his family as the deciding factor when signing his record-setting 4 year $31.1 million deal with Toronto in 1996:
“I’ve always enjoyed this city,” Clemens, 34, said in his gentle Texas twang. “When we came here for the All-Star Game (in 1991), obviously playing here, my wife and my boys have loved this area. That was the most important factor.”
Clemens said fans have always been gracious toward him when he’d go out for dinner after games, when he hit the links (he’s a five handicap) and when he was at the ballpark. Hey, Canada, politeness pays.
Another factor was that the Jays are only too happy to let him bring his kids (he has four, Koby, 10, Kary, 8, Kacy, 2, and Kody, seven months, all starting with K, the letter used in baseball scoring to indicate a strikeout) onto the SkyDome carpet to bang the ball around on game days.
“I wanted it to be Roger’s call but if it had been New York we probably wouldn’t have come to the ballpark an awful lot,” said his wife, Debbie. “We would’ve lived in Connecticut and watched TV.”
Toronto Star, 14 December 1996
“If I was single, maybe New York,” admitted Clemens yesterday. “Nothing against New York, but I can’t see me going out at 2 p.m. and playing catch with my boys out on the field there.”
Debbie insists the Rocket is a great dad, but that doesn’t stop him from maintaining some of his image while with the kids. Back when Koby and Kory were small, the family would reportedly act out Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtle episodes. Roger’s role? He played Shredder, the Turtle’s enemy.
When he’s not playing with the kids, Clemens is working out.
Toronto Sun 14 December 1996
Fast forward to 2008 and fill in the blank. When he’s not playing with the kids, Clemens is ____________.
The New Jersey Daily Trentonian hit the nail on the head with its 14 December 2007 headline: “He Took it in the Butt.” Yes, the steroid scandal that has erupted around “Shredder” only demonstrates the pain he has suffered in his quest for greatness and now an unfeeling world has somehow turned his selfless sacrifice into a gaudy scarlet A. But let us not feel too much pity for dear Roger, who has the moral support of the first family of America, whose patriarch George H.W. Bush “found me in a deer blind in south Texas and expressed his concerns that this was unbelievable, and stay strong and hold your head up high.” Winged words indeed.
As Republican members of the House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform grooved easy questions to Clemens during his appearance, the Rocket Man waxed emotional, reiterating that “my family is and has always been my top priority,” while also adding, for good measure, that “I have had the privilege and honor to visit our troops in Kuwait, Qatar, and Afghanistan and salute them as our nation’s true role models.” What? You thought this hearing was about steroids? No, this is about a man teetering on the edge of a messy public self-douching. “If I am guilty of anything, it is of being too trusting of others; wanting to see the best in everyone; and being nice to everyone. If I am considered to be ignorant because of that, then so be it.”
Rest easy, Roger, you are not ignorant, but if you thought a scorched earth defense again Brian McNamee was a good idea, perhaps you trusted your lawyer and your high and inside fastball a bit too much. Once you started playing hardball the my-family-is-everything defense has blown up in your face. Do not ask for whom the douche tolls, Rocket Man, it tolls for thee.
Roger Clemens Doucheroll:
Wannabe Texan
Spokesman for a car dealership
Former New York Yankee
Reported serial adulterer
All his kids’ names begin with the same letter “K” (Bonus: in honor of his many strikeouts)
