Friday, November 04, 2011

MEMO To Chris: When You Throw A Book Party, DON'T Invite The Daily Caller

Word to the wise: You know that wingnut rag run by Tucker Swanson Carlson ... The Daily Caller? Stay AWAY from it. Clearly, you've been in the Beltway much too long, and your judgment of character has been dulled over the years. "Swannie" is NOT your friend, Chris. You won't be able to tell them apart from the likes of Breitbart and his video slut, James O'Keefe. They're not journalists. Their life's mission is to "get" anyone on their perceived left, a HUGE net, in compromising positions, such that they can embarrass, "out" or, if they hit the trifecta, ruin people's careers. Bob Woodward's been around the block, so he has a nose for these video hit jobs. He said nothing and moved on. Unfortunately, he pointed at Ben Bradlee who, it seems, was more than a little buzzed. Nothing untoward was recorded, but Bradlee did give the wingnut chick a hug and put a hand on her shoulder. Not good. Think of these wingnuts as reptilians in human skin. They may look attractive, flirty and loose on the outside, but they're deadly poisonous if you get too close. (What I'd like to know, though, is how come the wingnut chick didn't approach a strapping dude like Richard Wolffe, in the background there?)

PS — What a moron this wingnut is: "are deese chargees racialee modeevayted??" NO, you fucking imbecile; they're POLITICALLY motivated. But the racist Teabaggers can feel good about themselves, anyhow, supporting the "Koch 'brother' from another mother" (?!) ...

PPS — This chick looks easy ... Are you dating her, Treach, or does Swannie get first dibs?

Thursday, November 03, 2011

The Obama-Cain Uncoupled Entry

This is Breeder's Cup weekend (Friday and Saturday at Churchill Downs) so let's celebrate the BC by revisiting some horse racing metaphors applied to the 2012 presidential race. Coming up to a big race like the Grade I 2012 Presidential Stakes, the well-financed connections, the big players pointing for this race, sometimes invest in a little extra insurance to make their morning-line favorite contender even more formidable with a coupled entry (if the horses belong to the same barn) or, occasionally, an uncoupled entry — typically, it's the 1 horse, entered as 1 with its entrymate 1A — as one betting interest but from different parties. It can get confusing sometimes, but the bottom line is the betting/voting public gets two for the price of one.

Assuming # 1 is among the favorites, its chances of winning the race increase substantially with a 1A entrymate. It's all in the pre-race strategy and tactics employed to see it through once the race begins. Here's how it works. In a "classic" (long) distance race, entry 1A is a rabbit sprinter entered to set a hot pace, burn out the chasing competition, and set the table for the favorite — # 1 — to swing past everyone in mid-stretch and win going away.

In this scenario, President Obama, # 1, is the favorite, and Herman Cain, # 1A, is his uncoupled entrymate. Herman Cain is an Obama creation. He is an unwitting stalking horse for the President. His improbable candidacy's success, based on sketchy creds would not have happened, I believe, had we not had an African American in the Oval Office who is so hated by the Teabaggers throwing their support behind Cain. Is there white racist psychology at play here? Or have the wingnuts suddenly discovered their inner post-racial sensibilities? Right.

If you're one of the strong Obama supporters at MSNBC (Chris and Lawrence), tell us: Will the implosion of the Herman Cain campaign (a) help the President; (b) help the eventual GOP nominee more than the President; or (c) be a wash. I've already argued that the answer is (b). If these Cain revelations at this moment in time are simply an act of journalistic nature, the circumstances of the disclosure just good, old-fashioned gumshoe reporting, then I say, COOL. But ...

As the drip-drip-drip of sexual harassment allegations sinks Herman Cain's campaign — "blame yourself," pal, remember? Cain had ten days to get his story straight and issue a TRUTHFUL statement to say, in effect, 'there were allegations, I'm innocent, a settlement was reached and I can't go into it because of the confidentiality agreements reached between certain parties.' End of story.

There's that. Then there's the issue of who gave this information to POLITICO. In this day and age, a "confidential source" is someone who enters into an agreement or contract with the media organization to provide information on condition of anonymity. Back in the day, the media entering into such arrangements were called "media whores." Oh wait. They still are. Here, in this blog, at least. What's worse, the key question — who benefits? — is glossed over, because, you see, everyone's in on it ... except the public. POLITICO's Ken Vogel said the question of who gave them this information is a meaningless "parlor game." Really?

Back in the day, when journalism still existed within a written and unwritten code of ethics, there were, to my mind, only three types of anonymous or confidential sources, which journalists were honor-bound to protect with their lives: (1) The "whistleblower," whose revealed identity could result in harsh retaliation; (2) the victims and witnesses, for similar and obvious privacy reasons; and (3) insiders providing information on "deep background" but otherwise generically identified as a "high official" or a "source close to the investigation" etc. Each one of these passes the smell and integrity test. But not, in my opinion, sources for whom the information provided anonymously is mutually beneficial in very specific and substantive ways, e.g., opponent campaign gives POLITICO the result of its "opposition research," the euphemism for digging up dirt on candidates including "documentation" which, of course, cannot be published. Not even the details which would completely obscure any reference to the accusers. We're not talking Pentagon Papers here.

Hey, Reverend AL, do you want to know how this benefits the REPUBLICAN ESTABLISHMENT and not the President? Consider this: Lately, the high councils of the GOP establishment (including Karl Rove, master dirty trickster), who generally support Mitt Romney but could live with Rick Perry, were getting nervous bordering on panicky about Herman Cain's candidacy. As they see it, Mitt Romney like it or not will be the nominee. And the longer the unelectable Herman Cain remains a viable candidate in the crazies primaries, riding higher in the polls than Romney, sucking all the oxygen out of their perceived top candidates' message, not to speak of shining a daily light on Romney's vulnerabilities, is time irretrievably lost to define their candidate before his opposition does, and to put his best foot forward.

From their POV, they're blowing a pretty good chance of beating President Obama. As George Bush I used to say, "this will not stand." Herman Cain had become a thorn on the side of the Republican establishment, and had to be stopped. It's a story as old as politics itself. Karl Rove is an expert "opposition researcher." Rick Perry too. They have a pretty grim track record of dirty politicking dating back to their Texas mudslinging. Look it up. Mitt Romney, not so much. But all it takes is money. And he's loaded.

Long story short, opponents of the favorite managed to raise serious questions about entry 1A's eligibility to stay in the race. And so the rabbit entry, Herman Cain, President Obama's pacesetter and table layer is on the verge of being scratched. The Idiot Punditocracy reverts to form, and the very entertaining 'Hollywood' Lawrence O'Donnell is having altogether too much fun with this story. The POLITICOs, the Alex Burns and Ken Vogel types, look just plain smug. And why not? They put one over the "liberal media," they massaged their collective Republican establishment egos, and they made a valuable source of more dirt, this time on President Obama and the Democrats, for the general.

Great reporting, guys! The question is, who gets the last laugh? Right now, I'll give POLITICO, the Beltway Media, and the GOP a slight edge. Let's hear it for the MEDIA WHORES. And the entertainingly clueless Idiot Punditocracy. Didn't hear it the first time? Let me repeat: YOU.HAVE.NO.INTEGRITY.

Hardball's BIG Number: Did Lawrence O'Donnell Punk Chris?

It was 99, representing all of Iowa's counties visited by RICK SANTORUM. Except the picture they had up there was of TIM PAWLENTY, the candidate MSNBC political "sage" Larry-O had assured us was going to be the nominee ... that is until Timmy dropped out after finishing behind Michele Bachmann in a straw poll. So how come they had a picture of T-Paw up there? Did Lawrence have something to do with punking Chris while he's out of town promoting his book? Hmm ...

Wednesday, November 02, 2011

Democrats CLOBBER Mitt Romney!

I LOVE THIS AD:

Next Up: BILL-O The Clown

Go mingle with the "loons" o falafel-face. Then how about FRAU (ACHTUNG) GRETA!
In the meantime buh-bye GeraldiƱo ...

Was Khalil Gibran The Inspiration For Jack Kennedy's Most Famous Quote?

Our good friend Chris Matthews has just published a new biography of JFK, Jack Kennedy ~ Elusive Hero. John Kennedy is one of my political heroes, and I was gratified to learn that Chris, who has put a lot of thought and original research into this book, reaffirmed the same truth about JFK, that he was an American hero, yet elusive profile in courage during the Cuban Missile Crisis. I studied the Cuban Missile Crisis in college, as an example of presidential leadership. I honestly believe that had Richard Nixon been president instead of JFK when the world hung in the balance during those critical 13 days, this world would have been destroyed in a nuclear conflagration.

Chris is reintroducing JFK to a whole new generation of Americans and is setting the record straight in the wake of so much distorted historical revisionisim. I'm looking forward to reading Chris's book. Here's a small part of my Kennedys political items collection:


It's said that imitation is the sincerest form of flattery. Where did JFK's most famous quote, from his inaugural address, "And so my fellow Americans, ask not what your country can do for you, ask what you can do for your country," originate? From what I can gather, Chris says that Jack Kennedy got it from a favorite professor, perhaps at Choate? But I would submit, and this is really intriguing, that Jack Kennedy may have borrowed the quote from the famous Lebanese poet, painter and philosopher, Khalil Gibran, author of The Prophet.

It's fascinating to contemplate this confluence of events: In the early part of the 20th century, Gibran took up residence in Boston, MA, the Kennedys' backyard. In 1926, Gibran published a work entitled "The New Frontier," also translated as "The New Deal." In his acceptance speech at the Democratic National Convention in the LA Coliseum, Kennedy said, "[W]e stand today on the edge of a New Frontier — the frontier of the 1960's, the frontier of unknown opportunities and perils, the frontier of unfilled hopes and unfilled threats. ... Beyond that frontier are uncharted areas of science and space, unsolved problems of peace and war, unconquered problems of ignorance and prejudice, unanswered questions of poverty and surplus."

The term took hold, and the bold new direction to which this young president proposed to lead the nation came to be known as "The New Frontier." But it was thirty-four years earlier that a philosopher and intellectual and fellow Massachusetts resident had published a work by the same name, in which he wrote: "Are you a politician asking what your country can do for you or a zealous one asking what you can do for your country? If you are the first, then you are a parasite; if the second, then you are an oasis in a desert." Although, before Gibran, the great Supreme Court Justice Oliver Wendell Holmes said in an 1884 Memorial Day speech, "Recall what our country has done for each of us, and to ask ourselves what we can do for our country in return." And failed Republican president Warren G. Harding said this at the 1916 Republican convention: "[W]e must have a citizenship less concerned about what the government can do for it and more anxious about what it can do for the nation."

Food for thought. But Jack's remains the most elegant, most stirring, and most famous version.

MEMO To Big Eddie: Wrong, Eddie — We Want Herman Cain To STAY

Big Eddie is lamenting the media feeding frenzy surrounding the Herman Cain 12-year-old sexual harassment story. It always amazes me how the media think we, the consumers of news, buy into the notion that stories like these are either, immaculate conceptions, or were dropped by the ratings stork on Jonathan Martin's/MSNBC's lap.

Please. Be a journalist and go after the REAL story. HAMMER the POLITICO ratbastards on the source of this timely disclosure (for Mitt Romney). Here are a few pointers for whatever's left of the media: (1) If the "campaigns" weren't behind this, then was Karl Rove? Let's stipulate that he was. He has motive, opportunity, expertise, and a long history of political dirty tricks. (2) If POLITICO agreed to be Karl Rove's conduit for this dirt he's dug up on Herman Cain, on condition of anonymity, then they're guilty of passing tainted goods on to us, the consumer of news. Anyone in commercial media ultimately works for us. We pay your salaries with pay-for-cable. POLITICO is part of this racket with its close association to the MSNBC chumps, and is quite willing to feed the right wing myth they're "liberal media." They're laughing their asses off at MSNBC's expense. You can see it in their faces every time the clueless Chris Matthews interviews any one of these ratbastards.

Speaking as a REAL liberal, plainly it's in our interest and the Obama campaign's interest that Herman Cain stays in this race all the way, if at all possible. Yes, he's an ignorant clown, a total buffoon. That's the whole point, isn't it? The Republican establishment is beginning to panic with his rise in the crazies' polls. Where and how POLITICO obtained this information makes every difference in the world. IT IS THE STORY. Any journalists worth their salt (Idiot Punditocracy do not qualify) would blow the lid on these Republican dirty tricks, and start asking the hard questions: Was the Romney campaign aware of this, and if so, what did they know and when did they know it? Instead, you allow yourselves to be played like a violin by Karl Rove. POLITICO and MSNBC are no fucking "liberal media." Not even close. You have no integrity.

Tuesday, November 01, 2011

Sweet Melissa Makes Appearance On Rev AL Show ...

Amid an entertaining potpourri of stuff that includes not only the delightful Ms. Perry, the buttoned-up Jonathan Capehart, dessicated wingnut giraffe-neck Anne Coulter, and featuring a racist Limbaugh rant, deserving of his very own "cartoon" likeness  on these pages:


And for the RUSH RACIST DRUGSTER ... His "cartoon" likeness ~ PIGMAN AT THE WATERMELON TROUGH:

Rick Perry's BRILLIANT Strategery ...

Rick Perry's Bizarro Public Meltdown

Is Rick Perry still a "viable" candidate for President? You betcha! Rachel did a great job deconstructing Perry's psychotic breakdown (below), right down to the maple syrup hug. But, lucky us, the dude's not done yet. Here's the Republicans' dirty little secret: Most of them on both sides of the fence, candidates and voters, are certifiably insane. The functioning psycho population in this nation — many still undiagnosed — is large and growing. So Rick was simply being himself among fellow psychos:


Maple Syrup recipe for Rick Perry: Romney flapjacks, topped with two wallops of sour cream (a metaphor for the Perry-Cain campaigns), smothered in insanely delicious New Hampshire maple syrup. This song's for you, Ricky:

Monday, October 31, 2011

The POLITICO Collaborationist Hatchet Job On Herman Cain

Let's face it: Conventional wisdom holds that these sexual harassment accusations may well sink the Cain campaign, such as it is. Rachel noted tonight that it is "the politics of personal destruction" that's being waged by Republicans against each other. The Republicans this year haven't only violated Ronald Reagan's "Eleventh Commandment"— Thou shalt not speak ill of another Republican — they've fucking blown it to smithereens. Not only that, but they're producing all the anti-Romney attack ads for the Democrats in the general; and some of them are pretty good, thank you very much. All good, for those of us who hate Republicans.

Given my low opinion of Herman Cain — which goes for all Republicans, because in my "Christian" world I consider a person's character to be inextricably linked to how they treat the least among us; and to be a Republican you must accept unacceptable things, so you're all going to Hell — personally, I have little doubt there's plenty of damning evidence that he actually sexually harassed those two women, just as Clarence Thomas sexually harassed Anita Hill.

That said, the way this "story" went down troubles me more than whatever there is there, considering the convenient factoid that the women accepted an apparently substantial financial "settlement" with the proviso that they could not discuss any part of this case. Nice catch-22 for media whore Jonathan Martin and his POLITICO posse of "regardless of where we got this" (Ken Vogel) virtual streetwalkers. Here's their self-serving justification: "POLITICO has confirmed the identities of the two female restaurant association employees who complained about Cain but, for privacy concerns, is not publishing their names." [Editorial revise (in red): "POLITICO has confirmed the identities of the two female restaurant association employees who complained about Cain but, for legal and privacy concerns, is not publishing their names."] See, even a creep like Dominique Strauss-Kahn was granted the right to face his accuser.

Here's what all the wasted POLITICO bandwidth amounts to:
"The women complained of sexually suggestive behavior by Cain that made them angry and uncomfortable, the sources said, and they signed agreements with the restaurant group that gave them financial payouts to leave the association. The agreements also included language that bars the women from talking about their departures." [But it doesn't stop POLITICO and the Idiot Punditocracy from talking about it, which is exactly what the "multiple sources" (think Karl Rove) intended.]
Steve Cornacki of Salon, a card-carrying member of the Idiot Punditocracy, confirmed his good standing by falsely speculating that when Cain mentioned "anonymous sources" he was referring to the two women accusers, when in effect it was clear the reference was to POLITICO's secret "multiple sources." Then Cornacki criticized POLITICO for not disclosing the women's names. Hellooo ... anyone home? They're already skating on thin ice, pal, and I mean thin legal ice. They might need some of their "sources'" unlimited funds (think Karl Rove) to help with legal expenses, if it ever comes to that. 

Ken Vogel, POLITICO media whore, would not confirm or deny whether any "campaign" was involved (think Karl Rove, people). He wouldn't get into "sourcing" but that is the story. It goes to motive, as they say in the legal system — who benefits and who has an axe to grind — and therefore to credibility not necessarily of Cain's culpability but of the Play Within The Play, as my dad used to say, quoting Shakespeare, the political undercurrents that are obsessing the Beltway political and media elites. That's the story. Who wants Herman Cain to go down so badly that they'd feed this story, nicely gift-wrapped to POLITICO, on condition of anonymity. It stinks to high heaven, for reasons that have little to do with Herman Cain but which I've broached in this blog quite a bit.

NBC-MSNBC has a strange symbiotic relationship with POLITICO which is troubling, to say the least, and gives the lie to whatever tenuous claims there are that MSNBC is "liberal media." Sure, each organization has their individual, should I say token, liberals and progressives but the overall culture is corporatist and conservative. And commercial. Political "scandal" is the mother's milk of cable political news and commentary organizations, driven and controlled as they are by ratings. What's really weird is that because of this relationship from Hell, MSNBC talking heads are reinforcing the wingnut-Limbaugh-Coulter-Fox false narrative ("occupy POLITICO"... yuck-yuck says a Fox hound) that this is a "liberal media" hit job. It's bizarrely self-serving.

The recent unnecessary lineup changes — Big Eddie was the perfect in-our-face host for crazy insomniac libs while Lawrence was easily digestible on the rerun — showed me just how much the skeert MSNBC suits still are in Keith Olbermann's orbit. Who cares if we're but the Merry 50,000 — Keith is sizzling with his comprehensive coverage of the Occupy Wall Street movements across the nation, which I've always maintained is this year's and next most important story. But hey, no one listens to me, anyway.

Let's take a closer look at POLITICO's long in the tooth but short on substance "investigative story." Here's a typical offering:
"He was then asked, “Have you ever been accused, sir, in your life of harassment by a woman?”

He breathed audibly, glared at the reporter and stayed silent for several seconds. After the question was repeated three times, he responded by asking the reporter, “Have you ever been accused of sexual harassment?”
If I were to guess, I'd say this is Jonathan's contribution. When he doesn't show up on Andrea Mitchell looking like he's been on an all-night bender, he's on Hardball tonight breathlessly reporting there was "touching" (no kissing? Obviously this dude's never been to Latin America.) and an invitation for some woman to meet Cain in his hotel room. If that were grounds for sexual harassment, I can attest that at least one MSNBC host would be in hot water. "Nuff said.

Here's another typical offering:
"In one case, POLITICO has seen documentation describing the allegations and showing that the restaurant association formally resolved the matter. Both women received separation packages that were in the five-figure range."
Really? And how come we, the public cannot see any of this "documentation." Is it because it was possibly illegally obtained? And what does that "five-figure range" amount to? Spell it out, POLITICO: was it $10,000 or $90,000 or exactly where in-between? I'll bet POLITICO's legal counsel was busy in advance of publication of this story, y'think? If the New York Times published this shoddily sourced story, it would be laughed out of the business. But then, some of us at least know, POLITICO is not a legitimate news organization.

Memo To Sweet Melissa: I'm sure you're a fine poli-sci professor but you clearly have no clue about the so-called "liberal media" if you think POLITICO is a part of it. Shame on you, Melissa, for being so misinformed as to perpetuate this farce.

Idiot Punditocracy Watch: Dance of The POLITICO Media Whores

I must say, I have much less regard for Nia Malika Henderson after her suck-up to POLITICO media whore Jonathan Martin who according to Chris Matthews, natch, "broke" the Herman Cain sexual harassment "story." Let's get some things clear now: POLITICO does not do investigative reporting. They have a network of connected "sources" who feed them second- and third-party rumors in the vein of the usual gotcha stories: the sort of thing the wingnut media — Daily Caller, hacking into personal e-mails; Andrew Breitbart, digging up lewd photos on Twitter and doctoring tapes — are expert at. The wingnut "media" have a certain MO, which is quite recognizable, and their fingerprints are all over this story.

Liberals may be dense and disingenuous, but we're not stupid. What interest would liberals possibly have in torpedoing Herman Cain's continuous rise in the Teabagger wingnut polls? The man is a godsend! While we don't expect him to win the nomination, the longer he stays out there leading the crazies polls, the better it is for liberals and Democrats, and President Obama's electoral prospects.

Second, this is not an "investigative" story that would warrant a ratbastard media whore like Jonathan Martin any "congratulations" whatsoever, got that Chris? Third, Chris asked the question, reluctantly, but never answered it, who would benefit from bringing Herman Cain down? The Coultergeist, and others in Rightwingville, have a proprietary interest in chopping Herman Cain off at the knees. So what do they do? Blame the "liberal media" because those Teabagger tools are so easily fooled. FYI, Chris, you wingnut enabler, POLITICO as I have said (a) is not the liberal media; and this further buttresses my point; and (b) since that media whore Jonathan Martin won't say who his "sources" are, he's being real coy and dissembling... let me help you. Chris you effing fool, what do the letters K R spell out to you ... hmm? Next time you have Jonathan on, ask him point-blank, "was Karl Rove behind this?" If he denies it or refuses to answer, then broaden the net a bit: "What about right wing media/operatives? Yes or no." You can start there. With the basics, when interviewing a hostile media propagandist whore.

Matthews has been completely clueless about POLITICO, and remains so. Here he is with POLITICO conservative propagandist, Susan Page, on Romney's outrageous flip-flops. Page is there to spin Romney (she seems like an establishment Republican, so he's probably her "guy") in as good a light as possible:
MATTHEWS: "Why does he go 180 back and forth?"

PAGE: "I think it's not a 180. I think it's a more modest tweak than that. But I think it's because what he said in June in your first clip is unacceptable to some conservative Republicans. He's trying to emphasize kind of the conservative part of his message."
Then Chris says, "OK. You report this in a straight fashion, obviously, Susan." Yeah right. Like the time she said on Hardball, in all seriousness, that the firebreathing wingnut Florida Congressman Allen West was a respectable voice on slashing Medicare and Social Security. Do I need to spell out how outrageous such a throwaway statement is, Chris? The POLITICOs do it all the time on Hardball and wherever they appear on MSNBC. What a pathetic POLITICO tool Mr. Matthews is.