WaPo Consults Ministry of Silly Walks, Backtracks From Obama Conspiracy

"Listen to me! Please listen! If you don't, if you won't, if you fail to understand, then the same incredible terror that's menacing me WILL STRIKE AT YOU!"

Forget about Obama and the Canadian Embassy, The Washington Post, apparently, huddled with Monty Pythons' "Ministry of Silly Walks" and rocketed backwards, from their their Woman-Bashing Op-Ed of Sunday.

The Washington Post’s failed effort at satire?

“If it insulted people, that was not the intent,” Outlook editor John Pomfret told me this morning, calling the piece “tongue-in-cheek.” […]

Pomfret said that being an opinion article, he’s not surprised readers reacted to it strongly. But added: “Perhaps it wasn’t packaged well enough to make it clear that it was tongue-in-cheek.”

Even if intended as a joke, the Allen piece clearly isn’t the best way for the Post to achieve its goal of bringing in more women readers, and it remains to be seen if the fallout continues today.

They even changed the headline!

And WaPo's Ombudsman isn't buying into it.

As The Garlic pointed out, this appeared to be a very sly, crafty collaboration, between the WaPo, Charlotte Allen and Hillary Clinton, to put out such an offensive Op-Ed, insulting and degrading woman, two-days before Little Super Tuesday, and look what happened;

Clinton revives campaign in Ohio, Texas

And, as we cautioned;

"And they come out with this, what do we want to call it, this Hillary Manifesto, at this late stage ... Yes, Allen and The Washington Post has thrown in their lot with the Freakshow ... They want a Hillary-McCain finale ... Their in league with McCain and the RNC ...

So, how do you explain this;

Limbaugh urges listeners to vote for Clinton

And Hillary, seemingly, returning the favor;

Clinton praises McCain’s experience

Even the one of the Freakshow's biggest Freaks has questions, as do the exit polls.

Was this woman-bashing Op-Ed part of the Clinton Campaign's "Kitchen Sink" strategy?

If so, watch out ladies, there'll be more incoming ... Perhaps a new batch of 3AM Ads- something like 3:15AM and 3:30AM, just to keep the pressure on, to maintain the fear level just right ... To keep woman awake, sleepless, and getting angry about it

And then, WHAMO!, Hillary and her cohorts hit with another insulting piece, probably dissing woman, for not being able to trust a candidate who will allow them the luxury of a decent night's sleep.

Maybe, after all those years of railing against the "vast rightwing conspiracy", Hillary has decided to team up with it

Obama can't keep you safe ... Obama won't let you sleep ...

Watch out, all you people in Pennsylvania ...

Think of this post (and taking a liberty) as Kevin McCarthy, in the waning moments of "Invasion of the Body Snatchers"

"She's here already! You're next!!"

Bonus Links

Monty Python - Ministry of Silly Walks

Media Matters: Despite paper's concern "about keeping women as newspaper readers," Wash. Post published essay calling women "kind of dim" and "the stupid sex"

Crooks and Liars: Why the Washington Post can’t satisfy their women (or, Tweety eat yer heart out!)

Jane Hamsher: “Tongue In Cheek?” Nice Try

Rachel Sklar: WaPo Writer Proves Own Thesis With Inane Op-Ed

Jeff Fecke: Don't You Angry Feminists Have a Sense of Humor?

Last Nights' Dress Boy Sticks His Neck Out

Boy, this took a lot of courage ... And what prescience!

Move over Nostradamus, there's a new kid on the block ...

Maybe he has a "feeling" on how the Cubs are going to do this season ... Or, does he already know who our next president will be? ... Or perhaps, he's holding high over our guilty pleasures, teasing those around him, smug with the knowledge of who is this season's American Idol winner?

Drum roll, please ...

Prediction [Jonah Goldberg]

"In the next few days, there will be a wave of liberals — Frank Rich comes particularly to mind — who will use WFB's memory to beat up on today's conservatives ..."

Whoa! ... Ya think so?

Well, Commissar Goldberg, you don't have to wait that long ... And you don't have to worry about "today's conservatives" ...Beating up on Buckley himself will do just fine ...

Barry Crimmins - Burial Right

Dennis Perrin - Socked In The God Damned Face (with bonus videos of Noam Chomsky schooling Little Billy)


Bonus Links

"The morning after always looks grim if you happen to be wearing last night's dress"

Timothy Noah/Slate: Am I a Fascist? Jonah Goldberg's tendentious history of liberalism

Lawyers, Guns and Money: Dear Jonah: I Am Not Serious, Either


Move over, Old Timer, the new kid Jonah is taking over!

Sticks and Stones Will Break My Bones ...

After reading Juan Cole this morning, we may have to change our "Good Post Alert" to "Great Post Alert".

Cole weighs in on the McCain flare up from Cincinnati the other day, when his warm-up act (and that is being extremely generous), local rightwing radio guy Bill Cunningham red-meated the crowd, denigrating Barack Obama in numerous ways, including the repeated use of referring to him as "Barack Hussein Obama" (this years' entry into the deck of Terror Fear Flash Cards).

So, Cole did a little research and came up with ...

Barack Hussein Obama, Omar Bradley, Benjamin Franklin and other Semitically Named American Heroes

A few snippets

"I want to say something about Barack Hussein Obama's name. It is a name to be proud of. It is an American name. It is a blessed name. It is a heroic name, as heroic and American in its own way as the name of General Omar Nelson Bradley or the name of Benjamin Franklin. And denigrating that name is a form of racial and religious bigotry of the most vile and debased sort. It is a prejudice against names deriving from Semitic languages!"

"What about other American heroes, such as Gen. George Joulwan, former NATO Supreme Allied Commander of Europe? "Joulwan" is an Arabic name. Or there is Gen. John Abizaid, former CENTCOM commander. Abizaid is an Arabic name. Abi means Abu or "father of," and Zaid is a common Arab first name. Is Cunningham good enough to wipe their shoes? Is he going to call them traitors because they have Arabic names?"

And that First Republican President?

"Abraham Lincoln, of course is, named for the patriarch Abraham, from the Semitic word for father, Ab, and the word for "multitude," raham,. Abu, "father of," is a common element in Arab names today.

McCain, the RNC, and more upstanding, respected GOP leaders need (and should) to stand up and put this slime down. It's childish and, as Juan Cole points out, quite un-American.

One of those persons is, in fact, Obama's cousin, Vice President Dick Cheney.

Highly recommended you read Barack Hussein Obama, Omar Bradley, Benjamin Franklin and other Semitically Named American Heroes ... It's highly enlightening!

There's Sucker's Born Every Minute ...

We already did our riff on the shooting down of that wayward spy satellite (see Top Ten Cloves: Things About U.S. Plans to Shoot Down Broken Spy Satellite) last week.

First, there was the news that the Navy nailed it on the first shot.

Ooookayyyyyy ...There isn't, necessarily, independent verification of such, so, we'll take their word for it (but reserving the right to raise an eyebrow, or two).

And, I suppose, we can expect, certainly by November Sweeps, some major, blockbusting, television movie-of-the-week, hyping the shit out of this ...

Tight, close-ups of pensive actors wearing Admiral uniforms, with quick cuts to children frolicking in playground, and the new, young couple, with their 2-month-old baby, that just moved into their dream house - RIGHT IN THE PATH OF THE FALLING SATELLITE!

Then, the money shot, inside the Oval Office, the Mark Harmon-portraying-Bush, President giving the order, against a backdrop of "danger music" - "SHOOT IT DOWN!"

All with the prerequisite talk of "Emmy" before the first commercial break.

(If they really want to have some fun, bang out "Armageddon II", and bring back Bruce Willis, Ben Affleck and the asteriod-drilling crew for another space adventure; Since the Bruce Willis character died in the first movie, the storyline will have to involve him not dying, but catching a ride and stowing away on this spy satellite, and it's up to his old crew to race up there and drill him out - he's gotten stuck - before the Navy pushes the button to shoot it down ... You can just feel the drama, and there'll be Oscar buzz, no doubt.)

Rather than big, or little screen heroes, we have the Rightwing Freakshow, the Ronnie Reagan groupies, taking center stage, and getting all excited and plump over it.

You see, shooting down this dead satellite is exactly, exactly the kind of thing Reagan had "the vision" for, with his fart-of-an-idea, his Star Wars Defense, otherwise know as The Strategic Defense Initiative (SDI).

First up, is Little Billy Kristol's rag, The Weekly Standard, where Michael Goldfarb gushes;

"This is a major success for the Missile Defense Agency, the successor to Reagan's Strategic Defense Initiative, and it's going to be a tough pill for the program's critics to swallow.

The system will now be an easier sell to allies, and it should be a cudgel for Republicans in the fall. The "rogue" satellite cost more than a billion dollars. One suspects its destruction will be of greater value to this country than any mission it could have performed as a functioning spy satellite."

And the Captain Edward Morrissey, over on Captain's Quarters, was flying his Reagan flag;

"Eventually, this could end the ballistic missile era. If effective defenses become widely available, there will not be much point in maintaining ballistic missile inventories at all. Ronald Reagan had that very vision when he first proposed SDI and tried to get the Soviets to partner with him on it."

Much like Mary Katharine Ham, blogger and managing editor of Townhall.Com, this pair of Reagan worshipers must not be aware of "The Google".

For, it they had looked it up at all, or had a bit of memory to fall back on, maybe they would have chilled, just a little, on their untamed enthusiasm (then again, those on the Right don't, necessarily, bother themselves with facts).

The Star Wars Defense, SDI, was a hoax, a bluff.

The Reagan Administration was blowing smoke at the Russians, goading them into squandering budget in a non-existent space arms race.

From an NYT Editorial ("The Star Wars Hoax"), back in August 1993;

"The revelation on yesterday's front page was enough to rouse even the most cynical student of official mendacity: at great cost, The Times's Tim Weiner reports, the Reagan Administration back in 1984 designed an elaborate deception to mislead the Soviet Union about the "Star Wars" space-based missile defense. The scheme deceived not only the Kremlin but Congress, defrauding the American people of billions of dollars that could have been spent on real defense and domestic programs."

And the ruse wouldn't be complete without rigged tests.

"The rigging was done by transmitting a signal from the target missile to a receiver on the interceptor, in effect helping the interceptor to home in on the missile by broadcasting: "Here I am. Come get me."

Congress was not told the test had been rigged. It was also fed other phony data attesting to Star Wars's magical protective powers. These actions clearly crossed the line of normal Pentagon misrepresentation. They denied Congress the information it needed to exercise its constitutional authority over spending.:

Finally;

"But more than Congress's pride and authority is at stake. The whole history of Star Wars is now thrown into question. Millions of Americans are still walking around with the impression that Star Wars was designed to protect them. But to some of its original proponents, like President Reagan's national security adviser Robert McFarlane, Star Wars was always, from first to last, an elaborate ruse to induce the Soviets to divert money and manpower into space-based defenses."

"A cudgel for Republicans in the fall"?

With the country in a recession, and the quagmire of Iraq, with billions being spent monthly, I'd love to hear Mike Huckabee or Mitt Romney (presuming, that McCain sinks with his armada of lobbyists) fly this balloon out there.

As The Commander Guy would say - Bring it on!


Bonus Links

Noah Shachtman: Wham! Navy Blasts Rogue Satellite

Noah Shachtman: Video: Satellite Shoot-Down, Simulated (Updated)

Robert Burns: Video: Navy Missile Hits Spy Satellite

Top Ten Cloves: How Bush Administration Reacted To News of The Death Star Galaxy


A hoax, delivering a hoax

The Rightwing Smear Machine, Running As Strong and Smooth as the Edsel!

Grover Norquist?

They trot out Grover Norquist to start throwing smear bombs at Barack Obama, and the Democrats?

The same Grover Norquist that compared the Estate Tax to the Holocaust?

The Grover Norquist that helped that other sterling patriot, Newt Gingrich, write the Contract On America?

Jack Abramoff's buddy, that Grover Norquist?

Here's some "hard-hitting" Norquist mud;

"Grover Norquist, an influential conservative tax reform lobbyist, said: “Barack Obama has been able to create his own image and introduce himself to voters, but the swing voters in a general election are not paying attention yet. He is open to being defined as a leftwing, corrupt Chicago politician.”

“It will be easy to portray him as even harder-left than Hillary,” said Norquist. “Hillary could lose the election, but Obama could collapse. People already know Hillary and she is not popular, but the disadvantage for Obama is that Republicans can teach people who don’t know him who he is.”

And this from Gingrich, who last year advocated curtailing our 1st Amendment, our Freedom of Speech;

"Newt Gingrich, the former Speaker of the House and Republican guru, recently described Obama as the “most leftwing candidate to run since George McGovern” – a reference to the anti-Vietnam-war Democrat who lost 49 states out of 50 to Richard Nixon in the 1972 election ..."

Blue Texan, over on Firedoglake had the right reaction;

"OMG, Obama's leftwing! He's a socialist!!!!!

McGOVERN!!!11!!!!

So pathetic.

The days when the GOP brand was strong enough that all a wingnut had to do is scream "McGovern!" are over. Now the game-changing name is "Bush."

I know it's a bit early, the Democratic nomination is far from being settled, but this is the first, sputtering output from the famed Rightwing Smear Machine?

Why would they come out, albeit early, with trying to diss him on McGovern? That’s documentable history ... That's so out-of-character for the Freakshow... Far easier, and much nastier when they go with their usual Modus Operandi, you know, just making shit up, and then putting it through the echo chamber of Matt Sludge, Faux News, Coltergeist, et all.

Are they rattled this early?

This from the party of The Commander Guy, and about to adopt as their nominee, Dead McCain Walking.

Jeesh ... I know we shouldn't let our guard down, but it's not a good sign when they trot out Grover Norquist and Newt Gingrich as the early line of mudslingers.

I guess we'll have to wait for the varsity smearmongers.


Bonus Riffs

Source Watch - Grover Norquist

Top Ten Cloves: Things About Ralph Reed Losing His Election

Top Ten Cloves: Testimonials Of Support That Didn’t Work For Jack Abramoff


With McCain as his party's nominee, why is this smearing con artist smiling?

Top Ten Cloves: Things Overheard At CPAC

News Item: Romney edges McCain in conservative straw poll

10. If you see McCain's mother, walk the other way ... She's giving backhanders to anyone that says they won't be voting for her son

9. What do we do if he does pick Bob Dole for VP?

8. Limbaugh's here ... And he's dropping his winning the Man-of-the-Year award like confetti

7. McCain is going to ask Romney if he can borrow his sons for the general election

6. Isn't "pimping" one of the planks in our platform?

5. I heard that the Ron Paul people are spread out over a 5-mile perimeter, looking for Sean Hannity

4. Coulter's not speaking this year? ... I guess it was a slow year in the plagiarism biz...

3. Huckabee might announce his National Defense Policy today ... What's that going to be - stand down the Army and just throw Chuck Norris out there?

2. Watch out ... Mitt Romney's going around looking for investors ... He wants to go and rebuild those Auto plants in Michigan anyway

1. I heard that McCain is so desperate to win over us over, he might divorce his wife and marry Nancy Reagan before the convention


Bonus Freakshow Riffs

"The morning after always looks grim if you happen to be wearing last night's dress"

Top Ten Cloves: Things Ann Coulter Would Spend "Coulter Cash" On

Yes, Virginia, There Is, Sadly, A William Kristol ...

Where's Ernest Borgnine when you need him?


The McCain Election Strategy

The Buzzards Are Picking At Each Other ...

Leave it to the Bush Grindhouse, the Neocon Nitwits and the freakshow dittoheads.

Right Wing Attacks Khalilzad For Not Defending Bolton’s Honor: ‘A Lack Of Testicular Fortitude’

Last Saturday, Zalmay Khalilzad, U.S. ambassador to the United Nations, participated in a panel discussion on Iranian foreign policy with two high-ranking Iranian officials at the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland. The New York Times reports that the White House and Condoleezza Rice were “angered” by Khalilzad’s move because he did not receive explicit authorization.

The moderator of the forum joked that Khalilzad has a “really formidable advantage of having a name that is not John Bolton.” Because Khalilzad let that comment stand without repudiating it, right-wing bloggers have erupted in full rage that Khalilzad did not jump to defend Bolton’s honor (as they surely would have). Thus, Khalilzad’s behavior was “disgusting,” “an insult to the United States” and showed “a lack of testicular fortitude”:

Bolton was a joke, so, the moderators' comment was spot on, more of an observation and compliment, than anything else.

But what am I saying? ... OMG! ... Someone in the administration talked to an Iranian!

From The L.A. Times;

"Khalilzad did not veer from the U.S. position, but broke rules that permit Bush administration officials to discuss issues with Iranians only under limited circumstances and with advance approval.

"Ambassador Khalilzad's appearance with the Iranian foreign minister and presidential advisor was not authorized," said a State Department spokesman, who declined to be identified while discussing a personnel issue. He said officials would speak to Khalilzad about the infraction."

No doubt, Khalilzad must have been put through a Karen Silkwood scrubdown soon after the meeting.

Hmmm ... I wonder, if they're more pissed off, because they got caught with their fearmongering-warmongering pants down last month ...

Who knows, maybe Khalilzad was buttering them up, trying to find out who the "Filipino Monkey" is?


Bonus Reads

Cernig: Khalilzad Goes Off The Reservation

Kevin Drum: US AND THEM....

NYT: White House Criticizes Envoy Over Iran

Bolton: Card Had White House In Coma; White House Shake-Up Causes Bolton Snafu; Fiery UN Ambassador Thought Bush Reaching Out To Him; Lambastes Card and “that little bean-counting pansy”

Breaking News! Zidane Signals New Era of “Hooligan Diplomacy”; Have Head-Butt, Will Travel - Mr. Zizou Goes To Washington; World Cup Golden Ball Winner Wooed By Bush Team; Likely Will Be Assigned To Bolton at U.N.


"I will not have members of my administration talking to Iranians!"

"The morning after always looks grim if you happen to be wearing last night's dress"

Ninotchka, on her arrival at the train station, updating her fellow countrymen about latest news in Moscow: "The last mass trials were a success: there will be fewer, but better Russians."

We can't say if Jonah Goldberg woke up wearing last night's dress, but, almost undoubtedly, he'd be happy emerging from his slumber if there were "fewer, but better, liberals".

For it is Liberals who are in Goldberg's cross-hairs, as he barnstorms the country to promote his book "Liberal Fascism: The Secret History of the American Left, From Mussolini to the Politics of Meaning" (and no, The Garlic hasn't read the book yet, beyond catching the various snippets on-line).

That's right, fascism isn't a rightwing conservatism religion, it's a behavior of the Liberal Left, so we can blame the Liberals for all the world's ills.

This might all play out fantastically in Goldberg's head, but, funny thing, and we're not sure if anyone hipped Goldberg to it, but when you write, and publish, a book, people read it ... And, unless you're rock-solid accurate, people then diss you ...

And dissing is what is, so appropriately, following Goldberg around on his tour.

From Matthew Yglesais;

One major problem with the book is that Goldberg has no ability whatsoever to stick to a coherent line of argument. You might call this book "disparate essays about fascism and American liberalism designed to annoy liberals."

Beyond specific errors, lapses in logic, etc. the biggest problem with Goldberg's book is actually that Goldberg himself has the wrong ideology. A certain strand of libertarian, perhaps Justin Raimondo from AntiWar.com, could have credibly written a book with the form of argument "today's liberals rightly identify fascistic strands in contemporary conservatism, but ignore the fascist mote in their own eye" and deliver a diatribe against statism in general and seek to tar everyone, left and right, with lax deployment of the brush of fascism. But that's not Jonah Goldberg. Goldberg is, instead, a loyal foot soldier in the Republican Noise Machine. He's a steadfast supporter of the political party representing the dominant ethnocultural group in the United States, the party that supports torture and unlimited surveillance, the party that supports a larger and more aggressively employed military, the party that supports a more punitive criminal justice system at home, the party whose backers are prone to fretting about low birthrates, the need to police gender roles more rigidly, etc."

Goldberg even ventured onto the set of The Daily Show, to which Jon Stewart lamented "I don’t know what you’re saying", and “How is organic food fascist?” and “I must say you totally misrepresent what progressive means.”

From Editor & Publisher;

Most touchy moment for Jonah came when Stewart asked him if one of the things he was against was people throwing around the charge "fascism" far too easily. Jonah said yes, then Stewart picked up a copy of the book and simply pointed to the title, "Liberal Fascism" -- adding, so why are you doing this?

There's a great interview (with Goldberg splaying all over the place) by Salon's Alex Koppelman ("We're all fascists now");

In the book, Goldberg attempts to convince readers that six decades of conventional wisdom that have placed Italy's Benito Mussolini, Germany's Adolf Hitler and fascism on the right side of the ideological spectrum are wrong, and that fascism is really a phenomenon of the left. Goldberg also attributes fascist rhetoric and tactics to Woodrow Wilson and Franklin Delano Roosevelt, and describes the New Deal's descendants, modern American liberals, as carriers of this liberal-fascist DNA. In a sense, "We're All Fascists Now," as Goldberg puts it in one of his chapter titles.

Larisa Alexandrovna weighed in also, with her 'Springtime For Hitler' post;

Either Jonah Goldberg is putting on a new production of the Producers or his latest book is a cry for help from a fractured and disoriented mind.

Titled... wait for it... Liberal Fascism: The Secret History of the American Left, From Mussolini to the Politics of Meaning, it is a retelling of history through the lens of propaganda.

What Goldberg has authored can be seen only in one of two ways. It is either propaganda, purchased by a sponsor and authored by a writer whose writing is at best tepid and inaccurate (How else is Goldberg supposed to make a living as a writer if not authoring propaganda then?), or it is a defense mechanism of guilty mind, struggling to balance out its own views in the context of history.

There is also a third possible interpretation of this bizarre effort. Goldberg could indeed be hoping to stage his own version of the Producers and this latest literary example is nothing more than parody. I think we should also start betting on just how many charlatans and morons come running forward to proclaim Goldberg's fiction as a historically accurate masterpiece, courageous for its honesty even.

I like Larisa's "purchased by a sponsor" theory, for the timing of Goldberg, and his book, seems a tad conspicuous, this, 2008, being a presidential election year.

With the very steeped fascist qualities of the Bush Grindhouse, a roster of GOP candidates goose-stepping their way through the campaign, promising to carry on, and the likelihood of an historic - and liberal - Democratic candidate that they will have to mount up against, time to begin blurring and obfuscating the lines.

Perhaps Goldberg, and his book, are the first pull of the starter cord of the vaunted RNC/GOP Smear Machine. The feeding tube has been affixed and it's time to start dropping in the gruel.

And what's this got to do with "Ninotchka?"

A bit of inspiration, from John Emerson's post today, "Commissar Goldberg", over on Seeing The Forest;

Jonah Goldberg's book has no importance at all from a scholarly point of view, but the Jonah Goldberg phenomenon is extremely important. He's the most recent of a long string of Movement Republican mouthpieces who have gained places in the legit media, and he's put a few new tweaks into the formula. Unlike Coulter, Malkin, Limbaugh, Savage, and Beck, Goldberg speaks in a nice NPR voice and has a professorial manner, and while what he says is no more than cheap taunting, the way that he says it seems scholarly. So responding effectively to him will be tricky.

Goldberg's book is also intended to inoculate Republicans against the charge of fascism -- "We're no worse than the Democrats" is the standard Republican response whenever they're caught behaving indefensibly. Goldberg doesn't really need to make his case: he just needs to plant a few doubts and give the Republican mouthpieces some new talking points. Even if his book is mostly rejected, there will be some residue, the way accusations tarnish reputations at the unconscious level even when presented from the beginning as false (e.g., "Obama has never been a Muslim and has never attended a Muslim school).

I expect the rest of the media will disgrace themselves by treating him as a reasonable man making a reasonable argument, and that in itself should be enough to tell us what desperate shape our country is in.

Jonah Goldberg, like Ninotchka, wearing last night's dress and just a tiny cog in the great wheel of evolution.


















(Photo from ACCUMULATING PERIPHERALS - offhand commentary on E. Asia, the US, and the 12,000 miles in between)

We Wonder If Rush Lobbied For This, The Way He Did For The Nobel?

One of the leading sites of the Rightwing Freakshow, Human Events, has puffed up "the cheeseburger that sweats (h/t Barry Crimmins)", with their highest honor.

Citing his racism and intolerance towards the handicapped;

"When David Ehrenstein, a Hollywood writer, penned an opinion piece last year in the Los Angeles Times, characterizing Illinois Democratic Sen. Barak Obama as “The Magic Negro,” Rush seized the moment to expose liberal hypocrisy with a parody -- “Barak the Magic Negro” (played to the tune of “Puff the Magic Dragon”). The Rush-haters pounced, claiming falsely that Rush, not Ehrenstein, was employing a racial slur against Obama. No, Rush was ridiculing the left, and once again, it hit home. And when Rush was pressured to stop playing the parody, he defiantly played it over and over again.

Well, Rush would have none of it. He criticized the Democrats’ use of Fox, Fox’s politicization of a medical issue and the dishonesty of the ads. As usual, the Democrats and liberal media distorted Rush’s argument, accusing him of mocking Fox and his ailments. They sought to deflect criticism from their own crude political behavior. But again, they failed.

For this, and all else he does every day to defend our founding principles, HUMAN EVENTS confers on Rush Limbaugh its 2007 Man of the Year Award."

Hmmm ... I wonder what he gets for this? ...

Perhaps a blank, doctor's prescription pad?

Or, did he apply for this, nominate himself, the way he did with the Nobel Peace Prize?

Top Ten Cloves: Other Things Bill O'Reilly Will Do To Get Interview With Barack Obama

News Item: Bill O’Reilly Shoves Obama Staffer

10. Date Oprah Winfrey

9. Make substantial donations to MoveOn.org, Media Matters and DailyKos

8. Will give up his crush on Matt Damon, in favor of Denzel Washington or Samuel L. Jackson, or whoever is Obama's favorite

7. Get Fox to change it's slogan the day he comes on show to "Fair and Obama"

6. Create new, nasty culture war of Obama's choosing

5. Will go to any restaurant with Obama, and not be surprised

4. Let Obama write forward of new book: The O'Reilly Factor for Black Kids

3. Create line of loofahs and donate all profits to his campaign

2. Say Keith Olbermann's name, on-air, as much as Obama wants

1. Will dress up as Dumbledore for the interview


Bonus Bill-O Links

Crooks and Liars: Video of O’Reilly calling Obama staffer an “SOB” and “low class”

Chicago SunTimes: Sweet: Fox's Bill O'Reilly in confrontation with Obama staffer at rally. UPDATE

Bill O'Reilly - Amy Polumbo Lecherous Interview

Pundit Watch: 'Pinhead' 16-Year-Old Schools O'Reilly

Breaking News! O'Reilly, Al-Qaeda In Heated Argument Over SF Targets; Strike Date, Debut of 'Muslim Factor' In Jeopardy Over Dispute

Rachel Maddow: Hillary Apologist and Obama Basher

"...I see a lot of shades of George Bush as a candidate in what we’re hearing from Obama ... I think that Obama learned a little bit about how to campaign from what George Bush did. I hope that he would be, of course, a better president than Bush has been though ..."

Who's paying Rachel Maddow's salary, MSNBC, Air America Radio, or the Hillary Clinton Campaign?

The Liberal/Progressive's rising media darling was wearing her Hillary on her sleeve last evening, late into the coverage as a panel member on the MSNBC broadcast of the post-Iowa Caucus discussions.

When you Google "Rachel Maddow", you (or at least my search provided) get 192,000 results.

Looking over the first 100, there's nary a negative word about Ms. Maddow, not even from the Freakshow denizens, Dittoheads, or the Sludge Reports' flying monkeys.

And if she is a Hillary fan and supporter, God bless her, but was it part of her assignment with MSNBC last evening to bash Dem Iowa Caucus winner Barack Obama?

Rachel Maddow as Obama Basher

From the MSNBC transcript;

OLBERMANN: Rachel Maddow, the subject of strong views. Did not the strong views get us the president we have as well? Is there not fire to be played with in that category.

MADDOW: Well, it’s interesting. I actually feel like although I like Obama a lot more than I like George Bush as a politician and I guess probably as a person, I see a lot of shades of George Bush as a candidate in what we’re hearing from Obama. In that what Obama’s actually offering are fairly liberal policies, but spoken in language and delivered in a style that’s very moderate and that’s actually kind of post partisan in tone.

We don’t think of George Bush’s presidency as having been that way. But as a candidate, that’s exactly what he was. He was proposing very conservative policies, but in a conciliatory, compassionate, post partisan, can’t we all just get along kind of way. And that’s why people I think maybe ended up surprised at the way he governed. I think that Obama learned a little bit about how to campaign from what George Bush did. I hope that he would be, of course, a better president than Bush has been though.

Whoa, there girl!

Obama is Bush?

If fellow panel member Pat Buchanan said it, you would, well, brush it off, knowing what a whack-job Buchanan is.

And even being cautious about over-praise, being it was only one night, one event, but tying Obama to Bush?

Did the Hillary Campaign hack into her earpiece? Was she reading off the next morning's Hillary Campaign Talking Points?

Because, before she bashed Obama, you could see the hair on her neck rising, when host Chris Matthews, Keith Olbermann and other panel members were talking in tones of Hillary being finished.

Rachel Maddow as the Hillary Apologist

MATTHEWS: This country moves in a strange pattern. In 1870, we gave African-Americans, men, the right to vote, at least in the Constitution. Obviously Jim Crowe got in the way of that for 100 years. But it was written down into law, the amendment to our Constitution, African-Americans, former slaves, will be voting citizens of the United States.

Women got to vote, which is always interesting, 50 years later. So there’s something perhaps primordial about the willingness of this country to at least, in theory, extend the franchise, the presidency, even, to an African-American rather than a woman. That is the interesting question mark that this Hillary Clinton campaign raises.

Let’s go to the panel with this hot potato, starting with Rachel Maddow.

Rachel, and then Howard, I want you, and Pat, and, of course, Gene Robinson, all of you from your different perspectives, what is it about America that here we are in 2008, finally picking an African-American with a real shot to be president of the United States, and a woman just got a very bad night in Iowa?

Rachel?

MADDOW: I think that you’re calling this a really bad night for Hillary too early. I think that we need to see how close it’s going to be. And if ultimately the results are a three-way tie or look close to it, or Barack Obama wins tightly, that’s a story. I think it matters.

I don’t see this as a huge rejection of Hillary if she doesn’t come in with a big win, honestly. I know you see it differently.

MATTHEWS: You mean, the fact that two-thirds of the Democratic Party voted against her isn’t a rejection?

MADDOW: Two-thirds of the Democratic Party will have voted against all of the candidates if it comes in as a three-way tie, Chris. That’s the point.

The issue, if it comes out it’s a really close race, it’s going to be close heading into New Hampshire as well. And I think we discount that at our peril.

If Barack Obama, as you guys are projecting is going to be the winner, I think that’s the America we all want to live in. I think it’s an amazing day for the country and it’s great. I don’t know if it means that he gets the nomination ultimately, but it’s an exciting, historic day for the country.

OLBERMANN: Let me throw something in from the decision desk. Edwards and Clinton are in, just apropos what you’re saying, Rachel, a very tight race for second in the race for the state Democratic delegate equivalent. Those are the numbers we’re seeing so far.

And again, NBC News has projected, as you heard, Barack Obama as the winner of this Iowa caucus at 36 percent. Those other numbers are as close as you would suggest they would be, 31 percent and 31 percent.

MATTHEWS: But Howard—well, Rachel, I’ll go back to you so you can have a response here.

From the beginning of this year in the polling we’ve noticed that Hillary has been ahead of Obama all year. So she can’t claim to be somehow a comeback kid or someone who, you know, somehow never had a chance. She had a big chance in Iowa and she’s lucky to get second.

MADDOW: No, I think it may be a more comfortable place for her to be running from, to be able to say, I’m fighting for this, and to maybe play the gender card in a big way, to say we have got to fight in order to get a woman in the White House in a way that she couldn’t have played that way had she been in an inevitable front-runner. So, I mean, I think it’ll be real interesting to see how the Clinton campaign responds to this. They’re going to have to come up with something creative, but it’s not the worst position for her to be in.

Funny, I missed the PR this morning, from the Hillary camp, telling us how thrilled they are, going into New Hampshire in five days, from a third-place finish in Iowa.

And I didn't see Big Bill, on camera, extolling how coming in third-place in Iowa was the best strategic way for his wife to start off on getting the nomination.

It has been reported that Ms. Maddow has received a tryout from MSNBC (she's been appearing on the network with greater frequency the past few months), for a possible show, possibly replacing the He-Man, Tucker Carlson

If that is the case, please, someone at MSNBC, take away the HRC pom-poms before she goes on-air.

Kerry Lowers The Boom On Boone ... Or Just Another GOP Smokescreen?

If you need another sign on the sinking USS GOP, perhaps the dust-up the past few days will serve as an indicator that the big money red-hatters are lowering the lifeboats (and, perhaps, staying in character, pushing the woman and children aside).

With the sorriest slate of candidates this side of the new Pakistan government, Texas moneybags T. Boone Pickens had chosen to drag up an issue - FROM FOUR-YEARS AGO!

Pickens offered up $1-Million to anyone that could disprove any one of the malicious, smears of the John Kerry Swift Boat saga.

Soooo ... Kerry stepped up to take the challenge.

Now, the word is Pickens is picking up his marbles and backing out of the deal;

Swift Boat Funder T. Boone Pickens Renegs On John Kerry Million Dollar Offer

As Jane Hamsher, over at Firedoglake writes;

"In other words, Pickens was full of bravado when he made the offer in a keynote address in front of a bunch of friendly right wingers at an American Spectator dinner, but when Kerry took him up on it, he was a bit too cowardly to back it up ..."

Not sure all this passes the smell test.

With the GOP's front runner, their "best bet to beat Hillary" America's 911 Mayor, taking incoming fire from his Bernie Kerik backing and, now, Judith Reagan planning her own surge aimed at Ms. Rudy, this has a look of a classic GOP/RNC move to jump up-and-down, waving their arms, all but shouting "Over Here!" to divert attention away from their sinking campaign.

Or, maybe, this was just the opening ceremony for the GOP, to celebrate the 34th anniversary of Richard Nixon "not being a crook".

Note to MSM and Bloggers - Don't waste the ink or the bandwidth ... Move on (no pun intended)!

Stay in the weeds there, Mr. T. Boring Smearings

Jeff Gannon's Still Copying-and-Pasting!

Oh boy, here we go again ...

Hillary soliciting and taking fake questions has brought America's favorite fake journalist - Jeff Gannon - out of his cubicle (Hmmm, wonder if it's styled after Jimmy Olson, famous cub reporter, or if he goes for the edgier, disheveled look, ala Bernstein and Woodward from 'All The President's Men', or maybe the retro, art deco Cary Grant-His Girl Friday motif?).

Following the Bush Grindhouse's attempt to just bypass all pretense of formality and conduct their own press conference - with their own people posing as journalists (see "Wag The FEMA"), Mr. Gannon, much to our surprise, left a lengthy comment, which we recount in "Jeff Gannon Speaks ... To The Garlic!".

And, it was discovered, that Gannon, much to our chagrin, was merely spamming the comment on just about any blog or site that noted his status as a fake journalist.

He's Still Copying-and-Pasting!

This week, he's badgering Jon Perr, over on Perrspectives, using the same exact comment (if your linked challenged, it's merely a copy-and-paste of a post from his own website)

He hits Perr's post “Hillary's Planted Questions and George W. Bush, Master of Political Theater” with his annoying self-promotion, to which Perr counters back with “Jeff Gannon Selling Book, Himself in the Blogs?”.

Now Perr had the same reaction as The Garlic, wondering if this was the real Jeff Gannon, or a fake Jeff Gannon (which we run that out in the Jeff Gannon Speaks post).

Gannon - and, remember, he's a "real journalist" now - counters back with more self-promotion, basically regurgitating the self-promotion he initially copy-and-pasted, and fanning out his feathers in the process.

Perr has responded back, asking for, well, verification of his claims and we've yet to hear back from the boy reporter.

It's The Dollars ... It's Always The Fucking Dollars ...

Just out of curiosity, The Garlic wanted to get a sense of Jeff Gannon, and his ever-puffed-up claims of being a real, professional, accredited journalist.

So, we took a cue from The Decider/Commander/Shakespeare Guy and used "The Google".

Jeff Gannon certainly is a popular fellow.

Searching Jeff Gannon: Results 1 - 10 of about 308,000 for Jeff Gannon.

Okay, he had his 15-minutes of fame, so that doesn't seem to be out-of-line.

Searching Jeff Gannon + Journalist: Results 1 - 10 of about 64,800 for Jeff Gannon + Journalist

Hmmm ... Pretty big drop there

Searching Jeff Gannon + Professional Journalist: Results 1 - 10 of about 12,000 for Jeff Gannon + Professional Journalist.

Yikes! ...

Searching Jeff Gannon + Accredited Journalist: Results 1 - 10 of about 9,860 for Jeff Gannon + Accredited Journalist.

The floor is caving in ...

Now, admittedly, this isn't all that scientific, and we lay no claims that this is the definitive judgment on whether or not Jeff Gannon is a real or fake journalist.

However, the trend shines through;

The further Jeff Gannon moves away from his heritage of being a fake journalist, the less popular he becomes.

Here's The New Plan

So Jeff, if you really want to sell that new book of yours, I suppose the laborious process of spam commenting might move a few copies.

But if you embrace, and run with, the fake journalist angle, sky's the limit!

Take a cue from others.

Abbie Hoffman. Noted social and political activist (I realize your rightwing buddies would probably describe him as a radical).

He played into his public image and put out "Steal This Book".

You can tweak things a bit.

I'll give you the "America's Favorite Fake Reporter" to use ... Maybe have one of your old escort photos on the cover (any publisher will tell you, sex sells) ... Get some new testimonials for the dust jacket ... You know, the Faux News crowd, or, whoever it was that snuck you into the White House ...

Ari Fleischer is running a new propaganda unit, he may be able to prop you up again.

Instead of combing through Google, or Technorati, Memeorandum, et all, to see who's dissing you, so you can do your copy-and-paste thing, you make these changes and you won't have time for spam commenting, you'll be hitting the circuit, the toast of the town.

There's a brand new 15-minutes of fame spotlight waiting for you Jeff Gannon.

Can't you just see all those book-signing posters, heralding "Tuesday, 2PM - America's Favorite Fake Reporter", with a photo of your newly-designed (remember, sex sells) book cover?

And if you really hit it right, think Oprah, and think the dressing down she gave that other fake author.

Through the roof, baby! ... Through the roof!

America's Favorite Fake Reporter