Shakesville

DeLay Apologizes (Or So the Headlines Would Have Us Believe)

This was the headline: DeLay apologizes for rhetoric in Schiavo case

Any of the following, however, would have been more accurate:

DeLay apologizes for inflammatory language; still advocates undermining judiciary

DeLay apologizes for tone of previous statement without changing position

DeLay apologizes for rhetoric appearing to threaten judges with violence; continues to threaten their jobs

DeLay backed into a corner; whimpers, then attacks

DeLay babbles incoherent non-apology; still a total douchebag

DeLay did express regret for saying, after the death of Schiavo, that the judges who refused to reinsert the brain-damaged woman's feeding tube would one day "answer for their behavior."

[…]

"I said something in an inartful way. I am sorry I said it that way," DeLay said.

He said he favors an independent judiciary but made it plain that he does not intend to give up congressional efforts to rein in "activist" judges.

"We've got jurisdiction over the courts. We set up the courts, and we can unset the courts," DeLay said. "We have the power of the purse."

So, in fact, DeLay was making an apology for the actual words he used, not for the underlying rhetoric—not for the Right’s continued attack on the judiciary.

And, regardless of the nature of his apology, isn’t the bigger (by a fucking long shot) issue in this story that the House Majority Leader continues to espouse the idea that the courts are meant to act at the behest of the legislature?

DeLay leads charge to permanently undermine system of checks and balances; electorate waves goodbye to democracy

How’s that for a headline?

Question of the Day: Election Reform Edition

A few days ago, I askd: if you could pass any three pieces of legislation, what would they be?, and election reform topped just about everybody's list. So today, a follow-up question for discussion: What election reforms are most needed?

Paper trails? Abolish the electoral college? Shorter campaign seasons? Further campaign finance reform? All of it?

Which are the most important, and why?

From the You’ve Gotta Be Shitting Me Files

Just when I think I’ve heard it all, Norbizness directs my attention to this little gem:

Tom Green County [Texas] commissioners have moved one step closer to building a 620-bed faith-based prison with the creation of the Concho Valley Community Facilities Corp.

That’s right. A faith-based prison. Technically, prisoners of every faith are allowed to sign their oath of faith to get transferred to this newfangled corrections facility, but it will be guided by Christian principles. And they promise, cross their hearts and hope to die, not to evangelize.

I can only imagine the marketing campaign that will be rolled out to advertise this opportunity to prisoners incarcerated at other prisons: Join a chain gang for Jesus! Yeesh.

Fun with Site Meter

Best search engine term to have brought someone to Shakespeare’s Sister in awhile: 2007+proctology+conference.

It’s pretty prescient, actually. By the time the GOP announces their candidates for ’08, I’ll be shining a light so far up each of their asses, it will certainly seem like a proctology conference around here.

Still the all-time record holder for best search term: rageaholics.

That Book Meme

I’ve been waiting endlessly to get tagged by The Book Meme, and feeling very left out indeed. And now I’ve been tagged twice in one day. Hoorah! (Thank you, Kiosan and Left Behind Child.)

You are stuck inside “Fahrenheit 451.” Which book would you be?

Am I a book to be burned, or a book to be memorized for posterity? It seems like most people have assumed the former, but since I’m a pedant, I’m going to answer both. (I now see that the Dark Wraith has done the same, and being already aware of our shared tendencies toward pedantry, I’m not surprised in the least.)

If I’m the former, then I’m going to be The Unbearable Lightness of Being, which always stands out in my mind as a particularly unenjoyable read, although I don’t really think I’ve ever read anything bad enough to warrant burning.

If I’m the latter, then I’m going to be Fahrenheit 451, to ensure future generations can enjoy this question in their own book memes.

Have you ever had a crush on a fictional character?

Oh, yes. Dicken from The Secret Garden was the first crush I ever had.

What is the last book you bought?

The Unthinkable Thoughts of Jacob Green by Joshua Braff, which was fantastic. I’ve also been given a whole bunch of books lately, that are all waiting on the kitchen counter in a big pile.

What are you currently reading?

The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time by Mark Haddon, which was recommended to me by Pierce and lent to me by my mom, Don’t Think of an Elephant! by George Lakoff, which was graciously given to me by Ms. Julien, and Love by Toni Morrison.

Five books you would take to a deserted island:

How can anyone choose just five?!

The Complete Works of Shakespeare. Duh.
A Tale of Two Cities by Charles Dickens.
The Catcher in the Rye by J.D. Salinger.
Geek Love by Katherine Dunn.
The Secret History by Donna Tartt.

There. That’s five. And I’m not going to think about it anymore, because otherwise I’ll keep making and remaking the list for the rest of my life.

Of course, if I knew I were going to a deserted island, I would probably take Robinson Crusoe, because I couldn’t resist.

And now for the passing of the meme…

This meme has been traveling for so long now that I’m worried I’ll choose someone who’s already been tagged. I’m trying to remember which bloggers I’ve read who have already done the book meme thing, and, well…please dear bloggers whom I am about to tag, don’t be offended if you’ve already posted on it.

Gordon at The Alternate Brain, who’d better include at least one weird book about bikes, and who I chose because he’s always funny, always interesting, and is required to prove he’s not been kidnapped, since there’s been no Alternate Brain fix for me in two whole days.

Missouri Mule at BlondeSense, because when she writes about horses, it makes me think of books I loved as a child, like Black Beauty.

Paul at Adventures of the Smart Patrol, who’s out of town until tomorrow (according to his blog), so he can consider this his dubious welcome home, and who I’ve chosen mainly because his taste in movies is so weird (which I mean most complimentarily) that I can’t wait to see his reading list.

Big Bully

Rush Limbaugh, bloviating in his usual manner on his show yesterday, took on Al Gore’s new youth cable channel, Current, which Gore described as not liberal, meaning that it won’t exclude conservative viewpoints. But since each younger generation tends to lean more liberal than the one before, identifying it as not liberal is kinda not totally true, except by a strictly political definition, which I think is what Rush was maybe attempting to address, but, as usual, he just ends up being a big, lying, pervy idiot:

When does he start up this stupid little network? August? Yip yip yip yahoo. You know what Gore said about this? It's going to be liberal. It's going to reflect the point of view of young people.

What the hell is that, Al? What the hell is the point of view of young people? Blow jobs, that's what they're doing out there. They're out there getting oral sex all day long, that's what they're talking about. That's the point of view they can't wait that your boss, Al, made sure that's become the number one sport in high school today. So, I guess you're going to have a BJ network out there, Al, is that what you're going to do? You're going to call your network the oral sex channel out there, start competing with MTV?

No, it's not going to have any of this stuff out there, folks, it's going to be talking about liberalism, no, no, no, that's not what we're about. Classic cannot even admit who he is.

I’m in the 18-34-year-old demographic at which Current is targeted, and I wish Rush were right about what I do “all day long,” but, unfortunately, I spend my time talking about what a pot ’o crap he is.

See, Rush could have made the point that even though Current won’t be overtly advocating a progressive agenda, it may well be “liberal” in the sense that polling indicates its target audience holds more liberal views on many social issues than their elders, so will, by virtue of its demographics, seem intrinsically liberal to some older viewers. And that would have been a fair point.

But Rush doesn’t make fair points. He probably doesn’t even care about that making that point at all, except that it provides a convenient launching pad for his real agenda, which is to bully Gore and Current into doing everything they can to look “not liberal.” It’s the same tactic the Right has been using against the media for years, with charges of liberal bias, cowing them to the point where they give inordinate amounts of time to conservative fringe figures like James Dobson in an effort to look “not liberal,” that Pat Buchanan has started to seem like a damn moderate by comparison.

Truly giving equal time to the spectrum of viewpoints on a political show covering, let’s say, the Terri Schiavo case, and accurately reflecting public sentiment, would have looked like this:

87% of time allotted to those in favor of removing her feeding tube
13% of time allotted to those against removing her feeding tube.

Instead, the news coverage probably approximated a mirror image of those figures. In fact, if people supporting Michael Schiavo (and likely Terri Schiavo) were even given 13% of the airtime on this issue, I’d be rather surprised.

I genuinely hope that Current will not fall victim to the bullying of this inveterate blowhard and all his idiotic on-air compatriots, who are sure to soon follow suit. In the meantime, Atrios suggests in regards to Rush:

Contact the FCC. Demand they apply their standards of decency. Make sure to include your local station call sign and the time of the broadcast.

Good idea. There are few more indecent things in this world than hearing a douchebag like Rush Limbaugh talking about blowjobs. He’s likely to turn us all off oral indefinitely with that kind of stuff. Blech.

I'm All Worked Up, Uh-Huh

Oh, I love this (via the Daou Report—emphasis mine):

Over the years, media owners and editors have come up with different explanations for the lack of left or progressive voices across the media landscape. We're told those ideas are unpopular with the public, for example, or that leftists aren't as engaging or likeable as, say, Sean Hannity.

The new CNN President Jonathan Klein offered another theory during an appearance on PBS's Charlie Rose Show on March 25: Progressives aren't angry enough. When Rose asked if there could ever be a successful progressive version of Fox News Channel, Klein thought not. He explained that while Fox was tapping into a brand of "mostly angry white men" conservatism, "a quote/unquote, 'progressive' or liberal network probably couldn't reach the same sort of an audience, because liberals tend to like to sample a lot of opinions. They pride themselves on that. And you know, they don't get too worked up about anything. And they're pretty morally relativistic. And so, you know, they allow for a lot of that stuff."

First of all, let’s get the easy one out of the way. Morally relativistic? I’ve got three words for you, Mr. Klein: Culture of Life. It isn’t the Left in this country that’s morally relativistic. Here’s my moral code: my rights end where yours begin. It’s flexible, as to accommodate multiple parties, but it is not relative.

As for the assertion that progressives don’t “get too worked up about anything,” well, Mr. Klein—you need look no further than this blog to find evidence contradicting that faulty assumption. I am worked up, sir. I am worked up about what’s being done to my country, to our democracy, to our elections, to our system of checks and balances, to our reputation with our allies, to our national security. I am worked up about the hypocrisy of this administration, who seek to exploit the social conservatism of the voters their corporatist policies will most disadvantage in the not-so-long run. I am worked up about the erosion of women’s rights and the denial of the rights of gays and lesbians. I am worked up about the attack on our judiciary. I am worked up about a lot of shit, and so are the people who visit my blog, and so are my follow Lefty bloggers. We are the definition of worked up, and we’re going to stay that way as long as is necessary.

The difference between the allegedly engaging and likeable Sean Hannity and me is, aside from a significant variance in head girth, that Hannity has to make shit up about which to be outraged, to keep his fans—the GOP base—panting and foaming at the mouth every day, despite their ideological leaders having complete control over two branches of government and ergo having little fodder from the crippled opposition with which to stir their ire, whereas there’s plenty of real news for me to be angry about every damn day, which doesn’t require my deliberately misconstruing, disingenuously decontextualizing, or outright lying about my opposition’s positions.

Give me a show, Mr. Klein, and I’ll be happy to prove to you that there are plenty of progressives who get worked up—and manage to do it without the moral relativism or shady bullshit upon which the Fox Schmooze Channel depends.

If you’d like to contact Mr. Klein and suggest he put his finest production team to work developing the Shakespeare’s Sister Show ASAP, or just to tell him he’s a plonker, you can find him here:

CNN President
Jonathan Klein
Phone: (404) 827-1500

Prick.

Wednesday Blogwhorin'

Your chance to link to your blog, other blogs, stories of interest, fun stuff, etc. What's going on?

Question of the Day: Part Two

Do you have a poem you wrote that you’d like to share? If so, this is the place. Don’t be shy!

Morning

Morning greets me starkly
With a ray across my face.
The streaming of the eastern light
Gives life unto this space.
What others see as beauty
Is a thought I do not share,
For as I reach into the day,
I find you are not there.

The memory of your very skin
Lives upon my fingers.
I turn my face into the sheets
And find your scent still lingers.
I cry out for your presence,
Shattering the calm.
I wish my hand upon your chest,
Your heart beneath my palm.

Mourning doves begin to cry
As another day is born,
And in your ringing absence,
I now know why they mourn.
Although I feel my breath release
And enter into me,
How can it be I am alive
If you’re not here to see?

Come to me and hold me,
Arrange me as you will;
Let me feel your presence
Saturate this sunrise still.
Until you are beside me,
And never have to leave,
Each morning I will lie in light,
And with the doves will grieve.

Question of the Day: Part One

April is National Poetry Month, so today's question is: what is your favorite poem?

You are encouraged to leave, in addition to title/author, the poem itself in comments, if you'd like.

I am, admittedly, hard-pressed to choose just one favorite. Topping the list are Shakespeare’s Venus and Adonis, Edgar Allen Poe’s The Raven, W.H. Auden’s The Shield of Achilles, Dylan Thomas’ Do Not Go Gentle Into That Good Night, the collected sonnets of Elizabeth Barrett Browning, Ernest Lawrence Thayer’s Casey at the Bat, Robert Frost’s The Road Not Taken, many of which are too long to share here, or likely already familiar. So I’ll just share one I really like, though it’s probably not technically my favorite.

Hope Is a Tattered Flag
Carl Sandburg

Hope is a tattered flag and a dream of time.
Hope is a heartspun word, the rainbow, the shadblow in white
The evening star inviolable over the coal mines,
The shimmer of northern lights across a bitter winter night,
The blue hills beyond the smoke of the steel works,
The birds who go on singing to their mates in peace, war, peace,
The ten-cent crocus bulb blooming in a used-car salesroom,
The horseshoe over the door, the luckpiece in the pocket,
The kiss and the comforting laugh and resolve—
Hope is an echo, hope ties itself yonder, yonder.
The spring grass showing itself where least expected,
The rolling fluff of white clouds on a changeable sky,
The broadcast of strings from Japan, bells from Moscow,
Of the voice of the prime minister of Sweden carried
Across the sea in behalf of a world family of nations
And children singing chorals of the Christ child
And Bach being broadcast from Bethlehem, Pennsylvania
And tall skyscrapers practically empty of tenants
And the hands of strong men groping for handholds
And the Salvation Army singing God loves us…

No Place Like Home

Since buying a house last August, it’s been nothing but DIY projects coming out our collective wazoo. First, it was the removal of bazillions of yards of wallpaper, with which the former owner was apparently pathologically in love. The kitchen, for example, was papered with three different patterns—one on the bottom half of the wall, one of the top half of the wall, and a border strip dividing the two in the middle. Getting rid of this wallpaper was an abject nightmare. We scored it, we DIFed it, we steamed it, we scraped it—and still it came off in tiny strip after miniscule shred, tearing the underlying walls apart in the process, which led to the next project: rebuilding the walls.

Mr. Shakes also laid hardwood floors on the first floor, nailing in each board by hand, because hiring a nail gun cost $50 a day, which adds up quickly when you’re only doing it bit by bit every night after work. By the end, he had nailed in over 1,800 nails…and had very manly calluses to prove it.

After that, it was painting. And painting. And painting. I discovered that the green we chose for the kitchen determinedly left its color behind for an unseemly amount of time when I undressed for a mammogram the morning after a night of painting (and a subsequent shower) only to have my doctor react with alarm to “this strange discoloration.”

“Oh. Heh heh. We were painting. That’s the color of our kitchen.”

“Oh. Nice color.”

Tonight, Mr. Shakes removed from the main (living/dining) room a hideous chandelier, which looked like a refugee from Cruella DeVille’s Boutique of Atrocious Light Fixtures. He’s currently attempting to rewire our replacement, which my mom fortuitously won in a silent auction and generously gave us, and came packed in Chinese newspapers, complete with funny pages and recipes for what I can only guess are delicious dishes.

We’re finally beginning to see the light at the end of the tunnel. Though the bedrooms still need work (including more painting) and the downstairs bathroom looks like a tornado hit it, leaving behind strips of moisture-proof wallpaper still stubbornly clinging to the walls in spite of our best efforts to detach them, it’s really beginning to look like home. Our home.

Reaching the place when you walk in your front door and feel like you’re where you’re supposed to be is a momentous occasion for any homeowner, I imagine. For Mr. Shakes and me, it is a reminder that the dreadful, distressing days of being apart, separated by 4,000 miles and mountains of red tape, are really, finally over.

This past weekend, one of my dearest friends, Miller, whom I love more than words can express, came to visit, and brought with her a new friend, whom we had never met. At dinner, we were compelled to retell the story of our meeting, which remains, endearingly, one of Miller’s favorite stories. She remembered things that both of us had forgotten—like the time that Mr. Shakes mailed me a pack of cigarettes, with one half-smoked, accompanied by a note saying at least we could still share a fag—and we recalled our creative ways of spending time together over the miles, when we’d both put on Star Wars at the same time, and watch it “together” over the phone. It was nice to remember those things, and I recollect them fondly. But I’m glad that time is behind us. I’ll take the aggravation of home improvement over the emptiness of longing to be together any day of the week.

Mr. Shakes just came in to get me so I could see the new light, all wired up and ready to go. It looks lovely, casting a cozy glow in our little house.

I like this time in our life together. We are on the same shores, in the same place; we are home.

Oh, DeLay—You Scamp

Sometimes you just don’t know whether to laugh or put your fist through the wall.

House Majority Leader Tom DeLay, hoping to hold support among fellow Republicans, urged GOP senators Tuesday to blame Democrats if asked about his ethics controversy and accused the news media of twisting supportive comments so they sounded like criticism.

Officials said DeLay recommended that senators respond to questions by saying Democrats have no agenda other than partisanship, and are attacking him to prevent Republicans from accomplishing their legislative program. One Republican said the Texan referred to a "mammoth operation" funded by Democratic supporters and designed to destroy him as a symbol of the Republican majority.

[…]

One senior Republican spoke sympathetically of DeLay after the closed-door meeting.

"I hope he survives, and I hope he will stay in there and do his job," said Sen. Trent Lott, R-Miss.

"The power of prayer is the only thing that will sustain you" in the circumstance DeLay is in, Lott added, and he spoke disparagingly of any Republicans who fail to stand by the Texan.

It’s totally obscene that a man who was forced to step down for making hateful, racist remarks would be waxing rhapsodic about using the power of prayer in talking about a peer who is facing a similar fate for ethical violations. These two are really a matched set of nincompoops. Meanwhile, not to get too technical on you, Lottie, but prayer isn’t meant to be used to request deliverance through troubled waters into which one willingly dumped oneself. And something tells me that, since the game plan is to shift blame onto the Democrats, the prayers of which he speaks aren’t of the asking-for-forgiveness-to-find-redemption type. That would, of course, necessitate admitting wrongdoing, instead of disingenuously trying to project responsibility for your sins onto others.

DeLay has consistently denied any violation of either law or House rules.

His private remarks to Senate Republicans were in keeping with the response frequently offered on his behalf by House Republicans: Blame the Democrats and occasionally the news media for the scrutiny he faces. House Republicans intend to follow the script later in the week, hoping to showcase passage of bankruptcy legislation and estate tax repeal as a counterpoint to Democratic charges that they are merely power-hungry.

No, not merely power-hungry, of course not. The bankruptcy legislation and estate tax repeal clearly indicate that are greedy, money-hungry classists, too.

More Good News in Illinois

One of the most undervalued professions in this country is the child care worker, much like the underpaid and overworked teachers that educate America’s children, but usually without the same recognition for their often thankless role in children’s lives. Child care workers are in ever greater demand as fewer households have the luxury of a stay-at-home parent, and in what is fast becoming one of the nation’s most enviably progressive states, Illinois, they have finally won a decade-long struggle to join a union.

This is an important labor story, and also an important story for women, who compose the vast majority of child care providers. It’s worth noting that this is also an important story for women because, even in two-parent households, the responsibility of finding child- and or eldercare is usually a woman’s. Working alongside women who adeptly, if exhaustingly, juggle their careers, mothering, and caring for an ailing parent, has been the rule in my experience, rather than the exception. And one of their gravest concerns is locating a care provider that they trust. It’s no easy task, but once found, such dedicated people are a priceless resource, yet the turnover is such fields is incredibly high:

Childcare matters. Working parents depend on home child care providers to go to work and attend school. The quality of early care and education has a life-long impact on children’s emotional, psychological and intellectual development.

Low wages and lack of health care benefits for Illinois home-based child care providers result in up to 44% turnover among early childhood educators. The most an exempt provider can earn in a month is $615, and in a year, $7,340 before expenses. This wage level results in many leaving the child care field. Each time a child must start with a new child care provider, it negatively impacts their development in the critical years.

Children are best served under the care of a consistent provider. Extended periods of time spent in the care of the same caregiver directly correlates with increased cognitive development and school readiness.

Ultimately, making sure our care providers are well taken care of means that our children are well taken care of, too.

For a firsthand account of this long and hard-won victory in Illinois, I highly recommend reading this piece by Angenita Tanner, a Chicago childcare provider who was one of the first state home child care providers to declare her support for joining the Service Employees International Union nearly 10 years ago.

The daughter of a Local 880 Childcare Provider takes a break while accompanying her mom to lobby for raises for Providers in Springfield, Illinois.
This story was brought to my attention by Anders Schneiderman of the SEIU, who notes:

This is part of a broader fight to give the women and men who take care of our children and our grandparents—the people who make up what some have called the "economy of care"—a real voice in how our society treats them and the people they take care of.

Many of us have had a care provider, whether a relative or a family friend or a paid professional, who has left an indelible mark on us. Recently, Bitch PhD wrote a wonderful post on her “other mom,” which is a moving reminder of the effect such a person can have on our lives. Recognizing the depth and importance of what care providers do, both for us as individuals and for our society, is not only long overdue, but is, as Schneiderman suggests, a vital part of defining our nation as a place where the care of the weakest among us is a laudable pursuit.

Huh

My Unitarian Jihad Name is: Sibling Shuriken of Reasoned Discussion.

The sibling bit is pretty prescient, but I know a couple of people who might disagree with the “reasoned discussion” bit.

Via Sister Cattle Prod of Reasoned Discussion. We must be from the same tribe. Good company, that.

Remedial Math, Perhaps?

More hurricane-related collusion between D.C. and Florida care of FEMA (emphasis mine):

Florida officially recorded 123 fatalities from last year's hurricanes, but the federal government has paid funeral expenses for at least 315 deaths, including those of a man who shot himself and a stroke victim hospitalized more than a week before the last storm hit.

In one case, a Federal Emergency Management Agency worker tried unsuccessfully to persuade a coroner to count among the hurricane casualties a "morbidly obese" heart patient who purportedly was "scared to death."

"If you were to call around to all the medical examiner offices, people would say, `No way did we have as many deaths as FEMA is saying,'" said Dr. Stephen Nelson, head of Florida's Medical Examiners Commission. "It's just an incredible number -- a difference of 192. This is the Free Funeral Payment Act."

The discrepancy is even greater because the families of some victims counted as storm casualties by the medical examiner said they received no help from FEMA, the South Florida Sun-Sentinel found in its continuing investigation of hurricane aid.

FEMA officials declined requests for an interview, instead releasing a statement: "FEMA is in Florida to help the victims of the worst series of hurricane disasters in over 100 years, including helping those families who have suffered the loss of loved
ones to this disaster."

Where have I heard before the claim that supporting victims of a terrible tragedy drapes one in a cloak of immunity from criticism?

Oh. Right.

In Palm Beach County, where FEMA paid 39 funeral claims from hurricanes Frances and Jeanne, the medical examiner recorded a total of eight storm-related deaths, the biggest gap in the state.

"I don't know where [FEMA] came up with those numbers," said Dr. Michael Bell, the county's medical examiner. Applicants are "probably inflating it so they get more money."

In Miami-Dade County, where FEMA's payment for a funeral last fall fueled suspicions of fraud, the agency has since approved four more funerals from Frances. The Labor Day weekend storm made landfall 100 miles to the north, and the county medical examiner recorded no Frances-related deaths.

The entire story is worth your time to read; it’s quite interesting to see exactly where the money went…and where it didn’t.

Regular readers will also recall that I posted just a couple of weeks ago on another story (also in the Sun-Sentinel) tracing FEMA’s role in funneling federal funds to Florida just before the election, using hurricane relief as the cover.

I’m sure, as with the former story, it’s just a coincidence that a federal agency exploited a natural disaster just before the election to give undeserved payments to the constituents of a hotly contested swing state which just happens to be governed by the president’s brother.

Bolton

Does anyone having even the most remote association with this administration have a mind of his or her own? Are they all such inveterate whores that they will toe the party line irrespective of what said line commands of them, even if they look like unmitigated knobends for contradicting their own previous statements? Or are they all robots programmed rather unimaginatively by Karl Rove?

The newest bleating loyalist to prove his mettle as an undeterrable Bush-fellator is UN nominee and alleged hardass John Bolton, whose testimony during his nomination hearing was shocking only in the fact that it excluded his jumping to his feet, dropping his drawers, and demanding to be immediately and brutally buggered by every conservative in the room.

BOLTON: The administration has submitted the Law of the Sea Treaty as one of its priorities, and I support that.
SARBANES: Simply because it’s an administration position, or does that represent your own view of it?
BOLTON: Well, I haven’t personally read the Law of the Sea Treaty. I don’t think I’ve ever read it, to be honest with you.

[…]

BOLTON: I’m not a golfer, but I think the metaphor is You have to play it as it lays. And I know what the president’s policy is and I’m prepared to follow it.

[…]

BOLTON: The administration’s position has been to support Taiwan becoming an observer in the WHO.
SARBANES: Is that your position?
BOLTON: Yes, I support that position.
SARBANES: I thought you supported them being a member?
BOLTON: As I said before, when I wrote as a private citizen during the 1990s, that’s what I said. And when I wrote it then, I understood it. The president has made his policy on this very clear and I support his policy.

All of which roughly translates to:

SARBANES: Could you explain to us why you believe you deserve this nomination, no less an appointment, to an organization which you’ve spent much of your career mocking and criticizing and deeming useless?

BOLTON: The administration told me that I should change my position on the UN if I didn’t want Karl Rove to distribute the photos of me giving moustache rides to Japanese schoolgirls, and I support that decision.

SARBANES: Does the term Orwellian mean anything to you?

BOLTON: I’m not really what you’d call a reader, per se, although I can definitely identify it as a word, which likely has some sort of meaning that I can infer from your tone is probably not flattering if used in association with my nomination. But I’m prepared to follow the president’s policy on not knowing the definition of big words.

SARBANES: Do you have any sense of irony, sir?

BOLTON: Baaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa.

RIP Dr. Jeanne Petrek

Dr. Jeanne Petrek, 57, has died after being struck by an ambulance whose driver was blinded by the sun and failed to yield (the ambulance was not on emergency run).

A surgeon and researcher at Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center in NYC, Dr. Petrek directly or indirectly touched the lives of millions of women stricken with breast cancer.

Petrek, the surgical director at the Evelyn H. Lauder Breast Center on E. 64th St., had nearly 200 published articles and was one of the nation's most sought-after speakers on breast cancer.

A high-energy, no-nonsense surgeon, Petrek, of Bronxville, Westchester County, was spearheading an innovative, 10-year federally funded study of premature menopause in breast cancer survivors. She became one of the first doctors to take an interest in cancer patients' long-term quality of life - now a hot research topic.

"She was interested in it way before it was popular to talk about," said Lindsay Beck, founder of New York's patient advocacy group Fertile Hope.

For any of us who will at some time have to face difficult decisions between quantity and quality of life, the choices we must make will be ever that much easier because of Dr. Petrek’s contributions to facilitating that dialogue between doctors and patients.

Don’t Forget Poland!

Oops. Go ahead and forget them after all. They’re officially pulling out of Iraq (the entirety of their 1,700-strong contingent of soldiers) by the end of the year.

So where, exactly, does that leave Bush’s stellar Coalition of the Willing? Well, Poland was the fourth highest coalition contributor with their 1,700 troops, behind Italy’s 3,200, who will also be gone by the end of the year, South Korea’s 3,600, and Britain’s 12, 500 (which is soon to be reduced by 2,000). Every other country remaining in the coalition is contributing fewer troops than we’ve lost.

Get Offensive

SpongeDob Pissypants is at it again:

On his April 11 radio broadcast, Focus on the Family founder James Dobson continued his tirade against what he has termed "judicial tyranny." With Mark Levin, author of Men In Black: How the Supreme Court Is Destroying America (foreword by Rush Limbaugh), as his guest, Dobson likened Supreme Court justices to the Ku Klux Klan:

DOBSON: I heard a minister the other day talking about the great injustice and evil of the men in white robes, the Ku Klux Klan, that roamed the country in the South, and they did great wrong to civil rights and to morality. And now we have black-robed men, and that's what you're talking about.

This comes mere days after a Washington state senator, Sen. Alex Deccio, R-Yakima, equated stem cell research with the Holocaust and the Sudanese genocide in Africa.

The stronger, more vocal, and more visible guys like this get, and the more media attention they receive, the more of them come crawling out from under the scum-drenched rocks from which their likes are spawned. They’re achieving an ominous level of legitimacy. Note that the recent gathering in Washington of conservative leaders to discuss the "Remedies to Judicial Tyranny" included not just loopy fringe figures, but

two House members; aides to two senators; representatives from the Family Research Council and Concerned Women for America; conservative activists Alan Keyes and Morton C. Blackwell; the lawyer for Terri Schiavo's parents; Alabama's "Ten Commandments" judge, Roy Moore…

And Tom DeLay was scheduled to attend, but canceled to hoof it over to Italy for Popeapalooza.

Do you ever get the feeling that our biggest weakness on the Left is not our inability to communicate a coherent message, representatives who are reluctant to fairly reflect our views, media bias, or any of the other fair and candid truths leveled as accusations by our opponents and frequently found as complaints among our own ranks, but instead our refusal to engage in the orchestrated takedown of nutjobs like Dobson, regardless of how incredibly bad they are for their devotees, the national discourse, and ultimately, our country?

Endlessly on they blather, on their own radio shows in thousand dollar suits, not on street corners, festooned with sandwich boards covered in nonsensical, incoherent scribbled gibberish, where they used to be found and where they belong still.

We really need stop playing defense, and get our offense in shape already.

Feingold: It’s Over Before It Even Began

If you were hoping to be wearing a Feingold pin in ’08 and helping your man make a move from Wisconsin to D.C., I’m afraid I’m the bearer of some bad news: Feingold’s presidential hopes are over.

U.S. Sen. Russ Feingold, viewed as a possible candidate for president in 2008, said Monday that he is getting a divorce.

Feingold and his wife, Mary, issued a joint statement through the Democrat's Senate office saying they have decided to end their 14-year marriage.

"We are separating amicably, and intend to remain very good friends," the statement said.

The marriage was the second for both, who live in Middleton. Feingold, 52, has two daughters from his first marriage, Mary Feingold has two sons from hers.

I wish this weren’t the case, but a twice-divorced single guy has a snowball’s chance in hell of becoming president of the United States. Even if we libs, who don’t bother about such things, made him our nominee, he’d get slaughtered.

It’s too bad. He was at the top of my ’08 list.