Shakesville

Congratulations, ABC News

It's not just any news organization that can achieve such dizzying heights of spectacular smear-merchantry while slithering through the gutter.

Gee, I can hardly decide what part I like best, but I'm going to have to go with the disgraceful juxtaposition of the blaring headline definitively stating that "Hillary Was in White House on 'Stained Blue Dress' Day" and the muted subhead meekly noting the reviewed schedules "Show Hillary May Have Been in the White House When the Fateful Act Was Committed."

Well done. Truly.

Susie Madrak says, "In all my years in journalism, I've never seen anything quite as disgusting as this," while Brad Friedman notes, "A more shameful display of 'journalism', we don't believe we've ever seen."

Meanwhile, Lambert offers dryly: "Some people are of the opinion that misogyny has been pervasive in this campaign. How could they have gotten such a crazy idea?" Indeed.

UPDATE: I'd like to just quickly point out before my head explodes that "Hillary Clinton spent the night in the White House on the day her husband had oral sex with Monica Lewinsky, and may have actually been in the White House when it happened" serves absolutely no other purpose but to humiliate her.

This is not "news." This is not even in the same fucking galaxy as "news."

This is a hit piece. This is unrelentingly despicable.

And it doesn't matter whether you support Hillary or not; letting the media get away with this tactic against her only legitimizes and tacitly encourages it, which means they'll inevitably use it against everyone.

Top Chef Open Thread

Top Chef Open Thread

Chef Tom Colicchio will drink. your. milkshake!!!
He will also show you fun and interesting new things you can do with peppercorns and capers. Special things.

So?

Dick Cheney doesn't care what you think.

Transcript:

RADDATZ: Two-thirds of Americans say it's not worth fighting.

CHENEY: So.

RADDATZ: So? You don't care what the American people think?

CHENEY: No. I think you cannot be blown off course by the fluctuations in the public opinion polls. There has in fact been fundamental change and transformation and improvement for the better. That's a huge accomplishment.

Can't you just feel the warmth?

Caption This Photo

"My hand smells like poopy and Bengay."

By request, my thoughts...

Crossposted from AngryBlackBitch.com.

A certain Carrie wrote this bitch asking why I have not spoken out more about "fiery" rhetoric in the black church.

Well, since it looks like conservatives are tossing rocks wrapped in this topic despite their glass houses (can you say Hagee?), a rather timely one too.

Shall we?

A bitch grew up attending a rather conservative Missionary Baptist Church that was predominately black. We were big on social responsibility but not as heavy as some other churches on fiery rhetoric. Many a Sunday I listened to sermons that preached the Gospel and instructed members to give of themselves, try not to sin and build a forgiving heart. I also sat through several sermons that didn’t agree with. I remember asking my father how to handle that and him telling me that God gave us free will, pastors aren’t divine and part of being a Christian is developing a personal sense of faith.

When I grew up I became distant from the black church but did take a step back in during my 20’s. By then I lived in Dallas and attended another Missionary Baptist Church there where the sermons where equal parts social responsibility and fiery rhetoric. Once again I sat through some amazing services but I also sat through a lot of “oh, hell no…I don’t think so!” sermons that made me question my membership. The final straw came when a visiting Pastor spent over an hour blaming black women and our lack of faith for the dismal state of the black family in America. He went so far as to spend 30 minutes explaining that women need to submit to the will of men or we women will be offending God.

Cough.

Yeah well I never went back.

The thing is I miss church. I miss the music and the fellowship and the weekly reminders that we humans can and must do better by each other.

My father found his activist mission in the black church. Many a Civil Rights era person went to church for courage, strength and spiritual fuel. The Movement was often organized in the black church, Mamie Till confronted a nation with its injustice in a black church and one of the greatest tragedies of it took place at a church.

Mayhap that is why some seize this moment to attempt to humble the black church?

Blink.

I’ve worked hard to not blame Catholics for the words and actions of Archbishop Burke here in St. Louis. Some of the fiercest human rights activists I know are Sisters within the Catholic Church…many Catholics are pro-choice…and many a Catholic has openly allied themselves with the LGBT community despite the positions expressed by the Catholic Church.

See Carrie, I know that attending mass and blindly following the leadership of Archbishop Burke are two different things because I’ve been there (on a Protestant tip) sitting in a pew disagreeing with a lot of shit but also feeling my soul lifted up. Everyone has their own limits and needs…everyone must decide whether they still get something out of fellowship…everyone has that free will stuff (wink). All of that explains why every black person isn't a member of a "fiery" black church and every black person is not a Christian.

In all my years of attending black churches I gained far more than I disagreed with and I disagreed with plenty. Honestly, I gained the most from learning that I disagreed with certain things that I first heard sitting in a pew in a black church!

I hope that the same is true for the thousands of people who attended churches where Falwellian rhetoric is preached or the words of Pat Robertson were repeated as instruction.

As for the tone and volume of Rev. Wright’s sermon…well, you may want to go to a black church some time. That’s style and tradition, not some random freak out rage-based incident.

I’m confident that you will be made welcome, but your ass may fall asleep because black church services are not a one hour thing. And Gawd help you if you forgot to eat breakfast (wince)…

Five Years

Today is a day to be happy-go-lucky, like any other, for President Mondo Fucko.

[President Bush walks to the Oval Office of the White House in Washington, Wednesday, March 19, 2008, with, from left, Deputy National Security Adviser Jim Jeffrey and Deputy Secretary of State John Negroponte. (AP Photo/Gerald Herbert)]

Five years in, Bush says, "No one would argue that this war has not come at a high cost in lives and treasure, but those costs are necessary when we consider the cost of a strategic victory for our enemies in Iraq," and Cheney doesn't care that two-thirds of the American public no longer supports the war: "So? …I think you cannot be blown off course by the fluctuations in the public opinion polls."

What else is there to say? The warmongers have spoken.

And they don't care what we think.

Way to Go, US Treasury Dept!

(Click on the graphic for a larger version)
The National Security Archive has officially proclaimed the US Treasury as this year's winner of the coveted Rosemary Award.

The Rosemary Award, named after Nixon secretery Rose Mary Woods for her infamous "Rose Mary Stretch" that created the 18 minute gap in the Watergate tapes, is awarded to government agencies that really shine in the area of poor responsiveness to requests made under the Freedom of Information Act.

While the competition was fierce, the US Treasury really dug deep to produce a truly award-winning performance:

On one Archive request filed in 1997 about the Clinton administration’s certification of Mexican efforts against drug trafficking, Treasury:

(1) repeatedly asked the Archive (in 2001, 2004 and 2007) if we were still interested (Treasury has sent the Archive 74 such letters for 42 different requests in the past seven years),

(2) asked for another copy of the request since the original had been “destroyed,” (Treasury has asked for similar replacement letters for other Archive requests 42 times);

(3) finally closed the request without ever processing a document, claiming so much time had elapsed that the records had been retired to the National Archives (Treasury has asserted such claims in at least 10 of the Archive’s FOIA cases).

That's right! An astonishing ten years to not complete an information request! Now that, ladies and gentlemen, is what separates the winners from the losers.

Congratulations, US Treasury! You've done us proud!

[H/T to RawStory]

McCain is an Excellent Candidate and Will Make a Brilliant President

The Evidence:

1. McCain says, Monday night, on Hugh Hewitt's radio show: "As you know, there are al-Qaeda operatives that are taken back into Iran, given training as leaders, and they're moving back into Iraq." This is a Very Smart Statement by a Very Serious Foreign Policy Expert who Deserves to Be President, despite the one teensy negligible mistake of confusing Shia Muslims (Iran) with Sunni Muslims (al-Qaeda), who are actually on opposite sides of the civil conflict in Iraq.

2. McCain reiterates, Tuesday morning, in Jordan on a Very Serious Foreign Policy Tour, that Iranian operatives are "taking al-Qaeda into Iran, training them and sending them back" and insists it is "common knowledge and has been reported in the media that al-Qaeda is going back into Iran and receiving training and are coming back into Iraq from Iran, that's well known. And it's unfortunate." Again, a minor error, of no consequence, which certainly does not undermine his Very Serious Credentials as a Very Serious Foreign Policy Expert. I mean, it's like if he didn't know the difference between Democrats and Republicans. No biggie. His Best Friend Forever, Joe Lieberman, quickly set him straight in Jordan, anyway: "A few moments later, Sen. Joseph Lieberman, standing just behind McCain, stepped forward and whispered in the presidential candidate's ear. McCain then said: 'I'm sorry, the Iranians are training extremists, not al-Qaeda'."

3. The Very Awesome and Straight-Talking McCain Campaign assures Concerned Voters that the Senator's error was merely a slip o' the tongue: "In a press conference today, John McCain misspoke and immediately corrected himself by stating that Iran is in fact supporting radical Islamic extremists in Iraq, not Al Qaeda—as the transcript shows. Democrats have launched political attacks today because they know the American people have deep concerns about their candidates' judgment and readiness to lead as commander in chief."

4. Though Democrats noted they are, in fact, not concerned about their own candidates, but are concerned about the possibility of a full-tilt douchebag with sawdust for brains running the country, and though keen observers pointed out that McCain didn't so much "misspeak and immediately correct himself" as continually make the same mistake until his BFF Lieberman corrected him, the Very Awesome and Straight-Talking McCain Campaign has proved its mettle as a future Republican presidential administration by rewriting history and creating a new reality, which, as we know, is the foremost job of the leaders of empire.

In the summer of 2002…I had a meeting with a senior adviser to Bush. He expressed the White House's displeasure, and then he told me something that at the time I didn't fully comprehend—but which I now believe gets to the very heart of the Bush presidency.

The aide said that guys like me were ''in what we call the reality-based community,'' which he defined as people who ''believe that solutions emerge from your judicious study of discernible reality.'' I nodded and murmured something about enlightenment principles and empiricism. He cut me off. ''That's not the way the world really works anymore,'' he continued. ''We're an empire now, and when we act, we create our own reality. And while you're studying that reality—judiciously, as you will—we'll act again, creating other new realities, which you can study too, and that's how things will sort out. We're history's actors—and you, all of you, will be left to just study what we do.''

—From Ron Suskind's "Faith, Certainty and the Presidency of George W. Bush," October 17, 2004.

John McCain is a Very Serious Man, and he has very seriously learned the lessons of Good Leadership from George W. Bush.

As Expected...

Andrew Sullivan looks at his colleagues on the right wing for their reaction to the speech by Barack Obama.

For me, this is an epiphany of sorts. Not that I have changed my mind about the things I wrote in "The Conservative Soul." Not that I have stopped believing in limited government, individual freedom, personal responsibility, pragmatic change. But I have come to believe that large swathes of today's conservative movement truly are hateful.

[...]

To read the Corner today was to be reminded that some are immune to the grace and hope and civility that Reagan summoned at his best; the anger and bitterness is so palpably fueled by fear and racism it really does mark a moment of revelation to me.

To which I can only add: No shit, Sherlock. You're just now figuring this out?

Jonathan Martin at Politico reports that the GOP oppo research team is already on gearing up.

Just as with John Kerry and the Swift Boat Veterans for Truth in 2004, Republican strategists view the Wright flap as deeply damaging to Obama because it strikes at the message, or set of principles, at the heart of his candidacy.

In Obama’s case, the core of his appeal has been that he transcends race and is more inclined toward conciliation than combat.

“He wants the authentic black image but he also wants to keep all his safe, suburban Obamacans in line,” said Rick Wilson. “Well, you can’t have both – they’re mutually exclusive.”

“This is a guy who associates with some real haters,” he added.

Perhaps most damaging for Obama, his opponents now have the powerful video to make that case.

“It’s harder for people to say it’s taken out of context because these are Wright’s own words,” noted Chris LaCivita, the Republican strategist who helped craft the Swift Boat commercials against Kerry that employed the use of their target’s own language when he returned from Vietnam and returned his medals. “You let people draw their own conclusions.”

“You don’t have to say that he’s unpatriotic, you don’t question his patriotism,” he added. “Because I guaran-damn-tee you that with that footage you don’t have to say it.”

Asked if they would say it or even suggest it, a spokesman for John McCain indicated that the GOP candidate would not.

“There are profound differences on enormously important issues that will affect the future of the country,” said McCain adviser Steve Schmidt. “He’s said he intends to campaign on those issues.”

That makes it imperative that every time some right-wing nut job runs Rev. Wright up the flagpole, we pin it on the McCain campaign and demand that they explain their connection to these racist bastards. Every damn time. And it goes without saying that it should be done regardless of who the Democratic nominee is. Make them accountable.

(HT to TPM)

(Cross-posted.)

Happy Blogiversary...

...to Marcella at Abyss2Hope, celebrating two years of zigzag journeying as a rape survivor into the open, and helping not a few others along the way.

SEX SCANDALZ!!11111111111111111111111111111111

Hey assholes, it's Kenny Blogginz here. You know, I've been reading a lot of stories on the net about sex scandals lately. If there's one elected official in America who hasn't involved their genitals in some sort of zany shenanigans, I've yet to read about him or her. After a while, I started to get nervous. You see, Kenny Blogginz has done a lot of sexual things that he's not too proud of. There are some very large men with some very compromising photos of me in Paraguay, and I think it would be better for my image if I just came clean now, instead of waiting for the big MSNBC newsbreak. I'm going to write about some pretty disgusting, soul-shattering sexual deeds in this post, so if you're squeamish or a Christian, you may want to click over to trusted news source CNN.com and read about some fucking dog that can paint portraits or something. I just hope you can see past the crust of Anal Misdeeds to the shining light of the Writer's Word Cannon.

Okay. Deep breaths. I once paid a prominent Catholic Archbishop to dress up like Batman and insert a pickle jar into my anus. I'm not going to disclose this man's name, because he is one of the most upstanding, morally sound Americans I have ever met. He simply suffered a momentary lapse of judgment, when $3,500 sounded like a good price to fly all the way out to Portugal, dress like a superhero, and insert a very large, very dry glass jar into an 18 year old boy's then-virginal poop-chute. Look, the economy is in shambles right now, people. Shambles! Even the wage of an Archbishop wasn't enough to support his cocaine addiction.

Everyone remembers exactly where they were and what they were doing when they found out that terrorists had attacked American Soil on September 11th. My memory of that fateful morning is especially vivid, as I was locked in a janitor's closet with Chicago Alderwoman Nancy O'Herlihy, whom I had somehow convinced to shove a mop head down my throat, while I applied old fashioned clothes-pins to my nipples. That's right, Chicago Alderwoman Nancy O'Herlihy. I don't hesitate to reveal her involvement. She knows what she did. By "she", I of course am referring to Chicago's Democratic Alderwoman, Nancy O'Herlihy.

This is very painful for me to write about, but Mel Gibson was actually driving home from my apartment that fateful night when he got arrested for DUI. I had met Mel on Facebook, and we really hit it off. After a brief cyber-friendship, we agreed to meet in person. He showed up at my door dressed like his iconic character, William Wallace, from the major motion picture blockbuster Braveheart. We roleplayed for many hours, which mainly consisted of the legendary Scottish hero smacking my ass with the flat of his impressive 6 foot broadsword, and shouting quotes from Braveheart in his impeccable Scottish accent. The plastic tarps on my couch and carpet were covered in blue paint by the time we got done. Unfortunately, Mr. Gibson really overdid it with the bodyshots that night, and ended up saying some very regrettable things to Officer Valerie Sugartits.

I once paid Bob Saget $6,000 to smash my genitals in a very large, leather-bound copy of "Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance." He ended up shattering my left testicle, and I had to have Bobcat Goldthwait drive me to the emergency room.

Lastly, and most disturbingly, in 2005, Presidential hopeful John McCain hired me to insert 5,000 Marshmallow Peeps into his asshole. Look, the middle class has been under attack for a long time in America, and I was experiencing some financial difficulty. What, do you people think I have a money tree in my back yard that grows dollar bills all day long? You think I just have a Currency Ficus that can sprout hundreds of dollars whenever I want it to? You think I go out behind my cottage and water a small tree that sprouts legal tender? You think I can just go out with my wicker basket and pluck $500 just as quick as I please? I have bills to pay, people, and at times I've been forced to put Marshmallow Peeps in John McCain's elderly sphincter. I'm not proud of it.

There it is, Shakesville, laid out in black and white. I hope this doesn't diminish your opinions of me. I have moved on, and I hope you can too. Oh yeah, and one time I had Penn Gillette shit all over my chest.

Two-Minute Nostalgia Sublime

Butch Cassidy & the Sundance Kids

Head Like A Hole

Invading Iraq was worth it, according to President Mondo Fucko. No real surprise there, is it? No, not really. From day one he's told us he doesn't lose sleep over the chaos he's unleashed on the region. Wevs.

But here's the thing that gets me (from his upcoming speech at the Pentagon):

Out of such chaos in Iraq, the terrorist movement could emerge emboldened with new recruits ... new resources ... and an even greater determination to dominate the region and harm America. An emboldened al-Qaida with access to Iraq's oil resources could pursue its ambitions to acquire weapons of mass destruction to attack America and other free nations.

So, we invaded because Iraq was rife with weapons of mass destruction. And now, we can't leave because if we do, the place will be again teeming with weapons of mass destruction. Like the place is some magical vortex of WMDs, and only as long as the U.S. military continues its never-ending game of whack-a-mole will we be safe.

Wevs.

Question of the Day

What is your worst fear, if any, about the current economic situation?

Quote of the Day

"But no question there's been a over-supply of housing, and it's going to take time to work through this over-supply."—President Mondo Fucko, today in Jacksonville, FL.

Hey, I know some people who could help out with that over-supply—ya know, maybe keep up the properties and stuff, as long as no one else is living there and all.

Matthews Happy to Discover Racial Harmony (When a Black Person Agrees With Him)

King Wonderbread is pleased that black people behave as he expects them to:

Michelle Can't-Remember-Her-Last-Name: Overall, you know, it ranks right up there as one of the best speeches I've ever heard.

King Wonderbread: I'm so glad, because, as a white American, I'm so glad to hear African-Americans have the same emotional reaction to that speech.

And obviously all African-Americans have the same reaction as the one person to whom he's speaking, because, ya know, they're all the same, anyway. They iron out any differences at the meetings.

Perhaps next time Matthews and the civil rights hero O'Reilly get together, they can compare notes on how very much like white people black people can be!

RIP Arthur C. Clarke

Science fiction writer Arthur C Clarke has died aged 90, it was confirmed tonight.

The visionary author was most famous for his novel 2001: A Space Odyssey, and for his collaboration with director Stanley Kubrick on the film of the same name.

Clarke was the last surviving member of what was sometimes known as the "Big Three" of science fiction alongside Robert A. Heinlein and Isaac Asimov. (Link.)

Good innings.

That Seagull Could Have Made a Lot of Money from Disgruntled Liberals

A seagull flies overhead as President Bush delivers remarks while touring the Blount Island Marine Terminal in Jacksonville, Fla., Tuesday, March 18, 2008. (AP Photo/Gerald Herbert)

Next Thing You Know, She'll Say Al Gore Invented Teh Internetz!

I love this headline at the Wall Street Journal's Washington Wire:

Clinton Blames Economic Woes on Bush Administration
The nerve of her! Doesn't she know she's supposed to blame it on her husband, like all the Republicans do…?

Pall Street

What E. J. said:

Never do I want to hear again from my conservative friends about how brilliant capitalists are, how much they deserve their seven-figure salaries and how government should keep its hands off the private economy.

The Wall Street titans have turned into a bunch of welfare clients. They are desperate to be bailed out by government from their own incompetence, and from the deregulatory regime for which they lobbied so hard. They have lost "confidence" in each other, you see, because none of these oh-so-wise captains of the universe have any idea what kinds of devalued securities sit in one another's portfolios.

So they have stopped investing. The biggest, most respected investment firms threaten to come crashing down. You can't have that. It's just fine to make it harder for the average Joe to file for bankruptcy, as did that wretched bankruptcy bill passed by Congress in 2005 at the request of the credit card industry. But the big guys are "too big to fail," because they could bring us all down with them.

Enter the federal government, the institution to which the wealthy are not supposed to pay capital gains or inheritance taxes. Good God, you don't expect these people to trade in their BMWs for Saturns, do you?

[H/T to dday @ Digby's]