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 Possibilities
10/31/05 08:08:57
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Gilliard’s got a point:
Libby has to think about how loyal he’s been and how quickly the GOP has turned on him. They so much as announced that he no longer counts on the Sunday chat shows.
Look, 43’s father pardoned the Iran-Contra gang on December 24, 1992 - nice symbolism, and a great way to screw the press by forcing them to work on a holiday. Two great tastes that go great together! But the important issue is that the pardon came down in the time period between Bush’s loss to Clinton and the inaugural. In other words, during a political dead zone where he and his administration literally had nothing to lose. With 3 more years left for W, a pardon isn’t looking likely. Not to mention the fact that I don’t think W could give a damn about Scooter’s problems. He’s Cheney’s man after all.
Oh, and if you want to ask someone about the GOP’s loyalty, Linda Tripp’s available. The woman who was lauded as a right wing hero, the woman who helped bring down the detested Bill Clinton, is working in a gift shop in Middleburg. OK, so she got an extreme makeover, but the cushy sinecures never came. And why is that? Because who the hell wants an untrustworthy and disloyal person on their staff? Hell, Rupert Murdoch should have thrown a few bucks her way, considering that she was one of the reasons Fox’s ratings took off. But no.
Sorry Scooter. Things are looking pretty grim for you.
Dc Media Girl Permalink
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At least someone’s asking
10/30/05 18:30:48
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John Aravosis brings up a point so important yet so obvious that it bears repeating:
Tell me again WHY this man (Karl Rove) still has a codeword (we assume) security clearance? I had one of those clearances and I can tell you that were I ever under investigation for leaking the name of a CIA agent, there’s a snowball’s chance in hell that I’ve have been allowed to keep my clearances, let alone continue having access to some of the most highly classified intelligence in this country. It is simply outrageous that during wartime the Bush administration has such a lax attitude toward state secrets.
Excellent question. Anyone got an answer?
Dc Media Girl Permalink
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The paranoid style
10/30/05 13:36:12
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So I signed up for Times Select, and boy, am I ever glad I did! Who’d want to miss out on the stylings of David Brooks?
Fitzgerald may have pointed out that this case is not about supporting or opposing the war; it’s about possible perjury and obstruction of justice. But the Senate Democratic leader Harry Reid immediately ran out with some amorphous argument intended to show that this indictment indeed is all about the war. Ted Kennedy, likening Fitzgerald’s findings to Watergate, insisted, "This is far more than an indictment of an individual," before casting his net far and wide. And Howard Dean, who doesn’t fly off the handle but lives off it, grandly asserted that Fitzgerald’s findings indicate that "a group of senior White House officials" ignored the rule of law.
The question is, why are these people so compulsively overheated? One of the president’s top advisers is indicted on serious charges. Why are they incapable of leaving it at that? Why do they have to slather on wild, unsupported charges that do little more than make them look unhinged?
He goes on to quote from Richard Hofstadter’s essay The Paranoid Style in American Politics. While this is all very interesting, I think that if Bobo was looking for a scarily unhinged group to scrutinize, he’d be better off staying closer to home and checking out members of his own party, who accused Bill Clinton of, among other things, mass murder, drug dealing, rape, impregnating a black prostitute, treason, and, of course, murdering Vince Foster.
Dc Media Girl Permalink
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Which is it?
10/30/05 13:09:46
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Cliff May, a man respected by Wolf Blitzer, among others, has posted this bit of wisdom over at the Corner:
Imagine if, immediately after the criticism of the “16 words” in Bush’s State of the Union, the administration’s response had not been, in essence: “Oh, gosh, golly, gee, we’re so sorry, those words shouldn’t have been included, it was a big mistake.”
Imagine if the response had been instead: “The President cited British intelligence which continues to believe Saddam Hussein sought uranium in Africa. We believe our British friends know what they are talking about.”
Then Wilson would have happily leaked details – both true and false – of his secret mission to Africa and he would written his op-ed. Administration officials would -- and should-- have been responded by saying: “Joe Wilson believes that the 8 days he spent at a hotel in Niamey, sipping mint tea with government officials, provided him with more information and insight than British intelligence has gathered over the past few years. He’s entitled to his opinion. We don’t share it.”
And if the administration had wanted to play hard-ball it might have added: “We regret that the CIA had no one on staff available to undertake this sort of investigation.”
They would have refrained from adding: “No doubt all the CIA staffers were too busy writing tell-all books criticizing the president.”
"He’s entitled to his opinion. We don’t share it" could be the slogan of this administration, where fact and opinion are interchangeable, depending on who’s doing the listening (much like Fox "News" Channel).
Here’s the problem. If you believe, as the administration clearly does, that the CIA was actively undermining the administration’s plans to go to war by poo-pooing the extent of Saddam’s nuclear program, then you have to believe that the Agency was actively aiding and abetting the development and proliferation of WMD by an unstable Middle Eastern dictator. Therefore, you have to believe that the CIA hates America and was using stooges like those loudmouths Larry Johnson, Pat Lang, Richard Clarke and others to advance their cunning plan. And what a plan it was! Counteracting the influence of forged documents and incorrect information with the truth! The bastards.
On the other hand, you’d also have to accept that the CIA was so inept that they couldn’t find their collective ass with both hands and a flashlight, thereby necessitating the hiring of that prick Joe Wilson to get to the bottom of the Niger mystery, which he totally screwed up by discovering that, contrary to the faith-based theories driving the U.S. to war, there was no "there" there. The bastard.
Well played, CIA. Very well played indeed.
Dc Media Girl Permalink
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The spin cycle gains speed
10/30/05 12:03:20
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A while ago I wrote about my accursed insomnia, which I’m sad to report hasn’t abated. And yes, I’ve tried warm baths and such, but my condition is so pronounced I’m afraid the only solution can be found in a bottle, preferably industrial strength. Either that or a blow on the head. Anyway, my sleeplessness has resulted in another charming ailment: vertigo. So you’d think I’d be smart and avoid stepping into the whirl of the right wing spin zone post-indictments.
But no. Like Neo, I’ve insisted on swallowing the pill that catapults me into the real world. Should have stayed in the Matrix. But remember, people, I do this for YOU.
First off, some mind-numbing logic from, where else, Fox "News" Channel by way of the show "Bulls and Bears":
Charles Payne, CEO of Wall Street Strategies, was asked during Saturday’s show (October 29, 2005) by host Brenda Butner if Friday’s stock market rally after only Libby, and not Bush chief of staff Karl Rove, was indicted meant that the worst is over for the White House and that big things are ahead for Wall Street.
Payne: "Absolutely. I mean this is incredible news. Rove is probably more popular than Bush. You know, if Bush was indicted, the market would have gone down less than if Rove was indicted. But obviously the market embraced the news. It was fantastic. Also, coming on the heels of Harriet Miers, we can’t leave that out. Bush has a chance to go back and do what he should have did the first time. This was a huge week for him. Perhaps the biggest week for him snce the election. Remember, the election started last year’s 4th quarter rally. This could be the same type of thing."
Not to be outdone, "comedian" Ben Stein made these fascinating observations on Cavuto’s show:
"This whole business about Rove and Libby is a political vendetta. The Democrats have a very hard time winning elections nowadays so they turn to the courts and the media to try to pursue their agenda and try to subvert the election. I don’t think any of it is going to have much of an effect on the stock market. The stock market, as I like to say, is about earnings and future earnings and interest rates and none of that is affected one bit by Scooter Libby being indicted. ... It’s a great tragedy for the nation when politics comes into the courtroom like this," Stein said.
Host Neil Cavuto did manage to point out that the prosecutor in the case, Patrick Fitzgerald, is a Republican. But Stein responded, "They always choose a Republican to indict Republicans." He said the case was criminalizing the defense of the president’s stand on the Iraq War.
Meanwhile, over at Ankle Grabbing Pundits, the indictments were met with an "is that all you’ve got" bit of bravado:
Scooter Libby has been indicted on five counts of perjury and obstruction of justice. That sounds bad, but compared to what White House insiders had feared, it’s really no big deal. Libby has resigned.
The indictments do not play into Joe Wilson’s outsized ego as the “leaking the name of an undercover agent” isn’t covered under the indictment. Simply put, there was no crime there. Just a lot of leftist shouting and Joe Wilson’s sixteenth, seventeenth and eighteenth minutes of fame. He can go away now.
Even more important, there seems to be no indication that the prosecutor’s office is interested in perusing this silly idea of a “cover up” to mask the “real” motives for invading Iraq. That was yet another liberal dream.
I’d advise my counterparts on the right to hold off on their "move along, there’s nothing to see here" approach to this story. Fitzgerald has not promised he’s packing up and going home just yet. Libby’s criminal lawyer will sit Scooter down and demand an astronomical retainer. In the weeks and months to come, the meter will keep running. It’s possible that to avoid financial ruin and a trip to the big house, Libby will have to tell the truth for once and start squealing about the details of who knew what and when, which could lead to even more trouble for a wider circle of people at 1600.
Then again, there’s always the possibility of a last minute pardon a la Iran-Contra, which is a theory I was hearing bandied about by some Republicans in D.C. the night before Fitzgerald’s presser.
We’ll see.
Dc Media Girl Permalink
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From the ridiculous to the even more ridiculous
10/29/05 22:27:04
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Unbelievable:
Poison guitarist C.C. DeVille was sentenced to 80 days in jail after pleading no contest to driving while intoxicated...
The 43-year-old rocker known for his over-the-top antics hit a parked vehicle Aug. 24 while he was backing out of the driveway of his girlfriend’s home, prosecutors said. He allegedly rammed another parked car, deploying his vehicle’s air bags and injuring his girlfriend.
How much of a retard would you have to be to get arrested for DWI while backing out of a driveway?
Or maybe this is a publicity stunt for the new season of The Surreal Life 6. Hey, Paris Hilton’s porno did wonders for the launch of her awful show. In C.C.’s case, what else could he do to get attention? Light himself on fire? Let’s face it, 80 days in jail equals dozens of dollars worth of publicity!
Dc Media Girl Permalink
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Saturday panda blogging
10/29/05 19:06:00
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Our zoo has been bogarting little Tai Shan, so I’m forced to post an image of the San Diego Zoo’s little girl. She’s mighty cute....
Dc Media Girl Permalink
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Uh, just hold on there
10/29/05 19:01:43
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From WaPo:
With yesterday’s indictment of Vice President Cheney’s top aide, President Bush’s administration has become a textbook example of what can go wrong in a second term. Along with ineffectiveness, overreaching, intraparty rebellion, plunging public confidence and plain bad luck, scandal has now touched the highest levels of the White House staff.
See, the thing is the Plame outing happened in 2003, during the first term. And according to Fitzie, had witnesses (cough cough Judy Miller cough cough) been more cooperative, this thing could have been wrapped up last year before the election. I’m just sayin’:
FITZGERALD: Let me just say this: No one wanted to have a dispute with the New York Times or anyone else. We can’t talk generally about witnesses. There’s much said in the public record.... I would have wished nothing better that, when the subpoenas were issued in August 2004, witnesses testified then, and we would have been here in October 2004 instead of October 2005. No one would have went to jail.
Dc Media Girl Permalink
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Good news in the lefty blogosphere
10/29/05 18:45:34
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I’d been meaning to comment on Arthur Silber’s return to blogging. By all means give his new site a whirl.
I was concerned and frightened when Arthur pulled down his former site, and knew that he was going through a rough financial and professional patch. I’m delighted to see he’s back and in fine writing fettle.
First off, I’d like to encourage each and every one of you to leave some money in Arthur’s tip jar, as I will when I get my next paycheck. A talent as brilliant as his needs to be nurtured, not just in pageviews but with cold hard cash. Writing is a grossly underappreciated skill; it’s a miracle that someone with Jim Wolcott’s talent is actually employed by a reputable organization and, more importantly, is compensated to do what he does. Most places that allegedly commit journalism have nothing but contempt for writers, and compensate them accordingly; for instance, I remember one writing job I had in radio that paid $13 an hour - and which required that the person occupying that position join a union for the privilege of getting massively cheated.
So it’s great that nowadays that talent can be showcased in so many different places on the Web. What’s bad is that many have taken the attitude that blogging, particularly on the left, is a kind of mendicant order where the poverty of the practitioners is a sign of virtue.
Bullshit.
No bucks, no leftie blogs. Show your love and appreciation, not just to Arthur but to all the blogs that inform you, make you laugh and create a community.
Hello, Arthur. It’s so nice to have you back where you belong.
Dc Media Girl Permalink
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More excitement out of DC
10/29/05 18:22:40
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Don’t think that just because today was all Libby Libby Libby on the label label label that nothing else happened in Washington this week. For one thing, former DC Mayor/perpetual drama magnet Marion Barry pleaded guilty to "knowingly and willfully" failing to file D.C. and federal tax returns for, oh, a while. WaPo responded with a typically tepid tsk-tsking editorial:
The D.C. Council, as the city’s legislature, has a reputation to uphold. A lawmaker who is found guilty of breaking the law dishonors himself and the institution to which he belongs. That point seems lost on Mr. Barry, who apparently has a hard time staying out of court. But it is conduct that is not lost on the city’s youth. And that aspect of Mr. Barry’s conduct may be the saddest consequence of all.
Zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz...whoops, sorry, I dozed off there. Where was I? Ah, of course. He didn’t think of "the children", the bastard. Then again, when has Marion Barry ever thought of anyone but himself?
Speaking of kids, it looks like American University’s students’ push to rid themselves of their very own Baby Doc and Michele Duvalier succeeded beyond their wildest dreams:
The Senate Finance Committee has asked for every document related to ousted American University president Benjamin Ladner’s severance package and compensation and for the board’s plans for an audit of all 11 years of his tenure.
Yikes, the big boys are stepping in! Subpoenas for everybody!
But seriously, I’m very impressed that AU’s students haven’t taken over the administration building or torched the campus by now. The school had just recovered from the shame of being led by a perv. Then the presidents came and went in rapid succession. Over the past decade, a greedy, shameless goniff has been propped up and enabled by a spinless board of trustees, all of whom should be pink slipped for allowing this fiasco to continue for so long, subsidized by students’ tuition dollars.
Seriously, AU students, I’m amazed at your restraint.
Dc Media Girl Permalink
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There’s a new spin in town
10/29/05 18:02:20
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So far, the talking points (Fitgerald is a partisan/the charges are "technicalities"/he didn’t indict on the leaking/Valerie Plame was not a covert agent/anyone married to Joe Wilson was asking for it) haven’t really taken hold, so the folks to our right are getting a tad desperate. Witness the latest desperate attempt by our old pal Assrocket:
Having now read fifteen or twenty news stories about what a devastating blow the Lewis Libby indictment was to the administration, about how President Bush is "reeling" and the administration is "in turmoil," even "in crisis," and how Libby was a key and irreplaceable figure in the administration, whose departure is a serious blow because he played such a vital role, I couldn’t help wondering: does anyone remember who Al Gore’s chief of staff was when he was vice-president?
My guess is that the large majority of people who read these stories are asking themselves, "Scooter who?"
Hilarious.
Dc Media Girl Permalink
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This is the day when things fall into place
10/28/05 21:30:31
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It’s not often I can quote from The The in a post, so when I get the chance I jump all over it, much like this adorably frisky bulldog in the pumpkin patch.
So that’s it. Scooter is indicted on 5 counts, and contrary to Kay Bailey Hutchison’s blather, they’re not "mere technicalities". When, for the first time in 130 years, a White House official is indicted, I’d say that’s pretty goddamned serious stuff. Oh sure, the wingers are trying to spin, but the spin is weak. Very weak. Just wait until more and more former spooks start showing up on television to discuss the damage done by these clowns, not to Valerie Plame, but to national security. This little escapade at 1600 cost the CIA more than Brewster-Jennings. It cost them valuable assets carefully cultivated wherever the front company’s operatives did business. It blew all the resources the CIA put into training and maintaining their covert agents’ covers. I imagine that training the agents and creating their legends didn’t come cheap, and to be honest with you I don’t appreciate my tax dollars being flushed down the commode just to satisfy the runaway resentments of the current inhabitants of the Old EOB. And on a more practical political note, is this the sort of image Republicans actually want to cultivate? Do they really want to abandon their claim on being the "daddy party", the "grownups", the strongmen who are tough on terrah, and be painted as a bunch of cheap shot artists who are willing to betray the intelligence community to take revenge on their critics? Because quite frankly I don’t see that as a winning message.
Think about it. Fitzgerald’s presser coupled with some of the better press reports has painted one of the most damning pictures of any White House since Nixon darkened the Oval. The image was of an out-of-control, deeply embittered cabal of men seeking revenge on the guy who blew the whistle on their Iraq lies. Their blind hatred of Joe Wilson and determination to destroy him led them to engage in this reckless behavior, which transcends mere political gamesmanship and hardball. Why, if they’d been right about the threat Iraq posed to the rest of the world, or about that country’s nuclear program and its quest for yellocake in Niger, there would have been no need to engage in this sort of chicanery. Valerie Plame’s real occupation would be known to her husband and colleagues, not to every Tom, Dick and Harry on the planet. And when Scooter and the gang found themselves cornerd, unable to argue the facts, they went for the jugular.
I had to laugh when I heard Terry Holt on Fox "News" today trying to make chicken salad out of chicken shit. When you hear a right wing operative resorting to the "but the Democrats don’t have any answers..all they want to do is criticize...but they don’t have any solutions....", I can’t keep a straight face. Uh, no Terry, YOU guys control the government. YOU created this problem. Fix it yourself. And by the way, the Democrats do have a solution. It’s called "cleaning house". Look it up.
Remember that these charges are very serious, as were the acts that necessitated this investigation. There’s a lot of carrying on about Fitzmas and whatnot, but I’m not happy today. I’m saddened and sickened that people like Scooter Libby have been allowed to run roughshod for the past several years and that this sort of sleazy, sickening behavior was condoned at the White House. I used to have a better sense of humor about the rough and tumble of politics; after all, picking fights with Michelle Malkin and mocking the phallic action trio at Powerline is good sport. But this stuff is not funny. Today was a sad reminder of how far some went to further the war in Iraq, and how much collateral damage they were willing to create in the process.
And any post about today’s historic events must include a few words about Patrick Fitzgerald. They (and you know who they are) have tried to paint him as an out of control partisan and Lord knows what else. He clearly doesn’t give a shit, which I totally respect. Compare this prosecutor to the odious Ken Starr, if you can stand to think back to that dark time. Fitz is a professional; Starr was a partisan hack. Fitz ran a watertight ship; Starr’s operation leaked like a sieve, including illegal leaks out of the grand jury. Starr was a phony baloney hymn-singing hatchet man; Fitz is the opposite of a media whore (what would that be? A media nun? Suggestions welcome). One ran a professional, discrete investigation with total class, the other a disgraceful travesty. Then again, one was investigating serious matters, the other was looking into blow jobs and stained dresses. I know whose side I’d rather be on, thanks very much.
Dc Media Girl Permalink
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Pins and needles
10/27/05 07:36:47
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I don’t want you to think I’ve lost interest in blogging or Plame or anything else. I’m just keeping my powder dry, waiting for shoes to drop, and compiling lists of cliches to explain my absence. Trust me, I have plenty on my mind.
DC is a place where rumor spreads very quickly. I remember the early days of the Lewinsky mess in 1998 when the host of a show I was working on excitedly passed on the news during a staff meeting that he’d been given the exclusive information that Clinton was about to resign, possibly before State of the Union. It turned out his source, who also happened to be his personal lawyer, worked for Starr and was disseminating the same information to every reporter in town. Sam Donaldson actually went to air with it.
So if you don’t mind, I prefer to wait until something happens, announcements are made and the furious spin begins. More later.
Dc Media Girl Permalink
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Yikes
10/24/05 21:22:21
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Whoops:
I. Lewis Libby Jr., Vice President Dick Cheney’s chief of staff, first learned about the C.I.A. officer at the heart of the leak investigation in a conversation with Mr. Cheney weeks before her identity became public in 2003, lawyers involved in the case said Monday.
Notes of the previously undisclosed conversation between Mr. Libby and Mr. Cheney on June 12, 2003, appear to differ from Mr. Libby’s testimony to a federal grand jury that he initially learned about the C.I.A. officer, Valerie Wilson, from journalists, the lawyers said.
The notes, taken by Mr. Libby during the conversation, for the first time place Mr. Cheney in the middle of an effort by the White House to learn about Ms. Wilson’s husband, Joseph C. Wilson IV, who was questioning the administration’s handling of intelligence about Iraq’s nuclear program to justify the war.
Lawyers said the notes show that Mr. Cheney knew that Ms. Wilson worked at the C.I.A. more than a month before her identity was made public and her undercover status was disclosed in a syndicated column by Robert D. Novak on July 14, 2003.
Dc Media Girl Permalink
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A man called Scooter
10/22/05 16:50:53
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Jim Wolcott is back with a fantastic analysis of the trials and tribulations of keeping your manly mojo working while answering to the name "Scooter". Go there now.
Dc Media Girl Permalink
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Judy: The gift that keeps on giving
10/22/05 10:07:59
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There’s a lot to unpack in Bill Keller’s quasi-demi-mea culpa. Consider:
I wish we had dealt with the controversy over our coverage of WMD as soon as I became executive editor. At the time, we thought we had compelling reasons for kicking the issue down the road. The paper had just been through a major trauma, the Jayson Blair episode, and needed to regain its equilibrium. It felt somehow unsavory to begin a tenure by attacking our predecessors. I was trying to get my arms around a huge new job, appoint my team, get the paper fully back to normal, and I feared the WMD issue could become a crippling distraction.
Based on this last sentence alone, Keller needs to go. Immediately. An executive at a newspaper whose aversion to confrontation leads him to characterize grotesquely incorrect information printed in his extremely influential newspaper, information which is passed on to and bylined by not a journalist but by an enthusiastic stenograper-slash-cheerleader, in this flippant way, needs to walk away.
But wait! There’s more:
I wish that when I learned Judy Miller had been subpoenaed as a witness in the leak investigation, I had sat her down for a thorough debriefing, and followed up with some reporting of my own.
When I read this sentence I nearly fell out of my chair. You mean to tell me that a Pulitzer Prize winning reporter and the newsroom’s star pony is called to testify in a highly-publicized case and her boss doesn’t sit her down to chat beforehand? Shocking. Seriously.
And then:
Until Fitzgerald came after her, I didn’t know that Judy had been one of the reporters on the receiving end of the anti-Wilson whisper campaign. I should have wondered why I was learning this from the special counsel, a year after the fact. (In November of 2003 Phil Taubman tried to ascertain whether any of our correspondents had been offered similar leaks. As we reported last Sunday, Judy seems to have misled Phil Taubman about the extent of her involvement.) This alone should have been enough to make me probe deeper....
..if I had known the details of Judy’s entanglement with Libby, I’d have been more careful in how the paper articulated its defense and perhaps more willing than I had been to support efforts aimed at exploring compromises.
How great is the use of the word "entanglement" in this graf? A word so loaded with possible alternative meanings.
Ask not for whom the bell tolls, Judy. You’re done.
Kurtz has this intriguing and puzzling information to offer today:
Miller’s refusal to be interviewed by the Times until about 24 hours before the paper’s deadline for the Sunday paper meant, as the New York Observer has reported, that about 250,000 copies were printed without the 6,000-word news story.
Bennett said he forcefully argued against Miller’s accompanying first-person piece about her dealings with Libby because "it could affect the criminal prosecution" of senior administration officials who may have outed Plame as working for the CIA as part of a campaign against her husband, a White House critic. Such an article also "would antagonize the prosecutor, Mr. Fitzgerald," Bennett said."At one point Judy agreed to do what I recommended. But she was under tremendous pressure by the New York Times to write the story" as a condition of her employment.
While Keller and Abramson argued that the Times had a responsibility to level with its readers once Miller was no longer in legal jeopardy, Bennett contended that the waiver from Libby and agreement with Fitzgerald applied only to Miller’s grand jury testimony and not to telling the world about her private conversations with Cheney’s top aide. If revealing everything to readers "were the trumping principle," Bennett said, "you shouldn’t respect confidential sources." It is not illegal, however, for grand jury witnesses to discuss their testimony.
I ask you, why would Judy’s lawyer insist that publishing her first-person account of her dealings with Libby would "affect the criminal prosecution" of senior administration officials? One would think that her grand jury testimony, if truthful, would have done the job quite effectively, if a criminal act were to be revealed. After all, wouldn’t her account in the Times merely be a wrapup of what she’d already said under oath? And why would such an article "antagonize the prosecutor", if she were merely recounting her testimony? And if there were any legal repercussions that could negatively impact the Times, don’t you think the paper’s lawyers would have put the kebosh on such a piece being published?
And for a report on what Times insiders are thinking, go over to Gilliard’s place and check out his analysis of the Dowd column.
Also, please note Dowd’s comparison of Judy to Becky Sharp. For those of you whose memory of William Thackeray’s main character in his classic work Vanity Fair is a little rusty, here’s a refresher:
None of the novel’s characters is more memorable than Becky Sharp, one of Victorian literature’s most remarkable creations. While Thackeray’s narrator takes pains to expose Becky’s subterfuges and to insinuate sexual immorality and even murder, we cannot help but admire her intelligence and élan. Alone among the novel’s major characters, she is not content to live out the life she was born into—that of a governess. Lacking money and family, she uses the only tools at her disposal, sex and cunning, to seek advancement in the world. Her success in gaining entrée to society’s most exclusive circles, despite the hostility of her husband’s family and a chronic lack of cash, is a testament to Becky’s audacity and brilliance, her ultimate downfall notwithstanding.
Ouch.
Dc Media Girl Permalink
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Friday panda blogging
10/21/05 17:34:46
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The cub, born on July 9, now weighs 14.1 pounds and is 27.1 inches long, and reacted to the needle prick with a sharp, loud bark.
Who wouldn’t? Poor little guy.
Dc Media Girl Permalink
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Richard Cohen redux
10/21/05 16:25:45
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I have to say that monitoring Richard Cohen’s "columns" is becoming more frustrating, maddening and confusing by the day.Consider his latest offering:
A very long time ago, I had a friend who had a girlfriend who became pregnant and did not want the child. By then my friend had disappeared and the young woman was alone -- she was in fact from Germany -- and asked me to arrange an abortion for her. With little thought, I did so. She went home to Germany and I never saw her again.
I would do things a bit differently now. I would give the matter much more thought. I no longer see abortion as directly related to sexual freedom or feminism, and I no longer see it strictly as a matter of personal privacy, either. It entails questions about life -- maybe more so at the end of the process than at the beginning, but life nonetheless.
What have we learned from the opening grafs?
-- That the very sensitive issue of abortion is actually about, you guessed it, Richard Cohen
-- That a woman’s painful decision to terminate her pregnancy has nothing to do with autonomy, equal rights or privacy
-- Oh, and that Richard Cohen’s friend is a jackass
So if asked to do the same thing today, Richard Cohen would look past the fact of a scared, abandoned pregnant woman in a land not her own and instead "give the matter more thought". What, pray tell, would he think about? How this poor girl’s unwanted pregnancy affected him, Richard Cohen? Whether Roe v. Wade was written properly? The intrusion of the evil feds on state’s rights? Actually, yes, that’s exactly what’s been on his mind. Read the rest of the column. Because really, who’s better qualified to determine a woman’s right to make one of the most private an important decisions of her life than a bunch of used car salesmen elected to the state legislature?
Oh, and just in case you’re left with the opinion that Richard is a pompous, self-riteous, selfish bastard, he writes:
The prospect of some women traveling long distances to secure an abortion does not cheer me -- I’m pro-choice, I repeat -- but it would relieve us all from having to defend a Supreme Court decision whose reasoning has not held up.
Thanks for that.
Dc Media Girl Permalink
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Ladies and gentlemen, Mr. Tom DeLay
10/20/05 21:05:12
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From CNN:
Rep. Tom DeLay, the former House majority leader who faces conspiracy and money laundering charges, turned himself in Thursday in Houston, one day after an arrest warrant was issued for him.
DeLay walked into the bonding department of the Harris County Sheriff’s Office shortly after noon and was fingerprinted, photographed and released after posting $10,000 bond, sheriff’s spokeswoman Lisa Martinez said.
Dc Media Girl Permalink
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Media roundup
10/18/05 21:52:16
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From the Department of Pots and Kettles:
Fox "News" criticizes ABC News for selecting Martin Bashir to form part of Nightline’s anchor trio:
Congratulations, David Westin. You’ve replaced serious, competent, respected Ted Koppel with the oily, obsequious Martin Bashir on "Nightline." My only question is, was Jerry Springer not available?
This from the network that employs Bill "Falafel" O’Reilly, perjurer Oliver North, and serial fantasist and toe sucking egomaniac Dick Morris. Wallow in the ironies, if you dare.
And speaking of O’Reilly, all that fame appears to be taking its toll. He tells Newsday:
As O’Reilly puts it, here are the facts: There are death threats. He has to hire bodyguards. He can’t check into hotels with his family. People on the street with cell phones are stealth paparazzi, capable of snagging a picture one minute, then posting it on the Web the next. He adds that during the past year he’s had to "even get more stuff to make it more difficult for people to get through the wire. Who wants to live like that?"
You’re right, Bill. No one should have to live like that. One word: Retire.
And honestly, how can a grotesquely inflated salary make up for all that abuse from mean people on the Internets?
Gauging the animus against O’Reilly has always been a rough art, but by his own estimation "it’s gotten worse. Now it’s so bad that I spend an enormous amount of money protecting myself against evil."
Joseph Minton, you are my hero, you evil, wonderful agitator.
Next, thanks to Larry Johnson, comes this tidbit:
Had lunch today with a person who has a direct tie to one of the folks facing indictment in the Plame affair. There are 22 files that Fitzgerald is looking at for potential indictment . These include Stephen Hadley, Karl Rove, Lewis Libby, Dick Cheney, and Mary Matalin (there are others of course). Hadley has told friends he expects to be indicted. No wonder folks are nervous at the White House.
And finally, the idiotic Richard Cohen coughs up this huffy little swipe:
A clarification: A number of readers, some of them formerly of the CIA, got the impression from my last column that I don’t consider the outing of a covert employee a serious matter. I do.
Fascinating, since in his last column he wrote:
The best thing Patrick Fitzgerald could do for his country is get out of Washington, return to Chicago and prosecute some real criminals. As it is, all he has done so far is send Judith Miller of the New York Times to jail and repeatedly haul this or that administration high official before a grand jury, investigating a crime that probably wasn’t one in the first place but that now, as is often the case, might have metastasized into some sort of coverup -- but, again, of nothing much. Go home, Pat....
So it set out to impeach Wilson’s credibility, purportedly answering the important question of who had sent him to Africa in the first place: his wife. This was a clear case of nepotism, the leakers just as clearly implied.
...
Whatever the case, I pray Fitzgerald is not going to reach for an indictment or, after so much tumult, merely fold his tent, not telling us, among other things, whether Miller is the martyr to a free press that I and others believe she is or whether, as some lefty critics hiss, she’s a double-dealing grandstander, in the manner of some of her accusers.
More is at stake here than bringing down Karl Rove or some other White House apparatchik, or even settling some score with Miller, who is sometimes accused of taking this nation to war in Iraq all by herself. The greater issue is control of information. If anything good comes out of the Iraq war, it has to be a realization that bad things can happen to good people when the administration -- any administration -- is in sole control of knowledge and those who know the truth are afraid to speak up. This -- this creepy silence -- will be the consequence of dusting off rarely used statutes to still the tongues of leakers and intimidate the press in its pursuit of truth, fame and choice restaurant tables. Apres Miller comes moi .
Never mind that as Larry Johnson and others have pointed out ad naseum, VALERIE PLAME DID NOT SEND JOSEPH WILSON TO NIGER, YOU BUMBLING FUCKWIT. Never mind that THIS IS NOT A LEAK INQUIRY. IT’S AN INVESTIGATION INTO A CRIME THAT PUT NATIONAL SECURITY IN JEOPARDY AND BURNED A WHOLE SLEW OF COVERT AGENTS AND THEIR SOURCES. This is NOT a first amendment test case. This is a case of a cadre of people who gave greater priority to political expediency,self-preservation, utter malice and manic adherence to Iraq talking points than to protecting intelligence agents and assets.
But I digress.
The point is that if some readers were left with the impression that Cohen was making light of the Fitzgerald investigation, well, let’s just say that it’s not difficult to understand how they may have arrived at that conclusion.
Dc Media Girl Permalink
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Tai Shan it is
10/18/05 21:37:47
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So it’s official: the little fellow at the National Zoo now has a name, Tai Shan, which translated from the Chinese means "peaceful mountain". The downside? The PR geniuses at the Zoo decided the naming ceremony should feature Chinese dragons and martial artists, but not the panda itself. Brilliant.
Dc Media Girl Permalink
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Technical difficulty
10/16/05 00:12:29
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So my big project for the day was to switch cell phone carriers from T-Mobile to Verizon, since the latter is the only company that provides a signal on the Metro. This point is tremendously important to DCMediaboy, who lives in fear of two things: An attack on the subway while he’s riding on it, and his inability to contact anyone to let them know that said attack has taken place or to call me, because he can’t get a signal. Mock this if you will, but switching cell carriers is worth it if it means peace of mind for him. Not to mention that I remember riding the Metro on September 11, hoping and praying that train service wouldn’t be interrupted and that Metro’s employees would keep the riders abreast of what was going on. So having a device that keeps you in contact with decisionmakers aboveground makes a lot of sense, particularly when you work in D.C.
The problem, though, is that when you switch carriers you have to buy all new phones, for reasons I still can’t quite understand. So I decided to splurge and buy myself a Treo.
Now, while the gadget is mighty cool, getting it to work is easier said than done.
Does anyone know how to use one of these things? I can’t get the device to hot sync with my address book and I’m having trouble with e-mail. Let me know if you can help.
Dc Media Girl Permalink
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Harriet Miers, ladies and gentlemen
10/15/05 23:57:03
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Yes, she actually wrote these words:
"I am respectful of both of your great many time commitments and I realize you receive many, many requests...Of course, I would be very pleased if either of you is able to participate. However, I will be pleased with your judgment about whether participating in this event fits your schedule whatever your decision. . . . I feel honored even to be able to extend this invitation to such extraordinary people."
"Hopefully Jenna and Barbara recognize that their parents are ’cool’ -- as do the rest of us. . . . All I hear is how great you and Laura are doing. . . . Keep up all the great work. Texas is blessed!"
"More and more, the intractable problems in our society have one answer: broad-based intolerance of unacceptable conditions and a commitment by many to fix problems."
Dc Media Girl Permalink
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Lots of catching up and housekeeping to do
10/15/05 23:22:13
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Don’t miss my man Driftglass’s recent postings on the Internets. Love you my friend.
Dc Media Girl Permalink
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Clooney, Clooney, Clooney!
10/15/05 23:20:51
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Our man George Clooney kept it real during a Charlie Rose appearance the other night:
"(Ann Coulter) did something to me which I would never do to her, which is question her masculinity."
Dc Media Girl Permalink
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More stupidity from Richard Cohen
10/15/05 23:06:44
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It looks as though Richard Cohen has drunk the same Kool-Aid that made Bob Somerby go a little wacky over at the Daily Howler. There’s simply no other explanation for this absurd, preposterous column. It’s obvious that Somerby has a hardon for Joseph Wilson; why the dashing former ambassador makes Bob lose his mind with rage is anyone’s guess, and to be honest I couldn’t care less what his problem with Wilson is. But Cohen? I think he’s just a tool. He’s been phoning those crappy "columns" in lately.
Many others have had a go at Cohen’s latest contribution to the public discourse, including Larry Johnson and Steve Gilliard. Enjoy reading their exceptionally well-written responses to Cohen’s exceptionally idiotic piece.
As for what I have to say, well, on the one hand Cohen’s always been a fool and a blowhard, and he seems to be getting worse as he gets older (although he’s writing fewer columns in which he channels the spirit of his Borscht Belt joke-spouting father, thank God). The point here, though, is that Cohen has hit one out of the park, stupidity-wise:
Wilson made his case in a New York Times op-ed piece. This rocked the administration, which was already fighting to retain its credibility in the face of mounting and irrefutable evidence that the case it had made for war in Iraq -- weapons of mass destruction, above all -- was a fiction. So it set out to impeach Wilson’s credibility, purportedly answering the important question of who had sent him to Africa in the first place: his wife. This was a clear case of nepotism, the leakers just as clearly implied.
Not nice, but it was what Washington does day in and day out.
Uh, no, this is NOT a case of leaking merely to destroy. The person(s) who leaked Valerie Plame’s identity also jeopardized the identities of her colleagues and their informants. Years and years of carefully developed networks are finished. That’s why leaking the identity of a covert agent is a crime, Richard. This is not a leak inquiry, you bloody fool. It’s a criminal investigation.
This is rarely considered a crime.
Except when it is.
In the Plame case, it might technically be one, but it was not the intent of anyone to out a CIA agent and have her assassinated (which happened once) but to assassinate the character of her husband.
First off, you know the leaker’s intent how, exactly? Secondly, the motivation for the leak is totally irrelevant. The identity of a covert agent was revealed. Period.
I have no idea what Fitzgerald will do. My own diligent efforts to find out anything have come to naught.
That’s because Fitgerald, unlike the sieve-like Ken Starr, is a professional. Oh, and don’t rule out the possibility that you’re a crappy reporter, Richard.
Whatever the case, I pray Fitzgerald is not going to reach for an indictment or, after so much tumult, merely fold his tent, not telling us, among other things, whether Miller is the martyr to a free press that I and others believe she is or whether, as some lefty critics hiss, she’s a double-dealing grandstander, in the manner of some of her accusers.
No comment.
More is at stake here than bringing down Karl Rove or some other White House apparatchik, or even settling some score with Miller, who is sometimes accused of taking this nation to war in Iraq all by herself. The greater issue is control of information. If anything good comes out of the Iraq war, it has to be a realization that bad things can happen to good people when the administration -- any administration -- is in sole control of knowledge and those who know the truth are afraid to speak up.
No, the greater issue is you live by the sword, you die by the sword. If you make your living out of destroying people by, say, accusing triple amputee war veterans of being in league with Saddam Hussein and Osama Bin Laden, or a political opponent who also happens to be a patriotic Vietnam POW of being a mentally unstable Manchurian Candidate , then it’s not hard to imagine that you’d forget yourself and break the law by blowing the cover of a covert agent to exact revenge on her husband. The only thing is, that last bit of bastardy? It’s against the law.
This is why I want Fitzgerald to leave now. Do not bring trivial charges -- nothing about conspiracies, please -- and nothing about official secrets, most of which are known to hairdressers, mistresses and dog walkers all over town. Please, Mr. Fitzgerald, there’s so much crime in Washington already. Don’t commit another.
Uh, conspiracy is not a trivial charge. And when you’ve got guys like Larry Johnson and Pat Lang screaming bloody murder about Valerie Plame’s outing, we ain’t talking about some bit of gossip to be shared over drinks at Cafe Milano or under the hairdryers at Toka. We’re talking a threat to national security.
Dc Media Girl Permalink
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Not a shock
10/15/05 22:41:50
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So the NYT’s Miller analysis is out, and I’m sure you won’t be surprised to learn the following:
Judy is taking an indefinite "leave of absence"
Her immediate bosses still don’t get it
Her colleagues hate her more than ever, but in a shocking turn of events, they’re speaking to their own paper instead of running to leak to Arianna Huffington
Here’s the part that caught my eye:
"Everyone admires our paper’s willingness to stand behind us and our work, but most people I talk to have been troubled and puzzled by Judy’s seeming ability to operate outside of conventional reportorial channels and managerial controls," said Todd S. Purdum, a Washington reporter for The Times. "Partly because of that, many people have worried about whether this was the proper fight to fight."
"Judy is a very intelligent, very pushy reporter," said Stephen Engelberg, who was Ms. Miller’s editor at The Times for six years and is now a managing editor at The Oregonian in Portland. "Like a lot of investigative reporters, Judy benefits from having an editor who’s very interested and involved with what she’s doing."
In the year after Mr. Engelberg left the paper in 2002, though, Ms. Miller operated with a degree of autonomy rare at The Times.
Douglas Frantz, who succeeded Mr. Engelberg as investigative editor, recalled that Ms. Miller once called herself "Miss Run Amok."
"I said, ’What does that mean?’ “said Mr. Frantz, who was recently appointed managing editor at The Los Angeles Times. "And she said, ’I can do whatever I want.’ "
The last time I heard this observation about a reporter’s unusual degree of independence from managerial scrutiny was when I worked with Jack Kelley, USA TODAY’s disgraced reporter. And we all know how badly that laissez-fair management technique worked out for him, not to mention his bosses.
Dc Media Girl Permalink
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I just finished the new Ruth Rendell
10/8/05 21:54:55
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As I’ve written before, Ruth Rendell is my favorite living author, and I look forward to the release of her new material with an almost demented eagerness. She’s the heiress to the P.D. James legacy - smart, dark, tough, brilliant and cynical.
So imagine my suprise when I reached the end of the book, only to discover that she had to utilize a pretty unbelievable deus ex machina plot contrivance to explain a mysterious apparition early in the tale. I’m talking really unbelievable. So unbelievable, in fact, that it ruined the rest of the story for me. If anyone out there’s read the book, I look forward to reading your comments.
The new P.D. James comes out next month, the new Barbara Vine in March of next year. Can’t wait!
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More Judy
10/8/05 21:44:13
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Now that Judy Miller’s been sprung and can look forward to lucrative book contracts, speaking deals and a return trip to the grand jury, I ask you, why? Just why? Why, if Scooter Libby granted her permission to reveal his name, didn’t she do just that? Why did she go to jail? Why did it take so long for her to "figure out" that Libby had given his o.k. for her to reveal his identity? And what’s with her "finding" notes of her conversation with Scooter Libby about Joe Wilson from 2003.
This is one of those stories where I have to conclude that all the principals - Judy Miller, Scooter Libby, and their lawyers - are lying. It’s simply impossible to believe that they’re all telling what they think is the truth and have merely confused a date or two. It’s possible that Judy decided to go to jail knowing full well that she didn’t have to in order to rehabilitate herself, to change her image from the NYT’s neocon comfort woman into first amendment martyr. If that’s what she was trying to accomplish, however, why would Sulzberger and Keller come so vehemently to her defense? If the whole thing was a PR ruse, would her bosses have been so vocal in their support, particularly since no one else at the paper or in the journalism community seemed to miss her?
Then again, we are talking about the same management team (plus or minus a few guys) that has never disciplined the egregious Jeff Gerth, despite having printed an apologia of sorts following the Wen Ho Lee debacle (but if you’re waiting for an analysis of what went wrong with his Whitewater coverage, don’t expect the NYT to do it. Read Fools for Scandal instead).
Dc Media Girl Permalink
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Louie, Louie
10/8/05 21:13:36
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Superslouth extraordinair Louis Freeh sat down for a chinwag with 60 Minutes about his new book, My FBI : Bringing Down the Mafia, Investigating Bill Clinton, and Fighting the War on Terror. The piece is set to air this Sunday. Drudge posted an excerpt from the book this week, and let’s just say I’m not impressed. According to Media Matters, 60 Minutes refused to let a Clinton surrogate rebut Freeh on camera once Clinton himself declined to be interviewed.
I’m willing to bet that either a) this absurd condition (Freeh would do the interview but only if the show agreed to have Clinton on to rebut) may have been a pre-condition of Freeh doing an exclusive with the show. It’s a neat trick - he can get his side of the story out, unchallenged, knowing full well that the former president would tell the show to stuff their interview request. The b) option is that the show, and CBS, are so terrified of being accused of being liberal shills that they’ll allow this segment to air as is.
What a shame. I love that show.
So here’s what I would as Louis Freeh, if I had the chance. I hope that Mike Wallace touched on these very important points:
-- Mr. Freeh, can you please explain how the former Soviet mole Robert Hanssen eluded detection for so many years, especially considering that you and he attended the same church?
-- You write about fighting the War on Terror. Looking back, do you regret having assigned so many agents to the Lewinsky case? Could those agents have been put to better use investigating and uncovering American terror cells?
-- Would you like to take this opportunity to apologize to Wen Ho Lee?
Got any other suggestions? Leave them in the comments section.
Dc Media Girl Permalink
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Plamewatch
10/5/05 22:33:43
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Rumors about indictments in the Plame case are flying around Washington, as in, Fitzgerald’s done and they’ll be coming fast and furious, and sooner rather than later. We’ll see. While you wait for the announcement, check out Larry Johnson’s very useful Plame timeline.
Dc Media Girl Permalink
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Richard Cohen clutches the pearls
10/4/05 12:46:53
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The king of solipsism has a go at those mean ol’ Democrats:
There are times when I sorely miss boilerplate -- those entirely predictable statements made by politicians that often begin with the word "frankly," then proceed to the phrase "I don’t think the American people want," and conclude with a thundering banality that a drowsy dog could see coming. That was especially the case last week when I started reading what Nancy Pelosi, the Democratic leader in the House of Representatives, had to say about Tom DeLay, her Republican opposite. I fully expected boilerplate, something about innocent until proved guilty. But Pelosi crossed me up. DeLay, as it turned out, was guilty until proved innocent.
"The criminal indictment of Majority Leader Tom DeLay is the latest example that Republicans in Congress are plagued by a culture of corruption at the expense of the American people," Pelosi said -- apparently forgetting to add the boilerplate about the American system of justice. If she had those thoughts, they’re not on her Web site and not mentioned anywhere. Instead, the reference to a Republican "culture of corruption" shows that when it comes to a punctilious regard for the legal process, in this instance the Democrats ain’t got no culture at all.
This is an example of why the Democratic Party is in such trouble. Democrats are aping what Newt Gingrich once did to them when he was speaker of the House, a leader of the GOP and a self-proclaimed dazzling revolutionary. His incessant cry of "Corruption! Corruption!" helped end Democratic rule of Congress, but it was accompanied -- Democrats seem to forget -- by an idea or two and by emerging Republican majorities in the country as a whole. Stinging press releases alone do not a revolution make.
For prominent Democrats, it seemed it was not enough to forget their manners about DeLay. They then abandoned their party’s tradition -- I would say "obligation" -- of defending unpopular speech by piling on William Bennett, the former education secretary, best-selling author and now, inevitably, talk show host.
I’ll be charitable and assume that Cohen has forgotten that it’s DeLay who has been rebuked three times by the "ethics" committee; who strongarmed and bullied members to vote to impeach Clinton, lest they find themselves with primary challengers and minus desirable committee assignments; who used the FAA to track down Texas legislators who’d fled to avoid providing a quorum to enable DeLay’s Machiavellian redistricting scheme; who used Schaivo and Elian for the most cynical purposes imaginable; who laid the Hammer down on K street; and whose bottomless greed for power and money got his sorry ass into trouble in the first place. In short, if a bunch of Italians hanging around in Newark had done what DeLay has done/is accused of doing, we’d call those acts by their proper names: "Extortion". "Racketeering". "Bribery". The Tom DeLay who shared these thoughts on taking it like a man during the dark days of impeachment:
Incredibly, he actually blamed Kenneth Starr for his troubles. He might have well said that the devil made him do it. Ken Starr was simply doing his job. He was appointed by the attorney general to look into allegations of wrongdoing in this administration. And we look forward to seeing his report. But this isn’t about Ken Starr. This is about a president who lacks the character to tell the American people the truth. And it is not just in this instance. It is the pattern of conduct that has stretched from this scandal to many of the other scandals that have bedeviled this administration. . . . The president should resign for the good of the country."
-- Tom DeLay, Aug. 18, 1998
As for Bennett, Cohen goes on:
Actually, it is Reid and the others who should apologize to Bennett. They were condemning and attempting to silence a public intellectual for a reference to a theory. It was not a proposal and not a recommendation -- nothing more than a possible explanation. But the Democrats preferred to pander to an audience that either had heard Bennett’s remarks out of context, or merely thought that any time conservatives talk about race, they are being racist. The Democrats’ obligation as politicians, as public officials, to see that we all hear the widest and richest diversity of views was suspended in favor of partisan cheap shots. (The spineless White House also refused to defend Bennett.) Because I came of age in the McCarthy era, I have always thought of the Democratic Party as more protective of free speech and unpopular thought than the Republican Party. The GOP was the party of Joe McCarthy, William Jenner and other witch-hunters. Now, though, it is the Democrats who use the pieties of race, ethnicity and gender to stifle debate and smother thought, pretty much what anti-intellectual intellectuals did to Larry Summers, the president of Harvard University, when he had the effrontery to ask some unorthodox questions about gender and mathematical aptitude. He was quickly instructed on how to think.
I ask you, did you ever? Gilliard has done a masterful job of dissecting and analyzing the Bennett imbroglio over as his place, so I won’t add to that, but I have to ask: Bill Bennett, serial gambler, moralistic scold and ripper-offer of other people’s work (what is the Book of Virtues if not a repackaging of Aesop’s fables under Bennett’s own name?)...this man, according to Cohen, is a "public intellectual"?
Lord have mercy.
Dc Media Girl Permalink
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It’s called "cache", beeyatch. Look it up
10/3/05 23:28:32
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Oopsie. Looks like someone’s a bit irritated with Bush’s choice for the Supreme court. Poor David "Did My Wife Tell You I Coined the Phrase ’Axis of Evil’?" Frum:
Harriet Miers is a taut, nervous, anxious personality. It is impossible to me to imagine that she can endure the anger and abuse - or resist the blandishments - that transformed, say, Anthony Kennedy into the judge he is today.
Nor is it safe for the president’s conservative supporters to defer to the president’s judgment and say, "Well, he must know best." The record shows I fear that the president’s judgment has always been at its worst on personnel matters.
Hey, he worked with her, so he has a right to vent. Too bad for him that he doesn’t understand about the magical powers of the Internets, and that deleting isn’t enough...
Dc Media Girl Permalink
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And the grand jury said "HA!"
10/3/05 19:35:00
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I’ll take money laundering for 20 years, Alex:
A Texas grand jury indicted Rep. Tom DeLay on a new charge of money laundering Monday, less than a week after another grand jury leveled a conspiracy charge that forced DeLay to temporarily step down as House majority leader.
Dc Media Girl Permalink
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Time to give
10/3/05 08:14:06
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My friend and fellow blogger Steve Gilliard has put out a call for funds, and I suggest you give generously. I’ll be sending money this week, and I hope you do too.
I’ll spare you the lecture about how valuable his work is, since you all know his work is stellar and his contribution to progressive discourse is vital.
I’ll be giving later this week as soon as I get paid. I urge you to contribute generously.
Dc Media Girl Permalink
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Must be nice to have all that FU money
10/2/05 19:14:52
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George Clooney’s been taking advantage of the junket to promote Good Night, and Good Luck to smack Bill O’Reilly around a little bit. It’s not the first time Clooney’s made the following observation:
"No one ever elected O’Reilly to an office," he says. "He’s never had our vote or our proxy to use against us. . . . Plus, the media is so fractured these days that nobody can hurt you like they did years ago because nobody has as big an audience. There used to be three networks. Now there’s hundreds and hundreds.
"Besides," he adds, unable to resist a tweak, "I don’t believe McCarthy was ever accused in a deposition of telling a female employee she should use a vibrator" -- a reference to a claim made in a sexual harassment lawsuit, since settled, by one of O’Reilly’s former producers.
Not surprisingly, Fox’s reaction was defensive, shrill and meanspirited, ending with that "wish him well" bullshit:
"We are disappointed that George has chosen to hurt Mr. O’Reilly’s family in order to promote his movie. But it’s obvious he needs publicity considering his recent string of failures. We wish him well in his struggle to regain relevancy."
How, may I ask, has Clooney "hurt" O’Reilly’s family? It was O’Reilly who, due to his monstrous arrogance and his compete lack of self-control, who brought shame and humiliation on Mrs. O’Reilly (the kids are too young to know what’s up, thank God, unless Mrs. O’Reilly threw a lamp at Bill’s head in front of them).
Keep it up, George. You hit a nerve. Good on ya.
Dc Media Girl Permalink
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Blame liberals
10/2/05 19:00:56
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Under normal circumstances, this spoiled woman’s troubles with her rich neighbors wouldn’t amount to a hill of beans in my world, but I happen to find her immensely irritating:
Nada Davis and her husband, Ian, tell the following story: Ian was working outside on Leland Street, a block where most of the houses are new, the sidewalks a little whiter, the daytime a little brighter. A couple was walking by, and Ian gamely asked what they thought of the house. Apparently not realizing Ian was the owner, the man replied: "It’s an abomination. Must be one of those Internet millionaires."
On a recent Monday, while she was waiting for the Venetian blinds guy to come, Nada Davis gave a tour of her home, which is sometimes referred to as a "McMansion" but which is more precisely a new Craftsmanesque house that replaced a Cape Cod about half its size on Leland Street in the Montgomery County suburb of Chevy Chase.
"They tore everything down but the foundation," Davis explained, describing how the old dining room became the foyer, the old garage became the kitchen and part of the back yard became the den. "People walk by and they’re like, ’Look at how huge this house is!’ And I just don’t see it."
She climbed the stairs, stopping at a bedroom -- "See? This isn’t so big, is it?" -- and up another flight to the playroom and the office as the tour took on an air of justification.
"I mean, what’s so huge about this?" Davis asked, walking back down and through the dining room, the living room, the den and the monochromatic family room seemingly ripped from the pages of a Pottery Barn catalogue. She paused by the open kitchen, where a door led to one more room.
"I feel I should be embarrassed that I need a mud room," said Davis, 42, who moved from Potomac with her husband, a lobbyist for Occidental Petroleum, and their two children. "I just get tired of constantly having to explain myself."
But that is what it means these days to own a relatively large, new house in the town of Chevy Chase, a prosperous enclave of 1,032 homes just across the District line where people who could buy a new Mercedes drive an old Volvo instead and where they generally prefer their 1920s bungalows and painted brick colonials to the larger homes steadily replacing them.
Nada said she never really felt like a "they" before she moved to Chevy Chase.
She has tried to be empathetic -- "Progress is hard," she said -- and even agrees with many of the concerns about the trees. "I’m all about greenery," she offered.
Even so, she has grown weary of "looks" she gets around town, such as the rolled eyes when she applied to widen her driveway or comments such as the ones about her neighbor’s stone garden wall.
"I mean, to see a stone wall is pretty!" she said. "Stone walls are very expensive. My neighbor built a wall, and the other neighbors were like, ’Here comes the Great Wall of China.’ . . . People say we’re changing the integrity of the neighborhood, but I think it needed some change. There’s a lot of sloppiness in the neighborhood."
She does not consider her house extravagant, but merely adequate and a deserved reward for reaching the upper middle class.
"I feel people are looking at me like I was born into money, like I’m some rich snob," she said. "You know, because you don’t want to live in an old, dirty house, people think you’re a prima donna. But my parents were Yugoslavian immigrants. My mom was a manicurist. My dad was a hairdresser."
At least on her block, she said, there is a warm feeling. Kids play outdoors, neighbors have martini parties and say hello while walking dogs. She is mystified by the notion that she is essentially different from whoever moved to the town in the 1950s or that her appreciation of the neighborhood is lacking. On the other hand, she said, using an adjective that evokes recycling and organic food, "this is a very crunchy neighborhood."
"I think anyone wearing high heels and lipstick gets looked at sideways. They’re very judgmental," she said. "I’m moderate, but . . . I find that these liberals, they’re just mean ".
Jeez, she seems so down-to-earth, open-minded and friendly. It’s kind of hard to believe she’s having trouble getting along with the neighbors, isn’t it?
As for me, I’m loving the clash of the nouveau riche and the limousine liberals. They all deserve each other.
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Culture club
10/2/05 11:59:54
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You may have noticed that I’ve been posting less frequently for the past couple of weeks. I’ve taken on a project that has been extremely time-consuming and somewhat stressful, which has not only cut into my blogging, reading and relaxing time, but has also caused me to develop a whopping case of insomnia which is driving me crazy. So I decided to take the bull by the horns and turn to the one antidote for sleeplessness and stress: Exercise.
One of the fantastic biproducts of getting on a boring-ass exercise machine is being able to catch up on trashy tv while you’re stepping or power walking away. I’m not one to turn to MTV or VH-1 for my appointment TV watching these days; hell, I’ve even gone off the newest episodes of Law and Order (love Dennis Farina, just not on that show. He can’t fill the Jerry Orbach-shaped hole that the loss of the beloved Lenny Briscoe character left behind). But there’s nothing better to help you while the sweaty hours away than catching up on crappy reality TV viewing. Here’s what I checked out yesterday:
Laguna Beach: My theory is that this nauseating MTV show, which follows a bunch of bimboes and himboes as they spend their parents’ money at a rapid clip, while seeming to inhabit an adult-free world, was actually crafted by al-Qaeda as a propaganda video to reinforce every negative stereotype about Americans’ greed and inability to control their sexual impulses. I guess the kids are supposed to be in "school", but who wants to watch that? The show’s producers, not surprisingly, are far more interested in the kids’ exploits as they run off to Cabo to engage in some underage alcohol abuse and relax from their exhuasting schedules of manicures, pedicures and parties back home. The combined IQ of these people doesn’t break the 100 mark, and I couldn’t find one thing appealing about any of them, despite the fact that Rolling Stone saw fit to do a piece on the idiotic Kristin in their last issue, but the magazine did a kind of penance in the same issue by publishing outstanding coverage of Hurricane Katrina and its aftermath The contrast between the shallow selfishness of the spoiled, ignorant rich kids and, say, Sean Penn, who along with Matt Taibbi and Douglas Brinkley got off their asses and went down to New Orleans to help rescue people, is pretty stark.
Breaking Bonaduce: Partridge Family tyke and loudmouthed talk radio host Danny Bonaduce’s 15-year marriage to Gretchen, a woman he married 7 hours after meeting her, is on the rocks. Gee, I wonder why? He’s pumped up on steroids, the couple’s marriage therapist "Dr. Garry" looks like his face was stretched with fishhooks, and Danny has some major rage issues, not to mention very disturbing facial hair. Oh, why not put it bluntly? He’s totally hit the wall and looks like he should be working in the garage of the guy who tricks out motorcycles on that other network’s reality show (you know what I mean). I feel sorry for his wife, who seems like a nice woman, but then again she agreed to name her kids Countess Isabella and Count Dante. Danny scares me. I won’t be making a return visit to his show.
America’s Next Top Model: This is more my speed. I love a show that shows how the fashion industry is populated by venal, stupid, shallow phonies and drama queens (and if you’re really lucky you may meet someone in the shmatte trade who embodies all the above qualities!). The "girls" are a bunch of morons who clearly hate each other, but you can’t argue with success: Adrianne Curry, season one’s winner, appeared on season 4 of The Surreal Life, thereby proving that the true goal of ANTM is to provide talent for other crappy reality shows. That said, I love Jay Alexander, the outre queen who teaches the "girls" how to work the runway, indicating his displeasure with their clunkiness by barking out an "OOOOOOOOOO CHILE...." every now and then.
On another note, Paris and Man Paris are no more. Shocking, I know, expecially given that ridiculous cover story in the latest Vanity Fair which read as if it had been dictated by a publicist. So you mean to tell me that VF misled me, that the Parises’ relationship isn’t rock-solid, that girl Paris isn’t a genius, and that his family actually doesn’t care for hers? You mean that the National Enquirer and Star Magazine got it right, and Vanity Fair was sold a load of goods? Shocker. I’m crushed.
So now let’s shake off the trash and turn to some good news on the culture front. Ruth Rendell, who in my view is the greatest mystery writer in the world, has just had her latest book, Thirteen Steps Down, published. Her next Barbara Vine book, The Minotaur, comes out next March. Run, don’t walk, as they say.
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More panda porn
10/2/05 11:17:04
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Take a look at the little guy’s last exam.
Incidentally, in case you’re wondering why I’ve become panda central lately, regular commenter Brian put it best when he said that the baby panda is one of the few creatures residing in Washington that "doesn’t make your hair hurt". I couldn’t have said it better myself.
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DeLay looks for friends
10/1/05 12:12:08
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Finding that his former "friends" are now treating him like a poisoned dog, Tom DeLay has turned to the insane Pat Robertson to buck up his spirits:
If you want a friend in Washington, get a dog. Or, in DeLay’s case, call Pat Robertson.
Before returning to Houston yesterday, DeLay appeared on the preacher’s 700 Club, where he got some much-needed support.
"This a shocking thing this man is doing to you!" Robertson told DeLay, who readily agreed, saying, "It’s all politics."
"They say a clever prosecutor can indict a ham sandwich if he gets the right grand jury," Robertson continued. "Was this sort of a setup?"
"This is a ham sandwich with no ham," DeLay said. Laughter flowed from the audience.
Hearing DeLay’s description of Texas prosecutor Ronnie Earle, Robertson asked: "Can’t they bring charges against him for prosecutorial misconduct? This does seem to be egregious."
It was time for Robertson to wrap up the interview. "You’re a hero to the conservatives in this country, and a lot of people are with you," he said.
DeLay had one more thing to say. "Can I plug a book?" he asked Robertson. "Jerry Bridges wrote a book called ’Trusting God’ that takes you through this kind of adversity and teaches you so many things, and I just want to thank Jerry Bridges for that book."
Then he ran into the loving arms of the crackpot talk radio gang, enjoying an observation by right wing comfort woman Ann Coulter:
The conservative radio crowd is not so circumspect. When DeLay called in to Tony Snow’s Fox News show Thursday morning, the sympathetic host said that Earle violated legal ethics and asked: "Do you think he could or should be disbarred for this?" Probing deeper, Snow wondered: "Have any Democrats come to you on the q.t. and said I’m embarrassed by this?"
When DeLay called syndicated radio host Mike Gallagher that same morning, the conservative told the congressman "it’s important for you to know how much support you continue to have." Gallagher, author of "Surrounded by Idiots: Fighting Liberal Lunacy in America," read DeLay an Ann Coulter quote that "the party that’s now celebrating and popping champagne corks over Tom DeLay’s indictment . . . worships at the altar of the president who was getting oral sex in the Oval Office on Easter Sunday."
"Ha, ha," DeLay answered.
Ha ha indeed, Tom! There’s nothing like a little humor to get your mind off you troubles. Sadly, though, the New Republic isn’t in a laughing mood:
Throughout his Washington career, there is little wrong that DeLay hasn’t done. He has transformed the House Republican majority into an arm of corporate special interests that benefit from an unprecedented "pay to play" culture of rewards for political donations. As symbolized by his well-known chumminess with the oleaginous Jack Abramoff, he has unapologetically blurred the lines between officeholders and lobbyists, deeply integrating K Street into his party’s political and legislative strategy and treating it like a House Republican patronage machine. And DeLay, more than anyone, has been responsible for running the House of Representatives like a one-party dictatorship, both shutting out the Democratic minority (even denying them simple meeting space) and militantly smothering intraparty dissent.
Those are just the overarching themes of DeLay’s disgraceful tenure in Congress. One could type for hours without exhausting the list of particular offenses for which he should have been ostracized by now: He has allegedly threatened K Street firms that failed to hire Republican lobbyists in sufficient numbers. He was admonished last year by the House ethics committee for essentially selling access to energy-industry executives just as Congress was wrapping up a major energy bill. The ethics committee also slapped DeLay for offering to endorse the candidate son of Republican Representative Nick Smith in exchange for Smith’s vote in favor of a GOP Medicare bill. Then the ethics committee rebuked him a third time for his wildly inappropriate enlistment of the Federal Aviation Administration to hunt for a group of awol Texas legislators back in 2003.
Well, at least there were no blowjobs involved (that we know of).
Dc Media Girl Permalink
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More on the perils of the Ladners
10/1/05 11:57:24
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I guess it’s not enough to make $800,000 a year as president of American University, and to have negotiated a contract that essentially forces the university to pay for your chef, your first class accomodations and your wife’s shopping trips. So what’s a university president to do when his grossly inflated salary and obscene perks won’t cut it? He asks for a $5 million bonus, of course, in order to allow him to continue to live at the lavish standard to which he’s become accustomed after retirement. Oh, and he also made sure to make statements in which he insisted he asked for no such additional compensation, even though he’d put the request in writing.
He’s suddenly gone mute, now that his assistant has started talking:
The longtime executive assistant to suspended American University President Benjamin Ladner said he made no effort to separate his personal and business expenses and insisted on "the best room with the best view" in exclusive hotels, even giving her a guide to fine lodging worldwide.
Margaret H. Clemmer, who worked for Ladner from December 1996 until his suspension in August, also said in a confidential statement that Ladner asked her to add past appointments on his calendar after the board of trustees began an inquiry into his personal and travel expenses last spring. She said she did not know whether the appointments had, in fact, occurred and been inadvertently left off.
Ladner and his attorneys say his contract guarantees him "first-class travel," and he has said that he often stayed in moderately priced hotels.
Clemmer said Ladner told her not to book overseas rooms that cost more than $600 a night or U.S. rooms above $400. Ladner also asked her to make reservations at such chic restaurants as Alain Ducasse au Plaza Athenee in Paris and Daniel in Manhattan. He told her, she said, to use the name of the ruler of Sharjah, located in the United Arab Emirates, to get a table at the Michelin three-star restaurant Le Gavroche in London.
It’s a small miracle that the students haven’t burned the school to the ground by now.
Dc Media Girl Permalink
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Oh no, not again
10/1/05 11:46:14
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From AP:
Bombs exploded almost simultaneously Saturday in two tourist areas of the Indonesian resort island of Bali, killing at least 19 people and wounding 51 others, police and hospital officials said....
The blasts at Jimbaran beach and a bustling outdoor shopping center in downtown Kuta "were clearly the work of terrorists," police Maj. Gen. Ansyaad Mbai, a top Indonesian anti-terrorism official, told The Associated Press.
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"the Incredible Expanding Panda"
10/1/05 09:13:19
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Read for yourself.
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