These photos certainly do look posed.

Posted by: Ace at 11:10 AM | Comments (8)
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When Hubris sent me this link, I had no idea what he was parodizing, as I hadn't yet read Hewitt's evaluation of Miers as a "B+."

Okay. Now I get it.

Content Warning. The title is Shit Sandwich Surprisingly Tasty; I Give It A B+, and that's quite literal.

Posted by: Ace at 10:59 AM | Comments (26)
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Seven arresteed after threats against Prime Minister.

Including, shock!, one man previously acquitted on terror charges.

Posted by: Ace at 10:48 AM | Comments (7)
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No, not in New Orleans. New Jersey.

Mark Finkelstein has the video goods on Today show reporter, Michelle Kosinski's, on camera unfrocking this morning.

Kosinski's segment, running immediately prior to a piece on the dubious claim the Administration recently stage-manipulated a Q&A session with American soldiers, revealed Today working a little stagecraft of their own.

Today's timing couldn't have been worse. A preceding segment focused on the incessant rains and ensuing flooding in the northeast. For days now, beautiful, blonde - and one senses highly ambitious - young reporter Michelle Kosinski has been on the scene for Today in New Jersey, working the story. In an apparent effort to draw attention to herself, in yesterday's segment she turned up in hip waders, standing thigh-deep in the flood waters.

Taking her act one step further, this morning she appeared on a suburban street . . . paddling a canoe. There was one small problem. Just as the segment came on the air, two men waded in front of Kosinki . . . and the water barely covered their shoe tops! That's right, Kosinski's canoe was in no more than four to six inches of water!

An embarrassed Kosinski claimed the water was deeper down the street but that her producers didn't want to let her go there for fear she'd drift away.

Check out the video at the link above. Short and hilarious, in a wonderfully absurd Airplane! sort of way.

Posted by: Dr. Reo Symes at 09:42 AM | Comments (20)
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Dr. Claw, cat fancier, deep voiced archnemisis of Inspector Gadget, has always been a bit publicity shy.

We've seen the fist, but never the face. (What were the producers hiding from our youthful eyes? A burn victim? Scars? Unfortunate moles?) Well, now one of the mysteries of our childhood has been revealed.

I give you the face of Dr. Claw

(h/t Metafilter)

Posted by: Dr. Reo Symes at 08:32 AM | Comments (4)
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Big story.

Please take a seat before I tell you this next part. I don't want anyone suffering a head trauma after fainting from surprise and shock.

The masterminds of this large-scale terrorist assault are, if you can believe it, Wahhabists.

I know, I know. If we can't trust in the peacefulness of Wahhabist Muslims, what in this world can we count on anymore?

Next thing you know someone will tell me that Tom Cruise didn't really knock up Katie Holmes.

Thanks to Craig.

Posted by: Ace at 03:14 PM | Comments (16)
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Well, there's one good argument for a nominee from SMU, I suppose.

Posted by: Ace at 03:09 PM | Comments (25)
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As people keep telling me they're sick of the Miers debate (which, frankly, I find strange, given that it's a huge story), and yet I don't seem to be able to work up much interest in anything else, here's an open thread.

Posted by: Ace at 01:59 PM | Comments (103)
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Of course, she's an elitist and a sexist, so take her recommendation with a grain of salt.

It's all good, but I'll quote this:

The White House, after the Miers withdrawal/removal/disappearance, would be well advised to call in leaders of the fractious base--with heavy initial emphasis on the Washington conservative establishment--and have some long talks about the future. It's time for the administration to reach out to wise men and women, time for Roosevelt Room gatherings of the conservative clans. Much old affection remains, and respect lingers, but a lot of damage has been done. The president has three years yet to serve. That, I think, is the subtext of recent battles: Conservatives want to modify and, frankly, correct certain administration policies now, while there's time. The White House can think of this--and should think of it--as an unanticipated gift. A good fight can clear the air; a great battle can result in resolution and recommitment. No one wants George W. Bush turned into Jimmy Carter, or nobody should. The world is a dangerous place, and someone has to lead America.

An essential White House mistake--really a key and historic one--was in turning on its critics with such idiotic ferocity. "My way or the highway" is getting old. "Please listen to us and try to see it our way or we'll have to kill you," is getting old. Sending Laura Bush out to make her first mistake as first lady, agreeing with Matt Lauer that sexism is probably part of the reason for opposition to Ms. Miers, was embarrassingly inept and only served to dim some of the power of this extraordinary resource.

As for Ed Gillespie and his famous charge of sexism and elitism, I don't think serious conservatives believe Ed is up nights pondering whiffs and emanations of class tension and gender bias in modern America. It was the ignorant verbal lurch of a K Street behemoth who has perhaps forgotten that conservatives are not merely a bloc, a part of the base, a group that must be handled, but individuals who are and have been in it for serious reasons, for the long haul, and often at considerable sacrifice. They don't deserve to be patronized by people they've long strained to defend.

I don't mind the attack so much myself. If I'm going to be perfectly truthful, the White House surrogates have often denigrated its opponents in such terms, and I didn't cry foul then.

My criticism is about civility but tactics. It's okay, I think, for John Ashcroft to say that there are some who put airy questions of civil liberties above national security; that was a tough insult, but it was made against Bush's political enemies, and it had the virtue of being largely true. He might also have said that many Democrats knew full well that more aggressive policing would have to occur in the Age of Sacred Terror, but that they were posing and preening in order to appease their Bush-hatin' base.

But it makes little sense to insult, you know, the people who voted for you, who argue with friends and family on your behalf, who spend countless hours pecking away on a stupid moronblog to defend you. I won't go so far as to agree with the Left that when the Bush Administration is criticized, it resorts to namecalling, but I do think in this instance that's largely what they did.

We're only demanding that Bush -- he who "says what he means and means what he says" -- fulfill a key campaign promise to nominate justices for the Supreme Court in the "mold of Scalia and Thomas." Asking a President you voted for and have long defended and supported to merely honor a promise is not an act of disloyalty, ingratitude, elitism, or sexism.

I don't take it personally or even that seriously. They were surprised and caught flat-footed and had no idea how to react. They lashed out in pique; hey, it happens.

Still, let's have a little less of that bullshit now.

Bush would do well to remember what happened when his father broke a key promise of his own. The office of the Presidency confers some power, but that power is either diminished or enhanced by satisfying the voters. More specifically -- the voters who actually voted for you.

When all is said and done, Bush is a good guy, but we didn't support Bush because he was a good guy. We supported him to get certain things done, certain things he promised he would get done. We're a nation of laws, not men, and our politics is, thankfully, of policies and philosophies, not men. We are not yet, as Paul Krugman so often worries, a banana-republic where people just blindly support a Strong Man On A Big Horse. We support a man only as the horse is going in the right direction.

Posted by: Ace at 01:46 PM | Comments (57)
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Comes and goes. It's been gone for a while. And Bush ain't helpin'. Man, am I depressed.

Yes, I blame Bush. I also Question the Timing.

But this is from back when I used to be funny: They Done Found Us Out, Cletus!

Posted by: Ace at 12:56 PM | Comments (6)
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