What is it called, exactly? The National Journal or the Hotline? Or both?

At any rate, super-source Deep Stoat* sends word that I got a little mention and a link:

Plenty of talk about Gingrich's WH '08 candidacy after his weekend address to the conference. Ace of Spades got a tip that its a done deal - he's running.

The bit also called the bloggers invited to CPAC an "A-List group of web writers."

It's not crazy blog-money, but I guess I'll take it.

No link, since reading the Hotline requires a subscription.

Thanks, Deep Stoat!*

*DISCLAIMER: Deep Stoat is actually an amalgam of forty or so Washington sources that my editor suggested I insert into this blog to add a little "narrative oomph."

I will reveal the names of the various persons included in the literary device named "Deep Stoat" after each one of them dies and/or pisses me off.

Posted by: Ace at 10:13 AM | Comments (2)
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So blares a Protein Wisdom headline.

Well... I certainly wouldn't want to cast aspersions on The One Who Will Restore Balance to the Force, but there is the little problem of this photo...

Check out the officer in the back, doing nothing to stop Ruby from silencing Oswald, except to say, "Sure, he's a communist agent and/or a CIA agent provacateur, but oooh-gah!, that Lee Harvey Oswald is mannnntastic!"

Photo credit: Slublog Fake News Service.

More... Much More: SouthDakotaPolitics finds a CBS "Senior Political Editor" now spinning very tenuous conspiracy theories of (as her headline has it) a "Rove-Gannon Connection."

As SouthDakotaPolitics notes dryly, I'm so glad we have a strong credentialing system to screen out irresponsible partisans.

And, believe it or not, over at the Daily Kos, they've discovered the actual forger of the TANG documents (which, by the way, half the time they maintain aren't forged at all, but perfectly real).

Guess who done the dirty deed dirt cheap...?

That's right-- Ninth Degree Illuminatus Jeff Gannon.

No link for the Daily Kos. If you're interested, check it out on South Dakota Politics.

I would now say it's perfectly reasonable to say the left has now officially gone batshit crazy* over Jeff Gannon.

*I'm trying to get "batshit crazy" included as a recognized mental disorder in the upcoming DSM-V.

Posted by: Ace at 10:04 AM | Comments (6)
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JimW sent me this story, found by LGF, a few days ago:

Pfc. Rob Jacobs of New Jersey said he was initially ecstatic to get a package of letters from sixth-graders at JHS 51 in Park Slope last month at his base 10 miles from the North Korea border.

That changed when he opened the envelope and found missives strewn with politically charged rhetoric, vicious accusations and demoralizing predictions that only a handful of soldiers would leave the Iraq war alive.

...

One Muslim boy wrote: “Even thoe [sic] you are risking your life for our country, have you seen how many civilians you or some other soldier killed?”

His letter, which was stamped with a smiley face, went on: “I know your [sic] trying to save our country and kill the terrorists but you are also destroying holy places like Mosques.”

Most of the 21 letters Jacobs provided to The Post mentioned some support for the armed forces, if not the Iraq war, and thanked him for his service. But nine of the students made clear their distaste for the president or the war.

The letters were written as a social-studies assignment. The JHS 51 teacher, Alex Kunhardt, did not return phone calls, but the school principal, Xavier Costello, responded with a statement:

“While we would never censor anything that our children write, we sincerely apologize for forwarding letters that were in any way inappropriate to Pfc. Jacobs. This assignment was not intended to be insensitive, but to be supportive of the men and women in service to our nation.”

You would never censor anything that your children write? Really? If the assignment was to write supportive letters to cancer patients, would they allow some kid to write "Ha, ha, hope you die"?

"We cannot censor/we can never criticize inappropriate and/or vicious statements from the left" is now the true last resort of the scoundrel.

A writer named Sher Zieve followed up on this story, making the claim that the teacher in question had encouraged kids to write this sort of stuff. I didn't want to link that, because I saw no evidence, so far, that such encouragement (or "indoctrination," as Zieve also calls it) had occurred.

I wrote an email to Zieve asking about this charge. He responded today:

What I can tell you is:

* As of yesterday (per PFC Jacobs father), JHS 51 principal made a statement that Kunhardt had reviewed and approved all of the letters; prior to them being sent to Jacobs. Today the principal backed off of this statement

* The letters contain both adult language (the vilifications) and language usually attributed to a child in the sixth-grade (the "thank yous" from students)

* Today, Kunhardt was asked by the NY Post if he, specifically, added the demoralizing language to the 9 letters. Kunhardt refused to answer

I don't think the first two really support the claim at all. But I do find it curious, if it's true, that Kunhardt "refused to answer" a question about adding demoralizing language to the letters.

Look, if it's not true, why would someone refuse to answer? I suppose there's the possibility of the old "I will not dignify that question with an answer," which is generally taken to be a denial (if a denial with a few outs in in it), but heck, if I were in the same position, I would just say "Of course not. Don't be an ass."

I still don't think there's nearly enough in the record to make that sort of charge against Kunhardt.

However, it's pretty clear to me that Kunhardt didn't mind sending patently demoralizing letters to soldiers in the field. Even if he didn't want to "censor" his sixth-grade students, why not send the nasty letters to Donald Rumsfield, rather than a specific soldier in the field, who can't, after all, influence foreign policy any more than a wannabe-activist teacher Park Slope?

Posted by: Ace at 09:56 AM | Comments (20)
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This time on CNN:

It doesnÂ’t take an awful lot of imagination if youÂ’re thinking about who it is that might have produced these false documents to try to mislead people in this very cynical way. It would take someone very brilliant, very cynical, very Machiavellian, and it doesnÂ’t take a lot of imagination to come up with the name of Karl Rove as a possibility of having done that.

H/t to Tim Blair, who actually has somehow gotten a hold of the minutes of the meeting where Rove ordered the "Doomsday Device" documents to be offered to Dan Rather. There's just too much good satire to excerpt any of it.

I will tease it to mention that Jeff Gannon makes an appearance.

Posted by: Ace at 09:39 AM | Comments (16)
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I've never linked to this, but I do so now since friend-of-the-site Pundit Guy is hosting this week. It's a big link-fest of some of the most interesting stories in the blogosphere.

I especially liked this bit from Libertarian leanings, noting how the press has gone from a "Hang 'em high" attitude regarding the Plame affair when they assumed it would be Bush officials going to jail...

... to a now more-nuanced stance that two reporters might be imprisoned. A reporter now writes:

As most everyone knows, Valerie Plame was outed as a spy in contravention of an obscure, misguided and highly controversial 1982 law meant to stop that sort of thing even at the risk of criminalizing free speech...

Well! I wish I had known that the law was "obscure, misguided and highly controversial" back when it was being used as a bludgeon against the Bush Administration!

Posted by: Ace at 11:31 PM | Comments (4)
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Or, as I like to call it, "the magic fairy dust that gave me 20% more traffic the past two weeks."

Say Anything says this comes from the "RAW FEED," a source he says lacks credibility. But I hope it's true. Because this is a perfect time for Democrats to focus their attention on investigating Jeff Gannon.

I mean, it's not as if there are any imporant matters upon which the Democrats would be better advised to concentrate their attention.

But...

Perhaps -- just perhaps -- perhaps this is what the Old Ones meant when they prophesized, seven thousand years ago, that Jeff Gannon would be "The One Who Walks With the Wrath and Flames of Hell in His Wake."

Perhaps by focusing all the liberals' attention on himself, he's cleared the way for us to actually get some shit done around here.

Posted by: Ace at 11:15 PM | Comments (17)
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It's all very silly, but that doesn't mean you're allowed to ignore it:

Could Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger have another "woman problem" on his hands?

Schwarzenegger made headlines in recent months by deriding political opponents as "girlie men" and ridiculing a group of nurses at a women's conference. Now, an effort to paint the state's teachers as little more than a balky special interest group has angered many critics, who have begun to question why constituencies dominated by women have been subjected to such tough talk.

"He behaves like an arrogant patriarch with respect to women's occupations," said Rose Ann De Moro, executive director of the California Nurses Association. "Nurses, teachers, home health workers — it's vulgar how he's run roughshod over them. He's arrogant, and he's a bully."

To which Gov. Schwarzenegger responded, "I did not mean to demean de women in any way. I realize there are special problems that confront de women in de workplace, what with de manicures and de laughable jumping upon chairs and shrieking at de mouses and de screwing up de conveyor belts in de candy-factory and other such things as dese.

"But, let's be honest: You can really be pains in de asses, with de periods and de cramps and de mood-swings and de Lifetime television and de watching of de Law & Order repeats for de six thousandth time. How many times can you watch Paul Sorvino get shot?

"I don't think I've watched myself flexing in Pumping Iron as many times as you women watch Never Been Kissed. What is the continuing mystery to you broads? She gets the cute guy at the end-- and she will keep getting him, each and every time you watch de stupid movie. It's not like following a basketball season, ladies. De outcome is not likely to change de following week.

"But I realize that some women are angry with me, and for that I apologize. But let's be honest. When I apologize to women I don't mean a word of it and I neither does any man in America. We have no idea what you broads are talking about three quarters of de time. All I know is that I did something I'm supposed to apologize for, and if I don't, I will continue getting bitched at, what with de screaming and de yelling and de no-sex pledges and de flirting with de cute-but-clearly-gay waiter at de Olive Garden and other such things like dis. So, I am very sorry.

"And I promise you dat in de future de Arnold Schwarzenegger administration will continue delivering the roller-coaster thrill-ride of the summer dat all of you have come to expect."

H/t to Darrel Hammond for the listing aspect of this Schwarzenegger impression. But not for his "and other such things as dis" closing. Hey, I picked up on that and added it to my own (bad) Arnold impression before I saw him do it on SNL.

Posted by: Ace at 11:00 PM | Comments (9)
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Pardon the confusing headline; I really don't know how on earth to summarize this into something pithy.

You probably know that Bush recently floated the idea of raising the caps on payroll taxes -- not the actual rates, but the cut-off point for taxing income, from $90,000 up to, well, who knows.

Only a simpleton would fail to recognize that as a tax increase. I'm not necessarily against all tax increases, but I do know that Bush has rhetorically put himself in that camp, and of course Republicans generally don't like tax increases. (Unfortunately for liberals, neither do Americans generally.)

So why would Bush raise this possibility? Why even float something that would be shot down immediately by the House Republican caucus? I mean: we know he's not that dumb, right?

A blog I don't read -- the American Prospect's TAPPED -- posits a leftist conspiracy theory which I, for once, do not dismiss out of hand.

Before reading it, I think I should explain what the passage means by "phase-out bill." I don't really know what he means; I had to Google to find out what he's talking about. But, based on my (admittedly) cursory reading, it appears to me that partisan liberals are calling Social Security reform plans which include private savings accounts "phase-out bills," possibly to indicate that the ultimate goal is the complete phasing out of the Social Security system.

If I'm mistaken about that, I'd like to know, and I'll gladly print a retraction (despite the proof of my great ignorance that would entail). However, based on a quick search through left-leaning sites, they seem to just be using "phase-out" as a scare-term for any reform including private accounts. See this Social Security "Phase-Out" Q&A, for example.

At any rate. On to the actual maybe-not-so-crazy conspiracy theory:

Josh Marshall hints that some dastardly Democrat is contemplating a deal with Lindsey Graham wherein "current payroll tax revenues are left in place for now and private accounts are funded in whole or in part from new payroll tax revenues generated by raising or even lifting the payroll tax cap." This is a moderately bad idea on policy terms, and a simply terrible political idea.

Most crucially, the House Republican leadership has already ruled it out. Thus, the only possible effect of brokering a compromise of this sort with moderate Senate Republicans would be to create a conference committee in which whatever concessions the GOP makes to turncoat Democrats will be purged from the bill. Then, having already conceded the high ground on the need to "do something" and on the point that the "something" ought to involve private accounts, turncoat Democrats will be forced to argue that the only problem with the conference report on the phase-out is that it doesn't raise taxes. This will, at best, transform a political winner for the Democrats into a political loser and, at worst, lead to the passage of a bad phase-out bill.

Emphasis added.

Interesting, and I suppose a possibility.

Hat tip to...

And how I got on that site, I have no idea. I swear, my computer just dialed up Talking Points Memo itself, because I sure didn't enter that into the URL bar.

And... more...

Posted by: Ace at 10:28 PM | Comments (15)
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Check it out -- but be aware, it contains strong language.

And make sure you check out the Fantastic Four teaser-trailer on the first page, too.

Ben Grimm looks like a guy in a rubber suit... but I don't know what's more objectionable. A dude in a rubber suit or CGI Hulk-like thing that looks like crap half the time?

Never cared much for the FF, but the teaser makes it look kinda good.

And... Also check out "300 km/h on a Bike." I'm not sure, but I'm guessing this is video of the notorious "Black Prince," who is a repeat hyper-speeding offender on the highways outside of Paris.

Posted by: Ace at 01:50 PM | Comments (6)
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I was an Alaskan nature photographer before I sadly died in 1998.

So, you ask, how can I still be blogging from beyond the grave?

Because providing top-level mornoic commentary on the news for my readers is just that important to me.

H/T to The Unpopulist, who wonders if that's my real name.

Duh, Unpopulist. You think I'm sitting here sweating my anonymity and giving out my real name?

It's funny-- I was just talking to a friend who told me that "Steve McCutcheon" sounded like a totally fake, made-up name.

Well, there you go. It's a real name, dude. It's just not mine.

My real name is, of course, James Guckert.

Posted by: Ace at 01:40 PM | Comments (8)
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