Vivi sends along some Time cover-slugs and such. These guys really seem to be concerned about what's "good" for America. But they do seem to frequently question whether or not anything that smacks of Demon Rum Conservatism* is "good" for America.

Here are some other Time covers, with their complete captions unless noted.

Michelle Malkin has a link to this cover:
Rush Limbaugh: Is he good for America?"

For Ann Coulter, Time left it off the cover but used it as an online poll:
Is Ann Coulter good for America?"

August 27, 2001 cover: Is Homeschooling Good For America?

October 6, 1997 cover: Promise Keepers: A new movement is filling stadiums with men asserting their manhood. This week they rally in Washington. Should they be they cheered-- or feared?

[Ace: I guess that question would turn on whether or not they're "good for America," yes-yes?]

On the other hand....

September 1, 1997 cover: Saint George [Soros] and his unlikely crusades. Billionare George Soros wants to change how we deal with drugs, immigrants
and dying

[Ace: I don't note any question of whether or not Soros' crusades are "good for America." But, having deemed him a "Saint," it would appear that Time figures his crusades are, in fact, "good for America."]

February 22, 1999 cover: How the (Lewinsky/Clinton) scandal was good for America.

[Ace: As John McEnroe would say, you've GOT to be kidding me. Okay-- the suggestion that oral isn't really sex, yeah, I can see that coming in handy at some point (fingers crossed!).

But overall-- I would say that a scandal that paralyzed the government and ripped apart the nation was probably not, in the final analysis, "good for America."]

I have a question:

Time-- America's premeire soft-headed soft-bias liberal pretty-picture book. Is it good for America?

*Show title? Nahhh.

Totally Un-Fact-Checked Preview of the Coulter Article: Well, the guy in question never lied to me before. So what the hell? I'm withholding his name in case revealing it would get him in Dutch with an employer.

Saw TIME's article before it hit newstands.



It's OK. Mostly makes her out to be a semi-flaky wine drinking Nicorette chomping delictate dandilion. So she's not Hitler, but she is "damaged" almost.



But...the BIG mistake in it is a photo that is supposed to be showing a huge protest against Coulter. This is an example of how she is a "polarizing" figure. There is a picture of her with an X on her mouth with some sort of "NEO IMPERIALISTIC BLAH BLAH" on it.



Problem is, it's a picture of a Protest Warrior protest, and it's supposed to be 100% sarcastic.

By the way, I think the pic he's talking about can be seen over at Michelle Malkin's.

Posted by: Ace at 07:44 AM | Comments (3)
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There are murdering bastards of every color and creed:

There are terrorists in Oklahoma. They murdered 168 good people ten years ago today. And they disrupted the innocence of a fine old town that had nothing to do with the twisted politics of the terrorists. Oklahoma City and those people’s lives were nothing but stage dressing in their ugly little fantasy ideology. OKC wasn’t even my hometown, nor a favorite city–just a place I had lived near and come to recognize as an outpost of decency and civilization, of faith and honesty and hard work. It was the sort of sprawling all-American flyover town my classmates out on the East Coast didn’t have much regard for, but for which I was desperately homesick. The condescension was palpable, and it culminated in a question by Connie Chung that (along with some other gaffes) cost the anchor her job:

“Can you people in Oklahoma handle something this big and disastrous?”

Well we did, Connie. We handled it. Thanks for your concern.

I wish I was alone here. I wish this was just an Oklahoma thing and nobody else really understood the insult and the grief this kind of attack leaves on your psyche. But IÂ’m afraid you all do understand now, after another fine clear morning in 2001, when we were all New Yorkers. That old scar for us Okies was torn anew, and itÂ’s still raw and aching.

Read the whole thing.

Posted by: Ace at 07:34 AM | Comments (5)
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Yeahp, the LA Times has its own Jayson Blair. Or rather, it did, until it canned him.

The Mainstream Media

We guarantee that when we make shit up that shit we just made up has been thoroughly "fact-checked" by "multiple layers of editors;" unlike "shoot from the hip" bloggers, our fabrications are of professional-level qualiy.

Thanks to Michelle Malkin, who has more links.

She says "Can't make this stuff up."

Au contraire, sexy. It appears that you can.

Posted by: Ace at 07:32 AM | Comments (1)
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From a poster, who says he's a photographer:

I have a lot to say about this issue. As a conservative and a professional photographer who has photog. friends who have photographed major politicians and world figures for such magazines as Time and other such pubs., I tend to notice some trends.

First observation about this Coulter cover, it that the photographer is the this guy named Platon, who did the Clinton cover of Esquire, or whichever magazine it was that had the infamous crotch shot. It made some sense that Ann had her legs crossed rather than a lewd, sexually provocative posture. The thing about Platon is that he used extreme angles as compared to other more traditional shooters for Time, such as Gregory Heisler, who shot the other infamous cover portrait for Time, of Newt Gingrich in which he was made into a monster with greenn and magenta gelled lighting.

Two of my NYC photographer buddies often shoot politicians and they have made angelic, heroic shots of none other than Wesley Clark, Hans Blix, Al Gore's daughter and others. When I compare and contrast these portraits with the others that these photogs. have created of Michael Bloomberg (shot from a low angle to show the skin bulging out of his tight collar)...or Bill O'Reilly (shot to look like a total buffoon with an awkward expression on his face) or simply to place a dumb looking image of President Bush on their website.....there is an absolute mission going on in the media to make these conservatives look like evil morons. Photographers make biased images the distort normal looking people and photo editors help out by picking these distorted images to further their vision.

He then links a couple of websites to prove his point, but I'm not really sure what they prove. You can click on Evan Kafka and Saunders Jonathan, but I really don't see how either supports his claim. Perhaps I'm just not familiar enough with photography.

A lot of people keep bringing up that Esquire shot of Clinton with his legs spread as counter-evidence to the suggestion that Time tried (and failed) to make Coulter look bad.

The Clinton shot made him look handsome. The only "controversial" part of that was that the shot was angled right into his groin, with his legs spread. But here's the thing -- Clinton obviously willingly posed that way for the photographer. He was not adverse to that shot. If he had been, he could simply have not posed that way.

It was speculated that perhaps Clinton sort of meant that pose to be a somewhat-literal "Eat me" to his conservative critics. A bit of groinal gloating.

In any event, that shot did not distort Clinton's features, nor lengthen any part of his body into cartoonish proporportions. I don't think Coulter said, "You know what? I think it would be really cool if you tried to make me look as gangly and unattractive as humanly possible."

Stop With The Insanity Update: Liberals, and actually a few conservatives, are poo-poohing the idea that any of this is deliberate.

Well, Slublog compares Time covers of liberals and Time covers of conservatives.

Guess who always looks happy and youthful and handsome? Guess who always seems to look scary if not bizarre?

A Picture, and Then a Thousand Words Update: Slublog sends this goofy picture of Bush the Chicago Tribune ran a couple of years ago on page one, five columns wide, above the fold (i.e., big and prominently placed).

An unknown angel sends along this Hardball transcript where Matthews bitch-slaps Jim Warren for running a front page shot making Bush look like a giggling retard. more...

Posted by: Ace at 05:57 AM | Comments (25)
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Chuck Hagel has a couple of things going for him. He's handsome, and handsome in the perfect way for a Senator, and he's a war hero.

On the other hand, he's really trying for that "maverick independent"/prissy diva role McCain has carved out for himself.

John Bolton read the riot act, it is claimed, to some underlings, one of whom lied to his face. This has the liberals very, very, very upset; an executive should never use angry language with an erring underling.

(Let's ignore Bill and Hillary's famously hot-tempered outbursts, as the liberals do, and will just try to change the subject if you bring them up.)

Now Chuck Hegel, who apparently believes the New York Times Editorial Staff is the third primary in 2008 after New Hampshire and Iowa, shows how "thoughtful" he is by wavering once again on an issue.

If Chuck Hagel were Hamlet, Claudius would have died of old age. And some dialogue would have to be modified:

Alas, poor Yorick, I knew him well.
Well, not really "well." I mean, you know,
we were nodding acquaintances. We
were friends, but not friend-friends, if you
know what I mean. I loved him, Horatio,
but not love-loved him, because frankly
I worried about the way he treated the
rest of his clown-staff. I hear rumors --
unconfirmed rumors, to be fair -- that he
once attempted to silly-slap a mime with
big red shoe. And I must be fair to Yorrick,
that is not the sort of behavior I had come
to expect from him, but on the other hand,
these are very serious allegations which I
must cogitate further upon before rendering
a gray and gauzy opinion which will mollify
my conservative voters while also making
Chris Matthews think I'm a "good guy."
Wait a minute, on second thought, I don't
even know if this is Yorrick at all. Didn't
Yorrick have better teeth? Well, anyway.
Doesn't matter anyway. Barely knew the man.
I'm off to the castle now to kill Claudius.
Or sit in the chapel, sobbing like a little girl.
Either/or. I think a wait-and-see attitude
is probably the best idea, as it usually is.
On the other hand, who knows? I sure don't.

"And I'm Very, Very Hurt With That" Update: Joe Biden, who looks really snazzy in his hip white-collared shirts, wants to delay a vote on Bolton to investigate these explosive allegations that a boss yelled at an erring employee.

The next shoe to drop? Sometimes Bolton would say "Good morning" to employees he saw in the elevator at the beginning of the work day, but some of those employees suspected 1) he really wasn't enthusiastic about wishing them a "good morning" and furthermore 2) he didn't seem to actually know who the hell they were.

Fasten your seat-belts. We're in for a white-knuckle rollercoaster ride here, folks. This is going to make the DeLay scandal look as insignificant as the Corwyn scandal.

Posted by: Ace at 05:14 AM | Comments (11)
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Why wasn't I invited? I could easily have played the Feral Kid. Or maybe the mohawk dude in the assless chaps.

Eleven "Mad Max" fans armed with fake machine guns were arrested after they surrounded a tanker truck while making their way to a movie marathon in a theatrical convoy.

As the group headed to San Antonio on Saturday, police received several calls from drivers who reported a "militia" surrounding a tanker truck.

Police charged nine people with obstruction of a highway and two others with possession of prohibited knives in addition to the obstruction charge.

One of the organizers, Chris Fenner, said the arrests were unfair. He said he didn't know why anyone would have confused the [reenactment] with a real threat.

"I honestly don't know how that could be, because 'Road Warrior' was so over the top," he said.

The machine-guns and leather armor probably had something to do with it, Chris.

And, you know, the assless chaps.

And PS, idiots? There was not a single machinegun in The Road Warrior. There was one large-caliber revolver, one sawed-off shotgun, and a lot of bows and crossbows.

Aren't dorks supposed to get these things right? Star Trek dorks don't make this kind of error. They can tell you the exact episode in which the Mark II phaser-rifles were introduced, and if you try bringing one of them to a re-enactment of Specter of the Gun, they will accuse you of being "non-canonical," which is always extremely painful.

Via Garfield Ridge as well as Don.

Posted by: Ace at 12:17 PM | Comments (20)
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Why these idiot MSM rags don't pay me to write their titles for them escapes me. Keep it punchy. Keep it pithy. Keep it "real," as the "downboys" say.

Anyway... here's one obvious reason why liberal talk radio just doesn't, and never will, work, and what liberals plan to do about that:

Liberal bias in the old media. That's what birthed talk radio in the first place. People turn to it to help right the imbalance. Political scientist William Mayer, writing in the Public Interest, recently observed that liberals don't need talk radio because they've got the big three networks, most national and local daily newspapers and NPR.

Unable to prosper in the medium, liberals have taken to denouncing talk radio as a threat to democracy. Liberal political columnist Hendrik Hertzberg, writing in the New Yorker, is typically venomous. Conservative talk radio represents "vicious, untreated political sewage" and "niche entertainment for the spiritually unattractive," Hertzberg sneers.

If some liberals had their way, Congress would regulate political talk radio out of existence. Their logic is that scrapping Air America would be no loss if it also meant getting Limbaugh and Sean Hannity and Bennett off the air.

To accomplish this, New York Democratic Rep. Maurice D. Hinchey has proposed reviving the Fairness Doctrine to protect "diversity of view," and John Kerry recently sent out some signals that he too thought that might be a good idea.

Let me just repeat that:

Political scientist William Mayer, writing in the Public Interest, recently observed that liberals don't need talk radio because they've got the big three networks, most national and local daily newspapers and NPR.

This man is obviously the proud holder of an MFO degree, Master of the F'n' Obvious.

But of course that's the problem. Right radio is an alternative to the MSM.

What the f' is liberal radio an "alternative" to? Reality?*

Bill Kellher, top editor for the New York Times, was discussing media bias, and noted that a lot of liberals were now emulating conservatives in writing letters of complaint that the New York Times was now "too conservative."

Usually, when media people mention this, they claim it "proves" they're actually fair and balanced, as they're "catching heat from both sides."

Kellher, to his credit, admitted his suspicion that most of these letters from liberals alleging conservative media bias were not in fact ingenuous, but an attempt to "mau-mau" (his words) the media more towards the left, or at least prevent the media from making conciliatory moves towards the center to appease conservatives.

* H/t: Thanks for Defense Guy for providing a smart-ass response to my rhetorical question.

Posted by: Ace at 11:13 AM | Comments (19)
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She doesn't like the photo they chose, telling Drudge last night that they picked a more flattering pic to depict Kim Il-Jong.

Well, I guess that puts to rest our curiosity about whether she was allowed to choose her own cover shot.

Oh, that liberal media bias.

I'll wait with bated breath for the Time cover shot exaggerating Hillary! Rodham-Clinton's most distinctive feature -- her cankles.

Now, sometimes cankles can be cute, I guess. But Hillary! doesn't just have cankles, really; she's got something more resembling cbowlingpins or cmightyoaktreetrunks.

Thanks to Michelle Malkin, who's got some more evidence of (shock of all shocks) Time covers making conservatives look bad.

Why did they airbrush in that demonic cigar-smoke into Rush Limbaugh's mouth, for example?

Posted by: Ace at 09:51 AM | Comments (41)
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Everyone's favorite troop-effigy-hangin' moonbat couple is now insinuating there may be lawsuits a-coming if bloggers don't stop reporting on their shenanigans.

But I must be fair: as contemptible as they are, they have a point:

In the call I received from Mr. Pearcy, he informed me that I am guilty of a "tortious interference with a business relationship" because I suggested that people who didn't like her private actions could email her employer.

I consider that a big no-no; that is attempting to wreak havoc in their professional lives regarding their hateful, but legal, political speech. It's that sort of crap that is (partly) the reason I want to remain anonymous.

I'm not sure if the Pearcys really have a legal recourse here, but no one should be attempting to harass them, the same as they ought not to be harassing their pro-Bush tenants. Turnabout isn't always necessarily fair play.

Posted by: Ace at 09:25 AM | Comments (35)
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Jeff and Bill asked about this, but I didn't know for sure at the time and I didn't know if it was supposed to be a secret until later. But it looks like me and Karol from Alarming News will be starting a weekly coughInternetcough "radio" show sometime in early May, tenatively scheduled for Tuesdays 4-5 Eastern.

I wanted to just call the show Ace of Spades With Alarming News, but I don't think Karol was ever very happy with that (Little Miss Ego), and now Rightalk doesn't seem happy with the express mention of the blogs in the title, either.

We can't come up with a name, so if you've got one, let me know. We've gone through "Psyops" (which I sort of like, but no one else does) to "NY Confidential" (sounds too much like a gossip show) to "Signal Strength" (just f'n' lame) to "Fast Company," which is a bit obscure, and anyway is the name of a magazine.

Stumped.

Yes, I guess we could go with "Like a Viking," but I don't know. It turns out that Rightalk isn't quite as loose with sexual allusions as I'd hoped.

Anyway, if you've got one, give me some f'n' intelligent input. I'm usually good at titles, but this one has me perplexed.

Posted by: Ace at 09:12 AM | Comments (207)
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