December 21, 2007

Chuck Norris Sues Publisher Penguin
— Dave In Texas

Changed it. Penguin is way funnier.

over Fun Facts About Chuck Norris.

The book capitalizes on "mythical facts" that have been circulating on the Internet since 2005 that poke fun at Norris' tough-guy image and super-human abilities, the suit said.

It includes such humorous "facts" as "Chuck Norris's tears cure cancer. Too bad he has never cried" and "Chuck Norris does not sleep. He waits," the suit said, as well as "Chuck Norris can charge a cell phone by rubbing it against his beard."

Mythical? Humorous? Oh I think not. Cthulu is mythical, and he's a laugh riot. Not Chuck. Norris. Nuh uh.

My all time personal favorite Chuck Norris fact was "if Chuck Norris is running late, time better slow the fuck down".

It might be the use of the eff-word. That one makes me giggle.


Posted by: Dave In Texas at 05:13 PM | Comments (35)
Post contains 147 words, total size 1 kb.

Can we have a do over?
— Jack M.

I can't stand it.

Every major Republican nominee sucks.

Let me repeat.

Every major Republican nominee sucks.

Giuliani is a gun-grabbing, cross-dressing, abortion-supporting, gay rights supporting, adulterer. He was good after 9/11 though.

Romney is a flip-flopping, see-sawing (thanks Pupster!), planned-parenthood supporting, Reagan-distancing (see his debate against Ted Kennedy) plastic phony. He probably would have lost re-election to a 2nd term in Massachusetts, but he did resue the Winter (who f'n cares?) Olympics.

Huckabee is a flim-flamming, snake oil selling, Bible-exploiting, Identity-politicing, Huey Long wanna-be. Those are the nice things I can say about him.

Thompson is an un-inspiring, occasionally conscious, Campaign Finance Supporting, Master of Nothing but the 30 second YouTube spot. His wife seems nice, though. And when he wakes up, he issues pretty decent policy papers between naps.

McCain is a media whoring, gang of 14-ing, illegal immigrant coddling, global warming believing, Republican-mavericking, Rino. He was right on the surge though.

Paul is a John Birching, conspiracy theorizing, gold bugging, Nazi money enabling, truther. I have nothing nice to say about Paul.

Hunter seems like a good, Conservative, solid public servant, and a decent man. Which probably explains why he's at about 2%. There seems to be an inverse corrolary between your decency and your poll standing in modern politics.

So, I'm not going to endorse any of these losers. Period.

An endorsement should mean something. It should mean you stand behind an individual. That you share their values, their beliefs, their vision. Otherwise it's empty of meaning.

It's a sell out, in other words. An endorsement out of "pragmatism" is hardly an endorsement at all. It's the "fair weather friend" of endorsements. Here one day, and gone the next.

Does that mean I won't hold my nose and vote for one of these clowns against the Dems?

Nah, I probably will.

But I won't want to (ED note: I meant to say "except for possibly Hunter, who I like" but failed to originally). And that's sad.

What I do want (and maybe Santa will bring it to me for Christmas) is a do over.

I want a brokered convention. Where someone not currently under consideration comes out of the pack and replaces all these clowns.

Sen. Jim DeMint maybe? Sen. Jon Kyl? Gov. Haley Barbour?

I could get excited about those guys. Give any of 'em the federal matching funds after the convention and turn them loose against an overexposed Hillary or Obama in a 3 month race and I'd like my chances.

So, go ahead Iowa. Let Huckabee win your caucus.

New Hampshire? Let the Dems and "Independents" crossover to tip the scales for McCain.

South Carolina? I dare you to go for Fred!

Michigan? You owe it to Mitt. His dad was Governor.

Florida? Giuliani still leads. Hizzoner could use some delegates too.

Disperse the delegates far and wide! Let's tie this convention in knots!

What say you, folks? If you could have a do over who would you draft for the spots on the ticket?

Let's play fantasy election! It's like fantasy football, only for morons.

UPDATE: Over in the Haloscan comments, I get slammed for having the "courage to not make a decision."

Actually, were I to endorse somebody, it would be Hunter. His campaign seems to be running on nothing more than fumes, though, and I doubt he'll even be around when it comes time for my primary ballot to be cast. So I did make a decision, although one that will likely be moot when my turn comes.

With him gone, can I honestly say that I look forward to voting for any of these guys? No. I think the remaining candidates all suck. And I probably won't give any of them a primary vote. Call it my right as a voter to decide "none of the above." I probably will vote for whoever emerges as the eventual nominee, as I agree that the alternatives offered by that other party are still much worse.

Unless it's McCain. You have your "non-starters" and I have mine.

Posted by: Jack M. at 02:13 PM | Comments (112)
Post contains 687 words, total size 4 kb.

Rasmussen: It's Anybody's Game, All Five Major Candidates Between 19% (Huckster) and 11% (Teh Fred)
— Ace

Hmmm... pretty much they all have a shot, including the once left-for-dead McCain and Thompson, who everyone is basically saying is out of it because he's polling so low... but, um, just a couple of points behind the people who are leading.

The Rasmussen Reports daily Presidential Tracking Poll for Friday continues to show that five Republican hopefuls are in double digits. However, for the first time ever, not a single Republican candidate reaches the 20% level of support. In the race for the Republican Presidential Nomination, itÂ’s Mike Huckabee at 19%, Rudy Giulianin 16%, John McCain and Mitt Romney at 15% each, and Fred Thompson at 11%. Ron Paul currently attracts 6% of Likely Republican Primary voters nationwide.

So... I guess I have to say this or the Fredheads will bitch. (Guys, some of you are getting to be like the Paulbots of the respectable candidate field. Dial it down a few notches, huh? Let people take their time about making up their minds... the way Fred would want it. All moseying-like and unhurried, eh?)

There's no reason of electability or viability to withhold support of Fred, because he's not any more out of it than Romney or Giuliani is.


Edit: Because my original comparison of Fredheads to Paulbots was far, far more incendiary than I ever imagined it would be (I thought it was joke... mostly), I've re-written it to be gentler and also more reflective of what I actually meant.

Posted by: Ace at 02:09 PM | Comments (178)
Post contains 273 words, total size 2 kb.

Hillary's Christmas Miracle!
— Ace

Her old Sunday school teacher just happens to show up at a rally (in Iowa, not Illinois, where one would expect her to be, being from Illinois and all) to "surprise" Hillary with a copy of her confirmation picture from 1959.

This woman wasn't a plant, Hillary's campaign insists.

Though she did, fortunately enough, contribute greatly and at just the right time to Hillary's campaign to make herself seem likable. And human. As difficult as either those will be to achieve.

Clinton called on two audience members for questions, including Amy Fellows of Croton, Iowa, who asked, “Are you a Christian?”

“Yes I am,” said Hillary.

“OK, that’s really important to me. God be with you,” said Crofton.

“And also with you,” the senator answered. “I’m often asked what are the biggest influences in my life and what are the important commitments that kind of keep me going — my faith, my family, my friends, my work. I used to get asked fairly often if I was a praying person. I said yes, I was raised going to church, I’m a Methodist,” she said to applause. “I’m a very grateful and committed Methodist.”"

This same Sunday school teacher just happened to show up at a previous Hillary appearance, one in which she has been accused of planting questioners.

Hillary's a good enough "committed Methodist" to know that God helps those who help themselves, and sometimes God's blessed miracles require a bit of advanced planning and staging by His servants to pull off.

Thanks to CJ.

Posted by: Ace at 01:36 PM | Comments (27)
Post contains 261 words, total size 2 kb.

Romney's "Figurative" Defense Of His MLK Claims
— Ace

In case you haven't seen it. It looks bad.

I have to say that this defense sounds like a guy treating me like an idiot. Even worse, he himself is an idiot, so it's an idiot treating me like an idiot because he thinks I'm idiotic enough to go for his idiot-talk.

That said, I think the whole thing is a really stupid gotcha that means practically nothing.

But man... Romney cannot give a good answer under pressure.

Posted by: Ace at 01:01 PM | Comments (30)
Post contains 92 words, total size 1 kb.

More Rush v. Huckabee
— Ace

"I fear we have woken a sleepng giant..." (With audio.)

For the anti-Hucksters, alas, the woken giant is going back to sleep, as Limbaugh goes on vacation today and won't return until Jan 2nd, the day before the Iowa caucuses.

More quotes via Geraghty:

"He's been endorsed by the New Hampshire NEA. They endorsed Huckabee on the Republican side, and Hillary Clinton on the Democratic side. The NEA is not interested in conservatives getting any power anywhere. Huckabee's record is a better record for the Wall Street D.C. Axis than anything."

"How is questioning that record an attack on Christians or evangelicals? That's a deplorable tactic."

...

A caller asks if Huckabee is any less conservative than Rudy Giuliani or Mitt Romney. Rush: "In Rudy and Romney's case you can cite two things - gay marriage and abortion. In Huckabee's case, you can cite four or five things. There's more than two deviations in the Huckabee governing record."

And, on Huckabee's invocation of "The Spirit of Christmas" as a shield against attacks on his record:

"That's what the libs do. They do that because they don't want to discuss the issues. I'm getting the sense that Mike Huckabee doesn't want to debate the issues. He uses this as a firewall to prevent the issues from coming up."

It was the Christmas ad that unhinged me, personally, as to his use of religion. Previously he'd used religion as a sword ("Christian leader," "Do Mormons believe Jesus and Satan are brothers?"). That was low enough.

But then to suggest that no one was allowed to examine his record and fight back against his push-polls and underhanded attacks because it's the time of the Birth of Christ was disgusting.

Jesus doesn't want us to examine the records of our presidential candidates just prior to the first-in-the-nation-caucuses, Mike?

Really? Jesus doesn't want that? Jesus finds that offensive? That's contrary to the spirit of Christmas? One's not a good Christian if one dares to criticize your political record before a major political contest?

For a guy who claims to be doing this all for Jesus, he sure seems to have Jesus working overtime for himself.

The liberals have a threadworn gag: Don't vote against the Republicans, or else the Baby Jesus cries. But Mike Huckabee is basically really saying that.

I am not a religious guy so perhaps my opinion doesn't count. But you can take this "at least he's sincere and nice" crap and chuck it. Invoking Jesus as a reason to not discuss one's political record while running for office seems to me to be borderline blasphemous, a rather presumptuous inversion of who, precisely, is supposed to be in the service of Whom.

And I don't know if a real, believing, reverent Christian would dare to do that. Has any Christian out there ever gone into an employee evaluation around Easter and Christmas and told his boss, "I hope, out of respect for this blessed season, you refrain from commenting negatively on my performance this quarter. Otherwise you're not giving proper respect to our Lord and Savior."

If anyone has tried that, let me know 1) if it worked and 2) how you're dealing with your current unemployment and 3) whether you feel the outpatient treatment delivered by your mental health professionals is up to snuff.

The sort of person who does something like that is, to my mind, more likely to be a huckster who found himself blessed with a silver tongue and few other talents and so has insincerely used a religion he doesn't quite believe in to cadge a dishonest living off of people he's managed to deceive.

Correction: I wrote he'd be back January 3rd. Mack says January 2nd. Since I'm a moron, I'll go with his version.

More: It just never ends. But it's the "anti-Christian chattering classes" that keep brining religion into this, huh?

Eh, it's not like there are a lot of Catholics in the country anyway. Not like they're an important part of the Reagan coalition, or just basically people who deserve the respect of not having their faith attacked. No big deal.

Thanks to someone.


Posted by: Ace at 12:41 PM | Comments (33)
Post contains 699 words, total size 5 kb.

The Most Absurd Scandal Of The 2008 Season (So Far!)
— Ace

Powerline thinks it's stupid. So do I.

So did Mitt Romney "see" his father march with MLK? No, not quite. Rather, he "saw" his father lead an NAACP march in Grosse Point timed to coincide with civil rights marches all over the country.

Is his statement exactly accurate? No, but... from the Detroit Free Press on June 29, 1963, Romney Joins Protest March Of 500 In Grosse Pointe:

With Gov. Romney a surprise arrival and marching in the front row, more than 500 Negroes and whites staged a peaceful antidiscrimination parade up Grosse Pointe’s Kercheval Avenue Saturday. … ‘the elimination of human inequalities and injustices is our urgent and critical domestic problem,’ the governor said. … [Detroit NAACP President Edward M.] Turner told reporters, ‘I think it is very significant that Governor Romney is here. We are very surprised.’ Romney said, ‘If they want me to lead the parade, I’ll be glad to.’

Jonah Goldberg does a Lexis/Nexis search:

I went and checked back issues of the New York Times to see what it said about Romney and MLK etc back then. I'm still going through it — though I may just hand all this off to Jim or one of my colleagues. But I found one NYT headline from March 10, 1965 "Romney Leads a Protest." The story is part of a series of dispatches from coordinated civil rights marches across the country. There's a picture at the top of the page from the famous protest in Selma, showing MLK march.

Anyway, I haven't watched the by all accounts cringeworthy explanation from Mitt, but I can certainly imagine growing up in a house where your Republican dad led a march in racially polarized Detroit timed to coincide with MLK's Selma march and thinking your dad marched with King. Romney was foolish to say what he said and, apparently explain it the way he explained it, but he has every right to take pride in what his father did.

Now, give me a break. His dad is marching multiple times with local NAACP chapters marching "with" -- in the national sense -- MLK. Were they at the same place at the same time? Apparently not. Who cares? He was indeed marching for MLK's cause.

Romney's answer was indeed crinegeworthy -- and unlike Jonah I saw it -- and this exposes a bad flaw of Romney's: He's just not terribly good on his feet. For a smart guy, he sure comes off awfully dumb when hit with something unexpected. He could have just said, "Well, that was what I was told. I did see him march with the NAACP several times and believed he did so with MLK. If I'm wrong, I guess my memory is off."

But so what? Yeah, he flubbed the answer. This matters, how? Except to the extent that it's evidence he'll flub further answers, I fail to see the problem. And that's a problem of artful politicking, not evidence of some deep dark character flaw.

And yeah, after 7 years of Bush, I'd prefer to have a President who was a bit more quick-witted.

But being inartful when hit with a gotcha question is not the worst possible flaw I can think of. At the very least, it proves he does not worship Satan, because a minion of Satan would have silver tongue and the ability to mesmerize humans with his eyes. Like Dracula.


Update: A bit worse: Mitt claimed, in 1978, that he himself marched with his father and MLK. He didn't.

I don't know, same deal: So long as Mitt marched during one of these coordinated nationwide marches, which I'm assuming he did, I think it's an acceptable shorthand. Not exactly accurate, but the point of noting this is to establish one's commitment to civil rights, not if one was fortunate enough to actually get close to a major national celebrity.

Andrew Sullivan is pimping that. A quote from 1978. Meanwhile he excuses Ron Paul posing for pictures with Nazis two months ago on the grounds that it's just "guilt by association."

Posted by: Ace at 11:55 AM | Comments (34)
Post contains 693 words, total size 4 kb.

Hellboy 2 Trailer
— Ace

The first was cute enough. The line that I remember, that made me like it, was David Hyde Pierce's, playing some mutant fish-man. He and Hellboy were about to enter a sewer, and when they lifted the manhole, they were confronted by a frenzy of cockroaches skittering over each other in a disgusting carpet of vermin.

"We lead a charmed life, don't we?" Niles the Fish-Man said chirpilly.

Anyway here's the trailer for the not-terribly anticipated sequel.

It won't play for me for some reason. Jen from Demure Thoughts tells me it looks awful, but then maybe she's just PMSing or something. It's hard to know whether to trust a women with that whole period thing always happening.

Posted by: Ace at 11:15 AM | Comments (22)
Post contains 124 words, total size 1 kb.

Limbaugh On Huckabee: "McCain's Starting To Look Better Than This Guy, And That's Saying Something"
— Ace

It's on. Now, actually. (Whoops, he's moved on, but he's returning to it occasionally... now he's likening Huckabee to Howard Dean, prompted by a caller.)

From Limbaugh's lips to Geraghty's fingertips to your eyes.

Another quote:

"The Huckabee campaign is trying to dumb down conservatism in order to get it to conform with his record."

This isn't the first time he's gone after the Huckster. Someone sent me this earlier transcript in which he likens Huckabee's supporters to Perot's hoodwinked, bamboozled supporters, and, in addition, implies they're "cultists" like the Peroistas while saying "I'm not saying his supporters are cultists."

I don't think he is saying that, not really. But he seems frustrated at Huckabee's supporters' apparent reluctance to examine the guy's record.

He explains why he's not taking many shots at Huckabee:

So Huckabee writes this piece basically savaging the Bush administration's "arrogant bunker mentality." Now, one thing I know, I remember back in the '92 campaign, Ross Perot came along, and I had my instincts. I had misgivings about it from the get-go, and I shared those misgivings, and I tried to talk the Perot people out of it. "You people are being fooled. He's not even serious about wanting to be elected. There's something else going on here. I'm going to get to the bottom of it and find out." I found out what it was. When it looked like he was going to win, he pulled out, then he got back in. He basically gave the election to the Democrats and Bill Clinton. But what I remember is that all during that period -- when I was so intense and so purposefully desirous of trying to get the Perot people to see the light -- they didn't want to see it. They were like cultists, and I learned that you cannot talk cultists out of their cult. You just have to let 'em see it for themselves in the time it takes for it all to unfold, and I think with Huckabee, I don't think his people are cultists, don't misunderstand.

CALLER: Right.

RUSH: But I think there are two or three things about him that have drawn people to him, that are going to make them overlook some other things that ought to raise some red flags.

...

RUSH: My only point to you is that -- and I'm not going to repeat what I did with Perot, because it's not going to work. The only thing I'll say to you is, "I think if you dug deep, you would find..." Well, you admitted it. You think Huckabee is "moving to the middle," because he's moving to the middle, he's abandoning what? The right. He'll stick solid on certain things on the right because he knows that he is attracting a portion of the population based on religious and moral and ethical values, which is fine, but on some of these other areas that also define conservatism like taxes and so forth, he doesn't have the pedigree. But I'm not going to try to talk you out of it. No, I don't even think about it. I'm not trying to talk you out of it. I'm not attacking you because I know you can't, because you called here and you think he's the one true conservative out there because of the things that matter a lot to you, he's right on the money on them. So we'll see what unfolds in the few short weeks ahead to when we finally get nominees for both parties. In the meantime, Charlie, thanks for the call.

I sort of have misgivings about bashing Huckabee, too, because I think those who like him may be a bit defensive about it and feel personally attacked when they're candidate is attacked. I did wonder if it wouldn't be better to just not cover him at all and hope, as Limbaugh says, his supporters would dig a little deeper. Perhaps they just need to be allowed to discover it on their own. When the "establishment and Washington chattering classes" are trying to ram something down your throat, it's natural enough to get very resistant and dig your heels in, I guess.

Still, whatever, this guy sucks ass. He's bad for the party, bad for evangelicals, and bad for the few issues he's conservative on, because last time I checked the guy who only gets 34% of the vote in the presidential election usually doesn't get to appoint justices to the Supreme Court.

And I'm glad Limbaugh is being a little more proactive in noting that.

Thanks to JeffD. for the Geraghty tip and, I think, CJ for the longer transcript.

It's All Huckabee On Open Line Friday: Latest quote (approximately): "Hucakbee is running on identity politics, and that identity is as a Christian. That lets his supporters project on to him whatever they define as being 'Christian conservative,' but on most issues he isn't a conservative."

When a pastor calls up to claim "Huckabee is the light at the end of the tunnel," Limbaugh says, "That light at the end of the tunnel is an oncoming train and you can't get off the tracks."

Posted by: Ace at 10:08 AM | Comments (70)
Post contains 892 words, total size 5 kb.

More On NYT's Bogus Hit On Giuliani... Wanna Know Which Campaign Pushed This Non-Story Into The "Paper of Record"?
— Ace

Here's that story Gabe linked to. Not only did it run on page A21 -- after the NYT blared its half-baked, unvetted allegations to the world on the front pages for weeks -- but as Gabe notes it's conveniently inconvenient to post, in image form rather than an easily linked and quoted print article.

Upshot? Let me quote Powerline, digesting it:

Remember the frenzy over suggestions that, as mayor, Rudy Giuliani tried to hide his visits to Judith Nathan in the Hamptons by burying the associated security costs in the budgets of obscure mayoral agencies? Well, the New York Times has looked deeply into the matter and concluded, based on the relevant city records, that "all eight of Mr. Giuliani's trips to the Hamptons in 1999 and 2000, including the period when his relationship was a secret, were charged to his own mayoral expense account, according to the records." The Times adds: "the records reviewed so far, which account for 93 percent of the mayor travel expenses for that period, suggest that Mr. Giuliani's efforts to see Ms. Nathan, who is now his wife, had nothing to do with any accounting legerdemain.

When the relationship was a secret, the trips were billed to the Mayoral account, the one where no one can accuse him of trying to "hide" expenses. The one the NYT claims that he should have been billing the trips to. Guess what? He did.

Later in his term he began billing stuff to various agencies. Less than one percent of such "hidden" billings have anything to do with Nathan. In other words, 99% of these supposed "hidden" expenses are entirely legitimate and without any whiff of scandal. So if Giuliani was trying to "hide" travel expenses, why was he "burying" so many mundane travel expenses via this "accounting trickery"?

Furthermore, the "hidden" expenses regarding Nathan occurred after the affair was public. He didn't "hide" them when it was secret but then, with the affair openly acknowledged, he began "hiding" them via "accounting legardemain"... though again it's a mystery why he chose to "hide," say, a trip to meet the Schenectady City Council in these "secret accounts."

A21. A21 is the page upon which the Times chooses to tell you "Remember that huge scandal we endlessly promoted? Turns out it's completely wrong. It seems Giuliani's explanation, that he was just charging normal travel to other accounts for ease and quickness of payment, before his mayoral account would reimburse them, was 100% true."

The headlines have dogged Rudolph W. Giuliani's presidential campaign for weeks. "Security costs for trysts draw attention," said one. The articles questioned whether, as mayor, Mr. Giuliani tried to hide his visits to Judith Nathan in the Hamptons by burying the associated security costs in the budgets of obscure mayoral agencies like the Loft Board.

The answer is not likely, according to a review of the city records originally cited as the basis for the assertion.

All eight of Mr. Giuliani's trips to the Hamptons in 1999 and 2000, including the period when his relationship was a secret, were charged to his own mayoral expense account, according to the records.

After his affair became public, the mayor's office in 2001 did charge several trips to the Hamptons to the Assigned Counsel Plan, which was designed to coordinate legal efforts for the poor.

But the total cost of those trips, $2,474, represents less than 1 percent of the $281,338 in travel expenses that was charged to the obscure agencies.

And those expenses were not incurred until two years after Mr. Giuliani's office first began to shift some mayoral travel expenses to lesser-known units.

...

But the records reviewed so far, which account for 93 percent of the mayor travel expenses for that period, suggest that Mr. Giuliani's efforts to see Ms. Nathan, who is now his wife, had nothing to do with any accounting legerdemain.

The NYT speaks of "headlines" as if these "headlines" just snuck out of the bushes to attack Giuliani of their own malice. It was of course the NYT that breathlessly pushed this bullshit allegation, which it now retracts... on page A21. In an article (delberately?) difficult to quote. Did I mention the A21 thing?

Now, who pushed this?

I found out a while ago. It's not surprising -- it was Hillary Clinton's campaign. Her people were dilligently pushing the story all over the place, including some rather small local New York presses. Very small liberal partisan papers. Just pushing the story out there to tiny local papers in hopes that somebody, anybody, would run it and then it would get some play in the national media.

Of course she was pushing it to the NYT too. How delighted they must have been that the "Paper of Record" decided to go with it when they would have been happy with, say, the Village Voice. Or even some tiny community paper in Harlem.

How do I know? I know. Leave it be.

This reflects far more poorly on the NYT than on Hillary's diligent dirt-diggers, of course. They're supposed to push crap like this on the vaunted "gatekeepers of information." It's these self-styled gatekeepers, of course, who are actually supposed to keep unvetted, unfounded smears from rival campaigns from passing through those gates.

But they just ran with it. And ran and ran and ran. And now, actually having finally bothered to look at the records, they retract.

On Page A21.

Did I mention that?

As much as I don't like McCain, this is precisely why I doubt their big scandal story is worth a damn. Here we have a case of a non-story pushed by rival's opposition team without any real evidence to back it up and, instead of requesting all the relevant records, analyzing them, and then running the story if it panned out, the NYT instead smeared Giuliani, took charges straight from the Clinton campaign's mailing list and ran them as a page one scandal, and only now actually bothers to check the record to find out there was absolutely nothing here.

On Page A21. Just thought I'd mention that, in case I didn't.

Why is it so damnably easy for the Hillary Clinton campaign to get its smears into the MSM? Why is it that the NYT was so gung-ho to run, unvetted, an allegation so weak the Clinton campaign was shopping it to tiny neighborhood newspapers in NYC?

It's a mystery I guess we'll just never be able to solve.

PS: The other day a bit of vague dirt was dangled to me about Mike Huckabee. As you may have noticed, I'm not a fan of Mike Huckabee. The dirt similarly involved sketchy expensing.

My response was to ask the guy -- a partisan for someone else -- to firm up these very vague and sketchy claims so that I knew, precisely, what Huckabee was being accused of, so I could then see if there was any there there.

The guy replied he didn't really know. So, guess what, I didn't mention it.

It wasn't just that I had some ethics against it. It was also that I didn't want to look like a jackass peddling some dirt when I didn't even know if it was dirt. And also, I'm lazy and didn't feel like digging. If I'm being honest.

But the takeaway I'd prefer to, um, take away from this is that apparently the Ace of Spades blog has a more robust "gatekeeper" system and more effective "multiple layers of painstaking editorial oversight" than the New Fucking York Times.

Posted by: Ace at 09:38 AM | Comments (50)
Post contains 1299 words, total size 8 kb.

<< Page 13 >>
99kb generated in CPU 0.2162, elapsed 0.5209 seconds.
44 queries taking 0.5056 seconds, 151 records returned.
Powered by Minx 1.1.6c-pink.