An interesting defense, to say the least.

The coolest thing about claiming "Clinton Administration officials gave me false information about Iraq's WMD's?"

It not only absovles Edwards -- it implicates his rival Hillary!

Via Goldstein's site, where Pablo has a bit more on Edwards' campaign blogger Andrea Marcotte's strangely-disappearing comments and quotes.

Just must be some big glitch in her blogging program, I guess. Some weird bug that keeps deleting controversial, obscenity-laden, anti-religious, false-rape-accusation-making posts from her site.

I wish I had some glitch like that. Then maybe Rudy could reciprocate some of my man-love with some crazy blog-money.

Posted by: Ace at 01:56 PM | Comments (19)
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Michelle Cottle, who I've long considered one of the dimmest bulbs in the liberal hackosphere:

Bush's latest, shameless attack on expertise.

Presidential Oversight
by Michelle Cottle
Only at TNR Online | Post date 02.02.07

Unbelievable. Just when you thought the Bush White House could not get any more arrogant, heavy-handed, imperial, and obnoxious, out comes the president's decree that, henceforth, every government agency must be overseen by a political appointee with a mandate to, as the New York Times explained it, "analyze the costs and the benefits of new rules and to make sure the agencies carry out the president's priorities."...

Imagine that -- the head of the executive actually thinks he can boss around his subordinates.

Incidentally, this seems to dovetail with an idea I had a few days ago. The Democrats in the Senate "reformed" the earmark system by inserting some language that earmarks shall not have the force of law. But they've never had the force of law -- they're notes in the record of spending bills which agencies by and large pass because 1) they don't want to anger appropriators and have their funds cut and 2) because it's easy -- hey, why spend a lot of time crunching the numbers of the economic impact of a spending initiative if the legislative record has already helpfully told you that the highest priority in the homeland defense bill is $40 million for the Roberty Byrd Memorial Klanorama?

But if this is the case, then it seems to me that the President hardly needs new powers of recission and so forth. He himself can end all eamarking -- by demanding that the agencies make spending decisions based upon either the voted-upon law of the land or their own internal analyses -- and not simply take Robert Byrd's suggestions diktats as binding.

And this exercise of constitutional, lawful power over Bush's bureaucratic subordinates seems to be a step in that direction.

And of course Michelle Cottle, moron, is both shocked and baffled by all of this.

Posted by: Ace at 01:37 PM | Comments (25)
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It premiered last night at 2am. I only caught the tail-end of it. Seemed pretty funny, especially for a first show.

Jim Treacher has the left's early reactions to the show. They're not surprising.

It's on again at 2am ET tonight if you want to check it out. Called, appropriately, Red Eye. Another title, "What the Fuck Are You Still Doing Up, Asshole?," was rejected during the development phase.

Correction: Ignore everything that follows, pretty much. Having heard of the "right-wing version of Jon Stewart" in the approximate time-frame I heard about Gutfeld's Red Eye, I assumed, wrongly, they were in fact the same project.

They're not, commenters tell me. So all this crap that follows? My usual high level of fact-checking.

...

One thing about it I don't get: when I first heard about this project, months ago, it was suggested it would be a right-leaning alternative to Jon Stewart. But FoxNews plainly has not invested a lot of money into the show; it's four people arrayed around a table, trading talk, gossip, and quips (plus remote interviews with out-of-studio guests). There's no "fake news" run-down like Stewart has nor, of course, pre-taped "reports" from "correspondents."

So, it's not so much a Jon Stewart competitor as a more comic version of, say, Hannity & Spock.

I guess FoxNews figured that if Dennis Miller couldn't make the right-leaning fake-news thing work, there wasn't any point trying that format again. But then, Dennis Miller was on CNBC, which doesn't have the built-in audience Fox does.

And yes, this is all an effort to get FoxNews to add some fake-news writers to the show so I can snag myself a steady job.

Posted by: Ace at 01:07 PM | Comments (27)
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OK, you guys seemed to like my Trent Lott/Hillary Clinton story from a week or so ago, so I thought I'd share another with you.

Only this time it features Senator John McCain.

Do any of you know what it's like to campaign with John McCain? I do.

Because, several years ago (I won't say when because I'm trying to protect the identity of the person I worked for and I don't want to give the election cycle away) Senator McCain hit the campaign trail for my boss.

And I got a first hand glimpse of what it's like to be a rider on the Straight Talk Express.

It isn't pretty.

More after the Jump. more...

Posted by: Jack M. at 12:40 PM | Comments (72)
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Why, oh why, did FoxNews send someone sounding even whinier than Arkin to ambush-interview him?

Arkin writes a new column, in which he whines about how "painful" all this has been for him, and also says his editors have, err, suggested he write on this issue no further. But he also says he still has the "impulse" to respond to criticism of him, so I imagine it'll be fairly easy to bait him into getting fired.

Notice how callous he is about maligning others, but when fire is returned on him, he writes thousand-plus-word columns about how put-upon he is and how "painful" the attacks are. And, of course, how evil and partisan those making the attacks are.

As they say: A gallon of irony spilled, but not a drop splashed on him.

Demonization and Responsibility

...

The many e-mails I've gotten privately from people serving in the military are, not surprisingly, the most respectful and reflective. Some correspondents are downright indignant, some are sarcastic, and most are hurt by the "mercenary" epithet and my commentary. But they are philosophical about their service and where we are in the war and the country today.

The torrents of other mail -- biting, fanatical, threatening -- represent the worst of polarized and hate-filled America. I'm not complaining about being criticized or being made the latest punching bag for those who subsist off of high-volume conquest. Nor am I apologizing for addressing, however imperfectly, the questions I did last week, nor for being critical of the military.

Instead, I'm trying to make sense of the worldview of those who have responded. For the critics, I have become the enemy and have been demonized. In that process, I have ceased being a person, an individual, or a human being, all essential to justify the campaign to annihilate me. I'm not trying to offer myself up as victim here, nor do I expect the critics to change their view. I'm merely pointing out the process and the implications of the dehumanization.

This from the guy who accused soldiers of being "mercenaries" and also suggested they harbor desires to conduct a coup against the civilian-run government and rule by military junta.

Gosh, Arkin's critics are so "polarized" and "hate-filled," aren't they?

...

Note: On the advice of my editors, this is the last column I will post for awhile on this subject. My impulse would be to continue to fight back and answer the critics, but I see the wisdom in their observation that nothing new is being said here and the Internet frenzy is adding nothing to the debate or our understanding of our world. I also see that I cannot continue to write about humanity and difficult questions if indeed what I wish is to vanquish those who attack me.

A blog is a deeply personal endeavor and for that reason, the writing and the comments in response veer towards the hyper-personalized. I need to say to my readers, though, that I write an opinion column. It is my voice, one that is often sarcastic and one that solely reflects my 30 years of experience in the field. I strive to see an angle in an event that is different. Because I try to be ahead of the curve, and not just reflect conventional wisdom, the observations are often uncooked, and often even wrong. I feel successful when I've tapped into something, and I guess the recent postings have been a success in that regard, even though they have become painful for me and others.

Shorter Arkin: Poor put-upon me.

It's easy enough to "tap into something" by hatefully maligning a large group of people. He thinks he's really knocked one out of the park here, doesn't he?

Demonizing = using one's words and one's true beliefs as a basis of fair critique.

Leftist Dogma 101: It's "free speech" when you attack others. It's a vile, intimidating hate-crime when others attack you for your owhn attack.

Posted by: Ace at 12:08 PM | Comments (22)
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It's not old. It's evergreen.

God, I wish the Loose Change assholes would involve Buzz Aldrin in their idiotic conspiracy theories. Then we'd have some fun.

More Evergreen Space Funnies: For some weird reason, I was thinking about this old video yesterday. And then Locusts & Honey randomly sends it to me.

I think that means it wants to be reposted -- "The Old Negro Space Program." The untold story of forgotten black space heroes, before NASA began permitting black astronauts.

"Shit, woman, it is cold as fuck up here."

Posted by: Ace at 11:23 AM | Comments (17)
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Someone heard a train. Someone said the damage was like a "bomb" went off. Ergo, the so-called "tornado damage" in Florida was caused by government-chartered bomb-laden trains.

Mild content warning for some language, a-little-bit-too-soon bad taste, light blasphemy, and Pantera and Slayer.

Thanks to 5Cats.

Posted by: Ace at 11:17 AM | Comments (7)
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The site is sometimes down, sometimes up due to the rush of traffic. But click on it when it works.

Al Jazeera online hotlinked an image posted on Snapped Shot. After weighing the ethics of it, Snapped Shot decided to replace the hotlinked picture with one Al Jazeera would certainly not approve of.

And, at least at the moment, that picture is still running on Al Jazera -- scan down for the dark-robed chap with the bomb in his turban.

Posted by: Ace at 10:55 AM | Comments (28)
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Does cloture on a Senate bill un-democratically choke off necessary debate or not?

You won't be surprised to learn that, by the MSM's lights at least, it depends on which party is voting for cloture or which party is fighting cloture.

Whether trying to keep debate alive or moving to close debate, Republicans are always depicted as "ending" or "killing" debate, whereas Democrats -- again, whether pressing for cloture or railing against it -- are always depicted as keeping debate -- the genius of American politics, of course -- alive.

I expect a certain amount of flip-flopping from politicians on this. I'm not surprised, nor terribly bothered, that what Harry Reid once railed against as un-American he now finds a convenient and efficient method of getting things done. Nor am I surprised that Republicans, who, when in the majority, frequently stopped the endless debate to finally get a vote on a bill now see unfairness in the same tactic.

But the media -- which is supposed to be nonpartisan and neutral -- should be using the same headlines and same terminology to describe the precise same action no matter which party is taking it, right?

Apparently they disagree. Cloture is bad when Republicans vote for it, but a good thing -- in fact, contributing to further debate -- when Democrats want it.

Posted by: Ace at 10:51 AM | Comments (10)
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Too much information? Well, it got the word out-- he has remarried, as Rightwingsparkle said. I didn't know that. I thought he was still a divorcee/bachelor.

So, now we know.

"I've always liked strong, macho men, and Rudy - I'm not saying this because he's my husband - is one of the smartest people on the planet," gushed the former Judith Nathan to Harper's Bazaar in editions due out Feb. 20.

"What people don't know is that Rudy's a very, very romantic guy. We love watching 'Sleepless in Seattle.' Can you imagine my big testosterone-factor husband doing that?"

Describing Rudy, a former federal prosecutor, as "the Energizer Bunny with no rechargeable batteries," Judi said, "One of the most remarkable things about my husband, who sleeps three or four hours a night, is his energy level and stamina.

"I truly believe that one of the keys to a successful marriage is not trying to change your partner: This is the person I fell in love with. And I married a man who loves to work, never takes time off, because if you like what you do, you won't need to.

"If he decides to run for president, we'll follow that path together," she told Harper's.

Re: Sleepless in Seattle

Don't vote against him for that. I assure you he's just pretending to enjoy it.

Posted by: Ace at 10:20 AM | Comments (110)
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