A useful idiot who is no longer useful gets purged from the movement.

I can't post here anymore because my potential run for Congress
is not on the Democratic ticket.

...

If Speaker Pelosi does her constitutionally mandated duty and I don't run,
then I can come back and post.

I know a lot of you are hostile towards my candidacy. Please
understand that I am doing it for your children and grandchildren
(and my surviving ones.)

Remember, it's the left that allows "colorful and far-ranging" debates on the issue while the right moves in robotic lockstep where partisan power is the only governing imperative.

More: Sheehan's out, but Hillary's in. The Hillster, who has a colorful and far-ranging sex life, as I'm sure we'll soon find out, will attend the YearlyKos.

Posted by: Ace at 09:18 AM | Comments (33)
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When I first heard about the anti- Rudy Giuliani video made by a firefighter's union, I thought it might do some damage to the former mayor's candidacy. And it might have, had they not gone completely over the top in their criticism.

Jim Geraghty reviews and dissects the video here. It's not pretty. Sounds like what could have been a harmful line of attack turned into an all-out Giuliani Derangement Syndrome party and Geraghty calls them on it:

Schaitburger begins, "One candidate is running on what he perceives as his 9/11 credentials."

Right. Rudy's credentials are only a matter of his own perception. Yeah, the former mayor's the only guy in the country who thinks he showed any leadership or grit under fire that day. Oh, and Time magazine, when they named him Man of the Year...

But yeah, Rudy is only perceived as a great leader by himself. And Democrats like Andrew Cuomo.

And Chelsea Clinton, who declared "I thanked God that my mother was a senator representing New York, and that Rudy Giuliani was our mayor." (Interview with Talk magazine, December 2001.)

And the Queen of England.

I have great respect for the firefighters of New York, no matter what their views on politics or Rudy are, but I'm not persuaded by, "He's running on his 9/11 leadership, and there was lacking, and there was none" and "Whenevah I hear him talk, I just wanna scream out to the world, 'God, he's so full of it.'"

They charge that "Rudy Giuliani's urban legend begins on February 26, 1993, when al-Qaeda terrorists bomb the World Trade Center." Of course, while their careful phrasing suggests that Rudy was AWOL that day, they neglect to mention that the mayor of New York City in 1993 was David Dinkins.

And in other campaign news, John McCain's week just got worse.

Posted by: Slublog at 08:39 AM | Comments (30)
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Don't ask me how I found that out.

Open thread.

Posted by: LauraW. at 06:07 AM | Comments (56)
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Cold war:

Britain is poised to expel Russian diplomats for the first time in a decade in protest at Moscow's refusal to extradite the chief suspect in the murder in London of a KGB defector.

The option is one of several being considered by Downing Street after Moscow formally refused to hand over Andrei Lugovoi, a suspect in the poisoning of the former agent Alexander Litvinenko last November.

The expulsions would be reminiscent of former Cold War rows between Moscow and London and almost certainly prompt similar retaliation by the Kremlin.

Incensed by Russia's refusal to co-operate in the inquiry into Mr Litvinenko's death, the Government has already signalled that it was preparing a tough response.

Posted by: Ace at 01:54 AM | Comments (11)
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Step One: Work those killer power glutes to milk...

Wait, no, wrong guy.

Over at Geraghty et al.'s On Tap blog, they're trying to get a handle on what should be conservatism's principles for the near future. Our leaders supercilious employees pretty much abandoned the old ones for a while. We didn't notice as much as we should have, partly because we were ourselves corrupted by power, and partly because we had to support the few politicians in the country who understood the need to take the war to the terrorists against ceaseless, dishonest attacks from just about every major institution in America.

Unity over the war, as well as the blandishments of political power, made us less than vigilant about our leaders subordinate civil servants selling out just about everything there was to sell out.

Well, we have to get back to principles again, and as a first step we have to decide what those shared principles are. Jim Geraghty tries for "9 with 90," ten principles he figures that 90% of conservatives will agree with at least nine of. Seems like a good starting point for the discussion.

Although, you know, he's missing the issues of gun rights and abortion. I suppose because the stronger form advocacy on either of those issues would fail to garner support from 90% of conservatives.

Or maybe it's just that he has one of them "colorful and far-ranging sexual histories," if you know what I'm sayin', and I think you do.

Posted by: Ace at 12:50 AM | Comments (39)
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The idiotic fart of a post in which he basically called Instapundit and other pro-war pundits homos was very much about Thompson's sexuality.

I've written a fair amount recently about the media's obsession with the faux-masculinity of GOP candidates in general, and the tough-guy military persona of Fred Thompson in particular, and don't have all that much to add about that specific topic at the moment.

The post went on to note Chris Matthews' kinda-gay fawning over Thompson, which, to be fair, was kinda weird, I have to admit.

Put that together with this piece...

Last week, in response to Michael Moore's request that Thompson debate him over health care, Thompson -- showing what a tough guy he really is -- filmed a forty-second You Tube video where he smoked a cigar and told Moore to check into a mental hospital. Chris Matthews had Mark Halperin on his show (who, it is always worth noting, was until recently the Political Director of ABC News and is now at Time) to giggle like sixth-grade boys high-fiving each other after the cool kid they are desperate to be near (played by Thompson) unleashed some adolescent prank on the nerdy kid in the corner...

His posts continue to insinuate that if you like Fred Thompson, you must, in some way, be either a closeted gay or clueless gay who just hasn't figured out yet that he digs on manroot.

Now, the Fred Thompson gay thing has been percolating on the left and amongst gays for some time, and as Greenwald himself percolates in both groups, I'm pretty sure he's heard the gossip from his fabbo military sources at the Club Copacabanga in Rio. So why does he keep hitting this particular theme? Is it just coincidence? Or is he even more passive-aggressive than even the queen of passive-aggressive slander, Andrew Sullivan?

And on that: perhaps the editor-in-chief of The Atlantic would like to know the sewers his gay-gossip-gravevine blogger is taking his respected magazines into.

Is the publication of unsourced gay rumors now part of The Atlantic's traditions? Will they allow Andrew Sullivan to do to them what he did to The New Republic, i.e., turn a respected, serious magazine into a cheaper, tawdrier knock-off of The Gay Blade?

Can we expect to see Hillary Clinton's long, long, long-rumored lesbianism to be discussed in the new gay rumor blogs as well?

Don't you think the owners of this magazine have more of an interest in protecting the institution's reputation than allowing Andrew Sullivan free reign to peddle libelous gossip even Hustler wouldn't touch?

Perhaps they should be informed what is being written in their name.

Or did they actually consult with Sullivan on how this gay-grapevine hit could be massaged into being vague enough to be non-libelous?

I'd like some answers. Think we'll get any?

If You're An Atlantic Subscriber... please take the time to write the Atlantic and ask them if this now represents the magazine's editorial standards -- fag-bashing rumors that even Larry Flynt shies away from. And make sure to sign your name and address and note you're an Atlantic subscriber.

They sort of owe you answer. You are, after all, a customer.

Posted by: Ace at 09:02 PM | Comments (30)
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As Influence Peddler says, "Since that last [smear campaign, pegging him as a trophy-wife cradle-robbing womanizer] fizzled, his political enemies have now decided to try and convince us of the opposite. If he's not a licentious womanizer, then he must be gay."

Please don't hit the Sullivan and Wonkette links; it's what these drama queen traffic whore slander-slinging cocksuckers (and I use that word advisedly) want.

I'll post what they had to say here, sans link. Trust me.

Andrew Sullivan:

Outside the extremist, activist base, regular GOP voters turn out to be relatively tolerant when it comes to sexual minorities and private sex lives. TheyÂ’re not well represented by their party leaders, as far as policy is concerned. This is good news for Fred Thompson. The man has had a colorful and wide-ranging sex life, as IÂ’m sure we will soon find out.

Wonkette:

Translated: COUGH COUGH GAY COUGH COUGH FRED THOMPSON IS GAY GAY GAY COUGH COUGH

But thatÂ’s not all.

Sullivan is not even close to the first person weÂ’ve heard float this particular rumor, not that that says anything as to its truth.

In case anyone doubts that's what Sullivan meant, check out this blog, also floating the rumor:

Is Fred Thompson on the Downlow?
Posted by Susie in The Regime, Politics As Usual, Theocracy (July 5, 2007 at 8:02 am)

Why are all his ex-girlfriends so eager to come to the defense of his manliness?

Why did James Dobson say he was “un-Christian”?

Why is Rush Limbaugh complaining about the coverage of Thompson as sex symbol, saying, “There’s something wrong here”?

Lots and lots of rumors. I’ve heard them myself - I’ve even talked to someone who has witnessed some interesting behavior. I noticed when the Washington Post recently profiled him, several of the local commenters reacted along the lines of “I thought he was gay?”

The left has been spreading this for a while -- and now Andrew "Milky Loads" Sullivan peddles the gay rumor, without any substantiation, on the blog of a venerable, respected magazine.

Did they clear that, Andrew?

Matthew Ygelsias slammed me in a post called "Stay Classy, Rightwing Boggers," because, in noting that Glenn Greenwald had implied Instapundit was effeminate and kinda a queer, I noted the obvious -- that Glenn Greenwald is himself gay as the day is long.

Will Matthew Yglesias now take co-blogger Andrew Sullivan to task for his bottom-feeding gossip-columnist smear of a non-gay man as gay?

I'm not waiting on tenterhooks for that.

First of all, let's deal with the absurdity of this rumor. One, gays like to gossip, and according to the gay grapevine, virtually everyone is gay. Sorry to stereotype here, dears, but gays like seeming to be "in the know" especially when it comes to knowing stuff about celebrities and the rich and famous. Gives them some sort of gay fabulousness cred or something.

Second, let's look at some of the women Fred Thompson has been with:

Wife Jeri Thompson

Former flame, country singer Lorrie Morgan

Not to mention Kellyanne Fitzpatrick.

Does anyone, um, notice a pattern here? A certain pronounced development of uniquely feminine secondary sexual characteristics?

Is Andrew Sullivan claiming that closeted gay guys are BIG into tits and ass? Really? Doesn't seem like you could shut your eyes really tight with any of these women and pretend you were balls-deep inside Ethan Hawke. You'd be pretending you were drilling Ethan Hawke like Ben Stiller drilled him in Reality Bites (come on, you know those guys were gay too -- subtext, people, subtext) and you'd have these rambunctious milk-zeppelins battering you about the neck and head just completely ruining it all.

Third, I've known about this for a while. Sullivan dropping the rumor, I mean. I asked my one Hollywood friend about this -- has he even heard such a thing? No, he said. Fred Thompson is known as being "very heterosexual," i.e., a horndog who chases the sort of chicks most often seen on Benny Hill, and not the, say, Audrey Hepburn types one would imagine a closeted gay man would find attractive. (Or, at least, "elegant.")

Nah, he likes 'em the way a straight-up Bubba likes 'em. Built not for speed so much as comfort.

I'm not saying my one contact has some inside knowledge about the closeted gay circuit or anything. But then again, it's Hollywood. Every third party is pretty much like the amyl-nitrate-fueled gay masquerade in JFK. Surely he would have bumped into Fred Thompson dressed up as Marie Antoinette by now.

But seriously -- if there's anything to this rumor, why hasn't someone who, you know, acts in and writes movies and stuff in on the secret? Why is it that it's being peddled by a concerted whispering campaign of internet-based no-name no-account nobodies from nowhere? Check out how persistent the Fred's-a-Fag spammer is near the bottom of this thread. Seems like that guy's pushing the rumor hard, huh? And under multiple Glenn Greenwald style aliases, to boot, to make it sound like "everyone knows." (I find it rather implausible that several different people just decided to show up at about the same time in a rather dull WaPo blogpost to tell the world about their inside knowledge of Fred's secret life In the Line of Fire, as it were.)

So, really -- how is it a kinda burnout has-been of an editor now turned blogger (ooooh! nice career climb!) has the dope on this and yet my guy actually working in Hollywood's never heard a goddamn thing about it?

With that out of the way, let's proceed to discuss Andrew Sullivan's own "colorful and wide-ranging sexual history," since he brought it up, eh?

Edit: Let's not. I've since thought better of this particular attack on Sullivan. I've deleted it for reasons of taste.
more...

Posted by: Ace at 07:40 PM | Comments (154)
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David Corn said he was specifically looking to attach a Republican to the number.

The implication seemed to be he would bury it if it turned up Dem.

That's why I asked the kid with the mad googlin' skillz to look into it.

Pat Moynihan's number? Well, it's not his personal line. Anyone working in his office (or, I suppose, even with access to his office) could have used the number.

Given that we can probably find out that Monynihan wasn't in DC the day after Christmas, 1998, when the call was placed, it probably wasn't him calling.

But it was one of his disgusting, degenerate, whore-mongering liberal aides.

Some of whom -- who knows? -- may have been brought aboard the Hillary Train.

Or at least are probably working for other Democrats.

So, David Corn thought he'd have some fun with "McCornthyism." (He was big on pimping "The List" of supposedly gay Republicans before last election day.)

Well, now buddy, we're gonna be looking to find out what Democrat was in Pat Moynihan's office the day after Christmas, 1998.

Havin' fun now, cocksucker?

Blowback's a bitch, ain't it?

Dan Riehl Proclaims: I AM A GOOGLE GOD!

Seriously, he just wrote that to me.

Then he jumped off the roof into a pool and finger-banged Kate Hudson.

If It's A DC Sex Scandal, It Was Just A Matter of Time... Almost surely a mistake, but a number on the DC Madam's list is supposedly the number of one "Clinton, William J," at least according to a site I've never heard of called "Background Check."

Good Lt. notes the number also checks out as a number from a hotel in DC, which seems far, far more likely -- hotels and hookers go together like Andrew Sullivan and milky loads in his power glutes. So I think the site claiming this is Clinton's number is just wrong -- do presidents even have their own phone numbers per se? Wouldn't it all just be "Office of the President" stuff?

Posted by: Ace at 06:59 PM | Comments (21)
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Hee, hee, hee.

Don't sweat little words like "corruptly," Joshey. They mean nothing at all. Criminal statutes famously toss in superfluous words without operative meaning all the time.

Like the old common-law definition of murder one as the "unlawful taking of a human life with malice aforethought"? "Unlawful" doesn't mean anything there, Joshey; soldiers are just as guilty as hitmen.

it seems like decent prima facie case and the emailer knows his stuff.

Oooooh! Prima facie! What other words have you heard on Law & Order?

Keep swingin' for the fences, Genius.

Posted by: Ace at 05:42 PM | Comments (24)
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The herpes virus used here is HSV-1, which causes cold sores, not HSV-2, which causes genital herpes. The virus has been engineered in such a way as to only replicate in cancer cells. The same approach has been used with adenovirus, poxvirus, and reovirus. The adenovirus therapy is actually on the market in China for head and neck cancer. My company used to work on oncolytic adenovirus before we were bought by big pharma and the program was cut. The specificity of the virus for the cancer cells can be further increased by engineering the surface of the virus so it only infects cancer cells, and its potency can be increased by arming it with cancer-killing genes. There is very little chance for normal cells to be affected. The hard part is getting efficient tumor cell killing. I think this report is significant because the oncolytic virus was delivered systemically and worked against metastases rather than having to be injected directly into a solid tumor mass.

Why do I love the Internet? Because that information comes from someone calling himself "Pervy Grin."

Posted by: Ace at 05:01 PM | Comments (6)
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