Oh, dear. Oh dear oh dear oh dear.

Hillary Clinton's handlers are so outraged - outraged! - at a newspaper story musing over her showing a little cleavage that they're urging equally miffed supporters to fight back by stuffing cash into her coffers.
"Would you believe that The Washington Post wrote a 746-word article on Hillary's cleavage?" senior campaign adviser Ann Lewis said yesterday in the fund-raising e-mail.

...

A longtime Democratic operative who is no Clinton fan said it wasn't surprising that Team Hillary would try to generate a sympathy backlash - and then ask for cash to help ease the pain.

"She looks for every opportunity she can get to be the victim. It's her playbook," the party source said. "The question is whether Hillary-as-victim leaves her looking more like a martyr or a whiner."

A Republican operative mocked the controversy as "a tempest in a B-cup."

Great line, Dan Riehl says.

I thought so too when I used it a couple of times the past couple of years:

On all sides feminists were caterwauling as if this was an important and substantive argument, when it was all clearly just a tempest in a D-cup.

Damn you, unnamed Republican Political Operative.

It's all just a coincidence that Elizabeth Edwards rapped Hillary! as being a man in a pantsuit and then she displays the girls for the first time in approximately sixty-seven years and the media just happens to notice her rather indifferent cleavage with no tip-off from Team Hillary and then Hillary! uses this violation to raise money from donors thus getting the triple-benefit of having it noted for the record she is in fact a woman with both power andsexuality and also getting to play the victim card for people noticing that and on top of all that gettin' to collect good donor jack for suffering this oppressive oppression of oppressivnaciousness.

Meanwhile, Bill Clinton's happy to have his long-held theory confirmed, to wit, there are, in fact, "two of 'em."

John Edwards: Give me money because people say I have nice hair.

Hillary! Clinton: Give me money because people say I have breasts.

Somewhere out there Barack Obama is wondering if he needs to "black it up" in order to provoke someone into daring to observe that he's African-American.

I hear he's "seriously considering" attending the next debate wearing one of Flava Flav's enormous clock-necklaces and speaking exclusively in poetic aphorisms swiped from Nipsey Russel.

Skullduggery Afoot! Howard Wolfson was just caught "accidentally" leaving an empty bottle of Feminine Deodorant Spray clearly visible in the trash at Hillary!'s campaign headquarters. Then he was observed rubbing his hands together and shouting "Baby needs a new pair of Gulfstreams!" and laughing like a cartoon villain.

Edwards: "They" Are Trying To Silence Me By Talking About My Hair, Which I Myself Never Fail To Mention At Every Rally And In Every Internet Ad: He just can't stop talking about it. "They" make him do it.

Although I think a more "interesting theory," as Howard Dean would say, is found in this video at Hot Air.

Why should you contribute to John Edwards?

Because -- I shit you not -- if you don't, "these people" -- the right wing -- will "continue to control the media."

John, what color are the marmalade skies on your world, and do you find they clash with your the luscious highlights in your bangs?

Posted by: Ace at 04:13 PM | Comments (35)
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I was so delighted by her brilliant cerchez le negro defense that I totally missed the real money quote:

I can't get in trouble. I'm a celebrity. I can do whatever the fuck I want."

Youth is wasted on the young, and so God doesn't throw good virtue after bad by wasting wisdom on youth, either.

Lindsey Lohan must know there is a huge pile of the corpses of child star's careers buried unceremoniously in a mass grave in a disused plot of scrubland near Pasdena. It cannot have escaped her that there have been about five thousand child stars before her, each of whom once believed, as she does, the Eternal Party would go on forever, and destiny decreed that they would remain cute, in-demand and bankable forever, and, yes, in fact able to do "whatever the fuck they wanted."

And yet she is immune. She, alone, will break the curse, and go on to become, and remain for a good long time, and adult star who can continue doing "whatever the fuck she wants" well into her old age (which, to her, I'm guessing means 32).

If there is one iron law in Hollywood it's that child stars are quickly discarded and forgotten and wind up putting all of small wages they make waiting tables at Appleby's into heroin and coke. You can count the exceptions on one hand, starting with Shirley Temple (ambassador counts as a career, after all) and ending somewhere around Kurt Russel.

On top of that, female actresses are absurdly disposable. Hollywood seizes on to a fresh young It girl and they star in three movies a year... for about four years. And then they're replaced with the next fresh young thing, and are lucky to get a supporting role as the star's friend past their expiration date.

She knows these things. She must.

But she's immune, she's figured out. She's The Chosen One, the ingenue Neo. She'll continue to captivate audiences, even with all this bad behavior and all these unflattering mug shots. And even though this isn't even the sexy, dangerous, intriguing sort of bad behavior that actually might add to one's mystique; it's just plain shitty and assholish and more than a little pathetic.

It's not so much that I hate her (I don't) as that I'm a bit disgusted at the waste. Like when a jackass trust-fund douche destroys his $250,000 Porche through simple carelessness. Not my car, of course, and doesn't affect my life in the least, but just a shame to see something so precious destroyed so thoughtlessly.

She's about to flush her incredibly-charmed life down the drain and she's not even going to figure out why it all happened until she's 45. Which she's basically going to turn next week, unless she slows down a bit with the booze and blow.

The casual racial faux pas -- "It was the black kid!" -- ain't gonna help, either.

Scott Baio needs to be tapped by the Jewish Conspiracy that runs Hollywood to give these people a talking to. Sock most of the money away, don't snort the bulk of it, bang every hot piece of ass on Baywatch, then spend most of your life going to the track when every other shlump is working. Is it so hard to just keep it effin' together?

Posted by: Ace at 03:24 PM | Comments (51)
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Dan Riehl thinks this is a retreat from a previous statement, but I sharply disagree. It seems a much stronger statement. Whereas in the past he's said that nothing thusfar undermines Beauchamp's account, now he says:

At least one soldier in the unit had already confirmed the events described, Mr. Foer said, but the magazine plans, “to the extent possible,” to “re-report every detail,” a task made more difficult now that Private Beauchamp cannot easily communicate with anyone overseas.

I don't get that "at least one" bit; one doesn't usually have to guesstimate on numbers when the number is one or two. Usually one can tell the difference between them.

Although Foer isn't providing specifics or the name of this witness, he can't now, actually, because all the troops are now operating under a gag order (to protect the innocent, to preserve the integrity of the investigation) until the investigation is complete. Actually, Foer's new witness shouldn't be talking, but I suppose there's no point in making a big deal over that. This guy, who says he's a sergeant in the company, shouldn't be making statements either, but says Beauchamp is making it all up. It should be noted that obviously it counts more that someone says he saw the events than someone who says he didn't -- unless other witnesses known to be present specifically say that they were there and nothing of the sort occurred.

What Foer means by "confirmed" is less than clear; previously he claimed he "confirmed the woman," meaning the woman with the "melted" face in the chowhall without bothering to explain what this odd phrase actually meant.

I'll also note that Dan Rather claimed full confirmation for the Rathergate memos. And, in fact, still does.

It could turn out (as it always could have turned out) that Foer will get lucky, and that his faith in Beauchamp (owing, as he says, partly to his marriage to a TNR staffer) wasn't far misplaced, and most if not all of this gets confirmed. Eventually.

And while that will mean we owe Beauchamp an apology, no apology will be owed to Foer or TNR, which should have fact-checked this all beforehand, not afterwards. TNR's sin -- running stories without making the most basic effort to confirm them beforehand, which they vowed could never happen again with the new safeguards installed after the Glass debacle -- has already been committed.

A guy who works in the media and who was sympathetic to, and apologetic on behalf of, TNR basically told me to grow up as regards this fact-checking business: A small magazine such as TNR, he said, has neither the resources or even the inclination to actually "fact-check" as most would understand that term to mean. It just doesn't happen, he says: Apart from checking easily-confirmed facts (like misplacing Diyala to the far south of Baghdad or that sort of thing), very little is checked in the media at all. If a reporter says it, it's presumed true. No checking. If a reporter's source says it, it's presumed true, at least if the reporter presumes it true. Basically all this crap we think we know from All the Presdent's Men about double-confirmation and meticulous vetting by editors trying to tear down stories is by and large not true.

While he was speaking specifically of small media outfits, it seems to me this appies to large ones as well; how many decapitated heads were found in that field in Baghdad, again? How many imams were burned alive, again? How many mosques were "severely" damaged, again?

Perhaps we do need to grow up and accept that the media is in the reportage business primarily, and in the actual fact business only secondarily and only when they get around to it. Rumors and unverified reports put out as supposedly-confirmed fact is the rule, not the exception; most claims by the media should carry the disclaimer "probably, we think."

But if that's the case, the media also has to grow the hell up and stop lying to the public about how goddamned rigorously fact-checked and heavily vetted by multiple layers of painstaking editorial scrutiny its stories on. Every time the media makes a claim which is challenged by bloggers or more professional media critics, they scream in high umbrage that it's well-nigh impossible their report could be in error; why, they fact-check everything! Have they not mentioned those multiple layers of editorial oversight for each and every fact asserted as true in a story?

It's a lie. They don't check most of this stuff. If it's easy to check, they do; if it's hard, they do not. If it cannot be confirmed, but "smells good" (as per Franklin Foer's standard on Beauchamp's reports), it's published. And that's the way it works, and that's probably pretty much the way it's always worked.

It may be the most efficient and timely way of doing it -- the correction page is always available (in theory) for retracting claims that prove to be unsubstantiated or even contradicted, though they seem loathe to acknowledge genuine errors -- but certainly it's not the most accurate. Accuracy is of course exchanged for speed, which cannot be undervalued. News is not news if it's reported two weeks later due to genuine, serious vetting and confirmation.

But while this system of rather less than careful scrutiny of reported "facts" may be defensible and even necessary, it is, obviously, not truly a system which can even pretend to deliver rigorously vetted facts. But the media always claims it does just that when challenged; that their editorial processes nearly guarantee accuracy in all their accounts. It is a consumer fraud to claim this, and it's about time they stopped.

Why It Matters: Bryan Preston explains why ex- and current military guys in particular are so invested in this story.

By the way, I think a previous statement of mine got misinterpreted by some. I said that "this is a minor story," and I think some took that to mean the entire Beuachamp saga was a minor story. In fact -- I suppose I wasn't clear -- I was specifically referring to my scoop about Beauchamp being married to a TNR staffer, and in fact being hired for (and trusted for) this assignment mostly for that reason. That, I meant to say, was not itself a "huge" story.

I don't think the Beauchamp story is itself huge, but nor do I consider it minor. I'm less shocked by the behavior Beauchamp reports (note that one of the most heartless and egregious examples of bad behavior by the troops was actually Beauchamp's own-- cruelly mocking a woman who'd lost half her face to an IED) than by TNR's slapdash regard for confirming facts, especially given the Stephen Glass debacle.

I hope Bryan doesn't think this means I don't support the troop or I think they're less than honorable. Of course not-- I'm just saying I don't disbelieve that in a million-man military you're going to have your fair share of psychopaths, criminals, and general assholes. The JAG office is busy each year prosecuting soldiers for murders committed at their bases, after all. Any population of any size is going to have criminals and bastards in it, and of course Bryan knows that. I just mean to say I'm not shocked by a claim of monstrous behavior on the part of a soldier, but not because I think soldiers are capable of such deeds, just because I believe humans are.

That said, Bryan's point about the left's unceasing campaign against the military is well-taken, and it's little wonder that servicemen especially are determined that the Vietnam smears of "baby-killers" and "war-criminals" will not be allowed to stand this time around.

Posted by: Ace at 01:06 PM | Comments (128)
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Four dead (all hands) as two choppers covering a police chase collide as they jockey for pictures.

I guess it was inevitable. Multiple choppers swirling over the same small area, pilots concentrating mostly on the ground. Might be a good idea for these guys to agree to put only one station's helicopter in the air for each chase and share the footage. It's not as if we need three different feeds of the same car chase.

Posted by: Ace at 11:52 AM | Comments (51)
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This looks not so good. The "lies" in question -- claiming there was no disagreement about the terrorist surveillance program in the Administration, also claiming that program was not the subject of a hospital-room lobbying session with hospitalized then-AG John Ashcroft -- seems absurdly easy to discover; certainly no efforts seem to have been taken to get other officials to make this claim-- they're flatly contradicting him.

So I'm not getting his motive to lie, as it seems to accomplish nothing at all. It's not as if the Democrats got Deputy AG Comey and FBI Director Mueller to contradict him only by tough questioning -- they just seemed to give up the nookie right away.

On the other hand, what he's saying does not appear true at all.

Attorney General Alberto Gonzales took another blow yesterday. In an appearance before a House committee, FBI Director Robert Mueller appeared to contradict sworn testimony by Gonzales leading Democrats to call for a special counsel to probe possible "perjury" charges. As ABC World News noted, Gonzales had testified this week that "there were no serious disagreements within the Bush administration about the warrantless domestic surveillance program. ... Mueller, today, disputed that." Rep. Melvin Watt: "You had some serious reservations about the warrantless wire tapping program?" Mueller: "Yes." ABC continued, "Former Deputy Attorney General James Comey also disputed Gonzales" in his earlier Senate testimony, saying that when he "refused to sign off on the program...Gonzales, then the White House counsel, went to the intensive care unit to try to get Ashcroft to overrule Comey. ... Mueller backed that story today." Mueller: "I don't disagree with what Mr. Comey says."

Media reports are portraying Mueller's words as a devastating blow to Gonzales. CNN's Situation Room, for example, called them "a late, dramatic piece of evidence against the Attorney General." ... On ABC World News, George Stephanopoulos noted the White House says "the Attorney General, they believe, has not lied in this. ... But I have to say, Charlie, I spoke with an FBI official who said the FBI Director, Robert Mueller, was simply trying to give direct answers to direct questions, and the Attorney General often parses. So, this has created an uncomfortable situation for the White House."

The AP reports that Mueller "contradicted" Gonzales. Under the headline "FBI Chief Disputes Gonzales On Spying," the Washington Post reports in a front-page story that Mueller "contradicted the sworn testimony of his boss," and adds, "Mueller's testimony appears to mark the first public confirmation from a Bush administration official that the National Security Agency's Terrorist Surveillance Program was at issue" in Gonzales' "unusual nighttime visit" to Ashcroft's hospital room. Under the headline "F.B.I. Chief Gives Account at Odds With Gonzales's," the New York Times reports in a front-page story that Mueller's testimony "sharply conflicted" with Gonzales'

The White House spin here seems to be that there were disagreements about some parts of the TSP but not others, and Gonzales was saying there were no disagreements about the parts there were no disagreements about.

This doesn't seem to be a very good defense.

Well If You Say It Like That... The unfortunately-named Apologist explains the defense a lot better that I've heard it:

I've only followed this loosely Ace, but best I can tell here's the deal.

TSP at that time was something else, something larger that included data-mining and some other stuff. Some people objected. He went to Ashcroft, Ashcroft sided with Comey et.al, they modified the program into what it currently is today.

So in AG's appearance Schumer & Co. are trying to make it sound like TSP was what Ashcroft objected to, AG says it's not, Comey and Mueller say it is because they aren't allowed to coordinate testimony with AG and they don't intuit the distinction he's making. Now, Schumer, Leahy, and Specter are trying to lynch AG, and here's the kicker, EVEN THOUGH THEY KNOW EXACTLY WHAT HE MEANS. This is why Bush won't let anyone else go down to the Hill and testify on record. The Dems are actually running Stalinist showtrials and Specter hates AG so much he's letting them do it. AG is in precisely zero legal trouble which is why Tony Snow and AG and Bush aren't sweating this at all.

What Bush should do is declassify the info and do a Press Conference and expose these fuck-nuts for the lying sacks of shit they are. But he won't cause hes' just a big fuckin' softy when it comes to this stuff. If it looks like AG is in any real danger of prosecution (by a special prosecuter Bush will never appoint) he'll declassify and remove the danger I'm sure.

Hm. Maybe. We'll see.

Posted by: Ace at 10:18 AM | Comments (31)
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Wow. Before there was even MTV, I think.

It brings back memories of lusting after 13-year-old girls at the roller-rink, not having no idea what I'd do with them if I ever had the chance but also knowing, somehow, it would be the greatest thing in the world just to touch their pretty hair...

Brings me back all the way to, well, June, I guess. Good times. Immigration fight by day, pedostalking the roller-rink at night. Just a mischievous scamp out past his curfew, lurking menacingly in the parking lot shadows, with a heart open to love and a rag full of ether.

God damn that Chris Hansen is a dick.

more...

Posted by: Ace at 09:39 PM | Comments (69)
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Mentioned this a few days ago. An Iraqi vet got one.

Obviously, it doesn't make one whole again, but it is pretty amazing nevertheless.*

* Disclaimer for liberal jagoffs: The fact that there is an amazing medical advance which will improve the lives of many amputees does not in any way "prove that everything's going great in Iraq." I feel the need to specify this, because liberals have a strange way of reading simple sentences like "TNR hired an unqualified, inexperienced, unreliable idiot to be its Baghdad Diarist and then compounded the error by running his pieces without fact-checking" as actually meaning "The war in Iraq is won and precisely zero Americans were killed or wounded in achieving this victory."

Posted by: Ace at 08:08 PM | Comments (32)
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And yet not a one of them ever writes to say thank-you. At this point I'm practically Michael Ian Black's on-line press agent.

The Ten. Looks pretty funny. The credits at the end are the funniest, most unexpected part.

Paul Rudd again. I'm telling you, I think he might be married to a New Republic staffer or something. Even allowing for the fact that he's pretty funny, there is simply no other way to explain that he has been in every comedy made since 1995.

I understand the Turner Network is going to begin "Ruddization"of its catalogue, beginning with digitally inserting Paul Rudd into Marx Brothers comedies, and then every movie made up to 1995. Ted Turner is a little anal that way.

Thanks to Petite Dov.

Posted by: Ace at 07:36 PM | Comments (49)
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Wow. This is unbelievable.

This jackass Amit Paley has been busted an absurd number of times for serious journalistic screw-ups in Washington DC -- where there are so many other journalists and people reading how they're portrayed in the press that incompetents can't prosper for long -- so the Washington Post figures, "Let's send him to Iraq where people can't readily fact-check his stories, thus sparing us the indignity of running massive corrections on his stories week after week! Problem solved!"

Yeah, right. Problem solved, Washington Post. Problem solved.

This guy can barely go a paragraph without need of a correction or major walk-back (requiring the chastisement of the paper's ombudsmen) in DC -- where everyone has each other's phone number, where anyone you need to talk to is no more than ten miles away, where the politics are straightforward and simple (Democrats good, Republicans evil), and where only certain parts of the city have murder rates exceeding those of Iraq -- and the Washington Post figures this is the sort of details-oriented self-starting perfectionist it wants reporting from Baghdad?

Really?

Who's he married to, I wonder?

Thanks to andycanuck.

Are we allowing Canadians on our internet now?

When the fuck did that happen?

North American Union, baby. It's not coming, it's already here. An information superhighway connecting us with our dirty, smelly neighbors to El Norte.

Posted by: Ace at 06:34 PM | Comments (76)
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How can you promise salvation to that which has no life?

Posted by: Ace at 04:57 PM | Comments (7)
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