I missed the money quote in that Newsbusters piece I quoted earlier.

Note: Rep. Peter King (R-N.Y.) made the rounds on Today and Morning Joe, where on the latter he made no bones about his interest in running for the Senate seat in 2010. He made an interesting revelation about Caroline's much-vaunted work at an educational non-profit. She apparently toiled to the tune of an average of . . . one-to-two hours a week.

No wonder Obama's so impressed with her! She's a genuine world-beater from his point of view.

Posted by: Ace at 03:06 PM | Comments (66)
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Sorry for all the silly posts, but I did say that allowing Chad Johnson to go by Ocho Cinco would begin a Silly-Name Arms Race, right?

The NFL probably has this covered already -- or will soon have it covered -- but a guy could make some nice coin by changing his name to "Golden Palace" or even "Ivory Soap."

Thanks to Matt M.

Posted by: Ace at 02:09 PM | Comments (74)
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I'll be on WHO in Iowa. There's a live listen button at the right. It's Steve Deace's show, guest-hosted by Patrick Albanese.

As many of you know, I'm horrible on radio, so I'm hoping to keep my lack of skills honed.

I'll be on for about fifteen minutes, unless I'm truly awful, in which case I'll be on for five or ten minutes.

Let's cut out the middleman and call it five or ten minutes.

I think we'll be talking about the auto bailout. Or somethin'.

Russ from Winterset set this up. Blame him.

PS: This is, I'm told, the storied radio station at which Ronald Regan began his broadcasting career.

I don't want to sully it, but apparently they're not that concerned about maintaining the brand.

Posted by: Ace at 02:01 PM | Comments (79)
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The article explains pretty much why it was so bad right away: Bruce Vilanch wrote it. The guy who writes that awful "playful banter" for the Oscars. And presumably decided to put Chewbacca in drag:

I'm still mining the article for quotes. In the meantime, the obligatory link to the horror that is the Star Wars Christmas Special.

But when Vilanch heard Lucas’s storyline at a development meeting at Smith and Hemion’s L.A. offices, he quickly realized that a “big challenge” lay ahead. Lucas was intent on building The Star Wars Holiday Special, as it would be called, around Wookiees—specifically, the family of Chewbacca, Han Solo’s shaggy sidekick, as they outwitted Imperial forces to come together on Life Day, the Wookiee equivalent of Christmas. Suddenly, Vilanch says, the special was in danger of looking like “one long episode of Lassie.”

“I said: ‘You’ve chosen to build a story around these characters who don’t speak. The only sound they make is like fat people having an orgasm,’” the 250-plus-pound Vilanch recalls. “In fact, I told Lucas he could just leave a tape recorder in my bedroom and I’d be happy to do all the looping and Foley work for him.”

Lucas met these comments with a “glacial” look. “This was his vision, and he could not be moved,” Vilanch says. “And of course Star Wars was so gigantic that he had been validated a hundred times over. So he had what a director needs to have, which is this insane belief in their personal vision, and he was somehow going to make it work.”

Villanch's joke is horrid (as usual), but he has a point: Lucas has no sense of what can work and what can't. In his original script for Star Wars, the heroes weren't trying to get a single non-speaking character MacGuffin to Yavin (R2D2 and his secret plans).

Instead, they were escorting the ten person Royal Family of Aquilla (or something) there.

Now imagine that. Instead of just getting one little droid through the Death Star, they'd've had to hustle ten people through. Imagine every time they go around a corner they have to signal ten people to move. Imagine all the wasted film-time, and how stupid it would look, ten people shuffling along in a conga line. It would wind up looking like all the PLF terrorists hiding in the room while the Romans search for them in Life of Brian.

Now also consider that each of those people must be given at least three or four lines to establish them as "characters," and you're talking about another fifteen to twenty minutes of screentime wasted on "characterizing" people who are really mere plot objects.

See? Dumb ideas. He just has no sense when it comes to this stuff.

More weird:

Perhaps the most bizarre sequence of the special is one involving Chewbacca’s dad, Itchy, and a virtual-reality device called a “Mind Evaporator.” Through it, Itchy, who has one of those textbook TV grandpa underbites, views what Mitzie Welch says was intended to be “soft-core porno that would pass the censors.” In 1978, that meant Diahann Carroll as a holographic “Wow” in a Bob Mackie gown and a frosted headdress, singing one of the Welches’ songs. The prurient part comes at the beginning when Carroll tells Itchy, “Oh, oh … We are excited, aren’t we?” which elicits the first—and last—orgasmic shudder ever to be seen in a Star Wars vehicle.

As a bit of trivia, Boba Fett was introduced in a cartoon segment of this special, not in Empire Strikes Back. He was both introduced and disposed of (in that stupid comical death at the Sarlacc Pit) in a shabby way.

Thanks to Dan Collins of Protein Wisdom.

I'd Like to See... a fan pay back Lucas for ruining the original trilogy by tastelessly digitally inserting banthas and robots and explosions into the Christmas Special. Like have cute robots fighting when Bea Arthur is singing.

Of course, that would make the special better, alas.

Posted by: Ace at 01:19 PM | Comments (55)
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And it's lower now than it was under Saddam Hussein.

It's at 0.9 per 100,000. In America, the grim milestone sits at 5.9 per 100,000.

The number of daily attacks in Iraq has dropped nearly 95 percent since last year, a U.S. military official said yesterday.
Iraq suffered an average of 180 attacks per day this time last year. But over the past week, the average number was 10, Army Brig. Gen. David G. Perkins, a Multinational Force Iraq spokesman, said.

“This is a dramatic improvement of safety throughout the country,” Perkins told reporters during a wide-ranging news conference in Baghdad yesterday.

Iraq has a pretty good future in store for it. Crime imposes serious costs on a society, of course. Due to the horror of the near civil war, a huge fraction of the criminally, murderously inclined have themselves been killed. In the US, we had a huge crime spike when a large bubble in the population reached the age of active criminality; when that cohort passed that age, crime fell dramatically. In Iraq, that demographic as been seriously culled.

Not only isn't there going to be much war in Iraq, it's also going to have a subnormal criminality rate for 15 or 20 years. Which is obviously a boon for the economy. And other living things.

Related: Today is the anniversary of the most celebrated response to an offer of surrender -- "Nuts."

A nice long passage about the Battle of the Bulge at the link, marred only by a lack of paragraphization.

As many commenters will point out, the American commander probably did not say "Nuts!," but probably offered a suggestion regarding autofornication a la Dick Cheney's famous rejoinder to Pat Leahy.

He Really Did Say Nuts? I've never gotten the story straight on this one. But DrewM and Arthur assure me he probably did say "Nuts."

Not as Good as Advertised? Bgates thinks that there's some hinkiness in comparing a monthly rate to a yearly rate. I believe that number must be annualized for the year, the same way quarterly GDP numbers are annualized.

I have no evidence for this, except the belief they wouldn't try to slip that past us.

Posted by: Ace at 12:10 PM | Comments (37)
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Andrea Mitchell is all-in on every liberal-defending hand, isn't she?

I won't bother to look for her similar defenses of Sarah Palin because I know damn well she didn't offer them.

Interestingly, when Pat Buchanan (her interlocutor here) suggests that Caroline Kennedy sit down with Katie Couric for an hour (a lot less time than Palin gave her) so that the public could judge her qualifications and knowledge, Andrea Mitchell actually balks at the idea, citing the farcical claim that such an interview might offend Gov. David Patterson.

So if I understand this correctly:

It was the worst thing in the world that Palin didn't talk to the national press for a week or so, but Andrea Mitchell is against Caroline Kennedy doing so herself.

But she's qualified. She can't prove it in an interview due to circumstances, but you can take Andrea Mitchell's word for it.

Andrea Mitchell is increasingly resorting to the appeal to authority -- the authority being herself -- to dispense with charges made against liberals. Time and time again, she assures us that Democrat X or Liberal Y could not possibly be involved in Sketchy Behavior Z.

And you have Andrea Mitchell's word for that. She knows these people. Like Mike Barnicle, she has "instincts."

Compare and Contrast: Andrea Mitchell compared Palin's treatment of the press... to the way North Korea treats the press.

Here she appears on archliberal Rachel Maddow's show, regarding Palin's meetings with various high-level foreign dignitaries before the election.

Mitchell says that it's standard practice to allow at least one member of the press in the room for the meeting... unless it's North Korea, Syria, or the Sudan booting the press out.

Maddow: You have covered these sorts of high-level meetings with foreign dignitaries and getting at least one editorial staff member in the room to represent the entire network is standard practice right?

Mitchell: It is standard practice. It's standard for the White House, for the State Department. And often we are in foreign countries where it is not standard practice, like in Pyongyang or in Damascus, and usually the State Department insists upon it and then we are at risk for whatever happens. In Sudan... we were pushed and shoved and thrown out by the Sudanese, but that's not by American officials and certainly not by Republican campaign officials running a national election here in the United States."

Maybe Palin just thought that allowing the press in the room would "offend" Gov. David Patterson.

Thanks to Slublog.

More: This has really put a bee in Slublog's bonnet. Here's Mitchell on what kind of voters would vote for Palin.

Note she fails to offer the "you wouldn't say that if you knew her, as I do, intimately" defense.

Brokaw: ...There are other Republicans who are saying, listen we'll be able to pull those Hillary Clinton voters who are not happy the way Obama treated her across the line. What are the chances of that Andrea?

Mitchel: Well, they think now that they have a story. They have a story of a working mom, she is a colorful character, an Annie Oakley... you know, Annie get your gun. They love her story, but when she tried to talk about Hillary Clinton in Pennsylvania, in western Pennsylvania, yesterday at a rally with conservative Republican voters, Hillary Clinton was booed. So, she can use the Hillary Clinton and Geraldine Ferraro analogy if she wants to in interviews, she cannot use that at Republican rallies.

She is not appealing to the same women who were really voting or supporting Hillary Clinton on ideological issues but they think that they can peel off some of these working class women, not college educated, who, the blue collar women who were voting for Hillary Clinton and may be more conservative on social causes.

That's not necessarily a slam, unless you put yourself in the mind of Andrea Mitchell. There's nothing wrong with being blue collar or not college educated -- but Andrea Mitchell sure thinks so.

They never discuss the non-college educated or blue collar vote as a demographic we can learn from, but rather a phenomenon that must be studied, like the grooming habits of lab rats. The eternal question is always why such people -- or sub-people, perhaps -- vote differently than their betters do.

In other words, to put this into the language of the left, college-educated, white-collar values are "normative," the standard to which all else is compared, and all else is considered to be deviant from the normative values, requiring theorizing of a derogatory nature to explain the deviation from the norm.

Bitterly clinging, and all that. A belief in religion and positive attitude towards hunting and self-defense is not considered a positive value, but rather elements of a retarded culture in need of diagnosis.

(And I use the word "retarded" there for multiple meaning -- not just the comical overstatement meaning. They really do consider other values to be "retarded" in the medical sense of developmentally impaired and deviant.)

Giving Slublog Another Dig: In an email he writes:

She just strikes me as one of those people who thinks she's smart because she managed to make it onto television.

Indeed. I think this is 90% of the press corps' problem -- they're overly taken with themselves for, um, having a job.

Mechanics don't assume they're all-purpose experts without portfolio on every subject in the universe simply because they're fixing cars.

Reporters shouldn't assume that merely because they are capable of asking questions, writing down the answers, and cranking out pedestrian copy they've somehow become Einstein.

Mitchell's Testimony: "Mrs. Greenspan" writes about how she knows Princess Caroline is of Senatorial timber:

"The highlight of the meeting was when [Princess Caroline] pulled a silver spoon from under her fanny and allowed me to smell the wonderful fragrance of jasmine....and scotch. Such a delightfully patrician odor from America's royal family......"

Posted by: Ace at 11:59 AM | Comments (48)
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Over FoxNews. This is from the Obama camp, previewing the findings of their, um, investigation. He also spoke to Blago's chief of staff four or five times.

Jim Pinkerton earlier advanced the idea that last week's report -- that there were 21 calls from Rahm to Blago or his staff -- was deliberately leaked by the Obama camp to highball the number, so when the real number came out -- four or five, he guessed -- it wouldn't seem so bad.

I have no idea if that's the case, but Pinkerton seems to have guessed the real number perfectly.

Posted by: Ace at 11:30 AM | Comments (20)
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Perhaps they're saving it for Christmas, but then, the celebrations already happened. The website already carried the story. They really have so much news they can't fit this story into their schedule?

I know bloggers would disagree. These are lean times for news. A news drought, if you will.

So what can explain CNN's decision not to air a story that's 1) seasonally themed 2) cute 3) interesting and 4) politically relevant?

Probably 4). It's politically relevant in the wrong way.

Posted by: Ace at 11:20 AM | Comments (25)
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Blagocentrick Flaming Skull by Slublog

Connected, it seems, to Senate Candidate 5, who is pretty much known to be Jesse Jackson Jr.

Is this bad for JJJ? Check out his lawyer's reaction at the end of the excerpt.

A key figure in Gov. Rod Blagojevich's alleged scheme to sell a U.S. Senate seat has sought immunity from federal authorities in return for his cooperation in their ongoing probe, the Tribune has learned.

Raghuveer P. Nayak, an Oak Brook businessman and political fundraiser, is the unnamed "Individual D" who prosecutors say was being squeezed by the governor for campaign cash in return for appointing U.S. Rep. Jesse Jackson Jr. to the Senate seat vacated by President-elect Barack Obama, sources said.

...

The Tribune has reported that Nayak hosted an Oct. 31 luncheon where he discussed raising $1 million for Blagojevich to help persuade the governor to choose Jackson. The congressman's brother Jonathan appeared at a Nayak-sponsored fundraiser for the governor three days before Blagojevich was arrested.

The congressman has acknowledged speaking with Nayak about his desire for the Senate seat but said he did not endorse and was not aware of a fundraising effort to support his bid.

On Sunday evening, Jackson's lawyer, James Montgomery Sr., reacted to the news of Nayak's bid for immunity by saying, "If that is indeed the case, and if that cooperation relates to my client, then [Nayak] is trying to save his own skin. That's all I have to say."

The article notes dutifully that Nayak has not been accused of wrongdoing.

But as Captain Ed notes, people often look for immunity when they're about to be accused of wrongdoing.

Jackson's lawyer's comment about "trying to save his own skin" suggests that he's going to be talking about Jackson. And not in a good way. Why run down a guy who doesn't have dirt on you? I've never heard an innocent man call a government witness a rat.

This sets up an interesting possibility. Obama's Justice Department may wind up taking down the formerly most-powerful black political clan in America. I don't think that blacks will hold that against Obama... but will Jeremiah Wright? Not only is he pissed off in the first place, but he's announced he'll call out Obama when he thinks he's doing wrong.

And then what? Maybe squeal a little on his estranged protege? Not about illegalities, but about the time he spent in his church, I mean.

Posted by: Ace at 11:08 AM | Comments (11)
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We've all seen the stories about George Bush (along with Laura Bush and Dick Cheney) visiting wounded troops and spending time with the families of the fallen. In fact, he's spending part of today at Walter Reed.

Well, it turned out he did a lot more than we knew.

Mr. Bush, for instance, has sent personal letters to the families of every one of the more than 4,000 troops who have died in the two wars, an enormous personal effort that consumed hours of his time and escaped public notice. The task, along with meeting family members of troops killed in action, has been so wrenching - balancing the anger, grief and pride of families coping with the loss symbolized by a flag-draped coffin - that the president often leaned on his wife, Laura, for emotional support.

"I lean on the Almighty and Laura," Mr. Bush said in the interview. "She has been very reassuring, very calming."

...Mr. Cheney similarly has hosted numerous events, even sneaked away from the White House or his Naval Observatory home to meet troops at hospitals or elsewhere without a hint to the news media.

For instance, Mr. Cheney flew to North Carolina late last month and met with 500 special-operations soldiers for three hours on a Saturday night at a golf resort. The event was so secretive that the local newspaper didn't even learn about it until three days after it happened.

Mr. Cheney and his wife, Lynne, also have hosted more than a half-dozen barbecues at their Naval Observatory home for wounded troops recovering at Bethesda Naval Hospital and Walter Reed and their spouses and children.

It's a long story but well worth the read.

Quite frankly, I have very little faith in Obama's ability to connect with the troops the way Bush seems to have. It's fine to say you support the troops and appreciate their service but I don't see how you can really connect with them if you don't support their mission and value their victories. More importantly, how can you really lead them under those circumstances?

I honestly hope that as he assumes the awesome responsibility of leading these brave men and women, Obama finds a new appreciation for what they have accomplished in the last 8 years.

Back to Bush, I haven't seen anything about his post presidential plans but I'll bet that whatever he does it will involve raising a lot of money for veterans and military causes.

For all of my problems with his policies over the years, I have no doubt that we conservatives are going to miss him greatly. My guess is so will many who have served under him through many trying years of battle. more...

Posted by: DrewM at 11:00 AM | Comments (23)
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