What will the winger response be?

Lord and Master and Baronet of the wingers, one George W. Bush, unequivocally told the New York Times:

that he did not believe Senator John Kerry lied about his war record, but he declined to condemn the television commercial paid for by a veterans group alleging that Mr. Kerry came by his war medals dishonestly. Mr. Bush's comments, in a half-hour interview with The New York Times, undercut a central accusation leveled by the veterans group, Swift Boat Veterans for Truth, whose unproven attacks on Mr. Kerry have dominated the political debate for more than two weeks.

I take this to mean that Drudge, Lucianne, Hannity, Limbaugh, WaTimes, Farah, Malkin, Novak, LeBoutillier, Ruddy, et al. will back off on using the Swiftees' lies against Kerry. When pigs fly.

Just switch "Cheney" with "Kerry" and watch the hilarity ensue

Here's a cutesy little story from the WaPo about Cheney et familie on the road in Pennsylvania.

In a lighter moment, the Cheney tour stopped at a farm stand owned by Ray Levan, 65, in the small town of Catawissa. Cheney and his wife went to buy fruit and vegetables, while daughters Mary and Elizabeth went with the Cheney grandchildren to watch cows being fed. The Cheneys purchased nine apples, five large tomatoes, three green peppers and a dozen ears of corn. Cheney pulled a $10 bill from his pocket and gave it to Levan. Asked by a reporter whether the $10 covered the cost of the produce, Levan indicated that it did not. But he said it was an "honor" to sell the fruits and vegetables to the vice president, even if at a discount.

Now, I don't think this is anywhere near a big deal, but chew on this: You know and I know that if John and Teresa Kerry were the protagonists in the above-quoted vignette, they would be pilloried by such pundits as Sean Hannity, Drudge, Rush Limbaugh, Instapundit as elitists who are completely out of touch with the masses and, therefore, nothing more than limousine liberals. About a week after the aforementioned punditocracy was just about through with this point, Fox would pick it up and ridicule the Kerrys via phone in polls while they report and the wingers decide. Of course, our SCLM, not wanting to seem liberal, would immediately pick up the story and glom onto the elitist/out-of-touch meme. What's fascinating is that the moderates and the left have no such luck. For instance - have you heard CNN or MSNBC make as big a deal out of John O'Neill's & other Swiftees' lies as they did about whether Kerry was "enhancing" the stories of his Vietnam service? Neither did I.

10 Ways Bush has hurt New York

The 2004 Republican National Convention will be held in New York City this year. New York is a predominantly Democratic state, and New York City is a predominantly Democratic city. (Pataki and Bloomberg notwithstanding). Now, this piece from The Village Voice is somewhat more City-specific, rather than state-specific, but any upstater can tell you that politically and economically, what happens in NYC does have a palpable effect statewide. So here, ladies and gentlemen, are the 10 ways Bush has hurt NYC in particular, and NYS in general. Click the link to the piece for more details. 1. Will any convention speaker dare mention the name of Osama bin Laden? What ever happened to Bush's cowboy threat to "smoke 'em" out? 2. Why was Bush so afraid of a 9-11 investigation? 3. Was the Bush team awake in the nine months before the attack? 4. Iraq plus tax cuts adds up to a deficit that will force a second-term squeeze on social programs vital to NYC. 5. Bush did OK on the $20 billion, but he's still shortchanging us on the edges of the minimal pledge he made to a city whose economy took an $80 billion hit. 6. Senator Schumer says NY doesn't expect a share of Idaho's farm subsidies, so why does Idaho take a chunk of NY's security subsidies? 7. What could be worse than lying to GZ workers and residents about the air they were breathing?

The original EPA draft of a September 13, 2001, press release, for example, said that the agency considered even the low levels of asbestos that surfaced in their GZ tests "hazardous in this situation." The final White House version of the release simply scratched out the phrase. And when a September 16 EPA draft warned of "higher levels of asbestos," the White House changed it to the hot-air hoax that "ambient air quality meets standards and is not a cause for public concern." The EPA chief of staff conceded in an interview with the agency's inspector general that the "desire to reopen Wall Street" factored into the releases, saying she did not feel the releases were her own.

8. Bush has left most New York children behind. 9. Ten thousand NY families are in jeopardy of losing their housing subsidies and homes. 10. With NYC the No. 1 target of bio and nuclear terrorists, the go-it-alone Bush administration has torpedoed international treaties that would make us more secure.

Max Cleland turned away

Max Cleland left three limbs in Vietnam. He is a former Georgia Senator who was defeated in 2002 by Saxby Chambliss. Senator Chambliss, a chickenhawk, somehow painted this Vietnam Vet as soft on terror. He didn't just do that, however. He also released a disgusting, horrific ad that actually linked and compared Senator Cleland to Osama bin Laden and Saddam Hussein. Obviously, George Bush supported Chambliss and made numerous visits to Georgia. Bush never met a candidate who bashes vets he hasn't liked. Cleland is a fervent Kerry supporter, and is traveling the country campaiging for Kerry. Yesterday, he traveled to Crawford, Texas to deliver a letter signed by nine Senators who are veterans. He traveled directly to Bush's ranch, intending to hand-deliver the letter to the President with whom he served in Washington. Here's a picture that depicts how far he got: Was this a political stunt? Sure it was. What would a campaign be without stunts. But what's so typical and telling about Bush is that he's not man enough to invite Cleland in for a talk. Just a private talk without handlers or media to accept the letter. He's a baby. Our President is a petulant teenager. He sends people like the Swift Boat Liars to do his smearing for him. (Bush, obviously, could never question anyone's military service.) He then fails to denounce their slanderous perjury. (All of the Swiftees signed sworn affidavits. Several have now turned out to be false statements. Remember when the GOP CARED about perjury?) In any event, Kerry's folks set Bush up on this one, and he predictably took the bait. Bush could have looked gracious by inviting Cleland in without cameras, but he didn't do that. By turning Cleland away AND offering him a "competing" letter written by the B-C04 campaign and signed by some veterans, he looks like a pompous ass and the arrogant frat boy he is. And by the way, Mr. Incumbent's approval ratings are in the toilet. 39% approval. Where's the SCLM to harp on just how disliked Junior has become?

Scandal.

Hey! Did you know that 527 organizations like Swift Boat Liars and MoveOn.org are forbidden from coordinating their activities with the campaigns? Did you know that MoveOn.org is a PAC and must release records of their contributions and contributors, while the Swiftees don't? Hey, did you know that a Bush/Cheney '04 Military "adviser", Kenneth Cordier, had to quit the campaign because he was a member of the Swiftees? Oh, and did you realize that Benjamin Ginsberg, the Bush campaign's top outside lawyer said Tuesday that he had given legal advice to the Swiftees in a book, television commercials and countless appearances on cable news programs? Yeah, Ginsberg quit today. Cordier was kicked out last week. What a clean, hopeful & optimistic campaign of issues the Bush/Cheney cabal is running.

Curiouser

Via Democratic Underground.

We can clearly see that in this picture, George W. Bush is wearing an Air Force Outstanding Unit Award and a Small Arms Expert Marksmanship Ribbon, however, on line 24 of his ARG22 National Guard discharge form, George W. Bush has NO awards listed. Now, here in another picture where his father is pinning lieutenant bars on his shoulder, George W. Bush is again wearing the Small Arms Expert Marksmanship Ribbon: So, in fairness we must give George W. Bush the benefit of the doubt here. Let's dig further and look at other records released by the Bush campaign team. Our next stop is a Form AF11 dated May 16, 1971. You will note on this document Bush has already been promoted to First Lieutenant. All that is listed in this document is the Small Arms Expert Marksmanship Ribbon. The Air Force Outstanding Unit Award is not listed. Our next stop is the "military biography" released by the Bush Campaign: http://img56.exs.cx/img56/5791/bio1.jpg?click http://img56.exs.cx/img56/6018/bio2.jpg?click In this document, the claim is made that Bush was awarded the National Defense Service Medal and the Small Arms Expert Marksmanship Ribbon, BUT NO MENTION OF THE AIR FORCE OUTSTANDING UNIT AWARD!!! This document was clearly prepared after Bush's service ended. Exhaustive searches for any indication that any unit Bush served with was awarded the AFOUA have, to date, yielded nothing. The ONLY documents released by the Bush administration related to his service that make mention of any awards whatsoever have been included in this report. The only conclusion that can be made is George W. Bush wore a ribbon he did not earn in the above photograph.

Bush's Service in the TANG

Information gleaned via Democratic Underground & Daily Kos There is one medal awarded to members of the Texas National Guard basically for showing up: Texas Govt Code 431.134 Para 1 Texas Faithful Service Medal The Texas Faithful Service Medal shall be awarded to a member of the state military forces who has completed five years of honorable service during which the person has shown fidelity to duty, efficient service, and great loyalty to the state. According to his ANG22 (The Air National Guard discharge papers), * Received *NO* Texas National Guard Medals. This means he did not faithfully execute his duty for five years in the TANG. Furthermore, in the following photograph he wears two Air Force ribbons, Air Force Outstanding Unit Award, and the Small Arms Expert Marksmanship Ribbon : Neither of which show up on this line of his ARG22. There is some question as to whether Bush was authorized to wear the SAEM ribbon, because, although it was omitted from his ANG22, it is mentioned elsewhere. Assuming Bush was wearing authorized awards, here is a comparison of Kerry and Bush's awards records:

Kerry

Kerry' s




Dubya*



I have verified the Air Force Outstanding Unit Award and Air Force Small Arms Expert Marksmanship ribbon only via a photograph of George W. Bush.

Top to bottom, left to right as you look at them

Kerry:

Silver Star (Verified via DD214)
Bronze Star (Should have Bronze Combat "V" Device, Verified via DD214)
Purple Heart (Should have two Gold Star devices for subsequent awards, Verified via DD214)
Combat Action Ribbon (Verified via DD214)
Presidential Unit Citation (Verified via DD215, worn above left pocket per Navy regs)
Navy Unit Commendation (Verified via DD215)
National Defense Service Medal (Verified via DD214)
Vietnam Service Medal(Verified via DD214, w/four bronze star devices verified via DD215)
Republic of Vietnam Gallantry Cross Unit Citation (Verified via DD215)
Republic of Vietnam Civil Actions Unit Citation (Verified via DD215)
Republic of Vietnam Campaign Medal (Verified via DD215)

Dubya:

Air Force Outstanding Unit Award (verified via photograph only)
Small Arms Expert Marksmanship Ribbon (verified via photograph only)

Comparing in order of precedence, The Air Force Outstanding Unit Award falls below Kerry's Navy Unit Commendation and above his National Defense Service Medal. The Small Arms Expert Marksmanship Ribbon falls between Kerry's Vietnam Service Medal and his Republic of Vietnam Gallantry Cross Unit Citation.

 

John O'Neill: Unfit for Everything

This is burning up the blogosphere this morning, so I won't bother to link to anyone except Liberal Oasis, which describes pretty much the end of any and all credibility for the Swift Boat liars, John O'Neil & bigot Jerome Corsi once & for all:

1. Still Think Kerry Can't Play Hardball? You may not have heard yet, but yesterday, Kerry's team applied a late-night smackdown on chief Swift Boat Liar John O'Neill. O'Neill has repeatedly challenged Kerry's statements regarding his crossing of the Cambodian border. O'Neill said Kerry would have been "court-martialed" for such an act. Further, that he did the same patrol two months after Kerry and it only ran "50 miles from Cambodia. There isn't any watery border." But yesterday, the Kerry campaign alerted both Fox (extra chutzpah points) and CNN to a taped conversation between O'Neill and Richard Nixon where O'Neill explicitly says the opposite: O'NEILL: I was in Cambodia, sir. I worked along the border on the water. NIXON: In a swift boat? O'NEILL: Yes, sir.

Can they get any more discredited?

Confirmed - Bob "Viagra" Dole is an asshole.

Bob Dole says he was just "tweaking" Kerry when he said that Kerry "never bled" from any of the "superficial wounds" Dole says Kerry sustained in Vietnam. Well, Kerry never threw a grenade that hit a tree that bounced back at him either, but we can't all be Bob Dole, can we? Check this out:

"This is presidential race. We're 70 some days away. It's political hardball, and certainly Senator Kerry understands that," Dole told CNN. Dole said Kerry called him to express "disappointment" over his comments Sunday that the Massachusetts senator had won "three Purple Hearts and never bled that I know of. I mean, they're all superficial wounds." Dole's suggestion that Kerry "never bled" runs counter to US Navy records showing that Kerry, who also won a Bronze Star and a Silver Star for bravery, still carries shrapnel in his left thigh from a February 1969 firefight. "There's respect there," Dole said Monady. "We were in the Senate together. But we're talking about the presidential race, and I tweaked him a little on the Purple Hearts."

There's tweaking, and then there's outright, malicious slander/libel. That's the hole into which Bush's mouthpieces have fallen. I honestly can't fathom how people can support a guy who has been President for 4 years and doesn't have a goddamn positive issue on which to run. All he's done- all he can do - is go negative against Kerry. Think I'm wrong? Go to Bush's campaign website, and check out the "Kerry gas tax calculator" (which ignores Cheney's opinion that gas prices are too low), the "John Kerry's Flip Flop Olympics", and "Taxing our Economy". Then go to www.johnkerry.com and check out the main item: A Stronger America. Which campaign is the most forward-thinking, optimistic and positive?

Bush - up to his old tricks.

I urge anyone visiting this site to sign this petition. Dear Friend, A front group for the Bush campaign called"Swift Boat Veterans for Truth" is continuing to spread lies about John Kerry's military record. Their statements have been contradicted by official Navy records, the New York Times, the Washington Post, the Chicago Tribune and every man who served under John Kerry, yet George Bush refuses to condemn their tactics. Through his silence, George Bush is approving their action. In fact, Bush campaign officials in Florida are even promoting events for this front group. Today we're calling for all of you to join together and stand with John Kerry. Tell George Bush to stop the smear, and get back to the issues. Sign John Kerry's petition by visiting http://www.johnkerry.com/oldtricks Enough is enough. No matter what these Bush campaign shills now say, John Kerry's commanders in 1969 remarked that, "In a combat environment often requiring independent, decisive action, LTJG Kerry was unsurpassed." In fact all John Kerry's performance reports, available on John Kerry's website, display an absolutely heroic record of service. John Kerry's campaign has just released a new internet ad (which should be on TV. -ed) called "Old Tricks", which shows John McCain asking George Bush to apologize for attacking his own heroic record. View the ad by visiting http://www.johnkerry.com/oldtricks I did -- and you should too.

Bush & his lying liars.

This Editorial from the Boston Globe, which is arguably the paper that knows Kerry best, is a must-read. Especially for former McCaniacs like me:

IMAGINE IF supporters of Bill Clinton had tried in 1996 to besmirch the military record of his opponent, Bob Dole. After all, Dole was given a Purple Heart for a leg scratch probably caused, ccording to one biographer, when a hand grenade thrown by one of his own men bounced off a tree. And while the serious injuries Dole sustained later surely came from German fire, did the episode demonstrate heroism on Dole's part or a reckless move that ended up killing his radioman and endangering the sergeant who dragged Dole off the field? The truth, according to many accounts, is that Dole fought with exceptional bravery and deserves the nation' gratitude. No one in 1996 questioned that record. Any such attack on behalf of Clinton, an admitted Vietnam draft dodger, would have been preposterous. Yet amazingly, something quite similar is happening today as supporters of President Bush attack the Vietnam record of Senator John Kerry."

Zig Zag Zell

Zell Miller will be a keynote speaker during the upcoming Republican Convention. Here's what Zell had to say about Kerry back in 2001 (via Pandagon) "My job tonight is an easy one: to present to you one of this nation's authentic heroes, one of this party's best-known and greatest leaders -- and a good friend. He was once a lieutenant governor -- but he didn't stay in that office 16 years, like someone else I know. It just took two years before the people of Massachusetts moved him into the United States Senate in 1984. -- U.S. Senator Zell Miller [Remarks to the Democratic Party of Georgia Jefferson Jackson Dinner 2001] "In his 16 years in the Senate, John Kerry has fought against government waste and worked hard to bring some accountability to Washington. Early in his Senate career in 1986, John signed on to the Gramm-Rudman-Hollings Deficit Reduction Bill, and he fought for balanced budgets before it was considered politically correct for Democrats to do so. John has worked to strengthen our military, reform public education, boost the economy and protect the environment.” -- U.S. Senator Zell Miller [Remarks to the Democratic Party of Georgia Jefferson Jackson Dinner 2001]

Swift Boat Liars for Bush

Just in case you were wondering: are the swift boat vets lying? Do they have any ties to Bush and/or Rove? This New York Times graf makes it aaaalllll clear. Lying liars, indeed.

Bush supporters in a nutshell.

Here's a charming photograph of a Bush supporter committing a battery upon a Kerry supporter who is attempting to exercise her free speech rights.

Turning astroturf into grassroots

Daily Kos brings up some new astroturf. Let's have some grassroots fun with it, shall we? Happily, the Kerry campaign relies on volunteers’ own brains to write letters to the editor, etc. Not so for GWB. Karl Rove-approved scripts are online at the GWB ’04 website, ready for anyone to cut & paste and e-mail as a letter to the editor. Since this is nothing but phony grassroots politicking, it’s known as Astroturf. Well, what I’ve done is take the Bush-approved script and messed with it a bit, and then used GWB’s own bandwidth to send a pro-Kerry LTE. How, you ask? Point your browser to http://www.georgewbush.com/Economy/WriteNewspapers.aspx?AgendaID=2 (there are probably other places at this website to do this for other policy issues, like foreign affairs, for instance). Take the approved text, and change it as follows: (bold = my changes) New job figures and other recent economic data show that America’s economy is weak and getting weaker – and that the President’s jobs and growth plan is clearly not working. The Labor Department announced that employers added a mere 288,000 new jobs in April. In total, only 1.1 million jobs have been added since August, with 8 consecutive months of modest gains. The truth is that the US economy has lost a net 1 million jobs since Bush took office in 2001. No president since Hoover has presided over a four-year term where the economy failed to add jobs.

Keyes' conservatism

Conservatives used to be fiscal conservatives, as well as social conservatives, right? Well, Alan Keyes is so fiscally conservative that he can't/won't pay his Maryland state inbcome taxes, which caused Maryland to place a lien against Keyes' (true) Maryland home. Furthermore, Keyes still owes over $500,000 from his 1996 and 2000 Presidental "runs".

Truth About Keyes

Here's a great website. Truth About Keyes. You know it's legit because there's no "squad".

Obama Truth Squad

HA ha ha! The wingers in Illinois have an "Obama Truth Squad". Setting aside the totalitarian and militarist overtones of the word "squad", (why aren't they a cadre?), I think they have quite an uphill battle. First of all, Alan Keyes is running against Barack Obama. Alan Keyes is, in my opinion, crazy. There is absolutely no way around that. The man just may be certifiably insane and wholly unfit to wear the title of dog catcher, much less Senator. Or even State Senator. (For starters, Keyes, who is still a Maryland resident and is now running to become a Senator from Illinois, criticized Hillary Clinton for carpetbagging in 2000. At least Hillary had already bought a house in Chappaqua when she announced. Truth Squad doesn't like Obama because Obama doesn't like the Iraq war, and just might be for universal health care (*gasp* perish the thought!) 1. What difference does it make what a State Senator has to say about Iraq, an issue on which he had no vote – only an opinion? As for the war being “dumb”, in retrospect it was dumb. Not only was the very idea a dumb one, but planning and execution – especially as it relates to the postwar period – was supremely dumb. It was dumb not only because we attacked a country that posed zero threat to the US, but also because the neocon hijacking of the war was based not on an effort to “democratize” Iraq, but in a macro sense to make Israel safe. Nice job, fellas. 2. Even GWB and the neocons who got to him understood that we can’t just go in and invade a country. You need at least a light coating of international legitimacy. So they reluctantly let UN inspectors go to Iraq for 6 months. 200 inspectors in 6 months found next to nothing violative of UN resolutions. Didn’t matter. Bush & Co., and their winger media mouthpieces began calling Hans Blix an Iraqi tool, and that the inspectors didn’t know what they were doing. Over 100,000 US troops have occupied the entirety of Iraq for over a year, and they have found less in the way of material violative of UN resolutions from 1990-1992 than did Blix. Wow. How great is that? And 1,000 Americans have died to make Iraq safe for Ba’athist and Qaeda insurgents. Woo hoo. 3. What difference does it make what a State Senator has to say about the subsequent $87billion (that’s $87,000,000,000) appropriation for troop support & supplies and, ostensibly, Iraqi reconstruction. I thought Wolfowitz said Iraqi oil would pay for all of this? Maybe all the people with “W” stickers on their cars and American flags a-waving might stop for a second and think that $87billion would do a lot of good here at home. Maybe we could have considered giving troops enough supplies & armor, etc. before we sent them to Iraq? Remember a few months ago, you posted a message about Bush visiting a wounded soldier or marine at Walter Reed, and he told Bush that they needed water? You crowed about the fact that Bush got them water right away. Did you stop to think why the hell didn’t they have water in the first place? 4. Barack Obama merits a Truth Squad because the wingers are so afraid of him. They know he’s going to beat the living bejeezus out of Alan Keyes and coast to the Senate. They know he’s on his way to a glorious career in public service. Alan Keyes is on his way to a mental asylum. As for him being a progressive, so what? If Keyes can defeat him based on real ideas rather than sound and fury, God bless him. The problem is that Keyes has no ideas. Keyes doesn’t even know what the issues are facing the people from Illinois. All Keyes can do is make a lot of noise. What’s so pathetic is that he’s the best the GOP can do in the whole state of Illinois. Out of all the republicans that I’m sure live in Illinois, they went with a wackjob from Maryland.

Jerome Corsi.

Here's more about Jerome Corsi, bigot. Courtesy of Media Matters. This really is a must-read. I keep saying this like a mantra, but when wingers (not regular old low-tax, low-spend republicans, but wingers) tell you that they're not fascist, or they're not bigots, etc., just go to freerepublic.com or lucianne.com. I guarantee that within 5 minutes, you'll find a bigoted post. Promise. What Jerome Corsi says is par for the course in wingnutworld.

Karma

To paraphrase the late Rick James, Karma's a helluva thing. Everybody remembers 10 years ago? 10 years ago, the vast right-wing conspiracy, funded by Richard Mellon Scaife (who owns the Pittsburgh rag that employs a certain editor/reporter whom Teresa Heinz-Kerry instructed to "shove it"), concocted this amazing story about Bill Clinton's escapades as Governor (troopergate), among others. Well, the trooper who sold his story to Scaife's monkeys (like Newsmax's Chris Ruddy) may be going to jail. For lying to an FBI officer. Oh, the humanity. Oh, the credulity.

"A former Arkansas state trooper who said years ago that he arranged sexual liaisons for former President Clinton while Clinton was governor has pleaded guilty to a felony in an unrelated federal civil-rights case. "

Is Alan Keyes crazy, or just a good singer?

As you may recall from this post, I think Barack Obama is a great American, a great orator, and will make a great Senator. Hopefully someday a great President. The Illinois GOP, fishing for a candidate, came up with Maryland resident, perennial presidential candidate, devout Catholic and nutty wackjob Alan Keyes to run against Obama. Here, Keyes serenades a local Chicago CBS affiliate with a little Judy Garland flava. Check it out to get your crazy fix for the day.

The nerve of these people.

Dick Cheney has no shame. He has no scruples. He just likes to say that he does. Take a look at this, via Oliver Willis:

'We don't want to turn that responsibility over to somebody who doesn't have deeply held convictions about right and wrong,' Cheney told a town hall meeting in Joplin.

Then juxtapose that outrageous statement about John Kerry with this:

Halliburton to pay $7.5 million fine for not disclosing accounting change The violations occurred while Vice President Dick Cheney served as Halliburton's chief executive officer, although Cheney, who provided sworn testimony to the SEC, wasn't charged. Two other former executives were charged, however: former controller Robert C. Muchmore Jr., who also settled with the SEC, agreeing to a $50,000 penalty, and former chief financial officer Gary V. Morris, who has not settled."

Let's read about

John Corsi, the guy who wrote "Unfit for Command" for the Republican part... I mean George W. Bu... I mean "Swift Boat Veterans for Falsity." Wingers always get huffy when you accuse them of being intolerant of various people and things. For instance, Michelle Malkin, who is respected as a commentator in winger circles, is now an advocate for internment camps (read: concentration camps) for Arabs/Muslims. She points to the internment of Japanese-Americans during WWII as an instructive and positive example. I really don't give a crap about her point, because I don't think that a liberal, pluralistic democracy lik the United States has any business interning people based solely on their ethnicity or religion. (Guilt by association alone). Anyway, back on track, it's interesting that Corsi is..well, lots of things. He is/was a regular poster on the right wing jihadist website, freerepublic.com. Here's how James Carville introduced a story about Corsi on Crossfire:

John Kerry, Tim Russert, Chris Matthews, Katie Couric, CBS, NBC are all communists. Hillary Clinton is a lesbian fat hog with fake hair. Al and Tipper Gore are terrorists who are part of the Taliban. The pope is senile. And pedophilia is fine with him as long as it's not reported in the liberal press. If you think all this sounds nutty, well, it is. According to the organization Media Matters For America, all this has been written by Jerome Corsi. Why do we care what Jerome Corsi says? Well, we don't. But as co-author of the book "Unfit for Command" about John Kerry and his service in Vietnam, some people are making the mistake of taking him seriously. In the world of putrid right-wing pond scum, Corsi is one of the biggest bottom-feeders of them all.

"Few signature achievements"

Check this out, via Atrios. Bush's latest attack on Senator Kerry is that Kerry had "few signature achievements" after all that time in the Senate. And Bush - as the one-term governor of a State with one of the weakest, most symbolic governorships in the Country had a lot of signature achievements, I take it? Or maybe Bush's signature achievements have to do with running companies into the ground. (Harken, Arbusto). How 'bout that Dick Cheney? The same Dick Cheney who remarked some time ago that gas prices are too low?

Cheney, 11 years in the House: 96th Congress: 4 Bills Sponsored; 0 became Law 97th Congress: 4 Sponsored: 0 became Law 98th Congress: 8 Sponsored: 0 became Law 99th Congress: 7 Sponsored: 1 became Law (H.R.1246 : A bill to establish a federally declared floodway for the Colorado River below Davis Dam.) 100th Congress: 7 Sponsored: 1 became Law (H.R.712 : A bill for the relief of Lawrence K. Lunt.) 101st Congress: 1 Sponsored: 0 became Law

Whew. What a fantastic record of signature achievements. /sarcasm. Can someone remind me exactly what Cheney's ever done to merit being SecDef?

Let's be clear

Just so everyone understands what, exactly, the whole story is about the "shove it" incident

The dustup occurred after Heinz Kerry gave a speech to the Pennsylvania delegation denouncing 'some of the creeping, un-Pennsylvanian and sometimes un-American traits that are coming into some of our politics.' McNickle approached her and asked what she meant by 'un-American activities,' in effect accusing her of McCarthyism. Heinz-Kerry denied using the phrase 'un-American activities' and stormed off. Yet when Pa. Gov Ed Rendell pointed out to her that McNickle was a reporter from the Tribune-Review, Heinz Kerry returned to him with a rebuke. 'You're from the Tribune Review?' she asked McNickle with a face tightened with rage. 'That's understandable. You said something I didn't say. Now shove it.' ...McNickle's provocation of Heinz Kerry represents the latest manifestation of a poisonous dirty tricks campaign Scaife has financed to undermine Heinz Kerry, a fellow western Pennsylvania philanthropist whom he considers his rival. And now that Heinz Kerry has been thrust into the national spotlight by her husband's presidential candidacy, Scaife's smears are likely to intensify. The Tribune-Review routinely sniped at Teresa Heinz during her marriage to Pennsylvania's Republican former Senator John Heinz. When the senator died in 1991, and the Massachusetts Junior Senator John Kerry stole Teresa's heart, the paper's attacks grew increasingly slanderous. On December 28, 1997, the paper featured an anonymously penned cover story falsely insinuating that a woman named Sheila Lawrence had had affairs with both Bill Clinton and Kerry. "Far from giving all to Bill, there was still something left over for Sen. John Kerry," who had "a very private tete-a-tete" with "sexy Sheila," the columnist alleged. In another column, the Tribune-Review mocked John Kerry as "Mr. Teresa Heinz." Perhaps the most spurious of the Tribune-Review's attacks came in December, 2003, when it ran a piece accusing Heinz-Kerry of secretly "funneling cash" from her Heinz Endowment to the Tides Foundation, a group that "supports extreme left wing groups... anti-war protests... unlimited abortion rights, gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgender advocacy, as well as and [sic] environmental extremism." The piece was based on research conducted by the right wing think tank Capital Research Center, yet failed to mention that Scaife granted the center $240,000 in 2002 or that he was connected to it in any way. The article also omitted the fact that the Heinz Foundation's grants were all strictly earmarked for mainstream western Pennsylvania environmental charities, an inexcusable omission that could have been avoided if the paper had bothered to call either the Heinz Foundation or the Tides Foundation to confirm its wild claims. Despite the article's shoddy research, its accusations became a favorite tune on the right's Mighty Wurlitzer. FrontPageMagizine plugged it in a piece called, "Teresa Heinz Kerry: Bag Lady of the Radical Left;" The New York Post followed with the headline, "Teresa Heinz's Cash Connection;" Rush Limbaugh promoted the claims; the Weekly Standard picked the story up. By the time Fox's Brit Hume reported the accusations, they had been brushed clean of Scaife's fingerprints. ...McNickle has also displayed a disregard for journalistic ethics throughout his career. His chronic carelessness was most apparent in his July 2000, column, "Thus (Mis)Speaketh Al," a collection of imbecilic quotes by then-presidential candidate Al Gore. Though the article was laugh-out-loud funny, there was one small problem: the statements McNickle attributed to Gore were actually quotes by former Vice President Dan Quayle. Yet even after his mistake was exposed, McNickle refused to give an inch. "I'll stand by where we got the information from," McNickle told the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette.

Let's be perfectly clear. You know how the right's strategy against Clark was to just repeat that he's crazy? Their strategy against Teresa is to just repeat that she's out-of-control, and uncontrollable. And our SCLM will lap it up like dogs.

The banality of stupidity

Colin McNickle is an editor at the Richard Mellon Scaife rag the Pittsburgh Tribune-Review. Mr. McNickle is the chap instructed by Teresa Heinz Kerry to "shove it." Apparently, Mr. McNickle "covered" the convention in Boston last week, and even posted to this blog while there. The blog itself is nothing more than brain farts from an opinionated hack. (Just check out his favorite links.) What's fun is just how stupid some of these posts are. For instance, even Kerry haters gave Kerry pretty good marks for his convention acceptance speech. McNickle gives him a "D" for writing, an "F" for content, and that his delivery was "at times awkward", resulting in a C-. Let's face it. McNickle wrote the wrong column. He was apparently reporting on George W. Bush's grades at at Yale. If Kerry's delivery is "at times awkward", what does he call Bush's incoherent, illiterate mumblings?

The 'right' to health care Posted July 29, 2004 10 :54 PM Kerry says health care is a "right?" Let me know if you find that one in your copy of the U.S. Constitution....

Let me know if you find "you don't need to actually count the ballots" in the Constitution. Let me know where in the Constitution it says that drug addict Rush Limbaugh has a right to privacy. I presume that Mr. McNickle is very up-in-arms about his tax money going to subsidize the health care plan of the entire federal government and associated bureaucracy.

Redistributionist economics Posted July 29, 2004 10 :53 PM Mr. Kerry says he wants to roll back tax cuts for the wealthiest Americans ... those richest 2 percent of Americans. That just happens to be the cohort that pays the greatest percentage of taxes. The Kerry plan is income redistribution -- nothing else.

Well, who said Kerry wants to distribute to the poor or the middle class the money earned from rolling back tax cuts for the wealthy? Seems to me that Senator Kerry would like to, oh, pay for Bush's Iraq misadventure, for instance. I guess he's right.

Kerry's economic [sic] Posted July 29, 2004 10 :53 PM John Kerry says he wants an America that "exports products, not jobs." Which, when you get right down to it, will make products here less affordable and supress wage rates.

Yeah. Jobs in the US is a bad idea. I really, really hope the GOP reads Mr. McNickles' blog and runs with his deep ideas. Exporting products is, in Mr. McNickles' opinion, a bad & counterproductive thing.

Family 'values' Posted July 29, 2004 10 :53 PM John Kerry wants to "value families" by raising the minimum wage (that will reduce the pool of entry-level jobs), add more and more government to health care (which will raise the cost of health care and lead to rationing), and "protect" Social Security (which will go bankrupt when our children are older unless steps are taken to privatize it, which will lead to greater benefits for everyone). Help is on the way? Heaven help us.

So many gems in this one. If we raise the minimum wage, is McDonalds all of a sudden going to use robots to get your fries with that? Will Starbucks become self-serve? Social security needs to be privatized? Hell, let's privatize everything, because privatization = good thing for everything, right? With the dow hovering lower than where it was in the summer of 2000, I'll bet some retirees are pretty happy that they have something a little more stable than mere market whims backing a piece of their retirement.

Oh, really? Posted July 29, 2004 10 :51 PM How did John Kerry ride his bicycle into East Berlin without getting shot?

Well, it depends on when Kerry was in Berlin. If it was before 1961, he could have crossed freely between East and West Berlin, possibly being stopped at an allied checkpoint. If it was after 1961, he probably just showed his diplomatic passport to the guards at Checkpoint Charlie. Idiot.

Looking out for us

Gosh, doesn't it seem a little counterproductive for our self-puffing Adminisration to release information like this to the press? If the Government has captured a computer geek who has all the secrets about Qaeda's computer communication, why publicize it, except to toot your own tarnished horn?

WASHINGTON, Aug. 1 - The unannounced capture of a figure from Al Qaeda in Pakistan several weeks ago led the Central Intelligence Agency to the rich lode of information that prompted the terror alert on Sunday, according to senior American officials. The figure, Muhammad Naeem Noor Khan, was described by a Pakistani intelligence official as a 25-year-old computer engineer, arrested July 13, who had used and helped to operate a secret Qaeda communications system where information was transferred via coded messages. A senior United States official would not confirm or deny that Mr. Khan had been the Qaeda figure whose capture led to the information. But the official said 'documentary evidence' found after the capture had demonstrated in extraordinary detail that Qaeda members had for years conducted sophisticated and extensive reconnaissance of the financial institutions cited in the warnings on Sunday.

Why not keep the capture secret and get the guy to help in a sting?

Federal ineptitude

Maybe Hastert's right. Why should you and I continue to subsidize a bunch of idiots like this? Tony Masiello should breathe a sigh of relief. At least his is not the only administration that can't account for millions of dollars.

WASHINGTON - U.S. authorities in Baghdad spent hundreds of millions of Iraqi dollars without keeping good enough records to show whether they got some services and products they paid for, government investigators said. Officials of the former Coalition Provisional Authority did not have records to justify the $24.7 million cost for replacing Iraq's currency, according to the report from the authority's inspector general. The report also said the authority paid nearly $200,000 for 15 police trucks without knowing if the trucks were delivered.

I wonder if Instapundit is going to bleat on about this half as much as he has over the stolen/squandered oil-for-food money from Saddam-era Iraq. At least that money was squandered by a totalitarian fascist dictatorship. What's Bush's excluse? What's Bremer's excuse?

Gimmick / trial balloon du jour

So, the Bushies are sending up a trial balloon this week. In a new book by Speaker Denny Hastert, he advocates eliminating the IRS and replacing it with a flat tax, a national sales tax, or a VAT. I'm sure places like New Hampshire that have no sales tax are really psyched about this idea. I'm sure you and I just can't wait to add an additional 10% sales tax to the 8.25 we already pay to Albany and Erie County. (I'll do all my shopping in Canada, where at least I can get my GST back). A modified flat tax I'd actually support, provided that the poorest Americans were exempted, and those making over 1,000,000 paid a little extra. I wouldn't mind being able to file my return on a post card, as Steve Forbes famously promised in 2000.