Goldberg and Guthrie

A poor use of the word literally, from the Cincinnati Bengals web site - an article about Art Modell (former owner of the Browns and Ravens):

"Modell literally gave birth to the Bengals 41 years ago when he fired Paul Brown as coach of the Cleveland Browns..."

Wow.

(Post edited to correct error. Post formerly stated that Modell was the owner of the Browns and Bengals.)

... tonight while watching The West Wing. With the importance of polls in our modern political system, has anyone ever examined the effects of cell phone use on polling? I assume that when polls are conducted, phone numbers are generated from a telephone directory of some sort. However, I'm not sure such a directory exists for cellular phones. (Does one exist now? That article was from three years ago.) There are many people (me, for example) who have no home phone - only a cell phone.

Is there a certain demographic that would tend to use only a cell phone and have no home phone? Are these people being systematically underrepresented in national polling data?

I have no answers to any of these questions.

At the risk of becoming Mickey Kaus (i.e., an alleged Democrat who only attacks Democrats), can I just say: has there ever been a stupider "controversy" than the mini-brouhaha over Bush's jokes about looking for Weapons of Mass Destruction at the White House Correspondants Dinner? I'm not sure.

Anyway, today I heard Kerry make a snide remark about Dick Cheney coming out from his undisclosed location. However, everyone knows that Cheney actually went to an undisclosed location after September 11 - because there had just been a terrorist attack on our country and there was genuine concern that further attacks could be launched against the Executive Branch. Therefore, I assume that Kerry must think that terrorism and possible Presidential assassinations are funny, in fact, he may as well go piss on John F. Kennedy's eternal flame.

Of course, that last paragraph was stupid, but no more stupid and pointless than trying to generate controversy over a few harmless jokes. Can we please, please stop trying to suck anything remotely real and interesting out of our political discourse?

Ezra at Pandagon makes a good point - why was it OK for Reagan to withdraw troops from Lebanon after a terrorist attack on our troops? Isn't this similar to what happened in Spain - letting a terrorist attack influence your policy decisions?

Or so this piece of the Richard Clarke interview would have us believe...

"But let's talk about the Cole. The Cole was attacked in October of 2000. President Bush was running for office; he never mentioned it. Vice President Gore was running for office; he never mentioned it. The media hardly touched it. What were they focused on? They were focused on the election, and they were focused on the Middle East peace process. I thought it was a mistake...

... the FBI and the CIA refused to say who did it in October of 2000. And the president was, therefore, faced with the problem, 'Can I go ahead and bomb somebody in retaliation for the attack on the Cole when my CIA director and my FBI director won't say who did it?'

Now, this is the same president who, when he bombed Afghanistan, when he bombed al-Qaeda camps, because George Tenet and I and Sandy Berger recommended he do it in order to get bin Laden and the leadership team, where we thought they were going to be meeting, the reaction he faced to that was the so-called wag the dog phenomenon. No one in the media, Tim, no one in the media, no one in the Congress said, 'Oh, that's a great thing that you're retaliating for the attack on the United States,' they said, 'This is all about Monica Lewinsky, and this is all about your political problems.'"

Wow. I have always had a love/hate relationship with every Clinton and this definitely falls into the "hate" category. I guess my reaction to this would be - so what if the media focused on Lewinsky. So what if the election was coming up? If Clinton's decision making vis a vis Osama Bin Laden was in anyway compromised by the blow jobs he received from a 20 year old in the oval office, he probably should have resigned right there.

I wonder if September 11 could have been prevented if Clinton had kept it in his pants and not given the media any reason to believe that military actions abroad were intended to distract from the political mess at home?

P.S. - Of course Bush is just as bad and probably worse.

I don't post on the blog for a week, and apparently during this time the word "dissed" has become part of important national discourse.

I heard this morning as I woke up... I wasn't sure I heard it right. I just checked the Meet the Press transcript, and I heard it right. Tim Russert asked Richard Clarke this:

MR. RUSSERT: And people have questioned your motivation. Were you happy? Did you feel dissed for being passed over?


What in the hell?

[Hadley staunchly defended the president to Stahl: 'The president heard those warnings. The president met daily with ... George Tenet and his staff. They kept him fully informed and at one point the president became somewhat impatient with us and said, 'I'm tired of swatting flies. Where's my new strategy to eliminate al Qaeda?'']

Although I wasn't there, I state baldly: it never happened.

That's the headline, anyway, on CNN.

(N.B. - The full headline is actually: "U.S. probes Native Hawaiian tuition waivers")

Perhaps we should just change this blog into one that points out funny uses of the word "probe."

Odd headline on the Fox News web site; apparently, they hate humanity:

Close, but Not Close Enough
100-foot-wide asteroid to have near-miss with Earth today

After a post about the latest outrages (US special counsel proposes removing protection for homosexual workers and Dayton, TN councilman proposes banning homosexuals from town) from the far right, Sully makes an impressive admission:

"I have to say that I have been culpably naive about this administration on this issue. They led me to believe they weren't hostile to gay people, that they would not use anti-gay sentiment to gain votes, that they would not roll back very basic protections for gay federal employees. I was lied to. We were all lied to. But now we know."

Those of us who voted for Nader should agree. We were tricked into thinking this President was a "compassionate conservative" who would govern from the center on social issues. Looking back, I can't figure out why it is that I believed this. As much I dislike John Kerry, I won't be making the same mistake again.

This quote is making the conservative rounds:

"I actually did vote for the $87 billion before I voted against it," - Democratic nominee, John Kerry.

The one problem is that the quote is absolutely accurate - Kerry voted for an earlier version of the bill that repealed some tax cuts to pay for it. Idiot - trying to pay for the things the government does.

On the other hand, voting against the $87 billion after he had voted for the war was such a despicable act of political cowardice that I almost hope Republicans nail him with it. I think this vote, more than anything, is why I don't like John Kerry, and can't get at all enthused about his candidacy at this time. His number one qualification, as far as I'm concerned, is that he is someone other than George W. Bush. I suspect that is how many Democrats view the situation.

On another note, I do enjoy coming across conservatives lines of thought that are genuinely funny (as it is so rare) - and I have decided to officially endorse the notion that jokes about John Kerry referring to his Vietnam service at any time for any reason are funny. Michael Graham at the Corner points us to this exchange, from an interview with the Humane Society:

HUMANE SOCIETY: "Do you have any pets that have made an impact on you personally?"

KERRY: "When I was serving on a swiftboat in Vietnam, my crewmates and I had a dog we called VC..."

I think there is actually some story about how the dog survived an attack of some sort, but that is still damn funny.

Maybe not as funny as something Bush said during the 2000 Campaign, while Clinton was fighting terrorism and developing a plan to kill Osama Bin Laden:

"In June 2000, for example, candidate Bush seemed confused when asked about the Taliban. So the reporter helpfully prompted, 'Repression of women in Afghanistan?' The light dawned. 'Oh, I thought you said, 'Some band.' The Taliban in Afghanistan. Absolutely. Repressive,' replied the president-to-be."

[This is only relevant in terms of the meaningless pissing match that I contributed to above over whether Clinton or Bush did enough to fight terrorism pre 9/11 - as if either of them did close to enough given that FUCKING TERRORISTS FLEW PLANES INTO THE WORLD TRADE CENTER AND PENTAGON.]

Apparently, the media can't get enough of taking Dean quotes out of context to make it appear that he said something outrageous when in fact he said something obviously true. (Got this via Drudge.)

Basically, what Dean said (on a Kerry campaign conference call) is that the Madrid attack happened because Bush sent troops into Iraq. This is exactly what every conservative critic says - that the Madrid attacks are linked to Iraq. So why is this news?

Barbara Bush hatred, that is. Daily Kos is sponsoring a fund raiser to, apparently, teach Barbara Bush a lesson or something.

Democrats - this might work on leftist blogs, but I don't think appealing to an intense dislike for Barbara Bush is going to get us very far. In some ways, though, it might be fun if some scandal leaves Kerry so far behind that he just starts running negative ads against her for fun.

On the other hand, if you hate Barbara Bush and want to teach her a lesson, click on the link and donate money to Kerry or the DNC.

Busy today. Ezra at Pandagon recommends that anyone with a blog post this, from a Time magazine article on the campaign.

"Administration sources tell TIME that employees at the Department of Homeland Security have been asked to keep their eyes open for opportunities to pose the President in settings that might highlight the Administration's efforts to make the nation safer. The goal, they are being told, is to provide Bush with one homeland-security photo-op a month."

I might prefer it if, I don't know, employees at the Department of Homeland security were asked to keep their eyes open for terrorists and what not. As Ezra says, this is disgusting.

Pandagon linked to this. There is a God.

The fucking U.S. Congress, full of fucking cowards who are fucking idiots and who have no fucking idea how to run a fucking country, overwhelmingly passed the fucking "Broadcast Decency Enforcement Act of 2004." See fucking article here. (Fucking being used as adjective in this case - it's not an article about fucking.)

Thanks to this act, I suppose I could be fined $500,000 if I read the above on the radio. Among other things, the law "increases maximum fine against a performer from $11,000 to $500,000 and allows the Federal Communications Commission to impose the penalty after the first offense. Under current rules, the FCC must wait for a second offense."

Worst of all, for those who care about freedom of speech and what-not, the bill passed with wide bipartisan support.

How could a so-called open minded liberal justify voting for this? How could a so-called small government conservative justify voting for this? ("The government is only good at a few limited tasks - providing a police force, providing for the common defense, and of course fining individuals a half million dollars if they say something over the airwaves that a random bureaucrat at the FCC fines indecent.") I haven't seen a breakdown of the vote yet - to be honest, I wouldn't be surprised at all if more Republicans voted against it than Democrats.

I hope that this bill will be found unconstitutional. Any clerks out there want to tell me what the chances are? Obviously, the Court has held that Congress can regulate the broadcast industry. Is there some sort of chilling effect here? Won't any speech approaching controversial be stopped if there is a credible risk of an individual being fined $500,000 without any kind of a warning?

Of course, nobody- least of all a Presidential candidate or other politician - will speak up against the bill because it would associate one with offensive figures - Howard Stern and Bubba the Love Sponge or whatever that guy's name is. But that's how attacks on free speech usually work - they are made against unpopular people.

What a bunch of fucking cowards are in the Congress of the United States.

I also saw part of Bill O'Reilly's interview with Jason Blair tonight. My immediate response was to quote the otherwise forgettable movie State and Main: "Well... that just happened."

Andrew Sullivan describes it perfectly:

"So what does Blair do now? What would you do if you wanted the purest, darkest revenge against the newspaper that eventually rejected you? You'd go on Bill O'Reilly and you would describe the New York Times as a den of leftist, ideological conformity in which any dissent from left-liberalism is tantamount to career suicide. You'd confirm the most paranoid critic's view that the NYT is as objective as a MoveOn ad. Watching the spectacle last night had my jaw drop close to the floor."

What isn't captured by this is the unbelievable hilarity of O'Reilly - after Blair has described the Times as the liberal den of horrors that O'Reilly has long imagined - asking the tough follow-ups. "Are you telling me truth here?... You're not just saying what I want to hear are you?... Are you telling me the truth here, Blair?" Yes, no man who routinely filed completely false stories with the most important newspaper in the world could possibly keep lying in the face of this awesome interrogation.

(In the interest of full disclosure: I didn't watch the whole interview because it was making me sick and I didn't quote the part of Andrew Sullivan's post where he indicates that Blair might be right about some of the things he said about the Times: go read it for yourself if so inclined)

The below talk about Libya just makes me thankful for the fatal blow the Libyan's WMD program took in the mid 1980s, when they lent plutonium to an American scientist only to have him and his wise-cracking side kick use it to build a time machine.

Of course, I'm sure in 2024 plutonium will be available in every corner drug store. But in 2004 it's a very rare substance.

I only pray that in the future we don't become assholes or something.

[If they ever remake that movie in 2005 and Bush is reelected a good scene could take place in 1975 between Marty and Doc.

Doc: OK - who's president in 2005?
Marty: George W. Bush.
Doc: George W. Bush? The coked-up son of the former chairman of the Republican party?
Marty: Doc!
Doc: And I suppose Timothy Leary is secretary of state! So long, future boy...]

For me, this would almost make a Bush reelection worth it.

Some supporters of the President respond to criticisms that Iraq posed no threat to the United States by citing the moral case for war and the liberation of the Iraqi people. Can someone tell me why Libyans' freedom is so much less important? By giving up his WMD program, has Gadafi purchased the right to continue the human rights abuses detailed here by Amnesty International? (Admittedly, not as bad as Saddam's - but not good either.)

Of course, the United States can't go into every country and stop every human rights violation. That's why it matters whether or not the President told us the truth about the threat posed to us by Iraq - and that's why the response that "even if we did go in on the basis of flawed intelligence we still did a lot of good" is so dishonest.

By the way, I still support the war in Iraq - because, and this is a justification Bush never gave, the human atrocities going on there were partially our fault. Perhaps we were justified in using the Saddam and the Iraqi people as a pawn against the USSR and Iran - but we were obligated to fix the problem. I have no problem with the United States using its military strength in the cause of enforcing international human rights standards, and I have no problem with the evil leaders of the world (I am comfortable using that term, unlike some on the left) knowing that we reserve the right to displace their regime at any time. But this was not the justification that Bush set forth - and as proven by Libya, it is not the basis on which he conducts his foreign policy.

I was watching 60 Minutes II tonight - and they interviewed the "prime minister" (actually, an economic advisor) and one of Gadafi's sons (one NOT killed as a baby by US bombs and apparently the heir apparent).

Well, you know the typical Republican line? We went to war with Saddam; Gadafi got scared; so he agreed to stopped his WMD program. The media trumpeted it: see here (and note how the spirit of the headline is not backed up by the substance of the story - Gadafi just acknowledges that the war played some role in his decision). Looks like someone forgot to tell these two: both of them said they began reaching out to the US two years ago - because the sanctions imposed on their country were making any WMD program insanely unprofitable.

I haven't studied Libya extensively - and frankly I trusted both these guys about as far as I could throw them. (Even in full US-ass-kissing mode, the son was unable to say that he had forgiven the US for killing his two year old sister.) But right now, wouldn't it be in their interest to make Bush/the U.S. look as good as possible?

Mark my words, we will all come to regret that stupid campaign finance reform act that was passed a few years ago. See this.

You know, when we were having our pissing match on here about Scalia and Thomas the other day, Goldberg and Guthrie forgot to praise them for their vote against this bill. I do so now.

However, as Goldberg pointed out to me yesterday, it is impossible for anyone to be against this bill because John McCain is for it. (The media generally cite McCain's support of something as proof positive that it is a good idea.)

Also, just so conservatives don't get excited, I support full public financing of all campaigns - and if your opponent spends his or her own money, you get to match it with public funds. OK, I just made that last part up. Also, I support forcing the networks to provide free air time, etc. Also, I support a government program to solve all my problems.

Back to horrendous document review.

Neil Cavuto provided some more Common Sense today on Foxnews. He said this:

"The media sees a 5.6 percent unemployment rate and calls it bad. I see a 94.4 percent employment rate and I see it pretty good."

I was going to comment on this, but rather, I thought I would post four things below, two of which are other quotes from this commentary and two of which I've made up. Try to guess which is which, I think you'll be pleasantly surprised.

1.) "I hear a good deal about the 1.5 percent of bad priests, but never, not once, anything remotely positive said about the 98.5 percent who are good priests."

2.) "I hear a lot about a few corporate crooks. But I hear nothing about the thousands of publicly listed companies that aren't crooks."

3.) "I hear a lot about millions of people around the world dying of hunger - but never do I hear anything about the bounteous amount of food available in the United States."

4.) "I hear a lot of talk about some African Americans not having their votes counted in the 2000 election - but never do I hear it mentioned by the New York Times that large numbers of minorities, far more than 50%, did have their votes counted."

Answers in the comments...

Could someone explain to me why it is that when Bush runs an ad with images from 9/11 he is "exploiting" the tragedy, but when Democrats obviously coordinate a political response using families of 9/11 victims they are somehow not exploiting it?

If groups of victims' families were genuinely outraged and organically (if you will) expressed this outrage to the media, good for them. However, if Democrats were behind it - as seems probable - it seems to me they are just exploiting it all over again.

I am lost and confused right now... it is a Monday morning, and Slate has yet to tell me what I should think about last night's Sopranos.

UPDATE: I know what to think now.

I learned today on Mustang Bobby's blog that Jerome Lawrence has died. He was one of the authors of Inherit the Wind - a play we should all read today.

I was in that play in high school, and it has always had an effect on me.

"All motion is relative. Perhaps it is you have moved away - by standing still."

The Daily Howler incomparably notes that this questions was asked in the last Democratic Debate:

"BUMILLER: Really fast, on a Sunday morning, President Bush has said that freedom and fear have always been at war, and God is not neutral between them. He’s made quite clear in his speeches that he feels God is on America’s side.

Really quick, is God on America’s side?"


All those in Chicago (particularly those who ride the El): wouldn't you say Goldberg and Guthrie is the best blog in town, in a "we got Metromix they got bubkus" kind of way?

I don't know if anything makes me more depressed than reading those ads on the train on the way to work in the morning. Just thought I'd share.

(Also, go read the whole Daily Howler - it's very funny.)

According to the Washington Post (as linked to by Andrew Sullivan), the Republicans are planning to schedule controversial Senate votes in order to force Kerry (or Edwards) into unpopular liberal positions.

Among these votes could be the ever popular, and beyond idiotic, flag burning amendment. I guess this is how the Founders envisioned the Constitutional Amendment process - to be used as a political wedge issue in Presidential election years.

As much as I usually enjoy watching Republicans do terrible things that confirms my suspicions of them, I genuinely hope that this is not true.

UPDATE: Actually, Sully's take on this is better than mine (shockingly, since he gets paid to do this):

"Flag-burning, fag-burning. Anything for a few votes. And what's really amazing is how cynically these alleged conservatives use the Constitution itself for their partisan ends. One word: sickening."

Despite her many flaws, she was the owner of the only Cincinnati team to win a championship in my lifetime. Also, I got her autograph at a game when I was a kid and she seemed nice enough. I really wish she hadn't said all those things or, I really wish she hadn't thought them.

The posting has been light of late, as social and employment obligations have called. I apologize to all of our loyal readers: those readers in big and small media; those reader who work at law firms; those readers who are simple government bureaucrats; those readers who are mothers to either Goldberg or myself; and finally to those readers who are Goldberg.

On Friday night I was talking with some fellow Democrats and, comfortingly, with voters best described as Independents who voted for Bush in 2000 and will not, under any circumstances, vote for him this time around. The conversation turned to what a stupid man Bush is - a common theme.

What oh what must happen in order for us to stop underestimating this man? Ann Richards laughed at him when he ran for governor of Texas. He won. He then beat the Vice President of the administration that had presided over the largest peace time expansion of the economy in American history. He became President without the support of the majority of the country, and yet has enjoyed widespread approval and support for nearly three straight years. While Democrats have dominated the political news cycle during all of 2004, he has quietly raised upwards of $100 million. He has spent none of it. Yet, he continues to lead either Kerry or Edwards in national polls - even though the economy is worse than it was when he took over, and the war that he lead us into has become more and more unpopular.

He has used this support to effect real change. He has passed his tax cut, passed his drug benefits bill, reshaped our foreign policy and appointed conservative judges to the bench.

Now, he has risked that political capital and is throwing his support behind a Constitutional Amendment - a move that politically could best be described as a gamble. Although many Democrats claim that this issue has been forced upon us by Bush in order to divide us - in fact, it has not. It has been forced upon us by gay people who want to be married. The Democratic response? We must leave this issue up to the states, and talk about other things.

Bush is doing what a leader does - he is standing up for something that at least resembles a principle. Granted, it is a principle of fear and anger and a perversion of a religion based on love and forgiveness into a political ideology based on hate. But he is acting like a President - and he is acting like and is a person who has a clear (if terrifying) vision of where he wants to lead this country and the ability to lead us there.

If this rant was unclear - we shouldn't misunderestimate this man again. We should just beat him. That's all.

UPDATE BY GOLDBERG: Bush/Cheney '04 has spent $39.1M as of the end of January.

"Update" has been edited for accuracy

UPDATE BY GUTHRIE: This may be true, and if so I apologize, but Bush/Cheney '04 is about to run its first major advertising campaign, which is what I should have said.