MAX BLUMENTHAL

I'm a little upset that David Horowitz didn't include me in his Discover the Network profile of Media Matters. I've heard other staffers are pissed off, too. In response to being "discovered" in the "network," we've organized a secret task force involving members of the Cambodian People's Party, International A.N.S.W.E.R., and George Soros' new Project Shylock, an outfit of communist Aztlan enthusiasts and hook-nosed capitalists secretly conspiring to squeeze out the little guy and say bad things about Western Civilization. We have retained the PR services of Jane Fonda and George Galloway, both of whom will be arriving shortly in Soros' invisible, biodiesel-fueled Jewmobile. The radical homosexual agenda is riding coach and consulting on interior decorating for our new offices in Basel, Switzerland. A cadre of animal rights eco-terrorists awaits our instructions via smoke signal and/or email action alert. Byron York is in the janitor's closet and we won't let him out until he stops exposing our machinations.

We are watching you, Horowitz. Oh, by the way, Katie Barge hasn't worked for Media Matters in months. You might issue a correction.

Tell Bush...

The family of el-Zergany lives in bitterness toward the British and Americans who they thought would greatly improve their lives. "We felt the ambition to see a better life that Bush and Blair promised us," one of his relatives said. "But now the professors, the doctors and the educated people die every day. Is this freedom? Is this democracy? Where is security? Our fate is unknown, because we face a bad day to a worse day."

"Tell Bush, who came on the back of a tank under the slogan freedom and democracy, we don't care for freedom and democracy, we care only for security," the relative said.

All hat, not that many cattle:

CRAWFORD, Texas — President Bush calls his Prairie Chapel Ranch "a slice of heaven," a special place where he can ride his mountain bike, fish his man-made pond and clear brush to his heart's content.

But is it really a ranch?

Here's a clue: The Secret Service agents now outnumber the cows.

...and over at Camp Brownshirt:

There also were some heated moments at the pro-Bush rally when Bush supporters mistakenly identified two people as war protesters. The two walked in with a sign that read "Say No to War — Unless a Democrat is President."

Many Bush supporters only saw the top of the sign and believed the men were war protesters, so they began shouting and chasing the pair out. One man tore up their signs.

The Pravda Press Corps
The Post's Dan Froomkin provides a revealing snapshot of the White House press corps:

About 50 members of the White House press corps accepted President Bush's invitation last night to come over to his house in Crawford, eat his food, drink his booze, hang around the pool and schmooze with him -- while promising not to tell anyone what he said afterward....

Nevertheless, I'm told that several reporters expressed squeamishness about last night's event, particularly as the press-pool vans drove by antiwar protester Cindy Sheehan's "Camp Casey" site. And later, a small handful watched askance as the rest fawned over Bush, following him around in packs every time he moved.

Froomkin also reports that the White House is increasingly refusing access to news photographers to its events while hiring its own house photographers to ensure image control. How Soviet.

In Terms of Winning
Well, at least we've still got the Green Zone, right?

FALLUJAH, Iraq — Insurgents in Anbar province, the center of guerrilla resistance in Iraq, have fought the U.S. military to a stalemate.

After repeated major combat offensives in Fallujah and Ramadi, and after losing hundreds of soldiers and Marines in Anbar during the past two years - including 75 since June 1 - many American officers and enlisted men assigned to Anbar have stopped talking about winning a military victory in Iraq's Sunni Muslim heartland. Instead, they're trying to hold on to a handful of population centers and hit smaller towns in a series of quick-strike operations designed to disrupt insurgent activities temporarily.

"I don't think of this in terms of winning," said Col. Stephen Davis, who commands a task force of about 5,000 Marines in an area of some 24,000 square miles in the western portion of Anbar. Instead, he said, his Marines are fighting a war of attrition. "The frustrating part for the (American) audience, if you will, is they want finality. They want a fight for the town and in the end the guy with the white hat wins."

Finding "Authentic Moral Purpose"
Has Abramoff's rabbi, aka Daniel Lapin, accepted money from the energy industry? I don't have any concrete evidence of this, but why else would anyone write anything so stupid?

Soon, perhaps, we will no longer seek spurious moral redemption by conserving energy. We will find authentic moral purpose in our religious faith while we purchase energy just as we do clothing and coffee today-by consulting our budgets not
our consciences.

Mainstreaming Hate
Minuteman founder Jim Gilchrist has declared his candidacy for the congressional seat vacated by Chris Cox. This was the point of the Minuteman project: draw the media to the border to broadcast their pseudo-cowboy freakshow, use their national platform to win new grassroots recruits away from the border, network with anti-immigrant groups and politicians like Tom Tancredo, and seek opening into the political mainstream. Here's Gilchrist:

...That's why I am so proud to be a founder of the
Minutemen movement.
Of course, being a leader of the Minutemen has also
had its personal
costs. Liberals and the media call us all sorts of
names for our
patriotic efforts - "racists," "hate-mongers,"
"vigilantes" and worse.
So why am I doing it?
Because I am completely fed up with the Federal
government's
unwillingness to protect our borders.
And as a Minuteman, I have a chance to personally make
a difference --
to improve our national security, and protect our
national sovereignty.
Because of the success of the Minutemen movement,
today I also have an
opportunity to make another important difference.
And so do you.
You see, President Bush recently decided to appoint my
local
Congressman - Rep. Chris Cox of California - to become
the new head of the
Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC).
That means that with Chris Cox confirmed by the U.S.
Senate to the SEC,
there will be a special election here to send a new
representative to
Congress.
At the urging of many friends and supporters, I've
decided to run for
Congress in this special election.

In case Gilchrist is wondering why the "liberal media" labeled the Minutemen as racists (I actually recall them receiving favorable coverage from the likes of Lou Dobbs), the Southern Poverty Law Center documented dozens of avowed neo-Nazis and white supremacists seeding the group's ranks. No doubt they will be back for Gilchrist's congressional campaign.

Hitchens Happy Hour Watch
Contradicting numerous eyewitness reports -- including my own -- Hitchens tells the New York Observer, "I’m not someone shouting back at the TV in some bar.”

Here's what I have to say about Pat Robertson's call for the assassination of Hugo Chavez:

Props to my colleague, Nicole Casta, at Media Matters, for catching Robertson and getting the ball rolling on this.

Robertson has said worse in the past, but rarely has he generated such attention. I wonder whether this is a good thing, since cable news coverage of his remarks has detracted much-needed focus on Iraq.

Eliminationist rhetoric like Robertson's -- including rhetoric directed against Chavez -- is a staple of right-wing media. As David Neiwert aptly points out, Robertson and his ilk are pseudo-fascists.

It is absurd that ABC Family continues to broadcast Robertson, not only now, but in the wake of his past assaults on Muslims and gays.

It is even more absurd that Robertson, a career huckster, was invited to be part of the One Campaign. I was beside myself watching fellow One Campaign member George Clooney appear on the 700 Club to thank Robertson "for all the good work he's doing." What was Clooney thinking?

So-called US "pro-democracy" NGO's like the National Endowment for Democracy and the International Republican Insitute have pumped hundreds of thousands into Hugo Chavez's oligarchic opposition. These groups also supported the failed coup against Chavez in 2002. Members of the opposition routinely call for his assassination. Robertson's rhetoric is merely part of an international, right-wing rhetorical transmission belt. All the relevant FOIA documents on US covert activity in Venezuela are here.

Who Did Hitchens Smear? Sheehan, or Himself?
On August 19, Christopher Hitchens published one of his most hypocritical articles ever, smearing bereaved military mother Cindy Sheehan (his first article is here) for allegedly taking positions he built his own career upon.

In his column, Hitchens charged that an email allegedly sent by Sheehan to a Nightline producer evidenced her "real opinions on politics (a weird confection of pacifism and paranoid anti-Zionism)." He characterized Sheehan's alleged statement as "anti-Israel" and an insinuation of President George W. Bush's manipulation by "a Jewish cabal." Finally, Hitchens attempted to link Sheehan to anti-Semitic former KKK leader David Duke and paleoconservative pundit Patrick Buchanan. Speculating on the results of a hypothetical referendum of the American public on the occupation of Iraq -- something which has never been proposed by Sheehan or any other prominent opponent of the occupation -- Hitchens wrote, "The ultra-right anti-Zionist forces of David Duke and Patrick J. Buchanan, both of whom approvingly speak of Ms. Sheehan's popular groundswell, would still lose the vote."

Reading Hitchens' screed, I wondered if he was using Sheehan to exorcise his personal demons, attacking her as a projection of his former leftist self.

Take Hitchen's July 12, 2001 column for the Nation magazine eulogizing Israeli peace activist Israel Shahak. Here, Hitchens makes practically the same points he condemns Sheehan for supposedly making (sentiments which I don't necessarily disagree with, but are nonetheless hypocritical for Hitchens to attack):

Only the other day, I read some sanguinary proclamation from the rabbinical commander of the Shas party, Ovadia Yosef, himself much sought after by both Ehud Barak and Ariel Sharon. It was a vulgar demand for the holy extermination of non-Jews; the vilest effusions of Hamas and Islamic Jihad would have been hard-pressed to match it. The man wants a dictatorial theocracy for Jews and helotry or expulsion for the Palestinians, and he sees (as Shahak did in reverse) the connection. This is not a detail; Yosef's government receives an enormous US subsidy, and his intended victims live (and die, every day) under a Pax Americana.

Hitchens' expressed his opinion of Zionism more explicitly in a barely coherent November 14, 2001 op-ed for the Guardian, called "Ha, ha, ha to the pacifists." Accusing "the peaceniks" of harboring a conciliatory attitude towards radical Islamic terrorists, Hitchens wrote:

Come Yom Kippur I tend to step up my scornful remarks about Zionism. Whatever happened to the robust secularism that used to help characterise the left? And why is it suddenly only the injured feelings of Muslims that count?

Hitchens criticism of Sheehan is, of course, rooted in his new role as a cheerleader for right-wing neo-imperialism in the Middle East. If he harken back to the days of the Clinton administration, however, we'll see a decidedly different side of Hitchens.

In a January 11, 1999 article for the Nation, Hitchens accused then-President Clinton of launching air-strikes on alleged WMD facilities in Iraq and of twice attempting to kill Osama bin Laden to distract domestic attention from his impeachment inquiry. He also attacked Clinton for failing to garner the approval of the UN, something Bush has never done:

The question is still--what was the hurry? Hussein had committed no new outrage; had threatened no new neighbor; had brandished no fresh weapon of terror. He was stuck in flagrant noncompliance, just as before. Congress could have been consulted--as is legally required by the War Powers Act and the warmaking clauses of the Constitution. The UN could have been consulted--as is required by the rules of the world body itself. Both would certainly have given the nod. But no--it had to be this day and no other.... The rocketing of Sudan and Afghanistan in August, just as Ms. Lewinsky returned to the grand jury, was even more blatantly determined by parochial political timing.

Hitchens continued by declaring total opposition to US military intervention in Iraq, accusing Clinton of committing war crimes by ordering air strikes there:

So, is it thinkable that American liberals, in defending what they regard as Clinton's own precious sexual freedom, have eagerly acquiesced in the random killing of civilians in unpopular countries?...It turns out that Clinton does possess the strength of character to be a war criminal, but preferably when it's all about himself.

Hitchens would recycle this accusation in a March 22, 1999 Vanity Fair column in which he called Clinton, "a phony president starting a phony war in order to distract attention from his filthy lunge at a beret-wearing cupcake," and in his anti-Clinton polemic published later that year, "No One Left To Lie To: The Politics Of The Worst Family."

In his attempt to link Cindy Sheehan to rightist anti-Semite David Duke and paleoconservative Pat Buchanan, Hitchens neglected to mention his own, intimate ties to notorious Holocaust denying, fascist sympathizers Robert Faurisson and David Irving, which I documented here.

Hitchens' hypocrisy knows no bounds. Who can still takes him seriously? And why does the Washington Post-owned Slate continue to publish him?

Worth the Fighting For?
Here's a tidbit from the new Iraqi Constitution that should remind us that freedom -- that fire that burns in the hearts of men, or whatever -- is on the march in the heart of the Middle East:

Article 2:

Para. 1: Islam is the official religion of state, and is a fundamental source for legislation.

Some fun facts from the Barna Group:

# The metro area in which adults are most likely to believe that Satan is a symbol of evil but not a living presence is the Brownsville-McAllister-Harlingen market in Texas.

# People are most likely to believe that they can earn their salvation if they live in Salt Lake City.

# The highest percentage of adults who believe that Jesus Christ sinned during his life on earth is in Des Moines, Iowa.

# Believing that God is “the all-knowing, all-powerful creator of the universe who still rules it today” is most common in Tulsa. It is least predominant in Boston and San Francisco.

Right-Wing Intellectual is an Oxymoron
Hey, maybe the Crusades weren't such a bad thing after all. Robert Spencer, author of the Wal-Mart retailed Politically Incorrect Guide to Islam and the Crusades, says:

Americans can be thankful the Crusaders stopped Muslims from overrunning Europe and vastly altering the course of human history.

Thank you, Richard the Lionheart, for saving Peoria from Bin Laden.

My Latest
I wrote a piece on Justice Sunday II early last week, and it's finally on the Nation's website. Here's an excerpt:

The event reached its climax when William Donohue of the Catholic League for Religious and Civil Rights stomped onstage determined to deliver the evening's most bombastic attack line. Donohue was going to tell the crowd exactly who their enemy was, in no uncertain terms. He was going to name names. And so, in booming basso profundo, Donohue denounced "the atheist, anti-Catholic bigot" Christopher Hitchens. His salvo was greeted with befuddled silence. If there were a name with which the country-music-capital crowd had less familiarity, Donohue couldn't conjure it. For all they knew, if they knew anything about Hitchens, the neoconservative ex-Trotskyite bibulous Brit author of Letters to a Young Contrarian had produced a how-to manual in the style of James Dobson's "Dare to Discipline" for Christian parents to give to a naughty teenager evading an abstinence program.

Unfazed by the utter silence greeting his startling exorcism of the demon Hitchens, Donohue trundled ahead like a performance artist at the Greenwich Village Cafe Wha?. He declared that he studied under "the NYU Marxist Sidney Hook," evoking further deep bafflement in the crowd (NY Who?), then proposed "grief counselors" for liberals and finally posed a rhetorical question: "You remember that Bob Dylan song?" With that, the packed Baptist church turned into a Quaker meeting. It appeared that the Christian militants didn't recall "The Times, They Are A-Changin'." Maybe Donohue should have tried something from Dylan's early country phase, like "Lay, Lady, Lay."

Now read the rest.

The Crybaby Right Cries Again
When I was in high school, I was forced to turn a t-shirt inside-out that said, "NEW YORK FUCKIN' CITY." Not being a member of the crybaby right, which alleges discrimination when it is not allowed to discriminate and intimidate non-threatening members of racial and sexual minority groups, I turned my t-shirt inside-out and then went about my day. If this little fascist had come to my school, he would have had his ass whupped:

James Nixon was sent home in September from Sheridan Middle School, where he was a seventh-grader, because school officials thought his shirt was offensive. They had asked him to take off the shirt or turn it inside out, but he refused.

The black T-shirt, which James got from Operation Rescue/Operation Save
America, reads: "INTOLERANT: Jesus said . . . I am the way, the truth and the life.
John 14:6." The back : "Homosexuality is a sin, Islam is a lie, abortion is murder. Some issues are just black and white!"

Judge George C. Smith, in a ruling in U.S. District Court in Columbus,
said Northern Local School District could not prove the shirt would be disruptive. He noted that before a guidance counselor asked James to remove the shirt, no students or staff members had commented on it.

Certainly this judge would have condemned the little piss-ant's t-shirt if it contained anti-black statements. Intimidating Muslims and gays is the only recourse for the defeated remnants of the South's Jim Crow forces. Yesterday, they pledged "massive resistance" against civil rights under the banner of the Klan and White Citizens' Councils. Today, as the crybaby Christian right, they portray themselves as the victims.

The GOP's circular firing line is assembling, and Frist is in the center:

WASHINGTON - Former Senate Majority Leader Trent Lott blames his fall from power in 2002 on a "personal betrayal" by an ambitious Sen. Bill Frist (news, bio, voting record), his successor, adding in a new book that President Bush, Colin Powell and other GOP associates played roles.

Frist, R-Tenn., "didn't even have the courtesy to call and tell me personally that he was going to run," the Mississippi Republican wrote of a tumultuous period in which he lost his position as Senate leader after making racially tinged remarks.

He said Frist's actions amounted to a "personal betrayal," since he had taken the Tennessean "under my wing" in earlier years.

"If Frist had not announced exactly when he did, as the fire was about to burn out, I would still be majority leader of the Senate today," Lott said in "Herding Cats, A Life in Politics."

Check out John Gorenfeld on the origins of the phrase, "Sinister Piffle." It's the title of Christopher Hitchens' sinister smear piece on Cindy Sheehan, but a certain other party may be responsible for coining the term.

Lautenberg to the White House: rebuke Dobson.

LaHaye's Mind: Left Behind
Now, a US invasion of Iran appears foretold by Scripture, or at least, Tim LaHaye's version of it.

As of 8/5, Bush's approval in Ohio was 37%. Funny. I wonder how he won there.

Check out all the Survey USA numbers; they are from before Cindy Sheehan materialized as a major figure.

Here's what Rasmussen has to say about the Sheehan effect, which has clearly compounded the rest of Bush's problems:

Wednesday August 17, 2005--President Bush's Approval Rating has tumbled five points over the past week to the lowest level ever recorded by Rasmussen Reports.

Just 43% of American adults now approve of the way George W. Bush is performing his role as President. Fifty-five percent (55%) disapprove.

The President's Approval Rating has fallen to 47% among those who are married. Just 38% of unmarried respondents give the President their approval. Forty-six percent (46%) of Investors Approve along with 41% of non-Investors.

Rising oil prices have pushed consumer confidence to its lowest level in nearly two years. The oil price surge has also increased support for building nuclear power plants. Confidence in the War on Terror has reached its lowest level ever.

Goodbye, Cruella:

The Republican Party in Florida is courting cable TV host Joe Scarborough to challenge U.S. Rep. Katherine Harris in the 2006 Senate primary race, two businessmen active in GOP politics said Tuesday.

Scarborough, a former congressman, has met with senior Republican officials, Collier Merrill, a Pensacola businessman told the Pensacola News Journal in a report for Wednesday's editions.

The other businessman, Eric Nickelsen, said he had contacted Scarborough and encouraged him to run, and he corroborated that other party leaders wanted the cable talk show host to challenge Harris.

Scarborough declined to comment late Tuesday. He was elected to the U.S. House of Representatives four times, representing the Pensacola area from 1994-2001.

Some polls have shown Harris lagging behind Nelson. Harris's campaign manager, Jim Dornan, said Harris has no plans to step out of the race.

Democrat Bill Nelson is the incumbent.

Harris is best known for her role as Florida's then-secretary of state during the 2000 presidential recount.

My latest, "Lobbyist for the Lost Cause," is out. I won't preface it with anything but this excerpt:

When John Wilkes Booth left Mary Surratt's boarding house on H Street in Washington, DC, his co-conspirators knew where he was headed. Seven hours later, while Booth fled south on horseback, President Abraham Lincoln lay dying. Today, a Chinese restaurant called Wok 'n Roll stands where the Surratt Boarding House once was. Until eight months ago, its owner, Victor Quinto, told me, the restaurant played host to secret monthly meetings of members of Jefferson Davis Camp 305, a Northern Virginia-based faction of the Southern heritage group the Sons of Confederate Veterans. The existence of the meetings was also confirmed by a Camp 305 member, Charles Goolsby, who refused to say whether he attended, commenting only that "I haven't been a part of the SCV in a long time." Goolsby is currently a producer for Voice of America, the Congressionally funded radio network that claims to promote America's values abroad.

The leader of Jefferson Davis Camp 305's lunchtime meetings was its former commander, Richard T. Hines, a high-rolling lobbyist who is one of the unheralded success stories of Bush's Washington. The youngest Republican ever elected to the state legislature in South Carolina, Hines first arrived in Washington to work in a variety of midlevel posts during the Reagan Administration. Now he operates through RTH Consulting Inc., a lobbying firm that boasts of having "an active voice in the current Bush Administration." In addition to securing a nice little appointment to the national libraries board for his wife, Hines has earned more than $150 million in Defense Department contracts for his weapons manufacturing clients and rakes in a large fee for his work on behalf of an African tyrant. It's a good life.....

At the same time as he has extended his own wealth and influence, Hines has shrewdly used the political opportunities presented him by the Bush era to leverage the extremist goals of the neo-Confederate movement. He has become this movement's hidden hand, from his arrangement of the funding for a race-infused smear campaign against the presidential candidacy of Senator John McCain in the decisive 2000 South Carolina Republican primary that ultimately handed the nomination to George W. Bush, to his financing of a faction of white supremacists seeking to transform the country's oldest Southern heritage organization, the Sons of Confederate Veterans, into a far-right pressure group.

Gary Bauer seems to be riding the fence on the John Roberts nomination. He not only questions the White House for trying to paper over Roberts' history of conservative activism, he seems concerned that they are refusing to release more of his paper trail because it might reveal more hints of his liberal stirrings. Could Roberts' work on Roemer snowball into something larger and more damaging? I really doubt it. But if Bauer (who, partly because of his occasional attacks on Bush, does not enjoy his former prominence in the galaxy of the Christian right) wishes to indulge in his fears of another David Souter turncoat, God bless him.

This is from Bauer's End of Day email, which he shoots off each afternoon from his Arlington office:

How To Proceed?

The nomination of Judge John Roberts to the United States Supreme Court
has taken some odd twists and turns in recent days. After revelations that
Roberts did pro bono (free) work for a number of liberal causes, cracks
began to emerge in his support on the Right. Earlier this week, the
White House announced that it was delaying the release of additional
documents related to Roberts’ previous work. The Washington Post reported that
White House aides would be pouring over thousands of documents hoping “to
find any new surprises before they are turned into political ammunition by
Democrats.”

White House allies were most alarmed by the fact that Roberts offered
advice to homosexual rights groups in the landmark Romer v. Evans case,
where the Supreme Court struck down a voter-approved state
constitutional amendment that prohibited legislation intended to grant special rights
to homosexuals. But such liberal advocacy is evidently not what the White
House is concerned about. Instead, it is looking for evidence that
Roberts is a conservative, so that administration officials can be prepared in
advance to offer explanations for his conservative views.

Why is it that the White House rushed to distance Roberts from the
conservative Federalist Society, denying he was ever a member? Why did
a White House aide call MSNBC to complain about a banner that suggested
Roberts opposed Roe v. Wade? According to Time magazine, that call
prompted this response from host Joe Scarborough the next evening,
“Conservatives, Republicans,…pro-life advocates across America, I offer
you this correction. According to the White House, Judge Roberts does not
oppose Roe v. Wade. Whew. Glad I got that off my chest.”

The American people don’t want a “stealth nominee.” Several weeks ago,
I commissioned a poll, along with the American Family Association, that
showed Americans preferred a “more conservative” Supreme Court over a
“more liberal” court by a margin of 50%-to-30%. On cultural values, the
American people overwhelmingly opposed recent judicial decisions that veered to
the left.

For example, our poll found that 56% of likely voters disapproved of
the ruling that protected flag-burning as “free speech.” Sixty percent
opposed court-ordered same-sex “marriage.” Sixty-five percent disapproved of
court decisions upholding partial-birth abortion as a “right.” Sixty-nine
percent disapproved of the Supreme Court’s finding that public displays
of the Ten Commandments were unconstitutional. Eighty-one percent opposed
efforts by the courts to strip “under God” from the Pledge of
Allegiance. And 89% opposed the high court’s recent ruling that it was okay to
seize someone’s home to make way for a strip mall.

Rather than viewing the noble and decent positions held by large
majorities of Americans as potential embarrassments, the White House should
embrace these values and aggressively defend them. The public is not exactly
enamored with liberal judges and judicial activism right now. Far from
it....

Call Any Vegetable
Kids Against Combs might be a corny name for a band, but I can't argue with the title of their new album:

Sean Hannity (631) 673-8003 was set to be released on July 21 by 10-34 Records. But, according to a press release sent out last week by the band, Kids Against Combs and 10-34 were issued papers on July 15 from Hannity’s attorneys, "threatening to sue both parties if they proceeded with releasing an album named after Hannity’s home phone number and containing the political pundit’s home address in the CD’s liner notes." (The digits, meanwhile, are now disconnected; "changed to an unlisted number," says the recording.)

The band also alleges that spies from the Hannity camp — or at least some people who "looked extremely conservative Republican" and "not the type of folk that would be at any sort of live performance, except for maybe Paul Anka or Wayne Newton" — arrived to scope out a KAC performance the next day. Luckily, the band had freshly printed copies of the album for sale, sans home address and retitled The Album Formerly Known As Sean Hannity’s Phone Number ... Currently Sean Hannity Is a Democracy Subverting Douche Bag.

Despite the fact that 66 percent of our Style and Usage Panel prefer that "douchebag" be written as a compound word, they’re in unanimous agreement that the new title works just as well

.

Worth The Fighting For?

The killings of 19 Ohio servicemen in two days has shattered the morale of Brook Park, Ohio. On Wednesday, residents were told that 14 members of the Marine battalion headquartered in an old schoolhouse in town had been killed in Iraq. That was only five hours after they were told five other Marines in the battalion had been killed in an insurgent ambush.

While the people of Brook Park were searching for even the faintest hint of meaning in the fact that so many of their sons were killed in some insane, teeming desert slum by a nebulous enemy, some of the war on Iraq's most ardent supporters saw no reason for doubt. Indeed, back at the College Republican headquarters of Fort Chickenhawk, every day is Saturday. Here are two College Republicans doing their best impersonation of Christopher Hitchens, whose support for the war was recently rewarded with a Richard Mellon-Scaife-financed Hoover Institute fellowship:

You can see more photos of Generation Chickenhawk in action here. They were taken at Washington's Old Ebbitt Grille, where the guest of honor was College Republican National Chairman Paul Gourley. Gourley controls what is now a $21 million 527 organization after defeating Mike Davidson in the closest CRNC election since Karl Rove was elected CRNC president in 1973.

Now there was a war worth the fighting for.

What Are They Fighting For?

As I said earlier, the fundraising opportunity presented by the SCOTUS nomination fight may be the best reason for the Christian right to ignore John Roberts' pro-bono work on behalf of gay rights groups.

Update: Here's how the Family Research Council is spinning the Roberts revelation so it can forge ahead without a second thought (assuming, that is, that they ever had a first one):

Today the Los Angeles Times reported that Supreme Court nominee John Roberts did pro bono work on the 1996 Supreme Court case that resulted in the striking down of a Colorado state constitutional amendment that prevented local government from offering protected minority status or preferences based on homosexual or bisexual orientation or conduct. Judge Roberts did the uncompensated legal work on the case, Romer v. Evans, while he was an attorney for the DC law firm Hogan and Hartson. After further investigation we were told that Roberts' role was apparently limited to providing a few hours of participation in a moot court procedure, as he routinely did for all the firm's pro bono clients. More on this as we learn more about this report.

Roberts Is Under Attack, But From Whom?
The day after I get a fundraising letter from the Family Research Council informing me that "Judge Roberts is under attack" from liberal groups (I'm still waiting for the attack to begin), he comes under attack from the godfather of the conservative movement, Paul Weyrich:

...The revelation that Supreme Court nominee John Roberts was instrumental in a homosexual rights ruling has stunned his supporters. The Romer v. Evans decision, which overturned a Colorado initiative that denied special rights to homosexuals, is considered among the most egregious examples of judicial activism ever. Paul Weyrich of the Free Congress Foundation, who says he is "troubled" by the revelation of Roberts' involvement in that case, recalls that the ruling was "a terrible one because it said that the people of Colorado would have had to be prejudiced against homosexuals in order to vote for that proposition -- [and] I think that is an outrage." Weyrich explains what happens when, as in Roberts' case, an attorney is part of a huge law firm. "When a more senior partner comes and taps you on the shoulder and says, 'I want you to help on this' -- if he doesn't do it, the guy doesn't advance," he says. But the Free Congress chairman says he would have handled the decision differently had he been in Roberts' place. "I would say, 'Sorry, I can't help' -- even if it meant that my career would not advance." Weyrich and other conservatives want Roberts to explain his feelings about the decision.

Apparently Dobson and Colleen Parro, a key lieutenant of Phyllis Schlafly, are none too happy about Roberts' insufficient personal hatred toward gays:

James C. Dobson, chairman of the evangelical group Focus on the Family, said Judge Roberts's work in the case was "not welcome news to those of us who advocate for traditional values," though he said it did not necessarily mean that Judge Roberts shared the plaintiffs' views.

Colleen Parro, executive director of the Republican National Coalition for Life and one of the few conservatives to raise questions about Judge Roberts, said his work on the case was "cause for more caution and less optimism" about his nomination.

On the one hand, the Christian right's attacks on Roberts could afford him an unwarranted moderate veneer, offering the White House with a counter-point to the constant stream of press on his conservative activism during the Reagan years -- much of which focused on gutting anti-discrimination and civil rights statutes. On the other hand, the whole Supreme Court battle could drive a temporary wedge between the Christian right and Bush, who may still be smarting from their attacks on Al Gonzales. But if Bush advisor Claude Allen's appearance on Focus on the Family yesterday (during which he attacked Bill Frist) is any indication, the White House remains committed to a tactical alliance with the movement. It will interesting to watch Dobson, Perkins and Schlafly in advance of Justice Sunday II, which they planned well in advance of this new Roberts revelation. My sense is that this nomination fight is too much of a fundraising opportunity to back out of (see above and Phyllis Schlafly's latest book, which she has been promoting the hell out of). That will keep the White House in their corner, and at the throat of the disposable Senate majority leader.

Accurate and Appropriate
Focus on the Family stands by James Dobson's comparison of Nazi experiments on live Jews, gays, Gypsies, the handicapped and prisoners of war to research on microscopic bundles of stem cells which could potentially save millions. They really pick their battles judiciously, don't they?

Dobson was not available for comment Thursday. Carrie Gordon Earll, senior analyst for bioethics for Focus on the Family, said Dobson would not apologize.

"The Nazi experiment analogy is accurate and appropriate. If any apologies are due, it is advocates of destroying embryonic humans who should be apologizing," she said.

She said embryonic stem cell research does not fit the Nuremberg code, a set of standards for experiments on humans used in judging Nazi war criminals. In part, it requires consent of the subjects and requires researchers to avoid disabling injuries to the subjects.

"James Dobson's remarks were extremely ignorant and insulting," Rep. Diana DeGette, D-Colo., said in a written statement. "While it's sad that they warrant a response, his comments diminish the enormity of the Nazis' atrocities and are an appalling distortion of the debate."

Gingrich: A Chickenhawk To End All Chickenhawks
Newt Gingrich, speaking to the Young America Foundation today, delivered a tough message to the Chickenhawk Generation (this was culled from a C-Span transcript):

This is going to be a long fight. I describe it in the book as “the long war.” I think it will take 50 to 70 years—I’m talking about the total war on terror. Iraq is a tiny subset of this. And it’s something your generation has to take seriously. What do we have to do in homeland security? What do we have to do we have to do in intelligence? What do we have to do around the world to defeat those who would destroy us? And let me be quite clear for those of you who don’t understand what’s at stake here. Not a woman would be in this room if they win. Let’s just start at the most basic, and then work your way out, okay? This is very serious. I believe it is much harder than anybody understands yet, a much bigger challenge than we’ve undertaken yet, and I think it’s going to take real work. And many of you are going to have to be recruited to help make it possible for us to succeed.

That's coming from the ultimate chickenhawk: Gingrich ducked service in the military to pursue a career as a failed professor and unpopular politician.

Tell James Dobson to apologize.

Introducing the Rabbi Bengelsdorf of the Catholic Right.

Enschuldigung, Herr Doktor?!
"Dr." Dobson is the anti-Christ of the world:

DOBSON: You know, the thing that means so much to me here on this this issue [embryonic stem cell research] is that people talk about the potential for good that can come from destroying these little embryos and how we might be able to solve the problem of juvenile diabetes. There's no indication yet that they're gonna do that, but people say that, or spinal cord injuries or such things. But I have to ask this question: In World War II, the Nazis experimented on human beings in horrible ways in the concentration camps, and I imagine, if you wanted to take the time to read about it, there would have been some discoveries there that benefited mankind. You know, if you take a utilitarian approach, that if something results in good, then it is good. But that's obviously not true. We condemn what the Nazis did because there are some things that we always could do but we haven't done, because science always has to be guided by ethics and by morality. And you remove ethics and morality, and you get what happened in Nazi Germany. That's why to Senator [Senate Majority Leader Bill] Frist [R-TN] and the others who are saying, "Look what may be accomplished." Yeah, but there's another issue, there's a higher order of ethics here.

Who killed Stephen Vincent, and why?

There is speculation that Mr Vincent, who received death threats, was murdered in an attempt to silence him. Four days before his death he had written an opinion piece in The New York Times in which he said that the police force in the British-controlled city had been infiltrated by Shia Muslim extremist militias, who were responsible for carrying out hundreds of murders of prominent Sunni Muslims.

He criticised the British, whose 8,000 troops in the area are responsible for security in Basra, for turning a blind eye to abuses of power by Shia extremists. The whole city was "increasingly coming under the control of Shia religious groups, from the relatively mainstream... to the bellicose followers of the rebel cleric Moqtada al-Sadr".

In his final blog, he wrote: "The British stand above the growing turmoil, refusing to challenge the Islamists’ claim on the hearts and minds of police officers."

Quoting an unnamed Iraqi police lieutenant, Vincent wrote: "He told me that there is even a sort of 'death car': a white Toyota Mark II that glides through the city streets, carrying off-duty police officers in the pay of extremist religious groups to their next assignment," he wrote.

Today, Lieutenant Colonel Karim al-Zaidi of Basra police said that Vincent and the translator were kidnapped by five gunmen in a police car.

Was he killed because he uncovered dangerous facts? Or was Vincent just a winger caught in the wrong revelation?

Hackett Makes the Right Shit Jagged Obsidian Rocks
Polipundit was among only the few right-wing blogs with the temerity to support Jean "Non-Union Nurse Ratched" Schmidt throughout the course of Ohio's 2D special election. Now that the results are in -- 52% Schmidt, 48% Hackett in a district that hasn't gone Democrat in 30 years -- Polipundit's Lorie Byrd attempts to spin Hackett's near-win as a...reflection of Bush's popularity! It takes a lot to laugh, it takes a train to cry. And this is a lot of mishigas:

Polipundit pointed out that “this is a one-time result because of freak circumstances” including that “Paul Hackett ran commercials in which President Bush seemed to endorse him.” It will be interesting to watch the media coverage of the election result and to see if ANYONE in the MSM presents the fact that Hackett ran one of the most misleading ads that I have ever seen, which did appear to show him aligning himself with the President and in support of the effort in Iraq.

How about the fact that Hackett called Bush a "chickenhawk s.o.b.?" Does that qualify as "aligning himself with the President?" Is the blood-drenched morass that Iraq has become a "freak circumstance?" Come on. There could be no better illustration of the mounting opposition to Bush's war on Iraq in specific, and the so-called war on terror in general, than this election. Indeed, the normally right-wing Cincinatti Post, which endorsed Bush in 2004, threw its support behind Hackett for the follow reason:

...he would be the only member of Congress with direct military experience in Iraq - which, he says, is a fight we should end as soon as possible. He wants to finish the job and get out, and he wants the United States to stop holding hands with Pakistan and to get serious about tracking down those responsible for the 9-11 attacks.

We like Hackett's candor. We're impressed with the freshness of his ideas. We believe his experience shows him to be someone who is action-oriented.

We endorse Hackett for the 2nd District seat.

One more time. This election was about Iraq.

Hackett will undoubtedly be back in 2006 as a statewide candidate. And he will win.

By 2006, high gas prices, the loss of Iraq and a general sense of exhaustion with the divisive tone and counter-revolutionary agenda of the Republicans will have cultivated very favorable terrain for the Democrats, particularly in the West. How they exploit that terrain is another matter. I'm aware of a number of Republican House members who almost no one has ever heard of -- hypocritical Tom DeLay stooges like the whore-hound Ken Calvert of California's 44th -- who have never been forced to expend resources on a real, hard-fought campaign, and who occupy districts with more Dem-friendly demographics than Ohio's 2nd. It's unlikely candidates as attractive as Hackett can step to the plate in all of these districts to muster an immediate challenge to the GOP House majority, but that's not the point. The fight to recapture the House is a long-term one, and if the Democrats can establish a 50 state platform for transmitting their ideas, and pick up a few seats on the way, they will be well on their way toward reversing the downward spiral that began with Al Gore's concession speech in 2000.