Original Sin

The staff of The New Republic has begun to flagellate themselves with birch twigs over the reappearance of professional liar Betsy McCaughey as a nemesis to health care reform. Michelle Cottle wrote a long vivisection of McCaughey under the familiar title "No Exit," the same as McCaughey's 1994 article in TNR that managed to set conventional wisdom in the Beltway against the Clinton health care plan. You cannot read the reams of charges without concluding that McCaughey is a horrible woman, which I'm sure was Cottle's directive (though in McCaughey's case, it's not hard). Franklin Foer, the current editor, also threw himself upon the mercy of the court of public opinion:

As Betsy McCaughey returns to the scene for another fight against health care reform, New Republic editor Frank Foer is still thinking about the piece she wrote for the magazine 15 years ago.

“To me, it’s an original sin that I hope we can expunge,” Foer told POLITICO [...]

Indeed, the McCaughey piece has been a sticking point for TNR staffers for some time. And when Foer took over as editor in March 2006, the magazine recanted McCaughey’s article and formally apologized for it. But still, Foer said he “wanted to make it our mission to be on the right side this time” and pointed out that he’s “made health care reform a pretty important issue for the magazine.”

Of course, Marty Peretz still likes her:

“I do not think Betsy is an intellectual fraud. Not at all,” Peretz wrote in an email.

“I have not read the Cottle piece and I do look forward to doing that,” he continued. "But the issue that McCaughey went after was one of the most intricate and economically challenging ones that America has faced, as we can see from the present debate.”

Aside from Peretz acknowledging he doesn't read his own magazine, there's a bias he displays here toward giving wide latitude to anyone who offers the conservative counter in favor of the status quo against something new and different. Peretz has studiously ignored 15 years' worth of discrediting McCaughey, including the recent charge that she coordinated her piece in TNR with the tobacco industry, who wanted to stop the Clinton plan because cigarette taxes partially financed it. The problem is that other media outlets have done the same. They have not only failed to rebut McCaughey, they have bothered to amplify her claims in the first place, as Jamison Foser points out.

There are plenty of liars in the world who nobody gets worked up about -- because their lies don't drive major media coverage about an important issue. That's what's infuriating about Betsy McCaughey: major news organizations give her a platform. They run her op-eds, they host her on television, they quote her, they allow her falsehoods to shape the public debate about health care. They do this despite knowing that she's a liar.

That's what's infuriating: that someone whose defining quality for the past 15 years has been her dishonesty about health care reform should be granted a role shaping the debate over health care reform by major media outlets. And, unfortunately, Cottle doesn't address that issue at all. How did TNR come to publish McCaughey in the first place? Don't they employ fact-checkers? Shouldn't they? How do her false claims continue to make it into print? Why do television news shows book her? What does it say about the news media that they grant McCaughey a platform? That's the important part. If McCaughey was just another crackpot spouting off lies and conspiracy theories while nursing a cup of coffee at the local diner, nobody would care.

Cottle isn't responsible for McCaughey's 1994 TNR piece - people should direct those inquiries to Peretz and Andrew Sullivan, who as of a couple years ago was still mighty touchy about it. But there's enough in the public domain - Cottle has now pulled all the strands together into one package - for news producers to never put her on the air again, given the history of dishonesty.

I'm not going to hold my breath waiting for that to happen. Just yesterday, in fact, McCaughey printed an op-ed where she favorably quoted David McKalip, the neurosurgeon who earlier this year sent out a picture of Barack Obama dressed as a witch doctor with the word "Obamacare" below him. She must be building a new generation of liars.

...and as if on cue...

Visit msnbc.com for Breaking News, World News, and News about the Economy

Insta-Rebuttal

Media Matters has filled a grave need in the progressive movement, bringing awareness to conservative lies and media malpractice for years. Now they're filling yet another niche with Email Checker, a simply superb idea.

You can send them that conservative email forward your friends or relatives send you, and they will write a full fact-based response that you can send back. It's countering viral emails with viral rebuttals. Spectacular. Here's one from their site:

The following email has been widely forwarded. Media Matters Action Network has written a response to the text below. Please feel free to copy and paste it and send to your friends.

[note - all mistakes below are original to text of email]

From: XXXXXX@aol.com
To: XXXXXX@hotmail.com
Date: Sat, 01 Aug 2009 16:01:57 -0400
Subject: AARP AGREE OR DISAGREE... a note to seniors.... but something to think about

About two years ago Winnie and I dropped our membershipin the AARP because of their leanings.This is even more so since they baacked Obama in the election and are now supporting his health reform bill. This bill with reduce benefits to Medicare by abour $500,000,000,000 to help pay the costs of his health reform. This means seniors will be denyed life saving care. AARP no longer represents seniors, but their high paid executives and their business partners. They contributed more to the Democrats than to Repbulicans in the elections. I suggest seniors should rebedl by dropping their memberships.

Herb Jones

RESPONSE

Hi there.

This email is interesting, but I have some questions.

The articles I've read say that the cuts they're talking about are going to be to the parts of Medicare that waste money and not benefits to actual seniors. And why shouldn't we be using the money to treat seniors instead of wasting it on needless paperwork and on the few doctors who manipulate the system so as to receive a higher repayment? Here is one of those articles: http://www.newsweek.com/id/214254

Plus, the House bill increases payments made to doctors so that they can afford to take in more seniors. I know I want my doctor to get paid more so they can continue to afford to treat me. I read that without an act of Congress, my doctor could get paid around 20% less for treating Medicare patients next year. I don't want to risk losing my regular doctor.

You, I'm sure, are entirely aware that prescriptions cost way too much. The New York Times says that this bill will decrease the amount seniors will have to pay for their medications. If the bill doesn't pass, the price of prescriptions will go up 20% in the next ten years. If you want to read that article, here is the link - http://www.nytimes.com/2009/08/31/health/policy/31drug.html

And, frankly, I'm tired of people trying to tell me that the government is going to deny seniors life saving care. Congress would never write a law like that, mostly because they're good people but also because more seniors vote than any other group! Politicians are smart - they're not going to tell the largest group of voters they can't go to the doctor.

AARP and President Obama are working towards making health care affordable for all Americans - including seniors! Those efforts will mean changes, but isn't it worth it if everyone will be able to afford to go see a doctor? Imagine where you would be now if you hadn't been able to go see a doctor when you were younger.

Look - if nothing changes, Medicare will go broke. Something has to give, and I'm not willing to give up on this program.

Let's talk soon.

Fucking great. It's one thing if a media outlet writes "The Top 5 Lies About Obama's Health Care Reform". That's useful. But the majority of people predisposed to believe ridiculous email forwards don't trust traditional media sources. They get a letter from someone they know debunking the myths, and they'll be far more likely to believe it. And these are well written.

Loving this tool. Fills a gaping hole.

Even For Huckabee, Pretty Scummy

I'm watching the memorial service for Ted Kennedy right now, and remembering how conservatives launched a full-court press this week demanding that Democrats not politicize the event and use it to rally for health care reform. Exactly what would you call this bile from Mike Huckabee other than rank politicization?

The 2008 Republican presidential candidate suggested during his radio show, "The Huckabee Report," on Thursday that, under President Obama's health care plan, Kennedy would have been told to "go home to take pain pills and die" during his last year of life.

"[I]t was President Obama himself who suggested that seniors who don't have as long to live might want to consider just taking a pain pill instead of getting an expensive operation to cure them," said Huckabee. "Yet when Sen. Kennedy was diagnosed with terminal brain cancer at 77, did he give up on life and go home to take pain pills and die? Of course not. He freely did what most of us would do. He choose an expensive operation and painful follow up treatments. He saw his work as vitally important and so he fought for every minute he could stay on this earth doing it. He would be a very fortunate man if his heroic last few months were what future generations remember him most for."

As it happens, Huckabee made his remarks shortly after he derided Democrats for using Kennedy's death to make the pitch that "Congress must hurry and pass the health care reform bill and do it in his memory,"

"That not only defies good taste," said Huckabee, "it defies logic."

Digby gets at most of what's wrong with this. Aside from the idea that "most of us" would choose an expensive operation when most of America does not have the means to use the upper tier of the health care system, it's simply disgusting to warn Democrats from making political hay out of the event of Kennedy's passing while doing exactly the same thing. Huckabee's lying about President Obama and the current bill, but even if he were talking straight, the duplicitousness is a bit much, even for him.

...I almost forgot that Huckabee was last seen claiming that evangelicals were more supportive of Israel than Jews, I guess because they want to prepare it for the Rapture more intensely.

Where Ya Been?

Steven Pearlstein is shocked, shocked to see dishonesty at the RNC:

After reading his broadside, one is left wondering exactly what health reform plan Steele thought he was attacking. At one point, Steele claims that Democrats would prevent Americans from keeping their doctors or an insurance plan they like. Later, he warns that government will soon be setting caps on how many heart surgeries could be performed in the United States each year. Where is he getting this stuff? Has the chairman of the Republican Party somehow gotten hold of a top-secret plan for a government takeover of the health-care system that GOP operatives snatched during a break-in at Democratic National Committee headquarters?

If all that sounds like a spurious and unsubstantiated allegation, it is. And it fits right in with the cynical lies, distortions and political scare tactics that Steele and other Republicans have used to poison the national debate over health reform.

Have you no shame, sir, have you no shame?

The answer is no, and a lot of us had this one figured out long, long ago. Here's Joe Klein discovering the same thing about conservative front groups and professional liars. James Fallows has been on this beat for a while, but even he succumbs to asking "will it never end?"

And now we have the New York Times, in a big take-out story, saying that Dr. Emanuel, in his role as Obama health-care advisor, is in an "uncomfortable place" because he is being criticized by*:

1) Betsy McCaughey !
2) Rep. Michele Bachman (look her up) !!
3) Sarah Palin !!!
4) Lyndon LaRouche !!!!

McCaughey, Bachman, Palin, LaRouche -- shaping American debate and media coverage about health policy? Was Zsa Zsa Gabor not available?

I think Fallows knows the answer: no. Being complete liars and obstructionists has worked out pretty well for the GOP. They get to maintain power even when they don't hold the Congress or the Presidency. They all make a lot of money off the lies in which they traffic. They go to beds with the clear consciences of people choosing not to see the suffering caused by their handiwork. And they get no penalty whatsoever from the media.

I suppose it's good that people like Pearlstein and Klein are waking up to this. But it won't take them long to balance themselves by saying, well, what Klein said in his recent piece, that liberals are scumbags too, sure, don't get him wrong. This amazing story of Klein confronted by aimai, the grand-daughter of I.F. Stone, and then sputtering about the god-damned liberals for the next hour, is very revealing. It doesn't matter how many instances of Republican perfidy confront them, establishment types and their reflexive hatred of hippies will always allow that reflexivity to color their thoughts.

Paul Krugman nails this.

It’s all true. But I’m having a hard time writing columns like that. Why? Because while the raw dishonesty of the modern GOP appears to be a revelation to Pearlstein, Joe Klein, and others, I thought it was obvious at least as far back as the 2000 election campaign. (If I’d really been paying attention, it would have been obvious much earlier.)

Don’t get me wrong: I welcome Pearlstein and Klein to the reality-based community — better 9 years late than never. And in a way they have an advantage: having fought this thing for so long, I just can’t muster the same sense of shock. But I think it is important to realize that the current behavior over health care is nothing new — in fact, it’s been this way for a very long time.

As Rick Perlstein, our premier historian of the rise of modern movement conservatism, puts it, crazy is a pre-existing condition.

It's just the way things are.

Lies Of Steele

Michael Steele doesn't know what he's talking about when it comes to health care. This is an uncontroversial statement. He's still talking about death panels and rationing, and he's still vowing to keep government hands off of seniors' Medicare. He's talking about the $500 billion that can be excised from Medicare and Medicaid payments, through reducing lobbyist-driven overpayments to things like Medicare Advantage that do nothing to improve treatment, as if those are direct reductions of Medicare outcomes for patients.

They are lies. And Steele's column is a collection of outright lies. But considering that this is no penalty for lying, you can hardly blame Steele for getting away with as much as possible.

Howard Kurtz moans that the "death panels" wouldn't die in spite of journalistsic efforts to debunk the ridiculous notion, writing that "even when they report the facts, [journalists] have had trouble influencing public opinion" and calling the experience "a stunning illustration of the traditional media's impotence." Let me identify a problem that has helped create this impotence: a lack of follow-through.

Having identified Sarah Palin, Newt Gingrich, Chuck Grassley, John McCain and, today, Michael Steele, as spreading falsehoods about health care reform even after they have been broadly discredited, will the journalists Kurtz mentions offer them any sanction? Or will these public figures continue to be extensively quoted in newspapers and on television?

We saw another one this week, as Fox News decided to bring us the new scare tactic, "death books." But media like those Kurtz cover have two choices in this respect. They can ignore the lie, and let it confine itself to Fox News, Drudge, the right-wing blogosphere and talk radio, which is arguably larger than the traditional media's reach. Or they can report on the lie, debunk it, and hope their debunk trumps the initial lie. Now, I don't really respect how media covers the lies, by hyping them endlessly and getting around to the debunks a few days later. But Kevin Drum is on to something here.

It's true: crankery used to go largely unreported. But that's not much of an option these days — or at least, the media doesn't treat it as an option. And the reason is obvious: crankery isn't limited to beady-eyed obsessives with mimeograph machines in their basements anymore. It's beamed out in practically raw form to an enormous audience by Drudge, talk radio, Fox News, and the blog/Twitter/Facebook channel. Once that's happened, mainstream outlets don't feel like it's ignorable.

Plus there's the fact that although news pages (and perhaps the straight news reports from TV anchors) may have mostly debunked the death panel story, op-ed pages and chat shows retailed it with vigor. What's more, even in the news pages most of the debunkings came days or even weeks after the crankery had already reached a fever pitch.

What do do? Fighting back is the obvious answer, but that's a two-edged sword since it also gives the crankery an even higher profile. Ditto for faster reaction from the news desks.

I dunno. We now live in an era of mass-market crankery ("saturation bullshitting," in g.powell's memorable phrase), and that's that. Either some bright cognitive researcher needs to figure out how to actually fight crankery, or else the rest of us have to figure out how to get things done even in the face of a permanent lunatic fringe. All legal ideas welcome.

I believe that progressives and Democrats could go on the offensive a bit more, and make Republicans defend their own positions rather than allowing them the space to concoct false memes about the opposition. But with Washington still wired for conservatism, and Drudge still the traditional media assignment editor, there's not a lot to do here. You will always have that push and pull between giving lies legitimacy and letting them fester unanswered.

I do agree with Matt Yglesias' assessment of Steele's op-ed, particularly its appearance in the Washington Post. If the claims in an op-ed aren't factual, newspapers are not required to print them.

So congratulations to Fred Hiatt for landing such a buzzworthy piece of nonsense for his publication and I hope the right-wing enjoys the giant tax hikes we’ll be enacting down the road once they show the political world that any attempt to trim Medicare spending, no matter how modest, will be savaged by opportunists on the other side.

Yep. Seems to me like Steele and his counterparts are walking right into a trap here, even if it's not realized for decades.

...I liked Anthony Weiner's take: "I have never heard such a ringing defense of a single-payer program like Medicare than I heard from Michael Steele today."

On Ignorance

While the Democratic leadership is accusing the NBC/WSJ poll of stacking the deck against health care reform, and to an extent they're correct, it's clear that a mountain of misinformation is successfully reaching the public, at real harm to the cause of reform.

One of the reasons why it has become tougher is due to misperceptions about the president’s plans for reform.

Majorities in the poll believe the plans would give health insurance coverage to illegal immigrants; would lead to a government takeover of the health system; and would use taxpayer dollars to pay for women to have abortions — all claims that nonpartisan fact-checkers say are untrue about the legislation that has emerged so far from Congress.

Forty-five percent think the reform proposals would allow the government to make decisions about when to stop providing medical care for the elderly.

This is also in the poll: When Americans are read "actual details of the Obama health care plan, a majority -- 53 percent -- say they are in favor of it."



I think the media needs to look itself in the mirror. I fully expect Fox News to misinform its viewers and tilt toward the status quo. When you have a major news network reaching millions sourcing their research on town hall meetings to conservative blogs, we have a serious problem. Further, the current balkanized media landscape allows the crazies to retreat to their ideological corners, where they feel comfortable yelling Heil Hitler to a Jew.

But this goes beyond Fox News, which even with its reach represents a sliver of the overall population. Steve Benen has this right.

That last one is especially jarring. If the poll is accurate, nearly half the country seriously believes government officials seek the authority to pull the plug on grandma. That's insane, and it points to a political discourse that's badly broken.

But more than anything, it creates an enormous incentive to lie, blatantly and repeatedly, to the public. There are no real penalties, and the number of Americans who'll believe nonsense skews the debate in the liars' direction.

Partisans who aggressively lie on major media don't get thrown off those networks. In fact, the lies are privileged, given more importance and prominence than the truth.

Look what this local paper did to GOP leader Roy Blunt. He was lying, they called him out on it, and forced him to stop the lie.

Rep. Roy Blunt, R-Springfield, knows a thing or two about health care. But some of what he knows just isn’t true.

“I’m 59,” Mr. Blunt said last week during a meeting with Post-Dispatch reporters and editors. “In either Canada or Great Britain, if I broke my hip, I couldn’t get it replaced.”

We fact-checked that. At least 63 percent of hip replacements performed in Canada last year and two-thirds of those done in England were on patients age 65 or older. More than 1,200 in Canada were done on people older than 85.

In a subsequent conversation with the paper, Blunt claimed: “I’m glad you pointed that out to me. I won’t use that example any more.”

I don't know if that's the model. But surely the whole nation need not be ignorant. You have to combat something with something, and Democrats haven't totally done the job. At the same time, the media must live up to their own responsibilities. A fully ignorant nation wouldn't have elected Barack Obama President, given all the smears and lies. That same spirit can dominate again, but it takes some work.

...more on this in the context of NBC trying to pass the media misinformation machine off on Fox, when they do a lot of the same thing.

Selective Amnesia

Over the weekend I got around to reading conservative reactions to our blogger conference call with President Obama last Monday, and Matt Lewis' response struck me:

... This is just like all the times President Bush hosted conservative blogger calls ... not.

Outside of the clever use of the 90s-era "not" joke (is "talk to the hand" next?), I would remind Mr. Lewis of this face to face meeting between the President and milbloggers, which resulted in positively gushing reviews, as did this meetup with talk radio hosts. Lewis actually went ahead and acknowledged this today.

The larger point is that conservatives tend to forget things when the forgetting serves them to make a point. Frequently, as in this case, that point is resentment.

Bravely Bold Sir Dubya

Time decided to do some reporting about the final days in the Bush bunker, particularly about Dick Cheney's efforts to extract a pardon for his pal Scooter Libby. It's clearly from Bush's perspective, but nevertheless it's a pretty fascinating article just for seeing how the Bush loyalists spin the tale.

Petitions for pardons are usually sent in writing to the White House counsel's office or a specially designated attorney at the Department of Justice. In Libby's case, Cheney simply carried the message directly to Bush, as he had with so many other issues in the past, pressing the President in one-on-one meetings or in larger settings. A White House veteran was struck by his "extraordinary level of attention" to the case. Cheney's persistence became nearly as big an issue as the pardon itself. "Cheney really got in the President's face," says a longtime Bush-family source. "He just wouldn't give it up."

And there was a darker possibility. As a former Bush senior aide explains, "I'm sure the President and [chief of staff] Josh [Bolten] and Fred had a concern that somewhere, deep in there, there was a cover-up." It had been an article of faith among Cheney's critics that the Vice President wanted a pardon for Libby because Libby had taken the fall for him in the Fitzgerald probe. In his grand-jury testimony reviewed by TIME, Libby denied three times that Cheney had directed him to leak Plame's CIA identity in mid-2003. Though his recollection of other events in the same time frame was lucid and detailed, on at least 20 occasions, Libby could not recall details of his talks with Cheney about Plame's place of employment or questions the Vice President raised privately about Wilson's credibility. Some Bush officials wondered whether Libby was covering up for Cheney's involvement in the leak of Plame's identity.

That makes it seem like Bush just wanted to separate himself from the Libby case altogether, despite the fact that Libby was a special adviser to the President, not the Vice President, and he was protecting both Bush and Cheney. It makes sense for Bush to compartmentalize the Libby leak, as if he were an innocent bystander, and refusing to pardon obviously helps him in that case. But it's not true at all. Marcy Wheeler has a lot more on this.

But this just blew me away. After Cheney lays out the case for a pardon, repeatedly, incessantly, for weeks:

A few days later, about a week before they would become private citizens, Bush pulled Cheney aside after a morning meeting and told him there would be no pardon. Cheney looked stricken. Most officials respond to a presidential rebuff with a polite thanks for considering the request in the first place. But Cheney, an observer says, "expressed his disappointment and disagreement with the decision ... He didn't take it well."

Two days after that, Libby, who hadn't previously lobbied on his own behalf, telephoned Bolten's office. He wanted an audience with Bush to argue his case in person. To Libby, a presidential pardon was a practical as well as symbolic prize: among other things, it would allow him to practice law again. Bolten once more kicked the matter to the lawyers, agreeing to arrange a meeting with Fielding. On Saturday, Jan. 17, with less than 72 hours left in the Bush presidency, Libby and Fielding and a deputy met for lunch at a seafood restaurant three blocks from the White House. Again Libby insisted on his innocence. No one's memory is perfect, he argued; to convict me for not remembering something precisely was unfair. Fielding kept listening for signs of remorse. But none came. Fielding reported the conversation to Bush.

OK, is it normal for the subject of a possible Presidential pardon to personally lobby for it on his own behalf? Has that ever happened before? If it has, I don't recall it.

The article is decent enough, but don't start to drink a glass of water when you read this part, or you're in for a surefire spit-take:

While packing boxes in the upstairs residence, according to his associates, Bush noted that he was again under pressure from Cheney to pardon Libby. He characterized Cheney as a friend and a good Vice President but said his pardon request had little internal support. If the presidential staff were polled, the result would be 100 to 1 against a pardon, Bush joked. Then he turned to Sharp. "What's the bottom line here? Did this guy lie or not?"

The lawyer, who had followed the case very closely, replied affirmatively.

Bush indicated that he had already come to that conclusion too.

"O.K., that's it," Bush said.

Yes, that moral paragon, truth-teller extraordinaire, George W. Bush, Honest George I think they called him, comes down firmly on the side of truth in virtually every circumstance. History will judge him as the most forthright human who ever bestrode the earth. A colossus among men.

Incidentally, the man, Jim Sharp, that Bush is talking with here? It's his own defense attorney.

... you have to love Cheney's response to the story. I guess the Bush loyalists got under his skin.

But The CIA Never Lies

A federal judge basically excoriated the CIA yesterday, finding it guilty of deception in the least surprising ruling ever. Spies deceive?

A federal judge has ruled that government officials committed fraud while defending a lawsuit brought by a former DEA agent who accused a CIA operative of illegally bugging his home.

In rulings unsealed Monday, U.S. District Chief Judge Royce C. Lamberth wrote that he was considering sanctions against five current and former agency lawyers and officials, including former director George J. Tenet, for withholding key information about the operative's covert status.

The rulings, issued in recent months, highlighted what the judge called fraudulent work by CIA lawyers in defending a suit that Lamberth said had a lengthy and "twisted history." Brought in 1994 by DEA agent Richard A. Horn, the suit alleged that the CIA illegally bugged his residence in Rangoon, Burma, while he was serving in the country [...]

In an order issued Monday, Lamberth ordered Yeates, Brown, Tenet and three current or former CIA lawyers -- John Rizzo, Robert J. Eatinger and A. John Radsan -- to file court documents explaining why he should not sanction them for the government's conduct. Attorneys for the officials and lawyers declined to comment or could not be reached. CIA spokesman George Little said the agency "takes seriously its obligations to U.S. courts."

Horn's attorney, Brian C. Leighton, said Lamberth's rulings showed that the CIA was trying to "cover up wrongdoing."

And Lamberth even accused new CIA Director Leon Panetta of lying to the court.

But the CIA never lies.

bmaz has more.

Words You Shouldn't Use To Describe Your Mistress

Especially while you clain to be still trying to patch things up with your wife:

"soul mate"

Forget this guy being done in politics, which I think is starting to become a foregone conclusion. He's done in polite society. Could any women, single or married, with any sense of self-respect look at this guy without finding the nearest cane or umbrella and letting him have it?

The other thing is, yes, dude, go be happy, if Maria Belen Chapur will have you. That's clearly your wish. I mean, Argentina's ruling party just lost an election, maybe there's a political opening for a neo-Hooverist with a romantic side.

Sanford's Peculiar "Honesty"

I heard a lot of liberal commentators react to Mark Sanford's tearful admission of an adulterous affair with admiration that "at least he got everything out there" and told the truth like a stand-up guy. Except, of course, he didn't:

South Carolina Gov. Mark Sanford admitted Tuesday that he saw his Argentine mistress more times than previously disclosed, including what was to be a farewell meeting in New York chaperoned by a spiritual adviser soon after his wife found out about the affair.

In a lengthy and emotional interview with The Associated Press in his Statehouse office, the governor described five meetings with Maria Belen Chapur over the past year, including two romantic, multi-night stays with her in New York before they met there again intending to break up.

He said he met her two other times — their first meeting in 2001 at an open-air dance spot in Uruguay and a coffee date in New York in 2004 during the Republican National Convention. He said neither time was romantic.

It was the first disclosure of any liaisons with Chapur in the United States and contradicted a public confession last week during which Sanford admitted to a total of five encounters over their eight-year relationship.

By next week, we'll learn that he created a backdrop of Charleston somewhere in Buenos Aires and lived there all last winter.

The guy's obviously in love with this Argentine woman, and he should probably just follow his heart and go off with her. I don't think that, at this point, the people of South Carolina will miss him.

...Now there are multiple women.

COLUMBIA, S.C. — South Carolina Gov. Mark Sanford says he "crossed lines" with a handful of women other than his mistress — but never had sex with them.

The governor says he "never crossed the ultimate line" with anyone but Maria Belen Chapur, the Argentine at the center of a scandal that has derailed Sanford's once-promising political career.

During an emotional interview at his Statehouse office with The Associated Press on Tuesday, Sanford said Chapur is his soul mate but he's trying to fall back in love with his wife.

He says that during the other encounters he "let his guard down" with some physical contact but "didn't cross the sex line." He wouldn't go into detail.

So honest and forthright!

Like Father Like Daughter

Liz Cheney must have learned the fine art of lying your tail off from dear old dad.

MITCHELL: Can you clarify at all a dispute some or among former Bush administration middle east experts and officials as to whether there was a secret promise or an agreement with Israel that Israel could proceed with settlement expansion to accommodate population growth?

CHENEY: It is a very complicated issue and the Road Map does talk about settlements. … But there’s the issue of, in existing settlements, if a family has a baby, are you allowed to build another room in the house? … I think there’s no question that this White House has gone much further in saying to the Israelis, “you must absolutely stop all of it.” And without, in my view, being as demanding of the Palestinians in terms of the security side of this equation.

Sadly, no.



Given that she was Deputy Assistant Secretary of State for Near Eastern Affairs in the Bush Administration, put there, many feel, to report back on the State Department to the Vice President, you'd think she'd know that.

However, Cheney did part ways with her father on the issue of the Iraq/Al Qaeda connection. She still thinks it exists, whereas Fourthbranch pretty much disavowed it earlier this week.

LIZ CHENEY: The issue is whether there's a connection between Saddam Hussein and al Qaeda, which as he mentioned in that speech, George Tenet himself testified to, there's much evidence between the connection of Saddam and al Qaeda and Saddam and other terrorist organizations.

MITCHELL: Well, al Qaeda in Iraq, which was an offshoot, but didn't exist before the start of the war.

LIZ CHENEY: That's actually not true.

Right, well, um, you're wrong again.

If the best politicians are the best liars, Cheney's got quite a future.

Honest Barack

No President wants to fix the mistakes of the past in such a way that reflects on the present. I think it's honorable for President Obama to make this decision with respect to the federal budget, and with the right framing, he can get a win out of it.

For his first annual budget next week, President Obama has banned four accounting gimmicks that President George W. Bush used to make deficit projections look smaller. The price of more honest bookkeeping: A budget that is $2.7 trillion deeper in the red over the next decade than it would otherwise appear, according to administration officials.

The new accounting involves spending on the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, Medicare reimbursements to physicians and the cost of disaster responses.

But the biggest adjustment will deal with revenues from the alternative minimum tax, a parallel tax system enacted in 1969 to prevent the wealthy from using tax shelters to avoid paying any income tax [...]

Fiscal sleight of hand has long been a staple of federal budgets, giving rise to phrases like “rosy scenario” and “magic asterisks.”

The $2.7 trillion in additional deficit spending, Mr. Orszag said, is “a huge amount of money that would just be kind of a magic asterisk in previous budgets.”

“The president prefers to tell the truth,” he said, “rather than make the numbers look better by pretending.”

The predictable spin by the right on this is going to be that Barack Obama ballooned the federal deficit with runaway spending. What he did was set a precedent to put a stop to deliberate lying. And it's the only way to realistically deal with our problems so that we don't opt for partial measures that only appear to close the gap. If this paves the way for a more progressive tax code and a real reckoning of the real costs of war and corporate giveaways, I'm all for it.

Exile In Condiland

I know that the Administration is trying to put the best face on the disaster they've made of things the last few years, and they're entitled to try, but I would submit to them that they stop using Condi Rice for this purpose. She is the worst liar of the bunch, and the most brazen.

This week, SO FAR, she's claimed that Iran tried to stop the SOFA agreement in Iraq (they, um, didn't, and in fact approved the proposal in the end), she made the argument that no American money was wasted in the reconstruction of Iraq (save, oh, tens of billions documented in a recent report and the $12 billion handed out from the back of a plane), and she decided that the United States has embraced the UN more than any President "maybe ever" (other than appointing a UN Ambassador who thinks that if the UN building lost ten stories it wouldn't make a bit of difference).

There are more examples here and here. Does she know that people are listening when she talks? This woman should be laughed off the Stanford campus when she returns.

"I Guess"

I think it's the flippancy at the end of the sentence that sets my blood boiling.

GIBSON: You've always said there's no do-overs as President. If you had one?

BUSH: I don't know -- the biggest regret of all the presidency has to have been the intelligence failure in Iraq. A lot of people put their reputations on the line and said the weapons of mass destruction is a reason to remove Saddam Hussein. It wasn't just people in my administration; a lot of members in Congress, prior to my arrival in Washington D.C., during the debate on Iraq, a lot of leaders of nations around the world were all looking at the same intelligence. And, you know, that's not a do-over, but I wish the intelligence had been different, I guess.

First there's the continuation of the Big Lie - not everybody was looking at the same intelligence. The Germans and the French and even substantial elements of the US intelligence community were not sold on the existence of WMD in Iraq. The facts were sifted by those who wanted war to fit the policy. Those with access to unsifted information, like Hans Blix and Mohammed ElBaradei, who were on the ground in Iraq before Bush kicked them out, knew that the truth was that there were no credible reports of weapons stockpiles. When Bush says that members of Congress were looking at the same intelligence, he's referring to that sifted intelligence. In other words, he sold them on a lie.

A lie which Democrats were far too willing to buy for short-term political expediency:

Of course, Bush made the decision to overlook all the good intel — not to mention the claims of those poor forgotten inspectors — saying that Saddam wasn’t really a threat at all, or certainly not one requiring the response Bush himself ordered.

One overlooked thing about this is that not only Bush, but many supporters of the war — Dems and liberal hawks included — also have a vested interest in pretending that the good intel never existed and those inspectors never said what they said. Those inconvenient historical facts reflect rather badly on them, too. With so many opinion-makers having vested interests of their own in telling the story this way, history has been tidily rewritten, and Bush is able to make this claim without a peep of objection from his big-time network interviewer.

It's a little secret that everyone's willing to keep.

But it's the "I guess," with the hundreds of thousands of American and Iraqi lives hanging on it, that really drives me insane. He wishes the intelligence were different, sorta... what he means is that he wishes nobody caught him in his lie, and he wishes the war wasn't such a disaster. Everything else is a dodge from responsibility. It's true in economic policy, too:

GIBSON: Do you feel in any way responsible for what's happening?

BUSH: You know, I'm the President during this period of time, but I think when the history of this period is written, people will realize a lot of the decisions that were made on Wall Street took place over a decade or so, before I arrived in President, during I arrived in President.

I'm a little upset that we didn't get the reforms to Fannie and Freddie -- on Fannie and Freddie, because I think it would have helped a lot. And when people review the history of this administration, people will say that this administration tried hard to get a regulator. And there will be a lot of analysis of why that didn't happen. I suspect people will find a lot of it didn't happen for pure political reasons.

Well that's just a standard-issue lie right there, from the largely irrelevant focus on Fannie and Freddie to the "innocent bystander" idea that he just couldn't direct his own regulatory agencies - over whom the Congress has far less control - to investigate CDSes and subprime lending and massive over-leveraging.

"I guess" I won't miss this guy in the White House. By the way, these 2-hour interviews about nothing seem superfluous when there's a financial meltdown going on.

Hugging The Panda

This Bill O'Reilly interview on Jon Stewart last night wasn't necessarily significant for Billo's typical dross about how Stewart would be "stoned to death" if he ever visited Alabama (because, as you know, Bill does his show four nights a week from Tuscaloosa) or how this is a center-right nation based on traditionalism (though Stewart's retort about how the tradition of America is the pursuit of individual freedom and gay marriage is the next logical step was pretty good) and how "we're the noble nation" (submitted without comment). No, the best, most revealing part came at the end. Stewart kicked off the segment by showing a bunch of quotes about how nervous and scared Billo is with the prospect of an Obama Presidency, and then he pulled out the cocoa and marshmallows and a snuggly teddy bear and tried to make him feel more comfortable. Late in the interview, a propos of nothing, O'Reilly starts talking about the bear. I'm putting this moment on the couch. It starts around 5:30.

O'REILLY: As long as I can have the panda, I'm fine.

STEWART: That's not a panda!

O'REILLY: Sure it is! This is a panda! What do you think it is?

STEWART: You've gotta get out of your "luxury Long Island life" and get around and start seeing animals.

It's really not that he got the name of the animal wrong. It's that he was so sure of it, and immediately when told he was wrong, he clung to it. That's not only his knee-jerk reaction, but the entire conservative movement. Their version of what's right is whatever their opponents say is wrong. Facts are tangential.

I didn't think we'd ever get such a clear "2+2=5" moment, on national television no less. Maybe I shouldn't make so much out of it, but I'm instituting this feature into my writing: any time a conservative delivers obvious misinformation, they will be heretofore described as "hugging the panda." And when you're in an argument with one of them, over whether this is a center-right nation or whether tax cuts increase revenue or whether the social safety net hurts poor people, remember that these are the kind of people who not only think a teddy bear is a panda, but who insist it even when they are told they are wrong.

I'm a tree-hugger? You're a panda-hugger.

Famous Last Words

Even I didn't expect the avalanche of cash raised mainly by the netroots for Elwyn Tinklenberg, the candidate running against neo-McCarthyite Michelle Bachmann in MN-06 after her disturbing comments on Hardball. Tinklenberg picked up nearly a half a million dollars in a matter of hours. Wow.

Meanwhile, Bachmann is denying what she said despite the existence of a little thing called videotape.

This morning, Bachmann tried to undo the damage. Appearing on WCCO (Minneapolis’ local CBS affiliate), Bachmann denied she ever called Barack Obama’s views “anti-American”:

HOST: You do feel his [Obama’s] views are anti-American?

BACHMANN: I feel his views are concerning. I’m calling on the media to investigate them. I’m not saying that his views are anti-American. That was a misreading of what I said. And so I don’t believe that’s my position. I’m calling on the media to take a look at what his views are [...]

That’s a lie. Here’s what Bachmann said on Hardball:

CHRIS MATTHEWS: So you believe that Barack Obama may have anti-American views?

BACHMANN: Absolutely. I’m very concerned he may have anti-American views.

It would be absolutely poetic to see Bachmann defeated.

UPDATE: The D-Trip is throwing down a million bucks, too. Way to nationalize your race, Michelle.

Magnificent Bastard

Here's John McCain saying "BOORRRR-INGGGG" with his eyes over the deaths of Colombian labor leaders:



And here's him making air quotes to deride something so frivolous and mockable as women's health.



The reason John McCain is losing this race has something to do with the fundamentals, but also because he's simply an arrogant asshole. This is why independents are laughing in his face. He's inauthentic, hollow, callous, and believes he should have the Presidency handed to him by divine right. His delusions of grandeur aren't playing well.

He's also a liar, and so are his friends:

Verizon spokesman Jeffrey Nelson attacked The Post's story as "wrong," saying, "Verizon received a request from Mrs. McCain, but declined. Subsequent to that, the Secret Service made a legitimate request for a temporary tower for its work and Verizon complied as is required by our contract with the agency."

However, interviews and public records filed in the development services offices of Yavapai County, Ariz., reveal a different timeline. Getting cell coverage was the culmination of an effort begun in early 2007 by Cindy McCain, when her staff first requested coverage through Verizon's Web site, according to the McCain campaign. After discussing the matter with the company, Mrs. McCain offered land for a permanent cell tower. She gave Verizon authorization to act on her behalf to seek permits from the county. Verizon hired contractors to draw up the plans and Cindy McCain signed a contract in May.

After a regulatory hurdle delayed installation of the permanent tower, Verizon received e-mails from the Secret Service asking about coverage in the area and asking for the process to be rushed. Verizon's contractor then petitioned for a cell site on wheels. It was installed in June.

Erratic. Dishonest. Dishonorable. Dismissive.

John McCain 2008.

Running For First and Second Liar

With the release of the Troopergate report, both Republican candidates have now an ethics violation on their record. And so why should it surprise you that the campaigns continue to lie about it.

It’s simply not possible to lie more deliberately or flagrantly than this:

McCain campaign manager Rick Davis on Fox News this morning, when asked by Chris Wallace about the Troopergate report issued on Friday:

The reality is there was absolutely no wrongdoing found in the report — 1,000 pages — an enormous waste of time — and the best they could come up with was: no violations of any kinds of laws or ethics rules.

Except for the very first finding, which says that Palin abused her power.

Palin herself seems to think she's been cleared of wrongdoing.

Palin: Let me talk a little bit about the Tasergate issue if you guys would let me and, Meg, you want me to just jump right on in there?

Stapleton: Sure governor, go ahead.

Palin: OK cool.

Well, I’m very very pleased to be cleared of any legal wrongdoing … any hint of any kind of unethical activity there. Very pleased to be cleared of any of that… .He did what any – I think — any rational person would do so again, nothing to apologize there with Todd’s actions and again very pleased to be cleared of any legal wrongdoing.

And once you read all that, you'll understand why McCain is personally vowing to end abuses of power while President, whatever it takes.

Web Of Lies

The Yes On 8 team isn't hiding it anymore. Their entire argument for banning same-sex marriage has nothing to do with taking away the right of gay people to marry - if it was they'd straight-up lose. Instead, they are offering a whole array of residual effects, like claiming that this would force homosexuality to be taught in public schools (not true) and churches will lose their tax exemptions (not true) and your son will be forced at gunpoint to gay marry the neighbot boy (not true, and not what they're claiming, but it might as well be).

The entire point is to make people feel icky, to play to their base instincts, and to make it seem like a vote to ban the protected rights of hundreds of thousands of citizens is actually a vote to protect their own rights. It's Machiavellian and really ugly. The No side is fighting back, but I'm not sure their soft-pedal approach is really going to work.



I understand that they're walking a tightrope, and focusing on equality makes sense. But this is a weird meta-campaign where nobody is talking about the real issue, just their "feelings" and their faulty assumptions of what would never happen. Saying "the Yes on 8 ads are filled with lies" would be a start. This reassurance business might capture undecideds at the margins, but people need to know who the dirty tricksters are. How about a spot showing the 11,000 gay couples who have already married and ripping up their marriage licenses? How about some of these people calling out the lies and calling discrimination what it is?

There's a lot of concern right now. Two recent polls show Prop. 8 winning, though not over 50% yet. Their ads are having an effect and they have lots of money.

If you can, donate to No on 8 and give some of your time. Barack Obama may be important but our local community matters too. Pass around this ad from the Courage Campaign. Spread the word. We have to defeat this bill or else discrimination will be enshrined into our state constitution.

UPDATE: And the second after I write this, No on 8 puts out an ad calling out the lies. Good on them. Instant gratification!