Memo to Calbuzz: Hey, right back atcha!

To: (insert fun and in no way dated Communist Party reference here) Comrades Phil Trounstine and Roberts
From: Dave

I read with interest your dripping-with-contempt response to my criticism of your reports on the Parsky Commission. Actually, 4/5 of the article concerned the Commission itself and not you, but I am reminded of the words of Carly Simon:

You’re so vain
You probably think this song is about you

As a regular reader of Calbuzz, I admire your sources, if not your willingness to string an entire article together based on two politicians standing next to one another smiling, as well as an over-emphasis on horse-race politics and narratives. But clearly, you have a bit of an inflated view of your clear-eyed mission of “journalism,” and the assumed objectivity that goes with it.

Allow me to be blunt: Calitics has been writing about the Parsky Commission since December of 2008, before there was such a thing as Calbuzz. We have followed up time and again, in particular when two weeks ago, Susan Kennedy tipped the hand of how this commission will go by stating that “Our revenue stream is way too progressive.” So it was not exactly some kind of amazing scoop to report on a commission that has open meetings and presents all their material in public, which is why plenty of contemporaneous reports were written, based on the documents posted on the Internet that the Parsky Commission presented in anticipation of their open meeting.

Unlike you, I don’t pretend to hide my opinions on the very clear economic and tax policy implications of the Commission’s report behind some false veil of objectivity. Most of my comments were directed at the report itself, and the way in which a flat tax would quite obviously shift the burden of taxation to the middle class and the poor; but I couldn’t help but notice clear language like...

the impending bankruptcy of state government should be sufficient to show players at every point of the political spectrum not only that sweeping change is needed, but also that everyone will have to compromise to keep California from sinking into the 9th Circle of Hell

...which certainly allows people, in my view, a window into how you determine the best policy, defined as the midpoint between whatever pleases those hateful hippies and the ranters on the right. That may be a nice and quick methodology, but it's anything but rigorous, and I'm pretty sure it's an apt description. After all, wasn’t one of you the communications director for Gray Davis, who was not above bold expressions of centrism and a fear of the spectre of “The Left”?

(How did pumping out that daily message for ol’ Gray turn out, by the way? What did that guy do after his two successful terms were up? Just curious.)

I mean, I’m very sorry for bringing up the inconvenient fact that so-called “objective” journalists can frame a story in such a way that they put their own thumbs on the ideological scale. You claim that your job is to “ferret out the facts” of the policymakers, you know, like hard-hitting reporting on an email to supporters and what one Republican said about another Republican in a press release, but it’s fairly clear from the above-mentioned article that you view flat taxes and eliminating corporate taxes as pretty sensible and down the middle, and it colored your coverage. I should probably just have shut up about it and gone back to my Communist Party self-criticism sessions, which by the way is a hilarious and timely joke. Here’s another one: In Soviet Russia, television watches you! You can use that!)

So this notion that I should just say thank you for illuminating a public document seems to be to be a bit too self-regarding, and your lashing out at me for pointing out the not-so-hidden biases in that particular article a bit to “the lady doth protest too much.” But of course, I have an infantile disorder.

Which brings us to this criticism about the Barbara Boxer press conference and certain bloggers clapping at the end of it, something of a hobby horse for you folks. I am not going to speak for anyone in the room but myself, but I know quite for certain that I didn’t clap, and I know what I asked. See, based on my notes (yes, I took them, just like a real live reporter) I know that I followed up a series of queries about torture (yours was some process question about how the Obama Administration "rolled out" the torture memos released a week before) with a specific question about a resolution before the state party seeking the impeachment of Jay Bybee for his role in authorizing torture, to which she answered “I’m very open to that,” reminding those assembled that she voted against Bybee’s confirmation as a federal judge. Now, at the time, I was involved in securing thousands of signatures from across the state endorsing this resolution, and when it came before the resolutions committee, I would argue that having Sen. Boxer’s agreement that calling for the impeachment of someone who helped authorize torture was a reasonable request actually helped get that resolution passed. In other words, it was a combination of what the netroots community does best – using citizen journalism and activism in tandem to effect progress on progressive issues.

Which I personally think is more of a relevant bit of work than asking a federal legislator about a state issue.

I’m just sayin’.

p.s. In the cited post, I used variations on the word “fetish” once, in a 1,400-word article. But it made for a smashing joke about therapists, so points for you!

0-1

Barack Obama says he delivers the promise of hope and change, but he already lost the play-in game on his NCAA Tournament pool, when Morehead State defeated Alabama State.

This is what we voted for?

When will he be impeached?

Also, picking North Carolina to win it all with Ty Lawson injured is not change I can believe in.

Let's Get This Snarky Started!

First of all, thanks so much to D-Day for giving me the opportunity to bring my snarky ass over to his blog for the weekend. It'll be my pleasure to hold down the fort while D-Day is off setting up another covert prostitution ring in Tijuana.

It seems that with the new Obama administration taking over, the taxes D-Day pays for his two other covert prostitution rings, both located in the US, are going to be raised significantly, so, you know, a covert prostitution ring master's gotta do what a covert prostitution ring master's gotta do.

Anyway, my name is Noah. I blog at my own personal site, The November Blog, as well as at Rumproast (Winner of the 2008 Weblog Award for Best Small Blog!), and The Seminal. I used to blog with D-Day over at The Right's Field as well.

I hope you find my writing here to be snarkolicious and horribly, horribly offensive. Just kidding. Though not really.

Maybe.

Kinda.

Yes.

The Power Of Sustained Mockery

What made the Paris Hilton joke video work was that it didn't take McCain seriously. And over the last couple days, neither has Barack Obama. "I'm looking forward to this debate between John McCain and John McCain" is a pretty good line, and while I also like this hard-hitting attack:

Instead of offering a comprehensive plan that will lower gas prices, the centerpiece of his entire energy plan is more drilling. It’s a proposal that won’t yield a drop of oil for at least seven years, but it’s produced a gusher for Senator McCain. Because after he announced his drilling proposal to a room full of oil executives, the industry ponied up nearly a million dollars in contributions. That’s the kind of special interest-driven politics that’s stopped us from solving our energy crisis. And that’s why Washington is broken.

The mocking tone is what's going to cut through the clutter here. People who don't want to do the work to learn the candidates' positions are ALWAYS going to say they want to hear more substance - that happens every year. We still have a media that refuses to give a crap, so the playing field is very narrow. Mockery that circles back to the core narrative (old politics, past vs. future) is going to be more effective. I thought MoveOn's Web ad was pretty solid in its own right:

MoveOn.org, the liberal activist group that has been strangely quiet this campaign season, will release a new Internet ad tomorrow, mocking Sen. John McCain for calling for Congress to return to Washington to pass energy legislation despite the fact that he has missed a string of high-profile energy votes in the Senate while campaigning.

With Willie Nelson singing "On The Road Again," McCain shouts, "I hear Congress just went on vacation for five weeks. Tell 'em to come back and get to work." Then the add repeatedly points to an empty seat in the Senate as the vote on energy that McCain missed are flashed on the screen.

"You tell 'em, John," the ad concludes.

What sucks is that this ad isn't running nationwide, because Obama de-funded the outside groups and asked them to stand down. He won't do the hardest-hitting character attacks, so the space is very empty on that front. I think it's a mistake.

But in the absence of character broadsides, I'll take mockery that makes the same point and leavens it with humor. The left has caught up to the right on this online, but at the highest levels of the political space this is still asymmetrical. We cannot have a snark gap.

Meet The Moderators

This is the exact same group of Presidential debate moderators that we had four years ago, in the same spots, with the only exception being that Charlie Gibson was thrown overboard (at the behest of the Obama campaign, no doubt) in favor of the even older Tom Brokaw.

What a vibrant and dynamic industry! The Hapsburgs had more turnover.

UPDATE: Yes, Bob Schieffer was an idiot and continues to be one regarding the Wes Clark controversy. You want to come up with someone better? Couric? Gibson? Stephanopoulos? Matthews, for Lord's sake?

Millions Of Little Small-D Democratic Fascists

Obama's small donors, donating $200 or less, have actually outraised McCain by themselves throughout the campaign. That is an incredible statistic.

And many of those who make the trip out to Denver to be a part of that historic speech in Invesco Field will have to earn their way through the door.

In a half-hour interview Wednesday with The Denver Post, Obama's deputy campaign manager, Steve Hildebrand, said he wants to use the ticketing process as a massive recruitment tool meant to bring in supporters from all 50 states and energize them to carry the campaign into the final 60 days of the general election.

"We're going to ask those 80,000 people in that stadium to march out of there and go with very specific instructions and goals to register millions of new voters," Hildebrand said [...]

By seating the 6,000 delegates down on the field normally defended by the Denver Broncos, and by keeping the number of journalists, technicians and VIPs at the same level as those attending the Pepsi Center events earlier in the week, the campaign could bring in more than 60,000 members of the public, Hildebrand said.

As a battleground state hosting the convention, Colorado will have access to the largest percentage of public tickets, but Hildebrand wants to draw significant support from neighboring states, such as the other Intermountain West battleground states of New Mexico and Nevada.

People getting involved enough in politics to out-fund special interests and lobbyists and corporate donors. Using their passion and energy to mobilize other voters and get their voices to be heard in the process.

Buncha fascists.

Painter Of Light

The Divine, Otherworldly Master McCain:



Did Thomas Kincaid make an in-kind donation on this thing?

I could say something about the relative age of McCain and the Arcangel Gabriel, but won't. Whoops I did!

The Outrage of the Century

You all know I've been a fan of Michelle Malkin for some time - and have touted her strong position in favor of immigration enforcement.

But now, I am calling on all Kossacks to boycott MichelleMalkin.com, HotAir.com, the Seattle Times where she used to work, the book "In Defense of Internment," flecks of spittle, and everything else remotely Malkin-related.

You see, she's clearly a jihadi sympathizer.



Is Malkin's blunder worth boycotting her website over? I'll be interested to hear her take. Hopefully, her choice in hate couture was borne more of ignorance than ideology. But you never know.

The only action Malkin can take to satisfy me is by yanking herself off of the site. I'm pretty sure, given the fact that her husband writes most of the blog anyway, the usual quality of the site will not suffer. But make no mistake, this is offensive. Michelle is within a couple of feet of a red-and-white checked pattern! How am I going to explain this to a child?

If she does in fact leave, it would be refreshing to see an American website show sensitivity to the concerns of those of us opposed to Islamic jihad and its apologists and wearers of garments that are somewhat similar. Or having them seated on the backs of chairs. Or whatever.

Anyway, makes me angry.

(h/t Gavin)

Mmm, That's Delicious Snark!

Two things I wish I wrote this week, and two hilarious posts from sources not always focused on hilarity.

First, Mark Kleiman brings us If Ann Coulter had liveblogged the Gettysburg Address.

Okay, here we go. More "eloquence," no doubt.

Four score and seven years ago

"Fourscore and seven"? Puh-leeze! Couldn't you make it just a little more pompous? Only a moonbat could regard this guy as an orator.

our fathers brought forth on this continent,

Ummm ... didn't we have mothers, too? Well, maybe Lincoln didn't; he looks like he came out of a test tube marked "Failure." But somehow I doubt that the suffragette harpies who swoon over Father Abraham are going to be pleased by the omission.

Anyway, shouldn't someone as smart as Lincoln is supposed to be know that it's mothers who "bring forth"? That thing that fathers do is called "begetting." (I'd always wondered whether Mrs. Lincoln's brats were any kin to Old Ape.)

Then, libertarian Jim Henley brings us How I Got It Right: Looking Back at a Time of Justified Opposition to a Mad, Violent Enterprise.

So many publications have expressed such overwhelming interest in the perspectives of those of us who opposed the Iraq War when it had a chance of doing good that I have had to permit mutliple publication of this article in most of the nation’s elite media venues - collecting, I am almost embarrassed to admit, a separate fee from each. Everyone recognizes that the opinions of those of us who were right about Iraq then are crucial to formulating sane, just policy now. It’s a lot of pressure, so please forgive anything glib or short you read herein: between articles, interviews, think-tank panels and presentations before government agencies and policy organs I’m not permitted to mention, I’m a little frazzled.

On the bright side, and I can confirm that my experience has been similar to those of my fellow prophets, being the object of so much attention, being repeatedly quizzed by eager interlocutors on the same basic points, encourages one to distill one’s thinking to its essence. As Kenneth Pollack asked me the other day, “What the fuck was so special about you, anyway?”

“For one thing,” I said, “I am not sprawled on a sidewalk next the McPherson Square Metro Station, hoping to cadge enough quarters to enjoy the rare treat of laundering the vomit out of the only shirt I own, praying all the while that decent people do not recognize me beneath the matted beard and tangled hair.”

The excerpts are only the tip of the iceberg. Excellent Sunday morning reading.

Late Night Snark: The Romney Invasion

(cross-posted at The Right's Field, where I just completed my first week of front-paging. Thank you, Yearly Kos!)

We know that the Five Brothers Romney have bravely answered the call of duty and decided to serve their country by helping their dad win a straw poll against such heavyweights as Sam Brownback. But we didn't know just how many Romneys were headed to the Hawkeye State to do the jobs that Iowans won't do.

They have driven here from California, Ohio, Canada and Texas; flown from Michigan, Utah and Florida. There are aunts, uncles, cousins, second cousins, in-laws, nieces, nephews and grandchildren.

At last count, 96 members of the Romney clan, a veritable army, have arrived here over the last few days to help out at Saturday’s Republican straw poll, bolstering what is already a huge ground operation for the event that far outstrips any other campaign for the party’s 2008 presidential nomination.

Not a veritable Army, New York Times, an actual Army! A band of brothers! In this case, literally!

I think going this far to win a straw poll when all the most formidable challengers have already backed out is something akin to lobbying judges for an Adult Video News porn award. But let's hear more about the 2008th Fighting Romneys, Election Battalion:

Leading the shock troops will be Mr. Romney’s five sons, who have come to occupy an increasingly prominent place in his campaign, giving speeches, being hosts at fund-raisers, blogging and even weighing in on strategy, all the while helping their father paint a not-so-subtle contrast to some of his leading rivals.

That contrast would be with John McCain's kid, who actually joined the military.

The great TBogg is the undisputed king of Five Brothers blogging, so I won't muscle in on that turf. However, did you know that there's a Sixth Brother?

I guess the message is: you can help America as long as you suck off your Daddy's teet until you are well into your thirties. I must not be helping America because I have my own job (technically, I am in between jobs but since I am a self-employed entrepreneur, even more technically "down time" is part of my job) that Daddy hasn't given me.

If I weren't in the middle of some fairly complicated real estate transactions (there is a lien on a property I own in Irvine and another has been foreclosed upon- not my fault btw but more on that later) I would be in Iraq right now.

Let's get a profile of Tagg, who I like to call "George W. Romney":

Of the hordes of Romneys here, perhaps nobody plays a more central role than Tagg Romney, 37, the eldest son. At debates, he has become one of the campaign’s most visible representatives in the spin room. He is also part of his father’s inner circle, usually the quickest to offer an unfiltered critique about how he performed in an event. In campaign staff meetings, Tagg Romney acts a representative of his father, often pressing others for the kind of additional data to back up their decisions that he anticipates his father will want.

Tagg's just auditioning for his big moment - when he reaches 40 and bottoms out and says "Dad, set me up with an oil company!"

I like how he anticipates his father's decisions, which as we know is quite a feat because they change from minute to minute. But the real amusing part is that Mitt appears to be completely absent from his own decision-making process. He probably gets his ideas scribbled down in a one-page RDB (Romney Daily Briefing) the next day.

And look at what else this brave soldier fighting boldly in the War On Early Indicators Of Candidate Success is doing to raise troop morale.

Even so, those inside the campaign said Tagg Romney wore his connection to his father loosely. His other main function, they said, is that of head cheerleader for morale, organizing softball, touch football and most recently a staff tennis tournament, with the championship held at the court at his parents’ house.

Didn't you know that the most important soldier in a unit is the guy who sets up the tennis tournament? You have to be BATTLE-TESTED to be trusted with something like that, man. A guy puts together the touch football game without the right seasoning, he gets that thousand-yard stare. And the shakes at night. Oh, how the shakes come. But not for Tagg. He can divy up teams and put the round-robin brackets together like a grizzled veteran just back from Fallouja.

I think there is a serious campaign issue here that has not been addressed, however. How is any state in the Union expected to deal with all of these Romneys coming over their borders, using their facilities, their schools, their hospitals? What is Mitt's position on illegal Romneygration? Should we shut down the borders, or enforce the laws on the books, or should we allow every Romney, all 12-15 million of them (these Mormons replicate quickly), a meaningful path to citizenship that includes earned legalization and a touch-back to the statue of Brigham Young at Temple Square? It's a big question for Iowa, and the whole nation.

Nuñez Drops $4 Million on Sweet AT&T Home Entertainment Center

In preparation for his upcoming appearance on MTV's Cribs, California Assembly Speaker Fabian Nunez has constructed perhaps the most state-of-the-art home entertainment system that anyone has ever seen, using equipment exclusive to AT&T and costing a whopping $4 million dollars - in fact, exactly $4 million dollars, to the penny. Nuñez reportedly paid with a co-signed check.

"This system's got it all," said an ebullient Nuñez while introducing the system to reporters at his downtown LA condo. "There's complete wireless Internet throughout the place, unlimited long distance and cellular service through Cingular, an iPhone, IP television through AT&T U-verse (just OK'd by the state Public Utilities Commission), and we even threw a cell tower on the roof so we'd never drop a signal." AT&T doesn't currently make computers or television monitors or what Nuñez described as "kickass" speakers, but they made a special dispensation for the Speaker, creating limited-edition electronics and hiring some of the best engineers from Sony and Toshiba to do it.

Amazingly, the bill for this service came to precisely $4,000,000.00, coincidentally the same cost that the California Democratic Party refunded to Nuñez last fall after the 2006 elections. AT&T spokesman Donald Ralston denied that this home entertainment system was simply the final piece of some secret deal made between the company, Nuñez and the Party. "Hey, if I had a spare $4 million lying around, I'd get myself this same deal," Ralston said. "You can get Internet in the bathroom. Did you hear me? The bathroom!"

The home entertainment center may prove an asset in the upcoming statewide initiative over relaxing term limits for state legislators. Nuñez plans to offer voters free nights in his "tricked-out" Web-enabled condo, so they can obtain more information on the term limits battle and why state lawmakers need the wisdom of experience to negotiate the difficult straits of Sacramento. He also is using the AT&T deal itself as a selling point. "Do you think some rookie lawmaker could get himself this kind of setup? Did the spokesman tell you that you can get Internet in the BATHROOM???"

Other amenities in the condo include a Web-based kitchen with cooking timers and automated appliances "like the Jetsons," in Nuñez' words. The bathroom reportedly is also Internet-enabled. A text message from Nuñez' iPhone can also unlock the front door.

Fellow lawmakers in the Assembly have offered tepid but mildly jealous support, although Minority Leader Mike Villines claimed that the living room blinds with a giant representation of the AT&T logo on them was "a bit much."

Chris Dodd's great-great-great-great-aunt hated corn.

Senator now "dead in the water" in Iowa

SIOUX CITY (BP) - The longshot campaign of Connecticut Senator Christopher Dodd took a big hit in the Hawkeye State today, when our crack reporting staff found a long-forgotten note form his great-great-great-great-aunt acknowledging a dislike of corn.

"Mama never usually cooks it right," wrote Rose-a-Sharon Millicent Dodd in a diary entry dated March 16, 1835. "An' e'en if she did, it sticks between my teeth like President Jackson sticks to the Indian Removal Act!"

Staffers for Senator Dodd hastily assembled a closed-door meeting to discuss how best to deflect the damage this could do to his nascent campaign. Needless to say, the eating habits of a distant relative twice remove would have a crushing effect in the farmlands of this midwestern state, home to the first caucus in the nation. "If word got out about this, yes, I think you might as well write off Iowa. Corn farmers don't like to be told that somebody doesn't like their product," said Democratic strategist James Carville, who surreptitiously took off his "Hillary '08" button mid-interview.

So far, Sen. Dodd has been largely silent about the controversy, with his only public statement being "Who the heck cares what some ancestor of mine ate for dinner?" But he is not the first candidate trying to live down the sins of his own lineage. Former Massachusetts Governor Mitt Romney is still reeling from revelations that his great-grandfather was a polgymist, and more recently it was revealed that ancestors of Sen. Barack Obama, former Sen. John Edwards and Sen. John McCain all were slaveowners. Remarkably, none of them have dropped out of the 2008 Presidential race due to these scandals, although it has been rumored that former Iowa Gov. Tom Vilsack's departure from the fight for the Democratic nomination is due to rumors that his great-great-great-great-great-great-great-grand-uncle misfired his musket during the Revolutionary War.

One prominent media critic and writer, Eric Boehlert of Media Matters, questioned why the conduct of long-distant relatives has any bearing on the skills and abilities of candidates today, but he was shouted into silence by a team of journalists who were busily scouring the website Genealogy.com for more exclusive scoops. "Of course it matters whether or not Sen. Dodd's great-great-great-great-aunt liked corn," said Howard Kurtz, media analyst for the Washington Post and CNN. "That's like saying it doesn't matter what Hillary Clinton's wrote in her senior thesis in 1969! A President has to be President to all people: corn growers, abolitionists, anti-polygamists, people who don't like thesis papers. If we don't do our job as journalists and dig up all available records on these candidates going back 200 years and try to insinuate that the sins of their predecessors reflect on them, then we've failed the American people."

In a related story, New Mexico Gov. Bill Richardson's mailman hates cheese, dampening his prospects in Wisconsin.

What a Blistering Critique

Oh boy, have they got Al Franken on the run now. I mean, this Senate candidacy might be over before it's even begun.

See, the Republican Party of Minnesota has put out a blistering document (h/t Wonkette) that compiles "The Facts About Al Franken."

And it's not pretty.

Apparently, unbeknownst to millions of Minnesotans, Franken says "mean" and "partisan" and "divisive" statements for no other reason than to get "laughs".

What kind of sick man would do such a thing?

Franken Jokes About Executing Karl Rove & Scooter Libby. “The President’s father...has said
that outing a CIA agent is treason....What it looks like is going to happen is that [Lewis] Libby and Karl
Rove are going to be executed....I don’t know how I feel about it because I’m basically against the
death penalty, but they are going to be executed.” (CBS’s “Late Show with David Letterman,” October 21, 2005)

That's outrageous! Taking a quote from the President's father, using the fact that treason is a capital crime and fashioning a quip at the expense of Karl Rove and Scooter Libby? How could he call for such an execution? How could he joke about something so serious? What, does he think he's some kind of comedian that appears on talk shows for no other reason but to entertain people? The hell?

But it gets worse.

Franken Hates Rush Limbaugh. Q: “Do you really hate Limbaugh or is he just an easy target?” A: “Both.” (Jennifer Senior, “Al Franken, Democrats' Favorite Comic Is Politically Incorrect,” The Hill, August 25, 1996)

He hates Rush Limbaugh! That's going to destroy him in the Democratic primary! I'll bet he'd put out a book attacking poor Rush, who has no way to defend himself, no megaphone for his point of view!

And then there's more.

Franken Claims “Midwest Values”; Franken PAC Funded By Super Rich Hollywood Liberal
Elites. “The list of contributors to comedian Al Franken's political action committee reads like a
celebrity who's who: singer Barbra Streisand, writer-director Nora Ephron, actor-writer Larry David and
actor Jimmy Smits. … His leadership PAC, Midwest Values PAC, raised $500,000, according to a Research Briefing review of campaign finance reports. … Among the contributors to the PAC were actor Larry Hagman,
directors Christopher Guest and Barry Levinson, and writers Harold Ramis and Aaron Sorkin. ‘Curb
Your Enthusiasm’ star Larry David said he couldn't refuse Franken.” (Frederic J. Frommer, “Al Franken Getting
Celebrity Support,” The Associated Press, July 28, 2006)

You see? Al Franken is the darling of Hollywood elites and liberals! The way they take to him, you'd almost think he's WORKED in Hollywood! (By the way, Norm Coleman would never do such a thing like take money from people he's worked with, like his fellow lawyers... I mean, $470,000 is a piddling sum.)

But that's not all. Apparently Franken likes to use "hyperbole" and "irony" other big-city talk.

Franken Compared Clinton’s Impeachment Trial To Holocaust. “Moments before they delivered
the opening arguments in President Clinton's impeachment trial, the 13 House managers gathered
around a conference table in a meeting room deep inside the cavernous Capitol…. On many days,
there was a sprinkling of empty seats inside the Senate's visitor's gallery, where spectators included
the likes of Whoopi Goldberg and comedian Al Franken. ‘If you can get humor out of the Holocaust, I
guess you can get it here,’ Franken said.” (Paul Schwartzman, “The Trial That Wasn’t,” Daily News, February 14, 1999)

Franken Ridiculed Plight Of Afghan Women. “The event, co-hosted at the W New York Hotel by
Glamour magazine and the Feminist Majority Foundation, attracted such A-list women as Meryl
Streep, Laura Dern, Melissa Etheridge, Marlo Thomas, Glamour editor in chief Bonnie Fuller and Al
Franken, who bombed at the podium, especially with such jokes as, ‘Why don't we focus on what
Afghan women can do? They can cook, bear children and pray. As I recall, that was fine for our
grandmothers.’” (Mitchell Fink With Lauren Rubin, “Liza Wants To Be A Hit, Just Not A Huge One,” New York Daily News, October 20, 1999)

He compared Clinton to the Holocaust! OK, well, he said the word Holocaust. But still! Godwin's Law, Godwin's Law! And he tells jokes that the New York Daily News decided were bad (maybe because they didn't understand them, like the Minnesota GOP -ed.)

Did I mention that Franken is an angry, vile, ANGRY, angry man?

WHEN AL FRANKEN ATTACKS

Franken Called President George H.W. Bush A “Dink.” “And when the networks projected George Bush as the 41st president, comedian Al Franken took to the stage to cheer up the crowd. The Dukakis campaign has asked me to tell you that the views I express here tonight are not the views of the Dukakis campaign, but my own,’ deadpanned the "Saturday Night Live" entertainer-writer. ‘Now that I've got that settled, let me ask you ... " Long pause for effect. ‘ISN'T GEORGE BUSH A DINK?’” (Lois Romano, “Finally! The Fat Lady Sings; In Boston, The Dank Specter Of Defeat,” The Washington Post, November 9, 1988)

I'm pretty confident that the voters of Minnesota will agree that calling somebody a dink 20 years ago pretty much disqualifies you for elected office in perpetuity.

But all of this is fluff. Let me get to the most damaging allegations. First, there are these damning, insensitive remarks made to the future of America, our college students:

Franken Writes Of Delivering Condescending Commencement Address To Technical College
Students:


Graduates Are “The Nation’s Future Air Conditioner Repairmen.” “When I was first
asked to speak at Hartford State Technical College, I jumped at the opportunity. Because,
you see, I thought I had been asked to speak at Harvard, which would have been quite an
honor. But instead I am here with you, the nation’s future air conditioner repairmen.” (Al Franken,
Oh, The Things I Know! Plume, p. 6-7, 2002)


Graduates Are “Already Dead” Because They Will “Live Useless Lives.” “Goethe once
said, ‘A useless life is an early death.’ In Goethe’s terms, most of you are already dead.
Because most of you will live useless lives. You will, you will, and you will.” (Al Franken, Oh, The
Things I Know! Plume, p. 6-7, 2002)


Speech Will “Probably Be Way Over” Graduates’ Heads. “But back to Goethe, and please
remember that I prepared this speech for Harvard students, so it will probably be way over
your heads.” (Al Franken, Oh, The Things I Know! Plume, p. 6-7, 2002)

He called college graduates useless and stupid! All right, sure, he pretended to do that, because it was a fictional passage in his book written in a condescending persona, but STILL. How dare he insult imaginary students with fake invective like that!

But hold on to your hats, kids. Because this is the line that will lose Franken the election, for sure. No doubt about it.

Franken Plan To Reduce Debt: Blast The Elderly In Rockets Over Snake River And Put It On
Pay-Per-View. “Every Sunday, we put an elderly (or terminally ill-person) in a rocket, fire it over the
Snake River, and put it on pay-per-view. The revenues go straight into reducing the debt.” (Al Franken,
Rush Limbaugh Is A Big, Fat Idiot, Island Books, p. 139, 1996)

What senior in their right mind would vote for someone who wants to blast them in a rocket for fundraising purposes? Do YOU want to see Grandma or Grandpa soaring through the stratosphere, live on pay-per-view, just so future generations can have their debt burden lowered? And for those of you who think this is another one of Franken's "jokes," it was part of his serious policy paper "Rush Limbaugh is a Big, Fat Idiot," which I believe he produced for the Brookings Institution. Absolutely everything in that tome is to be taken at face value, particularly the "fat" and "idiot" parts.

This is devastating. If I were Franken, I would not only abandon the campaign, but leave the country. I mean, what if the Minnesota GOP finds out he was already President and he did a terrible job?

Good work while it lasted, Franken, but your past has clearly caught up with you.

(interesting that this comes out in the same week that Fox News tries to put out a comedy show for conservatives. Both serve to prove that they are incapable of getting a joke.)

How The Terrorists Will Follow Us Home

If we leave, they'll follow us here. It's as simple as that.
-John Boehner, House of Representatives, Feb. 13, 2007

The terrorists will follow us home if we leaave
-George W. Bush, The White House, Feb. 14, 2007

Some liberal bloggers believe that such a scenario is impossible. How would terrorists be able to follow Americans 10,000 miles from Baghdad to the United States? But to suggest that this could never happen reflects a poverty of imagination. Indeed the tracking and following skills of the world's most dangerous terrorists have been honed to a sharp edge over the past decade, and they are ready to pursue a variety of strategies that will result in their finding America.

The first and most dangerous possibility is what the terrorists refer to as "the Max Cady option". In this scenario, the terrorists will hold on to the undercarriage of the Chinook helicopters and the JASDF C-130 transport planes used to ferry the troops back home from Iraq. The terrorists have studied this and concluded that, with the right tailwind and the proper gloves, they could hang on all the way to touchdown at Dover AFB in Delaware (see Fig 1-1).



(Fig. 1-1. The Max Cady Option (artist's rendering))

Now, some would suggest that this would only get one terrorist to follow us home at a time. But military intelligence has acknowledged that there might be room for two in the space between the wheel well. And, as we have 140,000 troops as well as 100,000 additional security personnel serving in Iraq, and the C-130 only seats 130 passengers, you can see that Al Qaeda could be expected to transport over 1,800 terrorists using this technique, provided they don't fall to their deaths somewhere just west of the Azores.

But this is but one of the options available to the terrorists. And another has everything to do with the faulty design of out transport vehicles. You see, both the C-295M Twin Turboprop Transport Aircraft and the IL-76 Medium-Range Transport Aircraft, and even the V-22 Osprey, in fact practically every vehicle in the Air Force fleet, emit bread crumbs (see Fig. 1-2). All an enterprising terrorist would have to do is pick up the trail of bread crumbs released out of the back of the plane, and they would have no problem tracking the flight.



(Fig. 1-2. KC-767 Tanker Transport Aircraft Emission)

Now, I have no idea why this was built into the Air Force design; no doubt it's the insidious work of Big Bread Crumb (they're always trying to insert their products into bloated defense appropriation bills). But the point is that we cannot backwards-engineer an anti-bread crumb device, or put "trailers" in harm's way to pick up the bread crumbs and move them off the track, without compromising the mission and wasting valuable time. So this is simply something we're going to have to deal with.

Some would argue that our military, the most experienced and well-trained in the world, would surely notice if terrorists were following their bread crumb trail. But the terrorists are way ahead of us on that. In fact, they are diligently schooled in the fine art of hiding behind trees so as to not get spotted. Most terrorist training camps are littered with large spruce, maple, redwood, sequoia, and larch trees (see Fig. 1-3), and would-be terrorists are taught how to make themselves small and to keep all body parts behind the tree to avoid being noticed.



(Fig. 1-3. Terrorist training camp - approximation)

This is going to be difficult to countermand, as "finding people hiding behind a tree" was recklessly kept out of the new counterinsurgency manual being used by the military. This was an oversight of epic proportions.

Should we fix the bread crumb problem, and should we scan the transport and cargo planes before takeoff to see if anybody's hiding in the undercarriage, and should we become more adept at looking behind THE WHOLE TREE, not just glancing, there's still another technique that the terrorists are sure to use. They may ask us where we're going.

Here's a sample of this technique in practice:

Terrorist Disguised As Fruit Salesman: Hey, where are you going?

Unwitting American Solider (getting on plane): Oh, back to the US, why?

Terrorist: No reason.

Soldier: You're not thinking of following me or anything, are you?

Terrorist: No, why would I do that?

Soldier: Oh, OK. In that case, here's an address where you can reach me.

(soldier scrawls down exact address of his base location in the United States)

Soldier: I put the address for a nearby nuclear power plant on there too, in case you want to take their tour.

Terrorist: Thank you! (smiles devilishly)

Obviously, we're dealing with an enemy who is very proficient at extracting information that they can put to use later. And I hear there are even maps of the United States available for the terrorists to download and use once they find out where the troops are going.

I would not be so quick to dismiss these thoughts from Republicans that the terrorists would follow us home. They obviously have the skills and capability to do it. We need to be very wary of this possibility, and do whatever we can to throw them off the track. Only then willwe be safe enough to win the war on terror.