What Liberal Media?
Anybody who doubts that America is degenerating into a one-party cesspool of crony capitalism should consider the case of Dan Rather and
60 Minutes. It is compelling evidence that the "free press" will not save the country by informing the electorate of dangers it's facing. There major commercial media are far too beholden to the GOP not to bow to the demands of that gang.
Salon has an excellent treatment of the subject; included in it is the reason why the truth, like say the truth about President Chickenhawk's AWOL history, is consistently (if not constantly) and effectively suppressed by the people who are supposed to be bringing it to us:
As the panel called witnesses, Sumner Redstone, CEO of Viacom (CBS's
owner), declared his interest in the 2004 election. "I look at the election from
what's good for Viacom. I vote for what's good for Viacom. I vote, today,
Viacom," he said. In fact, Viacom had a number of crucial issues before the Federal Communications Commission, including loosening media ownership rules. "I don't want to denigrate Kerry," said Redstone, "but from a Viacom standpoint, the election of a Republican administration is a better deal. Because the Republican administration has stood for many things we believe in, deregulation and so on. The Democrats are not bad people ... But from a Viacom standpoint, we believe the election of a Republican administration is better for our company."
Department of Projections
The limbo contest continues among our mainstream politicians. Who will sink the lowest and win the support of the lynch mob? Will it be Madman Giulliani? Mitt "Double-Gitmo" Romney? Fred "The Mole" Thompson? Where Presidential politics is headed is richly indicated by this quote from a safely anonymous White House mouthpiece:
As for Obama, a senior White House official said the freshman senator from
Illinois was "capable" of the intellectual rigor needed to win the presidency
but instead relies too heavily on his easy charm.
"It's sort of like, 'that's all I need to get by,' which bespeaks sort of a
condescending attitude towards the voters," said the official, speaking on
condition of anonymity. "And a laziness, an intellectual laziness."
Especially as applied to a magna cum laude President of Law reviw grad of Harvard law, this is a signal to all those who loves their negroes stereotyped: the GOP is on your side. We're with you, Klansmen!
Of course it is yet another of the many gem-quality projections issued by the Bush team. It may even have superceded the First Vegetable's crusade to get white people into Michigan law school, based doubtless in his sense of injustice at having been legacied into Yale, rather than the community college his transcript merited. Intellectually lazy, indeed.
Conservatism shows itself once again to be not a philosophy, but a projective neurosis. Guilt is to slur as thirst is to mirage.
We Are All Good Germans Now
I can't really understand why so many politicians and pundits are queer for a uniform. Not everybody who puts on the suit and does what he's told is a hero, and those who think they they are know nothing of soldiers or heroism. Ask any soldier -- he'll tell you he met a whole lot of shitheads in the service, shirkers, bullshitters, cowards, backstabbers, thieves and worse. It's much like the human race in general -- but with an inflated sense of self importance, too much time on their hands, and guns.
But apparently MoveOn took free speech too far by saying about Petraeus what his brother officers are wont to say. The senators just won't have their heartthrob in all the flag-flare besmirched, no matter how much
patent bullshit he spilled all over the Hill. It's pretty apparent he lied to Congress, but hey, let's
condemn MoveOn instead.
Unbelievable. Alberto Gonzales runs the Justice Department like Tammany Hall but nobody condemns him. Bush squanders a trillion dollars and a million lives to make the world safe from an old man in a hole and....
I grow weary.
Alabama Justice
People should be made aware of Scott Horton's remarkable series on the Seigelman case in Alabama (at Harper' s), an outrageous case, brilliantly researched and fluently told. Gripping, some of the best stuff on the web since Firedoglake did the Libby trial.
Kweschuns, kweshchuns
Questions I'd realy like to see someone ask Petraeus: Is there no written report on The Surge because the White House would not issue one that you would sign? We're you asked to sign off on claims that you would not?
A question I'd like to see someone ask and and all Presidential candidates: Given that the Bush administration has been, by any measure, the most corrupt, inept, secretive and dictatorial in the nation's history, how do you plan to document and remedy the abuses of the last two terms?
Miscellany
I was at a beerfest/concert in Richmond recently, there to see old friends and
Scott Miller. I ran into another old friend, there on a wholly different mission, in the hotel elevator. She sent me this image of her work, which the New York Times blurbs
here:
And on the light side, Michelle Erickson, a present-day ceramicist, has
satirical fun with ''St. George and the Dragon,'' a tableau depicting a monkey
who stands atop a donkey, thrusting his lance at the Statue of Liberty, who lies
at his feet, as a morose vulture looks on.
Note how the writer pointedly ignores the crux of the matter so as to spare President Chimpy's feelings. The spirit of Judith Miller lives on.
You've gotta love the circus that is Larry "I Am Not Gay" Craig. May he carry the GOP's hypercompensating, closet case flag forever! Apropos this, I was thinking about my recent meditation on conservatism as neurosis, and recalled my maxim, derived from Kierkegaard:
The strength of a conviction is inversely proportional to its publicity. Those who are secure enough in their masculinity (or lack thereof) don't really feel the need to declare it or applaud it. See also any of the
doughy, draft-dodging, smart-asses who speak for the "conservatives" of today.
