John McCain: I know you've deceived me, now here's a surprise

Rick Moran at the still unironically named RightWingNutHouse states the case about those "Rebel" Republicans clearly:

The re-interpreting of Geneva Convention protocols against torture has drawn the most fire from McCain and his supporters. What the White House calls a “redefinition” many experts on international law say is an attempt to circumvent the Geneva articles while immunizing American personnel (especially the CIA) from any charges of war crimes. This is extremely shaky legal ground for the Administration and it has apparently not sat well with lawyers at the Pentagon:

. . . The Republicans certainly had ulterior political motives in bringing this legislation to the fore 6 weeks before a mid term election in order to highlight the Democratic party’s unfitness and irresponsibility on national security issues. But the fact remains that the heartfelt opposition to the President’s proposals by conservatives carries far more weight in this debate than anything the politically motivated Democrats could muster. McCain, Powell, and the rest have proven that they are not only good Americans. They have also proven that they are good Republicans as well. This despite the probability that their opposition to the President will not win Republicans any votes in November nor advance their personal ambitions with core Republican supporters.

And of course, being good Republicans is more important than being good Americans. And, as we have seen, it was truly all for show. Kevin Drum offers evidence:

TORTURE ROUNDUP....Some good points from around the blogosphere about the torture "compromise" spearheaded by John McCain:

• TPM reader JO: True, torture has always gone on "in the shadows"....[but] when the bill becomes law, it will be America's official policy for professional CIA interrogators to use torture. And it will be perfectly legal. Period. We are not even remotely returning to the status quo.

• TPM reader JC: Right now, CIA are the bad guys. As far as I know, military interrogators were not using "coercive techniques." However, if this bill passes, military interrogators will not only be ALLOWED to use them, they will be EXPECTED to use them. Which is one reason so many military people have come out against it.

• Charles Pierce: The national Democratic Party is no longer worth the cement needed to sink it to the bottom of the sea. For an entire week, it allowed a debate on changing the soul of the country to be conducted intramurally between the Torture Porn and Useful Idiot wings of the Republican Party....It contributed nothing. On the question of whether or not the United States will reconfigure itself as a nation which tortures its purported enemies and then grants itself absolution through adjectives — "Aggressive interrogation techniques" — the Democratic Party had...no opinion.

• Juliette Kayyem: Marty [Lederman] and others are commenting on the wiggle room left to the President in determining what methods would be prohibited but may not constitute grave breaches of the Geneva Conventions....It is this concession to the President that is mindboggling in almost all respects because the hold-outs could have given the President the less than grave tactics without giving him the sole authority to determine what they were. I'm eating my words; Marty is right — McCain is a tragic figure now.

Meanwhile, Tom Malinowski from Human Rights Watch schools us on where we learned some of these harmless interrogation techniques at WaPo:

President Bush is urging Congress to let the CIA keep using "alternative" interrogation procedures -- which include, according to published accounts, forcing prisoners to stand for 40 hours, depriving them of sleep and use of the "cold cell," in which the prisoner is left naked in a cell kept near 50 degrees and doused with cold water.

. . . He might begin with Robert Conquest's classic work on Stalin, "The Great Terror." Conquest wrote: "When there was time, the basic [Soviet Secret police] method for obtaining confessions and breaking the accused man was the 'conveyor' -- continual interrogation by relays of police for hours and days on end. As with many phenomena of the Stalin period, it has the advantage that it could not easily be condemned by any simple principle. Clearly, it amounted to unfair pressure after a certain time and to actual physical torture later still, but when? . . . At any rate, after even twelve hours, it is extremely uncomfortable. After a day, it becomes very hard. And after two or three days, the victim is actually physically poisoned by fatigue. It was as painful as any torture."

Someone needs to read this on the Senate floor. Bastards.

Sweet Jane, anyone who's ever had a dream

Our friend, and L.A. based blogger (on sabbatical right now) Jane Hamsher of FireDogLake fame, was on Keith Olbermann's Countdown tonight:


Jane and some other influential bloggers met with former Pres. Bill Clinton last week, and some pictures of that meeting caused some swooning in the winger blognutworld. See Feministing for further details.

Several of us L.A.-based bloggers have been courted by politicos like Wesley Clark, John Kerry, and Russ Feingold. So Jane's appearance, along with RJ Eskow's visit to Sean Hannity's radio show, and The Young Turks' addition to Air America Radio's talent lineup, emphasize that blogtopia (y!sctp) is becoming a collective major player in US politics.

Need further proof? Lieberman, party of 1....


For fun: here are the Velvet Underground doing Lou Reed's Sweet Jane:

Let us cling together

It's Sep. 19th again, my sister Kristin's Birthday:

When I'm gone no need to wonder
If I ever think of you
The same moon shines
The same wind blows for both of us
And time is but a paper moon
Be not gone

Though I'm gone it's as though
I hold the flower that touches you
A new life grows
The blossom knows there's no one else
Could warm my heart as much as you
Be not gone

Let us cling together as the years go by
Oh my love my love
In the quiet of the night
Let our candle always burn
Let us never lose the lessons we have learned

Kristin Carol Anderson:  Sep 19, 1959 - Mar. 9, 2002

Yo ho, yo ho, the Pirates' life for me

It's Talk Like A Pirate Day:

Why do we need an International Talk Like a Pirate Day?

Make no mistake. We do. But it's a little hard to articulate why, especially when you've made the mistake of referring to your wife as a scurvy bilge rat and tried to order her back into the galley.

Talking like a pirate is fun. It's really that simple.

It gives your conversation a swagger, an elán, denied to landlocked lubbers. The best explanation came from a guy at a Cleveland radio station who interviewed us on the 2002 Talk Like a Pirate Day. He told us we were going to be buried by people asking for interviews because it was a "whimsical alternative" to all the serious things that were making the news so depressing.

In other words, silliness is the holiday's best selling point.

Go have fun, arrgghhhh, matey!

We are strong, no one can tell us we're wrong

From NYTimes:

Patricia Kennedy Lawford, who as a sister of President John F. Kennedy had a front row seat to history and forged new links between her brother’s administration and Hollywood through her marriage to the actor Peter Lawford, died yesterday at her home in Southampton, N.Y. She was 82 and also had a home in Manhattan.

From Associated Press, via CNN:

"My sister Pat is irreplaceable," Massachusetts Democratic Sen. Kennedy said in a statement. "Everyone who knew Pat adored her. She was admired for her great style, for her love and support of the arts, her wit and generosity -- and for the singular sense of wonder and joy she brought into our lives."

While always a tireless supporter of her brother's political campaigns, inspired by her father's career in the movie industry, she set her sights on Hollywood at a young age soon after her graduation from Rosemont College.

She began working as an assistant in NBC's New York production department and then moved to Los Angeles with the goal of becoming a producer and director. She worked as an assistant for Kate Smith's radio program, and for Father Peyton's Family Theater and Family Rosary Crusade, according to the Web site for the John F. Kennedy Library and Museum.

She met British actor Peter Lawford through her brother, the future president, in 1949. They were married in 1954 and had four children before divorcing in 1965.

Lawford traveled the country in support of her brother's presidential campaign in 1960 and was also involved in the political campaigns of Robert Kennedy and Edward Kennedy.

She moved to New York City in 1965 where she became a supporter of the city's arts scene. She founded the National Committee for the Literary Arts and also worked with the National Center on Addiction and with the Kennedy Library.

Sad. Too bad the right-wingers who have a congenital hatred for anything related to the Kennedys will start their smear campaign now.

Just whistle while you work

Washington Monthly has posted 7 interesting editorials, collectively titled:

Conservatives on why the GOP should lose in 2006.

Most make honest, thoughtful criticisms of the radical right administration and Congress currently running the country. Sadly, however, most also serve up the usual "Dems are & have nothing" crap, as if to say that while the Republicans have thoroughly screwed the pooch,
the Democrats would have too, probably worse.

Bruce Fein: Restrain This White House

With Democrats controlling Congress, we could expect command-and-control laws requiring windmills on every farm, photovoltaic cells in every home, and hydrogen fuel in every car.

In foreign affairs, Democrats are stalled in the horse latitudes. They have no philosophical starting point. They sport no strategy for confronting the nuclear ambitions of Iran or North Korea, the quagmires in Iraq and Afghanistan, or the growing friction between Japan on the one hand and China and South Korea on the other. Beating swords into plowshares and making war no more is not a strategy but utopian faith.

So conservatives should weep if Democrats prevail in the House or Senate.

God, I hate this crap. I guess that more Fair And Balanced™. But wait, there's more. He does actually say:

Republicans in Congress have bowed to the president’s scorn for the rule of law and craving for secret government. They have voted against Democratic Sen. Russell Feingold’s resolution to rebuke Bush for violating federal statutes and crippling checks and balances.

So the criticism is strong, it just can't be made without slamming the opposition, the rhetorical dirty trick of a grade school debater.

Joe Scarborough: And we thought Clinton had no self-control

But compare Clinton’s 3.4 percent growth rate to the spending orgy that has dominated Washington since Bush moved into town. With Republicans in charge of both sides of Pennsylvania Avenue, spending growth has averaged 10.4 percent per year. And the GOP’s reckless record goes well beyond runaway defense costs.

. . .This must all be shocking to my Republican friends who still believe our country would be a better place if our party controlled every branch of government as well as every news network, movie studio, and mid-American pulpit.

Seems pretty positive. Too bad it has to be tempered with this:

After six years of Republican recklessness at home and abroad, I seriously doubt Nancy Pelosi or Harry Reid or the aforementioned Bourbon Street hookers could spend this country any deeper into debt than my Republican Party. With any luck, Democrats will launch destructive investigations, a new era of bad feelings will break out, and George W. Bush will stop using his veto pen to fill in Rangers’ box scores and instead start using it like a conservative president should.

Sigh. Next we have:

Christopher Buckley: Let’s quit while we’re behind

Bob Woodward asked Bush 43 if he had consulted his father before invading Iraq. The son replied that he had consulted “a higher father.” That frisson you feel going up your spine is the realization that he meant it. And apparently the higher father said, “Go for it!” There are those of us who wish he had consulted his terrestrial one; or, if he couldn’t get him on the line, Brent Scowcroft. Or Jim Baker. Or Henry Kissinger. Or, for that matter, anyone who has read a book about the British experience in Iraq. (18,000 dead.)

Pretty strong crititique. As usual, mitigated by this:

Time to hand over this sorry enchilada to Hillary and Nancy Pelosi and Joe Biden and Charlie Rangel and Harry Reid, who has the gift of being able to induce sleep in 30 seconds. Or, with any luck, to Mark Warner or, what the heck, Al Gore. I’m not much into polar bears, but this heat wave has me thinking the man might be on to something.

All are worth reading, but the scariest is by Richard Viguerie. Remember, Viguerie is perhaps single-handedly responsible for the Right seeming to dominate the political spectrum today, through his innovative (at the time) use of direct mail appeals for contributions. Additionally, he was instrumental in the founding of the Moral Majority. The MM has proven over time to be neither Moral, nor in the Majority (see Pat Robertson, Ralph Reed, and others).

Richard Viguerie: The show must not go on

With their record over the past few years, the Big Government Republicans in Washington do not merit the support of conservatives. They have busted the federal budget for generations to come with the prescription-drug benefit and the creation and expansion of other programs. They have brought forth a limitless flow of pork for the sole, immoral purpose of holding onto office. They have expanded government regulation into every aspect of our lives and refused to deal seriously with mounting domestic problems such as illegal immigration.

Of course, that makes sense to any sane person. But remember, this is Viguerie. He continues:

Sometimes a loss for the Republican Party is a gain for conservatives. Often, a little taste of liberal Democrats in power is enough to remind the voters what they don’t like about liberal Democrats and to focus the minds of Republicans on the principles that really matter. That’s why the conservative movement has grown fastest during those periods when things seemed darkest, such as during the Carter administration and the first two years of the Clinton White House.

Read all the articles, Some, especially Scarbourough's are actually funny. But Viguerie, without humor, without snark, is the darkest. This is the ultimated Movement Conservative, who sees any win by the Left to be not a return to balance and bi-partisan power, but rather a push back to an off-track Right. He truly believes that the renewed Republican Party, as it returns to true conservative roots, should rule the U.S. And he has shown the money and organizational skills to make that happen.

Be afraid, be very afraid.

Bob Harris: I see the lights, I see the party lights

Bob Harris's new book is finally on the market! We went to a party tonight at the lovely and talented Bob's (and Jane's) place, got a signed copy of the book, and had a heck of a good time. And no, we didn't play the home version of Jeopardy, or Will It Float, or any other TV games, just visited with friends old and new, and had a great time.

Publisher's Weekly has a great review:

In this eccentric, energetic and engaging memoir of his long run on America's favorite television quiz show, Harris, a former standup comedian and current comedy writer, gives readers the lowdown on life as "one of the show's big winners-and big losers." He promises to tell all, and he does, from the show's beginning in 1963 to his own blow-by-blow experiences as a contestant. He discusses his growing obsession with winning, how it cost him a girlfriend and how he luckily found another. For those who would follow in his footsteps, he is generous with tips on strategy: buzzer skills, how to predict topics (keep holidays in mind), how to suss out a Daily Double, which clues to tackle first, how to one-up your competition (though one of the gems of this often charming book is the account of the quite sincere friendships that grew among the top competitors). Like many a standup routine, his narrative zigs and zags back and forth in time and topic, but like the best of routines, it is sharply timed, pulling out many swerves and surprises to keep the reader alert. And what is Alex Trebek really like- "I dunno," says Harris, but the Trebek we meet is highly professional and unfailingly courteous. "Just like on TV."

Wall Street Journal also has a great review, but they put it behind a subscription wall, the bastards.

For the record, in attendance as old friends tonight were Kevin & Marian Drum, skippy & mrs. skippy (pictured here), & Greg & Christine Saunders. A good time was had by all.

Thanks, Bob.

I heard there was a secret chord

In art, as in many aspects of life, there can be a confidence, a drive, that transcends mere ability. We hear it in the singer, for example, who rises above the bounds of his or her instrument and soars, creating undying grace and art.

Sometimes the instrument is flawed, the voice can crack, the pitch can be less than certain, yet the certainty of the presentation is all that matters.

The fingers may slip on the frets, yet the notes claim their place in space, with a power not forged by skill alone.

Thus is talent expressed, in a magical confluence of drive, desire, and execution. Mere mortals can hope to achieve this, great artists do it unflinchingly. It may even seem naive, expressed with a childlike clarity of purpose that those of us who pretend to talent yearn for: the ability to overcome ourselves, to say, sing, or be what we wish to express.

While many musicians I admire fit this description, Jeff Buckley stands apart. I won't tell his story here, go to the wikipedia link for that. But here are two performences of his version of Leonard Cohen's "Hallelujah".

The first is pretty straight:



The second, is a little looser, and takes a few more chances, and thus may be the more intimate. You decide:



The album version was used in a very poignant moment on the TV series West Wing, if anyone remembers.

Grace finds goodness in everything

Nancy Grace is the cool, calm, even-tempered host of CNN's Nancy Grace show. She always brings a balanced viewpoint to discussions of comtemporary legal...AHHHHHH!

Sorry, I couldn't go on with that line of crap. Nancy Grace is a psycho attention whore who thinks everyone is guilty until presumed innocent. Don't believe me? Just look:

On an April 14 show, Grace moderated a short panel discussion about the prospects of the death penalty for a Florida man connected to a missing girl, even though authorities at that time declined to even name him as a suspect in the case.

It's only a matter of time before her decision to choose heroes and villains before the story has unfolded ends badly, the way it did for journalists who piled on exonerated Olympic bombing suspect Richard Jewell. Grace cast the missing Jennifer Wilbanks as a sympathetic figure, and look how that blew up in her face.

"Well, look, I don't have a degree in being a police chief. But I can tell you this much: This is not cold feet, all right?" Grace said on April 28, less than 24 hours before the bride-to-be proved her wrong. "This is not cold feet. I know that much."

There's more, so, so much more. But yesterday, even Nancy outdid herself:

Two weeks after telling police that her son had been snatched from his crib, Melinda Duckett found herself reeling in an interview with CNN’s famously prosecutorial Nancy Grace. Before it was over, Grace was pounding her desk and loudly demanding to know: “Where were you? Why aren’t you telling us where you were that day?”

And this:

On Sept. 7, Melinda Duckett gave a telephone interview to CNN Headline News' Grace, a former prosecutor known for practically cross-examining her guests. Duckett stumbled over such questions as whether she had taken a polygraph — she said she refused on the advice of her divorce lawyer — and where, exactly, she was shopping with the boy before his disappearance.

Hours before the interview aired, Duckett shot herself Friday with her grandfather's gun at her grandparents' house, up the road from where she was living.

Of course, even in the face of such tragedy, Nancy somehow finds the courage to go on:

“Nancy Grace and the others, they just bashed her to the end,” Duckett’s grandfather Bill Eubank said Tuesday. “She wasn’t one anyone ever would have thought of to do something like this. She and that baby just loved each other, couldn’t get away from each other. She wouldn’t hurt a bug.”

Janine Iamunno, a spokeswoman for Grace, said in an e-mail that Duckett’s death was “an extremely sad development” but that the program would continue covering the case.

God, what a horrible person! As the first link above continues:

If one looks at every page of every transcript since "Nancy Grace" debuted three months ago, the program more closely resembles a torch-bearing mob than the "legal issues" show that CNN promised. Grace has created her own parallel universe in which guests are berated for advocating due process, panelists are invited back frequently if they make ad hominem attacks and suspects are seemingly guilty until proven innocent.

Even Dan Riehl, at the rightwinger Riehl World View finds Nancy objectionable:

Nancy Grace Show Kills

Unfortunately, I don't mean in the ratings area. For all anyone knows, the Mother may have been guilty of something, but we may never know, now. And television isn't the forum to play this madness out.

But some of his commentors set the record straight, as true compassionate conservatives:

• we were just glad that she did Floridians a favor and killed herself. She saved us the cost of a lengthy trial. God don't have mercy on her soul!
• Odds are this woman killed her own child and when she didn't get the sympathy she hoped for and basically got exposed as a liar by a TV host she decided to save herself the humiliation of being accused and convicted of baby killing so she did the world a favor and killed herself, the only sad part is she apparently didn't tell anyone where she threw out her two year old child.
• NG did the right thing in confronting her. She was totally boy crazy and was only interested in what was between her legs. She did us a favor in offing herself. Too bad she thought she had to off her child, too.

This, folks, is the far right. This is GWBush's base. And I have a suggestion: Rather than trying to convince them, or even pander to them, let's just totally ignore them.

Or maybe internment camps...yeah, that's the ticket!

It's the end of the world as we know it and I feel fine.

Officially, now there's only one reason to watch or read anything on MSNBC: Olbermann. Why, you ask? I'll tell you.

Eric Alterman has been fired:

First, the bad news: I’m fired. MSNBC.com has decided to end its support of “Altercation,” and indeed, all of its association with yours truly as of this Friday.

Ok, now, the good news: My friends at Media Matters for America have decided that the cause of continuing “Altercation” in its current, politically independent form to be worthy of their support. So we’re not dying, just moving. Our new URL will be www.MediaMatters.org/Altercation and I will also become a MM Senior Fellow.

Eric is one of the sharpest knives in the drawer, smart, witty, and lovably sarcastic. And he has been kind enough to post some of my writings. In fact, the very first time I saw my name on a major internet location was when he posted a piece I sent him about the beginnings of the Country Rock scene here in L.A. in the mid-to-late '60s. My take was that it didn't start with the Flying Burrito Bros., but rather with Buffalo Springfield. But that's not important now.

Eric has a truly unique voice, which he now shares at Huffington Post (where, for reasons not entirely clear, I also am allowed to contribute), and his Media Matters gig promises to be really great, since there will be absolutely no constraints on what he may say.

And he always took the time to respond to emails I sent him, graciously, and has kept on posting stuff I send (not always, but still...) and giving me links. I guess I have to say that his influence and kindness, along with that of Tom tbogg, convinced me to start blogging myself. For that, Eric, my undying gratitude.