Posted 8:13 AM by Scoobie Davis

Let Us Pray
Let's us pray that MediaWhoresOnline will be back this week

Posted 8:11 AM by Scoobie Davis

I'm Finally Back with Proof of God
I'm finally back after a long Christmas vacation. The other day, I saw proof of God. I was at the Third Street Promenade in Santa Monica milling around before I saw Gangs of New York (which was great) and I saw a table set up by devotees of fringe presidential candidate Lyndon Larouche. To me, that's proof of the existence of a God with a sense of humor. As a mocker of the political fringe, I bowed my head and thanked Him for bestowing upon me this opportunity for ridicule. So I went up to the table and acted like a live one. After a minute or so of hearing incoherent ranting (it was worse that Drudge's radio show), I informed the guy that I was an agent of Henry Kissinger (who,according to LaRouche, is responsible for all the evil in the world). The guy looked kind of shocked, so I said, "Just messing with you" and went to my movie.

Posted 9:36 AM by Scoobie Davis

Merry Christmas
Have a happy holiday season. I'm enjoying the holidays and working on some important stuff that will be on this web site in January. I'll be back on Friday.

Posted 9:04 AM by Scoobie Davis

Nominate Sun Myung Moon as The Washington Times's Knave of the Year
A few days ago, I mentioned that the Moonie Times is having a Noble and Knave of the Year contest. Do your part and enter Sun Myung Moon, an odious America-hater (America, according to Moon, represents "Satan's harvest") and criminal, as Knave of the Year. To do this, e-mail the nomination to crousseaux@washingtontimes.com with "Nobles Contest" in the subject line.

Posted 5:07 PM by Scoobie Davis

Upcoming Posts
I'll have a couple more posts tonight.
UPDATE: Friends came over and I'm partying tonight. I'll do it tomorrow. Hubba Hubba!
12/21 UPDATE: I'll post tomorrow

Posted 10:37 AM by Scoobie Davis

Quantification Sophistry

Do book sales validate a person’s ideas? Well, if book sales are anything like movie box office receipts, then the answer is no. Movie box office sales for 2002 just topped 2001 numbers, making 2002 a record year. Some of the hits, such as Signs, deserved to be hits. Other hits, such as Sweet Home Alabama, were pap. Some good films like Auto Focus did nothing at the box office.

A similar situation exists with book sales. Slander, an intellectually dishonest book was number one on the bestseller lists for weeks. Al Gore’s books did not sell. As I write this, Savage Nation by Michael Savage—which hasn’t even been released, is number 20 on Amazon.com. Of course, I haven’t read the book yet, but if it reflects the thoughts that are aired on Savage’s radio show (e.g. yesterday, Savage referred to Trent Lott’s hateful words in his paean to Strom Thurmond as “innocent comments”) then the book is crap. By the way, Savage’s radio show has ads for an herbal pill for sexual dysfunction.

Posted 9:13 AM by Scoobie Davis

We Don't Have Trent Lott To Kick Around Anymore
It's just as well. There are bigger fish to fry. Some have suggested that Ashcroft should be the next target. The choices I have mentioned are Katherine Harris and Jeb Bush (scroll down to 12/13). But Rush's recent racist comments (scroll down to 12/18) put him in the running. Let's roll!

Posted 5:57 AM by Scoobie Davis

Quick Takes
As an Angelino, I find it especially funny that the Norah Vincent is still seething over being busted by Jim Capozzola (who is the opposite of a blowhard) for plagiarism (click here for Jim’s rebuttal). On the topic of blowhards, since Rush recently made a blatently racist comment (scroll down to 12/18), I think an e-mail to Howard Kurtz for defending this hatemonger is in order: kurtzh@washpost.com. Barney Gumble has a content-analysis study that reveals the overrepresentation of right-wing think tanks on C-SPAN; I await an article on HMO’s by Dr. Nick Riveria. Anthony York’s article in Salon on George W. Bush’s coziness with Confederates is another reason to get Salon Premium. Buy my friggin’ video—it’s entertaining and your purchase will keep me blogging.

Posted 1:03 PM by Scoobie Davis

Al Franken Smacked Around Katherine Harris on Late Night With Conan O'Brien Last Night
CONAN: You claim that you saw former Florida Secretary of State Katherine Harris recently. You saw her?

AL: I did.

CONAN: In person?

AL: Yeah. For the audience that doesn’t know, she’s the one who, in Florida, the Secretary of State in Florida who declared the election for Bush anytime she could. [audience laughs] And so I was up at the Kennedy School, the Kennedy Library actually. Every two years they have a seminar for incoming freshmen, Congresspeople. She won in Florida; she’s a Congresswoman...So Katherine Harris is one of these freshmen and so I did this presentation with Norman Ornstein who’s a scholar at the American Enterprise Institute and during the presentation, I said, “Our role here is to tell you things you need to know as a member of Congress and one thing every member of Congress needs to know is how to take a punch. It’s going to happen to you sooner or later-at a town hall meeting, an angry constituent is going to hit you. So you need to know how to take a punch, so I need a volunteer. [Al looks around the room] Ummmm. Katherine Harris.” [Conan and the audience laugh]. And she laughed. [more laughter]

CONAN: And you hit her? Yeah?

AL: But later we were getting on the bus and she said, “Oh, I really thought you were funny” and I went, [in a falsetto voice]”Oh, Katherine Harris likes me. I’m so happy.” ...And I said, “Do you want to hear the joke I didn’t tell?” and she said, “Sure.” I said, “Okay, well, five of the freshmen were educated here at the Kennedy School—got their Master’s here, including Katherine Harris. Right here at the Kennedy School is where Katherine Harris learned to purge African-Americans from the voting rolls.” [nervous laughter from the audience] And she said, “Oh, I don’t think the Kennedy School would have liked that.” [Conan and the audience laugh]

CONAN: [laughing] She didn’t say, "That’s not true."

AL: She didn’t say that wasn’t true.

CONAN: Spreading joy wherever you go, Al.

For more on the phony felon purge in Florida, click here.

Tomorrow: Al Franken on George W. Bush's racist tactics

Posted 11:16 PM by Scoobie Davis

Rush Limbaugh: Racist

double whammy n. a twofold blow or setback.

On Tuesday, when a caller to Rush Limbaugh’s radio show suggested that Trent Lott should not only step down as Senate Majority Leader but perhaps should even resign his seat in the Senate, Limbaugh warned the caller about the problems with this scenario:

The Democrats in Mississippi look to be ready to nominate Mike Espy, the former agriculture secretary, to be the new senator from Mississippi that would replace Lott. That'd be a double whammy, to get a Democrat plus an African-American in there to take Trent Lott's seat. That takes the Senate back to 50-50, with Dick Cheney breaking tie votes.

Certainly, if one is a Republican, it would be a setback to have a Democrat replace a Republican in the Senate. No problem so far. Let’s look at the other half of Limbaugh’s “double whammy”: Espy’s race. Most people don’t see it as a problem for an African-American to replace a white person in the Senate—unless, of course, they’re racists. Limbaugh has a right to view Espy’s race as the other half of a double whammy—and I have a right to call him a racist. Jeff Cohen and Steve Rendell raised questions about Limbaugh’s views on race when he was being considered for a spot on ABC’s Monday Night Football. What Limbaugh has said in the past is consistent with his recent comment about Espy.

12/19 UPDATE: On today's show, Limbaugh accused Democrats of using"race-baiting rhetoric" and referred to former President Clinton's comments that he made yesterday as "an assault on the whole South."

Erratum:I originally wrote that the conversation occurred on Monday. It was Tuesday.

Posted 12:23 PM by Scoobie Davis

Limbaugh's Latest Lies
On his show today, Limbaugh discussed how he met Hillary Clinton at a wedding recently. He mentioned how he said regretted some things regarding Chelsea (I'm assuming that he was referring to the incident on his television show in which he put up the picture of Chelsea and made a comment about the White House dog). It would have been nice if he admitted lying about how this was an accident. Rush then dissembled when he said that the differences with Bill and Hillary were "not personal," and that "every time" he discusses the Clintons, "it is policy-oriented." Oh Please. He has repeatedly made fun of Hillary's appearance. During the 1990's Limbaugh was on the forefront of the movement to implicate the Clintons in Vince Foster's death. I could go on.

Posted 10:23 AM by Scoobie Davis

Interesting Omission
The Washington Times has a contest to name "the noble and the knave of the year." I noticed that in the list of the nominees for Knave of the Year, Al Gore was singled out for the vague offense of "giving in to the urge to grandstand from any possible platform." Wow, what a terrible transgression; run for the hills, Al. Trent Lott wasn't listed as a knave nominee; could it be because the Moonie Times is the type of "newspaper" that would hire someone like Robert Stacy McCain?(link via Atrios).

Posted 9:42 AM by Scoobie Davis

I Agree With David Horowitz
Read about it here.

Posted 8:23 AM by Scoobie Davis

Wretched Excess
Pat Buchanan's column, "Trent Lott: Victim of a hate crime" in my favorite journalistic cesspool Worldnetdaily. By the way, Worldnetdaily is in the publishing business; its second is a book by hate radio's Michael Savage: The Savage Nation. The WND ad for the book informs us The Savage Nation is being published in a partnership with Thomas Nelson Publishers, a Christian publishing house.

Posted 5:20 PM by Scoobie Davis

Quiz for Right-Wingers
Here is the question, Mr. or Ms. Right-Winger: Suppose there is a guy—let’s call him Scoobie. His accomplishments in Hollywood include some low-level production work for a documentary film (so low-level that he isn’t mentioned in the Internet Movie Database). He is writing a fictional screenplay and is trying to find funding for a documentary film that he wants to make. He works part-time as an extra. Scoobie goes to a lot of Hollywood parties. Here’s the question: Would it be ethically permissible for Scoobie to refer to himself as “a movie producer” when he introduces himself to attractive women at these parties? Explain why or why not it would be ethical for Scoobie to do this. You have one minute for an answer. You are not allowed to look for an answer in The Book of Virtues by William Bennett.

Answer: No, it is not ethically permissible for Scoobie to do this. Reasons: First, there are enough poseurs in Hollywood; one more is one too many. Second, when describing oneself to a woman, stretching the truth a little is okay, even expected. Embellishment in the pursuit of babe action is no vice. However, if you aren’t producing anything, you ain’t a producer. Wanting to produce movies doesn't make a guy Steven Spielberg.

The reason for the quiz: when George W. Bush ran for Congress in 1978, he listed his occupation as “oil producer.” The thing is that he never produced any oil—zero, zip, nada. As I told Rush a couple years ago, "the only oil George Bush saw at that time was the oil that he put on his salad." (Okay, that was unfair--I'm sure it was a servant who put the oil on Bush's salads). I bring this up because, in the wake of Al Gore’s decision not to run in 2004, Michael Barone, in an otherwise thoughtful piece, rehashes the stale right-wing attack: “Mr. Gore had the habit of taking plausible arguments and exaggerating them to the point of unbelievability--he actually was interested early in the Internet, but he didn't invent it. Natural politicians have an instinct that protects them from such self-defeating tactics. Mr. Gore, like Nixon, lacked that instinct.” Give me a break, do I have to explain this one more time? I’m not even going to bother. Oh, by the way, in the responses section for this article, a reader rehashed the Love Story lie that wasn’t a lie.

Posted 2:47 PM by Scoobie Davis

Bad Karma?
I knew I would catch some flack for suggesting yesterday that the late Barbara Olson inhabits hell. On the one hand, it is bad form to speak ill of the dead. It’s bad karma and not very sporting because the dead can’t defend themselves. I don’t think she is in hell (I believe in reincarnation, so I don’t have any idea of her current location).

On the other hand, fair is fair. One of the principles of this web site is that I show more civility to people on the right than they do to people on the left. Unfortunately, that isn’t a difficult feat. Olson and her hubby Ted--in their heyday—were an embodiment of the politics of personal destruction. Ted and Babs would attack the dead with nary a thought to the pain they caused others. To compound their cruelty, they attacked were dead people who had no dog in the fight. The dead people they attacked were collateral damage in their depraved crusade against the Clintons. Ted and Barbara were neck-deep in the Arkansas Project--which can best be described as a massive dirty tricks campaign in which Scaife-paid Arkansans would report juicy details to Scaife-paid “journalists.” The late Vince Foster’s reputation was a major casualty in this Scaife-funded cesspool. In a story for the American Spectator, David Brock “reported” that Foster and Hillary Clinton were fondling each other (which even National Review’s Byron York admitted was a smear). Ted confided to Brock that he knew the talk about Foster being murdered was not true but he felt that circulating this canard might shake loose another scandal. Let’s also not forget Barbara’s description of Bill Clinton’s deceased mother as “a barfly who gets used by men.”

I’m certain that if Olson were still alive, she would be writing another piece of reckless hackwork for the Regnery publishing mill. For my friends on the left, let me just say that I will try to be more karma-oriented. For my friends on the right, when I get one percent as mean as Barbara and Ted, then you can e-mail me and bitch.

Posted 1:10 AM by Scoobie Davis

Bummer
I went to the Catch me If You Can World Premiere in Westwood hoping to crash the after-party (which would be the ultimate considering the topic of the film). No such luck because there was no after-party; How lame. However, I can console myself with the thought that I had everything so well prepared that I would have gotten in had there been a party.

Posted 6:20 PM by Scoobie Davis

Urban Legends Web Site Pummels Limbaugh's Pimpled Ass
Snopes.com, the internet urban legends site, tore into El Rushbo for his dissembling over his Vietnam era status. Snopes cited the transcript I did of the now-famous conversation with Greg from Orlando to illustrate Limbaugh's deception. Snopes is a valuable web site that has debunked many of the false claims from the hard right. For instance, if you read The Final Days by Barbara Olson (R-Hell), you would be treated to the following urban legend passed off as truth: “Some even noticed that when Clinton was President, Marine guards failed to execute a right face to stand facing his back as he walked away. The Marines somehow relearned this maneuver on January 20, 2001, when the new Commander-in-Chief, President George W. Bush, took office.” Snopes is one of the sites that pointed out that this was pure crap. Snopes also debunks the infamous Clinton Body Count, a loony conspiracy theory that Bill Clinton is responsible for murdering dozens of political enemies; the Clinton Body Count is a favorite paranoid fantasy of the Freepers and Scaife-funded whores like Joseph Farah (best known for his Scaife-funded theories about Vince Foster's death). Snopes also smashed to pieces a piece of hate put forth by another Scaife-funded whore, Christopher Ruddy, whose NewsMax.com smeared Hillary Clinton by claiming she refused to meet with a group of mothers whose sons were killed in combat. The contemporary right's worldview is nothing more than a mishmash of urban legends and discarded ideologies such as creationism and those of the old Confederacy.

Posted 1:49 PM by Scoobie Davis

New Strategy
Despite numerous e-mails sent to him, Sean Hannity once again said on his radio show today that he thought Trent Lott was sincere when Hannity interviewed him. The guy doesn't care about the truth. New strategy: e-mail Alan Colmes at colmes@foxnews.com and ask him to bring up Lott's lying on the Hannity & Colmes Show.

Posted 11:31 AM by Scoobie Davis

Woo Hoo
This site is the first one that pops up for a Google search of the term, "Lott lied." Still, we need to confront Sean Hannity of the "fair and balanced" network for not saying anything about Lott's lie to him last Wednesday regarding the Council of Conservative Citizens. Hannity's radio show is 3:00 to 6:00 PM EST. The call-in number is 1-800-941-7326. His e-mail address is hannity@foxnews.com. At least e-mail him about it.

Posted 10:58 AM by Scoobie Davis

I Wish I Took My Own Advice
I was just writing an e-mail to someone today discussing strategy for successful calls to talk radio. I emphasized how important it was to start out being compliant, almost meek, and then letting the host have it. I cited two examples of this type of call: my 2000 call to Limbaugh and Greg from Orlando’s recent call to “The Doctor of Democracy.” Bill O’Reilly was on his radio show discussing how Al Gore should go on his show and become a news analyst for the Fox News Channel. I called the show and—at long last--I finally got through to O’Reilly. Here were the first things out of my mouth (I was so disgusted with what he was saying, I couldn’t help it):

SCOOBIE: Hello, Mr. Working-Class. Yeah, I really think that’s an insult for you to say that Al Gore should come on to your show—much less that he should get a job at the Fox Propaganda Channel.

O’Reilly’s female co-host gasped. O’Reilly say, “Oh, stop, will you?” and then he asked me a couple questions—which I would have gladly answered but he cut me off and went to the next caller.

Analysis: This call was like my last to Limbaugh: I had knockout punches that I couldn’t deliver because I wanted to get my jabs in right away. At first, I should have sounded as if I had some doubts over whether Gore would have been treated fairly, O’Reilly would have asked me why I thought that way. At that point, I could have hammered away at O’Reilly and Fox News. Better luck next time—and there will be a next time.

Posted 8:07 AM by Scoobie Davis

Urgent: E-mail Howard Kurtz
In previous posts, I have urged people to e-mail Howard Kurtz regarding his outrageous defense of Rush Limbaugh's hate radio program (e.g, here). In today's column on the media foodchain regarding the Lott comments, Kurtz once again rewrites history:

Even after Lott's comments were reported, though, much of the establishment press ignored them for days. It wasn't until Lott apologized last Monday night that such newspapers as the New York Times, Los Angeles Times, Wall Street Journal and USA Today took note of the matter. In the meantime, Lott was pummeled by a number of online Weblogs --particularly by conservatives who agree with him on many issues -- in a way that helped force the story into public view...

This is rank revisionism; The bloggers who were early on this were Josh Marsall and Atrios, not right-wing bloggers. The article also implies that Glenn Reynolds was one of the early birds ("...Glenn Reynolds, the Tennessee law professor who jumped on the story in his InstaPundit column..."). Reynolds was a johnny-come-lately. Glenn was behind the pack on this one.

E-mail Kurtz at kurtzh@washpost and tell him he is wrong. CC me; I'd like to see what people are writing. It's important.

UPDATE: Roger Ailes (the blogger, not the right-wing windbag) offered similar thoughts; he also recommended writing the Post's ombudsman at ombudsman@washpost.com

Posted 7:45 AM by Scoobie Davis

My Two Cents
It's a pity that Al Gore won't run for reelection.

Posted 6:09 PM by Scoobie Davis

The Next Deserving Targets: Jeb Bush and Katherine Harris

One of the foundations of this blog is the hope of contributing to the goal of a world in which George W. Bush wakes up every day for the rest of his life wishing that he hadn’t stolen the 2000 election. This goal also extends to Bush’s enablers in the state of Florida (specifically his brother Jeb and Katherine Harris) and to his enablers in the press.

I am ecstatic that the mainstream media--at long last—is taking a long and hard look at Lott’s long history of repugnant appeals to racists (This might not have been the case had it not been for the doggedness of bloggers like Atrios and Joshua Micah Marshall). However, Lott’s racist comments at Trent Lott’s birthday celebration are minor compared to Jeb Bush’s and Katherine Harris’ racist deeds. While Lott has repeatedly waxed fondly of the days in which minorities didn’t possess civil rights, Jeb and company made this a reality in Florida with the systematic disenfranchisement of tens of thousands of mostly minority voters with the phony felony voter purge. Greg Palast, who was working for the BBC, did some top-notch investigative reporting on the felony voter purge/scam. This story was prominent on the BBC in Great Britain. There was a virtual blackout in the United States of this information from the mainstream media. Why is it that one had to have gone to Europe to see a news broadcast about this appalling denial of the rights of American citizens?

George W. Bush was right when he said that “recent comments by Senator Lott do not reflect the spirit of our country.” However, he was dead wrong when he went on and said, “...the founding ideals of the political party I represent was and remains today the equal dignity and equal rights of every American.” The current Bush regime is a direct result of the intentional deprivation of the rights of minority voters in Florida by Republicans. Like Lott, the people behind the 2000 coup are antithetical to America’s values; unlike Lott, it was their actions, not their words that serve as a testament of the racist legacy of the contemporary Republican Party. The long overdue repudiation of Lott’s discredited ideas should be just the beginning. Trent Lott is finally paying a price for his racist words. Jeb Crow and Katherine Harris need to pay a price for their racist actions; they should be the next targets. They deserve no quarter.

Posted 3:04 PM by Scoobie Davis

Instant Analysis of Trent Lott's Press Conference
Whitewash. I was especially struck by Lott's comment that as a Republican from Mississippi he has to "think about every word, every phrase" he utters. Bullshit.

Posted 2:25 PM by Scoobie Davis

Update: Sean Hannity Still Doesn't Get It
In my previous post, I called upon people to e-mail Hannity at hannity@foxnews.com and let him know that Lott lied to him in his interview regarding the extent of his involvement with the racist Council of Conservative Citizens. Hannity apparently hasn't received the message because on his radio show, he described his thoughts about his interview with Lott: "I believed him to be sincere." Please write Hannity and tell him he is wrong and that Lott lied to him. E-mail Hannity and tell him that Lott wasn't sincere. Give the following web addresses for evidence:

My post: http://www.scoobiedavis.blogspot.com/2002_12_01_scoobiedavis_archive.html#85861190

Marshall's post: http://talkingpointsmemo.com/dec0202.html#121202110am

It's important.

Addendum: Hannity’s lame “double standard” argument. It’s great that when I check Sitemeter, that many of the Google searches that lead to this site are by people who are looking for information on Robert Byrd, William Fulbright, Donna Brazile's "white boys" comment, and the term “white nigger.” I would guess that many of them are buying the argument by Hannity and Limbaugh that the media scrutiny regarding Lott’s statement reflects a double standard because the Democrats have recently done things just as bad. As I recently pointed out, these arguments are specious. Today, Joe Conason also touched upon this in his blog for Salon (which is another good reason to get Salon Premium). Hannity is still pounding on how Bill Clinton’s recent praise for William Fulbright is morally similar to Lott’s comments on Strom’s presidential candidacy. Wrong. It would only be analogous if Clinton had cited Fulbright’s embrace of the notorious Southern Manifesto and said that America would have been better off if the Southern Manifesto had been implemented. Anyone who can’t tell the difference is morally obtuse.

Posted 8:02 PM by Scoobie Davis

Homework Assignment
Yesterday, I reported how Trent Lott played fast and loose with the facts regarding his involvement with the racist group the Council of Conservative Citizens. Today on Hannity's show, Hannity didn't seem to have any knowledge about Lott's lies. This is ironic considering that Hannity was part of the chorus on the right that, during the 2000 campaign, put every sentence by Al Gore under a microscope in an attempt to portray Gore as a pathological liar (click here for an example of Hannity's dirty work; check the Daily Howler archives for a comprehensive examination of this phenomenon).

So Lott lied to Hannity's face and Hannity either doesn't know about it or doesn't care. I don't know which is the case. Let's find out. Please do one of the two following things:
1) E-mail Hannity at hannity@foxnews.com and inform him about Lott's lie regarding the CCC. Mention my post or Josh Marshall's post on the matter. Ask him if he knew about this.
2) Tommorrow (Friday), call Hannity's show at 1-800-941-7326 during the hours of 3PM - 6PM EST. Ask him if he knew about Lott's lies, and if so, ask him why he gave Lott a free pass.

Posted 2:30 PM by Scoobie Davis

No Dice
I'm going to the About Schmidt premiere tonight. Read this.
UPDATE: No success at the premiere.

Posted 2:54 PM by Scoobie Davis

Attention Mainstream Media: Trent Lott Dissembles Big-Time in Interview
In today's interview on Sean Hannity's radio program:

HANNITY: I want you to address this one issue that is being brought up by your critics. You had this controversy some years ago. You spoke to a group called the Concerned Citizens Council [Hannity obviously meant the Council of Conservative Citizens, a white supremacist group]. You want to explain that? What if any relationship do you or did you have with that organization which has been accused of having racist points of view?

LOTT: Well, the event they are talking about, I presume was an open forum for candidates running for public office and the public was invited and the media was invited. This was not a closed thing. There were Democrats and Republicans there and African-Americans there; and it was one of those events that you have almost every two years when you have important elections in a small community. You have them all over the state. You don’t usually ask who is sponsoring this thing. In this case, I knew some of the people that were involved but I also knew that a lot of political candidates were going there and I said things that we support in terms of opportunity for our people there that I would say anyplace else. But the main thing was that it was an open forum.

REALITY: When Lott was questioned about his ties to the CCC in 1998, he gave a similar bullshit explanation:

Here is what Fairness and Accuracy in Reporting has on Lott and his involvement with the CCC:

1997: Lott holds a private meeting with the CCC in his DC office
1997: Lott endorsement of the CCC is circulated in the group's literature
1995: Lott addresses the Mississippi chapter of the CCC
1992: Lott praises the group as keynote speaker at the CCC's national convention
1991: Lott addresses the Mississippi chapter of the CCC
1989: Lott appears in CCC publication Citizens Informer with his uncle, a CCC executive, and cousin, a member
1990-1998: The Citizens Informer publishes Senator Lott's column

Lott got a free pass from the alleged liberal media once with this lie. Will the media let him get away with it again?

12/12 UPDATE: Joshua Micah Marshall makes a similar argument today in his blog--but you read about it here first.

Posted 1:17 PM by Scoobie Davis

Instant Analysis of theTrent Lott Interview on Sean Hannity’s radio show
Lott did some fancy footwork regarding his views on race. The main question raised by this interview should be: Will the mainstream media once again fail to question Lott’s dissembling regarding the extent of his involvement with and his endorsement of the Council of Conservative Citizens? More on this later.

Posted 12:05 PM by Scoobie Davis

Alert
Trent Lott will be on Sean Hannity's radio show which starts at 3:00 PM EST. The call-in number is 1-800-941-7326.

Posted 10:48 AM by Scoobie Davis

Talk Radio’s Pathetic Apologia for Trent Lott’s Neo-Confederate Ideology
I heard Sean Hannity doing his best to explain away Trent Lott’s comments endorsing Strom’s 1948 presidental candidacy. Here are main points in Hannity’s spin (which also were some of the same thoughts expressed on Michael Savage’s show yesterday):
1. What about former klansman Robert Byrd who recently used the term “white nigger”?
2. Lott is not a racist and he was just saluting a man who turned 100 (Bob Novak’s explanation).
3. Al Gore’s father voted against the Civil Rights Act of 1964.
4. Bill Clinton recently saluted his former mentor Senator William Fulbright who opposed various pieces of civil rights legislation.

Here’s how to answer these talking points:

1. Senator Byrd was criticized for his language.
2. Lott has a long pattern of neo-Confederate thought (largely ignored by lazy and/or willing press). Trent Lott’s worldview is revealed in the pages of the Southern Partisan magazine where one finds numerous images of the romanticized view of the antebellum South. This is Lott’s view of paradise and, according to John Ashcroft, if you have a problem with that, then you represent “a perverted agenda.” Trent Lott is a neo-Confederate.
3. Gore’s father did vote against it but he later supported various pieces of civil rights legislation. Lott, on the other hand, pointed to a presidential candidacy specifically intended to thwart the civil right movement and claimed that had it succeeded, then problems would be diminished.
4. Fulbright is best known for his scholarship program and his foreign policy work. Clinton never brought up Fulbright’s opposition to civil rights legislation and praised it. In fact, the news story Hannity cited acknowledged that Clinton disagreed with Fulbright on many issues—and certainly civil rights was one of them. That’s one thing about Clinton that scared the right: Clinton’s appeals to bread-and-butter issues appealed to both African-Americans and working-class whites.

I hope Lott keeps his job in the Senate; now that Strom and Jesse are leaving, we need someone in a leadership position who reminds all Americans that the Party of Lincoln is now the Party of Jefferson Davis.

Addendum: FAIR on Rush's 1993 comments about Strom Thurmond:

LIMBAUGH: Praising Strom Thurmond for calling a gay soldier "not normal": "He's not encumbered by being politically correct.... If you want to know what America used to be--and a lot of people wish it still were--then you listen to Strom Thurmond." (TV show, 9/1/93)

REALITY: In the America that "used to be," Strom Thurmond was one of the country's strongest voices for racism, running for president in 1948 on the slogan, "Segregation Forever."

Posted 9:41 AM by Scoobie Davis

Better Him Than Me
I was going to write about how wrong Michale Kelly's latest column is about alleged liberal media bias. Ted Barlow is back and beat me to it. On the issue of media bias against Democrats, here is a site that catalogs the various mainstream media smears of Democrats.

Posted 6:10 AM by Scoobie Davis

Advance Screening
Last night I went to a media screening for the New Line Cinema film About Schmidt starring Jack Nicholson. The film was directed by Alexander Payne—whose previous film, Election, is one of my favorite films of the last decade. It is a film about Warren Schmidt, a recently retired Omaha insurance actuary, who at age 67, finally decides to examine his life as he prepares for his only daughter’s wedding. I enjoyed watching this film. It wasn't as edgy as Election, but I thought it was a very good film. There were great performances by Nicholson, Kathy Bates, and Howard Hesseman. I think Dermot Mulroney stole the show with his portrayal of Schmidt’s underachieving, mullet-haired, soon-to-be son-in-law; I didn’t recognize him as one of the stars of My Best Friend’s Wedding (I’m not the only one; the production notes indicate “that during production, the younger female visitors to the set refused to believe that Mulroney, with the cascading mullet, Jerry Garcia tie, and black Reeboks, was in fact the same leading man they swooned over in My Best Friend’s Wedding”).

Random thoughts about the film: For those of you who enjoy bad films, when Schmidt is channel-surfing on the TV, he catches a few seconds of Bob Hope and Phyllis Diller in The Private Navy of Sergeant O’Farrell—one of the worst Hope comedies of the 1960’s. For those of you who enjoy bad radio, when Schmidt is in his car, he listens to Rush Limbaugh tell listeners how liberals “see a dark lining in a silver cloud.” Prior to the wedding, Schmidt stays in his future son-in-law’s room and reads the old Encyclopedia Brown books. Sometimes at these screenings, the stars show up to see the audience reaction. If I saw Nicholson, I was planning to schmooze with him—he wasn’t there so I didn’t get my chance.

The press kit we received reflects a good trend in Hollywood. Let me first give you the old movie press kit format: 9”by 12” folder with pockets containing 8.5” by 11” typed production notes and glossy stills from the film. For About Schmidt, they gave us the regular 8.5” by 11” production notes but the press kit was a CD that contained the trailer, some of the soundtrack music, photos, logos, and the production notes. A somewhat better press kit was provided for the film xXx. It consists of a standard 5.25” by 7.5” DVD box with the xXx poster on the front over. Inside, in the inside clips, is a 66-page copy of the production notes. The CD contains the trailer, 29 photos from the film, music from the soundtrack, logos, production notes, and quick access to the xXx web site. The standard CD/DVD box is great because the old folder would inevitably get creased if mailed.

Posted 9:26 AM by Scoobie Davis

Spinsanity is a Time-saver
I was going to comment on Fred Barnes' latest article in the Weekly Standard but Bryan Keefer of Spinsanity beat me to the punch.

Posted 8:53 AM by Scoobie Davis

More Amazon.com Follies
A couple weeks ago, I criticized internet pranksters who sabatoged the Amazon.com page for Slander by recommending Mein Kampf as a companion book. Amazon.com caught this and changed it; the new companion book is Bernard Goldberg's Bias: A CBS Insider Exposes How the Media Distort the News (more on this). I received an e-mail concerning how pranksters sabatoged the Amazon.com page for a book by Pat Robertson. Apparently as a result of the Reverend Robertson agreeing with Jerry Falwell that gays and other groups are to blame for the 9/11 attacks, gay activists repeatedly clicked on Robertson's book Six Steps to Spiritual Renewal and an anal sex manual for gay men, tricking Amazon.com's automated recommendation system into connecting the two items as a reflection of shoppers' interests. Read more about the flap here.

Goldberg's book has a special place in my heart. As I told reporter John Cotey, I decided to start a blog after reading Bias. The reason: the book is a joke. One of the most absurd claims in the book was one of Goldberg's examples of media bias: the fact that people in the news media tend to refer to Limbaugh as a "conservative" talk show host but don't tend to refer to Rosie O'Donnell as a "liberal" talk show host--Goldberg thought this outrage was so blatent that he mentioned it twice in his skimpy book. As I and others pointed out, a simply content analysis of Limbaugh's show and O'Donnell's former show would clearly indicate that Limbaugh spends about 98 percent of his show discussing politics and O'Donnell spent 99 percent of her show discussing entertainment topics. Many on the right didn't notice these types of howlers in the book so I added my voice to the blogosphere to address these types of issues.

Posted 8:53 PM by Scoobie Davis

Work
Doing some other work. Can't post until tomorrow.

Posted 8:42 AM by Scoobie Davis

Uh Oh
With so much going on, I put off my article on the Wall Street Journal editorial page's decision to reprint a 1997 Micah Morrsion article. I'll have that later today.

Posted 8:38 AM by Scoobie Davis

The Liberal Media?
Right as I'm writing this, Robert Novak is spinning wildly about Trent Lott's outrageous statements about Strom Thurmond's 1948 presidential candidacy. Here's an article I suggest reading and re-reading regarding the media.

Posted 8:21 AM by Scoobie Davis

Great Moments in Blogging History
A Google search puts this web site near the top of the pack for searches of 1) "pilonidal+Limbaugh" and 2) "Rush" + "boil on your butt."

Posted 9:29 PM by Scoobie Davis

The Blankley/Limbaugh Poison
It was fun listening to Rush Limbaugh getting creamed on his own show by Greg from Orlando (scroll down to 12/6 for the transcript). However, there was something in the transcript that is more important than Greg’s direct hits to the radio thug and Bush. When things got too hectic for Limbaugh and he muted Greg, he said something in his pseudo-conversation with Greg that deserves mention and discussion. Limbaugh cited Tony Blankley’s Washington Times column on John Kerry. Here is the part of Blankley’s column that Limbaugh cited:

Tim Russert asked whether there was any turning back on the presidential quest. Mr. Kerry responded: "Well, I mean, I hope not, but on the other hand, if you find that — you know, I can remember in times of war when you turn around and the troops aren't there behind you. . . ." Does he really remember that? He was a combat officer in Vietnam. Did his men fail to follow his lawful order? Did he attempt to rally the deserting troops? Was insubordination involved, or only a failure to keep track of his men's whereabouts during combat? Or, was he just slipping into his comments a sly reference to his military service?

Here’s Limbaugh’s take on Blankley’s column in his make-believe conversation with the Greg--who couldn’t answer back because Limbaugh muted him:

There’s just a story in the paper today, Greg, and I’m sorry, you missed this. I forget who wrote it—it might have been Tony Blankley’s column today. John Kerry said something, “You know, I’ve learned a lot with my military experience and if you’re leading the way and you turn around and the troops aren’t behind you, you got a real problem.” Now what he was trying to say is: Bush is trying to take us into areas nobody wants to go, but the answer to the question—or the question that is: “Oh, Senator, you were commanding officer in Vietnam and you actually turned around and troops weren’t there? What kind of commanding officer were you?” We can play this any number of ways you want, Greg, baby.

It was obvious to anyone living in reality that Kerry was speaking metaphorically about turning around and not having the troops there when he was in Vietnam. Blankley and Limbaugh chose to take Kerry’s innocuous remark, put it under a microscope, and give the most jaundiced possible interpretation to it. Limbaugh was correct when he said “we can play this any number of ways you want.” I agree: it’s just that Limbaugh and Blankley played it down and dirty. ldabney put it well: "But what he's doing is called "reifying your metaphor", treating something that's abstract as if it's concrete. Tsk, tsk! The ability to understand metaphor and analogy is a higher order thinking skill, and I doubt that Rush wants his "dittoheads" mucking around with such things, even though, as we can see, he understands it very well."

It is manifestly ridiculous to suggest that Kerry was alluding to a concrete situation in Vietnam in which he faced soldiers who were flouting his authority. What would these guys know about Kerry’s tour of duty anyway? Limbaugh, as we all know, had the pimple on the ass excuse to avoid Nam. To the best of my knowledge, in the 1960’s, Blankley’s primary activities involved creating a phony front group, the Filthy Speech Movement, to discredit the Berkeley Free Speech Movement (Obviously, this was good training for being the Washington Times’ chief political operative, er, I mean, editorial page editor). When Kerry was risking his life in the Mekong Delta, Blankley and Limbaugh were chugging beers at the Delta House. Am I alone in my outrage over these two clowns questioning the fitness of a commanding officer who was awarded a Bronze Star, a Silver Star, and THREE Purple Hearts?

A larger lesson should be learned here: The issue of a political opponent’s Vietnam era status is irrelevant to the hard right:
1) If you are the hard right’s political opponent who avoided the Vietnam draft (even if you opposed the war), then the hard right calls you a draft dodger (conveniently ignoring the shitload of Republicans who were in favor of the war and whose fathers pulled strings to keep them out of Southeast Asia).
2) If you are the hard right’s political opponent and you not only served in Vietnam but also spent years of your life in the Hanoi Hilton, you become the victim of a whispering campaign by Rove and company that you are mentally unstable because of your imprisonment. During the 2000 campaign, Limbaugh even had a parody commercial "The McCain Mutiny" that had John McCain as the paranoid Captain Queeg. John McCain, it’s time to leave the GOP.
3) If you are the hard right’s political opponent who served in Vietnam as a highly-decorated commanding officer, then the hard right will come up with a reason to question your competence as an officer—no matter how many medals you were awarded.
This reveals a fundamental truth: the hard right (which encompasses most of the Republican Party) cannot be reasoned with—it must be discredited and defeated. One exception: if you are a pushover like Juan Williams or Alan Colmes, you can be friends with the right and get a cushy deal with Fox News to be pushed around by the Neanderthals on that network.
UPDATE: Even many Freepers are not buying Rush's attacks on John Kerry. Some of the posts are downright pro-Kerry (at least regarding his military service) and anti-Limbaugh.

Posted 2:57 PM by Scoobie Davis

The Fiesta Bowl
Go Buckeyes! Beat Miami!

Posted 1:14 PM by Scoobie Davis

Weekend Stuff
I'm going to be posting over the weekend. I changed the name of my Ann Coulter page to attract more web surfers. I added some new blog links. One I wanted to specifically mention is Mark A. R. Kleiman's blog. A few years ago, I was a grad student in my first year and teaching a course on drugs and society. I heard about a conference at Harvard Law School sponsored by the Drug Policy Foundation (DPF) so I attended it. DPF is a pro-legalization group and I have heard all of the legalization arguments and I was skeptical (and I still am skeptical). Let me digress--I am strongly in favor of medical marijuana, access to syringes, the medical use of psychedelics, and jury nullification. I am strongly opposed to mandatory minimum sentences, asset forfeiture, and people like Bill Bennett. Anyway, Kleiman, who unlike about 95 percent of the people at the conference was not a legalizer, gave a talk and faced a slew hostile questions; he did a very good job of answering those questions, even though, unlike talk radio jocks, he didn't have a mute button.

Posted 11:46 PM by Scoobie Davis

Must Read
Atrios' response to Trent Lott's latter-day endorsement of Strom's 1948 presidental candidacy, he reprints a 1948 Mississippi ballot. Lott's statements are little surprise to those of us familiar with his Confederacy-loving ideology. Lott was able to dodge a bullet due to a lazy press regarding his chumminess with the racist Council of Conservative Citizens (which is nothing more than the old White Citizens Councils repackaged). Lott once also spoke about how "the spirit of Jefferson Davis" was in the Republican Party platform. The Party of Lincoln, my ass.

Posted 11:01 PM by Scoobie Davis

Coming Soon
Over the weekend, I will write about the Blankley/Limbaugh Poison and other essays.

Posted 3:31 AM by Scoobie Davis

Truncated Transcript of Rush Being Clubbed Like A Baby Seal--WITH AN IMPORTANT UPDATE
Transcribing is no fun but it was a blast transcribing Rush's conversation with Greg (possibly Gregg) from Orlando. The only problem is that the audio from Limbaugh's web site cut off the last part of the conversation in which Greg from Orlando confronts Rush about his lie that he didn't avoid military service in Nam because of a pilonidal cyst (the last part of the conversation is described in Joe Conason's blog). If anyone has a transcript of this last part of Greg's conversation with Rush, please let me know.

UPDATE 9:35 A.M. PST: 1) I received a WAV file from one of our friends at Rush Versus Reality. To Limbaugh's credit, he didn't delete the last part of Greg's conversation from his audio file. To Limbaugh's discredit, the reason he didn't need to do this was because Limbaugh or someone in the control room muted Greg's follow-up when he tried to confront Limbaugh about the pilonidal cyst lie. The audio file I received is no different than the one on Limbaugh's web site except it goes a few seconds beyond the audio on Limbaugh's web site; there is no followup response by Greg about Limbaugh's pilonidal cyst lie--it's just Limbaugh going to the next caller: "Judy in Chicago, you're next..." In my last conversation with Rush (scroll down to 11/27), the same thing happened: When Limbaugh began to give his long speech after he interupted me I began to interject but soon discovered after saying a couple sentences that Limbaugh was still talking and couldn't hear me--and soon thereafter, I was disconnected. In both cases, Rush performed a "seamless mute"--one in which the listeners don't have any idea that the caller is trying to make a point but is muted. In other cases, the muting of the caller is not so smooth. A case in point, when I was confronting Matt Drudge about the Ken-Lay-stayed-overnight-in-the-Clinton-White-House smear, when I mocked him about not responding and said "Where’s Drudge? Hello. [laughing] There’s no Drudge," this was muted but it lead to four seconds of dead air for radio listeners--a major no-no for radio. 2) Rush's distortions of Kerry's words that led to his questioning of Kerry's fitness as a battlefield commander deserve a response. I'll give that later.


Here is a transcript of the incredible conversation:


LIMBAUGH: Here’s Greg in Orlando Florida. Nice to have you on the program, sir. Welcome.

GREG: Hello.

LIMBAUGH: Yes sir.

GREG: Yes, about John Kerry. I’m not as sure that he’s going to be as easy to write off as a garden-variety liberal. Did you see the New Yorker piece on him a couple weeks ago?

LIMBAUGH: Yeah, You mean the one with molasses dripping off of it.

GREG: It started out telling the story of how when Vietnam happened, he went down to the recruiting station and signed up with his two best friends, John J. Pershing III and Fred Smith, the founder of Federal Express. Now that’s the kind of gravitas that gave me a chill up my spine. And I’m wondering if in the debates with Bush, he might ask Bush just off-the-cuff “Where were you when you were supposed to have shown up for duty in Mississippi and you didn’t show up for that year?”--in the national guard when he dodged the Vietnam draft. And Rush you never mentioned how you dodged the Vietnam draft.

LIMBAUGH: I didn’t

GREG: Yes, you did. You claimed you had a boil on your butt—

[Limbaugh mutes Greg]

LIMBAUGH: No, you see, that’s part of popular mythology that is out there that I have not whined nor complained about, Greg. But that is just a bunch of internet BS and hyperbole. Never happened. Was not the cause, wasn’t the case. This business of Bush is a bunch of BS, too. And if John Kerry tries to bring up Vietnam in a debate with George W. Bush, and asks that question, all Bush has got to do is bring up Bill Clinton—and all he’s got to do is give a couple quotes about John Kerry. There’s just a story in the paper today, Greg, and I’m sorry, you missed this. I forget who wrote it—it might have been Tony Blankley’s column today. John Kerry said something, “You know, I’ve learned a lot with my military experience and if you’re leading the way and you turn around and the troops aren’t behind you, you got a real problem.” Now what he was trying to say is: Bush is trying to take us into areas nobody wants to go, but the answer to the question—or the question that is: “Oh, Senator, you were commanding officer in Vietnam and you actually turned around and troops weren’t there? What kind of commanding officer were you?” We can play this any number of ways you want, Greg, baby. But until you can get your facts straight and stop believing a bunch of internet B.S. and hyperbole, you guys are—You see, this is exactly what they have been doing for fourteen years, my friends. And we haven’t been complaining about it--we haven’t been whining about it. And not one thing he said has anything to do with the ideas that are important to the American people today. It isn’t about personalities, Greg. Although if it were, you’d definitely be climbing out of a hole that you’ve just dug for yourself. Judy in Chicago, you're next. Welcome...

UPDATE: Limbaugh is also a racist (scroll up to my 12/18 post).

Posted 9:43 PM by Scoobie Davis

Must Read, Must Listen
Joe Conason tells of a caller who got past Limbaugh's screener and tore Limbaugh a new one. I listened to it; the call is a classic. Addendum: It's about time that a columnist for a major newspaper wrote what is in tomorrow's E.J. Dionne column.

Posted 9:27 PM by Scoobie Davis

Gracias, Amigos
Thanks to everyone who contributed. If you had any trouble, try back tomorrow. I contacted Amazon.com about the problem. It looks as if I won't become the other homeless blogger.

Posted 1:19 PM by Scoobie Davis

Quick Takes
It's taking a long time on the critique of the Wall Street Journal columns I mentioned in my previous post. I'm amazed at the temerity of the editorial page folks for reprinting Morrison's column. Maybe Dr. Krauthammer M.D. (Psychiatry) can make a diagnosis of their reasons for reprinting it (Slate has a much better "blast from the past" article).Thanks everyone who contributed; I was able to go to Ralphs and get some Scoobie Snacks (carrots, apples, and beets). For a laugh, click to the post on Democratic Underground that points out how the mustached picture of Rush Limbaugh from the 1970's looks a lot like porno star Ron Jeremy (who, by the way, is masterfully lampooned by Horatio Sanz in the upcoming American Pie knockoff, After School Special; Sanz's character is Vic Ramalot--get it?).

Posted 11:06 PM by Scoobie Davis

For Tomorrow
Two columns from Thursday's Wall Street Journal editorial page (one by John Fund and the other by Micah Morrison) are particularly worthy of analysis. I will do this on Thursday.

Posted 9:44 AM by Scoobie Davis

Why Aren't Progressive Making Inroads In Syndicated Talk Radio? The Right Is Gaming the System.
Randi Rhodes, a popular talk radio host on the left (she's ranked as number two in her market), was refused syndication by Clear Channel, because a certain talk radio host with a pilonidal cyst said that if Clear Channel syndicated her, he would go elsewhere. Why is El Rushbo and the right afraid of Rhodes? Because she puts righteous foot to right-wing ass. Here is a sample of her work; Rhodes puts wingnut Oliver North in his place.

Posted 10:42 AM by Scoobie Davis

A Note to Cursor readers
I'd first like to thank Cursor.org for linking to my short conversation with Rush Limbaugh(scroll down to 11/27). Be sure to click to the link to read the transcript of my longer conversation with Limbaugh that occurred in 2000. Also, scroll down to read about how my activites made wingnut David Horowitz have a hissy fit. Also, read the 12/01 post and e-mail Howard Kurtz--it's important. I'm having a great time now but I'm working on other projects.

Posted 8:55 AM by Scoobie Davis

Must Read
A detailed explanation of why Charles Krauthammer is a jerk. Also, click here.

Posted 8:08 PM by Scoobie Davis

Religious Perversity in Los Angeles
When it comes to odd religions, LA is best known for being the home of the world headquarters of the Church of Scientology. The Los Angeles Jewish Journal has an informative article on a huge campaign in the City of Angels by Jews for Jesus (anytime I see one of them handing out tracts on Venice Beach, I inform the person that I'm a "Hindu for Buddha"). Also, recently my neighborhood was bombed with newsletters from nutcase Tony Alamo. For those of you not familiar with Alamo, he set up a church/cult with his wife Susan. When Susan Alamo died of cancer in 1982, Alamo and parishioners tried to resurrect her from the dead (local disc jockeys played the song, Wake Up, Little Suzie when they heard about it). Alamo, along with Jack Chick, is one of the last vestiges of the "Whore of Babylon" school of anti-Catholicism. On the topic of Jack Chick (who is from nearby Ontario, CA), I received an e-mail that Chick has a new comic tract called "Fallen." It's a hoot.

Posted 9:56 AM by Scoobie Davis

Important Homework Assignment

Once again, Howard Kurtz has dropped the ball regarding Rush Limbaugh. Despite massive criticism of Kurtz’s standing up for Limbaugh in the face of Tom Daschle’s criticism of Limbaugh, Kurtz had a softball interview with the hate-meister on CNN’s Reliable Sources (click here for the transcript). When Kurtz stuck up for Limbaugh in his Post column, he asked, “Has the senator listened to Rush lately?” and claimed that Limbaugh was in the “mainstream.” People familiar with Limbaugh’s rhetoric responded, “Has Kurtz listened to Limbaugh lately?”

Limbaugh, a pimply-assed draft avoider, impugned Daschle’s patriotism in a virulent manner. Scroll down to 11/20 and click here, here, and here for more examples of Limbaugh’s poisonous rhetoric. Since MediaWhoresOnline is on hiatus, so it’s up to me to give you Kurtz e-mail address. Write Kurtz at kurtzh@washpost.com and tell him why he is wrong about Limbaugh and tell him he dropped the ball. It's important.

Posted 3:12 PM by Scoobie Davis

Oh Behave! Amazon.com Monkeyshines Go Too Far

Some jokers are messing with the Amazon.com customer advice area for the book Slander. Here is what is on the page:

"38 people recommended Mein Kampf in addition to Slander: Liberal Lies About the American Right"

"40 people recommended Blinded by the Right: The Conscience of an Ex-Conservative instead of Slander: Liberal Lies About the American Right"

Recommending Brock's book instead of Slander is fine but the Mein Kampf bit goes too far.

UPDATE: I have been taken to task for criticizing these pranksters because it was Coulter who compared Katie Couric to Eva Braun. Yes, the pranksters were as fair to Coulter as Coulter was to Couric but I don't endorse it.

Posted 10:44 AM by Scoobie Davis

Bill O'Reilly Lampoons Himself
Today, on his radio show, he does it again. O'Reilly was pointing out how the rich can afford private security but the nonrich can't; referring to the nonrich, O'Reilly said, "the working people, we..." We?

Posted 1:01 PM by Scoobie Davis

Happy Thanksgiving
I hope everyone has a great Thanksgiving day. In case you're here for the first time because you were referred to yesterday's post on Limbaugh's duplicity (thanks Rittenhouse Review, Buzzflash, and American Politics Journal), I want you to know that I'm not a one-trick pony; scroll down and check out this week's other posts that include how I cheesed off wingnut David Horowitz and how I was almost cited by the Columbia Journalism Review. Also, if you want to contribute to my surfboard fund, that would be good karma (see the Amazon honor system below the FAQ). Happy Holidays.

Posted 3:10 PM by Scoobie Davis

The Right-Wing Media’s Uneven Playing Field: Two Case Studies

Case Study Number One: Rush Limbaugh--When the going gets rough, mute the caller

Today in the New York Observer, Al Gore pointed out how the right-wing media promotes a right-wing agenda and misinforms millions of people. He mentioned three media phenomena: Fox News, The Washington Times, and talk radio. This triumvirate is mutually reinforcing in its goals of slanting the information transmitted to the American people (as well as what information doesn’t reach the American people such as the Florida disenfranchisement campaign). I was working on a concrete case study to illustrate this. While I was writing, I got through to Rush Limbaugh’s show. My very brief conversation with Limbaugh also is a case in point of how the American right has a huge home field advantage when it comes to information transmission (as well as disinformation transmission).

LIMBAUGH: Here’s Scoobie in Los Angeles. Hi, Scoobie. Welcome to the EIB Network.

SCOOBIE: Hello, Rush. How are you doing?

LIMBAUGH: Good.

SCOOBIE: Anti-dittos.

LIMBAUGH: Thank you.

SCOOBIE: I agree with Al Gore in the sense that the right-wing media is an uneven playing field that disinforms people.

LIMBAUGH: You know, I have to laugh. I am loving this. You actually—you agree with Al Gore that that there is a right-wing media conspiracy?

SCOOBIE: Absolutely. And you’re really on the forefront of that—along with the Moonie Times, what you call the Washington Times—which is nothing but a Moonie newspaper.

LIMBAUGH: Now, Scoobie. No need to be bitter here--just because it prints news that you don’t see anywhere else.

SCOOBIE: No, disinformation. Let me give you an example—[from this point on, I was muted. I was beginning to explain the Moonie Times smear of Bill Clinton’s 11/01 Georgetown speech (see below)—a smear that Limbaugh broadcast to his listeners as fact. I discovered that Limbaugh was talking but that I couldn’t interject anything into the conversation. When I played the show tape back, it confirmed that I was muted.]

LIMBAUGH [talking to himself because I’m muted. Rush did that the last time I spoke with him]: No, it’s not. Scoobie, it isn’t disinformation. The Washington Times reports factual things. It reports things that you won’t see in other newspapers and sometimes it does. I mean, some of the news is common, but it also—it reports things that happen, say, at a Daschle press conference that the New York Times will ignore. It reports things at an Al Gore press conference or a Clinton press conference that the Washington Post and New York Times will ignore. They just have a different filter with—through which they look at the news—same as I do...

REALITY: Being a talk radio host is a good gig. If you can’t stand the heat, mute the caller. It’s unfortunate that I was not allowed to elaborate on my point to the people who believe in the healing powers of Gold Bond Powder. Since I was not a part of the last part of the conversation, let me answer briefly before I segue to a more comprehensive answer. First, there has been reporting in the Washington Times that constitutes gross journalistic misconduct that has gone unpunished (those of you familiar with this blog know examples). The case study below is a case in point. Another example is the deliberate and systematic twisting of a Washington Post story by Times reporter and Fox News political analyst Bill Sammon in his book At Any Cost: How Al Gore Tried To Steal the Election—portions of which were reprinted in the Times. Although I am not a trained journalist, my parents have a combined 90 years of journalistic experience for a small-town newspaper. If Sammon’s misconduct had been committed at the paper my parents work for, the perpetrator would be fired on the spot. Why hasn't the Washington Times (or Fox News) fired Sammon? Because the filter through which the Washington Times looks at the news is a microcosm of Sun Myung Moon’s worldview: it is a filter of intellectual dishonesty, predation, and malevolence.

This leads me to the article I was working on when I called Limbaugh:

Case Study Number Two: The Right-Wing Media Nexus

The Event: Bill Clinton gives a sensible speech in the aftermath of the horrific 9/11 terror attacks.

Step One: A “reporter” for the Washington Times covers the event. In this case, it is Joseph Curl.

Step Two: The reporter twists Clinton’s words to convey that Clinton had an anti-American message.

Step Three: The Fox News gang and talk radio people treat Curl’s story as if it were from a reputable news outlet. Click here for what the Fox gang had to say. Limbaugh compared Clinton’s words to Jane Fonda’s anti-war activities. Months after Curl's spin was debunked, Sean Hannity rehashed it in his book Let Freedom Ring. Let’s also not forget that Drudge posted Curl’s story on his web site. This is the most important step. Although the Washington Times is considered a joke by serious journalists and has a very low circulation (despite massive subsidies from Moon’s charity scams), it does provide fodder for the other two components of this triad of dishonesty which have a larger audience. The result: tens of millions, if not hundreds of millions, of people are fed Moonie propaganda. It is a tidy exercise in disinformation transmission. It is an effective way to reach the masses by those who have no conscience.

Step Four: When the legitimate media refused to tow this line, the Fox News gang and talk radio jocks give this as evidence that the mainstream media has a liberal bias. This increases the audience for talk radio and Fox News—and they can increase fees to advertisers who want to sell baldness cures, precious metals “investments”, MLM, impotence medicine, "no money down" real estate scams, and Hooked On Phonics. I guess Rush was right when he said that the Washington Times reports things that the Washington Post and the New York Times don't report.

Posted 10:03 AM by Scoobie Davis

Exclusive: Rush Limbaugh and Me
I got on the Rush Limbaugh radio show today. I barely finished my opening salvo and was starting to give an example to support my argument when Limbaugh muted me and then gave a response (giving listeners the impression that there was a dialogue between us--as he had done during the last part of our previous discussion). I will transcribe and give an analysis soon.

Posted 9:04 AM by Scoobie Davis

Epigram of the Day
Joshua Micah Marshall: "I've often thought George Will must be a great inspiration to those who want to believe that even if you lack insight, honesty, or wit you might still succeed as long as you dress like you have all three."

Posted 8:41 AM by Scoobie Davis

Symbiosis
I'll have a post on the right-wing media Nexus that Al Gore mentions later.

Posted 6:06 PM by Scoobie Davis

David Horowitz’s Meltdown: The Full Story

In an 11/20 post for his blog for Salon, Joe Conason wrote about the double standard practiced by prominent members of the right, such as David Horowitz, who tar the anti-war left as unpatriotic while leaving their anti-war colleagues on the right relatively unscathed. Conason cited “Horowitz's FrontPage Magazine [which] features ‘The Fifth Column,’ where political adversaries are smeared with treason.”

Salon gave Horowitz space for a full response; Horowitz made the argument that Conason was wrong for accusing him of "smear[ing] his adversaries with treason.” When I read Horowitz’s response, I was flabbergasted that he cited the web site HorowitzWatch to buttress this contention. I am a contributor to HorowitzWatch and back in July, I read Horowitz’s hypocritical call for the execution of John Walker Lindh (Horowitz previously had admitted to have violated the Espionage Act). So in my typical wise-ass manner, I called Horowitz on it--pointing out how by Horowitz's own logic, he called for his own execution (unfortunately the July archives of HorowitzWatch are down but I wrote something similar on this blog). Horowitz’s response to my posts was wild and bizarre. He accused me of living to betray my country and being friends with the communists who killed millions in Indochina.

I pointed this out on HorowitzWatch; Conason linked to it in his rejoinder to Horowitz’s Salon article. Horowitz’s responses were strange to say the least. On Monday, Horowitz called me a “scurrilous blogger” and gave as evidence that I hate America the fact that I link to MediaWhoresOnline, Eric Alterman, and Bill Berkowitz. Don’t ask me why. Today, Horowitz called me “a deranged blogger from www.horowitzwatch.blogspot.com who claims not to be part of the progressive left.” Don’t ask me about that either. I don’t ever recall denying that I am part of the progressive left. It’s a good thing Thanksgiving break is a couple days away; David is obviously working way too hard.

Posted 12:32 AM by Scoobie Davis

The Columbia Journalism Review Mentions Me--Almost
I finally saw the Columbia Journalism Review article on errors and misrepresentations in Ann Coulter's Slander. It is a short article written by Michael Sherer and Sarah Secules. I was hoping I would be mentioned by name. No such luck but the article mentioned "liberal columnists and bloggers [who] alleged that [Coulter's] new book Slander misreads history, selectively (and deceptively) presents facts, and misquotes the media..." I think this is important because it was bloggers like me, the Daily Howler, Dr. Limerick, and Tapped who were the first to point out the gross distortions in the book; The reviews of Slander in The New York Times, Los Angeles Times, and Washington Post dropped the ball big time. The article points out that CJR examined forty alleged errors in the book and determined that twenty-one of the assertions Coulter made "would not pass [a fact-check] without major debate." One of these twenty-one problematic assertions was something I uncovered: Coulter's misrepresentation of a Frank Rich column. Open memo to Glenn Reynolds: Psst, Glenn, I know how much you are concerned about literary integrity. You had a major beef with the methodology in Arming America. How about getting on the bandwagon and addressing the intellectual dishonesty in Slander?

Posted 12:17 PM by Scoobie Davis

A Note to FrontPage Magazine Readers
For those of you who came across this site because of David Horowitz's latest diatribe against me on his blog(click here to see what he was responding to), let me tell you that I enjoy cheesing him off. When Horowitz gets mad at me, he reminds me of the "Angry Dad" episode of The Simpsons. But it's not just Horowitz I enjoy cheesing off. Here are some others:
1. I confronted Rush Limbaugh about his lies during the 2000 election season.
2. I was one of the first people who dug up the lies in Ann Coulter's Slander. I even had a prank radio interview with her.
3. More recently,I had a hilarious on-air conversation with young fogy Sean Hannity. Bill O'Reilly, I'm knocking on your door (see my 11/22 post).
4. I confronted Matt Drudge about his refusal to retract his smear that Ken Lay slept in the White House during the Clinton years.

UPDATE: Joe Conason just cited my article for HorowitzWatch on his blog. Thanks, Joe.

Posted 12:09 AM by Scoobie Davis

Response to David Horowitz's Salon Article
It is now up on HorowitzWatch.

Posted 9:06 PM by Scoobie Davis

Developing: David Horowitz Tangles With Bull, Gets Horn Up His Ass
What the hell was David Horowitz thinking when he cited HorowitzWatch--a web site I write for--in his Salon article in which he defends himself against Joe Conason's truthful charge that Horowitz has "defame[d] opponents as traitors and liberals as communists"? Because of some things I wrote for Scoobie Davis Online (click here) and HorowitzWatch, I was personally smeared by Horowitz as being friends with Indochinese communists who slaughtered millions of people. I will elaborate on this on HorowitzWatch.

Posted 10:42 AM by Scoobie Davis

George Will Dissembles, Gets Busted
George Will played fast and loose with the facts. Atrios, like the Wife Number One, tells George Will: "Take it Somewhere Else, Buster."

Posted 9:27 AM by Scoobie Davis

Revamp
In preparation for the paperback release of Ann Coulter's Slander, I republished some posts from the Scoobie Davis Online archives to my Slander site. Check it out.

Posted 10:33 PM by Scoobie Davis

Weekend Homework Assignment
As I and others pointed out, Tom Daschle is right about Rush Limbaugh (read my 11/20 post and click here, here, and here) Howard Kurtz's excuses for Limbaugh (click here and here) are worse than pathetic. E-mail Kurtz at kurtzh@washpost.com and tell him it is time for him to go. He doesn't deserve his job.

Posted 3:25 PM by Scoobie Davis

What a Wuss: An Open Letter to Bill O’Reilly

Dear Mr. O’Reilly,

I'm disappointed with you and your radio factor staff, but let me preface my criticisms by saying that I have a great deal of respect for you. In fact, you’re my favorite working-class millionaire son of an accountant who grew up in the suburbs. Like you, I enjoyed reading Jim Bouton’s Ball Four--though, unlike you, I wouldn’t list it as one of my top books.

Now here’s my beef: on your radio factor, you talk about it being your “no-spin zone” (today you said that George W. Bush—unlike Bill Clinton--was “honest and decent”) that is a forum for discussing relevant topics. You also complain when people like Al Gore and Hillary Clinton turn down interviews with you. Plus, you weren't content with just whining about it, you had an absurd mock interview in which you stumped Hillary Clinton with some lame questions in your book, The No-Spin Zone.

Yesterday and today, I have called your show and was able to get to your screener four times (twice yesterday and twice today) to discuss relevant matters. On all occasions, I was shut out and disconnected by your screeners. Something your screener said today, along with some other information I have received, leads me to believe that I’m listed as a troublemaker by your show. Yesterday, I explained my topic with the screener (giving a different name both times); each time, the screener put me on hold and then disconnected my call when I was on hold. I called today and was disconnected by a female screener who needs to go to charm school. I called back and asked why I was disconnected. She informed me that this was my fourth call to the program. This led me to believe that the screeners have Caller ID and were able to see that I was the one calling each time from my business partner’s place.

Okay, your screeners don’t want me to talk with you on the air. That’s fine with me, but please don’t whine about people not wanting to be interviewed by you. However, don’t think that I won’t get past your screeners if I want to. I’m an expert at bypassing security. In fact, your former show Inside Edition interviewed me for getting past two massive police checkpoints and to the red carpet at the Oscars (FYI, I spoke to a couple Inside Edition people who worked there when you were host; they said you were a dick). So getting past Miss Congeniality and the other screeners will be easy for me. So why not make it easier for us all and let me speak my mind on your show when I call? Having me on would be a change of pace from the typical lame talk radio caller.

Sincerely,

Scoobie

Posted 11:16 AM by Scoobie Davis

Stuff Coming Soon
I'll be posting some interesting stuff within the next two hours. Stay tuned. Also, go Buckeyes, Beat Michigan!! UPDATE: I had some things to do, so I'll have today's post up by 3:30 PST.

Posted 5:12 PM by Scoobie Davis

Roger Ailes and Bill Clinton Versus Roger Ailes and George W. Bush

In yesterday’s post defending Tom Daschle for his criticisms of hate radio, I also mentioned that Roger Ailes was Limbaugh’s executive producer. Some people noticed this and wanted to know if the inclusion had something to do with the revelations from Bob Woodward that--as head of the alleged journalistic outlet, the Fox News Channel--Ailes had given advice to the Bush regime.

Yes, that is the reason. David Plotz once called James Baker “the Bush family janitor” for his longtime practice of cleaning up messes for the Bushes. Ailes deserves to be considered for that title. As an adviser for George H. W. Bush, Ailes was assigned to do dirty work. After that, Ailes was executive producer of Rush Limbaugh’s television show. I watched the show and it ranks as one of the most dehumanizing shows in American TV history.

This leads me to suggest how we should assess the advice-giving transgression by Ailes. The New York Times has a thoughtful editorial on the matter. However, what is needed is an comparison of his treatment of Bush versus his treatment of the prior occupant of the White House. Defenders of Ailes are coming out and say that Ailes was simply being a patriotic American who was offering Mr. Bush some advice during some troubling times.

Fine. I’m willing to cut Ailes some slack (something he would never do for the left) were it not for the way he treated Bill Clinton at times America was facing some troubling times. In the aftermath of the Oklahoma City bombing, Ailes was spreading his smears about Vince Foster’s death being caused by the Clintons (to date, no apologies to the Clinton or Foster families). In the aftermath of the tragedy in Somalia, the television show he produced had a segment in which Limbaugh showed footage of a US soldier being dragged through the street to which Limbaugh said something to the effect of “They [the Clinton administration] wanted this to happen." Ailes stood by when Limbaugh spread the Gore/Monticello hoax (click here and scroll down to 7/5). Let’s not forget that Ailes was executive producer of the show that had the host mentioned the White House dog and put up a picture of 13-year-old Chelsea Clinton (The riotous laughter by the mouthbreathers in studio audience wasn’t exactly Nuremberg 1934, but it was a loathsome and nauseating spectacle). Ailes also stood by Limbaugh when he lied and said it was an accident. Even before Woodward uncovered this advice giving, there were some in the mainstream media who gave Ailes the benefit of the doubt when he said that his alleged news channel would be “fair and balanced.” However, for those of us familiar with this man’s past, the “fair and balanced” label is just another weapon in his ideological arsenal.

Posted 7:41 PM by Scoobie Davis

Why Tom Daschle is Right about Rush Limbaugh and Talk Radio

Tom Daschle came out and finally addressed talk radio hatemongering—pointing out how talk radio increases the number of threats against public officials. The reaction by the usual suspects was swift and predictable. I didn’t hear what Limbaugh said about it but I heard Rush-clone Sean Hannity (see my previous post). Although I wasn’t able to get on the program, I listened to the program. Not surprisingly, Hannity accused Daschle of “McCarthy-like tactics.” Hannity is wrong.

Talk radio is, on the whole, a pathological medium in the hands of the American right. As someone who listens to talk radio, I could spend days explaining why Daschle is right. In the interest of time and space, I can give five reasons why Daschle is right about Rush and talk radio encouraging threats and violence:
1) Limbaugh’s show and American talk radio has been the home to lunatic conspiracy theories regarding political opponents that rival the famous hoax, The Protocols of the Learned Elders of Zion. The purpose of these conspiracy theories is to foment hate.
2) Limbaugh’s show and talk radio have engaged in systematic hatemongering, rumor-mongering (rarely with any retractions once the rumors are discredited), disinformation campaigns, demonization, as well as attacks on the families of political opponents that are reckless. This deluge of hatred creates an atmosphere of hostility.
3) Limbaugh and other talk radio jocks have engaged in reckless behavior that comes very close to advocating violence against political opponents. In fact, a tragedy was narrowly averted because of the reckless behavior of Limbaugh and other media people.
4) Limbaugh and talk radio have been apologists for political violence.
5) There is evidence that Limbaugh and other talk radio jocks have targeted their message to an audience comprised of a significant number of people who are obviously motivated by hatred and who are incapable of processing information with logic and reason.

Let me elaborate on each of these points.

1) For those of you familiar with this site, you know that one thing that sticks in my craw is how the right has gotten away with some particularly ugly and heavily funded attacks on the Clintons during the 1990’s. One of the most noxious of these attacks involves a paranoid conspiracy theory created by the American right after Vince Foster’s death. Limbaugh and the executive producer of this television show, Roger Ailes were just two of the media heavy-hitters who posited the loony smear that Foster was murdered and the Clintons had something to do with it. The vicious innuendo on Limbaugh’s show was an affront to human decency. According to a story in Extra!:


The executive producer of Limbaugh's TV show, Roger Ailes (a Republican campaign consultant and president of the CNBC cable network), didn't claim that his star had debunked the rumor--he boasted that Limbaugh's report of "a suicide coverup, possibly murder" was a scoop. On the Don Imus radio show, Ailes remarked: "The guy who's been doing an excellent job for the New York Post [Chris Ruddy]...for the first time on the Rush Limbaugh show said that...he did not believe it was suicide.... Now, I don't have any evidence.... These people are very good at hiding or destroying evidence."

This last part of Ailes’ apologia for Limbaugh is a hallmark of most whacko conspiracy theories: the lack of evidence for the conspiracy is evidence of both the conspiracy and a cover-up (so much for Orrin Hatch’s contention on Hannity’s show today that Ailes has never gone “over the line”). Captain Queeg would call it a good example of “geometric logic.”

The fact is that if you spread whacko conspiracy theories such as the Vince-Foster-Didn’t-Commit-Suicide conspiracy theory, you are one or more of the following 1) isolated and woefully misinformed; 2) clinically paranoid; 3) a political assassin; 4) a mercenary (media whore). Limbaugh and other talk radio hosts who put forth these hateful lies are not only responsible for causing further suffering for a grieving family, they are responsible for fomenting action by their more unhinged listeners.

2)The dehumanization, demonization, disinformation campaigns, and vicious attacks on politicians and their families by Limbaugh and his clones are the mainstay of American talk radio. Just a few examples: the comparison of Daschle to Satan by Limbaugh; Limbaugh spread the GOP lie that Bob Beckel was trying to blackmail electors in 2000 (Beckel received numerous death threats); the vicious Chelsea/dog joke by Limbaugh on his Ailes-produced TV show; Limbaugh’s spreading the Moonie Times Clinton/Georgetown speech hoax. I could go on.
3) As far as I know, Limbaugh’s reckless rhetoric has not led to any fatalities. One near-fatality occurred when Limbaugh not only repeated the false allegations by Kathleen Willey that a man had stalked and threatened her, but Limbaugh did the odd act of spelling out the man’s name. This is the type of thing one would do if one wanted potential predators to make sure they knew the correct spelling in order to track him down. One unhinged person( Pat Buchanan’s brother; who would suspect mental illness in the Buchanan family?) went after the hapless man and a tragedy came close to happening because Limbaugh didn’t bother even trying to get the story of the falsely accused man.
4)When the GOP political operatives flown in to Florida to disrupt the vote-counting rioted and pummeled various people, Limbaugh was part of the chorus justifying the violence.
5) There is good reason to believe that at least a significant percentage of the talk radio audience have impaired reasoning ability. Just one example, When Limbaugh made the following wacky claim (called a “scoop” by Ailes):

OK, folks, I think I got enough information here to tell you about the contents of this fax that I got. Brace yourselves. This fax contains information that I have just been told will appear in a newsletter to Morgan Stanley sales personnel this afternoon.... What it is a bit of news which says...there's a Washington consulting firm that has scheduled the release of a report that will appear, it will be published, that claims that Vince Foster was murdered in an apartment owned by Hillary Clinton, and the body was then taken to Fort Marcy Park.

Even though this was highly publicized accusation, Limbaugh later claimed on his show (3/1/95) that he never mentioned anything about the alleged murder occurring in Hillary’s apartment. This transparent lie is something out of 1984. Obviously, Limbaugh knew his audience and didn’t fear any credibility problems with them. That’s scary—especially considering Limbaugh reckless rhetoric. Also, if you are the type of person who would believe that Bill and Hillary Clinton are responsible for the death of Vince Foster and dozens of other people, you are a whackjob. On his radio show, Limbaugh indulges these whackjobs, giving them additional conspiracies for their Clinton-hating fantasy world. This is potentially dangerous stuff. Thank God nobody has been killed.

Posted 12:20 PM by Scoobie Davis

Busted?
I wanted to discuss Tom Daschle's comments about talk radio to Sean Hannity today. I got through to the screener and told her what I wanted to say and she said my call wouldn't be good to put on air and hung up. Did she remember me as the guy who called Hannity a few weeks ago? (see my October 28 post, Republican Sexual Hypocrisy) I'm going to write more about this and other things in the next few hours.

Posted 6:49 PM by Scoobie Davis

Isn't That Ironic, Don't You Think?
Kudos to Maureen Farrell for her edifying article on conspiracies on Buzzflash. What I found most ironic in the article was how Daniel Pipes, author of Conspiracy: How the Paranoid Style Flourishes and Where It Comes From was once head of the Foreign Policy Research Institute, which receives funding by my second favorite paranoid conspiracy theorist Richard Mellon Scaife (Jack Chick is numero uno). This is especially interesting to me because Scaife reminds me of the late Robert Welch, the founder of the John Birch Society, who was one of the main targets of historian Richard Hofstadter who coined the phrase "paranoid style" back in the 1960's. Sadly, while the American right of the 1960's, headed by William F. Buckley, repudiated Welch for his paranoid extremism, the contemporary right has embraced Scaife (and his money). What a pity.

Posted 5:57 AM by Scoobie Davis

Extreme Compared To Whom?
The attacks on Nancy Pelosi’s supposed extremism are often as amusing as they are distorted. George Will on This Week tried to marginalize Pelosi by pointing out that voters in her congressional district overwhelmingly voted for Al Gore in 2000 (Psst George, more voters in the country voted for Gore than Bush).

Today the Moonie Times has an editorial on Pelosi that is pretty weak stuff. Examples given to illustrate Pelosi’s extremism are for her opposition to state-sanctioned school prayer and the display of the Ten Commandments in public schools (The Times doesn’t say whether Pelosi favors the teaching of the "Reverend" Moon’s sexual purification rituals to public school children).

Ben Fritz of Spinsanity has a great column on the right’s attempt to demonize Pelosi. The previously mentioned editorial by the Moonie Times is not the only time the Times editorial page went after Pelosi—Fritz also points out the Times’ Balint Vazsonyi’s paranoid fantasies: “Exactly 40 years ago, the 'Manchurian Candidate' was a movie," [Vazsonyi] writes, referencing the film where American soldiers are brainwashed to become assassins by communists. "Could it be that Thursday it will become reality?"

This nasty piece of character assassination deserves comment. The Manchurian Candidate analogy is nothing new with the paranoid right. During the election of 1992, assorted wingnuts such as Bob Dornan and Rush used the Manchurian Candidate analogy to describe Bill Clinton because he had toured Moscow when he was a Rhodes Scholar. It is also worth noting that Vazsonyi also accused Bill Clinton of treason because of the Moonie Times’ journalistic hoax regarding Clinton’s November 2001 Georgetown speech (for links on the hoax, see my 11/12/02 post, “Glutton For Punishment”).

I agree with Spinsanity that there is more heat than light generated on Pelosi supposed extremism. My take on the matter is that most of the critics of Pelosi’s supposed extremism view Pelosi’s House counterpart Tom DeLay as mainstream. Now that’s extreme.

Posted 2:24 PM by Scoobie Davis

Howler of the Month?
Two days ago, I listed a couple sentences of cloying praise of George Chucklehead Bush by Michael Kelly as the howler of the month. I wrote this a bit too early. Matt Drudge in writing about Bob Woodward's forthcoming book, Bush At War: "Woodward's BUSH AT WAR follows on the heels of Bill Sammon's NYT Bestseller FIGHTING BACK, THE WAR ON TERRORISM FROM INSIDE THE BUSH WHITE HOUSE, intensifying the cross-town rivalry between The WASHINGTON TIMES and the WASHINGTON POST." Rivalry? I'm no big fan of much of the Post's reporting (Steno Sue Schmidt and Ceci Connolly come to mind) but at least it's a real newspaper. Despite Moon's dumping of over a billion dollars into the Times, it is still a journalistic monstrosity with a circulation less than the Tacoma News Tribune.