Posted 11:55 PM by Scoobie Davis

Am I a Bitch?
Ay Caramba! I saw Michael Savage on television today and he has the worst teeth I have seen in my life! No wonder East Coast Bob called him up and told him about it (Savage's defensive and homophobic reaction to East Coast Bob's crack got him canned from MSNBC). I'm not saying it to be mean. This is what I don't understand: Haven't any of Savage's friends or colleagues taken him aside and told him to see a good dentist?

Look, I could use a visit from the tasteful queer guys from the Bravo network show just as much as the typical straight guy, but there are certain standards I have. These include good grooming and hygiene--including good oral hygiene. A set of veneers would run him a few grand but, hell, the guy is loaded. Am I a bitch for bringing up this(as well as the grooming habits of a Kerry advisor?)

Disclosure: There are many times that I go out dressed like a slob and don't care. Example: The other day I went out in old jeans and a t-shirt, I thought to myself: Hey, I'm getting laid; I don't care what people are thinking.

Posted 8:48 AM by Scoobie Davis

Why is Sean Hannity Intellectually Dishonest? Reason Number 578
On yesterday’s radio program, Hannity had this to say: “...You [John Kerry] are a left-wing radical. And that picture with Hanoi Jane—the woman who gave aid and comfort to our enemy—means something to some Americans. It is not questioning your service. We applaud it. I wrote about it in my first book—not even knowing that this would be a big issue. I applaud your service but you were with a woman that [sic] gave aid and comfort to our enemies. That’s what’s so outrageous about this.”

REALITY: Hannity is referring to a 1970 photograph that the hard right is attempting to use against Kerry (and getting nowhere with it—which necessitated the creation of a forged Kerry-Fonda photo). Let me get this straight: Because 1) Kerry and Fonda were in the same audience of a 1970 anti-war rally (Kerry and Fonda were three rows apart); and 2) This rally occurred a full two years before Fonda’s infamous trip to North Vietnam; in Hannity’s mind, this constitutes being “with a woman [who] gave aid and comfort to our enemies.” And it isn’t as if the truth about the photograph hasn’t been pointed out to Hannity in the past: I mentioned in a previous post that Hannity’s television co-host Alan Colmes made these points to Hannity on the show and Hannity had no response. It is only on the radio—where Hannity has no balance—where he can make such an attack again. That's what's so outrageous about this.

Posted 1:34 PM by Scoobie Davis

Hannity on Kerry
Kerry people should listen to Sean Hannity's radio show; it will give them a taste of what they're going to get from the rest of the right later in the year. In the first hour of today's radio show, Hannity shot off several cheap shots. First, he once again accused Kerry of flip-flopping on gay marriage because of a letter he signed two years ago. Hannity's TV co-host Alan Colmes punctured this myth and Hannity was present and didn't respond. Hmmm.

However, Hannityreally sunk low when he tried to link Kerry to Jane Fonda later in the first hour. I'll have the transcript later.

Posted 10:06 AM by Scoobie Davis

Ralph Nader
I'm going to work more about Nader some other time. In the meantime, Ryan Lizza and Ruy Teixeira don't think that Nader is the threat he was in 2000. I generally agree.

Posted 8:46 AM by Scoobie Davis

Happy Mardi Gras
I wish I were in New Orleans passing out beads.

Posted 11:53 PM by Scoobie Davis

First Annual Rent Party
This is the most hits in a day yet--thanks to a link from Atrios. One of the reasons I have written a lot in the past couple weeks is that I am not working now. If you like this blog and you've never contributed, then hit the Amazon Honor System icon on the left (right below the Prank Phone Call List) or click here and help support this site. If just a few people threw me five or ten bucks, it would help out a lot. Thanks in advance because I really need a few contributions to pay the rent--I wasn't being metaphorical.
UPDATE: Thanks to your generous contributions, I erased my rent deficit. Woo Hoo!

Posted 1:40 PM by Scoobie Davis

Bill O'Reilly In LA--The Pasty-Meter Pegs Up
I heard on KABC that Bill O'Reilly would be speaking at the Wadsworth Theater in Brentwood as part of KABC's "2004 All-Star Talk Tour." The announcement said there would be a question and answer period following the talk; I thought this would be the perfect forum to ask a tough but fair question and see how Mr. No Spin would respond.

I thought it was a good omen that the talk would be at the Wadsworth Theater. The Wadsworth Theater gives me a warm feeling every time I pass it--even though I had never been inside of it until I saw O'Reilly speak. The parking lot next to it was the site of three of my most enjoyable party crashing events: the after-parties for the premieres of Spider-Man, xXx, and Terminator 3. It seemed kind of odd that at a place I had so much fun, people would be parking their cars in order to see O'Reilly's lame old-dude-on-a-bar-stool routine.

I thought it would be good to look as clean-cut as possible at the event. I trimmed my sideburns (the latest Playboy advisor said that appropriate sideburn length for the business world is "midear"). I wore a nice pullover, slacks, my new ankle boots, and a varsity jacket. I figured I would pass muster if a line formed to ask O'Reilly questions (For what it's worth, the concession stand lady told me I looked like James Spader).

O'Reilly was scheduled to speak at 7:30 so I arrived at 5:30 to get a good seat. When I got to the theater, I noticed there wasn't a microphone in the audience area--as there usually is for Q & A sessions. I went to the lobby area and there was a sign telling people to fill out cards for questions to ask O'Reilly (it turned out that after O'Reilly gave his talk, KABC radio host Al Rantel had the Q & A with O'Reilly with the cards). I knew that there would be no fucking way they would ask O'Reilly any of the questions I wanted to ask him, so I didn't bother to fill out a card. I asked the guy at the KABC table why they weren't going to have a live Q & A with audience members. He said that it was due to time considerations. I was pissed.

Since I had nothing to do for a couple hours, I decided to take a look at the audience members and see if they were "the working class" people O'Reilly prides himself on representing (I scanned the audience before, during, and after the event). The audience certainly wasn't representative of the working people of the great Los Angeles area. For one thing, this was an audience that was overwhelmingly white; there were about 700 audience members and I counted six whom I could tell were not white (that's less than one percent!) The last time I saw anything as close to this high a percentage of white people at an event in the LA area was a 2000 Nader rally in Long Beach. Let me repeat:

The last time I saw anything as close to this high a percentage of white people at an event in the LA area was a 2000 Nader rally in Long Beach.

I think the last time there was a crowd this pasty was when Dick and Lynne arrived at a Cheney family reunion.

Let's contrast this with the working people of Los Angeles. I live in a working class neighborhood and I commute with working class people on the bus and metro. The people there were not the working classes of LA. What I could tell from the people I saw and the cars they drove, it would be fair to say that the audience was primarily comprised of middle and upper-middle class whitebreads. I thought it was a big contrast with the Brentwood Coffee Bean I visited after O'Reilly's talk; about one third of the customers were nonwhite.

There is no dishonor in this. I have nothing personal against the O'Reilly's audience for being middle and upper-middle class white people (especially the blonde wearing the miniskirt and fuck-me boots). I come from a middle class white background. I honor many of the values of middle class society (e.g., when I have to tell someone to quit talking in the movie theater, it is very rarely a middle class person). I went to a predominantly upper-middle class undergraduate school (and if it were possible to still be there, I would still be there). So my dispute is not with middle class white society, it is with O'Reilly's claim to represent the American working class. He may be their champion, but they weren't the people who showed up to his speech.

My thesis was further supported by audience reaction to O'Reilly's talk. O'Reilly brought down the house when he made the following observations:

"...[E]veryone in California should have a right to carry a concealed weapon."

"He [George W. Bush] did really well [in an interview on the O'Reilly Factor]."

"Stuart Smalley [Al Franken] is the biggest liar in the country!" [O'Reilly didn't elaborate on any of Franken's alleged lies to the audience]

"If the presidential race were held tomorrow, Bush would win. Bush would win." [The applause was very loud after this comment]

"Well-informed people don't listen to Barbra Streisand."

The crowd really ate it up over O'Reilly's most obnoxious comment that night: "If I were gay, I would marry Hillary!"

These comments also don't exactly square with one of O'Reilly's comments in his talk: "I'm not an ideologue. I don't have an agenda. What I want is the best for America--the best for the folks." Is O'Reilly full of it? I'm reporting; you decide.

Addendum: NewsMax sponsors O'Reilly's newsletter: The title the story on O'Reilly's trip to LA this week in his 2/19 No Spin email newsletter was "Bill Survives a Week in California." It also noted that the newsletter was sponsored by Chris Ruddy's NewsMax. Celebrity Boxing? In his talk, O'Reilly made the following comments: "...Snoop Dogg, who, by the way, in a magazine said that he wants to b-slap me [audience laughter] ... I've got a message for Snoop: Hey, Mr. Dogg, you may be sniffing around the wrong guy here. [Audience laughter] ...You lay a finger on me and your rap days may be over fast!" [Audience applause and laughter] One Thing I wanted to ask O'Reilly: I wanted to ask him about the phony quote in Who's Looking Out for You?

Update: Welcome to Atrios readers. If you're unfamiliar with this site, check it out. The front page is here.

Posted 9:29 AM by Scoobie Davis

Oscar Picks
MSN has an article on worst Oscar picks in history. My personal choices: 1) 1964 Best Picture. The winner was My Fair Lady. My Fair Lady was a perfectly fine picture, but it pales in comparison to Kubrick's Dr. Strangelove or: How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Bomb . 2) 1994 Best Picture. Forest Gump was the winner but Quiz Show, The Shawshank Redemption, Pulp Fiction, Four Weddings and a Funeral, and Ed Wood were all better.

Posted 2:41 PM by Scoobie Davis

Big Trouble
Josh Marshall with the latest on the purloined memo scandal.

Posted 12:54 PM by Scoobie Davis

Get Your Lame Ass Out of my Party, Cont'd
The latest target in my series of posts telling bogus Democrats to get their lame asses out of the Democratic Party is Zell Miller. Right now he is on Sean Hannity's radio show. He seems right at home with other Hannity guests such as Ralph Reed and Newt Gingrich. More on this later.

Posted 11:17 AM by Scoobie Davis

Posting Later
I went to Bill O'Reilly's speaking appearance in Brentwood last night and I will have some observations posted either tonight or this weekend. Teaser: The demographics of the audience don't quite jibe with O'Reilly's representation of himself as the champion of the common "working people."

Posted 9:00 AM by Scoobie Davis

Woo Hoo!!!!!!!!
According to Campaigns & Elections magazine's handicapping service, George W. Bush's chances for election in November were recently downgraded from 56.3 percent to 54.3.

Posted 4:25 PM by Scoobie Davis

tears for fears

gavin

moby

maniacs

jimmy

shout

Posted 9:16 AM by Scoobie Davis

This Month's Playboy
The cover for the latest Playboy has "WWE supervixons Sable and Torrie." I don't follow wrestling so I'm not familiar with them except know that Sable posed for Playboy several months ago (the Sable/Torrie pictorial is nothing to write home about). On page 36, there's a topless photo of Uma Thurman from Dangerous Liaisons. There is a hot Cyber Girl pictorial--Ania Zalewski is looking totally hot. There's a cartoon of two guys sitting at a bar, one says to the other: "I'm a big Bush fan, but I'd like to see a shaved one occasionally." My thoughts exactly.

Posted 8:55 AM by Scoobie Davis

The Full Story
Mark Kleiman gives the full scoop on the Drudge smear here.

Posted 9:52 PM by Scoobie Davis

Read This
Sidney Blumenthal on the Drudge Slime Machine:

"Screw journalism! The whole thing's a fraud anyway," Drudge has proclaimed. Though he calls himself an "information anarchist," he is anything but independent. Rather, he is a reliable submissive to his partisan "sources." One independent study of his "exclusive" stories determined that only about one-third were true. His latest "intern" revelation is the sound of his master's voice at the beginning of a campaign Republicans fear losing.

Posted 9:50 PM by Scoobie Davis

This is Funny
The Dolphin Queen on George W. Bush's roots:

Someone said to me: But how can you call him normal when he came from such privilege? Indeed he did. But there's nothing lemonade-on-the-porch-overlooking-the-links-at-the-country-club about Mr. Bush. He isn't smooth. He actually has some of the roughness and the resentments of the self-made man. I think the reason for this is Texas. He grew up in a white T-shirt and jeans playing ball in the street with the other kids in the subdivision. Barbara Bush wasn't exactly fancy. They lived like everyone else. She spoke to me once with great nostalgia of her early days in Texas, when she and her husband and young George slept in the same bed in an apartment in Midland. A prostitute lived in the complex. Barbara Bush just thought she was popular. Then they lived in a series of suburban houses.

George W. Bush didn't grow up at Greenwich Country Day with a car and a driver dropping him off, as his father had. Until he went off to boarding school, he thought he was like everyone else. That's a gift, to think you're just like everyone else in America. It can be the making of you.

UPDATE: In the response section for this article, a reader from Lexington, Kentucky makes the following observation:

George Bush just like everyone else? Unbelievable! Boarding school. Yale. Harvard. Political strings to get in the Guard with a test score in the 25th percentile! Special loans from daddy's friends to buy Ranger's stock. (Self-made indeed.) Alcohol abuse. Normal?

Oh how Ms. Noonan loves "normal." A person graduates from Harvard and uses words like "misunderestimate." That isn't normal. It is stupid.

Posted 9:52 AM by Scoobie Davis

Limbaugh Loses It
I didn't hear Limbaugh's radio show yesterday (I was in Mexico at la dentista's office; don't laugh--I saved a lot of money). A reader emailed me and told me that a caller confronted Pillhead yesterday about his rumormonging regarding Kerry's personal life. Darn, I missed it. Today on Limbaugh's show, Limbaugh continued his conspiratorial thinking (e.g., last week, he thought the Clinton were behind the rumors about John Kerry's sex life). Today, he said that the DNC was behind Howard Dean's implosion.
UPDATE: Just a minute ago, Limbaugh mentioned the caller yesterday who scolded him about his rumormongering. Limbaugh said the Kerry/intern nonstory was still alive because the British tabloid The Sun (Limbaugh referred to it as a "newspaper"; FYI, Nikkala--this week's Page 3 girl for The Sun is looking good) is still treating the nonstory as a story.

Also, Limbaugh revived the conspiracy that "this is all about Hillary in 2008" and that she and her surrogates are putting forth unelectable candidates--Kerry and Edwards--so that Hillary can run in 2008.

Posted 12:00 PM by Scoobie Davis

It's Wrong
I am strongly opposed to looking into the allegations surrounding self-appointed Virtue Czar William Bennett's sex life. I take this position, not out of ethical concerns, because the butterball has it coming. I oppose it for aesthetic reasons: some very unpleasant thought-pictures emerged when I first read about it.

Posted 11:50 AM by Scoobie Davis

On Drudge
All this week, The Howler will discuss Matt Drudge's nonstory about Kerry. Today's installment also mentions how the Fox News crew is whitewashing the Boy King's AWOL status.

Posted 8:51 AM by Scoobie Davis

The New York Times--At Long Last--Gets It
They finally mentioned Katherine Harris' racist voter purge prior to the 2000
(s)election. Danny Schechter has the story on Greg Palast's site.
UPDATE: The Schechter article doesn't link to the Times' editorial "How America Doesn't Vote": here is the link. It's a good read (though about three and-a-half years late). Thanks to Phyllis for pointing this out to me.

Posted 6:30 PM by Scoobie Davis

Kerry Nation? Maybe.
Fred Barnes has a column titled Kerry Nation? Don´t Bet On It (via Calpundit). I remember around May of 1992, Barnes had a cover story for the New Republic titled, Why Clinton Can´t Win.

Posted 12:12 PM by Scoobie Davis

Happy Presidents' Day
I'm not taking the day off--I will post later.

Posted 6:01 PM by Scoobie Davis

Yuck!
I watched Scarborough Country on MSNBC and on the panel they had Mark Mellman, senior advisor to the Kerry campaign. I thought a hedgehog had jumped on his face but then I realized it was his beard. Lose the beard, dude. Trust me.

Posted 11:47 AM by Scoobie Davis

Happy Belated Valentime's [sic] Day
I knew a woman who didn't say "Valentines", she said "Valentime's." Anyway, the Scoobster didn't have to spend any money on gifts because he's unattached. He bought himself a gift though. Remember when I wrote that I couldn't justify spending $65.00 on ankle boots? Well, I still can't. However, at the Two Dollar Clothing store near Pico and Alvarado, I found a new pair of black ankle boots with buckles for $20.00. They are Talent brand which are made in Mexico. I not only saved money but these ankle boot were made out of synthetic materials, not leather. So I got karma-free ankle boots. Sweet!

Posted 10:40 AM by Scoobie Davis

Drat! I Need More Juice Cloths
I experienced juice cloth blowout today. Let me give you the background on my juicer. I have a top of the line juicing apparatus: it's the K & K Grinder and Press. It retails for $1300 new (I bought an old model on Ebay for $230 a few years ago--it doesn't matter because these juicers last forever)--It's just like the $2000 Norwalk Juicer except that the K & K has a manual press that uses a hydraulic jack (the press for the Norwalk is electric).

What makes the K & K and Norwalk juicers superior is that they extract the most juice. It's a two-step process: 1) The grinder turns the fruits and/or vegetables into a puree; 2) The puree is then enclosed in a juice cloth that is pressed into juice. The pulp is left in the juice cloth. They are so efficient at extracting the most juice that the leftover pulp is dry and is like cardboard. The juice is delish.

Well, today I made some apple, orange, beet, carrot juice (sprinkled with barley green and wheatgrass powder). However, the juice cloth developed a hole. I have to get new juice cloths now. Bummer. Until I get my new cloths, I can used the one iwth the hole; I just have to fold it a certain way to get it to work.

Posted 9:51 AM by Scoobie Davis

Stand Up Against Hate
George Must Go is on the warpath against Ann Coulter's smear against former Senator Max Cleland's war record.

Posted 8:59 AM by Scoobie Davis

Yes, Virginia, Alan Colmes Does Have A Sack
I was concerned when I heard that con man Ted Sampley would be on Hannity & Colmes last night. For those of you not familiar with my views on Colmes, to paraphrase the late great Charles Bronson in Mr. Majestyk, Colmes is in the wrong line of work. So I emailed Colmes the recent column by Joe Conason on Sampley the founder of Vietnam Veterans Against Kerry (scroll down to yesterday's post). (At the time, I didn't know about this excerpt from Susan Katz Keating's book, Prisoners of Hope: Exploiting the POW-MIA Myth in America--via Roger Ailes; Sampley is a complete nutcase and a ghoul).

However, last night, Colmes mopped the floor with Sampley. When Sampley called Kerry "a traitor," Colmes' response was to point out that Sampley had also called John McCain a traitor. (To his credit, Hannity also rebuked Sampley for calling Kerry a traitor). Colmes mentioned the loony article by Sampley titled "The Manchurian Candidate" (it's mentioned in the Keating excerpt) in which Sampley portrayed McCain as an undercover KGB spy. Colmes ended the segment by telling Sampley, "You're slurring Kerry just as you slurred McCain a number of years ago."

That same night when the discussion was gay marriage, Hannity tried to portray Kerry as flip-flopping on the issue because of his current opposition to gay marriage and his recent opposition to an anti-gay marriage amendment. Colmes was quick to point out that Kerry was not inconsistent--he opposed the amendment in question because it also restricted civil unions, which Kerry favored--along with Dick Cheney. Also, a couple of nights ago, when Hannity brought up the subject of the photo of Kerry and Jane Fonda in the same audience at a 1970 anti-war rally, Colmes quickly countered that 1) the photo was taken two years before Fonda's infamous trip to Hanoi; and 2) it wasn't a photo of Kerry with Fonda but it just showed them in the same audience.

I was willing to give up all hope for Colmes when recently he told Katherine Harris that they were friends, but he's worth a second look.

Posted 8:13 AM by Scoobie Davis

Yo
I'll have my post on Alan Colmes' exemplary performance with con man Ted Sampley in the next hour.

Posted 9:43 PM by Scoobie Davis

Sweet
Paul Krugman in Friday's New York Times:

But when administration officials are challenged about the blatant deceptions in their budgets — or, for that matter, about the use of prewar intelligence — their response, almost always, is to fall back on the president's character. How dare you question Mr. Bush's honesty, they ask, when he is a man of such unimpeachable integrity? And that leaves critics with no choice: they must point out that the man inside the flight suit bears little resemblance to the official image.

There is, as far as I can tell, no positive evidence that Mr. Bush is a man of exceptional uprightness. When has he even accepted responsibility for something that went wrong? On the other hand, there is plenty of evidence that he is willing to cut corners when it's to his personal advantage. His business career was full of questionable deals, and whatever the full truth about his National Guard service, it was certainly not glorious.

Old history, you may say, and irrelevant to the present. And perhaps that would be true if Mr. Bush was prepared to come clean about his past. Instead, he remains evasive. On "Meet the Press" he promised to release all his records — and promptly broke that promise.

I don't know what he's hiding. But I do think he has forfeited any right to cite his character to turn away charges that his administration is lying about its policies. And that is the point: Mr. Bush may not be a particularly bad man, but he isn't the paragon his handlers portray.

Posted 4:52 PM by Scoobie Davis

Does Alan Colmes Have A Sack?
On his radio show, Sean Hannity said that a representative of Vietnam Veteran's Against Kerry will be a guest on Hannity & Colmes tonight. So a couple hours ago, I emailed Colmes and told him about Joe Consaon's article on the group's founder Ted Sampley. Conason's article gives Colmes a lot of ammo; the question is: Will Colmes use it?
UPDATE: Colmes does have a sack; Sampley was the guest on Hannity & Colmes and Colmes was tough with Sampley. More details later.

Posted 12:15 PM by Scoobie Davis

It Doesn't Add Up
I don't know what Wesley Clark said but Drudge claims that "[i]n an off-the-record conversation with a dozen reporters earlier this week, General Wesley Clark plainly stated: "Kerry will implode over an intern issue." [Three reporters in attendance confirm Clark made the startling comments.]" As I write this, Sean Hannity is treating this allegation as an established fact.

If Clark believed that the frontrunner would implode and said this, why did he drop out of the race? Also, why would Clark be planning to endorse Kerry if he thought Kerry was dead meat?

UPDATE: According to Drudge, Clark denied mentioning an intern. He just said it on Hannity's radio show. Hannity suspects that the Clintons are behind the alleged leak. Drudge just claimed that there is a tape of an interview the alleged woman had with a reporter before she allegedly left the country.

IMPORTANT UPDATE: I was right; TNR's Ryan Lizza debunks Drudge's claim about Clark.

Posted 9:24 AM by Scoobie Davis

Let's Remember Who We're Dealing With
I hope my conversation with Drudge will give you an idea about his views on journalistic integrity. I'm hoping that legitimate journalistic outlets will remember Drudge's track record.

Posted 5:12 PM by Scoobie Davis

AWOL Update
Keven Drum spoke with Bill Burkett--developing. Also, read David Corn's take.

Posted 1:04 PM by Scoobie Davis

Memories
According to the Kerry Blog, Congressman Adam Schiff (D-CA) endorsed John Kerry. Back in 2000, yours truly was a volunteer for Schiff in his successful effort to oust former impeachment manager James Rogan from the House.

Posted 10:12 AM by Scoobie Davis

Jeane Dixon
On today's Radio Factor, Bill O'Reilly patted himself on the back when he pointed to his prediction from a week ago that Wesley Clark--whom O'Reilly referred to as a "pinhead"--would drop of of the presidential race (like, no shit, Dick Tracy). Today, O'Reilly also made a prediction about the Bush AWOL story:

It [the story] disappears in about a week. Kerry himself said today that he's not going to make an issue of it and he's smart to do that. He's smart to do that. It's an ideologically-driven story. The guy, the President, got an honorable discharge--maybe he cut some corners--we all did when we were younger. I see it as not a reflection on who he is today. And Kerry has taken the high road and Kerry is smart.

I'm betting that O'Reilly is wrong. Orcinus has more.

Posted 8:27 AM by Scoobie Davis

Blast From The Past
Now that I'm a Kerry supporter, I thought it would be good to go to the archives of Scoobie Davis Online and link to the hilarious transcript of the caller to Rush Limbaugh's radio show who contrasted John Kerry's service with that of George W. Bush.

Posted 5:39 PM by Scoobie Davis

It's Over For Wesley Clark
I have known this for a while. The Clark Sphere acknowledges it. Accordingly, I am throwing my support to John Kerry.

Posted 2:59 PM by Scoobie Davis

Wow!
Joe Conason has the goods on Ted Sampley, the bottom-feeder behind Vietnam Veterans Against Kerry. Attention bloggers: if you link to this story, please mention Sampley's name and Vietnam Vets Against Kerry so that it increases the likelihood that a site linking to this story pops up when people use a search engine for Sampley's name and organization.

Posted 9:55 AM by Scoobie Davis

The AWOL Issue Isn't Going Anywhere This Time Around
During the 2000 elections, I didn't know the blogosphere existed (did it?). This year, bloggers are on top of the Bush AWOL story and are holding the mainstream media accountable (as they did for Trent Lott's comments on Strom and after the publication of Slander). The big players on this are CalPundit, The Daily Howler, and, of course, Josh Marshall. Expect a major shitstorm soon.

Dishonorable mention on the Bush AWOL story goes to Mr. No Spin himself, Bill O'Reilly. On today's Radio Factor, O"Reilly made the following comments: "It's really a non-issue at this point."

Posted 8:34 AM by Scoobie Davis

Soros is Bad--Compared to Whom?
Right before last Thanksgiving, I asked readers what was wrong with this op-ed criticizing George Soros and his money that was going to Democrats. I received many e-mails regarding the most obvious flaw of the op-ed. I promised to give the answers in a few days but I let it slip my mind. Better late than never: here are the answers:

1. The “newspaper” that printed the op-ed was the Sun Myung Moon-owned Washington Times. The Times has a lot of gall to cast stones regarding the ethics of political sugar daddies. John Gorenfeld has a succinct chart that illustrates the absurdity of this criticism of Soros.

2. Only one person e-mailed me about the gall of the author of the to judge the moral fitness to participate in American politics. Bossie is one of the most repellent characters in American politics. One example: During the 1992 campaign, Brown and Bossie hounded the relatives of a woman who had committed suicide to support a smear that the woman, one of Bill Clinton’s former law students Susan Coleman, killed herself after being impregnated by Clinton. Bossie barged into the hospital room of the deceased woman’s mother who was visiting her husband. When CBS’s Erik Engberg reported on Brown and Bossie’s activates, the Bush White House repudiated them, calling them “the lowest forms of life.” Sadly, it didn’t take long for Brown and Bossie to be fully rehabilitated by the American right.

3. Another example: In Brown and Bossie’s hit book, Slick Willie, they include a “special thanks” to virulent racist Jim Johnson (also, in Slick Willie, they present the law student smear as established fact).

4. Bossie is a complete whacko—he peddled wild tales about Vince Foster’s death. It seems odd that he feels that he has room to determine the political hygiene of others.

5. At the end of the op-ed, Bossie is listed as “a former chief investigator for the House Committee on Government Reform and Oversight.” This is correct, but I thought it would be something that Bossie would want us to forget. You see, Bossie was unceremoniously fired for doctoring tapes of Web Hubbell for partisan purposes.

The benighted masses that watch Bossie being treated as a legitimate pundit by Fox News’ Greta Van Stretched-Face don’t realize who Bossie really is. Thanks, Greta for the fair and balanced coverage.

Posted 11:52 PM by Scoobie Davis

If You Have an Extra 50 Bucks Lying Around...
Screw George W. Bush using the Freedom of Information Act. I doubt if it will work, but it's a fun read.

Posted 1:36 PM by Scoobie Davis

Sean Hannity's Butchered Quote
Sean Hannity is full of shit. On his radio show, Hannity butchered a quote that John Kerry made in 1971 before a Senate committee that was looking at atrocities committed in Vietnam. Hannity did the same thing the Washington Times' Wes Pruden did earlier (see SemiPundit's analysis). Hannity, like Pruden, deceptively uses ellipses (. . .) in the quote and takes the quote entirely out of context to give a different impression of Kerry's words. Then, Hannity uses the out-of-context quote to launch a vicious attack on Kerry—which Hannity knows not to be true because Hannity saw the original context of the quote. Here is what Hannity—like Pruden--said that Kerry said:

"They ... raped, cut off ears, cut off heads, taped wires from portable telephones to human genitals and turned up the power, cut off limbs, blown up bodies, randomly shot at civilians, razed villages in fashion reminiscent of Genghis Khan, shot cattle and dogs for fun, poisoned food stocks, and generally ravaged the countryside."

Right after he gave Kerry's out-of-context quote, here is what Hannity said: "That's what John Kerry says he witnessed with his fellow soldiers in Vietnam. John Kerry said that."

Later in the show, Hannity played dumb about the larger context of the quote: [repeating parts of the quote]

...“cut off heads, cut off limbs” Has anyone asked Mr. Kerry if he witnessed this? Has anyone asked Mr. Kerry if he’s ever brought those people to justice—that acted like animals as he’s accusing them of? He says soldiers randomly shot civilians. Did he ever tell the authorities? Has John Kerry ever filed charges against these people? He says his fellow soldiers razed villages in a fashion reminiscent of Genghis Khan—that soldiers shot cattle and dogs for fun. These are Americans troops—boys we are talking about. That American soldiers poisoned food stocks and ravaged the countryside. Oh, he witnessed this and he knows who did it or I guess he wouldn’t have said this before Congress. If Vietnam is going to be the issue, let’s ask Senator Kerry, in fact, whether or not he witnessed this, and if, in fact he did, who is responsible for the murder of innocent men, women, and children. Who did he see raping other women in Vietnam? What are their names? Who did he see cutting off ears and heads and limbs in Vietnam? What soldiers did he witness doing this—considering he made the statement back then? He’s using his past service and his medals—was using them then—perhaps to undermine—We have to raise this question. Brave men and women who were still in Vietnam, accusing them of horrible atrocities, accusing his country of widespread murder. I don’t see any evidence to corroborate his charges here and I haven’t seen Tim Russert ask him any questions about these things. That hurt the war effort. That was part of the politics injected in the war—we see what happens. I think an argument can be made that it endangered our soldiers who were out there fighting and dying against an enemy.

REALITY: Hannity knew he was lying through his teeth about whether Kerry witnessed these things personally because he was familiar with what Kerry actually said. Here is the actual quote that Kerry made to the Senate committee without ellipses and in context:

“I would like to talk on behalf of all those veterans and say that several months ago in Detroit we had an investigation at which over 150 honorably discharged, and many very highly decorated, veterans testified to war crimes committed in Southeast Asia. These were not isolated incidents but crimes committed on a day-to-day basis with the full awareness of officers at all levels of command. It is impossible to describe to you exactly what did happen in Detroit - the emotions in the room and the feelings of the men who were reliving their experiences in Vietnam. They relived the absolute horror of what this country, in a sense, made them do.”

“They told stories that at times they had personally raped, cut off ears, cut off heads, taped wires from portable telephones to human genitals and turned up the power, cut off limbs, blown up bodies, randomly shot at civilians, razed villages in fashion reminiscent of Genghis Khan, shot cattle and dogs for fun, poisoned food stocks, and generally ravaged the countryside of South Vietnam in addition to the normal ravage of war and the normal and very particular ravaging which is done by the applied bombing power of this country.”

Is Sean Hannity a pathological liar? I’m reporting; you decide.

UPDATE: On Hannity & Colmes tonight, they had a panel discussion with Rich Lowry and Susan Estrich on Kerry's 1971 testimony. To their credit, Colmes and Estrisch did a somewhat adequate job of defending Kerry against Hannity's charges--Colmes brought up the fact that Kerry was reporting what other Vietnam vets had told him, not that he witnessed these events as Hannity dishonestly insinuated; this somewhat squelched Hannity's dishonest line of arguement. Neither Colmes nor Estrich hit any home runs, but keep in mind: this is Fox News.

Posted 1:08 PM by Scoobie Davis

Utterly Despicable
I'll have a post on Sean Hannity later today.

Posted 12:05 PM by Scoobie Davis

There He Goes Again
Pillboy mentioned on his radio show today that he had a 1970 photo that shows John Kerry and Jane Fonda at an anti-war rally(This was a full two years before Fonda made her infamous trip to North Vietnam). He posted it on his web site. This is the kind of things Democrats should expect more of as the campaign progresses--which makes the advice I gave in the previous post all the more relevant.

Posted 9:24 AM by Scoobie Davis

Transcript Soon
I'll have the Peter Beinart transcript I promised soon.

Posted 10:40 AM by Scoobie Davis

I Wasn't Keeping Track, But...
Of the five questions that Joe Conason submitted to Tim Russert to ask George W. Bush on Meet The Press today, the important one that Russert did ask Bush was question one, pertaining to the authorization to release of all of Bush's military records relating to his Nationa Guard service/nonservice. Bush agreed. I have the feeling that this will bite Bush in the butt in the coming months. I enjoyed Bush's OJ defense, arguing that receiving an honorary discharge absolved him of wrongdoing.

Posted 1:05 AM by Scoobie Davis

The LA Comic Book Convention
I had a blast at the LA Comic Book Convention. Yes, I confess that I enjoy comic books (my favorites are by Jack Chick and Batton Lash who does Supernatural Law). As I have mentioned in the past, the LA Comic Con--like all comic cons--has more than its share of fanboys who fit the fanboy stereotype. This one was no exception.

Prior to the panel with artists and writers for The Simpsons and Futurama, there was a Simpsons trivia contest (I made it past the first round and won a comic book). During the Q & A with the panel, I asked about the nude Futurama shirt I had that was drawn by Matt Groening. They told me it was "insider stuff" and that the artists often draw characters from the shows in scenarios that would never be used by the shows. After the panel, they signed stuff (I got my copies of the Futurama comic book signed--issues 1-4).

There was also a panel for the upcoming film Hellboy. It had director Guillermo del Toro and stars Ron Perlman and Doug Jones. I like del Toro; he has attitude. They showed a ten-minute clip that showed scenes from the film as well as cast and crew discussing the film. I want to see this film.

Posted 7:45 AM by Scoobie Davis

How The Democrats Should Act
The New Republic's Peter Beinart was on Hugh Hewitt's radio show yesterday. He was smokin'. I will excerpt his discussion over the weekend.

Posted 1:45 PM by Scoobie Davis

Scooter Libby and John Hannah
Indictments would make my day.

Posted 9:18 AM by Scoobie Davis

The Ethics and Fun of Mocking Street Proselytizers
I have the attitude that anyone who approaches me on the street and wants to convert me to their religion or their political views is fair game for whatever mockery and derision I believe is appropriate for the occasion. It's always fun to mess with the minds of the hapless followers of fringe presidential candidate Lyndon LaRouche. One thing I like to do to proselytizers is whenever they talk to me is to only respond with the words "Dude, where's my car?" ("Kenneth, what is the frequency" is so 1980's). And I can't wait for the Green Party people to be out there handing out flyers for the 2004 campaign (In 2000, I deliberately gave up a prime chance to get laid in order to mock a Greenie). I regret that I haven't been approached by charity-scamming Moonies recently (by the way, John Gorenfeld has some good recent posts about Moon and the Unification Church).

I know some of you out there think I'm callous. Quite the opposite--when a person wasting his or her life on a futile or ridiculous cause (e.g., the Green Party, the LaRouchie movement, or the Unification Church), then when these deluded souls meet a proper adult and are ridiculed, then it's one step in the direction of reassessing their lives and then getting real lives. The last thing these people need is an enabler who humors them--they need reality.

My latest tack is to use these people to help practice my Spanish. Last weekend, some Spanish-speaking Jehovah’s Witnesses approached me. I tried telling them in Spanish that I used to live near Jehovah’s Witnesses founder Charles Taze Russell’s hometown Pittsburgh and that Pittsburgh is a party town and that I'm a party animal ("uno fiestero"). It got to the point where the Witnesses used an excuse to get away from me.

Posted 11:42 AM by Scoobie Davis

What Is It Worth Now?
I saw Stalag 17 last night. I love that film. Not to spoil it for anyone who hasn't seen this Billy Wilder classic about the goings-on in a World War II Nazi prisoner of war camp, but when William Holden speculated that the wealthy family of the soldier he was helping to escape would probably give him $10,000. I wondered how much that would be in today's money. So I went to this web site and found that $10,000 in the early 1940's was worth about $102,000 in today's money.

Posted 11:03 AM by Scoobie Davis

Oh Well
For those of you who don't know, I endorsed Wesley Clark. The past couple weeks have not been encouraging for his candidacy. Yesterday, he did win Oklahoma, but the Kerry momentum is real and probably unstoppable. I'm disappointed but I believe that Kerry is a nominee who can re-defeat Bush. It won't be easy--the right probably is not going to run against Kerry as much as they're going to run against Massachusetts. However, Kerry is a tough cookie and he has some able people working for him.

Posted 4:15 PM by Scoobie Davis

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Posted 1:38 AM by Scoobie Davis

What To Expect From Talk Radio in the Fall
Yesterday on the Radio Factor's "no-spin zone," Judge Andrew Napolitano was subbing for Bill O'Reilly. The topic was George W. Bush's AWOL status when he was in the champagne division of the Texas Air National Guard (a position he got because of strings pulled by Daddykins so that fighting in Vietnam--an action both the younger and elder Bush supported--could be done by ghetto blacks and working class whites). Napolitano said, against all evidence, that it was "luck of the draw" that Bush was "not on active duty" in Vietnam. Excuse me while I laugh.

If John F. Kerry becomes the nominee, Sean Hannity will attempt to make an issue of Kerry's stance toward the CIA and the intelligence community during the 1980's. The Kerry people should look into this.