Paul Revere saddles up

The first must-read essay of the New Year was actually posted on December 28, 2005. Do not waste a minute: Go read Chris Lloyd's searing wake-up call, Clowntime is Over: Last Stand of the American Republic. No excerpt, just go.

Ike: Messin' with Texas

Found by David Sirota of the Center for American Progress: the money quote of the year, if not the millennium-to-date, nailing the Bush administration:

Should any political party attempt to abolish social security, unemployment insurance, and eliminate labor laws and farm programs, you would not hear of that party again in our political history. There is a tiny splinter group, of course, that believes you can do these things. Among them are a few other Texas oil millionaires, and an occasional politician or business man from other areas. Their number is negligible and they are stupid.

-- President Dwight D. Eisenhower, 11/8/54

(Ouch. For the full text, visit the Eisenhower papers.)

This is as good a time as any to re-read Ike's stunning address as he left office, on the military-industrial complex. They don't make Republicans (or generals) like they used to.

Ghost in the Schiavo Machine

Why are Tom Delay, Jeb Bush and the rest of the right-wing hate machine is focusing so much attention on the Terry Schiavo case -- which increasingly looks like it is costing the Republicans big time in the polls?

The most succinct explanation comes from this pseudonymous poster in Atrios' Haloscan comments:

We're watching an experiment in whether getting 100% of 30% of the voters will keep an election close enough to steal...
Davis X. Machina | Email | Homepage | 03.23.05 - 5:31 pm | #

In other words: Bush and Congress may be looking pretty bad to the general public, but Rove may have calculated that a fully-energized fundamentalist base may be more important in winning future elections than losing ground among more apathetic sections of the public.

See Fox fence. Fence, Fox, fence!

Hudson (that's the Union's moniker over at Daily Kos) posted a full-length diary last week which caught on a bit, titled "Fencing vs. Framing: A post-Lakoff analysis."

A follow-up "FencePost" is now up as well, this one about Fox News' attempts to fence off New York attorney general Eliot Spitzer from its viewership, before his Q rating climbs too high... (The bulk of the item takes off from a smart piece over at Newshounds.)

CLICK HERE for the latest installment. And thanks to everyone who recommended and linked the first time around.

Was Eason right?

Comments about the Pentagon targeting journalists in Iraq -- coupled with a drumbeat of criticism from wingnut bloggers, brought down CNN chief Eason Jordan. Apparently, the network's board was more anxious about the off-chance of becoming the next CBS than investigating whether outspoken war reporters are in the crosshairs.

But some may revisit Jordan's remarks after G.I.s fired on a car carrying a recently-freed leftist Italian journalist, Giuliana Sgrena.

Sgrena made headlines in recent days as she pleaded for her life in videos broadcast worldwide. The American fusillade killed an intelligence agent who negotiated the journalist's release, and who threw himself in the line of fire to protect the reporter he'd just freed.

From The Independent:

Gabriele Polo, editor of Il Manifesto, the independent Communist daily for which Ms Sgrena worked, fought back tears as he said: "An Italian agent has been killed by an American bullet ­ A tragic demonstration ... that everything that's happening in Iraq is senseless and mad." The Next Hurrah points out that Italians are likely to think immediately back to the 1998 ski lift disaster caused by American hotdogging pilots.

Many posters on Kos are careful to note that they blame the "civilian leadership" (a kind euphemism for chickenhawks in Washington, D.C. like Cheney and Bush) for putting our soldiers in this position, not the soldiers themselves.

Atrios thinks it's a "mistake" to read too much into this. The problem with the Pentagon's version of events is that it requires one to believe that high-level Italian security, charged with extracting an extremely high-profile captive, would ignore repeated and obvious warnings to stop their car.

They surely knew the dangers of not obeying orders -- why on earth would these professionals miss or disregard warnings? It's just not credible.

Historical revisionism

Phil Giltner has collected a list of citations from the White House website, which attempts to claim early American presidents such as Jefferson, Madison, Monroe, et al. as early Republicans... though the Republican Party of today was not established until 1854. Now that's chutzpah.

Return of the Good Doctor

Expect the media to resume their mocking of Howard Dean -- a savaging that was suspended a few weeks after his withdrawal from the presidential primaries a year ago, and now will be ratcheted back up. In the following months, Dr. Dean's occasional email exhortations to stay true to the cause inspired a slight sheepishnes, and a sharp twinge of regret for what might have been.

But stay true Dean did -- and many in the rank and file of the party are absolutely thrilled to have the former Vermont governor re-emerge as the new Democratic National Committee chair.

The changing of the DNC guard should bring far more grassroots energy and broader-based outreach to a party which had become too hidebound in its tactics and too calculated in its positions. Those who fear that Dean will make the Party "too radical" or "too left-wing" should keep in two things in mind:

(1) Dean's actual record in Vermont was far more centrist than he has been portrayed in the media -- not the "Republican Lite" version of centrism practiced by the Democratic Leadership Council, but a principled and open-minded ideology that looks at the facts and decides that, "hey, maybe we should have both gay rights and gun rights." It was this willingness to genuinely listen to his constituents, to embrace the internet, to speak his mind, and to rely on smaller donations, that the faux centrists of the DLC fear, and which is at the root of their antipathy to him.

(And when Republicans screeched, "please nominate this man," the Union heard a ring of insincerity and even nervousness... For who knows how Dean might have capitalized on the unraveling of the war and its bogus rationale, or what he might have said to Bush in a debate to get him to come unglued. Kerry was nothing if easy to predict.)

(2) As far as Dean leading the Democrats too far in one direction or another, let's remember that in truth, Republicans are completely out of step with America on most issues. It is their willingness to be forceful and bold in advocating unpopular positions that has driven their ascendancy over the past decade.

After all, most Americans are pro-choice, pro-environment, pro-liberties, and pro-worker. Yet under McAuliffe, Democrats ceded these winning issues out of an excess of caution and deference to big donors. Dean can reverse that by reinvigorating a disaffected base, and encouraging franker expression of what Dems really stand for.

To make a secure online donation to show your support for Dean's replacement of Terry McAuliffe, just use the form below. Enter an amount, click the button, and you'll be taken to the ActBlue website:

  Contribution amount:   $        

Alberto Ghraib

[via Slacktivist]

Dr. King on War

On Martin Luther King Day, we should do more than honor this slain leader. We should return to his actual thoughts and speeches, listening and reading MLK not for nostalgia, but to bring his mid-20th Century mission to "disturb the comfortable and comfort the disturbed" into our 21st Century daily life.

A good place to start: King's address at New York's Riverside Church on April 4, 1967 [click HERE for the full text]:

Why are you speaking about war, Dr. King? Why are you joining the voices of dissent? Peace and civil rights don't mix, they say. Aren't you hurting the cause of your people, they ask? And when I hear them, though I often understand the source of their concern, I am nevertheless greatly saddened, for such questions mean that the inquirers have not really known me, my commitment or my calling. Indeed, their questions suggest that they do not know the world in which they live.

[...]

A few years ago there was a shining moment in that struggle. It seemed as if there was a real promise of hope for the poor -- both black and white -- through the poverty program. There were experiments, hopes, new beginnings. Then came the buildup in Vietnam and I watched the program broken and eviscerated as if it were some idle political plaything of a society gone mad on war, and I knew that America would never invest the necessary funds or energies in rehabilitation of its poor so long as adventures like Vietnam continued to draw men and skills and money like some demonic destructive suction tube. So I was increasingly compelled to see the war as an enemy of the poor and to attack it as such.

[...]

It should be incandescently clear that no one who has any concern for the integrity and life of America today can ignore the present war. If America's soul becomes totally poisoned, part of the autopsy must read Vietnam. It can never be saved so long as it destroys the deepest hopes of men the world over. So it is that those of us who are yet determined that America will be are led down the path of protest and dissent, working for the health of our land.

[...]

As I ponder the madness of Vietnam and search within myself for ways to understand and respond to compassion my mind goes constantly to the people of that peninsula. I speak now not of the soldiers of each side, not of the junta in Saigon, but simply of the people who have been living under the curse of war for almost three continuous decades now. I think of them too because it is clear to me that there will be no meaningful solution there until some attempt is made to know them and hear their broken cries. They must see Americans as strange liberators. ... What liberators? Now there is little left to build on -- save bitterness.

Coming soon to the Daily Show

Jon Stewart will be all over this one: click HERE to see President Bush's latest and most bizarre press conference gaffe. Scroll forward to about 16:40, where you'll find Chimpy McPretzel glibly drawling along... when suddenly he drops his head and murmers something unintelligible ("redrum, redrum"?) under his breath at about 16:50... and then resumes his faux-cowboy verbal stylings as if nothing happened. [via James Poling]

What would Freud say, Condi?

With Condoleeza Rice ascending to the post of Secretary of State, the 'Union' was reminded of this amusing and intriguing item from New York Magazine's "Intelligencer" column in April 2004, alleging that Condi accidentally referred to W as her husband:

Political Conversation: Condi’s Slip

A pressing issue of dinner-party etiquette is vexing Washington, according to a story now making the D.C. rounds: How should you react when your guest, in this case national-security adviser Condoleezza Rice, makes a poignant faux pas? At a recent dinner party hosted by New York Times D.C. bureau chief Philip Taubman and his wife, Times reporter Felicity Barringer, and attended by Arthur Sulzberger Jr., Maureen Dowd, Steven Weisman, and Elisabeth Bumiller, Rice was reportedly overheard saying, "As I was telling my husb--" and then stopping herself abruptly, before saying, "As I was telling President Bush." Jaws dropped, but a guest says the slip by the unmarried politician, who spends weekends with the president and his wife, seemed more psychologically telling than incriminating. Nobody thinks Bush and Rice are actually an item. A National Security Council spokesman laughed and said, "No comment."

It's actually oddly believable that something could be going on between the two. What a boffo ending that would be for the Bush administration -- making the Monica brouhaha look tame by comparison.

Meanwhile, is anyone else disturbed by the uncanny resemblance of Elastigirl to Laura Bush in The Incredibles?

And then there's these photos. Yuck.

Paging TruthIsAll

Most of the prominent left-leaning bloggers are downplaying the various and sundry allegations of election fraud in Bush v. Kerry -- perhaps nervous that lending credence to any "fringe" tall tales may hurt their ability to garner more mainstream credibility.

But now with even MSGOP commentators such as Craig Olbermann turning their attention to a few of the more glaring irregularities of Election 2004, the ground is belatedly swelling under the storyline (far too belatedly to make a difference, but it beats flatlining).

One particularly catchy synopsis of these disparate charges is making the rounds via smaller blogs and email, mostly unattributed to any source. A bit of googling by the 'Union' led quickly to this item at Truthout, which attributes the message (below) to a pseudonymous poster at Democratic Underground called "TruthIsAll":

To believe that Bush won the election, you must also believe:

That the exit polls were wrong;

That Zogby's 5pm election day calls for Kerry winning Ohio and Florida were wrong (he was exactly right in his 2000 final poll);

That Harris' last-minute polling for Kerry was wrong (he was exactly right in his 2000 final poll);

That incumbent rule #1 - undecideds break for the challenger - was wrong;

That the 50% rule - an incumbent doesn't do better than his final polling - was wrong;

That the approval rating rule - an incumbent with less than 50% approval will most likely lose the election - was wrong;

That it was just a coincidence that the exit polls were correct where there was a paper trail and incorrect (+5% for Bush) where there was no paper trail;

That the surge in new young voters had no positive effect for Kerry;

That Kerry did worse than Gore against an opponent who lost the support of scores of Republican newspapers who were for Bush in 2000;

That voting machines made by Republicans with no paper trail and with no software publication, which have been proven by thousands of computer scientists to be vulnerable in scores of ways, were not tampered with in this election.

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Ohio: Devil take the Hyndemost

I went back to Ohio
But my city was gone

There was no train station
There was no downtown

South Howard had disappeared
All my favorite places

My city had been pulled down
Reduced to parking spaces

Hey, ho, way to go Ohio

Well I went back to Ohio
But my family was gone

I stood on the back porch
There was nobody home

I was stunned and amazed
My childhood memories

Slowly swirled past
Like the wind through the trees

Hey, ho, way to go Ohio

I went back to Ohio
But my pretty countryside

Had been paved down the middle
By a government that had no pride

The farms of Ohio
Had been replaced by shopping malls

And muzak filled the air
From Seneca to Cuyahoga falls

Said, hey, ho, oh way to go Ohio

-- The Pretenders

Bush's wooden performance

During tonight's debate, Bush pretended Kerry had made up something about the President owning a timber company. He ridiculed Kerry ("You want some wood?") for saying this. But the non-partisan group FactCheck.org -- which Dick Cheney cited as a neutral authority in the first debate -- says:

President Bush himself would have qualified as a "small business owner" under the Republican definition, based on his 2001 federal income tax returns. He reported $84 of business income from his part ownership of a timber-growing enterprise. However, 99.99% of Bush's total income came from other sources that year. (Bush also qualified as a "small business owner" in 2000 based on $314 of "business income," but not in 2002 and 2003 when he reported his timber income as "royalties" on a different tax schedule.)

[Via Daily Kos]

Update:Oliver Willis has a video clip of Bush flipping out on debate moderator Charles Gibson.

Veep Debate: Cheney vs. Edwards

Says it all:

Kerry: Ceci n'est pas un stylo

You might imagine that the latest wingnut attempt to play Google Gotcha with the Kerry campaign has come to naught.

Even Gersh Kuntzman of the Murdoch-owned New York Post has been forced to report that the mystery, contraband object that the Democratic nominee brought into the debates wasn't a cheat sheet at all:

Many blogs offered links to the "Pocket-gate" footage. One, INDC Journal, even posted frame-by-frame stills purporting to show Kerry pulling out a notecard and placing it onto the podium. But the mystery was solved when The Post reviewed a Fox News Channel feed from Thursday's debate: Kerry pulled out . . . a black pen.

Think that's the end of it? Not so fast! A top secret source with access to ultra-powerful image inhancement technology (like the kind you see Elisha Cuthbert manipulating on Fox's 24) informs The Columbia-Union that this was not just any old black pen.

Rather, it is now revealed to be a very special writing implement which should spell the end of Kerry's hopes. For the shocking final chapter of this tawdry tale, click HERE.

Quotes, Polls & Smirks

The 'Union' has collected pithy quotations, poll results, fact-checks and pictures of the President making silly faces from last night's debate.

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Sometimes it's hard to be a Preznit

Many have noted that President Bush used the word "hard" at least 11 times during last night's debate.

The question is: Why?

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Unpresidential

Oliver Willis has video of George W. Bush, who allegedly is the President of the United States of America, behaving like a petulant 7-year-old: click here.

Someone has got to put together a montage of all the lame, immature, eye-rolling faces Bush made during the debate. Cspan's split screens were invaluable.

When even Joe Scarborough, Andrea Mitchell, and the Freepers admit that Kerry won the debate, you can be sure it was a rout.

An interesting new phenomenon will be: How will Americans who have been conditioned by the media to disdain Kerry react now that they've seen him to be in control and capable on the biggest stage on earth?

Presidential Debate LiveBlogging

"... since Gandhi"

Informed Commenter Juan Cole calls it possibly "the most significant act of civil disobedience by an Asian religious leader since Gandhi's salt march in British India. And it might kick off the beginning of the end of American Iraq, just as the salt march knelled the end of the British Indian empire."

Cole, a UMich history professor, has synthesized a wide range of news reports that Grand Ayatollah Sistani has "defied his physicians' advice," flown to Kuwait, gone "overland to Basra," and is calling for a peace march of "all believers" to Najaf to protect the shrine of Imam Ali. U.S. forces have surrounded the shrine -- the equivalent of St. Peter's for Catholics -- where militias supporting cleric Muqtada Al-Sadr are holed up. Sistani has called on all armed forces on both sides to leave Najaf.

While some of President Allawi's loyalists are denouncing the dramatic move by Sistani, the march may prove too popular to stop. Assuming it goes forward, it would prevent further damage to the holy site, thwart the U.S.'s hopes of eliminating Al-Sadr, and elevate Sistani above the U.S.-backed officials already viewed as puppets.

The Bush administration has so mishandled the war and its aftermath that it seems the only way Iraqis now may achieve true sovereignty and regain their national dignity is at the expense of the U.S. -- whose hand-picked governors would be smart to bow to Sistani if they want to wind up on the end of a rope instead.

The LA Times (almost) gets it right

Pandagon reports that today's LA Times editorial is terrific. The 'Union' heartily agreed -- the editorial nails the Swift Boat Liars -- until we reached the line where the LAT equates the Swifters with MoveOn.org.

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Chavez wins big in Venezuela

Venezuelan president Hugo Chavez easily beat back a recall effort on Sunday, garnering 58% of the vote to the
opposition's 48%.

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Mahmood abruptly deported

The following is a news release from the Ansar Mahmood Defense Committee:

CONTACT: Susan Davies 518-392-9477 or Bob Elmendorf 518-766-2992
August 13, 2004

ANSAR MAHMOOD DEPORTED BY US GOVERNMENT ON AUGUST 12, 2004

After thirty-one months in detention, Ansar Mahmood was deported by the United States government on the night of Thursday, August 12, 2004.  He was flown out of JFK International Airport on a Pakistan International Airlines commercial flight accompanied by two guards.  Because Mr. Mahmood was not informed of his exact deportation date ahead of time and because his telephone privileges were suspended at the time he was notified of his deportation, he was unable to contact his friends and supporters to tell them of his deportation until he was already at the airport.

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Alerts and Polls

Julius Blog has put together a chart which compares "Bush approval numbers to the timeline of terror alerts." Their conclusion: "Whenever [Bush's] ratings dip, there's a new terror alert." [via Dominion Weblog]

The further adventures of Chimpy McPretzel

Could this be the worst Bushism ever? We hijack the audio, you decide.

Click HERE for mp3 of our Preznit. UPDATE: Oliver Willis has video now.

After boldly declaring that his administration never stops thinking of ways to harm our country, it (almost) sounds like he adds that he also never stops thinking of ways to offend us.

Voters and the Enviroment

Atrios thoughtfully asks why Americans, who overwhelmingly describe themselves as pro-environment, nevertheless tend not to feel they have a strong personal stake in environmental issues. It's a question others, such as Michael Moore, have been pondering for some time.

One reason -- beyond blaming Limbaugh -- is that most of the big "mainstream" environmental groups have abandoned the grassroots. During the 80s and 90s, the attention shifted from on-the-ground movements to lobbying in Washington (and sustaining funding through giant but generalized direct mail campaigns).

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The Surreal Deal

Looking for information on the Kerry-Edwards ticket? You came to the wrong place. But in an effort to be of service, we do offer info on:

* Tildesley & Tonks Accountant Kerrie Edwards (pictured)

* Behavioral Health Research Assistant Kerry Edwards

* 1st Figtree Scout Hall Booking Agent Kerrie Edwards

* Half-marathon Runner Kerry Edwards

* Chandler MacLeod Group Human Resources employee Kerrie Edwards

* Elizabethtown, Kentucky resident Kerry Edwards

For more on this story, see Rob Corddry's Daily Show report.

McCain on Bush, Post on drugs

Must-see #1: Comments from Senator John McCain about President George W. Bush, courtesy of the Democratic National Committee. (Via Atrios. Requires RealPlayer or Windows Media.)

Must-see #2: The New York Post's blown "exclusive" proclaiming Dick Gephardt as Kerry's vice presidential pick instead of John Edwards. (Via The Smoking Gun.)

Nominate Sheehy, already

Someone please nominate Gail Sheehy for a Pulitzer for her sustained and devastating series of articles on 9/11 (and the 9/11 investigations) from the perspective of widows, widowers and parents of the victims.

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What Willis said

Oliver Willis has a great catch today: While W's followers think that his rare moment of graciousness at the unveiling of Clinton's portrait proves how classy their leader is, they've forgotten that Clinton was extraordinarily gracious to George Herbert Walker Bush in the same ceremony a decade ago.

Willis provides the full text of the Big Dawg's remarks.

Kunstler on Reagan

Here's the polite part of what James Howard Kunstler, author of The Geography of Nowhere (et al.), on Ronald Reagan:

The "conservatism" for which he became the "spokesman" was really an aggressive action against everything truly civic and communal in our national life, for the benefit of private luxury and the aggrandizement of individuals -- everything from accumulation of obscene riches by Sam Walton and his spawn, gained from the systematic destruction of American towns, to the cult of the cowboy promoted among a nation of commuters cruelly trapped on freeways in cars named Laredo and Cheyenne.

For the impolite part, read on...

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George Tenet, Family Man

In the entire history of the world, has anyone ever really resigned in order to "spend more time with his family?"

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Lay, lady, (Ken) Lay

If these profanity-strewn tapes don't generate enough public outrage to put Ken ("Kenny Boy") Lay in the slammer at last, nothing else will:

When a forest fire shut down a major transmission line into California, cutting power supplies and raising prices, Enron energy traders celebrated...

"Burn, baby, burn. That's a beautiful thing," a trader sang about the massive fire.

And it just gets juicier -- including colorful references to sex with octogenarians, with an assist from Bush himself...

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The 'Union' Newsfeed

Get your news from the same sources The Columbia-Union does with the just-launched Union Newsfeed... Click here to access this continuously-updated digest of stories culled from blogs such as Eschaton, Calpundit, BOP, and more.

This nifty service is provided free thanks to HowDev's Feedsweep online wizard.

Bush: Stranger than Fiction

The grim, almost funereal expressions on the faces of Condoleeza Rice and Karl Rove during George Bush's press conference last night told the story: Last night was a near-meltdown for the POTUS. Never has Bush looked so un-presidential, with his language more stilted, his answers more canned, and his tone more hesitant than ever before.

Bush's answers to the less-than-tough questions from the White House press corps were at times so odd, that even the most creative political satirist could not have come up with more bizarre (mis-)statements. Below are eight possible gaffes by the President; can you spot which are real?

A.
B.
C.
D.
E.
F.
G.
H.

To find out which are the real Bush quotes, see the end of this article.

- - - - - - - - - - - - - -

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Bingo

Give a medal to "James," the unidentified member of the White House press corps asked this question of Presidential spokesperson Scott McClellan on the morning of Friday, February 27:

QUESTION: In every speech he gives, President Bush invokes the atrocities of 9/11 and he talks about how that event has impressed on him a determination to always honor the victims of those atrocities in his daily conduct of his office. And I wonder if you could explain with some serious Texan straight talk here, Scott, how it is honoring the victims of 9/11 to restrict the questioning of the President on this subject to one hour?

McCLELLAN: I hope you'll talk about the unprecedented cooperation that we're providing to the commission when you report this, James. Because if you look back at what we've done, it is unprecedented. We have provided more than 2 million pages of documents. We provided more than 60 compact discs of radar, flight and other information; more than 800 audio cassette tapes of interviews and other materials; more than 100 briefings, including at the head-of-agency level; more than 560 interviews. So this administration is cooperating closely and in an unprecedented way with the 9/11 Commission, because their work is very important.

QUESTION: That would have been a very pertinent answer had I asked you about the administration.[etc.]

The body, politicked

Linking to Andrew Sullivan's blog isn't usually part of the 'Union' program, but he and his readers do have a powerful set of responses to Bush's call to amend the Constitution to make gays and lesbians second-class citizens.

Something tells us this will backfire big-time on Bush -- because while homophobia remains rampant in the U.S., the move reveals W (for the many who, like Sullvian, were in denial) as both uncompassionate and radical. Kos's plausible theory: forced to choose between his "moderate" and his radical bases, Bush naturally chose the latter.

Rove's two big miscalculations: forgetting that (A) while only 10% of the population may be gay, a much larger percentage has gay relatives; and (B) true conservatives and libertarians, as opposed to Bush's phony variety, don't like the Constitution messed with -- for any purpose.

BoLOGna #3: Nader pile-on

Bloggers of all stripes sink their teeth into this statement on Sunday morning by Ralph Nader: "After careful thought and my desire to retire our supremely selected president, I've decided to run as an independent candidate for president."

CHUCK CURRIE keeps it simple with just the headline: "Nader Runs; Bush Happy."

CITIZEN SMASH explains: "That sound you hear is millions of Democrats moaning in agony."

CHRIS NELSON says that Nader "only needs to look at Dennis Kucinich's support to see how the Left is going to judge his presidential run."

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Amusing ourselves to death

This is pretty darned funny:

After stumbling through a career that has resulted in many a remaindered book, David Horowitz finally found a niche for himself: whining that conservatives are excluded from our college campuses in much the same way that Ann Coulter is passed over for inclusion on any mental health task force. But what really abrades Horowitz's chubby white thighs is the lack of money bringing Conservative speakers to college campuses ...

... and it just gets funnier from there. Read on at TBogg.

Greider: Blame the media. Mohaiemen: Blame the DLC.

Mathew Gross's blog was first to call The Union's attention to William Greider's spot-on analysis of the establishment media's role in Dean's demise:

In forty years of observing presidential contests, I cannot remember another major candidate brutalized so intensely by the media. ... For the record, reporters and editors deny that this occurred. Privately, they chortle over their accomplishment. ... No one should excuse the editors and reporters: Despite the multitude of media outlets, they collectively block out the content that seems disturbingly new, anything that doesn't conform to insider biases about what's possible.

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BoLOGna: Package #2

Picking up the pieces, post-Dean

Everyone's got something to say about the end of the Dean campaign, whether or not they've got anything unique to add. Here's our two cents: The 'Union' would like to see Howard and Judy Dean buy a house a couple hours south in the Berkshires -- and run for Kerry's Senate seat in Massachusetts. The rest of the blogosphere has other ideas...

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Posted on February 18, 2004 | Permalink | Comments (10) | TrackBack

What Bush knew

Must-read: David Corn's list of questions that Bush ought to be asked by Kean's 9/11 commission.

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Posted on February 18, 2004 | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBack

Wisconsin Primary Results

A Democratic Primary that was in danger of seeming perfunctory just perked up again, at least a little. Final results of Wednesday morning:

Kerry -- 40%
Edwards -- 34%
Dean -- 18%
Kucinich -- 3%

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Posted on February 17, 2004 | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBack

Next up: Magic 8-Ball, Ouija

It being President's Day Weekend and all, the Corrente blog ran Bush's ultra-bland new campaign slogan ("Steady Leadership in a Time of Change") through an anagram engine, which rearranged the letters to reveal this "hidden" message:

I'm a hypertense, death-dealing fiasco.

Yes, the timeless appeal of the anagram springs eternal. But the Union decided it was time to stop beating around the, ah, question, and asked the Anagram Genius Server straight out: "Will George Bush be re-elected President?" The word came back swiftly:

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Posted on February 16, 2004 | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBack

Anticipation, makin' you wait

Will they or won't they? For those waiting breathlessly to see if the media runs rumors about Kerry's libido, The Union has assembled the following handy Google News links to track the very latest. (Pretend you're Matt Drudge, feverishly reloading to see if he's still "got" the touch.)

♦ Click for news on KERRY + DRUDGE
- - - - - - - - - - - -
♦ Click for news on KERRY + INFIDELITY
- - - - - - - - - - - -
♦ Click for news on KERRY + HOT ASS. PRESS REPORTER SEX!
- - - - - - - - - - - -
♦ Click for news on CHIMPS GONE AWOL

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Posted on February 12, 2004 | Permalink | Comments (2) | TrackBack

Skulldrudgery

And so it goes: A limp State of the Union and even lamer Meet the Press gig failed to viagra-up Bush's sagging ratings. Reports of Bush putting the W. back in AWOL are showing some legs. 9/11 widows are turning up the heat on Kean's investigation. And with Curious George on the ropes, Kerry's been looking like he has the nomination sewn up. Perfect time for Drudge to break a sex scandal, right?

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Posted on February 12, 2004 | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBack

Rove's worst nightmare: Outspoken 9/11 widows

"Whether or not my husband's plane was shot down, the most angering part is reading about how the President handled this." ♦ Flight 93 widow Melody Homer

The widows and widowers of September 11th remain the greatest potential threat to the U.S. government's official narrative of the attacks that day -- and also to "war President" Bush's re-election hopes. Reporting in the pages of the (usually frivolous) New York Observer, author Gail Sheehy has paid far more attention to these survivors than the rest of the media. In the current issue, Sheehy files another stellar report on their devastatingly credible critiques of the government's so-called investigation.

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Posted on February 11, 2004 | Permalink | Comments (1) | TrackBack

Trainwreck transcripts

Transcripts are the pornography of the blogosphere. In a medium starved for raw, primary print sources, the sloppy authenticity of a live transcript can expose public figures at their extemporaneous worst -- rhetorical pants down around their ankles. Three juicy examples are making the rounds today: Peggy Noonan, Scott McClellan, and Martha Stewart...

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Posted on February 10, 2004 | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBack

Earners vs. Getters

In both local and national elections, two major types of candidate tend to emerge: Earners and Getters. (In the 2004 Democratic primaries, Dean has been an Earner, while Kerry has been a Getter.) For a detailed explanation of these terms, please visit Sam Pratt's Daily Kos diary by clicking HERE.

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Posted on February 10, 2004 | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBack

Fortunate Sons: Bechtel & Halliburton

World Crisis Web features a candid interview by Jay Shaft with two U.S. soldiers on leave from the war in Iraq. Both express great frustration and resentment at risking their lives to assist Halliburton and Bechtel, whose personnel have access to better equipment and protection than some U.S. forces:

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Posted on February 10, 2004 | Permalink | Comments (1) | TrackBack

NAME THAT GAP!

Believe Him or Not: Does Bush Have a Credibility Gap? is the title of Time Magazine's cover story this week. At left is a schematic of the cover, with details removed to reveal the shape of the President's gap. And unlike Tim Russert, we have some follow-up questions: What shall we call this gap? Does it have a name? Does it look like any known object? Is it a tame gap, or a naughty one? Visitor suggestions are welcome; answers will be passed along, discreetly, to your psychotherapist. Scroll down to COMMENTS, below, to help name the gap...

Posted on February 9, 2004 | Permalink | Comments (18) | TrackBack

BoLOGna (Package #1)

An occasional Union feature, in which we sweep up table scraps and miscellaneous cartilege from media outlets small and large, then grind them up together to yield a vaguely-satisfying, slightly spicy, and somewhat-less-than-chewy blend of fact, opinion and mystery lunchmeat for your noontime consumption.

SEMI-TOUGH: 25 POSTMORTEMS ON PUMPKINHEAD V. CHIMP

ANDREW SULLIVAN: On the budget, this president is frighteningly unaware of the reality of his own legacy and policies. That's the only conclusion you can draw from his answers on Tim Russert. Either that, or he really is lying.