You may have heard rumblings in the alternative media about an alleged connection between the Bush family and Nazi industrialists in the years leading up to World War II — and if so, you've probably also heard the mainstream media do their best to discount or ignore it. Problem is, it's true and the connection is real. Prescott Bush, George W's grandfather (that's grandfather, not father, for you Coulter fans out there who are such sticklers for accuracy), was a business partner and stateside banking representative for a cat named Fritz Thyssen, who helped bankroll Hitler's rise to power.
Not only that, but Prescott and his buddies evidently took some pains to conceal the connection. And George Herbert Walker, Prescott's dad, continued his dealings with Thyssen a full eight months after the U.S. had declared war on Nazi Germany.
Wow, huh? Looks like we totally scooped Fox News on this one!
# Once again back is the incredible Doug at 1:16 PM
Friday, October 17, 2003
Linkin' Nebraska (Actually, Indiana, but that way it isn't funny)
The other day GWBWYPGN had the pleasure of being linked by someone named Mary who runs a charming blog called Naked Furniture. To the best of our knowledge, she goes to Notre Dame (sic 'em, Catholics!), skews toward the liberal side, and thinks both George W. Bush and Ann Coulter are complete douches. Why, that's exactly like us ('cept for the Notre Dame part)!
So anyway, if you've linked us, let us know and we'll link you right back. Even give you a shout-out. Unless of course you're John Asscroft and you've linked us at fbi.gov under "Dirty Hippie Commie Traitor Bastard Giving Aid and Comfort to the Enemy of the Week." Sucka!
Anyhoo, Naked Furniture's full of good stuff and more links, such as ohgeorge.com, where we stumbled upon a little nugget you will find most entertaining.
# Once again back is the incredible Doug at 7:43 PM
"Respect for the military," Republican style
George Nethercutt, a Republican Congressman from the state of Washington, would like you to know the reconstruction of Iraq is going way better than the liberal media has been telling you it is.
Yes, ladies and gentlemen, that's precisely what he said — better and more important than "losing a couple of soldiers every day." An unbelievably insensitive thing to say, yes, but just to be on the safe side, let's mosey on over to Rep. Nethercutt's House Web site and see if he actually served in the military at any time. Whoops, no he didn't!
Ask yourself: If it was 1993, and a Democratic representative who'd never served in the military said the good we were doing in Somalia was "a better and more important story than losing a couple of soldiers every day," what would the Republican response be? How long do you suppose it would take before the GOP showed up at his front door with torches and pitchforks?
Think back to all those Republicans who decried Clinton's so-called "draft-dodging" back in the early '90s. Well, kids, this is their idea of "respect for the military."
• George Nethercutt trivializing "losing a couple of soldiers every day."
• Ann Coulter describing decorated war hero Wesley Clark as "Howard Dean with scarier flashbacks," and telling a Vietnam vet on MSNBC that it's "No wonder you guys lost the war."
• Soldiers being unwittingly used in a propaganda letter-writing campaign to try and convince hometown newspapers across the country that the occupation is really going well.
• George W. Bush — who failed to show up for his Alabama Air National Guard duty for an entire year as the Vietnam War raged half a world away — delaying the homecoming of an entire aircraft carrier full of sailors just so he could strut across its deck in a borrowed flight suit and deliver a campaign speech.
• Morale among troops in Iraq dropping by the day, partly because people like Donald Rumsfeld and Dick Cheney thought we could mount the invasion on the cheap, with minimal manpower.
I'm tired of hearing how Republicans have more respect for the military. I'm tired of hearing how Republicans love their country more. I'm tired of hearing how Republicans have better morals.
I'm tired of Republicans, period.
# Once again back is the incredible Doug at 4:34 PM
Ann Coulter is a Lousy Writer and She Isn't Even That Hot: Twelfth in a series
Of all the Ann Coulter beliefs dissected and analyzed over the past few months by Ann Coulter is a Lousy Writer and She Isn't Even That Hot, this week's is perhaps the most stunning: Drug use is OK! That's the impression we got from her column defending Rush Limbaugh, who recently confessed to a longstanding addiction to prescription painkillers. As you'll see below, Coulter defends Limbaugh's behavior as "not all that dissolute" — and, naturally, says that Rush isn't all that bad because nothing he did was as bad as that evil monster Bill Clinton, who conveniently appears to have set the immorality Mendoza Line that Ann will be using until she croaks.
Before we begin: Our point in this edition of Ann Coulter is a Lousy Writer and She Isn't Even That Hot is not to drag Limbaugh through the mud any further. Clearly he's got some issues to work out, and we wouldn't be proud of ourselves if we didn't wish him luck in doing so. But by golly, if Republicans and right-wingers are going to hold themselves up as the gold standard of morality, assailing liberals and Democrats as evil, sinful little hedonists, we're certainly not going to sit idly by while conservatives try to explain away or make excuses for their own transgressions. If liberals can be called out for the bad stuff they do, then so can conservatives — though based on this week's column, "With Half His Brain Tied Behind His Back," you'd almost start to wonder if Ann agrees:
So liberals have finally found a drug addict they don't like. And unlike the Lackawanna Six – those high-spirited young lads innocently seeking adventure in an al-Qaida training camp in Afghanistan – liberals could find no excuses for Rush Limbaugh.
If anyone finds an "excuse" liberals made for anybody at the al-Qaeda training camps, please let us know — it's news to us.
After years of the mainstream media assuring us that Rush was a has-been, a nobody, yesterday's news – the Rush painkiller story was front-page news last week. (Would anyone care if Howell Raines committed murder?) The airwaves and print media were on red alert with Rush's admission that, after an unsuccessful spinal operation a few years ago, he became addicted to powerful prescription painkillers.
If anyone finds an instance of the mainstream media referring to Rush Limbaugh as a "has-been," a "nobody" or "yesterday's news," let us know about that, too. And yes, Ann, we can assure you that if Howell Raines committed murder, it would be reported.
Rush Limbaugh's misfortune is apparently a bigger story than his nearly $300 million radio contract signed two years ago. That was the biggest radio contract in broadcasting history. Yet there are only 12 documents on LexisNexis that reported it. The New York Times didn't take notice of Rush's $300 million radio contract, but a few weeks later, put Bill Clinton's comparatively measly $10 million book contract on its front page. Meanwhile, in the past week alone, LexisNexis has accumulated more than 50 documents with the words "Rush Limbaugh and hypocrisy." That should make up for the 12 documents on his $300 million radio contract.
By those standards, Bill Clinton's signing of the Welfare Reform Bill wasn't nearly as big a story as his affair with Monica Lewinsky. Yet somehow we have this sneaking suspicion that Ann is perfectly OK with that.
The reason any conservative's failing is always major news is that it allows liberals to engage in their very favorite taunt: Hypocrisy! Hypocrisy is the only sin that really inflames them. Inasmuch as liberals have no morals, they can sit back and criticize other people for failing to meet the standards that liberals simply renounce. It's an intriguing strategy. By openly admitting to being philanderers, draft dodgers, liars, weasels and cowards, liberals avoid ever being hypocrites.
Ah, yes, liberals have no morals. Far be it from Ann to ever indulge in a gross overgeneralization (or ad hominem attacks).
At least Rush wasn't walking into church carrying a 10-pound Bible before rushing back to the Oval Office for sodomy with Monica Lewinsky. He wasn't enforcing absurd sexual harassment guidelines while dropping his pants in front of a half-dozen subordinates. (Evidently, Clinton wasn't a hypocrite because no one was supposed to take seriously the notion that he respected women or believed in God.)
And here we have Ann's airtight defense for Limbaugh's behavior: At least he's not Bill Clinton! Somehow that's her excuse for everything. Limbaugh's hooked on drugs? At least he's not Bill Clinton. Arnold Schwarzenegger participated in orgies in his bodybuilding salad days? At least he's not Bill Clinton. George W. Bush deliberately uses specious evidence to get the nation embroiled in a costly war overseas? At least he's not Bill Clinton. We have a sinking feeling that Ann will be trotting out this lame excuse even when Clinton is pushing up daisies in a cemetery plot in Arlington.
And she'll still be making stuff up about him from whole cloth, too. Like, when did Clinton "[drop] his pants in front of a half-dozen subordinates"? And how does she know Clinton doesn't believe in God? For someone who hates Bill Clinton with a passion, and has never even lowered herself to speaking with him face-to-face, Ann apparently thinks she's got quite a grasp of his personality and his innermost thoughts.
Rush has hardly been the anti-drug crusader liberals suggest. Indeed, Rush hasn't had much to say about drugs at all since that spinal operation. The Rush Limbaugh quote that has been endlessly recited in the last week to prove Rush's rank "hypocrisy" is this, made eight years ago: "Drug use, some might say, is destroying this country. And we have laws against selling drugs, pushing drugs, using drugs, importing drugs. ... And so if people are violating the law by doing drugs, they ought to be accused and they ought to be convicted and they ought to be sent up."
Oh, so it's OK for Rush to illegally use drugs as long as he doesn't really campaign all that intensely against said activity? And surely, Ann, you don't think that's the only thing Rush has said in regard to drugs. Here's another quote: "'When you strip it all away, Jerry Garcia destroyed his life on drugs. And yet he's being honored, like some godlike figure. Our priorities are out of whack, folks." Kind of ironic when you consider the honoring-like-some-Godlike-figure Ann proceeds to do in the rest of her column.
What precisely are liberals proposing that Rush should have said to avoid their indignant squeals of "hypocrisy"? Announce his support for the wide and legal availability of a prescription painkiller that may have caused him to go deaf and nearly ruined his career and wrecked his life? I believe that would have been both evil and hypocritical.
We expect him to do nothing of the sort, and I don't believe Ann can point to a single quote in which any liberal has asked him to. But if Rush is so opposed to people "violating the law by doing drugs," and thinks "they ought to be convicted and they ought to be sent up," then surely the non-hypocritical thing for him to do in this case would be to give himself up to the authorities and serve a jail sentence, would it not?
Or is it simply that Rush should not have become addicted to painkillers in the first place? Well, no, I suppose not. You've caught us: Rush has a flaw. And yet, the wily hypocrite does not support flaws!
When a conservative can be the biggest thing in talk radio, earning $30 million a year and attracting 20 million devoted listeners every week – all while addicted to drugs – I'll admit liberals have reason to believe that conservatives are some sort of super-race, incorruptible by original sin. But the only perfect man hasn't walked the Earth for 2,000 years. In liberals' worldview, any conservative who is not Jesus Christ is ipso facto a "hypocrite" for not publicly embracing dissolute behavior the way liberals do.
OK, this is just getting stupid. We don't expect anyone to "support flaws" or "[embrace] dissolute behavior." When we decry the hypocrisy of Rush and his conservative supporters, we're pissed off that he calls out liberals for their allegedly immoral behavior right and left, but evidently feels no need to apply those rules of propriety to himself. If Rush wants to pop OxyContin and hydrocodone behind closed doors, we suppose we can't stop him, but if that's the behavior he's chosen to engage in then we're certainly not going to stand idly by while he berates us for being immoral and having no self-control.
For years conservatives have been trying to paint liberals as godless and immoral — Ann chief among them, as you've no doubt seen. But it's been proven countless times over that Republicans are not one bit more morally pure than Democrats. One would think someone with Ann's cynicism would be able to figure that out, but perhaps she's been blinded into denial by her intense liberal-hatred. Well, that's her problem, not ours.
In fact, Rush's behavior was not all that dissolute. There is a fundamental difference between taking any drug – legal, illegal, prescription, protected by the 21st Amendment or banned by Michael Bloomberg – for kicks and taking a painkiller for pain.
But they're all taken for one reason: to feel good. You can try to weasel your way out of this all you want, dear Ann, but all the hair-splitting in the world can't change the fact that Rush was coming by his drugs illegally, and he was engaging in activity he specifically condemned.
There is a difference morally and a difference legally. While slamming Rush, Harvard Law professor Alan Dershowitz recently told Wolf Blitzer, "Generally, people who illegally buy prescription drugs are not prosecuted, whereas people who illegally buy cocaine and heroin are prosecuted." What would the point be? Just say no to back surgery?
No, the point would be to NOT BUY DRUGS ILLEGALLY! Are you even paying attention?!
I haven't checked with any Harvard Law professors, but I'm pretty sure that, generally, adulterous drunks who drive off bridges and kill girls are prosecuted. Ah, but Teddy Kennedy supports adultery and public drunkenness – so at least you can't call him a hypocrite! That must provide great consolation to Mary Jo Kopechne's parents.
Time-honored Ann Coulter Rhetorical Strategy No. 639...when in doubt, change the subject and call someone else immoral to take the heat off your own guy.
I have a rule about not feeling sorry for people worth $300 million, but I'm feeling sentimental. Evan Thomas wrote a cover story on Rush for Newsweek this week that was so vicious it read like conservative satire.
OK, let's throw the brakes on this train before it even leaves the station. This "vicious" story, linked here, was in fact a very sympathetic, unbiased account of the torment Limbaugh has gone through not just as a prescription-drug addict but as someone who has lacked confidence in social settings all his life. Really, read the story before you buy right into Ann's outrageously willful misinterpretation of what Thomas wrote. It should be well-established by now that another of Ann's primary strategies is to take the words of whomever she's targeting and pick-and-choose from those words in whatever way makes them sound as bad as possible.
And it should come as no surprise, by the way, that Newsweek's Evan Thomas would be singled out for particularly harsh treatment in this regard. Thomas, you may recall, is the man Ann claimed was the son of socialist presidential candidate Norman Thomas when in fact he is the candidate's grandson — whatever it took to make Evan Thomas look like an immoral commie socialist himself. Think Ann can be trusted to give a fair shake to anything Evan says or writes? Yup, neither do we.
Thomas called Rush a "schlub," "socially ill at ease," an Elmer Gantry, an actor whose "act has won over, or fooled, a lot of people." He compared Rush to the phony TV evangelist Jim Bakker and recommended that Rush start to "make a virtue out of honesty." (Liberals can lie under oath in legal proceedings and it's a "personal matter." Conservatives must scream their every failing from the rooftops or they are "liars.")
If you can't be bothered to read the entire Newsweek article, we'll give you the full context of these statements one by one:
• "schlub" — The full sentence containing that word reads as follows: "The man behind the curtain is not the God of Family Values but a childless, twice-divorced, thrice-married schlub whose idea of a good time is to lie on his couch and watch football endlessly." Where would Thomas have gotten this impression of Rush? From the man himself: "I don’t go to movies. I’ve been to a couple of plays. I basically work. I don’t watch television. I watch the news and the NFL; that’s it.”
• "socially ill at ease" — Again, it isn't like this description was just conjured out of thin air; Rush himself has said he doesn't often feel comfortable in social settings. In the story, he refers to his high-school days as a "prison," and it's mentioned that he says he likes living in New York City because you can order in.
• "Elmer Gantry"/"Jim Bakker" — This might be Ann's biggest prevarication yet. Thomas does relate the tale of Elmer Gantry in his story, but he specifically states that these fall-from-grace stories should not be applied in Limbaugh's case: "But Limbaugh’s story owes more to the 'Wizard of Oz' than 'The Scarlet Letter.' "
• "[His] act has won over, or fooled, a lot of people" — The "act" Thomas refers to is not a moralizing act (remember, his story stated "The man behind the curtain is not the God of Family Values") but his public image as a confident, boisterous rabble-rouser.
• "make a virtue out of honesty" — Here's the final paragraph of Thomas' story. Determine for yourself whether Thomas is harshly judging Limbaugh here:
"Limbaugh’s best shot at keeping his vast audience is by being open about his problem. Glenn Beck, an up-and-coming conservative talk-radio host who is regarded as one of the heirs if Limbaugh falters, is himself a former drug addict and recovering alcoholic. 'The hardest thing I had to do was stand up in front of a room of people and say, "I’m an alcoholic," and those were people who were sympathetic to what I was saying. He had to do it in front of 18 million ... I can’t imagine how hard it was to get on the air and say I have a problem.' Limbaugh’s long-running act as a paragon of virtue is over. Now the question is whether he can make a virtue out of honesty."
As is standard procedure for profiles of conservatives, Newsweek gathered quotes on Rush from liberals, ex-wives and dumped dates. Covering himself, Thomas ruefully remarked that "it's hard to find many people who really know him."
Oh, for crying out loud. Thomas didn't quote a single liberal! Not one! He mentioned one ex-wife (as quoted in a Vanity Fair article) and got his information on those "dumped dates" through conservative activist Paul Weyrich. Thomas also talked to John Fund, an editorial writer for the Wall Street Journal; Bill Bennett; Gary Bauer; Glenn Beck; Limbaugh's best friend from high school; and his own parents. Yes, clearly this commie sympathizer Thomas is nothing more than a member of the elitist liberal media out to smear Rush. Whom does Ann think she's kidding here?
Well, there was me, Evan! But I guess Newsweek didn't have room for the quotes I promptly sent back to the Newsweek researchers. I could have even corrected Newsweek's absurd account of how Rush met his current wife. (It's kind of cute, too: She was a fan who began arguing with him about something he said on air.)
Ah, so here's the real reason she's pissed at Evan Thomas about his story: He didn't bother to quote her in it! Yeah, Ann, with your penchant for honesty and accurate representation, it sure is hard to imagine why Newsweek wouldn't have wanted to use your quotes. Quite a stumper!
Thomas also made the astute observation that "Rush Limbaugh has always had far more followers than friends." Needless to say, this floored those of us who were shocked to discover that Rush does not have 20 million friends.
Jeez Louise. Here's the opening paragraph of Thomas' story, which once again Ann saw no need to actually present in context: "Rush Limbaugh has always had far more followers than friends. Bombastic and clowning on air, shy and bumptious off it, Limbaugh could count on 20 million 'Dittoheads' and talk-radio fans to tune in five days a week. But it’s hard to find many people who really know him. He was a lonely object of mass adulation, socially ill at ease, at least occasionally depressed and, for the past several years, living in a private hell of pain and compulsion." Ann. Give. It. A. Rest.
So the guy I really feel sorry for is Evan Thomas. How would little Evan fare in any competitive media? Any followers? Any fans? Any readers at all? And he's not even addicted to painkillers! This week, Rush proved his motto: He really can beat liberals with half his brain tied behind his back.
There you have it, folks: Ann just wrote an entire column defending Rush Limbaugh, and what was her defense? 1) Evan Thomas sucks, and (2) at least Rush isn't Bill Clinton. Sorry, Ann, but you've bagged your limit on trucking out Clinton as an excuse. And you can try all you want to use him as a way of deflecting attention from Limbaugh, but the fact remains, you have a big-time double standard when it comes to moral transgressions. We liberals had to sit by while Clinton was slandered and impeached for offenses that had nothing whatsoever to do with his fitness to govern; now Rush has fessed up to his pill habit, and you have nothing but glowing accolades for him. Maybe Rush isn't necessarily a hypocrite, sweetie, but you certainly are.
Which reminds us, Ann, if you're such a stalwart opponent of adultery and general moral turpitude, when are we going to see a column laying into serial philanderer Newt Gingrich? Or flaying Henry Hyde for fathering that illegitimate child with a woman who later committed suicide? Or, shoot, even a column apologizing for Richard Nixon? Oh, that's right — Nixon was one of the five men who did the most to defend our freedom in the last century. Oops, our bad! Well, at any rate, if Ann ever does lower herself to writing anything admitting what schmucks these guys are, Ann Coulter is a Lousy Writer and She Isn't Even That Hot will be the first to let you know! Until then, be content with the knowledge that drug use, adultery and lying is OK — as long as you're a Republican!
# Once again back is the incredible Doug at 9:45 AM
Islamic extremists hate the United States "because we're a Christian nation, because our foundation and our roots are Judeo-Christian. ... And the enemy is a guy named Satan."
On a 1993 battle with a Muslim militia leader in Somalia: "I knew that my God was bigger than his. I knew that my God was a real God, and his was an idol."
Teeee-riffic. Some folks in Iraq are worried that our occupation is a colonial quest, that we went over there to try and subjugate and convert them...and this Einstein is giving them precisely that impression. In college football, there's a thing called "bulletin-board material" — when you start trash-talking about your upcoming opponent in front of reporters, guys on that team are going to clip your comments out of the sports section and put it up on the bulletin board in their locker room, so they can look at it every day and get that much more psyched up about kicking your ass when you eventually meet on the football field. And for al-Qaeda, comments like "I knew that my God was a real God, and his was an Idol" make perfect bulletin-board material.
The sad thing is, in addition to being a bigot, this Boykin character is also an idiot (being redundant, yes, but bear with us). "Allah" isn't a different god from the Christian God. "Allah" is the Arabic word for God. How do you know it's not the same god, just because the words are different? If you chastise Muslims for following a false god just because they pray to Allah, you might as well say French people are going to hell because they pray to "Dieu." God.
At any rate, this occupation thing in Iraq is a very delicate, culturally sensitive kind of deal we've got going on here, and people like this are precisely the kind of people who shouldn't be allowed within 5,000 miles of it. That's not being a self-loathing Christian; that's being pragmatic.
In other troop news, the Stars and Stripes newspaper — that's the U.S. military paper, kids, not the nasty boogeyman liberal media — has taken a poll that indicates morale among troops in Iraq is getting lower and lower. Hell, why wouldn't it be? They're overworked, they've had their return-home dates pushed back further and further, and thanks to the incompetence of the people directing them, they're basically doing nothing but serving as targets for the al-Qaeda members who decided to bust tracks for Baghdad the minute the "major military operations" were over. It's awfully ironic how conservative Republicans will twist intelligence to start unnecessary wars, fail to adequately prepare the troops they send, and leave them twisting in the wind when they get over there, and use said troops/machinery as campaign props for a president who avoided military service when he had the chance — but then say it's Democrats who have no respect for the military.
George, you may act all big and tough, and strut around in your borrowed-ass flight suit, and act like you're not the least bit afraid any of the Democrats vying for the presidential nomination...but the last thing you hear before your head hits the pillow every night, and don't act like it isn't, is this eerie, disembodied voice whispering in your ear Weeeesley Claaaark...Weeeesley Claaaark. Oooh, it's spooky! It's like he's right there in your house! What are you going to do?...
# Once again back is the incredible Doug at 4:46 PM
Wednesday, October 15, 2003
And if you still think the war in Iraq was a good idea...
...a British military think-tank has confirmed what many of us feared — the war has caused al-Qaeda's ranks to grow considerably.
"On the plus side, war in Iraq has denied al Qaeda a potential supplier of weapons of mass destruction and discouraged state sponsors of terrorism from continuing to support it," the report said. That might be a plus if Saddam would've ever given al-Qaeda any WMDs, but that's highly unlikely — the Muslim fundamentalists hated his secular, socialist regime almost as much as we did. Not that we can prove Saddam had any WMDs to give them in the first place.
"On the minus side, war in Iraq has probably inflamed radical passions among Muslims and thus increased al Qaeda's recruiting power and morale and, at least marginally, its operating capability..." Yup, there's the kicker. American troops occupying a sovereign Arab nation have pissed off Muslim fundamentalists even more than they were before. And this isn't a case of Monday-morning quarterbacking, folks — numerous people (your pals at GWBWYPGN included) warned that this might be the case. Part of the whole reason Osama bin Laden took up arms against the West in the first place was because he was angry that American troops despoiled a Muslim holy land (Saudi Arabia) during the first Gulf War. And here we are, having barged our way into yet another one. Did we think Muslim terrorists would be happy about this? They're not even intimidated.
# Once again back is the incredible Doug at 12:47 PM
No one gets away clean
Another day, another aide or ex-aide stepping forward to say that the administration knew its Iraq intelligence was bogus before it went ahead and started the war. "The main problem was that the senior administration officials have what I call faith-based intelligence,” says Greg Thielmann, who analyzed the Iraqi weapons threat for Colin Powell. “They knew what they wanted the intelligence to show."
No surprise here. It's a well-known fact that the Bush administration decided way back in March (or even before, by some reports) that it was going to kick Iraq's ass, and the next 12 months was spent basically gathering up whatever evidence it could find that such action was necessary (bogus or not) and discarding the rest. And if you're still harping on the idea that such pre-emptive action is OK because Saddam Hussein was a bad guy and we can't take chances in this scary post-9/11 world, consider: The World Trade Center had already been attacked once (in 1993) and nobody thought it was a good idea to attack Iraq then — why? Because Iraq wasn't involved. Two embassies got bombed in 1998, and nobody thought it was a good idea to attack Iraq then — why? Because Iraq wasn't involved. The only reason we attacked Iraq this time around is because we have a president who acquired a little Messiah complex after 9/11 and he decided he could remake the Middle East in his image.
All of this may sound to some like Iraq apologism. It isn't; Saddam Hussein was an asshole. But summarily deposing him and taking over the country opened a can of worms we clearly weren't prepared to deal with. George W.'s dad knew this in 1991; wonder why W. chose to ignore him? If W. follows his dad into history as a one-termer — and boy, are we ever praying he will — there's going to be some interesting conversations at the old Kennebunkport homestead the next few years.
# Once again back is the incredible Doug at 12:29 PM
George W. Bush: Domestically violent?
You've had a chance to read the direct quotes indicating that Ann Coulter might be a potential domestic abuser. After matching up some of George W. Bush's quotes to the 15 telltale signs of domestic abuse, however, we were stunned to find that he, too, presents a potential risk. You may already have read the piece indicating that Bush might be suffering from "dry-drunk" syndrome, but if the compilation below is any indication, the problem might be deeper and more severe than any of us realize...
1. Pushes for quick involvement. "Some have argued we should wait — and that's an option. In my view, it's the riskiest of all options, because the longer we wait, the stronger and bolder Saddam Hussein will become. We could wait and hope that Saddam does not give weapons to terrorists, or develop a nuclear weapon to blackmail the world. But I'm convinced that is a hope against all evidence." — Speech at Cincinnati Museum Center, October 7, 2002
2. Jealous. "The French made a calculated decision to try to lead a lot of nations against what we were trying to do. And that created a lot of angst here in America. I heard from a lot of people who said, 'Look, we've got relatives who died on French soil to help with their security. Why would they not only resist what many Americans thought was necessary with Saddam Hussein, but lead a coalition?' And you hear all kinds of rumors as to why the French do what they do. And some of it is this notion about having a multi-polarity. That means to offset — something to offset in Europe the ambitions of America." — Interview with Brit Hume of Fox News, September 22, 2003
3. Controlling; interrogates you intensely about whom you talked to or where you were. "Surveillance of communications is another essential tool to pursue and stop terrorists...This new law that I sign today will allow surveillance of all communications used by terrorists, including e-mails, the Internet, and cell phones." — Signing the USA PATRIOT Act, October 26, 2001
4. Unrealistic expectations. "The success of a free Iraq will be watched and noted throughout the region. Millions will see that freedom, equality, and material progress are possible at the heart of the Middle East. Leaders in the region will face the clearest evidence that free institutions and open societies are the only path to long-term national success and dignity. And a transformed Middle East would benefit the entire world, by undermining the ideologies that export violence to other lands." — Address to the United Nations General Assembly, September 23, 2003
5. Isolation; may deprive you of a phone or car, or try to prevent you from holding a job. "There ought to be limits to freedom." — May 21, 1999
6. Blames others for problems or mistakes. "Remember on our TV screens — I'm not suggesting which network did this — but it said, 'March to War,' every day from last summer until the spring — 'March to War, March to War.' That's not a very conducive environment for people to take risk, when they hear, 'March to War' all the time." — On the slowness of the economy's recovery, White House press conference, July 30, 2003
7. Makes others responsible for his or her feelings. "Well, that's going to be up to the pundits and the people to make up their mind. I'll tell you what is a president for him, for example, talking about my record in the state of Texas. I mean, he's willing to say anything in order to convince people that I haven't had a good record in Texas." — MSNBC, Sept. 20, 2000
8. Hypersensitivity; is easily insulted, claiming hurt feelings when he or she is really mad. "There's Adam Clymer — major-league asshole — from the New York Times." — At a campaign stop in Naperville, Illinois, September 4, 2000; Clymer had written an article critical of Bush's record on health care as governor of Texas
9. Cruelty to animals and children. "I think we ought to raise the age at which juveniles can have a gun." — St. Louis, Mo., campaign appearance, October 18, 2000
10. "Playful" use of force during sex; finds the idea of rape exciting. "The United States of America has the sovereign authority to use force in assuring its own national security." — Address to the Nation, March 17, 2003 (OK, this one's a stretch, sure, but "using force" against a foreign country just because we feel like it sounds pretty "playful" to us.)
11. Verbal abuse; constantly criticizes or says blatantly cruel things. "Please don't kill me." — Mimicking Karla Faye Tucker, the only woman executed in Texas in the 20th century, in a 2000 interview with Tucker Carlson for Talk magazine
12. Rigid sex roles; expects you to serve, obey, remain at home. "Roses are red/Violets are blue/Oh, my lump in the bed/How I've missed you." — Poem to his wife upon her return from Russia, October 2, 2003
13. Sudden mood swings. "The most important thing for us is to find Osama bin Laden. It is our number-one priority and we will not rest until we find him." — September 13, 2001 "I don't know where [bin Laden] is. You know, I just don't spend that much time on him, really, to be honest with you...I truly am not that concerned about him." — March 13, 2002
14. Past battering. "Me and my brother were going to kick his ass across Texas." — On "Doonesbury" cartoonist Garry Trudeau, who drew a series of cartoons about George Bush Sr. placing his manhood in a "blind trust" in the 1980s
15. Threats of violence. "Fuck Saddam. We’re taking him out." — To National Security Adviser Condoleezza Rice, March 2002
# Once again back is the incredible Doug at 9:56 AM
Tuesday, October 14, 2003
Ann Coulter: Domestically violent?
While assembling last week's edition of Ann Coulter is a Lousy Writer and She Isn't Even That Hot, we ran across a Dear Abby/Ann Landers column or whatever the hell they're calling it now that Jeanne Phillips is answering the letters. A letter-writer wrote in asking for advice about her abusive husband, and Jeanne was kind enough to offer the 15 signs that your spouse/partner/significant other is an abuser. What really surprised us was how closely Ann Coulter fit each of the 15 guidelines. Take a look at the 15 signs and the quotes we've provided that came straight out of Coulter's own mouth, and see if you don't think someone should report her ass to the authorities. (Matter of fact, they kind of sound like they apply to George Bush, too...keep watching this space!)
1. Pushes for quick involvement. "But why not hurry?...Even for someone like me, who doesn't want America to be the world's policeman, the risk of precipitous action against Saddam Hussein doesn't keep me up at night." — "War-Torn Democrats," January 29, 2003
2. Jealous. "I really want to hurt him. I want him to feel pain." — On deciding whether to run against incumbent Rep. Christopher Shays (D-Conn.), Hartford Courant, June 25, 1999
3. Controlling; interrogates you intensely about whom you talked to or where you were. "We should require passports to fly domestically. Passports can be forged, but they can also be checked with the home country in case of any suspicious-looking swarthy males. It will be a minor hassle, but it's better than national ID cards." — "Where's Janet Reno When We Need Her," September 20, 2001
4. Unrealistic expectations. "We should invade their [Muslim] countries, kill their leaders and convert them to Christianity." — "This Is War," September 12, 2001
5. Isolation; may deprive you of a phone or car, or try to prevent you from holding a job. "The problem with women voting — and your Communists will back me up on this — is that, you know, women have no capacity to understand how money is earned. They have a lot of ideas on how to spend it. And when they take these polls, it's always more money on education, more money on child care, more money on day care." — "Politically Incorrect," Feb. 26, 2001
6. Blames others for problems or mistakes. Bobby Muller, disabled president of the Vietnam Veterans of America Foundation: "In 90 percent of cases that U.S. soldiers got blown up — Ann, are you listening? — they were our own mines."
Ann Coulter: "No wonder you guys lost." — MSNBC, October 11, 1997
7. Makes others responsible for his or her feelings. "Howard Kurtz made up a quote about a Vietnam vet, which he knows he made up...absolute lies...It's absolutely out of character for me." — On the MSNBC incident, CounterSpin radio interview, August 9, 2002
8. Hypersensitivity; is easily insulted, claiming hurt feelings when he or she is really mad. Phil Donahue: "You label Clinton as crazy, like a serial killer, creepier and slimier than Kennedy. A horny hick, you called him, white trash. You called all these names. Your hatred, and those who supported you, for Clinton was pathological."
Ann Coulter: "I'm not the president of the United States. I come on your show and all you're doing is calling me names." — Phil Donahue interview, MSNBC, July 18, 2002
9. Cruelty to animals and children. "A couple of well-aimed nuclear weapons, and now [the Japanese] are gentle little lambs. That got their attention." — "Why We Hate Them," September 25, 2002
10. "Playful" use of force during sex; finds the idea of rape exciting. "God gave us the earth. We have dominion over the plants, the animals, the trees. God said, 'Earth is yours. Take it. Rape it. It's yours.'" — "Hannity & Colmes," June 20, 2001
11. Verbal abuse; constantly criticizes or says blatantly cruel things. "Women like Pamela Harriman and Patricia Duff are basically Anna Nicole Smith from the waist down. Let's just call it for what it is. They're whores." — Salon.com, November 16, 2000
12. Rigid sex roles; expects you to serve, obey, remain at home. "I think [women] should be armed but should not [be allowed to] vote." — "Politically Incorrect," February 26, 2001
13. Sudden mood swings; switches from sweet to violent in minutes. "You want to be careful not to become just a blowhard." — The Washington Post, October 16, 1998
14. Past battering. Phil Donahue: "That was the biggest thing that hurt. You're proud of what you did to Bill and Hill, aren't you? You impeached the guy."
Ann Coulter: "Thank you. You're one of the few who will give me credit for that." — Donahue interview, July 18, 2002
15. Threats of violence. "When contemplating college liberals, you really regret once again that John Walker is not getting the death penalty. We need to execute people like John Walker in order to physically intimidate liberals, by making them realize that they can be killed, too. Otherwise, they will turn out to be outright traitors." — Address to the Conservative Political Action Conference, January 31, 2003
# Once again back is the incredible Doug at 9:33 AM
Friday, October 10, 2003
Pat Robertson, go to hell
The State Department has called out Pat Robertson for comments made on a recent edition of "The 700 Club," in which Robertson's guest was Joel Mowbray. Mowbray was there to discuss his new book Dangerous Diplomacy, about how the State Department supposedly endangers the lives of the American people, but evidently Mowbray doesn't mind endangering a few American people himself:
ROBERTSON: When you get through, you say, 'If I could just get a nuclear device inside Foggy Bottom, I think that's the answer.' I mean, you get through this, and you say, 'We've got to blow that thing up.' I mean, is it as bad as you say?
MOWBRAY: It is.
Good show, Pat. Glad to see you're still not afraid to encourage asinine threats against your own fellow countrymen. Ironically enough, though, Robertson was also mentioned in today's edition of "News of the Weird" for exactly that kind of behavior:
Hurricane Isabel roared through Virginia Beach, Va., in September, inflicting serious property damage, despite public calls for prayer to keep it away by prominent resident Rev. Pat Robertson, whose Christian Broadcasting Network is headquartered there. (In 1998, Robertson condemned the city of Orlando, Fla., for sponsoring a Gay Days festival, and warned that the city could be torn up during the subsequent hurricane season, as God punishes those who promote homosexuality. Instead, the first hurricane of that season (Bonnie) made a direct hit on Virginia Beach.)
Wow, Pat. Sounds like you're not exactly batting a thousand with the Almighty there. Instead of calling for various deaths and consorting with ruthless African dictators to further your jewel-mining operations, why don't you try doing something constructive for the good of your fellow man? Or are you rich and powerful enough now that you don't have to dirty your hands with such things anymore?
# Once again back is the incredible Doug at 1:50 PM
Ann Coulter is a Lousy Writer and She Isn't Even That Hot: Eleventh in a series
Last week, Ann Coulter inadvertantly divulged her fear of Gen. Wesley Clark by writing an entire column slamming Clark and his candidacy for president. This week, Ann Coulter is a Lousy Writer and She Isn't Even That Hot is happy to inform you that there's yet another liberal she's scared to death of: Al Franken. The author of Lies and the Lying Liars Who Tell Them: A Fair and Balanced Look at the Right must scare the bejeezus out of Coulter, or she wouldn't write an entire column refuting — or attempting to refute — the accusations he makes against her in his book. Yet like pretty much everything else Coulter writes, her rebuttals are inaccurate, irrelevant and most of all immature.
There's just one problem: We don't have a copy of Lies at our immediate disposal, so when Ann refutes a claim she says Franken makes in his book, we don't have any way of knowing if that's what he actually said. Oh, sure, we could take Ann at her word that Al Franken said X, Y or Z, but...come on, we weren't born yesterday. If you believe that Ann, whose whole modus operandi is selectively making use of quotes and cherry-picking anecdotal "evidence" to support her spurious claims, can be trusted to represent Franken's words accurately, then there are any number of beachfront condos in South Dakota we'd like to sell you. So without Franken's actual words handy, we've had to rebut what we can in this column, "I Guess You're Right: There Is No Liberal Media Bias," and simply cast a jaundiced eye upon the rest — which, if we do say so ourselves, is darn good advice for the rest of you:
RESPONSE TO INTERVIEW QUESTIONS OF EDWARD NAWOTKA FOR PUBLISHER'S WEEKLY
QUESTION: FRANKEN CLAIMS THAT THERE ARE NUMEROUS FALSEHOODS IN YOUR BOOK, ESPECIALLY BURIED IN THE FOOTNOTES. . . . WHO IS ULTIMATELY RESPONSIBLE FOR THE ERRORS, YOU, THE PUBLISHER, OR BOTH?
I see we're off to a good start! In your interview with Al Franken, after suggesting that some readers may want Franken to run for president, you ask him hardball questions like:
-- "It's got to be a little grating to see your book on the same New York Times bestseller list as the Ann Coulter book."
-- "You fact checked Ann Coulter's book and found a lot of inconsistencies, outright lies, and quotes that are taken out of context. Who is responsible for those kinds of errors, the author or the editors?"
-- "How should booksellers deal with this?"
You ask me questions like these:
-- "[W]ho is ultimately responsible for the errors [in your book], you, the publisher, or both?"
-- "What gives--was this an honest mistake or malfeasance as he suggests?"
-- "Why all the name calling?"
Apparently, Ed, it never occurred to you that Franken's allegations of errors in my book -- or "outright lies" as you put it -- are false.
It's interesting that the most devastating examples of my alleged "lies" keep changing. As soon as one is disproved, I'm asked to respond to another. This is behavior normally associated with tin-foil-hat conspiracy theorists. One crackpot argument after another is shot down -- but the conspiracy theorists just move on to the next crackpot argument without pause or reconsideration. Certainly without apology.
Pot, kettle, pot, kettle! First of all, Ann, you have yet to "disprove" any of the solid claims made about your inaccuracies and distortions. But more importantly, Ann engages in exactly the kind of "tin-foil-hat conspiracy theorist" behavior she just condemned. In a previous column on liberal traitors, Coulter made outrageous accusations against 1950s U.S. diplomats like John Paton Davies whom she says supported the spread of communism throughout mainland China. Those sorts of claims can be debunked with a minimum of Web searching, and we faithfully debunked 'em. But has Ann admitted she screwed up? Or apologized to the families of the men she posthumously slandered? Nope! Ann Coulter is the very last person to get steamed over people who throw out inaccurate theories and then move right along to the next one "without pause or reconsideration."
So before responding to the two alleged "lies" you cite from Franken -- the source of all wisdom -- I shall run through a few of the alleged "lies" from Franken's book that I have already been asked to respond to -- and which have now been dropped by the Coulter hysterics as they barrel ahead to the next inane charge.
Who said Franken was "the source of all wisdom"? You're simply being asked to respond to some of his charges. And evidently Franken must have got your goat a little, because that's precisely what you're attempting to do. Here we go:
FRANKEN'S VERY FIRST CHARGE AGAINST ME IS THAT I TOLD A REPORTER FROM THE OBSERVER THAT I WAS "FRIENDLY" WITH FRANKEN, WHEN IN FACT, WE ARE NOT "FRIENDLY."
Needless to say, I never claimed to be friendly with Al Franken. Inasmuch as I barely know Franken, a normal person might have looked at that and realized the reporter misunderstood me. But apparently Franken thinks he has a pretty cool name to drop -- the oddest case of reverse name-dropping I've ever heard of.
I don't hear about this "lie" so much anymore.
Here's the article in question from the New York Observer. It states quite clearly: "Ms. Coulter said she's also friendly with MSNBC commentator and West Wing writer Lawrence O'Donnell and Saturday Night Live political satirists Jim Downey and Al Franken." If you and Franken aren't "friendly," Ann, perhaps your beef is with the Observer reporter and not Franken himself, no? And that is, indeed, an odd case of "reverse name-dropping," given that Franken was trying to completely distance himself from you. He's trying to distance himself from you, but you still say you're "friendly" with him...this has all the makings of a second-grade schoolgirl crush, wouldn't you say?
FRANKEN HYSTERICALLY ACCUSES ME OF "LYING" FOR CALLING MY "ENDNOTES," "FOOTNOTES" IN INTERVIEWS ON MY BOOK.
Yes, notes at the end of a book are technically "endnotes," not "footnotes." Franken will have to take his case up with the New York Times, the LA Times, and the Washington Post and the rest of the universe -- all of which referred to my 780 endnotes as "FOOTNOTES." Also God, for inventing the concept of "colloquial speech."
I don't hear so much about this "lie" anymore.
Yeah, but all those papers are part of the liberal media, so you can't trust them, right? We have to admit, this "endnote"/"footnote" semantic-wrangling sounds kind of dumb, but we understand Franken pointed out the difference because he claims people are less likely to read "end notes" stashed at the end of a book — and, accordingly, less likely to check them for accuracy. And whether she calls her books' citations "endnotes," "footnotes" or "Post-It notes," they are indeed inaccurate, as the Columbia Journalism Review explains here. To paraphrase the Bard, a footnote by any other name would still smell as fishy.
FRANKEN CLAIMS I COMPLAIN THAT CONSERVATIVES DON'T GET ON TV ENOUGH.
Inasmuch as I am on TV a lot, this would be an hilarious point. Too bad I never said it. My book Slander -- which Franken seems to have gone over with a fine-toothed comb -- would have been a good place to make that point if I wanted to make it. Slander contains an entire chapter on the media, and yet I never claim that conservatives are not on TV enough. What I say is: "Democrats in the media are editors, national correspondents, news anchors, and reporters. Republicans are 'from the right' polemicists grudgingly tolerated within the liberal behemoth."
Misrepresentation alert: Coulter only says that's what "Franken claims," she doesn't actually quote the passage where he is alleged to have said it. And do you really trust Coulter to represent Franken's statements accurately? By the way, Ann, it's sort of disingenuous for you to bitch about being dubbed a "'from the right' polemicist" when you say things like "I am a polemicist. I am perfectly frank about that. I like to stir up the pot. I don't pretend to be impartial or balanced, as broadcasters do," as you told London's Sunday Times in 2002.
By the way, I also say: "The distinction between opinion journalism and objective news coverage is seemingly impossible for liberals to grasp." Franken's absurd description of my point proves it.
I haven't heard so much about this "lie" anymore.
The distinction is evidently equally impossible for Coulter herself to grasp. You just heard her talk about how she doesn't have to be "impartial or balanced" because she's merely a "polemicist," and she's quite right about that. But In Slander, she says right-wing pundits like Rush Limbaugh don't count as journalists because they are commentators, but quotes opinion columnists like Maureen Dowd to show how liberal-biased the media are.
This is a distinction media-bias conspiracy-theorists have failed to make for years: It doesn't mean the media are biased just because newspapers print opinion columns by liberals. For one thing, those columns are printed on the opinions page; that's where that stuff is supposed to go. A spot is set aside for opinion pieces specifically so that such opinions will not be allowed to taint the objective coverage of hard-news stories. Secondly, they print opinion columns by conservatives, too — including Ann Coulter! (But has Ann ever once seen fit to thank them for their devotion to fairness and balance?)
I CLAIM EVAN THOMAS'S FATHER WAS THE SOCIALIST PARTY PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE, NORMAN THOMAS.
Franken drones on and on for a page and a half about how Norman Thomas was not Evan Thomas's father -- without saying that he was Evan's grandfather. This was one of about five inconsequential errors quickly corrected in Slander -- and cited one million times by liberals as a "LIE." Confusing "father" with "grandfather" is a mistake. Franken's deliberate implication that there was no relationship whatsoever between Norman and Evan Thomas is intentional dishonesty.
I haven't heard so much about this "lie" anymore.
We checked with someone who's read Franken's book cover-to-cover, and it turns out that Franken did disclose that Norman Thomas was Evan Thomas' granddad. He did so in a "footnote" (or was it "endnote"?) on page 379 of the book, specifically to satirize the way Coulter makes outrageous claims and then stashes the "factual" basis for them at the back of her books where few people will ever venture. Had Ann bothered to point out this aspect of the Franken book, however, it only would've shown another instance in which Franken nailed her and thus made her look worse, so we're not surprised she didn't bother to do it.
Not that any of this excuses Ann from getting it wrong in the first place. The fact is, Ann, you tried to further your case for liberal media bias by implying that Newsweek editor Evan Thomas is a socialist because his "father" was, and that isn't true. Franken calls you on it, and what do you do? You change the subject and try to weasel out of it.
I INCORRECTLY CLAIMED DALE EARNHARDT'S DEATH WAS NOT MENTIONED ON THE FRONT PAGE OF THE NYT THE DAY AFTER HIS DEATH.
In my three bestselling books -- making the case for a president's impeachment, accusing liberals of systematic lying and propagandizing, arguing that Joe McCarthy was a great American patriot, and detailing 50 years of treachery by the Democratic Party -- this is the only vaguely substantive error the Ann Coulter hysterics have been able to produce, corrected soon after publication.
CONGRATULATIONS LIBERALS!!!
The Columbia Journalism Review was crowing about this great victory over Ann Coulter a year ago. A search of "coulter" and "earnhardt" on Google turns up over 1,000 hits. Now Franken dedicates another two pages in his book to it. I believe this triumph of theirs has been sufficiently revisited by now. At least I didn't miss the Ukrainian famine. Pulitzer prize winning New York Times reporter Walter Duranty.
I don't heard so much about this "lie" anymore.
Yep, Ann, we caught you in a lie that even basic research could have prevented you from making — so hell yes, we're going to call you on it. But if you believe for one second Ann's statement that "this is the only vaguely substantive error" we've been able to dig up in that book...heh heh, guess again.
FRAZIER MOORE, A FANTASIST FOR THE ASSOCIATED PRESS, WROTE AN ARTICLE ACCUSING ME OF USING "ROUTINELY SLOPPY" RESEARCH AND "CONTRIVED" FACTS. LIKE YOU, THE AP FANTASIST TREATS FRANKEN AS THE SOURCE OF ALL WISDOM, CITING ONE KILLER EXAMPLE FROM FRANKEN:
"Here's one: On pages 265-266, Coulter blasts New York Times writer Thomas Friedman for opposing racial profiling in a December 2001 column. She quotes (and credits) several passages that seem to back up her complaint. But it turns out that Coulter misappropriated Friedman's words in a way that has nothing to do with racial profiling or anything else addressed in his column, as anyone who reads it will discover. His column actually drew the less-than-startling conclusion that a new age of terrorism threatens our personal safety and our free society."
Again, we don't know where she got the idea that Moore "treats Franken as the source of all wisdom" — maybe from the same place she got the idea that Moore was "accusing" her of sloppy research and contrived facts, when in fact he was saying that others had accused her of such (read the actual article here). At any rate, Moore did seem to have a pretty good grasp of what Friedman was trying to say in his 12/26/01 column "Naked Air" — better than Ann did, at least, as you'll see below.
This is what is known as "bicycle accident reporting." I defy anyone to explain what head-injury boy is trying to convey in his crucial, accusatory sentence: "Coulter misappropriated Friedman's words in a way that has nothing to do with racial profiling or anything else addressed in his column."Huh? The AP could throw a deck of cards out the window and wait to see who picks up the four of clubs to find someone who writes better than Frazier Moore.
We hate to keep hauling this old quote out, but apparently we're going to have to do it again: The woman who once said "liberals are calling names while conservatives are trying to make arguments" just called an Associated Press reporter "head-injury boy."
But as long as I'm already breaking my rule about not responding to meritless, overwrought attacks, I'll go for broke and break my rule about not responding to gibberish. Apparently, head-injury-boy here is very upset about how I characterize a Friedman column and it has something or other to do with racial profiling.
In the column at issue, titled "Fly Naked,"Friedman spends 6 of 10 paragraphs discussing airport security after 9-11 and concludes that flying naked is the only solution, because, inter alia: "It's much more civilized than racial profiling." I wrote: "New York Times columnist Thomas Friedman sniffed that racial profiling was not 'civilized.'" I'm really trying to grasp the lie in that statement, but I don't see it.
If you've actually taken the time to read the Friedman column, you'll probably realize that "inter alia" thrown in by Coulter accounts for a lot. Coulter may not have been lying when she reported Friedman's opinion on racial profiling, but implying that's what the whole column is about is a deliberate mischaracterization of what Friedman was trying to say. Friedman made only a single reference to racial profiling in his column, and even that one was made in a satirical manner. Yet in her column "We'll Pay Them Reparations Later," Coulter implies that Friedman had come out and directly opposed racial profiling, when in fact he had not bothered to do any such thing.
And tellingly, Ann leaves out entire chunks of the sentence in which she slammed Friedman. Here's the full quote: "Yet the Times' Friedman, in a commonplace formulation, sniffs that ethnic profiling is not "civilized" and then gratuitously attacks "religious fundamentalists of any stripe." Not only does Ann cherry-pick and misinterpret the words of other writers, she does it to herself! Why did Ann leave all that out?
Probably because that so-called gratuitous attack was in fact nothing of the sort. From "Naked Air": "Think about it. If everybody flew naked, not only would you never have to worry about the passenger next to you carrying box cutters or exploding shoes, but no religious fundamentalists of any stripe would ever be caught dead flying nude, or in the presence of nude women, and that alone would keep many potential hijackers out of the skies." That's what qualifies in Ann's mind as a gratuitous attack? And by the way, Ann, have you completely stopped standing behind your own words once they make it to print?
Incidentally, contrary to head-injury boy's characterization, only four paragraphs at the end of the Friedman column discuss "personal safety and our free society" -- as anyone who reads it will discover! I salute the AP's unorthodox affirmative action program, but they might want to assign reporters who are not developmentally disabled to write the articles accusing me of "sloppy" research and "contrived" facts.
"Only four paragraphs at the end"? And Coulter is the one accusing Moore of not getting the column? That's just an outrageous insult to the intelligence of not just Moore but of anyone who actually read the column and spent more than 30 seconds pondering the points it was trying to make. Not as big an insult, however, as calling Moore "developmentally disabled." That's a cut-and-dried lie, Ann, and some might also argue that it qualifies as slander. Do you think that, just because you're a "commentator" and not a "journalist," that the rules of truth and accuracy don't apply to you, either?
I haven't heard much about this "lie" since the AP article came out and normal people took the trouble to look up Friedman's column and post it on the internet.
Now you spring two all-new alleged "outright lies" on me. I shall respond to these two, and then I'm through. Henceforth, I shall rely on sensible people to see that I have answered the liberal hate groups' first 17 rounds of indignant charges against me. If they had a better example out there, we would have heard it before the 18th round.
Ann has a pretty funny way of "answering" charges: By our count, she "answered" two, completely ignored one, tried to "answer" another with immature name-calling, and admitted she was wrong on two more. In the NFL, a pass-completion percentage like that gets you cut from the roster before the preseason even begins.
First, you say: "AT ONE POINT [FRANKEN] ACCUSES YOU OF HAVING TAKEN A QUOTE FROM A BOOK REVIEW QUOTING A BOOK (P. 14 OF FRANKEN'S BOOK) TO ARGUE YOUR POINT. DO YOU FEEL THIS IS AN ACCURATE REPRESENTATION OF WHAT YOU WROTE? AN ACCURATE USE OF A QUOTE? IF NOT, THEN WHY? IF YES, THEN WHO IS ULTIMATELY RESPONSIBLE FOR THE ERRORS, YOU, THE PUBLISHER, OR BOTH?"
I'm not sure I grasp the accusation here and I'm sure you do not. I wrote: "For decades, the New York Times had allowed loose associations between Nazis and Christians to be made in its pages." Among the quotes I cited, one came from a New York Times book review. The quote made a loose association between Nazis and Christians. New York Times book reviews are printed in the pages of the New York Times. The Times allowed that quote to run in its pages. How else, exactly, are you suggesting I should have phrased this, Ed?
Again, misrepresentation alert. Do you honestly believe, based solely on Ann's description, that the Times associated Nazis and Christians? And given the cavalier attitude with which Ann will completely ignore or disown past statements and claims she herself as made, do you think the statement she quoted from her book is really all there is to that issue?
Second, you say: "LIKEWISE, [FRANKEN] ACCUSES YOU OF SLOPPY RESEARCH, IN SO FAR AS YOU APPEAR TO HAVE MISSED A NUMBER OF NEW YORK TIMES ARTICLES CITING SUCH THINGS AS SPEECHES BY JESSE JACKSON. WHAT GIVES--WAS THIS AN HONEST MISTAKE OR MALFEASANCE AS HE SUGGESTS?
It was neither, but thanks for asking. I wrote: "In an upbeat message delivered on British TV on Christmas Day, 1994, Jesse Jackson compared conservatives in the U.S. and Great Britain to Nazis: "In South Africa, the status quo was called racism. We rebelled against it. In Germany, it was called fascism. Now in Britain and the U.S. it is called conservatism.' The New York Times did not report the speech."
Spin it any way you like, Ann, but when Jackson said "...it is called conservatism," the "it" was "the status quo." Jackson didn't say conservatives were Nazis; he said they favored the status quo in terms of race relations. Good Lord, Ann, making Jesse Jackson look like a demagogue is easier than tying one's shoes...and that was the best quote you could come up with?
The New York Times did not, in fact, report the speech. Franken does not say otherwise. My guess is -- and this is just a stab in the dark -- Franken doesn't say otherwise because he can't say otherwise, inasmuch as . . . THE NEW YORK TIMES DID NOT REPORT THE SPEECH. What Franken says is that my search method was faulty -- though, somehow, it still managed to produce the truth! (To wit: The New York Times did not report the speech.)
Among my searches, I searched the New York Times database for all of December, 1994 and January 1995 for: "Jesse Jackson and Germany and fascism and South Africa."(In my footnotes, I often give my readers clear descriptions of some of the Lexis-Nexis searches I ran -- something, as far as I know, no other writer does.)
Franken does not mention the lines I had just quoted from Jackson's speech -- you know, the one that was NOT reported in the New York Times -- but refers to it only as a "controversial speech."He then acts incredulous that I would run a search for "Jesse Jackson and Germany and fascism and South Africa," as if I tossed in the terms "Germany""fascism"and "South Africa"for no reason whatsoever. To my observation that this search turned up no documents, he says sarcastically: "Well, yeah."
OK, we're going to have to throw up our hands and plead ignorance here ??we don't know what the hell Ann's talking about. Ann has already copped to completely ignoring one Times story (the one on Dale Earnhardt), and we already know that Ann's research is sloppy as hell in a multitude of ways, so if she ignored any Times stories on Jesse Jackson, it'd be nothing more than par for the course as far as we're concerned. What we don't know (again, since we have neither the Franken nor the Coulter books at our disposal) is what Franken was getting at in pointing out Ann's whiffs on the Jackson speech, or what Ann is trying to prove by saying the Times didn't report it. We'll just remind our readers that anything that comes out of Ann Coulter's mouth has to be taken with a massive grain of salt, and leave it at that.
To borrow a line from a trained journalist: What gives, Ed? Was this an honest mistake or malfeasance?
Gee, Ann, we're not sure. What qualifies as "malfeasance" these days? Trying to slander former American officials as commie-lovers? Deliberately twisting and misrepresenting factual events? Cravenly accusing random people of treason just because they happen to disagree with your point of view? Ann Coulter has done her level best to corner the market on inaccurate and intellectually dishonest statements — statements so inaccurate and dishonest that when people like Franken refute them, the only way she can respond is with more inaccuracy and dishonesty.
Hop into the clown car with Limbaugh and O'Reilly, Ann — Al Franken punked you, and he punked you good. And if it didn't upset you, you wouldn't have written an entire column about it. You haven't demanded a lawsuit be filed in your name, at least, so you haven't quite sunk to O'Reilly's level, but this petulant outburst of a column proves that the Ann Coulter goat was definitely, uh, gotten. Good show, Mr. Franken, and we at Ann Coulter is a Lousy Writer and She Isn't Even That Hot salute you! When Ann writes the inevitable column about how Al Franken is a traitor, rest assured you can come here for a spirited defense!
# Once again back is the incredible Doug at 10:07 AM
Fox News: We misinform. You decide.
An interesting tidbit popped up in Jay Bookman's weekly Thursday chat yesterday — someone pointed out a survey (linked here in PDF format) showing that the people most misinformed about the war in Iraq were those who watched Fox News. To be more specific, misperceptions about the war and our reasons for invading — stuff like "Saddam caused 9/11" and "Iraq had nukes," etc. — were most common among people who named Fox as their primary news source.
This shouldn't be the least bit surprising, but it is surprising more people haven't picked up on it. Evidently "fair and balanced," or more specifically Fox's twisted definition of it, doesn't equate into "correct and accurate."
Then again, the people who happily swallowed what Fox gave them are the same people who happily swallow what Bush gives them, and they're equally inclined (or just too lazy) to question either one.
# Once again back is the incredible Doug at 8:35 AM
Wednesday, October 08, 2003
Donald Rumsfeld, your turn in the dumper
Donald Rumsfeld is pissed the White House didn't tell him about a major reorganization of the Iraqi occupation effort that is evidently designed to give the State Department more of a say in how things are run. Rumsfeld's pissed that the White House kept things from him? Well, now he knows what the rest of the country feels like.
On the one hand, you can almost kind of sympathize with Rumsfeld for being the latest victim of the Bush administration's infuriating emphasis on secrecy and withholding information. On the other hand, though, he shouldn't be too surprised that an effort is afoot to wrest a little influence away from the Pentagon as far as Iraq is concerned. It's not like Rumsfeld, Wolfowitz, Perle et al. didn't take advantage of every single opportunity to screw up, and Bush can't possibly be looking back fondly upon those rosy predictions of how easy the war and the occupation would be. And while Condoleezza Rice may be nothing more than Bush's hand puppet, but at least she can't make much more of a hash of this operation than the Pentagon did.
It's a time-honored tradition in college football that when a team goes through a lousy season and there are rumblings that the head coach's job is on the line, he'll fire a bunch of assistant coaches and shake up the staff to try and turn things around (or at least make it look like he's making an effort to do so). Every once in a while it succeeds, but most of the time it's just rearranging deck chairs on the Titanic. Wonder which one this'll be for Bush?
# Once again back is the incredible Doug at 1:01 PM
Welcome to Bizarro World
Well, GWBWYPGN readers, we've been away for a while, and we've come back to find that a) Bob Graham has dropped out of the presidential race, and b) Arnold Schwarzenegger is the governor of California. Only one of those really comes as a surprise...well, actually neither of them do.
It became pretty clear early on that, for one thing, Davis was going to get recalled. The pro-recall side was passionate about their position, whereas Gray Davis inspired all the excitement of an AM-radio livestock report at 5:30 in the morning. Even Davis' supporters were fighting the recall more for the principle of the thing than because there was actually anything they liked about Davis himself.
The über-lefties, MoveOn Webmasters and the like condemned the recall as another one of the GOP's efforts to overturn democracy, and with all due respect to their position, I'm not sure that it was. There is a very specific process one must follow to initiate a recall in California — one the voters passed — and however petty or self-serving his motives were in doing so, Darrell Issa followed that process exactly like he was supposed to. Davis had the opportunity to present his case, and evidently he didn't do so successfully. The Cali recall might have been an embarrassment, but not a travesty of justice in the way the Florida debacle was three years ago.
Furthermore, as much as the Republicans are sure to crow over this victory, it's a Pyrrhic one for them at best. Congratulations, guys — you got what you wanted and you're now responsible for digging California out of this mile-deep pit. Think you can solve the state's problems? Rotsa ruck. Schwarzenegger will have to run for re-election three years from now, and barring some sort of miracle, the budget crisis won't be solved by then. He and the Republicans can continue to blame Davis at that point if they like, but that's only going to get them so far with an impatient voting public in California; they can't count on "It's Gray Davis' fault" still being a lightning rod come 2006.
Even Ann Coulter said she couldn't imagine why anyone would want this job, and we're inclined to agree. And having a Republican in the governor's mansion may actually make it harder for Bush to win California in the 2004 presidential race, since he won't have Gray Davis to kick around anymore, as they say. Trust us, Gray — getting booted out of office is the best thing that's ever happened to you. Go to Tahiti, sit on the beach with an alcoholic beverage that has a little cocktail umbrella in it, and be glad you're wiping your hands of this mess.
As for Bob Graham dropping out of the race: It's not a surprise, but it is a shame. Graham was one of the smartest, most principled people in the race, heck, on Capitol Hill period. Too bad "smart and principled" just doesn't earn you much campaign cash these days. But whoever does win the Democratic nomination would be wise to keep Graham's number handy when it comes time to pick a running mate — smarts and principles will come in handy then, and plus, Graham is still thought of fondly from his days as Florida's governor, and delivering that state's electoral votes in '04 would be a huge blow to Bush.
But anyway. Enjoy your movie-star governor, California. It's anyone's guess what's going to happen next.
# Once again back is the incredible Doug at 9:01 AM
Friday, October 03, 2003
Further adventures in headline juxtaposition
Interesting point, Stanley, and I found two more headlines that looked awful funny stacked right on top of one another on the Yahoo! main page this morning:
Here's the question that comes out of all of this: Even if Saddam was a threat to freedom-loving people everywhere — and Bush has still not made the case that he was — how was he any more dangerous than any of the other crackpot Mideast dictators out there, some of whom we consider close personal friends? There are terrorist camps and sleeper cells all over the world, there are governments with direct ties to al-Qaeda, there are very unfriendly countries who are not just working on nuclear weapons but have them as we speak...but for the past 18 months it's been nothing but Iraq, Iraq, Iraq for this administration. Nothing in the world has been worth focusing on other than Iraq. Nothing else has been worthy of our attention. And we've been so busy digging ourselves into this disaster of an Iraq occupation that we've all but completely ignored every other threat to national security.
The neocons and Bush diehards laud their hero for doing such a good job fighting the War on Terror. Well, if the "war on terror" involves pre-emptively invading countries that presented only a minimal threat to the security of the United States, then yeah, he's done a terrific job. Otherwise, this administration hasn't done squat.
# Once again back is the incredible Doug at 10:49 AM
Ann Coulter is a Lousy Writer and She Isn't Even That Hot: The Big One-Oh! — Tenth in a series
We at Ann Coulter is a Lousy Writer and She Isn't Even That Hot have been treated to a number of the Blond Bomb-Thrower's moods, and most of them are synonyms for "petulant." But this week we get treated to an exciting new color on Ann Coulter's mood ring: scared sh!tless. You see, Gen. Wesley Clark has tossed his hat into the ring as a Democratic candidate for president, and if you're thinking that the Republican party may have noticed the stark and uncomfortable contrast between Clark (decorated war hero) and their man Bush (shirked Vietnam duty by signing up for a "non-flying" Alabama Air National Guard unit and then didn't bother to show up), you're on the right page.
Give Ann credit for recognizing the threat: She's devoted an entire column this week to tearing down the Democratic field, Clark included. If the Democratic slate is as weak as Coulter would like you to believe, you have to wonder why she'd spend an entire column bashing them, but that's just Ann, we guess. And you'll also note that she presents hardly any factual evidence to back up her condemnations, just her usual barrage of character assassinations, overspun "facts" and tired, worn-out insults. Yet another half-assed effort from the Coultinator, and we're sorry that the very special "Diamond Anniversary" 10th edition of Ann Coulter is a Lousy Writer and She Isn't Even That Hot is such a childish drag — but hey, we're not in the business of making silk purses out of sows' ears. This week's ear is called "General Democrat":
According to a new survey, six out of 10 Americans can't name a single Democrat running for president. And that poll was actually taken among the 10 current Democratic candidates. According to the survey answers, "the military guy" leads with 19 percent, followed by "that doctor – what's his name?" with 12 percent, and "the French-looking guy" with 9 percent.
Ummm...which poll is she talking about here? We remember the poll where two-thirds of the respondents couldn't name a Democratic candidate, but that poll's results were released back on July 11. Doesn't sound like that long ago, but three months is a lifetime in a presidential campaign. And you'll notice that poll occurred before Wesley Clark announced his candidacy.
We did find this poll that has Clark as the leader with Dean in second place. But none of the respondents had trouble naming the candidates, evidently. Ann wouldn't be trying to mix-and-match her information to paint the best possible result for her hero Bush, would she?
(Ordinarily we'd put another comment here asking where in the hell she gets this "French-looking" thing from with John Kerry, but we've resigned ourselves to the conclusion that we're never going to get a solid answer on that, so we're dropping it. Maybe Ann should too.)
Since Wesley Clark entered the race, Democrats have been salivating over the prospect of a presidential candidate who is a four-star general – and has the politics of Susan Sarandon! Clark's entry into the race was seen as a setback for John Kerry, the only other Democratic contender with combat experience. (Although back in the 1970s, Dennis Kucinich served in the Kiss Army.)
Before Clark becomes the answer to a Trivial Pursuit question, consider that Clark's main claim to fame is that he played a pivotal role in what most of his supporters passionately believe was an illegal, immoral war of American imperialism in Vietnam. How does that earn you points with Democrats?
For someone who hates liberals so much, Ann sure does think she has a good grasp of our mindset, or she wouldn't spend so much time putting words in our mouths. We don't all necessarily believe Vietnam was an illegal, immoral war, just a tragic, poorly planned, completely unnecessary one. Kind of like another war you may have been hearing about lately! And does anyone else notice the disconnect of Ann Coulter — a fierce supporter of the Vietnam war — criticizing a soldier who actually fought in that war (unlike Bush), and then criticizing Democrats for supporting said soldier? There are so many logical disconnects here we're at a loss to count them all.
By the way, Coulter already used that "Trivial Pursuit" jab at Clark, during a "Hannity & Colmes" appearance in the middle of September. Not spectacularly funny then, and certainly not funny enough to merit a recycling in print three weeks later.
Clark's other credential to lead the free world was that he supervised the "liberation" of Kosovo by ordering our pilots to drop bombs from 15,000 feet at a tremendous cost in innocent civilian life in a 100 percent humanitarian war against a country that posed absolutely no threat to the United States – imminent or otherwise – and without the approval of the almighty United Nations.
Sometimes we read a comment from Coulter that's so unbelievably ironic and fatuous that we can't believe she actually got them down onto a piece of paper. All of a sudden Coulter is opposed to non-UN-sanctioned wars against countries that present no threat to the United States? Think, Ann, think the next time you're tempted to write something like this, and remember the saying about how it's better to shut your mouth and be thought a fool than open your mouth and remove all doubt.
So you can see why Clark supported, then opposed, then supported, then opposed the current war in Iraq. Say, is there a website where I can get up-to-the-minute updates on Wesley Clark's current position on the war in Iraq, kind of like a Nasdaq ticker?
Possible Clark campaign slogans are already starting to emerge:
"I Was Into Quagmires Before Quagmires Were Cool"
"Honk if You Got Bombed in Kosovo"
"Only Fired by the Pentagon Once!"
"The OTHER Bush-Bashing Rhodes Scholar From Arkansas"
On "Meet the Press," on June 15, 2003, Clark told Tim Russert that he got a lot of calls after 9-11 telling him to go on television and say, "This has to be connected to Saddam Hussein." Asked who had told him that, Clark said: "[T]he White House; it came from people around the White House. It came from all over."
How 'bout we debunk this little story before it goes any further? As you'll read here, Clark did not say that the White House was the source of the call. He said the White House was part of a general effort to make people think Iraq was involved in 9/11 — which anyone with a pulse could see was true — but he also said that pressure to connect the two came from "all over," and did not state that the call he received specifically came from the White House. Read the direct transcript of the exchange with Russert that Coulter has lifted selectively from, and notice that she's left some important words out. (Of course, if you read last week's Coulter-debunking session, you know that fact-manipulating and deliberate misinterpretation is one of her favorite strategies.)
But under cross-examination by Sean Hannity on Fox News Channel a few weeks later, Clark would say only that he had gotten a call from "a fellow in Canada who is part of a Middle Eastern think tank who gets inside intelligence information." So in two weeks' time, Clark had gone from "the White House" to "people close to the White House" to "some guy in Canada." Clark is for abortion, for tax hikes, for affirmative action and against the war in Iraq. But he served in Vietnam. So he's basically Howard Dean with scarier flashbacks.
Unbelievable. Ann stands by the Vietnam War as a critically vital battle in the war on communism, tears down Bill Clinton and anyone else (except George W. Bush, apparently) who didn't fight in it — and then when she's presented with a candidate who actually did fight and risk his life in said conflict, she degrades him with a careless insult like "Howard Dean with scarier flashbacks." Un-fricking-believable. Is anyone else sick to death of hearing about how the Republican party is the only party with any "respect" for the military? Is anyone else wondering how they can call this their idea of "respect"?
Howard Dean is not a general, but he is a doctor. Democrats are enthusiastic about Dean since they figure that if this Democrat were ever caught with a naked intern, he could just say it was her annual physical.
Yep, we're back to dredging up Bill Clinton again. Evidently Ann hasn't gotten the word about quite a few things in the last three years, so we're going to help out by sending her an urgent telegram.
DEAR ANN STOP BILL CLINTON NO LONGER PRESIDENT STOP REPEAT BILL CLINTON NO LONGER PRESIDENT STOP
Dean has leapt beyond criticizing Bush and is now embracing terrorists. He has called Hamas terrorists "soldiers in a war" and said the U.S. should not take sides between Israel and Palestinian suicide bombers.
Again, Ann is cherry-picking words out of quotes as necessary to fit her character assassination du jour. Here's Dean's full statement, made during a CNN interview last month: "There is a war going on in the Middle East, and members of Hamas are soldiers in that war, and, therefore, it seems to me that they are going to be casualties if they are going to make war." Dean said that if members of Hamas are going to make war, they are going to be casualties. Sounds to us like he was defending Israel's controversial policy of selectively targeting and assassinating Hamas leaders! This is Ann's idea of "embracing terrorists"?!
This has won him a spot in the hearts of the Democratic Party base – middle-class white kids from Ben-and-Jerryville who smash Starbucks windows whenever bankers are in town for a meeting. If Dean doesn't get the Democratic nomination, perhaps he could throw his hat in the ring to replace Arafat.
Yeah, whatever, Ann. If someone opposes the Bush party line on anything, they're automatically an Arafat-loving terrorist. Even the "middle-class white kids from Ben-and-Jerryville" can think on a deeper level than that.
The also-rans are trying to distinguish themselves by competing to see who can denounce George Bush with greater vigor. Sen. John Kerry has said we need to "de-Americanize" the war – I guess on the theory that the "de-Americanizing" process has worked out so well for the Democratic Party. He is furious at Bush for prosecuting a war Kerry voted for, saying the difference is, "I would have been patient." He would have had to be extremely patient in the case of Germany, inasmuch as Gerhard Schroeder announced before the war began that he would never authorize war in Iraq under any circumstances.
Any fool knows that's not what Kerry was talking about — his "patience" referred to letting the weapons inspections do their job and using the threat of force to induce Iraq to comply more thoroughly with them. Bush just couldn't wait, of course, and his itchy trigger finger is why we're now stuck with a Middle Eastern colony that's costing us billions of dollars (and hundreds of lives) every month.
Florida Sen. Bob Graham recently told the Council on Foreign Relations that in "answer to any questions about the Bush administration on the war on terror," the answer is: "'No,' they are not doing a good job." This would explain Graham's commanding lead among members of his own household, although his maid is still "Undecided."
Snore. Notice Ann takes a tired potshot at Graham's poll numbers (or something), but can't bring herself to respond to him by explaining exactly why she thinks Bush is, in fact, doing a good job.
Dick Gephardt has taken to calling President Bush a "miserable failure" – as opposed to Gephardt, who is a "happy failure." Things have gotten pretty bad when you're being called a "failure" by a guy who spent 30 years sucking up to labor but still can't get the AFL-CIO to endorse him.
Maybe the AFL-CIO isn't endorsing him — they haven't given their endorsement to anyone yet, although we can be pretty sure it won't be George W. Bush — but fifteen other labor unions have.
Dennis Kucinich recently proposed a new U.S. policy for Iraq, known in military circles as "unconditional surrender." He wants all U.S. troops to leave immediately and be replaced by U.N. troops. The head of the U.N. Human Rights Commission – Syria – would surely have things back to normal in no time. Kucinich has also offered his services as a consultant to any city in Iraq that's thinking about filing for bankruptcy. According to most polls, the Democrat who stands the best chance to beat Bush is a guy named "Generic."
Oh, is that so? Then explain this poll that has Bush losing to Gen. Clark and that "French-looking" Kerry, and has Lieberman, Dean and Gephardt all sitting less than a margin-of-error stone's throw behind him. Or this poll that says Bush's approval rating has officially fallen below 50 percent. (Not that this has any bearing on the Democratic candidates, but we'd also like to point out this poll that says nearly three-quarters of Americans want to pass some Iraq authority on to those "swine" at the UN you hate so much, or this poll that says the vasy majority of Americans want a probe into the leak of that CIA agent's name to Robert Novak.) The lesson is, don't play around with the polls, Ann — you can criticize the Dems as bland or "French-looking," but they're doing better than you think.
So if all the Democratic candidates are so lame, from Clark on down to Kucinich, why is Ann spending so much energy bashing them, especially so long before primary season even begins? Because she's scared, and people who are scared tend to lash out. Lashing out, in this case, means a woman who once said "liberals are calling names while conservatives are trying to make arguments" has stooped to that very sort of name-calling — Wes Clark is an "answer to a Trivial Pursuit question" or "Howard Dean with scarier flashbacks"; John Kerry is "French-looking"; Howard Dean is "embracing terrorists." Make fun of 'em all you want, Ann, but you wouldn't be writing this at all if you weren't scared of 'em — Clark in particular, since he's an actual military man who doesn't need to put on a borrowed flight suit and hitch a ride to an aircraft carrier for people to think he's tough. Of course, since Clark has become Bush's greatest threat, you can be sure he'll be the target of Coulter's immature, petulant name-calling many more times this campaign season — which means we at Ann Coulter is a Lousy Writer and She Isn't Even That Hot will be there to bring it to you live and in living color! See you next week!
# Once again back is the incredible Doug at 10:16 AM
Just a quick post...
I just find it funny when you see these two headlines on the same front page:
Especially when it's followed with this beaut from the Idiot-in-Chief:
"This administration will deal with gathering dangers where we find them."
A friend of mine at the New York Press said recently that writing editorials had become impossible of late, because all the points are so obvious and have been made so many times that pointing them out has almost become nauseating. In that spirit, I'll let these lines stand alone.
# Once again back is the incredible stanley at 9:33 AM
Late-blooming GWBWYPGN loses its hate-mail virginity
Thursday was a big day in the annals of your humble lefty bloggers — it took a couple months and more than 1,300 visitors, but George W. Bush, Will You Please Go Now?! has received its first piece of hate mail! This one was discovered early Thursday morning in the GWBWYPGN in-box, in response to our request for your suggestions as to what we should call the White House CIA-agent-leak controversy:
How about: "Why don't you get off the internet!" You're [sic] spreading of inaccuracies constitutes a scandal of far greater proportions. Give the web space to someone who could make better use of it.
The sender was immediately contacted so that we could find out what "inaccuracy" we had spread. Not surprisingly, we've not heard from him/her since, but if we do, rest assured it'll be posted here. And if it turns out we did in fact post something inaccurate, we will pony up a correction in short order. Unlike Ann Coulter, Rush Limbaugh, George W. Bush, Donald Rumsfeld, Paul Wolfowitz or dozens of other conservatives we could name, we're not afraid to 'fess up when we've made an inaccurate statement.
But anyway, we're thrilled that we pissed someone off enough to write us some hate mail, even if it was pretty tame in comparison to thatreceived byotherWeb sites. Make no mistake, we love getting more readers no matter what their political views are, but we didn't set this thing up solely for the purpose of preaching to the choir — we were hoping some conservatives and Bush fans would stumble across this site and get royally pissed off. So if you like Bush and you see something here that makes you mad, send us some hate mail, fer cryin' out loud! Let us know you're out there! You'll be making your voice heard, and rest assured it will be posted on the site! You'll be famous (sort of) (but not really)!
So get to work, people! And stay tuned for another thrilling episode of Ann Coulter is a Lousy Writer and She Isn't Even That Hot, coming later today!
# Once again back is the incredible Doug at 8:50 AM
Thursday, October 02, 2003
It's The $25,000 Name That Excuse!
Which excuse will Rush Limbaugh use to explain away his drug problem? A few tried 'n' true suggestions follow:
1. It wasn't hurting anyone else "I didn’t play the milk money … I don't put my family at risk, and I don't owe anyone anything." — The Book of Virtues author Bill Bennett, on his gambling addiction
2. I was young and didn't know what I was doing "The statute of limitations has long since passed on my youthful indiscretion." — U.S. Rep. Henry Hyde (R-Ill.), on an extramarital affair he had at the age of 42 that resulted in an illegitimate child
3. The left is just trying to destroy me "I am Daniel in the lions’ den. I am a victim. [The American people] know very, very well that the left are like jackals in this country." — Radio commentator Michael Weiner, after losing his talk show on MSNBC for instructing a gay caller to "get AIDS and die"
4. You're making something out of nothing "It has become an enormously overblown issue." — National Security Advisor Condoleeza Rice, on erroneous information about Iraq’s nuclear weapons efforts being included in the 2003 State of the Union address
5. I'm still a good person "I made a mistake of the head, not of the heart." — U.S. Sen. Trent Lott (R-Miss.), apologizing for statements made during a celebration for Sen. Strom Thurmond’s 100th birthday
6. It's Bill Clinton's fault for setting a bad example "Who taught us how to get around laws? A, Ronald Reagan. B, Bill Clinton. Who taught us how to have his way with words and women? Who taught us, my friends, how to lie under oath and get away with it? Who taught us that oral sex isn't sex, and now kids across the country in grade school try it out? . . . The president of the United States got away with all kinds of things and inspired others to try [it] themselves." — Rush Limbaugh, on Bill Clinton’s culpability for creating a "moral climate" that resulted in corporate scandals like WorldCom
# Once again back is the incredible Doug at 4:32 PM
Ding-dong, the witch is dead (and no longer on ESPN)
One of GWBWYPGN’s fondest football-related wishes has come true — Rush Limbaugh has resigned from ESPN’s "Sunday NFL Countdown." But, typical of conservative loudmouths who make an offensive statement and then get called on it, Rush couldn't crawl into a hole like any normal person and get over it. From his radio program, shortly after he left ESPN:
"You know, actually so much that needs to be said, here. I guess at the top of the list would be that we supposedly have freedom of speech in this country, but if you don't say what people who consider themselves the Arbiters of What Can Be Said — if you don't say what they agree with — then they want to come after you with everything they've got and try to humiliate and take a stab at your reputation and otherwise get your mind right."
Oh, Rush, as usual, you’re wrong on so many levels. We do have freedom of speech in this country. Nobody banned you from saying Donovan McNabb was an overrated quarterback, or that the media had ulterior motives for making him look good. You weren't even fired for making the statements you made — you made your own decision to go the martyr route and resign.
People simply disagreed with you, which they have a right to do. Some said you should be fired from the program; they have a right to say that too. You're mad when people supposedly infringe upon your First Amendment right to make asinine statements, but then when they dare to disagree with you, you don't think they have a right to do so? Well, that's a pretty nifty double standard you've got going right there. Just like Michael Savage and Dr. Laura, you have the right to say whatever you want, but you do not have the right to prevent anyone from disagreeing with you. You know what they say about not being able to stand the heat and getting out of the kitchen and all that...
# Once again back is the incredible Doug at 12:33 PM
Wednesday, October 01, 2003
The White House investigation: Two takes, and Name That Scandal!
Get Your War On...
...and Tom Toles:
Now that we've officially got an investigation into how the name of Ambassador Wilson's wife was leaked to Robert Novak, the only thing left is to assign a code name to the scandal: Novakgate? Undercovergate? Blabgate? Stooliegate?
Any other suggestions you might have, send 'em here.
# Once again back is the incredible Doug at 9:24 AM
Tuesday, September 30, 2003
And the next Nice Tall Glass of Shut The Hell Up goes to...
...Rush Limbaugh — with an additional "We Told You So" commendation going to all of us NFL fans who've been wondering why in the world ESPN is letting him spout off on "NFL Sunday Countdown" every week. Here's Rush flapping his gums about Eagles quarterback Donovan McNabb this past weekend:
"I don't think he's been that good from the get-go. I think what we've had here is a little social concern in the NFL. The media has been very desirous that a black quarterback do well. There is a little hope invested in McNabb, and he got a lot of credit for the performance of this team that he didn't deserve. The defense carried this team.''
Yeah, Rush, you may have a point there. The NFL was probably desperate to have an African-American quarterback do well after the miserable failures of guys like Marlin Briscoe, Warren Moon, Randall Cunningham, Doug Williams, Steve McNair and Daunte Culpepper. And McNabb probably has nothing at all to do with the fact that his team is 34-14 since he became the permanent starter (whereas it was 14-33-1 in the three years preceding). I ask again: What in the world made anyone think Rush Limbaugh would have anything of value to contribute to a football program?
Frankly, I don't think Rush has been that good from the get-go. I think what we've had here is a little political correctness in broadcasting. The media has been very desirous that a conservative commentator do well. There is a little hope invested in Rush, and he got a lot of credit that he didn't deserve. The production staff carried this guy.
For other opinions on this subject, try this, or this.
# Once again back is the incredible Doug at 8:48 PM
Let the probing — and the treason trials — begin
Nice to see that the FBI is finally getting around to investigating the leak of the name of a CIA operative. For those of you who don't know the story, conservative columnist Robert Novak blabbed the name of an undercover CIA agent a few months ago, apparently unaware of two things: One, it was highly illegal for him to know such information in the first place, and two, when you go around telling everyone who's an undercover agent, those agents are at a much greater danger of turning up dead. Making the story even more juicy was the fact that the agent is the wife of former ambassador Joseph C. Wilson; Wilson was the one who traveled to Niger and determined that the Niger-sold-yellowcake-uranium-to-Iraq story was bogus, months before George Bush used it in his State of the Union speech. He later said in a New York Times commentary that intelligence related to Iraq's weapons capability had been "twisted" to exaggerate the threat.
When questioned as to where he got the name of the agent from, Novak said it came from two senior officials within the Bush administration. Wilson says he has it on good authority that the source of the leak was Karl Rove, the Haldeman wannabe who's been pulling Bush's strings ever since Bush decided he wanted to be governor of Texas.
Wilson may just be pissed (as he has every right to be), and the source of the leak may not actually be Rove himself. But it must be someone in the Bush administration — Novak has no incentive to claim that's where it came from if it didn't actually come from there. And whoever leaked the information should be tried for treason.
Yup, that's right, you Ann Coulters and Michael "Savage" Weiners of the world — since you evidently don't have the foggiest idea what treason actually entails, here's an unassailable example for you. Treason is not holding up a sign that says "DON'T INVADE IRAQ" in downtown Washington; that kind of behavior does not, your fatuous shrieks to the contrary, result in the deaths of any American civilians, administrators, or servicemen. Treason is leaking the name of a government agent in such a way that that agent's life is placed at risk. Treason is willfully endangering the safety of an individual tasked with protecting the security of the United States. And whoever leaked the name of Wilson's wife to Novak is guilty of it.
Think we'll hear any shame-on-yous from Coulter, Weiner et al. over this? Don't hold your breath.
# Once again back is the incredible Doug at 4:17 PM
The Dubious Statements Awards: Fox interview edition
I know we promised last week we'd dig up some of the juiciest/goofiest bits from George Bush's interview on Fox News; here it is a week later, and we're only now making good on the promise. Oops! But, hey, it's the one-week anniversary of the interview, maybe that's good for something.
Needless to say, Brit Hume's conversation with Bush made for a great game of softball but a lousy interview, with Hume doing his level best to toss up opportunity after opportunity for Bush to look like a hero, and Bush nailing a few of them, completely whiffing on others. Even if you support Bush, you can't possibly come away from this interview thinking that Fox is anything but the White House's unofficial fan-club-slash-PR-wing. But that's why we're printing some of said interview here. Have fun...
BRIT HUME GOES FOR BROKE IN THE "SINGLE LAMEST QUESTION EVER USED TO OPEN AN INTERVIEW WITH A SITTING PRESIDENT AWARD" RACE HUME: Tell me one thing. How often do you talk to your dad?
FOR REAL? HE RIGS AN ENTIRE ELECTION FOR YOU AND YOU ONLY CALL HIS ASS ONCE A MONTH? HUME: What about your brother Jeb? How often are you in touch with him?
BUSH: Maybe once a month.
HUME: Really? That few times. That's very hard — a lot of people would find it very hard to believe.
BUSH: Seriously.
THE GREAT THING IS, WE'LL BE ABLE TO SELL THIS SEGMENT TO THE GOLF CHANNEL, ANIMAL PLANET, AND NICKELODEON HUME: ...putting green out here.
BUSH: Yes.
HUME: Now, who put that in?
BUSH: President Clinton had I think Robert Trenton Jones...
HUME: Put in the putting green?
BUSH: Well, it used to be there under Ike, and then dad had a synthetic putting green, which is kind of — yeah, you don't play a lot of synthetic greens around when you play.
HUME: Do you use it?
BUSH: I do.
HUME: How often?
BUSH: I'll come out here — see my man Barney over there?
HUME: I see Barney over there.
BUSH: He loves to play golf.
HUME: Oh, he does? Does he chase your ball?
BUSH: So in the evening, we'll come out here and play, and I'll come out here maybe once a week and walk the dogs...
IT AIN'T JUST THE ALMIGHTY, PAL BUSH: Well, I — first of all, I would never justify — I would never use God to promote foreign policy decisions. I recognize that in the eyes of an almighty, I am a lowly sinner.
IF YOU'VE JUST JOINED US, NO, YOU WEREN'T HALLUCINATING — BRIT HUME DID JUST REFER TO JOHN F. KENNEDY JR. AS A "LITTLE SHAVER" HUME: Right. Now, this was a desk famously used by John F. Kennedy.
BUSH: It was.
HUME: Why did you choose it? I guess you got a whole slew to pick from.
BUSH: I do. I chose this because I love the way it looks. And the history is fantastic. Let me take you over here to the front. This door was put on the desk by Franklin Roosevelt to cover his infirmities.
HUME: Because he had the braces...
BUSH: He had the braces, sat in a wheelchair.
HUME: Now, that's the door that the famous picture of little John...
BUSH: Little John came out.
HUME: Right, came out, yeah.
BUSH: And his dad was looking out the South Lawn, as I recall.
HUME: And this little shaver stuck his head out.
...AS SUN-TZU SAID SO ELOQUENTLY IN "THE ART OF BEING A COMPLETE ASS CLOWN" BUSH: But it's interesting that the eagle looks at the talon of the olive branch on this presidential seal. On this one, he looks at the talon of the arrow, so something happened between Franklin Roosevelt and me, and what happened was, Harry Truman said, we'll look at peace not at war, after World War II. So the eagle looks — and of course, you've got to make sure you got plenty of arrows, so when you look at peace you leave a lot of presence...
HUME, ARE YOU COMING ON TO ME? HUME V/O: The President also has on his wall, a Western oil painting whose name is his own personal motto.
BUSH: This painting is called "A Charge To Keep" by W.H.B. Kerner. Obviously a Western type painter. It was given to my friend Jan — I mean, Joe O'Neill, when he married Jan O'Neill, by his father. And we knew them in Midland. What's interesting about the O'Neills is that they introduced Laura and me in Midland in 1976, 1977.
HUME: The first thing I saw and others who were part of this team here saw when we came in, that guy looks like a Bush. Don't you think?
BUSH: Yeah, kind of, I guess, you know.
AND BY "WE," OF COURSE, I MEAN "YOU POOR BASTARDS" HUME: Let me start off talking about Iraq. A few weeks back, when these terrorists began to appear on the scene evidently from outside, you said, "Bring 'em on." What did you mean by that?
BUSH: Well, I was really talking to our troops. I was saying to our troops in the theater that some in the region felt like they could come and take you on. Some felt like — some terrorists, that is — felt like they could beat us. And my point was we're plenty tough and we will take them on there.
AS THE 70 PERCENT OF AMERICAN PEOPLE WHO THINK SADDAM HUSSEIN WAS RESPONSIBLE FOR 9/11 SIT PERCHED ON THE EDGES OF THEIR SEATS, OUR PRESIDENT GENEROUSLY GIVES THEM WHAT THEY'VE BEEN WAITING FOR HUME: There are people who suggest that, look, you wouldn't have to be dealing with these people at all if you hadn't gone into Iraq. That these, in some sense, are newly recruited or newly minted terrorists. What's your view of that?
BUSH: That's probably the same type of person that says that therapy would work in convincing terrorists not to kill innocent life. There is a terrorist network that attacked us on September the 11th, 2001 that is active, that is engaged, that is trying to intimidate the civilized and free world. And this country will continue to lead a coalition against them.
WHAT WEAPONS OF MASS DE — OH, THOSE! HUME: What is your theory about what Saddam Hussein did with his weapons of mass destruction?
BUSH: I think he hid them, I think he dispersed them. I think he is so adapted at deceiving the civilized world for a long period of time that it's going to take a while for the troops to unravel. But I firmly believe he had weapons of mass destruction. I know he used them at one time, and I'm confident he had programs that would enable him to have a weapon of mass destruction at his disposal.
DIDN'T KNOW THE FRENCH CUSTOM WAS TO WAVE WITH ONLY ONE FINGER HUME: What about the French? How did you feel about them at the time? And how do you feel about France and Jacques Chirac now?
BUSH: Oh, well, I — you know, when I went to France, the response from the people on the street was great. I mean, they were waving and smiling. And Jacques Chirac is a — he's a strong-willed soul that — he and I have had some pretty frank discussions before about issues.
AND MAYBE WHEN THEY'RE DONE, THEY CAN SWEEP UP, PICK OUT SOME WALLPAPER, SPRUCE THE PLACE UP A BIT...YOU KNOW, THEY'RE GOOD AT THAT CRAP HUME: ...a vital role for the U.N. Would you be willing to grant a larger role to the U.N. in the political developments there to make way for a resolution?
BUSH: Well, for example — I'm not so sure we have to, for starters. But secondly, I do think it would be helpful to get the United Nations in to help write a constitution. I mean, they're good at that. Or, perhaps when an election starts, they'll oversee the election. That would be deemed a larger role.
WE'RE JUST PLANTING SEEDS HERE, BUT MAYBE IT WAS THAT BIG "MISSION ACCOMPLISHED" BANNER BEHIND YOU THAT THREW THEM HUME: What do you say to Americans who might have thought that war was won and that we were on our way to our objectives there, who now see this drip, drip of American casualties and deaths, daily attacks, sabotage, and so on, and might very well wonder if that was anticipated? What about that?
BUSH: Yes. Well, I think in my speech on the Abraham Lincoln, if they looked at the words, I said it's still a dangerous place. I declared the end of major military actions. By that I meant, you know, tight movement armored divisions and massive airstrikes, that we wouldn't need, you know, the USS Abraham Lincoln deployed there.
OH, DON’T LOOK SO DISAPPOINTED, BRIT — OF COURSE WE’RE STILL GOING TO BOMB THE LIVING SHIT OUT OF THEM HUME: What about Syria? They were supposed to help us by shutting the border. Have they helped?
BUSH: Well, we've asked them to do some things, and one of them was to shut the border. They initially — the initial issue with Syria was to make sure that Ba'athists and Saddam loyalists didn't escape into Syria. And I would say that the cooperation on that was fair as far as we can tell.
HUME: How about the cooperation on the other issue?
BUSH: Pardon me?
HUME: How about the cooperation on keeping these...
BUSH: On Hezbollah, for example...
HUME: ...from keeping outsiders from coming into Iraq?
BUSH: Yes, well it's a big border. I would give them — they can do a better job.
HUME: How are you going to deal with that?
BUSH: With Syria?
HUME: Yes.
BUSH: Well, we've had discussions with them, and we'll continue to have discussions with them. We know when we say things we're serious about it in America. That's an important part of our diplomacy, that people take our words seriously. And we've had some serious discussions with them.
FOR STARTERS, WE'RE GOING TO PUT A VERY PEACEFUL, ORDERLY PAIR OF TASTEFUL CEMENT SHOES ON HIM... HUME: Now the Israelis have indicated that they might get rid of him one way or another, exile, killing him. What would be our reaction to that? I mean, we keep hearing that he's an enemy of peace, an obstacle to peace, and yet when the Israelis said, well, OK, let's get rid of him, the answer up in the U.S. government is, whoa, not so fast. What about it?
BUSH: Well, the best way — in America, we believe in getting rid of people through a peaceful, orderly process...
THIS INTERVIEW IS ALSO AVAILABLE IN ENGLISH BUSH: Well, I think there's two aspects on the job — let me refine my answer there. First, there is a lag. There's an employment lag that generally accompanies a recovery. The economy gets going and after a while employment catches up. But this is an unusual marketplace in that, as you said, productivity is very high, which means growth has to be higher than productivity in order to add jobs. Or productivity has got to level off some and growth be robust. I believe we're going to add jobs, because I believe this economy is strong.
HUME: How soon do you expect that to start happening?
BUSH: Well, you know, I don't know. You ask these economists, they'll say, on the one hand here and the other hand here.
HUME: You're not the first President to object to it.
BUSH: That's right. You know, listen, so long as somebody is looking for work, I hope it happens tomorrow. And I know we've taken good action.
THE SECOND-BEST WAY TO DO IT, OF COURSE, IS TO HELPFULLY INFORM THEM THEY'RE FOLLOWING A FAKE RELIGION BUSH: But there is a longer-term issue as well, and that is, how do you change attitudes? What is necessary to defeat that sentiment that causes people to be suiciders and just kill innocent people for the sake of religion or a fake religion? And my judgment on that is the best way to do it is to spread freedom.
THE FOLLOWING EXCHANGE IS BROUGHT TO YOU BY THE LETTERS "WHAT" AND "THE" AND THE NUMBER "HELL?" HUME: How do you get your news?
BUSH: I get briefed by Andy Card and Condi in the morning. They come in and tell me. In all due respect, you've got a beautiful face and everything.
# Once again back is the incredible Doug at 3:30 PM
Monday, September 29, 2003
GWBWYPGN presents Caption This Photo!
"So our Iraqi WMD intelligence sucked...my bad!"
Send your ideas to paris_1968@hotmail.com and we'll publish the best one at the end of the week.
# Once again back is the incredible Doug at 3:33 PM
Whaa??
The doublespeak from the admin is getting so desperate and fragmentary that it's almost ceased to make any sense as sentences in the English languuage. Check out what Condi said this past Sunday:
"There was enrichment of the intelligence from 1998 over the period leading up to the war," Rice said on the "Fox News Sunday" program. "And nothing pointed to a reversal of Saddam Hussein's very active efforts to acquire weapons of mass destruction."
"... It was very clear that this continued and it was a gathering danger," she said. "Yes, I think I would call it new information and it was certainly enriching the case in the same direction."
I feel sorry for the Reuters corrsepondent who had to try and make sense of this nonsense and turn it into a coherent lead-in. Here's what he/she came up with:
White House national security adviser Condoleezza Rice insisted on Sunday there was new U.S. intelligence obtained before the Iraq war about Baghdad's weapons of mass destruction programs.
Now, new intelligence that was gathered before the war is only now being revealed post-mortem, but again, what the intelligence or evidence was is being left to our imagination. But let's look at the word enrichment, because we all know that in order to remain "technically correct" about all this the admin has to speak v-e-r-y c-a-r-e-f-u-l-l-y. Now, she didn't say that the intelligence was increased or added to or bolstered, but enriched. How does one "enrich" intelligence? I don't think she could give a clear definition of that. Just look at her phrasing when she tries to characterize "enriched" intelligence as new intelligence: "Yes, I think I would call it new information." Could we add some more conditionals to that phrase? How about: "Yes, well maybe, but probably definitely I might be inclined to characterize that as conceivably perceptually akin to new intelligence."
Why, in God's name, do they keep reversing their position on this? I wish someone would put together a timeline of public statements made before, during, and after "major combat operations" concerning the WMDs. But now, a full five months after the Top Gun flight, they're still defending their position on this. After not one weapon has been found? People, please, pick a position and stick with it. I mean, do you people not even have meetings? Not only are they incompetent public servants, ambassadors, world police, nation builders, consensus builders, economists, public speakers, job-creators, but they're incompetent liars as well. A couple of ten-year-olds caught stealing candy would be more consistent.
# Once again back is the incredible stanley at 10:51 AM
Sunday, September 28, 2003
Sunday 'toon
# Once again back is the incredible Doug at 8:36 AM
Friday, September 26, 2003
Ann Coulter is a Lousy Writer and She Isn't Even That Hot: Ninth in a series
Ann Coulter has been spinning so much publicity out of her recent book Treason that we at Ann Coulter is a Lousy Writer and She Isn't Even That Hot were stunned when she actually took time this week to talk about another writer. The source of her adulation: David Limbaugh, who's just published a book about how liberals have mounted a concerted effort to persecute America's Christians. (Because it just ain't book-worthy unless it's somehow a liberal's fault!) If you're thinking that anything Ann Coulter would praise that highly is automatically deserving of some suspicion, you won't be disappointed.
Ann's column this week is basically a big compendium of anecdotes lifted from Limbaugh's book, from which she concludes that liberals are indeed gleefully transforming our schools into dens of blasphemy. Hey, she's already concluded that liberals have sanctioned the spread of communism and consorted with Islamic terrorists, so we shouldn't be too surprised that she'd go for the hat trick. So much of this week's column appears to be taken from the Limbaugh work, in fact, that we estimate only about 20 percent of it is original Ann Coulter material — though given how godawful her column was last week, maybe that's not such a bad thing. Hey, at least this week's title ("It's The Winter Solstice, Charlie Brown!") is funny:
David Limbaugh’s new book, "Persecution: How Liberals Are Waging War Against Christianity," will make you cry for your country. (But don't pray for your country if you're anywhere near a public school!)
Yup, another book about how liberals are waging war on this, that or the other. We're not crying for our country, but we're crying for the concepts of subtlety and good writing.
Released this week, Limbaugh's copiously researched book documents how the courts, the universities, the media, Hollywood and government institutions react to any mention of Christianity like Superman recoiling from kryptonite, Dracula from sunlight, or Madonna from soap and water. His straight, factual narrative of what is happening in our public schools makes you wonder how much longer America can survive liberalism.
If this "copiously researched" book is anything like the column lauding it, it's nothing more than a collection of vague anecdotes cobbled together to try and prove that a massive onslaught against Christianity is being mounted by America's educators, and most of the anecdotes don't even hold water anyway — not that mere anecdotal evidence could effectively prove the point Limbaugh is trying to make in the first place. Anyone can dig up some isolated horror stories about somebody being persecuted for their beliefs, but it takes a much greater effort to show that it's indicative of a larger, more concerted effort; Coulter doesn't make that effort in this column, which makes us seriously doubt that Limbaugh actually does it in his book.
Oh, and that "Madonna [recoiling] from soap and water" jab, Ann? Would you be so kind as to explain what Madonna has to do with anything? Or are you just lobbing darts at a dartboard now when you're picking out your insults?
In a public school in St. Louis, a teacher spotted the suspect, fourth-grader Raymond Raines, bowing his head in prayer before lunch. The teacher stormed to Raymond's table, ordered him to stop immediately and sent him to the principal's office. The principal informed the young malefactor that praying was not allowed in school. When Raymond was again caught praying before meals on three separate occasions, he was segregated from other students, ridiculed in front of his classmates, and finally sentenced to a week's detention.
Wow, the teacher "stormed," the student was "ridiculed"...Ann Coulter sure knows an impressive amount of detail about this incident for someone who wasn't even there. Or maybe she doesn't. Neither did that famous truth-twister Newt Gingrich, who also tried to use Raines as an example of liberal America's "war on Christianity." According to the school superintendent, Raines was being disciplined for matters completely unrelated to his pre-meal prayers, and the school's investigation couldn't find any evidence that the story Raines had told was true. Even the pastor of a local Missionary Baptist church characterized the Raines' lawsuit as "frivolous." Oops, Ann, you whiffed on the first one...what else you got?
Before snack time in her kindergarten class in Saratoga Springs, N.Y., little Kayla Broadus held hands with two of her classmates and recited this prayer: "God is good, God is great, thank you, God, for my food." The alert teacher pounced on Kayla, severely reprimanded her, and reported her to the school administration. In short order, the principal sent a sternly worded letter to Kayla's parents advising them that Kayla was not allowed to pray in school, aloud or with others.
The school board then issued a triumphant press release crowing about its victory over a kindergartner praying before snack time. Thus was creeping theocracy in Saratoga Springs stopped dead in its tracks! Kayla's mother brought a lawsuit, winning Kayla the right to pray out loud. But she was still prohibited from holding hands with others while she prayed. Hearing the G-word in kindergarten might interfere with the school's efforts to teach proper sexual techniques in the first grade.
Again, "pouncing on," "severely reprimanding," "triumphant press release"...how is it that Ann Coulter knows so much? But again, she doesn't. The school's decidedly non-triumphant statement read, in part, "The Constitution sometimes puts a school in a difficult position because the school must respect the religious rights of students and parents, while also protecting the rights of others to be free from religious interference during school hours on school premises." And in the court case, the school board pointed out that there had never been any prohibition from praying silently. Does that mean it was wrong for Kayla Broadus to pray out loud? Of course not — but as one commentary on the case points out, what kind of classroom is it where someone would notice a kid praying aloud at lunchtime? Was she merely praying, or "leading an oration"? Questions worth asking, if you want to fully understand the case and be completely accurate in writing about it — which, evidently, Ann didn't. (Nor does she fully understand, apparently, that "proper sexual techniques" are not taught in a single first-grade classroom in America, but that's just typical overdone Coulter.)
Thanks to the vigilance of an alert teacher at Lynn Lucas Middle School outside of Houston, two sisters carrying Bibles were prevented from bringing their vile material into a classroom. The teacher stopped the students at the classroom door and marched them to the principal's office. (Maybe it was just the sight of public school students carrying a book of any kind that set off alarm bells.) The sisters' mother was called and warned that the school intended to report her to Child Protective Services. When the mother arrived, the teacher threw the Bibles in the wastebasket, shouting, "This is garbage!"
In another display of tolerance at Lynn Lucas Middle School, school administrators snatched three students' books with covers displaying the Ten Commandments, ripped the covers off, threw them in the garbage, and told the students that the Ten Commandments constituted "hate speech." (Also, it would be insensitive to expose the Ten Commandments to students who had never been taught to count to 10.)
And again, Ann Coulter's diligent research bites the big one: Liberty Counsel, the Florida group that backed the students in their lawsuit against the teachers, dropped the suit because the Bible-trashing it spoke of didn't actually happen. This is just one of several decidedly urban-legend-esque incidents Ann will report as gospel in her column, so keep your eyes peeled and your B.S. detectors set on "high."
Not that we're standing up and applauding Lynn Lucas Middle School here, because according to the ACLU, the school also entertained a push to ban the Harry Potter books, an effort that was later defeated. Interestingly enough, the ACLU does include the Bible on the list of books that schools have tried to ban — so the next time someone gripes to you about how the ACLU is destroying the very fabric of American society, feel free to remind them that the ACLU has actually done work defending the rights of students to have access to the Bible in school libraries.
After the massacre at Columbine High School, students and families were invited to paint tiles above student lockers. The school district had taken all reasonable precautions, immediately deploying an army of secular "grief counselors" with teddy bears to descend on the school after the attack. Nonetheless, some students painted their tiles with "objectionable" messages, such as: "4/20/99: Jesus Wept" and "God Is Love." This would not stand: The school removed 90 tiles with offending religious messages.
A federal court upheld the school's censorship of the religious tiles. Of course, Columbine school officials had earned a measure of deference after having inculcated such a fine sense of morality in their students that two boys could walk into school one day and stage a bloody massacre. You don't argue with a track record like that.
Wait a minute, we thought the one responsible for Columbine was Marilyn Manson. Or was it the creators of the video game "Doom"? Or liberal politicians? So now you're saying Eric Harris's and Dylan Klebold's "fine sense of morality" was actually the school's fault? Gosh, ask that question on any given day and you'll get a different answer. Notice that while Ann is placing the blame for Harris and Klebold squarely on the school, she doesn't see any need to give them any credit for the hundreds of students who picked themselves up after the tragedy and bravely endeavored to bring their school back together.
OK, as to the issue of the tiles themselves: Yeah, removing the religious-themed tiles might not appear to be a terribly sensitive thing to do. But it was an understandable reaction — not automatically a malicious one — from a school that had just suffered a horrific tragedy that resulted in the deaths of more than a dozen people, and was probably totally clueless (as many of the rest of us might be) as to how to respond. They overreacted and made one bad decision, but of course in Ann Coulter's mind that means they hate Christians. Where's that sense of Christian forgiveness, Ann?
Here's how the court battle actually went down: The students sued Columbine High and their case was tried before a U.S. district judge in Denver, who ordered the school to put the tiles back up. Know who he was? Judge Wiley Daniel, a Bill Clinton appointee! Yes, the school did appeal the ruling, and the appeals court did uphold their refusal to hang the tiles — but their reasoning was that if the school displayed the Christian-themed tiles, they'd also have to hang some of the tiles made by other students featuring stuff like the anarchy symbol, a skull with dripping blood, or the legend "God is Hate." Think Ann would've stood for any of that?
Not all mentions of religion constitute "hate speech." In Tupelo, Miss., school administrators methodically purged all Christmas carols of any religious content – and then led the children in a chant of: "Celebrate Kwanzaa!" At Pattison Elementary school in Katy, Texas, Christmas songs are banned, but students are threatened with grade reductions for refusing to sing songs celebrating other religious faiths.
Forced Kwanzaa celebrations? Kids getting their grades docked for not singing religious songs? Are you getting that sort of hysterical urban-legend vibe we alluded to earlier? So are we, and as you'll read further on, you don't have to come up with something true or even particularly plausible to get a nice big bizarre rumor started — one that Ann will happily swallow, and repeat to the ends of the earth, as long as it serves her purpose.
In New York City, the chancellor of the Department of Education prohibited the display of Nativity scenes in public schools, while expressly allowing the Jewish menorah and the Islamic star and crescent to be displayed. Some would say that was overkill inasmuch as New York City is already the home of the world's largest public display built in commemoration of Islam: Ground Zero.
What's Ann trying to say here — 9/11 is an example of how all Muslims think? Every Muslim in the world cheered as the Twin Towers fell? Acts like 9/11 are specifically sanctioned and encouraged by the Muslim faith? It's hard to read that last sentence and not come away viewing Ann Coulter as an out-and-out racist, but anyone who read the "kill their leaders and convert them to Christianity" column she wrote right after 9/11 should probably have that view of her already.
Between issuing laws prohibiting discrimination against transgendered individuals and running up a $38 billion deficit, the California Legislature mandated a three-week immersion course in Islam for all seventh-graders. A "crash course" in Islam, you might call it, if that weren't so ironic. Students are required to adopt Muslim names, plan a trip to Mecca, play a jihad game, pray to "Allah, the Compassionate" and to chant "Praise to Allah! Lord of Creation!" They are encouraged to dress in Muslim garb. Students are discouraged, however, from stoning girls at the school dances, abusing their "Jew" math teachers or blowing up their classmates.
Ah, here we are — we'll ignore Ann's malicious racial slurs (which is all the treatment they deserve) and proceed directly to the bizarre rumor referred to earlier. This one got started when a news service affiliated with California-based Assist Ministries reported on the Islam immersion course — Assist zeroed in on one particular school, Excelsior School in Byron, California, where students were supposedly forced to pray, choose a Muslim name and play a jihad-themed dice game. Only it turns out the story was false — according to the school's principal, students were never forced to chant or pray, choose a Muslim name, or simulate a jihad. Not only that, but the education about Islam was just a part of a larger religion course that also included Christianity, Judaism and other faiths.
If Ann Coulter is willing to propagate a ridiculous — and false — rumor like this one, it calls into question every other claim she's made. As well it should, given her reputation for factual distortion and sketchy "footnotes." We were able to debunk this story after less than 15 minutes of searching on the Web; did Ann actually do any research of her own in this column, or did she just crib directly from Limbaugh's book, figuring she wouldn't have to verify any of it?
A popular student textbook, "Across the Centuries," treats the Inquisition and Salem witch-hunts as typical of Christianity, but never gets around to mentioning the Muslims' conquest of Spain, the Battle of Tours, or the execution of Jews in Qurayza. Or 9-11.
It sounds like Ann got her summary of Across the Centuries directly from this story about the Byron controversy, posted on WorldNet Daily, an unabashedly right-wing "free press." (Read the story and see if you don't think Coulter's description could have been lifted directly from it.) But where did WorldNet get their information from? The erroneous story from Assist Ministries! We can only guess that Ann has never actually come into contact with a copy of the textbook itself, and simply based her judgment on a news story that used factually incorrect information to begin with. Of course, based on the stuff she's already said, you should know way better than to take Ann at her word by now.
There is no surer proof of Christ's divinity than that he is still so hated some 2,000 years after his death. Limbaugh's "Persecution" covers it all in staggering, heartbreaking detail. His methodical description of what is happening in our public schools alone will call to mind the hate speech banned in Columbine: "Jesus Wept."
"Methodical" description? How about "anecdotal," "selective," "biased" or "inaccurate"? All words that can be used to describe pretty much any Ann Coulter column...hmmm, no wonder she was in such a hurry to praise Limbaugh's book. But that's just one of the ways in which she and Limbaugh are two peas in a pod: Both of them write books that provide their readers with exactly two things — what they already believe, and what they want to hear. There are a substantial number of people out there who already believe liberals are mounting some sort of concerted effort to persecute Christians, and it is precisely those people for whom Limbaugh wrote his book, knowing they'll eagerly buy it to get more ammunition for an argument they already hold. Since that's their primary reason for reading it, Limbaugh can sit back and give them nothing but anecdotal evidence, because he knows they're going to eat it up regardless; he can also play fast and loose with the truth if he likes, because none of his readers will be inclined to call him on it. Why would they, when he's giving them precisely what they're looking for?
Same thing with Ann Coulter and books like Treason — the people for whom she's writing already think liberals are commies, so all she has to do is come up with a few random incidents, cobble them together with some preach-to-the-choir rhetoric, and bickety-bam, she can sell half a million copies. Best of all, she doesn't even have to break a sweat by doing any actual research — her audience is hearing exactly what it wants to hear, so they'll never actually bother to find out whether she's telling the truth! Maybe someday Ann will aim higher than merely catering to (and encouraging) that kind of intellectual laziness, but until she does, Ann Coulter is a Lousy Writer and She Isn't Even That Hot will be calling shenanigans on her crass dishonesty. But don't worry, Ann — we liberal Christians (yes, there is such a thing) will be praying for you in the meantime! See you next week!
# Once again back is the incredible Doug at 9:39 AM
Thursday, September 25, 2003
Blog shout-out No. 2
Stumbled today upon a blog called wage-slave.org, and was roundly impressed. Go check out his "Scorecard of Evil" when you get a chance.
Didn't watch Faux News' interview with Fearless Leader on Tuesday night, figuring (correctly) that it would be the journalistic equivalent of the Home Run Derby they always hold before the MLB All-Star Game. But curiosity got the better of me and I grabbed the transcript off foxnews.com this afternoon. I'll pick out some of the choicest (and/or most nauseating) exchanges and post them Esquire Dubious-Achievements style sometime in the next few days.
# Once again back is the incredible Doug at 1:35 PM
Hooray! Bush no longer a 50-percenter
New NBC/Wall Street Journal poll says George Bush's approval rating has officially dipped below the 50-percent mark. More than half the people polled disapprove of his handling of the economy — which isn't going to improve now that OPEC has announced it's going to scale back oil production, thus jacking up prices — and only 60 percent said they approved of his handling of the war on terror.
Sure, "only 60 percent" sounds like a funny thing to say, but that's awfully close to the 50-percent Mendoza line for someone who has bombed the crap out of two countries and had his picture taken with massive legions of soldiers every chance he gets. If his Keystone Kops in the Pentagon continue to bungle the Iraq occupation, that number could plunge below 50 as well.
The tide is turning, folks...let's keep it going.
# Once again back is the incredible Doug at 10:51 AM
It's Thursday, so this must be Jay Bookman (With special guest cartoon appearance by Ted Rall)
Here's Jay Bookman's latest column in the AJC, and here's where you can go to submit a question for his chat session today (1-2 p.m. Eastern). If you're not too busy loading up on all the ribaldry and "Oooh, daaamn!" snarks from last night's California recall debate, swing by and pay Jay a visit.
# Once again back is the incredible Doug at 8:05 AM
Wednesday, September 24, 2003
Jonathan Chait, can we buy you a beer?
Requests keep rolling in for the text of Jonathan Chait's piece "Mad About You," published in The New Republic and referenced in an earlier post, which eloquently details the reasons why we Democrats and lefties live in a state of utter emperor's-new-clothes stupefaction that Bush is taken seriously as a president, even held up as some kind of hero. We strongly encourage you to read it, even if — well, hey, especially if — you're a Bush supporter; just e-mail us at the address you see in the upper right-hand corner of the site. We've been sending the text of "Mad About You" in the body of an e-mail, but if you'd like to receive it as a Microsoft Word 98 attachment instead — might be easier to read that way — just let us know. (On the other hand, if all you want is a copy of the picture below of Donald Rumsfeld and Saddam Hussein shaking hands, hell, just right-click on the sucker and take it.)
Mr. Chait, if for whatever reason you're going to be in the Birmingham area anytime soon, give us a holler. We'd like to raise a glass to you at your choice of local watering holes, and the drinks will naturally be on us.
So anyway, our other top story of the day: Evidently people in the UN and around the world are just as confounded by Bush's substance-free address yesterday as we are. Basically all Bush seemed to do Tuesday was continue hammering home his belief that other countries should give us all sorts of help in Iraq but receive effectively nothing in return, but maybe that shouldn't be too surprising — the linked story points out that the speech was intended to appeal to a domestic audience at a time when Bush's approval ratings are as low as they've been since the pre-9/11 days. Maybe Bush's advisors think he'll get a bump in the polls if he throws a little weight around as Mr. Big and Bad before the United Nations, but what Bush still doesn't realize is that he doesn't have any weight to throw around with them anymore.
What else. Oh, in entertainment news, a study has indicated that the number of porn pages on the World Wide Web has increased more than 1,800 percent in the last five years. Which is a big number, but it shouldn't be that surprising to anyone. And in the end — with apologies to Bill Clinton — it depends on what your definition of porn is.
# Once again back is the incredible Doug at 10:14 AM
Tuesday, September 23, 2003
Let he who has not shaken hands with the devil...
A whole lot of hay is being made (by Robert Novak, among others) of the picture in which Gen. Wesley Clark and Serbian Gen. Ratko Mladic are seen wearing each other's military caps. Personally, I think the picture above is a good bit more interesting. Yup, that's Saddam on the right, and in case you're wondering who that handsome fella on the left is, well, it's none other than Donald Rumsfeld.
The only difference is, Clark had to meet with Mladic as a diplomatic gesture because he was, after all, supreme commander of NATO's forces trying to keep the piece in Kosovo. What do you suppose Rummy's excuse is?
# Once again back is the incredible Doug at 7:57 PM
A snoozer at the UN
The only interesting thing about President Bush's speech to the U.N. today about the reconstruction of Iraq is that he went right for the September 11 connection in the very first sentence — barely a week after admitting Iraq had nothing to do with 9/11 in the first place.
But if you're looking for anything else interesting in the speech, you're not likely to find it. Bush used a lot of high-minded rhetoric to talk about how much good we're doing in Afghanistan and Iraq, how great it's going to be when those two countries have the opportunities to serve as models of democracy for the rest of the Mideast, how everybody should chip in for so noble a cause — but he resolutely avoided speaking to the real concerns that are keeping those other countries from lending a hand. Like, What's the plan? What timetable are you setting for reconstruction and an end to the occupation? And why should we entrust our soldiers and resources to a bunch of people in the Pentagon who have botched this occupation from the very beginning?
Bush wants the UN and a whole bunch of countries to chip in on this Iraq-occupation thing, but he wants it to be completely on his terms. Our military calls 100% of the shots. Our corporations reap the benefits of the reconstruction dollars. Our planners decide when the Iraqis get democracy and when everyone can pull out and go home.
Maybe we've been misreading Bush this whole time and that's not really the attitude he takes toward the occupation and the reconstruction, but if it isn't, he certainly did nothing in this speech that makes us believe differently. The Republicans are sure to pounce on Tom Daschle for political opportunism just like they do when anything else comes out of his mouth, but it looks like Daschle was right — this speech is looking an awful lot like a "missed opportunity."
# Once again back is the incredible Doug at 1:18 PM
Consider them caught up
New Gallup poll out says Bush would get beaten head-to-head by either Wesley Clark or John Kerry. The margin for both of the Democrats is very slim, but still, that's a pretty surprising position for a president who supposedly just won a war. Oh, and about that war — the public is evidently split nearly 50-50 on whether it was worth going to war in the first place.
And according to this article on the poll, even Joe Lieberman is within one percentage point of Bush. Howard Dean and Dick Gephardt are both a few points behind.
All we've been hearing for the past few months, at least in terms of the Democratic race, is how Kerry's campaign has been foundering and Dean has been kicking ass. But this latest poll would seem to underscore an important aspect of the race — hard-core liberals may be electrified by Dean, but the rest of the country doesn't necessarily see any beef to him. That's probably why Dean has typically led polls of Democratic voters, but trailed Clark and Kerry in this latest poll that asks a wider variety of Americans who they'd vote for when the rubber meets the road and they actually have to decide on a certain Democratic candidate versus Bush.
I've heard Dean described a few times as the 2004 version of George McGovern, someone who gets the lefties excited but is too out-there for the general public and gets stomped in the general election. This latest poll would seem to lend some credence to those concerns. Don't get me wrong, folks, I'd vote for Dean over Bush in a heartbeat, but if I had my choice of Democratic candidates, I'd want someone with wider appeal to the electorate as a whole, and at least for the time being, that appears to be Clark or Kerry.
# Once again back is the incredible Doug at 10:04 AM
Monday, September 22, 2003
Broken, bloodied, but unbowed — and back on the warpath
Not a good weekend for your faithful GWBWYPGN blogsters, as Georgia fell to LSU 17-10 in an epic defensive struggle. One of those games where, if a few plays — even just one or two — go just a little different, the whole outcome of the game changes. Well, not much point in dwelling on it now.
We received a request today for the full text of the Jonathan Chait article, referred to in an earlier post, about why we lefties are so ragingly furious about the very idea that George W. Bush is our president. The text of that article will remain in our e-mail inbox until "Ayatollah Asscroft" (shout-out!) pries it from our cold, dead Hotmail account, so if you want to read it — and oh yes you do — shoot us an e-mail to the address in the upper right-hand corner of this page.
And now, of course, on to Georgie himself, who's going to be delivering a speech to the UN tomorrow declaring his belief that it was still right for the U.S. to invade Iraq. I always thought that you only got to deliver an "I told you so" address if you turned out to be on the right side of an issue, but neither protocol nor propriety has ever been a tremendous concern of this administration, as we all know too well.
We won't know the full message of the address until Bush makes it — though rest assured it will be fully and completely dissected on this site no later than Thursday — though from what we read in the "preview" article, it sounds like Bush is just basically using this as an opportunity to be an asshole: No mistakes will be acknowledged in the planning of the postwar occupation, and no concessions will be made to those countries who are being asked to contribute to Iraq's reconstruction, even though they're still going to be asked. Have Bush and his neocon buddies not made us look like arrogant buffoons enough already? Why are we going out of our way to ensure that we don't have a friend left in the world? (And if we don't need friends, as the rabid right-wing warhawks seem to imply every time this issue comes up, then why are we asking them to chip in on the Iraqi occupation?)
More embarrassment: Bush is going to call for greater emphasis on countering nuclear proliferation around the world. Not that it isn't a noble cause, but how does Bush expect to have any credibility on this issue when just this past summer he called for more research and development of new types of small nuclear weapons? Is our attitude "Nuclear weapons are bad, so everyone go out and keep these countries from getting them while we go build some more"? I certainly don't feel any safer in a world where, say, Iran has a nuclear weapon, but there's something to be said for leading by example.
But this is America, and more specifically this is George W. Bush, so...we can do whatever we want, whenever we want to, to whomever we like. Don't get me wrong, I love living in the greatest country on earth. I just didn't realize that privilege required us to be such dicks all the time.
# Once again back is the incredible Doug at 2:43 PM
