Liberal Media Elite

From AP:

Ten blinking electronic devices planted at bridges and other spots in Boston threw a scare into the city Wednesday in what turned out to be a publicity campaign for a late-night cable cartoon. At least one of the devices depicts a character giving the finger.

Highways, bridges and a section of the Charles River were shut down and bomb squads were sent in before authorities declared the devices were harmless.

“It’s a hoax — and it’s not funny,” said Gov. Deval Patrick.

Turner Broadcasting, a division of Time Warner Inc. and parent of Cartoon Network, said the devices were part of a promotion for the TV show “Aqua Teen Hunger Force,” a surreal series about a talking milkshake, a box of fries and a meatball.

Scary stuff.

Cause we are the Aqua Teens, make the homeys say ho and the girlies wanna scream….

ADDENDUM FROM MATTHEW: The discussion over at Flickr is really fascinating… Just sayin’. We all have to watch Adult Swim on Sunday now for to see if they do anything in response during the bumps.

MORE ADDENDUM FROM MATTHEW: Turner has released a statement saying, in part: “We also directed the third-party marketing firm who posted the advertisements to take them down immediately.” Boo. Stupid culture of apology! Can I have the lightbox of Ignignot giving the bird?

They’re at it again:

An abortion ban bill introduced Wednesday in the South Dakota state House would allow exceptions for rape and incest, but only if the crimes are reported to authorities with DNA evidence.

Apparently, one smack-down wasn’t enough. These people are freakin’ gluttons for punishment, aren’t they?

(Although my friend Brian—who I went to high school in South Dakota with—warned me just after the election. The voters had rejected the abortion ban… but elected even more pro-life/anti-choice/whatever legislators. Idiots. Let us all be glad we live in a rich, populated, Blue, cold, square state instead of a poor, sparse, Red, cold, square one.)

UPDATE: Oh my fucking God, I missed this part:

One of the 25 sponsors, state Rep. Gordon Howie, said the rape and incest provisions are strict to ensure that women don’t say they have been victims in order to obtain abortions.

Scuzzy! We make sure we require our womenfolk to provide proof of their victimhood—here are some more ideas, there, Gordie. If you need to rant, his home telephone number is (605) 393-2686.

Hopefully Rik can go deeper into this AP item in which the Prez—who has a master’s of business affairs or whatever the hell MBA stands for (no one really knows, because people with MBAs refuse to speak in anything but acronyms)—says:

President Bush took aim today at huge salaries and bonuses for corporate executives, going to Wall Street to say compensation packages should hinge on how good a job a CEO does for the shareholders.

…

“Government should not decide compensation for America’s corporate executives,” the White House said in a report ahead of Bush’s speech. “But the salaries and bonuses of CEOs should be based on their success at improving their companies and building value for their shareholders.”

The White House statement appeared aimed in part at legislation that Rep. Barney Frank, D-Mass., chairman of the House Financial Services Committee, has said he will push, requiring shareholder approval of executive compensation plans.

I can’t even balance my checkbook, so I will leave the larger, more educated rant for Rik (our resident economist). But there’s something on the cultural side that’s utterly delicious about this. “Government should not decide compensation” and that CEOs’ pay should be merit-based, as defined by how much money the shareholders get back in either inflated stock prices or dividends.

He didn’t address workers’ compensation. Or the widening gaps ‘twixt bosses, labor and poor. No, no. I think you’ll find it’s much easier to address the problem as if everyone is rich, as if everyone is a stockholder and that the only real damage that inflated execu-pay inflicts is, ahem, decreasing profits for everyone.

And it works. The president’s delusions may get Americans angry when it comes to Iraq. But we will follow any millionaire off a cliff when he treats us like an equal.

To make at least a nanogram of sense of her blog entry from January 26 in the Star Tribune, I had to go and find Katherine Kersten’s original article on, quelle surprise, the Center for the American Experiment’s website. Then I read both texts about five times.

I think, in essence, what she talks about are “values” and “virtues” as defining elements of a nation’s moral codex. Kersten argues that virtues are good for a nation because they are “universal standards of right and wrong”. Values however are as bad as unwashed hippies, made up by emotional individuals, merely reflecting their likes and dislikes: “In a society shaped by ‘values,’ the very idea of community — of a common good — evaporates. What remains is a collection of individuals, lacking a common language, who reject even the possibility of a common concept of good and evil.”

Unfortunately, according to the Gospel of St. Katherine, we live in a time shaped by values. We have to blame this “values revolution” on Germany, “a society that was notoriously antirational, antiliberal, disillusioned with mankind, and contemptuous of the American project of individual rights and dignity”, and, more specifically we have to blame it on Friedrich Nietzsche, who kind of messed it all up for the US by declaring that we need to re-evaluate our values since God passed away. Her blog entry ends with a cryptic: “In today’s “values” culture, in what sense can we talk about good and evil? An even weightier question: Can we be good without God?”

Oh dear.

They are so poorly structured that you can’t really analyze the texts logically or philosophically, let alone according to college rules for text composition. It starts with arbitrary assumptions, definitions, and classifications, and it gets worse from there.

The categories “virtues” and “values” in common philosophical discourse are part of a common thought system and not polar opposites. And the decision of what “virtues” and “values” mean to a society is according to at least some people’s opinion up to discussion by the members of that society. They are not, as Kersten wants us to believe, timeless and unchangeable, and preferably handed to us on stone plates in the handy dandy form of commandments.

I am not even going to try to understand the mental short circuit of attempting to defend “American individual rights” through a concept that is based upon forcing communal “virtues” down our throats. Curious that Katherine criticizes Germany, because this smells exactly like the old Esprit de Corps we were taught to resist in Germany.

While we are at it: Does the name Immanuel Kant ring a bell? Categorical Imperative? K, here you go: “Act only according to that maxim whereby you can at the same time will that it should become a universal law.” See, no God necessary to be a good person really. It’s the good old “Do unto others as you would have them do unto you.” And imagine this: Immanuel was a German.

So, what Kersten really tries to tell us is this: We went to this workshop about “Framing” in Washington, sponsored by a neo-conservative think tank. They told us that we should replace the word “values” with something new and catchy, because the left is starting to reclaim “values”. That Obama kid is really getting annoying. Great idea! How about “virtues”? We haven’t used that in a while and it is one of those wishy-washy terms that we can fill with our own view of how this country should be run. Terrific! By the way, Gertrude Himmelfarb is a good one to quote. She is a historian, conservative cultural critic, and also married to our friend Irving Kristol.

Oh, one more thing:

German history teaches what can happen when nations elevate ethnic “values” over transcendent principles of good and evil. A conviction that “might makes right” seems almost certain to follow.”

No. If German history teaches us anything, Katherine, it is this:

Beware of semi-educated dimwits when they quote Friedrich Nietzsche in order to use him for their own agenda.

I agree with much of Matthew’s post below but we have a point of divergence.

We absolutely have an Imperial President. We have a defanged Congress. I think, though, that Congress was defanged voluntarily. Sure, it was a rubber-stamp Republican majority in both houses but it’s not like the Democrats made a series of bold stands in the last six years.

So, now we are in non-binding resolution land. The fact that this utterly meaningless action is being debated in Congress is galling. The Boy Who Would Be King has already said rather unambiguously that he is not going to pay any attention to it…and why should he? By limiting their action to a purely symbolic resolution the Congress has signaled him that they aren’t gonna stand up and do anything. Congress is going to hope that Bush decides to end the war. Bush has made it abundantly clear that he is going to let it run as long as he is in office so that the hard choices about ending it are someone else’s problem…someone else’s fault. And he doesn’t give a damn how many US service people die to make that happen.

In that absence of governance it is the responsibility of Congress to step in and provide governance. He’ll veto any meaningful legislation in regard to the escalation? So what? Force that hand and force the various cowardly Congress people who are only too happy to campaign on Iraq but don’t have the balls to act on Iraq to go on record supporting the President’s veto. I would support any length of debate on the complex issue of what to do in Iraq. And it is complex. It will require debate to find a solution that lies somewhere between immediate withdrawal and funding tied to meeting objectives. While the issue is complex and while leadership is an arduous task, leading is not complex. All it has ever required is the will to lead.

I just now heard a clip of Hillary condemning Iraq and saying the President has an obligation to get us out before he leaves office. I’ve heard Obama say much the same thing. Here’s another obligation…in the absence of leadership by the President, Congress has the obligation to get us out of Iraq. Neither, to my knowledge, has volunteered to step into the void with a proposal that forces the issue. They know he’s not pulling us out of Iraq. They and the entire Democratic party know this. They know they were given a majority largely because of the debacle that is Iraq. At this point, though, they have shown no willingness to use the checks and balances they have via the Constitution. Non-binding allows them to campaign on the issue in two years without actually doing anything on the issue. What, exactly, are they waiting for? What, is it these legislators will propose in two years that they cannot propose now? The stupidity on display by Democrats is mind boggling. Clearly, at this point, they don’t take seriously their obligation to govern. Let’s say a Democrat takes the White House in two years. The current Congressional Dems have guaranteed that the next President will have to take the responsibility, the heat, and the blame for the exit.

Bush ain’t leaving Iraq. Ever. I guess I’d say that the analogy of a defanged congress is incorrect. They have not been defanged. They have, however, been complicit with the Imperial Presidency by determining not to use the fangs they have. Congress is no less powerful than ever. A potential veto and the potential that it cannot be overrideen are not valid reasons to punt on the issue. It is highly likely that the votes don’t exist to override a veto. It is not guaranteed especially not if the Democratic leadership takes there case to the people who then apply pressure to their duly elected representatives who gotta get reelected down the road.

Democracy is a process. The Dems would likely lose this round. But they’d lay the groundwork to win future rounds as legislators are confronted with growing dissatisfaction over Iraq and are held accountable by voters for their support of the President. They will, eventually, win the legislative war if not this battle. All they gotta do is use their damn teeth. And if they don’t they are just as guilty of abdication of responsibility as the President is.

Something had been wearing on me lately… Yes, the non-binding resolution doesn’t—or can’t—go far enough. It won’t get us out of Iraq. It won’t stop an escalation. It won’t do much of anything, what with it being a non-binding resolution and all. There is, of course, the chance to simply cut off funding for the war. Or place a limit on the number of troops. Or some such. But that would require the president’s signature—and that’s not going to happen. Anything that has the force of law requires the president’s signature. If the president vetoes the bill or any sort of binding resolution, Congress can override it. But that takes two-thirds of both houses of Congress.

And that seems unlikely. Lots and lots of Republicans will not vote to override a veto on anything to do with Iraq. So that leaves making ultimately toothless, hollow gestures the very best option the Democrats have to stop the war. And non-binding resolutions will not stop much of anything, of course. The Democrats just have to keep hammering at Bush until he brings it to an end—and I suspect that the Democrats (and the American people) will not have much of a stomach for two years of government shut-downs and filibusters for that to happen.

It all goes back to this slow centralization of power in the United States. Yes, certainly, the constitution grants all sorts of powers to Congress—most of them, really. But over the past two centuries or so, Americans have slowly opted for what we have now: The president as elected king. This administration has been a long time coming. Over the years, we’ve created a governing structure (not to mention a culture) that prefers a strong, central, sole decision-maker. These people have been given so much leeway when it comes to military operations that there is virtually no way to stop George Bush from doing whatever he wants, whenever he wants, for as long as he wants.

It is sort of like having civilian control over the military, but only inasmuch as there is one civilian and one civilian alone who exercises all that power.

Bush has said that anyone is welcome to come up with a new strategy. He’s a poor comedian. He would never be compelled to implement a bipartisan congressional plan even if there was one. He has no legal obligation to do anything that’s not law. In fact, he and his attorneys general have never really believed that the American executive has to do anything that is law, either. All we can do is lodge formal protests, wait it out and quickly clean up the mess in January 2009. If that’s not the letter definition of depressing, I don’t know what is.

The problem is not the Democrat’s hearts and stomachs for war. The problem is not that the Democrats (and many Republicans) don’t want to end it. Nor is the problem that they’re being too timid (except maybe for some Republicans who should get off their asses and cross the aisle to stop this thing). The problem is that there is no way for us to stop this mess of a man from being all royal-decree-this and royal-decree-that for two more years. Until we can elect a new king.

The solution is working to give Congress its constitutional fangs back. They’re the only ones who are allowed to declare war—and it was sort of genius for Bush to never ask for a declaration of war for any of his adventures since 9/11, mostly because now there is no precedent for real legislative authorization or oversight. But as long as the American people are a-okay with going to war by backing one man—instead of one government—we’re stuck with what we’ve got.

I vote “aye” on the non-binding resolution. Now where’s that goddamn tequila?

Update: There is the War Powers Act of 1973… However:

On December 20th, 2005, ABC News reported that vice-president Dick Cheney had described the War Powers Resolution as an “infringement on the authority of the president.”

Ugh. I hate the taste of constitutional crisis in the morning.

As fun as it is to make fun of Bubble Boy for his “I’m the decider” crap it looks to me like he’s throwing down the right challenge. So far there is debate in the Senate on non-binding resolutions opposing the troop escalation. Non-binding. As galling as it is that the Executive Decider has chosen to ignore the people it is, to me, far more offensive that the Senate and House still don’t get that they are supposed to govern. Not voice opinions. Not take strong stands unaccompanied by action, but gov-fucking-ern.

Bush has made it perfectly clear that he’s escalating whether or not Congress throws meaningless and cowardly non-binding resolutions at him. And, really…wouldn’t you? The first true test of the Dems ability to govern is if they will use their constitutional power to control the purse strings to either stop the escalation or set measurable objectives that must be met for funding to continue.

I got $20 says they ain’t got the balls. But I’m hoping they’ll surprise me.

The AP sez:

President Bush, on a collision course with Congress over Iraq, said Friday “I’m the decision-maker” about sending more troops to the war. He challenged skeptical lawmakers not to prematurely condemn his buildup. [Emphasis mine.]

Dude! You’re totally not an emperor. Although you wouldn’t really know that judging from the results of the last election vs. CNN’s handy little summary…

• President Bush said “I am the decision maker” about troop levels in Iraq
• The president is ordering 21,500 more troops to Iraq to improve security
• Bush challenged lawmakers skeptical about his plan to come up with their own
• Bush tells new top commander in Iraq to get to war zone “as quickly as possible”

Oh, heavens. I wish I could actually feel sad about this or angry or something. But I don’t. I’m tired. I’m tired of this man, his presidency and his mistakes.

In the meantime, 21,500 more troops is “the plan that I think is most likely to succeed,” according to Bush. Yeah, okay. Like you have any sort of trustworthy track record when it comes to your gut instinct, pal. Putin? You could trust his heart or his eyes or something? Yeah, not so much. Or even when you listen to your advisers? Yellowcake? Whatever.

Dude, you were rejected. If this was any other country on the planet, there would have been a no-confidence vote or burning tires on the White House lawn long ago. Stop saying shit like “I am the decision maker.” We don’t want you to be. Nor do we want to know how many people can slowly bleed to death in two years.

Jim Webb, will you please kick his ass for us? Thank you. You’re a lamb.

Well, here we are! At the new server! I love the new server smell, don’t you? So festive.

Anyway, don’t mind our mess as we settle in. The biggest problem so far seems to be that none of the comments transfered over and all of the old blog posts are attributed to Matthew… We’ll get that stuff fixed.

Okay, it’s been a long night at the computer. Going to bed now. See you in the morning.

I was in New Orleans for the State of the Union. That would be the same New Orleans that was not mentioned even once in the State of the Union. That would be the New Orleans that has parts of the city…the 9th, the 7th, parts of Lakeview…I overpaid a cab driver to take me through. ‘Cause I didn’t have my own wheels. And he was scared shitless. “It’s bad down here, brah. People so desperate in them places you don’t know what they gonna do.”

The New Orleans that has the Quarter back (but largely dead outside of Bourbon Street), downtown active, uptown restored, the garden district still magnificent…the places the tourists go. The places the cameras go. The Disneyland version of a complex, beautiful, corrupt, incompetent, and shattered city.

It turns out that you don’t rebuild a city in a year or 16 months or 18 months. It turns out that, even if you had governance that was worth a fuck it would take a long ass time. It turns out that when you factor in incompetence at all levels of government, it takes longer. It turns out that when you bitch about the money appropriated (and largely unspent) to rebuild you conveniently forget the fact that you’re spending more every six months on a war with no strategy, no point, no possibile win than you have appropriated for the next ten on a city that drowned.

It turns out that when you have a State of the Union in which you tell folksy tales as an intro and wind into long overdue plans of questionable merit to address longstanding problems that you should have noticed, oh…I dunno…six fucking years ago and then blather incoherently about winning a war you have yet to define…

You completely, totally, utterly neglect to mention a city in which huge tracts of lands that were once neighborhoods are nearly barren with debris that is over a year old, with houses still off their foundations, with basic infrastructure still totally lacking, with cars still upturned in the middle of the fucking street (the same cars I saw the last time I was in New Orleans, and the time before that, and the time before that, and the time before that, etc) and people desperately clinging to an idea of home in a landscape that looks far more appropriate for video shot in war torn Anbar Province.

It is beyond me how a President of the United States, a title that used to mean something…that used to be more than an obscenity, can manage to deliver something called the State of the Union and neglect to mention a puss-filled wound sitting in the midst of that Union. It is beyond me that a President who has never missed an opportunity to trot out 9/11 and images of the World Trade Center cannot find the space for even one line, one sentence, one phrase that carries the name of one of a great American city dying a slow death.

And, yet, it is agonizingly appropriate. It is perfectly predictable that the Chief Executive, the one who failed in every attempt at chief executivedom in his private sector attempts, does not utter that city’s name. He has never had a plan for New Orleans. He never will. He has, like the petulant child he will forever be, closed his eyes and wished it away. It is gone. It is out of his tiny little mind. It is forgotten.

Katherine Kersten has a precious little article titled “Love is…” with cherubic Flash-animated babies gracing the pages today. After getting all of the typical Kertseny things out of the way (attack on the New York Times, dismissal of people who aren’t like her, “ironic quotes”), we have this little nugget:

In recent years, overwhelming majorities of high school and college students say they plan to marry, or agree that having a good marriage is important to them.

Compare and contrast to a UCLA study released a few days back that shows the concept of marriage equality for gay couples has a whopping 61% approval rating from college freshmen:

The study found that 61% of incoming freshmen last year agreed that same-sex couples should have the right to marriage, up 3.3 percentage points from 2005.

So, once again, Kersten has half the story—conveniently, the half of the story which suits her just dandy, thank you. Sure, high school and college students say that they plan to marry. I don’t doubt that. Who wouldn’t want that? In fact, barring very few individuals, everyone wants that. The only news I see here is that marriage isn’t on its way out, it’s on it’s way in. For everyone.

The question Ms. Kersten has to answer, then, is simple: What the hell do you want, woman? Do you want everyone to get married regardless of orientation (which, alas, is mostly seen as fixed and unchangeable), or do you want to further weaken marriage in the eyes of young adults who have come to believe (rightly) that the longer gay couples are kept out of marriage, the bigger the joke the whole damn institution becomes as it devolves into a privilege instead of a right? Enshrine the stability and importance of marriage in our society, or keep your guns blazing because a tiny minority wants in?

Which is it?

Oh my God! Such a huge, sad day in faggotdom worldwide! “Withering Glance,” the unendurable podcast from the Star Tribune’s Rick Nelson and Claude Peck, got rid of its faggy, faggy, faggy mascot: The guy with Buddy Holly glasses who looks kind of peeved, like you just corrected your order to say 1% instead of non-fat! I loved that mascot! He was so hot! I’ve never wanted to do body shots off a cartoon before!

Fortunately, I found it on Google images, so it can be preserved for all time, forever. Whew. Because I can’t say that I like the new logo. No, sir, not at all. Mostly because it looks like irregular, really unsafe children’s blocks. Pink and yellow? Foofy font for the W? And, somehow, by getting rid of the cartoonish cartoon homosexual guy, it’s become even faggier. A digital version of the guilded gewgaw of The Sun King is still very en vogue for the kinds of homosexuals who have manicures and talk in whispered tones about the floweriness of their pouilly-fuissé’s legs. My friend Carin calls them “proper poofs.” (I, however, am a “messy poof” and refuse to discuss the floweriness of pouilly-fuissé, preferring the dark undertones of pinot noir. Messy poofs endure sulfite-induced headaches. Proper poofs do not. Proper poofs still believe that sulfites cause headaches.)

Oh, well… I guess we’ll just have to listen to their pinched little voices to get self-righteous commands about personal grooming.

Eww. Is that on the lips? Is Michele Bachmann kissing George Bush on the lips? I don’t think she is… But is she? No matter, it makes me feel gross. Like even worse than watching a snuff film.

Rep. Michele Bachmann has got to get a grip. And fast. Holy crap. I mean, I know she’s crazy and all, but if she keeps acting all Tiger Beat, all the other congresspeople’re going to start thinking Minnesotans are a bunch of hicks who can’t control themselves around celebrities, and will stop inviting us to hang out with their friends. And fuck that! We’ve got Prince and Josh Hartnett here! We totally can keep cool, and know that famous people are just regular.

I look forward to the next two years. Mostly because anything that happens in Washington, D.C., ever again is going to provide a chance to make fun of Michele Bachmann. I, for one, am not above that.

Update: KSTP gets in on the action. AND THEY’VE GOT VIDEO!

I agree with everything Bill said about Rep. Michele Bachmann. I was going to try to put up a video with her Gollum-like performance last night, as if an incompetent, irrelevant president is the closest thing to rock star in her world. God, I’d hate to think what she’d do if she met an actual celebrity, like Kenny Chesney or Patricia Heaton or someone. (Update: Found one on Reuters, left.)

Anyway, a couple of other thoughts that I had:

1. Baby Einstein? Really?
2. Guys from the NBA are very tall, indeed.
3. Interesting how Bush didn’t really ‘fess up to fiscal irresponsibility, but the Democrats sort of ‘fessed up for him.
4. Pelosi is awesome. And Bush was S-M-A-R-T to start out his speech with the whole “daughter of a poor Baltimore congressman” thing. Her Prada of many colors was nice, too.
5. Democrat. Democratic. Who has time for adjectival forms? We’re at war!
6. “Without animosity and without amnesty.” Nice line. Hate the sin, love the sinner. Support the troops, bring them home. Can’t figure out a solution? Don’t want to be thought of as a bigot or something? Just contradict yourself in the slogan. You’ll find that problems melt away.
7. Finally… I want a big poster of that “Oh, you bring it, bitch. You bring it!” smirk Hillary had about 12 minutes in. It was a thing of beauty, like, “Why are you all up in my podium?”

And then it was freshman Virginia Sen. Jim Webb’s rebuttal. I was shocked—shocked—at how good it was:

These presidents [Eisenhower, etc.] took the right kind of action, for the benefit of the American people and for the health of our relations around the world. Tonight we are calling on this president to take similar action, in both areas. If he does, we will join him. If he does not, we will be showing him the way.

Who knew Blue Balls could have such a different meaning.

So I watched the SOTU. Yeah Yeah Yeah. After that very nice bit about Nancy Pelosi at the beginning I really stopped paying attention. I actually can’t listen to the man for that long. So I’m FINALLY going to be seeing part of the Bush tax cuts, since I buy my own insurance. I’ll go shoot off some fireworks in celebration. That kind of fiddlin’ with the tax code might stand to save me like $80 a year. (Which I just blew on fireworks. Damnit) Look, dude. For those of us who’s annual income contains no more than five zeros and only one lonely comma, tax breaks generally mean shit.

But the true highlight came after The Decider stopped talking. (and not just because he stopped talking) The best moment was provided by a ravenous Michele Bachmann. After the speech, and after the chamber cleared faster than a farted-in elevator, The Preznit made his way to the door, gladhanding the several dozen people who still support him. There, eagerly waiting on the aisle was one Michele Bachmann. No sooner did the man with whom she once shared custard come into reach, and her hand was on his shoulder, beckoning him in for a kiss on the cheek. There was eye contact. An enchanted moment. And then the president talked to, yes, everyone else in the immediate vicinity. And yet the hand remained. Seconds, agonizing seconds passed. Bush was shaking hands (other hands), signing programs, and not paying any attention to Michele. I think he may have discussed the Colts-Patriots game with the Sergeant-at-Arms. And there it was, a full minute later: the hand on his shoulder.

Finally, he turns toward her. Michele is beaming. He steps in, and kisses. . .

Some frumpy old lady next to her. (Were I more astute, and also had C-Span I could say who that was, but I’m not, and I don’t so I can’t.) Yeah, and eventually he gets around to a peck on the cheek for Michele, and quickly moves on.

Gawd, it was priceless. Michele Bachmann just became the congressional equivalent of that kid at the pool who shrieks “Hey Mom, Hey Mom, Hey Mom, Hey Mom, Hey Mom, Hey Mom, Hey Mom, Hey Mom, Hey Mom, Hey Mom” before doing some kind of not-quite-a-cannonball, almost-a-bellysmacker sort of flop into the pool, and then surfacing looking very proud, shrieking “Did you see, did you see, did you see???”

There were other nice moments. A large african basketball player juxtaposed next to a small asian woman. Hillary and Obama in the same camera shot. Cheney looking for something under his desk. Madame Speaker shooting little daggers with her eyes. All in all, pretty awesome.

The kids over at Minnesota Daily have a nice Q&A with Keith Ellison, who now serves in the U.S. Senate. At least, according to the headline.

The woes of public education.

Update: Damn. They corrected it. And me without a screenshot.

From my view, it was really only a matter of time.

Dinesh D’Souza has written a book—The Enemy at Home—which effectually places blame on our current experiences with terrorists squarely on the shoulders of the left. Namely, Democrats, homosexuals, feminists and their ilk, are really just provocateurs, and if Americans were simply a plain, God-fearing people, we’d be left alone.

It’s sort of a “hate the sin, help the wolves tear the sinners limb from limb” take on the war on terror. (From what I understand. I have yet to read the book. You can read about it here, here and here.)

So, setting aside a couple of things—namely, how repellent D’Souza’s argument is and how any lefty who made this same argument against the Right’s core constituency would have probably had her passport stripped from her—I must admit that I’m upset, but not really all that surprised, that D’Souza wrote the book, that it has been published and that it will probably sell a million billion copies under the promotional defense and defensive promotion of Limbaugh, Hannity, Coulter, etc.

But it does bring up something interesting.

Over the course of several years, the Right wing has gotten very good at de-humanizing, de-Americanizing and dismissing any Left idea, person or event. The most obvious example that comes to my mind are gays. Take a look at Ted Haggart. The good reverend from Colorado’s revelation that he was, ahem, attracted to men, had been attracted to men since a very early age and acted on it—despite, one assumes, the express delivery of palate after palate of prayers unto God, with Whom all things are possible, including eating pussy.

Haggart, it has been said (even by the man himself), is really just struggling with demons. Gay people don’t exist. There are only straight people who like to take it up the ass. In fact, sometimes you get the sense that right wingers really kind of believe that every guy wants to take it up the ass, that it’s only by the grace of Jesus that anyone engages in heterosexual sex at all.

Just as blacks were considered more or less deficient white people, Jews more or less deficient (or defiant) Christians, women more or less deficient (or defective) men, so gays are more or less deficient (or degenerate) straight people. A pattern has emerged, a long and kind of disgusting Weltanschauung. As in so many a Katherine Kersten argument on the pages of the Strib, what we’re now up against is a Right wing that will torture any ideology, twist any fact to prove that they are the baseline culture, that all other things flow solely from their well, that they are the keepers of all tradition, history and proven ideas. That it is the Right and conservatism, no matter how they define it, is the fundamental building idea of the United States, and of Western civilization, and that the Left’s ideas are aberrations since the Left’s people are aberrations. We now live in a country where Donald Trump and Paris Hilton are rewarded only for their wealth; in economic terms, poor people have failed to be rich through laziness and quittership, just as gay people have failed to blossom into procreative family units through narcissism and selfishness.

Which is bullshit, of course, but there it is.

So you’ll forgive me for my lack of surprise at Mr. D’Souza’s book. It was a long time coming. And it’s not a new idea. Call it “blame the victim,” if you will. But I prefer to call it “blame the freedom.” I guess terrorists really do hate our freedom. And so do conservatives like Dinesh D’Souza. The people who define “freedom” as “national sovereignty.” Very Jesse Helms, that.

But it does bring up something—a point I’ve been meaning to make for a long time. Over the weekend (hat tip to Andrew Sullivan), Nick Cohen makes an incredible case for Left-wing soul searching at the Guardian. The best part:

Why is it that apologies for a militant Islam which stands for everything the liberal left is against come from the liberal left? Why will students hear a leftish postmodern theorist defend the exploitation of women in traditional cultures but not a crusty conservative don? After the American and British wars in Bosnia and Kosovo against Slobodan Milosevic’s ethnic cleansers, why were men and women of the left denying the existence of Serb concentration camps? As important, why did a European Union that daily announces its commitment to the liberal principles of human rights and international law do nothing as crimes against humanity took place just over its borders?

Why is Palestine a cause for the liberal left, but not China, Sudan, Zimbabwe, the Congo or North Korea? Why, even in the case of Palestine, can’t those who say they support the Palestinian cause tell you what type of Palestine they would like to see? After the 9/11 attacks on New York and Washington why were you as likely to read that a sinister conspiracy of Jews controlled American or British foreign policy in a superior literary journal as in a neo-Nazi hate sheet? And why after the 7/7 attacks on London did leftish rather than right-wing newspapers run pieces excusing suicide bombers who were inspired by a psychopathic theology from the ultra-right?

In short, why is the world upside down?

These are questions that need to be answered. If the enemy in our midst is collaborating culturally with our enemies without, where do we turn? Where do people like us go? Where do people like me go? The Right wingers may come to be (apparently) happy to crack down on our behavior if ideas like this flourish. They accuse the Democrats of appeasing, but I see nothing but Neville Chamberlain in those who will ban any Danish cartoon, who will repeal any civil unions law, who will curtail any woman’s medical choices, who will regulate popular culture into a bland, easily digestible paste, who will, in short, legislate our freedom and their discomfort right out of existence—or at least right into the underground—in order to appease their “conservative” kith and kin from Sudan to Iran, to say nothing of Mississippi and Ohio.

At the end of the day, the world is upside down. And we need to set it back on its feet, and quickly. If anyone stands to lose anything to the Islamofascists, Jihadists, Wahhabists, etc. (we need an appellation contrôllée for these jerk-offs, like they have for wine), it’s people like me. I’m gay. I’m an artist. I like to drink and shoot my mouth off and hang out with foreigners and dabble in religion. I am afforded all of this because of the blanket of laws we have in this country that keep me (increasingly) equal to those who insist that I owe them everything I am, that my individuality should be subjected to their comfort. I love the Enlightenment. I love the Constitution. I love the Bill of Rights. But more, I love using all of them, day in and day out, to kiss other guys and write filthy, offensive plays and mock other people’s idols and taboos. I’m not going to give them up. Not to Dinesh D’Souza.

Nor should I ever think that we should ever ask anyone outside our borders to give that up, that right to live how any individual sees fit, away from the confines of culture, family and gods. For example, next time someone asks you about Palestine vs. Israel, ask them which goddamn place they’d rather live in. I’ve read enough about what Palestinian families do to their gay sons to know that, for me, it’s an easy choice. So next time a foreign policy question comes up, ask yourself: What about people like me? How would I survive?

It’s certainly great—an incredible skill and strength—to see all sides of things, but it’s also critical, now more than it ever has been, that liberals start drawing a sharp, inviolate line in the sand—not just for Bush, but for Chavez and Ahmadinejad, too—that we’re not giving up an inch. That we are here. We intend on using our freedom. And we will defend it against any constriction, any attack, no matter where in the world it happens.

Because, in the end, that’s all we have. Otherwise, I’ll see you in the underground.

The AP has a really boring run-down on Bill Richardson’s life. The current governor of New Mexico, former energy secretary, etc., etc., can best be summed up thus:

His father was an international banker from Boston; his mother was Mexican.

Was she a full-time Mexican, or did she just dabble in the ethnicity? The voters need to know!

Totally awesome article in the New York Times (thanks for sending it, Kevin!) about how four mismatched roommates have come together to stop the surge and reinstate the estate tax:

This characterization is not fair to Mr. [Richard] Durbin [D-Ill.], interjected another tenant in the Capitol Hill row house, Representative Bill Delahunt of Massachusetts. For starters, it overlooks Mr. Durbin’s gift for killing rats. “He will kill them with his bare hands,” Mr. Delahunt marveled.

…and the card attached would say, “Thank you for being a friend.”

After getting my 6:30 a.m. wake-up call from the front desk, I checked CNN:

“When you put peace, prosperity and human rights against poverty, a massive unsuccessful military program and a lack of human rights, communism was bound to collapse,” he said. “No president, no Democrat or Republican, can claim credit for those programs. I’ll tell you who deserves the credit — the American people.”

I couldn’t have said it better myself. The guy who did say that was Gerald Ford.

Over the last two and a half weeks, I’ve been running all over the place—Budapest, Saarbrücken, Antwerp, Paris, Geneva, Frankfurt—and, somehow, reading what President Ford had said about the Cold War seems a very nice thing to read at the end of this trip, before I fly across the Atlantic and back to Minneapolis… It was just nice to see credit given to the ideals that really do make America great. And to see the credit given to the ideas (like the Marshall Plan) which really did win the Cold War.

“Mr. Gorbachev, tear down this wall”? Nice rhetoric. But it was America’s financial generosity and political kindness that saved Europe from itself in 1947.

So it shouldn’t be a surprise that we’ve become a nation of war criminals who lose wars when—under this president—all we really do is get hard-ons for revenge invasion and figure that other countries should stand on their own feet for a change. Also, the track history of war criminals actually winning anything (much less hearts and minds) is a very poor one. Just because revenge feels good doesn’t mean it works for anyone but Bruce Willis. The road to hell is paved with good intentions, Lee Greenwood songs and high poll numbers.

But that ain’t leadership. And that ain’t American. Good on ya, Jerry.