They Don't Know Who The Enemy Is

A point we should be making more clearly:

Democrats think we're at war with Al-Qaeda. Republicans think we're at war with all Muslims. Or at least, all terrorists.

Guess whose war is winnable? Guess who's more likely to stop the people who are actually trying to kill us?

Guess who's out of their frikkin' minds?

The Old Boy's Lament

Dana Milbank feels really bad for Joe Lieberman, the ex-Democrat who's now running against the Democratic nominee in Connecticut. Apparently Joe hasn't been well-received by the people he's now fighting against:

After Lieberman was vanquished by antiwar candidate Ned Lamont in last month's primary, 40 of the 45 members of the Senate Democratic caucus abandoned their longtime colleague and their party's former vice presidential nominee. In this town, partisanship is thicker than friendship.

Yeah, it's sad that Lieberman's receiving so few hugs. To explain it in the high school terms that seem disturbingly appropriate, Dana, Lieberman dumped the democratic party before they dumped him. If they treat him like he's switched sides, it's probably because he has.

Milbank quotes Harry Truman saying if you want a friend in Washington, get a dog. Okay, fair enough. But how about this: if you want to be friends with someone, try not being their enemy.

And then this just gets weird:

Lamont made clear that even in victory he wouldn't be magnanimous. When asked if he would vote to confirm Lieberman to replace Donald Rumsfeld at the Pentagon, Lamont said he would not.

I don't see anything rude about declining to endorse your opponent for Secretary of Defense. But then, I'm not part of the Old Boys' Network that sees Lieberman's huglessness as a gross injustice.

Process of Elimination

I just heard a GOP talking head say that we were on the right track because we had "gone on the offensive against these people in Afghanistan and Iraq."

The only possible meaning for "these people" I can see is "Muslims." Saddam and the Taliban didn't have anything else in common.

At least we're clear.

The Truth About The Da Vinci Code

The movie confirms my strong sense that reading a Dan Brown book is like reading a really poor writer describing a moderately interesting movie.

Note from a Planeful of Arabs

As a rule, I never read, much less comment on, Ann Coulter, who I am convinced is a liberal Democrat pulling the world's longest-running prank on our media. It gets less funny all the time. But on this new column makes me think her column is ghost-written by a 12-year-old in a bunker somewhere:

To pull off a 9/11-style attack now, literally half the passengers on the plane would have to be terrorists. (At least the airport screeners wouldn't have to worry about confiscating a lot of deodorants.)

I think a planeful of Arabs would attract attention — except from people who had recently completed a government training program teaching them not to notice anyone's appearance. Not even a group of liberal Democrats flying off to a Renaissance Weekend would stand for that.

Am I wrong, or does she mean that "Not even a group of liberal Democrats [blah blah blah] would stand for" a "planeful of Arabs"? (And yes, she assumes that non-Arabs wouldn't help out with a terrorist attack. This sort of racist ignorance probably hurts Richard Reid's feelings.)

Anyway, I can assure Ms. Coulter, who has apparently led a rather sheltered life, that planefuls of Arabs arrive in United States airports every day. Not only do liberal Democrats like me stand for it; we ride on them. Just last week, I boarded a planeful of Arabs, and had the best flight of my life. (And imagine: One of my travelling companions, in fact, was a conservative Republican.) They're called planes from the Middle East.

Emirates Airlines, it turns out, is not only a sane and well-run operation, it has 500 channels of movies and TV. I watched "Inside Man" and "Mission Impossible III," and then fell asleep because I was so comfortable and secure.

The Fog of Getting It Right

It's nice that George Will has come so firmly around to the Michael Moore camp on the Iraq issue. His new column acknowledging that Kerry was right in his approach to the war on terror does everything but admit that Will himself was wrong:

Cooperation between Pakistani and British law enforcement (the British draw upon useful experience combating IRA terrorism) has validated John Kerry's belief (as paraphrased by the New York Times Magazine of Oct. 10, 2004) that "many of the interdiction tactics that cripple drug lords, including governments working jointly to share intelligence, patrol borders and force banks to identify suspicious customers, can also be some of the most useful tools in the war on terror." In a candidates' debate in South Carolina (Jan. 29, 2004), Kerry said that although the war on terror will be "occasionally military," it is "primarily an intelligence and law enforcement operation that requires cooperation around the world."

And Will rightly attacks the Bush administration for idiotically insisting that references to law enforcement demonstrated a misunderstanding of the war on terror:

"The idea that the jihadists would all be peaceful, warm, lovable, God-fearing people if it weren't for U.S. policies strikes me as not a valid idea. [Democrats] do not have the understanding or the commitment to take on these forces. It's like John Kerry. The law enforcement approach doesn't work."

This farrago of caricature and non sequitur makes the administration seem eager to repel all but the delusional. But perhaps such rhetoric reflects the intellectual contortions required to sustain the illusion that the war in Iraq is central to the war on terrorism, and that the war, unlike "the law enforcement approach," does "work."

Reporters should have laughed at anyone who tried to make this argument. And Democrats should have jumped on it every time they tried it in '04. We understand that the war on terror requires a vast global network of government agencies--law enforcement and intelligence and military--working to track down the bad guys. Any time anyone mentions law enforcement, however, Republicans start jumping up and down on their hats and spouting delusional garbage about not understanding that we're at WAR WAR WAR. This is not the way you catch a terrorist.

You'll note that Will uses the word "farrago" to make this point. If you know what he means, consider yourself unrepresentative of the American population at large. (As for me, I'm not going to look it up, as a matter of principle.)

It almost makes you wonder if Will is trying to make sure that only intellectuals and wonks keep reading far enough to realize he's attacking the Bush administration.

By the way, George Will, about this little bit of snark:

The official is correct that it is wrong "to think that somehow we are responsible -- that the actions of the jihadists are justified by U.S. policies." But few outside the fog of paranoia that is the blogosphere think like that.

It must really kill you that the "fog of paranoia" was right about Iraq when you were wrong, huh? Massive vocabulary and all?

Headlines in Today's NY Times Written in the Form of Questions Whose Answers I Am Not Interested In Knowing

Does Testosterone Build a Better Athlete?

Is It a Urinal, or Is It Art?

In Steroid Era, Will Golf’s Integrity Stand Test?

Matt Bai's Twist Ending

So here's a sentence from the first paragraph of Matt Bai's article on the Lamont victory. Try to guess how it ends:

If anyone was in a position, then, to assess the significance of the Connecticut rebellion, it was

Okay, you'll never guess, so I'll tell you. Bai picks Jeffrey Bell, a Republican who in 1978 won a primary challenge against the Republican incumbent senator in New Jersey. Apparently Bell, an aide to Ronald Reagan, ran on an extreme anti-tax platform.

Yes, Matt, if anyone is in a position to explain to you media people what's happening in the Democratic party, it's a 1970s Republican extremist. Let's interview Jane Fonda about Grover Norquist. Then let's interview a three-year-old Scandinavian child about the mayoral election in Kalamazoo.

Or better yet, let's ask the three-year-old Scandinavian child to write the New York Times' articles on the Democratic party.

Second Thoughts About Free Will

On the sign in front of a church at the end of my street, there's a message that reads, "God Never Says Oops." This is clearly not true. For example, one can only imagine what came out of His mouth when He read this Jacob Weisberg piece in Slate:

The problem for the Democrats is that the anti-Lieberman insurgents go far beyond simply opposing Bush's faulty rationale for the war, his dishonest argumentation for it, and his incompetent execution of it. Many of them appear not to take the wider, global battle against Islamic fanaticism seriously. They see Iraq purely as a symptom of a cynical and politicized right-wing response to Sept. 11, as opposed to a tragic misstep in a bigger conflict. Substantively, this view indicates a fundamental misapprehension of the problem of terrorism.

Dear Jacob,

Please cite one example of an anti-Lieberman insurgent who does not take the wider global battle against Islamic fanaticism seriously.

Love,
Polonius

P.S. If we Democrats think it didn't help the war on terror when we invaded a country that didn't harbor al-Qaeda, does that indicate a fundamental misapprehension of the problem of terrorism?

P.P.S. I bet God had a lot of fun trying to figure out how the same person could write these two sentences in the same article:

The invasion of Iraq was, in ways that have since become hard to dispute, a terrible mistake.

[ . . . ]

Whether Democrats can avoid playing their Vietnam video to the end depends on their ability to project military and diplomatic toughness in place of the elitism and anti-war purity represented in 2004 by Howard Dean and now by Ned Lamont.

Right. So the war was a terrible mistake, and 60% of Americans are perfectly aware of this, but "anti-war purity" is a bad thing.

Just out of curiosity, would you consider Democrats "tough" enough if they advocated going to war against the actual terrorists? Just for example. Or when you said "elitism" did you mean being too stuck up to invade irrelevant third countries? That's all I can figure--that you think Democrats are too snobbish about who to invade because we insist on some actual connection to the people who are trying to kill us.

P.P.P.S. Seriously. What the hell are you talking about?

They're Keeping A Close Eye On Things

So apparently 30% of Americans have no idea what year 9/11 happened in.

30% is also the number of Americans who want a Republican to represent them in Congress.

Coincidence?

Love Them Or Leave Them -- Or Both

I can't help but find this kind of funny: in this post, Marty Peretz accuses Human Rights Watch of lying about the war in Lebanon ("The biggest lie is the one being spread by Human Rights Watch . . . that Hezbollah has not entwined its network of weapons, launching sites, and command centers into the fabric of ordinary civilian life"). Earlier in the same post, he complains about the "press corps" citing a figure of 60 dead in the Qana attack, when the real figure is 28.

Where did Peretz get this figure of 28? Apparently from Human Rights Watch.

I Must Be Missing Something

Wow. Apparently the Rand Corporation did a study and found that teenagers who listen to sexual music are more likely to have sex:

Teens who said they listened to lots of music with degrading sexual messages were almost twice as likely to start having intercourse or other sexual activities within the following two years as were teens who listened to little or no sexually degrading music.

Among heavy listeners, 51 percent started having sex within two years, versus 29 percent of those who said they listened to little or no sexually degrading music.

Putting aside the question of what kind of person says "yes, I like sexually degrading music," back when I was a teenager, the word we used to describe conclusions this obvious was "duh," or sometimes "a-doy-a-DUH." But the Rand Corporation in its wisdom goes on to find causation here:

Exposure to lots of sexually degrading music "gives them a specific message about sex," said lead author Steven Martino, a researcher for Rand Corp. in Pittsburgh. Boys learn they should be relentless in pursuit of women and girls learn to view themselves as sex objects, he said.

"We think that really lowers kids' inhibitions and makes them less thoughtful" about sexual decisions and may influence them to make decisions they regret, he said.

But nothing in the Rand summary of the study suggests they even thought about whether correlation proves causation. In other words, okay, Rand, you proved that kids who like sex like music about sex. Great. Kids who like rodeos probably like songs about cowboys. Does that mean that listening to country music causes increased rodeo attendance?

For that matter, I really like Watership Down; I own two copies. Is that the reason I own two rabbits?

Rand was asking the wrong questions when it spoke to these kids. I suspect most high school science students could have explained the difference between correlation and causation. Or at least, the kids could put them in touch with a science teacher who could.

Three Reasons Lieberman Won't Drop Out

(1) Because this is Joe "We're In A Three-Way Tie for Third" Lieberman, who thought that coming in fifth in the presidential primaries was the voters' oblique way of saying they loved him. He's no more capable of taking no for an answer than Pepé La Pew.

(2) Because his insistence on staying the course in Iraq is a symptom of a deeper character flaw. It's called stubborness. If Joe knew when to abandon a bad policy, there would never have been a primary. (And yes, pundits, taking an unpopular stand is admirable--when that stand isn't crazy.)

(3) Because if Joe "It is time for Democrats who distrust President Bush to acknowledge . . . that in matters of war we undermine Presidential credibility at our nation’s peril" Lieberman cared at all about the Democratic Party, none of this would have happened in the first place.

Okay, and one bonus reason: Lieberman, remember, is the Democrat who defended the Alberto Gonzales memos misrepresenting and undermining the Geneva Conventions. In other words, his moral compass has been demagnetized. Don't expect it to point him out of the race.

How to Get Your Talking Point Swallowed

I don't know why this works, but it works. Josh Marshall notes the absurdity of the Republican talking point about how Ned Lamont is bad for the Democratic party because he makes us look weak on security.

But note the way they phrase it:

“It’s an unfortunate development, I think, from the standpoint of the Democratic Party, to see a man like Lieberman pushed aside because of his willingness to support an aggressive posture in terms of our national security strategy,’’ Mr. Cheney said in a telephone interview with news service reporters.

The trick is to assume the talking point is true, and then comment on it. Don't say "Lieberman was pushed aside because he's willing to be aggressive against terrorism." That's obviously false.

Instead say "It's unfortunate that Lieberman was pushed aside because he was aggressive against terrorism." For some reason, burying your talking point this way makes it much easier for journalists to swallow and print. Apparently this creates a little glitch in the journalist's mental process that makes them think, "Oh--the debate isn't about whether Democrats are aggressive against terror; it's about whether their non-aggressiveness is unfortunate or not."

It's very similar to the way telemarketers try to keep you on the phone by framing their questions in a way that makes it difficult not to respond. So how do we teach the journalists to just hang up?

Spam Sublimity

I feel a duty to preserve this wonderful piece of spam. From "Malone Lavelle," it was titled "re: Voxan" and reads in its entirety:

You do. And of course you are Jim of the Rats. Welcome, welcome
all.

There was plenty of handshaking and glad cries of joy before Heimskur

(This accompanied by an image containing the advertising.) It reminds me of some of Danielle Pafunda's poetry, especially the first stanza.

"Heimskur," incidentally, is apparently an Icelandic adjective meaning "stupid."

There should be awards for this stuff.

Library Name of the Week

The Candor Free Library in Candor, NY.

Shorter Stanley Fish

Academic freedom doesn't mean freedom to say things people think are crazy; it means the freedom to study things they think are boring.

Okay, so this Kevin Barrett character sounds like an idiot, possibly enough of an idiot to deserve a good firing or two. But Fish has gone off several deep ends at once. Yes, it would be nice to have professors who come up with interesting ideas about shoes. But when most people think of academic freedom, I suspect Galileo comes to mind more than Derrida. We let professors think crazy things, objectionable things, because sometimes, centuries later, it turns out they were right. A million Kevin Barretts are the price we pay for that.

And what on earth is wrong with professors urging activism? Professors are the canaries in the coal mine; they're often the first ones to see what's gone wrong. If they don't urge activism, there's often no one who will.

[I'm not back, really, just in between jobs and free to post for a while. --Polonius]

A Brief Review of the Title of Zell Miller's New Book ("A Deficit of Decency")

Boy, those truth in advertising laws are a bitch, huh?

#1 On The List of Unpleasant Phrases That Linger In My Head After I Hear the Beatles' "Come Together"

"Spinal cracker."

The Frightening Road to Self-Discovery

I just caught myself thinking, "For my money, there's no finer pop album than the Fine Young Cannibals' The Raw and the Cooked."

Am i going to turn into a werewolf?

So Long And Thanks For All The Fish

So I'm afraid I'll be signing off for a while--at least until May, and maybe even longer. Why? For one of the following reasons:

(a) I am an undercover operative with the U.S. Secret Service, and I'm on the verge of cracking a major drug ring, but to do so I'll need to go undercover like Kiefer Sutherland did during that interminable sequence of 24 episodes where the Mexican girl got shot at the end for no frikkin' reason.

(b) I just can't do the research any more. If I have to read the National Review website one more time, my head is going to pop like a water balloon.

(c) I am going into hiding to avoid agents of Jerry Falwell, who threatened my life after I revealed the existence of Falwell Confidential to a breathless world.

(d) I am actually Senator Larry Craig (R-ID), and I'm tired of the whole facade.

Or possibly it's none of those. Anyway thanks for stopping by; you've been a great crowd.

Predictions for 2005

Okay, I'll play too. Here are a few random guesses:

Rehnquist will resign, and Clarence Thomas will be appointed Chief Justice. During the confirmation process, Democrats will relentlessly be called racist by Republican surrogates; Republican elected officials will for the most part refuse to distance themselves from these attacks. Dick Durbin will give a really good speech on the Senate floor explaining why they're wrong.

To fill Thomas' seat, Bush will nominate a Latino, because that way he can accuse Democrats of being racist again.

Donald Rumsfeld will continue to insist that things are going well in Iraq.

The new Harry Potter book will be somewhat disappointing.

Bush will push his immigration initiative a bit, but his guest-worker proposal will get so many anti-immigrant provisions attached to it that even the guest workers will start opposing it. Nonetheless, right-wingers will oppose anything that even sounds like it might help immigrants. After the proposal tanks (this will actually be sometime in 2006) the media will blithely announce that Bush has helped his standing among Latinos.

Because life is unfair, nothing particularly bad will happen to Bob Novak.

Barack Obama will give some really good speeches on the Senate floor.

Dr. James Dobson, head nut at Focus on the Family, will choke on something over dinner but fail to wonder whether God is warning him to cut it out.

Alan Alda will not become President on The West Wing--it'll be that other guy, the one Josh likes.

Senate Republicans will fail to pass the "nuclear option," their weird plan to end Democrats' filibusters by having Dick Cheney declare a rules change. They will be pretty angry about this.

Rush Limbaugh will say something racist, and not lose a single advertiser.

There will be negative stories in the national media about Rudy Giuliani, because right-wingers are worried about him running for president and will dig up some of the mountains of dirt on him just to give us all an early taste.

Bush will spend some quality time on vacation.

Thousands of authors trying to get their books published will read The DaVinci Code, and feel their universe stop making sense as Robert Langdon, the stupidest protagonist since The Sound and the Fury, gets everything explained to him five times and still fails to understand the obvious plot twists.

In desperation, some of these aspiring authors will pick up Dan Brown's first book, Angels and Demons. They will be rewarded with koan-like sentences such as "The thought was inconceivable" or the one where Langdon "falls into step with" a character who's in a wheelchair. Most of these would-be authors will give up writing and begin drinking heavily, or vomiting.

More "torture memos" will leak, but people won't get that upset about it.

Michael Moore's new interest in health-care will cause him to be called a communist by Ann Coulter and Michele Malkin.

Hundreds of American soldiers will die in Iraq. Hundreds or even thousands of Iraqis will die, too. American public opinion will continue to swing against the war, but not by more than five or ten percentage points, because it's hard for people to admit the war is wrong when so many people have suffered so much for it.

Meanwhile, in Heaven, Jerry Orbach will make some extremely inappropriate jokes to the recently deceased about the way they died. In spite of themselves, they'll laugh and groan at the same time, and feel a little better about things.

The rest of us will get through somehow.

The Fifth Circuit House of Horrors

Creakings, as of old wood, and groanings, as of souls long tormented, rise quavering through the dim, foggy air. A ghoulish old caretaker gives a yellow-toothed, humorless grin to his nine customers. “Welcome,” he hisses, “to the Fifth Circuit House of Horrors, Frights and Chills.”

Antonin gulps, and turns to Old Bill. “Bill,” he says, “maybe it’s better you wait here. With your health…” A moan echoes from the tottering structure looming before them. “You’re right,” says Bill. “I’m not up to this. I’ll sit here on this bench.”

The eight go on without him. The caretaker takes their tickets, and waves them into two rusty cars. Stephen, Ruth, David and John Paul climb gingerly into the first. Antonin, Clarence, Anthony and Sandra Day settle in to the second. The bars clang down across their laps. “I don’t much like that,” Sandra Day says, her strong voice sounding small and hollow as it echoes out into the gloom. The cars lurch forward with a screech, metal grating on metal.

A recorded voice comes over the speakers, the deep voice of a troubled old man. “Welcome,” it says. “You are entering the Fifth Circuit. Leave your hope at the door.” Doors crash shut behind them, and a cold breeze brushes their cheeks in the darkness. Anthony looks around in alarm, and draws his coat a little closer around him.

“If you listen close,” the spectral voice says, “you can hear the whisperings of the ghost of Charles Pickering.” An eerie murmur arises; a hushed, indistict, worried sound that is not quite human. “They say he has unfinished business here,” the speakers intone, and a series of bright lights and banging sounds startle the company.

The cars screech around a corner. Suddenly the air is very warm. A giant figure with bulging muscles and a costume of black leather straps holds a gargantuan battle-axe over the neck of a whimpering Mexican. Wailing faces become visible in the background, arms reaching out as if trying to grab the axe and stay its fall—the desperate faces of the International Court of Justice.

“What’s that, Mr. Medellin?” the giant booms, sarcastically. “You want to talk to your consulate?” The axe rises up, and Stephen notices that the giant has scrawled the word “consulate” on it, in what look like letters of blood. “Here you go!” The axe falls, and the Mexican’s head drops into the little basket. The faces of the ICJ wail louder.

“Did you see that?” gasps Antonin. “International law!” Antonin’s face is pale, and quickly begins to go green. Clarence throws a reassuring arm around his shoulders. “Don’t worry,” Clarence says. “There’s no such thing as international law.”

Antonin nods quickly, as if trying to convince himself. Clarence repeats himself like a parent singing a lullaby: “There’s no such thing as international law…there’s no such thing as international law…there’s no such thing as international law…”

The cars move on, and creak past a filmy window, opening on a tranquil view of the outside. A river is visible in the distance, and Ruth thinks wistfully of the First Circuit, where the winters are harsh but mental illness is blessedly rare.

Suddenly a fist comes from nowhere and bangs on the window, and a white staring face lurches up behind it—the crazed eyes of Priscilla Owen, mouth open, bellowing “LET ME IN!” The company starts back in horror as more wide-eyed faces appear at the window, fists banging.

Sandra Day notices the word “filibuster” engraved on the window, just below a great crack beginning to snake its way across the glass. “This glass isn’t going to hold!” she shouts. “Let’s get the hell out of here!”

She jumps out of the car and runs along the little walkway next to the track. But after three steps, she stops in horror. The track and the walkway dead-end, dropping away into a horrible void.

Clarence and Antonin are at the window now, their face inches away from the glass and the horrible faces outside. Clarence turns to face them, his face strangely unperturbed by the screeching and hammering just inches from his head.

“I’m afraid no one’s going anywhere,” Clarence says, an eerie grin playing across his face. Antonin flips a big switch. There is the distant hum of electricity flickering off. Lights flicker off behind them. The group is lit now only by the moonlight filtering in past the screeching creatures at the window. “Things are going to be a little different from now on,” Clarence says. “You might as well get used to the place. And to calling me Chief.”

The glass shatters. The ghouls swarm in.

Thoughts On "Merry Christmas" vs. "Happy Holidays"

Boy, our friends on the right seem pretty angry that religious minorities exist in this country, don't they? They just can't stand it when people make allowances for that.

Liveblogging Getting Home and Channel-Surfing After A Few Drinks And A Bit Of Dancing

On TNT, Lou Diamond Phillips seems upset that someone called someone else on the phone; meanwhile, Marky Mark, apparently without the Funky Bunch, is holding a Japanese schoolgirl hostage, but his heart isn't in it.

On CNN, someone sitting in for Larry King finished an interview with Bernie Goetz by explaining that he "fought back." Actually, if I remember right, he shot a bunch of dudes execution-style after they asked him for cash. Apparently the woman standing in for Larry King approves of this.

On Bravo, Dave Navarro just announced that if he wins this poker game, it will be the most important thing that ever happened to him. Jane's Addiction aside, I have very little trouble believing that.

I like to think I'm not a violent person, but it frightens me to think what I'd be capable of if I was in a room with these people singing the Old Navy commercials. I don't think I'd last more than a minute or so before it started to look like Reservoir Dogs in there.

TNT seems inappropriately proud of the four Steven Seagal movies they plan to show tomorrow. Comedy Central seems inappropriately proud to be showing a Wayans Brothers movie (I'm trying to avoid learning which one).

On Channel 56, a bunch of cartoon robots seem pretty angry with each other.

On Fox News, Neil Cavuto is pretending to interview a guy pretending to be Santa about his stock picks. I imagine they mean it as a joke, but to me it doesn't seem markedly different from interviewing Donald Rumsfeld about the future of Iraq.

I get the feeling the SciFi Channel's heart just isn't in it tonight.

On Channel 53, someone just said, "There literally are no quacking ducks in Argentina." It's amazing what you can learn without really trying these days. I changed the channel pretty fast.

Things are not going well for Marky Mark. Or anyone associated with this movie he's in.

From VH1, I learn that Johnny Depp has his own private island. Then they move on to Britney and how much she spent on her new husband. I would rather gargle sewage for a living than be one of the people VH1 is interviewing for comments on Britney and Kevin's lifestyle.

Okay, time for bed.

Tonight I Made Some Pork Explode

So, yeah. True story. Tonight I was microwaving some pork--a medium-sized piece, no weird marinade or anything--and I did all the usual things (take pork out of refrigerator, put pork on plate, put plate in microwave, turn it on).

After about thirty seconds, I heard a loud BANG. Once I figured out that it had come from the microwave, I walked over, turned it off, and opened it up. There was pork all over the inside.

I didn't even know pork could explode.

If any of you have any insight into this, I'd love to hear it. Why did my pork explode? I really don't have any thoughts, other than that if this story reminds you of the whole Bernard Kerik saga, well, me too.

Unintentional Truth in Advertising

Seen today on Fox News: a banner that read: "ONLY ON FOX: GOOD NEWS OUT OF IRAQ."

Indeed.

How To Get John Ashcroft Not To Execute You

Okay, so the right wing supports the death penalty, but opposes assisted suicide. Doesn't that mean that if a condemned killer decides he wants to die, like this guy in Connecticut, they have to call off the execution?

I'm glad I'm not a right-winger--there's so much to keep track of.

Second Thoughts About Destroying Christmas

So I got distracted for a minute and forgot what we liberals were supposed to be working on this week. Fortunately, Concerned Women For America reminded me: we're trying to get people to watch this movie about that Kinsey guy, because it's the only way to spread porn and gay sex, and thereby reach our Ultimate Goal:

Kinsey's work has been instrumental in advancing acceptance of pornography, homosexuality, abortion, and condom-based sex education, and his disciples even today are promoting a view of children as "sexual beings." Their ultimate goal: to normalize pedophilia, or "adult-child sex."

Right, right, right. Got to remember to normalize pedophilia. Aside from kidnapping and mutilating family pets, I think normalizing pedophilia should be liberals' number one priority. Or possibly helping the homosexual activists attack Salvation Army bell-ringers:

When Target announced the end of the Salvation Army’s exception to the store’s non-solicitation policy, it blamed an “increasing number of solicitation inquiries.”

“Gee, could some of those requests be coming from homosexual activists, who have had the Salvation Army in their gun sights since the charity decided to uphold marriage and refuse to fund homosexual relationships?” asked Robert Knight, director of Concerned Women for America’s Culture & Family Institute.

Note: this is possibly the longest sarcastic sentence beginning with "Gee" in recorded history. But there's more:

“Perhaps the organizers of a campaign created as a parody of the Salvation Army were among them?”

“Celebration Army,” a proposed fundraising effort, had planned to solicit donations at Minneapolis’ Nicollet Mall and other Minnesota locations this Christmas season with kettles and bell ringers. Funds would go to Open Arms of Minnesota to provide meals to those with HIV-AIDS.

Our secret plan revealed! Isn't it deliciously evil? We want to feed the hungry and take care of the sick. Next thing you know, we'll be giving the thirsty something to drink, clothing the naked, and visiting those in prison, thus turning Matthew 25:34-46 to our own nefarious purposes.

It's like we're using the word of God to advance the homosexual agenda. We rule! But there's more:

Celebration Army was created by Charlie Rounds, president and co-founder of RSVP Productions Inc., a St. Louis Park-based travel agency catering to “gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgender [GLBT] travelers.”

Hah! Yes! It's all a plan to send the homos on vacation! Feeding the hungry and sending the homos on vacation! These are our number one priorities.

But Jerry Falwell seems to disagree. I'm not sure if I'm allowed to talk about this, because it's on a section of his website called Falwell Confidential, but I'm going to chance it. Jerry thinks our priority isn't Kinsey or gay vacations on the backs of Salvation-Army Santas; it's destroying Christmas.

The spiritual Grinches in our nation are accelerating their war against Christmas as never before.

I hate Christmas so much. And with all due respect to Concerned Women For America, Fox News seems pretty sure that destroying Christmas is liberals' number one priority. When Fox and Falwell agree, I'm afraid I'm leaning away from pedophilia and towards destroying Christmas. There just aren't enough hours in the day for both.

But adherents of this colossal effort to create a secular utopia have forgotten two significant realities:

1. Our Founders were men who explicitly embraced Judeo-Christian principles in the founding of this nation. Even those who were Deists openly recognized the need for the citizenry to fall to their collective knees and beseech God’s favor. They understood the need to recognize God in our Constitution, in our courts and in our schools.

Falwell's right, you know. The Founders thought God was so important that they mentioned him in the part of the Constitution that says what day it was signed:

Done in Convention by the Unanimous Consent of the States present the Seventeenth Day of September in the Year of our Lord one thousand seven hundred and Eighty seven...

See? It says "the Year of our LORD." Obviously the Framers meant "Separation of church and state is a bunch of crap." Maybe we shouldn't destroy Christmas after all, guys.

2. Our fellow citizens do not want a spiritual sanitization effort to sweep out all vestiges of Christianity from the public square. One need look no further than an AOL poll this week. An astounding 89 percent of respondents (as of Wednesday afternoon) answered in the affirmative to the question, “Should religion be included in public holiday celebrations?”

Absolutely astounding. Look, I know how important it is to all of us to win the war on Christmas. But I think we're going to have to bow to the will of the AOL-using community here. If we're not accountable to the membership of AOL, to whom are we going to be accountable?

So, good point, Jerry. Maybe I'll go back to pedophilia after all. After all, it's the Ultimate Goal.

I'm So Funny

So NASA administrator Sean O'Keefe is going to retire. You know what I bet he's going to miss? Going, "Come on, people, this isn't rocket science." I bet that never gets old.

The War On Checks and Balances

Democrats are desperately in search of a narrative, everyone seems to agree. Okay, well, here's the story I think we should be telling about the Republicans. (It has the particular advantage of being true.)

It's the oldest story in government: they want power, and they'll do anything to get it. They hate checks and balances. They hate accountability. They hate the rule of law, because it stands between them and more power. They want to destroy any institution they can't control.

Hence all the meaningless garbage about "activist judges"--the judiciary has power over the President, and they can't stand it. Hence "tort reform"--juries are not under their control, so their power must be limited. Hence their interest in destroying Senate procedural rules like the filibuster--anything that can check executive power is a threat. Hence their loathing for universities and intellectuals--universities teach students to question the beliefs of those in power. Hence their weird triumphalism over the Dan Rather scandal, and their bizarre insistence that the whole media is against them.

And, in today's news, hence their vehement opposition to the international rule of law. The U.N. and the international legal structure which the US fought so hard to build only works if the US follows the rules it advocates. For the right, this idea is poison. Even if the rules clearly benefit us (like the Geneva Conventions, which protect our soldiers), they are rules, so they have to go.

This is why we hear lawmakers like Rep. Scott Garrett (R-N.J.), laser beams shooting from their eyes as they swat helicopters away from their scaly snouts, saying things like:

"To me the question should not be whether Kofi Annan should be in charge. To me the larger question is whether he should be in jail at this point in time."

You can hear the pain in his voice, can't you? It hurts him, to have to say these things about Kofi Annan. Either that, or the amphetamines are wearing off.

Over at the National Review ("Barking Mad, Feeling Good"), Andrew McCarthy is stirred to righteous anger by the Red Cross' daring to suggest, in private meetings with US officials, that the US shouldn't be abusing prisoners at Guantanamo.

It is high time for the American people to ask: Just what is international law? Is it a body of obligations, rooted in the principles of consent and comity, that provides sovereign nations with a path toward avoiding provocation and bloodshed? Or is it a subversion by which foreign entities and their activist nongovernmental organizations trump democratic choices and sovereign self-determination?

Guess which one he thinks it is. Hint: after finishing his article, you may find yourself worrying that international human rights organizations are trying to poison our food supply.

Presumably it's this kind of brilliant work that leaves Michelle Malkin so outraged that Andrew McCarthy is not a candidate in Legal Affairs magazine's on-line poll, asking people to select the greatest living legal thinkers. Inexplicably, Malkin does not seem outraged that they omitted Bozo the Clown, a legal thinker of comparable distinction.

You know why? Because Bozo, like all funny people, represents a potential threat to Republican power. Humor is the last, best weapon of the little people against power that takes itself too seriously.

Watch out, clown, your day will come.

This Man Thinks "No Limit Texas Hold'em" Is A Theory Of Constitutional Rights

Okay, you want examples of embarassing Thomas decisions? Here you go. From Hamdi v. Rumsfeld, where Thomas--failing to bring any other justice, even Scalia, around to his bizarre, monarchical view of presidential powers--found it okay to detain someone, forever, on the mere say-so of the president:

Undeniably, Hamdi has been deprived of a serious interest, one actually protected by the Due Process Clause. Against this, however, is the Government's overriding interest in protecting the Nation. If a deprivation of liberty can be justified by the need to protect a town, the protection of the Nation, a fortiori, justifies it.

It's just that simple in Thomas' mind. The security of the Nation is at stake, so "the protection of the Nation, a fortiori, justifies it." Following this reasoning, what deprivation of liberty would not be justifiable "a fortiori"? No one's liberty can be more important than the protection of a nation, right? Thomas seems to balance them one-to-one. This is the reasoning of Korematsu, which I think even most right-wingers can agree is an embarassment. I hope.

In Thomas' mind, the war on terrorism means you have no rights at all. This sounds like hyperbole, but it's not--this is what he thinks our Constitution means. This is what he thinks the Framers fought for. This is his best work. Welcome to the world of Clarence Thomas.

"Embarassment" doesn't begin to cover it.

The Truth About the Monster Thickburger

One of the bloggers over at Southern Appeal has a self-righteous post about the new Monster Thickburger, a giant piece of meat selling for $5.49 at Hardee's.

He thinks we liberals will be offended by this.

Of course this will offend all the usual suspects. I have no doubt that the health and safety Nazis will add this to their crusade against fun. The Monster Thickburger will take its place alongside SUVs and guns as the third member of the eco-hostile Axis of Evil.

Heh. No, Joel, we liberals are thrilled; this particular right-wing habit (unlike, say, pre-emptive war) has no impact on us at all. We'd also recommend you right-wingers take up smoking, and driving with horse-blinders on.

You see, the Monster Thickburger is just evolution having its way with people who don't believe in it.

The War on Terror Is a War of Values

There's an important post by Digby, suggesting a new theme for Democrats: we should lead the war on terror because, at heart, it's a war on fundamentalism:

We start by having the womens' groups decrying the Islamic FUNDAMENTALIST view of womens rights. These FUNDAMENTALISTS want to roll back the clock and make women answer to men. In AMERICA we don't believe in that. Then we have the Human Rights Campaign loudly criticizing the Islamic FUNDAMENTALISTS for it's treatment of gays. In AMERICA we believe that all people have inalienable rights. The ACLU puts out a statement about the lack of civil liberties in Islamic FUNDAMENTALIST theocracies. In AMERICA we believe in the Bill of Rights, not the word of unelected mullahs.

Good idea. Take it further: Democrats have always led the war on fundamentalism. Liberalism is the opposite of fundamentalism. We are the party that stands for American values, the opposite of everything the Taliban and their ilk believe. Democrats represent equality, freedom, justice, the rule of law, everything we're supposed to be fighting for around the world, in Afghanistan (and, now that we have no choice, in Iraq).

And Republicans have fundamentally misunderstood the nature of the war on terror. They've failed to see that it's a moral struggle, a struggle about values. They think we can win by dragging America through the dirt. They want to throw away our Constitution by holding people forever without trial; they want to turn a blind eye to torture; they want to quiet dissent. Just look at Bush's expression when someone asks him a hard question.

They don't understand that we win by being good, by being the good guys. Strength means more than military power--you have to be strong in your heart, strong enough to win without debasing yourself. In a war for hearts and minds, you can't win any other way.

This is why people like Sean Hannity are on the wrong side. His book is called "Deliver Us from Evil: Defeating Terrorism, Despotism, and Liberalism." (On principle, I'm not providing a link.) "Defeating Liberalism" is Osama bin Laden's job, not ours. It's what Mullah Omar tries to do every day. It's what Kim Jong Il has mastered in North Korea.

Defeating terrorism is liberalism. The war on terror is a war of values between liberals and fundamentalists. Time to pick sides.

A Permanent Majority of Visigoths

So Newsweek thinks they know what Karl Rove's secret plan is. Apparently it has something to do with creating a "permanent majority," whatever that means. (Sounds a little spooky to me--in order to create a "permanent majority," you'd need to come up with a "final solution," don't you think?)

Anyway, Newsweek hasn't got a clue. Senior investigative journalists in The Sneaky Rabbit's newsroom have uncovered Rove's true plan, which involves completely getting rid of the federal tax code. How will they pay for a federal government without taxes?

One word: plunder.

Why not? It worked for the Vikings. Simply raid and pillage whichever other countries still have cash. Sounds crazy, I know, but it ties in neatly with Bush's secret plan to replace his Treasury Secretary with those hordes of irritating Visigoths from the CapitalOne commercials (first reported right here at The Sneaky Rabbit.) Next time you see Karl on TV, think, "Yaaaaarrr." It makes sense, right?

In a related development, radio behemoth Clear Channel will shortly begin broadcasting content from toilet behemoth Fox News.

Yar.

I've Lost That Loving Feeling

So apparently it's okay to use evidence gained by torture against Guantanamo detainees.

Evidence gained by torture can be used by the U.S. military in deciding whether to imprison a foreigner indefinitely at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, as an enemy combatant, the government says.

Of course, this is an obvious incentive to torture. Good thing we don't have a problem with that.

A confidential report to Army generals in Iraq in December 2003 warned that members of an elite military and CIA task force were abusing detainees, a finding delivered more than a month before Army investigators received the photographs from Abu Ghraib prison that touched off investigations into prisoner mistreatment.

Meanwhile, former CIA director George Tenet wants to stop the internet from getting into the wrong hands:

[...] Tenet yesterday called for new security measures to guard against attacks on the United States that use the Internet, which he called "a potential Achilles' heel."

"I know that these actions will be controversial in this age when we still think the Internet is a free and open society with no control or accountability," he told an information-technology security conference in Washington, "but ultimately the Wild West must give way to governance and control."

[...] Access to networks like the World Wide Web might need to be limited to those who can show they take security seriously, he said.

I take security seriously! I take security seriously!

So does Brian Boyle, principal deputy associate attorney general of the United States (do you think his business cards have to be two-sided?), who explained to a federal judge yesterday why the US should be able to detain as "enemy combatants" people who've never been near a battlefield:

"The military has an interest in holding people who pose a risk," Brian Boyle, principal deputy associate attorney general, said of the Pentagon's decision to hold some people for nearly three years. "We're not detaining these people just because there's some enjoyment in it."

Do you think anyone actually suggested that Brian enjoys detaining people, or is the PDAAG sounding just a tad defensive here?

[...] "If a little old lady in Switzerland writes checks to what she thinks is a charitable organization for Afghanistan orphans, but it's really supporting . . . al Qaeda, is she an enemy combatant?" the judge asked.

Boyle said the woman could be, but it would depend on her intentions. "It would be up to the military to decide as to what to believe," he said.

You know, when I used to hear Republicans arguing that we need the Second Amendment because the people need guns to defend ourselves from the government, it never occurred to me that they meant defending ourselves against them. Okay, guys, I've learned my lesson--you can stop the scary stuff now.

The Truth About Christopher Hitchens

The Sneaky Rabbit's intrepid research team has discovered that Christopher Hitchens, (pictured below appearing on tonight's Daily Show) looks like the frikkin' twin brother of Herbert Lom, better known as Chief Inspector Dreyfus, the villain from the Pink Panther movies. Judge for yourself:



For me, the scary thing is that between the two of them, Hitchens actually has the more intense evil-mastermind glare.



We report, you decide. Of course, you may remember that Chief Inspector Dreyfus came to a rather bad end:



In the memorable scene pictured above, Dreyfus has just blown up the United Nations with his Doomsday Machine. Hitchens, take note: it may sound like a good idea, but this was the beginning of the end for the Chief Inspector. Put down that laser.

Casting the First Stone in Alabama

Last night I saw an excellent bumpersticker: "ARE YOU FOLLOWING JESUS THIS CLOSE?"

The answer from Alabama, where state lawmaker Gerald Allen, R-Cottondale, wants to ban all books that mention homosexuality from Alabama libraries, is an emphatic no:

Allen said that if his bill passes, novels with gay protagonists and college textbooks that suggest homosexuality is natural would have to be removed from library shelves and destroyed.

"I guess we dig a big hole and dump them in and bury them," he said.

So much for casting the first stone. One wonders if he's talking about the books, or the gays.

Law Schools' Faces Get in the Way of Military's Fist

A federal judge ruled today that law schools have a First Amendment right to enforce their anti-discrimination policies against recruiters from the military. In other words, the policies say, if you discriminate against gays (as the military does), you can't recruit on their campus.

Of course, there was a dissent:

"What disturbs me personally and as a judge," Judge Aldisert wrote, "is that the law schools seem to approach this question as an academic exercise, a question on a constitutional law examination or a moot court topic, with no thought of the effect of their action on the supply of military lawyers and military judges."

What disturbs me personally and as a citizen is that the military seems to approach this question as if there were some legitimate reason to discriminate, as if there were some reason why the British and Israeli militaries could include gays but ours couldn't, with no thought of the effect of their action on the supply of military lawyers and military judges.

Howard J. Bashman, who helped write a supporting brief on behalf of students who favored the law, said the decision would hurt the military and the public. "A ruling of this sort will cause the military to end up with a lower quality of lawyer," Mr. Bashman said.

The Sneaky Rabbit wonders if Mr. Bashman has noticed that policies like Don't Ask, Don't Tell will cause the military to end up with a lower quality of lawyer.

Why is everybody blaming the law schools for having an antidiscrimination policy, instead of blaming the military for making itself ineligible to recruit on any self-respecting campus?


P.S.: I don't usually comment on other blogs, because that's just too meta. But I'm disturbed by people who, like the Volokh Conspiracy's David Bernstein, describe this decision as "allowing private universities to discriminate against military recruiters."

David actually supports the decision, because he likes the idea of defying antidiscrimination laws. But this is really offensive spin. THE LAW SCHOOLS ARE NEUTRALLY APPLYING THE SAME POLICY TO THE MILITARY THAT THEY APPLY TO EVERYBODY ELSE.

Here's how it works: The law school asks all recruiting employers to sign a piece of paper saying, "We won't discriminate against people on the basis of race, religion, blah blah, or sexual orientation." The military says, "We can't sign that, because we discriminate against gays." The law school says, "Oh, we're sorry. If you don't sign, you can't come onto campus."

This is the opposite of discrimination.

And if you want to argue that it's unfair to include DADT within anti-discrimination policies, because DADT doesn't discriminate against gays, ask yourself whether it'd be okay for the military to allow Jews to serve on condition that they didn't let anyone know they're Jewish.

Those Lucky Immigrants

Headline in the Times: "Bush Picks Immigrant Who Rose to Executive for Commerce Post."

What if you're an immigrant who didn't become the CEO of a major company?

By all reports Virginia Feliz had been a happy 6-year-old before her mother's expulsion [deportation]. Two months later, doctors at the Child and Adolescent Mental Health Program of Bronx-Lebanon Hospital Center found that she had a major depressive disorder marked by hyperactivity, nightmares, bed-wetting, frequent crying and fights at school. Now, medical records show, she takes antidepressant drugs and sees a therapist, but the problems persist.

[....] In Brooklyn, similar cases cause concern for Birdette Gardiner-Parkinson, the clinical director at the Caribbean Community Mental Health program at Kingsbrook Jewish Medical Center. In one, she said, an outgoing, academically gifted 12-year-old began failing classes, mutilating herself and having suicidal thoughts after her Colombian father disappeared into removal proceedings. In another case, nightmares and school failure plague the youngest of six children whose father, a cabdriver with 20 years' residence in the United States, was deported to Nigeria six hours after he reported for a green card interview, seemingly for unpaid traffic fines, Ms. Gardiner-Parkinson said.

So maybe they were illegal immigrants, the people who left these children behind. But do you want to be the one to explain to their children why they have to live without a parent? Why it's morally right that they live without a parent?

Do Your Homework Next Time, People

So apparently most Americans want a Supreme Court justice who'll uphold Roe.

Fifty-nine percent said Bush should choose a supporter of Roe v. Wade, while 31 percent said they want a nominee who will try to overturn the decision, according to the poll. Support for Roe v. Wade was seen among both men and women, across most age and income groups, and in urban, suburban and rural areas, AP said.

Presumably millions of these people were in the 51% that voted for Bush. Boy, are they going to be mad when they find out Bush was the Republican candidate!