alternative hippopotamus

The Queen of All Xenophobia critiques this WaPo piece, alleging that, to call a spade a spade, Bush supporters on average don’t like African Americans.

Given that her career is based on targeting the racial biases of Bush supporters, and reassuring them that they’re the normal ones, this kind of piece predictably drove her supporters even further into the fantasy bubble they’ve constructed.

For instance, Malkin quotes this Malkinite (tellingly, Malkin doesn’t use this part of the post on her own page, but a less scardinato section right before):

If black leaders — such as Harry Belafonte, Cynthia McKinney, Jesse Jackson, Al Sharpton, and Barak Obama — to the enthusisatic applause and cheering of ordinary, middle-class blacks, routinely show rampant and hysterical intolerance of anyone to their right; if they prattle incessantly about racial preferences and “reparations” for slavery; if bad employees who happen to be black constantly threaten an EEOC lawsuit whenever a company tries to let them go — is it really a racist reaction for someone to have a hard time associating various “positive concepts” with blacks, given the recent history?

It’s like showing pictures of Arab faces to Israeli Jews and concluding that the latter must be racially prejudiced, because they have a hard time associating “positive concepts” with Achmed, Ramzi, and Mohammed.

But if such wariness is a rational response, then this study shows only that districts that produce more Bush voters are likewise more rational; while districts that produce more Democratic voters are more likely to be living in a fantasy of cultural relativism, where every culture is equally good, and we cannot in fact even judge them except by their own terms.

I say “diversity”, you say “cultural relativism”, let’s call the whole thing off.

Good morning, shrill, America-hating youngsters. It is I, Pavlov Chien.

While the Hippo has left instructions for me to post in support of the Fitzpatrick amendment, I have a conflict of interest.

In the hope that this site could generate a few America-loving cash dinars, I’ve been hard at work lobbying clients from my former place of business, the Neoconservative Environmental Institute. Finally, when I was at the point where another caviar and champagne luncheon would make me toss my Armanis, I landed our (really my) first sponsor.

They’re the good people at Islamic Jihad Electronic Warfare and Voting, International. Their product, the Black Box 2006 is the ultimate advance in Securanomics. That’s the scientific theory that the less transparent a government is, the more likely that the government will maximize corporate profits. Those profits will then be used to improve the working of government. After all, champagne and caviar luncheons don’t come cheap.

Think of Securanomics as trickle-down privacy. Secrecy at the military-industrial complex level of society- that’s the highest, trickles down as lower taxes for the very wealthy. This then trickles down as privacy for the upper middle class. As far as we can see, everyone else receives no benefit. But, that is completely unimportant.

The recent AP-Ipsos Poll should have all Americans concerned: (MSNBC)

WASHINGTON - In an ominous election-year sign for Republicans, Americans are leaning sharply toward giving Democrats control of Congress, an AP-Ipsos poll finds. Democrats are favored 49 percent to 36 percent.

We, and the good people at Islamic Jihad Electronic Warfare and Voting, International, take this as a warning that state-of-the-art non-verifiable voting needs to be rolled out as soon as possible.

I couldn’t agree with Jane more:

I got a sense in reading the comments that some seismic shift was happening, that people finally realized that enough was enough. Something had to be done, someone had to start agitating for change and it wasn’t going to come from within the Democratic establishment.

Something is different today from yesterday. We’re all a bit more engaged in the process than we were 24 hours before.

I’ve had that perception a couple of times in the last five years. The first was when Howard Dean decided to run for president, while making it clear that he was opposed to the war in Iraq. I think that changed the debate. Suddenly, it was okay to say something that might not poll well, but put a voice to what a lot of us were thinking. The second was as I marched in the protest on September 24 last fall. In both situations, the conventional wisdom was set aside for a less conventional take on reality. We live in a country where we all have a voice in establishing the rules under which we’re governed.

When we stop paying attention, the country stops becoming a government by the people, and instead becomes a government that favors the favored.

When we pay attention, it’s brilliant.

I haven’t seen much discussion of this Scott Ritter speech at the California Democratic Executive Board Meeting. It’s a good heads up, for those of us wondering what the next step is going to be vis-a-vis Iran: (Seeing the Forest)

Have we learned anything since invading Iraq? Did we learn anything from the Downing Street Memos? The Bush administration has sold American public on the idea of regime change, but they have no evidence to back up their conduct. Whenever anybody stood up to talk about WMD in Iraq they were really talking about regime change. The same thing is happening in Iran. What anyone who talks about WMD in Iran they are really talking about regime change. This is the policy of the Bush administration; regime change.

Familiarize yourself with The National Security Strategy of the United States of America. In a nutshell, it says we can invade unilaterally and militarily with no regard to any other country in the world. They are dead serious about implementing a policy of regime change in Iran. Only one thing can stop a war with Iran. If you get a Congress that does not rubber stamp another war. I voted for George Bush in 2000. I’m telling you right now I will do anything I can in California or anywhere else to help Democrats take back Congress. Unless we have a Congress that respects the Constitution and the balance of power between the Executive and the Legislative branch there is no hope at all.

There’s some points where I fundamentally disagree with Ritter. For instance, the old saw about Democrats being weak on national security. But that’s another discussion.

Jim’s latest tickled my funny bone. I’m referring of course to his page A6 oped Why Bloggers Make Me Wet My Pants.

Charged, hyperbolic, subjective language has always made me giggle. Take this, for instance:

These activists — spearheaded by battle-ready bloggers and making their influence felt through relentless e-mail campaigns — have denounced what they regard as a flaccid Democratic response to the Supreme Court fight, President Bush’s upcoming State of the Union address and the Iraq war. In every case, they have portrayed party leaders as gutless sellouts.

On the “flaccid Democratic reponse” line, I was waiting to see if he’d work in a Boehner pun. Gotta love the opeds.

Oh, wait. That wasn’t an oped. That was in the “news” section. Strange, that. I distinctly remember Ombduslican Howell saying that Froomkin’s “White House Briefing” was an opinion piece, and should be labelled as such.

Ah, here we go:

Political reporters at The Post don’t like WPNI columnist Dan Froomkin’s “White House Briefing,” which is highly opinionated and liberal. They’re afraid that some readers think that Froomkin is a Post White House reporter.

I think it’s great that Jim is stepping out with the old VandeHei wit. But, if he wants to do opinion stuff, then that’s the page where it should go. Maybe he could do a column called “Stuff My Wife Told Me After Getting Off the Phone With Karl.”

I’ve seen some analysis concerning Ann Coulter’s recent death threats. After some thought, I realized I needed to defend her remarks.

As commenters on the HuffPo thread pointed out, this is Ann’s way of getting attention. It’s kind of like the kid in first grade who would eat paste just to draw a crowd. Even if people said that it was gross and disgusting, they would still sit there and watch, so there was no way I was going to stop. I mean, that kid who ate paste in first grade.

Now, imagine if talk shows would book you to eat paste. Bill O’Reilly would say that the problem is the Democrats who want to ban paste eating in our public schools. Sean Hannity would say that the way you eat paste inspires him, and Colmes would, according to script, agree.

Then you could grow rich writing books like: “How to Eat Paste in Front of a Liberal, If You Must.”

Before you know it, you’d be making a lot of cash. Unlike the Hippies you so despise, working for minimum wage in coffee shops, you’d be hobnobbing with intellectual elites like Jonah Goldberg or Michelle Malkin. Just for eating paste.

Some of you may point out that making death threats to a Supreme Court judge is more serious than eating paste. Fair enough. Now that I think about it, poisoning a judge is like a class AA felony, while eating paste is relatively harmless.

So, that was probably a bad analogy.

As I’ve pointed out in the past, I happened to go to school with Ann. She’s not a pleasant person. In fact, there’s a story that all the trees on the Cornell campus were destroyed by Dutch Elm disease. Not so. The truth is that that’s the reaction that Ann produces in all organic matter. I hear that botanical gardens across the country pay Ann hundreds of thousands of dollars, on the condition she stays away. What I’m saying is that she’s got two things going for her: 1.) she’s nasty, and 2.) she’s vicious.

Yet, I too, want to become rich and famous. And if I can do that by making outrageous remarks, so be it. The problem is that I would prefer to stop short of actually issuing fatwas. It’s just my style.

So, here’s the best I’ve come up with so far: “Someone should put creme brulee in Ann Coulter’s poison.”

Yeah, I know, it needs some work.

David Corn is mostly correct when he says:

Here’s the problem for the Democrats: they so botched the hearings–getting stuck in legal reeds rather than defining the Alito debate in broad, stark and dramatic terms that might resonate with the public beyond those already following the hearings–that they did not lay a foundation for an effective filibuster. There is substantive reason and justification for a filibuster–no lawmaker is compelled to vote for a justice whom he or she believes will undo important rights and make the nation worse off–but the political contours of the Alito nomination render such an effort mostly moot.

When I say “mostly correct,” I mean in the political calculation he’s right. But in the noetic sense, where real-world events are informed by principle he’s dead wrong.

After Alito was nominated I did my homework, and really believed that barring a compromising photograph of Alito with a lhassa apso, there was no way to stop his nomination. In the conventional sense, Alito is qualified to be a judge. Not my kind of guy, but clearly the kind of guy that plays in Missoula.

Over the last few weeks I’ve come to see what the implications of the Theory of the Unitary Executive are. If the spectacle of a potential fillibuster can bring a little light to what this means, then so much the better. Which is why I support what Kerry and Kennedy are doing, despite the political calculation.

The least surprising implication of the Unitary Executive is that it would make impeachment of a sitting president impossible. How, after all, could an act be considered a “High Crime and Misdemeanor” if the act is subject to the interpretation of the perpetrator of that act? The reason I say this shouldn’t be surprising, is that the notion of the Unitary Executive was created in the wake of Watergate so that Watergate would never be repeated. Nixon’s crimes could be repeated, but not the investigation of those crimes.

It’s not escaped many of us that the “War on Terrorism” has been defined in such a way as to make it a permanent war. If, as folks like Alberto Gonzales maintain, the President has sweeping “Commander-in-Chief” powers for the duration of this so-called “War” this turns the notion of a Democratic Republic into a Republican Democracy.

I’m afraid that what we have to look forward to is the conspiracy of Executive powers with one-party rule. Unfortunately, the Constitution does not begin with “We the Republican Party.”

I haven’t seen anyone advance this theory, so I’d like to lob it out there.

It occurred to me while reading Varied Rationales Muddle Issue of NSA Eavesdropping by Dan Eggen and Walter Pincus.

The article referenced the behavior of various Bush defenders of warrantless surveillance of US citizens. Eggen/Pincus observes that the Bushies are united only in terms of defending El Arbusto. As far as why they’re defending him, different reasons are given, some better than others. For instance, when one official said that Saddam Hussein had eaten his homework, I started to lose patience.

Here’s where we come to my theory. Why all the hemming and hawing and shrugging of shoulders from Bush defenders? Because Bush didn’t think he’d get caught. The program was classified, just 8 members of Congress were briefed, and at the time the Bushies owned controlling shares in Radio Silence, Inc. Also, because Bush has an inflated sense of self-worth and an exaggerated view of his own capabilities

Now, I’m pretty sure that Bush believes in the Imperial Presidency. He looks at himself in the mirror and sees Augustus W. Bush. But he also knows that doesn’t play well in Mizoola. With the cloak of national security, he can be reasonably sure he’s not going to get a lot of criticism, because the only people who know about it, work for him.