alternative hippopotamus

Did I ever mention that Tracy A. Henke is a cynical hack?

Like today when she defended a proposal to reduce Homeland Security for DC and New York:

Washington and New York will receive 40 percent less in urban grant money compared to last year, with Washington dropping from $77 million to $46 million and New York falling from $207 million to $124 million, DHS officials said. The combined total means that the two areas bear almost the entire brunt of a $120 million cut in the overall budget for the program, the statistics show.

Here’s Henke’s explanation:

“We have to understand that there is risk throughout the nation,” Henke said, adding later: “We worked very hard to make sure that there was fairness in the process.”

Henke is all about fairness. She’s so fair she even “fixed” racial profiling. (see this SourceWatch article for more details)

Yes, I suppose that quantum mechanically speaking it’s possible that terrorists are going to attack Manhattan, Kansas. The probability, however, is vanishingly small. The likelihood that something will happen in Manhattan, NY (not to mention, here in DC) is disproportionally larger, and that’s the threat that needs to be taken care of.

I tend to believe that the real issue has little to do with fairness, and a great deal to do with rewarding, for example, Pat Roberts, who’s done a heckuva job supporting Bush over the last year.

(credit where it’s due.)

Speaking of Jonah Goldberg, have I ever mentioned that he’s a cynical hack?

Like when he says, referring to DNC Chair Dean’s criticism of the Anti-Gay Marriage amendment as bigotry:

Whatever his true beliefs are, it’s pretty clear to me that the thing he’s most outraged about is that Republicans have been more successful at “shameful and reprehensible” politics than he’s trying to be.

Yeah, I’m sure Dean wishes he could be as mean-spirited as Jonah is.

I saw the first half of the Frontline piece “The Age of AIDS” tonight, and thought it was very well done.

I tend to be a critic of PBS, not, obviously for their best moments, and this was one of those, but for their gradual decent into Fox News territory. Literally, you now get the same folks on PBS that you see on Fox, including the staff of NRO, and unapologetic neocons like Charles Krauthammer.

But, again, this first half of “The Age of AIDS” was very well done, documenting the clash between politics and science that, in the case of the AIDS virus, has literally killed millions. (I’m trying to find an authoritative source, a CNN article uses this statistic: “Nearly 19 million have died from AIDS, 3.8 million of them children under the age of 15.”)

The Orlando Sentinel’s review is worth reading. The usual false balance bit is kept to a minimum. ( “In the United States, officials at the Centers for Disease Control complained that budget cuts limited their work. Margaret Heckler, Ronald Reagan’s secretary of health and human services, disagrees. “This was not a problem that money could solve,” she says. “It was a problem for scientists to solve.”)

The second half of “The Age Of AIDS” will be shown tomorrow night on PBS.

Update: the companion website to the Frontline episodes is a class act. Again, one of the best examples of multimedia truth telling.

• Orwell, turning in his grave, insists that 1984 was intended as a work of fiction. (Independent UK):
  

  The range of VNR is wide. Among items provided by the Bush administration to news stations was one in which an Iraqi-American in Kansas City was seen saying “Thank you Bush. Thank you USA” in response to the 2003 fall of Baghdad. The footage was actually produced by the State Department, one of 20 federal agencies that have produced and distributed such items.

• And, of course the media outlets not owned by the right are hostile to the left for free: (Huffington Post)
  

  “I’ve gradually come to the realization that the single biggest obstacle facing the left is the pervasiveness of anti-left and pro-right narratives in the media. What’s the point of your message if it’s filtered through a media lens that’s unfavorable to your position? You know, ‘weak’ Dems and ’strong’ Republicans, ‘un-American’ left and ‘patriotic’ right, and so on.”

• ‘Cause, you know, the Bush administration resembles in no way the Politburo under Communism (Factesque):
  

  I marched in a local parade with the voting group to which I belong and got called a Communist and an abettor of “the terrorists” by a fellow member of the group. So that was fun. He’s one of those hysterical Republicans so afraid of the invisible enemies out to destroy “our way of life” that he sees nothing wrong with a return to the Alien and Sedition Acts because, he told me, “desperate times call for desperate measures.” He’s a very original thinker.

• Actually, I prefer the expression “Loud-mouthed Fascist.” (Matt Yglesias):
  

  The phrase “unapologetic liberal” is a very common one in the press when describing, well, liberals. You almost never hear, by contrast, about an “unapologetic conservative.” Instead, you might call someone an “outspoken conservative” or a “conservative stalwart” or what have you.

That is, if MLK were a lefty blogger, how would he deal with the likes of Jonah Goldberg, Michelle Malkin, or Insty Reynolds?

That’s basically how I put it to Art Levine paraphrasing the discussion from Saturday’s post.

We were kicking back at the Chevy Chase Lounge (probably the seediest place in Chevy Chase, but fortunately the weather was decent for sitting outside).

Art’s thought was that he didn’t know what MLK would do specifically, but MLK was a force to be reckoned with. So he may well have found a way to deal with Goldberg, Malkin, Reynolds without attempting to defeat or humiliate them.

It’s hard to say since the landscape has changed since 1968. Imagine for a second that the protest at the University of Alabama happened today. I suspect Gov. Wallace would be on Hannity and Colmes, and Hannity would ask him tough questions like You’re an upstanding American, sir, and I know you are only trying to preserve law and order so the people of Alabama can get a higher education. But, what would you say to the Communists and Hippies who make up the left when they say that using firehoses on the protestors was going too far? Could it be that the Communists and Hippies just don’t like the sight of water? Larry King would have MLK on, at some bringing up rumors of extra-marital affairs. Teh Norbot would bring up hazy irregularities about his PhD thesis.

My guess is they would Swiftboat MLK.

It’s also fair to say that I’m not MLK. My instinct when I see gossip, innuendo, propaganda, and disinformation is to react with a disdain for the untruth tellers. Yes, I want to humilate them. Yes, I want to defeat them. Hey, I gotta be me.

Take Jonah Goldberg. Please. His latest entry into the Big Book of Untruth was something he oozed out onto the pages of the LA Times. I’ll spare you Goldbert’s actual words. Hopefully that will keep your brain from turning into mush. The basic idea was that Gore lied when he said he visited France when he was 15 years old, since he said he was working on the family farm that summer.

Greg Sargent at the American Prospect called up Gore’s people, and they said, emphasizing Gore had verified this: “Mr. Goldberg’s insinuation is simply incorrect. Mr. Gore did indeed spend an educational week in Cannes during the summer when he was fifteen. That summer he also spent a great deal of time working on the family farm.”

A commenter at Ezra Klein’s place finds an account from an anti-hagiography of Gore: “While his father served in Congress, Gore spent most of the year living with his parents in an eight-flooor apartment on Embassy Row’s elegant Fairfax Hotel. He was “finished” by extensive foreign travel. To help their boy learn Spanish, his parents sent him to Mexico one summer. They also shipped him to France and Switzerland to improve his C average in French.”

Ezra also writes: “… I think Jonah’s a good writer, and, when he’s not hacking it up, an interesting and fresh intellect”

Here’s where I disagree: I think misrepresenting the global warming debate, particularly when it’s accompanied by smearing someone’s character, as he does with Gore, is neither an attribute of a good writer or of an interesting and fresh intellect.

Ezra attributes a more pure motive than I would to Goldberg: “… all that happened here was that Jonah heard Gore mention that he spent a summer studying existentialism in France, decided not to believe it, and wrote a newspaper column based on his hunch. That’s it.”

Here’ an alternative hypothesis: what motivates the likes of Goldberg is Cheetos. Handfulls of Cheetos he stuffs in his mouth at right-wing cocktail parties, bags of cheetos he keeps in his desk. Some fathers put food on their family’s table. Jonah puts down Cheetos.

Update: Just caught this on Sadly No!:

To save young wonks like Ezra from wasting their lives responding to Jonah Goldberg, I have made a list of the three best responses to any Jonah Goldberg piece. You can mix’n’match ‘em as you see fit:

1.) “Jonah Goldberg is the stupidest man alive.” (We’ll call this “The DeLong Method.”)

2.) “Jonah Goldberg is a wanker.” (a.k.a., the Atrios Method.)

3.) “Jonah Goldberg spends his weekends watching Xena re-runs while receiving injections of Mountain Dew and Twinkee filling into his buttocks.” (a.k.a., The Remarkably Insensitive and Mean-Spirited Bradrocket Method.)

I was on the Metro last Thursday urgently trying to finish the Express cross-word puzzle (bytheway: I notice they’ve taken Timothy E. Parker’s byline away. The obscure references and arcane hints continue unabated, however.) A couple of students in back of me were prattling on and on about something. So, I decided to eavesdrop.

It turns out they were discussing the principles of non-violent resistance as articulated by Martin Luther King (link: King Encyclopedia). The phrase that caught my attention was:

Nonviolent resistance does not seek to defeat or humiliate the opponent, but to win his friendship and understanding.

I found this to be a very provocative idea. Martin Luther King didn’t say this (at least here), but Respect for the dignity of others is the underlying theme. That’s what I believe in. That’s how life should be.

But then I thought: What about Jonah Goldberg, Michelle Malkin, and Glenn Reynolds and others? Could their “friendship and understanding” be won over?

I believe it could. But, to paraphrase an old joke, the lightbulb has to want to change. From what I’ve seen the lightbulb is content with its current status. Lighted or burned out, as the case may be.

To put it in different terms: some of those on the right who we regularly criticize are not chance pundits giving their own take on life. They have recognized that their mortgages depend on evoking pushbutton arguments over race, wealth, sex, etc. They would argue that the marketplace of ideas validates their view.

Who am I to say they’re wrong?

More to follow, briefly.

Digby’s post on “our” renewed interest in the more prurient aspects of the Clintons’ affairs, reminds me of one of my old pet interests. I have a profound and insatiable interest in The Shooter’s love life. I want to know how often they do it, with who, and, of course, who gets to hold the hunting rifle.

I figure it’s out there, so, like Wilson’s wife, the Cheney’s are fair game.

Speaking of Wilson, I recently ran across this passage from Mrs. Shooter’s 1981 hit porn novel, Sisters:

As Wilson moved toward Sophie, she stood, but the dog growled menacingly, and she dared move no farther. Wilson grabbed her by the shoulders and put his face on her neck, nuzzling her. He mumbled words she couldn’t understand.

He kissed her then, full on the lips as before, and he began to fumble with the buttons on the front of her dress. His breath, the whiskers scratching her face, his filthy hands on her flesh- suddenly it was too much. No matter the consequences, she could not accept this. “No!” she shouted, breaking away from him and lunging for the door.

One wonders who Wilson was based on. Someone with a drinking problem, who’s violent and mumbles incoherently. I’m just not sure who.

From today’s White House Briefing:

“Q. Did you often see him with the actual newspaper column — actual physical columns from the newspaper?

“A. Yes, he often will cut out from a newspaper an article using a little pen knife that he has and put it on the edge of his desk or put it in his desk and then pull it out and look at it, think about it. That will often happen. . . .

“Q. How long does the Vice-President keep the columns that he cuts out with a pen knife and puts on the corner of his desk?

“A. Sometimes a long time.”

That’s going to be a scene from my upcoming movie: Silence of the “Big Time” Lambs.

I don’t care much for Slate’s John Dickerson. I’ve never met him, though it’s a small town, and chances are good I’ll run into him at some point.

I’m just saying there’s nothing about him personally that I object to.

It’s just that he has this back-handed style I find a bit passive-agressive. Like when he quotes Arianna Huffington praising Gore: “”When people are exposed to the new Gore—authentic, funny, self-deprecating—you can almost feel their relief and surprise as they suddenly come to face to face with what a real leader could be.” He then follows it up with: (Slate)

This has got to be stirring for a guy who was essentially laughed out of town after losing the 2000 election.

Not only is that nasty, it’s not accurate. Maybe Dickerson, and a clutch of like-minded cynical jerkoffs laughed at Gore post-election, most of us saw it more like the forces of darkness chalking up a major victory against the will of the people. Most of us saw that Bush was a pretender to the most powerful single position in the world. He hadn’t earned it. He was a drunk turned pretend-Christian-cowboy in an Armani suit.

Apparently, Dickerson didn’t notice much about the anti-Constitutional fraud that the Bush/Cheney/Rove/Baker machine had just perpetrated. He was too busy laughing at Gore.

I’ll also note that Dickerson appears to like the canard about lefty bloggers, shrilly Dean-screaming across the internets. To whit:

The problem is that the activists and bloggers most approving of Gore’s “authenticity” also seem the least likely to allow any deviation from their definition of it.

So, Mr. Dickerson (you have no idea how tempting it is to mistype his last name), when you go to work for Slate do they give you a book of cliches to quote from (Gore’s a loser, lefties are shrill, etc.)? Or is that just you.

Update: KCinDC reminds me that Bush is the authentic one. As if I needed any proof, here’s teh Norbot:

During a discussion about potential 2008 presidential candidates, O’Donnell said, “I think one of the most important things … is authenticity.” She then attributed the unsuccessful 2004 presidential campaign of Sen. John F. Kerry (D-MA) to a lack of it. O’Donnell continued, “And as much as people may disagree with President Bush about the war, many other things, what he does have, to some degree, is authenticity.”

Congratulations on your choice of a BushCo Fantasyland cruise.

First stop is Delusions of Grandeur Plaza. Stop, and sip the koolaide and shake your heads over Google’s crusade against your friends’ conservative blogs:

After sending the Google Help Desk a query concerning the matter, Salvato was informed that there had been complaints of “hate speech” at his website, and as a result, The New Media Journal would no longer be part of Google News. As evidence of his offense, the Google Team supplied Salvato with links to three recent op-eds published by his contributing writers, all coincidentally about radical Islam and its relation to terrorism.

Unfortunately, this was not the first conservative e-zine to be terminated in such a fashion. On March 29, Rusty Shackleford, owner of The Jawa Report, received a similar e-mail message as Salvato informing him that: “Upon recent review, we’ve found that your site contains hate speech, and we will no longer be including it in Google News.” For those unfamiliar, The Jawa Report focuses a great deal of attention on terrorist issues and how they relate to radical Islam.

The Jawa Report explains: “The reason the right gets this treatment may be because some have a talent for/habit of running to mommy when they don’t get their way. There just are not many of those folks on the right.”

Of course, it also may have something to do with your tendency to war monger.

Next up is the Hyperspace Wombat Zoological Park. Don’t feed the animals if they’re foaming at the mouth, kids:

Centrally controlling wages for every possible occupation is a breathtakingly ambitious project but would be mandatory for guest workers under the S. 2611.

Oh, no! Another experimental statistician is trying to vault the boarder fence. Stop him or he’ll become part of the Big Government conspiracy!

Our final stop before we return to the hotel is a lazy stroll down Random Expostulation Boulevard:

“[O]n behalf of all the cooks and chefs in our country, I have to say you’re running it the way a chef would run the country, and we’re proud of you.”

By “we” I guess he means the voices in his head.