Filed under: Author - didionsmommy,Economics,Politics | Tags: Bill Moyers, Car Czar, Dick Cheney, Frontline, Philippe Sands
Often when I am putting together a post, I have much more source material than I can use, and if you read my posts, you know how link-heavy they are anyway. Shudder to think how much more stuff I could throw your way. On Monday, I wrote a post about Eric Holder, Obama’s nominee for attorney general. Of course any talk of the AG’s office over the last decade has to include a hat tip to torture, which is a sickening and shameful fact. If you are interested in learning more about how the Bush White House so easily engineered a rationalization of torture and other inhumane and degrading treatment of prisoners, I strongly recommend the following (which are available for online viewing):
- Bill Moyers’ Journal: Moyers interviews Philippe Sands on his book Torture Team: Rumsfeld’s Memo and the Betrayal of American Values. Sands provides the timeline and players that authorized harsh interrogation techniques.
- Frontline: Only Frontline is more obsessed than I am with the Sith Lord who is Dick Cheney. Three episodes should scare the bejeesus out of you: The Dark Side, Cheney’s Law, The Torture Question.
I was planning on tackling the $15 billion bridge loan to the auto industry in today’s post, but as soon as I heard calls for establishment of a “car czar,” my mood became extremely prickly. I dare Washington to prove me wrong: Anytime a “czar” is named, we can pretty much guarantee hilarity will ensue. By “hilarity” I mean “inefficiency” … “ineffectiveness” … “inanity” … “insanity” … “inanity insanity” …
As Ames says, “‘Czar’: When you care enough to invent a title.”
By the way, BUSH (!!!) will get to name this new czar (insert “WTF” here) …
I’ll have some thoughts on the auto industry stuff later this week. I assume my mood will improve by then.
Filed under: Author - ACG,Politics | Tags: Election 2008, John McCain, Political symbols, Spin
Although both issues are moot, yesterday there were two big stories on two of Election 2008′s biggest non-candidate “characters,” Joe the Plumber & the Reverend Jeremiah Wright. First, ABC played the ad that the McCain camp prepared, but never aired, indicting Barack Obama for his connection with Jeremiah Wright:
I’m unsure of the damage this could have done. The punchline (“…when no-one else is watching”) is powerful, and the dichotomy would have appealed to those already in the tank for McCain. How far it would have gone beyond that, though, I don’t know: apart from its obvious nastiness, which would have repulsed more than a few voters, there’s a degree to which Reverend Wright has been misquoted. Of course, in post-Rove’s Law America, that may not have mattered. But for the full context…
For God’s sake, in the now-famous quote, the man was speaking in the prospective! Read in context, the quote would be, “[Should America oppress African-Americans again, as it did in the 1800s, n]ot God bless America, God damn America!” As I was told by my volunteer host on the night of November 3rd, to those who knew Reverend Wright (as she did), the notion that he was somehow unpatriotic was shocking. A little angry, yes: but given the circumstances through which he’d lived (she went on), this much was understandable. America never heard the full truth on Reverend Wright, and maybe she never will.
——
Moving on, Glenn Beck (a truly reprehensible human being) interviewed Joe the Plumber, who had some harsh words for John McCain, though not as harsh as the Huffington Post would have you believe, and glowing praise for Sarah Palin:
And I asked him pretty direct questions [on the bailout] and some of the answers you guys are going to receive, you know, they appalled me, absolutely. You know, I was angry. In fact, I wanted to get off the bus after I talked to him [. . . . .]
Sarah Palin’s absolutely the real deal. You know, I only got to spend a short amount of time with her but, you know, it was been asked if I felt any presence when I was with John McCain or Barack Obama. You know, with Sarah Palin, I don’t want to say I felt a presence but she definitely had energy
No surprise there. Joe’s parroting Mark Levin & Rush Limbaugh, which is exactly what I expected him to do. The notion that Joe was ever some “regular guy” representing “average America,” a key insight into the mind of the swing voter, continues to boggle my mind. He may be middle-class white male America, but that’s all, and that – at least alone – is not America any more. I won’t miss Joe. Unfortunately, I don’t think I’ll have to miss his icon, Sarah the Hockey-Mom.
