Yes, I was quite curious as well what progress she was citing and the story fails to mention anything specific. Of course, this is because there is no progress to cite but don't tell that to whoever coughed up the headline. Afghanistan has drifted for years and now we have a resurgent Taliban, increased poppy production, dropping investments and a government who stands idle while a journalist is found guilty of downloading a report on women's rights. No wonder they can't cite a damned thing.
Quack, quack, quack. That said, the Washington Post does a fine job of quoting the always popular John Bolton *and* Ed Gillespie just so we can have both sides of the debate. Nice work, fellows! They even manage to quote one person in the the region who complains about American isolationism. So after seven years of expensive overseas failure and a crashing economy at home, is it OK to just leave such a remark out there without question? It's more a sign of well-founded concern at home and frustration with Bush-specific failures and less a sign of any long term trend. Why has the Post become so lousy?
Yesterday I resolved to stop reading stupid WaPo op-eds. That lasted about eight hours, thanks to the . . . let's just say "inimitable" . . . Richard Cohen. He starts out with a huge lie, saying that John Edwards fibbed about the cost of his haircut (whaaa???), which is particularly ironic because the rest of the column is about the problem of lies in politics. It looks like he just threw it in there to have another Democrat along with the subsequent list of (real, actual) Republican lies, which then segues to an entire column about how one Obama misstatement has basically ruined Obama for him. Richard Cohen is very disappointed in you, Barack! Even though it doesn't always bother him when politicians lie. But this time it really did. Following so far? More fun after the jump.
The real entertainment is the following: after describing Obama's statement that there are more young black men in prison than in college as incorrect (which it is [UPDATE: apparently the statement would be true stated either as 1. All black men or 2. All young black men in prison *and on parole or probation*]), he says this: "Ought to be true is not the same as true." Ought? Ought?? This ought to be true? Either Cohen doesn't know what "ought" means, or he has some profoundly weird ideas about what the state of the world should be.
And lest you think this is a rhetorical goof, he follows it up with a truly wankerrific list of further "oughts" -- "After all, it ought to be true that Saddam Hussein had weapons of mass destruction. It ought to be true that he had ties with Osama bin Laden. It ought to be true that aluminum tubes were intended for a nuclear weapons program, and it ought to be true, really, that none of this mattered since what mattered most of all was a larger truth: Hussein had to go and the Middle East had to be urban-renewed for the sake of democracy." Richard Cohen is obviously a very serious person. "Urban-renewed," that's what we're doing in the Middle East. Uh huh.
The finishing touch is when he says that John McCain lies, but that's okay because Cohen knows McCain's character and McCain has a lot of experience. I kid you not -- lying is okay if you have experience and good character, according to the piece. But Obama doesn't have any experience and so his lies mean he's a bad person. Or something.
And just so you know, Richard Cohen is a journalism professor at Columbia. Good times!
Just when my stomach was recovering from the last Bush "legacy" article (note the theme) the Post churns out their own legacy story. This time, we are to believe that Bush really cares about global warming. Moreover, he "bristles" when he hears that people like us think he doesn't care. Riiiigggghhhtttt. Because he has been such a leader in this area, I suppose. He likes to talk so much about action, how about a bit of serious action on climate change?
The only people enthusiastic about Bush's "new" position on global warming has been the media and possibly his mother. Maybe Laura. He has made no serious changes at all and continues to only give lip service to the issue. So what if he said in Bali he would start to negotiate on a plan? Big deal since he will be gone before the deal is even close to being finished. Bush still refuses to accept any firm numbers and did what he does with everything difficult, which is to push it out to the next president. Only fools like the Washington Post could eat this up. And to think that they are losing money and readers. Gosh, go figure. After the jump, more talk of legacy and the WaPo eats it up with a spoon.
Bush's attention comes at a time when he and top advisers feel better about his presidency, confident they have turned a corner after two years of political setbacks and can now focus on reformulating his legacy. Heading into his final year, Bush has turned to big, bracing challenges abroad, most notably finding Middle East peace and forging a consensus on climate change. If global warming turns out to be a defining issue of this generation, advisers said, Bush does not want to be remembered as a roadblock.
"As you draw toward the end of an eight-year term, it's human nature to try to look forward and then backward -- look into the future and then back at the past and think about how it looks," said a former Bush adviser who spoke on the condition of anonymity. "You could conclude, as this administration has, that you want to be seen ultimately as having evolved and opened some doors and maybe started a glide path to the next administration."
Ahhh, the good old legacy. A legacy of trashing the environment for years and then talk of change at the end, but without any real change. Only the new Washington Post could fall for such silly nonsense. Bush wants to have it both ways and the friendly scribes from the Post comply. Would a junior high reporter even fall for this?
When the management team at the Post scratch their heads and wonder why their numbers are collapsing, they ought to be looking at boot-licking articles like this. If Bush wants to work on his legacy, fine, that's his business. There's no need to confuse a real story with an image makeover by political consultants. That's what this article is all about.
This is fun on several levels. First, there is a major cat fight brewing among former Bush speech writers. Several of them are trashing Michael Gerson, who is now a columnist for the Washington Post. It's pretty ugly. But the Washington Post can't get its own columnist, Michael Gerson, to respond to the criticism:
In a review of Gerson's new book, "Heroic Conservatism," Frum offers several examples of what he terms the author's self-aggrandizement, saying that Gerson inflated his role in the development of the president's AIDS initiative in Africa and in writing a potential concession speech for George W. Bush on Election Day 2000.
Gerson, now a Washington Post columnist and fellow at the Council on Foreign Relations, did not respond to requests for comment.
Maybe the Washington Post can pay him to write a column about the mess.
Yes, Ramesh Ponnuru should be writing for the Reverend Moon's right wing rag, but no, the Washington Post apparently needs his voice. So, the author of "The Party of Death: The Democrats, the Media, the Courts, and the Disregard for Human Life" is now a columnist for the Washington Post, which links to his bio at the National Review Online (another appropriate forum for Ramesh). His Post gig is called "Right Matters" -- apparently he can explain from that bully pulpit why Democrats are killers as the title of his book implies. Think Progress reports Ponnuru will be leading a "discussion group" on morality. Huh.
It seems the Washington Post violated its own style guide by repeatedly using the word "homosexual" as a noun in yesterday's editorial. My original post on this issue is here. And more on the larger issue from GLAAD.
The Washington Post, today, in a lead editorial laments the sharp rightward turn the Supreme Court has taken this term. This, after the Washington Post endorsed the confirmations of both Sameul Alito and John Roberts. The Post now says that the court's "nudge to the right" is "unsurprising and disappointing." Hmmm. If it's unsurprising, then it means the Post expected this from Alito and Roberts. And if they expected this, endorsed the two men anyway, and now are lamenting that Alito and Roberts did exactly what the Post expected, then they're either hypocrites or fools. And the Post's editorial page editor, Fred Hiatt, is no fool.
Which brings us to George Bush, the Republicans and the American people.
The American people are upset that George Bush has bankrupted the country and gotten us stuck in the quagmire that is Iraq. But 51% of the country (or so) voted for Bush, two times. If the first time they didn't know what they were getting, or the election was stolen, they certainly knew the second time. People surely have the right to be disappointed, but surprised by what Bush has done to America? What has he done in his second term that wasn't consistent with his first? And consider Bush's first election - what part of "tax cuts for the rich = massive budget deficit" didn't the Bush-voters understand from past experience with Ronald Reagan's bleeding-red rein in the 1980s? Bush and the Republicans said they were going to cut taxes, and they did. The Democrats said that the deficit would again soar, and it did. Disappointed? Sure. But surprised?
The Republicans definitely stand for something - the same thing they've stood for for decades, regardless of the changing world around them: lower taxes (soaring deficits); strong defense (lots of failed wars); and family values (bashing gays, women, Latinos, blacks, Muslims, and abortion). Now that the GOP has again busted the budget, gotten us into two failed wars with a third on the way, and handed social policy over to bigots like Jerry Falwell, Pat Robertson, and the men at the Concerned Women for America, the Washington Post and 51% of America have the right - the duty, I'd argue - to be not just disappointed, but mad as hell. And they should direct that anger at the people who got us into this mess in the first place: the Washington Post and 51% of the American people.
A rather odd editorial in today's Washington Post criticizing Russian President Putin. Yes, Putin has been rather belligerent of late, but the Post editorial reads like it was penned by an adolescent who was just told he had to be home by midnight. The editorial - clearly written by Post neo-con Fred Hiatt - isn't a criticism of Russia's lurch back towards dictatorship, rather, it's a criticism of Russia saying mean things about democracy. And democracy, fair lady that she is, apparently can't hold up to criticism.
Per the Post:
IN THE PAST few days, the anti-Western rhetoric of Russian President Vladimir Putin, which had been rising in pitch for several months, has reached Soviet levels of shrillness. He accused the United States of "imperialism" and "diktat" and threatened to target Europe with new Russian weapons. In an interview with foreign journalists, he cynically mocked Western democracy, saying that U.S. "torture, homelessness, [and] Guantanamo" and Europe's "harsh treatment of demonstrators" have left him as the only "absolute and pure democrat" in the world.
Talk about shrill.
Yeah, okay, the threat against Europe was a bit over the top, but it's not as if we haven't issued our own military challenge to Russia in their own backyard (Eastern European missile shield, anyone?). As for the rest of the what Putin said, save his comment about being a "democrat" (meaning, pro-democracy), what exactly did Putin get wrong? That our foreign policy under Bush and the Republicans isn't a tad imperialistic? That we don't expect the world to shut up and do what we say? (Hell, that's the way Bush and the GOP treat domestic dissent as well.) That torture, homelessness and the ongoing abuse that is Gitmo isn't a mockery of our very democracy? Sure is, and it doesn't take a former communist spy leader to see it.
Yes, what bothers Fred Hiatt about Putin's comments aren't the actual substance of the comments, it's the very fact that Putin would dare to say anything at all critical of the good 'ole U S of A. Putin dared to "mock Western democracy," you see. And everyone knows that the first rule of a democracy is "please don't speak your mind," and its corollary, don't ever ever ever criticize the government.
So it's no longer okay in civilized, democratic societies to mock our own government, our politicians, even our system of governance? Then what exactly are our soldiers dying for in Iraq anyway, Mr. Hiatt, if not the very freedoms that you and the Bush administration seem to have such increasing contempt for? (Let alone the irony of a newspaperman criticizing someone's opinion not on the basis of that opinion, but on the very fact that they had the audacity to issue an opinion at all.)
Democracy is more than a bumper sticker, Mr. Hiatt. At some point, you and the other neo-cons running the Republican party need to come to terms with your obvious dissatisfaction at being forced to live in in a country whose founding principles so offend you.
Washington Post editorial page editor Fred Hiatt has done it again. He continues to publish editorials that directly contradict articles in his own paper. Well, let me be more clear - he continues to publish editorials that are patently false as shown by articles in his own paper.
He did it again yesterday in his attack on Nancy Pelosi. You see, Hiatt is a big Bush-lover. He loves the war. Can't get enough of it. And no one had better dare stand in Bush's, or Hiatt's way. So he publishes editorial after editorial outright lying about what's going on in foreign policy in an effort to trick the American people into supporting George Bush.
It's yellow journalism at its finest. Don't rely on my word for it. Just read the rest of the Washington Post. This isn't the first time Hiatt has been contradicted by his own newspaper on the SAME DAY he's published one of his erroneous, partisan editorials. It's not even the second time. This is what this guy does. He just makes stuff up.
I hate putting this important a story up on a Saturday night, but I'm not gonna be scooped on this baby. Check out this Associated Press story from a few days back that nobody seemed to notice. It looks to me like Harry Reid is getting ready to sue the AP and their former ace reporter John Solomon.From the AP:
Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid has hired Los Angeles celebrity attorney Martin Singer for legal work.
Singer is among Hollywood's most sought-after litigators and has represented Governor Schwarzenegger, Britney Spears and Bruce Willis, among others. His specialties include libel, copyright and privacy law.
Reid paid Singer $25,000 from his senatorial campaign account on December 14th, according to his most recent Federal Election Commission report.
Reid's spokesman, Jon Summers, said Singer was hired to help Reid respond to a story by The Associated Press that was critical of a Las Vegas land deal involving the senator. He said Reid got approval from the Senate Ethics Committee for the expenditure.
Here's an article about attorney Singer: "Raging Bulls: When It's Time for the Gloves to Come Off, These Attack Dogs of L.A. Law Get the Call." A snippet of the article:
When things go bad for a client--and we're talking off the cliff--the respectable barrister known for his or her brilliant transactional mind, hail-fellow connections and Ivy League charm may have to bring in a different type of attorney. One whose job is to dive into the gutter of a litigious, capitalistic society and win at all costs. In other words, a specialist: one of the pit bulls of L.A. law....
What these lawyers possess is the proven ability to go all the way, to a jury trial if necessary, and play by whatever rules are laid down to save their client's freedom or fortune in a civil or criminal matter. On the other hand, when one of them makes a phone call or sends a demand letter, arguments are often settled quickly ... and quietly.
"Marty Singer is a very nice man who loves his family," says Priscilla Presley of her own personal pit bull. "But if he thinks someone has done me harm, he is a stealth rottweiler."
