Sunday July 9th, 2006

Where's Waldoladen?
One report says the CIA unit searching for Bin Laden has been disbanded. Allegedly, officials said he's not the threat he used to be. Boy, and here I thought the reason he was being sought was to assist police in their efforts to catch the perpetrators of 9/11. But then in an interview, when asked, George Bush said no, that's not true, we're still looking for him. Of course El Presidente didn't say it was that specific CIA unit looking for him... Conspiracy Eyebrow-Raise: maybe they caught him a while ago, and are just holding him until it's politically useful to reveal it.

Ann: Steal MY Columns, Please!
Holy cow. Here I am, trying to pay attention to this punditry, and I miss something HUGE. Bigger than North Korea. Bigger than Iraq. Bigger, even, than 9/11. Ann Coulter is a plagiarist! There's no ifs and or buts about it. Do a google on Ann Coulter Plagiarism (here, I'll do it for you: Ann Coulter Plagiarism) and you'll see. This has been going on for a while! I am seriously dismayed.

Dismayed because I didn't see it sooner. Dismayed because this could spell the end of one the biggest clowns in punditry alive today. Dismayed because that's all the leftist pundits will talk about when she gets dropped from syndication. Or when she deigns to speak of it on Fox. Oh, she'll blow it off, since who cares about facts and figures, it's her rhetoric that makes Ann Ann. I agree with that. Political truth notwithstanding, the reason why Ann is so soulless is because of the WAY she says things. The smugness, the sarcasm, the supercilious superiority. Accidental alliteration aside, the only way Ann will react, if she does at all, will be dismiss the accusations as being "irrelevant." The same why all of the neo-cons dismiss actual, genuine, irrefutable facts.

So, once again, punditry itself will be in the spotlight. Maybe she's doing this on purpose. Maybe Rush's wang and Ann's thievery are part of a plot to distract liberals from paying more attention to George's war, to Tom Delay's fall, to Ken Lay's convenient death. Way to go, Ann! Take one for the team! What ever you do, go out with a bang! I am saddened, though, genuinely.

Ah well, we still have Sean Hannity.

Sean Hannity?
I'm new to this, and one of the joys of being new is getting to say for the first time things that other people have said already, and often. But for me it's fresh. I've heard this name, Sean Hannity, spat like poison. I quickly gleaned that he was of the same ilk as Ann Coulter and Rush Limbaugh (And Bill O'Reilly and Michael Savage, somewhat). Today I finally looked him up in Wikipedia. Oh, THAT guy. I recognized his face.

I'd seen a clip that someone was passing around, from his show. He was interviewing some kid who's website declared that American soldiers where overpaid and that it was a victory every time one of them was killed. Now, don't get me wrong, I do NOT agree with this kid at all. I don't think the soldiers are overpaid, and I am not in the least pleased when they are killed in the line of duty. I think blaming soldiers for the war in Iraq is like blaming the baby that resulted from his mother's rape.

But Sean Hannity was participating in nothing more than bear-baiting with this kid. He plucks this obscure no name from the fringe, sticks a camera in his face, and then barfs chauvinistic rhetoric, interrupting the guy before he can get three words out at a time. He actually said, at one point "do you realize these people are defending your right to say these terrible things?" As if that's the issue at all, as if no one should practice free speech if it's going to be about free speech... Sean Hannity probably even thinks he's a patriot for saying this. I say he's a bully.

Seems to me, that's the fundamental difference between the left and the right. Stereotypically, the left practice their freedoms in an effort to persuade government to make life better for all. The right just offer up freedoms as bait to lure people into justifying government fascism. Just my opinion.

Susan, Dudley.
Can't help it, with the names. Susan Dudley is head of The Mercatus Center, an ultraconservative think tank that has received funds from such illustrious mom n' pop shops as Exxon. Bush is about to appoint her as head of the Office of Information and Regulatory Affairs (OIRA). This is the regulatory body which oversees all of the other regulatory bodies, such as the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA). SD has been called an anti-regulation zealot, which is nice and ironic, since she will be able to regulate-away the EPA's regulations. Are you following me here? SD and the MC are opposed to regulation in general (laissez faire is French for "soot breathes fine); they say regulation is a "hidden tax," because, you know, regulation makes business expensive which makes products expensive which means citizens have less money to horde. I'm guessing she'd call "nationwide comprehensive health insurance" a hidden tax too, since we'd spend money to stay healthy instead of using it to buy SUVs and gasoline at 5 bucks a gallon. But, she's going to be the OIRA head, so you can now say goodbye to smog checks on your cars, mountain views on the horizons, but the good news is sunsets are about to get even MORE spectacular. For budding writers in their sophomore years at college: equate these beautiful sunsets with the sun setting on the last vestiges of a healthy, clean America.

Pennsylvania Trying to Get Rid of Their Santorum
Thanks, Dan Savage for making it more fun to write headlines about politicians. Santorum for anyone not talking about politics or Pennsylvania, is: the frothy mix of lube and fecal matter that is sometimes the byproduct of anal sex. For those talking about politics and or Pennsylvania, Santorum is something much more odious (zing! thankyew.) Rick, which may be short for Richard, which can be shortened to Dick, so let's call him Dicky S, is losing in the polls in his re-elections bid for senator from Pennsylvania. This is big. His Dickiness is an avowed right-wing freedom hater, hatin' on them dad-blasted homos and their gay unions ruinifyin' the sank-titty of mahrrage! He's trying to stir things up over there with some mud-slinging campaigning, and what's great is, since he can't sling it at his opponent (Bob Casey), so he has to pick on "liberals in general" and (get this!) Ted Kennedy in particular. Remember, kids, when you get people talking, they get to reading, and when people read, they vote Democrat. This'll be good. Dems only need to take back 6 seats in the Senate to grab the majority!

Lieberman for President?
Not yet, but someday I bet. I mean, he already tried to make VP with Gore. And thanks to Quayle, we stupid Americans know that there is such an office, and that it is superfluous. And thanks to Cheney, we know that this superfluous office can be a powerful position for the man behind the curtain. So we know that Lieberman, at least, considers himself presidential material. And in his debate with Lamont last week, with whom he vies for the democratic nomination to run for a senate seat from Connecticut, the incumbent Liberman came across all right-wingish. So, what do you call a right-wing democrat? A moderate? And what do moderates do? They appeal to people who don't consider themselves too far on the left or too far on the right, maybe? If a republican's ire is up over the right-wing lies, well, he feels better voting for a rightish dem. I mean, I'll rant about ideologues and their narrow mindedness, but I think there's a better chance of a righty picking a dem over a lefty picking a ‘publican.

Anyhoo, I think Lieberman is positioning himself to be the one that red states can stomach long enough to kick the Halliburton robots out of the oval office. Maybe not in 2008 (we'll have to see if Howard Dean goes for it) but for sure by 2012. Mark my words (yeah, like this damned blog will be around that long).