Gone to Croatan

PUMA?

2008-06-20T12:08:00.001-07:00

Given this --

-- they really should have called this group COUGAR -- Clinton Orbiters United to Gratuitously Attach to Republicans.

A McCain-Clinton ticket?

2008-03-20T09:44:00.000-07:00

Diabolical, shudder-inducing thought of the day: If John McCain really wants to be president, once Hillary is finally eliminated from the Dem race, he should offer Clinton his VP slot.

From a general-election standpoint, this would virtually guarantee McCain a win. Sure, it would further depress GOP base turnout -- but it would entirely negate Obama's bipartisan/independent/bring-the-country-together-schtick appeal, would peel off most "Reagan Democrats" from Obama, and would induce a fatal swoon in the media to coronate McCain as the Ultimate Straight-Shootin'est Mavericky Independent of All Time. And the race thing? Fatal. Combine all that with the general populations familiarity and comfort with McCain and Clinton (in increasingly troubled times, low-info voters go with the familiar over the risky), the general election ~~wouldn't be a Reagan-Mondale blowout, but it'd~~ would be a rock-solid 56%-44% (now that I look the numbers up, Reagan:Mondale::58.8%:40.4%; that's ballpark) with a Reagan-Mondale Electoral College blowout.

Furthermore, beyond the bipartisan appeal, Clinton and McCain complement one another in ways that any other GOP candidate wouldn't with McCain. Clinton and McCain also respect and like each other as colleagues and individuals. And there's about a centimeter separating them on foreign policy.

Clinton's been laying enough tile in McCain's kitchen (and echoing McCain's criticisms of Obama, and vice versa) that she could entirely credibly accept McCain's offer. And yes, I've phrased that in such a way as to imply that maybe there's been some sort of intent behind her nice-making with McCain; it wouldn't surprise me in the least if there had been exploratory discussions between the two camps.

And while a certain segment of the GOP base would see such a move as a betrayal, I think McCain could successfully pivot this off of the aborted Kerry-McCain-ticket talks in '04 as McCain turning the tables and "topping"/co-opting the Dems.

As for governance ... yes, a McCain-Clinton administration would be an unmitigated disaster -- the absolute worst aspects of Bush-Cheney, but taken to even more ridiculous extremes.

Clinton would surely think that she could Cheney her way into power (which is the biggest reason I think she'd actually accept the offer); while McCain surely thinks he could control her. It would be Bush's militarism, secrecy, and dim-witted ignorance plus Bill Clinton's triangulation/DLC centrism, paternalism, unmanaged staff infighting, and lack of focus married to overly broad ambitions.

But I really don't see a realistic scenario where a McCain-Clinton ticket would lose to Obama-anyone.

Is she a monster, or a mummy?

2008-03-12T10:33:00.000-07:00

Huh. Well, this:

On Friday, one of Barack Obama's foreign policy advisors, Samantha Power, resigned after calling Senator Clinton "a monster" during an off-the-record exchange. It was an unfortunate slip, but one that echoed the sentiments of many Clinton apologists like me -- who've watched Hillary's descent into pettiness and fear-mongering with the heartbreak of a child who grows up to realize that his beloved mother has been a terrible person all along.

... would certainly explain this.

God to Candidate Huckabee:

2008-03-05T05:38:00.000-08:00

In His Almighty Wisdom, the Lord Our God and Savior has declared Mike Huckabee Unworthy of being the President of the United States at this Time. No one knows better than former candidate Huckabee that his failing in the presidential race was indeed "inevitable" in the eyes of Divine Providence. "Providence," as Mark Twain wrote, "don't fire no blank cartridges."

(A side note: I hope that the spelling of the word "heckuva" in the linked news story was cribbed from a Huckabee campaign missive, rather than being a CNN reporter's choice. If not, I feel it should be general policy to depict the candidates' speech in dialect writing.)

Wow. Fuck YOU, Matt Gonzalez.

2008-02-28T11:09:00.001-08:00

Erstwhile crunchy-left darling Matt Gonzalez will run as Nader's VP candidate. Confirmed by the SF Chron.

Matt just flushed his SF political career down the toilet.

This signals the "real" historical end of the Bush Presidency

2008-02-14T15:49:00.000-08:00

Fourth mass school shooting in a week?

If the ("real" historical) paranoiacs are taking up arms, we must be under a Democratic reign.

A terrorist named "Imad"?

2008-02-13T12:35:00.000-08:00

This is certainly a candidate for the late Herb Caen's 'namephreak' roster.

Oh. My. God.

2008-02-10T21:50:00.001-08:00

So, I'm merrily whiling away the day between risings of bread, checking for updates at TPM of Obama's weekend-long explosion and McCain's weekend-long implosion -- especially as regards the WA State GOP shenanigans in declaring the WA GOP caucus for McCain ... with a 1.8% lead and only 87% of precincts counted.

Ennyhoo, reading TPM's item about that last detail, and WA GOP Chair/Cornfed Idiot Luke Esser's role in the decision, Josh Marshall helpfully directs us to the WA GOP's homepage.

Yes, right there at the top is the estimable Mr. Esser. Uh-huh. Well, let's see what other fine folk heel the wards for the Grand Old Party in the Evergreen State ... scrolling down ... scrolling down -- um.

Dear reader, please visit that page, and scroll down to take a gander at Jeff Kent.

Why does that picture make me think of this?

I know, I know, I've let my license to operate a perv detector lapse in the Continental US. I shouldn't even think such thoughts.

But ... he was a member of the Young Republicans.

And he, um, is the, um, owner of, um ... um ... Interlube International, Inc.?

Not to get all FOX News about Hillary, but ...

2008-02-10T12:29:00.000-08:00

As the argument went against Kerry in '04 -- and against the Dem candidates last year, in boycotting the FOX-sponsored debate -- "If they can't handle FOX News, how are they going to defend us against Al Qaeda?"

Likewise, if Hillary -- especially with her massive institutional advantage, huge initial funding advantage, and all of politicking to a friendly field of primary voters -- can't stomp Obama like a bug, how in the heck is she going to defend herself against the GOP-media attack machine in the fall?

One of the primary (if often, in the MSM, anyway, sub rosa) arguments in favor of Hillary as the Dem candidate is that she's the Machiavellian streetfighter, the candidate most willing to get her hands dirty (and/or delegate others to get their hands dirty on her behalf) in fighting fire with fire against the Rove machine.

And, to be sure, she, Bill, and their whole team have been more than willing to fight dirty in the primary cycle.

But it's not working.

Which means, potentially, two not-incompatible things: 1. That sort of shit doesn't work anymore (doubtful, but possible). 2. Team Clinton just isn't very good at doing it effectively.

If Hillary Clinton isn't "inevitable" ...

2008-02-04T12:11:00.000-08:00

... does that mean that she's Evitable?

Race Invaders

2008-01-31T19:19:00.000-08:00

This analysis is exACTly the kind of thing we have come to expect from Danes like The Confidence Man.

As a born-and-bred jit, let me say that I'm sensitive to the Canadian invasion of the South. They're playing hockey in Raleigh, North Carolina, for Fred Douglass's sake!

And one final note for all you Uruguayans out there: If you can't stack a jury with foreigners in Texas, you can't do it anywhere.

Gone to Canaan

2008-01-31T10:14:00.000-08:00

Apparently, "Canadian" is the new "nigger" in au courant American South/Appalachian Scotch-Irish heritage circles.

While the "real" Canadian experts interviewed by the National Post seem genuinely confoozalated by this novel (?) usage, anyone with an iota of knowledge of American history should be able to suss it out. What Peculiar Institution played a significant role in the economic and social history of the South? And what direction did certain folks have to go to escape the PI? And if you go far enough north from the South, where do you end up (especially if certain states in the American North weren't exactly hospitable to sub rosa immigration)?

Where, in fact, did many folks specifically seek to go?

Remember, these are the same crackers for whom "New Yorker" has a clear racial/cultural/religious connotation.

(Via Andrew Sullivan.)

"this election will be decided not by one family"

2008-01-28T11:13:00.000-08:00

Yeeeeeeeesh. Now this is gall on a Rovean scale.

TPMElectionCentral has the Clinton campaign's talking points in response to Ted Kennedy's endorsement of Obama.

One of those talking points:

Regardless of which Kennedy supports which candidate, we are aware that ultimately this election will be decided not by one family but by the voters themselves.

Kee-riminy. I presume the irony -- and the gall -- in the Clintons' camp making this particular statement (and, yes, I have placed that apostrophe precisely where it belongs) is self-evident.

Clinton's FL & MI gambit: an opportunity for Obama

2008-01-25T17:05:00.000-08:00

I have to say, Hillary Clinton's sleazy attempt to revalidate the Florida and Michigan Democratic Primary Delegates is a brilliant bit of electioneering:
- In what looks to remain a close race up until the convention, every delegate counts
- By taking this action, she once again puts Obama's team on the whining defensive (in terms of public/media perception)
- It also reinforces the optic that Obama isn't willing to fight (Josh Marshall's "bitchslap theory of politics," whereby Dems appear weak when they are attacked by the GOP and they respond not by directly fighting back, but by complaining about the unfairness of the attack)
- While Clinton is taking somewhat of a primary risk, and somewhat less of a general election risk, that she "turns off" people from her candidacy and the Dem ticket and voting in general, those risks, I think, are fairly small in that this is but one datum in a long primary campaign, and is (a) likely to be long forgotten, especially by November, and (b) not really likely to ultimately depress Dem turnout or drive many Dems from voting for her
- Even if this action does depress turnout or voting in the primaries, such turnout is likely to redound to Clinton's favor, as this amounts to a Rovean exploitation of the splitting of the (primary) electorate into a base (working-class white Dems) and an opposition; the opposition (college-educated and black Dems) is (a) unlikely to vote for Hillary anyway, and (b) likelier to be more "engaged" and informed, and therefore likelier to read enough about this action to in fact be turned off by the "dirty pool" aspect of it
- Finally, by defending the principle of re-enfranchisement of FL and MI Dem primary voters, she puts Obama in the position not only of "defending disenfranchisement," but of defending nitpicky/parsing/inside-baseball/ward-heeler/DNC old politics rules

The solution, and opportunity, here for Obama is obvious: he should magnanimously agree with Clinton, assert that, yes, every Democrat's vote should count -- and that he would welcome the seating and counting of the FL and MI delegates at the convention.

Ultimately, it seems, from some preliminary analysis, that FL and MI might not provide enough of a bump to put Hillary over the top, anyway -- especially if Edwards continues to hang in the race as a spoiler/kingmaker.

But aside from the delegate mechanics of conceding on principle, Obama would clearly and massively "win" the optics battle. It would reinforce his overall "new politics" messaging, it would solidify his support among those "turned off" by Hillary's move in the first place (including not only registered Dems, but also independents likely to vote in open Dem primaries and independents and registered Republiocans likely to vote in the general), and it would nullify his current problematic weak/whining positioning.

Shut the fuck up, Bill

2008-01-23T19:45:00.000-08:00

Contrary to the emerging consensus, I think that Bill Clinton, as a candidate's spouse and as a former POTUS and as a de facto Democratic Party figurehead, is entirely within his rights to speak out in defense of his wife's campaign, and to attack her opponents.

Politics, as the saying goes, ain't beanbag; and the Dems need to be ready and willing to engage in a lot of ugly, bareknuckled fighting to roll back the Rove-Bush-Cheney advances.

However ...

Where the hell has this red-faced, angry, combative Bill Clinton been for the last eight years?

Did Bill get angry and demand that wrongs be righted after the Florida miscount? After Bush v. Gore? After Bush, Cheney, and Rice blew off his concerns about terrorism for 8 months? After Bush's unpreparedness for, inadequate and incomplete response to, and unconscionable exploitation of 9/11? After the unfair media and GOP attacks on Al Gore, Howard Dean, and John Kerry? After Katrina? Plame? The US Attorneys? The "lost" emails? The countless other mistakes and malfeasances of the Bush administration?

Sorry, Bill -- by remaining silent in the face of so many grave catastrophes, you forfeited your right to attack Obama. You forfeited your right to be taken seriously as someone concerned about defending the principles of the Democratic Party -- or of the Constitution, for that matter. You, more than anyone on the entire planet (with perhaps the exception of Colin Powell, who's beholden to neither the Democratic Party nor Hillary Clinton) acquiesced in the American disaster that is the Bush administration by your silence. By your lack of outrage. You could have spoken when it mattered. But you didn't.

And now, by speaking out against Obama, you implicitly argue that he is a greater threat to the Republic and the Democratic Party than anything or anyone over the last 8 years.

So shut the fuck up, Bill.

Col. Addington, in the EOVP, with the lead pipe ...

2007-12-20T16:37:00.001-08:00

David Kurtz at TPM deduces, from this AP article quasi-exonerating Abu Gonzales in the CIA torture tape destruction, that "Cheney's Cheney's Cheney" Addington is likely the onliest culpable subject left in the decision tree.

Now, of course any real intel/foreign-policy decision in the Bush Admin is ultimately going to leave a slime trail leading back to Cheney's office.

That said, it still seems clear to the Confidence Man that our earlier speculation regarding the proximate motivation for destroying the torture tapes was, as we say, right on the squirrel: to wit, that Cheney/Addington/Libby determined that the tapes should be destroyed only when it seemed as if Pat Fitzgerald might (advertently or not) have been close to discovering the tapes during his prosecution of Libby.

(We might speculate further that the tapes themselves could likely include visual evidence of Cheney, Addington, and/or Bush actually being present for some of the interrogations. But that would be irresponsible.)

The CIA torture tapes and the Libby prosecution

2007-12-11T10:15:00.000-08:00

Reading today's NYT account of CIA counsel's apparent advance approval of the destruction of the CIA torture tapes, I was struck by the timing of the decision.

The tapes were apparently destroyed in November 2005.

Now, as the Confidence Man wades through this vale of tears, looking backward becomes more and more problematic. But it seems as if I recall some sort of legal-political firestorm around that time, and that it centered on tacit Executive-level approval of the dissemination of classified CIA information. Hmmm ... what was going on then ... then ... then ... then ... < cue wavy flashback effect >

Uh, this was going on then.

That's right: Scooter was indicted in October 2005; the CIA (and, likely, folks in the Exective Branch) decided it should obnstruct justice and destroy evidence immediately thereafter.

It's. All. About. Protecting. Cheney.

(And, to a lesser degree, Chimpy McFlightsuit.)

Did Rudy Giuliani just out himself to Tim Russert?

2007-12-10T09:45:00.000-08:00

Via Andrew Sullivan, the clip of 9iul1an1 on MTP yesterday:

Now, everyone seems to be focusing on 9iul1an1's nervous, giggling meltdown and his inability to parry Russert's flaccid thrusts. And that's all to the good.

But I want to focus on something strange.

At the 3:45 mark, Russert starts in on a recitation of Huckabee's anti-Teh Gay bona fides, and tries to box 9iul1an1 into alienating Teh Base by defending his Sodomitic Heritage as a Rootless Cosmopolitan.

9iul1an1 responds by being fair to the Huckster and refusing to take the bait. He then makes an odd parsing of Catholic dogma regarding ass-fucking and segues clumsily into the "hate the sin, not the sinner" shibboleth -- and he does specifically invoke "sin": "It's the acts -- it's the various acts that people perform that are sinful, not the orientation that they have."

Then, as Russert tries to move on, 9iul1an1 can't leave well enough alone, and cuts Russert off: "Which includes me, by the way."

To be sure, he then stammers, continues, and tries to contextualize his odd (and oddly insistent -- Russert clearly didn't get what he was aiming for, and was trying to move on) segue: "Unfortunately, I've had my own sins that I've had to confess and deal with and try to overcome. And so, I'm very very empathatic with people. We're all imperfect human beings, struggling to try to be better."

9iul1an1 trying to "do" humility is itself a transparent charade (and also, in this context, a weird decision itself, as he's clearly trying to squeeze in between the aw-Hucks man-o'-Gawditude and the clumsy-Mitted deployment of vague theologisms). Perhaps his handlers were insistent in the Green Room that 9iul1an1 had to thread the needle this way.

But the manner of 9iul1an1's compulsion to cut Russert off, and to go for the confessional gesture immediately after condemning ass-fucking as a sin, strikes me as a Freudian "tell."

What's more, any Fundie watching that exchange would (even if he knew about 9iul1an1's serial adultery) take it the same way (without the Freud, of course). Here's the sequence: 9iul1an1 deploys the "hate the sin, not the sinner" trope; then he specifically condemns ass-fucking (and its constellation of perversions) as a sin; then, when Father Confessor Tim is clearly done with him and implicitly granting absolution, 9iul1an1 insists that he himself is of that same category of sinner.

This sequence is identical to the prominent Protestant pervert's public confession -- Haggard, Foley, et al. Any religious cultural literate watching 9iul1an1 there will know that he's not confessing to adultery -- he's confessing to sodomy.

Now, that sodomy doesn't necessarily have to be same-gender. But, since 9iul1an1 is being so insistent about it, shouldn't he be asked?

AP sacrifices stylebook on the altar of expediency (and/or reactionary politics)

2007-10-12T12:08:00.000-07:00

According to the AP's own Stylebook (scroll 2/3 of the way down to "I sometimes read in the newspaper"), shouldn't the object of the headline in this story be "gunyouth"?

Al Gore should now run for ...

2007-10-12T09:55:00.000-07:00

Al Gore should now run for ...

... vice president.

Think about it.

With his secular canonization this morning capping off his 7-year public reinvention, Gore is virtually untouchable in the public arena right now.

Yes, he could leverage that into a run at the top spot.

However, being this late to the Party presents a host of difficulties, not least of which would be a disastrous lag in fundraising and committed donors, bundlers, and ”backers.” There’s also the issue that virtually all of the prominent experienced Dem campaign operatives are committed to Clinton, Obama, or Edwards.

Who, exactly, would primarily fund a Gore campaign? Yes, he’d instantly command a surge of small-donor contributions – but that surge wouldn’t be sustainable, unless he has a Deane/DNC-esque database that he’s kept under wraps (a possibility which, of course, isn’t out of the question). He might get some sympathy/consolation cash from the big donors, but they’d all be loath to alienate their primary dance partners.

And who, exactly, would run a Gore campaign? While there’s certainly the snark factor that, given the relative incompetence and feebleness of the contemporary Dem consultancy, having them all committed to working for one’s opponents could be seen as a boon more than as a hindrance, there’s the more immediate practical effect of not having any ground operations in place, let alone national organization for media and messaging. (The tighter clustering of primaries this cycle could potentially mitigate this factor, or could make it all the more crucial. It certainly reduces the chance of picking up the team of an also-ran who quits early in the sequence—in past years, post-Iowa or –New Hampshire.)

Add to the practical challenges the fact that Gore has repeatedly insisted that he’s sick and tired of the dumbing-down and ameliorism necessary to head a national ticket, as well as the practical and ideological concessions and deal-making incumbent on the top of the ticket, and it’s hard to see how running for president in this cycle has any practical or personal appeal to Gore.

But if he were to conduct a sub rosa campaign for the second slot …

Look: none of the current Dem candidates have any value whatsoever as a second banana. All of their value is tied up in their personalities and framing, which would be for all practical purposes eliminated in the second slot. Not to mention the fact that none of the Dems would provide any crossover or appreciable Red-state appeal as the #2. And there really aren’t any other prominent or likely Dems with established national presence who would.

Gore, on the other hand, would be massively valuable as a Dem VP candidate. As the down-ticket option, he’d be freed up to deliver red meat to the Dem base (I guess the more apposite metaphor would be “tofu”), to pitch his messaging as noble and highfalutin’ (or, for that matter, as dirty and street-fightin’) as he wants, and to address his own signature concerns (environment, science/technology, sensible defense) without watering them down. And he’d bring instant cache, credibility, and celebrity that no one else can.

What’s more, in a post-Cheney/Addington administrative political environment (and with burgeoning Dem majorities in Congress), Gore could have an entirely unfettered hand as a sitting VP to definitively act on those signature concerns in ways he never could have in the ’90s. Just as on the campaign trail, in office as vice president he’d be able to narrow his focus – and act and speak as a more direct partisan – in ways that he couldn’t as president.

The way I see it, Gore for the second slot – under any of the first- or second-tier Dem candidates – would be a win-win-win-win situation: for Gore himself, for the Party, for the nation, and for the world.

Expanding the inquiry

2006-10-02T13:31:00.000-07:00

Josh Marshall wants to know how GOP Reps are expressing loyalty (or the lack thereof) to Denny Hastert with regard to Hastert's dissembling on Chickenhawk-gate.

You know which particular GOP Rep the Confidence Man would like to see a statement from? David Dreier.

Chickenhawk-gate

2006-10-02T11:06:00.000-07:00

Three quick thoughts on the continually exploding Mark Foley scandal:

1. Democrats *must* capitalize on this. One suggestion: start using this eponymous epithet to slur both Foley *and* the GOP leadership as cowardly perverts. One thing the Dems should *not* do is listen to Andrew Sullivan or any other prominent gay pundits/activists; if the Dems tread cautiously and don't run to the GOP's right on this issue because of identity politics and political correctness, the party doesn't deserve to return to power. Foley's sin, obviously, was *not* being gay, but abusing his position of authority and trust -- which is precisely the larger sin of the GOP in the Bush Era. And at the root of this sin is cowardice -- cowardice to live up to the standards of one's own rhetoric, cowardice to honor the principals of American liberty, cowardice to be honest, cowardice to ask for genuine sacrifice in the interests of liberty. The contemporary GOP has more convictions than courage.

2. Current big-picture speculation on the fallout from Chickenhawk-gate is focusing on the GOP House leadership, especially Denny Hastert. But let's rack-pull back to the two-shot: who *really* controls the GOP Congress? Karl Rove. Hastert and Frist don't pee with their pj's on fire without Unka Karl poking their prostates. It's utterly implausible that Karl Rove was *not* aware of the entirety of the Foley situation. Recall that Rep Rodney Alexander's first alarum call was sent to the NRCC -- which is responsible not for managing the House majority, but for electorally ensuring the continuity of the current majority. No one told Rove? Bullshit.

3. So, Karl, how's that "30-year majority" plan turning out? The Confidence Man has long suspected that Karl's Grand Plan was an all-in bluff. The crazy-quilt GOP constituency was bound to blow up at some point in the near-to-medium-term; if it wasn't Chickenhawk-gate (which will finally drive a significant chunk of the evangelicals out of the tent), it would have been something else.

"Mojo. The president used to have it in spades."

2006-04-28T10:45:00.000-07:00

Hunh. Well that's an interesting claim.

I didn't think Bush had ever polled especially well with African Americans.

Just following orders

2006-04-06T16:09:00.000-07:00

Is it any coincidence that this is revealed on the same day that this is discovered?

Throw ... GEORGE Under the Bus?

2006-02-22T12:03:00.000-08:00

The Confidence Man has been watching the UAE-port-management scandal fairly closely.

And most inexplicable dimension to the scandal has been the apparent utterly potically tone-deaf response by the administration.

Now, W. digging in his heels and insisting that as God's Handmaiden, his choices are not to be first-guessed, let alone second guessed -- that's nothing out of the ordinary.

Likewise, to make hollow veto threats -- SOP for W.

But to totally not get the symbolism of the issue, and the mechanics of the political perceptions on the ground -- that's a shocker for the Rove machine.

The strategic answer at which the Confidence Man arrives is this: Rove has decided that it's time to throw W. under the bus.

With his approval numbers pretty much permanently stuck below 40% now (the only thing that would bump them up at this point, frankly, would be another Reichstag Fire, and that's a huge-risk/high-reward proposition) and his having radioactive coattails for the '06 midterms, W. himself is presenting as the greatest obstacle to Rove's putative 30-year/permanent-GOP-majority plan.

We've always known that Kreepy Unka Dick, as incompetent as he is, has nonetheless been the operatively indispensable element of the administration. Last week's shooting controversy has pretty much demonstrated that Dick runs the show and ain't going anywhere -- and recall that Dick has always been a much more solid chit with the American Taliban crowd than W. himself.

No, it looks to the Confidence Man that Rove has decided to get rid of W. -- not in the sense of actually kicking him out of the WH (although we have to say that it is looking more and more likely that Rove's been the one encouraging the Moonbat WashTimes/Insight impeachment-and-dissension-in-the-WH talk), but in the sense of unhitching the GOP's wagon from him. Rove will have the entire GOP running away from W. by May.

1 + 1 ... + 1

2006-02-17T10:15:00.000-08:00

John Travolta in Blow Out: "And three people makes a conspiracy, right?"

The Confidence Man has of course been following the whoop-de-do over Unka Dick's postshooting interview with Bret Hume, and Dick's minor revelation that he has the power to summarily declassify government secrets.

The invaluable firedoglake has been putting 1 and 1 together with this revelation in light of Sc0ooter Libby's defense filing last week, in which Scooter's mouthpiece suggested that Scooter had been instructed or given permission to leak certain previously classified facts in the overall effort to discredit Plame and Wilson.

Now, here's where the third 1 comes into play: If, as we can clearly surmise from Dick's revelation and Scooter's allegation, that Dick Cheney himself declassified Plame's NOC status -- and as Patrick Fitzgeral;d has demonstrated in his filings thus far that there was a conspiracy to discredit Plame and Wilson -- then doesn't that detail itself definitively make Dick Cheney part of the conspiracy?

Reality Is Unconstitutional

2006-02-07T09:38:00.000-08:00

The Confidence Man has been closely following the FISA-bility flap regarding the illegality of Bush's domestic wiretaps.

We were intrigued this morning to read Josh Marshall pointing to a potential Constitutional defense of Bush's actions: to wit, that if in fact wiretapping/surveillance powers are vested in the Presidency, then FISA itself may be Unconstitutional per se -- Congress illegitimately constraining the power of the President.

An interesting theory.

But it doesn't go far enough.

The Confidence Man would submit that REALITY ITSELF is inherently Unconstitutional. The President -- this President, in particular -- should be able to flap his wings and FLY should he so desire. Gravity and wind resistance -- and the entire theoretical apparatus that underlies these heretical obloquys -- represent not merely a sop to Our Enemies, but an encroachment onto the powers that rightfully devolve onto the highest office in This Land.

Stop Making Sense

2005-12-28T12:09:00.000-08:00

WARNING: Irresponsible, tin-hat conspiracy theorizing below.

The Confidence Man has long been utterly addlepated by the Cheney Cabal's foreign-policy and homeland-security strategies.

Since their installment by the Scalia Court, the Cheney Cabal has again and again made bafflingly dangerous, destabilizing, and demented decisions on the international stage. Not a single move they have made has made sense from any sort of strategic or security-oriented standpoint.

Not even the "no-blood for-oil" arguments have ever made entirely convincing sense of the Chen ey Cabal's decisions.

But the Confidence Man has a theory -- one that keeps making more and more sense by the day, especially given recent revelations about the Cheney Cabal's domestic spy apparatus.

The Confidence Man has always lain some credence to the supposition that Dick Cheney and/or his lieutenants had some prior knowledge of at least some general aspects of the attacks of 9/11.

We're not claiming that Unka Dick remote-piloted the planes into the WTC and Pentagon. We're not claiming that he bankrolled the hijackers.

But given the copious documentation of the various intel agencies' knowledge of the soldiers on the ground and the chatter, it is apparent that Cheney knew SOMETHING was going down (figuratively speaking, at least) in the summer or fall of 2001.

Here's our theory: Cheney did, in fact, have someone "on the inside" within a cell including or proximate to the 9/11 hijackers. Cheney's agent was NOT one of the hijackers -- but he did go to ground after 9/11. Cheney knew something was coming down the pike, but didn't suspect it would be quite as catastrophic as it turned out. And when it was as bad as we all witnessed -- and Cheney's man on the inside had disappeared -- Cheney panicked.

Cheney did not panic for his fear at the safety of the US -- he panicked at fear for his own neck. Because the man on the inside had the goods on Dick's foreknowledge of 9/11.

The ENTIRE US security apparatus as mobilized post-9/11, then, has been Dick Cheney's desparate attempt to track down this one man. The kidnappings, the extreme rendition, the torture, the wiretapping, all of it.

The Moron War on the War on Christmas

2005-12-28T12:01:00.000-08:00

Upon some further reflection regarding the Feebs-with-Geiger-counters-in-mosques issue we discussed immediately below, we have come to a tentative conclusion.

It is certain, of course, that Karl Rove has a greasy paw in FOX News' ludicrous "War on Christmas" campaign.

But what strikes the Confidence Man is the timing of the hullabaloo this year.

Yes, as some have noted, the Moron War on the War on Christmas, as with other commercial holiday endeavors, creeeps ever earlier year by year.

However, consider that the NYT's revelations of Bush's end-run around FISA for illegal wiretaps AND the FBI-mosque-radiation-monitoring program both came out at the height of the holiday shopping season -- and that, as the NYT and WaPo reported, the Bushists had been trying to suppress the NYT's reporting of said stories for over a year.

Now, numerous commentators in recent weeks have pointed to the essentially anti-Semitic nature of the Moron War on the War on Christmas.

While the Confidence Man agrees in principle with this argument, we are starting to suspect that perhaps there is a more subtle anti-Islamic dynamic at work in the timing of TMWOTWOX and the media.

TMWOTWOX, we suspect, in its more aggressive deployment this year was intended to prepare the ground for the revelations of the wiretapping and monitoring of mosques.

The Jesus Bomb

2005-12-28T11:45:00.000-08:00

The Confidence Man reads with mounting horror and disdain the news that the FBI has been infiltrating mosques and Muslim community centers to monitor for radiation.

Leaving aside the issue that the Bushists have NEVER been serious about controlling nuclear proliferation, cracking down on Pakistan and various rogue international nuclear actors, or securing chemical and nuclear facilities in the US, we wish to conduct a little historical thought experiment.

Recall that, in the 1990s, the US was subject to a rash of terrorist acts perpetrated by, on the main, straight, Christian, Caucasian men: Oklahoma City, the Atlanta Olympic Village bombing, abortion clinic bombings, abortion doctor shootings and harassment, the Unabomber (granted, Ted K. was neither a Christian nor straight per se), the James Byrd and Matthew Shepard lynchings (among others), and Ruby Ridge, Waco, and the Montana Freemen (these three being Federal assaults on terrorist threats as or more genuine than, say Vincent Padilla or the melt-the-Brooklyn-Bridge-with-soldering-irons ding-dongs), as well as various and sundry un- or under-reported incidents.

The country, at the time, was under assault by a loosely aggregated white/Christian-identity network no less organized or well-funded than al Qaeda -- and no less hostile to classic Western Liberal Enlightenment values of liberte, egalite, fraternite, et al.

Imagine, then, the reaction if Clinton and Reno had justifiably decided to infiltrate CHURCHES in the '90s to monitor radiation levels.

When Bush Didn't Lie

2005-12-28T11:40:00.000-08:00

During the 2004 campaign, Bush and his proxies frequently derided Kerry's insistence that countering terrorism was on the main a law-enforcement job.

The Bushists insisted on their mechaphor of the GWOT, casting the fight as a struggle between competing armies, not of civilization vs anarchy.

And, as we're now seeing, the Bushists were being entirely honest (albeit misguided and INSANE) during the campaign.

They never had any intention of pursuing legitimate legal means to estop, prosecute, or otherwise disrupt terrorists -- in America or abroad.

The Wrong Man

2005-12-22T17:37:00.000-08:00

Left Blogistan has been a-buzz today with discussion of Ben Wallace-Wells' WaMo profile of Kos.

While the Confidence Man holds no brief for Kos (truth be told, we generally do find him and his Kossacks too shrill to be productive), we do consider ourselves among the blog triumphalists helping to sweep aside the deadwood of print journalism (if we may be so grandiloquent).

We are also, of course, baseball fans.

And being baseball fan and blog triumphalist alike, we know that when Wallace-Wells deploys Bill James as a conceptual metaphor for Kos's activities, we know that he's utterly wrong.

The operative model is, of course, Oakland's Billy Beane.

And the East Coast Establishment, Ivy League hopeful yearning of Wallace-Wells' invocation of the Red Sox' hiring of James and consequent WS Championship is all washed up. James didn't win the Series -- owner John Henry's money (intelligently spent by Beaneiac more than Jamesian GM Theo Epstein, building on a team framework largely inherited from Epstein's predecessor) won the Series.

And, of course, Beane's most famous comment from Moneyball -- "My shit doesn't work in the playoffs" -- would have been a much more apt anecdote to sum up Kos's political efforts in '02 and '04. To wit, Kos, like Beane, was able to utilize new principles of technology, organization, and data analysis to build a cheap, efficient machine to succeed at the margins where the mainstream market was most inefficient -- but ultimately both keep failing at the final test (playoffs, elections).

Brazile Nuts

2005-12-22T17:03:00.000-08:00

Donna Brazile, she of the flawless Gore '00 campaign, repeatedly has achieved Shrumian levels of competence.

But the Confidence Man had not previously suspected that she might, in fact, be mentally ill.

This NYT article on black leaders' meeting with Bush provides profound evidence that Ms. Brazile may have suffered massive brain trauma.

Regarding her meeting with Bush to discuss Katrina reconstruction efforts, Brazile was quoted as saying:

"'He gave me information. Like I didn't know that prior to Katrina we may have had too many hospital beds instead of enough,' she said. 'He put that information into my head.'"

Um ... so, one of the problems with Katrina rescue-and-cleanup efforts was that there were TOO MANY HOSPITAL BEDS AVAILABLE?

Now, the Confidence Man can JUST imagine the convoluted, tortuous, utterly-divorced-from-reality-and-genuine-economic-scholarship HBS MBA-speak "market dynamics" argument that one of Chimpy's handlers might have given him to parrot regarding this, um ... theory. The fundamental misunderstanding and misapplication of economic principles is at the heart of the Rove-Abramoff-Norquist GOP.

But for Brazile to swallow it AND regurgitate it for the benefit of the press? That presumes a truly Reaganesque level of mental faculties on Brazile's part.

And ... "He put that information into my head."?!? What is she -- a fucking Scientologist? And undiagnosed paranoid schizophrenic? (TomAYto, tomAHto, I know ...) Who talks like that?

That's it. I'm outta here.

2005-12-16T09:46:00.000-08:00

The Confidence Man reads with rising gorge the NYT report on Bush's authorization of the NSA to conduct heretofore-illegal wiretaps on American citizens.

But what really renders us bilious is the revelation, buried deep in the story, that the Times SAT ON THE STORY FOR A YEAR.

1. The NYT is DONE. Finis. Kaput.

2. Hmmm ... what major American political event transpired approximately 1 year ago ... hmmm, our memory seems faulty ... hmmm ... let's see, it's now December 2005, so a year ago would have been ... uh, carry the 10s column, uh ... 200- ... 4? Yes, that's it: 2004. Now, what month immediately precedes December? Nnnn- ... Nnnnov- ... Nnnnnnnovem- ... November? Let's see -- 1 + 1 = ... t- ... tw- ... two!

Alright, we'll say it: the Bush Administration convinced the NYT to not publish this story prior to the 2004 election.

Impeach these pigfuckers. Impeach 'em NOW.

And cancel your NYT sub.

I dunno 'bout you ...

2005-12-15T12:26:00.000-08:00

... but when I hear "Saudia Arabia" and "visa fraud" in close conjunction, I usually think of this ...

Hillbilly Orange Alert

2005-12-01T15:31:00.000-08:00

Well, this certainly can't be comforting news to Jibbenainosay and his fellow denizens of the cane-break. Killer Soviet Squirrels!

Noitacification

2005-11-28T09:45:00.000-08:00

Dept. of Figurative Metaphors Literalizing Themselves: US Supreme Court facade is crumbling.

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20051128/ap_on_go_ot/scotus_cracking_facade;_ylt=AjNewn1Xzu_kued.8AJE6uKs0NUE;_ylu=X3oDMTA3b2NibDltBHNlYwM3MTY-

... one half expects maintenance men to discover a crude graffito scrawled into the niche from whence the rock fell: "NINO WUZ HEER DEC '00" ...

Goose, Gander, etc.

2005-11-22T10:54:00.000-08:00

Now, ordinarily the Confidence Man doesn't much go in for the rhetorical trope of "Bush is a hypocrite for accusing others of what he himself is guilty."

But this one seems too obvious to avoid.

http://sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?file=/news/archive/2005/11/22/national/w071342S29.DTL

"'Dirty Bomb' Suspect Padilla Indicted"

'(11-22) 08:04 PST WASHINGTON, (AP) --

Jose Padilla, a U.S. citizen held for three years as an "enemy combatant" suspected of plotting a "dirty bomb" attack in this country, has been indicted on charges that he conspired to "murder, kidnap and maim" people overseas.'

Um ... 'conspired to "murder, kidnap and maim" people overseas'? That seems like an accurate precis of the activities of the WHIG, OSP, NSA, CIA, Bush, and Kreepy Unka Dick over the last 4 years, don't it?

For Those of You Scoring at Home ...

2005-11-21T12:13:00.000-08:00

Slate's "Explainer" column on Friday dealt with parsing the Woodwardian epithet "senior administration official."

http://www.slate.com/id/2130669/

The Confidence Man has a suggestion--a modified tool to balm Slate's Jack Shafer and other critics of the overuse of "anonymice."

What if an individual news organization were to codify its use of such positional epithets?

For example, the Washington Post could run a box buried deep inside the National or Politics section--and/or, certainly, at the WaPo website, a standalone page--with a list of all of the persons (or, perhaps, positions/offices/departments) fitting under each rubric.

For the first several months of this innovation, the news organization could have an editorial policy of, every first use of an anonymouse, appending a parenthetic: "(see box, page X)" (with a hyperlink on "box" in the online version). Of course, there should also probably be an editor's/publisher's note at the outset of the policy, and thereafter a smaller version accompanying the anonymouse rosters.

After the introductory period, the rosters would stay, but the explanatory note and in-text parenthetics could be deled. (The online versions could, potentially and advisably, retain the hyperlinks to the rosters, perhaps on first use of "anonymous.")

The Dumbino Effect

2005-11-19T06:53:00.000-08:00

http://sportsillustrated.cnn.com/2005/more/11/19/netherlands.dominoes.ap/index.html

Fowl play
Dead bird overshadows domino world record
Posted: Saturday November 19, 2005 12:12AM; Updated: Saturday November 19, 2005 12:12AM

...The sparrow was killed by an exterminator with an air rifle on Monday after it knocked down 23,000 dominoes. The killing was seen by many as an overreaction, and angered animal rights and bird protection groups.

It later emerged that the house sparrow, though common, is classified as an endangered species in the Netherlands.

Good thing it wasn't a child that knocked down the dominoes! I take it this is a metaphor/foreshadowing of animal-human relations after the Great Bird Flu Pandemic? (And speaking of the GBFP, has The Confidence Man come up with a name for this yet-to-be-or-not-to-be phenomenon?)

Sometimes I doubt your commitment to Sparkle Motion

2005-11-18T15:16:00.000-08:00

Well. The supporting players are starting to line themselves up nicely for FITZMAS: THE MOVIE.

The Reprehensible Representative Jean Schmidt (R-Moonbatville, OH) erupted in a tirade against John Murtha on the floor of the House today.

http://firedoglake.blogspot.com/2005/11/jean-full-of-schmidt.html

And thus, we have ourselves another cast member: Donnie Darko's Beth Grant.

http://imdb.com/name/nm0335275/

Dick -- you're FIRED!

2005-11-18T13:50:00.000-08:00

Another casting suggestion for FITZMAS: THE MOVIE.

For Dick Cheney, Ronny Cox.

http://imdb.com/name/nm0001074/

Yes, Ronny's a bit, ahem, undernourished to play Our Pulmonary Veep, but ... well, now that we think of it, Kurtwood Smith has gotten a bit pudgy over the course of his televisual sinecure. Either makes an excellent baddie.

And, if we wanted to go the direction of fat-padding, Gregg Henry would be AMAZING as Cheney. And that'd be a nice follow-up to his tv portrayal of the BTK Killer.

(Speaking of which, does anyone else think that "the BTK Killer" sounds like some weird costumed spokescharacter for the merged entity of KFC and Burger King?)

(And, tangentially speaking of Brian DePalma, our colleague Capt. Simon Suggs -- who shall be Going to Croatan shortly -- points out that the most excellent SF Chronicle headline from yesterday ["Police Search for Gary Glitter in Vietnam"] would, with the addition of two offset commas and one word, be an excellent precis of the entire oeuvre of DePalma: "Police Search for Gary Glitter, Girl, in Vietnam.")

Buffalo Bob

2005-11-17T13:40:00.000-08:00

Here's what's bugging the Confidence Man most about Buffalo Bob Woodward's revelation that he was the first known (nod to Fitz' precise language; tip o' the hat to Keith Olbermann) Plame leakee: given Woodward's demonstrated history of misleading-to-mendacious false trails on Deep Throat (tip o' the hat to Slate's Tim Noah, who has dogged and catalogued Buffalo Bob's spoor trail for several years), why, indeed, should we believe a single word he says regarding the (non-)identity of his current Deep Roy Background source?

The issue is not, as several commentators have put it, that we can't trust Woodward because he's a stooge of the Bush administration; rather, it's that we can't trust Buffalo Bob because he has a clear and demonstrated history of dissembling to his readers and other reporters regarding the identity and nature of his sources. Buffalo Bob's much-ballyhooed recent Larry King "no bombshell" appearance is the latest example.

(Note, dear readers, our thematic linkage of "Buffalo Bob" with both the "Calamity Judy Miller"/"Wild Bill Chalabi" Wild, Wild WMD theme as well as to every Boomer's favorite puppet-on-a-string, Howdy Doody. Question is, who's Clarabelle? Len Downie, or Walter Pincus?)

Best. Headline. Ever.

2005-11-17T11:59:00.000-08:00

"Police Search for Gary Glitter in Vietnam"

http://sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?file=/news/archive/2005/11/17/entertainment/e044525S76.DTL

Deep Roy Background

2005-11-16T11:12:00.000-08:00

Well, with the news that Bob Woodward has been suspenders-deep in Plamegate/Traitorgate/Scootergate/Cheneygate since Day N-1, the Confidence Man thinks we need to do a bit of wish-casting for the eventual Fitzmas movie.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2005/11/16/AR2005111601286_pf.html

Of course, since Woodward has effectively ceded his moral high ground to the Judy Miller "I wasn't a prime move but a patsy" defense, he's pretty much eliminated Redford as a viably heroic redux casting choice.

In fact, Woodward's shamelessly unbelievable charade of naivety -- "Woodward said the unnamed official told him about Plame 'in an offhand, casual manner . . . almost gossip' and that 'I didn't attach any great significance to it.'" -- reminds the Confidence Man of a distinctly different cinematic context. To wit:

"She knows you'd find out who Lisa Hoberman is. You're a good cop. Did she tell you casually and make it seem irrelevant? Did she tell you in bed, Nick? That's what I'd do."

Yes, the Bushists have apparently traded in Ed Neumeier for ... Joe Eszterhas. And Woodward is playing the late-career Michael Douglas emasculated-patsy role.

And we're still convinced of the rightness of Richard Roxburgh as Scooter Libby.

As for Fitz himself, while John Diehl (The Shield's Assistant Chief Gilroy) is a dead ringer, he's probably not charismatic/established enough to carry what must eventually be the lead role. Other bloggers have made the obvious suggestion of George Clooney; the Confidence Man, while a huge Clooney fan, remains unconvinced as yet.

But we have the perfect candidate to play Bob Novak: Deep Roy.

http://imdb.com/name/nm0746989/?fr=c2l0ZT1kZnx0dD0xfGZiPXV8cG49MHxrdz0xfHE9ZGVlcCByb3l8ZnQ9MXxteD0yMHxsbT01MDB8Y289MXxodG1sPTF8bm09MQ__;fc=1;ft=23

Los Alamos

2005-11-15T17:52:00.000-08:00

The Confidence Man thinks back to the provocatively prolix pen-mail (in both senses of "pen") sent by Scooter Libby to Judy Miller en carcel -- the one that concluded, in part, with the following:

"Out West, where you vacation, the aspens will already be turning. They turn in clusters, because their roots connect them."

http://www.editorandpublisher.com/eandp/news/article_display.jsp?vnu_content_id=1001220134

Now, speculation heretofore has focused on the supposed Colorado-Wyoming vacation spots favored by Libby y Miller, and/or the Aspen Institute collocation of the Entangled Two.

But the Confidence Man wonders if, perhaps, given Miller's WMD/nuke-proliferation beat, if "the aspens" might have had some deeper, más siniestro, meaning ... "Los Alamos," anyone?

Rove Back in the Saddle

2005-11-15T17:29:00.000-08:00

There has been much scrivening over Bush's 11/11 "pushback" speech (link below), but no one seems to have pointed to the obvious overall stratagery: yes, Bush's risible and contemptible mendacity is the operational mode, but the main goal of his speech was not so much to "defend" his own decisions or "attack" those of the Dems per se, but to reassign the public face of the Dems away from Pelosi, Reid, and Dean back to Ted Kennedy and John Kerry.

All other effects of this speech are secondary to the reinforcement of "Democrats = Kerry/Kennedy." And that is why the Dems need to continue to "get out in front of" the Iraq-Chalabi-Libby-Cheney-Rove-Abramoff nexus with NON-Kerry/Kennedy speakers.

http://www.whitehouse.gov/news/releases/2005/11/20051111-1.html

We need more of everything!

2005-11-09T05:26:00.000-08:00

The Confidence Man, as a Citizen of Gullivernya, is happy to see that we sided (and voted) with the majority in defeating all 8 CA initiaitives last night -- including Ahnuldt's pet 4 Potemkin Reform measures.

As a member of the Fraterinity of Confidence, of course, we must regard the defeats of the measures (especially Ahnuldt's 4 and BigPharma's illusory scrip drug measure) as a professional defeat.

But sometimes Citizenship must take precedence over Confidence.

We are especially amused (again, as a member of the FoC) by Der Gubernator's reaction to his massive rejection:

"We need more nurses, teachers, firefighters and police officers,'' said the governor, singling out the groups that had targeted him. "We need more affordable housing, more energy and more water. We need more of everything, and I recognize that we also need more bipartisan cooperation. I promise I will deliver that.''

http://sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?file=/c/a/2005/11/09/MNG6IFLAMF1.DTL

"We need more of everything"! Sweat, creamy Jesus! What a perfect precis of Bush-Rove polity.

El diablo que viene

2005-11-08T19:44:00.000-08:00

Hemos recibido noticias de un lector hispanoparlante que el diablo está suelto en los blogs.

No pudieramos estar más de acuerdo con esta declaracion. Jibbenainosay (su abuelo siendo mexicano, norteño de Sonora) seguirá el consejo de nuestro lector, quien nos informe que los blogs en español están muy mal catalogados por Google, con el resultado que el diablo juega con libertad en blogs escritos en Ingles, tomando ventaja de este "loop-hole" elecronica.

A partir de hoy, cuando el diablo nos charla, lo contaremos en español.

Unintelligible Designs

2005-11-06T16:32:00.000-08:00

http://www.cnn.com/2005/EDUCATION/11/04/evolution.kansas.reut/index.html

Kansas evolution vote nears, scientists fight back

Friday, November 4, 2005

...Led by a conservative Christian chairman who says evolutionary theory is incompatible with the biblical account of God's creation of life on earth, the Kansas Board of Education plans to insert questions about the veracity of evolution theory into statewide teaching standards.

Jibbenainosay was hobknobbing with some government-employee acquaintances, who will remain nameless, in our nation's capital this weekend, when this subject came up. The rumor is that Al-Quaeda came up with the term "Intelligent Design" and planted it via a "grassroots" plan in key fundamentalist strategy zones.

Indians in the Lobby

2005-11-02T12:19:00.000-08:00

http://www.cnn.com/2005/POLITICS/11/02/lobbyist.tribes.ap/index.html

Indian leaders testify in lobbyist probe
Tribe chairman: 'They hit the jackpot with us'

Wednesday, November 2, 2005

...In October 2001, the tribe paid Michael Scanlon $870,000 to create a grass-roots political structure in Texas because it was told the state was on the verge of legalizing gambling and that would devastate the Coushatta casino, which relies on customers from Houston, the Senate panel was told....

Now you can hire someone, for less than a million dollars, to create a grass-roots political movement for you! And no one will notice that this is a patently ludicrous thing, because CNN considers it quite normal and not worthy of comment.

The politics of this little article are extraordinary, though. Did the Indians really believe it was going to take grass-roots activism to keep Texas from legalizing gambling? Do they expect us to believe that they're innocent victims for having attempted to buy 80 million dollars worth of political influence?

Then on the other hand: they're a domestic dependent nation. That is, these particular Indians can't be punished for abuses of the U.S. political system, since after all they're technically a nation unto themselves. "The Coushattas hired Abramoff and Scanlon's lobbying services to help thwart the Jena Choctaws, another Louisiana tribe, from opening its own casino." Makes perfect sense, as does this: "The tribe donated $45,000 to DeLay's national political fundraising committee, Americans for a Republican Majority, and another $10,000 to Texans for a Republican Majority, also founded by DeLay and now at the center of the Texas campaign finance investigation involving him." (This story goes some way towards explaining why Republicans in the administration have been such friends to Native nations.)

But the irony for Republicans is that what might well happen here is that the Indians may bring down one of the most racist power structures currently operating in Washington and its omphalos Tom DeLay, while promoting precisely what they lobbied for in the first place: futile debate about gambling in Texas. Jackpot!

W. Wonka's Death Factory!

2005-10-31T20:14:00.000-08:00

Hey, Kids!!!

http://www.cnn.com/2005/LAW/10/31/medical.custody.battle.ap/index.html

One of you youngsters is about to die because the Republican government doesn't believe scientists know more than your parents about your health! Just think, next it could be you.

And remember, if you think this is frightening, you can't just run away--that's what the Amber Alert is for, silly!

Love,
Jibbenainosay

The sKarlett Letter

2005-10-31T16:04:00.000-08:00

The Confidence Man has read the snippets of Pat Fitzgerald's indictment of Scooter Libby.

Along with everyone else, the Confidence Man waits with bated breath for the other shoe to drop on Karl Rove, aka "Official A."

Alas, Turd Blossom, we hardly knew ye: thy new nickname is "Official Asshole."

Denoument (Corrected): Bush/Kinski

2005-10-28T14:17:00.000-07:00

Back in July of this year, we offered our prediction that "the remainder of Bush's term [will] look like the last 20 minutes of GOODFELLAS":

http://croatan.blogspot.com/2005/07/denouement.html

As of today, with the indictment of Scooter "Frankie Carbone" (http://imdb.com/name/nm0803370/) Libby, the 20 minutes have begun.

However, we feel we must revise our denouement prediction: the remainder of Pat Fitzgerald's investigation will look like the last 20 minutes of GOODFELLAS; the remainder of the Bush Administration after *that* will look like the last 2 minutes of AGUIRRE: THE WRATH OF GOD -- George Bush, with a demented gleam in his eye, floating downstream on a raft covered with spider monkeys.

(And, by the way, we're not under any impression that Scooter Libby looks anything like Frank Sivero. In fact, were we casting PLAMEGATE: THE MOVIE, we'd have Richard Roxburgh [http://imdb.com/name/nm0746896/?fr=c2l0ZT1kZnx0dD0xfGZiPXV8cG49MHxrdz0xfHE9cm94YnVyZ2h8ZnQ9MXxteD0yMHxsbT01MDB8Y289MXxodG1sPTF8bm09MQ__;fc=1;ft=21;fm=1] play Scooter.)

Le Canard Maladroit

2005-10-28T10:57:00.000-07:00

The Confidence Man reads yet another of Bush Pere leak-magnet Tom DeFrank's pieces on the spider-monkey-infested raft that is the Bush II White House:

http://www.nydailynews.com/10-28-2005/news/story/359941p-306654c.html

'"He's not a lame duck," one of [Bush's] closest political counselors said yesterday. "He's a clumsy duck. This can still be fixed."'

A "clumsy duck" -- what an evocative, yet metonymically clumsy *itself*, locution.

The Confidence Man is certain it scans much better en Francais: "le canard maladroit."

Note, of course, the alternative reading of the French phrase: the malevolently false and misleading story ("le canard mal") from the Right ("a droit").

Ding ding ding ding! We have a winnah!

The Fiduciary Roots of the Anti-Clinton Industry

2005-10-24T12:37:00.000-07:00

The always reliable and diverting Dan Froomkin notes this morning that another WaPo article on Special Prosecutor Patrick Fitzgerald says that, "In its first 15 months, the investigation cost $723,000, according to the Government Accountability Office."

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/blog/2005/10/24/BL2005102400865_pf.html

Froomkin compares the cost of Fitz' investigation with the ludicrously protracted Henry Cisneros investigation ($3M in the same amount of time; $21M over its 10-year span) and the simply ludicrous Ken Starr investigation ($52M in the same amount of time).

Now, if the Confidence Man recalls correctly, Starr's investigation ended up costing somewhere north of $200M in toto.

And the Confidence Man wonders ... just where did all that money go?

We won't necessarily speculate that Starr threw cash around suborning perjury -- but we will note that all of the principal players in Starr's little crucible were the founders of the VRWC Anti-Clinton Industry. Yes, the Richard Mellon Scaife cash was funding some of the players independent of Starr's pork; but we suspect that much of Starr's spending may well have been seed cash for the Rovean apparatus.

"Vacation," My Foot -- Dan Radosh Is Working for Bush Again

2005-09-14T10:55:00.000-07:00

Via Laura Rozen (oh, how the Confidence Man loves that blogspeak formulation -- it makes it sound as if Laura IM'ed me personally to impart this info), the Confidence Man reads a WaPo article ("U.S. Deploys Slide Show to Press Case Against Iran") describing yet another piece of Bushist PowerPoint agitprop making the diplomatic rounds:

"With an hour-long slide show that blends satellite imagery with disquieting assumptions about Iran's nuclear energy program, Bush administration officials have been trying to convince allies that Tehran is on a fast track toward nuclear weapons."

This development comes suspiciously close on the heels of noted PowerPoint auteur Dan Radosh's recent "vacation."

The Confidence Man has noted previously the alarming coincidence of Radosh's expertise with that of the Bush Administration. And we are still convinced that Karl Rove has noted satirical dystopist Ed Neumeier locked in a White House sub-basement.

Al Gore Is Running for President in 2008

2005-09-09T11:02:00.000-07:00

The Confidence Man reads Garance Franke-Ruta's astute PR thoughts on Katrina here:

http://www.prospect.org/weblog/archives/2005/09/index.html#007640

"[H]ow is anyone going to run for president in '08 without footage of themselves in New Orleans?"

... and when we combine that excellent insight with the "below-the-radar" Al Gore efforts in Louisiana:

http://www.dailykos.com/storyonly/2005/9/5/183618/3893

... we must realize that Gore is targeting another run in '08.

Rove IS a Jerk!

2005-07-14T10:16:00.000-07:00

The Confidence Man has long harbored, shall we say, *suspicions* regarding (as Jibbenainosay would put it) the "heteronormativity" of Karl Rove.

Now, ever since that eruption of Gannon/GuckertGate died down (we understand penicillin helps with that sort of thing), our suspicions had been held in abeyance.

However, when Time's Matt Cooper rolled on Rove last week, our (ahem) radar was set off by this:

'"A short time ago," Mr. Cooper said, "in somewhat
dramatic fashion, I received an express personal
release from my source."'

http://www.nytimes.com/2005/07/11/politics/11time.html?pagewanted=print

And then, just yesterday, David Gergen insisted to the NYT that "Karl is [Bush's] right arm."

http://www.nytimes.com/2005/07/13/politics/13memo.html?pagewanted=print

Um ... "express personal release"? "Karl is [Bush's] right arm"?

We were *right*: Rove IS a jerk!

(Though we always thought W was a lefty. Perhaps he's ambidextrous ...)

No Blood for Ink!

2005-07-11T20:01:00.000-07:00

The Confidence Man must object to the naked, unilateral aggression shown by the press today at the Gaggle.

With their failure to push forward with Social Security destruction, their internal battles shaping up over the Supreme Court nomination, the dissension in the GOP ranks, the tanking poll numbers, their lame-duck status, the debacle in Iraq, and their continued inability to manage their way out of a paper bag, the Bush Administration has been contained. They no longer represent a direct threat to America. We must let Fitzgerald's inspections continue. Yes, Bush is an evil despot whose rule must be ended some day by the freedom-loving people whom he has under his thumb, but a preemptive attack by the media is a violation of Bush's sovereignty.

Of course, a more cynical mind than that of your humble interlocutor might suggest that it is the very weakness of the Bush Administration that prompted the media to strike now, after lo these many years of appeasement. The media figure they will win in a cakewalk, and will be greeted by the American people as liberators, with parades and rose petals at their feet.

Denouement

2005-07-11T19:53:00.000-07:00

Well, if this Rove thing is indeed the Beginning of the End (actually, the Bush Social Security Debacle was the Beginning of the Beginning of the End, but we digress), the Confidence Man fully expects the remainder of Bush's term to look like the last 20 minutes of GOODFELLAS: as the Lufthansa Heist that is the Bush Administration finally corrupts every member of the team who participated in it, and our Principals become ever more paranoid and coke-addled, we start seeing the bit players (Ralph Reed, Duke Cunningham, Tom De Lay) show up in Dumpsters and refrigerated trucks.

The parallel actually works pretty well: Bush, the ne'er-do-well scion who mucked with the drugs against the advice of his various father figures, is Ray Liotta; Rove, the impetuous, hotheaded ultimate dirty trickster who ultimately becomes too volatile even for his friends' naked lust for power and gets offed just before being "made," is Joe Pesci; and Dick Cheney, the older outsider who never quite fit in by dint of birth, class, and paternity, is Bobby De Niro.

The New Hot Zone

2005-07-09T04:47:00.000-07:00

http://www.cnn.com/2005/HEALTH/conditions/07/08/aids.prostitution.ap/index.html

Government places new restrictions on AIDS funding
Friday, July 8, 2005; Posted: 4:28 p.m. EDT (20:28 GMT)
WASHINGTON (AP) -- U.S. groups fighting AIDS overseas are being given an ultimatum by the government: Pledge your opposition to sex trafficking and prostitution or do without federal funds.

Influenced by the reasoning (though incapable of imitating its glittering irony) of the Confidence Man's post "George W. Bush is a Great American," I confess that my initial objections to this new policy (the by-now-boring Republican tactic of making you state the obvious in policy in order to reduce your flexibility in practice) have been replaced by a more long-term view that supports its implementation.

If successful, this initiative will promote first abstinence and then monogamy and unprotected, reproductive sex among folks currently with or at risk for HIV. This will channel HIV propagation to the heteronormative, reproductive, fundamentalist community, and in particular, will target recent converts. Then we will see if the Lord will provide. At the very least I suspect funding for HIV research will rise.

Tin Cup

2005-07-08T15:31:00.000-07:00

http://sportsillustrated.cnn.com/2005/writers/chris_lewis/07/06/inside.golf/index.html?cnn=yes

"Michelle Wie is 15 years old. Michelle Wie is 15 years old.

Excuse me if I keep repeating it, but to me this fact is almost incomprehensible.

It's so unreal that the young Hawaiian's gender -- Michelle Wie is a girl -- takes a seat so far back in the minivan that it's almost behind the rear bumper."

What's incomprehensible is that it's so obvious why there's no buzz about Wie's playing on the men's tour, yet no one will say it: she's playing as an amateur, and won't take any prize money. When Annika went out, there was a risk of her doubling her annual earnings!

To a male golf pro, anyone who won't take home the money is neuter.

Is Judith Miller a Great American?

2005-07-07T10:23:00.000-07:00

Missus Miller, of that fancified broadsheet rag from up in New York City, certainly has Confidence. In point of fact, she may have too much Confidence -- or, perhaps, too many Confidences.

Her sub-paramour Ahmad Chalabi certainly would qualify as a Great American, were he a Native Son. Then again, every man is a Native Son of some land, and America is the great Melting Pot -- so, welcome, Br'er Chalabi!

Miller's dalliances with Br'er Chalabi, howe'er, mayhap indicate that she was not the mistress of her own dance card, if you get our drift.

No, Miller seems, in so many instances to have been the gull -- for Br'er Chalabi, for Br'er Ledeen, for Br'er Wolfowitz.

And the gull, while an essential component of the perpetual motion machine that America has pawned off on Mother Nature, is most certainly not a Great American. Even the great tragic Losers of American history -- Willy Loman, Benedict Arnold, Preston Tucker, Preston Sturges, George Donner, among others -- have been men who crapped out trying for one last seven.

That being said, there may be hope yet for Judy Miller in the annals of our Many-fist Destiny.

For, when you come right down to it, there are only three logical explanations for Judy Miller's perfidy lo' these last 10 years in advancing the PNAC/INC cause: incompetence (she was a common Sucker Americanus, unable to suss the dross from the truth), acquiescence (she didn't care enough to discern the truth from the disinformation, and was concerned merely with riding the Tiger wherever it led so long as it kept her public dropping the nickels in the paperboys' hands), or ... Confidence (she was in on the game, and when it came her turn to hold the deck, she self-dealt with the best of 'em; Calamity Judy to Wild Bill Chalabi).

If the lattermost is indeed the case, then the Confidence Man may admit Judy to the Panklepton.

Until we see proof of such, however, we request that Judy remain in the antechamber with the other drummers and solicitors.

George W. Bush is a Great American

2005-07-07T10:12:00.000-07:00

The Confidence Man has for some time been musing over the temperament, methods, and achievements of one George Walker Bush, erstwhile ne'er-do-well scion, thence former ne'er-do-ill ready-made Achilles, and current canard boiteux.

Monsieur Bush, wethinks, mayhap indeed be, as our title indicates, a Great American.

A Great American, that is, in the line of descent that includes thy humble correspondents the Confidence Man and Jibbenainosay, as well as Masters Huckleberrry Finn, Ichabod Crane, and Captain Simon Suggs.

America, you see, is a nation founded on Confidence. And it takes a particklar pride in rejuvenatin' isself from time to time with a dose thereof.

Yes, the Confidence Man claims George W. Bush as one of his own, and claps George to his own hotblooded bosom.

Welcome, George, to the Brotherhood of Lit'ry Scoundrels. You rapscallion, you.

On Returning

2005-07-07T09:51:00.000-07:00

"And, for the sake of form, Tim Price resurfaces, or at least I'm pretty sure he does."

Yes, the Confidence Man has returned. Thy humble correspondent tugs at his forelock in apologia for his long incommunicado trek through the canebreak. Things to do, people to see, et cetera, et cetera.

In any event, we are glad to see that Josh Marshall has been empire-building while we were at Croatan. Marshall's TPMCafe.com is an invaluable resource (which we shall add to our blogroll, when we get around to building it), and, of much interest to us here at Croatan, features a section titled :"Early Returns from the Political Wilderness." As frequenters of the political wilderness, we Croatanians welcome dialogue on this subject; although we of course do wish for certain modes and methodologies of wilderness-tramping and -returning-thenceforth remain occulted.

As, we are sure, does Karl Rove. Part of his amazing success has been the maintenance of various Republican doppelgangers, shadow cabinets, camerae obscurae, secret twins in the attic, termites in the woodpile, et cetera, et cetera. Yea, some of those pigeons may now be coming home to roost, as it were; Cain asking for a seat at the table; yet we have Confidence that Unka Karl will wriggle his way back into the briar patch soon enough.

For this is Unka Karl's secret, as well as that of the many forces assayed against the tsunami of Liberalism and Modernism that continues to flood higher and higher ground, creeping its way intercontinental: illicit urges demand not their release in ugly peccadillos, but rather their own entombment in a sekrit chamber, so as to spin endlessly in the musty dark and thereby provide the black matter to drive the engine of social revanchism. The festering imp at gthe heart of every man does not wish to live in the City on the Hill; it wishes above all else to Go to Croatan.

Of course, to swathe the Imp deep in a velvet cloak is to strike a fustian bargain. For nothing that Goes to Croatan may reside e'er in that bower. Its own wilding spirit drives it occasionally, mindlessly, into the light of day.

And when the Imp returns -- then, boys, it's padlock-the-chitlins-in-the-larder time, for as the Sun impels the Imp to the surface, the Imp commands the blood to rise in other creatures.

Teen Sex Addicts Attract Your Attention

2005-03-18T18:09:00.000-08:00

In re: this story at CNN:

Study: Many virgins take other risks
Report suggests those who pledge abstinence try other sex
Friday, March 18, 2005 Posted: 6:00 PM EST (2300 GMT)
NEW HAVEN, Connecticut (AP) -- Teens who pledge to remain virgins until marriage are more likely to take chances with other kinds of sex that increase the risk of sexually transmitted diseases, a study of 12,000 adolescents suggests.

...which attracted my attention for reasons that will be known to my friends, I'm obliged by the declaration contained within it to post the following, which I wrote to CNN:

This respects the story "Study: Many virgins take other risks" in the Health section. It's a great story in concept: who wouldn't be interested?

But there are two problems. First, in this statement: "Millions of teens have signed written pledges or verbally promised to abstain from sex, part of a church-led effort to discourage premarital sex and the spread of disease. President Bush has boosted funding for abstinence-only education in schools." What exactly does "church-led" mean? Which church? George Bush's church? George Bush is the _President of the United States_, not the head of a church, whatever he may seem to want to be. My church does not endorse _any_ such policies, nor does it lead _any_ such initiatives. You can say that it's led by _some religious_ groups, and that's fine. But there's not one church, and George Bush _as president_ speaks for no church, however he may want that to change.

Second, don't quote things like this unless you're willing to be a more aggressive news organization, which by your mission statement you are not: ""If adolescents only had sex in monogamous, married relationships, by definition there would be no STDs," Brueckner said, echoing President Bush's remarks in last year's State of the Union address. "But the majority of adolescents don't live like that. They do have sex."" I agree with Brueckner, and I'm thrilled to see CNN print irony. But do you really want irony? Brueckner's is not a "statement" per se! Note: the implication that adolescents might commonly be married under the abstinence regime; the fact that as a Yale sociologist Brueckner is certainly aware that many STDs are transmitted by means other than "sexual" contact; and the glossing over of the question of what it would mean to conservative religious folks for kids to be having sex in monogamous, but _not_ married, relationships. Brueckner is an _assistant_ professor, like myself, which means she's still idealistic, still trying to change the world. Watch out for assistant professors; we are crafty!

A copy of this email will be posted at my blog, "Croatan."

Yours,

The "End" of Education

2005-03-18T06:02:00.000-08:00

Science exhibit asks 'Know Thy Poop'
Thursday, March 17, 2005 Posted: 5:03 PM EST (2203 GMT)
PORTLAND, Oregon (AP) -- Freddie the Fly lays it out in terms dear to the adolescent heart: "My wife's cooking is so bad I vomit before I eat. But seriously ..."

Freddie tosses off one-liners like the late Henny Youngman, all of them true. It's all about "gross" at the Oregon Museum of Science and Industry. Freddie, a huge animated model, is the star of the "Vomit Slurpers" exhibit in "Grossology: The Science of Creatures Gross and Disgusting." [...]

I liked the fly thing," offered Eli Prudencio, 11, touring with his classmates from a suburban elementary school. "I liked how it vomits on its food before it eats it."

Classmate Keynan Middleton, also 11, was impressed by the different names for droppings.

Jibbenainosay has only praise for this endeavor. He suspects that if you wrapped Deleuze and Guattari in poop you'd remove the only barrier to middle-school kids' understanding it.

1 + 1 + 1 = 3

2005-02-17T08:22:00.000-08:00

You have got to be kidding me.

Bush has nominated John "Honduran Death Squad" Negroponte to the post of US Intelligence Czar.

Was it just last night that the Confidence Man was musing about American Death Camps in the Southland?

Speaking the Unspoken

2005-02-16T20:38:00.000-08:00

The Confidence Man has been avidly following the ruckus over the Gannon/Guckert non-credentialed-White-House-"correspondent"-cum-gay-military-escort story.

To wit, this Gannon/Guckert fellow -- who is, it turns out, basically a gay male prostitute and e-entrepreneur -- with the apparent cooperation and assistance of the White House, secured regular admittance to WH pressers to lob softballs at HBush's Press Sec'y.

The Confidence Man understands why the MSM won't touch this one.

but we don't understand why no one is willing to say two names out loud anywhere near this story:

Ken Mehlman.

Karl Rove.

... and, hell, for that matter, Andrew Sullivan. Little Roy has been suspiciously silent on the Gannon/Guckert contretemps -- and, coincidentally, announced his short-lived "retirement" from blogging shortly before the Gannon/Guckert fracas burst into the open.

Libel, schmibel. Follow the monkey.

Arithmetic Progression

2005-02-16T20:23:00.000-08:00

1 + 1 = ?

The Confidence Man notes some extremely vague paranoia-mongering and head-scratching amid Left Blogistan a while back regarding the GOP's bizarre "murder-at-will" proviso in the expansion of the Homeland Security dept.

Namely, the loopholes that, beyond declaring the Sec'y of Homeland Security to be beyond the laws of the USA, would designate vast swaths of the US-Mexico border to be legal grey areas.

Now, the Confidence Man is not sure what the problem here should be in figuring this out: the US has, since 9/11, been performing "extraordinary rendition" on swarthy individuals to terrorific states such as Egypt and Thailand, as well as setting up extralegal encampments for the internment of swarthy individuals in Guantanamo and Afghanistan.

By opening up grey areas -- legal black holes -- within the "Homeland," it renders the incarceration and interrogation all the simpler.

Spineless and Starstruck

2005-02-16T20:18:00.000-08:00

God bless Carla Marinucci of the SF Chron.

The Confidence Man has had mixed opinions of Marinucci's local political coverage in the past, but this piece -- skewering the Cali media's collective sucking (up) to Schwarzenegger -- is very nicely done.

As for the other scribes at the Chron, the Confidence Man still reveres Tim Goodman above all others -- though Aidin Vaziri is coming up on the outside track.

Oh, So THAT'S What They Were Doing ...

2005-02-16T20:11:00.000-08:00

"Report: FBI agent says he warned baseball of steroid use 10 years ago."

Well, thank god for that. Wouldn't have wanted the Feeb chasing down any potential Islamic suicide bombers ...

Seriously. God help us if this jarhead worked out of the Phoenix or Minneapolis offices.

100,000,000 Democratic Voters Can't Be Wrong

2005-02-16T19:54:00.000-08:00

The Confidence Man has spent some time herein discussing the Dems' need to cultivate some starpower to help swell their electoral ranks.

What, however, is required -- more so even than the whispering-in-the-ear of lefty celebs -- is the development of a strategic plan to "grow" celebs into viable candidates.

The Confidence Man is speaking here not of the "intensive political seminar" sort of thing (Ken Khachigian and his cronies tried that with Reagan in the '60s; it didn't work then, and it won't now).

No, we're thinking of a power-rail-to-office (or, if you prefer the aquatic metaphor, springboard-to-power): not necessarily the barely legal machinations of Schwarzenegger in Gullyvornya via the Recall, but a similar fast-track to legitimacy in a statewide forum to serve as a base for a plausible national executive candidacy.

Specifically, the Dems need to get a celeb elected governor of a large state (ideally, a Red or swing state, but in any event, not California or New York).

The obvious answer, given the Confidence Man's previous speculations, would be Oprah in Illinois. On deeper reflection, however, Oprah probably presents as many problems as she does solutions; she's also, shall we say, a bit more headstrong than one would wish for the ideal candidate to be (Oprah as a candidate would probably be more like Ross Perot than anyone else).

No, what is needed is a slightly more malleable individual, but who still has the requisite star quality, soccer-mom appeal, understated machismo, blue-collar ethos, and ability to do sincere line readings.

Our thoughts turn to New Jersey -- and we note that there is a gubernatorial race upcoming.

(First things first, we need to convince Sen. Jon Corzine to drop his candidacy. As much as we do admire Corzine, he's (a) not the future of the Party, (b) far more "Senatorial" than "Parsdinchal," and (c) is actually a fine Senator and rainmaker and would do more good in that role.)

So we think now of Native Sons of NJ -- no, not the first person who (ahem) "springs" to mind, but the second.

Yes, ladies and gentleman, we're talking about Mr. Jon Bon Jovi -- your next Democratic Governor of the Great State of New Jersey.

And, thenceforth, the leading candidate for the Dem Presidential nom in '08.

And, yes, we're quite serious about this.

Simile simili gaudet

2005-02-16T15:05:00.001-08:00

http://www.cnn.com/2005/LAW/02/16/elizabeth.smart.ap/index.html

Drifter accused of kidnapping sings in court
Man charged in Elizabeth Smart case removed from competency hearing
Wednesday, February 16, 2005 Posted: 1:40 PM EST (1840 GMT)
SALT LAKE CITY, Utah (AP) -- The drifter and self-proclaimed prophet accused of kidnapping Elizabeth Smart was removed from his competency hearing Wednesday for singing a religious song -- the third time he has done that in court in recent months.
[...]
Prosecutors say Mitchell took Elizabeth into the foothills near her home, sexually assaulted her and kept her as his second wife.

But like attracts like, as they say--hence this equally perverse phrase: "An excommunicated Mormon, Mitchell once wrote a rambling manifesto espousing the virtues of polygamy."

To Create a Mockingbird

2005-02-05T06:41:00.000-08:00

http://www.cnn.com/2005/EDUCATION/02/04/accent.class.ap/index.html

Class seeks to rid kids of Appalachian accents
Friday, February 4, 2005 Posted: 9:20 AM EST (1420 GMT)
PIKEVILLE, Kentucky (AP) -- A new class that seeks to teach youngsters how to lose their Appalachian accents has set off an age-old phonetic debate: Should mountain natives drop the drawl or hold tightly to their twang?

Jibbenainosay hopes that CNN doesn't continue to cover stories like these--or at least, that it does so with the same kind of misleading headline as this one bears. This stuff is top secret. This program of course replaces previous JW Theatre efforts involving painting black children white and teaching the girls to dress and act like boys to "broaden their performance opportunities and improve overall marketability." The Kentucky plot to take over the world proceeds apace: you will never know when we're there, watching you, imitating you, replacing you....

Finding Churchill

2005-02-02T14:01:00.000-08:00

http://www.cnn.com/2005/EDUCATION/02/02/speaker.protest.ap/index.html

University faculty defends controversial professor
Wednesday, February 2, 2005 Posted: 11:52 AM EST (1652
GMT)
BOULDER, Colorado (AP) -- As pressure mounts on a University of Colorado professor who ignited a furor by comparing the World Trade Center victims to Nazis, colleagues have come to his defense -- on free speech grounds.

Normally, Jibbenainosay wouldn't intervene in such a fine hoopla as this, but he feels the urge to point something out. Nowhere in the three CNN front-page articles about Ward Churchill's controversial statements respecting 9/11 and consequent resignation from his chairship is it mentioned that Churchill is one of the leading scholars of Native America. Where do these looney ideas about "U.S. Imperial Arrogance and Criminality" that, according to Governor Bill Owens, defy the facts of history, come from, CNN readers are wondering? How did somebody writing books about U.S. imperialism end up as chair of an Ethnic Studies department?

http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/tg/detail/-/0872863239/qid=1107382180/sr=1-5/ref=sr_1_5/102-0314228-8697758?v=glance&s=books

Lady Mondegreen of the Fens

2004-12-02T19:56:00.000-08:00

Via TAPPED, the Confidence Man reads of yet another case of forged Iraqi documents. Somehow, we missed it last year when the CS Monitor retracted their story on the documents "proving" that Labor MP James Galloway had been receiving PR funds from Saddam Hussein.

Now, what catches our eye in this story is the fact that the editor of the CS Monitor is one Paul Van Slambrouck.

Recall our hypothesis earlier this year that the infamous George Tenet "slam dunk case" quote to Bush on the question of Iraq's WMDs. Our guess that "slam dunk case" was a mondegreen was on the wrong track: Tenet didn't actually say that the claims for Iraq's possession of WMDs was "Islam bunk, ace"; rather, he said, apropos of the CS Monitor's retracted story, that the Iraqi WMD story was "a Slambrouck case"!

Dept. of Poetic Justice, Revisited

2004-11-22T19:32:00.000-08:00

The list keeps getting longer: McDonald's CEO steps down due to cancer.

Restoring Honor and Dignity to Professional Sports Attendance

2004-11-22T18:55:00.000-08:00

Jibbenainosay, you may have a point regarding the umpirical umplications of the NBA fight-night film review.

However, the Confidence Man scries greater things in this aspect.

To wit, this presents a golden opportunity for the Dems.

As many have opined (among them Nick Confessore and Ezra Klein), the Democrats need to be exercising targeted, effective, and opportunistic message discipline as the Loyal Opposition.

Now, we all recall how, during Clinton's terms in office, the Gingrich machine was constantly a-roil over how Clinton's Bad '60s Juju (otherwise memorably named by Gen. J.C. Christian as the Clenis [tm]) was instilling a trickle-down economics of amorality and perversion across the land. And, of course, how Bush ran in 2000 on a promise to "restore honor and dignity to the White House."

(Tangentially, the Confidence Man has been thinking lately that Bush's phrasing there was indeed intended to evoke Clinton, but also served as Fundtalk to his base in the Federalist Society. More on that anon. Also, please note our portmanteau neologism "Fundtalk," or "Fundtalker," consisting of "Fundie" -- for fundamentalist -- plus "Windtalker" -- the WWII Navajo code-speakers.)

Well, what's good for the Gingrich is good for the gander.

The Confidence Man strongly believes that responsibility for the recent NBA fracas -- as well as the spectacular chair-tossing in Oakland during an Athletics game this summer -- should be plavced squarely on the shoulders of President Bush.

Bush has enshrined violence as a first resort to solving problems. Bush values gut reactions over contemplation. Bush prioritizes an insecure cowboy machismo over rational discourse. Bush embodies the principle that mnight makes right, and that no one should be accountable for his actions.

And that sort of example has real consequences in this world. People look up to the President -- no matter who holds the office -- as a moral exemplar.

And when the President does the things that this President has done, good people across the land lose their moral compass and start to do things like this.

(Of course, we've expounded on this before; but the Dems now have a clear opportunity to really exploit the situation.)

The Dems Get Serious

2004-11-22T18:48:00.000-08:00

According to Ezra Klein at Pandagon, Tom Vilsack is out of contention to head the DNC -- but more importantly, "There's talk of splitting the post, with a chairman/spokesperson and an operational director sharing the helm."

We here at Croatan like to think we may have had somewhat of a hand in this development.

But then, we have Gone to Croatan, so we can't be trusted.

By way of chairman/spokesman candidates, the Confidence Man still likes John Edwards; Dean just might do, though. The DNC best have its shit together.

Umpiricism

2004-11-22T16:57:00.000-08:00

http://sportsillustrated.cnn.com/2004/basketball/nba/11/22/charges.ap/index.html?cnn=yes

Fight fallout:
Players, fans, personnel face
charges after Pacers-Pistons fight
Posted: Monday November 22, 2004 1:06PM; Updated: Monday November 22, 2004 7:18PM

... Police were also reviewing videotapes and interviewing
witnesses from Friday night's melee, when Indiana forward Ron
Artest charged into the stands after a fan threw a cup at him.

I can only suppose that this will be used to support the argument for instant replay umpiring in baseball.

The Baby and the Ba'athwater

2004-11-15T19:05:00.000-08:00

Apropos of our previous post regarding Iraq as the model for Bush's domestic Antistate, we should add that the "de-Ba'athification" of Iraq was also a clear model for the current and anticipated purges.

The Baby and the Bathwater

2004-11-15T18:52:00.000-08:00

Matt Yglesias updates everyone on some less-noticed shakeout details following Powell's resignation at State.

Rumor has it that Danielle Pletka, one of the prime mover gasbag/nutjobs in the foreign policy division at AEI, may soon be taking over the Bureau of Near East Affairs. And performing her own version of the Goss Putsch in the State Department.

This is all part and parcel of the Norquistian "drown it in the bathtub" school of government "reform." Purging the CIA, purging State -- and watch for coming purges of the domestic agencies in the next year -- the folks being lost are not Clinton-era deadwood. They're career civil servants, who vow allegiance to the Constitution, not a particular president or party.

The morons and ideologues and glad-handing scam artists who rush in to fill the vacuum will "run" their department operations the same way that the Heritage Foundation interns "ran" their desks in "post-war" Iraq.

Straight into the ground.

As we have pointed out before, Iraq was a test run for Bush's vision of the Antistate:

The beta version is being rolled out right now in the CIA and anon in the State Department.
Antistate 2.0 comes with the putsch of mid-level career staffers in the domestic policy agencies.
Antistate 3.0 arrives in 2007 or '08, when Bush has appointed Federalist Society brownshirts to over half of the positions in the federal judiciary, and the post-Teddy-Roosevelt regulatory regime is demolished.

Spooks Going to Croatan?

2004-11-15T13:30:00.000-08:00

The Confidence Man has been avidly following this story about Porter Goss purging the CIA of all disloyal "liberal" anti-Bush elements.

As always on such matters, Josh Marshall has the best precis and facts-behind-the-spin take: essentially, Bush via Goss is purging the CIA of anyone who will stand in his way, including the analysts who correctly told Cheney, Rumsfeld, and Rice that they were full of shit when it came to anything having to do with the Middle East.

This is, of course, a genuine national tragedy, and is bound to cost us in the short and long runs.

But the Confidence Man, as always, has his eyes on the tangents.

First of all, if Goss is indeed purging the CIA -- where are all of these disaffected spooks going to go to work? This is a big and fascinating (albeit tangential) question. One would certainly hope that all of the centrist and left-leaning DC think tanks would provide soft, comforting shoulders for the victims of the Goss Putsch.

Second, all of the lefty commentators who scoff at Bush's perception of Langley as a "hotbed of liberals" are grossly mistaken. The CIA has always been a "hotbed of liberalism" -- of Classic Liberalism, that is. The OSS and CIA were "Eastern Establishment," Ivy League, tweed-and-pipesmoke institutions from their inception down to the present day. This is why Nixon hated 'em, and doubly so why Bush hates 'em. No, they're not Rove-Atwater-caricatured Nader-voting, tree-hugging, Walmart-disparaging small-l liberals.

My Big Fat Obnoxious Senate Majority Leader

2004-11-15T13:03:00.000-08:00

With the ongoing public humiliation of Arlen Specter by Rove's Rangers (or, as Josh Marshall aptly put it, Specter's "long castration"), we are finally seeing the crossing of the two streams of FOX's programming: right-wing/neocon/fundie jihadism, plus sadistic "reality tv" orchestrated by a petty martinet under patently false premises.

Specter, although apparently an invertebrate, is by all accounts a fairly decent and honorable man, insofar as Senators are concerned. It would not surprise the Confidence Man to see Specter decide to straddle the aisle, along with a coalition of the New England Rockefeller Republicans (Chafee, Snowe, et al). The Dems should really be pushing Jim Jeffords to offer a soft, comforting shoulder to poor widdle Arlen.

Of course, everyone remembers the "unintended consequences" the last time a Northeastern Rockefeller Republican Senator bolted the party ... don't we?

The Anti-Business, as Usual, Party

2004-11-09T09:47:00.000-08:00

The Confidence Man reads this Dem-strategists-howling-in-their-beers wrapup in the WaPo with some severe misgivings.

First of all, Bob Shrum should either be drummed out of the Democratic political machine -- or he himself should run for President. Shrum's electoral track record makes George W. Bush's private-sector c.v. look like Richard Branson's.

Second, why is James Carville mouthing off in public about what the Dems should or should not do? Jim, either shut your stinkin' trap, or get to work actually changing things. For someone as allegedly as die-hard capital-D as Carville, to have essentially sat out the last four years is unconscionable.

Finally -- though we concede that Carville is on the right track when he insists that the Dems should re-brand as the opposition, anti-Washington, anti-bureaucracy, for-the-little-guy party -- this is an awfully telling and infelicitous bit of phrasing:

One possibility [for the Dems] would be to become ... "[the] anti-business-as-usual party."

Uh-huh. Or, as Karl Rove would instantly re-punctuate that phrase, "the anti-business, as usual, party."

The Confidence Man has some inchoate thoughts on what the Dems need to do in order to establish a private-sector support wing. Those shall come anon.

The Gulag Archipelago

2004-11-08T19:57:00.000-08:00

The map at bottom left on this page makes the Confidence Man think of Solzhenytsin.

Or, um, Edward Tufte.

Oppo Leader -- The Short Version

2004-11-06T16:27:00.000-08:00

Reading back over our strategic suggestion for the Dems to rapidly adopt a quasi-parliamentary opposition party stance, and to then rally behind a charismatic opposition leader, we realize that the damn thing is too long.

Here's the short version:

1. The Democratic Party embraces the role into which Karl Rove has maneuvered them: that of a quasi-parliamentary "opposition party" to the GOP.

2. The DNC splits its Chairpersonship into two component roles: a "COO" operations/fundraising manager, and a "CEO" charismatic spokesperson.

3. The DNC unites the Party behind the "CEO," who serves as the single face of the Dem Party and functions as a "shadow president." This shadow president then presents to the American people clear alternative policy proposals to the GOP agenda over the next four years. The Party should also presume that whomever fills this role will be the Dems' presidential nominee in '08. Party leadership needs to realize the urgency of immediately: rallying the Party, presenting a strong oppositional leadership voice, and clearing the decks of internecine squabble well in advance of '08.

4. We believe that John Edwards is the most appropriate person to serve as the DNC CEO/shadow president (this would give him the gravitas and c.v. boost of a leadership role for the next 4 years). However, we are open to other suggestions (Mark Warner?), as this structural strategy is the most important aspect of the plan. The choice of person to fill the CEO/shadow president role is not immaterial, nor is it trivial. But the plan must be enacted as soon as reasonably possible, in order to organize a unified leadership campaign for the '06 mid-term elections.

We are open to suggestions on how to propagate and/or refine this plan.

Opposition Leader

2004-11-05T18:01:00.000-08:00

The latest interpretive buzz making the rounds of Left Blogwonkistan (a breakaway quasi-independent republic either bordering or surrounded by Left Blogistan proper) is that Karl Rove has maneuvered the Dems into the position of a quasi-parliamentary opposition party.

There is some merit to the argument, as well as to the complementary point that the Dems should embrace the position (it's not as if they can do much better right now) and truly oppose, rather than obstruct, the Bush-Rove-DeLay-Frist machine.

There's one key element missing, though: the opposition leader.

That's the diabolical genius of uniting all three branches under majoritarian single-party control: there is no institutional/Constitutional mechanism to provide for clear leadership of the party on the outs. And, of course, the Dems are so temporally demoralized and constitutionally disorganized that they're incapable of identifying, let alone rallying behind, a forceful and charismatic leader.

If, as the Confidence Man avers, 11/2 Changed Everything and we must now wage a Global War on Fundamentalism (which may also be characterized as a Global War on Errorism), the Dems require a strong, charismatic, and resolute leader. And need one as soon as possible. Our post paralleling 9/11 and 11/2 started out as a tongue-in-cheek idea, but the more we think about it, the more we recognize the necessity of the Democratic Party to fundamentally reckon with this week's election as a staggering blow, and to use the trauma to pull together in the way that the entire country did in the immediate aftermath of 9/11 -- and to then continue to build the unity and togetherness that most everyone wishes Bush had done in the months and years after 9/11.

The problem is, there's no clear single Dem figurehead to rally around.

And as we said above, there is no clear Constitutional or institutional solution to this leadership vacuum.

Senators, as John Kerry recently demonstrated, are institutionally and professionally unprepared for the role; and in any event, Harry Reid and Byron Dorgan won't cut it. (They're fine as Sen. Minority Leader and Whip, but not as national rallying figures.) Barack Obama certainly has the magnetism and gift of gab, but he's simply too inexperienced.

Congresspersons are temperamentally more suited to the demagoguery necessitated by such a role; but they are, unfortunately, accustomed to working at too small a scale. (As much as the Confidence Man himself would be willing to follow Nancy Pelosi into battle, she's not a national presence and does not quite have the national-unity message cred.)

Governors, as many a Presidential election has shown, do tend to have the "stuff," and Arnold Schwarzenegger in particular has run his campaign and governorship in a very imperial manner. What dynamic Dem governors have established their own voices or national presence or institutional Party constituency, though?

Essentially, the Democratic Party needs to rally around an unelected figurehead. It's not clear to the Confidence Man that the Chair of the DNC is necessarily the most appropriate position to fill this vacuum; however, in the absence of (a) attractive current elected officeholders, (b) any Constitutionally defined quasi-parliamentary "opposition party" leadership role, and (c) any significant other Dem organizational apparatus in place, the DNC Chair probably has to be the default opposition leader.

All of which leads the Confidence Man to rethink some aspects of his original suggestions regarding potential DNC leadership candidates.

Under this quasi-parliamentary opposition party role, the DNC Chair should, as we suggested, be split into complementary "CEO" and "COO" roles. The CEO would be the figurehead/spokesperson/"message disciplinarian," with the COO remaining behind the scenes and attending to operations and fundraising.

Our original suggestions for COO -- Bill Gates or Steve Jobs -- might still be adequate, but this parliamentary scheme might better require a veteran political operative. McAuliffe, in this delimited role, might actually suffice; though we'd still like to see someone with a better and more aggressive track record -- perhaps bring James Carville back into the fold? (In any event, the operational side of the Dem Party really needs to enter into partnership with the private sector. That will be the subject for more thoughts in the near future here at Croatan.)

Obviously, under this type of regime, our original suggestions for CEO -- Steven Spielberg or John Lasseter -- would most assuredly not work. (We do, however, insist that both of these men be brought into the Dems' message machine for consultancy.) No, in the system we're envisioning, the CEO role in the DNC must be filled by a genuine, legitimate politician -- and a politician with gusto, charisma, leadership, and a compelling message and mastery of pitching that message. He must also have demonstrated experience in rallying rank-and-file Dems to his cause -- and not currently be holding elective office.

That leaves four clear choices: Bill Clinton, Al Gore, Howard Dean, or John Edwards.

Clinton, due to his residual impeachment baggage, the Hillary-in-'08 nonsense, his health issues, and his time out of the spotlight, is pretty much out.

Gore is unfortunately still unable to successfully define himself through the media.

Dean, as we've pointed out, has his own gig going -- and has some detriments as a national figurehead.

But John Edwards would be perfect for this role.

Now, here's one last factor that both simplifies and complicates the matter: this CEO-type person, under this quasi-parliamentary regime, must essentially be the singular voice of the Dem Party and be prepared to assume the role of (and have the Party be prepared to accept him as) the presumptive next Dem Presidential nominee. (That even more clearly rules out Clinton.)

As we have pointed out, the one immense barrier to Edwards' nomination in '08 is the absolute lack of any significant electoral role/experience for him to fulfill over the next four years. His electoral vitae was thin enough this year to cause some concern; with four years of indolency, he would be an extremely weak candidate, despite his rhetorical and charismatic gifts.

Under this scheme, however, if Edwards becomes the "CEO" of the DNC -- the face of the Party, the Opposition Leader -- then for the next four years, he will be in the living rooms of the American people nearly daily, acting as a "shadow President." It would be both a legitimizing dose of gravitas for Edwards, and a four-year jump-start on the '08 national campaign versus whichever Bush scion Rove designates.

Edwards in '08 would then be able to say to America, "Over the last four years, as the GOP has made disastrous mistake after disastrous mistake, I have presented to you clear and better alternatives. When the GOP has followed my Party's recommendations, things have gone better; when they have not, they have failed. I have been right for four years, and I have demonstrated my wisdom, resolution, and vision."

The complication of this is that it requires that all other contenders -- Hillary, Dean, Wes Clark, Jay Rockefeller, et al. -- relinquish their status as challengers. And relinquish immediately. And all agree to back Edwards. Immediately.

The GOP has figured out that this approach works. As Will Saletan points out in Slate, in 1998, George H.W. Bush made some phone calls, got some folks together, and cleared the decks for Lil' Georgie. (Saletan, incidentally, is also a strong Edwards booster, and advocates that the Dems rally behind him in advance of '08.)

Are the Dems strong enough to sacrifice individual aspirations and constituent politics for the greater good? That's the fundamental question.

PowerPoint Presentations Falling From the Sky

2004-11-05T17:47:00.000-08:00

The Confidence Man must give a belated thanks to the ever-witty Dan Radosh (master of all .ppt-related humor, among other things) for blogrolling Gone to Croatan. We have plans in the works for a comprehensive blogroll of our own (and perhaps a template change) in due time.

Speaking of Dan, the Confidence Man has some suspicions as to the nature of Dan's recent Going to Croatan. Pandagon's recent excerpt of Nik Lemann's Karl Rove profile includes the following:

Rove ... launched a project called the 72-Hour Task Force, which conducted scientific experiments in grassroots political organizing during the three days before Election Day in five geographically scattered races in 2001.... [A]n ... interesting PowerPoint presentation has fallen into Democratic hands, and from there into mine. This one outlines, in ninety slides, the work of the 72-Hour Task Force.

New Democratic Leadership Candidates

2004-11-05T13:53:00.000-08:00

The Confidence Man has already added his voice to the chorus of catcalls demanding for the heads of Messrs. Shrum and McAuliffe on a pike.

Time to identify some likely candidates to replace McAuliffe as chair of the DNC.

The Confidence Man notes that many proles in Left Blogistan are advocating for Hoho Dean. Nice, entertaining, "revolutionary" idea, and the Confidence Man is a fan of Dean (well, of the "real" Howard Dean, not the mythologized figurehead of the Deaniacs) -- but this just won't work. Dean is indeed a leader, a builder of coalitions, a rainmaker, and an inspiration; what he is not, however, is a deal-maker. A schmoozer. A producer. Plus, Dean has his own bag of tricks to look after, and he's better suited working in common cause with the DNC in that role.

The LA Times this morning suggests Bill Clinton, at least as co-chair. Not a bad suggestion, especially in the figurehead CEO-type role that the LAT implies, with a mover-and-shaker nuts-and-bolts administrator as the COO-type. As others have pointed out, however, the "Hillary-in-'08" Safire-fuelled rumor makes this a bit ... problematic. Clinton also probably still has some legal bills he needs to be paying off and nest eggs to feather. He also might serve better as an independent elder statesman, trotting out occasionally to rally the troops. Quite frankly, Clinton's stage presence is probably his greatest value to the Dems right now -- and DNC Chair is not a front-of-the-stage, hogging-the-mic position.

The split-role CEO/COO leadership model does make a lot of sense, though. Basically, one guy to raise money and focus "message discipline," the other to run things and see that the money is allocated effectively and efficiently.

As "COO," this guy would probably do a great job, as would the first guy listed here. Both of these guys know how to invent, run, and reinvent organizations; how to identify and exploit oppositional weaknesses; how to innovate where and when necessary (and at no other time or place than where and when necessary); and how to marshal resources effectively (i.e., that don't-reinvent-the-wheel thing we just mentioned).

For "CEO," the Confidence Man nominates this fella; if he doesn't take it, the third guy on this list might. Both of these gentlemen know how to build consensus-based organizations, how to lead effectively, how to raise money, how to tell a compelling story -- and, most importantly, how to effectively pitch mainstream, family-friendly Classic Modern Liberal ideas to Red-State American Citizens.

Now, yes, there would be some significant risks involved with any of these candidates -- risks both to the DNC and to the individuals.

But at this point, what do the Dems have to lose?

And all four of these guys are pretty well set, so far as the whole money/power nexus is concerned. Even if they're exposed to some degree of risk in partisan association, the rewards are potentially huge.

11/2 Changed Everything, or The Global War on Fundamentalism

2004-11-05T08:47:00.000-08:00

Classic Modern Liberalism has been subject to two disastrous attacks in the last three+ years: the first, on 9/11/01, and the second, on 11/02/04.

Both attacks involved the stealthy machinations of devoted teams of Machiavellian nihilists working in league with, and underwritten by, intolerant religious fundamentalists.

In both instances, the attacks and preparations for the attacks were preceded by numerous cultural, political, and fiscal signs. The plots behind both attacks were detected by insignificant and marginalized groups within the Classic Modern Liberal apparatus, but due to the small numbers and disempowered position of these "hair on fire" Cassandras, the apparatus did not mobilize itself successfully to prevent the attacks.

The Confidence Man herewith proposes a Global War on Fundamentalism. We cannot allow these nihilistic zealots to threaten our God-given freedom, our way of life. We will defeat them. We will defeat them by demonstrating the innate goodness of our vision, of our way of life. We will continue to build and nurture an open and democratic society, to serve as a beacon of hope for the world. We will unite the world behind us, and shame the forces of intolerance and ignorance and darkness into retreat. We will blaze the path of progress and freedom. We will work hard to free all people from the clammy grasp of fear and intolerance. We will provide every person on the planet with the opportunity to join us and be free. And the freedom-loving peoples across the globe will join together behind us and will reject the forces of ignorance, fear, intolerance, and slavery.

This Global War in Fundamentalism will not be easy. The enemy has many weapons at their disposal. The greatest weapon they have is fear. Fear is the weapon of mass destruction that we must seek out and destroy. We must not allow the enemy to deploy and spread their reign of fear and exclusion. We must assemble a grand coalition of the free and open societies of the world and deny the enemy their fear. And we must resist this fear ourselves. We must not allow the enemy's weapons to weaken or undermine our resolve. We must remain positive, steadfast, and strong, as we always have. This moment of crisis will test our resolve. But when we pull together and unite our forces behind our greatest strengths -- the strengths of openness, of opportunity, of growth, of innovation, of liberty, of freedom -- we will defeat the fear and terrorism practiced by our common enemy.

We must win the Global War on Fundamentalism. We will win the Global War on Fundamentalism.

God Bless Greil Marcus

2004-11-05T08:42:00.000-08:00

The Confidence Man was going to prepare some proprioceptive scenarios for the Post-11/2 World, but the indispensable Greil Marcus has beaten us to it. Go read it, and have Confidence.

Dated Dean/Married Kerry/Fucked by Bush

2004-11-04T17:22:00.000-08:00

Yes, that was the Confidence Man's bumpersticker in February.

The Confidence Man has been musing what the race would have been like if Dean somehow had managed to snare the nomination. To be sure, Dean had some signal weaknesses.

But what intrigues the Confidence Man in this imagined scenario (well, besides the delightful spectacle of Dean and Bush debating each other; they would have gotten in a fistfight!) is how Dean would have dealt with the gay marriage issue. In some respects, it could have scuttled the race by mid-summer.

But Dean being Dean, he would certainly not have muffed the issue like Kerry did. He would have attacked it head-on. And that approach might -- just might -- have actually defused the issue and not allowed Rove to mobilize his base on it.

Summing Up

2004-11-04T17:13:00.000-08:00

Steve Clemons has the best comprehensive summing-up and looking-forward post-election essay the Confidence Man has seen.

His prescriptions for Dem Party reform and his descriptions of Kerry's solonic staff-management style both ring especially true.

The Confidence Man must quibble, however, with the brackets of Clemons' piece:

He opens with a precis of Team America that is notably tone-deaf, humorless, and out of touch; ironic, in the context of an essay that derides the Party and the Candidate for being all three.
He closes with a lament that the VP Candidate was not ... Dick Gephardt. Dick Gephardt? I'm not sure how much more "Brezhnevized" a candidate could be than Dick Gephardt. The sole arguments for Gephardt were that he might deliver Big Labor (which was going for Kerry anyway) and stood an outside chance of delivering Big MO (which, as it turns out, more ad and GOTV dollars directed at the black communities in Kansas City and St Louis probably would have done anyway). Yes, Edwards didn't actually deliver anything at all -- but primarily because he was criminally underused by the campaign. Kerry was never going to take North Carolina even if he had Jesse Helms as his no. 2.

Addition by Subtraction

2004-11-04T13:18:00.000-08:00

OK, so this suggestion still skews negative and bitter, but it's still a positive step: Bob Shrum and Terry McAuliffe need to be fired. They need to be kept as far away from party/campaign control as possible. If it takes huge golden parachutes, so be it.

Strategic Suggestion No. 1

2004-11-04T13:11:00.000-08:00

The Confidence Man, having picked his clinically-depressed carcass up off the floor, decides to make some positive suggestions.

The first:

Everyone and their mother has been looking at this map.

The Confidence Man suggests that Moderns living in the blue states relocate in large numbers to blue counties (i.e., urban locations) in red states. Jibbenainosay can attest to the "livability" of red-state urban enclaves.

Tip the balance somewhat in the states with thin margins and already-sizable urban communities: Ohio, Tennessee, North Carolina, Missouri, Georgia. The idea is to "Pennsylvania-ize" those states.

The Bush Political Economy

2004-11-04T13:07:00.000-08:00

Bush at his first post-election presser:

I earned capital in the campaign -- political capital -- and now I intend to spend it.

Uh-huh. "Spend," not "invest." Moron.

And, of course, political capital, like any other kind of capital gain, should not be taxed ...

Materiel Evidence

2004-11-04T09:06:00.000-08:00

The Confidence Man is pleased to read that our soldiers in the field are as resourcesful and smart as ever:

One soldier said U.S. forces watched the looters' trucks [at al QaQaaa] loaded with
bags marked "hexamine" -- a key ingredient for HMX -- being driven away
from the facility. Unsure what hexamine was, the troops later did an
Internet search and learned of its explosive power.

Like the Iraqi insurgents, our soldiers are good Moderns.

Unfortunately, the same can't be said for the officer class:

Troops of the two units went to Al Qaqaa over a week in late April but
received no orders to maintain a presence at the facility, the soldiers
said. They also said they received no response to a request for help in
guarding the facility.

How difficult would it be for the armed forces to have spyware that would be looking out for Google searches on high explosives known to be held by Iraq?