Saturday, February 19, 2005

Democrats Need a Spine Implant

David Podvin: 'A who's who of who sucks'

Here's the beginning & the end of the article - click the link to read the rest.


The United States Senate is a place where those who can't tell the difference between right and wrong perpetrate evil with the complicity of those who can. Vermont Senator Patrick Leahy can certainly tell the difference, but like his Democratic colleagues he doesn't allow that ability to affect his behavior.

When considering the nomination of Condoleeza Rice to be Secretary of State, Leahy noted that Rice was an incompetent National Security Advisor who had repeatedly deceived the American people. The senator then said this: "My vote in favor of Dr. Rice is difficult to explain. It is more the product of a belief than a cold analysis of her record. I believe that Dr. Rice is capable of learning from her mistakes and changing her ways. That she will rise to this new challenge. That she can be a good Secretary of State."

Leahy's vote is not difficult to explain. He is a coward whose stated principles have no practical significance. This real life Barney Fife is so obsessed with capitulating to an administration that has tarred Democrats as unpatriotic that he gave Rice the benefit of the doubt even after admitting there was no doubt.

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Liberals must ultimately assume responsibility for the sorry quality of their senators. Until primary voters stop supporting invertebrates like Leahy and Lieberman and Biden and Feinstein, the Republicans will maim the United States with impunity. The essential counterbalance to evil is resolve. For that quality to radiate again from the Democratic Party, a newly vigilant rank and file must at long last refuse to accept anything less.

Thursday, February 17, 2005

Random Jottings

-- Harry Reid has been a great choice to lead the Senate Democrats. While the left blogosphere wailed when he got the job, I was happy -- he's the guy who worked on Jim Jeffords for a year to get him to switch from Republican to Independent (see "The Jim Whisperer", on salon.com). Therefore saving us from total Republican domination of government, until this year.

-- Censorship is everywhere. I watched "Remember The Titans", the Denzel Washington film about the first integrated football team in Alexandria, Virginia two nights ago with my friend's two kids. It was being shown on the Disney Channel. When they showed the scene in the lockerroom where Ronnie Bass kisses the quarterback (who has accused Bass of being a girl, or "one of them", for having long hair) Disney cut out the kiss! This made the next two scenes incomprehensible -- the other players reaction's to the kiss, and a subsequent scene in the cafeteria where the character Petey asks Bass if he's "like that".

Apparently Disney, which gives domestic partner benefits to gay couples, can't show a man kissing another man, even in jest. Sad.

-- Good news for US Women's National Team fans: April Heinrichs has submitted her resignation as coach of the national team. She was a terrible judge of talent (two time National Player of the Year Abby Wambach barely got on the 2003 World Cup squad) and a pathetic tactician (unless you like boot-and-chase soccer). Farewell & good riddance Ape.

The Corporate Media "Finds" Gannongate

In the New York Times today:

Frank Rich
The White House Stages Its 'Daily Show'

Maureen Dowd
Bush's Barberini Faun

And the Washington Post covered the story yesterday, albeit on the first page of the "Style" section:
Howard Kurtz
Online Nude Photos Are Latest Chapter In Jeff Gannon Saga

I'm waiting for an article by one of those pathetic "journalists" who sat in the White House press room with this fraud for two years & never even googled his name. Reporters? They hardly deserve the moniker.

Monday, February 14, 2005

Gannongate

I know it's been a few weeks since I last posted, so it has to be a bombshell.

Jeff Gannon, who was admitted to the White House press room for two years despite questionable credentials & the use of an alias, was a gay prostitute who peddled his services over the internets. AMERICAblog has the story:

A Man Called Jeff

WARNING: Clicking on the above link sends you to an article that contains screen captures of pornography.

Here's the end of the AMERICAblog story:

Why does this matter?

So in the end, why does this matter? Why does it matter that Jeff Gannon may have been a gay hooker named James Guckert with a $20,000 defaulted court judgment against him? So he somehow got a job lobbing softball questions to the White House. Big deal. If he was already a prostitute, why not be one in the White House briefing room as well?

This is the Conservative Republican Bush White House we're talking about. It's looking increasingly like they made a decision to allow a hooker to ask the President of the United States questions. They made a decision to give a man with an alias and no journalistic experience access to the West Wing of the White House on a "daily basis." They reportedly made a decision to give him - one of only six - access to documents, or information in those documents, that exposed a clandestine CIA operative. Say what you will about Monika Lewinsky - a tasteless episode, "inappropriate," whatever. Monika wasn't a gay prostitute running around the West Wing. What kind of leadership would let prostitutes roam the halls of the West Wing? What kind of war-time leadership can't find the same information that took bloggers only days to find?

None of this is by accident.

Someone had to make a decision to let all this happen. Who? Someone committed a crime in exposing Valerie Plame and now it appears a gay hooker may be right in the middle of all of it? Who?

Ultimately, it is the hypocrisy that is such a challenge to grasp in this story. This is the same White House that ran for office on a constitutional amendment to ban gay marriage. While they are surrounded by gay hookers? While they use a gay hooker to write articles for their gay hating political base? While they use a gay hooker to destroy a political enemy? Not to mention the hypocrisy of a "reporter" who chooses to publish article after article defending the ant-gay religious-right point of view on gay civil rights issue.

Who in the White House is at the center of all of this? Who allowed this to go on in the People's House? Who committed the crime of exposing Valerie Plame? Jeff Gannon has the answers to these questions, and boy we know he loves to talk.

Let him talk to Patrick Fitzgerald.