Homo talkshow susica v. oxycontinus
Here I thought I was ticked off enough already at Rush Limbaugh's comments about the Michael J. Fox ad. But now I've seen the video clip of Limbaugh's disgusting performance. To accompany his remarks, Limbaugh did a kind of porcine hula-wobble intended to mock Fox's condition, all the while holding forth about how Fox was somehow exaggerating his symptoms for the camera. You have to see it to believe it.

Since then Limbaugh has retracted a so-called* "apology," while advancing the notion that Fox was "exploiting" his condition for political effect and "shilling" for Democratic candidates who support stem cell research. Yes, I'm sure getting Parkinson's disease was all part of Fox's political master plan. Now that he's got it, I suppose the idea is that Fox ought to just shut up so we can keep discarding surplus embryonic stem cells the way God's very special nutjobs say He intended.

So I'm joining Shakespeare's Sister in identifying Mr. Limbaugh as a pig -- not, that is, the humble Sus domesticus, but Homo talkshow susica v. oxycontinus, the reviled "piglike talkshow hominid on drugs."

Make that a scared "piglike talkshow hominid on drugs." The general political conflagration now seems to be spreading beyond the GOP to its herd of radio swine, squealing in their studio cages as they smell the house burning down around them.


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* "...I will apologize to Michael J. Fox if I am wrong in characterizing his behavior on this commercial as an act." posted by Thomas Nephew at 11:20:00 PM -- |  

 
"It's absolutely essential that we stay the course"

Another ad by the Democratic Party worth airing, and brought to you by... you.

Meanwhile, the President held a press conference today distinguished by his inability and/or unwillingness to answer direct questions like "Does the United States want to maintain permanent bases in Iraq?" It's a question that could theoretically be answered in just one word, but I guess that would have been letting the terrorists in on our plans.

Bush also said, "If we succeed -- and when we succeed in Iraq, our country will be more secure. If we don't succeed in Iraq, the country is less secure." By that measure, as the ad points out, our own intelligence agencies are estimating that we're not succeeding. New York Times' Mark Mazzetti ("Spy Agencies Say Iraq War Worsens Terrorism Threat"):

A stark assessment of terrorism trends by American intelligence agencies has found that the American invasion and occupation of Iraq has helped spawn a new generation of Islamic radicalism and that the overall terrorist threat has grown since the Sept. 11 attacks. [...]

Titled “Trends in Global Terrorism: Implications for the United States,’’ it asserts that Islamic radicalism, rather than being in retreat, has metastasized and spread across the globe.

An opening section of the report, "Indicators of the Spread of the Global Jihadist Movement," cites the Iraq war as a reason for the diffusion of jihad ideology.

A summary of the NIE is here (oliverwillis.com); while it says the "jihadist movement" has limitations, "underlying factors fueling the spread of the movement outweigh its vulnerabilities and are likely to do so for the duration of the timeframe of this Estimate," and that jihadists are "increasing in both number and geographic dispersion." posted by Thomas Nephew at 6:36:00 PM -- |  

 
District 20 lit drop (and Halloween ball) this weekend

• WHAT: Maryland District 20 "lit drop" for Cardin, O'Malley, and District 20 Democrats
  
• WHEN: Saturday, October 28, 10am - 1:30pm, BBQ and rally afterwards
  
• WHERE: meet at Heather and Deborah Mizeur's house, XXXXXXXX, Takoma Park (two blocks from Takoma Red Line, at the corner of Tulip and Maple: walk towards the Cedar Avenue 7-11 from the Metro station, follow Cedar left, right on Tulip)

This will be a large scale Democratic "literature drop" -- door hangers and brochures -- for Maryland's entire District 20 (Takoma Park, Silver Spring) this Saturday on behalf of Ben Cardin, Michael O'Malley, and the District 20 Democratic ticket. The combined Democratic campaign is hoping for at least 100 volunteers.

It'll also be a chance to see and maybe chat a bit with some of the winners of the primary election, including Jamie Raskin, Heather Mizeur, Tom Hucker, Sheila Hixson, and Ike Leggett, as well as Lt. Governor candidate Anthony Brown and Representative Cardin's wife Myrna Cardin. There will be a backyard barbecue and rally after the canvass.

So they'll be ready with canvassing packets and the right number of hamburger buns, organizers Karen Czapanskiy and Heather Mizeur are requesting RSVPs at karensyma@yahoo. com or heather@heathermizeur.com. See you there, I hope. While the word is out on a bunch of local mailing lists, please forward this to any friends in the area by clicking the little envelope icon below the post.


While I'm on upcoming District 20 events, consider attending Jamie Raskin's First Annual Halloween Ball on Sunday, October 29, 5:30-8pm, at Takoma Park Presbyterian Church, 301 Tulip Ave, Takoma Park (also corner of Maple and Tulip). Costumes encouraged, of course. The $35/person or $50/couple ticket price will help erase that scary remaining campaign debt from the primary election. RSVP at info@raskin06.com.


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EDIT, later: Ms. Mizeur's address removed. posted by Thomas Nephew at 12:30:00 PM -- |  

 
Fox (Michael J.) ad for Cardin
Maryland senatorial candidate Ben Cardin is running the Michael J. Fox ad that first got attention in Claire McCaskill's bid for the Missouri Senate seat.

In one way, it's pretty hard to watch; apparently the medications Fox takes for Parkinson's disease result in what I had thought were the symptoms of the condition itself.* But I think the right way to view this ad is that it's inspiring that Fox is hanging in there and throwing a pretty good punch. The Washington Post's Michael Mosk writes:

Whereas Cardin to this point has run a series of conventional ads, Steele's visually spare but upbeat spots have won praise for the way they have presented the lieutenant governor as a Washington outsider who pledges to address the worst from both parties.

The Fox commercial makes those ads seem shallow by comparison, said Paul S. Herrnson, a University of Maryland political science professor.

Well, they seemed shallow to me in the first place, but to each his own. While Steele is now whining about unspecified attacks, this one is decidedly fair and on target given Steele's well-known opposition to stem-cell research, which he incredibly compared to slavery and the Holocaust** in a speech to the Baltimore Jewish Council. Meanwhile, referring to Rush Limbaugh's notorious attack on the Fox ad, Shakespeare's Sister adds:

Rush Limbaugh gets addicted to drugs, arrested, humiliated...not my fault! Not my responsibility! Every else is to blame! Left-wing conspiracy! Pity me! All he can do is writhe in the shit he created and make a complete arse of himself.

Meanwhile, Michael J. Fox is stricken with a terrible disease, something over which he had no choice and no control, and he endeavors to find a way to fix it, if not for himself, then for others who will come after him. He carries himself with strength and dignity, and puts himself out there in the hope of changing minds, risking ridicule, which is swiftly delivered by pigs like Limbaugh.

I think she doesn't like Limbaugh.


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* The YouTube clip is of the McCaskill ad. The Ben Cardin campaign version can be seen on their web site.
** "Look, you of all folks know what happens when people decide they want to experiment on human beings, when they want to take your life and use it as a tool. I know that as well from my community and our experience with slavery." Via MoCoPolitics.

UPDATE, 10/25: Michael J. Fox will be appearing in Clarendon, VA with the Jim Webb for Senate campaign on Thursday, November 2 at 6pm (5:30pm for "hosts") at The Clarendon Ballroom, 3185 Wilson Blvd., Arlington VA. The suggested contribution for general admittance is $50, "hosts" get to pay a lot more . posted by Thomas Nephew at 9:31:00 PM -- |  

 
On the table, off the table
I was very pleasantly surprised last month by Senator Hillary Clinton's stand on the Military Commissions Act. It wasn't so much her "Nay" vote, which to her credit and the Democratic Party's was the same as three quarters of the other Democratic Senators. But her speech on the Senate floor seemed to show a real understanding of what was at stake and a real commitment to human rights and the best elements of the American legal tradition:

Once again, there are those who are willing to stay a course that is not working, giving the Bush-Cheney Administration a blank check -- a blank check to torture, to create secret courts using secret evidence, to detain people, including Americans, to be free of judicial oversight and accountability, to put our troops in greater danger. [...]

This bill would not only deny detainees habeas corpus rights -- a process that would allow them to challenge the very validity of their confinement -- it would also deny these rights to lawful immigrants living in the United States. If enacted, this law would give license to this Administration to pick people up off the streets of the United States and hold them indefinitely without charges and without legal recourse.

Unfortunately, she basically equivocated about the torture issue in a discussion with the New York Daily Post in mid-October. Ben Smith:

She was asked about the "ticking time bomb" scenario, in which you've captured the terrorist and don't have time for a normal interrogation, and said that there is a place for what she called "severity," in a conversation that included mentioning waterboarding, hypothermia, and other techniques commonly described as torture.

"I have said that those are very rare but if they occur there has to be some lawful authority for pursuing that," she responded. "Again, I think the President has to take responsibil[i]ty. There has to be some check and balance, some reporting. I don't mind if it’s reporting in a top secret context. But that shouldn’t be the tail that wags the dog, that should be the exception to the rule."

Asked again about these methods, she said:

"In those instances where we have sufficient basis to believe that there is something imminent, yeah, but then we’ve got to have a check and balance."

Now there's some imprecision in Smith's account; read closely, it seems more likely that Hillary Clinton didn't specifically condone waterboarding etcetera than that she did -- or Smith would have reported it that way. And as I argued in a comment about a post by Jim Henley about it, this sets her response to a highly hypothetical variant of the torture issue -- the "ticking time bomb" scenario -- against her actual vote on the MCA bill.

But the disappointing point remains: something "severe" is on the table for Senator Clinton that ought to be off it, and she seems to support (or let herself be cornered into supporting) a Dershowitzian "as long as there's a legal warrant for it" approach to something that ought to be firmly rejected. By bringing something reprehensible inside the law, you make it more routine and more likely; Henley may well be right that that's an occupational disease of politicians in high places, even if the charge in the case of the torture/habeas bill seems rather more fairly leveled against Bush and Cheney, Frist and McCain, and Hastert, Duncan and Sensenbrenner than against Clinton.

By contrast, potential House speaker Nancy Pelosi has said she wants to rule out a perfectly legitimate, literally constitutional course of action for the country and its Congress. Speaking with Lesley Stahl on CBS "60 Minutes" this weekend, she said "impeachment is off the table... Making [Bush and Cheney] lame ducks is good enough for me."

Well, that isn't good enough for me or for a lot of other people working their butts off even more than I am to elect Democrats to Congress. Bush, Cheney, and their co-conspirators should be investigated, that is, compelled by subpoena to testify under oath about being international human rights scofflaws and for deceiving a nation into a war we didn't need to fight. And if the process leads that way they should be impeached and/or otherwise punished for the good of the country.

Steve Benen points out that those of us who feel this way are not some "fringe" element: 28% of Americans support impeachment, and another 23% say it should be a priority if not the top priority -- which to me is at least "on the table." As Booman says, "This better be just some talk to defuse GOP talking points in the lead-up to the election, because taking impeachment off the table should never happen for any President, ever. It's part of the constitution for a reason. "

I'm inclined to a (somewhat) charitable view of Pelosi and Clinton's thinking. There's much that's good about both; I particularly welcome Pelosi's pledge to have a fairer, more open Congress, and Clinton's initiatives trying to find common ground between pro-life and pro-choice advocates, i.e., fewer unwanted pregnancies. But I think maybe they've still internalized the Republican jibes at leading Democrats of the past many years: soft on terror, equivocal on national security, etcetera, etcetera. They seem to all but flinch at being accused of being too partisan, at being out of step with the country.

And yet here they are, on the verge of victory upon a tidal wave of revulsion at the "stay the corrupt, immoral course" Republican Party. I hope that on further reflection, these two decent, patriotic, capable people and their fellow leading Democrats will trust the very evidence of the elections and realize who is and is not "out of step." I hope that they'll look into their own hearts and heed the calls of their own consciences, and will work to undo the human rights setbacks perpetrated by their opponents. Leave the moral swamps of torture and corruption to the party of the Grotesque Old Perverts; the rest of us can again try to make America a city on the hill, our values guiding us to greater, not lesser security.

Today I'm going to go ahead and put in for taking Election Day off to help Democrats win. I look at it as prepping in the kitchen and setting the table at this point: I may not have much of an impact on the precise 2007 menu any more, but I'm still hopeful the new cooks in the kitchen will eventually prepare the right courses. Otherwise it's two more years of elephant dung. posted by Thomas Nephew at 12:30:00 PM -- |  

 
Good for a grin
The War of the Words: The Story of the 101st Fighting Keyboarders -- Somewhere, a tear is trickling down Ken Burns' cheek... "I'm so proud."

P.J. O'Rourke (Weekly Standard) --

...Tom DeLay may or may not have broken campaign finance laws, but he did his best to look like he was breaking them. He might as well have tied quail feathers to the GOP majority in Congress and sent it hunting with Dick Cheney.

Watching Republicans in Washington is like watching lemmings, if lemmings jumped into cesspools instead of off cliffs. Splash! There goes Mark Foley!

Dale ("That's Just What I Said") -- The past week Bush campaigned for a wife abuser and a mistress abuser to celebrate National Character Counts Week.

Congressman Mark Foley Action Figure -- don't worry, you can look: he's got a Blackberry in one hand and a bottle in the other, and his boxer shorts are still on.

Little-known fact, courtesy of "Whatever it is, I'm against it": whenever Bush tells a lie, a new flag appears behind him. I think there's a little popping sound when it happens. This one's worth about 179 flags:

Well, hey, listen, we've never been 'stay the course.'

Also courtesy of WIIIAI: "Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger is a man -- a human being -- a teacher of children -- a builder of suburbs -- and a skilled steelworker. Phil Angelides is not a human being but a member of an ancient godless race..."


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NOTES: War of the Words via everywhere, O'Rourke via Gary Farber, Foley Action Figure via Taegan Goddard. "179" count (10/24 Google search of whitehouse.com) via Pablo Shounin (" Danger West").
posted by Thomas Nephew at 9:30:00 AM -- |