GOP propaganda machine in high gear

This morning, I thought I'd drop by Drudge's Website Republican Homepage to see what sewage he's spewing in the face of a pretty dreadful day for this party. It didn't take me long to find stories & rumors that are a best wild distortions, and at worst made-up crap that plays into the GOP's PR fantasy machine. Right at the top of the page, I read the headline, "REPUBLICAN ELECTION BOARD WORKERS THROWN OUT IN PHILLY..." so I clicked on the link.

After clicking, I was taken to a site that I hadn't heard about in a long time and that I care about even less, Townhall.com, a right-wing site that is even more blatant than Drudge about everything from climate change to voter fraud to Obama's associations and Ronald Reagan's papacy.

Anyway, the story, entitled, "A Repeat of 2004 Philly Voter Chaos, Fraud," has so many holes in it, I won't try to debunk them all. But, one thing did catch my eye.

In 2004, Drudge breathlessly reported, without doing any reporting, mind you, that machines in Philadelphia had started the day with thousands of votes already rigged for John Kerry. The media in Philly was hot on this story for about 15 minutes, and it died a quick death - not a shred of truth to it, period. In the meantime, before the veracity of the story was revealed, I got a phone call that day from a very good friend of mine, indignant that Philly was rigging the vote for Kerry. It's amazing and stupefying to me that a total frickin' liar and partisan like Drudge drives the news cycle in this country. Maybe someday legit media will wake up to his partisanship, but I sincerely doubt it.

Fast forward to today, and here's how Townhall's story reads at the bottom:

The City of Brotherly Love was roiled in controversy during the 2004 election because of rigged voting machines that showed nearly 2,000 votes for Democratic presidential candidate John Kerry before the polls had opened. A man also used a gun to intimidate poll workers at Ward 30, division 11 in 2004.

I know for a fact that no machines were rigged with extra votes for Kerry, so that gun accusation rings more than a bit hollow, too.

On to today's story... According to Townhall:

GOP Election Board members have been tossed out of polling stations in at least half a dozen polling stations in Philadelphia because of their party status.

A Pennsylvania judge previously ruled that court-appointed poll watchers could be NOT removed from their boards by an on-site election judge, but that is exactly what is happening, according to sources on the ground.

It is the duty of election board workers to monitor and guard the integrity of the voting process.

[...]

"Election board officials guard the legitimacy of the election process and the idea that Republicans are being intimidated and banned for partisan purposes does not allow for an honest and open election process," said McCain-Palin spokesman Ben Porritt in a statement to Townhall.

Before we rush to judgment about what's going on in Philadelphia, perhaps a legit media outlet ought to do some actual reporting vs. partisan sites like Drudge & Townhall making wild, unsubstantiated accusations about voting conditions on the ground there. As for the '04 recap, both sites are no doubt counting on low-information voters, many of whom will witlessly read and/or hear what Townhall and Drudge "reported" and assume that all of it happened in '04.

To be clear, I abhor voter intimidation and suppression of any kind of any party, and I would more than publicly condemn it if this is indeed what's happening in Philly. But, I'm just more than skeptical because many GOP hack sites lack so much as a morsel of credibility considering all of the lies and innuendos that were spread in '04.

What's more, this is a classic play from Karl Rove's playbook. As wholesale election fraud is taking place around the country (plenty of reports are already coming in about it, and I will write about this at length later today and tonight), the right cooks up a story about poll workers being ousted in Philly, and that gets all the press. Well, it's not going work this time, at least if the Obama campaign has anything to say about it, and here's betting that it has plenty to say.

Gallop poll on The Bush Factor

Here's a very interesting report about The Bush Factor in the upcoming election.

The most telling stat from this Gallup report - 49 percent of adults are very concerned that a potential McCain Presidency will continue the policies of the Bush administration. I'm amazed that it's only 49 percent. Only very recently has McCain attempted to distance himself from many of the enormously unpopular policies of Bush, with the noted exception of the War in Iraq.

But, blogs like this one and many others will certainly pick up the slack, because people do need to be aware of the fact that McCain has changed positions so many times, I'm going to start calling him John McKerry. You remember Kerry, '04 Democratic Presidential Nominee who most famously (and tragically) said, "I voted for the war before I voted against it." Okay, the proper context of that quote was not provided when it was rerun literally thousands and thousands of times leading up to election day, but it's amazing to me that Repubes are now turning a blind eye to McCain's "evolving issue positions" now that their candidate has a full blown case of it.

Actually, last night Keith Olbermann did a segment on McCain's changing positions, which I'll post in a bit.

MoveOn ad calls McCain out on Iraq

MoveOn and the American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees (AFSCME) have teamed up to produce and distribute this in-your-face political ad about a mom who isn't giving her son to a hypothetical John McCain administration, if he plans to stay in Iraq for 100 years. Yes, I know he recently vowed that he would have the troops out by the end of his first term, but even that's not reassuring. Just last week, he said that bringing troops home is "not important."

I said it last week, and I'll say it again - I sure hope that members of the military, as well as their loved ones, friends and family are paying attention to all of the claptrap that's coming out of McCain's mouth about Iraq (And one really MUST pay attention, too, because it changes hourly).

MoveOn will be running the ad in several battleground states in the coming days. I think its impact will be negligible, but this ad has more than a ring of truth in it, and it hits the war-mongering McCain right where it hurts.

Do I think this will win Obama any more votes? I seriously doubt it, because an ad like this isn't going to win over voters from the other side; it will merely anger them.

However, the powers-that-be over at MoveOn have to love the exposure the ad is getting from TV talking heads. A sample:

Chuck Todd - what a fool. A "shameless" ad? I'll tell you what's shameless - sending tens of thousands of Iraqis as well as thousands of American troops to their deaths over oil in an unnecessary, pre-emptive war, all for the fucking glory of George W. Bush, and now, John S. McCain III. And this war continues because Repubes and Bush don't have the political courage to say, "Hey, we made a mistake, and now we need to bring our troops home. We need to stop this war, which is an unacceptable drain on our economy, but most importantly on the lives of our young men and women."

Yesterday, Crooks & Liars rightfully pointed out the noted LACK of an uproar over this 2004 ad that pimped Bush comforting a 9-11 victim (conveniently when the cameras were rolling):

Bush and Cheney have been exploiting 9-11 since the day it happened, and now it's "shameless" to have a mother say that she won't send her son off to fight in an insane, asinine war that is accomplishing nothing? Yea, right.

America has had enough of this war, and those who like McCain who keep perpetuating it.

Iraq, 9-11 and fear mongering might have gotten Bush his second term, but all it's given the rest of us is a soaring national debt, soldiers who are physically and mentally broken when they return home, lowered prestige in the world, and a full-blown energy crisis. A vote for McCain is a vote for more of the same, Period.

To me, the mere thought of pulling the lever for McCain is downright revolting.

Oliver Stone taking on another president

This week's Entertainment Weekly has a very interesting piece about Oliver Stone's upcoming movie, W, starring Josh Brolin as President Bush and Elizabeth Banks as Laura Bush. It's probably no big surprise that he's having trouble finding a Dick that's worthy of bringing Cheney to life. Too bad the late Rodney Dangerfield isn't available. I'm wondering if he's considered Louie Anderson? Wayne Knight? (Of Newman fame in Seinfeld) I think I need to get these suggestions to Stone ASAP.

Stone's movies on presidents have generated plenty of controversy in the past, and this one promises to be the most sensational one of all, without question.

To begin with, Stone says in the EW piece that the film "could be ready" before the election. Who's he think he's kidding? There's no question, barring a major setback, that the film will be ready before Nov. 3. It doesn't take a studio executive to figure out that the film is going to have a whole lot more appeal before the election than it will after it. Strictly from a financial standpoint, it's not a bold prediction that it will in theaters before Halloween.

I've always been a very big fan of Stone's - from Scarface to Platoon and Nixon, he hasn't made many movies I haven't liked, save JFK. In fact, Nixon is one of my favorite political movies ever. Here's the trailer...

The film is superbly cast - Anthony Hopkins as President Nixon, Paul Sorvino as Henry Kissinger, Powers Boothe as Alexander Haig and James Woods as H.R. Haldeman. Anyway, check it out - it's that good, if you're a political junkie.

Anyway, back to W. ...

Many are already accusing Stone of playing politics by filming the movie this year, and he's already taking a combative tone about it:

...not a single major studio wanted anything to do with W. "When push comes to shove, all these media companies are chickens---," Stone says. "They're all part of conglomerates."

As far as Stone making this movie this year to somehow influence the election, I hope he disagrees with that contention half as much as I do. After all, Bush isn't running for re-election - John McSame is running for his third term. Anyway, I think voters are smarter than that. And even if Stone admits that he is intentionally making the film this year, it would be no worse than Sinclair Broadcasting Group's decision in the fall of 2004 to run the anti-John Kerry documentary Stolen Honor: John Kerry's Record of Betrayal, which was a totally transparent attempt to smear and slander Kerry just two weeks before the election.

In the interview, Stone give more insight into why he's making the movie:

"Bush may turn out to be the worst president in history," he declares as he peeks into room after room [looking at a possible shooting location for the film]. "I think history is going to be very tough on him. But that doesn't mean he isn't a great story. It's almost Capra-esque, the story of a guy who had very limited talents in life, except for the ability to sell himself. The fact that he had to overcome the shadow of his father and the weight of his family name — you have to admire his tenacity. There's almost an Andy Griffith quality to him, from A Face in the Crowd. If Fitzgerald were alive today, he might be writing about him. He's sort of a reverse Gatsby."

Honestly, it sounds as if the movie could almost be a comedy in some ways, if there weren't such life and death decisions made by this administration. To wit:

In one Strangelove-like moment, [Bush] tries to sell Tony Blair on the idea of provoking war with Iraq by flying a U.S. plane painted with U.N. colors over Baghdad, baiting Saddam to shoot it down. "Plan B is assassinate the sonofabitch," Bush informs the horrified prime minister.

I've read words to this effect in other books about Bush, most notably Bob Woodward's third book on Bush's presidency, State of Denial: Bush at War, Part III, so it's not completely out of the question.

Fortunately, it doesn't sound like the whole movie is going to be dark and serious. I mean, it's President Bush (at right, depicted by Brolin) we're talking about here. A sample of the film's lighter poignant and shocking moments from the script:

Oedipal Wreck After his father is elected president, Bush tells Laura, "I'll never get out of Poppy's shadow.... I wish he'd LOST.... No matter what I do, it's never going to be good enough."

Tough Talker Bush, 26, drunk-drives his car onto the lawn of his parents' D.C. home, and challenges his dad to a fight, "Let's go mano a mano! Right here. Right now!" Then, in 2003, when France fails to back the U.S. on its invasion of Iraq, Bush says of French president Jacques Chirac, "I'd like to stuff a plate of freedom fries down that slick piece of s---'s throat."

Practical Joker During a prep meeting on Iraq, Bush playfully locks Colin Powell out of the room. He then steals a mint from Condoleezza Rice and tells Paul Wolfowitz to trim his ear hair.

Man of Faith In 1999, Bush confesses to a televangelist, "The truth is, I really don't want to run [for president].... But I feel that God wants me to do this, and I must do it. I MUST."

Brother in Arms In a 2003 sit-down with Saudi ambassador Prince Bandar, Bush explains that he has given up sweets since the beginning of the Iraq war. "This is my personal sacrifice to show support for our troops," he says.

That last one's a doozy, and no doubt a comfort to the Americans who are strung out from the stress of combat, many of them Stop-Lossed or given extended tours of duty. Seems like an equitable equation to me - the man who sent soldiers off to die has given up sweets.

Like Bush, the movie sounds tragic, funny, dark, complicated and at times downright silly. Since Nixon and JFK were worlds apart as far as reception, it's tough to predict how W will be received, but one thing's for sure - there will be lots of press and controversy. And I'm looking forward to all of it.

Scalia: "Get over" 2000 election decision

The insipid Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia appears Sunday night on 60 Minutes, and Leslie Stahl asks him about Bush v. Gore, the Supreme Court decision that effectively stopped the Florida recount in 2000. His response: "Get over it," and he also gives a similar answer to a small group, and afterward, says, "So there."

What a clown. Scalia represents another of the disastrous legacies of President Reagan that we all should be so grateful for. It's too bad that Supreme Court justices are appointed for life, because if they weren't, he probably would've been bounced from the bench a long time ago.

I'm amused by Scalia's disingenuous retort that "Gore brought it [the 2000 election] into the courts. What were we supposed to do?" I obviously haven't seen the whole interview yet, but I hope that Stahl pressed him on this point - the reason that Al Gore did just that is because he was getting royally screwed in Florida by faulty voting machines, and many, many voting irregularities.

It almost is too obvious to mention that if the Supreme Court case in 2000 involved Bush's supporters being disenfranchised, as Gore's supporters actually were, you can bet that recount would have happened.

Another side note about judges - it will never cease to amaze me how Dubya puts down lawyers and judges - especially judges. Any judge who renders a decision he doesn't like is an "activist judge," but when a judge rules in a way Bush approves of, his mouth is taped shut. I wish someone would have pointed out to Our National Embarrassment a long time ago that it was judges and lawyers who put him into office in the first place, so before he goes putting them down, he should consider that. (A great time to do this would have been in '04, when Bush mocked John Kerry's running mate, John Edwards, as a "trial lawyer" in just about every debate, especially during questions about tort and medical malpractice reform. Another missed opportunity by Kerry. Sadly, there were more than a few of those.)

Despite the smug Scalia's dismissive comments, we aren't getting over it, and the biggest reason, at least for me, is because I can't help but wonder what kind of a country we would be living in had Gore become president in 2000. Some things very well may have happened, including 9/11, but the War in Iraq almost certainly would not have, along with a laundry list of other unfortunate events these last 7+ years.

Anyway, I bring up issues like this, because if McSame is elected, we are going to have a Supreme Court with plenty of more judges like Scalia.

And that's one scary thought.

New anti-McCain ad hitting airwaves

Greg Sargent over at TPM has the latest on the new anti-McCain video above, which began airing today:

Here's a first look at the first ad being run against John McCain by Progressive Media U.S.A., the new pro-Dem third-party group headed by David Brock that's planning to raise $40 million to bloody up the GOP nominee in advance of this fall's election. The ad, called "Out of Touch," will be running on cable beginning tomorrow and can be seen in D.C. on CNN and MSNBC — which is to say, it's a small buy aimed at an insider audience of potential future donors, political operatives, and the like.

My first thought when I saw this - "Excellent." In years and elections past, I might have thought to myself, "that's playing dirty." But, after seeing what the GOP shamelessly did to Al Gore in 2000 and most notably the Swiftboating of John Kerry in 2004, I hope there are many more efforts just like this one. When Democrats try to take the high road by being the "better party," they become the better, MINORITY party. Democrats won't retake the White House until they learn to fight Republicans on their turf. Is it dirty and nasty? Sure, but there's too much at stake right now to be worried about being portrayed by some as being just that - Republicans have been doing it for years, most notably since the early 1990s when an Arkansas governor decided he'd like to run for president.

It's also good to see that David Brock isn't resting on his laurels with all of his Media Matters success, although no one could blame him if he did. The more people like Bill O'Reilly hate people like Brock for what he is doing - exposing the lies and distortions of the right-wing media - the more I love and am thankful for guys like Brock.

h/t Crooks & Liars

When is the next "Kerry" photo-op?

With all of the attention that Pennsylvania is getting from both Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama, I'm wondering who will be the first to have a photo-op backfire like John Kerry did in the summer of 2004, when he tried to prove to Philadelphians and Pennsylvanians alike that he was not a rich Boston Brahmin who didn't know what cheesesteaks were all about.

Oops.

He went to Pat's King of Steaks in South Philly (my favorite, by far - I wouldn't buy a stick of gum off of Geno's across the street - see my Boycott List).

Kerry's first mistake - trying to order a cheesesteak with swiss. I can only imagine the reaction from the guy at the counter - Pat's employees are notoriously cranky if you don't know "how to order" a steak the Philly way.

Kerry's second mistake - his handlers asked photographers who were along for the ride to "not take pictures" while Kerry was eating, which was tantamount to saying, "Hey! Photographers! Have you cameras ready when the Senator tries to eat a cheesesteak!"

Kerry's third mistake (pictured) - Not knowing how to pick the thing up to eat it. This pic got plenty of play in the local press for some days, and most of it was in good fun. (Must have been the "liberal media" giving him heat, no doubt.)

In my humble estimation and lay opinion, the bottom line with photo ops is this - people know that nearly all politicians try to be many things to many people, especially during high-profile campaign stops. But, the effective politicians do their homework ahead of time, which Kerry and his staff clearly did not do. The only way this could have gone worse would have been Kerry's wearing a Dallas Cowboys cap to Pat's.

Now that would have been funny.

Photo from Attytood

Sunday Cartoons

The more active and controversial the week in politics, the better the political cartoons, and this was a good week for cartoons. I'm slowly getting back on track after being away for a few days, but in the meantime, here are some of the week's best...

I've probably already written this too often this year, but the above cartoon is the most sage I've seen so far about the '08 campaign. Most people in NASCAR Nation have the attention span (and memory) of about three months, so many people, conveniently forget the '04 election, when Kerry was crucified for his "evolving opinions" on issues. But, Mitt Romney, America's Mayor and John McCain have taken virtually no heat for their well-documented reversals on a host of issues. Only time will tell if they pay any sort of discernible political price.

Judas John McCain's campaign continues to sink like a stone, and no one is more thrilled than me. He's getting exactly what he deserves, especially after abandoning political moderates and his Straight Talk Express MO in order to mollify far-right critics to secure the GOP nomination. This past week, he laid off 50 campaign workers and severely curtailed campaign activities, because he's short on money. Now, all I have to wait for is Captain 9-11's campaign to implode; once Rudy is out of the race (or out of contention), I'll be at least mediocre on the remaining field (unless Newt Gingrich and/or Fred Thompson enter the fray).

I wrote it earlier in the week and I'll write it again - it was no accident that Bush announced the Libby pardon when he did - while Russian President Vladimir Putin was visiting the Bush bunker in Kennebunkport. Putin must have been laughing to himself, thinking that Bush stole a play from his playbook. After all, ignoring the legal system and acting like a dictator is normally something we would associate with the world of Russian politics, not our own. But, Bush has managed to change that.

The truth about Rudy continues to seep out.

Bonds needs four dingers to catch Hank Aaron, and five to "achieve" the all-time home run record. However many career HRs Bonds ends up with, he will always have an * next to his number in the eyes of many, including mine.

Bill Maher on Ron Paul & Jerry Falwell

On Friday night, Bill Maher had plenty to say about Rep. Ron Paul's remarks during Tuesday's GOP "debate."

Maher and his guests were right on the money - lots of interesting points from this discussion.

Paul discusses what other GOP candidates (or DemocratIC ones, for that matter) won't, and that's the root causes of 9-11. As Maher so adeptly points out, Paul is the only current Republican Presidential Candidate who doesn't readily accept the prepackaged pap the the Bush administration has been poisoning our political discourse with since 9-11.

To hear Republicans tell it, and Giuliani was the first to pounce (since he thinks he owns the 9-11 "franchise"), you'd think that Paul lit an American flag on fire while shouting "Hail Osama!"

The fact is, no one has really taken the time to evaluate in any meaningful way why 9-11 happened in the first place. (If any of our politicians have, they haven't discussed it publicly that I've heard.) It's simply easier to say, "They hate us for our freedoms and our way of life. We're good, they're evil."

Giuliani did it first, and now others are trying to spin what Paul said by implying that he meant we invited 9-11 (Giuliani did this right after Paul's remarks during the debate). That's NOT AT ALL what Paul said. What Paul meant by his remarks is that by sticking our noses arrogantly into so many other country's business, we have made ourselves a prime target. Paul was not being unpatriotic. Republicans are now trying to Al Gore Paul with another "I invented the Internet" moment.

What's most outrageous of all is the Republican movement to exclude Paul from future debates. How... American!

The fear and war mongering from this debate is about what I'd expect from a group of Republican Presidential Candidates, but Tuesday's debate took it to a whole new level. Mitt Romney's suggestion that we need to "double the size of Guantanamo [the detention center at our Naval Base in Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, where we are holding enemy combatants and prisoners of war]" is the most asinine thing I've heard so far in this young 2008 campaign.

I'm already sick of the line "they'll follow us here," which is being used ad nauseam by this administration to scare the living shit out of people. Bush's cabal has been doing it since 9-11, and to often dramatic success. Actually, this is a toned-down version of what Cheney was saying over and over and over again while campaigning around the country prior to the '04 election - "We are the only party that can keep you safe," or a close variant of that.

If there's any hope for this country at all, then that type of absurd political lying is over. At the very least, I'd like to think that this country is sick and tired of Karl Rove's brand of politics. We'll know soon enough.

Maher also points out one other interesting aspect of Tuesday's debate - health care, education and environment questions were all not surprisingly absent from the debate - not ONE question from any of those categories. Yet, those are three of the most important topics that we must address in aggressive ways in the next administration.

Of course, the WSJ's John Fund points out, "that's [due to] the moderator," and Maher quickly shot back "like a presidential candidate can never answer a question that isn't asked." True enough.

And if you want to stick with Fund's moderator argument, the debate was hosted by Fersatz News, so of course the questions were going to play terrorism and homeland security to the hilt.

One other quick clip from Maher's show - his tribute to Jerry Falwell...

Line of the night (by Maher): Jerry Falwell found out that you could launder your hate through the cover of God's will.

A-men.

Right-wing roundup: 8 minutes of laughs

This is a fantastic round-up of stupidity in the media, most of it from the political right. However, it certainly isn't exclusive to right-wing media - but conservative personalities are just the most noteworthy.

I got a kick out of Ann Coulter not knowing her facts about the Vietnam War, and Michelle Malkin suggesting that John Kerry shot himself to earn a purple heart. And then, there's always Bill O'Reilly. His theatrics and phony tirades always make for fantastic footage. I'd rant on Nancy Grace if she were anything other than completely irrelevant. I have no idea how this woman has a television show on any channel anywhere. She gives mediocre, semi-attractive people hope. Glenn Beck? Words defy me on this guy. It's CNN's pathetic attempt to siphon off viewers of Fox News. He's got as much talent as toe cheese. Michelle Malkin is on television for one reason and one reason only - she's an attractive hate monger presented by Fersatz News to all of the horny, white, conservative men in America for ratings. She's not even good at reading the hate mongering off of the teleprompter.

Anyway, it's all good stuff. Watch it, laugh and watch it again.

Gary Hart to Rudy: zip it

I don't like to copy/paste whole articles or letters, but this one is not very long, and I believe this one is important and hard hitting enough to bring it all to you.

The following is a letter from former Colorado Senator Gary Hart to GOP Presidential Candidate Rudy Giuliani. I read it on HuffPo a little while ago. Honestly, it's just another reason to love The Huffington Post - it's one of the best liberal blogs on the Internet.

Anyway, here it is. I've highlighted a few passages I feel are particularly strong.

Dear Mayor Giuliani:

Since you have based your presidential campaign almost exclusively on your reaction to terrorist attacks on New York City, and since you have recently accused Democrats of being on the defense against terrorism and therefore guilty of inviting more casualties, I have one question for you: Where were you on terrorism between January 31, 2001, and September 11th?

The first date was when the U.S. Commission on National Security/21st Century issued its final report warning, as did its previous reports, of the danger of terrorist attacks on America. The George W. Bush administration did nothing about these warnings and we lost 3,000 American lives. What did you do during those critical eight months? Where were you? Were you on the defensive, or were you even paying attention?

Before you qualify to criticize Democrats, Mr. Giuliani, you must account for your preparation of your city for these clearly predicted attacks. Tell us, please, what steps you took to make your city safer.

Until you do, then I strongly suggest you should keep your mouth shut about Democrats and terrorism.

You have not qualified [sic] to criticize others, let alone be president of the United States.

Gary Hart
(co-chair, U.S. Commission on National Security/21st Century)

P.S. You might ask these same questions of George W. Bush while you are trying to find a better reason to run for president.

Not bad. This is a sound, valid criticism of Rudy Giuliani about 9-11.

I don't think that Giuliani could have prevented two airplanes from flying into both WTC towers on 9-11. For that, I blame the federal government and the president whose boots Rudy never misses a chance to lick - George W. Bush.

But, there's plenty of room to criticize Rudy, too. For instance, after it was recommended that NYC's emergency response center be put underground, why did he have it put in the World Trade Center anyway? (Especially in the aftermath of the 1993 bombing of the WTC complex.)

And, why didn't Giuliani take steps to improve and coordinate the city's various departments' response to a terrorist attack? It's well-documented that the radio system used by both the FDNY and NYPD were less-than-first-rate on 9-11.

We'll never know, but perhaps a better response would have resulted in fewer than the 343 firefighters lost when both towers collapsed. What's more, once the south tower collapsed, a more coordinated response may have saved more lives before the north tower collapsed.

I know what some might think - why go back and look at all of those things now? My response to that valid question is that Giuliani is cavorting from coast-to-coast, bragging and preening about his 9-11 leadership skills, so his actions as mayor leading up to and during 9-11 bear scrutiny. Republicans and Giuliani cannot have it both ways - if he's going to run on 9-11, he'd better be prepared to answer questions about some decisions that were made before, during and immediately after 9-11, all on his watch.

Does this line of thinking sound familiar? It should - it's precisely how Republicans justified their attacks on John Kerry in 2004. I certainly hope that Democrats (and organizations associated with the DemocratIC party) don't Swiftboat Giuliani like Republicans did to Kerry, but if Rudy is going to run as the "9-11 candidate," then his record should be examined and discussed.

And in light of his arrogant, inexcusable comments last week, he'd better be ready.

"Progress" continues in Baghdad

If this is progress, I'm praying for no setbacks.

Earlier today, a bomb ripped through the Iraqi Parliament cafeteria in Baghdad's Green Zone, killing three lawmakers and wounded many more.

In a separate attack, a suicide bomber blew up a bridge over the Tigris River, sending scores of cars into the water, killing 10 people and injuring dozens.

No word from Senator John McCain on whether he went over the now destroyed al-Sarafiya bridge with General Petraeus during his feel-good tour of the Iraqi capital.

And the debate to continue funding this disaster continues. It's amazing to me that there's any debate at all. This is about Republicans not wanting to admit defeat abroad, which will lead to a political loss at home. Period.

The only thing remarkable about yesterday was that President Bush didn't do another cheap, disgusting photo-op to let everyone know for the 29th time that he will veto the bill passed by both Houses of Congress that sets a deadline for troop withdraw.

On Tuesday, Bush went to a Fairfax, Virginia, American Legion to blabber on and on about Democrats not funding the troops, cliché, cliché, cliché...

Was Bush's trip on Tuesday really necessary? We GET IT. Democrats get it. The American people get it. You're going to veto a bill that will fund the troops.

What did Bush and Cheney say about political theater again? It's slipping my mind when I look at the absurd photo above (from gop.com).

I'll have plenty more to say about this later today when I have more time.

Yesterday also brought more great news for the troops - all 145,000 troops were told that their tours of duty are being extended.

Just wondering - I wonder which direction the support for this war will go now? If I'm a soldier in Iraq or Afghanistan, I would totally resent the fact that the only people who are sacrificing in this war are the soldiers and their families and friends.

It turns out John Kerry was right in 2004 - if this isn't a Back Door Draft, I have no idea what is.

Top photo AP via The New York Times, second photo from gop.com, bottom photo from HuffPo
Information for this piece was taken from The New York Times Website

Ex-Bush aide: Kerry was right

This was pretty big news this past weekend - ex-presidential aide Matthew Dowd has spoken out against President Bush, and in a very unequivocal, public way.

Dowd, a former Democrat who was not happy with many things during the Clinton Presidency, was taken in by Bush's messages of "restoring honor and integrity to the Oval Office" and bringing bipartisanship and cooperation to Washington. Dowd switched parties and remained with Bush for the next six years, serving as Bush's chief campaign strategist during the 2004 election.

However, many events began to change his mind - Abu Gharib, Bush's refusal to meet with Cindy Sheehan, the decision to keep Donald Rumsfeld on after a number of missteps, and the renomination of former U.N. Ambassador John Bolton.

"I really like him, which is probably why I’m so disappointed in things," he said during an interview with The New York Times. He added, "I think he's become more, in my view, secluded and bubbled in."

During his NYT interview, Dowd stated his faith in Bush's ability was misplaced, and he called for a withdraw from Iraq. In retrospect, Dowd says his faith in Bush was misplaced. You've got plenty of company, Mr. Dowd.

He asserted in the interview that Bush "still approached governing with a 'my way or the highway' mentality reinforced by a shrinking circle of trusted aides." What a surprise.

Dowd said he decided to go public with his disagreement with the administration because his disappointment was so great. He also reasoned he felt an obligation to speak out now because he played a part in Bush's electoral victories.

The most powerful passage from the Times article comes here:

Mr. Dowd, a crucial part of a team that cast Senator John Kerry as a flip-flopper who could not be trusted with national security during wartime, said he had even written but never submitted an op-ed article titled "Kerry Was Right," arguing that Mr. Kerry, a Massachusetts Democrat and 2004 presidential candidate, was correct in calling last year for a withdrawal from Iraq.

"I'm a big believer that in part what we're called to do — to me, by God; other people call it karma — is to restore balance when things didn’t turn out the way they should have," Mr. Dowd said. "Just being quiet is not an option when I was so publicly advocating an election."

Even more outrageous, and in retrospect, sad, it what Dowd had to say in the interview about Kerry's qualifications to lead a strong national defense:

In television interviews in 2004, Mr. Dowd said that Mr. Kerry’s campaign was proposing "a weak defense," and that the voters "trust this president more than they trust Senator Kerry on Iraq."

But he was starting to have his own doubts by then, he said.

He said he thought Mr. Bush handled the immediate aftermath of the Sept. 11 attacks well but "missed a real opportunity to call the country to a shared sense of sacrifice."

The two events that hardened Dowd's resolve to speak out against Bush happened during the summer of 2005, said Dowd: the president's poor decisions regarding Hurricane Katrina, and Bush's refusal to meet with Cindy Sheehan around the same time that he was entertaining Tour de France Champion Lance Armstrong at his Crawford ranch, said Dowd during the interview.

His thought process was further influenced by working with California Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger during his 2006 campaign, which had a theme of broad, bi-partisan appeal. (I can relate to Dowd's thinking here - Arnold is most definitely a Republican I would consider voting for were he eligible to run for president, which he is not.)

"I think we should design campaigns that appeal not to 51 percent of the people," said Dowd, "but bring the country together as a whole.

"If the American public says [it's] done with something, our leaders have to understand what they want," Dowd said. "They’re saying, 'Get out of Iraq.'"

Pretty powerful statements from one of Bush's inner circle. This is by no means a crippling blow, but it comes at a time when Bush needs as few of these stories as possible in the media.

While it's about three years too late, I applaud Dowd for his courage - it's not a stretch that Bush's Rasputin, Karl Rove, will avenge Dowd's change of heart in whatever way he can.

Photos from AP via The Huffington Post

Update: Swiftboat benefactor's ambassadorial nomination 86'd

I guarantee this bit of news gets lost in the news shuffle, considering all that is taking place on Capitol Hill these days.

I previously blogged about Sam Faux (I mean, "Fox" - sorry - it's a habit), a Swiftboat Veterans for Truth benefactor, who had to go before Congress and explain himself when he was nominated by the Bush Administration to be U.S. ambassador to Belgium.

Massachusetts Senator John Kerry, the 2004 Democratic nominee for president and target of Fox and the Swifties, didn't miss his opportunity last month to call out Fox for his involvement with the SBVT. Kerry made the most of it.

Yesterday, the Bush Administration withdrew Fox's name from consideration for the ambassadorship. Good. Finally, the Bush teams gets one right. He never should have been nominated in the first place.

"His nomination would not have passed today if the vote had been called up," said White House spokeswoman Dana Perino, as reported by AP.

During Fox's hearing last month, Kerry raked Fox over the coals about his $50,000 donation to the SBVT, saying the group was "smearing and spreading lies" about him. Kerry was after an apology, but didn't get one. No matter.

"Sam Fox had every opportunity to disavow the politics of personal destruction and to embrace the truth," Kerry said Wednesday, according to an AP story. "He chose not to. The White House made the right decision to withdraw the nomination. I hope this signals a new day in political discourse."

Keep dreamin', Senator. It's a victory for Kerry, albeit a very, very small one when compared to the damage Fox and his minions did in 2004.

Justice delayed is justice denied, but at least Kerry got his day with Fox by outing him as the partisan hate monger he really is.

Since I always hear Bill O'Lielly whining and complaining about the likes of George Soros and the money he donates to Democrats, I wonder if BOR has anything to say about Sam Fox? I already know the answer.

It's too early for prez polls

People from all walks of life have been carping and complaining that our next presidential election is starting earlier than ever. You'll get no argument from me; we can now officially debate which begins much to early - the Christmas buying season or our presidential elections.

Anyway, call me crazy, but even though the candidates, declared and undeclared, seem to be getting a fair amount of press these days, isn't it a little early for polls? At least six months early? The first primary is about nine months away, so polls are meaningless now, right? Yea, sure.

This is a cover that the Philadelphia Daily News ran on February 28, pimping a poll proclaiming that Pennsylvania is turning red. More specifically, that McCain or Giuliani would beat Hillary or Obama, according to the latest poll.

Not to put too fine a point on it, but what a meaningless cover story. I'm not saying it because I'm no fan of Giuliani or McCain. I'm saying it because nine months is an eternity in American politics.

While Pennsylvania is a closely divided state, recent history has it trending it blue; the DemocratIC nominee has carried the state during the last four presidential elections, and Democrat Ed Rendell just began his second term as the state's governor. And it's not exactly like Republicans haven't tried, either; President Bush visited Pennsylvania more than any other state (aside from Texas) during his first term, and the state still went to John Kerry in 2004. (Democrats won the "Battle of Pennsylvania," but lost the war.)

I wonder if the motive for the Daily News running the above cover on Feb. 28 has anything to do with the paper's chief executive, Brian Tierney (right)? The former PR flak and Republican operative led a group of investors that bought both of Philadelphia's newspapers in March 2006.

So far, the jury's out on Tierney's influence over editorial content, (so that rates as a positive)but there's no question that the 2008 presidential election will be the biggest test of Tierney's leadership.

I'm no fan of Tierney's, and never will be. He has a checkered past as a PR executive when it came to the press. It's more than a little ironic that he became the chief executive of Philadelphia's two daily newspapers and philly.com. I certainly don't miss his ridiculously partisan election night diatribes on Comcast. (How a PR executive qualifies to give prognostications about politics is beyond me, but Comcast doesn't have a good track record of picking commentators at all; having Ed Rendell do post-game analysis of Eagles games is equally stupid.)

My point is that polls are a waste of time and money right now. It's much too early, but that's not likely to stop the media from conducting them anyway and reporting the results like the 2008 election hangs in the balance.

Kerry grills major SBVT donor

Well, this came nearly three years too late, but better late than never, I guess.

Sam Fox, the Bush Administration's nominee for ambassador to Belgium, had to face the fire recently from the man he helped slander, defame and attempted to politically destroy - John Kerry, the Massachusetts Senator and 2004 Democratic Presidential Nominee. Fox donated $50,000 to the Swift Boat Veterans for Truth (SBVT), a tax-exempt 527 founded in 2004 by long-time Republican benefactor John O'Neill. (More on O'Neill in a bit.)

I got a particular kick out of Fox's blatant ass kissing of Kerry toward the end of the video clip in the face of Kerry's steady, unyielding questioning. Kerry wouldn't let him off, and Fox had nowhere to go. Evidently, Fox at one point called Kerry "a hero," but it's not in this clip.

Unbelievable.

There's no freakin' question that Fox was lying through his teeth - who would donate $50,000 and not remember where it went? Anyone who donated that much to the SBVT certainly was very aware of what that organization was saying about Kerry. Clearly, he supported the lies and slander that were being spread (truth be damned), or he wouldn't have donated the $50,000.

There were some left-leaning 527s in the 2004 campaign as well, most notably MoveOn.org. MoveOn aired some anti-Bush ads and were working against Republicans and the Bush campaign, no question, but there were no established ties between the Kerry campaign and MoveOn that I've read about, anyway, and I've done a fair amount of reading on the subject.

Anyway, the bottom line is that MoveOn and the SBVT paid whompin' fines last December for campaign finance violations. The SBVT paid the highest fine, which was around $300,000.

The founder of the SBVT, John O'Neill, is human garbage who can't seem to let go of the fact that Kerry has been a success despite the '04 campaign. He has long ties to the Bush family (as does Sam Fox) and is a regular contributor to Insanity and Colmes.

Following Fox's testimony and grilling by Kerry on the Hill a little over a week ago, O'Neill, of course, appeared on Insanity and Colmes. Just a tidbit:

HANNITY: So are you wondering if Senator Kerry is bitter? Joining us now is the man who created the Swift Boat Veterans for Truth, John O'Neill is back with us.

John, first of all, your reaction to the overreaction and this real bitterness of Senator Kerry?

JOHN O'NEILL, SWIFT BOAT VETERANS FOR TRUTH: Sean, he just won't let it go. You know, he spent 37 years obsessed with three-and-a-half months in Vietnam. Everybody else went about their business, had jobs, you know, did other things. Our kids didn't even know we were there. You can see it again the same way.

But the retaliation by Kerry follows a very — a pattern that's gone on ever since the election. They went and picketed my home during my daughter's wedding.

Kerry's commanding officer in Vietnam was a Captain George Elliott. Immediately before — while his wife had cancer, he received an e-mail, she did, wishing, hoping that she died. She did die three weeks later. He really should be ashamed for what he's done.

HANNITY: Well, I want to ask you this, because you talk about the politics of personal destruction. Clearly, you're the victim of this here.

More importantly, you know, here's a guy that's up for a position. He has a different political point of view. Now, my take is that, if the real liar the person that really smeared individuals, well, that was John Kerry. John Kerry smeared the good character, the good name of Vietnam vets like yourself, and he lied about them, and he made accusations that they were murderers, and that they were terrorizing people, and cutting off head and arms and limbs, etc.

We don't have to rehash all of it here, but it seems to me it's John Kerry. But the important question is here, because somebody dared to disagree with him, donate money to a campaign that was against him from president, he now is using his position, or misusing his position, to take revenge. Is that what you saw in this?

[...]

COLMES: Mr. Fox, by the way, who John Kerry was questioning, just referred to John Kerry as a hero. Do you agree with your contributor, Mr. Fox, who said that?

O'NEILL: Mr. Fox and 155,000 other people, but, no, the great heroes we had, Alan, are all back in Vietnam. They all died there. I think if you talk to the people in our unit, you would find that we believe those are the great heroes we had. And I think you'd find also that most of us don't live on our experience there like Kerry does.

HANNITY: I don't know if George Bush would have won re-election but for you guys telling the truth. And as far as I'm concerned, you're all heroes. John O'Neill, you're a great American. Thank you for being with us.

O'NEILL: Thank you, Sean.

Oh, what the hell - take a look at the Insanity and Colmes video - here it is - see for yourself. I'm warning you though, anger is sure to follow.



This video clip just enrages me, although I know it shouldn't. Hannity is a gutless, uneducated, soulless person who does or says anything to advance the cause of Fox News and his hero, President Bush. I couldn't believe my ears when I heard Insanity say to O'Neill, "Clearly, you are the victim here." I'll let that one stand on its own.

Does anyone really believe that John Kerry, or someone in John Kerry's stead, really e-mailed a dying wife and wished death on her? O'Neill is the lowest form of human filth who will say or do anything to smear Kerry. It's well documented that part of O'Neill's animosity toward Kerry stems from Kerry's anti-war activities once he returned from Vietnam. Never mind the fact that Kerry was exercising his constitutional right to speak out against a war that he felt was immoral and unjust. (Score Kerry right on both counts.)

O'Neill has a long and storied history with the Republican Party, going all the way back to the Nixon White House, who recruited him to combat Kerry in the court of public opinion. Kerry's Congressional testimony and anti-war activities infuriated Nixon.

Secondly, college drop-out Insanity calling O'Neill a hero is about what I'd expect from a right-wing ideologue who would spin President Bush murdering someone into it somehow being the Democrats' fault (and if he could tie in Bill Clinton somehow, all the better). If I were to ever meet Insanity, I'd have a hard time controlling my absolute, right-down-to-my-bones hatred for him.

It's not a stretch to say that the SBVT played a pretty significant role in Kerry's defeat in 2004. In a close election decided by less than four million votes, it could have made the difference. It's just too bad that Kerry waited nearly three years too long to aggressively combat the SBVT's lies, slander and falsehoods. O'Neill and his band of liars did have an impact, and I witnessed some of it personally - a few of my Republican best friends bought into the SBVT's lies and distortions hook, line and sinker.

Now in his early sixties, Kerry has probably missed his chance to ever be president. For what it's worth, I still have a tremendous amount of respect for Kerry and his wife, Theresa Heinz Kerry, despite the campaign Kerry ran in '04 that was beleaguered by poor decisions and even worse advice from incompetent advisers. Despite overwhelming evidence to the contrary, enough people bought into the SBVT's b.s. to have an impact on the election.

Score another phony Mission Accomplished for President Bush.

Check out FNC's Obama, um, "coverage"

Happy Sunday morning - I thought I'd share a sage video clip to start off the day. It's a pretty good montage of the sewage Fox News has been pushing about Barack Obama, and it's only February 2007, folks. In this clip, we get such Earth-shattering events as the bogus and thoroughly debunked Madrassa story, Obama's cigarette habit, and photos of Obama in a bathing suit. Obama in a bathing suit is newsworthy?!? Christ, I didn't know Britney Spears is running for president!

Without question, media "coverage" of the candidates can and will get a whole lot worse before 2008, which only makes me relish the fight and challenges ahead for all of us.

I'm getting that 2004 feeling all over again, and it gives me goosebumps. For me, '04 was an incredibly empowering year, (At left, attending a John Kerry Love Park rally) and I put my activities where my mouth was, spending lots of time at phone banks, rallies, going door-to-door and spending the last seven days before the election working full time for the Kerry campaign in Bucks County, Pa. It was bittersweet, but I'd do it all again, and I plan to during the '08 presidential election. (Although I doubt I'll be able to take a week off from work, wherever I'm working or wherever we're living, and by then I hope it's sunny Southern California. Maybe a personal day or two and some weekend work, and of course, blogging! ;o)

Anyway, I found the video above from a Website called Fox Attacks. The site and the clip above really are worth 10 minutes of your time. These are the same people who brought us OUTFOXED: Rupert Murdoch's War on Journalism. If you haven't seen that movie yet, I strongly urge you to do so; when you rip the Fair and Balanced scab of Fox News, you uncover a lot of puss. (To see the trailer for OUTFOXED, scroll down the right side of my home page until you get to movie trailers - take a look.)

Anyway, I love the video above, and I love what the people at Fox Attacks are doing. These are the kinds of sites I'm working on visiting and writing about - sites that urge and help you do something, instead of just blabbering on and on and whining about the current state of affairs. (And I'm guilty of more than a little of that.)

On Fox Attacks, you can sign a petition, watch videos like the one above (and others), and take action against advertisers who insist on advertising on Fox Noise Channel. I don't know about the effectiveness of some of this stuff, but I know it's better than just complaining.

It's empowering.

Rednecks cost the GOP

As reported in Hotline, a Florida GOP Representative offered up his opinion on why Republicans lost their majorities in both houses of Congress two weeks ago:

"White rednecks" who "didn’t show up to vote for us" partly cost GOPers their Congressional majorities, Rep. Adam Putnam (R-FL) told fellow Republicans today.

Three Republicans in the room independently confirmed to the Hotline the substance and context of Putnam’s remarks. But Putnam’s chief of staff insists that the remarks were taken out of context.

Putnam's chief of staff, John Hambel, said his boss has used the word "redneck" only in the context of sharing polling data from last week’s elections. Hambel said Putnam was listing off different constituencies and ended with saying: "Heck, we even had rednecks who go to church who didn't come out to vote."

##

How great is that? I laughed my ass off when I read this; 1. because it might be true, and 2. I'm constantly reading about how Republicans are courting minorities, specifically African-Americans and Hispanics.

I can only hope that Republicans will have Putnam spearhead their Congressional election effort in 2008.

What a shock from Fox

Found this last night, and it's making its way around the 'net. I found it on Arianna Huffington's Website, and I'd like to think that if she ran with it, she had a good source. According to her site, it's a leaked internal memo (below) obtained from a source at Fox News. Penned by the network's vice president of news, John Moody, it reveals Fox's game plan the day after Democrats won control of both the Senate and the House. Really, should anyone be surprised by this?

The Department of Homeland Security should put out an APB for all Republicans how still piss and moan about "Rathergate," the incident prior to the '04 election where Dan Rather did a report on President Bush's time in the National Guard. It was revealed the story was based on forgeries and false documents. "Bias! Bias! Bias!" righteously indignant Republicans screamed. I'm not sold on Rather's bias, but it was sloppy, stupid reporting, and Rather should have known better. But, if Rather's reporting was biased, that would make this Fox News memo WHAT?

If Rupert Murdoch has any balls whatsoever (and we know he doesn't), he'll immediately fire John Moody and apologize to all of FN's viewers. Moody is the new Dan Rather, but on official state TV, there are no consequences.

Two quick afterthoughts here. On the drive home yesterday, thinking about this memo and how it relates back to Dan Rather and his forged documents, two things struck me:

1. I wonder if Rather was trying to get back at Bush 41 with the report on W in September '04. Anyone remember when Bush Sr. was running for president in 1988 and he got in a shouting match with Dan Rather, and Bush really got the best of him by mentioning when Rather walked off the set in the early 1980s?

2. Speaking of documents, I wonder why the forged documents, hyped as "proof" by the Bush administration, are never brought up in the phony Iraq purchase of yellow cake in Niger? (An incident which gave rise to the whole Valerie Plame affair, by the way.) Rather was duped by forged documents, just like the Bush administration was. One led to war and the senseless death of tens of thousands, the other to embarrassment, not of Bush, but of Rather.

I only bring up Rather now because the analogy is already being made between the so-called bias at CBS and the blatant bias at Fox News. They are not analogous, but I can guarantee that Republicans will try to make that distinction. Christ, I could practically write Sean Hannity's show for today.

It's gonna be an interesting two years of Democrats ruling Congress.

Bill Mahr, censored!

So, it seems that a giant media conglomerate has struck again. Bill Mahr, on Larry King Live on Wednesday night (above), made the assertion that many people in high leadership positions in the Republican Party are gay, and he named Ken Mehlman, the current head of the RNC.

In the subsequent rebroadcast of Larry King at midnight, Mahr's naming of Mehlman was edited out of the broadcast.

I just finished watching last night's episode of Bill Mahr's show, Real Time with Bill Mahr, and no mention of gay Republicans.

Before I go any further, and this will come as no surprise to any regular readers of this blog, I don't care if any or all of the leaders of the Republican Party are gay. I really don't. The only issue I would have with it is their fervent anti-gay stance on just about every social issue, including gay marriage, which they want to amend the Constitution to make illegal in all states.

The issue this raises to me is media conglomeration, and how an increasingly consolidated media controls what we hear. In essence, with some exceptions, we only hear what these media giants, and the politicians who benefit from their campaign largess, want us to hear. That ought to frighten every American.

I'll bet everything I'm worth that one or more of the following happened:

1. An attorney representing Ken Mehlman and/or the RNC made a phone call to Time Warner with these threats: a lawsuit; and worse for Time/Warner, the threat that no prominent Republicans would appear or give interviews on CNN, HBO, Time Magazine, etc. Time/Warner owns all three (and a whole lot more).

2. Bill Mahr was told to shut his mouth, which he did on his show last night. No prominent Republicans announced.

Okay, I freely admit that it was stupid of Mahr to even allude to the fact that he was going to out Mehlman, which he ended up doing on Larry King anyway. It's unwise, and he's better have proof, or there would have been a lawsuit, a point I'm sure Time/Warner's lawyers no doubt made to Mahr in fairly animated terms.

But, is it right that a phone call from the RNC or a lawyer can effectively shut someone up? In this case, probably, because Mahr was out of line, IF it's untrue. But, what if Mahr has rock solid proof? The threat of a lawsuit has censored him. That's not good for our democracy.

Neither is media conglomeration, which has taken place at a breathtaking pace under this administration. A Republican-controlled Congress relaxed regulations a few years ago that allowed companies to purchase and own more radio and television stations.

The example above is just one way that this rapid consolidation of ownership can come back and bit democracy in the ass.

Anyone remember the 2004 election-year media censorship? In 2004, The Sinclair Broadcast Group caused a huge controversy when it forbade eight of its ABC-affiliate stations from broadcasting an April 30 episode of a Nightline that was to pay tribute to the 721 soldiers killed by reading their names on the air. The reasons given? That it undermined the war effort. A little investigation uncovered the fact that all of the senior leaders at Sinclair were maxed out contributors to the Bush campaign.

But, Sinclair wasn't done. In October 2004, Jon Lieberman, a Sinclair executive, revealed in an interview with the Baltimore Sun that Sinclair planned to order all 62 (Yes, 62!!!) of its ABC affiliates to air Stolen Honor: Wounds That Never Heal, a documentary critical of Democratic Presidential Nominee John Kerry's anti-Vietnam War activism just two weeks prior to the presidential election. Public outrage followed, and Sinclair aired an edited version, and they fired Lieberman for revealing company business.

If our government prevents something from being broadcast, it's called prior restraint. But, what do you call it if a large media conglomerate friendly with the party in power forbids unflattering material to that party from being aired? Second-degree prior restraint? A threat to a free press and our very democracy is more like it.

I'm very hopeful that the new Democratic-Congress will immediately repeal the relaxed restrictions on media ownership and put in place more sensible restrictions; restrictions that don't put too much power in the hands of enormous media companies, their executives and their stockholders.

Our democracy, and our free press, depend on it. I'll be writing much more about this in the coming weeks and months, including what we can do about it.