Why Rio is Rio

Madame Ambassador.

This vie Reuters

Violent Rio picks Naomi Campbell as its ambassador
Fri Jan 19, 3:13 PM ET

The beautiful but violent Rio de Janeiro invited the pretty but troubled Naomi Campbell to be its ambassador on Friday, two days after she admitted in a New York court to throwing a mobile phone at her housekeeper.

The British Campbell, a prominent black supermodel, told the mayor she wanted to raise money for the poor in Rio, a multiracial city known for its vibrant nightlife.

"She has an image that is the face of Rio de Janeiro, she could represent it abroad like nobody else," Mayor Cesar Maia said on the city's official Web site.

On Tuesday, Campbell was sentenced to five days of community service for third-degree assault during a dispute over a pair of jeans. She got a $363 fine and was ordered to attend anger management classes.
…

Because of the nuances involved, I hesitate to make blanket statements about trends in foreign policy. But in this case I believe I can safely say that this is the

Greatest.

Foreign.

Policy.

Development.

Evah.

Tom Waits Friday

Tom Traubert's Blues

And it's a battered old suitcase
To a hotel someplace,
And a wound that will never heal

No prima donna,
the perfume is on an
Old shirt that is stained with blood and whisky

Stewie Griffin

playing

Rich Lowry

Jonah Goldberg

David Brooks

Tom Friedman

Tucker Carlson

Andrew Sullivan

Victor Davis Hanson

Peter Beinart

Fareed Zakaria

Tim Russert

And virtually every Modern Conservative I have ever met.

Media Dumbnambulism - Part 1 of 2

Take out a sheet of paper.

Divide it in half.

Then read this and get ready to make a some lists.

January 16, 2007
Democrats Seek the Middle on Social Issues
By ROBIN TONER


WASHINGTON, Jan. 15 — The promise may not outlast their political honeymoon, but Democratic Congressional leaders say they are committed to governing from the center, and not just on bread-and-butter issues like raising the minimum wage or increasing aid for education. They also hope to bring that philosophy to bear on some of the most divisive social issues in politics, like abortion.

In their first days in session, Senate Democratic leaders reintroduced a bill that they said was indicative of their new approach: the Prevention First Act, which seeks to reduce the number of abortions by expanding access to birth control, family planning and sex education.

In the House last week, Democrats showcased a vote on expanding federal financing for embryonic stem cell research, which, despite fierce opposition from many conservatives, has won bipartisan support among lawmakers — and voters — who are otherwise divided on abortion.

The mantra, for many Democrats, is the search for common ground.
…

Conservatives are skeptical that such a search for common ground is much more than a shift in tactics.

“I can tell you what I expect,” said Douglas Johnson, legislative director of the National Right to Life Committee. “I think the Democratic leadership will seek to advance the policy agenda of the hardcore groups but do so under the cover of deceptive rhetorical campaigns.”

....

And conservatives, by controlling which legislation came to the floor, succeeded in defining the debate over social issues for more than a decade, through votes on same-sex marriage and the procedure opponents call partial-birth abortion, in ways that highlighted the political limits of liberalism.

One measure of how the legislative debate has shifted is that the last time the Democrats were in power, one of the biggest abortion fights was over whether abortions should be covered in the benefit package guaranteed under the Clinton administration’s national health insurance plan, which eventually collapsed. Abortion rights leaders focus on far more modest goals today.

In the past 12 years, Democratic strategists say they have learned some hard lessons. Many said they were dismayed to see the religion gap after the 2004 election, with the Republicans’ overwhelming strength among churchgoers and the widespread perception that Democrats were a secular party insensitive to issues of values.

…

In fact, Democrats, like Republicans, have long had to fight the notion that they are in thrall to the advocacy groups because of these hot-button issues. Republicans clearly took a dip in the polls after their intervention in the right-to-die case of Terri Schiavo, and many strategists say their intense pursuit of a ban on same-sex marriage and other conservative causes ultimately backfired, making them seem out of touch.

Democrats, after 12 years in the wilderness, say they are not likely to repeat those mistakes. But as Mr. Johnson of the right to life committee and other skeptics note, the true test of the Democrats’ common ground campaign may not come until there is a major court fight, especially a vacancy on the Supreme Court. When the fundamental debate over the extent of abortion rights is front and center, common ground will be hard to find.

…

To quote the estimable Steve Gilliard: “Fuck bipartisanship.”

Why?

Because the Left is now the “Center” and the Right is now a dark forest populated only by trolls, bigots, halftards, Christopaths, little lost Small Gummint children and a groping menagerie og ignorant, single-issue armies who clash by night and have let their own fright-propagand so ensorcelled them they can’t even see what a noxious sewer their has Party become.

And because the only people outside of the GOP Circle Jerk who refuse to acknowledge this huge, glaring fact are the Media.

You know; the people who are actually paid to Report On Huge, Glaring Facts.

So you have your paper, properly folder.

Now on the Right side, write the values that were embodied by the Republican Party, say, thirty years ago.

It’s actually pretty easy.

Just look at their Party platform from that year (The list below has been edited down to snips. If you want to see the whole of it, look it up.)

· On our Inalienable Rights:

…Government must protect your constitutional rights. Government must deal with other governments and protect you from aggressors. Government must assure equal opportunity. And government must be compassionate in caring for those citizens who are unable to care for themselves.

· On the role of a Federal Government:

…Those concerns of a national character -- such as air and water pollution that do not respect state boundaries or the national transportation system or efforts to safeguard your civil liberties -- must, of course, be handled on the national level.

We prefer local and state government to national government, and decentralized national government wherever possible.

Well so do I, but there is a New Orleans-sized difference between “wherever possible” and “at any cost”.

· On Fiscal Responsibility:

Every dollar spent by government is a dollar earned by you. Government must always ask: Are your dollars being wisely spent? Can we afford it? Is it not better for the country to leave your dollars in your pocket?

· On Public Integrity:

Your elected officials, their appointees, and government workers are expected to perform their public acts with honesty, openness, diligence, and special integrity. At the heart of our system must be confidence that these people are always working for you.

They work for us. Get it?

· On the Environment:

…The beauty of our land is our legacy to our children. It must be protected by us so that they can pass it on intact to their children.

A clean and healthy natural environment is the rightful heritage of every American. In order to preserve this heritage, we will provide for proper development of resources, safeguards for clean air and water, and protection and enhancement of our recreation and scenic areas.

As our environmental sophistication grows, we must more clearly define the role of the federal government in environmental protection.
We believe that it is a national responsibility to support scientific and technological research and development to identify environmental problems and arrive at solutions.
…
We still have a wealth of resources, but they are not of infinite quantity. We must recognize that our material blessings stem from what we grow in the soil, take from the sea, or extract from the ground. We have a responsibility to future generations to conserve our non-renewable natural resources. Consistent with our needs, conservation should remain our national policy.

· On the way to be in the world:

The United States must always stand for peace and liberty in the world and the rights of the individual. We must form sturdy partnerships with our allies for the preservation of freedom. We must be ever willing to negotiate differences, but equally mindful that there are American ideals that cannot be compromised. Given that there are other nations with potentially hostile designs, we recognize that we can reach our goals only while maintaining a superior national defense.

· On Recycling:

We can no longer afford the luxury of a throw-away world. Recycling offers environmental benefits, economic expansion, resource conservation and energy savings. We support a policy which will reward recycling and economic incentives which will encourage its expansion.

· On Science and Technology:

Every aspect of our domestic economy and well-being, our international competitive position, and national security is related to our past and present leadership in basic and applied research and the development of our technology.
...
Because our society is so dependent upon the advancement of science and the development of technology, it is one of the areas where there must be a central federal policy. We support a national science policy that will foster the public-private partnership to insure that we maintain our leadership role.
…
We recognize that only when our technology is fully distributed can it be assimilated and used to increase our productivity and our standard of living. We will continue to encourage young Americans to study science and engineering.

On Privacy:

We are alarmed by Washington's growing collection of information. The number of federal data banks is now estimated at between 800 and 900 and more than 50 agencies are involved. We question the need for all these computers to be storing the records of our lives. Safeguards must protect us against this information being misused or disclosed. Major changes, for example, are needed to maintain the confidentiality of tax returns and Society Security records.

· On Veterans:

Because they bear the heaviest burdens of war, we owe special honor and compensation to disabled veterans and survivors of the war dead.
We are firmly committed to maintaining and improving our Veterans Administration hospital system.
Younger veterans, especially those who served in the Vietnam conflict, deserve educational, job and housing loan benefits equivalent to those of World War II and the Korean conflict.

Of course this is not the platform I’d write. They’re opposed to abortion. Their dishonest misreading of the 2nd Amendment comes pre-printed on the Platform Form.

And in 1976 they were more than a decade into the soul-murdering Faustian Bargain of the Southern Strategy.

They’re Republicans and I’d stipulate to all of these qualifiers and a buncha other stuff as GOP Que Sera Sera. But there is no way around the fact that the platform – which is always a partisan, political statement of value and vision -- smells faintly of...reasonableness.

rea·son·a·ble (adj.)
1. Governed by or being in accordance with reason or sound thinking:
2. Being within the bounds of common sense:
3. Not excessive or extreme;

A throwback to a day when your opponent need not be your enemy.

When you could differ with honor.

So what changed?

End Part 1 of 2

Media Dumbnambulism -- Part 2 of 2.

What changed?

They changed.

And the Dems chased them.

So now note on your list what the values of the Republican Party of 1976 have mutated into over the course of thirty years.

Note the deliberate coarsening and Orwellization of political language -- the "Scream 'Traitor!!' as loud as you can." -- strategy engineered by Republican Newt Gingrich and Republican Rush Limbaugh.

Note the Republican proud-almost-giddy willingness to use any means, tell any lie, betray any ethic to personally slander and destroy anyone or anything that stands in your way. The Atwater/Rove/DeLay-ification of politics itself.

Note the rise of the Christopaths. The embrace and glorification of superstition idiocy like Biblical Literalism and Creationism. The eagerness with which the inheritors of the Party of Lincoln harness rage, racism and theocracy to bumrush the Constitution.

Note that in 2004, the GOP Platform was almost 1/3 Global War on You-Know-What.

And what else were framed as Mortal Threats to Our Democracy?

“Frivolous” lawsuits".

Everywhere.

From our heavily armed citizenry to health care, the solution to all things is tort reform. The solution is “limit lawsuits and punitive damages”.

Translation: Use the power my lobbyist pals bought for me to stop the Federal Government from protecting citizens from the predations of my lobbyist pals. Then when those citizens get fucked over by my lobbyist pals, us the power of the Federal Government to force those citizens to stop suing my lobbyist pals.

The current GOP platform is a document where “Protecting the Rights of Workers” really means “No one should feel obligated to join a Union who doesn’t want to. Hint! Hint!”

Where “No Child Left Behind” and vouchers are the only sops thrown to the dying remnants of America’s once-proud tradition of public education.

Where all environmental activities are “market-based”, “sensible”, litigation reformish and based on “voluntary agreements”. These voluntary measures plus Very Exciting Non-Existent technology will save us from Global Warming, whereas “mandatory carbon emissions controls” would “harm economic growth” and “destroy American jobs.”

Compared to a bold call for a new GI Bill of Rights by the GOP in 1976, what heroic and visionary ideas do these Republicans have for paying the interest in the debt we will owe today’s veterans?

“…cut the disability claims backlog” and “…improve health care access for veterans who need it most.”

Wow. Can't you just hear that thundering out of Henry V as a coda to his Saint Crispin's Day Speech?

And what is today’s greatest insult to Veterans?

Flag Burners of course! Which is why we must amend the Constitution to stop that terrible, fictional scourge.

And the other Enemies of All Decent Americans?

· “Discrimination against faith-based organizations.”

· Judges: “…with activist backgrounds in the hard-left now have lifetime tenure."

· "Recent events have made it clear that these judges threaten America’s dearest institutions and our very way of life.”

· “Partial-birth abortion” which is a “brutal and violent practice” which will “likely continue by judicial fiat.”

· Conspirators who are apparently plotting to molest the “Pledge of Allegiance”. Or something.

And of course, what locking up judges can’t fix, tax cuts, tax cuts, tax cuts, tax cuts, Abstinence Education and more tax cuts will take care of.


Unlike the 2004 Platform, nowhere in the 1976 document is the “Flag” cited as being especially threatened. In fact, is the word never used.

They had never heard of that Orwellian GOP “Culture of Life” lie, much less embroidered it onto every throw pillow at the RNC.

Nowhere is "Abstinence" referenced as something the Fucking Government should have a damned thing to do with wither way.

No mention is made of the Pledge of Allegiance.

No mention of "judges" at all, except there were too few of them.

The terms “Lawsuits”, “litigation”, “frivolous” are as MIA as Dubya from National Guard duty.

The word “activist” appears nowhere at all.

“Discrimination” appears a few times, but only regarding housing or employment. The idea that white Christian groups were being discriminated against so hard that the Preznit would have to force the vile government to stop it would have been laughed into oblivion.

Our major military threat then was the Soviet Union.

And the GOP in 1976 recognized these two facts about facing a deadly enemy.

First:

“The United States and the Soviet Union remain ideological competitors. We do not shrink from such a challenge; rather, we welcome the opportunity to demonstrate that our way of life is inherently preferable to regimentation and government-enforced orthodoxy.”

Second:

“Governments which enjoy the confidence of their people need have no fear of cultural, intellectual or press freedom.”

Imagine a stance like that taken today in favor of secularity and tolerance.

A government that believed that not only is freedom our greatest asset, it is also our export and our greatest weapon. And the more the most powerful nation on Earth confidently “walks the talk” of democracy -- the more we fearlessly call into the world's shadows and challenge all medieval, barbaric and fear-mongering perverters of noble faiths to come out and debate us in the clear light of tolerance and liberty for all -- the freer the world will become and the safer we will be.

But of course this government cannot do that because it is itself run by a cabal of medieval, barbaric, fear-mongering perverts.

And since today's GOP will always put Party ahead of Nation, and will never risk it’s long-term project oblivion by eradicating the Wingnuts who win it’s elections, staff its phone banks, stuff its envelopes and define it’s dogmatic parameters, they will keep this country stuck in a religious-hypocrisy-stasis in the exactly the same way we were was stuck in a civil-rights-stasis when we castigated the USSR for human rights abuses abroad while tolerating segregation and lynching here at home.

I mean, who in their right mind is going to believe that we stand for Enlightenment and Democracy as long as preening demagogues and raging fascists like James Dobson, Jerry Falwell, Ann Coulter and Sean Hannity continue to be the faces and voices of one of our two main political Parties?

And who in their right mind is going to believe that the lords of this moral slum don’t make pre-emptive war for oil as long as virtually the entire Executive branch is run by oil men?

So now that you’ve used up half of your paper you’ve made your list of where the Republicans were thirty years ago and where they are today one thing should be crystal clear.

One thing that you all already know.

That for the last thirty years The GOP has been on a dead-run due Right so fast that they have disappeared entirely over the horizon into an ultraviolet haze of theocracy and stoopid.

Which means that for the Center to have remained an intellectual constant for three decades -- as every fucking reporter in the Mainstream Universe just keeps insisting is the case -- then the Left must have become....Communists.

Every last fucking one of us (that isn’t Shining Path or Green, that is.)

A Party of Maoists who spend our days militating for the annihilation of Wall Street, and our nights conspiring to Collectivize and Nationalize every industry.

Except even a half-bright eight-year-old can see that we’re not.

Not even in the same ballpark. Not even on the same planet.

No, if you actually bother to check, big swaths of the 1976 GOP platform look distinctly...Clintonian.

Does this make me happy? No. But there it is. And to continue to hawk the ridiculous Broder/Friedman/Sullivan/Klein/Lieberman line of bullshit about everything on the Left being equiposedly extreme to everything on the Right is so obviously insane that the REAL story must become: "What are the real reasons why the Pundit Class continues to deliberately lie to the Amercan public?"

So despite the fact that we all have access to a rich an beautiful language with hundreds of thousands of word to chose from, and even though I dearly love running barefoot through it sometimes just for the sheer joy of it, there is no inherent virtue in complexifyin’ things so let’s make this simple for the simple folk.

From who gets slashed up in the Fox-tainted media, to who gets taken seriously, or who gets carted off the “No Lefty Left Behind” re-education camps next year, the old maxim that “A Jew is whoever Hitler says is a Jew” applies.

The ubiquitous and otherwise-amusing “dirty hippy” image of the Left in the media is almost entirely a construct of the Right which parallels exactly the “dirty Jew”, “savage Injun” or “lust-crazed Negro” stereotypes of famous fascist/eliminationist movements of the past. Marketing campaigns to hawk a simple message to the Great Wad:

That those people are responsible for your pain.

Of course this completely unravels when you actually talk to people in those groups and find out that they’re about 90% like you, except they get shit on or shot at more than you do. Which is why it is terribly important to keep the Great Wad scared stupid all the time; their lynch-or-flee reflexes kept on a hair trigger by horror stories of what’ll happen when you start “mixin’” groups that Caucasian Jebus wants kept apart.

So here’s the truth.

The Left has moved so far Right in the last few decades that the Left is the New Center.

The Right is now run by and for evil lunatics who conceal their evil lunacy in the shadows thrown by their Dirty Straw Hippies.

And anyone who tries to pretend any different is either an idiot or liar who will fuck over your children’s future, kosh you on the head, razor out your pockets and leave you for dead the minute you turn your back on ‘em.

Now fold your list into a little paper bucket.

Puke in it from nausea induced by the fact that although deconstructing these little spun-shit Fox-spawned “stories” is as easy as Dick Cheney pulling the wings off the Constitution, there is apparently no one – NO one – left in the Mainstream Media outside of MSNBC and Comedy Fucking Central who has the nads to even bother anymore.

And then dispose of your sick bag safely.

Hell, who knows?

If it’s viscous enough and comes with a good head of hair, you can maybe get it its own talk show on Fox.


End Part 2 of 2.

During his Sixty Minutes Interview

This guy also actually expected Americans to believe the following:

PELLEY: Did you see the video of Saddam Hussein's . . .

BUSH: I saw some of it.

PELLEY: . . . execution?

BUSH: Yeah.

PELLEY: What did you think when you saw that?

BUSH: I thought it was discouraging. You know, obviously could have handled this thing a lot better. And I knew it'd be, you know, one of those incidents where it would call into doubt . . . it would create further skepticism. You know, it's important that-- that chapter of Iraqi history be closed. They could have handled it a lot better.


PELLEY: I wonder if there was also some sense of satisfaction. You've had this guy in your sights for a long time.

BUSH: Not really. Not really. I was satisfied when we captured him. I'm just not . . .revenge isn't necessarily something that causes me to react. In other words, I'm not a revengeful person. I'm glad he received the justice that was due.

...

BUSH: Somebody showed me parts of it. Yeah. I didn't wanna watch the whole thing.

PELLEY: Well, you keep saying "parts of it." What do you mean you didn't wanna watch the whole thing?

BUSH: I wasn't sure what to anticipate beyond the yelling and stuff like that. And I didn't . . .

PELLEY: You didn't wanna see him go through the trapdoor.

BUSH: Yeah. Yes. I didn't.

This is the same guy who casually put 131 prisoners to death in Texas in a way that “defined him, unforgettably, as shallow and callous.”

(Via CommonDreams and originally Published on Saturday, June 17, 2000 in the New York Times)

Texas Executions:
GW Bush Has Defined Himself, Unforgettably, As Shallow And Callous
by Anthony Lewis

BOSTON-There have been questions all along about the depth and seriousness of George W. Bush. They have been brought into sharp focus now by a surprising issue: the way the death penalty is administered in Texas. In his comments on that subject Governor Bush has defined himself, unforgettably, as shallow and callous.

In his five years as governor of Texas, the state has executed 131 prisoners -- far more than any other state. Mr. Bush has lately granted a stay of execution for the first time, for a DNA test.

In answer to questions about that record, Governor Bush has repeatedly said that he has no qualms. "I'm confident," he said last February, "that every person that has been put to death in Texas under my watch has been guilty of the crime charged, and has had full access to the courts."

That defense of the record ignores many notorious examples of unfairness in Texas death penalty cases. Lawyers have been under the influence of cocaine during the trial, or been drunk or asleep. One court dismissed a complaint about a lawyer who slept through a trial with the comment that courts are not "obligated to either constantly monitor trial counsel's wakefulness or endeavor to wake counsel should he fall asleep."

This past week The Chicago Tribune published a compelling report on an investigation of all 131 death cases in Governor Bush's time. It made chilling reading.

In one-third of those cases, the report showed, the lawyer who represented the death penalty defendant at trial or on appeal had been or was later disbarred or otherwise sanctioned. In 40 cases the lawyers presented no evidence at all or only one witness at the sentencing phase of the trial.

In 29 cases, the prosecution used testimony from a psychiatrist who -- based on a hypothetical question about the defendant's past -- predicted he would commit future violence. Most of those psychiatrists testified without having examined the defendant: a practice condemned professionally as unethical.

Other witnesses included one who was temporarily released from a psychiatric ward to testify, a pathologist who had admitted faking autopsies and a judge who had been reprimanded for lying about his credentials.

Asked about the Tribune study, Governor Bush said, "We've adequately answered innocence or guilt" in every case. The defendants, he said, "had full access to a fair trial."

There are two ways of understanding that comment. Either Governor Bush was contemptuous of the facts or, on a matter of life and death, he did not care.
...

The guy who is infamous for mocking an executed Texas woman in an interview with “Talk” magazine, saying:

" `Please,' Bush whimpers, his lips pursed in mock desperation, `don't kill me.' "

These are not the actions of a compassionate man.

These are the hallmarks of a sadist who has lived his entire sheltered, gold-plated life with a singular and smirkingly cavalier attitude towards the death and suffering of others. Who has never given a shit about anyone but himself and who's empty heart and placeholder soul is only barely rouged over with words of fake empathy by his handlers when he has to be wheeled in front of a camera to woodenly stutter out whatever Dick Cheney or Karl Rove tell him to say.

Who is, as Richard puts it in “The Lion in Winter”, "incomplete": the human parts of him are missing.

So small wonder that I find it infinitely more plausible that the Crawford Dauphin watched the video of Saddam’s hanging 117 consecutive times, Clockwork Orange-Style



In a soundproofed White House play room,

With Don Karleone basting his eyeballs with Halliburton-brand “I Can’t Believe It’s Not Compassion!” glycerin-saline-peyote drops (“Now Act Like You Care With ‘I Can’t Believe It’s Not Compassion!’: Facsimile Emotion for All Occasions.”) every few seconds to keep them lubricated,

While he knocked back a couple or three "milk-pluses",

Brayed the whole time in pure, simian ecstasy,

And then burbled feverishly on and on through the night and into the morning about Sweet Baby Jebus and the Glorious End Days that are always only a fleeting friedman or two away.

Spocko beds

The Gray Lady

Bloggers Take on Talk Radio Hosts
By NOAM COHEN

A San Francisco talk radio station pre-empted three hours of programming on Friday in response to a campaign by bloggers who have recorded extreme comments by several hosts and passed on digital copies to advertisers.

The lead blogger, who uses the name Spocko, said that he and other bloggers had contacted more than 30 advertisers on KSFO-AM to inform them of comments made on the air and to ask them to pull their ads.

The comments were also posted on Spocko’s Web site, spockosbrain.com. In response, ABC Radio Networks, which owns KSFO and which in turn is owned by the Walt Disney Company, sent letters to the site’s service provider, demanding the clips be taken down from its servers. The provider complied, raising the issue of what constitutes fair use of copyrighted material by a critic.

In an unusual cap to a simmering controversy, four talk radio hosts at KSFO-AM themselves played the clips on Friday, which had, in some cases, drawn national attention for language considered racially insensitive, religiously intolerant or containing violent imagery. The broadcast contained the occasional carefully measured apology for language that “could have been put more elegantly,” as one host, Melanie Morgan, described her comment — “We’ve got a bull’s eye painted on her big wide laughing eyes” — about Nancy Pelosi, the Democratic speaker of the House of Representatives, who is from San Francisco. “But Ms. Morgan added that her words were obviously a political metaphor that had to be distorted by critics to appear violent.

…
Spocko had recorded and disseminated other clips from the station in an effort to alarm advertisers. In one, Brian Sussman, an evening host on KSFO, described Senator Barack Obama, Democrat of Illinois, as a “halfrican,” because he has one African parent and one white parent. In another, from 2005, he challenged a caller who said he was not a Muslim to prove it by repeating back an insult to Allah. Mr. Sussman apologized for both comments during Friday’s three-hour show.

In an interview, Spocko, who described himself as being in his “late 40s and a communications professional,” said he was appalled by what he heard on KSFO. Among the advertisers Spocko contacted, and who have been reported in The San Francisco Chronicle to have stopped advertising at KSFO were Bank of America, MasterCard and the Michigan Economic Development Corporation. During the Friday show, one of the hosts, Lee Rodgers, read an e-mail message asking if the station had lost any sponsors so the listener could, in turn, boycott the former sponsors. Ms. Morgan said “one advertiser — exactly one” had left the station.
…

When reached at his office, KSFO-AM’s program director, Ken Berry, said he felt “the three-hour broadcast best spoke for us” and referred other questions to ABC. An ABC spokeswoman had no comment.

…
KSFO’s Lee Rodgers: “Well I haven’t apologized for anything and I am not going to start with you. How the hell do you like that, creep?”

Of course Rodgers hasn’t apologized. His state of contrition is irrelevant: Being an on-air, jackbooted Conservative wank means never having to say you’re sorry.

What is relevant is what Spocko has accomplished here.

Violent, eliminationist rhetoric has become the lingua franca of the fucktard base. It has been rolling off their tongues since the early mass media days of Limbaugh and the White Power Hotline, every year getting more casually vicious and every year getting more mainstream.

Like constant, toxic references to “dirty Jews” that were used almost as conversational punctuation in fascist Germany, or American bigot's beloved “nigger”, the Right Wing has grown so off-handedly comfortable with their giggling, "feminazi"-fication of the English language that their rhetorical universe has grown increasingly saturated.

They now steep so completely in their own vomitous propaganda that their gasbag heroes have to drill ever deeper into the bile mine to tickle their listener’s debased nerve endings with New!Hategasmic!Thrills!

They literally don’t notice anymore what appalling and manifestly anti-American swine they have become. The can no longer detect their own stench and act genuinely surprised/enraged when anyone calls them on it.

In the stinking wake of Iraq, Katrina, Terry Schiavo, The “AARP=Queer” campaign (during the Social Security crossfire) and especially in the last three election cycles, no one but the most willfully ignorant (in other words, about 116% of the Paid Pundit Caste) can fail to notice the oratory depths into which the GOP will gleefully sink, for any reason or none, at the drop of a hat.

That during the Reign of the Christopaths, the Right deliberately made Newspeak their Mother Tongue and Two Minutes Hate into a 24/7 media empire.

And once that happened –- once one side tossed Reason out the window and embraced darkness, irrationality, fear and smear as political instruments –- it stopped being OK to pretend that we can play nice with the crazy people any more.

It’s time for every American who still give a damn about this country to take the nearest available 2x4 to the only nerve-bundles they can still register -- the polling place and the $$$$-sac -- which is why what Spocko has done is so miraculous.

Using only a blog, a few words and some audio, Spocko has forced a story that features the two central issue of our times -- the rise of the Right as powerful, bellicose and explicitly Hate-based political cult, and the almost categorical refusal of the major media to report on it as such – onto the pages of America’s journal of record.

And that is pretty damned impressive.

Somewhere out near

the chill orbit of Saturn, the Goddess of Irony was minding her own business.

Then She heard this...


From tonight’s Sixty Minutes:

…
PELLEY: What would you say right now in this interview to the Iranian president about the meddling in Iraq?

BUSH: I'd say, first of all, to him, "You've made terrible choices for your people. You've isolated your nation. You've taken a nation of proud and honorable people, and you've made your country the pariah of the world. You've threatened countries with nuclear weapons. You've said you want a nuclear weapon. You've defied international accord. And you're slowly but surely isolating yourself." ...

And there, in the vacuum of space, the Goddess of Irony screamed silently for three hours as if She were being torn apart by wild dogs.

And then She died.