The Shamefully Idiotic Quote of the Week

And the Shamefully Idiotic Quote of the Week belongs to----Drum Roll, Please: Well, what do you know? It's a tie. It just so happens that both of these idiots were unable to out shame the other when spewing nonsense about this week's Al Gore Speech. Our first idiot is, and this should surprise no one, Sean 'The King of Shame' Hannity:

"Should -- why would Al Gore associate with a group that is that left wing and that radical? What if he spoke before the Klan? Would that -- would we not hold him in judgment for that?"

There you go. Yep, you heard right, he just compared MoveOn.org to the Ku Klux Klan. Enough said.
Thanks again to The Center for American Progress' Daily Progress Report for that little gem of idiocy.

Our shameful co-idiot is New York Times columnist David Brooks, who said this about Gore's speech on PBS's Newshour with Jim Lehrer:

"You know, the guy has been through something none of us will ever go through, I think it's had an emotional effect on him, a psychological effect.

"I think what bugged me about the Al Gore speech was not that it was out of all proportion -- that it was really -- there was no moderation -- no sense of reason, but how uninterested he is in what's happening in Iraq, how intellectually uncurious he is. He's fighting a war, but it's not a war against terror, it's not a war in Iraq. It's a war against Bush. He'll say anything about Bush but as far as talking about what we should do in Iraq, what the problems are, he doesn't care about that. That's the voice of moveon.org -- that's the voice of Michael Moore; they're fighting a war; it's against Bush but it's not the war this country is fighting. And I think John Kerry is absolutely right to resist that kind of language."

If you'll notice he began his quote by acting as if he sympathized with Gore, and then he used that softness to essentially say that Gore had "psychological" problems. Then he goes on to categorically say that Gore's, MoveOn.org's, and Michael Moore's message expresses a total lack of concern for what is going on in Iraq. Welcome to the constanly revolving world of the ad hominem attack. If you have nothing of substance, call them crazy, and then say that they don't care about the troops.
WOW! How shameful can these idiots get?

A Kerry Interview Worth Reading

I just finished reading a wonderful interview with John Kerry from Salon.com. I highly recommend reading it. It is well worth your time. Here is just a piece I snipped of Kerry's response to the question of being called a 'flipflopper':

""I'll tell you what. What's really so craven about it is that they pick something that they implement badly and screw up, like Iraq or No Child Left Behind or the Patriot Act. And when you point out that they screwed it up, they say that you're 'flip-flopping.'

"But they, on the other hand, break a promise to have no deficit, break a promise not to invade Social Security, break a promise to fund No Child Left Behind, break a promise to introduce the four-pollutant bill and move forward on the environment, break a promise to deal with the real health issues and prescription drugs, break a promise of humility in American foreign policy. I mean, you start running down the list -- I've never seen a grander array of flip-flops. This is the biggest 'say one thing, do another' administration in modern history."

Another Call from Claudius Flauberius

My good friend, and fellow blogger, Claudius Flauberius has been calling me every now and again to talk politics, or whatever else comes to mind. Today's topic: The Republican Response to Al Gore's Moveon.org speech. However, you also might hear a little about Bush's boo-boos and Ashcroft's lagging poll numbers when matched up against Satan.
I would like to privately thank Claudius for editing out some potentially unsavory remarks I made during the call. Sometimes the Hot Gun Spy gets a little to trigger-happy for his own good.

Surprise, Surprise

Photo:CBS/AP

Bush's approval ratings have plummeted in the past few months. In fact, a new CBS poll has his approval numbers as low as 41%. Now, obviously his administration knows that they have to do something to stop the bleeding, so to speak. So, they have him give a prime time speech at the Army War College. Well, the big three networks didn't cover it, and many in the print media seemed to think it was more of the same old war rhetoric from Bush. So, what is their next move? What does the administration usually do to try and change the subject? That's right, it's terror time. CNN reports:

"Several U.S. officials said Tuesday that unnamed terrorists, possibly al Qaeda operatives, are in the United States and planning a 'major attack' on U.S. soil this summer."

Farenheit 9/11 Wins Palme d'Or

Photo: Associated Press
This from the New York Times:

"At the awards ceremony that wrapped up the 57th Cannes Film Festival on Saturday night, the jury gave 'Fahrenheit 9/11,' Michael Moore's stinging critique of the Bush administration's foreign policies, the Palme d'Or, the festival's top prize and one of the most coveted honors in international cinema."

Also, Moore decided to take a quick swipe at conservatives after the ceremony:

"Mr. Moore noted that four of the nine jurors were American: Mr. Tarantino, Kathleen Turner, the director Jerry Schatzberg, and the Haitian-born novelist Edwidge Danticat. 'I fully expect the Fox News Channel and other right-wing media to portray this as an award from the French,' Mr. Moore said. Only one juror, the actress Emanuelle Béart, is a French citizen."

I always love it when anyone takes the time to take a shot at the Faux News Channel.

One of the things that makes this award all the more amazing is the fact that the last time a documentary won the Palme d'Or was Jacques Cousteau's 'The Silent World' in 1956. So, obviously the Cannes Film Festival is not eager to give their highest honor to documentaries.

A Call from Claudius Flauberius

My good friend, and fellow blogger, Claudius Flauberius gave me a call yesterday over Skype. Lucky for you, the conversation was recorded(he will be hearing from my attorney). The topic: West Wing, post-Sorkin, and the virtues of Thirtysomething.

The Folly of the Republican's Medicare Bill

I just read a Washington Post story that leads with this:

"The Bush administration violated two federal laws through part of its publicity campaign to promote changes in Medicare intended to help older Americans afford prescription drugs, the investigative arm of Congress said yesterday.
"The General Accounting Office concluded that the Department of Health and Human Services illegally spent federal money on what amounted to covert propaganda by producing videos about the Medicare changes that were made to look like news reports. Portions of the videos, which have been aired by 40 television stations around the country, do not make it clear that the announcers were paid by HHS and were not real reporters."

How is this not a bigger story. If it wasn't for Google News then I would have no idea about the GAO's findings. I can not believe that the big media outlets aren't all over this. This, I believe, is just another example, in a long line of examples, that prove that the liberal media bias is a paranoid conservative delusion.
Here is another story that isn't being reported, from the same article, about the same subject:

"Two weeks ago, the Congressional Research Service concluded that the administration potentially violated the law in a related matter, in which the Medicare program's chief actuary has said he was threatened with firing a year ago if he shared with Congress cost estimates that the Medicare legislation would be a third more expensive than the $400 billion Bush said it would cost."

Oh, and if you aren't convinced that the radical conservatives that ran this bill through weren't as crooked as thieves, well, here is another factoid from the same article, on the same subject:

"The House ethics panel, meanwhile, is investigating whether Republican leaders attempted to bribe or coerce a GOP House member to vote for the bill before it passed by a few votes before dawn after the longest roll call in House history."

And that is just Medicare.

The Shamefully Idiotic Quote of the Week

And the Shamefully Idiotic Quote of the Week belongs to----Drum Roll, Please:
Georgia Senator Zell Miller. Take it away you shameful idiot:

"The two times I think I have been most humiliated in my life was standing in a big room, naked as a jaybird with about fifty others and they were checking us out, now that was humiliating. It was humiliating showering with sixty others in a public shower. It didn't kill us did it? No one ever died from humiliation."

In case you didn't guess, Miller is comparing a locker room experience with the tortures of Abu Ghraib. I wonder if he was sodomized with light sticks in the locker room?

Thanks to The Center for American Progress' Daily Progress Report. I highly recommend signing up for their valuable daily e-mails.

Bush Knew

Report: Rumsfeld approved operation that led to Iraqi prisoner abuse

I wish I had more time to expound on this article tonight, but I don't. So, here are a few choice clips from an Associated Press story:

"Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld authorized the expansion of a secret program that encouraged physical coercion and sexual humiliation of Iraqi prisoners to obtain intelligence about the growing insurgency in Iraq, The New Yorker reported Saturday."

Then further down the article is what I believe to be the smoking gun, so to speak:

"The program got approval from President Bush's national security adviser, Condoleezza Rice, and Bush was informed of its existence."

No wonder they seemed more outraged by the photos than the actions.

A Few Quick Updates

Kerry Hitting Back, Finally
As far as I know, Kerry has been all but silent about the Abu Gharib pictures, and because of this all his policy speeches the last few weeks have been drowned out of the news cycles. So, no wonder he isn't making a big push in the polls against Bush. Nobody remembers that he even exists.
There has probably been some fear in Kerry's campaign that it would appear that he was politicizing the pictures if he used them to criticize the president's Iraq policy. Well, yea. He is, after all, running for president. It is hard not to politicize something when you are running a presidential campaign. He has a duty to politicize everything about this war. This is Bush's war and Kerry has to keep swinging if he wants to be heard.
This from Reuters:

"Democratic presidential candidate John Kerry saw for himself on Thursday the images of violence and sexual humiliation at a U.S.-run prison in Iraq, and blamed "grievous" errors by the Bush administration and lax oversight up and down the chain of command for the scandal.

"With that, his most stinging assessment yet of the Republican administration, Kerry made clear he would not back down in the face of charges by President Bush's campaign that he was politicizing the war and prison abuses."

Then he went on to attack the administration on their abuses of the Geneva conventions.

"I would never have thrown out the door or window, the obligations of the Geneva Conventions. Why? Because I know as a former combatant, that had I been captured, I would have wanted our moral high ground, with respect to those Geneva Conventions, to be in place.

"By being selective and saying they (the Geneva Conventions) apply here, then they don't apply here, and so forth, we invite others to be equally as selective and it puts American troops in greater danger."

Let the Bidding Begin
This from MSNBC, on the battle for distribution of Michael Moore's Farenheit 9/11:

"A handful of distributors are interested in picking up Michael Moore’s controversial documentary 'Fahrenheit 9/11,' which Walt Disney Co. refused to allow its Miramax parent to release.
"According to several sources close to the situation, the outfits leading the pack are Universal Pictures’ specialty division Focus Features and Newmarket Films, which distributed Mel Gibson’s equally controversial 'The Passion of the Christ' in North America."

Tucker Tackles the War and PBS
One of the few conservatives that I have always liked, every since his failed TV show 'The Spin Room' with Bill Press, is CNN's Tucker Carlson. He has always struck me as a very honest, funny, and pragmatic guy. I certainly don't agree with him very often, but I respect his moderation when it comes to bombast.
I also always suspected that he was not so crazy about the war in Iraq, though he never once showed his hand. However, I remember hearing him say once that the policy of pre-emption, agree with it or not, was a radical policy. Then I saw this today in the New York Observer, regarding the war in Iraq:

"I think it’s a total nightmare and disaster, and I’m ashamed that I went against my own instincts in supporting it. It’s something I’ll never do again. Never. I got convinced by a friend of mine who’s smarter than I am, and I shouldn’t have done that. No. I want things to work out, but I’m enraged by it, actually."

And starting June 18th you can watch Tucker on his own half-hour show on PBS.

Greetings...from Hell

Photo: The New Yorker

I was talking to a friend the other day who was, surprisingly, not very shocked by the horrifying photos that were taken of Iraqi citizens at Abu Ghraib prison in Baghdad. His response was very similar to Rush Limbaugh's absurd response, which was essentially that these are just a bunch of young soldiers letting off steam. My friend thought that the photos that he had seen, which were essentially naked piles of Iraqis, were not really displays of torture at all. It wasn't until I told him about the prisoners that were sodomized, beaten, or killed that he began to change his tune.
He also, like most Americans I would imagine, had no idea how many of these Iraqis are completely innocent of any wrongdoing. This from Josh Marshall, opening with comments made by Sen. Inholfe about the prisoners at Abu Ghraib:

"'These prisoners, you know they're not there for traffic violations. If they're in cellblock 1-A or 1-B, these prisoners, they're murderers, they're terrorists, they're insurgents. Many of them probably have American blood on their hands and here we're so concerned about the treatment of those individuals.'

"Of course, according to American military intelligence officers who spoke with the ICRC, 70% to 90% of the detainees in Iraq were there by mistake."

So, if you indulge me for a moment and look at the photo on this post, I would ask you to try to think of all the other photos of this hell that we have seen, and to think of these men's families, their children. I want you to think of sodomization, laughter, being ridiculed in a language you don't understand. I want you to try to comprehend the humiliation, the shame, the fear. Then, I want you to imagine that you did nothing, nothing to warrant such abuse. Then ask yourself who the terrorists are.

More Moore with a Dash of Abu Gharib

TIME.com: There's More to Moore's Film Than Bush Bashing -- May. 17, 2004

Eisner told reporters last week that he had rejected the movie because he did not want Disney to get dragged into partisan battles in an election year. But the Miramax camp scoffs at that claim, pointing out that Disney's radio arm has no compunction about distributing fire-breathing conservative Sean Hannity's show. The film has been described as an incendiary attack on the Bush family's ties to Saudi Arabian oil money and the Osama bin Laden clan. But a source who has seen the picture tells TIME that the Bush-Saudi elements make up only about 15 minutes of the roughly 110-minute film.

Harvey and Bob Weinstein, the Miramax bosses who earlier chafed at Eisner's overruling of their plans to release Kevin Smith's religion spoof Dogma, are said to be outraged that he dismissed the Moore film without having seen it. The Weinsteins are looking for a new distribution plan, but according to a Miramax source, they may also evoke a little-used clause in their contract to arbitrate the matter with Disney.

Sorry to dwell so much on the Micheal Moore story. I have really wanted to touch on the whole Abu Gharib scandal, but I just don't think I am ready to dive into that right now. All I have to say is that I did not support this war. I vehemently opposed this war. I am secure in the fact that I do not have blood on my hands, but that doesn't mean that when I see a photograph of an Iraqi about to be attacked by a group of American soldiers' vicious dogs that I am not horrified by it. I am starting to seriously wonder who the terrorists are in this war.
Photo Courtesy of The New Yorker
But I digress. More on this later, if I'm up to it.

Update on the Moore Story

As of last night, I was travelling through Google News and found several articles that said, in one way or another, that Michael Moore all but admitted that his fracas with Disney over the distribution of his film Farenheit 9/11 was all a publicity stunt. Well, that is just bad reporting. He never said that at all. All the articles that I read had the same source for their claim, and it was this statement from an interview Moore gave on CNN:

"Almost a year ago, after we'd started making the film, the chairman of Disney, Michael Eisner, told my agent he was upset Miramax had made the film and he will not distribute it."

Well, that doesn't at all sound like he is conceding that the recent dispute was a publicity stunt. Here is Moore's explanation:

"But Michael Eisner did not call Miramax and tell them to stop my film. Not only that, for the next year, SIX MILLION dollars of DISNEY money continued to flow into the production of making my movie. Miramax assured me that there were no distribution problems with my film."

So, you can see why he might have believed that Eisner had changed his mind. I just wanted to clear that up.
However, I'll let Moore defend himself in his own words:

'"Mr. Moore is doing this as a publicity stunt." Michael Eisner reportedly said this the other day while he was at a publicity stunt cutting the ribbon for the new "Tower of Terror" ride (what a pleasant name considering what the country has gone through recently) at Disney's California Adventure Park. Let me tell you something: NO filmmaker wants to go through this kind of controversy. It does NOT sell tickets (I can cite many examples of movies who have had to change distributors at the last minute and all have failed). I made this movie so people could see it as soon as possible. This is a huge and unwanted distraction. I want people discussing the issues raised in my film, not some inside Hollywood fracas surrounding who is going to ship the prints to the theaters. Plus, I think it is fairly safe to say that Fahrenheit 9/11 has a good chance of doing just fine, considering that my last movie set a box office record and the subject matter (Bush, the War on Terror, the War in Iraq) is at the forefront of most people's minds."

Drumming Up Business for Moore

Photo by The Associated Press
You may remember that several months ago, in the heat of the Democratic primary, Micheal Moore called Bush a 'deserter' during a Wesley Clark campaign rally. His statement pretty much went under the radar, and probably, unless you were at the rally, you would have never heard anything about it. Then, in a subsequent debate, Peter Jennings drew attention to Moore's comment by asking Clark to condemn it. By asking the question about Moore and his 'deserter' comment, Jennings opened up the questions about Bush's National Guard service and it became a huge story for a couple weeks. You would think that the media would have learned not to bring large-scale public attention to Moore's comments. Well, no, they haven't.

This is the opening to a story that was on page one of today's New York Times:

"The Walt Disney Company is blocking its Miramax division from distributing a new documentary by Michael Moore that harshly criticizes President Bush, executives at both Disney and Miramax said Tuesday."

Moore's film is "Farenheit 9/11", which was just announced as an official selection of the Cannes Film Festival. (See my entry about this story here.)
Moore is certainly a politically charged figure, and his face, words, books, and movies almost always make news, precisely because of his devisiveness. So, this story will obviously drum up boffo box office for "Farenheit 9/11". That is why I am suspect about Disney's decision not to allow Miramax to distribute the film. It just seems too convenient from a marketing standpoint. This icould quickly become a perfect storm of media attention. You have Moore, who always seems to be a media story. You have Disney, which has recently become a hot media story by losing Pixar, the attempt by Comcast to take the company over, the vote of shareholders to demote Michael Eisner, and now this(You could also argue that this string of bad press would be a reason why they wouldn't attempt to pump up the box office by inciting a controversy, but...). Then you have the debate over free speech that has gone on in this country since the Janet Jackson incident, which has caused the FCC to put a strangle hold on the media. Lastly, and certainly not least, we are in the middle of one of the most hotly divided presidential elections in this country's history. So, as I said this story is right in the center of a possible media storm.
However, the reason I am suspect about Disney's decision is, would they not distribute a movie that was going to make money just because it was controversial? Or are they refusing to distribute it to get free attention for the movie? Because they certainly could always back down and decide to distribute the movie afterall. I think it is a legitimate question. (By the way ABC is owned by Disney, and Peter Jennings works for ABC. Remember, he was the reason the 'deserter' story caught so much attention.)
Anyway, the marketing question is just fodder for the paranoid. However, I do think that the media will find a way to run with this story, and the movie WILL be distributed by somebody. So, what will all this mean in the end? I think, the controversy will peak the public's interest enough to make "Farenheit 9/11" the most successful documentary since 'Bowling for Columbine.'

I will end with a short excerpt from a letter that Moore posted on his website today.

"The whole story behind this (and other attempts) to kill our movie will be told in more detail as the days and weeks go on. For nearly a year, this struggle has been a lesson in just how difficult it is in this country to create a piece of art that might upset those in charge (well, OK, sorry -- it WILL upset them...big time. Did I mention it's a comedy?). All I can say is, thank God for Harvey Weinstein and Miramax who have stood by me during the entire production of this movie."

Further Travels Through the Absurd

It seems that the Bush campaign has fed the president a new talking point to use when defending the mess he's made in Iraq.
This from my friend Claudius Flauberius on April 13, 2004(referring to the President's Press Conference the day before):

"Update: I can't help it. I had to pull another quote. I caught the rerun a couple hours later, and I have to comment on this:

'Some of the debate really centers around the fact that people don't believe Iraq can be free; that if you're Muslim, or perhaps brown-skinned, you can't be self-governing and free. I strongly disagree with that.'

"What kind of idiotic garbage is he throwing out here? If press-time with George W. wasn't as scarce as clean-oxygen in the future, maybe one of the reporters could've followed up with: "Mr. President, exactly who are you strongly disagreeing with? Who exactly is debating this 'some of the debate" which you are referring to?' Our Chief Executive speaking to a room full of adults. Simply mind-boggling. "

Now this from Josh Marshall on April 30, 2004:

"Perhaps it is a sign of the more general desperation. But watch how the president now routinely accuses critics of his Iraq policy of being racists.
"This is from a brief press availability the president gave this morning with Canadian Prime Minister Paul Martin ...

'There's a lot of people in the world who don't believe that people whose skin color may not be the same as ours can be free and self-govern. I reject that. I reject that strongly. I believe that people who practice the Muslim faith can self-govern. I believe that people whose skins aren't necessarily -- are a different color than white can self-govern.'

"There is so much that is wrong-headed and dishonorable in this repeated invocation -- an implicit, churlish claim that the only reason to oppose him is racism -- that it is hard to know where to start."

Do you think there is a pattern developing?
It defies logic, but who would ever expect a Bush republican to subscribe to such an elitist virtue as logic. Or, perhaps, I am just racist.