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 One down
11/29/05 08:21:53
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Randy "Duke" Cunningham tearfully confesses to having taken bribes, including, bizzarely, "a 19th-century Louis Philippe commode". Insert obligatory punchline here.
Ah, but that’s not all. The congressman’s plunder includes:
..payments for Mr. Cunningham’s yacht and his Rolls Royce. Silver candelabras. A leather sofa. Two Laser Shot shooting simulators for $9,200. A graduation party for the congressman’s daughter (for only $2,000).
Mr. Cunningham not only sold his Del Mar, Calif., home to a defense contractor at an inflated price of $1.5 million; he then jacked up the price an additional $175,000, hid the defense contractor’s participation by removing his name from the sales agreement, took a $115,100 check to cover the capital gains taxes and had the defense contractor pick up $11,000 in moving fees. Then the two defense contractors paid more than $1 million toward the mortgage on Mr. Cunningham’s new home.
You’d think that a man who was this corrupt would have the good grace to keep a low profile, but no. After all, he’s in favor of executing drug kingpins...that is, unless the kingpin in question is his own son.
On another note, I found this fun little special order speech Cunningham gave last year. Weird doesn’t even beging to cover it.
Dc Media Girl Permalink
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Woodward
11/26/05 17:22:27
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One of my all-time favorite Christmas movies is White Christmas, starring Bing Crosby and Danny Kaye. In the film, Kaye and Crosby play war buddies turned entertainers. Like the sisters in Sense and Sensibility, one partner (Kaye) is all about emotion, while the other (Crosby) is cautious and sober. The upshot is that whenever Kaye tries to pull Crosby into some harebrained or impulsive scheme, Crosby naturally refuses to go along, so Kaye utilizes one of the oldest tricks in the book: blackmail. He (Kaye) grabs his own arm to remind Crosby he (Crosby) saved his life during the war, and is now in his debt.
Which gets me to Bob Woodward.
I think it’s fair to say that there is not one person on the Post’s staff - not Len Downie, not Phil Bennett, not any of the editors or even the reporters who’ve won the Pulitzer - who are as famous as Woodward (after all, who else in that newsroom has been played by Robert Redford in a film?). And justifiably so. Woodward, along with his partner Bernstein, scored one of the most important journalistic coups in recent memory. Their work inspired many young idealists (present company included) to dive into journalism.
All good so far. But here’s what happened after Watergate: Woodward became a star. And a star gets treated differently in a newsroom.
For one thing, he’s treated differently by his editors (see also Miller, Judith). In Woodward’s case, he was an "editor" who never edited a story, a "reporter" who was given free reign to write his books but not trouble himself with filing stories. It worked out pretty well for a while. But here’s the thing: A staffer who’s given enough rope will eventually hang himself. Everyone, and I mean EVERYONE, who works as a gatherer and exposer of fact needs a damn good editor riding herd. Nothing personal, it’s just best for business. And a damn good editor, or even scant adult supervision, is precisely what Woodward hasn’t been burdened by for years.
So naturally he didn’t tell his editor he knew more about the Plame story than he was letting on. Why should he? Why shouldn’t he respond that he "didn’t want to get involved" when asked why he didn’t come clean sooner? So what if he opened himself and his paper up to massive scrutiny, criticism and cynicism? He is, after all, Bob Woodward. All he had to do was grab his arm, reminding his bosses of who’s who and what’s what, and his editors caved. Just like Bing.
Dc Media Girl Permalink
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I read it for the articles, I swear
11/22/05 21:36:34
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Great piece in the latest GQ about Sinclair Broadcasting. I couldn’t help but notice this tasty tidbit:
Never mind that (David) Smith’s own behavior had almost nothing in common with (Sinclair’s vice president of corporate relations, Mark) Hyman’s moralistic segments. According to several sources close to Smith, the principal owner of Sinclair has never been the paragon of personal virtue that his stations preach and his political allies champion. Having launched his career selling pornographic videos in Baltimore’s red-light district during the 1970s, Smith has apparently spent the past thirty years refining that passion. After he was caught by police in 1996 getting a blow job from a prostitute while driving a company Mercedes, his sexual adventures became a matter of public record, but according to his friends, that incident only begins to tell the story.
“That was the time he got caught,” says one. “He’s a whoremonger. A real whoremonger. He loves the titty bars. The only people he likes go to the titty bars with him. Those are the only people he trusts. He also goes out to Vegas all the time. He goes to the high-end titty bars. He’s always getting the private upstairs rooms, champagne, the works."
Sinclair? What’s that again?
In April 2004, the company forbade all of its ABC stations to air a segment of Nightline in which Ted Koppel read the names of American casualties in Iraq, which Sinclair’s management considered “motivated by a political agenda designed to undermine the efforts of the United States.” Six months later, Sinclair executives launched a political effort of their own, instructing all their news stations to broadcast a documentary on John Kerry called Stolen Honor, which accused the candidate of treason during the Vietnam War. In the buzz that followed, Sinclair’s vice president of corporate relations, Mark Hyman, stoked the fire even further by announcing that any network that refused to air the anti-Kerry documentary were “acting like Holocaust deniers” and that even if the documentary was a gift to Bush, the effect was balanced by the existence of suicide bombers in the Middle East, since after all, “Every car bomb in Iraq would be considered an in-kind contribution to John Kerry.” Nearly three months later, the company was back in the hot seat, this time forced to admit that one of its most visible reporters, Armstrong Williams, had not only spent recent years landing exclusive interviews with men like Dick Cheney and Tom DeLay but was also getting paid handsomely by the Bush administration, having struck a deal with the White House to receive $240,000 in exchange for “favorable commentaries.”
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I’ve returned
11/22/05 20:59:42
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So I’m back.
A number of you have written e-mails ranging from concerned to curious to outright hostile and, it must be said, somewhat paranoid, inquiring as to my whereabouts. Some of you have engaged in rampant, irresponsible speculation. Hey, I appreciate the concern, but honestly.
No cloak and dagger stuff to report, I’m afraid. I’ve been heavily involved in a project that takes up 99.9% of my time. I’d say that the remaining .1% of my day is spent sleeping off the demands of the day, but I’d be lying. No, what remains of my day is spent fretting. But now that the project is underway I’ve finally had the chance to gather my thoughts and return to blogging, which I’ve missed.
So sorry for my absence, and I promise that next time I’ll bring a note.
As a reward to all of you who’ve written, either clamoring for my return or cursing my name, I bring an offering: One of the stupidest conversations ever recorded by humans. Or could it be a punishment? Whatever. Enjoy! More later, I promise.
Ever wonder what dinner-table conversation between Larry King and wife No. 7, country singer Shawn Southwick-King, is like? At the premiere of Walk the Line, they discussed intelligent design with a reporter. Larry: I know the world is more than 5,000 years old. I mean, that’s ridiculous. Shawn: Don’t say ridiculous! Larry: Honey, they’ve found bones 3 million years old. It’s insane. Shawn: But don’t call other people’s beliefs ridiculous. Larry: I’m gonna hit her. How’s this? The thought that the world is only 5,000 years old is hard to conceive. Shawn: There you go! Larry: Now, could there have been intelligent design? Could be. Then we could also say, who designed the intelligent designer? Shawn: All good questions, Larry, but impossible— Larry: —to answer? I’m in the answer business! Shawn: All right, put all of the pieces of a clock into a bag, shake it, and expect it to come out working. That’s the big-bang theory. Larry: But if I shook it up, and it worked, that would not be intelligent, that would be random. Shawn: Yeah . . . Larry: So if intelligent design designed this, who designed the designer? Shawn: A designer! Larry: I’m saving my arguments for the Supreme Court.
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It depends on what the meaning of the word "teats" is
11/9/05 23:06:58
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It’s just so good:
The lewd language of a Fox News Channel executive -- however tasteless -- does not constitute sexual harassment or discrimination, a lawyer for the network said Tuesday.
The lawyer was responding to a discrimination suit against the network filed by the U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission and targeting the head of the company’s promotion department.
The complaint contains a list of statements alleged to have been made by network vice president Joe Chillemi to employees in the 20-person department, roughly one-half of whom are women.
Offensive remarks attributed to Chillemi include saying that a pregnant woman had "tits" like "cannons".
Steven Mintz, a Manhattan lawyer hired by Fox, called the complaint "legally baseless", saying: "We don’t view any of the assertions in the action as either harassment or discrimination. This is a case involving bad language."
Mintz disputes some of the alleged statements, but would only address one of them.
The EEOC says that Chillemi used the phrase "as useless as tits on a bull" in front of women. Mintz said that’s not the precise language. The phrase is "as useless as teats on a bull. "It’s something that’s useless. It’s not a sexual comment."
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And the hits just won’t stop coming
11/9/05 23:03:06
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Seriously, at a certain point you run out of words (that is, until the next time). And again with the Scotland golf trips:
The lobbyist Jack Abramoff asked for $9 million in 2003 from the president of a West African nation to arrange a meeting with President Bush and directed his fees to a Maryland company now under federal scrutiny, according to newly disclosed documents.
The African leader, President Omar Bongo of Gabon, met with President Bush in the Oval Office on May 26, 2004, 10 months after Mr. Abramoff made the offer. There has been no evidence in the public record that Mr. Abramoff had any role in organizing the meeting or that he received any money or had a signed contract with Gabon. A document from Mr. Abramoff’s files that was released last week by a Senate committee shows that in the summer of 2003 he pushed to sign President Bongo as a client, even offering to travel to Gabon immediately after an August golfing vacation to Scotland "with the congressmen and senators I take there each year."
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A wounded Judy
11/9/05 09:26:09
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Judy Miller’s talking, and she’s hopping mad:
Ms. Miller and her lawyers signaled that they were specifically displeased with and might consider legal action about Mr. Keller’s use of the word “entanglement” in his memo to describe Ms. Miller’s connections with now-indicted Vice Presidential aide I. Lewis (Scooter) Libby. In the light of long-circulating gossip about Ms. Miller’s romantic life, that word choice led to widespread speculation and mockery. In a follow-up phone conversation, Ms. Miller described the insinuation as “completely untrue.”
“Many people many other journalists—assumed that there was an improper relationship,” Ms. Miller said in Sag Harbor. “Many people assumed there was a sexual relationship, which is one reason I’m so insistent on that, on his clarifying [the word choice]. I’ll be diplomatic, O.K.? I call it a correction. And at The New York Times, we call it a correction …. But I’ll settle for a, quote, ‘clarification.’”...
...Ms. Miller continued: “I welcome a debate on the subjects that we should debate …. But to then let all this other stuff blur the core issue - W.M.D., alleged sleeping with sources, taking seats away from colleagues 15 years ago - to let all of that cloud the issue does our profession and those issues no good.”
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Political work
11/9/05 09:00:15
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Years ago, I had a friend who worked on the campaign of a candidate who was running against former KKK Grand Wizard David Duke. My friend and his colleagues were particularly dismayed that Duke’s racist affiliations weren’t really making a dent in his support, so they tried another tack. During a focus group, the moderator asked whether the assembly was troubled that Duke had never held a real job. The question was greeted with a yawn. The response was "so what? Politicians don’t work".
It’s clear that this cynical assessment of politicians and their seemingly light work load is not confined to citizens of Louisiana, whose local political system is synonymous with corruption and hijinks (making it a joy for journalists to cover). This attitude has also taken hold with candidates. Which gets me to Arnold Schwarzenegger.
Schwarzenegger may be one of the luckiest people ever to walk the earth when it comes to politics. While fellow Republican Darrell Issa did all the heavy lifting to force Gray Davis out of office, Arnold bided his time on the sidelines. The minute he announced his candidacy (on The Tonight Show, no less), Issa’s dream of becoming governor was dashed. Which was actually pretty hilarious, to tell the truth. Ahnold exploited his star power and name recognition to the max, becoming governor after a drasctically truncated campaign against a cast of thouands, which spared him having to endure a rough-and-tumble extended primary.
Almost immediately, political commentators and spin doctors started comparing Schwarzenegger to Ronald Reagan, another actor-turned-California Governor. The comparison was patently absurd. While it’s true that Reagan was a movie actor, to compare Arnold’s career to his would be like comparing Oprah Winfrey to one of those local daytime shows. Reagan acted in a few movies, but was also involved in politics before becoming governor. Arnold Schwarzenegger was a gigamega star, a celebrity known the world over by his first name. And therein lies the rub.
Contrary to popular belief, politicking is hard work, particularly in the state of California, the fifth largest economy in the world. The good voters of the state have also passed a whole slew of varkakte ballot initiatives which have made lovely California immensely difficult to govern, setting up the governor to be made a chump relatively quickly. This plus the fact that being a governor is like being the CEO of a corporation, but instead of an accomodating, hand-picked board you have dozens, if not hundreds of members of the legislature all clamoring for a piece of you, all while coveting your job. While not fighting off palace coups, you’re also dealing with stockholders in the form of voters, who if they don’t like the job you’re doing will toss you out, but unlike your brethren in the private sector, there ain’t no golden parachute when you’re escorted out the door.
Schwarzenegger’s arrogance and star power got him into his current predicament of low approval ratings and ineffectual governance. A celebrity of his stature lives his life in a comfy cloud where his people suck up to and flatter him. The press coverage is almost 100% favorable, thanks to a batallion of bullying, high-strung publicists. A man in his position is not accustomed to negotiating and making deals; he’s reached the stage in his career where he names his price and the grateful studios sign the checks.
Ah, but then he gets elected to office. Suddenly, the public realizes that they didn’t get the Terminator, but rather a rich Austrian guy who works out a lot. The local pols smell blood in the water. The press does the unthinkable and starts writing negative articles about your work! And your star power is no match for the kryptonite of negative publicity. Down go your approval ratings.
So Schwarzenegger’s story should be a cautionary tale to anyone arrogant enough to think "anyone could do this". True, any bozo can run for office (and many get elected), but governing is a different story, particularly in California. Any other celebrity contemplating a run for the governorship needs to decide: Would I rather win the race or be loved? I hope Warren Beatty takes the lesson to heart.
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The day after
11/9/05 08:29:45
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Many congratulations to Jon Corzine, Tim Kaine, and most importantly their hardworking, tireless campaign workers. Will Virginia prove to be the 2006 bellwether? Intriguing possibility. Stay tuned.
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Treatment of the disabled
11/5/05 22:06:38
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The racist Malkin has her panties in a bunch over the latest outrage perpetrated by the Washington Post. Seems an incredibly ignorant writer utilized a sports analogy to describe conservatives’ delight at the announcement of Samuel Alito as the new SCOTUS nominee. Among the celebrants doing "touchdown dances" at the news, according to the reporter, was Charles Krauthammer, who the writer apparently did not know is in a wheelchair. Malkin huffily wonders:
...imagine the uproar if a conservative writer had made the touchdown remark about Max Cleland or the late Christopher Reeve...
Great point, racist Malkin. After all, conservative writers have traditionally demonstrated exquisite sensitivity when writing about Max Cleland and his disability:
(Max) Cleland lost three limbs in an accident during a routine noncombat mission where he was about to drink beer with friends. He saw a grenade on the ground and picked it up. He could have done that at Fort Dix. In fact, Cleland could have dropped a grenade on his foot as a National Guardsman or what Cleland sneeringly calls "weekend warriors." Luckily for Cleland’s political career and current pomposity about Bush, he happened to do it while in Vietnam.
There is more than a whiff of dishonesty in how Cleland is presented to the American people. Terry McAuliffe goes around saying, "Max Cleland, a triple amputee who left three limbs on the battlefield of Vietnam," was thrown out of office because Republicans "had the audacity to call Max Cleland unpatriotic." Mr. Cleland, a word of advice: When a slimy weasel like Terry McAuliffe is vouching for your combat record, it’s time to sound "retreat" on that subject.
Needless to say, no one ever challenged Cleland’s "patriotism." His performance in the Senate was the issue, which should not have come as a bolt out of the blue inasmuch as he was running for re-election to the Senate. Sen. Cleland had refused to vote for the Homeland Security bill unless it was chock-full of pro-union perks that would have jeopardized national security. ("OH, MY GOD! A HIJACKED PLANE IS HEADED FOR THE WHITE HOUSE!" "Sorry, I’m on my break. Please call back in two hours.")
The good people of Georgia who do not need lectures on admiring military service gave Cleland one pass for being a Vietnam veteran. He didn’t get a lifetime pass.
Indeed, if Cleland had dropped a grenade on himself at Fort Dix rather than in Vietnam, he would never have been a U.S. senator in the first place. Maybe he’d be the best pharmacist in Atlanta, but not a U.S. senator. He got into office on the basis of serving in Vietnam and was thrown out for his performance as a senator.
Cleland wore the uniform, he was in Vietnam, and he has shown courage by going on to lead a productive life. But he didn’t "give his limbs for his country," or leave them "on the battlefield." There was no bravery involved in dropping a grenade on himself with no enemy troops in sight. That could have happened in the Texas National Guard which Cleland denigrates while demanding his own sanctification.
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Tiger Beat for the wrinkly crowd
11/5/05 20:48:55
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OK, I confess: when I was younger, I was an avid fan of Tiger Beat and 16 magazines. The boys profiled were every so cute, not like regular boys. Shaun Cassidy, Parker Stevenson and Leif Garrett would sign their centerfolds with little "x"s and "o"s, just for the eager reader. The nice celebrities were so romantic too! The articles informed me that they loved candlelight dinners and romantic walks on the beach. So enthralled was I by these intoxicatingly loving articles about these adorable, perfect male specimens, that it never would have occured to me (for example) to think that the Bay City Rollers’ official image of milk-drinking innocents was in any way fishy or suspect, or that when the feature about the Village People’s David Hodo focused on his wicker-furnished apartment and his "single and looking!" status, but neglected to mention that he was looking for the "right girl", that I should be a tad suspicious. Then again, I was only 11 years old at the time.
With the exception of profiles of good-looking women in men’s magazines or Vanity Fair’s monthly celebrity cover stories, I haven’t really had that many opportunities to read such breathless, deceptive copy since reaching adulthood...that is, until this preposterous, embarrassing profile of Maureen Dowd in New York magazine. Ariel Levy should have tried to keep her girl crush under wraps. It’s articles like these that follow you around for the duration of your career, and not in a good way. Because really, when you’re a grown up journalist you’re supposed to be able to put aside the impulse to act as a publicist, or to write like a squealing girl at a Backstreet Boys concert.
I confess that I approached this piece with a healthy dose of skepticism, since I’m not a fan of Maureen Dowd’s. I find her columns shallow, arch and mostly mean-spirited. While it’s cute to follow her withering criticisms of Bush and Cheney, let’s not forget that it was the Kool Kids, Dowd included, who advanced the meme that Gore was too much of a stiff, unlikeable, earthtone wearing, Naomi Wolff-dominated pussy to be president, unlike the down-to-earth, would-want-to-have-a-beer-with-him-if-he-were-still-drinking Dubya of the Pecos. And while it was great entertainment to read her verbal shanking of Judy Miller, let me say that I found her bitchy, veiled, disapproving reference to Miller’s "relationships" with powerful men to be a bit rich. And I’ll leave it at that. It’s also worth wondering why Dowd, who wrote so viciously about Clinton’s inability to keep Little Bill in his pants, would then enter into a relationship with Michael Douglas, "sex addict".
And I’m sure Dee Dee Myers is just thrilled to read her husband’s thoughts on the Times’s other newsroom vixen:
“It’s almost impossible not to be a little bit in love with Maureen,” says Washington reporter Todd Purdum. “She’s bewitching. Maureen is . . . a sorceress.”
Oofah. In this article, Dowd is a DC’s own Jessica Rabbit, a sassy Kate Hepburn-style heroine who sits in the center of an admiring rabble of suitors, like fellow Irish temptress Scarlett O’Hara.
Ariel, please get a grip. There’s hope for you yet. I don’t want to read that the only job you can get is covering the Wilmer Valderrama beat. That would be sad.
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Hats off to the Brits
11/5/05 19:59:11
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Only a British journo could come up with a fantastic, evocative line like the one below:
According to the New York Observer and sources with knowledge of the negotiations, Miller is demanding the right to reply to her critics in an opinion piece and a non-disparagement agreement as condition of her departure. Otherwise she has threatened to return to work. She has been on leave since her release a month ago after spending 85 in jail days for refusing to reveal her source in the Valerie Plame case.
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The search for intelligent life continues at CNN
11/5/05 19:55:52
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From the Seattle Times:
CNN’s inability to find a place for Aaron Brown is troubling. His gravitas there, I’ve said it was a reassuring element in a landscape occupied by the plasticine Paula Zahn and Blitzer, a still water that hasn’t run deep for years.
And here again, proof that Jon Klein is an ass who should be driven from the Time-Warner building like a poisoned dog.
Remember when Queer Eye for the Straight Guy first started to pop? Remember what NBC’s response was? Yes, that’s right - massive Fab Five overexposure until the market reached saturation point and you couldn’t escape those five queens for love or money. This unfortunate PR move was followed by Queer Eye for the Straight Girl, which pretty much sucked and was watched by no one. Queer Eye 1.0 veered into dangerous territory when the guys started making over celebrities who didn’t need any help. By the time Carson Kressley’s children’s book was published, the show had not merely jumped the shark, it had suffered a fate worse than death: total irrelevance.
Similarly, Jon Klein’s answer to everything that ails CNN seems to be not more cowbell, but rather more Blitzer, and now more Anderson. Keep ’em on the air until the public tires of them, then kick ’em off. Meanwhile, a smart, thoughtful personality like Aaron Brown finds himself without a home yet again.
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People Mailbag, 11/5
11/5/05 19:32:32
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It looks as though Tom, Katie and Martina’s publicists and their elves have been working overtime:
Congratulations on Tom and Katie’s upcoming heavenly arrival. My friends and I wish more people would find love and happiness like they have.
-- Kit Bromberg, via e-mail
I was thrilled to see your cover. The genuine feelings of love this super couple feels for one another are very apparent. Married or not, this baby is going to be born into a world surrounded by the love of both devoted parents. It looks like Katie is living out her dream of one day marrying Tom and having children - just not in that order.
-- Robyn Franco, Colorado Springs, CO
First you gave Martina McBride’s new album the glowing review it deserves. Then you gave Martina the story she deserves. Finally, my two favorite things come together -- People and Martina McBride.
-- Erin Rulon, Thousand Oaks, CA
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The Senate Dems’ testicular momentum
11/2/05 08:21:31
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From WaPo:
Democrats forced the Senate into a rare closed-door session yesterday, infuriating Republicans but extracting from them a promise to speed up an inquiry into the Bush administration’s handling of intelligence about Iraq’s weapons in the run-up to the war.
With no warning in the mid-afternoon, the Senate’s top Democrat invoked the little-used Rule 21, which forced aides to turn off the chamber’s cameras and close its massive doors after evicting all visitors, reporters and most staffers. Plans to bring in electronic-bug-sniffing dogs were dropped when it became clear that senators would trade barbs but discuss no classified information.
"Finally, after months and months and months of begging, cajoling, writing letters, we’re finally going to be able to have phase two of the investigation regarding how the intelligence was used to lead us into the intractable war in Iraq," Minority Leader Harry M. Reid (D-Nev.) told reporters, claiming a rare victory for Democrats in the GOP-controlled Congress.
The usually unflappable majority leader, Bill Frist (R-Tenn.), was searching for words to express his outrage to reporters a few minutes later. The Senate "has been hijacked by the Democratic leadership," he said. "They have no convictions, they have no principles, they have no ideas." Never before had he been "slapped in the face with such an affront," he said, adding: "For the next year and a half, I can’t trust Senator Reid."
OK, so I have a confession to make. When Harry Reid was chosen to be minority leader, I wasn’t exactly jumping up and down for joy. He’d always seemed so soft, a man likely to be rolled over, a Democrat from the "thank you sir may I have another school".
But then I learned certain details about Harry Reid’s life, nicely summarized below:
He moved to Washington, D.C. and worked as an officer for the U.S. Capitol Police while attending George Washington University for his law degree, Reid graduated in 1964 and returned to Nevada to work as a lawyer in the state before entering politics, serving from 1968 to 1970 in the Nevada State Assembly and then being elected lieutenant governor in 1970, the same year his mentor O’Callaghan was elected governor. He served in that office until 1974, when he ran for the U.S. Senate seat being vacated by Alan Bible. He lost by fewer than 600 votes to former Governor Paul Laxalt.
Reid then served as Nevada state gaming commissioner from 1977 to 1981, a post which subjected him to death threats. Reid’s wife once found a bomb attached to one of their cars. A character in the film Casino played by Dick Smothers is based, in part, on Reid. An attempt was made by Jack Gordon (who would later manage and marry LaToya Jackson) to bribe Reid. Reid allowed the FBI to tape Gordon’s attempt to bribe Reid with $12,000, at which point Reid attempted to strangle Gordon, saying "You son of a bitch, you tried to bribe me."
What the bio leaves out is that Reid is also a trained boxer. In other words, behind the wireless glasses beats the heart of one tough motherfucker. And by having the doors shut, he showed that he’s no man’s bitch.
More on this from Gilliard.
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Release
11/1/05 22:17:17
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To celebrate the release of the racist Malkin’s new book today, a salute to her intellectual consistency. Internment is A-OK for other folks, but when it comes to expelling all Filipinos because of the crimes of a few (actually, one), well, that’s different:
Drudge is headlining an ABC News story on a deeply disturbing espionage case at the White House involving a naturalized American of Filipino descent who worked for Vice President Dick Cheney (and also Al Gore).
A number of flippant liberals are e-mailing me now with calls for all Filipinos to be interned. Grow up. The safety of the president and the country was put at risk, and it may have been due in part to the blinders of political correctness and complacency. If it means now that the White House will be applying extra scrutiny to naturalized Americans of Filipino descent working at the top levels of government and in the military, well, yes, I support that. It’s obviously overdue. And, as I argued in my last book, it’s just one small step towards the kind of national security profiling we should have introduced aggressively after 9/11. But didn’t.
And no, as far as I know the racist Malkin has not as of yet turned herself in, since I guess she’s exempt from racial profiling since she doesn’t work for the government or the military.
I welcome your comments.
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Animal house
11/1/05 21:41:54
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I confess that when I first read this I thought the new chief justice had said it, causing my hard, blackened heart to skip a beat. Then I realized the icky image was conjured up by a member of the MSM, and my hopes were dashed.
It’s still kind of awesome to imagine myself in the press room observing the reaction to this naughty question. *sigh*
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Other breaking news
11/1/05 20:58:54
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This could very well be The. Cutest. Thing. Ever. Our baby Tai Shan is...walking!
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Miracle on 15th st.
11/1/05 20:54:13
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Another Fitzmas miracle! WaPo discovers an actual trend:
Readers want to know: Where exactly is Patrick Fitzgerald ’s Plamegate investigation headed? Will he charge anyone with leaking the CIA agent’s identity? And most importantly -- is he single?
"Am I weird? Patrick Fitgerald is cute!" a female journalist wrote to us shortly after the special prosecutor’s eye-catching Friday news conference explaining charges against Scooter Libby . "Saturday Night Live’s" Tina Fey spelled it out in a monologue the next day: "Trim, soft-spoken, manly Patrick Fitzgerald. His clear, steady voice, piercing blue eyes and unimpeachable integrity restoring my faith in America and making me want to do things I have never done before."
Good news, ladies! The strapping 44-year-old is single! But dirt on his social life is harder to come by than reliable leaks of secret grand jury proceedings.
Look, we tried:
"Beyond telling you he’s a confirmed bachelor, I am going to decline to answer questions about his personal life," said his spokesman, Randy Samborn . Dating anyone? "That I’m not going to answer." What’s he looking for in a girl? "No comment." Who’s he take to Mets games? "No comment."
An old Amherst buddy, Los Angeles lawyer Tony Bouza , described Fitzgerald as "a great catch. . . . He’s funny, smart, warm, easy to be around -- you couldn’t ask for more." Advice for the interested? "Be yourself. He’s a man of relatively simple pleasures."
Yes, our Fitzie has become a lust object. I’d never dream of obstucting this ruling! Rrrrrr......yes, totally cute and, from what I hear from my own sources, a great guy. But a total workaholic. Bummer...
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