JABbering Stooge

Murtha’s comments on the "surge" are good for Republicans.

No, seriously. CNN’s The Situation Room just tonight:

WOLF BLITZER, CNN ANCHOR: Happening now, hostages released from a Hillary Clinton campaign office, but their captor still apparently holding a bomb inside. We’re going to have a live report on this unfolding crisis in New Hampshire.

Plus, a leading Democrat backs away apparently from his Iraq bombshell. Does John Murtha still think the troop increase is not working? And is the House speaker, Nancy Pelosi, forcing him to stick with the party line?

And later:

BLITZER: Because there’s been a little commotion, as you know, Congressman, over the past 24 hours that statements you’re making now seem to be very, very different than what Nancy Pelosi and other leaders in the Congress are saying and what you said earlier.

I’m going to play a little clip of what you said back in April and what you said yesterday. And then I want you to clarify for our viewers what’s going on.

Listen to this.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

MURTHA: I think the surge has failed. I think there was no possibility it was going to work.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

MURTHA: I think the surge is working.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BLITZER: All right, those were two very different statements, what you said back in April and what you are suggesting now. So go ahead, this is your chance to clarify what exactly you mean.

Still later, during the roundtable discussion:

BASH: And Speaker Pelosi also admitted to CNN that the military surge is working, but quickly then downplayed the importance of that progress, saying it hasn’t led to a stable political situation. And, Wolf, Democrats point to polls that show public opposition to the war is at an all time high. But there’s no question that headlines about military success in Iraq is making their message a lot trickier to sell right now.

BLITZER: Dana, thanks very much. Dana Bash with a good explainer on what’s going on.

So is John Murtha taking his party’s anti-war message off course?

GLORIA BORGER, SENIOR POLITICAL ANALYST: Well, you know, Jack Murtha isn’t the only person who has come back from Iraq to say that the surge is working. There have been people on both sides of the aisle who have been doing that. And it does complicate the Democrats’ message.

So what they are going to do and what Murtha was saying today — which was, look, the military has succeeded, but the political developments in Iraq have not matched the military success and that’s — that’s the real problem. And if Murtha was talking at the White House without Nancy Pelosi knowing about it, Wolf, this is one fellow that’s going it be taken to the wood shed.

I swear, if The Most Holy George W. Christ were caught on video "milking" a male horse, the "librul" media would say that it’s good news for Republicans.

So much for the GOP being the party of national security. Feel safer yet?

With media this “librul,” who needs Fox “News?”

Did I fall through a time warp and end up in 1925 or something? Is it illegal now to even mention evolution in e-mails? That seems to be the message that the Texas Education(?) Agency seems to be sending by pressuring its Director of Science Curriculum, Chris Comer, into resigning for having the temerity to announce in e-mail a talk by a key witness in Kitzmiller v. Dover, one Barbara Forrest.

Apparently, Comer was ratted out by a creationist coworker named Lizzette Reynolds, and the pressure to resign met with State Board of Education Chair Don McLeroy’s approval. Joy.

It gets worse. Texas is gearing up to revise its science education standards, and there’s a lot of pressure from within the SBOE and from without to pull a Kansas and “deemphasize” evolution (translation: dump evolution in favor of “goddidit”). And creationists complain they’re being shut out of academia. Seesh!

The best commentary on this travesty comes from The Austringer, who writes:

Apparently, not being a team player in the The Republican War on Science is a firing offense at the TEA. Why forwarding an announcement concerning a talk whose topic is highly relevant to the conduct of science education by an internationally recognized speaker should cause TEA administrators a problem escapes me. One is forced to wonder whether Ms. Comer would be looking for a new job if instead she were forwarding emails announcing talks by DI fellows about “intelligent design” creationism.

Let’s take stock here. Will the Discovery Institute come forward to say that the TEA is repressing Ms. Comer’s free speech rights? Will they urge her to become the star of the “Expelled” movie? After all, she did actually lose her job over her stance on evolution in education, as opposed to various people noted as being featured in the film who did not. But the DI is unlikely to do so because Ms. Comer is on the opposite side of the issue from them. They aren’t defending a principle, they are pushing a particular line of propaganda.

Indeed.

Having been burned for jumping to conclusions once before, I will refrain from speculating on the nutjob’s motivations until more facts come in. But the fact remains that someone walked into the Clinton campaign HQ in Rochester, NH with a bomb strapped to his chest and demanded to speak to the junior Senator from New York.

What he wanted so desperately to say to Sen. Clinton that he felt the need to commit a felony to do so is up for debate. Current reportage, however, suggests that he has a history of mental illness who told his son to “watch the news” today, so whatever it was may not have been all that intelligible.

Fortunately, it appears that the hostages have been freed unharmed, so that’s good news, at least.

Keith Olbermann has a new book coming out. And just like his previous book was a compilation of the Worst Person segments from his MSNBC show, this book contains all of his special comments to date. Should make for interesting reading.

Just don’t show it to certain Fox “News” commentators with a penchant for Middle Eastern food products…

Your “librul” media at work.

Remember when the rabid right trashed President Clinton for trying to hold peace talks between Israel and the Palestinians? How they said that he was trying to pad his legacy? Well, now The Most Holy George W. Christ is doing the same thing wingnuts lambasted Clinton for doing. Well, the far-right is trashing the current occupant of 1600 Pennsylvania Ave., not for trying to pad his legacy, but for believing that Muslims belong anywhere other than a human-sized microwave.

However, DKos diarist James Risser has a different, more rational reason for why expectations are so low for the Annapolis summit. Check it out.

Mitt “Strap Doggy to the Roof” Romney is down with the discrimination against religious minorities:

Mansoor Ijaz, who describes himself as an American-born Muslim whose family came from Pakistan, writes in an opinion piece in today’s Christian Science Monitor that he attended a private fund-raiser this month for Romney in Las Vegas. Ijaz says he asked Romney whether he would consider a Muslim for a national security post in his Cabinet, since he says radical jihad is the biggest threat facing America.

According to Ijaz, Romney said that based on the proportion of Muslims in the US population, a Cabinet post would not be “justified,” though he could “imagine” Muslims serving in lower-level jobs in his administration.

Just one problem. Article VI of the Constitution stands in the way of this sort of blatant discrimination.

Guess that pesky Constitution is “just a goddamned piece of paper” to Mitt.

Blue Texan at Firedoglake has more.

Hmm… Maybe I ought to look into seeing the upcoming movie version of The Golden Compass. And maybe I ought to see about getting my hands on the books, as well, especially in light of the author’s response to the insanity being spewed by the Catholic League. (Hat tip, PZ Myers)

Anything to piss off Professional Outrage Maven Bill Dono-spew.