JABbering Stooge

Nancy, you have some ’splainin to do!

Even if you hadn’t heard the rumors, the fact that there was a schedule change printout laying at every seat denoting the extended Q & A session with Speaker Pelosi practically screamed that something was up. My former representative, Lloyd Doggett, introduced the Speaker of the House, who gave a 10-15 minute speech praising the netroots for our efforts in returning sanity to America. After a little high school theater, that something was revealed: Al Gore had decided to drop in on Netroots Nation. It was definitely something to see.

For a more detailed recap, you might want to check out Paul Hogarth at Calitics and Jill Tubman over at Jack and Jill Politics. Rachel Sklar also has a good overview over at Huffington Post, if you want to start there. My only quibble with Rachel’s recap is her description of a “brief disruption” from the Code Pink protesters, as “several brief disruptions” would be a more accurate depiction.

Here we go again with the blaming everything as far back as the Fall of Man on Clinton’s penis:

Justice for all?

Re: June 6 editorial “Justice for all ….”

The American-Statesman applauded the prison sentence handed down to Lewis “Scooter” Libby, saying that for a “highly successful lawyer serving in the White House” it is inexcusable to break the law by lying to federal investigators. The Statesman said that for someone in Libby’s position, anything less than prison would “do serious damage to this nation’s adherent promise of justice for all.”

Huh?

Not long ago a “successful lawyer (Bill Clinton) serving in the White House” intentionally and repeatedly lied to investigators and lied under oath to a federal grand jury. DNA evidence proved the lie. So what was his fate?

If “justice for all” is truly the goal, shouldn’t the Statesman be clamoring for a library named for Libby, book deals for him and $100,000-plus speaking fees?

Justice for all? Who are you kidding?

JIM <REDACTED>

First off, there’s the omission of the qualifier “highly” from this bozo’s description of Clinton, implying (intentionally or not) that Clinton was somehow less successful in life than Scooter Libby. I know I’m just a stupid, evil, terrorist, traitor, Spawn-of-Satan “librul,” but I find it hard to believe that one could be much more successful than winning two terms to the highest political office in the nation. Oh wait, that’s right. To wingnuts, success in politics doesn’t count if you have a “D” after your name.

Secondly, this “Clinton did it, so it’s OK if conservatives do it” is the ultimate Tu Quoque fallacy. You guys made lying about oral sex a criminal issue, so it’s only fair that conservatives who get caught with their hands in the proverbial cookie jar get held to the same accountability standard. I thought you guys were supposed to be the party of “personal responsibility?”

But really, this whole “Everything is Clinton’s fault” shtick has gone waaaaaaay too far. It’s become “The Dog Ate My Homework” of conservative excuses that they trot out every time one of their policies turns to complete and utter shit. It’s gotten old, and quite frankly, I’m getting damn tired of hearing it.

Domestic terrorist Michelle MalKKKin blames Clinton’s Almighty Penis for the Fort Dix Six.

Sadly, MalKKKin wasn’t the only one exploiting the arrests for political gain. The Hannity sez:

What do you think we’re likely to find out in the next couple of days about surveillance and how that helped, how the Patriot Act helped, how all the measures that were put in place after 9/11 were of assistance, considering these issues are in quite dispute, especially among Democrats in Washington?

Ummm, Sean? No warrantless wiretaps, no extraordiary rendition, no torture was involved in the disruption of the plot. Just good old fashioned law enforcement. You know, the tactic you and your ilk constantly decry as completely and utterly ineffective next to nuking the entire Middle East (minus Israel) and herding all Muslims into human-sized microwaves for the crime of being Muslim.

They’re talkin’ ’bout
The night Althouse went crazy
The night Althouse spewed pea soup
To get out of bein’ called on her bullshit
There’s no depth to which she wouldn’t stoop

Okay, maybe I shouldn’t be trivializing the subject I’m about to rant about by putting it to “Weird” Al Yankovic lyrics, but there it is.

Yes, I’m going to be talking about the Ann Althouse vs. Garance Franke-Ruta dustup. In particular, I wanted to discuss one aspect of the Jessica Valenti Breast Controversy™. What really gets my goat about the whole exchange is that she seems to think that it’s okay for her to hyperventilate over the slightest criticism of her over-the-top ad hominem attacks on legitimate feminists for the crime of being seen with an alleged sexual harasser, and then turn around and dismiss out-of-hand complaints about actual felonious threats and general misogyny as <Althousian sneer>so much clutching at pearls</Althousian sneer>.

Listen Ann, let’s do a little thought exercise here. Those offensive comments over at AutoAdmit that you deride as “boys being boys” - comments that, quite frankly, make me ashamed to have a Y chromosome - aren’t as nonthreatening as high-school yearbook photos or appearances on Candid Camera, where the mark at least had some idea of what was going on and could thus be a good sport about it. Oh, no. This was clearly delving into Monty Python-esque “wink-wink-nudge-nudge-say-no-moah” territory. (Candid photographs, eh? He asked knowingly.) Exhortations of the sort that would earn the pervert a well-deserved scream of “Chikan!!!” on a Japanese subway.

So here’s the integrity check, Ann. If you had been subjected to constant online harassment that frequently goes below the belt, so to speak, along with threats against both your life and your person, to the point where you have to bow out of a technical conference you’re scheduled to speak at out of fear for your own safety, wouldn’t you “get a little hysterical” and demand police protection? Judging from your reaction to Garance’s probe, I’d say the answer is yes.

And yet you wonder why liberal bloggers consider you to be a strawfeminist.

Clinton’s Penis! Clinton’s Penis! Clinton’s Penis!

Hey conservatives, remember all the (manufactured) outrage you directed at Clinton’s Almighty Schlong for “Travelgate,” which turned out to be based on a whistleblower’s letter written during Poppy Bush’s administration?

Well, now’s the time to put up or shut up: what say you to the rampant firings of U.S. Attorneys by the Bushies so that they can put their cronies in place to ignore any crimes committed by Republicans and attempt to give Democrats the death penalty for jaywalking?

This can’t be good:

SINGAPORE - Vice President Dick Cheney’s plane left Singapore on Sunday after a scheduled refueling stop and repairs to a minor mechanical problem experienced on an earlier flight from Sydney, officials said.

JABbering Stooge Official PolitickBook Line on this story:

• Over-under - Time until conservatives blame “libruls” for Cheney’s plane troubles: 1 day

• Odds that above will single out Clinton’s Almighty Penis for blame: 50:1

• Odds that above will blame BDS-afflicted “librul” saboteurs: 5:1

• Over-under - Time until some liberal gets hurt or sent fake anthrax over this story: 1 week

• Over-under - Time until Michelle Malkin disavows responsiblity for above attack: 10 days

Sidebar: Since the ability to get airborne in a hurry is a necessecity in a national emergency, Air Force 1 & 2 are in all likelihood some of the best-maintained aircraft in existence. Would that the airlines gave that consideration to their customers.

For some reason that I can’t quite fathom, this Mallard Fillmore cartoon that appeared shortly after Chris Wallace’s ambush interview of President Clinton really irked me:

Click here to see the rest of the story…

Little noticed amidst the impending celebration of our nation’s 230th birthday was the ten-year anniversary of the theatrical release of one of the best little B-movies of all time: Independence Day (ID4). In honor of that milestone, I would like to take note of some things I thought of while watching the movie for the n-th time.

1. The little irony noted on Wikipedia - Osama’s Wrecking Krew was able to pull off what the aliens couldn’t. However, it should be noted in the aliens’ defense that they had targeted the Empire State Building. As such, the WTC, while still in the blast radius, was far enough away that it did not receive a fatal blow. Given the ease with which the invaders wiped out the Empire State Building, the White House and other targets in the initial attack, I have no doubt that had the aliens picked their overgrown phallic targets differently, it wouldn’t have taken 102 minutes for the WTC to fall to pieces.

2. Mae Whitman, who played President Whitmore’s daughter, is now fully legal. She was last seen doing voice acting for the anime series Avatar: The Last Airbender and Kingdom Hearts II.

3. President Whitmore is most likely a Democrat. I say this for three reasons: 1) He served in Gulf War I, unlike many of the flag-bukkake fetishists in the GOP 2) The McLaughlin Group, most notably, Morton Kondracke, are seen constantly bad-mouthing him in the early part of the film, and 3) the film was released while Clinton was president, so a reasonable suspension of disbelief would lead one to conclude that the President in any film form the time period, unless otherwise specified, was a Democrat.

4. Assuming they survived the initial attack, the likes of Michelle Malkin, Ann Coulter, Bill O’Reilly, Sean Hannity, Pillz-E, Michael Savage, Neal Boortz, etc., etc., etc. would use every opportunity available to blame the alien attack on Clinton’s Almighty Penis.

5. The above pundits would cheer the likely destruction of the New York Times by the aliens in their initial attack.

6. The above pundits would also blame the Los Angeles city destroyer’s shift in focus to Area 51 on the "treasonous outing of that military installation’s location" by the New York Times. Never mind the fact that the NYT was likely incinerated in the initial attack. Most especially, never mind the fact that it is quite explicitly stated that the aliens are powerful telepaths, and could pluck the relevant information from the mind(s) of the President, SecDef, and/or Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff as easily as you or I would pluck a grape from the vine.

Carey Lee Cramer, best known as the nutjob responsible for the unoriginal "Daisy Girl 2" attack ad in sElection 2K, has been convicted of "aggravated sexual assault of a child, two counts of indecency with a child by contact and one count of indecency with a child by exposure," according to the McAllen Monitor. He has been sentenced to six years in prison, ten years probation, a $30,000 fine, and must register as a sex offender everywhere he goes.

An added bonus: one of the accusers in the case is the girl who starred in "Daisy Girl 2." Jeff Goldstein would be proud.

How much do you want to bet that Republicans will blame this one on Clinton’s Almighty Penis, the way that Ann Coulter blamed the Almighty Clenis for Enron, WorldCom, etc.?