The United States of Urinal Cake

[BlogBox]

This week's hot blog topics: nobody does it better than Republicans - pissing and moaning, that is; Hannity & Russert: two pissers in a pod; new and improved - the Fake Republican Sincerity Plan; 2000 revisited - why the media lied about Gore's "lying"; presidential seal socks with Crocs? Vera Wang weeps again; and where's the fun at the fundie Creation Museum? All this, plus much more, including "Why Conservative America Is A Myth" and the "dumbing down and tarting up" of CBS News. Enjoy!

If You Had A Nickel...

...for every time someone says, "Maybe this scandal will finally bring them down," You'd have... a lot of damned nickels. Who knows, though. Maybe The Blue Flaming Daily Dammit is right. Maybe this will be the big one:

I HAVE A FEELING THIS IS GOING TO BE REEEEALLY BIG. SO BIG, I ADDED A FEED TO THE LEFT. THIS MAY BE WHAT FINALLY BRINGS THEM DOWN.

Congress subpoenas White House over prosecutor firings.

If Harriet Miers and Sarah Taylor lie as well as Lurita Doan and Monica Goodling, Here's hoping your prediction comes true, BFDD! Meanwhile, right-wing pissing on the country continues... as if we were all just residents of The United States of Urinal Cake.

Hannity & Russert: Two Pissers In A Pod

We can't thank News Hounds enough for watching FOX (so we don't have to). This week, Sean Hannity and Tim Russert named liberal bloggers as the reason Democrats won't be able to "find the center" in the 2008 elections:

A little more than one minute into the interview, Hannity said to Russert, "I think the Democrats have gone further left than anybody would have anticipated. I think these bloggers have really gotten to them. I think they're really positioning themselves that they're gonna have a very difficult time moving center. Do you see that?"

"Absolutely," Russert replied.

Funny, as News Hounds points out: "Unless the majority of Americans who say they want an end to the war are also bloggers, the assertion is ridiculous." Ready for another serving of ridiculous?

Partisan Clowns and Bumblers

If Hannity and Russert think top-tier liberal bloggers are bad, wait until they discover how many MySpacers are dissing Republicans on a daily basis. Here's just one example from Nash:

The real clowns and bumblers are not Brownie, Harriet, Alberto, and Monica - but Bush himself, along with Karl, and Cheney. They are the appointers. They're the ones in charge. They form an arrogant triumverate that sees government not as a public trust, but as a force to march in lockstep with their partisan agenda - a place to plant hacks who'll loyally serve them, not the public interest.

Planted hacks. What a great description! But what's the Republican plan for total domination? Certainly not the their decision to...

Piss On The Latinos

That's right. Pensito Review has the details on the Republican candidates' plan to boycott the Latino Convention this month.

I hate going to Disneyworld too, so I understand every major Republican presidential candidate wanting to stay away. But...staging what amounts to a virtual boycott of what is known as the Latino political convention doesn't seem like a smart move.

Especially when, according to a June 11 press release, all the Democrats will be there.

The only reason cited by Republican candidates so far? "Scheduling conflicts." But, really. How can Republicans achieve total domination in 2008? Why, of course...

New And Improved Fake Republican Sincerity

Mike at The Church of Democracy has discovered the Republican plan to lie about how much they really care about... gulp, people. And they even have a guidebook.

The Republicans have new plans to fake their sincerity to appear "authentic" in this new digital age!

The guidebook, 39 pages long and distributed last week to GOP Senate campaigns, underscores attempts by Republicans to level the Web-based playing field after Democrats, in Ensign's view, leveraged their Internet savvy into electoral wins. Republicans remain almost haunted by their 2006 missteps, particularly the way the macaca incident exposed chasms in their new media campaign strategy.

"Every campaign should film their candidate and record his/her every move at any event that is open to the public," the guide states. "Campaigns should also remind their candidate that they should assume there is a camera on them at all times and act accordingly. It is also recommended that campaigns film their opponents' public events as well."

No more macaca moments? An unrealistic goal? You bet. Republicans and lying go hand-in-hand. Remember...

Why They Lied About Gore's "Lying"

Alas, here in 2007 CE, The Daily Howler has the quotes to confirm what most of us knew in 2000: The corporate-owned media knew that Al Gore wasn't a liar. They just wanted a "close race."

WHY THEY DID IT: In September 2000, Gore was pulling away in the polls; the experts said the campaign was over. And then, out of nowhere, the press corps struck twice! First, that idiot doggy-pill tale. Then, the union lullaby scandal - sadly, an obvious joke

As Alter noted, Gore's progress in the polls was reversed. A few weeks later, the nonsense which followed that first debate pretty much finished things off.

So why in the world did the national press corps push those idiot tales in September? On September 21, 2000, Howard Fineman answered that question for Brian Williams, Jack Welch's "Lost Boy." Given the history that has unfolded, this was one of the most remarkable statements any journalist ever made on any TV program.

Why did the national press pretend that Gore had lied about that lullaby? Why did they pretend that he had lied about those doggy-pills? Here's what Fineman told Williams that night. This is truly a tale for the ages:

FINEMAN (9/21/00): I don't think the media was going to allow, just by its nature, the next seven weeks, the last seven or eight weeks of the campaign, to be all about Al Gore's relentless, triumphant march to the presidency. We want a race, I suppose. If we have a bias of any kind, it's that we like to see a contest and we like to see it down to the end if we can.

According to Fineman, the national press corps turned on Gore that week because they wanted to keep the race close.

A "close race?" Of course, "no one could ever have predicted" that BushCo would be worse that NixonCo. Harumph. Nixon was an amateur compared to these guys. But how do they manage to keep doing their dastardly deeds?

Mediacology. Of course, it's a blog. And here's a great example of its content... and another Tim Russert ruse:

What follows is a decent article about how conservatives "frame" language in order to control how issues are thought about. The concept is based on the work of neurolinguist George Lakoff, whose book Don't Think of an Elephant, was in the back pocket of every Democrat after the last presidential defeat.

(snip)

BLITZER: Congressman Kucinich, you voted against the Patriot Act when it was first introduced. You've since voted again against it. But some would say yesterday's plot that was described by the FBI underscores the need for precisely that kind of tough measure to deal with potential terrorists out there. Here is the framing evoked by the question:

First, and perhaps most importantly, the question assumed that the plot was indeed serious and was not, as Arianna Huffington has suggested, disorganized and disgruntled citizens who were hapless and harmless. Second, the question assumed that the plot was only foiled due to the provisions of the Patriot Act - not community cooperation or police work. Third, the question lumped all Patriot Act provisions together under the banner of necessity. Many provisions in the Patriot Act are indeed beneficial and needed. However, many more are a clear violation of civil rights - Blitzer's question did not reveal these disparities. Fourth, the language "tough measure" and "terrorists out there" represented the Bush administration exactly as the President wanted: The Republicans are tough (hence the Democrats are weak), and there is real evil immediately threatening us (and the Democrats are too weak to protect us).

Finally, the question suggested that the trampling of civil rights through this "tough measure to deal with potential terrorists" is virtuous and worthy of being commended. Since the plot was foiled - Blitzer's question implied that the Patriot Act is an effective measure to fight terrorists - and is therefore worth the destruction of civil rights.

It's no accident that Russert continues to misrepresent the Patriot Act, is it? Tim thinks you won't notice that he's only tough on Democrats. And, consequently, here's what we're stuck with...

Why Vera Wang Weeps

From Daily Kos:

Are those presidential seal socks? With Crocs?

You still "want to have a beer with" this guy?

Never did. Hell, no. No way. Most of us hated George W. Bush before it was cool to hate George W. Bush. You know what's fun, though?

Fun At The Fundie Creation Museum

Take BlueGrassRoots' guided tour of The Creation Museum and be sure to study the photos. Here's my favorite:



Speaking of myths...

Conservative America? Mythical, Of Course

From Media Matters:

Conventional wisdom says that the American public is fundamentally conservative - hostile to government, in favor of unregulated markets, at peace with inequality, wanting a foreign policy based on the projection of military power, and traditional in its social values.
But as this report demonstrates, that picture is fundamentally false. Media perceptions and past Republican electoral successes notwithstanding, Americans are progressive across a wide range of controversial issues, and they're growing more progressive all the time.

Download the complete pdf report here. Whew! That was fun. Wait! There's more...

Fun With Dismal Republican Fundraising

Eric Kleefeld and T. W. Farnam at TPM Election Central report:

Bush's Unpopularity Forcing GOP Fundraisers At NRCC To Struggle To Raise Money

"Financial projections for the President's Dinner tonight confirm that Republican confidence in the president is in a state of collapse," The Hill reports today. Thanks to the President's unpopularity, the paper reports, the NRCC's fundraising expectations for the dinner are $7.5 million -- half of what they were last year. Meanwhile, in yet another sign of Bush's sagging fortunes, GOP Senator Olympia Snowe blamed the party's midterm losses last year squarely on the President, telling the paper that the electoral disaster was "definitely because of the president and his policies." AmericaBlog comments: "If what Snowe thinks is pervasive among her caucus, then Bush is in trouble."

Wait. There's more...

Dumbing Down & Tarting Up With Katie Couric

What's so dumbed down and tarted up? According to Dan Rather, it's Katie Couric's CBS Evening News broadcast. Liberal College Kid agrees and takes on CBS' lame "Rather's being sexist" accusation:

The term tart up does have a female connotation to it, however, I think Rather's point was more along the lines of "dress up" or "fancy up" which the Merrian Webster's dictionary provides as a definition for "tart up." In other words, CBS is making an effort to make the news more entertainment than actual news, which is where his other comment of "dumbing down" comes from. All he basically said was that CBS News is trying to be entertainment, like the most popular news shows (Fake Fox Noise) are.

CBS is currently last of the big three networks for ratings on their nightly news show. CBS News has a long line of distinguished broadcasters: Edward R. Murrow, Walter Cronkite, and Dan Rather. I don't think that Katie Couric is responsible for CBS falling in ratings, though. What Rather has touched on is larger than CBS, his comments could have been said about news as a whole in this country on TV.

Read the rest. It's a keeper, and Liberal College Kid is worth keeping tabs on. One more fun time this week...

Fun With TV Show Endings

Don Davis at Satirical Political says it best:

OUTRAGED VIEWING PUBLIC DEMANDS A DIFFERENT ENDING FOR ... 'THE BUSHPRANOS'

POLLS INDICATE THAT BEFORE THE LIGHTS GO OUT ON THE BUSH ADMINISTRATION, THIS IS THE FINAL IMAGE THEY WANNA' SEE ON THEIR TUBES:

Just like David Chase, Don leaves it up to us to decide the real ending. "Don't stop believing," y'all! The more D's elected to office, the more spinal fluid flowing through the veins of democracy. An icky metaphor, to be sure. But much better than R's creating The United States of Urinal Cake... and pissing on all of us.

-- Delilah Boyd

[emilyg]

1. R

[Demeter]

2. Best Blog Box Yet!

Thanks, Delilah!

[Tyler Durden]

3. And just for a little comic relief...

[displacedtexan]

4. Excellent!

Thanks!

Delilah

[Don Davis]

5. GREAT JOB, DELILAH,

and thanks again for featuring my work.