Cap'n Shrubby Slips Over the Port Side Edition

Plus: Buzzin' Bill Beefs He Wants a 'Phil Up' (is there room in O'Reilly's House of the Unshining Moon?)

Okay, so you're a guy from the United Arab Emirates with some experience managing ports and you apply for a job running one of America's largest, let's say up in New Yawk City.

So far, your resume looks good, except the FBI, in a routine background check, turns up a few unsavory details:

-- Prior to 9/11, you financially supported Al-Qaeda and even hung out socially with Osama bin Laden on occasion. You also endorsed what the Taliban was doing in Afghanistan.

-- A couple of the 9/11 hijackers were members of your family, and you refuse to reveal how some of the money paid to the 9/11 attackers came from your bank account.

-- You refuse to recognize Israel's right to exist and teach your kids virulent anti-Semitism.

-- Although you now claim to be friendly to the U.S., you have yet to renounce the past terrorist activities of organizations like Hamas and Hezbollah, which you helped fund.

Considering that a college professor in Florida was fired a few years ago for supporting militant anti-Israeli causes, other Arab-Americans have been questioned merely for unwittingly contributing to charities that may have been fronts for terrorists, and you wouldn't have a chance of qualifying for a security clearance from the U.S. government, do you really think, in your wildest dreams, that, with this background, you should be hired to run a major American port?

Well, President Bumbles and his sycophants in CFIUS and Homeland Security do. Put simply, this is how crazy Bush's UAE ports deal really is.

As Paul "Kill the Injuns, and They're All Injuns" Harvey would say, "Page Two":

Just a Note on Friend-of-the-Left Bill O'Reilly:

February 24th on Keith Olbermann's MSNBC "Countdown" show, Kayo mentioned that Ol' Fox Snoozer Bill O'Reilly had started a petition to get Keith replaced by the semi-retired Phil Donahue, who once had the highest-rated show on the NBC cable network. Olbermann had the grace to thank Bill for the left-handed plug (the pouty O'Reilly boy never uttered Keith's name in the petition, referring to him only as the program at "8:00pm EST").

Just to review: Every time the thin-skinned Republican Reptile opens his yap to dump on the opposition for the crime of replaying his crazier quotes or comparing his hothouse logic to events in the real world, Dild-O'Reilly has an on-air gastric fit that pumps up the ratings or sales of the target of his pique.

When he went to war with Al Franken, the sales of Franken's bestseller, "Lies and the Lying Liars Who Tell Them" shot up; when he ridiculed Air America Radio, AAR ended up beating his radio show in most major markets; he put the drub on MoveOn.org, and contributions increased; he continues to defame David Brock's Media Matters, without allowing them on his show to answer his pernicious charges that they 'lie' about him (which they haven't), and MM gets more hits on its website.

Now he's after the funny and informative Olbermann, who has the best news show on cable, because Kayo has included B.O. in his Worst Person in the World category on several occasions, for good reason.

Smart move, Keith -- your ratings should shoot up after this.

The question: How much did you pay that miserable old Fox News fraud under the table to start this phony-baloney petition?

And you really need to run this segment: Bill O'Reilly -- Worst Person of the Decade!

By the way, if you want to thank MSNBC for running Olbermann's excellent oasis of sanity in a sea of cable dross, email MSNBC/Microsoft-NBC President Erik Sorenson here: erik.sorenson@msnbc.com and keep it clean and polite.

BTW #2: Note to Mr. 'No-Spin Zone': The firefighters in San Francisco are still waiting for you to pay them a visit after you announced on your radio show that it's okay by you if terrorists take out the Coit Tower, because Frisco is just too liberal for your taste. The Coit Tower is a memorial to volunteer firefighters, you dumbass. Let's say it again: Bill O'Reilly -- Worst Person of the Decade.

Okay, he hasn't killed anybody yet (that we know of), but there's always time to take up quail hunting, Bill.
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But the Monster is Crumbling

The air is going out of the Whoopee Cushion of right-wing radio, as competition fills the airwaves. It's easy to be popular when you're the only game in town, as the corporately-controlled media neocons have been for more than a decade, but their nasty attempts at humor and 'tailoring' of the news, along with the manifest failures of the Bush Republicans to live up to their claims, have led to withering ratings in the face of opposition.

As Mr. Anonymous, the world's most quoted source, has said: "I listened to Limbaugh for ten years and never heard him admit a mistake, even when the proof was on the cover of the morning paper. The first time I heard Randi Rhodes, she admitted she had made some little mistake in something she'd said a day or two before. She had me right then. Besides, she's funnier than Rush."

As the polls show, a majority of America is fed up with a steady diet of the right-wing agenda; if they don't want to buy the main course, they certainly don't want to sniff its passing wind.

One thing: The MSM perpetually assumes that anyone who listens to right-wing radio must agree with what's being said. Often, nothing could be further from the truth. I've known several people who listen to the O'Reilly's and Hannity's on the AM dial, but only to laugh at them. I wonder how many are laughing now?

"[O]n it drones, this electronic flatulence. Call it the great distraction. It makes little distinction between Muslim extremists and loyal but liberal Americans. When Al Gore recently criticized the Bush administration for trampling on civil rights, right-wing radio accused him of treason. One can only hope that they didn't sentence him to a hunting trip with Dick Cheney.

"The message on a daily basis seems to be that it's OK to hate, to shout other people down, to go about one's life in an angry mood.

"Perhaps more frightening is this: If this brand of thinking is now mainstream, what is next? What supplants the right at the far end of the spectrum? What will feed the monster in coming years?"
-- Bill Berry, "Flatulent Right Wing Fills Radio with Hate," Capital Times (WI), Feb. 22, 2006.

Also read "The Gasbag Gap" by Eric Alterman here.

The Man in the Iconic Mask and the Vacuum-Packed Suit

The biographies of Don Rumsfeld and Dick Cheney show a consistent and obvious pattern: They are relentlessly on the side of ruthless global corporatism -- and their own remuneration -- regardless of the interests of their country; they are both as corrupt and corruptible as the deposed dictator of a third-world country absconding with the state treasury one step ahead of an angry mob. It's entirely understandable why they would support this Dubai DP World deal; both will ultimately stand to gain from favoring the management of our ports by their oil-rich friends in the United Arab Emirates.

But some naifs still cling to the notion that George W. Bush isn't like them; that his affected Texas twang and aw-shucks deprecation somehow make him more veracious and less crassly avaricious than his Vice President and Defense Secretary, although his patina of patriotic morality is quickly evaporating in the ongoing revelations of his determined deceptiveness.

It's easy for people to forget that there was no national groundswell of support for Bush to run for president in 2000; indeed, most had never heard of the feckless two-term Texas governor before 1999 when he announced his candidacy.

A confluence of unique circumstances placed Bush in high office, aside from ideologically-motivated judges on the U.S. Supreme Court: One was, of course, Karl Rove and his Nixonian eagerness to play any loathsome political trick to advance the interests of his candidate, some of them so low even veterans of the rough-and-tumble of Texas politics found them shockingly debased; another was Bush's willingness to be used by Rove, a malleability legendary in the political world and a subjugation so blatant that few question the plausibility of Rove's sobriquet 'Bush's Brain'; then there's Bush's anxiousness, apparent his entire life, to letting himself be peddled to the highest bidder; this is not unusual in politics, a profession rife with ethical prostitutes, but Bush family influence, coupled with Rove's penchant for unconscionable mendacity and the corporate money his utter lack of principles attracted, set into motion Bush's occupation of the White House. Rove built the present 'base' of the House of Bush on the exploitation of his marionette's hyped-up Christianity, the defrauding of true conservatives (many of whom are now abandoning the Bush wing of the Republican Party), the unrepentant and false smearing of any opposition, the intimidation and collusion of the mainstream media, the careful manipulation of reassuring images, and the sorcery of thematically-tested words.

Today, George W. Bush is the epitome of the empty suit; it is difficult to imagine that he believes anything of what he is told to say any more than an AOL announcement can be said to have ethical convictions as it happily pronounces, "You've got mail!"

But Bush does have this: Adherence and loyalty to his 'class' -- that would be the global corporatists that the Bush family have always profited from representing. From the Saudi Arabian Royal Family to the headquarters of the World Trade Organization to Houston's Petroleum Club, the business interests of this small band of wealthy moguls trump the national security of any country, even the United States, and, hence, we have this current contretemps over administration of six of the largest ports in America. It would seem to be a simple matter: No nation with past ties to terrorists should be allowed influence of any sort over our ports, no matter if they do currently pay lip service to our government. But not in Bush World, where the flow of money respects no national boundaries or niggling issues of security.

This is Bush's true job: To advance the interests of his wealthy patrons under the guise of protection from foreign enemies with a staged backdrop of the stars-and-stripes of conservative patriotism. A theory has even been promulgated that the invasion of Iraq was, in reality, designed not to increase the flow of oil from the Middle East, with Americans in charge of the substantial Iraqi contribution, but to strangle the spigot, thereby leading to higher oil prices for Bush's friends in corporations here and on the 'Arab Street.' Viewing the steep rise in oil prices and record profits of the oil giants, this hypothesis demonstrates increasing validity.

Yet there's another dimension to Bush's perfidy, one outlined on Keith Olberman's MSNBC "Countdown" show on Feb. 22nd by David Sirota: If the U.S. government begins examining corporate contracts for their impact on our national security, all kinds of worms may slither out of the can, including the deals American companies habitually make with China -- an undemocratic current rival and potential future aggressor -- and other nations, like Saudi Arabia and Dubai, who still have not entirely separated themselves from the religious zealotry that has led to terrorist attacks around the globe.

Billions upon billions of dollars are involved with this nasty business, and the global corporatists are not going to permit their peculiar notions of 'free trade' to be interfered with by Congress -- why a case could even be made that the outsourcing of American jobs and manufacturing is a matter of national security, as it saps the economy of our own country, thereby weakening our ability to defend ourselves due to the diminishment in our tax base and reduced capability of producing our own weaponry.

On the ports deal, with his own party ablaze in opposition, Bush will likely back down and change the subject, finding some other way of rewarding his corporate masters in the UAE, but let's disabuse ourselves once and for all of the notion that Bush is anything but an empty suit animated not by a concern for his country, but for those 'free market' global corporatists who installed him in office with their money, and the misbegotten power that that money confers.
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They'll All Be Called Camp Freedom, No Doubt...

Where the varieties of dissenters from the Bush World Order will learn to respect liberty and their wonderful government by engaging in healthy all-American activities like 'waterboarding' and 'cheerleader piling.'

Don't worry, though; the camp 'counselors' will send home glowing monthly letters of your progress to compliment those cheery postcards you're forced to write every week.

Or else your family will be reassured by government 'medical personnel' that you're recovering from bird flu nicely, although you're still too sick to speak to them directly.

"A Halliburton subsidiary has just received a $385 million contract from the Department of Homeland Security to provide 'temporary detention and processing capabilities.'

"The contract -- announced Jan. 24 by the engineering and construction firm KBR -- calls for preparing for 'an emergency influx of immigrants, or to support the rapid development of new programs' in the event of other emergencies, such as 'a natural disaster.' The release offered no details about where Halliburton was to build these facilities, or when...

"'Almost certainly this is preparation for a roundup after the next 9/11 for Mid-Easterners, Muslims and possibly dissenters,' says Daniel Ellsberg, a former military analyst who in 1971 released the Pentagon Papers, the U.S. military's account of its activities in Vietnam. 'They've already done this on a smaller scale, with the 'special registration. detentions of immigrant men from Muslim countries, and with Guantanamo.'"
-- Peter Dale Scott "Preparing for martial law? Homeland security contracts for detention camps."

Petting My Peeves, Parts One & Two

Part One: What is Wrong with These People?

-- The man who is so 'publicly humiliated' by being super-glued to a toilet seat in a chain store that he feels compelled to appear on every TV talk show in the universe to tell us all about it.

-- The police chief who holds a press conference to announce that he has no new information on the case.

-- The politician who convenes a press conference to repeat 'No comment' to the only questions anyone is interested in hearing the answers to.

-- In-a-hurry writers who find violating the rules of grammatical sentence structure are easier than thinking of another way to write the line.

-- Reporters at the scene of a disaster who inevitably seek out the person most overwrought with emotion to interview instead of someone more in control who might actually provide some useful information regarding what caused the disaster.

-- Family members who want 'closure' by seeing someone executed for a crime against a relative, even though they admit they really don't know much about the case.

-- Any reporter who makes him or herself 'part of the story' (are you listening, Geraldo?) to attract attention to themselves and what a 'good person' they are, as opposed to just telling us what's going on. Exception: When there really is a life or death situation that requires an extra hand.

-- Related item: Wall-to-wall coverage of a disaster where nothing is actually happening. Showing a microphone-wielding doofus planted in front of a mine shaft telling us that the situation hasn't changed isn't news; neither is sending your reporters to stand out in the rain getting soaked during hurricane season particularly informative. Yes, 90-mile-an-hour winds are pretty strong alright, but we already know that. Endless helicopter shots of the scene of the crime are also not high on the list of exciting or educational. There are other things going on in the world, Mr. If-It-Bleeds-It-Leads, why not tell us about them?

-- The annual five seasonal tips segments. Functioning adults already know that you should wear a warm coat in cold weather and go to an air conditioned area when it's hot; they also realize that the best cure for thirst when it's warm is a cool drink and that they should drive more carefully when the road's covered in ice. They really don't need a recent Communications School graduate to inform them of these things as if they were revealing the Secrets of the Universe. Is this the level of contempt TV news executives have for their audience? Do they really think the people viewing their network are imbeciles who don't know they should go where it's warm when they're cold and where it's cold when they're hot? The same executives who hire reporters who don't have enough sense to come in out of the rain during a hurricane?

-- Anchors, especially on cable news, who, after reporting poll results, ask the question of their correspondents: "So what does President Bush have to do to reverse his declining poll numbers?" Since when did it become the business of anchor-folk or network correspondents to think of ways to increase Bush's popularity? Stick to reporting what the polls say; Bush has plenty of paid consultants to advise him on how to 'get his numbers up' without your help.

-- 'Debates' presented on cable news between Democratic and Republican consultants -- these things are really not informative and the parties involved are rarely truthful, so what's the point? Since most American voters are not affiliated with either political party, why not at least add an independent voice to mix? Then it might really be a debate, instead of a dreary recitation of the day's talking points.

-- Related to the above item: Letting Dem or GOP consultants spin or lie at will without correcting them with the facts. Though the host may think they are showing respect to their guest, they are showing just the opposite to their audience.

-- Airheaded anchors on news programs who don't seem to be acquainted with the day's news, even after they've read it off the TelePrompter. (Call it the Broadcast News Syndrome.)

-- CNN hiring Bill Bennett as a commentator. Aside from the GOP Virtue King's manifold problems in the past, CNN introduced its new acquisition by featuring him in a 'Situation Room' segment with Wolf Blitzer. Reliable GOP Troll Wolf lobbed respectful slow-pitch softballs to Bilious Bill, who predictably hit them out of the park without breaking a sweat. Is this the plan for the future? Having Bennett on by himself, or with Blitzer, commenting on the day's events without opposition? The only way this would be in the least bit journalistically valid or fair is if CNN also hired someone like Jim Hightower or Ralph Nader to counterbalance this Five-Card Dud. I realize CNN owners TimeWarner have a vested interest in catering to the neocon right, but couldn't they have found someone with more credibility than Mr. Las Vegas?

Well, I see by the clock on the wall that this has gone on long enough.
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Part Two: Twits, Hypocrites, Nitwits and a Little Dick at the End

-- Tattlesnake's had enough of the lame TV ads that inform gullible youth you have to be 'over 30' to drink their brand of piss wa -- light beer. What? It's enough to make you reach for a Sam Smith's Nut Brown Ale. That and the lame-brained 20-something guy creating some disaster because he's a freaking pinhead, and then laughing with friends later about it over -- you guessed it -- a light beer. What chemical are they putting in that stuff that turns the brain to mush -- I mean besides the alcohol? "Less filling...uh, duh, what's the other part, George?" "I'll tell you about the rabbits later, Lenny."

-- Well, the deafening irony just doesn't get any better than watching GOP lawmakers like Sen. Trent Lott (R-Hell) go ballistic and threaten to sue their insurance company because they won't pay off on damage caused by Hurricane Katrina. It does the Tattlesnake's withered heart good to see Republicans hiring despicable 'trial lawyers' to take the corporate insurance bilkers to court. One Louisiana Congresscreature, his house destroyed, said he ranked the insurance companies right down there with child molesters. Hey, welcome to the real world, Mr. Pampered and Perked, this is the crapola average Americans have to put up with daily from their HMO's and other insurance scammers. And guess what: it was the Republican obsession with deregulation that is partially responsible for precipitating this crisis in coverage, you ungodly hypocrites. Here are a few hints: Enact government regulations to force insurance companies to pay off on their claims after a disaster; underwrite reconstruction by the lowest local bidder (instead of wasting money on unused FEMA trailers and no-bid sweetheart contracts); and, while you're at it, join the civilized world and provide universal health coverage for all.

-- What's wrong with this picture? In Chicago, according to CNN, the average teacher earns about $35,000 per year; in Dallas, Texas, the average high school football coach makes $70,000 annually. Reverse those numbers and you can start to improve education in this country.

-- In Cheney's Feb. 15th Fox News interview on his hunting accident where he shot a good friend/acquaintance, he said, "But the image of him falling is something I'll never be able to get out of my mind.... it was, I'd have to say, one of the worst days of my life,..." Touching concern. A shame he doesn't have burned in his mind the images of the more than 2,200 American kids falling that he helped send to die overseas based on his inflated claims of Iraq WMD and invented connections to Al-Qaeda; too bad it doesn't ruin his day every day. To date, neither Dick nor his alleged boss Junior has attended even one funeral of a dead soldier; but then, they aren't all wealthy lawyers from Texas.

OK, thanks, you've been a great audience; tip your bartender and don't drive drunk.
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Today's Quote

"There are only two reasons for Bush to refuse to obey the law. One is that he is guilty of illegitimate spying for which no warrant would be issued by the FISA court. The other is that he is using "national security" to create unconstitutional powers for the executive."
-- Paul Craig Roberts, "Conservatives Endorse the Fuhrer Principle," AntiWar.com, February 17, 2006.

Cheney of Fools Edition

Lock, Stock and Smoking Dumb

Shoot! Cheney Bags a Pal and Waits 24 Hours to Report the Incident

Judging by the reaction on the cable news channels over the past few days, Cheney accidentally shooting his Texas hunting buddy Harry Whittington Saturday is a story with legs.

Actually, the 'legs' are that Cheney and the White House waited a day to report the incident. So far, the typical White house excuses are pretty lame, so the question on the billboard is: Why did they wait?

Experienced bird hunters know that you never walk into the path of an upraised rifle during a hunt, yet this is supposedly what Whittington did, just as a flock of quail flew skyward, and then Ole Hair-Trigger Cheney fired buckshot pellets right into his friend's face and chest. Whit is lucky to be alive. But back to the burning question: Why did they wait?

Here's a possible answer: They were all snockered, three-sheets-to-the-wind, juiced to the gills.

Picture this scenario:

Cheney: "Whit, here, put this apple on your head and I'll shoot it off, har, har, har!"

Whit: "But, Dick, you're drunk as a..."

Cheney: "No buts! Thass an order from your president! I mean VICE president, har, har!"

Whit: "But, Dick, you gotta shotgun there, you don't use a shotgun for..."

Cheney: (BOOM!)

Whit: "Ahhhhhhhhh!"

Maybe they wanted to sober Cheney up before they reported the accident, and that's why they released the story on Sunday. Wouldn't do to have a soused Veep being interviewed by the press.

Side note: For over three decades we've heard the right-wingers bellyaching about Ted Kennedy's delay in reporting his car accident on the Chappaquiddick Bridge that cost Mary Jo Kopechne her life. Instead of informing the authorities, he called his staff. Kennedy should have immediately notified the police and the media, but he was afraid of the bad publicity and its impact on his political career.

Fortunately, in this case, Whittington lived, but it appears that Cheney delayed reporting this accident to the media, and the local police were not allowed by the Secret Service to immediately interview Cheney, for precisely the same reasons.

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Media Yowling "I'm Just Wild About Harry (Whittington)"; Veep, Meanwhile, Blasting "Shotgun (Shoot 'Em As They Run Now)" Via Fox News

(Say, wasn't that a hit by Junior and the All-Stars?)

"I'm the guy who pulled the trigger and shot my friend." That was 'All-Star' Dick Cheney's unapologetic confession to Brit Hume yesterday in an exclusive interview on Fox News, and, as of this writing, it seems that Dick will not be held legally accountable for his shooting accident, except, perhaps, by the media. Strange that after the deceptions 'caught on tape' of Cheney lying about WMD in Iraq, Saddam Hussein's connections to Al-Qaeda, and his involvement with leaking a covert CIA's agent's identity to the media, the thing that has the MSM in a tizzy is this hunting accident story.

In his checkered past, the Tattlesnake once worked as a news director for a small Midwestern radio station; hunting accidents were common in that semi-rural area and the county sheriff had a blotter, open to the public, with the details of each mishap and injuries sustained. The sheriff's police also responded instantly to any accident report, to assure that the victim received medical treatment as soon as possible, and to seize evidence and get statements from witnesses in the event criminal charges were necessary.

Apparently they do things differently down in Texas, where the lackadaisical county sheriff, receiving a report last Saturday of a man injured in an accidental shooting, decided to take his time and made an appointment to interview the shooter Sunday morning; the sheriff back in my radio days would have been afraid the shooter or witnesses would leave the county, tamper with evidence before questioning, or sober up, and he definitely didn't 'make appointments' to investigate suspects. Of course, none of his suspects were the Vice President of the U.S., who, naturally, would have no reason to lie to the sheriff about his involvement in what was then a potential manslaughter case. (Uh huh. Still got that New York bridge for sale?)

The poor old drunken bumpkins back then were frequently charged in accidental shootings; all the way from petty misdemeanor negligent discharging of a firearm all the way up to felonious unintentional manslaughter. Had one of the misbegotten hunters in those days confessed that they had shot someone accidentally, there would have been an investigation, and likely charges of some kind would have been filed.

In Cheney's case, though, there have been no charges, and the extent of the investigation is unknown, since the county sheriff has been hiding from the media. In fact, all we know about this shooting is from Cheney himself; no independent source, save some intimidated doctors, has surfaced to speak about the events last Saturday surrounding the shooting of Harry Whittington. There hasn't even been an 'official story' yet presented, except Cheney's softball interview February 15th with Brit Hume on Fox News, five days after the incident.

Here are some questions regarding what we know so far, in no particular order of importance:

-- In the Fox interview, Cheney said "Nobody was drinking," yet he's admitted to drinking 'a beer' at lunch before the accident. Two things: (1.) Guys in trouble with the law often admit to having consumed only 'a beer' before the incident that got them in trouble, which usually turns out to be a 144-oz. flagon of suds rather than a 12-oz. bottle; (2.) Cheney has all sorts of medical conditions, from heart trouble to phlebitis, so he's no doubt taking a pile of medication; even one 12-oz. beer on top of that stew of chemicals could be enough to seriously impair his judgment -- and his aim. Of course, drinking would explain the delay in reporting the accident; by Sunday morning a breathalyzer would have turned up little alcohol in Cheney's system. (Did the sheriff even do a breathalyzer test, routine in hunting accidents where the shooter has confessed to drinking alcohol?)

-- It's been claimed that Whittington was shot on the right side of his body at 30 yards; how did birdshot travel to his heart which is left of center, and protected by flesh, muscle and rib bone? The force of the blast at that distance would not have driven pellets clear through Whittington's body from the right side to the left, so the angle must have been different than claimed. Why lie about this point? Cheney also said on Fox that Whittington was wearing an orange vest; how crocked do you have to be to not notice a man in a bright orange vest?

-- Why is Whittington being held incommunicado? According to recent reports from the hospital, he is being held in intensive care to 'protect his privacy.' First of all, that's hooey; he could be put in any private room under guard to protect his privacy. Secondly, he could have a brief phone interview with a member of the media and easily confirm his 'old friend' (or 'acquaintance') Dick Cheney's recollection of the accident. If he is, as has been claimed by the hospital, in reasonably good health and talking on the phone to friends, why not clear the air? Of course, if he is much more ill than is being let on, possibly unable to speak at all, it would make sense to keep him secluded from the media. The same with the sheriff; he's a public official and this is a case involving a public servant: Why won't he talk to the media or release any records?

-- Also, according to media reports, Whittington was initially taken to a small hospital 60 miles away from the site of the accident when there were larger, better-equipped hospitals that were closer. Why was this done?

-- Why did Cheney leave it up to a friend without experience with the media to break the story to the tiny Corpus Christi Caller-Times instead of a member of his press office? Was this a display of panic within the Cheney camp, or was it intentional?

-- With media speculation running red hot, why can't someone in the White House come up with a concrete timeline of events and verifiable independent sources? Instead, the details of the case released to the press seem to change daily, and any sources besides Cheney himself are silent. Can these guys really be that arrogant and stupid as to think this will die down before all the questions are answered?

It would be ironic if this hunting accident story led to the downfall of Dick Cheney, just as a 'third-rate burglary' unraveled the Gordian knot of Richard Nixon's corruption and treachery.

Both tales play into who these Dick's are as people; Nixon was the 'Imperial President' who didn't think he was accountable for his illegal actions because he was president -- "when the president does it that means that it is not illegal"; Cheney is the Imperial Vice President who thinks he's CEO of USA Inc. (Bush being merely President), and therefore owes no explanations or apologies to the 'employees' -- i.e. the American citizens who pay his salary -- for anything he does.

In each case, an arrogant and intractable mindset was their undoing, and what Republican, already saddled with the falling fortunes of Bush, wants to run for reelection with the sneering and dictatorial Cheney on his back?

Cheney's popularity before the accident was as low as 19 percent in some polls and this latest dust-up is not likely to improve his standing with the public; the jinky handling of Whittington's shooting may well be the final stroke that ends the public career of neocon insider Cheney, a case that should have been closed when George Bush the Elder was defeated in 1992.
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Why Indeed MSM?

One explanation of why the Mass Media has been getting so hot and bothered over the Cheney shooting story, after years of Dick's intelligence-insulting misdirection, obsessive imperial secrecy, and blatant lying.

"The namesake of this site asks, rhetorically, why now? Why, that is, does the White House press get angry over the administration's time-release approach to the truth, only when it involves the relatively trivial (although not to Counselor Whittington) matter of Trick Shot Cheney?

"There's this psychological theory called displacement. You can look it up.

"A feeling generated by one experience surfaces in another context, because it's safer there than in its originating environment. So, three, four years of being lied to on serious matters boils over at BirdshotGate. The Republicans, whose talk-radio acolytes are screaming "foul" over the White House press corps' sudden burst of anger, now know what it felt like when the Monica story erupted (that was the word of choice back then) on the Clinton Administration. Like this in-your-face shooting, that one embodied a cartoon version of what "everyone" in Washington already knew and/or believed: in the first case, that Clinton was a womanizer, and too clever by half ("I'll finish myself off in the sink, so it's not really sex"), and in this case, that Cheney is a secretive manipulator who would rather shoot the truth than tell it."
-- Harry Shearer, "Why Now?" The Huffington Post, Feb. 14, 2006.

Loonies and Toons Edition

There's Something Rotten in Denmark (and everywhere else)

What a curious juxtaposition between all the brass brims of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, apparently having nothing better to do, signing a letter of complaint to the Washington Post about a Tom Toles cartoon lampooning Defense chief Don Rumsfeld, and the recent outbreak of Islamic outrage over some Danish cartoons, one of which depicted the Prophet Muhammad wearing a bomb on his head.

Each incident came within days of the other and those of us accustomed to pulling back the curtain on President Oz and his Foggy Bottom Boys can't help but assemble some tea leaves for this one.

Even persistent readers of the 'Internets' know that the editorial cartoon is the last bastion in the U.S. media that exhibits whole-hog disrespect for the Powers-That-Be, an irreverence not shared by the genuflectors who write thousand-word editorials for Time, Newsweek, the New York Times and Washington Post.

The written-word editorialists tend to respectfully criticize 'President Bush' with adjectives and verbs that might leave the casual reader with the idea that the mump in the White House is conducting himself as a rational and compassionate human being who just needs a little correction here and there, while the cartoonists define him as the oafish, out-of-control, power-hungry, monkey-man shit-spewer he really is.

With a Pentagon suddenly infused with tough military men turned thin-skinned playwrights, blaming low morale on sketchers such as Toles, to equal a White House teeming with drag-queen sensitivity to caricature and an obsession with petty vengeance -- become more severe since their mutual failures in Iraq and elsewhere -- it's not difficult to discern why the High and Mighty are suddenly focusing on the labors of editorial cartoonists. A picture is worth a thousand words, even a picture with a few words, and, as Mark Twain once said, "Against the assault of laughter, nothing can stand."

The other day, the Darwinian regression some insist on calling our president took the opportunity of a question about the Danish cartoon flap to opine that, "With freedom comes responsibility," a formulation veteran Bush-watchers know is attended by the unspoken addendum, "And I define what's responsible."

Those versed in the Dark Arts practiced by our intelligence services over the years of the 'psyops' variety can readily spot the nearly-invisible hand of their involvement in goosing up the Islamic response to the Danish cartoons with the intention of bringing those recalcitrant and tolerant Europeans to the opinion that these Muslims are stone crazy, you can't talk to them, and it's time to invade Iran! (The Bush-decimated U.S. military can't go it alone.) If some tens of thousands of dollars of U.S. taxpayer money was quietly distributed to those crowds in the Arab world to keep them burning flags and denouncing the Great Satan, so be it -- it's in the worthy cause of starting more wars to 'defend' America. And let's not forget that, among the cartoons displayed to Muslim audiences, were drawings that were never published anywhere, such as one of the Prophet depicted as a pig. What office in Washington commissioned that portrait?

Here at home, look for the new neocon catch phrase to be "Responsibility in media," rebroadcast by every news outlet, dutifully uttered ad nauseum by every Republican politician, and likely even adopted by many of the suicidal Democrats. This is also code to editors everywhere to start clamping down on editorial cartoonists who may 'go too far' in criticizing Bush-whackery, the Pentagong Show, or even 'Mr. Rove,' as unctuous 'journalist' Mike Allen of the Washington Post recently referred to Karl in tones of reverent esteem. This means the American editorial cartoon is destined to become as bland as a boiled milk recipe, if these artists want to keep their jobs. (If they don't, the Heritage Foundation no doubt has some ink slingers hanging around available to take up the slack.)

Perhaps Cheney or Rumsfeld will institute a National Cartoon Review Board to check all risible renderings for any possibility that they could sap the strength of our fighting forces in the field. That could be easily expanded to a Homeland Security branch, something like the Bureau of Comedic Drawing Investigations, to make sure that errant doodlers aren't undercutting our Global War Against Whatever Bush and His Cronies Believe is Against Their Interests stateside.

Then it will be complete: All of American media will be looking over its shoulder in the spirit of a properly tamed and 'responsible' adjunct to George's Empire and the U.S. War Machine, and, don't worry, the free-wheeling 'Internets' won't be far behind.

As George Orwell once wrote, "Circus dogs jump when the trainer cracks his whip, but the really well-trained dog is the one that turns his somersault when there is no whip." The newsrooms of America will now have to put down papers even for the cartoonists.

The Tattlesnake hopes that the mass media will resist this further attempt to curtail the activities of a free press and make them servants of the government, but their track record doesn't augur well.

Let's end with two pertinent quotes, the first from Jim Hightower:

"The higher up the ladder the monkey climbs, the more you see of its ugly side."

And more of Twain's timeless wisdom:

"Irreverence is the champion of liberty and its only sure defense."

One of our last bastions of defense, the irreverent cartoon, is now under assault from the Goons of Oppression and the Theocrats of Doom.

We can only pray to a God of Reason currently out of favor in parts of the Western World, as well as Islam, that they don't succeed.
-------------------------------------------------
Coming to a TV Screen Near You

"Club Homeland Detention: Halliburton, the first corporation into Iraq, contractually speaking, and the biggest financial winner in the 'reconstruction' sweepstakes for that deconstructed country, fortuitously also found itself perched right atop the list of post-Katrina New Orleans reconstruction contractors. Now, through its subsidiary KBR, known for building military bases to last, as well as Guantanamo's infamous 'cages,' Halliburton gets a shot at the real American thing -- actual emergency detention centers for 'immigrants' -- or, hey, in a crisis, for whomever. The Army Corps of Engineers awarded it a contract last month -- though the story only oozed out this week -- worth up to $385 million (not including the near-obligatory overcharges) for, according to the New York Times, 'an unexpected influx of immigrants, to house people in the event of a natural disaster or for new programs that require additional detention space.' It's those 'new programs' that give special pause."
-- Tom Engelhardt, "Bushwhacked in Bushworld," TomDispatch, Feb. 6, 2006.

DAVID GREGORY: "Scott, why is Cindy Sheehan the first detainee in the administration's new National Bird Flu Epidemic Quarantine Processing Center? I understand she doesn't even have the flu."

SCOTT McCLELLAN: "I can't discuss that; it's a matter of national security."

HELEN THOMAS: "Why are the locations of these processing centers being hidden from the public, and why is Ms. Sheehan being held incommunicado?"

SCOTT McCLELLAN: "I've already answered that question. Let's go to...oh, here, Jeff Gannon -- it's good to have you back with us, Jeff -- what's your question?"

JEFF GANNON: "Don't you think that President Bush -- doing the right thing to protect America by detaining anyone possibly infected by the Bird Flu virus -- shouldn't have to put up with all these insulting questions by the media? Doesn't that impress you as being really unpatriotic and over the line to imply that the president would detain people for any other reason than to stop an outbreak of a horrible epidemic in this country?"

Sign on the Foggy Bottom Line Edition

"Is that an envelope stuffed with cash in your pocket, or are you just glad to see me?"

American Politics Journal's Jan. 22, 2006 Pundit Pap ran this PR puff for Jack Abramoff's toney Washington eatery "Signatures" [I've interspersed my comments in brackets]:

-- "One of Washington's most exciting restaurants, Signatures has already earned acclaim from the Wall Street Journal as "DC's Meeting Spot for Movers and Shakers." Home to many of Washington's most recognizable political figures, Signatures has played host to royalty, Hollywood stars and sports legends."

[How much did it cost to bribe the WSJ to say that, Jack?]

-- "While dining at Signatures, you can also enjoy viewing our historic artifacts and rare political memorabilia, which are available for purchase if you so desire."

[Historic artifacts: Tom DeLay's suit made entirely of thousand-dollar bills donated to charity; a copy of the U.S. Constitution as rewritten by corporate lobbyists; the White House's 'missing' Plamegate e-mails. Rare political memorabilia: Randy 'Duke' Cunningham's yacht captain's cap; a collection of Ann Coulter's 14-inch black rubber dildos; autographed photos of Abramoff dancing cheek-to-cheek with Bush and Karl Rove; Grover Norquist's bathtub full of government cash.]

-- "American Cuisine with Global Influences:
Whether diners are looking for simple fare, or the most adventurous culinary tour de force, Executive Chef and Partner Morou offers a variety of options through a range of menus. Growing up on the Ivory Coast, Morou's first inspiration in the kitchen came from his mother. Born into a large family, he would watch his mother create impromptu feasts for up to 40 people. Combining African, French and Middle Eastern flavors, she would turn everyday meals into celebrations. This motivated Morou to develop his own signature appeal to his food through unique creations and innovative pairings."

["Morou, we split 90-10. I get the ninety percent." "But, Jack, that's not fair! I'm doing all the cooking!" "How'd you like to go back to the Ivory Coast, Slappy?"]

-- "For the more adventurous and trusting guests, the "Until You Say When" and "Put Your Meal in Morou's Hands" chef's tasting menus are a unique spin on traditional tastings. Guests can opt to challenge chef with a prix-fixe tasting menu that will keep him on his toes and sending courses out until the diner can't take another bite. Also, if you like being a VIP, forget the menu and choose "Put Your Meal in Morou's Hands," letting Chef entertain your palate with his latest creations."

["Morou will spice up all the food with his piss, you dirty white devils!"]

-- "Pre-Theatre Menu
Attending a show? You won't have to compromise a fine dining experience due to time constraints. Our innovative answer to pre-theatre dining is offered in the form of a four course tasting menu, presented bento box style.
"From 5:30PM until 7:00pm for $35.00 per person. We offer valet parking, and you can pick your car up after the show. Many of DC's top theaters are just steps from our doors."

[Including the biggest comedy of all at 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue NW.]

-- "Sushi Bar
Signatures offers one of Washington's most acclaimed sushi bars under the direction of Chef Thu."

[Where the biggest fish are sitting at the tables.]

-- "Special Events
Signatures can accommodate special events and exclusive function needs in one of two Private Dining Rooms. Our Event Coordinator will assist you in planning a unique menu for all your parties, fundraisers and engagements."

["Would you like to reserve our Bob Ney Aberdeen Eighteen-Hole Room, or our Ralph Reed Cash-Only Indian Casino Room?"]

-- "Valet Parking
Valet parking is offered at $4.00 per vehicle. Beginning at 5:45 PM and offered until close on Pennsylvania Avenue, directly in front of the restaurant."

[But it will cost you $100.00 to get your car back from the city pound.]
------------------------------
Bush's Domestic Spying Excuses Don't hold Water

There are a whole passel of excuses Bush and his enablers have been providing for his authorization of warrantless surveillance of U.S. citizens and none of them hold water.

-- He's said that there was no time to get a FISA warrant. That's nonsense -- he could start the surveillance and get a warrant up to 72 hours later, and no FISA court judge would turn down a 'hot pursuit' warrant on a terrorist.

-- He, Cheney and Hayden have claimed the bugging turned up good information. Sorry, we need more proof of that than the word of people who have been 'mistaken' and misled us in the past.

-- He's claimed he consulted with members of Congress. Sure, and some objected or said they didn't throughly understand the program. They also were not free to discuss it at any rate, since it was highly classified. He certainly didn't tell Congress who in particular he was ordering surveillance of or for what purpose.

-- He's claimed that past presidents ordered this kind of surveillance. Yes, that's exactly why the FISA Act was passed in 1978 -- to prevent future presidents from abusing their power in this way.

-- He's claimed that Justice Department lawyers told him the warrantless surveillance program was legal. Only an idiot would buy this one. Lawyers appointed by Bush tell him what he's doing is legal? No matter how many lawyers you hire to tell you a thing is legal, it's not a defense in court. "But my lawyer told me it was okay to shoot my wife in cold blood, your honor!" "You're going to jail, and so is your lawyer, after he's disbarred."

Finally, it's ludicrous to think that Al-Qaeda would send real terrorist orders by cell phone or via e-mail. Does anyone really believe they intercepted something like the following.

Hey Hassan,

Tomorrow, rent a truck from Budget, fill it with explosives and go blow up the Brooklyn Bridge at 3:00pm sharp.

BTW, DON'T go to Budget and try to get your deposit back afterwards, OK?

My best to the wife and kids.

Osama

Even before the 9/11 attacks, the terrorists were using code words and human messengers. Does Bush really expect us to believe that they have become less security conscious post 9/11? Even low-level Mafia types in the Brooklyn don't discuss sensitive matters over the phone or by e-mail -- it's just silly to think that Bin Laden's Boys would.

So, that leaves me with the strong suspicion that whatever the NSA was doing, it was something that couldn't get past the FISA court (or the court of public opinion, for that matter). Fitting in with Karl Rove's underhanded history, that would be political espionage, of the kind that Nixon attempted, which is, incidentally, why the FISA law was passed in the first place.
--------------------------
Today's Quotes

"George W. is confused on a basic concept. He's commander-in-chief of the military, not the United States -- and even the top military chief is not allowed to suspend our Bill of Rights."
-- Jim Hightower, "All Hail King George," Progressive Populist, Feb. 1, 2006 issue.

"In the United States, the law says the government is owned by the people for the benefit of the people. George W. Bush has now asserted that, in order to protect the people's rights, he is usurping their ownership and placing himself solely in charge, until such time as he decides that the ownership of the government can be safely given back to the people. When has this recipe for preserving a free democracy ever worked at any time for any country in history?"
-- Max Publico

The Tattlesnake -- Free Dumb Lies with a Side of Spies Edition

State of the Union: Yet Another Sales Trip Down Fantasy Lane with Hocus POTUS

Hoo boy, after listening to George Junior's State of the Union speech on January 31st, I had to open the windows and let the room air out. No, it wasn't me or the Significant Other, and there's no old dog to blame; it was the endless odiferous repetition of Dubya's Same Old-Same Old fetid distractions, noxious predictions and downright acrid prevarications that were compelling us to haul out the Glade.

Phrases like 'Victory in Iraq,' after nearly three years fermentation in the grisly bog of reality, now have the sour stench of the unburied corpse about them. Standard Dubya fare on the rosy economy have become a nasty bout of dysentery in America's middle-class death march. His talk of taming Iran or other potential future threats is a toxic vapor wafting from a Vietnam-era Port-A-Potty -- he doesn't have the army left, for one thing. His babble of continuing tax cuts for the wealthy is nothing but a rude cheer from a Bronx alimentary canal to a nation sentenced to paying off the debt he's already run up catering to his filthy-rich pals. His complicated new health care proposals, on top of his earlier fine-print Medicare insult to seniors, is a broken sewer pipe in New Orleans, still not fixed after five long months of Republican promises. The only thing the reeking Bush Boy could do now that would demonstrate the slightest whiff of compassion or conservatism would be to resign, and take his administration's whole demented dog-and-pony show of neocon scat with him.

As AlterNet.org's Joshua Holland summed it up neatly in "Dead Man Talking": "After five years running the country, without a single policy he could point to that hasn't turned out to be a failure, George Bush has only one thing left to say: 'My presidency is finished.'"

The speech was the usual mishmash and rehash of previous Bush themes and dreams, only this time more low-rated than any of his previous SOTU flights of fancy; as The Progress Report sub-headed in its Feb. 1st newsletter, "An underwhelmed nation yawns." It's no wonder that Bush pushed for spending money on manned Mars missions in a past SOTU; the Red Planet may be the only place he'll be safe after three more years of his FUBAR administration.

There were only a few moments of the tacky spectacle that caught Tattlesnake's eye, aside from the occasional shot of Dick Cheney, sitting behind Bush's shoulder, trying to hide his sneering Old Man Potter contempt for democracy, and that hideous slack-jawed oaf Dennis Hastert, blubberously perched on the other side of His Most Republican Emperor, apparently wondering when the Wizard of Jeb will find him a brain.

Here's one item: Bush, who has derided those who would exploit his misbegotten Iraq War for 'partisan purposes,' partisanly exploited the family of a dead soldier by making them stand while he grinned at them and the politicos in the chamber applauded as if they cared. During the outburst, MSNBC showed a quick live shot of Dub -- no kidding -- winking one eye while facing in the direction of the family, the sort of wink one gives accompanied by a nudge with an elbow. WTF? Daddy's dead and here's a wink and a leer from the C-in-C? Are Mom and Sis safe in their beds from the 'Invader' of Baghdad? Incidentally, in a later rebroadcast of the speech, that wink was gone; the camera simply remained focused on the exploited family.

Numero Due: All Americans are familiar with how our government treats all users and peddlers of addictive substances, as long as they don't work for the booze or tobacco industries. You've seen it on 'America's Most Wanted'-style TV slimefests again and again: Slam the perp down to the ground while a SWAT team tears apart their home searching for drugs. And dealers are always thuggish criminal kingpins who need to be tossed in jail for life, if not executed. Even the few Constitutional protections we have left prohibiting illegal search and seizure have been tossed aside by the Supreme Court when an addictive substance user and dealer are the targets.

With this is mind, it was puzzling to hear El Presidente Loco refer to our country as "addicted to oil," yet not propose any of the usual War on Drugs solutions to the problem.

If America is crippled by this horrible addiction, just as we are supposedly suffering from addictions to crack, smack and crystal meth, why not have the DEA hanging around gas stations to nab users? Why not send in SWAT teams to the corporate offices of ExxonMobil, PhillipsTexaco and the like and start busting the pushers? (They're sure as hell easier to find than Colombian drug lords.) If Bush thinks this approach is working well to prevent drug addiction, why not employ it for oil addiction as well? Some wholesale arrests and throw-away-the-key incarcerations and you'll have yourself a safe, renewable source of energy lickety-split that doesn't depend on the whims of spoiled Saudi Arabian royalty.

And how about a cabinet-level department similar to the Drug Enforcement Administration to spearhead this crackdown on oil junkies? Call it the Bureau to Retrain Oil Wastrels and Nullify Illicit Energy Sources, or BROWNIES.

With an acronym like that, they'll have the problem cleaned up in no time.

Finally, if Bush actually believes anything he said in this speech, physicists should take note: He is not just in a bubble, he is living in one of the alternate dimensions predicted by the String Theory -- of course, in another one of those dimensions, the vote in Florida in 2000 was fairly recounted, Gore became President, 9/11 never happened because he read the August 6, 2001 CIA brief and took action, America is prosperous and at peace with a surplus instead of a record deficit, and the GOP is desperately trying to find something, anything, with which to impeach Big Al. (Some things never change, not even in quantum physics.)
------------------------------
Bush’s SOTU Energy Blather…

…of course he “didn’t mean it literally.”

Have you ever noticed how often one of Bush’s underlings has to ‘clarify’ what he’s said? And how often that ‘clarification,’ which is really Bush code for ‘contradiction,’ gets lost in the media shuffle, so that few Americans ever hear it? Gee, think that might be intentional?

Read on from The Progress Report, Feb. 2, 2006:

ENERGY
Bush Didn’t Mean It Literally

President Bush’s admission this week that America is “addicted to oil” has received much attention, and for good reason. Most understand that without rapid and fundamental changes, our continued dependence on fossil fuels will undermine our national security, do grave and irreversible harm to the environment, and generate new and higher costs to be paid by working Americans. Unfortunately, while Bush made promises that sounded sweeping and ambitious, so far, it’s just talk. (For a real roadmap to kicking our oil habit, check out American Progress’s plan, “Resources for Global Growth.”)

THE TRUTH ABOUT BUSH’S CALL TO REDUCE MIDDLE EAST IMPORTS: On Tuesday, President Bush announced a “great goal”: “to replace more than 75 percent of our oil imports from the Middle East by 2025.” But that isn’t as great as it sounds. Consider that foreign imports currently make up about 65 percent of our total oil consumption, but imports from the Middle East constitute just 17 percent of total imports, about 11 percent of total oil use. In other words, President Bush’s goal amounts to reducing oil consumption by just 8.25 percent over 19 years. Moreover, Energy Secretary Samuel Bodman said yesterday that when President Bush pledged to reduce imports from the Middle East, “he didn’t mean it literally.” Bodman told journalists that Bush’s promise “was purely an example,” acknowledging that “oil is a freely traded commodity bought and sold globally by private firms” meaning “it would be very difficult to reduce imports from any single region, especially the most oil-rich region on Earth.” Indeed, according to the administration’s own statistics, Bush’s proposals would be highly unlikely to displace crude oil from the Middle East “because the region has the lowest costs for producing oil in the world and U.S. companies would continue to seek the cheapest source of energy.” Says Energy Department analyst Anthony Radich, “Barring some (government) policy that explicitly discourages oil imports, even if we do find cheaper ways to produce cellulose ethanol, the imports from the Middle East are among the last to go.”

[Emphasis mine.]