McManus on the take...

Another conservative commentator has been exposed as covert collector of Federal long green. Columnist Mike McManus, syndicated in some one hundred papers nationwide accepted ten thousand to train “marriage counselors” as part of yet another Busheviki theocratic initiative.
Chump change being collected by an obscure third tier provincial conservative demagogue-just as Humble Elias predicted. The only other thing we need know about Mike McManus is that he is an insufferable crusading busybody and professional virtue hustler with a morbid fixation of other people’s marriages, divorces and sexuality. A perfect yap in other words and a charter member of the New Class of full time morality policeman. He is also by decree of the Department of Education deserving of MY MONEY to pay for his own religious fanaticism.
The fascinating part of all this is that the newspapers all these corruptards work for, are utterly unconcerned with the clear conflict of interest evidenced by their paid columnists. Nobody seems to care that their marquee pundits are themselves being systemically bribed by the very government. Nope....dey see nothink mein commandant no-think!
According to writer/columnist Joe Conason, this has been going on for years starting in 1980 when ABC’s George Will did debate prep for Ronald Reagan and then went on the air to self righteously proclaim the Gipper the winner of said event. Its been downhill ever since with everyone from Charles Krauthammer to William F. Buckley being caught taking undisclosed pay offs from various private benefactors. Since none of the above were ever called to account it was inevitable the public sector would get in on the act. No doubt other impoverished conservative zealots are on the take, and from agencies with bigger axes to grind than the Department of Education.
There seem to be no standards whatsoever that the conservative ascendancy is willing to impose on itself. Rules are what they promulgate to bedevil democrats and liberals nothing more. A more degenerated state of affairs cannot be imagined...does the Federal Government now have a sort of monarchical “civil list” i.e. a group of mendicants that the executive wishes to enrich at the public expense??

Sick
Demented
Typical...

Jacoby agonizes...

over the torture scandals at Abu Ghraib and Guantanamo Bay in his Sunday Globe column today. He even traces the whole mishaugas up the line to policymakers at the topmost level. However being a decorous man, he pussyfoots around the admin torturecrats declines to recommend that any of these persons be relieved of their duties.
Translation, Jeff doesn't have the guts to call for Alberto Gonzalez's ouster as AG designate. The other interesting thing about today's column, a seemingly heartfelt exercise, is it's timing. The Abu Ghraib revelations popped up during last year's presidential campaign and yet all we heard out of Jeff were worshipful barks at the mention of George Bush's name and thin snarls at John Kerry. As far as torture is concerned, Jacoby has been absent from the debate-til' now.
Of course, timing may admit other dimensions here, Iraq is voting today, if Jeff feared a bloodbath then the last thing he'd wanna do is run yet another "we are making progress in Iraq" piece. It'd be his four or so in a row that was attended on by some horrific carnage somewhere in that benighted land. The safe thing to do might be to get atop the whole torture issue.
All this does raise a curious question though, does Jeff Jacoby, that proud fantasist actually have one foot planted however lightly in the reality based camp??

Decaf chimes in...

The Boston Herald scoops the whole town today with the following quote from the current Governor of Massachusetts:

Biz-savvy gov: Merger is `real shame' for workers
By Ann E. Donlan
Saturday, January 29, 2005

Gov. Mitt Romney [related, bio] slammed the blockbuster merger of Boston razor giant Gillette Co. with Procter & Gamble yesterday, calling the $57 billion stock deal a ``real shame.''
``I understand that there are going to be a lot of job losses. That's very unfortunate,'' he told reporters. ``I wish I had the power to prevent this acquisition from occurring. I don't.''

Whooo-weeee!!!! Dig that fiery populist rhetoric....man Mitt is just shaking his pinky finger in fury at the "malefactors of great wealth", isn't he?
Is Humble Elias the only commentator who sees an odd degree of irony at work here? Mitt Romney, the archetypical ideological colonialist, denouncing the remorseless corporate colonization of Massachusetts? The Chimes at Midnight doesn't understand his attitude....if Massachusetts is but a political thralldom of out-of-state wowsers and small government fanatics, why shouldn't it become a franchise-heavy business satrapy as well? In terms of modern conservative dogma, the one follows the other. Suddenly though,Romney offers up a tinny sounding dissent.
The answer is simple, Gillette owns a huge facility in South Boston and Mitt wishes to make some inroads among urban blue color cohorts. Given the atomized and demoralized nature of the American underclass, Romney probably thinks he can buy their loyalty on the cheap with the usual hot air-hey it works for the suburban independents so there is precedent there.
There are other benefits to be derived from this situation beyond grabbing off a few votes in Southie. The GOP's lucrative "moderate racket" is built on windy pronouncements that will never have to be acted upon in any way. Op-Ed columnists are unusually vulnerable to these types of effusions, being themselves wishy washy middle-of-the-road republicans themselves they tend to see moderation even where none exists. Therefore look for Mitt to revive his bona fides as a toothy moderate in the eyes of Scot Lehigh and the like all at the cost of one short quote in the Saturday paper.

Not a bad investment all told.

Sick
Demented
Typical,,,

The Bribery Nation...

Recipent of Federal payola and conservative commentator Maggie Gallagher asserted on the "O'Reilly Factor" last night that she is held to a double standard as many of her pundit critics are themselves college professors and the like on the side.
Maybe so Maggie, but they aren't taking money from the Government they are supposed to be reporting on in a fair and balanced fascion...and if they are, they are obligated to disclose the relationship.
Its a question of character, ethics, morals and blah blah blah...
Maggie just doesn't get that, she displayed no remorse at all last night-her only emotion was a vague sort of baffled anger that she'd been found out. The ironic part is, Maggie was caught whoring her opinions for sheer chump change some forty thousand bucks all told, that doesn't even buy a decent ride anymore at the Cato Institute. The money is some type of indicator of her place on the conservative pundit food chain. Meanwhile,O'Reilly humorless, pompous,and more than a bit dim, merely grunted his assent at Gallagher's preposterous explanation like a good pseudoproletarian.
Nevertheless, there are more columnists on the take, third tier provincials, follow the money sez Humble Elias. Ultimately, the thing to remember about Maggie Gallagher is that she is a yap, and a corrrupt one at that. Her sense of entitlement (a key characteristic of today's third way conservatives) now apparently extends to outright Federal bribery. No doubt we would not have to go far back into her bibliography to find her railing against welfare payments to the poor, the unlucky, and the infirm...they don't deserve it, Maggie does.

Sick
Demented
Typical!

AP reports five more combat fatalities

for the US Marines in Iraq today this on top of a deadly helicopter crash.
Must be time for another "we are making PROGRESS in Iraq" column from Jeff Jacoby.
Look for it soon.

David Nyhan is dead...

A long time ago, in a venue now defunct, Humble Elias made war on Nyhan, mocking his pomposity and general air of befuddlement.
Ah, but the Owl of Minerva flies at Dusk, and now with the man gone too quickly to dust, one is inclined to recall his virtues and vices in a more balanced fashion.
his heart at least, was in the right place. A proud Kennedy style liberal and an happy inheritor of a Massachusetts political tradition that stretched back to the Grand Days of Tip O’Neill and a rising democratic party. He never backed down and he never won...if that isn’t a Massachusetts liberal then what is?
The sad thing about David was, he came into his inheritance right when liberalism went over onto the defensive locally and nationally. Beset upon by palpable frauds like Ronald Reagan and his local impersonator Ed King, liberals have been on a twenty four year long retreat that shows no sign of ending.
Nyhan’s answer to all this was to bluster ineffectively and constantly promise a new golden era of liberal transcendence that was right around the corner. And yet the disasters and setbacks piled up year after year. A perceptive friend of the franchise once called Nyhan’s writing style “casually frantic” ergo both florid, woodenly glib, and all too often utterly unreadable.
The problem with David was, he couldn’t play defense worth a damn. To be a great columnist and writer he needed the sunshine of an American Liberal Ascendency-which was nowhere to be seen in the 1970’s, 80’s and 90’s. One suspects he knew this, which is why he so often prophesied a miraculous backlash for the left...it still isn’t here as of 7:11pm EST 1-24-05.
Nyhan’s nadir was reached in Campaign 1988 where he devoted reams of copy to the glories of Governor Dukakis’ presidential candidacy. Long about midsummer Humble Elias (safely tucked away in Graduate School don’cha know) suddenly realized poor Nyhan had gone around the bend and desperate to become President Dukakis’ own Ben Bradlee.
And then of course it all went to smash. Still Nyhan soldiered on but the columnist game in Boston was increasingly the preserve of phonies like Mike Barnicle or gruesome bottom feeders like Howie Carr. Nyhan sounded old, forlorn and abandoned. Finally he took the hint and retired to write an occasional column for Salem Times.
And then he pushed things too far with a snow shovel this weekend and POOF he is gone.
Of course the irony is, that with his passing, regression to the mean has taken hold on the op-ed page of the Boston Globe. in his stead we now have the embittered independent Joan Vennochi and the naive’ opportunistic Scot Lehigh. Neither of these two wankers has an opinion motivated by anything except self interest and an desire to strike asinine little poses in the public prints. With David Nyhan, rhetorical, bombastic, lamely glib you always knew where exactly he stood right or wrong.
So long David, the world is a nastier place with little hope on the horizon for any of us; may you rest in peace.

Jeff Jacoby's Sunday Column...

You know, car bombings, suicide bombings, and terrorism in general really don’t work as an instrument of policy. Look at Jeff Jacoby, every time he opens his pie hole and starts blathering on about how it is “Morning in Iraq” the bodies start piling up like cordwood. None of which affects Mr. Jacoby in the least. No matter how high the rubble bounces or how far the body parts may fly, he clings to his passionate delusion with the ardor of a hungry zombie.
And yet, Jeff is never more condescending than when he cheerleads for the bloody snipe hunt that is the Iraqi elections. His naivete’ has degenerated into a kind of painful autism. You’d almost think he really believes that the wholesale slaughter of political candidates is somehow truly a part of the glorious democratic process!
Still and all, he is our laughing young senescence, attributing FDR’s “rendezvous with destiny” remark to his hero Ronald Reagan sans so much as a by-your-leave. Perhaps Reagan was cribbing from Roosevelt and perhaps Jeff couldn’t be bothered to check. Thats Jeff though, haughty, unyielding, and lavish with other people’s blood and treasure. He is the perfect modern conservative.