Glaring Omission in today's column from Jeff Jacoby

Whenever wingnuts start immodestly praising Harry Truman, sensible people are advised to hold onto their wallets and hunker down, the BS will blow like a hurricane I assure you.
Today Jeff goes to great lengths to laud the simplicity of Harry Truman's post presidential rectitude with the exorbitant speaking fees and lavish money-grubbing of the current crop of Ex-Presidents.
Well it is true that Truman turned down a lot of lucrative deals on the grounds that they would diminish the office of the Presidency. However Jeff declines to note that Former President Truman lobbied then House Speaker Sam Rayburn for a Federal pension, he requested such on grounds that he might have to take some undignified offers down the road owing to his own lack of resources.
That is the little know origin of the current presidential pension system, it is quite literally "keep-em'-out-of-trouble" money.

Rage Against the T

specifically the Red Line is the seething topic at Channel Zero.

The Inevitability of Betrayal Part II

A power-point presentation from out the Romney campaign reviewed by the Globe,advises the Former Viceroy to "run against France" in the coming GOP primaries.
Aside from the ugly cynicism of this notion, just what the hell did the Fifth French Republic ever do to Mitt Romney to deserve such scorn and contempt?
As I recall,Mitt made ample use of the traditional French hospitality towards refugees when the Future Viceroy was dodging the US Draft by posing as Mormon Missionary in Paris back in '68.
You see what a vile little backstabbing ratfink Willard Mitt Romney really is...the French kindly help him to avoid an early death in the Mekong Delta and how does he repay them but with catcalls and brickbats.
Shameful really.
Oh and by the way, that proposed campaign slogan "First Not France" sounds patently idiotic, if Romney's campaign actually paid for that moronic sound bite they have good grounds to demand their money back.

Al Gore Uber Alles

The Former Vice President, wins an Osar for Best Feature Length Documentary at last night's Academy Awards.
Even as I write this, there are activists with no small amount of organizational muscle and money who are staking all on a last ditch attempt to tempt Gore into running for President in '08.
There is out there, the annual democratic disillsionment with the current field concurrent with the eternal hope of someone from out Neverland who can unite the party and smite the GOP.

Alas Gore may not be interested and if Lieberman does jump to the GOP then there will be some hard questions asked about the former VP's judgement out on the campaign trail...to say nothing of the baying hounds of the DC Punditariat.

The Inevitability of Betrayal (Part One)

If....Senator Joe Lieberman makes good on last week's airy threat to switch to switch over to the GOP, will he take Radio Talk Show host Ed Schultz with him?
Will "Big Ed" bow his head in agreement when Lieberman starts up with that "I didn't leave the dems, the dems left me" routine?
Schultz did alibi for Lieberman quite a bit last year, I wonder what he thinks now of all these "I'm outa here" trial balloons Joe has been sending up?

Okay this is snarky, churlish and mean...even more so when you consider Humble Elias was a regular listener to Ed's show when he was on via the Air America Radio package last year.

Item!

the word on the street is, if he gets an offer he'll take that job everyone is talking about.
Why?
He has mouths to feed and the perks and pay for the new gig can't be beat.

So if it happens, and it might not, an old fashioned donnybrook contested primary will be the inevitable result, the Commonwealth's favorite spectator sport.

Another in an ever lengthening list of reasons why

The Chimes at Midnight eschews all comment fields and message boards.
I hardly have time to disgorge my demented and churlish opinions onto the internet let alone police a notional Chimes at Midnight comments board for any freeperish skullduggery.
Anonymity gives netizens a false sense of power, it is however a wonderful tool for shills and advertisers.

Conservative Values Pimp Michael Medved

whose head resembles a bloated sour apple has opined that NBA bigot Tim "I hate gay people" Hardaway's recent homophobic screed is somehow right normal and acceptable.

Of course if Hardaway had said "I hate Zionists" or had expressed revulsion with sharing locker room space with twice born Christians or Roman Catholics, then we would be treated to the edifying spectacle of Michael Medved's head detonating from sheer outrage.

A lot of conservative politics seems to depend of the creation, maintenance and ritual persecution of an approved outcast group....remember that.

Channel Zero is apparently

reviving an ultra-obscure dramatic performance by Jerry Lewis (Yes that Jerry Lewis)in a Live TV production of "The Jazz Singer".

Details can be found Hyar:

Romney is buying television adverts...already?

Apparently the ex-Viceroy is starting up with TV commercials this week or so the Boston Globe reports.
Dunno, to me that seems a little desperate, Romney seems baffled by the fact that he isn't the front runner yet.
He went and joined the NRA back in August, McCain ought to be on the run by now so runs Mitt's logic.
(Hell, does Romney even own a gun? Let along know how to clean it?)
Well no shit Sherlock, you are the underdog!
This is a unique status that a pushy amateur like Romney neither understands nor appreciates. Right now is a time for locking in volunteers and organizers, fattening one's rolodex and sharpening the ole' stump stemwinder...and NOT broadcasting some glitzing overedited nonsense overlaid with the usual listless soundbites. You don't want the voter's to realize this early in the game that you are utterly bereft of ideas.

But this is Romney we are talking about he is a man who radically overestimates his own political acumen.

The Escalade Affair...

The Boston Herald, the local punditariat and the usual talk radio assholes are shocked-shocked-SHOCKED to discover there are a few fringe benefits to being Governor of the Commonwealth of Massachusetts. In this case a semi-armored SUV and the use of a state police helicopters. To the preposterously overpaid and undertalented jerks who are hyping this farce, such items constitute Neronian decadence.
I mean, Brian McGrory is just outraged by the sheer malevolent symbolism of that Cadillac SUV....

Frankly, this is all bullshit in extremis, a couple of sore losers from campaign '06 are looking to bitch-slap the admin early to see what they can stir up that is all.

I mean if you honestly think that SUV & Helicopter are wasteful luxuries then consider the White House sized mansion that Louisiana provides for it's Governor fully staffed and comes with it's own Ballroom as well.

Fabulous tantrum from Jeff Jacoby today...

all the democrats in congress were cowards and traitors and they stink and are meanies and so on as the Boston Globe's Laughing Young Senescence snarled on for some 650 words, much like a spent toddler's pre-bedtime fury.
Thisis a far cry from Jeff's whole "these are heady days for those of us in the war party" phase of a mere two years ago.
Ah but that is blood under the bridge now, even a fantasist like Jeff Jacoby has to admit things are going wrong at a breathtaking clip in Iraq, all he can hope for now is to blame the whole mishaugas on liberal democrats...which is the last refuge of monolithic conservatism whenever things go really really wrong.

It occurs to Humble Elias that since US Conservatism is less a doctrine and more a serious of interlocking myths loaded up with sheer fantasy, that the United States is paying a huge tribute in other people's blood and money so that Jeff Jacoby and the thirty percent of the lectorate who back Bush to the hilt can go on living in a political Candyland for a few more precious years.

John McCain to speak before the Junior Anti Sex League of South Carolina tomorrow night...

The AP reports among other things the following:

McCain to Preach Abstinence in S.C.
By JIM DAVENPORT, Associated Press Writer
Friday, February 16, 2007
(02-16) 18:44 PST Columbia, S.C. (AP) --

Most presidential candidates are trying to get people to say "yes." Republican Sen. John McCain will be encouraging South Carolina students to say "no."

The Arizona lawmaker is scheduled to speak Sunday night to about 1,500 middle and high school students about abstaining from premarital sex. Abstinence and abortion loom large as issues in this first-in-the-South primary state in the heart of the Bible Belt.

***

Normally I'd let something this embarrassing pass by un-noticed, I mean lets all be christians about this shall we? Clearly McCain's glands have all dessicated beyond hope of recovery so denying the sex urge to adolescent bipedal homonids is about the only joy left to the useless old coot.

Ah but Johnny wants to be President, played out glands and all...besides their is a very real element of rank hypocrisy at work here, McCain IS divorced after all...who is he to lecture the kiddies about the perils of spooning sans benefit of the marital sanction?
Moreover, the man was a Navy FIGHTER JOCK for Ghod's sake, you know he tomcatted around til the day the People's Air Defense Command shot him down over Hanoi!

Oy we are what 18 months from election day and already we are knee deep in hopeless horse-shit.

Just heard Joanie Vennochi on WBUR

airily predict that Willard Mitt Romney will be the GOP nominee in '08.

Of course, at a comparable time in '03 she was just as airily predicting that John Kerry would be disemboweled by rapid New Hampshire wolverines.

Just sayin'....

"In your guts, you know he is nuts"

Arizona GOP stalwart labels Senator John "The Messiah of the Punditariat" McCain "mentally unstable" for botched attempt to purge the Arizona state GOP committee of it's anti John faction.
Its a good op-ed from Max Blumenthal, well worth thoroughly reading.
Well, the Chimes at Midnight has always maintained that the compulsive worship directed at John McCain by the DC based opinion industries artfully conceals the candidate's reputed rotten disposition.
So stories of petty anger like this are important they draw an alternate portrait of yet another GOP dingbat the Russerts and Matthews' of Washington would invest with Divine Attributes.

Sick day today...

by that I mean I'm sick of blogging, so move along there nothing to see.
Besides yesterday's post was preemo there is no topping it.
Back tomorrow with fresh outrages.

Senator Orrin Hatch on Imus this morning

a more pitifully hilarious scenario couldn't be imagined outside the gin soaked remnants of the late Terry Southern's mind.
Poor Orrin, the overclass is in eclipse, it's praetorian guards are in flight...some even unto the tattered skirts of that boiling hothead Senator John McCain...and there stands Orrin, like a toddler abandoned at the mall, howling about fighting Al Queda's domestic operatives by killing more and more Iraqis.
At one point...Hatch's voice went up an octave, and quivered like a five year old on the brink of a serious sh*tfit and he stammered "Imagine what would happen if a nuclear bomb went off in New York, how discombobulated things would be?"
(quote is rough but essentially factual?)

Ghod no wonder they are all carrying on like this, they are panicking and with heavy consciences as well, they know they done wrong.

This is the imperial twilight of the National Conservative Colossus, born on election day 1968 and grown to terrible size as a sort ofglobal incubus.
Now look at it, beaten bloody, encrusted with lies and broken promises, a bum too proud to beg but not to scrupulous to steal...we see it's end it will not be pretty.

Romney piles in...

As predictable as the norovirus, Mitt Romney is announcing for President today...in Michigan as a last petty schoolgirlish snub to the state that put his ass on the map.
His platform is simple, he will as the sole and absolute hero of the far right in this country, another Reagan or Goldwater.
In truth, there is nothing heroic or particularly conservative in Romney's record. The former Viceroy is conspicuously lacking in policy accomplishments as Governor of Massachusetts (where I remind my conservatively minded readers he ran as a frantic truckling sort of moderate)...his many threats to purge the democrat-dominated state legislature were openly laughed at and occasioned no great stress to anyone.
Other than his vague resemblance to the comic book character Tom Strong, there just isn't much of the Man on Horseback to Romney.
Unless you somehow think that kissing ass, backpedaling and flip-flopping constitutes heroic behavior.
Hell, if you think about it, Mitt's lack of a political soul is just the sort of thing that would excite the disdain and disapproval of the late Senator Goldwater.
Think about that.

Is it my imagination or...

did John Kerry put that old pimp Don Imus on the defensive this morning?
These days the I-Man affects an anti-war pose so Senator Kerry noted that Imus' hero Senator John McCain is the Senate's chief exponent of the President's current escalation policy in Iraq.
Imus stammered and dithered beautifully for about thirty seconds before blathering something about an upcoming book from John and Theresa Kerry.
Har!
The Senator also has new website pushing his "set a deadline" for a troop pull out in Iraq.
It can be found here...
The only other thing I discerned from the Senator's call in is that he is in no hurry to endorse anyone and one might think from his tone that he is keeping all his options open.

Note to Jeff Jacoby

the next time you wanna whip off a easy-ass column decrying the nigh eternal wait at the RMV, you might wanna note in passing that said agency has been in the hands of your pals in the GOP for some sixteen years now.
And IF after all that time and all that missionary work on behalf of rugged individualism, the sanctity of marriage and free markets the Registry is still pokin' along...well then either your premise is flawed, the missionaries were knuckleheads or the agency is beyond hope.
I'm inclined towards the whole missionaries, knuckleheads notion myself.

Just for the record, I've renewed my license at the RMV branch in the Galleria mall many times and never encountered the delay as described by Jeff, I'm NOT saying said wait didn't happen, only that it has yet to happen to me in that particular office.

Should we have better faster on-line renewal options?
Hell yes, drop a note to Governor Patrick, stuff like this seems to interest him.

Tim Russert on Imus in the Morning...

Honest to ghod, does Tim Russert have any other mode save pompous, smug and condescending?
He was on Imus this morning, seemingly unaffected by his testimony at Scooter Libby's trial, the fact that he has been outed as willing lackey of the White House bothers Phat Tim not one whit. In fact, Russert devoted a good chunk of the interview trying to make Barack Obama out to be a hypocrite...well sheee-it Tim would know all about that now wouldn't he?
For over a year, Tim Russert knew who was peddling Valerie Plame's CIA status all over town and more importantly he knew WHO that guy worked for.
Did Tim speak up?
Of course not, Tim Russert is the Vice President's b*tch...not to put too fine a point on it or anything.
If Tim Russert has a weakness it lies in his vulgar self worship, he really does see himself as a lonely crusader against hypocrisy and corruption.
Never mind the fact that in reality he is a trembling bagman for a thoroughly corrupt and dangerous Vice President, no Phat Tim looks in the mirror in the morning and Edward R. Murrow smiles back at him.
A little thing like a trial exposing him as a fraud and a sycophant isn't gonna bother Tim one jot....after all a broad helping of shamelessness is pretty much a necessity if you wanna rise in today's DC Punditariat.

On the eve of his announcement for President

Mitt Romney is still clarifying his views on abortion and answering critics by pushing his views ever farther to the right.
The charge of craveness has been leveled against the former Viceroy of Massachusetts, that may weight heavily on him as the GOP primary process unfolds.
On the other hand it has been my observation that the right wing will make a deal with almost any useful halfwit or no talent geek in order to retain power.
And being essentially a political mollusk, Romney will happily say yes to almost any insane wingnut proposal if it'll keep the sordid likes of Grover Norquist and falangists like William Donohue on his side.
Mind you, that does not mean Mitt will actually follow thru with any of those promises, not if it occasions a serious threat to his popularity or political manueverability. We here in Massachusetts have seen him walk away from a dozen or so trivial to difficult fights these past four years...trust me if it is one thing Mitt is good at it is the art of bluster driven empty threats.
Ah but all that is for the future, right now Mitt's plan looks good on paper, raise a lot of money, wait for Guiliani and McCain to get into some savage death struggle and then hand-job the radical right into backing Romney.
Yup...looks tres formidable, except that it didn't work for John Connolly in 1980 or Pierre DuPont in 1988 or Steve Forbes in 1992, and it may not work for the Former Viceroy either.

"Crazy Astronauts in Love"

solemn commentary on the Lisa Nowak scandal can be found at Channel Zero.

Chris Matthews on Imus in the Morning

I caught the tail end of Chris' call-in today on the way to Alewife Station just down the dirt road from the magickal village of Menotomy.
He was shilling for Rudy Guiliani's nascent presidential candidacy and slavishly praising the former Mayor of New York for cleaning up with city with "a pinch of fascism" thrown in for good measure.
My Ghod, just what does a fat pompous jerk-off like Chris Matthews know about fascism anyway?
The answer is patently nothing, to the Overclass and it's apologists like Chris, fascism means "safe streets" (in white neighborhoods of course). To the rest of us fascism means too much power in the hands of those with too few scruples.
If nothing else this beautifully illustrates the DC Punditariat's persistent haughtiness when dealing in the very real and dangerous issues of power and justice.
Don't let Matthews' Overclass bona fides fool you though, he is also capable of making all sorts of foolish pseudo populist noises a'la the Ambassador from Caucasiastan, Mike Barnicle. To hear Chris tell it, Rudy Guiliani will make all of America safe for guys in wife-beaters and the drinkers of Pabst Blue Ribbon.
Insufferable and giddy that was Matthews on Rudy Guiliani.
***
But wait there is more, did I mention that Chris has turned against the war in Iraq?
That was a howl believe me.
Let us never forgetthat the day after Bush pranced neath' that big Mission Accomplished banner on the USS Abraham Lincoln, Matthews and Imus could be found on the air cackling like school boys about how "great" Bush looked in his borrowed flight suit.
They were both utterly repulsive Iraq triumphalists that day and now some three years later with the winds of chaos blowing ever hearder they've both drifted over to the anti-camp like tumble weeds.
Honestly I don't care if these yaps are conservative, falangist or even homicidal book idolators. The smug, the powerful, the primitive and the paranoid will always be with us their right to free speech cannot be denied.
What I do mind is the shameless opportunism of hacks like Chris Matthews who change their minds at the first change in the breeze and make great gusty pretense of being on your side all along!
In 2003, Chris Matthews would've happily cancelled democracy and crowned George Bush King-Emperor Pillar-of-Fire-on-Earth.
Never forget this, Chris Matthews is craven and untrustworthy he is a flatterer, a trimmer and a courtier not a newsman or even a pundit worth reading or watching.

The Senate GOP has blocked debate on a resolution

decrying our present policy in Iraq.

What we have here is a bunch of guys with approval rating mired in the low forties, defending a President with a thirty percent approval rating on behalf of a war policy that sixty eight percent of the electorate opposes.
Ahhh the sheer spectacle of Gordon Smith, John Sununu Jr and Norm Coleman all expending the last of their political capital on behalf of Bush's failed presidency is a wondrous thing to behold.
Two years ago, these assholes strutted around the country cracking their rhetorical horsewhips like they were plantation overseers.
Now look at them, hell bent for political immolation.
Well...the current situation isn't sustainable in any way, soon enough these guys will have to wake up to the fact that the President's policy will give them no political succor whatsoever...it is either that or go off a cliff in 2008.
If so, then so be it, they have brought the whole catastrophe down upon their own heads. Insufferable in victory and vindictive in defeat, so goes the fabled conservative monolith right off a cliff.

A question worth revisiting as we lurch towards

endgame with La Famiglia Arbusto...
Just when did a sitting Vice President of the United States obtain the authority to order US Armed Forces into action?
The constitution grants the VP no such power either in peacetime or in a military emergency...he gains such authority only if and when he becomes President.
Josh Marshall's post that I link to above delves more deeply into VP Cheney's inexplicable usurpation of authority on 9-11. It is well worth reading...and I'll only add this query...who has the nuclear launch codes? Bush or Cheney or maybe both?
The electorate have a right to have these questions answered honestly.

Well...

What the Berdovsky Affair seems to have taught us is that the line between guerilla advertising, guerilla theater and actual guerilla warfare is so thin as to be indistinguishable.
William S. Burroughs' conjured with this notion back in the 1960's in his little known unpublished manuscript "The Real Boy Scout Manual". Herein Burroughs advocates a variety of unique guerilla tactics for the aspiring Jefe Maximo, from the compilation of fictitious lists of fellow travelers that would prod police repression to the recruitment of street gang youths as de-facto praetorian guardsmen.
He also discussed the efficacy of faux bomb threats and other malevolent stunts.
Curiously appropos would you not say?

On an unrelated note, I have to say that Berdovksy and Stevens' churlish and inane performance at their arraignment yesterday probably doomed any hope of holding Interference Inc or Turner Broadcasting accountable for their entirely questionable advertising tactics.
A simple apology would have left the two of them forgotten and send the press hounds baying after Turner Inc et al...but no the camera's little red light came on ands Berdovsky started braying like a jack-ass.
Given the outrage the two artists have attracted they are worth treble their money for the attention they've taken off their employers.

Thoughts While Bathing...

Peter Berdovsky had better hire himself a damn good lawyer that is all I can say.

We ought to print up some black tee-shirts with the legend "Dinesh D'Souza says I'm a traitor". Copyright the phrase...put it everywhere...sell the damn things for big bucks.

Television is amazing, it permeates our lives and yet it still demands attention like a needy five year old, this is how Mr. Berdovsky,dreads, soul patch and allmisc ended up working for Turner Broadcasting.

I don't think Meehan is gonna jump to ULowell...this is a naught but a Massachusetts' congressman's idea of a mid-life crisis. For the next two years Nancy Pelosi's House will be where the action is, he'd be crazy to give that up.

Molly Ivins is dead...the heaven's do shake.

I'll know Deval Patrick is on the right track on the day that Joanie Vennochi breaks with him. So give it about say...two more weeks and then we can breath a sigh of relief.

Hillary Clinton for President? If I wanted a dynast with high name recognition I'd be out there banging the pots like a drunken porch harpie for ex-congressman Joseph P. Kennedy to get back into the game.
Saa-ay come to think of it....

(Old codger voice) When I was twenty-nine I smart enough to realize that making fools of the staties and the BPD Bomb Squad never ends well...kid's today!

Usually everyone signs off on fluffy posts like this with an admonition as to where to find the best coffee...but of course, Humble Elias doesn't drink coffee.