Hillary Clinton: There’s a track record here. This is not 2002, 2003, 2004, 2005, when you appeared before this committee and made many comments and presented many assurances that have frankly proven to be unfulfilled.

Donald Rumsfeld: Senator, I don’t think that’s true. I have never painted a rosy picture. I’ve been very measured in my words and you’d have a dickens of a time trying to find instances where I’ve been excessively optimistic. I understand this is tough stuff.

It is funny that he mentions Dickens. Remember this press conference from July of 2005?

Rumsfeld: Was it the best of times? Yes. Was it the worst of times? Perhaps. Was it the age of wisdom? Could be. Was it the age of foolishness? Maybe. Was it the epoch of belief? I think so. Was it the epoch of incredulity? I guess you can decide for yourself. Was it the season of light? I think so. Was it the season of darkness? We can all go to the dictionary and decide what you want to call something. Was it the spring of hope? You bet! Was it the winter of despair? If you say so.

Last Saturday, the news rolled across the blogosphere that the New York Times had endorsed Ned Lamont over Joseph Lieberman for the Democratic Primary in the Connecticut Senate race. Strangely I read the editorial in the honest-to-gosh print edition, having a copy of the print edition of the New York Times in my hand before I washed ashore online Sunday. In case you missed it, this is the totality of their case for Ned Lamont, as aside from the case against Joseph Lieberman:

Mr. Lamont, a wealthy businessman from Greenwich, seems smart and moderate, and he showed spine in challenging the senator while other Democrats groused privately.

I hear someone from the peanut gallery (albeit a really well-off and wealthy peanut gallery) shouting “Hey! I’m Someone Else!”

A spin through the New York Times archives shows that Ned Lamont was mentioned in the newspaper twice during the twentieth century, with just as much broadband. Case in point, January 30, 1983:

With about 125,000 households in the 10 towns in the area, Cablevision of Connecticut is hoping to sign up about every other household, said Ned Lamont, project director for Cablevision Systems. “As has been the case elsewhere, movies and sports are the mainstay of the services requested,” Mr. Lamont said.

The next town to be serviced will be Greenwich, starting in March or April, and all 10 towns are due to be wired by the summer of 1984, he said.

I don’t know what my point there is, precisely. Stick quote-marks around “cable television” and preface it with “so-called”, by way of explanation. But apparently Lieberman commissioned a poll at the dawn of the year to see how he would fair in a hypothetical primary match-up with a “Democratic candidate who opposed the war and was critical of the Bush Administration”. The poll came back 50-50. There’s a propensity to overthink these things. Who is Ned Lamont? A man who looks as though he can play give and take in a legislature and whose views better match your own on some very crucial issues than does Joseph Lieberman. Isn’t that enough?

It’s become a bit rote to point out that “we’ve created a Shiite Crescent” in the Middle East, running through Iran, Iraq becoming essentially an Iranian Client state, and into those troubles in Southern Lebanon. It’s a bit curious as Americans, amp up the concerns once expressed by Sunnis, when Americans couldn’t tell you the difference between Sunni and Shiite if theire life depended on it, choosing to lump them into the same Muslim umbrella and let that be it. This ignorance is excusable to the population at large to a certain extent, less excusable to the chattering class who end up crafting the language of discussion on matters of foreign policy, and completely inexcusable to the Bush Administration, Bush the Lesser reportedly not knowing the difference between Shiites, Sunnis, and Kurds right on the eve of launching the War in Iraq.

What’s prickling me these days is another tired canard. It’s a gag I hear all the time, from the John Stewart Show to right wing radio to any dumb random person on the street. It is the phrase “Holy Shi-ite!” or any substitution of “Shi-ite” for the word “Shit”. To wit, “You know, the Israelis are bombing the Holy Shi-ite out of Lebanon!”

My mind reels to an Australian broadcast from the start of the Iraq War, looking at Fox News and Al-Jazerra, starting the broadcast with a clip of John Gibson saying “The Shi-ite is going to hit the fan.” The Australian news-caster then said, “Human Beings as Feces. That’s just one of the things you’ll hear on the American Fox News Network.”

After a few years, my initial indifference to the jab turns to irritation. It’s political and not political at the same time — which is to say that it is an easy meme to pass to the general generally apolitical public. It’s a lazy affront, a stupid pun, and a means toward dehumanizing a population, theoretically and in some alternate universe one the US Government is “liberating”. The contradictions collapse onto themselves.

… watched the session from behind a 2-way mirror. To get at voter’s real feelings about Duke, the Roemer aides had the moderator ask a series of questions about a hypothetical candidate. “What would you think of a candidate who had evaded teh draft during the Vietnam War and lied about it later?” he began.

“I can’t imagine a man who wouldn’t serve his country,” one man said.
“What about a candidate who had plastic surgery?” the moderator asked.
“I’d wonder about his sexuality,” another man said.
“What would you think of a candidate who hadn’t paid his taxes?” the moderator asked.
“I pay my taxes,” a woman said, “and I expect a politician to.”
“What about a candidate who has never held a job?”
“How can anybody understand our problems if they’ve never held a job or sweated for a living?” a man asked.

As the first group filed out, Strother told Dawson and Lambardo that he wanted to try something differen with the second group to ferret out and gauge more accurately the pro-Duke sentiment. This time the moderator would discuss the hypothetical candidate and then identify him as David Duke. When the second group was asked how they felt about Duke’s haaving evaded the draft, a man leaped to his defense. “Everybody of that generation was trying to evade the draft,” he said. “I went to Vietnam, but I would have evaded going there if I could have.”

When asked about the plastic surgery, a woman said, “What’s wrong with a politician having plastic surgery? Movie stars do, and politicians, after all, are movie stars.”

What about Duke not paying taxes? “Only dumb people pay taxes,” a woman said. “Politicians and millionaires don’t because they’re smart. Duke must be smart.”

What about his never held a job? “He’s a politician,” one man said. “Politicians don’t work.”

What about his having been in the Klan? “It was when he was a kid,” a man said. “Kids do crazy things.”

What had been unacceptable character flaws in an unidentified candidate were now acceptable when it was revealed to be Duke. In his nearly 30 years in politics, Strother had never seen anything like it. He was shaken and turned to Dawson. “Itos over for Buddy,” he said.

(page 211-212, The Rise of David Duke

………………………..

After the speech I stand outside on the wooden porch with Bill while he has a cigarette and tried to unwind. He’s a Toomey (the conservative challenger to Arlen Specter in the 2004 Republican Pennsylvania Senate primary campaign) voter, a man guaranteed to go to the polls. “I vote on social values. I don’t even mind paying taxes, as long as we get something for our money. I want smaller government, less intrusion into our lives. I’m against stem cell research, and I’m pro-life. I’m against cloning — that’s way out in left field.”

He strikes me as a military guy, and a man for whom integrity plays an important role. Toomey is unwavering in this regard, so I ask him about the president. I ask him about Bush not wanting to go to Vietnam and if that will affect his vote in the fall. “Bush wasn’t avoiding going to Vietnam,” he told me. “If he was he would have gotten a deferment. He joined the National Guard to fight.”

I try to see what brand of cigarette he’s smoking and consider asking him for one though I haven’t smoked in twelve years. The Specter caravan piles out behind us. I have to get to Pittsburgh soon. “But his father,” I say, smiling just enough so that he doesn’t think I’m making fun of him but also so he knows I don’t quite share his ground, “got him to the head of the line. There were a lot of people that wanted to join the National Guard. And the National Guard only meets once a week. If he wanted to go to Vietnam he could have joined the military.”

“I don’t see that as an issue,” he says. “I do see that as an issue with Kerry that the guy after his said he wasn’t fit to serve.”

Bill is referring to the commander who replaced Kerry on his boat in Vietnam, a Republican with harsh words for the Democratic nominee. Bill’s comments stay with me on the long drive to Pittsburgh, where I pass a sign that says “Remove Sunglasses” and another that reminds me to “Be Alert.” These are people whose minds will never be changed. And there’s evidence that 45 percent of likely voters are like Bill. There’s another 45 pe4rcent like me and if Bill knew what I really thought he probably would have kidnapped me to be presented to local militia, where I would likely have been skinned and made into furniture.

(Looking Forward to It, Stephen Elliott, 176-177)
……………………………

Nader’s in Portland because of a state law that allows a candidate to qualify automatically for the ballot if he can gather a thousand supporters in one room to get them all to sign a petition. The hall they’ve rented for the occasion is at Benson High School, on the northeast side of the city, and holds 1,200.

The protesters are out in full force in front of the school. Billionaires for Bush are there to thank Nader for helping their candidate. They wear fake furs and blow exaggerated kisses. They’ve set up a bed near the end of the sidewalk where two of them roll around in fake money. I talk to several of the “billionaires”, pointing out that in 2000 it was Billionaires for Bush and Gore and the group had protested both candidates equally, essentially supporting Nader. On their website in 2000, they had run a list of donors who had given money to both Democrats and Republicans, hoping to buy influence on matter who won. None of the “billionaires” in Portland knew their history.

(240-241)

The New Republic gets this well-deserved rap, emenating from a spot in the stuffy confines of Washington belt-way think. Which somehow leads to articles about marital infidelity on Capitol Hill, Michelle Cottle’s “Second Wives Club”. And this paragraph, which in the next iteration of Schoolhouse Rock oughta be sang about.

“They dress just shy of hookers!” marvels one middle-aged Democratic Senate staffer, noting that staff assistants are just as bad. “You get these young women walking around with their belly buttons showing — in these short skirts. It’s the damnedest thing you’ve ever seen!” To be fair, no one has proved a direct correlation between the number of exposed navels and the frequency of marital crack-ups on Capitol Hill. Yet. But the spectacle of shlubby, graying lawmakers adrift in a sea of fawning, nubile “skinterns” is just the most garish example of your garden-variety congress member. Asked about the issue, longtime Washingtonians will spin you a tale both tragic and tawdry: The long hours; the constituent demands; the relentless fund-raising and campaigning; the sweet, pretty, young things who understand your troubles and want to make them all go away.

Something is off about this paragraph, probably limited to the first sentence. Does, say, Representative Darlene Hooley have that same problem? If the Congress-man thought woman “dressed just shy of hookers” was a problem, sincerely and really thought it was a problem, wouldn’t he have the discretion to implement a dress code of some sort?

As it were, Bill Clinton was impeached at this juncture. The most solid case that made sense for his impeachment, rarely said and seemingly not said (and here I mean by average citizens) simply due to a lack of confidence in the central argument because it comes around to “really, it is about the sex”: Can your boss get away with having a sexual relationship with you? Your college professor? And thus we can casually lay aside the points that Kennedy did Marilyn Monroe.

But then Larry Flynt hovered over the proceedings and knocked out two House Speakers. Final sentence in the New Republic article: To put it in Newt-speak, for every Marianne, there’s a possible Callista. And the juicy-faux tittilation of this relatively vapid article dissipates out of my head, so I can think the part of my brain that thinks about politics on Israel — Lebanon.

Over the course of 40 years, Cuban dictator Fidel Castro has been the target of 637 assassination attempts, including a poisoned cigar, and a diving suit contaminated with a fungal disease.

In 1999, Castro sued the US government for these 637 assassination attempts, all keystone cop operations not worthy of the Hitler assassination parody Charlie Chaplin portrayed in his movie The Great Dictator.

Today Fidel Castro is reportedly “gravely ill”, and has passed for the moment the keys to the government to his brother. Take “gravely ill” whatever it means, simply put all media outlets are brushing up on their pre-written obituaries and all news websites have such a page ready to go, index finger hovering over the “send” button. There are near riots in the streets of Miami in anticipation for Fidel Castro’s death. They are being told to calm down. I’ll shrug and just go ahead and say this:

“Holy Cow! Attempt Number 638 may just have succeeded!”