The Rag Blog

Laura Ingraham-behind the scenes and uncensored!
March 13 / 2008

[Jim Baldauf sent this great transcript from Ann Coulter-impressionist right wing radio host Laura Ingraham getting really pissed at her guest. It was released by Harry Shearer and the post below comes from riverdeep on DemocraticUnderground.com — Thorne Dreyer / The Rag Blog]

Somehow Harry Shearer got audio of Laura Ingraham behind the scenes of her radio show (I’m guessing someone on her show hates her), off-air conversations with and about her guest, one Dr. Diane Sollee, some family counselor. He played it on his marvelous, off-beat radio show, ‘Le Show’, airing on NPR and other stations.

Listen to her ridicule her guest because she had the nerve to tell her she has never heard the great Laura Ingraham Show. It’s really harrowing, and gives some wonderful insight into how the conservative mind works, i.e. destroy your enemies.

Here is a link to Harry’s March 2nd show. The action starts at 28:44 and ends at 34:20.

http://www.kcrw.com/etc/programs/ls/ls080302le_show_-_march_2_20

Take a listen to his other shows, they’re all good.

http://www.kcrw.com/etc/programs/ls

Here is the piece excerpted.

http://telepathboy.fileave.com/LeShowIngraham.mp3

And the target of Ms. Ingraham’s scorn, Diane Sollee’s site.

http://www.smartmarriages.com/diane.sollee.html

And, for those of you who can’t get to these links, here is a transcript. Enjoy!

Harry Shearer: Uh, from the Found Objects Department…the, uh, the word to the wise is here, don’t tick off a conservative talk radio host by admitting that you haven’t heard her show.

This is from the Laura Ingraham show, both on AND off the air.

(Off air)

Radio Staff: You’re on with the guest.

Dr. Diane Sollee: Hi there.

Laura Ingraham: It’s Laura, I just wanted to say hi off air before we came back.

Dr: Well, thanks for having me, I’m really happy to be on.

LI: Great, well we’re gonna open it up to calls so you can be, uh…

Dr: Oh, I didn’t know that…

LI: Dr. Diane for a, for a, uh…

Dr: No one, no one told me about the calls.

LI: Well, we’re going to, uh, is that okay?

Dr: Yeah, I’m so sorry I’ve never listened to your show, but I’ve never listened to any show, so.

LI: Really? Well, here’s a word to the wise-before you’re going on a show with five million listeners, go online and listen to it.

Dr: Well…

LI: Do some homework.

Dr: …I know, I know. But don’t lecture me, ’cause I was up to three working two nights in a row so I don’t have a second. I would’ve, I wanted to.

Staff: One minute.

LI: Okay, well uh, I’ll try to forget that you’ve haven’t heard our show. I usually would hang up on people who haven’t heard the show, but…

Dr: Well, I haven’t heard, I’ve never heard anyone. I have never heard a radio show.

LI: How do you, how do you…you’ve never heard a radio show? How are you, how are you on the culture? You gotta listen to radio, you can’t, you can’t-

Dr: Well, obviously it’s not true. I mean, I don’t know when people listen, I’m never in a car and I work 24/7. I mean, literally.

Staff: Thirty seconds.

LI: That’s the way to endear yourself to hosts, tell ’em you never listen to the show. Here we come.

(on air)

LI: So Diane is a very successful marriage and family therapist, and it turns out that, guess what, marriage is good for your health and divorce isn’t. And Diane joins us now. Diane, how are you?

Dr: I’m fine. And you’re annoyed because I told you that I didn’t listen to your show, and I said I haven’t listened to ANY radio show.

LI: Yeah, I actually, I, well, to be, since you want to bring up something that happened during the break, let’s bring it up. Because I asked you, I said, have you, have you listened to the show? And yes, it’s a pretty big radio show. It’s not, it’s not the biggest thing on the earth, and who cares if you don’t. But, I was, I WAS surprised that when you’re in the business that YOU’RE in, where it’s about values and connecting with people, that-and it’s just interesting-you just have never listened to ANY talk radio in your entire life EVER, right?

Dr: I may have fifteen years ago before I started this thing I’m doing. But, I, I work 24/7, literally. You know, I worked last night ’till three o’clock, and the night before until three o’clock and I get up and I start working again. And I don’t, I don’t commute, I’m not in a car-

LI: You can have a radio, right? You don’t need to commute, you put on the kitchen.

Dr: I don’t turn on music, I don’t turn on talk radio, I’m sorry. You know, I, I, and I thought I should be honest with you -I haven’t- I haven’t heard your show. I didn’t realize there was call-in, even. No one told me that. Which I don’t mind, I look forward to-

LI: Let’s…um-hmm.

Dr: I know about talk radio, I think it’s incredibly (overtalk by Laura)

LI: Well, you’re a, but you’re a professional, you’re a professional, and you’re head of this big, ah, interesting, and I think a vibrant group and that’s why we wanted to have you on. I’m just, I’m always interested that people, who, you know, want to get the word out about your group, I mean, just, just a little research on, you know, with whom you’re talking and to whom you’re talking.

We’re going to take a break. When we come back, more questions for our guest, Diane Sollee. She’s the founder and director of Coalition for Marriage, Family and Couples Education. You can go to smartmarriages.com for more information. We’ll get to all your calls. Be patient, be brief. Stay with us.

(off air, talking to her radio staff)

LI: If you are supposedly tapped into the culture, what’s happening, you’ve never listened to talk radio-you’re completely out to lunch. I mean, she’s out to lunch. Idiot. By the way-

Staff: An author.

LI: -really stupid for her, to, uh, open that door. Screw off, she revealed that, and so I’m going to friggin’ destroy her. What else can you find out about her? This is, uh, I didn’t really get any, this information about what kind of a person she is. So what else do we know about this woman?

Marriage and family therapist, let’s find out more about her.

Staff: She’s been in this-

LI: I don’t care how long she’s in it. She’s a friggin’ IDIOT.

Look at her…okay, I just saw a picture of her.

Staff: Two(?) minutes.

(laughter)

LI: This big liberal. She’s a big liberal, I can tell.

Staff: Big, stinky, long-haired liberal?

LI: She’s a…okay. She did something with Heritage, Tom, so can’t be all bad. (imitating the good doctor) “You’re just mad I don’t listen to talk radio.” Yeah, no, I just don’t think you do your homework, sweetheart.

Oh, she quotes Maya Angelou!! Maya Angelou’s on the front of the website! Oh my God! Oh, get out. (gibberish) What a, what’s her, what’s, she hasn’t given one piece of common sense information.

First of all, don’t PISS OFF one of the biggest talk show hosts in the United States…

Staff: One minute.

(on air)

LI: We LOVE Maya Angelou on the Laura Ingraham Show. We love, I love, if you’d listened, you’d know how much I love Maya Angelou.

Dr: Well, I wish you didn’t, I wish you’d just realize, you know, that, this is a, a full time revolution.

LI: You’re busy, you’re busy.

Diane, I really appreciate it, thanks so much.

Dr: Thank you, bye bye.

LI: Alright, stay with us on the Laura Ingraham Show, we’ll close it out.

(off air, to staff)

LI: Ah, was she annoying?

Staff: She’s ridiculous.

LI: “Oh, if you’d listen to the show, you’d know how much I LOVE Maya Angelou.” She didn’t even know what I was talking about, I totally goofed on her.

Staff: Yeah, mean-meanwhile, the listeners are…

LI: You guys, when she said she’d never listened to radio, I just couldn’t hold it back, I was so livid.

DON’T COME ON MY SHOW if you’ve never even bothered to even listen to it online. I just would never go a show that I’ve never heard before, unless it was like a local, you know, radio show that I had to do a book tour for.

Staff: Never.

LI: What’s odd is that, this Diana, Diane Sollee is pretty conservative, but she’s, she’s just a dummy on how to push her stuff.

I love that, “You’re just mad that you said, I said…” Well, big mistake, sweetheart.

What a nightmare! Alright, good job you guys. Good job.

This image comes courtesy of Mariann Wizard, who says of it, “I propose the ashram rules for general adhesion.”

Republican Treasurer Embezzles Hundreds of Thousands
From Congressional Committee
By Ben Pershing / Washingtonpost.com / March, 13, 2008

National Republican Congressional Committee officials acknowledged publicly today that they have found discrepancies in their books of more than a million dollars and evidence that the NRCC’s former treasurer, Christopher Ward, made “several hundred thousand dollars” worth of unauthorized wire transfers out of the committee that appear to have ended up in Ward’s own bank accounts.

The NRCC launched an internal probe and contacted the FBI in January after learning that Ward “apparently fabricated and submitted 2006 financial statements to the NRCC’s bank,” according to a memo issued by the committee today. Some details of the probe have been reported previously, but today’s memo and press briefing by a lawyer retained by the committee marked the fullest public accounting so far of the unfolding scandal.

The initial dollar amounts disclosed by the NRCC today suggest that this case could be the biggest campaign swindle ever recorded.

“Based on analysis conducted to date, it appears likely that over a period of several years Ward made several hundred thousand dollars in unauthorized transfers of NRCC funds to outside committees whose bank accounts he had access to, including joint fundraising committees in which the NRCC participated,” said the NRCC memo.

“He also appears to have made subsequent transfers of several hundred thousand dollars in funds from those outside committees to what appears to be his personal and business bank accounts. Those unauthorized transactions date back to at least 2004.”

The NRCC has found that the amount of cash on hand it reported to the Federal Election Commission at the end of 2006 was approximately $990,000 more than the committee actually had in the bank. The total the NRCC reported in the bank to the FEC as of Jan. 31, 2008, was $740,000 more than the actual amount, and the committee has discovered that it owes $200,000 more on its outstanding line of credit than it has reported to the FEC.

It is not clear yet to investigators whether those discrepancies are all due to money transferred out of the committee by Ward, or whether at least some of the shortfalls are attributable to other accounting errors.

“The evidence we have today indicates we have been deceived and betrayed for a number of years by a highly respected and trusted individual,” NRCC Chairman Tom Cole (Okla.) said in a statement.

Ward and his attorney have not spoken to the media since news of the NRCC investigation first broke.

While the FBI’s investigation is ongoing, the NRCC has also hired the law firm Covington & Burling to conduct an internal probe, and that firm has in turn hired PricewaterhouseCoopers to do a forensic audit of the committee’s books. NRCC officials now believe the last bona fide audit of the committee took place in 2001, and that Ward submitted “bogus audits” every year from 2002 through 2006 on faked stationary from a genuine, respected accounting firm.

Rob Kelner of Covington & Burling explained to reporters today that his firm’s initial probe revealed a “pattern in which Ward would wire transfer funds to other committees where he did accounting work and had signature authority.” The evidence further showed transfers from those committees to Ward’s bank accounts.

“The exact dollar figures are currently a moving target, and as the investigation progresses, it is entirely possible that these figures will change, either by increasing or decreasing,” the NRCC memo said.

The NRCC borrowed $8 million in 2006 from Wachovia Bank in order to fund that year’s Congressional races, and the committee was required to give the bank detailed financial information in order to secure the loan. It is illegal to knowingly submit false information to a bank for such a transaction, though Kelner said he believed the committee itself would not face any charges for its submissions to Wachovia.

“We’re not aware of any reason why the NRCC should have any [legal] exposure,” Kelner said.

In addition to the NRCC, Ward has served as treasurer for more than 80 other GOP fundraising committees, many of which are now concerned they may also have had money stolen.

Kelner pointed out that it is “not that unusual” for campaign committees to fall victim to embezzlement schemes, and several past examples can be found here.

As of now, Kelner said, this appeared to be a one-man operation. “We’re not aware of anyone colluding with [Ward] on this,” he said.

The NRCC already faces a challenging election cycle. Plagued by a rash of retirements, the GOP has far more open seats to defend in the fall than Democrats do, and the party suffered an important symbolic blow on Saturday when Democrats captured the Illinois seat of ex-Speaker Dennis Hastert (R) in a special election.

Republicans are also at a significant financial disadvantage. As of Jan. 31, the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee had nearly $30 million more in the bank than the NRCC had.

Source

Friends and fellow history buffs:

The first of my two-volume history of the Texas Rangers, “The Texas Rangers: Wearing the Cinco Peso, 1821-1900” (New York: Forge Books, 496 pages, $29.95) will be published March 18.

I am humbled that some 80 per cent of the first press run has already sold and that pre-publication reviews from Kirkus Reviews, the American Library Association’s Booklist, the San Antonio Express-News and others have been very favorable.

You all are invited to the book signings scheduled so far, as listed in the attached flyer. If that’s not convenient for you, the book is available at a nice discount of $17.33 from www.amazon.com or from Barnes and Noble and most other booksellers in the U.S. and Europe.

Not listed on the flyer is a talk I’ll be giving on the book at the Westlake Barnes and Noble in Austin at 7:30 p.m. March 27.

I hope you’ll consider ordering my book or that you can make one or all of the scheduled events.

I’ll look forward to visiting with you.

Best, Mike Cox

Tarot by Kate 512-454-2293
www.tarotbykateinaustin.com
kate_braun2000@yahoo.com

“In your Easter bonnet, with all the frills upon it…”

Thursday, March 20, is the Vernal Equinox, also named Spring Equinox, Lady Day, Ostara, Oestra. Thursday is Thor’s Day; Thor is the Norse god of war. Lady Moon is in her second quarter of Virgo, a sign of new beginnings. The combination of blustery Thor and balancing Moon could prove interesting, to say the least. I recommend you take the attitude that anything can happen on this day.

The egg is a traditional symbol for the Vernal Equinox, as is the rabbit. Both were sacred to Eostra, Saxon goddess of the Dawn, and customs associated with venerating her have morphed over time into current traditions involving Easter egg hunts and the Easter Bunny. Eostra, so the lore tells us, was also fond of sweets; offerings to her shrines frequently included honey and other sweet dessert items. Today the sweet treat of choice for this celebration is: Chocolate! If you like rich, organic, dark chocolate treats of exceptional quality, I suggest you visit the Arte y Chocolate website at www.aychocolate.com to discover where you may obtain some of the highest-quality chocolate available in this area.

Much of the lore concerning the Vernal Equinox involves eggs. Equinoxes are the two times each year when a raw egg may be balanced on its larger end, which may be done at any time during the day and which might be fun for your and your guests to do together at the beginning of your feast. You may choose to use eggs or egg-shapes for placecards and party favors. Your guests might enjoy the opportunity to decorate eggs made of wood, papier mache, cardboard, or other materials. These eggs may then be exchanged among your guests and taken home as party favors to decorate their homes/altars. One custom dictates that hard-boiled eggs are first decorated and then ceremoniously buried in the garden as an offering to the garden deities to bring a bountiful harvest.

Spring festivals also tend to involve dressing up in various types of finery, yet another way to celebrate Lord Sun’s emergence. Array yourself, your festive table, your altar, and invite your guests to dress in pastel shades of all colors. Another focus of this festival is plants and planting. Wheatsville Food Coop‘s annual Herb Fest is on Saturday, March 15, starting at 10 AM, in the north parking lot, should you feel inclined to make some additions to your garden.

It is said that Alexander the Great was asked “which came first, the chicken or the egg?” Alexander’s reply was that the Orphic Mysteries teach that the Egg is the origin of all things. I suggest that as you decorate, exchange, balance, and eat eggs on this day, you take some time to contemplate beginnings: consider the goals you would most like to start pursuing this year and choose one to focus on. Ideas, like eggs, are the origin of all things.

********
Reminders: 1. I will be Elaine Ireland’s guest on her live-on-the-internet radio talk show on Wednesday, March 19, from 7:55 PM to 8:50 PM. Go to www.bbsradio.com, click on Channel 2, scroll through the Wednesday listings for “Going Global With Spirit with Elaine Ireland“ and click there to listen. There is a toll-free number for listeners to call in to make comments, ask questions, and/or get a short Tarot reading from me.

2. The next Metaphysical Fair will be on April 12 & 13 at the Radisson Hotel, 6000 Middle Fiskvville Rd., Austin, TX., between Highland Mall and Lincoln Village. Saturday hours:10 AM – 6 PM; Sunday hours are 11 AM – 6 PM. $7.00 entry fee, good for both days. If you come to the fair because you read about it here, please stop by the Tarot by Kate table and say “Hi” whether or not you get a reading. If you decide to get a Tarot reading from me, mention this Seasonal Message and you will receive 5 additional minutes free.

2: Effective April 1, 2008, my bigstep.com website will cease to exist. The new site address is: www.tarotbykateinaustin.com. I will be continuing to fine-tune this site for as long as it takes to get it done to my satisfaction. Send your suggestions for changes/improvements to: kate_braun2000@yahoo.com.

Lying Politicians Make Me Wanna Scream

The Real Spitzer Lessons: The Truth About Political Liars Hurts
By Joel Hirschhorn, published Mar 13, 2008

All politicians are liars.

Successful Republican and Democratic politicians are the biggest liars.

Every time you vote for a Democrat or Republican you are voting for a liar.

People keep believing the lies of politicians.

Politicians who appear the most honest, idealistic and inspirational are also liars.

Politicians that somehow win elections and are lousy liars ultimately fail.

Someone who aspires to public office but is totally honest does not stand a chance.

We need a constitutional amendment that requires removal of a president from office if Congress certifies a publicly stated lie of commission or omission.

Any politician that says negative things about a dishonest politician is surely a liar that has not yet been exposed.

Once you realize that all Democratic and Republican political candidates are liars you are an idiot for believing any of their promises, positions and claims.

Whenever politicians talk about reforming government or the political system, or making important changes, your immediate reaction should be healthy skepticism.

The only rational and logical presumption when you pay attention to what a candidate says is to acknowledge the high probability that they are lying.

Once you accept as normal the dishonesty of politicians you have defined our delusional democracy.

Once you conclude that virtually nothing a candidate says can be trusted you have justified boycotting elections or at least voting for an honest third party or independent candidate.

Simply saying that all politicians lie and have always lied is no justification for keep believing their lies.

Stop voting for what you think is the lesser-lying politician, because you will only be disappointed when their big lies are revealed.

Of course political truths hurt, making it easy for politicians to lie, but ultimately their lies hurt our nation more.

I have told you the truth so don’t lie to yourself and keep rationalizing why lying politicians have to be put up with.

Source

Ashley Alexandra Dupre, AKA Kristen

New York Sex Worker Organizations Respond to Spitzer Scandal
By Desiree Alliance

New York, NY – In the last few days, Governor Eliot Spitzer has publicly admitted to being associated with an escort agency and has resigned his office. As sex worker advocates, we are concerned about the representation and fate of “Kristen” and sex workers who are being thrust into the spotlight because of the investigation into the Governor. We also share the widespread concern for Governor Spitzer’s family.

Sex worker organizations urge the press and the public to focus on the violation of sex workers rights and the need to change these laws and policies, rather than simply on the story of one individual who has purchased sexual services.

“Nobody is talking about the impact of this story on ‘Kristen’ and other women, men and trans people who are currently working in the sex industry,” Shakti Ziller of SWANK in NYC added, “Prostitutes disproportionately face punitive action after arrest as compared to clients. Whether or not she will face prison time, “Kristen” has been dragged into the spotlight and will be subjected to public humiliation. Shouldn’t the police emphasis be on catching perpetrators of violent crime and protecting sex workers – not exposing adults who are consenting to a transaction? All she did was try to make a living.”

“Governor Spitzer ran on a platform of being a different kind of politician and then portrayed an inaccurate image of himself. Being involved with the services of sex workers is a very common thing, if all forms of consensual sex work were decriminalized for adults involved in a consensual transaction, sex workers could access the services they need,” says Dylan Wolfe of SWANK (Sex Workers Action New York).

Governor Spitzer took a lead role in developing the NY State Anti-Trafficking Law. Over the objections of advocates who worked directly with victims of human trafficking and with sex workers, Governor Spitzer pushed through penalty enhancements against clients of all sex workers. Sex worker advocates fought against such provisions because these policies drive people who need help further underground.

“Spitzer has stood up for workers’ rights in certain capacities, but has not followed through with meeting the real needs of sex workers,” Audacia Ray, author of Naked on the Internet, noted, “It would be great if the government could use money towards services, not punitive measures.”

The press has picked up on the relationship that inter-state trafficking laws (under the Mann Act) have to this case. This connection illustrates a point that sex worker advocates have been making for a long time: Laws against inter-state transportation for the purposes of commercial sex are too often used for punishing people working as sex workers and those who work with and patronize them.

The exposure of Randall Tobias last year as a customer of an escort agency, Senator Vitter’s rumored association with sex workers and now this recent news of Governor Spitzer, the corruption and hypocrisy inherently associated with prohibiting consensual prostitution are again being brought to light. Shaming these men will do nothing to improve the nature of the sex industry and the deeply-rooted corruption that is associated with the prohibition of prostitution.

“The criminalization of prostitution breeds this type of hypocrisy and makes our politicians (and other public figures) vulnerable,” says Carol Leigh of Sex Workers Outreach Project-USA. “This vulnerability exists until our society recognizes that consensual sexual behavior is private and these private acts should no longer be criminalized.”

“Many of our clients are politicians, judges, lawyers and even police,” Monica S., 26 of Brooklyn said. “It’s odd that they spend so much effort putting us into jail, but then turn around and give us their money in exchange for sex. Why do they think they won’t get caught breaking the laws that they make?”

The commentary on Dealbreaker.com, a Wall-Street news site, says about Wall-street’s anti-Spitzer reaction to the ‘Client 9′ story: “‘There is a God’ was the first thought on Wall Street. The next thought is, ‘Please don’t let it be revealed that I’m Lucky Number 7.’

Source.

From Roger Baker / The Rag Blog

Public Is Less Aware of Iraq Casualties, Study Finds
By Karen DeYoung, Washington Post Staff Writer
Thursday, March 13, 2008; Page A12

Twenty-eight percent of the public is aware that nearly 4,000 U.S. personnel have died in Iraq over the past five years, while nearly half thinks the death tally is 3,000 or fewer and 23 percent think it is higher, according to an opinion survey released yesterday.

The survey, by the Pew Research Center for the People and the Press, found that public awareness of developments in the Iraq war has dropped precipitously since last summer, as the news media have paid less attention to the conflict. In earlier surveys, about half of those asked about the death tally responded correctly.

Related Pew surveys have found that the number of news stories devoted to the war has sharply declined this year, along with professed public interest. “Coverage of the war has been virtually absent,” said Pew survey research director Scott Keeter, totaling about 1 percent of the news hole between Feb. 17 and 23.

The Iraq-associated median for 2007, he said, was 15 percent of all news stories, with major spikes when President Bush announced a “surge” in forces in January of that year and when Gen. David H. Petraeus, the U.S. commander in Iraq, testified before Congress in September.

“We try not to make any causal statements about the relationship between the absence of news and what the public knows,” Keeter said. “But there’s certainly a correlation between the two. People are not seeing news about fatalities, and there isn’t much in the news about the war, whether it be military action or even political discussion related to it.”

Although Iraq topped the list of the public’s most closely followed news stories in all but five weeks during the first half of 2007, according to Pew’s research, interest fell rapidly in the fall, and Iraq has not held the top spot since October. That corresponded with a sharp drop in the rate of U.S. casualties in Iraq and increased news coverage of the U.S. presidential campaign.

During the last week in January, 36 percent of those surveyed said they were most closely following campaign news, while 14 percent expressed the most interest in the stock market and 12 percent in the death of actor Heath Ledger. In contrast, 6 percent said they were most closely following coverage of Iraq.

Read all of it here.

Moko at play at Waikokopu Bay, Mahia, this summer.

The Iraq Follies: Eighteen things you’ve already forgotten about the media’s flawed coverage of Iraq.
by Greg Mitchell

In putting together my new book, So Wrong for So Long, on Iraq and the media, I revisited the good, the bad, and the ugly in war coverage from the run-up to the invasion through the five years of controversy that followed. Even though I monitored the coverage closely all along, I was continually surprised to come across once-prominent names, quotes, and incidents that had faded to obscurity. Here is a list of 18 of those nearly forgotten episodes, in roughly chronological order.

1. The day before the invasion, Bill O’Reilly said, “If the Americans go in and overthrow Saddam Hussein and it’s clean, he has nothing, I will apologize to the nation; I will not trust the Bush administration again, all right?”

2. Phil Donahue lost his show at MSNBC, he later claimed, because he did not wave the flag enough. A leaked NBC memo confirmed Donahue’s suspicion, noting that the host “presents a difficult public face for NBC in a time of war…. At the same time our competitors are waving the flag at every opportunity.”

3. After the fall of Baghdad, MSNBC’s Chris Matthews declared, “We’re all neocons now.”

4. The same day, Joe Scarborough, also on MSNBC, said, “I’m waiting to hear the words ‘I was wrong’ from some of the world’s most elite journalists, politicians, and Hollywood types.”

5. The New York Times’ Thomas Friedman wrote, “As far as I am concerned, we do not need to find any weapons of mass destruction to justify this war…. Mr. Bush doesn’t owe the world any explanation for missing chemical weapons.”

6. President Bush’s comedy routine during the Radio and Television Correspondents Dinner in Washington, D.C., on March 24, 2004, included a bit about the still-missing WMD. While a slide show of the president scouring the White House was projected on the wall behind him, he joked, “Those weapons of mass destruction have got to be somewhere…Nope, no weapons over there…Maybe under here?” Most of the crowd roared, and there was little criticism in the media in following days. Mother Jones‘ David Corn, then Washington editor of The Nation, was one of the few attendees to criticize the routine. Corn wondered if they would have laughed if Ronald Reagan had, following the truck bombing of our Marine barracks in Beirut, which killed 241, said at a similar dinner, “Guess we forgot to put in a stoplight.”

7. Who was the first mainstream editor/columnist to call for a U.S. pullout? It was the unlikely Allen H. Neuharth, founder of USA Today, who is certainly not known for expressing anti-war or liberal views. His May 2004 column drew wide reader protest but “the old fighting infantryman” (as the former soldier billed himself) stuck to his guns and penned a few more columns in that vein in the years that followed.

8. When the New York Times carried its now-famous editors’ note on May 26, 2004, admitting some errors in its WMD coverage, it appeared on page A10 and Judith Miller’s name was nowhere to be found. The note is often described today as an “apology,” but it was no such thing. On the day it ran, Executive Editor Bill Keller, not exactly chastened, called criticism of the Times‘ coverage “overwrought” and said that the main reason it even published the note was because the controversy had become a “distraction.”

9. Likewise, it’s often said that the Washington Post also issued an apology. But the criticism of its prewar coverage came not in an editors’ statement but in an article by the paper’s media critic, Howard Kurtz. Post editors offered several defenses for the coverage and top editor Len Downie argued that it didn’t make much difference anyway, because tougher coverage would not have stopped the war.

10. Stephen Colbert’s routine at the White House Correspondents’ Association dinner in April 2006 is remembered for the in-his-face mockery of President Bush-but he also spanked the press, perhaps one reason his mainstream reviews were mixed at best. Addressing the correspondents directly, Colbert said, “Let’s review the rules. The president makes decisions; he’s the decider. The press secretary announces those decisions, and you people of the press type those decisions down. Make, announce, type. Put them through a spell-check and go home. Get to know your family again. Make love to your wife. Write that novel you got kicking around in your head. You know, the one about the intrepid Washington reporter with the courage to stand up to the administration. You know-fiction.”

11. In one of the purest “my bads” of the war, Fox News’ John Gibson ripped Neil Young after the rocker released his protest album Living With War. Gibson demanded that Young go see the new United 93 movie and even offered to buy his ticket. Young, it was soon pointed out, had actually written one of the first 9/11 songs-”Let’s Roll,” about, you guessed it, Flight 93.

12. Surprise: David Brooks, Thomas Friedman, and Oliver North all came out against the “surge” last January after it was announced by President Bush. George Will wrote a column titled, “Surge, or Power Failure?” And, after the botched hanging of Saddam, Charles Krauthammer declared, “We should not be surging American troops in defense of such a government.”

13. When Valerie Plame finally testified before Congress in March 2007, much of the media coverage focused on her appearance. Mary Ann Akers wrote a piece for the Washington Post titled “Hearing Room Chic,” noting that Plame wore “a fetching jacket and pants” and should be played by Katie Holmes in the movie version of her story because they both favor Armani.

14. On March 27, 2007, John McCain, referring to the supposed calm settling on Baghdad, said, “General Petraeus goes out there almost every day in an unarmed Humvee.” This turned out to be pure bunk, but McCain quickly visited Iraq to try to prove his overall point. There, the Arizona senator went from the ridiculous to the maligned, touring a Baghdad market and claiming all was safe-while troops surrounded him and helicopters twirled overhead. Rep. Mike Pence (R-Ind.) likened the scene to “a normal outdoor market in Indiana in the summertime.”

15. In April 2007, CBS’ Bob Simon admitted to Bill Moyers that his network should have dug deeper into the false claims on WMD. “I think we all felt from the beginning that to deal with a subject as explosive as this, we should keep it, in a way, almost light-if that doesn’t seem ridiculous,” he said.

16. Contrary to popular belief, the New York Times, which had editorialized against the invasion, did not call for a change in course or the beginning of a withdrawal from Iraq until July 8, 2007.

17. On Meet the Press in July 2007, David Brooks declared that 10,000 Iraqis a month would perish if the United States pulled out. Bob Woodward, also on the show, challenged him on this, asking for his source. Brooks admitted, “I just picked that 10,000 out of the air.”

18. Also in July 2007, an old clip of a C-SPAN interview with Vice President Cheney from 1994 surfaced, in which he defended the decision not to depose Saddam Hussein during Gulf War I: “Once you got to Iraq and took it over…then what are you going to put in its place?…It’s a quagmire if you go that far and try to take over Iraq.” He explained, “And the question for the president…was how many additional dead Americans is Saddam worth? Our judgment was, not very many, and I think we got it right.”

Greg Mitchell is editor of Editor & Publisher and the author of So Wrong for So Long: How the Press, the Pundits-and the President-Failed on Iraq (Union Square Press), which was published this week.

© 2008 The Foundation for National Progress

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Keith Olbermann: Special Comment on Hillary Clinton

Olbermann Says Clinton “Campaigning Like a Republican”
By Keith Olbermann / MSNBC / March 12, 2008

Finally, as promised, a Special Comment on the presidential campaign of the Junior Senator from New York.

By way of necessary preface, President and Senator Clinton — and the Senator’s mother, and the Senator’s brother — were of immeasurable support to me at the moments when these very commentaries were the focus of the most surprise, the most uncertainty, and the most anger.

My gratitude to them is abiding.

Also, I am not here endorsing Senator Obama’s nomination, nor suggesting it is inevitable.

Thus I have fought with myself over whether or not to say anything.

Senator, as it has reached its apex in their tone-deaf, arrogant, and insensitive reaction to the remarks of Geraldine Ferraro… your own advisors are slowly killing your chances to become President.

Senator, their words, and your own, are now slowly killing the chances for any Democrat to become President.

In your tepid response to this Ferraro disaster, you may sincerely think you are disenthralling an enchanted media, and righting an unfair advance bestowed on Senator Obama.

You may think the matter has closed with Representative Ferraro’s bitter, almost threatening resignation.

But in fact, Senator, you are now campaigning, as if Barock Obama were the Democrat, and you… were the Republican.

As Shakespeare wrote, Senator — that way… madness… lies.

You have missed a critical opportunity to do… what was right.

No matter what Ms. Ferraro now claims, no one took her comments out of context.

She had made them on at least three separate occasions, then twice more on television this morning.

Just hours ago, on NBC Nightly News, she denied she had made the remarks in an interview — only at a paid political speech.

In fact, the first time she spoke them, was ten days before the California newspaper published them… not in a speech, but in a radio interview.

On February 26th, quoting…

“If Barack Obama were a white man, would we be talking about this, as a potential real problem for Hillary? If he were a woman of any color, would he be in this position that he’s in? Absolutely not.”

The context was inescapable.

Two minutes earlier, a member of Senator Clinton’s Finance Committee, one of her “Hill-Raisers,” had bemoaned the change in allegiance by Super-Delegate John Lewis from Clinton to Obama, and the endorsement of Obama by Senator Dodd.

“I look at these guys doing it,” she had said, “and I have to tell you, it’s the guys sticking together.”

A minute after the “color” remarks, she was describing herself as having been chosen for the 1984 Democratic ticket, purely as a woman politician, purely to make history.

She was, in turn, making a blind accusation of sexism — and dismissing Senator Obama’s candidacy as nothing more than an Equal Opportunity stunt.

The next day she repeated her comments to a reporter from the newspaper in Torrance, California.

“If Obama was a white man, he would not be in this position. And if he was a woman (of any color) he would not be in this position. He happens to be very lucky to be who he is. And the country is caught up in the concept.”

And when this despicable statement — ugly in its overtones, laughable in its weak grip of facts, and moronic in the historical context — when it floats outward from the Clinton Campaign like a poison cloud, what do the advisors have their candidate do?

Do they have Senator Clinton herself compare the remark to Al Campanis talking on Nightline… on Jackie Robinson day… about how blacks lacked the necessities to become baseball executives, while she points out that Barock Obama has not gotten his 1600 delegates as part of some kind of Affirmative Action plan?

Do they have Senator Clinton note that her own brief period in elected office, is as irrelevant to the issue of judgment as is Senator Obama’s…

…while she points out that FDR had served only six years as a governor and state Senator before he became President?

Or that Teddy Roosevelt had four-and-a-half years before the White House?

Or that Woodrow Wilson had two years and six weeks?

Or Richard Nixon… fourteen… and Calvin Coolidge 25?

Do these advisors have Senator Clinton invoke Samantha Power — gone by sunrise after she used the word “monster” — and have Senator Clinton say, “this is how I police my campaign and this is what I stand for,” while she fires former Congresswoman Ferraro from any role the campaign?

No.

Somebody tells her that simply disagreeing with and rejecting the remarks is sufficient.

And she should then call, “regrettable”, words that should make any Democrat retch.

And that she should then try to twist them, first into some pox-on-both-your-houses plea to ‘stick to the issues,’ and then to let her campaign manager try to bend them beyond all recognition, into Senator Obama’s fault.

And thus these advisers give Congresswoman Ferraro nearly a week in which to send Senator Clinton’s campaign back into the vocabulary… of David Duke.

“Any time anybody does anything that in any way pulls this campaign down and says let’s address reality and the problems we’re facing in this world, you’re accused of being racist, so you have to shut up.

“Racism works in two different directions. I really think they’re attacking me because I’m white.

“How’s that?”

How’s that?

Apart from sounding exactly like Rush Limbaugh attacking the black football quarterback Donovan McNabb?

Apart from sounding exactly like what Ms. Ferraro said about another campaign, nearly twenty years ago?

Quote:

“President Reagan suggested Tuesday that people don’t ask Jackson tough questions because of his race. And former representative Geraldine A. Ferraro (D-N.Y.) said Wednesday that because of his “radical” views, “if Jesse Jackson were not black, he wouldn’t be in the race.”

So… apart from sounding like insidious racism that is at least two decades old?

Apart from rendering ridiculous, Senator Clinton’s shell-game about choosing Obama as Vice President?

Apart from this evening’s resignation letter?

“I am stepping down from your finance committee so I can speak for myself and you can continue to speak for yourself about what is at stake in this campaign.

“The Obama campaign is attacking me to hurt you.”

Apart from all that?

Well. It sounds as if those advisors want their campaign to be associated with those words, and the cheap… ignorant… vile… racism that underlies every syllable…

And that Geraldine Ferraro has just gone free-lance.

Senator Clinton:

This is not a campaign strategy.

This is a suicide pact.

This week alone, your so-called strategists have declared that Senator Obama has not yet crossed the “commander-in-chief threshold”…

But — he might be your choice to be Vice President, even though a quarter of the previous sixteen Vice Presidents have become commander-in-chief during the greatest kind of crisis this nation can face: a mid-term succession.

But you’d only pick him if he crosses that threshold by the time of the convention.

But if he does cross that threshold by the time of the convention, he will only have done so sufficiently enough to become Vice President, not President.

Senator, if the serpentine logic of your so-called advisors were not bad enough…

Now, thanks to Geraldine Ferraro, and your campaign’s initial refusal to break with her, and your new relationship with her — now more disturbing still with her claim that she can now “speak for herself” about her vision of Senator Obama as some kind of embodiment of a quota…

If you were to seek Obama as a Vice President, it would be, to Ms. Ferraro, some kind of social engineering gesture, some kind of racial make-good.

Do you not see, Senator?

To Senator Clinton’s supporters, to her admirers, to her friends for whom she is first choice, and her friends for whom she is second choice, she is still letting herself be perceived as standing next to, and standing by, racial divisiveness and blindness…

And worst yet, after what President Clinton said during the South Carolina primary, comparing the Obama and Jesse Jackson campaigns — a disturbing, but only borderline remark…

After what some in the black community have perceived as a racial undertone to the “3 A-M” ad… a disturbing — but only borderline interpretation…

And after that moment’s hesitation in her own answer on 60 Minutes about Obama’s religion — a disturbing, but only borderline vagueness…

After those precedents, there are those who see a pattern… false, or true.

After those precedents, there are those who see an intent… false, or true.

After those precedents, there are those who see the Clinton campaign’s anything-but-benign neglect of this Ferraro catastrophe — falsely or truly — as a desire to hear the kind of casual prejudice which still haunts this society voiced… and to not distance the campaign from it.

To not distance you from it, Senator!

To not distance you… from that which you as a woman, and Senator Obama as an African-American, should both know and feel with the deepest of personal pain!

Which you should both fight with all you have!

Which you should both insure, has no place in this contest!

This, Senator Clinton, is your campaign, and it is your name.

Grab the reins back from whoever has led you to this precipice, before it is too late.

Voluntarily or inadvertently, you are still awash in this filth.

Your only reaction has been to disagree, reject, and to call it regrettable.

Her only reaction has been to brand herself as the victim, resign from your committee, and insist she will continue to speak.

Unless you say something definitive, Senator, the former Congresswoman is speaking with your approval.

You must remedy this.

And you must… reject… and denounce… Geraldine Ferraro.

Good night, and good luck.

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“All the Money You Make Will Never Buy Back Your Soul”
By Ron Jacobs

12/03/08 “Counterpunch” — — -Recently, the Boston Globe reported that the Halliburton subsidiary Kellogg, Brown & Root (KBR) had set up an offshore company to hire close to half of the men and women working for KBR in Iraq as contractors. According to the report, this enables KBR to avoid paying social security, unemployment insurance and other taxes. When workers complained, they were essentially told that they had already signed a contract with the offshore company and therefore had no recourse. On the other hand, at another time KBR argued that some of its workers that sued the company after being exposed to dangerous chemicals in Iraq were KBR employees and, because of laws granting contractors doing military work overseas, the company was not legally responsible. Like the lawyer for the nine men suing KBR said, “When it benefits them, KBR takes the position that these men really are employees. You don’t get to take both positions.”

Of course, this is exactly what KBR wants to do. After all, this corporation and most other companies involved in what is euphemistically called contracting in the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan and “homeland security” are much more interested in making money than they are in being fair or even patriotic. The bounty provided by what London and DC term the “war on terror” has moved the money grubbing of these corporations to an even higher level of greed. The executives of these companies are not interested in seeing this war end. If it did, then they would lose the gravy train it has become.

This is what Solomon Hughes makes quite clear in his new book War on Terror, Inc. Corporate Profiteering From the Politics of Fear just released by Verso. Hughes is an investigative reporter that does that title proud. His work has appeared in British newspapers and the journal Private Eye. What he does in this book is nothing less than rip the mask of false patriotism and concern for the world’s well-being from the faces of the corporations that constitute a major part of the today’s war industry. In the process, he exposes the shallow greed and willing corruption of the politicians and government bureaucrats who hand over their nation’s coffers to those companies, despite their public ineptitude and chicanery—not to mention the lies the whole shell game is based on. Meanwhile, people die for no reason.

A topic of conversation amongst some Boston Red Sox baseball fans a few years ago was the revelation that a member of one of the ownership groups was a man named Philip Morse. It seems that Morse owned at least one plane that was leased to the CIA for rendition flights. This revelation didn’t cause any Red Sox fans that I know to end their support for their team — given the irrational nature of sports fandom to do so would make too much sense — but it did serve to illustrate just how connected the dots are between corporate American and US intelligence. Furthermore, it showed that money is more important to those businesses involved in the military-industrial complex than morality or even legality.

Hughes’ book takes these connections even further, suggesting that the corporations’ drive for profits is what might very well drive the US government to attack a certain country, even if the government believes there might be other methods it could use. Now, when I was younger a teacher once explained to me the difference between Soviet-style communism and fascism like this: under the former the state is the corporation and under the latter the state serves the corporations. The litany of corporate involvement in war and preparing for war described in War On Terror makes it clear that the US and UK are certainly headed towards the latter. Furthermore, Hughes suggests (and documents with a long list of supporting facts) that once the US is in a country, its policies are driven as much if not more by private contracting companies’ desire for profits than by a government policy that might actually make Washington’s intervention less bloody and shorter in duration. An example of this scenario, suggests Hughes, can be found in the policy of separating societies along ethnic, religious and tribal lines. This was done in the former Yugoslavia and continues in the case of the occupation of Iraq. If one accepts this theory, what becomes even clearer is that the sectarianism now apparently rampant in Iraq is more the result of the US/UK intervention and its complementary use of mercenaries than it is from any intent by Iraqis to foment a civil war. Whether or not this widening of the sectarian divide was Washington’s intention or not it no longer matters because it has created a situation Washington seems to prefer–a country divided amongst itself.

Perhaps the most fascinating aspect of Hughes’ work is that one can see his thesis played out in the daily news. Walls dividing neighborhoods in Iraqi cities. Airbus gaining contracts to build refueling planes and being challenged by Boeing on the grounds of unfair business practices and a false patriotism. Airplane charter services lending their services to Homeland Security to fly prisoners being held in private prisons by private contractors out of the country so they can be tortured in prisons overseas by private interrogators. Just recently, a story crossed the wires about a $30 million dollar wall being built in Iraq to protect an oil pipeline from insurgent attacks. This occurred despite several Iraqis (and others) stating that the work of guarding the pipeline could have been done much cheaper just by hiring local tribesmen to guard it. Of course, the latter choice would not have put several millions into the coffers of whatever western corporation is building the wall.

War On Terror, Inc. works on at least two levels. Hughes challenges the legality and morality of the roles played by these firms and, as mentioned above, he also exposes their sheer ineptitude and gross corruption. The collaboration of western politicians in this conspiracy is something that should be front page news and provoke the outrage of every citizen of these countries. The fact that it doesn’t is witness to the effectiveness of the neoliberal myth that privatization is better than anything any government could do. The narrative in War on Terror, Inc. is proof that that myth is a brazen lie.

Ron Jacobs is author of The Way the Wind Blew: a history of the Weather Underground, which is just republished by Verso. Jacobs’ essay on Big Bill Broonzy is featured in CounterPunch’s collection on music, art and sex, Serpents in the Garden. His first novel, Short Order Frame Up, is published by Mainstay Press. He can be reached at: rjacobs3625@charter.net.

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