Explanation

Ever wonder whence came the name "Chimpy"?

Hat tip to Sharon Jumper.

Change of pace

Winner No. 9 from the International Pun Contest, and I have no idea why I'm posting this:

Mahatma Gandhi, as you know, walked barefoot most of the time, which produced an impressive set of calluses on his feet. He also ate very little, which made him rather frail and with his odd diet, he suffered from bad breath. This made him (Oh, man, this is so bad, it's good)..... A super calloused fragile mystic hexed by halitosis.

Thanks, Jerome a Paris.

Blue nation

October's disapproval figures for Bush, courtesy of Delaware Dem.

• Blue = net disapproval
• Red = approval
• Purple = tied

Only 6 states approve of Bush now, down from 12 last month.

UPDATE: Duh. That would be seven states approving if you remember to include Alaska.

Dean: We are the party of moral values

Howard Dean spoke in Lewiston last night and sounds like he hasn't lost any of his fire. He called to end the GOP's "culture of corruption." He said he was tired of the "ayatollahs of the right wing." And he said that Democrats would make sure all Americans have access to health insurance:

If 40 industrial nations can do it and balance the budget at the same time, it's time to have somebody in the White House who can chew gum and think at the same time.

Meanwhile, over at ABC's This Week, Dean spent Sunday morning elaborating what sounds like a pretty good Democratic agenda:

• Strong national defense (which includes never sending troops abroad without telling them the truth about why they're going and adequately arming them)
• Honesty in government
• Balancing the budget after the most fiscally imprudent administration in our lifetime
  
• Restoring jobs
• Repairing the shredded social safety net for middle class Americans
• A health care system that benefits everybody
• An education system that gives opportunity to all Americans again
  
• Freedom from government interference in private lives
• Ethics legislation, electoral reform, campaign financing reform
• An honest plan for getting out of Iraq

Best of all, he pointed out that the majority of Americans agree with our values:

The truth is the Democrats are the party of moral values….. The President's attack on Social Security wasn't just about money and neoconservative nonsense. It was about a fundamental attack on the notion that America is one community and we have responsibility for each other.

[Emphasis added.] He was by all accounts direct, tough, and candid. Dean is getting pretty good at staying on message, avoiding minefields, and still managing to sound genuine. One viewer said watching him made her wistful thinking of what might have been: "a smart, competent, compassionate leader in for the common good and not for himself." Anne from Vermont agreed, adding she'd often thought the big difference between the two parties could be stated very simply:

• Conservatives: Me
• Democrats: Us
  

Thank you, Dr. Dean.

Being Scooter Libby

Wolcott has outdone himself in Scooter Libby, Sharkbait.

Read if only for the image of Bush, deprived of his evil genius Rove, "reduced to wandering around the White House bumping into walls like a robot on the blink."

UPDATE: I changed the link so it would lead to Wolcott's home page, as his permalinks don't seem to be working.

God Bless Our Yellow Ribbons (and all our SUVs and Hummers, too)

"Patriotism is not short, frenzied outbursts of emotion, but the tranquil and steady dedication of a lifetime." - Adlai E. Stevenson

So here's an excellent diary on how not to support the troops.

And for more ammo and a bit of a shocker, check out conservative congressman Curt Weldon (R-PA) comparing Rumsfeld to Kim Jong-Il (transcript, audio), invoking the wisdom of Cynthia McKinney (D-GA), and calling administration smear tactics "unacceptable," "unimaginable, " and "un-American."

Just as a footnote, you don't suppose Mr. Weldon's sudden fit of courage has anything to do with that challenge from Fighting Dem and Iraq veteran Byran Lentz?

Ermine robes and flight jackets

Please go read Digby on media culpability, Republican worship, and the whole jingoistic circus:

After eight long years of being fed the juiciest tabloid lies from a masterful Republican disinformation campaign and a group of friendly GOP special prosecutors, the media became joined with the republican establishment and took on its cheap ethics and ruthless attitudes. They began to identify with them. They helped them destroy Bill Clinton's reputation and piled-on to keep Al Gore from the presidency with a puerile smear campaign which they admitted to waging just because they found it amusing. And when George W. Bush became president, their condescending refrain to the majority of the country who didn't vote for him was "get over it."

That cozy relationship among the purveyors of Republican cant led directly into an unquestioning acceptance of administration lies after 9/11. The country would have rallied temprorarily regardless of the media's complicity in GOP messaging during that time, but the previous 10 years of confederacy between the hungry media and the Republican noise machine established a system in which it was possible to perpetrate one of the most outrageous frauds in history --- the Iraq war. The culture that marginalized dissent, that mocked anything other than manufactured beltway conventional wisdom and that normalized character assassination as "fair game" created a jingoistic circus that can be best illustrated with the allegedly liberal icon Dan Rather, saying: "I would willingly die for my country at a moment's notice and on the command of my president…."

While we're on the subject, don't miss Eric Alterman's latest media analysis at The Nation: Corrupt, Incompetent, and Off-Center.

Deja vu all over again

Disturbing stories are starting to leak out indicating that we are already conducting military operations in Syria. You can find diaries here and here along with a NYT article dated October 14 here.

Whoops!

Looks like Harriet Miers was suspended not only from the D.C. bar for late payment of dues, but also from the Texas bar. This from a candidate who may not have the judicial chops of a Scalia or a Bork but is fabulously detail-oriented and meticulous and likes to make sure everything is just perfect.

UPDATE from Aravosis, who notes that Bork thinks the Supreme Court is "left-leaning" despite the fact that 7 out of 9 justices were appointed by Republicans:

Here's a wacky thought. Maybe today's "conservatives" are so far out of the mainstream of American thought that even their own court appointees think they're nuts. That doesn't make those justices "liberal," it makes Bork, and the religious right horse he rode in on, fringe freaks.

Fighting Dems

If you have not yet checked out Air America's Fighting Dems, do yourself a favor. It's a joint project of Majority Report and DailyKos that airs every Tuesday night, profiling Democratic veterans who are taking another step in public service by running for office.

This is Bryan Lentz, running for Congress in Pennsylvania's seventh district (suburban Philadelphia) against Republican Curt Weldon. Lentz, a Major in the U.S. Army, served in Iraq and oversaw civil reconstruction efforts around Mosul. Understandably, he has a great deal to say on the subject of Iraq, troop withdrawal, the administration's failure to plan, and other related topics. Here he is on reconstruction efforts:

We need to remove reconstruction command authority from civilians and place it directly in the hands of the military; and, we need to transfer as many of the reconstruction contracts as possible directly to Iraqi firms. Not one cent of the remaining taxpayer money that we sent to rebuild Iraq should go into the pockets of American firms profiting from this war. The American and multinational companies that are currently handling reconstruction in Iraq have all been awarded "cost-plus" contracts which assure them a profit and leave them no economic incentive to actually finish the jobs they've been hired to undertake. As a result, enormous sums of money have been diverted to security services for American contractors, and generous salaries for American businessmen working in Iraq.

I have witnessed this madness first hand, and it has to stop.

He notes that Republicans will continue to brand anyone questioning the war effort as anti-war, anti-troop, anti-American and calls this tactic "a cheap trick." Best quote:

[T]his is not a question of being "pro-war" or "anti-war." It's about acting now to stop the spiral of failure that George Bush, Curt Weldon and the Republican party have created.

They will try, but I doubt even the GOP can smear Lentz as unAmerican.

This is how it's done

Attention, media whores: please check out White House correspondent Helen Thomas and ABC News reporter Terry Moran standing up to Lyin' Scott McClellan (transcript, video) and not being struck by lightning, falling into an abyss, or being torn to shreds by a mob of angry patriots. Evan Derkacz has the short version:

"What does the President mean by 'total victory' -- that we will never leave Iraq until we have 'total victory'? What does that mean?"

And just as Scott McClellan had pressed play on his response reel, Thomas interrupted the geyser of platitudes to ask about the will of the Iraqis. McClellan then took himself off of pause and redirected the conversation back to Iraq... war on terror... you're getting very sleepy... 9/11..., at which point Thomas interrupted again to remind the spokesman:

"It has nothing to do with -- Iraq had nothing to do with 9/11."

This pissed him off sufficiently to respond to her personally:

"Well, you have a very different view of the war on terrorism, and I'm sure you're opposed to the broader war on terrorism..."

ABC's Terry Moran came to her aid. Read the whole transcript, it's very Center Cannot Hold.

See, former journalists? It's not that hard.

They have a lot to answer for

Krugman (still available for free at TruthOut) on the media:

...Now that Mr. Bush's approval ratings are in the 30's, we're hearing about his coldness and bad temper, about how aides are afraid to tell him bad news. Does anyone think that journalists have only just discovered these personal characteristics?

Let's be frank: the Bush administration has made brilliant use of journalistic careerism. Those who wrote puff pieces about Mr. Bush and those around him have been rewarded with career-boosting access. Those who raised questions about his character found themselves under personal attack from the administration's proxies. (Yes, I'm speaking in part from experience.) Only now, with Mr. Bush in desperate trouble, has the structure of rewards shifted.

And let's start with the New York Times.

UPDATE from PBJ Diddy:

Try saying this without smiling: (it actually cures the hiccups)

"I refuse to divulge the name of the person who was not the source who didn't give me the information I am not withholding."

If hiccups persist, after 85 days repeat the sentence adding "Just Kidding" at the end.

Americablog to Maine!

and for a great cause:

I am heading to Maine this afternoon with "Joe in DC," who is from there. Tomorrow, I'm speaking at a fundraiser for Maine Won't Discriminate, hosted by Joe's sisters and friends. Then back in DC on Monday.

For those of you who may not be aware, Maine passed a law this year banning discrimination based on sexual orientation. The far right is trying to repeal the law through a referendum. In their world, it's okay to fire someone for being gay... or to deny housing to a lesbian... or to refuse service to a same-gender couple.

We're still on our Great Western Grandchildren Odyssey but I'd be there in a heartbeat otherwise. Please consider showing up on Sunday afteroon in Portland, Munjoy Hill - details at Maine Won't Discriminate, and consider giving them a donation while you're at it. Thanks.

Miers and sex (I know, I know)

What Aravosis said.

It would be the height of hypocrisy for a conservative to embrace her party’s most extreme views while simultaneously embracing a member of the same sex. The GOP rank and file takes its values seriously. Just imagine the outrage were Rush Limbaugh revealed to be a drug addict, William Bennett a compulsive gambler, Gary Bauer a philanderer, Strom Thurmond the father of a black child, or George Bush a coke fiend. They’d never work in this town again.

Priorities

There are 21 players in Plamegate to date:

Karl Rove
I. Lewis "Scooter" Libby
Condoleezza Rice
Stephen Hadley
Andrew Card
Alberto Gonzales
Mary Matalin
Ari Fleischer
Susan Ralston
Israel Hernandez
John Hannah
Scott McClellan
Dan Bartlett
Claire Buchan
Catherine Martin
Colin Powell
Karen Hughes
Adam Levine
Bob Joseph
Vice President Dick Cheney
President George W. Bush

And the WSJ and Bloomberg (goddamn librul media) are going after... Rove and Cheney!

Hat tip to madhaus.