Bush on "Meet the Press"

The media was buzzing tonight about Tim Russert scheduling Bush for the entire hour next Sunday on "Meet the Press."

You know what we'll learn from it? Nothing. It's the first time he's appeared like this before the American public and Tim's busy baking special cake for him to walk on.

Russert isn't having him in his studio, he's hosting in the Oval Office. So he's playing on the president's home court, and this automatically puts him at a disadvantage even though Timmy is likely swooning with anticipation. Tim isn't going to toss hardball questions at Mr. Bush unless the questions have been heavily vetted beforehand. I mean, Bush unscripted - as we know - isn't a pretty thing.

I suspect Timmy sold himself (meaning, give GE the ratings and I'll give you the questions beforehand), I suspect Timmy won't be demanding anywhere the exactness of response out of Mr. Bush he demanded out of Dean. And Timmy won't followup when he gets one of those responses that feels like you're going down a long, bumpy road in the dirty little secrets section of Texas being chaffeured by a serial killer.

All this is is a press op. The president is getting stung on a number of different things right now, and somebody decided we should see "the man" and not the smirking pretender. But all Mr. Bush is there to do is tell us again it doesn't matter if all Saddam had for WMD was a can of expired peas, that he's going to reduce the deficit by further reducing revenue, that the economy is just peachy (and it is if you're a bill collector, military contractor, spy, or GOP strategist, I expect), and that marriage (watch him to uncomfortably move his hands) should be between a man and a woman. And he'll stutter somewhere before or during that last part.

Then, for the next two days, we'll listen to the media tell us how brilliant Bush was and how Timmy asked him good questions but "here's what I would have asked".

Medicare Bill Bribery

Read this and tell me you feel confident the House Ethics Committee really is planning to fully investigate this. I found this almost as reassuring as when the Arnold told us he'd look into sexual harassment charges against himself and then pronounced it was not necessary.

Am I so naive to believe that bribery doesn't run rampant? No. I notice how many more members of Congress end their careers far richer than they began them. What blew my mind was that someone outed them, even if he later took back the allegations.

Ways to Track Mr. Bush's Military Service

The exquisite Josh Marshall at .Talking Points Memo features a link to a page where Phil Carter (reserve vet) explains the many different ways one could actually check to see when and where Mr. Bush fulfilled his service. Either way, it would be good to know once and for all.

And now the scramble begins

With the Massachusetts high court affirming their earlier decision re: homosexual partnerships and stating that civil unions (a la Vermont) do not meet the equality test that marriage would, debate begins in earnest tomorrow over a Constitutional amendment that would define marriage as being between men and women only.

I have to admit it's very difficult to put myself in the mindset of those who are so terribly opposed to recognition of homosexual unions (be they marriage or less). To me, it's like being religiously opposed to redheads or people with upturned noses. I don't believe homosexuality is a choice; as a heterosexual, I know I made no specific choice. It just was.

The only choice, so far as I can tell from the debate on the other side, is the one some zealots would like homosexuals to make: to not act on their feelings toward a person of the same sex. That seems unnatural.

I live in a state that accepts civil unions and I have to say that living here is really no different than living in a state that does not recognize them. I've yet to see anyone - hetero or homosexual - hump somebody else in the supermarket or library.

Children don't become homosexuals because their teachers or parents are homosexual and the sanctity of marriage - and that I believe is more imparted by the care which each partner exercises within it than from some sanction from the government or church - will not be affected if marriage is extended to two men or two women rather than the usual pairing.

Nonstop Nipple Debate: Day Three

Oh please, can't it stop? I'm tired of hearing how Janet Jackson brought down the "purity" and "sanctity" of SuperBowl Sunday.

There are like waaaaay too many Jacksons in the news right now (checking CNN to be sure Germaine isn't giving another interview).

Howard Dean and the Media

David Podvin has an interesting piece available here that says, among other things, that when Howard Dean told Chris Matthews during a Hardball appearance that he wanted to end the big media monopolies, the media targeted him to bring him down.

I'm not sure I would agree with this in whole. I don't think the media liked Howard Dean before the 12/1/03 statement about monopolies and megalopolies. I've felt they were unprepared to take him seriously, got annoyed when lots of other people did take Dean seriously so they had to cover him, and then looked for an opportunity to topple him from the pedastal.

I am concerned, however, that the media helped feed what Karl Rove wants: a matchup with Kerry rather than with Dean. This still makes me wonder what Rove thinks he knows about Kerry that made him try to trip Dean up while planting stories of being "worried" about having to fight Kerry.

Yes, this is twisted. But so, I fear, is Mr. Rove.

No Teachers Left Behind?

Remember that lovely No Child Left Behind Act?

Michelle Forman does: a history teacher in Middlebury, VT, she's been voted both best teacher in the state as well as recognized by President Bush as the nation's best teacher in 2001.There's just one problem: according to the No Child Left Behind act, she's not qualified. Read this.

The Fat Morass of Donald Rumsfeld

Y'know, I'm no military strategist, but this doesn't sound good related to how many supply shortages have plagued our military efforts in Iraq since we rolled in.

Afghanistan

I read tonight in various places that the $2.4 trillion budget Bush submitted to Congress the other day includes not a single dime for operations in Afghanistan.

So we're not planning any, you ask?

Well, as a matter of fact, we are. An estimated $50 billion worth. But it's not in the budget and no one is making it terribly clear where this is coming from except that it won't come from Jenna and Barb's trust fund or Dick Cheney's personal gold bunker.

In other words, this budget is just a play. The real numbers are much larger, but they're trying to "soften" the deficit issue until after the election.

Ooooh... Keith Olbermann on MSNBC

is also talking about Mr. Bush's strange gap.

Lois Romano

from the WP was on Hardass... er... Hardball tonight, with her and Chris asking the rhetorical question over and over, "Why isn't there real documentation anywhere of that specific missing year?"

Matthews seemed incredulous that the prez couldn't state categorically where he was and when, since where you were in the service was a big deal at that time.

She said the issue matters more this time around than it did in Election 2000 because we've been at war almost constantly. Suspect she's right.

Kerry, Kerry, Kerry, Edwards, Kerry, Kerry, Clark, Kerry...

Looks like the 7 primaries and caucuses tonight went something like above.

But, since Joe-mentum went joe-where (sorry, I'm only joe-king), Senator Lieberman has decided to withdraw. They're hardly mentioned Dean at all.

Me? I want to see how Dean performs in Washington State, New York, and California.

Questions about Bush's Guard Service

My goodness, someone is mentioning this in the mainstream press without telling us first and foremost that anyone who questions this is a fringe lunatic.

Now the WH is annoyed because anyone is questioning this. They're still being civil, however, not yet referring to such doubters as "cheese eating surrender monkey Al Qaeda liberals."

KO on VA late-term abortion law

A federal judge has taken down some or most of Virginia's late term abortion law, preventing pregnancy termination in the 2nd and 3rd trimester, upon which the federal law Bush and all those fat, old white men signed with big grins was written.

Doctors keep saying that late-term abortions are fairly rare and that they are usually only performed when the mother's life is in jeopardy. They've said this issue has been inflated and twisted for political purposes to satisfy the anti-choice people. I tend to believe them.

I'd like to see the federal ban looked at with fresh eyes - perhaps not all just by fat white men sucking on the fat teat of the right wing - in light of this decision.

Woman Denied Morning-After Pill

Lovely. Another white male so-called Christian heard from (I haven't heard the pharmacist positively described as such, but I have this sneaking feeling): a woman was denied a prescription by an Eckard pharmacy outlet down South because the pharmacist decided it was morally wrong.

If this is true... how dare this pharmacist? And sadly, I'll bet you $10, this person is made into a hero by the wingnuts.

Fed Budget

If you failed to catch economist Paul Krugman's look at the deficit a week or two ago, check out today's NYT column on the federal budget related to the deficit.

Pretending our lack of revenue - mostly because corporations rarely pay taxes and we've so drastically reduced taxes on the top earners - isn't a huge part of the deficit seems monstrously silly, even to those of us who struggle with the family checkbook.

The Fed Budget Explained

by the folks at True Majority (Ben Cohen's group). I love the way they break down ultra complex material into something just about anyone could understand.

A Move to Censure the President

Moveon.org is asking for support in an effort to force Mr. Bush to be censured for the misleading information he presented in the leadup to the Iraq War.

To join their movement, go here.

Bill Frist looked very nervous

When Bill Frist, Senate Majority Leader, appeared on TV late last night, he both looked scared and said this was ricin in the Senate mailrooms. Now a Wallingsford, CT post office is investigating suspicious white powder that came out of an envelope en route through there.

Yet the government never mentions the anthrax attacks of Autumn 01 anymore. They went after Steven Hatfill, drudged ponds (at millions of dollars each), and yet, nothing has ever come of it. I suspected then that because the attacks in the Senate then were against Leahy and Daschle, both Dems, and against the so-called liberal media, not to mention the "lowly" USPS workers, we would not find out since the source of the anthrax may have come from our own defense labs.

Let's see what happens when a GOPer is targeted.

Possible Ricin in the Senate Mailroom

This CNN article tells the preliminary tale.

Gee, I wonder what happened to the anthrax mailer investigation.