Agitprop: Or How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Propaganda

Cry Me a River

Bush-enabler and PNACer David Frum comes to the realization that he and his fellow orks are going down:

Perhaps it is our job at NRO is tell our readers only what they want to hear, without much regard to whether it is true. Perhaps it is our duty just to keep smiling and to insist that everything is dandy - that John McCain’s economic policies make sense, that his selection of Sarah Palin was an act of statesmanship, that she herself is the second coming of Anna Schwartz, and that nobody but an over-educated snob would ever suggest otherwise.

Who knows? Perhaps if I do that enthusiastically enough, somebody somewhere might even pour me a free drink or invite me onto the airwaves for a 3 minute Monday morning sunrise interview. And after all: What else could I possibly want?

Frum is an atavistic, vicious little fuck who deserves to be dragged from his home and beaten to a pulp with the bones of his victims.  He, along with Perle, Bolton, Wolfowitz, and others, is responsible for the deaths of hundreds of thousands and the destruction of our economy.  Sadly, he will never pay the price for his crimes.

hat tip: Instaputz

That's Not Math We Can Believe In, My Friends

From the guy who’s going to solve the financial mess:

Today, the McCain campaign released a list of “100 distinguished and experienced economists” signing onto a statement declaring that “Barack Obama’s economic proposals are wrong for the American economy.” However, as TNR points out, only 90 names appear on the list, not 100. What’s more, a full 11 of those economists are McCain economic advisers. The list of “100″ even includes Douglas Holtz-Eakin, McCain’s chief economic adviser and one of his most visible spokesmen.

A McCain presidency might be a bigger comedy feast than the Boy King’s.

Who Will Kill For Sarah?

Take a good long look at this picture:

I took it in 2003.

Now that you’ve had a look, go read Krugman.  If you already read it in the Stinque comments, read it again.

Bad Law Professor of the Week

Today we deal with Ann Althouse.  She is the Robert W. & Irma M. Arthur-Bascom Professor at the University of Wisconsin Law School, whatever that is.  She teaches conlaw, federal jurisdiction, and civil procedure. She is, so help me, tenured. Her schtick is that she’s nonpartisan - a total crock given her Bush cheerleading and guest-blogging for that noted nonpartisan Glenn Reynolds.

Althouse is also a deeply silly person. Lefty bloggers love her mainly because she will write about any stupid shit that pops into her head:

As to the zoo, I do think people roam about looking for animals to identify with. No one stares at the camels. There’s always a crowd gazing into the eyes of the chimpanzee. It is far more interesting to watch the people as they watch the animals or to watch the animals and think of people.

What?  Even if those observations are accurate, why write them down? This A.E. Housman quote could not be more apt: “Nature not content with denying [her] the ability to think, has endowed [her] with the ability to write.”

After the jump, check out the professor’s take on Hillary Clinton’s homage to The Sopranos:

Obscure Wingnut of the Week

Before I present the OWOTW, I want you to know something.  Going forward, I may not answer the questions the way that you or the media want to hear, but I’m going to talk straight to the American people and let ‘em know my track record. And if any of you call me on it I’ll shoot you in the face.  Got it?

Now on to our OWOTW.  A long time ago here at Agitprop I had a weekly feature called the Wingnut Roundup.  I had to stop though - exposure to that much right wingnuttery took its toll.  Mostly it makes you want to curl up in the fetal position, but it can also result in increased alcohol comsumption and trips to the shrink to get your medication adusted (upward).

But I am going to wade back in for you, dear Stinquers.  I’m not ready to revisit the lunacy of Powerline, Hugh Hewitt, or Atlas Juggs, but I can start small.  Meet our OWOTW after the jump.

Bad Law Professor of the Week

Stanley Fish is, among other things, a law professor at Florida International University.  Inexplicably, he is also paid actual cash money to write for the opinion page of the New York Times.  I wonder how many ones and zeros died needlessly to post this:

Now I would like to enter these treacherous waters again and venture another prediction: within a year of the day he leaves office, and no matter who succeeds him, George W. Bush will be a popular public figure, regarded with affection and a little nostalgia even by those who voted against him and thought he was the worst president in our history.

This, of course, assumes we’ll forget the heaps of dead bodies, the shredding of the constitution, and the politicization of every square foot of the executive branch.

But it gets worse.

Back to Basics

The markets are about to crash.  Tonight’s debate might not happen.  McCain is revealed as a drama queen.  But, my former Cynics, look deep into your souls.  Ask yourselves - what is really, truly important at this dark hour?

Bible-thumping hypocritical pervert preachers of course.

Looks like Cocktober has come early:

LITTLE ROCK, Ark. (AP) — Evangelist and convicted tax evader Tony Alamo says the age of consent is puberty and there’s a mandate in the Bible for girls marrying young.

“In the Bible it happened. But girls today, I don’t marry ‘em if they want to at 14-15 years old,” Alamo said Saturday after federal agents raided his southwestern Arkansas compound and placed six girls into state custody. “We won’t do it, even though I believe it’s OK.”

But authorities don’t believe it’s OK — and now Alamo faces charges he transported children across state lines for sexual activities, in violation of the Mann Act. And so once again, the one-time rock promoter and street preacher that former President Clinton likened to “Roy Orbison on speed” will return to federal court.

I will leave it to you, gentle snowflakes, to rate this one in the comments.  Please use the usual 1-10 diaper rating system.  Plus, Alamo has a hearing today. I think this one is worth keeping an eye on.

Bad Law Professor of the Week

Keep in mind that this guy is a tenured professor at a top 10 law school.

Is distrust or disbelief or lack of confidence in the administration complicating the bailout issue? Do you trust the administration?

This Administration deserves to be trusted because it has kept us safe from terrorist attack since 9/11, has fought and won two wars, has presided over eight years of economic growth, has appointed two stellar justices to the Supreme Court, and has even learned how to do Louisiana’s job of protecting that state from hurricanes. The day will come, and not before long, when Americans will wish that George Bush was still president.

Is this the sort of person we want teaching Constitutional law?  Is this the sort of person we want teaching anything?  Or is this the sort of person who should be taking tolls or asking if I want fries with that?

It's interesting that the Hon. Guido Calabrese, the best judge on the 2nd Circuit, is Steven Calabrese's uncle.  This wingnut fell far from the tree.

The View From My Window

About 3:45 EST - the Preznit skulking in through the back of the Waldorf Astoria.  They sealed the building I'm in, and the SS and NYPD were thick on the ground.  Couldn't see the snipers, but I'm sure they were there.

How Do You Define Victory in an Occupation?

Dead bodies, of course.

[click to enlarge]

Desperately Seeking Sarah

Here's a rundown of what some right-wingers have been saying about our soon-to-be Vice President Sarah Palin.**

Thanks to Blue Gal for forwarding this information.

. . .

Freepers: The Unfortunate Palin Gamble

With competent and proven individuals waiting in the wings such as Governor Mitt Romney, the selection of Sarah Palin is a most unfortunate choice.

John McCain may have just lost the 2008 election…cue the hurricane.

NRO: She's not ready to be commander-in-chief

Pat Buchanan on MSNBC just now, about Sarah Palin. I'm liable to agree, but, how is she any less qualified than Barack Obama, who is the actual presidential candidate on the Democratic ticket?

NRO:  I'm Getting a Couple of These this Morning   [Kathryn Jean Lopez]

As much as I loathe Obama-Biden, I can't in good conscience vote for a McCain-Palin ticket.  Palin has absolutely no experience in foreign affairs.  Considering both McCain's advanced age and the state of the world today, it is essential that the veep be exceedingly qualified to assume the office of president.  I simply don't have any confidence in Palin's ability to deal effectively with Iran, Russia, China, etc.  I certainly will not cast a vote for Obama-Biden, but nor will I vote for McCain-Palin.  Looks like I'll either sit this one out or vote for Bob Barr.  Why, o, why, didn't McCain listen to Rove and just pick Romney?

Hot Air: We're handing the keys to a 72 year old

she doesn't have much time to show it, which is why every last mistake on the trail will be magnified to "prove" that she's a hick who's out of her depth. She'll have to be letter perfect, especially in the debate with Biden, to convince independents she's up to it. If she isn't, I think McCain's support in the center will collapse as people worry, as I did with Pawlenty and now with Palin herself, that we're handing the keys to the kingdom to a totally unknown quantity who's one 72-year-old heartbeat away from being commander-in-chief.

NRO: Cold Water on Palin

Palin has been governor for about two minutes. Thanks to McCain's decision, Palin could be commander-in-chief next year. That may strike people as a reckless choice; it strikes me that way. And McCain's age raised the stakes on this issue.

Scarborough: It sounds like Harriet Miers

That was Scarborough, a minute ago. (My MSNBC addiction rears its ugly head again.) Again, with Obama in the mix running for president, I don't think it's as fair a hit on Palin, who has more executive experience than Barack Obama. It certainly will be hard for the Democrats to make.

FL GOP: Palin gets mixed initial reaction among Florida GOPers

One top GOP advisor summed it up this way: "It's crazy.'' Palin's lack of experience in the hard-knocks world of presidential politics will be hard to overcome, the advisor said.

Powerline: A desperation move

If she really is the nominee, will it come across as a desperation move, a Hail Mary, as Mondale's choice of Ferraro did in 1984? I'm afraid so. Her experience just doesn't justify a place on the ticket.

**I say soon-to-be Vice President because McCain is going to win in November. That's right folks. Americans will do it again. United we suck.

Republican Family Values

Isn’t it comforting to know that the next generation of GOP fuckwits is being trained even as I write this?

The son of Colorado GOP Senate candidate Bob Schaffer is causing his dad a little embarrassment on the campaign trail this week.

Nineteen-year-old Justin Schaffer publicly apologized for putting up posters on his Facebook page including one declaring “Slavery Gets Shit Done.”

And you know the stupid little fuck learned this shit from his daddy.

Bob Schaffer’s Son Apologizes for Obnoxious Facebook Page [TPMMuckraker]

Things Younger Than John McCain

Damn I love this website:

Things Younger Than Republican Presidential Candidate John McCain

A few of those things:

• Frozen Waffles
• FM Radio
• The Hindenburg Disaster

cocktober can't come soon enough

You'll admit that summer has sucked as far as GOP perverts are concerned.  Hasn't been much to post about, so I'm reduced to this:

Peter Hong, a longtime Republican operative in Minnesota, was arrested Wednesday afternoon on a charge of soliciting prostitution in St. Paul.
 
...
 
Hong has been in and out of the Republican side of Minnesota politics since the mid-1990s, when he surfaced as a genial bulldog campaign press secretary for former Sen. Rod Grams, R-Minn. He served as a spokesman for Gov. Tim Pawlenty's campaign in 2002 and for the Bush-Cheney campaign in Minnesota in 2004.
 
Most recently, Hong was a point person for presidential candidate Mike Huckabee. Gina Countryman, a spokeswoman for the Minnesota Republican Party, said Hong is not currently working for any Minnesota candidate.

Three diapers out of ten ... if that. If Minnesota wants to stay on top they've got to give us more Larry Craig-type incidents.  Standards people!

At Last ... A Post

Larry Craig doesn't want you to get jerked around, jerked ... wev.

He's one of a kind.

A Snowy Day In Hell

What to say?  He was an accomplished liar and a Bush enabler of the first order.  Remember this gem?

Snow was asked about former CIA Director George Tenet’s remarks from 60 Minutes:

TENET: We could never verify that there was any Iraqi authority, direction, and control, complicity with al Qaeda for 9/11 or any operational act against America. Period.

Snow responded, “Wait a minute, Chris. The president has been saying exactly that all along. I don’t know what the headline is.” He insisted “there has been no attempt to try to link Saddam to September 11.”

Of course, that was a lie.

And now he’s gone down below to join Jesse and Lee Atwater at that big neverending cross-burning. Our sympathies to his wife and kids.

Fear of a Black Dictator

What freedoms will next be targeted with that deadliest trademark of an Obamalander — moral superiority? What do we have when the sole purpose of the government as run by the chilling principles of Obamaland is to “use the political process” to remove freedoms large and small one by one by one?

Someone needs to speak it plainly.

The word is fascism.

- Former Reagan offensive line coach Jeffrey Lord

In the past 8 years no word has been thrown around more frequently than the F-word. According to Lord a political regime that engages in domestic spying, illegal pre-emptive war and prolonged military occupation, torture, extraordinary rendition, election fraud, mass media propaganda campaigns and flag worship is not fascist - it's freedomtastic.

Hey, I'm no cheerleader for Obama - but let's call a spade and spade. Fascist America started way before he was even born.

x-posted at Guys from Area 51

Luca Brasi Sleeps With the Fishes

And the hits just keep coming from the Bush Crime Syndicate:

On Monday at the White House press briefing, Press Secretary Dana Perino declined to answer when I asked her whether the White House would apologize for last Friday’s raid by U.S. forces in Iraq that reportedly killed a relative of Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki.

The slain man, Ali Abdul Hussein al-Maliki, was described as the prime minister’s cousin in recent reports by McClatchy and the Washington Post. According to McClatchy, at the time of his death, the man was working as a security guard in a villa owned by the prime minister’s sister in Janaja, a town in Karbala Province. Responsibility for security in Karbala Province was supposedly handed over to the Iraqi government in October 2007, but Iraqi officials have claimed that last Friday’s raid was conducted without their knowledge or approval.

Here is my exchange with Ms. Perino:

Scalia Wants You Shot, Not Blown Up

Associate Justice Sociopath Antonin Scalia thinks restoring habeus corpus will kill a bunch of us:

The game of bait-and-switch that today’s opinion plays upon the Nation’s Commander in Chief will make the war harder on us. It will almost certainly cause more Americans to be killed.

However, Justice Scalia isn’t worried about DC residents newly armed with handguns killing us:

District of Columbia et al v. Heller [pdf].

Meh - what’s a few more dead bodies to conservatives?

In the Dark, You Know Where

Governor Bobby Jindal
State of Louisiana

Dear Governor Jindal,

I was delighted to learn that SB 733, the LA Science Education Act passed votes in both houses of the Louisiana legislature, and that you intend to sign it. Your determination in the face of logic has always impressed me, like that time in college you exorcised demons from a woman. When I was in college, that's not what we called it, but hey, go you! 

SB 733 is an attempt to introduce intelligent design into the schools, though it's a very thinly disguised attempt, like if everyone at the hilarious Discovery Institute wore mustaches on False Witness Fridays. But let's not get picky. Sign that bill and you do the residents of every other state a tremendous favor. Even Guam might send you a thank-you note. See: once you've taken the science out of science education in Louisiana, everyone else stands a better chance at getting into college. Once again: go you!

As a resident of New Jersey and the daughter of a science teacher, I had to thank you for doing your very best to elevate real science education by undermining it for your youngest constituents. I thank you, polytechnic institutes around the world taking fewer American students thank you and the job market thanks you. Too bad about those trusting little children you're condemning to a life of frustration, poverty and amusing righteous indignation. Isn't WalMart hiring?

Best wishes in your future endeavors. I look forward to the next thing you do to make American public life sillier and more dangerous for the rest of us.

Sincerely,
Princess Tata

Crossposted at Poor Impulse Control.

Wingnut of the Day

Name: Jonah Goldberg (aka “Doughy Pantload”, Doughbob Loadpants)

Wingnut Welfare By: National Review Online

Claim to Fame: Spawn of the hideous Lucianne Goldberg (enabler of Linda Tripp)

Sample Wankery (circa Feb. 2005):

Anyway, I do think my judgment is superior to [Professor Juan Cole's] when it comes to the big picture. So, I have an idea: Since he doesn’t want to debate anything except his own brilliance, let’s make a bet. I predict that Iraq won’t have a civil war, that it will have a viable constitution, and that a majority of Iraqis and Americans will, in two years time, agree that the war was worth it. I’ll bet $1,000 (which I can hardly spare right now). This way neither of us can hide behind clever word play or CV reading. If there’s another reasonable wager Cole wants to offer which would measure our judgment, I’m all ears. Money where your mouth is, doc.

I’m sure he’ll write a column shortly apologizing for being wrong about everything.

Done.

Maybe we should just have the general election next weekend and get it over with. Is next weekend good for you? I’m kind of starting to feel bad about watching the Republicans suffer.

Haha.  Not.

-Dude just showed up to a knife fight with a salad fork.

A Modest Proposal

How long have I been saying that Scott McClelland, Tom Friedman, and the other war profiteers should send their book proceeds to the families of the soldiers and the families of the Iraqis they helped kill? And now MoveOn has found the same nut:

Yesterday, MoveOn.org launched a petition drive “calling on former White House official Scott McClellan to donate the proceeds of his book to veterans of the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan.” The petition reads

Coming clean is great — but profiting from lying to the public isn’t. McClellan was a critical part of the effort to sell us the war and now he’s poised to make millions of dollars for it. That’s wrong.

You can sign MoveOn’s petition here.

I’d suggest a baseball bat to the head, but a petition is a start.

MoveOn to McClellan: Donate the Proceeds from Book to War Vets [Think Progress]

UPDATE:  Scott says at least some of his book proceeds will go to Vets.  A small step.

The End of the Republican Party

Yes - I admit - I’ve enjoyed blogging about the rise and fall of Vito Fossella (R-NY). He’s a major-league shitbag who got caught driving drunk and, as it happens, has a second family just outside of DC (pictured).  Now that’s GOP family values!  And if you don’t believe the “shitbag” charge, get a load of this:

His socially conservative positions were in sync with his mostly white, heavily Roman Catholic district, which covers all of Staten Island and a small wedge of Brooklyn. He opposes abortion, favored President Bush’s tax cuts and voted with the Republicans 88 percent of the time last year, according to Congressional Quarterly.

Not enough for you?  He also lied to his girlfriend - said he’d split with his wife.

Like any good Republican, Vito initially refused to resign.  But now it appears he’ll be gone by Monday - perhaps, as Atrios said, to spend more time with his families.

Will there be any Republicans left next year?

UPDATE - More Republican family values:

The rich father and uncle of shame-faced, two-timing Staten Island Rep. Vito Fossella have been making sure his gal pal and love child are well taken care of in Virginia, sources close to the disgraced politician said yesterday.

“Uncle Frank and Vito Sr. were bankrolling the kid,” said one highly placed Republican official

Cheato Vito Kin Help Him Sin [NY Post]

When Republicans Reproduce

Last week [another place I blog] CP reported on Rep. Vito Fossella (R-NY), who got caught driving drunk out of his mind in Northern Virginia. At the time, we noted that the scandal did not involve toe-tapping, hooker-fucking, auto-asphxiating, kid-touching, or cocksucking. But now we can at last give this scandal a place of honor on the David Vitter CP Sex Scandal Scale, or whatever the fuck it’s called:

Rep. Vito Fossella today admitted he fathered a love child in a longtime secret affair with the woman who rescued him from the drunk tank.

Fossella, who is married and has three children in New York, did not say if he would step down or seek re-election.

“I have had a relationship with Laura Fay, with whom I have a 3-year-old daughter,” Fossella said in a four paragraph statement.

Let’s see - we have a straight married guy fucking a straight unmarried woman for years, one love child, no known fetishes or unusual equipment, and nothing involving a public rest room or the exchange of cash. Degree of difficulty - not very high since his wife was in Staten Island most of the time. This is 5.5 diapers out of 10, and that might be generous. What say you?