I know the game has been played for as long as humans have been walking upright - probably even longer - but still, one would have thought that if the Fourth Estatetm really took its job seriously it would be well aware of this strategy and start holding people's feet to the fire and asking some seriously hard questions. Alas, that is a far different reality than the one we live in. Still, it's fun to point out the obvious and rant a bit about the glaring obviousness of it all and mock those poor deluded saps who form the pundit class for their spotless record in ignoring the Blue Whale perched on the sofa next to them.
I'm speaking, of course, about the steady "drip, drip, drip" of what can only be described as "essence of fucking reality" that's now starting to seep out between the cracks in the dam that Guild Navigator Rove has carefully constructed over the past 6 years.
Item 1: Plame was ‘covert’ agent at time of name leak
No surprise here, of course. After all, the CIA did their own investigation, determined that she was covert and then asked Justice to fucking prosecute the idiot who publicly trashed her covert identity in the name of politics. But in what has to be the most stunning tribute to the ability of humans to outdo Ostriches at their own game, Tom McGuire - the "goto" guy in the outstanding right wing gallery of truly obnoxious morons for all things Plame - claims that we still don't know whether she was covert or not and in all probability she never was. Tom is the kind of guy who if he was standing in New Orleans on August 29, 2005, as the city was being scoured clean by hurricane Katrina would be claiming that he's unsure of whether this is really a hurricane as his pathetically dense head was smashed repeatedly against a nearby levee (strangely, causing him no damage what so ever).
All of this is, of course, dutifully and excruciatingly documented by Glenn Greenwald over at his most excellent blog. If there's any justice at all (and, yes, I know that there is NOT), these jokers will simply be laughed into non-existence and their internet presence stricken from even the great archives that shall not be touched.
Item 2: Lou Dobbs is a fucking liar.
Obviously, this is so straight forward and easy to demonstrate that it hardly bears mentioning except that so many of my Savage listening friends keep bringing the stupid fat boob up in heated arguments over immigration. Worse, Lou is consistently pointed to as a Democrat, which irks me to no end. The jerk is a populist - much like other famous fascists - and I can't for the life of me find any other Democrat - big "D" or small "d" who claims the man. Look people. "Sticking up for the little guy" is - like - one of the 10 oldest tricks in the book. And if you can't see it for what it is then you simply deserve to be pummeled repeatedly about the head and neck by the dynamic wrestling tag team of Bill O'Reilly and Lou Dobbs - the combined density of both, while in the same room, will actually cause Space-Time to visibly curve to the naked eye.
Item 3: Records: Senators who OK'd war didn't read key report.
This item comes from the absentee Anne Zooke who seems to have popped up to have her suspicions confirmed regarding perhaps one of the biggest scams to have ever been perpetrated in human history.
Reading juicy tidbits like this always compel me to revisit the past statements of the luminaries in question so I went an re-read H.R.C's floor speech on the Authorization to Use Military Forcetm, upon who's flimsy shoulders this whole charade rests. It's quite amusing to read the text again realizing that - beyond a shadow of doubt - she didn't do her homework at all. Yea, yea, yea. I'll take Hillary over anything the Republicans will dish out in '08. But My God. Can we at least have a president who will actually do the tough work in politics for once? Yea. I know the answer to that.
Still, you got to love quotes like "was briefed on the document "numerous times, and read the executive summary." I mean, my eyes roll in response to such stuff. It's stunning to still think that people actually believe that putting the word "executive" before summary will make the rubes believe it is actually better to read that summary because executives are so busy they don't have time to actually deal with the details of a boring old NATIONAL INTELLIGENCE ESTIMATE that formed the basis in going to fucking war. It truly is a strange reality where it has become the accepted norm that real executives simply aren't detail oriented and leave all that petty stuff to their legion of minions to properly digest and spit up so the master can feast upon the "executive summary". My god. Just admit you're like baby birds being fed pre-chewed food out of their mother's beak because you simply don't have the brains or discipline to actually figure out what's going on and that you're simply unable to function in the real world of facts and ambiguity. As Anne points out, the killer quote from this piece is
The National Intelligence Estimate concluded that the United States had "compelling evidence" that Iraq was restarting its efforts to develop a nuclear bomb and had concealed stockpiles of chemical and biological weapons from U.N. inspectors after the cease-fire that ended the 1991 Persian Gulf War.
That was wrong (....)
Item 4: Right-wing blogger geniuses expose another journalistic fraud!
Another one from Glenn, who does journeyman's work on such stuff, naturally. Still, it really is kind of weird to see this bizarro fantasy repeatedly played out on the right. It's like watching that pathetic kid who did one thing that gained him a lot of attention so he keeps doing it over and over and over and over again. I guess the combination of "something you can do on your computer with photoshop and google" paired with the almost genetic like imprinting the heady days of "Rather-gate" had on their collective souls is not something to be discounted. Still, it really is just simply pathetic. It's like watching a monster size John Bircher striding across the intertubes constantly pointing out that everything - everything!!! - leads right back to the Trilateral commission.
But then, this really does sum up almost all of the right wing blogosphere in one nice and easy to digest package. If they ever come close to self-analysis, it's only to point out how they really don't point out enough how fucking awesome they truly are.
The Republican 2008 Presidential pre-primary debates were certainly a spectacle to behold. Holding the first debate in the hallowed chambers of the only icon that binds their pathetic tribe together - i.e. Ronald Reagan's library - reminded me of the members of a 
Well, the world is a moderately better place now that 
