"Smarter than Rush?"

As Steve Clemons notes, the line between satire and reality is perilously thin these days.

"It's a lot of work"

So Bill Kristol told Portfolio last year to explain his "ambivalence" about writing NY Times column. Apparently too much work as his columns have been predictable, dull, and nearly always wrong, requiring corrections on four different occasions.

The long strange trip ended with today's column.

Next they'll rename the DC airport, Brezhnev Int'l

I think I read somewhere on The Corner that House Republicans voted "No" on principle. Maybe so. Principles of pure, unadulterated bat shit craziness.

Let us turn the microphone over to Tim Echols, Treasurer for Paul Broun, R-GA:

FYI, all the Georgia Republicans voted against the bail-out.

As FRC said today, the current proposal fell short of upholding conservative ideals. The Congressional conservatives played an important role in keeping out the already-borderline socialistic White House proposal and some Hugo Chavezesque suggestions from the Democrats, such as allowing judges to set mortgage rates and creating a slush fund for liberal groups like ACORN. However, the final plan did not reform what has created the problem nor did it adequately explain how the taxpayers get their money back. Moreover, the bailout seemed to create a new entitlement in a federal insurance system for every home loan in America.

I blame Lincoln for leaving the Whigs.

Kagan on Palin

The jokes write themselves.

Robert Kagan, a foreign policy adviser to McCain, derided criticisms of Palin as elitist.

“I don’t take this elite foreign policy view that only this anointed class knows everything about the world," he said. "I’m not generally impressed that they are better judges of American foreign policy experience than those who have Palin’s experience.”

I am, of course, generally impressed that Robert Kagan is less of a judge of American foreign policy than Sarah Palin.

Pretty Vacant

Thanks, GOP, for a fun week!




There's no point in asking us you'll get no reply.

The Times sets the narrative

Just as the article about McCain's vote against banning the CIA from using torture was so mangled as to make totally confusing what the Maverick's position on torture actually is, this passage from another article on the same page is really nifty.

The lapsing of the deadline would have little practical effect on intelligence gathering. Intelligence officials would be able to intercept communications from Qaeda members or other identified terrorist groups for a year after the initial eavesdropping authorization for that particular group.

If a new terrorist group is identified after Saturday, intelligence officials would not be able to use the broadened eavesdropping authority. They would be able to seek a warrant under the more restrictive standards in place for three decades through the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act.

That might as well have come out of the mouth of some Fox News bobblehead...or Dear Leader himself. Because we all know how damned difficult it is to get a FISA warrant.