Why look, there's an idling, empty bus

Disingenuous, thy name is Krauthammer. Appended for some reason to a post decrying "the stuff" he prooflessly alleges was given as ransom to the North Koreans -- in Krauthammer's mind, I'm sure photos of the two American journalists toiling at a prison work farm would have made for better American propaganda -- is this:

There is a certain irony in an administration denouncing ordinary Americans who get together to express what they believe and to confront authority, when that administration is led by a man who began his career as a community organizer, whose job, as I understand it, is to take ordinary Americans, get them together to express what they believe, and express demands against the authorities.

So it's unbelievably hypocritical. And, of course, as we just heard, this only happens when you have a conservative protest. It is called a mob. If it’s a liberal protest, it is called grassroots expressing themselves.

Remember, just a year ago under the Bush administration, dissent was the highest form of patriotism. And today it is a kind of either organized anger, it's a facsimile of anger, it's unpatriotic, it's whatever.

Look, there is a genuine revolt against the idea of remaking a [health-care] system when over 80 percent of Americans have health insurance. Five of six of those are happy with their health care, and four of five are happy with their health insurance.

You have an administration arrogantly deciding it is going to tear it all up, start all over, and people are surprised that there are protests, and say that it had to be manufactured? Of course it is spontaneous. [If] people go together on a bus, that's entirely legitimate, and it ought to be encouraged.

"If people go together on a bus" to this entirely spontaneous demonstration of American political dissent.

Of course, his other points are just as salient.

• Dissent was encouraged during the Bush administration
• I guess it depends on who you mean by "ordinary Americans"
• Yes, there's "genuine revolt" over the idea of remaking health care in this country

Lucky Duckies, vol. XXIX

Shorter Actual Ari Fleischer: Pity the rich.

UPDATE: Oh, right.

A bracelet for feigned outrage

Why, oh why, can't we get a better press corps?

September 29, 2008, 1:41 pm

Bracelet Flap Lingers Post Debate

By Julie Bosman

The Obama campaign continues having to address questions about Senator Barack Obama’s allusion during Friday’s debate to the bracelet he wears of a solider who was killed in Iraq.

This time, it was on “Fox and Friends,” where, Robert Gibbs, a spokesman for Mr. Obama, got into a heated exchange with the hosts over whether he made reference to the bracelet against the wishes of the family of Ryan Jopek, the fallen soldier. While Mr. Gibbs ackowledged the family did not want the death “politicized,” he accused the Fox hosts of “making stuff up.”

Meanwhile, Jopek’s mother, Tracey, has tried to set the record straight, telling The Associated Press on Sunday that she was “ecstatic” when Mr. Obama mentioned her son’s name during the debate, and said she was upset by reports and commentary over the weekend that suggested otherwise.

“I don’t understand how people can take that and turn it into some garbage on the Internet,” she said.

In February, Ms. Jopek, of Merrill, Wis., gave Mr. Obama the bracelet with Ryan’s name on it. Since then, Mr. Obama has worn the bracelet on the campaign trail, frequently mentioning Mr. Jopek while addressing crowds.

Ms. Jopek told The Milwaukee Journal Sentinel last spring that she was honored by Mr. Obama mentioning her son on the campaign trail.

“I couldn’t believe it. It was such an honor, such an honor,” she said. “To know that he does know his name. It means a lot.”

In Friday’s debate, Mr. Obama brought up the bracelet in responding to Senator John McCain pointing out a bracelet of his own.

“I’ve got a bracelet, too,” Mr. Obama said. “From the mother of Sergeant Ryan David Jopek, given to me in Green Bay, and she asked me, ‘Can you please make sure another mother doesn’t go through what I am going through?’”

Mr. Obama was subsequently criticized by bloggers and conservative commentators, who pointed to a quote from Ms. Jopek’s former husband, Brian Jopek, who said in March that Ms. Jopek had later asked Mr. Obama not to wear the bracelet at public appearances.

On Sunday, the Republican National Committee e-mailed articles about the issue to reporters, one with the headline “Bracelet Wars.”

In her interview with The Associated Press, Ms. Jopek, sounding equally weary, said that she hopes the issue would go away.

Emphasis mine.

Um, if the young man's mother says she's honored Obama wears the bracelet and mentioned her son's name, then isn't the headline of this story disingenuous? The "flap" only "lingers" because RNC and its megaphone, Fox News, is lingering it.

Un-balanced

I second this, but would go further: Not only does it ultimately undermine the profession of journalism, but this "pox on both their houses" fundamentally undermines the average citizen's respect for politics and politicians that is at the heart of the civic collapse in this country, a collapse that''s been going on since the glory days of Spiro and Milhouse. Unfortunately, both phenomenons -- "balance" without proportion, and a fundamental distrust of anyone running for public office -- are accelerating.

Next up: Caligula's horse for Consul. I mean, why the hell not?

The repetition of a lie

I would have thought that by now the McCain/Palin carny show would have come up with a new lie, but they seem to want to push the "media elites'" nose into it at every possible opportunity.

Back in 2000 (I know, I'm getting into Somerby territory here), the so-called liberal media made up statements Al Gore was supposed to have said, but didn't, and called him a liar. But McCain and Palin? They're just stretching the truth.

Is there a hole for me to get sick in?

A fact-esque approach to fact checking:

Correct:

THE FACTS: Palin did abandon plans to build the nearly $400 million bridge from Ketchikan to an island with 50 residents and an airport. But she made her decision after the project had become an embarrassment to the state, after federal dollars for the project were pulled back and diverted to other uses in Alaska, and after she had appeared to support the bridge during her campaign for governor.

McCain and Palin together have told a broader story about the bridge that is misleading. She is portrayed as a crusader for the thrifty use of tax dollars who turned down an offer from Washington to build an expensive bridge of little value to the state.

"I told the Congress 'thanks but no thanks' for that Bridge to Nowhere," she said in her convention speech last week.

That's not what she told Alaskans when she announced a year ago that she was ordering state transportation officials to ditch the project. Her explanation then was that it would be fruitless to try to persuade Congress to come up with the money.

"It's clear that Congress has little interest in spending any more money on a bridge between Ketchikan and Gravina Island," Palin said then.

Palin indicated during her 2006 campaign for governor that she supported the bridge, but was wishy-washy about it. She told local officials that money appropriated for the bridge "should remain available for a link, an access process as we continue to evaluate the scope and just how best to just get this done."

She vowed to defend Southeast Alaska "when proposals are on the table like the bridge and not allow the spinmeisters to turn this project or any other into something that's so negative" — something that McCain was busy doing at the time, as a fierce critic of the bridge.

Even so, she called the bridge design "grandiose" during her campaign and said something more modest might be appropriate.

Palin's reputation for standing up to entrenched interests in Alaska is genuine. Her self-description as a leader who "championed reform to end the abuses of earmark spending by Congress" is harder to square with the facts.

The governor has cut back on pork-barrel project requests, but in her two years in office, Alaska has requested nearly $750 million in special federal spending, by far the largest per-capita request in the nation. And as mayor of Wasilla, Palin hired a lobbyist and traveled to Washington annually to support earmarks for the town totaling $27 million.

Unfortunately, the headline that linked from the Yahoo home page, not so much:

Obama campaign says Palin did not reject "Bridge to Nowhere"

Ugh.

Fact-esque

Does it matter when politician's lie? We'll see.