Thursday, December 16, 2004
Hosed Again
I have pretty much stopped greeting each new revelation of Bush Administration deception with the question, "How dumb do they think we are?", because experience has proven that there is literally nothing they won't try, and thus no answer to the question. But the likelihood that Bernard Kerik didn't withdraw his nomination because of a nanny problem, and that there was probably never a nanny to begin with, has me asking purely on reflex. It seems fairly certain that the nanny excuse was whipped up to avoid having to talk about shady financial dealings, arrest warrants, extramarital affairs, and who-knows-what-else. Nope, they just trundled out a lie that would sound good, launched it at 7:30 on a Friday night when the whole country's out for dinner, and hoped they could count on people to swallow it whole. In another time--even a couple of years ago--they might have gotten away with it. Although nobody else has made this point (at least not that I've seen), it seems to me that this is another case where the blogosphere (and especially Josh Marshall, who is making a strong case for being our king) does the digging after other outlets have moved on, and keeps a story alive that would otherwise die.
By last Friday, it apparently became clear even to the Kool-Aid drinkers in the White House that the stink on Kerik was going to be too strong to hose off, and so he had to go. Why nobody smelled it at the White House any sooner is becoming clearer, too: Kerik was the man Bush wanted, and because the greatest sin you can commit in Bush's White House is to fail to follow through on presidential whim, nobody sniffed too hard at Kerik's record. Certainly not Attorney-General-designate Alberto Gonzales, who was in charge of the vetting. (It shouldn't give the Senate a great deal confidence about Gonzales' likely performance as the nation's top cop, and somebody on the Judiciary Committee ought to ask about it during his confirmation hearings next month. Russ? Herb? You listening?)
Radio Radio: I mentioned yesterday that Joe Conason is sitting in for Al Franken on Air America Radio this week. I caught a bit of the Franken show this morning, and learned that Al is on a USO tour in Kuwait and will be heading to Iraq in a few days. Also on Air America, Atrios co-hosted The Majority Report last night; Ana Marie Cox of Wonkette will sit in tomorrow night. Thank goodness for the seven-second delay.
Linkage: BuyBlue is another website collecting information on the political contributions of major corporations so that potential customers can see who's red and who's blue. Click the snappy website button at the top of the right-hand column to read more. (We don't love ChooseTheBlue any less, it's just that BuyBlue has a button.) Also this week, MoveOn.Org and several other progressive groups announced a campaign to protest Sinclair Broadcasting's continuing one-sided wingnuttery. SinclairAction offers an easy way for viewers in a Sinclair market to contact the station's advertisers--because as we learned during the pre-election effort against Sinclair's hatchet-job on John Kerry, pressure from advertisers is the only thing they'll listen to, and it works.
I have pretty much stopped greeting each new revelation of Bush Administration deception with the question, "How dumb do they think we are?", because experience has proven that there is literally nothing they won't try, and thus no answer to the question. But the likelihood that Bernard Kerik didn't withdraw his nomination because of a nanny problem, and that there was probably never a nanny to begin with, has me asking purely on reflex. It seems fairly certain that the nanny excuse was whipped up to avoid having to talk about shady financial dealings, arrest warrants, extramarital affairs, and who-knows-what-else. Nope, they just trundled out a lie that would sound good, launched it at 7:30 on a Friday night when the whole country's out for dinner, and hoped they could count on people to swallow it whole. In another time--even a couple of years ago--they might have gotten away with it. Although nobody else has made this point (at least not that I've seen), it seems to me that this is another case where the blogosphere (and especially Josh Marshall, who is making a strong case for being our king) does the digging after other outlets have moved on, and keeps a story alive that would otherwise die.
By last Friday, it apparently became clear even to the Kool-Aid drinkers in the White House that the stink on Kerik was going to be too strong to hose off, and so he had to go. Why nobody smelled it at the White House any sooner is becoming clearer, too: Kerik was the man Bush wanted, and because the greatest sin you can commit in Bush's White House is to fail to follow through on presidential whim, nobody sniffed too hard at Kerik's record. Certainly not Attorney-General-designate Alberto Gonzales, who was in charge of the vetting. (It shouldn't give the Senate a great deal confidence about Gonzales' likely performance as the nation's top cop, and somebody on the Judiciary Committee ought to ask about it during his confirmation hearings next month. Russ? Herb? You listening?)
Radio Radio: I mentioned yesterday that Joe Conason is sitting in for Al Franken on Air America Radio this week. I caught a bit of the Franken show this morning, and learned that Al is on a USO tour in Kuwait and will be heading to Iraq in a few days. Also on Air America, Atrios co-hosted The Majority Report last night; Ana Marie Cox of Wonkette will sit in tomorrow night. Thank goodness for the seven-second delay.
Linkage: BuyBlue is another website collecting information on the political contributions of major corporations so that potential customers can see who's red and who's blue. Click the snappy website button at the top of the right-hand column to read more. (We don't love ChooseTheBlue any less, it's just that BuyBlue has a button.) Also this week, MoveOn.Org and several other progressive groups announced a campaign to protest Sinclair Broadcasting's continuing one-sided wingnuttery. SinclairAction offers an easy way for viewers in a Sinclair market to contact the station's advertisers--because as we learned during the pre-election effort against Sinclair's hatchet-job on John Kerry, pressure from advertisers is the only thing they'll listen to, and it works.
