“Scott McClellan, POLITICAL GENIUS,” declares Wonkette (via Raw Story’s featured blog stories):
Silly John Podhoretz: Don’t you read the Note? You’re not supposed to actually identify who the source was for today’s blistering Rove’s-future-in-doubt story in the Washington Post. You’re just supposed to say,”‘It’s SO obvious who those quotes are from,’ with a small shake of the head and a knowing half smile.” (And here we thought all of DC’s journalists had just developed palsy.) Granted, the shake of the head is hard to pull off online, but maybe you should have invented an emoticon for it or something, instead of posting this brilliant thesis: WH press puppy “Scott McClellan’s messy fingerprints are all over the WaPo story, as even Bush will be able to see.” … Read all!
OPEN THREAD … Are there any more geniuses in D.C?
Aren’t all denizens of DC geniuses? 😉
Sure, just like Wile E. Coyote, Super-Genius. 😀
Here’s one, from CNN on Brown’s e-mails during Katrina:
that I might have time this weekend to put together an expanded edition of my previous diary on the FEMA fiasco, with all these new emails that have been released.
Would anyone be interested in seeing something like that?
Oh yes!
btw, Anne Rice was on with Charlie Rose last night. … I didn’t listen all the way through but I was so disappointed he didn’t start off by asking her about New Orleans, since she’d written that op-ed piece for the NYT shortly after katrina. Instead, he talked about her Christian faith and her new book.
I missed the Anne Rice op-ed. Do you have to go through their toll booth to get to it now?
Does the sun rise in the morning?
but maybe you can find it elsewhere … search around … i would but i’m busy ordering absinthe.
I’m pretty swamped too right now. I’ll look around once things cool down here. Thanks for the tip.
Here you go:
FULL OP-ED PIECE
There are also lots of news articles about it. It made a big splash.
I remember now why I must have missed it…I went on vacation for a week right after Katrina, and wasn’t anywhere near a computer.
In the same edition, Richard Ford had a lovely appreciation of NO. His city differs a bit from Rice’s, but it’s a very interesting place.
I saw the photo of the latest absinthe ad today and thought to myself “Uh-oh. What kind of pie goes well with absinthe? Rhubarb? Gooseberry?” ;-D
You just named my two favorite kinds of pie! Love them …
I keep thinking that that absinthe would make a very trippy Christmas present … kind of naughty and a conversation piece.
If you like gooseberry pie you’ll appreciate this:
I’m from Philly and my wife is from Kansas City. Shortly after we were married and moved to KC (from grad school at UNC-Chapel hill), my parents (who previously had never been farther west than Lancaster, PA) decided to come to KC and visit us and get to know my in-laws better.
My mother-in-law decided my parents needed a taste of life in the Midwest, and made a gooseberry pie. Now, she and my father-in-law liked the pie really tart; they’d pick wild gooseberries along the fencerows of their farm while the berries were still tiny and green – about the size of baby peas – to make one super-pucker-inducing pie. Which, to make edible, they’d serve with vanilla ice cream and strong coffee.
So they have a big old dinner of steaks and potatoes out at their farm (imagine a dining room a la Norman Rockwell), and then out comes the gooseberry pie. “Oh, I’ve never had gooseberry pie,” my mother says. My in-laws eyes twinkle mischeviously. My mother-in-law says “Would you like some ice cream with that pie?” “Oh, no thank you, I’m trying to watch my weight.” “Oh, OK.” And the KC contingent grows deathly quiet, watching as my mother takes that first forkful to her mouth… Chew, chew, eyes get VERY BIG: “Oh, my! I think maybe I will have some ice cream after all!” and we all bust a gut laughing…
My mother was talking about her change of faith…in fact, we were lamenting that Anne had “crossed over to the dark side” with her new Christian faith.
On hearing about the new Mike Brown emails. Totally disgusted. I, too, would very much like a comprehensive diary on them plus the who’s who behind the correspondents.
I was looking at Rep. Melancon’s website this morning and he has a pretty good analysis, but the big, BIG question is where are all of the supposed emails between him and Chertoff, or Card or the Prez or any of the other cabinet level types that he claimed to be in contact with during his Senate testimony.
I’ve posted a diary on the Gulf Coast recovery (more of a rant, I guess) and at the end have included some links to more personal observations I’ve made from down here in Louisiana.
when did the absinthe ad grow cleavage?
Since YOU got back in town.
Hmmm …
is it more distracting than the electric kool-aid shape shifting ad that preceded it?
Personally I find the big stupid dancing yellow wal-mart smily face more annoying… oh, I’m sorry, you said “distracting”… never mind, carry on.
However, I did click on the Wal-Mart ad, and I signed up! I hate Wal-Mart as much as I hate Humvees …
oh gawd … I got my chance yesterday. Usually the Humvees are too far ahead or behind. But yesterday, I got to give the driver a vigorous THUMBS DOWN sign out my car window!
And, to add insult to injury, it’s owned by WIndemere Real Estate because, as Darcy pointed out, it’s a complete tax writeoff. And right now I HATE REAL ESTATE AGENTS because they’re trying to defeat our county’s Prop. 1, which would add a .5% buyers’ excise tax to property purchases and would be used to buy up and preserve farmland. (Our Prop. 1 was featured on NPR’s morning show yesterday!)
(I need more recruits to give THUMBS DOWN to Humvees, please. I’m rabid about it.) I’ve digressed again.
mea culpa… in my previous life in advertising I worked on launching the new Hummers… it was quite the moral dilemma for me, let me tell you. Luckily I didn’t stick around too long, just couldn’t do it. I give them another finger whenever I see them, so I’m with you in spirit at least! 😉
and in terms of the ad… yeah, it’s a very worthwhile cause, I just cringe whenever I see that damn “happy” face… especially when it takes over my TV in a Zorro cape… 🙂
You must be very good, because – for a while there — they were doing very well.
And Darcy and I have begrudgingly acknowledged that their TV ads are very clever and well-done.
But inquiring BooTrib minds want to know if you’ve ever done marketing for…
…absinthe? 😉
unfortunately not…
if it were my recommendations they used…
they play up the creativity aspect of it and that artists such as van Gogh, etc. drank it and then created… so hire a few web designers to come up with their own interpretations of van gogh’s starry night or a picasso… make it more sexy and interesting by drawing people into a fantasy world vs. using the same ol’ same ol’ hot chick with a nice chest. sure she’s nice looking, but how much more absinthe are you really going to sell?
I liked their ideas about combining the colours of the drinks with the colours of the ad, but they just didn’t do it well enough and it became annoying (or distracting as Boo put it)…
whew, okay, no idea where all that came from… /rant
it’s an annoying feature of blogads that the advertisers can change the image after I approve it.
Sometimes I approve an ad, and then it is changed to something I might not have approved. The chesty woman is not really so offensive (at least to me) but I would have at least thought about whether I wanted to approve it.
Now, if I wanted to protest it would be a hassle, and I might have to return the money. I wish all changes had to be approved.
totally not worth making a fuss over imo… she’s an attractive woman, nothing wrong with that… I just think they could have been more creative about the whole thing… I would totally buy the product if it was done artistically.. or if I had that much money US to buy a bottle (pesky Cdn exchange rate) 🙂
I hear ya about the approvals thing. You would think that should be the case with each new iteration of the ad.
it isn’t as distracting as this ad was.
(picture redacted in the interests of preserving peace and stability)
mmmm… pie.
I was wondering about that too.
The, not very subtle, implication of the result from consuming the product is not one I would care to achieve. ‘Twould lead to all sorts of marital and interpersonal problems with my wife if I had bigger … nevermind.
Maybe it’s a guy thing?
2 nanoseconds after I posted this I realized I was an idiot.
I was hoping this comment would sink into obscurity but … 🙁 … it has been linked to from another thread.
(Engage brain, you dumbshit, before engaging fingers and hitting post!)
Via Atrios … more GENIUS at work:
despite an earlier promise to recuse himself from cases involving the company …
Ahh, now I get it. I didn’t realize the first time I heard the story that he had promised to recuse himself…why, he’s a perfect Bush nominee, isn’t he?
We already know that Brownie is a fool, this strikes me as excessive scapegoating to cover the ass of another incompetent bush crony – Michael Chertoff. Obviously if these emails weren’t so convenient, they would never have seen the light of day. Now folks, no more questions about hurricane response. There’s great progress being made.
We are the helpless bulls in the ring, putting on a show for the people in the grandstand. Let’s try to avoid being distracted by the clowns, and get after those people on our backs.
.
E-Mails Detail Effort Inside DeLay Office to Help Abramoff, Indian Tribes
By John Solomon and Sharon Theimer – AP writers
WASHINGTON Nov 3, 2005 — Rep. Tom DeLay’s staff tried to help lobbyist Jack Abramoff win access to Interior Secretary Gale Norton, an effort that succeeded after Abramoff’s Indian tribe clients began funneling a quarter-million dollars to an environmental group founded by Norton.
“Do you think you could call that friend and set up a meeting,” then-DeLay staffer Tony Rudy wrote to fellow House aide Thomas Pyle in a Dec. 29, 2000, e-mail titled “Gale Norton-Interior Secretary.” President Bush had nominated Norton to the post the day before.
Rudy wrote Abramoff that same day promising he had “good news” about securing a meeting with Norton, forwarding information about the environmental group Norton had founded, according to e-mails obtained by investigators and reviewed by The Associated Press. Rudy’s message to Abramoff was sent from Congress’ official e-mail system.
Within months, Abramoff clients donated heavily to the Norton-founded group and the lobbyist and one of the tribes he represented won face-to-face time with the secretary during a Sept. 24, 2001, dinner sponsored by the group she had founded.
Abramoff’s clients were trying to stop a rival Indian tribe from winning Interior Department approval to build a casino.
Jack Abramoff, right, listens to his attorneyAbbe Lowell on Capitol Hill, as Abramoff refused
to answer questions before the Senate Indian
Affairs Committee. AP Photo/Dennis Cook
DeLay, who has temporarily stepped aside as House majority leader because of criminal charges in Texas, eventually signed a letter with other GOP House leaders to Norton on behalf of Abramoff’s clients, records show.
AP – The TimesPicayune
(AP) Nov. 3 — Key events in the relationship between lobbyist Jack Abramoff and Republican congressional leader Tom DeLay when Abramoff’s tribal clients sought help from the Interior Department:
_May 7, 2000: Abramoff lends the use of a Washington arena skybox, underwritten by his lobbying clients, so donors to one of DeLay’s fundraising groups can be rewarded with a bird’s-eye view of a concert by the Three Tenors opera singers.
_May 25-June 3, 2000: DeLay takes $70,000 golfing trip to Scotland and England arranged by Abramoff and partly funded by Abramoff’s clients.
Read on »»
¶ Laurie Mylroie – Benador Associates
Mon Oct 17th, 2005 at 11:16:07 AM PST
“Treason doth never prosper: what’s the reason?
For if it prosper, none dare call it treason.”
▼ ▼ ▼ MY DIARY
God….I “so” love you put Libby’s book on this web site. I think we should mail some copies to a select few people…LOL.
I am so glad this has been written … and Daou Report has more such links:
BUT CLINTON SAID . . .
____
I’m busy with work tonight, but I did want to respond quickly to this growing chorus of WMD citations from Clinton and others on the issue of Bush and Iraq’s WMDs. The argument here is that Bush’s mistake in talking about the WMDs was an honest one because it was shared by many respected leaders and analysts on the other side of the aisle.
No, no, no, no. … read on
Steve Gilliard is running a contest about when Rove will leave the White House, whether fired or resigned.
How long do you think it will be before Scotty discovers that he has to spend more time with his family? Does he have one?