Author: aarrgghh

finally coming to the small screen: barackryphal’s classic inauguration day expedition into the mind of a birther, which answered the burning question “should president obama hang onto that tenner?”

go read the comments on the youtube page to see genuine birther trolls play to script. it’s a self-perpetuating parody — they just can’t help themselves!

(* see? all in good fun, y’betcha!)

well, it’s certainly been a tough week for gop-veepee-lottery-winner sarah palin. it’s also been a tough week for her soul mate, former-pow-did-you-know-turned-maverick-presidential-also-ran john mcsame. (but we should all be happy that a guy his age can still find happiness so soon after the loss of another wife. what? you hadn’t heard about cindy? tragedy. must’ve gotten buried in all the chatter about bristol, her baby and its father, all of whom i hear, are also having a tough week.)

it’s also been tough on the republicans, what with their convention having not only a genuinely tough act to follow from across the aisle, but also with having to contend with the misdirected anger of the weather gods (thanks for nothing, stu!) and the restless ghosts of new orleans, who are surely making things tough for just about everybody on the gulf coast.
but just as surely as no one, absolutely no one, wants to end the war in iraq more than our erstwhile democrat joe lieberman (he just wants it to end in 2108, apparently), no one, absolutely no one, can be having a tougher week than the last honest man.

painfully, no doubt, after months of doing all the heavy lifting, personally holding up mcsame’s bearings in one hand, and with the other tirelessly slipping the knife, again and again, into his soon-to-be-former-caucus-mates, poor joe-just-can’t-get-a-break-lieberman had to watch all his careful machinations upended and all his aspirations unceremoniously dumped into the comely lap of a bubble-headed upstart from that god-forsaken-frozen-backwater-three-electoral-votes-are-you-effin-kidding-me i-don’t-wanna-be-a-state-of-alaska, of all places. and then, to top it all, having to dutifully take the stage in minnesota, not as a proud running mate on a winning ticket, but as an unappreciated z-list shill at the coming-out party for a modern-day wolf gal moose gal, in front of a scattershot crowd of dullards and ingrates. how truly bitter his words must have tasted.

but november is still a whole two months away, so joe will probably look forward to a little time away from the klieg lights. time enough for this sad little creature to crawl back to his den, lick his (self-inflicted) wounds (again!) and get back to work on that shrinking list of imaginary friends while thoughtfully fingering the well-worn blade on the only thing he can trust:

gollieberman: master has betwayed us! he wants the pweshuss all for himself!

smeajoe: no, no, no! master likes us! master said so himself!

gollieberman: master wants the palin! he wants to give it the pweshuss! our pweshuss! the palin must die!

smeajoe: no, no! if we kill the palin, the master will hate us! the palin is pwetty — and we are not! and he won’t give us the pweshuss!

gollieberman: no … we shan’t kill the palin, but the palin is stupid! we are smart! we can twick it, make it twip and fall! make master look foolish!

smeajoe: yesss … yes! then master will hate the palin, and send it away!

gollieberman: yesss … then master will pay! like the democwatsss will pay! we will kill the master and take the pweshuss for us! then smeajoe will be the master!!

moose gal may need to watch her back …

(cross-posted at glad you asked)

i guess now that his “former hill staffer” and former right hand man is waiting for a jury of his peers to decide said staffer’s fate, our cartoon-villain vice president is stuck pimping his own “background” …
from reuters:

the senior bush administration official who briefed anonymously on vice president dick cheney’s visit to afghanistan and pakistan sounded suspiciously like, well, cheney himself.

the white house transcript of the tuesday briefing left little room for doubt as to the official’s identity, including this opening sentence:

“the reason the president wanted me to come, obviously, is because of the continuing threat that exists in this part of the world on both sides of the afghan-pakistan border,” the official said.

cheney had just left afghanistan, where a suicide bomb attack against bagram air base killed up to 14 people. cheney used the visit to the two countries to press for stronger action against the taliban and al qaeda.

“let me just make one editorial comment here. i’ve seen some press reporting (that) says, ‘cheney went in to beat up on them, threaten them.’ that’s not the way i work,” the official said.

the official was speaking on “background,” a common practice in washington that means he could only be identified by the euphemism, “senior administration official.” media critics have long complained about the practice, saying public officials should be identified.

the “senior administration officials” often make sure they leave no clues to their identity in these sessions.

but in this case, the official blew his own cover.

“i would describe my sessions both in pakistan and afghanistan as very productive,” the official aboard cheney’s plane said.

cheney arrived back in washington early on wednesday and briefed president george w. bush on his trip.

the “senior administration official” full press report can be seen in its entirety on the white house web site.

(cross-posted at glad you asked.)

things seem to be getting out of hand.

still no rove indictment. one journalist’s already checkered career may be irreparably damaged. his sponsor’s reputation sways in the wind. prosecutor fitzgerald remains silent. has something gone horribly wrong in the plame investigation?

one would certainly thinks so from the ballooning body of speculation overtaking the blogosphere. could all this be msnbc reporter david shuster’s fault?

the ball got rolling with shuster’s breathless but compelling argument made on msnbc countdown with keith olberman on may 8:

olbermann: what are you gathering on these two main points? is the decision by mr. fitzgerald coming soon? would it be an indictment?

shuster: well, karl rove’s legal team has told me that they expect that a decision will come sometime in the next two weeks.  and i am convinced that karl rove will, in fact, be indicted.  and there are a couple of reasons why.

first of all, you don’t put somebody in front of a grand jury at the end of an investigation, or for the fifth time, as karl rove testified a couple — a week and a half ago, unless you feel that’s your only chance of avoiding indictment.  so, in other words, the burden starts with karl rove to stop the charges.

secondly, it’s now been 13 days since rove testified.  after testifying for three and a half hours, prosecutors refused to give him any indication that he was clear.  he has not gotten any indication since then, and the lawyers that i’ve spoken with outside of this case say that if rove had gotten himself out of the jam, he would have heard something by now.

and then the third issue is one we’ve talked about before, and that is, in the scooter libby indictment, karl rove was identified as official a.  it’s the term that prosecutors use when they try to get around restrictions on naming somebody in an indictment.

we’ve looked through the records of patrick fitzgerald from when he was prosecuting cases in new york, and from when he’s been u.s. attorney in chicago.  and in every single investigation, whenever fitzgerald has identified somebody as official a, that person eventually gets indicted themselves, in every single investigation.

will karl rove defy history in this particular case?  i suppose anything is possible when you’re dealing with a white house official.  but the lawyers that i’ve been speaking with, who know this stuff, say, don’t bet on karl rove getting out of this.

that report gave an outside deadline of two weeks (may 22) for an indictment to appear. leopold’s explosive story, coming just four days after shuster’s report, became irresistible to many because it fit the schedule.

but once the deadline passed, speculation took off faster than exxon’s profits — something’s gone horribly wrong, right?

strangely, no one’s really questioned the integrity of the two week deadline itself. the only person who could have lent credibility to the deadline was fitzgerald. but it was never put forth or confirmed by fitzgerald. the two week deadline put forth by schuster came from rove’s team:

karl rove’s legal team has told me that they expect that a decision will come sometime in the next two weeks.

rove may have floated the deadline for his own purposes, in order to sow the speculation, confusion and disappointment that’s now descended on everyone following the case.

if so, it is ultimately just a delaying tactic, since any indictment that’s finally handed down will be national front page news, and any confusion will be then dispelled. in the meantime, fitzgerald may in fact be working right on schedule all along — his schedule — which, like everything else he’s handling in this case, he obviously prefers to keep to himself.