Here’s the update that I promised. The transcript is now up and what a transcript it is. Here’s the graph I described about Markos the lawyer turning into Markos the engineer:

MR. MOULITSAS: Well, there’s just no doubt about that. I mean, there’s a real disagreement about how to best do that obviously. I mean, this all sounds great and, and, and wonderful, and obviously we can all get to—you know, we can all come around inequalities and opportunity and, and energy independence and that sort of thing. The problem we have, though, is we’ve, we’ve had a, a, an organization that, one, has, has been on the wrong side of a lot of ideas. We’re talking John Breaux, Senator John Breaux, who’s an architect of George Bush’s tax cuts, which have led our nation to record deficits, record debt, and a crumbling infrastructure, as we’ve seen in Katrina and as we’ve seen in, in Minnesota. I mean, crazy thing, but the American people want their bridges to stay in one piece. So we, we have a situation like that.

Wednesday, I talked about former St. Cloud mayor John Ellenbecker, now an attorney, who thought he was an engineer:

72. John Ellenbecker from St. Cloud
Comment Posted: 8/8/2007 1:13:53 PM

Gary - I retract nothing. This bridge disaster is the direct result of your party’s tax policies and your party’s administration of MnDot. Your party, in the name of creating greater “efficiency” in government, starved MnDot of funding, forced MnDot to operate on the cheap, administered MnDot very poorly and the bridge collapse was the result. Deny this reality all you want, it doesn’t change the facts.

Markos Moulitsas, another liberal attorney, made the charge that the Bush tax cuts led to the collapse of the I-35 bridge. What is it about these liberal attorneys that make them think that they’re qualified to answer engineering questions? Is it that they stayed at a Holiday Inn the night before? (continue reading post »)

I’ve seen some monuments to literary stupidity in my life but this Washington Post article rates as the Taj Mahal of idiotic journalism. Here’s a taste of what passes for journalism these days:

In the swampy soup of hopefuls for the 2008 presidential election, there is a man with a funny name. (No, not that one.)
We’re thinking of the one named Fred (Thompson).
Say it out loud. Do it. Fred. Fred. In the South, Fray-ud.
Fur-red-duh.
It has the tonal quality of something being dropped on the floor, something heavy and damp-ish.
Waterlogged paper towel.
Fred.
The phonetics of the name seem integral to its image problem: On Urbandictionary.com, a “Fred” is defined as “a person who does stupid, annoying, or idiotic things” (Fred Flintstone, Fred Mertz). The best-case descriptors a Fred can hope for are terms like well-intentioned, predictable, benign (Fred Rogers).

If you think that’s bad writing, and you should, it gets worse:

Recent media accounts of the guy (who has not yet officially announced his candidacy) would have us believe that being a Fred means Law & Orderly sex-in-a-suit, a name exuding such flypaper pheromones that people find themselves helplessly drawn in. Chris Matthews dedicated three minutes of a recent “Hardball” to exploring Thompson’s sex appeal. London’s Sunday Times last month interviewed a bevy of his ex-girlfriends, all of whom have drunk the Fred-Aid: “He’s majestic,” said country singer/Fredophile Lorrie Morgan. “Women love a soft place to lay and a strong pair of hands to hold us.”

Fred?

Why? Is there something about the craggy actor we’re not getting? Maybe he’s ugly-sexy, like Mick Jagger?

Or maybe the name Fred is etymologically close to obviously sexy names like Dirk, Clint, James?

Granted that this isn’t on the newspaper’s front page but this is utter drivel. For the record, it’s on page D1. Still, this isn’t the sort of thing that an editor should let into a newspaper. If this meets the Washington Post’s journalistic standards, then they need to return to the drawing board and come up with a better plan because this type of journalism won’t sell.

At a time when their paper isn’t doing well, the editors must exercise tighter control over what their columnists write. Letting this stuff into a newspaper diminishes people’s opinions of that newspaper. That was possibly acceptable at some time but they don’t have a big margin for error anymore.

If they want to be taken seriously, they need to eliminate this type of column. Until editors tighten up the requirements and standards, newspapers won’t be taken seriously.

I’d describe this as tabloid journalism written by egotists and idiots. It doesn’t get much worse than that.

Technorati Tags: Tabloid Journalism, Washington Post, Columnists, Editorial Control

Cross-posted at LetFreedomRingBlog

That’s just one of the boneheaded things that Markos Moulitsas said in his appearance alongside Harold Ford, Jr. on Meet the Press. I don’t have the transcript but here’s a close paraphrase of what he said:

Whether we leave Iraq in 3 months, in 6 months or a year, it’s just a matter of semantics.

David Gregory, sitting in for Tim Russert, didn’t let that go, asking him how he could say that it’s just a matter of semantics. That led to another Moulitsas misstep. In explaining his statement, he said that, as a former military logistics man, he knew that they couldn’t leave immediately. He did say that (again, another paraphrase) “We all would like it if we could get out now.”

That’s a telling statement if ever I heard one. With Dick Durbin, Carl Levin and other pacifist Democrats talking last week about the military progress being made, voting for unilateral defeat in Iraq is political suicide. House Majority Whip James Clyburn echoed those thoughts last week:

“I think there would be enough support in that group to want to stay the course and if the Republicans were to stay united as they have been, then it would be a problem for us,” Clyburn said. “We, by and large, would be wise to wait on the report.”

With support for the war increasing, Moulitsas is putting himself on the wrong side of this issue. What he essentially said was that winning in Iraq wasn’t a priority for him. Let’s hope Michelle Malkin heard this and is capturing it on film forever.

Markos made another misstep, in my opinion, when he tried tying John Breaux’s writing the Bush tax cuts with the I-35 bridge collapse. He said that the bridge’s collapse wasn’t shocking when you cut taxes. He essentially said that cutting taxes meant not doing the necessary repairs of our nation’s infrastructure. (continue reading post »)

I’ve written about how the Democrats have a potential problem brewing here and here. I just found another bit of proof that there’s disenchantment Democrats will have to deal with. Check out these paragraphs in E.J. Dionne’s column:

The episode was the culmination of a shameful era in which serious issues related to national security and civil liberties were debated in a climate of fear and intimidation, saturated by political calculation and the quest for short-term electoral advantage.

Politically, Republicans won this round in two ways. They got the president the bill he wanted and, as a result, they created absolute fury in the Democratic base. Pelosi has received more than 200,000 e-mails of protest, according to an aide, for letting the bill go forward.

Getting 200,000 negative emails on a single bill is extraordinary. (continue reading post »)

In Salena Zito’s latest column, an unnamed GOP operative working on a presidential campaign said something that should get every GOP activist up off their wallets. Here’s what this unnamed GOP operative said:

“You have to give Dean credit…his 50-state strategy has leveled the playing field with the Republicans in terms of party organization.”

That’s probably true but one thing Dean hasn’t done is level the playing field in terms of ideas. A week ago, I was working the Benton County Republican booth at the Benton County Fair. One of the things that we did to attract traffic to the booth was to have a drawing for a flag which would be given away at the end of the fair.

Saturday night, a young man approached the booth and filled out the entry form. To be eligible, would-be contestants had to answer a question on which party they most closely associated themselves with. This young man told me he mostly identified with independents. Not content to just leave it go, I asked him if he thought that tax increases were a good thing.

His immediate response was that he didn’t like the Minnesota legislature passing “$5.5 billion worth of tax increases.” Mind you, I hadn’t said anything about the size of the tax increases. I next asked where he lived. He said Willmar so I followed up by asking if Joe Gimse was his state senator. He is. I then asked who his state representative was. He said Al Juhnke. I told him I wasn’t that impressed with Mr. Juhnke because he voted for each of the tax increases.

By the time the conversation ended, he was asking how he could get in touch with the Willmar area GOP. (continue reading post »)

Tomorrow morning, Meet the Press’s featured guests will be Rep. Harold Ford, the new chairman of the DLC, and Markos Moulitsas, the man behind the Daily Kos. Since its early days, the Netroots have looked scornfully at the DLC, thinking of it as selling out too often on progressive ideas. Based on this WSJ article by Kimberley Strassel, I’d say that the first shots have been fired:

“They’ll find their way back to the middle. And if they don’t, they won’t win.” So says a blunt Harold Ford Jr., chairman of the Democratic Leadership Council, of his party’s current crop of presidential candidates. The question is just how many would-be Democratic presidents recognize the wisdom of his words.

Based on who showed up to the YearlyKos convention vs. the DLC convention, the hands down winner is the Kos kids. To be sure, the Netroots are spoiling for a fight too:

The far left has found something to unify it: hatred of George W. Bush. Technology has given it the means to organize; what the right found in talk radio, liberals have found in the “netroots” Internet, from MoveOn.org to Daily Kos. Its activism has of late overshadowed groups like the DLC, which still believe in such creaky notions as ideas. Even Mr. Ford, who took over the DLC chairmanship in January, is willing to admit his outfit has been eclipsed: “The DLC and other moderate groups have struggled a bit to find not only our voice, but a way to be heard.”

Making it harder is that this newly energized left is directing inordinate firepower on the DLC itself, in a crazed, purist drive to purge any group that would exert a moderating influence on the Democratic Party. New Republic scribe Noam Scheiber let loose a few weeks back in a New York Times hit piece, calling the DLC “radioactive” and “quaint,” gloating that its “fading influence was good news for the entire party,” and arguing that it should just get lost. Markos Moulitsas, chief flogger-blogger on the Daily Kos, this week slammed the DLC as a group that wants to “blur distinctions with the GOP,” and reveling that Democrats had won in 2006 because liberals like himself had “forced” Americans to pick sides.

While it’s true that Kos and MoveOn.org had forced a bit of a choice, it isn’t as ideologically pure as they’d like people to believe. After all, they got behind a number of the southern ‘moderates’ who they’re now attacking for not being progressive enough. Still, the tensions between the two groups aren’t imaginary. Kos currently has posted a reprint of an article first run in the National Journal. Here are the most important graphs of the reprinted article: (continue reading post »)

Bryan Preston from HotAir.com called John Murtha’s DC office. He recorded the call and has put it on YouTube. Here’s Bryan’s audiotaped ‘conversation’:

The woman in this audiotape who said that she doesn’t “talk to the media” is the woman that I talked with Friday morning. I don’t know her name but she isn’t someone who should be answering the phone. In fact, she’s doing more harm than good. She isn’t Murtha’s communications director. Murtha’s communications director is a man named Matt Mazonkey.

Mazonkey won’t talk to me either. I tried talking with him when Col. Ware first recommended that Gen. Mattis drop the charges against LCpl. Sharratt. I was told that he was in a meeting but that he’d call me back. Mr. Mazonkey hasn’t called back, though I’m still willing to talk with him.

What I can’t understand is she’d want to answer Murtha’s phone. In light of the ongoing scandal, she must feel like the bloggers’ punching bag. I don’t think that she’s used to hearing from people that question her. I’m betting that she’s used to hearing from people asking for Murtha’s help or to defense contractors who are looking for more earmarks.

The bad news for the Murtha camp is that the Haditha story just went international:

A statement released by the Marines at their Camp Pendleton base in southern California revealed that three charges of unpremeditated murder against Lance Corporal Justin Sharratt had been withdrawn. The decision was announced in a written ruling from the commander Lieutenant General James Mattis and followed a recommendation from an investigator last month that the charges should be dropped.

“An independent Article 32 investigating officer has considered all the facts and determined that the evidence does not support a referral to court-martial for Lance Corporal Sharratt,” Mattis wrote. “Based on my review of all the evidence in this case and considering the recommendation of the Article 32 officer, I have dismissed the charges.”

Now the entire world will know that Rep. Murtha, at best, was ill-informed. At worst, which I think is most likely, Murtha knew he wasn’t telling the truth. (continue reading post »)

That’s what someone named T. Peter Ruane of the American Road and Transportation Builders Association says in this Strib article about Jim Oberstar’s gas tax increase proposal. My question is simple: Where do they find these people to make such idiotic statements?

Here’s a sampling of what Oberstar’s allies are saying:

Some interested parties, such as T. Peter Ruane of the American Road and Transportation Builders Association, have lauded Oberstar’s plan as a break from “business as usual.”

The American Society of Civil Engineers has also endorsed Oberstar’s plan.

Fortunately, there are still sane people out there:

“The senior leaders of the Transportation Committee have been dreaming about raising the gas tax for years,” said Keith Ashdown of Taxpayers for Common Sense, a nonprofit government watchdog group in Washington.

Ashdown, who coined the phrase “Bridge to Nowhere” two years ago to deride the now-infamous $223 million bridge proposal for Alaska’s barren Gravina Island, remains a skeptic. “I get really nervous when lawmakers say spend, spend, spend, and we’ll all be OK,” he said.

Based on last week’s KSTP/SurveyUSA poll, I’d say that Oberstar’s chances of even getting this bill to President Bush’s desk are slim. Likewise, I’d say that Mr. Ashdown and President Bush are on the side of the angels with this one.

President Bush made things more difficult for Oberstar when he said that the Transportation committees had to do a much better job of prioritizing spending. Michael Brodkorb added to Oberstar’s burden with this post that highlighted Oberstar’s diverting $1.3 billion from the highway trust fund into bike trails. (continue reading post »)

Astute political observers had seen signs of dissatisfaction within the Nutroots movement ever since Congress didn’t cut off funding for the Iraq War. Their dissatisfaction with the Democrat leadership isn’t abating. In fact, it’s growing. I offer as proof this article in the Nation magazine:

The voters put the Democrats in to end the war, and it’s escalating. The Democrats voted the money for the surge and the money for the next $459.6 billion military budget. Their latest achievement was to provide enough votes in support of Bush to legalize warrantless wiretapping for “foreign suspects whose communications pass through the United States.” Enough Democrats joined Republicans to make this a 227-183 victory for Bush. The Democrats control the House. Speaker Nancy Pelosi could have stopped the bill in its tracks if she’d wanted to. But she didn’t. The Democrats’ game is to go along with the White House agenda while stirring up dust storms to blind the base to their failure to bring the troops home or restore constitutional government.

There’s a low simmer to those words. Granted, this is the Nation, whose editorial board thinks that anyone even a tiny bit to the right of Ted Kennedy might not be liberal enough. They’re known for their extremism. When I read that they’re developing a laundry list like this, I know that their dissatisfaction is growing.

I don’t believe that they won’t vote Democrat in 2008. I suspect that they’ll drag themselves to the polls by saying that the Democrats are the lesser of two evils.

Sometimes bad election results happen because too many people from a large voting bloc stay home. That’s what happened last year when anti-amnesty conservatives stayed home. More often, though, bad election results happen because, though they get out and vote, they don’t talk their neighbor or their co-worker of their relative into voting their way, too. I suspect that that’s what will happen with Democrats in 2008. (continue reading post »)

As you know, Gen. Mattis dropped all charges against Capt. Stone and LCpl. Sharratt. That’s only part of what’s been happening within the military judicial system. I believe this article is a preview of things to come in other cases brought against our military.

Tim Harrington is a personal friend of the Hutchins family who has worked tirelessly on the case.

Advocates of Hutchins like Harrington say the Marine is not the only American combat vet dealing with the “scapegoat” issue; the case of an Army Ranger, SSgt. Ray Girouard, bears unusual similarities to Hutchins’.

Girouard was convicted in March of three counts of negligent homicide for the deaths of three detainees after an Army raid in Iraq in May 2006. Girouard maintains that he was only following orders, as does Hutchins.

Lawrence Hutchins has been in solitary confinement in the Camp Pendleton brig since his conviction and sentencing by a military panel last month. He is now out of solitary confinement. It is reported that he will remain in a multi-man cell until the government decides where he will serve his 15-year sentence.

But a lawyer for Hutchins is preparing papers seeking clemency. It seems there were many questionable aspects to his General Court martial. The case was also automatically forwarded to the Navy-Marine Court of Criminal Appeal for review.

Don’t be surprised if Gen. Mattis changes Sgt. Hutchins’ verdict. I talked with Tim last night. He sounded guardedly optimistic. One of the reasons for Tim’s optimism is his belief that previously classified information, which wasn’t allowed into Sgt. Hutchins’ court martial, will likely be considered by Gen. Mattis. This classified information will allegedly exonerate Sgt. Hutchins due to the fact that it couldn’t be used in his court martial. Sgt. Hutchins’ attorney had access to some classified information that the court martial judge wouldn’t allow into testimony.

Tim points out that formerly classified information was declassified that the truth came out about Haditha. We’re now seeing the importance of that information in vindicating the Haditha Marines. (continue reading post »)