Ah yes...I wondered when the Belushis would step in...

Dogpile on the Woodward...

From the New York Daily News-recently endorsed by Bill O'Reilly as a "media operation [that has] regularly helped distribute defamation and false information supplied by far left websites"...

You've heard the uproar over the famed Watergate sleuth's taking two years to reveal that he was leaked the name of CIA agent Valerie Plame. Now the widow of John Belushi has recruited a gang of the late comic's friends to pay back Woodward for "Wired," his grim 1985 bio of her husband.

After the "SNL" player OD'd, Judy Belushi Pisano encouraged all of his pals to talk to Woodward, who, like John, had grown up in Wheaton, Ill.


She now tells us: "Woodward was the wrong guy [to write that book]. I was foolish."

Actually, I'm glad she admits that. In her own memoir, "Samurai Widow" she wrote of having invited Woodward to write the book without have read a single thing he'd written. She was going almost solely by his reputation as "the man who brought down Nixon."

The late Belushi's family and friends may have much to complain about in that book, but in a very real sense, they have only themselves to blame. That does not mean, however, that I am not anxious to read:

So she and Tanner Colby have assembled "Belushi: A Biography," a just-published collection of affectionate memories of John — and unaffectionate ones of Woodward.

Writer Mitch Glazer recalls that all Woodward wanted to hear about was Belushi's drug use. "Whenever I started telling him the good things about John, he would literally put down his pen and wait for me to finish," says Glazer.

Al Franken remembers seeing Woodward in the office of "SNL" producer Lorne Michaels. "I went over to [Woodward] and said, 'Well, you know, the only time I ever saw John snorting coke was with [Woodward's colleague] Carl Bernstein.' And that was the last I ever heard from him." (Franken assures us that he was just kidding.)

Woodward declined to comment on the charges. But Judy says, "I'm not angry anymore. I just felt it was something that needed to be put straight."

"Wired," though I think it's possible to read more sympathetically than Belushi's family and friends do, does focus too much on the dark side. "Samurai Widow," while compelling and satisfying on its own terms, was not an alternate biography but the story of one woman's bereavement and eventual return to happiness.

I hope this new book will be a more accurate picture of the man who, arguably, was the greatest natural talent ever to emerge from SNL.

I'm trying to come up with a headline joke that doesn't use the word "inferno"

Joe Dante is the director best known for Gremlins and its sequel (as well as Innerspace, The Howling, and segments of Twilight Zone: The Movie and Amazon Women on the Moon, among others).

He has a new made-for-Showtime film premiering this Friday that sounds interesting, to say the least. Blah3.com says:

I've always had a soft spot for Joe Dante--he's managed to sneak some screwy satire into what might otherwise seem like generic film fodder. Gremlins 2 was a good example of that, a film that could've just gone through the motions but became a gleeful dance on the head of Donald Trump and the worship of corporations. Rarely does a Hollywood movie come as close to rejecting plot altogether as that one did. Heck, I even enjoyed most of Looney Tunes: Back in Action--the trip through the Louvre was great.
But now Joe is pissed, and his new film for Showtime's Masters of Horror series will be on Friday night during their subscription drive when everyone with cable can see it. In it, dead soldiers from the Iraq war rise up to vote a certain bastard out of office.

Emphasis mine. If you have cable, this weekend you have Showtime. I'd say this screwy, supposedly scathing satire sounds worth seeing, if I weren't scared of being accused of a lot of alliteration.

Do you have a plan with you? (w/additions and update)

Update: Think Progress notes something for Joe "for people who want to vote for Bush, but feel he's not quite Jewish enough" Lieberman, the man who lost Al Gore my vote.

Writing this morning in the Wall Street Journal, Sen. Joe Lieberman (D-CT) claims Iraqi leaders want a commitment that U.S. troops will stay until whenever “the Iraqi military is capable of security the country”:

And, I am convinced, almost all of the progress in Iraq and throughout the Middle East will be lost if those forces are withdrawn faster than the Iraqi military is capable of securing the country.

The leaders of Iraq’s duly elected government understand this, and they asked me for reassurance about America’s commitment. The question is whether the American people and enough of their representatives in Congress from both parties understand this.

The Iraqi leaders, however, have said publicly that they want the United States to set a firm timetable for withdrawal immediately.

Bush says he has a plan for victory in Iraq. But...but I thought the mission had already been accomplished? My favorite analysis (thus far) comes from Media Girl:

Again, they're trying to assert that the civil war in Iraq is a foreign operation, instead of a conflict between Iraqis with over 1000 years of historical conflict. How ironic that one of the biggest problems about our Iraq occupation -- that al-Qaeda uses it as a recruitment poster -- is what the Bush Administration crows about as reasons for staying.

The document reads like a division report in a corporate boardroom. It's full of bullet points of declarations and assertions, but little actual argument and essentially no supporting evidence to support their claims. Maybe some paid analysts can take the time to scrutinize the language and find something that's actually new ... or convincing.

The document has an appendix called "The Eight Pillars" which purports to lay out a strategy for success -- a tacit admission that the 28 pages coming before fail to do just that. (I expect the phrase "The Eight Pillars" will be rolling off wingnutter lips over the coming days.)

ETA: And speaking of wingnutters, the conservative Gateway Pundit has worked itself into a conniption fit. It seems that the big bad liberal media has dared to suggest Mr. Bush might need to persuade Americans he has a plan and that everything in it is true.

GP's examples of said big bad liberal media? The BBC and Associated Press. Those well-known bastions of liberalism.

I dunno. 57% of Americans think he deliberately misled people to make the case for war with Iraq. 62% would finance paying for the rebuilding of the Gulf Coast by cutting spending in Iraq. 55% think the U.S. should have stayed out of Iraq.

It seems fair to me to suggest Mr. Bush might have a bit of 'splainin to do...

ETA, again: At Below The Beltway, the war-and-Bush supporting Doug offers some excerpts from Bush's speech. These follow, with my questions and comments in bold.

We will not turn that country over to the terrorists and put the American people at risk.

Too late.

Iraq will be a free nation and a strong ally in the Middle East. And this will add to the security of the American people.

How so, sir? (Actually, that's the question I most want to see asked of Bush every time he makes one of his big, macho assertions as though they were statements of fact. How so, sir?)

In the short run, we're going to bring justice to our enemies.

I promise you, somewhere, a White House speechwriter was cringing. "Bring our enemies to justice! We're going to bring our enemies to justice, for crying out loud. 'Bring justice to our enemies' sounds like we're doing good things for them."

In the long run, the best way to ensure the security of our own citizens is to spread the hope of freedom across the broader Middle East.

To repeat: How so, sir?

We've seen freedom conquer evil and secure the peace before.

Yes, I remember that. It was in 1992 and 1996. Go on.

In World War II, free nations came together to fight the ideology of fascism and freedom prevailed.

In World War II, FDR and Harry Truman were president. Your point?

Today in the Middle East, freedom is once again contending with an ideology that seeks to sow anger and hatred and despair.

"But enough about my party."

The terrorists in Iraq share the same ideology as the terrorists who struck the United States on September the 11th.

See? There is a connection!

By fighting these terrorists in Iraq, Americans in uniform are defeating a direct threat to the American people.

And a-one, and-a-two, and a-one-two-three-four:

How so, sir?

No, really.

ETA yet one more time: The Carpetbagger reminds us that we've all heard this same old story, over and over and over again.

It worked so well during the campaign it seems to have become a standard practice. In June, Bush delivered another speech on Iraq. Sticking to the game plan, the White House told reporters it would be — you guessed it — a "major speech." It wasn't.

The Bush gang keeps going to the same well. In October, Scott McClellan said Bush would deliver "a significant speech on the war on terrorism." Aside from some unsubstantiated claims about foiling alleged al Queda plots, viewers learned that Bush believes Iraq is central to the war on terror and the president is committed to "complete victory." In other words, to borrow the AP's phrase, Bush's speech "did not break new ground or present a new strategy."

And finally: Sadly, No! pipes in with their own cheap shots in response to Bush's latest catchy slogans:

-Iraq would become a safe haven from which terrorists could plan attacks against America, American interests abroad, and our allies.

You mean it's not already? Try telling that to the Jordanians.

But wait! Here's the best one:

-Middle East reformers would never again fully trust American assurances of support for democracy and human rights in the region -- a historic opportunity lost.

I agree that promoting human rights in the Middle East is a historic opportunity that we can't afford to lose. But unfortunately, we've already lost it:

I can't be the only one looking at that picture of one of our young woman in uniform and thinking of the Joker, can I?

Ink 19 Update

Ozone Cocktail. Just a quick one.

I'd say this guy needs to get slapped in the face repeatedly

...but then I might get PETA accusing me of cruelty to a weasel.

Tucker Carlson:

In fact, as NBC's Andrea Mitchell has reported, an internal CIA investigation found that Plame's outing caused no discernable damage to anyone.

Oh, really, Tucker? Because according to the Washington Post (and the CIA):

[A]fter Plame's name appeared in Robert D. Novak's column, the CIA informed the Justice Department in a simple questionnaire that the damage was serious enough to warrant an investigation, officials said.

The CIA has not conducted a formal damage assessment, as is routinely done in cases of espionage and after any legal proceedings have been exhausted.

Intelligence officials said they would never reveal the true extent of her contacts to protect the agency and its work.

Not so much funny as chillingly sobering

More from that Seymour Hersh article, via firedoglake:

“The President is more determined than ever to stay the course,” the former defense official said. “He doesn’t feel any pain. Bush is a believer in the adage ‘People may suffer and die, but the Church advances.’ ” He said that the President had become more detached, leaving more issues to Karl Rove and Vice-President Cheney. “They keep him in the gray world of religious idealism, where he wants to be anyway,” the former defense official said. Bush’s public appearances, for example, are generally scheduled in front of friendly audiences, most often at military bases. Four decades ago, President Lyndon Johnson, who was also confronted with an increasingly unpopular war, was limited to similar public forums. “Johnson knew he was a prisoner in the White House,” the former official said, “but Bush has no idea.”

This is totally cool with me

You scored as Miranda Hobbes. You're Miranda! Smart, independant and yes, pessimistic. You're a good friend who is ready to listen and give your own unique, cynical advice. You do have a soft spot, though, and when you're ready you'll let people in. Miranda Hobbes 71% Charlotte York 58% Carrie Bradshaw 33% Samantha Jones 25% Which "Sex and the City" girl are you? created with QuizFarm.com

As the "Sex and the City" girls go, I've always said that Samantha was the sexiest, but Miranda had all the best lines.

Sometimes I wonder at what point Madonna was replaced by a robot

Holy shit.

Posts about Ann Coulter are another one of those things that are like shooting fish in a barrel. But when she crosses a line, she really crosses a line.

Republican bootlicking extremist Ann Coulter has posted a personal phone number and email address of BRAD BLOG Guest Blogger Lydia Cornell on the front page of her website with a link to the post again on her "Quotations from Chairman Ann" page.

Apparently in vindictive retaliation to Cornell's guest blog item published by The BRAD BLOG late last week, titled "Death is Sexier than Sex (to Ann Coulter)" Coulter has now publicly posted a personal Email Cornell had sent to Coulter while she was working on her story for us.

In Cornell's guest blog article, the actress and author reported on her experience attempting to receive a copy of Coulter's recent speech given to the Alachua, FL Republican party in which she called for the repression of the free speech of Democrats, adding "Frankly, I'm not a big fan of the First Amendment."

While Coulter had the time to take a 6th grade level ad hominem shot at Cornell ("Well, death is certainly sexier than Lydia Cornell")...

Wrong.-Ben

...in her response, apparently the desperate Coulter didn't have the time to actually reply to Cornell's note, ask her for permission before publishing it publicly, or most despicably of all, have the decency to redact the personal information from the note before posting it online.

It's been asked before, but it's worth asking again: What is wrong with Ann Coulter? Seriously. I mean, quite aside from, as Brad says, the indecency of posting anyone's personal information online without their permission, Cornell is an actress. And exactly the kind of actress who seems to attract stalkers (she was on that Ted Knight sit-jiggle "Too Close For Comfort" in the '80s). According to the bio on her web site, she has two small children. I'd imagine she's just thrilled about having her phone number and email address displayed for all the world to see.

Say! You know what we haven't played in a while?

A nice, rousing game of...Who Said It?

"You can support the troops but not the president."

"Explain to the mothers and fathers of American servicemen that may come home in body bags why their son or daughter have to give up their life?"


"[The] President... is once again releasing American military might on a foreign country with an ill-defined objective and no exit strategy. He has yet to tell the Congress how much this operation will cost. And he has not informed our nation’s armed forces about how long they will be away from home. These strikes do not make for a sound foreign policy."

Now, Who Said It? Were they...

American memebers of the Taliban?

Ambitious Democrats positioning themselves for 2008?

Popular gay blogger John A. of AmericaBlog?

Or were they...

Another blow in the fight for fair and balanced news

The 20-second promo for the 10 p.m. newscast showed a teenage couple and said:
"These local kids found God. They pledged abstinence. But now they're getting on their knees. And it definitely isn't to pray. ... They found a loophole in chastity. Don't worry about your kids' virginity. Worry about their oral fixation."

And with that, the screen showed a woman, her eyes obscured, licking a red, white and blue ice pop.

Via Feministing.

Ignoring the forest for the tree

A fella at the right-wing page WorldNetDaily has written an article called "Why political correctness stinks." Yeah, you probably know his arguments, and if you've been reading this blog for more than a day you know where I stand.

So I don't want to get into that. What I want to get into is this rather amazing paragraph:

In the good old USA, we celebrated diversity. That phrase is now just code for the idea that we should be happy to have millions of wrecked, fatherless families producing legions of very un-gay homosexuals spreading AIDS.

In fact, only just three words in that rather amazing paragraph. Um..."un-gay homosexuals?" I'm picturing some kind of homosexual equivilent of 7-Up. "The UN-gay."

ETA: However, if you want to read somebody who does want to to get into this argument, permit me to recommend Sadly, No! Where Brad R. is holding "XTREME Wingnut Preach-Off 4!!!"

Christmas is coming, he hinted

...and pointed over to the right there where if you click the View my complete profile link you'll find, among other things, a link to my Amazon.com Wish List. If you're amazed at the quality of posts on this site (I know I am), please consider making a small donation to the Buy Ben Those Books And CDs He Can't Score Through The Ink 19 Gig Fund. I thank you.

They're swinging at air

Via The Anonymous Liberal:

John Dickerson points out why the Democratic party's lack of an obvious leader is a good thing and is causing all sorts of problems for the Bush administration. Noting how the administration's initial attempt to vilify Jack Murtha failed miserably, Dickerson writes:

This is what happens when a party goes into
campaign mode without a single opponent. With
no specific person to target, the Bush
administration ends up taking on all members of
the opposition at once. The White House
plugged Murtha into an indiscriminate and
undifferentiated rapid-response machine and it
didn't work. Finally, Democrats have reason to
be happy that they have no clear leader.

The Republican political machine is very good at turning a policy debate into a referendum on the personality of a particular Democratic politician. Just ask John Kerry or Al Gore. Right now, there is no obvious spokesman for the Democratic party as a whole. Without a figurehead to caricature and mock, the GOP political machine is being forced to something it hates to do: substantively defend GOP policy.

I don't even know what to say about this one

Credit: Dlisted.

Big bad Hollywood, and more fun with a Republican blog

A few of the Republican blogs like Power Line are pushing a column by Mark Steyn today in which he argues that "Hollywood's PC perversion stifles storytelling." Steyn reports:

I stopped to buy the third boxed set in the "Looney Tunes Golden Collection." Loved the first two: Daffy, Bugs, Porky, beautifully restored, tons of special features. But, for some reason, this new set begins with a special announcement by Whoopi Goldberg explaining what it is we're not meant to find funny: "Unfortunately at that time racial and ethnic differences were caricatured in ways that may have embarrassed and even hurt people of color, women and ethnic groups," she tells us sternly. "These jokes were wrong then and they're wrong today"

Well here, actually, I agree with Steyn. The thought of this makes me cringe. Some humor of that time does have to be put in context, but there must be a better way. Leonard Maltin's introductions on a fantastic videotape compilation called "Bugs & Daffy: Wartime Cartoons" come right to mind, they made the point without making my skin crawl.

But Steyn goes on to make the same mistake that I've seen people make when they want to dismiss charges of insensitivity, from "24" to "Buffy":

It's true you don't see many positive images of people of color on "Looney Tunes," but then the images of people of non-color aren't terribly positive either (Elmer Fudd, Yosemite Sam). Instead, you see positive images of ducks of color, roadrunners of color and tweety birds of color. How weirdly reductive to be so obsessed about something so peripheral to these cartoons that you stick the same damn Whoopi Goldberg health warning on all four DVDs in the box.

For the 57, 000th time (seemingly): Yes, but "people of non-color" had (and still have) dozens of other places they could go to see positive images of themselves. "People of color" and other minorities did not and in some cases, still do not.

Power Line's Scott "euphimism for a phallus" Johnson uses this as a launching pad to praise the late Elia Kazan. I suspect he does this at least in part to bait Democrats, some of whom, not unreasonably, are known to have certain issues with Mr. Kazan, on account of his being a rat-stoolie.

It seems a non-sequiter leap otherwise. I did find it interesting, however, that he thinks:

Kazan could make a great, angry film about the phenomenon represented by the Whoopi cushion, as you can see for yourelf in his "A Face in the Crowd" (screenplay by Budd Schulberg).

Everybody's entitled to their own opinion about the films they watch. For example, I've always seen "A Face In The Crowd" (which is indeed a great movie) as being about the phenomenon most recently represented by George W. Bush...

Only semi-related update: Elsewhere on Power Line, Paul "not man enough to have a phallic name" Mirengoff asks Cheney or McCain, who is the hero? Those are our choices? Shoot me again. I enjoy it.

Let's see, hero, hero, hero...ah, here we are. According to dictionary.com, which I believe is derived from the American Heritage Dictionary:

A person noted for feats of courage or nobility of purpose, especially one who has risked or sacrificed his or her life.

Well, it's got to be Cheney then, hasn't it?

The Goze has been putting the moves on my would-be girlfriend

Atrios on the idea that blogs have destroyed "gatekeeper" media, which he defines as:

...a system by which "journalistic professionals" determined what the great unwashed did or did not need to know...

...it isn't blogs that destroyed the Gatekeepers. It wasn't blogs that put Rush Limbaugh on as an election analyst. It wasn't blogs that gave Bill O'Reilly the flagship show on a major cable news network. It wasn't blogs that gave Michael Savage his own television show on a cable news network. It wasn't blogs that put Ann Coulter on the cover of a major national news magazine. It wasn't blogs that created all of the various and often fact free screaming heads shows. It wasn't blogs that gave syndicated columns to numerous conservatives with little or no experience in journalism. It wasn't blogs that devoted the summer of 2001 to Gary Condit (uh, ok, well, maybe Josh helped a bit)and the summer of 2005 to a missing girl in Aruba. It wasn't blogs that invented the New York Post or Washington Times. And, it wasn't blogs that were responsible for all of the errors that [Media Matters] tracks on a regular basis.

Gatekeeper media may be dead, but to a great degree they dug their own grave and dove right in. Blogs didn't really get there until after the funeral.

Oh, boy

According to Sy Hersh's latest article in The New Yorker (via Suburban Guerrilla):

Bush’s closest advisers have long been aware of the religious nature of his policy commitments. In recent interviews, one former senior official, who served in Bush’s first term, spoke extensively about the connection between the President’s religious faith and his view of the war in Iraq. After the September 11, 2001, terrorist attacks, the former official said, he was told that Bush felt that “God put me here” to deal with the war on terror. The President’s belief was fortified by the Republican sweep in the 2002 congressional elections; Bush saw the victory as a purposeful message from God that “he’s the man,” the former official said. Publicly, Bush depicted his reëlection as a referendum on the war; privately, he spoke of it as another manifestation of divine purpose.

You know, there's a pretty obvious drawback to assuming that when good things happen to you, it's because God likes you and thinks you're a good person. When bad things start happening, you have to ask yourself, "What have I done to make God angry?"

And if you're a man of such sincere religious faith as Bush no doubt is, it can't help that one or two of the bad things that have happened were...acts of God. It must be driving him absolutely nuts.

Oh, wait. He is. Kos has lengthy excerpts from Hersh's interview with Wolf "you never made a mistake?" Blitzer:

I've been a critic of the war very early in the New Yorker, and there were people talking to me in the last few months that have talked to me for four years that are suddenly saying something much more alarming.

I don't want to sound like I'm off the wall here. But the issue is, is this president going to be capable of responding to reality? Is he going to be able -- is he going to be capable if he going to get a bad assessment, is he going to accept it as a bad assessment or is he simply going to see it as something else that is just a little bit in the way as he marches on in his crusade that may not be judged for 10 or 20 years.

Emphasis mine. This is where we are, folks.

And speaking of fighters for democracy (UPDATE)

Steve Gilliard answers a David Brooks column in which Brooks wonders:

Every time you delve into the situation in Iraq, you come away with the phrase "not enough troops" ringing in your head, and I hope someday we will find out how this travesty came about.

Second, why aren't there more stories about war heroes like Christopher Ieva? The casual courage he and his men displayed is awe-inspiring, but most Americans couldn't name a single hero from this war. That's because despite all the amazing things people are achieving in Iraq, we don't tell their stories back here. That's partly because in the post-Vietnam era many Americans - especially those who dominate the culture - are uncomfortable with military valor.

Steve?

How did this happen? Well, Bobo, it's because Rummy thought machines could take the place of Marine riflemen.

Brooks is lying about military valor. Straight up lying.

Why?

Because the right hates military heroes. They hated Max Clelland, they hated John Kerry, they hate Jack Murtha and they even hate Cindy Sheehan.

2100 dead, 15,000 wounded. Plenty of heroes in those groups, but if we talked about them, wel'd have to ask why so many were hurt and killed while Iraq spirals out of control.

But don't worry, the star of North and Color Of Night is on the case.

Angered by negative portrayals of the conflict in Iraq, Bruce Willis, the Hollywood star, is to make a pro-war film in which American soldiers will be depicted as brave fighters for freedom and democracy.

As opposed to those America-hating films like Saving Private Ryan.

As you can well imagine, in the conservative " blogosphere" this news is being greeted with hosannas. ShrinkWrapped, for example, writes (after a whole bunch of the usual bullshit about how Hollywood is anti-Christian, anti-American, pro-Muslin and too polemical):

This brings up an interesting thought experiment: When this movie (if it is at all well done, and with Willis involved, it will be) brings in $100,000,000 what will Hollywood do for an encore?

Here's a more interesting "thought experiement," at least to me. Why would anybody think "with Willis involved, it will be [well done]?" Really? If this movie is well done (assuming it actually gets made), It'll be because somebody had the fiscal sense to get a good director and a better script.

Is Willis that somebody? Let's focus. The more Willis is involved with his movies as anything other than an actor, the more they tend to suck. And the less they tend to bring in. I direct you to his list of production and/or "writing" credits, which include the Crocodile Hunter movie, Hudson Hawk, and Hostage.

But hey, if it bombs, it'll be because Hollywood blacklisted a "pro-America" movie, right? Not because Willis doesn't know the difference between having clout and having the ability to use that clout.

Gee wilikers, Mr. President

The West Wing has officially turned into some sort of junior high-level weekly soap. (And I apologize up front to the junior high school students who may be readers of this blog for my disparaging comparison.) Bushie is peevish about his peeps talking smack about him under anonymous cover with reporters.

Two sources said Bush has not only lost some confidence in his top aides, as the Daily News has previously reported, but is furious with a stream of leaks about the mood within the West Wing.

"He's asking [friends] for opinions on who he can trust and who he can't," one knowledgeable source said.

No one wants to breakfast with Rove any more. Guess the Jimmy Dean people will have to refinance soon. And with so many Administration ostriches burying their heads in the sand, the rest of the GOP has started complaining that all they see is the ass-end of the White House.

Via firedoglake.

Well George, you know, there are one or two people working for you right now who are known, admitted leakers. If you wanted to send a message you were serious about putting an end to it, you could always fire them.

You're not going to do that? Then fuck you.