FU Safire & Russert

I'm sitting here watching Meet the Press and they were talking about the run up to the Iraq War with William Safire, Maureen Dowd, & Thom Friedman, and Russert mentions the faulty intelligence. Safire says that is what they all believed to be true, and Russert says something to the effest of "Isn't that want you wanted to believe. You didn't want to know otherwise?" To which safire replies "Of course not," and they all share a hearty laugh. Laughing that they all wanted the war, no matter what the evidence said.

When I get a transcript I will post the actual quote.

Fuck them all.

Red State/Blue State

From what I can remember, before the 2000 election, the whole red state/blue state map was a fluid thing. Being a new father who gets no sleep, I am too tired to do actual research right now other than a link here, but I distinctly recall seeing an article that the colors changed from network to network, election to election. In one election the democrat states would be red, the GOP blue. The article linked mentions that before 1992 the dems were red, GOP blue.

My idea is that the networks should change the colors in the 2008 election. They could even try it for the 2006 midterm elections. The Democrats could become red again (although that would give the Republicans ammo for labelling them communists again. And the Repubs could become the bluebloods again).

The reason I suggest this is because of a post I read today on the internets best blog, by Digby. One of the things I took from the post was regarding the North/South divide from the civil war. It got me thinking about how this red/blue thing has helped propogate the divisiveness between the parties and states. It has allowed for the easy demonization of the other side. But if all of a sudden I lived in a Red State, then that demonization wouldn't take hold as easy. I'm actually exhausted right now and will work on a more coherent explanation in the near future, but what I am trying t0 get at is that by allowing the media to continue this lazy shorthand, we will, in a small way, continue to see those in the "red" states as others, and vice versa.

I loathe everything the Republican Party is doing to this country right now, but I am directing my anger at a party, not a collection of entire red states. If we change the colors in the next election, the wholesale demonization of entire states will be less attractive. It's only a symbol, but as we all know, symbols matter.

If you have any opinions on this, please feel free to add them.

Grace...Baby Genius

The smallest thing can get me excited these days.

This morning Grace was sitting on the bed and I asked her, "Grace, where is the fan?" She immediately looked to he ceiling at the ceiling fan. Then I asked her "Grace, where is the cat?" and she immediately looked at our cat Frank on the bed.

For a split second I felt like I was treating her like a trained monkey but that ended when I realized that I WAS COMMUNICATING WITH MY DAUGHTER!!!!

Tomorrow I move on to communicating with her about Born to Run & London Calling.

Curious about reaction to "Finding Neverland"

Just finished watching "Finding Neverland" with my wife and we were both moved by it. (gotta love those Academy Screening DVDs)

I am curious, as this is the first real tear-jerker we have seen since the birth of Grace, but is my (and her) blubbery reaction to it heightened because I am a new parent (if you haven't seen it, it features several children in very important roles) or was it simply a great movie? I am worried that I will now fall apart at any sentimental offering from Hollywood. My initial feeling is that it was simply a fine movie and I haven't become like that girl who used to work for me that lost it nearly every day.

The movie kind of reminded me of Shadowlands, an extremely underrated movie about CS Lewis starring Anthony Hopkins & Debra Winger.

Here is the ad I was referring to in the previous post

If they think this is going to work, then I have a quote for them:
"You're dumber than you think I think you are."

Let's sick Wilford Brimley on them

Apparently, the folks who brought you the Swift Boat Veterans have set their sights on the AARP.

According to today's NY Times, the President of USANext, (whose spokesman is Art Linkletter, and yes, I too thought he was either dead or stuck in one of those recliner beds in Scottsdale) speaking about the AARP, was quoted thusly:

"They are the boulder in the middle of the highway to personal savings accounts," said Charlie Jarvis, president of USA Next and former deputy under secretary of the interior in the Reagan and first Bush administrations. "We will be the dynamite that removes them."

I am by no means the first to make the connection, but this is the thanks they get for backing Bush's bloated Medicare drug prescription bill. This is furhter proof that these folks need to be opposed on EVERYTHING they propose.

And how do they plan on smearing the senior citizens of America? By claiming that the AARP doesn't support our troops, but does support gay marriage.

I'm not kidding. If I was smarter, I could figure out a way to post the ad of theirs, but it's an animated GIF file and I'm stupid. So CLICK HERE to see the ad. Truly mind-boggling.

You read it here first

The White House is readying their defense for when this Jeff Gannon Jim Guckert story explodes. It's buried in the last sentence of an article on Page A22 of today's NY Times:

"The credentialing is all handled at the staff assistant level," Mr. McClellan.

It will all be laid at the crotch of some low level staff person, sort of like Abu Ghraib.