WHITE HOUSE: We’re okay with armed protesters.
Archive for 2009
August 19, 2009
REYES CONVICTION REVERSED FOR PROSECUTORIAL MISCONDUCT: “Former CEO of Brocade Communications Systems, Gregory Reyes, had his convictions overturned by the the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals. The court reversed Reyes’ conviction ‘because of prosecutorial misconduct in making a false assertion of material fact to the jury in closing argument.'”
JOSH MARSHALL: “Let’s be honest with ourselves: the American right has a deep-seated problem with political violence.”
You mean like the violence against Ken Gladney? A peaceful black guy beaten by thugs who called him the N-word? Who wouldn’t have a problem with that? Oh, wait, I get it . . . .
UPDATE: A reader sends this, too.
ANOTHER UPDATE: Reader Steve Walsh writes: “Josh Marshall has apparently forgotten about the assassination attempts on Gerald Ford and Ronald Reagan. I find it both comical and disturbing that he equates the carrying of a legal gun to a political event with the Oklahoma City bombing. Insanity, not political affiliation, is the common thread among Lynette ‘Squeaky’ Fromme, John Hinckley, Francisco Duran, and Timothy McVeigh.”
If you’re looking for lefty violence, what about Lee Harvey Oswald, who by any objective measure was far-left? As for the legal carrying of guns, Marshall has — in a rare turn of events — gotten himself out of sync with the White House message. I’m sure he’ll rectify that posthaste.
And reader Richard Samuelson writes, “Don’t forget the Black Panthers, who Obama won’t prosecute.”
MORE: Media Barely Noticed Legal Gun-brandishing By Black Panthers in 2000 Protest. Doesn’t fit the narrative. You can usually figure out what the narrative’s supposed to be, and if there’s any doubt Josh will usually tell you, though in this case he got a bit too far out in front of the White House.
August 18, 2009
Remember when polite society treated a politician’s use of the word “evil” as a sign that the old boy was dangerously lacking upstairs?
We saw it in 1983, when Ronald Reagan famously used the word in a speech to describe the Soviet empire. What a rube! New York Times columnist Anthony Lewis spoke for the smart set when he wondered what Soviet leaders must think: “What confidence can they have in the restraint of an American leader with such an outlook?”
We saw it again in 2002, when George W. Bush characterized North Korea, Iran and Saddam Hussein’s Iraq as an “axis of evil.” Tom Daschle, a Democrat and then Senate majority leader, warned that “we’ve got to be very careful with rhetoric of that kind”; former President Jimmy Carter called it “overly simplistic and counterproductive”; and comedian Will Ferrell parodied it on Saturday Night Live. Soon the phrase became acceptable only in the ironic sense—as in the Chris Fair cookbook titled “Cuisines of the Axis of Evil and Other Irritating States: A Dinner Party Approach to International Relations.”
With all this history, you would think Harry Reid (D., Nev.) had ample warning. Nevertheless, the Senate majority leader invoked the e-word himself last week at an energy conference in Las Vegas, where he accused those protesting President Barack Obama’s health-care proposals of being “evil mongers.” So proud was he of this contribution to the American political lexicon that he repeated it to a reporter the next day and noted the phrase was “an original.”
And then . . . nothing. No thundering rebuke from the New York Times. No outburst from Mr. Carter. In fact, it’s hard not to notice that the good and gracious people who instinctively recoil at words like “evil” or “un-American” (the preferred term of Mr. Reid’s counterpart in the House, Speaker Nancy Pelosi) have all been silent.
But the people he was calling “evil” were opponents of the Democratic agenda.
METHANE SEEPS FROM ARCTIC SEABED. Uh oh. This is how Mother of Storms started . . . .
GALLUP: Obama approval at new low, disapproval at new high.
LOGROLLING IN OUR TIME: Obama Campaign Ad Firms Signed On to Push Health-Care Overhaul. “Two firms that received $343.3 million to handle advertising for Barack Obama’s White House run last year have profited from his top priority as president by taking on his push for health-care overhaul. One is AKPD Message and Media, the Chicago-based firm headed by David Axelrod until he left last Dec. 31 to serve as a senior adviser to the president. Axelrod was Obama’s top campaign strategist and is now helping sell the health-care plan. The other firm is Washington-based GMMB Campaign Group, where partner Jim Margolis was also an Obama strategist. . . . Axelrod was president and sole shareholder of AKPD from 1985 until he sold his interest after Obama’s victory, government records show. The firm owes Axelrod $2 million, which it’s due to pay in installments beginning Dec. 31. Axelrod’s son, Michael, still works there. He didn’t return a phone call. The firm’s Web site continues to feature David Axelrod’s work on the Obama campaign.”
Ben Smith at Politico: “It’s hard to imagine a situation in which, say, Karl Rove was still getting checks from a firm that was, in turn, employed by the drug lobby not drawing fire from the left, and Axelrod’s arrangement is, a bit belatedly, getting that attention.” (Via NewsAlert).
READER ROBIN LYONS WRITES:
Two very important questions women voters would like an answer to….
1) Will Bill Whittle make a Presidential run?
and more importantly
2) Is he Single?
Yes, he’s single. As for the Presidential run, well, you’ll have to ask him yourself. However, he did email that the bumpersticker featured here is available online.
GRANDMA is an angry mob.
WHY THEY’RE SCREAMING “RACIST!” “It comes from a sense of desperation on the Left, borne of the realization that they miscalculated the health-care debate. As objections have grown, they have tried to find ways to silence the opposition — because they can’t answer the actual objections. Some advocates have honestly tried to argue for the benefits they see from a government-run system, but most just vilify and demonize the opposition instead. The racism charge is truly a desperate, Hail Mary rhetorical pass. Supposedly, all of this opposition comes from the color of our President’s skin, despite the fact that he won 53% of the vote just nine months ago. However, how do these people explain the same exact furor over the Clinton effort to nationalize health care 16 years ago?”
BARNEY FRANK MEETS THE MOB. Even in the bluest states, there’s no escaping them.
TEA PARTY UPDATE: Seven citizens meet with Barbara Boxer’s San Diego rep. “Our thinking was, since our senator will not come to the townhall, the townhall will come to our senator.” They look like a bunch of angry “evil-mongers” to me!
UPDATE: Perhaps Carly Fiorina will be willing to meet with them in person, and not via staff.
IF YOU WON’T DO IT, I WILL:
In a move that’s as in-your-face as you can get, Manchester, NH Mayor and Republican candidate for Congress Frank Guinta will host a health care town hall in Exeter on August 31st. In the press release announcing the town hall, the Guinta campaign doesn’t even pretend that the move is anything other than a slap at incumbent Democratic Rep. Carol Shea-Porter (NH-01).
“It is unthinkable, that an elected leader who herself is famous for her attendance and outspoken opposition at her predecessors’ town halls, would simply refuse to allow the same opportunity to her constituents, “said Guinta.
Shea-Porter, who was a vocal anti-war activist before winning her seat in 2006, essentially hounded then-Republican Congressman Jeb Bradley at his town halls in the years leading up to their race.
Shea-Porter was once forcibly removed from a George W. Bush speech in Portsmouth for protesting while wearing a shirt that read, “Turn your back on Bush.” She also once protested in front of the State House in Concord alongside demonstrators dressed as Nazis.
Heh. But I thought Nazi references were utterly out of bounds in American politics . . . .
MICHAEL JACKSON’S FBI FILE: 591 pages.
To listen to the White House and its supporters, in and out of the media, you would think that opposition to “Obama-care” is the hobgoblin of a few small minds on the right. Racists, fascists, Neanderthals, the whole “Star Wars” cantina of boogeymen and cranks stand opposed to much-needed reform.
Left out of this fairly naked effort to demonize a great many with the actions of a tiny few is the simple fact that Obama-care — however defined — has been tanking in the polls for weeks. President Obama’s handling of healthcare is unpopular with a majority of Americans and a majority of self-proclaimed independents.
Focusing on the town halls certainly has its merits, but if you actually wanted Obama-care to pass, casting a majority of Americans as being stooges of racist goons may not be the best way to go.
No, but it makes a substantial portion of the base happy.
PROVOCATEUR? Attorney: FBI trained NJ blogger to incite others. “A New Jersey blogger facing charges in two states for allegedly making threats against lawmakers and judges was trained by the FBI on how to be deliberately provocative, his attorney said Tuesday. . . . Prosecutors have acknowledged that Turner was an informant who spied on radical right-wing organizations, but the defense has said Turner was not working for the FBI when he allegedly made threats against Connecticut legislators and wrote that three federal judges in Illinois deserved to die.” Hmm. It will be interesting to see how this plays out. I do remember hearing about this advice from the 1960s — you can always spot the FBI informant, because he’ll be the one constantly urging illegal actions.
STACKED AND PACKED: Orlando Congressman Alan Grayson’s “Union Town Hall.”
UPDATE: Jim Pereira was there and has posted reports here and here. With photos.
ANOTHER UPDATE: More pics, and video.
WIRED: Kodak Zi8: Best Pocket Cam We’ve Seen All Year. It’ll be released on September 15. That’s too late for the “recess rallies” or the September 12 Tea Party, but there’s always the old reliable for those . . . .
FASTER, PLEASE: Tests Begin On Drugs That May Slow Aging.
REVIEWING THE REVIEWERS: A roundup of book reviews from all over.
THE SAUDI ARABIA of Shale Oil?
NO LONGER A GOLD STANDARD: DNA Evidence Can Be Fabricated, Scientists Show.
The scientists fabricated blood and saliva samples containing DNA from a person other than the donor of the blood and saliva. They also showed that if they had access to a DNA profile in a database, they could construct a sample of DNA to match that profile without obtaining any tissue from that person.
“You can just engineer a crime scene,” said Dan Frumkin, lead author of the paper, which has been published online by the journal Forensic Science International: Genetics. “Any biology undergraduate could perform this.”
All scientific evidence is less determinative than people pretend, but this is certainly big news.
GRAND ROUNDS is up!