Today's Words of Wisdom

Never shake the bucket of nuts before you're tied to the yak rope.

Hey, Ray! This is how it is done.

Since ole Ray Nagin apparently played hooky from Mayor's school on the day they covered evacuations ahead of natural disasters, he might want to pay some attention to the city of Galveston. (Hat tip: rebelbase)

Tears of a Clown

My apologies to Smokey Robinson, but the only other title I could come up with was Old JO gets all sniffly about NJO:

Former CBS News anchor Dan Rather said Monday that there is a climate of fear running through newsrooms stronger than he has ever seen in his more than four-decade career.

Somebody stole the New Year's Eve party fund?

Addressing the Fordham University School of Law in Manhattan, occasionally forcing back tears, he said that in the intervening years, politicians "of every persuasion" had gotten better at applying pressure on the conglomerates that own the broadcast networks. He called it a "new journalism order."

Sounds like another one of Dan's bogus stories. I wonder if someone FAXed him the details from Kinkos?

He said this pressure -- along with the "dumbed-down, tarted-up" coverage, the advent of 24-hour cable competition and the chase for ratings and demographics -- has taken its toll on the news business. "All of this creates a bigger atmosphere of fear in newsrooms," Rather said.

I guess being an egotistical, pompous ass with a mile wide bias and a proclivity for making up stories just doesn't cut it any more.

Rather was accompanied by HBO Documentary and Family president Sheila Nevins, both of whom were due to receive lifetime achievement awards at the News and Documentary Emmy Awards on Monday evening.
...
Nevins took up the cause for Rather, who was emotional several times during the event.

"When a man is close to tears discussing his work and his lip quivers, he deserves bosses who punch back. I feel I would punch back for Dan," Nevins said.

Ruh Oh! Sheila must pull her documentaries out of her butt too.

But not to worry, Captain Dan! There are little people in newsrooms all across America who are following in your footsteps! Take Shadi Rahimi at the New York Times who comes up with beauts like:

Many New Yorkers said yesterday that Ms. Sheehan gave them back hope that was lost when war was declared on Iraq.

The only New Yorkers ole Shadi mentions are the Stalinists that hover around Cindy like flies on a cow flop, but I guess there must have been some more back at the NY Times newsroom. Of course, some of them won't be there too much longer - 'Black Tuesday' Continues: NYT Co. Cutting 500 Jobs. Follow the link for a nice snap of Arthur "Punk" Sulzberger Jr. and the details of the layoffs at the Times and Boston Globe. The reference to "Black Tuesday" is because a number of other big dailies around the country also chose today to announce layoffs. Had to happen - the news is more accurate in the Weekly Shopper and the ads are better.

Today's Hoot!

Don't Get Stuck On Stupid:

New Orleans Mayor Ray Nagin held a press conference a little bit ago, and started losing control to a media pool assembled that was showing signs of panic, due to the previous incompetence in the region by the local and state government. Lt. Gen. Russel Honore stepped in and literally took over. Here's what he had to say:

Hit the link for the transcript and audio, but here's the nut:

Male reporter: General, a little bit more about why that's happening this time, though, and did not have that last time...

Honore: You are stuck on stupid. I'm not going to answer that question. We are going to deal with Rita.

I think the General just started a movement, and he may not even realize it. Every time a reporter, in any situation, starts spinning, or completely misses the point, they need to be peppered with, "Don't get stuck on stupid."

I'd pay money to see David Gregory in the White House Press Corps foaming at the mouth over something trivial Scott McClellan said, and have McClellan say, "David, you're stuck on stupid. I'm not going to answer that."

Stuck on stupid and can't find the gear shift. Isn't that the MSM motto?

Good ole American ingenuity!

Mickey Kaus:

It seems to me, though, that the NYT is missing an obvious, lucrative marketing angle. It would be a variant of the idea my college friend Mark had for a Reverse Record Store--you'd go and pay them $11.99 and they'd take your money and use it (along with the $11.99 payments of others) to bribe Paul McCartney to not make an album that year.

Similarly, imagine TimesDelete: for $19.95 a month, say, TimesDelete's premium subscribers could vote on one op-ed columnist to take an extended vacation. If more people picked Krugman rather than Brooks, Krugman would get his salary plus a bonus on the condition that he maintain a meaningful silence for several weeks. The race would be tight every month, I should imagine, with Republicans and Democrats trying to outvote each other. But you can't play if you don't pay! I'd say this is surefire, supplemental revenue stream would bring in way more than the puny $20 or $30 million dollars a year the Times might hope to make from TimesSelect, especially if the business model were extended to the news pages. Adam Nagourney--your ship has come in!

And why limit it to just one Times scribe? I admit that this plan bears an unfortunate resemblance to the protection racket, but who wouldn't kick in a few bucks to prevent the public simperings of Maureen Dowd?

Today's Hoot!

James Taranto:

The New York Times today began charging for online access to its op-ed and other columnists. Seems to us, though, that the Times Co. is missing out on a gold mine by allowing free access to the Boston Globe's letters to the editor, which are far more entertaining than Paul Krugman and Maureen Dowd. Here's Aline Kaplan of Sudbury, weighing in yesterday:

Conservative friends have been sending me long, detailed e-mails about the government's response to Hurricane Katrina. They are all designed to place the blame on New Orleans Mayor C. Ray Nagin and Louisiana Governor Kathleen Blanco, while exonerating President Bush. These electronic messages have certainly been impressive and revealed previously unknown facts. After reading them, I acknowledge the timelines of what happened, when and who knew what, and when and who signed what and when. My friends are right that state and local government were the first lines of defense--and they failed. This represents a systemic failure of government at all levels.

While their details are valid and their points well made, these are merely the facts.

Today, Jeffrey J. Cymrot of Boston urges surrender:

Though valiant, the president's determination to restore a destroyed city and to rebuild a flood protection system ''stronger than it has ever been" contains within it an arrogance reminiscent of the pharaohs and the kings of antiquity. I consider it unfortunate that occupants of what has become an imperial presidency issue statements such as this, and the citizenry blithely accepts them as ordinary expressions of Pax Americana. I have begun to wonder where this hubris will end.

The gods are angry, and we must appease them!

Hot dang! I knew it was time to break out the virgins!

Help Cindy get her groove back!

(Hat tip: Sacred Cow Burgers)

Let's face it, a career as a media whore is tough. One day you're the toast of the limousine liberals and mainstream media with catered meals and foot massages; the next you're schlepping around the country in a minivan filled with Stalinists trying to fire up a handful of room temperature IQ wingnuts on street corners. Got to be a downer, right?

Well, ole Cindy Sheehan is trying her best to get back in the limelight, but it just doesn't seem to be working out. First, apparently having never heard of an Arkansas dirt nap, she starts beating up on both Hillary and Bubba Clinton. Then her "big" rally in New York City gets cut off for lack of a permit:

At the conclusion of her speech, from my perspective, a few loud and impassioned boos erupted, then I saw a hand come from behind Cindy and grab her shoulder-strap on her backpack. The arm jerked her backwards, with such force as to snap her head forward, and she fell from my view.

Bummer! She'll sure need a few brewskis back at the Stalinvan after a day like that.

But not to worry, Cindy! Lots of folks are thinking of you and one has made an incredibly worthwhile suggestion - An open invitation to Cindy Sheehan: Please bring Camp Casey up to Chappaqua and set up shop in front of Bill and Hill's Fuehrer Bunker. That'll get Hillary's attention and probably Bubba's too, but watch his hands!

Aw Jeez! Not this crap again!

(Hat tip: Echo Talon)

Big Lizards:

Bill Clinton flings his dirt like a monkey with a handful of monkey byproduct, and for the same reason: to mark his territory and ward off enemies -- Republicans who might stand in the way of Billary's return to la Casa Blanca. This is, of course, the open secret we're supposed to forget: that Hillary has designs on the presidency, and that her husband would of course go along for the ride... and possibly even take the wheel when she wasn't looking.

So now, Three-Term Bill suddenly decides that "there was no evidence that there were weapons of mass destruction" in Iraq after all (but read Power Line for a Clinton Cwote from 2003 on that subject), that the military has become too small for the job under George W. Bush (wait -- didn't we use to have sixteen divisions in 1992?), and that we've been "unsuccessful" in Iraq because the proposed Iraqi constitution is not "universally supported" (yes, we've lost the crucial Zarqawi - al Duri vote).

C'mon Bubba! Tell us again how you blew up the aspirin factory!

Kind of like a pig in heat

No longer centre stage, but Clinton leaves them calling for more:

If there was any doubt that Bill Clinton still elicits the adoration of women, Barbra Streisand was on hand last week to squash it.

As the former president laid out his agenda for world change from a podium flanked by Tony Blair, Condoleezza Rice and King Abdullah of Jordan, the singer-actress emitted a series of gentle but disconcerting squeals of approval, interspersed with admiring sighs.

No wonder Hillary banned Babs from staying over night at the White House!

No need to worry about an idiot shortage!

Mark Steyn has some fun with prize prat, Chuck Schumer:

New York's senior senator, Chuck Schumer, began with some observations about Judge Roberts' "troubling" record on "the issue of civil rights." Ah-ha! "Many of us consider racism the nation's poison," he said sternly. And then he dropped the big one: Twenty-five years ago Roberts had inappropriately used the word "amigos" in a memo.

Woohoo!

I yield to no one in my disdain for Schumer, but at that moment my heart went out to him. If I'd been president, I'd have declared his mouth a federal disaster area and allocated $200 billion so FEMA could parachute in a reconstruction team to restore his tongue to its previous level of toxicity.

He is a national treasure!

Alas, two days later the watery gush that had transformed Schumer into his own devastated wetland had still not dried up. He'd pretty much abandoned the racism angle of the inappropriate "amigos," though he trotted out some boilerplate about how it reflected the "misguided" and "cramped view of civil rights professed in the early Reagan administration." But by Day Four, he'd moved on to "the question of compassion and humanity," telling the judge that he had grave concerns about "the fullness of your heart.''

And what was Exhibit A for the heartlessness of Roberts? Well, back in the early '80s it seems he wrote this memo containing the word "amigos."

Hey, Chuck! What you are you doing with that dead horse?

Oh, dear. With enemies like Chuck, who needs amigos? Whatever happened to the party's fearsome forensic skills at "the politics of personal destruction"? Granted, blathering on about how, if the other guy doesn't agree with your views, he must be deficient in "compassion and humanity" is a lot of baloney even by mawkish Dem standards. But, if you're going to twitter about the fullness of somebody's heart, why get Chuck Schumer to play Senator Oprah? He has the shifty air of a mob accountant, even with every intern on his staff holding onions under his eyes.

That's ole Chuck fer sure.