A few days ago my friend George of GM’s Corner sent me an email I could never have expected. He had just been through a series of tests and been diagnosed with lung cancer. I was stunned.

He asked me to keep this confidential until he had a chance to make an anouncement on his blog. Well now he has. In fact he has posted an update and subsequent tests look good.

George also talks about how his cancer was discovered here.

I am not a religous man but I feel compelled to ask you to join me in praying for George. Pray that he is able to keep his good sense of humor and optimism. Pray for his speedy recovery, good health, and long life. Pray to god that he give George and his family the strength to see this through and beat it.

I know this helps because George has said so himself. So please join me in taking a moment every day to pray for George Mann Roper and his family.

Some people say you can judge a man by his friends. Well George has a lot of them, I am honored and humbled that he counts me as one of them.

Here are just a few of George’s friends in the blogoshpere:

Slobokan,Small Town Veteran, RomeoCat, And Rightly So!,

I introduced this feature late last week and selected Woman Honor Thyself as the first Blog of the Month. Well today I have a couple more for you.

In Keeping with good manners we will begin with ladies first and Alexandra of All Things Beautiful who is a lady by any definition. If you have not visited her blog yet do it right now! It may be the most appropriate title of any blog ever. It is in a word BEAUTIFUL It doesn’t look like a blog it looks like a very expensive magazine and the quality doesn’t end with aesthetics. You will not find more consistent intelligent and thought provoking writing anywhere on the net. Alexandra who is a formidable writer in her own right also features in depth articles like this one from a Professor of Islamic Medieval History titled The Jihad Apocalypse. When you have about 20 minutes read it. I promise you will visit All Things Beautiful regularly from then on.

The other Blog I would like to add is Third World County. This post kinda sums David up for me. David is a smart guy and a funny guy but he doesn’t waste time posturing trying to impress you with how smart he is. He just calls em like he sees em and I can’t remember a time when I saw it differently. Something else important to me is Dave is a nice guy. He links to lots of other blogs big and small as long as the post is good. He also has his own Blogs Of The Week feature where he links to lesser known blogs (like this one) and he hosts open posts daily during the week.

These blogs will remain in the Blogs of the Month section until the end of February. I hope you find them as enjoyable as I do.

Glenn Greenwald of course completely agrees with this Op Ed in the New York Times from Joseph J. Ellis.. They both conclude that those of us who take the terrorism threat seriously are a bunch of frightened rubes who have been manipulated by the spin masters.

This first question I have is if their argument is so sound why do they continue to attempt to mislead people to make their point? The very first paragraph of Ellis’ Op-Ed says:

In recent weeks, President Bush and his administration have mounted a spirited defense of his Iraq policy, the Patriot Act and, especially, a program to wiretap civilians, often reaching back into American history for precedents to justify these actions.

He conspicuously fails to mention these “civilians” are on international calls with known Al Qaeda members or affiliates. Something most people would consider relevant.

Ellis goes on:

My first question: where does Sept. 11 rank in the grand sweep of American history as a threat to national security? By my calculations it does not make the top tier of the list, which requires the threat to pose a serious challenge to the survival of the American republic.

Here is my version of the top tier: the War for Independence, where defeat meant no United States of America; the War of 1812, when the national capital was burned to the ground; the Civil War, which threatened the survival of the Union; World War II, which represented a totalitarian threat to democracy and capitalism; the cold war, most specifically the Cuban missile crisis of 1962, which made nuclear annihilation a distinct possibility.

Sept. 11 does not rise to that level of threat because, while it places lives and lifestyles at risk, it does not threaten the survival of the American republic, even though the terrorists would like us to believe so.

To which Greenwald responds:

All of this seems obvious at this point. The total number of Americans killed by Islamic terrorists in the last 5 years — or 10 years — or 20 years — or ever — is roughly 3,500, the same number of deaths by suicide which occur in this country every month. This is the overarching threat around which we are constructing our entire foreign policy, changing the basic principles of our government, and fundamentally altering both our behavior in the world and the way in which we are perceived.

The first question for both Ellis and Greenwald would be exactly how serious do you believe this threat to be?

Is it more serious than a hangnail but less serious than let’s say drunk driving?

Oh that’s right Glenn already answered. The possibility of Mass suicide is a far more dangerous threat than an organized world wide network of terrorists who have publicly and repeatedly stated their objectives are:

1. The destruction of the United States
2. The extinction of Israel
3. The imposition of fundamentalist Islam on the entire world.

Ellis points out that in the war of 1812 “the national capital was burned to the ground”.

True and on 9/11 the two tallest buildings in the world came crashing down. Our nation’s most populated city was attacked. Our nation’s military headquarters (located in the capital city) was attacked and severely damaged. 4 civil airplanes were simultaneously hijacked, and over 3,000 civilians were killed in the single largest attack to ever occur on American soil. That’s pretty big. Don’t you think?

We now know that the White House itself was a target. Only through the inspiring bravery of the men and women of the NYC fire and police departments, the incredible heroism of a few civilian passengers on one of those planes, the heroic actions of one man in the WTC, and sheer luck in the timing did we avoid the deaths of thousands more.

Ellis also reminds us (he is a historian see and it’s his job to know this stuff) that “World War II, represented “a totalitarian threat to democracy and capitalism.”

I suppose these Al Qaeda guys just want to play tiddlywinks?

All that talk about Sharia law is just nonsense right?

Which begs the next question, do you not take our enemy at his word?

Or do you just not believe they have the means to achieve their objectives?

The professionals whose job it is to protect us from terrorist attacks and military threats believe they do indeed have the will and the means. In fact people who do this for a living and our political leaders on both sides of the aisle say it is a matter of when not if a WMD will be used against this country.

Ellis again draws on his unmatched knowledge of history to quote Patrick Henry and conclude we are all just scared little children afraid of a non existent boogey man under the bed.

What Patrick Henry once called “the lamp of experience” needs to be brought into the shadowy space in which we have all been living since Sept. 11. My tentative conclusion is that the light it sheds exposes the ghosts and goblins of our traumatized imaginations. It is completely understandable that those who lost loved ones on that date will carry emotional scars for the remainder of their lives. But it defies reason and experience to make Sept. 11 the defining influence on our foreign and domestic policy. History suggests that we have faced greater challenges and triumphed, and that overreaction is a greater danger than complacency.

Oh really now? do you think a few of the 6 million jews who were starved, tortured, gassed and stuffed into ovens might have lived if we hadn’t been so “complacent” about Hitler?

Do you think we could have avoided a few of the 60 million plus deaths if we had taken that threat more seriously a little sooner?

Exactly what over reaction are you referring to Mr. Ellis?

Our invasion of Afghanistan and toppling of the Taliban government?

The invasion of Iraq and toppling of our sworn enemy Saddam Hussein?

The imprisonment of Al Qaeda agents in Guantanamo?

The Patriot Act?

The NSA program?

Or all of the above?

Would you equate the prisoners at Guantanamo with the internment of Japanese Citizens?

Would you put the NSA program on the same level as the denial of Habeas Corpus?

Did the Patriot Act result in the closing of any newspapers?

Would you compare the invasion of Iraq or Afghanistan and the undeniably painful efforts our military has undertaken to prevent civilian casualties to lets say…..the fire bombing of Dresden or dropping two atomic bombs on major Japanese cities?

When put that way it just sounds kind of absurd doesn’t it?

This post by American Future is a must read. It addresses the FISA arguments specifically and concludes as I do that Glenn’s comparison of the total number of deaths by Suicide in the US to the number of deaths from terrorism as a specious one.

The Moderate Voice has more.

It seems there other bloggers agreeing with Glenn including Before the Law, and The Long Goodbye.

Although they haven’t specifically endorsed this Op-Ed or Glenn’’s post Jay at Stop the ACLU shows us that the ACLU definitely sees it the same way.

Sister Toldjh and Michelle Malkin on the other hand agree with the Op-Ed from Debra Burlingame whose brother was the pilot of AA flight 77 that was hijacked on 9/11. You have to read Ms. Burlingame’s Op-Ed which is a stark contrast to those of Mr.s Ellis and Greenwald.

This post is also linked to the following bloggers who have Open Trackbacks today: Third World County, Is It Just Me? , Don Surber, and Basil’s Blog,

Be sure to visit their blogs, consume their unrivaled prose, click on those annoying ads, donate using their pay pal buttons and Tip Your Waitress!

This is one of the better “Lies Damn Lies and Statistics” posts I have seen in a long time. Pat from Brainster nails the American Prospect for their obviously massaged and bogus figures in trying to exculpate (thats Pats big word not mine) the Democrats in the Abramoff scandal.

But their analysis is incredibly shoddy. Consider this:

2) Tribe: Chitimacha Tribe of Louisiana
Pre-Abramoff contributions to Dems (1991 - 9/2000): $61,320
Pre-Abramoff contributions to GOP (1991 - 9/2000): $48,560
Post-Abramoff contributions to Dems (9/2000 - 2003): $64,000
Post-Abramoff contributions to GOP(9/2000 - 2003): $162,590

(snip)

At the same time, two of those four tribes — Saginaw and Chitimacha — saw their giving to Democrats drop or remain static.

Well, let’s examine that claim. The Chitimacha made contributions to Democrats over nine years of $61,000, so that’s about $6,800 per year before Abramoff, and they made contributions after signing with Abramoff of $64,000 over three years, or $21,000 a year. So the notion that the last few years have seen “their giving to Democrats drop or remain static,” is obviously false. It’s the same with the Saginaw tribe, who went from giving $40,000 a year to the Democrats before Abramoff to $60,000 a year after Abramoff.

Doh!! Nice Job Pat. Brainster > American Prospect.

Glenn Greenwald has been beating this horse for some time now here, here, here, and here. I thought I would bring an exchange between myself and one of the clear headed comments over here in attempt to get some more objective opinions weighing in.

If you are not a regular reader of Glenn’s blog you should be. His arguments are about as reasonable as it gets from the left.

Please read Glenn’s latest post, and then my exchange here with Hypathia.

The Ugly American said…

Sorry I haven’t taken the time to address your continued beating of this dead horse Glenn 8).

Just a couple of questions.

1. You do recognize that the administration in fact did notify senior leadership from both parties in the appropriate committees in Congress and the Senate of their NSA survielance numerous times correct?

2. Do you have any evidence of any particular person who’s civil rights were violated, or any evidence of an abuse of this program? not theories, or possibilities but real living people who were harmed by it.

3. If not (and you do not) then where are these victims that must exist somewhere?

Glenn never responded but a frequent poster and GWB supporter in 2004 did here was her reply:

Hypatia said…

The Ugly American asks: 2. Do you have any evidence of any particular person who’s civil rights were violated, or any evidence of an abuse of this program? not theories, or possibilities but real living people who were harmed by it.

Allow me to reply to that. It is beyond any dispute that people’s civil rights were violated, because the Bush Admin admits it has been intercepting and monitoring the communications of persons in the United States without warrants, in contravention of FISA.

While we do not know the identities of these individuals, it is known that some John and Jane Does have been harmed; your privacy interests are violated if the police tap your telephone without a warrant and in the absence of any (rare) circumstances that exempt the 4th Am warrant requirement for telephone surveillance. That is true even if you are engaged in a criminal enterprise.

In sum: Violating one’s privacy right to be free from unreasonable governmental searches is an intrinsic harm.

and my reply to her:

The Ugly American said…

First of all I appreciate your point Hypathia.

in order for your reply to be correct wouldn’t a person need to be innocent and not communicating with some Al Qaeda person on an international phone call?

My point was neither you nor Glenn nor anyone else knows exactly who’s calls were monitored. It is entirely possible that the NSA only monitored known Al Qaeda affiliates speaking with an unknown person here in the US.

Those are not your average john or jane doe’s those are enemy agents and therefore not protected by your or my civil rights are they?

If that is true I do not see how you can argue anyones rights were violated.

Now it could also be true that some innocent civilian’s phone call was monitored. But you would have to have some kind of proof of that first wouldn’t you?

Don’t you need a victim?

Up until this point no one has come forward who knows their call was monitored.

Keep in mind this program is/was top secret (I believe necessarily so) to thwart our enemy in war time. It seems entirely reasonable to me that our government would monitor foreign powers attempting to attack us with the cooperation or direct involvement of citizens or resident aliens in the US without aquiring a warrent.

Because of the highly sensitive nature of the program it is the Congress and Senate leaders who were briefed responsibility to make sure this is the case is it not?

My point was we do not know who was monitored nor should we have known. However the Congressmen and Senators who were briefed damn well should have known. If there was any question of legality they should have raised concerns a very long time ago. The fact that they did not leads me to believe they thought everything was proper. The only other possibilities are they were complicit or incompetent right?

and Hypathia’s reply:

Hypatia said…

The Ugly American:

I’d like to pose a question to you, and I’m not being snarky at all; I’d really like to know what you believe is the purpose of the 4th Am, which reads as follows:

The right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures, shall not be violated, and no Warrants shall issue, but upon probable cause, supported by Oath or affirmation, and particularly describing the place to be searched, and the persons or things to be seized.

and finally my reply:

The Ugly American said…

I believe you are trying to be constructive Hypathia as I always do. I welcome it. Your concerns are valid and reasonable. However I do not share them.

Even though you answered none of my questions I will gladly answer yours:

The right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures, shall not be violated, and no Warrants shall issue, but upon probable cause, supported by Oath or affirmation, and particularly describing the place to be searched, and the persons or things to be seized.

To me that means law enforcement can not without probable cause and a warrent search my home, listen to my phone calls, or seize my personal effects for any crime. Be it robbing a liquor store, burglarizing someones home, defrauding my company of millions of dollars etc.

It does not prevent the government from doing all of the above when it believes I am either an active agent of a foreign power at war with this country, or a citizen cooperating with said foreign agents at war witht his country.

I see a clear distinction between the two. Don’t you?

for instance I have no problem with the government using radiation detecting equipment in a non invasive way to find out of people are storing materials to make dirty bombs.

Again are you aware of anyone who has been arrested and charged with any crime based on warrentless searches or survielance?

I am not. If you are please tell us. You would have the scoop of the year.

I guess the other fundemental question is do you believe we are at war with an enemy who’s clearly and often stated goal is to kill you me and everyone else in this country?

I do. I take the enemy at their word. I for one do not want our government to wait until your city has been blown up to take more drastic measures.

Do you?

Do you acknowledge that all but the most foolish, or most duplicitous among us would would throw the concerns about this NSA program out the window if your city was blown up?

Now all that being said I do not believe our Executive should have free reign to do whatever he wishes. Which is why the congressional leaders who were informed of this program have such an awsome responsibility.

I don’t expect many of the commenters here to read anything I just said with any objectivity. However I do expect that much from you Hypathia.

Now am I crazy? Isn’t there a clear distinction between criminals and soldiers/spies/foreign agents waging war on our country?

You may also want to read this story in today’s New York Times which fails to mention the conservative and liberal legal scholars who think the NSA program is legal.

Other bloggers talking about the NSA story include:

TMH’s Bacon Bits on the LA Times coverage of this story.

Just one Minute has comments on Glenn’s post as well as another one of Glenn’s commentors 8).

*********Update*********

The Strata-Spere agrees with me and probably says it much better.

This post is also linked to the following blogs who have Open Trackbacks this weekend: Stop The ACLU Publius Rendezvous, The Uncooerative Bloggers, The Liberal Wrong Wing,

Please visit them, read them, buy whatever their advertisers are selling and tip your waitress. Thank you Good Night!

related posts:

Robertson and Rockefeller Leaked Top Secret NSA Program?
The NSA Story A Layman’s Perspective

As you all know Hugh Hewitt is a life time Cleveland Browns fan which means he was born hating the Pittsburgh Steelers with a passion. Hugh is also a loyal Republican defending the party and forwarding Republican ideals more effectively and with possibly more skill than any other pundit around. Well the time has arrived to test Hugh’s loyalties.

What will come first his hatred of the dreaded (and ever victorious) Pittsburgh Steelers or his loyalty to the Republican Party?

You see the Steelers are in the Super Bowl, at the same time the Hall of Fame Steeler wide receiver Lynne Swan is running for Governor in PA A Steeler victory virtually assures an electoral victory in November. Not to mention it couldn’t hurt in carrying Hugh’s pal Rick Santorum over the hump in what promises to be his toughest election campaign yet.

This is Hugh’s Jack Bauer Moment. . The clock is ticking and he must choose! Will he make the right decision?

Aaron was kind enough to help Hugh with some Steeler gear.

Or I prefer this one myself:

It’s only a game right Hugh? And you know the Steelers are gonna win anyway so rooting for the Steelers just this once is really a Win Win isn’t it?

Btw this isn’t the first time Hugh has taken one for the team.

A big thank you to Aaron at Aaron’s CC for his help with this post. Aaron also has this post up at his blog.

This post is linked at Basil’s Blog.

Welcome to the first Open TrackBack Weekend on the new site. If you have something interesting to share between today and Sunday evening please leave track back here.
Be sure to leave a link to this post in the main body of your post or your trackback will be deleted. Only one trackback per blog please.

This weekend Trackback post is linked to these other fine blogs that are also providing open trackbacks: Linkfest Haven, Adam’s Blog, Third World County, TMH’s Bacon Bits, Stuck On Stupid, Don Surber,

Be sure to visit them, read them, click on their banner ads, buy lots of whatever stuff they are selling, and TIP YOUR WAITRESS! Thank you goodnite!

Grrr. For some reason my Tivo didn’t record Oprah yesterday. However I did see clips all evening of the program on Scarborough Country, Larry King, and Tucker Carlson’s show, Anderson Cooper’s show, etc.

It looked to me like Oprah did a good job of finally offering a Mea Culpa of her own and stopped supporting the liar fraud and scumbag James Frey.

Frey didn’t really have any answers to the accusations other than everything The Smoking Gun said was true. He as much as admitted he lied about his mythical girlfried hanging herself while he was in jail. He did still maintain that she did still commit suicide. Of course there is no proof this person ever existed let alone killed herself.

In the clip I saw his publisher came off looking very bad. Basicly admitting they did no fact checking of this man’s story whatsoever.

Angel at Woman Honor Thyself did watch the Oprah program yesterday and has more analysis here:

In it Frey describes a three-month jail sentence he now says he never even served. Perhaps you think that’s nit picking. Well,he described some combative scenes with fellow addicts in rehab which he now claims were somewhat exaggerated…Again that may not seem so unforgivable. But then there’s the most talked about episode wherein he describes in highly specific, gory, using expletives every other word detail- undergoing dental surgery, having 2 root canals, being strapped down without even a drop of Novocain, a story he now claims he “no longer clearly recalls.”
Or the fact that he recounts a friend’s hanging when in fact her suicide was caused by her slitting her wrists?

Does this sound like an author who is coming in good faith, making a sincere effort to recount events as they truly happened?
Let us put this in some kind of ethical perspective shall we.
This is no ordinary “memoir”.
This book had become somewhat of a modern day self-help,inspirational book for addicts and recovering addicts. His experiences which they claim to relate to as no other, his ‘mantras’, his excruciating,detailed recounting of events and happenings they could so relate to.
And now they discover that he too- lied to them.

Read the whole thing.

What I couldn’t believe were the two talking heads on the today show this mourning and Katie Courtic saying they had some kind of sympathy for this guy, and that they felt he was confused or wasn’t able to tell fact from fiction, or maybe he was mentally unstable?…

As for me, I have known quite a few drug addicts including friends and loved ones. I know numerous people in NA. This guy is simply a liar and a fraud who committed these acts to make money. He is still making money and he doesn’t give a damn what you or I or anyone else thinks as long as the royalty checks keep coming in. I don’t believe he was ever on crack, he was a minor drug user and nothing more. If anything he was a drunk which again I doubt his affliction was anywhere near as serious as he has claimed it to be.

Related Posts:

Is Oprah a Dupe or Complicit in Fraud
Opra and Her Fans Victims of Fraud!

****Update**** La Shawn Barber covered this story pretty thoroughly and even kinda sorta live blogged while she watched Oprah’s show yesterday (I am still mad at my Tivo!).

La Shawn is as skeptical as I am and doesn’t believe Frey’s mythical girlfriend “Lily” really exists.

Update (1/27): I knew somebody would check this out. Frey told Oprah that his recovering addict girlfriend didn’t hang herself; she slit her wrists. Why did he do that? He wanted to change details about people (to protect identity?). Well, somone has done some digging to find out whether this Lilly “character” even slit her wrists.

Steve Levitt over at the Freakonomics blog has the answer. I’m patiently waiting for someone to discover that “Lilly” didn’t exist at all. She’s just a figment, like many things in the book, of Frey’s active imagination.

What do you think?

I read a blog today that blew me away! I immediatly wanted to add it to my blog roll but I thought it deserved more than that, hence the new link catagory on the left hand side bar.

Woman Honor Thyself is the aforementioned blog and receives the well deserved honor (small as that may be) of being the first Blog Of The Month.

Start with this post by Angel. Lots of people covered the “Boys Right To Wear A Skirt” story. Jay at Stop The ACLU was one of the first ones to cover it of course. But no one took the unique angle that Angel did.

Men and women have dressed differently from the dawn of civilization and despite efforts to gender neutralize and androgynize society..they always will.

Sure, there are some exceptions to some of the normative differences but all political correctness aside for the moment..let’s talk Facts.

By age 13 a female’s muscle tissue consitutes 45% of her total body, then decreases somewhat.
By age 17,a male’s muscle tissue constitutes 54% of his total body weight.
At age 16,the total muscle mass of women is 80% of the total muscle mass of man.

Women’s bodies average 27% fat. Men’s bodies average 15% fat.
While women ages 18-74 on average, weigh approximately 143 lbs; Men on average weigh 173.(Almanac of the American People,1988)

You have to read the whole thing. I found it really interesting and this post is just a small sample of smart, witty, and informative reads on Woman Honor Thyself.

I hope you make it a regular read as I plan to do.

At least according to Mark Cooper who should know. Marc worked at Pacifica’s KPFK doing a drive time show from 1998 - 2001.

You have to read the post. It is a fantastic insiders look and critique of the moonbat left, and the communists who run KPFK by intimidating and slandering anyone who differs with their written in stone ideology or crazy conspiracy theories.

The best part is how Marc’s post could be applied to the Democratic Party as a whole which is controlled today by the Pacifica / Moveon / Daily Kos crowd.

Like his opening line:

Everything in me screams to NOT write this posting. It’s just not worth the pain such endeavors normally evoke. When I’ve done it before, I’ve been slandered, muddied, slashed, booed down, accused of everything short of being Jack Abramoff’s secret lover.

Now couldn’t that apply to anyone like me for instance who tried to critisize his own party?

Yes It could I know first hand because these kind of statements have been directed at me since starting this blog.

How about this one?

But what catches the eye is how Guma – who will now oversee the five stations—has written with enthusiasm about truly off-kilter conspiracy theorists like David Ray Griffin who argue that 9/11 was NOT caused by the four Al Qaeda—commandeered planes. Instead, Guma asks us to take seriously the proposition that the attack on the Twin Towers and the Pentagon were the product of a Reichstag-like plot engineered by the Bush Administration.

Ahh didn’t Howard Dean the Democratic Party Chair entertain the theory that Bush knew about 9/11 before hand?

Marc follows up with:

The Bushies may be liars but that is no reason to lie to ourselves and swoon over preposterous conspiracy theories.

Thats great advice Marc maybe you can get that memo to Howard Dean. He doesn’t take my emails or calls.

It gets better:

To be frank, for those of us who actually pay some attention to this matter, the selection of a non-credible fringie like Guma is hardly a surprise. Pacifica has been in accelerating decline for two decades

Substitute “Democratic Party” for “Pacifica” and you might just be able to save the party Marc! I am with you 100%

I quit when an extreme know-nothing faction who believed that I and others were engaged in a dark “corporatist” conspiracy to -gasp!- “mainstream” the programming took over the entire organization.

Kinda like all of us 9/11 Dems who voted for Gore in 2000 but really had no choice but to vote for GWB in 2004.

the network’s growth – its real listenership– stunted and atrophied a long time ago.

Again just change the wording a little bit to “the Democratic Party’s growth Its real base stunted and atrophied a long time ago. And you have nailed it Marc!

White guilt, and a veritable PC-cult that permeates the internal Pacifica culture, has constrained the network from turning that station into what it ought to be

Hello you are talking about the party again.

KPFA in Berkeley, whose core paid staff has been the same for 25 years, is but an echo-chamber of its pony-tailed, core community

Now you are talking about the party in California!

When Pacifica was once a magical place that taught you how to think it is now a dreary drumbeat telling you what to think. Its air is filled with shrill, clumsy and dogmatic denunciations of “fascism.”

Yes Marc it is sad indeed.

The program schedule is divvied up among self-appointed “community leaders” and paid staff who – for the most part—could never dream of earning a paycheck from any other media entity in the world. What paid and volunteer programmers have in common is a death-grip on their personal slice of air time. Try to take it away and you became the target of a virulent campaign accusing you of being a sexist, racist, and corporatist nazi.

Am I the only Democrat that sees the uncanny similarity in criticizm here?

The success the current management group had in taking over the organization derives not at all from talent or intelligence but principally from its immeasurable tenacity – a super-human capacity to outlast everyone else in endless rounds of meetings and to shout down its opponents. That, along with a fervent belief that they, alone and against all odds, are saving the world by making sure air time is given to only fellow true-believers who meet some sort of bizarre political litmus test.

Yeah! This is almost as bad as applying a litmus test to SCOTUS nominees! POWER TO THE PEOPLE!

Now brace yourself for this one:

I begrudge them nothing. They perform exactly as one would expect. Instead, our recriminations should center on those who know better, or at least, ought to know better. Whether it is in Los Angeles, or New York or Washington, serious, otherwise intelligent liberals and progressives have sat back and quietly watched this half-billion dollar network slowly slip into the sea. In their worst moments, these liberals and lefties have signed onto idiotic crusades aimed at “saving” Pacifica by cleansing it of any trace of nuance, ideological diversity and, for that matter, debate and dialogue. And even in their better moments, these same supposed political grown-ups, even when they can sense that the network is being squandered, and after the umpteenth time that they have heard their local station raise money by pitching crank videos “exposing” 911 as a White House-engineered hoax, they bite their tongues, shrug their shoulders and remain silent lest they be publicly heard criticizing “our own side.”

**Cough*** Michael Moore sitting next to Jimmy Carter at the Democratic National Convention ***Cough*** Harry Belefonte Meeting with Hugo Chavez **** Cough***

Exuse me I had to clear my throat. I had some nasty green stuff stuck in there.

and the coop de gracie:

Well, nice work, folks. The nesting chickies have indeed come home to roost. Your network, as you would have it, is now officially run by someone who thinks we ought to seriously consider that something other than those airplanes took down the towers. Look forward, if you can, to more programming and fund-raising that would be better suited for a UFO cult than for a serious or credible political and cultural opposition. And all at the cost of only a cool half-billion.

or one might say we have squandered any credible position as a national political party.

Again Marc brilliant post! I sincerely hope you think about this one and how it applies to the party as a whole. Maybe they will listen to you. God knows they won’t listen to me.

You have to read this not so directly related but definitely funny post at WuzzaDem!.

This post is linked to the following blogs who have Open Trackbacks Today: Basil’s Blog, TMH’s Bacon Bits, Quietly Making Noise, Don Surber,

Be sure to visit them, read their blogs, buy whatever their advertisers are selling, send them money and Tip your waitress!