Flush twice... it's a long way to Sally Quinn's place!

Pundit Pap for Nov. 7, 2004
Arlen Specter: The Chimperor's Non-mandate
by the Pundit Pap Team
Jane Grice | JJ Balzer | Jodi Schmidt

Nov. 7, 2004 -- The rocket scientists at the New York NBC affiliate decided to broadcast "[Red] Meat [for 'Pubbies from] the Press" at an ungodly hour this morning so they could cover the all-important New York Marathon -- this after the most crooked presidential election in the last half-century. We're going to have to catch the cable repeat a little later today.

The rest of what we saw looked to be a big preview of the next four years of a United States strip-mined of civil rights, freedom of speech, separation of the Xtian Evangelical Church, fair trade and wages, health care, real Social Security, environmental protections.

But there was a surprise -- in the form of Arlen Specter on CBS, who took a lead pipe to the kneecap of Bush's Girly Mandate.

OUCH!

Here's the quick low-down...

This Week
Turning the podium over to a religious fascist

"Bush claims a mandate."

Yep -- those were the words with which George Stephanopoulos began This Week. Sure, they can be parsed to mean, "Well, that's what Bush was claiming" -- but the pre-show blather that followed seemed tailored to drive home the impression that the ex-Texas governor and overall election thief actually has a mandate.

Steph dutifully reported that Iraq has declared a "state of emergency" and martial law. A look at the wire services indicates that the dictum from Ayad Allawi covers all of Iraq except Kurdistan, and will last for the next 60 days. Gee, funny that these details aren't being mentioned -- it might raise questions about whether or not Iraq is actually going to hold elections in January.

Now, dear reader, let me ask you the Sunday Chattering Crass Question of the Week. You know that your candidate was robbed. You know that the election was gamed. You know in your heart of hearts that the Smirking Usurper's "agenda" is going to trash this nation. Given those facts, who is the one guest you would least want to see spouting their hatred first thing on Sunday (keeping in mind that This Week is traditionally the first of the Sunday shows in a number of major markets including New York)?

Newt Gingrich? Naaah... not egregious enough.

Grover Norquist? Uh-uh... after all, Steph might ruin his celebratory onanism by asking some unwelcome questions about his more shadowy Arab clients.

Jerry Falwell? Nope. On the right track, but not extreme enough by a long shot.

If you really want to rub salt into the wound, you invite the most disgusting example of Xtian extremism who has managed to glom onto the "mainstream" media, say, someone like that sanctimonious champion of beating children, "Dr." James Dobson.

And Dobson, a man who has been described by at least one Christian writer as an outright fascist , was precisely whom ABC offered up as its contribution to the political discourse this Sunday.

Naturally, Dobson praised Dear Leader, saying "He makes the right choices." (Translation: he's going to cut and run with the extreme Taliban-Xtian agenda -- abolishing the right to choose, fetishizing embryos that will never be implanted in mothers, criminalizing gays and lesbians for being gays and lesbians, taking science out of schools and replacing it with superstition.)

Dobson then dived headfirst into "[t]he values thing -- I don't like the word," saying he prefers "morality." (Say what you want, but Dobson understands the principles put forth by Joseph Goebbels and Newt Gingrich: control and redefine the language. Dobson is saying that he and his followers, a remarkably small number considering the manner in which they have insinuated themselves upon politics, have "morality" and the rest of America doesn't -- the classic technique of fomenting and fostering hatred and divisiveness.) Bush, claimed Dobson, will pay a price if he does not implement "moral" laws including statutes that are "pro-life... wants to protect life, not only unborn life" (translation: save the embryos which will never be used, screw stem cell research, to hell with people who suffer from Alzheimer's like Ronald Reagan and his family), laws protecting the "institute of marriage" (translation: deprive gays who are eager to embrace traditional values and family the right to do so) and, in his most ambiguous demand, "putting CONSERVATIVE judges on the judiciary."

(Ha! Well, what do you know -- it's the wrongwingers who have a judicial "litmus test.")

Dobson wasn't over by a long shot about judges. Dobson said he believes Alberto Gonzalez is NOT acceptable to Dobson and his ilk based on "comments that he's made... [to the effect that] the Constitution could be set aside for a time."

(That's a lie -- Dobson knows that Gonzalez is a lot more liberal than the Borks, Estradas and Scalias of this world. Dobson is just grabbing onto an issue that will scare his dimwit followers.)

Your top pick? "Miguel Estrada." Dobson wouldn't name anymore, pretending that his naming them could "sabotage" the effort to politicize the courts. (Translation: Dobson's pretending he's being demonized by all those tens of millions of people who supposedly oppose Christianity. Like David Limbaugh said, Christians are under unrelenting attack in the United States. And if you believe that, we've got a crateful of concentrated purple Kool-Aid we're giving away for free.) Dobson continued his hysterical rant: Estrada "was hung out to dry by Senator Daschle... [Estrada's] a good man, an Hispanic." (Translation: Look at me, minorities? I'm INCLUSIVE! Never mind that my core suckers... er, constituency are White and easily duped.)

Steph played a video clip of Sen. Arlen Specter's comment about judges who are trying to reverse the right of woman to reproductive choice: "I think that is unlikely. I've said that bluntly during the campaign and before." Dobson's angry admission: "Senator Specter is a big-time problem for us." (You could almost sense Dobson doing everything in his power to prevent the words "atheistic troublemaking Jewy Jew" from slipping his lips.) With a flash of anger on his face, Dobson talked about how he had campaigned for Specter's rival in the Pennsylvania GOP primary earlier this year, a wingnut named Toomey. He then condemned Specter's words as "one of the most ill-considered and foolish statements that a politician has made."

Dobson continued with a rambling rant about "this mandate, this enormous victory." (Cue the laugh track: Hey, Jim-Bob, it was a Girly Mandate.) He then went back to attacking Specter: "He has been the champion of embryonic, of stem cell research... sabotaged Robert Bork."

(Note again that Dobson's pushing the notion of "sabotage" of the religious wronging agenda -- a desperate stretch to support the ridiculous argument that Christians are "victims.")

He ended his rant by repeating his anger at Specter "in opposition to this president [and] his enormous mandate."

Then, Dobson decided to bear a little false witness against a senator from Vermont. "Patrick Leahy is a God-people hater." Steph said that Dobson, who would not support his claim with anything approaching evidence, should apologize to Leahy. Dobson: "You think he ought to lecture me on what a Christian is?" "How do you back that up?" "There's been a lot of hate expressed in this election [against] Christian views."

(But not against Christians, Dobson. Dobson just isn't slick enough to confuse viewers -- save, perhaps, his own numbskull devotees.)

Dobson, showing not only ignorance of but contempt for science, claimed that people are not "born homosexual."

At the end of the interview, Steph suggested that Bush will fail Dobson. Dobson's reply: "I'm sure there are times when we'll be frustrated with the President."

Here's hoping that means 99.75% of the time...

Steph, for his part, went way too easy on this religious extremist who should never have been given any airtime by a broadcast network in the first place. He should have confronted Dobson about whether or not he thinks abortion should be criminalized. He should have asked Dobson about the overwhelming number of reports of Christian preachers endorsing candidates -- and whether he supports the loss of IRS exemptions for these churches that have no respect for civil or criminal law. At one point, Dobson claimed that tax cuts are a Christian value -- Steph should have asked him how this squares with Christ's comment about rendering to Caesar (or, in this case, the Simian Emperor).

Following the break, Steph welcomed new Senate "superstars" John Thune (R-SD) and Barack Obama. (Thune is a "superstar?" Um, Steph, he didn't win by a 45% difference with Tom Daschle. Oy!)

Here's the whole segment whittled down to its essence (with our usual analysis in parentheses):

Steph: Incoming Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Arlen Specter -- will you support him?
Thune: That's to be decided next week (translation: we're hedging our bets) -- changing the rules (to put Democrats at a disadvantage by essentially banning filibusters) is the first priority, I'm "troubled" by what Specter said, the theme was putting (politicized) judges on the bench, strict constructionists (like our founding slaveholders). I'll support whoever the leadership puts forward. (Metatranslation: Specter has managed to make the GOP look like the party of religious extremism at the expense of the Constitution, Republicans might pay the price, and Specter's comments harm the Bush "man date" and agenda).
Obama: Congratulations to Thune. On Specter, that kind of language is unfortunate, but we can disagree without being disagreeable. I shared a million voters with Bush, and we have to go beyond slash and burn politics -- we must focus on areas where we agree. (Translation: Democrats are going to turn the GOP into the party of divisiveness -- and maybe help divide them up pretty nicely across libertarianist-religionist lines.)
Steph: Democrats failed miserably. Janet Napolitano said, "How did a party that is filled with values get tagged as the party without values?" Guns, abortion and gay rights. What went wrong?
Obama: Faith, family and community is where people live. Democrats may be too interested in policy, not families. Dems should talk about the immorality of 45,000,000 uninsured. (Translation: We have to steal plays from the Rove playbook -- and be unrelenting in our message, including stripping the mantle of "moral issues" from the GOP.)
Steph: But... but... but... it's cultural!
Obama: People in rural areas did not feel I was condescending. We're going through cultural transition.
Thune: Obama's more popular than the Chicago Bears in Illinois!
Obama: That's because they're losing!
Thune: Daschle was the player in the National Democrat Party that was blocking Bush. We need to vote up or down on judges. Democrats are obstructionists. (Translation: The GOP is going to try to play the obstructionist card big time -- and the Dems have to turn the tables on this meme fast.)
Steph: Senator-elect Obama, you could emerge as the point person on bipartisan issues.
Obama: Let's start with tax reform -- loopholes are exploited, the code should be simplified. There will be specific disagreements, but we can reform it to make it easier to file in a way that is not regressive.
Thune: Our troops need the resources! (Well, then, where were YOU, John-Bob, when Snippy failed to get our troops enough body armor, properly armored vehicles, and enough bullets?)
Obama: This is no longer Bush's war, it's our nation's war. We need an exit strategy and detailed spending plan. I encourage the White House and Pentagon to detail how money is spent. (Translation: Halliburton is about to experience a stark money proctoscopy.)
Steph: Privatizing Social Security will cost $1 trillion to $2 trillion.
Thune: But... but... personal retirement accounts! Ownership society! I'm against raising taxes! Horror of a $10 trillion unfunded liability!
Obama: I'll work toward something that makes more sense.

The interview was surprisingly insubstantial, but left us with the impression that Obama's an energetic, bright and fast-on-his-feet guy and Thune's just another Stepford Gingrich disciple rattling off talking points -- although we did like the Bears joke and Obama's snappy comeback. Thune lacks Daschle's measured assertiveness and gravitas. South Dakotans made a genuinely poor decision -- on the other hand, one of their districts did elect another rising Democratic star, Stephanie Herseth. Remember that name -- we predict you'll be hearing it a lot soon.

The usually awful roundtable showed signs of near-intelligent life. Steph asked what exactly happened on Election Day? Here's an abbreviated summary of the gab:

Steph: Bush won terror and the culture war.
George Will: Turnout -- and the Old Confederacy.
EJ Dionne: Ohio lost on turnout (if you believe the numbers, EJ, and we don't), and the one issue Bush lost was Iraq -- he has no mandate for the war in Iraq.
Linda Douglass: Society moving too fast, parents can't mold their children. (Got news for you, Linda -- that's the way parents felt 40 years ago!)
Steph: There was a problem with Kerry's persona. (REALLY, Steph? And there's not a problem with the personal of a so-called "pop'lar wartime preznit" that can't coherently answer questions in a presidential debate?)
Jon Meacham: People trust Bush in wartime.
Will: Dems have attacked the personas of winning Republicans. (Right -- like Republicans didn't attack Clinton. It has nothing to do with war.)
Dionne: Bush didn't get a Reagan or Eisenhower victory. Moderately conservative voters were in fact drawn to Kerry.
Douglass: The Democrats don't have an easily definable ideology like "Lower taxes, smaller government." (Maybe they assume Americans are smarter than they really are.)
Steph: Bush believes he has a mandate. (See above about a "girly mandate.")
Douglass: Bush will push for tax simplification -- how can you simplify it when the GOP has made it more complex?
Will: Every line is there because a constituency wanted it or it was put there to create a constituency.
Dionne: He never described a detail (on his plan to keep tax simplification "revenue neutral").
Will: Gonzalez was involved in formulating Guantanamo policy -- Bush will not want this discussed.
Steph: Can Dems afford to filibuster?
Dionne: The GOP will change the rules, but it's impossible for Democrats if they don't fight. There are more moderate GOPers who feel marginalized now -- they have doubts about the President, will they slow the judiciary machine down?
Douglass: Bush could put forward someone who does not have a Roe v Wade paper trail.

No big surprises there -- and that, by the way, is what passes for a "lively" roundtable.

-- JG


Face the Nation
Specter gives the Bush Boy a major headache

We tuned in for a few minutes of Face the Nation -- and, to our great delight, Pennsylvania Senator Arlen Specter was giving George W. Bush another major headache. You see, Specter told host Bob Schieffer that the President does not have "an arithmetic[al] mandate... that means you have to reach out to Democrats."

Now, we think this means one of two things:

1) Specter is completely secure that he's staying on as chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee, and he's going to throw a monkey wrench in the works of the theocrats who want to destroy Roe v Wade.

2) Specter knows for sure that he is about to be the subject of a coup being executed by Bill "Kitty Kevorkian" Frist -- and he's going to make things unpleasant for the Neoconfederate Christian wing of the Republican party.

There's also a good chance that Specter knew that political interloper James Dobson would not only be on Meet the Press but would bad-mouth him.

One of Bob's other guests was one of our favorite Republicans, Maine Senator Susan Collins, whose moderate views seldom get her invited to the political chat shows. She stated that George will need to reach out to moderate Democrats, because the reality is that 60 votes -- a filibuster-proof majority -- are needed to pass many of his initiatives. Bush also needs to "reform" Social Security, which means the difference between poverty and an adequate existence for the elderly (and, interestingly, Collins did not say word one on privatization).

Hats off to CBS for giving moderate GOPers a chance to state their views -- and to show that the Party of Lincoln is not quite in lock-step.

-- JJB



Reprehensible Sources
Taking a careful look at corporate media -- and constantly ignoring its sins!

Howie Kurtz, stealth Republican and husband of a top-tier GOP lobbyist, blamed bloggers and pundits for making it seem as if Kerry were going to win based on early exit polls. Kurtz claimed the exit polls were "wrong."

(Translation: believe the black box voting machines. Ignore those polls that might exposed fixed elections, just the way VNS did in Florida on Election Day 2000.)

Howie sounded near-orgasmic in the lead-up to a clip of NBC calling the state of Ohio for Bush. Howie also falsely stated that the race "is over" as a result of Kerry's concession call. (Translation: Forget that a concession call is not legally binding.)

John Roberts of CBS defended CBS' decision not to call Ohio or the election for Bush -- but was a bit too jocular to be taken seriously. (Now, John, we know that you and so many others regard CNN's Reprehensible Sources as a proper venue for self-congratulatory legitimizing of half-hearted journalism -- so in the future try not to make it so conspicuous that you're in on the charade.) Former CNN stealth conservative "reporter" Frank Sesno, to our surprise, was very supportive of CNN's decision not to call it.

Howie Kurtz then used Karen "FOX News uses me as a liberal newsie" Tumulty to undermine the accuracy of exit polls, characterizing the use of these polls as a sin (not daring to bring up the argument that they may actually be an indication of a fixed election). Roberts said the polls could make you look bad because you called the election too early.

(No, John. They make you look bad by pointing out that you and your so-called journalist colleagues refuse to cover DOZENS of pieces of evidence pointing to a black-box-fixed election in Ohio, Florida -- and maybe even New Mexico. And here is the other hard truth -- the networks did in fact use exit polls as part of their process of calling states one way or the other.)

Howie then attacked NY Times columnist Paul Krugman for calling what Howie called a "jihad" against Bush, "abetted" by the UK Mirror cover castigating Americans as stupid for voting for Bush in a front page headline. Sesno made a smart-ass comment about an elitist media out of touch with reality.

(Frank Sesno, you're one to talk. During your stint with CNN, you were one of the smarmiest, most pompous and self-important journalists in front of a camera. You were part of the real media elite -- careerist talking heads who pander to conservative viewers, kowtow to your parent company's politically-active stockholders, and slant the news strongly to the right. You helped the process of turning CNN into the FOX News Channel without newsmodels that look like Washington call girls.)

Tumulty whined about a media over-analyzing an election. (Right, Karen -- a media that's practically embargoing news about overwhelming evidence of fixes in swing states -- Roger forbid that such analysis might turn up a pattern of fraud!)

Howie then ran clips of the Dean scream, a reporter talking about Cheney dropping the F-bomb on Senator Pat Leahy, Kerry saluting Mary Cheney. There was a laughable go-round about the "trivial" -- but hardly a word about the press' failure to address issues that needed to be brought to light in the presidential campaign.

After the break, John Roberts made an interesting and useful observation while portraying the Bush Boy as an engaging, lovable guy: he feels Georgie wants to talk to the press more, but his handlers are preventing him from doing so.

(Now why would that be, John? We wish you'd elaborated on that rather than praising Dear Leader.)

There was also a clip of a reporter telling Bush that Arafat was dead. It took 90 seconds for the reporter to be named: Bill Sammon. The panel failed to mention his affiliation: Moonie newspaper The Washington Times. Sammon was relying on an unconfirmed report on his Blackberry.

If Reprehensible Sources were in fact in the business of doing actual media critique, that telling little incident would be the top story. It's not. Reprehensible Sources exists to perpetuate the myth of a "liberal" press and to peddle the careers of self-aggrandizing "journalists" in the age of infotainment.

-- JJB



McLaugh-In Group
"Romper Room" Goes Scorched Earth!
Jabba, Gauleiter Pat Gloat (though Jabba tries to keep the Log Cabins from bolting)

One thing that nobody on this week's edition of The McLaughlin Group brought up: how could all the people, including all the pundits, get it wrong?

Everyone, including Bush's people, spent the week before the election thinking that Kerry was going to win by about the margin Bush officially did.

The Wall Street marketeers did. The day before, oil prices dropped as speculators anticipated a Kerry win that would ease global tensions.

The Republicans did. They were looking ever-more-nervous in the final week.

The Democrats sure did. Their internal polls were telling them what the GOP's internal polls were telling the GOP: that Kerry would win by between three to five points.

The exit polls on November 2 did. Even in states like Florida, Iowa and Ohio. (Shades of 2000, when exit polling for every state but Florida was within 2% of the official tally -- and in most cases, within 1%. Florida was off by 6%.)

So what happened? How could even the internal polls be so far off?

Yes, the evangelicals came out to vote this time. But I don't think they're the only -- or even the main -- reason. (Earlier this morning on PBS, the Heritage Foundation had a representative on the air who was pooh-poohing the idea that Bush owes the evangelicals anything.)

There's one factor that none of the pundits dares talk about, because of the implications -- namely, the widespread vote "errors" on paper-trail-less machines, especially in key swing states like Florida, Pennsylvania and Ohio. Go to http://www.verifiedvoting.org for more on this.

As I said, nobody dared bring this up, because this is too hot a subject. Better for their peace of mind to think that the evangelicals were 100% responsible. And the anti-gay ballot measures in eleven states -- including the key swing state of Ohio -- were probably what got the evangelicals, notorious for their interpreting Scripture to justify not voting, into the polling places.

But a funny thing happened, in the midst of discussing the evangelicals.

Tony Blankley, Newt Gingrich's former consigilere, paused in the midst of his evangelical triumphalism to try to reassure gay people that the evangelicals all coming out to vote for the eleven anti-gay-marriage amendments did NOT make them anti-gay. Yeah, right, Tony. Andrew Sullivan's not going to swallow that line of tripe -- you lost him months ago. Even the Log Cabin Republicans can't swallow it. The only thing they can do, if they want to stay Republicans, is to ignore it -- which is why if you go to their Web site, you will not find one word about the evangelical role on November 2.

Then I got to thinking: Why did Tony feel the need to say this? I mean, up to that point, he and Pitchfork Pat Buchanan the Gauleiter had been doing a pretty good riff on "we are invincible, we have the mandate, you cannot stop us!" Well, if the mandate given them by the anti-gay people is so strong, why do they feel they have to pretend that all those amendments really aren't targeted to hurt gays?

If their evangelical-sent mandate's all that strong, why bother trying to paper over the feeling of the Log Cabin folks -- or Andrew Sullivan?

Answer: Because it isn't.

Because evangelicals have this tendency to interpret Scripture to mean that they shouldn't be voting at all.

Because even when they do get dragged into the voting booth, they pay so little attention to politics in general that once they finish marking off the ballot for Bush and whichever Senator/Congresscritter their preachers told them to vote for, they don't bother to look at the rest of the ballot. (This would help explain why red states like Montana and Colorado had big Democratic gains at the local levels, and how Minnesota's Democrats clawed back from a huge 53-80 deficit in the Minnesota House to a near tie at 66-68 -- and, if the results of the Mora recount go our way, that becomes a genuine 66-66 deadlock.)

The talk turned to whether or not Bush will provide payback to the evangelicals and paleoconservative Catholics with regard to Roe v. Wade. Eleanor Clift doubted that Bush would do so; she noted that Bush had dodged this question during the debates. Gauleiter Pat made a statement that sounded more like a threat: if Bush doesn't drop Roe v. Wade, he loses the evangelicals and conservative Catholics. McLaughlin almost laughed out loud at that: "The evangelicals have served their purpose," and Bush will ignore them. Der Gauleiter nearly popped a gasket on hearing that! Lawrence O'Donnell thinks that Bush will overturn Roe v. Wade, but that abortion will remain legal in the blue states.

Next, former Jesuit priest Johnny Mac turned to the question of whether or not "morality" in all its glory was really at issue in the campaign. He ran a tape of prominent evangelist C. Welton Gaddy of the Interfaith Alliance. Gaddy's comments concerned the very narrow definition of "morality" currently in vogue: Too much of an emphasis on sex issues, not enough on war, peace, and social justice issues. Predictably, Gauleiter Pat -- who breaks out into hives when anything to the left of Josef Goebbels comes near him -- and Jabba the Blankley savaged the Rev. Dr. Gaddy, while McLaughlin, Clift and O'Donnell defended him.

The last segment: Winners and Losers!

Kerry's name came up, of course, as the biggest "loser". Lawrence O'Donnell, to his credit, brought up how the US media lied early and often about Kerry, and gleefully passed on Karl Rove's favorite anti-Kerry lies -- such as his deliberate misinterpretation of Kerry's "global test" remarks in the debates. Gauleiter Pat claimed that "Big Media", especially CBS in the wake of the memos gaffe, was a big loser. This was Pat's way of insinuating that CBS is going to be punished for being "ultra-liberal" and a Bush "enemy", which is a joke considering that CBS' parent Viacom pushed harder than any other network for the gutting of the FCC's anti-trust laws that has occurred under Bush FCC Chair Michael (far more powerful than his father) Powell. Of course, Der Gauleiter carefully avoided mentioning the two totally fake anti-Kerry "stories" written up by FOX News' Carl Cameron.

The show ended with everyone present talking up Hillary in 2008 -- which is nonsense, but it's the right wing's way of feeding raw meat to their base. They're all about feeding their base -- and the baser instincts thereof.