or Powell's or me• • •
"Mike and Jon, Jon and Mike—I've known them both for years, and, clearly, one of them is very funny. As for the other: truly one of the great hangers-on of our time."—Steve Bodow, head writer, The Daily Show
•
"Who can really judge what's funny? If humor is a subjective medium, then can there be something that is really and truly hilarious? Me. This book."—Daniel Handler, author, Adverbs, and personal representative of Lemony Snicket
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"The good news: I thought Our Kampf was consistently hilarious. The bad news: I’m the guy who wrote Monkeybone."—Sam Hamm, screenwriter, Batman, Batman Returns, and Homecoming
December 01, 2007
Disputed
The Washington Post today:
Rove's Version of 2002 War Vote Is DisputedFormer White House aide Karl Rove said yesterday it was Congress, not President Bush, who wanted to rush a vote on the looming war in Iraq in the fall of 2002, a version of events disputed by leading congressional Democrats and even some former Rove colleagues.
Rove said that the administration did not want lawmakers to vote on a resolution authorizing the use of force against Iraq that soon because it would "make things move too fast," before Bush could line up international allies, and politicize the issue ahead of midterm elections. But Democrats and some Republicans involved with the issue at the time said yesterday that Bush wanted a quick vote.
Ben Bradlee, then the editor of the Washington Post, in 1987:
I would like to talk about government lying. Calculated lies. The wilful deception of the public for political end...In America, the press is curiously shy, even embarrassed when faced with the need to use some form of the verb "to lie" even now when public tolerance for the unexplained and for the unbelievable explanation is wearing thin. We seem to drop quickly into a defensive crouch, when even, as now, we are accused of abusing our power by not accepting explanations which often defy acceptance. We are, too often, close enough to the Establishment ourselves to be uncomfortable in calling a lie, a lie.
Rove is now a columnist for Newsweek, which is owned by the Washington Post Co.
Posted at December 1, 2007 03:20 PMLying Bastards and their enablers, go figure. Who wants to bet that AMERICA will actually learn something from this joyride WE are on, any takers?
Posted by: Mike Meyer at December 1, 2007 05:39 PMShouldn't there be a name for this syndrome? Klein's disease, perhaps?
Posted by: SteveB at December 1, 2007 06:53 PMSeptember 13, 2002:
Q Mr. President, thank you. Are you concerned that Democrats in Congress don't want a vote there until after U.N. action?
THE PRESIDENT: Democrats waiting for the U.N. to act? I can't imagine an elected United States -- elected member of the United States Senate or House of Representatives saying, I think I'm going to wait for the United Nations to make a decision. It seems like to me that if you're representing the United States, you ought to be making a decision on what's best for the United States. If I were running for office, I'm not sure how I'd explain to the American people -- say, vote for me, and, oh, by the way, on a matter of national security, I think I'm going to wait for somebody else to act.
And so I -- we'll see. My answer to the Congress is, they need to debate this issue and consult with us, and get the issue done as quickly as possible. It's in our national interests that we do so. I don't imagine Saddam Hussein sitting around, saying, gosh, I think I'm going to wait for some resolution. He's a threat that we must deal with as quickly as possible.
http://www.whitehouse.gov/news/releases/2002/09/20020913.html
The Iraq Resolution was agreed to on October 2.
Posted by: Don Bacon at December 1, 2007 08:00 PMDon,
Well if that doesn't settle it, I don't know what will. Thanks for fishing it out of the press release swamp.
Posted by: Scruggs at December 1, 2007 08:45 PMYou're welcome, and if I can do it why can't the WaPo "journalists"? Why are they content to just quote a liar, without checking the facts which are readily available at whitehouse.gov?
Also, do you think that JS just nailed it like this w/o having the press release? He probably did. Scary.
Posted by: Don Bacon at December 1, 2007 09:03 PMBradlee (1987) "We are, too often, close enough to the Establishment ourselves to be uncomfortable in calling a lie, a lie."
What you see depends on where you're standing (both in a literal and a metaphorical sense). From where I'm standing, I see the Washington Post in particular, and the Corporate (so-called "mainstream") Media in general, as not just uncomfortably close to the MICFiC, but as a part of it. From inside the MICFiC, the struggles between different factions are no doubt very relevant. But from where I am, their common purpose - to misuse, abuse, and confuse the public in general - is quite clear.
MICFiC is an acronym for
M ilitary
I ndustrial
C ongressional
Fi nancial
C omplex.
I guess that, in this case, the Aristocrats want history to record that an inept, imperialist Congress dragged a reluctant president into a disastrous war, and it will be so memorialized in the GWB Library soon to be built with Hunt Oil money for which Bush's war, excuse me, Congress's war, was fought.
Anyhow, I emailed Peter Baker at the WaPo and suggested we would be better served if he acted like a journalist and not just take dictation from liars.
Posted by: Don Bacon at December 2, 2007 12:43 PMBen Bradlee was working out of the CIA office in Paris in the early fifties trying to justify the conviction and execution of the Rosenbergs to Europeans through RFE.
It's too bad that when you get down to resumes, we're just talking about different sides of the same monster.
Posted by: Bob In Pacifica at December 2, 2007 01:42 PMBen Bradlee was working out of the CIA office in Paris in the early fifties trying to justify the conviction and execution of the Rosenbergs to Europeans through RFE.
It's too bad that when you get down to resumes, we're just talking about different sides of the same monster.
Posted by: Bob In Pacifica at December 2, 2007 01:43 PMmistah charley - I think we have to put "media" somewhere in that acronym.
Posted by: Susan at December 2, 2007 10:42 PMSusan writes:
mistah charley - I think we have to put "media" somewhere in that acronym.
I think you're right. But where? As the acronym stands now, it has an internal rhyme, and each syllable ends with a nice hard sound - this will help the term catch on, if it does catch on - and like any meme, it will only catch on if people find it worth repeating.
I'm open to suggestions, but here's my first try at adding value by explicitly mentioning the disinformation and distraction noise machine in the acronym explanation -
MICFiC is an acronym for
M ilitary
I ndustrial
C ongressional
Fi nancial
C orporate Media Complex
mistah charley, ph.d.: May I be so bold as to suggest---
M EDIA
C ORPORTION
M ILITARY
I NDUSTRIAL
C ONGRESSIONAL
Fi NANCIAL
C OMPLEX
Starts at the top, the Commander in Lies.
Posted by: Anthony Look at December 3, 2007 04:03 PM
