Edgewise

you are what you et

I had to wonder, hearing that George W. was going to dine with the president of France on his European "friendship tour," whether he managed to spit his escargot into his napkin like a good patriot. This was because I had just read Deanna Swift's Feb. 7 report on the recent departure of Walter Scheib 3rd, the White House chef. She described how he had been tasked with what can only be described as an Iron Chef's nightmare: prepare an Inaugural banquet using America's top junk foods. And I do mean donuts, pretzels, soda pop, and beer. It's a wonder the fish course wasn't in stick form (it was a Pacific salmon--albeit doused in canned fruit).

Far from sticking to the guidelines of the recently revamped USDA food "pyramid," this menu looked like a junk foodie's dream. Except perhaps for the "Safeway" greens--whatever those are. Each trademarked ingredient used to prepare the four-course meal was suggested by a "Pioneer" or "Ranger" Republican party superdonor attending the banquet. The ingredients just happened to be some of the products their corporations manufacture.

But the real problem at the White House was not the chef's imagined reluctance (perhaps disgust?) at having to prepare such a ghastly assortment of faux food. It was his "french style" training. And I don't mean fries. Apparently "sauce" is just another word for "non-Iraqi ally." For a more appropriately educated cook perhaps the ol' W.H. could resurrect the Colonel. Barring such a miracle I suppose anyone with a Betty Crocker cookbook and a box full of coupons will do. Don't get me wrong. I grew up on Betty's recipes. It's just that canned pineapple and frozen peas are getting expensive these days. And I learned to peel the fruit and shuck the peas myself.

The truly unbelievable part of this story is that those capitalist kingpins paid for such a meal. And the redeeming part is that they had to eat it.

Red-baiting the AARP

So this astroturf Linkletterish front group claiming to represent the elderly, "USA Next," is now trying to paint the AARP pink in order to cram Social Security reform deconstruction down our collective throats.

Steve Soto at The Left Coaster thinks we shouldn't let the GOP get away with it and has some ideas about how to hold their feet to the fire: Democrats Should Not Let USA Next Get Away With Smearing The AARP

(via TPM)

The Nation likes Dean

Now He Has the Power, writes John Nichols.

As has often been the case, conventional wisdom on Howard Dean is dead wrong:

The Washington-insider line on Dean was that he would be anathema to Democrats from "red" states like Kansas, where Kerry won only a single county. The reality was the opposite: Some of Dean's first major endorsements for chair came from party leaders in Alabama, Mississippi and, yes, Kansas. When Reid suggested that Justice Antonin Scalia would be an acceptable Chief Justice, Dean disagreed. That created a stir in Washington, including an "it's not your job to set policy" admonishment from outgoing chair Terry McAuliffe. But it didn't hurt Dean with DNC members. "That, to me, is one more reason to elect him chairman," says Roy.

(Krugman gets him too.)

Chait at the New Republic still doesn't get him:

New Republic commentator Jonathan Chait put their fears into words when he grumbled that "Dean, with his intense secularism, arrogant style, throngs of high-profile counterculture supporters and association with the peace movement, is the precise opposite of the image Democrats want to send out."

What do you mean "we," white man?

RIP Hunter S. Thompson

desiunion has posted what he believes was HST's last Rolling Stone article up on dailykos.

Secrets and lies

I'm starting to get a queasy feeling about Jeff "so-called" Gannon's access to sensitive information in the White House.

Is Jim-Jeff Guckert-Gannon gonna be Monica Lewinsky this time around? Whose ox is gored now, whose cover has been blown?

Shamefully Truncated Abstinence Programs

The Bush administration is now funding a sexual abstinence program as part of its contribution to fighting AIDS in Africa. Abstinence is also a mainstay of its efforts against both youth pregnancy and sexually transmitted diseases within the US. So that is consistent.

But there are rumors that backsliders in the administration want to restrict all the abstinence programs to unmarried couples only! What kind of consistency is that?

Chris Nolan has had enough

The best blog commentary I've read this year is Oh. Him. by Chris Nolan at Politics from Left to Right.

I don't want to quote it or summarize. Just go read it. It's absolutely essential.

I'm serious. I just (finally) put Nolan's weblog at the top of the syndicated headlines on the Edgewise home page. She's doing some of the best work out there and belongs on the daily reading list of anyone who cares about politics, media, or the Internet.

Republicans against torture

I've been wondering when we'd hear an actual conservative take a principled position against torture instead of the subject-changing, excuse-making, or moral relativism we've mostly seen from the right on this issue.

Sebastian Holsclaw, who described himself as a conservative blogger with a mostly liberal audience (he used to be a regular commentator on a number of the more prominent liberal weblogs) seems to understand that this isn't (or shouldn't be) a partisan wedge issue (Exhortation):

The Republican Party has spent so many years in the minority that sometimes I think we have not adjusted to the fact that we are in power. We are in power now. We control both Houses of Congress and we have our people throughout the administration. We don't need to wait for the Democrats to raise this issue. We can't hide behind the worry that exploring our practices is going to get a President elected who is going to retreat from Iraq. We are the party which leads the most powerful country in the world. And lead it we must. President Bush must be shown that the Republican Party is not willing to stand for the perversion of our moral standards.

Proverbs for Paranoids, 3

Hit this quote today in Pynchon's amazing Gravity's Rainbow that summed up our current political situation way too perfectly:

Proverbs for Paranoids, 3: If they can get you asking the wrong questions, they don't have to worry about answers.

Which leads back to the query my brain just can't shake:

Prince Charles and his flowering love life aside, why the [expletive] doesn't anyone in the media seem to care what the [expletive] happened in the Iraq election?

[expletive]!

update: well, my conspiracy concerns can subside at least for a bit -- the results are in and front page news.

still more update: well the news and initial analysis appears to be relatively positive. Ah, if only our country required a 2/3s vote to pick our leader.

I still think it's peculiar in a disturbing sort of way that the media just went quiet on the Iraq vote for about two weeks there. But here's hoping I was offbase with my recent alarmist rants.

Iran-Iraq: maybe, maybe not

Take 2...

Cecil was wondering whether we have just created "the perfect opening for an oil-rich anti-western Iran-Iraq alliance". I happen to think the two countries will become very tight, and posted a line about the Anschluss of the Mullahs on my blog.

My friend Mark Lew, who knows more about world politics and history than anyone else I know personally, says a full alliance of Iran and Iraq is unlikely. He posted a comment to my "Anschluss" post sketching why, and he has analyzed this in more depth on his own blog; specific post is here.

Can anyone explain to me...

...without diving into conspiracy (already got that covered -- thanks...) why it might be that the election results in Iraq are getting close to zero media attention?

A week ago this was the election of the century. Anybody remember purple fingers?

I get that they must still be counting the votes, but in this 24-hour news world, how can it be that we aren't getting nightly updates of how things are looking, when the results will be in, what the implications are?

Have we all had our memories cleaned? Or am I just missing something here...?

Quote of the year

I did not like fascists when I fought them as a diplomat for 23 years and I don't like them now in my own country.

From Ambassador Wilson, in an excellent interview posted on ye olde DailyKos.

Zack Exley's advice to Dean

Zack Exley advises Howard Dean to use his e-bully pulpit to communicate directly to wired Democratic activists his first day on the job.

p.s.: Pete I'm sorry but I accidentally allowed the URLs to be stripped from your comment on the previous post here. Please feel free to re-post them in a main entry.

Is this the week Iran won the Iran-Iraq war?

I read the news today and got a cold feeling inside. Have we just spent all this blood and treasure to create the perfect opening for an oil-rich anti-western Iran-Iraq alliance, complete with US-trained and armed troops? And will Bush's great purple-stained success this week turn out to be yet another naive move by wide-eyed, naive, idealistic conservatives, and perhaps the biggest strategic blunder in modern US history?

I sure as hell hope not.

Yeeagh!

MyDD :: Democratic party just committed suicide!

This MyDD diarist points out that the conventional wisdom on Dean and what he stands for is dead wrong.

This is good. The Democrats have to stop being so transparent with the media.

Atrios has been pointing out that the Republicans have gotten in bed with media elites with its phony-crisis insurance social engineering project.

private? personal? it's all partisan

Since the Shrub administration is parsing terms these days, I'd like to suggest some additional euphemisms...

Private parts shall now be personal parts. There is no more privation--it's providence. Privileged? No. Preselected. Will the SSS become the Social Securities System? The Republicons who gave us the Death Tax are primed to pitch young against old in the war of words that will no doubt include a Youth Tax. Grow wealth? Sure, it's like money and trees.

Oh, and let's all give a big hurrah for the Ownership Society. Personal Accounts--they're like Constitutional rights, the government can never take them away.