Looks like a certain semi-famous semi-fat semi-hairless longtime mentor and political advisor to a certain United States President may be going down, and soon, by way of plea or indictment, Q.V. two respectable-and-generally-well-
sourced-if-undeniably-biased blogosphere posts:
Washington Monthly: See It Now.
Raw Story (Source for above, but check out both if you're interested in how the gossip is separated from, and then folded back into the story:) See It Now.
Standing Eight is not in the business of playing "telephone" so may we suggest that you read the above posts and see if they don't, in your own (clearly quite facile,) mind, cut the legs out from yesterday's lede (yes that's how we spell it,) on this story, viz. that whatever Ms. Novak had to say would tend to exonerate "Official A". (We seriously can't bring ourselves to put his name here for fear of breaking the spell.)
As Drudge says: --developing--
29 November 2005
27 November 2005
Thanksgiving Leftovers
Standing Eight had some unexpected guests sleeping in our offices this weekend, so we could not make our usual 2am runs to the keyboard as insight hit us. Here are a few brief items from the long weekend. As you probably know, nothing much happens in DC over turkey day, since the turkeys have all gone home to roost with their constituents. Nonetheless:
Abramoff: The first rule of blogging about the Abramoff case is: Don't. Because anyone who cares about it gets plenty of info from many sources and it's hard to add anything new, and those who don't care will think you a wingnut for attempting to bring the scandal (and it is a scandal,) some small notice. That said, it's hard to deny that it exploded over the past week. On Saturday in the WaPo, under the headline "Lawmakers Under Scrutiny in Probe of Lobbyist" Schmidt and Grimaldi feel confident to report that, "...prosecutors on the Abramoff case are focused on at least half a dozen members of Congress." (See It Now) But by late Sunday US News was telling a different, or bigger story. In a story dated 12/5/05 (explain that to us for a free steak dinner,) Silla Brush reports that, "the conduct of at least a dozen representatives and senators is now being scrutinized by a small army of federal prosecutors and FBI agents." (See It Now) Granted that these two statements are not exclusive. Focus and Scrutiny are not the same word, and "at least" means "at least," but we would still point out that the bigger number of paramecia under the microscope came with the later reporting.
The Pie-Eyed Innocence of Frank Rich: Standing Eight rule of 21st Century politics #1A, (The Franking Privilege): If it is of genuine import to the reality-based community, it will end up in Frank Rich's column. That said, we think he's being a bit wishful with this closing sentence:
That's why it's Mr. Cheney's and the president's own words that are being thrown back now - not to rewrite history but to reveal it for the first time to an angry country that has learned the hard way that it can no longer afford to be without the truth. (See It Now)
Italics ours, but does the eminent Mr. Rich really believe that the country has learned anything, or that it will be that much harder to defraud the American public the next time a president needs to? Standing Eight believes rather that the single shining lesson of everything that's happened since, oh, pick an arbitrary date, say, 11 September 2001, is that we are very dupe-able, we will exchange Eastasia for Eurasia instantly, and not just in our words, in our very hearts, as a people, if the guy at the megaphone is megalomaniacal enough to convince, (which they always are,) and if supposedly good men stand silent, or worse yet, willingly participate in the Two Minutes Hate despite the questions and doubts that we can't stop our brains from nagging us with. (Little flowery on the prose there, we have been hosting the whole fam-damily, but the point remains.)
Rolling Stone Does News?: Again, we've had guests and hosting responsibilities, so we must confess that we have not yet absorbed the Very Important article by James Bamford about the selling of the war in RS this week. But you don't have to wait for our biased synopsis! You can See It Now.
Abramoff: The first rule of blogging about the Abramoff case is: Don't. Because anyone who cares about it gets plenty of info from many sources and it's hard to add anything new, and those who don't care will think you a wingnut for attempting to bring the scandal (and it is a scandal,) some small notice. That said, it's hard to deny that it exploded over the past week. On Saturday in the WaPo, under the headline "Lawmakers Under Scrutiny in Probe of Lobbyist" Schmidt and Grimaldi feel confident to report that, "...prosecutors on the Abramoff case are focused on at least half a dozen members of Congress." (See It Now) But by late Sunday US News was telling a different, or bigger story. In a story dated 12/5/05 (explain that to us for a free steak dinner,) Silla Brush reports that, "the conduct of at least a dozen representatives and senators is now being scrutinized by a small army of federal prosecutors and FBI agents." (See It Now) Granted that these two statements are not exclusive. Focus and Scrutiny are not the same word, and "at least" means "at least," but we would still point out that the bigger number of paramecia under the microscope came with the later reporting.
The Pie-Eyed Innocence of Frank Rich: Standing Eight rule of 21st Century politics #1A, (The Franking Privilege): If it is of genuine import to the reality-based community, it will end up in Frank Rich's column. That said, we think he's being a bit wishful with this closing sentence:
That's why it's Mr. Cheney's and the president's own words that are being thrown back now - not to rewrite history but to reveal it for the first time to an angry country that has learned the hard way that it can no longer afford to be without the truth. (See It Now)
Italics ours, but does the eminent Mr. Rich really believe that the country has learned anything, or that it will be that much harder to defraud the American public the next time a president needs to? Standing Eight believes rather that the single shining lesson of everything that's happened since, oh, pick an arbitrary date, say, 11 September 2001, is that we are very dupe-able, we will exchange Eastasia for Eurasia instantly, and not just in our words, in our very hearts, as a people, if the guy at the megaphone is megalomaniacal enough to convince, (which they always are,) and if supposedly good men stand silent, or worse yet, willingly participate in the Two Minutes Hate despite the questions and doubts that we can't stop our brains from nagging us with. (Little flowery on the prose there, we have been hosting the whole fam-damily, but the point remains.)
Rolling Stone Does News?: Again, we've had guests and hosting responsibilities, so we must confess that we have not yet absorbed the Very Important article by James Bamford about the selling of the war in RS this week. But you don't have to wait for our biased synopsis! You can See It Now.
21 November 2005
What Could Be Verse?
The First Meeting of the White House Iraq Group as Transcribed by Ogden Nash
(With apologies to Nash, Cagney as Cohan as FDR, and Calvin Trillan, but not George Bush.)
BUSH:
"To fight them there instead of here, we have to go to desert war.
Trust our good intel (wink,) but trust we'd dearly like to tell you more.
If it weren't such a no-brainer, it'd be a tough decision I'd abhor,
But a smoking gun's not the kind-of-a-thing a mushroom cloud's good for.
And that's (cha cha cha,) on the record." [Exit Bush.]
CHENEY:
"Tell our friend, reporter Judy, on deep background
Of the mass-destructin' booty to be found
Apres our bold and fearless and preemptive ground attack,
Among the old bombed out fields and towns of the new democratic Iraq.
Make sure it hits the streets in Sunday's Times.
Then amplify this pro-us news in all the big metropoli,
Abuse and deplete our strategic stockpile of Russerts and Stephanopoli,
Pump up our trumped-up evidence and play down my own bald ego.
To the Sunday morning chat shows' vaunted echo chamber boldly we go.
Be careful though, in a DemAdmin these acts would constitute war crimes."
[All chuckle sinisterly.]
LIBBY:
"Our bread of war remains unleavened, one lynchpin that we still lack
Is a definite connection between nine-eleven and Iraq.
Let's cherry pick that Prague report. Hadley! Matalin! Write a retort
To the few remaining vigilant reporters' questions as to just what sort
Of burden of proof we put on ourselves, our reasons and our rhymes.
To which reporters should we leak? It would be impolitic to overlap.
I'll spoon-feed Judy WMD's and Steve says Woodward owes him a good turn, so we've got the Times and the Post on tap.
An added plus, they're so power-hungry they'll embargo the secretest stuff long-term,
Like, until we've revealed that, 'we never concealed Iraq's total lack of nuke, chem and germ.'
And by then we'll be off to more pleasant, or at least more Syrian climes." [Bush re-enters, all stand.]
BUSH:
"Ain't y'all done yet? Geez, it's late.
My steaks won't wait, Laura's irate.
Tell you what, put down your pens and papers, go from here with what you've got.
Unless the Dems take back one house of Congress we will not get caught.
And our presents, (then our pasts,) will stay uncheckered."
(With apologies to Nash, Cagney as Cohan as FDR, and Calvin Trillan, but not George Bush.)
BUSH:
"To fight them there instead of here, we have to go to desert war.
Trust our good intel (wink,) but trust we'd dearly like to tell you more.
If it weren't such a no-brainer, it'd be a tough decision I'd abhor,
But a smoking gun's not the kind-of-a-thing a mushroom cloud's good for.
And that's (cha cha cha,) on the record." [Exit Bush.]
CHENEY:
"Tell our friend, reporter Judy, on deep background
Of the mass-destructin' booty to be found
Apres our bold and fearless and preemptive ground attack,
Among the old bombed out fields and towns of the new democratic Iraq.
Make sure it hits the streets in Sunday's Times.
Then amplify this pro-us news in all the big metropoli,
Abuse and deplete our strategic stockpile of Russerts and Stephanopoli,
Pump up our trumped-up evidence and play down my own bald ego.
To the Sunday morning chat shows' vaunted echo chamber boldly we go.
Be careful though, in a DemAdmin these acts would constitute war crimes."
[All chuckle sinisterly.]
LIBBY:
"Our bread of war remains unleavened, one lynchpin that we still lack
Is a definite connection between nine-eleven and Iraq.
Let's cherry pick that Prague report. Hadley! Matalin! Write a retort
To the few remaining vigilant reporters' questions as to just what sort
Of burden of proof we put on ourselves, our reasons and our rhymes.
To which reporters should we leak? It would be impolitic to overlap.
I'll spoon-feed Judy WMD's and Steve says Woodward owes him a good turn, so we've got the Times and the Post on tap.
An added plus, they're so power-hungry they'll embargo the secretest stuff long-term,
Like, until we've revealed that, 'we never concealed Iraq's total lack of nuke, chem and germ.'
And by then we'll be off to more pleasant, or at least more Syrian climes." [Bush re-enters, all stand.]
BUSH:
"Ain't y'all done yet? Geez, it's late.
My steaks won't wait, Laura's irate.
Tell you what, put down your pens and papers, go from here with what you've got.
Unless the Dems take back one house of Congress we will not get caught.
And our presents, (then our pasts,) will stay uncheckered."
10 November 2005
Memory Hole Alert #2
Fresh from their much-ballyhoo'd refresher ethics classes, your friends at the White House fundamentally altered a McClellan statement from the Oct. 31 briefing when they posted the briefing transcript online, sliding another one down the memory hole while you weren't looking (unless you were.)
David Gregory basically said we know Rove and Libby were involved with the leak whether or not there was any illegality. At this point McClellan responded, (and as attendees if not graduates of a very fine J-school, we stake our entire quoting ability and credibility on this,) McClellan said, "That's accurate." But the transcript says he said, "I don't think that's accurate," which is somewhat different.
Don't trust J-School drop-outs? We don't blame you, but this is not a right-wing site where you'd be asked to just take our word for it. The video is available online, and you can See It Now. There is no mumbling or half-uttered, "I don't think that's..." nothing remotely like it. The transcript is a lie. In fact Standing Eight predicts that within a day or two they'll have had to "correct" or "retract" the incorrect transcript, at which point they will pull it offline entirely, as they always do with Bush's flubs or any unorthodoxy that slips through the suffocating grip of their Message Control. Luckily, you are smart enough to read Standing Eight, so you won't be fooled (again.)
David Gregory basically said we know Rove and Libby were involved with the leak whether or not there was any illegality. At this point McClellan responded, (and as attendees if not graduates of a very fine J-school, we stake our entire quoting ability and credibility on this,) McClellan said, "That's accurate." But the transcript says he said, "I don't think that's accurate," which is somewhat different.
Don't trust J-School drop-outs? We don't blame you, but this is not a right-wing site where you'd be asked to just take our word for it. The video is available online, and you can See It Now. There is no mumbling or half-uttered, "I don't think that's..." nothing remotely like it. The transcript is a lie. In fact Standing Eight predicts that within a day or two they'll have had to "correct" or "retract" the incorrect transcript, at which point they will pull it offline entirely, as they always do with Bush's flubs or any unorthodoxy that slips through the suffocating grip of their Message Control. Luckily, you are smart enough to read Standing Eight, so you won't be fooled (again.)
Retail Politics
John Stewart "reported" Wednesday night that the 2 candidates for N.J. Governor spent a combined 70 million dollars in the race that ended in Snotty Billionaire John Corzine's victory over Snotty Billionaire Doug Forrester. That may sound like peanuts compared to the presidential campaign "budgets" we became so familiar with last year, but consider this: only 2.12 Million people voted in NJ yesterday (2,124,756, in fact.) Two things: a) that's less than or very near 25% turnout, but much more importantly b) it means the two candidates spent $32.94496 on every individual vote cast. And if we remember our high-school physics lesson on significant digits and rounding, that rounds up to $32.95 per vote. If Kerry and Bush had spent $32.95 per vote they'd have combined to spend (we didn't believe it 'til we checked our math,) 3.99 Billion-with-a-"B" dollars, and that is retail politics, and it is coming down the road, let no Standing Eight readers claim or feign surprise.
But wait there's more! If you break down the NJ race by assuming each candidate spent half of the 70 mil (they didn't become rich by outspending each other,) it turns out Corzine spent $29.92 for every vote for him, while Forrester spent a whopping $36.66 on each of his votes (we did not massage those numbers to make 666 appear, either.) That's right, proof positive that losing is expensive.
But wait there's more! If you break down the NJ race by assuming each candidate spent half of the 70 mil (they didn't become rich by outspending each other,) it turns out Corzine spent $29.92 for every vote for him, while Forrester spent a whopping $36.66 on each of his votes (we did not massage those numbers to make 666 appear, either.) That's right, proof positive that losing is expensive.
07 November 2005
You say Eastasia, I say Eurasia. (Let's call the whole thing Orwell.)
You may have seen this, it made the rounds a couple of days ago. It's pretty much the history of the Iraq War told entirely in official lies. Very entertaining. See It Now. Compiled and composed by Sam Smith at Harper's, the Official Print Role Model of Standing Eight.
03 November 2005
The P no longer stands for "Propaganda"
The schmuck who tried to turn PBS and NPR into FoxNews "resigned ahead of," a CPB report that basically painted him a criminal.
See It Now
By the way, Standing Eight has no theoretical problem with the existence of FoxNews, it's just that we've already got one, and they don't need to annex Jim Lehrer. That said, Standing Eight is 100 percent behind any politician who wants to bring back the Fairness Doctrine, which Reagan tossed overboard back in his dismantlin' days, and which if reinstated would basically necessitate the immediate cessation of all FoxNews broadcasting in this country. That would merely be a pleasant by-product, however, of a very sound political and long-term- public-weal-type decision. Like the sound of a livable environment for the next couple hundred years? Like the sound of a better educated populace better able to compete in the dawning century? Fix your TV news first, and the rest will follow.
See It Now
By the way, Standing Eight has no theoretical problem with the existence of FoxNews, it's just that we've already got one, and they don't need to annex Jim Lehrer. That said, Standing Eight is 100 percent behind any politician who wants to bring back the Fairness Doctrine, which Reagan tossed overboard back in his dismantlin' days, and which if reinstated would basically necessitate the immediate cessation of all FoxNews broadcasting in this country. That would merely be a pleasant by-product, however, of a very sound political and long-term- public-weal-type decision. Like the sound of a livable environment for the next couple hundred years? Like the sound of a better educated populace better able to compete in the dawning century? Fix your TV news first, and the rest will follow.
Those Wacky Catholics
Under the headline "Vatican: Faithful Should Listen to Science":
See It Now
Please know that we include this in our green-in-at-least-two-ways pages in an almost entirely "'A' for effort", "Thanks for trying", "Better late than never" sort of spirit. Standing Eight has a soft spot for the Catholic Church (ouch,) and wants to see it do well. But we did note with a lapsed chuckle the following graf (yes that's how we spell it in journalism,):
"The Vatican project was inspired by Pope John Paul II's 1992 declaration that the church's 17th-century denunciation of Galileo was an error resulting from "tragic mutual incomprehension." Galileo was condemned for supporting Nicolaus Copernicus' discovery that the Earth revolved around the sun; church teaching at the time placed Earth at the center of the universe." (Italics property of Standing Eight.)
"Tragic mutual incomprehension," meaning that Galileo was every bit as uncomprehending and as culpable as the pontiff. Well done JP II, tres diplomatique. And by the way, theoretical readers: if a pope now or in the future should ever offer to apologize to Standing Eight, please remind us to simply say "Grazie, ma no grazie." (Seriously, don't steal our italics.)
See It Now
Please know that we include this in our green-in-at-least-two-ways pages in an almost entirely "'A' for effort", "Thanks for trying", "Better late than never" sort of spirit. Standing Eight has a soft spot for the Catholic Church (ouch,) and wants to see it do well. But we did note with a lapsed chuckle the following graf (yes that's how we spell it in journalism,):
"The Vatican project was inspired by Pope John Paul II's 1992 declaration that the church's 17th-century denunciation of Galileo was an error resulting from "tragic mutual incomprehension." Galileo was condemned for supporting Nicolaus Copernicus' discovery that the Earth revolved around the sun; church teaching at the time placed Earth at the center of the universe." (Italics property of Standing Eight.)
"Tragic mutual incomprehension," meaning that Galileo was every bit as uncomprehending and as culpable as the pontiff. Well done JP II, tres diplomatique. And by the way, theoretical readers: if a pope now or in the future should ever offer to apologize to Standing Eight, please remind us to simply say "Grazie, ma no grazie." (Seriously, don't steal our italics.)
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