Bell Business

Is Everybody Drunk?

I'm right now watching C-Span2 and Sen. Robert Byrd is speaking. He is fucking out of his mind drunk. It is unreal to watch this guy go on, barely able to speak, and nobody is going to cut him off. He is DRUNK. What the hell?
I just watched a video from Crooks and Liars of Tom Delay ranting about Harry Reid. Delay was clearly drunk, yet they kept the cameras rolling and let him speak (as best he could) about his vague understanding of treason.
It seems to me both parties should have a guy nearby to just bail people out of situations like this.

"Sorry, the senator needs to take his medication..." Something like that.

 

I really am expecting this guy Byrd to collapse any second now. He is fucking sloshed. This is appalling. Look, I know he's 90 years old. I don't care. My grandpa was 92 when he died, and I could tell when he was hammered.

Of course, now Kay Bailey Hutchinson is talking. She seems sober, but she is just as embarrassing. "My gosh, what if we had pulled out of WWII?" Good point!

By the way, we're not "fighting for freedom." Seems like some people are still confused about that. No one in Iraq gives a shit about our freedom. The 9/11 hijackers didn't give a shit about our freedom. And for that matter, George Bush (Jr. or Sr.) does not give a shit about our freedom.

Someone please get Senator Byrd some coffee.

UPDATE: I AM AN ASSHOLE. I've been meaning to amend this post for a little while. I was actually going to just delete it, but thought I would leave it up to sort of make a point.
I've since watched Byrd quite a few times and am quite convinced that I was totally wrong about him. It was a stupid, knee-jerk thing for me to say. I think I had just seen some Tom Delay interview (he WAS drunk) and then I saw Byrd, and so I pulled a really stupid post out of my ass.
Anyway, I thought it would be better to keep the post up with this correction rather than just take it down and pretend it never happened.
My sincere apologies to Sen. Byrd. I was wrong. And I am an asshole.

(All other remarks in this post stand.)

I Don't Understand

I'm watching some congressional hearing about the new war appropriations bill led by Obey, with Murtha, and some others I can't remember (and am to lazy to rewind). A republican was just on who quoted Bush about the needing the funding by April nonsense, that was debunked by the Pentagon. He then attributed the remarks to the army. Then Murtha spoke, and just rattled off some numbers about how much the bill allocates for the troops.

Aren't these supposed to be debates? Shouldn't the correct reponse have been, "Your facts are innacurate"? And why is nobody talking about the real reason this bill is going to be vetoed? It's going to be vetoed because it has a TIMETABLE. And Bush says we shouldn't second guess the generals. But it is SO EASY to prove that Bush second guesses the generals at every turn, including the implementation of his surge strategy. Why can't our representatives seem to say this. Are they really that inept?

I really feel like I'm missing something here. It just doesn't seem that difficult. Wouldn't it be easy to get some very respectable (recently retired, natch) military figures to say that the bill is reasonable? And even if that's not the case,  can't they just call out Bush and his defenders on his hypocracy?

I really just don't get it. It's depressing.

Now Ted Stevens is speaking. There's been so much complaint about pork in this bill, and they have the "bridge to nowhere" guy getting all high and mighty about it? Pathetic. We should be mopping the floor with these idiots.

I'm going to end this post on a high note. Here is Sister Rosetta Tharp, KICKING ASS on her SG, singing "Down By the Riverside." You know I'm not so much your go-to God guy, but I do enjoy gospel music. And this ROCKS.

Sister Rosetta Tharpe   (I know, in the image she's playing a Les Paul. In the video she's playing an SG)

Barney Frank Kicks Ass

I realized while showing this to my wife that I am complete dork. This clip is C-Span porn. It's gold. It's what people like me who spend hours a day watching the Span (1,2, and 3) are waiting for, pining for. Anyway, I think this is awesome...

(Once more, via Crooks and Liars)

To give you some perspective, I equate it with this...

(Thank you, YouTube)

...which is the coolest thing I've seen all day.

(More On) Gonzo's Hearing

I meant to post more on this earlier, but got caught up in other things (blogging - not so easy!)

But this Jon Stewart bit via the fantastic Crooks and Liars sums it up nicely.

Basically, he was not part of the process (of firing the USA's for political reasons) but it was his decision and he stands by it. Also, even though he cannot recall ANY of the specifics of the process (of firing the USA's for political reasons) he is 100% sure that there was nothing nefarious going on.

Talking heads on the news (TV and radio) kept spouting off about how pathetic and pitiful he looked, and how you just had to feel sorry for him.

Fuck him. He is willfully ruining our country. YES, USA's are political appointees, and presidents can hire and fire them at will, but it is painfully clear that this administration is trying to politicize their positions AFTER they've been hired, and that is both wreckless and illegal. It's also more than probable that tampering with the judicial process was happening. Whether or not he knew about this (and who thinks he DIDN'T know about this) all this happened on the AG's watch.  I don't care if Gonzales is called on his bullshit on a national stage. I don't care if he loses his freaking job. He has no morals. He has no scruples. (probably redundant) THIS WAS NOTHING. His legal gymnastics gave the president a green light to torture. So I have absolutely zero sympathy for him. I'd love to see him in a dozen more hearings like this.

One more thing, and it's been emphasized before, he had WEEKS to prepare for this. Good Lord, what a moron. Good Lord, what an asshole.

Better Than I Could Have Said It

When I wrote about Gore's testimony a while ago, comparing his speaking ability to Bush's, this is what I was talking about.

(link via Atrios)

Now somebody tell me what HE'S talking about.

Gonzo's Hearing

Just starting... Gonna have a busy day but am recording it, so hopefully when Gracie takes a nap I'll get to post a little on it. So far I'll say this, based on his opening statement, Leahy is out for blood. Good for him.

This Imus Business

I've been going back and forth from Atrios' comments to Digby's, trying to compose something that reflects what I'm thinking about this, but I can't seem to put it into words.

It's complicated. Imus features horrible racists on his show, but he is not a racist.

He said something horribly racist, yet I do not think he is a racist.

His show is a clumsy mish-mash of old school shock-jock schtick. He's trying to sound like he's got his finger on the pulse, but at the same time, he's like a hundred years old. Sometimes he says truly offensive things. Or someone on his staff does. And he doesn't know the difference.

He is also transparently stupid on (a lot of) the political issues of the day. Never mind that he continually calls oour attention to this. But he also is not afraid to call any of the powerful people he gets on his show (and EVERYBODY wants to be on his show) bald-faced liars. Just off the top of my head I can recall him telling Lieberman, Schumer, Santorum, and Mary Matelin that they were liars, to their face. That is impressive. (All deserved it)

But he is not a racist. And he is not the enemy. And it would be sad if he were to go away.

I would like to think that he's willing to change his program to exclude the offensive remarks that regularly appear. He says he is, but I don't really believe it. He is intensely loyal, and I think that even if he tempers his remarks, his staff will just not know how to do so, and he will be loathe to fire them. Can you imagine Bernard McGuirk talking for more than a minute without being offensive? I can't. And Sid Rosenberg just got back onto the show...

But I would like to see him try. I would like to see him focus on the interviews that he has to do with powerful people, and less on trying to be a shock-jock. He's already got the full rolodex of people who are dying to be on his show (even in light of the scandal). Imagine if he spent less time trying to be (shockingly) funny, and more time prepping for the actual questions he's going to ask, and the answers he's going to receive.

I really think he could be good. Not just good, but great.

Either way, I've been listening to him talk. A lot of people are going on about how he's bringing up the sickle-cell thing, like he's saying "I've got a LOT of black friends..." but it's not the same thing. He's flailing, I think, because he's genuinely trying to figure out exactly what he's done. But he HAS done good work, and he IS a good man, and it's sad to watch him figure out just how to apologize for his transgression.

Racist things get said all the time. I've said them. You've said them. (If you deny it you're lying) Should they be said on our airwaves? No. Is it right to call Imus out on this business? YES. Although, I wish I'd heard some protest about Bo Deitl's recent anti-muslim comments. And I still don't get why it's not a bigger deal that his producer referred to the girls as "jigaboos." I must be an idiot. That seems way more offensive to me than "nappy-headed ho's."

But I'm telling you, Imus is not the enemy. When something racist, or sexist, or whatever -ist is said on his show, it is because someone is trying to be funny and failing. Imus was trying to describe how tough the Rutgers girls looked. They had tattoos, they looked more street. He tried to talk more street. He fell on his face.

I'll try and add to this later. It is tiring to read all the liberal blogs that I admire so much having such a knee-jerk reaction to this.

Imus is not the enemy.

The Man Behind The Curtain (Shrubbery)

I've seen a few posts on this, which is usually enough to keep me off a story, but this is just too perfect.

While President Bush was giving his presser yesterday, his puppeteer, Dick Cheney was LITERALLY LURKING IN THE BUSHES!

I know what you're saying. He was just standing off to the side. Nothing weird about that. Lots of people stand off to the side while the president speaks. In fact, when the president is speaking, almost everybody in his immediate vicinity is standing off to the side.

But look at this picture. Go ahead, click it. Get a bigger image.

Then look at the video.

You tell me that what Dick Cheney is doing is not the very definition of the word "lurking."

The people running our country, especially the guy in charge (Cheney), are seriously fucking CREEPY.

Don't Ask, Don't Tell, Don't Protect America

Kevin Drum has a post up where he quotes Republican senator Alan Simpson of Wyoming, speaking (writing, actually) about Don't Ask, Don't Tell. Simpson's come to Jesus moment on the issue was when he learned that we had fired something like 300 translators as a result of DADT, including 50 who were fluent in Arabic. This, while Rice acknowledged that we have a "foreign language deficit" especially among Arabic speakers.

Good for Simpson for getting off the moron train, I guess. But my thing is, given the figures he cites, how much longer to Repubs get to wear the He-Man cape when they are so afraid of gay people, they fire them even though we DESPERATELY NEED THEM,

I don't remember the details, but there was some terrorist document that we were in possession of before 9/11 that was a huge red flag pointing to the attacks, and we didn't get it translated until after the fact. Because we don't have enough Arab translators.

And we still fire Arab translators because they're gay.

Shouldn't it be easier to bring these idiots down? Honestly, I'm asking.

Presidential Pardons

Can somebody give me a good reason why they even exist?

Isn't the concept, on it's face, a big "Fuck you" to our judicial system?

Isn't it the kind of power, oh, I don't know... a KING might have?

Honestly, as a country, as a democracy, as a people, what does this buy us?

Can anyone give an example of a presidential pardon that was actually good for the country? (And please, don't say Ford pardoned Nixon and that helped the nation heal. Bull. That wound is still festering today, and it's because of Ford's pardon.)

UPDATE: I sent an email to Kevin Drum over at the excellent Washington Monthly, to see if he would opine on this. I actually don't expect him to. I'm sure he gets lots of requests like mine. But just thought I'd throw it out there. We'll see...

ANOTHER UPDATE: Kevin wrote me back on the same day. I think that was very cool of him. Here is his response...

Well, the vast majority of presidential pardons involve low-level folks
most of us have never heard of.  Some of them are pretty deserving.  But
the only ones that make the news are the big political pardons, like the
Iran-Contra folks or Marc Rich.

So, overall, it's hard to say.  In any case, since they're part of the
constitution, they aren't going away.

I was a little disappointed that he didn't really answer my question. After all, who are these "low level folks" that are "pretty deserving"? How and why did the justice system fail them? And is it the end of the discussion to say that "since they're part of the constitution, they aren't going away"?
I guess I'm of a mind that the constitution is a  living document, meaning it can be changed.
Anyway, it was really neat to hear back from Kevin on this. That he took the time to answer me (and in such a timely fashion) speaks volumes about the guy. Kudos!