“I Heard That Too”... The 'Architect' Confirms Plame's Identity To Bob Novak...
AP/J. Scott Applewhite
Cheese-gate: On the Trail of Phony Formaggio
Several readers have wondered what prompted my trip to Europe. Work? Pleasure? A sudden desire to blog from thousands of miles away? Well, I can now reveal that I’ve actually been sent here by the C.I.A. to investigate the use of a certain yellow substance and how it's being transported from country to country. Thankfully, it's a lot nicer a mission than the one Joe Wilson was sent on to Niger. In my case, C.I.A. stands for Confederazione Italiana Agricoltori, which is the Italian farmers' association, and the substance in question is not uranium yellowcake but rather… well, parmesan cheese.
According to Agenzia Nazionale Stampa Associata, an Italian News Agency, nine out of ten Italian cheeses sold in America are fakes -- that is, not really made in Italy. This, as I’m finding out in my travels, is actually quite a hot topic in Europe (okay not as hot as Rove is in America but hot). And since cheese is pretty much my favorite food, I decided to investigate Cheese-gate for myself…
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A Little Sympathy for Scott McClellan
I know Democratic partisans are not supposed to get weepy watching the Bush team wilt under the hot lights of Plamegate, but allow me a little sympathy for Scott McClellan who gets sent out to roast every day from the hot breath of the White House press corps. Been there, done that I would say. I was the press corps pinata for President Clinton during four zesty years that included l'affaire Monique. Sometimes it is the chosen assignment of the White House Press Secretary to go out and get whacked, over and over, to see if anything interesting will spill out...
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BBC Uncensors Itself
Despite reports this week that the BBC was backing off use of the word "terrorist" to describe the London bombers -- reports which triggered the usual outrage on the talk-radio prairie, I myself, with my own eyes and ears, heard this today: BBC World Service radio and BBC World News TV both described the bombing victims as having been "murdered," and the television feed described the CCTV photo of one of the bombers at King's Cross station as depicting a "terrorist." End of story.
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The Right Is Killing Us
Earlier in the week, a Tampa man went on trial for murdering his 3-year old son. Apparently Ronnie Paris Jr. pummeled his boy to death because he thought the boy might be gay. Outside of the fact that an innocent child has died for no reason, what's most frightening is the idea that a father would feel it necessary to take such extraordinary steps to prevent his son from being gay…
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Females In The Fight
American women are fighting and dying every day in Iraq. There are about 11,100 women serving there right now. They make up roughly 8% of the total US force. At least 37 women have been killed and over 300 have been wounded. This is a side of the Iraq War most American people don't see. Or maybe they don't want to see...
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Would Bush Pull the Plug on Rehnquist?
Seeing William Rehnquist hospitalized for a fever made me wonder. It isn’t likely, but just suppose he slipped into a coma, like Terri Schiavo. As far as I know, there’s no provision to remove Supreme Court justices simply because they’re incapacitated. They have to die or resign. So if Rehnquist were in a coma, he wouldn’t be able to vote, and Bush wouldn’t be able to replace him. If this did happen, would Bush be clamoring to maintain Rehnquist’s life no matter what? Would Bill Frist claim he saw movement in Rehnquist's blind eyes, and would Tom DeLay call in hit men on judges who wanted to end things?
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Speculating on Specter
Forget Karl Rove, what’s up with Arlen Specter? The man who explained the magic bullet theory to the Warren Commission – my favorite piece of sketch comedy after “Who’s on first?” - the Senator who savaged Anita Hill during the Clarence Thomas hearings has in the past few weeks declared his ideological independence. “What gives?” I asked my dog. He said, “Cancer. Specter’s dealing with a life-threatening disease.” Which just goes to show you how stupid this dog is. I’ve had cancer and sure, it’s a transformative experience but it’s not that transformative. I didn’t suddenly start dialing up Rush Limbaugh or join the NRA.
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Oh To Be in England, Now That Terrorism's There
I left London the day the newspapers were full of second-shoe nightmares, the news that the 7/7 bombers had been born and reared right there in England's green and pleasant land. Britain has been broad -- not consistently, but in the main -- broad in its embrace of the "others" who seek its tolerances. Remember Karl Marx, writing his Das Kapital call for revolution, even as he lived for three decades in the virtual shadow of the Houses of Parliament. Now it seems four Muslim men have brought terrorism to the country of their birth.
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Truth Telling, the Moral High Ground, and a Modest Proposal
From my perspective as a Christian theologian, those who openly claim to be followers of Christ are particularly worthy of critique when they claim the moral high ground and yet fall so easily into the obfuscation game. The Christians who opposed Bill Clinton rightly objected when he used clever rhetoric to obfuscate; those who supported him were too quick to argue that what he said was “technically true.” We now have an administration that has a high level of support from self-identified Christians. Yet, now that the shoe is on the other foot, the tongue is in the other cheek, so to speak.
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Schwarzenegger's Muscle-Gate
Open up this month's issue of Flex and you'll find it dominated by ads for the types of products that Arnold chose not to regulate. These ads pay Arnold's secret salary, creating a serious conflict for Arnold the Governor. When put to the test, he didn't have the muscle to stand up to his paymasters and regulate use of the supplements. Arnold has to choose between the private business deals that make him millions and the public he was elected to serve. The Gov should give back all the money and sever the $8 million contract immediately or he should resign.
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My Dad, DVDs, and the Declining Movie Business
My father, Solomon Elias Horowitz, was in the dress business. I was happy to go with him to his office at 1385 Broadway in New York. His business was good at times, and not so good at other times -- and there was always a reason when business was bad: "We had a very late spring." "The economy is bad." "Taffeta is no longer acceptable." "Dark colors are in," etc. In the last couple of weeks, there has been much written about the declining motion picture business...
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Why Karl Rove Has To Go
Conservative hacks claim Rove broke no laws. They insist the calls for Rove’s resignation are nothing more than the desperate acts of Democrat pit bulls in heat. In fact, Rove’s defenders are blowing nothing but smoke at America – using a diversionary tactic to focus the public on a secondary issue. Whether or not Rove broke the law, there are two reasons why he must go.
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Rove: Seeds Of Destruction From Seeds Of His Success
Everybody’s talking about Rove. Did he commit treason? Is he a good guy or a bad guy? Is he really Bush’s brain? Or is he an extremely able, barely-within-the-law political genius? Certainly his decades of political successes are evidence of his political astuteness. Yet many of them also seem to carry a scent of duplicity, an ability to leak information that ultimately plays a great role in his wins. Let’s take a look back …
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Heads in the Sand
To mislead the public by saying that Islamic terrorism is all about an "evil ideology" as Mr. Blair has, can not only invite a backlash against Muslims (as has happened in Britain, with one known death in Nottingham so far), but is dishonest in its over-simplification of what is a growing problem. There is a twisted and yes, evil, ideology that Muslim terrorists subscribe to, but it is disingenuous to suggest that the ideology is the only reason they strike.
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In Figuring Out London Bombers, Remember Danny Pearl's Killer
The big question now being asked by shocked cosmopolitans in London after the subway and bus bombings is not "why do they hate us?" but "how could people who grew up playing cricket like the rest of us do such a thing?" But in trying to figure out the possible mindset of the killers, we've been here before. The same questions were asked about Omar Sheikh, the British-Pakistani who was behind the brutal beheading of Daniel Pearl…
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Put Your Country Above Your Party
I’ve been a life-long Republican. I just happen to care more about my country than I do about my party. I supported Ronald Reagan. I voted for and whole-heartedly supported – and to this day continue to support – George H.W. Bush. I’m against affirmative action, I’m a fiscal hawk and I held pro-war rallies during the first Persian Gulf War. But do I still call myself a Republican? Hell no. I care too much about my country to put a political party over the interests of our nation....
