The Perky Dementor Strikes Again

Katie Couric says that Congressional Democrats must negotiate with Laura Bush.

As Dobbs is my witness, that is not a typo.  Check it out for yourself.

Somewhere, Edward R. Murrow is writhing in agony.

Presumption of guilt

Thanks to Spin Dentist at All Spin Zone for bringing to attention this Boston Globe article on how U.S. Attorney Bradley Schlozman, promoted from the Civil Rights Division of the US Department of Justice, filed politically-motivated prosecutions and hired Republican cronies from the Federalist Society, and was rewarded by being put in charge of sentencing.

If called for federal jury duty, I would have to say that the system is so obviously corrupt that I would give more than the usual presumption of innocence to the defendant. I would have to give a presumption of guilt to the prosecutor. 

Subtlety Is Not Their Strong Point

The Publicans are attacking Nancy Pelosi again, this time accusing her of “including a provision in a water redevelopment bill that could benefit property her husband owns in San Francisco.”

Except that in the same breath they’re accusing her of corruption, they’re admitting there isn’t any evidence her husband actually would benefit from the bill.

Even the Associated Press, which has lately been so quick to transcribe GOP talking points, puts the lack of evidence right up front in its article:

Republicans, who raised the issue more than two weeks after the bill passed the House, offered no evidence of benefit to Paul Pelosi’s real estate holdings.
  

“I don’t have any facts to say anything untoward has been done here,” said Rep. Jeb Hensarling, R-Texas, chairman of the Republican Study Committee. “She should explain to the American people what the earmark is all about and convince people there’s no financial benefit to her,” he said.

Of course the Republicans want Speaker Pelosi to tell the American people there’s no financial benefit to her. “Politician Denies Guilt” is a headline guaranteed to convince the readers that said politician is guilty, guilty guilty.

But their attempts to smear her are so obvious and the accusations are so petty, even the AP is rolling its metaphorical eyes:

Since Pelosi became speaker in January, Republicans have sought to stir controversy over the size of the plane she uses to fly to California, wages paid by a tuna cannery owned by a company headquartered in her district, and her use of C-SPAN footage on her blog.

And didn’t she get a haircut someplace more expensive than BoRic’s, too? Tsk tsk.

Rolling Backwards In Afghanistan

So we bombed the crap out of Afghanistan for — what, exactly?

Osama’s still running free. The Taliban control pretty much everything outside of Kabul and are working on taking Kabul itself. The secular girls’ schools are being destroyed.

And as Cliff Schecter notes, citing this NYT piece, even the one clear-cut Good Thing about the US’ invading Afghanistan — the establishment of a thriving free press — is now under threat.

The Tornado Flypaper Theory

Cliff Schecter explains why we have to fight the tornadoes in Iraq so we don’t have to fight them here, even though it leaves towns in places like Kansas unable to recover from tornadoes.

One of my heavily-Republican cow orkers was telling me today about the wonders of Newt Gingrich and his new crusade to push Permanent War Against The Wogs — because they’re going to come and get us all, don’t cha know.  I tried telling C.O. that this was playing right into Bin Laden’s hands, but I didn’t make a dent in the propaganda embedded in Cow Orker’s brain.

France Has A New President, Sarkozy

The general US media take is that he will be very pro-US, which apparently translates as “will jump at Bush’s and/or the World Bank’s bidding”.

Then again, Jacques Chirac was supposed to be very pro-US, too, having spent his college years here.  But even that wasn’t enough to make Chirac back Bush and the PNAC Platoon’s invasion and occupation of Iraq.

I suspect that we’ll be seeing headlines about “France’s anti-US president, Nicholas Sarkozy” by this time next year, if not sooner.