Out-evolved

(Updated [which is more than we can say for the GOP] below.)

The whole 100-Day meme is kind of silly; it's a completely arbitrary number based on the evolutionary happenstance that we have ten fingers and toes rather than, say, eight. In a parallel universe the media might as easily have spent a week in late March scrutinizing the president's First 64 Days.

President Obama's 100-day mark arrived during the week when opposition among The Civil War Re-enactment Society Senate Repubicans to HHS Secretary nominee Kathleen Sebelius collapsed, Obama passed his budget, and Sen. Arlen "Don Altobello" Specter executed a high-profile defection to the Democrats.

Whether you trust Specter or not, the optics of his jump, combined with everything else happening this week, have been simply dreadful for the GOP.

This was a week when it sucked to be RNC chair Michael Steele, even more so than in most recent weeks, That could be why, even as the Republicans (reminiscent of Democrats of yore) are fighting over whether their only shot at relevance is to step back from the ledge or jump, Steele was conspicuously not invited to be part of the newest GOP gambit.

The Republican leadership, stewing and fretting, realizes that its dream of a permanent majority, so real they could taste it only four years ago, has about as much of a chance of happening as another George Clooney "Batman" sequel.

The fact that Rove and Cheney are still making public appearances and Gingrich is seriously considered as a 2012 candidate should tell you the discussion is not going to go well:

Coming soon to a battleground state near you: a new effort to revive the image of the Republican Party and to counter President Obama's characterization of Republicans as "the party of 'no.'"

CNN has learned that the new initiative, called the National Council for a New America, will be announced Thursday.

It will involve an outreach by an interesting mix of GOP officials, ranging from 2008 Republican presidential nominee John McCain to Jeb Bush, the former Florida governor and the younger brother of the man many Republicans blame for the party's battered brand: former President George W. Bush.

In addition to Sen. McCain and Gov. Bush, GOP sources familiar with the plans tell CNN others involved in the new group's "National Panel Of Experts" will include:

*Mississippi Gov. Haley Barbour, a former national GOP chairman
*Louisiana Gov. Bobby Jindal
*Former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney

It will report to GOP congressional leaders, and among those signing the announcement that will be made public Thursday are:

*House GOP Leader John Boehner
*House GOP Whip Eric Cantor
*House GOP Conference Chairman Mike Pence
*Senate GOP Leader Mitch McConnell
*The No. 2 Senate Republican, Jon Kyl
*And the Senate GOP Conference Chairman, Lamar Alexander

"However, this is not a Republican-only forum," reads the letter announcing the new effort, a copy of which was obtained by CNN from Republican sources involved in the effort. "While we will be guided by our principles of freedom and security, we will seek to include more than just our ideas.

"This forum will include a wide open policy debate that every American can feel free to participate in," the announcement letter reads. "We do this not just to offer an alternative point of view or to be disagreeable. Instead, we want to ask the American people what their hopes and dreams are."

(Emphasis added.) "An interesting mix of GOP officials?" Really?

Imagine a T-Rex, a triceratops, a brontosaurus, a pterodactyl, and a velociraptor fronting an initiative called "How Reptiles Can Remain the Dominant Species After the Meteor," and you'll see the problem here.

(Oddly enough, although it's full of other legacy names, I don't see Meghan McCain's name anywhere in the announcement.)

Amazing as it seems, compared to the state of things not very long ago, the Republican Party has been out-evolved.

(Image via DKos.)

(Update: John Perr reminds us that this is the second Republican re-branding in a year.)

Wrong-way Kristol: Specter's switch will hurt Obama

This was wholly predictable, but some credit should be given that it took less than 24 hours to happen.

Background: Last week in the Guardian Eric Alterman tallied up the short but happy life of William Kristol, who's been wrong about everything but his shirt size for years and years, but just keeps failing upward from one high-profile job to the next anyway. Most of us know the general arc of his career, but to see the cavalcade of error listed out on the page is a pretty jaw-dropping experience.

This morning in the Washington Post--where Kristol landed after getting the "it's not you, it's me" speech from the NYTimes a couple of months ago--he shows he's still got it:

On May 24, 2001, I wrote an op-ed for The Post in the wake of Vermont Sen. James Jeffords’s party switch. I argued that the switch, which cost Republicans control of the Senate, could well turn out to be good for President Bush.

Not entirely for the reasons I speculated on in the op-ed, I turned out to be right. Bush was still able to get enough cooperation to govern over the next year and a half, and he was also able to run successfully against the Democratic Senate in the fall of 2002. The GOP regained control that November.

Similarly and contrarianly, I wonder if today’s Arlen Specter party switch, this time to the president’s party, won’t end up being bad for President Obama and the Democrats.

Okay, two things here.

First--"contrarianly"? Dude.

Second, noting that Bush managed to stay in office after Jeffords switched parties is hardly the same as proving that the switch was "good for Bush." Of course, that was back in the days when, if a sparrow fell from the sky, beltway commentators climbed over one another to explain why this was bad for the Democrats and good for the Republicans. (And for some, it appears those days never ended.)

Kristol's reasoning (and I use the word strictly without prejudice here) runs as follows: A filibuster-proof Democratic majority in the Senate--which Specter's defection does not make a lock, even assuming that Al Franken will be seated within his own lifetime--will give Obama no one to blame if things continue to go badly.

Removed from the Post web site and returned to the school yard where it belongs, this is a slightly more polished way of saying "There! And I hope you choke on it!" Nice.

The good news, of course, is that if Kristol says Specter's defection will be bad for the Democrats, then it will probably strengthen their hand more than I've given it credit.

Specter shifts: And this is good news because . . . ?

In a move guaranteed to lower the average integrity level of both congressional parties, Sen. Arlen Specter, facing a can of whoop-ass from the hard right in his 2010 re-election campaign, has just announced that he is shifting his affiliation to the Democratic Party.

Moments ago, longtime GOP Senator Arlen Specter, a Republican since 1966, announced he is switching parties and becoming a Democrat!

Senator Specter's bombshell comes on the heels of Democratic Congressman-elect Scott Murphy's come from behind victory in NY-20. It also comes as the ongoing legal battle in Minnesota draws closer to a conclusion that will now make Al Franken the 60th Democratic vote in the U.S. Senate.[...]

In making his announcement that he is now a Democrat, Senator Specter said, "I now find my political philosophy more in line with Democrats than Republicans. When I supported the stimulus package, I knew that it would not be popular with the Republican Party. But, I saw the stimulus as necessary to lessen the risk of a far more serious recession than we are now experiencing."

If they seriously think this moves them one vote closer to breaking the inevitable filibustering of All Things Obama by the Civil War Re-enactment Society Senate Republicans, the DSSC are kidding themselves. Specter jumping ship has nothing to do with his "political philosophy" and everything to do with his electoral philosophy, i.e., the fact that he faces an ugly and expensive primary challenge from Club for Growth-backed former congressman Pat Toomey.

But his shtick will remain the same:

Step 1. Race to the cameras to express grave concern about Republican proposals or tactics. Grave, grave concern.

Step 2. Vote with the Republicans anyway, and shed a bitter tear.

Specter was and will remain a reliable conservative vote. The only difference between him and the rest of the Senate minority caucus is that he wants to be sure you appreciate how difficult his position is.

Watch how many filibusters Specter helps break in the next 12 months: There'll be one or two votes for show, where the outcome won't be in doubt so he can safely go ahead and vote for cloture, and for that he'll get a lot of the media attention that he loves so much. But there won't be any cloture votes in which his is the deciding vote. None. Zippo. Nada. Not gonna happen.

Worse, Senate Democrats will now feel compelled to waste even more time courting him, as an alleged Democrat, than they did when he was an alleged moderate Republican.

(Hat tip to Doctor Beyond.)

Sunday morning toons: Special "Leather Two-fer" edition

Don't forget: It's still April, which means it's still Portland Comics Month. Willamette Week gives a shout-out to PCM guest of honor Jeff Smith--check it out, if only to experience the phrase "shmoo-meets-Disney" in any context that doesn't involve consciousness-altering drugs. (For those who don't remember life before Al Capp quit producing "Li'l Abner" in 1977, this is a shmoo.)


It was a good week for political toons: Earth Day, the credit card mafia, torture memos, getting over our issues with Cuba, unlikely appearances at the UN summit on racism, and a cigar-smoking pig who looks strangely familiar--they all make their appearances in Daryl Cagle's latest round-up.

p3 Picks of the Week: Pat Bagley, R. J. Matson, Mike Keefe, Larry Wright, Bob Englehart, John Trever, John Darkow, David Fitzsimmons, and Mike Luckovich.

p3 World Toon Review: Cameron Cardow (Canada), Thomas Bolton (Canada), Arcadio Esquivel (Costa Rica), Simanca Osmani (Brazil), Stephane Peray (Thailand), and Christo Kamarnitski (Bulgaria).


Ann Telnaes goes someplace dark this week, and returns with a leather two-fer, It's not pretty.


From "Adventures of the Garbage Gremlin" to "Be an Army Energy Super-Hero with Captain Conservo:" Hat tip to Oliver Willis, who uncovered a treasure trove of government-sponsored comics housed by the University of Nebraska. The collection even includes "Bert the Turtle," a lovable and earnest little fellow who taught me as a youngster the virtues of moment-to-moment certainty that my life was about to end horribly. Thanks, Bert.


Guest toon: Tom Tomorrow gives us fair warning: The smaller it gets, the crazier it gets!


Breaking: For those of you who hadn't noticed that "Judge Parker" was gone from the comics page of the Washington Post, he's back. And if you've ever wondered what the ombudsman at a major American newspaper spends his time doing, now you know.


Portland homeboy Jack Ohman contemplates the horror.


Why do they always want to do it the hard way? Bugs Bunny and Wile E. Coyote were paired in five Warner Bros. shorts. The first, "Operation: Rabbit" directed by Chuck Jones in 1952, is the best. By the time the idea was picked up again in 1956, the quality of animation had dropped noticeably and musical director Carl Stalling was gone. Wile E.'s voice is provided by Mel Blanc (unlike the Roadrunner series, where he's mute, limited only to holding up small signs saying, "Help!")

In an odd gesture to the emergent women's movement, perhaps, ABC removed the exploding female rabbit and exploding female coyote gag before broadcast on its Saturday morning shows.

p3 Bonus Toon: Sometimes, as Jesse Springer sees it the best thing to do with a good idea is push it to the limit. Can't say I disagree with him on this. (Click to enlarge.)


And don't forget to browse Dan Froomkin's weekday political toon review.

Saturday tunes: After changes, we stay more or less the same

Adding to our list of Letterman-hosted reunions that make everyone uncomfortable even if the music is great, here's Paul and Artie singing one of their best:

The lost verse is prophetic: Over three decades after their careers went their separate ways and their dislike of one another could make audiences squirm, when they sing together it's like all those changes left things more or less the same.

The unforgiving minute

This was probably inevitible:

Gawker has some questions for Jesse B. Watters, the Fox News producer that Bill O'Reilly likes to send out to ambush his enemies. So we're outside his building in Long Island. Right now. (Hi, Jesse!)

This apartment building is the last known address for both him and his wife according to publicly accessible databases. [...] We've got a video camera, and we'll let you know if we find him.

And so the ambusher becomes the ambushee.

Minute's up.

The unforgiving minute

I stand with Charlie Pierce: No president--including Obama--should get to pick and choose which laws he'll enforce on something as important as state-sanctioned torture. We tried that with Bush, and look how it turned out.

Yes I'd be royally pissed if, after Bush and Cheney, et al., were tried and convicted (you can have your pick of charges), Obama granted them clemency (commutation, pardon, whatever) and not a single one of them ever saw a day of jail time, and I think a lot of other people would be pissed too.

But I wouldn't be nearly as pissed as I am now, when it looks like they're never even be put on the stand under oath and the case will never go to a jury--not in America, and not anywhere else.

Now there's a GOP campaign issue for 2012: Was Obama a girlie-man, or a traitor, or both, for not nuking The Netherlands after the World Court indicted Bush?

(Hat tip to Doctor Beyond.)

Minute's up.

Drinking Liberally/Portland tonight at Madison's Grill

The Portland DL chapter meets tonight at Madison's Grill, at SE 11th and Madison (map) at 7pm.

(DL/PDX meets on the 2nd and 4th Thursdays of the month.)

Join the Drinking Liberally gang tonight for drinks and political conversation. (And remember: DL encourages everyone to drink, and vote, responsibly.)

(Cross-posted at Loaded Orygun.)

Pierce proposes a holiday

[Updated below.]

p3 favorite Charlie Pierce has some thoughts on the subject of toughness and the American citizenry:

I have now lived through three major episodes in my life where the political elite have told me quite plainly that neither I nor my fellow citizens are sufficiently mature to suffer the public prosecution of major crimes committed within my government. The first was when Gerry Ford told me I wasn't strong enough to handle the sight of Richard Nixon in the dock. (Ed. note--I would have thrown a parade.) Dick Cheney looked at this episode and determined that the only thing Nixon did wrong was get caught. The second time was when the entire government went into spasm over the crimes of the Iran-Contra gang and I was told that I wasn't strong enough to see Ronald Reagan impeached or his men packed off to Danbury. Dick Cheney looked at this and determined that the only thing Reagan and his men did wrong was get caught and, by then, Cheney had decided that even that wasn't really so very wrong and everybody should shut up. Now, Barack Obama, who won election by telling the country and its people that they were great because of all they'd done for him, has told me that I am not strong enough to handle the prosecution of pale and vicious bureaucrats, many of them acting at the behest of Dick Cheney, who decided that the only thing he was doing wrong was nothing at all, who have broken the law, disgraced their oaths, and manifestly belong in a one-room suite at the Hague. Not to put too fine a point on it, but I'm sick and goddamn tired of being told that, as a citizen, I am too fragile to bear the horrible burden of watching public criminals pay for their crimes and that, as a political entity, my fellow citizens and I are delicate flowers encased in candy-glass who must be kept away from the sight of men in fine suits weeping as they are ripped from the arms of their families and sent off to penal institutions manifestly more kind than those in which they arranged to get their rocks off vicariously while driving other men mad.

Hey, Mr. President. Put these barbarians on trial and watch me. I'll be the guy out in front of the courtroom with a lawn chair, some sandwiches, and a cooler of fine beer. I'll be the guy who hires the brass band to serenade these criminal bastards on their way off to the big house. I'll be the one who shows up at every one of their probation hearings with a copy of the Constitution, the way crime victims show up at the parole board when their attacker comes up for release. I'll declare a national holiday -- Victory Over Torture Day -- and lead the parade right up whatever gated street it is that Cheney lives on these days. Trust me, Mr. President. I can take it.

Frackin'-A, Charlie. I think I'm more than tough enough to handle the idea that high crimes and misdemeanors actually still have consequences in my country. I'll be sipping a mint julep in the lawn chair right next to you.

(Update: Hey, Rahm Emanuel: Bite me.)

Sunday morning toons: Special "Mad Tea Party" Edition

(Reminder: April is Portland Comics Month. Support the graphic arts.)


This week the right was in rare form: Mad as March Hares, or Mad as Hatters--take your pick.

"Take some more tea," the March Hare said to Alice, very earnestly.

"I've had nothing yet," Alice replied in an offended tone, `so I can't take more.'

"You mean you can't take less," said the Hatter: "it's very easy to take more than nothing."

"Nobody asked your opinion," said Alice.

"Who's making personal remarks now?" the Hatter asked triumphantly.

And there you have it: Lewis Carroll's prescient description of last week's pretzel-logic anti-tax (or at least anti-something) demonstrations scattered around the country, written 144 years before the fact. The events were instigated (and tragically misnamed) by subsidized right-wing bloggers, underwritten by Tom Delay's FreedomWorks, attended by right-wing members of Congress, promoted by FOX News as an authentic grass-roots expression, roundly and bawdily mocked by Olbermann, Maddow, and the left-wing bloggers, and largely ignored by taxpayers in general, who found the point of the exercise a tad on the fuzzy side.

And yes, personal remarks abounded.

Because their work is mostly intended for newspapers, America's political toonists didn't follow Olbermann and Maddow off the deep end of double entendre, but--as Daryl Cagle's round-up shows--they certainly had their fun with it.

p3 Picks of the Week: Nate Beeler, R. J. Matson, Pat Bagley, Jim Day, and Kevin Siers.

The p3 Best of Show Award (tie) goes to Jeff Parker and Jimmy Margulies.

The p3 "Sounded Better When Marlon Brando Said It" Award goes to John Darkow.

A heartfelt p3 thanks to Steve Sack, for this image we'll never get out of our heads now.

And a p3 salute to those determined (or oblivious) artists who noticed that there was plenty of non-teabag related news going on this week, having to do with such non-teabag oriented topics as Cuba, gun violence, a new dog at the White House, and--Arrr!--pirates: Mike Lane, Mike Keefe, David Fitzsimmons, Monte Wolverton, Steve Sack, and Adam Zyglis.

p3 World Toon Review: Cameron Cardow (Canada), Sergei Elkin (Russia), Victor Ndula (Kenya), and Christo Komarnitski (Bulgaria).


Ann Telnaes notes Alberto's near miss,


Guest toon: The K Chronicles concludes that cars don't kill people.


Portland homeboy Jack Ohman sees encouraging signs for the economy.


Why is a raven like a writing desk? Here's the Mad Tea Party sequence from Disney's 1951 "Alice in Wonderland." And not an anti-Obama sign in sight.

p3 Bonus Toon: While everyone squabbles about the fate of the "Made In Oregon" sign at the west end of the Burnside Bridge in Portland, Jesse Springer has a modest proposal:



And don't forget to browse Dan Froomkin's weekday political toon review.

Saturday tunes: Emotions come I don't know why

I spent a fair amount of time last season watching "Terminator: The Sarah Connor Chronicles" and staring at Catherine Weaver, head of ZeiraCorp and known to only a few as a T-1001 unit (who had killed the real Weaver and assumed her identity--for what nefarious purpose we could only imagine). She was obviously a bit of casting from straight out of left field--the noncorporate eye liner, the oddly robotic performance, the strange and angular features, the Scottish accent (although, in fairness, the original Terminator had an Austrian accent). But who the hell was she and why did I recognize her?

Well, she's Shirley Manson, front singer for Garbage. That's who.

Ooh, amore, chiamami chiamami.
Oo, appelle-moi mon cherie, appelle-moi.
Anytime anyplace anywhere anyway
Anytime anyplace anywhere any day, anyway

For immediate release: p3 international headquarters makes bold infrastructure leap into early 2003

At Comcast's humorless insistence, my place is now wired for digital TV.

This change has been received around here as a mixed blessing. The worst part is that my beautiful new TV remote, not even 10 weeks old, now joins all my other remotes in the limbo of the cigar box on my coffee table, usurped by the new remote for the digital converter box.

The good news is that I have MSNBC back after Comcast moved it to digital last winter (along with Hallmark and Lifetime--aka The "Little House on the Prairie" Channel and The "He Had It Coming" Channel, respectively), so I'm no longer forced to get my shot of Olbermann online the following morning. (Hey, did anyone else know that Rachel Maddow has a show now? The things you can miss, wandering fog-shrouded streets in the Gaslight Age of analog.)

The cruelest irony: Comcast On Demand features 70 or 80 free movies each month, including only a handful that actually look interesting to me. (Roughly the same signal-to-noise ratio that the programming on the cable channels offers, I might add.) Springsteen had it right:

Except that now I'm not just watching whatever Nothing the broadcasters choose to shove at me, when they choose to shove it--I've got Nothing On Demand. I am Master of my own Nothing.

And that, my friends, is a little thing we like to call Progress.

The revolution will not be televised, but it will be catered

Memo from the campus police department to the faculty at a private university in Indianapolis, passed along to p3 by a colleague:

This month I am taking a break from featuring a member of the Butler University police department to inform you of an important event taking place next week.

On Tuesday, April 21, from 6–7:30 p.m. in the Pharmacy Building, Rm. 103, we will present a forum/ training session called Guidance for Surviving an Active Shooter. This event is open to all members of the Butler community and will include refreshments and a raffle.

While it’s unfortunate we have to discuss this subject within our campus community, in today’s world active shootings are a reality we face.

The unforgiving minute

Retiring as head of the Focus on the Family, James Dobson conceded that the "culture wars" are over, and the Christian right lost.

He blames this on . . .

. . . wait for it . . .

. . . wait for it . . .

. . . Bill Clinton.

Gotta admit, it would be tough to win a "war" in 2009 if you think it's still 1992.

Minute's up.

Sunday morning toons: Special 16th Amendment Edition

Not everyone is pleased with Portland mayor Sam Adams these days (can anyone say CRC? How about that other thing?). But we're going to cut Mayor Adams some slack today, because he's declared that April is Portland Comics Month:

Portland has deep roots in the comic-book publishing world, as it is home to scores of industry professionals and several of the nation's most prominent comics publishers (Dark Horse Comics, Oni Press, Top Shelf Productions, and Image--Shadowline). Moreover, the local comics community continues to see significant growth, which further bolsters the Rose City's defining ties to the creative arts and industries.

The month-long schedule of activities celebrating our comic book heritage culminates on May 2nd with Free Comic Book Day. Yes!

Now, down to business:


It's been a toonilicious week at Daryl Cagle's round-up: whackjobs with nukes, financial skullduggery, well-armed paranoics . . . and pirates!

p3 Picks of the Week: Nate Beeler, Mike Lane, David Fitzsimmons, Jimmy Margulies, John Trever, John Cole, David Horsey, Sandy Huffaker, and Cal Grondahl.

The p3 Award for Best Adaptation from Another Medium goes to Pat Bagley, Steve Sack, and John Darkow.

Filed your taxes yet? (Reminder: the Form 4868 gives you an extension on filing, but not on paying, which you still have to do by the 15th. Go figure.) While you're going through that shoebox of receipts one last time, here are toons to mark the occasion from Steve Breen, Dave Granlund, Bruce Beattie, and Randy Bish.

p3 World Toon Review: Cam Cardow (Canada), Patrick Chapatte (Switzerland), Stephane Peray (Thailand), Riber Hanssen (Sweden), and Jianping Fan (China).


Wait, doesn't 2012 GOP presidential wannabe Newt Gingrich have "history professor" somewhere on his résumé--I think it was a study-by-audio-tape program? Anyway, Ann Telnaes gives him a brisk refresher course. [Link fixed 9/16/09](And here's a handy p3 hint for those who missed the reference.).


p3 Guest toon: This is odd: Last week's Frank Rich column from the NYTimes online op-ed page has vanished, and with it, a great Barry Blitt illustration. Fortunately for p3 toonophiles, I bagged the link. Even without the Rich column, it has a certain pizzazz.


On May 9th, the USPS will release a set of 5 stamps honoring each member of the Simpsons family--Homer, Marge, Bart, Lisa, and Maggie. Fans are invited to vote for their favorite character stamp although, somewhat reminiscent of the 2000 presidential election, your vote won't actually decide which stamp gets issued--they all will. p3 salutes the Simpsons' creator, Portland's own Matt Groening.


Portland homeboy Jack Ohman documents the search for missing components in our military hardware budget.


Taxes to keep them flying! Taxes to keep them rolling! The last time Disney's Donald Duck made a p3 appearance, he was learning the democratic virtues of hard work (with a Dixieland soundtrack) in the 1943 "Der Fuehrer's Face." From the same year comes "Spirit of '43," and this time Donald learns the lesson (suspended during the reign of George Bush, the other "43") that major wars actually have to be paid for somehow.

p3 Bonus Toon: Jesse Springer wonders if it's possible for an "honest pint" to be just a little bit too honest. (Click to enlarge.)




And don't forget to browse Dan Froomkin's weekday political toon review.

The unforgiving minute

With due respect to Crooks and Liars: As far as Cheney and Rove are concerned, predicting a terrorist attack on Obama's watch isn't "betting"--it's a no-lose proposition.

If another attack fails to happen, they're still getting to stoke their own media-sanctioned relevance, plus the opportunity to throw red meat to their dwindling base.

And, of course, if another attack does occur, it's all up-side for them.

As long as the media listens to them, they can't lose.

Minute's up.

Saturday tunes: "I've been really trying, baby"

Trying to hold back this video clip for so long. You know what I'm talkin' 'bout.

Here's Marvin Gaye, performing "Let's Get It On" in Amsterdam in 1976.

"You're very, very good at a great many things, but thinking, hon', just simply isn't one of them."

There are many memorable scenes in "The Manchurian Candidate" (I refer to the good version).

This morning I'm reminded of one involving a breakfast conversation between Sen. John Iselin, the somewhat dim McCarthyesque anti-communist who is attempting to leverage his trumped-up investigations of communist influence in the government into a spot on his party's ticket at the upcoming national convention, and his iron-willed wife/confidant/chief political advisor:

It's hard for him to remember the number of Communists he's supposedly found in the Defense Department, the Senator complains, because the number she gives him keeps changing.

Mrs. Iselin: I'm sorry, hon'. Would it really make it easier for you if we settled on just one number?

Sen. Iselin: Yeah. Just one, real, simple number that'd be easy for me to remember.

[Mrs. Iselin watches her husband thump a bottle of Heinz Tomato Ketchup onto his plate. Cut immediately to the floor of the Senate.]

Sen. Iselin: [addressing the Senate] There are exactly 57 card-carrying members of the Communist Party in the Department of Defense at this time!

I was reminded of that scene by this scene:

Rep. Spencer Bachus (R-Ala.) puts the number of socialists in the House at 17.

"Some of the men and women I work with in Congress are socialists," Bachus told local government leaders on Thursday, according to the Birmingham News.

Bachus gave the specific number of House socialists when pressed later by a reporter.

Seventeen, eh? I wonder what Rep. Bachus had for breakfast that morning?

Does this mean we can retire "I am not a crook"?

(Updated below.)

Freshman US Representative Bill Posey of Florida violated the cardinal rule of media statements: Never repeat their punch-line words in your denial.

Quoth Posey, in the Orlando Sentinal:

There is no reason to say that I'm the illegitimate grandson of an alligator.

Background:

[...] U.S. Rep. Bill Posey, R-Rockledge, introduced legislation last month that would require all presidential candidates to submit a birth certificate when qualifying to run. Posey said the intent was to prevent a repeat of what happened last year, when fringe critics of then-candidate Barack Obama questioned his citizenship.

Instead, the bill fell flat — it has yet to attract a co-sponsor — and Posey took a beating from late-night comedy-show hosts and liberal media, who accused him of kowtowing to extremists in his party.

In fairness, I should point out that it would be wrong to interpret this quote as a denial that he is the illegitimate grandson of an alligator. In fact, as the context makes clear, Posey was simply insisting that it would be "name-calling and personal denigration" to actually say he is the illegitimate son of an alligator--a point that all of us, including alligators, can probably agree on.

Freshmen. Sheesh.


(Update: I had forgotten it this morning, but that whole Posey's-grandmother-and-alligator story didn't just fall out of the sky:

The Colbert Report	Mon - Thurs 11:30pm / 10:30c
Bill Posey Alligator Rumors
colbertnation.com
Colbert Report Full Episodes Political Humor NASA Name Contest

As I've said before, Colbert is a much greater threat to conservative guests than Stewart is; trusting Colbert's faux-conservative persona, they blithely follow him much farther into the quicksand.)

The unforgiving minute

Men's underwear dropping, accompanied by a prescient, forward impression?

Does anyone else find that this--

"If you look at sales of male underpants it's just pretty much a flat line, it hardly ever changes," [NPR's Robert] Krulwich recounted after the publishing of [former Fed Reserve chair Alan] Greenspan's book, "The Age Of Turbulence." "But on those few occasions where it dips that means that men are so pinched that they are deciding not to replace underpants. And [Greenspan] said 'that is almost always a prescient, forward impression that here comes trouble.'"

Well, here comes trouble.

A revised survey by the leading global research company, Mintel, shows relatively large drops in the sales of men's underwear in the United States.

--sounds an awful lot like this:

And now the Stock Market Report by Exchange Telegraph

Trading was crisp at the start of the day with some brisk business on the floor. Rubber hardened and string remained confident. Little bits of tin consolidated although biscuits sank after an early gain and stools remained anonymous. Armpits rallied well after a poor start. Nipples rose dramatically during the morning but had declined by mid-afternoon, while teeth clenched and buttocks remained firm. Small dark furry things increased severely on the floor, whilst rude jellies wobbled up and down, and bounced against rising thighs which had spread to all parts of the country by mid-afternoon.

Monty Python

And to think they call economics "the dismal science."

Minute's up.

Uh-oh: Jon Stewart asks conservatives to join him at Camera 3

I took a shot at this general theme yesterday, but I have to say Stewart does a better job of handling those who "speak crazy to power."

The Daily Show With Jon Stewart	M - Th 11p / 10c
Baracknophobia - Obey
comedycentral.com
Daily Show Full Episodes Economic Crisis Political Humor

It's a Portland Drinking Liberally two-fer this week

Portland area Drinking Liberally folks have two chances to share a brew and political discussion:

• DL Portland Metro-West meets tonight at Friends Café & Pub, on the corner of 154th Terrace and Millikan Way, in Beaverton (about 4 blocks south from the Beaverton Creek MAX stop), from 7pm to 10pm. (DL PDX M-W meets on the second Wednesday of the month.)



• And DL Portland (downtown) meets tomorrow night at Madison's Grill, SE 9th and Hawthorne, from 7pm to 10pm. (Portland DL meets on the 2nd and 4th Thursdays of the month.)

And remember: DL encourages everyone to drink, and vote, responsibly.

(Cross-posted at Loaded Orygun.)

Those who do not read Harper's Index are doomed to repeat history

No one could have predicted the mess we're in.

(Recycled from a p3 post in November 2006:)

From the October 2006 Harper's Index:

1/4

Portion of U.S. banking assets in 1996 that were controlled by the ten largest U.S. banks [Source: Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation (Washington)]


1/2

Portion today [Source: Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation (Washington)]


$521,000

Average salary package last year among all full-time employees of Goldman Sachs, including support staff [Source: Goldman, Sachs & Co. (N.Y.C.)]


2 in 5

Chances of a recession in 2007, according to a chief economist of Merrill Lynch [Source: David Rosenberg, Merrill Lynch (N.Y.C.)]


5

Number of the last six years that fine-art prices have outperformed the S&P 500 [Source: Mei Moses All Art Index (N.Y.C.)]


+564

Percentage change since 1999 in the number of consumer complaints about harassment by U.S. debt-collection agencies [Source: Federal Trade Commission (Washington)]


350,000

Number of Americans whose past-due accounts the IRS will turn over to private debt collectors by 2008 [Source: Internal Revenue Service (Washington)]


2/5

Portion of the IRS's staff of estate-tax auditors that the government plans to eliminate this year [Source: National Treasury Employees Union (Washington)]


$106,641

Salary of the White House's new Director for Lessons Learned [Source: The White House (Washington)]

Tales from The Trunk

Longtime p3 correspondent Doctor Beyond has fine-tuned the science of sending the smallest donation possible to the GOP that will still keep him on their emailing list for fund-raising pleas, etc. Currently, he reports that it only takes $5 to stay in the game for a year.

He does it partly for the perverse pleasure of it, but mostly for surveillance purposes. A lot of the materials he gets this way aren't available to anyone else (unless a mole forwards it, like in this case).

As a case in point, consider The Weekly Trunk, an emailing from the Republican National Committee, that links to right-wing commentators and blogs (plus occasional straight-news articles) and provides a snarky bumper-sticker headline followed by a sentence or two of spin for each. For example:

Air Force "The One"
First it was Nancy Pelosi treating the Air Force like her personal airline -- now Barack Obama and an "unusually large number of people traveling with the president" are straining our ability to operate in Afghanistan. (Bill Gertz, "Military Strained by Obama Trip," The Washington Times, 4/2/09)

(Good lord--they're still recycling that bogus story from 2007 about Nancy Pelosi and the jet? Seriously?)

A typical edition includes about a dozen of those. The Trunk's stated goal, placed at the top of the page, is:

to inform and arm you with the facts you need to spread our conservative message and refute the misstatements of the Democrats.

Odd, what with it containing information and facts and all, that you can't find it on the gop.com web site. Apparently access to information and facts--or, more appropriately, <air quotes>information and facts</air quotes>--is restricted to paying customers, who get it via email. Even the ones in the cheap seats.

I didn't have the time or motivation to do a full-on fact check of the most recent edition that Doctor B forwarded to me (for the fun of watching from a distance as it set me off, I'll wager), but quickly running my eye down the page wasn't encouraging. Some samples:

Democrats Charting Course for Davy Jones' Locker
It's becoming painfully clear how irresponsible and damaging the Democrats' pie-in-the-sky spending spree is. (Mona Charen, "The Ship is Sinking: Quick, Add Water: Paying for the Democrats' Dream Agenda," NationalReviewOnline, 4/1/09)

Or:

Is it The White House, or Romper Room?
Can we have our cake and eat it, too? In Barack Obama's Lala-land, the answer is "Yes We Can!" (Ben Shapiro, "Obama's Childish Vision of Politics," Townhall.com, 4/1/09)

The particular item that pushed Doctor Beyond's button--reducing him to one-word heavy sarcasm--was this:

Party of "No?" Try Party of Common Sense
Republicans in Washington are offering a sound budget plan of cutting taxes and freezing spending -- will the Democrats listen? (Newsfront, "GOP Budget: Growth With Tax Cuts, Spending Freeze," Newsmax.com, 4/1/09)

But I think my own favorite would have to be this one:

Make Sense to You?
In the upside-down worldview of modern leftists, President Obama's performance is exactly what they would expect. (Victor Davis Hanson, "President Obama's First 70 Days: It Really Does All Make Sense," NationalReviewOnline, 4/1/09)

You can go read the NRO article yourself if you're so inclined. I just want to talk about this little blurb from The Weekly Trunk. Remove the pejorative "upside-down" and take the word "leftist" with the appropriate grain of salt (as I write, Arlen Specter is facing a likely 2010 GOP primary challenge because he's not far enough to the right), and what does it leave?

President Obama is doing the things that the people who voted for him wanted him to do!

And this is the horror that the RNC uses to whip up the crowd? Truly amazing. They really don't get that America's just not that into them anymore.

If the Senate minority party didn't exist, would it be necessary to create one?

At Americablog, Joe Sudbay notes that Senate Republican votes are the basis of an emerging rift between the social-issue conservatives (who want the nomination of pro-choice Kathleen Sebelius to head HHS blocked) and the anti-tax conservatives (who, while anti-tax, were obviously never anti-spend, and don't want to alienate the source of a lot of federal money for their states).

And meanwhile, in another corner of the room, the neocon faction of the Senate Republicans could care less about either of those other groups; they're primarily concerned with making sure that papers documenting Bush-Cheney involvement in the policy and practice of torture never see the light of day.

It's almost as if America had no serious problems that required their attention at the moment.

Sunday morning toons: Special "Gweat Sportsman" Edition

(Update: Telnaes link fixed.)

It was . . . an odd week. That's about the best you can say for a week when the G-20 met and realized they had nothing, the President demanded--and got--the resignation of the head of GM, and the First Lady fist-bumped the queen regnant of the United Kingdom of England and Northern Ireland.

Okay, the third one didn't technically happen, but still: Just odd. Let's head straight for Daryl Cagle's round-up and see if things makes any more sense there.

p3 Picks of the Week: Pat Bagley, Mike Lane, Mike Keefe, Jeff Parker, Monte Wolverton, Mike Luckovich, Jerry Holbert, Nate Beeler, and Gary McCoy.

p3 World Toon Review: Cameron Cardow (Canada), Stephane Peray (Thailand), Arcadio Esquivel (Costa Rica), and Michael Kountouris (Greece).


Since the Obamas are giving gifts to foreign leaders, Ann Telnaes figures, you know, what the heck,


Guest toon: Is it just me, or does this week's Tom the Dancing Bug feel like the final episode of "St. Elsewhere?"


Portland homeboy Jack Ohman gets an estimate.


Sowwy I had to pwug you, Mister Duck, but I'm a gweat sportsman. Several different animators got to work on Daffy Duck over the years, starting with his creator Tex Avery, who made him the bane of Elmer Fudd's hunting trips. Most of the best known Daffy stories--especially the legendary "hunting trilogy"--were the work of Chuck Jones. By the early 1950s, Jones made Daffy taller and scrawnier, and usually pitted him against Bugs Bunny. But the earlier Jones stories--including this one, "To Duck or Not To Duck" (1943)--kept Daffy the way they found him: a rascally screwball duck getting the best of hunter Elmer.

Two notes: First, Mel Blanc had to record Daffy's voice separately, because it was played back at a higher speed for the soundtrack. (The normal-speed version of the same voice was used for Sylvester the cat.) Second, "Laramore" is a truly great name for a dog.

p3 Bonus Toon: Jesse Springer celebrates the rare moment when Big Tobacco got its butt crushed,



And don't forget to browse Dan Froomkin's weekday political toon review.

Contents of a briefcase: 4/4/68

Martin Luther King's briefcase, photographed at the Lorraine Motel in Memphis shortly after Dr. King was assassinated:




It's the ordinariness of the contents--pajamas, brush, newspaper, shaving cream--compared to the greatness of the man, and to the horror and tragedy of the event, that has always stayed with me about this photo.

(Image source: life.com.)

Saturday tunes: "I'm heavy loaded baby, I'm booked, I gotta go"

From the 2004 Crossroads guitar festival, Buddy Guy, with Eric Clapton, Robert Cray, and about half a dozen other musicians I'd give anything to sit in with, make "Sweet Home Chicago" look easy.

Let the countdown begin!

(Updates below.)

Congratulations to the state of Iowa, which managed to fill its long news drought until the 2012 caucus season with this:

The Iowa Supreme Court this morning upheld a Polk County judge’s 2007 ruling that marriage should not be limited to one man and one woman.

The ruling, viewed nationally and at home as a victory for the gay rights movement and a setback for social conservatives, means gay couples can legally marry in Iowa beginning April 24.

Now, of course, it's only a matter of time--hours? minutes? has it happened already?-- until some horrified conservative leader utters the phrase "legally marrying animals."

There's no question it will happen; the only question is who will get there first: A talk radio blowhard? A Christian-right organization leader? Or a 2012 presidential wannabe?

It's genuinely creepy that this is the first place they go. It reeks of an unclean mind.

(Update 1: Unfortunately, pseudonymous blog commenters don't count. The winning entry has to be a well-known figure on the right. But thanks for playing.)

(Update 2: I'm afraid hand-lettered signs saying "Same Sex Animals Don't Mate" don't qualify either. But we do have a copy of the home edition of the game for you.)

NYTimes Travel section ♥ cycling in PDX

[Update below.]

Nice interactive piece about Portland cycling--from a tourism point of view.

(Hat tip to The Skirt.)

Update: This is quite a change-up from the recession-porn piece they did last week, isn't it?

Reading: Daniel Gross: "Newspapers aren't assets to be flipped, leveraged, and stripped"

Well, except that they are when they're in the hands of dummies.

This picks up on a thread TJ launched at LO a few days ago with a picture he captured on his iPhone. The question: Are newspapers failing because Craig's List has stolen their ad revenue, or because their content is either not interesting or not to be believed?

Along comes Daniel Gross, author of Dumb Money: How Our Greatest Financial Minds Bankrupted the Nation, who argues pretty convincingly that this isn't the right question. Rather than asking "why are newspapers failing?" we should be asking "which newspapers are failing?"

The answer:

While newspapers have serious problems, the recent failures of several newspaper companies (here's a list of list of four others that have gone BK in recent months) shouldn't necessarily lead to visions of the apocalypse. Virtually every newspaper in the country has experienced a sharp drop in advertising and is suffering losses. But not every newspaper company in the country has gone bankrupt as a result. And the failures may say more about a style of capitalism than an industry. Each company was undone in large measure by really stupid (and in one case criminal) activities by managers. […]

All newspapers—all print media—have been hit hard in this recession. All face an existential crisis and may ultimately face the prospect of bankruptcy. Those whose owners saw papers as assets to be flipped, leveraged, and stripped are already bankrupt.

The article is going onto the Readings list in the sidebar.

Why do you think they call them "fools?"

[Updated below.]

I took a vow a few years ago that I wouldn't write about this person in p3 again, but this is just too good to pass up:

In her April 1 column, Ann Coulter fell for a fake April Fools' Day article by Car and Driver magazine that claimed that President Obama has ordered General Motors and Chrysler to cease their participation in NASCAR because it is an "unnecessary expenditure." Coulter wrote, "If Obama can tell GM and Chrysler that their participation in NASCAR is an 'unnecessary expenditure,' isn't having public schools force students to follow Muslim rituals, recite Islamic prayers and plan 'jihads' also an 'unnecessary expenditure'?"

Even allowing for the fact that the trigger was an April Fools Day joke (which she evidently didn't get), to go from Obama and NASCAR to mandatory Islamic prayer in public schools in one jump is a truly remarkable achievement.

Still, it's good to know that she reads Car and Driver regularly.

[Update: Oh dear. Looks like even her peer group managed to avoid getting sucked in.]

Bringing the war back home

A heartwarming story of courage, sacrifice, and development: