Deliberately killing journalists a bad thing? Apparently, not always.

Not if you're Ann Coulter, anyway. What's amusing is how host Larry Kudlow sees where she's going and desperately tries to cut her off with "Oh, no! Don't go there."

Oh, come on. Let her go there. Why stop her from embarrassing herself yet again? Whenever you give Ann Coulter free rein, the results are always entertaining. In a massive, multiple-casualty, train wreck kind of way.

OK, I lied. But so did Michelle Malkin.

As your bonus Sunday snark, I direct you to this bit of wretched dishonesty in a recent posting by Michelle "You say 'internment' like it's a bad thing." Malkin, where she writes:

Ed Morrissey, Hewitt, La Shawn Barber, Jim Geraghty, and LGF kept "baying"--which got the attention of the blogosphere's most powerful player, Instapundit.

To which one can respond only with: HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA! I don't think so. What is it with these people? It's like lying comes as naturally to them as breathing.

Open thread.

OK, I think I might be done blogging for the weekend. Here I am now. Entertain me.

Fractured fairy tales, Republican style.

Once upon a time (well, OK, within just the last several days, as I'm sure you all remember), someone, during the course of a high-profile press conference, said something sufficiently curious that it attracted the attention of a blogger or two. Two bloggers became four, four became eight and, in short order, a phalanx of intrepid online investigators were digging, poking and prodding, and publishing their results online. The end result was the inevitable embarrassed resignation of the individual in question. And there was much rejoicing and high-fiving in the right-wing blogosphere.

Huh? What the f...? Oh, you thought I was talking about this, didn't you?

No, what I was referring to is this -- the downfall of CNN's Eason Jordan, after he allegedly told an audience that the American military was deliberately targeting journalists in Iraq, then had to backpedal when he couldn't back up those claims. But notice the wholly different perspective on these two stories from the right.

The conservative spin on "Jeff Gannon" was that the left's investigation of Gannon was tacky, classless, vengeful, snarky, vindictive, that sort of thing. It was an invasion of privacy, a cruel thing to do to this poor man, yadda, yadda, yadda. Oh, yes, the crocodile tears streamed forth, howling over "the paranoid mentality and mean-spirited nature of the political left".

How, then, to explain Michelle Malkin's summing up of Easongate and its investigators, where we read of "the courage of Rony Abovitz" who "bypassed the MSM and exposed the controversy with a simple click of the mouse"? Where "a few standout bloggers picked up on the story and refused to let it die," how these steel-spined, rock-ribbed gumshoes were not a lynch mob but a "truth squad", involving the "relentless [Hugh] Hewitt", the "intrepid blogger Sisyphean Musings" and the "tireless Captain Ed". Where anyone who didn't buy in was just laying on "a transparent coat of whitewash." And on and on and on, noble soldiers the lot of them, whose only motivation was a quest for truth, freedom and justice. Or something like that.

Things sure look a lot different when you're inside that echo chamber destroying someone's career, don't they?

Without a doubt, right-wing freepers will complain that this isn't a fair comparison, that the two situations are not equivalent, that they want their mommy, etc. The inevitable grousing will be that Jordan's statements were most certainly fair game in the public arena, while no one had any business digging around in Gannon's private life, even if it involved possible gay male military prostitution web sites and Gannon in his Fruit-of-the-Looms, trolling for Log Cabin Republicans.

And while this is a valid point, it has to be noted that all of the high-profile leftie bloggers who were pushing this story were unanimous that the story wasn't the sex angle -- it was how someone with no discernible journalistic credentials, employed by a bogus front organization for the GOP, could have been getting a daily pass for the last two years under an assumed name to get into high-security White House press conferences and journalistically fellate the Chimp-in-Chief. And how he somehow got hold of a classified memo related to outed CIA operative Valerie Plame. The sex part was just icing on the cake, but it was most definitely not the story.

Ah, but you can see the point of all this, can't you? When you wander into the conservative bubble, the rules are pretty simple, aren't they? Us, good. Them, bad. Logic, unnecessary.

Surprise, surprise, surprise.

Condi Rice. Perjurer.

Oh, my. And don't we all remember the good old days when perjury was a really big deal?

Um ... I'm a graduate of the Columbia School of Journalism. And you want me to write a correction about WHAT?

Well, at least they can admit when they're wrong about some things.

Jinx McHue redux.

Sigh.

And just like a regular outbreak of cold sores, Mr. Jinx McHue is back with a predictably asinine posting on his site Shock and Blog (or, as I prefer to call it, Schlock and Barf), in which McHue takes your humble correspondent to task for ... well, I'm not quite sure what since the subject of his post has nothing to do with me. But, as we've seen before, McHue is quite impervious to the lance of mere reason so what else is new?

Now, normally, I'd just ignore his rantings since, as I've posted a number of times, I really don't care what McHue or his conservative nutbar buddies choose to write on their own blogs. Sadly, however, McHue has raised the stakes this time, which necessitates a reply from me.

As you can see from this posting, McHue discusses an Alabama state representative named Alvin Holmes who very foolishly made a bet on what Scripture does or does not say about what The Big Guy thinks about marriage. He (McHue, not The Big Guy) seems to think it clever to refer to me indirectly, which is fine and, normally, I'd just ignore his infantile prose and open another beer.

However, as you can see (and, yes, you might as well read his article since we'll be discussing it in some detail), McHue doesn't stop there. Instead, he links to what I'm assuming is the motivating article at the website of one David Limbaugh. (For those of you unfamiliar with the name, David Limbaugh is the self-absorbed, pretentious, semi-literate, bloviating conservative wingnut Limbaugh brother who is not the OxyContin addict. For all I know.)

Again, by itself, that's still not enough for me to give a shit one way or the other until you notice that, in an obvious fit of self-adoration, McHue left a "trackback" at the bottom of Limbaugh's article, inviting Limbaugh's audience to visit his blog. Sadly, this means that all of Limbaugh's groupies who read his work might, indeed, follow the trackback link, get to McHue's article and follow the link from there to this blog.

What this means is that, sadly, I'm going to have to launch a pre-emptive strike against McHue's silliness. That is, I have little choice but to lay a beatdown on McHue that will leave him pissing blood for a day or two, mostly as a warning to any little freepers who show up here itching for a fight. And, no, I won't take it personally if you're bored to tears by this. I am, too, but honour is at stake. And I will at least try to be entertaining and educational.

Now, about Rep. Holmes who, according to Limbaugh, "promised on the floor of the House to give $700 to any person who could show him a biblical passage stating that marriage is to be between man and woman." Quite simply, in making this promise, Holmes was being incredibly foolish, for at least a couple of reasons.

First, it's almost meaningless to say that you're going to prove any position whatsoever from the Bible. The biggest problem in even trying something like this is the massive differences in philosophy between the Old and New Testaments.

In the Old Testament, God is simply, well, a Jerk. He's not particularly tolerant, and spends a lot of time just smiting the crap out of people. You can pretty much open the Old Testament at any page and put your finger down at random and, chances are, someone is getting the bejeezus smitten out of them for something.

The New Testament, however, is a different beast. In the New Testament, Jesus is a much more Southern California, tie-dyed t-shirt, hot tub, live and let live kind of guy (who just happens to hang out with a dozen other guys who just happen to all wear loose-fitting robes that allow easy access ... but that's neither here nor there). Love thy neighbour, turn the other cheek, that sort of thing. And given these obvious differences, it's pretty meaningless to say that you're going to "prove" anything from Scripture unless you can at least narrow it down to one of the Testaments.

The second problem in trying to "prove" anything from Scripture is that, because the Bible is such a seething mass of inconsistencies and contradictions, it's actually not that hard to prove pretty much anything you want.

Take capital punishment. (Please.) If you support capital punishment, you might point to Deuteronomy 19:21: "Show no pity: life for life, eye for eye, tooth for tooth, hand for hand, foot for foot." On the other hand, if you're opposed, you might latch onto the commandment that states that "Thou shalt not kill.", or perhaps Jesus' admonition to turn the other cheek. See how easy that is? The lesson here is that it's ridiculously simple to prove almost anything from Scripture simply because Scripture itself takes both sides of most every issue anyway.

For this very reason, it also means that it's unspeakably foolish for someone to make a bet on Scripture not saying something, as Holmes did. If you read carefully, you'll see that Holmes was basing his entire case on Scripture not containing a particular type of passage. And that means he's almost certainly doomed to failure.

So, does Holmes actually lose his bet? Oh, yes. You bet. But you at least have to work to prove that. Consider Limbaugh's evidence list. The first passage he cites refers to creating a "companion" for man. And, actually, I don't think that qualifies. I see nothing there about marriage, so I'm going to have to reject that one.

Limbaugh's second example talks about man and woman joining into one. Touching, to be sure, but still not definitive proof. So, no that doesn't count either. In my opinion, you have to work your way down Limbaugh's list to 1 Corinthians 7, which opens with:

Now for the matters you wrote about: It is good for a man not to marry. But since there is so much immorality, each man should have his own wife, and each woman her own husband.

And while I'm a bit creeped out about that "good for a man not to marry" part, it should be obvious that, yes, this is the smoking gun that buries Holmes. I don't think there's any doubt that this refers to opposite-sex marriage, and Holmes should stop weaseling and cough up that $700 (now, as I read it, up to $5,000).

At this point, one might argue whether that's actually what that passage is saying; that is, is that the proper interpretation? And this is exactly how Holmes tries to get out of paying:

"Anybody could have any interpretation they want of the Bible," he said Thursday, "but that's not my interpretation."

But why should Holmes' interpretation be the deciding vote? McHue links to blogger Don Johnson, who correctly calls Holmes on this tacky weaseling:

That is obviously a ridiculous and unsavory way to handle the wager, but let's clarify just why. Holmes initial claim was that the Bible didn't dictate that marriage is to be between a man and a woman. He was so sure of this supposed fact that he wagered $700.00 just to make the point. Now in order to make this claim, and in order for the wager to work, he had to be appealing to some common, objective standard of literary interpretation. After all, he was appealing to scripture for vindication of his position and putting money on the fact that his position was correct.

If you are going to appeal to a book for proof of your position or challenge people with monetary rewards to prove you wrong, you have to expect people to be able to interpret that book the same way you do. I assume that would mean some sort of "plain sense" reading of the text - taking the words at face value. You can't make a wager or support your position based on a floating, subjective standard of interpretation such as the one Mr. Holmes appealed to when confronted with the texts. It destroys the support for your initial proposition and makes the bet ridiculous.

And Johnson is dead right. If Holmes is going to base his entire argument on Scripture, he has to allow what most people would consider a fair and reasonable interpretation of the text. And, from where I sit, 1 Corinthians 7 pretty much puts the nail in Holmes' case.

So, after all this careful reasoning and Scriptural analysis, why is McHue such a total dickhead? First, he dragged me into this without thinking that, given that I like to consider things with at least a minimum of logic and critical analysis, I might actually agree that Holmes lost that bet and should pay up. And he did, and he should.

More to the point, given that I had no idea who Rep. Holmes is, had never heard of this idiotic wager and hadn't posted so much as a single word on any of this, it's pretty asinine and patronizing for McHue to write of Holmes' tap dancing that "CanadianCynic would no doubt approve." Really? And McHue can conclude that out of absolutely thin air, with not a shred of evidence to support it? Gosh, by the same logic, I guess I can surmise that, although I don't know McHue personally or have any idea of his sexual preferences, he "would no doubt approve" of getting boned, slowly and lovingly, up the ass by former White House journalist and gay army stud Jeff Gannon.

It's not like I'd care one way or the other about that but, if I were Mr. McHue, I'd at least make sure the kids weren't in the room. It might be awkward later when they're asking Mommy what that big, crew-cut army man was doing to Daddy when Daddy was down on his hands and knees and squealing like a pig. If you know what I mean.

Liberal media? What liberal media?

Kos has a nice summary of the Washington Post's "incoherence" (his word, nicely chosen) about the Bush administration's refusal to discuss Canadian Maher Arar's arrest and removal to Syria, where he claims to have been tortured. As Kos points out, the WaPo steps on its own tongue when it:

• first suggests the administration might have a legal claim to not admit anything to Arar, yet
• suggests that same government "owes more than silence", and that "the American public is entitled to some assurance that the government didn't intentionally send a man to be tortured by Syria and isn't now covering that wrongdoing with a smear."

So the American public (who almost certainly doesn't give a shit about what happened to Arar) is "entitled" to know something about this, but Arar himself isn't. Bastards. Isn't this the sort of thing we have ambassadors for? To grab by the nutsack and twist until we get some answers?

Deja vu, all over again.

Gay male prostitution linked to the White House. Hmmm ... that sounds so familiar. Where have I read about that before? Oh, yeah. Here. (And make sure you read the comments section. :-)

And credit where credit is due -- I found that piece linking through James Wolcott.

When bad educational systems attack.

Once upon a time, I proferred some advice: You can only get away with snark when you're right. If you try snark and you're wrong, well, you kind of end up just looking like an asshole. Which brings us to a recent comment here by one Mr. Ian Scott, who nicely demonstrates what happens when the school system fails its students miserably.

In responding to my original posting, Mr. Scott might actually have taken it seriously. Apparently, satire is lost on the young. And the stupid. But, wait -- it gets better.

In criticizing the (completely fictional) dialogue I put in Bezdek's mouth, solely for entertainment value, Scott goes first for the ad hominem attack: "Too bad the kid, like a lot of socialists, ...". To which I can similarly respond, "Too bad Mr. Scott, like a lot of pedophiles and child pornographers ...". Wow! Wasn't that easy? Apparently, we left wingers can make stuff up out of thin air just as effortlessly. And with just as much total irrelevance.

But seriously, folks, consider the meat of Scott's argument:

Too bad the kid, like a lot of socialists, forgot to factor in the part about the money going out though. Sure, as long as money is coming in, and no money is going out, no one will go bankrupt.

But that ain't the way it works, friends :)

Guess the Canadian socialist math whizz needs to hit the books again, and learn a bit more about somethin' called "expenses." They don't teach that though until about Grade 10 Accounting class.

Apparently, the word "bankrupt" has an utterly different meaning on Mr. Scott's planet. As countless observers have noted, if the scheduled outgo from Social Security would exceed the income from payroll taxes, and there is nothing at all in the SS trust fund, all that will happen is (unless something is done ahead of time) benefits will have to be scaled back accordingly to bring those two amounts into balance. Now, what part of the above is that mathematically difficult to comprehend?

And, yes, that is the way it works, friends.

BONUS RAMBLINGS: I've been told (more than once) by friends that it's really kind of unbecoming to take critical comments on this blog so personally. And, for the most part, they're right. I'm still working on it but, every so often, someone tries to lay the totally wrong kind of punk smackdown on your humble correspondent.

In particular, I just don't take well to right-wing snark questioning my innate mathematical talent. Perhaps it's my two degrees in computer science. Perhaps it's the undergraduate and graduate courses I've taken in calculus, numerical algebra, number theory, analysis of algorithms, cryptography and combinatorial mathematics. Or some combination of the two.

In any case, if you want to bust my chops on something related to mathematics, you really want to show up with more than an Ann Coulter blow-up-doll fetish and an insolent attitude. Because I will slap you around. And that's a promise.

Li'l Scottie's defense of "Jazzy Jeff" gets a big hole blown in it.

From this article in the NYTimes, we have White House spokeslizard Scott McClellan explaining how hot military stud and presidential fluffer "Jeff Gannon" got clearance to attend WH press conferences:

Scott McClellan, the White House press secretary, told reporters yesterday that Mr. Bush did not know who Mr. Guckert was. Mr. McClellan said that Mr. Guckert entered the White House under his real name and "like anyone else, showed that he was representing a news organization that published regularly, and so he was cleared two years ago to receive daily passes, just like many others are."

Two years ago, you say? Fascinating, since a simple InterNIC query shows that Gannon's erstwhile employer, Talon News, only registered its domain name in March of 2003. For the right-wing, mathematically challenged, that would be less than two years ago.

In addition, a simple perusal of Talon News' archives shows the oldest article from (you guessed it) April of 2003. So how exactly did Gannon get accreditation "two years ago" based on an organization that didn't even exist yet? Stay tuned as your razor-sharp, intrepid White House press corps fails totally to ask this, and many other, pertinent questions.

Valentine's Day, cynically speaking.

Let the other morons feed each other candy out of heart-shaped boxes while wearing silk undies and quoting Elizabeth Barrett Browning -- you and I remember all the shitty, lonely and/or humiliating Feb 14ths that have come and gone in these, our decidedly non-Hallmarkian real lives. Whether you're truly an anti-romantic or just having a bad day, the good news is that you don't have to sulk and scowl in your filthy apartment this year. Leave your heroin-addict boyfriend at home (but hide your ATM card) and come out to Cafe Du Nord, where, "pumped on sex-hormones and black coffee, drunk with the horny mating rituals of the urban damned," Lydia Lunch, Cara Bruce, Thomas Roche and Blag Dahlia will tell it like it is. As the devil-dressed-as-Cupid on your other shoulder says: "Sex ain't pretty, and neither are you."

-- Jan Richman

... and the right puts on its crown of thorns.

Some predictable martyrdom from over there in Right Wing Wanker Land as the conservative media contort themselves into uncomfortable positions, trying to paint "Jazzy Jeff" Gannon as the victim in all of this. Like this piece, which involves Accuracy in Media's [sic] Cliff Kincaid crying like a little girl.

Consider the following precious excerpt:

[Gannon's] crimes were that he was too pro-Republican, attended White House briefings, and asked questions unfair to Democrats.

Well, darn, I could have sworn there was more to it than that. Like how "Gannon":

• allegedly "worked" for an online news service that was closely affiliated with GOPUSA.com,
• had no legitimate journalistic credentials whatsoever,
• had already been denied a Senate press pass because of that lack of credentials,
• had an unpredecented two-year access to White House press conferences with nothing more than a constantly-reissued daily pass [Ed: note proper use of the word "unprecedented"],
• continually lobbed creampuff questions at either Commander Chimpy or Scott McClellan, and
• did all of this under an assumed name.

And, oh, yeah, there's that whole gay military prostitution website thing. That, too.

TBogg all over "Jazzy Jeff" Gannon. In a purely heterosexual way, of course.

Just head over to TBogg for this piece and follow the links -- the highlight being when the Washington Post's Dana Milbank says he now wants to be known as "Dirk Diggler". Oh, yes, this really is the gift that keeps on giving. And giving. And giving.

From Cynic HQ, this is "Vin Diesel", signing off.

BONUS TRACK: Ooooooh .... even the Canadian media is jumping all over this. But, then again, we know fake journalism when we see it.

Talon News: Your source for dishonest, right-wing propaganda.

Just for the entertainment value, you really have to check out Talon News, the former home of gay male stud J. D. "Jazzy Jeff" Gannon/Guckert. This is a news "organization" that makes Faux News look almost honest, and that's tough to do.

As an example, consider a recent Talon piece on Medicare (which is actually on the GOP USA website -- no conflict of interest there.) And the first paragraph of that article:

The White House was peppered with questions Wednesday regarding a Washington Post report which estimates the cost of the new Medicare prescription drug plan at as much as $1.2 trillion over ten years. When first proposed in 2003, the costs of the plan were said to be $400 billion. This figure was later revised to $534 billion by the Medicare Actuaries.

"Later revised"? Hmmm ... Medicare costs ... Medicare costs ... Oh, right, Medicare costs, I remember that. That's where the Bush administration deliberately hid its true costs before bringing it before Congress, but it's OK -- apparently, this didn't actually represent criminal behaviour.

Whew. I'm sure we can all agree that that's a relief. I'd hate to think this administration was capable of doing anything ... you know ... illegal. Somehow, I think that the description of "later revised" doesn't quite do all of this justice.

A hockey story for the non-hockey fan.

Personally, I've never been much of a hockey fan, so the fact that the season is about to vanish in the current lockout doesn't lose me a whole lotta sleep. But here's a great hockey story that anyone can appreciate. (If you can't get to it because of registration or something, leave a comment and I'll just reproduce it here. It's worth the read.)

The "Hey, let's help CC pick a new template cuz' this one sucks" contest.

Yes, I really want to upgrade the aesthetics of Cynic HQ, so I'm perusing the list of blogger templates. I'm open to suggestions -- certainly, something that is easily customizable from the basics.

Thoughts?

RNC threatens legal action against critical media.

Oh, yeah, this is going to play really well. From this Yahoo story, we have the Republican National Committee, threatening to sic the FCC on dissenters:

... RNC officials promise more challenges. "This committee will not cede one inch to any organization or group that tries to mislead Americans about the president's record of achievement or his vision to preserve Social Security," spokesman Danny Diaz said...

The RNC's letter noted that the stations have a responsibility as holders of Federal Communications Commission licenses "to avoid broadcasting deliberate misrepresentations. ... This letter places you on notice that the information (in the ad) is false and misleading."

Wow! Has Fox News heard about this?

... In 1998, the two filed a civil court lawsuit seeking employee protections under the state Whistleblower Act that resulted in a $425,000 jury award to Akre.

That verdict was overturned in 2003 when an appellate court accepted Fox's defense that since it is not technically against any law, rule or regulation for a broadcaster to distort the news, the journalists were never entitled to employee protections as whistleblowers in the first place.

Irony. The other white meat.

Drinking cynically -- the new trend.

And in the spirit of the well-established Drinking Liberally motif, perhaps it's time to get together for the occasional spot of cynical imbibing. If you're in the K-W area and have a taste for, say, some of the local brews, we should reserve the occasional evening for just that.

If you're up for it, leave a comment and we'll try to arrange something. If, on the other hand, you have no idea what "K-W" stands for, chances are you're not geographically available, anyway.

The Social Security trust fund. Now you see it ...

Can anyone in this lying, sack-of-cat-crap administration keep a simple story straight? No, no, according to Commander Chimpy, there's no Social Security trust fund:

Some in our country think that Social Security is a trust fund -- in other words, there's a pile of money being accumulated. That's just simply not true. The money -- payroll taxes going into the Social Security are spent. They're spent on benefits and they're spent on government programs. There is no trust.

No, wait, yes, yes, there is a trust fund:

Realizing that Social Security is going to run out of money very quickly because of the generation of workers who will be retiring within the next 10-20 years, Bush said it is obvious that the "system has changed."

But Bush was quick to assure current retirees and those nearing retirement age that they "don't have a thing to worry about."

"The Social Security trust is solvent," Bush declared.

Can anyone in an upcoming White House press gaggle ask about this with a simple, direct, non-tap-danceable question? Anyone? Bueller?

(Talon News ... Talon News ... where have I heard that name before? Oh, yeah. Here.)