Best Comparison of the Week

By Keith Olbermann on last night's Countdown (no video unfortunately). Rethuglican / New Confederate Party Sen. Jeff Sessions to a Keebler cookie elf. Frankly, we'd vote for the Keebler elf.

Mid-Week Song

At mid-week, with a long holiday weekend approaching, we've got Friday on our minds. So do the '60s Australian band The Easybeats with a pop confection from 1967.

Kagan 2, Senate Rethugs 0

With two days of hearings on the nomination of Elena Kagan to be a Supreme Court justice over, we're struck with the grasping of the Rethuglican Senators who are trying to dirty her up. Throwing bogus "facts" at her about the Harvard ROTC issue, alleging that she's "anti-military," and attacking her work with former Justice Thurgood Marshall (and by extension Marshall himself) to prove she's a "liberal activist" are all that the Rethugs apparently have, with Kagan's ultimate confirmation almost assured. And they're bumbling and stumbling on the way, trying to get the best of Kagan, who is smarter than the Rethug committee members combined.

We wonder how this hearing plays out among moderate, suburban voters, who are watching one ivory-white, drawling, cornpone Rethug Senator after another attempt to bring Kagan down. It's one more indicator of how the Rethugs have become mostly a regional party, dominated by reactionary Southerners, much as the Dems were in the 40's and 50's with the "Dixecrats."

How's That Igloo Workin' Out For Ya?

You may remember this past February the inbred family of Sen. James "Head-In-Ass" Inhofe (Rethug-Not OK) built this igloo (labeling it "Al Gore's new home") near the Capitol in a hilarious jab at global warming in the midst of this winter's record snowfall in DC. Hahaha!

Meanwhile, we're about to close out the hottest June in history in DC. So, let's round up those In-bred-hofes and pose them in... a large frying pan! Hahaha!

A Death in the Senate

West Virginia Sen. Robert Byrd's death this morning at age 92 marks the end of a Senate career that began in January, 1959, and one that ran the gamut from opposition to the 1964 Civil Rights bill to opposition to the Iraq War. As chairman of the Appropriations Committee for many years, Byrd steered billions of dollars to West Virginia over his 51 year career.

If the current assumptions concerning West Virginia law hold, Dem Gov. Joe Manchin will be responsible for appointing someone to fill the remaining two and a half years of Byrd's term, so there should be no change in the balance of seats in the Senate. After that point, it's assumed that Manchin (who won't appoint himself to the interim job) will run for the seat in 2012.

(photo: Associated Press; Byrd at Sen. Ted Kennedy's funeral service)

Time To Call Them Out

From the moment President Obama took office, Rethuglicans in Congress vowed to bring President Obama's economic recovery agenda down, starting with health insurance reform, and damn the national interest. As Sen. Jim "Demented" DeMint (Confederate-SC) phrased it, they wanted to make health insurance reform the President's "Waterloo." With the economic stimulus package, as radio hate-meister Limpballs phrased it, they wanted the President "to fail." Every time Obama sought compromise, and incorporated Rethug suggestions in his economic recovery legislation, they voted against him. The latest evidence is their rejection of extending unemployment benefits legislation.

Now, Theda Skocpol, writing in Talking Points Memo, states what Dems should be doing: calling the Rethugs out for sabotaging needed measures in order to play the savior if they get back in power (shudder):

"The President, Congressional leaders, and Democrats of all stripes should be yelling day in, day out, that REPUBLICANS ARE SABOTAGING NATIONAL ECONOMIC RECOVERY. AND PREVENTING JOB GROWTH, JUST FOR POLITICAL ADVANTAGE. That should be the message all the time, led by the President. Stop the murky compromises and the whining about "helping the unemployed." Stop pretending this is about the deficit -- nothing will hurt the deficit more than delayed economic growth. Say what it happening in terms of the national interest."

Well said, and worth heeding.

BONUS READING: Driftglass gives us an historical overview of the right-wing descent into nihilism and political chicanery (known as "ratf**king") of which the recent Tucker "F**ker" Carlson/ Dave Wiegel episode is just the latest example.

Sunday Morning Reading

Charles Blow wants us to "take the long view" in politics. Since the long view would seem to favor progressives, we'll do just that.

They Said, We Said

From today's Kaplan Daily article by Howie "Get That Job?" Kurtz, on Dave Weigel's dismissal as the Daily's blogger ("Right Now") on all things wingnutty:

They (Weigel) said: in private eMails, that Matt "My Life is A" Drudge should "handle his emotional problems more responsibly and set himself on fire;" that conservatives were using the media to "violently, angrily divide America," and news outlets feel the "need to give equal/extra time to 'real American' views, no matter how [expletive] moronic."

We said: OK, so far so good, nothing but the truth.

They (Jim Geraghty, National Review Online) said: "There was definitely a perception that his [Weigel's] blog was designed to make conservatives look bad."

We said: Conservatives need no help from others in looking bad. See 3 1/2 years of blogging below.

They (Kaplan Daily Executive Editor Marcus Brauchli) said: "We don't have the resources or ability to do Supreme Court justice-type investigations into people's backgrounds. We will have to be more careful in the future."

We said: Of course, we wouldn't want to offend any right-wing crackpots, so let the inquisition begin! (Is that the sound of John Peter Zenger spinning in his grave we're hearing?) Mr. Broccoli and your cowardly stenographers - go f**k yourselves...

Saturday Summertime Blues

A week of 90-plus heat with humidity, 17 days and counting of 90-plus temperatures in June, all adding up to the hottest June in DC on record (yo, Igloo Jim Inhofe!). There are any number of songs to commemorate our journey into Washington Summer ("Heat Wave," "Summertime," "Summer in the City"), but we're going with this:

Afternoon Reads

-- Joan McCarter has a good summary of the wins, draws and losses in the financial reform bill passed out of conference committee in the wee hours this morning.

-- Steve Benen covers the Rethugs' obstructing the bill extending unemployment benefits and other stimulus monies, and how selected print media outlets led the story (hint: with one exception, you would never know it was the Rethugs).

Letting His Guard Down

How serious are Rethug officials in the Gulf coast states about cleaning up the oil hitting their beaches and marshes? We know that Mississippi Gov. Haley "Come On Down!" Barbour is in full fabrication / ain't no big deal mode, wanting tourists to come to Mississippi's Gulf shores to enjoy the sun, sand, and crude oil. Now, it's reported by CBS News that Louisiana Rethug Gov. Bobby "Kenneth" Jindal has failed to deploy all 6,000 Louisiana National Guard troops to fight the spill, despite their activation some time ago by President Obama. Meanwhile, he's been getting media time lambasting the Federal government for blocking the troop deployment. Coast Guard Admiral Thad Allen says that's not true.

Clearly, Governor Kenneth is trying to have it both ways: appearing to be the "people's Governor" standing up for the fishermen, etc., while dragging his feet and cooperating with BP's attempts to limit press coverage. In other words, typical right-wing political behavior.

(photo: No, this is not a doctored photo)

Quote of the Day

"Look, I went into journalism to do journalism, not advertising. My views are critical but that shouldn't be mistaken for hostile - I'm just not a stenographer. There is a body of work that shows how I view these issues but that was hard-earned through experience, not something I learned going to a cocktail party on fucking K Street. That's what reporters are supposed to do, report the story." -- Michael Hastings, author of the Rolling Stone article that led to Gen. Stanley McChrystal's dismissal.

There's been some cluck-clucking among the Villagers about how this awful hippie publication could have gotten such a scoop on the "legitimate press." Easy. Rolling Stone employs journalists, not political scorekeepers interested in who's in and who's out in the Georgetown cocktail circuit frequented by media Villagers afraid of losing access to the powerful.

(h/t to the Atlantic's Andrew Sullivan)

Kiss Of Death

The media Village's conventional wisdom is that former half-term Alaska Gov. Winky You Betcha boosts candidates wherever she goes. Sadly for her right-wing following, a new poll indicates that her appeal is essentially limited to the wingnut base (and the Villagers, of course, who are obsessed with Winky's "magic" touch and her banal "policy" pronouncements via Facebook).

Greg Sargent notes that a recent NBC/Wall Street Journal poll finds that Winky's endorsement is seen by the broader electorate as a clear negative. Some 52 percent would react negatively toward a Winky endorsement, including 37 percent who would be very uncomfortable. The only two factors less popular are support for Bush economic policies and elimination of Social Security.

(photo: Oink)

Screwy Louie's "Things I Learnt In History Class"

Think Progress reports on Texas Rethug Rep. Screwy Louie Gohmert's criticizing President Obama for being mean to BP. Just another Rethug saying what the rest of them are thinking but are too cowardly to let the public know? True. But Gohmert, being the certified cashew that he is, has to go a few, um, goosesteps further by comparing Obama to... wait for it: Hitler (yawn). Quoting an article by fellow cashew Thomas "Not" Sowell, Screwy Louie likes what he sees in Sowell's flaky analysis of the establishment of the BP compensation fund and its clear (to Sowell and Screwy Louie at least) antecedent in Hitler's rise to power. He must've been reading those new, revisionist text books the State of Texas has ordered up -- you know, the ones celebrating Jefferson Davis and saying the Founding Fathers created a Christian nation?!

And these are the jackasses that are supposed to be capturing the House in November? God help us.

(Image: Rep. Screwy Louie Gohmert, Montgomery Burns' doppelganger.)

Your Broken Media, Cont'd.

Experiencing the wall-to-wall, hysteric coverage of the BP oilmageddon, one would think the public is following the "mainstream media's" lead and seeing that as the nation's number one issue. Not according to the latest CBS/NY Times poll, which indicates the public is still focused on the economy and jobs (40%) as the number one issue. Oilmageddon is at 13% and -- weak-kneed Democrats, take note -- the deficit is at 5%. So what that should tell you is that, despite the best efforts of Rethug hacks and their willing handmaidens in the media flogging the "Obama's Katrina" and "runaway deficit" narratives, the public is still rightly focused on getting the economy back on track. How could the public not trust the media's judgment on what's important?

Well, maybe they're getting jaded about the media's modus operandi-- with its hyper-short attention span, endless search for a conflict, and need to simplify and visualize the message. Anyone paying attention to the way the "mainstream media" covered the health reform debate sensed how the public wasn't getting factual information from the media, but rather was being hammered by political horse race, "the-system-is-broken" -type stories. This is now confirmed by a Pew Research study just out, which shows that nearly half the media coverage was on politics and strategy, much less on substance. And when substance was the topic, the media's need to have two sides to every argument, even if one side was lying outrageously and was rarely called on it, colored the public's understanding of the law. Take a bow, "mainstream media!"

(Image: Stop bothering him! He's typing as dumb as he can!)