We know Chris Matthews can be a blowhard sometimes. Of course, we'd probably end up saying some pretty goofy things if we had to give live commentary over thin election results for 7 hours at a stretch every other week. But never mind any past misses, when the guy lands a punch he lands the living hell out of it.
Witness this, the talking-head equivalent of a reverse suplex from the top rope followed by a folding chair to the head. Pop some popcorn and watch as Matthews not only pins right-wing radio pundit Kevin James to the wall over his tenuous grasp of history, but also draws out the key flaw in President Bush's recent poor-taste remarks to Israel's Knesset that compared Obama's statements about Iran to Neville Chamberlain's appeasement of Hitler. We don't typically enjoy seeing helpless animals get mauled by predators, but in this case we'll make an exception (the drubbing begins around the two-minute mark).
Remember earlier this year when a public interest group indentified 935 lies that the Bush administration told to justify the Iraq war? Harry Shearer, our favorite satirist, has put them to music.
The other shoe dropped last week. Senator McCain appeared before a group of students at Wake Forest and vowed to appoint judges "strictly faithful to the Constitution'' who would not engage in "the common and systemic abuse of our federal courts." As the New York Timesnoted, "The issue is of enormous importance to conservatives.''
Duh. The likelihood is that the next president is going to appoint one or more justices to the Court. Justice Stevens is 88, Justice Ginsburg is 75, and Justices Scalia and Kennedy are 72, ages when people sometimes, like, die. The appointments of Justices Roberts and Alito put conservatives one vote away from overturning Roe v. Wade. If McCain got to appoint the next justice, that would assure two things: first, that the states will create a hodgepodge of abortion laws, meaning that in many states, there will be a return to back-alley abortions; and second, arguing about abortion will assert itself as one of the most intense issues on the political agenda, coloring our politics and eclipsing the many 21st century questions we now think as vital.
This was the other shoe. The first shoe came in March, when the vice chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff testified before Congress that the U.S military did not have adequate manpower to maintain our efforts in Iraq and Afghanistan as presently constituted. The only way McCain could fulfill his pledge to maintain the present mission in Iraq ad infinitum would be to restore the draft.
Restoring the draft and restricting abortion rights. For years Grover Norquist and other GOP activists have expressed the desire to take America back to pre-New Deal days. Electing McCain would travel half the distance--a return to those ugly, contentious, rancorous days of the late sixties and early seventies, when the draft and abortion split the nation.
We heard rumblings in 2006 about a Congressional candidate in northern Indiana who called a press conference to shred what he said was an original first issue of Playboy. Ouch! Turns out he's a lawyer and former prosecutor named Tony Zirkle, running for Congress as a Republican near South Bend. We have posted a photo taken in his office at the "event" but must warn you it is not easy to look at. The point of the shredding was something about how men should "focus their attention on their wives" because that might strengthen their marriages and allow their "creativity and untapped talents" to be released, which Zirkle said would ultimately help boost the economy.
So, Zirkle is back in the news -- and it involves another disturbing photo (after the break) that takes this amusing (except for the shredding) story into the realm of the despicable. Zirkle, who is again running for Congress (do you just sign up somewhere?), decided to accept an invitation to speak to a group about his ongoing anti-pornography campaign (about 10 years ago he helped prosecute a number of South Bend adult bookstore owners). Trouble is, the group was the American National Socialist Workers Party, a.k.a. Nazis! The Nazis snapped the photo of his keynote address and posted it on their website, compelling a local Republican leader to note to the South Bend Tribune that Nazism, fascism and socialism are "polar opposites" of the party platform. Also, that Zirkle has been disinvited from any future Republican functions.
It’s not exactly an iron law, but for the last quarter century, it’s been a pretty good rule of thumb: when the American people go into the voting booth, they vote for the candidate with whom they would most like to have a beer.
In 1980 and 1984, they picked breezy Ronald Reagan over-pious Jimmy Carter and dour Walter Mondale. In 1988, they picked affable George H. W. Bush over stuffy Michael Dukakis.
In 1992 and 1996, Elvis-emulating Bill Clinton beat the now wimpy Bush and the sour Bob Dole. And in 2000, frat boy George W. Bush beat the sighing Al Gore and the stiff John Kerry.
In a rather alarming article in last week’s issue of The New Yorker, Steve Coll reports on an appearance by General Richard Cody, the Vice Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, before the Senate Armed Service Committee. "The current demand for our forces in Iraq and Afghanistan exceeds the sustainable supply, and limits our ability to provide ready forces for other contingencies.... Overall, our readiness is being consumed as fast as we build it. If unaddressed, this lack of balance poses a significant risk to the all-volunteer force, and degrades the Army’s ability to make a timely response to other contingencies."
This is pretty alarming news. Basically the general is saying that we don’t have the forces to respond to other crises posed by Iran or North Korea or Canada, for that matter. And when he says these conditions threaten the all-volunteer force, well, you know what he means, don’t you?
The resumption of the draft.
As it turned out, Cody testified about a week before Gen. David Petraeus appeared to talk about how things are going in Iraq. Petraeus, you’ll recall, described the country as a slow student--okay in some places, needs work in others. He was non-committal about when troops would start to leave. But here’s what you have to keep in mind. It doesn’t matter how long he thinks they need to stay. If you believe Cody, there’s just not enough soldiers to maintain current levels for long.
December seems like an eon ago, but it’s really been less than six months since everyone was feeling misgivings about the front-loaded primary season we were about to enter. You remember what was being said—that things were going to happen with lightening speed, that the front-runners possessed overwhelming advantages in name recognition and money and organization, that an early win or two would end the whole game.
Guess what? It didn’t happen. The GOP nominated McCain, who began the year politically DOA, and the Democrats have all but nominated Obama, whose sure-footed insurgency won early but more importantly won steadily in defeating a Clinton campaign that in most years would have been good enough to have chugged to victory.
Sorry for the gratuitous headline but Italian porn star Milly D'Abbraccio is running for a seat in Rome's City Hall and recently released her campaign poster. This seems to showcase her qualifications; next we need to know her positions.
By now we know that Sarah Silverman is fucking Matt Damon. We also know that Jimmy Kimmel is fucking Ben Affleck. However, did you know that Hillary Clinton is also fucking Obama? It's true! The Internet told me! In all seriousness, this is not only an extremely well-cut clip, it's also about as true as humor gets. At this point it's getting harder to see her staying in the race as anything but a ploy to definitively and decisively fuck Obama.
The war in Iraq continues, North Korea is threatening the south, Bin Laden is warning Europe, a global recession is looming, and the House Energy and Commerce Committee has held a hearing on avatars. Here is an account of the hearing by The Washington Post’s the inimitable Dana Milbank.
In our February 2006 issue, CBS Political Analyst Jeff Greenfield introduced us to "The No Bullshit Caucus," those members of the House and the Senate who distinguished themselves by resorting to answers that were honest, direct and often unpopular when faced with even the thorniest issues. With about a third of this election year behind us—-actually, not quite that much!—we thought it would be a good time to ask Jeff how the main contenders are stacking up, no bullshit-wise.
PLAYBOY: On the basis of the campaign he has run, Senator Obama may getting himself elected president, but is he doing much to get himself into the No Bullshit Caucus?
GREENFIELD: One of the things that has attracted supporters to Obama's side is his willingness on some matters to go beyond the normal conventions of political pap. On matters that touch on race, for instance, he has called out black churches for insufficient attention to anti-Semitism and homophobia; he has chastised mothers who feed their kids "cold Popeye chicken for breakfast" as contributing to the obesity epidemic. And he's talked often about brooder issues of parental responsibility. As the first African-American with a real shot at the Presidency, he may have the freedom to do this--in a "only-Nixon-could-go-to-China " way.
It’s true that Hillary Clinton COULD still win the Democratic nomination this year, but it’s also true that I could be elected Pope. Any Catholic male over the age of 7 is eligible, and I’ve got that covered. To be the democratic nominee, you need to have a majority of the delegates, and Hilary is nowhere near reaching that numbers. Nor is she likely to. The polls don’t favor her, the slate of remaining primaries doesn’t favor her, there’s not going to be do-overs in Michigan and Florida, and her opponent keeps turning hay (Jeremiah Wright) into gold (a pitch-perfect speech on race), while she keeps stumbling into unforce errors like claiming she was shot at in Bosnia. At this point, her path to victory would require Obama to melt down in almost a Spitzer-like way. It’s just not likely—not even remotely likely. Right now, the smartest move she could make for herself and for her party is to suspend her campaign, if not actually throw in the towel. Here’s why:
We're all for freedom of expression, and we're amazed by the flowering thereof occasioned by the recent ascendance of YouTube. That said, we're not sure if John McCain is all that excited about endorsements from the lumpy, off-key wing of his party. We can't wait to see what kind of detritus starts washing up on the intertubes once the campaign season spins up in earnest.
Pari Esfandiari, who co-wrote our May 2007 feature, "Sex in Iran," sends us this interesting bit of news from fundamentalist, repressive Iran.
It appears that Brigadier General Ali Reza Zarei, President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad’s “moral enforcer”, who led a crackdown on women failing to adhere to Iran’s strict Islamic dress codes, was arrested two weeks ago in a Tehran brothel in the company six prostitutes.
"It is believed that up to 60 hours of videotape featuring the general and the prostitutes had been confiscated by his officers,’’ Pari writes us.
The other shoe dropped last week. Senator McCain appeared before a group of students at Wake Forest and vowed to appoint judges "strictly faithful to the Constitution'' who would not engage in "the common and systemic abuse of our federal courts." As the New York Times 
We heard rumblings in 2006 about a Congressional candidate in northern Indiana who called a press conference to shred what he said was an original first issue of Playboy. Ouch! Turns out he's a lawyer and former prosecutor named Tony Zirkle, running for Congress as a Republican near South Bend. We have posted a photo taken in his office at the "event" but must warn you it is not easy to look at. The point of the shredding was something about how men should "focus their attention on their wives" because that might strengthen their marriages and allow their "creativity and untapped talents" to be released, which Zirkle said would ultimately help boost the economy. 
It’s not exactly an iron law, but for the last quarter century, it’s been a pretty good rule of thumb: when the American people go into the voting booth, they vote for the candidate with whom they would most like to have a beer.
In a rather alarming article in last week’s issue of 
December seems like an eon ago, but it’s really been less than six months since everyone was feeling misgivings about the front-loaded primary season we were about to enter. You remember what was being said—that things were going to happen with lightening speed, that the front-runners possessed overwhelming advantages in name recognition and money and organization, that an early win or two would end the whole game.
Sorry for the gratuitous headline but Italian porn star Milly D'Abbraccio is running for a seat in Rome's City Hall and recently released her 
The war in Iraq continues, North Korea is threatening the south, Bin Laden is warning Europe, a global recession is looming, and the House Energy and Commerce Committee has held a hearing on avatars. 
In our February 2006 issue, CBS Political Analyst Jeff Greenfield introduced us to "The No Bullshit Caucus," those members of the House and the Senate who distinguished themselves by resorting to answers that were honest, direct and often unpopular when faced with even the thorniest issues. With about a third of this election year behind us—-actually, not quite that much!—we thought it would be a good time to ask Jeff how the main contenders are stacking up, no bullshit-wise.
It’s true that Hillary Clinton COULD still win the Democratic nomination this year, but it’s also true that I could be elected Pope. Any Catholic male over the age of 7 is eligible, and I’ve got that covered. To be the democratic nominee, you need to have a majority of the delegates, and Hilary is nowhere near reaching that numbers. Nor is she likely to. The polls don’t favor her, the slate of remaining primaries doesn’t favor her, there’s not going to be do-overs in Michigan and Florida, and her opponent keeps turning hay (Jeremiah Wright) into gold (a pitch-perfect speech on race), while she keeps stumbling into unforce errors like claiming she was shot at in Bosnia. At this point, her path to victory would require Obama to melt down in almost a Spitzer-like way. It’s just not likely—not even remotely likely. Right now, the smartest move she could make for herself and for her party is to suspend her campaign, if not actually throw in the towel. Here’s why:
Pari Esfandiari, who co-wrote our May 2007 feature, "Sex in Iran," sends us