Category: The Dish

Erbil, Kurdistan, Iraq, 2 pm. Know hope.

Another Limbaugh classic:

"No, I’m not lying … I’ve not lied about anything I’ve said. Let me try this a different way. (sigh) I’m going to have to think about this. I tried to make it as clear as I can. I’m not going to eat my own, and I’m not going to throw my own overboard, particularly in a campaign, and particularly when the country is at war – and I’m not going to do it for selfish reasons, and I’m not going to do it to stand out, and I’m not going to do it to be different. I’m not going to do it to draw attention from our enemies. I’m not going to do anything I do so that the Drive-By Media will like me or think that, "Ooooh, Limbaugh has changed! Ooooh, Limbaugh is coming around!" That’s not my thinking.

My thinking is: the left doesn’t deserve to win. My thinking is: the country is imperiled with liberal victory. We may not have the best people on our side, but they’re better than what we have on the left. But it has been difficult sometimes, when these people on our side have not had the guts to stand up for themselves, have not had the guts to explain what they really believe and why they’re doing what they’re doing. When they haven’t had the courage to be who they are, when they haven’t had the courage to be conservatives."

Hmmm. So if I have this straight, Limbaugh knowingly supported people he actually believed were indefensible, who were not conservatives. He is saying loud and clear that he deliberately misled his listeners – because he couldn’t bring himself to back "the left," whatever that means to him. Then there’s this from Hugh Hewitt:

"It is a wonderful day for new media, especially talk radio. For two years we have had to defend the Congressional gang that couldn’t shoot straight."

Say what? Says who? Is he on the GOP payroll? "We have had to defend …" Why, exactly? No one was forcing Hewitt to defend anything. He could have been honest with his readers and listeners. He could have called this Congress the "gang that couldn’t shoot straight" last week. Why didn’t he?

The one thing you learn from this: Hewitt and Limbaugh are party animals. They put loyalty to party above intellectual honesty. They have admitted that they knowingly misled their readers and listeners. They can and will do it again.

Greg Djerejian feels relief:

Regardless, what we saw [Tuesday] was American democracy at its finest. We saw the public mount a critically needed intervention, because without it a President well beyond his depth would have likely continued to cast his lot with discredited cocksure ideologues and/or Jacksonian nationalists like Rumsfeld.

In Gates, we have an anti-ideologue and a realist. In his role with the Baker-Hamilton commission (a welcome dose of bipartisan sanity in an increasingly moronic Washington, media and blogosphere), he will have had access and been influenced by distinguished peers grappling with what to do next in Iraq in a climate characterized by sober appraisal of the national interest, rather than the agenda-driven hysterical harrumphing afoot in all the usual quarters.

What we are seeing is an almost Shakespearean drama in which the wayward son is forced back to the advisers of the father he once rejected. Two words: Poppy’s back! His arch-nemesis, Rumsfeld, is gone. Two of Poppy’s closest allies and friends are now trying to figure a path out of the hole Bush, Cheney and Rumsfeld dug. So the Bush presidency is back! The other Bush presidency. The one that, in retrospect, seems sane and wise.

The Pulitzer-prize winning AP photographer has been detained without being charged by the U.S. military for seven months now in Iraq. His life may be in danger. He has been accused of being a terrorist for taking photographs of terrorists. He has seen no evidence against him. There is no due process for him. Now Rumsfeld has gone, decency may return to the U.S. military. But this story from the American Journalism Review is the most thorough I’ve yet read about this case. I think the military should charge Hussein and produce the evidence allegedly incriminating him. Or they should set him free. For such outlandish ideas of fair treatment, I will no doubt be called a "liberal." I just believe in a free press, even in wartime. And in due process, even in wartime. I thought that was something we could all agree on. Apparently, it isn’t.

The Onion is on the case.

One last reprise from the podium:

A reader writes:

I turned on the O’Reilly Factor last night just to see how Bill would spin things now that it seemed clear that the Dems would control all of congress. The election, sadly, has not thrown enough cold water in his face. O’Reilly is still serving his radical Republican masters. I watched as he shouted down a representative from the Heritage Foundation (maybe it was Cato?) as she began to describe why the Republicans lost. She echoed you, Andrew, when she said that the Republicans lost because they had abandoned their conservative values.

O’Reilly would hear NONE of this. He cut her off, and then admonished her for this "rhetoric" (his exact word), and he then went on to explain that the war in Iraq was the sole reason for the loss and that Americans were overly emotional about the war. When the guest speaker once again tried to explain that it was about a loss in conservative principles, O’Reilly dismissed her entirely. Just another example of why he won’t debate you on conservatism. Simply, O’Reilly is not a conservative, he is a Republican. A 21st century, strictly ideological, strictly partisan, it’s-all-good-so-long-as-it’s-my-guy-in-power Republican.

And a scaredy cat.

We all know about North Korea. But the military junta that rules Burma is one of the vilest on the planet, suppressing minority groups, crushing dissent, wrecking the economy, engaging in Stalinesque social engineering projects. I’m one of few Westerners to spend any time in actual Burma – and it was as a back-packing twentysomething with my old friend, Max Kennedy (Bobby’s son). It’s a hauntingly beautiful place, and the country gave me profound respect for Buddhism, and immense affection for the gentle, open-hearted people traumatized by their disgusting rulers. One thing the junta has achieved: a decimation of what was once an excellent education system. The Books For Burma project is a volunteer group aiming to rectify that and provide books for refugees and dissidents. They tell me:

About a million people have fled Burma in the last ten years alone and we are reaching out to them. We are accepting book donations as well as small cash donations to help cover the cost of shipping.  Books will be going to Chin Students’ Organization, Kachin Development Organization, and All Kachin Students and Youth Union just to name a few, more org.’s are asking us for books everyday.

You can find out how to help here.

A reader writes:

I just visited NRO The Corner for the first time … and you are like the devil over there!  Every third post refers to Sullivan this or Sullivan that, Sullivan the apostate, Sullivan the shameless book self-promoter (they’ve got you there), Sullivan the homo in Provincetown. My God, you get under their skin!

Keep it up.

No worries. I will. Oh, and read my book. It will tick them off some more.

I wonder how important Jon Stewart, Stephen Colbert and Bill Maher were in this past election. I have a feeling they were critical to alerting the younger generation to the dysfunction in Republican governance. So this press release from Circle is no big surprise to me:

Average young voter turnout among college students in precincts targeted by the Student PIRGs’ New Voters Project doubled over the 2002 election, more than six times the national average for young adults, with turnout in some precincts increasing up to five times over 2002, according to an Election Night analysis by the Center for Information and Research on Civic Learning and Engagement (CIRCLE).

While mobilization efforts proved to dramatically increase young voter participation, the national youth vote saw a significant increase as well ‚Äî especially when compared to the overall population. CIRCLE’s analysis of the National Election Poll’s exit poll for 18-29 year olds found that turnout among 18-29 year olds increased at least 4 percentage points over 2002 figures, to 24 percent. According to an Associated Press vote count and an analysis by American University’s Center for the Study of the American Electorate, the overall population saw an increase of less than 1 percentage point.

Now, if every college student makes a decision today to get one other friend registered …