Wednesday, February 16, 2005

What Do They Have In Common?



What Do They Have In Common?

.........
Sheik .. Barack ..Abu ..... ..... Rev Daniel
Omar .. Obama ..Musab al.....Berrigan, Jesuit
Abdel .. ..... ........Zarqawi........Priest
Rahman

They're all on that David Horowitz' wall of "enemies". America doesn't need inhuman monsters like Horowitz.
He's the hateful symptom, not the cure America requires to heal this land.

Dear God. Anyone who can stick the face of a beloved man of the Jesuit faith alongside a murderer..and the fresh face of a hopeful young black-American politician next to a terrorist wholeheartedly deserves the name of hateful monster.

When, I ask you, will we wake up to hatemongers like Horowitz?


Mullah Robertson Urges GOP to Change Filibuster Rules





Mullah Robertson Urges GOP to Change Filibuster Rules
"[Pat] Robertson, head of the Christian Broadcasting Network and one of the original leaders of the grass-roots Christian conservative political movement, urged Senate Republicans to change the chamber's rules to prevent Democratic filibusters against the nominees.
Bruce Ackerman warns:
The neo-con religious agenda is nothing short of revolutionary. The modern Supreme Court has consistently barred the state from endorsing religion, and it has protected each American’s right to make intimate decisions about sexuality, child-bearing and child-rearing. Neo-cons would reverse these priorities; they would strip away the constitutional right to privacy, and empower politicians to engage in endless theological disputes.

MSNBC: U.S. contractors in Iraq allege abuses



"What we saw, I know the American population wouldn't stand for."

MSNBC: U.S. contractors in Iraq allege abuses

I saw four men featured on the NBC Nightly News with Brian Williams last night. They were saying that they witnessed the indiscriminate shooting of unarmed civilians by poorly trained young Kurds, who have historical resentments against other Iraqis. The young Kurds were heavily armed security operators on missions conducted by Custer Battles, a company hired by the Pentagon to conduct dangerous missions guarding supply convoys. The four men, all contractors for Custer Battles, were sickened by it; heartsick over it. They will not be returning to Iraq.

The very name, Custer Battles, inspires a vision of brown-skinned men at defensive war with occupiers of their native land. I wonder if they couldn't have come up with a better name?

I wonder what the right-wing collective blog-mind is thinking right now? I'll bet they're seething. Will Brian Williams be their next target?

Gannon story: Let's Get to the Heart of Serious Matters



Gannon story: Let's Get to the Heart of Serious Matters

I know newspapers love gossip and controversy. It sells. In the case of Jeff Gannon, there's more than enough Enquirer-style gossip to go around.

I always thought newspapers like The Washington Post were above that type of journalism, especially when there's so much more to a particular story than meets the eye.

Howard Kurtz (and Post editors), I''m sorry to be critical, but I have to be critical.
I'm a blogger.
It's my job.

"Online Nude Photos Are Latest Chapter In Jeff Gannon Saga"
Is that the best title you could come up with?
Sure, it's an eye-catcher. Nude Online Photos.
It looks like a porn site come-on.
It makes the whole Jeff GAnnon story look like kerfluffle.

Shame on you.

Your focus on the story is wrong, if you expect your readers to take the more serious aspects of the story to heart.

And there ARE serious aspects.

QUOTE:

More than anything, though, it is Gannon's personal online activities that has kept the story churning.
Maybe there's a method to that madness? Perhaps this story has to be kept in the "churning" stage so the deeper, far more serious issue can finally be brought to the surface by the painfully-slow-to-react (and ethically misguided) mainstream media.

I can hardly believe that Howard Kurtz felt it was terribly important to add the "woe-is-she" commentary about Gannon's poor elderly Ma getting phonecalls from those nasty liberals. What is that supposed to prove? Life is tough in the fast lane. We're all accountable for what we choose to do. Gannon lived fast and knew the consequences.

Did Howard Kurtz write a sob-story about Eason Jordan's family?
Sh*t, no.

This is the kind of double standard that gets me fired up. It's no wonder the mainstream media gets played for fools by the Right.

Gannon sought out an interview with Joseph Wilson just after Wilson's wife was outed as a CIA agent, likely by someone in the upper ranks in the Bush administration.

As a person with natural curiosity and who has closely followed the Joseph Wilson story, I can only suspect that Jeff Gannon, whose politics I have come to clearly understand, was planning a purposefully antagonistic and hopefully damaging story on Wilson.

Worse, he had access to information in a very sensitive internal memo. Where he got it (or information from it) is in question. He says he got it from a legitimate source, but frankly, I wonder why anyone should believe him.

This is dirt, people. I think we're talking bottom of the scumbucket.

There was a bitter vendetta involved. Joe Wilson dared to come out and challenge President Bush's State of the Union comments. The attitude of this ethically ugly administration would lead me to believe they would think: No one does that and gets away with it.

Gannon's been made a part of the investigation of the outing of Ms. Plame. His shady outline is being filled in by blogger investigation. Someone made sure his shiny head was in that White House Press room asking snarky, underhanded questions about the loyal political opposition. I want to know who that was. If we're going to have any trust in the White House at all, it's important that we get this clear in our minds.

Everyone should care about this. Not just "liberals".

The mainstream media should have a reporter concentrating on getting to the serious facts about Jeff Gannon. How did he get access to the White House Press Corps with such ease?

What if Gannon (as your doctor) did a botch-job on you in the ER, and afterward you found out he was someone totally different than he was supposed to be - that instead of going to medical school, he'd had a three-day crash course? What would you do when you discovered that he wasn't Dr. Gannon, ER practioner, but that he was Jim Guckert, gay escort of the Internet? Wouldn't you ask the hospital some tough questions?

____________


Lex of Lex Files comments:
"..we also should be wondering who on Gannon/Guckert's client list was a government official with access to sensitive information. Patronage of a prostitute by such a person (irrespective of sexual orientation) could leave him/her open to blackmail and so represents a huge security risk."


Sen. Frank Lautenberg, D-N.J., has asked the White House for documents showing how Gannon got his White House credentials. I wonder if the Washington Post has jumped on that story? I would hope so. After all, a newspaper in the heart of Washington D.C. is the first newspaper about whom you would think a scoop would be forthcoming! I checked and saw nothing thus far!


MSNBC: U.S. contractors in Iraq allege abuses



"What we saw, I know the American population wouldn't stand for."

MSNBC: U.S. contractors in Iraq allege abuses

I saw four men featured on the NBC Nightly News with Brian Williams last night. They were saying that they witnessed the indiscriminate shooting of unarmed civilians by poorly trained young Kurds, who have historical resentments against other Iraqis. The young Kurds were heavily armed security operators on missions conducted by Custer Battles, a company hired by the Pentagon to conduct dangerous missions guarding supply convoys. The four men, all contractors for Custer Battles, were sickened by it; heartsick over it. They will not be returning to Iraq.

The very name, Custer Battles, inspires a vision of brown-skinned men at defensive war with occupiers of their native land. I wonder if they couldn't have come up with a better name?

I wonder what the right-wing collective blog-mind is thinking right now? I'll bet they're seething. Will Brian Williams be their next target?