Olbermann Hits Another Nail on the Head

Keith Olbermann's got a great new graphic to illustrate part of the race to the White House. It was one of those things where I looked at it and said to my husband, "something's not right. Did McCain get a face-lift?" And then I realized what was up. The caption was "McBush" and the image was a seamless merging of the faces of John McCain and the pretender in the White House. OMG. It is priceless. I noticed it on Monday's show, but when I watched Friday's, it was used there as well. I don't think it's been in use very long because I'm pretty observant about things like this. Isn't Photoshop amazing when used by a skilled practitioner?

Al Gore Was No Dunce

Evgenia Peretz wrote a great article in Vanity Fair about the skewed coverage Al Gore got from the media in 2000. Heinlein said something along the lines that "intelligence is not a crime, but most people treat it like at least a misdemeanor" and this article supports that notion in a big way. So many things that Mr. Gore said were distorted by the press with the effect of turning him into a laughing stock, thus creating an even playing field for the Pretender. What a disservice the press did to the American people and the world by that kind of coverage.

Last night, Keith Olbermann did another great commentary on his show Countdown, repeatedly calling the Pretender out as a liar. I'm sure that the Pretender (or his handlers) regrets that he gave interview time to Robert Draper for Dead Certain, a book I hadn't planned on reading until last night. The Pretender's been playing at world leader and playing with the lives of our citizens. Will the word actually get out.

IMPEACH REMOVE JAIL as the slogan says over at Perceval Press. I'd really rather not have to wait 500 days to see these monsters out of office. The Democrats better start standing their ground.

Dragnet Lives!

Check out Keith Olbermann's Dragnet parody by clicking here and then linking to the "Dragnet: Larry Craig" headline below the Leona Helmsley story. The voice over is pretty much verbatim from the police report, which I was sent by Findlaw. Unfortunately, I'm no Bob Harris or Mark Evanier and I don't know how to bring the videos here for your convenience.

Gonzales Resigns--Film at 11

I didn't have the radio on as I drove to work this morning, so I missed the breaking news. Alberto Gonzales, possibly the worst attorney general since the Nixon Administration is going. I'm no fan of the guy Gonzales succeeded, but even he said "no" to the Pretender at least once. Fortunately, it was the top story once I signed into e-mail.

The rats are all deserting the ship, no doubt to avoid having to testify under oath or to lessen the scrutiny of the Republican Party in anticipation of the 2008 primaries and elections. Frankly, I can't understand how they can avoid testifying. If I were Senator Leahy, I'd be very tempted to send the U.S. Marshals out to round up Gonzales, Rove, Harriet Meyers, and any others who have refused to come clean. They all took oaths to uphold the Constitution and every damned one of them have put their buddy the pretender ahead of the Constitution.

Did everyone catch Keith Olbermann's special appearance with Countdown on the real NBC last night? I thought it was pretty funny and tragic that he had to explain the format of the show to new potential viewers. I figured it out pretty quickly once I started watching it. And isn't it a kick that he got to tell so many more people about the Pretender's handlers instruction book on how to keep protesters away from our governments Republican officials?

The fear-mongers have been jabbed with a strong dose of humor at the Edinburgh Fringe Festival. The show is Jihad: The Musical and the company is going to "try and open it in New York." Here's a sample of some of the lyrics, sung by the protagonist and a reporter named Foxy Redstate:

I was foolish to doubt you because I can't live without you,

You're the best opposition for my cause, you're the nemesis I dream of,

You're the reason that my team of angry millions wave their flags and give me rabid applause.

And we are finally going to be in a holy war alliance where we are guaranteed compliance with religion over science, we're the overarching giants.

There's a line that we're both selling and it's perfectly compelling for the audience who will hate you by default.

Here's a link to the song "I Wanna Be Like Ossama." NPR has coverage here and here. Laughter truly is the best medicine.

What the Hell Took So Long

Count me among those people who look at the press and say "where the hell have you been for the past seven years." It's taken that long for institutions I used to respect to pay serious attention to what's going on in the Pretender's Administration. I guess the money was elsewhere and now they aren't worried about losing advertisers.

For five glorious years, I was a freelancer shooting for The Washington Post. I was spending 90% of my time earning about 10% of my income but I was shooting for the The Washington Post. The great Katherine Graham was in charge. The lady who stared down the Nixon White House. The lady who got an honorary doctorate from Columbia the day I got my M.A. from there. One of my heroes. Someone I even met a time or two over the course of the five years.

Where was The Washington Post for the past seven years? Was Bob Woodward too close to the administration to do a careful study about the Pretender and the Penguin? Was there no hungry cub reporter chomping at the bit to take on the story? Were there no reporters who had worked in the White House during the previous Bush administration who were willing to expose the Shrub's behavior during those years? Even a friend of mine, who was a photographer in the WH pool back then, described the Pretender in ways that raised the hair on the back of my neck. I've met people who went to college or grad school with him who made it a point to say they did not vote for him.

Dan Rather loses his job over something that exposes the Pretender for what he is and the charade goes on. Ohio is promised by the head of the company providing voting machines and, amazingly, John Kerry concedes. What the hell happened to the press?

The Penguin shoots a friend in the face--that's gross negligence at best, folks--and the poor man apologizes for putting the Penguin and his family through so much trouble. No arrest for battery, no law suit for pain and suffering. Are you kidding me?

I checked out Keith Olbermann's website yesterday and saw a number of pot shots, but, for the most part, great praise for the commentaries he's been doing. For almost a year now, I've been hoping for some great enlightenment, along the lines of what happened when Edward R. Murrow took on Senator McCarthy. Things may be changing, but I don't think they are moving quickly enough. I want to see coverage of Olbermann's commentaries on news media with greater distribution than just MSNBC. I have no idea how many hits Olbermann's website gets, but I've been talking to people of like mind who don't even know about his news coverage.

Scooter Libby pays off his fine with no problem. I used to be married to a high-level civil servant and there's no way that kind of money would ever have been sitting in our bank account. Even political appointees aren't paid that much and the really good rich ones don't take a salary at all (well, they were $1 a year men in the FDR administration and even the Governator doesn't take a salary.) Nice going, Scooter. And now, it's not even likely he's going to have probation. Oh, no probation if there's no jail time? They didn't know that? I saw "Body Heat" where the villainess sets up a legal trap feigning ignorance and innocence which gets her exactly what she wants in the end. This smells of those good old boys sitting around watching "Body Heat" and saying "oh, we can do that and then good ole Scooter will pay the fine from the money everybody's given him and he'll get off for doing what we asked him to do. Then we can say that Bill Clinton did the same thing and, if we repeat the lie often enough, our people will believe it."

The big lies. How the Nazis took over (and never forget the ties the Pretender's family had with them!) How the Pretender and the Penguin stay in power. Nancy Pelosi, it's time to put impeachment back on the table. Democrats who want contributions from me better start acting like Democrats.

Me, if I prayed, it would be for a blood clot lodged in the Penguin's head when he goes in for surgery. I'd ask for a heart attack, but we know he doesn't actually have one.

July 4th Traditions

When I was a kid, I remember that the Fourth of July usually involved a gathering of the clan. My parents both came from large families, so there were many cousins on both sides and there would be lots of people for a summer cook-out. Somewhere along the line, "speedies" became the choice of food for the bbq, rather than hot dogs and hamburgers. An Italian version of shish-kabob or souvlaki, the marinated lamb, pork, or beef was skewered and grilled and served on crusty rolls. Fantastic.

We live thousands of miles from any blood relatives, so my son has not had the experience of a clan gathering in more than 15 years. Although he's got a dozen first cousins on my side of the family, he rarely gets to see them more than one at a time. Out here in California, we choose our own families and make different traditions.

The biggest tradition I've got now, thanks to the wonders of laser disks and DVDs, is to watch 1776 every Fourth of July. (I've read elsewhere that I am not alone in this tradition.) It is, without doubt, my favorite musical. It is the first musical I ever saw on Broadway, from nose-bleed cheap seats in the highest balcony thanks to a Hofstra University field trip my first year at college. I saw the film the night it opened to the public at Radio City Music Hall during the Christmas season in 1972. I have seen countless mountings of the show because if it is playing anywhere within a 100 miles of where I am, I'm willing to make the trip. Fortunately, it is also one of Len's favorites (Sondhead that he otherwise is), so he's with me on this.

It pleases me no end to know that Richard Nixon was threatened by one of the songs. He managed to get it excised from the film after its opening (cowardice on the part of the producer, as far as I'm concerned), but the song is back with all of its relevance in the DVD release. Sung by John Dickenson, it extols the "virtues" of moving always to the right, and, of course, makes the audience see how well that works out for the rich, but not the middle or poorer classes or, frankly, society as a whole.

The entire play is an indictment of the current administration. I have long referred to the pretender in the White House as "George the Third," so I find this film as relevant today as in 1972. And because most of the dialog is taken directly from letters and records of the 18th Century it seems to me that it should be a wake-up call to America. After all, those who do not study history are doomed to repeat it (e.g., the Nixon and Bush administrations.) Maybe some guerrilla theatre troupe will start performing the play outside the White House or wherever the criminals of the current administration are holding up these days, to remind them that our founders believed that it is right and just to rid ourselves of tyrants. Meanwhile, Keith Olbermann continues to point out the failures of the rule of law in this administration. His July 3 commentary, found here, is nothing short of brilliant, but Bush and Cheney will never resign. I expect we will be stuck with them until January 20, 2008 and hopefully not beyond.

Totally apart from July 4th traditions, the last time I was in Philadelphia, for the World Science Fiction Convention in 2001, Len and I, along with Melinda Snodgrass and her husband Carl, stood on the stairway inside Independence Hall singing songs from this musical. Melinda was trained as a singer. For the rest of us, it's just a good thing only the docents were subjected to the performance. But it's an inspiring libretto, and what better place is there to indulge?

During the time I lived in Northern Virginia, we tried to watch the Bicentennial fireworks from the Pentagon. Unfortunately, a large part of the show was "ground works" which couldn't be seen from across the Potomac because of the trees. That was a real bust, IMHO. I did once photograph the DC fireworks from the steps of the U.S. Capitol, and that was one fantastic evening. The last summer I was there, the law firm for whom I was working had a party on the roof of their building on Pennsylvania Avenue, and that was also a really nice location for the show. In the Northern Virginia city where lived, the town fireworks took place almost across the street, so we could sit out on the steps to watch. I like the view, but not the noise or crowds, so that was quite a good solution.

When I first spent time in L.A., there was a large fireworks display at Pierce College which we could watch from our house or the rail road tracks nearby. That ended a number of years ago, so we don't tend to have parties at our place on the Fourth. Lately, we've gone to a friend's in Studio City for a bar-be-q and then we walk to Ventura Boulevard to watch the fireworks from the Radford Studios, about a mile away. The only thing missing is music, and we've done dreadful renditions of John Philip Souza and Beethoven's 9th to supply the missing ingredient. Next year, we've decided, we'll bring a boom box with appropriate CDs.