That's News to Me...

I've got a stack of stuff right in front of me with notes in the margins, highlighted passages, all ready for blogging, but I just don't feel it. But... I can't let that stop me. So...

There's one fine example of idiocy by Howard Fineman at MSNBC.com Newsweek-- Pinata Strategy. What's most insulting about this piece is his summation of the Right's objections to a Speaker Pelosi come the 1st Wednesday this November...

The Republican message for this fall's election season turns Franklin Roosevelt's famous statement on its head: fear is good, or at least it's a strategy. They want the electorate to be afraid, very afraid-of the terrorists, of course, but also of an elegantly dressed woman from San Francisco.

As though what one wears somehow has bearing on whether a nation should worry about the resultant consequences of that one's leadership. I'd be worried if the Speaker of the House consistently sported a mohawk and lip, tongue, and eyebrow piercings to the floor of the House. I'd prefer sackcloth and ashes-- in fact, a nation similarly attired --but I'll settle for what passes for polite attire.

Elegantly dressed? What about her values? Admittedly, Fineman acknowledges her liberal stance on things like abortion, gay rights, and the democratic version of coitus interruptus in Iraq, but why does he bother to press the idea that the Right is afraid of how she dresses, unless it's to make her appear innocuous, and her opposition as irrational? I'd be truly scared if she appeared on camera in a latex mini and tube top, with fishnets and fake eyelashes...
--Sincerest apologies for putting that image in your head...

To give you an idea of just where Mr. Fineman sits in this ideolgical debate, consider his own use fear... Rovepublicans! Ooo! Scary! And more than a bit hypocritical. But it's to be expected, is it not?

[Republicans] want to use Pelosi to give their vision of nightmare a face and name... It's a page from an old GOP playbook.

A page Democrats have memorized, and it's strategies employed, with the confident ease of familiarity-- well over 40 years of familiarity.


Now, here's something from John Stossel...

Apparently there's this little rule the Senate has that allows any member to delay a bill without revealing his identity... it's called the Secret Hold. What's significant about this little rule is that it was recently employed on a bill that would have created a national searchable database that the average Joe-Taxpayer could search to see where all his tax dollars are being spent, in respect to Pork. I can't imagine how this could possibly be a bad idea, forcing the people we elect to office to a fair measure of accountability. The two people responsible for the Secret Holding of the bill in question? Sen Ted Stevens (R)Alaska, and Sen Robert Byrd (D)W Virginia.

I've had a few things to say about Democratic hypocrisy and cowardice lately, and to be fair, Republican's aren't at all as squeaky clean as I may have intimated. What get's my goat every single day, is the Left's hypocritical use of terms like Hubris, and Arrogance. How's this for arrogance?

From Stossels article Secrets in the Senate...

When the Deocrats held power, I confronted Sen. Byrd about his "Honorable" Robert Byrd Highway-type projects in West Virginia. His answer was as arrogant as he was: "I would think that the national media could rise above the temptation of being clever, decrepitarian critics who twaddlize, just as what you're doing right here."

"Twaddlize?" I asked.

"Trivializing serious matters," he explained.

I persisted, "Is there no limit? Are you not at all embarrassed about how much you got?

Byrd glared at me, "Are you embarrassed when you think you're working for the good of the country?!"

Wow! Just... Wow!!! Talk about Hubris and Arrogance!!! But then my family's from West Virginia and to be too critical might get me disowned. Still... WOW!!!


Next up... It would seem a Navy Chaplain, LT Gordon James Klingenschmitt, has been convicted of saying prayers 'in Jesus' name' while in uniform... In front of the White House! Gasp!!! How horrible! All sarcasm aside this is VERY horrible, and an aggregious affront not only to the Constitution but the right of the individual to worship as his/her heart and convictions dictate.

Klingenschmitt[s] lawyer rested the case without calling any witnesses, one of whom was scheduled to be former Alabama Supreme Court Chief Justice Roy Moore, because of the Biblical injunction in Isaiah, where the prophesy about Jesus says he "was oppressed and afflicted yet he did not open his mouth."

"I do respect the verdict of my peers, I am a humble man and respect the authority of the jury. I do not respect the authority of the military judge who declared worshipping in public is not the same as public worship," [Klingenschmitt] said.

The jury will hand down sentence today.


Also, Mel Sheeholtz, a Ph.D. and professor of English at Pennsylvania State University offers his opinion of Governor Schwarzenegger's veto of California's The Bias Free Curriculum Act. Schwarzenegger saw the act as a step backward in regard to religious freedom, as well as being an instrument of promotion-- as normal --of homosexuality in public schools. Although Mr. Sheeholtz never comes right out and says it, toward the end the inference is unmistakable... Christians are 'Evil Lunatics' and must be gotten 'rid of.'

Add to that Rosie O'Donnell's assertion on The View that,

"radical Christianity is just as threatening as radical Islam in a country like America where we have separation of church and state."

Rosie is obviously the product of a public education-- How many times must it be said? 'Separation of Church and State' appears nowhere in our Constitution! Elisabeth Hasselbeck and Joy Behar challenged Rosie... A dangerous thing to do, even for a man. I still remember an episode of The Rosie O'Donnell Show where she invited Tom Selleck aboard to talk up his latest film. Instead, Rosie attacked him for being an NRA supporter. The woman is certainly passionate, but nonetheless deranged.


Lastly, kevin Costner of Dances with Wolves fame-- and my favorite, Silverado...

Has waded into the debate about controversial new movie Death of a President, insisting British director Gabriel Range failed to consider how George W. Bush's family would react to scenes of the U.S. President being assassinated...

"It's awfully hard if you're his children, his wife, his mother, his dad; there's a certain thing we can't lose as human beings, which is empathy for maybe the hardest job in the world. Whether we think it's being performed right or not we can't, like, wish... or think that's even cute"

Bravo, Kevin, bravo. I hereby forgive you for Waterworld.


And that's the news, thanks for plodding through to the end...