Letters to the Editor
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Bartlett's entire career
Re Glenn's update:
Dan Bartlett's entire career has been shaped by his close association with one of the most controversial political operatives in the country's history…Bartlett himself has been at the center of all sorts of controversies and been accused of all kinds of dishonest conduct -- from his shifting defenses of the Iraq war to his role in the story of the President's National Guard service.
MSNBC's Countdown on Friday, 6/1/2007: Alison Stewart interviewing James Moore, co-author of Bush's Brain and The Architect
James Moore…this is a president who has sort of surrounded himself with a coterie, I think, of sycophants, people who sing songs that he likes to hear, which is "You're great, Mr President, you're right, Mr President and the rest of the world is wrong." I take exception to the notion that Dan was honest and confronted the President when the President was going in the wrong direction—I don't believe that was the relationship.
He came of age under this President when he was a governor and he—from the time he got out of college, he basically hitched his wagon to George W. Bush's mule and went all the way to Washington. He's essentially never worked for anyone else. And without the President he wouldn't be what he has become and it's unlikely that he ever went to him and said, "You're making a mistake."
Alison Stewart: You just described a interesting relationship. Let me break it down just a little bit. Behind the scenes, what kind of jobs did Dan Bartlett do for Mr Bush, especially in the early days, when the goal was to actually get to the White House?
Moore: Well, I think one of the things that people are not aware of about Dan, Alison, is that, very early in the administration, when George W. Bush became governor, Dan was a liaison to the Texas National Guard at Camp Mabry here in Austin. And it's clear to me that they wanted him over there to see what was going on, what's in the records, is there anything we need to be worried about. He established a relationship with the commandant, Danny James, and they figured out—I think essentially Dan did—and went back to the governor and said, Look, we've got things in the records over there we need to deal with. Karen Hughes got involved, Joe Allbaugh got involved, and the records essentially were scrubbed. And we never ever got to the truth of the National Guard issue. And once you take a bullet like that for someone, like Dan Bartlett did, his future was secured with this president in whatever happens. And I can assure you that on his job hunt he's going to have people coming after him for essentially the same reason.
<<snip>>
…I take exception also to the notion that he's leaving because 'now is the time.' I don't believe history has recorded any incidents of rats swimming towards sinking ships. He said, of course, when he was asked if he were leaving the Titanic, he said, "Oh, c'mon." I agree—it's a bad analogy. This has been much worse than the Titanic.
And Dan has played a fundamental role in putting a humanizing face on George W. Bush and the President today said he's glad that Dan can go back and be with his young family. Well, Dan has been a part of facilitating a horrible war and making the President look human in the process and there are close to 3500 young Americans who've died in that war who won't be able to go back to their families. And I think it's unfair to characterize Dan as "Mr Hale-Fellow-Well-Met." There's been a lot more going on that he's not been fairly scrutinized for.
Alison Stewart: James Moore, co-author of the books Bush's Brain and The Architect, thanks for being with us tonight.
[This informal transcript is my own; the site transcript does not appear till Monday, 3 PM but you can watch the video clicking "Bush and the Texas Circle" here: http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/3036677/]
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My Award vs MWOs
Jonathon Hoagland wrote:
I don't really like the term "'whore'."
Then I guess you shouldn't use it. :^)
I did so only in quoting the name of the award created by Media Whores Online, that you had brought to my attention.
The name of "The Gannon Award" is much better than MWO's, I suggest, in part because it *isn't* crudely explicit and is therefore much more aesthetically appealing, but also because Mr. Gannon (a pseudonym, by the way) embodies, in just about every possible way, figuratively and literally, the superimposition of the values of members of the world's oldest profession onto those of many members of one of the world's newest ones, journalism.
One might even say that Gannon *melded* the values and the species of behavior attendant on them, seamlessly.
Moreover, everybody knows who Jeff Gannon is and what he did, and at least figuratively, what he still does do. If you don't believe me, see his website (www.jeffgannon.com).
Besides that, he is, according to Sean Hannity, *his* kind of journalist, so what the hell more do you want? :^)
So that's my story and that's the name of my award, and I'm stickin' to it.
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Try it sometime...
Allen's statement to Drudge that Fox, as compared to the rest of the media, looks "through the other end of the telescope"
You can't see shit.
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What's the guy's name on The Office who sucks up to Steve Correll?
Floyd Snoot? Duane Shroot?
Anyway, that's who Mike Allen is. To Matt Drudge. He's Matt Drudge's Duane Shroot.
Come to think of it, that would make a funny show - Mike Allen going around kissing Matt Drudge's weird ass all day long. Drudge in that stupid gay fedora. "Gosh, Mr. Drudge, you're the greatest! Your blog is like so awesome!"
"Shut up, MIke."
"Sure thing, Mr. Drudge. Love those pics of Michael jackson's cock!"
"Shut up, Mike."
"Sure thing, Mr. Drudge."
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Re: Why Bucky1 Can't Read
Bucky1 can read, Paul. That's the problem. It's what he chooses to read combined with that old adage, "a little knowledge can be a dangerous thing". And he has no idea what we are talking about. Try to understand, he may well have voted for Bush twice. At this point, he's now convinced Bush turned out to be almost as bad as Clinton. From Bucky1's perspective, government is the root of all evil.
An anecdote: I used to volunteer at the ACLU Northern CA office years ago. I screened cases. It was mostly telephone screening but this was when they still took walk-ins, a practice they stopped during my tenure there. We had a regular drop-in whose name I can't recall, and by that I mean the nickname he had been given by staff (It might have been Prince Mishkin). He came in once a month, like clockwork, seeking to have the ACLU attorneys assist him in the process of legally and formally establishing his individual "person" as a sovereign state and being duly recognized as such by the federal and state and local governments. Obviously, this was not the type of case the ACLU handled and I'm sure he made the rounds. This was at a time when legal aid was plentiful. The joke around the office was that after Gov. Reagan's "mental health reforms" (cuts) there was a marked increase in these types of requests. This fellow seemed a harmless, drug addled and displaced hippie. For all I know it may even have been Michael "Savage" Weiner on a drug binge. This was long ago. My recollection is that he looked a bit like that picture of the real Michael "Savage" Weiner out in front of City Lights bookstore in his long hair and sandals sporting the purse, before he became a dangerous psychotic. But now they are all "Libertarians".