Sullivan: Poking Fun At The Pope

The NYT runs a very curious article today about Italian humor about the current Pope. None of the jokes cited seem to me to be very risque or even funny. The entire argument of the piece is undermined by lack of any real evidence that this pope is subject to any more ridicule than has historically been the case.

Except of course for that photograph. It shows the source of the actual jokes circulating in the Vatican and elsewhere about this Prada-preferring, Gucci-wearing, high-drama German intellectual. The actual jokes – which the NYT won't print – are about how good looking so many of the men are who surround Benedict, especially his personal assistant, Msgr. Georg Gänswein, shown holding the large phallic microphone in front of Benedict's face. The Vatican gossip merchants call Georg "Gay-Org." He is inseparable from Benedict. And he surely is easy on the eyes. There is no evidence that Benedict has ever broken his vows of chastity; but there is no evidence that he is heterosexual either. Hence the gossip; hence the jokes.

When you're a Pope who declares that even closeted, chaste gay men cannot be priests, it's pushing your luck to clothe yourself in Prada, bedeck your Pope-mobile with luxurious Natuzzi Italian white leather, and surround yourself with assistants who look like they strayed from the pages of "L'Uomo Vogue."

Butch it up, sister. Or the jokes will only get louder.

Recap: Heard Around the Blog

Not so curious George does another drive by road trip [LSB: When a leader is so uninterested in the world around him, should it come as any surprise that his foreign policy has been so bad?]

Alaska Lawmakers Thumb Nose At Court Ordered Gay Benefits: “Alaska Republicans have drawn a line in the sand, refusing to obey a court order mandating health and other benefits for the same-sex domestic partners of state employees and retirees.” [Republicans hate the basic underpinnings of that which makes us America. They don't believe in the Constitution. They don't believe in the Bill of Rights. They don't believe in courts of law. They don't believe in anything, accept anything as law in our country, other than the Bible and their will. They are a party of extremist bullies who simply do not believe in America. ‘ – John in DC, AmericaBlog]

Padilla Case Raises Questions About Anti-Terror Tactics: “…But some legal scholars and defense lawyers argue that the government's case is so fundamentally weak, and its legal options so limited, that Padilla could draw a relatively minor prison term or even be acquitted. The trial has already been postponed once, until January, and is almost certain to be delayed again. …” [So an American citizen, detained without due process for three years, accused of terribly serious crimes, and allegedly tortured, may not be found guilty, after all. And people wonder why many of us have concerns about the way the Bush administration has handled military detainees.” – Andrew Sullivan, DailyDish]

Chertoff says U.S. threatened by international law: “A top Bush administration official on Friday said the European Union, the United Nations and other international entities increasingly are using international law to challenge U.S. powers to reject treaties and protect itself from attack.” [LSB: Damn! Don’t you just hate it when international law gets in the way? That’s what got Saddam in trouble. We’ll follow the law, for who wants some third world country routing around the US looking for WMDs? (‘Cause you know they’d find them, don’t you?)]

Embittered Insiders Turn Against Bush: “...Heading into the final chapter of his presidency, fresh from the sting of a midterm election defeat, Bush finds himself with fewer and fewer friends. Some of the strongest supporters of the war have grown disenchanted, former insiders are registering public dissent and Republicans on Capitol Hill blame him for losing Congress...”

Al Gore: Bush Admin "Most Incompetent-Inept & With More Moral Cowardice...": “A former vice president tells the Truth, ignites a global debate, and suddenly looks like a dark-horse candidate.”

A Tough Road Ahead for the President’s Closest Adviser: “Karl Rove is coming off the worst election defeat of his career to face a daunting task: saving the president’s agenda with a Congress not only controlled by Democrats, but also filled with Republican members resentful of the way he and the White House conducted the losing campaign.” [LSB: Sometimes good things do happen to bad people.]

GOP Senate Leader Mitch McConnell: Give us our right wing theocratic judges or we'll filibuster

The GOP still wants to stack the federal bench with theocratic, extremist judges. Mitch McConnell sounded like he was making a filibuster threat against the Democrats. But wait, is McConnell really saying that the GOP Senators will filibuster and slow down the Senate to get their way? Didn't they just rail against those tactics when the Democrats used them?

The Senate's next Republican leader issued a veiled threat to block action on legislation if Democrats refuse to allow confirmation votes on President Bush's troubled judicial nominations.

Sen. Mitch McConnell of Kentucky, who will become minority leader Jan. 4, told the conservative Federalist Society Friday not to feel bad about the Senate election results because Republicans will hold 49 seats in a body that requires 60 votes to end a filibuster and bring legislation or presidential nominees to a final vote.

If the "Democrats want our cooperation, they'll give the president's judicial nominees an up-or-down vote," McConnell said.

Vice President Dick Cheney told the same group Friday that Republicans' loss of Congress in last week's election won't dissuade Bush from continuing to nominate strict-constructionist judges to the federal bench.

LSB: GOP hypocrites, every one of them! That sound you hear? Republican butt clenching. They'll stop at nothing to frustrate the will of the people.

CIA analysis finds no Iranian nuclear weapons drive

WASHINGTON (AFP) - A classified draft CIA assessment has found no firm evidence of a secret drive by Iran to develop nuclear weapons, as alleged by the White House, a top US investigative reporter has said.

Seymour Hersh, writing in an article for the November 27 issue of the magazine The New Yorker released in advance, reported on whether the administration of Republican President George W. Bush was more, or less, inclined to attack Iran after Democrats won control of Congress last week.

A month before the November 7 legislative elections, Hersh wrote, Vice President Dick Cheney attended a national-security discussion that touched on the impact of Democratic victory in both chambers on Iran policy.

"If the Democrats won on November 7th, the vice president said, that victory would not stop the administration from pursuing a military option with Iran," Hersh wrote, citing a source familiar with the discussion.

Cheney said the White House would circumvent any legislative restrictions "and thus stop Congress from getting in its way," he said. …

"The CIA found no conclusive evidence, as yet, of a secret Iranian nuclear-weapons program running paallel to the civilian operations that Iran has declared to the International Atomic Energy Agency," Hersh wrote, adding the CIA had declined to comment on that story.

A current senior intelligence official confirmed the existence of the CIA analysis and said the White House had been hostile to it, he wrote.

Cheney and his aides had discounted the assessment, the official said. …

LSB: WTF? Don’t these guys ever learn? Lying to the American public about nuclear weapons in Iran – this is like WMDs in Iraq all over again. And Cheney would ‘circumvent any legislative restrictions’ imposed by the Democratic Congress? If he said that, his ass needs to be impeached as the first act of the 110th Congress.

The Gitmo Kangaroo Courts

History will not be kind to Bush and his trashing of the American way. Why is Bush so afraid of using our system?

The analysis of transcripts and records by two lawyers for Guantanamo detainees, aided by more than two dozen law students, found that hearings that determined whether a prisoner should remain in custody gave the accused little opportunity to contest allegations against him.“These were not hearings. These were shams,” said Mark Denbeaux, an attorney and Seton Hall University law professor who along with his son, Joshua, is the author of the report. They provided an advance copy of the report to The Associated Press late Thursday and planned to release it Friday on the Internet.

Some of the highlights of the report:

• The government did not produce any witnesses in any hearing.
• The military denied all detainee requests to inspect the classified evidence against them.
• The military refused all requests for defense witnesses who were not detained at Guantanamo.
• In 74 percent of the cases, the government denied requests to call witnesses who were detained at the prison.
• In 91 percent of the hearings, the detainees did not present any evidence.
• In three cases, the panel found that the detainee was “no longer an enemy combatant,” but the military convened new tribunals that later found them to be enemy combatants.

by Chris in Paris, AmericaBlog

Republican Craziness: Has it reached its Zenith, or is there more to come?

Rick Levin, NRO: “I'm going against today's conventional wisdom and suggesting that Rick Santorum and George Allen should consider running for the Republican presidential nomination.”

LSB: That’s a match made in the bowels of hell.

James Wolcott: “Me seen some pretty perthetic things in my many years here on the blogdeck, but nothing as lame-o as the Pajamas Media fund drive to keep "Joltin'" John Bolton at the UN.”

LSB: Replace the UNICEF donation boxes with donation boxes for John Bolton? Why not have Santas on every corner ringing their bells and taking coins for the evil one as well?

Pam Atlas, spawn of Little Green Footballs, personal blogger to Bush nominee/U.N. Ambassador John Bolton, hard-core Lieberman supporter, and general good friend to the right-wing blogosphere, yesterday called for the State Department to be bombed and for American diplomats to be murdered.

LSB: Hmm... sounds like someone wants her habeus corpus taken away.

CNN's Beck to first-ever Muslim congressman: "[W]hat I feel like saying is, 'Sir, prove to me that you are not working with our enemies.'"

LSB: Glenn, prove to me that you’ve got a brain.

Quote for the Week: "There's something painfully ironic about Trent Lott being named 'minority whip.'" - Robert A. George

Putnam: Where Were The Rednecks?

“White rednecks” who “didn’t show up to vote for us” partly cost GOPers their congressional majorities, Rep. Adam Putnam (R-FL) told fellow Republicans today. And Putnam, seeking the post of GOP conference chair, chided ex-Chair J.C. Watts (R-OK) for ruining the conference’s ability to serve its members.

Three Republicans in the room independently confirmed to the Hotline the substance and context of Putnam’s remarks. But Putnam’s chief of staff insists that the remarks were taken out of context.

Examining the 2006 midterms, Putnam blamed the GOP defeat on “the independent vote, the women vote, the suburban vote.” He said that “heck, even the white rednecks who go to church on Sunday didn't come out to vote for us.”

Putnam used Watts’ tenure as chair to contrast his own vision for the conference, saying the GOP needed a “bolder” vision than the type of strategy preferred by Watts. According to one Republican’s notes, Putnam said that “JC Watts ruined the Conference by removing the member services functions that it offered until 1998” by turning it into only a communications and press vehicle. According to two Republicans, Putnam took the same swat at Watts during a Republican Study Conference session yesterday. (More)

LSB: Apparently Trent isn’t the only Republican racist in the news of late.

B-1 Bob back?

I just got off the phone with former congressman and talk show host Bob Dornan, who is considering... a run for President.

“I can’t stand the thought of my party having as its three front-runners three open adulterers, Newt Gingrich, Giuliani, and McCain,” Dornan said.

“I’ve got one mission left in me, to come up to New Hampshire and tell the truth, and tell the Republicans you better find yourself a fresh face and not Rudy Giuliani who took his mistress around with him and then divorces Donna who learns she was divorced sitting at home watching TV with her children.

“We need a fresh face if the Republican Party is going to appeal to an Orthodox Jewish, Evangelical or practicing Catholic.”

- Andrew Cline, New Hampshire Union Leader

FYI: Yeah, this is just the asshole we need succeeding the current asshole in the White House. Former Congressman Bob Dornan (R-CA), a boisterous former actor and television talk show host, had a flair for the dramatic that drew him supporters and detractors well beyond his congressional districts. Though never a major power in Washington, he became one of the most well-known members of the House of Representatives and has been described as "one of the leading firebrands among American politicians." Among his more offensive remarks:

• In a 1986 US House speech, he called Russian journalist Vladimir Posner a "disloyal, betraying little Jew who sits there on television claiming that he is somehow or other a newsman."
• "Every lesbian spear chucker in this country is hoping I get defeated." - to a Los Angeles television reporter in 1992.
• On a January 28, 1994 appearance on Politically Incorrect, Dornan declared it was "The Year of the Penis" due to recent events in the news. In reference to this comment, Representative Barney Frank noted "Bob Dornan isn't even rational on the House floor. You can't expect him to be rational on Politically Incorrect."
• "You are a slimy coward. Go register in another party." - to fellow Republican William Dougherty after he supported Dornan's opponent in 1996.
• In 1995 he claimed to an interviewer that he was not at all bothered by the increase in the Mexican population in California, saying, “I want to say America stays a nation of immigrants. And if we lose our Northern European stock—your coloring and mine, blue eyes and fair hair—tough!”
• "Don't use the word 'gay' unless it's an acronym for 'Got Aids Yet?"

GOP elects racist Senator, Trent Lott, to leadership

CNN just reported that Trent Lott was just elected Minority Whip by his fellow Republican Senators. Lott is now the number two GOP Senator.

You'll recall that Lott was forced from GOP leadership in 2002 after his comments praising segregationist Strom Thurmond:

Lott provoked controversy when he declared at the Thurmond birthday celebration: "I want to say this about my state: When Strom Thurmond ran for president, we voted for him. We're proud of it. And if the rest of the country had followed our lead, we wouldn't have had all these problems over all these years." [Video]

Now we see the face of the new GOP. It's the face of the old GOP: an avowed racist.

Bush Reappoints Broadcasting Chief Who Used Public Funds To Promote Conservative Programming

President Bush on Tuesday renominated the chairman of the agency that directs U.S. overseas broadcasts even though the nomination has been stalled in the Senate amid allegations of misconduct.

Kenneth Y. Tomlinson was nominated again as chairman of the Broadcasting Board of Governors and for a term on the board expiring Aug. 13, 2007. The board oversees Voice of America, Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty, Radio Free Asia, Radio and TV Marti, broadcasting initiatives in the Middle East and other nonmilitary U.S. broadcasting overseas.

In September, a spokeswoman for the Senate Foreign Relations Committee said senators did not plan to act on Bush's nomination of Tomlinson in January 2005 while a government investigation of his activities was under way. The law that created the board in 1994 allowed Tomlinson to remain as chairman until a successor was confirmed.

A report by the State Department's inspector general, released Aug. 29, said Tomlinson misused government funds for two years as chairman of the Broadcasting Board of Governors. Tomlinson disputed the allegations in the report.

The U.S. attorney's office in Washington concluded that a criminal investigation was not warranted, according to the State Department report. At the same time, the report said a civil investigation related to charges that he had hired a friend as a contractor was pending. (More)

Steve Benen: It’s one thing to pick a partisan hack for an important governmental post, evaluate his joke of a tenure, and then move onto someone new. After all, maybe the president didn’t realize just how ridiculous Tomlinson was when the White House first tapped him.

But after several years of humiliating hackery, Bush no longer has any excuses. Renominating Tomlinson again this week is a not-so-subtle message to Democrats and the rest of the electorate: Election failures or not, nothing is going to change at the Bush White House. No partisan is too unqualified, no right-wing ideologue can screw up enough, no controversy is too scandalous to prevent a Bush buddy from keeping important administration positions.

The John Bolton renomination was offensive enough; this is adding insult to injury.

At this point, Ken Tomlinson’s partisan, ideological, and generally ridiculous work is legendary. By August, it became almost comical.

State Department investigators have found that the head of the agency overseeing most government broadcasts to foreign countries has used his office to run a “horse racing operation” and that he improperly put a friend on the payroll, according to a summary of a report made public on Tuesday by a Democratic lawmaker.

The report said that the official, Kenneth Y. Tomlinson, had repeatedly used government employees to perform personal errands and that he billed the government for more days of work than the rules permit.

The summary of the report, prepared by the State Department inspector general, said the United States attorney’s office here had been given the report and decided not to conduct a criminal inquiry. The summary said the Justice Department was
pursuing a civil inquiry focusing on the contract for Mr. Tomlinson’s friend.

This is actually the second instance of Tomlinson getting caught breaking the law. A year ago,

we learned that he violated the Federal Broadcasting Act, which prohibits the use of “political tests” in employment.

We’re dealing with a man who has lied, schemed, and politicized his way through three years of government service. And yet, Tomlinson has stayed in a key diplomatic post.

Indeed, Tomlinson’s job as head of the Broadcasting Board of Governors, given to him by Karl Rove, puts him in charge of an “independent” government commission that oversees the Voice of America, Radio Free Europe/Radio Free Liberty, and Radio Sawa and its sister TV network, Alhurra — making Tomlinson a key person in America’s international diplomacy.

As Franklin Foer explained in a very good TNR piece a year ago, Tomlinson has run the BBG just as he ran the CPB, “purging the bureaucracy of political enemies, zealously rooting out perceived ‘liberal bias,’ and generally politicizing institutions that have resisted ideological intrusions for decades.”

In August, after Tomlinson had been caught, again, misusing government resources and violating government personnel policies, I asked “How long will the White House stand by this clown?” At the time, several lawmakers, in both chambers, were imploring Bush to immediately remove Tomlinson from his position.

Instead, Bush has renominated him for another term. This tells us all we need to know about the president’s rhetoric about “bipartisanship.”

The Associated Press' sexism

What did Denny wear to his press conference in the graveyard? He, too, was Speaker of the House. Did the AP ever note what designer created Denny Hastert’s suits?

Is this a policy shift in the AP – informing the public of what our public officials are wearing, or does this only apply to our female politicians? Should we expect a daily fashion update on Hilary should she run for president?

This kind of not-so-subtle sexism is hard to stomach in the 21st century.

US: Immigrants may be held indefinitely

Today we got a taste of just how un-American President Bush's Military Commissions Act of 2006 is.

Immigrants arrested in the United States may be held indefinitely on suspicion of terrorism and may not challenge their imprisonment in civilian courts, the Bush administration said Monday, opening a new legal front in the fight over the rights of detainees.

In court documents filed with the 4th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in Richmond, Va., the Justice Department said a new anti-terrorism law being used to hold detainees in Guantanamo Bay also applies to foreigners captured and held in the United States.

Ali Saleh Kahlah Al-Marri, a citizen of Qatar, was arrested in 2001 while studying in the United States. He has been labeled an "enemy combatant," a designation that, under a law signed last month, strips foreigners of the right to challenge their detention in federal courts.

That law is being used to argue the Guantanamo Bay cases, but Al-Marri represents the first detainee inside the United States to come under the new law. Aliens normally have the right to contest their imprisonment, such as when they are arrested on immigration violations or for other crimes.

"It's pretty stunning that any alien living in the United States can be denied this right," said Jonathan Hafetz, an attorney for Al-Marri. "It means any non-citizen, and there are millions of them, can be whisked off at night and be put in detention."

More

Jack Cafferty (CNN) asks: Is it fair for immigrants in the US to be held "indefinitely" if suspected of terrorism? Video

LSB: Poor Lady Liberty! We hardly knew you any more.

Give me your tired, your poor,
Your huddled masses yearning to breathe free,
The wretched refuse of your teeming shore.
Send these, the homeless, tempest-tossed, to me:
I lift my lamp beside the golden door.