An Intriguing Observation

Read the following in Liz Smith's column in the New York Post today. See if you can figure out what's so intriguing about it:

RAN INTO "60 Minutes" star Lesley Stahl and asked her point blank whether she is responsible for the negative leaking about Katie Couric at CBS. Lesley said, "Liz, it is all grossly unfair. And I told Katie that. The stories about Katie are what happen to women in TV. We are made into caricatures. It happened to Barbara [Walters], it happened to Diane and to Connie Chung. Katie is working really hard, and you can see it in the broadcast now. People need to check out Katie again. A backlash is building against these attacks on her."

Did you guess? What's intriguing is the fact that, even though Smith asked her "point blank" whether Stahl was the source for the leaks, Stahl never once claimed that she wasn't.

And that, folks, is what they used to call back in the days of Watergate a "non-denial denial."

Tom Moran

Rosie Leaves "The View" -- Voluntarily?

Rosie O'Donnell is leaving ABC's "The View." Her last appearance on the show will be in June.

This is how ABC announced it:

ABC has been unable to come to a contractual agreement with Rosie O'Donnell. As a result, her hosting duties on "The View" will come to an end mid-June.
"They wanted me three years, I wanted one year, and it just didn't work," said O'Donnell on today's show.

Does anybody think that this is the real story? That this is just a contract dispute? If so, please raise your hand.

I thought so.

Keep in mind that this comes after a lot of controversy -- and that, as a rule, networks don't like controversy. It offends people. I don't they minded the whole Donald Trump imbroglio, but when she starts talking about how 9/11 was an inside job, that's getting to be a bit much. Was Rosie's dissing of Rupert Murdoch in public the final straw? There are those who will think so -- and they may be right.

Rosie was never a team player on a show where being a team player is pretty much mandatory. Far too often, Rosie acted as if it was her show, and that the other women at the table existed to be her foils, sounding boards and/or stooges. That can't have been comfortable for Elisabeth Hasselbeck, not to mention how it drove Barbara Walters bananas.

There are a lot of people who are going to be gloating today, in much the same way that, according to British novelist Kingsley Amis (who was teaching at Vanderbilt at the time), there were people down South who celebrated when President Kennedy was assassinated. Donald Trump is probably a happy boy today, to name just the most obvious. Tom DeLay, who, as I wrote in this blog not long ago, was publicly lobbying to get Rosie fired. Bill O'Reilly is probably spraying his pants at this very moment at the thought of Rosie leaving the show. They will all think that they have won.

But is it a good thing that Rosie's leaving? Granted, a lot of her humor wasn't particularly funny, her feuds with various people came off as pretty infantile, her behavior towards Elisabeth Hasselbeck seemed to me to be patronizing at best and churlish bullying at worst, but I can't help thinking that television is going to be poorer without Rosie on "The View" everyday.

What Rosie O'Donnell did on "The View" during her brief tenure was to expand the boundaries of discourse on network television. She allowed large swatches of the American public to hear points of view that they would never get to hear otherwise. Those of us who are roughly Rosie's age can remember when John Lennon and Yoko Ono appeared on the Mike Douglas Show, when people like Abbie Hoffman and Jerry Rubin were given a chance to express their opinions. And then America was free to accept or reject what they had to say.

None of that happens today. Truly contentious thinkers who go against the received opinions of the day are just not allowed on network television. You don't see, for example, Howard Zinn or Noam Chomsky on the Tonight Show. You don't even see Jenna Jameson on Letterman when her book was on the New York Times Bestseller list. Discourse has really been stifled in this country, and most of us don't even recognize it.

So I'm hoping that Rosie comes back to TV at some point in a venue and a format that's more suitable for her. In an age where fewer and fewer corporations are controlling more and more of the media, we need such heterodox voices, even when (or should I say especially when) we disagree with them, more than ever.

Tom Moran

Don't Lose That Famous Temper of Yours

The most famous hothead in American cinema since Sonny Corleone has made headlines once again with his temper. Only this time it's more disturbing than amusing.

Actor Alec Baldwin has been embroiled in a long-term custody struggle with his former wife, actress Kim Basinger, over their 11-year-old daughter Ireland. When their daughter failed to answer the phone for one of their court-appointed phone conversations, Baldwin went beserk, leaving a disgusting and abusive message on her answering machine.

I have to admit, I haven't heard the whole message. I got about halfway through it and I couldn't stomach listening to the rest: it was audio child abuse.

Baldwin discusses his behavior on his website. I will print his apologia (if that is indeed what it is) in full, commenting as I go:

Thank you to everyone who has posted messages of suppport [sic] and understanding. Naturally, it is not best for a parent to lose their temper with their child. Everyone who knows me privately knows that I have endured a great deal over the last several years in my custody litigation. Everyone who knows me privately knows that certain people will go to any lengths to embarass [sic] me and to disrupt my relationship with my daughter.

This opening reveals a lot, other than the fact that Alec Baldwin doesn't know how to use spell check. He seems to be more concerned with what he's been going through than how his tirade has affected his daughter. Saying that "it is not best for a parent to lose their temper with their child" is a little like Mel Gibson saying that it is not best for actors to lose their sobriety and utter anti-Semitic opinions. What Baldwin put on that answering machine was not just a matter of losing his temper -- he was out to hurt, humiliate and verbally abuse his child.

In such public cases, your opponents attempt to take a picture of you on your worst day and insist that this is who you are as a person. Outside the doors of divorce court, I have friends, I have respect from people I work with and I have a normal relationship with my daughter. All of that is threatened whenever one enters a court room.

Again, note the solipsism and lack of responsibility. Baldwin may indeed have friends and may indeed have respect from people he works with (although I'd love to get Tina Fey, who has a small child, in a corner and ask her privately what she thinks of his little tirade -- but then I'd like to get Tina Fey in a corner under just about any pretext). And does Baldwin really have a "normal" relationship with his daughter? I'm not so sure I'm willing to take his word for it.

Although I have been told by numerous people not to worry too much, as all parents lose their patience with their kids, I am most saddened that this was released to the media because of what it does to a child. I'm sorry, as everyone who knows me is aware, for losing my temper with my child. I have been driven to the edge by parental alienation for many years now. You have to go through this to understand. ( Although I hope you never do.) I am sorry for what happened. But I am equally sorry that a court order was violated, which had deliberately been put under seal in this case.

Yes, all parents lose their patience with their kids, but what Baldwin doesn't seem to realize is that this goes beyond merely "losing his patience." Once again we see a total moral blindness as well as an unwillingness to examine the hurt that his words may very well have inflicted on his child. Note the special pleading inherent in "as everyone who knows me is aware" and "You have to go through this to understand." In other words, no one is in a position to judge Baldwin's actions -- except, presumably, him. He does have a valid point that whoever leaked that disgusting audio document to the press in an attempt to score points in the ongoing custody dispute was pretty scummy -- but is that action somehow more morally reprehensible than making the tape to begin with?

Once my book is published, I'm sure more people will understand the incredible strains created by parental alienation.

In the meantime, I'm sorry to anyone who's taken offense from this episode.

You'll notice that, while Baldwin takes pains to apologize "to anyone who's taken offense" to his verbally abusive message, he does not specifically apologize to his daughter.

And that speaks volumes.

Tom Moran

Conservative Logic

You've been hearing from a bunch of conservatives (including some I respect as well as some I don't) that the tragedy at Virginia Tech could have been prevented or at least largely curtailed if the campus had not been considered a weapons-free zone. If more students and more faculty members had been armed, the argument goes, the tragedy would not have happened. More guns means less crime: "It's proven over and over again," the oleaginous Tom DeLay said on Charlie Rose last night.

Oh, really?

Let's examine the logic of this, shall we?

• Would students drink less if they all had a bottle of whiskey in their dorm rooms?
• Would student have less sex if they all had a box of condoms in their dorm rooms?

So, according to this conservative logic, students shouldn't have condoms because they'll use them but they should have guns because they won't use them.

When I think of these arguments my mind goes back to a scene in Howard Hawks' great 1940 comedy "His Girl Friday." In the scene I'm thinking of, Hildy Johnson is interviewing Earl Williams, a man convicted of murdering a police officer, in his jail cell. They get to talking about the theory of "production for use" and how "everything should be made use of." At one point Johnson asks Williams, "What's a gun for, Earl?"

"Why, to shoot, of course," Williams answers, as if it's just dawning on him.

It's a shame that some conservatives aren't as bright as Earl Williams, and can't seem to grasp that, in a community of several thousand young people going through a very difficult, emotional and stressful time of their lives, having them armed to the teeth might not be the brightest idea in the world.

What's a gun for?

Tom Moran

The 1st Annual Tom Moran Movie Trivia Quiz

The posts here have been getting a trifle grim lately, so I thought I would liven things up a bit.

So I'm offering up the very first Tom Moran Movie Trivia Quiz. Only this quiz is a little different.

How is it different?

It's different in that no one who reads this blog has any way of knowing the answers to any of the questions. In fact, the only person who could possibly get all the answers right is me.

So, unlike any other quiz, this quiz does not test your knowledge -- it can't. It tests your intuition. You have to guess at the answers and see whether or not your hunches are correct. It is multiple choice, though, so your odds of answering any given question correctly just by making a random guess are no worse than one in five.

I think it makes it a lot more interesting.

So I'm going to put this post up for a little more than a week. The contest ends on Sunday, April 29th. You can enter more than once. The first person who answers all the questions correctly will win some sort of a movie-related prize to be determined by me whenever I think of whatever the hell it's going to be. Post your answers in the comment box. I will tell you how many of your answers are right and how many wrong.

Okay? Are we ready?

The First Annual Tom Moran Movie Quiz

1) What was the first silent film that Tom saw on a big screen in a movie theater?
a) City Lights
b) Modern Times
c) The General
d) Metropolis
e) Napoleon

2) What is the only film that Tom has ever owned on Beta, VHS and DVD?
a) The Birth of a Nation
b) Citizen Kane
c) Ivan the Terrible
d) Monsieur Verdoux
e) Deep Throat

3) What movie legend did Tom “meet” accidentally while working as a messenger in Manhattan in the late 1970s?
a) Lillian Gish
b) Blanche Sweet
c) Louise Brooks
d) Greta Garbo
e) Fay Wray

4) Which of the following films has Tom not seen at Radio City Music Hall?
a) Metropolis
b) The General
c) Napoleon
d) Casablanca
e) Gone With the Wind

5) What movie star was born in the same neighborhood in Queens that Tom grew up in?
a) Nancy Carroll
b) Jennifer Jason Leigh
c) Paulette Goddard
d) Yvonne DeCarlo
e) Swoosie Kurtz

6) Which film does Tom watch almost every year on Christmas Day?
a) The Birth of a Nation
b) The Gold Rush
c) Triumph of the Will
d) It’s a Wonderful Life
e) Deep Throat

7) In which Woody Allen film did Tom appear as an extra?
a) Bullets over Broadway
b) Husbands and Wives
c) Deconstructing Harry
d) Sweet and Lowdown
e) Match Point

8) Which of these classic 70s films did Tom not see on its Opening Day?
a) The Conversation
b) Chinatown
c) Nashville
d) One Flew Over The Cuckoo’s Nest
e) Apocalypse Now

9) Which Manhattan revival house almost became Tom’s mailing address during the first half of the 1980s?
a) The Carnegie Hall Cinema
b) The Bleecker Street Cinema
c) The Metro
d) The Regency
e) The Thalia

10) What was the first film Tom showed at his first lecture at CUNY?
a) Those Awful Hats!
b) Double Indemnity
c) Triumph of the Will
d) The Miracle of Morgan’s Creek
e) Modern Times

And, for extra bonus points:

11) Which Michael Curtiz film is Tom’s current favorite film?
a) The Mystery of the Wax Museum
b) The Kennel Murder Case
c) Four Daughters
d) The Adventures of Robin Hood
e) Yankee Doodle Dandy
f) Casablanca
g) Mission to Moscow

Good luck!

Tom Moran

Another Day, Another Shooting

The past few days I've been watching the coverage of what the networks have taken to calling "Massacre at Virginia Tech" and wondering what, if anything, there is to say about it.

And there really isn't, is there? That famous quote from Wittengenstein's really applies here (I'm wildly paraphrasing but you'll get the gist): When there's nothing to be said on a subject, you should say nothing.

Needless to say, no one is saying nothing on this tragedy. Not even me.

Another loser loner full of rage gets his hands on a gun and shoots up everyone he can find. This is an old story -- we've been hearing, reading about and seeing these stories for a decade now. Most people have failed to notice that this shooting came within a week of the anniversary of the Columbine Massacre. The massacre that created the template, so to speak, for all the massacres to come.

What's really struck me in watching the network coverage is how cookie-cutter it all is. It's almost as rote as the "'lottery jackpot has reached a new high and everyone is standing in line to buy a ticket" story. You know exactly what the coverage is going to be to the point where you can yell out the shots in advance while you're watching it. You know the last shot is going to be the correspondent holding up the lottery tickets they've just bought and then they're going to throw it back to the anchor desk where they'll all ask each other whether or not they bought lottery tickets themselves and they'll all answer in the affirmative. Yawn.

Well, school massacre stories have become just as rote, which really tells you something about where we are as a country. News outlets can produce them in their sleep: from the first reports of gunshots to their anchors all scrambling to get to the site of the shooting to the hasty press conferences where nothing is disclosed to the revelation of the identity of the killer to all the speculation as to why a quiet guy who was a loner and kept to himself would commit such a horrible atrocity. It's paint-by-the-numbers journalism.

People have asked why this incident happened, but it seems to me that the more pertinent question to ask is why they keep happening over and over and over again.

And is anyone asking that question?

Tom Moran

Kiss Kiss Burn Burn

Sometimes one event will throw another event into perspective. Some would say that the car accident involving New Jersey Governor Jon Corzine made people realize how ridiculous the so-called controversy was involving Don Imus and the three stupid words that lost him his livelihood. Some would say that yesterday's massacre at Virginia Tech helps them realize what is really newsworthy and what is not.

I have something a little different in mind.

In all the hubbub over the various news stories this weekend and Monday you might have missed this one. But you should pay attention to it.

Richard Gere was in India for a safe sex rally, and shared the stage with Shilpa Shetty. Most Americans have no clue who Shilpa Shetty is, but she's an Indian film star (in "Bollywood," India's huge film industry) who was recently made into not only a celebrity but a controversial one in Britain, due to her appearance on Britain's version of the reality TV show "Big Brother." I won't go into the nature of the controversy, but suffice it to say that Shilpa Shetty on that show was subject to the kind of verbal abuse by her fellow "Big Brother" housemates that would make Don Imus sound like Malcolm X. If you want to hear blatant, unrepentant racism, we have nothing on the Brits.

But I digress.

Anyway, Richard Gere was on the stage with Shilpa Shetty, and he gave her a kiss. A stagey kiss. He bent her over and swept her off her feet. If he had done it in America, it would have been thought cute and romantic, if a little actorish. But he did it in India, where they are not amused by public displays of affection.

Now they're burning Richard Gere in effigy in Mumbai, and, according to the BBC, protestors in other cities are shouting "death to Shilpa Shetty."

Did I mention that they were at a safe sex rally?

It's good to know that Americans haven't yet cornered the market in human stupidity, although sometimes it feels like it. At least Al Sharpton hasn't ordered Don Imus to be burned in effigy, and students at Spelman aren't shouting "Death to Don Imus!"

Not yet, anyway.

Tom Moran

Tit for Tat

Tom DeLay wrote a item on his blog about Don Imus the other day.

Wait a minute. That's not exactly true. Tom DeLay doesn't write anything -- apparently because someone took away his crayons. He spews this stuff verbally, rather like projectile vomit, and then someone writes it down for him. That's how he "wrote" his pathetic recent autobiography, and that's how he "writes" his blog.

But I digress.

DeLay's "blog item" on Imus is very revealing. It starts out fairly rational -- in fact, I'm a little surprised (and not a little embarrassed) to admit that I actually agree with some of it. He makes some of the same arguments that I made in my own blog item about the Imus imbroglio.

It's the conclusion that he draws that's sub-moronic. Let me demonstrate:

And for the contextual icing on the cake, where are the repercussions for Rosie O'Donnell's hateful, idiotic accusations that President Bush was behind the 9/11 attacks? And her ignorant parody of the Chinese language? Or her comparison of conservative Christians to Islamo-fascist terrorists? Why has ABC not suspended her from The View? Why has she not been frog-marched up to some radio show to apologize to 9/11 victims/Chinese-American activists/evangelical Christians?

What the Left is doing is not a fluke – it's a concerted strategy. And it works. So if you can't beat ‘em, join ‘em. That's why I am calling on conservatives to use the available media (radio talk shows, blogs, letters to the editor) to protest and demand that Rosie O'Donnell be kicked off The View. Where are the demonstrations in front of ABC? Where are the boycott threats for The View's advertisers, or its parent company, Disney? Who is holding Barbara Walters accountable for Rosie's offenses? We can fight like the Left, too. If Don Imus falls to the pleas of political correctness, we're taking Rosie O'Donnell down with him.

This, apparently, is the great Christian creed (DeLay professes to be a Christian) that two wrongs make a right. Somehow I missed that one on my last perusal of the Bible.

Imus should not have been fired -- period. But why is it that, because CBS and NBC have made fools of themselves disposing of a cash cow who will no doubt go on to make money for other people on sattelite radio, ABC should be equally stupid and get rid of someone who has made the ratings of The View skyrocket? That makes sense?

I should make one thing clear. Although I agree with Rosie O'Donnell on many issues, I find her opinion on 9/11 to be absolutely ridiculous. But so what? I don't have to agree with her on everything, and if she wants to make an ass of herself spewing out idiotic conspiracy theories and then claim that "physics" proves her right (I'd like to know the grade Rosie got in Physics in High School), that's her right. That's why we have free speech in this country.

I think the fact that Tom DeLay somehow believes that the Republicans lose out to liberals because they're insufficiently ruthless is hysterically funny. No one has been more ruthless in his pursuit and use of power than Tom DeLay. Just think of how he mercilessly exploited the case of Terry Schiavo to score political points -- a tactic that justly backfired on him and the Republicans.

Don Imus was fired from MSNBC and CBS, and that was, in my opinion, both stupid and wrong. But two wrongs don't make a right -- no matter what Tom DeLay says. You don't like what Rosie says? Then prove her wrong. Don't try to shut her up.

Tom Moran

How Much Groveling Is Enough?

Radio host Don Imus, to use the famous words of Hugh Grant, did a bad thing. And now he's being made to pay for it. And pay and pay and pay and pay...

This "latest ado about verbal insensitivity," as Alessandra Stanley of the New York Times puts it, is just another example of a celebrity being made to grovel for a tactless remark.

For the three people out there who haven't heard about this incident, some context:

In discussing the Rutgers women's basketball team on his radio show, Don Imus's producer referred to the women on the team as "hardcore hos," to which Imus responded with "nappy-headed hos."

Three words. Three arguably stupid words, if you prefer.

Imus apologized for the remark on his show. Then he apologized again some days later. Then he went on Al Sharpton's radio show and apologized again -- only to be skewered on air by Al Sharpton, who once slandered innocent men by publicizing Tawana Brawley's lying rape allegations -- which he has yet to apologize for, and later off the air by Jesse Jackson, who once referred to New York City as "Hymietown."

The sound of glass houses being shattered by people flinging stones is deafening.

What do I think of all this? I'll just make a few comments.

The usually affable Al Roker of The Today Show commented that the words that Imus used were "vile and disgusting," yet those same words, if used by a comic like Katt Williams or by some rap artist, would have seemed completely unremarkable. No one would have complained.

I have no idea what the women of the Rutgers basketball team are like, but I doubt that they are the pristine scholastic vestal virgins that they portrayed themselves as being in their recent press conference. You will notice that in the rush to denounce Imus not one player on that team has hastened to reveal their GPA. Perhaps the women on the Rutgers team should sue Imus for slander -- I'm sure the discovery process would be quite interesting. What if it turns out that some of the women really are hos? If the statement was proven to be accurate, would that make it less offensive?

Imus said something stupid, goaded by his producer -- who has received no opprobrium whatsoever. Where's the outrage there? Is "hardcore hos" acceptable and "nappy-headed hos" unacceptable discourse? Or is this just an excuse to bring down a powerful celebrity?

I should point out that I don't listen to Imus, or Howard Stern, or Opie and Anthony, or any of the so-called "shock jocks." I listened to Imus back when he was funny -- which by my accounting was sometime around 1973. But these relentless attacks on a person who apologized over and over again for three stupid words are just ridiculous. It strikes me as reminiscent of the Chinese Cultural Revolution -- and no amount of abasement on Imus's part is gouing to be enough to appease the righteous (and hughly hypocritical) wrath of his critics. I get the feeling that they won't be satisfied until he's not only fired but tarred and feathered, decapitated and his head placed in a spike at center court for the women's basketball team to use as a piñata.

Imus said something stupid and he apologized for it. Now people should just shut the fuck up about it and move on. The country has more important things to discuss than this idiotic spectacle.

Tom Moran

Hope I Die Before I Get Old

You can't make this stuff up -- and you really wouldn't want to.

Sigmund Bock, a 90-year-old Alzheimer's patient, was recently moved out of an assisted living home in California.

Would you like to know why?

Are you sure? It says quite a lot about how we treat the elderly in this country.

The reason we found out about this is that a lawsuit was filed on behalf of Mr. Bock against Paragon Gardens Assisted Living and Memory Care Community in Mission Viejo, California. The papers filed in the lawsuit are so eloquent that they're almost a poem. In fact, I have turned them into a poem (the wording is exact -- I've only changed the way the words are laid out and added capital letters at the beginning of lines).

The facility so literally ignored
The needs of their residents
As to allow vermin
In the form of a rat
To become lodged in the mouth of Sigmund Bock
And die therein.

The parent company that owns the facility, Sunwest Management Inc. of Salem, Oregon, denied the allegations, according to the AP wire story in which I read about this incident.

Their denial is a poem as well:

We take care of our residents,
And find this negative publicity
To be a disheartening affront
To our professional caregivers
And most especially to our residents
And their loved ones.

Not quite as eloquent, though. Platitudes about patient care can't quite compete with a rat dying in a 90-year-old man's mouth.

Tom Moran

Klein's Beating the Bushes

Robert A. George, in his somewhat conservative but usually reliable (that is, when he and not someone else is writing it) blog Ragged Thots, refers to Joe Klein's latest column as an "editorial meltdown."

But is it? I'm no fan of Joe Klein's, but the column in question, concerning what Klein calls "the epic collapse of the Bush Administration." makes perfect sense to me.

Here's just a part of what he says:

From the start, it has been obvious that personal motives have skewed the President's judgment about the war. Saddam tried to kill his dad; his dad didn't try hard enough to kill Saddam. There was payback to be had. But never was Bush's adolescent petulance more obvious than in his decision to ignore the Baker-Hamilton report and move in the exact opposite direction: adding troops and employing counterinsurgency tactics inappropriate to the situation on the ground. "There was no way he was going to accept [its findings] once the press began to portray the report as Daddy's friends coming to the rescue," a member of the Baker-Hamilton commission told me. As with Bush's invasion of Iraq, the decision to surge was made unilaterally, without adequate respect for history or military doctrine. Iraq was invaded with insufficient troops and planning; the surge was attempted with too few troops (especially non-Kurdish, Arabic-speaking Iraqis), a purposely misleading time line ("progress" by September) and, most important, the absence of a reliable Iraqi government.

Doesn't sound like much of a meltdown to me. I've been saying (and writing in here) for years that Bush took this country to war to get even with the guy who tried to kill his daddy, so naturally I'm going to agree with Klein here: his reading just makes sense to me.

I'll skip past the parts about the Attorney General scandal and the whole Walter Reed mess and just skip to the end:

When Bush came to office--installed by the Supreme Court after receiving fewer votes than Al Gore--I speculated that the new President would have to govern in a bipartisan manner to be successful. He chose the opposite path, and his hyper-partisanship has proved to be a travesty of governance and a comprehensive failure. I've tried to be respectful of the man and the office, but the three defining sins of the Bush Administration--arrogance, incompetence, cynicism--are congenital: they're part of his personality. They're not likely to change. And it is increasingly difficult to imagine yet another two years of slow bleed with a leader so clearly unfit to lead.

This is just the simple truth, if you ask me.

So where's the "editorial meltdown" that Ragged Thots refers to? Because in my opinion the problem is not with what Klein says, but what he doesn't say. I would ask Klein: Okay, given that you've diagnosed the problem correctly -- now what do you propose we do about it? If you claim that 'it is increasingly difficult to imagine yet another two years of slow bleed with a leader so clearly unfit to lead," what does he suggest as an alternative? Impeachment? Does he really want Cheney to take over the government?

That's the problem with Klein's column, not any "editorial meltdown" on his part. He's not willing to go all the way and admit that this Congress needs to step up to the plate and do what is necessary to remove this incompetent criminal from office -- preferably after removing Cheney first.

Tom Moran

Cheney in Wonderland

The first paragraph of the AP wire story probably engenders the same response in most sentient beings:

Vice President Dick Cheney repeated his assertions of al-Qaida links to Saddam Hussein’s Iraq on Thursday as the Defense Department released a report citing more evidence that the prewar government did not cooperate with the terrorist group.

You practically want to scream at the man: "Just who the fuck do you think you're kidding?"

Does he really believe this? Or, to put it another, more intriguing way, does he have to believe this in order to live with himself and continue functioning at his job? Is he really that delusional? Is he so deep in his ideological bunker that he's adopted the Chico Marx Theory of Statecraft ("Who are you going to believe, me or your own eyes?")?

Everything these people have told us regarding Iraq and Weapons of Mass Destruction and connections between Al-Qaeda and Saddam have been proven false -- either incompetent readings of botched intelligence at best or, at worst, outright lies and an impeachable offense. Everyone knows this who has a brain in his head -- and yet Cheney goes on spinning the same line of palpable bullshit, as if secure in his serene contempt for the intelligence of the American people.

Some more from the AP wire story:

Cheney contended that al-Qaida was operating in Iraq before the March 2003 invasion led by U.S. forces and that terrorist Abu Musab al-Zarqawi was leading the Iraqi branch of al-Qaida. Others in al-Qaida planned the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks.

"He took up residence there before we ever launched into Iraq, organized the al-Qaida operations inside Iraq before we even arrived on the scene and then, of course, led the charge for Iraq until we killed him last June," Cheney told radio host Rush Limbaugh during an interview. "As I say, they were present before we invaded Iraq."

However, a declassified Pentagon report released Thursday said that interrogations of the deposed Iraqi leader and two of his former aides as well as seized Iraqi documents confirmed that the terrorist organization and the Saddam government were not working together before the invasion.

The Sept. 11 Commission’s 2004 report also found no evidence of a collaborative relationship between Saddam and Osama bin Laden’s al-Qaida network during that period.

Did ya get that last part, Dick? No evidence. None. Nada. What part of "no evidence" don't you understand?

You have to wonder about the mental state of a man who can be so delusional in the face of such facts -- and you also have to wonder who still believes him? Besides Patricia Heaton, that is.

These idiots can't be thrown out of office too soon for me.

Tom Moran

Bob Clark: 1941-2007

The AP story announcing the death of film director Bob Clark in a car accident had a lead paragraph that highlighted his 1983 film "A Christmas Story." I'm sure that would have been a relief to Clark, who was no doubt dreading going down in history as the man who directed "Porky's," the teen sex comedy to end all teen sex comedies.

While Clark was no auteur, he did have more of a range than most people, who merely associate him with the "Porky's" franchise, might believe. One of the more underrated films of the late 70s was Clark's "Murder by Decree," a fascinating take on the Jack the Ripper story. If you can get your hands on a copy, try it some time -- it makes a nifty double bill with another Ripper film of the same era, Nicholas Meyer's "Time After Time."

Clark and his 22-year-old son were both killed by a drunk driver whose SUV had wandered into the wrong lane. He was 67.

Tom Moran

Here We Go Again

Some people just never learn.

After Democrats in Congress were able to derail the nomination of Republican fundraiser Sam Fox as Ambassador to Belgium, President Bush withdrew the nomination -- and then the minute the Democrats were out of Washington, made him a recess appointment. This allows him to bypass Congress and have Fox installed in the position without consent of Congress until after Bush is out of office.

"This is really now taking the recess appointment vehicle and abusing this beyond anyone's imagination," said Senator Chris Dodd (D-CT), according to an AP story by Jennifer Loven. "This is a travesty."

Fox's nomination was pushed back by the Senate because Fox had donated money to the Swift Boat group that slimed John Kerry during the 2004 presidential campaign and which may, according to some, have cost Kerry the election. The 77-year-old businessman has donated millions to Republican causes.

But the important point here is not whether one deep pockets donor to right wing causes gets to be rewarded with a position as ambassador. It's what it says about George W. Bush and his contempt for Congress and the rule of law. It speaks to his desire to have his own way no matter what -- even if he has to break the law to do it.

It's a symbol of why George W. Bush is the worst president in the lifetime of anyone currently drawing breath on this planet. And it gives the Democrats in Congress renewed motivation to oppose his policies.

In other words, it's all about unintended consequences, which is the leitmotif of this incompetent administration.

Tom Moran