Wingnut Media Critic Blames Failure of ‘Situation’ on Rachel Maddow’s Short Hair

Wingnuttery: AIM’s Cliff Kincaid blames the failure of Tucker Carlson’s show on the presence of Rachel Maddow, “a lesbian with hair so short that she looks like a man.”

As we suspected, Tucker Carlson’s show on MSNBC, “The Situation,” is just awful. It zips right along, that’s for sure, but it is so obviously an attempt to capture and hold the attention of the ADD generation that somehow the net result is boring.

The audience is staying away in droves, as Mr. Mayer would have put it. “The Situation” ranks near or at the bottom of the MSNBC line-up, and MSNBC is Number Three among the three cable newsers.

The only bright spot on the show is the presence of Rachel Maddow, the resident liberal who conssistently holds her own against the base-pandering Carlson and a revolving cast of winger knuckleheads.

[…]

THE TICKER – Gore’s Current TV launches :: Novak whines :: Yet more dirt on Dukester

  • Gore’s Current TV launches: Al Gore’s Current TV launched today – programming will be in “pods,” roughly two to seven minutes long, covering topics like jobs, technology, spirituality and current events. An internet-like on-screen progress bar will show the pod’s length.
  • Novak whines: Rightwing propagandist Bob Novak has been mum on his role in revealing the identity of secret agent for the better part of two years. Now one of sources at the CIA has said he warned Novak not to publish Valerie Plame’s name. Novak says the CIA guy didn’t warn him enough.
  • Yet more dirt on Dukester: Did scandal-prone GOP Rep. Randy “Duke” Cunningham and his cronies create a shell company that was awarded an IRS contract – and then pocket most of the contract’s $3.5 mil?

Bush Names Bolton U.N. Ambassador – Another Blow to U.S. Prestige

This appointment is just more one more piece of evidence that George W. Bush is the worst president in U.S. history.

CBS News reports that “President Bush [has] installed embattled nominee John Bolton on Monday to be U.N. ambassador, using a recess appointment to circumvent a resistant Senate. ”

Bolton is a GOP political hack who famously bullied local election officials in Florida during the Gore vs. Bush fiasco. He went on to carry water at the State Department for President Bush by bullying CIA analysts when the administration was “creating its own reality” (formerly known as “lying”) about the reasons for going to war in Iraq.

More recently, Bolton lied to the Senate in the paperwork related to this nomination when he said he had not been interviewed by investigators about the CIA leak scandal.

He’s also wanted by the Fashion Police in 30 countries for his unintentionally retro 70’s look.

All in all, this appointment is just one more piece of evidence that George W. Bush is the worst president in U.S. history.

Reid: Rove Matter Shows Bush Is Not a Man of His Word

BuzzFlash: [What] is your reaction to the now-public evidence that Karl Rove was a participant in one way or another in the outing of a CIA operative specializing in tracking weapons of mass destruction? What’s the role of the President of the United States in holding such treachery accountable, whatever the legal outcome might be?

Senator Reid: What it shows me is that the President is not a person of his word. He said almost two years ago that if anyone in his Administration was caught being involved in this, they would be fired. There is no question Karl Rove is involved in it. Evidence is heavy. The President, after finding that Rove’s involved, changes his standard from “being involved” in it to having committed a crime. Well, crimes are hard to prove, and then you go through the appellate process. What does this mean? It means the President is not a credible person.

— Senate Minority Leader Harry Reid, interviewed by Buzzflash, August 1, 2005

Rightwing Media Bias: Schmidt Caught Lying But Cincinnati Enquirer All But Ignores It – Even Endorses Her!

The Cincinatti Enquirer is saying to its readers, “Vote for a political hack instead of a war hero because the hack is a Republican.” Where is the outrage on the left about this demogoguery from a rightwing newspaper?

Yesterday, candidate for Congress Paul Hackett, a Democrat, demonstrated to the people of Ohio’s 2nd District that his opponent had blantantly lied during an interview with a local television. Jean Schmidt, the GOP candidate, told a reporter that she did not know – had never met -Tom Noe, the notorious GOP donor and rare coin dealer who has somehow “lost” at least $13 million in state funds that he invested in coins.

The Hackett campaign offered documentary proof in the form of minutes from meetings of government committees on which both Schmidt and Noe served as evidence that Schmidt, reputed to have a “file card” memory, is at the very least an acquaintance of Noe’s.

Yet the Cincinnati Enquirer, the regional paper of record in southern Ohio, has buried this revelation 16 paragraphs into its main article on the campaign today – under a benign sounding headline: “Candidates take it easy in final days: Volunteers hit streets to get word to voters.”

[…]

Ain’t Gonna Study Violent Extremism No More

There once was a War on Terror,
Till the gubmint said that was an error.
We left behind fervent militarism
For global struggle against violent extremism,
Sounds better, unless you’re a stretcher-bearer

It’s over. The War on Terrorism, that is. At least as a term to be used by generals and secretaries of defense (though presidents still maintain a nostalgic preference for it). It’s been supplanted by “global struggle against violent extremism,” which doesn’t even make for a cool acronymn.

George Lakoff parses out what this change in tag line means for the framers of the news on AlterNet.

It is important to note the date on which the phrase “war on terror” died and was replaced by “global struggle against violent extremism.” It was right after the London bombing. Using the War frame to think and talk about terrorism was becoming more difficult. The Iraq War was declared won and over, but it became clear that it was far from over and not at all won and that it created many new terrorists for every one it destroyed. The last justification – fighting the war on terror in Iraq so it wouldn’t have to be fought at home — died in the London bombing.

Which inspired the following meter-tortured limerick:

There once was a War on Terror,
Till the gubmint said that was an error.
We left behind fervent militarism
For global struggle against violent extremism,
Sounds better, unless you’re a stretcher-bearer.