Day: July 25, 2007

Cheney Said to Consider Entering Presidential Race – Run, Dick, Run!

Jon Ponder

In a review of the new bio out on Vice Pres. Dick Cheney, an editorial writer for the rightwing New York Sun suggests Cheney may be considering getting into the 2008 presidential race:

At 18 percent, Cheney was less popular than Michael Jackson after he was tried for child molestation and less popular than O.J. Simpson after his murder trial.

The book quotes Senator McCain as saying, “Dick doesn’t like campaigning.” Nothing in the Hayes book suggests that Mr. Cheney is about to do it — except for that the vice president spent nearly 30 hours cooperating with the author and apparently gave the okay for many of his friends and colleagues to grant similar access. The Richard Cheney described in this book isn’t vain enough to do that simply for his reputation in history. My own guess — okay, hope — is that Mr. Cheney has taken a look at the Republican presidential field and sees an opening. If Iowa and New Hampshire Republicans start receiving copies of ” Cheney” in their mailboxes, Mr. Cheney’s popularity may yet begin to climb.

If Cheney gets in, I would seriously consider switching my support for the most beatable GOP nominee from Newt Gingrich to the vice president.

Meanwhile, back in reality:

The Washington Post’s polling expert, Richard Morin, noted that at 18 percent approval, Vice President Cheney was less popular than Michael Jackson after he was tried for child abuse and O.J. Simpson after he was tried for murder. Mr. Hayes quotes Mr. Morin as reporting that Mr. Cheney was “less popular with Americans than Joseph Stalin is with Russians.”

O’Reilly Blunders, Unintentionally Ratchets Up Netroots Support for Sen. Clinton

Jon Ponder


Via: Blogometer: Howard Wolfson, spokesman for Sen. Hillary Clinton’s presidential campaign, went on Bill O’Reilly’s show Tuesday night to defend DailyKos from O’Reilly’s recent attacks. This line stands out:

Hey Bill: We’ve been attacking you for years, so, how about it? Show us some hate. It’s good for business.

Unfortunately with all due respect for you, the days where you can dictate where Senator Clinton and other Democrats go, who we talk to, are over.

Bill O’Reilly just can’t get it through his head that he is seen as such a bully that it actually helps his opponents when he attacks them. Just ask Al Franken, whose book, “Lies and the Lying Liars Who Tell Them,” made millions more than it would have if Bill hadn’t sued over Franken’s depiction of him.

Or ask Keith Olbermann, whose almost daily attacks on O’Reilly as the “Worst Person in the World” have helped make “Countdown” the most popular live show on MSNBC.

Now O’Reilly has turned his guns on DailyKos, labeling it a “hate speech” site, a charge he bases on a few vile and nasty statements cherrypicked from the site’s comments section — one of the largest boards on the Internets. O’Reilly’s campaign against DailyKos has had some success. He forced JetBlue to reneg on its promised level of sponsorship for the upcoming YearlyKos conference. Now he’s trying to bully the presidential candidates into skipping the event.

Predictably (to everyone but Bill), his attacks on the Kos community have had the unintended consequence of improving Sen. Clinton’s popularity among the Netroots. Until now, conventional wisdom considered the online left to be a big obstacle for Clinton in the primaries because of her conservative positions.

That dynamic appears to be shifting — thanks entirely to Bill O’Reilly. As a DailyKos member put it:

[O’Reilly] thinks he’s destroying kos’ credibility when in fact what he is doing is causing all the candidates to stand behind the [YearlyKos] conference and the web site, and by Hillary being so up front in defending Daily Kos, he is helping people here who don’t like her start to rally around her.

Hey Bill: We’ve been attacking you for years (the cartoon of your big giant head with a loofah background is a little something we worked up in 2005) — so, how about it? Show us some hate. There’s some pretty salty stuff — and some of it is about you — in our comments section, so please feel free to call us a hate speech site. It’s good for business.

Dems Pass Contempt Citation against Bolten and Miers in Committee

Jon Ponder

A House Judiciary Committee cited two top loyal Bushies with contempt of Congress charges today:

The Democratic-controlled House Judiciary Committee, on a 22-17 party-line vote, approved citations against Joshua Bolten, White House chief of staff, and former counsel Harriet Miers. Bolten refused to turn over documents related to the dismissals, and Miers disobeyed a subpoena to appear before the panel and answer questions about her role in the firings.

The issuance of contempt citations, which also requires approval by the full House of Representatives, would escalate the dispute between Bush and Congress over the president’s assertion of executive privilege to forbid testimony by his aides.

Ignoring the fact that the refusal of the White House to turn over evidence had led to the citation, Republicans argued that the citation was unnecessary because there was no evidence of wrongdoing.

Quote du Jour

Buck Banks

We are a long way from the glory days of Mission Accomplished, when the Iraq war was over before it was over — indeed before it really began — and the president could dress up like a fighter pilot and land on an aircraft carrier, and the nation, led by a pliable media, would applaud. Now, late in this sad, terribly diminished presidency, mired in an unwinnable war of their own making, and increasingly on the defensive about events which, to their surprise, they do not control, the president and his men have turned, with some degree of desperation, to history.

— David Halberstam (1934-2007), Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist and author

How Appropos — FlaDems Meeting at Disney World

Buck Banks

I can’t think of a more appropriate place for a Mickey Mouse organization to convene than the fantasy land of Disney World. Between their ineffectual Five Point Plan and lead cheerleader Karen Thurman (the Annette Funicello of the Florida Democratic Party), these folks believe it’s a small world after all and they are living in their own Cinderella’s castle if they think they actually will be a factor in the upcoming elections.

Surprisingly, they are running out of blocked hotel space for the Oct. 25-29 statewide party convention, and have booked more space at Disney’s Yacht & Beachfront Resort, which is an ersatz New England coastal village (think Kennebunkport).

Seems a perfect venue for a faux political party.