Tuesday, May 29, 2007

THIS JUST IN! BANKING ON BANKING BIG!

 
 
JUST WHEN IT LOOKED AS IF ROBERT ZOELLICK  WOULD BE STUCK PLAYING ARCH VILLIANS IN DINNER THEATER PRODUCTIONS OF PENELOPE PITSTOP AND THE PERILS OF PAULINE, BULL BOY HAS ONCE AGAIN RESCUED HIM.
 
BULLY BOY ANNOUNCED TODAY THAT ZOELLICK IS THE WHITE HOUSE CHOICE TO REPLACE CAN'T KEEP IT IN HIS PANTS PAUL "THE WOLF" WOLFOWITZ!
 
IN AN EXCLUSIVE ONE HOUR INTERVIEW WITH THESE REPORTERS, ZOELLICK CONFESSED JOB PROSPECTS HADN'T BEEN SO GOOD.  WHEN YOUR RESUME INCLUDES BEING THE FOREIGN POLICY TUTUR TO THE THEN PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE BULLY BOY PEOPLE SEEM WARY ABOUT HIRING YOU.
 
"IT'S AS IF HE DID NOT KNOW 2+2=4, WHICH HE DOESN'T KNOW," EXPLAINED ZOELLICK.  "WOULD YOU BE RIGHT TO BLAME THE MATH TUTOR?  MAYBE BUT MAYBE NOT.  I THINK WHEN PEOPLE SEE ALL THE DESTRUCTION BULLY BOY'S BROUGHT TO THE WORLD, THEY SHOULD NOT BLAME THE TUTOR BECAUSE YOU CAN ONLY DO SO MUCH WITH A DUNCE."
 
ZOELLICK ADMITTED THAT HE DID STATE, WHEN HE RESIGNED FROM THE STATE DEPARTMENT LAST YEAR, "THAT I NEEDED TO MAKE BIG MONEY BUT JEOPARDY NEVER CALLED ME BACK.  SO GOOD THINK I'LL BE MAKING TAX FREE DOLLARS AT THE WORLD BANK!"
 
IN A JOVIAL MOOD THROUGHOUT THE INTERVIEW, ZOELLICK SEEMED SURE THAT THE POST WOULD BE HIS.  RINGING OFF, HE ASKED US TO SAY "HELLO TO MY GOOD FRIEND KATRINA VANDEN HEUVEL.  WE ALWAYS HAVE A GOOD TIME AT ALL THE COUNCIL FOR FOREIGN RELATIONS GET TOGETHER."
 
 
 
Now for the topic that everyone's talking about in the press, Cindy Sheehan has stepped away. (This is also the thing that is the biggest topic in e-mails from members. I am pressed for time but I will try to note all subjects Martha and Shirley told me were in the e-mails. Also note, some of this was covered yesterday.) In an article that's gotten more attention from the mainstream media than any she's written before, Sheehan observes that "when I started to hold the Democratic Party to the same standards that I held the Republican Party, support for my cause started to erode and the 'left' started labeling me with the same slurs that the right used. I guess no one paid attention to me when I said that the issue of peace and people dying for no reason is not a matter of 'right or left,' but 'right and wrong.' . . . The most devastating conclusion that I reached this morning, however, was that Casey did indeed die for nothing. His precious lifeblood drained out in a country far away from his family who loves him, killed by his own country which is beholden to and run by a war machine that even controls what we think. I have tired every since he died to make his sacrifice meaningful. Casey died for a country which cares more about who will be the next American Idol than how many people will be killed in the next few months while Democrats and Republicans play politics with human lives."

More about American Idol than about the dying? Couldn't be, right? Except of course Katrina vanden Heuvel -- who does not edit & publish Teen Beat nor TV Guide but who does edit & publish The Nation -- spent last week -- in her position as the woman who runs the largest circulated political weekly -- gushing over American Idol. If you check in at her blog Editor's Cut, you won't find it. Did Ruth get it wrong? Did Mike dream it up? No.

Apparently even the Peace Resister is capable of some shame or at least wanting to rewrite history. The post, which originally appeared at her Editors Cut no longer shows up. However, it ran May 24, 2007 -- the day, as Mike pointed out, when most of the left were up in arms over Congress caving on Iraq. On that day, the most important thing to Katrina vanden Heuvel, alleged editor and publisher of a political weekly, was to gush: "I have a not-so-secret addiction. American Idol. My colleagues know I've watched every week, all of 19, checking out all of the theme nights . .." Trina addressed how strange it was for the non-60s teen Katrina to cite Smokey Robinson (well, he was a womanizer) and ignore Diana Ross but we all know that, under vanden Heuvel, The Nation loves to ignore women. Regarding that embarassing post, Trina wrote: "Knock-knock, is there a grown up home? Judging by her post, no there's not. Just a little girl trying to look cool and failed because as the Washington Post noted yesterday, American Idol had six million less viewers than the year before. Woops! It's as though she bought a pair of blue jeans to fit in only to find out that she bought the wrong brand! Maybe next time she can just try acting her age."

While Laura Flanders used space and time that Thursday to urge people in the US to call their Reps and Senators and demand that they not cave, Katrina vanden Heuvel winded down her (now vanished but click here for Google) ode to American Idol with: "I'm pushing this, I know. But, hell, the Idol season is over -- so why not?" Why not? Why not? Because you're not a TV critic. Because you're not 15. Because you're a grown woman who supposedly edits and publishes a politically weekly. Because it is painful to watch you embarrass yourself. Because "Idol Chatter" is beneath the publisher of The Nation, whomever occupies that position. Because Matthew Rothschild, the editor of The Progressive, spent the same day writing about the cave, not some crappy TV reality show. And because -- though no one would know it to read most issues of The Nation -- and illegal war is dragging on.

Cindy Sheehan notes: "This is my resignation letter as the 'face' of the American anti-war movement." Sheehan notes the very real attacks on her and notes that has included some at Democratic Underground. Nikki Stone 1 (Democratic Underground) has written "I support Cindy Sheehan" and the bulk commenting on this thread are in strong agreement. Attacks came from all sorts of supposed friends. (Skinner, lead administrator at DU, has a statement up). But let's get real about the attacks. "You have Cindy Sheehan running around, a symbol of the peace movement. A symbol of what? Who is she? Who nominated her to be the spokesperson? She did one brave thing. I'm all for what Cindy Sheehan did last August. But people say, 'She sacrificed so much.' She didn't sacrifice anything." That lovely statement was made (or snorted) by the pig Scott Ritter when speaking to Colorado Springs Indy (an alternative weekly) in 2006. From his stye, he snorted that and he snorted a lot more. For some reason, Ritter is built up as a hero by some 'left' types.

Apparently heroic is having the mainstream media report that you, over 40 years old, were twice arrested for trying to arrange meet ups with underage girls? That is the reality of the Scott Ritter (and when CNN offered him the opportunity to explain the first arrest, he refused to do so). Here's another reality of Scott Ritter: Katrina vanden Heuvel keeps publishing him. In the magazine and via Nation Books, she publishes Ritter who does not move books. Now you may, as some wrongly do, assume Ritter is a lefty. Until 2004, Ritter admits he voted Republican every time -- which he will no doubt return to doing in 2008 but how 'nice' of The Nation to give a twice busted Republican an outlet.

Now here's how polite society worked once upon a time, when someone was reported to have been twice busted for pedophilia, that was really it for them. They didn't get write ups, they didn't pen op-eds. They weren't invited on programs to chat. But for some reason, Pig Ritter is seen as a voice the 'left' needs to adopt. Scott Ritter was allowed to repeatedly attack Cindy Sheehan on his joint-tour in 2006 (The Sky is Falling Tour -- DVD set retails for $19.99 unless you're going for the NC-17 version) and everyone looked the other way and most of the press (big and small) just chuckled. That's why he felt brave enough to issue the nonsense in an interview proper (and one that didn't require him to be handcuffed -- how novel that must have been for him).

The peace movement needs to be inclusive, no question, but that doesn't translate as: "Because we have the Peace Mom, we need to have the Pedophile Man." That's not inclusion, that's stupidity on ever level (including legal liabilities should anything happen to an underage female). We washed our hands of him a long time ago in this community. He is "pig" when noted here for any reason. His name is being mentioned here (for the first time since he went public in attacking Sheehan) only because there are some who seem unable to believe it could be true. Well it is. And it's equally true that you need to ask your outlets why they have repeatedly featured a man who will not explain his criminal busts and allows to stand the mainstream media's reporting that they were for attempting to hook up with young (underage) girls online. It is amazing that the same independent media that wants to scream 'crackpot' and 'crazy' to make sure they are not associated with certain groups is perfectly happy to break bread with a pedophile. Repeatedly.

The Nation managed to cover Sheehan (in print) once -- a (bad) cover story including Cindy Sheehan in the summer of 2005 yet, somehow, The Progressive was able to feature Cindy Sheehan's writing this year (April 2007 issue). And while Katrina vanden Heuvel wants to jaw bone today about "imagining" possibilities -- quick, get thee to the new age retreat! -- it's Matthew Rothschild who yet again has to play grown up and note Sheehan's announcement: "We all owe Cindy Sheehan a huge debt of gratitude for all that she has contributed. I wish her happiness and comfort and relaxation and love and laughter in her days ahead. And I look forward to joining hands with her again somewhere down the road."

Today on Democracy Now!, Amy Goodman noted, "And we have Cindy Sheehan, in this Memorial Day letter, saying she's going home and that, well, she expected the attack from the Republicans. It was the Democrats that hurt her the most as she criticized them." Norman Solomon noted, "Well, she's undergone and shouldered, of course, a huge burden on so many levels of human existance". Solomon was on to discuss War Made Easy, not the book, the documentary which Sean Penn narrates and is available on DVD. Like the book (this isn't a PowerPoint presentation passing as a documentary -- this is an actual documentary) it is based upon, War Made Easy traces the ways war is sold, the way propaganda is used and the willingness of big media to 'enlist'.
 
 


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