Señor Trumpanzee Is Still-- And Will Forever Be-- Battling John McCain

The President of the United States by Nancy Ohanian

Remember way back on Saturday when Schumer suggested re-naming the Russell Senate Office Building for John McCain? Jeff Flake (R-AZ) is going to co-sponsor the bill with him. Now, many grassroots Democrats aren't as excited about the prospect as Senate Democrats. But, apparently, it will be Trump ass-kissers among Senate Republicans who will prevent it from ever happening. Among those opposing this bipartisan move are unreconstructed Confederates Richard Shelby (R-AL), John Kennedy (R-LA), Bill Cassidy (R-LA), and David Perdue (R-GA). Mitch McConnell doesn't seem to dig it either. The funny thing about Richard Russell is that he was a Democrat, but a conservative one and a particularly rabid racist pig. Democrats are happy to erase his name from the building but racist Republicans, of course, revere him. After all, he held the civil rights movement back for decades, both in Georgia and nationally.

I haven't heard Lindsay Graham waffle on the McCain-as-hero narrative yet. But just wait. Trump either has pictures of the closeted South Carolina Republican or... Lindsay wants a position in the rapidly changing Trumpanzee cabinet. So anything is possible. But what about that Johnny Isakson guy! Who'a'thunk the first Republican to offer to give Trump a whippin' would be a Georgia senator! Johnny: "I don’t know what’s going to be said in the next few days about John McCain... but anybody who in any way tarnishes the reputation of John McCain deserves a whipping, because most of the ones who would do the wrong thing about John McCain didn’t have the guts to do the right thing when it was their turn."

Not that Trump doesn't have his Senate defenders on the fringe right in his battle with McCain's corpse. Oklahoma sociopath Jim Inhofe-- of snowball-proves-there's-no-global-warming fame-- CNN that McCain is "partially to blame" for the controversy over Señor Trumpanzee’s raising and then re-lowering White House flags: "Well, you know, frankly, I think that John McCain is partially to blame for that because he is very outspoken. He disagreed with the president in certain areas and wasn’t too courteous about it."

At least Trump's got just re-nominated Arizona Governor Doug Ducey in his camp in the Trumps v McCain war. Yesterday six (yes, 6!) Politico reporters worked on a piece asserting that Ducey will bow to Trump's will in deciding with whom to replace McCain. Ducey will have a tough reelection battle in November against progressive former Department of Education official David Garcia and he needs to balance the concerns of Trump's crackpot backers with normal people. Trump has vetoed McCain's own request that Ducey replace him for the remainder of his term with his wife, Cindy. The 6 reported that for Señor T "the decision offers an opportunity to blot out McCain’s most dramatic legislative move in the Trump era: casting the deciding vote against Obamacare repeal, and dooming the administration’s first big legislative initiative."

Will Trump force Ducey to appoint one of his allies, either of yesterday's Senate primary losers, Joe Arpaio or Kelli Ward or Trump crony Jeff DeWit, all 3 from the neo-fascist wing of the GOP?

[O]ne new candidate whose name has increasingly come up could help the governor in his own reelection fight and satisfy the pro-Trump wing of the party while honoring the memory of the six-term senator: Maj. Gen. Michael McGuire, a career military pilot who also serves as adjutant general for the state.

McGuire, also the director of the Arizona Department of Emergency and Military Affairs, has not been listed among the usual cast of potential successors since McCain fell ill last year. But his name began surfacing in interviews with more than a dozen politicians and consultants.

“John’s fairly highly regarded here in Arizona. Maybe not among the partisan base, but amongst the broader electorate and the community,” Arizona Republican strategist Chuck Coughlin said of the late senator’s legacy as a military man. “I think he would probably respect the family legacy there and the service,” he added of Ducey’s choice.

“But beyond that, I think he’ll just pick a conservative Republican who’s well regarded and likely to run and hold the seat.”

Other names being bandied about in Phoenix are former Senator John Kyl, former Rep. John Shadegg, who always wanted to be a senator but who left Congressafter being exposed in a sex scandal with another congressman's wife; Barbara Barrett, a former ambassador to Finland; Kirk Adams, Ducey’s chief of staff and a former state lawmaker; Karrin Taylor Robson, a wealthy developer; state Treasurer Eileen Klein; Rep. Paul Gosar; and Matt Salmon, another former congressman.

Jake Sherman and his team connected this week's dots and came to the conclusion that "In reality, Trump has already made this story about him. His silence-- and flip-flopping on the flag-- has kept Washington (and particularly the media) on edge. Any other president would’ve just lowered the flag to half-staff for the week, issued an effusive statement and moved on. Trump is making plain what we already knew: He never much liked McCain, and he’s not really concerned what anyone thinks about his behavior. Trump seems fully confident that his supporters haven’t cared for McCain in any way since 2008-- when they concluded his constituency was mostly reporters and middle-of-the-road Republicans. In some ways, Trump’s candidacy and presidency are a direct response to the candidacies of McCain and Mitt Romney... [E]veryone recognizes that Trump-- a supremely transactional figure for whom truth and everything else is infinitely flexible and subordinate always to self-interest-- is the more authentic representative of the age."

McCain's Parting Shot: "We weaken our greatness when we confuse our patriotism with rivalries that have sown resentment and hatred and violence in all the corners of the globe. We weaken it when we hide behind walls rather than tear them down, when we doubt the power of our ideals rather than trust them to be the great force for change they have always been... Do not despair of our present difficulties, we believe always in the promise and greatness of America because nothing is inevitable here. Americans never quit, we never surrender, we never hide from history, we make history. Farewell fellow Americans. God bless you and god bless America.

People Expect The New EPA Administrator To Be Less Incompetent And Distracted Than Pruitt-- And That's Not A Good Thing

Worse than Pruitt?

Yesterday, the New York Times reported that "Scott Pruitt’s brief, tumultuous tenure as the head of the EPA has left him disgraced in the eyes of many in Washington and across the country. But it may not have done him much harm in his home state. Though a comeback for Mr. Pruitt is far from assured, some liberals and conservatives in Oklahoma agree he could engineer one in this oil- and gas-dependent state where he used to be attorney general. His hard-line anti-regulatory message remains popular here, and many of his supporters consider the spreading plume of scandal from his time at the EPA the product of unfair liberal persecution."

Susan Dudley, writing for Forbes, reported that Pruitt had pursued the largest regulatory rollback in the EPA’s history... but when it came to actual deregulation Pruitt was too busy feathering his own nest and stealing everything he could get his hands on that wasn't nailed down to complete much of what he started.

EPA has issued significantly fewer new regulations than in previous years. During his tenure as administrator, EPA has finalized only 15 actions compared to 38 rules finalized during the same period in the Obama administration. But slowing the pace of new regulation is not the same as “rolling back” existing rules.

Of the 15 final actions Pruitt has presided over, the Office of Management and Budget (OMB) classifies five as “deregulatory,” two as “regulatory” and eight as neither. Only one of the so-called deregulatory actions actually removes an existing requirement; in response to a petition, it exempts certain treated railroad ties from being classified as solid waste when used as fuel. One action imposes user fees on electronic manifest submissions (raising questions as to why it is considered deregulatory) and the other three extend compliance deadlines for regulations issued in the previous administration. Extensions provide head room to review and modify not-yet-effective rules in the future, but are not exactly rollbacks.

The two completed actions identified as regulatory are also rather modest in scope. One requires public notice for combined sewer overflows into the Great Lakes, and the other establishes reporting requirements for manufacturers, users or importers of mercury.

The only “economically significant” final action EPA has taken during this administration is its renewable fuel standard issued last December. Although OMB’s accounting does not classify it as such (it is labeled “other”), this action is decidedly regulatory. As I have observed in previous columns, renewable fuel mandates are costly to consumers and the environment, and only serve to enrich powerful special interests.

The paucity of actual regulatory or deregulatory activity over the last year-and-a-half partly reflects the reality that changing existing policies through rulemaking takes time and resources. Once a regulation is in place, any changes to it require careful analysis of likely impacts, public notice supporting and explaining the proposed change, and the consideration of public comment and interagency review. Complying with these statutory and administrative requirements can take years. Particularly when reversing regulatory requirements established by a previous administration, development of a robust public record is essential for new policies to withstand the inevitable legal challenges.

EPA’s agenda of regulatory and deregulatory activities lists 128 actions underway in various stages of rulemaking. These comprise 41 deregulatory actions of which four are economically significant (with estimated dollar impacts in the hundreds of millions or billions), and likely to get a lot of attention. They include repeals of the prior administration’s clean power plan and truck glider rules, modification of vehicle economy standards, and reconsideration of oil and gas sector emissions standards.

But they like him in beet red, oily Oklahoma. Jim Dunlap, a GOP consultant, was a Republican legislator for 16 years. He defends Pruitt who, he says, dies not represent the D.C. swamp but it's his critics who do. "It's just an atmosphere in Washington, D.C. It's-- say, if they don't agree with me, I'm going to go ruin them. And I think Scott realized that. He fought as hard as he could. And it just got to a point where it became too personal. And he said, you know, somebody else can do it." This guy-- and I guess many of Republicans-- seems to be living in their own reality. He doesn't seem to understand that Pruitt didn't resign but went kicking and screaming as he was fired and dragged out of his office and tossed onto the garbage heap of history.

Still, extremists, like Dunlap, would love to see Pruitt run for Jim Inhofe's Senate seat if he dies or retires (Inhofe is 83 and increasingly senile). I bet plenty of Democrats would too.

Crackpot Utopia: The Year in Republican Crazy, Part 11

• GOP and FOX whip up the hate over a POW exchange
• Crazyspeak of the Year nominee No. 14: Iowa asylum escapee Rep. Steve King




It's the Old Crackpot Switcheroo! Nebraska Crackpot Rep. Lee Terry was merely one of a flock of Crackpot Cuckoobirds who were all gung-ho for the release of Army Sgt. Bowe Bergdahl. . . until it happened and The Word came down from Crackpot Central -- and all hell broke loose.

Crackpot Utopia: A dream world as envisioned by republicans; a manifestation or expression of the deranged, warped alternate universe inhabited by republicans, at least in their minds. See also: Bachmannism, Boehneresque.

by Noah

1. Once more into the idiocy: GOP and FOX whip up the hate over a POW exchange

The exchange of five Taliban prisoners of war for one U.S. prisoner of war, Army Sgt. Bowe Bergdahl, provides a fine example of the irrationality and instability of the republican mind in 2014. Just as the republicans loved what is now called Obamacare when it was just a gleam in the eyes of the Heritage Society or when it was called Romneycare only to psychopathically turn on it in a screaming rage when President Obama embraced it, the exchange for Sergeant Bergdahl gave us yet another look at Crackpot Utopia.

You see, before President Obama orchestrated the return of our soldier, the Crackpot Party was screaming that the preseident had done nothing to free him, that this was just more evidence of everything from "Obama's incompetence" to him supporting "his fellow Muslims." Here's former Republican presidential candidate John McCain back on February 18 discussing the then-potential deal that had been in the works for over two years with CNN's Anderson Cooper:

Well, at that time the proposal was that they would release Taliban, some of them really hard-core, particularly five really hard-core. . . . Now this is idea is for an exchange of prisoners for our American fighting man.

When asked, by Cooper if he was saying that he would support the deal, McCain replied:

I would support. Obviously I'd have to know the details, but I would support ways of bringing him home and if exchange was one of them, I think that would be something I think we should seriously consider.

Ah, but when the deal went down! McCain did a 180, and did it also on Anderson Cooper's show:

The problem that I have, and many others have, is what we paid for that release, and that is, releasing five of the most hardened, anti-American killers, brutal killers. . . .

Yeah, "brutal killers" as opposed to, you know, the other kind of killers, the kind that, even in times of war, prefer to kill in a kinder, gentler way.

Then there was Oklahoma Sen. Jim Inhofe.



First Inhofe said on his website:

The mission to bring our missing soldiers home is one that will never end. It is important that we make every effort to bring this captured soldier home to his family.

Only once the trade was made, Inhofe criticized the Obama administration for agreeing to free "people who have killed Americans," never mind that when wars end, that's often what both sides do. There's a thing called the Geneva Conventions that our country signed on to decades ago, after all.

Lesser lights of the Crackpot Party (if one can say that lesser-than-Inhoff is possible) made a similar switcheroo, such as New Hampshire Sen. Kelly Ayotte. First: "Bring him home, bring him home, why aren't you doing whatever is needed to bring him home? Sure, swap some prisoners, just bring him home." Then after the release: "Why did you do that?" Of course, President Obama had been working on the deal for quite some time, but why should we expect a mind like Ayotte's to understand?

Other members of the Crackpot Party initially praised and cheered Sergeant Bergdahl's release on their Twitter accounts, only to delete their tweets from their accounts and websites once they had received the memo from the higher-ups in their deranged party. We saw the deleted tweet from Nebraska Rep. Lee Terry at the top of this post. Here are a couple of other effusions that were jettisoned from history:

Nevada Rep. Mark Amodel

Then GOP primary candidate, now Iowa Sen. Joni Ernst


Republicans didn't stop with just condemning the release deal and smearing President Obama over it. No, that wasn't enough for the crazies. They had to smear our soldier too, raising the question of whether he was, in fact, a deserter. They did it in such a way that it was no longer a question but a fact, and therefore he should not have been brought back to us.

Perhaps they should go to the Pentagon and take it up with the military service chiefs, starting with Gen. Martin Dempsey, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, who was involved in the deal:

"I balanced the risk of transferring the detainees with the importance of returning a U.S. soldier from captivity. I concluded the risk posed by the detainees' future activity would be less grave than breaking faith with our forces in combat.

The other services chiefs weren't involved in the deal, but afterward Army Chief of Staff Gen. Ray Odierno said that release of one of our POWs "regardless of the circumstances is both a moral imperative and vital to keeping faith within our Army," and the Joint Chiefs' vice chairman, the Navy's Adm. James Winnefeld, said, "While the five detainees are indeed hard-core Taliban, they never posed a threat to the United States homeland or our interests in Afghanistan." The media, both Crackpot and so-called-liberal, tended to ignore the opinions coming from the Pentagon. I guess those opinions didn't make for good television, even if they would have made for better journalism.

Of course outlets like the insipid Daily Caller and FOX "News" dug down the lowest.

"Reasoning" like the nine-year-old child he is, Bill O'Reilly fell back on good old bigotry: "Robert Bergdahl, the father, he has learned to speak Pashto, the language of the Taliban, and looks like a Muslim." Right, Bill-O! Just like all those who speak Italian are mobsters and all those who speak German are Nazis.

Next there was fellow FOX buffoon Brian Kilmeade, whose syntax took a beating as he waxed eloquent about the real issue, the beard that Bergdahl's dad had grown while his son was in captivity:

He says he was growing his beard because his son was in captivity. Well, your son's out now. So, if you really don't want to no longer look like a member of the Taliban, you don't have to look like a member of the Taliban. Are you out of razors?

Hmmm, interesting that the FOX brigade doesn't say the same thing about frequent contributor Phil Robertson, of Duck Dynasty. Damn, he sure looks like a Muslim to me! As did a lot of the 2013 World Champion Boston Red Sox. Back in the 1950s, where republicans would prefer to be, having a beard meant to them that you must be a commie. Now it means you must be a Muslim. Crackpots, it seems, are still in the grip of beardophobia.

The bottom line in the POW exchange is that, whether our military personnel have deserted or been captured, we go get them. If they've done something wrong, they get punished, by us, in a court system that our people have fought and died for, not in someone else's system. If they did something great, they may get a medal, from us. The key thing is, we decide. Our military investigators and our military courts decide. To think otherwise and let an enemy decide what happens to our POWs is to put all our military personnel at risk, not to mention manifesting a lack of belief in the American way of handling a situation.

The debate, if you want to call it that, about the retrieval of Sergeant Bergdahl was not just about taking a good thing and using it for the lowest smear politics imaginable; it was also about the lack of belief in a policy that our country has had since day one, a policy that was set forth by Gen. George Washington -- I'm sorry, republicans, if that isn't good enough. You sure like to yap about the Founding Fathers, but as usual it's just crackpot yapping.

One last thought on this: President Obama got one of our soldiers back for a mere five prisoners from Gitmo. So-called President Bush released 500 detainees from the same prison. What did he get in return, and why was the clueless chorus of crackpots so silent then?


2. Crazyspeak of the Year nominee No. 14: Iowa asylum escapee Rep. Steve King


Most every time Steve King opens his mouth it seems like he's fishing for a Crazyspeak Award nomination.

Iowa's own Rep. Steve King is no relation to the famous author of horror novels. He's more like the heinous, destructive characters that populate Stephen King's books. Just look at the guy and tell me you wouldn't cross the street to avoid coming into close contact unless you could taser him and put him back in his straitjacket.

Here is Steve King's 2014 Crazyspeak qualifying quote:

"I don't expect to meet gay people in heaven."

Right you are, Steve baby! You see, they don't expect to see you in heaven either, except to see you turned away at the gate, followed by a swift kick down to the pits of burning, flaming hell. Thanks, though, for providing even more proof that you'll never belong in heaven. Hell should suit you just fine, though. Say, why not leave today?

King also decrees that divorced folks and even cohabiters will be excluded from heaven. Don't you just love it how republicans always go around speaking for God? I mean, poor recently deceased Mickey Rooney, who musta been divorced about seven times, maybe eight.

And what about me? What about my posthumous fate? My wife and I cohabited for something like nine years before we eventually got married. Does this mean, in Crackpot Utopia, that we must spend nine years in hell before gaining entrance into the republican concept of the ultimate gated community? Is there some sort of reverse-time-served deal, or does that nine years condemn us to hell for eternity? Oh well, at least I'll be with my wife. That'll make up for having the fetid likes of you as a neighbor, oh pious and holier-than-thou Mr. King. But please, draw your curtains when you have some drag-queen Michele Bachmann come over to flog your bare ass while her hubby watches with some local priest.

TOMORROW IN PART 12: Arizona Republican protests busload of YMCA campers; Crazyspeak of the Year nominee(s) No. 15: the Impeachment Variations (group nominee); Crazyspeak of the Year nominee No. 16: NM Rep. Steve Pearce

NOAH'S 2014 IN REVIEW --
Crackpot Utopia: The Year in Republican Crazy

Part 1: Princess Liz Cheney tries for the Smoothie of the Year Award; "Miss Beck regrets" -- Crazyspeak of the Year nominee No. 1: Glenn Beck; and the Crackpot Party reacts to President Obama’s State of the Union speech [12/19/2014]
Part 2: Republicans wonder why normal people call them racists; Sean Hannity wants to self-deport; and the First Annual Mr. Burns Award, to ABC "shark" Kevin O'Leary [12/20/2014]
Part 3: Using fear, loathing, and paranoia to sell stuff; Arizona legalizes crack!; and Crazyspeak of the Year nominee No. 3: Bill O’Reilly [12/21/2014]
Part 4: A celebration of Michele Bachmann: Pray away the crazy?; What "War on Women"?; and the "Obama angle" on Malaysian Flight 370 [12/22/2014]
Part 5: The GOP and the kiss heard 'round the world; Crazyspeak of the Year nominee No. 5: Joe the Plumber [12/23/2014]
Part 6: A word about South Carolina; Pat Robertson and his magic asteroid; and I'll have a pack of Twizzlers and an IUD to go, please [12/24/2014]
Part 7: And so it begins: The running of the buffoons; Crazyspeak of the Year nominee No. 7, George Will has no idea what rape is; and Crazyspeak of the Year nominee No. 8, Rick Wiles calls for a coup [12/29/2014]
Part 8: Things to come: Forward into the past! (11 Presidential Dream Tickets); Crazyspeak of the Year nominee No. 9: Former republican VP nominee Paul "Crazy Eyes" Ryan; Crazyspeak of the Year nominee No. 10: Bryan Fischer of the American Family Association [12/30/2014]
Part 9: Pompous Blowhard of the Year Award: Bill O’Reilly; FOX "News" announces new spinoff: the "FOX Benghazi™" Shopping Channel!; Crazyspeak of the Year nominee No. 11: DiGiorno Pizza [12/31/2014]
Part 10: Newsmax -- Beyond Drudgery; and Crazyspeak of the Year nominees Nos. 12 and 13: Michele Bachmann, Kimberly Guilfoyle [1/1/2015]
Part 11: GOP and FOX whip up the hate over a POW exchange; and Crazyspeak of the Year nominee No. 14: Iowa asylum escapee Rep. Steve King [1/3/2015]
Part 12: Arizona Republican protests busload of YMCA campers; Crazyspeak of the Year nominee(s) No. 15: the Impeachment Variations (group nomination); Crazyspeak of the Year nominee No. 16: NM Rep. Steve Pearce [1/4/2015]
Part 13 (and last): TV for Dummies: Sarah Palin launches her own channel; Crazyspeak of the Year nominee No. 17: Arizona schools superintendent John Huppenthal (rhymes with Neanderthal); and the final Crazyspeak of the Year nominee -- and also the winner! [1/5/2015]

NOAH'S 2013 IN REVIEW --
A Prayer to the Janitor of Lunacy

For listings and links, see Part 1 of this year's series.

#

Legitimate scientific skeptics object to calling science deniers "skeptics." Here's a suggestion: "lying, stinking buttwipes"

The mascot of the Australian Skeptics. Climate-science disinformers don't qualify as "skeptics," say these 48 prominent scientists and thinkers, because they aren't interested in evidence -- just denial.

"Proper skepticism promotes scientific inquiry, critical investigation, and the use of reason in examining controversial and extraordinary claims. It is foundational to the scientific method. Denial, on the other hand, is the a priori rejection of ideas without objective consideration."

-- from a statement signed by 48 fellows of
the Committee for Skeptical Inquiry

by Ken

The Republican War on Science isn't exactly news to readers of DWT. It remains a continuing source of astonishment, this unrelenting hatred of and crusade against everything related to reality, truth, knowledge, and the attempt to understand the world around us, but not news.

It's always heartening to witness a bit of pushback by people who really do care about reality, truth, knowledge, and the attempt to understand the world around us. So I was delighted by ClimateProgress's Joe Romm's report on the statement signed by 48 fellows of the Committee for Sketpical Inquiry "urging the media to 'Please stop using the word ‘skeptic’ to describe deniers' of climate science." The signers, Joe notes, "include such luminaries as Nobel laureate Sir Harold Kroto; Douglas Hofstadter, Director of The Center for Research on Concepts and Cognition at Indiana University; physicist Lawrence Krauss, Director of The Arizona State University Origins Project; and Bill Nye 'the Science Guy.' " (The full list, he notes by link, can be found at the end of the posted statement.)

The scientists and journalists were motivated by a Nov, 10, 2014, New York Times article “Republicans Vow to Fight EPA and Approve Keystone Pipeline” that referred to Sen. James Inhofe (R-OK) as “a prominent skeptic of climate change.” They note that same week, NPR’s Morning Edition called Inhofe “one of the leading climate change deniers in Congress.” The signatories note, “These are not equivalent statements” and the two terms should not be conflated.

“Proper skepticism promotes scientific inquiry, critical investigation, and the use of reason in examining controversial and extraordinary claims,” the letter reads. “It is foundational to the scientific method. Denial, on the other hand, is the a priori rejection of ideas without objective consideration.”

The scientists and journalists point out that Inhofe’s assertion that global warming is “the greatest hoax ever perpetrated on the American people” is a very extraordinary claim of a “vast alleged conspiracy.” They note that true skepticism is embodied in a quote often repeated by Carl Sagan: “extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence.” But Inhofe has never been able to provide even ordinary evidence for his absurd conspiracy charge. “That alone should disqualify him [Inhofe] from using the title ‘skeptic’.”

The continued endurance in a position of public prominence of a pile of utter filth like James Inhofe remains one of the great shames of our time. It's revolting to have to keep coming back to it (as cases in point, see Howie's July 2008 post "What's Wrong With James Inhofe?" and my July 2009 post "Would you believe that scientists looking into Jim Inhofe's bogus global-warming "Minority Report" find it "not credible"?"), but here we are.

Joe proceeds to quote the final two paragraphs from the statement, but I'm going to give you the entire statement, with those final grafs boldfaced:

Deniers are not Skeptics

December 5, 2014

Public discussion of scientific topics such as global warming is confused by misuse of the term “skeptic.” The Nov 10, 2014, New York Times article “Republicans Vow to Fight EPA and Approve Keystone Pipeline” referred to Sen. James Inhofe as “a prominent skeptic of climate change.” Two days later Scott Horsley of NPR’s Morning Edition called him “one of the leading climate change deniers in Congress.” These are not equivalent statements.

As Fellows of the Committee for Skeptical Inquiry, we are concerned that the words “skeptic” and “denier” have been conflated by the popular media. Proper skepticism promotes scientific inquiry, critical investigation, and the use of reason in examining controversial and extraordinary claims. It is foundational to the scientific method. Denial, on the other hand, is the a priori rejection of ideas without objective consideration.

Real skepticism is summed up by a quote popularized by Carl Sagan, “Extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence.” Inhofe’s belief that global warming is “the greatest hoax ever perpetrated on the American people” is an extraordinary claim indeed. He has never been able to provide evidence for this vast alleged conspiracy. That alone should disqualify him from using the title “skeptic.”

As scientific skeptics, we are well aware of political efforts to undermine climate science by those who deny reality but do not engage in scientific research or consider evidence that their deeply held opinions are wrong. The most appropriate word to describe the behavior of those individuals is “denial.” Not all individuals who call themselves climate change skeptics are deniers. But virtually all deniers have falsely branded themselves as skeptics. By perpetrating this misnomer, journalists have granted undeserved credibility to those who reject science and scientific inquiry.

We are skeptics who have devoted much of our careers to practicing and promoting scientific skepticism. We ask that journalists use more care when reporting on those who reject climate science, and hold to the principles of truth in labeling. Please stop using the word “skeptic” to describe deniers.

EVEN "DENIER" STILL ISN'T QUITE RIGHT

Joe goes on to explain, as he notes he has "many times in the past," "why 'denier' is not a perfect term." He prefers "disinformer."

There are no perfect terms. Years ago I tried to coin the terms “delayer” and “disinformer” for those who make a living spreading disinformation about climate science in order to delay action — and I still use the term “disinformer.” But coining terms is nearly impossible, and the fact is that almost everybody has embraced the term “deniers” – including many, many disinformers.

Not least among the problem with the term "denier" is that many of the hardest-core disinformers happily use the term to describe themselves, making it sound as if it's an intellectually sustainable, even honorable position, rather than just a cynical crock of you-know-what.

Joe notes further that, stuck as we apparently are with the term "denier," he would like to see "climate change denier" replaced by "climate science denier" -- "because many deniers say they accept that the climate is changing, while denying the overwhelming evidence that humans are behind it."

The media doesn’t write about “tobacco science skeptics” or even bother giving equal time to people who deny the dangerous health consequences of cigarette smoking. And yet as the American Association for the Advancement of Science — the world’s largest general scientific society explained in a March report: “The science linking human activities to climate change is analogous to the science linking smoking to lung and cardiovascular diseases.”

“Physicians, cardiovascular scientists, public health experts and others all agree smoking causes cancer,” the report said. “And this consensus among the health community has convinced most Americans that the health risks from smoking are real. A similar consensus now exists among climate scientists, a consensus that maintains climate change is happening, and human activity is the cause.”

But one thing they clearly aren't, these creeps who intentionally trick masses of ill-informed people into swallowing their poison, is skeptics. And stripping them of this fig-leaf cover would at least be a start.

#

2013 in Review -- A Prayer to the Janitor of Lunacy,* Part 2: Remember when Reagan cut funds for insane asylums?

Storms, guns, bombs, free stuff, and the secret gay life of Obama: Some top Republican lies of 2013

[*TO MEET THE JANITOR OF LUNACY, SEE PART 1]


Plum loco, stone stoopid, or pathologically dishonest? You be the judge.

by Noah

I'm calling this "Some top Republican lies" because everyone else does "Top 10s" or "Top 20s," but I see no reason to come up with some arbitrary round number. Besides, with the Crackpot Party there's always another lie, and chances are very good that the corporate media will be all too willing to repeat them all without examining their veracity. That said, here are a few. I hold these lies to be self-evident.


1. The Boston Marathon bombing was a false flag (government) job

Wingnut Alex Jones (see above), Natural News, New Hampshire Republican State Sen.Stella Trembley, and others had the "scoop" on this one almost immediately after the tragic bombing on April 15th. It's straight out of Marvel Comics or some wacko Twilight Zone. Just like 9/11 truthers, there are a lot of wingnuts out there that are so determined to hate the government for something, anything, especially if that Obama dude is in charge, that their sick minds will concoct and believe anything. For some, the idea of the government taking their guns away or evilly giving you the opportunity to purchase healthcare for your family just isn't enough.


2. A Saudi national or nationals were responsible for the bombing

Shall I speculate as to why it is that, in the twisted minds of Republicans, terrorists must be nonwhite or Muslim? Immediately after the Oklahoma City bombing, the same people were proclaiming that Muslim terrorists from the Middle East were the bombers. That one turned out to be white folks. Oooops! And white folks that were a lot closer to Republicans than Republicans would like to publicly admit, right down to Newt Gingrich, as House speaker, having radical Idaho Rep. Helen Chenoweth as a liaison to the militia groups of the Northwest. In this case, the bombers were Muslim, but it became obvious that, to Republicans, the glass was only half full.


3. The Saudi government warned the U.S. about the Boston Marathon bombing



Nope. Turns out the Russians did communicate some info about the actual bombers, but a few days after the bombing Glenn Beck said he knew the truth about a Saudi national who had been questioned and let go. It wasn't even the same guys that Rupert Murdoch's New York Post had falsely claimed right on his front page were the perps.

Beck claimed the White House knew who did it and was covering up, and he claimed he would lay out all the evidence the following Monday if the government didn't come clean. There was even some sort of Benghazi connection. So what happened? Well, in the meantime the real bombers were identified and one was killed and one was caught. They weren't Saudis. They even (oh, the disappointment!) weren't of a darkish hue. The whole thing had gotten started on Hannity's show. Bill O'Reilly had Beck on to lay it all out. Thanks, Fox. Where would this country be without you?


4. The White House is full of Muslim Brotherhood

It seems that as soon as Egypt's government fell, and Americans became aware of the Muslim Brotherhood's position of influence and power in that nation, it just somehow sounded perfect to those in the Crackpot Party that there must be some nefarious connection to the Kenyan-born, secret-Muslim, socialist black man in the White House. (Muslim Brotherhood infiltration of the Obama administration, even "letting Muslim Brotherhood run anti-terror ops," is just one of the Impeachable Offenses "documented" by crackpot "authors" Aaron Klein and Brenda J. Elliott. If you shopped on the right wingnut website, you could get not just a less-than-half-price copy of the book, autographed, but also a "a FREE Impeach Obama bumper sticker.")

Yes, I can see it all clearly now, the unseen hand of . . . yeah, yeah, yeah, whatever. Guilt by association when there's no association -- I get it. Next!


5. Bush kept us safe


Giuliani on Hannity again! He did? I coulda sworn that Bush, not Clinton, was at least pretending to be prez on 9/11. It's amazing how anyone can still put Rudy Julieandrews in front of a camera and let him prattle on. It's 2013, for Christ's sake! The man was a failure as a mayor who made himself Mr. 9/11. The guy was so lame, it took him umpteen numbers of trials to nail John Gotti. He spent $50 million running for his party's nomination for president and got one delegate and that delegate was from Florida. But there he was again, in Sean Insanity's One Flew over the Cuckoo's Nest studio uttering those famous four words, in the wake of the Boston bombing.

One of the sick Republican memes, post-tragedy, was to somehow make the Boston bombing Obama's fault. Hey, Repugs! People were maimed. People died. Families were destroyed! And you, you just see it as an opportunity.


6. Superstorm Sandy was caused by Obama seeding of clouds

Okay, I know this was from late in the previous year, but it still has life in at least some Republican minds. The rest seem to be more fixated on blaming Gov. Blowhard Christie for turning the 2012 election in Obama's favor when he took a romantic walk on the beach with the president. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gFvmguc56YA


The first minute and a half is just a Fox News report on the progressing storm. But listen for the eerie voice of insanity that comes in at 1:29 and then shows us "why this Frankenstorm may be changing its trajectory." Can you guess whodunnit? (Hint: "Obama is falling behind in the polls. Is this the October surprise we have been expecting.") The poster, PEREXUSREX, followed up with this reply to doubting commenters: "Watch the news - Obama has been able to look presidential and Mitt Romney has had to slow his campaign. This hurricane has definitely helped Obama who was definitely behind - he is not behind anymore since the hurricane."


7. Benghazi, Benghazi, Benghazi

[Click to enlarge]

Repugs don't even seem to realize that their very own lies about what happened in Libya may have cost Romney the White House when he repeated a portion of their Libya lie in a the second presidential debate and got caught. In Republikook world, President Obama supposedly either let the storming of the embassy happen or encouraged it, maybe with his supersecret Muslim underground decoder ring, or something.

One thing Republicans won't tell you is that it was they who voted in Congress to withdraw security funding for our embassies. Nice goin', a-holes. Since then we've had madman Rep. Darrell Issa, doing his best Joe McCarthy imitation, running hearing after hearing after hearing, wasting mountains of our taxpayer dollars on some insane attempt to build an impeachment-worthy case against the president.  Again, people died, so let's exploit it! Ain't that the Republican way?




8. Romney lost because of "free stuff"


Watch the Lawrence O'Donnell Last Word segment here.

Sooo much chest-beating and recrimination in the wake of Romney losing. So many accusations: Christie, the storm, and, most of all, "free stuff." Obama won by giving out "free stuff" to you know whom.

Just keep telling yourselves that, Repugs. But if Romney had won, people like Sheldon Adelson stood to get a whole lotta free stuff; free stuff in the form of a return of an estimated $700 million in tax breaks in return for his $100 million in campaign contributions. $600 million? Now that's what I call free stuff! Sorry, Mittens, you lost because enough Americans of all backgrounds saw you for what you are.


9. Guns don't kill people

Neither do 30-shot magazines, right? Well, 11 kids escaped death in Newtown, Connecticut, while the shooter in their school had to switch to a new magazine. Suppose he only had 10-shot mags. How much death and human misery would have been avoided?

Yet there are the Republicans, the party that pushes human misery, demanding the right to their 30-shot mags. And if you want to look at the face of insanity --




10. Background checks bad; straw purchases good

Terrorists don't have to try to smuggle their guns into the country. So what's the easiest way for a terrorist to get a gun here in these United States? Well, if you enter a gun emporium and you look like ya just might not be quite white enough and ya might have some sort of one o' them un-'merican accents, they might not sell you a gun. What to do? There's already no background-check thing. That's good for would be evil-doers, but still, there's that accent and skin-tone thing.

Ah, easy! Pay someone to go buy you whatever you need! Street gangs do it all the time. It's called a straw purchase, and Republicans like that just fine. Of course, in the case of the gang gunplay in Chicago, that's all Obama's fault, not the permissiveness of the Republican gun kooks.


11. The Government is buying all the ammo in order to kill us all

No one likes this lie more than the companies that make bullets. It inspires more purchases and hording of ammo. Republicans spend a lot of energy telling each other that Obama is going to take away their guns. They campaigned on it. They shrieked that he'd be coming for our guns as soon as January came along. So it follows that when he couldn't get Congress to pass saner gun laws, he would, naturally, buy up all the bullets!

"We just denied everything that this president and the vice president are trying to do. So what are they going to want to, if they want to violate our Second Amendment rights? Do it with ammo."

-- Sen. Jim Inhofe (Republikook-OK)

Or maybe Iraq, Afghanistan, and the creation of a huge Department of Homeland Security have something to do with the so-called ammo shortage. Look, bozos, if Newtown shooter Adam Lanza can get all those bullets, and all the shooters we hear about every damn day can get all the bullets they need, maybe you ought to rethink this. Please, oh Janitor of Lunacy, make it stop!


12. Obama is still a secret Muslim

Yes. Well, that explains everything. Scientists may still be looking for their Unified Field Theory that explains all the physical workings of the universe, but until then, this works fine for those in the Crackpot Party. Behold, all is explained! I saw it on Fox!


13. Obama is deliberately tanking the stock market in order to destroy capitalism

Hey, let's not let the reality that the market has gone over the 16,000 mark get in the way of this "theory." Wingnut chatterboxes and more reputable authorities like Forbes say a crash is coming. Some say everyone should sell their stocks and cash out. Repug media like Newsmax issue weekly warnings about an imminent crash as if they want it to happen, just so they can blame Obama.

Hey, it might happen. The fall of 2008 wasn't pretty, and not much has been done, and the Wall Street criminals run free, but hmmm, now if everyone were to listen to these Chicken Littles and pull their stocks at once, wouldn't that crash the market and destroy the economy to the likes of which has not been seen since 1929? So just who is trying to deliberately destroy capitalism?


14. Obama is gay and has even been "married" to a man



So says World Net Daily's Jerome Corsi, the Swiftboat guy, so it must be true. Can Issa investigations and Hannity breathlessly speculating about gay orgies in the White House be far behind?

This gay Obama thing refuses to die in Repug circles. It's even used as the reason that there are so many of those wicked LGBTs working in the White House. Maybe the saddest thing is that such a thing would matter to Republicans. Ah, but no wonder Obama is pushing that "gay marriage" thing. Say no more!

NOAH'S 2013 IN REVIEW --
A PRAYER TO THE JANITOR OF LUNACY*

Part 1: Take a bow, Repugs! (*including Nico's "Janitor of Lunacy") [Monday]

Part 2: Remember when Reagan cut funds for insane asylums? (Storms, guns, bombs, free stuff, and the secret gay life of Obma: Some top Republican lies of 2013) [Tuesday]

Part 3: No Cruz control (Rafael "Ted" Cruz in his own words) [Wednesday]

Part 4: A great anniversary approaches! (Nixon's resignation) (plus more "Quote of the Year nominees") [Thursday]

Part 5: Everyone's a critic, including me -- Some people really try my patience (Bill-O, Howie Kurtz, E. W. Jackson, et al.) [Friday]

Part 6 (and last): In the words of Dan Quayle, "What a waste it is to lose one's mind" (Exploiting tragedy for a buck; Miss America's not American?; "Quote of the Year" winner) [Saturday]

And don't forget Noah's recent --
"Need a last-minute Christmas gift suggestion?" [12/22]
"50 Years Ago Today: The Beatles" [12/26]
"A Tale of Two Popes -- the one in the Vatican and the one in North Carolina" [12/27]

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The Ugly Republican Politics Behind Aid For Oklahoma Tornado Victims

Like most Americans, President Obama's reaction to the tornado devastation is Oklahoma was to ask how we could help. He pledged "all of the resources" necessary to rebuild to the state that gave him his poorest results in November, 33% and a loss of every single county. (Cleveland County, where the devastation was the most brutal, went for Romney 59,019 to 34,701 in November.) Oklahoma has 5 congressmen, all Republicans. Jim Bridenstine, Markwayne Mullin, Frank Lucas, Tom Cole and James Lankford. The two senators-- both are extreme right Republicans who have been especially obstructionist since Obama became president-- are Jim Inhofe and Tom Coburn. Inhofe and Coburn both voted against aid to the survivors of Hurricane Sandy. In the House, where a majority of Republicans voted against aid, the two most senior Oklahoma Republicans, Frank Lucas and Tom Cole bucked their party and voted with the Democrats in favor of the aid package. Most of the devastation was in Cole's district, which includes Moore. Cole said on MSNBC yesterday that one reason he voted for Sandy relief was his own state’s history of catastrophic tornadoes. “Frankly, one of the reasons that we try to be sympathetic to people in other parts of the country” is that “we’re always going to be there to help because we’re always one tornado away from being Joplin.”

"As a nation," said Obama yesterday, "our full focus right now is on the urgent work of rescue and the hard work of recovery and rebuilding that lies ahead... [F]or all those who have been affected, we recognize that you face a long road ahead. In some cases, there will be enormous grief that has to be absorbed but you will not travel that path alone. Your country will travel it with you fueled by our faith in the almighty and our faith in one another. So our prayers are with the people of Oklahoma today, and we will back up those prayers with deeds for as long as it takes."

Tom Coburn, on the other hand, is insane, politicizing the tragedy to score points for his anti-social, reactionary ideology and, basically, holding the victims hostage-- yes, his own constituents-- unless he gets his way. Coburn, many are saying, is disastrously wrong but at least consistent. I think the picture from Act Blue on the right goes a long way to explain why Oklahoma's right-wing ideologues can behave this way.

Sen. Tom Coburn (R-Okla.) will insist that any federal aid to deal with the tornado in his home state must be offset by budget cuts.

“He will ask his colleagues to sacrifice lower priority areas of the budget to help Oklahoma,” spokesman John Hart said. Should other Republicans join Coburn, it could set up a fight similar to the January tug-of-war over Hurricane Sandy funding. That aid package was delayed by GOP opposition and ultimately passed with mostly Democratic support.

Coburn was against the Sandy relief package, as well as 2011 legislation to replenish the Federal Emergency Management Agency’s disaster fund. His office has noted that the 1995 aid for victims of the Oklahoma City bombing was balanced by cuts to unspent appropriations. However, he did ask for expedited FEMA aid in 2007, when an ice storm hit his state.

Inhofe is already making excuses for his own inconsistency by claiming the Hurricane Sandy bill he voted against was filled with pork and that the bill to help the tornado victims won't be. He's a stinking pile of moldering pig dung. When his constituents finish digging out, they should demand he resign.

The R's make history by filibustering the Hagel nomination

"This isn’t high school, getting ready for a football game or some play that's being produced at high school. This is -- we're trying to confirm somebody to run the defense of our country, the military of our country." (Watch video of Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid today on the Senate floor here.)

by Ken

So they've gone and done it, the Senate R's have: This afternoon, for the first time in history, though they don't like using the word (see below), they filibustered the nomination of a "national security" cabinet position. And they couldn't be prouder. Because these diseased jungle animals were able to prevent the Senate leadership from getting the crucial 60th vote it needed to end debate ("Senate Republicans block vote on Hagel nomination").

Maybe Harry Reid wishes now that he had pushed for a rules change that would have at least required filibusterers to actually, you know, filibuster -- so that the country could at least see them doing their dirtywork. Do you suppose it's just a coincidence that the totally off-off-the-rails Senate R's decided just now that it was safe to proceed with their precedent-shattering shenanigan?

Even now these demented revolutionaries lie their stinking carcasses out. As Rachel Weiner pointed out this evening on WaPo's "The Fix" blo, "They still don't want to call it a filibuster."

"This is not a filibuster," Sen. John Cornyn (R-Texas) announced on the floor immediately after the vote. Sen. Lamar Alexander (R-Tenn.) concurred, saying Republicans weren't trying to block the vote, just asking for more time. "If this is not a filibuster, I'd like to see what a filibuster is," Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.) retorted. On Wednesday, we explained why Republicans don't consider their block of Hagel's nomination a filibuster.

Republicans don't want to filibuster Chuck Hagel's nomination to be the next Secretary of Defense. They just want to require a 60-vote threshold to end debate on his confirmation on the floor of the Senate. Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.) has filed for cloture, saying it's a "shame" that he had to do so.

"We're going to require a 60-vote threshold," Sen. Jim Inhofe (R-Okla.) told Foreign Policy. But, he added, "It's not a filibuster. I don't want to use that word." Likewise, Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.) says he now might vote against cloture, which cuts off debate. But he still thinks "a filibuster is a bad precedent" to set for a Cabinet nominee. No Cabinet nominee has been defeated by filibuster; the vast majority receive only an up-or-down vote.

No, that sack of filth Jim Inhofe, a man without a sane cell in his brain, doesn't want to use that word. Why should anyone give a damn what words Crazy Jim does or doesn't want to use? Well, you can read for yourself the tortured word play by which these lying scumbags try to pretend they aren't doing what they've so gleefully done. As I keep pointing out, when you're dealing with right-wingers, it's insane to make any assumption except that every word out of their mouths is a lie.

SO WHAT'S IN IT FOR THE R'S?

This morning WaPo "Fix"-master Chris Cillizza was exploring the question "Why Republicans are filibustering Chuck Hagel," and allowing for the shilly-shallying you know is going to creep in a Village stooge talks to self-important pols, the answer turns tout to be what one might have expected: because it makes them feel like big shots, and because they can. Here's the fancier version:

1. There's no downside. While the fight over Hagel is consuming official Washington -- and enraging the Democratic base -- Republican strategists believe that not only are few regular people following all of this, but the former Nebraska senator isn't someone with all that many allies outside of Washington. "He's about as unsympathetic a character as you're ever going to see so the political danger is virtually non-existent," said one senior Senate Republican aide. Added another GOP Senate strategist: "Hagel doesn't have a natural base of grassroots support outside the president and Democratic leaders so it's difficult to see any real backlash developing." Worth noting: A Quinnipiac University poll conducted earlier this month showed that two-thirds of people didn't know enough about Hagel to offer an opinion either favorable or unfavorable.

2. The beefs with Hagel are legit. Several operatives rejected the notion that the Hagel blockade is largely about politics. (Worth noting: ALL fights in Congress are at least 50 percent about politics and often far more than that.) "A number of senators have serious concerns with his lack of experience leading such a massive bureaucracy, in addition to his position on Iran and Israel," said one GOP strategist. "And in some ways, this is part of a broader debate and effort to draw attention to the administration's policies in the Middle East.  The longer this nomination is drawn out, the more attention is given to those issues."

3. It's a Republican rallying cry. Republicans thought they would be in the Senate majority right now. And they thought they might also have Mitt Romney in the White House. Neither of those things happened. Instead, Senate Republicans watched their House colleagues ensure they got a worse deal on the fiscal cliff and kick the can down the road on the debt ceiling.  In short: The Senate GOP conference needs something to rally around and Hagel's nomination serves as a useful exercise to do just that. (Also, never forget that Hagel is widely viewed as a wolf in sheep's clothing -- a Republican turned kind-of Democrat -- by most of his former colleagues.) "It's always good to have a ‘support your colleagues' exercise when a Senator in your conference is looking for information from the Administration early in a new Congress," explained one aide. "It ensures you're playing as a team going forward.  It sets a precedent that the conference will not be rolled."

There's no price to pay. Those, it seems to me, are the crucial words.

If I were advising the president, I would be flooding every media outlet in the country with angry denunciations of the treacherous Republicans who hate America so much that to promote their demented ideology and unchecked egos they prefer to have the Pentagon removed from effective control. I would be crusading to make sure that any American who contemplates voting for a Republican knows he/she would be voting for a traitor who wants to see the country destroyed.

Which of course puts the lie to point (2), about Hagel's administrative inexperience -- even though there is a point to be made here. The Post's Walter Pincus made the case the other day ("An image issue for Chuck Hagel"), arguing that his testimony January 31 before the Senate Armed Services Committee, where he "appeared to be unprepared and open to bullying," may have fatally weakened him in the eyes of the people he would have to lead as defense secretary. Among senators, Pincus said, "Enough of his former colleagues will accept the idea that he didn't want to be confrontational or that he was having a bad day."

The people Hagel must worry about are the men and women of the Defense Department for whom the hearing was a first look at their next boss in action. It wasn't a promising start.

If there is one characteristic that marks the military it is preparation -- careful planning, covering all contingencies, firmness, clear questions and answers, personal discipline.

Being prepared is a military habit practiced for that moment when lives may depend on it. It's a quality expected in its leaders.

He cited the case of his friend Les Aspin, who was chair of the House Armed Services Committee when Bill Clinton tapped him to be defense secretary.

Aspin was extremely bright and a good politician. But he was casual, if not sloppy, not just in dress but in his habits. He lacked discipline. Meetings with him could start late and go on forever. He loved to explore every relevant aspect of an issue, and even those that weren't relevant.

As one of Aspin's long-term friends, I was among those who warned him that he had to shape up if he took the Pentagon job. His every step would be weighed by the military, from the Joint Chiefs on down the chain of command.

I was sitting in the stands at Fort Myer during Aspin's welcoming ceremony in 1993. I will never forget the murmurs among the officers and enlisted men around me when Aspin, slouching and out of step, reviewed the troops.

Almost immediately he faced complicated issues, but Aspin's easy-going style never gained much respect within "the building" -- the Pentagon. Criticized for Somalia decisions and troubled by a heart problem, he resigned in early 1994.

But I don't think the R's who complained to Chris Cillizza about Hagel's "lack of experience leading such a massive bureaucracy" had in mind the ease with which they had bullied and beaten him at his committee hearing. Here's Walter Pincus again:

The irony about Hagel's hearing performance is that it hid his feisty personality and left the impression he could be pushed around. More than a half-dozen times he apologized for making perfectly acceptable statements, sometimes not bothering to correct senators who took those statements out of context.

Pincus compared Hagel's performance with John Brennan's subsequent appearance before the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence:

The nominee to head the CIA clearly had that agency's staff in mind Thursday as he sat before the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence.

Several times he corrected or challenged senators. He told Sen. James E. Risch (R-Idaho) he disagreed "vehemently" with the conclusion that Brennan had leaked classified information in 2012. With Sen. Dan Coats (R-Ind.), Brennan questioned the accuracy of a news story that was the basis for Coats's questions.

In the end, the administration and the Senate majority leadership will probably do what they have to do to get the Hagel nomination to an up-or-down vote and he'll be confirmed -- as an even weaker defense secretary than Walter Pincus was fearing. And the mad-dog Senate R's will have shown once again that the Just Say No-niks are even more firmly in charge than they were in the president's first term.


UPDATE: YOUNG JOHNNY McCRANKY'S AGAINST
HAGEL 'CAUSE HE WAS MEAN TO CHIMPY THE PREZ

I was so wrapped up with trying to get this post done amidst a welter of other obligations that I didn't notice Howie's pass-along of a delicious ThinkProgress Security post by Hayes Brown in which Hayes quotes that crack security expert and man of principle Young Johnny McCranky on the tube this afternoon with another intellectual giant, Fox Noisemaker Neil Cavuto:

To be honest with you, Neil, it goes back to there's a lot of ill will towards Senator Hagel because when he was a Republican, he attacked President Bush mercilessly and say he was the worst President since Herbert Hoover and said the surge was the worst blunder since the Vietnam War, which was nonsense. He was anti-his own party and people -- people don't forget that. You can disagree but if you're disagreeable, then people don't forget that.

That's right, you heard it from the dripping maw of the Crankyman himself: "If you're disagreeable, then people don't forget that." Honestly, folks, you can't make this stuff up.

If these people were Gong Show contestants, we'd be well rid of them all by now.

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When Bob Woodward tells you to read something, you stand up and READ -- plus other Woodward enhanced interrogation techniques

Watch out, Diane! If Bob doesn't like your question, he can have you get up on the table and cluck like a chicken.

by Ken

I think I've established that I'm not a great fan of make-believe journalist Bob Woodward -- having posed such questions as "Is Bob Woodward the very best person to review George Tenet's book? Or maybe the WORST? (Can you guess which way the Washington Post voted?)" (May 2007) and "Is it possible that Bob Woodward really believes he's giving us first drafts of actual history?" (October 2010). All the same, I wasn't expecting to find myself laughing out loud -- along with some eye-rolling, admitedly -- at the Bobster's grandiose self-fluffing.

However, since I do have some curiosity about the prospect of former Sen. Chuck Hagel's installation at the Pentagon, I was curious enough to take a look at what our Bob has to say in a WaPo column called "Why Obama picked Hagel." And he does have some interesting things to say.

There is, notably, a quote from Hagel presented in the now-familiar Woodwardian journalistic spinoff of insider trading, where the practice of journalism consists of gathering insider information with a view to its highly selective release at the most opportune moment -- "most opportune" for the opportunist in question, that is. Thus we are told that in the early months of President Obama's first term his former Senate colleague came "to the White House to vist with the friend he had made during the four years they overlapped in the Senate" and was asked what he thought about foreign policy and defense issues.

According to an account that Hagel later gave, and is reported here for the first time, he told Obama: "We are at a time where there is a new world order. We don't control it. You must question everything, every assumption, everything they" -- the military and diplomats -- "tell you. Any assumption 10 years old is out of date. You need to question our role. You need to question the military. You need to question what are we using the military for.

"Afghanistan will be defining for your presidency in the first term," Hagel also said, according to his own account, "perhaps even for a second term." The key was not to get "bogged down."

Obama did not say much but listened. At the time, Hagel considered Obama a "loner," inclined to keep a distance and his own counsel. But Hagel's comments help explain why Obama nominated his former Senate colleague to be his next secretary of defense. The two share similar views and philosophies as the Obama administration attempts to define the role of the United States in the transition to a post-superpower world.

I've boldfaced that first part because, hey, are you gonna tell me you couldn't use a good laugh? This business of the later-given account and its being reported here for the first time -- such a gaffishly executed exercise in either fake modesty or circumspection, avoiding the central word in all of Woodwardia, ME-ME-ME-ME-ME.

But this isn't the belly laugh I promised at the outset. Indeed, I have to acknowledge that it will be old news to anyone who read Bob's book, oh, whichever-book-it-was. I can't be expected to keep them straight. Oh, I see it was Obama's Wars.

When I interviewed President Obama in the summer of 2010 for my book "Obama's Wars," his deeply rooted aversion to war was evident. As I reported in the book, I handed Obama a copy of a quotation from Rick Atkinson's World War II history, "The Day of Battle," and asked him to read it. Obama stood and read:

"And then there was the saddest lesson, to be learned again and again . . . that war is corrupting, that it corrodes the soul and tarnishes the spirit, that even the excellent and the superior can be defiled, and that no heart would remain unstained."

"I sympathize with this view," Obama told me. "See my Nobel Prize acceptance speech."

No, no, it's not the president saying, "See my Nobel Prize acceptance speech." I admit that's pretty funny, even if by chance the president actually said those words. Maybe it's even funnier if he did. And after all, our Bob has been slammed so hard and so often over his "journalistic" career for suspicious quotes that almost certainly couldn't be actual quotes that you'd think by now when he manufactures quotes to dramatize something that somebody told him somebody else said, he'd do it better than "See my Nobel Prize acceptance speech."

Again, no, though. The hilarious part is our Bob handing the president of these United States a book quotation with the order to read it and the president by golly standing up and reading it out loud.

At first this may not sound odd to anyone who's watched enough TV courtroom dramas, where lawyers are always handing witnesses stuff and ordering them to read "the highlighted portion," and uncomfortable as they appear, they do, even when they have no direct connection to what they're reading, and you'd figure somebody ought to be objecting.

But the president is an under-oath witness subject to "gotcha"-ing by a crafty cross-examining attorney about to blow the whole case wide open. He's, you know, the president. And Bob is just, you know, whatever it is you want to call it, what he is. And our Bob hands him the quotation and tells him to read and he by God stands up and reads. And in just a year or two the world gets to read all about it.


REPORTED HERE FOR THE FIRST TIME: MORE
RECENT WOODWARD ENHANCED INTERROGATIONS

House Minority Leader NANCY PELOSI, on her objection to the House majority leadership's expenditure of millions of dollars to prop up DOMA

Required to read highlighted passages from the 1953 Nancy Drew mystery (No. 31) The Ringmaster's Secret

Senate Minority Leader MITCH McCONNELL, on his search for a Plan B to put in place of his old Plan A ("to make Obama a one-term president")

Instructed to put on a Boy Scout uniform and order five dozen boxes of his favorite variety of Girl Scout cookies (anything but those ridiculous Thank U Berry Much-es)

Supreme Court Justice ANTONIN SCALIA, explaining why his practice of prejudging cases and his habit of hanging out with rich right-wing parties to cases never call for him to recuse himself

Made to sign up for Weight Watchers Online -- though with sign-up fee waived (special "friends of Bob" deal)

Vice President JOE BIDEN, offering exclusive not-to-be-published-till-2016 details about his plans to run for president

Had to stand up and read -- and pick his favorite from among -- a David Letterman-style Top 10 List of "Favorite Joe Biden Gaffes" found online

Treasury Secretary-designate JACK LEW, detailing all his fiscal and monetary plans for these next four years

Asked to recite from memory the Gordon Gekko "Greed is good" speech from the original Wall Street film

Senate Majority Leader HARRY REID, explaining his strategy in the recent filibuster "reform" to-do

Required to stand on the desk and sing his college fight song

New Senate Environment and Public Works Committee Chair DAVID "THE DIAPER MAN" VITTER, discussing techniques for hiring hookers without leaving a paper trail as well as his recent precedent-defying decision to dump virtually all the committee staff left behind by GOP-term-limited chair James Inhofe*

Called on to strip naked to enable Bob to body-paint the image of Carl Bernstein's genitalia all over him


*SPEAKING OF CHAIRMAN VITTER'S PURGE, HIS
STAFF DENIES ANY ANIMOSITY TOWARD INHOFE

We won't know till the relevant Woodward book is published what Senator Vitter may have told Bob about reports of personal discord with Senator Inhofe and "The Diaper Man" 's purge of Environment and Public Works Committee staff. Like this from National Journal:

One rumor, according to an aide who used to work for Inhofe on the panel, is that the two senators didn't get along.

"From what I've been told, it was due to the fact that Vitter was pissed at Inhofe because Inhofe refused to help him fund-raise because of the prostitution scandal that Vitter faced," the aide said, who was not among the dozen or so most recently let go. "Vitter wanted to purge and get rid of everyone."

However, a source close to Senator Vitter says he told Bob W:

I respect the heck out of my colleague from Oklahoma, and if I found myself in need of a hooker on short notice in the Sooner State, he'd be my first phone call. Besides, nobody has done more to give substance to the belief that God gave us the environment to rape, pillage, and plunder. But every raper/pillager/plunderer has his own style.

Meanwhile at least two energy-industry lobbyists so far confirm receiving e-mails in which the senator wrote:

The only difference between my good friend Jim Inhofe and me on raping, pillaging, and plundering the environment is that he always thinks of it like a one-man mission whereas I'm a strong believer in being a team player, being on the team -- as long as my friends in the environmental-raping industries remember, when it comes time to spread the cash and goodies and cut the checks, that I'm now the guy in charge.

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