Selling Souls for Rudy

The Republicans lost their soul years ago. Hanging out with cynical politicians like Nixon, Reagan and, wow, Junior Bush will have that effect on you. You are who you eat, and the GOP has been buying and eating dirty pork chops for decades.

But, now, in its deeply damaged state, the Republican party is even losing the soul it claims to have. Since the days of Billy Graham selling his snake oil in arenas all over the country, the GOP has always declared itself the party of God and Morality. They have spent millions poisoning the electorate by beating up on the heathen Democrats -- the party of contraception, uppity women, abortion, divorce and homosexuality. Go ahead and vote Democratic, they said -- we all knew who was first in line when the Rapture calls the Righteous to Heaven’s Door.

Unbelievers like me have had to deal with the reality that we could never, ever be Holier Than Them. It was liberating in a way, knowing that even good works, solid values and belief in the Golden Rule would never get us to the Promised Land. I sin, therefore I am. Our political efforts could only get so far because only the Lord would set us free. And only in the manner defined by Lee Atwater, Karl Rove and other offspring of the Deciding Divider.

In the race for the 2008 GOP presidential nomination, all claims to sanctimony have been tossed out the window. It means little; after all, this is just a race to see who gets to have the “R” next to their name in the history books as the person who lost to whoever the Democratic president turns out to be. But, for all their years of telling you and I and every Democratic candidate how we and they should be living, it is shocking to see the Republicans running away from the supposed values they have spent all these years claiming to have.

The problem for the GOP is that the leading candidates who have chosen to come forward in this hopeless race are, er, human. Rudy Giuliani has been married three times (at least he is still in his third) and John McCain has been married twice. The despicable Newt Gingrich, dancing around the edges of the race until Fox News decides he should get in, has the most wonderfully icky marital history: He dumped his first wife while she lay on a hospital bed. Then he was running around the Capitol playing “Hide the Banana” with his current wife, while wife number two was home, watching him wax poetic about the debauchery of Bill Clinton during the “impeachment” proceedings on TV.

Ronnie Reagan broke the Divorced President barrier, but that was because everyone forgot about his first wife, Jane Wyman*, anyway. And with Nancy, hey, the former spouse is simply not to be discussed in polite company. And, that was Hollywood, anyway.

Rudy is another matter altogether, with his ex-spouse and even his children still feeling the sting of their humiliation when they had to watch America’s Mayor dance around Manhattan with his new squeeze while they hunkered down in Gracie Mansion. Rudy was a class act all the way, moving out of the mayor’s quarters and howling ‘till dawn with the younger Judith Nathan.
Giuliani was a victim of his Sinatra complex -- "If you can make it here, you can make it anywhere, baby,” he would growl, while they sipped champagne against the Manhattan skyline. Why have all the adrenalin rush from being the right mayor at the right time on 9/11 and not be able to “use it”, if you know what I mean? You can imagine President Rudy if the U.S. gets in a shootin’ match on his watch. “Hey, baby, get in here!” he would shout to the nearest intern. “Let’s push some buttons!” Perhaps they could install a revolving door on the First Lady’s quarters.

Any Democrat with the same history would be savaged on a daily basis in both the right-wing media and the MSM until they apologized for even thinking about running for dog-catcher, much less president. Cheap hacks like Jerry Falwell and Pat Robertson would trot out to the microphones to pretend to pray for the poor soul’s redemption, not to mention that of the Heathen Nation that allows him to live here. Hell, Bill and Hillary Clinton have taken it from these people for not having the decency to divorce. But, any potential GOP savior gets a pass from those majoring in hypocrisy. Giuliani is “a true American statesman”, says Falwell’s laughably-titled National Liberty Journal. Well, golly. How much closer to god can you get?

The fact is that Giuliani happens to be the only hope of the GOP, however faint. I realized this while watching him speak at the ‘04 convention. He is the only Republican with any hint of authenticity or common sense. Unfortunately, he has decided to whore himself out to the GOP machinists and they have decided to pretend not to notice all his personal, er, quirks.

But it’s not only his personal life that should have the Kings of Sanctimony in a tizzy. Giuliani is still pro-choice, still in favor of recognizing gay unions and still supports gun control efforts in big cities. His sop to the conservative base is that he would appoint justices like Scalia and Alito to the Supreme Court (funny, he never mentions Thomas). But, again, where is the outrage of the religious right for Rudy having the temerity to support a woman’s right to choose, the opposition to which is the Holy Grail of the conservative charade?

It is moments like this when the blinding light of Truth shines in on those who choose to exploit the darkness of moral hand-wringing. The truth is that, for all their beating us over the head about our personal failings, the right-wing political intelligencia cares not one bit about abortion, gay marriage, divorce, pot-smoking, crime, long-hair or any of that stuff. They say this divisive nonsense because it riles up certain well-meaning Christians in their base that buy their empty words. But, now, even the evangelical leaders are selling out their congregations to anyone-who-can-win. It shows their concern for the wedge issues themselves to be as genuine as their supposed discussions with god.

Selling their souls for the hapless, damaged Giuliani? Sure, why not? That’s about what they're worth.

* Correction -- see comment below. Thanks, Anony.

Happy News and Bomb Scare Memories

I met a girl who sang the blues
I asked her for some happy news
She just smiled
And turned away -- Don McLean, "American Pie"

Music radio around the country is like a Baghdad neighborhood -- bombed out, destroyed, useless to all but the predators who destroyed it to save it. Ever since the arrival of the consultants who were imposed on free-form rock and roll radio stations over 30 years ago, the stations that once spread magic through the air since the arrival of the Beatles have devolved into (literally) empty shells, where they don't even bother to put DJs in front of the mic anymore -- most voices you hear were recorded weeks ago and songs play off of the same computers that develop the playlists. Instead of trying to grab everyone's attention, each station is cynically aimed at a niche, pushing bad music into ears turned bad because of lack of intellectual exercise.

Milwaukee music radio has been particularly bad, now almost wholely owned by Clear Channel and others of their money-grubbing ilk. Sure, there have been some bright spots, mainly on student-station WMSE (91.7) and at night on public station WUWM (89.7), but not so you'd notice and not when you want it.

A couple of positive things have happened this month, however. The radio station run by the Milwaukee Public Schools, WYMS (88.9) has dropped its syndicated jazz and gone into an alternative direction, playing rock, soul, hip-hop -- definitely the most integrated playlist in town, which is not saying much. Only one week into the changes, they are still getting their feet under it, but it is one of the few stations you can listen to without cringing. It's groovy for sure, and they don't bother you with details, like who you just listened to (but what it you want to know?)

But, by far, the happiest news is the return of Bob Reitman on WUWM. Reitman helped create FM rock-music radio back in the '60s and '70s. After spending 25 years as a top-rated and pleasent-enough morning-talker on KTI, his show on Thursday nights is a revelation for those who forgot what it's like to have a talented DJ spinning CDs and vinyl with intellegence and with a story to tell. Reitman is not stuck in the past -- he was still paying attention to what has gone on over the years he was gone and looks to the future for hope. Better yet, you can have his show anytime you want on podcast.

Anyway, I was inspired to write him after his latest show, when he talked about his part as the MC at the legendary Springsteen Bomb Scare show at the Uptown Theater in Milwaukee on October 2, 1975:

Hi Bob:

I really appreciate your return to free-form radio. Your show is not only a blast from our collective past, but also a look into the present and future through your unique and badly-missed prism. Your return is absolutely the best thing to happen to Milwaukee radio since, well, I think of one it's been so long.

I was at the bomb scare show at the Uptown and still have vivid memories. My best friend at the time was Marcus, who turned me on to Springsteen in the first place. We camped out (the show was general admission) and got seats in the 3rd row in the middle. The first part of the show was intense and slowly building – the first song was "Meeting Across the River" (Bittan on trumpet?), he crawled down the aisle on "Spirits in the Night", etc. Just before you made your announcement, someone came out and talked to Bruce, the band left the stage, they checked in and around the outside of the piano for bombs and then he sat down and nervously sang a solo "Thunder Road".

Then you came out and told us all to leave and come back at midnight, offering refunds to anyone who didn’t want to come back (almost more interesting than who was there is who didn’t come back and regretted it later). Marcus and I hit the bars in the area of 49th and North, which, at that time, seldom saw any young or black kids in looking for beer. We went back at 11 p.m. and lined up again – someone had Born to Run blasting out of their car in front of the theater. When we got back in, we were in the front row this time, to the far right of the stage. And, yes. We were LOOSE!

The rest is pretty well documented on the CD of the post-scare show (which I always thought was a boot – if the Iceland version has the first part of the show on it, Bob, we need to talk). I got my version off the internet about five years ago, and, man did it take me home. Legend has it the band went back to the Pfister (or, as Bruce says, the Pfffffffisssster) and got bombed, appearing drunk on stage for the first and only time in their careers. This was the first time I had heard many of these songs – I had only heard Born to Run before, and that only came out the week before. Someone I knew from out East was there and I remember him going absolutely insane that he was playing one particular song – now that I think about it, that must have been "Kitty’s Back".

At the end of the show, he did a soulful version of "Sandy" and then announced he would play one more song by Gary U.S. Bonds. "Quarter to Three!" yelled Marcus, right next to me. Springsteen came right up to the lip of the stage right in front of us. "What?!" he shouted. "Quarter to Three!", yells Marcus again, as I stood there with my mouth hanging open. After a few more back-and-forths, Bruce yells "Well Alright!" and that was that. You can hear this exchange at the end of the "Sandy" track on my version.

Since then, I have seen Springsteen thirty or so times, whenever he was here or wherever I was. I worked for Peaches Records in the late ‘70s and they moved me to Cincinnati in the summer of ‘78 to help run a new store there and I got a chance to see that amazing Darkness tour three times in one week (Dayton, Columbus and Cincinnati – and there was a live show on the radio broadcast out of Cleveland the same week). I was amazed by the four-hour marathons and the variety – every show was different, in set-lists, passion and energy. The last show that week was in Cincinnati, and a bunch of us retail types were invited backstage to meet him. Since I was taller than everyone else, I used that advantage to talk to him over everyone’s heads. I asked if he remembered the Milwaukee bomb scare show. He got this wide-eyed look of pleasure and surprise on his face. "Yeah!" he said. So we bonded for a moment. As it was with you on the streets of New York, it was still with him.

I didn’t think anything could top the Darkness tour until the Rising tour. I saw about four of those shows and Miller Park was definitely the highlight – he could have retired then and no one would blame him. The emotion of the 9/11 tribute, the E-Streeters as grown-ups and the commitment to quality and his fans was truly incredible on that tour. I don’t expect to see anything like that again, but he has surprised me before.

Keep up the good work, brother.

BBs and Bingo

Remember Law and Order?

No, I don’t mean the formulistic pro-prosecution TV show that portrays cops and prosecutors in the hazy glow of the Just. I mean the supposed hard-rock conservative concept that the Law is the Law and must be followed. You are to live your life not only within the Law, but with appropriate Order. If you don’t, you are some sort of degenerate, sociopath, sicko un-American type.

Most recently, the right-wing has trumpeted the “broken windows” concept of law enforcement, whereby every small infraction -- from jay-walking to not using seatbelts -- is treated as a serious matter so that everyone gets the idea that the Law is the Law, so don’t even think about causing really serious trouble, bub. This is especially so in one of those parts of the city that they don’t really know anything about, but always assume the worst. The idea is to intimidate people so that they don’t even think about bringing that brazen jay-walking attitude to Mayfair, etc.

But, for wing-nuts on the radio and in the newspaper, the Law is the Law only when they say it is, and only when applied to certain people. If someone they support violates the law, well, who really cares, and they make all kinds of denials and excuses. So it is especially in cases involving their favorite politicians, where special dispensations are made for people like the two Scooters: Jensen, the former Republican Speaker of the Assembly and now convicted felon sentenced to prison who has been allowed to walk around free pending his unlikely appeal for a year now; and Libby, the Cheney henchman, whose real lies to a federal grand jury are excused as somehow insignificant by the same people who are still squawking about Bill Clinton’s obfuscations during the Starr witch-hunt.

This week, the “aw, what’s the big deal?” excusers have focused on a small case involving a woman in Milwaukee who allegedly shot a 16 year old boy 4 times with a BB gun and then beat him over the head with it. Apparently the misdemeanor prosecution of this 39-year old woman for this alleged attack on a young man who was found sleeping on the floor of her daughter’s bedroom was too much for the former get-tough-on-crimers.

Every last one of the local wing-nuts whined all week about the (to them) understandable actions of the woman, without ever really saying what may have justified such an attack. On his web page, Charlie Sykes said it was something about what the woman was “up against”. Sykes’ second banana Jeff Wagner, who will contantly remind you how much of a former prosecutor he is, declared that the woman was “understandably upset” and that she, at most, overreacted. “Frankly, the kid is lucky that he wasn't discovered by an angry dad with a shotgun,” he wrote. Oh, so murder would have been OK, too? “What a waste of resources and tax money!” says Wagner of the fairly mild charging decision.

Oh, gee, I don’t know. I think it would be best if people got the idea that family and social issues should not be handled at the barrel of a gun, BB or otherwise. I can’t figure out why this is not an appropriate prosecution, in a city plagued with too many guns and where just aiming any kind of gun will get you prosecuted, much less firing it. “Just because something is wrong doesn’t mean it should be prosecuted,” writes TMJ back-bencher Jessica McBride. Since when? I guess the McBride Doctrine kicks in when you don’t like the victim or, in the case of the Scooters, you like the defendants and their buddies too much.

At the same time they were encouraging BB moms everywhere to lock-and-load, the wing-nuts also came out in favor of other law violations at the Southridge Boston Store. There, the otherwise-empty cafeteria has managed to attract turn-away crowds several nights a week by holding an apparently illegal bingo game, and apparently had been doing so for years. No one was prosecuted and they were just told to knock it off, but you would think that the area was suddenly put under martial law.

The Journal Sentinel's resident wing-nut columnist Patrick McIlheran weighed in this morning, claiming that, since there is gambling going on all over the place, what the heck? "Maybe we should rethink just how hard we're cracking down on the few places where gambling isn't yet legal," he says. Yeah, who cares about the law. Besides, these are people who might listen to our radio stations and read our newspaper. They are, well, special, aren't they?

In the meantime, the wing-nuts have fully endorsed a new plan that would have everyone entering Mayfair will be treated with suspicion. Those under 30 will be carded (what is it, a bar?) and, after they pass inspection they will be given a wristband, like they are at Noah’s Ark or something. Now, do you think the young Mayfair patrons might benefit from the new wing-nut moral relativism?

Don’t count on it. See, according to the right-wing, anyone named Scooter, BB moms and senior bingo-players don’t have to follow the law. On the other hand, young black people trying to go to Mayfair have to do more than follow the law. They are presumed guilty of something. And, even after they are let in, walking around with those damn wristbands, they’ll still be considered a nuisance by the pampered class.

The message from the wing-nuts is that some laws should be followed and some don’t have to be. I think they should make a list, so we know which is which.

The Fringe is the Fringe

Beginning with 9/11, there has been no tragedy or near-tragedy that the Rove message machine has not used to advance one or a whole bunch of their twisted agendas. It happened again this Tuesday, as the compliant GOP surrogates were out in force to spin the suicide truck bomb attack that occurred near Dick Cheney in Afghanistan.

Even an attack on a deplorable human being like Cheney should bring out the noble and concerned in all of us. When our politicians suffer violent attacks or attempts on their lives, it affects all of us who stick our heads out to make noise, run for something or otherwise try to make a difference. Despite all of the death and devastation he has visited on tens of thousands of his fellow humans in Iraq and elsewhere, no one serious wants Dick Cheney to die a violent death himself. I think just the fact that he has to live with himself is bad enough for anyone to suffer.

But, opportunity being the mother of all spin, the wing-nuts were out in force already on Tuesday morning. None of them – I personally heard Limbaugh, Medved, Hannity, Ingraham and I’m sure there were many others – talked at all about how bad the bombers were or how glad they were that Limbaugh’s “personal hero” avoided injury. Instead of using the occasion to revel in a little bipartisan sympathy for “our” veep, the finely-scripted radio squawkers, like trained rats in a maze, decided to use the occasion to define all Democrats as Cheney-hating death-wishers.

To do so, they all pointed -- not so coincidentally -- to the little-read comments section of a story about the bombing on the Huffington Post. There, apparently, various anonymous commenters posted stupid things like “too bad they didn’t get him”, “better luck next time”, and such. These commenters, the wing-nuts claimed, are the heart and soul of the “Democrat” base. Look how they want our precious Cheney to die at the hands of the Taliban. Look how little respect they have for the office, the person, our souls.

This is a favorite game of the wing-nuts – to take the most extreme posts they can find out on the fringe somewhere and pretend like it’s coming straight out of the Democratic National Committee. It is how they define us for others who (they hope) don’t know better. Of course, most of the blogs they pretend to get all worked up about aren’t written by lefties at all, but by right-wing interlopers pretending to be lefty. Notice how Tuesday’s tirades all cited only the Huffington Post – isn’t it interesting how they all knew right where to look for these supposed outrages? Anonymous is as anonymous does. Which, I think, means anyone can leave stupid messages, but who is more likely to do so – an over-heated lefty on a caffeine bender in a Starbucks somewhere or a right-wing functionary, dutifully setting up strawmen?

But even if they are quoting sincere, if deluded, fellow travelers, so what? Right-wing sites have been raining down death hopes on Bill and Hillary Clinton for decades now, and no one takes them for more than the ravings of the lunatics they are. Left or right, the fringe is the fringe. That’s why they call it the fringe. The only difference is that people on the right-wing fringe have their own radio and TV shows, while the left fringe is left howling at the moon.

Just to be sure, I checked the venerable right-wing Free Republic site to see if I could find death wishes for a Clinton. On his radio show, Hannity loves to give props to his Freeper constituency, and they did not disappoint me. In one thread, the posters “discuss” a comment Bill Clinton made about the fear of death. “I can't wait for him to die,” says one. “Show us how it's done Bill,” says another. In another thread about a homeless man in trouble for death threats against Hillary, the clever comments keep coming: “Shooting is too good for treasonous, socialist scum,” says one sober commentator. “I would think that a barrel of hot tar and a bag of feathers would be more appropriate. Followed by a long drop at the end of a rope.” Well, alrighty then. Case closed, no?

Soon after the phony brouhaha started on the radio, the Huffington site searched out and deleted the oh-so-offensive comments and issued a statement about how no one is happy about the attempted bombing of the vice-president. But the battle was already won –another smear has been made, stuck in the collective subconscious of the wing-nuts’ targeted electorate, several more of whom are now under the impression that mainstream Democrats would be just fine with our vice-president getting hurt or killed in a suicide bombing overseas. The GOP political operation has no shame. But you’d think, at some point, the wing-nuts would get sick of reading the script.

[UPDATE: Thanks to Jay Bullock -- his comment below cites to an excellent (i.e.: better than mine) discussion of this same topic by Glenn Greenwald on Salon.]

Sykes and the Phony Gotcha

Charlie Sykes said Michael McGee Jr. said what?

In what is apparently his annual dog-and-pony show on Wednesday morning at the Hyatt – self-importantly titled "Insight 2007" and broadcast live – Sykes poked his head out from his studio cocoon to make a rare public appearance. Like all national and local wing-nuts, Sykes never appears in public for an honest debate – it is always at either a GOP political rally or a carefully choreographed event that is moderated and controlled by him. He hand-picks guests that are used to playing the game on his TV show or fellow travelers in the (hah) "new media" (read: right-wing blogosphere).

So when Sykes pulled out an audio clip of McGee Jr. saying something about gay activists and "the Jude cops" (the ones who beat up Frank Jude) being behind his recall, he got the usual "yeah, you’re right Charlie"s from his assembled enablers. But, anxious to believe the worst about McGee, Sykes took his race-baiting a bit too far this time, claiming that McGee said it was "jew cops" who were out to get him. Proudly proclaiming his phony "gotcha", Sykes spent a good ten minutes trying to get everyone on the panel to agree with his pretended outrage. It wasn’t hard, although the only African-American on the panel, Michael Holt, refused to play along, politely defending McGee while his in-control host used his hard-found lie to continue his rant.

Of course, the whole conversation was premised on a lie. Willing to believe the worst about McGee or any of the easy targets he uses to advance his agenda, Sykes throws mud recklessly. Truth is the last thing he’s interested in, whether it’s discussing McGee, Iraq, Jim Doyle or any other issue.

Somehow, Tim Cuprisin, the TV/radio columnist for the Journal Sentinel, got hold of the lie and ran it in this morning’s paper. Cuprisin is hardly a bulldog on wing-nut issues and provided a soft landing for his corporate brother (Sykes is on WTMJ, a Journal Company property), quoting the station manager (you mean there is one?) saying "a mistake was made" and that Sykes would deal with it on his Thursday show. Gee, I can hardly wait. And note the lack of an apology.

If any not-right-wing reporter, commentator or blogger had made any such "mistake" about one of their precious Republicans, Sykes and others would squawk for weeks until heads rolled. Don’t expect that here. Sykes will pretend it was an honest mistake and move on to the next lie, with the blessing of his toothless station manager and his Journal Company benefactors. Safe in his studio cocoon, he will avoid the accountability that would come for the rest of us; another sanctimonious suburbanite, free to continue poisoning the political environment in Milwaukee.

[UPDATE: Sykes did indeed admit his "mistake" and apologized directly to McGee as the first item on his program this morning (before most of his listeners are tuned in). Citing his show's "high standards" (as he would say, what a bunch of crapity-crap-crap), he got it out of the way before moving into more and different lies, regretting only that he got caught. No doubt, that's the end of it, although it shouldn't be. But Sykes benefits by his own double standard regarding politicians and media types saying stupid things they dearly want to be true. He can get away with whatever he wants; you and I better be careful.]

Molehills at Mayfair

Milwaukee’s radio-talking wing-nuts are off and running this week with race-baiting squawking about the supposed “crisis” at Mayfair Mall. When it comes to Mayfair – which bears the distinction of not only being the Milwaukee area’s best and most popular shopping center, but also its most integrated -- every little incident in the mall or even in the restrooms is played up as some sort of precursor to the Second Death of Northridge.

Jeff Wagner – the long-failed AG wannabe who currently serves as Charlie Sykes’ second(-rate) banana on WTMJ – got the ball rolling in his show on Saturday, a day usually reserved as a day off for the wing-nutty, while their stations are taken over by shows about mutual funds, gardening, computer repair and sports (lest the casual weekend listener discover the poison that the stations are usually up to). Wagner declared Mayfair "the Baghdad of Wauwatosa”. To Wagner and others determined to stir up fear and division in any potentially successful integrated situation, every minor incident at a bus stop is “near-riot”, and teenagers “brandish” firearms.

But leave it to Mark Belling to make the most of the conflict, going off on a racist rant on Monday. Proud to insert fear and hate into any discussion, Belling claimed that, because of issues that are “all about race”, Mayfair was in “crisis”. He went so far as to predict that a murder would take place at Mayfair within the next six months (I mean, we know how "they" are, don't we?), and that, after that, Mayfair patronage would fall by 40 percent. Waiving the racist ghosts of shopping centers past, Belling predicted Mayfair would go the way of not only Northridge, but Capitol Court.

He also brought the specter of the inner city to Tosa, claiming that 108th and North was becoming 27th and North. He reveled in racial code words and fears, claiming that young black people in the mall run in “packs”, violate the personal space of uncomfortable white people on purpose and flash gang signs. He said, without any evidence whatsoever (and no interest in the facts, anyway), that the same “trouble-makers” spending time at Mayfair in the winter were the ones cruising Sherman Boulevard in the summer. “The problems of the inner city are moving to Mayfair,” he declared, showing not only his willing ignorance of what goes on in Mayfair but also the gravity of the much more serious problems facing residents of the inner city.

Belling excoriated the management of Mayfair for saying everything was under control, saying that they wouldn’t hesitate to do something if white kids were the problem (without saying how would that be). He commanded that the multi-plex movie theater there be closed or, at least, restricted to those over 18. Now, there’s a good idea: Cancel all the nice kids movies that my son and I have watched happily there over the years and make more screens available for Saw II, or whatever. He also demanded that the mall exclude everyone under 18 who is there without their parents, like that could be determined and enforced.

I don’t know how any of this keeps young black people out of the mall, which Belling blatantly claimed was the real problem. The fact is that people like Belling and the people he wants to work into a racist lather are simply not happy that there is anywhere they want to go that is also frequented by African-Americans. More tiresome than even Belling himself were his callers, talking about how they won’t go to Mayfair anymore and how they fear for their children’s safety. One particular caller was given wide berth to talk about how all those inconvenient city residents were ruining not only Mayfair, but everything all up and down Highway 100. All people like that need are enablers like Belling and the other poison wing-nuts, who will go out of their way to validate their prejudices and to confirm their head-in-the-sand, us-against-them mentality.

As I listened to Belling's rant late Monday afternoon, I decided to drive out to Mayfair to see what the Baghdad of Wauwatosa really looks like. I entered at Marshall Field…uh, Macy’s and walked all the way down to Boston…yeah, still Boston Store along the first floor of high-end retailers. No problems there, as a somewhat diverse population – those who could afford it, anyway – attended to their needs and wants.

But if you have listened to the poison noise about Mayfair at all, you know the “problem” is on the second floor, where some of the stores are aimed at a younger demographic. Up there, there were indeed younger shoppers white and, yes, some African-Americans. None of them were trouble, all seemed to be doing more shopping than hanging and gang-signing. The only crimes I saw were of the fashion variety – there were these two young black guys walking proudly in pastel-colored pattern jackets and matching baseball hats that were just too much.

Whatever their motivation and degree of racist fear-mongering, the local wing-nuts always proclaim their love of Mayfair and concern for its future. But the agenda of Belling and the others has nothing to do with what’s really best for Mayfair or for Milwaukee. They have decided they must pander to the worst instincts of their angry-white-male audience to survive. And if they need to stir up racial hate and fear to do it, they are all too willing to do it.

If they really were so concerned about Mayfair, the best thing they could do is shut the hell up, stop making mountains out of molehills and support the legitimate efforts of Mayfair management and Tosa authorities to adjust to whatever problems there might be. Like Wisconsin Manufacturers and Commerce running down Wisconsin businesses in an election year, Belling and his ilk would rather destroy than build. In fact, destroy is all they do.

Money Trumps Peace

Of all the theater of the Bush years, I have always drawn a perverse pleasure from watching Junior at a press conference. Easily the dumbest president in history – making even the greatly-challenged Ronald Reagan look like a Rhodes scholar – Bush doesn’t participate in a press conference, he survives it. The look of relief on the faces of Bush’s handlers when he heads back to the shadowy safety of the inner sanctum after another embarrassing performance speaks volumes about the minor talents of their barely-passable puppet.

The attitude that Junior wants to project during a press conference is that of an impatient parent talking to annoying children. This is the tone taken by all senior Bushies, exemplified primarily these days by hired wing-nut Tony Snow. Each question is treated in a “how can you ask that?” manner, followed explanations that rarely go beyond “because we said so”. While Snow is snotty, glib and dismissive, Bush is simply ham-fisted, wrestling with words and phrases that keep bumping into each other in his empty head. All the while, he pretends to be chummy with a press corps he hardly knows.

The moments I savor in Bush pressers is when the light goes on in his head and he remembers what he is supposed to say about a given subject. At first, he puts on his “thoughtful” face. But, by the end of the sentence, he always winds up chuckling. Remembering and repeating the script they’ve given him (when he can) is a joy to Junior. He speaks as if, if he can understand things that are explained this way, what’s wrong with you? “Don’t you get it?” he wonders. “Christ, even I can figure this one out.”

You can imagine the brain-feed sessions in the Oval Office. “Mr. President, remember that big wall in Texas Stadium? What happened when balls went over the wall?” "Home run!” shouts the president. “OK, now, this escalation, uh, surge is like that big wall that we just need to get over so we can score some runs.” “Yeah, runs!” And so forth.

But, with Junior, as with all dim bulbs, a little knowledge and a clever phrase can be a dangerous thing. At his press conference on Wednesday, Bush was asked what we should say to countries that trade with Iran and that would lose an important market if that country were to be economically isolated. His off-the-cuff response was a moment of clarity rare in the carefully constructed fog of Bush Inc. No doubt it sent his handlers scurrying off to the back rooms to make sure the elite media either didn’t notice or ignored the gaffe of truth. (no need -- they ignored it)

“Sometimes, money trumps peace,” declared the president.

What a remarkable statement. Who, other than these greedheads that have run our government into the ground, talks like that? But it says a lot, opening a window into their dark souls. It explains what we are doing in Iraq.

In Iraq, money is oil. Money is contracts for Halliburton and other political contributors to provide services for our troops, security for our politicians and rebuilding the infrastructure we have destroyed. Money is the military industrial complex, that have tried to keep us stocked with bombs, tanks, guns and ammunition. Forget the maimed and dead soldiers and Iraqis, the shattered buildings and lives. The invasion and occupation of Iraq has done very well for Money in all its forms.

Money trumps peace. Of course, its so simple. If there is money to be made, then the peace be damned. And so it has been.

Thanks, Junior, for that brief, shining moment of truth.

The Smart Ones

My last post a week ago about the racist comments of Mark Belling and others after the over-hyped scuffle after a high school basketball game generated a bunch of comments. As usual, my favorites are those posted by a GOP surrogate who insists on being Anonymous. His or her last comment asked a question, and I figured I would bring the answer out in the main body of the blog so we could dissect and discuss.

"Why is it that nobody on the left can engage the arguments made by so-called Right-wing nuts without calling them racists or something? I thought you were supposed to be the smart ones..."

There are several deliberate flaws in this question/comment.

1) You can’t "engage the arguments" of wing-nuts, because they don’t make "arguments". Wing-nuts make assertions and then insist you agree and you are stupid if you don't. They tell lies repeatedly until some believe it, setting up straw-men that they then knock down with derision. They ignore the truth, even when exposed. Finally, they hide behind radio microphones and Anonymous posts so they don’t have to engage in real debate.

When is the last time Belling or Sykes (or, for that matter, Anonymous) exposed themselves to an honest public debate with anyone? Their TV shows don’t count – they drop their loud-mouthed radio personas and act as neutral moderators to the friendly panel that they construct. I would like to see, for instance, Belling show up anywhere in a public forum and spout the racist nonsense he spewed after Bradley Tech scuffle. He knows better, so he hides behind his microphone and his sanctimony. Anonymous hides for another reason. He or she won’t let me know who they are because to do so would legitimize me as a voice they have to deal with. Right-wing bloggers and radio wing-nuts only pick up lefty posts if they want to make fun of someone or show how "extreme" the Dem "base" is. And most of those posts they cite are phony, anyway.

2) I always argue against their ideas and not their person. I can and have without resorting to calling them "racist or something" – except when they are actually engaging in racist behavior. It is the supposedly-cerebral Sykes who has become so discombobulated with being wrong all the time that he has resorted to calling, for instance, Rep. Steve Kagen a "crap-weasel" and calling anything he disagrees with "crappity-crap-crap". It is they who engage in the politics of personal destruction, making up lies to belittle everyone from Pelosi to Hillary to Barak "Hussein" Obama so that they don’t have to engage them in a war of ideas.

In fact, I think I give them too much credit for trying to engage in real discussion at all. Radio wing-nuts don’t really want discussion or debate – they want GOP-friendly distraction and divisiveness. A Democratic politician once told me that he tried to call in to get a word in edge-wise on Sykes show and was told by Sykes that his show was "entertainment", and refused to put him on. I can’t imagine what is so damn "entertaining" about having Scott Walker or Alberta Darling with a direct line to the studio any time they want, but the bottom line is – they don’t care about real ideas and debate. As Limbaugh tells his listeners repeatedly, he is only interested in callers that make him look good. People like Sykes only pretend to be interested in public issues and discussion. All they really care about is the sound of their own voice and the advancement of the GOP agenda.

3) I don’t think we are necessarily the "smart ones" in the war of ideas. The construction of the wing-nut GOP echo-chamber by Karl Rove is a marvel of propagandic manipulation. Somehow, he got a whole roster – hundreds of talk-show sycophants and their enabling program directors – who were willing to do nothing all day long but repeat carefully constructed GOP talking-points. This goes right down to writing scripts for various levels (Limbaugh gets this spin, the local dudes get to talk about so-and-so in support, and the late-night ravers like Mark Levine and Michael Savage get to float trial balloons like nuking Iran). It’s quite something really, not constructed by dummies.

Liberals would never be able to construct that kind of message-discipline – nor should we ever want to. The difference between liberals and wing-nuts is moral, not mental. We have the truth on our side – and the wing-nuts and their puppet-masters are smart enough to realize that. That’s why they lie so much.

4) The question is not why I am calling out Belling for his racism. The question is: Why are he and others making blatantly racist statements and promoting division over understanding of the primary issue in Milwaukee and other cities – the legacy of slavery, segregation and poverty?

We are used to this with Belling, who withstood the use of a racist slur about Latinos several years ago and lived to brag and laugh about it. But, it appears, his entire radio station has gone off the deep end. Filling in for Belling on Thursday (who was off spreading his national nut-wings by subbing for Limbaugh), morning wing-nut Jay Weber tried and failed to counter a column by Eugene Kane of the Journal Sentinel. Kane is a favorite wing-nut lightening rod, because he eloquently focuses on racial issues in his Journal Sentinel column from (gasp!) a black perspective, making him the most important columnist in that paper and, perhaps, in the city.

Kane had the temerity, according to the undistinguished Weber, to try to explain a recent black-kids-hitting-white-guy incident on a city bus in terms that were not sufficiently outraged. Weber went off on a racist – yes, racist – rant about how the Bay View and Bradley Tech schools were being victimized by black kids being bussed-in from other parts of the city and how the inner city owes the "white and suburban community" a lot more than we owe them. It was an amazingly naked tirade by the near-amateur, trying to be Belling and finding himself way in over his head. In the middle of it, Weber recited the tired cliche: "I know this is not politically correct...." No, it’s not correct in any way. It’s racist. And it shows how far the standards have fallen for even already-bottom-feeding Milwaukee wing-nut radio.

But, what do you expect from a radio station that now proclaims itself "Your Conservative Home"? WISN is now running a promotion spot for the station that is a mock-commercial for coverage of City Conference basketball games, which, of course, the station doesn’t carry. "All the action, from center court to circuit court!" it claims. Now, that is the way that serious issues in the city should be handled -- with hate, division and mockery.

Or,as my dad used to say when he didn’t think it was: Idn’t that funny?

Rock and Roll High Schools

Milwaukee area teenagers have really lost their minds. To read, watch and listen to the hysterical coverage, there is nothing but conflict and police contacts. There's a fight, police get called, teens flee…it’s just an outrageous situation.

You probably heard about the recent events at Bradley Tech on the near south side, where cell phones, angry teens, over-involved parents and over-exuberant basketball fans have melded into quite an evil mix. All together now: Something Must Be Done. Supply your own exclamation points – I can’t do everything for you.

But other truths pop up in the strangest places. North Shore Now – a descendant of several formerly local and independent weekly newspapers, now homogenized and conglomerated by the Journal Company through their CNI subsidiary – has a story of a (gasp!) “fight” between about 40 Whitefish Bay and Nicolet High School students on January 27th outside the Jewish Community Center (!) on formerly quiet Santa Monica Boulevard.

Well! I know there weren’t any video cameras (were there?) so we could all watch our precious children battle on starved-for-footage cable news shows, but where is the outrage about these North Shore youths running amok? Where are the radio wing-nuts shouting about anarchy, bad parenting, lack of values and the break-down of societal mores?

It’s a rhetorical question, of course. North Shore kids -- hey, they're just bein' kids!

But the city kids at Bradley Tech...well, nothing exposes the naked racism of the wing-nuts like a little rumble in (certain) schools, streets and gyms by a bunch of bussed-for-integration African-Americans. Mark Belling is, as usual, the worst; just daring anyone to call him racist as he relates his own twisted history of the Tech/Bay View basketball rivalry (used to be a real rivalry, but none of the kids in the schools live there anymore, so…) and blames it all on black people acting like, you know, black people.

Belling is a vulture that lives for stories like this that he can pounce on and twist to affirm his racist view of the universe. He can deny his racism all he wants and as loudly as he can, but it doesn’t change the fact that his racist poison has inflicted this community for far too long. Others are either more subtle and supposedly cerebral (Sykes) or just lamely head-nodding, letting their too-willing audience fill in the blanks. But Belling is the worst, and he’s disgustingly proud of it.

So what about the Sharks-and-Jets North Shore dust-up? What about the fact (reported on page 19 of the ever-enlightening Now) that Shorewood High School has had to restrict the attendance at a dance to Shorewood students only. This is “because of what’s been going on with dances and guests”, according to the article. My god, what the hell has been “going on with dances and guests”? No details. Perhaps one of the local radio wing-nuts can take up the issue and random people can call in and claim to know. This is a favorite tactic of the know-nothing class – pretending to know something, anything, as long as it validates their prejudices.

I won’t hold my breath waiting for Belling and Sykes to take up teen terror on the North Shore with the same sort of breathless know-it-all-ness with which they dive into the sociology of the underclass high school student. They only explore the psyche of the suburban teen when there is a car crash, and, then, always with sympathy. Besides, admitting that suburban kids also make mistakes in the heat of passion takes the eye off their racist target. The truth eludes them once again, on purpose.

Stupid kids do stupid things – same as it ever was. This fact transcends racial and class boundaries everywhere except in Wing-Nut Land, where They are forever ruining everything for Us. After the supposed student-plus-parent conflict at Tech several weeks ago, Belling imagined what would happen if such a thing took place at Brookfield Central. I’ll tell you what would happen. Belling’s phone lines would be jammed with parents squawking about how right they were to do whatever they did. And Belling would be sitting on his lazy ass in the studio, blaming it all on the teachers.

Because Belling has been on the air since the Fairness Doctrine was revoked by Reagan in 1987, there is a certain acquiescence to the loud outrages they he gleefully foists upon the public every day. He is at his worst when he charges into racial issues, issues that demand the most sensitivity in this community, not the least. Like Republicans who still pursue Nixon’s Southern strategy, he uses code words and easy prejudice to stir the ghosts of Harold Brier’s old south side in what is still the most segregated city in America. His hate is more than a psychosis; it is a marketing tool.

McBride's Missing Marbles

There is one under the chair. Another one rolled into the fireplace and is now covered with soot. Her best steely fell in the heating vent and makes a weird clicking sound at night when the blower turns on. She wakes up when it happens and wonders what is going on.

Even though she doesn’t know they are gone and isn’t really looking for them, it is hard to deny the obvious: Jessica McBride is losing her marbles.

It started some time ago when someone had the bright idea to give her a floating spot on WTMJ on weeknights when the Brewers and Bucks aren’t playing. The formerly-respectable Journal Inc. radio station – now all-right-wing-all-the-time – apparently felt it needed a local wing-nut to lead-in to racist hate-monger Michael Savage at 11 p.m. McBride was plucked out of deserved obscurity – I guess everyone else in the GOP wannabe universe was busy.

On the radio, McBride sounds as if she can’t be bothered to open her mouth. Her attitude is of one who thinks everything she says is so obvious, it is beneath her to repeat it. She dutifully repeats the GOP talking points, but either isn’t bright or interested enough to learn the sub-points. So, for instance, if you don’t understand what is strange/funny/meaningful about Nancy Pelosi blinking 25-30 times per minute during the State of the Union – the primary and pathetic politics-of-personal-destruction bullet-point on Wednesday for every wing-nut from Limbaugh to Belling to Hannity to the deplorable Mark Levine – you are not going to get any help from McBride. Her cleverness evident only to her, McBride chuckles about the blinking in the empty studio, pleading for help from her silent producer, who leaves her twisting in her own vacant wind.

This past Monday, McBride decided to try out her strident know-nothing routine on the “issue” of Venezuela’s Hugo Chavez – a favorite wing-nut punching-bag – offering to provide help to needy people in Milwaukee. Because McBride is a third-level wing-nut, at best, she does not have the benefit of the fake lefty or seminar right-wing “callers” used by the front-line GOP surrogates to help her through the rough spots. She was challenged fairly effectively by two callers in a row, who refused to let her put words in their mouths (“So you’re saying Chavez is wonderful and Our President is evil?”, etc.) McBride tried to get by simply by repeating her own ill-informed preconceptions (the just-recently re-elected Venezuelan president was a “dictator”, she claimed) and raising her whiny voice, like someone who shouts when speaking to someone who doesn’t understand English – like that’s going to help. She was losing badly as the knowledgeable callers hung in there and called her many bluffs, a battle of wits in which McBride was decidedly unarmed. When her bullying failed, she resorted to the last refuge of the desperate wing-nut – she hung up on both of them.

But if McBride is, at least, regrettable as a talk-show host, she is even worse in her efforts at put her, um, thoughts in written form. On her WTMJ web page, McBride rambles on and on – she is a former Jurnal Sentinel reporter, badly in need of an editor. This is even more remarkable, considering she somehow got herself hired as a lecturer* in journalism at UWM. Looking at her incoherent blathering, you wonder how something like that could actually happen. You worry about the students that might come out of this particular J-school.

For instance, look at this end-or-the-year post, in which she purports to review 2006. In no less than 2,760 words (that’s eight single-spaced pages), McBride just lets her brain pour out all of her ’06 reflections, and it’s not a pretty picture. She starts with Brittany Spears and quickly segues into predictable wing-nuttiness: “Islamic fascist terrorists continued their war on our way of life, and the media, the courts, and half of America decided to give up and/or fight the administration instead…after months of the media saying we were losing the war (almost with glee), people started to believe it (which came first, the chicken or the egg?)”. Well, I think the chicken was killed in the original “shock and awe” and the egg blew up in a marketplace, but, yeah, I can see why she can’t figure these things out.

A large part of the undisciplined, sour-grapes rant has to do with the media supposedly ignoring bad Democratic behavior while trumping up Republican sins. Never mind that the exaggerated problems of, say Harry Reid or Sandy Berger (hilariously re-named “Burglar” by Limbaugh and validated by Educator* McBride) don’t really compare to Mark Foley chasing pages or prison terms for Duke Cunningham, Bob Ney and (soon) Tom Delay. Besides, the MSM covered the Reid and Berger stories anyway.

And so it goes, in fairly wacky fashion. My favorite part in the weird screed was in her choppy review of the people who died in ’06: “We lost Milton Friedman and James Brown too.” Now, there’s a pairing you wouldn’t expect. You also don’t expect the J-school lecturer* to miss the comma before the “too”, but, hey, it was posted at 1:45 a.m. – what do you expect?

More recently, McBride has come out at least three times to promote the former and new careers of her husband, former Waukesha DA Paul Bucher. It seems like a match made in heaven – the DA who used his office for various right-wing causes and the radio queen of, well, whatever she thinks she is queen of. During Bucher’s failed campaign for Attorney General, McBride promised to not to comment on the race. I don’t know why. Wing-nuts are the most compromised of political commentators, whether it’s Charlie Sykes and his right-wing funding or Sean Hannity starring at political rallies for various GOP candidates.

Now that the race is over, she has invoked her spouse in criticizing the guy who beat him for the GOP nomination for the DNA backlog. She also wrote a totally weird political obituary about him for a Waukesha paper and nominated him (along with Scott Walker, John Wayne and the Boots and Sabers blogger) for the new Milwaukee police chief. “He loves his new job. He'll kill me for writing this. (By the way, if I was actually serious, I wouldn't write this.)” Yipes. It’s embarrassing. By the way, although his “new job” is in a Waukesha law firm, Bucher is charging hard as a hired gun, taking the lead in trying to reverse the democratic process in the city by getting Michael McGee, Jr. recalled.

Finally, McBride leapt from the strange into the outright (unintentionally) comical this week, live-blogging the State of the Union address. From the first line – “Laura Bush looks good. How does she do it? So much stress...” – it is the unfiltered McBride. There is a hazy glow in her mind’s eye when she sees Junior Bush (“Bush looks good. Rested, confident.” You would too, if you had that much vacation time on the ranch.) There are the sooo predictable cheap-shots at Democrats (Kerry is “excessively tanned. Must be all that windsurfing.”; “Pelosi is standing and clapping. How does she want to take the fight to the enemy?... And I don't mean George Bush.”). McBride writing in real-time isn’t that much different than what she writes when she has time to think about it. It’s all sloppy, predictable and rambling. Funny, though -- nothing here in her real-time post about Pelosi's blinking. I guess she needed help the next day with that one.

Left to her own devices, McBride would just be another forgotten blogger, posting on Free Republic, maybe running the Sean Hannity fan club. However, WTMJ has decided to give her free air time to spread her disjointed poison. Since she is far from entertaining, McBride is on the air because the Journal Company wants more right-wing noise in the air, no matter how lame.

*Originally identified as a professor. The fact that she is only a lecturer is only a slight improvement, for UWM and for us.

The Journal Sentinel Redesign

I woke up at 4 a.m. this morning, made some coffee and took a seat in my living room, facing my front window. Scanning the snow-covered, empty pre-dawn street (no cars – this is Shorewood, after all), I sipped and waited. This was going to be good, I thought. I wanted to be one of the first to see It, to touch It. In fact, it was such a peaceful and lovely morning that, despite my best intentions, I soon nodded off.

I awoke to the light thump of a baggie hitting the door and falling to the deck outside. Breathlessly, I darted out to the porch – and there It was. Wrapped loosely in blue plastic, I could see the outline of strange design and fonts. The newly-designed Milwaukee Journal Sentinel (or so I thought) was finally here.

For weeks now, the editorial “we” at the paper had been warning, er, informing us of the redesign. A smaller paper footprint and other changes were promised, including “more local news and [wait for it] more local perspective on national and international stories”. Given the recent drift of the paper into talk-radio-driven hysteria, this is not necessarily a good thing.

As the noticeably smaller newspaper settled into my lap, my bleary eyes took in the wonder of the “new” front page. The biggest surprise was right at the top. It seems the newspaper has changed its name to the “Milwaukee Wisconsin Journal Sentinel”, with a little non-keyboard diamond between the “Milwaukee” and “Wisconsin”. Now, the newspaper with two names, apparently, has two locations. And they’re not kidding either – the two-word identifier is right there, complete with the little diamond, on the official masthead on page 5.

Editor Martin Kaiser explains the dramatic change on the front page: “We have added ‘Wisconsin’ because that’s where we’re from and that’s what we cover…” Well, whatever. But the M-W-J-S abandoned most of Wisconsin years ago, at least as far as distribution is concerned. If you don’t believe me, try getting a fresh version of the paper on your next trip to anywhere north or west of Green Bay. Putting Wisconsin in the title isn’t a commitment to the state – it’s a sop to the suburban areas where the paper imagines it can stop (or at least slow down) its dwindling subscriber and advertising base. “No,” the paper now says, “we aren’t from that nasty, dirty city, we’re from all of Wisconsin. Get it?” Is this the first step in the J-S abandonment of the city? Is this the precursor to a move of the editorial offices out of the city?

But, you have to wonder if they really serious about this. Are the reporters going to identify themselves as from the Milwaukee Wisconsin Journal Sentinel? If so, how many of the news sources will remind them that everyone knows Milwaukee is in Wisconsin? This is the first I've heard of such an ambitious reidentification of a newspaper's location. I just know I would have heard about it if it were happening elsewhere. I mean, I read the New York New York Times almost every day.

As it has in the past, by making their very name even more confusing (why not just call it the Journal or Sentinel and be done with it?), the M-W-J-S has now made their very existence more clumsy by trying to get too cute, marketing-savvy-wise. I give it about six months before they drop this ridiculous experiment in re-branding, if only because of a revolt in the newsroom. And the diamond will go along with it.

As for the new visuals, the each section of the paper takes up the top sixth of the page with a title of the section and fancy photos poking out of the bottom border. That way, you can just look at the page without reading and find out that there is a story about, say, man-chairs in women’s clothing stores or a column by suburban matron Laurel Walker inside. The font used for the headlines is lighter, thinner and, yes, friendlier. Even more death in Iraq goes down easier when brought to you with diamonds (!) instead of dots over the “i”. In fact, the headlines are so non-threatening, you can now avoid them altogether if you want, which is probably more the point.

In its re-branding and redesign, the Milwaukee Wisconsin Journal Sentinel takes another giant step backwards from the respectability and relevancy it has lost in the years since the two papers merged. The look of the paper now follows the content of recent years – desperately patronizing a suburban readership that has already moved on to other content-providers. By making its look less urgent, the paper has become more disposable.

Too Silly To Be True? It Probably Is.

A prime example of the way that talk-radio, cable-news and other discussion-polluters gin up phony controversy popped up this past week, and it says a lot about what they do to poison the dialog regarding important national issues.

This week, national and local wing-nuts pounced on the comments of a Weather Channel climate expert, Dr. Heidi Cullen, who posted on a Weather Channel blog back on December 21st, criticizing meteorologists that are certified by the American Meteorological Society (AMS) who facilitate unscientific “controversy” about humans contributing to global warming.

According to Mark Belling, Rush Limbaugh and countless other subscribers to the daily GOP talking-points memo, Cullen wrote that meteorologists who don’t “believe” in human-caused global warming should be drummed out of the AMS. This was proof, according to the wing-nuts, that Cullen was just one of many liberal thugs, who were trying to shut up anyone who dared to question the left’s global warming orthodoxy.

Both used their characterization of Cullen’s comments to go off on their usual rants about the motives of those who subscribe to the obvious and uncontroverted science of the global warming crisis. Limbaugh claimed they were Communists and Socialists who wanted to destroy American industry, for some reason. Belling called them “bigots”, although “bigoted” against whom, he couldn’t say. Sticking to the talking points, both implied there was some sort of controversy about the issue, without citing any opposing scientific research (because there isn’t any) and both, in the lamest of fall-back positions, claimed (falsely) that, even if humans caused it, there was nothing we could do about it at this point.

The wing-nuts have gone off on their global warming tirade before, usually chuckling at the supposed silliness of the concern when there is a snowstorm in Texas or something. “Hey, the fruit is freezing in Florida! Some ‘global warming’, huh?” But with the month-old hook of Dr. Cullen’s post (it must have conflicted with the right’s phony war-on-Christmas campaign back when it was actually posted), the wing-nuts were more shrill than usual about the whole thing. By twisting Cullen’s message, they got to squawk about not only the (to them) impossibly ridiculous global warming issue, but also the supposed attempt at mind-control by the dangerous liberals who (they say) try to shut down the expression all opposing thought.

Frankly, if Cullen’s comments were as presented by the wing-nuts, I might have almost agreed with them. But I knew before I even looked up the original post by Cullen this morning that the wing-nuts had twisted, interpreted, took out of context and otherwise misrepresented her intent and even the comments themselves. I knew they did because wing-nuts always raise the straw man, because they can't knock down anything else. After looking at the souce material, I was not surprised to find that they outright lied about it.

Dr. Cullen’s comments arise out of a small game of inside-baseball for meteorologists. Cullen was actually commenting on a post by a weather blogger in D.C., who heard an AMS-certified TV weatherman lend credence to the right-wing agenda by claiming that global warming may simply be part of “cyclical patterns” (a standard wing-nut cannard) and that no “generalizations” can be made from the available data. The D.C. blogger, Andrew Freedman, made the point that the TV guy would be lucky to pass a test in climate class and reminded him that the AMS itself had established three years ago – as has every qualified scientist in the world – that human activity is a “major agent of climate change”.

There is a reason for pretty-boy-and-girl TV weather geeks go out and get AMS certification. They want you to think that they speak with authority when they advise you to send Little Jimmy out with a coat tomorrow morning. Since they hold themselves out as some sort of perfect-toothed scientists, I would also say they have a responsibility not to get drawn in to happy-talk with the attractive (and decidedly non-certified) news-and-sports heads on the issue of climate change, and, if they do, they should try to get it right, according to science and not the wishful thinking of their SUV-selling advertisers. That was Freedman’s point.

Cullen took it, as she put it, “a step further”. First, she said “meteorologists have a responsibility to truly educate themselves on the science of global warming...they owe it to their audience to distinguish between solid, peer-reviewed science and junk political controversy.” Well, sure. Hard to argue with that, unless, of course, you are engaged in “junk political controversy” on a daily basis, as all wing-nuts are. Finally, she suggests, “if a meteorologist can't speak to the fundamental science of climate change, then maybe the AMS shouldn't give them a Seal of Approval.”

Notice she didn’t say AMS certification should be pulled for those ignorant of the basic facts; just that maybe (just maybe) the AMS shouldn’t give the Seal of Approval to someone spouting un-science (or, going along with those who do).

In response to the phony controversy, Cullen followed up with a post on January 18th: “The point of my post was never to stifle discussion. It was to raise it to a level that doesn't confuse science and politics.” Limbaugh played parts of the audio version of her clarification, but left out that important point. Wing-nuts never let the facts get in the way of a good poisoning.

Despite the obvious existance of global warming and its human-driven causes, the “issue” seems to be a favorite and permanent topic for national and local wing-nuts. Are they that co-opted by oil industry contributions to their GOP bosses? Is it because Al Gore had the termity to use his knowledge and celebrity to establish The Inconvenient Truth? More likely, the phony “they-are-coming-for-your-SUVs” message has replaced the old phony “they-are-coming-for-your-guns” paranoia for their angry-white-male demographic. Besides, more people have SUVs than guns, anyway.

There is an old adage that can protect you in an advertising marketplace that often promises the Moon and more: if something sounds too good to be true, it probably is. The same idea can and should be applied to wing-nut talk radio claims of outrageous liberal behavior. That is: if it sounds too silly to be true, it probably is. Such as it is with Dr. Cullen and her reasonable comments about the responsibility of those who know better (or who should know better) not to be browbeaten by political hacks into discussing phony issues in phony ways.

Bring Back the Viceroy!

In the cartoon version of the Bush administration’s Iraq “policy”, Junior Bush is Wille E. Coyote, holding on to the side of a cliff by one fingernail, his own badly-launched anvil sure to fall on his head at any moment, as the elusive Roadrunner of “Victory” scoots off into the sunset, never to be seen or heard from again.

To understand why the Bushies are holding so tight to their Iraq fiasco, you have to understand why they went there in the first place. This whole deadly adventure had nothing to do with WMD, Hussein, democracy, Bush’s father or any of the other moving-target, after-the-fact public justifications. There were three main motivations for the way-out-of-the-box-thinking neo-cons, and, unlike the public ruses, all of them still apply.

First and foremost, it is a neat place on a strategic map. Hussein's Iraq was the weakest regime amongst Israel’s neighbors and the radicals running our government wanted a reliable Arab puppet regime as a buffer for Israel and, more importantly, as a permanent military and power base for the U.S. They knew they couldn’t get away with a Shah installation like we did to Iran in the past, so we knocked off Hussein – the easiest of targets – and got ready for the Return of the Exiles. As exiles like Chalabi proved themselves to be worthless and worse, they made desperate deals with compromised leaders of the remaining tribal powers in the country and hoped for the best.

Second, oil. Who is running Iraq’s refineries these days, anyway? We know Iraqis themselves have to import gasoline and whatever they are allowed to receive from the country’s rich oil reserves has not made a dent in the cost of running their government or paying for reconstruction of whatever we blew up. The wells aren’t burning and we know the occupation made protection and continued production of the fields its first priority. The oil is flowing, alright, and not to (or for) Iraq. And you have to go all the way to Canada (via the internet) to find out that Iraq will, indeed, give its oil rights to “Western oil companies”.

Finally, private contractors like Halliburton, who have (literally) cleaned up on everything from feeding our sitting-duck troops to repairing (sporadic) electrical power grids to public relations (we are now farming-out our own lies) to providing “security” for the troops and various well-to-do official vacationers in the Green Zone. Various well-connected entrepreneurs have made a killing because of our Killing, whether they had something to offer the country or not. I was amazed by a little news nugget that didn’t make more noise – there really is a guy in the Pentagon that runs a political litmus test for contractors in Iraq. [I saw it in the Madison Capitol Times while visiting during the holidays, but I can’t find it anywhere on the internet now.]

So, it comes as no surprise that they will not let go. To lose the bases, control of the oil and all those billions of dollars to their contributors and friends is just too much. They need to string this out because the failure is all theirs. And their benefactors in the oil and private sector love this whole mess as much as the rest of America hates it. They will soak this tragedy for all it’s worth – and, to these sick bastards, it’s worth a lot.

So they trotted out Junior for a little talk to the nation last week. Bush has a strange look of serenity at this point, as if he sees the light at the end of the tunnel. He signed up to be the empty suit for these goons before he ran for Texas governor in 1994 and he hasn’t let them down. He is unburdened by pangs of consciousness or grief for the fallen because he has had nothing to do with it. He made his deal, he read his lines, like a good boy.

When Scott Pelley asked him on 60 Minutes if he knew Americans didn’t like him, he laughed like it was the silliest concern he could have. What does he care what those poor suckers think? In two years, he’ll disappear to whatever Shangri-La his handlers have promised to build for him and be done with it. Junior Bush will be the least-seen ex-president in history, and not only because no one will be interested.

Right now, all supposedly depends on the Iraqi “government”, such as it is. In his speech, Bush claimed that the Iraqis have agreed to a grand design that includes commanders, army and police “brigades” across Baghdad, patrols, checkpoints, door-to-door raids, etc. Then, virtually the next day, the New York Times reported that the Iraqis had signed off on nothing, and in fact resented the U.S. pretending to dictate a plan to them at all.

It is bound to fail because the Iraqis aren’t even going to try to satisfy Bush or anyone foolish enough to believe in this sad excuse for an end game. The question then is what’s next. I wouldn’t put it past these desperate men to try to re-impose the viceroy and the occupation and start all over. To them, it’s just strategic land, oil and profit. To the rest of us, it is the profound loss of peace, security and the American Soul.

STEVE KAGEN, RIGHT-WING PUNCHING BAG

The print, web and radio wing-nuts are really at their wit’s end these days (granted, not a far way to go). Still recovering from the November election – in which the electorate rejected not only their candidates, but also their slash-and-burn tactics – the GOP media surrogates flailed around for a month or so before returning full-time to their politics of personal destruction.

In Wisconsin, the wing-nuts seem to have settled on Rep. Steve Kagen, the new 8th District congressman for special treatment. Dr. Kagen, you’ll remember, had the temerity to beat their fair-haired boy, John Gard, for the seat formerly held by Mark Green (who?). While he was driving doomed right-wing agenda items like concealed-carry and TABOR through the State Assembly, Gard was one of the GOP politicians with a direct line to Charlie Sykes for access to free airtime and talking points. His loss was deeply felt by people like Sykes (who likes to brag about the elections he affects with his use of WTMJ’s government-provided spot on the radio dial) and Karl Rove, who poured (read: wasted) all kinds of money and energy on Gard's lost cause.

The success of Kagen apparently got under Sykes’ skin this week so much that Sykes went so far as to call the congressman a “crap-weasel”, both on his radio show and on his web site. Now, why would a sold-out pipsqueak like Sykes call out a U.S. congressman with such a strange, previously unknown epithet? It seems, like other wing-nuts desperate to set a negative tone for Kagen’s first term, Sykes forgot his usually patient (but phony) set-up and went straight to juvenile name-calling.

The event that got Sykes pretending to be offended was comments that Kagen made at a gathering in his district in December. Kagen supposedly cut loose with a story about chance meetings with Rove, Dick Chaney and Junior Bush on his orientation trip to Washington. When the apparently hyper-sensitive Sykes read selective details in a right-wing rag, well, it was just more than he could take.

Charlie Sykes used to be a real journalist, but now he is just plain sloppy as he stomps off to make his political points, whether what he is talking about is accurately reported or not. To set up his pretended indignation, Sykes took his lead from a “publication” called The Inside Scoop. The Scoop is, by all appearances, a northeastern Wisconsin GOP vanity rag, featuring many photographs of Scoop staff posing with Bush, Gard, Green and other dull-to-extinguished luminaries. A regular feature is what is supposed to be a humorous “column” by “Al Capone”, who writes about “his” fine relationship with Jim Doyle. The “yet to be indicted Diamond Jim has taken a page out of my playbook” claims “Capone”. God, it’s a riot. Stop. You’re killing me.

Knowing a soul brother when he reads one, Sykes is moved by the pretend-offense taken by whoever writes The Scoop, whose “teeth clenched” as he read about the meeting in The Scene, an “arts and entertainment newspaper”, also based in Kagen’s district. The report of the meeting in The Scene was actually pretty friendly and included several more-interesting nuggets ignored by Sykes. For instance, Kagen said he suggested to Rove that national health care means “no patient left behind” (heh-heh). Kagen also said he asked Cheney point-blank the question all of us would if we got the chance: what price he was willing to pay for the pipe-dream of stability in Iraq? (“I don’t understand your point,” said Cheney, who certainly did.) But these remarks are necessarily not included in Sykes’ rant. Apparently, taking advantage of an unusual break in the protective cocoon to challenge Bush, Rove and Cheney is impolitic or crap-weasely, or something.

Later in the week, Sykes decided that a White House denial of the encounters (reported in the Green Bay Press-Gazette) means they didn’t happen at all. Again resorting to I-know-you-are-but-what-am-I name-calling, Sykes called Kagen a liar by claiming he had the encounters that got Sykes so hot-and-heavy in the first place. So, now, if he didn’t get in Rove and Cheney’s face and didn’t diss Laura, is he still a crap-weasel, or what?

While he’s figuring that out, Sykes should check into the use of “crap-weasel” in the first place. According to the on-line Urban Dictionary, a crap weasel (non-hyphenated) is “any worthless induvidual (sic) who tries to steal credit for someone else's work; also someone who tries to pass blame on others.” This hardly applies to whatever is eating Sykes about Kagen, but certainly is a nice fit for Sykes himself, who regularly pretends that lines fed to him by GOP talking point memos are his own creation and certainly spends a lot of his time blaming anyone but himself and his Bushie friends for, oh, like the disaster in Iraq and stuff. Crap weasel, heal thyself.
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Fresh off their latest anti-Doyle spin, the Journal Sentinel’s in-house wing-nuts, Spivak and Bice, also picked up and ran with an anti-Kagen nugget from the blogosphere this week. You see, when someone on Kagen’s staff made up his official web site, they borrowed a template from a Nebraska representative and – get this! – people looking for flags are referred to the guy in Nebraska. Wow, this is big stuff, another feather in the Spice Boys’ cap for sure. As long as it makes a Democrat look bad (which this beyond-trivial matter doesn’t, anyway), the Boys are always there to help advance the GOP agenda.

And, as one hand washes the other, the Spice Boys repeat the Kagen-in-Washington, did-he-or-didn't-he story in their not-good-enough-for-the-paper blog and Sykes repeats the web-site story ("Dr. Rip-off").

SPICE BOYS TO THE RESCUE? UH-HUH!

It’s been a while since the Journal Sentinel has sent out their hatchet men, Spivak and Bice, for more blather about the feverishly-imagined sins of Jim Doyle. Belling and Sykes must have called up, looking for more material. As always, the Spice Boys and the J-S are glad to oblige.

Their column this Sunday had all the usual ingredients: Snide attitude (even a dismissive “uh-huh” in the headline), class envy (yeah, right, a lawyer charging $230 an hour is a price cut! Uh-huh.), suspiciously-timed payments (like someone would have noticed a payment on the well-known contract before the election, much less been able to make something of it), standard denials by bureaucrats (yeah, sure, uh-huh) and contributions “since 2000” from the lawyer to the governor (Matt Flynn being a life-long Democrat and (gasp!) friend, who is unlikely to contribute to anyone else).

All of that is expected from the Spice Boys. And, as it is with every S&B smear-job on Doyle, you can always see what’s missing. The column, as usual, has absolutely no proof of ill-gotten gains, dirty-dealing, quid pro quos, secret-keeping, Doyle arm-twisting or any other reason to cast aspirations on a fairly common, public and straight-up arrangement the state has made to get money owed to it by the Ho Chunk Nation (the Boys quickly gloss over the fact that Flynn’s work has already gained the state $30 million, with more to follow). But, in the world of the Spivak and Bice, who cares if you have the facts when you can pretend you do? They say politics had nothing to do with Quarles and Brady getting the work? “Uh-huh.” See how it works? The Spice Boys continue to give skepticism a bad name.

The snarky, unearned attitude of the Boys is unneeded for what they intend. All they have to do is run the information about the obvious-to-them nefarious dealing between Doyle and Quarles; run it straight in a news column, without the ‘tude. Sykes and Belling don’t need the help finding it – and if they do, their daily GOP talking-points will get them on track, probably for the next several days, if not all this week. If this is such a great “gotcha”, the facts should speak for themselves. But they don’t, do they?

The king of throwing money at legal contributors for state gigs is, of course, Tommy Thompson, who started the practice of giving state work to GOP firms after Doyle, as Attorney General, refused to handle various harebrained Thompson legal projects. Not coincidentally, there’s the J-S’s favorite Tommy, featured in another story at the end of the Uh-Huh column. Apparently Jim Klauser, Tommy’s “longtime right-hand man” (no “flack”, “henchman” or “bagman” name-calling for this crew), held a fund-raiser for Mitt Romney. Yeah, but Our Tommy’s running! Not to worry, sigh the Boys in relief. An unnamed “ally” of Klauser assures them he is in Thompson’s corner. Whew! Close call? Uh-huh.

Notice the deference granted Thompson and Klauser in all S&B columns. All their words are taken at face value, and the drama is always whether things are going to be Good for Tommy. The J-S inexplicably is treating Thompson’s “campaign” for president as legitimate, bragging that he got “commitments” of $1 million at a recent fundraiser. Wow. $1 million dollars in a presidential race. Only $99 million to go! The real, non-homer media people are holding their breath watching Thompson step in, lest they break out laughing.

The real news is that Klauser is raising money for Romney, who is the most likely to fill the Rove-managed empty-suit to be vacated none-too-soon by Junior Bush. More likely, Tommy is “in the race” (uh-huh) just in case all the other damaged Republican candidates flame out, as all of them just might. I mean, somebody has to be there in the history books with an (R) next to his name when the ’08 45-state landslide by Clinton or Obama or Edwards is documented.

IN OVER HIS HEAD

Sometimes, I can almost tolerate Mark Belling. On very rare, once-a-month occasions, his patronizing, bar-stool-level blabbering is almost charming, even if he doesn’t really think what he says he does half the time. His stoop-to-conquer routine has worked for years, if only because the alternative for the angry-white-male demographic he panders to is – ugh – Jonathan Green.

Whether he’s reading GOP talking points or making up his own nonsense, Belling is always poison, always wrong, but seldom over his head. After all, how can anyone be overcome while carping about light rail, ethanol, loony (lefty or black) aldermen or a phony War on Christmas? But Belling really got out of his shallow depth this week when he compared two retiring district attorneys -- Milwaukee’s E. Michael McCann and Waukesha’s Paul Bucher – and, blinded by shameless party loyalty, was as wrong as he could be.

I hate to swing around my own credentials here, but, here goes. I have worked as a criminal defense attorney for the better part of the last 20 years, mostly in Milwaukee County. McCann actually hired me out of law school, and I worked for him for six months in the short-lived paternity unit (!) before fleeing to the safer (for me) haven of the Public Defenders Office. He actually ended up firing me for not showing up for work after I started at the PD. He let me have it in his office for an hour and I left in tears.

As a defense attorney, I had enormous respect for McCann and his staff, especially after spending three years practicing in Racine, where everything was charged with very little thought or compassion. McCann hired talented, interesting people who were more interested in doing justice than padding their conviction or sent-to-prison stats. Sure, as in all large offices, some of them are more wrong than others. And the office (and judges) sometime responded to political campaigns – driven by people like Belling – on lock-'em-up issues like guns, drugs and drunk driving that caused absurd amounts of jail and prison time to be thrown around like candy to an electorate with a sweet tooth.

McCann was far from perfect, starting with the kid gloves with which he treated bad cops. There was no cop shooting or beating that was unjustified in his eyes, and that was wrong. He also drove some in his office crazy, refusing to update office equipment – desks, chairs, carpeting – in the decrepit Safety Building and the DAs were way behind the times in terms of computerization of basic case management. McCann was known for his sackcloth-and-ashes humility – for instance, he refused to let himself be passed-through the security screening in the Safety Building when it first started.

But McCann, everyone knew, was beyond reproach. If you came to McCann arguing anything but the straight facts and the needs of justice, he wouldn’t hear you. An old-school ‘60s (as in Kennedy) Democrat, he was totally non-political. To the last day, he treated his job as a sacred trust. He was like a damn priest about it.

Never one to let the facts get in the way of an argument he wants to make, Belling wildly defames McCann in a column this week. McCann, proclaims the know-nothing Belling, “is a longtime burnout concerned more about conviction rates than justice, who never saw a plea bargain he didn’t like and was burdened with a sense of guilt that made him better suited to representing criminals, not trying to jail them.” Man, what a load. No one who has worked in the criminal justice system in Milwaukee for the last 40 years would even think such things about Mike McCann. Burnout? The man was passionate and energetic to the end. There are ten of thousands of people doing many years in prison because McCann and his staff stuck to their charging decisions and many of them could hold their own with the best of the Milwaukee defense bar. Belling’s reckless charges are an insult not only to McCann, but to the assistants who followed his lead.

If his childish slander against McCann is bad, his lauding of Republican Bucher is worse. Bucher was a lousy, publicity-seeking hound, whose first run for Attorney General was short-circuited by his very-public botching of the Mark Chmura prosecution. He ended his term with a disgusting piece of political skulduggery, putting out the word the week before the November election that he was “investigating” the State Election Board decision about Mark Green’s dirty money, on the basis that they had a meeting in Waukesha around that time. It was an absurd bit of showboating, but the anti-Doyle Journal Sentinel was happy to run a story about it. Perhaps Belling's unjustified accolades for Bucher are caused by his oneness in spirit with Bucher's wife, the pathetic Jessica McBride, who helps poison the electorate on another radio station when the Bucks aren't playing.

Mark Belling should stick to trying to talk his listeners into supporting a war against Iran, giving more tax breaks to the rich and further restricting civil liberties. When it comes to the facts on the ground in the Milwaukee County Courthouse about E. Michael McCann, he has no idea what he is talking about.
...

I went to file something in McCann’s former office on the 4th floor of the Safety Building this week. Just like in the movies, there was a guy putting the name of the new DA, John Chisholm, on the frosted glass outside the door. Chisholm is an excellent example of the people McCann hired – tough, fair and always interested in the elusive goal of “justice”. Because of Mike McCann we have people like that – and not hacks like Paul Bucher – carrying on a fine tradition. Only, I hope, with better desks and chairs.

JOURNAL SENTINEL TWISTS THE INAUGURATION

You have to feel for the state-house reporters and editors of the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel. In the months before their favored candidate for governor, Anybody-but-Doyle (otherwise known as Mark Green, although you are forgiven if you forgot him already), the J-S content-providers were busy working up their front page for January 4, 2007. In their mock-up, “A New Day” competed with “A New Day in Madison” for the headline over Green’s happy, just-inaugurated face, the longer headline losing out only because it required a smaller font size.

But, despite their best efforts, such was not to be. Green was properly thumped, losing by more than 10 points. The stunned J-S-ers could hardly believe it, blaming the result on “late-deciding voters” on the morning-after, even though Doyle was ahead the whole race. After brooding about it for a week-and-a-half, state-house veteran reporter Steven Walters went off on Doyle in the opinion pages for no good reason, claiming he was poisoned by ambition, obsessed with the second term even while his poor mother watched him get sworn in the first time and urging him into retirement.

Since then, the Journal Sentinel proudly front-paged a story about contributions to the Boys and Girls Clubs for special inauguration parties, claiming that Doyle was selling access by, um, getting people to give money to the worthy charity. This drew a rebuke from the president of the Boys and Girls Clubs, who got space in the next Sunday opinion pages to let the J-S and “WTMJ (620) talk shows” (read: Charlie Sykes) have it: “Yes, it's a sad day when public servants and community benefactors are criticized and derided for doing good for their communities and for the less fortunate children in our state. Alas, none of that seems to matter for some people if there is a way to twist it into a story.”

But the Journal Sentinel, when not twisting non-stories into scandals, continues to try to twist Doyle away from the perception of success. Just last week, the J-S front-paged yet another anti-Doyle non-story about a minor violation of ethics rules for accepting and paying for football tickets, the sort of thing that sent Tommy Thompson and his former gang of ethically-challenged professionals scurrying to the law books, hoping for a lenient statute of limitations for such things, and worse. (Worry not, Tommy – not that you ever had to with the J-S “watching” during your days of pioneering pay-for-play in Wisconsin).

Now comes the inauguration of Doyle for a second term. This is the sort of thing that has always been played on the front page the day after; a journalistic ritual much like the somber coverage of a former president’s death that we just endured. But good news for Doyle, again, means bare-minimum coverage in the Journal Sentinel. The article about the inauguration and Doyle’s speech ran on the bottom of the Metro section and jumping – you guessed it – to the Obituary page. Before the article falls off the bottom of the page, a photo is included of Doyle passively watching the passing of a color guard.

But, no, the J-S will squeal – we had a color photo on the front page! And what a picture it was. The governor is shown in a shot from the rafters, behind the lectern as a small speck, dwarfed by an American flag and the LaFollette bust. If you didn’t know Doyle was bald, you wouldn’t know it was Doyle speaking.

The article on the Metro page showed the under-whelmed Walters and Stacy Forster (hardly a two-writer story) yawning at their keyboards, barely able to stay awake while they produce the bare minimum of inches for the story. “As he did four years ago…” they write, and, god, who can read anything after that? Doyle had to share the story with the swearing-in of the new legislature and AG J.B. VanHollen. In paragraph 19, deep on the obit page, the article makes its only mention of what Doyle “said” his accomplishments were in the first term. Hey, J-S, don’t hurt yourself giving Doyle his due or his say.

With a Democratic Senate and a more-friendly Assembly, Jim Doyle may well be able to get some things done in his second term. He can expect nothing in term of help or credit from the strangely hostile Journal Sentinel.