Glenn Reynolds and others are attacking Fritz Hollings. On the behalf of the entertainment industry, he's pushing a set of ridiculous copy-protection restrictions that (a) probably can't be achieved and (b) would infringe on existing fair-use rights. Den Beste has a typically incisive commentary on the absurdity and technical impossibility of the bill that Hollings is trying to push. Hollings deserves all this abuse and more, and this is a great opportunity for a minor-league Sistah Souljah moment from a Democratic presidential wannabe.

What I don't understand is Reynolds' simultaneous insistence that (a) the Democrats, especially Hollings, are acting against the public interest because of campaign contributions from the entertainment industry, and (b) this isn't evidence that we need campaign finance reform. Why not?

Yesterday, after Ari Fleischer backtracked after blaming the violence in Israel on Clinton's peacemaking efforts, I thought to myself, "I'll bet the Wall Street Journal opinion page will still find a way to blame Clinton tomorrow." But I didn't blog it. I thought I was being unfair and partisan, and I'd be angry if a right-wing blogger said the same sort of thing.

It turns out that I was wrong to doubt the immaturity of the Wall Street Journal.

"A decade ago, Mike Kinsley famously defined a gaffe as "when a politician tells the truth." White House press secretary Ari Fleischer committed a gaffe yesterday when he remarked that Bill Clinton's desperate pursuit of a peace deal helped exacerbate Israeli-Arab violence."

You know, Fleischer said an offensive, stupid thing off the cuff yesterday, but at least he apologized. The Wall Street Journal had all day to think about it, and they printed this. Appalling.

Media Whores Online puts Trent Lott's "How dare they" reaction in context:

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Senate Democratic leader Tom Daschle, in remarks immediately assailed by Republicans, said on Thursday there seems to be "expansion without at least a clear direction" in the administration's war on terrorism.

"Before we make commitments in resources I think we need to have a clear understanding of what the direction would be," the South Dakota Democrat told reporters, reflecting a growing Democratic concern.

Trent Lott reacts to Daschle comments - (02/02):

"How dare Sen. Daschle criticize President Bush while we are fighting our war on terrorism, especially when we have troops in the field."
- Trent Lott, February 28, 2002

Trent Lott reacts to Clinton military action
(Operation Desert Fox - 12/98):

"I cannot support this military action in the Persian Gulf at this time. Both the timing and the policy are subject to question. I am opposed to endangering the lives of brave American men and women in the military for action in Iraq that will not effect real change in that nation."
- Trent Lott, in midst of Operation Desert Fox

Senator Lott, who surprised some Republicans with his statement of opposition to an overseas military enterprise, said he favored a "more clearly defined" operation
- (NYT, 12/98)

Andrew Sullivan has finally got some real anti-war left rhetoric to crow about. From Tom Daschle, no less! According to Sullivan, "Daschle figures he has no choice but to risk everything to undermine the war in order to gain some political traction against the president." Sullivan forgot to provide any links or quotes from Daschle, so I guess we'll have to go to the AP wire how this slimy coward is undermining the war, shall we?

"Daschle said the United States must find ex-Taliban leader Mullah Mohammed Omar and Osama bin Laden and other leaders of the al-Qaida terrorist network, "or we will have failed."

"I think that it's critical that we keep the pressure on," he added. "We do the job that this country is committed to doing. But we're not safe until we have broken the back of al-Qaida. And we haven't done that yet.""

Oooh, that pinko surrender-monkey! Go back to France, where people who say "We do the job that this country is commited to doing" can share concern. How dare he insist that we keep the pressure on! What kind of hippy-dippy crap is this, saying that we have to keep fighting until we break our enemies! Doesn't he know that there's a war on?

This is Sullivan at his irrational Dem-bashing worst. How loyal does Daschle have to be before he gets any credit for it from the right? Daschle's comments could be a paraphrase of anyone in the Bush administration. Daschle is more hawklike, if anything. Daschle's insisting that we have to capture or kill the leaders of al-Qaida, while Rummy et al. have been downplaying the importance of capturing the guys who actually planned the September 11 attacks. Daschle is showing steel here, not undermining the war. But that's not going to stop Sullivan from bloviating that "The anti-war left is back with a vengeance. And the battle to protect this country has only just begun." I think that Sullivan owes Daschle an apology. Fat chance, I know.

UPDATE: I've just read the whole Washington Monthly article that Sullivan cites. I'll be damned if I can find the part where it calls on Democrats to undermine the war in any way, shape or form. Rather, it looks at the aggressiveness deficit between Republicans and Democrats. It calls on Democrats to fight for the causes that they believe in, and counter Republican gutter tactics and personal smears (like commercials morphing Daschle into Saddam Hussein; that was just disgusting). It's a great article, and I'm glad that someone said it besides BartCop. If you believe that disagreeing with Bush in any way necessarily makes you a member of the nefarious "anti-war left", then I can't talk to you.

Andrew Sullivan is having a good time with the don't-spook-the-horses mentality of Details and Men's Health. But TVGoHome did it better when they programmed "One Hundred Percent Straight Night." Check it out.

Ari Fleischer did his part to push the era of personal responsibility by blaming Clinton for current violence in the Mideast. What a surprise. According to Fleischer, Clinton tried to "push the parties beyond where they were willing to go," Fleischer said. "It led to expectations raised to such a high level that it turned to violence."

This is an easy ‘n’ fun line of argument, huh? If Clinton made an earnest effort to solve an intractable problem, and it didn’t get solved, it’s now Clinton’s fault! This is great- Bush will never have to take responsibility for anything ever again!

Ari Fleischer: “The Buck Stops Somewhere Else”

UPDATE: He's already apologized. On the same day!

I am proud to present The Breakfast Club Guide to Blogdom.

Molly Ringwald: Virginia Postrel
Ally Sheedy: Stephanie Dupont
Emilio Estivez: Oliver Willis
Anthony Michael Hall: (Space reserved for George Will)
Judd Nelson: Stile Project (warning: contains abundant nudity)
Prick Teacher: Ken Starr doesn't blog, sorry
Wise Janitor: Glenn Reynolds

You don't like it? Do better.

Ginger Stampley mentions getting spammed by a political candidate in California. I've got a story. During the 2000 presidential elections, I sent an email to the Bush state campaign where I was registered, criticizing him for his efforts at the time to duck or minimize the debates. A few weeks later, I got spam back from the Bush campaign, encouraging me to get out the vote or something. The problem was, the jackass behind the email campaign had sent the spam out as a regular CC, not a blind CC. I could see the email addresses of well over a thousand other people who had presumably sent the Bush campaign an email.

Immediately, my inbox was flooded with emails from irate people who replied to the whole recipient list, asking to be taken off of the list. This was soon followed by a wave of irate emails scolding the other people for replying to the whole recipient list. A third wave criticized the people who had sent the second wave. A few people saw the recipient list as a ready-made Republican listserv, and some merry prankster sent a photoshopped nude Anna Kournikova to everyone. That sparked another round of complaints. The idiot from the campaign who had sent out the original email apologized about two days later, sparking another round of complaints from people who demanded that he fix it, somehow. All in all, I got over 50 emails from that list. I no longer have access to that email address, but for all I know, it's still flaring up periodically.

From John Fanzine:

Dinosaurs “May Have Been Gay” claims Palaeontologist

Dinosaurs might have been puffs, according to a controversial new study published in the leading archaelogical journal, Bones.

Archaeologists at the University of Camembert's School of Digging carried out an investigation into the social habits of the stegosaurus, by analyzing thousands of bio-clues discovered in a warehouse in central Luxembourg.

Research assistant Pierre Lapin told us "The stegosaurus was an extremely gregarious creature. They would roam in large groups and probably bum each other senseless all summer. It's no wonder they died out."

When challenged to back up these extraordinary claims, Monsieur Lapin ran off and hid behind a fridge.

In the unlikely event that there's someone reading this who doesn't read Instapundit or James Lileks, go now to this hilarious piece ripping apart the kind of lazy know-nothing American-bashing non-journalism that I learned to despise from the British press. Some knucklehead goes to to one Olive Garden, talks to one person, and fills the rest of his piece with a bunch of "One supposes..." about the other 285 million people. And yet he's getting paid to write, while I have to crawl through filth to bang this out. Funny old world.

A train full of Hindus was set on fire by Muslim activists in India. According to this story, 57 Hindus died- 15 children, 25 women and 17 men. I'm so sorry.

Frank James apparently explained how he got the idea that Ken Lay slept in Clinton's White House:

"Mr. James denies that he picked anything up from the Drudge Report. Instead, he told me that on a tight deadline he had mentally "transposed" Bill Clinton’s name into his memory of an article he’d read about another President who hosted Mr. Lay in the White House. That President was, of course, the father of the current President."

Whoops! Hey, it happens all the time, right? Who can forget the Ramones' classic "Bubba Goes to Bitburg"? Boy, were their faces red.

Meanwhile, Fred Barnes shows that punditry means never having to say you're sorry. You can still read this on the Weekly Standard site, with no correction or apology: "Clinton, it turns out, not only played golf with Ken Lay, the Enron chief, and hosted him overnight in the Lincoln Bedroom but also helped Enron win foreign contracts." Liar.

From SatireWire:

CHENEY DENIES PUBLIC REEMERGENCE MEANS BUSH THINKS HE'S EXPENDABLE

My favorite quote: "To learn more about the Vice President, tune in to the History Channel Saturday at 8 p.m. for "Remembering Richard Cheney: Second-in-Command, First in Courage." Or check his upcoming travel schedule, which the Secret Service will accidentally be losing at retail and specialty stores along the way."

You probably don't need me to tell you that Al Sharpton is a bad, bad man. His behavior in the Tawana Brawley case was absolutely disgraceful, and his demagoguery against Korean entrepreneurs who tried to provide goods and services to black communities was loathsome. In 1991, when a Jewish driver hit a black child, he inflamed the situation by falsely claiming that a Jewish ambulance company refused to pick up the boy for treatment, and demonized the Hassidic community at his funeral. Later, an angry crowd stabbed an unrelated Hassidic rabbinical student to death.

Liberals have absolutely no business being soft on this clown, especially as he toys with the idea of running for President. I can't read the front-page Salon story about him today, but I hope that it's a slam. I hope that it's harder hitting than this puffy Salon interview, which never brings up Jews or Korean grocers, and asks hard-hitting questions like "Are you ever sorry you go involved in the Brawley case?"

If Sharpton was a man, he would devote his energies to paying back the police officers that he accused of kidnapping and raping Brawley. Instead, he got up in front of a judge and claimed that he had no assets, no bank account, and didn't even own his own suits. Jonah Goldberg called him on his lie. Wicked awesome, Jonah.

I don't know why I didn't link the thoughtful Electrolite sooner.

Andrew Sullivan is right on with his comments about a Details cover of Josh Hartnett. He's pointing out how men's magazines are pulling off a bizarre rough trade tap-dance, trying to keep their gay readers happy while acting 110% straight.

Josh Hartnett is bugging me for another reason right now. His new movie, "40 Days and 40 Nights", has got to have one of the most insulting premises I've ever heard. The tagline, in case you haven't heard, is:

"One man is about to do the unthinkable. No sex. Whatsoever. For 40 DAYS AND 40 NIGHTS."

Well, knock me over with a friggin' feather. If that's unthinkable, I must be a superhero in disguise. In my single days, I "did the unthinkable" more times consecutively than I'd like to admit. Maybe if I was a Hollywood producer, fending off desperate wannabes for 40 days and 40 nights would be the modern-day equivalent of lassoing a cyclone. In my world, it's pretty easy. For the next MTV contest, maybe Josh Hartnett could personally kick sand in my face and steal my lunch money.

I've just gotten an email from an editor at the Chicago Tribune, saying that the following correction was printed in Sunday's paper:

"An article on Jan. 13 reported that Kenneth Lay, former Enron Corp. chairman, was an overnight guest at the Clinton White House. Julia Payne, former President Bill Clinton's spokeswoman, says Lay did not stay overnight at either the White House or Camp David during the Clinton presidency. The Tribune regrets the error."

Fair enough. I'd like to see it online, but at least they've retracted it. I hereby let the Chicago Tribune off the hook.

Matt Drudge has not replied, and has not posted a correction to the Jan. 11 story that started it all. In fact, I just did a few searches on the Drudge Report archives, and I can't see that he's ever published a retraction or correction of any sort.

UPDATE: Reader David Margolies points out that Matt Drudge retracted the charge that Sidney Blumenthal beat his wife. He's right; I forgot about that.

Unbelievable results in a poll of the Muslim world.

"Of those surveyed, 67 percent saw the September 11 attacks as morally unjustified, while 15 percent of the respondents said they were morally justified.

But an even greater number -- 77 percent -- said the U.S. military action in Afghanistan was morally unjustified compared with 9 percent who said it was morally justified.

The survey also found that 61 percent said they did not believe Arab groups carried out the terrorist attacks on New York and Washington. Of those surveyed, 18 percent said they did believe Arab organizations were responsible."

61% think what? 15% see the September 11th attacks as morally justified? Do we live in the same fucking universe as these people?

Ken Layne has a righteous attack on the music industry today. Check out the links.

Everything you need to know about writing in one essay. Get the hell out of here, Strunk and White!

Here's a priceless pearl of wisdom:

Lesson 3-Choosing A Title

A friend of mine recently had a bunch of articles rejected by the Reader's Digest and, unable to understand why, he turned to me for advice. I spotted the problem at a glance. His titles were all wrong. By calling his pieces such things as "Unwed Mothers - A Head Start on Life," "Cancer - The Incurable Disease," "A Leading Psychologist Explains Why There Should Be More Violence on Television," "Dognappers I Have Known and Loved," "My Baby Was Born Dead and I Couldn't Care Less" and "Pleasantville - Last of the Wide-Open Towns," he had seriously misjudged his market. To steer him straight, I drew up this list of all-purpose surefire titles:

________ at the Crossroads
The Case for ________
The Role of ________
Coping with Changing ________
A Realistic Look at ________
The ________ Experience
Bridging the ________ Gap
A ________ for All Seasons

Simply fill in the blanks with the topic of your choice and, if that doesn't work you can always resort to the one title that never fails:

South America, the Sleeping Giant on our Doorstep

"Charles Dodgson" has an excellent, disturbing essay about libertarianism and slavery. Go read it.

Republicans and Democrats in Congress are in a bidding war to provide a better package of prescription drug benefits for seniors.

"Each party is recommending drug subsidies far beyond the $190 billion for the coming decade that Bush included in the budget he sent to Congress this month. The most expensive proposals, being circulated by Senate and House Democrats, could cost more than $700 billion...Republicans appear somewhat more united. House Speaker J. Dennis Hastert (R-Ill.) and Senate Republicans want to spend at least $300 billion to subsidize medicine for some older Americans during the coming decade... A Washington Post-ABC News poll last month showed that nearly three-fourths of Americans ages 30 and older believe that Bush and the Congress should give a high priority to helping the elderly pay for medicine."

Today's catechism:

What's going on? Republicans and Democrats are both struggling to provide benefits to the elderly.

Why? An idealist would hope that they, like the American people, think that it's the right thing to do. A cynic would note that it's an immensely popular move, which caters to the most active, powerful special interest group in the country. The AARP is rated as the most effective PAC in the country.

Can we afford it? Not even close. This is on top of the largest budget in history, partnered with a massive tax cut for the rich which no one is consistently opposing.

What's going to happen after 2010? Baby boomers will begin to retire in huge numbers.

Aren't they going to want increases in retirement benefits, too? It's always dangerous to generalize about millions of people, but the spirit of sacrifice has not always been strong with the baby boomers. I think it's safe to say that they will lobby mightily for increases in benefits. And they'll get them; it'd take a far, far greater class of politicians than we have to face them down.

How will we pay for them? I've got my money on the mother of all tax hikes.

Everyone can see this coming. Why aren't we saving for it now? Beats me.

Andrew Sullivan quotes an interesting story which asserts that we're living in a post-gay world:

"In urban environments in First World nations these days, the people who actually care if you’re gay are limited to some (not all) fundamentalist Christians and some teenage boys who dislike their own homoerotic impulses. As far as I can see, tell, hear, feel and sense, nobody else gives a damn. Since I have no interaction with those fundamentalists or teenage boys, my being gay has about the same effect on my daily life these days as a straight person’s heterosexuality has on theirs… We won and I’m over it."

It's a good article. Sullivan generally agrees with it and says that "post-gay" is a worthy goal, but we're not there until we resolve the civil rights issues around homosexuality. That sounds good, but I think that they're underestimating the widespread disapproval of homosexuality in the U.S. I'm looking at the General Sociological Survey, a 90 minute biennial survey conducted of 3000 random adults conducted by the University of Chicago's National Opinion Research Center. I spent some time working with NORC in grad school, and they do rigorous survey research as well as anyone.

The most recent data they have on their website is for 1998. I ran a cross-tab of two questions:

HOMOSEX: "219. What about sexual relations between two adults of the same sex--do you think it is always wrong, almost always wrong, wrong only sometimes, or not wrong at all?"

SRCBELT: "51. SRC (SURVEY RESEARCH CENTER, UNIVERSITY OF MICHIGAN) NEW BELT CODE" (a tag of urban/suburban/rural areas)

In 1998, out of adults who answered the question nationwide:

62% said that same-sex sexual relations were always wrong
6% said that they were almost always wrong
7% said that they were wrong only sometimes
25% said they were not wrong at all

So overall, we had almost seven in ten Americans saying gay sex was "always wrong" or "almost always wrong" in 1998.

In urban areas, attitudes are less negative, but people who don't like homosexuality are still in a clear majority. Among residents of the twelve largest central American cities,

53% said that same-sex sexual relations were always wrong
7% said that they were almost always wrong
9% said that they were wrong only sometimes
31% said they were not wrong at all

So it's not just fundamentalists and teenage boys, I'm afraid. I'm really glad that these guys have found a world where no one cares that they're gay, but they're very lucky to have it; it's not a measure of general attitudes in the US. We're not there yet.

P.S. One very interesting result of the cross-tab is that suburban attitudes toward homosexuality are actually more positive than urban ones. Check it out:

% saying same-sex sexual relations are "Always wrong" vs. "not wrong at all""

12 largest central cities: 53% vs. 31%
100 next largest central cities: 49% vs. 35%
Suburbs of 12 largest cities: 51% vs. 33%
Suburbs of 100 next largest cities: 52% vs. 38%
Small towns: 64% vs. 26%
Rural: 72% vs. 17%

I've only recently restarted the computer that I had with me in London. The computer busted in transit in mid-November, but a friend rebuilt it and managed to salvage the hard drive.

One of the things on my hard drive was a long file I began building on September 12 of photos and essays that I thought were worth keeping. I'm going to re-post David Letterman's monologue on September 17th. I wish I'd seen it.

********************

cold opening and applause
Thank you very much.

Welcome to the Late Show. This is our first show on the air since New York and Washington were attacked, and I need to ask your patience and indulgence here because I want to say a few things, and believe me, sadly, I'm not going to be saying anything new, and in the past week others have said what I will be saying here tonight far more eloquently than I'm equipped to do.

But, if we are going to continue to do shows, I just need to hear myself talk for a couple of minutes, and so that's what I'm going to do here.

It's terribly sad here in New York City. We've lost five thousand fellow New Yorkers, and you can feel it. You can feel it. You can see it. It's terribly sad. Terribly, terribly sad. And watching all of this, I wasn't sure that I should be doing a television show, because for twenty years we've been in the city, making fun of everything, making fun of the city, making fun of my hair, making fun of Paul... well...

So, to come to this circumstance that is so desperately sad, I don't trust my judgment in matters like this, but I'll tell you the reason that I am doing a show and the reason I am back to work is because of Mayor Giuliani.

Very early on, after the attack, and how strange does it sound to invoke that phrase, "after the attack?", Mayor Giuliani encouraged us -- and here lately implored us -- to go back to our lives, go on living, continue trying to make New York City the place that it should be. And because of him, I'm here tonight.

And I just want to say one other thing about Mayor Giuliani: As this began, and if you were like me, and in many respects, God, I hope you're not. But in this one small measure, if you're like me, and you're watching and you're confused and depressed and irritated and angry and full of grief, and you don't know how to behave and you're not sure what to do and you don't really... because we've never been through this before... all you had to do at any moment was watch the Mayor. Watch how this guy behaved. Watch how this guy conducted himself. Watch what this guy did. Listen to what this guy said. Rudolph Giuliani is the personification of courage.

applause

And it's very simple... there is only one requirement for any of us, and that is to be courageous, because courage, as you might know, defines all other human behavior. And I believe, because I've done a little of this myself, pretending to be courageous is just as good as the real thing. He's an amazing man, and far, far better than we could have hoped for. To run the city in the midst of this obscene chaos and attack, and also demonstrate human dignity... my God... who can do that? That's a pretty short list.
The twenty years we've been here in New York City, we've worked closely with police officers and the fire fighters and...

applause

...and fortunately, most of us don't really have to think too much about what these men and women do on a daily basis, and the phrase New York's finest and New York's bravest, you know, did it mean anything to us personally, firsthand? Well, maybe, hopefully, but probably not. But boy, it means something now, doesn't it? They put themselves in harm's way to protect people like us, and the men and women, the fire fighters and the police department who are lost are going to be missed by this city for a very, very long time. And I, and my hope for myself and everybody else, not only in New York but everywhere, is that we never, ever take these people for granted... absolutely never take them for granted.

applause

I just want to go through this, and again, forgive me if this is more for me than it is for people watching, I'm sorry, but uh, I just, I have to go through this, I'm...

The reason we were attacked, the reason these people are dead, these people are missing and dead, and they weren't doing anything wrong, they were living their lives, they were going to work, they were traveling, they were doing what they normally do. As I understand it (and my understanding of this is vague at best), another smaller group of people stole some airplanes and crashed them into buildings. And we're told that they were zealots, fueled by religious fervor... religious fervor. And if you live to be a thousand years old, will that make any sense to you? Will that make any Goddamned sense? Whew.

I'll tell you about a thing that happened last night. There's a town in Montana by the name of Choteau. It's about a hundred miles south of the Canadian border. And I know a little something about this town. It's 1,600 people. 1,600 people. And it's an ag-business community, which means farming and ranching. And Montana's been in the middle of a drought for... I don't know... three years? And if you've got no rain, you can't grow anything. And if you can't grow anything, you can't farm, and if you can't grow anything, you can't ranch, because the cattle don't have anything to eat, and that's the way life is in a small town. 1,600 people.

Last night at the high school auditorium in Choteau, Montana, they had a rally, home of the Bulldogs, by the way... they had a rally for New York City. And not just a rally for New York City, but a rally to raise money... to raise money for New York City. And if that doesn't tell you everything you need to know about the... the spirit of the United States, then I can't help you. I'm sorry.

applause

And I have one more thing to say, and then, thank God, Regis is here, so we have something to make fun of.

If you didn't believe it before, and it's easy to understand how you might have been skeptical on this point, if you didn't believe it before, you can absolutely believe it now... New York City is the greatest city in the world.

lengthy applause

We're going to try and feel our way through this, and we'll just see how it goes... take it a day at a time. We're lucky enough tonight to have two fantastic representatives of this town, Dan Rather and Regis Philbin, and we'll be right back.

to commercial

If you're in San Francisco, buy my friend's stuff for reasonable prices. Or just check out his witty text. Entertainment and commerce in one convenient package.

Bob Somersby at the Daily Howler has traced the false "Ken Lay slept in the Clinton White House" story one step further back. Before the Chicago Tribune story by Stephen J. Hedges (SHedges@tribune.com), Jeff Zeleny (JZeleny@tribune.com), and Frank James (FJames@tribune.com) on January 13, the story was written up by none other than Matt Drudge.

On January 11, Drudge put up this special report:

"McLarty was later hired by Enron. Lay also played golf with President Bill Clinton and slept in the Clinton White House. A master of political manipulation of both parties, Lay served as an adviser to the Clinton White House on energy issues."

No sources are listed, and according to Somersby, a LEXIS search doesn't find this story any earlier. I wonder how Matt Drudge got this story. I also wonder how many other false spin points entered the public discourse like this.

There's still no correction at the Chicago Tribune web page, and I haven't gotten any response from the reporters listed above.

Slobogoogling (googling people who signed the "free Milosovich" petition and posting dumb or offensive things that they've said) has been a fun sport in blogland. I tend to agree that signing a petition is inherently a public act, so c'est la vie.

But it's surely no more public an act than, say, starting a blog. I wonder if the obvious next step, bloggergoogling, will catch on. The only thing saving us is that most of us have multiple dopplegangers out there. I've just pre-emptively Googled myself, and I can tell you that I don't know what Airplains is, I'm not married to Loretta Mae Gardner, and I don't know the good people at the Tackle Box.

I plead the fifth on this.

Weird coincidences abound in this life. Check out these worthy articles; I've added the emphasis.

Dave Koppel has a damning account of nude works of art that have been removed in response to, or in fear of, sexual harrasment litigation. He starts with:

"Attorney General Ashcroft got himself in trouble with the media recently when he asked for the expenditure of $8,000 for a drape to cover the exposed breast of a Lady Justice statue at the Department of Justice. Ashcroft, a very conservative Christian, didn't feel comfortable having to give press conferences in front of a partially unclad woman. But rather than being mocked for prudishness, Ashcroft could have been celebrated as a vanguard of sensitive p.c. feminism if he had merely explained that he was covering the statue in order to prevent sexual harassment."

He's right, dagnabit.

A CBS report on Pentagon waste and poor accounting:

"Just last week President Bush announced, "my 2003 budget calls for more than $48 billion in new defense spending."

More money for the Pentagon, CBS News Correspondent Vince Gonzales reports, while its own auditors admit the military cannot account for 25 percent of what it spends.

"According to some estimates we cannot track $2.3 trillion in transactions," Rumsfeld admitted.

$2.3 trillion — that's $8,000 for every man, woman and child in America."

What a coincidence. I would gladly volunteer my $8000 to the "hide boobies from John Ashcroft" fund out of sheer appreciation if the Pentagon could account for it.

Andrew Sullivan linked to his own 1998 article about conservative reaction to Clinton. I found this little gem inside; empasis added.

"Bill Clinton, arguably the most conservative Democratic President since Truman, becomes, for these conservatives, the apex of 1960's liberalism. The fact that he balanced the budget, signed welfare-reform legislation, has shredded many civil liberties in the war against terrorism, is in favor of the death penalty and signed the Defense of Marriage Act is immaterial to his conservative enemies. For the model of cultural collapse to work, Clinton must represent its nadir."

Wait... I thought that Sullivan's line was that Clinton, the "AWOL President", ignored terrorism for eight years. Hindsight's 20/20, ain't it?

No posting until I get my work done. Why not enjoy Seanbaby, the funniest guy on the internet, instead?