Bill Clinton hits the nail on the head.

CNN: Do you have a comment on Senator Lott?
Clinton: No, other than....I think that -- obviously -- I don't agree with him.

But I think there is something a bit hypocritical about the way Republicans are jumping all over him. I think what they really are upset about is he made public their strategy.

The whole Republican apparatus supported campaigns in Georgia and South Carolina on the Confederate flag. There is no action coming out of the Justice Department against all those people, Republicans, who suppressed black voters in the South, in Arkansas and Louisiana, and lots of other places. Telephone operations telling people in Florida they didn't have to vote on Election Day, that they could vote on Saturday but not if they had parking tickets. I mean, this is their policy.

So I think the way that the Republicans treated Senator Lott is a pretty hypocritical since right now, their policy is in my view inimical to everything this country stands for. They tried to suppress black voting, they ran on the Conferederate flag in Georgia and South Carolina and from top to bottom Republicans supported them. So I don't see what they're jumping on Trent Lott about.

I think the Democrats can say we disagree with what he said and we don't think its right but that's the Republican policy. How do you think they got a majority in the South anyway?

CNN: So he should step down as majority leader?

Clinton: I think that's up to them. But I think that they can't say it with a straight face. How can they jump all over him when they're out there repressing and trying to run black voters away from polls and to run on the Confederate flag in Georgia and South Carolina. Look at their whole record. The others, how can they attack him? He just embarrassed them by saying in Washington what they do on the back roads every day.

Why he really resigned.

George W. Bush's holiday greeting. Transcript taken directly from CNN.

KYRA PHILLIPS, CNN ANCHOR: Now we are going to take you live to the Roosevelt Room at the White House, where every year President George Bush and, of course, the first lady read holiday stories with children at the White House. Let's listen in.
(JOINED IN PROGRESS)

GEORGE W. BUSH, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: Have you ever heard this one? It starts with "'Twas the night before Christmas?"

(CROSSTALK)

G. BUSH: ... night before Christmas, when all through the house -- not even a mouse. Nobody was stirring. Kind of quiet, wasn't it?

Ari Flieschers recent Press Briefing:
Somebody will emerge from the Democratic field who will ultimately seek to raise taxes on the American people.

Today's washington Post:

As the Bush administration draws up plans to simplify the tax system, it is also refining arguments for why it may be necessary to shift more of the tax load onto lower-income workers.

Merry Christmas. (thanks to This Modern World)

Right wing rant watch:
Here is the most thought out defense of Lott so far in the right wing Yahoo chat groups. From my friend Glenn:

You use [the term] "racist" like its a bad thing.

Atrios is on fire with the Lott story. Amazing stuff.

George W. Bush sued?

If its true, I knew that that Paula Jones case was going to come back to haunt the Republicans.

Left wing rant watch.

In the interest of fairness, here is a brief "debate" I had with a very angry African American. It all starts nicely enough, with both of us on the same side of the Lott debate, until he chimes ion with this little gem:
lott simply said out loud what most white people whisper.

Now I'm no expert, but I feel safe in saying that that is an extremly unfair and bigoted statement to make. I respond thusly:
That bigoted statement makes you no better than Lott.

My good friend replies with this:
posted like a true white boy. are you going to post slurs too ? jam

At this point its clear he is a delusional hate filled fruitcake. So I give him one last response:
No. You seem to have that market cornered in here.
Say hello to the delete file "Jam".

At this point I ignored him, but his response to my last post was funny:
whats wrong whitey cant handle the truth? nothing worse than a coward
who would rather lynch a blackman than accept him as equal. jam

Here that people? Apparently I'm for lynching!! My mom will be ever so mad.

Update!!

It turns out this was actually a right winger posing as a left wing intolerent ahole in order to smear them. Ah well, I'll keep trying!

Trent "I made a poor choice of words" Lott in 1980 referring to Strom Thurmond:
You know, if we had elected this man 30 years ago, we wouldn't be in the mess we are today."
He seems to make a lot of poor choices.


And Why is Nancy Pelosi the only Democrat in Congress who has balls?
Daschle's response to Lott's comment:
"There are a lot of times when he and I go to the microphone and would like to say things we meant to say differently, and I'm sure this was one of those cases for him, as well,"

Spineless jellyfish. No wonder you guys got rolled in the midterms.

Pelosi's reaction:
"He can apologize all he wants. It doesn't remove the sentiments that escaped his mouth that day at the party."

That’s more like it.

The egumication of Donny Rumsfeld

Rummy Then.



In 1984, Donald Rumsfeld was in a position to draw the world’s attention to Saddam’s chemical threat. He was in Baghdad as the UN concluded that chemical weapons had been used against Iran. He was armed with a fresh communication from the State Department that it had “available evidence” Iraq was using chemical weapons. But Rumsfeld said nothing.

Rummy Now
We would like to see a country that forswears weapons of mass destruction and says, "That's really not in the interests of the people. It's not in the interests of the region, and we're not going to take the people's money and invest in chemical, biological, and nuclear weapons," which they are doing.

Guest commentary by Rob Chamert. He speaks to an important topic.

It's been brought to my attention that I know way too much and have way too many opinions about malt liquor. In fact, besides the gentlemen who are presently standing on Enfield Street (scary place near Keeney Park) drinking malt liquor, I am probably your best source of information. Ratings will be on a 0 - 5 ranking. Let me first state that putting beer in 40 ounce containers, though I am a fan of the practice and think more companies should adopt it (I'm talking to you Miller Lite), does not change the constitution of the liquid being put into the containers. It's still beer and not malt liquor.

St. Ides.



Might as well start at the bottom, and this is it. The stuff is just awful. So awful that they have branched out into fruit flavored malt beverages. I have not tried these, but like Drano I don't need to drink it to know I won't like it. The only redeeming quality is that you can say I'm drinking the Ides of March. This allows you to be historically hip while maintaining your street cred.

Score - 1/2

Steel Reserve
.


Would be voted most awful even with its 8.1% alcohol. It actually tastes like steel mixed with some skunk urine for good measure. However, our friend Kate said it was "pretty good" and drank it. We have to give mad props to the sister not under house arrest (you had to be there) and raise the score.

Score - 1

Crazy Horse
.


Good looking bottle, bad tasting malt liquor. I can discuss the political incorrectness of naming a malt liquor after an American Indian, especially with the high alcoholism rate among Indians, but I won't.

Score - 1

Midnight Dragon



I don't even know if this swill still exists, but it was a mainstay in college mainly because it was $.50 cheaper than other malt liquors. At 5 a night, that money adds up fast.

Score - 2

Mickey's



Alcohol content: 5.7%
The only malt liquor that's cooler in a 16 ounce bottle than a 40. The reason, the wide/big mouth (think Gatorade). What genius. I think the makers of Micky's should be credited with moving malt liquor from its sophisticated slow drinking roots to what it is today. It's the only malt liquor I've seen sold at a bar (The Cool Moose) and allowed you to request its tie-in song, Big Mouth Strikes Again, by the Smiths. Great song. Only problem is that it doesn't taste that great.

Score - 3

King Cobra

Made by Budweiser, tastes like Budweiser. Normally, that's not a compliment, but in the malt liquor world it is.

Score - 3

Colt 45



I have three words....Billy Dee Williams. Those were great commercials. Why aren't they on anymore? The taste is pretty good. Added bonus, the Houston Astros used to be called the Colt 45s. I think they were named after the gun, but I would like to think it was the ML.

Score - 3 1/2

Magnum



A rich full-bodied malt liquor with little after taste. This became my malt liquor of choice when I lived in Atlanta. Still a favorite.

Score - 4

Haffenreffer Private Stock
By whatever nickname, green lightning, green death, Hef, it is the quintessential malt liquor. The brown paper bag seems like a second skin on a bottle of the green gold. Added bonus, first alcohol I ever got drunk on was Hef. The only negative is the little picture puzzle is no longer on the inside of a 40 cap.

Score - 4 1/2

Olde English 800



OE 800, 8-ball, it is the Dom Perignon of malt liquors. It actually tastes good and doesn't have that malt liquor after taste. The benchmark by which all other malt liquors are judged. If there is a better malt liquor, I have yet to find it.

Score - 5 (the ultimate)
---------------------------------
As I was preparing this post, I felt the need to add pictures. A quick google search brought me to the website of the week. http://www.40ozmaltliquor.com. It’s the shizznat.

It gives full reviews of over 200 different Malt Liquors, links, images, alcohol content, etc. While not as informative and insightful as my friend Rob’s reviews (Who by the way, is gainfully employed in a rather responsible job), their reviews do have a certain sense of style.

For instance, in the review for Magnum, member ImissMy64oz had this to say about it:
Still sucks dick still eats shit still causes headaches only had cause I needed a clean bottle for collection used to pound mags in the day not any more fuck this shit 3/10.

Word….word.

Its been all over the blogoverse, so I'll just throw my two cents, and cheap joke, in.

Trent Lott regardding Strom Thurmonds segregationist Presidential campaign:
"When Strom Thurmond ran for president we voted for him. We're proud of it. And if the rest of the country had of followed our lead we wouldn't of had all these problems over all these years, either."

If we just taught them darkies to shut their fool mouths, we'd have none o' this crack bidness. (insert sound of spittle hitting the spittoon here)

Paul O'neill "resigns"

The self described "Chief Spokesmen on the economy" was regarded as a complete boob. Here are some of his choice quotes during his reign

"I'm constantly amazed anyone cares what I do."

Calling the Collapse of Enron "the genius of Capitalism"

A week before visting Brazil, he said they should enact tougher laws so that aid "does some good and doesn't just go out of the country to Swiss bank accounts." Brazils currency fell by 5% after that gem.

Then there was the trip he took to africa with U2's Bono, where he said aid to poor starving coutries "doesn't do much good."
And this is what he was wearing at the time.

.

Strom Thurmond 100.

Totally incoherent, lives in a hospital, barely shows up for work, got lost in the halls frequently, yet still a Senator. Go South Carolina voters! Thurmond is doubly proud because he beat out a tough primary challenge with a 4 day old eggplant.
.



Thurmond is to be feted at the White House on Friday, and on Dec. 12 he is to attend ceremonies at Andrews Air Force Base outside Washington when the Air Force is to name its 100th C-17 cargo plane the "Spirit of Strom Thurmond."

In keeping with that spirit, no uppity negros are allowed entry onto the plane

I don't have Lexis Nexis so I can't verify this, but it looks legit. And damn it's funny. From "Constitutional Lawyer" Ann Coulter on Larry King:

ALAN DERSHOWITZ, HARVARD LAW PROFESSOR:It would have been laughable for the Framers to have been told that they'd think about an impeachment because of sexual improprieties or attempts to keep secret sexual improprieties. We know that they existed all through English history. We know that Thomas Jefferson was surrounded by scandal which he denied to people who asked about whether he follow fathered a child.

KING: If then were now, they couldn't make a case against Thomas Jefferson.

DERSHOWITZ: No.

COULTER: He was never president.



Thomas Jefferson.
3rd President of the United States. Served 2 Terms.
Born in 1743 in Albermarle County, Virginia, inheriting from his father, a planter and surveyor, some 5,000 acres of land, and from his mother, a Randolph, high social standing. He studied at the College of William and Mary, then read law. In 1772 he married Martha Wayles Skelton, a widow, and took her to live in his partly constructed mountaintop home, Monticello.

Freckled and sandy-haired, rather tall and awkward, Jefferson was eloquent as a correspondent, but he was no public speaker. In the Virginia House of Burgesses and the Continental Congress, he contributed his pen rather than his voice to the patriot cause. As the "silent member" of the Congress, Jefferson, at 33, drafted the Declaration of Independence. In years following he labored to make its words a reality in Virginia. Most notably, he wrote a bill establishing religious freedom, enacted in 1786.

Jefferson succeeded Benjamin Franklin as minister to France in 1785. His sympathy for the French Revolution led him into conflict with Alexander Hamilton when Jefferson was Secretary of State in President Washington's Cabinet. He resigned in 1793.

Sharp political conflict developed, and two separate parties, the Federalists and the Democratic-Republicans, began to form. Jefferson gradually assumed leadership of the Republicans, who sympathized with the revolutionary cause in France. Attacking Federalist policies, he opposed a strong centralized Government and championed the rights of states.

As a reluctant candidate for President in 1796, Jefferson came within three votes of election. Through a flaw in the Constitution, he became Vice President, although an opponent of President Adams. In 1800 the defect caused a more serious problem. Republican electors, attempting to name both a President and a Vice President from their own party, cast a tie vote between Jefferson and Aaron Burr. The House of Representatives settled the tie. Hamilton, disliking both Jefferson and Burr, nevertheless urged Jefferson's election.

When Jefferson assumed the Presidency, the crisis in France had passed. He slashed Army and Navy expenditures, cut the budget, eliminated the tax on whiskey so unpopular in the West, yet reduced the national debt by a third. He also sent a naval squadron to fight the Barbary pirates, who were harassing American commerce in the Mediterranean. Further, although the Constitution made no provision for the acquisition of new land, Jefferson suppressed his qualms over constitutionality when he had the opportunity to acquire the Louisiana Territory from Napoleon in 1803.

During Jefferson's second term, he was increasingly preoccupied with keeping the Nation from involvement in the Napoleonic wars, though both England and France interfered with the neutral rights of American merchantmen. Jefferson's attempted solution, an embargo upon American shipping, worked badly and was unpopular.

Jefferson retired to Monticello to ponder such projects as his grand designs for the University of Virginia. A French nobleman observed that he had placed his house and his mind "on an elevated situation, from which he might contemplate the universe."

He died on July 4, 1826.

I always kinda respected Bill Buckley for his obvious intellectualism (putting aside his massive ego). But not anymore. After reading this excerpt of a column he wrote in 1957 (via, Brad Delong, Via Calpundit. Its getting so as all of my posts are just regurgitations of other peopes better posts. Ah well, only a handful of my friends read it anyway, and they'd never come across the info otherwise)

The central question that emerges . . . is whether the White community in the South is entitled to take such measures as are necessary to prevail, politically and culturally, in areas in which it does not prevail numerically? The sobering answer is Yes–the White community is so entitled because, for the time being, it is the advanced race. It is not easy, and it is unpleasant, to adduce statistics evidencing the cultural superiority of White over Negro: but it is a fact that obtrudes, one that cannot be hidden by ever-so-busy egalitarians and anthropologists.

National Review believes that the South’s premises are correct. . . . It is more important for the community, anywhere in the world, to affirm and live by civilized standards, than to bow to the demands of the numerical majority.
Amazing isn't it?

An intersting chart I got via Calpundit showing some international opinion via the war on oi.. I mean Saddam.



And for those of you who think "who cares what Germany thinks", remember that we have over 71 thousand Military personnel in active duty in Germany (including my friend John), as well as eleven of our Nuclear warheads. Oh, and did I also mention there was an Al-Queda cell in Hamburg?

Yes, it DOES matter what other countries think of us.

Regardng appointing a man convicted on 5 felony counts which included Obstruction of Justice, Destroying evidence, Lying to Congress, and Conspiracy, to head a department that is in charge of snooping into every aspect of every Americans private life:

MR. FLEISCHER: Let me just say about Admiral Poindexter, Admiral Poindexter is somebody who this administration thinks is an outstanding American and an outstanding citizen who has done a very good job in what he has done for our country, serving in the military.
I like the little addendum "Serving in the military", conveniently avoiding teh other less savory aspects of his careeer. Like the part where he was a criminal.

I think Timothy McVeigh is an outstanding American and an outstanding citizen who has done a very good job in what he has done for our country, serving in the military.

Right wing rant watch. Today I try to explain to a conservative friend what a straw man argument is and why using it is a bad thing. Let's see if he gets it. I start by posting an article By David Corn entitled "The Loyal Opposition:Falwell Bearing False Witness Media Should Deny Him An Electronic Pulpit" in wich he said the following about the hate mongering idiot Falwell:
I am not advocating censoring wrongheaded or dangerous opinion-mongering. But a recent Falwell appearance on CNN provided the grounds for certifying him a nut-case not worthy of a microphone.

My right wing friend responded with this gem:
This is typical of the Left. How shall we expell him? Shall we exile him to Siberia? Or have Comrade Beria shoot him in the back of the head?

Text book case straw man argument. If you cannot defend someone’s position, invent a ludicrous position, attribute it to the other person, and attack them for said invented position. Corn never said anything about exile or execution, in fact he went out of his way to stress the opposite. I try to stress this point to my good friend:
And this is typical of the right, create a straw man argument and
attack him for it. Only you Matt would turn the debate into
something Corn never said, sending him to Siberia and executing him.

Your mind came up with that sick stuff, not Corn's.

You'd think he would get it wouldn't you? Ahhh but no, he continues:

No, David Corn said, in plain English, "Falwell should be expelled from the public debate." There is no other way to take that. Corn wants Falwell to shut up. I'd personally like for David Corn to shut the Hell up. But I'd never try to make him do so. That's not a straw man, Ed. I am just going by what the man said.
Anyone else get that? He is "going by what the man said", yet Corn never said anyting about execution or exile. Amazing isn't it? I try one last time:
So you accuse Corn of wanting to send Falwell to Siberia or have him executed? Did Corn say that? No. And if he didn't, yet you accuse him of it, it is a straw man argument.

DO you need me to explain it again?

At his point he stops responding. THe next post that he writes is one in which he talks about how his responses to my posts have, and I quote "easily out-logicked yours"

I'm telling you, the entertainment value I get from these guys is incalculable.