The Cheney Story

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Rush and I

Both got this wrong:

Brown is black in the eyes of Rush Limbaugh. When Iraq war veteran Paul Hackett was forced out of the Democratic primary in the U.S. Senate race in Ohio, the conservative commentator criticized The New York Times for not saying that the Democrats' preferred candidate is black.

Limbaugh later found out from e-mails to his nationally syndicated radio show that the candidate, Rep. Sherrod Brown, is, in fact, white.

Yep, as a look at the photo on his website reveals. I'll even admit that the name was the main reason I made the assumption; unique first name combined with standard-issue last name is a big hint to me that the person is black. Kanye West. La Shawn Barber. Shaquille O'Neal. That's not to say that it doesn't happen the other way, as with Sherrod Brown.

But I should have realized that the racial issue would be discussed if we're talking about a black guy being the preferred candidate for a Senate seat over a white guy; somebody would be talking about the political calculations.

Poor Punctuation

The headline on this article reads:

'Radicals' plot how to save Earth.

Of course, were I editing that paper, the quotes would be around 'save'.

"I don't hear a lot of people talking about what it's going to take to win," Ben Pachano, a visitor from Arizona wearing a yarmulke and a black "Hunt Saboteur" T-shirt, says. "What's it going to take for us to overthrow the system that is killing the planet?"

These aren't idle words — not when they come at a national meeting of Earth First!, the in-your-face eco-crusade whose followers are known for holding 2-year-long tree sit-ins, throwing their bodies in front of bulldozers and sabotaging logging equipment to save forests. The movement held its annual winter conference this week in the J.W. Corbett Wildlife Management Area, briefly making Palm Beach County an epicenter of radical environmentalism in the United States.

"Radical" is a proud word for the movement's followers, including Lake Worth residents who have blocked rush-hour traffic, dumped rotten oranges in front of business leaders, marched with giant puppets and bared breasts in The Breakers to protest globalization, condo projects and The Scripps Research Institute.

"People tend to throw around the word 'radical' like it's a bad thing," says Peter "Panagioti" Tsolkas, 25, a Lake Worth anarchist who helped organize — if that's the proper word — the Earth First! gathering. "It's not that I hope we can save the planet. We're going to save it or we're going to die trying."

How Hackett Got Pushed Out

This story continues to resonate with the far Left.

Sen. Schumer was also reported to be trying to turn off Hackett’s cash spigots. No one would confirm this to me on the record. But veteran political activist David Mixner, who described himself as “a fanatically strong supporter” of Hackett and who helped sponsor a New York fundraiser, confirmed that he “received calls from a couple people in Congress urging Paul Hackett to withdraw or not to contribute money to his campaign. The reasons ranged from he can’t win, to he’s too controversial, Brown has more money, is more centrist, and more appealing. It was that inner beltway circle crap,” said Mixner. “They are people who have no idea what’s going on in the country but believe they know everything.”

As word spread about the intra-party intrigue that helped bring down Hackett, supporters have reacted angrily. “If the Democratic Party continues with these suicidal decisions, we will continue to defeat ourselves,” declared Yolanda Parker, who recently attended a California fundraiser for Hackett. “The only strategy the Republicans need to stay in power is patience. They just need to wait while our party self-implodes through idiotic decisions such as the one to pressure an articulate Iraqi war veteran to pull out of the race.”

Close Encounters of the Impeachment Kind

Richard Dreyfuss takes up the cause:

Richard Dreyfuss, the actor who starred in movies ranging from "Jaws" to "Mr. Holland's Opus," told an audience in Washington, D.C., on Thursday that "there are causes worth fighting for," and one of those is the impeachment of President George W. Bush.

"There are causes worth fighting for even if you know that you will lose," Dreyfuss said during a speech at the National Press Club.

Nevertheless, Dreyfuss charged that "people can sometimes be pretty thoughtless, pretty terrified and do some pretty impressive damage" when they are wrong or "are the victims of political hypnosis."

In the past, "time and distance played an amazing part in keeping the human race from killing itself," the actor noted. The need for revenge after an attack "inevitably weakened because it took a lot of time to get men into ships and move them to the right battlefield. Only those truly staunch of heart and truly zealous could keep up that hatred.

"But now, people in Kansas see the [Twin] Towers fall at the exact instant as people in Nigeria or Cairo," he said. "Instantaneous knowledge leads to instantaneous reaction, which creates a demand for an instantaneous, reflexive response."

Dreyfuss blamed part of that reaction on television newscasters, who "fill the air with the same terrible clips, the same blaring intro music, the same screaming fonts, and then the same clips again and the same screaming fonts again and again to fill up these news cycles."

Dun dun. Dun dun. Dun dun dun dun!

Welcome to Brainster's Backup

I'm using this site to make a few posts while the main site is experiencing problems. Hopefully I'll be able to transfer these over there once the problem is fixed.