The Direct IV Line

Dan Bartlett displayed yet again the smooth interface between the White House communications team and the blogosphere with this Texas Monthly interview:

Q: Yeah, or what if [conservative blogger] Hugh Hewitt called?

A: That’s when you start going, “Hmm . . .” Because they do reach people who are influential.

Q: Well, they reach the president’s base.

A: That’s what I mean by influential. I mean, talk about a direct IV into the vein of your support. It’s a very efficient way to communicate. They regurgitate exactly and put up on their blogs what you said to them. It is something that we’ve cultivated and have really tried to put quite a bit of focus on.

The National Journal rounds up the response:

Liberal bloggers are giddy and their conservative rivals are defensive over the news that the Bush White House sees conservative blogs as an extension of the Republican message machine.

Interesting.  If Bartlett means that he was able to rely on righty bloggers to post transcripts and exact quotes, thereby circumventing the MSM filter, well, yes, one would hope so.

If he means that righty bloggers were broadly sympathetic to the goals of the Administration, well, no kidding.

But if he means that the White House could expect an uncritical acceptance of their latest pronouncements, well, how did that work with Harriet Miers, just for example?  Or perhaps we can ask Mr. Bartlett to recap Bush's triumphal march through the right wing blogosphere with his signing of McCain-Feingold, or the Dubai port deal, or his recent push for immigration reform?

Oh, well - presumably this left-wing gloating is simply a manifestation of the latest Townhouse talking point.  But let's savor this moment of the pot's discovery of the kettle's color:

Conservatives do love to be told what to say. Saves them the hassle of having to think for themselves.

That comes from the Mighty Kos himself, purveyor of the biggest IV drip around - a quick glance at the Daily Kos finds among their diarists John Kerry, Harry Reid, Nancy Pelosi, Barack Obama, and no doubt more.

I would say that could be described as regurgitating exactly what the candidate wants to say.

NO DOUBT:  The "Prominent Contributors" list at Wikipedia includes Ted Kennedy, Wesley Clark, Conyers, Boxer, Durbin, Feingold, Waxman, Carter, and John Edwards.

But Kos does not provide a house organ.  Hardly.

Comments

[clarice]

Just in case anyone here didn't think Bartlett--surely Ari's source,not Libby--was an ass.

[kim]

Better to be a tool than a fool.
=================

[Topsecretk9]

Yeah, I was thinking of Townhouse too.

[kim]

Bartlett's precisely bass ackwards, by the way. He doesn't realize this administration is just a tool of the Dextrosphere. Master Rove arranged it that way.
===================

[kim]

Didn't they say Joshua Micah was angling for Press Secretary in a Kerry administration?
=============

[Patrick R. Sullivan]

Not entirely off topic: Robert Tracinski has a good piece on the NIE:

...here is the real blockbuster concession in the report:

We assess with moderate confidence that convincing the Iranian leadership to forgo the eventual development of nuclear weapons will be difficult given the linkage many within the leadership probably see between nuclear weapons development and Iran's key national security and foreign policy objectives, and given Iran's considerable effort from at least the late 1980s to 2003 to develop such weapons.

In other words, Iran devoted two decades and billions of dollars to developing nuclear weapons, which it needs if it's going to thwart the Great Satan--so why should it stop trying?

This is the only time the NIE includes in its assessment the real long-term pattern and meaning of Iran's actions. In this respect, it is especially egregious that the NIE portrays late 2003 as the time at which Iran suddenly became compliant and cooperative in response to international pressure.

In reality, what has Iran actually been up to since late 2003 and today? During those four years, Iran has provided political and military support to both Sunni and Shiite insurgents in Iraq, helping to kill US troops and plunge Iraq into a brutal sectarian civil war. More recently, Iran has provided weapons and training to the Taliban in Afghanistan. During these years, Iran has also forged a closer relationship with its satellite Syria, which has encouraged the flow of insurgents into Iraq while assassinating opposition political leaders in Lebanon. In Southern Lebanon, Iran armed Hezbollah with rockets, which it rained down by the thousands in a terror war against Israel; Iran has subsequently re-armed Hezbollah with more and better rockets. And Iran has supported Hamas as it has launched its own rocket attacks on Israel and staged a brutal Islamist takeover of Gaza.

The full picture of Iran's activity over the past four years is that of a dangerous power seeking to assert regional dominance and to spread its ideology of radical Islam by encouraging the aggression of an "Islamist Axis" of terrorist militias across the greater Middle East. Yet all of this is completely evaded in the NIE's benevolent assessment of Iran's intentions.

And that, ultimately, is what makes this report an exercise in propaganda--propaganda for a brutal Islamist dictatorship, composed and broadcast by the supposed guardians of the leading power of the free world.

[MayBee]

Woah! Has Danny Glover turned into Kos's personal PR blogger? 7 of the 12 stories at the National Journal link are either directly about Kos, or mention him.

[kim]

You note Tracinski drew a direct comparison between the disinformation campaign of this NIE and the disinformation campaign that is the Summary for Policymakers in the IPCC's 4th Report on Climate Change.

Lies are being told for the sake of politics with the foreknowledge that the narrative will be supported in the press.

Hey, I just found out Maurice Strong is big in AGW. What is it with that dude?

OT, but Earl Hep has an elegant explanation for how the sun interacts with the earth to change climate. He developed it from observing grapevines grow in Australia, and the wonderful fruit of his curiosity is on display in the late 400's on the Svalgaard thread at climateaudit.org.
===============================

[kim]

Omigod, Erl Happ. Well, I'd barely heard of him before today.
==============================

[clarice]

Maurice Strong is a Soros puppet,Kim, and AGW is yet another way for Soros to impoverish the hated middle class.

[hit and run]

Mud Wrestling Alert

From Steynonline.com:

On the air

THREE HOUR STEYNORAMA!

On Thursday, Mark guest-hosts for Hugh Hewitt and talks Mitt, Huck, Iran, Sudan and the rest of the news, coast to coast at 6pm Eastern/3pm Pacific

[hit and run]

Mark Steyn reads my Email!!!!

I emailed him in response to his post on the Corner about the divorce-hurts-the-environment story...and he quoted me:

UPDATE: A reader writes:

Perhaps there should be High Occupancy Residence (HOR) units for housing built on the model of HOV lanes for traffic. And like HOV lanes, where you have to meet the multi-passenger requirements to use the more efficient and more desirable lanes, the government should block off desirable real estate for those who will shack up together.

Eminent domain, baby! To save the planet!

Yet, he has still never responded to my challenge, nor did he respond when I followed up based on this post.

In any event, my follow up was after some inordinate amount of beer, and now that I look back at the email I see it contained a lot of capital letters and exclamation points, so, more than anything, it's comforting to know I wasn't put on his blocked email list.

Whoa....

::light bulb pops up above head::

What if I called into the Hugh Hewitt show tonight?

[clarice]

Three hours! I'm afraid my old heart cannot take that.

[kim]

Encumbering carbon with unnecessary taxes will grind the poor more than anyone else.
=================================

[Ann]

You gotta read this:

NYT Editor: 'We Have a War Going Very Badly in Iraq'

[clarice]

HIT--------I heart you so.Shacking up carbon credits. Something only you could have dreamed up.

[Ann]

Oh, and did you know that Barbara Walters Honors Pelosi as 2006's 'Most Fascinating'

Is it a full moon? I am still laughing. (story also at newsbusters)

[ACrazyWorldwideHanukkahParty!!!!!]

KOS and Wikipedia have something in common with Joe Wilson.

A Crazy Worldwide Hanukkah Party!!!!!

[kim]

Ooh, I like "intemperate television shout shows". That has a ring like a temple gong to it.
===============================

[hit and run]

Since Tom brought up Texas Monthly, let me just say that I have a fun story...(fun for me anyway)

I was chaplain at the YMCA of the Rockies at Snow Mountain Ranch (near Winter Park, CO) like 15 years ago.

One of my "official" job responsibilities during the week was to just "hang out" and interact with staff and guests. Fun stuff.

So, most evenings after dinner I would hang out in the lobby, chat with the front desk workers, make conversation with guests as they came by, helped out when I could or whatever else was going on.

So, one night this guy comes in, he and 3 kids, ages 2, 5 and 10. He says that he and another family each had a Suburban going on one of the four wheel drive roads up behind the resort -- and they got one of the vehicles stuck. He came back down with the kids, but the other couple and his wife were up with the other vehicle.

He needed to be pulled out.

We had maintenance folks who could do the job. But, he also needed someone to look after the kids while he led the maintenance folks up to the spot of the stuck Suburban.

That's a job for ME!!!

[typepad doesn't like where this is going, so I'll try and break this up into two posts...]

[hit and run]

[Continued]

So, off they went and off I went with the kids to the cabin. We played games, I fed them some dinner. After a while, I put the 2 year old to bed. Then the 5 year old. Then I hung out with the 10 year old for a while. We started chatting...the usual stuff, where are you from, what grade are you in, what does your dad do for a living...

"He writes and teaches"

"Writes what, teaches where?"

"He writes for some magazine, he teaches at the University of Texas."

"Really, my brother goes to Texas. What does he teach?"

"I don't know, politics or government or something"

"Ah, political science, I suppose. Um, let me fathom a guess, because this is really weird, my brother said one of his professors might be coming here this summer -- he writes for Texas Monthly and your last name is Burka."

"Yes"

"Is your dad's name Paul Burka?"

"Yes."

It's a small world...

...but I wouldn't want to paint it.

[clarice]

Somehow it's even harder to picture you as a chaplain than it is to picture you babysitting. But I bet you were good at it.

[kim]

I think Snow Mountain Ranch was where I learned that Texans, even with 4X4's, had no idea about slick, sloped, roads, but it was more like a third of a century ago. Emerald Mountain was the place to be 80-100 years ago.
===========================================

[Pete]

There is a significant difference between being a stenographer for someone else and between allowing them to write their piece with their own name as the author.

[kim]

Burka's take is interesting. I suspect a deal, too; between Abdullah and the Mullahs.
==================

[kim]

Struck at Ramadan after Sistani and the Surge stymied Amadi-Nijad.
==========================================

[Jane]

Hit,

What do you think of what Burka says in that blog entry?

[Bill in AZ]

OT - but kim's reference above is linked below. It is a long, scientific discussion with around 500 posts, but if you only read one, post #470 is a great analysis/summary.

Even though there are "solar" skeptics to Global Warming in the thread (as if), the thread itself pretty much makes AGW irrelevant... as kim says "we're cooling"

[hit and run]

My take on that Burka post?

I'm ignorant. The NIE itself is over my head -- meaning, there are so many other people with so much more experience and insight that I fear even criticizing grammatical errors.

But, I am skeptical generally of the NIE now vs 2005 vs 2002 vs whatever.

The NIE seems to me to be a political football...more than a true, objective, and dare I say it, "reality-based" intelligence assessment.

Er, I mean, there's an extraneous comman in there.

somewhere.

[PeterUK]

Clarice,

Chaplain,chalice,communion wine.

[hit and run]

"...direct IV into the vein"?

[clarice]

Got it,PUK.Makes perfect sense.

[Jane]

Hit,

IMO there are two schools of thought on the NIE thing: First, Iran folded up its nuclear program when we went into Iraq - much like Lybia.

The second: The NIE guys are perpetuating the same anti Bush bias to the loss of our safety. They want to make sure attacking Iran is not an option. After all, Enrichment is the hard part, so the fact that they have stopped the rest of the process is a joke.

Stratfor adds a third hypothesis. It seems more palatable. I'm not sure how to think about it tho.

[clarice]

Maybe we're pulling a trick--telling Iran it stopped its production and just waiting for Imasmadasahatter to say,"Did not".HEH

[Sue]

Clarice,

Do you remember when they were celebrating on the streets in Tehran that they were going to have nukes? Maybe it is a ploy to make the people of Iran think their leaders lied to them. I think I'm reaching here, but why else would Dick Cheney agree with the NIE?

[clarice]

t's a mystery..Maybe Iowahawk can figure it out.

[hit and run]

Was it written by anti-Bush nutjobs? That's what I've read.

Was it released without Bush's approval? I don't know.

Could the nutjobs have set out to ambush Bush, but then upon reading it, Bush says, "I can use this"?

(Bush = anyone in his admin in such a position to do so, not him personally.)

I don't know.

I miss Rove being in the admin. Sure was nice being able to just say, "Rove did this, and he has all things under control, according to his grand design". I miss the leftys thinking that too, of course.

Which is why, I'll again refer to my take on Rove's departing words.....

"If you strike me down, I shall become more powerful than you could possibly imagine."

And, unreality-based or not, I am fine working hard to make leftys think that's what's going on.

LATE BREAKING: Sue, I am fine having them think that Dick is doing this as well...although the Rove-as-Obi Wan reference breaks down in the face of Darth Cheney...

[Sue]

http://www.captainsquartersblog.com/mt/archives/016227.php>The Captain thinks Dick Cheney lent credibility to the truthfulness of the report. I am not quite there yet, either, but I think there is something up. Dick Cheney never agrees with the intelligence community. On anything.

[dwightkschrute]

Ok so the example brought up to Bartlett is Hugh Hewitt and the first issue TM chooses to use is Harriet Miers? Ouch, might want to reconsider that one.

[dick]

Kim,

You are so right. About 15 years ago I had a contract working in Dallas. They had a snow and ice storm one night with a brief dusting and some slick spots. I got up in the morning and by going slow got to work without even slipping. One other person made it in to work - a consultant based in Denver. The entire rest of the staff stayed home. It was just too dangerous to drive for them.

The couple of cars I saw on the road thought that if you got stuck, the best thing to do was just gun the engine and spin your tires until you got back to the surface. Unbelievable.

I took pity on one of the women who was going home from the night shift because she was just spinning the tires in the lot. I got in and just eased the pedal and drove it right out for her. She was amazed.

[dick]

Kim,

You are so right. About 15 years ago I had a contract working in Dallas. They had a snow and ice storm one night with a brief dusting and some slick spots. I got up in the morning and by going slow got to work without even slipping. One other person made it in to work - a consultant based in Denver. The entire rest of the staff stayed home. It was just too dangerous to drive for them.

The couple of cars I saw on the road thought that if you got stuck, the best thing to do was just gun the engine and spin your tires until you got back to the surface. Unbelievable.

I took pity on one of the women who was going home from the night shift because she was just spinning the tires in the lot. I got in and just eased the pedal and drove it right out for her. She was amazed.

[dick]

Kim,

You are so right. About 15 years ago I had a contract working in Dallas. They had a snow and ice storm one night with a brief dusting and some slick spots. I got up in the morning and by going slow got to work without even slipping. One other person made it in to work - a consultant based in Denver. The entire rest of the staff stayed home. It was just too dangerous to drive for them.

The couple of cars I saw on the road thought that if you got stuck, the best thing to do was just gun the engine and spin your tires until you got back to the surface. Unbelievable.

I took pity on one of the women who was going home from the night shift because she was just spinning the tires in the lot. I got in and just eased the pedal and drove it right out for her. She was amazed.

[GMax]

the best thing to do was just gun the engine and spin your tires

Well the most dangerous thing that Dallas drivers do in snow and ice conditions is actually hitting their brakes. Never trained to pump their brakes and no training about release in a skid and steering into the skid to correct, they just panic and lock em up.

Makes the Dallas fwys a very dangerous place to be, even if you know how to drive in the conditions. Thus the smart ones stay home.

One good thing about those conditions here, they are very temporary. A day or so and the roads will be clear again for another 5 years or more!

[Sue]

The entire rest of the staff stayed home. It was just too dangerous to drive for them.

Boy, do we have you northerners fooled. Think about it. Who was working and who had a "snow" day?

::grin::

whistling as I walk away

[Patrick R. Sullivan]

Cheney essentially said nothing, but John Bolton weighs in:

The real differences between the NIEs are not in the hard data but in the psychological assessment of the mullahs' motives and objectives. The current NIE freely admits to having only moderate confidence that the suspension continues and says that there are significant gaps in our intelligence and that our analysts dissent from their initial judgment on suspension. This alone should give us considerable pause.

Second, the NIE is internally contradictory and insufficiently supported. It implies that Iran is susceptible to diplomatic persuasion and pressure, yet the only event in 2003 that might have affected Iran was our invasion of Iraq and the overthrow of Saddam Hussein, not exactly a diplomatic pas de deux. .... Moreover, the risks and returns of pursuing a diplomatic strategy are policy calculations, not intelligence judgments. The very public rollout in the NIE of a diplomatic strategy exposes the biases at work behind the Potemkin village of "intelligence."

Third, the risks of disinformation by Iran are real. .... The sudden appearance of new sources should be taken with more than a little skepticism. ....

Fourth, the NIE suffers from a common problem in government: the overvaluation of the most recent piece of data. ....

Fifth, many involved in drafting and approving the NIE were not intelligence professionals but refugees from the State Department, brought into the new central bureaucracy of the director of national intelligence. These officials had relatively benign views of Iran's nuclear intentions five and six years ago; now they are writing those views as if they were received wisdom from on high. In fact, these are precisely the policy biases they had before, recycled as "intelligence judgments."

[Sara]

I think Iran decided to put its nuclear weapons on hold the day the Israelis leveled that suspicious plant in Syria that is thought to have been for the production of nuclear weapons. I think that was an Iranian sponsored facility. It was started in 2001, well on its way by 2003, so why take a chance of having bombs drop on Iran, when their Syrian satellite could take the heat.

[Sara]

As to who can think critically or only toes the party line, I have to say that I've not met anyone on the left who thinks critically.

They seem to be divided between conspiracy nuts, those who think this is the America of the Great Depression of the '30s, or those who are cases of arrested development circa 1968.

[Sara]

toes = tows

[Topsecretk9]

oh, but those Democrats love the cheeeeldrn

Two Republicans on the House Page Board resigned Thursday because the House clerk failed to notify them of two incidents involving high school-age students, including shoplifting charges and improper sexual conduct...

..Brown-Waite said she was resigning “due to the failed leadership of the clerk of the House and the continued lack of oversight,” according to the letter obtained by Politico.

She acknowledged that her resignation would, at least in the short term, "damage" the board’s credibility, but that she saw “no other alternative to bring to your, and the rest of the House’s, attention the serious management problems the page program currently faces."

In a statement later, Capito she had “looked forward to the opportunity to reform a very valuable program," but that "problems with communication between board members that plagued the program in the past have only continued under new House leadership."

“Members of this board cannot productively tackle problems that may occur with our pages when questionable incidents are held from members of the Page Board,” Capito said...

...“This year has already seen four pages dismissed from the program,” Brown-Waite wrote, “dismissals for serious criminal acts and for inappropriate sexual indiscretions between the students.”

Brown-Waite complained that the clerk “has been slow to share information with members of the board" and “in at least one vitally important incident” members were “intentionally kept in the dark about dismissals for more than a week, and were only given details after personally confronting the clerk with rumors.”

No further details were given in the letter about that incident.

Lamest Congress Ever.

http://www.politico.com/news/stories/1207/7248.html

[Sara]

I call foul. My DirectTV is out, relatively speaking. All channels, including local, are out with the exception of: all the shopping channels, CSPAN, but not CSPANII or III, BET, TBN, BYU, and some weird channel that I haven't quite figured out. The weirdest of all, the other 3 TVs hooked up to satellite are all working and getting all the channels, so it seems to be only the box hooked up to my TV that can't acquire the signal. Apparently the fates believe I need to shop, worship at the feet of Nancy Pelosi, or sing hallelujah, or support "black power."

[Sara]

Ah, the things you discover when you are desperate. The weird channel turned out to be the audio of oral argument at the Supreme Court on the Guantanamo case. Very interesting, now that I understand what is going on.

[ACrazyWorldwideHanukkahParty!!!!!]

The overevaluation of the data might be all the CIA analysts Congress had the Directors(x airforce)move from CIA to DoD(NSA/DIA).

I don't think Bush or Cheney are using Americans for some intelligence operations. That's for Plame and Ames. That's how the London bombing happened.

I have never dealt with the Pokemon village of "intelligence."

Don't panic about the carni nightmares.

Great minds like a think:
Bill Gates doesn't know 'The Economist' is British intelligence.

The name came up in an internet search for a bomb in a city.

[Topsecretk9]

Assistant U.S. Attorney Kenneth Chadwell didn't indicate why Nada Nadim Prouty, a Lebanese immigrant who once lived in Taylor, wanted the information or what she did with it. But he said four of the inquiries involved files containing the names of confidential FBI informants.

In another development, a federal official familiar with the case said the CIA had access to derogatory information about Prouty before the FBI hired her in 1999, but failed to disclose it when the FBI contacted the CIA during a background check.

Had the information been disclosed, the official said, the FBI might not have hired her. More perplexing, the official said, is why the CIA hired Prouty away from the FBI.

The CIA declined comment...

More at the link here

[clarice]

Just damn,ts!

[MayBee]

Vince Cannistrano would tell us she was just worried about her family AND her friends.

[Topsecretk9]

this was on November 26, 2007, before this tidbit about the CIA knowing about her problems...

For instance, how did Prouty slip through repeated background investigations by both intelligence agencies, which failed to uncover that Prouty paid an unemployed U.S. citizen to marry her so she could gain citizenship in 1990? Furthermore, although the FBI hired her before the 2001 terrorist attacks heightened security awareness, some experts wonder how she managed to get a job with the CIA in 2003.

In the past few years, the FBI introduced a new vetting process for foreign-born applicants. Even before those changes, however, Prouty’s position as an FBI special agent required that she pass a polygraph test and that investigators conduct interviews with her former spouse — neither of which raised any flags..

...Neither agency would comment on the extent to which they shared information regarding Prouty’s background investigations.

Prouty left the FBI after four years, so the agency never conducted a mandatory five-year reinvestigation.

“When she obtained employment at the CIA, she most likely received a polygraph,” said Evan Lesser, director of Clearance- Jobs.com. “I would put most of the blame on the CIA vetting process for new hires. This is a rare exception of someone slipping through the cracks because they were a naturalized citizen before their FBI employment.” ...

http://www.fcw.com/online/news/150876-1.html

[Topsecretk9]

Jarch Capital’s Sudanese Gambit

Paris-based Africa Energy Intelligence (AEI) recently carried a fairly alarming article on Jarch Capital, an investment fund headed by a former Salomon Brothers trader named Phil Heilberg. Jarch has big interests in African natural resources and its leadership includes Joseph Wilson. According to AEI, Jarch has looked for business in Darfur, where Heilberg “has hitched his star to one of the leading rebel chiefs in the region,” as well as in the “breakaway province of Somaliland.” The story says that Jarch’s advisory board includes Tuhat Pol, president of an “Ethiopian opposition movement calling for an armed uprising against the Addis Ababa government.”

An affiliate of Jarch also claims to have a rich oil deal in southern Sudan. ...

Into this powderkeg comes Jarch, trying to enforce its oil deal (which involves exploration of a huge oil block in southern Sudan that covers 240,000 square kilometers) with threats of legal action. AEI says the investment fund originally signed the deal before the 2005 peace deal, and many in the current southern leadership say it is not binding.

It’s a dangerous situation: “The State Department isn’t supportive of Jarch’s involvement because it knows that once Americans go after oil in the south any hope of a national unity government collapses,” an American who closely follows events in Sudan told me. “The southerners are already fighting over power and this would get them fighting over oil too.”

[hit and run]

Tops ... I am on pins and needles here!!!

Bigger one forthcoming?

[hit and run]

And before anyone accuses me of asking of others what I am unwilling to do myself...may I remind you...

I'm the one in the middle.

[hit and run]

Oh, and if that last one's not good enough?

Fine.

I'm the one on the left.

[PeterUK]

OT but interesting information concerning NIE - The Times Cheney was briefed on intelligence - conversations between disenchanted Iranian personnel complaining the project to develop nuclear weapons had been stopped.
Understandable,since in 2003 there was a very and heavily armed armed force next door.

[ACrazyWorldwideHanukkahParty!!!!!]

Foreign born vetting is not knew. They discontinued some of it because of the discrmination. They will use it to discriminate again.

TSK9 isn't a female.

[ACrazyWorldwideHanukkahParty!!!!!]

Saw the picture. It's the Herman working like Val before getting hired by the CIA.

[Topsecretk9]

OK Hit.., but my only regret is that I have to be a generic brunette.

[hit and run]

You just made my weekend.

[clarice]

I leave for five minutes and Hit's got ts playing I'll show me mine if you show me yours.Jeesh

[clarice]

The King article can be purchased online from the LAT archives if you want. It was first published there in April 1993

Here's an excerpt:
[quote]
Los Angeles Times (pre-1997 Fulltext) - Los Angeles, Calif.
Author: Florence King
Date: Apr 4, 1993
Start Page: 38
Section: Los Angeles Times Magazine; Times Magazine Desk
Text Word Count: 2290



Abstract (Document Summary)



Tennessee Williams did not exaggerate. The South is Big Daddy country. The psychological dominance practiced by ole Colonel Portnoy, who seduces with bourbon instead of chicken soup, is why the South is full of middle-aged men holding forth in curiously whining voices about "what my Daddy said." Daughters are equally susceptible to our drawling Agamemnons. Margaret Mitchell could not keep her fingers off those magic keys, f-a-t-h-e-r, giving us not one but two Electra-fying father-daughter relationships: Gerald and Scarlett O'Hara and Rhett and Bonnie Butler.

As [Hillary Rodham Clinton], she will drag [Bill Clinton] into the same nomenclatural bedlam already occupied by First Friends Harry Thomason and Linda Bloodworth-Thomason. You can't call them Mr. and Mrs. Bloodworth-Thomason because he's not a Bloodworth and she's more than a Thomason. Nor can you call them Mr. and Mrs. Thomason because there is no Mrs. Thomason.[/quote]

http://pqasb.pqarchiver.com/latimes/access/60228723.html?dids=60228723:60228723&FMT=ABS&FMTS=ABS:FT&type=current&date=Apr+4%2C+1993&author=Florence+King&pub=Los+Angeles+Times+(pre-1997+Fulltext)&edition=&startpage=38&desc=jus%27+what+kind+of+good+ole+boy+is+president+billy%3F>Clinton

[MayBee]

but my only regret is that I have to be a generic brunette.
hah hah hah hah!!
I like your fabric more than I like their jaguar, though!

Cute you!

[cathyf]

I dunno, tsk9, that is one heck of a moth hole!

[Ralph L]

Sara, you were right the first time with "toe the line." You've been "in" the Navy too long.

[hit and run]

Ralph! Hey, took mrs hit and run to RDU today. Didn't quite go "through" your town, but did decide to take the back roads back to mine. Went through Gibsonville. 'Twas a lot of fun.

Oh, and if Gmax is here -- princess hit and run was with us and did mention "evoting" (her word, not realizing that voting online could be described as such) and Jmax upon seeing a Chapel Hill sign....

By the way, preview saved me here. Don't try and type "princess hit..." so fast that the last 's' on princess ends up attaching itself to hit....yikes.

[Charlie (Colorado)]

I think Snow Mountain Ranch was where I learned that Texans, even with 4X4's, had no idea about slick, sloped, roads, but it was more like a third of a century ago. Emerald Mountain was the place to be 80-100 years ago.

Texans are fun in the snow. We used to drive up and down I-25 at 25 mph, being passed by Texans driving 60. I-25 has several places where it turns for no apparent reason (actually following the Fountain River more or less.) We called them "Texan flypaper".

[hit and run]

OK, Charlie, you got me. We moved to Denver in the mid 90s. From Texas.

We drove back to Texas for a friend's wedding.

It was April. Big storm. We made it as far as Col Springs. Got a hotel, spent the night.

Woke up the next morning, the storm had passed, but it had dumped maybe 6-8 inches of snow.

So we headed south on I-25. Easy driving.

Was going probably 60. No problems.

Til I tried to pass one of you locals apparently, maybe it was you personally, going 25. The ruts in between the lanes grabbed the tires and ..... spin out.

No damage. Just embarrassement.

And, an hour later, going 60 again.

(then again, the storm didn't hit Pueblo or south anyway, so no more snow)

[ann]

Hit, What a small world. I spent some of my childhood in Raleigh, N.C. We moved north and I found the man of my dreams in Ohio; his family is from Martinsville and Collinsville.

It seems I was in your backyard a couple months ago. We always, always spend Christmas in Richmond, VA. Maybe, we could get Clarice to host a Christmas JOM Day. I will bring the beer. Just don't tell Jane!

[Porchlight]

Thanks for the King cite, Clarice. Since your teaser a few weeks ago I've been looking forward to reading it.

I have access to the full text if you or anyone else would like it - just let me know where to send.

Thanks for the photos - y'all are all cute!

[clarice]

I'd love it, porchlight. Even though I ordered the book it won't be here for a week or more. Pls send to clarice.feldman@gmail.com

[hit and run]

Ann, I remember you being in Martinsville.....

Martinsville holds some really fond memories of NASCAR races for me.

Well, not so much "memories" as pictorial representations of time I spent there that I cannot recall due to drinking non-stop beginning at 7am.

(I was there at the infamous NBC-staged-Muslim-dressed-looking-for-some-intolerance-but-couldn't-find-any race. Didn't see any Muslim dressed dudes....er, wait...I mean I wasn't photographed with any)

Good times.

[Porchlight]

Should be in your inbox, Clarice. I'm off to savor it right now...

[clarice]

Got it.Thnx,porchlight.

[clarice]

Ann, I've offered asylum to the little Hits and Ms. but I'm afraid about alcohol addled chainsaw wielding Hit.

[hit and run]

Clarice:
Ann, I've offered asylum to the little Hits and Ms.

Oh, gosh, you do realize that in taking mrs hit and run to the airport today...that she is in Texas ----> but the kids have stayed here with me!!!

We are ALL unsupervised!!!

[clarice]

I'm getting an ice pack for my head and going to bed. Perchance to sleep after hearing that frightening news.

[hit and run]

The kids are safely in bed, and I am heading to my own.

The neighborhood Christmas party is tomorrow night, but I am not going, choosing to stay home and hang with the kids.

Nothing to cause you distress. All is quiet. All is calm. All is bright. Round yon virgin...wait, where was I?

It's sleep in heavenly peace here....

[Ralph L]

Not too many years ago, when you got to NC from Virginia, the snowplowing stopped, even on the interstates. Our snow is wetter and slicker than out west and New England's, so we have reason to be wary of it (and the other idiots on the road).

I drove to my brother's in CT for Thanks. on rt 29 and I-81, and on the way back, I missed a turn in Lynchburg and drove into Roanoke thinking it was Danville, adding 60 miles to a 670 mile trip.
Eden was a ghost town at 11:30 Saturday night (they must have been warned I was coming), and I saw most of it trying to find 87.

[dick]

Sue,

They might have had a snow day but if I didn't work, I didn't get paid. No snow days for consultants.

[Ralph L]

Sleep on heavenly peas, wake up a vegetable.

[Elliott]

Hit and Run:

A day may come come when the reference to Star Wars fails, but it is not this day!

The parts may be up for debate, but they are certainly discussing their light sabers.

Speaking of Star Wars, have you seen this?

[JM Hanes]

So, did all our Plamaniacs see this from yesterday's Providence Journal (via memeorandum)?

After her hour-long speech and question-and-answer session, Plame dropped one bombshell almost casually.

She said a lawyer had called her just before her talk began and told her that special prosecutor Patrick J. Fitzgerald had agreed to turn his transcripts of interviews with Mr. Bush and Vice President Dick Cheney over to U. S. Rep. Henry Waxman, D-Calif., who is known for his relish for investigating wrongdoing by Republicans.

Hope is alive and well over at Firedoglake!

[Sara]

Can he do that?

[Elliott]

Thanks for that, JMH. It's Fitzmas and all the libral uns must be assured that there is a Scandal Cloud.

If this lawyer Plame mentions was not employed by the OVP on Feb. 12, 2002, he or she probably works for Waxman's committee. If there are transcripts—my memory is quite hazy as to what, if any, special conditions applied to these interviews—and they eventually see the light of day, the worst case scenario I can imagine is that POTUS and DLOTUS (Dark Lord of the United States) had very advanced cases of Arkansas alzheimer's, which would only make Fitzgerald look like a complete tool of the administration. Hardly likely.

[kim]

"How could you tell? I had dark glasses on." Oh, the poor thing.
=====================================

[Jane]

You know I can't help but think that history will show that Bush and Cheney single- handedly disarmed Iraq, Iran, No. Korea and Lybia while Congress spent all of their waking hours ( all 15 a week) trying to undermine everything they did, because apparently Waxman, Pelosi, Reid et al were either rooting for Hezbolla, Hamas and al Qaeda or were dumber than dirt.

This week a Bush skeptic commented to me that there was a chance that this president would end up regarded like Churchill. So just maybe his accomplishments are starting to sink in. As a result I expect the BDSers like Waxman to redouble their efforts.

I say "Bring it on"

[kim]

Reagan and the Bushes bookending Bill Clinton is going to be a lesson for centuries.
======================================

[kim]

Oh, and raise a glass of Three Hills.
======================

[Ann]

Jane,

No one could say it better than you just did. I say "Bring it On", too!

"How could you tell? I had dark glasses on." (What a buffoon)

[hit and run]

CONSCIENCE CLEARING FULL DISCLOSURE: After a fitful night of sleep, I feel I must come clean. All of my comments above on this thread were talking points given to me by the White House, which I regurgitated word for word, without question.

I do not understand the message the White House is trying to get out with those talking points; but then, I'm not exactly being paid to think, let alone understand.

For which I am glad. Saves me the hassle of having to think for myself.

[hit and run]

I KNOW WHAT YOU'RE THINKING: No. The White House didn't give me the "come clean" talking point to regurgitate.

Nor is my denying that the "come clean" post is a WH talking point a WH talking point.

Cross my heart.

[kim]

Moon of my buffoon,
You pitiful daffodil.
Out, damned spy!
==============

[Bill in AZ]

Hear, hear on the glass of Three Hills (well, maybe later, it's still early). Must be a slow news day, and while waiting for the next round of drought ending rain/snow here I'll make my pitch for Dec 6 as Erl Happ day - the day Al Gore and his AGW was shoved back under the rock. "We're cooling" is starting to get some attention over at Climate Audit (post 470).

[clarice]

Well said, Jane. These have been remarkable achievements which have to date been argely underplayed or ignored. He's playing for the history books not Bill Keller's approval.