February 10, 2004 by s.z.

The Thought for the Day From the 1999 "Deep Thoughts by Jack Handey" calendar: We tend to laugh at hillbillies, and I guess that's okay.  But let me tell you something about hillbillies: they're fun to laugh at.  Oh, I guess I said that. 10:36:15 AM

What's Next -- Flesh of Christ Fruit Roll-Ups? Yesterday No More Mister Nice Blog brought us the story of the Jesus Jelly Beans. (Parents in Ohio are suing their daughter's school district because the girl's kindergarten teacher wouldn't let her distribute jellybeans with an attached "Jelly Bean Prayer" to her classmates before last Easter.  The prayer's first two lines are: "Red is for the blood He gave, Green is for the grass He made."  The parents claim this violates the kid's freedom of speech; the Rutherford institute is backing the suit.) Today we get the story of Christ's Blood Candy Canes.  Here's part: GRESHAM, Ore. (AP) -- The family of a 6-year-old boy filed suit against the Gresham-Barlow school district, claiming the kindergartner was not allowed to pass out his Christmas cards because the card's message mentioned Jesus. The suit was filed by The American Center for Law and Justice, a law firm founded by the Rev. Pat Robertson that is representing Julie Cortez and her son, Justin, a student at North Gresham grade school. It charges that when Justin Cortez tried to hand out cards at a Christmas party, the card was taken away from him.  According to the suit, the card carried a message suggesting that a candy cane was shaped like a "J" to symbolize Jesus, with the red and white stripes representing Christ's blood and body. Okay, first of all, like Steve "No More Mister Nice" said, kindergarten is not the place to try to proselytize on the behalf of any religion.  Second, do these religious "let's sue some schools" groups really think that the money couldn't be better used to, oh, feed the hungry or buy AIDS treatments for the sick, or something?  And third, do they REALLY want to gross out little kids this way, by making them think that candy has Jesus blood in it? In any case, I really have to side with the schools here.  I would be VERY UPSET if my (imaginary) 5-year-old was being bribed with candy to belive in somebody else's brand of Christianity.  And if I were non-Christian, I'd be even more upset by the attempts to indoctrinate my child while she was at school. 10:31:49 AM

Bill O'Reilly, Beaten By a Girl  Remember back a few weeks ago when Ben Shapiro, in an obvious attempt to get Bill O'Reilly to be his best friend and yell at those kids at school who keep picking on him, posed the title question: O'Reilly vs. DNC: Who's Telling the Truth?  Well, now, thanks to Howard Kurtz, we have the official answer: Ann IS a man!  I mean, BILL is the liar. Per Howie, Bill finally conceded that since Hillary hadn't sold half a million copies to the DNC, she won the book selling contest. After an e-mail exchange with DNC spokesman Tony Welch, O'Reilly last week acknowledged that the organization has not yet bought any Clinton books, though it plans some promotional giveaways. And Bill manfully acknowledged that "Clinton's book had outsold his, 1.1 million to 800,000. "  But wait one minute -- don't those numbers sound familiar?  Well, they should, because they're the same ones he claimed earlier.  That 1.1 million figure for Hillary's sales came from the year-end BookScan figures (which, per Bill himself, "undercounts book sales by as much as 35 percent.")  And Bill's clamed sales figure of 800,00 apparently comes from taking his numbers  from that same BookScan report and doubling them, since, as you will recall, BookScan showed him as selling 430,407 copies.  Howie does give us this additional info: Actually, says Robert Barnett, Clinton's lawyer, "Living History" has sold 1.5 million copies and, he disclosed, an additional 1.2 million overseas. He also praised O'Reilly's 800,000 in sales -- the commentator's third No. 1 bestseller -- as "a fantastic accomplishment." I guess it's nice that Clinton and her people are so gracious in victory, but I sure hope that Al Franken uses these latest examples of Bill's lies in his next book, Pants on Fire: Bill O'Reilly's Nose Hangs On the Telephone Wire. Oh, and speaking of Bill's reaction to authors he doesn't like, David of Orcinus has an interesting item about how Bill wished death on Michael Moore.  But it was just a joke, ha ha.  Like the time he fantasized of shooting Al Franken right between the head.  That's Bill for you, always looking out for people. 8:58:11 AM

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And Speaking of the Plame Investigation . . . It's apparently heating up too.  Here's Slate's "Today's Papers" summary of what the press is reporting: The Post and NYT both front word that the investigation into the apparent outing of a CIA agent by an administration official is heating up and investigators have now taken testimony from top White House officials including Karl Rove, spokesman Scott McClellan and, in what seems to be the focus, some of Vice President Cheney's aides. Both leak stories have interesting tidbits. The Times says some in the White House have been informed that they're "subjects" of the investigation. (Apparently, that's a legal term meant to suggest you're in deeper water than a "witness" but less than a "target.") The Post says investigators have phone logs " [link corrected because Slate used the Times one twice] indicating that several White House officials talked to columnist Robert D. Novak shortly before" he penned his article officially outing the CIA agent. The Post also notes that the FBI says it's closing in on whoever forged the uranium documents that started the whole kerfuffle. We also learn from the Times that in addition to grand jury appearances, "prosecutors have conducted meetings with presidential aides that lawyers in the case described as tense and sometimes combative."  Oh, and that "White House Officials" (those would be Vice President's Office officials, if I don't miss my guess} were really mad at Wilson for writing that piece contradicting that claim in the State of the Union address, and at the CIA for sending him to Niger.    The Post gives us this interesting point: Several sources involved in the leak case said the questioning suggests prosecutors are preparing to seek testimony from Novak and perhaps other journalists. "There's a very good likelihood they're going to litigate against journalists," one source said.  News organizations typically resist subpoenas or other methods of obtaining information about confidential sources. In the Plame case, prosecutors have tried to overcome that obstacle by asking several White House officials to sign waivers requesting "that no member of the news media assert any privilege or refuse to answer any questions from federal law enforcement authorities on my behalf or for my benefit." The sources said most officials declined to sign the form on the advice of their attorneys. "It would just be helping the government to put more pressure on journalists to reveal sources," one of the lawyers said. Yeah, and we sure wouldn't want to help the goverment in any way, since we ARE senior administration officials.  The Times said that investigators asked their interviewees/subjects to sign agreements indicating they wouldn't disclose what they were questioned about, but that nobody would sign that form either, upon advise of counsel.  So, when President Bush urged everyone to cooperate fully with the investigation, I guess he meant, "Unless your lawyer tells you otherwise, or you're guilty or something." Anyway, as Drudge would say, developing . . . P.S.   As to what being the "subject" of an investigation means to the FBI, I would say that it means that you are a primary suspect.  So, I guess it's a good thing all these senior officials have lawyers. 7:52:26 AM

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Maybe It's Valerie Plame's Fault Again Well, "The Case of the Purloined And Leaked Internal Confidential Democratic Documents" is starting to get some attention.  The Register's article The first fallout from Cybergate offers a good summary of the case, in case you're not up to speed on it.  Anyway, when the story of the misappropriated emails starting coming out, Orrin Hatch, Chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee, asked for an investigation.  Manuel C. Miranda, a former staff aide to Hatch, was somehow fingered, admitted to having read some of the documents, and resigned his position as a senior aide to Republican Senate Leader Frist.  But he didn't go out quietly: oh, no -- he blamed the Democrats for keeping their memos on a server that he could access, claimed that he wasn't the one who leaked anything, said that somebody else did WAY more stuff than him, added that memos that hadn't been leaked were lots worse than the ones that were, and then he filed an ethics complaint against the Republicans, for having exchanged emails with groups who offered ideas on how to block Bush's judicial nominees.  And then a bunch of Republicans got on board, blaming Frist and Hatch for sacrificing Miranda, and for not using the Democratic memos to give a black eye to those Democratic S.O.B.s, or better yet, blackmail them into getting some of those appointments confirmed. Let's hear from Bob "Pawn" Novak on the matter: By a stroke of luck, Republicans had found a trail of e-mail messages by Democrats that exposed a coolly crafted plan to reject President Bush's federal judges. But Democrats managed to turn their own corruption of Senate confirmations into bipartisan outrage over a staffer leaking a senator's sacrosanct communications. [snip] Nearly a year ago on Feb. 27, 2003, I reported in this column that Ted Kennedy had devised a "grand design" to keep Bush from taking over the federal judiciary. I attributed direct quotes about his filibuster scheme to "internal sources," and Senate Judiciary Committee Democratic staffers recognized language from their own e-mails. The Wall Street Journal last November published parts of 15 such messages, which later were posted on a Web site. The reaction by Democrats was audacious, borrowing from the Nixon White House's approach to publication of the Pentagon Papers three decades ago. Just as the Republicans then deflected attention from disclosures about the Vietnam War revelation by attacking the leakers and journalists, the assault on the Judiciary Committee e-mail leak obscured the disclosures. The difference this time was that Republican senators agreed that the real scandal was the leak, not the leaked material.  [snip] "No unauthorized hacking was involved," Miranda said in his departure statement. "I considered and studied the propriety of reading these documents. I knew that in legal ethics there is no absolute prohibition on reading opposition documents inadvertently disclosed." On the contrary, he concluded, "a prohibition on the reading of such documents" would violate the Code of Ethics of Government Service. Manny Miranda is a man of principle who was betrayed by his bosses in the interests of maintaining an artificial comity with their Democratic colleagues. Now they must decide what to do with those unread e-mails hidden in the safe of the sergeant at arms. But, per the Democrats quoted in the NY Times, Novak is full of you-know-what.  Here are a few paragraphs from the piece Democrats Suggest Inquiry Points to Wider Spying by G.O.P.  Senator Richard J. Durbin, Democrat of Illinois, said he learned from Mr. Pickle's briefing that the improper reading, copying and distributing of confidential Democratic memorandums had gone on far longer and had involved a greater amount of information than had previously been believed. "The extent and duration of the improper access was both remarkably longer and more widespread than I had ever imagined," Mr. Durbin said. Previous published reports said the period in which Republican aides read the Democratic strategy memorandums lasted six months to a year. So, it may have going on for as long as 3 years.  As to the number of documents, it's not the dozen, or fifty or so, we'd heard about last week.  Now it's "more than 3,000 documents."    Not only were a couple leaked to Novak, but "some of the internal memorandums appear to have been used to prepare one or more of President Bush's appeals court nominees to answer specific questions from Democratic senators during their Judiciary Committee hearings, Democrats said Monday." And the story about, "Hey, we just clinked an icon and there the documents were, right in our computer, and anyway, somebody TOLD the Democrats about this problem in 2002 and they didn't care," is being disputed too.  First, nobody from the Democratic side says they knew about the Republicans accessing their documents until November of last year (and it appears neither did the Senate's sergeant-at-arms, William Pickle).  And reportedly the breach wasn't due to sloppy computer security on the part of the Democrats, but instead was caused by somebody making an unauthorized connection to the Democrats server.   In addition, one aide said Mr. Pickle said the breach in security was the result of a person "hacking," or working to gain entry into the Democrats' files. After that initial hacking, the documents were easily available on the network. So, what happens next? Senator Patrick J. Leahy of Vermont, the committee's ranking Democrat, told reporters after the 90-minute meeting that it appeared to him that Mr. Pickle's investigation would lead to a criminal investigation. The piece from the Register discusses the laws involved, which per, the author, mean that a crime may indeed have been committed, despite what Miranda told the press.  In any case, Miranda was at a minimum guilty of work place ethics and computer violations which should have gotten him fired.  And if hacking is indeed involved, that would seem to be a crime that somebody should be prosecuted for.  We'll see, I guess.  We'll also see, in time, if Novak goes to hell, like he deserves. 6:53:57 AM

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E.g., Laura Says the the Real Problem Is Not That She's Frigid, But That George Is Too Much Of a Man For Her In other fun today, Sadly, No! introduces The Real Problem Game.  It was inspired by  Peggy Noonan's description of Bush's performance on "Meet the Press," in which Peg said that, "What we are looking at here is not quality of mind--Mr. Bush is as bright as John Kerry," but it's just that Kerry is good at responding to questions, while Bush is good at reading speeches prepared by other people. Democrats have minds that do it through talking points, and Republicans have minds that do speeches. . . . And the reason--perhaps--is that Democratic candidates tend to love the game of politics, and Republican candidates often don't. So, to summarize Peg: the real problem with Bush is that he's too APOLITICAL.  Anyway, that's my interpretation of the Pegster (Sadly has an equally valid one).  So, find the Real Problem with other people or events, and go play Dr. No!'s game.  There may or may not be prizes. 5:50:06 AM

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And Then I Said, "But What If Your Sons Saw These Photos of You Kissing George Bush Full on the Mouth?" and Dennis Said, "Drat, You've Bested Me Once Again, S.Z" Dennis Prager does another one of his William Safire-inspired "What I imagine that people I disapprove of are thinking" pieces.  This one is "an imagined interview with the Massachusetts Supreme Court justices who ruled that Massachusetts must redefine marriage to include persons of the same sex." Like most of the imaginary conversations Dennis has, he gets in all the good lines, and due to his clever questionning, his opponents are revealed as poopieheads.  This one can be summarized as: "We are touchy-feely liberals, and we have straw for brains, but we think we're smarter than everyone else, so we're going to redefine marriage; and we would have gotten away with it too, if it hadn't been for the brilliance of that Dennis Prager." Here's a sample: Q: Are you saying, then, that you would be just as happy if young children see two women or two men kissing as you would if they saw a man and a woman kissing? That you don't care if your own children marry someone of the same sex? That you would be just as happy at your child's wedding, if your son married a man or if your daughter married a woman? A: No, we would not say those things. But we have compassion for gays. Clearly, Dennis is one of the greatest mindreaders of our generation, and as soon as I am not so tired, I am going to conduct an imaginary interview with him.  I will, of course, say upfront that it's imaginary, so that Jonah Goldberg doesn't get confused again. 5:34:31 AM