Thursday, October 20, 2005

DUmmie FUnnies 10-20-05 (DUmmies SLAM South Park)





South Park is my absolute FAVORITE TV show. I always look forward to flipping on the tube at 9:30 PM with a glass of rum in hand to watch that show. Even if it is a re-run I still love watching South Park. Therefore it was with great anticipation that I watched this season's NEW episode last night. If you missed it, you missed a gem. It was a satire on media misinformation about Hurricane Katrina along with panic over Global Warming. What happened was that Cartman and Stan accidentally caused the collapse of a dam that flooded Beaverton which is near the town of South Park. After first blaming GEORGE BUSH for the flood, the residents finally settled on Global Warming as the culprit. They figured out that Global Warming that would destroy the world would occur two days before the day after tomorrow which means TODAY! Of course the town completely panicked and holed up in a shelter hoping to ride out the Global Warming. Meanwhile the TV news were claiming that MILLIONS of people in Beaverton which has a population of only a few thousand were killed. To really appreciate the hilarity of this episode, however, one must actually see it. And now it turns out the DUmmies were ENRAGED by this episode as you can see in this THREAD titled, "F*ck South Park.,Trey Parker and Matt Stone." So now we get a double bonus. A wonderful new season episode of South Park as well as DUmmie RAGE against that show for our comedic entertainment. As usual, the DUmmie outrage against a FUnnie show is in Bolshevik Red while the commentary of your humble correspondent, wishing to thank Trey Parker and Matt Stone for providing me with INCREDIBLE comedic entertainment, is in the [brackets]:




F*ck South Park.,Trey Parker and Matt Stone




[DAMN South Park for not conforming to PC DUmmie Standards!]




Ive been a fan of South Park since day one.I havent always agreed with their politics but their humour almost always won me over.




[Hmmm... From the way you spelled "humour" can I assume you are a Canadian? Phil? Or are you Terrence?]




Its amazing that they could come up with a show like "Thats my Bush" and then turn around and give a pass to almost everything this administration has done since taking office.Its like someone got to them,blackmailed them.




[Karl Rove is blackmailing him from deep within the Perfect Rovian Storm.]




When Clinton was in office they were merciless,but a fascist like Bush has been pretty much given carte blanche.




[Maybe Parker and Stone were anesthetized by Phil and Terrence's flatulence.]




Tonight's episode tried to whitewash Fema and Bush's incompetence during Katrina.




[And we all know that GEORGE BUSH caused Hurricane Katrina. GEORGE BUSH...and Global Warming.]




Its depressing,I used to look forward to the latest episode of south park but I cant anymore.These guys are carrying water for these bastards.




[Maybe they left the radio on during Rush Limbaugh and became mind numbed robots. And now let us hear from your fellow mind numbed DUmmies.]




I don't have cable.
Can you tell me what happened.




[Phil and Terrence FARTED!!! Oops! Wrong episode.]




They basically absolved Bush and Fema for any blame for the miscues during Katrina.I really wish this wasnt the case but thats what happened.




[The dam flood was caused by GLOBAL WARMING!]




Did they blame anyone?




[GEORGE BUSH and GLOBAL WARMING!!!]




Its just a cartoon.But cartoons can influence public opinion the same way the daily show does or Mark Twain did for that matter.




[Phil and Terrence affected the way I voted in the last election. Or was it the gay Saddam?]




Like FOX, unfortunately, people watch South Park and take messages from it. Just like they do from Fox. It jibes well with what the RW KoolAid machine produces and serves. Tonight was definitely over the top in its RW buttkissing.




[Speaking of buttkissing, do you think Gay Saddam and Satan will get back together as housemates again?]




Cartoons have been used for generations to plant ideas...like Rocky and Bullwinkle and earlier than that were others ...




[Rocky and Bullwinkle: the earliest of the rightwing cartoon characters. Remember how they made us hate the Commie Russians with Boris, Natasha, and the Fearless Leader?]




I personally enjoyed it. I love South Park and I loved it. And yes, they're a freakin cartoon. Not a news channel and they make fun of everyone. Good grief. Seriously chill out.




[LOUSY FREEPER TROLL!!!]




I used to be a south park fan, but after Team America I turned my back. At the beginning it's making fun of the American Right's misunderstanding of foreign cultures. Then it apologizes for that and goes on to violently blow up and decapitate every liberal media figure without so much as a peep of criticism about RW media figures.




[How could you not like the Team America puppet sex?]




There's a "lesson" in every episode, quite often with an ignorant, simplistic message.




[Listen to the sounds of Phil and Terrence's farts. There is a hidden subliminal message in there.]




"Team America: World Police", with the exception of a few moments that genuinely made me laugh (like the "freedom isn't free...it costs a buck o'five" fake country song), really pissed me off.




[Is that you, Sean Penn?]




it was a good episode. I thought the main traget was the media and the public. We are all guilty of playing the blame game in the wake of Katrina, and I think at times both the left and the right cared more about the political consquences then the people who were devestated. In all thier intreviews they say outlandish shit about how they lean politically. I think the truth is they are equal oppurtunity offenders who try to piss everyone off.




[And this DUmmie wins a Kewpie Doll for having a brief moment of mental clarity.]




Butters: Best Character Ever




[True. I'm still chuckling about the time Butters discovered his father abusing himself in a gay bathhouse. Butter's father was incredibly embarrassed but all Butters was concerned about was going to dinner at Bennigan's that night.]




i can't stand the motherf*ckers
their appeal is to those Republicans who don't admit to being Republicans. the ones who aren't very religiously conservative, but are the type to say "yeah, we are going to kick their asses".



[Actually we are going to kick YOUR asses.]



And also recall the "Kenny as Terry Schiavo" episode -- this one totally skewered Republicans.


[And yet you didn't see Republicans WHINING about that episode like you folks are doing now.]

Wednesday, October 19, 2005

DUmmie FUnnies 10-19-05 (DUmmies Gloat Over False Report Of Baghdad Mayor Death)





It's a FALSE story but it says a lot about the sick mindset of the DUmmies that they are JUBILANT over the fact that they think the mayor of Baghdad has been killed as you can see in this THREAD incorrectly titled, "Baghdad Mayor Killed." Of course, when Saddam Hussein is executed they will have the opposite reaction. They will mourn the passing of such a great anti-American leader. So let us now watch as the DUmmies express jubilation over the death that didn't happen in Bolshevik Red while the commentary of your humble correspondent is in the [brackets]:




Baghdad Mayor Killed




[Don't break out the champagne just yet, DUmmies, since the story you posted from this WEBSITE is FALSE.]




Baghdad. The mayor of Baghdad Hatem Mirza Hamza and his driver were killed Wednesday in al-Durra neighborhood in the Iraqi capital, Interfax reported citing a statement of the Iraqi Interior Ministry. A group of gunmen opened fire in the car of the mayor and then escaped.




[Great joy is breaking out in DUmmieland at this news...until they discover it is UNTRUE.]




another quisling bites the dust




[May I question your patriotism?]




The Iraqis know who Judas is and where he hangs loose.




[So anybody who is NOT anti-American is a Quisling or a Judas in the Land of the DUmmies?]




Any in MSM reporting this? Even in passing?




[NOBODY else reporting this at all. It looks like you DUmmies have taken the bait ONCE AGAIN. How does that hook in your mouth feel, DUmmies?]

Tuesday, October 18, 2005

DUmmie FUnnies 10-18-05 ("HEY: Brace yourselves..."---Pitt's Reality Check)



It looks like I might actually have to award Pied Piper Pitt a Kewpie Doll for having a very brief moment of mental clarity. Why? Because he is now admitting the VERY REAL possibility that Karl Rove & Co. WON'T be indicted by Special Prosecutor Patrick Fitzgerald as you can see in his DUmmie THREAD titled, "HEY: Brace yourselves..." For what crime they could be indicted on, I have NO idea since it is NOT a crime to reveal the identity of a CIA agent who is NOT covert. Let us watch Pied Piper Pitt toss cold water on the drooling DUmmies along with their groanings in Bolshevik Red. The commentary of your humble correspondent, who believes Texas Persecutor, Ronnie Earle, has a greater chance of being indicted than Karl Rove, is in the [brackets]:


HEY: Brace yourselves...




[Ronnie Earle is about to be indicted for basing an indictment on a non-existent document?]




...for the possibility that nothing will come of this.




[BEEP! BEEP!]




Ugly thought, I know.




[But still a nicer sight than you in a Midnight Cowboy costume, Pitt.]



But ask yourself: How many times in the last five years have you geared up for an endgame, only to have it fizzle like a sparkler in a rainstorm?




[And Charlie Brown goes FLYING into the air as Lucy pulls the football away at the last moment!!!]



If you had a nickel for every time you read "OMG, THIS IS IT, THEY'RE GOING DOWN!" here, if you had another nickel for every time that turned out not to be the case, how many nickels would you have?




[I also wish I had a nickel for every time you instigated those "OMG" threads, Pitt. I still remember those false hopes you stirred up with several threads along the theme of Kerry's lawyers filing an obscure legal paper in an even more obscure Ohio county courthouse.]




I'd have a lot.




[Nickels or BS?]




I know nothing more than you do. I expect indictments, particularly now that Hannah is cooperating.




["I expect indictments..." You just JINXED yourself by typing that, Pitt.]




But I have also reached that zen-like state where nothing surprises me about these guys, their ilk, their followers, and their lapdog media friends.




[Lapdog media friends? You are BEYOND a zen-like state, Pitt. You are in a complete coma.]




I refuse to be surprised if nothing comes of this. Try it, just in case.





[There is a cigar-smoking Beaver Kewpie Doll waiting to be delivered to you, Pitt. And now let us hear the rest of the DUmmies chime in...]




Ditto, wait, watch, listen and see, hopefully these days will go down in
history.




[As momentous as the DAY WHEN EVERYTHING FINALLY CHANGED I & II.]




If only folks would remember what they endured after the November 2004 elections, and, worse, when the day came for the electoral college to meet and cast their votes, and nothing came from the Kerry camp.




[What? You mean Kerry wasn't inaugurated on Jan. 20???]




It's good to remember all of the disappointments we have endured over that past few years. We just have to remember to stay strong.




[And CONTINUE being disappointed.]




I do think something will happen. Maybe not what we're all hoping for but I know whatever it is we'll all be shocked...




[...when Joe Wilson is indicted.]




I am ready for anything... in my brain, but in my heart, I will be devastated if these crooks aren't brought into the light. I am on pins and needles!




[DUmmie Devastation: I LOVE IT!!!]




I wish I could keep my hopes in check....
but unfortunately I tend to have that Charlie Brown Syndrome -- every time I keep thinking THIS is going to be time we kick the hell out of that football. I'm really hoping Lucy doesn't have a chance to pull it away from us this time....




[Ahh! Obviously a DUmmie reader of the DUmmie FUnnies. And may I place you on the DUFU PING List?]




I know what you're saying. I also got excited when I heard about the Downing St. memo, Dan Rather's report on TV, all the different House ethics charges against old Tom, etc! I too was disappointed each time!




[And don't forget the DUmmie gloatings over the exit poll victory for Kerry on Election Day. That was also a real laugh riot!]




Its been like this for at least a year now for me. I am getting used to feeling like pond scum........




[Susan Estrich knows the feeling.]




Actually the Hannah thing doesn't bode well to me
Why am I thinking this will end up isolated to Cheney's underlings and Cheney/ Rove and company will remain unscathed? Oh yeah--I remember why, because this ALWAYS HAPPENS! UG!




[DUmmies---Doomed to remain Coyotes with exploding ACME Co. packages for all eternity. BEEP! BEEP!]




At the risk of being flamed for saying this --- I began bracing myself for this over the past two days. My plans are to move outside the states if the right people are not indicted. I hadn't searched for Canadian real estate since around the time of inauguration, but have ran a few searches recently in preparation of no indictments.





[LOL! So you are going to move to Canada if Rove isn't indicted? If only you and your fellow DUmmies would do as PROMISED.]




off topic, but wasn't that last night's game just like the 2004 election? We pull ahead and work really hard to do it against all odds. Dems are popping champagne bottles open getting ready for the victory. Then....well you know the rest of the story.




[It was FUN to watch the aftereffects the champagne bottle had on Susan Estrich on Election Night.]




I will keep visualizing Indictments and Impeachment
though . I must remain positive .



[We already know all about visualizing your own reality.]

Monday, October 17, 2005

DUmmie FUnnies 10-17-05 (Filmmakers Admit They Needed DeLay Indictment To End Movie)



The laughable DeLay indictment whipped up by PARTISAN Texas District Attorney, Ronnie Earle, has now become even MORE of a joke thanks in large part to a startling admission by the two filmmakers who made a movie featuring the Puke of Earle as their hero. As you can see in this San Antonio Current ARTICLE
titled, "The Big Buy spent two years tracking Ronnie Earle as he built his case against Tom DeLay," they made the STARTLING ADMISSION that they needed the DeLay indictment in order to conclude their "documentary" along with the reward of getting a primo spot to show their film at the Dallas Video Festival. See, if there were no DeLay indictment their whole two year effort would have been for naught. Forget the DeLay indictment. The filmmaker's own admission is an indictment of the integrity of Ronnie Earle. This admission comes on the heels of the astounding discovery that the MAIN document in Earle's case against DeLay does NOT exist as chronicled in the previous
EDITION of the DUmmie FUnnies. So let us now read the questions and comments of San Antonio Current Reporter, Elaine Wolff, in Moody Blue while the startling admissions by the two filmmakers are in Bolshevik Red. As usual, the commentary of your humble correspondent, wondering if the filmmakers realized that they were actually filming the self-destruction of Ronnie Earle, is in the [brackets]:


Texas filmmakers Mark Birnbaum and Jim Schermbeck planted themselves on historys doorstep two years ago when they started filming Travis County District Attorney Ronnie Earle as he investigated Congressman Tom DeLay (R-Sugar Land) and his Political Action Committee, Texans for a Republican Majority. The PAC is suspected of funneling corporate donations to state elections as part of the Texas GOPs successful 2002 plan to take control of the statehouse and redraw congressional districts in favor of Republican demographics a plan that resulted in significant gains for Republicans at the national level in 2004.



[Actually those two filmmakers AND Ronnie Earle planted themselves in deep doo-doo as we shall see. Hee! Hee!]



History obliged the documentarians when DeLay was indicted last week on two counts of conspiracy to skirt election laws and money laundering. Birnbaum and Schermbeck already had finished and screened one version of the story, The Big Buy, when DeLay was indicted, but are now filming a new ending. They spoke with the Current in consecutive phone interviews.




[More like Ronnie Earle obliged the documentarians when he based his indictment on a key document that does NOT exist. BTW, the documentarians probably noticed the glaring problem of no DeLay indictment at the original screening. They NEEDED that indictment to make their film appear to have some veracity. No matter that the ultimate indictment was based on a NON-EXISTENT document.]




Where does the original film end?




[Exactly NOWHERE since without a DeLay indictment their film would be completely INCONCLUSIVE.]




Mark Birnbaum: What happened was that my friend, Bart Weiss, who runs the Dallas Video Festival, for many years has presented me with the gift of a deadline. He called us and said, You guys have been working on this film for two years, finish it! Ill give you the closing film spot at the festival, Sunday night in the big room. So Jim and I talked about it and we said, Lets do it. Really, Ronnie Earl has done what he set out to do. He at one point in the film raises his hand and points, and he says, Its my job to point in the direction of the hill that needs to be taken. And this is a problem, this a probem facing our country, and we need to do something about it. And at the end of the film he says we need to turn off this tap, this corporate money. So even before any trials, hes already accomplished that. So we decided we could end our film with that.




[Bottom line: The reward for a DeLay indictment was a primo spot for your film at the Dallas Film Festival. Thank you for that admission, Mark, and could you please pass the popcorn?]





I thought if Tom DeLay was going to be indicted that would have happened already.




["HURRY RONNIE! HURRY HURRY! We need for you to get an indictment of Tom DeLay so our film can have the closing spot at the Dallas Film Festival! HURRY!!!"]




So you were surprised when the indictment was handed down?




MB: As every bit as surprised as you were. Every bit.




["WHAT? You were able to pull it off on time before the Dallas Film Festival, Ronnie? Thank God you were able to whip up that key document. Was it faxed to you from a Kinko's in Abilene?"]





DeLays defenders have latched on to the film as evidence that Ronnie Earle is a self-promoter with bigger political ambitions who is using this case to catapult himself onto the national stage.




[Ronnie Earle is aiming to star as the Coyote in a Road Runner cartoon. He is adept at playing the part where the ACME Co. package explodes in his face just like it did when his case against Kay Bailey Hutchison was tossed out the moment it went into a courtroom.]




MB: His bigger political ambitions are that he wants to retire. He was planning on retiring about three years ago, before all this started. Ive come to know him as a modest fella. Hes a politician, hes run for office; it takes a certain amount of ego to do that. But hes not part of the kind of in political group here in Austin. Hes not a big guy in the Democratic party.




[Strange how this "modest fella" promised to indict DeLay at a Democrat fundraiser.]




If you could put the story in historical terms, what is the kernel that appealed to you?




MB: I gotta say that the story we sought to tell was not exactly dramatic, but we thought it was important, that plan that began with [the Texans for a Republican Majority Political Action Committee] to dominate politics in the state of Texas and ultimately in the United States by first winning these elections in 2002, the state elections, then pushing through off-year redistricting, redrawing the map, so that in 2004 they could win a majority in Congress a perfectly legal plan, all according to the way the system is supposed to work, but for one alleged fact: For the first step of their plan, to win the 2002 elections in Texas, they used corporate money for political purposes a felony since 1905. And when Ronnie found out about that, he said, You cant do that. Its against the law.




[It's also against the law to base your case on a document that does NOT exist.]





So it was also well over a year into it that we switched our stylistic approach to the story to make it a crime story, a noir film: a lot of shots of the capitol at night, which looks kind of menacing. And we started shooting our interviews at night with one bulb on the desk kind of look. And that lent an appropriate feel to the story. Ronnie Earle was pursuing a crime, a number of crimes, that had been committed. That gave it a much more coherent style and look and we thought we had never seen a documentary quite like that maybe Errol Morris Thin Blue Line, but that was dark, but it wasnt noir.




[LOL!!! Thanx, Mark, for getting so carried away with yourself in your discussion of film style and giving us some laughs. Apparently you really NEEDED that indictment of DeLay to make your stylistic film noir work. I mean if you show menacing shots of Ronnie Earle late at night, your film would go NOWHERE without the indictment at the end.]





Did you talk to Republicans who were concerned about how the 02 and 04 elections were won or are they just happy to be firmly in control of the state?





MB: It turns out the attorneys for most of these Republicans are liberal Democrats here in Austin Joe Turner and Roy Minton theyre quite openly and liberal Democrats, but they defend these Republican guys. They expressed concern, the same concern that Ronnie is expressing.


We havent gotten anybody fairly high up in the Republican party. Were now attempting to call Mr.DeLay and Mr. DeLays attorneys to let them know we very much want to interview them. Now that were re-doing the end of the film, wed like very much for Mr. DeLay to sit for an interview and explain why hes innocent and express his concerns about Mr. Earle. Its gonna be a little bit harder for him to say no to. At least I think maybe hell answer the door when we knock.




["Damn those Republicans and Tom DeLay for not participating in our stylistic film noir which would be cut to make them look like the scum of the earth."]




Did you feel you came away from this with a new perspective on the political process or did it reinforce beliefs you already held?




MB: Very much so in that I wasnt familiar with the details of this story and I was pretty unclear about what redistricting was and how that game is played. And as always happens when I make a film, Im immersed in other peoples lives and in the details of the facts that surround their lives, so I come away learning a lot. Our last film, Larry v. Lockney, was shot in a small town in the Panhandle, Lockney, Texas. And I had very little, almost no experience of life in a small town, only what Id read, but I hadnt directly experienced it, so it was a real revelation for me. Its one of the great benefits of this job; its the greatest job in the world.




[You are unclear about redistricting, Mark? I tell you what it is. Only EVIL Republicans redistrict in their favor when they have the majority of the legislature. Democrats are much too principled, especially in California, to ever participate in such a nefarious plan. Are there any other fairy tales you wish me to tell you, Mark?]




What do you think Ronnie Earles three greatest political skills are?




[Hype, forgery, and blatant partisanship.]





MB: His sense of humor. Have you heard why he said he wants to be cremated? He says becase thered be a constant line of people waiting to piss on his grave. Hes a very deeply committed American. He just completely, deeply believes in democracy and its effectiveness and that is absolutely the core of what he is fighting for and trying to protect, thats what he feels is at stake: Democracy is imperiled by this large influx of corporate money into the elections process.




[Funny how Ronnie Earle has no problem with corporate money going to his pet causes when he blackmails that dough out of them in exchange for dropping cases against the corporations. Sorry for tossing a monkey wrench into your loving enshrinement of Saint Ronnie.]





When this Republican leadership is under attack they have been very adept at turning it around and undermining the accuser. Do you think this movie has the potential to counteract that kind of blowback?




[EVIL REPULICANS! EVIL! EVIL! EVIL! Oh, Miss Wolfe. I do believe your bias is showing.]





MB: Hardly. I think our little movie is a just ping-pong ball on that constantly crashing wave of administration and big political power. So I dont think they have anything to worry about from us. But, Ill tell you this: [Texas] State Representative Lon Burnam [D-Ft. Worth] was at the screening and hes a guy who lives and breathes this stuff, he eats this stuff for breakfast. He saw the film and he said hed never seen all of it presented in the way that we did, the way that we connected the dots, and [he] thought that people needed to see it just because of that, because it just explained a complicated process.




[Thank you for citing that "unbiased" critic, DEMOCRAT State Representative Lon Burnam.]





We made a film about campaign-finance reform without once ever mentioning the phrase campaign-finance reform, which causes peoples eyes to roll up in their heads. So I feel like weve accomplished something here; weve explained a complex process that most people are not aware of but that affects their lives, [that] changed the political climate of this state and of the United States.




[Theme of your film noir: REPUBLICANS CORRUPT! REPUBLICANS CORRUPT! Yeah, thanx for simplifying a complex process, Mark.]




How did you feel about this very close-up look at campaign finance? Jaded or optimistic?




[I opt for stupid.]




Jim Schermbeck: Oh, we dont use those words. We dont want anybody to know this is a film about campaign finance, or else they wont see it. If youre talking about how elections get their gas in America, I think its eye-opening in that respect and Tom DeLay is kind of in a class by himself in that regard, so its an extreme of an extreme close-up and its pretty interesting to watch.




Since DeLay hasnt talked to us yet, theres not really a good proponent of this type of system speaking on his behalf. So Im not sure you get the other side, its defense whatever that could be to rely on this kind of money to do the politicking.




[And of course, Democrats NEVER rely on corporate money in your film noir fantasy, Jim.]





You said that DeLay is in a class by himself; could you expand on that a little more?




[EVIL! EVIL! EVIL! Plus we don't like his haircut. Not stylistic enough for our film noir.]





JS: On the Hill his various enterprises are known as DeLay Inc. for a reason. There are interlocking committees like TRMPAC and ARMPAC and so forth. Hes had childrens charities, sometimes money comes to childrens charities, sometimes theyre linked to political activities as well. He was the organzier of the K Street Project which is now an online affair where they fill every available lobbyist position on the Hill with Republicans. So it is quite the empire.




[Tom DeLay has childrens charities? EVIL! EVIL!]





What is your philosophy about the way the political finance system is supposed to work?




[When corporate money goes to Republicans it is EVIL! When the same money goes to Democrats it is for the greater good. Just ask Hillary.]





JS: Well, I think people should be allowed to give to the campaigns of their choice, and I certainly have done that. Its how much you give and whether that twists the campaign itself and whether that money should be coming from just individuals themselves or corporations. And I think Texas has a good law surprisingly good for Texas and keeping corporate money out of those elections is a good idea. I think there were good reasons to do it in 1905 [when the law was passed]; I think there are good reasons to do it now.




[You gave money to campaigns, Jim? Gee I wonder which ones? I guess the answer to that question wouldn't be hard to figure out.]




After spending a lot of intimate time with Ronnie Earle, what is your measure of the man?




[Best damn BS artist I ever met. Of course his cases do tend to fall apart when they come up against the FACTS.]




JS: People accuse him of being a partisan Democrat, and I dont think thats where hes coming from. If there were still a chapter of the Farmers Alliance Populist Party left over from the turn of the century, I think Ronnie would be the first to sign up for that, because hes more of a populist than a Democrat.




["Populist" is just a polite way of saying liberal Democrat hack.]




Im not sure people know what populist means anymore. How do you define it?




[A polite way of saying "Socialist."]





JS: Its kind of a bottom-up view of politics, putting more emphasis on the grass-roots, citizen-friendly aspects of government than on a top-down approach. Its giving citizens at the grass-roots level more power to decide things rather than assigning that power to institutions or our government or things above them in the hierarchy.




[This sounds like regurgitated Hugo Chavez blather but what can one expect from a "stylish film noir" director?]




Was there a particular moment in the filming process, a particular interview, that was a turning point or an epiphany for you?




["When we found out we needed the DeLay indictment in order to get a primo spot at the Dallas Film Festival."]





JS: We started [filming] right after the investigation started, so we werent sure we even had a story to tell until the first indictment came out. And it was that day of the indictment and the night of the indictment that changed things and made sure we had a film. And certainly the interviews we had with Ronnie around that time, and especially the night of, were pivotal for us. I think because of the blowback he knew was coming, he took it with a it was all kind of an abstract idea up to then, so the indictment made it real and he takes on a more serious tone at that point. I guess for him, as well as us, that was a pivotal moment.



[I've already thanked Mark for his admission and now I am thanking you, Jim, for admitting that you NEEDED the DeLay indictment in order to give your film a finish plus a reason for being.]





As a concerned citizen as much as a filmmaker, are you worried about the blowback?




["Blowback." A new liberal buzzword meaning the EVIL conservatives are checking up on us.]




JS: You mean because of the DeLay indictment? No, thats to be expected. You play with fire when you start messing with Tom DeLay, so I imagine [Earle] took that into account.




[You play with fire when you present Ronnie Earle as some sort of saint.]




I understand there is the possibility of a theatrical release?




[After Earle's case goes down the tubes it will be released as a comedy.]




JS: Well, we are all lighting candles that that is going to happen. A theatrical release would be like hitting the lottery for people like us. Were gonna finish the film and were gonna get it the best deal we can to have it seen by as many people as we can in hopes of showing them what this case was about.




[TRANSLATION: "We hit the lottery when Ronnie Earle scammed an indictment based on nothing."]





Our idea when we came to it, or at least my idea, was to provide a documenation of history in the making. I was beginning high school when the Sharpstown scandal hit in Houston, a scandal about 30-35 years ago that shook the Democratic party to its core in Texas; it was a big deal. When I read that this investigation was starting, I remember thinking we need to document this, because theres no film you can go back and see that tells you what Sharpstown is about, why its important, why you should be reading about it now in order not to repeat those same mistakes. So my goal was to go out and do a film that can be seen 10 years from now and they will instantly understand what this case was all about it and how it got to where it is.




[Ronnie Earle will have plenty of time to watch your film while serving out a jail term for basing an indictment on a non-existent document.]





Mark said Lon Burnam saw the film and felt that it provided a great narrative.




[Ah! That "unbiased" critic again.]





JS: [Laughing] Well, Lons gonna say that thats pretty self-serving because hes in the film!




[Let me take a wild guess here. DEMOCRAT Lon Burnam came off as a good guy in your film noir?]





Its not just about Ronnie Earle, Ronnie Earle is certainly the point of view that we have because he allowed us access to him, so of course were gonna use that, but the film is really about all the events from the 2002 election onward. So it includes redistricting, and the investigation, and the indictment, and so on. I think what it does, in terms of the timeliness of what is going on right now, it puts the DeLay indictment in total historical context. People can understand why Tom DeLay might have been indicted if they see this film.


[And thank you, Jim, for putting the DeLay indictment in the REAL context. You desperately needed a conclusion to your film noir so Ronnie Earle was happy to oblige by ramming through an indictment based on a PHONY document. And I think people can understand why Ronnie Earle was desperate for an indictment when they see your film...hopefully in court when presented as evidence for DROPPING the DeLay indictment.]

Saturday, October 15, 2005

DUmmie FUnnies 10-15-05 ("DeLay's prosecutors lack a key document")



BWAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!!! Call me sacreligious or a heretic but I really am starting to think the MAIN purpose for the creation of the Universe was so that the Almighty could LAUGH at the FRUSTRATIONS of the DUmmies. I mean their legendary letdowns have occurred with such amazing regularity that one has to think that a Higher Power must be at work to arrange all this. This very Blog began with the SeeBS phony National Guard document scandal which blew up in the DUmmies' faces right after their exultant gloating. Then again the DUmmies were JUBILANT over the overwhelming Kerry victory according to the exit polls only to be bitterly disappointed later on election night. And this cycle has continued OVER and OVER again. It even preceded the DUmmie FUnnies themselves with the 2000 and 2002 elections. Yes I remember well how the DUmmies celebrated the 2002 election prior to the polls closing especially since their very own Terry McAwful gloatingly declared that Jeb Bush was defeated in his re-election bid for Florida's governor a few days BEFORE the election. And so now we come to Tom DeLay about whom the DUmmies have been recently drooling at the mouth over his indictment. Unfortunately for the DUmmies, this ACME Co. case has just now exploded in their faces due to the fact that Texas District Attorney, Ronnie Earle, has pulled a Mary Mapes act as you can see in this Houston Chronicle ARTICLE titled, "DeLay's prosecutors lack a key document." This article is also the subject of a VERY FRUSTRATED DUmmie THREAD of the same name. You see, according to the Puke of Earle it isn't the authenticity of a document that counts but what it says whether or not it is fake. This is EXACTLY the Mary Mapes position on documents. Perhaps the Puke of Earle could write the Introduction to the Mapes book. And now let us take the Cosmic POV and watch the DUmmies ONCE AGAIN go flying into the air like Charlie Brown screaming in Bolshevik Red while the commentary of your humble correspondent, hearing Tom DeLay going "BEEP! BEEP!" in the distance, is in the [brackets]:




DeLay's prosecutors lack a key document



[Mary Mapes and Dan Rather also lack a key document.]



They don't have list of candidates at the heart of the laundering case, just a 'similar' one
By R.G. RATCLIFFE
Copyright 2005 Houston Chronicle Austin Bureau



[Was it faxed in from the Abilene Kinko's?]



AUSTIN - Travis County prosecutors admitted Friday they lack physical proof of a list of Republican candidates that is at the heart of money-laundering indictments against U.S. Rep. Tom DeLay and two of his associates.


[That's okay. Mary Mapes forgives you.]




The list is key to prosecutors being able to prove that corporate money that could not be legally spent on Texas candidates was specifically exchanged at the national level for donations that legally could be spent on Republican candidates for the Texas House.




[Isn't that the same list that "proved" that Bush went AWOL from the National Guard?]



Indictments against DeLay, Jim Ellis and John Colyandro state that Ellis gave "a document that contained the names of several candidates for the Texas House" to a Republican National Committee official in 2002 in a scheme to swap $190,000 in restricted corporate money for the same amount of money from individuals that could be legally used by Texas candidates.


[I think the name of that RNC official was Lucy Ramirez.]



But prosecutors said Friday in court that they only had a "similar" list and not the one allegedly received by then-RNC Deputy Director Terry Nelson. Late in the day, they released a list of 17 Republican candidates, but only seven are alleged to have received money in the scheme.


[Does that list have peripheral spacing? And now to amuse ourselves with the incredible level of frustration comedically expressed by the DUmmies over this latest development...]



Please don't tell me! Kick for answers



[I'm telling you. The ACME Co. package has EXPLODED in your face again!!!]



if he gets off scott free...I will simply



[Since your sentence ended abruptly, I believe you were about to type "die" but then suddenly assumed that state before finishing. Enjoy your cruise up the River Styx!]



These sob's never seem to be answerable to anyone.


[And they LOVE to mock you with their "BEEP! BEEP!" as they leave you in the dust.]



Why on earth did Earle go after Deay if he didn't have the goods. Sounds like DeLay is a free man. I'm afraid poor Earle's career will be over.
Now if the same sort of thing happens to Rove, Libby etc, the Republicans will be stronger than ever - and nothing will ever happen again - even if they more blately break the law.


[You should have had a clue as to what a PHONY the Puke of Earle was when his ENTIRE case against Kay Bailey Hutchison completely COLLAPSED on the same day it went to trial. Oh, and let us now mourn the Puke of Earle's documentary which will now be re-released as a comedy.]




Does this have to be proved on reasonable doubt?




[Um...yes. Or would you prefer it be proved on unreasonable doubt.]



Don't panic. DeLay's propaganda machine is in high gear. Essentially what we're seeing here is the old 'they ain't got a thing on me' ploy.




[Didn't you reassure us about the authenticy of the TANG documents last year?]




So why wouldn't he be able to get the list...this sounds like nonsense.




[And this DUmmie wins a Kewpie Doll for having a brief moment of mental clarity!]




I bet he's got that list.



[Bill Burkette is holding it in trust for him.]

Thursday, October 13, 2005

DUmmie FUnnies 10-13-05 ("We Are As Hollow As The Soviets Just Before The Collapse Of Their Empire")



File this DUmmie THREAD under the category of "WISHFUL THINKING" as you can see by the title, "We Are As Hollow As The Soviets Just Before The Collapse Of Their Empire." Don't you just HOPE, DUmmies? Things really suck for the liberals so their only hope is an alternate reality fantasy where things here in the USA are just as bad as in the Evil Empire just before their collapse. If such a fantasy ever did come to pass, the DUmmies would break out their champaigne bottles to celebrate the end of "The Third American Empire" as Pied Piper Pitt once put it in a typical fit of of comedic hyperbole. As usual, the DUmmie WISHES for the collapse of America are in Bolshevik Red while the commentary of your humble correspondent is in the [brackets]:


We Are As Hollow As The Soviets Just Before The Collapse Of Their Empire.




[What's this "We" bit, Kemosabe? And now let us hear more from the hopeful Chicken Little known as DUmmie DistressedAmerican.]





We are not a superpower. We are the hollow shell that used to contain a superpower. If we do not act fast to restore the economy and balance of this country, we will not last much longer.


[THE END IS NEAR! THE END IS NEAR! WATCH OUT FOR A FALLING SKY!!!]




Our economy is destroyed. We are spending like we never have yet, we are borrowing billions and billions from states like China, Japan, and Germany to keep it up. We owe China alone roughly 400 billion dollars at this point (twice the cost of the war in Iraq to date). As soon as those countries decide to cut off the funds, we are toast.


[Perhaps we need to import economic advisers from North Korea to tell us how we went wrong.]




Frankly, it would be in their interest to see us go down. China is pulling itself together and will be a major economic powerhouse in this century. Do you really think that they will keep us on life support forever?




[Yeah. There's a real role model. China treats its peasants worse than dirt and regulates every couple to just ONE kid with manadatory abortions. At least it would be a paradise for the NARAL folks.]





Our leaders have become fat, bloated, corrupt pigs. They loot the public coffers endlessly to fill their own pockets.




[Why do you hate Louisiana and New Orleans public officials so much?]





Our entire economy is dependent on oil. The costs of which just keep going up. As the supply draws ever closer to used up, that trend will accelerate. It will crush what meager viability we now have.




[NEWSFLASH!!! The economy of China is ALSO dependent on oil.]





Despite ever growing and unprecedented deficits, the American public is still outraged by any suggestion of more taxes to pay for what we are spending. That goes for many right here on DU. I posted a thread a couple of months back suggesting a one dollar per gallon gas tax to help offset the deficit spending and I got flamed out from here until tomorrow. One person made the comment (yes I still remember it), "I know it is bad. But, I want to delay the pain as long as possible." That just about sums it up as far as Americans are concerned. Just put it off and let the kids deal with it.




[Please incorporate that one dollar per gallon gas tax into the Democrat Party platform.]





Americans do not think ahead to the future at all. We are shortsighted and self centered. We need to shake that or we are history to be written about.




[And yet somehow we became the STRONGEST nation in history. Strange how that happened.]






We are teetering on the brink and any little wind might blow us right off of the edge.




[One more tiny blow from Monica and it is all over.]





Sadly, the Bin Laden's of the world are more aware of this fact than our own population or our "leaders". His plan to break the back of yet another so called superpower is progressing nicely and all it took was 19 guys with box cutters. That is how close we are to collapsing under our own bloated egos and faltering economy. That is a sign of how fragile we really are.




[As the leader of the Osama Bin Laden Admiration Society, you are entitled to one autographed pic of your Beloved.]





Sadly, like the Soviets, we are also heavily propagandized to believe that (despite all of that) we are "Number 1". Most Soviets knew that their standard of living was falling. But, it seems most did not see the greater issue that the whole empire has been hollowed out by greed, corruption and foreign military ventures.





[We are so deluded. All this time we thought we were #1 and now we find out this belief was all due to brainwashing.]




We will most likely not realize it either until the big crash comes.




[aka DUmmie Celebration Day.]





Please do not be one of the deluded. Embrace the notion that we have to save this place and SOON or we are looking right down the barrel of a gun. Push your politicians to act fiscally responsible and start paying down this debt. Do not freak out at the mention of more taxes. They are NEEDED if we are going to survive. Demand an end to insane and offensively costly military actions around the globe. Remove the corrupt from office. They are not working to save us. They are destroying us.




[Yes. Push your Democrat politicians to call for tax increases. I URGE you to do this.]





Please do not let us collapse in a matter of years the way the Soviets did. Take action NOW!





[Thus spaketh DUmmie DistressedAmerican from the dark comfort of his parent's basement. And now let us hear the DUmmie Chorus chime in their approvals.]




exactly why I am looking for the nearest exit




[Good news! The exit leading to North Korea is WIDE OPEN.]





Just found your 7 years thread. Funny thing is that I opened it thinking it may be a reference to the coming end of this cycle of creation as envisioned by Mesoamerican cultures such as the Maya. The current cycle ends in December 2012 and it is prophesied to end in floods, hurricanes and earthquakes. They firmly believe the process is underway.




[HERETIC!!! Only Faux Hopi Indian Witch Doctors are to be believed in DUmmieland.]




As A Mayanist, I Am Heading To Mexico.




[And all this time I had you figured for a Mayonnaisist.]




In what time frame are you planning on going?




[Whenever his parents quit making mortgage payments on the basement.]





I really want to be someplace where there is socialized health care and education. New Zealand fits the bill but my wife is concerned about the distance. I really don't care much if we are on the other side of the globe.




[Yes. Please do go to the other side of the globe as long as there isn't a return trip.]





We're all human beings, and we all live on this planet, but for one reason or another there are people who will tell me that just because I was born in America by happenstance, I should stay here and fight to the death for it, and never visit my friends in good ol' commie Sweden. And how dare I mention I might want to live there!





[How dare we question your patriotism!]




This martial law shit is scaring the hell out of me. I don't want my family to end up in a camp. With the way Bush has been pushing the military as the answer to every problem, I don't think we are over reacting.




[Over reacting just because you fear ending up in a NON-EXISTENT re-education camp? NAW!]





I think that some folks still think 1950 when they think of Mexico. Not the case at all. They have a great infrastructure. The roads are great. Internet accress and cell phone service are just about everywhere. Great place to live!




[Juarez is a dream come true.]





We are looking in the Yucatan too. Cancun, Merida, Cozumel are all on the table. We have to stay in a commercialized area in order to be able to have a bar/restaurant.




[PSST! NEWSFLASH!!! Mexico STRICLY enforces its immigration laws. If you are NOT a Mexican citizen you CAN'T work in Mexico.]





The power blackouts in the US are possibly a symtom of worse to come.




[And the power blackouts in North Korea are PERMANENT.]






The Soviet Union is not the United States. The old USSR had a political/economic/social system that failed completely; free market democracy has not - if it did, you would not be thinking of going to Canada or Europe. I can't see states separating from the union anytime soon, like the USSR.




[LOUSY FREEPER TROLL!!!]




Our economic system is on life support. Our social system is declining rapidly with the growing gap between rich and poor. Did I mention that people were starving in our streets?




[Thank you for returning us back to unreality.]

Tuesday, October 11, 2005

DUmmie FUnnies 10-11-05 (Mary Mapes Fiction Book Returns To Amazon)



As a result of a previous DUmmie FUnnies edition, Mary Mapes Spins Fiction---Book Excerpt, first the excerpt and then the entire book itself was REMOVED from Amazon.Com due to the EMBARRASSMENT of daring to quote Miss Mapes word for word. However, I am now pleased to announce that Mary Mapes' work of fiction has RETURNED to Amazon as you can see HERE. Although the original excerpt, which Mary Mapes found so embarrassing since it quoted her word-for-word, is gone, it has been replaced by a GLOWING review and blurb which we will now proceed to give the ol' DUFU treatment. As before the Mapes fiction review and blurb are in Bolshevik Red while the commentary of your humble correspondent is in the [brackets]:




Book Description



[Fiction and Fantasy.]



It was a great story. A true story. The kind of story any news producer would love to report, nail down and get on the air. And that’s just what Mary Mapes and her producing and reporting team did in September, 2004, when Dan Rather anchored their report on President George W. Bush’s dereliction of his National Guard duty for CBS News. The firestorm that followed their broadcast trashed Mapes’ well-respected career, caused Rather to resign from his anchor chair a year early, and led to an unprecedented “internal inquiry” into the story—chaired by former Reagan Attorney General Richard Thornburgh.



[You already lost me on the "true story" part.]




TRUTH AND DUTY is Mapes’ account of the often-surreal, always-harrowing fallout she experienced for raising questions about a powerful sitting president. It goes back to examine Bush’s political roots as governor of Texas and answers questions about the solidity of the documents at the heart of the National Guard story as well as where they came from. Her book takes readers not just into the newsroom where coverage decisions are made, but out into the field where the real reporting is done. TRUTH AND DUTY is peopled with a colorful and vigorous cast of characters—from Karl Rove to Sumner Redstone, Bill Burkett to Dan Rather—and moves from small-town rural Texas to the deserts of Afghanistan, from hurricane season in Florida to CBS corporate headquarters Black Rock in New York City.



[We already read in Mary Mapes' incredibly embarrassing excerpt of this fiction book all about the "solidity" of the documents at the heart of the National Guard story. It consists of poor little Mary claiming that the "peripheral spacing" of the documents were caused by frequent copying of the original documents (which are still mysteriously missing). Oh, and multiple copying of documents will somehow automatically create superscripts for "th". At least it happens in Mary's fantasy.]




TRUTH AND DUTY is a riveting account of how the public’s right to know—or even to ask questions—is being attacked by an alliance of politicians, news organizations, bloggers and corporate America. It connects the dots between the emergence of a kind of digital McCarthyism, a corporation under fire from the federal government, and the decision about what kinds of stories a news network can cover (human interest: yes; political intrigue: no).




[According to Mary, the public has NO right to know how CBS got those documents nor should it be allowed to ask questions about their authenticity. To do so will bring you the accusation of "digital McCarthyism." Remember, the public has NO RIGHT, according to Mapes, to connect the dots leading to the OBVIOUS conclusion that the documents were forged.]




An answer to Bernard Goldberg and the thunder from the right, TRUTH AND DUTY is always fast, sometimes furious, and often unexpectedly funny about the collapse of one of America’s great institutions.




[TRUTH AND DUTY is unexpectedly funny, sometimes furious, and always wrong.]




From the Back Cover




[More SeeBS.]




"Not only did Viacom cringe at alienating conservative viewers and consumers of its news division's programs as well as its theater chain and radio and entertainment empire kingdom. The company could not afford to alienate the Bush administration. An angry administration could make trouble in a hundred ways and kick Sumner the where it really counted: in teh wallet."




[The company also could not afford to pretend that the OBVIOUSLY FORGED documents had a shred of validity.]




"Bush didn't keep his promise to his country. He swore he would fly military jets until May 1974 in return for being removed from the danger of being drafted. He didn't even come close....He walked away from his duty."




[If the forged documents supported this claim then it MUST be TRUE, at least in the fantasy book of Mary Mapes.]




"Reality didn't matter. Right and wrong didn't matter. Winning was the only thing that mattered to any of the people masterminding the slash-and-burn campaigns that benefited George W. Bush."




[Reality didn't matter so why not use forged documents to back up a bogus story, reasoned seasoned journalist Mary Mapes.]

DUmmie FUnnies 10-11-05 ("Che's daughter backs the revolution")



I was watching a documentary about Che Guevara last night and the thought occured to me that the fanatic COMMUNIST revolutionary was the type of person the DUmmies would like to be if they could ever escape the glow of their computer screens and actually DO something. Of course, in real life, the DUmmies can only fantasize about leading a Bolshevik Revolution. Make no mistake about it. The DUmmies REALLY don't want a small "d" democratic society. As you can see in this THREAD titled, "Che's daughter backs the revolution," the DUmmies make no secret of their admiration for the basic tenents of Bolshevism. Therefore, the DUmmie proclamations are in highly appropriate Bolshevik Red while the commentary of your humble correspondent, wondering how long the DUmmies would last in Little Havana wearing Che T-Shirts, is in the [brackets]:



Che's daughter backs the revolution


[And so do most DUmmies as long as it is hard core Bolshevik Revolution.]



Che's daughter backs the revolution
From: Agence France-Presse From correspondents in Havana
October 10, 2005



SOCIALISM was still possible in Latin America, the daughter of Cuba's revolutionary hero Che Guevara has said.


["SOCIALISM." The polite way of saying "COMMUNISM."]



Aleida Guevara March, daughter of Argentine-born Ernesto "Che" Guevara, said leftist Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez inspired hope. In an interview 38 years after the death of her father, she said it was still possible to remove the right-wing from the region, specifically in Bolivia, Ecuador, El Salvador, Mexico, Nicaragua and Peru.
"All that is needed is a good scalpel," Guevara March, 44, said. Like her father, she studied medicine.




[Like her father she is a hard core Commie. Oh, and what is her DUmmie screen name?]




Her father joined the Cuban revolution, led by Cuba's president, Fidel Castro, helping to topple the Havana government in 1959. Guevara died trying to export socialist revolution to Bolivia.




[Che Guevara showed up in Bolivia (at the instigation of Castro who wanted to get rid of him) and got NO support from the peasants there. Both Che and his DUmmie fantasies died there.]




His daughter said the US "has unleashed so much propaganda against Cuba and against socialism that many people are afraid of it".




[It must be that outstanding economic success of Cuba that strikes fear into us.]




"Hugo Chavez today could be an alternative, a possibility, but if one looks at the evolution of his Bolivarian Revolution, one sees that circumstances have forced him to be more and more radical because of US pressure," she said.



[Yeah, it is the USA that is forcing Chavez to nationalize steal private property. And now let us hear the DUmmie chorus chime in with "The Internationale in honor of their beloved Che Guevara...]




Scalpel? How about a good machete?
I want capitalism toppled in this country as well!



[I give you an "A" for honesty my little Chekist.]




Cuba has obviously been the bastion of equality in Latin America for half a century. Latin America has been experiencing progress and improvement, but much more needs to be done, and much more will be accomplished. Justice will be found in the end.




[A DUmmie Bolshevik wishing for the Cuban economic "success" to spread to the rest of South America.]




Cuba is a shining example of hope and progress to the third world.



[And only the EVIL Republicans are keeping you from moving to the Workers Paradise.]




Given the choice between Socialism and the barbarism of capitalism, I choose Socialism.




[Thus spaketh the cyber Karl Marx.]




Also, if you look at socialist states of Cuba, Kerala and elsewhere, socialism works exceptionally well.




[Especially in North Korea.]




The dictatorship of the proletariat means exactly what it says: the power of the working class cannot be challenged by the capitalists. Dictatorship of the proletariat is the perfect democracy for all decisions and all power is made by the workers. Power flows upward from the democratically elected worker's committees at the factory floor, to popular committees elected in each city block.



[Thank you for that non-thought, DUmmie IndianaGreen (who also moderates in DUmmieland). BTW, the FUnniest thing about the dictatorship of the proletariat is that the relatives of two of the hardest core commie countries, Cuba and North Korea, seem to end up as the heirs apparent just as in the "reactionary" monarchies of feudal times. In Cuba, it is Castro's maricón brother, Raul, has been declared to be the next in line and in North Korea, Li'l Kim, succeeded his daddy. All in the "scientifically run" countries ruled by the dictatorship of the proletariat.]




Ironically Cuban socialism has decentralized power to people in communities more like the ancient Greek model of democracy whereas the US model patterns Rome.




[Ironically the decentralized power in Cuba has designated Castro's maricón brother as his heir apparent. Such a coincidence!]




¡Hasta la Victoria Siempre!




[¡Estas Loco por Siempre!]




Guevara is a true hero who sacrificed his life for the people of the world. His ideological stance was a product of the time; his efforts are the cure we need in much of the world. By the way, all this talk of "totalitarian socialism" is bunk. Go read a book about the 3.5 million Catalans and progressive Spaniards who built a system of syndicalo-anarchist communes to feed, educate and care for the poor during the Spanish Civil War.




[Go read the book "Homage To Catalonia" by George Orwell. The COMMUNISTS purged and executed the syndicalo-anarchists. Towards the end of the Spanish Civil war the COMMUNISTS were busier liquidating the anarchists than they were fighting Franco.]




the Cuban people are represented better than the American people. The system of government is truly one that is accountable and representative of its community.



[You've been watching a few too many of Lucia Newman's CNN reports from Cuba.]




Che was married twice & had a lover or two, but did NOT believe in promiscuity.




[That would put him at odds with Bubba.]




America is a racist country! America was born in racism! America remains in racism! This is why Americans refused to establish relations with Vietnam for as long as they did, it was because the white male egos were bruised from being beaten by little yellow people. This is why Americans also have an embargo against Cuba. The American white male egos were bruised by having their former island whorehouse decide that they were human after all and refuse to be exploited by Uncle Sam.




[DUmmie IndianaGreen is on a roll again. Tell us more about how much you hate America, oh DUmmie MODERATOR.]

Monday, October 10, 2005

DUmmie FUnnies 10-10-05 ("Whatever happened to the DU Activist Corps?????")



DUAC!!! DUAC!!! Good question. Whatever happened to the DU Activist Corps????? The answer is it went NOWHERE. What? You actually expected the DUmmies to get up off their lazy butts and actually DO something? Much easier for them to just sit in front of the glow of the computer monitor in their parents' basements and post angry insanities for the enjoyment of the DUmmie FUnnies readers. As usual, the DUmmie inquiries as to the fate of their latest failed project are in Bolshevik Red while the commentary of your humble correspondent, wishing the DUmmies a hearty "DUAC!!! DUAC!!!" is in the [brackets]:

Whatever happened to the DU Activist Corps?????



[Gone. Gone With The Wind.]




There was excellent participation by members -- hundreds and hundreds of LTTEs and dozens of them published, and I suppose the old mandatory adage applies to the Left: if it works, don't keep doing it. Find something else that doesn't and get with the program.



[aka FUBAR.]



And of course, I'm sure there's a blizzard of rationales as to why there hasn't been any new suggested actions for weeks and weeks and weeks. What was needed was MORE, not less, even as they got their groove together. Instead, the issue was allowed to drop.



[The problem began when the DUmmies were required to DO something. Their attitude was "DO? ACK!!!]




Even that little crumb of activism was verboten eh? I have openly wondered why there is no movement really organizing at the grassroots in the US to end absolute poverty ("world hunger") or why no sustained peace movement so that when wars come up, we don't have to turn to groups like ANSWER.




[According to Pied Piper Pitt, you are required to answer to ANSWER because they make things so easy for you with putting together demonstration details and logistics. Hey, why not sit on your lazy butts and just let ANSWER take care of the annoying details like the entire agenda?]





I agree. Bring back the Corps!




[And let someone ELSE do the dirty work! DUAC!!! DUAC!!!]




Are we supposed to suggest actions?



[Yes. Find the phone number of a new takeout joint for feeding your face while posting in your parent's basement.]




Now that you mention it... yeah? What happened to that?



[The whole DUAC concept never left the Hobbit Hole.]




I sent an idea about calling Senators when Johnny Bob
Taliban was being considered for the SCOTUS....but heard nothing.



[Too bad. DUAC could have turned the tide on that but they blew it. DUAC!!! DUAC!!!]




I'd love to see it active...
... and more democratic.




[Instead it's dead and gone. DUAC...RIP.]




Thanks for the reminder. We really need to get back on the ball.

After Katrina, we were totally swamped with just trying to keep the site online. Since then, we've pretty much dropped the ball.

We've actually been discussing the possibility of asking a few DU members to take the lead on the activist corps, to help make sure that we have one or two actions each week. Because it's difficult for the admins to find time to focus on it.

We are eager to get going again. Sorry about the delay.




[Thanx for that bit of uninspiring cheerleading, DUmmie Skinner. You used Katrina as a silly excuse for "dropping the ball" and then you want others to do the DUACing because you just don't have time to "focus" on it.]




Please consider folding into your new structure some ways to capture that energy specific to big events. When those crucial moments arrive and you are busy keeping the site up and running, the floating activist framework will function without extra attention.


[Please consider translating that from Newspeak.]



All bluster no action. 20+ people signed the petition to the admins to start the CSPAN group; since approved we have had THREE regular participants. In general, I see a lot of postering and bluster, but little action.



[And that DUmmie wins a Kewpie Doll for having a brief moment of mental clarity.]



Question. How large is the Administration of DU overall? How many Administrators does it take to run the Activist corps, to provide an action or two a week?


[Answer. About as many as it takes to screw in a lightbulb which means quite a few. TONS of generals and an almost complete DEARTH of privates. The story of DUAC in a nutshell.]

I have a hard time getting DUers to spend $4 at Kinkos and flyer to effect change.



[The DUmmies prefer to spend it on order out pizza while posting into the wee hours in the basements of their parents. DUAC!!! DUAC!!!]

Tuesday, October 04, 2005

DUmmie FUnnies 10-04-05 (Mary Mapes Spins Fiction---Book Excerpt)




Although a few of Mary Mapes divorced-from-reality quotes appeared in yesterday's EDITION of the DUmmie FUnnies, there was MUCH MORE of her MANY lies over at her book EXCERPT at Amazon.Com. Even though Mapes' book won't be appearing in public until next month, there are more than enough excerpts available on Amazon for her to completely humiliate herself before the public. Therefore this edition of the DUmmie FUnnies is dedicated to DUFUing Mary Mapes who although technically might not be a DUmmie (although I suspect that she might well be a DUmmie with an appropriate screen name like "HateBush") she is easily as deluded and deceitful as your typical denizen of DUmmieland. I wish to apologize in advance to Mary Mapes for quoting her word-for-word in Bolshevik Red while the commentary of your humble correspondent, laughing at the gall of Miss Mapes to title her book "Truth and Duty, is in the [brackets]:



I woke up smiling on September 9, 2004.


[Until Freeper Buckhead wiped that smug smirk off your face, Mary.]


My story on George W. Bush’s Guard service had run on 60 Minutes the night before and I felt it had been a solid piece. We had worked under tremendous pressure because of the short time frame and the explosive content, but we’d made our deadline and, most important, we’d made news.


[You made the deadline by cutting out certain annoying time-consuming procedures such as fact-checking, Mary.]



I was confident in my work and marveled once again at the teamwork and devotion of so many people at 60 Minutes. They really knew how to pull together to get a story on the air. I was also deeply proud of CBS News for having the guts to air a provocative story on a controversial part of the president’s past.



[A smear job on a Bush doesn't take guts at See-BS, Mary. It's standard operating procedure.]



By the end of the day, all of that would change. By the end of the month, I would be barred from doing my job and under investigation. By the end of the year, my long career at CBS News would essentially be over, after a long, excruciating, and very public beating.




[So what was the downside, Mary?]




But on this day, all that was unimaginable. I was just anxious to get into the office and get the reaction to the story. I raced to the hotel room door and pulled The New York Times and USA Today off the floor, curled up on the sofa, and read the front-page coverage of our story. Online, I checked The Washington Post and saw that there, too, it was front-page material.




[Reading standard liberal MSM outlets congratulating each other for smearing Bush is SOOOO reassuring, Mary.]




It deserved to be, for a number of reasons.




[Mainly because any smear on Bush, however unsubstantiated, will almost always get big play in liberal media outlets, Mary.]




Dan Rather and I had aired the first-ever interview with former Texas lieutenant governor Ben Barnes on his role in helping Bush get into the Texas Air National Guard. Getting Barnes to say yes had taken five years and I thought his interview was a home run. Finally, there were on-the-record, honest, straight-ahead answers from a man who intimately knew the ins and outs of the way Texas politics and privilege worked in the state National Guard units during the Vietnam War. Ben Barnes’s version of events was crucial to understanding a significant chapter in President Bush’s life from thirty years ago, an important key to unlocking the questions many Americans had about the man in the White House.




["Honest" and "Ben Barnes" don't exactly go together like bread and butter, Mary.]




What had George W. Bush done during the volatile Vietnam years? Who was he back then, really? Was he a young man who volunteered to pilot fighter jets off the country’s coastline, a brave young flier ready and willing to risk his life in the skies over Vietnam?




[George W. Bush risked his life everytime he flew a fighter jet. In case you haven't noticed, Mary, they often crash in non-combat situations.]




Or was George W. Bush---like so many well-connected young men in the Vietnam era---simply doing whatever he could to avoid fighting or flying anywhere near the jungles of Southeast Asia? Did he complete his service to the National Guard or walk away without looking back simply because his family’s status meant that he could?




[You thought you knew the answer in advance of any facts, Mary.]




Did he do his duty? Did he tell the truth?




[LOL! Methinks you should ask YOURSELF the same questions, Mary.]




Our story on September 8, 2004 also presented never-before-seen documents purportedly written in 1972 by Bush’s then-commander, Lt. Col. Jerry B. Killian. Killian had died in 1984 and his important testimony on Bush’s service had not been part of all the years of debate that had raged over whether or not the president had fulfilled his Guard duties.




[Make that "never-before-existing" documents and you would be on the mark, Mary.]




These documents appeared to show that Killian had not approved of Bush’s departure from the Guard in 1972 to work on a Senate campaign for Republican Roy Blunt in Alabama. They showed that Killian had ordered Bush to take a physical that was never completed and that Killian had been pressured by his higher-ups to write better reports on Bush than were merited by the future president’s performance. The Killian memos, as they came to be called, turned on its head the version of George W. Bush’s Guard career that the White House had presented. These new memos made Bush look like a slacker, not an ace pilot.




[What do Grimm's Fairy Tales say about Bush's National Guard career, Mary?]




I had spent weeks trying to get these pieces of paper and every waking hour since I had received them vetting each document for factual errors or red flags.




[Mary had a little Scam,

It Fleeced on a TV Show.

And everywhere that Mary went,

The Scam was sure to go.]






I worked to compare the new memos with the official documents I had received since 1999. They meshed in ways large and small.




[Proportional spacing? Superscripts? Or were the "official" documents" you received in 1999 also forgeries, Mary?]




Furthermore, the content the essential truth of the story contained in the memos, had been corroborated by Killian’s commander general Bobby Hodges in a phone conversation two days before the story aired. On September 6, he had said the memos reflected Killian’s feelings at the time and this was what he remembered about how Killian had handled Bush’s departure from the Guard.



[What was the matter? Were you too cheap to fax Hodges the documents? It turns out that he was only read excerpts from the documents and believed them to be forgeries when he finally did see them AFTER your TV smear job. Perhaps you should have persuaded See-BS News to spring for an extra 5 bucks to cover the fax charge, Mary.]




We had a senior document analyst named Marcel Matley fly to New York to look at all the documents we had, the official documents that had been previously released by the White House as well as the “new” ones. After examining them for hours, blowing up signatures and comparing curves, strokes, and dots, he gave his best opinion on their authenticity. Since the documents were copies, not originals, he could not offer the 100 percent assurance that came by testing the ink or the paper.




[What's the matter, Mary? Are you unable to use Google? Here is what Marcel Matley SAID in the September 14, 2004 WASHINGTON POST: "The lead expert retained by CBS News to examine disputed memos from President Bush's former squadron commander in the National Guard said yesterday that he examined only the late officer's signature and made no attempt to authenticate the documents themselves."]



But he said he saw nothing in the typeface or format to indicate the memos had been doctored or not produced at the time they were alleged to have been. The analyst also vouched for the Killian signatures after comparing them with more than a dozen other Killian signatures we had on the photocopied official documents. A second analyst, Jim Pierce, agreed after examining two of the Killian documents and comparing them to the official records and signatures.




[You really do seem have an AVERSION to using the Web as an information source, Mary, because if you had done just a LITTLE Googling you would have found this segment about Jim Pierce by newspaper columnist Garry Moon in the Sept. 8, 2004 ATHENS BANNER-HERALD: "This columnist contacted Pierce by telephone Sept. 16. He said he was unable to talk specifically about the work he has been doing for CBS, because - contrary to how CBS News portrays it - he says he has not yet in fact rendered a definitive conclusion on all, or even some, of the documents in question."]






I felt that I was in the clear, that I had done my job, and that the story met the high standards demanded by 60 Minutes.



[Apparently 60 Minutes does not demand much, Mary.]




I called my husband and son to say good morning, just as I had done every morning in all the years past when I was out of town. As always, my husband told me my work had looked great and my seven-year-old boy told me to come home as fast as I could and to bring him a surprise. It was a regular ritual.




["SURPRISE, Sonny Boy! My Scam is about to be exposed!!!"]




I was staying at my favorite hotel home away from home, The Pierre, a grand old New York pile that is stuffy and high-priced. Without my CBS discount, I never would have seen the inside of the place.




[And yet you couldn't shell out an extra few bucks to fax the documents to General Hodges. I guess staying at a luxury hotel has a higher priority than accuracy in your reports, Mary.]




The Pierre is also quiet, close to the office, and sweetly old-fashioned. Old-fashioned enough that Kitty Carlisle apparently still goes there often for “highballs,” according to the hotel bartender, along with a male friend and their respective nurses. I once ran into her in the ladies’ room, looking like she had just stepped off the set of To Tell the Truth, mink capelet and all.



[Little did you know then, Mary, that you would soon be wanting to hit the "highballs" hard with Kitty Carlisle. Hee! Hee!]




The elevator operators and doormen were older, too, and they were kind, always looking out for me. They knew me because of my regular visits and comfortingly clucked over how hard I was working when I stayed there.




[Didn't Sharon Stone also stay at the Pierre when she ordered out room service in the form of various Boy Toys?]




On this trip, they had seen me leaving very early and coming in very late for the past few days. I had been staggering out to catch a cab to work by 9 a.m. and arriving back exhausted about 3 a.m. after the bar had closed and the hotel was buttoning up for the night. By the time I arrived, there was often no one in the lobby except a bellman, me, and perhaps a gaudily dressed female guest or two.




[That latter description does sound like Sharon Stone.]




I often wondered what those women thought I did for a living. Disheveled and limping, straggling along with a heavy briefcase full of files, I entered the hotel lobby each night looking like a failing hooker for that small subset of customers who preferred exhausted, unkempt professional women.




["Good evening. This is Dan Rather. I am among that subset of customers who prefers exhausted, unkempt professional women. Right now my joystick seems to be stuck so I thought you could loosen it up by rubbing it down with a bunch of files in that special way of yours. Then you could go in for some kinky S&M by smashing my numbskull with your heavy briefcase. Do it over and over again. How many times could you do it for a flat rate? WHAT'S THE FREQUENCY, MARY???"]




On this morning, though, my energy was back. I was exhilarated by another success.




[Hoorah! Another Smear Job completed!]




When I got to work, my mood was reinforced. I made rounds to thank the editors who had worked so hard to get the story put together in time for air. Their jobs are not for the faint of heart or for people who panic when time is short or the workload is overwhelming.



[Or when the facts do NOT check out.]




I ran into other producers and correspondents and collected hugs and kisses and congratulations. There were jokes about what we would do as a follow-up. Dan and I had broken the Abu Ghraib story in late April. Now this. My team, the people at 60 Minutes, and Dan all felt like we were on a roll.




[You were on a roll and ever so happy with the thought that your fake story might keep Bush from being re-elected.]




The new executive producer of 60 Minutes Wednesday, Josh Howard, gave me a hug and congratulations, following up on a flattering e-mail he had sent me around midnight the night before: “I was just sitting here thinking about how amazing you are. I’m buckled in, ready to see where you’ll take us next. Let’s go!”




[I bet a couple of weeks later Josh Howard didn't even recognize you when you became a non-person, Mary.]




There was no hint of what was to come, no whiff of doubt about the work we had all done on the story.




[You might have had that hint if you had done even a modest amount of newfangled Web surfing, Mary.]




I saw CBS vice president Betsy West standing in the CBS building’s eighth-floor lobby, waiting for the slow, unreliable elevators, and we laughed at how awful the previous night had been, how hurried and harried we all had been trying to get the story on. There had been shouting and impatience and flashes of anger. She laughed and said, “That’s as close to the sausage making as I ever want to get.” I’d told her that we’d all gotten sausage all over us and that was as close as I ever wanted to come to missing my deadline. We both felt good about the story and agreed that it had looked polished on the air, in contrast to the carnage left behind in the editing rooms and the offices where we had done our scripting.




[You make it TOO EASY with that "sausage" comment, Mary. Let me rephrase that for you and just say you got a lot of egg on your face.]




This behind-the-scenes carnage was not particularly unusual in television. For fifteen years at CBS I had pushed back against deadlines to perfect a script, to change a shot, to make a story better. I had never missed a deadline, never put on a story that I did not feel comfortable with.




[And don't forget to mention "change the facts."]




There was nothing more important to me, or to any of us at 60 Minutes, than getting the story right, no matter how limited the time or how tough the topic. I had a well-earned reputation for being able to “crash,” to get a story on quickly and competently.




[Yeah, too bad you couldn't send a Fax to General Hodges or hire some competent document analysts.]




For whatever reason---probably because I grew up in a large, loud, distracting family---I was able to focus when others couldn’t. I could keep writing when the room was full of people yelling at the top of their lungs. I was able to think clearly when the clock seemed to be ticking too fast.




[Was the sound of a Fax machine too loud for you to focus, Mary?]




The previous year, I had “crashed” an entire hour overnight for 60 Minutes Wednesday. Dan had done interviews with Ron Young and David Williams the two Apache helicopter pilots who had crashed and been captured in Iraq. Rescued by U.S. Marines, the two men had been pursued by countless reporters and producers for an interview. My wonderful friend and associate producer, Dana Roberson, helped me talk the two pilots into trusting us to tell their story.




[Trusting you? Like General Hodges trusted you, Mary?]




Steve Glauber, a veteran 60 Minutes producer, had worked round the clock, flying to the other side of the world and then back from Kuwait in forty-eight hours, carrying precious videotape. He had done touching and important interviews with the rest of the pilots’ unit, men and women who had mourned the two lost airmen after the crash. The unit members had vowed to find their comrades and had flown out on mission after mission wearing headbands with the two pilots’ names on them.




[I bet Steve Glauber is another 60 Minutes veteran who now pretends you don't exist whenever you are near him.]




We did the interviews with the pilots at two o’clock on Tuesday afternoon. They were great. But now I only had a few hours to script and organize the editing of the broadcast, in order to make it to air the following night. And all of it had to be overseen and approved by Jeff Fager, then the broadcast’s executive producer, and his right hand, senior producer Patti Hassler.




[Have you also become a non-person to Fager and Hassler, Mary?]




With their help and guidance, I was able to get the script done. The editors were phenomenal and put together a beautiful, heart-wrenching, and illuminating hour.



[I bet those same editors are now saying, "Mary Who?"]




But there had been more than a few furrowed brows. Editor David Rubin had been doing his trademark shrieking down the hall from my office as he cut in pieces of digitized tape. Everyone was dead tired and on a brutal deadline. By airtime, we were all staggering around like the undead. But we had done it. And the next day, we’d had the same kind of tired but happy conversations we were having on September 9.




[I bet Rubin's tradmark shrieking didn't hold a candle to your shrieking later on the day of Sept. 9, Mary.]




It was another day of exhausted exultation. I got congratulatory e-mails, phone calls, and pats on the back. Other reporters called repeatedly as they worked to catch up to my story. I was thrilled.




[Pats on the back followed by stabs in the back when you became a See-BS non-person, Mary.]


All that changed about 11:00 a.m., when I first started hearing rumbles from some producers at CBS News that a handful of far right Web sites were saying that the documents had been forged.



[GASP! But don't worry, Mary. Since it was "far right Web sites" making that claim, they HAD to be wrong. No need to fact check.]




was incredulous. That couldn’t be possible. Even on the morning the story aired, when we showed the president’s people the memos, the White House hadn’t attempted to deny the truth of the documents. In fact, the president’s spokesman, Dan Bartlett, had claimed that the documents supported their version of events: that then-lieutenant Bush had asked for permission to leave the unit.




[Maybe they were SAVORING the moment of your ultimate downfall.]




Within a few minutes, I was online visiting Web sites I had never heard of before: Free Republic, Little Green Footballs, Power Line. They were hard-core, politically angry, hyperconservative sites loaded with vitriol about Dan Rather and CBS. Our work was being compared to that of Jayson Blair, the discredited New York Times reporter who had fabricated and plagiarized stories.



["Within a few minutes, I was being illuminated by places I had never heard of before: The Sun, The Moon."]




All these Web sites had extensive write-ups on the documents: on typeface, font style, and peripheral spacing, material that seemed to spring up overnight. It was phenomenal. It had taken our analysts hours of careful work to make comparisons. It seemed that these analysts or commentators---or whatever they were---were coming up with long treatises in minutes. They were all linking to one another, creating an echo chamber of outraged agreement.




[Perhaps you should ask for your analysts to give their See-BS money back since it doesn't take a genius to figure out that proportionally spaced 1970s documents and superscripts that only existed on fancy typesetters back then were probably forgeries.]




I was told that the first posting claiming the documents were fakes had gone up on Free Republic before our broadcast was even off the air! How had the Web site even gotten copies of the documents? We hadn’t put them online until later. That first entry, posted by a longtime Republican political activist lawyer who used the name “Buckhead,” set the tone for what was to come.




[Okay, Mary. We already know that even minimal fact checking isn't your strong suit but doesn't your book publisher have a fact checker? It would take all of about 15 seconds of Googling to find out that Freeper Buckhead did NOT make the forgery claim until a couple of hours AFTER the show aired.]




There was no analysis of what the documents actually said, no work done to look at the content, no comparison with the official record, no phone calls made to check the facts of the story, nothing beyond a cursory and politically motivated examination of the typeface. That was all they had to attack, but that was enough.




[Those vicious rightwingers only had evidence that the documents were forgeries. That was all they had to attack. No analysis of what the forged papers actually said.]




People from around the country, especially those with a harsh political bent, began chiming in on the sites with accounts of their own experience with typewriters in the 1970s. Someone claimed to remember that electric typewriters at the time did not do “superscripts,” a small “th” or “st” or some such abbreviation that was lifted higher on the line than the other letters. This was important, because in the Killian memos, the 111th was sometime typed as the 111th, something that drove the bloggers wild. Another person claimed there was no peripheral spacing on old typewriters, even though there had been on some of the old official documents.




[Damn those bloggers for being hung up on superscripts that didn't exist in the 70s!]




I remember staring, disheartened and angry, at one posting. “60 Minutes is going down,” the writer crowed exultantly.




[WOO HOO! I think that was ME...plus about a thousand other Freepers.]




My heart started to pound. There is nothing more frightening for a reporter than the possibility of being wrong, seriously wrong. That is the reason that we checked and rechecked, argued about wording, took care to be certain that the video that accompanied the words didn’t create a new and unintended nuance. Being right, being sure, was everything. And right now, on the Internet, it appeared everything was falling apart.




["My heart started to pound. There is nothing more frightening for a reporter than the possibility of being caught."]




I had a real physical reaction as I read the angry online accounts. It was something between a panic attack, a heart attack, and a nervous breakdown. My palms were sweaty; I gulped and tried to breathe. My heart was pounding like I had become a cartoon character whose heart outline pushes out the front of her shirt with each beat. The little girl in me wanted to crouch and hide behind the door and cry my eyes out.




[You left out the other symptoms of a reporter trying to scam the public: flatulence attacks, uncontrollable drooling, and a brown sludge flood in the pants followed by assuming the fetal position while sucking firmly on the thumb.]




The longtime reporter in me was pissed off ... and I hung on to her strength and certainty for dear life. I had never been fundamentally wrong, never been fooled, never been under this kind of attack. I resolved to fight back.




["I was pissed off ... DAMN THAT LOUSY FREEPER BUCKHEAD FOR EXPOSING MY SCAM!!!"]




I talked to our document analyst Marcel Matley, now back in San Francisco, who said he had seen some of the comments and dismissed them out of hand. “They aren’t even looking at the quality of copies I did,” Matley said. He disdained the anonymity of the postings, saying that any real analysts would use their name and credentials. And he pointed out something that would be a huge problem for us in the days ahead: that in the process of downloading, scanning, faxing, and photocopying, some computers, copiers, and faxes changed spacing and subtly altered fonts. He thought that this basic misunderstanding of how documents changed through electronic transmittal was behind the unfounded certainty and ferocity of the attack on the documents.




[Hints from Heloise: Do you have 1970's typing equipment but want to produce documents with proportional spacing? No problem. Just run the docs through photocopy machines at least a half dozen times and, voila, you will have beautifully produced proportional documents aligned perfectly along the right side. As a fringe benefit, those photocopiers will automatically add superscripts.]




In retrospect, Matley was right and our story never recovered from this basic misunderstanding. Faxing changes a document in so many ways, large and small, that analyzing a memo that had been faxed---in some cases not once, but twice---was virtually impossible. The faxing destroyed the subtle arcs and lines in the letters. The characters bled into each other. The details of how the typed characters failed to line up perfectly inside each word were lost.




[Here's your homework assignment, Mary. Run 1970s documents without proportional spacing through a photocopy machine and see how many times it takes to produce proportional spacing AND superscripts. Do it a dozen, a hundred, a thousand times. Have you tried it at all, Mary? Oops! I forgot. Actual FACT CHECKING isn't your strong suit.]




And these faxed, scanned, and downloaded documents were the only versions of the memos ever made public. A comparison of one of the documents before faxing and after faxing is in the appendix.




[I thought it was in Uranus but I'll check out your appendix if you want, Mary.]




But I thought Matley’s belief that a technical misunderstanding was behind the ferocious attack was too good to be true.




[Isn't it always?]




I was afraid that this time Matley, who was an experienced document analyst and longtime expert witness, was out of his element. He knew a great deal about documents and signatures. But I knew attack politics.




[Poor widdle Matley didn't understand the VICIOUS rightwingers. HOW DARE THEY INSIST ON AUTHENTICITY???]




I knew what we were seeing was not a simple mistake made because of technical differences in the way the documents looked. This was something else, something new and fundamentally frightening. I had never seen this kind of response to any story. This was like rounding a corner in the woods and spotting a new creature, all venom and claws and teeth. You didn’t know what it was, but you sure knew it was out to get you.




[Maybe it was your own scam, Mary, that jumped up and bit you in the ass.]




As I watched the postings pile up and saw the words quickly become more hateful, it dawned on me that I was present at the birth of a political jihad, a movement conceived in radical conservative back rooms, given life in cyberspace, and growing by the minute. It fed on political anger and the deep-seated belief that CBS News was a longtime liberal stronghold out to get the president.




[CBS News was a longtime liberal stronghold out to get the president? Now where would we ever get such a wild idea?]




This bias on the part of some viewers had been around for decades. These were people who hadn’t forgiven Edward R. Murrow for taking on Joseph McCarthy, people who still referred to CBS as the “Communist Broadcasting System.”




[Now updated to "See-BS."]




That was something a man in rural Texas actually said to me not long after I started at CBS in 1989, when I approached him and asked if he would do a quick interview on a new boom in oil drilling.




[Trust me, Mary. He didn't want to drill you.]




“CBS?” he sneered. “Don’t you mean the Communist Broadcasting System”? I was dumbfounded.




[GASP! How could anybody get the CRAZY idea that CBS is a leftwing organization? How? HOW? HOW???]




To these people, there was no such thing as unbiased mainstream reporting, certainly not when it came to criticism of the president, no matter how tepid. To them, there was FOX News and everything else---and everything else was liberal and unfair.




[Don't worry, Mary. We'll always have NPR. Here's NOT looking at you, kid.]




All the producers and researchers who’d worked on our story were hunched over computers, reading everything they could find. It was not good. We marveled at the just-plain-wrong assertions about superscript or proportional spacing and the overwhelming certainty the bloggers brought to their analysis




[Strange how those "just-plain-wrong" bloggers were proved RIGHT since no current professional documents analyst will now vouch for the authenticity of your forged documents, Mary.]




One element of the attack was not at all surprising: the savaging of former Texas lieutenant governor Ben Barnes. He had predicted an all-out assault on his reputation and he had been right, in spades.




[Ben Barne's reputation is as pure as the fresh driven slush.]




While Barnes had never discussed publicly his assistance in getting the president into the Texas Air National Guard, over the years he had often hinted that he’d had a hand in it. He would drop into conversation that a Bush family friend had asked him to help out “young George.” Barnes had told people in countless private settings that he remembered being asked to make a phone call on Bush’s behalf. But while Barnes would confirm everything off the record and had even testified to it under oath in a convoluted Texas snake pit of a lawsuit involving the state lottery, he had never before sat down, answered questions, and told the story in front of God and a television audience and everybody. Now, he had.




[Ben Barnes remembered...before he couldn't remember.]




I could see that conservative Web sites were linking to a dossier on Barnes compiled by Republican operatives. It was a devastatingly one-sided account of Barnes’s past financial troubles and long-ago political scrapes, along with ancient accusations about Barnes when he had been a Democratic leader in Texas politics.




[Shame on them for calling that crook a crook!]




Barnes had remained an active Democrat all his life and now was working as a fund-raiser for John Kerry as well as a full-time lobbyist in Washington. He’d told Dan Rather and me that if he did the interview with us he could essentially lose his lobbying business. In Washington, D.C., where influence is measured in access, having doors slammed in your face could be the death knell for a lobbyist.




[Let's just dispense with formalities and nominate Ben Barnes for sainthood.]




In fact, the fear of a brass-knuckle Republican backlash that demolished people emotionally and financially is what kept Barnes and many others in Texas from speaking out about Bush’s military service for years. I had always dismissed that kind of fear, in Barnes and the many others who were reluctant to speak out about the president’s Guard years. I thought their worries were overdramatic. I mean, how bad could it be? Sure, there’d be criticism, but having the truth finally out in the open would be worth it.




[Speaking of OVERDRAMATIC, Mary...]




I was beginning to find out how wrong I was.




[You wrong, Mary? Naw! No way!]




Political operatives were having a field day turning Ben Barnes into their latest pi;atnata, and his larger-than-life history was making it easy. He had been a boy wonder in Texas politics until a financial scandal in the early seventies had tainted him---unfairly, as it turned out. He was investigated, along with a number of other state politicians, for taking bribes in the Sharpstown payola scandal. Sharpstown was a Texas-sized bribery and development scandal that destroyed the careers of a number of once powerful state politicians, who were accused of handing out political favors in exchange for cash. There were never any charges filed against Barnes, never any case brought against him.




[Are you EVER going to get off the Ben Barnes enshrinement shtick, Mary, and talk about the non-existent veracity of your forged documents?]




He and former Texas governor John Connally had lost their fortunes together rather spectacularly during the savings and loan bust in the eighties. Furthermore, Barnes had a well-deserved reputation as the life of the party, a glib, funny, overwhelmingly charming man who turned heads, slapped backs, and twisted arms to get what he wanted.




[I hear the violins playing in the background as Mary Mapes presents today's soap opera: "As Ben Barnes Squirms."]




Remember that picture of Lyndon Johnson bending a congressman backward over a desk trying to wrangle a vote? That’s what Ben Barnes looks like ordering dinner. He has always been louder than life, a living, breathing caricature of a Texas politician. Now the Republicans were turning over every aspect of his personality, every past action, and recycling them into mud to throw at him and defuse his story.




[Even with the sympathetic picture you're painting of Ben Barnes, Mary, he still comes off as an overbearing asshole. Of course NONE of this Barnes worship really has ANYTHING to do with the authenticity of the forged documents but please continue your meaningless filibuster while avoiding the REAL subject.]




I felt terrible for him and for his family. He had told us that he worried most about the impact doing the interview would have on his wife and two young daughters. Barnes felt he could take whatever came his way. He was afraid they could not or would not.




[YAWN! A Panamanian butterfly fluttering it's wings has more relevance to the forged documents than the opus you are spinning, Mary. Perhaps you should describe Ben Barnes wiping his tush or scratching his chin for all it has to do with anything.]




I knew Barnes was pretty tough. In fact, he had already survived more near-death political experiences and hardball partisan attacks than most human beings could. That pretty much comes with the territory in Texas politics. If you can’t take a hit, can’t survive a scandal, can’t talk your way out of a corner or dominate the field, you had better get out of the game.




[The Ben Barnes filler material continues. It has nothing at all to do with the authenticity of the TANG documents but at least it gives poor Mary something to fill the book pages with other than any RELEVANT facts.]




Barnes was an expert at the game. He had been on the scene of countless political and financial implosions. It was his political good fortune to always be the one person who would come staggering out of the building when it blew up. He might be covered with smoke and ash, his clothes ripped and ragged, but he would be alive and he would begin rebuilding his career.




[Ben Barnes once kissed his bloodhound on the lips. Then he did the Tango nude on the top of a Dallas office building. Ben Barnes ordered a couple of Big Macs for lunch. Ben Barnes wrote an essay about how he spent his summer vacation while in high school. Ben Barnes has an alliterative name with two Bs. Ben Barnes. Ben Barnes. Ben Barnes. How many more times do I need to type Ben Barnes to fill up this incredibly BORING book? Hey! Did you know that "Ben Barnes" and "BORING book" are all alliterative?]




I knew he would be able to make it through again. I didn’t know that I would not.




[I don't even know if I can make it through another sentence of your ode to Ben Barnes, Mary.]




By that afternoon, I had taken dozens of increasingly nervous phone calls from Betsy West and Josh Howard. Both of them were reading the blogs and growing more worried by the moment.




[They were frightened to death, Mary, because you typed up a whole sentence without once mentioning Ben Barnes.]




I remember looking at the Drudge Report at about 3:00 p.m. and seeing that the lead was a huge picture of Dan with the headline saying something like “Shaken and Stunned, Rather Hiding in Office.” The story went on to link to all the other angry and derisive Web sites running critiques of the documents.




[I thought the headline read, "Shaken not Stirred." Oops! I was thinking of that vodka martini that James Bond (not Ben Barnes) always drinks.]




The phone rang and it was Dan. “Mary, someone has just handed me something from the Drudge Report saying that I am all shook up and hiding in my office. I just want you to know that’s not true. I’m not worried and I’m not even in my goddammed office.”




["I'm in bed with Ben Barnes."]




I knew I could count on Dan. In tough situations, he became “fightin’ Dan,” someone who told us all to “never back up, never back down, never give up, never give in.” I was glad to hear from him and reassured by his reaction to all of it.




[Great segue, Mary. You went from kissing the posterior of Ben Barnes to planting your lips on Dan Rather's tuchus.]




Dan told me he was confident in the story and that he was lucky to work with me. He signed off by saying something that had become a shorthand for us over the years: “F-E-A.” That was code for “F---’Em All,” a sentiment that needed to be expressed from time to time in any newsroom. Dan was too much of a gentleman to say the real thing---at least most of the time. But he knew that when I was under deadline or work pressure I was hard put to find any sentence that couldn’t be improved by the liberal use of the “f”-word. At this point, I deeply appreciated the sentiment.




[I've got a secret shorthand code for Dan Rather: "F-U."]




The day continued to deteriorate. I got a stream of tag team phone calls from Josh Howard and Betsy West. They each began with the same ominous words: “Mary, have you seen ;obfill in the blank;cb?” It could be the Drudge Report, Power Line, something on FOX News, or a new posting on Little Green Footballs. Or worse yet, “Mary, we’ve gotten a call from ;obfill in the blank;cb.” It could be The Washington Post, The New York Times, the New York Post, the Des Moines Register. It felt as though the whole world were reading these obscure blogs and repeating their talking points without questioning them.




[They should have asked Ben Barnes. He had all the answers.]




When I walked down the hall, I saw groups of people clumped together talking animatedly, then watched as they grew silent when I approached. They’d squeak out a, “Hi, Mary,” as I trudged dejectedly past. It was sort of the journalistic equivalent of having toilet paper stuck to your shoe. I can’t say that I blamed them or that I would have behaved any differently in their positions. Nothing like this had ever happened before to me or to anyone I knew of. What is journalistic etiquette for watching someone’s story and career go up in flames? Everyone knew what was going on. Everyone knew it was going very badly. No one knew what to say.




["Hi, non-person!"]




Some people pitched in and tried to help bail the water out of our sinking ship. I was touched by producer David Gelber’s ideas and energy in trying to help. Steve Glauber lent moral support. People would appear in the office door and commiserate. Assistant producers offered to open up Andy Rooney’s office and let us look at his collection of old typewriters. Everyone was desperate or depressed---or both.



[Somehow I don't think Andy Rooney ever even made it to the electric typewriter stage.]




Dan came over after the CBS Evening News and we talked about the need to do a story rebutting the attacks the following night. My team of researcher, associate producers, and assistants and I gathered information on IBM typewriters, on font styles, on peripheral spacing. We got lists of new document and computer analysts together. We arranged to do an on-camera interview with Marcel Matley, our original document examiner.




[That's where you went wrong, Mary. You should have talked to Ben Barnes.]




I left the building late, with Roger Charles, the tenderhearted military consultant who had worked with me for years. Also on hand: Mike Smith, a dogged young researcher from Austin, Texas, who had followed the Bush-Guard story for years.




[A threesome at the Hotel Pierre?]




If our demeanor the night before had been triumphant, on September 9 we were downright tragic. The three of us dragged our sad selves into the hotel and plopped down in the bar like limp hankies. I was too tense to enjoy any small talk, but that has never actually stopped me from talking. So I continued to bray at Mike and Roger like a wounded wildebeest.




[Did Kitty Carlisle treat you to "highballs?"]




I was incredulous that the mainstream press---a group I’d been a part of for nearly twenty-five years and thought I knew---was falling for the blogs’ critiques. I was shocked at the ferocity of the attack. I was terrified at CBS’s lack of preparedness in defending us. I was furious at the unrelenting attacks on Dan. And I was helpless to do anything about any of it.




[You were helpless, Mary? Did it ever even occur to you to CHECK THE FACTS on that newfangled Internet???]



We vowed to work ourselves into a frenzy doing a great report on the Evening News the next night ... and we did. We put on a strong and reasoned defense. Maybe that was the problem. The people who had begun the attack on us were not interested in reason, other than the reason behind the whole assault---politics.




[Yeah. Great defense. "The fake documents are NOT fake. End of story. No comment."]




Dan ended the report by asking that the president answer the longtime questions about his service in the National Guard. No one listened. No one wanted to ask the president anything other than what he thought about the CBS report. Everyone in the media wanted to cover CBS, not the National Guard story.



["Mr. President, I challenge you to answer the charges made based on the forged documents!"]




Our report didn’t make a whit of difference. Nothing we did mattered. We were shouting into a wind tunnel.


[Um...did you ever consider checking into whether the documents were authentic or not? Naw! That's too much to ask of you, Mary. Requiring a few minutes of investigation would be over the line. Oh, and did you know that Ben Barnes once stepped over a line?]