The gay mayonnaise scandal: If only people cared this much about things that actually mattered

Several readers have sent me an update on the Heinz mayonnaise commercial "row" as it's being referred to in Great Britain. It turns out that Bill O'Reilly isn't the only one who's feeling insecure about his condiments. So many British viewers complained to the Advertising Standards Authority that Heinz voluntarily pulled the ad off the air.

File this under "you have got to be kidding me," but the The Telegraph reports:

Viewers complained it was "offensive, "inappropriate" and "unsuitable to be seen by children" and said it raised the "difficulty" of parents having to discuss same-sex relationships with their children.

And please understand that this ad never ran with the Saturday morning cartoons, after all. The British have far better ad restrictions than we do. From the Guardian:

The Heinz TV ad carried an "ex-kids" restriction, meaning it could not be shown in or around children's programming, because Heinz Deli Mayo falls foul of Ofcom's TV advert restrictions relating to products that are high in fat, salt and sugar.

So, in an effort to make Heinz stop this ridiculous cowering before a handful of complainers, the group Stonewall is calling for a boycott of Heinz. From The Telegraph again:

The gay rights group Stonewall has urged supporters to stop buying Heinz products.

Ben Summerskill, the chief executive of the group, said: "We're shocked that an innocuous ad should have been withdrawn in this way. I can't imagine that Heinz would respond to protests about black people featuring in their adverts.

"Our phones have not stopped ringing with supporters who are deeply upset."

Many thanks to all who sent me links on this story.

It's Monday, I'm cranky, but it has to be said: Tim Russert was not a "great" journalist

So, I wasn't going to write anything about Tim Russert's recent death. Of course it's sad that he leaves behind a wife and son. It's always sad when people die. (Look at the "US Deaths in Iraq" counter to the right -- there's 4,099 US military families that are extremely sad right now.) If you've been reading this blog for long, you know that I didn't like Tim Russert very much. But we're not supposed to speak ill of the dead. So I won't. But I will speak ill of the media, in general.

Does anyone out there remember when the journalist was not the story? Once upon a time -- pre-Olbermann, pre-Matthews, pre -Russert -- journalists had one job: deliver the news. But somewhere along the way they became more important than the news itself. I suppose when we had multiple 24-hour "news" channels, and not enough actual "news" to fill them, the "journalists" started pontificating a little bit -- really just to fill the dead air. But then they started believing that the dead-air fill-talk was actually important or insightful.

Thus began the death of true journalism.

There's a few "old school" journalists out there: Bill Moyers, for example. But for the most part, our news is now delivered with a large dose of the journalists' personal opinion, given under the guise of "analysis." Combine an inflated sense of personal insight with celebrity status, and you have Tim Russert. I'm sorry. I had to say it. I will never forget that in Democratic presidential debates of October 2007, Russert finally asked a question of Dennis Kucinich -- the only candidate pushing for impeachment, the only candidate pushing for equal marriage -- but the question Russert asked Kucinich was whether he had seen a UFO.

Tim Russert was a leader in this movement away from true reporting. Again, I am saddened that he leaves behind a family. But the mooning of the media over the past 48 hours, as though Russert were some iconic über journalist, I don't buy it.

UPDATE: Again, I hate to be so cranky, but if we can all just take a deep breath and remember this article written last fall by Paul Waldman, senior fellow at Media Matters for America, you'll see it's not just me. In November 2007, Waldman wrote:

As much as any politician, Russert has constructed a persona for the benefit of the public, an identity meant to give him the authority that his actual work might not. Like most well-designed personas, it has a basis in truth but has been polished and honed to a fine sheen.

If nothing else, at least we're deep enough into the presidential campaign that we don't have to suffer through Russert's endless "Are you running for president? Are you? Are you?" quizzing of potential candidates. But that's what passes for being a "tough" interviewer these days: the pose of confrontation rather than genuinely challenging questions, the query designed to embarrass rather than enlighten, the worship of, rather than the challenge to, conventional wisdom.

The two parties' nominees will be decided three months from now, and we can be sure that in that time, at least one or two candidates will have their campaigns upended by the answer they gave to an absurd question, delivered by Tim Russert or someone like him, about what their favorite Bible verse is, or whom they want to win the Super Bowl, or what kind of beer they like. "Aha!" the reporters will shout, as though they actually unearthed something revealing on which the race for the presidency of the most powerful nation on earth should be decided. The one whose tiny little mind devised the question will be praised to the stars for his journalistic acumen.

And they'll continue to wonder why so many Americans are so cynical about our electoral process.

Media, bored with Obama, begins attack on Clinton again

You'd think Barack Obama won the nomination by a landslide, the way the pundits are acting. All I've heard this morning is, "Why won't Hillary Clinton concede?!" Well, maybe because he only won by an incredibly small margin (somewhere between 0.1 and 0.2 % of the votes), and almost 18 million people voted for her -- that's more than any man anyone has ever received. So, can we just give her a break for 48 hours so that all the players can end this nomination process in a way that is in the best interest of the Democratic Party and the American people?

The scuttlebutt du jour is, "But will she endorse him?" Ridiculous. The New York Times sharpens its claws with "Clinton Discusses What She Wants, But Not What She Will Do." Ridiculous. Hillary Clinton has said time and again that she would fully support Obama as the candidate and that she would do everything she could could to get a Democrat back in the White House. So please, America, before you let the media (once again) make Hillary Clinton into some kind of monster, please read her message below, which she sent to her supporters, and which I'm sure the media is aware.

Dear Sue,

I wanted you to be one of the first to know: on Saturday, I will hold an event in Washington D.C. to thank everyone who has supported my campaign. Over the course of the last 16 months, I have been privileged and touched to witness the incredible dedication and sacrifice of so many people working for our campaign. Every minute you put into helping us win, every dollar you gave to keep up the fight meant more to me than I can ever possibly tell you.

On Saturday, I will extend my congratulations to Senator Obama and my support for his candidacy. This has been a long and hard-fought campaign, but as I have always said, my differences with Senator Obama are small compared to the differences we have with Senator McCain and the Republicans.

I have said throughout the campaign that I would strongly support Senator Obama if he were the Democratic Party's nominee, and I intend to deliver on that promise.

When I decided to run for president, I knew exactly why I was getting into this race: to work hard every day for the millions of Americans who need a voice in the White House.

I made you -- and everyone who supported me -- a promise: to stand up for our shared values and to never back down. I'm going to keep that promise today, tomorrow, and for the rest of my life.

I will be speaking on Saturday about how together we can rally the party behind Senator Obama. The stakes are too high and the task before us too important to do otherwise.

I know as I continue my lifelong work for a stronger America and a better world, I will turn to you for the support, the strength, and the commitment that you have shown me in the past 16 months. And I will always keep faith with the issues and causes that are important to you.

In the past few days, you have shown that support once again with hundreds of thousands of messages to the campaign, and again, I am touched by your thoughtfulness and kindness.

I can never possibly express my gratitude, so let me say simply, thank you.

Sincerely,

Hillary Rodham Clinton

Emphasis mine, words hers. The foreign press seems to be thinking with a little more clear head this morning:

Hillary Clinton to endorse Barack Obama as Democratic candidate on Saturday, Telegraph UK

Clinton to endorse Obama this weekend, Belfast Telegraph

Clinton to leave race and endorse Obama, International Herald Tribune

Okay?

Obama wins it, but that's not my biggest disappointment

The airwaves will be full of pontification today, and I don't want to add to the ridiculousness of it all. As a Clinton supporter, of course I am disappointed at the final outcome. But let me tell you what disappoints me most about this entire Democratic primary race.

First and foremost, I am disappointed in many of my fellow Democrats, and with the Democratic leadership. I make no excuses for Hillary Clinton's defeat -- it was a very close contest, and she came close to winning. In the end, counting the Michigan voters, Clinton won the popular vote, with 17,790,119 votes to Obama's 17,495,726. Without the Michigan voters, Obama won the nomination by 0.1 percent. The popular vote is a little tricky to get a true handle on, because some states have not released their final votes tallies. Even with the best estimates, however, Obama won the popular vote by 0.2 percent. In the end, I think Barack Obama had a better marketing team and better fundraisers.

And as Hillary Clinton decides where she goes from here, so do her women supporters. You see, we all got a little beaten up during this race. I thought it would be over by now, but this morning I turned on CNN to get the final numbers, and was subjected to Obama supporter former Congressman Ben "Cooter" Jones. I wouldn't have believed if I had not heard him twice refer to Senator Clinton as "Miss Clinton."

It's the kind of subtle diminishing of our accomplishments that women have endured for our entire lives, and the kind of talk we thought was unacceptable. But in the glow of Obama's victory, not a word was said to 'ol Cooter.

Because it's still o.k. in American society to belittle and make fun of women.

You might say, well Sue J., did you just wake up to this fact? Of course not -- I've spent a lifetime competing with boys, then men. I've heard the comments around the conference room table, in the lunchroom, on the playing field. But where I hadn't heard it before was from my fellow Democrats. And that has been the biggest disappointment of this election, by far.

A while ago there was a story in the news about a man in Georgia selling t-shirts with a picture of Obama looking like the character Curious George. There was -- quite rightly -- public outcry at the racist overtones of the image. That seems to be then end of the t-shirts.

Compare that with the public reaction to the "Hillary Nutcracker." These items were proudly sold in gift shops throughout America. Because it's still o.k. in American society to belittle and make fun of women.

Many feminists have tried to co-op this language and these items, as oppressed groups often do in order to gain some control over their destiny. So, we see women buying the "Nutcracker" and declaring it to be funny. And we see the slogan "Bitch is the new black" arise as we try to take back control of language used to belittle us.

Throughout this campaign, Hillary Clinton has been subjected to (almost) unbelievably sexist comments from all angles. I won't list them all here -- Shakespeare's Sister has done a wonderful job of keeping track of the most egregious examples with the Hillary Sexism Watch, which is currently at 104. So disappointing about many of those examples is the fact that no one in the Democratic party stood up and defended this woman. Especially since the attacks often came from members of the Democratic party itself.

Of course I am proud of this country and our party for electing a man of color as the nominee. But that pride is balanced with the another truth, which -- until this year -- I naively thought was history:

It's still o.k. in American society to belittle and make fun of women.

And these people get paid for this?!

I've been out of commission for a couple of days, and haven't been watching as much news about the primary race as I otherwise might have. Turns out I've been missing ... pretty much nothing!

I watched some of the DNC meeting on Saturday, listened to some on the radio. I was moved by everyone from from Florida who spoke. Except that I found Congressman Wexler incredibly annoying in his Obama-love (down, boy!), and I found Donna Brazile condescending and disingenuous. Oh, Donna, what has happened to you since Gore 2000?

I read the results from Sunday's Puerto Rico primary, where Clinton beat Obama by 36 percentage points, the exit polls showing her beating him soundly in all age groups -- including his supposedly solid "youth movement" -- she won men, she won women, she won church goers, she won those with college education and those without. But no one seems to care. It earned barely a mention on the news Monday morning.

Here's what I heard the talking heads say:

"It's going to be interesting to see what Hillary Clinton decides to do." Um, ya think?

"I think Clinton's going to have to be thinking strategically at this point." Oh, really?

Are you freakin' kidding me? I think we should all apply for these "pundit" jobs immediately.

It's obvious that these people have nothing left to say -- their thin knowledge of politics has been exposed through this prolonged primary season, and for that, I thank you Senator Clinton! Whereas we used to have a few investigative reporters, and few political reporters who knew insiders and could give us the "scoop" we wouldn't otherwise find out, we now see behind the curtain: the "pundits" who parade across the "news" "analysis" shows on every network, are nothing more than opinionated writers with some knowledge and interest in current events.

Hey -- we could do that!

Equal time for comments taken out of context: Obama's turn

There was so much furor and uproar over Hillary Clinton's recent comment including Bobby Kennedy's assassination recently, that I thought I'd give equal time to highlight the ridiculousness of the media rush to judge Barack Obama over his harmless mistake in telling a family history.

In the past, I've written about my concern with Obama's tendency to be more concerned with telling a good story than with getting all the facts right. This is different. This is a harmless mistake: wrong camp. From Crooks and Liars:

Speaking in New Mexico on Memorial Day, Obama said a great-uncle had helped to liberate the Auschwitz death camp at the end of World War II. “I had a uncle who was one of the, who was part of the first American troops to go into Auschwitz and liberate the concentration camps,” Obama said (a YouTube clip of the remarks quickly went viral online).

He continued: “And the story in my family is that when he came home, he just went into the attic, and he didn’t leave the house for six months. All right? Now, obviously something had affected him deeply, but at the time, there just weren’t the kinds of facilities to help somebody work through that kind of pain.”

That may be a fact, the RNC noted gleefully — but only if Obama’s uncle had served in the Red Army of Joseph Stalin, which liberated Auschwitz on Jan. 27, 1945.

Obama’s campaign said yesterday that he had erred in naming the camp but not in describing the role of his great-uncle, who partook in the liberation of Buchenwald.

C&L rightly describes this as "one of the dumber outrages of the 2008 presidential campaign this week."

In case you missed it, please read the Politico defense for promoting such trivial, un-newsworthy stories such as this, un- self-consciously entitled "How small stories become big news."

It's all about the traffic, baby.

The media continues to tear apart the Democratic Party. And we continue to let them.

From a guest post over at Taylor Marsh's blog, a young woman who says what so many of us are feeling, with much greater eloquence:

Let me introduce myself. I am 29 year old female serving in the United States Army. I am black. I am proud. And I am a supporter of Senator Hillary Rodham Clinton.

We have seen daily how Senator Clinton moves forward to speak for our loved ones, our families and our friends, despite the constant call for her to step down. She has gone forward despite the obstacles in her path and she has continued to fight. To attempt to destroy the reputation, the name of the former First Lady and Senator by falsely portraying her supporters as racist is one of the worst mistakes of the 2008 election process. To use the the history and the struggles in the black community to destroy another person's political career is the worst form of politics imaginable.

The media is slowly destroying the black community with their words. MSNBC should fire Keith Olbermann and let him return to being a radio sportscaster. They are ripping the Democratic Party apart and they are dividing this nation. Any sane, reasonable and coherent person can see that the cries of "racism" are their attempts to get Senator Clinton to leave this race. By any means necessary. Therefore any sane, reasonable and coherent person watching this debacle is going to resent what is happening, because anyone can see that Senator Clinton is being railroaded.

African Americans are not in any way stupid. If we believed that there was this level of racial discourse as these pundits make it out to be we would be marching on Washington D.C. But now we can only watch in horror as the media destroys our history. The only ones who are "outraged" are those who have no idea of true racial hatred.

Please read the rest here.

And this is why "Slate" is no longer on the blogroll

I removed Slate from my blogroll quite some time ago when it became clear the site had become just another in the long line of unabashedly pro-Obama love-fests. I mean, it's one thing to be a blogger who promotes one candidate -- I do it. But you know this is all my commentary here, and I know it's commentary when I visit another blogger who supports Obama. We are speaking with our own voices, giving our personal opinions.

But the sites of larger, "professional" organizations -- Slate, Huffington Post, Raw Story etc. -- used to have a more balanced tone. These sites have many writers on staff and on-call, and they used to publish diverse opinions on topics of the day. Because it became all one voice over there, I really haven't visited Slate in a long time. But apparently I haven't missed much. Tennessee Guerilla Women did a little survey on Slate's ... ahem ... "journalism" and reports:

Hillary Sexism Watch: Slate's Arrested Development

By now we've had our faces repeatedly rubbed in the fact that the historic bid for the presidency by the first ever viable woman is nothing more than an opportunity to wallow in cheap misogyny by the mainly male media.

The historic campaign that means so very much to girls and women all over America, as viewed by the apparent adolescents at Slate:

Hillary's "Lapse" Dance by Mickey Kaus

Hillary Clinton, Fairy Princess By Timothy Noah

The Hillary Deathwatch By Chadwick Matlin

The Hillary Deathwatch Index

The Hillary Deathwatch Widget for your blog, iGoogle, or Facebook page

Please go visit the Tennessee Guerilla Women. They do good stuff over there.

Debating the debate: Hello? McFly? Has anyone been paying attention?

I wasn't going to write anything about last night's debate, but after traveling around the blogosphere as well as writing some comments here, I find that I do have just one point I'd like to make.

Where have all these outraged viewers been all season?

I tuned in to the debates halfway through without expecting much — and I guess the fact that I didn't feel compelled to watch from the beginning says something right there. The part of the debate that I saw could be characterized as (1) questions consisting mostly of issue-oriented topics, and (2) both candidates were taken to task a few times by the moderators when they seemed to avoid giving a straight answer.

Over coffee this morning I said to Un-named Partner that I thought it was a pretty good debate (compared with the rest of the debates this season), and that Clinton seemed composed, while Obama seemed tired. I also said I thought the moderators were tougher than they have been in the past, which is also how many saw it overseas and here at home. Little did I know that there was a storm brewing amongst the Obama supporters over planted questions, and "trivial" topics.

Where have all these outraged viewers been all season?

As a Dennis Kucinich supporter, I watched in disbelief as Kucinich waited patiently to get asked a question, only to have Tim Russert ask him about UFOs. The man is leading a movement to impeach the President of the United States for taking us into an illegal war, and you ask him about UFOs?

Where have all these outraged viewers been all season?

In the Republican debates, Ron Paul was regularly shunned and otherwise ignored. While I don't agree with much of what he says, he was a candidate on the debate stage. And deserved equal time. But the mainstream media ignored him. The mainstream media ran the show.

Where have all these outraged viewers been all season?

So you'll have to pardon my lack of sympathy for Barack Obama having to answer questions that some people think are "trivial." These topics of who he associates with and choices he has made in his past are an issue to many people, and while they may not have merited 45 minutes of primetime coverage, I am astounded that anyone is surprised it happened.

Where have all these outraged viewers been all season?

photo credit Jae Hong

Bitter? You bet!

If Barack Obama wants to meet some bitter voters, he should start with this woman from Florida. I don't know who she is, but I sure wish some cable news show would hire her, because she cuts right through the crap and tells it like it is. She is one voter citizen (sorry, Florida, you don't count), who's clearly had enough of Obama's rhetoric and the media's forgiveness.



ht/t to Yikes! for this one!

Dept. of "Cause bitches get stuff done!"

Don't count her out yet. There's more than a few people left in this country who haven't yet voted in their state Democratic primary. Despite the media's strong-arm tactics to shut out the American voter, let's wait and see what they say, shall we?

Meanwhile, if you still have any doubts about the hateful, sexist treatment of Hillary Clinton being demonstrated by the mainstream media, watch the video below. By the end, you'll be smiling!



h/t/ to Suburban Lesbian Housewife

Media jumps on Clinton story without checking the facts

I know, I know. I said I wasn't going to let myself get pulled into the mud in the battle between these two. But this is typical of the differing treatment they get in the media, and I can't just sit and watch. First Clinton is dragged through the press for her exagerations about her trip to Bosnia. At least she admitted she was wrong and laughed at herself. By now you've probably read and heard that the sad story Hillary Clinton has been telling about a pregnant woman who died after being denied treatment because she couldn't pay the hospital was false. False! I tell you! (That's what all the papers said, so it must be true!)

Uh, not so much. Now from The Washington Post:

For weeks, Clinton repeated an anecdote she heard in Ohio on Feb. 28 involving a young woman who lost her baby and later died because she lacked health insurance and did not have $100 to gain access to a nearby hospital.

But over the weekend, Clinton came under fire when officials at O'Bleness Memorial Hospital, after reading about her remarks, demanded that she stop recounting it because the patient, Trina Bechtel, was admitted there and did have insurance.

That part, it turns out, is true. But so is Clinton's claim that Bechtel did not get care at another hospital that wanted a $100 pre-payment before seeing her, according to the young woman's aunt, Lisa Casto. "It's a true story," said Casto, 53.

Casto said her niece, who suffered from preeclampsia during her pregnancy, did not seek care at the first hospital she when she fell ill because she knew she did not have the $100 out-of-pocket she believed she would need to be seen. Instead, she went to O'Bleness Memorial Hospital, where her baby was stillborn. Bechtel was later flown to Columbus and died there. She was 35.

There was a time once when reporters checked the facts of their stories before they went to press. This is admittedly a somewhat complex story of our dysfunctional health care system, but one which could have been checked a little closer before publishing. Instead it was picked up by Hillary hatin' sites such as Huffington Post under the headline: Clinton Under Fire Over False Story Of Health Care Horror ... .

Which amazes me, given the number of times Obama has told much simpler tales full of errors, such as saying that his very existence was due to the marchers in Selma who changed society so that his parents could marry and have children. From his speech:

There was something stirring across the country because of what happened in Selma, Alabama, because some folks are willing to march across a bridge. So they got together and Barack Obama Jr. was born. So don't tell me I don't have a claim on Selma, Alabama. Don't tell me I'm not coming home to Selma, Alabama.

Except that he was born 4 years before the Selma march.

Or how about when he recently tried to establish family ties between the Obamas and the Kennedys by saying his father came to America on a flight payed for by John F. Kennedy. Obama went so far as to say he owed his "'very existence' to the generosity of the Kennedy family."

It's touching. It's profound. It's downright audacious! But it's wrong.

Contrary to Obama's claims in speeches in January at American University and in Selma last year, the Kennedy family did not provide the funding for a September 1959 airlift of 81 Kenyan students to the United States that included Obama's father. According to historical records and interviews with participants, the Kennedys were first approached for support for the program nearly a year later, in July 1960. The family responded with a $100,000 donation, most of which went to pay for a second airlift in September 1960.

No matter ow many times he tells these tall tales, America lets it go. Sure, these details don't change the world. But are they an indication of the man who speaks with a golden tongue? Cane we believe what he says when his stories are so often riddled with errors? I hope his supporters are right, because it certainly does look like he will get the Democratic nomination. But I have to tell you, I have that same feeling in the pit of my stomach when I watched the returns in 2000 and 2004. I hope you people know what you're doing.

Sex or Substance? The MSM makes its choice

Yesterday the The National Archives and the William J. Clinton Presidential Library released 11,000 pages of documents concerning Hillary Clinton's schedule as First Lady. The records of meetings and appointments show her substantive involvement in issues at a historic and unprecedented level for a First Lady.

ABC news, however, chose this morning to highlight the juicy tidbit that Sen. Clinton was in another part of the White House on the day President Clinton was playing "hide the cigar" with Monica Lewinsky in 1997.

Because, you know, that's relevant.

You can always count on Rush Limbaugh ... to be a big fat idiot

It had been such a wonderful day off. Just the thing to refresh from a rather wearying week. What could be better than sleeping late, drinking coffee and reading the paper in front of the electric fireplace (o.k., wood would be better), taking the dog for a walk, leisurely strolling the aisles of Trader Joe's. The roads are fine at this point, so the drive home from the store was peaceful -- until for some reason I decided to turn on the talk radio station.

There was Rush Limbaugh in all his glory. He had some Joe Shmo caller on the line who had supposedly seen Hillary Clinton in a closed meeting room, where, according to this guy, she "swore like a sailor." Limbaugh was in heaven. "Oh, I've heard about this side of her," he exclaimed gleefully.  "Were there ashtrays -- did she throw things?"

What the what?

As it turned out, Clinton was furious because her daughter was being stalked at Stanford, and the First Lady didn't think the Secret Service were doing enough to protect the girl.  Chelsea (whom the caller referred to as "Amy," which, honestly, doesn't do much for his credibility) could have really been in danger -- and what mother parent wouldn't fly off at the people who are supposed to be protecting their child if she thought they weren't doing their job?

Thankfully, they broke for a commercial as I got home, so I wasn't subjected to any more of this nonsense. But it just infuriates me to think that American voters are listening to this crap -- and that people like Rush Limbaugh are out there saying it. What purpose is served by him posing questions like "Did she throw things?" The listener is left with the idea "Hillary ... throws things."

We have one of the most intelligent, most uniquely qualified candidates ever to run for President, and people like Limbaugh portray her as a foul-mouthed, angry bitch. And life in America goes on.

Is 2 o'clock too early to start drinking on a snow day?

Hello Kettle? It's the Pot — You're Black.

Michelle Malkin is offended, my friends, by Jane Fonda. In fact, she says of Fonda:

"The woman has no class. You already knew that."

What did Jane do, you ask. I mean, for someone of Malkin's level of class-ness to call her out, it must have been pretty awful. Well it's really a question of what NBC did not do that has Malkin in a tizzy. Fonda appeared on The Today Show with playwright Eve Ensler to celebrate the 10th anniversary of the play Vagina Monologues. Now I'm no t.v. producer, but I would think (a) someone on the show would know what was play was about, and (b) someone would be near the bleeper button just in case a word not appropriate for morning television might come up in conversation.

Do these people do any research at all?

Here's what Fonda said: "I hadn't seen the play. I live in Georgia OK. I was asked to do a monologue called 'Cunt,' and I said, 'I don't think so, I've got enough problems."

A perfectly acceptable use of the word, if you ask me. But the Repugs are in a lather over the corruption of our youth. Which makes me think of the line from Apocalypse Now with the colonel ranting along the lines of "We can drop bombs on children but we can't write "fuck" on the side of the plane?!"

You can see it for yourself here, as well as Meredith Viera's post-cunt apology. And then read — or better yet see the play, if you haven't done so already. It is awesome.

UPDATE: 3 Companies Indicted in Pet Food Case

This story got about 30 seconds on the morning news today, with no details given about the companies. As a pet owner, I think it deserves a little more coverage from the media. I remember all too well the anxiety of the pet food recall last year. And as a friend, I know several people who lost their pets to tainted food. Knowing that those who made money off the total disregard for the lives of our loyal companions are bring brought to justice is some small comfort.

From the AP:

Two Chinese businesses and a U.S. company were indicted Wednesday in the tainted pet food incidents that killed potentially thousands of animals last year and raised worries about products made in China.

Xuzhou Anying Biologic Technology Development Co.; Suzhou Textiles, Silk, Light Industrial Products Arts and Crafts I/E Co.; and Las Vegas-based ChemNutra Inc. were charged in two separate but related indictments.

The U.S. attorney's office in Kansas City said the U.S. Food and Drug Administration has received consumer reports suggesting 1,950 cats and 2,200 dogs died after eating food contaminated with the toxic chemical melamine.

The indictments allege that Suzhou Textiles, an export broker, mislabeled 800 metric tons of tainted wheat gluten manufactured by Xuzhou to avoid inspection in China. Suzhou then did not properly declare the contaminated product it shipped to the U.S. as a material to be used in food, the indictment says.

It also says the shipment was falsely declared to the Chinese government in a way that would avoid a mandatory inspection of the company's plants.

"The defendants intended to deceive the Chinese government in addition to consumers," Wood said.

According to the indictment, ChemNutra picked up the melamine-tainted product at a port of entry in Kansas City, then sold it to makers of various brands of pet foods. The indictment alleges that Xuzhou added the melamine to artificially boost the protein content of the gluten to meet the requirements specified in Suzhou's contract with ChemNutra.

Wood said adding the melamine, which would allow it to pass chemical inspections for protein content, was cheaper than actually adding protein to the gluten.

UPDATE: The more I thought about that sentence in red above, the more I wondered how far-reaching this ChemNutra company's sales might be. Menu Foods buys wheat gluten from ChemNutra. The following brands are just some of the ones sold by Menu Foods. (Who by the way is suing ChemNutra.)

• America's Choice
• Companion
• Co-Op Gold
• Drs Foster & Smith
• Food Lion
• Giant Companion
• Hill Country Fare
• Nutro
• Sophistacat
• Wegmans

CNN rushes to report first Super Tuesday results: Obama a winner ... in Indonesia!

All I can say about that kid in the picture is: Buddy, I know how you feel.

I must say, the coverage today has been fantastically bad. So let's take a look around the newsrooms, shall we?

CNN offers us "Obama the choice of Democrats in Indonesia" because, you know, it's such a good indicator of the results to come: "Seventy five percent of the nearly 100 votes cast by expatriate Americans a minute after midnight Indonesia time (12 p.m. Monday EST) went to Obama. The rest were cast in favor of Clinton, said Arian Ardie, country committee chair for Democrats Abroad .... Ardie said that Obama's time in Indonesia was part of his appeal among expatriate voters in the southeast Asian country."

Ya think?

The top story in the banner over at Huffington Post: "Hillary Coughing Fit Cuts Short Live Interview" because ... it's relevant? I could do a whole section here on the irrelevant stories being posted at Huffington Post. I don't know what's going on over there. I expect to see Billy Bush and Mary Hart writing OpEds soon.

The New York Times rightly wonders about the wisdom of having Super Tuesday on, well, Tuesday, in "Super Tuesday & American Idol."

Forbes keeps it real, with "Tuesday Morning Not So Super On Wall Street." I know the primaries are exciting and all, but please don't forget that the economy is in the toilet at the moment.

Salon takes that sentiment and runs with it in "Super Recession Tuesday."

But my personal favorite story so far today has to be the one about some ultra-enthusiastic voters: "Uh, No Super Tuesday in Wisconsin" in which a dozen or so Wisconsin voters thought all the hype about Super Tuesday meant they'd better get out and vote. Two weeks early.

Sweetie, you go over there and play with the other girls ....

Why do I continue to torment myself with The Huffington Post? It's like political eye candy to me, I guess. I have a sweet tooth and I just can't resist checking it once a day. (See previous post on lack of sugar in my diet.) To be honest, there are some really great posters over there — writers who are insightful, witty, and well informed.

But then there's stuff like this today:

Clinton wins "beauty contest": The Democratic primary in Florida is mostly meaningless -- the state has been stripped of its delegates and none of the candidates campaigned there -- but Sen. Hillary Clinton won the state handily.

Beauty contest? Holy Arianna! Can we please not call a political primary won by a woman a beauty contest? What about all of the uproar in recent weeks over statements that supposedly had "racial undertones" (including Bill Clinton's characterization of Obama's anti-war stance as a "fairytale." I still don't understand how anyone can think that has any racial connotation, but lots of people did.) Why is there no condemnation of using a phrase like "beauty contest"?

To my ears, it's just as covertly bigoted as anything that has been said about Obama.

It's been obvious to me for a very long time that Obama was "the chosen one" according to Arianna Huffington. But they're really reaching with statements like this:

... in fact, the exit polls show Obama actually beat Clinton among voters who decided late.

And yay for voters who decided to wear a sweater because it was kind of chilly. Or voters who wore black socks. He won them, too, I bet!

I can't wait for this campaign to be over. It's not the candidates who are getting on my nerves, it's the commentators all scrambling to frame these events in the edgiest, catchiest ways.

So they're all crocodiles then?

From USA Today:
A tear runs down President Bush's cheek as he takes part in a Medal of Honor Ceremony for Marine Cpl. Jason Dunham of Scio, N.Y., Thursday, Jan. 11, 2007, in the East Room of the White House in Washington.














I was searching teh Internets for pictures of "crying politicians" and came across this great posting from last February. H/T to fubar at Needlenose:

What is it with Republicans and crying? Weren't they supposed to be the tough ones? Instead, we keep hearing stories about them crying.

Remember Martha-Ann Alito running out of the room at the confirmation hearing of Justice Samuel Alito:

Funny thing is that they blamed the heartless Democrats for making her cry, when it was Lindsey Graham (R-SC) who was doing all the talking. Go figure.

Then there was Randy "Duke" Cunningham:

Fubar's got lots more. Check it out here.

New Hampshire results are in, and the winner is ... the American voter!

By now you've heard the news of Hillary Clinton's surprise win in the New Hampshire Democratic primary. But I think the real winner in this contest was the will of the American people. Yesterday afternoon, all the pundits and pollsters were predicting a major loss for Clinton. Assclown Blogger Matt Drudge even predicted Clinton was so far behind that she would drop out of the race completely in a story entitled "TALK OF HILLARY EXIT ENGULFS CAMPAIGNS."

What we saw, ladies and gentlemen, was a catastrophic media failure. The voters of New Hampshire, notoriously -- fiercely -- independent, were not swayed by the corporate mainstream media. Of course, there will be more polls, more analysis of the raw data about who voted for whom. So far, it looks like Clinton "won back" the women's vote that Obama gained in Iowa, and also that the legions of college students who were showing up at Obama rallies never actually made it to the polls to vote. (You know it's risky to depend on 19 year-olds, who -- bless their hearts -- are not known as the most reliable of demographics. Am I right, parents?) It probably didn't help that some schools are on semester break this week.

My favorite theory so far in the discrepancy between the polls and the results is that the voters of New Hampshire messed with the pollsters. I think that's the ultimate power grab by the people. No one should know who the winner will be until each and every voter has had the opportunity to got into the voting booth and make their choice. It sounds like a lot of New Hampshire voters waited until just that moment to decide.

And lastly, I still wonder about the Implicit Association Test , which I wrote about a week or so ago. A lot of people have said that they "like" Obama, but when it came time to make the final vote, was there a subconscious divergence? I don't know. I suppose the media will be scrambling to save face, so look for more theories and predictions to come.

New Hampshire: Live Free or Die!