Fair and balanced news
Defense Secretary Robert M. Gates was busy this week winning Congressional approval for an additional $42.3 billion for the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, (“Bringing the Bush administration’s 2008 war funding request to nearly $190 billion,” reports the Associated Press, “the largest single-year total for the wars so far”). Meanwhile, the good folks at Fairness & Accuracy in Reporting (FAIR) recently pointed out another case of the major mass media buying into proverbial non-wisdom — if not downright non-truth.
Although everyone from the Washington Post to Newsweek and the AP writes and talks about how the Senate needs 60 votes to halt debate, and 67 votes to overturn an expected veto from Boy George — a virtual impossibility — there is another, much easier, and viable way.
FAIR says, “The problem with all these [misleading] accounts is that Congress does not have to pass legislation to bring an end to the war in Iraq — it simply has to block passage of any bill that would continue to fund the war. This requires not 67 or 60 Senate votes, or even 51, but just 41 — the number of senators needed to maintain a filibuster and prevent a bill from coming up to vote.”
Oh, didn’t know that, now did we, Harry Reid?
You can understand journalistic pedants and TV chattering heads buying into a GOP dark cloud, warning that there is no way out for the Dems. Still, you would think someone in the Senate might have figured out this trick and played the “Oops, it’s our filibuster now, kiddies” card.
Unless, of course, our knock-kneed Democratic solons wish to continue doing what FAIR suggests they have been guilty of all along: “confusing ‘can’t’ with ‘won’t.’ ”
Perhaps our media titans and conscious politicians could ask about that option before their next vote for more money for Dubya’s killing machine.
Or would that cut into happy hour in Dupont Circle?
Kill Bill?
Kudos and congrats to New York Times’ editorial page contributor Gail Collins, whose September 29 column cited an unbelievable performance by professional lecher Bill Clinton that somehow slipped under Phillipe + Jorge’s radar.
“Earlier this year at a campaign rally,” Collins wrote, “Bill Clinton said that when he was at Yale, he told Hillary, ‘I have met all the most gifted people in our generation and you’re the best.’ ”
Say what?!?!?! (And you know he left himself out of the rating system, or she would have placed second.)
Man, he'll say ANYTHING to get laid! The worst thing about this brazen arrogance (and delusion) is that he believes it, on both counts – with his meeting all the geniuses of his generation (P+J certainly don't recall talking to him), and that she is numero uno.
This load of self-inflated bullshit exceeds even Billary’s insultingly ostentatious, “What is the meaning of ‘is’?” Golly, may we please kiss the hem of your garments, Mr. and Mrs. Clinton?
Frank Rich followed the next day with his column, “Is Hillary Clinton the new Al Gore?” He alludes to the recent bail-out by GQ magazine, citing a report on Politico.com, that the mag spiked an article about infighting among Hillary’s inner circle. Why? Supposedly, one of Bill’s aides made it quite clear that running the piece might severely limit future access to the former president. This sounds like nice, ethical, above-board politics from the holier-than-thou Camp Clinton.
It has been suggested elsewhere that Hillary has become like a nagging, shrewish wife who demands that you do something for her for until you finally succumb, saying, “OK, I’ll do it, just leave me alone!” In this case, it is getting her elected as president.
But why not vote for her? We’ll get the most gifted person of our generation, and Bill will get a bachelor pad in Chappaqua. “Hey baby, did I ever tell you you’re one of the most gifted people I know?”
