Knucklehead Of The Week Award

Lemme see. A guy buys a much-in-demand Camaro SS and barely a day later loses control and crashes it into a Bowling Green, Kentucky bakery while doing a burnout. Turns out the guy blew three times the legal alcohol limit.

Another Victim Of The Age Of Bush

JOE TEATER

John 'Marmaduke' Dawson (1945-2009)

MORE HERE.

Beautiful Photograph du Jour

AIRSTREAM AT MONUMENT VALLEY, UTAH
(1979)
By Roger Minick
Hat tip to Ordinary Finds

Voices In The Health-Care 'Debate'

The word debate is in quotes in the headline above for a couple, three reasons: There has been little actual back-and-forth as health-care reform lurches through the halls of Congress, much of what passes for debate is merely trying to inflict political harm on the president, and we are reminded yet again that while the U.S. may be a wonderful place in many respects, it has the worst health-care system of any developed country bar none. This is because the care it delivers is outrageously expensive but doesn't reach over 40 million Americans, including a good number of children and infirm elderly.

A personal note as well: We had to intentionally bankrupt my my mother in order to get the nursing-home care she needed as a debilitating and ultimately fatal neurological disorder ate her body. That's not right, and my response to people who say that the insured shouldn't have to pay for the uninsured, that the rich shouldn't be surtaxed, or that we're moving too fast on reform, is simple: Get a freaking grip.

Anyhow, on to the voices:

Gail Collins in The New York Times:

"Watching Barack Obama trying to push members of Congress toward some kind of agreement on a health care bill gives you a new appreciation for why Hillary Clinton decided to just write the whole thing herself and dump it on them. . . .

"The point here is that neither rain nor snow nor Jim DeMint will deter Obama from delivering on health care. Not even if he has to meet with every member of Congress one by one, give an interview to every television reporter in the Northern Hemisphere and hold a press conference every single day for the rest of the year."

David Frum at The Week magazine:

"Are the wheels coming off the Democratic plan to revolutionize American health care? We can only hope so. But as Republicans resist the new controls, new taxes, and new government expansion proposed by Democrats, they need to be very careful to avoid the opposite mistake: defending an indefensible status quo."

Rick Moran at Rightwing Nuthouse:

"In the end, the bill might die a death by a thousand cuts as the final effort may contain so many objectionable elements to so many Democrats that it won’t have a prayer of passing.

"The lack of leadership on this bill by the president has been astounding. While he has occasionally met with members at the White House, his efforts have fallen far short of whipping his reluctant party into line. He makes speeches. He holds town halls, He goes before his friends in the press.

"But the nitty gritty political work he is leaving to Harry Reid, Nancy Pelosi, and at least 5 committee chairmen. While no one has ever doubted the president’s skills as a campaigner, it is apparent he doesn’t know how to lead. He can’t distinguish a difference between campaigning and governing."

Ezra Klein in the Washington Post:

"[T]he end result is that Obama talks about this more like someone worried about health-care costs than about health care. As a matter of policy, that's probably the right approach. But as a style for conducting press conferences, I'm not sure how well it works. Obama is making a big bet on the policy case for health-care reform, as opposed to the moral urgency of health-care reform. It's a macro argument rather than a micro argument. And Obama makes it well. The question, which I don't think anyone knows the answer to yet, is whether it's the right argument."

Mark Halperin in Time magazine:

"Wednesday's primetime news conference was just the latest effort from the Obama administration to use the country's broadcast television networks and other media to reach Americans in their homes and get them on board with the largely Democratic efforts to pass sweeping legislation this year. The talking points, the style and the tone were all familiar, but the result is unlikely to have an impact on either the inside game (the strategic battle with Congress) or the outside game (convincing the American people to jump on board).

"Health care reform is complicated and cosmic, and the questions are monumental and endless. Who pays for it? What gets covered? Who gets covered when? These are merely the biggest. Even a great explainer like Obama had trouble making headway . . . "

Michael Tomasky at Comment Is Free America:

"This press conference wasn't a disaster, but it didn't really quite work, and it didn't work because Barack Obama hasn't figured out how to sell this to people.

"Now, of course, what "this" is isn't quite clear. And that's another issue. Obama is up there defending a proposal that a) isn't yet written and b) isn't his. I don't quite understand his handlers – and the man himself – deciding he should give this high-stakes performance in behalf of a plan that's still only about two-thirds baked and for which he's been, to put it one way, in and out (mostly out) of the kitchen."

Ed Morrissey at Hot Air:

"When a president calls a prime-time press conference, it traditionally means that the White House has some new strategy, message, or policy creation that they want to reveal with a big flourish. For at least the second time in a row, Barack Obama demanded valuable prime-time real estate and the nation’s attention in order to repeat the same lines he’s used for the last two months on health care. Obama failed to present a single new idea, proposal, or even argument that had not already been floated from Obama himself and the White House in the full-court press over the last 10 days in Obama’s media appearances."

Digby at Hullabaloo:

"Howard Fineman says that Obama failed to hit it out of the park in his press conference because he didn't sound enough like Ronald Reagan. He was like, totally, boring. I guess the honeymoon really is over. They're responding to him like they used to respond to Clinton. They prefer the president to speak like a six year old as Bush did or an addled elder comedian like Reagan. It's more fun.

"Luckily, if actual Americans were listening they likely learned something tonight. Just as they did with Clinton, they like information and explanations that don't insult the intelligence and prefer it when the president speaks to them as if they aren't in some sort of remedial classroom."

Marcy Wheeler at Emptywheel:

"About a million people have commented on Jim DeMint's prayer to 'break' our first African-American president by thwarting his attempts to reform and extend health care. But few- - at least that I've seen -- have connected it with another lingering news story: the role of C Street in pushing hyper-capitalist policies.

"DeMint is the most senior C Street resident not currently embroiled in a sex scandal (or the cover-up of it, in Tom Coburn's case). And while his roomies all scramble to keep their jobs in the aftermath of being proven utter hypocrites, DeMint has taken the lead attacking health care and -- significantly -- counterposing it to 'freedom solutions.'

"This is what C Street is really about--fighting back any check on hyper-capitalism."

Publius at Obsidian Wings:

"Remember that the Republicans were saying 'let's think about this,' 'let's slow down,' etc. Now, if they had actually been interested in stimulating the economy more efficiently, fine. But that's not what they used the delay for -- they used it to drag things out and to try to kill the stimulus by a thousand cuts. Each day brought new attacks on things like honeybees.

"If we were living in some sort of Platonic ideal of The Republic, fine. We could study things and enact the very best plan possible. But in this world, we have John Boehner. And delay at this point means death to reform."

Justin Gardner at Donklephant:

"Let me ask a silly question . . . isn't this legislation important enough to work through the recess? Because we all know that the media is setting up this thing as do or die before the August recess, so shouldn’t Dems suck it up and skip their vacations? Isn't this the one piece of legislation that’s important enough to make them do that?"

Helen Philpot at Margaret & Helen:

"I am not giving Obama a free pass. I’m giving him a chance. He has four years to 'make it or break it' as they say. And considering what George Bush did to it, breaking it is the least of our worries. Healthcare in the United State is broken. Our reputation around the globe is broken. The banks are broken. The tax system . . . the school systems . . . the environment -- all broken. Someone needs to try and fix it. So why not Obama?

"When George Bush was President I didn't want him to fail. I wanted him to stop acting like an idiot. I wanted him to be honest and listen to the debate of the people. I didn't expect him to act like a Democrat. I expected him to act like an American. And I expected him to at least try to keep his campaign promises. Instead what we got was a moron of a president who crawled up Dick Cheney's ass and lived there for eight years."

Top image: Time magazine photo illustration

Cartoon du Jour

Signe Wilkinson/Philadelphia Daily News

Obama Stays Cool; I Loose My Spit

I had really wanted to avoid writing anything on the spit storm over President Obama's news conference comments about the arrest of Harvard professor Henry Louis Gates for breaking into his own home.

I am not black but some of my best friends are. Really. My parents were not black but back in the day were civil-rights activists. And so I presumably have some idea about what it's like to be a black person in America. But you know what? I really don't.

Which makes the negative reaction of the chattering classes -- virtually all lily white -- to Obama's honest and measured comments deeply offensive.

A Garden State Of Mind (Ahem)

It's been a while since I've picked on New Jersey, hands-down the most corrupt state in the U.S. Yes, more corrupt than even Louisiana.

So it should come as no surprise that yet another bunch of mayors have been arrested for corruption. But Syrian Jewish rabbis, too?

'They're Not Expected To Do Much'

I'M FROM NEW JERSEY

By John Gorka

I'm from New Jersey
I don't expect too much
If the world ended today
I would adjust

I'm from New Jersey
No I don't talk that way
I watched too much TV
When I was young

I'm from New Jersey
My mom's Italian
I've read those mafia books
We don't belong

There are girls from New Jersey
Who have that great big hair
They're found in shopping malls
I will take you there

I'm from New Jersey
It's not like Texas
There is no mystery
I can't pretend

I'm from New Jersey
It's like Ohio
But even more so
Imagine that

I know which exit
And where I'm bound
The tolls on the parkway
They will slow you down

New Jersey people
They will suprise you
Cause they're not expected
To do too much

They will try harder
They may go further
Cause they never think
That they are good enough

I'm from New Jersey
I don't expect too much
If the world ended today
I would adjust
I would adjust
I would adjust

Why Privacy Is The New Nudity

JUST ASK ERIN ANDREWS.

An Historic Achievement & A Great Catch

How extraordinary that there had been only 17 perfect games in Major League Baseball's 140-year history going into Thursday evening. As in 27 batters faced and 27 batters retired.

That is until Mark Buehrle of the Chicago White Sox pitched the 18th perfect game with an assist by replacement outfielder Dewayne Wise, who made a spectacular 9th inning catch that robbed the Tampa Bay Rays' Gabe Kapler of a home run.

More here. And here on the house-on-fire Philadelphia Phillies, who have won 15 of their last 17 games and are running roughshod over the NL competition.

Photographs by Phil Velasquez/Chicago Tribune

Autoworld: When Turnabout Is Fair Play

Porsche set its sights on VW, but the outcome is a stunner.

Gidget (1994-2009)

MORE HERE.

Beautiful Photograph du Jour

YOSEMITE VALLEY IN THE CLOUDS
By Missy Schwartz

Why Birthers Must Be Taken Seriously: Because They're Dangerous, Not Right

Birthers, for those of you who are not politically savvy or have been living in a cave, are fringe activists and pundits who believe that Barack Obama is not a natural-born American citizen.

These people include wack job Alan Keyes, the perennial Republican presidential candidate; 9/11 conspiracy freakazoid Philip Berg, who is a Democrat, and radio talk-show hosts Rush Limbaugh, the de facto head of the Republican Party, and Michael Reagan, adopted son of Ronald and Nancy Reagan. And depending upon his mood on a particular day, Lou Dobbs of CNN.

The birthers grind their axes in different ways: Some claim that the short-form Hawaiian birth certificate (above) that Obama's presidential campaign produced was forged and the notices of his birth in Honolulu newspapers (also above; click on image to enlarge) were plants. Some claim that he was born in Kenya. Some claim that he is a citizen of Indonesia or that he is ineligible because he had dual citizenship (U.S. and British) at birth. But the bottom line for all is that he is not eligible to be president under Article Two of the U.S. Constitution.

Like most conspiracy theories, Obama As Alien collapses under the sheer weight of all of the people who would have had to conspire in the 47 years since Obama's birth. These include his parents, Hawaii state officials, the news media, Secret Service, fact-checking organizations and . . . well, you get the idea.

Oh, and since Obama's momma was an American citizen, he'd qualify anyhow.

Meanwhile, some people who are not card-carrying birthers remain skeptical of Obama's citizenship because, as feminist jerkoff Camille Paglia says, "Simple questions about the certificate were never resolved to my satisfaction." This, Camille baybee, is because the Internet can be like a bad penny that keeps coming around again and reliably regurgitates birther talking points ad nauseam.

Then there is the vile Liz Cheney, a backhanded birther who defends them by noting that they're merely concerned about Obama not defending America. Right.

It is tempting to dismiss birthers as just another bunch of rabid wingnuts who in the face of overwhelming evidence continue to flap their gums, file lawsuits, convene "citizen grand juries" and otherwise make nuisances of themselves. Because most are right-wing Republicans, it also is easy to ridicule them as yet another drag on a political party that is lost deep deep in the wilderness, keeps driving its clown car into walls and otherwise shows no sign of sobering up.

Tempting and easy, but wrongheaded. That is because the poisonous cynicism of this crowd could be the very fuse lit by some locked-and-loaded sicko who believes that violence is the only recourse to remove a man who happens to be the first African-American president.

Lou Dobbs and his complicitous employers at CNN, which is the highest-rated cable news channel and clings piously to the non-existent middle ground, deserve an extra heaping of scorn.

Dobbs, of course, is a died-in-the-wool xenophobe who has an especial hard-on for Mexican immigrants, but his continuing birther blather still comes as a bit of a shock since it's obvious that no one with a big corner office has told him to zip his incendiary lip.

This is not suppressing free speech. It is yanking the soap box from under a man who is fomenting hatred and possibly violence.

PHOTOS (From top): Keyes, Berg, Limbaugh, Reagan, Dobbs

Cartoon du Jour

Mike Lukovich/Atlanta Journal-Constitution

Lindsey Bonistall & Justice Delayed

We hear much too frequently about prosecutorial misconduct, but the conviction in a rape-murder case of special interest to me has been thrown out because the defendant's lawyers did not allow him to participate in his defense.

Although I covered a fair number of murders in my time, including the infamous Nicole Brown Simpson-Ron Goldman double homicide and subsequent trials, Lindsey Bonistall was different than all of them.

Lindsey was a 20-year-old sophomore at the University of Delaware. In a chilling instance of serendipity, she sat right in front of me when I guest lectured a journalism class at the university in late April 2005. Seventy-two hours later Lindsey was raped and strangled by a man who broke into her off-campus apartment and set fire to her body and apartment to cover his tracks after defacing several walls with racist graffiti.

Few of the students I lectured that afternoon seemed particularly engaged. But I did notice Lindsey, who was attentive and took down my pearls of wisdom in a notebook. I learned later that her goal in life was to write "with purpose and passion," as her father put it.

I had told her classmates the same thing in sharing my blunt bad-cop mantra for aspiring journos: "If you don't have purpose, passion and an insatiable curiosity, don't waste your time in journalism, because you'll just be wasting my time as a reader."

I didn't realize that Lindsey was who she was until her photograph appeared with a newspaper story two days after her murder. I had a little boo-hoo when I made the connection that the young woman looking up at me from the paper was the same person. My tears were both for Lindsey and because I have a daughter the same age who also lived in an off-campus apartment, although at a faraway university.

In another weird confluence, I had spent a considerable amount of time in the apartment building where Lindsey was murdered when a friend lived there many years ago.

* * * * *

There is no question that 38-year-old James E. Cooke was the perpetrator and jurors had no difficulty in convicting and sentencing him to death following his month-long trial in 2007.

But what jurors were unaware of and the Delaware Supreme Court has now weighed in on is that Cooke wanted to plead innocent, which was his right, but his public-defender lawyers instead argued that he was guilty but mentally ill.

And so the state's high court, in a 3-2 decision, declared that Cooke's constitutional rights had been violated, which they indeed were, in ordering a new trial.

In the meantime, Cooke will remain behind bars.

* * * * *

Lindsey was from White Plains in Westchester County, New York, which has sent many students to the University of Delaware over the years.

Her parents, Kathleen and Mark Bonistall, could have dried their own tears and gone back to their daily routine, but they have turned her passing into a crusade. Kathleen and Mark are not interested in seeing Cooke fry. In fact, they are against the death penalty.

No, the Bonistalls' crusade is to remember Lindsey by helping others college students learn how they can live safer lives through their PEACE OUTside Campus program.

An Idea Whose Time Has Come

The hysteria over ObamaCare has reached Nightmare on Elm Street proportions, and wouldn't ya know that it has less to do with whether Uncle Leo will be able to stay at Happy Acres until he cacks than the proposed surtax on the wealthiest Americans to pay for the damned thing.

Which prompts one blogger to suggest that we don't have to tax the rich and just ought to stop giving them stuff.

They're Pickin' On Sarah Again. Waaa!!!

Sarah Palin has been called out on yet another breach of state ethics laws, this one because she solicited and accepted private donations to pay $500,000 in legal debts incurred as Alaska governor.

The reason for this is because:

(1.) She's a real American.

(2.) The news media is picking on her.

(3.) She's babalicious and woman pols are jealous.

(4.) She's a quitter.

(5.) All of the above.

By one count, this is Palin's 19th ethics violation. Can she hit the magic 20 mark with so few days left in office?

Beautiful Photograph du Jour

DOT
(San Diego, 2004)
By Koichiro Kurita

WTF? Are The Bushies To Blame For The Spike In Teen Pregnancies & STDs?

In light of a new Centers For Disease Control report showing that teen pregnancies and sexually-transmitted diseases are on the rise after a decade of declines, it is temping to argue that the Bush administration's obeisance to abstinence-only programs is to blame.

That is not a difficult conclusion to reach considering that study after study not driven by evangelical purity has revealed that abstinence-only programs don't cut down on pregnancies and disease and that far more effective are those "controversial" sex-ed programs that include information about how and why contraception works.

All that so noted, we can't really tighten the noose around President Bush and the Holier Than Thou crowd until it can be ascertained if the phasing out of abstinence-only programs and increase in sex-ed programs in coming years stanches the spike.

I'll get back to you, in say, five.

* * * * *

My own daughter is now at the upper edge of the 10- to 24-year-old population group that the CDC used, and for a variety of reasons beginning at home and extending to her schools, she had the best information and advice available on which to make her own decisions regarding sexuality.

Many other girls and boys were not so fortunate, and nothing infuriated me personally (as opposed to say torture and the Iraq war, which pissed me off royally) over the last eight years than a bunch of right-wing Christianists trying to tell my daughter and her peers who they can't do with their bodies. Then there is Derek Dye, the Abstinence Clown.

Kristi Hamrick, a spokesmouth for American Values, the Gary Bauer-led group that is foursquare "against liberal education and cultural forces," bellyaches that the abstinence message is overwhelmed by a culture obsessed with sex.

"In every other area of public policy -- food, drugs, alcohol -- we tell children what is the best choice," Hamrick says. "It seems very bizarre that the sex education establishment rejects the idea that we should talk to kids about what is best for them. We don't take vodka to drivers education because children will drink and drive."

There, in a mere 50 or so words is revealed the idiocy of the abstinence argument:

By merely explaining contraception in the context of sexuality -- and in the better programs further elaborating on the raging emotional changes that teens routinely have to navigate -- puts teens into full rut and they end up screwing like rabbits. Meanwhile, withholding information -- that is to say not educating them -- keeps them from knowing what can hurt them, so they won't be as tempted to screw.

Or something.

* * * * *

This brings us inevitably and rather unfortunately to the poster teen for why abstinence-only programs are a bunch of hooey.

This, of course, is Bristol Palin, the daughter of a woman who as Alaska governor preached the abstinence gospel while Bristol and Levi Johnson were doing the wild thing in their Wasilla home.

Bristol has polished her scarlet letter by going on the tube to explain that abstinence didn't work for her because she really wanted to do screw Levi. And boy did she and her mother ever.

This 18-year-old, as so many are, was clearly in over her head when those hormones started raging, but does have the wisdom to note that abstinence "is not realistic at all."

Are you listening, Kristi Hamrick? No, I didn't think so.

* * * * *

It will not come as a shock that the spike in teen pregnancies and STDs is skewed toward poorer kids who probably did not have the good counsel and good schooling that my daughter did.

The CDC report found that pregnancy and AIDS rates were higher among Hispanic and non-Hispanic black women aged 15-19 than any other ethnic group. Chlamydia, gonorrhea and syphilis were highest among non-Hispanic black young women and women aged 15-24.

The Southern states tended to have the highest early pregnancy and STD rates, which is sort of a grotesquely poetic justice since that is pretty much the only region where what's left of the Republican Party after the Age of Bush still has any clout.

Top photograph by Reuters

Cartoon du Jour

Ted Rall/Universal Press Syndicate

Finally Getting Military Priorities Straight

Senate bows to Obama, strips additional F-22s from spending bill.

The Longest Solar Eclipse Since Forever

. . . occured today, but you needed to be in Mumbai or Shanghai to see it in its totality. More here.

Photo by Getty Images

Beautiful Photograph du Jour

CITROEN 2CV
By Julien Roumagnac