;)
The Commentariat -- Feb. 25, 2015
Internal links & defunct video removed.
NEW. Julie Davis of the New York Times: "President Obama, thwarted by a federal court from carrying out pieces of his immigration directive and barraged daily by congressional Republicans trying to gut or defund it, is in many ways frozen in place on his attempt to wield presidential authority to reshape the immigration system. So Mr. Obama is taking his message on the road, using a trip to Miami on Wednesday to exact a political price from Republicans for their opposition to his immigration policy and to consolidate gains he has made with Hispanics since announcing executive actions to shield millions of unauthorized immigrants from deportation. He plans to hold a town-hall-style meeting on immigration at Florida International University and to sit for an interview with Telemundo...."
A Lovely Day for Democrats
Jonathan Weisman of the New York Times: "Senior Republicans conceded on Tuesday that the grueling fight with President Obama over the regulation of Internet service appears over, with the president and an army of Internet activists victorious. The Federal Communications Commission is expected on Thursday to approve regulating Internet service like a public utility, prohibiting companies from paying for faster lanes on the Internet. While the two Democratic commissioners are negotiating over technical details, they are widely expected to side with the Democratic chairman, Tom Wheeler, against the two Republican commissioners."
Michael Shear & Coral Davenport of the New York Times: "President Obama on Tuesday rejected an attempt by lawmakers to force his hand on the Keystone XL oil pipeline, using his veto pen to sweep aside one of the first major challenges to his authority by the new Republican Congress. With no fanfare a 104-word letter to the Senate, Mr. Obama vetoed legislation to authorize construction of a 1,179-mile pipeline that would carry 800,000 barrels of heavy petroleum a day from the oil sands of Alberta to ports and refineries on the Gulf Coast." ...
... Emily Atkin of Think Progress: "All the veto means is that Congress isn't able to force the pipeline's construction through legislation -- the process is just going back to being centered on the State Department's administrative review procedure.... The State Department will ultimately make a recommendation to Secretary of State John Kerry on whether Keystone XL is in the national interest. Kerry will then make the official determination, which will likely sway the President's final decision.... There's been a fierce debate over how much of that oil would stay in the U.S. and how much would be exported.... A new study, released Monday by the analysis firm IHS Inc., said that the majority of it would stay in the country. Specifically, the study said that 70 percent of the Canadian heavy oil would stay in the country after being refined...." ...
... Wendy Koch of the National Geographic: "Obama's veto will do little to end the drama of the controversial pipeline. The reason? The multibillion-dollar project faces other challenges in Nebraska and South Dakota—two states that the 1,179-mile (1,897-kilometer) northern leg of the pipeline would cross as it moves oil from Hardisty, Alberta, to Steele City, Nebraska."
Ashley Parker of the New York Times: "Senator Mitch McConnell of Kentucky, the majority leader, on Tuesday offered a path to avert a partial shutdown of the Department of Homeland Security, saying he would allow a vote on a bill solely to fund the agency, followed by a second vote on legislation that would halt President Obama's 2014 executive actions on immigration. The move offered Republicans an avenue to break out of an embarrassing impasse as they try to prove their ability to govern as the majority party in Congress. But Mr. McConnell's proposal hardly settles the matter, and increases the likelihood that Congress will be forced to fashion a short-term spending bill to keep the department open." ...
... David Nakamura & Sean Sullivan of the Washington Post: "House Republicans will huddle behind closed doors Wednesday morning. The unsettled DHS debate is expected to be the central focus of their discussion." ...
... Update. Jake Sherman & John Bresnahan of Politico: "Speaker John Boehner told a closed meeting of House Republicans Wednesday morning he has not spoken to Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) in two weeks, and added that it's up to the upper chamber to figure out how to avoid a shutdown of the Department of Homeland Security.... The speaker and his leadership team face a monumental test that could have major implications for the GOP and their own political future." ...
... Dana Milbank is feeling all sorry for Mitch McConnell, who's taking flak from Senate Democrats & House confederates. CW: Me, too. Boo-Fucking-Hoo.
Chris Cillizza of the Washington Post: "... after enduring (another) week in which the limits of his power within the Republican conference were on stark display, the operative question within GOP circles is how long [House Speaker John Boehner] can -- and wants to -- hold that coveted perch. Last week, Boehner (Ohio) allowed a 'clean' debt-ceiling increase to come to the floor, despite knowing that the vast majority of Republicans would oppose it. The measure passed the House with the support of just 28 of the 232 Republicans. (That's only 12 percent.) A formal effort to replace Boehner is underway, launched by the Senate Conservatives Fund."
Josh Gerstein of Politico: "The federal judge in Texas who blocked President Barack Obama's latest executive actions on immigration signaled Tuesday that he isn't inclined to rush a decision on the Obama Administration's request to lift the injunction he imposed last week. U.S. District Court Judge Andrew Hanen's order saying he'll give the states suing the federal government another week to respond means the issue of a possible stay in the case will likely be taken up by a federal appeals court before he rules one way or another."
Pete Williams of NBC News: "The Obama administration says there would be no way to fix the health care system administratively if the Supreme Court rules against the government in the Obamacare case to be argued next week." CW: I continue to believe they'll figure out something if they must, though they might not be able to do anything for residents of states with Republican legislatures & confederate governors. So the claim, it seems to me, is partially true.
Michael Hiltzik of the Los Angeles Times: Corporations & outsourcing firms routinely abuse the H-1B visa program to outsource American jobs to foreign workers. Darryl Issa (R-Calif.) is planning a 'reform' to make the situation worse. Legislation introduced by Sens. Dick Durbin (D-Ill.) and Chuck Grassley (R-Iowa) and passed by the Senate in 2013 as part of a comprehensive immigration reform act would have" solved the problem. "The failure of Congress to take [appropriate] steps demonstrates that the H-1B visa program is not really about finding scarce talents to fill crucial jobs, but about creating a young, cheap, and indentured labor force.... The parties driving demand for this mess of a program are the Googles, Intels, Microsofts and SoCal Edisons, who reap all the benefits."
Julie Davis of the New York Times: "Susan E. Rice, President Obama's national security adviser, sharply criticized Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu of Israel on Tuesday over his plans to address a joint meeting of Congress next week, saying his actions had hurt his nation's relationship with the United States. Mr. Netanyahu's decision to travel to Washington to deliver the speech two weeks before the Israeli elections has 'injected a degree of partisanship, which is not only unfortunate, I think it's destructive of the fabric of the relationship,' Ms. Rice said in an interview on the PBS television program 'Charlie Rose.'" ...
We offered the prime minister an opportunity to balance the politically divisive invitation from Speaker [John] Boehner with a private meeting with Democrats who are committed to keeping the bipartisan support of Israel strong. His refusal to meet is disappointing to those of us who have stood by Israel for decades. -- Dick Durbin (D-Illinois), Senate Minority Whip ...
... AP: "... Binyamin Netanyahu, has turned down an invitation to meet US Senate Democrats next week during his visit to Washington, saying the session 'could compound the misperception of partisanship' surrounding his trip.... Democratic senators Dick Durbin and Dianne Feinstein on Monday invited Netanyahu to meet in a closed-door session with Democrats during his visit." Thanks to safari for the link.
Annals of "Journalism," Ctd.
As the Falafel Crumbles. Ben Dimiero, et al., of Media Matters: "Bill O'Reilly has repeatedly claimed he personally 'heard' a shotgun blast that killed a figure in the investigation into President John F. Kennedy's assassination while reporting for a Dallas television station in 1977. O'Reilly's claim is implausible and contradicted by his former newsroom colleagues who denied the tale in interviews with Media Matters. A police report, contemporaneous reporting, and a congressional investigator who was probing Kennedy's death further undermine O'Reilly's story.... In new interviews, O'Reilly former colleagues say O'Reilly wasn't even in Florida where the Kennedy witness committed suicide. Records show he reported the story based on telephone calls he made from Dallas, Texas. Read the whole report. Media Matters makes an airtight case against O'Reilly.
Jim Poniewozik of Time: "It's no accident that O'Reilly was a chief inspiration for Stephen Colbert's character on The Colbert Report, for whom he invented the concept of 'truthiness': that what your gut tells you is more important than what the literal facts say, that how the news feels is more important than what the news is.... The fact that charges exist becomes the best defense against the charges. Not only that, they only reinforce that O'Reilly is right: he has the right enemies [-- the 'liberal media' --] he must be on the right side." For Fox "News," "attacks" by the "liberal media" are a boon.
Amanda Terkel of the Huffington Post & O'Reilly staff stalker victim: "Threats are nothing new from O'Reilly. And as I know firsthand, he sometimes goes even further.... My best guess ... was that [O'Reilly producer Jesse Watters] staked out my apartment and followed me to Virginia.... He had behaved similarly toward dozens of other people before me, including judges, religious officials and journalists."
** Erik Wemple of the Washington Post: "Funny, catchy and also nonsense. [Jon] Stewart's riff is based on a false choice between either holding news figures accountable for their falsehoods or investigating war justifications. The media is large enough to do both.... If the Daily Show host really believes that everyone can see right through O'Reilly & Co...; why, then, has he spent the last oh-so-many years exposing the holes and contradictions and hypocrisies of Fox News?... Another reason why it may be a good time for Jon Stewart to hang it up." ...
... Steve M.: "... it would be nice if the mainstream media figured out that the mainstreaming of McCarthyites like O'Reilly ... over the past couple of decades is the real journalism scandal here."
Presidential Race
Alex Seitz-Wald of NBC News: "Hillary Clinton came as close as she has yet to announcing an expected presidential run in 2016, saying Tuesday she's 'obviously' thinking about a bid and is very close to completing her pre-decision checklist. Coming off a lengthy hiatus from her three-decades spent in the public eye, the all-but-declared presidential candidate chose a Silicon Valley women's conference to mark her reemergence and hone a message of economic and gender empowerment." ...
... Rory Carroll of the Guardian: "Hillary Clinton has softened her criticism of Edward Snowden and said that people felt betrayed by the National Security Agency's mass surveillance programmes. The former secretary of state dialled down her previous rhetoric about the whistleblower and hardened her tone towards the NSA while addressing a conference on women in Silicon Valley."
Sam Youngman of the Lexington, Kentucky Herald-Leader: "U.S. Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell endorsed U.S. Sen. Rand Paul's push for a Republican presidential caucus in Kentucky, lending heavy weight Tuesday to a proposal that had raised concerns among some members of the state GOP's executive committee. Paul's push for a caucus in early 2016 would allow him to run for two offices during the 2016 Republican primary season without violating a Kentucky law that prohibits a candidate from appearing on the same ballot twice." ...
... Alex Kaczynski & Megan Apper of BuzzFeed: "Former Republican Rep. Ron Paul, the father of potential presidential candidate Rand Paul and a former presidential candidate himself, said the Congressional Black Caucus does not support war because they want that money for food stamps."
Alec MacGillis of Slate: "... no one should have been surprised by [Scott] Walker's stormy entry into the early primary season, because the conventional wisdom about him [-- that he was a quasi-moderate, crossover candidate --] was flawed all along.... Walker rose to power in Wisconsin less by reaching out to Democrats and swing voters than by appealing to the conservative base in a state that is as starkly polarized as any in the country.... There are those who believe the Republicans could take one more shot at winning the presidency with an overwhelmingly homogenous (i.e., white) base of support and unreformed platform, before doing so becomes simply inconceivable. That is the option that Walker is presenting to his party...." ...
... John Cassidy of the New Yorker: "Having cut taxes for the wealthy and stripped many of Wisconsin's public-sector unions of their collective-bargaining rights, [Walker] is now preparing to sign a legislative bill that would cripple unions in the private sector. Many wealthy conservatives, such as the Koch brothers, who have funnelled a lot of money to groups supporting Walker, regard him as someone who's turning his state into a showcase for what they want the rest of America to look like.... In a more just world, Walker's indecent and craven antics would disqualify him from playing any further role in the Presidential race. But in the current political environment, his tactics, far from hurting him, may well bolster a candidacy that is already thriving." ...
... Yup, It's Worrrking! NBC News: "Scott Walker leads the GOP pack in the key early caucus state of Iowa, a new poll from Quinnipiac University shows. The once little-known Wisconsin governor gets the support of 25 percent of likely Republican caucus participants, while potential rivals Sen. Rand Paul (13 percent), Ben Carson (11 percent), Mike Huckabee (11 percent) and Jeb Bush (10 percent) lag behind." CW: Worth noting: Iowa Republicans are the same gang who ushered in President Santorum in 2012 (by only 34 votes) & President Huckabee in 2008. ...
... Tom Jensen of Public Policy Polling: "PPP's newest national Republican poll finds a clear leader in the race for the first time: Scott Walker is at 25% to18% for Ben Carson, 17% for Jeb Bush, and 10% for Mike Huckabee. Rounding out the field of contenders are Chris Christie and Ted Cruz at 5%, Rand Paul at 4%, and Rick Perry and Marco Rubio at 3%." CW: Surprise! Wingnuts prefer wingnuts. That's today's Republican party.
Paul Waldman: It's a good thing that the Republican National Committee has decided to use wingnuts to moderate their presidential nomination debates: the wingnuts can't be any worse than Blitzer & Co., & wingers might get some answers from candidates that matter to their base.
Senate Races
Michael Finnegan of the Los Angeles Times: "Former Los Angeles Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa announced Tuesday that he would not enter the race for Barbara Boxer's seat in the U.S. Senate, leaving state Atty. Gen. Kamala Harris as the only major candidate."
Jack Torry & Jessica Wehrman of the Columbus, Ohio, Dispatch: "Former Gov. Ted Strickland is expected to announce on Wednesday morning that he will challenge Republican Sen. Rob Portman next year, setting up what could be one of the top-tier Senate races of 2016.... Strickland's announcement will come a little over a week after he left his position leading the political arm of the progressive Center for American Progress in Washington, D.C." CW: I wouldn't expect Strickland to win this one.
Beyond the Beltway
Bill Ruthhart & Rick Pearson of the Chicago Tribune: Chicago Mayor "Rahm Emanuel failed to win a second term Tuesday, suffering a national political embarrassment as little-known, lesser-funded challenger Jesus 'Chuy' Garcia forced the mayor into the uncharted waters of an April runoff election. It's the first time Chicago has had a runoff campaign for mayor, which is what happens when none of the candidates eclipses the 50 percent benchmark in round one." ...
... "The Disappeared, Chicago Edition." Spencer Ackerman of the Guardian: "The Chicago police department operates an off-the-books interrogation compound, rendering Americans unable to be found by family or attorneys while locked inside what lawyers say is the domestic equivalent of a CIA black site." ...
... Spencer Ackerman: "Two former senior Justice Department officials are calling on their colleagues to investigate a secretive warehouse used for interrogations by Chicago police and likened to a CIA 'black site' facility." ...
... Tanya Basu of the Atlantic: "The story is especially timely given the mayoral elections occurring [yesterday], and it casts a shadow over Rahm Emanuel's handling of crime in the city. But Homan Square sits within a larger story of corruption and violence -- one that stretches back through Chicago's long murky history of fighting crime." ...
... "This Is a Country that Tortures." Charles Pierce: "... it might behoove some ambitious assistant US Attorney in Cook County to get Mayor Rahm Emanuel under oath and find out what he knows about how Chicago became East Germany.... This is what can happen if you normalize torture in the public mind the way that the Avignon Presidency and its acolytes did and then, when a new administration comes in, it declines to prosecute the people involved and, indeed, it fights to keep secret what was done in the name of the American people."
Kevin Johnson & Yamiche Alcindor of USA Today: "The Justice Department said Tuesday its independent investigation found 'insufficient evidence' to charge George Zimmerman with federal civil rights violations in the shooting death of Florida teen Trayvon Martin." The DOJ press release is here.
Dan Lamothe of the Washington Post: "Eddie Ray Routh, the man who killed 'American Sniper' Chris Kyle and his friend in a rifle range rampage, will spend the rest of his life in prison."
News Ledes
Washington Post: "The Senate voted Wednesday to move ahead with a bill to fund the Department of Homeland Security after Democratic leaders dropped an earlier pledge to block it unless they get assurances from House Republican leaders that it would pass their chamber. The bill advanced on a procedural vote by a 98-2 margin. The only dissenters were Republican Sens. James Inhofe (Okla.) and Jeff Sessions (Ala.)"
A Message from Homeland Security. New York Times: "Three men living in Brooklyn were arrested and charged on Wednesday with providing material support to the Islamic State, a terrorist organization that controls large parts of Iraq and Syria and has been actively recruiting Westerners to its fight. One of the men was arrested early Wednesday morning at Kennedy International Airport, where he was attempting to board a flight to Istanbul and then planned to travel to Syria, according to the authorities." ...
... Politico Update: "A man arrested on charges of planning to travel to Syria and join the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant also mused about assassinating President Barack Obama, the Department of Justice announced Wednesday. Abdurasul Juraboev, a 24-year-old citizen of Uzbekistan, allegedly asked online, 'Is it possible to commit ourselves as dedicated martyrs anyway while here? What I'm saying is, to shoot Obama and then get shot ourselves, will it do?,' according to the Justice Department's complaint."
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Reader Comments (19)
Netanyahu has declined an invitation to meet privately with the Democrats during his impending-disaster of a speech to Congress, fearing it would "compound the misperception of partisanship." Bibi has painted himself into a self-perpetuating corner of deep red, and he apparently couldn't appease the Democrats if he wanted to. He's willingly allowed the GOP operatives to tie his hands behind his back, and can now only shrug his shoulders in denial as claims of political interference mount. Yet while the confederates opened the door, it was his political savviness that led to this unprecedented debacle.
http://www.theguardian.com/world/2015/feb/25/binyamin-netanyahu-turns-down-invitation-to-meet-democrats-on-us-trip
Bibi's going to be locked in a perpetual fight of accusations of destablizing the "special" relationship with his country's biggest ally until and long after his speech. He's likely going to reinforce his far right voting block, but voters (Israeli and American) with non-extremist views on Israel are very unlikely to be swooned by this diplomatic coup. After the post-speech fallout (and fallout there will be) Bibi will probably send some broken, leafless olive branch to the White House to try to curry favor with a disinterested administration. I hope Obama sends the package back with rotting apples.
Bibi's conundrums coupled with O'Reilly's dirt being dug up by the truck load does indeed make this a good week for dirtbags getting their comeuppance. The louder O'Reilly screams and snipes, the deeper the investigations should go. I hope his acidic attitude towards colleagues and the profession alike spurs certain investigative journalists to bring out the auger from the shed and start drilling the long-covered holes of O'Reilly's career. This is a perfect opportunity to smear the demagogue with all the bullshit he's built his prestigious soapbox upon. When all the dust has settled, yes, he'll still be posturing in his Gilded Throne, but the mental amnesia required to put all these damning investigations into the willful denial compartment of his swiss-cheesed brain will slowly seep into the other craters in his ageing mind, bringing stronger wrath and indignation until he implodes in slow-motion on live television every night, his once-smug righteousness giving way to translucent, indignant grandpa, amnesia-induced ranting and raving.
I watched this video last night and again this morning, and it put a smile on my face both times.
http://www.npr.org/event/music/388722887/watch-middle-school-kids-play-a-led-zeppelin-medley-on-xylophones
If only members of Congress were required to be in a group such as this, where everyone has to work together to perform a piece of music with complicated syncopation and a steady background beat. No posturing, no star performers. Just diligent work, and a sense of accomplishment at the end.
Kudos to the kids and the teacher!
Safari,
One more problem for Beebs, his GOP trained poodle, Ron Dermer, who arranged this international cluster fuck has been importuning Arab diplomats stationed in DC to show up at the big speech in a show of solidarity with nations who fear Iran and don't care for Obama. But these guys are way too canny to let Bibi use them as puppets in his Punch (Beebs) and Judy (Boehner) show.
This according to Jeffrey Goldberg in the Atlantic.
And I doubt that olive branches are in the offing. Netanyahu is burning his bridges and allowing personal pique and ego to trump statesmanship and realpolitik.
(I'd add the link but I'm sending this via iPhone.)
@Janice, your hopes of getting members of congress to act as mature as sixth graders is preposterous. You have set the bar way too high.
I'd settle for diaper trained preschoolers.
@CW, "Boo fuckin' Who" is that Horton's kid? What ever happened to him? Last I heard he was playing guitar in a cover band.
Re: Windy City break down, In my opinion the mayoral race coming up is going to expose the cracks in the Democratic Party. Ms Clinton will not be president if she can't put humpty dumbty back together again. "Humpty" being the bankers and "dumbty" being the rest of the voting left.
Marie, I thought this link came from you but now I can't find it, so I'll put it in this comment (I hope):
http://www.slate.com/articles/news_and_politics/politics/2015/02/scott_walker_has_always_played_to_his_political_base_the_wisconsin_governor.html
An excellent explanation of how Scott Walker has been elected "3 times in a blue state!" And how his tactics have resulted in his current troubles.
As debate continues about whether Walker is truly conservative (Kevin Drum, Ed Kilgore), Walker is reinforcing his rightwing cred by (among other things) promising to sign the right-to-work law being fast tracked in the Wisconsin legislature. This after he went on record repeatedly saying claiming it wasn't on his radar and would not come to his desk during his reelection campaign only 4 months ago.
Both his corporate handlers and his tea party supporters know what they will get with Walker; anyone who listens to his actual words will be misled.
@Nadd2: It did come from me. A glitch knocked out about 10 links I had posted earlier, & I won't be able to get them back. I'll try to find a few of them, but I don't remember what-all I found last night.
Marie
@Janice: Thanks for the link! That will start my day off with a smile and some hope.
@Ak
Here's your link for the Atlantic piece:
http://www.theatlantic.com/international/archive/2015/02/israel-netanyahu-dermer-arab-ambassadors-congress-speech/385982/
Indeed a clusterfuck in the making. And the idea of the Israelis pleading Arab diplomats to pleeeease lend a hand to Netanyahu after decades of eye-poking and chest beating is almost surreal.
The partially dead olive branch will indeed be sent in my opinion, as a gesture of political expediency at the very least. However, it'll probably be sent by Israeli national security agents who live in reality, unbeknownst to Bibi or Dermer who would undoubtedly bock and flap their chicken wings at the mere idea of apology.
Behind the back deals and dialogue seems to be becoming the norm in this affair...
A lovely day for Dems, cont.
Attended a local Labor-Dem meeting last night.
While the Forces of Evil Capitalism are still busy across the nation, local reports are more positive:
Nurses at two Northwest Washington hospitals, who have bargained for the better part of a year without progress, are talking strike.
Non-nursing employees, who have recently unionized at one of those two (both Catholic) and who have been so far unsuccessfully bargaining for their first contract are also considering militant options.
The USW workers who are striking a local refinery gave a report. The way things are not going, they expect the strike, which already affects at least half a dozen refineries across the nation, to spread. Militancy again.
Some workers at a local port have successfully organized under the ILWU banner and won their first contract. It wasn't easy, but persistence and courage paid off.
Local Hispanic farmworkers continue to carry on their fight for a contract with a local berry grower. One union contributed 2000 dollars to their cause.
An OurWalmart representative said that applications for membership from previously cowed Walmart associates have skyrocketed since the announced wage increase.
One of the members of the West Coast ILWU negotiating team, who just returned home from ten months of apartment living in San Francisco, said they did achieve a good five year contract. Again, it wasn't easy...but it got done. He also pointed out the biases in main stream media coverage of the negotiations and the lack of support (with a few exceptions) the workers received from West Coast politicians, Democrats as well as members of the Koch Party.
A representative of a nascent local IWW revival also made an appearance. I took their light but welcome presence as an omen.
If workers have any hope at all, that hope lies in fighting together, not fighting one another, a truism prominent in last night's discussions and actions.
A mostly white, middle class union helping Hispanic farm workers who work 10hrs in the fields and make 60-80 dollars a day.
One Big Union, indeed.
Now, if only the Democrats will get on board.
So Loofah Boy has inserted himself into the Kennedy assassination story. And this time he can't say he didn't say what he said as he's trying so desperately to do about his claim of being in a combat zone in the Falkland Islands when he was, in fact, 1,000 miles away. He put this claim in writing and in a typically dramatic (at least to an eighth grader) manner. "The stealthy reporter made his way, heroically, to the door of the Russian's house. Suddenly....BANG!...a shotgun blast! The Russian had taken his own life!! The intrepid reporter's name? You guessed it, boys and girls, it was BILL O'REILLY!!"
Seriously?
Too bad he wasn't really there.
What's next? He was the first guy to pull a brick out of the Berlin Wall? He stowed away in Apollo 11 and was nice enough to let Neil Armstrong go first? Princess Di left palace life behind 'cause she was secretly in love with Bill O'Reilly after he showed her some of the sex tricks he learned in Thai brothels? Maybe a loofah was involved.
Self aggrandizement has been his constant companion for pretty much his whole life, it appears. I'd love to read his college entrance essay. "Then, I decided to climb Annapurna the day after conquering Everest. The next day, I taught myself Chinese and slipped across the border to bring back secret documents for the state department. But now let me tell about some of my real accomplishments..."
Yesterday I ran across a piece by Keith Olbermann in which he truth-tests several of O'Reilly's claims about his superhuman abilities as a sports superstar. According to O'Reilly, the NFL was looking for him. O'Reilly claims that he was the best punter in the nation in his college division when he played back in the 70's. The only problem is that his college, Marist, wasn't in any division then. Oops.
Even better, O'Reilly claimed that the Mets scouted him as a pitcher and asked him to come to Shea Stadium for a tryout. When he got there, a rookie came on and pitched after Loofah Boy--someone O'Reilly had never heard of--and blew everyone away. It was a then unknown Tom Seaver who would go on to be a hall of fame pitcher. The problem this time? O'Reilly claims this all took place in 1970 or '71. Tom Seaver was no unknown in 1971. His rookie year was 1967. By '71 he had won a World Series and was the most famous pitcher in baseball.
The lies are just so embarrassingly transparent. But it says something about his basic sense of insecurity that he so desperately needs to be such a glamorous and accomplished hero in his own mind. And like most serial fabricators, if 30 people show up to debunk his stories, he's the only one telling the truth. The rest are all liars. Then come the "shut up, shut up, shut up" attacks.
I'm sure if this goes on there will be scores of instances uncovered in which O'Reilly lied to make a story about himself better, but Jon Stewart does have a point. No one listens to Loofah Boy in hopes of hearing something true, so what does it matter? My initial response is that it does matter because a large number of people listen to everything this liar says as if it's gospel and his lies are a continual drag on trying to address our many national problems in useful and meaningful ways.
But serial liars and braggarts like O'Reilly have always been around. We all know someone like this, Goodtime Charlie or Uncle Ernie. The stories get bigger as the years go on. The difference is that Charlie and Ernie don't have a soapbox like Fox from which to spin their tales.
By the way, Business Insider has excerpted a section of one of O'Reilly's "best sellers", a tale in which another intrepid, brave, and tough-as-nails, take-no-shit reporter (O'Reilly) is in--guess where?--a war zone in Argentina where he and his cameraman are attacked by soldiers who fire into the crowd, killing many, and where blah, blah, blah.....read it. It's uncannily like the lies O'Reilly has been telling about his war zone cred for years.
Maybe the guy is so mired in his own fantasy world, a world where he is always the brave hero and everyone else, jealous scum, out to get him (there's that right-wing victim thing again), that he actually believes his lies.
Or needs to.
Re: Real tough guys; We have a couple of real tough guys at RealityChex. Both Patrick and Barbarossa are the real deal. Real tough guys know what it is all about. My favorite line was when Barbarossa wrote, "nobody wants to be in a combat situation, you can get hurt or even killed." Real tough guys know talk is cheap. And war sucks and luck is all. People like BO and the rest are not real tough guys.
JJG,
Another sign of people who are the real deal is their lack of chest thumping. They don't need to brag to impress everyone with how tough they are and all the hard things they've had to do.
And like Patrick and Barbarossa, they don't go on about how awesome war is and how cool it is to blow shit up and how anyone who doesn't agree is a wimp or worse. I can't think of a single guy I know who has been in actual combat who would wish that on someone else.
Those who really have walked the walk don't need the talk. Another giveaway.
Wow. Just checked out Janice's link to those kids playing Zeppelin on xylophones. Wow again.
And I agree that this would be a serious challenge for congress. It would be challenge for a lot of people. First of all, the choice of Zeppelin ups the difficulty level considerably. Those guys loved playing in odd time signatures, but what makes their stuff even more interesting--and increases the likelihood of everything going to hell if you screw up--is that they often have multiple time signatures going at the same time.
Kashmir, the first song in the medley, is one of those. The opening riff, the drum track, is in 4 but the guitar and bass parts come in over the top in 3. And these kids don't miss a beat. This is why few bands cover Zeppelin and why you never see anyone dancing to Zeppelin songs. You'd be in a body cast if you tried. In "Black Dog", the drummer is playing in 4 but the guitar parts are in 5. It's like walking a tight rope. Try dancing to that.
What a great clip. Sooooo cool!
Thanks!
Whoa....Barbara Boxer is kicking some wingnut ass, and she is harsh, baby, harsh.
"...you don't like the president. We get it. You couldn't beat him. Too bad for you. But you're in charge here, in the Senate. Do your job!"
Plenty of pants-pooping on the right, I'm guessing.
JJG and Akhilleus: I have to admit I was flattered by what you wrote, but the real reason for reticence is that it is so darn embarassing to have to explain why army aviators wear brown underwear.
Patrick
Ha! I thought it was so they'd match the flight suits.
In RVN, we in the infantry in the field dispensed with underwear.
One of journalism’s great moments on the electric TV.
Oh sure. They SAY those kids are a bunch of unbelievable 10 year olds when it is clear they are ringers from that 'Cocoon' movie.