WTF???

I mean really, WTF???

The only two things that make plausible sense are either that she’s running like hell (either because the job is driving her crazy or there is scandal on the horizon), or that she’s ramping up the crazy.

From Mike Allen over at the Politico:

For $25,000 to $250,000, The Washington Post has offered lobbyists and association executives off-the-record, nonconfrontational access to “those powerful few”: Obama administration officials, members of Congress, and — at first — even the paper’s own reporters and editors.

The astonishing offer was detailed in a flier circulated Wednesday to a health care lobbyist, who provided it to a reporter because the lobbyist said he felt it was a conflict for the paper to charge for access to, as the flier says, its “health care reporting and editorial staff.”

With the newsroom in an uproar after POLITICO reported the solicitation, Executive Editor Marcus Brauchli said this morning that he was “appalled” by the plan and said the newsroom will not participate.

“It suggests that access to Washington Post journalists was available for purchase,” Brauchli told The Post’s media reporter, Howard Kurtz. The proposal “promises we would suspend our usual skeptical questioning because it appears to offer, in exchange for sponsorships, the good name of The Washington Post.”

* Definition 5

Emphasis mine – and I’m still trying to get over the use of the word “suggests.” It doesn’t suggest a damn thing, it outright states what has been partially true for years. The WaPo has been a PR firm for a long, long time, and Froomkin’s firing was almost certainly because he was trying to do some reporting (which is NOT what a PR firm does). The difference is that they now want to be paid directly, rather than just be paid for running ads. If anything, it’s refreshing for the WaPo to be so honest, even if it is a Cheney-esque kind of honesty.

Oh wait; spokesperson Kris Coratti from the WaPo responds:

The flier circulated this morning came out of a business division for conferences and events, and the newsroom was unaware of such communication. It went out before it was properly vetted, and this draft does not represent what the company’s vision for these dinners are, which is meant to be an independent, policy-oriented event for newsmakers. As written, the newsroom could not participate in an event like this.

We do believe there is an opportunity to have a conferences and events business, and that The Post should be leading these conversations in Washington, big or small, while maintaining journalistic integrity.

The newsroom will participate where appropriate.

Can anybody tell me what the hell that means? It’s like listening to Greenspan talk when he was Fed Chairman – there are words happening, but they mean exactly nothing!

Apologies, and Meh.

Senator Inhofe had something pithy to say about Senator-Elect Franken:

“I’ll tell you what a lot of people are thinking, and that is it looks like things are going to be over and we are going to get the clown from Minnesota,’’ he said.

“They are not going to get more than 35 votes.”

Asked if he was referring to Al Franken as the clown from Minnesota, Inhofe confirmed he was.

“I didn’t mean to be disrespectful. I don’t know the guy, but … for a living he is a clown,’’ the senator said.

“That’s what he does for a living.’’

For a long time, Franken made a career out of comedy.

So has Inhofe.

I look forward to seeing which is the better Senator, but at this point I have to wonder when Inhofe will stop being a comedian.

Ed Morissey at Hot Air* thinks he’s found Obama’s Dukakis moment:

Barack Obama got ABC to move their news division into the White House in order to make the big pitch for his egalitarian, everyone-gets-treated-equally ObamaCare push. Instead, Obama fumbled into a Michael Dukakis moment that exposed him as a hypocrite. ABC itself leads with Obama’s response that he wouldn’t stay within his own plan for his family:

…**

Devinsky asked the president pointedly if he would be willing to promise that he wouldn’t seek such extraordinary help for his wife or daughters if they became sick and the public plan he’s proposing limited the tests or treatment they can get.

The president refused to make such a pledge, though he allowed that if “it’s my family member, if it’s my wife, if it’s my children, if it’s my grandmother, I always want them to get the very best care.["]

Oopsie! So ObamaCare for thee, but not for me? Hope and change, baby!

In 1988, Michael Dukakis blew a question about the death penalty when asked about whether he’d want it if his wife Kitty had been raped and murdered. Dukakis said no, but addressed it clinical legalese rather than absorbing the opportunity to address the emotional impact of violent crime, and his candidacy cratered. In this case, Obama did a reverse Dukakis. He went with the emotional argument, and effectively rebutted his own proposal and its egalitarian purpose. It’s a moment of sheer hypocrisy, caught in the modern amber of video.

If ObamaCare isn’t good enough for Sasha, Malia, or Michelle, then it’s not good enough for America. Instead of fighting that impulse, Obama should be working to boost the private sector to encourage more care providers, less red tape and expense, and better care for everyone.

Oh dayamn.

First of all, Ed here is a tool.

Second, Dukakis was saying that he wouldn’t put a criminal to death even if it was a matter personally connected to him, and Obama was saying that he’d use whatever available (presumably legal) options were open to him in order to protect the health of his family – so they’re different things. Really different things – like Day-Glo Frisbees and canned corn are different things.

Third, they weren’t even opposite things, they were really fucking completely unrelated – one is about sticking to a moral position about the value of human life, the presumption of innocence, and the use of political power for retribution in the face of extreme personal violence, and the other is – taking that a minimum standard of health care is something you’re advocating – whether or not you’d stick to that minimum or use your full resources to protect your family.

Fourth, Ed Morissey is a seriously creepy fucktard to equate health insurance and the death penalty. I mean seriously, people, one involves killing people and the other involves keeping them alive. Do the goddamn math.

Fifth, no health care plan is going to say you “can’t” get a test, only that you’d have to pay for it out of pocket – so let’s rephrase the question: would anyone, under any circumstances, under any health plan they’d chosen, guarantee to NOT undergo any medical treatment that wasn’t covered under their healthcare plan?

Sixth, apparently stupid isn’t covered under Ed’s medical plan; would any sane human being commit to putting his or her family on a health care plan that hasn’t even been written yet, and is still being subjected to the tender mercies of multiple Congressional Committees which can’t even agree that such a plan might exist?

Please, please, please stop the stupid… it burns…

Anyhow.

In other news, I’ve now integrated my blog into facebook*** and Twitter. May Dog have mercy on my soul.

* Most appropriately named blog ever.

** My snip, not his.

*** Twice, apparently.

For those of you suffering from comment spam, I highly recommend Sabre. I’ve turned on mandatory registration (to my annoyance), and Sabre makes sure that spambots can’t register.

So it’s quieter, at least.

Anyhow.

Yahoo! Finance pisses me off. Not only do they regularly give Ben Stein’s words an airing, they’re right up there fearmongering about Social Security along with everyone else.

Also, Dan Froomkin rocks, and will be missed (until he winds up somewhere else). I’m not linking to the Washington Post anymore, nor will I be going there.

Update: Okay, one last link to the Ombudsman’s blog – because the comments are pure gold.

After 20 years, I’m now off dilantin and on another medication that seems to be working (and not poisoning me, which is a plus).

A few thoughts.

First, it’s definitely crazy season in America, and anyone who remembers the Clinton years knows that things are just getting wound up. I thought that Dr. Tiller’s terrorist assassination wouldn’t be last violent nutjob event we’d see this Summer, and I strongly suspect that yesterday’s terrorist** mini-rampage not only won’t be the last such event, it also won’t get DHS the apologies it deserves for the Fox faux outrage its report on right-wing extremism drew.

Second, I hope this guy enjoys the descent into Acosmism and the utterly untenable moral position that such an irresponsible dismissal of personal responsibility entails. I have no plans to follow him there. No, I don’t know for a concrete, personal fact that George Washington was the first president of the U.S., but the preponderance of evidence indicates that’s the way to bet – and should that evidence be supplanted by contradictory, credible evidence**, then my position would change.

In short, I’m back, I’m tired, I’m surly, and the world is now even crazier than it was three months ago when my medical issues got to me.

Also, an interesting informal experiment is being conducted over at Econospeak. Feel free to participate.

Oh, by the way, free predictions for this summer’s financial insanity: a short-lived commodities mini-bubble, gas peaking at $3.50/gal followed by even more demand destruction****, and the end of this bear market rally (it’s probably past the peak anyway, but it’s got nowhere to go but down, baby). Remember: free advice, worth what you paid for it.

* If you are using violence to influence a population by terrifying (and/or angering) it, or if you’re “smiting the unholy,” then you’re a terrorist in my mind. I know that this definition could apply to most military actions the world over, and am perfectly comfortable with that.

** Yes, terrorist. If you are a whack-job with a history of spouting racist conspiracy theories, and you walk into the biggest collection of museums in the world and start firing indiscriminately (or with a very strange target list) into the one that is dedicated to preserving the memory of the most efficiently organized campaign of mass murder in the history of the world, half of the victims of which are of a race that you feel is the root of all evil, then you are a terrorist.

*** As opposed to new “evidence” like the ongoing efforts to effectively bestow sainthood on an allegedly wonderful president, otherwise known as the “name every goddamn thing in sight after Ronald Reagan so we all don’t look like such idiots” campaign.

**** Evidently last summer’s pointed reminder that “the cure for high prices is high prices” didn’t take.

Dr. Tiller was murdered this morning outside of his church.

A suspect has been arrested.

The Freepers are, well, themselves (and why I own firearms, and from the post and the comments I’m not the only one who is thinking that even though John Brown was a little over the top, maybe he had a point with the whole resist-people-who-would-do-evil-thing-to-you thing).

And I’m wondering if the many, many indirect accomplices will get away with their participation.

I suspect that the Doctor would be dismayed by violence in his name; there won’t be any, which is good. I just hope there will be some small measure of justice. As in Department of, etc.

At the moment, this badger is very tired and very unfocused.

Regular posting (as regular as it ever was, that is) will return probably next week.

Interesting e-mail exchange today.

From Office Facilities to the Washington Office:

Good Evening All,

The 9th floor kitchen will be closed tomorrow morning from 7:30am to 10am. There will be partisans blocking both the entrances. Please feel free to use the other two kitchens located on the 10th floor.

Enjoy the rest of your evening.

From me to the Washington Office:

Partisans!?

With barricades and pitchforks?!?

What are their demands??

It just went downhill from there.

First reply (possibly the best one, definitely the most snarky):

It’s going to be just like in Les Miz. Complete with the moving circular stage.

Strongest competitor for best reply, and the most thematic:

“Do you hear the people sing, singing the song of angry men? It is a music of a people who will not be slaves again! When the beating of your heart echoes the beating of the drums, there is a life about to start when tomorrow comes!”

Original e-mail slightly altered to remove names, etc.

UPDATE: I was told by management that this was not amusing. Ah, well.