Friday, October 9, 2009

Recommended Reading

Joe Conason is probably my favorite political-type commentator and reporter. During the Clinton scandals, he was one of the few voices out there pointing out how things like Whitewater and Filegate were ginned-up scandals based on nothing, just to smear Bill and Hillary and to make some of the scandal-mongers very wealthy. Ken Starr did everything in his power to sculpt those allegations (and Travelgate and the death of Vince Foster) into something indictable and couldn't. They finally found something to "get" Clinton with but it was something pretty petty, contrived and none of anyone's business.

The notion that Bill 'n' Hillary had committed crimes in Whitewater had about as much solid evidence behind it as the charge that Barack Obama was born in Kenya. That it went a lot farther — special prosecutor, talk of impeachment and/or imprisonment for that — had a lot to do with the so-called Liberal Media leaping on the allegations and giving them credibility. In the above-linked piece, Conason reminds us of how that happened...and suggests that those who were so wrong about the Clintons need to answer for their bad reporting. And since some of them are still in a position to do the same thing with Obama — and since his enemies are determined to treat every breath he takes as an impeachable offense — we need to make sure it doesn't happen again.

• Posted at 5:13 PM · LINK

Nobel Effort

So Barack Obama won the Nobel Peace Prize for...what? The beer summit between that cop and the guy he hassled? I dunno. I'd probably say the prez deserves it just for not being George W. Bush and for putting at least a temporary end to so many (but alas, not all) of the destructive international policies we had for eight years. But really, I don't know why anyone has taken the Nobel Peace Prize seriously since they gave one to Henry Kissinger.

• Posted at 9:17 AM · LINK

Friday Morning

Happy birthday to the most Liberal cartoonist I know...Mike Peters, creator of Mother Goose & Grimm. And happy birthday to the most Conservative cartoonist I know...Russell Myers, creator of Broom Hilda. We've scheduled cake for 6 PM and the steel cage death match for 7. The weapon of choice will be India Ink at ten paces.

• Posted at 9:07 AM · LINK