That Amazing Tap Dancing Rush Limbaugh

You might not want to read this if you don't like Rush Limbaugh and don't want to get angry.

You remember that scene in Chicago, near the end, where Billy Flynn has to figure out a way to get Roxie Hart out from under her diary? Well Billy Flynn ain't got nothing on that old hoofer, Rush Limbaugh, defending his client Donald Rumsfeld.

As you probably know, Donald Rumsfeld, the Secretary of Defense, faced some tough questions from the soldiers in Iraq this week. In particular he faced a question about why our soldiers don't have enough Armor to Armor their vehicles. And the quick-stepping Rush Limbuagh steps to the center of the stage and begins his dance.

First he attacks the soldier. He acts incredulous that a soldier would actually question his commander in chief in this way. "And what struck me odd about this was those of us who have employees, we all have meetings with them and we all let them blow off steam, but we do it in private. . . . You just don't see that kind of near insubordination among rank and file military to the secretary of defense." There it is. If only the soldier was a good American, he would ask things like "So Mr. Rumsfeld, what is your favorite plane?"

Then Limbaugh loosens his collar and makes an attempt to defuse the situation with humor.

So I was going to work out a bit yesterday. In fact, I brought Snerdley in here, and I said, "You've seen this Rumsfeld story?" He said, "Oh, yeah." I said, "Well, I tell you, I want to do something. I want to have a little fun with this today." I said, "At some point I'm going to talk about this story and I'm going to bring you guys in here and say, 'Look, if it's a new policy now that employees have their bitch sessions in public, I'm going to bring you and Dawn and Brian in here and I want you to start complaining about the fact that the ice machine doesn't fill up every day, that you still have to sometimes wait for it, that your new 30-inch computer display monitor hasn't come in yet and you're still slaving away your 23-inch display," seventeen-inch display; sorry, Mr. Snerdley, and Dawn wanted to explain that the dishes in the dining room are not the right shade of white and gold that she ordered, and what are we going to do about it.

All these, you know, crazy complaints, because nobody that works here has any.

Of course the humor hear works a bit better if you think that a soldier requesting more life-saving armor on his vehicle is more or less the equivalent of an office worker requesting a larger monitor. If you think those are two different things, well, you may not find Mr. Limbaugh's tap dance all that amusing. There's a possibility you might even find it offensive.

But Rush isn't done yet. With a stylish throwing of the jacket off stage, he brings out his big guns. A Reporter may have helped the soldier formulate his question! This is proven by an unsourced e-mail reprinted at the Drudge Report, so it's bound to be true. And, as others have pointed out, even if it is true, did the same reporter also coach all the other attendees to the meeting to cheer when the question was raised? Does it make it any less of a valid question? Even Rush concedes that none of this gets Mr. Rumsfeld off the hook for his lousy answer to this question."But, hey, look, secretary of defense, he's going to go up and answer questions. He's gotta be prepared for whatever he's going to get. He can't say he shouldn't be prepared for them."

And then in a final linguistic flourish he moves to one of his favorite points. Based on the tenuous evidence that a reporter was involved, and reporters are liberals, and liberals feign concern about American Soldiers dying, we liberals want more Soldiers to die.

The answer to this is they're just livid -- the press, the leftists in this country are just upset that there are not enough deaths to get people outraged and protesting in the treats against the war. They're mad that these doctors are saving lives. They want deaths! They've been counting deaths up to 1,000, they hoped that would get Bush out of office. They still want Bush out of office; make no mistake about it. They still want Bush discredited and it's all part of coming back in '06 and '08, and so there are too many lives being saved over there.

I don't know what this has to do with the additional question, as this seems the complete opposite. I mean if we really wanted more soldiers to die, wouldn't we be in favor of Rumsfeld not armoring the troops? That probably does lead to more deaths, doesn't it? But of course the dancing is so good, you can't help missing out that the argument doesn't make very much sense.

This is a long post. I guess I'll cut it off here. But this whole post is funnier if you imagine Rush Limbaugh tap dancing.

Round the Horn Dedicated to Jacky Cane

I don't know who Jacky Cane is, but Hooverphonic did a cool song about her, so why not? And away we go.

First up is an article on the intramural squabbles to take control of the DNC, as reported by Bark Bark Woof Woof, who asks some pointed questions about what the previous dudes have given us.
Here's a brain teaser. One of those aforementioned dudes is named Donna Brazile. Who is, in fact, a women. Which is more problematic; calling her a dude, which leaves the implication that she is male, or using the phrase "Dudes and Dudettes, which implies that she is a Dudette?" Tune in to the end of this round the horn for the answer.

Back to going around the horn. Iddybud has some further thoughts on the fight for the DNC chair, and suggests that tearing into Howard Dean may not be the way to go.

Scrutiny Hooligans also has some well thought out thoughts on Howard Dean becoming the DNC head.

Sooner Thought has some words to share about who President Bush has appointed to head the United States Commission on Civil Rights.

Speedkill has some thoughts about Bill O'Rielly and Christmas.

The Invisible Library has a take on Gerald Allen a new proponent of Censorship.

Trish Wilson's Blog has a story on new evidence that Fathers, not Mothers, are more likely to falsely claim abuse.

The answer to today's riddle is that the word dudes should not be used. But since I'm probably going to use it anyway, I'd say its much less insulting to call a woman a dude than to call her a dudette (which to me sounds incredibly condescending). If you have a different opinion, please post it in the comments section.

Anyway that's it for this edition. Have a nice day.

Changing the Terrain

The right has these little games they like playing. We saw one earlier this week with the Williams story, which was called, leave out all the context, and hope that nobody minds. And of course, most of their fan base doesn't mind. Another game is changing the terrain. Take this little conversation.

Conservative: In my mind anybody who criticizes this war in Iraq is a filthy traitor and should be strung up.

Protester: Wait a moment, I think if you don't agree with a policy you have a patriotic duty to let your feelings be known.

Conservative: See there you go, pretending that simply protesting makes you patriotic.

Let's call this technique changing the terrain. The liberal thought she was defending against the charge of being disloyal and anti American, and so couched her response in that language. But then, in a rhetorical switch-a-roo, the Conservative (and Rush Limbaugh loves making this argument) instead switches the argument from being about the Loyalty of Protesters, to a debate about the self-involvement of protesters. See how that works?

Of course Liberals can use this technique too.

Liberal Commentator: We have all the evidence we need to suggest that President Bush drives around in an 18 wheeler running over people just for the heck of it.

Questioning Quint: I don't know. This evidence doesn't look all that convincing to me.

Liberal Commentator: So you think we shouldn't even question President Bush's policies, but just believe whatever he tells us?

It's an annoying but effective technique.

Anyway this was triggered by an interesting article on the validity of dissent by Byron Williams.

The formula for deconstructing dissent is as old as recorded history. The leadership continually promotes the idea that an attack is imminent, while denouncing the dissenters for their lack of loyalty and claiming such dissent during a crisis is a threat to the country's safety.

But dissent is the oxygen of democracy. Without it, we would risk choking on the fumes from our own megalomania.

Strong but accurate words.

The Muslim Menace

We used to get these articles a lot. They aren't as popular now, but they are still around. Marvin Olasky's latest, "Beyond Wishful Thinking About Islam," is a good example of the type.

Mr. Olasky doesn't want to appear bigoted, of course, so he does admit to there being a debate within Islam between moderates and militants. He does not acknowledge, of course, that our invasion of Iraq has given the militant side of equation a huge rhetorical advantage.

He makes it clear that the Militant Islamists have at least parts of the Koran on their side, and that Muhammad himself approved beheadings. He doesn't mention how various Christians who lived in Muhammad's time executed their prisoners and criminals, but presumably that's irrelevent.

And he closes his article with this bizarre formulation. "It's certainly time to enter into discussions with Muslims without offering either appeasement or shotgun-blast aggression." How have we appeased the Islamic World? Not at all as far as I know. As for shotgun-blast aggression, one might think that was a reflection of our invasion of Iraq. But I doubt that is an interpretation Mr. Olasky would support.

And Still More on Mr. WIlliams

Low posting today due to some time constraints, but did think I'd point you to a San Francisco Gate story on Mr. Williams Tribulations.

With many critics saying they heard that the school district is "banning the Declaration of Independence," and a few choice e-mails suggesting that "all of you in the school district can burn in hell," Cupertino's spokesman, Jeffrey Nishihara, somewhat exasperated, said, "The district has not stopped teaching about the Declaration of Independence."

The district denied all the claims in Williams' suit, and said it looks forward to explaining its side in court. Williams, who has taught in the district for eight years, declined to be interviewed for this story.

Some parents, the district's defenders, and civil liberties groups say the suit is an attempt by the Christian right to remake the nation's history. Although parents say Williams "is a nice guy," they say he's created an intimidating atmosphere for students who may be too young to contradict their teacher.

"This is the same thing that people have been trying to do for 200 years. The only difference now is that they're well funded, media savvy and litigious, " said Ivory Madison, who has done legal analysis for Americans United for Separation of Church and State. "It's a shame that our tax dollars have to be used for a school district to defend the Constitution."

Circular Firing Squad

As we all know, Robert Novak revealed that Valerie Plame's wife was a CIA Operative, potentially an act of treason. And now this issue is under investigation. This presents a little bit of a challenge for the right wing. Novak is one of them, and defending the right of Republicans to do whatever they want is important. On the other hand, it's also an opportunity to slam into the Press, which is something every red blooded Republican enjoys. What's the answer?

Well Jonah Goldberg, editor of the National Review, has decided to take the second tack. He does focus on the testimony of Judith Miller (who is not, in fact, Robert Novak). But he does make it clear where he stands.

One of these journalists, Judith Miller of the New York Times, is scheduled to appear before a judge this week and may go to jail if she doesn't spill the beans (this column was filed on the eve of her appearance). She vows that she won't reveal her sources. Miller's case is special because she never wrote about Plame.

But now liberals are furious that journalists might actually have to help the investigation they demanded. Journalists are beyond indignant. As a group, they seem to think asking journalists to reveal their sources is more sacrilegious than using a church as a stable.

. . . Indeed, the reigning talking point from the First Amendment voluptuaries is that lawyers and doctors are protected from revealing secrets, why shouldn't journalists be? Well, lawyers are not allowed to help their clients break the law, and neither are doctors. If it's against the law to ID a CIA agent, why should journalists - including Novak - be automatically off-the-hook?

This is a tricky question in my mind. I can see why journalists would fight it; it's a slippery slope. But this particular case seems pretty open and shut to me. Someone in the White House outed a CIA agent. That's serious.

And of course, there's the source. Jonah Goldberg bites Robert Novak. Wonder how that will shake out.

More on Mr. WIlliams

If you want to find out more about the documents Mr. Williams was choosing to use in his class, you might want to visit this website. It goes through each of the documents in detail and points out how some of them are bogus and some of them are purposefully incomplete. The author also unpacks why this issue is important.

Mr. Williams' material has a strong bias towards promoting God, Religion and Christianity. Some of the material is bogus or dubious in origin. The material that can be sourced shows a complete disregard for providing young students a well rounded perspective on what the founders of the United States really thought, not just about God or religion, but also about how God or religion should interact with the business of Government. It tells me that the principal may indeed have had good justification for doing what she did.

I agree with this analysis. But the damage is done. Few will take the time to find out the truth of the matter, and those few who do, many will simply shrug and move on to the next liberal "atrocity."

What to do with Michael Moore?

Last week some prominent members of the Democrat Leadership Council, an extremely moderate, pro-business Democrat group took some potshots at Michael Moore. Al From, the organizations CEO, said "We've got to repudiate, you know, the most strident and insulting anti-American voices out there sometimes on our party's left... We can't have our party identified by Michael Moore and Hollywood as our cultural values."

Matt Taibbi of New York Press asked why. Why slam into Michael Moore? For one thing, complaining about how closely allied Michael Moore is with the Democratic Party only highlights that they are allied. If it's a public-relations problem, why draw attention to it? More to the point, the Democratic Party isn't that closely allied with Mr. Moore. To the contrary the candidates, excepting Wesley Clark, steered well clear of him.

Mr. Taibbi has an answer and it isn't very pretty.

It's one thing to avoid public appearances with a Michael Moore, and to accept his support only tacitly. But it's another thing entirely to openly denounce him as anti-American, which is what Al From did last week.

What From, Marshall and the other DLC speakers were doing last week was not just ruminating out loud about the need to shy away from certain demonized liberal icons. They were, instead, announcing their willingness to embrace the other side's tactic?I hate to lean on this overused word, but it is a McCarthyite tactic?of branding certain individuals as traitors and anti-Americans. What they were doing was sending up a trial balloon, to see if anyone noticed this chilling affirmative shift in strategy and tactics.

I can say, as a student of the Red Scare, that he's not wrong. McCarthy would never have been as powerful as he was if President Truman and other Democrats hadn't basically ceded the argument to them.

I also think that this is a pretty distasteful tactic and stands in stark contrast to how Republicans treat their "extremists." As I've mentioned before, President Bush and Vice President Cheney both appeared on Rush Limbaugh's program. And there certainly haven't been calls on the Republican Party to distance themselves from such anti-American people as Ann Coulter and Michael Savage.

Oh and if you want to know how dangerous and anti-American Michael Moore is, you might go look at his book, "Will They Ever Trust Us Again?" A collection of letters from soldiers stationed in Iraq and Afghanistan. Yeah, that's definitely something to be ashamed of.

Two Scenarios

As you know, Steven Williams in San Francisco has brought suit against his school board for preventing him to pass out the founding documents in class. Presented are two possible scenarios of the incident which led to that suit.

Mr. Williams: Good morning class. I am passing around the Declaration of Independence in order to make an important point about the founders of our nation. They were religious men. As you can see religion is reference three times in this document, proving that if the founding fathers were here they would be born again fundamentalists. Christianity is a natural prerequisite to being a good American.

Student 1. So you are saying a follower of Taoism couldn't be a good American?

Mr. Williams. Exactly. And I know that if Mr. Jefferson were here with me today, he'd completely agree, that only Christians and supporters of President Bush truly love their country.

Obviously not intending these to be realistic scenarios, but more exaggerations. Ready for scenario two?

Mr. Williams. Good morning class. I am passing around the Declaration of Independence so we can have a discussion of it.

Student 2. Wait a second Mr. Williams. This document references the patriarchal God of Christianity. We can't read this.

Mr. Williams. Well, we don't need to talk about the religious side of the document. I just thought it would be good to consider . . .

Student 2. You'll consider nothing. I'm going straight to the principles office to talk about how you are trying to shove religion down our throats.

Mr. Williams. Oh no. I'm not trying to do that. This is an important document . . .

Student 2. Document Shmocument! This document clearly references God and is a volition of my civil rights!

Now, in case you don't know, the second interpretation is the one being pushed by Rush Limbaugh and Cal Thomas and others. The School Board and others are being pretty quiet about this issue in the public forum, which might be smart from a legal perspective, but makes it hard to figure out exactly what happened.

Reading the "Verified Complaint for Declaratory and Injunctive Relief and Damages" brought by Mr. Williams against the Cupertino Union School District though we do get a few clues however. One of the documents Mr. Williams selected to present to his class was an President Bush's proclamation on a National Day of Prayer (page 5 of the complaint, item 37). Hmmmm. Spider sense tingling. He also passed out a handout entitled "What Great Leaders have said about the Bible" (page 6 of the complaint, Item 40).

The question obviously is was Mr. Williams proselytizing in his class room? If he was than these steps that the school board take are pretty well justified. If he wasn't than this is a school board that jumped off the handle. Obviously Mr. Williams denies any attempt to proselytize (Page 7, Items 52 and 53). What else is he going to say? I'm not saying that his denial proves that he did it, I'm just saying his opinion on the matter is definitely biased. But without any more information from the parents or the PTA or the school board, there's no way to know, one way or the other.

What's the Matter with Colorado?

As you know, we had an article a couple of weeks ago on Democratic gains in the Rocky Mountain states, particularly in Montana and Colorado if memory serves. Well came across an article by John Andrews, a Republican out of Colorado explaining the results.

It was motivation, above all, that powered this Democrat victory. Democrats were driven and hungry from decades in the political wilderness. Republicans were complacent and soft from too long in power. Their motive for winning was to get in there and do things. Ours, it often seemed, was merely to stay in there. These attitudes translated into discipline and unity for Democrats, indulgence and disunity for Republicans. GOP factionalism was endemic and fatal.

Could be a sign of things to come. Certainly you do have some factions within the national Republican party that are going to expect some stuff. Can President Bush and the Republican Congress deliver? And if not, what becomes the main themes of Campaigns 2006 and 2008? Something to think about it.

The poor state of manhood

Poor Doug Giles. He's a man, and, according to him, it's just hard being a man today.

Nowadays, especially via TV and Hollywood, men are seen as despicable, cruel, pusillanimous, selfish, ineffectual oafs, veritable bumbling idiots who need women or some gay guy with a Queer Eye ? to help us through our primal fog towards metrosexual healing.

Poor guy. I mean it's like there are no positive male role models in America.

Take, for example, Jack Bauer of 24, played by Kieffer Sutherland. He's saved the world on three separate occasions, all the while being a totally bad dude, and a manly man. But maybe that's a bad example. I mean Jack Bauer isn't exactly an ineffectual oaf. He can be cruel, but only in the line of his duty.

Or how about Benjamin Franklin Gates, star of National Treasure, played by Nicholas Cage, in theaters now. He foils a bunch of criminal crime guys who want to steal the constitution and use it to get to a treasure. He's patriotic, heroic, and a snappy dresser (without any visible help from the Queer Eye Guys).

Of course there are occasionally shows about guys where they look silly. I suppose that really in America the only people who should be allowed to look ridiculous are women and possibly minorities.

Frankly I'd put my concern over Mr. Giles complaints up there with people who claim that Conservatives, despite controlling the white house, the congress and the supreme court are a persecuted minority.

Art in America

This post is brought to you to the strains of the Asian Dub Foundation, a very cool band.

Today's post concerns the wonderful world of Art, as you might imagine. Now I'm not an Art Critic, but I play one on TV ("TV Show Made up to serve the purposes of this quasi-joke," Wednesdays, 9:30 PM, UPN). So Larry Kudlows latest article, a pean to the work of his wife (Judith) struck me as just a little self indulgent (not that I'm going to make a stink about that) and a little wrong headed.

Judith and her associates, especially Andrea Smith from the Florence Academy, are leading lights in the return to classical painting. Sometimes it?s called natural realism. I just call it conservative art. Let me tell you what it?s not ? it?s not modernistic, abstract, self-centered expressionism. It?s not just throwing paint at a canvas. It doesn?t tear down art, or the rest of the world, for that matter. It?s not the negative pessimistic crap that too often passes for art in blue states like New York and, well, you know where else. These are just beautiful, calm, pleasant pictures. Stuff you can enjoy looking at, which is what I think art should be.

Conservative art, eh? Smart of you to put your mark on it. That way everytime you see a naturalistic painting that pleases you you should think, "Thank you, conservatism."

But wait a second, what if you see something in a modernist style that pleases you? Like this for example.



I can assure you this is modern art as I lifted it directly from the Museum of Modern Art Website. So if you find this pleasing, should you think "Thank you Liberalism?" Probably not.

It's worth noting that both Hitler's Germany and Stalin's Russia had very similar ideas about what art should be and what it should not be. We are all familiar with Hitler's crusade against Modern Art. In Russia, the emphasis was on creating art that the peasants would enjoy. Of course, I'm not insinuating that Mr. Elder is a totalitarian dictator or a totalitarian of any stripe.

Personally I like Modern Art. Other people don't like Modern Art. That's fine. But the Artistic Spirit is a wandering spirit. You can basically expect that it will go places that a lot of people don't understand initially. Trying to fence it in will just produce dull and stagnant art.

But then again I'm not a fan of landscapes.

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