Subpoena? What subpoena?

Hey, remember when Karl Rove was subpoenaed by Congress to testify about the U.S. attorney scandal?

Good times.

Bracketology: I won my pool!

No, I don't mean the NCAA men's (or women's) basketball tournament. I'm referring to Credo Mobile's "Bracket of Evil," pitting 16 of the most evil people and entities in America against each other to see who will win the Evil Championship.

The competition (really a series of Internet polls) placed four "teams" in each of four "regions:" Government, Media, Corporate, and Maverick. Last week, the Evil Four were announced: Karl Rove from Government, Rush Limbaugh from Media, Blackwater from Corporate, and Sarah Palin from Maverick. And as I'd predicted weeks ago, the ultimate Evil Champion -- kind of the Tar Heels of the Far Right -- is ... Karl Rove.

Congratulations, you heartless, disgusting bastard! (Also, nice tiara ...)

click image for larger version

Jewish Floridians: beware of insidious push-polling

My blogfriend trifecta alerts me to a new push-poll, with Karl Rove's pawprints all over it, targeting Jewish Floridians:

Key West resident Joelna Marcus received a phone call today. She was asked if she is Jewish, and she replied in the affirmative.

She was asked if she was religious.

She was then asked if her opinion of Barack Obama would change if she knew that Obama had given lots and lots of money to the PLO.

[...]

Update: Another FL voter (from Gainesville) has revealed he too received a similar push-poll call.

What really kills me is that this is the same tactic that was used against Huggy Bear in South Carolina in 2000 -- remember the "brown baby" push-polling there?

And people wonder why I say Huggy has zero integrity ...

De-pundit-izing the airwaves

Gaaaahhhhhhh!!

I just looked at the Palm Beach Post's website, and what do I see staring back at me but the unholy visage of Ann Coulter!



Whatever would cause the Post to inflict such pain upon its online readers? What have we done to justify such punishment?

It's a column naming the eight pundits, or as the column describes them, "screaming spin-meisters," who should be banished from cable teevee. And I am in firm agreement with Mark Schwed on this one:

1. Ann Coulter

2. William Donohue

3. Michael Musto

4. Al Sharpton

5. Juan Williams

6. Bernie Goldberg

7. Karl Rove

8. Dennis Miller

Definitely a rogue's gallery if ever there was one. Some of the descriptions are apt as well:

1. Ann Coulter

'I'm here. I'm not queer. And I'm not going away.'

Day job: syndicated columnist

Face time: on Fox, CNN and MSNBC

Her shtick: Verbal bomb-thrower

On 9/11 widows, "I've never seen people enjoying their husbands' death so much."

To a wounded Vietnam veteran, "People like you caused us to lose that war."

About the supremacy of Christians, "Jews need to be perfected."

On the planet, "God said, 'Earth is yours. Take it. Rape it. It's yours.' "

Coulter, who owns a home in Palm Beach, is a verbal arsonist and it's made her rich. She knows what TV hosts want and she happily gives it to them. Even liberals such as MSNBC's Chris Matthews can't resist putting her on the air. It serves her pocketbook, but not her country, or her party.

2. William Donohue

'Hollywood is controlled by secular Jews who hate Christianity ...'

Day job: president, Catholic League for Religious and Civil Rights

Face time: On Fox, CNN and MSNBC

His shtick: Hollywood is the devil

Donohue sees conspiracies against Catholics everywhere he looks: movies, music, books, TV. And he's always ready with an outlandish quote, which makes him a favorite of any journalist on a tight deadline. But he's usually wrong.

For instance, he suggested that Hollywood wanted to sabotage Mel Gibson's movie The Passion of Christ. The movie went on to become a blockbuster. Just recently, he called for a boycott of The Golden Compass because it promotes "atheism for kids." Parents ignored him, and the movie shot to No. 1 at the box office in its first week.

[...]

6. Bernie Goldberg

'Journalists ... will go after their liberal grandmother if they thought it would help their careers.'

Day job: Author, former CBS News journalist

Face time: Fox, especially The Factor and Hannity & Colmes

His shtick: Rails against liberal media bias

After putting in 28 years as an award-winning CBS News journalist, Goldberg has found a gold mine in his second career: trashing the media as liberal. But if that's true, how did Goldberg get a job? Even when presented with facts - such as, in 16 of the last 18 elections, newspapers went overwhelmingly for Republicans - Goldberg sticks to his guns.

Actually, it's Goldberg's bias that is showing, as in this quote: "I admire Rush Limbaugh and Bill O'Reilly a lot because they're stand-up guys." They also make him a frequent guest in their shows, which helps him sell lots of books. Coincidence?

7. Karl Rove

'I've got to do this for the sake of my family.'

Day job: Unemployed

Face time: Fox and PBS

His shtick: Defender of George W. Bush

The man lauded as the architect of George Bush's presidency has resigned. He's writing a book and popping up on cable news to offer his views. One little problem: Bush's Brain may have amnesia.

Whether it's about who leaked CIA agent Valerie Plame's name, or who actually pushed the Iraq war resolution, Rove is confused. Recently, on Charlie Rose's PBS show and again on Fox News Sunday, Rove claimed it was Democrats in Congress and not Bush who wanted to rush a vote on the Iraq war in 2002. "I think Karl in this instance just has his facts wrong," Ari Fleischer, White House press secretary at the time, told The Washington Post. He's being very polite. Let's hope cable executives will realize that, even on TV, facts do matter.

8. Dennis Miller

'I'm a Rudy guy. I think that Rudy, as far as terrorism goes, is just entering his peak killing years.'

Day job: Radio host

Face time: Fox's The Factor and Hannity & Colmes

His shtick: It's Miller Time!

When Miller did fake news for Saturday Night Live, he could be brilliant. Now that he does real news, Miller has turned bitter. He especially hates Nancy Pelosi, Rosie O'Donnell, John Edwards and all Democrats.

Since when does telling a few jokes qualify someone to be a political expert (or football commentator, for that matter)? Miller is still smart. But he's lost his way. Perhaps he should take a lesson from the late, great Johnny Carson: no matter which political party is in charge, there will be plenty of material to work with.

Preach it, brother!

I haven't seen a lot of Coulter lately, which is always a good thing. Perhaps her tiresome, hateful screeds have been silenced for now, and even the wingnut broadcasters are finding that she's not worth the trouble. We can only hope ...

Bye bye Tony

Another one bites the dust.

Tony Snow has announced that he's leaving the White House staff in two weeks. His last day, September 14, is the same as Karl Rove's last day, and three days before the official departure of Alberto Gonzales.

Although his unfortunate battle with cancer clearly has affected him, he's said that the reason he's leaving is because he's not making enough money as White House press secretary. This, of course, converts him from a potentially tragic figure into just another Bush crime syndicate jerk.

Also, I discovered this news because of a tremendous leap in hits on this sucky blog due to people searching for information on Snow's replacement, Dana Perino (right). I wrote about her when she first took over for Snow on an interim basis last March, and now my post is the 10th hit when you Google her name. Nice.

Well, Tony joins a long list of rats departing the sinking (sunken?) ship. I really do have sympathy for the guy for his illness, but to deny his illness and say that he's leaving for financial reasons? I think that's just ridiculous. If it's true, it's just sad, and if it's not true, then he's a bigger jerk for not being man enough to admit the extent of his illness.

See ya, Tony. Hopefully not having to lie and obfuscate on your boss' behalf in the future will give you better health ...

Those krazy kids at the White House ...

Isn't it nice that the folks at the White House can still have fun?

Karl Rove, your car is ready.

White House pranksters wrapped Rove's Jaguar in plastic wrap on the private driveway next to the West Wing. Rove's car is easily recognizable because of its "I love Barack Obama" bumper sticker and the twin stuffed-animal eagles on the trunk. Oh, and there's a stuffed-animal elephant on the hood.

Rove, the top White House political strategist who recently announced his resignation, left his car on the driveway while visiting Texas and traveling with President Bush. He was due back in Washington Wednesday evening.

Second anniversary of Katrina, war in Iraq and pending (?) in Iran, corruption permeating the Bush crime syndicate, and this is funny? More than that: this is news?

Yeah, it's hilarious. This is me laughing: FUCK YOU, WHITE HOUSE STAFF. And FUCK YOU Associated Press for covering it.

Assholes.

Nobody does it better

With all due respect to the great Rude Pundit and other Icons of Incivility ...

I thought I had mad ranting skillz, but I'm nothin' compared to the lovely and talented Athenae at First Draft. Yesterday, she posted a takedown of Karl Rove's fat white hypocritical ass that ought to be packaged up and taken to the DFH Blogger Hall of Fame (Rant Wing) immediately. Indeed, she's an artist in incivility.

A sample:

And whatever the black hole polar opposite of backing your shit up is, that's what Rove has done with his Christianity, giving as I am the benefit of the doubt and assuming it's not one more pose, but since he seems to be having a righteous hissy about not being taken seriously, let's take him seriously, because that makes it worse, not better.

If you say you are a believer, if you say that to me, you'd better be ready to cite chapter and verse with your waking breath because it's not that I think it's easy, it's that I think you don't speak up until you know what you're about. Otherwise you're just embarrassing yourself, you're just wasting everybody's time. And once you speak up, once your words leave your mouth, then YES, you fucking kitchen appliance, the rest of us are allowed to look, to see, to comment, to say back to you, not good enough, F minus, try failing less, and come back when you're not so completely full of shit, and by the way, ask Jesus what he thinks about all the blood on your hands.

Go read the whole thing, and prepare to applaud.

Karl Rove's dirty little secret

Most lefties long have hoped to find skeletons in the closet of the soon-to-be-departed Karl Rove. Well, it might not be skeletons, but look what else is in Rove's closet! Or, more accurately, out of the closet:

Louie loved his piercings, they made him smile. People who are pierced will understand.

So there on the floor in his library, amid teaching videos on piercings and piles of [Piercing Fans International Quarterly], I listened to one man’s account of his travels through the Los Angeles piercing community in the 70’s and 80’s — the “piercing parties” with folks getting pierced on coffee tables in private homes, nurses that helped, and a guy named Jim. I knew about Jim. I had both my nipples pierced at The Gauntlet.

Louie also knew about play piercing; I wanted to learn and so he taught me. And so between splashing in the pool, brunches, visiting his volunteer list of AIDS patients, eating at all numbers of restaurants, visiting friends who lived around the area, birding at the Salton Sea and eating TV dinners, we explored needles and the effect they have on you.

[...]

Louie and I exchanged gifts over the years. He really liked those stainless ball weights and I like gold jewelry ... so I have a 14 karat gold cock ring that once belonged to Louie, and he had a bunch of ball weights that belonged to me.

So who cares about one man’s journey into piercing? For me it is not about a gossipy story, though some people will take it that way. It is not about telling secrets or things left best unsaid; it is about a little piece of history. Perhaps in telling this story someone else will be able to tell a better one another day.

The “Jim” in this story is the Jim Ward who started the piercing industry. Louie is Louis Claude Rove whose adopted son’s first name is Karl. Louie died quietly in Palm Springs as his very secular, not-believing son ran President Bush’s campaign for President of the United States that energized the Christian evangelical base around the wedge issue of gay marriage...

Well, as a Certified Uncivil Blog, I don't shy away from telling things best left unsaid. So, there it is. You can't blame genetics, but ol' Karl's certainly repressing something.

(h/t to Wes - thanks!)

Caption Contest

It's been a while since I've done one of these:

"Hmmm ... my finger smells like ..."

Today's Daily Schadenfreude: Karl Rove

Oh, happy day. Bush's Brain is leaving the building.* Don't let the door hit you in the ass on the way out, douchebag:

Karl Rove, President Bush's longtime political adviser, is resigning as White House deputy chief of staff effective Aug. 31, and returning to Texas, marking a turning point for the Bush presidency.

Mr. Rove's departure removes one of the White House's most polarizing figures, and perhaps signals the effective end of the lame duck administration's role in shaping major domestic policy decisions. Mr. Rove revealed his plans in an interview with Paul Gigot, editor of The Wall Street Journal's editorial page.

You know the old saying about rats abandoning a sinking ship? When the King Rat leaves, you know it's bad. Or, from my perspective, it's goooooood.

You had a good run, Karl, but the higher you fly, the farther you fall. See you when you're indicted, pal. In the meantime, congratulations, because today's Blast Off! Daily Schadenfreude is for you!

---

* Arguably, Drunky McStagger never really had a brain.

Minty fresh

Just got these mints from a colleague of mine at work:


Sorry the pic is so blurry. I can't focus that close up. But on the left is a box of "Indictments," featuring Libby, Rove, Snarly, and DeLay in prison garb, and on the right you have Drunky McStagger holding a bag of cash and a Bible on a box of "National Embarrassmints."

I work with some cool folks.

Wanker of the Day Hall of Fame: new inductee!

This morning over at Atrios' place, David Broder received the first Wanker Emeritus Award.

This gives him automatic entry into the coveted Wanker of the Day Hall of Fame. Broder is the sixth Hall of Famer, joining such luminaries as Glenn Reynolds (still the record-holder with 18 WOTD honors), Joe Lieberman, Fred Hiatt, Joe Klein, and John McCain.

Broder's wank-star rose to meteoric heights during 2007, and while he still trails his fellow Hall of Famers in number of honors, the sheer quality and depth of his wankage surely merits Hall of Fame status. An example, courtesy of Atrios:

Let me disclose my own bias in this matter. I like Karl Rove. In the days when he was operating from Austin, we had many long and rewarding conversations. I have eaten quail at his table and admired the splendid Hill Country landscape from the porch of the historic cabin Karl and his wife Darby found miles away and had carted to its present site on their land.

Truly nonpareil wankage by any standard.

Congratulations to the Dessicated Dean of Wankery, David Broder, the newest WOTD Hall of Famer!

Speaking of liars

You know the Bush crime syndicate is going down in flames when they can't even lie effectively anymore. Oh, they were really good at it for a while, and a lot of Americans bought their bullshit hook, line, and sinker. But boy, do their lies suck now.

Take Karl Rove, for example. Please.

Karl Rove, the chief political strategist for President Bush, did not intentionally delete e-mail messages to avoid creating a paper trail detailing his work, his lawyer said on Friday. Rather, he mistakenly thought that the messages were being preserved by the Republican National Committee.

“Karl has always understood that his R.N.C. e-mails were being archived,” the lawyer, Robert Luskin, said in an interview. “He has never asked or sought any kind of special treatment to permit him to delete anything.”

Delete e-mail messages intentionally? Who, me? Oh, give me a fucking break.

On Thursday, Representative Henry A. Waxman, the California Democrat who is chairman of the House committee conducting the inquiry, said he had “particular concerns about Karl Rove” after a briefing his aides received from Mr. Kelner, the R.N.C. lawyer.

Mr. Waxman raised questions about an R.N.C. policy, aimed only at Mr. Rove, that Mr. Waxman said “removed Mr. Rove’s ability to personally delete his e-mails from the R.N.C. server.”

In an interview Friday, Mr. Kelner said the committee had indeed adopted such a policy, in January 2006. Mr. Kelner would not say if the Fitzgerald leak inquiry sparked the change, but he said the new policy was aimed simply at preserving Mr. Rove’s e-mails.

“It wasn’t because the R.N.C. thought, uh oh, Karl Rove’s going to destroy e-mails, we have to save them,” Mr. Kelner said. “Absolutely not. That’s exactly the impression Waxman is trying to create. I don’t think there’s any evidence of that.”

However, because Mr. Kelner refused to say "cross my heart and hope to die, stick a finger in my eye," we know he's a Big Fat Liar.

There's a ton of e-mails missing. Does anyone -- even Rove's lawyers -- seriously believe that their deletion was accidental? I mean, anyone other than Rove's friends ... people who really love the guy and think he's swell. People who, let's put it bluntly, associate with a serial liar. People like these:

The button is photoshopped; the meeting of the mindless is not.

Florida Young Republicans with Rove.

Subpoenas, bitches!

Let's get ready to rumble.

That noise you're hearing is Rove and Miers crapping their pants.

UPDATE (11:19 am 3/21/07): An excellent comment on Eschaton by David Derbes puts this into better perspective:

Not to rain on the parade, but just voting on the subpoenas is not the same as serving the damn things.

In the way of Congress's polite kabuki, what now happens is that Conyers or someone writes Fielding to tell him, "Well, we have now authorized the subpoenas. Wanna deal?" Fielding will respond in a day or two, probably by Friday, to say, "No," but couched in more polite kabuki.

On Monday or Tuesday next week, there will be a vote by Conyers' committee whether or not actually to issue the subpoenas. There may or may not be some last minute compromises about Rove and Miers (which, frankly, Conyers would be an idiot to accept), and on Tuesday or Wednesday, the subpoenas will actually be served.

Bush or Fielding or Snow or some combination thereof will say, with sorrow, that Bush cannot possibly allow for trusted confidants to testify as it would irreparably damage the ability of future presidents to seek advice, etc etc. Then it's back to Conyers (and similar parallel action in the Senate from Leahy), and after many days of drama it will go to the Supremes.

Bush will, in my opinion, lose, but it's gonna take till June or July to hear this. Their only hope is to run out the clock, and I do not think they will succeed.

You think Bush's approval ratings are low now? You ain't seen nothin' yet. Below 20% by July.

I now think that, barring complete capitulation by Bush on the Rove/Miers testimony, impeachment is inevitable. It may not be fully realized (if Bush resigns, or if time does run out), but it is going to start by October '07.

Good times

January 31, 2005.

Those were the days, huh, guys?

Please be creative and write your own caption in the Comments. I thank you and, more importantly, your country thanks you.

Rove to Crist: See what you made me do?

Remember right before the election this fall, when Charlie Crist chose not to appear with Drunky McStagger at a campaign stop in Pensacola?

Well, Drunky Karl Rove is exacting his revenge:

Army leaders privately tell White House they could back more soldiers if Bush provides latitude to sustain the effort through reserve call-ups. One of the first units called back to Iraq could be the Florida National Guard brigade that served in restive Ramadi in 2003.

We in Florida are accustomed to hearing about storm surges. But this "surge" could impact us far more severely.

(cap tip to P O'Neill)