Sadly, No!

And another one gone, and another one gone, and another hack bites the dust!

Kenneth Tomlinson, the former board chairman of the Corporation for Public Broadcasting accused by critics of trying to politicize public television and radio, has resigned from the board, it said on Thursday.

Tomlinson, a Republican, quit shortly before CPB Inspector General Kenneth Konz was to publish a report after investigating his activities, including paying outside researchers to check public programming for liberal bias.

Oooo, I hope they release Tomlinson’s report on PBS’ liberal bias! Here are my predictions:

“Subject looks distinctly Froggish… almost French. Is also extremely green, the color of both the tree huggers’ movement and the demon weed, marijuana.”

“Implies dinosaurs existed, which, according to the Bible, they didn’t.”

“Objectively pro-homo.”

“You’re kidding, right?”

“The worst of all possible worlds. Subjects look like a psychotic gay hippie’s acid trip. Also, the program itself is narrated by some non-American Queeropean. Must be the first targeted for cancellation.”

First we had Brownie’s e-mails. Now we have some charming memos from a Tom DeLay aide (via Crooks & Liars):

Up-and-coming Republican hacks would do well to watch closely the ongoing Senate investigations of superstar lobbyist Jack Abramoff and his former business partner Michael Scanlon. The power duo stand accused of exploiting Native American tribes to the tune of roughly $66 million, laundering that money into bank accounts they controlled and then using it to buy favors for powerful members of Congress and the executive branch.

But they sure did know how to play the game.

Pretty sleazy, eh? But exactly how did they get so many God-fearing Christian Republicans to go along with it?

Let’s find out (emphasis added):
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Renew America is truly the greatest site ever. Y’see, any right-wing crazy can use GOP talking points to cobble together a third-rate wingnut editorial, but Alan Keyes’ writers are far more innovative than that. For as Kaye Grogan, Nathan Tabor and Carey Roberts have shown time and time again, Renew America’s columnists do for conservative punditry what Miles Davis and Coltrane did for jazz: they take it to bold new places that most people couldn’t even imagine dreaming of imagining in their dreams.

Take today’s Guy Adams column, called “AOL is Censoring Me!.” It has everything you could possibly want from a wingnut op-ed, including rampant paranoia, homophobia, and the complete rejection of what we lowly mortals know as “reality.” It must be difficult to turn in such high-caliber performances on a regular basis, but I’ve been covering Renew America for more than a year now, and their fountain has yet to run dry. And with that in mind, let’s read Guy’s piece:

AOL is Censoring Me!

Guy Adams
November 3, 2005

AOL is censoring me.

Yes, Guy. We gathered that from your title.
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CNN dishes out the latest Brownie gossip:

As Hurricane Katrina ripped into the Gulf Coast, the government’s emergency management chief was making flippant remarks about his responsibilities, e-mails show.

“Can I quit now? Can I come home?” former Federal Emergency Management Director Michael Brown wrote to Cindy Taylor, FEMA’s deputy director of public affairs, the morning of the hurricane.

A few days later, Brown wrote to an acquaintance, “I’m trapped now, please rescue me.”

Heckuva job, Brownie. Why can’t more administration officials have this kind of attitude?

“In the midst of the overwhelming damage caused by the hurricane and enormous problems faced by FEMA, Mr. Brown found time to exchange e-mails about superfluous topics,” including “problems finding a dog-sitter,” Melancon said.

Brownie- whatever you do, don’t call Rick Santorum. Your dog is better off being alone for the weekend. Seriously.

On August 29, the day of the storm, Brown exchanged e-mails about his attire with Taylor, Melancon said. She told him, “You look fabulous,” and Brown replied, “I got it at Nordstroms. … Are you proud of me?”

An hour later, Brown added: “If you’ll look at my lovely FEMA attire, you’ll really vomit. I am a fashion god,” according to the congressman.

“Queer Eye for the Disgraced FEMA Chief.” Got a nice ring to it, no?

Huh. Holy crap. Harry Reid (D, Customarily Tepid) just shut down the Senate, invoking a rule on secret sessions, and released a jaw-dropping statement on the… Well, just go have a look. [Link re-linked to Reid’s barnstorming Senate floor speech.]

You know the funny sensation you get when there’s an earthquake? Tectonic vertigo. Something big is happening.

Since we’re extremely important bloggers*, we were invited to do a Democratic Party conference call last night, but we were all too drunk, or forgot, or the time zones didn’t work out, or some excuse of equal merit. Next time — and I say this with great gravity** — we’ll be on that damn phone if Joe Trippi drops a line. Stuff is up, these days. It’s getting very interesting.

* One imagined that if it were important, they wouldn’t be inviting us.
** Steel Reserve advertises itself as having ‘high specific gravity.’

The Big Bradrocket adds: Oh, hell yes:

Democrats claimed ?victory for the American people? Tuesday after the Senate Intelligence Committee agreed to continue an investigation into prewar intelligence claims made by the Republican party, the Senate Minority Leader said.

Now follow through on this, bitches. We deserve to know the truth.

G Love adds:
…Aaand Fristy tries the inside-out, over-under-sideways-down, total whooping Bizarro-world defense:

In other news, the Democrat Party is under investigation for insider trading, and kills kitties, said Majority Leader Bill Frist.

*sputtered
**parroted unthinkingly from past RNC talking points

PS: Tasty video at Crooks & Liars.

Fee Benamon, who got her start as one of Marie’s proteges, chimes in today with one of the most utterly gobshite retarded columns ever written by anyone:

War Games… Fighting an Uphill Battle
By Felicia Benamon

Here we go again! I’m sure by now the American public knows of the agenda in the mainstream media to try to make the American troops look like the aggressors in the War on Terror. I sneered at the latest attempt by the media to make our troops look bad…the reports of burnt bodies of Taliban fighters U.S. troops “supposedly” desecrated.

Uhm, Fee? Burning the bodies of Taliban fighters actually does make these troops look bad. That’s why the Army has, you know, launched a criminal investigation into the matter.
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Just a bit. Writing in the National Review, Michael Rubin unleashes this gem:

True: Polls do not lie. Iraqis dislike occupation. They resent stopping on busy highways for slow-moving military convoys. They juxtapose the Green Zone’s generators with their own worsening electricity supply.

Oh really? Better tell this guy. In other news, Iraqis aren’t just ingrates — they’re dumb ingrates:

They [Iraqis] fail to understand why U.S. diplomats who seldom leave their quarters must block off the center of their city rather than build their cantonment on its outskirts.

Iraqis, you silly people.

Jennifer Roback “Kung Fu” Morse writes:

If you just read the history books, you might think it was a series of small miracles that led from the horse-drawn plow to the modern air-conditioned tractor, equipped with TV and computer.

Small miracles? Really? Who the fuck thinks that, and what history books is Jennifer reading? So what is responsible for all these things?

But looking around the grounds of this antique tractor museum, I believe I could see how those miracles took place.

We’re getting mixed messages from you, Jennifer.

PZ Myers points us to this story about efforts by right-wing crazies to block a mandatory vaccination program for cervical cancer:

A new vaccine that protects against cervical cancer has set up a clash between health advocates who want to use the shots aggressively to prevent thousands of malignancies and social conservatives who say immunizing teen-agers could encourage sexual activity. […]

The vaccine protects women against strains of a ubiquitous germ called the human papilloma virus. Although many strains of the virus are innocuous, some can cause cancerous lesions on the cervix (the outer end of the uterus), making them the primary cause of this cancer in the United States. Cervical cancer strikes more than 10,000 U.S. women each year, killing more than 3,700.

Yes, you read that correctly- social conservatives want to deny their children protection from cervical cancer for fear that they might start boinking before marriage.
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If it quacks like a lamb, and looks like a lamb, it, well, let Justin Darr tell you:

With the power to appeal to the electorate stolen away, the 22nd Amendment has made every popular President a lamb duck the day after their reelection.

Ah yes, a lamb duck. Perhaps you’d like to know more about Justin?

He is also a fountain of relatively useless knowledge due to years of University study.

Looks like a pretty dry fountain.