AddieStan

Those who know their Bible surely know of the Maccabees. However, you may have missed the reference to the prophet Huckabee. Today on "Meet the Press" , the former Arkansas governor said: In light of the events of the last week, some of my previous comments on Pakistan seem prophetic.

Even as the body of Pakistan's opposition leaders and former Prime Minister Benazir Bhutto was laid to rest today, Pakistani parliamentary elections remain scheduled for January 8 -- the same day as the New Hampshire primary. It may be counterintuitive to assert, being an election-loving, small-d democrat, but your blogstress thinks it a very bad idea to hold those elections (the ones in Pakistan) as scheduled, before Bhutto's party has a chance to reorganize itself, and the nation has a chance to calm itself. For more on the crisis in Pakistan, and how it affects U.S. politics, you will find your écrivaine blogging at TAPPED: Republican Candidates Wage Epic Struggle for Civilization -- and Nomination Is Edwards Musharraf's Pick?

Benazir Bhutto , the first democratically elected woman prime minister of a Muslim nation, has been done away with : An attack on a political rally killed the Pakistani opposition leader Benazir Bhutto near the capital, Islamabad, Thursday. Witnesses said Ms. Bhutto was fired upon at close range before the blast, and an official from her party said Ms. Bhutto was further injured by the explosion, which was apparently caused by a suicide attacker. UPDATE: Posting today at TAPPED on the Bhutto killing: Benazir Bhutto Done In: Now What? Bush: Murderous Extremists Killed Bhutto

Christmas Eve brought the sad news that Oscar Peterson , the great master of the jazz piano, had died at the age of 82 in his Canadian home. Peterson's sound was distinctive, a combination of virtuosity and nuance that allowed him to move seamlessly between understated comps and solos in which a torrent of notes could spill out, sparklingly and perfectly arranged. He was a rare player who led any group in which he played, and led with subtlety. There was something in his character and playing that seemed to pull forth the essence of each musician on the stage, each becoming more him- or herself than she or he could ever be performing solo. And, all the while, he maintained a strong but sage-like presence. At least, that's how it seemed to me, listening to recordings, for I never got myself to see Peterson play live. Shame on me for that. My first awareness of Oscar Peterson was a once-removed discovery. When I was growing up, my father listened to a lot different music on ...

Alex Rossmiller has crafted a delightful parody of Clement Clarke Moore's "A Visit From St. Nicholas" -- better known as "The Night Before Christmas" -- one that features in its cast of characters not reindeer, but presidential candidates. Herewith, a taste, from Alex's posting at AmericaBlog : More slick than an oil spill the candidates seem As the White House draws near in their eyes there's a gleam. And they pander and fundraise and talk themselves out In the hopes that the voters will lose any doubt. Now Rudy! Now Romney! Now Edwards and Clinton! Obama! Fred Thompson! But will anyone listen? To the top of the polls! To the top of the caucus! Now speechify, argue, make white papers glisten! CLICK HERE TO READ THE WHOLE THING

Since Hurricane Katrina struck, the cost of renting an apartment in New Orleans has gone up by 45 percent. More than 200,000 of the city’s residents have yet to return home, unable to afford the soaring rents, and with little in the way of job prospects. Ain’t nothin’ comin’ easy these days in the Big Easy. But some people just can’t seem to get the message. Go figure; there are still some poor people – mostly black people whose Gulf Coast roots go back some 400 years – who want to stay. Looks like the only way to get rid of them for good is to raze 4,500 units of public housing, and let developers replace it with “mixed-income” (read: too costly for the people who used to live here) neighborhoods. Is your blogstress too cynical? Too conspiracy-minded? Perhaps. But yesterday, the frustration of New Orleaneans spilled out onto the streets when they suspected just exactly the scenario your cybertrix has spelled out, especially when they found themselves locked out of the city counci...

Your blogstress is getting mighty tired of the way in which the presidential candidates are questioning each other's "electability". I mean, how do you know when somebody is electable? When he or she gets elected, that's how! As your cybertrix has mentioned before, the "electability" ruse is nothing more than an appeal to voters' prejudices, be they racist, sexist or religionist in nature. From the Republicans, I expect no less. But from Democrats, it's especially bad juju. To that end, your Webwench talked earlier this week with Helen Miller , one of two African-American women in the Iowa State House of Representatives, about how Barack Obama 's admission of drug use during his youth is being deployed against him by the Hillary Clinton campaign as a form of racial code. For more, read " The Real Race Card " at The American Prospect Online. In a somewhat frightening development, you can read a paean to Obama by David Brooks , the...

As your blogstress writes this, thick grey smoke is pouring out the window of Vice President Dick Cheney 's office suite in the Old Executive Office Building. Gosh, I hope those visitor logs showing who came and went ( Jack Abramoff ?) from the veep's office are okay. In case you missed it, a federal court ruled Monday that the executive branch gotta give up the goods on the visitor logs, whose release the White House had sought to prevent under the claim of -- what else? -- executive privilege.

From the Newark Star-Ledger : Assembly votes to abolish death penalty by Tom Hester and Tom Feeney TRENTON--After more than two hours of emotional debate, the Assembly voted this afternoon to deliver to the governor's desk a bill that would make New Jersey the first state to abolish the death penalty in more than 30 years. By a vote of 44-36, the Assembly joined the Senate in approving a bill that would replace New Jersey's never-used death penalty with life in prison without parole. Gov. Jon Corzine said hours before the debate began that he expects to sign it in the next two or three days. [READ MORE]

...along comes the smarmy Mark Penn , a top advisor to Hillary Clinton 's campaign, using his star turn tonight on "Hardball With Chris Matthews" to reintroduce the notion of Obama having used drugs, he was careful to use the word "cocaine." And everybody knows what kind of cocaine black people do -- rhymes with "black" (even though that wasn't the kind that Obama said he did). This is really despicable. Meanwhile, Billy Shaheen has "resigned" as co-chair of Clinton's national campaign. Wanna bet he'll be back?

Really! Any number of other things this week deserved this level of coverage, like, say, the apparent obstruction of justice committed by the CIA with its destruction of tapes it made of its own torture of foreigners it has taken prisoner. I wish George Mitchell would go back to doing something meaningful.

A technical problem with Blogger has led to the evaporation of your blogstress's final post on the debate. Please forgive, mes amis . Do allow, nonetheless, your Webwench to recount one of the better moments of the debate. The moderator, Des Moines Register Editor Carolyn Washburn , asked Barack Obama, what with all the former Clinton administration figures he has advising his campaign, how he represented change. Hillary Clinton could hardly contain herself, and began laughing uproariously. "I want to hear this, Barack," she said. To which Obama replied to this effect, "And I'll be happy to have Hillary advising me, too." "Hillary, I'm looking forward to having you advising me, as well."

Hillary: exercise and do the best job possible for the American people Edwards: remember that every night, a child goes to bed hungry Dodd: Help America reclaim its moral authority Richardson: Same one I have every year: to lose weight. Help end the rancor. "Stay positive." Biden: The same one I make every year, to "remember where I came from." Seemed to make an allusion to the loss of his first wife and daughter. Obama: To be a better father. "...not to be timid, not to be distorted by the fears of losing..."

Made to defend some rather insensitive comments that he has made, even recently, about race, Biden defended himself by invoking his legislative record on civil rights. After which, almost unanimously, the candidates all made noises of concurrence. Obama, whose cleanliness and articulateness, as invoked by Biden, created a bit of an uproar some months ago, lept to Biden's defense, saying, "I will provide some testimony, as they say in church." Guess Biden doesn't have a chance at winning the nomination. But rumor has it he may just get the Des Moines Register 's endorsement.

Reminded that the secretive process by which she went about creating her original health-care proposal while serving as first lady, Clinton said that she learned a lot from that process -- foremost, that a good communications process is important. Promised a "transparent" government.

Obama: 1) End the war, 2) Restore the Constitution, 3) your ecrivaine 's issues with short-term memory is preventing her recall. Biden: 1) Implement the Biden plan (end the war), 2) End torture Richardson: 1) End the war in Iraq, end torture Dodd: 1) Change the discourse, shrillness; "change the nature of our conversation", 2) "give you back your Constitution," 4) diplomacy in the Middle East Edwards: 1) End the war, 2) Close Guantanamo, 3) restore civil liberties, but we need to take back America from the corporate interests Clinton: 1) I will begin to end the war in Iraq, 2) restore the Constitution

Edwards: Create a National Teaching University, modeled on the military academies. Graduates would be assigned to needy districts. Your blogstress likes this idea quite a lot. Richardson: Pre-K for everybody. Scrap No Child Left Behind. Minimum salary for teachers: $40,000. Teach art in schools. Moderator just asked Richardson to comment on the state of education in New Mexico, Richardson said it's been tough to raise test scores in NM because of unique population demographics -- more than 40 percent hispanic and 11 percent Native American -- but that they're going up. Obama: Early childhood education critical. Sacrifices from the American people: Get parents "re-engaged in instilling in their children a sense of excellence." Dodd: Parents are the first teachers. My sister just retired from teaching 42 years in the inner city of Hartford. (Read: I know what I'm talking about.) Clinton: Bring classrooms into the 21st century; they look too much as they di...

Hillary: Change -- some believe you get change by hoping for it. I believe you get change by working for it. (Take that, Barack!) Dodd: I've served in the military and I've been a Peace Corps volunteer.

During yesterday's Republican Des Moines Register forum, when asked for a show of hands as to whether or not they believed global warming to be a problem, the candidates, led by former Tennessee Sen. Fred Thompson , refused. So, Hillary just asked the moderator if she would like a show of hands on the same topic from today's group.

Everybody: We like it clean. Hillary: We need to sell conservation and clean energy as "a new form of American patriotism." Obama: "[Clean energy] is a moral imperative." Need to talk not just to the Sierra Club, but to confront those who don't like the message. Mentioned that he unveiled his energy plan before the automakers in Detroit, and "the room was very quiet." Edwards: Moral imperative, yeah! I'm your guy on moral imperatives.

I need a UFO sighting -- now!

Ut-oh. Biden's quoting a hymn, quoting lyrics about lifting up on eagle's wings. Note that Biden is a Roman Catholic, not a people known for our great tradition of fabulous hymns. (Catholic congregations don't sing; they mumble.) Richardson: Smart pandering, thanking the people of Iowa for the fabulous process by which they go about selecting a presidential nominee. Got a laugh.

Hillary says that "right here in Iowa, there are people who are winners and losers because of trade [deals]." NAFTA needs to be improved. Said we need an "equivocal" trade policy; I think that's a rare gaffe. Your blogstress suspects that she meant "equitable." On the subject of gaffes, Edwards made a big one that he caught himself, in which he essentially said we want to leave the nation in worse shape than we found it. Got a laugh.

Everybody's for them.

One of the odd factors in these Des Moines Register fora is the intermittent sprinkling of candidates' general statements throughout the program. First up were Obama and Edwards. Obama: Dr. King, bring everybody together. Edwards: End corporate dominance of government, corporate corruption.

Obama: preventive health care critical. "If we had the same obesity rates of 1980, it would save Medicare a trillion dollars." Also need to have the ability to negotiate with drug companies. Richardson: Preventive medicine the key.

Richardson: Ban bad imports, but recognize that China is a major power. Oh, and they're our bankers. And that tells us what about how you'd deal with them?

As does veterans' care, he says. He's right, at least about the vets, but he doesn't say how that squares with his balanced-budget promise.

Illinois Sen. Barack Obama is a bit noncommittal on this one, which is realistic considering the years of deficit spending we've endured during the Bush assumption of power. Former New Mexico Gov. Bill Richardson is more macho: it's a big priority of his. Delaware Sen. Joe Biden is making sense along the same lines of Obama's sense-making. Connecticut Sen. Chris Dodd chides Richardson, saying the federal government is more complicated than a state government. Former North Carolina Sen. John Edwards tries to move the discussion off of deficit spending to addressing the "structural deficiencies in the economy." (That should be a cinch!) New York Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton took the opportunity to remind everybody how great the economy was when there was "fiscal responsibility" exercised by the White House. And when might that have been? Not "very far" back, said Clinton. Like "the 1990s."

Apparently there is no more important story on earth now than the apparently earth-shattering news that baseball players have been using steroids and other performance-enhancing drugs for the last several decades. And so the unveiling of the Mitchell Report has knocked the Democratic debate off cable news until 3:00 EST, at which time, your blogstress will happily begin blogging. (Alas, the hard drive of her ailing G3 Mac is too overburdened to accommodate simultaneous streaming and blogging.)

Your blogstress is pleased to announce that her devotees will enjoy the benefit of her shrewd, real-time analysis of the Democratic- Des Moines Register debate this afternoon, 2:00 P.M. (EST).

With the latest CNN/WMUR poll showing Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama in a dead heat among New Hampshire primary voters, you knew the gloves were bound to come off. And they have. Yesterday, Billy Shaheen , a national co-chair of Clinton's New Hampshire campaign and husband of the former NH Gov. Jeanne Shaheen , questioned Obama's "electability" because of his former drug use. Your blogstress had no use for Chris Dodd 's attempt to leverage the latent sexism of some in the Democratic base when he cast aspersions on Hillary Clinton's "electability," and she has none for Shaheen's apparent appeal to any submerged racial prejudice that may exist among the voters in a state where nary a black person is to be seen. Because of Obama's racial identity, the question of drug use will undoubtedly link in some minds with the stereotyped image of the black drug-thug. And that's a despicable thing to use as a wedge in a Democratic primary. For...

A boring debate in which no candidate hurt himself too badly. Most interesting ideas: Huckabee on education and health care; Ron Paul on monetary policy. For Giuliani, not such a great outing. Thompson revived concerns about his knowledge base when he couldn't really find anything to say about NAFTA. (He was answering a question about how he would change the agreement, given the chance.) No questions for Huckabee about Zev Chafets's provocative New York Times Magazine piece. Bummer.

"I've led a transparent life." Even when obscure government offices were used to pay the security costs for his mistress . Oy.

Otherwise I might just fall asleep.

"We are a polarized nation country. And that polarized nation country has led to paralyzed government." Went on to say something like he wants to be the president of all the people of the United States. Also called on Republicans and conservatives to stop fighting with each other.

Though perhaps a little nellie on all that arts education stuff. I mean, what good Republican wants his red-blooded boy learning about areas in which homosexuals hold court? I mean, you can't even show them a picture of Michelangelo's David without applying a fig leaf.

That's what Rep. Duncan Hunter just said happened to Jaime Escalante , the teacher of cinematic fame who taught calculus to poor kids in Los Angeles. I don't know that it's true or untrue, but I was initially confused that a Republican was standing there lionizing teachers. Of course, he chose one who had been "run out by the unions."

Yawn.

He has one of two answers to every question: 1) the people with whom stand on this stage are stealing taxpayer dollars; 2) Nobody likes me, everybody hates me, I gotta eat the worms because I represent YOU. NOW ARE YOU LISTENING??!!! Addendum : At least he's not talking about Mary Cheney's sex organs , as he did in 2004.

...and made worse by humans. At least according to Arizona Sen. John McCain and former New York Mayor Rudy Giuliani .

Make that, "Rich like Mitt." Asked about a fair tax structure, Romney said he wasn't staying up at night worrying about the taxes that rich people are paying. Of course, Romney has put his own millions into his own megabucks campaign, and he's still got pretty deep pockets. In reply, actor and former Tennessee Senator Fred Thompson said that he'd like to have Mitt's problems.

Asked whether he would be willing to go into deficit spending to pay for important priorities, former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney said that he would cut programs that weren't working -- for instance, teen pregnancy prevention programs. Jeez, ya think they're not working because they're " abstinence only "? Nah....

That's what former Arkansas Gov. Mike Huckabee , today's It Boy among the Republican presidential hopefuls, had for an answer to a question about whether the deficit constitutes a national security issues. Addendum : Who is making our bombs? If it's China, I hope they're painting them with the same stuff they're using on the Fisher-Price toys.

Zev Chafets has written a really smart and engaging profile of Republican presidential candidate Mike Huckabee , the former Arkansas governor and Baptist preacher. You can find it here , or in this coming Sunday's New York Times Magazine . Huckabee has shown himself to be quite the phenom, and Chafets succeeds in lifting the veil from the charming preacher's nice-guy image to reveal a man who plays a little bit nasty when temptation calls. Last night, on MSNBC's Hardball , Chris Matthews , referring to Huckabee's implicit sowing of doubt against his Mormon rival, Mitt Romney , gleefully read this bit from the Chavets piece: I asked Huckabee, who describes himself as the only Republican candidate with a degree in theology, if he considered Mormonism a cult or a religion. "I think it’s a religion," he said. "I really don’t know much about it." I was about to jot down this piece of boilerplate when Huckabee surprised me with a question of his own: ...

Your blogstress finds herself a bit aghast at the ingratitude of the Republican voter, what with virtually the entire field -- except for Ron Paul -- pandering so furiously to win his vote. Honestly, what's a fella got to do? Look at Rudy , who just this weekend told viewers of Meet the Press that homosexual acts are sinful, per Roman Catholic teaching: MR. RUSSERT: But you don’t believe homosexuality is aberrant... MR. GIULIANI: Oh, no, no, no. MR. RUSSERT: ...unnatural or sinful. MR. GIULIANI: My, my, my -- no, I don’t believe it’s sinful. My, my moral views on this come from the, you know, from the Catholic Church, and I believe that homosexuality, heterosexuality as a, as a way that somebody leads their life is not -- isn’t sinful. It’s the acts, it’s the various acts that people perform that are sinful, not the—not the orientation that they have. MR. RUSSERT: The Congress is discussing and... MR. GIULIANI: Which includes me, by the way. I mean, you know, unfortunately, I’ve...

Discontent abounds among Republicans, according to the latest New York Times/CBS national poll about the presidential campaign. In a page-one story , reporters Adam Nagourney and Megan Thee explain, "Not one of the Republican candidates is viewed favorably by even half the Republican electorate, the poll found." Democrats fare much better among their voters, the pollsters found, with more than half viewing the party's top two contenders -- Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama -- favorably. "Mrs. Clinton is viewed favorably by 68 percent of Democrats," write Nagourney and Thee, "followed by Mr. Obama, viewed favorably by 54 percent. Mr. Edwards is viewed favorably by 36 percent."

Is it your blogstress, or is the G.O.P. on YouTube just not as fun as the Dems? To find out, check out your cybertrix live-blogging at TAPPED .

Portrait of Baby w/Schnoz, Uke and Cleavage photo © 2007 Doris J. Stan Baby Eli rockin' out with your blogstress.

Over at T'ings 'n Times , your blogstress's jazz-loving friend, Abdul, reminds us of a heart-rending disaster in South Asia: a mighty cyclone has taken the lives of 3,000 in Bangladesh, and unless help and supplies begin to arrive en masse , possibly many more. Abdul tells you where to send your dollars if you want to help.

Blogger Andrew Sullivan , the contrarian champion of gay rights, is driving Hillary-hating to new heights with his latest post on the subject: [S]he pretends to be a feminist. She wants to include in her "experience" her attempt to get everybody's healthcare under her beatifically benign control in the early 1990s. But in turn he insists that her failure to achieve anything - because of her reflexive secrecy, paranoia and over-reach -- was actually his fault, not hers. She wants credit for being a feminist, while still running in part on her husband's record -- both claiming credit for the good parts and disowning the bad parts. They will keep playing this game - arguing every which way, passing the buck from one to the other, never accepting responsibility, for as long as it gets them past the latest news cycle...Another term of the two of them could well lead to the same kind of sexual scandals that distracted and near-paralyzed affairs of state in the 1990s. If yo...

You just may be, if you fit into one of these cleverly-devised categories: THE LADY-BOSS-HATER THE SELF-LOATHING WOMAN OF AMBITION THE ELECTABILITY NERD THE HIPPIE BETRAYED THE VAST RIGHT-WING CONSPIRATOR To take the blogstress's test, you must read her piece at The American Prospect Online: Hatin' on Hillary

That's Wiccan for "Halloween," mes amis . And how will your blogstress be spending hers? Well, apparently without phone service and running water. And, yes, the bills, perchance, happen to be paid up. Verizon cannot say what happened in the rainstorm that took out your cybertrix's landline, and the District of Columbia will only say that they absolutely, positively must conduct some vital operation on the water system on Halloween. Sounds like an anti-pagan, Francofilephobic conspiracy to moi . MORE ON SAMHAIN HERE.

Anyone who thinks the Democrats should let through the nomination of Giuliani advisor Michael Mukasey for Attorney General of the United States needs to read this insightful piece from last month's In These Times by your blogstress's buddy, Hans Johnson . Here's a taste: When Senators soon take up the nomination of Michael Mukasey to be attorney general, they have a special obligation to probe him on abuses of power in the Voting Section of the Department of Justice. Hearings for the would-be boss at DOJ must not pass without a proper accounting of how a Bush-appointed gang of dirty-tricksters, acting under a badge of federal authority and alleging voter fraud, has pressured states to spurn their own policies and erase voters from the rolls. Imagine an election board stacked with Nixon’s Plumbers.

Kucinich says he saw U.F.O. Unless you've been living on Mars, you've no doubt heard that, Dennis Kucinich , the peace-mongering congressman from Ohio, confirmed Shirley MacLaine's assertion that he saw a UFO while at her house. And in a post-game interview, former New Mexico Gov. Bill Richardson urged the government to stop holding back the goods on what really happened in his state's eerily famous burg of Roswell.

MSNBC's Chris Matthews is going nuts, trying to frame Hillary Clinton 's support for giving driver's licenses to illegal immigrants as a sinker for her campaign. While it's not likely to be a popular position in a nation populated by a number of demoralized chest-thumpers looking for a scapegoat, it's a courageous one. This really is, as Clinton says, a public safety issue. You get hit by a truck, you want to know who did it. The crazy thing is that she's being attacked for being "confusing" and "not decisive" by her male opponents when, in fact, she was pretty clear on this one. She may not have lept up to say, "Oh yeah, licenses to illegals, I'm big on that," but she didn't deny it, and she did defend it. Where she's more vulnerable, thinks your blogstress, is on her vote for the Senate's war-mongering resolution about Iran. Several of her opponents were quick to point out that the price of oil is climbing hi...

The folks at National Review -- well, Jim Gereghty , to be specfic -- are not amused by one of the NBC moderators using the term "Swift-boating" like it's a bad thing: "[L]et us not ignore that the question from Brian Williams uses 'Swift-boating' as a synonym as an unfair attack," Gereghty writes. The unfair attack about which Williams inquired was the right-wing stage-whisper campaign alleging Obama to have been educated in a jihadi madrassah , and G.O.P. presidential candidate Mitt Romney 's slipping tongue that simply can't help but pronounce "Obama" as "Osama". The Illinois senator handled the question with characteristic grace, saying, "Look, I know I'm not the typical presidential candidate."

When asked if she would, like her husband, support the tax plan unveiled this week by New York Congressman Charles Rangel that would raise taxes on upper crust while giving a break to those in the middle class, Hillary Clinton first said she couldn't endorse the plan because she didn't know all the details, then later said she couldn't endorse the plan because she didn't agree with all the details. Oy.

Too bad alway seems so damn eccentric when he does. About Rudy Giuliani , Joe Biden , the senator from Delaware, said, "He says three things in a sentence: a noun, a verb and 9/11." Called Rudy the "most unqualified under-qualified candidate to run for president since George W. Bush . Earlier in the evening, when moderator Tim Russert challenged the candidates to pledge to keep Iran from acquiring nuclear weapons, Biden rightly contended that saber-rattling at Iran made no sense when Pakistan was about ready to blow. Chris Dodd all but said, "Right on."

When Bill Richardson went after John Edwards for being "holier than thou," he redeemed himself after grandstanding about having gotten two Americans released from Abu Ghraib in the days of Saddam Hussein . Then Dodd jumped on and Kucinich finished the job. Edwards was going after Hillary Clinton for taking money from "Washington lobbyists;" Kucinich reminded the audience that Edwards took money from a "New York hedge fund."

Barack Obama just landed one hard on the senator from New York when he piled on to Tim Russert 's question to HRC about Bill Clinton 's request that the National Archives not release records of his communications with his wife until 2012. Reminding the audience of Clinton's pledge to "turn the page," Obama declared, "that's not turning the page" when once considers the secrecy of the current administration.

She's tougher than Rudy , more experienced than Obama , done more for poor folks than Edwards , and smarter than everybody. That's the subtext of her responses on Social Security and her vote for the Iran resolution. Biden and Dodd are making sense in taking her on about her Iran vote, but her tone and body language trump their pleas. (My TAPPED colleague, Dana Goldstein , is right about Obama ; the offensive stance does not become him.) And though it may be sexist of me to notice, Hillary 's somber suit -- a black pantsuit with brown accessories (including a pocket square) -- look to your blogstress like fightin' duds.

At last weekend's Values Voter summit, James C. Dobson , chairman of Focus on the Family, fretted that, come November, the Democrats could "win the triple crown," which consists of the White House, the House of Representatives and the Senate. That may well be true, but given the Senate's behavior today, it doesn't look as though the right has much to fear from that outcome. In today's New York Times , David Stout writes of the Senate confirmaton of a federal judge who doesn't find the use of racial epithets in the workplace a firing offence, and who apparently thinks that bisexuals should not be permitted to raise their own children: Judge Southwick’s critics have pointed to some of his decisions as a Mississippi state appeals court judge. In one case, he upheld the reinstatement with back pay of a white state employee who had used a racial epithet about another worker; in another, he joined a majority opinion that denied a bisexual mother custody of h...

photo of Rudolph Giuliani from Right Wing Facebook For all you social network Web-heads out there, you won't want to miss this: Rudy Giuliani's Facebook page (well, kinda). Our friends at People For the American Way have put together a spectacular feature, the Right Wing Facebook , where you will find pages for each of the right-wing presidential candidates. Your blogstress's personal favorite is the Rudy page . From his "About Me" description: I want the leaders of the Religious Right to know: I'm pro-family. My family isn't pro- me , but I think that's because I've been spending most of my time over these last few years being America's Mayor...

Just when you thought, mes amis , that your blogstress had forgotten her promise to fill you in on the story of how she came to be in possession, a decade ago, of the double-super-secret-background speech delivered by Paul Weyrich , the paleo-Catholic architect of the religious right, to the super-duper-secret Council for National Policy, in she waltzes from a blitz of writing mind-numbing prose for hire to tell you this little tale. The Council for National Policy (CNP) is a coalition of mostly well-heeled right-wingers -- a majority from the Christo-fascist portion of the winger faction, and the rest from the simply kleptocratic kamp. Because they are Very Important People set on taking over the country, they meet behind doors guarded beefy by men with curlique earpieces. "They really shouldn't be allowed to get away with that," thought your blogstress, who hatched a plan based around her keen sense of fashion and issues with authoritarianism that would allow her to do...

...that kinda stinks. Over at The Nation , Ari Berman is spilling those pungent beans. Check out his enterprise story on how Rudy got rich while helping to pollute the planet. Your blogstress's favorite riff: He needed money and, more important, political connections. Bracewell [a law firm that lobbies on behalf of energy bigs] offered a gateway into the lavish world of Texas Republican fundraising and easy access to the same titans of industry who had helped make the Bush family rich and propelled W. into the White House. The former mayor of one of the bluest cities in the country had just inked a whole lot of red. CLICK HERE TO READ BERMAN ON RUDY'S DIRTY MONEY

Over at The American Prospect Online, your blogstress dares to prognosticate on the strategy currently in play by such religious right leaders as James Dobson of Focus on the family and Tony Perkins of the Family Research Council against Republican presidential front-runner Rudolph Giuliani , the former mayor of New York. Your cybertrix will fill you in with some backstory when next she graces her devotees with an apparation. CLICK HERE TO READ "GIULIANI, GAYS AND VALUES VOTERS"

A critical discussion has been taking place among journalists, mes amis , on the characteristics of Hillary Clinton 's laugh. No merde . This is really what occupies the better part of our massive brain capacity here in Our Nation's Capital. To that end, your blogstress, of course, saw fit to weigh in, this time for the British paper, The Guardian. (Now these are people who recognize absurdity when they hear it.) Do check it out, s'il vous plaît : I Am Woman, Hear Me Laugh

Today your blogstress owns up to her longing for Newt Gingrich as the GOP nominee for president. What fun! What dish! What dinosaurs! Here's the essay , over at The American Prospect Online.

You blogstress is running about a day behind, having lost yesterday to the oral surgeon and synthetic opiates (legitimate prescription, of course!). Among the things on which your cybertrix is catching up is the Emmy Awards program that saw Sally Field censored for daring to say that mothers do not like war. If a man made a similar statement, would he have suffered a similar fate? At WIMN, Jenn Pozner serves up the good and the bad news emanating from the Emmys -- and, yes, there was good news. Check out Jenn's post here . Too bad Fox actually lost viewers with this year's Emmys program. One program that may draw viewers to Fox, however, is K-ville , the new cop/buddy show set in post-Katrina New Orleans. There are issues, to be sure, with the show's anti-hero cliches , but it also touches on some very real stuff about race, class and the use of mercenaries to "keep order" in the city on which Bush turned his back. If nothing else, if K-ville succeeds, it ...

"Our troops are stuck between a president without a plan to succeed and a Congress without the courage to bring them home." --John Edwards Good line from the 2-minute message paid for by the John Edwards presidential campaign. Not sure how I feel about the likes of Edwards -- who, while in the Senate, voted authorize a presidential option to invade Iraq -- chiding his former colleagues in the Senate for lack of courage on the war. Oh, sure, he's since said he made "a mistake" -- something Hillary Clinton still won't concede about her same vote -- but that's easy to say after the fact, after you've left the body.

"Anbar is a good example of how our strategy is working." --George W. Bush, Sept. 13, 2007 Blast kills top sheik working with U.S. in Iraq Roadside bomb slays leader who cooperated in fight against al-Qaida President George W. Bush greets local leaders of Al Anbar Province before their meeting at Al Asad Airbase, Al Anbar Province, Iraq, Monday, September 3, 2007. White House photo by Eric Draper BAGHDAD (AP) - The most prominent figure in a U.S.-backed revolt of Sunni sheiks against al-Qaida in Iraq was killed Thursday by a bomb planted near his home in Anbar province, 10 days after he met with President Bush, police and tribal leaders said. Abdul-Sattar Abu Risha was leader of the Anbar Salvation Council, also known as the Anbar Awakening — an alliance of clans backing the Iraqi government and U.S. forces. Officials said his assassination would be a huge setback for U.S. efforts in Iraq, because it sends a message to others who are cooperating with coalition forces or thi...

...doesn't mean they're not lying. Earlier this week, National Intelligence Director Michael McConnell asserted that the new, extra-Constitutional powers given the administration last month by Congress (with the help of 57 negligent or craven Democrats) to spy on Americans actually helped to foil the terrorism plot uncovered in Germany. Here are Newsweek 's Michael Isikoff and Mark Hosenball : On Monday, McConnell—-questioned by Sen. Joe Lieberman—claimed the law, intended to remedy what the White House said was an intelligence gap, had helped to "facilitate" the arrest of three suspects believed to be planning massive car bombings against American targets in Germany. Other U.S. intelligence-community officials questioned the accuracy of McConnell's testimony and urged his office to correct it. Four intelligence-community officials, who asked for anonymity discussing sensitive material, said the new law, dubbed the "Protect America Act," played l...

A colleague on a ListServ in which I participate has pointed out the oddness of the bin Laden video's many minutes of a frozen frame. It just happens to be the many minutes in which "bin Laden" goes on about current events and offers reading suggestions to the American people. You know, I was always a bit suspicious. The recommendation that we, citizens of the Great Citizen, would find redemption in the writings of Noam Chomsky always struck your ecrivaine as odd. Libertarian socialism and anarcho-syndicalism don't seem to make a good match-up with radical islam. (Can't imagine there's a lot of Chomsky on the reading lists at the local madrassah .) Check out the bin Laden video and accompanying critique on Booman Tribune.

Today's anniversary of the 2001 attacks on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon has a particularly eerie feel to it, perhaps because in 2007, six years later, the anniversary falls for the first time on the same day of the week on which the attacks occurred. It was a Tuesday, and a gloriously beautiful one, at that. At least today in Washington, D.C., we are spared that similarity. The skies are grey and the air quite sticky. The fall-out from the attacks continues to plague U.S. foreign policy, and on that end, your blogstress has a piece scheduled to run today at The American Prospect Online that examines current Pakistani politics in light of that nation's post-9/11 relationship with the world's only superpower.

You may have heard, mes amis , that non-gay Sen. Larry Craig (R-Idaho) yesterday petitioned the Minnesota court "to let him take back the guilty plea he made after his arrest in a men's room sex sting, saying he is innocent but panicked under intense anxiety," according to Reuters . Our friend, the Internationalist -- not a chap ordinarily prone to the evils of partisanship -- offers this in response to Sen. Craig's wide-stance panic: The Republican Truth Deficit should give the sub-prime market a run for its money...The Republicans seem to have trouble telling the truth these days, even as they are resigning... I would think that the pressure to adhere to public expectations (or White House desires) would be off when an official decides to quit. But the truth is taking a hit even as the Republicans are quitting. Senator Craig lies to compound his lies. I'm no attorney, but isn't knowingly filing a false plea perjury? Then when "outed" and pumm...

In case you missed it, there's been a debate bubbling up -- and one bound to bubble over -- about whether or not Sen. Larry Craig was the victim of entrapment by the Finest of Minneapolis when he was arrested there in a men's room after allegedly having signaled his desire to have sex with an undercover police officer. First to pose that question -- and bravely so, considering his credentials as a bona fide liberal -- was Matthew Yglesias , who, noting the foot-tapping, do-you-wanna-do-it signal Craig copped to making, wrote on his eponymous blog at The Atlantic: Now, common sense indicates that the officer in question is correct and Craig's foot-tapping was a cruising signal, but surely tapping one's foot isn't a crime in Minnesota. Whatever Craig intended to do here, he doesn't seem, in fact, to have done anything lewd. Last Sunday, in the New York Times 's Week in Review section, writer Laura M. MacDonald weighed in with a similar sentiment: WHAT i...

I know the anniversary of the storm's landfall has passed, but that doesn't mean your blogstress intends to forget about the lives ruined by the government's failure to protect and care for the million-plus people whose lives have been upended by Hurricane Katrina, the storm that devestated the Gulf Coast two years ago. Your ecrivaine had hoped to be in New Orleans for this year's anniversary, as she had for last year's but, alas, other work got in the way of her getting that far south. On a joyful note, your Webwench did enjoy hearing, once again, the sound of New Orleans jazz as played by the Treme Brass Band (pronounced "tre-MAY"), only this time in Arlington, Virginia, as part of the wonderful "Planet Arlington" concert headlined by South African trumpeter and singer Hugh Masekela . The last time your net-tete heard the Treme players was during the jazz funeral in New Orleans last year that marked the one-year anniversary of the storm. T...

The American Prospect Online today offers a look at an arresting Web comic on the Hurricane Katrina disaster.

Have you been tossing and turning at night, wondering the reason for the death of the portly religious-right front man, the Rev. Jerry Falwell , from cardiac arrest at the tender age of 73, or of former Southern Baptist Convention President Adrian Rogers , who died of colon cancer at the virtually adolescent age of 74? And what about the revelation of yet another anti-gay darling of the Republican religious set having been revealed as a practitioner of homosexual-like tendencies? [Sen. Larry Craig denies that he is gay, despite having fluttered his hankie at an undercover cop in the stall next to his in a men's room in Minnesota.] Well, Pastor Rick Scarborough has the answer, according to Right-Wing Watch , a blog of People for the American Way: In Isaiah 3, God pronounces nine things that happen to a nation that turns its back on God. Included in the list are such things as rampant homosexuality, (Is. 3:9); apathy among the citizenry, (vs. 6-7); crime (v.5); and immature leader...

American Prospect writing fellow Dana Goldstein has a fascinating post up at her personal blog on how Anne Rice -- she of Interview With a Vampire fame -- has endorsed Hillary Clinton , even though Rice herself has converted to Catholicism and become ardently anti-abortion. Figures that the purveyor of tales of the undead should become the defender of the unborn.

...dammit! Fredo footsoldiered its undoing; now it's time for Congress to seize back its constitutional powers from the executive branch -- by whatever means necessary. Your blogstress offers a prescription at The American Prospect Online. And while you're there, check out TAPPED to learn about the Fredo-Sanjaya connection .

White House photo by Chris Greenberg President George W. Bush and Mrs. Laura Bush sit with U.S. Attorney General Alberto Gonzales and his wife, Rebecca, during a visit Sunday, Aug. 26, 2007, at the Bush ranch in Crawford, Texas. Well, you can't say it's been a boring summer here in Our Nation's Capital, mes amis . New York may be empty while tout le monde vacays in the Hamptons, and the population of D.C. maybe reduced to the people who actually live here, but the White House keeps churnin' out the hits: the Libby pardon, the Rove resignation and, now, Fredo 's farewell. Over at his dashing, redesigned blog, the Media Consortium's Brian Beutler examines the irrelevance of the label "Washington insider" when assessing a bureaucrat's virtues. Alberto Gonzales , of course, was a Washington outsider, but too much of a parent-pleasing, White House insider to do his job properly. Your blogstress, however, cautions her devotees not to fall for ye...

Is it just your blogstress, or is anybody else sensing a big-ass shoe about to drop? On today's resignation of Attorney General Alberto Gonzales, the New York Times has an early piece, posted here at MSNBC.

With Congress slated to return next week to the big, white building down the block from your blogstress's Oppo Factory, your cybertrix endeavors to suppress the the hope that Sen. Patrick Leahy of Vermont will actually make good on his to charge the president with contempt of Congress for his failure to comply with a Senate subpoena for documents related to the illegal NSA wiretapping program that Congress so cravenly passed earlier this month. The need for hope-suppression stems from the numerous disappointments your Webwench has suffered, longing for indignant Democrats to do more than express indignation at the flouting of the Constitution by the autocrats that inhabit the executive branch. But blogstress, they plead; we haven't the votes to save the Constitution! Saving the Constitution would divide the republic! (Note to Dems: absent a working Constitution, there is no republic.) Here's a suggestion from one Harvey Silverglate , who represented Mike Gravel , the...

You may recall that your blogstress has a veritable herd of brothers, several of whom have appeared on this site under assumed names. Your Webwench can't possibly understand why they would wish to obscure their blood connection to your cybertrix. Be that as it may, one bold soul, Timothy C. Stan , steps into the light to discuss the phenomenon of soundtrack music for the retail environment. The topic came up because of our common fondness for Talking Heads, and my horrified elation at finding myself serenaded, while shopping for canned goods (to have on hand in the event of an al Qaeda attack on Capitol Hill) at the local Giant Superstore, by David Byrne singing "Burning Down the House." Whatever happened to the Montivani Orchestra? The elation was short-lived: David Byrne was next replaced by Reba McEntyre , who sang, "The Angel in Your Arms This Morning (Is Gonna Be the Devil in Someone Else's Arms Tonight)". Tim, who has done serious career time in th...

Wonderful lede graf in today's Washington Post story by Peter Baker on the Bush administration's newly revealed manual for how to deal with protesters at presidential appearances: Not that they're worried or anything. But the White House evidently leaves little to chance when it comes to protests within eyesight of the president. As in, it doesn't want any. While your blogstress concedes that even before the hole in the ozone layer permitted the blogosphere to hover closer to earth, newswriting had become more colloquial and casual in tone, there are syntactical qualities here that tend to be more peculiar to bloggers. As in, people who blog. Oh, and the piece is a must-read. Not that I'm paranoid or anything.

Last week, he promised to go all elusive on us and everything, inviting us to call him Moby (although the whale's last name may prove a more apt moniker), today, your average Sunday-morning couch potato just couldn't get away from Karl Rove , even if she wanted to. (Click here to read, at The American Prospect Online, your Webwench's morning-after piece about Rove and the rightie who may have done him in.) There he was on "Meet the Press" telling David Gregory that he didn't have to testify before Congress because the nation's founders granted him executive privilege -- apparently through some sort of special dispensation: KARL ROVE: We have a constitutional separation of powers. The founders talk about this. They, they understood this issue, and they wanted to insulate the judicial, the executive and the legislative from each other in this respect. So, the founders are apparently talking to Karl Rove telling him that "separation of powers...

From a reader who simply calls himself "the man," comes this photo statement, which is one among many on the same visual theme that devotees can find at the Web site, Made You Think . Better yet, you can participate in the documentation of the turdification of the national discourse, mes amis . Write into the man, and he will send you little flags designed for adorning the scat of your choice. A sort of organic take on the Flat Stanley craze of some years ago. Your blogstress, being a paradoxical creature of both refined tastes and low humor, is quite charmed by the man's project. Though, by her lights, not even Flat Stanley can equal the titillation of Ukulele Boogaloo's fabukelous Ukulele World project, a sort of uke-porn meets travelogue thing.

At Pottersville , they're offering the "Top Ten Likeliest Items Left in Karl Rove's Desk Drawers," only three of which can we print on this dysfunctional-family-friendly blog: 10) Letter opener still caked with human brain matter. 9) 14 pages of emails from Mel Martinez at the RNC filled with jokes about Jerry Falwell’s death. 8) Expired contract with Satan with loopholes circled in red ink. Of course, we can't stop you from driving through Pottersville .

From the New York Times obituary by Peter Keepnews : Max Roach, a founder of modern jazz who rewrote the rules of drumming in the 1940’s and spent the rest of his career breaking musical barriers and defying listeners’ expectations, died early today in Manhattan. He was 83. [...] Mr. Roach was an innovator in other ways. In the late 1950s, he led a group that was among the first in jazz to regularly perform pieces in waltz time and other unusual meters in addition to the conventional 4/4. In the early 1960s, he was among the first to use jazz to address racial and political issues, with works like the album-length “We Insist! Freedom Now Suite.” The "Freedom Now Suite" was a collaboration with, among others, his first wife, Abbey Lincoln, who has an extraordinary new record out. It's called "Abbey Sings Abbey," and it features fresh recordings of pieces penned by Lincoln herself. The instrumentation is acoustic, with a gypsy feel.

It would be one thing if this nasty, racist old man took his show over to satellite radio, where people have to pay to hear his crap, but to have him return to public airwaves -- a public trust, owned by toi et moi , is truly a slap in the face to women and Americans of African descent. At 12:30, Jennifer Pozner of Women in Media and News will appear on the Fox News Channel to argue against any deal that would return Imus to the airwaves. And check out Maretta J. Short , president of the New Jersey chapter of the National Organization for Women (NOW), who has been on the front lines of the Imus wars since the multimillionaire bully tried to demean the accomplishments of the women's basketball team at Rutgers , the state university of New Jersey. CLICK HERE TO HEAR MARETTA SHORT TAKE DOWN IMUS

Here's a snip from an interview Karl Rove gave to the McClatchy newspapers: Rove also expects congressional Democrats to continue efforts to get him to testify in an inquiry into the firings of eight U.S. attorneys. "They're going to keep coming after me," Rove told McClatchy. "They've got a bunch of guys auditioning for the role of Captain Ahab, and I'm Moby Dick." Well, he is big and white.

He'll be too busy collecting oodles of dough for a book advance and corporate governance deals -- not to mention answering the calls speed-dialed from the Oval Office. From our long lost correspondent, The Internationalist , your blogstress received this fit of pique: Damn, if I have to hear more about the "genius" of Karl Rove, I am going to hack up a fur ball. The tale of how he saw the potential in the blue-jean-wearing "W" who came to meet him at Union Station -- the "glow" Karl saw was probably W's Jack & coke buzz. I would go on about Rove having "the math," but it just gives me a headache, reminding me of trying to find the square root for imaginary numbers. Watch out for fuzzy projectiles, mes amis .

Few are the pundits who find any virtue in the evolving 2008 schedule for the primaries and caucuses by which the presidential candidates of the two major political parties are chosen. Things were bad enough when, only recently, February 5, 2008, was dubbed "Tsunami Tuesday" or "Super Duper Tuesday," thanks to the scheduling of primaries by nearly all the powerhouse states on that day. Well, maybe not all. Today comes word from the great State of South Carolina that it will move its Republican primary up to January 19, which will likely to push Iowa to conduct its caucuses sometime around Christmas. The most eloquent explanation of this extreme climate change (written before these latest developments) that you will ever read, mes amis , is this April piece, " Pileup ," by The New Yorker 's Hendrik Hertzberg . After noting that the "Pileup" plan, however horrid, was born of a laudable impulse--that of wanting the contest in one's home...