Yes.

And the ones who weren't hired because they're easily intimidated are Republicans.

Olbermann ran a segment on the robocalls tonight. Not surprisingly, he's been the only one willing to address the harassing and misleading nature of the calls.

I wrote Williams off long ago, when he not only appeared on the antifeminist Christian Right radio show run by Concerned Women For America, but actually recorded a personal endorsement for the show to use. With liberals like that, who needs right wingers?

Juan Williams is a right-winger. He supported the Clarence Thomas nomination, back in the day, and his recent book is total right-wing stuff. He constantly echoes GOP Talking Points on Fox and shivs the Dems.

Fox just pretends that he is moderate b/c he used to be on NPR (to NPR's discredit). He and Mara should be permanently banned after moving over to Fox, with they live in constant fear of offending their corporate overlords, and it shows from the look of strain you see whenever they appear on the air.

Without question it has come to precisely this point. If anyone has a different hypothesis, I would like to hear it--with evidence, please.

Diane *Rehm*
Yochi *Dreazen*

Express facts?

The missionaries were convinced they were doing God's work, but they were actually the frontmen for the commericial expansion of the European mercantile powers. Same with these "journalists" whose exquisite self-censorship is simply priming the populace to accept the inevitable policies of absolute corporate control.

I think the fear of being accused of liberal bias after a couple of decades of bullying from the right has just become instinct now...

I've got a feeling that the left is going to take the lesson from this that the only way we're going to win is to play dirty too...2008 is only going to get uglier...

I think the words "deceptive robocalls" are not being used enough. God knows, a robocall clearly from republicans saying Democrats eat babies is bad enough. But I think it's a completely different level, when they falsely or deceptively imply that they are Democrats as they abuse those who receive the calls. The deceptive impersonatoin as Democrats is what we should be complaining about, along with other such deceptions. Got it!

It's really like the SEC rules against fraudulent and deceptive practices.

from Armstrong Williams: "there are others"

People like Mara and Juan Williams are giving NPR a bad name. Other shows like This American Life are outshining them. There was an excellent segment on the Iraq civilian war dead study that actually explained the methods and pondered the issue.

I'm in the camp that wrote off Juan Williams long ago. He's still a senior analyst for NPR and in an interview with Dick Cheney dated 1/22/04, he let Cheney run on about WMD with no foolow up.So many listeners wrote to complain that another reporter followed up the interview the next day. Listen at http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=1610113
Williams is a tool for pure propaganda.

Thank you for this post. When I heard Juan Williams today, I started spitting nails!

Juan Williams is a partisan SOB. He also personally cratered NPR and its previous reputation for objectivity during the 2004 election--he was the first concern troll I heard on the national media pretending to be sympathetic to Democratic causes when parroting GOP talking points. I hope he rots in Hell.

I'm the "Jeff" in that NPR piece. I was yelling at my computer while the conversation was occurring (i was listening online). I really question the utility of journalists appearing on TV/radio for these types of "roundup" shows. Why is it that we think journalists are founts of knowledge about all things in politics, let alone society? One of the reasons why journalists are held in such low regard these days is, I think, precisely because they hold themselves out to be expert commentators on an infinite array of topics. It was clear to me that Juan Williams didn't know diddly about the robo call story and was falling back on his Faux News predisposition in commenting in banal fashion on the topic. Frustrating.

Williams was a joke when he hosted Talk of the Nation, and he's done nothing but get worse since then.

Yes, yes, yes, Republicans are bad, they'll resort to skullduggery to win, they'll even break campaign laws , and the press will soft-pedal it, and lefty folks will send up cries of foul, as well they should.

The point is this: What's being done to combat it? And complaining after election day doesn't count. Where are OUR phonebank flooders, phony robocallers, push pollers, and whispering campaigners? Or are they so effective that we don't know they're there? Where are the legions of lefty geeks eager to hack machines and steal the votes back? Where are the stealth squads flattening Republican tires on election eve to slow them down as they drive their sheep to the polls?

You don't fight this stuff by complaining or passing laws. You fight it by doing it better. New Age Dems could stand to tear a page from the books of people WHO USED TO WIN ELECTIONS: Daley, Curley, Kennedy (Joseph P., that is), and LBJ.

The point is this: you don't want to be the guys complaining about the other side's tactics on the day after the election. You want THEM complaining about YOURS.

Come on, with Keith Urban in rehab and the Desperate Housewives bimbo losing her nude photos, the stealing of democracy is just not that big of a story to the average American. [weeping quietly]

The rhetoric from Long Tom confirms my fears...if the high minded pundits and talking heads cannot truly be impartial (calling a spade a spade), the left is going to come under pressure to become Nixonian as well.

I think that the dems needed to put this issue front and center all over the media today...the small trickle of news stories is not enough...we need the equivalent of the Carville-Begala type war room that strikes back on this stuff immediately. The cease and desist letter from the DCC C(see TPM) should have been in the first news cycle this morning not the last...

Two LATimes reporters (Tom Hamburger and Peter Wallsten) were on WNYC, New York City's public radio station, this morning, and a caller brought up the annoyance POTV (Piss Off The Voters) robo calls. One of the reporters actually sounded knowledgeable about the practice, but closed with a comment that Dems do dirty tricks too. No evidence. The MCMers don't even need to have something bad which Dems did--they just say it's so! Must balance any criticism of Rethugs!

You can listen at the link below. The host intros a caller's question about robo calls at 31:17 under Monday Morning Politics. We can't make these things up. It's become an epidemic in the MCM.

http://www.wnyc.org/shows/bl/episodes/2006/11/06

Until the whores can find a Democratic example for 'balance', it's not a story. It can't be a story, because they won't dare make it a story this close to polling day. The GOP could be setting off IEDs in Democrat-strong areas and no-one would cover it, unless there was a Democrat flyer with a typo they could cite for balance.

The GOP knows that. That's why it timed the torrent of robocalls for the weekend, in the 72-hour window. And if the results suggest it worked, we'll be seeing an unreported (but identified) coup. And I don't think that term is too strong.

Interestingly enough, Juan Williams' son is running for local public office in DC as a Republican. Even the Republicans in DC run as Democrats.

Two LATimes reporters were on WNYC, New York City's public radio station, this morning, and a caller brought up the annoyance POTV (Piss Off The Voters) robo calls. One of the reporters actually sounded knowledgeable about the practice, but closed with a comment that Dems do dirty tricks too. No evidence. The MCMers don't even need to have something bad which Dems did--they just say it's so! Must balance any criticism of Rethugs!

You can listen at the link below. The host intros a caller's question about robo calls at 31:17--We can't make these things up.

http://www.wnyc.org/shows/bl/episodes/2006/11/06

Williams is a rightie all the way.

It seems reporting--perhaps because so many reporters now go on TV and radio as pundits, not just reporters of fact--has become politicized.

Read those answers given to Diane Rehm again, listen to the LATimes guy on WNYC--they answer almost exactly the way polticians would, those pols who don't want their words to be used against them at some future point.

If reporters treat facts the way politicians do, we are well and truly without a defense against demagoguery, weaseling, lying, spinning.... Not a good way to run a democratic republic.

Wow.

Juan Williams is an ass and a toady.

It's not a story until it's on Drudge or Limbaugh or blastfaxed from the RNC--haven't you guys been following ABC's Halperin and that Wash Post guy and Brian Williams and...?

It's disgusting.

JW used to be OK, but all of a sudden this year I've been shocked at his sudden and constant conservative bias. Don't know where that came from, but a few minutes listen to his pieces seems to show it now.

Juan Williams is dumb as a bag of rocks.

Long Tom is a troll.

I think the words "deceptive robocalls" are not being used enough.

The term I use is "false-flag robocalls", as they're being done under a false "flag" or identity. (In the days of sail, pirate and other ships would carry different national flags aboard to assume when convenient -- in the pirate ship's case, it was usually to pretend to be a friend to the ship they were about to attack.)

Paul, it has gotten to that point. It's gotten so bad that if a fact comes out that seems to support one side or the other, "objective" journalists are afraid to report it. These are the ones who are trying to appear oh-so-objective. And yet, any truly objective observer can see that they're not reporting the objective facts.

Sadly, I think it's gotten to the point where nothing will stop these vote-suppression tactics until a few of these operatives are physically assaulted. Is it going to take killing a couple of them pour encourager les autres?

How sad that I even have to think this might be necessary.

Does anyone think that FOX would have Juan on if he was real liberal with a spine? No, he eats their turds every sunday and smiles while he does it. At least he is better than the spineless Maria Liason or whatever her name is. geez.

This is station where Hannity hand picked Colmes to be his punching bag.

o'reilly's latest is that since his approved study said there were more negative stories about republics than dems the last year then the media is biased.

get that? You have day in and day out republicans getting caught selling out the country, screwing some kids or Iraq continuing its slide to hell...all reality, but they should mix in some good stuff for BO.

Wanna know why Fox viewers think Al Quada and Saddam were tied together?

Watch this.

This nation is being taken to a very very dark place by conservtiaves and Henry Waxman with gavel will not be enough to change that.

No, I don't think Long Tom is a troll. I think he's expressing what a lot of us (I, for one) sometimes wonder -- whether the naive, idealist approach to power politics can really work. It would be great to pull out the stops and start using all the tricks the Republicans do. However, we'd soon have lost sight of what we were trying to accomplish, since we would have become the enemy we're trying to vanquish. It starts with robocalls, and pretty soon we're redistricting and starting wars for political gain. If that's the price of power, I guess it's not worth it.

On Diane Rehm's weekly domestic news roundup segment last Friday, her 3 guest correspondents spent a bunch of their time discussing the Kerry joke flub, concluding he should have apologized earlier than he did. Soon thereafter, a caller asked why so little attention had been paid to the appropriateness of a sitting president making a telephone appearance on Limbaugh's show just days after Rush repeatedly mocked a Parkinson's sufferer. The correspondent who fielded the question responded that it was not the Press's responsibility to call attention to that sort of thing. Diane gave the other correspondents a chance to comment; one stayed mum and the other said she agreed. One could not ask for a clearer admission that the Press sees its responsibility as carrying water for the Republican propaganda machine.

You know, if you all are seriously considering jumping on in to the dirty tricks game, you might not want to chat about it here.

I think it's worth adding that the Republican Power structure is implicated at every step of the process. The group paying for the calls is the chief national republican campaign committee. And the three different groups making the calls are pillars of the national republican and conservative power structure. Here's one case in point for one of the three groups, Direct Strategies:

http://stlinquirer.blogspot.com/2006/11/making-headway-on-direct-strategies.html

fbb wrote, ...whether the naive, idealist approach to power politics can really work. It would be great to pull out the stops and start using all the tricks the Republicans do. However, we'd soon have lost sight of what we were trying to accomplish, since we would have become the enemy we're trying to vanquish.

Note that this is pretty fundamental: it's related to the "iterated Prisoner's Dilemma," which some evolutionary biologists think is a plausible mechanism for non-kin altruism in the few species it exists in (humans, one type of bat, etc).

Thing is, what's a simple strategy that does very well in iterated Prisoner's Dilemmas? Tit-for-tat.

The only arguments against tit-for-tat in this situation are:
(1) Strategic: your claim that it will erode our principles.
(2) Tactical: that the Rethuglican methods used actually hurt more than help, even from a Machiavellian point of view.

I'm not entirely convinced of (1). (2) seems false, at least if the tactics are chosen properly.

And even if we don't truly respond tit-for-tat, we could at least punch back---that is, if they punch below the belt, we could at least punch back, if not below the belt. Which IMHO we're not doing.

Boonie calls me a troll, and fbb says that "pull[ing] out all the stops" would be "great" but that then we'd soon have "lost sight of all we were trying to accomplish."

This us bull. We're trying to accomplish universal health care, reversing global warming, energy independence, a more economically and socially progessive society, etc. This isn't an electoral parlor game, it's a quest for power in the mightiest state on earth, and it "may not be worth it" to fbb, but maybe he should ask the 600,000 dead Iraqis or the millions of uninsured, underemployed struggling families here if it might be worth it.

The fact is, these sorts of electoral monkeyshines have ALWAYS been part of the process. Kennedy was elected president because of votes fabricated and/or stolen in Chicago, and the only reason Nixon didn't puclicly protest is because he did the same thing in Philadelphia. Did this mean Kennedy "became the enemy?" No. But, when one side stops working such dirty tricks, it throws the system out of whack. Our democracy has worked in the past not because the system was perfect, but because the assaults on its perfection more or less balanced out. For the Dems to withdraw from these tactics unilaterally is not just naive, it's irresponsible. Unless the Dems just want to be a ridiculous, bleating gaggle of patsies that exists only for the Rulers to beat up on, they better learn HOW TO TAKE POWER.

FBB and others like-minded should ask themselves this: "Would I have voted twice to prevent Bush from taking office? To prevent the Iraq War, the assault on social security, the erosion of disestablishment, the attempted entenchment of a fascist state?" Personally, I'd rather vote twice now and break the rules than have my children or grandchildren have to fight them in the streets.

So no more more complaining. Let's see the Dems DO SOMETHING ABOUT IT!

Well, I've gotta say, though I share Long Tom's frustration (and certainly don't think he's a troll) -- I also profoundly disagree with him regarding dirty tricks. Should we fight back? Absolutely. Should we be aggressive? No doubt. Should we false-flag robocall?

No way.

If we did, imagine the journalism. Everybody's complaining about the "Dems do it, too" meme in the MSM -- which is demonstrably false. If we *validate* this meme, all we do is create wide-bore cynicism which depresses turnout. The more turnout deppressed, the more Republicans win. Forget the morality of it for a minute -- it would be a strategic mistake.

Consider something else. The 72 Hour Project is based on voter contact. There is a limit how much people can take being solicited by strangers regarding politics. The GOP can move in their big guns and blast away at the end of an election cycle -- but how many of their voters are they going to alienate with excessive contacts? "I damn TOLD you I was gunna vote already!"

Republicans always believe more is better. More money, more advertisements, more phone calls. Being pure instrumentalists (as opposed to Democratic holists who take context into account), they tend to discount limiting effects and unintended consequences. Think of Iraq.

It may well be that this discussion is less relevant tomorrow as the GOP confronts a depressed base turnout that their own overzealousness helped to create. When the environment is bad for your candidate and you have to run on inflated bogeymen, you have to create and share a delusional psychological universe with your targeted voters. It's very easy to pop that bubble with an improper lack of deference to the sucker whose ass you're trying to kiss to get out to vote.

Think of Mehlman's microtargeting lists. Who are the sorts of voters who he believes will swing the election? Hardcore base voters? Nope -- those people would vote for Bush if he began rounding up Jews and Gypsies. He's scraping the barrel for marginal voters. Single-issue voters. I've done a lot of professional canvassing in my time and I know the sorts of people. They're not all stupid -- but every last one of them is inordinately angry, and prone to extreme levels of cynicism. They're outrage groupies. The won't vote most of the time -- but if they see a clip of the San Fran mayor marrying gays, they'll damn well make it out there to vote on a referendum to defend the cornerstone of our civilization.

But otherwise, they take an extremely dim view of politics and politicians. Mehlman managed to ooch these people into the polling booth by cultivating a relationship with them through year-round mailings based on their issues. He *makes them feel important*, a critical part of the process. This are, remember, marketing techniques developed to sell soap. It's a very easy relationship to damage.

If these people start feeling *used*. If they're no longer "valued customers" of the GOP, but rather so much cannon fodder -- they'll become infuriated. And the easiest way to do that is to obsessively overcontact them to the point where they feel harrassed..

Though it make take a few weeks to write, this is going to be the story after the Dems take the House today, mark my words.

Bob

Rmck1's detailed response is riveting, but the larger question is not "should Dems do fake robo-calling," but should the Dems get the lead out of their overly-ethical asses and start to win some elections?

The fact that media inevitably turn Repub dirty tricks stories into "they both do it" stories is ALL THE MORE reason to take the gloves off. If you're going to be blamed for cheating anyway, you might as well cheat and get the benefit of it. As to whether the fake robocalling is effective, Rmck1's argument is obscure. He says fake robocalling is ineffective, then says repeated calls are annoying and disaffecting, apparently confusing real robocalling with the fake, purposely annoying calls from pseudo-Democratic campaigns.

And my frustration is not so much with Republican dirty tricks, as with the Dems' failure to counteract them. As a result, we now have dirty tricks enshrined into law, as with the identity requirements in Arizona that essentially disenfranchise tens of thousands of students.

This is just part of a larger issue. The REASON media handle the Repubs with kid gloves is because they fear them. Until the Democrats re-learn the art of political vengeance (a la LBJ) and learn to instill fear into the corporate heart, they'll be on the short end of the media stick.

LongTom, you can disregard this flatulent boob named rmck1--I regularly skin him alive and leave him screaming and confused on the main political animal blog--if you're in dire need of a chuckle, go read some of the archives. It's a wonder to me that the man has not stabbed himself in the arms in order to stop himself from trying to engage me in any kind of a debate.

You said:

The REASON media handle the Repubs with kid gloves is because they fear them. Until the Democrats re-learn the art of political vengeance (a la LBJ) and learn to instill fear into the corporate heart, they'll be on the short end of the media stick.

I totally disagree with your thesis. The reason the media fears the Republican Party is that we, as Republicans, can have them thrown in a distant jail without recourse and shove a cattle prod up their nether regions.

I ask you--when was the last time anyone saw Sam Donaldson? Where do you think that pontificating hack is right now? He's chained to a stone wall in an old castle in southern Romania, having ice water from the tube of a beer bong injected straight into his lungs.

And rmck1 wonders when it will all end. I don't know. Maybe when his Angel Dust kicks in and the police have to take him out with a shotgun that fires beanbags.

Long Tom:

Once again I disagree with you, at least in the realm of voter contact. My point there is that there's a limit to its effectivenes, but positive and negative. If you'd like an instrumental rather than a moral reason the Dems shouldn't use false-flagged robocalling, is that there's a backlash effect. Even though most people hang up before they get to the RNCC disclaimer, it's pretty apparent that it's a negative attack on the candidate in question. Some people might be fooled into thinking they're informational calls *on behalf* of that that candidate -- but I think the message is getting out that they're Republican attacks.

Now -- if Dems did this to GOP supporters, there'd be a similar backlash effect. All the backlash effect is going to do is make people vote *against* the side that did the calling. And this might be part of why journalists seem unwilling to address the issue; it's clearly a last-minute desperation move with a backlash potential that most likely will make it a wash for the GOP and maybe even help Dems.

My larger point was different; it was about the inherent limitations of voter contact. This cycle, we've seen the 72 Hour Project become mythologized. I think it'd been blown into something greater than it is. One reason is that when we were vastly leading a month ago, our national environment numbers were so good that journalists felt they had to throw the GOP a bone by writing about the mystique of Rove, Mehlman and their vaunted turnout machine.

My point is that you can push voter contact too hard. People don't like being bugged by salesman (and political campaigners are salesmen), especially in their own homes. They'll take some of it and in measured doses, it's highly effective. But the Republican Achilles heel is that they never know when to leave well enough alone. They bought all this damn calling infrastructure, they paid good corporate money to develop these lists -- now let's use 'em, goddamn it.

And it may very well be because they're Republicans, they think shock and awe can win the election. Well -- shock and awe hardly caused the Iraqis to greet us with flowers and sweets.

This may well turn out to be yet another case of Republican corporate-mentality overreach.

Bob

Norman:

You're not doing the case you're not a parody designed to give Dems a good mordant chuckle by writing posts like that, old bean :)

Bob

Correction:

You're not doing the case you're not a parody designed to give the Dems a good mordant chuckle any good by writing posts like that, old bean :)

Bob

I read, or heard, someone say Juan Williams suffers apparently from "journalistic Stockholm syndrome." He'll start an interview with pointed questions and by the end of the piece he's wholly in agreement with whoever the interviewee is.
I'd noticed something like that listening to him on NPR and couldn't put my finger on it then. But it's true.

"Williams--who's supposed to be a liberal pundit or at least plays one on TV--"

No. Juan Williams is not a liberal pundit. He sold his soul to Fox News. He's the black face on the Bush Administration's propaganda machine.

You're not doing the case you're not a parody designed to give Dems a good mordant chuckle by writing posts like that, old bean :)

You're not doing the case you're not a parody designed to give the Dems a good mordant chuckle any good by writing posts like that, old bean :)

Excellent. The Angel Dust is kicking in. Remember to take off your clothes and run screaming into traffic with a butcher knife and a steaming hot fistful of your own waste. Make sure the cars hit you squarely. Don't concern yourself with the ones who slam on their brakes--fling yourself off of a bridge if need be.

And please tell us all about John Kerry and his savaging of the Screaming Dean campaign. Oh, pretty please?

Because they cannot think for themselves, Williams and Tumult need access to the White House and to Sally Quinn's circle. To be actually truthful about the one-sided Republican vote suppression would lose them status with the above. They must be seen as even-handed, in spite of any facts they observe.

Juan Williams is one of "The Washington Generals". That's the team the Harlem Globetrotters used to play and beat every time. It is his job to be a liberal who loses arguments to conservatives. That is what he is paid to do. He is not paid to provide unbiased journalism, and is certainly not paid to advance a liberal viewpoint. He may have been a genuine journalist at one point - it is a great bonus in his new job. He is paid to maintain a liberal facade, while advancing the conservative agenda.

Norman:

Nor that one, either :)

Bob

rmck1,

Make sure you take enough Angel Dust to knock out a horse, okay? We can't have you lucid today.

And where is your evidence John Kerry did anything to turn the Screaming Dean campaign into a chaotic nightmare? I thought YOU had taken care of that all on your own.

And you wonder why you're not going to win anything today.

Norman, I already did.

If I say that I stand firmly against false-flagged robo-calling -- which I did in two messages to LongTom above -- you'll call me a wuss and hand me my Participant's Trophy.

If I say that I approve of any tactic, no matter how despicable, to win -- you'll call me an hypocrite.

So since I "can't win" with you, this means that I *already have* won with you :)

By demonstrating that your arguments aren't serious, but merely an attempt to distract and demoralize.

But just like with the last-minute robo-calls, there seems to be a rather large backlash effect from your efforts :)

Bob

Norman:

We won my area of Claremont, NH.

I was calling voters right next to Jim Jeffords' wife (don't you just adore Republican turncoats? :), a lovely older lady full of genteel fire for Gov. Dean.

They loved me in the office, btw. Thought I had a gift for calling. I was "tasting the Mo" that entire weekend -- and we prevailed :)

Sadly enough, not in the entire state of course. We lost miserably. But we won the areas closest to Vermont, who know Dean best.

Bob

Anyway, enough horsing around with you, Norman. It's time to go vote.

Menendez may have an 8-10 pt advantage in the last polls, but I'd vote for him if he were down 20.

Bob

I quit listening & donating to NPR after 2004 because of Juan Williams. I am only now starting to listen to NPR again. I'm glad I didn't catch Diane's show this morning because I would have written them off for another year. I really cannot stand the guy.

So since I "can't win" with you, this means that I *already have* won with you :)

No, that means you have lost.

See, when one cannot win, as you have admitted, it means that you have LOST.

The only way that you could conceive of the notion that you have won is if you are DELUSIONAL and cannot admit that you have lost.

That's how that works. And it helps if you cram a fist full of Angel Dust in your mouth--it really does. It helps someone like you think they've accomplished something.

Bwah hah hah hah hah hah!

Alright, Norman, just one more comment before I vamoose ...

If you're not a parody, you may as well be. Personally, I think your persona's too consistent to be a parody. You actually remember the things you say about yourself from day to day. But you surely are a *self* parody when it comes to pop culture.

When was the last time you were out and about in the world? When's the last time you turned on the *TV set*? Angel dust? That hasn't been a popular street drug since the days of Bronson's Death Wish II.

If you *really* wanted to chide me for being some over-the-edge unwashed countercultural leftist, you'd have me wearing all black with pierced eyebrows, going to all-night raves and doing Ecstasy before I voted -- so I could feel *just so darn in love* with everybody that I'd wind up voting straight Republican because I'd feel such great waves of sympathy for them being so out of power in Jersey and all :)

Kudos on the Phish reference, though. At least with that, you're only a decade out of date :)

Bob

Norman -- you *snort* Angel dust, you don't cram it into your mouth.

:)

Bob

This us bull. We're trying to accomplish universal health care, reversing global warming, energy independence, a more economically and socially progessive society, etc. This isn't an electoral parlor game, it's a quest for power in the mightiest state on earth, and it "may not be worth it" to fbb, but maybe he should ask the 600,000 dead Iraqis or the millions of uninsured, underemployed struggling families here if it might be worth it.

Fuck1ng A. To all you squishy types who'd rather lose and keep your electoral purity, I just thank God you're posting on blogs, and not in any position to define Democratic electoral strategy. Now if we can just get the Old Guard of Dem electoral strategists to join you on the sidelines, we might win some elections.

This country passed civil rights legislation because the Kennedys and LBJs weren't afraid to bloody some noses. Never forget that.

--ibc

On the morality of means and ends...

LongTom's right. The most immoral thing we could possibly do is lose. Any lesser crime has to be compared to that greater one.

"Dirty Tactic X won't help us win" is a valid argument.

"We don't need Dirty Tactic X. We can win without it" is a valid argument.

"We don't need to win if it means using Dirty Tactic X" is not. Election campaigns aren't good places to save your soul.

How many of you complaining about Juan Williams have e-mailed Diane Rehm to ask why his crypto-Republican arse is allowed on the air?

Juan Williams sucks. Email NPR, tell them what useless poser he is.
http://www.npr.org/contact/

Norman -- you *snort* Angel dust, you don't cram it into your mouth.

Whatever. Thanks for the expert advice--probably the only piece of information you have complete mastery over.

When I have a need to know how scumbags ingest drugs, I'll be certain to contact you.

And you wonder why I can't stop tsk-tsking you.

that segment blew me away too. thanks for covering it.

i couldn't tell if juan just didn't understand the issue that was being raised, or was afraid to admit it was the first he'd heard of it, or was really determined not to comment on it.

yochi was the sharpest by far through out the session. the others seemed content to just repeat whatever tired CW they'd heard on the sunday talkshows.

What evidence is there that Juan Williams is liberal? Is there some assumption that any man with a latino first name is liberal? OR is it that anyone who works for NPR is liberal? There is nothing in his his words or deeds that strike me as liberal, or in fact anything other than pabulum.