Category: Grave

Today’s Washington Post features a delicate little fluff piece entitled “Bush Campaign Tiptoed Into Arlington HQ” about, well, the fairly quiet presence of President Bush’s re-election campaign headquarters in Arlington, Virginia.

“There is nary a Bush sign or banner in sight. In fact, there is virtually no way to find the headquarters at all without being directed by a building doorman through a set of double doors.
Only then does a single reception desk come into view outfitted with a few “Bush Cheney ’04” bumper stickers.”

Take a second look at these 2004 campaign bumper stickers, however. Why did the notoriously “fiscally conservative” Republican campaign even bother to create new stickers, when they’re effectively just reprints of those used in the 2000 campaign?
At least we now have a sense of how those $200 million in Bush campaign funds will not be spent: hiring graphic designers who can do more than italicize existing fonts.

Good news for you recently-unemployed types (all 3 million of you in the past few years). Have you caught yourself pining away for those days of 1998, 1999, and 2000, an era in which you safely pulled in semi-comfortable wages and found yourself ensconced in a middle-class lifestyle?
Well, start buying those Brita water filters and other disposable goods again, because the Bush Recession (which I think ought to have been called the Clinton recession, if you ask me) is almost over! This, according to statements made by job market analysts, as covered in the New York Times. Get ready to grin, Johnny Jobless, because here’s their optimistic lead-in:

“The restaurant industry has gone on a hiring spree over the last four months, suggesting that broader gains in the job market could be on the way…Some economists say that an increase in low-wage jobs, which include most restaurant work, indicates that the job market over all will soon bounce back. During the economic doldrums of the early 1990’s, hiring began to increase in the restaurant industry about six months before job creation began taking off. The striking fact of this economic recovery, like the previous one, has been how long it has lasted without igniting job growth.”

Not optimistic enough for ya? Hey, Mr. and Mrs. Sourpuss, what are those unemployment checks paying for then? Certainly not smiles!
What’s that, you say? You’ve exhausted your unemployment benefits after losing your job at the steel mill or the office-supply company? Well, you say you’re looking for work, but some of my blue-blooded friends think you’re not looking hard enough! Jobs, it seems, are looking for you!

The search for employees who view the restaurant industry as a possible career has at least one McDonald’s franchisee near Cherry Hill scouting for management recruits. Edward Baim, who owns 11 McDonald’s restaurants in southern New Jersey and Philadelphia, makes recruiting trips to local colleges and vocational schools and promotes jobs in the food industry whenever he can.
“It just boggles my mind when we see all these things on TV about people who are out of a job,” Mr. Baim said. “I can point to people in my organization that started as a burger flipper and are now making $70,000.”
He added: “Anybody that really wants to work could find a position. I’ve probably got two or three open right now.”

Now if only they were hiring good job market analysts.

First off, God has been promoted since he last penned a column for us (as a lowly intern, no less) here at low culture last month. That last round of vitriolic sniping was a bit harsh, we felt, but who were we to question His assertions? And again, who are we to nix the latest expression of His wrath, particularly when He functions as supreme being, editor, and comptroller?
Here, then, is God’s word, i.e. the word of God:
Thee Who Shalt be Smitten (on the Second Day)
by God, aka Yahweh, aka Allah, aka Buddha, et cetera
1. Rep. Nick Smith, R-Mich: Jesus Christ, Nick (fret not, believers, for I can take my Son’s name in vain without fear of retribution). Step up to the plate and let people know who amongst the ranks of House GOP leaders tried to bribe you a few weeks back with that ill-advised Medicare bill. Being omniscient, I know such activity is more or less commonplace, but I trust that you will do what is right. Besides, I can always spread the gospel to Bob Woodward (or Robert Novak), but I’d rather you take some responsibility for yourself before I have to come forward.
2. Sen. Joe Lieberman, D-Conn: Give it up, Joseph. You were never going to get any major endorsements, at least not from anyone in any way related to the Democratic party. Try again in 2008, my friend, when Bush isn’t up for re-election and the Republican Party needs new leadership.
3. L. Paul Bremer, again: This is your second warning, Paul. Just because Israel has been excessively hard-line and undemocratic in its dealings with so-called “insurgents” in its “territory,” doesn’t grant the U.S. occupying force the rationale to emulate, in its own “territory,” the Israeli methodology, which has proven spotty, at best, in addressing the region’s incessant cycle of human suffering. Turn to some other models for how to stop the ol’ human-on-human violence.
4. Insurgents, Terrorists, Fedayeen et al: Seriously, cut this shit out. You’re primarily destroying the lives of your own “side,” which, last time I checked, wasn’t one of founding father Michael Collins‘s models for practitioners of “successful” terrorism tactics.
5. Michael Dell: Come on, Michael. While your sins aren’t nearly as bad as those listed above, please remember that I alone can create replicas in my God-like image. When you go around spawning low grade knock-offs like the Dell DJ, which has got to be the “falsest idol” ever in terms of my beloved iPod prodigy, you tempt fate, and risk a good hard smiting.

At the risk of pulling a Hitchens, I find myself–excuse me while I pause to catch my breath–finding some fairly salient points in the latest iteration of the National Review, Jonah Goldberg’s bastion of strident conservatism (the very same publication that used to host Ann Coulter’s mad rantings about the Arab world, e.g. pleading for the U.S. to “invade their countries, kill their leaders and convert them to Christianity”). You can imagine the horrible, haunting shame I feel right now.
Anyway, regarding Howard Dean’s impending, sure-thing nomination as the Democratic candidate in the 2004 Presidential Election, here is the contentious meat of the right-wing argument, courtesy of National Review senior editor Ramesh Ponnuru:

“No word yet from McGovern, Mondale, or Dukakis. . . . Come to think of it, the Ds now have a candidate with McGovern’s foreign policy, Mondale’s domestic policy, Dukakis’s regional background, and Gore’s arrogance. How perfect is that?”

Of course, this is just a nonsensically reactionary bit of conservative giddiness…but it’s that last comparison that threatens to really pass muster. Howard Dean: the perhaps not unelectable, but unlikable candidate? Ponnuru goes into greater detail on this subject in “Can Dean Win?“:

“Will Dean’s personality wear well? Some people have said that he projects too much anger for the general electorate; arrogance may be the deeper problem.”

This seems to be the core issue. Was it really surprising to anyone that Should-Have-Been President Al Gore endorsed Dean yesterday? After all, they’re both aloof, robotic, smirking politicos, except Dean has the “benefit” of coming off as the aloof, robotic, smirking, and thick-necked jock, as opposed to Gore’s aloof, robotic, and smirking policy wonk.
These aren’t just my concerns, though. Listen to Dean’s own campaign staffers (as gleaned from The Note, by way of Howard Kurtz):

“The dirtiest little secret of the fight for the Democratic presidential nomination is that the pros running Dean’s campaign know full well that the criticisms of The Doctor being made by the press and his opponents are often spot on.
“They know he is regularly careless, volcanic, dismissive, self-important, mercurial, hypocritical, patronizing, and politically tone deaf.”

Shades of Dubya, but at least the Governor from Vermont has a so-called liberal heart, which I’ll take any day over number 43’s shameless prevaricating and born-again evangelicalism.

After his former running mate Al Gore’s endorsement of his rival, Howard Dean, in the race for the Democratic nomination, poor Joe “Losing the Primaries” Lieberman must be feeling pretty low, indeed.
Here are some highlights of this morning’s interview with the Today show’s Matt “Losing My Hair” Lauer:*
First, displaying a bit of trenchant wit, too little, too late:

Lauer: Let’s try and talk about what’s changed. I want to run a clip of something Al Gore said as he announced you as his running mate in 2000.
Lieberman: This’ll be nostalgic.

Displaying a sad sense of betrayal:

Lauer: Four years ago, Al Gore wanted you to be a heartbeat away from the presidency and now he endorses Howard Dean. What happened?
Lieberman: Well, you would have to ask Al because I’m the same person today that I was when he said those very kind things about me.

Finally, some remorse:

Lauer: Just a week ago this is what you had to say about Al Gore, “As president I would turn to him not only for advice but see if he would be interested in holding some high office in my administration. He’s an immensely capable, principled, effective person.” Has that changed now?
Lieberman: I’d say that’s less likely this morning. [Laughter]

*(Alternate Joke Section: Joe “Pushover” Lieberman meets Matt “Comb-over” Lauer; Joe “Bald-faced Centrist” Lieberman meets Matt “Bald” Lauer; Joe “Shiny Happy Centrist” Lieberman meets Matt “Shiny, Hairless Pate” Lauer)

In what has to be an appeal to the lowest common denominator of newspaper readers–lower, even, than USA Today–this weekend’s Pittsburgh Post-Gazette takes a cue from Us Weekly and more or less “borrows” the trashy tabloid magazine’s popular “Fashion Police” feature, where five or six unknown writers and comedians take “witty” potshots at stars and celebrities in all their swan-dressed glory. Of course, the Post-Gazette, being a respectable/reputable daily newspaper, tries to get some more politically-oriented pundits (e.g CNN’s Paul Begala), and runs their feature under the investigative headline, “Who has the telegenic edge?“, but the following excerpts belie what they’re really going after: that elusive Bonnie Fuller/Bill Kristol crossover crowd.
Wesley Clark:

Rovitto: He looks very strong on television. He’s got the mature face, the military bearing, the graying hair. All of those things play to his benefit.
Julian: Clark’s ties are too long. He’s using his hands to express more emotion than his face. I’m not sure, but in some photos his shirt looks too big — like there’s a gap on the right side. He is a classic dresser.

Dennis Kucinich:

Begala: I believe the word Martian was mentioned by someone at some point. But I would never say that about him. He looks like a nice guy.
Brabender: I do not believe Kucinich is from this planet. It’s very obvious. I’m also suspicious that Kucinich is actually a prop of the Democratic Party, placed in the race to make their other candidates look better by comparison.
Julian: In one photo he makes the only unique neckwear statement with a light brown silk tie, which is a nontypical color palette.

John Edwards:

Begala: He’s 50 years young. He’s great looking, the best-looking candidate since Ronald Reagan, but so very young. If you combine that with the fact that here’s a guy in his first term in the Senate, that’s a real problem for him. I keep thinking of the line in “About Last Night” when Jim Belushi told Rob Lowe, “What you need is an industrial accident.”
Rovitto: He’s kind of goofy looking in some photos. There’s that youthfulness. He’s almost collegiate looking. But I don’t think his looks alone are such a distraction in the negative sense that it necessarily is a strike against him.
Brabender: The biggest problem Edwards has is that he looks too much like a candidate. He seems like someone sent from Central Casting to play the role of a young Southern senator running for president. This has hurt his credibility. I’ve thought all along he only entered the race to see if he could get a TV series out of it.

[with thanks to Jeff]

This may come as a shock to low culture readers under the age of 10, but I must tell you that the movie Elf is a pack of lies! Damn, dirty lies.
First off, there is no Santa Claus. Actually, there was but he died. Second, Etch-a-Sketches are not made at the North Pole by elves, they’re made in China by exploited workers.
According to The New York Times article Ruse in Toyland: Chinese Workers’ Hidden Woe by Joseph Kahn, Ohio Art, maker of the Etch-a-Sketch subcontracts manufacturing to a Chinese company called Kin Ki whose employees are paid 24 cents-an-hour. (That’s less than the 33 cents-an-hour minimum wage in the region.) Writes Kahn:

Kin Ki employees, mostly teenage migrants from internal provinces, say they work many more hours and earn about 40 percent less than the company claims. They sleep head-to-toe in tiny rooms. They staged two strikes recently demanding they get paid closer to the legal minimum wage.
Most do not have pensions, medical insurance or work contracts. The company’s crib sheet recommends if inspectors press to see such documents, workers should “intentionally waste time and then say they can’t find them,” according to company memos provided to The New York Times by employees.

And that’s not all. Kahn does double duty, reporting on how the opening of the Chinese factory hurt workers in Bryan, Ohio where the toy had been made by union workers for 40 years. Sketchy, indeed.

Perhaps you recall the House’s narrow passage of the contentious Pharmaceutical Industry Handout bill – ahem, Medicare bill – a few weeks back, whereby a handful of Republican representatives switched their votes from “nay” to “yay” in the waning hours of a pre-dawn roll call debate, thereby allowing the bill to pass. Early reports after the vote mentioned instances of leading Republican lawmakers huddling in great numbers around those representatives who were on the fence, urging them to pass the bill and not join the majority of Democrats in voting “no.”
Well, we now know what some of those specific huddle discussions were about. The play they called? Merely threats, and most certainly not bribery.
U.S. Representative Nick Smith went into detail yesterday on the specifics of the “non-bribes” levied against him, saying that

some Republican House members threatened to oppose his son’s election campaign unless the Republican from Michigan voted for the bill — but did not offer his son any money.
…”I want to make it clear that no member of Congress made an offer of financial assistance for my son’s campaign in exchange for my vote,” Smith said in a statement Thursday. “Some members said they would work against Brad if I voted no.”

That clears things up, then. And this, even moreso:

Mark Glaze of the nonpartisan Campaign Legal Center said House members could have violated a federal law against bribing public officials, if money was offered.
The law allows people to verbally persuade lawmakers, Glaze said, but doesn’t allow them to offer something of value to change a vote.

For a party membership that seems to have little to no understanding of nuance, these lawmakers do seem to grasp the significance of semantics in politics.

Yes, the lion’s share of the news-reading public (all 326 of us) has seen the now-infamous video still of Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld shaking hands with eventual Iraqi despot Saddam Hussein in 1983 as a representative of the Reagan administration. And, rather predictably, the photo of this event caused outrage amongst the anti-war left and contextual pandering by the apologetic rightwing.
This week, however, Rummy is in Afghanistan. You know, that mountainous nation run by the Taliban that we bombed in response to the attacks of 9/11, and subsequently left behind so we could continue our merry (and unrelated) bombing in Iraq. “Staying the course” in Afghanistan seemed to be out of the question, so now those lucky Afghanis have been left with a Taliban resurgence and more of that good ol’ general melee.
So, in this week’s bitter visit to our ex, Rumsfeld met with Hamid Karzai, the quasi-puppet leader installed by the United States after our supposedly overturning the Taliban’s grip on power. And, thankfully, someone took some sweet and charming photos of the awkward meetup.
However: there didn’t seem to be any photographers around when, on this very same trip, Rummy also met up with Afghani warlords who have been providing some rather thuggish “security” to the region and its residents. You know, violence, rape, robbery, extortion. Not unlike the early-eighties Saddam, come to think of it.
So, really, who can blame the U.S. government for not releasing photos of these lively meet-n-greets, when you just know, deep in your compassionate conservative heart, that the photos will come back to haunt you 20 years later?