Haunting the Web Since 1999
With indictments — and resignations — now the likely result of Patrick Fitzgerald‘s investigation into Plamegate, Sen. Kay Bailey Hutchison (R-TX) gamely floats the “Aw, who cares about a little perjury?” defense. Somehow, I don’t think that that dog’s gonna hunt.
(Which reminds me, Sen. Hutchison, you once voted to convict a president on “some perjury technicality”…ask your staffers about it.)
“‘I think really for our viewers it should be understood that I put this into a blind trust,’ Frist replied [in January 2003.] ‘So as far as I know, I own no HCA stock.’…Two weeks before that interview, M. Kirk Scobey Jr., a Frist trustee, informed the senator in writing that one of his trusts had received HCA stock valued at between $15,000 and $50,000.” Fifteen trustee letters obtained by the Post, describing sales and purchases of HCA stock, indicate Frist’s been lying about his “blind” trust for years. Poor Catkiller…I bet Iowa suddenly seems a million miles away…
“If you look at NBA players. White, black, brown, yellow, whatever color or nationality, regardless of how they dress, and think thug. You are an idiot.” As seen at Caught in Between, Mavs owner Mark Cuban eloquently dissects the reasons for the NBA dress code (with additional comments) over at Blog Maverick: “‘Unfortunately we have gotten to the point where some, but not all, owners, or which ever executive is in charge of the team, have lost the ability to communicate with their players. In a nutshell, they dont talk to their players… I explained that a couple corporate customers of the league…were uncomfortable with the appearance of some players. That unfortunately, in those cities, they didnt feel comfortable having a discussion like this and that their ownership didnt feel comfortable asking those players to work with the teams for the best of the league. Since the teams couldnt deal with it, they had asked the league to step in and deal with it.”
Jonathan Rhys-Meyers has a fatal attraction problem with Scarlett Johansson in the new trailer for Match Point, directed by…well, someone unexpected. (By way of Listen Missy.) Also in the trailer bin are looks at the “remake” of Broadway’s The Producers (What? No Larry David?) and Underworld: Evolution, the unnecessary sequel to a truly terrible film. Seriously, if everyone just sent Bill Nighy $10 rather than seeing this latter flick, the world would be a better place. Catsuit-Kate notwithstanding, he’d be the only reason to sit through this drek.
“‘The real anomaly in the administration is Cheney,’ Mr. Scowcroft told Jeffrey Goldberg of The New Yorker. ‘I consider Cheney a good friend – I’ve known him for 30 years. But Dick Cheney I don’t know anymore.'” As Cheney consigliere Scooter Libby preps for a likely Plamegate perp walk, the NYT refocuses on the broader question of our entry into the Iraq war. And, as the Scowcroft quote attests (and as Medley also notes), prominent Republicans are starting to pile on. “‘Iraq was at core a war of choice, and extraordinarily expensive by every measure – human life, impact on our military, dollars, diplomatically,’ said Mr. [Richard] Haass, a former senior State Department official under President Bush.“
Or, as former Powell chief of staff Lawrence Wilkerson puts it, “[T]he case that I saw for four-plus years was a case that I have never seen in my study of aberrations, bastardizations, perturbations, changes to the national security decision-making process. What I saw was a cabal between the vice-president of the United States, Richard Cheney, and the secretary of defense, Donald Rumsfeld, on critical issues that made decisions that the bureaucracy didn’t know were being made.“
Update: Jeffrey Goldberg discusses his Scowcroft piece, and Slate‘s Fred Kaplan evaluates it, noting that George H.W. Bush is also something of a Dubya critic in the article. Speaking of Scowcroft, Dubya Sr. says: “He has a great propensity for friendship. By that, I mean someone I can depend on to tell me what I need to know and not just what I want to hear….[He] was very good about making sure that we did not solely consider the ‘best case,’ but instead considered what it would mean if things went our way, and also if they did not.” Listen up, sonny…Papa just learned you.
“‘I promised,’ she says, ‘that from now on I would write only for the Lord.’ It’s the most startling public turnaround since Bob Dylan’s ‘Slow Train Coming’.” Goth-lit-queen Anne Rice has been born again, and it doesn’t involve coffins or blood transfusions. Indeed, she’s now apparently halfway through a trilogy on the life of Christ, “the ultimate supernatural hero… the ultimate immortal of them all“…but she notes it won’t be like Left Behind.
Also in a Halloween-ish vein, rocketeer and robot designer Will McCarthy speculates on how to re-animate the dead. The answer? “Zombochrondria.” (Via Follow Me Here.)
Do You Feel Loved? turns five today. Happy blogday, Chris, and here’s to many more.
“As quintessentially American as Ms. Part is Russian, Gillian Murphy joined ABT in 1996, instantly raising our national banner of strong, brisk, technical prowess.” By the way, my sister’s fall ABT season began on Wednesday, so if you’re in the New York area and looking to partake of some choice offerings of world-class ballet, head on down to City Center. The Fall Repertoire includes Afternoon of a Faun, Apollo, Dark Elegies, Gong, The Green Room, In the Upper Room, Kaleidoscope, Rodeo, and Les Sylphides.