Jim. C. at Rittenhouse draws tears two days in a row. Keep this up, I might turn into a real live girl.

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NARCISSUS UNBOUND
Oh God, this woman is funny. I have to stop being so inhibited when I write…
It’s the day before the New Hampshire primaries, and the fourth estate turns its eye on its favorite subject — itself. Howie Kurtz takes a nostalgic look at the days gone by: “And for the warhorses, who plied their [...]

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WAG THIS, ASSHOLES
Remember when Clinton ordered airstrikes against Iraq in 1998? He was attacked by the Republicans, who accused him of “wagging the dog” to divert attention from the impeachment vote.
Well, weapons inspector David Kay says those strikes are what destroyed Iraq’s chemical weapons capabilitites.
Via Roger Ailes.

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HOW DO YOU TELL WHEN AN ALCOHOLIC IS LYING? HIS LIPS ARE MOVING
Jim Capozzola refers us to this 1992 wedding video from The Smoking Gun, in which teetotaler George W. Bush is apparently inebriated and even gulps what appears to be a shot of whiskey.
Hmmm. And here, I heard that nice caller on C-SPAN this [...]

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Woo hoo! From the Horse:
HOWARD KURTZ CAUGHT IN ETHICS PROBEConflict-of-Interest Charges to Get Kurtz Fired?Charges of Personal Influence Peddling at Wash Post
MWO has learned from highly informed Washington sources that Howard ‘Mistah’ Kurtz faces numerous dangerous charges of conflict-of-interest and influence peddling in his media column at the Washington Post…The charges stem from documented instances [...]

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An exchange between myself and Daniel Okrent, the public editor (ombudsman) at the New York Times:
Subject: Re: More editorializing from Jodi Wilgoren.
>>>On “Primetime,” Mrs. Dean sat, smiling wide, in a brick-red sweater set, as her husband fielded most of Ms. Sawyer’s questions, on topics including Saddam Hussein and the couple’s first date. The pair explained [...]

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‘WOULD YOU LIKE TO SUPERSIZE THAT?’
Political tool Alan Greenspan says don’t worry, be happy:
Federal Reserve Chairman Alan Greenspan said Monday that jobs lost in the last recession can be replaced but that unemployed workers may need retraining to qualify for new work. In a speech prepared for an economic conference in London, Greenspan sought to [...]

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STILL MISSING
Atrios points us to Dave Neiwert and the most definitive breakdown of Bush’s AWOL status yet:
A few of those on the right have tried to compare Bush’s behavior here to Bill Clinton’s well-chronicled avoidance of the draft. The difference, of course, is not merely one of degree but substantively of kind: Clinton neither broke [...]

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Are they saying that President Cheney is a liar? I’m so confused…

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MORE TO COME
Just a reminder that it looks like we’re about to get all tangled up in Syria - following right along with the PNAC plan. From Jane’s Intelligence Weekly:
However, sending US special forces into Lebanon - and in particular an area like the Bekaa Valley (which is virtually Syrian territory) and where the bulk [...]

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ISN’T THIS IRONIC? DON’T YA THINK?
From Human Rights Watch:
U.S. and British leaders George W. Bush and Tony Blair are wrong to retroactively justify the invasion of Iraq on humanitarian grounds, a global rights group said on Monday.
New York-based Human Rights Watch criticised the West for turning a blind eye to Saddam Hussein’s atrocities — such [...]

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SIGNS OF THE TIMES?
From Daily Kos, one of the readers posts about her weekend in New Hampshire:
Well, to begin at the beginning, on the way down, I took the long route, over rural roads and through towns, to get a sense of the “sign primary.” On the way down on Saturday morning, Kerry signs held [...]

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More education, lower wages. Bob Herbert writes on why it shouldn’t add up.
The conference was titled “Offshore Outsourcing: Making the Journey Work for Your Corporation.” Its goal was to bring executives up to speed on the hot new thing in corporate America, the shipment of higher-paying white-collar jobs to countries with eager, well-educated and [...]

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Shorter Bill Safire:
Ooo, now I’m getting the flashbacks they promised me.

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OOPS
Kay on the WMDS:
He said Baghdad was actively working to produce a biological weapon using the poison ricin until the American invasion last March. But in general, Dr. Kay said, the C.I.A. and other agencies failed to recognize that Iraq had all but abandoned its efforts to produce large quantities of chemical or biological weapons [...]

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I SMELL A PEABODY AWARD…
Via Atrios, General JC Christian has a suggestion for Roger Ailes:
I have an idea about how to change that. Americans love reality TV shows. Let’s do one on Fox News about a bunch of Americans living in Iraq. Such a show would increase your ratings while spreading the word about how [...]

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Dean is now in a dead heat with Kerry in New Hampshire.
Does this mean the Beltway Bobbleheads have to cancel his funeral?

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WEATHER REPORT
The sky is falling, the sky is falling…
“The area is really getting slammed,” said the anchorblonde.
People, all this intensity for TWO TO THREE INCHES of snow. It’s, uh, winter?
I love watching them work themselves into a frenzy over such a routine event. Imagine what it’ll be like by this afternoon, when the freezing rain [...]

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RIDICULE IS THE BEST MEDICINE
How cool is this?
Loathing President Bush is an art form in Berkeley, a disgust so pointed that 3,500 people recently gave a standing ovation to a trio of best- selling Bush-bashing authors — comedian Al Franken, economist Paul Krugman and ex-Nixon strategist Kevin Phillips — before they uttered a word onstage. [...]

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SO LONG, FAREWELL
Jim Capozzola made me cry. *sniff*
I can’t tell you what a kind and thoughtful person Jim is. He mentored an entire litter of neophyte bloggers, and his generosity is legend.
I know we’ll stay in touch; this isn’t one of those things where you say that but know better. I know I’ll see him [...]

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GOD SHAVE THE QUEEN*
During the radio show, Andi Sullivan attacking Atrios for being anonymous and therefore “you’re not accountable.”
(Neener neener neener…)
“Of course I’m accountable,” Atrios said. (Please note: Which blogger has a comments section?)
Andi then tooted his own horn, albeit falsely: “I criticize both the right and the left, unlike you.”
“That’s a complete lie,” [...]

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BLOGS ‘R’ US
I finally got through on “The Blogging of the President,” on Minnesota Public Radio. They weren’t going to let me speak, but I played on their liberal guilt: “I’ve noticed a distinct lack of female bloggers. Why is that?” (See how handy sales training is?)
Max Fose, John McCain’s Republican internet strategist (corrected via [...]

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Via Confined Space: Where do baseballs come from? Why, from low-paid workers in Costa Rica, silly.
The baseball workers typically make about $2,750 a year. A baseball player in the United States makes, on average, about $2,377,000, the Players Association says.
“It is hard work, and sometimes it messes up your hands, warps your fingers and hurts [...]

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MCAULIFFE DROPS THE TUTU
Whattaya know, looks like that spine transplant’s going to take :
BLITZER: Terry McAuliffe, when Wesley Clark was on that stage with Michael Moore, one of his campaign supporters, and Moore called President Bush a deserter and General Clark refused to distance himself from that comment right away, was that a huge blunder? [...]

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BLOGGING OF THE PRESIDENT
You can listen to the live stream of today’s live blogging special from Minnesota Public Radio, 9-11 am EST. The call-in guests include Atrios, Little Andrew Sullivan, Josh Marshall, Kevin Phillips, and anyone else who gets through.
UPDATE: Well, now I know why I never heard it. It’s 9-11 PM, not a.m. Sorry [...]

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MORE OF ME ME ME
Well, I was weeded out of the Best Blog and Blog Most Deserving of Wider Recognition categories for the 2003 Koufax Awards. But I remain a Best Post finalist for “A Matter of Trust,” something I wrote for Open Source Politics.
Now, I’m not going to tell you to vote for me, [...]

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The FDA is being praised for not being as bad as the rest of the Bush administration. That’s because you’d have to understand what the pharmacutical industry really wanted: Hands-off enforcement of manufacturing regulation.
A requirement to verify electronic data (similar to what’s being proposed for electronic voting) was passed several years ago and was [...]

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If this isn’t what’s wrong with the Republican party in a nutshell… They don’t understand why unemployed workers aren’t lining up for a health insurance tax credit.
Senator Olympia J. Snowe, Republican of Maine, one of the chief proponents of the tax credit, said: “We have to find out immediately what’s limiting the success of [...]

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Fascinating piece in today’s Times magazine about the future of copyright: How do you pay a creator for his work without stifling the free flow of ideas?

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From CBS News.com’s editorial director:
It’s another fact of life that Dean gave the late-night comedians great material. The Dean Scream jokes are terrific, as is the gag picture someone just e-mailed of the offending Dean choking a cat.
But the press corps’ decision that the Scream was serious is a bit more disturbing. One of [...]

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