Randi's return sparks wingnut pile-on

"Did something happen to me?"

That's how Randi Rhodes opened her show yesterday. After three days recovering from a mysterious fall, she explained that she really didn't know what happened to her.

"I was watching football in an Irish pub," she told listeners. "I went out to smoke a cigarette, and the next thing I knew I was down on the cement, face down, bleeding."

In short, she didn't really know.

"I don't know if someone hit me from behind, or if I fainted because I hadn't eaten all day," Rhodes said.

"My fall wasn't broken by my hand, but by my face and a steel grate on the concrete," she said.

Being out of it, and knowing that she was in no condition to work for at least a few days, she didn't know what to tell her employers. After all, she didn't know what happened, and she was a bit hazy. But she had to tell them something. So she fired off an email stating that she was mugged, just to make things less complicated. Hopefully, she thought, it would all just be left at that. Hey, maybe she was mugged. Who knows?

You can listen to the audio of the first segment below:

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"I don't know how or why the story grew to me being brutally beaten or attacked," she claimed. Rhodes did not file a police report.

Likely, Rhodes did not mean for all of this craziness to happen. Who would really wish for this? For the past several days, she has had to deal with a crowd of paparazzi and reporters outside her apartment building, making it difficult for her to even leave her home. When she did, it was to go through long days of doctor examinations and dental reconstruction, including four emergency root canals. There were also questions about the state of her eye. Needless to say, she was very angry at the media, who she claimed never even asked if she was okay. She saw them as people who wanted to harass her and infiltrate her apartment building to snap pictures of her injuries. Some went so far as to harass the doorman, asking the whereabouts of a 'secret lift' to her floor. Obviously, she was not cool with that.

Then again, sometimes people can be so cruel.

Yes, believe it or not, the compassionate conservatives on the other side of the fence are obviously really concerned about her accident. The sarcasm is intended. In place of concern, the squakers on that side were formulating conspiracy theories, trying to portray themselves as victims, and spinning humongous piles of bullshit. So much for compassion.

Lemme give you an example about another talk show host, formulating made-up theories about what happened to Rhodes on Sunday night. Most of what was said was mere speculation and politically-charged attacks.

No, I'm not talking about Jon Elliott, who made the mistake of throwing out mere speculation on his opinion-oriented talk show. I already did in three previous entries. This time, I'm talking about Tammy Bruce. Yes, this so-called conservative was among the many forwarding ridiculous conspiracy theories backed by the flimsiest of proof. Funny, isn't that what they're accusing the left of doing?

His pompousness, Scrappy Doo Sean Hannity, also got in on the act, as if Rhodes' accident and the aftermath was stone-cold proof that we're all evil. He asked why his longtime nemesis Media Matters for America didn't chastise Elliott for what he said. If Hannity even has to ask that question, they he really is as stupid as he looks.

As the cons chastised the left-leaning media and blogosphere, they came up with their own unproven rumors and lies, just to attack us for using unproven rumors and lies. Is your head spinning yet? Even after Elliott issued an apology (which is something we rarely see with the cons), they still call us liars and hatemongers.

Believe it or not, some of these rabid righties were actually claiming that Rhodes got shit-faced drunk on Bloody Marys and passed out on the street, Jenna Bush-style. Their so-called credible source on this? This little item, based on an anonymous comment on Gawker.com. Now, I should explain to you, Gawker is essentially a Manhattan gossip site, with quite a generous splash of parody. Think TMZ meets The Onion. The Gawker group also publishes the oft-hilarious political blog Wonkette. Recent stories include silly items about various New York celebrities and Harry Potter author J.K. Rowling's cleavage.

But if these morons who tried to float this turd of a theory would actually stop and think for a second, they'd realize that guzzling fourteen Bloody Marys, a concoction consisting of vodka, tomato juice, Worcestershire's sauce, Tabasco sauce, horseradish and whatever else your friendly neighborhood bartender decides to throw in is nearly impossible for normal human beings. Don't believe me? Why don't you try it yourself? Hell, I can't do two without my stomach burning with the intensity of a forest fire. If I, or anyone else, wanted to just get blottoed, wouldn't it just be easier to skip all the other stuff and just do shots? Or dry martinis? Yet common sense, in this case, does not make for a half-assed conservative spin job.

Some of these goons were even claiming it was all just a ratings stunt, without furthering any kind of proof. Tin foil hat, anyone?

The rest were merely crying like babies, naturally, feigning mock outrage that anyone on the right has the audacity to blame one of their own for the attack, as if they all have some sort of moral purity. Furthermore, most of these blogs linked here spun their own stories, using suspect sourcing, and creating their own fiction along the way. In short, they are lying to you, the same thing they accused us of doing. I guess two wrongs make a right, huh?

So essentially, these people attack us for engaging in speculation and pointing fingers, based on a suspect source, yet they do the same exact thing. While we here on the evil, subversive left side of the blogosphere are getting a dressing-down by those high n' mighty wingnut bloggers for jumping the gun too fast on that Randi Rhodes story, they obviously
feel they have carte blanche to make their own shit up.

You have got to be freaking kidding me here!

Needless to say, wingnuts were all over their own half-assed conspiracy theories like herpes sores on Ann Coulter. Yes, indeed - the same holier-than-thous who spent the morning wagging fingers at the left side of the blogosphere for citing a radio show host were getting their information from some guy who leaves a comment on the website. And they feel justified to use silly sources and just pass off their own speculation as 'truth.' Are you shittin' me?

But I guess I'm not all that shocked anymore by all this immature and hypocritical behavior by our counterparts on the extreme right. Let's face it - most of them are cowards, pussies, wimps, whiners and crybabies. Many of these feeble-minded asshats are pretty brazen about being utter hypocrites. But it sure as hell takes a lot of chutzpah from the 24% to be so outlandish. They claim to all be pro-business and pro-free enterprise, yet have spent the past three plus years sticking pins in their Air America voodoo dolls. In their eyes, only conservatives can take advantage of our country's freedoms. Yet they throw hissy fits when we call them facists.

They endlessly blast organizations such as Media Matters for America as being hate-filled liars clubs, yet they have their own versions that do the exact same thing, and have done it for longer. In fact, Brent Bozell's Newsbusters, which is allegedly the right-wing version of MMfA, can't even quote me right! Want proof? Compare the screengrab to the right to the entry it links to. Essentially, these conservative sissies endlessly attack and attack, yet bawl like brats and call us hatemongers when we retaliate. See the pattern here?

Of course, I'll probably be on a few of these losers' shit lists, as they feign mock outrage at the audacity of any of our ilk insulting them in any way. So if you are drinking their flavor of Kool-aid (or Bloody Mary mix), here's a note to you: Yes, I am insulting you. You people are dumbshits and hypocrites. You are a bunch of thin-skinned pansies, wimps, cowards and crybabies. If you really are offended by what I wrote, then go back to sucking on your pacifiers. Or go harass those who do.

And yes, you can quote me on that. Just quote me accurately. If you can.

Finally, and most importantly, I would like to send my best regards to Randi Rhodes, and say that I am extremely pleased that she seems to be quickly recovering and wish only the best as her life returns to normal.

Tragedy in Minneapolis...and America

It was 6:05 PM Wednesday evening. Commuters in Minneapolis were grinding along in the typically heavy downtown traffic that the Lowry Tunnel complex is known for. Several lanes of the eight lane I-35W bridge over the Mississippi River were closed as MNDOT crews worked on resurfacing the 40-year old structure.

Suddenly, the bridge started to buckle. And then it collapsed. All 1,900 steel-trussed feet of it. A number of cars dropped over 60 feet into the river below. Luckily, only four fatalities have been confirmed as of this time, though the number could exceed 30. Yet it was perhaps the most devastating bridge disaster in our nation since the I-880 double-decker Cypress Structure in Oakland, CA collapsed during the Loma Prieta earthquake in 1989, a tragedy that killed 40.

I write about this because it hit home for me. I lived in the Minneapolis area for 16 years, and occasionally crossed the bridge. I still have family living there (though I figured right away that none of them ever really go near the bridge, and in this case, they haven't). In all those times, I didn't really think much about the I-35W bridge. Not many others did either, save for highway and bridge enthusiasts. The bridge didn't even have a name. The official name of it was the generic Bridge 9340. It was merely just a way to get across the river. Like most bridges, most people took it for granted. Yet, it was perhaps one of the most-traveled pieces of highway in the state of Minnesota. The bridge connected Downtown Minneapolis to the northeast part of town (often referred to as "Nordeast"), as well as various highly populated northern suburbs.

It's safe to say that commuting in the Twin Cities will be an absolute nightmare for years to come, as the government figures out how to replace it. I-35W is an important artery in the state. Coming from either Duluth in the north or from many states in the south, I-35 splits in two just outside the metro. Pass-through traffic is directed to take the much-larger I-35W through Minneapolis, as the other fork, I-35E, is a smaller freeway that goes through neighboring St. Paul. At one point just south of that city's downtown, it scales down to a four lane 'parkway' with a 45 mph speed limit (a compromise with residents of the well-to-do Summit neighborhood the road travels through). Big trucks are prohibited.

So, now that I've bored many of you with Twin Cities traffic reports, the bottom line is that our infrastructure is crumbling. This morning, President Bush made the boneheaded move of blaming Democrats in Congress for stonewalling his budget. Pretty sleazy, particularly since The White House planned on spending less money than Congress wanted to upgrade highways anyway. Hey, war costs money, ya know. Not to mention Minnesota Governor Tim Pawlenty, a Republican, has been in charge of the state for the past five years, and detests spending money on frivilous stuff like roads. He vetoed a nickle gas tax increase that would have gone toward this. Even after the bridge was found to have flaws. Much as I detest taxes myself (everybody does), the roads need to be funded somehow. I wonder how this childish finger-wagging will play out at the GOP Convention in St. Paul next summer.

Now, I really hate to blame anyone for any of this. This is not the time to point fingers, to play the 'bloods and crips' game. It all goes beyond that. Listening to the stream from WCCO Radio in Minneapolis this morning (as I sampled some of the live video streams from a few Twin Cities stations last night), the on-air hosts are ripping all of the politicians, from Bush's blame game to Democrats and Republicans alike seemingly more concerned about fighting for television face time. They're obviously tired of all this nonsense, and just want to see things get done. I certainly can't disagree with them.

Regardless of all this, one thing is fact. Our nation is crumbling. How many more bridges will collapse? How many other cities will be wiped out, like New Orleans? How many cities will be attacked by terrorists, because the government ignored intelligence reports and warnings? Time may tell, but I'm getting on the soapbox to scream that this shit has got to stop. Now.

To get the whole story from where it's all happening, forget the national broadcast pundits who consider Minneapolis that cold place they fly over to get from the East Coast to the West Coast. As with any disaster, it's often best to go to the local newspeople who have to deal with it on a personal level. In this case, the local Twin Cities media is providing amazing coverage and analysis. And local radio and television stations are providing live streams of their coverage. Check these out:

Radio:

WCCO 830 (recommended)
Minnesota Public Radio (recommended)
KSTP 1500

Television:

KMSP 9 (FOX)
WCCO 4 (CBS)
KSTP 5 (ABC)
KARE 11 (NBC)

Here are the two local newspapers:

Minneapolis Star Tribune
St. Paul Pioneer Press

In the meantime, my thoughts and prayers are with the people of the Twin Cities, as well as the victims of this terrible tragedy and their families.

Farewell, Falwell

So, you're probably hoping against all possible hope that I'll say something nice about Jerry Falwell. Okay, I will. He's dead. There, that's nice, isn't it?

Okay, that was kinda cruel and mean-spirited. And I'll bet I'll have Malkin and all the other wacky wingnuts after my ass too. Yeah, go right ahead and do that, why don't you. I doubt those asshat hypocrites have ever seen the inside of a church. And perhaps they should all take a good look in the mirror at their own sorry selves. We've already seen how they reacted toward the passing of Paul Wellstone and Coretta Scott King. Or how their false idol Rush Limbaugh paid his last respects to Jerry Garcia and Kurt Cobain. So don't give me that shit.

Anyways, Falwell probably meant well in the way he lived his life. And that's about the nicest thing I could possibly say about him. Hey, even arch nemesis Larry Flynt showed some class. Sure, Falwell was a preacher of both divided politics and divided faiths. His casual condemnation of any who dare disagree with him was probably not what God had in mind. And much of what came out of his big fat mouth could honestly be construed as hate speech. But deep down, he probably did what he felt was right. Unfortunately, one could probably say the same thing about Osama bin Laden.

Quite simply, the man used faith as a cold, blunt weapon of hate. Growing up Catholic, I always felt that spirituality was about love, first and foremost. "Love thy neighbor," they taught us. "Turn the other cheek." Unfortunately, in Falwell's twisted world, if you weren't a white Christian heterosexual American Republican male, you weren't jack shit. You'd be cast to the fires. But who made Falwell, Robertson, Dobson and all those other fanatics judges of our own fates? I highly doubt the Almighty himself decreed this. I'd like to think that the Supreme Being would frown on all of this negativity delivered in His/Her name.

So, why should I take the sentimental route in praising the recently departed in this case? Of course, my condolences go out to the man's loved ones, just like anyone who's suffered a loss. But Falwell's passing should most certainly not excuse him from any criticism from the many, many people he's offended and pointed fingers at in the past. Or the many bodies he's stepped over in his fundamentalist power grab. As I said, he probably did what he felt was right. But at the same time, he became the very antithesis of a good Christian. Quite simply, he was a very cruel, hate-filled man, swallowed by his massive ego and narrow-mindedness.

For example, he certainly did not feel much sympathy for people of the Jewish faith. Sure, he'd suck up a little when there just happened to be a few in the room. Or when he wanted to bash Palestinians. Like when he said, “I believe that the people of Israel are the chosen people of God.” Good enough, but that was just one side of his mouth:

"I do not believe that God answers the prayer of any unredeemed Gentile or Jew."

"The Jews are returning to their land of unbelief. They are spiritually blind and desperately in need of their Messiah and Savior."

"Is (the Antichrist) alive and here today? Probably. Because when he appears during the Tribulation period he will be a full-grown counterfeit of Christ. Of course he'll be Jewish.

"I know a few of you here today don't like Jews. And I know why. He can make more money accidentally than you can on purpose."

In general, Falwell was deep down a good 'ol Southern boy who grew up in the heart of segregated America. And much of what he spoke was deep-seeded in that perspective:

"There are almost as many alcoholics as there are negroes."

"If Chief Justice Warren and his associates had known God’s word and had desired to do the Lord’s will, I am quite confident that the 1954 decision (Brown v. Board of Education) would never have been made. The facilities should be separate. When God has drawn a line of distinction, we should not attempt to cross that line.”

"I do question the sincerity and non-violent intentions of some civil rights leaders such as Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., Mr. James Farmer, and others, who are known to have left-wing associations."

"I do not believe the homosexual community deserves minority status. One's misbehavior does not qualify him or her for minority status. Blacks, Hispanics, women, etc., are God-ordained minorities who do indeed deserve minority status."

If Falwell looked down upon people of different faiths, races and cultures, he was really a rube when it came to women:

"Most of these feminists are radical, frustrated lesbians, many of them, and man-haters, and failures in their relationships with men, and who have declared war on the male gender. The Biblical condemnation of feminism has to do with its radical philosophy and goals. That's the bottom line."

"I listen to feminists and all these radical gals - most of them are failures. They've blown it. Some of them have been married, but they married some Casper Milquetoast who asked permission to go to the bathroom. These women just need a man in the house. That's all they need. Most of the feminists need a man to tell them what time of day it is and to lead them home. And they blew it and they're mad at all men. Feminists hate men. They're sexist. They hate men - that's their problem.

“It appears that America's anti-Biblical feminist movement is at last dying, thank God, and is possibly being replaced by a Christ-centered men's movement which may become the foundation for a desperately needed national spiritual awakening”

“Grown men should not be having sex with prostitutes unless they are married to them”

Oh, and ol' Jerry really despised homosexuals. More than anything else. I mean, he really, really hated them. So much, that he assumed that if he disliked them, then God must certainly believe likewise:

"God hates homosexuality."

"AIDS is not just God's punishment for homosexuals; it is God's punishment for the society that tolerates homosexuals."

"AIDS is the wrath of a just God against homosexuals. To oppose it would be like an Israelite jumping in the Red Sea to save one of Pharoah's chariotters."

“(Homosexuals are) brute beasts...part of a vile and satanic system [that] will be utterly annihilated, and there will be a celebration in heaven.”

“Homosexuality is Satan's diabolical attack upon the family that will not only have a corrupting influence upon our next generation, but it will also bring down the wrath of God upon America.”

"Someone must not be afraid to say, 'moral perversion is wrong.' If we do not act now, homosexuals will 'own' America!...If you and I do not speak up now, this homosexual steamroller will literally crush all decent men, women, and children who get in its way...and our nation will pay a terrible price!"

Falwell didn't really think much of his competition. He certainly had a 'my way or the highway' attitude toward other churches and faiths:

“Billy Graham is the chief servant of Satan in America”

“If you're not a born-again Christian, you're a failure as a human being”

"We must never allow our children to forget that this is a Christian nation. We must take back what is rightfully ours."

"I think the Muslim faith teaches hate."

"I think Mohammed was a terrorist. I read enough of the history of his life. He was a violent man, a man of war. Jesus set the example for love, as did Moses. And I think Mohammed set an opposite example."

He also didn't like the Constitution, the Supreme Court and the American way of life crouching in on his turf. After all, that cuts in to his power:

"Christians, like slaves and soldiers, ask no questions."

"The First Amendment is not without limits."

"In other words, my First Amendment rights and yours end where the welfare of the little people begins, and there are laws about that."

"There is no separation of church and state. Modern US Supreme Courts have raped the Constitution and raped the Christian faith and raped the churches by misinterpreting what the Founders had in mind in the First Amendment to the Constitution."

“Now we're looking at what we really started on 30 years ago, reconstruction of a court system gone awry.”

"The idea that religion and politics don't mix was invented by the Devil to keep Christians from running their own country."

“The ACLU is to Christians what the American Nazi party is to Jews”

"Somewhere in the past generation, we've lost our biblical mind and not arranged something better in its place. We need a spiritual brainwashing."

In Falwell's world, blind faith is an absolute. After all, it's a bit more difficult for people like him to brainwash the intelligent. Much easier with the gullible and naive:

“Textbooks are Soviet propaganda”

"I hope I live to see the day when, as in the early days of our country, we won't have any public schools. The churches will have taken them over again and Christians will be running them. What a happy day that will be!"

Falwell found the perfect marks when he started peddling his wares to the religious right, particularly during the time of Ronald Reagan's presidency. Very ironic, given that the first lady was a hardcore fan of that pagan practice known as astrology and the Reagans themselves rarely ever stepped inside a church. Nevertheless, there was a crowd that was ripe to be taken. He immediately coddled the fundamentalist wing of the GOP, forming a sham outfit known as the Moral Majority, and bellying up to the udder of that golden calf. Hey, I'll bet a few of them even fell for it. To further sweeten the pot, he became more conservative demogogue than Baptist preacher. His true religion was conservatism. And of course, anything smacking of liberalism was deemed to be the enemy. He even accused President Clinton of "treasonous behavior." In short, he told the fundie masses everything he felt they wanted to hear:

"We're fighting against humanism, we're fighting against liberalism ... we are fighting against all the systems of Satan that are destroying our nation today ... our battle is with Satan himself."

“(Joseph Farah) hits the nail on the head on every issue. What's more, he lays the blame for America's problems right where it belongs - in the lap of liberalism.”

"Labor unions should study and read the Bible instead of asking for more money. When people get right with God, they are better workers."

“Can you imagine the insolence of these protesters? ... They have the audacity to disparage and demean these courageous soldiers who are enduring great physical and emotional trauma because they believed in the effort to bring freedom to Iraq.”

“The media have a widely-held agenda (that doesn't include support of President Bush) and they are not about to tarnish the image of anti-war protesters by showing them for what they actually are, ...With this tyrannical approach to the news, it's really no wonder so many Americans don't take the networks seriously anymore. And it's no wonder that conservative Internet news sites have grown by leaps and bounds.”

"I am such a strong admirer and supporter of George W. Bush that if he suggested eliminating the income tax or doubling it, I would vote yes on first blush."

Of course, he followed many of the tried and true right-wing talking points. Even going so far as to give carte blanche to soil and tarnish what many feel to be God's greatest creation - this very rock that you and I are living on:

"I believe that global warming is a myth. And so, therefore, I have no conscience problems at all and I'm going to buy a Suburban next time."

"(Global warming is) Satan's attempt to redirect the church's primary focus from evangelism to environmentalism."

"The whole global warming thing is created to destroy America's free enterprise system and our economic stability."

Economic evangelism? Hmm... What would Jesus Do?

And in return for these carrots thrown at the lemmings, he injected his own brand of Bible banging. He anointed himself as the arbiter of good and evil. He developed a messiah complex. So much, that he felt it was okay to break a few commandments once in a while to keep 'em all in line:

"The message of peace and reconciliation under almost all circumstances is simply incompatible with Christian teachings as I interpret them. This 'turn the other cheek' business is all well and good but it's not what Jesus fought and died for. What we need to do is take the battle to the Muslim heathens and do unto them before they do unto us."

“...You’ve got to kill the terrorists before the killing stops and I am for the President—chase them all over the world, if it takes ten years, blow them all away in the name of the Lord.”

"God continues to lift the curtain and allow the enemies of America to give us probably what we deserve."

“We visit prisoners on death row, and some of them are saved, but we believe their sentences should be carried out because they have a debt to society.”

Granted, not every conservative fell for this shuck n' jive. Perhaps the smartest of them all, the late Arizona Senator Barry Goldwater, said it best when he said, "Every good Christian ought to kick Falwell right in the ass."

Of course, with as big a mouth as Falwell's, a few gaffes were inevitable. He made a complete ass of himself when he pointed his judgemental finger at the Teletubbies, those seemingly innocent mainstays of children's television in the 1990s. He even accused the purple one of being part of some sordid plot to turn our kids gay. "He is purple - the gay-pride colour; and his antenna is shaped like a triangle - the gay-pride symbol." Oh the horror!

But that paled when he pointed the finger at us for the events of September 11, 2001:

"I really believe that the pagans, and the abortionists, and the feminists, and the gays and the lesbians who are actively trying to make that an alternative lifestyle, the ACLU, People For the American Way - all of them who have tried to secularize America - I point the finger in their face and say 'you helped this happen.'"

Needless to say, that went over like the proverbial fart in church. Feeling the world turn against him, Falwell offered a feeble apology out of the other side of his mouth, tail between legs and all.

I always found it interesting at the time that he didn't lay the blame where it belonged: At the feet of al Qaeda, particularly Osama bin Laden. Perhaps the reason was that people like Falwell, Pat Robertson and bin Laden are cut almost from the same cloth. Namely they're narrow-minded religious fanatics who see the world in black and white. You're either with them or against them and God. There is no middle ground. No a la carte menu to order from. To oppose them is to oppose God. Granted, our religious wackos don't fly airplanes into skyscrapers and behead people. But the mindset is eerily similar. What if our wackos felt murder was a way of making a point?

And like many of his ilk who become drunk on power, hypocrisy reared its ugly head. For years, he blasted Sun Myung Moon, leader of the Unification Church, which many believe to be little more than an obscenely wealthy cult. But when his Liberty University was looking at complete collapse in 1994, Falwell had no problem accepting $3.5 million of Moon's tainted money to bail it out. In fact, he even lobbied the president to pardon Moon's tax evasion conviction. Well, Moon does claim to be Jesus reincarnate.

Falwell also lobbied for a pardon for traitor and convicted perjurer Oliver North. He even endorsed his run for the Senate in 1994. And he lent money and promotional support for a lie-filled smear video called "The Clinton Chronicles," the sole purpose of which was to derail Bill Clinton's presidential bid in 1992. Talk about not coveting the truth!

In addition, Falwell was fined by both the Federal Elections Commission and the Internal Revenue Service on a couple occasions for raiding his tax-exempt ministry's coffers and funneling the money into political action committees. He also exploited an organization representing mostly black churches for the benefit of his followers. What a guy!

So, Jerry's worm food now. I guess that since he's departed for whatever afterlife he deserves, people are allowed only to speak kindly of him. I had no respect for him when he was alive, and I'm sure he probably wouldn't have had much respect for my Irish-Catholic heathen ass. So what do I say in a situation like this? Well, only that I hope we all learn from the man's mistakes and turn faith back into a tool of love and compassion, rather than one of divisiveness and hate. Maybe not the best way to honor him, but it most certainly is the best way to honor all of us.

“And when you pray, you shall not be like the hypocrites. For they love to pray standing in the synagogues and on the corners of the streets, that they may be seen by men. Assuredly, I say to you, they have their reward. But you, when you pray, go into your room, and when you have shut your door, pray to your Father who is in the secret place; and your Father who sees in secret will reward you openly.

- Matthew 6:5 and 6:6

LTR follows the money

"Just when I thought that I was out they pull me back in."

- Michael Corleone, as portrayed by Al Pacino, in The Godfather: Part III

I was hoping what I wrote last week would be the end of it. Every once in a while I just gotta get one of those things out of my system. And I thought I had said all I needed to say about Media Matters for America, George Soros and paranoid right-wing talk show hosts. But sure enough, another reason comes along to write something about it. Here we go again.

Bill O'Reilly of FOX Noise Channel hates Media Matters. I mean, he really hates them. So much that in the past, he's compared them to the likes of Mao, Castro, the Ku Klux Klan, and the Nazis. He called them "cowards" and "people who are afraid to answer any questions," yet will not allow anyone from MMfA to come on his show to spar with him. And now, MMfA must have really pissed O'Liely off, since he has trotted out his own personal doomsday device. His own neutron bomb. Yes, in his strange personal game of "six degrees of separation," he has a chart that links MMfA to George Soros' deep pockets. With this, he grasps at all the straws he possibly can in proving that, while Soros hasn't directly given money to the group, organizations funded by Soros have themselves sent money to MMfA. Oh the horror!

Only thing is, you'll never hear about why Soros is such a bad man on the "All-Spin Zone." Oh sure, you'll hear accusations of insider trading. Or that he's some kind of radical to the left of Abbie Hoffman. Or that he was a teenage Nazi back in World War II. Or that he's some kind of Dr. Evil, set on world domination (no doubt complete with laserbeam-fitted sharks and his mysterious Alan Parsons Project). Suffice it to say, O'Reilly's gone batshit crazy.

Now, here's a guy, Soros, who's a self-made billionaire, and in turn spent a lot of money fighting communism in Eastern Europe. One would assume that would make him a virtual hero to the right-wing of America. He sounds like a Reagan Republican's dream guy. Only one problem, though - he turned on the Bush Administration. A big no-no. Even after being buddy-buddy with the Bushes in Carlyle Group. Even after Harkin Energy, which Soros was part owner of, bailed out Junior's failed oil company, Soros soured on Dubya's economic and foreign policies. The war in Iraq was the final straw. First, he ran full-page ads in major US newspapers challenging the honesty of the Bush administration's rationale for the war. He also wrote a book, The Bubble of American Supremacy, which criticized the president's foreign policy. Then he pledged to spend up to $30 million to help defeat Bush in the 2004 election, donating nearly $24 million to various political action committees and liberal think tanks. The biggest beneficiaries of Soros' generosity were Americans Coming Together ($10 million), MoveOn.org ($2.5 million) and the Center for American Progress ($3 million). It's a rather small list. And no, Media Matters was not on that list. And neither was Air America Radio. Soros basically shot his $30 million load and left. But that $30 million is why the right-wing hates him so much. Or, they're scared shitless of the guy. So much that they're making up myths about this alleged bogeyman.

Michael Savage called Soros "a totally dangerous individual" who "doesn't miss an opportunity to attack this country" and "should be stripped of his citizenship." Right-wing activist David Horowitz, backed by quite a few generous right wing benefactors himself, has made ridiculous claims about Soros' campaign donations. O'Reilly called him "the big left-wing loon who's financing all these smear sites," and added, "They ought to hang this Soros guy." When Soros recently donated $2,100 to Barack Obama's presidential campaign, O'Reilly put on his tinfoil hat, oblivious to the fact that Soros once donated the same sum of money to John McCain. He really lives in fear in his belief that Soros is waging a war against him via MMfA. In short, Bill O'Reilly is one big pussy.

But enough about Soros. As I claimed last week, Soros isn't the only one doing it. On the left, there's Progressive Insurance CEO Peter Lewis and a few others. But that's a drop in the bucket compared to the other side. See, on the right, there's a whole ton of people. Some of the names I mentioned in the past, such as cult leader Sun Myung Moon and Rupert Murdoch are pretty out in the open. They invest in blatant partisan media geared toward right-wing propaganda. Richard DeVos, founder of the Amway pyramid scheme, has long been one of the biggest contributors to the Republican Party, and his kids have followed suit.

Behind the scenes, though, are a wide variety of billionaires, families, corporations and foundations throwing obscene amounts of money at political action committees, think tanks, media watchdog organizations, lobbying groups, and various propaganda outlets. Many of them stay out of the limelight. In this group, you'll find families like the Coors in Colorado, the Bradleys of Milwaukee, the Olin Foundation and others. They're still giving. But the most effective sugardaddy of them all is in Pittsburgh. The man is Richard Mellon Scaife.

Recall last week when I claimed that Moon was the top fatcat for the New Right. In terms of total spent, he likely is. But Scaife is the one who got the biggest bang for his buck. It's very likely that people like O'Reilly will never talk about right-wing moneymen like Scaife who heavily fund ventures designed to attack the left. Of course he wouldn't. Otherwise, he'll sound like a complete hypocrite. Most wingnuts will never acknowledge the efforts of the Coors, the Bradleys and the Scaifes. Even the Radio Tranquilizer has been whining that they don't have their own Soros or Lewis. Evidently, he's either not doing his homework or there are some things he just refuses to tell his readers. They're just pissy because we're now playing the game on their turf. The usual B.S. you hear is that left-leaning donors are squashing the right-wing with their spending. But that's utterly ridiculous. See, I have decided to track where all that right-wing foundation money goes, and after taking a trip down the rabbit hole, was pretty damned shocked to see where it all wound up. In fact, I struggled like crazy in making a similar chart to the simplistic one that O'Reilly's people coughed up, just because it went in so many directions. Here's a partial chart of what I came up with:


It's time to follow the money.

Now, who is Richard Mellon Scaife? He's an insanely rich man living in Pittsburgh, with interests in banking, oil, uranium and newspapers. Unlike Soros, who earned his own way from a poor immigrant, Scaife made his money the old fashioned way - he inherited it. And while Soros kept reinvesting his money to make more money, in that grand ol' American tradition, Scaife used his money to gain influence, spending roughly a third of his fortune on various right wing causes. Scaife is a man that seems to lurk in the shadows. He's a bit reclusive. He doesn't go on FOX Noise and play pundit. He doesn't write op-eds in the paper. In the grand tradition of Hearst, Hughes and others, he stays out of the limelight.

Even for a newspaper publisher, he's not very media-friendly. When former Wall Street Journal reporter Karen Rothmeyer, denied an interview on several occasions, ran into him on the street and asked him about his donations, an enraged Scaife yelled "You f*cking Communist c*nt, get out of here." In the remaining five minutes of the interview, Scaife told her she was ugly and that her teeth were "terrible." He closed by saying, "Don't look behind you." Wow, now THAT'S unhinged!

"If a liberal politician doesn't toe the Soros line, he or she will be denied funding and brutally attacked. Just ask Senator Joseph Lieberman about what MoveOn and Media Matters did to him," claimed O'Reilly. Yeah, just like Scaife did when Brock was canned for not being mean enough to Hillary Clinton and severed ties to American Spectator when they gave a bad review to a book by one of his henchmen. Pot, say hello to kettle.

Scaife is the Kevin Bacon of the New Right, in that just about anything and everything neocon seems to have connection to him, within even fewer degrees. So, how much has he forked over to prop up the right-wing? By 1999, according to the Washington Post, Scaife's foundations have forked over $340 million dollars to conservative causes and groups. Again, this is just Scaife we're talking about here. Granted, Scaife isn't forking it over like he used to, but thanks to his past efforts, the groups that he's given to are the ones now paying it forward.

To start with, Scaife made a shady donation of $990,000 to the 1972 re-election campaign of Richard Nixon. Due to loopholes, he wasn't charged with a crime, but roughly $45,000 of that went to a fund linked to the Watergate scandal. Quite a beginning there, Dick!

What really got Scaife hot though was a semi-obscure Arkansas governor named Bill Clinton. Fearing that this guy actually stood a decent chance of beating Bush I in the 1992 election, Scaife brought out all the guns. He was a major backer of The American Spectator, a right-wing magazine that was planning an all-out smear campaign now commonly referred to as "The Arkansas Project." The purpose was to find out anything about Clinton, and if that wasn't good enough, just make stuff up. This is where stuff like Paula Jones came from. And later Whitewater, the suicide of Vince Foster (which they tried to paint as a murder), and whatever else they could pull out of their asses. The purpose was to force Clinton from office and endlessly dog and harass him and his family. This was with the help of Scaife's own personal attack dog reporter, Christopher Ruddy, who later founded NewsMax.com. In other words, lots of time and effort was spent in trying to topple a presidency, an act that could theoretically be considered treason. Scaife sunk a ton of his own money into these ventures, reportedly almost $2 million dollars (not counting money he gave to then-House Speaker and Clinton antagonist Newt Gingrich's various groups), giving Independent Counsel Kenneth Starr a lot to work with. Ironically (or not), Scaife endowed a new school of public policy at Pepperdine University, and Starr was named its first dean. A controversy brewed, and Starr turned it down, before accepting it again in 2004.

Ironically, Scaife indirectly helped fund MMfA, since founder David Brock was a top writer for American Spectator at the time of the Arkansas Project, and was paid handsomely to lash out at the Clintons with various ridiculous claims. Following an eventual change of heart and his brave decision to publicly declare his sexual orientation, Brock drifted toward the other side and founded MMfA, obviously using some of the money paid to him from the Spectator's coffers. We can thank Scaife in part for that.

Like many other conservative sugardaddies, Scaife sunk money into other ventures. The American Enterprise Institute was another big benefactor, and they in turn helped prop up the epicenter of neo-conservatism, the Project for a New American Century (PNAC), as well as the Federalist Society, which could be seen as the starting point for conservative trash-talker Ann Coulter. Coulter's scating columns have since been published in various Scaife media ventures.

And while O'Reilly and his ilk constantly charge that Soros funds MMfA, several conservative-leaning media watchdogs have stuck their hands in Scaife's cookie jar. Directly. The Center for Media and Public Affairs is one, and the ironically-titled Accuracy in Media is another beneficiary. You remember AIM, right? They were out front in the whole Vince Foster conspiracy. But the most well-known of these watchdogs is the Media Research Center (MRC), headed by Brent Bozell, complete with a $6 million annual budget and 60 staff members. And they've even branched out, starting their very own news organization, the Cybercast (formerly Conservative) News Service (CNS). They were the ones that claimed they had proof of Saddam Hussein's WMD's. In addition, the MRC started up a MMfA-type blog, Newsbusters.org. MRC's affiliate, the Parents Television Council (PTC), is similar in nature. The MRC has also helped encourage the efforts of the Swift Boat Veterans for Truth, whose purpose was to dog John Kerry with lies and vague accusations during the 2004 presidential campaign. And unlike MMfA, the MRC/PTC has actually taken their fight against liberalism to the government, in the form of various complaints to the FCC.

Scaife has also thrown money at right-wing news organizations. Besides his ownership of the Pittsburgh Tribune-Review, he presently has an ownership stake in NewsMax.com. He donated to Heritage Society and Moral Majority founder Paul Weyrich's Free Congress Foundation, which in turn started an ill-fated conservative TV network, National Empowerment Television (later America's Voice), a venture that turned out to be a financial sinkhole that nobody watched. He also sent $330,000 directly to the Western Journalism Center, which helped start Joseph Farah's WorldNetDaily.com.

Scaife sent money to the Center for the Study of Popular Culture, a group founded by former Marxist-turned-right wing activist David Horowitz. Horowitz in turn started FrontPageMag.com, Discover the Networks, which tracks funding to and from left-leaning causes, and most curiously, the Matt Drudge Defense Fund, which supported him in a lawsuit a few years back. Needless to say, Drudge knows who his sugardaddy is.

Lately, Scaife has been a buyer of buyer of books, in mass quantities. Ever wonder about those high rankings on the New York Times bestseller lists for conservative books? Or those conservative book clubs offering titles for ridiculously low prices? Thank Scaife for that, since he buys in bulk. Particularly titles from Regnery Press, which publishes the work of Michelle Malkin, David Limbaugh and most famously, "Unfit for Command," which helped jumpstart that "Swift Boat Veterans for Truth" thing a few years back. Ah, yes - another connection to the Swift Nuts!

And Scaife also contributed money and resources to the Council for National Policy, a secretive networking group that counts among its members a who's-who of the New Right, including Bozell, Moon, DeVos, Pat Robertson, Donald Wildmon, Jerry Falwell, Grover Norquist, disgraced congressman Tom DeLay, Senator Trent Lott, Tommy Thompson and others. Whew!

Needless to say, Scaife gets around. And it's not just him either. The names of Coors and Bradley also pop up here and there. But for head marionette status, nobody can top Scaife. Sure, he didn't make much financial return on these investments, but for overall influence and power, he most certainly got his money's worth. So when people like O'Reilly piss and moan about the right wing being horribly underfunded, we can all laugh at him. Or when Brian Maloney whines on his fact-lacking blog about the lack of a Soros or Lewis on his side (that is, when he's not writing ridiculous entries about Sheryl Crow and toilet paper - which is a fitting topic for him, since he is kind of an asswipe anyway), then we can point him in the right direction and he can stop begging his readers to send him money. So consider this a helpful tool for the right. That's right, I'm providing a service here. Because, if you get all your news from Rush Limbaugh, the FOX Noise Channel and AM radio, you'll likely never know about the Coors, or the Bradleys, or the John M. Olin Foundation, or Jeremiah Milbank, or ExxonMobil, or Lockheed Martin, or any of the other 'philanthropists', foundations, corporations or other sugardaddies and fatcats.

And certainly not Richard Mellon Scaife.

In an ironic footnote, the Scaife Family Foundation is now under the control of his daughter Jennie, and the focus has changed quite a bit. Much of the money currently goes to nonpolitical projects such as medical programs, drug treatment and animal welfare. They also send money to Planned Parenthood, though against her father's wishes. Hey, at least there's still all those other donors, foundations and think tanks, provided they haven't jumped ship already. But thanks to the infrastructure provided by the likes of Scaife, they can all sail on autopilot for a long time to come.

The wingnut media meltdown

If you really desire to find out more proof that conservatives are thin-skinned hypocritical chickenshits, then by all means, read on.

In the aftermath of the whole Don Imus controversy, conservotalk radio goons have their undies in a bunch. They're scared their little party is going to come to a crashing halt. As playing the 'blame game' has always been their trademark, they're trotting out Hillary Clinton, George Soros, the mainstream media and all the other usual suspects. This time, though, the main target of their ire is media watchdog group Media Matters for America.

They claim MMfA has a hitlist. And they're frightened that MMfA won't stop until they take down every right-wing radio host with access to a microphone. In other words, they're scared shitless. They're also claiming that the group endlessly monitors right-wing radio and TV shows, scouring the broadcasts for even the slightest infraction, report on it, and then blitz the mainstream media with their findings. Well, no shit sherlock! They certainly don't hide that fact. And isn't that the same thing you guys do?

Several things are always evident during any wingnut smear campaign. The name of George Soros often pops up. He's their top bogeyman. In fact, they claim that he's funded virtually every anti-wingnut and anti-George W. Bush internet and media venture out there, from Air America to MMfA. Well, we all know he opted not to invest in Air America, and MMfA has claimed time and time again that they've never received funding from George Soros. The closest remote connection between the two is that a few groups that received donations from Soros in turn helped out MMfA, minus Soros' involvement. The only activist ventures Soros is known to have invested in are the Center for America Progress, MoveOn, America Coming Together and the Democracy Alliance, in addition to the usual political donations. Granted, Soros is an interesting character. I've always been somewhat suspicious of his involvement in Carlyle Group, perhaps the tightest of the tightest of private equity funds, one who's members consist of or have consisted of the Saudi Royal Family, James Baker III, former defense secretary Frank Carlucci, former Time Magazine editor-in-chief Norman Pearlstine, the bin Laden family (yes, THAT bin Laden family) and, of course, both George Bushes. But again, what's the big deal about Soros anyway? Well, the wingnuts will never tell you he did anything shady, because, apart from some insider trading accusations, he hasn't really done anything evil like blow up buildings, fund Hezbollah, slaughter kittens or eat babies.

Fats Lowbrow er, Rush Limbaugh was among the first to play the Soros card. And for equal measure, he threw out the name of Hillary Clinton, almost as if sending a subconscious message to the nimble-minded Manchurian Candidates who listen to his show. According to Drugbo the Hut, MMfA is a "Stalinist" organization (doesn't Godwin's Law cover that tired commie cliche as an instant argument killer?) and part of the "Clinton machine agenda." He claimed that Imus was taken down by MMfA because he was critical of Hillary Clinton. "This is an election year. Clinton Inc., you get on their case, they're going to take you out." Limbaugh continued, "When I say the Clinton team, I include Media Matters for America, this supposed tax-exempt media watchdog group," adding, falsely, "They are George Soros-funded. This is clearly part of the 'Democrat' (sic) Party machine." Oxymoron had absolutely no shame in his lashing, claiming that Democrats are anti-Semitic, racist, totalitarian and are engaged in smear tactics.

Oh, and he even had the balls to use phrases like 'draft dodger' and "philanderer," evidentially with no sense of personal irony whatsoever. Well, at least he didn't say "drug addict." Irony is always in abundant supply on Limbaugh's show. He claims to take the high road, and that he is "not demeaning people on this program in any way." Yeah, right.

Michael Savage Weiner claims MMfA is "run by a homosexual activist who hates anybody in the media who does not kowtow to the homosexual agenda." He had previously referred to Media Matters as "a gay website that attacks me every day" and called Brock "a psychopath." All of this sounds pretty ironic for a guy who used to write overly friendly letters to and skinny-dipped with beatnik poet Allen Ginsberg. It really makes one wonder whether Weiner's, er Savage's reactionary radio shtick is all just an act.

One radio loudmouth who really is putting on an act is Tammy Bruce. The wingnut blogs are absolutely drooling over her appearance on Bill O'Reilly's show a few days ago on FOX 'News' where she claimed that there is a left-wing 'hit list' on conservojocks, and they're coming to put them all out of work. But let's call it like it is - Bruce is a fraud. She's not really a conservative. In fact, she started out doing liberal radio, until her job prospects started to look somewhat grim. Then, this pro-choice, pro-gay rights lesbian feminist shifted abruptly to the right, metamorphosing into some sort of 'conservative-but-not-really-conservative'. Or, as she describes herself, an "openly gay, pro-choice, gun owning, pro-death penalty, voted-for-President Bush progressive feminist." Her political orientation shifts back and forth with the breeze, adapting her outlook to whatever suits her arguments, employment prospects or FOX 'News' facetime. In other words, she flip-flops more than Mitt Romney. Newsflash to all wingnuts - she's a phony.

Now, is there a problem with this? I accept this as fact in the radio industry. Let's be real here - it's all show business anyway. Talk radio at times seems no different than professional wrestling, ridiculous braggadocio and all. This is commonly referred to in the wrestling business by terms such as 'work' or 'kayfabe.' Where two menacing thugs go out and beat the living shit out of each other, steal each others' girlfriends and blow up each others' cars on TV every week, yet go out for beers and share steroid needles after the show is over. Talk radio is similar, except for the exploding cars and physical violence. Bruce is all kayfabe. When Limbaugh exploded on the national radio scene, I thought the same, like he's doing a parody of a conservative moron. And to be honest, I thought he was pretty good at it. Over time, I think he started believing his own bullshit, thanks to fame and all that money. At least the money his three ex-wives haven't taken. Same with Sean Hannity, who often sounds like he's reading straight from the RNC faxes. Most likely, these guys are probably putting on an act to some degree, call it 'whoring for dollars.' The sad reality is that, unlike wrestling which we all know is a put-on, radio listeners actually think all of what these folks say is legit.

And these types of conservative gasbags, in increasingly widespread delusions of paranoia, are once again playing the victim, claiming that Hillary, Soros, the media (which they are a part of anyway) and organizations like MMfA are out to squash them like the bugs they are. What they fail to mention is that MMfA wasn't even there first. Actually, they got the idea from the wingnuts themselves. James Dobson and his righteous ilk have been attacking the media and the entertainment industry for decades. Hotheaded wingnut Brent Bozell was next in 1987 with his Media Research Center (and later, sister blog NewsBusters). And there's more where that came from, in the form of 'Accuracy' in Media. Sure, they claim to be neutral, but they're always out front in claiming liberal media bias, while rarely attacking conservatives. And guess what? All of these groups do the exact same thing that they accuse MMfA of doing. Pot, say hello to kettle. But hey, it's all a 'work' anyway, right? Just like pro wrestling.

And as far as deep-pocketed political sugar daddies go, Soros is a Johnny-come-lately to the party. Conservatives and Republican'ts for years have been relying on eccentric moneymen to help squash anyone who stands in their way. Ever hear of Richard Mellon Scaife? This trust fund baby used some of his $1 billion inheritance to lash out at all things non-conservative. He made borderline illegal contributions to Richard Nixon's 1972 re-election campaign. He sent money to right-wing think tanks and political action committees. He bought a little newspaper in the Pittsburgh suburbs and turned it into an ultra-conservative attack rag. He threw money at magazines like the American Spectator, which in turn funded the Arkansas Project, a nefarious group whose sole purpose from the early 1990s onward was to dig up as much dirt on Bill Clinton as humanly possible. Scaife even funded this shady venture directly, and in many ways oversaw it. Ironically, one key journalist used in the smear campaign was none other than then-American Spectator writer David Brock, who later renounced his sordid muckraking past and flipped to the other side, founding MMfA. In essence, here was Scaife, a goofy billionaire who, with a right-wing group, was trying to overthrow the presidency. Hey, isn't that treason? Funny we don't hear Limbaugh, O'Reilly, Savage and Bruce talk about this crazy rich guy trying to silence the opposition. But I guess it would be a bit difficult to work that into a conversation on a daily three hour program, right? Oh, and Scaife himself directly sent money to the Media Research Center, further making this whole Soros thing moot.

Want more? Well, there's more where Scaife came from. Perhaps the grandaddy of them all is Sun Myung Moon, Korean leader of the Unification Church, an organization considered by many to be a high-powered cult. When authorities started to come down on his massive financial empire in the 1970s for fraud, conspiracy and tax evasion offenses, Moon sought to make some high-powered friends. He aligned himself with Republicans such as Nixon, Ronald Reagan and George H.W. Bush. In the ultimate suck-up gesture to the GOP, he gave them their own newspaper, the Washington Times, on which he has spent over a billion dollars on over the past two decades without ever seeing a profit. Not to worry, since he can always bilk more out of his followers anyway. Ironically, his efforts have been defended in the past by the ACLU, another frequent target of the conservative movement.

And, need I mention Australian media baron Rupert Murdoch, who went down the same media road as Moon, minus the cult and the lawbreaking? We're all too familiar with that story, and he's kind of a lightweight compared to some of these other characters.

But this is just the tip of the iceberg. I could mention that the conservative movement has always been propped up by generous sugardaddies like Richard DeVos, founder of the Amway pyramid scheme, and countless others including many, many oil companies, media owners and defense contractors. But this article is getting way too long and off-track, so it's best that it come to a close.

So, wingnuts can go ahead and attack MMfA, Soros, Hillary, the media and all their other usual punching bags. But before they do, perhaps it's best that they take a good, hard look in the mirror at themselves and the people they're talking to. Their ideals are propped up by the billions of dollars coming from a traitor, a felonious Korean cult leader and a pyramid scheme ripoff artist. They'll realize that they're not so high and mighty after all. It's just them whining and ranting like the conservative crybabies they are.

The last blogger on Earth to write about Don Imus

Okay, I'll start things off by stating the obvious.

Don Imus is an asshole.

There, I said it. Okay, now we can proceed.

Actually, I didn't even really have the desire to make mention of this whole sordid affair. It's not that what Imus said about collegiate womens' basketball players wasn't appalling (it was). It's just that I really don't care. Let's face it, after four decades on the air, any casual listener (and non-listener) knows that Imus is a grouchy curmudgeon. He hates everyone. Liberals and conservatives. Democrats and Republicans. He hates 'em all. And for some strange reason, there lies his appeal to his listeners.

I've never met the guy. Nor do I have a desire to. I did know someone who has. From the description she gave, he basically sounds like a cruel, hostile, evil man. And the phony cowboy gimmick doesn't make him any more warm and fuzzy.

For anyone reading this that has been living under a rock for the past week or so, Imus got himself into some pretty hot water during an on-air exchange last week with his fill-in sports guy, Sid Rosenberg and executive producer Bernard McGuirk. In the conversation, they were talking womens' college basketball. Imus referred to the Rutgers women's basketball team as "nappy-headed ho's," and that they looked like the players from the Toronto Raptors. Nice. The fun didn't stop there, since this was followed by his sports guy working in a reference to last week's Rutgers-Tennessee women's NCAA final, by way of a reference to a Spike Lee flick that was probably far from what Lee intended. Of course, this kind of light banter is nothing new to Imus in the Morning. He once referred to PBS correspondent Gwen Ifill as a "cleaning lady." A few years back, Rosenberg called Venus Williams an "animal," and said that one would stand a better chance of seeing a layout of her and her sister Serena in National Geographic rather than Playboy. Okay, so these guys have some issues that need addressing.

And then came the shitstorm. Unlike previous times, when Imus was so confident in his job security that he could get away with saying just about anything, they all turned on him. His reliable guests, often consisting of a who's who of the D.C. beltway and national media, bailed. Advertisers did as well. Could it be that he just went to far? Or that we just all needed a new controversy to wrap our lazy minds around? Now that we know who Anna Nicole's baby's daddy is, we can move on to scrounge up a new scandal du jour. Well, timing sucks. Imus is in trouble.

Of course, following every boneheaded public racist gaffe, from Jimmy the Greek to Mel Gibson to Michael Richards, comes the inevitable apology circuit. First stop was the radio show of Al Sharpton, one who hardly ever misses a scandal involving race. Now, for someone with the gargantuan ego that Imus possesses to stoop so low as to grovel on someone else's radio show, especially Al Sharpton's, well, that says a lot. For someone as self-absorbed as Imus to resort to addressing Sharpton as "yes, sir," well, you know he must be sweating (here's the audio). And after hearing Sharpton's banter, I thought perhaps Air America hired the wrong guy to replace Sam Seder.

Following Sharpton's show, Imus made the rounds of the news channels, the Today Show, and anyone else with a few cameras and a dedicated cable outlet. Unfortunately, this was too much controversy for his handlers. CBS, which distributes the radio show through their Westwood One syndication arm and MSNBC, which airs the video feed, gave him a two week involuntary vacation starting next Monday. MSNBC colleague Keith Olbermann said on his ESPN Radio show that he doubts his network will welcome Imus back. (UPDATE: This afternoon, MSNBC gave Imus the boot).

Essentially, this could be seen as proof that karma does indeed exist. Just like the sleazy Joe Francis (the "Girls Gone Wild" guy), who will hopefully have done to him behind bars what he has done to various young women over the past few years, Imus has basically gotten his comeuppance.

So, should Imus be fired once and for all? Who knows? Often, these scandals disappear after a short time, once another scandal comes around that our alleged mainstream media decides to pound into the susceptible minds of America. But "nappy headed hos" is not the first instance of fiery racist rhetoric or hostile audio nasties blasted out over the airwaves of our great country. Lots more where that came from. For example:

"(Cynthia McKinney) looks like ghetto trash. Get a braider over there ... quick!"

Oh wait, that was Neal Boortz who said that.

Or, "You know who deserves a posthumous Medal of Honor? James Earl Ray . We miss you, James. Godspeed."

Oops, sorry. That was Rush Limbaugh.

"...Slavery built the South. I'm not saying we should bring it back; I'm just saying it had its merits. For one thing, the streets were safer after dark."

My bad. Limbaugh again.

"Take that bone out of your nose and call me back."

"Have you ever noticed how all composite pictures of wanted criminals resemble Jesse Jackson?"

"The NAACP should have riot rehearsal. They should get a liquor store and practice robberies."

Yep. Limbaugh again.

"You open the door to them (immigrants), and the next thing you know, they are defecating on your country and breeding out of control."

Threw you all a curveball. That was Michael Savage who said that.

"(If) you wanted to reduce crime ... if that were your sole purpose, you could abort every black baby in this country, and your crime rate would go down... (aborting all African-American babies) would be an impossible, ridiculous, and morally reprehensible thing to do.. but the crime rate would go down"

That was Salem morning guy Bill Bennett.

Oh, and don't get me started on Glen Beck and Ann Coulter. I'm trying to keep this article short.

So, for wingnuts who want Imus' head chopped off, and say that 'well, if a conservative talk radio guy said what Imus did, they'd be fired.' Sorry, doesn't fly here. All those guys mentioned above are still working and flourishing. Am I saying Imus gets a pass because of all those other loud mouthed idiots? Of course not. Am I saying that I have heard so much of this trash over the years that I've perhaps become totally immune to it all and don't really give a shit about these people anymore? I'd say yes.

There are a lot of problems in the world today. Iran and their dimwitted dictator are on the verge of starting a war with somebody, anybody. Just this morning I paid roughly $0.70 a gallon more for gas than I did several months ago. And I have to repeatedly check an online list to find out what kind of food I can buy for my cats and dog, since some cheap-assed corporations would rather kill our pets than spend money on quality ingredients. So, do I really care about some narcissistic old media goons, totally removed from the entire outside world, who take limousines to work and spout hateful rhetoric over the airwaves? Sorry, I really don't anymore.

Oh, but what's to become of Dannielynn Smith?