I'm boiling mad, and I don't get that way easily. I'm very much a person who dislikes conflict, and I will take a conciliatory tone to try to build bridges.

But I believe that Gov. Dean is being railroaded by big donors in the Democratic party, because they have the money and therefore they believe they have all the power and the right to ignore reality and dictate terms.

There's this:

Nemazee, a Clinton national finance chair, pointedly asked Dean why he and the DNC were not doing more to seat the Florida and Michigan delegates. Dean energetically defended himself, saying it was up to the states and the candidates to reach a solution, and that DNC involvement could be perceived as unfairly assisting one campaign or the other. As he spoke, some Clinton supporters protested, while the Obama supporters mostly sat quietly, according to the attendees.

rant continues below the fold.

In September 2004, about two months from election day, then CBS news anchorman Dan Rather did a story on that week’s 60 Minutes II broadcast that would jettison the venerable newsman into a surreal downward spiral that finally ended with his early retirement from the Tiffany network, after a storied 40-year career, because of the story about President Bush’s National Guard records... or lack of them.

I happened to be watching that particular broadcast, and as soon as Mr. Rather began the story, I instantly realized that I had heard this tale before, perhaps from a book I had read years before. Rumors had circulated prior to the 2000 election about the dubious, behind-the-scenes work of Bush loyalists Karen Hughes and Joe Allbaugh in "scrubbing" Dubbya’s National Guard service records so they could withstand media scrutiny.

Cross posted on Passive Ranting.

An awesome piece in The New York Observer a couple of days ago seemed to have been missed. Writer Steve Kornacki takes on the ever-popular subject of Holy Joe Lieberman and gives him a verbal whipping.

Early last week, a distressing, if not entirely unsurprising, Newsweek poll found that fully 40 percent of American adults continue to believe that Iraq was directly involved in the 9/11 attacks.

It must, then, have been this exasperating chunk of the electorate that Joe Lieberman had in mind when he declared Sunday on ABC’s "This Week" that Democrats are doomed in the 2008 presidential race unless they re-embrace the Iraq War.

"Exasperating chunk of the electorate"? Be still my heart, someone in the media still values truth and principles.

I just can't understand the big deal about your fascination with Hillary, Obama, Edwards, Richardson, and the rest of the 2008 Democratic field.  I mean, talk about settling for second best when we know the best available candidate is a folk hero with supernatural powers.

Who you ask is the savior of our distressed country and despondent civilization?  He's an innovator and inventor par excellence.  The one who has (so far) sacrificed his own political ambition for a cause greater than all of humanity. One who possesses an innate sense of decency.  One who retains a huge public following. One who has become the darling of Hollywood types.  As well as some of the media elites. Not to mention dissatisfied Starcomed all over our great land.

Who you ask is this masked man?  What... you didn't know his name???  Here's a hint: he played 'First Emperor of the Moon' in Futurama.

He is La Erog.    

"The publication was not timed to the Iraqi election, the Patriot Act debate, Jim's forthcoming book or any other event," Keller said in a statement. "We published the story when we did because after much hard work it was fully reported, checked and ready, and because, after listening respectfully to the administration's objections, we were convinced there was no good reason not to publish it."

The newspaper had reported Friday that it held publication of the story for "a year" because the White House had argued that it "could jeopardize continuing investigations and alert would-be terrorists that they might be under scrutiny."

That statement was widely taken to mean...well...exactly what it fuckin says.   Keller was claiming, which he now says was simply a case of "inelegant words", that he crushed the story from December 2004 until it was published a year later in December 2005.

LA Times & NY Observer both ran anon. sourced stories claiming the Times had the story before the election.

Guess what.   They were fucking right.

Titled Lieberman's Allies Blame the Bloggers, the article effectively lays out a number of reasons why this is such a farce of an argument, how pathetic of a response is, and frankly, how much Lieberman is missing the point of what CT voters (as well as many people in the US in general) want from their elected officials.

My sources in the book business say that it's a "slam dunk" that this is going to be the cover for Bumiller's book.

An alternative title was "Not A Historical Document", but it was pointed out to editors that that was the opposite of Secretary Rice's statements to the 9/11 Commission, so an actual quote of hers was used.

From darrelplant.com