In my Politics through Film and Fiction class, I just finished watching a wonderful treat of a movie starring Warren Beatty and Diane Keaton as John Reed and Louise Bryant, respectfully.  A full three hours long, it provides us with an intriguing glance into the lives of American communists during the 1910s.

The Washington Post’s newest attack on John Murtha may have some credibility. Hard to say. It’s a little like Tony Soprano accusing a local New Jersey official of corruption. In the last six years we have seen a complete failure of character on the part of the press at the highest ranks, and at no place more so than The Washington Post. The Post absolutely egged on the Dungeon & Dragons warriors in the Oval Office. It pioneered the concept of embedded journalists; but Post reporters have long been embedded in one thing or another. The Post accommodated, appeased and enabled war fever in this country and in doing so it has blood on its hands. That blood is the blood of American soldiers. It should be called to responsibility.  Murtha was the Gray Champion who first stood up in defense of these soldiers and identified this call to war as a deception.

My, my, it's been a busy week.  Brownie takes his heckuva a job to Congress and tells the administration where to stick it.  Some of the Dems capitulate, again, to give us a watered-down, but nonetheless dangerous, Patriot Act.  Jack Abramhoff tells the world, why yes, the President knew me quite well, thanks.  And Scooter invokes the "Ollie North" defense.

Sigh.

Peripherally, a shout out to the BewareGovernorGibson contingent;

though i find you deliciously snarky,
It ain't gonna happen...that's just
way
off the radar
speaking as a lifelong Californian, there is no friggin' way that we are going to permit another wingnut governor.

I haven't found anyone that takes this 'movement' to elect Mel seriously.
This ain't no purple state, bay-bay.

exposure and apologies below the fold...

The California Governor's race of 2006 is getting weirder by the minute. Of course everyone knows by now that the California GOP is now courting Mel Gibson to provide a Primary challenge to Herr Gropenfuhrer. That's old news now.

What's new is that one of the potential Democratic Hollywood challengers has bowed out. Details below the fold.

Just read a great piece from Nathan Gardels over at the Huffington Post.

A Phil Angelides/Warren Beatty combo would be the best ticket for California's future.

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/...

Nathan Gardels is editor-in-chief of NPQ, the journal of social and political thought published by Los Angeles Times Syndicate/Tribune Media, which has 35 million readers in 15 languages through scores of the world's top papers. Gardels has numerous fellowships and is a well known lecturer.

See discussion and poll on the flip-side. Who do you like in 2006 California Governors Race?

I found his thoughts on not only how to defeat Arnold Schwarzenegger in 2006 very interesting but more so his proposed political union of a Phil Angelidies and Warren Beatty as just the ticket California needs to become once again the top progressive state in the U.S.

Pat Robertson, who recently blamed Ellen Degeneres for 9/11 and Hurricane Katrina, today blamed Warren Beatty for the tornado last night in Indiana and Kentucky

Good for Beatty:

SAN DIEGO - Actors Warren Beatty and wife Annette Bening tried to crash a campaign appearance Saturday by Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger as the governor sought to drum up last-minute support for a group of statewide ballot measures.

The Hollywood couple strode side-by-side to the entrance of an airport hangar where several hundred of the governor's supporters had gathered.

A Schwarzenegger aide told the "Bulworth" star he was not on the guest list and did not have the appropriate wristband to get inside.

"You have to have a wristband to listen to the governor?" Bening asked. "He represents all of us, right?"

The couple's appearance caused momentary confusion. Just before the governor took the stage, the hangar door was closed -- literally in their faces. It was later reopened as Schwarzenegger spoke.

As a Californian, I'm not sure if I'm completely horrified or somewhat amused at the prospect of, once again, having a race for Governor that becomes a complete and total spectacle.