Grade This! - February 13, 2006
The latest news wrap-up: from Leaky Libby to Deadeye Dick.
By Brian Beutler
Monday February 13, 2006
Someone’s plotting on the state of Denmark
If I had to make a list of things I’m happy not to be right now, a Danish Embassy would be right up there. So would publisher of the New York Press (where four staffers quit over the paper’s decision not to publish the now-infamous Danish cartoons). So yes, there’s been a lot of talk, in op-ed columns and in blogs, about whether this week’s violent protests against all things Scandinavian are a case of cultural poles hitting critical mass, or just what’s to be expected when people feel indignant (as, say, Christians do when confronted by sacrilegious art) but without any agency. Rioter Mawli Abdul Qahar Abu sought to clarify with this statement to the BBC: "They want to know whether Muslims are extremists or not. Death to them and to their newspapers." Well… I guess that settles it then.
Danish cartoons: D-
Editorial staff of the New York Press: A+
Mawli Abdul Oahar Abu: C+ (points for honesty)
Libby: I can’t even leak without Cheney telling me to
According to Murray Waas of National Journal, “Vice President Dick Cheney’s former chief of staff, I. Lewis (Scooter) Libby, testified to a federal grand jury that he had been ‘authorized’ by Cheney and other White House ‘superiors’ in the summer of 2003 to disclose classified information to journalists to defend the Bush administration’s use of prewar intelligence in making the case to go to war with Iraq.” Somehow it feels like, maybe, possibly, I’m not shocked to learn that.
Murray does, as usual, the best work in Washington on the topic, and I suppose this is something like a “smoking gun” or whatever you want to call it. But remember the Downing Street Memo? The one that touched off a huge, lumbering dinosaur of a debate For some – like Mark Danner – that memo was a conspiracy panacea, and for others – like Michael Kinsley – it was irrelevant because it confirmed universally held suspicions. Then DSM disappeared altogether. Couldn’t Plame go the same way?
Murray Waas: A+
I. Lewis (Scooter) Libby: C+ (points for honesty)
The dreaded possibility of Plame fizzling out: F
 Well it’s not like it’s rocket science or anything
Following up on last week’s entry about the NASA scientist who was silenced by Bush administration officials, we now have a back story… and a name… and a bio… and it’s kinda funny. This guy, George Deutsch, was a mediocre pundit and a college Republican. Until, that is, he dropped out of school… to join the Bush re-election campaign. Reports the New York Times:“‘When I left college,’ he said, ‘I did not properly update my résumé. As a result, it may appear misleading to some. However, I was up front with NASA about my undergraduate status when they hired me.’”
The kid’s like my age, and, through some good ol’ fashioned cronyism, was hired to bark at well-trained scientists about the legitimacy of their career’s work. Apparently, this includes telling web designers to affix the word “theory” to every mention of “The Big Bang,” a proposition that’s as dubious as, oh, say, “Evolution” or, maybe, that speculative “George Deutsch is a big fat idiot” proposition I heard about the other day.
George Deutsch: F
George Deutsch’s pimples: A+
George Deutsch’s new resume: C+ (he still hasn’t graduated, but points for honesty).
Senators stunned as Brownie says something not totally stupid
Testifying before a Senate committee looking into the bureaucratic disasters that accompanied Katrina, former FEMA head Michael Brown passed the buck… to his former bosses at Homeland Security… and the President. Not surprising. But what’s interesting is that some of what he said is believable. The printed testimony is not yet available online, but in it, Brown contends that the government would have been ALL over New Orleans, if a terrorist, instead of a foreseeable hurricane, had felled the levees. That may be right, actually, if only because politicians CANNOT afford to look unprepared in the face of a terror attack ever again. Hurricanes, on the other hand, don’t say things like “Death to them and to their newspapers.” And besides, what’s one ruined city between friends?
The response to Katrina: F
The administration, for appointing Michael Brown: F
Michael Brown, if I’m right about his testimony: C+ (points for honesty)
Every talk show host in America tells writing staff they can have the day off
Conservatives may continue to say that they "stand behind the president," but would they stand behind Dick Cheney? Maybe not anymore, since the last guy who did was shot. While on a hunting trip this weekend, the Vice President spun around 180 degrees and shot his hunting partner, 78-year-old lawyer Harry Whittington, who was rushed to the hospital by Cheney’s personal on-call ambulance staff. According to Editor & Publisher, news of Cheney’s oopsie didn’t reach the media for 18 hours, and only did so because a resident of the ranch he was hunting on alerted the local news. Whittington, thankfully, survived and is in stable condition, meaning the 18 hours were likely not used to delete any photographs of him with Cheney from various photo archives.
Shooting a 78-year-old man: F
Not telling the media you shot a 78-year-old man in the face: D-
Having your own personal ambulance team: A
Dick Cheney’s gun safety skills: C-
Dick Cheney’s grade from the NRA: A (this is true)
(Submitted by August J. Pollak, Campus Progress)
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Illustration: August J. Pollak
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