Becoming Somebody

Anyone who lives, as I have for years, in the Hudson River villages — Nyack, Piermont, Grandview, Palisades — knows how obnoxious local E-List celebrity Stephen Baldwin can be. Whether he’s trying to shut down adult-video boutiques or making multiple trips to the Starbucks on the corner of Main and Broadway, the star of such Hollywood classics as Bio-Dome and The Flintstones in Viva Rock Vegas is simply an annoying presence in an otherwise decent community.

Sure, everyone loves them some Alec. And Billy seems content to keep to himself. Hell, even Daniel has been fun to watch in his latest stint as a manic celeb-reality TV star. But holy hell is Stephen irritating. It’s probably the whole insane, right-wing Jesus-loving shit he’s into that drives me most crazy, but even if he wasn’t a Jesus Nazi he’d still bug me. He’s a slimeball and just sort of creeps me out. I think most people who’ve observed him around town would agree, as well.

And that is why I was so happy to hear little Stevie Baldwin pledge to move out of the country if Barack Obama wins the election in November, as if Obama needed any more help winning this uber-liberal portion of New York State. No one man has done more to mobilize support for Obama in the Hudson River Valley than Baldwin did this afternoon. Right now, there are legions of villagers pledging financial and organizational support to the Democratic nominee. It’s not the politics. We just want Stephen Baldwin to go far, far away.

Watch:


Note to Laura Ingraham: Stephen Baldwin only barely counts as an “actor,” and he certainly is not to be considered a “celebrity” guest or Hollywood insider.

I’m not going to lie and say I never had a negative word to say about Tim Russert’s work, because while I enjoyed “Meet the Press” more than most TV news programs, I always felt Russert treated some of his more prominent guests with more reverence than they deserved. I would often turn off the TV at 11:30 on Sunday morning feeling a little piqued, the journalist in me wishing Russert had taken advantage of a hole left open by a dodgy, prevaricating politico and asked the really tough follow-up that would have delivered a knockout blow to the bullshit being laid on the collective doorstep of the American people. In that way, Russert had become the tribal elder in a Washington press corp that now seems content appeasing and working alongside, instead of in direct opposition to, the wheelers and dealers that are steering this country headfirst down a path littered with the remains of fallen empires.

Yet every week I tuned in to watch Russert do his thing. He seemed to be a fan of politics the way the best sportscasters come off as diehard fans of the games they cover. And like the best in the sportscasting business, Russert was able to entertain and inform without manipulating the emotional swells of his audience, the difference between a class act like Vin Scully and a hack like John Sterling. Russert was affable yet dignified, composed but never without an air of intellectual mischief common to all news geeks. He often embodied the best of the worst in his field, balancing a Chris Matthews-like bombast and chicanery with a solemnity that shows up only occasionally these days, when relics like Tom Brokaw and Dan Rather sit in for something big.

I first became aware of Russert’s approach to political coverage when, as an innocent and still-malleable seventeen-year-old, I watched unprecedented madness unfold on Election Night 2000. Sure, the absurdity of Bush-Gore went a long way in peeking my interest in politics, as did the discovery of Hunter Thompson’s more serious work, but it was Russert madly scribbling on his dry-erase board, breaking down all the electoral possibilities, that first made me realize politics could be fun in the way baseball and football are fun. My relationship with politics, and the news in general, escalated from a flirtation to an obsession quickly thereafter. I’m not sure I’d be as interested or informed as I am now had it not been for the excitement Russert brought to an event that was otherwise depressing and bleak.

In the last year or so, however, I had grown annoyed with Russert, the final straw coming when he proclaimed, in the wake of the Scooter Libby trial in which he was called as a witness, that he considered all talks with sources off-the-record unless the source stated otherwise. This runs counter to every notion I and many others hold dear about a journalist’s relationship with his sources. Journalists are not in the business of protecting their sources from unintentionally loose lips, and when Russert made his approach public I felt betrayed. I had a hard time taking him seriously from that point on. No matter what he said or did in any interview or commentary, it always lingered in the back of my mind that he cared more about coddling his sources to ensure access than he did about disseminating the truth.

As is too often the case, though, it took a man’s death to bring to light the enormity of his influence. I ask myself now, Where would I be had I not seen Russert’s monstrous cranium bobbing about as he jotted illegible figures on that white board, eyes wide and crazy-looking, in the days before wars on terror and $4 gasloline? If not Russert, who else could have gotten me interested in this dirty game with which I am now obsessed?

And that is why I was so saddened to hear of his sudden passing Friday afternoon. Right now, there is some seventeen-year-old kid only marginally interested in politics who would love to pay attention if only it didn’t seem so boring. That kid needs a journalist like Tim Russert to make him tune in or pick up a paper, to get him involved in the process that will shape the social context in which he will grow, to make something as infuriatingly crooked and irremediable as national politics seem like a good way to spend a Sunday morning.

Dennis Kucinich read thirty-five lengthy, detailed articles of impeachment against President Bush on the House floor Tuesday night (video below), a move that proves once again that he is a total political badass. The balls it took for Kucinich to introduce those charges into the Congressional record have made me stand by my assessment of Dennis Kucinich as the most important political figure in the United States.

When I made the claim the first time, most people laughed. However, to all those who mock the Ohio Congressman and former presidential candidate, Denny K once again did the country proud by taking this symbolic, yet likely fruitless, stand against the president. It’s his overriding courage, though, that I envy most. He stands up there and does what is right, even as his colleagues jeer and openly mock him. Way to be, Denny. Way to be.

Kucinich introduces Bush impeachment resolution, from CNN.com

WASHINGTON (CNN) — Rep. Dennis Kucinich, a former Democratic presidential candidate from Ohio, introduced a resolution to impeach President Bush into the House of Representatives on Tuesday.

Kucinich announced his intention to seek Bush’s impeachment Monday night, when he read the lengthy document into the record.

House Speaker Nancy Pelosi has repeatedly said she would not support a resolution calling for Bush’s impeachment, saying such a move was unlikely to succeed and would be divisive.

Most of the congressman’s resolution deals with the Iraq war, contending that the president manufactured a false case for the war, violated U.S. and international law to invade Iraq, failed to provide troops with proper equipment and falsified casualty reports for political purposes.

Kucinich also charges that Bush has illegally detained without charge both U.S. citizens and “foreign captives” and violated numerous U.S. laws through the use of “signing statements” declaring his intention to do so. … Read more

Watch video:

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Bill O’Reilly does this thing on his show where he sends out one of his producers — from what I have seen and from my experience sharing air with many of these types, they are all the lowest forms of humans, grubby weasels with no ethics and a thirst for fame alone — to ambush someone whom O’Reilly has labeled an enemy. The “interviews” that proceed from the sabotage are stupid, uninformative attack pieces that are further from real journalism than anything made up by Stephen Glass or Jayson Blair.

In the above clip, an O’Reilly Factor producer named (I shit you not) Porter Barry tries to ambush Bill Moyers, a frequent target of O’Reilly’s due to Moyers’ so-called liberal agenda (a.k.a he doesn’t fall in lockstep with the Bush administration and asks real questions) and failure to accept an invitation to appear on The Factor. Moyers gives Barry the what for and makes him look like the sniveling grub that he is. Real journalists then chase Barry down and treat him to an ambush-style interview. Great stuff.

Thanks to The UpTake for the video.

What can I say? It’s a good day.

The Associated Press: Obama clinches Democratic nomination

WASHINGTON (AP) - Barack Obama effectively clinched the Democratic presidential nomination Tuesday, based on an Associated Press tally of convention delegates, becoming the first black candidate ever to lead his party into a fall campaign for the White House.

I wouldn’t hold my breath on a civil ending to this process, though.

Looks like I blogged too soon. I found something to peak my interest and draw my anger. It seems that using “drop weapons” is a widespread practice used by the American military to cover up the killing of innocent civilians in Iraq and Afghanistan, according to veterans and other sources interviewed by the American News Project.

Watch video:

I’m still processing this and looking into the story. I expect to have more to say later.

I’m sure most of you have seen this by now, but if you haven’t let me fill you in. Apparently the “right-wing blogosphere” (aside: the union of the words “right-wing” and “blogosphere” might make for the most obnoxious conceptual juxtaposition in the Internet age) was abuzz recently about a Dunkin Donuts ad in which the heinously annoying Rachel Ray was shown wearing a white-and-black paisley scarf around her neck (see below).

“So what?” you ask.

Well, dear readers, according to conservative pundits led by Michelle Malkin, the scarf looked just a bit too much like a keffiyeh. And that was a bad thing. Because Islamic jihadis, particularly those in Palestine, wear keffiyehs. And American consumers of junk food are sensitive about things that look like things worn by Islamic jihadis. So Dunkies pulled the ad.

Now, I’m no fashion expert, but doesn’t any wrapped scarf kind of look like a keffiyeh, considering a keffiyeh is nothing more than a wrapped scarf worn by Arab men to keep the sun off their heads and sand out of their mouths?

And isn’t this America? A place where the freedom of people to dress as they choose should have by now rendered impotent the potential social dangers of fashion-based symbolism?

And isn’t Rachel Ray the complete antithesis of someone with whom Islamic jihadis would align themselves — an obnoxious, rich, property-owning, unwed, female loudmouth?

And, as much as I would love to see Rachel Ray strap dynamite to her chest and explode herself for any reason at all, does anyone really believe the queen of annoying culinary catchphrases is a covert Islamic militant? A jihadi sympathizer?

Can someone please explain this to me? Confuse me much America does.

How does a down-on-his-luck Cuban making between $10 and $15 a month spell freedom?

Thanks to his old pal Dubya, it’s no longer spelled: L-I-B-E-R-T-A-D.

No, no amigo tonto. Lo deletreas: V-E-R-I-Z-O-N o A-T-and-T. Cualquiera es aceptable.

I must give credit to the president for continuously boggling my mind with foreign-policy and humanitarian initiatives that seem a touch — oh what do I call it? — disingenuous.

Bush to let Americans send cell phones to Cuba, from CNN.com:

WASHINGTON (CNN) — The United States will allow Americans to send mobile phones to relatives in Cuba under a change in policy that President Bush announced Wednesday.

Bush said he is making the change since President Raúl Castro “is allowing Cubans to own mobile phones for the first time.”

“If he is serious about his so-called reforms, he will allow these phones to reach the Cuban people,” Bush said. […]

Bush said Wednesday it is “the height of hypocrisy to claim credit to allow Cubans to purchase appliances that virtually none of them can afford.”

The president concluded his statement by adding, “Oh snap. What do you think of me know, Castro brothers? Take that, you commie sonsabitches.”

When asked by a reporter whether he would encourage Castro to eavesdrop on calls made by Cuban citizens on those phones, as is the practice in the United States, Bush turned to Dick Cheney and winked his right eye. The vice president then leaped over the podium and onto the unsuspecting journalist. By the time members of the press corps wrestled Cheney away, all that remained of the correspondent was a necktie and a digital audio recorder.

Unfazed, once the media retook their seats, the president then revealed a new plan to send bagel slicers to Sudanese refugees, apparently in an attempt to show militia leaders in Darfur that, in a world snuggled under the warm blanket of freedom, even those escaping genocide deserve a tasty breakfast.

If the United States wants to piss and moan about Iran being an evil state, it should do so because its government still forces its citizens to do things like this, not because it gets off on smack talking Israel and wants to develop a nuclear-energy policy.

Gay Iranian Wins UK Asylum Fight, from CNN.com:

LONDON, England — Britain has granted asylum to Mehdi Kazemi, a gay Iranian student who faced deportation from the United Kingdom and feared execution in Iran for being homosexual, officials confirmed Tuesday. […]

Kazemi, 19, moved to London to study English in 2004 but later discovered that his boyfriend had been arrested by Iranian police, charged with sodomy and hanged.

Fearing the same fate, he applied for asylum in Britain but was denied in 2007.

The office of Simon Hughes, the member of parliament who took up Kazemi’s cause, said the Home Office has granted Kazemi leave for five years.

Why doesn’t President Bush, or any other politician regardless of party affiliation, stand up for this kind of injustice in Iran? Why is empty rhetorical bombast and nuclear energy a greater threat to the civilized world than a government that unapologetically hangs people because of their sexual orientations? It’s nice to know where our priorities lie.