Question: Which of these NY Times articles, put into their political blog, is more important:

“After Flyover of Air Force One Backup, Military Office Director Resigns”, the resignation of a, frankly reasonably competent man after making a high profile error.

“Pelosi Criticized Over Interrogation Briefings”, concerning how much information the then House Minority Whip now Speaker of the House knew, and thus was complicit in, the Bush Torture Program.

Now. After answering that question, here’s the next question: Which story has 122 comments and which story has 311 comments.

Though I’m pretty sure the “Obamas New Puppy” story had like, 9 million comments, and trumped them both.

( Resignation … Pelosi.)

tap tap tap tap.
Get one matter out of the way pretty quickly: David Goldman lied in his “Confession” column about his time in the Larouche organization. He halved his time there. I am reminded of a problem I briefly had in reading a different succesful ex-member who, in his initial article in April of 2007 and then subsequent series of myspace pages (I’m not hiding who I’m referring to, but I have no interest in drawing him into anything or tapping him on the shoulders, which writing a name of the Internet is the equivalent of doing — I refer to NB, of course) — and it became clear to me that he had roughly compartmentalized lines of Independence for dates, though I don’t think the public record showed him as correct. I notice that one of the variations of the sock-puppet “Herschel Kurstofsky” expresed my same “issue” at the wikipedia entry on him, though I always took the “official” “line” on NB as expressed from “unofficial” comments left on the Internet — variations of what we see expressed about Goldman seen here:

I guess he was not allowed to screw the girls in the organization any more that must be why he left.

Ah, yes. Stay classy, Anonymous Larouche Organization Commenter. (In NB’s case, the innuendo was altered to his sexual orientation.) There is a pattern here, such that I begin to wonder if the real story of this organization is that it shouldn’t be understood in terms of any political matters whatsoever and that it’s actually an anti-sex cult. The Larouchies keep saying that the only reason people leave is because they weren’t allowed to have sex in the org, which strikes me as a good reason to leave.

IF I were a wise man I would not make a single comment on Goldman myself, and would throw up various of the more intelligent comments, conflicting though they are, and move along quietly, never dwelling on David Goldman again. But I’m nothing if not a fool, willing to say a bit more than I have any right to say.

There are a few reasons it would be relevant to point out a Larouchian past. Two do not apply here. He’s not “connected” to the org (cough cough, Dreyfuss, cough cough) and he’s not pulling a similar confidence game (Tarpley). In the case of Spengler/ Goldman, it would appear, what I’ve thought of as the “David Horowitz Effect” sparked some interest.:
(GO down to Mark In Houston) When I hear David Horowitz and people like him talk about how far left they were back in the day and how that helped push them to be so far right now, my general response is “So you were a freak then and you are a freak now. Big deal.”

It’s not a perfect fit here, and subjective enough that most anyone with a mere ideological difference of opinion can justify tossing that past up.
It’s there that I think much of this analysis is a bit unfair, skip to 6th paragraph: “of the collective madness” — shades of LaRouche’s rant against the “68ers. — and, also a pretty common trope in conservative politics, and that kind of “new recruit” who decides that their own “New Left” was an adolescent “collective madness”.

A bit closer to an explanation for an affect of “this matter” is seen posted here:

But I have to admit I was dismayed to read of the Larouche connection, which makes me wonder if Goldman is still not subject in some degree to the theory-of-everything fallacy. As interesting as I have found the many essays inspired by Rosenzweig, I have sometimes thought that they explain a little too much, not unlike the experience of talking to a LaRouchian.

Up to whomever to determine, I suppose. Back to Goldman in explaining himself, and a key point: In a caricature of the reductio ad Hitlerum, everything he didn’t like pointed to the Nazis. The economist Milton Friedman, whose students had advised the Pinochet regime in Chile, must be a fascist because LaRouche didn’t like his economics, and I coauthored a book with LaRouche in 1978 with that silly allegation.

As though wanting to provide a ready-made example for the curious, LPAC released this news article as Goldman’s article bumped around a small piece of the blogosphere!

President Obama Is Being Brainwashed by Nazi Doctors
President Barack Obama’s recent interview in the New York Times magazine of May 3, demonstrates without a doubt that he is being brainwashed by his crew of behavioral economists, led by Larry Summers, who are peddling Nazi economics against the old and the sick. […] This is nothing but Nazi economics. EIR will continue to look for any different between these Orszag-Obama policies and those of Adolf Hitler, but so far, there is no difference.

Anyway, The references to the Larouche as a “gnostic cult” (oooo… the gnostics… oooo), while easily made next to referring to it as “Maoist” in nature, seems to be framed right for this sort of traditionalist religious — the phrase “Up From Secularism” suggestive of, for the sake of Larouche, the old line about open-mindedness allowing for shoving any old crap into your head. That case made further here.

Well, not exactly. I know no Straussians — I really don’t, and this blogger does know that “Straussians” (such as they are) as well the Larouche organization believes Larouche was responsible for planting the common view of Strauss in our political discourse, doesn’t he?
But tweak the phrases a little and you’d get to the religious. Jesus Christ, and for that I suggest skip to “III” at this entry.

It is to laugh. But it is around this theme that I have my biggest problem with this essay, and suggest how weirdly manipulative it is. The line that most floored me, and I don’t know if David Goldman is sincerely pulling stuff out of his arsh for his own sake, or cynically pulling stuff out his arsh to wave at his audience to move past this issue… A comment at beliefnet post expresses this here:

Pentimento May 7, 2009 4:12 PM
Goldman’s explanation of the proportionally high numbers of Jews in classical music is just as bizarre as any LaRouche formulation IMO. He suggests that the reason for these high numbers is that secular Jews are afraid to engage with God, and so play music in order to evoke feelings of the divine. Hmm, all right. Then where does that leave devout Jewish musicians, like the opera singers Jan Peerce and Richard Tucker? What about Jewish composers? What about Jewish converts to Christianity, of whom there historically have been many in both performance and composition? What about non-Jewish classical musicians? Do they, too, turn to music because they fear the encounter with God? I dunno. It seems to me that someone ought to be editing the editor.

I would think the reason there’s a “proportionally high numbers of Jews in classical music” is the same reason there’s a proportionally high number of Jews in any intelletual or artistic endevor. By which I refer to the initial seed money propagated by the Rothschilds which built the arena of Foundations that perpetuate Jewish World Domination.

By the way, I will give Goldman one thing. He solves a wikipedia problem, if it’s of enough concern to rise to the level of “problem” and if anyone were interested in “solving” it.  In the comments section for Larouche’s Views, “Will Beback” states the obvious manichean nature, and Leatherstocking (or a different name for a sock-puppet of the organization — I’d have to look it up) calls for a citation for such a claim.  I was going to get around to posting this item, and end by asking “Would the next person making a brief reference to Larouche please help us out by placing “Manichean” next to the usual assortment of adjectives (fringe and so forth… also, quite increasingly and incorrectly “dead”)?  Well, here we go:

In LaRouche’s Manichean view of the world, a conspiracy had suppressed the truth in the service of evil oligarchs. Starting with Aristotle, it continued through to the nominalists, the British empiricists, and that supposed pinnacle of modern evil, Bertrand Russell. The Venetian Inquisition, the British Empire, the Hapsburg family, the Rockefellers, and the Trilateral Commission all figured variously in this grand conspiracy against LaRouche’s supposed intellectual antecedents. Jewish banking families kept popping up in LaRouche’s accounts of the evil forces.

Overall, to post a different part of a comment I already posted, it’s about like this:

I’m not seeing how this is a courageous piece, however. It seems to me that it was a necessary piece, in that Goldman had been outed as a former LaRouchie and needed to explain that portion of his life for credibility reasons, and the piece otherwise reads like many Boomer ex-radical biography pieces.

With convenient omissions.

One more item linking to “Spengler” on how one can stretch this article to make any policy point they desire, go here. And a very brief celebratory dance of sorts from an “outer”.
………………………………………

Hey, Revenire! HBPA is Sweeping the nation!

AND… a basic rule … whenever a poster at Wonkette posts regarding Ron Paul, someone will see fit to throw in a reference to Lyndon Larouche.

In the Democratic Partisan’s justifiable rancor over Arlen Specter’s warisome Democratic Party credentials, an item is being tossed around about Specter’s hoping for Norm Coleman.  It’s actually an item the NRSC has put on its campaign wesbite.  Looking at these comments, in its context, I’m at a loss to see what the fuss over this specific item is.

With your departure from the Republican Party, there are no more Jewish Republicans in the Senate. Do you care about that?
I sure do. There’s still time for the Minnesota courts to do justice and declare Norm Coleman the winner.

Which seems about as likely at this point as Jerry Seinfeld’s joining the Senate.
Well, it was about as likely as my becoming a Democrat.

I think I see suggestions that he said the same thing about Coleman in a more serious vein — one where he’s not lamenting the demise of Jewish Republican Senators, but absent seeing that I have to say — Give Arlen Specter a rest on this one and throw more meaningful items in the mix in a Joe Sestak primary battle.

(Note:  Actually now that I look the extant politico write-up refers to this interview.  So I retort:  Meh de meh.)

Something mildly interesting in the latest Willamette Week.  This letter was published.

I  am deeply disheartened by a printed review in the latest issue of a music recording by a group that calls themselves “StarF**cker.” Not the review or the music, but the actual casual printed use of the F bomb word.

For a serious newspaper to legitimize the printed use of this word is extremely vulgar and far beneath the standards of Willamette Week (which I have been reading since the first issue in 1974). The music staff should have just used the printed form “StarF**ker” in the review. If the band objected, then it should have been pointed out to them that simply adopting such an affronting name for shock and publicity value is no guarantee that any legitimate and respected media outlet would print it. […]

This is not a question of just letting cute young people “épeter les bourgeois,” it’s a question of truly not wanting to open my Willamette Week .

Type in “fucking” into the search and there will be 1,490 results.  Type in “fuck” and there will be 1,670 results.  This particular issue presents us with this:

If Bob the Builder wants a new theme song, I think he’s found one in Fuck You Safari’s “Building Song.”

Which poses the same problem for that reader, the explicit word in the name of the band.

Maybe it’s a problem, but if it’s a problem it’s one that Alan failed to catch whenever editorial policy allowed it, sometime in that period in “which I have been reading since the first issue in 1974)”.

It’s hard to like Time Magazine’s “100 Top Influential People” list one iota.  There is no real rhyme or reason to it, and the fall-back position that it can provoke “debate” is not there either.  It’s not thought-provoking.  And the magazine lost all credibility by naming “You” the “Time Magazine Person of the Year” a few years’ back, just in case it hadn’t lost all credibility by naming Rudy Giuliani such in 2001. 

Over the years they publish one after another.  Oprah Winfrey is the one constant through the years.  The other 99 people change.  Notables get to wax eloquent about this person or that person.  Michael Bloomberg wrote about the women on the “View” — I guess Oprah Winfrey, Mrs. Hasselback (I know her because she’s the wife of the brother of the quarterback for the Seattle Seahawks), and Barbara Walters can’t make the list by themselves, and I don’t know what insight Michael Bloomberg has to offer on their significance.  David Letterman had to have made the list once upon a time, now Jay Leno is firmly in place — with a write-up by the man who replaced Conan O’Brien’s slot — er, whatshisname.  And since when does Ashton Kutsher get to write about anyone?  (Given the purple prose he turned in here, I think the answer should be never again.)

The list gets too clever for its own good.  Ted Turner writes about T Boone Pickens.  Immediately followed by T Boone Pickens writing about Ted Turner.  Clever, aren’t they?

Avigdor Lieberman makes the list, Benjamin Netanahyu doesn’t.  I presume that this is where the “thought-provoking” part of the equation comes in, as we contemplate Time’s explicit argument that Lieberman is the most Influential man in Israeli politics, more significant than their prime minister.  We’re also by-passing China’s leader and looking at the presumed next China leader.  A forward-looking list, I suppose.

Except when it’s backward – looking.  It is hard for me to believe that Sarah Palin qualifies in this list.  I have to say, she’s moving and shaking nowhere.  Yet, there she is.  With a write-up from Ann Coulter.  And here’s what Ann Coulter has to say:

Sarah Palin was arguably the most influential person in 2008, but no one notices because she wasn’t influential enough to overcome the deficits of her running mate and win the election.

Until Palin, 45, burst onto the scene, Obama was headed for a Nixon/McGovern landslide. Palin may not have changed the election result, but she killed what otherwise would have been a rout.

John McCain was so preposterous a candidate (at least on a Republican ticket) that Palin was responsible for far more votes than the usual vice-presidential candidate. The biggest red flag proving her popularity with normal Americans is that liberals won’t shut up about her. Palin is a threat to liberals because she believes in God and country and family — all values liberals pretend to believe in but secretly detest. There’s a reason there’s no “Stop Olympia Snowe before it’s too late!” movement.

The American voter can be hornswoggled occasionally, but we can generally spot a real American, and that’s what Sarah Palin is. She really was a housewife who went into politics because she didn’t like the way her taxes were being spent. She really did take on the old-boy network — the oil companies and her own party — and won. And yes, she really did walk the walk on abortion when she found out she was carrying a Down-syndrome baby.

The combination of Palin’s attractiveness as a candidate and her ability to expose liberals made her a celebrity among Republicans. The only thing I have against her is that she threatens to surpass me in attracting the left’s hatred.

For the most part, I don’t think anyone’s thought much about Ann Coulter in a few years.  We’re getting there, as a country, with Sarah Palin.  Unfortunately Time Magazine just dragged us back over to Palin.  This all is an interesting thought-process, though, and instructive.  Frankly, I much prefer Glen Beck’s write-up on Rush Limbaugh — it’s at least one broadcast entertainer writing up the virtues of a higher rated broadcast entertainer.  But if the Republican Party wants to go the route suggested by Coulter, we’ll find out what a landslide looks like.

Actually, the online voting results have always been a much more interesting guage of some sort of zietgiest.  It’s been a decade since John Linnel of the nerdy little rock band “They Might Be Giants”  came in second in People Magazine’s list of the top Beautiful People, based on online voting.  People’s list qualifications is more frivulous, which makes up for its being just as subjective than Time’s list.  (Though Mitt Romney’s comment might be read a bit sexist.)   The online – voting nature continues to throw up flukes.  The Top 10 there:  1 Moot   …  2 Anwar Ibrahim  …  3 Rick Warren  … 4 Baitullah Mehsud  … 5 Larry Brilliant  … 6 Eric Holder  … 7 Carlos Slim  … 8 Angela Merkel  … 9 Kobe Bryant  … 10 Evo Morales

And, of course, Ron Paul came in ten points ahead of Barack Obama.  Why?  Because this is online voting.

Another vaguely haunting sense of a quasi – permanent political party “majority” (Karl Rove’s thought in 2004), or “White House Lock” (as was suggested in 1991), or “Lost a whole generation” — another chance to rehash the demise of the Whig Party and apply it to one of America’s major political parties.

After the 1936 election, where Roosevelt won all the states save Maine and Vermont (“As Maine goes, so goes Vermont”, the Republican Party was left with a whopping 16  Senators and 88 members in the House.  And yet the party did not disappear.  It took them ten years to gain the strength necessary to recapture teh Congress, which was presumed to prefigure a capture of the White House for 1948.  But Truman out-hustled their traditional politician figure, so that four years later, the elephants in the same spot of certaintude – they didn’t take any chances, and went the Whig Party route in Presidential nominating in selecting a genial quasi-partisan Military General.  If all else fails, and the Republicans fall further out of favor, they can pull that trick in a few election cycles and have themselves someone in the White House.

Since 1864 — 1860 was a mess — the two parties have quadrenially presented their candidates for election, and have gone 1 – 2 thirty-six out of thirty-seven times.  (Technically, Lincoln in 1864 was the candidate for the “National Union Party”.)  That thirty-seventh instance, Roosevelt over Taft, presented an instance of a recent Republican President beating the current Republican President.  The period between 1860 and 1932 saw the Democratic Party only finagle two presidents for two terms each, meaning that party spent 72 long years in a decided minority position — frequently regionalized.  A look-see at the current Senate delegation per state probably would reveal something not too dissimilar, though with a mirror image, for how it would look after, say, the 1920 Republican Party landslide:

2 Democratic Senators:
Hawaii, Montana, Colorado, New Mexico, California, Illinois, West Virginia, Washington, Maryland, Delaware, Pennsylvania, North Dakota, Connecticut, Wisconsin, New York, Massachusetts, New Jersey, Vermont, Michigan, Arkansas, Oregon, Rhode Island, Virginia, Minnesota
2 Republican Senators:  Tennessee, Wyoming, Utah, Kansas, Kentucky, Georgia, Oklahoma, Mississippi, Maine, Texas, Idaho, South Carolina, Arixona, Alabama
1 each:  Indiana, Alaska, North Carolina, Iowa, South Dakota, Louisiana, Missouri, Nebraska, Florida, Nevada, New Hampshire, Ohio

I do not know what it would take to unsettle the electoral stalemate of the last century and a half.  Both parties have, somehow or other, pulled themselves out of supposed “death spirals” spurred on by narrowing ideological marginalizings.  (How is not always a pretty picture.)  Someone recently had a front page daily kos diary post predicting that sometime in the near future, shorter than “sometime in your life-span” suggests, someone with something other than a “D” or an “R” after their name will become president.  This was based on the third-party atmospherics of the Tea-partiers and the historic background of 1992, when Ross Perot flickered in the polls to a lead at times.  But who exactly is supposed to be this figure that rides that wave of disgruntlement?

Jesse Ventura?

This will be of interest to someone, I think.

Actually the minor purpose of this blog post has probably been served, and thus I’ll go ahead and delete it. The man’s in prison now — where he belongs — and beyond that —

I imagine it’s not worth speculating on this nut’s future.  And it’s hard to fathom the meaning of it.

Memo the the “web2.o” brainiacs tasked to “blog” for the latimes.  Don’t put up a “Call for your swine ful conspiracies” entry.  There’s only one of two ways the flow of the comments are going to go.

In this case, the second comment set the tone and debunking his claims, or rebunking his claims, dominated the forseeable commenting.  Witness:

I’m not giving credentials and I don’t have to. I’m not giving you any information that requires it. I think intuition would tell everyone that if someone claims silver is the cure-all (for pathogens) then we would’ve know for a long time, it would be FDA approved, and we would live in harmony with the microbes. And yeah, I suppose we could all be scientists over the internet, but you would certainly get laughed at by the scientific community if you actually thought that worked. Sorry man, but your cure-all claim was killed the second you said ‘all viruses and bacteria.’

Posted by: Beetle | April 28, 2009 at 08:40 PM

Not going to take Beetle seriously now.

Posted by: Revgen | April 29, 2009 at 11:51 AM

And

Guy just sees no reason to force you from your Collodial Silver.  The benefit in making himself known does not

Anyway… the question asked about here:

via the Rense link (god love Rense!) “Will it turn your skin blue?”  Here’s Montana Libertarian Party star Stan Jones.

What does this have to do with the Swine Flu, though?
Nevermind, this is the type of user feedback that is going to save the Newspaper as we move further and further into the Age of the Internet.

A silver lining for the Republicans in the Senate.  Apparently the seating arrangement has the desks with a 50 – 50 split, Republicans on one side and Democrats on the other.  So, Specter’s seat change is going to free up some space on the Republican side and jam the Democratic side some.  The Democrats don’t have any more elbow room to move around.  The Republicans now have more room per person, and won’t be bumping into each other as often.  Makes for more fragile relations on the Democratic side, I’m guessing, as zones of privacy are decreased.

If I were a Republican Senator, I’d be rooting for the Democrats to pick up a few more seats in the next election cycle, so that I can relax, and lean aside, dozing off during a boring Robert Byrd speech.