Huckabee Is Creepy

Kos:

Huckabee on his recent rise in the polls:

There is only one explanation for it, and it is not a human one.

Well, if you want to argue that America's Playa isn't human, then sure, Giuliani's criminal expensing of his adultery to the taxpayers would, in fact, be a non-human explanation for Huckabee's rise. But that's not what Huckabee means. He means that God has apparently chosen him out of the entire field of presidential candidates to be the next president of the United States.

Which leads to the obviousquestion: If Huckabee's god has chosen him as his favored candidate, will that mean that this god isn't "all powerful" when Huckabee crashes and burns? Or like Peter Waldman puts it:

[I]s Huckabee just saying that God is giving him a temporary bump in the polls, only to send his campaign crashing down later, in order to demonstrate to His earthly subjects the danger of hubris and the importance of early fundraising?

Uh, NYT?

I believe this belongs in the Opinion section, not in Business:

If he digs deep enough, Mr. Cuomo may find some e-mail messages, instant messages or maybe even phone text messages that mention the deteriorating quality of mortgages. He might even find some disparaging remarks about the eager, yield-hungry investors, sometimes known as “dumb capital” on Wall Street. And perhaps there will be some comments about the complexity of subprime-linked securities and the willingness of rating agencies to give these investments platinum ratings.

If that happens, it will be Mr. Cuomo, not Mr. Spitzer, who will be cast as the Scrooge of Wall Street. Bankers will say he is just another overly zealous prosecutor out to undermine America’s capitalistic dynamism. By then, of course, Wall Street’s next boom should be just getting under way.

Wow, just wow. Read the whole article - it's a real trip - it manages to cast paranoid aspersions on Cuomo that are made by loose associations in Jenny Anderson's mind and is overly defensive about Wall Street firms - sort of like one giant Wall Street lovefest.

I think this reporter has grown a little too close to the people she covers.

(Emphasis mine)

See No Evil, Hear No Evil

Speak no evil:

The Central Intelligence Agency in 2005 destroyed at least two videotapes documenting the interrogation of two Al Qaeda operatives in the agency’s custody, a step it took in the midst of Congressional and legal scrutiny about the C.I.A’s secret detention program, according to current and former government officials.

The videotapes showed agency operatives in 2002 subjecting terror suspects — including Abu Zubaydah, the first detainee in C.I.A. custody — to severe interrogation techniques. They were destroyed in part because officers were concerned that tapes documenting controversial interrogation methods could expose agency officials to greater risk of legal jeopardy, several officials said.

Everyone knows it's torture. Bush will insist it isn't, which will cause Joe Klein to have a fainting spell over his candor, David Broder to predict Bush's revival in the polls, Chris Matthews to get some Codpiece love going and the Washington Post to transcribe whatever Bush says without weighing in on its veracity, but we all know it's torture and wrong. The CIA destroyed the tapes because they were committing illegal and inhumane acts. It's that simple.

Origins of the Right-Wing Blogosphere

White House petri dish cultivator Dan Bartlett:

I mean, talk about a direct IV into the vein of your support. It’s a very efficient way to communicate. They regurgitate exactly and put up on their blogs what you said to them. It is something that we’ve cultivated and have really tried to put quite a bit of focus on.

It sounds like they were trying to rear cancer. Great success!

Romney Just Lost the Nomination

This dog won't hunt with the Republican base:

Republican Mitt Romney, confronting voters' skepticism about his Mormon faith, declared Thursday that as president he would "serve no one religion, no one group, no one cause," and said calls for him to explain and justify his religious beliefs go against the profound wishes of the nation's founders.

At the same time, he decried those who would remove from public life "any acknowledgment of God," and he said that "during the holiday season, nativity scenes and menorahs should be welcome in our public places."

U.S. Constitution, Article VI:

no religious test shall ever be required as a qualification to any office or public trust under the United States

Too bad for us being a Republican means never having to say you're sorry. Now where'd I leave my flag? I need to go wrap myself in it.

Your Liberal Media

Rove says, they write.

U.S. to Pursue Iran Sanctions

This time it's because Iran made Bush look stupid:

The United States will forge ahead with a third sanctions resolution on Iran, U.S. officials said Tuesday, arguing that the American intelligence report made public this week showed that it was international pressure that caused Tehran to halt its nuclear weapons program four years ago and that such pressure must be maintained.

But China and Russia, veto-wielding powers on the U.N. Security Council, are likely to use the report's conclusions to argue that Iran poses no imminent danger and that additional economic sanctions are unwarranted.

China's U.N. ambassador, Wang Guangya, told reporters Tuesday that Security Council members would have to reconsider new penalties "because I think we all start from the presumption that now things have changed."

But U.S. Ambassador Zalmay Khalilzad said that his instructions to press for new sanctions "have not changed" because Iran remains in defiance of two Security Council resolutions demanding that it suspend its uranium enrichment activities. Khalilzad said he could start circulating a draft sanctions resolution targeting individuals and companies related to Tehran's nuclear program as soon as Friday. The National Intelligence Estimate released Monday says Iran probably stopped its nuclear weapons program in 2003 because of international pressure.

We are ruled by children.

Quick! Somebody Fire... Oh, Just Fire the Whole Lot of Them!

Glenn catalogues the stab-me-in-my-eyes-with-a-red-hot-poker stupidity, negligence and dishonesty.

Touching the Children

Stop, please.

In this case, it's a 28-year-old scheduler to Sen. Maria Cantwell (D-Wash.) who has been arrested by the FBI on charges that he arranged to have sex with what he thought was a 13-year-old boy. The staffer, Mike McHaney, was arrested on Friday after he told a cooperating witness for the FBI online that he could take a "long lunch" to have an afternoon tryst with the boy.

Getting Better All the Time

The war:

Hundreds of Iraqis displaced by fierce battles between al Qaeda militants and U.S. and Iraqi security forces began receiving humanitarian aid on Monday at a camp set up on Baghdad's southern outskirts.

The Iraqi Red Crescent aid programme began on the same day the humanitarian group announced falling violence had allowed between 25,000 and 28,000 Iraqis to return from Syria in September and October.

More than 100 Sunni Arab families had been seeking help since Sunni Islamist al Qaeda launched a major attack on the town of Adwaniya, 20 km (12 miles) southeast of Baghdad on November 13.

We're building hospitals and schools!

Adding, "al Qaeda," heh.