As is becoming painfully clear, Monica Goodling, erstwhile wonder child of Regents Univeristy (A.K.A., God U.) had a set of insightful questions for would be attorneys who wanted to work at the Department of Justice under GW Bush's disastrous reign.

One question is impossible to read without smiling:

What Is It About GWB That Makes You Want to Serve Him?

Having been raised in the tradition that holds one should never speak ill of the dead, I was initially not inclined to a great dissertation  on Jesse Helms. Suffice it to say he was one of the more deeply problematic politicians the United States has ever produced. But the conservative 'acclaim' is coming so fast and furious from the usual suspects (Wall Street Journal, ABC, CNN), it seems impossible to ignore a corrective to what is turning into one of the sillier excercises in hagiography in recent memory. Perhaps, without insult, we might accurately review his life and works.

Why? Because as Shakespeare noted via Anthony lo these many hundreds of years ago, the good that man does oft lies interred with his bones, the evil lives after.

Below the fold, a statement from Wes Clark that is truly spot on, clear and, I think, undeniable.

My question to Obama supporters--and I count myself one who has defended him even as he has 'condemned' Wes Clark's statements for obvious political reasons--what should be Obama's response, if any?

Aside from organizing the euphemistically named "National Smokers Alliance" used as a bludgeon to defeat EPA second hand smoke regulations (for which Burson-Marsteller was paid a handsome 4 million big ones), here's a quick run down on Mark Penn and where his clients are:

In February 2008, the nuclear company Exelon paid Burson-Marsteller $230,627.05, coded as "public affairs."

In April 2005, Jack O'Dwyer's Newsletter reported that Burson-Marsteller had joined with Quinn Gillespie & Associates to launch 360 Advantage, a public affairs shop filled with "key players in George W. Bush's successful presidential campaigns."

Burson-Marsteller has been hired by the two firms representing PMC Blackwater USA, McDermott Will & Emery and Crowell & Moring, to help with the account.

And of course, JeddReport tells us that Charlie Black, John McCain's top adviser, is chairman of BKSH, the DC-based lobbying subsidiary of Burson-Marsteller -- of which Mark Penn is CEO.

Not sick yet? Don't worry...we're just beginning.

This diary is an effort at brainstorming a response to the coming Rightwing meme.

You can find a whiff of it here fronted this Sunday am on MSNBC:

Obama may face grilling on patriotism
No flag pin, no hand over his heart: Is he exposed?

From MSNBC

The Pentagon on Friday tried to cast doubt on an account of military equipment shortages mentioned by Democratic presidential candidate Barack Obama, whose campaign team stood by the story.

In a debate with rival Hillary Clinton on Thursday evening, Obama said he had heard from an Army captain who served in Afghanistan and whose unit did not have enough ammunition or vehicles.

Obama said it was easier for the troops to capture weapons from Taliban militants than it was "to get properly equipped by our current commander in chief," President Bush.

I have to admit to a little queasy schaudenfreude at this spectacle:
(from Calculated Risk)

"Part of one of the challenges is, and we've mentioned this before, a lot of this current losses have been coming out of California and it's -- they've been from people that have otherwise had the capacity to pay, but have basically just decided not to because they feel like they've lost equity, value in their properties, and so in a way, we may have -- it's hard to know right now, but we may have seen somewhat of an acceleration problem loans as people have reached that conclusion and we're just going to have to see how the patterns unfold here."

Now that I have your attention, let's talk about something incredibly more important than Obama, Hillary or Edwards. Don't worry, they'll still be there, warts and all when you finish this.

So what's so important? Whales. That's right. We've stopped exterminating them, but the Japanese apparently haven't.

That quote comes direct from Allen Raymond's new tell-all book, How to Rig an Election: Confessions of a Republican Operative.

In it, according to Josh Marshall at TPM, "upon a limited initial perusal, the normally low-key and laconic Paul Kiel concludes that it is 'awesome.' So that's saying a lot."

Today is December 10, 2007, nearly 26 years ago on December 10, 1981, a massacre occured in the small El Salvadoran hamlet of El Mozote.  Its inhabitants were systematically exterminated by the Atlacatl battalion, a U.S. trained counterinsurgency force. From the beginning, Monterrosa, their U.S. Special Forces trained commander, worked to give his new force a mística -- a mystique.

According to Mark Danner of the New Yorker, the men of the Atlacatl

celebrated their graduation from training by collecting all the dead animals they could find off the roads -- dogs, vultures, anything – and boiled them together into a bloody soup. They chugged it down. Then they stood at rigid attention and sang, full-throated, the unit's theme song, "Somos Guerreros":
We are warriors!
Warriors all!
We are going forth to kill
A mountain of terrorists

Only, they mistook at least 733 civilians as ‘terrorists’ on
December 10, 1981. And they  slaughtered them all.

What changed in the US with Hurricane Katrina was a feeling that we have entered a period of consequences -- Al Gore

Years from now I suspect historians will use hurricane Katrina as the demarcation point for our decline.

But Katrina might be overly dramatic. Maybe those future historians should pay more attention to cities like Philadelphia. That mid-size city heralds how the end will likely look for many Americans. I suspect we'll not go out with a big wind & rain bang: but a Hobbesian whimper.

David Brooks has his undies in a bunch. Noted economic radical (and probably communist!) Paul Krugman is calling Ronald Reagan a racist! How dare he?

... still the slur spreads. It’s spread by people who, before making one of the most heinous charges imaginable, couldn’t even take 10 minutes to look at the evidence. It posits that there was a master conspiracy to play on the alleged Klan-like prejudices of American voters, when there is no evidence of that conspiracy. And, of course, in a partisan age there are always people eager to believe this stuff.

Below the fold, why Brooks is full of it.

Designating the Quds force of the Revolutionary Guard and four state-owned Iranian banks as supporters of terrorism gives Bush the cover he needs to declare unilateral war against Iran.

This is simple. The Bush administration has proven itself incapable of rational diplomacy to begin with. They've been foaming at the mouth to go to war with Iran for at least a year. Supporters of Kyl-Lieberman just provided them with the cover. But that's not all...

From the original 2006 article entitled (you guessed it)

Molly Ivins.Not.Backing.Hillary

AUSTIN, Texas (Creators Syndicate) -- I'd like to make it clear to the people who run the Democratic Party that I will not support Hillary Clinton for president.

More after the jump...

In his recent testimony Mukasey seemed unable to form an opinion on whether waterboarding was 'torture or not' and furthermore, whether it was constitutional. As my thirteen year old daughter might say, like duh.

Let's help him out.

David Corn has an old post showing some photos from Phnom Penh where you can see a waterboard in action as part of something the Cambodians use to illustrate the horrors of the Khmer Rouge. This email to Matthew Yglesias makes the point well:

Sometimes the Pentagon News briefs take you by surprise. For example, in the middle of a self-justifying war, it's tough to believe they'd come up with this jewel:

The U.S. military believes it has dealt devastating and perhaps irreversible blows to al-Qaeda in Iraq in recent months, leading some generals to advocate a declaration of victory over the group, which the Bush administration has long described as the most lethal U.S. adversary in Iraq.

Apparently, the conservative chattering class is infuriated about the Nobel Peace Prize awarded to Al Gore.

CNN, as ever the keeper of knowledge's light and high journalistic standards decided as a consequence to lead with this riveting headline:

Al Gore's Nobel prize splits opinion.

That's it.

Al Gore's Nobel prize splits opinion

With this enticing blurb:

The decision to award the Nobel Peace Prize to Al Gore and environmental scientists has incensed some CNN.com readers while pleasing others. While Robert Ellis of Ohio says the award is "well-deserved", Matthew Whitley of North Carolina says the peace prize is now a "laughingstock."

This is the lead for CNN's webcoverage of Gore's Nobel Prize win:
Al Gore's Nobel prize splits opinion.

That's it.

Al Gore's Nobel prize splits opinion

The decision to award the Nobel Peace Prize to Al Gore and environmental scientists has incensed some CNN.com readers while pleasing others. While Robert Ellis of Ohio says the award is "well-deserved", Matthew Whitley of North Carolina says the peace prize is now a "laughingstock."