Thu, May 15, 2008

The time has come today ...

We've got a new "Think Again" column called "The Fire Next Time?" and I did a Nation column called "Good Night and Good Luck."

It's an unhappy day at The Washington Post and for journalism generally. Tony Kornheiser, the excellent sportswriter, is taking a buyout and leaving. David Broder is cashing in his staff job but retaining his self-parodic-font-of-conventional-wisdom -- or, as Tom Edsall calls him, "Voice of the People" column. He explains: "The column you have been running will not change at all, and you will continue to receive it from The Washington Post Writers Group. I will continue to write from the same office in the Post newsroom and will continue to travel the country to wherever politics is happening. You will find me at the Democratic and Republican conventions this summer and on the campaign trail this fall, just as I have been this winter and spring."

This is bad news indeed.

Also unhappily for the Post, Robert Novak is not retiring. Rather, he is proudly proclaiming 45 years in a business that apparently has no standards for facts, accuracy, or patriotism. Recall that not only is Novak's information frequently false, he specifically refused the CIA's request that he not out CIA agent Valerie Plame because he did not care enough about the national security of his country -- and the lives that might have been endangered -- to withhold his tawdry scoop. The fact that he was never disciplined for this by his editors is a sad commentary of the values of the paper and, indeed, of a political establishment that long ago lost its moral and patriotic compass. Novak's presence on the page for all these decades is a useful illustration of the values of our political elite but a damned shame for the rest of us. He brags here, remaining unrepentant about his betrayal of his country's interests and of the well-being of those who regularly put their lives on the line for it.

Things I hate about bloggers: I don't know if I actually met this guy (or whoever wrote this post). I'm terrible about remembering names. I'm pretty sure I wasn't talking to him, though; I certainly wasn't focusing my attention on him. So even if I was -- which, as I say, I doubt -- the dude is snarking about a private conversation without asking my permission or even mentioning it. Nice.

Things I hate about right-wingers: Note that in the post itself, the guy makes an explicit equation between the sale of something by a private company (bandages) and the provision of a government service (postal rates), and not only that, it's one that the founders and many legal scholars and historians recognize as crucial to the health of the marketplace of democracy. But if you follow the logical thrust of this post, I am "whining" because I care about the quality of democratic debate, as I explicitly included National Review together with The Nation in the example I gave. Sorry, bub, I don't know you, and I never heard of you, but if this is the only interaction we ever have, I'll consider myself awfully fortunate.

I actually really enjoyed the seminar and learned a great deal, and particularly appreciated the generous remarks of Reihan Salam, whom I've never met before, and with whom I do not exactly agree, but still. ... (My panel was written up here.)

I neglected to mention yesterday that it was the 60th anniversary of Israel's birth. This is a cause both for celebration and for mourning, depending on one's focus and, I suppose, one's identity. I don't have anything profound to say about it right now and so I will say nothing.

I will, however, ask my readers if they can recommend nice, reasonably priced and centrally located hotels in Tel Aviv, Jerusalem, and Haifa. I'm planning on doing a two-week reporting trip there in late June and early July and have not been there in forever and could use the recommendations.

Thanks.

George Zornick adds:

"A full-blooded American"? That's what Kathleen Parker, nationally syndicated columnist, says she wants in the next president. She quotes a 24-year-old from West Virginia saying so, and expands: "Whether Mr. Fry was referring to Mr. McCain's military service or Mr. Obama's Kenyan father isn't clear, but he may have hit upon something essential in this presidential race."

The column proceeds on a rant about the ravages of multiculturalism, "heritage ... being swept under the carpet," "new demographics," along with the importance of "blood equity," "bloodlines," and "roots." "White Americans primarily -- and Southerners, rural and small-town folks especially -- have been put on the defensive," she writes.

This only barely coded call to reject Obama because of his race is the stuff of obscure hate websites -- but this column appeared in, among other papers, the Baltimore Sun, The Indianapolis Star, The Charlotte Observer, the Oakland Tribune, the Arizona Daily Star, and The Denver Post. One wonders what the editors of these papers were thinking in putting calls for "blood equity" on the opinion pages.

McCain Suck-Up Watch: "While discussing John Hagee's apology for his controversial remarks concerning the Catholic Church, MSNBC's Contessa Brewer stated that Sen. John McCain 'has pointed out' that Hagee was not his personal pastor for 20 years, 'and says, "Look, I'm not going to repudiate the endorsement of this man. I don't like the comments that he made, but I'll take his endorsement if he wants to give it." ' However, Brewer did not mention that McCain has admitted that he sought Hagee's endorsement." More here.

As pointed out by a faithful reader, an additional development that would demonstrate the weakness/incompetence of the president of the United States were s/he a Democrat, is the charges that were just dropped against a 9-11 suspect because the government broke a lot of rules while interrogating him.

Here are the details, from The Washington Post:

U.S. authorities have long considered Mohammed al-Qahtani one of the most dangerous alleged terrorists in U.S. custody, a man who could have been the 20th hijacker in the Sept. 11, 2001, plot if he had not been denied entry into the country.

But yesterday, amid concerns about using information obtained during abusive military interrogations, a top Pentagon official removed Qahtani from the military commission case meant to bring justice to those behind the vast Sept. 11 conspiracy.

[...]

Prosecutors reserve the right to charge Qahtani again, and the military says it can hold him without trial for the duration of the counterterrorism wars. But his defense lawyers and officials familiar with the case say it is unlikely that Qahtani will face new charges because he was subjected to aggressive Defense Department interrogation techniques -- such as intimidation by dogs, hooding, nudity, long-term isolation and stress positions.

Now imagine if charges were dropped against a 9-11 suspect due to the incompetence and lawlessness of a Democratic president. They'd be savaged, and rightfully so -- even small-town district attorneys lose their jobs for such things ...

From TomDispatch:

In the wake of 9-11, the Bush administration rushed to create a Maginot Line of "homeland security" in the U.S., marking every major building, landmark, amusement park, and even petting zoos, flea markets, and popcorn stands as potential terrorist targets in need of protection. According to the 2006 National Asset Database, compiled by the Department of Homeland Security, the state of Indiana would be designated the most "target-rich" place in the country. And everywhere, even in rural areas, politicians were strapping on their armor and preparing to run imminent-danger, anti-terror campaigns, while urging their constituents to run for cover.

Meanwhile, the Bush administration was heading the country into an age of homeland insecurity. As Tom Engelhardt writes in his latest post at TomDispatch: "Osama bin Laden and his scattering of followers may be credited for goading the fundamentalist leaders of the United States into using the power in their grasp so -- not to put a fine point on it -- stupidly and profligately as to send the planet's 'sole superpower' into decline. Above all, bin Laden and his crew of fanatics will have ensured one thing: that the real security problems of our age were ignored in Washington until far too late in favor of mad dreams and dark phantoms."

The heart of Engelhardt's piece is a gathering (with brief explanations) of 15 numbers that offer a striking collective picture of just where American energies did and did not flow in these years; and, in the end, just how much less safe we are now than we were in January 2001, when George W. Bush entered the Oval Office. These numbers range from dollars in the military budget (536,000,000,000) to air force "missions" since 2001 (1,000,000) and include the number of temporary trailers still occupied in New Orleans long after Hurricane Katrina, the number of dollars it takes to buy a barrel of crude oil, the number of convicted felons accepted into the U.S. Army in 2007, the number of countries that have had food riots in recent months, the number of suicide bombings last year, and so on.

Behind these figures lurks a potential world of insecurity with which this country has not yet faintly come to grips.

This week on Moyers:

A Democratic house divided: Bill Moyers interviews Berkeley Law professors Christopher Edley, Jr. and Maria Echaveste -- he's for Obama and she's for Clinton. They met working in the Clinton administration and now, having been married for nine years, Edley and Echaveste are both advising their respective candidates. Edley serves as dean and professor of law of UC-Berkeley's Boalt Hall School of Law, where Echaveste is a lecturer in residence. Also on the program, independent journalist Melody Petersen talks about the dangers of a market-driven pharmaceutical industry, and a Bill Moyers essay on recent resignations of executive appointees.

Correspondence Corner:

Name: Brian Geving
Hometown: Minneapolis, MN

Here are more things that would demonstrate the weakness/incompetence/wimpiness/out-of-touch-ness/elite effeminism, etc., of the president of the United States were he a Democrat:

1. Promoting "abstinence-only" sex education that doesn't reduce sexual activity in teens, and wasting taxpayer's money doing so.

2. Getting the military bogged down in 2 wars, thereby preventing them from responding to any future threats effectively.

3. Misjudging former Russian president Vladimir Putin's commitment to democracy.

4. Coming out against expanded education benefits for our veterans.

5. Underfunding the VA in the midst of a war, thereby forcing injured veterans to wait months for treatment.

6. When people are dying in New Orleans from a massive hurricane, going on a vacation to Arizona to celebrate a senator's birthday.

Name: David Joyce
Hometown: Fremont

20) Criminal Negligence, in that given a $40 billion/year system that was "blinking red" and filled with hard working people who were waiting for a leader to act, and which gave him astoundingly detailed and repeated warnings, he subsequently did absolutely nothing. Furthermore, it was in effect a conspiracy, and federal officials, among others, lost their lives, resulting in SPECIAL CIRCUMSTANCES.

21) Fraud, in that a concerted campaign of lies were told, in his official capacity, that cost many lives and much property. Again, a conspiracy, and again, federal officials and others lost their lives. And again, Special Circumstances.

22) Criminal Negligence again, in that the massive conventional weapons, ammunitions and explosives were negligently not guarded, and all fell into the hand of criminals. This is the most depraved act of official negligence that has ever occurred in human history, and these supplies will kill many thousands of people over many, many years. They are also the supplies that have been used for most so called IEDs (which should be named LMAEs: Looted Munitions And Explosives). And again, special circumstances.

Name: Karl W.
Hometown: Bloomfield, CT

20) Add your own here ...

Failed coup against winner of a real election, in an oil-exporting country which (unlike many of 'em) doesn't have an inborn reason to hate the USA. Recasting winner of said election as the next big, bad enemy after bin Laden and Castro.

Name: Martin Brandt
Hometown: San Jose, California

20. "Giving up golf" for the troops.

21. Mountain-biking.

22. Doing ridiculous soft-shoe routine while waiting for another guy in a limo.

Name: Bill
Hometown: New York

Add to the list the mistreatment and release of Mohammad al-Qahtani, who might have been a valuable source of information were he not in the hands of childish criminals. The list literally does get longer every day.

Name: Fred Roberts
Hometown: Decatur, GA

More evidence of a feckless president, if s/he were a Democrat:

Failure to grant visas to Iraqi translators in mortal danger at the hands of insurgents. NYT: "...a White House spokesman[ ] said the government's hands were initially tied by the lack of federal legislation allowing special visas for interpreters." Funny, I thought absence of authorization by the legislative branch was a mere nuisance, to be brushed off with a signing statement or a secret Yoo memorandum.

Name: Timothy Waldron
Hometown: Cazenovia, NY

Thanks for linking to Boehlert's column on the parroting of the phrase "maverick brand" by so many in the media. It certainly appears that all were paraphrasing the same McCain-camp press release.

What amused me most was that the phrase "maverick brand" is purely oxymoronic. Samuel Maverick was a rule-breaker precisely because he refused to brand his cattle, allowing him to claim all unbranded livestock as his own. The irony of McCain's campaign claiming in effect that "Loose Cannon Party" is a banner to rally around is delicious and horrifying at the same time. This calls for a Stewart/Colbert smackdown, featuring choice phrases such as "gored by his own oxymoron" and "all hat and no cattle."

Name: Merrill R. Frank
Hometown: Jackson Heights, NYC

Dr.

Former Bush wordsmith Michael Gerson, while chiding liberals for their supposed lack of patriotism, comes up with this Peggy Noonan-like nugget:

"A president is expected to be a patriotic symbol himself, not the arbiter of patriotic symbols. He is supposed to be the face-painted superfan at every home game; to wear red, white and blue boxers on special marital occasions; to get misty-eyed during the most obscure patriotic hymns."

After 8 years of an administration who behave like inhabitants of the Meadowlands drunk tank during a Jets game, the last thing the country needs is another administration where the obnoxious lout shouting USA while wearing flag patterned underwear is the norm. Hopefully Sen. Obama can continue to articulate a less shallow version of what it means to be a patriot.

Name: Chuck
Hometown: Kansas City

I read Pierce's piece in Esquire about Obama, and while I agree with him about the need for those in this administration to be held accountable for their actions, I don't see why this issue reflects directly on Obama's candidacy. To my knowledge the only candidate that brought it up as an issue was Kucinich, and my guess is there aren't enough cynics/realists to make this a winner in November.

One of the pluses of Obama's candidacy, to me, is his focus on positive themes of hope and change, greatness of America, etc. The Repubs have been successful selling this for years (and we all know how well that's turned out for most of us), and I say more power to Obama's staff for recognizing and co-opting these themes. You have to be elected first before you can accomplish anything.

Is preemptively issuing Presidential pardons really possible and legal? I always thought this was done for people convicted or at least charged with a crime. Legal scholars, please advise -- and on the off chance John Yoo is reading this (ironically enough, a story about him is in the same Esquire as Pierce's latest), please don't weigh in. We already know what your answer would be anyway, and you could be a beneficiary of this if it is possible.

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Wed, May 14, 2008

Only in dreams

Things that would demonstrate the weakness/incompetence/wimpiness/out-of-touch-ness/elite effeminism, etc., of the president of the United States were he a Democrat:

1) Gas prices

2) The dollar

3) Iran thumbing its nose at the international community

4) North Korea thumbing its nose at the international community

5) What used to be Burma thumbing its nose at the international community

6) The deficit

7) The housing crisis

8) Hamas winning the Palestinian elections and taking over Gaza following a failed, U.S.-directed coup

9) Israel building more settlements

10) Bin Laden, still partying like it's September 10, 2001

11) The Taliban, ditto

12) Pakistan, cutting deals with the above, saying "screw democracy"

13) Failure to pass a presidentially supported immigration bill

14) Failure to pass the Colombia free-trade bill

15) Russia thumbing its nose at the international community

16) China refusing to cooperate in Darfur, North Korea, wherever the hell else it doesn't feel like cooperating

17) Record-setting vacation time

18) Vice president actually running country

19) Botched prosecutions of a supposed terror cell in Miami, of Jose Padilla, etc.

20) Add your own here ...

John Edwards by Francis Bacon, $4.5 million.

I'm about a year late on this, but did you know that, as part of the same affirmative action program that brought you Cathy Young and Jeff Jacoby, the Boston Globe editorial page is making itself available for free personal ads from gay conservatives? We're happy to help out here at Altercation as well. Please send all responses to Kirchick/Peretz, The New Republic, Boston , MA ...

Eric Boehlert writes: John McCain's all-around maverick-ness is being elevated by the media into an iconic brand status, right alongside Ford and Nike. Read more here.

George Zornick adds: More details are emerging about the Pentagon's "message force multipliers" program exposed by The New York Times, where retired military officers were used by the Bush administration as "a kind of media Trojan horse -- an instrument intended to shape terrorism coverage from inside the major TV and radio networks." (Read our recent Think Again column for more.)

Media Matters has done an impact study that demolishes any remaining justification major media outlets may have been clinging to in not commenting on the story: The military officials appeared more than 4,500 times on ABC, ABC News Now, CBS, CBS Radio Network, NBC, CNN, CNN Headline News, Fox News, MSNBC, CNBC, and NPR. The scope of this coordinated propaganda program is stunning -- and any shred of an excuse the aforementioned outlets may have for not covering the story extensively and disclosing their own role is gone. Many of them haven't given it a single word.

This lamentation from Donald Rumsfeld, contained in the "document dump" associated with the program, is also eye-catching:

DELONG: Politically, what are the challenges because you're not going to have a lot of sympathetic ears up there.

RUMSFELD: That's what I was just going to say. This President's pretty much a victim of success. We haven't had an attack in five years. The perception of the threat is so low in this society that it's not surprising that the behavior pattern reflects a low threat assessment. The same thing's in Europe, there's a low threat perception. The correction for that, I suppose, is an attack. And when that happens, then everyone gets energized for another [inaudible] and it's a shame we don't have the maturity to recognize the seriousness of the threats...the lethality, the carnage, that can be imposed on our society is so real and so present and so serious that you'd think we'd be able to understand it, but as a society, the longer you get away from 9/11, the less...the less...

I won't say there's any wistfulness on the part of Rumsfeld there, it just looks like a candid assessment, but didn't it occur to him there may be a relation between the lack of an attack and the actual level of the threat? Also, President Bush will be called a lot of things in the coming years, but "a victim of success" surely ain't one of them.

Also: you can see here that Zubaz pants are part of the official clothing line of the 2008 Republican National Convention. As the proud owner of said apparel -- along with, I think, a majority of Buffalo Bills fans -- I have to say, it's a shocking choice. There is nothing conservative about Zubaz pants.

Correspondence Corner:

Name: Rajesh
Hometown: Cherry Hill, NJ

George Bush in an interview today about the sacrifice he made for the war:

"US President George W. Bush said in an interview out Tuesday that he quit playing golf in 2003 out of respect for the families of US soldiers killed in the conflict in Iraq, now in its sixth year."

When in 2003?

"The US president traced his decision to the August 19, 2003 bombing of UN headquarters in Baghdad, which killed the world body's top official in Iraq, Sergio Vieira de Mello."

Interestingly enough, he played golf 3 months later:

"Bush's last round of golf as president dates back to October 13, 2003, according to meticulous records kept by CBS news."

The decision was tough that he made his decision in August 2003 and continued to play until October 2003. Now, that, that's sacrifice.

Name: Beth Harrison
Hometown: Arlington, VA

Mark from Dover: you just DON'T GET IT. Once again, we get the "we just didn't anticipate the number of soldiers that would be cremated" (or need psychological care, or prostheses, or body armor, or armored vehicles, or car bombs, or the insurgency,or clean water, etc., etc., etc.). If you aren't outraged by this, YOU AREN'T PAYING ATTENTION. This sort of thing has been going on now for FIVE YEARS. Did you not read Dana Priest's Pulitzer-winning series about outpatient care at Walter Reed? Frankly, nothing surprises me anymore about what the government is doing in Iraq. All I see is the further embarrassment and disgrace of the United States around the world.

Thanks Ralph!!!

Name: Robert Bateman
Hometown: Washington, DC

Dear Mark D,

Please send your mailing address, as I will now need psychological counseling of the deepest and most profound sort, and as you are the cause, you can foot the bill. There is not enough single malt in all of Scotland to solve this problem.

He may be my running mate and all, but, "it is amusing to contemplate: Pierce and provocative attire" is entirely beyond the pale.

(Ahhhh, good lord, get it out of my head, Pierce on a Victoria's Secret runway... awwrghhgggg...GET IT OUT OF MY HEAD! GET IT OUT!! Aaaaaggggghhhh...)

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Tue, May 13, 2008

Everything is Beautiful ...

I'll be on a panel on "The Future of News" at Princeton tomorrow that will be livestreamed. You can get the info here.

So Tim Russert and New York Times reporter John Harwood were talking on Meet the Press this weekend, and there was this exchange:

HARWOOD: And one of the interesting things they're going to make, which many Republicans would find ironic, is McCain's people are going to say that the press is pro-Obama. Now, John McCain's benefited from very friendly press coverage for many years, but he's going to try to argue, which will have a corollary benefit of rallying conservatives, if he can pull it off, of saying, "The press wants Obama to win. I'm pushing back, too."

RUSSERT: In 2002, John McCain referred to the press as his base.

HARWOOD: They were his base.

RUSSERT: Speak for yourself, Harwood.

Russert has, in recent days, said that McCain has "really been given this grace period to go around the country, unify his party, raise some money, put a campaign together, and he's benefited from enormously. There's no doubt about it." Russert noted that easy press coverage of McCain has been going on for "some time," but promised that when "Senator McCain is back in the media's light, he'll receive the same scrutiny."

So Russert has been talking a big game about getting tough on John McCain. One wonders how he apparently excuses the failure to hold one of the country's major politicians accountable up to this point, but nevertheless, for right now: We're waiting, Tim.

We've said it before and we'll say it again: if there ever was an appropriate time to start a business news network that takes an "everything is beautiful" approach to reporting, all the time, the past seven months certainly weren't it.

The Fox Business network still hasn't released its Nielsen Ratings info, last reported to be only 6,000 daytime viewers, and now the bosses are rearranging virtually the entire programming lineup. We'll pass on the cheap Titanic-deck-chairs line, but hope that any reports of a Fox Weather Channel that aims to put a smiley face on the upcoming global warming catastrophe prove to be false.

McCain Suck-up Watch: Reuters reported that Sen. John McCain's campaign "is preparing to take $84 million in public funding after the Republican Party convention in September and he is challenging [Sen. Barack] Obama to stick by last year's pledge to use public money and its accompanying spending limits," but did not note that Federal Election Commission chairman David Mason has taken the position that McCain cannot opt out of public financing in the primary without FEC approval, as McCain has attempted to do, or that McCain could be breaking federal laws by exceeding spending limits within the public financing system for the primary." More here.

Mazel tov to Jane Eisner on being named the new editor of The Forward. And congratulations to me and the rest of the search committee for the great job we did in advising publisher Sam Norich to choose her. Now everybody let's get to work ...

From TomDispatch:

Ann Jones, author of Kabul in Winter, writes her second TomDispatch report from strife-torn West Africa, where the war against women never ends. In it, she tells a remarkable tale of the way in which some women have begun to fight back and transform themselves via the digital camera as they document their daily lives.

Jones, who works with the International Rescue Committee, writes:

Digital cameras are the tool. I arrive with them and lend them to women, most of whom have never seen a camera before. I teach them to point and shoot -- only that -- and then I turn them loose to snap what they will. I ask them to bring me some photos of their problems and their blessings. They work in teams, two or three women sharing a camera and very nervous at first. (Some women actually shake.) It takes the whole team to snap the first photos: one holds the camera, another points, another shoots. The teamwork they build is a step to solidarity.

For these women, in Ivory Coast, the Democratic Republic of Congo, Liberia, and Sierra Leone, the photos -- often of the everyday physical violence men commit against women, of women abandoned, of the economic violence that passes for women's work -- then become the basis for group discussion, even for the first all-women's photography exhibits in villages or cities. And from this comes a new sense of the ability to change what is seen by all, and even a new consciousness. As one of the photographers told her women's group, "Some people use cameras. Some people are cameras. Me, I'm a camera."

Jones comments: "For me -- listening in, asking questions -- it's like the old days of the women's movement in the U.S. and the informal consciousness-raising get-togethers that blew the collective mind of my generation. Now a senior citizen, I have the privilege of surfing another wave of feminism, a distant continent away."

Correspondence Corner:

Name: Tyrone Mason
Hometown: Mililani

Let's see, we have two candidates worth over $100 million each, through marriage or associations, and one has a private jet. They are the salt of the earth, share and know the daily struggles of the hardworking men and women, and both are at a disadvantage: one being a woman and the other his age.

Then we have another candidate, worth approximately $3.4 million, self-made millionaire (in recent years), through his own works (writing books), paid his own way through school; he is the elitist, he does not share or know the struggles of the hardworking men and women, and to top it off, his advantage (according to GF): he's black.

Rod Serling and his writers with their wild imagination never conceived of such a show.

Name: Jon
Hometown: Ottawa

I really wish someone would ask Hitchens if he can imagine a point where things could get bad enough in Iraq that he would admit that supporting the war was a bad idea. I am all but convinced he could not, and if that's the case, that really tells you all you need to know about his moral and intellectual compass. To me, the guy has invested so much mental energy into picking fights that he has simply forgotten how to think.

If he wants to smear Obama by the company he keeps, he should take a look in the mirror. I hope Bill Kristol and David Horowitz make for good friends.

Name: Ron Kampeas
Hometown: Washington

Hitchens is right that the paper is unreadable (although who among us can claim not to have written an unreadable college paper), but wrong that Michelle Obama is "much influenced by the definition of black 'separationism' offered by Stokely Carmichael and Charles Hamilton in their 1967 screed Black Power: The Politics of Liberation in America." So wrong that it's worse than McCarthyism, which implies guilt by association -- it's a lie, because there is no association. She uses the work as a definition of separationism, positing it against other integrationist models. This does not suggest it influences her any more than a scholar who cites Mein Kampf for a definition of Nazism would be influenced by Hitler.

As Pierce might say, Jeebus.

Name: Mark Shotzberger
Hometown: Dover, DE

Once again, this cremation story shows how the MSM can blow anything 50 times out of proportion.

The crematorium does cremate both human and pet remains, but not in the same facilities.

The facility has three separate ovens, two for humans and one smaller one for pets. The extra costs of cremating Rover or Fluffy in the human crematorium would be prohibitive. So they own a smaller one.

The facility was recently toured by an Air Force general as well as DoD representatives and was cleared of any wrongdoing and will continue to receive military remains.

Funny, none of the outlets who spread the story in the first place have reported this. But as we all know, facts are boring!

Name: Mark D
Hometown: Chicago

I teach in a public high school where the Internet is policed by a semi-automated filtering system. Altercation and all of Media Matters seem to make it past the censors intact. However, when I clicked on Eric's link to Pierce, the filter stopped forward progress and gave me the following reason: Provocative Attire. I know it has to do with the Esquire site, but it is amusing to contemplate: Pierce and provocative attire.

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