William K. Wolfrum

It wasn’t that long ago folks, myself included, were writing off John McCain. We overlooked one major factor, however: all the other GOP candidates are much more horrifying. Ask the New York Times:

“Primary Choices: John McCain”

We have strong disagreements with all the Republicans running for president. The leading candidates have no plan for getting American troops out of Iraq. They are too wedded to discredited economic theories and unwilling even now to break with the legacy of President Bush. We disagree with them strongly on what makes a good Supreme Court justice.

Still, there is a choice to be made, and it is an easy one. Senator John McCain of Arizona is the only Republican who promises to end the George Bush style of governing from and on behalf of a small, angry fringe.

With little about McCain to be excited about, the majority of the rest of the piece is dedicated to telling the world how bad the rest of the GOP candidates are:

Rudy Giuliani: “… a narrow, obsessively secretive, vindictive man who saw no need to limit police power.”

Mitt Romney: “(Romney’s) shape-shifting rivals that of Mr. Giuliani. It is impossible to figure out where he stands or where he would lead the country.”

Mike Huckabee: “To attract Republican primary voters, he has become an anti-immigrant absolutist. ”

And in endorsing Clinton, the Times was unable to find much wrong with the Democratic top 3:

This generally is the stage of a campaign when Democrats have to work hard to get excited about whichever candidate seems most likely to outlast an uninspiring pack. That is not remotely the case this year.

The early primaries produced two powerful main contenders: Hillary Clinton, the brilliant if at times harsh-sounding senator from New York; and Barack Obama, the incandescent if still undefined senator from Illinois. The remaining long shot, John Edwards, has enlivened the race with his own brand of raw populism.

The right-wing can - and will - complain bitterly about the Times being a bastion of liberal goodness, but they have to know the truth - their candidates are a bunch of unendorseable stiffs.

–WKW

I understand that there are many interested in how exactly actor Heath Ledger died, but this story - the Lead story at CNN.com - shows just how embarrassing the U.S. mainstream media has become:

“$20 bill in Heath Ledger’s home tests clean”

NEW YORK (CNN) — Tests on a $20 bill found at the Lower Manhattan apartment where “Brokeback Mountain” actor Heath Ledger died yielded no drug residue, New York Deputy Police Commissioner Paul Browne said.

The bill was collected to see whether it had been used to snort illegal drugs because of the way it was folded, New York Police Commissioner Ray Kelly said earlier.

The Academy Award-nominated actor was found dead Tuesday. He was 28.

To CNN, that $20 bill is the biggest story in the entire world, and the most important story to Americans. And like Ledger’s death, that’s just sad. Not as sad as John Gibson openly mocking Ledger’s death on Fox News, but sad nonetheless.

–WKW

First of all, I recognize Michael Savage is an entertainer who has taken advantage of, and added to the hatred of Muslims, women, minorities, etc., in the U.S. He has the soul of a pornographer or war profiteer, so he could care less what he says as long as he gets paid for it.

He’s free to spout whatever he likes, but why do sponsors like Office Depot and Geico Insurance sponsor his ridiculous hate speech? The folks at Brave New Films are asking the same question:

These sponsors have already dropped Savage: Intuit (TurboTax), Chattem (Gold Bond, Icy-Hot, Garlique), ITT Technical Institute -and Union Bank of California.

But some big sponsors remain. Why? Ask them yourselves if you like:

Geico Insurance (800) 861-8380
Wyeth Consumer Healthcare (Makers of Advil, Robitussin, Centrum) (800) 322-3129
Office Depot (800) 463-3768

–WKW

Things are coming together for Iraq now. Because as Conservatives crow about the spectacular success of the “surge” (read: Escalation), the Iraqi Parliment has now shown it’s not completely incompetent. They’ve made changes to the Iraqi flag. Again. But it will likely change again.

“Iraq Parliament Purges Hussein Vestiges on Flag”

BAGHDAD —Iraqi lawmakers adopted a modified version of the national flag on Tuesday, removing three stars that symbolized the Baathist ideals of unity, freedom, and socialism, and Saddam Hussein’s handwritten calligraphy of the Koranic incantation “Allah u Akbar.” …

Several lawmakers said that because the flag had been changed out of Kurdish expediency, they expected it to be changed again.

The flag is the second design to be introduced in Iraq since the American-led invasion in 2003. In 2004, the American-appointed Iraqi Governing Council announced a white, blue and yellow flag with a prominent Islamic crescent. That design was scrapped after Iraqis criticized it for being too radical a change from the original, and too similar to the blue and white flag of Israel.

Billions and billions of dollars gone, hundreds of thousands dead, millions displaced, and now the fruits of the labor are coming together. Iraq now has a flag that they’ll vote to change again in the near future.

But, at least the surge has worked. We know that because according to Fareed Zakaria, the war is over:

The Democrats are having the hardest time with the new reality. Every candidate is committed to “ending the war” and bringing our troops back home. The trouble is, the war has largely ended, and precisely because our troops are in the middle of it.

So nothing to see here.

In Diyala Province, north of Baghdad, Iraqi police officers said they had found the bodies of a family, a father, his three sons and three nephews. They had been shot to death and discovered in Buhruz, the police said. In Baquba, the provincial capital, a water boiler packed with explosives detonated near a high school and a checkpoint for an American-allied tribal security force, killing three people, and wounded 12 students, the Iraqi police said, and, separately, a gunman killed a civilian near a medical clinic.

The bodies of two more Iraqis, a woman and a policeman, were discovered about 30 miles outside Hilla in the south, the Iraqi police said.

And in Basra, gunmen killed an Iraqi policeman, witnesses said.

“US military sees first Iraq fatality in new armoured vehicle”

BAGHDAD (AFP) — A new-style anti-mine armoured vehicle the US military is hoping will reduce casualties from roadside bombs in Iraq has proven vulnerable, with a first soldier killed in an attack at the weekend.

“An American soldier was killed in an improvised explosive device attack on a MRAP vehicle in Arab Jabour” on the southern outskirts of Baghdad on Saturday, US military spokesman Major Winfield Danielson said on Tuesday.

“This was the first fatality involving an IED (roadside bomb) attack on a Mine Resistant Ambush Protected (MRAP) anywhere,” he added.

“There were three other soldiers who sustained non life-threatening injuries as a result of the attack,” Danielson said.

“Suicide Attack at Funeral In Northern Iraq Kills 17″

BAGHDAD, Jan. 21 — A suicide bomber infiltrated a funeral Monday evening and blew himself up among the mourners, killing 17 people in the latest attack in a volatile region of northern Iraq.

But they have a flag. For now. It makes staying there forever all the more worth it.

–WKW

Ok, that headline may come off as misleading. Actually, Conservative economic policies and the Bush Administration have been the ones that have lead the U.S. economy to the point where the world is starting to engage in widespread panic.

But, six of one, half-a-dozen of the other.

But the evidence is overwhelming. Fox Business Network came on the air on Oct. 15, 2007. According to Barry Ritholtz: “On the last trading day before FBC debuted, the Dow closed at 14,093.”

On that Friday, Oct. 19, 2007: The Dow Jones Industrial Average sank 366.94 points, or 2.64%, to 13,522.02. The S&P 500 was off 39.45 points, or 2.56%, at 1500.63, and the Nasdaq Composite plunged 74.15 points, or 2.65%, to 2725.16.

At this moment, the Dow is at 12,099.30.

Yes, in just four months since FBN came on the air, the Dow Jones has lost 2,000 points. And pretty much every other economic factor you can find has plunged, as well. As for the world’s economy since then? Well, check any business or news Web site.

In 2007, Rupert Murdoch said CNBC is too “negative towards business” and that Fox Business would be more “business friendly.”

Yeah, that seems to be working.

So while stock market and economic experts spend the day desperately trying to figure out the whats and whys of the current U.S. and world economic downturn, I figure my analysis is just as worthy as theirs.

So I blame Fox and Rupert Murdoch. And by extension, the people they are fronting.

–WKW

Fred Hiatt, who apparently has been writing and editing while in a fugue these past seven years, comes up with this pithy line in the Washington Post:

“The rigidity of the administration’s ideology became clear last week with the culmination of a two-year study of the nation’s transportation woes.”

Yeah Fred, up until last week, no one had any clue that the Bush and friends were rigid ideologues. This transportation issue has really opened up the world’s eyes. Jane Hamsher seems to have it right - Hiatt doesn’t apparently even read the pages he’s in charge of editing.

Click here to read the rest of Hiatt’s shock that the Bush Administration believes that U.S. roads should be privatized.

–WKW

Martin Schram of the Sacramento Bee hits the nail on the head:

The verdicts of Iowa and New Hampshire prompted a handful of the 2008 political players to depart from the presidential campaign trail.

But far too many remain for our own good.

Along with the handful of presidential candidates who dropped out so far, voters might be better served if a hundred or so of my political-reporter and pundit colleagues dropped out as well – and were replaced by journalists whose beats are about national security, economics, environment and health care.

For our coverage has not been serving the public interest by providing the sort of information voters really need to know – especially in the last weeks when many voters make their decisions.

Much of the blame goes to the editors who apparently are satisfied with the sort of poll-driven horse-race journalism that we have gotten in the final weeks.

Political journalists are a unique breed within our craft. Their job (as assigned by their editors) is to cover contests in which the contestants debate a wide range of vital issues – subjects about which the journalists who cover them have no expertise. So when the candidates are proposing their detailed plans for the economy or the war or health care or global warming, the journalists who cover the candidates rarely ask informed, penetrating follow-up questions. (Unless they are fed these questions by an opposing candidate’s issues specialists.)

Amen (and I’ll even overlook the praise for stooge Michael Gordon). Read the rest here. The simple fact is this: Our political system would not be as sick as it is, if it weren’t for the fact that our media was much more sick.

The government won’t get well until the media does first.

–WKW

Here is the cover of this week’s GolfWeek Magazine:

Yeah. I know.

Click here for my take on it at my WorldGolf.com blog.

–WKW

Just because:

• Amity Shlaes: Stop Bush, Democrats Before They Save Our Economy
• Gin and Tacos: Staffed by real scienticians
• William K. Wolfrum (Call me Bill): Tiger Woods should be fired for remarks made by Kelly Tilghman
• The Sideshow: More stuff
• Jon Swift: Google bombs Jon Swift
• Buck Naked Politics: Congressmen Try to Block Arms Sale to Saudi Arabia
• The Jaded Skeptic: Going Commando and Terminating the California budget

So what have you been reading or writing today?

–WKW

Now he finally knows how the rest of us feel, knowing he has his own show to unleash his demented, fringe rantings.

–WKW