Who's getting rich selling those see-you-naked TSA body scanners?

As noted in the previous post, I want to follow the money. Let's start with this article in The Examiner. It lists these "research results":

• In 2008, former U.S. Department of Homeland Security secretary Michael Chertoff authored a 38 page report warning of terrorists exploiting our security deficiencies – including air travel.
• On Christmas Day 2009, just before the “attempted bombing incident” on board flight 253, there were a total of 40 body scanners in use in 19 airports in the U.S.
• On Christmas Day 2009, numerous witnesses watched while Abdulmutallab, the supposed 'terrorist' was escorted TO the plane by several men in suits.
• After the 'bombing attempt' Chertoff made a flurry of media appearances suggesting that the “attempted bombing incident” could have been avoided if all airports were using full body scanners.
• The Washington Post printed an article on January 1, 2010, calling Chertoff out for using his government credentials to promote a product that benefits his clients. It was revealed that Rapiscan Systems, the manufacturer of the naked body scanner Chertoff was recommending, was a client of Chertoff's security consulting agency.
• Rapiscan has since received over $250 million in scanner orders.

Abdulmutallab, the supposed 'terrorist'... Oh, lord. That's too conspiracy-theory for  me. And the Washington Post story from last January is behind a pay-wall now. There's this time line at Firedoglake:

• 2005: Michael Chertoff, as head of Homeland Security, orders the first batch of porno scanners from a company called Rapiscan Systems. After his departure, Chertoff gave dozens of interviews using his government credentials to promote the device. What he didn’t tell people was that Rapiscan was one of the clients of his consulting company, The Chertoff group.
• March 2009: The Department of Homeland Security says they will apply $1 billion in stimulus money to the nation’s airports. Senator Joe Lieberman, Chairman of the Senate Homeland Security Committee, personally promises to oversee the distribution of stimulus funds so money goes toward the goal of creating “4 million jobs” and not on “boondoggles”
• December 2009: Utah Rep. Jason Chaffetz inserted language into the Homeland Security appropriations bill barring the use of full-body image scans as “primary” screening tools at airports, and it passed the House on a bipartisan vote of 310-118. Both the ACLU and the NRA backed it. The amendment also made it illegal to store and copy these images. It died in the Senate.
• December 25, 2009: The “Christmas bomber” attempts to detonate plastic explosives hidden in his underwear while on board a flight to Detroit.
• December 29, 2009: Joe Lieberman calls for “more widespread use of the full-body scanners after the aborted attack.”
• January 2010: Since they couldn’t get money for the porno scanners from Congress, TSA uses the “Christmas bomber” scare to appropriate $25 million they had received in stimulus money to buy the “backscatter” scanners — from Rapiscan, Chertoff’s client. Rapiscan said the contract “helped create” 25 jobs. The government gives the TSA the green light to spend a total of $173 million on the scanners. TSA spokesperson Sarah Horowitz said “the agency has enough funds that would come from the stimulus program and other federal sources” to purchase 300 more porno scanners, per CNN. Total jobs created, per the government’s own website: 1.
• April 2010: The GAO reports that “it remains unclear whether the AIT would have detected the weapon used in the December 2009 incident based on the preliminary information GAO has received.”
• November 8, 2010: US Airline Pilots Association tells its members “NOT to submit to AIT screenings.”
• November 15, 2010: Joe Lieberman says he “comes down on the side of the patdowns.”

The boldfacing is mine, but go to the link for the internal links in that text.

So the “groping” technique was developed as a way to punish people into using the scanners — because there are $148 million more on the way. And just so nobody gets the idea to follow Tyner’s lead, the TSA is using threats and intimidation to guarantee the market for the porno scanners. Whether Tyner is prosecuted or not, people will hear about what happened to him and think twice before refusing to become fodder for their new machines.

CORRECTION: I had the wrong link to the Examiner, which went to a website I didn't want to link to. Why is it so hard to find this information about the scanners?! I couldn't find anything recent in the NYT or the Washington Post.

“Obama Twists Own Arm, Says ‘Uncle’ to Extending Bush Tax Cuts.”

A lefty blogger response.

A lawprof puts it more haughtily...

"Obama caving on the high income tax-cut issue guarantees that he will attract an intra-party opponent from the progressive wing of the Democratic Party... The White House misreads the mood of the country. Tea partiers do not reflect that mood. Independents and Democrats disenchanted with Obama’s lack of conviction do."

... and more delusionally.

Jane Hamsher, get out your pitchfork.

He's done what she said would drive her to extremes.

President Obama rebuffed calls for a commission to investigate alleged abuses under the Bush administration in fighting terrorism, telling congressional leaders at a White House meeting yesterday that he wants to look forward instead of litigating the past.

That's what I told Jane he should do.

Saying it's "time for reflection, not retribution," Obama rejects prosecuting CIA agents for interrogations.

At the same time, the Justice Department has released memos approving various harsh techniques.

Read the memos here.

ADDED: "You would like to place Zubaydah in a cramped confinement box with an insect. You have informed us that he appears to have a fear of insects. In particular, you would like to tell Zubaydah that you intend to place a stinging insect in the box with him. You would, however, place a harmless insect in the box. You have orally informed us that you would in fact place a harmless insect such as a caterpillar in the box with him." (PDF.)

AND: Are Jane Hamsher and her friends standing there with torches and pitchforks?



That was recorded September 5, 2008. Watch the whole segment.

The anguish of the liberal blogger.

What can you say after your guy wins?

Let's not laugh along with Jane Hamsher over Harry Reid's problems.

Quipping "INSTAPUNDIT: Bringing America together!," Glenn Reynolds highlights a couple conservative blogs that thank him for linking to a post by lefty firebrand Jane Hamsher.

GayPatriot said he'd been permanently avoiding reading Jane's blog (FireDogLake), and Glenn's post led him to something he "pretty much" agreed with. And Syd And Vaughn, another FireDogLake avoider, saluting Glenn for taking them to Jane's "very valid" post, declared "Kumbaya!"

So let's look at Jane's post — "I want to play poker with Harry Reid" — and see if it's true that lefties and righties can come together and laugh about Reid's pathetically played politics.

First, if you haven't already, read her whole post. Despite some awkward, cornball writing — "Reid looks like a cat in a room full of rocking chairs on Meet the Press" — it's generally very pithy and funny, and it sums up the embarrassing succession of bad moves Reid made. We can all have a shared laugh about that.

But, my fellow moderates and conservatives, focus on this:

A seventy-one year old dude who hasn't held office for 14 years, appointed by a crook, takes the Senate Majority Leader to the cleaners.

Reid is a red state senator, up for re-election in 2010 and under pressure from the right, who is already making noise about appeasing Republicans who aren't going to be appeased. He's a hazard to Obama's agenda, which is why leading Senate Democrats tried to ease him out as Majority Leader last year.

Hamsher is rooting for the left wing of the Democratic Party. She thinks Reid will keep the party centrally located and give Republicans some clout, so she's saying loud and clear: He's a terrible leader. Don't follow him.

So Jane's post doesn't make me say oh, ha ha, Harry Reid, what a fool. It makes me reconsider whether I want to continue knocking him around. I have been giving Reid a hard time mainly because I think law is important and the legal question is easy: Blagojevich is the governor, he has the appointment power, he appointed Burris, so Burris properly holds the Senate seat until 2010. Deal with it. Blagojevich's sliminess doesn't suspend the rule of law. Play by the rules.

I'm not going to change my strong opinion on that point, but I'm realizing that we need to keep a sharp eye on the people like Hamsher who are hot to push Congress to the left.

ADDED: Henry, the commenter, emails a Venn diagram:

"A new Operation Chaos, it's called SOB, Save Our Biden, Operation Sling Blade."

"We need to keep this guy on the campaign."

Is it really this bad? Check out the amazing gush of Biden gaffes at that link. (Warning: It's Rush Limbaugh, but you need to read the evidence.)

You know, when I hear all that, it almost makes me think that Biden is screwing up on purpose to set up an Eagleton move.

You may have noticed the big internet rumor, but I'd like to claim credit for starting that meme, here, recorded on September 5th:



I was yanking Jane Hamsher's chain, but these things take on a life of their own.

IN THE COMMENTS: JMH notes that Jim Geraghty predicted on August 29th that Biden would withdraw:

Picture this scenario...

One month from now, the Palin pick has proven a bonanza for the McCain campaign. A large chunk of Hillary's 18 million voters have been won over. Conservatives are unified and energized, and the previously-undiscovered "Maxim magazine vote" is suddenly giving McCain large margins among young males.

Joe Biden will disappear from the campaign trail, and we will later learn it was to see a doctor. A previously-undiscovered, vaguely ominous health issue will be discovered, and Biden will sadly announce that he cannot continue as Obama's running mate. With a sudden need for a new one, Obama will turn... to Hillary Clinton.

Call it the Torricelli gambit.

But why would Hillary accept it? Also in the comments is Dust Bunny Queen:

Why in the world would Hillary allow herself to be put on the ticket at THIS point? Seriously. If Obama kicks Biden to the curb, doesn't this bring up several troubling issues.

1. When the going gets tough, Obama throws people under the bus. Grandmother, Rev Wright, Biden.

2. What kind of decision making does this indicate on the part of Obama. Can't he get anything right? Does he have such poor judgement that he has to continually make excuses and blame other people. Does Obama have ANY loyalty to anyone besides himself? Evidently not.

If I were Hillary, and NOW you want my help after kicking me in the teeth, I would say "thanks but no thanks" a la Sarah Palin and gleefully watch Obama melt down. I don't think he would have a snowball's chance if he made this sudden switch.

If she runs on his losing ticket it will just brand her as a loser. If she stays above the fray and then runs again in 2012 she has a fighting chance. Basically she should tell Obama "fat chance loser."

Jim Pinkerton and Jane Hamsher: The Essence of a Relationship in 45 Seconds.

IN THE COMMENTS: Bissage said...

That’s uncanny!

A girlfriend and I had that exact same dynamic going on.

She too was a robot from outer space controlled by a device that looked like an orchid.

It's the new Bloggingheads with me and Jane Hamsher.

Here's the whole thing:



The segments are:

Jane reports on the two conventions’ different vibes (04:56)
How America’s obsession with image helps Palin (06:49)
Can pro-life Palin win over Hillary’s voters? (07:14)
Ann accuses liberals of anti-feminist attacks on Palin (05:29)
Jane vs. Ann on prosecuting Bush (11:42)
So who’s gonna win this thing? (04:55)

"Jane vs. Ann on prosecuting Bush" is the hottest part.



I'm especially interested in your comments on that.

They titled this one "Palin Fire," for those think there hasn't been enough wordplay using the Palin name and allusions to Nabokov.

The NYT notices that pro-Obama bloggers are mad at Obama over his flip on telecommunications immunity.

James Risen writes:

During the Democratic primary campaign, Mr. Obama vowed to fight such legislation to update the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act, or FISA. But he has switched positions, and now supports a compromise hammered out between the White House and the Democratic Congressional leadership....

“I don’t think there has been another instance where, in meaningful numbers, his supporters have opposed him like this,” said Glenn Greenwald, a Salon.com writer who opposes Mr. Obama’s new position. “For him to suddenly turn around and endorse this proposal is really a betrayal of what so many of his supporters believed he believed in.”

Jane Hamsher, a liberal blogger who also opposes immunity for the phone companies, said she had been flooded with messages from Obama supporters frustrated with his new stance.

“The opposition to Obama’s position among his supporters is very widespread,” said Ms. Hamsher, founder of the Web site firedoglake.com. “His promise to filibuster earlier in the year, and the decision to switch on that is seen as a real character problem. I know people who are really very big Obama supporters are very disillusioned.”...

“I will continue to support him,” [said Markos Moulitsas, a liberal blogger and founder of the Daily Kos.] “But I was going to write him a check, and I decided I would rather put that money with Democrats who will uphold the Constitution.”

You can't please everybody, and if you want to be President, you really can't please Greenwald, Hamsher, and Kos. Obama is taking the right position now, and he should defend it frankly.

NBC wimped out over "pimped out."

David Shuster said — about Chelsea Clinton — "Doesn't it seem like she's being pimped out in some weird sort of way?"



Now, MSNBC has suspended him, after pressure from the Clinton campaign:

Behind the scenes, Phil Griffin, senior vice president at MSNBC, took the criticism over Shuster's remarks from the Clinton camp especially seriously, and Tim Russert helped mediate the situation, according to sources.

But one high-level NBC source told Politico that apologizing was an act of cowardice on behalf of the network.

"This is at least the second time they've caved to the Hillary Clinton campaign," a source told Politico, referring to Chris Matthews' recent apology over remarks he recently made about Clinton that were widely denounced as sexist. "What does this do to journalism?"

Really, how bad is it to say "pimped out"? Is it "nappy-headed hos" bad? Did anyone think Shuster was literally calling Chelsea a whore or even making any reference to her womanly virtue? "Pimped out" is a common colloquialism these days. According to the Urban Dictionary, which gives a good read on how young people use words, the connotations having to do with exaggerated fashion and style predominate.

Even if the clear associations with prostitution remain, we often make figurative references to prostitution in speech, and the cause of feminism is not served by requiring special limitations when we're talking about women. We ought to be able to call a female publicity hound a "media whore."

I've never watched "Tucker," the show Shuster was guest-hosting when he made the supposedly offensive remark, but if the conversation there is casual and slang is the norm, then saying "pimped out" about Chelsea should be taken in stride. Otherwise it looks as though NBC caved to the Clintons.

ADDED: Ugh! Here's Shuster groveling:



"All Americans should be proud of Chelsea Clinton"? Why? Because, sublimely privileged, she went to work for a hedge fund? And, generally, why should anyone be "proud of" someone else's children? Plus, Chelsea isn't a kid anymore! I think saying "All Americans should be proud of Chelsea Clinton" is offensive. Please fire David Shuster.

AND: Out in the real world today, I had an encounter with the word "pimp." Plus, the dominant meaning of the word today — relating to style — may be the original meaning, according to the Online Etymology Dictionary:

pimp
1607, perhaps from M.Fr. pimper "to dress elegantly" (16c.), prp. of pimpant "alluring in dress, seductive." Weekley suggests M.Fr. pimpreneau, defined in Cotgrave (1611) as "a knave, rascall, varlet, scoundrell." The word also means "informer, stool pigeon" in Australia and New Zealand and in S.Africa, where by early 1960s it existed in Swahili form impimpsi. The verb is attested from 1636. Pimpmobile first recorded 1973.

MORE: The Moderate Voice has a big roundup of the commentary, which does not just break down along partisan lines. For example, Jane Hamsher said:

It may surprise everyone but I actually wasn't bothered by [what Shuster said]. The phrase is ubiquitous, I use it all the time and although it is a loaded term my initial impression was that in the wake of all the truly awful sexist stuff that's come down the pipeline from MSNBC over the course of this campaign, much of which I have personally railed about, this just didn't fall into that category.

At first I thought it might be because I know Shuster and don't think he has the women's issues that many on MSNBC seem to have, and maybe that was affecting my assessment of the situation. But I wrote a post recently about Ben Affleck appearing at a press conference for the SEIU in Boston, and shortly after it went live someone involved in helping me put together the story sent me an email wondering what the hell I was thinking linking to a headline that said something on the order of "Boston Mayor Pimps For Healthcare Workers." I wasn't sure what they were upset about either at the time, but after a moment I realized that the term probably didn't strike others as being as inert as it did me so I changed the link.

I understand that this situation is different, we're talking about a young woman and Hillary Clinton has been on the receiving end of a lot of really misogynistic and disrespectful shit from MSNBC and that on the heels of that, a comment which overtly compared her daughter to a prostitute probably did not sit too well. Still, if you asked me, I'd say that while I certainly understand that others might feel differently, for me this was a minor infraction.

And if anyone thinks my comment here is partisan, remember that I just defended Randi Rhodes (and I've been arguing the free speech side of nearly every dispute over the 4-year life of this blog).

Here's where I pick out all my favorite quotes from the things I've collected on this blog over the past year.

"I mean, you got the first mainstream African-American who is articulate and bright and clean and a nice-looking guy." Joe Biden on Barack Obama.

"And to say that we are going to feed more American young men and women into that grinder, put them in the middle of a tribal, sectarian civil war, is not going to fix the problem...." Chuck Hagel, sure the surge would fail.

"I am self-involved, mercurial and comfortable eating dinners of frozen waffles in my underpants."

"Is Coulter truly oblivious to her gender weirdness? It's no coincidence that words like 'tranny' and transvestite' clog the anti-Coulter blogs." Camille Paglia, getting ugly.

"I'm pretty much going to stay out of it until the course — the case has finally run its final — the course it's going to take." President Bush, declining to say if he'll pardon Scooter Libby.

"Since the slaughter raised no real issues, it was a blank slate on which anyone could doodle." Christopher Hitchens on the Virginia Tech Massacre.

''He still didn't put the butter up... I was like, 'You're just asking for it, you know I'm giving a speech. Why don't you just put the butter up?''' Michelle Obama.

"An aging roué, who is almost too facile, and a grimly ambitious feminist lawyer, with a tough but conventional mind." Noemie Emery -- in The Weekly Standard -- on Bill and Hillary Clinton.

"We believe bottled water has become less about the physical act of hydration and more about being a companion to people."

"We like the United States of America, but we do not like your Waschbaeren!"

"I suggest to you with respect, Your Honor, that you're a few French Fries short of a Happy Meal..."

"If you don't like your life, change it." Something simple but profound that Laurence Olivier once said, noted on the 100th anniversary of his birth.

"Maybe his solution will be to get out his small varmint gun and drive those Guatemalans off his lawn." Something hilarious John McCain said about Mitt Romney.

"I will follow him to the gates of hell." "You sure wouldn't want to be where Saddam Hussein is, where we helped put him." Hell talk from John McCain and Rudy Giuliani.

"Teachers taught, and students listened. Teachers commanded, and students obeyed." Justice Clarence Thomas.

"I believe that Ann intentionally keeps her camera focused on the books behind her... so that she is filmed in a flattering soft focus." Some ADS sufferer on Bloggingheads.

"Are you going to convict Jack Bauer?" Justice Antonin Scalia.

"Gerald began - but was interrupted by a piercing whistle which cost him ten percent of his hearing permanently as it did everyone else in a ten-mile radius of the eruption, not that it mattered much because for them ’permanently’ meant the next ten minutes or so until buried by searing lava or suffocated by choking ash - to pee." Winner of the Bulwer-Lytton Fiction Contest.

"I wallowed in a morass of general and specific dislike and pity for most people but me especially..." Young Hillary Clinton.

"Clinton's low-cut shirt simply reflected a few centimeters of sartorial miscalculation..." Robin Givhan.

"He quickly matched my urgency in the clothes-removal efforts and we were naked and happy in no time." Al Gore's daughter writes a novel.

"We are 45 doctors and we are determined to undertake jihad and take the battle inside America."

"Jesus has a very special love for you. As for me, the silence and the emptiness is so great that I look and do not see, listen and do not hear." Mother Theresa.

"I will on no account vote for a smirking hick like Mike Huckabee, who is an unusually stupid primate...."

"He knows enough to know he's not descended from apes!"

"So here’s the rule. You never repeat right wing talking points to attack your own, ever. You never enter that echo chamber as a participant. Ever. You never give them a hammer to beat the left with. Just. Don’t. Do. It." Jane Hamsher tells Elizabeth Edwards what to do.

"What politics has become requires a level of tolerance for triviality and artifice and nonsense that I have found in short supply." A quote from it's-easy-to-guess-who that I wrote 10 questions about.

"He's typing and drinking and threatening to 'shave Paul Krugman with a broken bottle.'" Maureen Dowd, describing Stephen Colbert as he's writing a guest column for her.

"Si te gusta el sexo oral, vote por Caragol por consejal." My favorite foreign language quote of the year.

"And another thing - the crotch, down where your nuts hang - is always a little too tight, so when you make them up, give me an inch that I can let out there, uh because they cut me, it's just like riding a wire fence. These are almost, these are the best I've had anywhere in the United States. But, uh when I gain a little weight they cut me under there. So, leave me , you never do have much of margin there. See if you can't leave me an inch from where the zipper (burps) ends, round, under my, back to my bunghole, so I can let it out there if I need to." LBJ, ordering pants.

"The rage he harbors raises questions about whether he can sit as an impartial judge in many of the cases the Supreme Court hears." New York Times editorial about Clarence Thomas.

"It strikes me as a self-hurt book." Jon Stewart on Chris Matthews' self-help book.

"Carelessness. I lost my one true love. I started drinking. The first thing I know, I'm in a card game. Then I'm in a crap game. I wake up in a pool hall. Then this big Mexican lady drags me off the table, takes me to Philadelphia. She leaves me alone in her house, and it burns down. I wind up in Phoenix. I get a job as a Chinaman. I start working in a dime store, and move in with a 13-year-old girl. Then this big Mexican lady from Philadelphia comes in and burns the house down. I go down to Dallas. I get a job as a 'before' in a Charles Atlas 'before and after' ad. I move in with a delivery boy who can cook fantastic chili and hot dogs. Then this 13-year-old girl from Phoenix comes and burns the house down. The delivery boy — he ain't so mild: He gives her the knife, and the next thing I know I'm in Omaha. It's so cold there, by this time I'm robbing my own bicycles and frying my own fish. I stumble onto some luck and get a job as a carburetor out at the hot-rod races every Thursday night. I move in with a high school teacher who also does a little plumbing on the side, who ain't much to look at, but who's built a special kind of refrigerator that can turn newspaper into lettuce. Everything's going good until that delivery boy shows up and tries to knife me. Needless to say, he burned the house down, and I hit the road. The first guy that picked me up asked me if I wanted to be a star. What could I say?" Bob Dylan.

"I knew this was no fetish-laden intrigue with a woman of another race, but a gift from God." Clarence Thomas, on meeting his second wife.

"I'd done what I thought was right, and I took heart from George Benson: I decided long ago, never to walk in anyone's shadows/If I fail, if I succeed/At least I live as I believe/No matter what they take from me/They can't take away my dignity." Clarence Thomas, steeling himself by listening, over and over, to "The Greatest Love of All."

"What I wanted was for everyone — the government, the racists, the activists, the students, even Daddy — to leave me alone so that I could finally start thinking for myself." Clarence Thomas describing how he felt after reading Ayn Rand.

"He insisted that we bathe in what he called a 'teaspoon' of water, using laundry detergent instead of soap. 'Waste not, want not,' he repeatedly warned us. We weren't allowed to use towels to dry ourselves, either, since Daddy thought washcloths were good enough to get us dry (as well as being easier to launder than towels). Whenever he thought we hadn't gotten ourselves clean enough, he finished the job himself, a terrifying experience that we did everything we could to avoid." Clarence Thomas, on the baths of childhood.

"Sen. Clinton is claiming basically the entire eight years of the Clinton presidency as her own, except for the stuff that didn't work out, in which case she says she has nothing to do with it." Barack Obama.

"And I would never spend my money on a Chinese girl skeleton. That would be crossing the line. It's a Chinese boy, for the record." Marilyn Manson.

"Maybe yellow blotches, wrinkles, and phantom fetuses really get a pubescent neotenic mole salamander in the mood for love." Go Fug Yourself.

"At the moment, Giuliani and fellow moderate Mitt Romney are attacking each other for being insufficiently Tancredo-esque." David Brooks.

"I did shift from being against the death penalty to thinking that if it has a significant deterrent effect it’s probably justified." Cass Sunstein.

"Blogs are walking up to legal scholarship and slapping it in the face. Blogs say to legal scholarship: 'How dare you! Evolve or Die!'" From the Bloggership Symposium.

"If you don't pass universal health care by July of 2009... I'm going to use my power as president to take your health care away from you." John Edwards, megalomaniacally.

"It's basically akin to someone sitting on their couch and chewing up food and spitting it all over the floor and the walls and the furniture month after month until it piles up and congeals and grows into mold, turning the room into a repulsive, health-threatening mess." Bad Simile of the Year, from Glenn Greenwald.

"Oh gee, I can't figure out what I think. Don't pick on me by asking that question! That's a gotcha question!" Rudy Giuliani spoofs Hillary Clinton.

"Everything I'm saying here is my wife's position, not just mine." Bill Clinton, remembering to talk not only about himself.

"I'm not doin' hand shows today." Fred Thompson.

"Well, Hillary, I'm looking forward to you advising me as well."

"WHAT DI DHE DO AFORE HOW LONG AND WITH WHO ?? PLS TELL BOB HELLO BOB."

"So here’s the rule. You never repeat right wing talking points to attack your own, ever. You never enter that echo chamber as a participant. Ever."

"You never give them a hammer to beat the left with. Just. Don’t. Do. It."

Jane Hamsher adopts a scary, weird tone of voice and tells Elizabeth Edwards what to do. She'd better show some respect for MoveOn.

They're out there on the left so you can look “moderate.” They’re saying what needs to be said, opening the conversation up so John Edwards isn’t considered the left-wing fringe loon that nobody should listen to.

Which seems like it should be exactly the reason why John Edwards needs to make his independence from them clear, but according to Hamsher's tirade, this is why Edwards can never criticize the netroots. Well, this is Hamsher jockeying for netroots power.

[W]e’re not very happy when the people we defend turn around and start kicking them...

We love you. We want to love you.

Knock it off.

I'm sure she realizes that since Edwards is using them because they are useful that he will only use them to the extent they are useful. He wants power, not true love. And so does she, obviously.

The candidate is not "guestblogging." The blog is publishing a press release.

Please tell me no one is stupid enough to be impressed that Firedoglake has got Hillary Clinton to "guestblog" over there.

I'm irked when bloggers surrender their precious independence, but others are tsking that the candidate has besmirched herself with the ugliness associated the blog. WaPo's Sleuth takes Hillary to task for "guestblogging" on Firedoglake, where Jane Hamsher usually blogs, because of that time Hamsher blogged on Huffington Post and published a photoshopped image of Joe Lieberman in blackface. The Sleuth digs up the obviously not unbiased opinion of a former Lieberman spokesman (Dan Gerstein):

Gerstein said he understands the Clinton camp wanting to reach out to lots of potential voters, especially women. But given that Clinton, "under the microscope to a much higher degree of scrutiny," Gerstein said, "I don't think this was necessarily a good idea for her."

He suggested that Clinton's decision was particularly politically dangerous in light of the senator's vocal criticism of Don Imus after the shock jock's racially demeaning comments about the Rutgers women's basketball players.

Clinton could have chosen a blogger with "less baggage," Gerstein said. "Just as pure strategy, why would you want to take a risk and invite scorn and controversy and an accusation of hypocrisy when you don't have to?"

Oh, good lord. Imus again. That's a hilariously attenuated connection between Hillary and "nappy headed hos."

Bloggers -- and shock jocks -- need to be free to swing wildly. But candidates need to be careful. We know the Clinton campaign is working on taming and coopting the bloggers. I hate that. I mock that. But I wouldn't pin that blackface nonsense on Hillary.

Still, Firedoglake is a hardcore place, and Clinton doesn't belong there. To illustrate, let's look at a couple things published on Firedoglake the day after Clinton "posted."

There's this:

Oh, Michelle, you moron. Granted, dressing yourself up in what appears to be the anime version of a cheerleader costume may make all the fat, sweaty, unibrow-ed armchair warriors who read your blog squirt in their pants, but if you're going to jump around and cheer, you should at least make an effort to remove the stick from up your ass. It would make your jumps a far sight less stiff and spastic-looking....

To your Rightard masters, you are essentially a talking dog, a novelty act, an amusing freak. You are their Token Asian. (Although, I'm sure they don't have any compunctions about calling you "Oriental" behind your back, like you're some kind of rug or something.) You are a minority woman who sees absolutely no conflict of interest in making a mint out of (to use your own charming phrase) "stoking racial demogoguery"....

If there is any justice at all in the world, God will see to it that you will spend your declining years eating dirty hospital linens for a living.

Then there's a post titled "What All Those Little Beat-Offs At Red State Really Hate When They Say They Hate Abortion" -- with a video of Pink singing "U & Ur Hand." We see the singer in a sports bra, jumping rope bouncily, posing sexily, and singing about rejecting a man. The punchline in the lyrics is that the only sex he'll have tonight is masturbation. (I don't get the connection to abortion. Wouldn't women be more likely to reject sex and consign men to masturbation if abortion were illegal?) Does Hillary want to be associated with this? I mean, I think it's funny to picture her rejecting Bill by singing "U & Ur Hand," but it's just not quite right for the campaign.

So I can see why Firedoglake is popular (with about 80,000 visits a day -- not 100,000 as WaPo says). It's sexy and wild and viciously political. That's fun for the people who agree with the politics and who enjoy brutal, sexual humor, but it should be poison for a mainstream candidate. Let the blog be the blog and the candidate be the candidate.

Separation of blog and campaign forever.

IN THE COMMENTS: Reader_iam says:

I must say, that Malkin video is truly stupid and badly done. Embarrassing, really--but Malkin's playing to the more puerile, simplistic part of her base. (The fact that she does this so often is one of the big reasons that I have little use for her.)

TRex is doing the same thing, only he includes the sexist, racist nonsense. What really grates is the "sneaky" (I'd call it transparent, myself) way he goes about it:

To your Rightard masters, you are essentially a talking dog, a novelty act, an amusing freak. You are their Token Asian. (Although, I'm sure they don't have any compunctions about calling you "Oriental" behind your back, like you're some kind of rug or something.)

In this way, he gets to say this shit hiding behind, in essence, the " I'M not thinking these things, I'M not saying these things, I'm saying THEY'RE thinking and saying these things" excuse.

What complete and utter bullshit. He's exactly the person saying and thinking those things. To describe this as "projection" is to imply a level of subtlety and unconsciousness that we shouldn't let the TRex's of the world hide behind.

Slightly shorter version: He's a pretentious jerk, precisely the sort of sexist, racist lefty that unjustly smears all liberalism and provides ammo to his mirror images on the right.

UPDATE: Firedoglake -- via the guy who named himself after a big dinosaur, TRex -- attempts a response to this post.

Go over there and read it. (I can tell you their links bring few people over here to actually see what he's talking about first hand.)

It's a rambling, incoherent mess that either fails to grasp or misrepresents what I've said. TRex seems think no one will notice that he doesn't get my point. What can I say? He mainly drifts into a lot of blabber about how much he hates Michelle Malkin and rightwingers and me. It's all one big mush in the commodious dinosaur head. He's a nasty guy taking wild shots at a woman, a professional woman close to Hillary's age. He's cursing at me, raving about "boobs" (i.e., breasts). Sigh. He's only making it clearer that Hillary Clinton should not want to appear to be guestblogging for Firedoglake.

Here they are, with laptops, salami, and crackers...

It's the bloggers! They're covering the Libby trial.

All day long during the trial, one Firedoglake blogger is on duty to beam to the Web from the courthouse media room a rough, real-time transcript of the testimony...

With a yeasty mix of commentary, invective and inside jokes, Fire-doglake [sic] has seen its audience grow steadily during the trial, reaching 200,000 visitors and requiring an additional computer server on its busiest days — like Tuesday, with the revelation that Mr. Cheney would not appear....

Even as they exploit the newest technologies, the Libby trial bloggers are a throwback to a journalistic style of decades ago, when many reporters made no pretense of political neutrality. Compared with the sober, neutral drudges of the establishment press, the bloggers are class clowns and crusaders, satirists and scolds....

In the courthouse, the old- and new-media groups have mixed warily at times. Mainstream reporters have shushed the bloggers when their sarcastic comments on the testimony drowned out the audio feed.

I haven't had the time or inclination to follow the detailed blog coverage of the Libby trial, but I really would like to read some detailed coverage of the dynamic between the professional journalists and the bloggers who get to have so much more fun and show their emotions. Is the static between the two groups manifested only in the form of repressed, repressive shushing? The real reporters can't express much of what they feel about the bloggers, who must be irritating the hell out of them, can they? It wouldn't be professional. Plus, the bloggers would blog about it!

Well, Jane Hamsher is there, and she's the producer of "Natural Born Killers," a movie about media (and murder). I'd like to see the movie about life in that little courthouse media room. No, the script needn't depict bloody mayhem. I like a nice dark satire myself. Or a documentary (if it's not too late). But a romantic comedy would do just as well. Do you want the girl or the boy to be the blogger?