Just how disingenuous?

Today, in the face of growing criticism over his handling of the economy, president Bush held a news conference to... well, what else? Blame the Democrats. The Washington Post reports:

Bush cited an Energy Department estimate that drilling in the refuge could allow the United States to produce about 1 million additional barrels of oil a day, yielding about 27 million gallons of extra gasoline and diesel a day.

"That would be about a 20 percent increase of . . . crude oil production over U.S. levels, and it would likely mean lower gas prices," Bush said. "And yet such efforts to explore in ANWR have been consistently blocked."

Here are some interesting statistics, courtesy of yahoo.com:

World oil production: 76,010,000 barrels per day
U.S. oil production: 7,800,000 barrels per day

So, we produce roughly 10% of the world's oil. A 20% increase in U.S. production would, therefore, amount to a 2% increase in the world oil supply.

And that's going to bring prices down? Not very likely, and certainly not by much, even if it does have some measurable effect. Consider, for instance that world demand for oil has been growing at about 1.5% per year, a figure that is relatively unchanged even in the face of the current economic slowdown. At that pace, it would take less than 18 months for demand to outstrip new Alaskan oil supplies, and that's assuming such supplies could come on line immediately, at full capacity.

Paging Jonah Goldberg

It's not a frequent occurrence, but every so often a College Republican will actually complete the assigned reading for his European History class and, in so doing , discover that the official name of the German Nazi party was the National Socialist German Workers' Party. Delighted by a discovery that has mysteriously and inexplicably escaped the note of academic scholars (Great Scott, the Nazis were Socialists!), and thinking himself quite clever, said president of the campus chapter of Young Americans For Freedom will invariably thrown down his history book and pen an insightful and compelling (if somehwat rambling) piece for his college's conservative journal explaining how deep down inside the Students for a Democratic Society and the Campus Democrats are nothing more than a bunch of goose stepping fascists. The most recent example of this phenomenon is Jonah Goldberg who, despite having graduated from college many years ago, has nonetheless managed to pen a sophomoric volume called Liberal Fascism: The Secret History of the American Left, From Mussolini to the Politics of Meaning in which he demonstrates rather convincingly that no one loves Hitler quite as much as your average Democratic voter. Sadly, and somewhat embarrassing for Goldberg is the fact that so many Republican legislators appear to have missed his memo laying out the Democrat=Nazi equation and continue to frequent their favorite Neo-Nazi lectures, marches and other gatherings a if nothing had happened and new proscriptions and prescriptions were not in force. David Duke, the founder of the totally not racist National Organization for the Advancement of White People is the most famous, but by no means only example. Trent Lott, Bob Barr and dozens of Republican public officials, have been, were frequent speakers at meeting of the Council of Conservative Citizens, a group that, while not explicitly Neo-Nazi, does continually warn America of the dangers of "race mixing" and the powerful Jews who control the media.
And now, following in this grand tradition of GOP members who haven't yet figured out that they're supposed to denounce Fascism because it's so left wing, is Indiana congressional candidate Tony Zirkle. Zirkle recently attended a neo-Nazi conference celebrating Hitler's birthday and then explained his actions by noting that he gives talks to all sorts of different groups, spanning the political spectrum from black hating KKK chapters all the way to Jew hating Neo-Nazi outfits. As a consequence, no one should read anything into one little appearance at a gathering marked by dozens of swastikas a 5 foot oil painting of Adolph Hitler, and where everyone wore Nazi arm-bands to emphasize how much they're looking forward to voting for Barak Obama in November. I swear these conservative activists have got to improve communication and get on the same page! Sheeesh!

A Fox Anchor Comes Clean

Fox anchor Chris Wallace admits that Fox News' pretensions to being "fair and balanced" are a sham, and the network is, in fact, just an outlet for conservative propaganda:

"My feeling is that a lot of time 'fair and balanced' means giving the conservative point of view because that doesn't get reflected in the mainstream media."

What's particularly striking about this admission, is the notion that the "conservative point of view" is not presented in the mainstream media. When you consider that right-wing media personalities such as Pat Buchanan, Tucker Carlson, Glenn Beck, Joe Scarborough, & a host of others anchor shows on networks other than Fox, you're left with only one of three options: (a) Wallace is delusional, (b) Wallace is dishonest, or (c) Wallace is an idiot.

McCain Foreign Policy Wonk...

GOP presidential nominee John McCain has made the point on several occasions that his area of expertise is foreign policy and also that Islamic terror is the greatest threat this nation faces. Just how much of an expert on these issues McCain really is, though is some question. Just recently, on his taxpayer funded campaign tour/fact finding mission to the Middle East, McCain showed that he is still confused about the whole Sunni/Shiite divide and which nation-state players in the region support which group. In the end, Joe Lieberman must pull McCain aside and explain his mistake:

More on Newsmax

The free-lance "reporter" Jim Davis who wrote the original article for Newsmax has been tracked down. Would you believe that he's a regular poster on the right-wing chat forum "free republic"? Of course you would... because Newsmax isn't a real news outlet and Jim Davis isn't a real reporter. These guys are just dishonest shock troops for the right-wing propaganda industry. At any rate, here are Davis' thoughts on the controversy:

My article was published in the first week of August. Everyone's memory was still fresh. I still had all of my notes. There hadn't been a lot of time to doctor or edit any videos or websites. But the Obama camp chose to remain silent at that time. I have repeatedly called the campaign and the church, asking for an interview and mentioning the July 22 date in the messages I've left.

If Obama wasn't there, they should have spoken up right away -- immediately after the article was published. I'd bring in my notes, they'd produce their videotape, and we would get everything cleared up right away. I stand behind my story, but if I was wrong, Newsmax would have published a retraction and that would have been the end of it.

Now, after everyone's memory has faded, my notes have been taken to some landfill and there has been plenty of time to doctor the videos and the websites, the Obama campaign tries to deny he was there? They could have nipped this little problem in the bud if Obama really was not there, and they had chosen to speak up.

I think they are relying on the fact that people have fading memories about who gave the sermon in the early morning and who gave it in the evening, on a Sunday eight months ago.

So Davis has no notes to back up his article and the website and video has since been doctored by Obama's cronies. A likely story. In a later post, Davis continues to insist that Obama attended the 7:30 am service, despite the fact that we've shown it would have been nearly impossible for him to do so. There is one circumstance that could save Davis, it must be noted. We might yet discover that Obama flew to Miami in an SR-71 spy plane.

Newsmax responds

Right-wing propaganda outlet Newsmax has responded to the controversy surrounding Bill Kristol's claim that Barack Obama attended services at Trinity on July 22nd by circling the wagons:

Clarification: The Obama campaign has told members of the press that Senator Obama was not in church on the day cited, July 22, because he had a speech he gave in Miami at 1:30 PM. Our writer, Jim Davis, says he attended several services at Senator Obama's church during the month of July, including July 22. The church holds services three times every Sunday at 7:30 and 11 a.m. and 6 p.m. Central time. While both the early morning and evening service allowed Sen. Obama to attend the service and still give a speech in Miami, Mr. Davis stands by his story that during one of the services he attended during the month of July, Senator Obama was present and sat through the sermon given by Rev. Wright as described in the story. Mr. Davis said Secret Service were also present in the church during Senator Obama's attendance. Mr. Davis' story was first published on Newsmax on August 9, 2007. Shortly before publication, Mr. Davis contacted the press office of Sen. Obama several times for comment about the Senator's attendance and Rev. Wright's comments during his sermon. The Senator's office declined to comment.

A search at the Travelocity travel web site shows that it's a 3 hour flight from Chicago to Miami. Let us allow that Obama attended the 7:30 service at Trinity and stayed for an hour. OK, now it's 8:30. Now let's allow one half hour for travel time to the airport. It's 9:00. Suppose the plane leaves at exactly 9:00. Three hours later, when the plane arrives in Miami, it's 12:00... in Chicago... in Miami, however, it's 1:00. So Obama has 1/2 hour to get from the airport to the site of the 1:30 speech. How likely is it that a campaign staffer would schedule appeareances with such razor thing margins? Not very likely, I'd say.

So Obama almost certainly could not have both attended the 7:30 service and given a 1:30 speech in Miami, contrary to what Newsmax would have us believe. The 11:00am service is also clearly out. The 6:00 pm service in Chicago is a more likely scenario, but let's be serious here: Newsmax has already fudged the times and dates so much that you wonder if it's even worth it to speculate. And really, is their reporter truly so sloppy that he jots down the words spoken by Rev. Wright and makes a note of Senator Obama's nodding along with a specific passage, but fails to make a note of the date or the time this occurred? Once again... it strains credulity.

Obama 1, Kristol 0

William Kristol's column for the New York Times is now headed by the following disclaimer:

In this column, I cite a report that Sen. Obama had attended services at Trinity Church on July 22, 2007. The Obama camapaign has provided information showing that Senator Obama did not attend Trinity that day. I regret the error.

It must be embarrassing to have to admit that one piece of evidence you provide to make the case that the subject of your column is a dishonest individual turns out itself to have been a fabrication by a dishonest individual. Not to worry, though. I'm sure Kristol will take it in stride.

In closing, I do think it's worth noting that while Kristol apologized for his error, he did not think it necessary to apologize for calling Obama a liar. Curious, that...