dana perino

David Zurawik , the media critic for the Baltimore Sun, has published a post at Daily Download, in which he declares that MSNBC is now worse than Fox News in ideology. The reason? Well he says it in the first paragraph:

MSNBC has long been as bad as Fox News when it comes to ideological bias. But with the hiring of longtime Team Obama loyalists David Axelrod and Robert Gibbs, it’s official: MSNBC is worse.

Apparently Mr. Zurawik is media dumb. Allow me to try and inform him of Fox's past hires.

• Karl Rove - Senior adviser to George Bush. Leaves White House and joins Fox News.
• Dana Perino - Former press secretary for George Bush. Leaves White House and joins Fox News.

Then we have one that went in reverse, where the White House decided to pull it's talent from Fox News.

• Tony Snow - Fox News personality, leaves the network to become Bush press secretary.

Then we have some other notables:

• Liz Cheney - daughter of former vice-President, Dick Cheney. Worked in Bush's State Department. Leaves and joins Fox News.
• Jenna Bush - Daughter of George Bush. Now Fox News Contributor.

But apparently David Zurawik has no idea who these people are, since he fails to mention any of them in his post. That, or maybe he is just another partisan hack, ignoring facts to promote his own agenda. Which ever it is, the article has gone uncorrected for over 12 hours, so we do know that he is incompetent. That's pretty bad for someone who makes a living criticizing others.

I guess now is the time for Dana Perino to learn history and find out exactly what the Cuban missile crisis was:

Russian Prime Minister Vladimir Putin on Monday said it was time for Russia to rebuild links with former Cold War ally Cuba, news agencies reported.

The Kremlin is angry at U.S. plans for a missile defence system in Eastern Europe, and last month a news report suggested Russia might use Cuba, a thorn in America's side for half a century, as a refueling stop for nuclear-capable bombers.

The Russian Defence Ministry denied the report and said it had no plans to open any military bases abroad, but a top U.S. general was drawn to say such a move would cross a "red line".

What would be a great way to prevent this? How about diplomatic relations with Cuba? We have shunned that tiny island for over 45 years now and why? Cuba has continued to survive and survive fine. Now we are getting to a point where talking to them could be very beneficial, but we won't. Instead it could lead us down a road of more turmoil with Russia, which would also include China now.

From the NYT:

But the president did personally telephone Mr. Gore to extend the invitation, and the White House changed the date of the event so Mr. Gore could attend. Mr. Bush’s press secretary, Dana Perino, told reporters the president is willing to let bygones be bygones.

“This president does not harbor any resentments,” she said. “He never has.”

Translation: The President isn't upset Mr. Gore didn't just let him be President.

Talk about an asshole - and his little parrot, Dana Perino, for going out and saying such a thing. Bush makes Manson look sane.

My blood boiled yesterday as I started reading right-wing blogs immediately jump on the "give everyone guns" mentality following the shooting at Virginia Tech. Details will still emerging on the deadliest mass shooting in our country's history, yet the wingnuts figured they had a political card to play here. Michelle Malkin had a post immediately following the breaking news, which linked to another post and said this:

Just imagine if students were armed. We no longer need to imag[in]e what will happen when they are not armed.

Ok - I'll play along. Let me imagine that. If we had students armed, there is a chance so many would not have died on April 16, 2007 on Virginia Tech, but how many would die on other days? How may boyfriends would get pissed at their girlfriends, or find them cheating and decide to use that "justice maker" they have under their coat?

Let's look at that another way. The descriptions show the gunman barging into classes and opening fire. If students had guns, chances are they wouldn't have time to react. Who says they even know how to shoot the damn thing or a good aim? Instead we could see a higher fatality rate yesterday. Another question remains unanswered - did the shooter use all his ammo? Did he take his life when he had only 1 bullet left to do so? If the students had guns, that could have given the shooter much more ammo to continue his rampage and we might be looking at a higher number of fatalities today.

As typical for the right, history teaches nothing. Sure there were no mass shootings like this back in the 1800's, but there was a lot more killings. Why? Everyone had guns. They were very easy to come by and people needed them just to hunt so they could eat.

Today we find out that the firings of the United States Attorneys went all the way to the oval office:

The White House was deeply involved in the decision late last year to dismiss federal prosecutors, including some who had been criticized by Republican lawmakers, administration officials said Monday.

Last October, President Bush spoke with Attorney General Alberto R. Gonzales to pass along concerns by Republicans that some prosecutors were not aggressively addressing voter fraud, the White House said Monday. Senator Pete V. Domenici, Republican of New Mexico, was among the politicians who complained directly to the president, according to an administration official.

The president did not call for the removal of any specific United States attorneys, said Dana Perino, a White House spokeswoman. She said she had “no indication” that the president had been personally aware that a process was already under way to identify prosecutors who would be fired.

Josh points out that these claims of voter fraud by the Republicans have been nothing more than a red herring used by Republicans for years. One of the fired U.S.As, David McKay, said he is "stunned" at this revelation and that  "There was no evidence, and I am not going to drag innocent people in front of a grand jury.".

Reuters is reporting this on the news of Bolton's resignation:

"Despite the support of a strong bipartisan majority of senators, Ambassador Bolton's confirmation was blocked by a Democrat filibuster, and this is a clear example of the breakdown in the Senate confirmation process," [Dana] Perino said.

Now at last check, the Bolton nomination was till in committee. Perhaps President Bush should make sure his spokespeople are better informed on the operation of our democracy. Filibusters don't occur in committee and the actual hold up was the opposition by one Lincoln Chaffee, a Republican. So this is how the White house is planning on reaching out to Democrats? I certainly hope they take note of this.