BlatherWatch

McDermott haters: where the hell are you?

Rep. Jim McDermott, the controversial Seattle Democrat who opposed the war before it was cool has been filling in for the vacationing Dave Ross (KIRO m-f, 9a-12p) this week.

It's been a snore-fest... but it's not all Sunny Jim's fault.

(You're right- he's not exactly Mr. Excitement; talk host probably should not be on Jim's list of career goals- the first 2 days guided by KIRO perennial fill-in John Procaccino was the bland leading the bland).

But whereinell are the big, brave patriots who trash the Congressman every time his name comes up?

Senior Fellow of the Wingnut Intelligentsia Newt Gingrich calls him "traitorous and seditious." Vicious vixen Michelle Malkin said he took, "... Saddam's cash and trashed America while on an Iraq junket as our soldiers prepared for war."

Radio Equalizer Brian Maloney calls him a "fringe extremist.

The vaginally fanged, Official Republican Party Scold Ann Coulter has likened Mc Dermott's Bagdad trip to sucking up to Adolf Hitler in 1940 Berlin. She asks: "Weren't any Democrats the tiniest bit irritated that members of Congress were meeting with a tyrant as the U.S. prepared to attack him?" (McDermott never met with Saddam, of course).

John Carlson (KVI m-f, 3-5,) told the Seattle PI: "... he is doing so much good for Republicans back on Capitol Hill -- unintentionally, of course -- that he will be sorely missed next week."

Goaded by these right-wing media, local conservatives spout and shout "Treason!" on KVI. They call him a Barking Moonbat or a "dipshit" in the comment columns on Sound Politics and Horsesass.org

So where are these people when B-Dad Jim is exposed open-lined on KIRO to constituents and the world at large?

Has there been a single unfriendly call?

Where are the bold conservatives when can they finally have the chance to tell him what they think of him before a large audience and be anonymous while doing it?

Tuesday oddems: bogged-down jim, tongue-tied dave, 2nd-tier frank, 2-tiered Net, 3 dog night, random punctuation and assorted typos...

~~Sorry we missed Jim McDermott's maiden voyage on the Dave Ross Show, Monday- we'll be listening Tuesday, though. We hear the Memorial Day holiday was a good day for a novice talker to begin what with nobody listening and few calling in... Sorry we missed his guest, our hero, and favorite militarist Rep. John Murtha, the brave Congressman and decorated Marine who's enduring the perfervid Republican mudhoney smearing him as unpatriotic and a liar but who still speaks out against Bush's violent fool's errand and for the troops in Iraq. Tomorrow's guest: House Democratic Leader Nancy Pelosi. In the post broadcast recap podcast, ace slick chick producer Tina Noles tells Sunny Jim, "This has been pretty easy for me to produce- all you do is open up your Rodolex and pull out a John Murtha or Nancy Pelosi..."

~~New York Times editorial: “This democratic Internet would be in danger if the companies that deliver Internet service changed the rules so that Web sites that pay them money would be easily accessible, while littleguy sites would be harder  to access and slower to navigate. Providers could also block access to sites they do not like.”  Join the Christian coalition and MoveOn.org opposing this bill in Congress.

~~Frank Shiers, the KIRO fill-in and 2nd tier talker (Saturdays 7-10p, Sundays 4-7p) is a man of many endeavors and let's face it- master of few. Besides being a medium grade neoconservative talker who's greatest talent is saying yes; he's a music DJ on oldies station KBSG; has a great radio voice and does voice-over work for the stations, especially KBSG. He's a 2nd tier political cartoonist who sells to 2nd tier neighborhood and suburban weeklies. (best we can say about Frank's cartooning: he draws admirably). He stepped in it Saturday night on his show when, according to a reader, he "... insinuated that Dave Ross would use the incident of Marines killing Iraqis, including women and children helpless in their beds, as an excuse to make political hay and criticize the war, and called that 'treasonous.'" Our readers were outraged- and also that he called McDermott, "Baghdad Jim," even while the congressman is being promo-ed all over KIRO for his week of filling in for Dave Ross. We think he should be able to say anything he wants on his own show- even stick up for the behavior of Marines so over extended and burned out they're murderous. Shiers has complained on-air recently about left wing blogs (that would be us) that tell lies about him and whined that he wished he could sue us. We've invited him to blog here unhampered so he could set the record straight and clear up all those lies, but so far he's blown us off. We've made that offer to so many of the subjects of our little democratic blogging efforts and it really hurts our feelings that no one ever takes us up on it.

Open Thread: Lest we forget...

Let's remember who fought and died in Iraq this Memorial Day, but also the wisdom and judgment ignored by those who set those men and women up for this needless dying and destruction. 

The Weinberger Doctrine
In a classic speech on Nov. 28, 1984, Secretary of Defense Caspar Weinberger declared six major tests to be applied when considering the use of US combat forces abroad. This prudent doctrine, developed after Vietnam, was followed by Bush 41 in the prosecution of the 1991 Gulf War. It was totally ignored by George W. Bush and his neoconservative handlers in the prosecution of his disastrous Iraqi adventure.

1. The United States should not commit forces to combat overseas unless the particular engagement or occasion is deemed vital to our national interest or that of our allies.

2. If we decide it is necessary to put combat troops into a given situation, we should do so wholeheartedly, and with the clear intention of winning. If we are unwilling to commit the forces or resources necessary to achieve our objectives, we should not commit them at all. ...

3. If we do decide to commit forces to combat overseas, we should have clearly defined political and military objectives. And we should know precisely how our forces can accomplish those clearly defined objectives. And we should have and send the forces needed to do just that. ...

4. The relationship between our objectives and the forces we have committed- their size, composition, and disposition- must be continually reassessed and adjusted if necessary. Conditions and objectives invariably change during the course of a conflict. When they do change, then so must our combat requirements.  ...

5. Before the US commits combat forces abroad, there must be some reasonable assurance we will have the support of the American people and their elected representatives in Congress. ... We cannot fight a battle with the Congress at home while asking our troops to win a war overseas, or, as in the case of Vietnam, in effect asking our troops not to win, but just to be there.

6. The commitment  of US forces to combat should be a last resort.

KIRO's weapon of mass destruction: jim mcdermott

We were preparing our bodies for ritual suicide by syrup at the dreary prospect of John Procaccino filling in back-to-back for the vacationing Dave Ross (KIRO m-f, 9a-12p) and Ron Reagan (m-f 12-1p), when we read in the PI that Jim McDermott, 69, the doddering but heroic Seattle Congressman will do blabber duty for one week on the Dave Ross Show.

According to political writer Neil Modie:

McDermott's first guest Monday will be Rep. John Murtha, D-Pa., an outspoken advocate for the military but one who, like McDermott, has become a harsh critic of the Bush administration's Iraq war policy.

McDermott said he is trying to line up liberal House Democratic Leader Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., as a guest, as well as other congressional colleagues. On Monday and Tuesday, KIRO radio personality John Procaccino will co-host the show to help McDermott ease into the job.

Wow, an innovative programming decision by KIRO! We hope this is the beginning of the renaissance of the big Seattle talker.

The $250-$350 per shift for the KIRO talk-job could be a factor in the Congressman's decision to do the on-air week. His Queen Anne Hill home is in financial jeopardy from legal defense costs from the civil suit filed by Ohio Majority Leader John Boehner over whether McDermott's dissemination of an intercepted cellphone conversation of public officials should be considered free speech.

Bill Clinton will be in town June 3 to help him raise some dough for his defense fund.

But McD is most famous (or notorious) for the ramifications that came raining down like SCUD missiles in 2002, after he stood atop a Baghdad mosque on a Sunday morning and told George Stephanopolis on ABC's This Week, "The president of the United States will lie to the American people in order to get us into this war." He proclaimed there were no weapons of mass destruction.

When no WMD were found in Iraq, the war took bad and lengthy turns, and many of the pronouncements that led us into war by George Bush and his men were proven to have been fabricated- sometimes feloniously- McDermott's pre-war warnings and actions became prescient and vindicating.

His outspokenness put him into Michael Moore's tremendously successful 2004 anti administration documentary, Fahrenheit 911, and made him an icon to national progressives.

It also caused him to be publicly reviled by Republicans and earned him the sobriquet, "Bagdad Jim," although he prefers "Sunny Jim."

In 2004, while leading the House of Representatives in the Pledge of Allegiance, McDermott left out "under God," causing a stink of Biblical proportions after Republicans (who, he says, assigned someone to watch his lips) pounced on this sin of omission. "One more time," intoned former Republican Chairman, Chris Vance, "Jim McDermott has embarrassed Washington."

All-mail voting comes to talk radio, no one notices

The go-to mouthpiece for County Executive Ron Sims, Sandeep Kaushik came to the Ron Reagan Show (KIRO m-f, 12-1p) Tuesday to talk about the all-mail voting ordinance the King County Council has approved.

We were hoping for a fight, or at least a robust discussion, but there wasn't much challenge for Kaushik,(or the listening audience) as he was licked to death by perennial KIRO fill-in John Procaccino.

Although it was entirely ignored by the host, there is some local controversy- and we're sure Kaushik's loins were well girded for it.

The plan is opposed, of course by the hapless Council Republicans whose political impulses are vestigial of their Whiggish/Tory antecedents, in whose heydays only white, male landowners got to vote or have any fun, for that matter.

There was opposition last week from the Silly Side which provided some laughs on an otherwise dull afternoon when a half dozen protesters trooped down to the county administration building. They were from the Evergreen Freedom Foundation, a grumpy, Republican Olympia think tank (they're the pones who wear the funny little hats) and the Green Party, a small group who were once a political party but are now just a party with Koolaid and cookies.

They were accompanied by Republican King County Councilwoman Kathy Lambert who had supported the balloting measure until someone explained that the plan was all-mail voting, not all-male voting.

"Never mind," she told reporters.

Tuesday oddems: ripe, juicy morsals, illegal alien houseboys, lasered pubes, intern sex, mike webb, billo reilly, dan restione and he said, he said, he said...

~~back to the radio doldrums. Yikes, this is the slow time- summer in the radio business. Summer vacations, bum listenership. Dave Ross in his new/old ayem spot, John Procaccino filling in for Ron Reagan both having a helluva time scaring up callers.

Wish somebody would get fired, arrested, light themselves on fire like a Buddhist from the old school. It sure would help if Rove would get indicted.

~~Too darn many ripe tidbits come in over the Blathertransom that we can't go with because we've only got a he said; or- despite an item's intrinsic beauty and corroboration, we judge it nobody's business. Or if the truth could not only set us free, but get us killed, what with the talk Mafia out there busting kneecaps. We heard a juicy one we'd love to think is true about the right-wing talk host with an alleged illegal working as a houseman- he said. There's another about a conservative talk host who now has a wife and kids, but supposedly, he said, had a boyfriend in college. A producer's perfectly lasered private parts seem to be very public parts- at least the bare facts seem to be well-known around the KIRO newsroom- at least that's what she said. A very married local rightie has a girl in every port- even in the landlocked city of Cleveland. There's the talker who's schtupping his producer, the newsie who was allegedly once a stripper, another off-air exec, he said, turned tricks before she was radio- that's one we'd love to verify. Down in Category C.2: there's  KOMO guy who looks at porno while on the air; an intern schtupping a board op, an Entercom intern schtupping an Entercom intern; a board op smoking joints in a stairwell; a PD who looks lustfully at saleswomen; an off-air personality who haunts the Lusty Lady; another with a jones for Fritos. Yawn. Will the doldrums ever end?

~~It's been a year since Lou Pate, the former KIRO overnighter, Mike Webb, the former liberal, and Mike Siegel, the former KTTH morning guy pushed decertification of their union to a vote and got AFTRA thrown out. It passed by one vote. Note the single adjective these three talk hosts share- former. With the legal the interim between the votes now passed, certification can be reconsidered. And it will, we're assured by someone who's working hard toward that end. Hard to say how a new vote would come out, but with the 3 perpetrators now all gone, it's entirely possible the employees could bring back basic union standards to the Entercom workplace. Ironically, John Sandifer, the union guy told us that the union would have "gone to the mat" for Webb if he'd asked for representation after his firing from KIRO which he bitterly decries, today. Both he and Siegel were fired after the decertification. These corporations just ain't grateful to those who do their dirty work.

~~Fox Radio's Billo Reilly threatened a boycott of Mexico if the country's foreign secretary, Luis Ernesto Derbez makes good on a promise to sue if evidence emerges that the National Guard is directly helping to detain Mexican citizens trying to illegally enter the United States. This according to Media Matters. O'Reilly warned Derbez, "If the Mexican government files one lawsuit in the U.S.A., one, pertaining to the National Guard, I will call for a total boycott of Mexican goods and no travel to your country. O'Reilly claims he "bought down the French economy," with his bogus 2003 boycott of goods and travel after France's opposition to the Iraqi War. In reality, O'Reilly's battle against France, won him only victories in the ratings war on cable TV and the radio. Brie and chablis sales were unwavering.

"A Misuse of Talk Radio"

Welcome to the blogosphere, David Postman.

The savvy new blog posted by chief Seattle Times political writer David Postman will, we predict, be a must-read for professional pols and political junkies alike.

It sure will be for us if he keeps posting items like this morning's, "A Misuse of Talk Radio?"

As the state Supreme Court gets ready to consider whether talk show hosts campaigned illegally by promoting an anti-gas tax initiative last year, one talker says it was "a misuse of talk radio." And he's no liberal, but Bryan Suits, a host who shares the airwaves at KVI with John Carlson and Kirby Wilbur, the two accused of using talk-show time to campaign for Initiative 912.
Suits told the Mainstream Republicans conference Saturday, "This is me airing an internal, private business debate."

  "My radio station crossed the line in my book in terms of going from advocacy to leadership on a political issue, which is why the 912 talk stopped at 6 p.m. when I came on the air and my name was never on the initiative."

Does the Bad Lieutenant's libertarian, contrarian views signal a philosophical split in the KVI line-up?

You bet it does. (Not that it makes any difference in terms of much of anything). Kirby Wilbur and John Carlson are partisan Republicans who acted in the I-912 issue in an ill-fated effort to stick it to a Democratic Governor and Legislature, grab some Party clout for themselves and galvanize their listeners. They failed at the first two and arguably succeeded at the last.

But in the process, they further split off libertarian conservatives like Suits; and pissed off the business Republicans so important to new sleek Republican office seekers like Rossi, and McGavick.

Social conservatives, once so strong in the state Party have been thrown under the bus by the hated Party "pragmatists." like former Chair Chris Vance and now they believe, Diane Tebelius. We haven't heard the end of them, though-  the anti-gay rights referendum making the rounds for signatures right now will distract them and if it gets on the ballot, it'll bring 'em to the polls to be used once again by the craven Republicans.

Pat Cashman to KRKO...in Everett (!)

Comedian, and long time TV & radio personality Pat Cashman will do a weekly gig on Wednesdays, 1-3p on Everett ESPN & sportsblabber KRKO (1380 kHz). The show starts this Weds., May 24 and will be streamed live on the station's website.

If you're asking, what is he thinking? Ask him by dialing 425.304.1380, or drop him an e-mail:  [email protected]

The station says it'll be

... "a show with real and fake news, real and fake interviews, real and fake commercials. Will you be able to tell the difference? As far as why he came to NorthSound 1380, Pat says...'To me, old fashioned as I may be, radio always seemed at its best when it was just plain fun, not scornful -- a place to tune in and be informed or even touched. And that is what I want to do with this show.'"

In case you've already forgotten just who he is- this from his website:

Pat Cashman began as a zygote in Bend, Oregon and quickly grew into a larger group of amorphous cells which eventually resulted in the human being this site is all about. Pat has done creative work for television, radio print and video games in addition to being on-air talent and writer for the multi Emmy Award winning "Almost Live!" show which ran for 15 seasons.
    Pat has a wide repertoire of voices that he brought to his work as a radio personality on KIRO FM, KOMO AM and KJR FM in Seattle. He continues to provide his funny and provocative talents for numerous local and regional advertisers in the northwest as well as serving as a speaker and announcer for many organizations and events.

We'll give you the last word, bill...

The Sphincter Factor meets the No Spin Zone.

Pat robertson, tsunamis, albinos, and metro-sexual marriage

Pat Robertson has been predicting lately that God has told him storms will hit America's coastlines this year, and that the Pacific Northwest could be facing a tsunami.

When God talks to us here at BlatherWatch, it's usually pretty pedestrian- like about jay-walking (He's against it), or a reminder that it's recycling day (He likes recycling), or peanut butter guidance- (He prefers crunchy, you creepy apostate).

But when Rev. Pat hears from The Big Guy, he always seems gets block-busting, headline-generating Divine Threats of Heavenly Retribution- not for himself, but for all the rest of us.

(This is controversial, but we gotta be honest, (as Sean Hannity would say) God's gender is obvious- The Big Guy who talks to us is definitely a guy, although women we know swear The Big Whom they speak with is A Woman. God's gender and persona seems more and more like it's in the eye of the beholder, a scary, yet comforting thought, even though it brings up disturbing questions about albinos, the transgendered, Republicans, metro-sexuals, and our cat, Linda Werthheimer with whom God converses daily). 

If it was anyone else besides Rev. Pat making these prophecies, we'd say he was smoking Dutch Cleanser. But we know Pat wouldn't smoke anything; and his predictions of God's Wrath coming down on the unrighteous over the years have become a quaint comic ritual bringing welcome laughter across a troubled landscape.

Prophecies of storms on the coastlines are ones we've been making as well- there will be rain, wind, etc. along the coasts this year. We are, at least, that prescient and God doesn't even have to mention it.

But He's never said anything to us about the tsunamis in the Northwest. Ron Reagan (KIRO m-f, 12-1p) wondered aloud today, Why us? and then said, "it probably has something to do with gay people."

That's because Pat always blames gays when something bad happens to America. Remember when he and Jerry Falwell blamed 9-11 on lesbians? (though isn't it tempting to blame everything on lesbians?)

Rev. Pat usually makes his predictions after the fact- it always works out better for him. Remember those hurricanes in the '90's he blamed on fellatio...after they happened?

He said this about the president's second term:

"Well, the Lord has some very encouraging news for George Bush... Bush is now positioned to have victory after victory and that his second term is going to be one of triumph, which is pretty strong stuff. ... He'll have Social Security reform passed. He'll have tax reform passed. He'll have conservative judges on the courts. And that basically he is positioned for a series of dramatic victories which I hope will hearten him and his advisers."

And that's his story and he's stickin' to it- according to Pat, the fat lady hasn't sung on this administration just yet-

“The Lord has just blessed him,” Robertson said of Bush. “I mean, he could make terrible mistakes and comes out of it. It doesn’t make any difference what he does, good or bad, God picks him up because he’s a man of prayer and God’s blessing him."

But a tsunami in the Northwest? We're pretty sure why this will transpire- it'll definitely be because of the fags- and what's coming out of the State Supreme Court any day now.