Via Kathy Shaidle, I see that today is Courtney Love's 50th birthday. She's not my bag musically, but I treasure her for one brief exchange about a decade and a half ago.
Circa 1998, Miss Love, lead singer of the popular beat combo Hole, was at a Democrat fundraiser in Hollywood when the party's presumptive presidential nominee, Al Gore, approached her. "I'm a really big fan," gushed the Vice-President.
"Yeah, right," scoffed Courtney. "Name a song."
The panicked Vice-Panderer floundered helplessly for a few moments until his Secret Service detail moved in and rescued him. As first promulgated by Denis Healey, Britain's Chancellor of the Exchequer, the politician's First Rule of Holes is: When you're in one, stop digging. Al introduced us to a Second Rule: When you're with one, stop pretending to dig her.
Hole has since disbanded, but I thank Courtney Love for my favorite social intercourse between a popular singer and a politician since Sinatra sang at the 1956 Democratic convention. At the end of the number, the Speaker of the House, Sam Rayburn, went up and put his arm around him, as politicians are wont to do. "Hands off the threads, creep," snarled Frank, to the second most powerful man in Washington.
If you said "Name a song" to Obama, the pitiful thing is he'd probably be able to. But I would love to hear Jay-Z say "Hands off the threads, creep" to him.
Happy birthday, Miss Love.
~We all know there are no WMDs in Iraq. Because we all know that Bush lied about WMDs in Iraq. Because we've all seen those protests saying "Bush lied, people died".
So, when ISIS - the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria and Who Knows Where's Next - seizes a chemical weapons facility, what's an expensively credentialed Obama media courtier to do? Obviously, you can't use the expression WMD, because, even though the argument's always been about the WMD we knew Saddam had and the WMD we thought he had, lo-'fo readers would still be confused, having been assured for a decade that Iraq is a WMD-free zone. You could explain that this is an old facility - practically a UN heritage site - but then you get perilously close to that Bush argument that what matters is not "WMD" but "WMD capability". So best just to insist whatever it is these ISIS head-hackers have got their hands on is no threat to anybody. Edith M Lederer of the Associated Press:
UNITED NATIONS (AP) - The Islamic State extremist group has taken control of a vast former chemical weapons facility northwest of Baghdad, where remnants of 2,500 degraded chemical rockets filled decades ago with the deadly nerve agent sarin are stored along with other chemical warfare agents, Iraq said in a letter circulated Tuesday at the United Nations.
The U.S. government played down the threat from the takeover, saying there are no intact chemical weapons and it would be very difficult, if not impossible, to use the material for military purposes.
So that's okay then. Edith's original lead was rather livelier:
UNITED NATIONS (AP) - Iraq has informed the United Nations that the Islamic State extremist group has taken control of a vast former chemical weapons facility northwest of Baghdad where 2,500 chemical rockets filled with the deadly nerve agent sarin or their remnants were stored along with other chemical warfare agents.
Iraq's U.N. Ambassador Mohamed Ali Alhakim said in a letter to U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon circulated Tuesday that "terrorist" groups entered the Muthanna site June 11 and seized weapons and equipment from the protection force guarding the facility.
But that was before Edith's chums at the State Department hung the old "Nothing to see here" sign on the story.
Between its bank looting, gold bullion and sales of infidel antiquities, ISIS is said currently to have two billion dollars in hand. Out there on the black market of rogue scientists, two bil can buy you a lot of chemical - and, indeed, nuclear - expertise. It may indeed be "very difficult, if not impossible, to use the material", but, if these guys ever figure out a way to do so, look for the court eunuchs of the Obama media to transition smoothly from "Bush lied about WMD" to "Bush lied about WMD. He knew Iraq was full of the stuff, but he did nothing about it."
