Our Befuddled Senator

Now that the rest of the country has finally gotten a chance to see the soaring intellect of Senator Mark Dayton on display in his exchange with Rumsfeld and Meyers, it seems like a good time to share some of our past thoughts on the inarticulate, incoherent Dayton. Most of them are courtesy of Saint Paul.



(The only microphone Mark Dayton should ever be allowed in front of.)

April 2004: Dayton at the Bat

February 2004: The Billionaire Boys Club

October 2003: Two Guys Who Had A Worse Friday Night Than You

September 2003: The Reports of His Resurrection Have Been Greatly Exaggerated

August 2003: Dayton Descends Deeper into Dementia

August 2003: Turning a Deaf Ear to Reason

July 2003: Raging Bull(sh*t)

June 2003: It Pays to Have A Friend in Mark Dayton

June 2003: If Only He Had A Heart

March 2003: Fooling None of the People, None of the Time

March 2003: And Then There's Mark

February 2003: The Many Moods of Mark Dayton

February 2003: Mark Dayton Finds His Voice

February 2003: What’s Wrong with Mark Dayton?

January 2003: Markie D Gonna Be Raisin' The Roof

January 2003: Getting Ahead of Myself

Exposing Mark Dayton

To Hugh Hewitt and America, we’re sorry about Sen. Mark Dayton. His performance today in accusing Donald Rumsfeld and Gen. Dick Meyers of attempting to “withhold the truth from the American people” by surpressing information was political grandstanding at its worst. Although none of us voted for him, he's our Senator. He’s ours, we got him, and we apologize.

But, truth be told, a majority of Minnesota citizens didn’t actually vote for him. This trust fund millionaire and political dilletente only won 49% of the vote in the 2000 election. Moribund Republican Rod Grams got 43% and Jim Gibson of the ego driven Indpendence Party (Jesse Ventura’s outfit) got 6% and handed the election to a lightweight with the big name (Dayton's department stores are a local cultural institution).

Nevertheless, he was elected under our watch and we take full responsibility. As the Elder shows above, we have been doing our best to chronicle his odd tenure riding the back benches of the Senate since arriving in Washington. Since he’s not up for re-election for another 2 years, I’m sure there’s more to come.

Luke, You Are A Sick Mother

Luke Duke from Puzzlestud offers an alternative view of Katherine Lanpher's mug shot:

I for one enjoy the picture of the beautiful Katherine Lanpher at the top of your page. I don't know whether it's the redness of her face, the glazed over look in her eyes, or that "look how trashed I am" expression, but something about her makes me want to get a better whiff of that .21% worth of alcohol-laced breath rising from the pit of her churning stomach like whiskey flames from a distillery hell. Don't tell me I'm the only one that feels this way.

For the sake of all mankind Luke, I sincerely hope you are.

Sometimes The Truth Hurts

Elizabeth has a complaint:

It is too difficult to read your blog with that butt-ugly picture on the top of the page!!!!!

And she's not the only one having issues with the photo. Even the normally stout hearted Warrior Monk from Spitbull is getting creeped out by the smirking inebriate.

Those of you who don't recognize the mug, or were too put off by its appearance to follow our link to the story behind the photo, may be surprised to know that it is none other than Katherine Lanpher, radio co-host with Al Franken on Air America. Mitch Berg has more on that connection over at Shot in the Dark.

For those of you offended by the picture, we're sorry. Actually we're not sorry. As Saint Paul so eloquently put it, all we can say is that our commitment is to the truth, and sometimes that ain't pretty. Sometimes it is butt ugly. Maybe Elizabeth should consider herself lucky we don't have a picture of Lanpher's ass on the masthead. Now that would be some difficult reading. And maybe a violation of the Geneva convention on torture.

Last Word On Friends

Paul e-mails to opine:

That NRO piece really did hit the nail on the head. I want to hear from JB Doubtless on this issue. I recall one time getting into a heated argument with him during the second season because I called this show "hit or miss". Years later I can't watch it without thinking that these folks are living in a college dorm atmosphere (only with bigger rooms) in their mid thirties. Grow up!

I caught the Seinfeld yesterday where he broke up with a gal because he became disgusted with her when he found out she liked that annoying Dockers commercial. I would say in the entire run of Friends has never had a single sub-plot that clever.

Friends is the type of show that would base an entire episode about getting someone the perfect present. Seinfeld is the type that would base an episode about getting out of having to get someone a present.

Well put Paul. You had a heated argument with JB Doubtless?!? Our JB? Who'd have thunk it?

I Got ‘Em, And I’m Gonna Smoke ‘Em!

St. Paul City Council Member Dave Thune plans to introduce a proposal next week that would ban smoking in all of the city's bars and restaurants. With all of the due repsect that I can muster between puffs of my smooth Turkish and domestic blend heater, blow it out your piehole, Dave.

Any bar or restaurant owner in St. Paul can ban smoking right this minute if they want to. They don't need the permission of some meddling little government pissant to mandate what they can or cannot do on their own private property (yes, a bar does qualify as someone's private property as much as someone else's lungs do). Some owners choose a smoking ban, others do not. This choice is based on one simple principle...the free market.

You all know both sides of the market argument so I won't go into that here (although those who are interested can check out some good ones in the comments section of this post by Captain Ed). I'd like to focus on the hypocrisy of this smoking ban nonsense that seems to be sweeping the globe.

If Thune and other like-minded chuckleheads truly think that the hazards of secondhand smoke are reaching klaxon shrieking crisis level, then their only moral choice is to push for a complete ban on cigarettes. Given all of the dire warnings we're being forced to swallow, anything short of that condemns us all to live the rest of our doomed existence with oxygen tank in tow and coughing up chunks of phlegm.

No, an outright ban just ain't part of the plan. You see, there are other economic interests at play here. The State of Minnesota benefits from tobacco sales to the tune of about $182 million per year. In turn, the city of St. Paul relies on the state of Minnesota to provide a whopping 37% of its general fund. You don't think the city depends on cigarette taxes?

Dave Thune isn't really interested in saving lives by eliminating smoking. On the contrary, he and the city DEPEND on smokers. They just don't have the guts to admit it. Thune is just another low level government weenie who wants to enact feel-good legislation so he can go home at night with a smug sense of satisfaction that he's changing his little part of the world for the better while not jeopardizing the funding of the next ridiculous council proposal to come down the pike.

I've got a good idea of where Mr. Thune, who himself is an "addicted smoker" (i.e. a victim of big tobacco), could start on his crusade. How about taking some personal responsibility and not smoking around others? Apparently, Dave doesn't have the strength to control his own behavior and feels he needs the government to regulate his, and my, smoking habit.

Butt out, Dave.

News You Can Use

As the election season heats up we’ll all be relying on the usual newspaper, magazine, Web site and blog suspects for information. For locals, I’d like to also recommend an underutilized resource, the Minnesota GOP Web site. It’s a great source for political news and information, especially Republican initiatives and events that go woefully underreported in the mainstream press.

Most surprising, for an official party mouthpiece, the site goes beyond a rote regurgitation of the news cycle talking points of the day. They are discriminating in story selection and have a great sense of humor (especially with the Kerry photos.). The guys that run this are so good, they could be bloggers (that is, if they ever tire of getting paid to do interesting, important work for a cause they believe in).

The fine folks at the MN GOP also offer an email newsletter, the GOP News Line, bringing you critical information right to your inbox, three or four times a week. So stop on by and sign up, your political acumen will never be the same.

With Friends Like These...

Regular e-mail contributor James Phillips chimes in on Friends:

That really was a great review of "Friends" you just posted. Nailed it. The difference between Friends and Seinfeld is best illustrated for me by the number of times something happens the seems right out of a Seinfeld episode.

Someone said today (I heard it on Rush) that the public liked "Friends" because it reminded them of the Clinton Administration. Probably more truth to that than they realized. A bunch of self-indulgent over-grown adolescents whose entire lives revolves around sex, sex, and sex. And talking about sex, relationships, and heartbreak. Your description of "Friends" could've been a description about the Clinton Presidency.

Friends "feels your pain." Yech.

Notice that one of Mitch's most popular posts is itself Seinfeld-ian. A post about nothing (yes, I am quoting myself.)

Friends Forever?

This breaking news from CNN just popped into my inbox:

From: BreakingNews@MAIL.CNN.COM
Sent: Thursday, May 06, 2004 1:13 PM
To: TEXTBREAKINGNEWS@CNNIMAIL12.CNN.COM
Subject: CNN Breaking News

-- President Bush says he is sorry for the humiliation suffered by Iraqi prisoners at the hands of U.S. troops.

Watch CNN or log on to http://CNN.com for the latest news.

When this is the standard for “breaking news,” instead of say, airlines being driven into skyscrapers, I think things are definitely on the right track national security-wise. Although it doesn’t speak very well of the health of CNN. Waking up their Breaking News email guy for this crap is the lowest editorial moment they’ve had since their Breaking News bulletin on the death of the Queen of Salsa last July.

In any regard, it appears our long national nightmare is over. At least for those proponents of compassionate, feel good, empty gestures (that is to say, the Democratic Party and the entire cast and viewership of Friends). The President of the United Sates says “sorry” for the brutish actions of a few soldiers in a prison camp. I’m sure the Arab street appreciates it. Unless this gesture is somehow humiliating to them as well. You can never be too sure with this crowd. We’ll be standing by for further breaking news updates.

I Know You're A Super Genius

Does the age that you start drinking affect that chances that you'll become an alcoholic? Jay Matthews at the Washington Post seems to think so, but Jacob Sollum shows that Matthews may have a little difficulty with the concept that correlation is not causation in a post at Reason.

I Wasn't (and Won't Be Tonight) There For You

Yesterday Mitch Berg had a post at Shot In The Dark that consisted of nothing more than this:

"Friends" ends its very, very long run tonight.

I've still never seen it.

It drew twenty one comments, including one from yours truly where I opined that Friends is probably the most overrated sitcom in history and can't hold a candle to the true greats of the genre such as Seinfeld. There has always been something about Friends that has bothered me too. More than just the fact that it wasn't really all that funny.

S.T. Karnick nails it in this piece at NRO:

Friends, on the other hand, was much more straightforward and, well, friendly. The strength of the show was in its quirky but basically likable and accessible characters. I say "basically likable" because, in reality, I certainly would not wish to be around them — they are far too squirrelly for me. I'd rather have to deal with the openly self-centered Seinfeld crowd. After all, you would know precisely what Jerry and the gang wanted from you — entertainment — and could give it or withhold it as you chose.

The characters in Friends, however, wanted affection, something that is both difficult to give and just as hard to withhold. If you don't feel affection, after all, it's hard to fake it; but if you don't find a way to give it, it's difficult to justify yourself in a world where being thought to be nice is such an important thing. In such a place, what excuse can I have for failing to "be there for you"? The fact that I find your endless prattle about your love life thoroughly annoying and in fact mind-bogglingly adolescent seems a perfect justification to me, but surely will not appear so to you. Hence, I am forced either to pretend to listen and to refrain from informing you that you are an idiot (which would be the truly loving and helpful thing to do), or I must withdraw. In the case of Friends, I quickly withdrew, unable to watch more than a few episodes during its long, popular run — and even then only as a scientist, with notepad close to hand and dissecting tools always at the ready.

The truth of the matter is that my friends and acquaintances, and my relationships with them, are much closer to what you see on Seinfeld than on Friends. It ain't always pretty, but it is real. And like Karnick, I'd rather hang with them than with the Friends crew.

Then there's this clincher:

Instead, Friends provided an escape into an emotional dream realm where people are nice, and care about one another, and pursue sexual gratification from morning until night, however fallible and inept at helping they might be. It was the perfect entertainment for a society that enforced political correctness wherever possible, that instituted the idea that the height of civilization is in pretending to like people whose behavior you find entirely abhorrent, and that was in fact striving relentlessly to establish the rule of niceness.

So long Friends. You had a nice run. Too nice of a run.

And You Want To Be My Resume Writer?

The mistreatment of Iraqi prisoners at Abu Ghraib prison by U.S. military guards is disgusting and shameful. All of those who are responsible in any way for the actions, be they the guards themselves, their commanders, U.S. intelligence agents, or private contractors should be punished appropriately. While their conduct will no doubt damage Coalition efforts to provide security and stability to Iraq, it should in no way be seen to invalidate the reasons for the war. Nor should it influence U.S. decisions on the future course of the war.

Do the actions of a few bad cops mean that the noble efforts of the majority of the police force to fight crime was wrong? Would you then conclude that because of these inappropriate actions the police should completely abandon their efforts at fighting crime? Of course not. Only a fool would believe so.

A fool or Mark Gisleson. Loyal readers of Fraters Libertas might remember Gisleson as the winner in the category Blogger Most Likely to Be Visited by the Homeland Security Department (or a Psychiatric Team) in our 2003 Blogs of Distinction Awards for his revolutionary fervor:

In my heart, I still believe in revolution. In my heart, I still think I have the 'nads to put my life on the line for a cause. In my gut I think this is the only way we'll ever achieve our goals of economic and social justice. But in my head, I want to win the next election so we don't have to have a revolution.

At the time when Gisleson was waxing revolutionary, he was filling in for Steve Perry's Bush Wars and running the City Pages Babelogue. In January 2004, Gisleson resigned from his post at Babelogue, much to the dismay of Saint Paul. But he wasn't gone long and soon reemerged with his own blog called Norwegianity.

Where he continues to display the wit (he likes to refer to us as "farters libertas"-get it?) and emotional maturity of an eight year old. Witness his effort from May Day regarding the Abu Ghraid prison story, which he sneeringly titles Andersonville goes to Iraq.

(For a little historical perspective consider that at this point in the prisoner-abuse probe, it appears that just over twenty prisoners have died in U.S. military custody in Iraq and Afghanistan since 2001. Two of the deaths were determined to be caused by the actions of U.S. military personnel, while the others are under investigation. The grave registry at Andersonville, the notorious Confederate prisoner of war camp, included the names of 12,910 Union soldiers who perished there. In Gisleson's world that's a perfectly legitimate comparison.)

Click on the link, print it out and mail copies to every wingnut war supporter you know. Don't let them off the hook. Everytime they tell you Bush is right, ask them if they read that article. People who wanted Bill Clinton assassinated over blow jobs don't have the right to refuse to discuss torture in the context of an illegal war conducted by an illegal president and his corrupt handlers.

"People who wanted Bill Clinton assassinated over blow jobs"? And just who would these people be? Gisleson loves to throw around charges like this without ever seeing fit to provide documentation. Now if I was going to say something similar like "people who call for violent revolution if George W. Bush is reelected", I at least would have the decency to provide a link to the source.

Gisleson continues with promises of a temper tantrum if Kerry doesn't win:

And if you're not wearing red, go back to the bedroom and change clothes. It helps remind 'the man' that this time around, it's not about Nader votes. Steal this election and you're going to be looking at general strikes, shutdowns, mass pickets and a lot of broken windows. One way or another we have to stop this before they replace the red, white and blue with one of those Scandinavian cross flags done up in baby blue.

The tough thing about trying to understand Gisleson is to determine what romanticized period of struggle he wishes to return to. At times when he trots out tired counter culture clichés like 'the man' you think he's keen to relive the late 60's early 70's glory days of the Weathermen and Black Panthers. But then he starts talking about strikes, shutdowns, and "a lot of broken windows" and you get the feeling that maybe he yearns for the labor strife of the 30's with the scabs, the Pinkertons, and singing Woody Guthrie songs around the fire barrel on picket duty.

I'm also not sure who Gisleson expects to stage these union walkouts that will bring the country to its knees. Government employees? The bus drivers? Newspaper workers?

If John Kerry happens to be elected president in November I won't be happy about it. But I won't break any windows or take to the streets in protest or call for a revolution. I'll go to work and lead my life in the same manner as I always have. Because when it comes down to it, the country is far more important to me than an political party or politician. If John Kerry is the President of the United States of America, it's still the United States of America. A country that I love, respect, and admire.

A parting word from Gisleson:

I'm sure wingnuts visiting this site will find all of this a bit over the top.

Actually considering his history (and his 'nads), this wing nut views it as par for the course.