They Were Just Asking To Get Hard Labor, You See

Via DougJ at Balloon Juice, John Podhoretz is just a really terrible human being, deciding to place the blame for those two captured journalists freed by Bill Clinton's efforts in North Korea on...the two journalists (and Al Gore).

That said, and now that they are out of jeopardy, Ling and Lee deserve to be held accountable, at least in the realm of public opinion, for the unthinkably bad judgment they displayed in their preposterous, vainglorious, and astoundingly naive venture. Possessing some fantasy about presenting an inside look at North Korea on an justifiably unwatched (because unwatchable) cable channel called Current TV, they thought they could sneak undetected into a Gulag state, film some footage with a DV camera, and then sneak back out to the hosannas of the Peabody Award committee. This is something they chose to do and were given license to attempt by their employers, and for which they paid a horrific, far too horrific, a price. That must be the case as well for Al Gore and Joel Hyatt, the co-owners of Current TV, who have doubtless existed in a state of terrible “what have I done” anxiety about this since the arrests.

"One would think," said Zandar as he rubbed the bridge of his nose in consternation, "that attempting to expose the evils of the oppressive North Korean regime and being captured because of it would in fact be applauded by the kind of people whose response to something like this happening to, say, Joe The Plumber, War Correspondent Emeritus, would be calls to turn Pyongyang into a warm crater of radioactive glass."

Seriously. But no, instead it's the Goracle's fault for putting those two young ladies in harm's way. I get to drag out my favorite acronym again: ITEISATDF*. This is pretty mean-spirited, even for the JPod. How dare those two journalists force us to use diplomacy with the Norks!

(*In The End, It's Somehow Always The Democrats' Fault.)

Last Call

The question of what Bush, Cheney, Condi, Colin, Rummy, Ashcroft, and Gonzo knew about us torturing people is completely irrelevant to the Village, the Republican Party and apparently President Obama.

All that matters is that Nancy Pelosi has to burn for it because the Village decrees that saying the CIA mislead you is completely and totally worse than authorizing waterboarding dozens and dozens of times.

ITEISATDF: In The End, It Somehow Always The Democrat's Fault (tm). After all, in the battle between Dick Cheney, Newt Gingrich, and Rush Limbaugh on one side and Nancy Pelosi on the other, it's Pelosi who has the credibility problem according to our Liberal Media.

The Comedy Stylings Of The Alaskan GOP

Add Sister Sarah to the list of Alaska Republicans who are calling for Democratic Senator Mark Begich's immediate resignation and a special election so that Ted "Series of Toobs" Stevens can get his job back after being exonerated due to the Worst Prosecutors On Earth.

After all, people who vote Democratic are clearly either insane, gullible, or crooked and aren't mainstream "real" Americans (despite being a large majority.) Therefore if a Republican wins, the will of the people must be enforced. If a Democrat wins, the Republican must immediately be given a special election to try to overturn the will of the people.

Clearly, the only reason Ted Stevens lost was because the Bush Justice Department was trying to railroad a Republican, and Mark Begich just happened to be there! Ergo anyone who wasn't Ted Stevens would have won that election, meaning that Mark Begich has no real mandate to represent the Alaskan people, because the rest of Alaska is just as qualified to not be Ted Stevens! And since he has no mandate of the people, he should resign now and allow a fair election to take place between Not Ted Stevens and Ted Stevens so Stevens can prove he has a mandate to serve, Q.E.D.

It's the only fair thing to do if a Republican ever loses an election due to prosecutorial misconduct of a Republican administration railroading a Republican. In The End, It's Somehow Always The Democrats' Fault(tm).

[UPDATE] Not even the wingnuts are buying the Alaskan argument and opine that the GOP is far, far better without Ted Stevens and his corruption.

Your Liberal Media In Action

Front page on the Washington Post: AIG's bonuses could very well sink the entire Obama administration!(emphasis mine)

President Obama's apparent inability to block executive bonuses at insurance giant AIG has dealt a sharp blow to his young administration and is threatening to derail both public and congressional support for his ambitious political agenda.

Politicians in both parties flocked to express outrage over $165 million in bonuses paid out to executives at the company, demanding answers from the president and swamping yesterday's rollout of his efforts to spark lending to small businesses.

The populist anger at the executives who ran their firms into the ground is increasingly blowing back on Obama, whom aides yesterday described as having little recourse in the face of legal contracts that guaranteed those bonuses.

Wow, not even the GOP could have written a better article. Obama is floundering! He's in over his head! Eight weeks into his failed failure of a failed term he's failing badly! Last Obama aide out of the White House, turn out the lights, please.

But the bonus issue, in particular, is hounding Obama as he pursues his larger goals, in part because of the president's own repeated declarations of outrage -- offered again yesterday -- aimed especially at the firms that are feeding at the public trough.

In February, Obama announced tough new restrictions on executive compensation that promised an end to massive salaries for executives of failing companies. Similar rules were eventually written into legislation and hailed as evidence that executive compensation would be checked.

But reports about the latest AIG bonuses quickly undermined whatever political capital Obama has earned with his past efforts.

Got that? OBAMA IS AN UNQUALIFIED FAILURE AFTER EIGHT WEEKS! Surely the American people have spoken!

President Barack Obama's job approval rating, at 61% in the latest three-day average of Gallup Poll Daily tracking, is slightly above where George W. Bush's and in particular Bill Clinton's were at this point in mid-March of the first years of their administrations.

Umm...what? That can't be! Surely the President's agenda is in deep trouble!

A new Gallup Poll finds just over half of Americans, 53%, favoring a new law that would make it easier for labor unions to organize workers; 39% oppose it. This is a key issue at stake with the Employee Free Choice Act now being considered in Congress.

Ummm....OBAMA IS A SOCIALIST! (storms off)

All winguttian satire aside, there's not a whole lot Obama can do about AIG's bonus situation as I explained yesterday. In fact, a lot more bonus shenanigans and counterparty payoff three card monte is on the way for bailout recipients. However, the notion that AIG has already deep-sixed the President and his agenda is pretty ludicrous. Nobody's blaming Obama for this...except the Washington Post. Funny how that works. Even the wingnuts are blaming, well, AIG for this.

Let's blame AIG for getting themsleves into this mess, needing bailouts from Bush before Obama took office. Course, that hasn't occured to the Village. ITEISATDF. The article glosses over how Treasury has decided it doesn't need to give AIG that latest $30 billion in bailout cash if AIG insists on handing out millions in bonuses.

And while Treasury taking that money out of AIG's bailout is a great idea, there is another option: Plan N. Nationalize AIG and fire people. It really is that simple. If anything, AIG has just brilliantly made the case as to why Plan N needs to be executed now...and the people would certainly back taking over failed companies that required billions and billions of taxpayer money and firing the people responsible for losing all that money in the first place.

The Wonk Room's Pat Garofalo has more on why AIG may have just forced Obama's hand on Plan N. I'm all for THAT action.

More On ITEISATDF

As the theory goes, any and every event is either good for Republicans, bad for Democrats, or both. Case in point: The AIG bonuses scandal is...you guessed it, bad for Obama and the Democrats.

The Obama administration is increasingly concerned about a populist backlash against banks and Wall Street, worried that anger at financial institutions could also end up being directed at Congress and the White House and could complicate President Obama’s agenda.

The administration’s sharp rebuke of the American International Group on Sunday for handing out $165 million in executive bonuses — Lawrence H. Summers, director of the president’s National Economic Council, described it as “outrageous” on “This Week” on ABC — marks the latest effort by the White House to distance itself from abuses that could feed potentially disruptive public anger.

“We’ve got enormous problems that need to be addressed,” David Axelrod, Mr. Obama’s senior adviser, said in an interview. “And it’s hard to address because there’s a lot of anger about the irresponsibility that led us to this point.”

It doesn't matter what the event is, it's bad for Democrats, good for Republicans, or both. Stock market goes down, it's Obama's fault. Stock market goes up, Bush is responsible. Price of gas goes up, Obama's environmental and foreign policies are driving up oil. Gas goes down, free market principles employed by Bush are working.

Anyone can play, and only Democrats can lose. Remember, In The End, It's Somehow Always The Democrats' Fault.

The Last Ten Years In Economic Journalism Explained

...expertly by Steve Benen.

I see. Just so we're clear, here's a helpful guide to the rules of market watching, as they relate to partisan politics:

When the market went down on Bush's watch before the 2008 elections, this was Bill Clinton's fault.

When the market went down on Bush's watch between November 2008 and January 2009, this was Barack Obama's fault.

When the market went down during Obama's first seven weeks in office, this was definitely Barack Obama's fault.

And when the market rallies on Obama's watch during the second week in March, George W. Bush deserves at least some of the credit.

Or to put it even more simply, Village Rule #1: ITEISATDF: In The End, It's Somehow Always The Democrats' Fault.

Needless to say, new tag.