Via Crooks & Liars. Not only is William Donohue, president of the extremist Catholic League, an anti-Semite, he is also apparently a racist:

DONOHUE: Look, just hold on here. You had your time. Look, the kid's a phony and here's why. I dealt with him earlier today on an MSNBC show, and I said we could hypothesize that there'd be a Columbia University ping-pong team made of Asians, and somebody goes out there and says "All gooks go home." So I — I asked him about my gook joke. And guess what? Andy's — Andy's sense of humor just collapsed. He found that offensive. You see what you are? You're a phony. You're a typical Ivy League little brat who thinks it's OK to dump on Catholics, but you don't like my gook joke. Now, what's wrong with a gook joke?

DONOHUE: Yes, like the gook joke!

(CROSSTALK)

DONAHUE: … "like an altar boy."

DONOHUE: What about the gook jokes? I want to know, why don't you have a sense of humor about gook jokes?

Should extremist hatemongers like this be tolerated in the mainstream media?  read more »

Via The Right's Field: who needs oppo reasearch when the Giuliani campaign seems perfectly happy to dig up dirt on itself? One thing's for sure, I don't want these clowns anywhere near sensitive national security information. Anyway, this time it's a 450-page "vulnerability study" commissioned by Rudy's first mayoral campaign in 1993. The Smoking Gun has the goods.

The document paints a picture of Rudy as an abortion-funding, race-baiting, draft-dodging, McGovern-voting, flip-flopping wannabe liberal anxious to distance himself from the national Republican party.

Oh, and then there's the "weirdness factor": product of having been married to his second cousin for 14 years.

Someone tell me again why we're supposed to take this guy seriously as a presidential candidate?

(Cross-posted at alien & sedition)

One of the more hilarious arguments put forth by New York legislators during the Comptroller fight has been that by blowing off their deal with the governor, they were somehow standing up for the principle of separation of powers. For instance, here's Assemblyman Joe Lentol of Brooklyn:

"I, too, stand for reform today," Assemblyman Joe Lentol, a Brooklyn Democrat, said during the comptroller vote. "The reform I'm talking about is not abdicating my responsibility as a member of the Legislature of the state of New York and ceding that authority to the executive.

Don't flatter yourself, Mr. Lentol.

There is no such thing as the New York legislature. There's a bunch of hands that dutifully go up at the beginning of each session, and then there's Shelly Silver and Joe Bruno. Ceding that authority to the executive? Mr. Lentol clearly has a rich sense of irony - or none at all. Don't talk about ceding power to the executive when you've ceded all your power to an executive named Shelly Silver. At least Spitzer has the virtue of having been elected by 69% of the voters of New York State, as opposed to a handful of folks on the lower east side and in the capitol building.

The arrogance of so many of New York's so-called legislators is matched only by their cluelessness. One of them called Spitzer "f--ing nuts." Assembly Majority leader Canestrari said, “I don’t think tactics that impugn our integrity work.”

You. Don't. Get. It.

(more...)  read more »

Pardon my brush up against Godwin's Law in the post title, but it's wearying to read so much about how "moderate" Rudy Giuliani is supposed to be and so little about how authoritarian he actually is. New Yorkers should know: there is one serious 2008 candidate who would be worse than George W. Bush on issues of executive power and personal freedom. That candidate is Rudolph Giuliani.

So anyway, it was refreshing to read this post by David Greenberg at the New Republic.

His record could hardly have been more conservative. The action that perhaps best captured his deepest, most sincerely held beliefs was his attempt to close an art exhibit because it offended his religious sensibilities. [...]

On other social issues, Giuliani likewise proved himself a dogmatic conservative. He wanted to seize property of suspected drunk drivers, dispensing with due process. He tried to support Catholic schools with public tax dollars, in a move that would have de facto legalized school prayer. He reflexively defended police--not just in the hard cases of tragic mistakes but in egregious instances of gross brutality--against innocents who were harassed, arrested, shot, or killed. He showed indifference or hostility to black New Yorkers. And for all the praise he earned after 9/11, what I remember about those weeks was a power grab so nakedly dictatorial that not even Richard Nixon ever tried it: seeking to postpone the upcoming mayoral election so he might stay in office despite term limits forcing him to retire.

If Giuliani ever becomes president, I have little doubt he'll show his true colors as a social conservative--abortion and gay rights notwithstanding. I have little doubt that in the upcoming campaign, his authoritarianism will shine through and will appeal to those who think America's major problems today are permissiveness, toleration, cultural decadence, and secular humanism. And I won't be surprised in the least if he wins the GOP nomination, becomes president and--exactly like George W. Bush before him--stuns the pundits who kidded themselves that he was a social "moderate."

Part of me is happy enough to let this "moderate" bamboozlement continue if it's enough to stop him from winning the Republican nomination. But it's bamboozlement nonetheless.

(Cross-posted at alien & sedition)

One thing I'd like to note, lest it get lost in the ruckus surrounding Shelly Silver and Joe Bruno's Comptroller stupidity: new Senate Minority Leader Malcolm Smith stood up on the right side here. As described in the Albany Times-Union editorial:

But then there was the Democratic minority leader of the Senate, Malcolm Smith of Queens. He attempted, albeit in vain, to have Martha Stark, the New York City finance commissioner, chosen as comptroller. The Assembly minority leader, James Tedisco of Schenectady, also supported Ms. Stark, who was one of the three entirely qualified candidates shunned by the Legislature.

"We want the people of the state to know that we are not only prepared to govern the way they want us to, but when we make agreements, we are prepared to keep those agreements," said Mr. Smith.

Let his words serve as a battle cry in the war to change the legislative culture.

I've mentioned before that Senator Smith, as Majority Leader-in-Waiting, will be under great scrutiny from progressives.

So credit where credit is due: in the Comptroller battle, at least, Senator Smith sided with reform and with the voters of New York State. Kudos.  read more »