Needlenose

I’m with the guys in the dresses on this one.  Unfortunately, that’s all Santorum has got at this point, unless he keeps with the infidel-bashing he won’t keep the Fundees.

Georgia Democrats take protection of the unborn to the next logical level – free the Spermatozoon-Americans!

Anthony Shadid (left), in Syria shortly before his death

As you’ve likely read elsewhere by now, Anthony Shadid, generally considered to be the best Middle East reporter of the past decade or so, died Thursday from an asthma attack in Syria.

The deluge of sorrow-filled tributes and reminiscences that have been written by other journalists already testify to how highly Shadid was regarded among his peers.  But let me add a few words from a blogger’s perspective to explain how special he truly was.

I began blogging during the run-up to the U.S. invasion of Iraq in early 2003, partly out of a desire to understand what was really happening in the war.  I was already familiar enough with the media to know this would take a lot of rigorous analysis and reading between the lines of officially sanctioned narratives — but in the case of one reporter, Anthony Shadid (then of the Washington Post), I kept finding that he was doing the job for me.

In late March, barely two weeks into the war, Shadid wrote a heartrending story about Iraqis’ reaction to the American onslaught and the resulting civilian casualties.  In April came a profile of Muqtada as-Sadr, the young cleric who in a year’s time would be become the most visible opponent of the occupation.

But Shadid’s incisive brilliance was only just beginning to show itself.  On June 2, the Post published a story that vividly demonstrated the delusions of the U.S. occupying army: as Thomas Ricks accompanied an American patrol through a Baghdad neighborhood, recording their satisfaction with what seemed to be a welcoming populace, Shadid followed the same route, talking in Arabic with Iraqis in their homes… and capturing their mix of concern and seething resentment.  Then Shadid did it again at the end of June, revealing the mutual distrust and resentment between Iraqi police and the American soldiers who were supposed to be training them.  That story ended with a local Iraqi resident saying:

There’s no security, there’s no stability in Iraq… I swear to God, things are going to get worse.

Further demonstrating the point, Shadid in late July uncovered a chilling incident in which a suspected U.S. informant was executed by his own father and older brother, under pressure from the rest of the village.  The U.S. hadn’t even acknowledged yet that an insurgency had begun, but Shadid’s reporting had laid bare all of the tensions that would undermine the neocon dream of an American quasi-colony in Iraq.

The Judith Millers of the media world thrive on access to government power-brokers, and in exchange glibly tell the world the often-misleading (or downright false) stories those officials want to see told.  Anthony Shadid was the exact opposite — he went to the ordinary people caught up in life-changing political events, and told the truth about it.

About a year ago, Shadid and some other New York Times journalists found themselves captured by pro-government forces while reporting on the uprising in Libya.  Reflecting on his experience, he wrote afterward:

Over the years, all of us had seen men detained, blindfolded and handcuffed at places like Abu Ghraib, or corralled after some operation in Iraq or Afghanistan. Now we were the faceless we had covered perhaps too dispassionately. For the first time, we felt what it was like to be disoriented by a blindfold, to have plastic cuffs dig into your wrists, for hands to go numb.

Anthony Shadid was probably the least guilty of any American journalist of the sin he describes, but even in danger he was reminding himself to do better.  That’s what made him valuable and unique, and probably irreplaceable.

(Cross-posted at Firedoglake.)

Footnote:  Somewhat ironically (and flatteringly), Shadid claimed to be a reader of this blog back in its relative heyday.  His untimely death makes me all the more grateful that Fubar and I took the opportunity several years ago to attend a local book-signing event he gave for Night Draws Near and express our appreciation for his work in person.

How must it feel to be Mitt Romney right now, seeing Rick Santorum bubbling up to the top in the latest national polls?  Is he starting to get the hint yet that — presumptive front-runner or not — the Republican base just doesn’t want him to be their nominee for the White House?

Or maybe he just feels unlucky.  Most presidential candidates only have to defeat one major opponent in the primaries and caucuses.  Instead, despite lopsided advantages in money and organization, Romney has found himself battling what must be the most comically absurd hydra in the history of American politics: every time he decapitates a Rick Perry or Newt Gingrich, an even more unlikely challenger (such as Herman Cain or Santorum) emerges to carry the far-right banner.

This cycle has been going on so long that I felt behind the curve when I laid out the basic reasons for it more than four months ago:

Ever since Ronald Reagan showed them the way, success as a GOP presidential candidate has been defined by the ability to present the public with a bland, unthreatening face that effectively hides the party’s underlying cruel policy agenda.

This almost requires that a promising candidate can’t have too much of a record, lest the agenda be revealed too clearly — or, worse in the eyes of the base, contradicted.  Thus you get nominees like George Bush, who came across as personally innocuous but had the family name to make him marketable (otherwise, he’d have been another Tim Pawlenty).

[...] So what you’ve seen in the post-Dubya era is a disheartened Republican Party flipping channels, skipping past one unsatisfactory pretender after another… all in a vain search for a personality who captures the essential flim-flam needed to get the GOP back into the White House.

The current GOP race has highlighted another facet of this problem — the successful nominee must be utterly subservient to both the Wall Street money and Tea Party culture-war factions of the party, but obscure this as much as possible (including not showing a pronounced tilt toward either side, lest the other become suspicious).

Combined with the deluge of super-PAC negative advertising against Romney and Newt Gingrich, the most popular candidate in recent polls of the Republican electorate seems to be whoever no one has bothered to think much about for awhile.  Once the public spotlight shines on a particular contender for a couple of weeks, their past records and other flaws all become embarrassingly visible, and suddenly hardly anyone wants to vote for them anymore.

Mitt can probably still stagger his way to a victory-by-attrition by carpetbombing Santorum with harsh TV ads, but it’s hard to imagine him mustering any enthusiasm for unifying the party behind him in the fall after such an assault (which GOP insiders are reportedly begging him not to do it).

Maybe the best strategy for Mitt is to make the “overlooked candidate” dynamic work for him by taking an indefinite break from the campaign trail.  Then get word to his super-PAC to split its cash between TV commercials seemingly on behalf of Gingrich or Santorum, whoever is riding higher at the moment (in a mix of 10% half-hearted positive ads versus 90% sledghammer negative ones).

In a few weeks, everyone will be longing for Romney to come back as the party’s savior.

(Cross-posted at Firedoglake.)

The Billionaire...and the rest!

Unattributed photoshop, tip ‘o the Nose to Cannibal Buddy!

Mugato for Congress!

Yet another GOP Congressional courageously calling to flood our job markets with child labor.

Mitt says he isn’t concerned about the very poor:

“Are there no prisons? And the Union workhouses?  Are they still in operation?  The Treadmill and the Poor Law are in full vigour, then?  I help to support the establishments I have mentioned — they cost enough; and those who are badly off must go there.

If they would rather die [then go to prison] they had better do it, and decrease the surplus population.  Besides — excuse me — I don’t know that.  It’s not my business. It’s enough for a man to understand his own business, and not to interfere with other people’s.  Mine occupies me constantly.  Good afternoon, gentlemen!”