Linkz and Lolz

Last week saw the continued brow-beating of the American people with Jeremiah Wright overkill. The first 16 minutes of Meet the Press were devoted to it. CNN, FoxNews, and the whole lot continue to replay the YouTube clips. I’ve even seen some ridiculous implications in the more whacked-out portions of the blogsophere that Obama and Wright are co-conspirators in a murder.

As the Democratic primary slogs on, it seems people really can’t get enough of this sensationalism, like all of the real issues have now been exhausted and the entire affair is reduced to a pseudo-meditation on race in America. If that’s what people really want to talk about, why not replay clips of Obama’s speech in March over and over again? Seems a bit more comprehensive than Wright’s sermons.

Frank Rich wrote a brilliant op-ed for the New York Times over the weekend discussing the double-standard in the media on the coverage of Wright/Obama vs. Hagee/McCain.

None of this is to say that two wacky white preachers make a Wright right. It is entirely fair for any voter to weigh Mr. Obama’s long relationship with his pastor in assessing his fitness for office. It is also fair to weigh Mr. Obama’s judgment in handling this personal and political crisis as it has repeatedly boiled over. But whatever that verdict, it is disingenuous to pretend that there isn’t a double standard operating here. If we’re to judge black candidates on their most controversial associates — and how quickly, sternly and completely they disown them — we must judge white politicians by the same yardstick.

Meanwhile, as our country is engaged in multiple fronts of war, all in the name of combating “terror,” a recent MSNBC article discusses the failure of the US government to work with Yemen in retaining many of the suspects in the USS Cole bombing. The suspects have either escaped or been outright freed by the Yemeni government as the US made several unsuccessful attempts at forcing extradition. Two went on to commit suicide attacks in Iraq.

“After we worked day and night to bring justice to the victims and prove that these Qaeda operatives were responsible, we’re back to square one,” said Ali Soufan, a former FBI agent and a lead investigator into the bombing. “Do they have laws over there or not? It’s really frustrating what’s happening.”

Two of the suspects, however, are sitting pretty in Gitmo right now, making me wonder how this diplomatic impasse will serve as further justification for the existence of the American concentration camp in Cuba.

Elsewhere, an article getting a ton of heat on The Huffington Post concerns Clinton’s campaign using the “nuclear option” of using the DNC’s Rules and By-Laws Committee meeting on May 31 to force the seating of Michigan and Florida delegates (quite a nifty piece of headline writing). Looks like this could possibly get uglier. Great.

And just to spice things up a bit, here’s a great Times Online piece discussing the evolution of the music industry and how many smaller acts are giving into branding partnerships with big business to foot the bills.


This isn’t exactly from the weekend, but it’s an encouraging report on the anti-SUV sentiment now rampant in the used car market as a byproduct of rising gas prices.

And lastly, this is just for gits and shiggles. It robbed me of my last scrap of innocence. Nature can be downright bizarre.