Just kidding.....Rahm's busy, having lunch with the
Chairman of the Carlyle Group (an Ethan Berkowitz donor), one of the biggest beneficiaries of the tie-ins between the Bush and Bin Laden families.
firedoglake, where Celtic Diva and I have been hosting TedFest! - a three-day Ted Stevens poetry contest, ending tonight, is a big fan of Mark Begich, Ted's most likely opponent in November. Jane Hamsher, along with former prosecutor Christy Hardin Smith, started firedoglake almost five years ago. It was the first blog to do live blogging of court events in a major, authoritative way.
The blog's coverage of the Federal trial of Scooter Libby in the traitorous public disclosure of CIA agent Valerie Plame's identity, was watched closely by all aspects of the mainstream media. What started out as hostility, neglect or curiosity by the MSM toward the fdl team at the trial, slowly grew to become marked respect and interest before the trial was over.
Jane, along with Talking Point Memo's Josh Marshall, and perhaps Down With Tyranny's Howie Klein, will be interviewing Mayor Begich at Netroots Nation, in Austin, Texas. It just got underway today. They've become big fans of Mayor Begich.
They're also among the most highly critical Democratic Party-aligned critics of Ethan Berkowitz's main supporter, Illinois U.S. Representative, Rahm Emanuel. Jane joked today about Rahm doing a post at a new feature firedoglake will be introducing shortly, under the title, "Jane Hamsher is an Asshole."
I've pulled back from hard criticism of candidate Berkowitz's campaign funding at Progressive Alaska for a while. That is going to continue to be the case here, for a while more, at least. But it is interesting that two blogs - firedoglake and Down With Tyranny! - that have been backing Diane Benson since August 2006, and are now backing Mark Begich, bringing his national presence up (and ridiculing St. Ted!), and - unlike blogs representing the old guard of the Democratic Party that is rubber-stamping George Bush's criminal administration - are not giving Ethan any coverage, let alone positive presence.
More on this aspect of it soon.
Celtic Diva and I will be helping poets slam St. Ted again today, at somewhere between 5:00 p.m. and 6:00 p.m.
Update - late Thursday night:
1) Celtic Diva and I didn't do the poetry slot at firedoglake today - their site went down for about three hours in mid-afternoon, so we're moved to tomorrow, pretty much the same time. Maybe Ted wrote an entry, and when he hit the "send" button, the Toobz clogged...
2) An e-mail from a friend warrants comment. He states, "i don't understand why you rip on ethan so hard because after a month and a half from now, if ethan's the candidate, are you going to keep talking shit?"
I answered him, but reading back through this essay, that provoked the e-mail, I need to say:
Nothing I have felt necessary to bring to light about Ethan Berkowitz's campaign funding could be used by the Right against him.
If, in the chance he somehow beats Diane Benson in August, these things, such as support from war criminals, supporters of bubble financial scams, the Chairman of the war profiteering Carlyle Group, Bill O'Reilly's producer, several of the FOX executives who slime Barack Obama every single chance they get, people who don't want our failing health care industry reformed, and so on, might actually get Ethan more votes from Republicans in November. They like that, as my friend puts it, SHIT.
A lot of friends of both my wife and myself have donated to Ethan. We have.
I am very dismayed that - as I warned Ray Metcalfe back in March - the GOP is now using Ray's "stuff' about Mark Begich. But I doubt that any of the important facts - all publicly available - about the financing of the Berkowitz campaign by outside Blue Dogs and DINOs - can or will be used in the fall campaign.
image of Jane Hamsher at the 2006 YearlyKos in Las Vegas
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