Ha Ha. Bill O’Reilly–who I’ve long thought would make a good dictator–goes off the deep end after Drudge exposed that sales of Who’s Looking Out for You trail those of a “smear merchant”:

Responding to an exclusive yearender DRUDGE dispatch, which presented NIELSEN’s Top 20 BOOKSCAN list of 2003 sales, O’Reilly called the DRUDGE REPORT a “threat to democracy.”
“I mean you can’t believe a word Matt Drudge says,” O’Reilly told the cameras. “Now you’ve got the Matt Drudges of the world and these other people, Michael Moore and all of these crazies, all right, no responsibility… that is a threat to democracy, I think.” O’Reilly warned: “They’ll just spin it and twist it and take it out of proportion every which way.”

Yes indeed. Those who dare communicate over the Internet without a proper authority to cut off their figurative microphones as needed are dangerous to America.
Shut up! Shut up! Shut up!
Via Say Uncle.

I’ll be away from the computer for much of the day, so probably no updates until late afternoon/evening.

Interesting interview with Arlie Hochschild on why blue-collar males support Bush.

People have criticized Dean, with some justification, for floating 9/11 theories he hears “other people” talking about. Yet they themselves seemingly have no problem passing on unconfirmed, bogus tales of Al Qaeda/Iraq connections.
What’s the difference?

Kevin at Lean Left has a good post asking if Defense Secretary Rumsfeld should be considered an unindicted co-conspirator for Saddam’s use of banned weapons. Evidence suggests Rumsfeld was at least complicit in Iraq’s use of chemical weapons against Iran, and he may have indirectly provided assistance to the dictator.
Of course this won’t happen because the U.S. government runs the show. But wouldn’t it be funny if there was some sort of full disclosure law which require government officials to reveal their past dealings in televised appearances?
You know how financial analysts on T.V. are supposed to reveal if they have any interest in a company when they recommend its stock? It would be classic if every time Rumsfeld talked about how evil Saddam was, he had to disclose his Reagan-era dealings in Baghdad:

“Saddam’s evil regime, which this government supported in the mid-80’s, murdered thousands of innocent people.”

Just goes to show that today’s political expediency may not turn out so great tomorrow.