For Friday, April 26, The American Prospect Online taps the following Web content:
EVEN WORSE THAN WE THOUGHT. Tapped is getting flack for a post (below) concerning Andrew Sullivan's accusation that David Brock lied about whether he'd appeared on Fox News recently on Crossfire. When we first posted, we hadn't heard the transcript and relied, as Sullivan did, on the rush transcript. But now we've listed to the recording, courtesy of MediaWhoresOnline (MWO). Listen to it. (RealPlayer required.) Sullivan and National Review got Brock's words wrong in a way that significantly changed the meaning of what he said. "David Brock did not say 'I have not been on Fox at all.' David Brock said 'I have not been on Fox, Fox Prime Time at all.'" I.e., Fox has kept Brock off the A-List shows (true) so as to bury his book (arguable). We'll await retractions from Sullivan, Media Research Center, and National Review. [posted 4:00 pm]
AND WHILE WE'RE AT IT... What energy bill is the Post reporting on? The paper announced last night's passage of the Senate energy bill with the reassuring subhead "Scaled-Back Bill Pushes Conservation." Huh? Most environmentalists and several green-friendly lawmakers have denounced the package as scandalously pandering to big-energy interests, and bemoan the pitiful lack of investment in renewable energy and conservation measures. In fact, the Post reported only yesterday that renewable energy standards in the bill had been slashed once again from an already miserable 10 percent. So to call the legislation, as the Post does in its lead paragraph, "a scaled back energy bill aimed at increasing conservation and the use of renewable fuels" is irresponsible, inaccurate and, well, bizarre. [posted 1:45 pm]
BAD ENERGY. Most agree (see here and here) that there's very little good and a lot of bad in the energy bill that just passed in the Senate. Granted, some reports (see here and here and here) seem to go out of their way to spin the bill as something that takes us a step forward. But the devil is in the details with this legislation. Look at USPIRG's side-by-side comparison of the House and Senate bills and a summary of the differences between them prepared by the AP. And see our own Natasha Hunter's report. [posted 12:58 pm]
DAVID BROCK, LIAR? Conservatives are taking up a new cudgel in their campaign against David Brock. They say they've caught him in another lie: last night, he told Tucker Carlson and James Carville that he had never been invited onto the Fox News Channel; the Media Research Center, our friends at National Review, and Andrew Sullivan have all pointed out that, in fact, Brock did appear on Fox after all. Okay. Fine. You nailed him. Congrats. Tapped has no brief for Brock, and Blinded by the Right kind of makes our skin crawl. But we pose the question again: aren't David Brock's lies about Bill Clinton, Anita Hill, and so many others far more awful and just as worthy of your condemndation? Isn't it time for a mea culpa? Jonah, where was your high-minded indignation when The Wall Street Journal accused Bill Clinton of being a drug smuggler? Where was MRC when Christopher Ruddy accused the Clinton Administration of ordering a hit on Vince Foster? We're waiting. [posted 11:10 am]
FRIENDS IN HIGH PLACES. When George W. Bush reversed himself on regulating carbon dioxide he denied it was because he was pressured by industry lobbyists. Now we learn from a recent document dump that Bush's Texas friend, former Republican Party chief and lobbyist for energy companies Haley Barbour, peppered the White House with his pleas. Some of Barbour's 50 energy clients included some of Bush's biggest campaign contributors. That's "good government" if Tapped has ever seen it. [posted 11:10 am]
DUMP IT. George W. Bush's EPA has got another astonishingly bad idea in the works -- letting mining companies dump waste from mountaintop coal mining into rivers. We read about it first at the public interest journal TomPaine.com and now proposed rules are moving swimmingly toward White House approval. [posted 10:52 am]
REQUIEM FOR JUSTICE. The Arkansas Times pulls together a litany of conservative ideologues who dominate the judicial system. This is not the first call we've heard, nor likely the last, for the impeachment of District of Columbia Circuit Judge Laurence Silberman for his partisan scheming with the right-wing Clinton-haters. [posted 10:50 am]
MORE HUGHES GOSSIP. Our friends at the Daily Prowler have some inside skinny from various Republican sources on Karen Hughes's departure. Some nice detail on Mary Matalin. So Karl Rove doesn't trust her, eh? Check it out. [posted 10:45 am]
NO CONTEST. Reading Salman Rushdie's column in today's Washington Post, Tapped felt bad for all the other columnists. Whenever Rushdie does an op-ed -- usually for the Times, actually -- you don't really want to read anything else. In this case, Rushdie was writing about those outrageous French. Here are some choice mots:
Now the malaise has struck France, and although Lionel Jospin has rightly accepted the blame for an Al Gore-ishly lackluster campaign, he is not the only one at fault. It's an old adage in politics that the electorate is never wrong, but in this case, by golly, it was. Maybe it's the French electorate that should resign instead of Jospin, and make room for new voters more interested in shouldering their responsibilities.
And again:
The decision of the left to field multiple candidates and thus split the anti-Chirac vote created the gap through which Jean-Marie Le Pen has gleefully charged. Such a decision can be made only by people who are so sure of the survival of the status quo that they can take stupid risks with the future. What is there to say about the folly of the European left? How and where will it mess up next? Five minutes ago it was opposing the military action that deposed the Taliban and almost certainly prevented a number of terrorist attacks on the West. Having got Afghanistan wrong, the left has now got France wrong as well.
Whew.
UNSETTLING. The New York Times editorial page shows once again that, while he may not be as bad as Yasir Arafat, Ariel Sharon is nevertheless a very bad guy who makes Mideast peace all but impossible. According to the Times, Sharon said recently that "as long as he was in power there would be no discussion of removing a single settlement" on the West Bank, despite the incredible burdens these settlements impose on Palestinians (and despite the unquenchable rage they inspire). We're still waiting for some serious -- and political -- recognition of the obstacles that Sharon poses to any lasting stability in the region.
WE'RE NOT GOING TO TAKE IT ANY MORE. Its officials in obvious despair over the way Colin Powell has been repeatedly undercut by others in the Bush administration -- particularly Donald Rumsfeld's defense team -- the State Department is leaking like the Titanic. Needless to say, Tapped sympathizes. Indeed, we hope all these officials start now on their tell-all memoirs.
NIMBY. Storing nuclear waste beneath Yucca Mountain in Nevada got a major boost yesterday when the House Energy and Commerce Committee endorsed the president's proposal. For details on the upcoming fight check out TAP's new "Networks" column.
HERE'S WHY APPOINTMENTS MATTER. Interior Department Deputy Secretary J. Steven Griles took EPA's Denver office to task yesterday for giving an environmentally unsatisfactory rating to the single largest domestic energy exploration project, drilling for gas in the Power River Basin. Before this second stint working for the industry at Interior, Griles spent 11 years of working for petroleum and mining interests including six years as senior vice president of the United Co., a mining and gas firm in Bristol, Va.
JUST WONDERING. Ralph Nader outlines a clear and concise agenda for the left. Whatever one thinks of his candidacy in the last presidential election, we can't help but wonder why some of this populist agenda isn't picked up by one of those would-be Democratic presidential contenders.
-- compiled by Prospect staff
