Amusing(?) item from this morning’s Media Matters newsletter:

On May 3, 2006, Bill O’Reilly led off his Fox News show with the sentencing of Zacarias Moussaoui, who was tried in civilian court and handed several consecutive life terms for his role in the September 11 terrorist attacks. According to O’Reilly: “The al Qaeda savage promptly thanked them by saying ‘America, you lost. I won.’ But like what most of this degenerate says, he is wrong. Moussaoui is condemned to rot in his cell until he does die and if the Federal penitentiary is run properly, Moussaoui will be denied any and all privileges.” O’Reilly explained that “by not executing Moussaoui, the U.S.A. shows the world we are a nation of laws, a nation that puts power in the hands of regular folks.”

Now fast-forward a few years—the Democrats take control of the White House, and the new president announces he’s bringing Khalid Shaikh Mohammed to New York to face trial before a civilian court. O’Reilly, who praised the civilian trial of Moussaoui, says of the decision to Bush White House adviser Karl Rove: “Khalid Shaikh Mohammed, that is a terrible decision. ... Because you know, I know, and everybody knows it’s going to cost the city of New York between $75 and $100 million. These animals are going to get up there. They’re going to lie. The lawyers are going to turn it into an anti-Bush, anti-CIA, anti-American extravaganza.”

Just think about that one for a moment—O’Reilly, who praised the civilian prosecution of Moussaoui in 2006, is complaining about the White House’s civilian prosecution of Mohammed in 2009, to a person who was part of the White House that decided to prosecute Moussaoui in a civilian court. (emphasis added)

O’Reilly wasn’t the only person to pull the ol’ Moussaoui/Mohammed switcheroo on Fox News. Former New York mayor and 9-11 enthusiast Rudy Giuliani appeared on Neil Cavuto’s show last Friday to attack the Mohammed decision as a “terrible, terrible mistake,” explaining that the terrorist “should be prosecuted in a military tribunal.” Cavuto neglected to point out that in 2006, Giuliani said of the Moussaoui trial: “It does demonstrate that we can give people a fair trial, that we are exactly what we say we are. We are a nation of law.”

Indeed, confusion abounded among conservatives everywhere. Morning Joe namesake Joe Scarborough declared it “unprecedented” to try a terrorism suspect in the U.S. judicial system. To his credit, Scarborough later corrected this false assertion.

No one expects conservatives to support President Obama, particularly on issues of national security. But is a little consistency too much to ask? Well, maybe consistency is too much—how about something less than outright hypocrisy?

BONUS:

Oh boy, do I have mixed feelings about these final moments of David Tennant’s tenure as Doctor Who. On one hand, I simply can’t wait to see the Christmas specials, I expect nothing less than an utterly spectacular, mind-bending final adventure. They’ll be the highlight of my television viewing year (along with Russell T. Davies’ genius Torchwood miniseries Children of Earth, natch, which I reviewed here) but once they’re over, David’s gone for good and this will be the end of an era. His iconic portrayal of the Doctor is as decade-defining for this one as Sean Connery’s Bond was for the ‘60s. Doctor Who will be unthinkable without him (and Russell).

I may have to lie in bed for a week to get over it!

Thank you Xeni Jardin!

This is really amazing.

This one’s good, too:

I recommend checking out all this guy’s stuff. It’s supa dupa selexy. He calls himself Kokofreakbean.

 
Who would be stupid enough to think this is funny…? From Huffington Post:

Apparently, the latest thing in ?

BWAHAHAHA. Fox News accidentally shows a copy of the Palin parody “Going Rouge” while discussing said Right Wing Idiot. Baby Jesus is laughing too!

(Fishbowl LA: Fox News Accidentally Promos ‘Going Rouge’)

(Going Rouge, the Book)

 
My earlier detour to Tosh Berman’s site tipped me off to the forthcoming Serge Gainsbourg bio-pic.  Forthcoming in France, anyway—I’m not exactly sure when Serge Gainsbourg: A Heroic Life will see its American release.   Judging from the following NSFW-ish trailer, though, the casting seems pretty spot-on, and forget it’s all in French: much like Serge’s music, it doesn’t need much in the way of translation.

 
Wonderful addition to the bottomless pit of greatness offered over at Ubu, American assemblage artist Wallace Berman‘s first and only film, Aleph.  Best known, perhaps, for spearheading the SEMINA art publication, Berman labored on Aleph from ‘56-‘66.  Here’s what Ubu says of the film:

Aleph is an artist’s meditation on life, death, mysticism, politics, and pop culture.  In an eight-minute loop of film, Wallace Berman uses Hebrew letters to frame a hypnotic, rapid-fire montage that captures the go-go energy of the 1960s.  Aleph includes stills of collages created using a Verifax machine, Eastman Kodak’s precursor to the photocopier.  These collages depict a hand-held radio that seems to broadcast or receive popular and esoteric icons.  Signs, symbols, and diverse mass-media images (e.g., Flash Gordon, John F. Kennedy, Mick Jagger) flow like a deck of tarot cards, infinitely shuffled in order that the viewer may construct his or her own set of personal interpretations.  The transistor radio, the most ubiquitous portable form of mass communication in the 1960s, exemplifies the democratic potential of electronic culture and serves as a metaphor for Jewish mysticism.  The Hebrew term kabbalah translates as “reception” for knowledge, enlightenment, and divinity.  According to the artist’s son Tosh Berman, Wallace Berman treated Aleph ‘...as a creative notebook, and like a true diary, it has no beginning and no end.’

 
The J-Walk Blog alerts us to the verifiable existence of the Sean Hannity forum, So We Go To Heaven.  In it, the 2012 Election Coundown-er wonders, “Now what.  What do we do when we get there?  Do we live in a reality of our own or do we associate with others like we do here?  I have not heard much about what people think Heaven is like.”  Well, Hannity asks and the people answer!  Here’s a sampling of So We Go To Heaven speculation:

   * Heaven is the full embrace of our loving God without the sinful desires our flesh now contains.
   * I think a lot of our time will be spent worshiping God.
   * We don’t do anything in heaven…we will live with Christ in our glorified bodies in New Jerusalem…before that…between death and resurrection we’re just chillaxin’.
   * There are those that do go to heaven according to the bible and they serve as kings and priests with Jesus.
   * We will be in God’s Glory and having a Godly time, Amen.
   * Kicking back, relaxing, enjoying existence, and being served by those that are ruling with Christ and worked so hard here on Earth to earn rewards and jewels in Heaven.
   * It eventually would just be the same as hell in my opinion, spending an eternity of nothing. Of course, I guess in heaven, you could just press a button that would make you happy or something.

Now that weird-alien-bobble-head-guy Herman van Rompuy has been elected King of Infinite Space cough cough I mean president of the European Council, we can breathe a collective sigh of relief that… well, at least it wasn’t Tony Blair. However, check out this utterly bizarre story on the election process below?

 

 

 
Boing Boing has an eerie post on Matt Louge’s new photo book “Empty L.A.” Matt Louge says: I just completed a self-published book depicting an uninhabited Los Angeles, and it got an honorable mention in the photography.book.now competition at blurb.com! The photos were made over a period of 4 years, beginning in 2005, at a variety of locations around LA.
 
(via Mark Frauenfelder over at Boing Boing)