Before we point out what a classic phony "conservative" Aaron Goldstein --- of the site which (apparently without irony) calls itself IntellectualConservative.com --- actually is, we must point out still more apparent lack of irony from the site which gives Goldstein a reason to feel as if he is part of the human race.

Proudly tagged on each article page on the site, in the top-left hottest piece of real estate, is this humble self-description:

An example of that "intellectual conservatism" on one page, we suppose, would be this item and graphic currently on their front page:

Okay. So now you know what kind of site we're dealing with here, and have a small idea of the "intellectually conservative" geniuses who publish there.

With that in mind, one of those geniuses is Aaron Goldstein, who seems to have drawn the short neo-con straw this week and so must put in his sad, all-too-tired duty into the Defending the Indefensible on Behalf of The Powers-That-Be beat.

Goldstein has apparently been assigned (why else would he show up with such a small dull knife to such a big boy's gunfight?) to try and knock HBO/NBC's Jim Lampley down a few pegs. He fails. Miserably. But he doesn't fail to retread every lame, fake conservative line, apology, distraction, distortion, misdirection, justification and deflection in the Karl Rove playbook! Attaboy, Aaron! Fox News should be calling any day now!

In truth, Goldstein's sad little shot at Lampley --- he of the mighty Election 2004 as "the biggest crime in the history of the nation" statement last week --- likely deserves to be ignored. But it's so much fun laughing at these Democracy Hating Conspiracy Theorists like Goldstein that sometimes we just can't help ourselves...Even if we must stoop to their lowered level of discourse in order to do it...

According to the Grand Rapids Press, nearly 1000 students and professors from the conservative Calvin College in Grand Rapids, MI are taking out a full-page ad to protest George W. Bush's commencement address appearance this Saturday.

The speaking engagement was requested and arranged by Bush's top political advisor Karl Rove who, according to NEWSWEEK, informed a College employee at a "Presidential" event back in March that "Bush was hoping to deliver a graduation speech in Michigan this year and asked if Calvin College, a small Christian school in Grand Rapids, might be a willing venue."

Ironically enough, The Press quotes the chair of the college's communcation arts and science department who gave his approval for the event as accusing the objecting students and professors of turning the appearance into a "political event."

The fact that the appearance was arranged by Bush's top political advisor, who was specifically looking for a venue in swing-state Michigan for Bush to speak at is apparently to be ignored.

Yesterday's Press described tomorrow's stinging full-page ad:

And in reply, The Press quotes the professor who defends the Bush appearance...

While Bytwerk may like to believe that this weekend's political event "was not a political event", a report in this week's NEWSWEEK on Rove's political "thank you" tour would seem to suggest otherwise...

Nope. It's not a political event at all. And the "Clear Skies Initiative" will clear the air. And "No Child Left Behind" won't leave any children behind. And when the "Mission Accomplished" banner goes up, the mission will have been completely accomplished.

George W. Bush's Bizzarro World continues. We just have to live in it.

Yet even the good conservative Calvinist Christians of Grand Rapids are beginning to understand what an embarrassing figure this country currently has occupying the White House and misrepresenting our country to the world.

UPDATE: A number of Calvin students have set up a Google discussion forum called "Our Commencement Is Not Your Platform", described as "A place to dialogue and organize for those opposed to George W. Bush commandeering Calvin's 2005 Commencement."

(In case you missed it, the U.S. Army missed its recruitment goal in April by 42%. Third straight month of missed recruitment goals. Have a feeling they may be lowering those goals soon.)

According to the LA Times...

Imagine that.

Not since attorney Joseph Welch confronted the soon-to-fall Anti-Communist Crusader/Idealogue, Joseph McCarthy in 1954 with his now famous "Have you no sense of decency, sir?" testimony can we recall such a direct shaming of a Congressional Committee as that which took place earlier today in a Senate Subcommittee Hearing on the trumped-up U.N. Oil-for-Food "scandal". It's the scandal which Bush Lackeys and Fox & Friends have been flogging ever since it became apparent that there were no WMD in Iraq, and thus, no justification for this trumped-up war.

Also mirroring McCarthy's shameless use of the Senate for his Anti-Communist Witchhunts is the cavalier way by which the NeoCons and their sycophantic supporters are all-too-willing to destroy innocent lives with the stroke of an irresponsible pen or an out-and-out fallacious public statement in complete disregard for those whose lives and reputations they are smearing and defaming under false pretenses.

The hearings today, by the Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs investigation subcommittee, shamefully led by Democrat-turned-Republican Senator Norm Coleman of Minnesota, turned into a stunning embarrassment when British MP George Galloway gave his remarkable rebuttal to the unsubstantiated charges made against him by the Committee "investigating" the Oil-for-Food "scandal" which Galloway appropriately described as "the mother of all smoke-screens".

A video of a portion of the testimony is here (Streaming RealPlayer Broadband, Dial-up or Audio Only MP3). The full transcript (and we strongly recommend you read the entire thing to get the full impact of Galloway's statement!) is available via The Times of London.... Let me repeat the full transcript of George Galloway's statement to the U.S. Senate is here! Please read it!

For the attention-span impaired, however, here is Galloway's extraordinary closing statements:

Galloway didn't say the precise words, so we will...

To Senator Norm Coleman, Bill O'Reilly, Rush Limbaugh, Sean Hannity, Rupert Murdoch, George W. Bush and All the Rest of you evil-doers:

You've done enough. Have you no sense of decency? At long last, have you left no sense of decency?

Almost a full three weeks after the Chicago Tribune allowed their Public Editor, Don Wycliff, to write a foolish rebuttal to Robert Koehler's watershed column --- in which he said "the 2004 election was stolen, will someone please tell the media?" --- they have finally allowed Koehler a response by way of a letter in their hallowed pages.

It should be noted that the Trib never ran Koehler's original column, nor its followup, nor the original direct reply which Koehler wrote in response to Wycliff. In fact, the Tribune Media Services, in an unprecedented example of censorship at the organization, refused to allow Koehler's response to be published at all via the syndication service where Koehler has worked and published as editor and columnist for nearly a decade. A hastily compiled column crafted of letters that Koehler's received since the brouhaha began took its last minute place.

(We interviewed Koehler on our radio show a couple of weeks back discussing the spiking of that column. Here's the .MP3 archive of the interview, the Koehler interview begins at the :22 minute mark or so.)

In regards to the Trib finally allowing a response to Wycliff's article by anyone (they received hundreds of letters, only a single one of them was published, and that one didn't even speak to the 2004 election mess), Koehler wrote to us yesterday...

You can read Koehler's letter in the Trib here.

We should also note that Don Wycliff finally answered our calls inviting him to give his side of the story on our radio show with a call from his secretary who informed us that "Don does not do radio."

We have no reason to doubt that's the truth. Nonetheless, if any of you good folks out there in Chicagoland happen to hear Mr. Wycliff on the radio, please do let us know won't you?

...CONTACTS...
Tribune Media Services Contact Page
Robert Koehler, Editor/Columnist/American Hero

Chicago Tribune Contact Page
Ann Marie Lipinski, Editor
R. Bruce Dold, Editorial Page Editor
James O'Shea, Managing Editor
N. Don Wycliff, Public Editor

UPDATE 5/18/05: Editor & Publisher, who has been doing a fine job of following the Koehler story, picks up on the latest story as well.

Josh Marshall gets the goods on the Republican plan to attempt to morph "Nuclear Option" into "Constitutional Option" via a Republican Senate Committee Talking Points Memo [PDF].

The GOP strategy for bamboozling the American People with linguistic tricks has been working quietly --- and working very effectively! --- for years. Now, however, that there is an actual opposition media (yes, that "Liberal Media" you've heard so much about is actually beginning to come into existance...even if it's out here, built from the ragtag blogosphere) one wonders how much longer they'll be able to get away with such tricks.

They were busted in the Schiavo case, and it looks like they're busted in the "Nuclear Option" case. For that, and many other reasons, it looks like the GOP Hucksters may be in more long and short term trouble than they realize yet.

That's just speculation on our part, of course. And yes, we're of the eternally optimistic sort still. But we believe we're seeing some signs written on the wall that The Force is not with the GOP these days. We believe we're seeing an Empire, if not yet crumbling, then beginning to show its potentially fatal cracks. Stay tuned...

"Tom DeLay is the most effective leader the House has seen in 50 years."

So said U.S. Congressman Tom Feeney (R-FL) of his very good friend, and mutual backscratcher, Tom DeLay (R-TX) outside of last week's exciting "Conservative Movement Salutes Tom DeLay" event!

And no wonder! Between all the cold, hold cash money that Feeney's received from DeLay, and all the money and voting support Feeney's given right back in return, it looks like the two Toms are birds of a feather! We certainly hope they're not jailbirds of a feather someday! Yee-Ouch! That certainly wouldn't be very helpful to the "Conservative" movement!

Feeney's been there for DeLay all along and nothing's gonna stop him now!

That's why Mr. Feeney was one of the few Congressmen willing to talk to reporters --- outloud, and right there in public yet! --- at the big "Salute to Delay" last week. That's why Feeney was more than happy to go on that important trip to play golf in Scotland with DeLay (apparently paid for by lobbyists)...Hell, they're even champs when it comes to redistricting their own states to help themselves get elected!

Is there anything these two can't do together when they set their minds to it?!

And just in case you weren't certain how close the two Toms actually are...The Public Campaign Action Fund was nice enough to recently compile a list of "DeLay Rankings" showing which Congressmen and women are closest to Tom DeLay and deepest inside of his pocket. And guess who came out on top of the entire U.S. House of Representatives?!

That's right! Our man, Feeney's #1! Waytago Tom! You've done it again!

(Thanks American Woman, Jaime, and Jesse of Stakeholder for their contributions to this salute!)

Late last week, the good John Conyers posted a fun (and very smart) piece headlined "The GOP's Attack On Voting Rights" over at TomPaine.com. Presumably his article was in reply to Russ Baker's attempt --- published the week before at TomPaine.com --- to tamp down the ever-growing cries of foul in Election 2004 and the need for true Electoral Reform in this country.

Election Reformers being no dolts and well used to subtle smoke-screens, trojan horses and deflections by now, quite a few enlightening letters to the editor were published over there as well last week in reply to Baker's article. Those letters also followed a quick reply/clarification/CYA column by TP's Executive Editor, Alexandra Walker.

Conyers' piece uses a bunch of Harper's Index-like numbers to cut through the crap and outline the very real and very major assaults now being mounted by the Right against American freedom and democracy. Read the whole thing. Here's a couple grafs of particular note to BRAD BLOG readers...

UPDATE: Oliver T. Dawshed also delivers a helpful reply to Baker's article in his letter that was not published at TomPaine.com. Amongst the information in his rebuttal:

It's our first full day back in the homeland trenches today after being on the road for the last month and a half. It's good to be back, especially as there have been so many things we've wanted to be able to work on over the past several weeks which have been nearly impossible to accomplish from the road. We look forward to getting back to the hardcore investigative grind very soon!

Along with the month and a half on the road doing various speaking engagements, important meetings and accomplishing other super-secret missions (fruits of which will appear later), someone decided to drop an opportunity to do a weekly radio show on us during that same period. All of which make a difficult job (keeping up with BRAD BLOG and Velvet Revolution duties on the fly) all the much more difficult.

So it's been both a fruitful period, and an extremely difficult --- and frequently frustrating --- one all at the same time.

It'll likely take some time to get caught up and fully back to speed here. (Even the month and a half worth of accumulated snail mail is a carbon-based mountain that needs climbing! Including a number of snail-mail donations --- thanks! --- which have yet to be processed!)

There are a number of items that we haven't been able to post over the last several days (at least) which are worthy of your attention. Some have been pointed to by the eagle-eyed BRAD BLOG commenters already, but several deserve a higher profile as full-fledged blog items in and of themselves. Several others we had hoped to discuss on the radio show last Saturday but had to dump due to lost time caused by technical problems. So we'll be posting some of those "catch-up" items shortly even if they are not quite as timely as we like to be here.

As well, there are several tasks at Velvet Revolution that need our immediate attention to boot. Concerning the "Divestiture for Democracy" campaign and other notable projects which haven't been able to receive the attention they require due to lack of both time and resources. So watch for some new information over there as we work to get caught up over there as well.

Oh, and it looks like Microsoft has made some internal changes to IE that has caused for some odd formatting to the blog in some cases. We'll need time to figure out how they messed things up, and what, if anything, we can do about it! Just what we needed right about now!

Thanks for your continuing support and patience as we crank back up to full speed over the next week or two. Slowly, but surely, we'll get there. So much corruption, so much progress made fighting it, but so little time, "staff" and resources to get it all out here into the sunlight where it needs to be. Nonetheless, onward and upward...as best and as quickly as we can.

And thanks again, as well, to Winter Patriot for his diligence in keeping things rolling here when we were not able to! We're glad to hear that he is just fine and was simply unavailable to run Saturday's Night's BRAD SHOW Open Thread. Apparently he told us in advance, but that news seemingly was one of too many things which dropped through the cracks. The BRAD BLOG "staff" has been fully reprimanded for their failure do note that in advance, and a top-to-bottom review of such policies here will be conducted shortly by the FBI's former-director Robert Mueller, Jeff Gannon, Judith Miller and the entire NEWSWEEK Editorial Board to ensure such failures never occur again.

Looks like we made it! Winter Patriot? Where are you?

RAW STORY has the complete letter signed by 51 members of the U.S. House of Representatives. It begins like this:

We don't care what the MSM does (or doesn't) report. The drumbeat will not stop. The truth is on our side. Truth always wins out over lies. Eventually. Stay tuned...

Just one of several stories from the past week that we're only now getting time to link up (having been furiously driving across country over the past week).

This one from Miami-Herald:

ES&S and their "computer glitches" strike again.

Any of you political and MSM ostriches out there realize this is a story yet?

Made it back (finally!) to the Left Coast! Safe and sound! And it looks like we've found a studio for this weekend's show! So, barring any surprises between now and Saturday 7pm ET (4pm PT), we'll be up and on the air with another exciting LIVE episode of The BRAD SHOW via RAW RADIO!

GUESTS CURRENTLY TO INCLUDE:

As always, subject to change as events warrant...

Please plan on tuning in LIVE Saturday Evening! And tell a few friends while you're at it! We need you all to spread the word high and low!

{Guest Blogged by Jaime}

Brad is cooling his jets in the ever famous undisclosed location. He is currently incapable of access to the "internets" so I am transcribing a message from him directly to you.