The brutal bio of Tom Cotton - Kristol's guy.

Reposted from Plunderbund


The New York Times Sunday magazine  added to  freshman Sen. Tom Cotton's scrapbook rise to celebrity with a full-page interview and tall photo  of the young Arkansas Republican who fatuously wrote the letter to Iranians warning them of a bad outcome for the deal supported by the U.S.

The vital statistics of the man included his NBA dream team (which, alas, did not include LeBron James!)  and his non-answer as to whether he is dreaming about more trivial matters as a vice presidential candidate on the GOP national ticket in 2016.  He cryptically answered: "I am focussed on the work that the people of Arkansas sent me to do."

As Seinfeld's Kramer would blurt:  "Oh, Mama!"

All of the commotion about the guy sent me back into the files to learn  how he ended up in the Senate in the first  place from the Razorback State.

Think: William Kristol,  the big-time neocon who merged Sarah Palin onto John McCain's ticket in 2008.  Think of the same neocon whose New York Times op-ed columns were eliminated after the editors finally lost patience with his many factual errors.  Think of the same neocon who seeks relevancy as editor of the  right-wing Weekly Standard as well as the smarmy guest on TV shows. And think of the warrior neocon who was a major figure in calling for the Bush invasion of Iraq and who now supports a re-invasion of  that hapless country.

Now, think of the neocon as a board member of the Emergency Committee for Israel with considerable  sway among other donor allies.  Kristol sent upward of $800,000 to his newly bought and paid for  Tom Cotton, another acquired alter ego (who happens to be a Methodist).

As I learned in so many years in the newspaper world, names make news.    So when you see Cotton's name, you need to know more about what the political world is now talking about, the man who wanted to imprison NY Times editor Bill Keller and two reporters over something the Times printed.

As a congressman in 2013 Cotton also proved he can be damned cruel.   He wanted  to insert an amendment in an Iran sanctions bill (amendment later withdrawn) that would have severely punished anyone who violated the sanctions.  He even levied that on their families  as a "corruption of blood" that automatically included "parents, children,  aunts, uncles, nephews, nieces, grandparents, great grandparents, grandkids, great grandkids."

The guy is driven - but do you really want to be a passenger?

Are bobblehead dolls becoming the new gold watches?

News of the arrival  of a bobblehead doll in the likeness (sort of, if you only consider the black suit and yellow tie) of retiring University of Akron president Luis Proenza  may foretell a new era in which these novelties will become the traditional gold watches once handed out for long years of service.

Not that the sparkling  watch will be missed by  Proenza, who will be leaving with a future  adequately  sustained by a golden parachute that could have  easily covered the school's enormous debt.  Bon voyage

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One of the highlights of the past week's cable shows was the appearance of neocon mogul William Kristol on  Bill Maher's Friday evening show. When Maher  asserted that much  of the opposition to President Obama was the result of his being a black man in the White House, we got a less genteel  version of the usually suave, smirking Kristol seething in a voice-over:  "That's bullshit.  That's bullshit!"

Well, now.  Is that any way for a pompous  pundit to talk?  Yet here he was, fuming as the  profound sage  who has erred so often in  facts and judgment that the New York Times was forced to rid itself  of his column.  Two egregious ones come readily to mind: a hawkish, Cheney-like  defense of America's  invasion of Iraq that he guaranteed would bring enormous glory to the U.S.; and his burdensome influence in recruiting Sarah Palin as John McCain's veep candidate.

But Kristol will continue to present himself with that self-satisfied smirk and his followers will bow  in appreciative  genuflection. In the gated realm of Kristol 's conservatism, errors of fact don't matter that much.

* * * * *

The Sixth Circuit Court of Appeals has reversed a decision by Federal Judge John
Adams in the suit by then-Stow firefighter Anthony Rorrer  against the city of Stow.  Rorrer based his suit on a serious  eye injury suffered in an accident, blinding him in one eye.   Adams dismissed the suit.  However, the appellate court questioned Adams' handling of the case.  In a rare rebuke, the appellate court  "actually misconstrued its own discovery order"  with apparent bias toward Rorrer  and  remanded the case to the district court, calling  for another other judge to hear it.

* * * * *

Who knew? Rush Limbaugh  came on in another  racial burst after  "12 years a Slave" won the Best Film Oscar.  Rush said the picture won only because slave is a "magic word".  Anybody remember  how Rush downgraded a black NFL quarterback by accusing sportswriters of promoting African American QBs. (As I recall, a black QB led Seattle to a Super Bowl championship a few months ago.) Isn't it time that we stop referring to this crowd as the "far right" and call it instead the "far wrong"?

Kristol on health care - or something

AS THE TEA PARTY inspired House of Representatives prepares to vote on repealing the health care reform law this week, it was reassuring to hear from a leading conservative pundit that Republicans will replace it with something better that can only please us. Such was the confidence of the right-wing media boyar William Kristol. On Fox News, he was asked what that might be, once the current law is repealed. Kristol, usually ready with a glib solution to all of the world's problems, retreated. Instead, he reminded his audience that hearings would be held and that he was sure that in time the repealers would think of something.

We should be grateful that after more than a year of debate that gave the the issue's critics time to think of something, they are finally getting around to simply thinking. Meantime, all of those who joined the repeal movement, including Ohio Atty. Gen. Mike DeWine, will muddle ahead when they have no chance of succeeding against a Democratic Senate and president who holds the veto envelope. But it does promise to fill up the dead space on TV.

Life on the maniacal front

THE VOTE IS IN, AND by a tally of 1-0, Glenn Beck has been narrowly elected as the Maniac of the Week. He outlasted Karl Rove and Liz Cheney by a single slur. More about them later.

As he has shown in the past, Beck's need for public attention, a deranged cry for help that doubtless arose in his near-drowning years ago in a rain puddle, is no thing of beauty. (On the other hand, he's lucky. Turkeys are known to drown in rain puddles because they are too dumb to raise their heads). This week, against strong competition , Beck again exposed his pathetically vacuous self by taking on America's churches. Atheists have done that, too, albeit with more restraint, but Beck is no atheist (He's a Mormon, obviously still a work in progress.) According to this Fox News payroller, anybody who attends a church that has a regard for social justice is either a Nazi or a Communist. He wants these churchgoers to flee their contaminated pews immediately.

Next in line for the Maniac of the Week Award is Liz Cheney, one of William Kristol's stable of immortals, who has publicly accused Justice Department lawyers who are defending accused terrorists of being the "al-Qaeda 7" and the Justice Department as the "Department of Jihad." Even Ken Starr, who lead the impeachment team against former President Clinton, was outraged by her smears. But can we expect anything less from the daughter of Dick Cheney?

Finally, there is the indomitable Karl Rove in the second runner-up slot for boasting in Europe of his pride in the U.S. waterboarders and insisting that it was not torture - this, from a man who never wore a military uniform himself. Rove, who has been contradicted on so many occasions, is still an unhappy wanderer staggering to the darkness at the end of his tunnel.

Evolution, a thousand years from now

AS A MUCH-NEEDED escape from the political front, I have just finished reading a piece in The Teaching Company magazine on evolution. No, I'm not taking up the shopworn debate on intelligent design. Rather, I wanted to turn the key on the lock that has isolated me from a serious understanding of what is generally called the biotech revolution, a daunting term in itself. So you won't come near getting any expertise from me on the subject. But I at least really tried to understand, if only superficially, what science is talking about in tracking the path of humans from pre-history to the billions of uprights who walk the earth today. Some escape, huh?

The magazine featured a course by Prof. Lee Silver of Princeton University and the descriptive outline - here's where I have to inch forward carefully - turned to such terms as gene sequencing, FISH (Fluorescence in Situ Hybridization), DNA microarray and molecular clock, with great strides in the field since the Human Genome Project was completed in 2003. If you've stayed with me so far, there is good news to report.

It seems to me that if notable scientists are still delving into the past to extend the curve into the future, we're in luck. It tells us that we are, at this moment, still evolving and the world will still be around for us to evolve in. That , of course, is hypothetical at this point, but on the upside for all humanity.

I have no idea where that will take us because there is no certain accounting for nuclear bombs, birthers, tea baggers and William Kristol . But Darwin did provide some clues by telling us that we will adapt like his finches. Well, no, we won't turn yellow or purple each spring, but you get the point.

Since I won't be on hand to admit my mistakes, I would suggest that a human being a thousand years from now will probably have a fleshy rectangular niche in his ear where he safely and permanently implants a cell phone, much like a pacemaker. TV remotes, too often misplaced under last week's newspapers, will be passe. One will be able to switch stations by activating a tiny device that develops in the tongue and will always taste like a root beer float. And hips will have shrunk on frequent flyers to accommodate centuries of squeezing into airplane seats. Really basic stuff, if you think about it.

But remember: These alterations will only occur if evolution is sustained by an active planet itself. We can hope. On the other hand, a worst-case scenario would have human beings returning to life in the treetops. By the looks of the noisy Neanderthals at the town meetings on health care, some among us are getting a head start.