The Washington Post reports:
Former senator Ted Stevens of Alaska, 86, who funneled billions of dollars to his home state over six terms in office and became one the most powerful and combative congressmen of his generation, died from injuries sustained in a plane crash Monday in southwest Alaska.
As if he hadn’t already been screwed enough.
Rest in peace.
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I hope somebody gets to the bottom of the fraudulent prosecution which cost him his seat.
Subotai (a84501) — 8/10/2010 @ 1:06 pmlook, let’s not fall all ourselves on this. I won’t speak ill of the dead when they freshly died, if only because i reserve that for true moral cesspools like Ted Kennedy.
i wasn’t a fan of the man in life, but i mourn him as i would any human being. as i understand it he was a father and husband, and even grandfather, and the family deserves me holding my tongue.
Btw, the former head of nasa on the plane is reportedly alive. cnn breaking news says:
Ex-NASA head Sean O’Keefe survived plane crash in Alaska, his company says. Former Sen. Ted Stevens among 5 killed.
Aaron Worthing (A.W.) (e7d72e) — 8/10/2010 @ 1:26 pmI read WAPO’s fawning coverage of Byrd, upon Byrd’s death. Didn’t mention you-know-what.
Yet they cover Stevens as he “who funneled billions of dollars to his home state over six terms in office”. We all realize this wouldn’t be the coverage for a democrat. He’s ‘combative’. That’s not how they characterized Ted Kennedy.
What’s sad is that Wapo is one of the more decent liberal outlets.
Dustin (b54cdc) — 8/10/2010 @ 1:31 pmDustin
what a bunch of asses. i mean i am not disagreeing with their facts, but the timing. to me being in the klan is a much more serious strike on your record.
Aaron Worthing (A.W.) (e7d72e) — 8/10/2010 @ 1:32 pmThose of us in Patterico’s and my neck of the woods have a small connection of Stevens: he spent part of his boyhood in Redondo Beach and graduated from Redondo Union High School.
He was also a veteran of World War II. RIP.
JVW (b407ad) — 8/10/2010 @ 1:36 pmDustin:
Did you read it? Really?
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2010/06/28/AR2010062801241.html
Kman (d25c82) — 8/10/2010 @ 1:36 pmAW, there is no disputing those facts, I agree.
It’s 2010 now and this propaganda trick of only covering some facts in a blatantly partisan way just looks lazy and mean-spirited. Which is basically right.
Dustin (b54cdc) — 8/10/2010 @ 1:38 pmYeah, I did read it kman. That wasn’t it, though.
Dustin (b54cdc) — 8/10/2010 @ 1:38 pmoff topic, but we are talking about dead famous people. We are learning about a massive contribution made posthumously by Jonnie Carson.
http://www.thesmokinggun.com/documents/celebrity/carnac-munificent
as far as i can tell, Carson made no effort to publicize this charity, which imho is the purest form of charity. Jesus says that if you make a big scene of giving to charity, it will not help to fill your treasury in heaven. He ain’t saying don’t do it, he is just saying it will do you no good with him. so this charity went into his treasury in heaven.
Aaron Worthing (A.W.) (e7d72e) — 8/10/2010 @ 1:39 pmthe Wapo prints a lot of stories, so it’s no surprise that there is a counter example out there. Kinda pathetic rebuttal, imo.
I realize you’re trying to snipe. That’s cool with me. You lose this round, though.
Dustin (b54cdc) — 8/10/2010 @ 1:41 pmDustin
don’t bother. I have tangled with kman for a long time. you will learn that he is a serial dissembler. only after a while will you realize that he knows full well what the truth is and is only pretending not to see.
that’s why i am filtering his comments. hopefully someday he will wind a woman or something and stop this.
hey, kman, if you are listening, i heard eharmony works really well!
Aaron Worthing (A.W.) (e7d72e) — 8/10/2010 @ 1:42 pmAh, Dustin. I see. You read the piece written by columnist Eugene Robinson.
Oh, well. That is different.
Because that “didn’t mention you-know-what” either?
A.W.:
I don’t get the e-Harmony reference, but I couldn’t care less….
Kman (d25c82) — 8/10/2010 @ 1:47 pmThanks for the head’s up, AW.
Dustin (b54cdc) — 8/10/2010 @ 1:50 pmIt is a lying sophist, obvious from its first comment, and proven with every subsequent.
JD (abc2eb) — 8/10/2010 @ 1:54 pmKKKman makes a lot of sense!
Dmac (d61c0d) — 8/10/2010 @ 2:00 pmKman, I don’t remember the exact piece I read. I’m certainly not lying about it. The point that I was making, that this was strangely rude to Stevens, while others are strangely laudatory or even deifying dead dems, thus on partisan basis, is the truth.
You are sniping, like I said, I don’t care. If you could win the argument, I’m sure you wouldn’t have relied on an irrelevant one. Your best case is admitting I’m right that the WAPO went far out of its way to do exactly what I claimed it did.
Dustin (b54cdc) — 8/10/2010 @ 2:06 pmDmac
> Comment by Dmac — 8/10/2010 @ 2:00 pm
dude, you have to like have a warning before you are that funny. i almost choked on my drink! you’re going to kill me!
and KKKman is more right than you think. I have caught him actually saying racist things, to supposedly denounce alleged racism in others. its hilarious.
Aaron Worthing (A.W.) (e7d72e) — 8/10/2010 @ 2:30 pmDustin: Kman got you, sorry, whether you consider him to be sniping or not.
Comparing apples to apples, you should compare the WaPo obituaries — which are supposed to be objective — for both men. The Klan reference in Byrd’s obituary was in the fourth graf — pretty high up. Yet you said the coverage “DIDN’T MENTION” it, your words.
Of course, a columnist like Robinson, who is expressing an opinion, can leave out or include what he wishes to.
You got busted dude, spinning a popular Talking Point. Plenty of news outlets mentioned Byrd’s Klan involvement.
All that said, I’ll agree that what is suggested by “funneled billions” makes it sound like Stevens was doing something sketchy. Wasn’t he key in Alaska becoming a state? I would argue that’s more important than the pork, which basically, they all do. And I heard he was picked Alaskan of the century. Either of those could have easily been mentioned in the first graf.
But basically, most of the coverage I’ve seen has been positive to glowing (CNN: “Alaska has had long love affair with Stevens”).
Toward the end of his senate career, Stevens’ most vicious critics, I recall, were mainly on the right — he had somehow been cast into RINO-land. Red State roasted him in the run-up to his defeat.
And the unfair prosecution, of course, started under Bush’s team; Eric Holder threw out the case.
I’d take Stevens any day over some of the other stuff I’ve seen come out of AK lately. (One of the commentators, in trying to praise Stevens, said he did a lot for Alaska, a state with “special needs.” LOL.)
And I’ll always love him for his “series of tubes” comment about the Internet.
R.I.P., Ted.
Myron (6a93dd) — 8/10/2010 @ 2:30 pmStevens, a Harvard law trained former WW veteran, who wrote up the statehood agreement, for Alaska. . .
ian cormac (ab2f02) — 8/10/2010 @ 2:35 pmLeave it to Myron to intentionally miss the point, or to be too pointy-headed to understand the point.
JD (abc2eb) — 8/10/2010 @ 2:36 pmian: Yeah, I think helping Alaska become a state — a strategically crucial, resources-laden state at that — might merit a first graf mention … but that’s me.
Wikipedia’s write up on his efforts are pretty interesting. They write that the GOP blocked statehoood in the Senate in part b/c they feared Alaska would have elected a bunch of Democrats — they needn’t have worried.
from wikipedia:
Myron (6a93dd) — 8/10/2010 @ 2:39 pm“He did all the work on statehood,” Roger Ernst, Seaton’s assistant secretary for public land management, later said of Stevens. “He wrote 90 percent of all the speeches. Statehood was his main project.”[32] A sign on Stevens’ door proclaimed his office “Alaskan Headquarters” and Stevens became known at the Department of the Interior as “Mr. Alaska.”[
Myron wouldn’t recognize a point even if he was impaled upon it.
AD - RtR/OS! (a1bed2) — 8/10/2010 @ 2:40 pmKKK was a childhood indiscretion, a dalliance, something to not be proud of, but an impetus for change.
JD (abc2eb) — 8/10/2010 @ 2:41 pmI got those points from the wiki, but why let facts get in the way of the meme
ian cormac (ab2f02) — 8/10/2010 @ 2:53 pm20. JD: I didn’t miss any point.
Myron (6a93dd) — 8/10/2010 @ 2:58 pmYes, Myron, you absolutely did. It seems abundantly clear that D’s and R’s are treated differently by the MFM, and the orgy of eulogies for Byrd and Kennedy stand in fairly stark contrast to the section about Stevens.
JD (abc2eb) — 8/10/2010 @ 2:59 pmBut you and your fellow sophists can cling to the idea that you found an example where it was mentioned that Byrd was in the KKKlan.
JD (abc2eb) — 8/10/2010 @ 3:00 pmJD:
Again, let’s go back to the obit:
As a young man, Mr. Byrd was an “exalted cyclops” of the Ku Klux Klan. Although he apologized numerous times for what he considered a youthful indiscretion, his early votes in Congress — notably a filibuster against the 1964 Civil Rights Act — reflected racially separatist views. As those views moderated, Mr. Byrd rose in the party hierarchy
Now, we all are familiar with the English language. The post uses the words “he considered” meaning that Byrd thought it was an indiscretion, not the reporter.
The fact that he apologize for his Klan membership (whether he meant it or not) is an objective fact.
If your belief is that the Post and other outlets should just report his KKK involvement as if it was current and he never left the group and changed his public rhetoric — that may satisfy your partisan leanings, but it’s not journalism.
It’s like when people on the left kept deriding Bush as a drunk based on his past, when he had become born again and stopped drinking.
Myron (6a93dd) — 8/10/2010 @ 3:03 pmJD: Dude, you can run that crap elsewhere, about no one mentioning his Klan service. I read and I listen and I know you’re not being truthful.
Myron (6a93dd) — 8/10/2010 @ 3:04 pmOh, Good Allah. Does your head hurt? How many strawpeople do you plan on killing today? I did not dispute one single solitary point you just refuted. What my beliefs are have no bearing on this. The idea that the likes of you and the MFM and JournoList care about actually committing acts of journalism is laughable.
JD (abc2eb) — 8/10/2010 @ 3:06 pmJD: You’re just throwing poop against the wall.
Don’t think I haven’t noticed that, in your zeal to use your big word of the day, “sophist,” and your other snark you haven’t addressed my essential point:
1. Dustin said the Post coverage did not mention the Klan involvement.
2. Dustin was proven to be wrong.
Care to address that?
Myron (6a93dd) — 8/10/2010 @ 3:09 pmIf George Bush was a former grand kleagle in the KKK, how many words into every single article do you think it would take for that to be noted?
Frankly, the people that did not mention it were far less offensive than those that lionized Kennedy, or apologized away Byrd’s KKK involvement.
BTW, Myron, since you seem so invested in this, Byrd called a group of people white n@ggers on television. Apparently his regret and personal change did not go very far.
JD (abc2eb) — 8/10/2010 @ 3:10 pmNo, Myron. You want to focus on something other than his stated point. You want to focus on a tiny detail that does not detract from the overall point, because the overall point is true, and smashes the narrative that you and yours push.
Dustin made a clumsy construct earlier, one that you are using to try to score little gotcha points. You are using different parameters of the Post coverage than Dustin in order to do so. You are comfortable with your dishonesty. I get that. It is what you do.
JD (abc2eb) — 8/10/2010 @ 3:13 pmI am off to dinner with clients. See you racists later.
JD (abc2eb) — 8/10/2010 @ 3:14 pmIf George Bush was a former grand kleagle in the KKK, how many words into every single article do you think it would take for that to be noted?
I don’t know JD. You tell me. You seem to have every single reporter figured out.
Frankly, the people that did not mention it were far less offensive than those that lionized Kennedy, or apologized away Byrd’s KKK involvement.
Kennedy was lionized b/c he did a lot, in spite of his bad chapters. As Richard Pryor would say, “that’s a life.” “Apologizing away.” Yeah, right. That’s just your partisan lens again.
BTW, Myron, since you seem so invested in this, Byrd called a group of people white n@ggers on television. Apparently his regret and personal change did not go very far.
Again, JD, you think you’re dealing with someone who doesn’t know these things. Don’t confuse me with the set you might run with. I saw that interview, and know the context. Byrd was talking about his rearing and was recounting what his mother had told him. Obviously, he shouldn’t have used the word and apologized. He still came a long way from Klansman to supporting the first black president, against the people of his own state. That’s a long journey and your snark cannot erase that. Sorry!
Again, returning to the Bush analogy. I disliked just about every policy “idea” he had. But I give him kudos for beating alcohol and recognizing he could never be a good husband and father until he die. People change. Or maybe you’re perfect?
Myron (6a93dd) — 8/10/2010 @ 3:17 pmAnd that should be “until he did.”
Though I hope he stays on top of his drinking until he dies, too.
Myron (6a93dd) — 8/10/2010 @ 3:18 pmNo, Myron. You want to focus on something other than his stated point.
JD:
Ha! My post went directly to his stated point, and that’s the problem you have with my post.
Myron (6a93dd) — 8/10/2010 @ 3:20 pmNo, Myron. I stated my problems with your douchenozzlery. I could never confuse you with someone who runs in my set, whatever the hell that means. My friends are honest, not the least bit mendoucheous, and certainly not lying crapweasels. You would kind of stick out. And I am far from perfect, as I readily admit. The idea that you could whine about a partisan lens when you are apologizing for, or minimizing the fact that Sen Swimmer killed someone and Sen Byrd (KKK-Dem) was a leader in the KKKlan is breath taking.
JD (abc2eb) — 8/10/2010 @ 3:59 pmJD: You’re just throwing poop against the wall.
JD, how many times must I tell you to stop slamming Muran against the wall??!!
But I give him kudos for beating alcohol and recognizing he could never be a good husband and father until he die.
That’s a Freudian slip if I ever saw one.
Ha!
Still debating like a 2nd grader, but without the wit. Next up: Muran finds a letter out of order and triumphantly exclaims “neener neener!”
Dmac (d61c0d) — 8/10/2010 @ 4:07 pmApparently his wife also died in a plane crash many years ago. They left this earth in the same manner.
Rest in Peace Ted.
kimsch (2ce939) — 8/10/2010 @ 4:32 pmJD: Still avoiding my points 1 and 2, and hurling insults. OK. I’ll leave you to it.
Myron (6a93dd) — 8/10/2010 @ 8:21 pmIs this Point 1 you are referring to?
1. Dustin said the Post coverage did not mention the Klan involvement.
Seems to me that if Dustim can point to an article in the Post that did not mention it, he is every bit as correct as you pointing to one that does. But again, you want to focus in on this detail rather than the meta, a larger point that Dustin outlined above.
Those were not insults. They were true, based on my interactions with you.
JD (abc2eb) — 8/10/2010 @ 8:25 pmSo, Moron, I was not ignoring them, as you claim, as I addressed your drivel repeatedly above. That you chose to not read, or could not read, is not my responsiblity.
JD (abc2eb) — 8/10/2010 @ 8:26 pmHere’s one.
Here’s another.
I believe those are the two I had read. It was months ago. I know for sure that I read some fawning coverage of Byrd and stored that piece of data that they were sugarcoating this terrible man’s klan membership. I don’t care that they do this, I just noted that they wouldn’t do so for a Republican (no way in hell those two stories would look the same way if Byrd had been a Team R member).
I’m not a liar. I wouldn’t have made it up. The only reason I didn’t go hunting for proof is that I was speaking to the meta issue, and this isn’t about Byrd, but Stevens. If I had known the issue would fester I’d have gone ahead and proven what I said.
OK, so now I did.
Dustin (b54cdc) — 8/10/2010 @ 8:47 pmSo, Myron was wrong. SHOCKA
JD (abc2eb) — 8/10/2010 @ 8:49 pmWow. This comment section reminds me of a blog named after a small 520-570 nanometer frequency colored pigskins. Stay classy.
Jeff M (0204be) — 8/11/2010 @ 9:50 amI’m going to take a break from commenting. I don’t like the idea that I’m contributing to the hostility.
No drama intended by this. You guys are great.
Dustin (b54cdc) — 8/11/2010 @ 9:57 amIt’s a shame, Dustin, that feets and EPWJ and a few others are really ‘munging’ up the works, maybe you should take a break, it’s not as if we’re getting
ian cormac (ab2f02) — 8/11/2010 @ 10:06 amthrough to them