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Glenn Beck hosted one of his hourlong sessions before a studio audience talking about the role of heroes in American life. The consensus, both by Beck and his panelists, was that Americans no longer look up to their historic heroes the way they should. Instead, as Beck suggested, we have "Mao Tse Tung hanging in our White House."

Say again? Oh yeah -- the Obama administration is riddled with radical Marxist revolutionaries. Right. Tell that to progressives right now. Moron.

Anyway, Beck apparently draws the line when it comes to the possibility, heaven forfend, Obama might be regarded as a hero:

Beck: I'm a big visual guy. And if you look at the way Barack Obama was imaged -- he was, as a savior. He was, as a -- you look at it now, anybody notice -- you watch the newspaper, and you watch the photos of him coming out of the White House, almost always, they'll have a shot of him with the seal of the President -- you notice that? And it almost looks like a halo. They'll take a shot from the side, and he's standing there, and it looks like a Russian icon!

He's talking about the photos of the president that have been shot for some time now whenever there's a press appearance at the White House. And it didn't start with Obama:

Indeed, if we're suddenly all worried about presidents being made out to be heroes, you have to wonder where Beck was when W. strutted out to his "Mission Accomplished" photo-op:

Now that's what I call an action hero.

Fortunately, Obama has spared us any codpiece appearances.

Charging for photos? English Only? When does this book tour parade of classy end?

Open Thread below....

Whiskey Fire: The WaPo is running a contest to find America's next great pundit! Like Charles Krauthammer? More here and here (h/t Batocchio)

The New Republic: The never-ending lunacy of Betsy McCaughey

Oliver Willis: Wild West gun policy doesn't work

They gave us a republic: Nightowl Newswrap

The Rude Pundit: Photos and quotes that only confirm that atheism equals sanity

alicublog: Film threat

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September 12, 2009 CNN

LEMON: The nation paused to remember 9/11 eight years after the tragedy. No question that day changed many of us, including photographer Michael Belk. His images, well, they have appeared in publications including "Vogue", "Elle", "Vanity Fair" and "GQ."

But after the Twin Towers came down, he began to see things just a little bit differently. Belk is releasing "Journeys with the Messiah." It is a compelling and controversial collection of photographs depicting 1st century Jesus in 20th and 21th century dilemmas and scenarios.

Michael joins us now.

Thank you.

How did 9/11 impact you and how it did make you want to refocus your talent from fashion photography to doing something like this?

MICHAEL BELK, PHOTOGRAPHER, "JOURNEYS WITH THE MESSIAH": You know, the connection between 9/11 and 2001 and 9/11 now is that, you know, our country was attacked by terrorists. They physically attacked buildings. But, you know, in 2008, we became -- we got in this financial attack, you know, it kind of calls by ourselves.

But back at 2001, you know, I just -- I watched people in New York searching for something different, something outside of ourselves and now in this economic crisis, I see the same thing all over again.

LEMON: You know, when you see someone who, you know, appears to be Jesus in the photographs, and you see them in, you know, with the cars and hanging with modern-day people, are you worried at all about any sort of criticism because you can't depict Jesus this way?

BELK: I'm not worried about it. I don't believe for a second that I'm being sacrilegious. We thought about that a lot, and actually we prayed over that and said let's not do anything sacrilegious.

But what we're trying to do is show that Jesus' messages from 2,000 years ago are very relevant today. And we wanted to put him in scenarios that most people could relate to.

Continue reading »

I've been in California this week, but my friend Goldy back in Seattle managed to make it out to last week's massive rally in support of health-care reform.

There were several thousand people there, with only a tiny smattering of teabaggers opposed to reform. Goldy has photos and reportage on just how large the support for a public option was.

And yet, guess what? The media completely ignored the rally. Even the local paper -- the ostensibly neutral but in fact Republican-run Seattle Times -- ran not one single word about it.

Of course, forget about the national media bothering to report this, too.

They've been too busy telling us that the public option is dead because of the supposedly massive opposition to it created by teabaggers.

As Goldy says:

None of this happened yesterday in downtown Seattle because no ex-marine angrily yelled down a congressman and nobody got the tip of their finger bitten off and nothing apparently is going to get the media to move from the well-entrenched meme that support for reform is steadily slipping as the public turns against Obama and the Democratic Congress… not even a show of force by the public itself.

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July 23, 2009 News Corp:

Adm. Mike Mullen, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, expressed outrage to his combatant commanders after seeing some of the detainee abuse photos now under wraps by the Obama administration, according to a highly sensitive memo obtained Wednesday by FOX News.

In the July 10 memo to service chiefs and battlefield commanders, Mullen says he is "appalled by even the suggestion that someone in an American uniform would behave in such a way."

The photos depict clear instances of abuse -- though not torture -- that included beatings and in some cases deaths during battlefield detentions in Iraq from 2001-2006.

He is the first top military commander to admit that what were in those photos included what would be described as "abuse."

The photos Mullen viewed are among thousands now at the heart of an ACLU lawsuit against the administration. President Obama ordered the photos not be released after commanders, including Gen. Ray Odierno, argued that their release could jeopardize the lives of American soldiers serving in Iraq and elsewhere.

And last month, the Senate quietly passed a ban on the release of any detainee abuse photos, preventing Obama from signing an executive order classifying the photos, a move that would have surely inflamed the left after his campaign promises for more "sunlight" in Washington.

Shortly after Obama's May 13 decision not to release the photos, Mullen was shown the first batch of these classified pictures. A few weeks later he was shown another batch. This was a couple weeks prior to a meeting of combatant commanders at the Pentagon.

Aides say Mullen "stewed on it for a little while" and eventually decided to put something in writing to the commanders.

According to a description of the photos, Mullen saw badly beaten detainees and in some cases detainees who had been killed.

What he saw in the photos included signs of "heavy handed physical abuse, beating."

"Some were horrific. He was disgusted by what he saw," a Mullen spokesman said.

Unlike the now infamous photos from Abu Ghraib prison, all these photos were taken during battlefield interrogations before imprisonment. In the memo, Mullen demands his forces be trained so they understand this kind of thing should never happen again.

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Heather: Matthews brings in torture apologist David Rivkin to debate the ACLU's Jameel Jaffer on whether the U.S. should release the photos depicting torture of prisoners in Iraq and Afghanistan.

Of course the CIA is arguing against the release of the documents. Their disclosure would mean that someone at the CIA (or those that gave the orders to torture) is either going to be held criminally liable or at the very least get sued in civil court. The only danger here that Rivkin is crying about is that someone will be held accountable for their actions.

I just want to know when Rivkin is going to let Jesse Ventura waterboard him? Hannity wouldn't do it. I have no doubt Rivkin wouldn't either but he sure loves telling everyone how harmless waterboarding is at every opportunity.

The media rolls this guy out every time they need someone to defend the indefensible. Listening to him and the Cheney's defending torture is becoming something akin to fingers down a chalk board of late.

Bubble photograph by Mila Zinkova, from a terrific collection of photos at Life in the Fast Lane.

Open thread below...

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Jesse Ventura's been making the rounds lately by taking on all comers on the issue of torture, which has left little quivering wingnuts like Joe Scarborough having to resort to attacking him out of his immediate presence.

Because as Brian Kilmeade of Fox and Friends found out this morning, doing so in person can be extremely unpleasant. Especially if you try pulling the lamestain right-wing crap we've gotten accustomed to, namely, accusing their interlocutors of not wanting to keep us safe, you're not patriotic enough, blah blah blah.

That's what Kilmeade tries pulling right off the bat, and it makes for possibly the best of the Ventura smackdowns yet:

Ventura: I have been waterboarded. It is torture. I can speak from experience. It was part of SERE training that I went through as a Navy SEAL.

Kilmeade: And are you OK now?

Ventura: I'm fine.

Kilmeade: So is Khalid Sheik Mohammed. He's about 60 pounds overweight, having a great time --

Ventura: It doesn't matter. If it was OK, then why don't we do it to criminals? Like, if we've got gang members in L.A., OK? We know that their gangs are gonna do bad things. When we arrest them, why don't we waterboard them so we can get information out of them? Because it's against the law.

Kilmeade: Do you want us not to be safe from attack?

Ventura: Don't come after me with that nonsense.

[Debate over its efficacy -- "ticking time bomb"]

Ventura: OK, why didn't we waterboard McVeigh and Nichols, then? There were more people that they thought involved at Oklahoma City. Why weren't they waterboarded to get more information? Because it's against the law.

Wait -- and if we're not going to be a country that goes by the rule of law when it's convenient or not convenient, then what do we stand for?

...

But what about the difference -- you bring up Timothy McVeigh and maybe gang members, and maybe those threats weren't as imminent as the threats --

Ventura: I don't think these threats are imminent.

You didn't think after 9/11, that America felt threats were imminent, that more could be coming?

Ventura: Maybe. But I think our behavior has caused us to be in more trouble. Now they won't release these photos. Why? Because they know the Muslim world will go irate. They're all after Nancy Pelosi -- when did she know? When dah dah dah -- Well, if we hadn't of tortured, it would be a dead issue, wouldn't it?

Let's go to the real issue: It's called torture.

Indeed: As we pointed out the other day, the fact that we find it necessary not to release these photos is proof that not only did torture not keep us safe, it made us manifestly less safe.

At this point, however, Kilmeade goes all-out Smug Right-Wing Punk on Ventura and finds himself confronting the reality that he's all for having someone else do his dirty work but Kilmeade himself -- of prime fighting age -- is too big of a spoiled, snotty rich kid to ever have to put himself on the line in a serious way. The resulting piledriver through the canvas is a sight to behold.

After all, it's easy to root for torture when you're not going to be one of the soldiers in the field who has to deal with the consequences. Right, Brian Kilmeade?

archy: Is torturing Hannity really a good idea? 

Threat Level: FBI arrests Oklahoma Teabagger for Twitter threats

The Anonymous Liberal: No Democrat

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