Video- New 60 Minutes, Vanity Fair Poll: "Pulse of America"

Video- Vanity Fair's Todd Purdum Discusses His Palin Article

The article that Gotta posted about here. Video via FDL.

Bush’s FBI Director Said Torture Didn’t Foil Any Terror Plots

I am now refusing to think anymore today about torture because I am truly finding the whole twisted travesty sickening and demoralizing. Thank you Greg-

Robert Mueller, who was appointed by Bush in 2001 and remains FBI director under Obama, delivered that assessment at the end of this December 2008 article in Vanity Fair on torture:

I ask Mueller: So far as he is aware, have any attacks on America been disrupted thanks to intelligence obtained through what the administration still calls “enhanced techniques”?

“I’m really reluctant to answer that,” Mueller says. He pauses, looks at an aide, and then says quietly, declining to elaborate: “I don’t believe that has been the case.”

That stands in direct contrast to Dick Cheney’s recent claim that torture has been “enormously valuable” in terms of “preventing another mass-casualty attack against the United States.”

And in direct contrast to what is being said by 3/4's of the talking heads. Oh, this guy agrees with Mueller.

McCain wants Obama press coverage? He got it.

By GottaLaff

Be careful what you wish for:

John McCain’s campaign complained Tuesday morning that the press wasn’t treating the presumptive Republican nominee like they had covered Democrat Barack Obama. Tuesday afternoon, they got an unexpected jolt of equal treatment: their own parody magazine cover, modeled on the controversial illustration that graced last week’s New Yorker.

That should make them very happy. Now they're media twinsies!

In the picture, which debuted on Vanity Fair’s Web site Tuesday afternoon, John McCain and wife Cindy are shown in the Oval Office giving each other daps, the fist-jab greeting that Barack and Michelle Obama traded on the cover of the New Yorker.

Other elements have been tweaked so the illustration – like the New Yorker cover – reflect stories and stereotypes the candidate and his wife would most like to leave behind. Cindy McCain isn’t clutching a machine gun – she’s cradling vials of pills. There’s no Muslim garb in sight, but the Arizona senator is leaning on a walker. The American flag isn’t burning in the fireplace; instead, the Constitution smolders.

In place of the portrait of Osama bin Laden in the original art, the liberal magazine has opted for a likeness of President Bush. [...]

But don’t go looking for the cover on a newsstand near you: it will remain a virtual production, posted on the Web site alone.

Yes, this is mildly (if that) amusing, but here's the difference: Context. Everyone knows this is satire. In fact, it's a parody of a "satire" that was set up by the New Yorker commotion (which had no set-up of its own).

Plus, it won't be seen at your local newsstand or supermarket by casual passers-by. It will take effort to track the Vanity Fair cover down.

Finally, there is no built-in fear factor (read: Muslim). Who could be afraid of a pathetic, out-of-touch couple like this one? Let me retract that, because, if by some fluke J Sid is elected, we'll have plenty to fear.