Fuck you, Uncle Walter.

From NRO, via Ace of Spades, this amazing claim by Walter Cronkite on Larry King last night regarding the latest OBL video:

CRONKITE: What we just heard. So now the question is basically right now, how will this affect the election? And I have a feeling that it could tilt the election a bit. In fact, I'm a little inclined to think that Karl Rove, the political manager at the White House, who is a very clever man, he probably set up bin Laden to this thing. The advantage to the Republican side is to get rid of, as a principal subject of the campaigns right now, get rid of the whole problem of the al Qaqaa explosive dump. Right now, that, the last couple of days, has, I think, upset the Republican campaign.

If I may quote PJ O'Rourke, What the fuck? What the fuckin' fuck? Can Walter Cronkite possibly be suggesting that Carl Rove, ergo the White House, is in a position to manipulate Bin Laden at will? That they are, in fact, working together?

Ace is right. This is the kind of shit that leads to political violence. Like lining up all the current and former CBS anchors we can get our hands on and bitchslapping them until they cry like Nancy Kerrigan.

Sox win.

I feel like I just watched the moon landing all over again. Only, you know, if the astronauts were spritzing each other with champagne they kept it off-camera.

Feeling the pessimism.

VDH lays it all out:

We are presented with two radically different candidates with profound disagreements about how to conduct a historic worldwide war. We should remember that all our victorious past presidents were, at the moments of their crises, deeply unpopular precisely because they chose the difficult, long-term sacrifice for victory over the expedient and convenient pleas for accommodation (if not outright capitulation). We are faced with just such an option today: a choice between a president whose call for patience and sacrifice promises victory, and a pessimist stirring the people with the assurances that we should not have fought, and now cannot win, the present war in Iraq.

And there's really nothing more to say. Personally I think the country may have already crossed the line where it can no longer recognize what sacrifice is, much less accede to its necessity.

Is there no shameful act to which CBS will not stoop?

Via Ace of Spades, Drudge: CBS was planning to run the "missing explosives" story on election eve.

Now, admittedly, the use of past tense would seem to indicate the plan has been scuttled (though Ace seems to think the plans proceed apace; one would hope even CBS wouldn't push a story that's already been debunked by another network.) But according to the LA Times, the tip was handed to them last Wednesday. And they were planning to sit on it until the 31st. As revealing as that is about their political agenda, and their shamelessness in pursuing same, it also makes them look clownishly incompetent for not knowing the piece was being shopped elsewhere. I mean, come the hell on.

So anyway, Jon Stewart.

Kind of an asshole, apparently. I'm with James Bowman on this; Stewart wants to be able to spew bitter, vicious invective without being called on his opinions. I don't mind that he thinks Crossfire sucks (personally I just find it tedious, but then, I don't assume all programming is tailored to please me), or that he went on Crossfire just to tell its hosts that they suck--I mind him using "I'm just a comedian" as a shield from criticism. He wants his opinions taken seriously, but he doesn't want to be called on them, and I doubt he'd be terribly gracious to a guest who came on his show specifically to tell him he was "hurting America" by not being funny. Which he hasn't been since he realized he could use his position to stump for the dems.

My fortune cookie.

"A romantic mystery will soon add interest to your life."

Hey, great. "Maltese Falcon" must be on.