Last night, my right wing Dad called me.  We were talking about the new job I accepted.  Then he brought up DK.....

In the past week three people passed away.  

One was a baseball player, a Gold Glove winner and five time all star who played baseball for 17 seasons mostly with the New York Yankees whom he later did broadcasting for.  He never quite lived up to his billing as the next Mickey Mantle but was a good hard nosed player and an affable and able broadcaster for the NY Yankees first on WPIX then on the YES network.

The second person was a speechwriter for George HW Bush, did conservative talk radio prior to joining the Fox Network.  He then went on to become the White House Press Secretary after Scotty McClellan had it with lying for the Bush Administration.  He was as well liked by the political right as he was despised by the political left.  

The third was a little old woman who was a cripple from her early childhood and lived most of her life in a small village in the mountains of Portugal.  She was as known for being a hard worker as for her acerbic tongue.  She lived a life that was at bordering on abject poverty and harsh.  She lived poor and yet in many ways her life was richer than most of ours.

What do these three completely different and disparate people all have in common?  The answer is below the fold...      

On this anniversary of the storming of the Bastille in France to begin the French Revolution, please don't be sending me to the chopping block for not bringing Keith back with me tonight! Please??!! ;) I'm here; I'm back on my bed with my laptop and my kitties helping me!

I've got round 1 of trip pictures to share! These pictures are from Madison, Indiana, a town in southeast Indiana on the Ohio River (the body of water you'll see); Kentucky is on the other side of the river. I need to explain the significance of the pigs you'll see. Every year, a big BBQ festival is held in Madison. Businesses in town can decorate cement pigs as part of a fun contest in conjunction with the festival. So, the pigs you'll see were in front of a store where you could buy hospital scrubs, a chocolate shop, and I can't remember where the law enforcement pig was:

http://www.dropshots.com/...

http://www.dropshots.com/...

Here's a teaser about tomorrow's pictures. I was literally & figuratively in bat country!

Now, on to tonight's Countdown diary.

Judging from the last couple days on the site, and the endless stream of diaries about how to properly imagine  other people's opinions of cartoons, or how to properly eulogize a political opponent, I think it's more proper, actually, to recognize this editorial opinion from Elizabeth Edwards on the death of Tony Snow.  Edwards and Snow are linked by virtue of being diagnosed with recurrences of their cancer within days of one another in 2007, and the news of his death clearly came to her as chilling and sad.  In the article, Edwards reveals some universal, human truths, which often get lost in the clatter of political warfare, not limited to this site.  I want to excerpt a bit:

William Kristol the doyen of the neo cornholers waxed rhapsodic today in his remembrance in The New York Times of Tony Snow the former White House press secretary who died on July 12, 2008 from colon cancer. As I am not one to wish death on anyone with the possible exception of assorted despots around the world and GWB for his ongoing mission to eviscerate civil liberties in this country I was struck by the school boy tone of Kristol's valentine to his fallen colleague.

( cross-posted at my personal blog 43-Ideas-Per-Minute )

The question comes to me more often than not - why is honesty punished while 'pretending' to be so is rewarded?

Pretty simple question that can be used in varous situations.

This time, we see the question manifest itself at the time of Tony Snow's death.  

It is not suprising in the least that many conservative blogs have - and will continue to use - the occassion of his death to besmirch, smear, and do everything but deficate on anyone and everyone with opposing political viewpoints who don't stop what they are doing and say something positive about the man.

You see, this is where conservatives and everyone else differs.

Yesterday, I posted a diary asking whether we should mourn Tony Snow.  The post received a fair amount of response -- about half agreed that perhaps we should not blindly revere a man who quit a good job to help a bad administration do bad things, and half who agreed with the sentiment but figured Tony Snow was either too warm for criticism, or too insignificant to merit attention.  My response to this latter argument was that we would soon see an attempt at apotheosizing Snow -- one we shouldn't permit because the last thing the right needs is good martyrs to bond around.  Some doubted that would happen.

Alas, it began before I was able to diary again.

No, I don't mourn the passing of Tony Snow's politics, nor can I muster much sympathy for him in the context of his professional life.

I never met the man, and probably wouldn't have had much to say to him if I had.

But he touched the life of a dear friend of mine in a very deep way, and that - that I am mourning tonight.

I do not yet know how I will meet my demise.  I have my theories, and I have my hopes.  My theories involve diabetes, stoke or an accident caused by a combination involving highway driving, a seizure, and cruise control.  My hopes involve sky-diving or an incredible jam session, either one at 90 years of age.  

But that's not important right now.  What's important right now is that if you have anything to say about me once I am dead and gone, make it be something that is true.  It can be good or bad (or, knowing me, both).  It can be funny, sad or (again) both.  

Reading some of the comments in the recommended Tony Snow diary this morning reminded me of something that I'm sure isn't going to be popular around here:

With few exceptions, the other side -- the Republicans -- even the ones in the Bush administration -- even Bush himself -- aren't evil people. I know it's tempting to draw comparisons to fiction -- Cheney is Voldemort! Karl Rove is Roland Flagg! -- and I know the temptation to compare these folks to Hitler and his crew is also strong, Godwin's Law be damned -- but really, I think it's off-base.

Don't get me wrong -- I think there are some of them who actually do rise to the level of evil, and more on that in a moment -- but for the most part, I don't think Republicans -- whether rank-and-file or party leadership -- are evil because they're opposed to (big D) Democratic ideals; they're just misguided and mistaken people, who just like us, are trying to do their best.

This is embarrassing.

A former White House spokesman has died –- a man who once spoke officially for all Americans -- and now our country is mourning.  However, some anonymous bloggers  think that they have a responsibility to point out that Tony Snow was not a perfect human being.  

Some are even criticizing those of us who have expressed our condolences to Snow’s family and to the Bush administration.  Apparently, we are all supposed to immediately be engaged in analyzing the ways Snow failed as a journalist and public servant, and forgo the grieving.

These sad few do not reflect well on our online community.

Please, Kos, do something now to correct this!

With the news of Tony Snow’s ultimate departure, we’re faced with yet another round of grappling over how to respond to the death of someone whose temporal behavior enabled dark forces to exercise their plunder and rapine. We are exhorted to hold our tongues out of respect and compassion. And, if we can’t muster that, then out of self-interest, for, inevitably, some day someone we love will be laid to rest. Some day we will be.

Most people who argue, with Chilon of Sparta, that we should speak no ill of the dead put a time limit on their prescription. It’s not that we shouldn’t ever speak ill of the dead, in their view, merely that we should allow the decedent’s family time to get the corpse in the ground before lighting the flamethrowers. It’s understandable in that "we’re all sinners, let God judge" kind of way. Who gets hurt if we roast some war criminal or child molester or lying government shill after the Reaper swings his scythe? Certainly not the target of our wrath. Just kin and friends. What purpose is served by intensifying their grief at its peak? Where is our human kindness?

The trouble with this polite posthumousness isn’t that it gives space to the begrieved, a worthy and understandable behavior. Nor is it that speaking the truth is held in abeyance for a few hours or days. It’s that people who should know better get carried away with themselves. It should be remembered that we’re not talking here about the passing of somebody’s great-aunt Dolores who may have ripped off the collection plate as it passed by or had an affair unbeknownst to great-uncle Phil. We’re speaking of public figures, women and men who so often become saints at graveside services, no matter how despicable their life’s work.

"Libel of the dead is not an offence known to our law," read the 1887 court decision that dismissed a defamation of the dead suit. It continued, "The dead have no rights and can suffer no wrongs." That hasn't remained an absolute in the last 121 years, but the line on too much or too soon is still pretty difficult to cross.

Every day that I awaken to the obituary of one who was our political enemy in life, I know that the knives are out at Daily Kos, and it was no different this morning when I saw that Tony Snow has lost his battle with cancer.

Maybe its just age that is catching up with me. In my twenties I reveled in being a Front Page style character whom scandal made glow all over and a grisly murder sent packing merrily off with the other ghouls and minions of the newsroom to the nearest bar.

Or maybe its that the speed of technology has changed the comic timing of sarcastic reportage and comment on the shuffling off of mortal coils. When "two bits" follows "shave and a haircut" too closely the meaning gets lost. Maybe that's why, when the death of a Helms or a Falwell produces an immediate chorus of Louis Armstrong's You Rascal, You here at the great orange satan, I'm sad not only for the family who lost someone whom they loved but we couldn't. I'm sad for us, too.

There was a diary on the rec list that did what some might consider unthinkable: it portrayed a late member of and apologist for the bush administration as a (gasp) human being. Not surprisingly, some of the comment threads in the diary devolved into flame wars.

Can we pause our flaming for just a moment to remember this one vital truth: We are all human. Remembering this won't put an end to the disputes -- I wouldn't want it to -- but it just might change the tone for the better.

While many here are mourning the death of Tony Snow, I cannot. I will not disparage him nor question the sincerity of those who express sadness at his passing; but I will not mourn him. You see, I do not run with better angels and when some of you say "You sound like a Freeper", you are right.  I am 7 1/2 years angrier then they are and when they throw out hate, I will throw it back at them with interest.

I will not mourn the passing of Tony Snow, Jesse Helms nor anyone I feel has reduced the greatness and potential greatness of the gift of this country.  This country is a gift given to us by a bunch of deeply flawed men and women who aspired to more for mankind. Despite their flaws, I would have mourned their passing. The ideas and people that Tony Snow gave cover for seek to diminish the humanity of mankind, so I will save my tears for those over the flip.

With all the news about Tony Snow, a man who should be getting a lot more attention died today, Dr. Michael DeBakey, seems to be being pushed aside by the mainstream media.  Dr. Michael DeBakey was a pioneer in the field of cardiovascular surgery. A wonderful man who helped everyone from the poor for free to the rich and powerful.  So while you all lament (and I guess rightfully so) about the former White House Press Secretary, please take time to think about a man who actually did save lives.

I'm a "nice" guy. Everybody's a "nice" guy.

Strategic "improvements" on Carpet Bombing over the years have a way of really leveling the field...

< sigh >

So Tony Snow has died. I have a family. Just like Tony Snow. Just like many Iraqi civilians do, or did.

Question #1.
Would Snow fit the Post-Nuremberg standard of War Criminal? Probably Not.

R.I.P., Tony Snow. Here's how he got his job at the Rev. Moon's Washington Times, from my book.

On April 14, 1987, opinion editor Bill Cheshire walked into the office of [editor and acid-tongued Washington man of mystery] Arnaud de Borchgrave, with a secretary and three editorialists, each carrying letters that read, "I hereby resign . . . because of the breach of certain agreements of which you are well-aware."

Managing editor Josette Sheeran, a high-ranking member of the Moon sect and the paper’s liaison to the True Father and publisher, turned pale. When the first editor and CEO, Jim Whelan, had quit in 1984, it was easy to explain as a personality clash. But five people leaving? "They thought we would be dutiful little conservatives and do what we were told," says editorialist John Seiler, the last to hand in his badge. "Good riddance," he remembers de Borchgrave shouting after him.