A Grand Illusion

This could be fun. Ye Olde Rolling Stones recorded most of their new album A Bigger Bang, released on September 6, as a threesome.Jagger even played drums:

“I was playing drums and all that sort of stuff I usually never do and that was fun,” he says. “Happily for the fans, my drums never made it on the record apart from one or two little hits that were saved. Keith and I were just having a laugh with a lot of it.”

Me on this week’s singles. Winners: Mariah Carey (who really should lose her marbles more often) and Black Eyed Peas.

Arianna Huffington, over at the aptly-titled Huffington Post blog, conjures a pretty interesting theory. What if jailed NYT reporter Judy Miller actually was the source behind the entire Valerie Plame/Karlito Rove affair/leak/sock hop:

But a very different scenario is being floated in the halls. Here it is: It’s July 6, 2003, and Joe Wilson’s now famous op-ed piece appears in the Times, raising the idea that the Bush administration has “manipulate[d]” and “twisted” intelligence “to exaggerate the Iraqi threat.” Miller, who has been pushing this manipulated, twisted, and exaggerated intel in the Times for months, goes ballistic. Someone is using the pages of her own paper to call into question the justification for the war — and, indirectly, much of her reporting. The idea that intelligence was being fixed goes to the heart of Miller’s credibility. So she calls her friends in the intelligence community and asks, Who is this guy? She finds out he’s married to a CIA agent. She then passes on the info about Mrs. Wilson to Scooter Libby (Newsday has identified a meeting Miller had on July 8 in Washington with an “unnamed government official”). Maybe Miller tells Rove too — or Libby does. The White House hatchet men turn around and tell Novak and Cooper. The story gets out.

This is why Miller doesn’t want to reveal her “source” at the White House — because she was the source. Sure, she first got the info from someone else, and the odds are she wasn’t the only one who clued in Libby and/or Rove (the State Dept. memo likely played a role too)… but, in this scenario, Miller certainly wasn’t an innocent writer caught up in the whirl of history. She had a starring role in it. This also explains why Miller never wrote a story about Plame, because her goal wasn’t to write a story, but to get out the story that cast doubts on Wilson’s motives. Which Novak did.

The sad reality for Democrats chomping at the bit to send Rove to the guillotine, is that this theory — as of now — holds as much water as any “Rove did it!” tales.

Read the rest here.

Arianna Huffington, over at the aptly-titled Huffington Post blog, conjures a pretty interesting theory. What if jailed NYT reporter Judy Miller actually was the source behind the entire Valerie Plame/Karlito Rove affair/leak/sock hop:

But a very different scenario is being floated in the halls. Here it is: It’s July 6, 2003, and Joe Wilson’s now famous op-ed piece appears in the Times, raising the idea that the Bush administration has “manipulate[d]” and “twisted” intelligence “to exaggerate the Iraqi threat.” Miller, who has been pushing this manipulated, twisted, and exaggerated intel in the Times for months, goes ballistic. Someone is using the pages of her own paper to call into question the justification for the war — and, indirectly, much of her reporting. The idea that intelligence was being fixed goes to the heart of Miller’s credibility. So she calls her friends in the intelligence community and asks, Who is this guy? She finds out he’s married to a CIA agent. She then passes on the info about Mrs. Wilson to Scooter Libby (Newsday has identified a meeting Miller had on July 8 in Washington with an “unnamed government official”). Maybe Miller tells Rove too — or Libby does. The White House hatchet men turn around and tell Novak and Cooper. The story gets out.

This is why Miller doesn’t want to reveal her “source” at the White House — because she was the source. Sure, she first got the info from someone else, and the odds are she wasn’t the only one who clued in Libby and/or Rove (the State Dept. memo likely played a role too)… but, in this scenario, Miller certainly wasn’t an innocent writer caught up in the whirl of history. She had a starring role in it. This also explains why Miller never wrote a story about Plame, because her goal wasn’t to write a story, but to get out the story that cast doubts on Wilson’s motives. Which Novak did.

The sad reality for Democrats chomping at the bit to send Rove to the guillotine, is that this theory — as of now — holds as much water as any “Rove did it!” tales.

Read the rest here.

Josh Love’s take on the problem with indie generates more questions than answers, but given that Miami’s at the epicenter of the fault lines of indie, dance, and pop, his ambivalences seem revelant.

It’s official: Paul McCartney has lost his mind. Apparently George Harrison so valued the encouragement Macca gave him as a budding songwriter at the height of Beatlemania that he has gallantly consented to help The Beatles bassist from beyond the grave. A song on Paulie’s upcoming album was finished thanks to George’s intervention:

Sir Paul said he was remained unsure about the meaning of the song’s lyrics.

“I thought, OK, the ‘waiting on the other side’ is also a little bit loaded, it can be crossing the river Jordan or whatever, that sort of thing. There’s a little bit of double meaning there,” he said.

“It was funny, particularly the second verse: ‘I’ve been sliding down a slippy slope, I’ve been climbing up a slowly burning rope.’ I just thought – it’s a George song.”

Maybe this is a subtle dig at George, as in: “For all your griping, you were often as banal and uninspired as I seem to be with greater frequency these days. Care to help, mate?” Someone cut his fucking rope, burning or otherwise.

No need to despair, cautions The Village Voice. For those liberals (and, by extension, their counterparts in the right wing) protesting the nomination of John Roberts to the Supreme Court, Chisun Lee has a better idea:

Why not take that energy and begin to mobilize a long-term, popular movement? Build toward 2008. Try to assemble, despite gerrymandering, a more accountable Congress next year. Not just with slogans, but with real change—easier and sounder voting processes, minority-supportive districting, inclusive leadership rather than cults of personality. That could bring more power to people most vulnerable to shifts in criminal, property, and civil rights laws—people who are currently shut out of the process

The great social movements of the last century — woman’s suffrage, civil rights, legal abortions — counted on popular support to sway the court. May it be so again.

Nice Kelefa piece on Kanye West in the studio. He’s right about the new Common: it’s solid and overrated; but I’m surprised he let Kanye get away with this without comment:

“I’ve always been rhyming – that’s why I’ve always been a good producer,” he explained afterward. “I just wasn’t the greatest rapper. Now that I rap better, I make simpler tracks.”

NYT provides a solid recap and overall to the Karl Rove-Valerie Plame saga, and also points out a very interesting factoid that directly brings our president into question:

Then there is the broader issue of whether Mr. Bush was aware of any effort by his aides to use the C.I.A. officer’s identity to undermine the standing of her husband, a former diplomat who had publicly accused the administration of twisting its prewar intelligence about Iraq’s nuclear program.

Shoud Bush testify to the grand jury? Maybe.

This story from The New Yorker, sent to me by Phoebe is too fucking funny for words. I’ll give you the title and let you read it for yourself: MY DOG IS TOM CRUISE. Please. Click on the link. And then, look at this:

Cross-posted from my blog.

Cross-posted from my blog and originally seen on DailyKos.

Do people really think this is a good idea?:

A Colorado congressman told a radio show host that the U.S. could “take out” Islamic holy sites if Muslim fundamentalist terrorists attacked the country with nuclear weapons.

Spokesman Will Adams said Sunday the four-term congressman doesn’t support threatening holy Islamic sites but that Tancredo was grappling with the hypothetical situation of a terrorist strike deadlier than the September 11, 2001, attacks.

I’m ashamed this person represents any percentage of my country.

Sam sent me this really cool Dinosaur Jr. interview from The Onion. It helps explain how a band of people that expressed their hatred for one another multiple times after the breakup can actually get back together and play a summer tour. I’m not totally convinced, but at least J Mascis is able to admit it’s just for the money.

There’s no such thing as sort of undercover, or not-really-that-undercover, y’know. And these agents make sure Congress knows it.

Me reviewing this week’s singles. Big thumbs-up to Rob Thomas’ latest and especially the new Mario. Guess I’m a sucker for bathetic punch-drunk R&B with crunchy guitar.

Me reviewing this week’s singles. Big thumbs-up to Rob Thomas’ latest and especially the new Mario. Guess I’m a sucker for bathetic punch-drunk R&B with crunchy guitar.