The world’s newspapers savage Bush

Folks at the inaugural may be buttoning up from the cold but unionized hotel workers in DC are “buttoning up” to support the Employee Free Choice Act. They want to make sure hotel guests in town for the inaugural know how important this bill is to working people.

I interviewed a UNITE HERE member working at a hotel taking part in the inauguration.

The problem with PEBO’s inaugural festivities for the usual suspects is, of course, that he’s having them at all. That battle being convincingly lost, our friends on the right are becoming increasingly desperate to find something the rest of us will object to.

A truly jaw-dropping Bush apologia from the SF Chronicle’s Michelle Malkin, which begins with this objectively false claim:

From the day President Bush took office, the long knives were out for him – in ways they will not (and should not) be out for President-elect Barack Obama. The chattering class saw Dubya as a walking style crime in a cowboy suit.

Bishop Robinson’s exclusion from the HBO broadcast of the opening ceremony upset and deeply offended many in the progressive, LGBTQ+A and religious communities. According to email correspondence with afterelton.com, HBO says it was the Presidential Inaugural Committee’s decision to keep Robinson off the air:

Statement of President-elect Barack Obama on Martin Luther King DayToday, we celebrate the life of a preacher who, more than forty-five years ago, stood on our national mall in the shadow of Lincoln and shared his dream for our nation. His was a vision that all Americans might share the freedom to make of our lives what we will; that our children might climb higher than we would.

In an earlier post I discussed the startling direct admission that the United States tortures terror detainees made public in yesterday’s blockbuster Bob Woodward piece in the Washington Post. As the Bush Administration’s hand picked convening authority for the military tribunals otherwise known as the “Gitmo Show Trials”, Susan Crawford’s admission carries the binding mark of credibility. It also puts the lie to the notion adopted by Obama and many others that reliance on the Army Field Manual is a panacea for reforming the torture regime the United States has enshrined.

Here at Kamp Kobe, it is a hotbed of glamor and bipartisan camaraderie, as you can see in the photo above.  In fact, we never knew we had so many friends.  John Amato from Crooks and Liars got in last night, as did Lisa Derrick of La Figa.  Marcy Wheeler arrives today, and we all intend to party like rock stars at the blogger ball tonight.   (Fellow DC resident Spencer Ackerman will also be covering the inaugural festivities.)

I got off of the plane from LA to DC, rushed to my friend’s house, ordered Chinese take out, tuned ot HBO–and WTF?! They edited out Bishop Robinson! No Bishop Robinson?! Why? We can speculate, they can prevaricate, but they did this, and it sucks, and if this is act symbolizes the opening of Obama’s administration, as handled by corporate media, ladies and gentlemen, we are fucked.

Speak of the angel and she appears! TPM commenter Sara — who is also an FDL reader and commenter — has stepped forward once again and offers some more analysis that is worlds better than anything I’ve seen in the mainstream press. I really should turn this sucker over to her, but I don’t know if she’s willing to do regular updates.