Open Left - Stephen Colbert

Colbert Nails Democrat on Special Interest Cash

AdamGreen — Wed, 15 Apr 2009 17:44:06 GMT

Did you see the Colbert Report last night?

Stephen Colbert nailed the connection between special-interest campaign contributions and results in Congress (in a way only he could).

In the process, he also nailed Rep. Luis Gutierrez (D-IL), who Colbert accuses of selling out to the Payday Loan industry for a mere $10,000. Gutierrez dramatically watered down his "Payday Loan Reform Act" in a way that will make the Payday industry billions -- at the expense of the little guy.

It was a smart investment for the Payday industry. But it's horrible for our democracy.

Colbert's segment basically made the case for why Congress needs to pass the bipartisan Fair Elections Now Act, which would put in place public funding of congressional elections (while still allowing Obama-style small donations, matching them four to one).

Check out the Colbert video for yourself on the Change Congress website by clicking here. On that page, you can also take action to get Congress to pass this crucial reform bill.

(If you want to help spread the reform message to others, share this post over email, Facebook, or Twitter. #gutierrez #politics #money. Disclosure: I work for Big Reform group Change Congress.)

Bitting Alligator Allegations In The Tale

Paul Rosenberg — Sun, 12 Apr 2009 13:30:00 GMT

Is this just more "Making Irrelevant Conservatives More Relevant"?

Or is a good laugh its own self-justification? And is this symptomatic of something deeper?

Isn't possible that--much like the grieving process--what we're seeing here is the acting out of deep psychological need? On both sides, actually. The more they lose power, the more desperate is the conservative need to re-assert that lost power in the form of ever more wild-eyed claims. And the more they insist on reminding us of the deeply insane mindset that has controlled our politics, the more we need to ritually purge ourselves of the hold they have had on us. Maybe it's simply a fact of human nature that most folks need to go through this process for a good long time before they can really refocus on the everyday joys of rational governance again.

Isn't possible that wonks are just wired differently, with a much greater capacity to quickly move on from decades of trauma over tragically inept conservative governance? In which case, we ought to be thinking more about ways to connect the two projects--that of advancing new progressive policies and that of exorcising the demons of conservative dominance.

I believe this is very much a part of Obama's political success so far. He has branded himself as the anti-Bush. Even the fact that he doesn't do this overtly, that he went out of his way to be nice to Bush, is part of that branding. Of course the refusal to "go after" Bush Administration officials for running the country like the Corleones would have is just more of the same.

This is, of course, only one possible anti-Bush. There are more certainly other, more progressive versions. Ones who, say, re-institute the rule of law. Ones who don't extend his horrendous "state secrets" claims. Ones who clean house, rather than reappointing Bushies and the Dems who love them to run all the most crucial parts of the government. Ones who actually get that global warming really could wreck human civilization as we know it, and that now's one of those odd times when being prudent means being "extreme."

And maybe integrating a healthy dose of continued conservative bashing into the mix is just a natural way to make a different anti-Bush posture more well-rounded and psychologically appealing.

Demographic Divergence Between Colbert, Stewart

Daniel De Groot — Sat, 14 Mar 2009 23:21:05 GMT

From a PEW survey on American media, mostly about Limbaugh, I noticed this large difference in the ideological preferences of Stewart and Colbert's audiences:

	Conservative	Moderate	Liberal
Daily Show	22	24	45
Colbert Report	14	45	36

I find this surprising, I wouldn't have expected this big a difference between their audiences. Also, I would have picked Colbert as being more liberal than Stewart. Thoughts? Mine are inside...
It's interesting that both liberals and conservatives drop off from Stewart to Colbert. I sometimes wonder how well conservatives get what Colbert is doing, and I think this is some evidence they do, and really don't like it. The whole Colbert persona is an ongoing satire on common right wing personality traits, assumptions and worldview.

This is why I think Colbert is more liberal. His whole show is actually a non-stop assault on conservative values. Additionally, Stewart has distaste for the extremes and the partisans, engages in equivalence fallacies and rhetorically plays up the center as if he is just mocking absurdity with no specific ideological mission. It's as if it just so happens that there's more absurdity to mock on the right, but of course this is no coincidence. I think Colbert gets this pattern better than Stewart.

To that end, it may be a good thing that Colbert attracts more moderates. His message is not being heard just by the choir.

Not really sure why liberals drop off from Stewart to Colbert. Maybe we don't tend to like Colbert's shtick, even knowing it is a satire it can be a bit much, particularly when he won't let his guests speak without interrupting (my only beef with Colbert, lighten up on the act with the guests who can't keep up).

Colbert on Beck: "Insane ramblings of a syphilitic brain"

Daniel De Groot — Sat, 07 Mar 2009 02:00:00 GMT

The only downside of the CNBC comeuppance delivered by Jon Stewart on Wednesday night is that it overshadowed this brilliant takedown of Glenn Beck's "war room" delusions from last week. Instant classic, particularly Colbert's "craziest" scenario at the end:

The Colbert ReportMon - Thurs 11:30pm / 10:30c

Doom Bunker - Jack Jacobs and Stephen Moore

(Canadians go here for the clip) Some notes on Beck inside...
I'm glad Beck has risen to Colbert's radar because unfortunate as it is, his nonsense is sticking as his ratings on Fox are much higher than he ever managed with CNN Headline News.

I fondly remember the times Atrios used to mock Beck's ratings, but I always kept in mind the possibility that Beck's formerly crummy ratings were more a product of no one watching Headline News, rather than his show being terrible.

We still haven't hit peak wingnut, and one can hope Beck's ratings are just curious onlookers to his trains-full-of-puppies-colliding level disaster of a show, but it seems there is ever more audience for angry white men shouting foolishness on TV. No recession on the Crazy Exchange.

Poor Wuddle Bush & the Republicans! Steven Colbert Feels Their Pain

Paul Rosenberg — Sat, 15 Nov 2008 20:18:53 GMT

Rove:

"But I've learned it's so -- looking back now, a sobering lesson, that a president needs to be careful in his language, but he cannot allow the kind of brittle and brutal attacks that were made on this president at certain times to go unanswered, and we probably made a mistake at times."

Colbert:

"Yes! You need to answer those attacks! An eye for an eye! A tooth for a tooth! An 'outing a CIA agent' for a 'critical editorial in the Times'! A 'right to wiretap you' for a 'having a phone'!"

The Word: Pity Party

Sarah Palin and Colbert's White House Correspondent's Dinner

Matt Stoller — Sun, 07 Sep 2008 20:06:37 GMT

I've had two big realizations this cycle, and both have to do with gender and the progressive movement. The first happened during the Obama/Clinton primary, when a good number of both male and (to a lesser extent) female Obama supporters referred to Clinton as a bitch and just generally exposed themselves as misogynistic assholes. I was surprised at the level of vitriole towards her, expressed in such charming statements as 'It's not that she's a woman, I just can't stand her voice.' Subsequently I saw this sentiment ding a lot of great progressive female candidates who were not Hillary Clinton. It should be obvious at this point that there is no substantial difference between Clinton and Obama on an ideological level. In Obama's recent interview with Bill O'Reilly (oh yeah, he did one of those), the very first question was 'Do you believe there's a war on terror', to which Obama pliantly and politely cried out 'Absolutely'.
So that was part one of a disillusioning experience towards the progressive space. But the reaction to Sarah Palin has been another education. I watched the speech with my girlfriend, who heard from all her friends that it was terrible. I actually read a lot of the commentary before I read the speech, so I expected a blood and guts partisan red meat angry tirade. And I saw one, only it was Giuliani up there relishing a quasi-fascist rally of organized hatred towards liberals.

When Palin came on, I saw an incredibly charming and hilarious performer, who expressed a secure sense of mockery towards Democratic leaders and a down home sense of self. She's obviously an alpha girl in the mean girl high school sense, but she's also extraordinarily bright and grounded in a conservative view of the world. She's tough and accomplished and that can't be denied. What her accomplishments are should be debated, since much of them involves high oil prices, corruption, and a white Christian dominionist view of the world (as Bruce Wilson makes clear). But that she is a powerful political figure who has appeal can't be denied.

And yet that's what I saw among many progressives who told me how awful Palin is and how she isn't taking care of her family or any such crap. I felt like I was among insiders during Stephen Colbert's white house correspondent's dinner, insiders that insisted he wasn't funny because they were the butt of his jokes and they couldn't see it.

She was great. And she's a strong politician we must take seriously, or else she's going to be our President. And frankly, it's about time we have a strong woman in high office. I would just hope it's not a female Nixon.

Opening the Day: Fox Is Racist Goes Mainstream

Matt Stoller — Thu, 24 Jul 2008 14:13:58 GMT

Last night, Stephen Colbert and Nas spent about half the show going over accusations that Fox News is racist and anti-Obama. It was a pivotal moment for the ongoing media accountability campaign that started in 2003 or so.

Stephen Colbert dedicated half his show to the Color of Change/Moveon petition delivered by Nas.
Wes Clark is really good at dealing with national security.
Jimmy Hoffa, the guy who runs the union for truckers, rejects drilling.
Comcast is of course screwing customers.
Harry Reid thinks Obama would revisit FISA if he were President.
Norm Coleman released this ad against Al Franken. Of course, most of the damning stuff - the taxes bit - is not true.
Obama was heckled by Orthodox Jews at the Western Wall.
Orthodox men interrupted their morning prayers to catch a glimpse of the Illinois senator, reaching out to shake his hand as he passed them by. But not all were taken by the Democrat. One yelled out: "Obama, Jerusalem is not for sale!" before Mr Obama was whisked away to his waiting plane.
Schwarzeneger is trying to cut state worker pay to the minimum wage in order to deal with a budget standoff. This is not really going to set him up well for a Senate run in 2010.
Oil is dropping as consumption drops.
The Pentagon buys as much oil as Greece.
The Obama campaign is full of Gephardt people.
Republicans have disavowed Heath Shuler's Republican opponent.

What are you reading?

The Versailles Media Got Nothing Wrong

Paul Rosenberg — Sat, 07 Jun 2008 18:25:54 GMT

(Another diary about Bill Moyers last night. There's a message here: watch his show! Failing that, the full transcript is here.)

The Republican Party is not the enemy this November. They are a pathetic wreck. Hegemony is the enemy, and the Republican Party's recent inability to enforce hegemony has been superbly compensated for by the corporate media.

As Wikipedia explains:

Cultural hegemony is a concept coined by Marxist philosopher Antonio Gramsci. It means that a diverse culture can be ruled or dominated by one group or class, that everyday practices and shared beliefs provide the foundation for complex systems of domination.

Or, as I like to put it, "Hegemony is ideology in common sense drag."

A key aspect of Gramsci's theory is that various different cultural institutions each fulfills their own function, often in ways that purportedly have nothing to do with one another-and yet they are actually functioning like various different units in an army-or nowadays an integrated fighting force, involving everything from infantry to satellites in space.

The media is an excellent example of this. In the 1990s, the media led the charge to depose Bill Clinton. As Gene Lyons meticulously documented in Fools for Scandal: How the Media Invented Whitewater, the New York Times and Washington Post persistently, repeatedly, and egregiously misreported virtually every major aspect of the so-called "Whitewater scandal." When that failed, and the Monica Lewinsky scandal emerged in its place, dozens of leading newspapers editorialized that Clinton should resign. Sixty percent of the American people disagreed, but they couldn't get a word in edgewise-which is where, when and how MoveOn.org was founded.

In contrast, George W. Bush has not merely subverted the most central aspects of our constitutional order with his dictatorial theories of unchecked executive power, he has shredded the Magna Charta as well as the Constitution, and yet the media persists in lying that only the "loonie left" thinks that there's anything amiss.

That's hegemony for you. And they do it, in large part, by following the supposedly "nuetral" rules of professional journalism. Although he makes no mention of Gramsci, Jeremy Iggers does a masterful job of showing that journalism ethics itself is the problem here in his 1998 classic, Good News, Bad News: Journalism Ethics And The Public Interest. So long as people think that the trouble with journalism is Jason Blair, not Judith Miller and her editors and publisher, then Houston, we have a problem. (Iggers, writing in the 1990s uses early Reagan-era examples, but the comparative misdeeds are eerily similar.)

With all that in mind, here's an excerpt of the discussion that Moyers had last night with John Walcott, Washington Bureau Chief of McClatchy News, one of his ace reporters, Jonathan Landay , and Greg Mitchell, editor of Editor and Publisher magazine, and author of So Wrong for So Long: How the Press, the Pundits--and the President--Failed on Iraq, The Campaign of the Century: Upton Sinclair's Race for Governor of California and the Birth of Media Politics, and Tricky Dick and the Pink Lady : Richard Nixon vs Helen Gahagan Douglas-Sexual Politics and the Red Scare, 1950. It begins on the flip...

BILL MOYERS:There's been all this media frenzy about Scott McClellan's book. Did McClellan, whom you know, did McClellan do a good thing in writing this book?
JOHN WALCOTT: I think on balance, yes. This is one of the first times, I think, that a member of the President's inner circle, one of the Texans who came to Washington with him was regarded as being very close to him, has gone this far in denouncing what the Administration did with respect to Iraq and has come right out and said that they deceived the American people. And that is news.
BILL MOYERS:But you've been - you started writing that five years ago-
GREG MITCHELL: Right.
BILL MOYERS:-six years ago.
GREG MITCHELL: Well, that's what I mean. It's not news-
BILL MOYERS:You were saying that the Press Corps, television and press in Washington, complicit.
GREG MITCHELL: Right. Well, that's - again, it's different coming from the chief White House spokesman than coming from me - you know, for better or worse. But you know, I - that's what I mean. I think what's troubling to me is the response to that. The media has not responded by saying, "Boy, we really got caught out here, and we really need to look at what we did wrong. And we're, you know, we need to report on what the mistakes we made and what we - you know, what we've really learned now."
JONATHAN LANDAY: What's disappoints me is that here was an opportunity, once again, but a very large opportunity for major news organizations to do the mea culpa they never did, to admit that they indeed failed to do what they're supposed to do, failed to be the watchdogs they're supposed to be.
And yet we saw exactly the opposite for the most part. And I was just I was left breathless by some of the things that I heard where you heard correspondents say, "Well, we did ask the tough questions. We asked them to the White House spokesmen," Scott McClellan and others. And you say to yourself, "And you expected to get real answers? You expected them to say from the White House podium - 'Yeah, well, there were disagreements over the intelligence, but we ignored them'" when the President made his speeches and the Vice President made his speeches. No, I don't think so.
GREG MITCHELL: Yeah, what Charles Gibson said. We wouldn't - I don't think we would ask any different questions. I mean, it's shocking...
JOHN WALCOTT: Well...
GREG MITCHELL: ...to me that someone would say we would even with the chance to relive this experience and so much we got wrong - going to war is - which is still going on over five years later, all the lost lives, all the financial costs of that. And then to look back at this, you know, this terrible episode in history of American journalism and say that if I could do it all over again, I'm not sure we would ask any different questions.

"The operation was a spectacular success. Unfortunately, the patient died."

The rigid refusal to the rethink anything in the light of such spectacular failure is a testiment to the incredible power of hegemony. It's not just thought, it's attitude bred deep in the bone. It's the very air they breath, the five-star restaurants they eat in, the parties they attend-except when that kill-joy Stephen Colbert shows up. It is, quite simply, not what they do. It is who they are.

They are Versailles. We are America.

The conversation contimued:

JOHN WALCOTT: Well, I'm not - I don't know what questions ABC or anybody else asked. They may have asked all the right questions. The trouble is they asked all the wrong people.
BILL MOYERS:Yeah, if asking the question you all proved that asking the question is not essential unless you ask it to the person who can really tell you what you need to know.
JONATHAN LANDAY: And you have to take the time to find those people. It's not in-
GREG MITCHELL: And you have to play it up a lot.
JONATHAN LANDAY: It's not-
GREG MITCHELL: You can't bury it.
JONATHAN LANDAY: You know, these people are on the - this, you know, this grind to get the thing out, you know? We gotta get it out right away. You know, we got live television going on. We've got, you know, 24-hour cable TV news. We gotta - when do you have the time to sit and cultivate sources to get them to talk to you about what essentially is top secret information?
JOHN WALCOTT: Yeah, but there are some terrific reporters in television - you know, at the Defense Department in particular. Jim Miklashevski at NBC, David Martin at CBS. What I think happened in part was another problem, which is they have sources. Believe me. I wish I had some of the same sources they have. But whatever information came from those unnamed anonymous sources is trumped by Donald Rumsfeld at the podium or Dick Cheney and Condoleezza Rice saying, "We can't allow the smoking gun to be a mushroom cloud."
BILL MOYERS:Over and over again.
JOHN WALCOTT: Over and over again on camera. And that trumps the kind of reporting that John and Warren Strobel did from these mid-level guys who actually know that there's no prospect of any smoking gun let alone a mushroom cloud. And so when it gets to packaging television news, it's picture driven, it's celebrity driven, and that doesn't allow much room for this kind of hard-nosed reporting under the radar.

Truth be damned. We have our conventions to follow. As Stephen Colbert so painstakingly explained:

The President makes decisions. He's the decider. The press secretary announces those decisions, and you people of the press type those decisions down. Make, announce, type. Just put 'em through a spell check and go home. Get to know your family again. Make love to your wife. Write that novel you got kicking around in your head. You know, the one about the intrepid Washington reporter with the courage to stand up to the administration? You know, fiction!

Back to Bill Moyers:

JONATHAN LANDAY: I also want to say one thing I think that it behooves the media to come out - major companies to say, "Yes, we got it wrong," because if you look at surveys today, the American public has lost an enormous amount of trust in the news media, in the people who are supposed to be watch, their watchdogs over government. And yet the number of people who trust the media is, like, 25, 26 percent.
So at a time when you have this problem, doesn't it behoove you to try and start fixing it?
GREG MITCHELL: There's been numerous opportunities actually just in the last few weeks for the media to do this self-assessment. And you remember the fifth anniversary of the start of the war. Almost no media self-assessment at that time. Pointing fingers at everybody but themselves. There was the 4,000 deaths in Iraq. There was the fifth anniversary of "mission accomplished." Another great opportunity for this. We had the scandal of the Pentagon media generals, as I call them.
We had that opportunity. Now we've had Scott McClellan. There's been at least six opportunities in the last two months for the media to do this long delayed and much needed self-assessment, self-criticism to the American public and it hasn't happened.

In the biz, they're called "news hooks." You have a larger story that needs telling, but to tell it properly, you've got to have people's attention, and at least their potential motivation to listen to a story that's got broader horizons to it. And Mitchell-who knows the biz as well as anyone-was absolutely right. The media has just had an unbelievable series of news hooks on which to hang a serious re-examination of itself-if, of course, they had even the slightest inclination to do so.

But since when did King Louis say, "Off with my head!"?

Let them eat mistakes. God knows that's one thing there's an endless supply of.

Colbert Off South Carolina Ballot

Chris Bowers — Thu, 01 Nov 2007 19:36:27 GMT

Oh well:

Stephen Colbert's satirical run for the presidency has run into its first roadblock - his bid to be on the ballot in the South Carolina Democratic presidential primary was rejected on Thursday.

The party's executive council voted 14 to 3 to refuse Colbert's application for a spot on the ballot.

"The general sense of the council was that he wasn't a serious candidate and that was why he wasn't selected to be on the ballot," said Joe Werner, the party's director. "There was discussion - I wouldn't call it a heated debate - but there was discussion about it."

There is no appeal process, Werner said, adding that the party will certify its ballot as final later Thursday with the South Carolina State Election Commission.

The Democrats had to decide whether they considered Colbert to be a bona fide Democrat who is nationally viable and has spent time campaigning in the state.

Must have been the bona fide Democratic part. Colbert actually polled reasonably well, defeating both Ron Paul and Dennis Kucnich in national matchups. He was also ahead of both Rudy Giuliani and Fred Thompson among voters under 30. And his Facebook group was over 1.3 million members, as of yesterday, making it the largest political Facebook group of all, I believe.

Even if Colbert is off the ballot, his brief campaign proved one thing: the age of irony is far from over in American culture.

End Game: The War Party's Last Gasp (w/Video)

background n015e — Tue, 24 Jul 2007 16:19:48 GMT

It's ironic Bush is recommending his staff read Bill Kristol's latest drivel, "Why Bush Will Be A Winner." Fortunately for Bush, he doesn't read. Otherwise he would know Kristol recently wrote this hate-filled screed:

For President Bush, loyalty is apparently a one-way street; decency is something he's for as long as he doesn't have to take any risks in its behalf; and courage--well, that's nowhere to be seen. Many of us used to respect President Bush.

Unfortunately for Bush, lots of adults do read. That is why old chickenhawks like Kristol lack credibility with the rest of us. It also explains why the purveyors of perpetual war are busy grooming a new crop of spokesmen in a futile effort to continue fooling the masses.

Like old wine in new bottles, these "fresh conservative voices" are being used to con people into swallowing the same War Party swill everyone rejected in 2006. It's an old trick that shows how desperate they are to push a poor product.

Here's the good news: We just found their Achilles Heel...
The Weakest Link: The purveyors of perpetual war are victims of their own success. They didn't plan for an extended media campaign, so they burned through their credibility like it was a no-bid contract with cost-plus provisions. Unfortunately for them, they can't turn to foreign workers to carry their water for them. That is why fresh new faces are so important if they are going to continue selling their wars.

This late in the game, the old guard can not take the field because they inevitably get hit with "You were wrong about everything you said before, why should we believe you now?" Frank Luntz can only work his semantic magic for so long before people realize they are putting lipstick on a pig. As a younger, and wiser, Donald Rumsfeld so eloquently noted, "Arguments of convenience lack integrity and inevitably trip you up." Well kids, itlooks like the inevitable has finally arrived. The Children's Crusade has begun and that means it's open season on Chickenhawks.

Their Inconvenient Truth: For years we have argued that supporting our troops meant giving them a clear mission, necessary supplies to achieve that mission, and a clear exit strategy. We were mocked as "cut and run" fanatics. When we brought up the casualties, we were mocked for dishonoring the "volunteer" army. So what if a few people got their hair mussed? They knew what they were signing up for. Of course, the apologists glossed over the fact that people were misled about what exactly they were volunteering for, but no matter.

After Katrina, people realized we were abandoning cities over here because they were busy trying to take them over there. Sensible people started to ask an inconvenient question of the apologists, "If you are so gung ho about the war in Iraq, why aren't you fighting in it?"

The Court Jester: Performing in an unusual venue for him, John Mellencamp tore up the script and threw out the rules during his recent appearance on the Colber Report. That was no accident. That was a conscious choice. He directly challenged Colbert's persona as a chickenhawk and a fraud, thereby demonstrating how devastating that rhetorical attack is against the new crop of perpetual war propagandists. By ripping away the proscenium, Mellencamp has done to chickenhawks in general what Jon Stewart did to Tucker Carlson up close and personal. He has exposed them as frauds. That is a real problem for the purveyors of perpetual war.

The Great Disappearing Act: The reaction -- actually the overreaction -- of the media controllers to this bit of unscripted improv speaks volumes.

I would show you the interview from July 18th on ComedyCentral's Mother Load, but it is mysteriously absent. This conspicuous absence has not gone unnoticed on the Colbert Nation discussion boards where even the very thread discussing the event was wiped clean. Don't waste your time trying to find it on YouTube, Viacom's lawyers wiped all but 8 seconds of the segment from that archive.

Seeing Is Believing: Unfortunately for the Orwellian denizens of the corporate media, the Tubes can never be flushed completely.

For those who missed the performance and want to see what I'm talking about, enjoy this renegade copy while it is still available.

It's a joy to behold. Who knew a small-town rock and roll rebel would know scripture well enough to recognize the oft-misquoted line pimped by Constantine was really text out of context used as pretext to justify Holy War? Make no mistake, this was more than theater or exegesis. If you have a short attention span, just watch the last 50 seconds, starting at the 5:00 minute mark to see him turn chickenhawk apologists into a grease spot.

For all you factinistas out there, don't worry. I get it. The "fact" is The Colbert Report is just a comedy show and the interviews are exercises in improvisational theater. Truthiness lives to fight another day and The Word will still be here tomorrow. The only lasting change to the show is that John "Cougar" Mellencamp has now replaced bears as the #1 threat to the Colbert Nation. Oh, and the fact that Stephen finally got nailed on his own show.

But forget the facts for a moment. I'm going with my gut on this one, and my gut tells me something serious happened here.

The Reich Wing's Achilles' Heel: The first couple of times I saw a chickenhawk cheerleader get nailed as a hypocrite, I dismissed it as an isolated event. Not any more. Mellencamp's performance is a wake up call. Recent investigative reports covering Young Republican gatherings show life is busy immitating art all across the country. This leads us to one inescapable conclusion: Republicans have no defense against this attack. That makes it open season on chickenhawks. Time to name names and shame the same.

Unlike Cheney, I don't advocate indiscriminate attacks. If you are going after varmints, you need to know what you're looking for. So as a public service let me provide you with this:

The Official Fledgling Chickenhawk Identification Card version 1.0

Matthew Continetti
Ben Ferguson
Jonah Goldberg
Rich Lowry
Jason Mattera
Dan Senor
Ben Shapiro
Chris Vucovich

I think these guys need our help signing up, so let's be sure to show up and offer to drive them to the nearest recruiting center. That way everyone can do their part and support the troops.