Dover Bitch

How dull it is to pause!

2009-01-16T00:33:00.000-08:00

It's time for Dover Bitch to hang 'em up. This blog has been neglected by me for some time, but I've been waiting until an appropriate day to put it to rest, and that day is finally upon us.

It is the end of an era, at last: The country is now out of Dick Cheney's cold grip. Many of us survived. Some spectacular people did not.

When I started this blog, it did not actually occur to me that anybody would read it. I had zero ambition for it. It was to be my online catharsis.

The day I met Digby, I gave her a poem by Theodore Roethke, "Against Danger." The word "against" is the greatest of all adpositions. Unlike "on," "within" or "among," the word "against" carries with it a vitality. There is an implied force behind it. A will. And to have been a left-leaning blogger during the Bush years was certainly to have been "against danger."

During the anthrax attacks, I had an epiphany while re-reading Matthew Arnold's "Dover Beach" and Anthony Hecht's "Dover Bitch." In short, it occurred to me that it was presumptuous to assume that the woman in both poems was the "bitch." Perhaps it was Arnold (Hecht makes Arnold the speaker of his own poem). Perhaps it's the man in "Dover Bitch." Perhaps it's all or none of them. A situation can certainly be a bitch. The complaints of both speakers could be bitching.

But the revelation I had is that attempts to reject the world fail. Arnold looked out his window and did not realize the world he despised was right there in the room with him. In fact, his window is a part of that world. He, too, is a part of the world. It is reason I named this blog Dover Bitch and gave it the description: Your window to the world is a part of the world and so are you.

With that spirit, I tried to do more than be "against danger." More often than not, I think I failed. But I learned quite a bit, mostly through my interactions with other bloggers and commentators. And so I would like to thank a few of them.

First and foremost, I would like to thank Digby. Guest posting at Digby's blog is a real fast way to discover how much better she is than everybody else (or at least, than I). I'm happy to say that I think I saved my best post ever for General JC Christian's blog. Thanks for everything, General! I'd also like to say thank you to Glenn Greenwald, who definitely made blogging a more rewarding experience.

Other people who made my blogging days rewarding (and I'm sure I will forget more than a few), some of whom I was fortunate to meet and some of whom I was lucky to engage in correspondence (some I only read) are: Atrios, TRex, Steve Gilliard, Roy Edroso, Dengre, Batocchio, Jane Hamsher, Christy Hardin Smith, Suzanne, SteveAudio, Greg Sergent, Josh Marshall, Steve Benen, Brad R, David Neiwert, MJS, Lindsay Beyerstein and Kagro X. I'd also like to thank a certain Maverick, whom I was never able to lure into the world of blogging. He would have made this a much better blog with his own personal touch, but he influenced it, nonetheless.

Finally, it is not only because Obama will be president in just a few days that I'm shutting down today. This blog actually began on the anniversary of Anthony Hecht's death, and it seems fitting to end it on his birthday, January 16th. So in tribute to him, I say farewell on this day.

Maybe I'll see you around in the comments somewhere. Maybe one day I'll feel compelled to call myself a blogger again. I don't expect to. But I wish you all health, happiness and peace, and I leave you with one of Hecht's finest poems...

-DB

Riddles

And the Spirit of God
moved upon the waters

Where the wind listeth, there the sailboats list,
   Water is touched with a light case of hives
Of wandering gooseflesh. The strange power and gist
   Of whatever it is that animates our lives

Scrawls with a lavish hand its signature
   Of ripples gathered into folds and pleats
As indecipherable, chiselled, pure
   And everlasting as the name of Keats.

The surface wrinkles in spirit-shapes that sprint
   Like small rapids or frightened schools of fish;
They blot out images of cloud, the print
   Of passing hulls, obeying something's wish.

These vagrant hieroglyphs, now here, now there,
   In which the fate of everything lies writ
By the invisible majesty of air,
   Prove we are one and all illiterate,

And should be asking: "What do they portend?"
   Other, please God, than those fiery words for coins
That signified to Belshazzar the end
   Of all his hopes and the issue of his loins.

Criminal

2008-12-06T17:51:00.000-08:00

FEWER, goddammit.

The staff at TBS should be flogged in public.

R.I.P. Mitch Mitchell

2008-11-12T20:39:00.000-08:00

Really?

2008-10-16T15:46:00.001-07:00

Seriously.

Hyperspace

2008-10-15T16:08:00.001-07:00

I've been way too busy to blog, which is a drag because this has been a remarkable time.

But since I have about five free minutes, here's my favorite thing about the McCain campaign: It's like the old game Asteroids.

All the talking heads are wondering what McCain is going to do to hit a home run tonight. Chris Matthews just asked what big new proposal he would come up with to grab the headlines.

In other words, the world is zooming around Battleship McCain like a zillion asteroids and all he's got left is the hyperspace button. He's hit it dozens of times already and all it's done is what it's designed to do: move him to another random part of the screen. It doesn't actually blow up any asteroids, nor does it destroy the little flying saucer coming to get him.

It's one of the Four Modes of the McCain campaign:

Attack Mode. Truth be damned.
Man of Action Mode. Something happened somewhere in the world? Quick! Grab a mic and look busy!
Manufactured Outrage Mode. Palin is not a pig, sexist! I had no kitchen table for five-and-a-half years!
Hyperspace! I pick Palin! Campaign suspended! We're buying your shitty mortgage!

Every single thing McCain has done this year falls into one or more of these four modes. Notice that there is absolutely no Introduce Well-Thought-Out Policy That Is New And Will Make Things Better Mode. Wonder why that is.

The Campaigner

2008-10-10T22:01:00.001-07:00

GOP 2008 Message

2008-09-05T15:07:00.001-07:00

Don't expect big government to solve your problems. The real American heroes take some initiative and work within their own communities to organize people and solve problems.

Also, Americans who take initiative and work within their own communities to organize people and solve problems are complete losers.

Zzzzzzzzz... did I miss something?

2008-09-05T14:14:00.000-07:00

Oh. I guess that was McCain's acceptance speech.

I'm heading away for the weekend. Need to clean out my brain after all this washing. While I'm gone, I'll leave you with a few things...

Once again, if you have some coin to spare, consider keeping good satire flowing through the tubes.

Here's the dumbest paragraph I've seen today:

Culturally, there is little for the Heartland to dislike. By now, you've probably seen picture or two of Palin sporting a rifle. Apparently, she's left carcasses strewn across the Alaskan wilderness. In some places -- areas where the nation is growing -- owning a gun is not yet a sin. And unlike Obama, Palin seems to believe that the Second Amendment means the exact same thing in rural Alaska as it does in the streets of Chicago.

Aside from Harsanyi's deep understanding of the "Heartland" as seen from New York City (where I believe he still resides), he appears to be implying that Chicago's streets should be littered with carcasses. A sort of 12 Monkeys vision of the future under McCain/Palin.

I forgot to thank Digby, dday and tristero for having me over at Hullabaloo. It was a pleasure to spend time there, as always. Thanks also to Batocchio, who did a bang-up job posting there with me.

Finally, it's been a while since I posted a poem. Here's one I like:

The Revenant by Billy Collins

I am the dog you put to sleep,
as you like to call the needle of oblivion,
come back to tell you this simple thing:
I never liked you--not one bit.

When I licked your face,
I thought of biting off your nose.
When I watched you toweling yourself dry,
I wanted to leap and unman you with a snap.

I resented the way you moved,
your lack of animal grace,
the way you would sit in a chair to eat,
a napkin on your lap, knife in your hand.

I would have run away,
but I was too weak, a trick you taught me
while I was learning to sit and heel,
and--greatest of insults--shake hands without a hand.

I admit the sight of the leash
would excite me
but only because it meant I was about
to smell things you had never touched.

You do not want to believe this,
but I have no reason to lie.
I hated the car, the rubber toys,
disliked your friends and, worse, your relatives.

The jingling of my tags drove me mad.
You always scratched me in the wrong place.
All I ever wanted from you
was food and fresh water in my metal bowls.

While you slept, I watched you breathe
as the moon rose in the sky.
It took all of my strength
not to raise my head and howl.

Now I am free of the collar,
the yellow raincoat, monogrammed sweater,
the absurdity of your lawn,
and that is all you need to know about this place

except what you already supposed
and are glad it did not happen sooner--

that everyone here can read and write,
the dogs in poetry, the cats and the others in prose.

Palin's speech II

2008-09-03T22:37:00.000-07:00

I was wrong.

It was no tear-jerker. Just jerk.

I forgot, for a couple days, that the base of the GOP really only cares about mocking other people. Hard to believe I forgot that. That's what hope does to you, I guess.

Hillary Clinton's convention speech, to me, was phenomenal. Not just because of the values we share. She was a class act. Even her barbs at McCain were done with respect.

Palin, in no small feat, managed to follow a rabid Rudy by looking petty. She is petty. No wonder they love her. I cannot believe any real Hillary supporters could have watched that and seen anything in Palin they saw in Clinton.

This has been a shallow and ugly convention. I've watched every convention since I was nine years old. I truly believe this is the worst one I've ever seen.

Vietnam... cut to Cindy!

2008-09-02T19:24:00.001-07:00

Nice of Fred Thompson to cut to the chase. It's like nothing happened to McCain between coming home from Vietnam and posing for a photo with Cindy McCain.

A note about debating

2008-09-02T16:01:00.000-07:00

I think I can speak for every political junkie out there when I say that I love to watch and participate in debates. It's hard to resist a debate, especially when the debate is one which you believe to your core is yours to win, just based on the facts.

The problem is -- when the opposition presents you with such a debate, it's usually because they want to you in it.

An example that comes to mind is the 2004 shiny object that George Bush waved in front of John Kerry: Global Test. Really, who cares what Kerry meant by "global test." It was obvious to anybody paying attention what he meant, but instead of debating about a hypothetical war in which Kerry would have to argue he would behave exactly like Bush, he would have been better served to point out that we were fighting an actual war at that time and it was based on bullshit.

Every Democrat on television or answering questions by the press should ask themselves first before every question What is the point of staying on this topic and is there something better to talk about?

If the answer to that is "There is no point in talking about this when I could talk about that," then they will control the conversation and win the day.

I just watched Michael Smerconish explain to David Gregory that McCain selected Palin in part to make people talk about Obama's experience. David responded by turning to Rachel Maddow and asking her about... Obama's experience. Perfect example.

When anybody talks about her experience and compares her's to Obama's, every single Democrat on my TV should laugh it off as a joke and stick it to McCain for his recklessness. I don't want to see one second wasted talking about Obama's experience.

McCain doesn't think he can win unless people are talking about Obama. Let's keep the spotlight on McCain. It's that simple.

Not every debate is worth having, even if it's winnable.

Low-information country

2008-09-02T15:11:00.001-07:00

Despite my amusement by the complete train wreck that is the McCain selection of Sarah Palin, I think the thing that bothers me the most, at my core, is the insult McCain has hurled at our political process.

I'm not always the biggest fan (to say the least) of the process, but at least I have respect for the idea that America is supposed to work because we, as citizens, are given an opportunity to evaluate the candidates and issues and make our decisions based on what we see and feel.

It is always frustrating to see elections turn on the votes of people who don't pay much attention. It is thoroughly depressing to see the numbers of elated Americans who are thrilled to support a candidate they didn't even know last week. What can you say to defend America's political system in light of that? A massive number of people who don't know squat about Palin are delighted with the pick.

But I've learned to be unsurprised and calm about the vast numbers of blind supporters out there. I've even been able to remain only slightly irritated by the calculations of the GOP to try to woo the support of low-information voters.

But I cannot abide the idea that McCain has tried deliberately to make us all low-information voters.

Here's how the Sarah Palin Story is supposed to be told: Palin makes a great speech at the 2008 convention. Palin announces an exploratory committee in 2011 or 2015 and puts together thoughtful policy papers and teams of experienced advisors. Palin participates in debates, gives interviews, manages a campaign, is vetted by the press, responds to real-time world events... And then, after seeing her in action, the American people decide whether she is up to the task of leading the country in dangerous times.

That's how it works. It's not a secret formula. It happens all the time. That's how America gets to learn about and evaluate the political skills of nationally unknown candidates.

McCain, in his gamble, has robbed the American people of this opportunity. He wants us all to be unable to see what kind of leader she is. Obviously, he didn't really know, either, as evidenced by the litany of blemishes that have come to light in recent days.

I find it seriously insulting that he made this move for many, many reasons. But I just wanted to highlight this one because in a lot of ways, it burns me the most.

The same process

2008-09-02T15:06:00.000-07:00

The McCain campaign is saying, over and over, that Sarah Palin was put through the same vetting process as every other candidate.

I guess that means they only read the Hartford Courant.

Palin's speech

2008-09-02T13:20:00.001-07:00

Palin's acceptance speech at the convention is going to be a real tear-jerker for the Religious Right. She's really going to go for the sympathy vote. I think it's going to be remarkable in that sense and it will be fascinating to see how much the talking heads will work to facilitate that angle for her.

I wonder how the Obama camp is preparing to respond to this. They have to know it's coming.

Question

2008-09-02T13:03:00.000-07:00

I'm enjoying reading the Sarah Palin news so much I'm not spending any time writing about it. The absurd revelations are coming in too fast to keep up anyway.

I do have one question today, though. During the DNC, the media was talking relentlessly about the McCain ads that were timed to coincide with the convention. I know there's a new Obama ad, but are the Democrats doing anything to control the conversation? I know there's a lot for the media to talk about right now, so I don't expect them to be dropping the lack-of-Palin-vetting or Gustav or plane-with-blown-landing-gear, etc.

Usually, I am quick to point out the media's flaws (which are legion), but I always know that when they fail to cover something, it's partially due to the Democrats' lack of effort in pushing it. We have all heard the proclamations that the media doesn't create a debate all on their own. As horrible as that is, it's still an open invitation for the Democrats to create debates when it suits them.

Perhaps they just love all this Palin news so much they're letting it ride. I get that. I would, too. But I hope they have something ready to air if Zeus' bottomless pot of ugly Palin news ever runs dry.

Definition of selfishness

2008-08-30T13:20:00.001-07:00

From a comment at Corrente:

Palin is enough to get me to vote for McCain instead of just voting downticket. I doubt I agree with a single thing she believes in, but this time, I just don't care. Women have been offered a chance to prove we can swing an election in a big way. If we can, neither the DNC nor the RNC will take us lightly for the next couple decades. If we can't, well... It's been 24 years since Ferraro was on the Dem ticket. 24 years from now I'll be 72, and I want a woman in the White House before I die. If the BB et al. don't think that's a good enough reason, they can suck me.

I'm glad you want to see a woman in the White House, but I'd like my daughters to have the same rights (and more) you've enjoyed your entire adult life. Those rights aren't yours to trade away.

Seriously, who the fuck do you think you are?

Go long

2008-08-29T11:56:00.000-07:00

(Cross-posted at Hullabaloo)

Like most of America, I can't say I know much about Sarah Palin. But here's a few instant (yes, you could say knee-jerk) reactions to today's news that she's on the ticket with John McCain.

McCain has definitely concluded that he wasn't going to win without doing something dramatic. Just like his surge in Iraq, McCain has decided to "Go long."

McCain got what he wanted and needed the most: Nobody is talking about the magnificent speech Barack Obama gave last night.

John "never surrender" McCain just gave up on trying to attack Obama's experience. It was a calculation he was willing to make. Interesting.

Palin is already benefiting from extremely low expectations. Really can't get much lower than a complete unknown. Biden will have to realize that winning a debate against her is pointless. He will need to share a stage with her, but win a debate against McCain.

Palin has already started blowing the dogwhistles:

Now, no one expects us to agree on everything, whether in Juneau or in Washington. But we are expected to govern with integrity, and goodwill, and clear convictions, and a servant's heart.

She said Nook-yoo-ler.

Whether this pick is just another gimmick in a long line of McCain's gimmicks, it is striking to me that a man who told America that Obama is a big risk in an uncertain world has chosen a running mate who said this in her introduction:

If our state wanted a bridge, I said we'd build it ourselves. Well, it's always, though, safer in politics to avoid risk, to just kind of go along with the status quo. But I didn't get into government to do the safe and easy things. A ship in harbor is safe, but that's not why the ship is built.

It's been noted that McCain likes to roll the dice. He is now asking America not just to gamble on an unknown, but to gamble on a pair of gamblers.

Palin has an interesting personal story and in our superficial national discourse, that will be a plus for her. As much of a dull blade as Rep. Eric Cantor can be, I was actually worried that he would be the surprise pick. I'm less worried about Palin, but going with somebody other than Mitt or Lieberman was a good move.

I think we're going to see a lot more of Hillary Clinton over the next two months than I thought yesterday.

The fact that there are only a couple months before the election might help Palin quite a bit. Everybody knew Arnold Schwarzenegger already, but his initial victory in California was facilitated by the extremely short campaign allowed by the special election. There's less time for something really embarrassing to happen.

The vice presidential selection is not as important as everybody will make it out to be today. (UPDATE: As was pointed out in comments, in the case of McCain's age, it is a big deal. Good point. Damn, knee-jerk reactions.)

Even though Palin comes with a scandal in progress, I wonder if the Obama camp will get drawn into making a big deal about it. I think it will help blunt her claims to be a big reformer, but as I wrote above, the person they really need to defeat is John McCain.

UPDATE: That didn't take long. Palin's big reformer talking point is already falling apart. Really, really falling apart.

We've already heard all the great things that we're going to hear about Palin. Everything from here on out is going to be stuff they didn't want to talk about. This could get good.

Post-speech analysis

2008-08-28T23:10:00.000-07:00

Alons enfants de la patrie

2008-08-28T22:18:00.000-07:00

Because I'm "probably French," I'm going to find whatever Francs are in my sofa and didn't get converted to Euros, so I can give them to one of the finest satirists on the intertubes. Join me in keeping Jesus' General riding to Armageddon in his gold-plated Abrams M1 tank.

This is not a blog post

2008-08-28T16:30:00.000-07:00

(Cross-posted at Hullabaloo)

Another day, another McCain advisor thrown under the bus for accidentally telling the truth about his candidate's indifference to the struggles of ordinary Americans. John Goodman "said anyone with access to an emergency room effectively has insurance."

"So I have a solution. And it will cost not one thin dime," Mr. Goodman said. "The next president of the United States should sign an executive order requiring the Census Bureau to cease and desist from describing any American -- even illegal aliens -- as uninsured. Instead, the bureau should categorize people according to the likely source of payment should they need care.

"So, there you have it. Voila! Problem solved."

This is nothing new, of course. Just a year ago, Bush made the same argument:

The immediate goal is to make sure there are more people on private insurance plans. I mean, people have access to health care in America. After all, you just go to an emergency room.

Ronald Reagan pioneered this art when he justified his lack of decent funding for school lunches by redefining ketchup as a vegetable.

Still, before Bush became president, the idea you could solve problems simply by calling them victories was a concept reserved for satirists. Or something only a governor would get away with.

George Bush and his sidekick, John McCain, have really taken it to a new level. They redefined "hunger" as "very low food security" in order to salvage their domestic record. They redefined squirting guacamole at Taco Bell as a "manufacturing job" to salvage their jobs record. They are trying to redefine contraception as abortion.

They redefined what a stream is in order to open them up to the coal industry. They've tried to redefine carbon dioxide in order to allow more pollution. They redefined "privacy." They redefined "overtime." They tried to redefine toxic sludge to justify defunding Superfund. They redefined the Vice President as a fourth branch of government. They redefined "organic." They redefined "torture" and the Geneva Conventions.

They prevented NASA from talking about global warming or even mentioning the Big Bang. They don't want irradiated food labelled. They even fought to prevent meatpackers from testing their own cattle for Mad Cow disease.

And I haven't even started on all the people who were kicked to the curb for predicting the costs of the Iraq War would be tremendous. Or the way they hid the real costs of the GOP's health care bill.

That's how they solve problems. Two plus two equals four? No problem! "Two plus [redacted] equals five!"

McCain's plan is to deliver the exact same prescriptions for the "whiners" in a "mental recession:" Out of sight, out of mind.

I'm sure you all may be getting speeched out this week (with so many more to come), but if you get a chance and you haven't read it before, check out Mark Danner's 2007 commencement address to a group of Department of Rhetoric graduates at UC Berkely.

Massive

2008-08-28T09:47:00.000-07:00

(Cross-posted at Hullabaloo)

The McCain team is ready for their close up.

DENVER (CNN) – John McCain has decided on his running mate and will officially reveal his pick on Friday in Ohio, multiple sources tell CNN.

A knowledgeable Republican source says there the matter was settled at a major meeting of McCain's advisers Wednesday.

The Arizona senator's choice has not yet been told of the decision, but the plan is to call tomorrow. A handful of names of dominated VP speculation in recent days, including former Massachusetts Governor Mitt Romney, independent Senator Joe Lieberman, and Minnesota Governor Tim Pawlenty.

The presumptive Republican nominee will appear with his prospective running mate at a massive rally on August 29, the day after Barack Obama formally accepts the Democratic presidential nomination.

The McCain campaign is hoping to have 15,000 people at the Ohio rally — roughly five times the size of his largest crowd to date.

That massive rally is sure going to look daunting after Barack Obama electrifies a capacity crowd at Invesco Field tonight. Of course, you know this will probably be leaked today to change the subject away from Obama's big speech. That's the card you play when you simply cannot compete on the same playing field (literally). Oh, but I forgot... McCain's inability to draw big crowds is simply a reflection of his vast experience.

When you think about it, Obama actually has more experience than McCain. Sure, a guy named "John McCain" has been in the Senate since 1987, but he's not the Republican nominee.

There was a guy by that name who supported Roe v. Wade, but the new John McCain replaced him two years ago.

There was a guy by that name who called Jerry Falwell an "agent of intolerance", but the new John McCain replaced him two years ago.

There was a guy by that name who proposed comprehensive immigration reform, but the new John McCain replaced him in February.

There was a guy by that name who was against waterboarding, but the new John McCain replaced him in February.

There was a guy by that name who was willing to talk to Hamas, but the new John McCain replaced him in May.

There was a guy by that name who was against offshore drilling, but the new John McCain replaced him in June.

There was a guy by that name who supported affirmative action, but the new John McCain replaced him in July.

The new John McCain running for president has only really existed for a couple years, max. Parts of his brain have been replaced as recently as this summer. Really, the list of his reversals is staggering. We're going to hear a lot next week about his huge advantage on experience, but they're really not going to be talking about the same person they nominated. What happened to that guy? Where did the world's oldest freshman come from and how did he get keys to all of John McCain's houses?

They're also going to throw around their favorite tired zingers, like "Blame America First." This from the crowd that nominated a guy who reacted to 9/11 by leading the Blame Iraq First brigade. This from a guy who abandoned his principles to cozy up to the extremists who really did Blame America First, while real Americans, the majority of Americans, were coming together, united, the way we have defeated every threat in our history.

It's certainly useful for Obama that people are starting to notice that John McCain is playing the POW card with increasing frequency. I find that it never justifies the mistake he's trying to excuse with it or the position he's claiming he supports because of it. But the repetition honestly doesn't diminish, in my mind, the sacrifice he made years ago.

However, there is a vast -- you might say "massive" -- difference between the images of honor in his biography and the undignified campaigner he has chosen to become, the bottom-feeders with whom he has associated himself and the swiftness with which he has dispatched so many of the principled positions he has taken previously. The more he describes what a big man he was in the past, the smaller he looks today.

If he weren't perilously close to running the country, it would be just another tragedy of Washington D.C. that I'd just as soon forget.

Really proud

2008-08-27T21:02:00.000-07:00

Billmon has written a beautiful diary at Daily Kos.

I'm so glad billmon is writing again.

Impostor

2008-08-27T13:31:00.000-07:00

(Cross-posted at Hullabaloo)

Beyond the usual pleasure of reading one of Digby's dispatches, I was happy to read this morning's anecdote about the Hillary supporter who was ready to work hard to get Barack Obama elected.

Though I've been greatly annoyed by the relentless reporting of the "rift" in the party, when Hillary gave her fantastic speech last night, I started to wonder if the media's inflation of the magnitude of the perceived internal war might actually turn out to be a blessing in disguise. Clinton so skillfully connected this election and its consequences to the history, sacrifice and struggle of American women for equality and fairness, I began to think maybe John McCain did the Democrats a favor with his ads fanning those flames. Clinton's Harriett Tubman reference last night was brilliant.

I also thought about Hillary's campaign and how different the outcome might have been had she taken Rachel Maddow's advice early on and focused her attention on John McCain and the GOP, instead of trying to take down Obama.

But, as Digby wrote this morning, the media narrative is like a piece of Ikea furniture. The holes are already drilled, the dowels already measured out and there's only one way to put it together, no matter how painful it is to assemble it into its catalog-photo orientation. And in the end, of course, there are obviously a few screws loose.

For the loosest screws, we can always turn to Fox News, where they set the bar low yesterday, explaining that Michele Obama's speech actually re-enforced her negative image -- that is, when you replace her words with completely different words. This will be fun to do with McCain next week. ("The glimmerings of democracy are very faint in ~~Russia~~ America today, and so I would be very harsh.")

Steve Benen notices today that other media outlets aren't replacing Clinton's words with their own, they're just ignoring them completely and inviting "body language experts" to demonstrate that she was essentially lying.

On the evening of June 28, a few hours after Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton appeared together in Unity, N.H., for their first post-primary joint appearance, CNN devoted quite a bit of airtime to "body-language experts."

At one point, one of the "experts" argued that the position of Hillary Clinton's navel carries great political significance: "She angles her belly button toward him. She's treating him with respect. She has her hands in a fig leaf position, which tends to be a passive position, really turning the power over to Obama. We face our belly buttons and the core of our body to people we like, have affinity toward and people we respect. And she's doing it."

It was, to my mind, some of the worst on-air political "journalism" -- I use the word loosely -- I've ever seen from a major news outlet. And yet, CBS News this morning did the exact same thing.

I'm disappointed. I was expecting to wake up and learn that anonymous sources leaked word that wasn't even Hillary last night, but an impostor. Maybe even Barack Obama in a Hillary costume.

I have the undeniable proof right here:

Try decaf

2008-08-26T12:28:00.000-07:00

(Cross-posted at Hullabaloo)

You can always tell an election is nearing. The ads start airing during your shows. The bumper stickers become more visible during your commute. And Joe Scarborough begins his gradual, but inevitable transition from thinly-veiled, independent "journalist" to complete water-carrying GOP hack. It's really the same script every election cycle and it usually blooms like a flower with an episode like today's Morning Joe:

The only time he shut up during the entire segment (other than during the beginning of Mika Brzezinski's newscast, which he interrupted and ended prematurely) was when David Shuster challenged him: to say "John McCain was wrong."

SHUSTER: One final point: It's very different to say, "Yes, we ought to take the Iraqis up on their word," and at the same time say, "You know what, when John McCain ridicules that very point, he is wrong." And if you want to say, right now -- we can end this argument -- "When John McCain ridicules the point that we ought to take up the Iraqis and get out of Iraq, and he ridicules that, he is wrong." You can say that right now and that's the end of this.

SCARBOROUGH: Well, actually, you're trying to pick a fight with somebody that wasn't fighting with you. As a guy...

SHUSTER: Well, you can end the fight by saying "John McCain is wrong." Go ahead say it. "John McCain is wrong when he ridicules people who call for a timetable."

[a few seconds of cafeteria din]

SCARBOROUGH: I.. wha... whuuu... miii... Where am I? Am I on Crossfire? I thought they cancelled that show... John McCain is John... OK... John McCain is wrong for blah, blah, blah, whatever you said. We're not on opposite sides here.

This smackdown followed seven minutes of schoolyard taunts by Scarborough, including, in the most sarcastic tone he could muster, "Ooooh, you're an independent! Why, I feel soooo comforted by the fact that you're an independent! I bet everybody at MSNBC has 'independent' on their voting cards! Ooooh, we're down the middle now!"

Truly embarrassing. You can tell the GOP is in trouble this year, because Joe usually waits until somebody mentions Mary Cheney before he percolates completely.

He's probably still smarting from last night, when Keith Olbermann muttered, "Jesus, Joe, why don't you get a shovel?" while Scarborough was praising McCain's Karl Rove 2.0, Steve Schmidt.

Transcendental photo op of our time, my friends

2008-08-25T14:00:00.000-07:00

(Cross-posted at Hullabaloo)

How hard is John McCain trying to keep Georgia in the news? He's sending his wife, Cindy, there for a photo op with president Mikheil Saakashvili.

SACRAMENTO -- Cindy McCain, wife of Sen. John McCain, is headed to the Republic of Georgia, where tensions between the government and Russia have sparked international concern and have become an issue on the presidential campaign trail.

McCain announced to a group of fundraisers in Sacramento that his wife was headed to the country, but the campaign did not provide any details about the trip.

McCain has been very aggressive in his condemnation of Russia's invasion of Georgia, and his campaign has been critical of Obama's more measured response when Russian tanks first pushed into the country.

You've got to hand it to him. Four years ago, George Bush tried to change the subject by sending his wife and kids to New York. At least McCain's wife is heading to an actual war zone. Even scarier, there are rumors that Dick Cheney may be hunting in Tbilisi.

Where there's smoke, there's Segretti

2008-08-25T10:33:00.000-07:00

(Cross-posted at Hullabaloo)

Digby and dday are in the Mile High City, but here's a view of the convention coverage from closer to sea level. When the news broke last week that the Clinton's formed a "whip team" to handle troublemakers, I immediately realized that any disturbance, no matter how insignificant, would be elevated to a top story. It's kind of like when there's an earthquake and all the helicopters swarm over a burning shack somewhere and people across America get the impression that all of California is engulfed in flames.

The McCain campaign is smart to put out these otherwise ridiculous Hillary Clinton ads this week. The ads may be easy to mock if you are an Obama supporter (they are easy to mock), but McCain's real target audience is his base, which means the tire-swinging press corps.

Naturally, FOX News is already leading the way by not just reporting that it's 1968 all over again, but trying to actually stir up trouble for their broadcasts. But the rest of the media appears to be receiving the message perfectly. CNN is spending most of their time this morning talking about the attempts to "paper over" the big divisions in the party. MSNBC just ran a clip of Teddy Kennedy standing with Jimmy Carter in 1980 as NBC's David Brinkley cooed, "This is awkward."

It's a well-rehearsed GOP strategy and it's going to be monumentally difficult to keep this convention from being turned into a Clinton-Obama civil war -- at least as far as it appears to everybody outside Denver this week.

UPDATE: As soon as I hit 'publish' for this post, Chuck Todd said the Clinton-Obama story "is like catnip for us." He then explained that the media will get over it soon. Yeah, right.

LATE UPDATE: In fairness to Todd, as the convention opened, he dumped cold water all over the topic by telling Chris Matthews that it's not a real story and reporters will likely look back and wonder why they wasted time on it. But wasting time, they are.

Passed Over

2008-08-24T18:38:00.001-07:00

(Cross-posted at Hullabaloo)

The Rat[Loving] Express is rolling ahead with an ad called "Passed Over," lamenting the fact that Barack Obama didn't select Hillary Clinton as his running mate, despite the fact that she received millions of votes. The McCain camp charges that Clinton spoke the truth and Obama couldn't stand the pain.

I, for one, cannot wait to celebrate the exciting news that John McCain has selected Ron Paul as his vice president.

Old School

2008-08-24T16:01:00.000-07:00

(Cross-posted at Hullabaloo)

Over at his new base of operations, the Washington Monthly's Political Animal, the prolific Steve Benen (he has to be a robot) brings up the impolitic age issue:

Interestingly enough, 87% said they were comfortable with an African-American president, but 55% said the same about a 72-year-old president. Moreover, while 11% conceded they were uncomfortable with an African-American president, 45% said the same of a 72-year-old president. Only 6% said they were "entirely uncomfortable" with a black president, while more than triple, 20%, said the same of a septuagenarian.

Now, I don't doubt that some respondents were being less than honest about their racial prejudices, but even putting that aside, that's a lot of people who are obviously uneasy about McCain's advanced age.

I continue to think this is something of a sleeper issue in this campaign. There's been enormous interest in exploring the racial angles to this campaign, but there's ample data -- going back to early last year -- that McCain's age actually matters to voters, and it's an issue that raises doubts.

Absolutely it's a big issue. And there's no way that the Obama campaign can come right out and say it. Fortunately, the McCain camp has already demonstrated how to get a message out there: By ostensibly putting out an entirely different message.

John McCain stands in front of signs that read "COUNTRY FIRST" and states flatly that Obama wants America to lose a war for his own personal interests. That's clearly a question of judgment! How could anybody think he was questioning Obama's patriotism?

JILL ZUCKMAN, "THE CHICAGO TRIBUNE": I just want to be a little contrarian here. How do you talk about a war—how do you talk about your opponent's position on the war without it being imbued with the patriotism issue? McCain didn't say, I'm questioning his patriotism. He's questioning his policy. Obama wanted to bring the troops home when things were very, very bad in Iraq. And he wants to bring them home now when things are good.

Well done, Jill!

Even though IOKIYAR is usually the order of the day, the subtext detectors of the chattering classes appear eager to scrutinize Obama's ads for hidden meaning. Here's Chris Matthews, reacting to the Obama ad that points out how out-of-touch John McCain is with his countless assets:

MATTHEWS: Let me ask you, Richard, tough call here, was that an implicit shot at what some people call a senior moment, when a person can't remember what they should remember? Was that another way they thought they were hurting him by jumping on him?

WOLFFE: The framework they're using—and you can decide for yourself whether this refers to age—is him being out of touch. Now, is he out of touch with his own life or out of touch with the American people and the economy as it is today? The campaign would argue strenuously this is about the economy. But, you know, what's the explanation for someone not knowing how much property they own? It's either his wife was really running things. Their marriage is such that they don't really share these issues with each other. Or he's got too much property. Or he's somehow cut loose from his own life.

Every "Democratic Strategist" on his show has explained to Matthews that the ad is about the economy and that a guy who believes in "mental recessions" ought to at least understand what it is to have money on your mind. But if Hardball wants to talk about John McCain's age all day, great. Let them think that Obama wants to make age an issue, too. We all know that "journalistic rules" prevent the media professionals from creating a debate unless the Democrats explicitly tell them to. If they don't think that things like the age and Ambien consumption of the president are worthy of discussion without provocation from the Obama camp, then they'll have to be led to believe that provocation is really happening. It would seem they're willing to believe it already.

There will be no honeymoon

2008-08-24T13:34:00.000-07:00

(Cross-posted at Hullabaloo)

On the eve of the Democratic Convention, I think it might be a good idea to remind ourselves what happened after the last one and prepare ourselves for how quickly the Republicans will try to change the subject.

On Thursday, July 29, 2004, John Kerry had a modest lead in the polls and Democrats were energized as the convention came to a close. Delegates, activists and party leaders returned home, ready to re-engage with their communities. But before Monday rolled around and anybody had a chance to gather at the water cooler, Secretary of Homeland Security Tom Ridge emerged with an important announcement:

Secretary Ridge: Good afternoon, ladies and gentleman. President Bush has told you, and I have reiterated the promise, that when we have specific credible information, that we will share it. Now this afternoon, we do have new and unusually specific information about where al-Qaeda would like to attack. And as a result, today, the United States Government is raising the threat level to Code Orange for the financial services sector in New York City, Northern New Jersey and Washington, DC.

Since September 11th, 2001, leaders of our commercial financial institutions have demonstrated exceptional leadership in improving its security. However, in light of new intelligence information, we have made the decision to raise the threat level for this sector, in these communities, to bring protective resources to an even higher level.

Code Orange!

It was still 2004, so millions of Americans who know now that the Bush Administration will tell them absolutely anything were still willing to accept that there was a legitimate threat and action needed to be taken immediately. It wasn't just Republicans, after all. When crazy Howard Dean suggested there may be politics involved (YEARGHH!), George Bush's favorite Democrat took to the airwaves with outrage:

SEN. JOE LIEBERMAN (D), CONNECTICUT: I don't think anybody who has any fairness or is in their right mind would think that the president or the secretary of Homeland Security would raise an alert level and scare people for political reasons.

Perish the thought. This was "specific credible information" and Sec. Ridge had no choice but to come right out that particular Sunday and deliver the grim news. After all, the information they had was, uh, three years old.

Ridge hadn't exactly divulged that the information was in their possession for a long time and was more along the lines of surveillance notes rather than attack plans. But any reporter -- or citizen -- with the ability to think rationally when the government screamed "TERROR!" might have noticed that this is a strange thing to see when you bring your camera to a building that's about to be attacked by al-Qaeda:

Naturally, when there is "specific credible information" that a building is about to be attacked, the Presidential Playbook instructs him to send his wife and children to the target for a photo op with the mayor and governor. Bush's decision was textbook.

It is as clear in retrospect as it should have been to any observer back then: The Bush/Cheney/Rove operation would play on America's fears to win the election. Keith Olbermann has documented this strategy well with his Nexus Of Politics And Terror.

It's also important to note that there is a steep cost to us all when this happens. Not just the psychological damage that comes with an electorate whose judgment is clouded by fear and not just the damage done to our nation when a population ceases to trust a government that cries wolf. According to the American Public Transportation Association, "[e]very day on Orange Alert costs transit systems at least $900,000 a day."

In 2003, New York Governor George Pataki explained that Code Orange isn't free:

GOV. GEORGE PATAKI (R), NEW YORK: Well, there's no question that being at this heightened level of alert has cost New York State hundreds of millions of dollars.

MESERVE: Neighboring New Jersey says maintaining threat level orange costs $125,000 a day. And the city of Baltimore estimates its costs at $300,000 a week.

The U.S. Conference of Mayors in 2003 (PDF) wrote:

[W]we estimate that cities nationwide are spending nearly $70 million per week in additional homeland security costs due to the war and heightened threat alert level. If the war and/or threat alert level continue for six months, cities would incur nearly $2 billion in additional costs.

We stress that these costs come ON TOP OF existing homeland security spending already underway or planned since 9/11. In addition, this survey only asked cities about DIRECT costs, new money that had to be allocated for homeland security because of the war or threat alert. These figures do NOT account for the huge INDIRECT costs cities are experiencing.

In the case of this "limited" Orange Alert in New York, many of those indirect costs were paid by ordinary citizens:

''Anything that slows down the city in general has economic impact, and anything that affects the financial institutions that are still our most important industry also has an impact,'' said Ronnie Lowenstein, an economist who is director of the city's Independent Budget Office. ''It is hard to imagine that these kinds of warnings don't have any impact.''

Rob Kotch, who runs Breakaway Courier Systems, a business that like much of New York's economy depends on speed and mobility, put it another way.

''The cost of all this security is friction to the economy,'' Mr. Kotch said. ''You consider the cost of a driver is $45 an hour. Do the math. If you put a dollar amount on waiting time sitting in traffic for security checks, it can be huge.''

Millions of dollars for the First Lady and Twins to "reassure" the people working in one building. Millions of dollars to make everybody in America afraid. Mostly taxpayer dollars. That Aug. 1 Orange Alert remained in effect for 102 days, through the RNC in New York City and until after the election.

And the cost was actually much steeper. It wasn't simply a financial loss America took to change the subject away from John Kerry's convention:

But what's more disturbing, perhaps even more than the new details of al-Qaida's twisted plotting, is the Bush administration's outing of an undercover al-Qaida agent in its rush to justify raising the terror alert. This move, whether politically motivated or rooted in incompetence has terrorism and security experts shocked and dismayed for the harm inflicted on intelligence operations against al-Qaida. CNN reports today that the administration "may have shut down an important source of information that has already led to a series of al-Qaida arrests" when officials revealed Muhammad Naeem Noor Khan's identity to journalists last week (Khan is the computer expert who "flipped" last month and was operating as a double-agent for the Pakistani government). Do we have so many plugged-in al-Qaida double agents that we can afford to lose one and with him all of his connections and leads? Of course not.

Juan Cole looks at the consequences: British intelligence agents scrambled last week to arrest 13 members of a London al-Qaida cell before they fled after learning from the Bush administration! that Khan had been arrested. "The British do not, however, appear to have finished gathering enough evidence to prosecute the 13 in the courts successfully," Cole writes. And even worse: 5 got away. "If this is true," Cole says. "It is likely that the 5 went underground on hearing that Khan was in custody. That is, the loose lips of the Bush administration enabled them to flee arrest. Of the 13 taken into custody on Aug. 3, two were released for lack of evidence and two others were 'no longer being questioned on suspicion of terrorism offences.'"

It may be another election, but George Bush is still president, Dick Cheney is still VP. Karl Rove's team is advising John McCain. Joe Lieberman and Tom Ridge are on television every day as McCain surrogates and potential VP picks. The polls are close and all the talking heads believe (as does McCain, evidenced by his reaction to events in Georgia) that anything involving threats to America will help the GOP.

I'm glad Barack Obama already had a week to have fun in Hawaii. There will be no honeymoon after this convention.

UPDATE: By popular demand, here is a 2005 USA Today story about the source of Ridge's announcements:

WASHINGTON — The Bush administration periodically put the USA on high alert for terrorist attacks even though then-Homeland Security chief Tom Ridge argued there was only flimsy evidence to justify raising the threat level, Ridge now says.

Ridge, who resigned Feb. 1, said Tuesday that he often disagreed with administration officials who wanted to elevate the threat level to orange, or "high" risk of terrorist attack, but was overruled.

His comments at a Washington forum describe spirited debates over terrorist intelligence and provide rare insight into the inner workings of the nation's homeland security apparatus.

Ridge said he wanted to "debunk the myth" that his agency was responsible for repeatedly raising the alert under a color-coded system he unveiled in 2002.

"More often than not we were the least inclined to raise it," Ridge told reporters. "Sometimes we disagreed with the intelligence assessment. Sometimes we thought even if the intelligence was good, you don't necessarily put the country on (alert). ... There were times when some people were really aggressive about raising it, and we said, 'For that?' "

For the record, I'm not predicting that there will be a terror alert next week. I'm merely pointing out that this crew will go to serious lengths to change the subject and we might as well prevent the element of surprise from being a factor (and bust out the popcorn).

Fournier, another McCain servant?

2008-08-23T00:49:00.000-07:00

The Associated Press' D.C. Bureau Chief, Ron Fournier, was offered and, apparently, seriously considered a top job working for the McCain campaign.

It's been well documented, by Media Matters for example, that his columns tend to favor McCain, to put it politely.

It's also been revealed that Fournier had words of encouragement for Karl Rove, when details were emerging about Pat Tillman's death.

When the AP issued it's first look at Barack Obama's choice for Vice President, here was the headline:

Analysis: Biden pick shows lack of confidence

Guess who wrote it?

Doesn't John McCain have enough people maintaining his pampered lifestyle?

McCain: Vote for me, wackos

2008-08-20T13:58:00.001-07:00

Atrios spots a killer Obama ad that takes McCain to task for failing to hold Ralph Reed accountable for his involvment in the Abramoff scandal -- and then for using Reed to raise campaign funds.

I pray that when the McCain surrogates respond and defend Reed, the Obama camp is prepared and brings out the details of Reed's role in the scandal:

Reed is also an evangelical Christian, although his writings suggest that politics have always been his true religion. In his book, Active Faith, Reed describes his political epiphany--the moment when he comprehended the electoral potential of the religious right--far more vividly than his spiritual conversion. After he and Abramoff earned their stripes by rejuvenating the College Republicans in the 1980s, Reed joined Pat Robertson's crusade to shape Christian conservatives into a potent political movement. As the director of the Christian Coalition, Reed attracted attention for his political talents more than his ideological fervor; he was a gifted orchestrator of grassroots campaigns. Now, in his new private sector incarnation, Reed effectively rented out his conservative Christian networks to Century Strategies' various clients, for sums that Abramoff described as "chump change."

Scanlon outlined Reed's pivotal role in an October 2001 memo to the Louisiana Coushatta tribe, explaining how the Christian right's abhorrence of gambling could be harnessed to protect the Coushatta's casino business. For $575,000, Scanlon promised to engineer floods of letters and phone calls from Christian conservatives to political representatives, protesting the operations of the Coushatta's competition. He also promised to have Christian leaders condemn rival operations in radio ads and in letters to key political figures. "Simply put we want to bring out the wackos to vote against something and make sure the rest of the public lets the whole thing slip past them," Scanlon wrote. "The wackos get their information from the Christian right, Christian radio, the internet and telephone trees." In another memo to the Coushatta, Scanlon noted that the quality of Reed's databases and connections would create a "political effort that truly resembles a people's movement" without the telltale marks of a "paid political operation."

I wonder how the "wackos" will feel about suddenly-incredibly-devout McCain using Reed's databases and connections. Christians already have doubts about McCain. When the McCain camp defends Reed, Obama surrogates should remind everybody how he plainly he exploited people's faith for votes and money and ask why McCain thinks that's just fine.

Mavericks abound

2008-08-18T16:10:00.000-07:00

Mavericks are bold. Unique. Visionary. Difference-makers. That’s why The University of Texas at Arlington is proud to host the Maverick Speakers Series, an in-depth look at the people, ideas, actions, and solutions that impact the world around us, featuring some of the leading voices of our time. More than just speeches on current events or timely issues, these are conversations with a purpose, led by renowned innovators who make change happen.

Because such important conversations need a variety of voices, the Maverick Speakers Series invites opinions from all sides, with topics that are as diverse and far-reaching as the people who present them. And because unrestricted access to such exchanges encourages insight and enrichment beyond the UT Arlington campus, every lecture in the Maverick Speakers Series is free and open to everyone.

Hells yeah! Who's the bold visionary up for the 9/11 slot?

Who isn't a maverick these days?

POWER HOUSE

2008-08-11T10:40:00.000-07:00

Super lobbyist, McCain donor and loathsome GOP figure Ed Rogers decided to talk to the Washington Post about Barack Obama last week:

John McCain's celebrity ad was effective. It wasn't uncontroversial and it didn't please all the political scientists, but it sure got noticed, and it made Barack Obama overreact. Questions about Obama's desire for celebrity status will linger. He now has to be very careful about intersecting with Hollywood, pop culture and entertainment. Lee Atwater said the worst thing you can do in American politics is play to your negative stereotype. Well, Obama's negative stereotype now includes the idea that he may be a little too glitzy. (Speaking of negative stereotypes, when Obama was talking about the pictures of presidents on dollar bills, was he introducing the presumptuous notion that his face belongs on American currency? I wonder whom he thinks he should replace.)

At least he was able to refrain from mentioning Obama's middle name while calling him "glitzy."

In other news, NBC has just completed the pilot for their new show, POWER HOUSE. In the first episode, we get to see how Ed Rogers and his wife live in their "Republican Shangri-La" -- an 18-thousand square foot estate in McLean, VA.

Looks just like my livingroom. We must have the same architect.

The genuine cowhide toilet-seat cover really says "I shit you not" with class. The golden studs around it aren't the least bit ostentatious.

And finally, we get to see why the lobbyists and hedonists with whom McCain has surrounded himself have proclaimed Americans to be a bunch of whiners:

That's right. She's standing in front of rows of her designer shoes cutting up sheets of freshly printed U.S. dollar bills with a pair of scissors so she can use them as wrapping paper.

POWER HOUSE.

UPDATE: I forgot to mention that Digby has written about Surry Hill. Probably because I was too busy remodeling my bedroom after discovering that Ed Rogers has the exact same furniture.

LATE UPDATE: I eagerly await the swift arm of justice:

Whoever mutilates, cuts, defaces, disfigures, or perforates, or unites or cements together, or does any other thing to any bank bill, draft, note, or other evidence of debt issued by any national banking association, or Federal Reserve bank, or the Federal Reserve System, with intent to render such bank bill, draft, note, or other evidence of debt unfit to be reissued, shall be fined under this title or imprisoned not more than six months, or both.

John McCain's Health Care Plan

2008-08-04T22:19:00.000-07:00

One idiotic and juvenile campaign gimmick deserves another.

Southern Strategy 2008

2008-08-01T18:27:00.000-07:00

Cross-posted at Daily Kos (just cuz I felt like it)

Mike Barnicle on MSNBC is dumbfounded today. He didn't see any of the racial subtext in the Britney Spears and Paris Hilton ad. Why, he asks, would John McCain want to woo crazy racist voters who would vote for him anyway? He should look in the mirror for his answer.

Let's just get one thing out there that anybody should be able to understand: There is no way -- none -- that the McCain campaign did not know that some people in America would see the racial/sexual subtext in that ad.

It doesn't matter if the ad "really" is racist. If, like Mike Barnicle, you didn't see the racism that I did, no, that doesn't make you an idiot.

However, if you think the McCain campaign was surprised that some people did see racism in an ad in which a handsome black candidate was coupled with a pair of young blondes who are famous for not wearing underwear, then, yes, you are an idiot.

These people get paid millions of dollars for their expertise in putting these ads together. They run everything by a series of focus groups. They have been exploiting racial divisions for decades. It's no secret: Former Republican Chairman Ken Melhman even apologized to the NAACP for it three years ago.

There is absolutely no way the McCain campaign put these ads on the air without expecting some people -- maybe not Mike Barnicle -- to gasp and point out the racial subtext. No way on earth they didn't know this would be the reaction from a good slice of the left. They knew it and they wanted it.

But why, Mike Barnicle asks? They already have the racist vote locked up! True, Mike, but there are millions of independent voters who, like you, didn't get the subliminal message. Millions of voters who might have liked Obama because he's not Al Sharpton or Jesse Jackson. John McCain wants these voters, independent white voters who don't hate black people, but hate when black people "play the race card."

John McCain, the honorable John McCain, couldn't possibly have known people would think these ads were racist. right? As concerned as the McCain campaign is that they'll be branded as racists, they had no idea that anybody would get the wrong idea from those images. Nobody could have predicted...

Of course they knew. They wanted the reaction and they got it, along with the media's obtuse confusion. Now, to a host of independent voters, Obama is just another Jackson or Sharpton.

UPDATE Josh Marshall flags this must-read article in New York Magazine, which makes my point precisely.

Boxing analogies

2008-08-01T15:37:00.000-07:00

So David Gregory just mentioned that MSNBC has a boxing analogy for the McCain campaign:

To use a boxing analogy, McCain is putting Obama into a bear hug -- making it nearly impossible for the Illinois senator to move (in the polls?) or land a punch. But as a big boxing aficionado, McCain also must realize that the fans often don’t take too kindly to boxers who constantly bear hug their opponent. And at some point, the refs break up the bear hugging and the boxing match is forced. But for now, the McCain campaign appears to have a way to knock Obama off message. The only problem for McCain, he's still not on any message of his own, other than "not-Obama." The campaign believes their energy message did break through. Time will tell.

I also have a boxing analogy for David Gregory this week.

GREGORY: It should also be pointed out that embedded in what some may condemn as baseless, negative advertising are some serious questions for debate in this campaign about Obama's judgment and his plans.

RINGSIDE GREGORY: It should also be pointed out that embedded in what some may condemn as unethical fighting tactics are some serious questions for debate in this sport about Evander Holyfield's judgment and whether somebody with ears as edible as his should be in the ring at all.

That was the basic media narrative this week. Sure, the claims in the commercial are demonstrably false, but what do they tell us about Obama?

The Only Way

2008-08-01T11:02:00.001-07:00

Former Republican Congressman (and original PNAC member) Vin Weber just told Andrea Mitchell that the McCain campaign is fighting back this week because the ad getting all the attention is really just about foreign oil. Weber explained that they don't want to end up in a situation where any talk about any issue would be off limits with John McCain being labeled a racist.

It's just so unfair. We all know the only way to discuss U.S. energy policy is to create a video montage of a black man and a pair of young blonde girls famous for not wearing underwear.

You can tell that the people who get paid millions of dollars for their expertise in shaping public opinion with these ads were simply unable to avoid these pitfalls, despite the serious concern in the McCain camp that they might be undeservedly branded as racists. They really tried so hard to create an ad that focuses on the issues. How could they know they were tapping into such a sensitive subtext?

Why are liberals everywhere trying to stop John McCain from talking about his super-awesome ideas?

Media de novo

2008-07-31T15:14:00.000-07:00

When a case is appealed, it could be tried de novo, basically (but not exactly) meaning that it can be tried all over again as if for the first time.

Isn't it wonderful that we have media de novo -- campaign coverage that treats every election (if not every day of the campaign) as if there is simply no connection to the past.

It was an open secret for a long time that the GOP employed the "Southern Strategy" in order to win by exploiting racial divisions in America. But it's not even that anymore. Ken Mehlman, former RNC Chairman, went before the NAACP in 2005 and explicitly conceded that was the strategy and even admitted that it was wrong (read: immoral) for them to have done it.

But here we are in 2008 and it's a fresh start! A couple promiscuous blondes paired up with Obama in a McCain ad and how dare the Obama campaign play the race card? Everybody knows blond girls who don't wear underwear are the only way to make the point that Obama lacks experience.

On MSNBC today, they've made the point that the Harold Ford ad with the "call me" girl (and don't forget about the radio ad with jungle drums) was explicitly sexual and this McCain ad isn't.

In our media de novo, that's a fantastic point. But for anybody with a memory that goes back two years, it's nonsense. They no longer have to be explicitly sexual.

Digby nailed it yesterday with this Lee Atwater (awful) admission:

You start out in 1954 by saying, "Nigger, nigger, nigger." By 1968 you can't say "nigger" - that hurts you. Backfires. So you say stuff like forced busing, states' rights and all that stuff. You're getting so abstract now [that] you're talking about cutting taxes, and all these things you're talking about are totally economic things and a byproduct of them is [that] blacks get hurt worse than whites.

And subconsciously maybe that is part of it. I'm not saying that. But I'm saying that if it is getting that abstract, and that coded, that we are doing away with the racial problem one way or the other. You follow me - because obviously sitting around saying, "We want to cut this," is much more abstract than even the busing thing, and a hell of a lot more abstract than "Nigger, nigger."

Our media stars are so obtuse, they couldn't even conclude that the Bob Corker ads were out of line. Of course these McCain ads are beyond their capabilities. But it doesn't help that they're willing to completely ignore history.

By the way, it's not even ancient history they're ignoring.

How dare Obama inject race into the campaign!

Presidential

2008-07-25T14:47:00.001-07:00

I think it's important to remember what a real president looks like when standing next to a foreign leader in Europe:

Straight talk

2008-07-25T14:44:00.000-07:00

Today:

"Senator Obama made a different choice. He not only opposed the new strategy, but actually tried to prevent us from implementing it. He didn't just advocate defeat, he tried to legislate it."

2007:

"I don't think it's appropriate to say that you disapprove of a mission and you don't want to fund it and you don't want it to go, but yet you don't take the action necessary to prevent it."

Wrong

2008-07-24T12:41:00.000-07:00

From MSNBC's "Race to the ~~Bottom~~ White House" on Tuesday:

JAY CARNEY: Well, David, I would guess that voters would look forward, and their interest, still, even though they by a small margin believe the surge is successful, as Stephen pointed out, they still want this war to end overwhelmingly. They still think it was a bad idea to go in. And so I think that redounds to Obama's benefit.

But what I see here is a case of both candidates having a severe case of George W. Bushitis, which is the refusal ever to admit you were wrong about anything. I mean, as Rachel points out, John McCain made some, in retrospect, very foolish statements about going into Iraq and how easy it was going to be.

Now, a lot sooner than a lot of people in Washington, and certainly a lot sooner than anybody in the Bush administration, he saw problems and he came up with ideas of how to fix it by a surge in troops. Now, Barack Obama, clearly, when he said back when the surge was on the table that, you know, the surge might actually have the reverse effect, not reduce violence, but increase violence, he was wrong. He was wrong. And he should say-I mean, he could say-we would reward him at least in the media for saying he was wrong and he looks back and now thinks differently.

Right, because if people warn you to wear a helmet when you ride your bike, they owe you an apology if you make it home safely without wearing one. If you don't get AIDS from unprotected sex, if you don't strike a gas main digging a hole near your house, if you don't wreck your car driving home drunk... lots of people need to tell you that they were wrong.

Carney's logic is that Obama was as wrong to warn that something bad might happen as McCain was in stating flatly that something fantastic would happen.

Of course, McCain was wrong about an entire war, but don't let that enter the equation, Jay.

Imploding

2008-07-07T10:25:00.000-07:00

Another outstanding result of Republican rule:

The federal firefighting system is "imploding" in California, due to poor spending decisions and high job vacancy rates, as the region struggles to keep pace with what looks to be a historic fire season, a firefighters' advocacy group charges.

As a result, the firefighters say, small fires have exploded into extended, multimillion-dollar conflagrations because the U.S. Forest Service has been unable to contain them during the early "initial attack" stage.

"The federal fire system is imploding in California. They are crossing their fingers and just hoping they get through the season without a disaster," said Casey Judd, who represents government firefighters from five agencies through the Federal Wildland Fire Service Association.

[...]

Of all the agencies battling California wildland fires — including the region's two largest, the Indians and Basin fires in Monterey County's Los Padres National Forest — it is U.S. Forest Service crews that suffer the highest vacancy rates, entering this year's season with an estimated shortage of 500 firefighters, Judd said. Fully staffed, the region has authorized a force of 4,432 firefighters for the season.

Last year, the Forest Service's Southern California region lost 47 percent of its newly hired firefighting work force, according to a Forest Service report.

"We acknowledge some national forests areas in California have retention challenges, but we believe these situations are manageable," Forest Service overseer Mark Rey said in testimony before a Senate committee on wildfire preparedness last month.

[...]

Judd's group maintains that investing more in prevention and suppression would pay for itself with faster fire containment and lower outsourcing costs. He and others have speculated that under Rey — a Bush appointee with a long career in the timber industry — the Forest Service appears to want to get out of the firefighting business altogether by simply outsourcing more fire contracts to states and cities.

UPDATE: More here

Prayer for Big Sur

2008-07-02T19:35:00.000-07:00

As some readers have keenly noticed, the image in this blog's header is from Big Sur, California. So is the image in the footer.

Big Sur is a very important place for this particular blogger. Today, all residents were ordered to evacuate because of the Basin Complex Fire that is burning out of control.

Please keep your fingers crossed that no more historic places, homes or -- especially -- lives are lost. And if you can help, please do.

ABC and Rick Klein can't handle the truth

2008-06-30T12:57:00.000-07:00

So Rick Klein puts up this imbecilic post about how Wes Clark "went where no Democrat really truly wants to go on Sunday -- calling into question, in surprisingly sharp language, Sen. John McCain’s military record."

Feeling a little punchy on a Monday morning, I posted a comment:

What the hell is wrong with you, Klein?

Did Wes Clark say John McCain didn't really get a wound that required more than a bandaid? Did Clark say that McCain shot himself to get a purple heart? Did Clark say McCain turned his boat around and ran away instead of helping his troops? Did Clark say McCain only joined the military so he could run for president one day? Did Clark say McCain shot an unarmed child in the back? Did Clark say McCain called every soldier a war criminal?

Those are unfair attacks that the media played over and over again in 2004. Clark said nothing of the sort today.

You guys need to join the rest of us on Planet Earth.

Not my best comment ever, but not the worst thing I've ever written. Checking back later I discovered that ABC deleted my comment. I thought that was pretty strange so I asked why they deleted my comment. Was it because I asked Klein to join the rest of us on Earth?

This comment, too, was deleted. Then I noticed in an update they linked over to TPM's response to the post. So I made one last attempt at a comment:

I asked what's wrong with Rick Klein's comprehension and my comments get deleted.

Josh Marshall says this post is "Sub-Zero Stupid" and you link to him!

Maybe I should have insulted him more pointedly.

This blog gets more absurd by the minute.

This comment was deleted also. What a joke that blog is. They put up an insipid bunch of nonsense and then delete comments that criticize them. Intellectually soft losers.

By the way, here's some comments that they apparently endorse through non-deletion:

America WAKE UP! Obama has soooo many questionable ties to unsavory people...that we know of!...REZKO, AYERS, WRIGHT, his overzealous anti-American Muslim half brother...who or what else lurks in BO's closet? he's supporters are yelling for "Slavery Reparations"...there is a clear pattern emerging here...Disdain for America!

Rush Limbaugh has the perfect nickname for Wesley Clark...Ashley Wilkes (Gone with the Wind character). A weenie, whiney, wussy.

sure as hell beats being a community orgainizer in the most corrupt political city in the country.
I'll take my chances with a war hero over an empty suit.

Although...being married to Michelle might qualify Barry as a war hero...

Wesley Clark is a political opportunist hero wannabe. He bad mouths a veteran while backing a non veteran. What a JACKASS!. He needs to find a B movie to star in so his ego will be soothed. He is a whiner. The Army never has been able to do anything right.

I wonder if Martin Luther King Jr. would agree with Mr. Obama? I think not... because MLK was a Republican.

McCain ought to talk about how obama isn't really african american.. he has NO african american relatives.

He's a white wealthy prep school kid

Sorry my comments didn't meet your high standards, ABC.

Obama on FISA

2008-06-20T13:44:00.001-07:00

... Or, Why Chris Dodd Got My Money and Obama Doesn't.

Chickenshit.

PUMA = DUMB

2008-06-17T22:23:00.000-07:00

The Clinton supporters in Party Unity My Ass met with John McCain to hear what he had to say about their potential support of his candidacy:

"He stayed for a good almost half hour afterwards shaking hands, listening to our concerns, talking to us," said PUMA founder Will Bower, who said he thought many of the people there would vote for McCain.

Former Hewlett-Packard CEO Carly Fiorina stayed to mingle with the crowd, whose members also included Clinton backer Harriet Christian, made momentarily famous on YouTube for getting ejected from the Rules & Bylaws press area.

Bower said he'd liked McCain's answer on judges, in which he "pointed out that he supported Bill Clinton with both Ginsberg and Breyer."

Wow, McCain supported Ginsberg and Breyer? What a guy! He must be just the kind of candidate a Clinton supporter would love.

MODERATOR: Would it be good for America to have Bill Clinton back living in the White House? [...] Senator?

MCCAIN: No, because it obviously would mean that Senator Clinton is the president of the United States, and we don't want that.

Most importantly, it would mean that the appointment of Supreme Court justices and other judges would be -- take a very sharp turn to the left.

One of our greatest problems in America today is justices that legislate from the bench, activist judges.

I'm proud that we have Justice Alito and Roberts on the United States Supreme Court. I'm very proud to have played a very small role in making that happen.

Bower, if you're not a complete moron, then I don't know what you are.

McUlysses

2008-05-27T14:17:00.000-07:00

Cross-posted at Jesus' General

One of the most interesting things about a great poem is the fact that a reader's understanding of it depends largely on his or her own self-awareness, combined with an understanding of the world in general.

It is largely through experience, for example, that one begins to understand that Dylan Thomas' Do Not Go Gentle Into That Good Night is not a pep talk or fight song. It takes real loss in real life to read that poem and, rather than feeling inspired to rage, instead hear the defeat in Thomas' voice as he begs fruitlessly for his father to live another day.

A reader might be similarly inspired by Tennyson's Ulysses. After all, it is the screed of a triumphant hero, conjuring up the courage to continue shaping the world despite the fact that his time has nearly passed.

However a closer reading tells us something much different. We might just wonder to whom Ulysses is speaking? Himself? Some poor servant who brings him his soup and has to hear this rant every evening?

Ulysses hates his home, is no longer interested in his wife and holds the people he rules in disdain:

It little profits that an idle king,
By this still hearth, among these barren crags,
Match'd with an aged wife, I mete and dole
Unequal laws unto a savage race,
That hoard, and sleep, and feed, and know not me.

If he is not surrounded by people who love him, then he must be alone. Those are "both" scenarios in his mind:

I cannot rest from travel: I will drink
Life to the lees: All times I have enjoy'd
Greatly, have suffer'd greatly, both with those
That loved me, and alone, on shore, and when
Thro' scudding drifts the rainy Hyades
Vext the dim sea: I am become a name;

He recounts his adventures and makes sure to point out that he, himself, was the most important ingredient in every chapter:

For always roaming with a hungry heart
Much have I seen and known; cities of men
And manners, climates, councils, governments,
Myself not least, but honour'd of them all;

In the second part of the poem, he talks about his son, yet another important person in his life for whom he feels astonishingly little:

This is my son, mine own Telemachus,
To whom I leave the sceptre and the isle,--
Well-loved of me, discerning to fulfil
This labour, by slow prudence to make mild
A rugged people, and thro' soft degrees
Subdue them to the useful and the good.
Most blameless is he, centred in the sphere
Of common duties, decent not to fail
In offices of tenderness, and pay
Meet adoration to my household gods,
When I am gone. He works his work, I mine.

Well-loved of me? Blameless? He works his work, I mine?

In short, here is a man with little connection to the present. He's something of an ego-maniac who feels trapped in an old body and wants nothing more than to relive his glory days fighting the last war. He has little interest in actually governing, which he essentially equates with a delicate act of taming animals. Ulysses knows his days are numbered, but he refuses to let go. He sees in the ships one last opportunity to go out with divine glory:

Some work of noble note, may yet be done,
Not unbecoming men that strove with Gods.

He rallies the troops he no longer commands:

Come, my friends,
'Tis not too late to seek a newer world.
Push off, and sitting well in order smite
The sounding furrows; for my purpose holds
To sail beyond the sunset, and the baths
Of all the western stars, until I die.

And he understands that there's a pretty good chance that, this time, he'll command a sinking ship, but he doesn't care.

It may be that the gulfs will wash us down:
It may be we shall touch the Happy Isles,
And see the great Achilles, whom we knew.
Tho' much is taken, much abides; and tho'
We are not now that strength which in old days
Moved earth and heaven, that which we are, we are;
One equal temper of heroic hearts,
Made weak by time and fate, but strong in will
To strive, to seek, to find, and not to yield.

Though he's completely self-absorbed and living in former glory, Ulysses does know how to lead. What fantastic language at the end! The kind of language speechwriters mimic and borrow all the time.

Which brings me to the point of this post. At the Wellstone's Donkey Democratic Club in Second Life tonight, the General will be playing Ted Kennedy's speech at the 1980 Democratic Convention. Anyone who was listening then will remember that speech. It was one of the greatest in political history.

Kennedy understood that his campaign was over, but even more, that his presidential ambitions were over. It was in this context that Kennedy chose to end his speech with Tennyson's words:

And may it be said of us, both in dark passages and in bright days, in the words of Tennyson that my brothers quoted and loved, and that have special meaning for me now:

"I am a part of all that I have met
To [Tho] much is taken, much abides
That which we are, we are --
One equal temper of heroic hearts
Strong in will
To strive, to seek, to find, and not to yield."

For me, a few hours ago, this campaign came to an end.

For all those whose cares have been our concern, the work goes on, the cause endures, the hope still lives, and the dream shall never die.

Kennedy was to continue fighting, though the time for his greatest personal ambitions to be realized had passed. His campaign was finished, but there was time, yet, for "the cause," for "hope," for "the dream" to live on.

In recent days, we have heard Tennyson borrowed once more: John McCain's first general election ad.

Keep that faith. Keep your courage. Stick together. Stay strong. Do not yield. Stand up. We're Americans. And we'll never surrender.

This is how McCain begins his first commercial. Think about that for a moment. Kennedy recognized in these words the value in persisting even at the end of a campaign. McCain is launching his general election campaign with the furious call to action of a man whose time has passed.

This is a candidate who is as quick to drop names ("foot soldier in Reagan's army") as Ulysses ("see the great Achilles, whom we knew"), despite the fact that neither should need to reaffirm to anyone their worth through past relationships.

This is a candidate who sees a "transcendental battle of our time" in the same inflated way Ulysses seeks to strive with Gods.

This is an man would be the oldest president, still fighting the battles of the last generation and refusing to "surrender."

This is a candidate relatively uninterested ("The issue of economics is not something I've understood as well as I should") in "the sphere of common duties" and focused primarily on the terrific and glorious battles across the sea.

This is a man who left his first wife upon returning from battle and is now "matched with an aged wife" who learned, the hard way, not to mention his thinning hair ("At least I don't plaster on the makeup like a trollop, you c**t.")

This is a presidential hopeful who doesn't care if the "gulfs will wash us down." He's ready to double-down on the war in the Gulf, despite the last six years' carnage.

McCain truly is Ulysses.

This election (I assume Obama will be the nominee) will be a stark contrast between the past and the future. No speech in recent memory invokes the theme of change and progress more than JFK's inaugural.

Let the word go forth from this time and place, to friend and foe alike, that the torch has been passed to a new generation of Americans -- born in this century, tempered by war, disciplined by a hard and bitter peace, proud of our ancient heritage, and unwilling to witness or permit the slow undoing of those human rights to which this nation has always been committed, and to which we are committed today at home and around the world.

Just last week (as Hillary Clinton was associating herself with a dark episode in the Kennedy family history), Obama was speaking to Cuban-Americans and reminded us that it is time, once again, for a new chapter in America:

[I]t is time to pursue direct diplomacy, with friend and foe alike, without preconditions. There must be careful preparation.

You can learn a great deal about a candidate by looking at the language he or she uses or borrows. You can learn quite a bit about who they think they are and who they want to be by surmising what they think the words they use really mean. I think it's clear why Ted Kennedy wants Obama to be the next president.

I also think it's clear why McCain would be a disaster.

Poor marketing

2008-05-27T14:03:00.000-07:00

You may have noticed that this blog has been pretty dead lately. DB has had a lot going on in life, which has made it easy to ignore my own blog. But really, this primary has been just too damned ugly.

The number of blogs I read has diminished considerably over the past several months. I just haven't had the energy to duke it out over stupid things. It's really been painful to witness.

My candidate was Chris Dodd. After he dropped out, I considered John Edwards. But he dropped out before I even made up my mind about that commitment. That left me with Obama or Clinton. I would have been happy to see either in the White House, quite frankly, but over time I realized that Hillary Clinton -- a remarkable woman -- was a terrible candidate with a horrible campaign.

Again, she's a remarkable woman. But let's look at her campaign objectively.

I don't think anything encapsulates the problem of her candidacy more that the recent flap with her RFK assassination comments. It was awful and for so many reasons.

1) Any time you are in the final rounds of a tough campaign contest and your biggest supporters all go on TV to explain that you really don't want to see your opponent murdered, that's a colossal screw-up you made. When the talking heads have to "give you the benefit of the doubt" on something so macabre, you've screwed up. Will the media blow it out of proportion? Yes, that's what they do. Will your opponent make hay out of it? Yes, that's how it works. (Remember "bitter" and "would not have been my pastor?")

2) The fact that Nixon won in 1968 would seem to undermine the entire argument that she was making. The 1992 argument appears to be specious, at best.

3) Not understanding that it is irresponsible to bring up assassinations, particularly during this election, is something of a disqualifier in the judgment category.

4) The insensitivity to the Kennedys during a particularly difficult week for the family appears (to the public at least) quite tactless and uncaring.

5) The "apology" compounded the problem by failing to address the implications that were so obvious. Worse, the tired "I regret if anyone was offended" is exactly what the Obama campaign would have hoped Clinton would say. It reinforced the Obama message that the Clintons represent the same typical Washington thinking that needs to be put to rest.

But beyond those particular reasons this was a terrible gaffe, the real problem with her candidacy was exemplified by what this episode says about her message in general. Let's look at this from a marketing standpoint, since she's really been selling herself to the public.

In the locker room, before the big game, maybe the coach will say "They don't think you can win it" to psych up his team. Maybe on the podium, holding the trophy, the winners will say "They didn't think we could do it!"

But nobody sells something by reiterating that the product is undesirable. Why in the world would a campaign get on television over and over for weeks and argue that there is a growing chorus of people who don't want them around anymore? How is that an effective message for the public? Even if it were true (and as Chris Matthews -- the stopped clock who's right twice a month -- said to Terry McAuliffe, "You're arguing with nobody!"), why would you try to sell yourself with that message?

Hillary, herself, brought up the idea that people want her gone before refuting it with those bad examples. Why? What can you gain by emphasizing that there are people who don't like you?

Her message has been that Obama (presumably not assassinated) will be unable to get the support he needs to win. You will never see an ad like this: "PEPSI -- Because the Coke machine might break!" That's not a winning message.

While Obama has been associating himself with the message of change and progress that the Kennedys have embodied, Clinton associated herself with RFK's death. Great branding!

Her message increasingly is about the stolen elections in 2000. When you think of the anguish of 2000, think Hillary! Brilliant!

The glass ceiling is difficult to shatter, yes. Absolutely. But you celebrate breaking it after you win. Why make the fact that your victory is unlikely a prominent component of your rhetoric? Yes, it's true. Yes, we are overdue for a women to be president. I agree.

There are also the organizational problems and the Mark-Penn-doesn't-know-it's-not-winner-take-all problem.

The Hillary campaign has argued when they lost states that they were outspent and the defeat should have been worse. Memo to campaign managers: That just tells people that you were either given less money and had less backing or that victory was in reach and you failed to capture it.

I understand that Hillary's supporters are upset and feel robbed. But, seriously, if you could write a manual for selling something, this campaign would have to be included in the What-Not-To-Do chapter.

Once again, I think Hillary is a remarkable woman. But her campaign has been remarkably poor.

Great moments in CNN election coverage

2008-03-26T14:19:00.000-07:00

Earlier today, CNN's Don Lemon cut to live coverage of Barack Obama giving a campaign speech. Why? Because he was talking about Reverend Wright (emphasis mine).

LEMON: Back now to Greensboro, North Carolina. Barack Obama taking questions now, talking about the Reverend Jeremiah Wright. (JOINED IN PROGRESS)

SEN. BARACK OBAMA (D-IL), PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE: ... to our daily lives. And people's struggles with illness and families and finances and all of things that people normally talk about.

My pastor did say -- my former pastor said some very objectionable things when I wasn't in church on those particular days. And I have condemned those outright.

I do have to remind people though that this is somebody who was preaching three sermons at least a week for 30 years and got boiled down in the -- they found five or six of his most offensive statements, boiled that down into a half an hour sound clip -- or a half-minute sound clip, and just played it over and over and over again, partly because it spoke to the racial divisions that we have in this country and had tapped into some of those divisions. I hope people don't get distracted by that.

(APPLAUSE)

Because, as I said in my speech -- as I said in my speech last week on Tuesday, we can't afford to be distracted.

You and I, we are both Christians. We come from different backgrounds. We come from different faiths. And there are misunderstandings on both sides. But we are both Christians, and even if you are not a Christian, we are both Americans. And we cannot solve the problems of America if every time somebody somewhere says something stupid, that everybody gets up in arms and we forget about the war in Iraq or we forget about the economy.

(APPLAUSE)

Or we forget about the things that are going to make a difference in our children's lives. I don't want that kind of politics. I want a politics that gets stuff done.

All right? OK.

Next, Obama took another question, this one about health care for America's seniors. Let's see how CNN covered that:

The young lady right here who was angry with me that I didn't call on her.

Go ahead.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Good afternoon, and welcome to Greensboro. Certainly hope you had a great vacation.

OBAMA: Thank you. Well, can I say this? Two and a half days is not a vacation. Two and a half days is a long weekend.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: OK.

OBAMA: Which is what I had. And it was wonderful. Thank you.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Thank you. I'm B.J. Heathington (ph), and my question is, you have and all of the various candidates have continued to speak on health care, but one of the issues that we fail to forget is that the elderly care and persons with disabilities needs a special connection in this country that we are continuing forget.

Do you at this present time have a plan where you look to focus for the government to change some of these issues so that these persons can be recognized with dignity, as good servants to the community, and as taxpayers?

OBAMA: Well, let me talk about seniors. You know, the issue of elder care and seniors generally.

It starts with making sure that Social Security is here. That it was here yesterday, that it's here today, and it's here tomorrow. So, making sure that Social Security is stable is absolutely critical. There was a report recently that came out showing that Medicare will run out of money effectively...

LEMON: OK. Barack Obama in Greensboro, North Carolina, right now talking about Medicare and healthcare in the United States. But he has mentioned something that has dogged him for the last couple of weeks, and that is what he referred to -- and he made sure he referred to him as his "former pastor" -- the Reverend Jeremiah Wright of Trinity Church in Chicago, saying that he did three sermons a week for 30 years, and essentially what the media did was take five or six, or the most offensive statements, and boil them down to like a half- minute, 30-second clips. And he said, "I hope you don't get distracted by that," talking to the people there.

And also, someone asking him, "I hope you enjoyed your vacation." He was in the Virgin Islands, of course. CNN got exclusive pictures of Barack Obama on his vacation.

Do we have that? In the Virgin Islands, and so he referred to that. And he said two or three days is not a vacation.

So there you go, Barack Obama speaking there. But also, the reason we wanted to get you that is because he is talking about that controversy, the Reverend Jeremiah Wright.

"'I hope you don't get distracted by that,' talking to the people there."

Obviously not to CNN. They openly admit that they only care about this flap and they have zero interest in covering issues like health care.

Helps explain this:

Two thirds of Americans - 67% - believe traditional journalism is out of touch with what Americans want from their news.

Dobbs, rejected!

2008-03-12T13:39:00.000-07:00

Thanks to Dave Neiwert for the link to this cob-web site.

The Lou Dobbs outrage du jour did have a happy ending. His (bad) show always ends with a poll designed to maximize a lopsided result. Like this one from last week:

The results of our poll tonight, only 98 percent of you say the state of our economy is worsening. Are you listening, Mr. Bush?

Yesterday's show ended with this:

DOBBS: The results of our poll tonight. 48 percent of you say Senator Obama is intentionally misrepresenting my position on illegal immigration and I guess the rest of you are going to give him the pass. I'm not.

That's right... 52% told Dobbs to STFU.

While we're talking Dobbs, it should be noted that he spent a large chunk of his time talking about the Air Force's decision to give a big contract to the Northrop Grumman/EADS consortium instead of Boeing.

That's a perfectly fine topic, but if he's going to spend the opening minutes of his show going after Obama, shouldn't he even mention at least once that John McCain is deeply involved in the lobbying effort that led to that contract ending up with EADS?

Past ready

2008-01-05T00:47:00.000-08:00

Via Kevin Drum, I find this at the Corner from former Dan Quayle speechwriter Lisa Schiffren:

Admit it [Lisa Schiffren]

Let's say last night really did indicate that Hillary's negatives will keep her off the ticket. (Or keep her from winning if she's on it.) You know what? Deep in my psyche, in the place that kind of misses the toothache I've been prodding at with my tongue, I am having a tiny little pang of missing Hillary. Not her, but hating her. Hating Hillary has been such a central political impulse for so long now — 15 years — and I have had to work so hard to keep it up as she became more appealling looking, less shrill, more human — I don't really know what I will do with that newly freed strand of energy.

The sad thing is, America is past ready for woman president. Just not a woman who got to office on her husband's coattails. Time for the new crop of professional political women — the ones who are tough enough to run for office — to stick your heads up and start putting your opinions on the table.

Say what you will about Quayle, at least he didn't want people to know he wasn't that smart.

It's one thing to want to hate a political opponent enough that you struggle to do so for a decade and a half... Even worse to want people to know that hating somebody is central to your politics.

But what tips her scales from pathetic to imbecilic is the fact that Schiffren, while calling for "a new crop of professional political women," reveals without irony that her hatred for Hillary grew harder to maintain "as she became more appealing looking, less shrill."

What could possibly be keeping "professional political women" from jumping at the chance to run for president with writers like Schiffren ready to analyze their opinions?

But let's be real here. The fact is, Hillary was wearing a fairly low cut summer top. She was not displaying cleavage, as the shot on Drudge indicates. Someone else wearing the same outfit might have done. But Hillary Clinton does not have cleavage to display. Period. Indeed, Hillary never forgave her mother-in-law, Virginia Kelly for pointing this out decades ago to the young Bill Clinton, a cleavage man if ever there was one.

Perhaps Schiffren can go back to crusading against women in the realm of fiction if no ugly or flat-chested ones answer her call in real life.

Otherwise, I'm sure she can burn off that strand of energy fantasizing about the codpiece.

Slippery slope

2008-01-04T00:22:00.000-08:00

In a piece titled "Who's Afraid of Bill Kristol?" and teased with a link that says "The Left Needs To Shut Up About Bill Kristol's New Column," Slate's Jack Shafer takes critics of the NY Times' hire to task.

Shafer really slams "nearly every liberal with a blogging account" by showing us the absurd logical end to our collective gripe:

If being wrong about the war should disqualify Kristol from the Times op-ed page, then Times op-ed veteran and war-supporter Thomas L. Friedman, who was still calling the invasion "one of the noblest things this country has ever attempted abroad" eight months after the fact, should resign his commission. Bill Keller, Times executive editor today but a columnist at the dawn of the war, should pack and leave, too, because he supported the war in February 2003 as a "reluctant hawk." To be completely consistent, let's have the Washington Post sack its editorial page for its Iraq errors and the majorities of both houses of Congress resign.

Wow, that would be horrible. I now see the error of my thinking.

Iowa postscript

2008-01-03T21:56:00.000-08:00

DB's brilliant predictions were spot-on:

I will be disappointed with one party's selections and horrified by the other's. Then, I will stop thinking about Iowa.

I'm disappointed that Dodd had such a poor showing (not that I ever thought he'd come away with a significant total). But .02 percent is ugly. The AP story about his withdrawal from the race actually contains more information about him than all the previous stories about the race combined.

Even his (threatened) filibuster of the FISA bill that thwarted Harry Reid's skulduggery for the time being barely netted Dodd any press at all. The system is simply too rigged for a person like Dodd to get the kind of momentum required to make a strong showing in a presidential race. That's a shame, but one I accepted a long time ago.

Obama's win tonight -- and the Democratic turnout -- was impressive. So was his victory speech. I don't have much to add to it that hasn't been said on TV or on other blogs.

On the other side of the coin, Mike Huckabee is a terrible candidate with the right attributes to get support from a certain segment of the nation, one that might be large enough to send him to Washington.

Huckabee is grossly unqualified to be president. There's no denying it. Voting for him because of his religion or his demeanor is inexcusable. Haven't the last seven years taught the Republicans anything?

Besides, Huckabee invented the What Would Jesus Do Loophole: ("Jesus was too smart to [BE IN MY CURRENT SITUATION].")

Memo to GOP voters: You will never, ever have a beer with the next president.

And having someone like this in the White House is just too much for me to fathom:

Five days after the tornado tore through the state, [Arkadelphia, Ark., a] city of 10,000 lay in ruins. The cyclone destroyed an office building, a bank, a pharmacy and 70 other businesses. The electricity was out. The National Guard patrolled the streets. Six people were dead.

In Little Rock, GOP Gov. Mike Huckabee was reviewing a disaster insurance measure that he intended to support when he became troubled: The bill, drawing on centuries-old legal terminology, referred to natural disasters as "acts of God."

In a time of emergency, Huckabee would hold up the measure for more than three weeks to press his personal objection that the Almighty could not be blamed for the region's loss. In the process, he drew damaging headlines and created new strains in his relations with the state's legislature, the General Assembly.

Frightening.

Finally, the television media is as brutally bad as ever. The irony of all these jokers talking about how badly America seems to want change. Howard Fineman said that America wants "a whole new cast."

Yes, and that includes all of you. You don't have front-row seats; you are all part of the same sad show. Today's coverage, with a few exceptions, was agonizing and it didn't even matter what channel my TV was tuned in to. They were all equally bad.

While I'm on the topic... A special "For the love of God, Please Stop!" goes out to Anderson Cooper and CNN for the computer-generated pie chart floating over a hand-held panel and skewing and scaling with every movement, blocking out everybody else's heads.

It made me pine for the halcyon days when Soledad O'Brien shared her time with this guy.

Chris Dodd

2008-01-03T20:40:00.000-08:00

DB received an email from the Dodd campaign and this sentence was boldfaced:

The fight to restore the Constitution and stop retroactive immunity does not end with my Presidential campaign. FISA will come back in a few weeks and my pledge to filibuster ANY bill that includes retroactive immunity remains operative.

Thank you Sen. Dodd!

Brain Vacuum

2008-01-03T16:10:00.000-08:00

I had a brilliant teacher who once said that school would be a wonderful institution if it weren't for the students.

As a political junkie, DB should be revelling in the beginning of actual voting. But on the very first day of the 2008 election, it's already abundantly clear that the Brain Vacuum is going to kill me. Seriously.

How painful it is to flip through the channels to see, consecutively:

Lou Dobbs foaming at the mouth with Bill Bennett

Larry Kudlow interviewing Ben Stein (are you kidding me?)

Chris Matthews babbling with Chuck Todd

Shep Smith shooting the breeze with Barbara Comstock

Good god. It's going to be worse than I imagined.

Tweety

2008-01-03T15:59:00.001-08:00

What a clown.

CNN's Ticker

2008-01-03T10:47:00.000-08:00

CNN is putting out the idea that Hillary Clinton might put her husband, Bill, on the Supreme Court.

What an interesting news flash to come out on the day of the Iowa Caucuses! Was this something that leaked from the Clinton campaign? Was it something Hillary said? Has Bill dropped some hints to CNN?

Uh, no. It's a "prediction" by conservative law professor Doug Kmiec, who worked for Reagan and Bush 41 in the OLC. You remember Kmiec... He penned a lackluster defense of the Bush administration after James Comey testified about the shenanigans in John Ashcroft's hospital room. During the Clinton years, of course, Kmiec was the champion of the "rule of law" and intense critic of executive abuse of power.

In short, Kmiec has no insight of value on Hillary's intentions. Certainly not enough for CNN to front page his "prediction." Absolutely not enough value to make this a top news item on Caucus Day.

I guess they didn't have enough stupid predictions to fill the airwaves and internets.

UPDATE: This didn't even register in my brain when I read it:

Kmiec worked in the Reagan and Bush 41 White Houses as a top lawyer, but said he has no personal or political "disdain" for Bill Clinton.

Disdain? What a joke. Trash reporting. Maybe they should have indicated in the article somewhere that the dean of Pepperdine Law School -- that is Kmiec's boss -- is Ken Starr. Actually, they shouldn't have printed this crap at all.

Shameful reporting.

UPDATE II: It's 6:50 pm ET and Wolf Blitzer just pushed this story, too -- without even mentioning Kmiec by name.

Predictions for Iowa

2008-01-03T10:40:00.000-08:00

I will be disappointed with one party's selections and horrified by the other's. Then, I will stop thinking about Iowa.

Happy New Year

2008-01-02T00:01:00.000-08:00

Hello from the Pacific Northwest, the new residence of Dover Bitch. After nearly two decades in sunny SoCal, DB finally packed up the jalopy and headed for wetter digs. I will definitely miss my friends and family there -- and more than a few restaurants -- but the move was for the better and I have no regrets at all.

Still feeling out the local press. Thank heavens for the Internet. I'm not sure right now if I'm more irritated at the NY Times for giving Bill Kristol a paycheck or for continually enticing New Yorkers to come out to Portland. But at least I can feel good about having dumped my LA Times subscription when they hired that imbecile.

Sorry I was gone for so long, but after taking a short time off for the move, it became hard to overcome the inertia. I decided to wait until 2008 to get this thing going again. As I've written before, the upside of being a Z-lister is having the ability to disappear every now and then.

I just wanted to make a mention of one thing before I start up again. DB will be in mourning this year for a family friend who wasn't around this holiday season. Christmas dinner was tough for me this year because we lost her to cancer. I learned she had it this summer and she was gone before Thanksgiving.

A week after she died, I discovered that she had known about it for nearly two years. She had no insurance and was saving up to get the treatment that would have saved her life had she been able to tackle it sooner. Obviously, I'll be asking questions to myself about this for the rest of my life. But one thing is certain: She should have been eating dinner with us this year and America needlessly lost a great soul.

Whomever we call president-elect in 2008, that person better be ready to fix a health care system that is, for lack of a better word, fucked.

Away

2007-08-21T15:30:00.000-07:00

DB was lured out of vacation, but I'm truly taking time off indefinitely. Here's another poem until I return:

Away, Melancholy
by Stevie Smith

Away, melancholy,
Away with it, let it go.

Are not the trees green,
The earth as green?
Does not the wind blow,
Fire leap and the rivers flow?
Away melancholy.

The ant is busy
He carrieth his meat,
All things hurry
To be eaten or eat.
Away, melancholy.

Man, too, hurries,
Eats, couples, buries,
He is an animal also
With a hey ho melancholy,
Away with it, let it go.

Man of all creatures
Is superlative
(Away melancholy)
He of all creatures alone
Raiseth a stone
(Away melancholy)
Into the stone, the god
Pours what he knows of good
Calling, good, God.
Away melancholy, let it go.

Speak not to me of tears,
Tyranny, pox, wars,
Saying, Can God
Stone of man's thoughts, be good?
Say rather it is enough
That the stuffed
Stone of man's good, growing,
By man's called God.
Away, melancholy, let it go.

Man aspires
To good,
To love
Sighs;

Beaten, corrupted, dying
In his own blood lying
Yet heaves up an eye above
Cries, Love, love.
It is his virtue needs explaining,
Not his failing.

Away, melancholy,
Away with it, let it go.

Now for something civil...

2007-08-21T14:02:00.000-07:00

DB is supposed to be on vacation, but I can't let my last (profane and deleted) post lead this site while I'm away, so here's a more "civil" and "rational" response to the nonsense Gideon Rose has pushed out into cyberspace.

First off, here's the reason I responded as I did. It is a cowardly tactic to say something monumentally offensive and provocatively stupid, while couching it in a "high road" plea for civility. That's precisely what Rose did. I call his bluff.

I've never written anything like that last post to anybody on the blog-o-sphere. But I'm not going to allow Rose to dictate the terms of the debate, which is the entire point of this Internet-wide topic -- that the Very Serious People (VSPs) in the foreign policy community are more interested in shutting down voices than they are at reaching conclusions that reflect reality.

Here is the point as Atrios articulated it:

The "foreign policy clerisy" apparently exists to close off public scrutiny of or wider debate about America's appropriate role in the world, to limit the range of options which are "on or off the table" and which are open to public debate or discussion. They exist to monopolize debate and have veto status over club members. Members of the community are clearly chosen for the ability to perpetuate this agenda, rather than for their expertise. Max Boot? Peter Beinart? Pollack? O'Hanlon? Can anybody in this gang tie their shoes?

Challenging his critics to use "civil" language is simply an extension of this attempt to monopolize debate, particularly in the context of a post which aims to equate and ultimately dismiss two completely different groups of people with opinions. As I wrote above, I don't typically use that language, but I'm not about to let Rose tell me what is appropriate. To cede that point is to cede the entire argument, really. Of course, I'm not suggesting that the solution to America's problems is more posts like my last one. I'm simply not going to let Rose tell me what I can and cannot write. Ever.

Furthermore, I was enraged by that comment because nothing more vibrantly demonstrates elitist, ivory tower-dwelling detachment than suggesting that a conversation about whether or not America should drop nuclear weapons on countries that do not threaten us is something other than the highest stakes. If a first-strike nuclear attack isn't high stakes, just what is?

I wrote at Hullabaloo a while back that the ivory tower many of our most visible pundits occupy is apparently shielded from the view of the consequences of the policies and decisions hatched and/or advocated there. That Very Serious People like Gideon Rose are also unable to recognize that the cost of their failures comes in the form of dead children, among other atrocities, is a disqualifier in and of itself. To suggest that those stakes are so low that some vulgar blogging is, by comparison, some sort of heinous transgression is simply adding insult to injury (literally, as the injuries are legion).

So let's take a look at the main points in Rose's response to the blog-o-sphere in challenging his claims that the netroots are like the neocons. I'll take it point-by-point:

MY LAST post has sparked some discussion elsewhere, so I figured it was worth doing a follow-up before finishing up my stint as a guest-blogger here. What seems to have annoyed critics most is my comparison of the netroots to the neocons. To elaborate my position, I think there are three main similarities and one difference:

1. Both are obsessed with Iraq to the exclusion of other issues. Back in the day, many neocons put Saddam at the center of all the world’s troubles. No matter what the question—terrorism, nuclear proliferation, Arab-Israeli relations—Iraq was the answer. The netroots’ version of this is to argue that the war is so far and away the most important issue of our time that people’s views on it are the only important thing to know about them.

Wrong. I won't waste any time listing the myriad issues that the netroots discuss every single day. Likewise, I won't presume to speak for the neocons, who certainly spend time thinking about issues beyond Iraq.

But what should be clear to anybody paying attention, particularly the managing editor of Foreign Affairs, is that the neocons are as interested in bombing Iran. The neocons clearly see Iraq as the first step towards a wider conflict. The VSPs don't appear to appreciate the severity of the disaster the neocons have created. It's about America's role in the world and the limits we are willing to impose on ourselves. This isn't just about Iraq.

How much more obvious can it be, Mr. Rose? In fact, part of what got this entire debate about VSPs and neocons started was Glenn Greenwald's pointing out that they were following the same script used in Iraq while talking about Iran. It is impossible to believe that Rose doesn't think this is about more than Iraq.

It is not unlike Joe Lieberman's last campaign for the Senate, when he claimed the people supporting Ned Lamont were only thinking about one issue -- Iraq. Now Lieberman is on television talking about hitting Syria. He's already talked about striking Iran. Joe Lieberman is a liar. Rose is parroting his campaign rhetoric.

2. Both are sure that policy questions have obvious right answers. The neocons were so convinced that disagreement on Iraq constituted heresy that they bullied dissenting voices on the right into silence or expelled them from the conservative movement altogether—to the point where antiwar conservatives felt driven to start their own magazine. As for the hardcore lefty bloggers, well, here’s how Ezra Klein put it recently: “In the opinion of the netroots, if you opposed eliminating dividend taxation and drilling in ANWR but enthusiastically supported the war in Iraq—and appear incapable of really repenting or learning from that error—you are not 66 percent liberal and thus an ally; you were and are wrong on the preeminent issue of our time.” And thus, of course, an enemy.

No. The problem isn't with the answers. Again, the problem is with the questions. "Should America drop nuclear weapons on countries that do not pose an immediate threat?" If that question was ever illegitimate in a policy debate, it was because answering in the affirmative would be immoral. That question is left out of the conversation today because it seems to be a given among VSPs that America can do whatever it wants. As Greenwald writes (and Rose ignores):

As I said the other day, there is no such thing in the Community as "unserious war advocacy"; that term is an oxymoron. That is why you can travel as far along the spectrum as possible, arrive at the most extremist neoconservative point, and still be comfortably within the acceptable range of Serious Community Views. Kristol's partner, Fred Kagan, is a revered member of the Community. Rudy Giuliani knows that he can hire as his top foreign policy advisor an outright psychopath like Norman Podhoretz and not be deemed unserious because the Community takes Seriously all war advocacy. That is its nature, its ideology, its identity. Argue for the U.S. to start a war now with Iran and you are Serious; but argue that we should take off the table nuclear weapons when attacking a terrorist camp or that the U.S. invasion of Iraq was illegitimate, and you are an unserious leftist.

Rose ought to know this since Rudy's obscene foreign policy views were printed in Rose's own publication. Rose writes that the neocons "bullied dissenting voices on the right into silence," but what about the voices on the left? Did they not get bullied? Of course they did. The problem is they still do.

3. Both consider politics a blood sport with stakes so high that rational or even civil discourse is a frivolous luxury. This one hardly needs citations, does it?

I dealt with this one at the top of this post. Although, I neglected to mention that VSPs lack some civility as well.

Finally, the lone difference Rose sees between the netroots and the neocons:

4. The neocon’s views led to a disaster that the netroots’ views would have avoided.

Many of my critics think the fourth so outweighs the first three as to make any comparison between the netroots and the neocons ludicrous, and I can see their point. The Iraq war has turned out to be the biggest disaster in recent American foreign policy, and so anybody who was in any way an enabler of it has some 'splainin' to do.

So, in Rose's view, the distinction between the netroots and neocons is that one was catastrophically wrong about a trillion-dollar, life-consuming quagmire, and the other wasn't. But they are also similar in unflattering ways. So they both should be dismissed. Except that only the one that was correct about the disaster is unserious. The catastrophically wrong group is Very Serious and belongs on our televisions every day.

And while the neocons on television and in the newspapers tell us about the people we should kill, sitting next to them in a detached, dispassionate and civil manner will be a Very Serious Expert to explain why, this time, the same thinking that brought us Iraq is sound.

There's a great deal more in Rose's post (like his comparison of a millionaire baseball player swinging a bat at a ball and missing with a foreign policy expert who couldn't contemplate the death, carnage and misery of Iraq... Or, his imaginary world in which Hans Blix didn't ask for more time and believed that Iraq had WMD...) but I'm supposed to be on vacation, so I'm not going to spend any more time on this post. I could swear at Rose for that, too.

UPDATE: Joe Klein writes:

Also readers should make the distinction between full-time TV talking heads like Bill Kristol and Fred Barnes, and members of the Priesthood, like Jessica Matthews or even Ken Pollack, who appear on TV infrequently unless they are under contract as Tony Cordesman is to ABC (I think). If you want to make the argument that the networks ignored anti-war voices, fine. I agree. But that's a different argument from saying that the Priesthood was overwhelmingly in favor of the war, or anything else (except comity and "a free and frank exchange of ideas.")

Fair enough.

Vacation

2007-08-19T14:37:00.000-07:00

DB is taking a break from blogging for a bit. Not sure how long. Here's a poem:

A Statesman's Holiday
by William Butler Yeats

I lived among great houses,
Riches drove out rank,
Base drove out the better blood,
And mind and body shrank.
No Oscar ruled the table,
But I'd a troop of friends
That knowing better talk had gone
Talked of odds and ends.
Some knew what ailed the world
But never said a thing,
So I have picked a better trade
And night and morning sing:
Tall dames go walking in grass-green Avalon.

Am I a great Lord Chancellor
That slept upon the Sack?
Commanding officer that tore
The khaki from his back?
Or am I de Valera,
Or the King of Greece,
Or the man that made the motors?
Ach, call me what you please!
Here's a Montenegrin lute,
And its old sole string
Makes me sweet music
And I delight to sing:
Tall dames go walking in grass-green Avalon.

With boys and girls about him.
With any sort of clothes,
With a hat out of fashion,
With Old patched shoes,
With a ragged bandit cloak,
With an eye like a hawk,
With a stiff straight back,
With a strutting turkey walk.
With a bag full of pennies,
With a monkey on a chain,
With a great cock's feather,
With an old foul tune.
Tall dames go walking in grass-green Avalon.

Seriously

2007-08-17T12:08:00.000-07:00

Kevin Drum flags this steaming pile of crap from Gideon Rose, managing editor of Foreign Affairs:

The lefty blogosphere, meanwhile, has gotten itself all in a tizzy over the failings of the "foreign policy community." The funny thing is...hell, I'll just come out and say it: the netroots' attitude toward professionals isn't that different from the neocons'....

The charges the bloggers are making now are very similar to those that the neocons made a few years ago: mainstream foreign-policy experts are politicised careerists, biased hacks, and hide-bound traditionalists who have gotten everything wrong in the past and don't deserve to be listened to in the future. (Take a look at pretty much any old Jim Hoagland column and you'll see what I mean.) Back then, the neocons directed their fire primarily at the national security bureaucracies — freedom-hating mediocrities at the CIA, pin-striped wussies at the State Department, cowardly soldiers at the Pentagon. Now the bloggers' attacks are generally aimed at the think-tank world.

Wow. Not unlike the pathetic whines of the traditional media, who think that they must be doing something right because they get complaints from "both sides," when the right-wing wants them to advance their agenda and the left just wants an honest discussion.

America's foreign policy is a disaster. The majority of Americans think the Iraq War was a mistake, wasn't worth it and would like to see it over with as soon as possible. In fact, the majority of people on Earth think that. By any objective standard, in fighting the Iraq War, none of the goals one would normally hope to accomplish in a war have been reached. Unless you see the Iraq War as a step in a desirable expansion of hostile actions in the region, which is, of course, the neocon agenda.

On one hand, a small faction of people who are complaining that the professionals are not helping them advance their narrow agenda.

On the other hand, everybody else, with countless different agendas, who have witnessed the disaster yielded by the neocons and complain that we turn on the TV every day to see only neocons and think-tankers calling us "unserious" and supporting that disastrous agenda.

Yeah, the netroots' attitude is just like the neocons'.

Ownership Society?

2007-08-13T15:00:00.000-07:00

Now that the entire blog-o-sphere is buzzing about the Chris Matthews-Erin Burnett encounter that was blogged here first (DB notes in an unseemly, self-congratulatory way since nobody else noted it), I've gotten over the bulk on my sympathy for Burnett and the shock of her insane comments about the bargain China is giving us on poisonous food.

What I've been thinking about mostly since then is this comment:

BURNETT: You know, Chris, just to throw it out there and be provocative, but also ask a fair question, you know, maybe not everybody is able to own a home. We like to think of owning a home as a right in this country.

MATTHEWS: Yeah.

BURNETT: It might not be.

This is, apparently, the new meme. That people are entirely responsible for kidding themselves into thinking they could own a home when, clearly, they're deadbeats.

I want to make it clear up front that people who took out loans they could not afford absolutely own some responsibility for the hole they dug for themselves. But this did not happen in a vacuum. What about the responsibility of the lenders, who certainly should have understood the repercussions more than anybody? What about Alan Greenspan?

But really, as Bush's brain steps down today, can there really be a greater repudiation of his vision for an "Ownership Society," the foundation of Bush's domestic agenda, his plan to follow the New Deal, Great Society, etc... His mark on history, than this?

Here's how Rove characterized it:

We will build an ownership society by expanding the ownership of homes and businesses, retirement savings and health insurance, and preparing Americans for the challenges of life in a free society. We are putting government on the side of reform and progress, modernization and greater freedom, more personal choice and greater prosperity. The great goal of modern-day conservatism is to make our society more prosperous and more just.

The think-tankers loved it. But if Americans can't partake in the Ownership Society, what good is it? If Americans prove not to be infallible, what does that say about the Bush efforts to take away the safety net? If creditors cannot be trusted to give loans responsibly, why give them protection with legislation like the bankruptcy bill?

The answers have always been the same. But if conservatives are going to start placing the blame entirely on the shoulders of the people losing their homes, they're going to have to take a long, hard look at their own dogmatic efforts to reshape America.

The family that drinks together...

2007-08-13T14:07:00.000-07:00

John McCardell of Choose Responsibility was on MSNBC today to advocate the lowering of the national drinking age to 18.

Without commenting on that debate or Choose Responsibility's proposals, I can't help noting how McCardell's appearance ended. McCardell said that, because the law prohibits adults from giving alcohol to minors in the privacy of their own homes, the law is "anti-family."

Really? Anti-family? Come on.

CNMI Update

2007-08-11T15:05:00.000-07:00

Human rights activist Wendy Doromal, who has been working tirelessly on behalf of exploited workers in the Northern Marianas Islands, has posted a diary on Daily Kos, her first.

The good news is that our voices are being heard by Congress. However, Americans who believe that workers on U.S. soil should not be treated like property still need to put pressure on Congress to stop the abuses in CNMI, once and for all.

Time is running out. Please read Wendy's diary and help by telling Congress to act.

Really close

2007-08-11T14:28:00.000-07:00

DB was watching Hardball yesterday and heard this from CNBC's Erin Burnett:

You know, when you talk about inflation, that's another interesting point because a lot of people like to say, scaremonger about China, right? A lot of politicians, and I know you talk about that issue all the time... I think people should be careful what they wish for on China. You know, if China were to revalue its currency or China is to start making, say, toys that don't have lead in them or food that isn't poisonous, their cost of production is going to go up and that means prices at Walmart here in the United States are going to go up, too. So, I would say China is our greatest friend right now. They're keeping prices low and they're keeping prices for mortgages low, too.

I'll tell you, when I picked my jaw up off the floor, I decided to wait for the rebroadcast to make sure I heard it correctly. But a few minutes later, I was forced to change my mind and go easy on Burnett because Chris Matthews' behaviour became so lecherous and demeaning towards her, I thought she didn't deserve any additional grief. (Video here)

Here's how the segment ended:

BURNETT: You know, Chris, just to throw it out there and be provocative, but also ask a fair question, you know, maybe not everybody is able to own a home. We like to think of owning a home as a right in this country.

MATTHEWS: Yeah.

BURNETT: It might not be.

MATTHEWS: Can you get a little closer to the camera?

BURNETT: My... What is it... is it...

MATTHEWS: Come on in closer.

BURNETT: ...zooming in strangely?

MATTHEWS: Come in further, come in closer... Really close.

BURNETT: What... What are you... What are you...

MATTHEWS: Ha! Ha! Just kidding. You look great! Anyway it's, thanks. Erin, it's great to have... Look at that look...

BURNETT: I don't even know... I'm going to have to go look at the tape here...

MATTHEWS: No, you're beautiful...

BURNETT: ... I'm in a strange location...

MATTHEWS: I'm just kidding. I'm just kidding, you're a knockout. Anyway, thank you, Erin Burnett.

BURNETT: Alright, Chris.

MATTHEWS: It's alright getting bad news from you, even. Thanks for coming on Hardball

Uh, ewwwwwww. Makes me want to eat lead.

UPDATE: Burnett's comments about China remind me of this Woody Allen joke:

Two elderly women are at a Catskill mountain resort, and one of 'em says, "Boy, the food at this place is really terrible." The other one says, "Yeah, I know; and such small portions."

You can also do other things

2007-08-09T15:04:00.000-07:00

Words of wisdom from Bob Novak at the 29th annual Young America's Foundation National Conservative Student Conference held at George Washington University on July 31:

If you really want to be a professional journalist, if you want to be a reporter, you want to be in the news business, or television, not the press person for the National Rifle Association, don't tell anybody you're a conservative. Don't tell 'em.

The news media is filled with liberals. It's dominated much more by liberal executives than it was when I first came here 50 years ago and, therefore, it's harder to break in. What you've got to be, you've got to be, like in the old days, a communist. Infiltrating something. You're a conservative and you can do certain things that help your cause. Just telling the truth is helping the cause. But you can also do other things.

And eventually you may be as outspoken as I am, but when you're at your age, don't walk into NBC and say "I want to go on the air as a conservative." They'll kick you right out.

Now, let me give you an example. How many of you know Brit Hume? You all know Brit Hume because he's a big talking head at FOX. He's the managing editor in Washington and he's a conservative. You know he's a conservative.

I first met Brit Hume when he was a leg man, a reporter for the Jack Anderson column, not a conservative column. He was a leg man for Jack Anderson and I sat next to him at some basketball games. He's a great friend of Fred Barnes'. Fred Barnes and I had tickets next to each other at the old Washington Bullets games. We still have tickets next to each other at the Wizards games. And he used to bring... Brit Hume was a guest once in a while. I had some conversations. When you watched the Washington Bullets, you had to talk about something besides basketball.

I said, you know, this guy sounds a little bit like a conservative, you know? Not much, but a little bit. He was a big conservative but he was in the closet. He left Jack Anderson and he got a job with ABC News, no idea of his reporting that he was a conservative, becomes a White House correspondent for ABC. So, he's rising up the food chain and, suddenly, I see an article by him in The American Spectator. A conservative article. So, wow, he's starting, at least in print, to come out of the closet.

That's the model. Be smart. Don't impale yourself on the horns of liberalism.

The Misery Strategy

2007-08-09T04:09:00.000-07:00

This New York Times editorial, The Misery Strategy nails it.

The country will have a long time to watch this approach as it fails. The politicians who killed the Senate bill for offering “amnesty” have never offered a workable alternative. Their one big idea is that harsh, unrelenting enforcement at the border, in the workplace and in homes and streets would dry up opportunities for illegal immigrants and eventually cause the human tide to flow backward. That would be true only if life for illegal immigrants in America could be made significantly more miserable than life in, say, rural Guatemala or the slums of Mexico City. That will take a lot of time and a lot of misery to pull that off in a country that has tolerated and profited from illegal labor for generations.

The American people cherish lawfulness but resist cruelty, and have supported reform that includes a reasonable path to earned citizenship. Their leaders have given them immigration reform as pest control.

Think how bad America would have to make life for these families to make them want to go back to third world conditions with no prospects. Is that how we want our country to treat people? Like pests?

Game over

2007-08-09T03:50:00.000-07:00

The New York Times has a story today about how hard it is to be the father of a total failure, in this case George Bush:

These are distressing days for the Bush family patriarch, only the second former president in American history, after John Adams, to see his son take the White House. At 83, he finds it tough to watch his son get criticized from the sidelines; often, he likens himself to a Little League father whose kid is having a rough game. And like the proud and angry Little League dad who cannot help but yell at the umpire, sometimes he just cannot help getting involved.

Only in the Bush family could they compare a man engineering conflicts that are costing thousands of lives with a kid booting a ball at third base. There are plenty of fathers today who will never go to a Little League game with their sons.

Because they're dead now.

I was going to let this go, it being the puff piece that it is, but I saw this from Atrios:

Three months ago today, the 4th branch of government said that it was "game time" in Iraq.

Since then, approximately 177 US troops have died in Cheney's game.

It's all a game to them. Today on Countdown, Jonathan Alter told Keith Olbermann that when Steve Skvara asked John Edwards about health care during Tuesday's debate, Alter was so moved he turned to his son and told him "This isn't sports."

It's nice to know there are people in the media who are still able to snap out of it.

Before the debate, Tucker Carlson said "You are watching MSNBC, the place for politics. Eight minutes from game time." As soon as it was over, Chris Matthews said "It wasn't an NFL football game, but it was pretty close." In fairness, the debate was at Soldier Field. I'm not sure it would have made a difference.

P.S. Can somebody at MSNBC.com please get with the program and make transcripts available promptly like CNN does? It's not even close.

Compelling

2007-08-08T16:19:00.000-07:00

Newt Gingrich gave a speech yesterday to the National Press Club, another notch in his bid to "create a movement to win the future by offering a series of solutions so compelling that if the American people say I have to be president, it will happen."

He spent the bulk of his time discussing the relative vapidity of today's political process, with particular attention to the format of our debates. Nothing he said in that regard was particularly offensive. In fact, much of it was substantive and thought-provoking. (All though, DB takes exception to his quip that a debate wonk like me has a lousy social life.)

Naturally, the media covering the event focused on his major theme -- that the debates and campaigning process could be dramatically improved. I listened to the speech and what jumped out at me, however, was his emphasis on Iran.

I believe we are on the edge of a precipice. The Iranians are desperately trying to build nuclear weapons and they will use them. This is a state with... Read what Ahmadinejad says. He writes poems about the joy of being a martyr nation. He gets to wipe out Tel Aviv, maybe the Israelis use nuclear weapons and wipe out Tehran. He'd accept that in a minute because he believes everybody in Tehran goes to heaven and everybody in Tel Aviv doesn't.

Gingrich went on to make it clear that we should be terrified. We should understand that Iran is unreachable diplomatically because they are driven by religion and are, therefore, irrational.

It's very hard for secular elites to understand this. Religiously-driven people do things that don't calculate in nice academic faculty surroundings and they don't calculate at the State Department and they don't calculate in a rational way in most of our bureaucracies. We are in trouble and somebody better begin talking about it in a blunt way.

Yes, secular elites cannot understand that world leaders driven by religious dogma are dangerous:

President George Bush has claimed he was told by God to invade Iraq and attack Osama bin Laden's stronghold of Afghanistan as part of a divine mission to bring peace to the Middle East, security for Israel, and a state for the Palestinians.

The President made the assertion during his first meeting with Palestinian leaders in June 2003, according to a BBC series which will be broadcast this month.

Why hasn't there been a discussion about that?

Why aren't liberal bloggers paying attention to the fact that wackos might be driving politics in the Middle East?

On July 16, I attended Christians United for Israel's annual Washington-Israel Summit. Founded by San Antonio-based megachurch pastor John Hagee, CUFI has added the grassroots muscle of the Christian right to the already potent Israel lobby. Hagee and his minions have forged close ties with the Bush White House and members of Congress from Sen. Joseph Lieberman to Sen. John McCain. In its call for a unilateral military attack on Iran and the expansion of Israeli territory, CUFI has found unwavering encouragement from traditional pro-Israel groups like AIPAC and elements of the Israeli government.

But CUFI has an ulterior agenda: its support for Israel derives from the belief of Hagee and his flock that Jesus will return to Jerusalem after the battle of Armageddon and cleanse the earth of evil. In the end, all the non-believers - Jews, Muslims, Hindus, mainline Christians, etc. - must convert or suffer the torture of eternal damnation. Over a dozen CUFI members eagerly revealed to me their excitement at the prospect of Armageddon occurring tomorrow. Among the rapture ready was Republican Former House Majority Leader Tom DeLay. None of this seemed to matter to Lieberman, who delivered a long sermon hailing Hagee as nothing less than a modern-day Moses. Lieberman went on to describe Hagee's flock as "even greater than the multitude Moses commanded."

Why haven't secular elites noticed that things can get really, really bad when religion is the driving force behind military action?

Actor Stephen Baldwin, the youngest member of the famous Baldwin brothers, is no longer playing Pauly Shore's sidekick in comedy masterpieces like Biodome. He has a much more serious calling these days.

Baldwin became a right-wing, born-again Christian after the 9/11 attacks, and now is the star of Operation Straight Up (OSU), an evangelical entertainment troupe that actively proselytizes among active-duty members of the US military. As an official arm of the Defense Department's America Supports You program, OSU plans to mail copies of the controversial apocalyptic video game, Left Behind: Eternal Forces to soldiers serving in Iraq. OSU is also scheduled to embark on a "Military Crusade in Iraq" in the near future.

"We feel the forces of heaven have encouraged us to perform multiple crusades that will sweep through this war torn region," OSU declares on its website about its planned trip to Iraq. "We'll hold the only religious crusade of its size in the dangerous land of Iraq."

The Defense Department's Chaplain's Office, which oversees OSU's activities, has not responded to calls seeking comment.

Gingrich calls for somebody to talk about this problem in a blunt way. Apparently, not him. He ended his visit with this:

...We have inherited -- this is the 400th anniversary -- a remarkable civilization, which believes that your rights come from your creator. We should make English the official language of government. We should ensure the courts do not interfere with the right to say 'One Nation Under God' as part of the pledge. And we should insist both that first-generation immigrants can pass a test in American History and that high school graduates can pass a test in American History. Thank you very, very much.

Earlier, the man who already suggested that we might need to limit free speech in order to combat terrorism continued to lecture the civil libertarians among us.

We are simply not prepared today to be a serious country and my fear is... I am genuinely afraid this political system will not react until we lose a city. And nobody's thought about the threat to our civil liberties the morning after we decide it's that dangerous and how rapidly we will impose ruthlessness over ourselves in that kind of world. I think those of you who care about civil liberties had better be thinking about how we win this war before the casualties get so great that the American people voluntarily give up those liberties.

When will some secular elitist notice that our government can respond to terrorism with ruthlessness?

My favorite part, though, was when Gingrich said this:

In the end, the American people are going to pick somebody and the job of all of us then is to try to make that person succeed. Sometimes you have to put patriotism ahead of partisanship and decide that whoever the next president is, we better help them have this conversation and help them have these decisions and hopefully make it work for the whole country.

Yes, Newt is such a uniter that CNN, in the first article linked above, felt they needed to add this to their story:

Gingrich stepped down as House speaker in 1998, after Republicans lost seats amid the drive to impeach then-President Bill Clinton over allegations that he lied under oath about a sexual relationship with a White House intern.

In March, Gingrich acknowledged he was having an affair of his own around the same time. He insisted he was not a hypocrite because Clinton was not impeached for the affair -- but for lying about it.

Are we compelled yet?

Correction: Wrong McCain quote

2007-08-08T11:24:00.000-07:00

DB saw this timeline of Friedman Units and decided to look for a missing McCain entry I blogged about here and at Hullabaloo. To my horror, I realized that I pulled the wrong item from my notes and used an incorrect example of McCain calling for more troops at a time which coincided with Michael Hirsh's appearance on CNN.

I linked to this appearance from McCain on Meet Tim Russert and assigned it the date of Nov. 12, 2005, the day after Hirsh's visit to CNN. That appearance was actually from Nov. 12, 2006.

I regret the error. However, I was certain that McCain had been saying the exact opposite of what Hirsh described the military was supporting at that time and I was not wrong about that. I simply pulled the wrong quote.

Here is the example I should have given, from Nov. 10, 2005, the day before Hirsh's appearance on CNN:

To enhance our chances of success with this strategy, and enable our forces to hold as much territory as possible, we need more troops. For this reason, I believe that current ideas to effect a partial drawdown during 2006 are exactly wrong. While the U.S. and its partners are training Iraqi security forces at a furious pace, these Iraqis should supplement, not substitute for, the coalition forces on the ground. Instead of drawing down, we should be ramping up, with more civil-military soldiers, translators, and counterinsurgency operations teams. Our decisions about troop levels should be tied to the success or failure of our mission in Iraq, not to the number of Iraqi troops trained and equipped. And while we seek higher troop levels for Iraq, we should at last face facts and increase the standing size of the U.S. Army. It takes time to build a larger army, but had we done so even after our invasion of Iraq, our military would have more soldiers available for deployment now.

Again, although the substance of my post isn't altered a bit by my mistake, I regret that I picked the wrong example from my notes.

Born on third

2007-08-08T00:17:00.000-07:00

The other day, after I posted at Hullabaloo, in the comments DB was called out for cheating. Well, for relying on quotes from Jonah Goldberg, which are so easily mocked it's almost unfair to use them. It's a good point.

The same could probably be said for Tucker Carlson quotes, but I just can't resist. Here's what he had to say right before the AFL-CIO sponsored Democratic debate Tuesday:

BILL PRESS: The rights that I enjoy as a union member...

TUCKER CARLSON: Oh God.

PRESS: ... Whatever rights I have in terms of pension, in terms of vacation time, in terms of health care comes from the union. I wouldn't have zip without the union and neither would any other union member in this country...

CARLSON: You know, that's a total crock. I have a union card in my wallet right now, and I will pull it out and show you, and it gives me zero rights. Zero rights. Any right I have, I negotiated because I paid my lawyer to do so, OK? This is a total joke and I'm forced to pay into this because of stupid laws surrounding it pushed by people like John Edwards.

PRESS: I want to see, Tucker, you get in a run in with MSNBC and see how fast they come to help you.

CARLSON: Yeah, right.

PRESS: The union will be there...

CARLSON: The union? Are you kidding?

PRESS: Absolutely, just like they get behind any working man or woman in the country.

CARLSON: Aaaaaaaagh.

PRESS: And where do you...

CARLSON: Alright.

PRESS: Where do you think you get your, the vacation that you get? Where do you think you get your health care?

CARLSON: Because I paid my lawyer to negotiate it.

It's hard enough to understand what keeps this guy on the air at all, but it's impossible to figure out why they'd air somebody with no sense of history or appreciation for his surroundings right before a debate where real Americans were discussing real problems with the candidates. It didn't sound to me like any of the people asking about health care, worker safety and job protection had personal lawyers to negotiate their vacation schedules.

I didn't go to Yearly Kos, but anybody criticizing the bloggers who went, claiming they sold out or something, need to remember what it looks like when somebody with zero connection to the real world is given a microphone day after day and paid handsomely to drool on it.

GOP soothsayers

2007-08-06T10:01:00.000-07:00

(Cross-posted at Hullabaloo)

Josh Marshall picks up on a key Ron Paul moment in Sunday's debate:

It's sort of obvious now that he said it. But I had not quite thought of it that way. The same people now continually raising the stakes on the price of redeployment from Iraq with increasingly lurid tales of genocide, ethnic cleansing and regional implosion are pretty much exactly the same people who gamed us into this mess in the first place with another bunch of fairy tales.

It is -- and has been -- obvious. Outside the GOP base, the people who dreamed up this nightmare have no credibility, whatsoever. Even if someone had the ability to accurately predict the future of Iraq, why would anyone think these people could? They've already demonstrated they possess the opposite of ESP.

Paul is right to mention Vietnam, the last example of a prophesied domino effect that was never to be. Somehow, nothing quells the war mongers' imaginations, though, when it comes to impending doom. The Washington Times' Tony Blankley delivered the ultimate domino rant on KCRW's Left, Right & Center back in January:

Nobody can predict. But an awful lot of experts who are not supporters of the president think there's a high likelihood that if civil war breaks out completely and were not there to contain it in any way, that Turkey will get sucked into Kurdistan, that Syria will be lapping over to support the Shias, that the Saudis, Egyptians and other Sunni countries will be giving more and more support to the beleaguered Sunni 20 percent. And in the middle of all this of course is little Israel, which according to the London Times last week, a paper of some repute having been in business for a few centuries, that they have a plan, not that they're necessarily planning to execute, they have a plan to use nuclear weapons to destroy Iran's nuclear capabilities. Now, you can't... you know, plus 19 million barrels of oil flowing through the Hormuz Straights, keeping the world's economy functioning, all in jeopardy, the Saudi oil fields, which are unfortunately for the Saudis or those Sunni country, the Shias happen to live on the Saudi oil, the danger there... so that is the most flammable possible setting.

Amazing how nobody in the White House Iraq Group or any of the president's supporters ever considered that a possibility before the invasion. At least, they never said as much. Some, like Jonah Goldberg, weren't too concerned:

Obviously, Saddam's overthrow could destabilize the region, but since when is stability the highest standard for American foreign policy? Destabilizing a stable system of cruelty and oppression sounds pretty good to me. We're all for destabilizing the mob, right?

Excellent analysis. Of course, Goldberg is now using the potential for post-departure chaos as a rhetorical weapon against the left:

Liberals used to be the ones who argued that sending U.S. troops abroad was a small price to pay to stop genocide; now they argue that genocide is a small price to pay to bring U.S. troops home.

Nobody is making the argument Goldberg assigns to liberals and, beyond that, there's little reason to believe our current strategy in Iraq is sustainable.

But let's face it, nobody who said this can claim to truly care about the Iraqis:

Q: If you're the leader of a peaceful and prosperous nation which serves as the last best hope of humanity and the backbone of international stability and a bunch of fanatics murder thousands of your people on your own soil, what's one of the smartest thing you can do?

A: Knock the crap out of Iraq.

Why Iraq? Well, there are two answers to that question.

The first answer is "Why not?" (If it helps, think of Bluto burping "Why not?" in Animal House.)

The second answer: Iraq deserved it.

Now. Here's the important part: Both of these are good answers.

More compassion from Goldberg:

"In the weeks prior to the war to liberate Afghanistan, a good friend of mine would ask me almost every day, "Why aren't we killing people yet?" And I never had a good answer for him. Because one of the most important and vital things the United States could do after 9/11 was to kill people."

The people who support this war don't care about the Iraqi death tolls. They're not motivated by any kind of real fear for the Iraqis' well-being. Of the millions displaced, only a few hundred have been allowed into the United States. The Iraqis are second-class citizens in their own country. Instead of concern for any Iraqis who might have been abused, the Right attacks anybody who alleges misconduct. They attack the credibility of any serious efforts to quantify the loss of Iraqi lives.

I'll not be lectured on compassion or history by any of them. But my point is that, aside from their cataractous crystal balls and pathological lack of empathy, the proponents of this debacle all have ample motives to push this looming-crisis meme, even if they don't actually believe it (assuming they even bothered to consider its validity as opposed to marketability).

We hear about the risks of leaving, but the risk of staying is clear. Every single day our troops are in Iraq, they are an unfortunate incident away from triggering a war with Iran. Thanks to the Lieberman Amendment passed a few weeks ago, our troops now have a Congressional mandate to increase their potential interaction with Iran. The last thing the PNAC signatories want to see happen is our troops leaving that powder keg. Anything they say to dissuade our egress should be viewed through that lens.

And for whatever GOP dead-enders there are whose thirst for blood is nearly quenched, there has to be a set-up for the "I told you so" that will inevitably come with every death after we walk. The "party of surrender" must be held to account for every problem that ensues after the order to leave is signed. The GOP enablers who allowed Bush to turn Iraq into the mess it is today won't be satisfied until they pin all the responsibility on the liberals.

Could the Iraqis suffer more if we leave? It's a possibility. But they don't want us there and the fools who started this war and the lunatics who want to expand it just can't be taken seriously when the question is debated.

A suggestion

2007-08-04T18:44:00.002-07:00

How about putting something like this in the Constitution?

The right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures, shall not be violated, and no Warrants shall issue, but upon probable cause, supported by Oath or affirmation, and particularly describing the place to be searched, and the persons or things to be seized.

What's the frequency, Rudy?

2007-08-04T18:44:00.001-07:00

(Cross-posted at Hullabaloo)

The tragedy in Minneapolis, like any disaster in America, provided another example of bravery and selflessness on behalf of everyday citizens and, especially, the nation's first responders. Fortunately, we haven't lived in the kind of country where disasters happen with extreme regularity. But when they do occur, there never seems to be a shortage of people willing to climb across wreckage or dive under a precarious pile of concrete.

Minnesota Public Safety Commissioner Michael Campion yesterday praised the rescue efforts and delivered a piece of unsurprising, but nevertheless gratifying news: The state's investment in interoperable communications equipment had passed its first real test.

Perhaps the most important aspect of the 9/11 legislation the Democrats succeeded in getting signed into law this week (no, I'm not talking about the infuriating Senate bill on wiretapping) was the part that will fund interoperable communications systems throughout the nation. The chaos in New Orleans during Katrina was a stark reminder that every minute emergency crews spend trying to get information can be the difference between life and death for a victim -- or themselves.

It is simply disgraceful that the federal government couldn't get the funding together for these communications systems until this week, six years after 9/11 and 14 years after the first attack on the World Trade Center. That's just another reason to wish for the premature departure of Alaska's corrupt Ted Stevens, who, as former Chairman of the Senate Commerce Committee, is as responsible for the delays as anybody in Washington.

It's a good thing that Minnesota didn't waste time waiting for the Republican Congress before implementing their radio plan. The results could have been much worse. Just ask Rudy Giuliani.

No responsibility is more fundamental and reflective of the nation's values than that of its Public Safety agencies. The citizens' legitimate expectation is that when their life or property is endangered, their government will respond. Vast federal, state, and local resources are committed to ensure this obligation is met. The effectiveness of police officers, fire fighters, emergency medical services (EMS) personnel, and other Public Safety officials is inextricably tied to communications capability. Today's communications environment, however, impedes meeting this responsibility. Rescuing victims of the World Trade Center bombing, who were caught between floors, was hindered when police officers could not communicate with fire fighters on the very next floor. Similarly, the inability to communicate among the agencies that had rushed to the Oklahoma City bombing site required resorting to runners to relay messages. The lack of sufficient, quality radio spectrum suitable for Public Safety use deters technological innovation, diminishes the responsiveness and effectiveness of Public Safety, and ultimately compromises the safety of the responding officers and of the very individuals seeking their help.

That's from the Final Report Of The Public Safety Wireless Advisory Committee (PDF), ironically presented to Congress on Sept. 11, 1996, five years to the day before New York had to deal with the exact same problem once again. The federal government had been slow to deal with this issue basically because of money and the revenue Congress expects to make auctioning off spectrum. The broadcast industry hasn't exactly rushed to relinquish the frequencies they will be giving back as the nation moves to high definition television, which is one of the reasons you haven't heard this issue discussed much on the brain vacuum.

It is likely that widely accepted use of commercial services may take longer than five years. The need for spectrum to provide interoperability is immediate, and the alternatives for short-term solutions are limited.

Public safety cannot afford to wait five or more years for spectrum relief assistance from the commercial sector as a solution to pressing interoperability problems today. By the time commercial services become more widely used for Public Safety applications, the amount of spectrum needed to accommodate yet-to-be-discovered applications will likely increase with those new requirements.

But Giuliani was willing to wait five years for the federal government to act. Nothing prevented the City or State of New York from working out their local communications problems themselves, especially in light of the attacks that had already been carried out there and the ample evidence of inadequacies. The Republicans like to say that we can all spend money better than the federal government, but the Republican mayor and governor of New York were perfectly willing to pass this job off to Washington. The results speak for themselves:

A NYPD helicopter pilot reported early, before the fall of the South Tower, that the North Tower was going to fall, but the fire chiefs did not hear of this. When the pilot saw that the South Tower was falling his announcement to police command was instant, and police command issued a forceful and robust order to evacuate the remaining building and to move all department vehicles to safety. Notwithstanding that this was a successful communication that resulted in the saving of many lives, the fire chiefs did not hear this order.

The command of the North Tower was covered with debris when the South Tower fell, and Chief Joseph Pfeifer, in complete darkness, gave the order, "All units in Tower One evacuate the building."

Just how many firefighters escaped in the twenty-nine minutes from Chief Pfeiffer's order is not certain, but we do know that one police officer, at least five Port Authority police officers, and 121 firefighters were killed when the second tower collapsed. Others were killed on the street, including four ESU 5 officers and a number of other firefighters who had successfully evacuated the building. -- 9/11 testimony of Dennis Smith, June 19, 2004 (PDF)

We ask these brave men and women to risk their lives when the unimaginable happens. Is it too much to ask that they have the proper equipment to do the job? Giuliani and the superficial media may believe that he owns 9/11, but he wasn't willing to own the responsibility of providing for his own first responders. If he and his former GOP governor and administration want to own 9/11, they can start by accepting responsibility for the lack of effective communications systems.

Giuliani says he knows more about the threat of terrorism than anybody. I'd be willing to bet every single firefighter in New York (and Minneapolis) has forgotten more than he'll ever know.

The Golden State

2007-08-03T11:23:00.001-07:00

(Cross-posted at Hullabaloo)

Have you heard the one about the liberal plot to use the issue of Global Warming to seize power?

Isn't it amazing? As soon as the Democrats go from the minority to the majority, the Republicans stop calling them the "party of no ideas" to the "party of the craziest, most sinister ideas, ever." Who could have predicted that?

Well, I'll show you an example of how the issue of Global Warming is being brazenly used for political purposes at the expense of the least fortunate. What a shock to learn it's the GOP putting their own interests ahead of the truly needy.

California's state budget is over a month late because the GOP refuses to pass it. Why? They don't like what Jerry Brown is doing to clean up California's environmental policies.

The two-thirds majority required to pass a state spending plan gives the Republican minority leverage during budget negotiations that it lacks the rest of the year.

It is using that leverage to try win concessions on several other issues. In addition to eliminating the deficit, Republicans are seeking changes on other issues that are not directly related to the budget process.

For example, they want assurances that billions of dollars in transportation bond money approved last year by voters will be spent as intended in the ballot measure. They also are trying to rein in efforts by Attorney General Jerry Brown, who has been pressuring local governments to address the negative effects on global warming of their various development projects.

Republicans fear Brown's actions hold the potential to delay or stop housing and road projects.

Schwarzenegger said he was willing to address that issue later but told reporters, "It shouldn't be part of the budget."

Without a signed budget, the state controller's office said it could not pay $326.6 million to community colleges; $170 million to school districts for programs such as special education and summer school; $140 million to companies that sell products to the state; and $300 million to preschool and day care programs.

Controller John Chiang said he will be unable to pay $2.1 billion due in August unless there is a budget agreement by the end of the month.

On Wednesday, one of the GOP senators, Abel Maldonado, voted with the Democrats to try to pass the budget, but it still came up one vote short. To fully appreciate how hard the GOP is playing here, understand that Gov. Schwarzenegger has line-item veto power and offered to remove parts of the budget that the GOP senators found objectionable. They turned him down.

This isn't about fiscal responsibility, but then, it never is. The Republicans love spending taxpayer money, just not on services for the less fortunate. They are playing with people's lives, fragile lives, and they don't seem to care at all. How else can you describe this kind of avarice?

At nursing homes, the cash crunch threatens not only their ability to pay staff but to buy essential supplies, such as food for elderly residents.

Eduardo Gonzalez, who with his wife owns the Fillmore Convalescent Center in Fillmore, said their food supplier may soon stop delivery. Of the home's 88 patients, 64 are on state-funded Medi-Cal.

[...]

Small homes for developmentally disabled adults are another immediate casualty of the state budget fight. They rely completely on state funding.

Bob Horrigan runs 19 homes, each with six beds, in La Verne and throughout San Bernardino County. He said he had suspended all repairs on vans, houses and wheelchairs, and soon would be unable to pay his employees. He and his wife, who together own the homes, are exploring ways to borrow money. But Horrigan said that his bank is balking and that other potential sources of money carry steep interest rates.

"Times like this you get money wherever you can," he said. "You alienate your family. You go behind on your mortgages."

[...]

The inability of the state to cover its bills is equally hard on the thousands of in-home child-care providers whose clients pay them with state subsidies. The caregivers, many already living on the margins themselves, rely on the state checks to pay their own rent and utility bills. This week the checks stopped coming.

"They will eventually get the money, but they need it right now to pay the rent," said Cliff Marcussen, the executive director of Options, a West Covina nonprofit that facilitates state payments to 1,000 child-care providers.

The state has suspended the subsidies for more than 250,000 children.

"Without payment from the state very soon, our programs — full of children of low-income parents — will have to close, leaving them with no child care," Kathy Lafferty, North President for the Child Development Administrators Assn., said in a written statement. "How does this serve the people of California or its businesses?"

Even if some of the larger institutions that provide state services are able to weather the budget impasse, many of the small businesses that are a backbone of their operations may not.

"I'm already living on borrowed time, as far as my bills, insurance and payroll," said Daniel Rojas, general manager of Midway Care Medical Transportation, an Artesia company that shuttles about 300 dialysis patients from their homes or nursing facilities to treatment centers. Rojas, who employs 25 people, said 95% of his funding comes from the state. He is frantically trying to secure a bridge loan, but his prospects are uncertain.

"If this doesn't get settled by the 10th, I would have to shut the doors down," Rojas said. "It's going to put us out of business."

There you have it: The Grover Norquist Republican Party. Dialysis patients and low-income children, used as pawns because the GOP doesn't approve of Jerry Brown and his environmental agenda.

Here comes another one

2007-08-02T19:16:00.000-07:00

(Cross-posted at Hullabaloo)

Just two weeks ago, we read this chapter in the closing-the-barn-door-too-late saga of the Bush years:

"Many of us feel very badly burned because of what both Justice Alito and Justice Roberts told us about their belief in stare decisis," said Sen. Dianne Feinstein (D-Calif.), a Judiciary Committee member who voted against both nominees. "So we will be very very cautious with respect to the next nominee — very cautious."

Feinstein supported a filibuster of Alito, after initially opposing it. She seems, from her votes and the above statement, to understand that Bush's nominees are willing to say anything to get a lifetime appointment to the nation's top courts. And, once there, they promptly go to work dismantling the progress America has made towards equal justice.

When Bush narrowly won reelection and the GOP controlled Congress, they were quick to throw the word "mandate" around. Today, Congress is completely in Democratic control and the president is as unpopular as any in history. One would think that his nominees would be more reflective of the nation as a whole. At a minimum, one would think that the nominee would be representative of the state from which he or she hails.

But it's George W. Bush we're talking about so, naturally, the nominee the Senate Judiciary Committee considered today is Leslie Southwick, Bush's third choice for the Fifth Circuit Court. His first two picks for this seat -- Charles Pickering and Michael B. Wallace -- didn't make it out of committee.

If the Republicans want to take advantage of their opportunity to fill these seats, they should have to present candidates that don't just satisfy the National Review and Wall St. Journal editorial boards. Especially in light of the fact that there's a distinct possibility that the next president will be a Democrat.

Here's what kind of move to the middle Bush was willing to make:

In 1998, Southwick joined a ruling in an employment case that upheld the reinstatement, without any punishment whatsoever, of a white state employee who was fired for calling an African American co-worker a "good ole nigger." The court's decision effectively ratified a hearing officer's opinion that the slur was only "somewhat derogatory" and "was in effect calling the individual a 'teacher's pet.'" The Mississippi Supreme Court unanimously reversed the decision.

In 2001, Southwick joined a ruling that upheld a chancellor's decision to take an eight-year-old girl away from her mother and award custody to the father, who had never married the mother, largely because the mother was living with another woman in a "lesbian home." Southwick went even further by joining a gratuitously anti-gay concurrence which extolled Mississippi's right under "the principles of Federalism" to treat "homosexual persons" as second-class citizens. The concurrence suggested that sexual orientation is a choice and stated that an adult is not "relieved of the consequences of his or her choice" – e.g. losing custody of one's child.

At the confirmation hearing, Sen. Dick Durbin asked Southwick for an example of when he stepped up to defend the powerless and he couldn't think of a single example. Today, Durbin revealed that he, in fairness, asked Southwick for an answer in writing, to give the nominee time to think of a good example. Again, Southwick was unable to think of a single episode.

The "Congressional Black Caucus, NAACP, Leadership Conference on Civil Rights, Magnolia Bar Association, Mississippi NAACP, NAACP Legal Defense Fund, AFL-CIO, SEIU, Society of American Law Teachers, Human Rights Campaign, National Gay and Lesbian Task Force, Alliance for Justice and People for the American Way among others" have all expressed their opposition to Southwick's nomination.

But Sen. Feinstein had a meeting with Southwick and he assured her that he is "not outside the mainstream." Despite her promise to be "very, very cautious" with Bush's nominees, Feinstein voted with the unanimous GOP to send Southwick's nomination to the Senate for a vote. When she announced her vote, she conceded that she "could be wrong" and that "maybe" she's been wrong before.

This president and his nominees have zero credibility on civil rights and most other issues. Why is Feinstein trusting them now?

UPDATE: Of course, I'm not surprised by Feinstein, just frustrated. Just had to add that since the comments at Digby's showed people really think I was expecting more from her.

The Most Trusted Name in Propaganda

2007-07-31T17:28:00.000-07:00

(Cross-posted at Hullabaloo)

Via Atrios, I see that CNN has given Laura Ingraham a week to get America clapping louder.

I guess we can expect the kind of hard-hitting war coverage we've already heard from Ingraham on her radio show:

INGRAHAM: Secretary Rumsfeld, I've got to tell you, when I read some of the very small stories about the Afghan elections I thought to myself, here we have about a 50 percent turnout rate in a country where we were promised unending violence, unending chaos, and yet women and young people brave the threats and they made it to the polls and you don't get any coverage of it.

[...]

INGRAHAM: One of the things that I think of course is responsible for this, the reason for this refusal to pay attention to the story, is because they'd rather focus on whatever they think is perceived problems in Katrina response, or they'll focus on the difficulty we're facing in Iraq, and on that note, I have to ask you, given everything that you know about the region, what's happening in Iraq, what do you do at the Pentagon to affect public opinion? Because these polls, one after the other, are showing ebbing support for the war. I support the war, I'm think it's worth it, and I'm frustrated that more Americans don't think it's worth it at this juncture.

[...]

INGRAHAM: Do we think, Mr. Secretary, that having a military spokesperson on the ground day in and day out, ticking off three positive pieces of news out of Iraq every day, someone that every American knows, comes to know whether it's General Casey or someone else, do you think that's something that would affect the public opinion at this point? Because I'm concerned if these numbers keep going the way they are, it's going to do damage to the President's war on terror overall and obviously his standing on other issues at home.

[...]

SECRETARY RUMSFELD: ... Obviously you're quite right, all of that effort has not overcome the negative press that is --

INGRAHAM: Something's got to change.

[...]

INGRAHAM: North Korea, I've got to say everyone thinking it was such a positive development, North Korea's commitment in the six-party talks to refrain from further pursuit of nuclear materials and nuclear processing and now they say well, we want a white water reactor, otherwise we're not going to move forward on our commitment.

What are the American people supposed to think about this?

[...]

INGRAHAM: The mistake made in 1994 not to look back, but to use it as a way of learning, a mistake of hoping for the best from North Korea just ended up kicking the can down the road, to use the line from one of your former colleagues.

[...]

INGRAHAM: Back on Iraq for a second, Mr. Secretary, the major problem outside of Iraq that would affect the future, our future success in Iraq, would it be Iran for you? I know that you talk about the people streaming across the border still, and the foreign fighters we found in Telafar a few weeks ago. But would it be Iran, and what Iran's role in all this is and would be?

SECRETARY RUMSFELD: In what sense? Would it be what?

INGRAHAM: A further danger to the situation in Iraq as it is today. What outside forces other than what we're seeing developing on the ground inside of Iraq would you point to as a problem?

[...]

INGRAHAM: And your commanders in the field now in Iraq, there are reports back to you about the progress being made. Of course Americans are greeted by headlines every day, 1900 dead, thousands more wounded, roadside bombs. But the commanders were working with the security forces. I've had a chance to talk to some of them. I hear a very different account of what is happening, very positive stories, again, and yet I don't see the stuff reported. It's frustrating to me. I can't imagine how frustrating to you it must be.

[...]

INGRAHAM: Two more questions, Mr. Secretary, I know you're on a tight schedule. Are you confident that a year from now or six months from now public opinion will move toward embracing progress in Iraq and the fact that Iraq was worth it?

[...]

INGRAHAM: You've got a press corps against you and you've got an international media who's oftentimes against you so it's very difficult.

Before I let you go, the AmericaSupportsYou.Mil charity. We continue to link it and promote it on our web site, Mr. Secretary, at a time when everyone's opening their wallets to Katrina I need to remember and remind everyone to support that web site which helps our troops, their families, and continues to just be a huge outpouring to the benefit of our men and women in uniform.

That's the entirety of her exclusive interview with the Secretary of Defense in the middle of two wars. Other than a dig at Clinton's North Korea policy, the only question was essentially "How bad is Iran?"

Everything else out of her mouth was an attack on the media for ignoring how fantastic the war is. CNN has reacted to her by giving her a prime slot... A woman who asked Rumsfeld "What are the American people supposed to think about this?"

Well done, CNN. In case her willingness to catapult the propaganda isn't obvious enough, here's how the interview ended:

INGRAHAM: Fantastic. If you need someone to be that military spokesperson over in Iraq, I'm happy to give up my microphone any time, Mr. Secretary. Any time you call I'll be happy to jump over there.

SECRETARY RUMSFELD: You're terrific, Laura. Thanks so much.

Yes, terrific is the word I'd choose, too:

Main Entry: ter·rif·ic
Pronunciation: t&-'ri-fik
Function: adjective
Etymology: Latin terrificus, from terrEre to frighten
1 a : very bad : FRIGHTFUL

You're terrific, too, CNN.

The dead-on military man

2007-07-26T17:28:00.000-07:00

(Cross-posted at Hullabaloo)

Newsweek's Michael Hirsh warns us all that the demise of John McCain's dream of leading our troops into another glorious war as Commander in Chief is a grave sign that America is not listening to experienced "military men."

In early November 2003, at a time when Fred Dalton Thompson was playing a tough D.A. on "Law and Order," John McCain was cross-examining Donald Rumsfeld for real on Capitol Hill. It was still very early into the U.S. occupation of Iraq, but the as-yet-unacknowledged (by Rummy, that is) insurgency was already out of control. Alone among his fellow GOP senators, McCain blasted Rumsfeld for not putting enough U.S. troops on the ground, and for resorting too soon to "Iraqification"—that is, transferring security to ill-prepared Iraqi forces. In an extraordinarily blunt speech at the Council on Foreign Relations that grim autumn, McCain warned that ultimately Iraq could become another Vietnam "if we lose popular support in the United States."

The next day, the secretary of Defense asked McCain to breakfast. "I read your speech," harrumphed Rumsfeld (that "must have been an enjoyable experience for him," McCain later joked to me). Then Rummy patiently explained to his fellow Republican why he and his top civilian brass (Paul Wolfowitz, Doug Feith and the usual crowd of incompetents) would continue to do things the same way. They "believed there was no need for additional troops," McCain later related. McCain had already realized that Rumsfeld was a lost cause. The real question, the senator suggested to me back then, was whether George W. Bush himself would push Rummy to make changes. "I’d like to see the president fully engaged,” McCain said. Bush needed to be on top of “more details of what’s going on."

As we now know nearly four years later, McCain was dead on in his analysis of what went wrong in Iraq. Right down to the need for Bush to get engaged and fire Rumsfeld. McCain was so right that, among military experts today, the emerging conventional wisdom about Bush’s current "surge" is that if it had occurred back then—when McCain wanted it and the political will existed in this country to support it for the necessary number of years—it might well have succeeded. Now even McCain’s fellow Republicans, frightened of the polls and Bush’s Nixonian level of unpopularity, are insisting on success in an impossible nine months (by September, that is). That’s a benchmark Gen. David Petraeus and others in the Iraq command realize is simply untenable. The disparity between the timelines in Washington and Baghdad is now so huge that failure is all but foreordained.

Oh yeah, and Fred Dalton Thompson is still acting on TV, having abandoned Washington for Hollywood five years ago, in the middle of the biggest national crisis since Vietnam. Presumably Thompson will keep acting until he announces for president, which some politicos think will instantly make him the front runner in a field that apparently no longer has room for John McCain. Thompson is, after all, a very good actor—an even better one, many say, than Ronald Reagan was.

And that points up a sad fact of political life in Washington. Americans can’t get enough of praising our military men and women in public—the people who actually know something about war. But we no longer want to elect them president. In a national culture besotted with TV "reality" shows, no one seems able to tell what reality is any more. We saw that in 2004 when two draft dodgers—Bush and Dick Cheney—brazenly painted a Silver Star winner, John Kerry, as fatally soft on war. We’re seeing the same dynamic play out again now.

I'll give Hirsh points for pointing out what a sham of a candidate Fred Thompson is. He also gets another point for calling out Bush and Cheney for the draft-dodging chickenhawks they are.

But the premise of this article is absurd. We are not "seeing the same dynamic play out again now." Not even close. Nobody is fabricating anything about McCain's war record to smear him. If anything, the fabrication is coming from Hirsh in defense of McCain, whom he credits for being "dead on in his analysis."

Hirsh is conveniently forgetting that McCain was the surge's biggest proponent in October 2006:

Republican Sen. John McCain, a possible 2008 presidential candidate, said Friday the United States should send another 20,000 troops to Iraq.

A member of the Senate Armed Services Committee, McCain said increasing U.S. forces would require expanding the standing Army and Marine Corps - a step the Bush administration has resisted. He also reiterated his opposition to a hasty U.S. withdrawal.

Reporters asked him to elaborate on his statement last week in Iowa that more combat troops are needed in Iraq to quell a "classic insurgency."

"Another 20,000 troops in Iraq, but that means expanding the Army and the Marine Corps," he said.

"It's not just a set number."

Bush announced his "surge" about two months later, just what McCain said he wanted. Digby picks it up from there:

Bush called his bluff and John Edwards very astutely immediately began calling it The McCain Escalation Doctrine.

He's since tried to distance himself from Bush by saying that he really meant 30,000 or that Bush wasn't honest about the situation on the ground or that we need benchmarks.

But Bush got this plan from him, not the other way around. It's his baby.

I hope that we can keep the press focused on this. They love them some St. John and are always willing to give him the benefit of the doubt.

Looks like they still are. In fact, one really has to wonder where the love affair comes from. It's not simply that McCain is a "military man" with gravitas. Consider Hirsh's appearance on CNN in November 2005:

ANDERSON COOPER: Mike Hirsh, did the Republicans make a mistake -- mistake tactically in doing this tonight?

MICHAEL HIRSH, "NEWSWEEK": Probably they did.

But, I mean, this is an exercise in irrelevance in my view for other reasons, mainly because the plans are going forward by the Pentagon and the White House for a mid-2006 drawdown, dramatic drawdown. The political military strategy's going forward.

I mean, I think what most of the country is missing here, as they watch Congress, you know, take each other on is that, in fact, there's a strategy for getting out of Iraq. I think this added political pressure will probably make a little bit of difference, perhaps in, you know, telling the White House that it has to go ahead with the strategy.

But there's no question that 2006 is going to be the key year for drawing down troops.

COOPER: Well, just today, Mike, we learned that a top U.S. general has submitted a troop withdrawal plan. It basically calls for U.S. troops -- it's been submitted to Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld. He has not signed it at this point, but this is a plan by a U.S. commander in Iraq, General George Casey, basically calls for brigade-sized withdrawals in 2006, depending on a number of considerations being met inside Iraq, in terms of Iraqi troops level.

Is that a significant document, do you think?

HIRSH: Yes.

I mean, this is one of a series of plans we have been hearing about since before the summer. There was a little back-and-forth between the Defense Department and the White House over this. Casey had alluded to a dramatic drawdown last spring. He was slapped down by President Bush, who didn't want to give out any kind of a timetable.

But, nonetheless, these plans are there. Those of us who cover the Pentagon have heard about them. And, you know, I think that, no matter what, if things -- if conditions remain just as they are now, they will go forward. You will have a trained-up Iraqi force holding some of these areas that they're clearing, clearing out of insurgents, and you will have a current force of, you know, 140,000 or so nearly halved perhaps by mid-2006.

If you can, for a moment, forget about how painfully wrong Hirsh was about everything there, notice that he pointed out the military was calling for troop reductions in Iraq with a "series of plans." You would think that a "military man" who has been "dead on in his analysis" with regards to Iraq would also be on board with the drawdown scripted by top generals in the Pentagon.

Unless of course that man is John McCain. Here's McCain the following day, Nov. 12, 2005, on Meet Tim Russert [UPDATE: Please read correction below]:

I believe that there are a lot of things that we can do to salvage this, but they all require the presence of additional troops.

[...]

We're either going to lose this thing or win this thing within the next several months.

Hirsh says McCain's floundering campaign shows that America can't tell what reality is anymore. If they could figure out how to take the Washington beltway perspective and put it in a pill, it would be the most potent hallucinogen every created.

CORRECTION: I chose the wrong example of McCain here. The quote above is from Nov. 12, 2006. I meant to link to this speech from Nov. 10, 2005:

To enhance our chances of success with this strategy, and enable our forces to hold as much territory as possible, we need more troops. For this reason, I believe that current ideas to effect a partial drawdown during 2006 are exactly wrong. While the U.S. and its partners are training Iraqi security forces at a furious pace, these Iraqis should supplement, not substitute for, the coalition forces on the ground. Instead of drawing down, we should be ramping up, with more civil-military soldiers, translators, and counterinsurgency operations teams. Our decisions about troop levels should be tied to the success or failure of our mission in Iraq, not to the number of Iraqi troops trained and equipped. And while we seek higher troop levels for Iraq, we should at last face facts and increase the standing size of the U.S. Army. It takes time to build a larger army, but had we done so even after our invasion of Iraq, our military would have more soldiers available for deployment now.

DB regrets the error. Please note that it was essentially a typo and did not alter the substance of this post one iota.

To talk or not to talk

2007-07-26T11:27:00.001-07:00

DB has been tied up this week, so apologies for the light blogging. I'm also a little late getting into this topic, but here's some scattered thoughts about the dust-up between Clinton and Obama over their answers to a YouTube debate question.

Here's the brief synopsis: The candidates were asked if they would, in their first year in office, speak with the leaders of Iran, Syria, North Korea, Cuba and Venezuela. Obama came right out and said yes. Clinton said she would increase the diplomatic efforts, but she wouldn't promise to meet them in her first year, not wanting to be used for propaganda purposes. Since then, Clinton has called Obama naive. Obama has responded by saying that voting to authorize the war in Iraq was naive.

Time will tell who comes out on top. The media, naturally, jumped on the experience vs. judgment angle. I think there are other elements to this disagreement that make it interesting.

International diplomacy is more than simply one president calling another or rolling out the red carpet at the ranch. Obviously, that's important, but diplomacy is a multi-dimensional endeavor and the Bush Administration has been ineffective not just because the doors at Kennebunkport or Crawford weren't wide open, but because the doors at the State Department were essentially closed. It goes without saying that the nation's top diplomat has been more successful at shoe shopping and raising awareness of golf as a sport than she has been at bringing countries together to solve major international problems. The answer to our failed diplomatic record needs to be more than simple cosmetics.

On the other hand, who cannot recognize the absurdity of Bush's notion that it's somehow a form of punishment to be told you can't meet (or get a back rub from) him?

This debate is giving me some flashbacks to 2004 because it's not much different than when John Kerry said he could "fight a more effective, more thoughtful, more strategic, more proactive, more sensitive war on terror that reaches out to other nations and brings them to our side and lives up to American values in history." Dick Cheney responded by mocking Kerry for wanting to show al-Qaeda our "soft side." Obviously that wasn't the point Kerry was making, but in the general election, Cheney's bottom-feeding quip was effective enough.

Clinton's answer was clearly more thoughtful. Obama's was more appealing emotionally. Will the Democratic primary voters choose thoughtfulness over emotion? It doesn't look like it.

Then there is the post-debate debate. I'll just say that I think Obama's response (that it was naive to vote for this war) was a pretty good stinger, at least as far as the primary goes.

The point I think will be lost in all this is the idea that a president should do the right thing for the right reasons. The GOP came into power believing that everything President Clinton did was, by default, wrong. If Clinton did it this way, we'll do it that way. Just ask New Orleans how that worked out. Bush's policies are catastrophically bad across the board and the damage he has done will require extensive repair. But the decisions the next president makes have to be more than just opportunities to repudiate George W. Bush.

If the next president is going to speak to another world leader, it has to be because America is ready to talk at that level, not just because a talk is overdue (though it most certainly is). If it takes two or three years of strong diplomatic efforts to get to the point where a talk between top leadership can be productive, that's how it ought to be done. However, if the president feels that a meeting in January 2009 will send the right statement to the world, then that's a justifiable reason to do it, too.

But we cannot allow the next administration to exist solely to prove it's not the Cheney administration. The best way to do that is to be thoughtful and to do what's best for America.

In case you think that sounds too much like Lieberman, keep in mind that I'm not saying it to stop anybody from disagreeing with me. Or to keep America in some sort of insane biblical conflict.

The Ivory Tower

2007-07-22T11:08:00.000-07:00

(Cross-posted at Hullabaloo)

Washingtonian punditry has given us much to revile, but there are few examples more illustrative of what vexes me than this, from David Brooks:

As Mark says, there's been this year-long momentum, but it has stopped or at least stalled for the time being. And I personally think the Senate will do nothing to change Iraq policy at least for another three or four months.

And that's for a couple of reasons. One, a lot of Republicans who detest where the White House is are furious at Harry Reid. And a colleague of mine wrote a good piece today saying that partisan feeling, rancor in the Senate was already phenomenally high, but now it's extra-phenomenally high. And over this issue, a lot of Republicans would like to peel off from the president, but they feel that Harry Reid is making it impossible. He's taking this as an issue, forcing them to vote with the president for political reasons. So that's stalled it on partisan grounds.

As Digby noted, the piece to which Brooks refers is likely that of Fred Hiatt.

The savants at the Washington Post have really had a banner month. David Ignatius wrote in 2006 that the media's failures in the run up to the Iraq War were excusable, as "the media were victims of their own professionalism," if you can believe that. He explained that "journalistic rules" prevented them from challenging the administration's claims. They were simply powerless to "create a debate on [their] own." The blame, therefore, should be pinned on the Democrats for not being critical enough.

Two weeks ago, however, Ignatius decided that the country would be better off if the Democrats and Republicans stopped disagreeing. "Political disharmony," he wrote, is bad for America. So, even if Bush and Cheney are completely and dangerously wrong about something (imagine that), journalistic rules tell Ignatius not to question the president unless the Democrats do -- and they shouldn't, either.

That would leave it up to us, but David Broder followed Ignatius with a column explaining that any criticism the public might have should simply be ignored, again, for the good of the country. In other words, the view from the ivory tower at the Washington Post is that nobody should question the president. This president.

And now this nonsense from Hiatt, that Harry Reid has done a great injustice by forcing GOP senators to choose between they think is good for their party and what they believe is best for America.

Were an observant outsider to step into the ivory tower, in which all things are viewed solely in a political context, our visitor might ask a few questions. Wouldn't doing what they believe is best for America also be good for their party? Did Bill Frist or Dennis Hastert ever once schedule votes for the benefit of the Democrats? Isn't it strange that my colleagues in the ivory tower find it irresponsible for Reid to make the GOP vote on legislation that would actually accomplish something the American public wants, while they expressed little outrage when the GOP forced votes on resolutions that did nothing but say "hooray for our side" in an obvious effort to embarrass Democrats?

But with midterm elections less than five months away, House leaders -- driven in part by dissenting voices in their party -- decided that their members needed to confront the Iraq issue directly.

"I think all members are going to have to express themselves on this issue as the year goes on. There is no way of avoiding it," Boehner said.

But Republicans wanted to air it out under the most favorable circumstances, debating over 10 hours a leadership-tailored resolution that would not be subject to amendment and would not face competing policy statements. By drafting a resolution that supported U.S. troops, emphasized triumphing over terrorism and called for victory in Iraq, GOP leaders had constructed a measure that was "hard not to support," said Rep. Thomas M. Davis III (R-Va.).

After the vote, Republicans crowed that they had held ranks while highlighting Democratic division. Speaker J. Dennis Hastert (R-Ill.) said, "We are pleased that 42 Democrats defied their leadership and stood with House Republicans to support both our troops and their mission to win the global war on terror."

Those would all be obvious questions for an objective person, not full on cocktail weenies, to ask. But they would still represent the view from the ivory tower, where everything is a game and there are absolutely no consequences. In the real world, one might instead ask these questions of David Brooks and his colleagues:

How would delaying a vote in order to placate the Republicans be any different than "stalling it on partisan grounds?" How long should we stick with a failed policy just to allow the GOP senators time to feel comfortable about doing what's right for America? How many soldiers should America tolerate sacrificing while GOP senate aides channel their inner-Frank Luntz and write a series of Friday press releases? 100? 200? 1,000?

How many limbs is it OK for our troops to lose while Mitch McConnell figures out how to save face? How many more terrorists should we be OK with breeding in Iraq? How many more billions of dollars should we be willing to spend?

How much deeper should we dig the hole we're in before the Washington Post decides it's no longer "irresponsible" for Harry Reid to make life awkward for Bush's minions? The Republicans like to portray the Democrats as defeatists who believe the troops are dying for nothing. Now the GOP is actually asking soldiers to die so they don't have to look bad on C-SPAN.

Here's a tip for the pundits at the Washington Post: Nobody gives a crap if any senators are furious at Harry Reid. In the real world, people die when politicians play stupid games. They're not pawns on a board. They're people. These are what we call "consequences."

Trumped

2007-07-20T17:12:00.000-07:00

(Cross-posted at Hullabaloo)

I see Ed Koch is, once again, sharing his views on the war:

I’m bailing out. I will no longer defend the policy of keeping U.S. troops in Iraq to assist the Iraqi central government in the ongoing civil war.

Well, hallelujah.

ThinkProgess noted that he attacked war critics a year ago:

There is something terribly wrong with people seeking to demean and weaken the president in war time, thereby strengthening our country’s enemies. As a result of the language and tactics of those opposed to our presence in Iraq, our enemies have been emboldened, believing the American public to be sharply divided on the war, and in fact at war with itself.

Sounds like a certain Senator from Connecticut.

I failed to find any apologies or concessions in his column today. I guess the war critics were wrong until this very moment. Personally, I don't care about apologies from politicians very much, even less when it comes after thousands of unnecessary deaths, including America's reputation. But Koch has a lot to apologize for. It's not simply that he lashed out at people who were right all along. He willingly abandoned the principles he claimed to hold and did so, apparently now, for no reason at all.

Consider the meat of his column today (I'll make no comment on the wisdom of the person upon whom Koch relies for support):

My voice is a modest one, so I would like to buttress my pro-withdrawal position with arguments put forth by the highly regarded New York Times columnist Thomas Friedman. In his July 11 column, he stated:

“But getting out has at least four advantages. First, no more Americans will be dying while refereeing a civil war. Second, the fear of an all-out civil war, as we do prepare to leave, may be the last best hope for getting the Iraqis to reach an eleventh-hour political agreement. Third, as the civil war in Iraq plays out, it could, painfully, force the realignment of communities on the ground that may create a more stable foundation upon which to build a federal settlement.

Fourth, we will restore our deterrence with Iran. Tehran will no longer be able to bleed us through its proxies in Iraq, and we will be much freer to hit Iran -- should we ever need to -- once we’re out. Moreover, Iran will by default inherit management of the mess in southern Iraq, which, in time, will be an enormous problem for Tehran.”

I agree with Friedman and repeat that I would support our troops remaining in Iraq if our allies were to join us. But they have made it clear they will not.

[...]

But my support for remaining in Iraq was conditioned on our allies joining us in Iraq and Afghanistan. Sadly, very few have done so. Instead, many of those same allies criticize us for staying in Iraq.

It was all about the allies, huh? Too bad the Democrats didn't run a candidate who made an effort to bring America's allies and regional interests together the centerpiece of his Iraq policy. A candidate who repeated things like this over and over during the debates and throughout the campaign:

I have a better plan for homeland security. I have a better plan to be able to fight the war on terror by strengthening our military, strengthening our intelligence, by going after the financing more authoritatively, by doing what we need to do to rebuild the alliances, by reaching out to the Muslim world, which the president has almost not done, and beginning to isolate the radical Islamic Muslims, not have them isolate the United States of America.

I know I can do a better job in Iraq. I have a plan to have a summit with all of the allies, something this president has not yet achieved, not yet been able to do to bring people to the table.

That would have been a perfect candidate for Koch.

But, no, Koch didn't see or hear anything like that in 2004. Instead, he went to George Bush's convention in New York and said this:

"I, too, disagree with the president on every major domestic issue from taxes to Social Security. Yet I believe those issues are trumped by the overriding need to defeat international terrorism, the biggest threat to our freedom."

Trumped. Every major domestic issue trumped. What a bargain that was... A responsible, effective government dealt away for a failed foreign policy, broken military, catastrophic debt and the loss of respect around the world. Last October, Koch told Chris Matthews that Bush should be given credit for his courage. Now, Koch's home town is disintegrating in an asbestos shower, symptoms of the diseased policies he swallowed out of fear. New Orleans has drowned and the warmonger from Connecticut he endorsed turned around and refused to do his job and investigate the failure .

Koch doesn't just owe the war critics an apology, he owes everybody an apology.

S.1634 Hearing recap

2007-07-19T09:14:00.000-07:00

[UPDATE: Selise recorded the audio and made a podcast available here.]

No big surprises in today's hearing. The most interesting part was learning that a similar bill was introduced in the House.

Here's my quick recap:

Chairman Bingaman opened the hearing, handed off the mic to Sen. Akaka, and left to take care of some other business. Akaka was the only Senator to say anything, probably the only one there (hard to see on the crappy webcast).

Deputy Assistant Secretary for Insular Affairs David Cohen said things are much better in CNMI than they were five years ago, but there is still a long way to go, CNMI doesn’t have the money/resources to do it alone, and with military development and spending in Guam, this is a post-9/11 issue of national security. (Imagine that, 9/11 rhetoric actually helping the little guy)

CNMI Governor Benigno Fitial and Saipan Chamber of Commerce President Juan T. Guerrero complained that the bill wasn’t necessary, that they’ve got everything under control, that the bill will destroy their fragile economy, that foreign investment will dry up if it passes and that more studies are needed before any action is taken. Essentially, they are trying to stall, which has been their strategy for decades, even articulated with hidden cameras recording conversations by people in control of sweatshops.

Resident Representative Pedro A. Tenorio was urging passage with amendments to protect CNMI from losing skilled workers too quickly, since they could potentially leave freely (imagine that) if they were granted federal status.

Finally, Department of Interior Labor Ombudsman James Benedetto had a few comments about the progress that has been made and the work still left to be done.

There was no testimony from any of the “guest workers.” That was submitted in writing by Dengre, collected in CNMI by human rights advocate Wendy Doromal.

Please continue to contact senators on the Energy and Natural Resources Committee and urge them to support S.1634 and real reform in CNMI.

Thanks to everybody who has been supportive. Thanks, Digby, for allowing me to cross-post.

Here it is, take it

2007-07-19T01:30:00.000-07:00

At 9:30 ET this morning, the Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee will hold a hearing to discuss a bill that would federalize immigration for the Commonwealth of Northern Mariana Islands (CNMI). It should be available via webcast.

Why is this hearing important? After all, it's not on the evening news. It's not even scheduled to be broadcast live on C-SPAN.

The truth is, this hearing is only important to people who believe that America shouldn't be a place like this:

Using its immigration authority, the Commonwealth has created an economy that relies upon the wholesale importation of low-paid, short-term indentured workers. Foreign workers pay up to $7,000 to employers or middlemen for the right to a job in the CNMI. When they finally reach the Commonwealth, they are assigned to tedious, low paying work for long hours with little or no time off. At night they are locked in prison-like barracks. If they complain, they are subject to immediate deportation at the whim of their employer. Some arrive in the islands only to find that they were victims of an employment scam. There are no jobs waiting for them, and no way to work off their bondage debt.

That's from a February 2000 press release, issued by Sen. Daniel Akaka (D-HI) to announce the unanimous passage in the Senate of a bill that would put an end to the "system of indentured immigrant labor [that] is morally wrong, and violates basic democratic principles."

It's not hard to understand how the Senate came to unanimity on the issue. The Department of the Interior had issued a report that highlighted horrors like "forced abortions and that women and children were subject to forced prostitution in the local sex-tourism industry."

Congress, itself, had heard testimony so gut-wrenching, I honestly can't bring myself to quoting it here.

Of course it was a unanimous vote. Who could vote against ending forced abortions? Who could vote against stopping children from being forced into prostitution... On American soil, no less? It just breaks your heart thinking about it.

That is, if you have a heart. Akaka's celebratory press release ends with this: "S. 1052 now moves to the House of Representatives for action."

And that's where Tom DeLay took over. That's where Jack Abramoff's money went. That's where Don Young's convicted felon aide and former CNMI labor secretary worked. That's where a decision was made to allow the rape and slavery continue. DeLay called it "a perfect petri dish of capitalism."

For years, the House of Representatives was a place where these victims -- on American soil legally -- could seek no relief. That can all change right now, if good Americans decide we won't let this oppression continue on U.S. soil.

It's really that simple. Either we convince a Democratic Senate and Congress to stop it right now, while the issue is in front of them, or the Senate will move on to other things and the horrors will continue. The TV isn't telling you that, but that's what the blog-o-sphere is for, right?

Blogger Dengre is attending the hearing. He has brought with him the testimony of thousands of CNMI workers praying for S.1634 to pass (with amendments to make it stronger). The testimony was gathered by human rights advocate Wendy Doromal, who travelled to CNMI specifically to help these victims have their voices heard.

DeLay, Abramoff and their cohorts have prevented Congress from restoring human rights and human dignity to the indentured servants and oppressed women of the Marianas. The universe has finally aligned to give us the opportunity to rescue people who need help. If we squander this opportunity to do what is obviously the right thing -- stopping this abuse -- it will be to our everlasting shame.

Here are the senators on the committee. Please contact yours and urge them to support S.1634. Dengre suggests the following changes:

1. Create a pathway to Citizenship for Guest Workers who have been on the CNMI for more than five years—and a Green Card for all workers with children who are US Citizens.

2. Outline a clear appeals process for any worker denied Immigration Status and/or other rights by the local CNMI Government through new or existing Federal systems of appeals.

3. Mandate that all CNMI entry visa programs—both work and tourist—are run by the Federal Government. (To allow the local CNMI Government to run a tourist visa program is to allow human trafficking.)

4. Mandate random, spot check interviews of guest workers and tourists as they arrive and leave the CNMI to ensure that they were (and are not) victims of abuse.

Sometimes it's hard to find solutions to the worst problems on earth. This one has been handed to us on a silver platter. Let's not miss this chance to do something tremendous.

CNMI Testimony

2007-07-18T10:06:00.000-07:00

DB has received the documents Dengre will submit on behalf of the workers in the Commonwealth of the Northern Mariana Islands (CNMI) to the Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee, which will be holding a hearing on S.1634 tomorrow morning at 9:30 a.m. ET.

Human Rights advocate Wendy Doromal is in CNMI gathering this information because these people would otherwise have no voice in the process, which is just par for the course. Please contact your senators on the committee and urge them to support S.1634, amended to protect the exploited workers.

Here (if this widget works) are the PDFs of the documents that will be presented to the committee:

Here is the full-text of the brief statement by the workers (followed by some excerpts from Doromal's statement:

July 12,2007
Dear Chairman Bingaman:

We are foreign confract workers in the United States Commonwealth of the Northern Mariana Islands(CNMI). We have lived and worked in this community for 5, 10, 15, or 20 or more years. We have served the community as nurses, security guards, technicians, mechanics, accountants, engineers farmers, domestic workers, entertainers, construction workers, fishermen, hotel workers, garment workers, restaurant workers, office staff and other positions. We were invited here to work and have contributed much to the commumty. We are the threads that hold the economic fabric of the CNMI together.

We make up the majority of the population in the CNMI, but we have no vote. We pay taxes and many of us have social security and Medicare taxes taken from our pay, yet most of us will never receive those benefits. We are often victims of criminal acts, but we cannot serve on juries. We are voiceless.

The illegal alien workers in the mainland United States have had their voices raised by the U.S. Senate who created a bill to raise their status. As legal non-resident workers also laboring and living on U.S. soil, don't we deserve to have our voices raised by the United States Senate also? An estimated 3,000 of us are documented as having United States citizen children who have lived in the CNMI all of their lives. Presently, we have no way to be united States citizens ourselves. Once we have completed with our contracts we are forced to return to our home countries. How will we be able to provide our U.S. citizen children with education, healthcare and nutrition?

We do believe CNMI is not only a part of the U.S., but is really U.S. soil. As workers, we have seen that the U.S. Constitution is not followed here in the CNMI. We do not understand this. The U.S. Constitution states that all residents of the United States are treated equally and given freedom, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. The CNMI and United States are one country, but has two systems -- one democratic and one that supports indentured servitude and refuses to enforce U.S. law.

We need to have federalization of U.S. immigration laws. For years we have suffered with an insecure status and are in the islands only as indentrued servants. Many of us have been victims of illegal recruitment and labor and human rights abuses. Many of us had labor cases that have never been resolved, backwages never recovered, and criminal attacks never prosecuted. We were told that the United States was a democracy, but we do not live in a democratic society here. We urge you to pass legislation that would federalize immigration and help us to achieve the stability and United States citizenship we deserve.

Here are some bits from Doromal's statement:

Thank you for the opportunity to express my views to the Senate Committee on Energy and Natural Resources, which has jurisdiction over matters affecting territories of the United States. From 1984 to 1995 I lived and worked as a teacher in the U.S. Commonwealth of the Northern Mariana Islands (CNMI). I witnessed appalling labor and human rights abuses of contract workers who came from their homelands to work in the United States. They came from the Philippines, China, Bangladesh, Nepal, India, Sri Lanka, Russia, Pakistan, and other Asian countries. They sold their land, houses, and businesses to pay up to $7,000 in recruitment fees for a chance to live the American dream. But too many of these workers lived a nightmare instead. In 1993, I wrote a report that detailed the labor and human rights abuses in the CNMI and offered solutions. It was submitted to CNMI officials, to selected U.S. members of Congress, congressional committees, and the U.S. Departments of Labor, Justice and State.

My family left the islands in 1995 due to threats and terrible harassment that came about because of our human rights work on behalf of these victims. I testified before the Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee in May 1995 and submitted an updated report on the status of the guest workers and problems with the CNMI labor and immigration laws.

Before I left the CNMI, I promised the workers that I would continue to appeal to U.S. government leaders to extend United States minimum wage, immigration, labor and customs laws to the CNMI. I am ashamed to tell you that 12 years after I made this promise I continue to plead with US government officials to fulfill this promise and finally put an end to the abuses and systemic corruption, and to give a voice to the foreign contract workers. That is why I am in the CNMI this month to evaluate the current status and conditions of the foreign contract workers.

The United States Congress has known about the seriousness of the labor and immigration problems in the CNMI for two decades. Although there have been attempts over the years to enact effective reform legislation, ultimately the Congress has failed again and again its responsibility to ensure human rights and enforce U.S. law on United States soil. Legislation is long overdue, and S. 1634 offers some solutions to the existing problems. With needed revisions, it could be effective in addressing ongoing problems in the CNMI.

[...]

Census figures reveal that the nonresident worker population has grown from 3,709 or 22% of the total population in 1980, to 39,089 or 56% of the total population in 2000. Today there are an estimated 84,000 people in the CNMI and only 20,000, or one-third of the adult population, can vote. The last time guest workers with no voting privileges or political rights outnumbered the citizens on U.S. soil it was called slavery.

Do the right thing

2007-07-17T14:56:00.000-07:00

Here's a trick question:

Do you think it's OK for women on American soil to be raped, forced into prostitution, forced to have abortions, forced to work for a bowl of noodles a day, forced to live in squalor, ultimately to be deported, broken and penniless?

You know why that's a trick question?

Because it's not a hypothetical. It's been happening in plain sight for decades and unless you do something or say something right now, while Congress is finally looking at the problem, your answer might as well be yes.

It's also a trick question because I have forced you to make a decision. You will either act or you will allow these crimes against humanity to continue.

Sorry, but that's the way it is. Tom DeLay, Jack Abramoff and the rest of his thugs have prevented Congress from restoring human rights and human dignity to the enslaved workers in the Commonwealth of the Northern Mariana Islands. Now that the Democrats are in control, the issue has come up again. If we squander this opportunity to do what is obviously the right thing -- stopping this abuse -- it will be to our everlasting shame.

It's that simple. We have a chance to end this practice right now. We might not have the chance again. Please read Dengre's diary, recommend it and take action now.

This is one of the things we really can change. The hard part was getting the chance to actually do something. The universe has aligned to give us the opportunity to rescue people who need help. How can any of us do nothing when it's so clear what the right thing to do is and the opportunity has presented itself to us so readily?

End the abuse NOW

2007-07-17T01:50:00.000-07:00

Timing is a funny thing.

I had been thinking for a while about how I might be able to call some attention to the deplorable conditions of women and men in the Marianas Islands. The forced abortions. The forced prostitution. What can only be called a form of slavery and human trafficking, on U.S. soil no less. I haven't been able to completely understand how it has persisted in America. What segment of the population can tolerate forced abortions? For a nation divided into Pro-Life and Pro-Choice, where is there a constituency willing to sit back and allow women on U.S. soil to be coerced into having abortions in illegal clinics?

I'm not sure what forces of the universe allowed it to happen with such fortuitous timing, but Digby asked me to post on her blog while her traffic was as high as ever, as she was accepting an award on behalf of progressive bloggers. I will always be grateful to Digby for allowing me the opportunity to point readers to the fine work of the blogger Dengre, whose work on the subject is unparalleled.

I looked forward, in that post, to an important Energy and Natural Resources Committee hearing on S. 1634, a bill introduced by Sen. Akaka to federalize the Islands' immigration policies. With enough pressure, the bill will pass -- with amendments -- and it will put us on the path to ending these atrocities, once and for all.

Here's where the timing is not so great. The hearing is this Thursday and the entire blog-o-sphere is buzzing with the looming battle in the Senate over the Iraq War.

I write tonight to plead with any readers to make sure this chance doesn't get away. We have a very narrow window in which we can literally rescue people in our own country from being treated like meat, locked away with no rights and no hope. Convicted for the crime of accepting a legal offer to work in America.

Thanks to Jack Abramoff, Tom DeLay and other corrupt and morally bankrupt power-brokers, these victims have had no chance of any help from Washington for a decade. This hearing, this bill, right now is their chance for the kind of human rights we all expect in America. Please help me by telling your senators that this matters to you.

If you are already contacting your senators to encourage them to end the war, you can take the opportunity to ask them to support human rights in the Commonwealth of the Northern Mariana Islands (CNMI).

Dengre has an eloquent new post with much more information:

Contact your Senator, especially members of the Energy and Natural Resources Committee. Urge them to support S. 1634 and encourage them to support amendments that would:

1. Create a pathway to Citizenship for Guest Workers who have been on the CNMI for more than five years—and a Green Card for all workers with children who are US Citizens.

2. Outline a clear appeals process for any worker denied Immigration Status and/or other rights by the local CNMI Government through new or existing Federal systems of appeals.

4. Mandate that all CNMI entry visa programs—both work and tourist—are run by the Federal Government. (To allow the local CNMI Government to run a tourist visa program is to allow human trafficking.)

5. Mandate random, spot check interviews of guest workers and tourists as they arrive and leave the CNMI to ensure that they were (and are not) victims of abuse.

There are other changes that should be made as well, but S. 1634 is a start. It is my hope that a stronger Bill can come out of the House and the final legislation will be real reform. We have to use S. 1634 as the legislative vehicle for reform because the Ethnic Weeding of workers is well underway on the CNMI.

Next week, on July 25, the new minimum wage will kick in. The Pirates of Saipan will use it to fire thousands of long-time workers. Then they will have 30 days to find a new job. Then they will be on a 45 day clock to deportation.

That gives us 75 days (until October 8) to pass a final bill and have it signed into law. If it takes longer, more workers will be cleansed for the CNMI and denied justice.

We need to stand with them as they fight for justice.

For a very long time, Tom DeLay, Jack Abramoff and the Republican Party blocked reform. If we fail now it will be our fault.

The thing I have always loved the most about America is that every single day, just by virtue of waking up, we have an opportunity to do something extraordinary. Sometimes we need more than that, though... An undeniable recognition that we are at a unique juncture, a brief moment in time when action is absolutely necessary and likely to accomplish something tremendous.

I'm writing to tell you that this moment in time -- right now -- is such an occasion. These people can be saved; we just have to make our senators understand that human rights are important to us.

Here are the members of the Energy and Natural Resources Committee:

Chairman Jeff Bingaman (D-NM)

Daniel K. Akaka (D-HI)

Byron L. Dorgan (D-ND)

Ron Wyden (D-OR)

Tim Johnson (D-SD)

Mary L. Landrieu (D-LA)

Maria Cantwell (D-WA)

Ken Salazar (D-CO)

Robert Menendez (D-NJ)

Blanche Lincoln (D-AR)

Bernard Sanders (D-VT)

Jon Tester (D-MT)

Pete V. Domenici (R-NM)

Larry E. Craig (R-ID)

Lisa Murkowski (R-AK)

Richard Burr (R-NC)

Jim DeMint (R-SC)

Bob Corker (R-TN)

Jeff Sessions (R-AL)

Jim Bunning (R-KY)

Gordon Smith (R-OR)

Mel Martinez (R-FL)

John Barrasso (R-WY)

If you see your senator above, please tell them to do the right thing. If you can call your favorite radio program, please do it. Isn't it obvious that ending this abuse is the right thing to do? The Senate's attention will move to another topic soon and these people will either be afforded human dignity or doomed to be exploited for years to come.

When this time has passed, won't you be proud to know you spoke for human rights in your own country when it counted?

UPDATE: Dengre has published an even newer post since I started (slowly) writing this.

Singled out

2007-07-16T12:12:00.000-07:00

I just want to make clear that, in these last two posts, I was not trying to single out Sen. Feingold. I see in comment threads around the blog-o-sphere that some have soured on him for this vote. While I am disappointed that no senators could either see the Lieberman Amendment as a dangerous attempt to move the United States towards war with Iran, or simply didn't care to stand against it at this time, I think it's unfair to focus anger at Feingold.

After all, he had enough respect for American citizens to visit Daily Kos in order to engage the electorate and discuss his rationale -- much more than can be said for nearly all the other 96 senators who voted for this amendment. Similarly, Sen. Feingold is often the only one with the courage to confront this lawless administration, and for that DB applauds him. I wouldn't have kicked off my posts with a similar explanation by many other politicians because it wouldn't have surprised me much hearing such a position articulated by most of them. It did surprise me to read that statement from Feingold specifically because he has such a reputation for honesty, and it is hard for me to understand how anybody could honestly be comforted by the language in the bill.

In any event, please do not misconstrue my post as a shot at Sen. Feingold. I was aiming at the entire Senate.

Deadly potential

2007-07-16T01:08:00.000-07:00

Kagro X read my last post and added an excellent point, that Congress is kidding themselves if they think that "(d) Nothing in this section shall be construed to authorize or otherwise speak to the use of Armed Forces against Iran" will make the administration think twice about proceeding any way they see fit. This is an administration that doesn't think they require any authorization, anyway.

I also forgot a key point I intended to make... One that RJ Eskow briefly touched on in his outstanding essay:

The amendment doesn't just ask for intelligence on Iranian activity. It requires ongoing reports on proactive U.S. efforts against alleged Iranian efforts, placing political pressure on our military to become more active against Iran. Word in Washington is that top military leaders are resisting an attack on Iran, saying we lack the resources. This is a great way to lean on the generals to change their minds.

The way Sen. Feingold put it, "it basically just required a report on Iran's role in Iraq and any responses by the US government" as if this were a passive transaction, like requesting a PDF from the Government Printing Office. Of course, this assignment is a perfect job for whatever Department of Making Stuff Up is currently killing trees and collecting taxpayer dime in the vice president's office.

But, as Eskow writes, this is an "active" role for our military. The amendment doesn't limit in any way the scope or methods of the intelligence-gathering operation. Did Congress essentially justify an incursion into Iran for the purposes of obtaining information for this ongoing reporting? The intelligence has to come from somewhere and, technically, wandering over the border to gather information isn't the same thing as the "use of Armed Forces against Iran."

Not only could the Congressionally-mandated increase in intelligence result in less reluctance on behalf of high-ranking military leaders (or, as I'm sure Cheney and Lieberman dream, the production of some justification for preemption), it also radically increases the potential for armed conflict.

As I mentioned in my last post, when the 15 British sailors were captured in ambiguously-close-to-Iranian waters in March, the Bush administration allegedly offered military options to Tony Blair, who declined. Tony Blair was basically given the power to decide whether or not the United States would go to war with Iran. I cannot understand for a minute how that doesn't infuriate any senators as much as it infuriates me.

But think how disappointed the neocons must have been when Blair didn't allow his sailors to become pawns in Bush's desired war with Iran. Now imagine American soldiers, seeking information for Congress and crossing the border into enemy lines to get it. What happens if a few are captured?

Tony Blair [or Gordon Brown] won't be able to say "no, thanks" when Cheney offers the menu of options next time.

Closer

2007-07-15T15:02:00.000-07:00

(Cross-posted at Hullabaloo)

Revisiting Digby's post on the Lieberman Amendment, some Senators are explaining themselves and it looks like they've lost the thread, too. Here's Sen. Russ Feingold explaining why he voted for the amendment:

While I don't agree with Senator Lieberman when it comes to Iraq, his amendment having to do with Iran offered yesterday was not controversial because it basically just required a report on Iran's role in Iraq and any responses by the US government.

I'm stunned by this response, and not just because it's from Feingold. Apparently, the addition of this clause has convinced senators like Harry Reid that the bill is benign:

(d) Nothing in this section shall be construed to authorize or otherwise speak to the use of Armed Forces against Iran.

I just don't see how anybody who's been paying attention can come to that conclusion. First of all, consider the source:

"I think we have to be prepared to take aggressive military action against the Iranians to stop them from killing Americans in Iraq," Lieberman said. Host Bob Schieffer followed-up: "Let's just stop right there. Because I think you probably made some news here, Senator Lieberman. You're saying that if the Iranians don't let up, that the United States should take military action?" "I am," Lieberman responded.

Lieberman added that "if there's any hope" of stopping Iran's nuclear program, "we can't just talk to them. ... We've got to use our force and to me that would include taking military action."

That was a month ago. While the extent of Lieberman's dementia on this issue is something altogether different than the text of this amendment and its legal implications, it would behoove anybody considering an amendment on this topic from this particular senator to be as skeptical as possible. A 97-0 vote doesn't indicate much skepticism.

Lieberman's motives don't exist in a vacuum, either. It's been clear for a long time that this administration is itching for a war with Iran. Josh Marshall wrote about the neocon fantasy of "spreading the chaos" way back in 2003. We know that the administration tried to get authorization to fight in Iran and Syria when the Authorization to Use Military Force in Iraq was approved.

We have been told by The Guardian that Bush essentially gave Tony Blair a chance to pull the United States into a war with Iran when 15 British sailors were captured last March.

We also heard from Sy Hersh that the administration has been manipulating language in order to avoid Congressional oversight into their actions involving Iran:

The new mission for the combat troops is a product of Defense Secretary Rumsfeld's long-standing interest in expanding the role of the military in covert operations, which was made official policy in the Pentagon's Quadrennial Defense Review, published in February. Such activities, if conducted by C.I.A. operatives, would need a Presidential Finding and would have to be reported to key members of Congress.

" 'Force protection' is the new buzzword," the former senior intelligence official told me. He was referring to the Pentagon's position that clandestine activities that can be broadly classified as preparing the battlefield or protecting troops are military, not intelligence, operations, and are therefore not subject to congressional oversight. "The guys in the Joint Chiefs of Staff say there are a lot of uncertainties in Iran," he said. "We need to have more than what we had in Iraq. Now we have the green light to do everything we want."

In normal times, you might wonder if this assertion were true because it might be hard to accept, at least automatically, that the White House would stoop to such a level. In this case, you actually have to wonder if this administration would even waste time coming up with any justification whatsoever for evading any perceived-to-be-legitimate restrictions on its authority.

Back to the Lieberman Amendment... If "force protection" is the name of the game, Congress has just, despite their attempts to de-fang the bill, handed the administration a list of Congressional "findings" that support whatever Bush and Cheney decide to do in Iran (and in secret). The findings themselves attribute the allegations of Iranian involvment to military representatives, but there shouldn't be any doubt that the White House would argue that the Congress has accepted them through their acknowledgement.

Consider how the water-carriers for this administration have used the libelous "Additional Views" of three Republican senators to claim that the entire Senate concluded that Joe Wilson is a liar in the Select Intelligence Committee's Report on the U.S. Intelligence Community's Prewar Assessment on Iraq. Now, the White House has a 20-point list of reasons to justify anything Bush has already been doing without Congressional approval.

If that isn't enough of a reason to have voted this amendment to oblivion, consider what Zbigniew Brzezinski told the Senate Foreign Relations Committee in February:

If the United States continues to be bogged down in a protracted bloody involvement in Iraq, the final destination on this downhill track is likely to be a head-on conflict with Iran and with much of the world of Islam at large. A plausible scenario for a military collision with Iran involves Iraqi failure to meet the benchmarks; followed by accusations of Iranian responsibility for the failure; then by some provocation in Iraq or a terrorist act in the U.S. blamed on Iran; culminating in a "defensive" U.S. military action against Iran that plunges a lonely America into a spreading and deepening quagmire eventually ranging across Iraq, Iran, Afghanistan, and Pakistan.

Continues to be bogged down... Check. Iraqi failure to meet benchmarks... Check. Accusations of Iranian responsibility... Check, thanks to this amendment.

Where does that leave us? Waiting for George Bush to report back to Congress about whether there are any Iranian "provocations" in Iraq. What do you expect to hear in the next report? What do you think will happen next?

Sen. Webb introduced a bill back in March that would have required Bush to come back to Congress for approval before using force in Iran. That bill never got out of committee. It was determined that it wasn't "germane" to the toothless Iraq Supplemental Bill that passed in May. Congress has done nothing to assert its authority in lieu of that bill's rejection.

Is it possible that 97 voting senators all want a war with Iran? Seems hard to believe, but in the absence of any serious opposition to expanding this war, what else could they be thinking?

Weakest Link

2007-07-13T14:21:00.000-07:00

(Cross-posted at Hullabaloo)

The news about toothpaste made of antifreeze and dumplings made of cardboard have gotten quite a bit of attention on television lately (quite rightly). But odds are, the television you're watching was also imported. And on top of that, there's a pretty good chance the shows you enjoy first aired somewhere else. For example, The Office or American Idol, both of which originated in England.

The United States is also bringing in quite a few movies from other parts of the world. Last year's Oscar-winning Best Picture, The Departed was based on a film called Mou gaan dou. I can't tell you how upset I am that a remake is in the works of what is possibly my favorite film of all time, Akira Kurosawa's Ikiru.

I was visiting Steve Clemons' Washington Note and saw the show America absolutely must import from England:

The BBC has a must-listen show on radio tomorrow titled Called to Account (times noted further below) offering a theatrical version of Tony Blair's indictment for Iraq War-related crimes. This may inspire many on this side of the Atlantic pond to think about various strategies to hold America's current political leadership accountable for duplicity and mismanagement of America's national security portfolio -- and particularly for the Iraq War.

Democracy has become a term derided in much of the world today because for many beleaguered peoples it has come to mean Western duplicity, uneven standards between the mighty and the weak, an excuse for invasion and occupation, a code word for regime change, or obsessive focus on ballots rather than healthy civil society institutions like courts and a free media that help to keep power accountable.

If 'Democracy' is ever going to shed its bad name, accountability must be one of its fundamental pillars in any genuine system of checks and balances. There should be a price paid for serious errors by national leaders -- and an even higher price paid by those who wield power with impunity and who lie to their publics in so-called democracies.

Sounds like a good idea to me. If Congress won't hold Bush, Cheney, Rumsfeld & Co. accountable, let Hollywood do it. They can do a better job scripting an indictment than any Senate or House committee. As compelling as C-Span has been since November 2006, the lack of coordination in these hearings is incredibly frustrating.

Who would you cast for the prosecution? It doesn't have to be an actor. Fred Thompson can try to defend his friends if he wants, though.

Let me count the ways

2007-07-12T20:08:00.000-07:00

(Cross-posted at Hullabaloo)

Roger Maris broke Babe Ruth's home run record in 1961, but that remarkable accomplishment wasn't enough to get him into the Hall of Fame. To get a plaque in Cooperstown, a player needs to be consistently spectacular for a long time.

Conversely, George W. Bush has been spectacularly bad at his job for most of the time he's been in office, and yet Congress is apparently waiting for a single, remarkable, odious act before seriously considering impeachment.

After posting on the president's outrageous comments about health care Tuesday, I joked that Bush has necessitated a version of the Ninth Amendment for bloggers:

The enumeration in the blog, of certain transgressions by the president, shall not be construed to deny or disparage others noted by the readers.

I simply could not list ways the president was wrong and possibly include all of them. Similarly, I couldn't possibly list, at this point, all the things Bush and Cheney have done that would, by themselves, make me vote for impeachment were I representing my district or state. The day the news broke about domestic wiretapping was the day Bush jumped from the "lousy president" to the "felon" category for this blogger.

Others could point to Katrina, Abu Ghraib, secret prisons... Again, what's the point of trying to list them all?

But for whatever reason, no singular event has been enough to convince Congress to put impeachment on the table, so to speak. More striking, though, is the failure of Bush's cumulative record to create any traction for impeachment. Not even with a majority of Americans supporting Cheney's impeachment and practically as many in favor of Bush getting the heave-ho as opposed the idea.

We're supposed to believe that Scooter Libby's probation is a serious consequence of his behavior because he can't lie to any more FBI agents for a while. It is tragic, however, that Bush was never placed on a form of probation when the opportunities presented themselves, repeatedly. For example, when Russ Feingold introduced his measure to censure Bush over the wiretapping, the Democrats responded with anonymous quotes by Senate aides:

"Feingold's grandstanding screwed the pooch and played into Bill Frist's hands," the aide said. "Thank God Dems punted this down the field. Frist was going to force Democrats to vote on a resolution Feingold had kept a big secret and he would've split the caucus on an issue that needed time to get the whole caucus to support. Russ Feingold had only one persons' interests in mind with his Sunday bombshell, and those were his own. He practically handed a victory to a Bush White House that desperately needs a win."

[...]

"There were concerns that this would backfire on the Democrats just as they were beginning to get the upper hand or at least beefing up the playing field on homeland security credentials," the aide added. "The Dubai deal, the war in Iraq, the president's numbers heading south. Democrats have a long history of shooting themselves in the foot when the good things work and we've been known to do some things that end up hurting us rather than helping us."

That measure was unlikely to pass, anyway. But think how much easier it would be to hold Bush accountable if the Democrats had been nearly unanimous (thanks, Lieberman) in objecting to his dubious acts. Instead of a series of abstract and already internalized events, there would be a record of established abuses of power and failures of leadership. The same way the administration sold America on the 17 U.N. resolutions Saddam Hussein violated, the Democrats could point to the number of times Bush needed to be reprimanded for violating the trust of the people and his oath of office.

By failing to hold Bush accountable to even a minimal standard along the way, Congress not only encouraged more bad behavior from this administration, they made it incredibly difficult to ever reach a point where they could say "enough already."

No War Left Behind

2007-07-12T15:32:00.000-07:00

(Cross-posted at Hullabaloo)

On Monday, we learned that there has basically been no measurable progress in Iraq:

A draft report to Congress on the war will conclude that the U.S.-backed government in Iraq has met none of its targets for political, economic and other reform, speeding up the Bush administration's reckoning on what to do next, a U.S. official said Monday.

One likely result of the report will be a vastly accelerated debate among President Bush's top aides on withdrawing troops and scaling back the U.S. presence in Iraq.

Yes, we all held our breath waiting for the "likely" debate in the White House about a change in course. Today, the NY Times gives us the less likely, yet inevitable, actual outcome: Bush to Declare Gains in Iraq on Some Fronts:

The Bush administration will assert in the next few days that progress in carrying out the new American strategy in Iraq has been satisfactory on nearly half of the 18 benchmarks set by Congress, according to several administration officials.

But it will qualify some verdicts by saying that even when the political performance of the Iraqi government has been unsatisfactory, it is too early to make final judgments, the officials said.

The administration's decision to qualify many of the political benchmarks will enable it to present a more optimistic assessment than if it had provided the pass-fail judgment sought by Congress when it approved funding for the war this spring.

The administration officials who provided details of the draft report to The New York Times, insisting on anonymity, did so partly to rebut claims by members of Congress in recent days that almost no progress had been made in Iraq since President Bush altered course by ordering the deployment of about 30,000 additional troops earlier this year.

[...]

On the political front, none of the benchmarks that have been achieved include the high-profile legislation on which Congress asked to see progress. Debate has not yet begun in the Iraqi Parliament on the oil law or the revenue-sharing law, both of which are crucial to keeping Iraq united over the long term.

You read that right. Bush "altered course" by ordering more troops into this mess.

What a perfect example of the Bush administration's tactics. They ask the military to solve everything while our nation's top diplomat works hard "to raise awareness of golf as a sport."

Bush is like a superintendent with a large toolbox containing only a hammer. When he fails to solve a problem that cannot be fixed with a hammer, he either demands to know how anybody could suggest it's not the finest hammer ever manufactured, or he tries to obscure the view so only the nails are visible.

I thought this president believed in accountability and testing. His under-funded No Child Left Behind Act requires that 100 percent of students tested will pass. One hundred percent.

Bush made "accountability" the cornerstone of his sales pitch when NCLB was in front of Congress:

No longer is it acceptable to hide poor performance. No longer is it acceptable to keep results away from parents. One of the interesting things about this bill, it says that we're never going to give up on a school that's performing poorly; that when we find poor performance, a school will be given time and incentives and resources to correct their problems. A school will be given time to try other methodologies, perhaps other leadership, to make sure that people can succeed. If, however, schools don't perform, if, however, given the new resources, focused resources, they are unable to solve the problem of not educating their children, there must be real consequences. There must be a moment in which parents can say, I've had enough of this school. Parents must be given real options in the face of failure in order to make sure reform is meaningful.

It's unfortunate that Bush's funding isn't tied anything measurable. America could use some real options, too.

UPDATE: Over at Corrente, Shane-O spots this in Bush's speech today:

Economic development funds are critical to helping Iraq make this political progress. Today I'm exercising the waiver authority granted me by Congress to release a substantial portion of those funds.

That's the final chapter in the toothless Iraq Supplemental Bill that Congress passed after Bush's veto.

Bush: You're on your own, suckers

2007-07-10T16:15:00.000-07:00

The audacity of George W. Bush hit another peak today as the president spoke at Cleveland Clinic. DB found this statement to be pretty galling:

The immediate goal is to make sure there are more people on private insurance plans. I mean, people have access to health care in America. After all, you just go to an emergency room.

Just go to an emergency room. I wonder if Bush has ever had an experience like this one in Los Angeles this summer:

In the 40 minutes before a woman's death last month at Martin Luther King Jr.-Harbor Hospital, two separate callers pleaded with 911 dispatchers to send help because the hospital staff was ignoring her as she writhed on the floor, according to audio recordings of the calls.

"My wife is dying and the nurses don't want to help her out," Jose Prado, the woman's boyfriend, told the 911 dispatcher through an interpreter.

He was calling from a pay phone outside the hospital, his tone increasingly desperate as he described how his 43-year-old girlfriend was spitting up blood.

That's what's on the news out here. Well, sometimes you don't die on the floor in the emergency room. You might get dumped out of a van in Skid Row.

But Digby flagged an even more obscene remark the president made today:

I like the idea of people making decisions that are -- that will, one, enhance their health, and two, save money. The doc told me that -- we were looking at one of these brilliant heart guys working for him. You're not going to believe the technology in this hospital, by the way. If you're a Cleveland resident, you ought to be proud of this hospital. It's unbelievable. (Applause.)

He said something pretty wise, though. He said, you can have all the technology that man can conceivably create, but if you continue to smoke, we're going backwards. If you're not exercising, if you're not taking care of the body yourself, all the technology isn't going to save your life. In other words, there is a certain responsibility that we have as citizens to take care of ourselves.

Have we ever had a president who has been more of an obstacle to average Americans' ability to make informed decisions about the food and products they consume? Or a president who has been less interested in protecting average Americans from dangerous products and food?

He sure talks like he cares. Remember this, from the second 2004 Bush-Kerry debate?

HORSTMAN: Mr. President, why did you block the reimportation of safer and inexpensive drugs from Canada which would have cut 40 to 60 percent off of the cost?

BUSH: I haven't yet. Just want to make sure they're safe. When a drug comes in from Canada, I want to make sure it cures you and doesn't kill you.

And that's why the FDA and that's why the surgeon general are looking very carefully to make sure it can be done in a safe way. I've got an obligation to make sure our government does everything we can to protect you.

Despite his talk about personal responsibility, the president sure feels obligated to "protect" us when the drug companies' profits are a factor in the equation.

And what about the clear mandate his FDA and Surgeon General have to inform the public about risks? Just today we heard from former Surgeon General Richard Carmona:

[A]lthough most Americans believe that their Surgeon General has the ability to impact the course of public health as "the nation's doctor," the reality is that the nation's doctor has been marginalized and relegated to a position with no independent budget, and with supervisors who are political appointees with partisan agendas. Anything that doesn't fit into the political appointees' ideological, theological, or political agenda is ignored, marginalized, or simply buried.

Don't expect to learn anything about the health of the planet, either. In fact, don't expect the government to tell you anything pertinent about your health, even if you are trying to save lives after a terrorist attack.

In the aftermath of the Sept. 11, 2001, attack on the World Trade Center, the White House instructed the Environmental Protection Agency to give the public misleading information, telling New Yorkers it was safe to breathe when reliable information on air quality was not available.

That finding is included in a report released Friday by the Office of the Inspector General of the EPA, "EPA's Response to the World Trade Center Collapse: Challenges, Successes and Areas for Improvement."

No, it's up to you to make informed decisions without the government telling you anything you need to know. That's not Bush's job. That's for the private sector to do.

Except the Bush administration is working harder than ever to rescue the private sector from having to act responsibly or tell you anything.

Chris Waldrop, Consumer Federation of America-Food Policy Institute, Deputy Director, appeared on C-Span's Washington Journal last week:

The FDA has been underfunded drastically over the past five years. They can't keep up with the amount of imports coming into this country.

[...]

As an example, since 2003, the people in the field have... Those numbers have been cut by 12 percent. The imports that have come in, starting in 2003, there were 45 billion for food imports. They're now up to 65 billion and the FDA hasn't even gotten the money that's allowed them to keep steady with inflation rates.

That's the FDA that Bush tasked to work with his muzzled Surgeon General to keep us safe. Is your dinner made in China? Are any ingredients from China? Who knows? Nobody required to tell you does. There are no requirements that anybody tell you where your food comes from.

Don't expect the Consumer Product Safety Commission to do much for your health, either. The three-person board has been paralyzed with a vacancy since January and the former lobbyist Bush tried to put there withdrew his nomination because we finally have a Democratic Congress. And if you expect the Bush administration to do anything at all, expect it to just make things worse. Kevin Drum today points out that Bush is trying to loosen regulations on lead. Lead, fer crying out loud.

So when Bush says it's up to us to make smart decisions about how we treat our bodies, it's really up to us. For example, you could buy organic food:

WASHINGTON, DC, June 25, 2007 (ENS) - The U.S. Department of Agriculture, USDA, has changed the rules governing organic foods to allow 38 non-organic, agricultural ingredients to be used in foods that bear the government's "USDA Organic" label.

[...]

The Organic Consumers Association, OCA, says the new rule means that Anheuser Busch will be allowed to sell its "Organic Wild Hops Beer" without using any organic hops at all.

Sausages, brats, and breakfast links labeled as "USDA Organic" are now allowed to contain intestines from factory farmed animals raised on chemically grown feed, synthetic hormones, and antibiotics, the OCA says.

"It's disheartening to see how profit motivated businesses like Kraft, Wal-Mart and Anheuser-Busch have more sway over the U.S. Department of Agriculture than family farmers, independent organic producers, and consumers," said OCA National Director Ronnie Cummins.

Ouch.

Or you could avoid buying some old meat that was given the equivalent of several million chest X-rays and put back on the shelf. Just look for the irradiation label:

WASHINGTON - The government proposed today relaxing its rules on labeling of irradiated foods and suggested it may allow some products zapped with radiation to be called “pasteurized.” The Food and Drug Administration said the proposed rule would require companies to label irradiated food only when the radiation treatment causes a material change to the product. Examples includes changes to the taste, texture, smell or shelf life of a food.

Ouch.

Well, what if the private sector actually wants to tell Americans their products are safe?

WASHINGTON - The Bush administration said Tuesday it will fight to keep meatpackers from testing all their animals for mad cow disease.

The U.S. Department of Agriculture tests less than 1 percent of slaughtered cows for the disease, which can be fatal to humans who eat tainted beef. But Arkansas City-based Creekstone Farms Premium Beef wants to test all of its cows.

George Bush, handed everything in life, has some nerve telling America that "there is a certain responsibility that we have as citizens to take care of ourselves." That rotten son of privilege has done nothing but make it harder for Americans to actually lead healthier lives on a healthy planet.

UPDATE: Bush video here at Crooks & Liars.

The Arc of Icarus

2007-07-09T00:05:00.000-07:00

This is going to be an extremely busy few days for DB, with another voyage scheduled later in the week. Just in case I won't be able to post anything, as usual, I offer a poem. This one is dedicated to Glenn Greenwald, whose excellent book A Tragic Legacy: How a Good vs. Evil Mentality Destroyed the Bush Presidency arrived in my mailbox this week. I'll write more about it when I finish reading it. So far, I find it to be as methodical and damning an accounting of the Bush administration's disastrous tenure as the best posts on Glenn's blog, Unclaimed Territory at Salon.

Here's a poem for all Dover Bitch readers, picked out for you, Glenn:

Musee des Beaux Arts
by W.H. Auden

About suffering they were never wrong,
The Old Masters; how well, they understood
Its human position; how it takes place
While someone else is eating or opening a window or just walking dully along;
How, when the aged are reverently, passionately waiting
For the miraculous birth, there always must be
Children who did not specially want it to happen, skating
On a pond at the edge of the wood:
They never forgot
That even the dreadful martyrdom must run its course
Anyhow in a corner, some untidy spot
Where the dogs go on with their doggy life and the torturer's horse
Scratches its innocent behind on a tree.
In Breughel's Icarus, for instance: how everything turns away
Quite leisurely from the disaster; the ploughman may
Have heard the splash, the forsaken cry,
But for him it was not an important failure; the sun shone
As it had to on the white legs disappearing into the green
Water; and the expensive delicate ship that must have seen
Something amazing, a boy falling out of the sky,
had somewhere to get to and sailed calmly on.

Don't worry, be quiet

2007-07-06T19:11:00.000-07:00

A pair of somnolent editorials this week from the Washington Post show just how pathetic the entrenched Washingtonian media establishment is today. David Ignatius and David Broder have really outdone themselves.

First Ignatius, who laments the "political disharmony" we face in a divided America, so bad another 9/11 might not snap us out of it:

Based on the tone of the national debate today, it seems likely that the American public would react angrily -- but not just at the terrorists.

Liberals would blame the Bush administration for making America a more vulnerable target. Didn't the war in Iraq inflame Muslim terrorists around the world? Wouldn't we have been safer today if we had focused on al-Qaeda in Afghanistan rather than embarking on a costly war that has sapped the military and CIA and added to America's enemies? These arguments aren't imaginary: We hear them every day, almost as rehearsals for the post-attack finger-pointing.

Those "liberal" arguments are based on facts. Is Ignatius claiming that the war hasn't "inflamed Muslim terrorists around the world?" The evidence for that isn't "imaginary," either. From Ignatius' own paper:

The war in Iraq has become a primary recruitment vehicle for violent Islamic extremists, motivating a new generation of potential terrorists around the world whose numbers may be increasing faster than the United States and its allies can reduce the threat, U.S. intelligence analysts have concluded.

Is Ignatius claiming that the war hasn't "sapped the military and CIA and added to America's enemies?" Also from Ignatius' own paper:

Four years after the invasion of Iraq, the high and growing demand for U.S. troops there and in Afghanistan has left ground forces in the United States short of the training, personnel and equipment that would be vital to fight a major ground conflict elsewhere, senior U.S. military and government officials acknowledge.

More troubling, the officials say, is that it will take years for the Army and Marine Corps to recover from what some officials privately have called a "death spiral," in which the ever more rapid pace of war-zone rotations has consumed 40 percent of their total gear, wearied troops and left no time to train to fight anything other than the insurgencies now at hand.

Ignatius continues:

And how would conservatives respond? They would blame liberals, who, in their view, have weakened America's anti-terrorism defenses. Couldn't we have stopped the bombers if critics hadn't exposed the National Security Agency's secret wiretapping program? Wouldn't aggressive CIA interrogation techniques have yielded more intelligence that might have prevented the tragedy? Didn't congressional demands to withdraw from Iraq embolden the terrorists? I can hear the voices on talk radio and cable news right now.

Where is any evidence that would support these "conservative" claims? There isn't any and there probably wouldn't be any. Those are all hypothetical accusations that not only lack supporting evidence, but are probably examples of things America did illegally, immorally and, in the end, to no avail. But Ignatius and the media would air them all in some sort of perverted show of artificial balance against the points that liberals have been making... Legitimate arguments, not "rehearsals for the post-attack finger-pointing."

Ignatius obviously isn't writing to point that out, since he can't even appreciate a legitimate argument or identify a ludicrous debate. He just wants everybody to get along.

America's political disharmony is scary. But so is the lack of practical preparation for the next attack. With all the emotional discussion of Sept. 11 -- all the commissions and studies and new federal agencies -- you might expect that we had gotten that part right. But we haven't.

[...]

In a politically healthy nation, the news from Britain would have a galvanizing effect. Politicians and the public would pull together and take appropriate steps to prepare for future terrorist attacks on America. There was a moment of shared purpose after Sept. 11, 2001. It's frightening how totally that mood of national unity has dissipated. I can think of lots of people to blame for the current polarization, but that's not the point. The point is to get serious, and to get ready.

Aside from the fact that the "liberal" arguments he presented have merit and the "conservative" ones all lack any supporting evidence, what is Ignatius' real beef? That liberals won't just agree with conservatives and the president on how to fix Bush's DHS, which Ignatius even describes as "woefully unprepared."

Steve Benen responds:

It all sounds very nice, except for the details, which in this case are non-existent. As Ignatius describes it, Americans simply need to get unified. Unified behind what? Behind unity.

I don't doubt that Ignatius means well, but his argument is lazy and hard to take seriously. It's easy to urge Americans to get together; it's a challenge to lay out an agenda for them to rally behind. It's simple to tell people to stop arguing; it's hard to talk about solutions. The column reads like Broderism at its least persuasive.

Lazy doesn't even cover half of it. After all, here's how Ignatius semi-apologized for his and his colleagues' failures in the run up to the Iraq War:

In a sense, the media were victims of their own professionalism. Because there was little criticism of the war from prominent Democrats and foreign policy analysts, journalistic rules meant we shouldn't create a debate on our own.

As it is, that comment is one of the most infuriating and emblematic excuses of the 21st Century Washington press corps. They were "victims of their own professionalism." Just let that sink in for a minute and then square it with Ignatius' latest column.

His "journalistic rules" tell him to sit back and wait. There's no point, when the Republicans come forward with one of their schemes, in arguing with it. Just like his imaginary debate above, Ignatius understands his job is to allow political hacks to set the boundaries of the debate, even if one side's claims have no supporting evidence whatsoever.

And now, having abdicated any responsibility to critically analyze, for the benefit of the American people, the administration's proposals, Ignatius says it's bad for the country if the Democrats do, either. Whom does that leave? Nobody. Ignatius is calling for an end to scrutiny of the Bush administration's policies entirely.

Then, there's Broder, who's afraid that the general public might actually have something to say about anything:

Former senator Fred Thompson has begun his unannounced quest for the Republican presidential nomination by telling audiences in New Hampshire that Washington is badly out of touch with the country.

As a senior campaign adviser put it to The Post's Michael Shear, Thompson believes that "the politicians have lost their connection with what people really want and what they really expect."

Few if any of the other 17 men and one woman vying for the presidency would be bold enough to challenge Thompson's claim. The belief that official Washington is deaf to the people's wishes is a staple of political rhetoric for both Republicans and Democrats -- even those, including Thompson, who have operated inside the Beltway for decades.

Let a reporter who is not running for anything suggest that exactly the opposite may be true: A particularly virulent strain of populism has made official Washington altogether too responsive to public opinion.

From Aristotle to Edmund Burke, philosophers have written of the healthy tension that normally exists between the understanding and strategies of leaders and the sentiments and opinions of their people.

In today's Washington, a badly weakened president and a dangerously compliant congressional leadership are no match for the power of public opinion -- magnified and sometimes exaggerated by modern communications and interest group pressure.

Without explaining why the immigration bill deserved to be passed, Broder uses the unpopular bill's demise as evidence that Congress is too beholden to the people. His other evidence is that Congress has taken away Bush's nearly unilateral ability to negotiate new trade deals.

No mention of Washington ignoring the overwhelming numbers of Americans who want us out of Iraq. No mention of the overwhelming numbers of Americans who wanted justice served for Scooter Libby. No mention of Bush's multiple vetoes over stem cell research. No mention of the overwhelming numbers of people who aren't happy with anything that Bush and Cheney are doing or what Congress is letting them get away with.

So, Ignatius doesn't want the Democrats or the media to question Bush. Broder doesn't want Congress or the people to question Bush. Between the two of them, nobody should question Bush. Whatever Bush says is best for us is best for us and we should have the courage to support him. But, if we, the people, still don't like it, says Broder, well, we should just be ignored:

The point is pretty basic. Politicians are wise to heed what people want. But they also have an obligation to weigh for themselves what the country needs. In today's Washington, the "wants" of people count far more heavily than the nation's needs.

You can win elections by promising people what they want. But you win your place in history by doing what the country needs done.

Politicians should lie to us whenever they face a constitutionally-mandated moment of accountability, if they want a shot at personal greatness. That's what the "Dean" of the Washington press corps has learned by watching democracy up close.

Also, that he has the rare ability to know what the country needs done. So does Bush.

Bad neighbors

2007-07-05T21:33:00.000-07:00

Glenn Greenwald and a post he inspired from TRex both point to the worldwide Pew poll of public opinion, which indicates that, unsurprisingly, the rest of the world has a dim view of America after six-plus years of Bush at the helm.

I think I found the perfect analogy for the Bush administration and America with the GOP in full control: They are like the college kids in my mother's otherwise quiet neighborhood. They come, for the first time, into a little autonomy for four years or so, out from under father's thumb.

They've paid no dues, just a little rent, and they think they're entitled to whatever rights come with the title "grown up."

They'll park in her yard, vomit on her sidewalk, play the crappiest music at the highest decibel levels. They'll leave trash wherever they happen to finish whatever they were consuming.

They have no shame and don't care who witnesses their most brazen acts of gluttony. They don't have any commitment to the neighborhood, planning instead to jettison after their term expires. They have no respect for what came before or what follows. Apparent contempt for those they know will remain.

That they were there for a legitimate purpose strains credulity, yet they undoubtedly have some transcript to justify their brief and terrible visit to the area. It is impossible to believe they learned anything at all before leaving behind only their vapors and something once lovely, now broken.

I think it's a good metaphor, but it's only a metaphor. My mother's neighborhood is nothing like this.

Out to lunch

2007-07-03T17:29:00.000-07:00

DB spent too much time at a fantastic lunch today and won't have time to write anything tonight. So here, as always in my absence, is a poem -- a fine piece of work from a man who was at his best while eating lunch:

As Planned
by Frank O'Hara

After the first glass of vodka
you can accept just about anything
of life even your own mysteriousness
you think it is nice that a box
of matches is purple and brown and is called
La Petite and comes from Sweden
for they are words that you know and that
is all you know words not their feelings
or what they mean and you write because
you know them not because you understand them
because you don't you are stupid and lazy
and will never be great but you do
what you know because what else is there?

Popular Impressions Outside Government

2007-07-02T23:36:00.000-07:00

A couple weeks ago, for a different reason, I quoted a passage from Richard E. Neustadt's Presidential Power:

What is incredibly gut-wrenching to so many of us is the previously unimaginable extent to which the GOP Congressional leadership and noise machine has been willing to defend the indefensible. Which brings me to the opposite page (165) of my copy of Presidential Power:

In the aftermath of Watergate, however, we have seen occasions where distinctions between reputation and prestige seemed to dissolve, where Washingtonians seemed quite like members of the general public, reacting to a President in almost the same terms, conducting themselves accordingly.' One such occasion was the "Saturday night massacre" of 1973 when Nixon fired the Watergate Prosecutor, forcing resignations from the Attorney General and his Deputy, all of whom responded on TV. This dramatic sequence-televised and thus "firsthand" in all parts of the country seemed so to contradict the President's contentions as to drain them of credibility, enlarging what we now label a credibility "gap," indeed extending it so wide as to cast doubt on his legitimacy and with it his authority as President. Nixon seemed to be engaging in a cover-up of criminal activity. He seemingly was fighting law enforcement. But he had sworn an oath of office encompassing the "take-care" clause. Hence the cloud on his legitimacy. The "massacre" tripped off impeachment proceedings. It is easy to see why.

What was striking then is that inside the government or near it, in the watchful circle of the Washington community, reactions against Nixon seemed to have so much in common with the popular impressions outside government. Citizens at large were swept into a "firestorm" of protest and suspicion. But so were commentators, congressmen, and civil servants. Apparently the President's behavior planted the same question in all minds. Some Washingtonians, waiting upon evidence, were slower than others to draw ultimate conclusions, and slower by far than some citizens, but he was treated henceforth with reserve throughout the Washington community. Diplomacy aside-there was a crisis in the Middle East-he turned away from governing and focused on the prospect of impeachment. Had Nixon tried to be assertive in domestic spheres, I take it that he would have been ignored or resisted. All over town officials shook themselves free of the White House, released by suspicion from deference, distancing their programs from his person. This occurred within one year of his triumphant re-election, three years before expiration of his term. For Washingtonians it was a most uncharacteristic reaction, especially so early in the term. Calculations about possible impeachment played a part, no doubt. But so did outraged feelings about Nixon's performance. There was precious little rallying around him. Instead, so far as I can judge, there was a widespread sense, even in some quarters of the White House, that he had compromised his right to be there and should go, impeached or not.

It is hard to imagine Washingtonians having less "in common with the popular impressions outside government" today (or during the Clinton impeachment proceedings.) As Digby correctly noted in her magnificent speech, the mainstream media -- the High Broderism and Meal Ticket Journalists -- have failed us completely.

Sure enough, today provides yet another example of "official punditry" marching completely out of step with the public at large. I'd link straight to Timothy Noah's piece in Slate, but (as always) I found Digby had already told him how it is by the time I finished reading it.

But poor little Scooter can't even spend a month in jail. He can't even spend a day in jail.

And apparently, as predicted, that's just fine with a good portion of the DC establishment. The oh-so-jaded political observers like Tim Noah see this whole thing as some sort of partisan game of tag. Let the plebes natter on about the following the rules --- we'll call the play by play and let the little people know who's "winning." From their perches atop the commentariat they smugly dismiss the concerns of average Americans who are enraged that these people keep cheating and getting away with things that ordinary citizens and even powerful Democrats could never dream of getting away with --- they relentlessly smear their opponents with the filthiest lies, they stage partisan impeachments, they steal elections, they illegally start wars and make up novel authoritarian theories of governance --- and then they use their powers to excuse their minions from the consequences of these actions if they happen to get sloppy and get caught. None of them ever pay. Ever.

How revolting.