restlessgeist

Car 54 Where Are You? UPDATE

2005-04-25T13:23:00.000-05:00

Via Kos, it appears that the Dems weer already on the ball. The following is from a Harry Reid press release:

As a matter of comity, the Minority in the Senate traditionally defers to the Majority in the setting of the agenda. If Bill Frist pulls the nuclear trigger, Democrats will show deference no longer.

Invoking a little-known Senate procedure called Rule XIV, last week Democrats put nine bills on the Senate calendar that seek to help America fulfill its promise.

If Republican's break the rules Democrats will use the rule to bring to the Senate floor an agenda that meets the needs of average Americans, such as lowering gas prices, reducing the cost of health care and helping veterans.

"Across the country, people are worried about things that matter to their families - the health of their loved ones, their child's performance in schools, and those sky high gas prices," said Senate Democratic Leader Harry Reid. "But what is the number one priority for Senate Republicans? Doing away with the last check on one-party rule in Washington to allow President Bush, Senator Frist and Tom Delay to stack the courts with radical judges. If Republicans proceed to pull the trigger on the nuclear option, Democrats will respond by employing existing Senate rules to push forward our agenda for America."

Democrats have introduced bills that address America's real challenges. (Details attached)

1. Women's Health Care (S. 844). "The Prevention First Act of 2005" will reduce the number of unintended pregnancies and abortions by increasing funding for family planning and ending health insurance discrimination against women.

2. Veterans' Benefits (S. 845). "The Retired Pay Restoration Act of 2005" will assist disabled veterans who, under current law, must choose to either receive their retirement pay or disability compensation.

3. Fiscal Responsibility (S. 851). Democrats will move to restore fiscal discipline to government spending and extend the pay-as-you-go requirement.

4. Relief at the Pump (S. 847). Democrats plan to halt the diversion of oil from the markets to the strategic petroleum reserve. By releasing oil from the reserve through a swap program, the plan will bring down prices at the pump.

5. Education (S. 848). Democrats have a bill that will: strengthen head start and child care programs, improve elementary and secondary education, provide a roadmap for first generation and low-income college students, provide college tuition relief for students and their families, address the need for math, science and special education teachers, and make college affordable for all students.

6. Jobs (S. 846). Democrats will work in support of
legislation that guarantees overtime pay for workers and sets a fair minimum wage.

7. Energy Markets (S. 870). Democrats work to prevent Enron-style market manipulation of electricity.

8. Corporate Taxation (S. 872). Democrats make sure companies pay their fair share of taxes to the U.S. government instead of keeping profits overseas.

9. Standing with our troops (S. 11). Democrats believe that putting America's security first means standing up for our troops and their families

"Abusing power is not what the American people sent us to Washington to do. We need to address real priorities instead -- fight for relief at the gas pump, stronger schools and lower health care costs for America's families," said Senator Reid.

This is a good start. But I still don't understand this hesitation: "If Republicans break the rules Democrats will use the rule to bring to the Senate floor an agenda." Hit me again and I'll leave you. Right.

Car 54 Where Are You?

2005-04-25T12:50:00.000-05:00

For the first time since the elections I finally took the time to go poke around the DNC, DCCC, and DSCC homepages, and my worst suspicions were confirmed. The Democrats are playing offensive defense without any offense of their own.

For the DNC, the headline image is funny and DeLay in nature:

For the D-trip, it's "DeLay's House of Scandal":

For Harry Reid and the DSCC, it's a rather lame petition highlighting Frist's Abuse of Power:

his time they've gone too far.

The Republicans are injecting religion into the battle over President Bush's effort to pack the federal courts with right-wing rejects.

The Republicans want to shut down the entire United States Senate because of ten right-wing lawyers. Each one of them, of course, is a right-wing activist--with legal and political views three steps to the right of Atilla the Hun.

Now, I think that the Dems will get great mileage out of this stuff in the midterms. The more they connect individual members of Congress to DeLay and Frist, the more they can drive down incumbent positives and hike up negatives. Duh.

But am I wrong in thinking some other things need to be done? That a high profile attempt must be made to introduce legislation that puts Republicans in awkward positions? That Dems must court the media to illustrate that they are not simply obstructionists?

Already, the RNC counterattack has started. Here's a preview of forthcoming rightspeak, courtesy of the NRCC:

"Democrats are subjecting us all to this 'Groundhog Day' scenario," National Republican Congressional Committee Communications Director Carl Forti said. "Every year, every election cycle it's the same. When will the Democrats stop telling us how bad they think our ideas are and tell us instead what their solution is? When will we stop reliving the same debate over, and over and over?"

Or more generally, from the same house of snakes:

n the 109th Congress, Democrats choose to make use of negativity and obstruction, but House Republicans choose instead to focus on what we can do - indeed, Republicans choose to focus on what is possible. House Republicans will work harder than ever before to find positive - possible solutions to problems never before faced. It is only right that problems our country has never before faced are greeted with optimism and a forward-looking positive vision of what is best for our country. Nothing is impossible with teamwork and a positive outlook.

As Josh Marshall points out, this stuff is already starting to stick with the so-called mainstream media--and on issues that seem preposterous, like the Fristian "nuclear option" business.

What can be done to declaw this oncoming attack? Well, as the minority party of course there are serious limitations. But I keep thinking back to the Gingrich Revolution and the lessons it holds out.

Why not a national-level retreat for all democrats to discuss the Iraq war? Or Social Security? Or something?

Why not try to introduce a resolution that bars all government interference with the individual exercise of the 1st amendment? After all, you can sell it as free speech protection and protection of religion.

Its not going to be enough to paint House republicans as loyal DeLay-ites--remember, for part of America, that is a good thing. All of this necessary defensive offense is great for whipping up the Democratic base, but it does nothing to reach out to the I-voted-for-George-cause-he-makes-me-feel-safe crowd. Instead, Democrats need to use PR savvy and other tools to construct a record, and to put the Republicans on the wrong side of the fence on a bunch of issues.

And its not too early. The Republicans have done a fine job in creating bad press for themselves, putting the ball in motion. Why not roll with it?

Quack, Quack?

2005-04-25T10:51:00.000-05:00

The Congressional Quarterly:

wonders if Bush is already quacking. Hard to know what to make of this. On the one hand, the fact that Bush never really garnered much support for specific policies, despite his re-election, counts for something. That is, people aren't going to get behind Social Security Reform, etc. Yet still, these are dastardly effective politicians we are talking about. Don't count them out yet.

By Craig Crawford, CQ Columnist

Is George W. Bush a lame duck yet? The president’s political guru, Karl Rove, naturally resists the dreaded label that can so suddenly become a political death sentence for second-term presidents. But Rove acknowledges the inevitable — that the Age of Bush will eventually pass. “There’ll be a geological age that’s going to come and go before the 2007/2008 presidential election begins to warm up,” Rove said last week in an interview with CNN.

Geologists have the luxury of observing precise changes in rock formations to distinguish one material age from another. In Washington, we probe for more subtle shifts to gauge the trajectory of presidential power. Signs abound that the Bush presidency is winding down. And those signs are largely coming from cracks in the GOP ranks, a pattern that one aide to a House conservative described as “selfish fear” that next year’s midterm elections will go badly for Republicans if they don’t show at least some independence.

It was a Republican senator who has emitted this year’s most powerful signal of trouble for the White House on Capitol Hill. George V. Voinovich of Ohio stunned colleagues April 19 by saying that he “did not feel comfortable” voting for John R. Bolton, the president’s nominee to be U.N. ambassador. At that point, another wavering Republican on the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, Lincoln Chafee of Rhode Island, said he was “less inclined” than before to support Bolton as more stories surfaced about the nominee’s supposedly bullying State Department management style.

Bush aides were caught off guard on this one. In the old days, such an appointment would have been routine, a blip on the screen. Democrats would have fumed to no avail, according to the White House script. But despite efforts by Bolton’s backers to portray his troubles as a Democratic-led media conspiracy, it was a Republican mini-mutiny that led to the delay of a confirmation vote.
All About DeLay

At the same time, while the president is holding steady in his public support for embattled House Majority Leader Tom DeLay of Texas, one by one some Republicans are signaling they might be ready to throw the GOP leader under the bus.

Christopher Shays of Connecticut was the first to say publicly that he did not think DeLay could survive as leader in the wake of the swirl of questions about his ethics. It was no shock that Shays, a moderate who also predicted then-Speaker Newt Gingrich’s demise in 1998, would lead this break in ranks. But the worm turned harder when House Republican loyalists, such as Ray LaHood of Illinois and Tom Tancredo of Colorado, openly worried about DeLay’s image endangering the party’s fate on Election Day 2006.

But it was DeLay’s ideological chum on the other side of Capitol Hill, Sen. Rick Santorum of Pennsylvania, who may have undercut the majority leader’s standing the most when he called on DeLay to give a full accounting of his ethical issues. That surprising move, billed by party colleagues as an outgrowth of Santorum’s worries about his own re-election chances next year, underscores one of the biggest reasons that more and more in the GOP fear a campaign based on the Bush agenda.

Perhaps above all other Capitol Hill Republicans, Santorum aggressively and publicly advocates Bush’s call for privatizing a portion of Social Security investments. He was almost alone in his party in deciding to headline a series of town halls in his home state defending the proposal during the spring recess. Protesters at those sessions dominated the media coverage.

A recent Quinnipiac University poll of Pennsylvania voters indicated that Santorum’s vocal support of the president was costing him in this swing state. He trailed state Treasurer Robert P. Casey Jr., next year’s likely Democratic challenger, by 14 percentage points. More than one-third said Santorum’s support for Social Security changes made them less likely to vote for his bid for a third term.

A hint of Bush’s faltering status, even within his own party, quietly came in the Senate on April 14 when Robert C. Byrd, the venerable West Virginia Democrat, offered an amendment challenging the Bush administration’s prepackaged news videos distributed to television stations around the country. Every Republican on hand voted to require disclaimers revealing the government as the source of the hotly debated videos produced and distributed by some federal agencies. Sensing the Senate’s rebellious mood, the White House chose not to go to bat against Byrd’s amendment, which was then adopted 98-0.

Quibbling over who’s to fill the U.N. ambassadorship, which is not a powerful policy-making job, and tinkering with how the government produces video press releases certainly do not make Bush irrelevant. But it does show that, although the president is not yet a lame duck, he is starting to wobble a bit.

167,000 people are in jail in Texas

2005-04-24T16:49:00.000-05:00

Number of Prisoners in States

Sunday April 24, 2005 10:16 PM

By The Associated Press

The number of prisoners under the jurisdiction of state and federal correctional authorities on June 30, 2003, and June 30, 2004, and the percentage change. An additional 713,990 inmates were held in local jails on June 30, 2004.

State 2003 2004 Pct Change

Ala. 28,440 26,521 -6.7

Alaska 4,431 4,515 1.9

Ariz. 30,741 31,631 2.9

Ark. 12,378 13,477 8.9

Calif. 163,361 166,053 1.6

Colo. 19,085 19,756 3.5

Conn. 20,525 20,018 -2.5

Del. 6,879 6,973 1.4

Fla. 80,352 84,733 5.5

Ga. 47,004 48,625 3.4

Hawaii 5,635 5,946 5.5

Idaho 5,825 6,312 8.4

Ill. 43,186 44,379 2.8

Ind. 22,576 23,760 5.2

Iowa 8,395 8,611 2.6

Kan. 9,009 9,152 1.6

Ky. 16,377 17,763 8.5

La. 36,091 36,745 1.8

Maine 2,009 2,014 0.2

Md. 24,186 23,727 -1.9

Mass. 10,511 10,365 -1.4

Mich. 49,524 48,591 -1.9

Minn. 7,612 8,613 13.2

Miss. 20,429 20,542 -0.6

Mo. 30,649 30,775 0.4

Mont. 3,440 3,800 10.5

Neb. 4,103 4,042 -1.5

Nev. 10,527 10,971 4.2

N.H. 2,483 2,441 -1.7

N.J. 28,213 28,107 -0.4

N.M. 6,145 6,341 3.2

N.Y. 65,914 64,596 -2.0

N.C. 33,334 34,917 4.7

N.D. 1,168 1,266 8.4

Ohio 45,831 44,770 -2.3

Okla. 23,004 24,767 7.7

Ore. 12,422 13,219 6.4

Pa. 40,545 40,692 0.4

R.I. 3,569 3,701 3.7

S.C. 24,247 24,173 -0.3

S.D. 3,059 3,101 1.4

Tenn. 25,409 25,834 1.7

Texas 167,532 169,110 0.9

Utah 5,603 5,802 3.6

Vt. 1,984 2,033 2.5

Va. 34,733 35,472 2.1

Wash. 16,284 16,559 1.7

W.Va. 4,703 4,980 5.9

Wis. 22,352 22,905 2.5

Wyo. 1,809 1,923 6.3

Nation 1,464,197 1,494,216 2.1

Up in Smoke

2005-04-18T21:54:00.000-05:00

Maybe all this attention on smokestacks and black smoke...

...will cause people to start thinking about:

Selenium in drinking water:

While selenium exists naturally in a wide variety of habitats, and small amounts are crucial to the survival of humans and wildlife, high levels can cause severe reproductive impairment and even death in fish, birds, and other wildlife. In humans, selenium is linked to kidney and liver damage, and damage to the circulatory and nervous system. [....] he proposal increases the allowable concentration of selenium in fish to 7.91 parts per million, far above the current limit of 5 parts per million.

Smog in our national parks:

Affected parks include the Great Smoky Mountains in Tennessee and North Carolina, Acadia in Maine, Glacier in Montana, Grand Canyon in Arizona, Shenandoah in Virginia, Yellowstone in Wyoming, Montana and Idaho, and Sequoia and Yosemite in California. [....] The haze is formed by small particles in the air that come mainly from sulfur dioxide from coal-burning power plants in the East and nitrogen oxides from other sources in the West. Other EPA rules also aim to cut those pollutants. Among the targets of the rule are more than two dozen types of industrial facilities built between 1962 and 1977, including power plants, industrial boilers, smelters, refineries, chemical and cement plants, and pulp and paper mills.

(e.g., The Smoky Mountains:

The Smokies, which has been labeled the country's most polluted national park, experienced its first day of elevated smog levels of the year on Sunday as ozone concentrations barely exceeded the 85 parts per billion threshold for an eight-hour period.

Cesspools in Hawaii:

Five federal, state and county agencies that missed an April 5 deadline to close their large-capacity cesspools have signed consent agreements with the Environmental Protection Agency that will give them several extra years to find alternatives and avoid fines of as much as $32,500 a day.The agencies operate 401 cesspools statewide, said Wayne Nastri, the agency's Pacific Southwest regional administrator, who announced the agreements yesterday.

Shit in Ohio drinking water:

The Ohio EPA has approved a permit for the South Beach Mobile Home Park to discharge up to 2,000 gallons of treated wastewater per day into an unnamed tributary of Rocky Fork Lake.The tributary empties directly into the lake.

Ok, wait. This one deserves a bit more attention. Jeff Gilliland, the author of this article, has a truly remarkable punchline. It turns out that drinking shit can indeed be beneficial to one's water supply:

That does not necessarily mean, though, that the change in water quality will be for the worse. According to Joshua Jackson, an EPA environmental specialist, the South Beach Mobile Home Park, located at 11418 Spruance Road, has been discharging wastewater into the unnamed tributary and Rocky Rock Lake since late 1960s without any type of a permit.

I never really laked him post-Dawson's anyway.

If I were Peggy Noonan...

2005-04-15T00:31:00.000-05:00

I'd dedicate all my psychic power to figure out: what pitch was that?

And before I forget, a great fake rumor proposed by the soon-to-be-Mrs. Geist:

Is all this revived talk about the 'death tax' W's attempt to maximize his inheritance? Given his track record with cash money (his family's and our country's), it's an absurd thesis that is remarkably realistic sounding.

What happens in...stays in...

2005-04-01T15:33:00.000-06:00

Totally unpolitical rant, or maybe not. Not sure.

Thanks Las Vegas Board of Tourism. Thanks a lot Toby Keith.

This google search should be ample evidene that this trope needs to be destroyed:

What Happens In Davos, Stays In Davos (Iowa)

What Happens in Sin City Stays in Sin City

What Happens in the Blog Stays in the Blog

What happens in Celtia, Stays in Celtia!

What Happens in Fargo, Stays in Fargo

What Happens In De Party (Rupee song)

What happens in Venturas, stays in Venturas.

What Happens in Garden Grove, Stays in Garden Grove

What happens in school, stays in school

What happens in America stays in America

what happens in moganshan, stays in mogan

What Happens in Chicago Stays in Chicago

~What Happens in Cabo Stays in Cabo~ (note creativity)

What happens in Ghraib-us, stays in Ghraib-us (Don Rumsfeld can only wish...)

What Happens in Disney World/Orlando Stays in Orlando.

What happens in Tulsa stays in Tulsa

What happens in Kato, stays in Kato

What happens in Madison stays in Madison (also mentions: "“What happens in Cancun stays in Cancun.")

What happens in Britney stays in Britney (you think?)

What happens in Canada stays in Canada

What Happens In Bear Mountain, Stays In Bear Mountain

What Happens in Camelot Stays in Camelot

Whatever Happens In Bangkok, Stays in Bangkok

What happens in Fallujah, stays in Fallujah (except for insurgencies, I guess)

What Happens in Baltimore Stays in Baltimore.

Errors of Mass Destruction

2005-03-31T21:28:00.000-06:00

So the White House's indictment of the intelligence community continues. A new month, a new public pillory. This time it is the Silberman Report, co-authored by this...character:

Silberman, 68, served as a member of a Reagan-Bush advisory group in the 1980s and was appointed to the bench by President Reagan in 1985. Now that he's again taken on a prominent role in public life, it's time to examine his past. Here are questions for Silberman that Democrats should be asking -- and demanding the answers to:

1. Is it true that you met with an Iranian envoy in a Washington hotel in 1980 and spoke about a deal to prevent an "October Surprise," which, as author Gary Sick describes, would have meant the release of American hostages shortly before the presidential election? What, specifically did you tell the Iranian envoy who offered "to ensure President Jimmy Carter's defeat in the upcoming election by arranging to release to [Ronald] Reagan the 52 U.S. hostages being held in Tehran," as you told a Miami Herald reporter (April 12, 1987)?

2. Why, four years after your meeting with the Iranian envoy, did you decide not to step down from being a judge in the case of Colonel Oliver North, who'd been accused of making a secret deal to free U.S. hostages in Lebanon even though, as the late Lars-Erik Nelson wrote in Newsday (June 14, 1994), a judge "who has personal involvement with the principals in a case should recuse himself"?
[....]
5. What were you referring to when you complained on June 13, 1992, about The Wall Street Journal ("its reporters, not its simpatico editorialists," according to Tony Mauro in American Lawyer, June 22, 1992), The Washington Post, the Los Angeles Times, and The Associated Press? What did you mean when you called Nina Totenberg of National Public Radio the "wicked witch of the airwaves," and when you ripped into The New York Times' Supreme Court reporter, Linda Greenhouse, citing the "Greenhouse effect"?

6. Can you explain why, as David Brock writes in his book Blinded by the Right: The Conscience of an Ex-Conservative, you winkingly ignored judicial ethics when you encouraged Brock to pursue rumors that Bill Clinton used state troopers to procure women for him while he was governor -- and offered advice and moral support while Brock was preparing a scathing book about Anita Hill? And what did you mean when you prefaced your "advice to [Brock] with the wry demurrer that judges shouldn't get involved in politics"? As Brock writes, "'That would be improper,' he'd say -- and then forge ahead anyway." And why did you and your wife, as Brock explains in his book, respond so enthusiastically to some of Brock's writings, "literally squealing with joy about the case [Brock] had constructed implicating [former Senator Paul] Simon, a vocal critic of Silberman's during the judge's own confirmation hearing"? "They were passing the phone to each other," writes Brock, "marveling at my 'genius' at the top of their lungs. 'You got him. You nailed him. You fucked him. You killed him.'"

7. Why did you explode over then-Attorney General Janet Reno's efforts to keep Secret Service agents from testifying before Kenneth Starr's grand jury in July 1998, saying she "sold out her integrity to protect her boss," according to the New York Post (July 18, 1998), and accuse the president of "declaring war" on Starr, the independent counsel, during the Monica Lewinsky scandal? And why did you act as a judge in the case if, as Brock says, you had personal knowledge about the president's affair with Lewinsky?

8. And why, when serving on a three-judge panel in a federal courthouse, did you threaten liberal-minded fellow Judge Abner Mikva with physical violence, shouting, "If you were 10 years younger, I'd punch you out!'" as Michael Winerip writes in The New York Times Magazine (September 6, 1998)?[....]

Just a sense of Silberman's "credentials" for the important job of reviewing American intelligence gathering in the so-called run-up to operation Fuck Iraq.

But EVEN Silberman, as he tries to deflect attention away from Bush Co.'s systematic manipulation of intelligence, points to the inescapable conclusion: it was the White House's restrictions on the intelligence community that produced such structural failures of the intelligence apparat. Here are some egregious examples...

In essence, analysts shifted the burden of proof, requiring evidence that Iraq did not have WMD.

I'm sorry to interrupt so soon, but I can't get this obnoxious voice out of my head...something about the evidence of absence and the absence of evidence...just a thought.

The October 2002 NIE and other pre-war intelligence assessments failed to articulate the thinness of the intelligence upon which critical judgments about Iraq’s weapons programs hinged.

"Failed to articulate the thinness..." I mean, I knew it was "thin," as did many, many, many others. I guess we are all so much smarter than the White House, the National Security Council, etc. Who knew?

during the course of its investigation the Commission reviewed a number of articles from the President’s Daily Brief (PDB) relating to Iraq’s WMD programs. Not surprisingly, many of the flaws in other intelligence products can also be found in the PDBs. But we found some flaws that were inherent in the format of the PDBs—a series of short “articles” often based on current intelligence reporting that are presented to the President each morning. Their brevity leaves little room for doubts or nuance—and their “headlines” designed to grab the reader’s attention leave no room at all.

No silly, that's just unfiltered intelligence. I guess Silberman wants fancy pants intellectual intelligence.

But these errors stem from poor tradecraft and poor management. The Commission found no evidence of political pressure to influence the Intelligence Community’s pre-war assessments of Iraq’s weapons programs. As we discuss in detail in the body of our report, analysts universally asserted that in no instance did political pressure cause them to skew or alter any of their analytical judgments. We conclude that it was the paucity of intelligence and poor analytical tradecraft, rather than political pressure, that produced the inaccurate pre-war intelligence assessments.

Nothingt to see here folks. Keep going...I think McClellan is going to have those phrases burned into his brain by the time of tomorrow's gaggle. The wording here is kind of cagey as well.

Thus, after the departure of inspectors, the Intelligence Community assumed that Iraq had the opportunity and the desire to jumpstart its covert nuclear weapons program; by the end of 2000, however, the Community had seen no firm evidence that this was actually happening. This judgment began to shift in early 2001 as a result of a discovery that, in hindsight, was the critical moment in the development of the Intelligence Community’s assessment of Iraq’s nuclear program. In March 2001, intelligence reporting indicated that Iraq was seeking high-strength tubes made of 7075 T6 aluminum alloy. The Intelligence Community obtained samples of the tubes when a shipment bound for Iraq was seized overseas.

Translation: at the end of the Clinton administration, Saddam was not a threat. When Bush II came into power, this was "the critical moment" in deciding that Saddam was a threat.

October 2002 NIE . The Intelligence Community judged in the NIE with moderate confidence that “Baghdad ha[d] reconstituted its nuclear weapons program.” 45 Only INR dissented from this assessment, although INR judged in the President’s Summary of the NIE that the overall evidence “indicates, at most, a limited Iraqi nuclear reconstitution effort.”

Is "moderate confidence" and "limited...reconstitution" the stuff to make the tough decisions with?

Yellowcake!

The Iraq Survey Group also found no evidence that Iraq sought uranium from abroad after 1991. With respect to the reports that Iraq sought uranium from Niger, ISG interviews with Ja’far Diya Ja’far, the head of Iraq’s pre1991 enrichment programs, indicated that Iraq had only two contacts with the Nigerien government after 1998—neither of which was related to uranium. One such contact was a visit to Niger by the Iraqi Ambassador to the Vatican Wissam Zahawie, the purpose of which Ja’far said was to invite the Nigerien President to visit Iraq (a story told publicly by Zahawie). The second contact was a visit to Iraq by a Nigerien minister to discuss Nigerien purchases of oil from Iraq—with no mention of “any kind of payment, quid pro quo, or offer to provide Iraq with uranium ore, other than cash in exchange for petroleum.” The use of the last method of payment is supported by a crude oil contract, dated June 26, 2001, recovered by the ISG.

There was this guy named Joe Wilson who said the same thing to the CIA and White House, but lets not get bogged down in details.

OK, this is brilliant. Really brilliant.

The ISG [Iraq Survey Group] found only one offer of uranium to Baghdad since 1991—an offer that Iraq appears to have turned down.

Source, you ask?

Raymond Whitaker, “Niger Timebomb: The Diplomat, the Forgery, and the Suspect Case for War,” The Independent on Sunday (Aug. 10, 2003), page 11

That couldn't pass for scholarship in an 8th grade language arts class.

The so-called spy, Curveball, will be getting some press from this report. Here's a line that probably won't make it onto the O'Reilly Factor:

Second, the detailee was concerned by Curveball’s apparent “hangover” during their meeting.

What are the quotations there for? In my experience, you are either hungover or not. But I'm not a secret agent man, or a right wing stooge. Maybe there is an unpleasant middle world? A bit more on this

This message was eventually re-conveyed to Directorate of Operations supervisors via electronic mail on February 4, 2003—literally on the eve of Secretary Powell’s speech to the United Nations. The electronic mail stated, in part: I do have a concern with the validity of the information based on Curveball having a terrible hangover the morning of [the meeting]. I agree, it was only a one time interaction, however, he knew he was to have a [meeting] on that particular morning but tied one on anyway. What underlying issues could this be a problem with and how in depth has he been vetted by the [foreign liaison service]?

Can you imagine this meeting? Hey spy, are you wearing those sunglasses because you don't want to get caught? Nope...just got real hammered with the bros last night, got home at like 5 am...actually I'm still kind of drunk.

Well, I'm comforted.

Snow Job: John Snow, Non Policy, and Social Security "Reform"

2005-03-31T09:56:00.000-06:00

Do we have a real economic policy in the US, designed by people that…well, know economics? Not according to Forbes. Case in point is John Snow, economist and one hit wonder recording artist.

Snow, the U.S. secretary of the Treasury, is, by many accounts, no longer a player in crafting economic policy. But he is selling it. Currently, Snow is in the middle of the "60 Stops in 60 Days" tour in which he and other Bush Administration officials are "crisscross[ing] the nation to take the President's message of strengthening Social Security to the American people." [....]

While no one is suggesting that Snow is cooking the books, there is a serious question as to whether Snow has stopped making policy and is no longer the watchdog of America's finances. He has been left simply to sell the plan, which is rapidly being revised with him out of town.

An Associated Press article filed this morning calls Snow the "nominal head of the [Administration's] economic team," but says flatly he has "little of the clout that most previous Treasury secretaries have wielded, either within the administration or on Wall Street." It adds that "Snow is not seen as having a major role in policy making." Instead, the policy function has been kept within the White House. Snow, for his part, has hit the road.

Imagine a road trip with John Snow? Every time you stop for a burger you are forced to hear a lecture about how you, as you bite into your char-burned piece of sort of meat, are singlehandedly

He's a good news man. He sells good news and, if one remembers from last summer, he also can magically turn bad news into very good news. On a "bus tour" of the nation, gearing up for Bush's reelection push, Snow had the following encounters:

"Right now I am very disillusioned with the Republicans' policies," said Michael Retzer, a Republican and a consultant to a supplier for Harley-Davidson. Mr. Retzer told Mr. Snow at a Harley plant near Milwaukee that he did not see how the tax cuts would stimulate the economy when so many consumers would spend the extra money on goods made overseas. Later, in the kind of confrontation with a disgruntled citizen almost never seen on the president's trips, Mr. Snow tangled with an unemployed software programmer at the drive-through at Culver's Frozen Custard and ButterBurgers in Wausau, Wis. "He said, `But your tax cuts haven't done anything for me,' " Mr. Snow recounted the next day to reporters, as the bus traveled through Minnesota. "And I said, `Well, now, let's just take a second and talk about that.' "

Looks bad right? Nope, not if you have the good news mojo:

As Mr. Snow put it, "I'm going to go back and tell the president, `Mr. President, I ran into a lot of people who asked me personally to express my gratitude to you for worrying and thinking about us.' "

So he is a crony par excellence...the anti-Paul O'Neill, who was supposed to be a crony par excellence. O'Neill, however, thought (for some strange reason) that he should actually care about the economy. That simply cannot do.

It strikes me that this Social Security plan was poorly timed. Sure, Bush Co. had political momentum after the election but they had no legislative feats to build on nor--contrary to the CW--did they have any semblance of a 'mandate.' Whats more, the economy remains stuck in neutral. Not unlike the past three+ years, we hear plenty of talk about a rebound and whatnot but the numbers have not drastically changed. It would have been much easier to pitch Social Security reform and especially private accounts in a time of economic gains, when people are not focused upon, or relying upon, the very safety net that they want to remove.

So why now and why reach so far? The amazing thing about ideologues is that they believe in the unreality that they consciously sell to constituent/subjects. Bush Co. probably thought that the economy would turn around in time for the second term--that the laissez-faire method (also known as the 'ignore it until it goes away' method) of trusting the invisible hand would sweep them gently out of recession and into the plush fields of stable growth. And when it was clear that this had not happened, that the invisible hand had actually slapped them in the face, then they likely justified it by saying improvement was inevitable. This can't go on forever, right?

Where does it stop? We all know the basic standards for defining abuse. Either the ideology is abusing these ideologues or these ideologues have drastically misunderstood free market economics. Judging by the corporate cartel alliance with certain sectors of the federal government (see: halliburton, boeing), its likely the latter.

As for John Snow...I think he put it best in 1993:

You'd never know me Daddy Snow
I'm the Boom Shakata
I'll never lay down flat
in one cardboard box
Yes me Daddy Snow
I'm gonna reached the top, so.

Harold Cruse: 1916-2005

2005-03-30T13:28:00.000-06:00

Harold Cruse, one of the most influential political thinkers in my life and one of the most underappreciated Americna cultural critics ever passed away yesterday. Cruse was one of the few postwar American thinkers who with equal force could criticize the cultural politics and posture of the 1960s while simulataneously deriding the idiotic sectarianism and tunnel vision of late twentieth century communism. In my mind, he was always one of the great rejoinders to the derisive continental derision-'why is there no important socialist thinker in America." If there are any RG readers left out there following our not-so-brief hiatus, I urge you to check out his brilliant (and often funny) "The Crisis of the Negro Intellectual." Below is the NYT Obituary:

Harold Cruse, Social Critic and Fervent Black Nationalist, Dies at 89
By CHRISTOPHER LEHMANN-HAUPT

Published: March 30, 2005

arold Cruse, an outspoken social and cultural critic who was best known for his angry collection of essays, "The Crisis of the Negro Intellectual," died Saturday in Ann Arbor, Mich. He was 89. The cause was congestive heart failure, his companion, Mara Julius, said.

Largely self-educated and widely read, Mr. Cruse taught African-American studies at the University of Michigan and was one of the first blacks to get tenure at a major university without a college degree. He ranged over many subjects in his writing: politics, radicalism, music, culture and the situation of black people in America.
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In "Crisis" he summed up a set of positions that left him isolated from almost everyone else in the political spectrum of the mid-1960's.

He was against integration. "Integrate with whom?" he asked. He deplored the black-power movement as being all slogans and no political program. He opposed the back-to-Africa campaign, although he had grudging admiration for Garveyism. Despite a brief association with the Communist Party, he abominated Communists and liberals - in particular, Jewish intellectuals, whom he blamed for black anti-Semitism. He was critical of almost everyone, from James Baldwin to Ossie Davis to Lorraine Hansberry, for accepting too readily the premises of white culture.

He concluded that blacks must form their own political, economic, social and cultural base to work on all fronts toward an accommodation with capitalism as it was modified by the New Deal.

Mr. Cruse's book stirred up strong reactions in many quarters. But Christopher Lasch wrote in The New York Review of Books that he agreed with book's thesis, as he put, "that intellectuals must play a central role in movements for radical change." A new edition of "Crisis" will be published next month.

A year after its original publication, Mr. Cruse was asked to lecture at the University of Michigan, where he became involved in the African-American studies program until his retirement in the mid-1980's as professor emeritus.

Harold Wright Cruse was born in Petersburg, Va., on March 8, 1916, and moved with his father, a railway porter, to New York City as a young child. After graduating from high school, he worked at several jobs but was ambitious to become a writer. He served in the Army in Europe during World War II.

After the war, he attended the City College of New York briefly but never graduated. In 1947, he joined the Communist Party and wrote drama and literary criticism for The Daily Worker, although he was never doctrinaire. In the 1950's, he wrote several plays, and in the mid-1960's he was co-founder, with LeRoi Jones (now Amiri Baraka), of the Black Arts Theater and School in Harlem.The more he learned about the arts, the more he deplored what he saw as a white appropriation of black culture, particularly as exemplified by George Gershwin's folk opera "Porgy and Bess." He called for blacks to embrace their cultural uniqueness.

His later books include "Rebellion or Revolution?", "Plural but Equal: A Critical Study of Blacks and Minorities and America's Plural Society" and "The Essential Harold Cruse: A Reader" edited by William Jelani Cobb with a foreword by Stanley Crouch.

In addition to Ms. Julius, his survivors include two half sisters, Shirley Toke, of Richmond, Va., and Catherine Jones, of Petersburg.

The Shoulders of Giants

2005-03-26T12:37:00.000-06:00

First there was Faubus

Then Wallace

Recall 1962:

"As your governor, I shall resist any illegal federal court order, even to the point of standing at the schoolhouse door in person, if necessary."

And now Bush?

Dear Democrats: A Strategy Memo

2005-03-24T12:41:00.000-06:00

From: Restlessgeist (and associates)
To: The Democratic Party
Re: Carpe Diem

The Republican Party is spinning out of control. Since achieving limited but important political gains last November, the Republicans have made a series of moves that have led them down an unproductive and somewhat incomprehensible path.

Legislatively, the Republicans have pursued small programs succesfully while unsuccesfully chasing after likely impossible major agendas. The Bankruptcy Bill will go down in history as just another in a long line of anti-democratic economic reforms meant to place the debtor at the creditor's mercy. (Its an oldie but a goodie: see Peter J. Coleman, Debtors and Creditors in America. Also the more recent, Bruce Mann, Republic of Debtors.) But the Bankruptcy Bill won't help the Republicans stabilize their political support (although it will surely generate plenty of quid pro quo corporate donations). Neither, it seems, will their pursuit of Bush's Social Security plan. In fact, recent polls show the public neither trusts Bush's plan nor supports it:

Newsweek Poll conducted by Princeton Survey Research Associates International. March 17-18, 2005. N=1,010 adults nationwide. MoE ± 3. "We're interested in your opinion of the way George W. Bush is handling certain aspects of his job. Do you approve or disapprove of the way Bush is handling Social Security?"
Approve: 33%
Disapprove: 59%
Unsure: 8%
3/17-18/2005

"Who do you trust more on the issue of Social Security: President Bush or Democrats in Congress?"
President Bush: 33%
Democrats in Congress: 44%
Both Equally: 3%
Neither: 12%
Unsure: 8%

Time Poll conducted by Schulman, Ronca & Bucuvalas (SRBI) Public Affairs. March 15-17, 2005. N=1,010 adults nationwide. MoE ± 3."Do you approve or disapprove of the job President Bush is doing in each of these areas? Handling of Social Security issues."
Approve: 37% (3/15-17/2005) 40% (1/12-13/2005)
Disapprove: 54% (3/15-17/2005) 49% (1/12-13/2005)

(Note: it gets worse when you look at the numbers on the details of the plan.)

So what are the Republicans doing? Recently it has been all Schiavo, all the time. In short, they think that it was the issue of 'values' that propelled them to victory in November. The more they hammer away at this, the more they can leverage the issue and keep democrats on the outside. But the assumption behind this strategy is problematic. It was not the Republican 'values' that got them elected--it was the misfiring Kerry campaign that essentially handed them the win.

I think this argument is borne out by the media response--and popular response, however understated--to this Schiavo case. To date, the notoriously liberal New York Daily News has even come out criticizing Republican involvement in the case (hmm...turns out they don't put their editorials online. I wonder why. But it was there, in yesterday's lead editorial!) Much of this criticism comes in the wake of ABC's publication of a GOP memo that essentially demonstrateed the right's political plams for the Schiavo case:

"This is a great political issue, because Senator Nelson of Florida has already refused to become a cosponsor and this is a tough issue for Democrats," it said.

As Republicans overreach on this Schiavo case they demonstrate that they are much, much more interested in rhetoric and ideology than actual policy and reform. This is an obvious point to those of us that have been paying close attention. But the zeal with which they are involved in this Schiavo business has made the whole thing a media event. And even the American media cannot help but notice that Republicans are more inclined to defend the amorphous ideology of a "culture of life" than they are to act like legislators.

All of this opens up a great politcal opportunity for the other side. The Republican emphasis on preserving life at all costs paints them into a corner on a number of issues.
1.) Death penalty, most obviously.
2.) military casualties (something Republicans barely acknowledge exists)
3.) Social Security and entitlement policy
4.) Gun Control
(among others)

It is important to emphasize that if Democrats were to pick up these issues (as they should have been doing anyway) it WOULD NOT be exploiting anything that has happened to this point. The progressive arguments against the death penalty, the Iraq war, and for social security and gun control, have all been partly based on moral coniderations (murder=bad).

As for the method of picking up the issues...why not introduce some high profile legislation about. say...banning assault weapons. We could call it the Culture of Life Assault Weapons Bill. You get the idea. Rhetorically, yes, there is some Dick-Morris-esque triangulation here. But conservatives do this everyday, we scream exploitation, and nothing happens. Likely, nothing will happen when we do it. More important than the rhetoric is the content of this hypothetical legislation. This is an opportunity to put the progressive agenda back in the government. And for those forward thinking folks, the midterms are beginning to come into view.

The Pelosi-Reid regime seems to believe that loud and sharp criticism is the only role for the minority party. Sorry, but Atrios, Pandagon, Democratic Underground and Air America do a much better job at that than Congressional Democrats.

So Dems: Carpe diem. Start doing something. Now's the chance.

The Blog Graveyard? Not just yet.

2005-03-22T16:33:00.000-06:00

I have received many emails in the past two months asking what has happened to the old RG. Drafted and shipped off to Iraq? Arrested and renditioned to Texas? Coaching the Knicks?

None of the above.

But we do owe an explanation to our (former) readers.

It was by no means a coordinated decision to stop posting. Instead, it was a gradual accretion. A few days without blogging became a few weeks. And there was life outside the blog world! For my part, a new job, a new place of residence, and a bunch of new responsibilities gave me little time to do much news reading or analysis.

I did need a break from the RG. The frenzy of the election and the post-election had pretty much cleaned out of any meaningful political thoughts.

But I think its time to start at it again. It won't be the usual three or four posts a day. Maybe a couple a week. Lets start there.

Assault on Democracy

2005-02-18T11:05:00.000-06:00

Bush signed a bill today restricting class-action lawsuits by taking them out of state courts and into the hands of federal judges. The motivation behind this effort has gone unmentioned in the press. Whats the difference between civil litigation in state courts versus federal courts? The relative lack of jury trials at the federal level. What the corporate community does not want is for their actions to be judged by a community of your peers. Its a full fledged assault on democracy.

Rah Rah! Goooooo dollar!

2005-01-18T17:50:00.000-06:00

In the Soviet Union, Politburo members often simply invented economic data. Whatever economic policy thought existed at the thinktanks was either summarily ignored or molded to fit the ideological theories of party leaders.

Keep that in mind when reading about the Bush Treasury Department:

"Certainly when I was there, we worked very closely with [White House staff]; having the White House engaged on your issue meant you had strong backing and the political muscle if you needed it," said Abernathy's predecessor, Sheila C. Bair, a University of Massachusetts finance professor who was in the job until 2002. "The concern is, it's gone too much the other way, that the White House is driving it and not working collaboratively with Treasury."

The Treasury "should be a key formulator of policy," Bair said. "But the perception is that Treasury has become the cheerleader and deliverer of the message."

The pattern began in Bush's first term, when the White House abandoned the Clinton administration's practice of including the Treasury secretary in its daily political meeting and routinely rebuffed Secretary Paul H. O'Neill for his worries about budget deficits and tax cuts.

More recently, as congressional leaders and Washington lobbyists drafted corporate tax-cut legislation last fall, Treasury experts with strong objections were muzzled, according to a current Treasury employee and two senior Senate tax aides, who spoke only on condition of anonymity. Snow did not air his concerns about the legislation until it was just days from passage, too late to effect dramatic change. [....]

The Treasury "was one of those agencies you could always rely upon to provide a real base of information. It didn't always win, but it designed proposals for the public interest at large," said C. Eugene Steuerle, who headed the department's Office of Tax Analysis during the Reagan administration. Now, he said, "on a lot of issues, sometimes it doesn't have a seat at the table."

There is also concern about whether the department's clipped wings will damage the country's leadership in international financial circles at a time when the dollar is falling and the trade deficit is surging. Those trends may require the Group of Seven major industrial countries to act in a coordinated fashion to avoid a financial crisis.[....]

"After about a year of the current administration, some of my Japanese friends would take me aside -- people from the Ministry of Finance and [the] central bank -- and they would say, 'What's happened to Treasury?'" said Robert C. Fauver, a former career Treasury official who was a deputy undersecretary of state in President George H.W. Bush's administration. "At the moment, Treasury's interagency standing -- I'm not talking about the Cabinet-head level, but the department -- is the lowest in the 30 years that I've watched."[....]

Where is the ~~Treasury official~~ token cheerleader in this report? Here we go.

"Let's focus on the results," said Robert S. Nichols, a Treasury spokesman. "Under President Bush's leadership, the economy has been growing at rates as fast as any in nearly 20 years. That growth is largely the result of good monetary policy coupled with the president's tax relief, and the Treasury Department has played a key role."

Who knew that starving the beast included the Treasury? Soon economic policy will be under the aegis of the Pentagon.

The Hegemon Speaks

2005-01-16T19:50:00.000-06:00

In an effort to repair its heavily damaged reputation, Walmart has created a website where anybody can learn how Wal-Mart is working "for everyone." Enjoy, Thomasgeist.

Wal-Mart does not encourage our associates to apply for public assistance. We will be the first to acknowledge that health care is a tough issue... for us and for the country. We work hard to keep our associate premiums affordable and think we are doing a pretty good job. Premiums start at less than $40 a month for an individual and less than $155 per month for a family, no matter how many members.

Shrum's Done

2005-01-16T19:40:00.000-06:00

(via Taegan Goddard)

For Bob Shrum, its been a tough couple of years. There were calls for his head last summer as the Swift Boat Veterans Against John Kerry effectively destroyed Shrum's campaign strategy, leading, of course, to the embarassing defeat of November 2, 2004. But Shrum bounced back in early 2005, when the notable weblog Restlessgeist awarded him with the award for Person of the Year, along with the soon-to-be-fired Don Rumsfeld.

Well, might as well get out while you are on top. And that's what Shrummy is doing.

They won't have Bob Shrum to kick around anymore:

Bob Shrum, one of the dominant Democratic political strategists and speechwriters of the last three decades, said Wednesday that he was ending his formal consulting career and moving to New York, where he would write and teach at New York University as a senior fellow.

"I wanted to reflect on what I've done, not just keep doing it," Mr. Shrum, 61, said in an interview. "And I wanted to draw lessons from what I'd seen and draw implications for the future."

He leaves Washington with a mixed record, having served as an adviser on 26 winning Senate campaigns, perhaps more than any other consultant, but also eight losing presidential campaigns, which may also stand as a record.

Mr. Shrum was a lead adviser to Senator John Kerry's presidential campaign, where he was sometimes a divisive figure and where he occasionally drew more attention from reporters than his candidate did. He was widely criticized as failing to develop a clean, consistent message.

Never Saw this one coming.

2005-01-16T19:37:00.000-06:00

Utterly shocking:

Iraq has replaced Afghanistan as the training ground for the next generation of "professionalized" terrorists, according to a report released yesterday by the National Intelligence Council, the CIA director's think tank.

Iraq provides terrorists with "a training ground, a recruitment ground, the opportunity for enhancing technical skills," said David B. Low, the national intelligence officer for transnational threats. "There is even, under the best scenario, over time, the likelihood that some of the jihadists who are not killed there will, in a sense, go home, wherever home is, and will therefore disperse to various other countries."

Send Outreach to Those in Need!

2005-01-16T19:34:00.000-06:00

We are all good polemicists...and we can all use the extra 200 grand:

Education Secretary Roderick R. Paige yesterday defended payments to a conservative black commentator to promote the No Child Left Behind law as a standard "outreach effort" to minority groups who stand to benefit most from the Bush administration's showcase education program.

Paige, the nation's first African American education secretary, said in a statement that he was deeply disturbed by the publicity surrounding the $240,000 contract. He announced an investigation by the Department of Education's inspector general to clear up any unresolved issues so as not to "sully the fine people and good name of this department."

Its amazing. It really is. If its torture you just say it isn't. If its corruption you just say it isn't. Deny, deny, deny.

Liberty Marching Just South of Florida?

2005-01-11T20:48:00.000-06:00

Overheard at the White House:
Gin up those old National Intelligence Estimates about dictators with weapons of mass destruction, call Scott and tell him to get the travelling press corps ready to go, and will somebody please wake up Dubya? There's oil in Cuba!:

President Fidel Castro said he had some information to lift the spirits of Cuba's 11 million people: two Canadian energy companies, Pebercan and Sherritt International, had discovered oil in the Gulf of Mexico in an area under Cuba's control. [....]

American energy companies quietly chafe at restrictions that make Cuban territory off limits to them while Canadians, Spaniards and Brazilians search Cuban waters for offshore wildcatting possibilities. A significant oil discovery, one that could turn Cuba into an oil exporter from an importer, might prompt calls for reviewing policies that exclude the great majority of American companies from trading with Cuba.

Conservatives and Long-Term Thought:UPDATE

2005-01-11T20:38:00.000-06:00

More fuel for the fire, still on Social Security:

Most alarming to White House officials, some congressional Republicans are panning the president's plan -- even before it is unveiled. "Why stir up a political hornet's nest . . . when there is no urgency?" said Rep. Rob Simmons (Conn.), who represents a competitive district. "When does the program go belly up? 2042. I will be dead by then."

That has to be one of the greatest lines in the history of American politics. "I will be dead by then." Wow.

Conservatives and Long-Term Thought:

2005-01-11T18:02:00.000-06:00

Like oil and water.

Broadly speaking, conservatives don't think long-term because they don't believe in doing so. A me-first, America-first, own-it-before-you-care-about-it philosophy has little to no room for thinking about society, no matter how compassionate they are or claim to be. (Note to Ayn Rand 'objectivists': your complaints are noted and dismissed as tripe).

A case in point is this whole Social Security "crisis." Many people have noted that the "crisis" closely resembles other Bush administration "crises"--Iraq, so-called partial-birth abortion, etc. More important than the Bush PR m.o., however, is the fact that the privatization plan doesn't work:

In private meetings, Mr. Snow will confer with top executives from the biggest bond-trading firms on Wall Street and is expected to argue that such borrowing would more than pay for itself at the end of 75 years.

Industry executives said the meetings would include firms like Goldman Sachs, J. P. Morgan Chase and Lehman Brothers. Mr. Snow is also expected to meet with brokerage firms and mutual fund companies that could end up managing the personal savings accounts.

"The secretary will make the case that reform is needed to guarantee retirement benefits for today's youth, given the system's insolvency," said Robert Nichols, a spokesman for Mr. Snow. "The byproduct will put the nation's fiscal affairs in order by addressing the $10 trillion in unfunded obligations, a move that will be well received by the financial markets."

But several Wall Street economists expressed doubts about the potential impact on interest rates from floating hundreds of billions of dollars of additional government bonds at a time when it is not clear how the Bush administration is planning to reduce the existing budget deficit.

"The overall impact on the Treasury market would be negative," wrote Kathleen Bostjancic, a senior Merrill Lynch economist, who estimated that the administration plan could lead to increased government borrowing of $54 billion to $120 billion a year for the next 20 years.

Administration officials argue that the new borrowing should have no impact on the market, because investors already know the government faces at least $3.7 trillion in unfunded Social Security obligations over the next 75 years - $10.4 trillion if projected over an "infinite horizon."

Supporters of the proposal say bond investors have already accepted the argument that any extra borrowing will only be transitional and will be repaid in future decades.

Other analysts note that the increased government borrowing will be offset by the money that flows into personal savings accounts. "It would be a wash, with no change to overall savings," said Lyle Gramley, a former Federal Reserve governor.

Isn't it funny how Wall Street folks are much more worried about budget deficits than the social security system's "insolvency"?

Oh, and one more thing about conservative inability to think in the long-term. When they do talk about it, or try and think about it, the all-powerful market is their telos.

Far more important is support from bond market investors. If investors gag at the prospect of vast new federal borrowing, the value of Treasury bonds could plunge and interest rates would rise.

Even a hint of panic in the bond markets would be enough to kill support for Mr. Bush's plans in Congress.

Back to Social Security, the Bushies have already pointed to stable bond markets as an indicator that Wall Street sees benefit in privatization. But you can't con a con man, as the saying goes.

Indeed, thus far bond investors have shown little discomfort about the prospect of vast additional federal borrowing. Even as President Bush has made it clear that overhauling Social Security is his top domestic priority, long-term interest rates have remained very low, at about 4.2 percent.

But many Wall Street analysts say that bond investors have not yet focused on what the future impact of the plan might be if it became law.

"There is no question that the markets have not reacted negatively," John Lipsky, a supporter of personal Social Security accounts who is chief economist at J. P. Morgan Chase. "Is it because they are O.K. with it, or is because they don't think it will happen? My guess is that a lot of people haven't thought very clearly about it."

Still Scratching Your Head About Nov. 2?

2005-01-10T20:05:00.000-06:00

Then you MUST read this Amy Sullivan piece about the sad, sad world of democratic political consultants and pollsters. Just in case you hadn't noticed, we lose. A lot. (via Pandagon)

Here's a great segment about one of the co-winners of the RG person of the year, Bob Shrum:

Over his 30-year career, Shrum has worked on the campaigns of seven losing presidential candidates—from George McGovern to Bob Kerrey—capping his record with a leading role in the disaster that was the Gore campaign. Yet, instead of abiding by the “seven strikes and you're out” rule, Democrats have continued to pay top dollar for his services (sums that are supplemented by the percentage Shrum's firm, Shrum, Devine & Donilon, gets for purchasing air time for commercials). Although Shrum has never put anyone in the White House, in the bizarro world of Democratic politics, he's seen as a kingmaker—merely hiring the media strategist gives a candidate such instant credibility with big-ticket liberal funders that John Kerry and John Edwards fought a fierce battle heading into the 2004 primaries to lure Shrum to their camps. Ultimately, Shrum chose Kerry, and on Nov. 3, he extended his perfect losing record.

Since their devastating loss last fall, Democrats have cast about for reasons why their party has come up short three election cycles in a row and have debated what to do. Should they lure better candidates? Talk more about morality? Adopt a harder line on national security? But one of the most obvious and least discussed reasons Democrats continue to lose is their consultants. Every sports fan knows that if a team boasts a losing record several seasons in a row, the coach has to be replaced with someone who can win. Yet when it comes to political consultants, Democrats seem incapable of taking this basic managerial step.

A major reason for that reluctance is that Democrats simply won't talk openly about the problem. Shrum did eventually take some heat publicly during the 2004 campaign when the contrast between his losing record and his high position in the troubled Kerry campaign became too stark to ignore. But in general, a Mafia-like code of omerta operates. Few insiders dare complain about the hammerlock loser consultants have on the process—certainly neither the professional campaign operatives whom the consultants hire nor the journalists to whom the consultants feed juicy inside-the-room detail.

I think that Sullivan is right on point in indicting these middlemen of the trade...These are the imagemakers and the spinners that push candidates left or right (in our case, too much of the latter and too little of the former). How often do we wonder what it would have been like to have a campaign we were actually proud of? That spoke to real issues without the crapola veneers of "outsourcing", "the immigration problem," and who can shoot more ducks?

Shoot to Kill

2005-01-10T13:44:00.000-06:00

Bill Frist spreads hope to Tsunami victims, Republican style:

Just before his helicopter lifted off, Frist and aides took snapshots of each other near a pile of tsunami debris.

"Get some devastation in the back," Frist told a photographer.

Just a reminder...Good People Beget Good People, according to Dr. Frist.

Person of the Year, 2004

2005-01-02T15:00:00.000-06:00

It is a tie. Enjoy, boys.

Shrummy

Rummy

Iran Watch

2004-12-23T13:48:00.000-06:00

If you want to know what's going on in Iraq, or at least what U.S. planners believe is going on, you have to look to Iran. If the election goes through in Iraq Jan. 30 there will be a resounding victory for the Shia (nobody in the Sunni area will vote, too dangerous), who have a religious, and thus possibly geopolitical, affinity with Iran. A few, violent Sunni factions might want elections to proceed; Shia dominance in a U.S. backed regime could spark a Civil War whereupon the Shia could claim the nationalist highground. Of course Iran would very much to have a Shia dominated Iraqi government.

Anyway, the prime U.S interest in West Asia is now Iran. In this, it shares with Israel, who long viewed Tehran as a greater threat to its security than Saddam. The International Press has been reporting heavily on this story, and James Fallows has a nice piece in the Atlantic Monthly on recent Pentagon wargames to take out Iran's nuclear capabilities. Today's news from Pakistani English daily, Dawn:

.............

TEHRAN, Dec 22: The Iranian military has been ordered to stand ready to defend the country's nuclear sites in case of attack, army chief General Mohammad Salimi said on Wednesday.

"The air force has been ordered to protect the nuclear sites, using all its power," Mr Salimi said, quoted by the government daily Iran. "The air force has temporarily suspended all its manoeuvres and focused its means on patrolling the sky," he added.

"All our forces including land forces, anti-aircraft, radar tactics ... are protecting the nuclear sites and an attack on them will not be simple," the general said.

American newspapers and the regional press have speculated over a possible US or Israeli attack on the nuclear sites of Iran, which the Jewish state and Washington suspect of working to develop the bomb. US and Israeli officials have denied any such plans.

SPIES' ARREST: Ten people arrested on suspicion of spying on Iran's nuclear programme were working for US and Israeli intelligence services, Intelligence Minister Ali Yunessi said on Wednesday.

"More than 10 nuclear spies were arrested during the current (Iranian) year," which started on March 20, Mr Yunessi said, quoted by the official news agency IRNA. "Three of them were working for the (Iranian) Atomic Energy Organization, the rest of them were not public servants ... They were working for the CIA and Mossad. They were arrested in Tehran and Hormuzgan," in southern Iran, he said.

"They are currently in the custody of the revolutionary court, and we will not announce their names before their trials ... There is no prominent person among them," Mr Yunessi added.

In August, Mr Yunessi announced the arrest of a number of spies who sent information on Iran's nuclear programme to foreigners. He said the People's Mujahedeen, an armed opposition group based in Iraq that Tehran labels as "hypocrites", had played the central role in the espionage.

The group's political wing, the National Council for Resistance in Iran, in 2002 revealed two nuclear sites Iran had been hiding, including a uranium-enrichment plant in Natanz.

Last month the group alleged Iran was hiding a uranium enrichment facility in Tehran and aimed at getting the atomic bomb next year. The group also said Pakistani scientist Dr Abdul Qadeer Khan delivered bomb designs and weapons-grade highly enriched uranium to Iran. Tehran insists that its nuclear activities are purely peaceful.

GAS FLOW: Iran resumed the flow of natural gas to Turkey on Wednesday after a cut for technical reasons that lasted several days, Turkish Energy Minister Hilmi Guler said.

"A new pipeline has become operational in Iran. They (Iranian officials) said this was a problem. The cut was purely technical," Guler told the Anatolia news agency. -AFP

Person of the Year: More

2004-12-21T19:41:00.000-06:00

More nominees:

Bernard Kerik's Fake Nanny
William Jefferson Clinton
Karen Hughes
Dennis Haysbert (played Pedro Ceranno in Major League, now appears in insurance commercials)

I should say that even though Ukrainian Dude Who Got Poisoned might appear to be winning, it is actually a pretty dead heat at the moment. The actual leader is Bob Shrum, Thomasgeist is a surprising second, and our friend from the Ukraine is third.

Why We Put More Thought into Person of the Year

2004-12-21T08:18:00.000-06:00

You cannot just jump into big decisions like this. I don't like to criticize competitors out in the open like this, but this time I can't hold back.

Here is the citation fromTime Magazine's ~~man date~~:

After winning re-election and "reshaping the rules of politics to fit his 10-gallon-hat leadership style," President Bush for the second time was chosen as Time magazine's Person of the Year.

The magazine's editors tapped Bush "for sharpening the debate until the choices bled, for reframing reality to match his design, for gambling his fortunes -- and ours -- on his faith in the power of leadership." (see also, Time itself)

The problem is that the "10-gallon-hat leadership style" might well have been responsible for torturing prisoners of war, among others:

A document released for the first time today by the American Civil Liberties Union suggests that President Bush issued an Executive Order authorizing the use of inhumane interrogation methods against detainees in Iraq. [....] The two-page e-mail that references an Executive Order states that the President directly authorized interrogation techniques including sleep deprivation, stress positions, the use of military dogs, and "sensory deprivation through the use of hoods, etc." The ACLU is urging the White House to confirm or deny the existence of such an order and immediately to release the order if it exists. The FBI e-mail, which was sent in May 2004 from "On Scene Commander--Baghdad" to a handful of senior FBI officials, notes that the FBI has prohibited its agents from employing the techniques that the President is said to have authorized.

Another e-mail, dated December 2003, describes an incident in which Defense Department interrogators at Guantánamo Bay impersonated FBI agents while using "torture techniques" against a detainee. The e-mail concludes "If this detainee is ever released or his story made public in any way, DOD interrogators will not be held accountable because these torture techniques were done [sic] the ‘FBI’ interrogators. The FBI will [sic] left holding the bag before the public." (see ACLU Archives)

Rummy: Fool's Gold

2004-12-20T17:14:00.000-06:00

I'm going to beat this drum again.

Conservatives are incapable of individual initiative. Without marching orders, there is no march. See, e.g., Arkansas Project.

So this whole 'Donald Rumsfeld must go' trope coming from the right? Bullshit.

The morning after President Bush's pair of holiday parties for journalists last week, White House press secretary Scott McClellan was asked at a briefing to react to Weekly Standard editor William Kristol telling "everyone within earshot" that the White House had encouraged him to write an opinion article in The Washington Post that began a wave of conservative criticism of Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld.

"I was within earshot -- I didn't hear him say that," McClellan replied coyly. [....]

Kristol said it is not true that there has been "any kind of White House encouragement or back-channel contact." "I maybe said that if he pats me on the back and says, 'Good op-ed, Bill,' that would indicate something," Kristol said.

Ok, whatever. But lets note that the only people criticized Rumsfeld prior to Kristol's piece were Democrats and Dennis Kucinich.

It would have been an easy card for republicans involved in tough races to draw on but nobody did. Because they didn't believe Rummy was doing a bad job before, and they don't now. Unless, of course, they plan on running for president.

As for the White House...without some battle to fight they look complacent, and when they look complacent, people start thinking about things that really suck, like the economy, for example. So you spin a media cycle with Keriks, cabinet shuffling, and Rumsfeld, and you remind your base that the liberal scourge is STILL out there. You may have won an election, but (even with a majority in the house and senate, control of the white house, and likely appointees to the Supreme Court) its still "hard work" and it will be rough and tumble.

Person of the Year--Plot Thickens

2004-12-19T14:36:00.000-06:00

Oh the nominees are pouring in.

These are in no particular order, but organized into two categories.

Politics
John Ashcroft
Mary Beth Cahill
Dick Cheney
Howard Dean
Abu Ghraib
Seymour Hersh
Joe Lieberman (votes for Joe-Mentum, Jo-Mentum, and Joementum count for this)
Hadassah Lieberman
Obama
Bob Shrum
Donald Rumsfeld
Thomasgeist
"Ukrainian Dude Who Got Poisoned"

"Other"
Carlos Beltran
John Cocktosin (I'm not sure if this is a vote for Chevy Chase or not...)
Bernard Dubbeld
Ricky Gervaise
Paris Hilton
Mike J.
Jon Stewart
Dr. Phil

Nominations will be accepted until December 30, whereupon the RG executive council will make a decision, and announce it here. We appreciate the cooperation of Time Magazine, who agreed to make their announcement a bit earlier so as to not interfere with ours.

Arse of Democracy

2004-12-17T08:20:00.000-06:00

I just can't figure out why the economic indicators are so bad right now.

Or are they???

The liberal naysayers who look for any reason to denigrate America's progress tell us that housing construction declined last month:

The number of housing units on which builders began work plunged 13.1 percent in November from the previous month, the biggest monthly drop in nearly 11 years, according to the Commerce Department. [....] Housing starts plummeted in November to 1.771 million residential units at an annual rate, from 2.039 million in October, the Commerce Department said. It marked the biggest decline since January 1994 and pulled starts down to their lowest level since May 2003. Construction declined in all four U.S. regions. Starts were down for both single-family and multi-family projects. "Housing is leveling off," said Michael Carliner, another economist at the home builders' group. "It's not going to be able to drive the economy like it has."

But for those who put America first, we read this data a bit differently.

The economy continues to grow. We built 1.7 million new homes last month alone!

The America-haters also take aim at good old fashioned American jobs:

U.S. job growth slowed sharply last month, and many workers' incomes fell, as automakers, airlines and retailers trimmed their payrolls, reducing consumers' buying power just as the holiday season was beginning.

Employers added 112,000 jobs in November, the smallest gain in four months, and below the roughly 150,000 per month that economists think are needed to keep up with population growth, the Labor Department reported yesterday. The department also shaved 54,000 jobs off its previous estimates of October and September gains in non-farm payrolls. [....]

The labor report came a day after the nation's major retail chains reported disappointing results for November. Sales at stores open for more than a year rose just 1.7 percent last month, compared with a 3.7 percent gain in November 2003.

Oh come on. You make it sound like there's a crisis or something. Spinning into Bush world, we get some help from Don Evans godly commerce department.

The unemployment rate slipped to 5.4 percent from 5.5 percent, which the department called "about unchanged," noting that it has been at either of those two levels every month since July

Unchanged. See? Nothing happened. Its nothing.

The over-educated liberal intelligentsia has even created a word to represent the progress of the whole economy, just so that they can criticize something:

The productivity of America's workers grew at a 1.8 percent annual rate in the third quarter, the slowest pace in nearly two years, the government reported Tuesday.

Yeah? Take this.

The deceleration in this vital economic indicator, however, raised some hope that employers who have squeezed so much efficiencies out of their existing work forces may seek to boost hiring as a way to meet customer demand.

And also, how about if I tell you that the productivity of American workers grew at a 1.8 percent annual rate in the third quarter? It's only bad if you make it bad.

This goes for national defense as well as the economy. Take the missile defense shield:

Opponents of the Bush administration's Star Wars missile defense system jumped all over Wednesday's failed launch, saying the setback showed the administration was rushing to deploy the system without adequate testing.

Here is what actually happened.

Au contraire, said a spokesman for the Pentagon's Missile Defense Agency: The test was not a failure, it just was not completed. "We weren't able to complete the test that we had planned," Richard Lehner told the Los Angeles Times. "I definitely wouldn't categorize it as a setback of any kind. The test had been planned for a while so it's a disappointment for those of us who were working on it. We will isolate the anomaly and fix it."

So buck up America. Stop listening, and for ~~the economy's~~ Christmas' sake, go shopping.

The Restlessgeist Person of the Year Award.

2004-12-17T08:17:00.000-06:00

Hold your breath folks...its coming.

We've received a communique from one reader nominating Lyndie England, for showing those A-Rabs whose boss. A little frat house fun, to boost morale.

This will certainly make the list. And we are taking more nominations.

Not from the Onion

2004-12-14T23:43:00.000-06:00

(thanks to Mr. Slender)
This is an honest to god, real headline:
Pentagon Weighs Use of Deception in a Broad Arena:

The question is whether the Pentagon and military should undertake an official program that uses disinformation to shape perceptions abroad. But in a modern world wired by satellite television and the Internet, any misleading information and falsehoods could easily be repeated by American news outlets.

That is a distinct possibility.

Sometimes the Times tries so hard to sound "fair and balanced," even-handed, or whatever, that they end up sounding like complete idiots.

Spreading freedom and democracy in Latin America

2004-12-14T15:09:00.000-06:00

And Americans wonder why the rest of the world laughs at our geopolitical pretenses. It must be because they are jealous of us. The documents are here.

But the CIA intervention in Venezuela is of the crudest, simplest kind. Top secret documents recently obtained and posted on www.venezuelafoia.info show that in the weeks prior to the April 2002 coup against President Chávez, the CIA had full knowledge of the events to occur and, in fact, even had the detailed plans in their possession. An April 6, 2002 top secret intelligence brief headlining “Venezuela: Conditions Ripening for Coup Attempt”, states, “Dissident military factions, including some disgruntled senior officers and a group of radical junior officers, are stepping up efforts to organize a coup against President Chávez, possible as early as this month, [CENSORED]. The level of detail in the reported plans – [CENSORED] targets Chávez and 10 other senior officers for arrest…” The document further states, “To provoke military action, the plotters may try to exploit unrest stemming from opposition demonstrations slated for later this month…”[iii]

So the CIA knew that a coup attempt would take place soon after April 6, 2002, and moreover, they knew the plan would include Chávez’s arrest and an exploitation of violence in the opposition march. In other words, they knew the plans before the coup occurred and surely they knew the actors involved, many of whose names are probably in the censored parts of the top-secret documents. One could assume that if the CIA had the detailed plans in their possession in the weeks prior to the coup it was because they were associating and conspiring with the coup plotters. So, when Ari Fleischer and Philip Reeker made those statements on April 12, 2002 on behalf of the U.S. Government, they did so with full knowledge that a coup had taken place, Chávez had been arrested and the violence in the opposition march, which they attributed to Chávez, had actually been a premeditated part of the coup plot. The top secret documents that prove this information show they were sent to the U.S. Statement Department and the National Security Agency, which means frankly, the White House knew what was happening all along.

This is what the White House was saying after the coup...

On April 12, 2002, White House spokesperson Ari Fleischer stated:

“Let me share with you the administration's thoughts about what's taking place in Venezuela. It remains a somewhat fluid situation. But yesterday's events in Venezuela resulted in a change in the government and the assumption of a transitional authority until new elections can be held.

The details still are unclear. We know that the action encouraged by the Chavez government provoked this crisis. According to the best information available, the Chavez government suppressed peaceful demonstrations. Government supporters, on orders from the Chavez government, fired on unarmed, peaceful protestors, resulting in 10 killed and 100 wounded. The Venezuelan military and the police refused to fire on the peaceful demonstrators and refused to support the government's role in such human rights violations. The government also tried to prevent independent news media from reporting on these events.

The results of these events are now that President Chavez has resigned the presidency. Before resigning, he dismissed the vice president and the cabinet, and a transitional civilian government has been installed. This government has promised early elections.

The United States will continue to monitor events. That is what took place, and the Venezuelan people expressed their right to peaceful protest. It was a very large protest that turned out. And the protest was met with violence.”[i]

On that same day, U.S. Department of State spokesperson Philip T. Reeker, claimed:

“In recent days, we expressed our hopes that all parties in Venezuela, but especially the Chavez administration, would act with restraint and show full respect for the peaceful expression of political opinion. We are saddened at the loss of life. We wish to express our solidarity with the Venezuelan people and look forward to working with all democratic forces in Venezuela to ensure the full exercise of democratic rights. The Venezuelan military commendably refused to fire on peaceful demonstrators, and the media valiantly kept the Venezuelan public informed.

Yesterday's events in Venezuela resulted in a transitional government until new elections can be held. Though details are still unclear, undemocratic actions committed or encouraged by the Chavez administration provoked yesterday's crisis in Venezuela. According to the best information available, at this time: Yesterday, hundreds of thousands of Venezuelans gathered peacefully to seek redress of their grievances. The Chavez Government attempted to suppress peaceful demonstrations. Chavez supporters, on orders, fired on unarmed, peaceful protestors, resulting in more than 100 wounded or killed. Venezuelan military and police refused orders to fire on peaceful demonstrators and refused to support the government's role in such human rights violations. The government prevented five independent television stations from reporting on events. The results of these provocations are: Chavez resigned the presidency. Before resigning, he dismissed the Vice President and the Cabinet. A transition civilian government has promised early elections.

We have every expectation that this situation will be resolved peacefully and democratically by the Venezuelan people in accord with the principles of the Inter-American Democratic Charter. The essential elements of democracy, which have been weakened in recent months, must be restored fully. We will be consulting with our hemispheric partners, within the framework of the Inter-American Democratic Charter, to assist Venezuela.”[ii]

What else is there to say?

Kerik thing getting really weird

2004-12-14T08:33:00.000-06:00

At Josh Marshall's Talkingpointsmemo some interesting stuff has been coming out about the Kerik nomination.

1) Nobody can find any evidence of the supposedly illegal alien nanny.:

On Sunday, December 12th, the local paper, the Bergen Record, reported that Kerik spokeswoman Sunny Mindel told them that "the housekeeper worked in his Old Mill Road home in 2003 while Kerik was in Iraq training police in Baghdad." The very same day, though, the Washington Post -- usually a reliable outfit -- reported that Kerik's lawyer, Joseph Tacopina, told them that "she worked for Kerik for about 18 months and had returned to Mexico six weeks ago, in keeping with a plan she had for several months."

2) I think Josh suspects that there is no way Kerik could have passed the vetting process for a legislative aide, let alone a cabinet level appointment. But where all have pointed the accusation of incompetence at BushCo, there may be something else going on. Kerik was not just a bad candidate, he was impossible. Assuming for a moment that the Bush people didn't find or care about his record. You have to believe that a young, dem senator would seize the opportunity for early publicity and skewer Kerik. Just how bad is he? Again, here's Josh:

In Tuesday's Kerik round-up, Newsday reports that one thing the background checkers came across was a wife Kerik had never mentioned to anyone before --his first wife, the former Ms. Linda Hales of North Carolina, who Kerik married in 1978. Regrettably, Newsday adds that there is some question as to whether marriage #1 and marriage #2 (to Jacqueline Kerik) may have well ... overlapped.
Contacted yestereday, an aide to Kerik told Newsday that Kerik disputed both the date of his second marriage found in his autobiography and the date of his divorce in his first marriage provided by an attorney for the former Ms. Hales (now named Linda Priest). Said the aide: "[T]hey made a mutual agreement between the two of them never to talk about it."

That little legal agreement is crap. And want to know the source of this report about the bigamy? It's Kerick's fucking autobography!

Is it possible that we are being fed this process story?

If so why?

I think it comes down to the viability of Giuliani 2008.
I don't know what deal McCain and others made with Bush, but after Giuliani's reemergence as a viable political candidate at the RNC, the contenders must have asked for something. McCain is in effect already running (see recent "no confidence" statement on Rummy. e.g.). And the "Kerik incident" has demonstrated very succinctly and clearly to the Beltway what everybody in new York remembered from 2000: Giuliani is not Bush's guy. Now, in a not-so-well-leaked story, we learned from the New York Times, "Strain is Seen in Giuliani Ties with President":

That embarrassment has put a new strain on a mutually beneficial relationship that has always been more complicated than mere friendship. [....]

The view at the White House is somewhat different. Although people close to the president say he likes and respects Mr. Giuliani, they say the president has long been leery of him as a man who could not be counted on for the loyalty demanded by Mr. Bush. And while the breakdown of Mr. Kerik's nomination is not lethal to Mr. Giuliani's relationship with the White House, the friends and officials say, it will hardly burnish his credentials with the president.

"It hurts him politically, so therefore by extension it's going to hurt him with the White House," said a Republican close to the administration who has worked for both Mr. Bush and Mr. Giuliani and who asked not to be identified because of the political sensitivity of the situation. "Nobody at the White House is saying to themselves, 'Damn that Rudy Giuliani.' It's more, 'Well, he got his licks.' "[....]

But Republicans say that Mr. Bush felt little affection for Mr. Giuliani, and that he was particularly perplexed as the mayor allowed his personal life to unravel publicly in the spring of 2000.

"There aren't a lot of people close to the president who have those kind of experiences," said the Republican close to the administration, referring to Mr. Giuliani's admissions of infidelity with the woman who became his third wife and to his bitter split from his second wife, Donna Hanover.

"It's an issue of not understanding it. I've had discussions with him where he's asked, 'What's this guy all about?' "

It could also, however, be to raise the spotlight on the DHS job. The fact is that Tom Ridge was a nimbus and didn't do much of anything for the Bush campaign. And DHS had become somewhat of a political joke. It was like having Rico Brogna as your third-place hitter. Now that people are paying attention, you go with a knwon winner that will have a cupcake hearing, and bam. DHS is a news cycle player.

Along those lines, note that all the Kerik discussion is taking away from necessary discussion about Social Security and the Environment, which Bush will try to destroy in his second 100 days. The real discussion always comes before the legislative battle, to decide which soundbytes work best or which phrases resonate. And right now, its all Kerik all the time, with a bit of Scott Peterson thrown in.

But this White house has never exactly been warm to criticism. Maybe they figure that nobody is paying attention, what with all the holiday shopping yet to be done.

Safire's World

2004-12-14T01:09:00.000-06:00

In Safire's world, there is equivalence between probes investigating
a) who leaked the name of a CIA covert agent on behalf of the Bush investigation
b) who leaked the shocking, unbelievable, unfathomable information that Jason Giambi used steroids.

a) national security
b) national pastime

a) CIA
b) MLB

The secret Bonds testimony, along with admission of steroid use by Jason Giambi, the Yankee, was reported by The San Francisco Chronicle.

As a result, baseball fans are dismayed and infuriated; the Senate Commerce chairman, John McCain, threatens legislation unless the "national pastime" cleans up its act; Major League Baseball's see-no-evil officials belatedly promise to deal with the worst scandal since the Black Sox of a century ago; even the players' union may consent to more than one drug test per season.

What will happen, now that this stunning news has finally been brought before the public? No, not retribution for the wrongdoers or even an asterisk next to records broken of unhyped athletes of the past.

Such justice is secondary to the new vogue of leak-plumbing that has seized the federal judiciary. Inspired by the sentences for contempt imposed in D.C. on Judith Miller of The Times and Matthew Cooper of Time, and on Jim Taricani, the TV reporter in Rhode Island, a judge in San Francisco is urging the Justice Department to conduct an investigation of who brought the evidence of steroid abuse into public view one year after the explosive testimony was taken.

Retribution for the "wrongdoers," indeed.

I can't think of a retirement party I'd rather be at...

Compartmentalized.

2004-12-13T23:58:00.000-06:00

Swagger over here...image there, right next to swagger. ~~Christian evangelicals~~ The legs down here...now we need a brain of some sort to make this White House work.

Pete we'll give you a small office and some electricity...do your best:

Pete Wehner has the rarest of White House jobs. He is paid to read, to think, to prod, to brainstorm -- all without accountability. [....]

Wehner runs the White House Office of Strategic Initiatives (or the Office of Strategery, as it is known inside the building after a "Saturday Night Live" skit spoofing the president's mangling of the English language). The OSI was Rove's idea, created shortly after President Bush was elected in 2000. It is the smallest unit in the Rove empire, with six employees, and represents the closest thing the White House has to an in-house think tank. [....]

Wehner said he hopes that one legacy of the OSI will be the inculcation of "intellectual seriousness" in the White House.

"I'm not sure you can leave that for another [administration], but this should be an office that engages ideas in a serious way, that approaches criticisms in an intellectually honest way," he said.

Given those ambitions, Wehner was asked whether he finds it ironic or is infuriated that Bush is stereotyped, fairly or not, as a president who is not interested in ideas and is not intellectually curious. "I'm not," he said, "because in the end, the truth wills out."

Bush is changing the political and intellectual landscape, Wehner argued, ticking off the president's education policy that has asserted a strong federal role from a conservative perspective, as well as the concept of compassionate conservatism. Personal savings accounts for Social Security represent another break with conventional thinking. [....]

Wehner said: "I think he's on the right side of history and is on the right side of the important debates of our time, and he's comfortable in that."

Those crazy conservative dreamers...can't think straight with their long hair and all.

Note to Pete:
Lets focus on "honesty" before we worry about "intelllectual honesty."

Social Security Is Neither Social nor Secure. Discuss.

2004-12-13T23:23:00.000-06:00

Bush during the third debate...just a few months ago:

BUSH: First, let me make sure that every senior listening today understands that when we're talking about reforming Social Security, that they'll still get their checks.

I remember the 2000 campaign, people said if George W. gets elected, your check will be taken away. Well, people got their checks, and they'll continue to get their checks.

There is a problem for our youngsters, a real problem. And if we don't act today, the problem will be valued in the trillions. And so I think we need to think differently. We'll honor our commitment to our seniors. But for our children and our grandchildren, we need to have a different strategy.

The checks will come but the envelopes might be a bit lighter:

As President Bush gears up for a major public push to overhaul Social Security, he has focused almost all his rhetorical energy on the need to let people divert some of their taxes to private retirement accounts. But nearly every leading Republican proposal on Capitol Hill acknowledges that private accounts by themselves do little to solve the system's projected shortfall of at least $3.5 trillion. Instead, those proposals rely on deep cuts in benefits to future retirees. That uncomfortable political truth was driven home on Monday by the head of the investigative arm of Congress. "The creation of private accounts for Social Security will not deal with the solvency and sustainability of the Social Security fund," that official, David M. Walker, comptroller general of the Government Accountability Office, said in a speech on Monday. Or, as Thomas Saving, a Republican-appointed trustee to the Social Security trust fund put it last week: "Fundamentally, if you don't reduce the benefits, you don't reduce the debt."

That last guy was Bush's appointee to the trust fund. He better watch his step if he likes his job.

But seriously folks, did ANYBODY expect differently? Go back to the third debate and read the transcript on Social Security. That ass clown Schieffer wonders aloud if Kerry's plan can pay for itself, whereas we knew Bush's plan was hopeless nonsense. But alas, that never came up from the moderator.

You get what you buy, and we're about to get it. Real bad.

GOP Primaries: Picture this

2004-12-12T16:33:00.000-06:00

The setting: Nashua, New Hampshire. A school cafeteria, VFW hall, or some equivalent thereof. 5:00 brings John McCain, talking tough about a nation under seige, a nation that desperately needs to get its priorities straight, its house in order.

Imagine this bit.

"4 years ago, my opponent pushed President Bush to put Homeland Security under a man who lied on his taxes, a man who hired immigrants to do an American job, a man who used his authority in the New York city police department for political purposes. Ladies and gentlemen, its time to tell the world that we've had enough of my opponent's type of politics. This is America, and its time we had a candidate who started acted that way. Its time to say no to politcs as usual..." yadda yadda yadda.

McCain-McConnell. 2008 just got a boost, thanks to "America's Mayor". Keep in mind that this could also be Giuliani's opportunity to get things on track and hire a real staff:

No single figure has been so closely associated with Giuliani during or after his City Hall tenure as Kerik. The 49-year-old former top cop, who has served as Giuliani's majordomo, confidante, correction commissioner and business partner, has enjoyed Giuliani's patronage and protection.

One national Republican strategist who supports Giuliani said that was part of the problem.

"I'm sorry, but the people around him are the Gang that Couldn't Shoot Straight," said the strategist, speaking on condition of anonymity. "I've had this conversation with U.S. senators and other party leaders and they all say the same thing: Rudy's got to hire a team of people who are ready for prime time and have a plan."

Straight to Zell!

2004-12-09T14:06:00.000-06:00

Its unthinkable, I know, but Georgia's favorite son of hate is going to K Street!

Miller is joining McKenna Long & Aldridge, a law firm of 350 lawyers and policy advisers, with offices in Atlanta, the District and elsewhere. He will be a "senior policy adviser" in the law firm's government affairs practice. He said he will be advising clients on how they can get their legislative way and come up with "practical solutions." "I certainly don't plan on walking any halls of Congress," he said in an interview yesterday. But his work for McKenna is "something I can do and still live in my home" in Young Harris, Ga. He talked about "a certain expertise" he has in national security and military matters but said he has not been able to talk to the law firm about the specifics of what he will be doing, because he is still in the Senate. [....] Asked if the firm was concerned about any fallout from Miller's harsh criticism of the Democratic Party and his support for Bush, Eric J. Tanenblatt, senior managing director of the firm and leader of the firm's national government affairs group, praised Miller's "distinguished career" and said he will "help solidify our firm and government affairs practice."

How long before Zell announces that Eric J. Tannenblatt
a) hates America
b) betrayed America
c) is un-American
d) doesn't represent him or his law firm
e) is making America less safe every time he opens his mouth
f) will tax and spend you to death
g) is weak
h) has a weak soul and no spine

Ah...He did it.

2004-12-09T08:27:00.000-06:00

The web is abuzz with people talking about Rummy's "pep talk." An interesting response from Pandagon, for example, recalling the rather disturbing responses that Bush came up with when Kerry nailed this issue:

After running a rather extensive political campaign blaming John Kerry for not voting to provide armor to the troops, the man in charge of handling their deployment tells them that not only is it nobody's fault that they don't have it, but that it doesn't really do anything anyway...because it can still be blown up.

At this point, we could cut out 75% of military expenditures and just give the armed forces Kias and Razor scooters. If they're going to be blown up anyway, why spend the money under the pretense that their survival actually means something?

Even better, however, is Juan Cole's take.

Message to Republican Leadership: I know you aren't used to it, but you have been in power for the last 4 years. Bill Clinton has been out of office since January, 2001. So enering the fifth year of your reign, you can't keep blaming him. About guns, economy, crime, or anything else.

Okay, here's Juan Cole:

Rumsfeld's dictum that "you go to war with the army you have" begs so many questions it would take days to list them all. But just for starters, let's point out that the officer corps wanted to send more like 300,000 troops to Iraq in March of 2003, not the 100,000 that Rumsfeld insisted on. Rumsfeld's mania for turning the entire US military into special operations forces ignores the need to keep order in the aftermath of a war. Paul Bremer admitted that "we never had enough troops on the ground" and that the lack led to the orgy of looting, which the US was not in a position to stop and which there was not even much will to stop.

Thanks Juan.

He also points us to this disturbing, to say the least, Ron Jacobs report in the Cockburn/St. Clair production, Counterpunch:

Retina scans to get into your own home. Work details under armed guard. No cars. Military armor on every corner. All men to be shot on sight after curfew. No freedom of movement. These are just some of the details of the new order in Fallujah (and one assumes any other Iraqi city that the US destroys in the future). Somewhere between a concentration camp and what US troops called a strategic hamlet in Vietnam, this is the latest version of Washington's freedom and democracy installation in Iraq.

Flashback: Cheney

2004-12-07T20:55:00.000-06:00

Can't link to these transcripts because they are on lexis, but here are some real gems from VPOTUS on Russert's Meet the Press, making the case for war in Iraq.

9/16/2001
MR. RUSSERT: Do we have evidence that he's harboring terrorists?

VICE PRES. CHENEY: There is--in the past, there have been some activities related to terrorism by Saddam Hussein. But at this stage, you know, the focus is over here on al-Qaida and the most recent events in New York. Saddam Hussein's bottled up, at this point, but clearly, we continue to have a fairly tough policy where the Iraqis are concerned.

MR. RUSSERT: Do we have any evidence linking Saddam Hussein or Iraqis to this operation?

VICE PRES. CHENEY: No.

12/9/01
MR. RUSSERT: What we do know is they--Iraq is harboring terrorists.

VICE PRES. CHENEY: Correct.

MR. RUSSERT: This was from Jim Hoagland of The Washington Post: "George Bush said that Abdul Rahman, who helped bomb the WTC back in 1993, according to Louis Free, was 'hiding in his native Iraq.'" And we'll show that right there on the screen as an exact quote.

VICE PRES. CHENEY: Right.

MR. RUSSERT: If they're harboring terrorists, why not go in and get them?

VICE PRES. CHENEY: Well, the evidence is pretty conclusive that the Iraqis have, indeed, harbored terrorists. That wasn't the question you asked me last time we met. You asked about evidence...

MR. RUSSERT: Correct.

3/24/02
VICE PRES. CHENEY: With respect to the connections to al-Qaeda, we haven't been able to pin down any connection there. I read this report with interest after our interview last fall. We discovered, and it's since been public, the allegation that one of the lead hijackers, Mohamed Atta, had, in fact, met with Iraqi intelligence in Prague, but we've not been able yet from our perspective to nail down a close tie between the al-Qaeda organization and Saddam Hussein. We'll continue to look for it.

5/19/02
VICE PRES. CHENEY: Well, the issue with Iraq isn't inspectors. That's just a piece of the equation. The inspectors are a means to allow the international community to assure itself that Iraq has come into compliance with U.N. Resolution 687. Specifically they agreed to give up their weapons of mass destruction, to allow international supervision to see that it had all been dismantled and destroyed. They've never done that. They kicked the inspectors out so that the world doesn't know what they've got.

My concern is that we'll see an agreement to allow inspectors back in but they'll be constrained. They'll be limited. They won't have the size or the right of penetration that's necessary to be confident that this guy has not developed nuclear weapons or developing biological and chemical agents. We know he's got chemicals and biological and we know he's working on nuclear.

9/8/2002
MR. RUSSERT: What, specifically, has he obtained that you believe would enhance his nuclear development program?

VICE PRES. CHENEY: Well, in the nuclear weapons arena, you've got sort of three key elements that you need to acquire. You need the technical expertise. You need to have a group of scientists and technicians, engineers, who know how to put together the infrastructure and to build a weapon. He's got that. He had it because of his program that was there previously, which I'll come back and talk about in a minute, but we know he's been working for 20 years trying to acquire this capability. He's got a well-established scientifically, technically competent crew to do it.

Secondly, you need a weapons design. One of the toughest parts about building a nuclear weapon is knowing how to do it. And they've got that. He had it back prior to the Gulf War. We know from things that were uncovered during the course of the inspections back in the early '90s that he did, in fact, have at least two designs for nuclear weapons.

The third thing you need is fissile material, weapons-grade material. Now, in the case of a nuclear weapon, that means either plutonium or highly enriched uranium. And what we've seen recently that has raised our level of concern to the current state of unrest, if you will, if I can put it in those terms, is that he now is trying, through his illicit procurement network, to acquire the equipment he needs to be able to enrich uranium to make the bombs.

3/16/2003
MR. RUSSERT: The army's top general said that we would have to have several hundred thousand troops there for several years in order to maintain stability.

VICE PRES. CHENEY: I disagree. We need, obviously, a large force and we've deployed a large force to prevail, from a military standpoint, to achieve our objectives, we will need a significant presence there until such time as we can turn things over to the Iraqis themselves. But to suggest that we need several hundred thousand troops there after military operations cease, after the conflict ends, I don't think is accurate. I think that's an overstatement. [....]

VICE PRES. CHENEY: I think things have gotten so bad inside Iraq from the standpoint of the Iraqi people, my belief is we will, in fact, be greeted as liberators.

MR. RUSSERT: If your analysis is not correct and we're not treated as liberators but as conquerors and the Iraqis begin to resist particularly in Baghdad, do you think the American people are prepared for a long, costly and bloody battle with significant American casualties?

VICE PRES. CHENEY: Well, I don't think it's unlikely to unfold that way, Tim, because I really do believe we will be greeted as liberators. I've talked with a lot of Iraqis in the last several months myself, had them to the White House. The president and I have met with various groups and individuals, people who've devoted their lives from the outside to try and change things inside of Iraq.

The read we get on the people of Iraq is there's no question but what they want to get rid of Saddam Hussein and they will welcome as liberators the United States when we come to do that.

9/14/2003
MR. RUSSERT: The Washington Post asked the American people about Saddam Hussein, and this is what they said: 69 percent said he was involved in the September 11 attacks. Are you surprised by that?

VICE PRES. CHENEY: No. I think it's not surprising that people make that connection.

MR. RUSSERT: But is there a connection?

VICE PRES. CHENEY: We don't know. You and I talked about this two years ago. I can remember you asking me this question just a few days after the original attack. At the time I said no, we didn't have any evidence of that. Subsequent to that, we've learned a couple of things. We learned more and more that there was a relationship between Iraq and al-Qaeda that stretched back through most of the decade of the '90s, that it involved training, for example, on BW and CW, that al-Qaeda sent personnel to Baghdad to get trained on the systems that are involved. The Iraqis providing bomb-making expertise and advice to the al-Qaeda organization.

We know, for example, in connection with the original World Trade Center bombing in '93 that one of the bombers was Iraqi, returned to Iraq after the attack of '93. And we've learned subsequent to that, since we went into Baghdad and got into the intelligence files, that this individual probably also received financing from the Iraqi government as well as safe haven.

Now, is there a connection between the Iraqi government and the original World Trade Center bombing in '93? We know, as I say, that one of the perpetrators of that act did, in fact, receive support from the Iraqi government after the fact. With respect to 9/11, of course, we've had the story that's been public out there. The Czechs alleged that Mohamed Atta, the lead attacker, met in Prague with a senior Iraqi intelligence official five months before the attack, but we've never been able to develop anymore of that yet either in terms of confirming it or discrediting it. We just don't know.

Its Inauguration Day!

2004-12-07T10:05:00.000-06:00

In Afghanistan, that is:

Mr Karzai then swore in his two deputies, Ahmad Zia Massood and Karim Khalili, members of the country's two largest ethnic minorities.

Wary of attacks by Taliban or al-Qa'ida militants, Afghan and US-led forces launched their biggest security operation since the October 9 election that delivered Mr Karzai a landslide victory.

You can read that last sentence in two ways. Nonetheless, for US servicemen and Vice President Crashcart, it was time to party like the night was young:

But there were efforts to create a celebratory mood at the heavily fortified presidential palace, which was decked out with multi-coloured banners reading "Welcome to the inauguration of our elected president". The black, green and red Afghan flag was flying across the city centre while huge portraits of Mr Karzai hung from buildings.

Mr Cheney hailed the inauguration as a "great and historic moment for the people of Afghanistan" and praised the US role in bringing democracy to the country.

"Afghanistan will never go back to the camp of terror and tyranny," he told US troops at a pre-dawn breakfast after arriving at Bagram Air Base north of Kabul.

By removing the Vice President's beer goggles, though, things look a little different:

"Without substantial progress in addressing the sources of insecurity, reconstruction efforts and the establishment of viable State institutions will continue to falter, and the economy may well be subsumed by the illicit-drugs industry," he warns.

"The deployment now of additional international forces, with robust and uniform rules of engagement, can provide the critical space in which progress can be made in the mutually reinforcing areas of security-sector reform, anti-narcotics activities, reconstruction, expansion of government authority and imposition of the rule of law."

Don't believe the UN? Ask Republican congressman Mark Kirk:

A U.S. lawmaker who visited Afghanistan says Osama bin Laden uses cash from heroin sales to pay bodyguards and buy off Pakistani war lords. Rep. Mark Steven Kirk, R-Ill., said bin Laden's al-Qaida terror organization is reaping $28 million a year in illicit heroin sales, the Washington Times reported Monday.

Bin Laden needs that money to fund his travels between Afghanistan's eastern mountains and Pakistan's semi-autonomous tribal areas because of initiatives after the Sept. 11, 2001, terror attacks in the United States have cut him off from his family fortune and donations from Islamic charities.

"We now know al-Qaida's dominant source of funding is the illegal sale of narcotics," said Kirk, a member of the House Appropriations foreign operations subcommittee.

Fake It Until You Can Make It

2004-12-03T08:53:00.000-06:00

(via Wall Street Journal via The Note)
Nicely leaked. After reading about this "competition" between the Republican congress and White House, one might get the impression that they actually want to do something.

"At a private retreat this week, congressional Republican leaders warned Bush aides about the uncertain prospects on Capitol Hill for much of the president's ambitious agenda. House and Senate Republicans expressed particular concern about the president's plans to revamp Social Security, given the opposition of most Democrats and of AARP, the largest and most active organization of seniors in the country."

OK, lets stop for a sec. Republicans are afraid of the AARP? I can't imagine why, given that organization's civil war over whether or not the President's so called health care plan was worth endorsing. Talk about a straw man.

"Republicans also took issue with the administration's prioritizing. While the president apparently wants to tackle tax overhaul in 2006 — after trying to carve private retirement accounts from Social Security payroll taxes in return for new limits on guaranteed benefits — some lawmakers would rather reverse the order. House Majority Leader Tom DeLay of Texas, for example, suggested tax overhaul should be Mr. Bush's top priority, according to people familiar with discussions at the retreat. Senate Finance Chairman Charles Grassley of Iowa has said Mr. Bush should have a tax plan to Congress by March if the White House expects to get something passed … "

"According to people familiar with discussions at the retreat." Lets call out two of the most prominent republicans and imply that they are obstructionists. And that they are more interested in party politics than on getting things done.

"Republican lawmakers, with an eye already on the 2006 congressional midterm elections, are concerned, among other things, about how they can get Social Security and tax reform — two big and risky pieces of legislation — passed amid heightened hostility with Democrats. On Social Security, one Republican retreat attendee said, 'unless there's a buy-in on the part of Democrats — a good number of Democrats and high-profile Democrats — there's a real reluctance to go down this road … '"

Man, who was at this meeting anyway?

"The three-day Republican retreat, at a Virginia conference center near Washington, brought together senators and House members, along with top Bush strategist Karl Rove, White House budget director Joshua Bolten and other administration officials. Mr. Bolten warned of cuts in some domestic programs as part of the administration's efforts to bring spending under control."

Its going to be a grandly orchestrated 100 days...

Iraq -- Hazarding a guess

2004-12-02T10:59:00.000-06:00

Journalism, by English-speaking reporters, is now over in Iraq. Except for a few spaces in the Kurdish north, the whole country is a no-go zone. It's too dangerous. We have no idea what's happening over there, so it's anybody's best guess.

The only visible metric of the situation is the election date, and whether it will be moved back. As of now the answer is no; It appears the Shia are making their move, and the U.S. is prepared to back them. At this point, the Sunni areas are not secure enough to hold even a farce election. The major Sunni parties have asked for the election date to be pushed back, and are now threatening a boycott. The Shia areas, relatively more secure, would love nothing more than a resounding electoral victory in January.

Its looking like they will get it. The only means we have to even speculate on this point is the ongoing negotiations in Iran. That is because the point of concern for the U.S. with the Shia majority in Iraq has always been the possibility of a Shia Iraq and Shia Iran alliance, which would throw the Middle East's geopolitical order for a loop. ESPECIALLY IF IRAN GETS THE BOMB. Very recently, Iran has promised to cease its enrichment programs, in exchange for what... we do not know. The Europeans have been acting as a proxy to save the U.S. face. But there will not be an election in Iraq in January until the U.S. is reasonably sure of the nuclear situation in Iran.

Finally, we can assume U.S. negotiators are busy at work with the Shia, offering to hand them the election in January in return for their support of the U.S. occupying power afterwards. Here's saying they bite, or at least bluff.

Needless to say, this is not the best scenario for the U.S. The Shia/Iran problem will not go away (nor will the Kurdish demands in the North for that matter). And this series of moves will inflame the Sunnis even more. The possibility of Civil War is vey real, and American officials in the past few weeks have quietly uttered this to the media, as if to prepare them and us. But there's really no other choice right now.

Bush in Canada: Canada's Grievances

2004-12-02T08:35:00.000-06:00

The Fox News version:

a gesture aimed at warming frosty ties between the neighboring nations.

"Immediately, Canadians opened their homes and their hearts," Canadian Prime Minister Paul Martin said in toasting Bush at a dinner in Ottawa Tuesday night. "Three days later, on September the 14th, 100,000 Canadians spontaneously gathered on Parliament Hill in what was and is the largest vigil ever seen in our capital."

Both Martin and Bush are seeking to rebuild U.S.-Canada relations, which cooled under Martin's predecessor, Jean Chretien. The dialogue became especially strained when Chretien decided against sending troops to Iraq — a decision supported by more than 80 percent of Canadians. Thousands of Canadians protested Bush's visit.

Slightly at odds with the rest of the world, like, Australia:

Holding up signs calling U.S. President George W. Bush a "war criminal" and "liar", several thousand demonstrators have marched on Parliament in Canada's capital to protest against his visit, the U.S.-led war in Iraq and a host of other issues.

Protest organisers said yesterday's march drew at least 13,000 people, many of whom came by bus from across Ontario and Quebec.

Twelve protesters were arrested after they clashed with riot police. One officer was injured.

Making his first official visit to Canada, Mr Bush was welcomed by many placards and signs along his motorcade route, including a truck parked emblazoned with the phrase "Bush is a war criminal".

One placard branded him an "assassin". Much of the anger seemed focused on the U.S. invasion of Iraq.

The notoriously liberal, United Arab Emirates:

Many of Bush’s opponents were polite. One of the first signs he saw read “Please Leave.” Others were more blunt. At lunchtime, a sign close to Bush’s motorcade urged him to go home and depicted him riding atop a missile with a swastika on it. Twelve protesters were arrested after scuffles with riot police and one officer was injured, officials said.

The notoriously…non-partisan Switzerland:

In another quip, Bush expressed appreciation for Canadians who greeted him on the route from the airport waving "with all five
fingers."
DEMONSTRATIONS NEAR PARLIAMENT
Demonstrators carried placards with slogans like "End the massacre in Iraq" and "Some terrorists wear suits." Some placards
compared Bush to Adolf Hitler.

Most protests were peaceful but police scuffled briefly with a few dozen people who tried to push their way through barricades near
the Parliament buildings.

Helmeted protesters hit police with sticks while others threw missiles and paint bombs. At least one injured policemen was dragged away by his colleagues.

Turkey:

Some 58 percent of Canadians say the president`s reelection to a second four-year term early this month was a bad thing, according to an Ipsos-Reid poll for the Globe and Mail published Tuesday.

South Africa:

Canada's refusal to take part in the Iraq war prompted Bush to call off an earlier visit that had been planned for May 2003. In the run-up to the war, a spokesperson for then-Prime Minister Jean Chretien referred to Bush as a moron.

Just two weeks ago a Liberal member of Parliament who has repeatedly denigrated the US president stomped on a Bush doll; Martin eventually expelled her from the Liberal caucus.

While many Canadians were horrified at the anti-Bush outbursts, others applauded. An Ipsos-Reid poll published on Tuesday showed that 58 percent of Canadians felt Bush's re-election was a bad thing, compared to 26 percent who supported it.

Thousands of activists on issues from the war to Bush's opposition to abortion were mounting protests around the capital. A smaller pro-Bush rally was also organised.

Concerns over an unfriendly welcome did prompt the White House to decline an invitation to address parliament, particularly in light of heckling of President Reagan in a speech there in 1987 and a similar incident when Bush addressed the Australian parliament last year.

Perhaps the only international news network that saw fit to write as irrelevant a story as Fox? North Korea:

Supreme Commander of the Korean People's Army Kim Jong Il, general secretary of the Workers' Party of Korea and chairman of the DPRK National Defence Commission, inspected KPA Unit 3875. He acquainted himself with the performance of the unit's duty before looking round the serviceperson's hall, a library, a bedroom, a mess hall, a washroom and other places to learn about its management.
He expressed great satisfaction over the fact that the unit has put all aspects of the servicepersons' life on a regular footing by following the way the anti-Japanese guerilla army managed its units.
He dropped in at a military lecture room to watch a training of soldiers.
Seeing them undergoing an intensive training without wasting time, he gave a warm pep-talk to them who were making persevering efforts to thoroughly implement the WPK's policy of training.
He spared time to watch an art performance given by servicepersons of a company of the unit.
He had a photo session with servicepersons of the unit.
The next leg of his inspection was a sub-unit of the unit.
After receiving a salute, he watched its servicepersons in training.

Eerily similar writing style to certain members of the White House press corps…

god damn blogger

2004-12-02T08:30:00.000-06:00

wasn't working all day yesterday. apologies. Oh, and they "apologize" too.

Nov. 2: A Bright Spot (another attempt)

2004-11-30T08:18:00.000-06:00

Apparently we have them on the ropes in New Hampshire. Yup, you got it. Kerry, it turns out, won the state with a great ground game:

Totals: Kerry + 6; Bush – 5

Now I know this is very unscientific, but it just may be a microcosm of some of the reasons for the poor Republican showing in New Hampshire. Poor organization, low activity, lack of enthusiasm, fewer volunteers and less involvement. I am not sure who is to blame, but I do know these two facts, Craig Benson and George Bush both lost in New Hampshire and the Republicans in New Hampshire better get their act together.

So that's where Kerry's ground game went! Bitterness aside though, nice job New Hampshire dems--and nice job to our own MyKong, who was out there ~~intimidating~~ getting out the vote.

Wouldn't the electoral map be uglier with a little red blip in a solid blue band?

Attention Wal-Mart Shoppers

2004-11-27T18:03:00.000-06:00

Where are you?

Wal-Mart Stores Inc., the world's largest retailer, estimated November sales at U.S. stores open at least a year rose about 0.7 percent, less than forecast, as higher gasoline prices and fewer discounts curbed spending this first week of the holiday shopping season.

Wal-Mart had forecast a gain of 2 percent to 4 percent for the month from a year ago, when sales increased 3.9 percent. November marks the second time in four months that same-store sales have risen less than 1 percent. Sales this past week were below expectations, Wal-Mart said in a recorded call.

The Bentonville, Arkansas-based company said it took a ``more balanced'' approach to discounts yesterday on so-called Black Friday, the start of the holiday shopping season, and attracted fewer shoppers toward the end of the week. Luxury chains such as Neiman Marcus Group Inc., meantime, will likely do well in November and December as higher-income shoppers splurge.

``The low to moderate-income consumer has had a much more difficult time with this economic recovery as gas and energy prices have really weighed on their mind,'' said Lori Wachs, who helps manage about $110 billion in assets, including Wal-Mart shares, at Delaware Investments in Philadelphia. ``That seems to be continuing.''

It's kind of hard to call it a "recovery," Lori Wachs, if people don't have money to spend. But then again, maybe it isn't the price of oil and energy prices...turns out Target is doing just fine, thank you very much.

Oh, and lest we forget--an early holiday gift to Mr. Thomasgeist:

(To listen to Wal-Mart's recorded call, see (1) (479) 273- 8446.)

Armageddon It!

2004-11-23T17:51:00.000-06:00

(via Pandagon)

Apparently the economy does no-look-so-good to Morgan Stanley's Chief Economist:

You know you (ya) can't stop it
So don't rock it
You know you got it
Hey, but are you gettin' it?
Ooh, really gettin' it?
Come get it from me

Sorry, that was actually Def Leppard's vastly underrated "Armageddon It." (1987) But here's Stephen Roach, as promised:

Stephen Roach, the chief economist at investment banking giant Morgan Stanley, has a public reputation for being bearish. But you should hear what he's saying in private. Roach met select groups of fund managers downtown last week, including a group at Fidelity. His prediction: America has no better than a 10 percent chance of avoiding economic ``armageddon.'' Press were not allowed into the meetings. But the Herald has obtained a copy of Roach's presentation. A stunned source who was at one meeting said, ``it struck me how extreme he was - much more, it seemed to me, than in public.'' Roach sees a 30 percent chance of a slump soon and a 60 percent chance that ``we'll muddle through for a while and delay the eventual armageddon.'' The chance we'll get through OK: one in 10. Maybe. In a nutshell, Roach's argument is that America's record trade deficit means the dollar will keep falling. To keep foreigners buying T-bills and prevent a resulting rise in inflation, Federal Reserve Chairman Alan Greenspan will be forced to raise interest rates further and faster than he wants. The result: U.S. consumers, who are in debt up to their eyeballs, will get pounded. Less a case of ``Armageddon,'' maybe, than of a ``Perfect Storm.''

Roach marshalled alarming facts to support his argument. To finance its current account deficit with the rest of the world, he said, America has to import $2.6 billion in cash. Every working day. That is an amazing 80 percent of the entire world's net savings. Sustainable? Hardly. Meanwhile, he notes that household debt is at record levels. Twenty years ago the total debt of U.S. households was equal to half the size of the economy. Today the figure is 85 percent. Nearly half of new mortgage borrowing is at flexible interest rates, leaving borrowers much more vulnerable to rate hikes. Americans are already spending a record share of disposable income paying their interest bills. And interest rates haven't even risen much yet. You don't have to ask a Wall Street economist to know this, of course. Watch people wielding their credit cards this Christmas. Roach's analysis isn't entirely new. But recent events give it extra force. The dollar is hitting fresh lows against currencies from the yen to the euro. Its parachute failed to open over the weekend, when a meeting of the world's top finance ministers produced no promise of concerted intervention. [...] Roach could not be reached for comment yesterday. A source who heard the presentation concluded that a ``spectacular wave of bankruptcies'' is possible.

I wonder how the 300+ Morgan Stanley employees who invested their vote with W. Bush feel...

Lame Duck: Shorter Safire

2004-11-22T09:19:00.000-06:00

He's not going quietly now is he?

some right-wingers who look askance at a pro-choice candidate who is comfortable with gays are also closet nativists. Yet both camps know that Hispanics make up the swingiest ethnic vote, growing each year, and could be influenced mightily by an issue like equal rights for immigrants.

I envision...Rudy Giuliani or John McCain on top....Chew that one over.

What does this mean?

Guest worker programs are bad except for when the worker is president. Also, Arnold can win because he is not a real Republican. And Democrats don't like Cowboys. And Hispanics are important. Also pregnant women.

Watch Congress on the DeLay Rule

2004-11-20T19:24:00.000-06:00

Just in case you had't seen this, Josh Marshall is running an interesting operation at Talkingpointsmemo.com. He's getting his readers to call Congressional offices to find out how people are voting on the DeLay rule...its pretty neat.

Wilentz

2004-11-20T17:33:00.000-06:00

Illustrious American labor historian Sean Wilentz, author of the classic _Chants Democratic_, opines on the recent election:

It Wasn't Morality that Divided Bush and Kerry Voters -- It Was ...
By Sean Wilentz
Mr. Wilentz is a professor of history at Princeton University and a contributing editor at HNN Blog, Cliopatria.

"It's the secular coasts versus the religious heartland," CNN's Tucker Carlson says of this year's election results. That sums up the conventional wisdom that right-wing Republicans would prefer that you believe and that too many of the rest of us do believe. The effete liberal coasts against the Real America. Situational morality against real morality. Relativism against Standards. Metrosexuals against the God-fearing.

Wrong.

The real electoral division isn't between the coasts and the heartland. It's between cities all over the United States and the rest of the country.

In every state in the Union, red states included, Sen. John F. Kerry performed disproportionately well in urban areas. Kerry actually carried, sometimes convincingly, cities in some of the deepest-red red states that are about as far from coastal secularism as you can imagine.

Missouri, for example, broke 54% to 46% for Bush — except the city of St. Louis, which voted overwhelmingly for Kerry.

Nobody ever really took seriously Kerry's chances of carrying Texas. But in El Paso, he won 56% of the vote. What is so "secular," so bicoastal, so effete about El Paso?

Alabama is supposed to be the buckle of the pro-GOP Bible Belt. But don't say that too loudly in Montgomery County, eponymous home to the state capital, which came in with a Kerry majority, as did Dallas County, home to the city of Selma, which voted for Kerry by a 60% to 40% margin.

From Richmond, Va., to Jackson, Miss., from Salt Lake City, Utah, to Columbia, S.C., the Democratic ticket either won outright or ran well ahead of statewide totals.

Now let us reverse the terms. New York is a huge blue state. On Tuesday, though, it was a sea of red, except for some tiny blue dots around New York City, Albany, bits of Long Island and a few other places. California, the quintessence of Carlson's secular coast, was also pretty solidly red, except for L.A., San Francisco and San Diego.

The California pattern may seem, at first glance, to suit the stereotype. Everybody knows about "San Francisco Democrats" and the fleshpots of L.A. But Memphis, Tenn.? Selma, Ala.?

The reasons for the city-country divide are obvious. Cities are home, disproportionately, to wage earners, civil service employees, racial minorities and immigrants — and those people are overwhelmingly Democrats. The cities are where those who are still hoping to cash in on the American dream pray and work — except for those domestic servants who commute to the suburbs to clean the houses of those who have already cashed in on the American dream.

The cities are also, of course, the homes to all of those artsy intellectuals, entertainment industry elitists and limousine liberals whom the GOP and its backers like to demonize. But these liberal elite enclaves are tiny even within the cities where they are located. The minority and immigrant vote in Brooklyn, Queens, the Bronx and Harlem dwarfs the numbers on Manhattan's Upper West Side and Greenwich Village. The same holds true, to say the least, of the secular liberal elite's grip on Montgomery, Ala.

The urban-rural split has been a perennial feature our political history. In 1896, the last time the national election map closely resembled that of today — with the Northeast and the West Coast seeming to go one way, and most of the rest of the country another — the Democrats were the party of the countryside and the Republicans the party of the city. Unlike today, the clash was explicit, pitting the agrarian values of populist Democrat William Jennings Bryan against the pro-business industrialism of Republican, William McKinley.

"Burn down your cities and leave our farms, and your cities will spring up again as if by magic; but destroy our farms and the grass will grow in the streets of every city in the country," Bryan proclaimed in the famous speech that gained him the nomination.

In 2004, there is a harder and even more inflammatory aspect to the split, usually mentioned only in code: divisions of race. Although most black Americans live in the South, and in non-metropolitan regions, the fact remains that our cities, in every area of the country, are as a rule more heavily African American than they were in Bryan's and McKinley's time. Not surprisingly, because blacks vote overwhelmingly Democratic, many of the bluest cities in the red states are those with the largest black voting presence. Richmond (58.1%), Memphis (61.4%) and Jackson (71.1%) rank among the top 10 cities with large and concentrated black populations.

By perpetuating the easy impression of a nation divided into coastal liberals and heartland conservatives, reporters and commentators are misleading themselves and their audiences about the actual political state of the Union. Without realizing it, they are also advancing the picture of the nation advanced by the GOP culture warriors, feeding the despair and paranoia of coastal liberals and writing off millions of Americans in every part of the country.

The Common Ground, or the High Ground, or...?

2004-11-20T09:07:00.000-06:00

NYT reports on Senator Daschle's farewell speech to the Senate:

Mr. Daschle is the first Senate party leader in more than half a century to lose a re-election campaign. His emotional talk, in which he also urged his colleagues to find "common ground," was attended by nearly all of the Senate's Democrats, who gathered him in their arms and hugged him afterward.

But only a few Republicans showed up, and Senator Bill Frist, the majority leader, who broke with Senate tradition to campaign against Mr. Daschle in his home state, South Dakota, did not appear until after Mr. Daschle finished speaking. The scant Republican showing provoked Senator Frank R. Lautenberg, Democrat of New Jersey, to speak out. "I don't know why, why in the closing days, some element of comity, some element of grace, some element of respect for a human being, could not have gotten some of our friends out of their offices," Mr. Lautenberg said.

There is no common ground. And we are seeing, on a day to day basis, the pre-election deals that were cut with social conservatives. This move, to re-write the law in an omnibus bill which, if not passed by Saturday, would force a nominal "shut-down" of a few federal government agencies, is becoming all too familiar. It stinks:

House and Senate negotiators have tucked a potentially far-reaching anti-abortion provision into a $388 billion must-pass spending bill, complicating plans for Congress to wrap up its business and adjourn for the year....

The provision could affect millions of American women, according to Senator Barbara Boxer, Democrat of California, who warned Friday that she would use procedural tactics to slow Senate business to a crawl if the language was not altered.

"I am willing to stand on my feet and slow this thing down," Ms. Boxer said. "Everyone wants to go home, I know that, and I know I will not win a popularity contest in the Senate. But they should not be doing this. On a huge spending bill they're writing law, and they're taking away rights from women."

Ms. Boxer said that she complained to Senator Ted Stevens, the Alaska Republican who is the chairman of the Appropriations Committee, but that he told her that House Republican leaders insisted that the provision, which was approved by the House in July but never came to the Senate for a vote, be included in the measure.

"He said, 'Senator, they want it in, and it's going in,' " Ms. Boxer recalled....

The spending measure, called an omnibus bill, was the main reason Congress returned to Washington after the election, and members of both parties say that despite Ms. Boxer's warnings, it is likely to pass with the abortion language intact.

The alternative is to let government funding for a wide array of agencies - like the F.B.I., the National Park Service and the Environmental Protection Agency - run out, in effect causing a partial government shutdown....

Here we go. There's no use in whining about it, decrying the tactic, taking the moral high ground. Republicans are expecting the Dems to lay down in the next 6-12 months. You've got to fight fire with fire. Boxer needs to filibuster. This is a good sign however, as obviously the call has been put in to Olympia Snowe:

On Friday, nine female senators - eight Democrats and one Republican, Olympia J. Snowe of Maine - wrote a letter to Senator Stevens asking that the language be changed and complaining that it had not gone through committee or to the Senate floor for a vote.

Ms. Snowe called the language "a bad provision" that would "adversely affect reproductive health access for women across the country." She added, "It is an ill-advised policy that is clearly harmful to women."

It's the Economy, stupid. (Really stupid): UPDATE

2004-11-19T16:47:00.000-06:00

New Bush Economic Plan:
Hope really hard that there is actually a treasure map on the back of the Declaration of Independence:

If financial markets felt any lingering doubt that U.S. policymakers want the dollar to depreciate, Federal Reserve Chairman Alan Greenspan blew it out of the water on Friday, analysts say.

The Fed chief told a conference in Frankfurt the U.S. current account deficit cannot widen at its current pace indefinitely and that, given the size of the trade deficit, foreign demand for U.S. securities will wane at some point.

"It seems persuasive that, given the size of the U.S. current account deficit, a diminished appetite for adding to dollar balances must occur at some point," Greenspan said.

"This situation suggests that international investors will eventually adjust their accumulation of dollar assets or ... seek higher dollar returns to offset concentration risk, elevating the cost of financing of the U.S. current account deficit and rendering it increasingly less tenable," the U.S. central bank head warned in a speech. [....]

Treasury Secretary John Snow and other officials have said repeatedly recently that the U.S. favors a "strong dollar" whose exchange rate should be set by flexible, free markets.

Currency market participants generally ignore the first part of that mantra as official inaction in the face of an ever-weakening dollar suggests they are empty words.

Therefore, the implication is that the emphasis on flexibility and free markets suggests U.S. officials won't step in to arrest the currency's fall.

"I think it's clear, given the language Snow is using while the dollar's falling, that the (Bush) administration tacitly approves of a weaker dollar," said Todd Elmer, currency strategist at Barclays Capital in New York. [....]

Snow's response to European complaints that the strong euro threatens euro zone exports has been to ignore the currency issue and urge faster growth and domestic demand in the area.

A Treasury official said last Friday that global financial markets, including foreign exchanges, are operating in an "orderly" fashion, indicating that U.S. authorities are not concerned with the pace of the dollar's decline.

Andreas Mann, a senior currency trader at Commerzbank in New York, said this attitude of benign neglect could only encourage more dollar selling.

"They've said enough by not saying anything. They've given the market the green light for a weaker dollar," Mann said.

Operation Iron Fist

2004-11-18T20:31:00.000-06:00

(via Wonkette)

You know he looks at Iraqis the same way.

Who Says the EPA Doesn't Exist Anymore?

2004-11-17T22:47:00.000-06:00

(the scene: A Walmart in Florida. A well-dressed man in a suit, with a bookish looking female assistant, approaches a young couple unloading victuals from their cart into their car. Two young children look on)

MR. EPA MAN: Excuse me, sir, maam, can I bother you for a second?

MAN (smiling): I'm sorry, we don't want to buy anything today...no money, you see.

MR. EPA MAN: No, its not about that--

WOMAN: And we don't want to register with the Republican party either, we're not interested in politics.

MR. EPA MAN (turning partially toward his assistant): Republican party! That's a good one. No good folks, I'm actually with the Environmental Protection Agency's office here in Florida.

WOMAN: Oh, did something go wrong around here? I know that the Governor's friends in the sugar industry have been planning--

MR. EPA MAN: No maam, nothiing like that. We are just trying to talk to ordinary folks like you, to see what your concerns are, how we can best do our job.

MAN: Well, I'll tell you the biggest thing people are afraid of is global-warming. Did you see those hurricanes this year? Some people don't believe it yet, but we know from experience--

MR. EPA MAN: Sure, anything else?

WOMAN: You know, the Governor hems and haws about the Everglades, but since he's been in office--

MR. EPA MAN: Everglades, got it.

WOMAN: And his brother, you know, the President, he's got a lot of nerve talking about wetlands preservation--

MR. EPA MAN: Brother--bad. Got it.

MAN: You know what else--and I'm not sure anybody in Washington has even heard of this thing--its called global warming. You know most of the world--

MR. EPA MAN: Yeah, got that at the top of the list already.

WOMAN: One more thing--why does the government want companies to pollute our air? This Clean Skies thing...I mean nobody is buying it--

MR. EPA MAN: You know what, how would you like $970 dollars?

MAN: Well, sure...but what do we have to do?

MR. EPA MAN: Too many questions. OK, I'll throw in a free...video camera!

WOMAN: What is the catch mister.

MR. EPA MAN: How s a bout a t-shirt that says, CHEER!?

WOMAN: This is creepy.

MR. EPA MAN: And you get a framed certificate of appreciation from President Bush!

MAN: Well, what do we have to do for all these things?

MR. EPA MAN: Well, I'll let my assistant, Mrs. Exxon Dow-Monsanto explain.

MAN: weird name.

MRS. EXXON DOW-MONSANTO: It's a long story...Anyway. Let me say how happy I am you are interested in this plan. Its called CHEER! (intones and smiles) Now, we know--and the federal government has kindly provided us with great statistics--that you folks are at...how do we say...the lower end of the lower end of the ladder. And we want to help you. So all you have to do is have your children regularly and systematically ingest, inhale, or absorb certain legal substances, and tell us how they react.

WOMAN: I don't know...my children are young though, Charlie is only 3.

MRS. EXXON DOW-MONSANTO: 3 is perfect actually! And isn't he darling. Anyway. Like I said, these are perfectly legal substances that your little one would be ingesting, inhaling, and absorbing. All perfectly safe in all likelihood.

MAN: Can you give me a better idea of what these substances are?

MRS. EXXON DOW-MONSANTO: Well, I guess you could call them, in a way, pesticides and other semi-toxins, which I hate.

MAN: (reaching for revolver)
(scene ends in bloodshed as federal-corporate syndicalists are gunned down by angry parents.

The Politics of Swearing In Dear Leader

2004-11-17T21:18:00.000-06:00

(via Taegan Goddard)

Over at WaPo Al Kamen wants to know what happens if Rehnquist isn't well enough to do the honors on Jan. 20:

A question starting to circulate quietly in Washington is whether Chief Justice William H. Rehnquist, battling thyroid cancer and missing oral arguments at the high court, will be able to swear in President Bush on Jan. 20. It's hoped he can. If not, it would be only the ninth time someone other than the chief justice of the United States has sworn in a president [....] The Constitution specifies what the presidential oath is, but it doesn't say who has to administer it. The president can pick whomever he wants, though tradition since President John Adams is to have the chief justice perform it.

Kamen notes that it needn't even be a judge! (For those interested, William Cranch, longtime Supreme Court reporter and author of a number of the original court reporters, swore in 2 presidents).

Supposing that Jesus can't make it, maybe Karl Rove should do it. Or would that send the wrong message?

What about Brit Hume? He might just pop a boner (Cheney style) on national tv though. Any suggestions?

It's the Economy, stupid. (Really stupid)

2004-11-17T13:46:00.000-06:00

Um, can you imagine the American media (Krugman aside) ever, ever printing such an honest diagnosis of Bush fiscal/monetary policy as the following, from the notoriously liberal Times of London:

For a doctor in economics who was taught by two Nobel Prize winners, John Snow appears to display a weak grasp on the fundamentals of the science. When asked this morning, as United States Treasury Secretary, why Washington is adhering to a strong dollar policy, he could answer only: "Because that's our policy." An inquiry of whether America secretly supported the currency's decline was met thus: "No one has ever devalued their way to prosperity." The markets were unconvinced, sending the dollar lower. For Mr Snow was wrong or, at least, disingenuous. While devaluations rarely accompany economic success, they are often a symptom rather than a cause of crisis. [....]

So, my oh my, the dollar fell against the euro and hit a seven-month low against the yen. Which, of course, is what the Treasury Secretary wanted. Snow will not fall on questionable economic analysis. But the dollar will, improving America's trade position and, crucially, devaluing the value of the dollar debts at the root of its wobbly finances. [....]

If that sounds tame, consider it in the costume drama terms of central banking diction. And recall the attack by Jean-Claude Trichet, the ECB president, on the "brutal" moves in the currency markets – that's wrong-side-of-the-watershed language for makers of monetary policy.

Yet however forcefully European leaders voice their objections, they will always be trumped by a disingenuous comment from an influential American.

And these people like us. But hey, if nobody remembers debts when elections roll around, there's no chance monetary policy can stick. That's why whatever goes can be the US policy. Remember, no matter what happens, its "because, that's our policy."

Qualified to Satisfy W.

2004-11-17T11:26:00.000-06:00

Margaret Spelling was tapped to head the Education Department today, after serving as the White House's chief advisor on Domestic Policy. In her former role, she directed the White House's education, labor, justice, health, transportation, and housing policies. Before that, she was education advisor to Texas Governor George W. Bush for 4 years. Before that, she was a lobbyist for the Texas Association of School Boards.

WHAT??? No offense to the Texas Association of School Boards. Perhaps being one of their lobbyists qualifies one to head up the Texas Governor's education policy team. But how does one go from being, I'll say it again, a LOBBYIST FOR THE TEXAS ASSOCIATION OF SCHOOL BOARDS, to, four years later, becoming CHIEF DOMESTIC POLICY ADVISOR TO THE PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA, overseeing issues like labor and justice?

It just goes to show what's valued, above all else, in this Administration's policy apparatus. Political loyalty, so called 'conservative principles', political loyalty, and ... political loyalty.

Don't get me wrong, Spellings is no doubt an upgrade over our last Secretary, who famously referred to the largest teacher's labor union as a "terrorist organization."

And don't get me started on Rod Paige's qualifications. He coached football for 30 years, and after getting fired as the head football coach at Texas Southern University (at the end of the day you have to win, baby), "Dr. Paige" was appointed to head the Houston Independent School District, where he systematically doctored the books to jack up high school graduation rates.

No Child Left Behind!!!

Joementum Baby!

2004-11-17T09:05:00.000-06:00

Its back, and I'm loving every minute of it!:

Joe Lieberman respects the presidency and likes being wooed. And so, he said Tuesday, he's not ruling out a Bush Cabinet appointment.

"I am a traditionalist," the Connecticut Democratic senator said. "If the president ever calls, you'd have to consider it. But I am very happy to be in the Senate."

At the same time, said Lieberman, "I don't expect an offer, and I have no indications that it will happen."

There's no opening the door a crack in Washington; you're in the game or you're not. And while there's no firm - or even flimsy - signal from the Bush team with regard to Lieberman, there is talk among the connected class in Washington that he could be in the mix for several positions.

There's a certain logic to considering Lieberman to join the GOP team, because he was a strong backer of the Iraq war and Bush's faith-based initiatives.

[...] Ben Wattenberg, American Enterprise Institute senior fellow and longtime Lieberman friend [...] offered a bigger caution for any administration position Lieberman might consider - a caution expressed Tuesday by others: that by going into the administration, Lieberman would be severing ties with the party he's worked to build and rebuild all his professional life.

And also there's a certain logic to it because he is a republican. But that's no reason to mock the power of JOEMENTUM!

The senator and his philosophy became almost Democratic afterthoughts and even targets of ridicule during the 2004 campaign. Lieberman's presidential effort fared dismally - he did not win any of the states he contested during his 13-month effort.

Whenever the Mets waive a guy off their roster and finally just eat his ridiculously bloated contract (see: Roger Cedeno, e.g.), ESPN calls it...addition by subtraction.

Bye Joe. Have fun with your new pals.

How Did Our New Secretary of State Ever Get Tenure After This?

2004-11-16T10:27:00.000-06:00

While many of you have seen this, we at restlessgeist feel that it is important given the celebration of Condolezza Rice's brilliance and future as Secretary of State to post this review of her 1984 book, "The Soviet Union and the Czechoslovak Army, 1948-1983: Uncertain Allegiances." Written by Josef Kalvoda, an eminent historian of Eastern Europe, it appeared in the December 1985 American Historical Review, THE preeminent journal of history in the world. As an avid reader of academic book reviews, I have to say that this quite frankly ranks as one of the two most brutal I have ever seen. Especially damning and funny comments have been italicized for your pleasure. Note the obvious objectivity of the author as expressed in his thinking that Condi is a man-he obviously has no clue who she is-enjoy!

----------------------------
To write a scholarly study on the relationship of the Soviet Union and the Czechoslovak army without access to relevant Czechoslovak and Soviet documents is difficult. Therefore, much of this book by Condoleezza Rice is based on secondary works. His thesis is that the Soviets directly influence military elites in the satellite countries, in addition to the Soviet Communist party interacting with the domestic party. Rice selects Czechoslovakia as a case study and attempts to show the role of the military as instrument of both national defense and the Soviet-controlled military alliance.

Rice's selection of sources raises questions, since he [sic] frequently does not sift facts from propaganda and valid information from disinformation or misinformation. He passes judgments and expresses opinions without adequate knowledge of facts. It does not add to his credibility when he uses a source written by Josef Hodic; Rice fails to notice that this "former military scientist" (p. 99) was a communist agent who returned to Czechoslovakia several years ago. Rice based his discussion of the "Sejna affair" (pp. 111, 116, 144) largely on communist propaganda sources and did not consult writings and statements by former General Jan Sejna who had access to Warsaw Pact documents and is the highest military officer from the Soviet bloc to defect to the West since World War II.

Rice's generalizations reflect his lack of knowledge about history and the nationality problem in Czechoslovakia. For example, in 1955 Czechoslovakia was not yet "the Czechoslovak Socialist Republic" (pp 83, 84). In May 1938 Ludvik Svoboda was serving in the Czech army, not organizing a Czech military unit in Poland. In the fall of 1939 he was captured by the Soviet invading forces in eastern Poland; he did not "[escape] to the USSR" (p. 43). Rice's discussion of the "Czechoslovak Legion" that was "born during the chaotic period preceding the fall of the Russian empire" (pp. 44-46) is ridiculous. (It was "born" on September 28, 1914.) He is clearly ignorant of the history of the military unit as well as of the geography of the area on which it fought.

Rice claims that "Czechoslovaks are supposedly passive and consider resistance to invading forces unnecessary and dangerous, preferring instead political solution" p. 4). First, there are Czechs and Slovaks but not Czechoslovaks. Second, history shows that Czechs resisted the invading Prussians in 1866, Russia, France and Italy. In 1919 Czechs and Slovaks fought the invading armies of Bela Kun in Slovakia. In 1939 and 1948, "the Czechoslovak president, Edward Benes, ordered his troops to the barracks," writes Rice. "[Alexander] Dubcek and Svoboda were, then just following precedent. Czechoslovak passivity meant that the decision of 1968 was preordained" (pp. 4-6). Nothing, indeed, is preordained in history. Moreover, Benes in 1939 was no longer president but was teaching at the University of Chicago.

In comparing Poland in 1981 and Czechoslovakia in 1968, Rice does not mention the obvious: whereas Soviet troops have been garrisoned in Poland since the end of World War II and, therefore, an invasion of Poland was unnecessary, the main objective of the 1968 invasion of Czechoslovakia was to force Dubcek's regime to accept the stationing of Soviet troops in the country.

The writing abounds with meaningless phrases, such as is its "last word": "Thirty-five years after its creation, the Czechoslovak People's Army stands suspended between the Czechoslovak nation and the socialist world order" (p. 245).
------------------------
AWESOME! All I know is, if my first book is reviewed like this, the best job I can hope for is at Northern Texas State University at the Yukon Territories.

Cabinet Shuffle

2004-11-15T19:39:00.000-06:00

Two biggies today, with some small ones as well.

First, Colin Powell steps down as Secretary of State, with some other people who we can fairly assume had absolutely no significance to begin with:

Three other cabinet resignations, all involving members with much lower profiles, were also announced today. Ann M. Veneman, the secretary of agriculture; Rod Paige, the education secretary, and Spencer Abraham, the energy secretary, will not be staying on for Mr. Bush's second term.

Most important, though, William Safire steps down from the Ministry of State Security:

"After more than three decades...it's time to hang up my hatchet," Mr. Safire said in the statement. [....] Before joining The Times in 1973...Mr. Safire was a senior White House speechwriter for President Nixon. [....] From 1955 to 1960, Mr. Safire was vice president of a public relations firm in New York City and then became president of his own firm. In 1968, he left to join the campaign of Richard Nixon.

You'll note that in honor of Mr. Safire, I have used some of his editing methods.

Screw Powell's replacement, the real question is, who does Bush appoint to Safire's job? Ann Coulter has the credentials, and some RG fellow travelers think William F. Buckley could work. I think we have to put the money on Robert Novak, who has been lobbying hard for the job (see: Valerie Plame outing).

PS. In the off chance Scott McClellan is reading this, all three Geist editors could make themselves available for the job.

Dear World: We Feel Your Pain

2004-11-15T11:11:00.000-06:00

Want to see what a "radical social agenda" looks like? Ever wanted to get a glimpse of the lib'rul scourge?

This site was set up for people to apologize to the rest of the world for the reelection of Dear Leader. It has started to grow like wildfire...and some folks have gotten really creative.

And sometimes, non-Americans (not un-Americans, Thomasgeist!) put up replies, like:

Cheney Dick?

2004-11-15T09:40:00.000-06:00

(Via Taegan Goddard). The Milwaukee Journal-Sentinal has tried to suppress this (pun intended):

Yuck. Maybe that's what was in Bush's back during the first debate...

Like Moscow Trials, But...

2004-11-15T09:01:00.000-06:00

When President Clinton and First Lady Hillary were officially exonerated of any wrongdoing in the so-called Whitewater affair--this was 1997 I think--nobody cared. The Fiske Report cleared the air but the airwaves were so wedded to the momentum of this 'story' that the hunting of the president would remain at the top of their charts.

I think it was Tom Schales who said, regarding that specific moment, that what we had seen was like trials behind the Iron Curtain, except with a curious reversal. Over there, you were tried in private and sentenced in public. Nobody dared ask about the verity of the trial itself. All that mattered was the official line, the public sentencing. With the Clintons, they were tried in public but sentenced in private.

And so it goes for the Central Intelligence Agency:

For now, former intelligence officials say, many career C.I.A. officers do not know whether to regard Mr. Goss as someone dispatched by the White House to punish the agency for past failures, or to rebuild its capabilities to make it stronger.

The officials said discontent had reached a point not seen at the C.I.A. for more than 25 years, and they expressed concern that an atmosphere of ill will and apprehension could distract the agency from its work in the fight against terrorism.

The tensions have become particularly acute within the agency's directorate of operations, which is responsible for global covert operations, the officials said. Mr. Goss has described the directorate as dysfunctional, but after seven weeks on the job, he has not yet announced personnel changes or set a clear new course, the former intelligence officials said.

dysfunctional.

Get used to that meme. John McCain made a campaign stop at ABC's This Week With George Stephanopolous and what did he have to say? The CIA, apparently, is "dysfunctional."

Now, there's a reason they are going after this
1) before inauguration
2) during a lame-duck session of Congress

On the one hand our friends at CNN (etc) will not be able to hold back the tears of joy or the puff pieces about the President's "feelings" about reelection during the week or so before and after inauguration. Dear Leader, they will tell us, deserves our respect. On the other hand, Congress can't...do anything.

So lets have this brawl now, and the CIA, personnel-wise, will lose.

But in the long-run, how wise is it to piss off the world's most capable spook agency? I guess it doesn't matter when you don't have to win another election...

Team America in Fallujah

2004-11-13T13:09:00.000-06:00

I'd like to add to Thomasgeist's recent post and point to how the left in this country must do a better job communicating it's 'position' toward 'our troops. Sending Americans to die, for negative strategic value, is not 'supporting our troops'. Saying so is not 'unpatriotic'. If the word 'class' should ever be uttered in American political debate, it should be done so with respect to the class basis of our military. To say that is not to 'demean the patriotism' of those currently fighting in Iraq. Somehow this must be communicated, and I actually think Kerry did make some headway on this score.

If I get what Thomasgeist was saying correctly, what we need is the resurgence of what some refer to as the "Woody Guthrie Left," the Left that doesn't spell America with a "k," critiques capitalism for what it is, and always everywhere argues for equality as the necessary condition for freedom. No smug posturing.

This is from the Chicago Tribune:

Weary GIs endure relentless combat

Sat Nov 13, 9:40 AM ET

By Tom Lasseter Knight Ridder/Tribune news

Jump out. Kick in door. Spray machine-gun fire. Run to rooftop. Kill enemy. Jump back into armored vehicle. Move to new location.

Repeat.

So goes the battle for Fallujah as experienced Friday by the exhausted and bewildered soldiers of the 3rd Brigade of the Army's 1st Infantry Division. Flanked by Marines, the bleary-eyed troops led the southern push to corner die-hard Sunni Muslim insurgents who were the last obstacles to full American control of the city.

"Our goal right now -- we feel we've broken their back and their spirit -- is to keep the heat on them," Marine Lt. Gen. Thomas Sattler, commander of the offensive, said of the militant holdouts.

That is where the 1st ID comes in. Hyped up on No-Doz and survival instincts, the soldiers thrust toward rebel strongholds with four days of relentless combat showing on their faces. They lost their sense of time and place. They did not know 22 of their colleagues had died or about 170 were wounded in other parts of the city. They did not know what day it was.

They were not certain what they were accomplishing.

"I'm not sure about stabilizing Iraq (news - web sites)," said Spec. John Bandy, 23, of Little Rock, Ark., sucking on a cigarette as bullets ricocheted nearby. "I'm not sure it will be better when we're gone, but it's gotten to the point of retribution for all the things that have happened. The beheadings, the bombings and everything."

In the face of death, little things took on importance. Soldiers wondered how their favorite football teams were doing or where their wives took their kids for dinner.

Sleep virtually impossible

When it rained, they trudged through mud that dried and turned to dust flecking skin, hair and gear. None of them had bathed or changed clothes in nearly five days. Sleep became impossible. Crammed six to a bench in the back of Bradley Fighting Vehicles, they were a sweat-soaked, blood-spattered stinking mess.

The 3rd Brigade, normally based in Vilseck, Germany, came to Iraq eight months ago. A microcosm of America, the brigade includes Midwesterners from Sheboygan, Wis., city kids from East Los Angeles and New Jersey and Southerners from Augusta, Ga. They are white, black and American Indian. Spec. Frederick Ofori, 24, is from Ghana. Their base in Iraq is Muqdadiya, a mostly Sunni city 70 miles northeast of Baghdad.

The brigade's rank and file was given just a few days' notice of their role on the front lines of Operation Dawn. Many have not even told their families that they are in Fallujah. After days of relentless fighting, the soldiers no longer winced through a symphony of rifle fire, artillery booms, AK-47 bursts and grenade explosions.

Seemingly interminable Bradley rides ended suddenly.

"Dismount!" a soldier yelled. The back gate dropped and troops poured out, running as fast as they could toward the nearest wall. They dropped to their knees and got ready to shoot. After a big fight, gunners emptied their turrets and sent bullet casings clinking to the ground.

Reporters embedded with the military are not allowed to report American deaths or injuries in much detail. But bad news sometimes crackled across a radio, silencing the laughter and grumbles inside the Bradley.

Other times, death was closer. A soldier outside his tank was directing traffic when he dropped dead of a sniper bullet. Another was killed by a grenade injury to his chest. Fragments of a rocket-propelled grenade shattered the ankle of a third.

1st Lt. Jeff Emery, 24, of Ramsey, N.J., voiced the frustration of many soldiers when he complained Friday about bursting into a house only to find it empty. The Iraqi home he stood in had lost a large chunk of its roof to American artillery. Rain fell through the hole, and soldiers tried to doze on the concrete floor.

Emery's Bradley was hit by rocket-propelled grenade shrapnel Friday afternoon. So were two others in the platoon.

`Hard to maneuver'

"It's hard to maneuver against [the insurgents] because we have so many guys and vehicles, and there's just a few of them, who can drop their weapons and run," Emery said. "Every time we do a mass invasion, it seems like most of them are gone."

The soldiers shared laughs during the more surreal moments, such as when a psychological-operations truck rolled through the city blaring the theme song to the movie "Team America: World Police." In the film, Rambo-like puppets hunt terrorists and blow up the Eiffel Tower in the process. There is no need to thank us, the puppets tell outraged Parisians.

Later that night, 500-pound bombs fell on Fallujah.

Priorities

2004-11-11T21:57:00.000-06:00

This has got to be a microcosmic indicator of our country, and media's completely fucked up priorities. Exhibit A:

ABC television, backed by Republican Sen. John McCain and other leading conservatives, sought on Thursday to keep nervous affiliate stations from deserting a Veterans Day broadcast of the acclaimed World War II film "Saving Private Ryan."

Several ABC affiliates, including eight stations owned by the Sinclair Broadcast Group and four owned by the Belo Corp., scheduled other programming, citing concerns about profanity and graphic violence in the film. [....]

McCain, a former Vietnam prisoner of war who is introducing the broadcast on ABC, issued a statement saying the film "comes nowhere near indecent."

"'Saving Private Ryan' is a powerful and important depiction of the sacrifices made for our country," McCain said. "While it contains violence and profanity, these are not shown in a gratuitous manner."

The film also received an endorsement from the Parents Television Council, a conservative watchdog that has led the charge against many radio and TV shows it regards as indecent.

"Context is everything," said council President L. Brent Bozell, who said "Ryan" belonged in the same category as Steven Spielberg's Holocaust drama "Schindler's List."

The conservative "decency" crusade is so fucking stupid that it is willing to derail the grand opening of McCain-McConnel 2008. Sinclair is an equal opportunity asshole...

Exhibit B verges on sheer stupidity:

The CBS television network apologized to viewers on Thursday for interrupting the last five minutes of a hit detective drama with a special report on the death of Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat. The broadcaster said news of Arafat's death did not warrant preemption of the detective series "CSI: NY," which averages 16.7 million viewers a week and ranks No. 8 in audience size among all shows in prime time.

"An overly aggressive CBS News producer jumped the gun with a report that should have been offered to local stations for their late news. We sincerely regret the error," the network said in a statement.

Somebody put me out of my misery.

Red state blue state (say that real fast)

2004-11-09T18:41:00.000-06:00

(Thanks to the still mad Warmdesk for this one...also doctorgeist)

TG won't like this...not one bit.

I would also point out that this author is fundamentally ahistorical. Since C. Vann Woodward's presence has graced our website, I think it is important to point out...

SLAVERY. MASON-DIXON (not the polling company).

Lets start there and then talk about red states and blue states.

What Is to Be Done?

2004-11-09T17:59:00.000-06:00

A week ago today, America (seemingly, there are still a lot of disenfranchisement issues out there) for the first time legitimately elected George W. Bush as its President. With “the people at (his) back,” Bush and exit polls showing a return of “moral issues,” look ready to steamroll into existence the most radically pro-wealth, antidemocratic and socially regressive agenda (not to mention misguided foreign policy) since Grover Cleveland’s second administration. According to most, but not all of the leading Democrats, punditry (Bob Herbert has been the key exception here) and many usually intelligent leftwing bloggers (those that haven’t been even more idiotically exploring the constitutional possibilities of the secession of American Coastopia), we lost because of the rise of Evangelicals and their concern with moral issues like the “preservation of marriage” and “life.” They argue, that, “gays cost us the election” (subtext: I liked queer people so much better when Queer Eye’s Carson was telling me not to wear blue with black than when they actually demanded their constitutional rights). That, the party must veer rightward to capture the ubiquitous (and monolithic) southern white man, who likes his God and guns but doesn’t like his gays (for more on “gays cost us the election,” see Securityrisk’s brilliant analysis of a few days ago). According to Astrogeist (see his recent “Popular Front” in this forum) this is a misconceived choice. He is wrong—it is a choice, one that is being played out in Congressional caucuses and local party headquarters as we speak—it is just the incorrect one.
Why then did we lose this election (and let the last one become stealable)? The answer is simple. We lost because we didn’t want to win—at least not as much as the other side did (I do not mean to sound preachy, we all deserve blame, myself as much, if not more than, anyone else). We lost because we substituted celebrity endorsements for political organizing. We lost because we thought that our arguments and policies were naturally better—or more to the point, that people’s local and historic context did not and does not matter. We lost because we continue to believe, against all evidence to the contrary, that ‘speaking truth to power,’ has anything to do with politics. We lost because we inevitably gave up on the parts of the country that need us most. We lost, not because we supported gay marriage, but because we did not support it enough. We lost because we’ve been painted as the party of the elite—and it’s true. While we are still less (though not by that much anymore) the party of the capitalist elite than the Republicans, we are the Party of the cultural elite. I do not mean this in a David Brook-ish sense, but rather in a purely political-economic one. Most Americans see no difference between the capitalist and cultural elite (and really, with people like Paris Hilton and Donald Trump blurring the lines, who’s to blame them) and thus (rightly) identify us much more with wealth and privilege than they do the other side. We lost because we refuse to utter the word ‘class,’ and alienate our own financial backers and “responsible capitalist” friends. We lost because inevitably the first people we blamed for our loss are those ‘backwards rednecks out in the scary red states.’ We lost because, over and over again, we substituted posture for politics, style for substance.
What, then, is to be done? First, we must truly want to win. I do not mean want to win because we’ll feel more comfortable with our European friends or because the thought of ‘uneducated and irrational Evangelicals’ controlling the federal government makes us squeamish. No, by wanting to win I mean admitting to ourselves that we must work two, three, four times as hard as the other side—we are on the side of history, but history shows us that we always must work harder, be better organized and more politically sophisticated to have any chance in hell. At the moment we are not doing this, we (I) are sulking, bitching about irrational masses, dreading what the rest of the world thinks of us, despairing the “obvious fact that this is a center-right” country, calling for the secession of the enlightened states of New England and the West Coast. Over the course of the past year, while many of us worked hard and devoted our energies and talents, most (especially myself) did not do enough. Hitherto, most of us thought that the other side’s monopoly on information, pulpit of the federal government and control of political discourse could be overcome with truth, a few days of getting out the vote (again, I blame myself here decidedly more than anyone else) and its own contradictions. We must rid ourselves of the notion that historical and local context does not matter, that given a choice people will always vote their economic interests. People will vote (and organize and revolt) over their economic interests, but only if we are successful in dislodging hundreds of years of efforts, ranging from race-baiting, to Jesus pandering to gay-bashing, to keep people from voting with their interests as a class against another class. This cannot, and should not happen over night, but it can happen much quicker than many think. Only though, if we devote ourselves to the mundane and quotidian efforts of changing and organizing people, person by person, workplace by workplace, town by town, etc.. We must not, at all costs, ever waver on issues of Civil Rights. When people see us selling out those we claim to represent—be they African-Americans, gays and lesbians, women or the poor—how can they be expected to think that they won’t go to the chopping block the minute their issues and rights are deemed ‘unpopular’ by Gallup. We must no longer temper our inclinations to use the term ‘class,” and more importantly, to engage in ‘class warfare.’ Class warfare and conflict is the most potent organizing principle in modern human history, the GOP has been using it for years—it’s time we did too. By doing this, not only can we fight fire with fire, but we can help dislodge the image of the Democratic Party as an eastern elite while simultaneously awakening people’s desire for their own economic justice. To do this though, we must be willing to distance ourselves from, even alienate our “responsible capitalist” friends who love their gay sons and maybe even accept their daughter’s black husband but can’t stand the notion of repealing NAFTA or their janitors engaging in collective bargaining It is these people who should have to make a tough choice whether to remain in the party, not gays, African-Americans, the working-class and the poor. We must never blame our losses on those who will suffer most from them, but rather blame ourselves, ask ourselves what could we have done better. Finally, we must treat politics in this country and the world not as a dinner party conversation, t-shirt slogan or hipster posture, but as the true life and death struggle that it is.

Word of the Day: Mammon

2004-11-09T13:52:00.000-06:00

As defined by the OED, mammon is the biblical term that implies the corrupting and injust influence of wealth and the pursuit thereof, usually the result of the work of satan. As in, "The Republican Party is the party of mammon." Or, "the redistribution of wealth from poor to rich is the work of mammon."

I like the possibilities for a good slogan here.

Dangerously Antidemocratic (and anti-intellectual to boot)

2004-11-07T23:50:00.000-06:00

No, this is not about the Bush administration's war on voting rights. Or the dangerously unreported lack of vote counting and voter impediments across the country on Tuesday, or even the idea of holding elections in "most of" Iraq. No, in the same spirit that moves progressives to understand the necessity of criticizing their own country more than others that are perhaps more guilty of human rights violations, etc., this is about a (hopefully) small, but all too vocal section of the Democratic Party and left that I am increasingly ashamed to be associated with.
Over the past 5 days there has been a chorus of anti-democratic rhetoric coming from many corners of the party. Examples include, "those backwards rednecks shouldn't be allowed to vote," "only people with college educations should get the right to vote," "voters should have to pass a test on issue awareness.," etc.. Gee, how come we get painted as elitist?
This rhetoric is some of the most shameful talk coming from the party (though the "gays cost us the election" movement is right up there) since before the scapegoating of "welfare moms" and the Moynihan Report, since, in fact, the party was largely controlled by its southern wing in the pre-New Deal days (see any irony there). Why is it shameful? Besides the obviously oligarchal underpinnings, complete anti-intellectal stance toward why people vote, disavowal of the central principals that make many of us wedded to the party, and its utterly elitist and class determined logic, it is also a classic example of the self-satisfaction of "intellectuals" in this country since the end of class-based political analysis in the early 1970s (for more on this, see Terry Eagleton, Adolph Reed, Teresa Ebert, etc.). Isn't it nice to blame all those backwards and illogical legions in those scary and ignorant red states that we could never, ever live in. I voted for Kerry, I bought a "beat Bush" T-shirt, it can't have anything to do with me and my role in the changing of American political discourse, economy and reality. If (other) Americans just weren't so ignorant I'd feel a lot more comfortable when I travel to Europe. It's a good thing we're raising our kids to shop at Whole Foods instead of Wal-Mart, a least they won't turn out like those hillbillies. Oh wait, my 401(k) is dependent upon Wal-Mart and Sodexho stock? Fuck, oh well, those ignorant yokels don't deserve more than $5.75 an hour anyway.

A Bit of Advice From C. Vann Woodward

2004-11-07T23:35:00.000-06:00

C. Vann Woodward, perhaps America's greatest historian, once wrote the following words about the South that seem especially important for progressives to remember today.
"The expression 'Solid South' . . . is of questionable value. . . The solidarity of the region has long been exaggerated. Thus one New Yorker wrote in 1879 (or was that 2004?), 'Find what a Virginian or a Georgian is thinking on any question of national politics and you need not ask what a Louisianan or Texan is thinking." In point of fact though, there is "(N)o love lost betwen the . . . gentry and the . . . commoners, then or now."

Perhaps a little wisdom from the century's most astute observer of the South, perhaps even a little direction for the future mixed in? More to come.

A Popular Front

2004-11-07T15:00:00.000-06:00

The conventional wisdom is that Republicans won this election by turning out their fanatical religious base, as self-identified evangelicals voted in larger proportion for Bush in 2004 than 2000. The debate within the Democratic Party now seems to divide into two diametrically opposed views: 1) The DLC right believes Dems must "close the values gap" and move to the center 2) The Dean wing argues the party must likewise rally its own base, and thus move to the left.

I believe it's a false choice. In any case, there's been enough analysis of the Left by the Left in recent days. I'm going to take a look at the Right and make some recommendations.

What's needed now is for Dems to convince the Olympia Snowes and Susan Collins (two pro-life, fiscal conservative Republican Senators) of the world to jump ship. Or, at a minimum, put them in a position where they must stand up and fight for their own party, or know their ilk will be eliminated from American politics all together. And this does not mean a move to the center.

The most astounding statistic, to me, from the election is that 93% of Republicans voted for Bush. Rest assured, that number is Bush's greatest accomplishment as a politician. It is an awesome one. The substantive policy wing of his Administration has 1) displayed a degree of sheer incompetency, and unconcern, for the actual mechanics of governance that made the pragmatic moderates in its own Administration -- like Paul O'Neil, John Dilulio, and Larry Lindsey -- quiver; 2) propagated ideologies -- Evangelical extremism and Neoconservative geopolitics -- that reside in the far right corner of its own party; and 3) defiled some of the most sacred of all Conservative tenets, especially fiscal conservatism and small-statism.

If Bush had lost this election, no doubt a battle within the party between the Ralph Reed/Neocon clique and the old-line, George H.W. Bush faction would have ensued. But these two groups kept it together for this election. The radicals turned out in fervor for their radical President, and the old-line Republicans closed ranks. They did a better job than the different factions of the Democratic Party (and all things considered they did a pretty good job too -- Kerry tallied 89% of Dems).

Yet, I truly believe that the moderate Republicans have been duped, that the policy initiatives of the 2nd Bush Administration will bear this out, and that it will be a tremendous opportunity for Democrats.

I don't think Bush/Rove are aware that they owe the moderate wing of their party a great deal for their loyalty during this election. Since their days in Texas, they have had one strategic formula: Evangelical votes + the existing Republican voting bloc = Republican majority. The weakness here has always been that they took the existing Republican vote for granted. After this election, the James Bakers and Colon Powells might not only be marginalized in the Republican Party, they might no longer exist. For we've come to find in the last four years that this isn't just a strategy for Bush. His own beliefs are actually that far out! Throw the necons in and you have this truly right-wing, radical Administration. And we now know the deal Rove cracked with the evangelicals for their turnout in 2004. Today Bush called for a Constitutional ban on gay marriage, and spoke about the need for appointing judges without "litmus tests" (code word for overturning Roe v. Wade).

This creates an opportunity for the Democrats. I don't expect James Baker III to become a Democrat anytime soon. But before the Democrats start wrangling over whether to move the left or to the center, they should stop and realize that there's a good chunk of the Republican party whose "moral values" and policy positions are closer to Howard Dean than to George W. Bush. This must be better communicated. Name one chair of the Council of Economic Advisors during a Republican Administration who would support a national sales tax or a national flat tax (Bush hinted at these today, too)? Anyone, including Republicans, who have added up the numbers on privatization of social security know it's a catastrophe waiting to happen. We've got to call out the Republicans who also believe that these policies are bad -- to make them snipe at the Administration, and/or to make the radicalism of the current Republican Party all the more evident to the American voter.

Certainly, nobody can make anti-reproductive rights, gay-bashing, racist, evangelicals who give Christianity a bad name vote Democratic. And quite frankly, who wants them in the party? Plus, they are not a majority of the voting population. The Senate Democrats need to get on the phone to Olympia Snowe and say, "Do you really want to be a part of this? Is this really the party you joined?" Some of the Democrats' public statements need to get sharper on these issues -- calling the ruling clique what they really are; pointing out each step of the way when they trample on Conservative positions. Hammer home our lack of military preparedness, hammer home budget deficits. This does not equate to laying down to Bush in the next two years, hoping to get more "swing" voters. It is simply a kind of oppositional politics that often proves to be highly effective, which the Democrats have failed to practice. And it's not inconsistent with cultivating our base either.

It won't be easy. Bush, since his days in Texas, is a vindictive politician of legendary proportions. They kept it together this long. But make that 93% number into 85% and the "moral values" crowd can turn out all they want -- It won't make for a lasting Republican majority.

The group that's hijacked the Republican party really are this marginal in their own party. We'll need a good portion of the grown-up Republicans to see that in order to unseat them. It's the one flank Bush/Rove have left unprotected, and their hubris now figures to play right into our hands in the next two years. These people are that dangerous: It's time for a Popular Front.

Responsibility

2004-11-05T18:30:00.000-06:00

Q. Why do people vote against their economic interests?

A. Let us recall these words from Lenin: "Is it because the economic struggle does not 'stimulate" them to this, because such political activity does not 'promise palpable results,' because it produces little that is 'positive'? No. to advance this argument, we repeat, is merely to shift the blame to the shoulders of others, to blame the masses for our own philistinism, We must blame ourselves, our remoteness from the mass movement; we must blame ourselves for being unable as yet to organize a sufficiently wide, striking and rapid exposure of these outrages."

BUSH MANDATE REVEALED!

2004-11-05T07:09:00.000-06:00

Sound raunchy and slightly gay? That's because it is.

UPDATE: took down gay porn due to complaints.

Optimistic

2004-11-03T17:41:00.000-06:00

I'll have some bullet-points of my own soon, but I like to recall these words of the great historian Perry Anderson at times like these:

I never use the terms "optimism" or "pessimism" about myself. There were many people who became radicalized in the 1960s [who were] about, I would say, five, ten years younger than myself and my contemporaries, who had incredibly high hopes that the entire world would be changed through the turmoil of the late sixties and the early seventies. When that didn't happen, they were completely crushed, they were utterly disappointed, and they became either passive or very pessimistic. That was a very broad phenomenon. I never felt this because I came to, I suppose you might say, political consciousness, some historical consciousness, in the period in which the established order was very, very strong. You never felt that it was going to be overthrown overnight or changed radically. You were aware, if you were thinking about long-run history, that big historical changes take an awful long time to work their way through.

So the fact that the left was very strong internationally between the fifties and the seventies, and then has been very weak since then, that's just part of the flow of the time. It's never intimidated or discouraged me. I wouldn't say I was pessimistic then, just as I wouldn't have said, if you said to me in the late sixties, "Look at all this is going on around the world, the upsurges, insurgencies everywhere. Are you very optimistic?" -- I would have been rather cautious and said, "Well, no, it's great what's happening now, but, it may not last. We have to wait and see what the next turn of the wheel will bring."

There's gonna be another turn of the wheel folks (and it'll be greater than a John Kerry presidency). Till then, there's always comfort in fighting the good fight.

Is that My Vomit? Reading the Tea Leaves.

2004-11-03T14:58:00.000-06:00

So once I sobered up I realized we lost.

And we lost big.

Here's my thoughts.

1) John Kerry ran a good campaign, a really good one in the last month and a half. But he lost because he did not get enough independents and swingers, and because the Democratic Party's ground game was not as good as the Repugnants.

2) George Bush remains an ass-clown, but he has now won an election. He is going to push an agenda that can afford to run without the cutsie labels ("Clean Skies Initiative" etc). Fallout--that is for John McCain and Jeb Bush to worry about in 4 years.

3) Kerry was a hope, but I really thought we would win some Senate seats that we ended up losing. Tennenbaum, Daschle, Mongiardo. I thought we had those. And we face Giuliani and likely other Bush proxies entereing Senate races in a few years. We won't be able to win the house any time soon, so WE MUST WIN THE SENATE. This should be the Democratic Party's focus, first and foremost, for the next few years.

4) Speaking of party priorities, I think it is time for a new approach. Over the next few weeks we will hear a lot about the "failure" of the McAuliffe-database-decentralized approach. It isnt Terry's fault necesarily. But you have to fight fire with fire. It is time to whip some of the more rogue organizations (NGOs and unions) into line. If, today, they think they can try and leverage the dems by threatening to endorse republican candidates, lets see how they feel in a few years. Especially in places like Indiana, where I am sure that Mitch Daniels will push a legislative agenda that will try and outlaw unions altogether.

5) Part B of the new approach is the Dean philosophy: organizations get you so far, but voter networks (e.g. the Republican victory, 2004) get you much further. Door to door, county to county, lets get ourselves on the map.

6) Unfortunately, we also need to master the art of spinning. Republicans have been very succesful spinning their weaknesses as strengths. Racism? No, they are the party of Lincoln, the party of inclusion. Pro-billionaire? No, pro-ownership society. Its time the Dems followed suite. Pro-gay? No, pro-civil rights for all Americans. Progressive tax? No, opportunity for all Americans. Nuance, as we learned, doesn't work. 10 words or less, soundbyte-able. That is how we win.

Question for Democratic Party

2004-11-03T01:48:00.000-06:00

Question: Why the hell didn't the Dems have challengers at every Republican Precinct in Ohio today challenging votes. Two good things come out of it. 1) Less GOP votes are counted initially and thus the numbers look different at 2:51 AM on Wednesday morning. 2) Once, just once in my life, I would like to see how middle-class white voters feel when their vote is not counted or think they might have been disenfranchised. Just once, lets see how it feels.

Fuck this Shit; Or Spin in Action

2004-11-02T23:38:00.000-06:00

11:39 PM Eastern

I'm sick of listening to newscasts. Bush needs Ohio just as much as Kerry does-even money on Kerry taking New Mexico and Nevada versus Bush taking Iowa and Wisconsin at this point. Yet, every single newscast is saying that only Kerry truly needs Ohio. This, my firends, is a lesson in good spin-Democrats need to take note, Republicans are kicking our asses here.

WE ADMIT ERROR

2004-11-02T20:14:00.000-06:00

CNN projects:

Obama 82%
Keyes 16%

We thought it would be under 60 points.

The Banality of Disenfranchisement

2004-11-02T20:07:00.000-06:00

More general observations from the 6th Ward in Toledo to come, but my first impression upon arrival this morning was this-African-American and poor disenfranchisement is, more often than not, more banal than anything. No intimidation here, just poll workers who don't know when to give a provisional ballot or not. No police road blocks, just 3 precincts voting in the same location with long lines-result: people arrive 30 minutes before work, get in line, wait 20 minutes and find out they are at the wrong "precinct" the correct one being 10 feet and 30 minutes of waiting away. I don't know about you, but when I''ve voted in a polling place with more than one precinct (tend to be more wealthy than where I was today), the marking of which line was incredibly obvious. In Toledo today, the marking was virtually inexistent. This is the definition of disenfranchisement-one class of people being given different and harder circumstances to vote-nothing illegal-remember, for at least 70 years there was nothing illegal about a grandfather clause or a poll tax.

A BOLD PREDICTION

2004-11-02T15:15:00.000-06:00

Alan Keyes engineers a major upset and gets thrashed by less than 60 percentage points.

Sorry. Couldn't resist.

updates from the field coming soon...

Election Day: Field Reports

2004-11-02T11:50:00.000-06:00

Our buddy Warmdesk checks in from Illinois

It felt great to punch Kerry, Obama, Emmanuel... The republican judge at my precinct was a turd, but that's because he knows his candidate
is going down.

Not to worry, Republican judges will soon be outlawed in Illinois. And the Crossroads of America's Obama-Durbin combo is about to fight California's Feinstein-Boxer pair, and Vermont's Leahy-Jeffords duo for best senate team in the country.

The Geists in Ohio report that Republican intimidators are in the Toledo area, but that the intimidators have been inactive...even, "gentlemen." The weather there is ugly and will likely be a factor for turnout.

New Hampshire reports long lines in heavily student areas. Cloud cover is holding with a few showers.

Augury: Entrails and astrology

2004-11-01T23:24:00.000-06:00

Some telling horoscopes for our presidential candidates.

John F. Kerry:

For November 2: First thing this morning, you are made aware of a groundswell of activity that benefits you. This powerful locomotive is unstoppable and likely to outperform everyone’s expectations. Even so, you will experience moments of uncertainty from time to time – but not for long. The best information indicates that your momentum is irreversible. You feel very popular and beloved most of the day. Even another’s petty criticism is too limp to hit a bullseye. Enormous changes that you’ve hoped for – perhaps your own personal miracle – can occur.

The Ugly and Lame Duckling Mr. Bush:

For November 2: You comfort others, especially this morning, and take the attitude that, no matter what, things will turn out fine. Your apparent acceptance creates comfort, strength and unity among friends and loved ones. Throughout the day, you can feel the future quickly approaching your front door. You anticipate change, travel or even moving, and feel at peace with the prospect. In fact, you begin to welcome the likelihood of change. Once you’re able to step outside of preconceived notions and expectations, you’re able to see the peace and beauty inherent in a new way of living.

Redskins lost...Red Sox won...

Yes, we hate science too.

Election Eve: Restless, perhaps, but Confidently So.

2004-11-01T23:04:00.000-06:00

As you can see, the RG has dispatched its operatives to the key battleground states in the nation. Actually only Ohio, and sort of New Hampshire, but for a three-man team, that isn't bad.

I guess this post is the last post of a time of nervous optimism.

We have all been through the ringer since the dem primaries, especially Thomasgeist since he is apparently a communist. I think we were all Deaniacs and when it faded, we were not exactly psyched about Kerry.

The selection of Edwards helped, but we were discouraged as all hell before the DN Convention, really up until about a week ago.

Bush kept us in it singlehandedly, with that trademark incompetence that historians (ahem) will one day look back upon with severe astonishment. Iraq, Iraq, Iraq. And domestically, everything from the bogus health care "plan" to flu shots.

Finally, Michael Whouley took over for Bob Shrum, and things started to change. When Kerry gave the "wrong war, wrong place, wrong time" speech, the only way was up (to take a line from Yazz, easily confused with Yazoo), and indeeed, things started to change.

A newly energized Kerry campaign--replete with Clinton people running the show--emerged and we had a campaign. Within a few weeks Pennsylvania turned over, and major gains were made in Florida, Iowa, and even Colorado.

The air game took over and, thankfully, the Kerry people threw in some great ads. Thankfully, Bush & Co. continued to screw themselves with some really bad Iraq decisions (read: beheadings).

If JFK pulls this one out, it will be because of Debate # 1. It completely confirmed changing trend lines, magnifying small gains into small leads. I actually listened to the whole thing again, and Bush got his ass whipped, mic or no mic.

And here we are. 2.5 debates (really the VP debate didn't count, Cheney was involved), countless ads, and many many bad reports by Daryn Kagan and Wolfman Blitzer, we have a race which is not, to the eye, predictable.

I think we will win.

Kerry sweeps: PA, IA, MN, OH, FL.

I concede NM.

We will win.
PS. We don't endorse Thomasgeist's PCP use, although major correspondent MyKong (among others) has inquired as to whether he has enough to share.

But back to the real news

2004-11-01T21:07:00.000-06:00

All this election stuff and the future of the world and American democracy is getting a little boring how about we follow Fox News's lead and move on to the . . . . . . . .Scott Peterson case? Is thomasgeist going to have to choke a bitch?

Report from Toledo: 8:30 PM

2004-11-01T20:30:00.000-06:00

After further explanation, the workers at our hotel are quite happy we are here-one was planning on driving Dem's to the polls if she could get the day off-could come in handy after this commentator finds himself drunk on three bottles of champaigne and a little PCP tomorrow night, running naked around the hotel draped only in an Eminem inspired black hoody (just kidding, I forgot my PCP at home). With the dismissal of the appeal this afternoon by the Circuit Court the mystery for me going into tomorrow is what are the thousands of Republican challengers coming into the state going to do tomorrow if they can't go inside the polling site? In a way, this could lead to more intimidation as the challengers will be stationed outside the polling site and perhaps less monitored by electio officials. Hopefully, between Election Protection (the group Astro and I are with), the NAACP and the AFL-CIO will see enough monitors out tommorow in order to counteract these measures. Another encouraging sign is the possibility of a class action lawsuit by the NAACP filed on behalf of the more than 4000 people in Lucas County alone (Toledo area) who have had there names mistakenily purged and are given no opportunity to re-register. Stay tuned.

Live From Toledo

2004-11-01T15:22:00.000-06:00

Just arrived in Toledo. In the city it seems Kerry/Edwards signs well outnumber Bush/Cheney. Hotel workers didn't seem to understand our reason for being in Toledo as "poll watching." Weather looks shitty for tomorrow, polls look good though. UAW ads playing on TV--nice. Prediction: union voters in Ohio put Kery over the top. Bottle of champaigne above the TV waiting for popping in a Holiday Inn Express tomorrow around 2 am. Bourbon next to it just in case.

Of Senate Races and Cell Phones

2004-10-29T16:26:00.000-05:00

According to the Cook Political Report, the it looks like control of the senate hinges on 9 states. With a Kerry win Dems need to take 6 of the 9, 7 with a Bush win. The 9 states are FL, LA, NC, SC, SD, CO, OK, AK, KY. At the moment, this is just me here, I'm confident of Tennenbaum in SC, Daschle in SD, Salazar in CO, Carson in OK and Knowles in AK. Betty Castor looks like a decent shot in Florida as well. That's 6 right there, which just means an upset in either North Carolina or Kentucky (and seriosuly senile Senator Jim Bunning seems to be doing more than necessary to make that happen in the Bluegrass State) or a huge Lousiana push in the Dember runoff to determine control of the Senate if Bush wins. That is good news for Democrats, because when they actually put money into Louisiana, they tend to do quite, and surprisingly well-witness Mary Lanrieu's upset reelection two years ago. As a former resident of Lousiana, I can say that it is still one of the few states driven by machine politics, and the Democratic machine there benefits immensely when local bigwigs have money to throw around instead of just rallying cries.
Buried in the latest Cook Report is another interesting tidbit that as far as I have seen, has not been reported. It seems that around 10 percent (including, myself and and Astro, if I'm not mistaken) of all Americans now only have cell phones. As pollsters are not allowed by federal law to call these people, that means there is a large group of people who aren't being polled. These people skew younger, poorer and less white than the average voter, groups that tend to skew decidedly for Democrats. Let's assume for a minute that of these people, 6 in 10 are planning on voting for Kerry 3 in 10 for Bush and 1 in 10 undecided, thus, in an average opinion poll that interviews likely voters and finds a 47-45 lead for Bush with 8 undecided, with these numbers taken into account, the poll info should actually be Kerry 46.5%-Bush 45.3% with 8.2% undecided.

Happy Speculation

2004-10-29T14:32:00.000-05:00

Maybe it's my newfound love affair with Elliot Spitzer, but for the first time yet I'm confident enough in the course of the Kerry campaign to enjoy the truly great possibilities in a Kerry administration. Most know I am no fan of Kerry, but that said, his cabinet appointments do have the possibility of making me excited. The first of course, is AG, where Spitzer looks to be an early front runner. While some (inlcuding Elliot himself) have speculated he wants to make the leap to NY governor, for a man with his ambition, national AG makes much sense and would be the obvious springboard to heights in the party. The earlier Spitzer becomes a national figure, the sooner the party can be moved into the hands of the people who make me more excited about its future than I've probably ever been: those people being Spitzer himself, Barack Obama and to a lesser extent, Jennifer Granholm. Like Obama, Spitzer is a committed left Democrat who has shown us the true "third way"-how to speak and prove to ordinary people that the issues the Dems should stand for-labor rights, civil rights, the temporing of capital and civil liberties are issues that have a tremendous postive effect on the lives of most Americans. For a variety of reasons, those who might've been Reagan supporters become left dems after hearing these guys speak or watching how they take on capitalist interest. A Spitzer led justice department would bring this tendency to the national level, and finally truly contest the business dominance of American discourse that's largely been hegemonic in the half century since the Treaty of Detroit. Other Departments, especially Labor, will become incredibly important posts, and though its too much to ask for a Dennis Kucinich, Secretary of Labor regime, a Dick Gephardt led labor dept. will be more than helpful when the growing organizing drives of the SEIU-UNITE HERE-Laborers alliance begin to build steam. Indeed, the urgency and efficacy with which these groups are organzing, could just use a neutral hand, we don't even need a helpful partner like Kucinich, just the end of Elaine Chao and the most anti-labor regime in post Depression history. Gephradt, despite his all too annoying allegiance with the conservative craft unions, will help turn the NLRB into a nominally non-fascist organization (not just rhetoric, the NLRB since Reagan has been operating in a very corporativist model). If Kerry has dependably been on the right side of history, it is in regard to the environment, and thus the EPA can expect its most effective chief ever.
I know it's too early, but in your lack of sleep the next few days, try to just imagine a world in four years where AG Sptizer has taken on industry after industry in the name of labor and consumer rights, and effectively derailed the free-market ideology ascendant since the 50s while simultaneously providing and institutional base for the party's left wing while a Gephardt labor Dept. has presided over the biggest increase in organized labor since the rise of AFSCME in the late 60s and an effective EPA will have further attacked the free-market model by demonstrating over and over that capital does not have the right to whatever it wants whenever it wants it.

Dear American Media...

2004-10-29T11:33:00.000-05:00

Some comedy from The Note:

The twenty-five toughest things for every political reporter in America, now through Tuesday:

1. Figure out which sources to believe about state polling.

2. Figure out how to locate and evaluate last-minute TV and radio ads.

3. Simultaneously go to planning meetings, make reporting calls, make baggage call, and eat something besides cold sandwiches.

4. In-box maintenance.

5. Read any newspapers.

6. Fairly integrate elements of the news cycle into daily political coverage.

7. Determine "what would Tom Edsall do?" when trying to solve problems.

8. Study exit poll questionnaires — since studying the polls is a useless endeavor.

9. Learn how to manage caffeine intake to avoid being weird, wired, and tired.

10. Remember that dry cleaning left over thirty days is no longer the responsibility of the establishment.

11. Set aside an hour a day (minimum) to review your Electoral College flashcards.

12. Keep in mind that no matter who wins, the Republic always survives.

13. Take good care to keep internal body temperature regulated on the Florida-to-Wisconsin express; it is nearly November after all.

14. Take a moment to review hotel reward program account balances and adjust reservations accordingly; remember to check cancellation/refund policies for any post-election day vacation plans that you may have made a month ago.

15. Don't try to judge the mood of campaign aides simply by the tone of their voices; they're as tired of you as you are of them.

16. Field constant calls from friends and relatives demanding to know who is going to win/can they get polls numbers early/can they get help figuring out where to vote.

17. Whether it is better to get an extra 20 minutes of sleep or do that 2 mile run.

18. Whether it is okay to eat a box of cookies when your energy is flagging after nineteen straight hours of reporting.

19. To determine what is real news and what is hysterical, gossipy October-surprise-wannabe dreck.

20. To differentiate between hearty confidence and determined desperation when talking to campaign staffers.

21. Don't stress about figuring out the West Virginia surprise of this race; you can't.

22. Forget the fact that you once wrote a story saying Security Moms are pivotal.

23. Forget the fact that you once wrote that John Edwards is a killer debater.

24. When the Red and Blue states mix up wildly, forget all the lame pieces you wrote about a divided nation.

25. When exit polls show the economy as important as terror, forget all the times you wrote that "9/11 changed everything."

Media Elites

2004-10-27T01:28:00.000-05:00

Endorsements from the notoriously liberal American Media (via Taegan Goddard:

JOHN KERRY
142 newspapers total
17,403,436 daily circulation

GEORGE W. BUSH
123 newspapers total
11,530,493 daily circulation

Some oddities...the Orange County Register did not endorse Bush. The Washington Post did not endorse Bush. The Chicago Scum Times did not (yet) endorse Bush. In the "swing state" of New Jersey, Bush got only one endorsement, that of the Asbury Park Press. The Washington Times still is in business.

October Surprise?

2004-10-25T11:50:00.000-05:00

The revelations in today's Times and Sixty Minutes of the American military's inability to secure Iraq's biggest stockpile of explosives could become the October Surprise we've all been waiting for. How can this NOT stick to Bush. There is not a single logical excuse for this, it is solely an example of horrible planning and idiotic assumptions on the part of ideologues who selectively interpret evidence contrary to the almost universal assumptions of civil service military planners and diplomatic officials. The inevitable response will be, "it's hard work bringing freedom and democracy to Iraq." John kerry should not let this opportunity pass him by. I want a commercial airing in swing states tomorrow stating simply that had John Kerry been president, the insurgency would not have had the explosives it has used to kill more than 1000 American soldiers because that would've been his first priority after the fall of Hussein. No graphics, just James Earl Jones reading the statement. I want it brutally clear that those thousand lives are directly the responsibililty of Bush and Bush alone.

Constitutional Crisis?

2004-10-24T21:00:00.000-05:00

Given current state polls, a not so unlikely scenario seems to be upon us. What if Bush holds the same states he won except for Florida and New Hampshire and adds Wisconsin, Iowa and New Mexico (not only is this not unlikely, but, most agree the t three states Bush has the best chance of picking up are those while two of the three for Kerry are the ones Bush loses)? The result is a 269-269 tie. The election gets thrown to the house then, where it would seem compromise would be unlikely (as far as I can tell there are at least two different constitutional readings here, both would create chaos). The answer then might be not Kerry or Bush, but, bringing in another compromise ticket, i.e. McCain-Breaux or McCain-Graham. Not all too likely, but if I told you a week ago that the Red Sox would come back from three games down and a game three thrashing to win the series, you would laughed just as hard.

Edmund Morgan is starting with the man in the mirror

2004-10-24T10:42:00.000-05:00

NYRB has a forum on the upcoming election worth reading. I've pulled this piece. Its by one of the greatest living American historians, someone who is universally admired, among other reasons, for the remarkable degree of concision on display here.

EDMUND S. MORGAN
New Haven, Connecticut

In the wake of the many scandals that have disgraced our government in the last four years, who is accountable? Will the secretary of defense be dismissed because of what happened at Abu Ghraib? Will the attorney general be dismissed for what is happening at Guantánamo Bay? Will the secretary of the interior be dismissed for handing national treasures to corporate looters? Will the secretary of state bear responsibility for refusal to participate in efforts of the rest of the world to keep the planet inhabitable? Will the President of the United States disavow what his handpicked agents have done on his watch?

We all know the answers. But in the eyes of the world the ultimate accountability lies not with the President or his men. In the end it lies with the sovereign people of the United States. The government is our government, resting on our choices and supported in all its activities by our taxes. We may claim with some reason that the last election was stolen, but we have had to accept the result. In the last analysis people get the government they deserve, and ours, more directly than most, is the product of our choice. We have been credited, rightly, for what it has done in the past, for standing up, however belatedly, to the Nazis, for assisting the recovery of Europe under the Marshall Plan, for containing the threat of imperial communism. We cannot now escape credit for what our government has so shamefully done. We began as a people with "a decent respect for the opinions of mankind," and we won admiration for it. We have now lost the good opinion of mankind and with it the self-respect of decent Americans.

It may take many years to recover what we have lost. We cannot restore the lives lost in Iraq, the lives of our soldiers, none of whom deserved to die for us, and the many more lives of the people we have professed to liberate in a war fought under false pretenses. But we can dismiss the people responsible for the other horrors committed in our name. Our self-respect, and the respect of the rest of the world for us as a people, hang on the next election. The damage now being done can be stopped. Some of it can be reversed. But the longer it goes on the less reversible it becomes. Seldom has our future as a people been in greater jeopardy. If we continue the heedless destruction of everything the United States has stood for in the past, we will rightly be held accountable, not only by the rest of the world but by our own grandchildren and their grandchildren for generations to come.

And the Evildoers Support...

2004-10-24T09:50:00.000-05:00

The Heritage Foundation 's trenchant analysis on Iran:

''The mere fact that he's re-elected will throw real fear into the powers that be in al-Qaida, in Tehran, in Pyongyang, or wherever that this guy's still going to be around and that he's a tough customer,'' said Edwin Feulner, president of the Heritage Foundation, a conservative think tank.

The only problem is:

He has accused the country of being part of the axis of evil, a harbourer of al-Qaida terrorists and a nuclear menace threatening global stability.
So President George Bush may view with suspicion a ringing election endorsement from one of America's current enemies. Iran has thrown its weight behind the Bush campaign, saying it is unimpressed with John Kerry.

"We haven't seen anything good from the Democrats," said Hasan Rowhani, head of Iran's Supreme National Security Council, on state television. "We do not desire to see Democrats take over ... We should not forget that most sanctions and economic pressures were imposed on Iran during the time of [former Democratic president Bill] Clinton. And we should not forget that during Bush's era - despite his hardline and baseless rhetoric against Iran - he didn't take, in practical terms, any dangerous action against Iran."

Iran's declaration, however, is unlikely to be used on the stump by Mr Bush, despite the closeness of the race.

"It's not an endorsement we'll be accepting any time soon," said a Bush spokesman, Scott Stanzel, who suggested that Tehran should concentrate on pledging to "stop its pursuit of nuclear weapons".

With the adage that "with friends like these, who needs enemies" probably springing to mind, Mr Kerry's spokeswoman, Allison Dobson, said: "It is telling that this president has received the endorsement of a member of the 'axis of evil'."

There's actually some logic to this. The implosion of Iraq has eliminated a potential regional threat; The Shia majority will in all likelihood dominate the Iraqi state; the bog-down in Iraq prevents any serious deployment of American troops in Iran in the near to medium future; Iran's nuclear weapons' program has proceeded rapidly in the last four years; the U.S.'s credibility on WMD curtailment is in shatters, and on and on and on...

Barbarism -- A User's Guide

2004-10-22T14:36:00.000-05:00

The Executive Summary from Human Rights Watch's recent report on the "disappearing" of U.S. military prisoners. The Washington Times reported in August 2002 that prisoners are transported to countries -- Syria, Uzbekistan -- where torture is commonly practiced, in order to be tortured. We know that in addition to Guantanamo Bay there are unknown locations throughout the world where the CIA and private contractors conduct interrogations. And since, as the New York Times recently reported, prisoners were systematically and knowingly tortured in Guantanamo, we can be reasonably assured as to what goes on there.

The prisoner was taken away in the middle of the night nineteen months ago. He was hooded and brought to an undisclosed location where he has not been heard of since. Interrogators reportedly used graduated levels of force on the prisoner, including the water boarding technique known in Latin America as the submarino in which the detainee is strapped down, forcibly pushed under water, and made to believe he might drown. His seven- and nine-year-old sons were also picked up, presumably to induce him to talk.

These tactics are all too common to oppressive dictatorships. The interrogators were not from a dictatorship, however, but from the U.S. Central Intelligence Agency (CIA). The U.S.s prisoner is Khalid Shaikh Muhammad, the alleged principal architect of the September 11 attacks. Muhammad is one of the dozen or so top al-Qaeda operatives who have simply disappeared in U.S. custody.

In the aftermath of the September 11, 2001 attacks on the United States, the Bush administration has violated the most basic legal norms in its treatment of security detainees. Many have been held in offshore prisons, the most well known of which is at Guantánamo Bay, Cuba. As we now know, prisoners suspected of terrorism, and many against whom no evidence exists, have been mistreated, humiliated, and tortured. But perhaps no practice so fundamentally challenges the foundations of U.S. and international law as the long-term secret incommunicado detention of al-Qaeda suspects in undisclosed locations.

Disappearances were a trademark abuse of Latin American military dictatorships in their dirty war on alleged subversion. Now they have become a United States tactic in its conflict with al-Qaeda.

The CIAs disappeared prisoners also include Abu Zubayda, a close aide of Osama bin Laden, Ramzi bin al-Shibh, who but for his failure to get a U.S. visa might have been one of the 9/11 hijackers, Hambali, a key al-Qaeda ally in southeast Asia, and Abd al-Rahim al-Nashiri, allegedly the mastermind of the U.S.S. Cole bombing.

According to the Independent Panel to Review Department of Defense Detention Operations chaired byformer Defense SecretaryJames Schlesinger, the CIA has been allowed to operate under different rules from the U.S. military. Those rules stem in part from an August 2002 Justice Department memo, responding to a CIA request for guidance, which said that torturing al-Qaeda detainees may be justified, and that international laws against torture may be unconstitutional if applied to interrogations conducted in the war on terrorism.

Some of the detainees, such as Khalid Shaikh Muhammad, are indeed reported to have been tortured in custody. Many are said to have provided valuable intelligence, intelligence that has foiled plots and saved lives. Some are said to have lied under duress to please their captors. (Ibn al-Shaikh al-Libi apparently fabricated the claim, then relayed by Secretary of State Colin Powell to the United Nations, that Iraq had provided training in poisons and deadly gases for al-Qaeda.) The United States has acknowledged the detention of many, but not that of others. The one thing all the detainees have in common is that the United States has refused to disclose their whereabouts and has refused to allow them access to their families, lawyers or the International Committee of the Red Cross.

These are not nice men, to say the least. They are alleged to have committed the most diabolical criminal acts. Why, some have argued, should we care about what happens to them? First, because despite the life-saving information apparently gleaned from some of these suspects, overall the U.S. treatment of its prisoners has been a boon rather than a setback for al-Qaeda and has thereby made the world less safe from terror. As the 9/11 Commission recognized, Allegations that the United States abused prisoners in its custody make it harder to build the diplomatic, political, and military alliances the government will need.1 Second, because the U.S.s torture and disappearance of its adversaries invites all the unsavory governments in the world to do the same indeed countries from Sudan to Zimbabwe have already cited Abu Ghraib and other U.S. actions to justify their own practices or to blunt criticism.

But the primary concern must stem, first and foremost, from the acceptance of methods which are antithetical to a democracy and which betray the U.S.s identity as a nation of law. For al-Qaeda, the ends apparently justify the means, means which have included smashing hijacked planes into buildings and bombing train stations and places of worship. The United States should not endorse that logic.

The United States is employed, as it must be, in defending itself and its people against attacks from al-Qaeda and its allies. Human Rights Watch recognizes, of course, the importance of effectively and rapidly gathering intelligence in order to trace the al-Qaeda and other networks, capture other terrorists, and intervene to prevent more catastrophic terror attacks.

However, the use of forced disappearances and secret incommunicado detention violates the most basic principles of a free society. When Argentina tortured and disappeared suspected dissidents in the name of fighting what it characterized as terrorists, it was wrong. When the United States tortures and disappears alleged terrorists, even those suspected of plotting the most terrible attacks, it is also wrong. That the terror being fought by the United States is of a different character does not change the illicit nature of the methods employed to combat it.

This report provides a comprehensive overview of what we know about the United States disappeared, and includes an appendix detailing the facts of eleven cases for which there is some publicly available information. There may well be several or many more such detainees. The report also provides historical context on disappearances, tracing the practice to its roots in Nazi Germany during World War II, and identifies the specific provisions of U.S. and international law that outlaw the practice.

Mind your own blimey business

2004-10-22T14:32:00.000-05:00

The Guardian started a letter writing campaign to Ohio voters. Courtesy of jeffgeist...

Dear Limey assholes

Last week G2 launched Operation Clark County to help readers have a say in the American election by writing to undecided voters in the crucial state of Ohio. In the first three days, more than 11,000 people requested addresses. Here is some of the reaction to the project that we received from the US

Monday October 18, 2004
The Guardian

Dear wonderful, loving friends from abroad,
We Ohioans are an ornery sort and don't take meddling well, even if it comes from people we admire and with their sincere goodwill. We are a fairly closed community overall. In my town of Springfield, I feel that there are some that consider people from the nearby cities of Columbus or Dayton, as "foreigners"- let alone someone from outside our country.
Springfield, Ohio
Have you not noticed that Americans don't give two shits what Europeans think of us? Each email someone gets from some arrogant Brit telling us why to NOT vote for George Bush is going to backfire, you stupid, yellow-toothed pansies ... I don't give a rat's ass if our election is going to have an effect on your worthless little life. I really don't. If you want to have a meaningful election in your crappy little island full of shitty food and yellow teeth, then maybe you should try not to sell your sovereignty out to Brussels and Berlin, dipshit. Oh, yeah - and brush your goddamned teeth, you filthy animals.
Wading River, NY

Right on! Just wanted to say thanks from California for your effort and concern. This IS a very important election ... There are so many people here in the States that care about the impact America has on the rest of the world. I am personally saddened for the loss of all innocent lives. The best statement Americans can make to the rest of the world is to not elect Bush for president. Thank you so much for getting involved in our world.
California

Consider this: stay out of American electoral politics. Unless you would like a company of US Navy Seals - Republican to a man - to descend upon the offices of the Guardian, bag the lot of you, and transport you to Guantanamo Bay, where you can share quarters with some lonely Taliban shepherd boys.
United States

I am a student and life-long resident of Clark County, Ohio. I just wanted you to know that this is a wonderful idea you've initiated; people here love and respect the United Kingdom, especially the prime minister. I hope this campaign will be successful for your newspaper and for us voters.
Springfield, Ohio

KEEP YOUR FUCKIN' LIMEY HANDS OFF OUR ELECTION. HEY, SHITHEADS, REMEMBER THE REVOLUTIONARY WAR? REMEMBER THE WAR OF 1812? WE DIDN'T WANT YOU, OR YOUR POLITICS HERE, THAT'S WHY WE KICKED YOUR ASSES OUT. FOR THE 47% OF YOU WHO DON'T WANT PRESIDENT BUSH, I SAY THIS ... TOUGH SHIT!
PROUD AMERICAN VOTING FOR BUSH!

Shame on you for using the people of Ohio like this. The US presidental election isn't just about foreign policy, it's about healthcare, taxes, education, transportation, natural resources and all manner of issues with little to no impact on the people of Britain.

We live in a globalised, interconnected world. If China shuts its borders to US imports, you better believe American companies, shareholders and workers are affected. Should US citizens therefore have a direct say in Chinese policies? No - Americans should demand that their own elected leaders address the issues with their Chinese counterparts. The British have a similar voice in US policies - through your own elected representatives who have any number of diplomatic, economic and military tools at their disposal. You vote for your leaders and we'll vote for ours. Your problem is with your leaders, not ours.
Washington DC

Real Americans aren't interested in your pansy-ass, tea-sipping opinions. If you want to save the world, begin with your own worthless corner of it.
Texas, USA

Thank you, thank you, thank you! What a wonderful idea! I am a US citizen who is scared to death that Bush and Klan will get back in. We need all the help we can get to ditch this bunch of maniacs.
United States

I just read a hilarious proposal to involve your readership in the upcoming US presidential election. At least, I'm hoping that it is genius satire. Nothing will do more to undermine the Democratic cause in Ohio than having patronising Brits wander around Clark County telling people how to vote. Just, for a second, imagine if the Washington Post sent folks from Ohio to do the same in Oxfordshire. I'm saying this as a Democrat, and as someone who has spent the last few years in the UK. That is, with all due respect. Please, please, be rational, and move slowly away from the self-defeating hubris.
United States

I enjoy reading your paper and agree with your politics, but this is really too much.Your plan, if carried out, will hurt the Bush opposition TERRIBLY. We cannot afford to have this associated with John Kerry or anyone else. It will be; the press is going in for a kill, days before the election.
United States

Your idea is superb and frankly, we need a little help over here right now.
Ohio

My dear, beloved Brits,
I understand the Guardian is sponsoring a service where British citizens write to Americans to advise them on how to vote. Thank heavens! I was adrift in a sea of confusion and you are my beacon of hope!

Feel free to respond to this email with your advice. Please keep in mind that I am something of an anglophile, so this is not confrontational. Please remember, too, that I am merely an American. That means I am not very bright. It means I have no culture or sense of history. It also means that I am barely literate, so please don't use big, fancy words.

Set me straight, folks!
Dayton, Ohio

Hey England, Scotland and Wales,
Mind your own business. We don't need weenie-spined Limeys meddling in our presidental election. If it wasn't for America, you'd all be speaking German. And if America would have had a president, then, of the likes of Kerry, you'd all be goose-stepping around Buckingham Palace. YOU ARE NOT WANTED!! Whether you want to support either party. BUTT OUT!!!
United States

Please be advised that I have forwarded this to the CIA and FBI.
United States

As an American who is very anti-Bush, I applaud your letter-writing campaign. I have read some of the letters that you published, and while I agree with most of the content, I also believe they will not be persuasive. This is because they are too aggressive and, as stated on your website, you don't know anything about these voters. If they happen to be leaning toward Bush, these letters will not put them off.
New York

THE AMERICAN TAXPAYERS HAVE SPENT TRILLIONS OF DOLLARS PROTECTING THE PEOPLES OF THE EU, AND WHAT DO WE GET IN RETURN. BETRAYAL, BETRAYAL, BETRAYAL. I HAVE BEEN TO YOUR COUNTRY, THE COUNTRY OF MY ANCESTORS, AND I KNOW WHY THEY LEFT.

MAY YOU HAVE TO HAVE A TOOTH CAPPED. I UNDERSTAND IT TAKES AT LEAST 18 MONTHS FOR YOUR GREAT MEDICAL SERVICES TO GET AROUND TO YOU. HAVE A GREAT DAY.
Harlan, Kentucky

We all enjoyed this at work. Cheers.
United States

Thank you for taking such an active interest in the elections here in America. I appreciate what the Guardian is doing. Your effort to reach out to "swing states" and make a difference is commendable. I hope that many of your readers will take your challenge to help make a change in Washington by contacting voters.
Clarke County, Georgia

Keep your noses out of our business. As I recall we kicked your asses out of our country back in 1776. We do not require input from losers and idiots on who we vote for in our own country. Fuck off and die asshole!!!!!
Knoxville, Iowa

Gentle folks at the Guardian,
In your plea to get your non-American readers to write to voters in Clark County, Iowa, you are correct that events in the US have had, and will have, effects on world events. For example, we have pulled your chestnuts out of the fire in two world wars that were occasioned by European diplomacy. Maybe you'd like a vote in which American president will oversee the next rescue. The next time you have elections in Great Britain, I shall endeavour to send names of your citizens to people in France, Iraq, India, the United Arab Emirates, Botswana, Pakistan, China and Argentina so that they may attempt to influence your election. It's only fair that everybody in the world should have a say in the selection of the prime minister.
California

Mind your own flipping business.
United States

Dear Guardian folks,
While I empathise with your plight, this attempt to influence voters by sending letters from foreigners will have a negative effect on your ultimate goal. You will cause people to empathise with the president, not the other way around. People will read these letters and say, "John Le who? Never heard of him, but who is he to tell me who to vote for?"
Ohio

I am a registered voter in Clark County, Ohio, and am very much interested in hearing what our overseas friends have to say about our election. You are correct in assuming that this election in the US is the most important election in memory. The threat of terrorism is a very real threat, not just in our country, but all over the world. In this day and age there must be worldwide unity against these fanatical groups who just hate. Not just Americans, but all western civilisation.
United States

Thanks for running this initiative. It may be the only way I get to have an impact on the American election, despite the fact that I'm a registered American voter. See, I vote in New York, which is solidly Democratic. Due to the electoral college system, once a majority is secured in any state, subsequent votes don't really matter. Whether NY goes 51% or 99%, the impact on who actually wins is the same. So thanks for the opportunity to impact somebody else's vote, where it may really matter.
Amsterdam, Holland

Who in the hell do you think you are??? Well, I'll tell you, you're a bunch of meddling socialist pricks! Stay the hell out of our country and politics. And another thing, John Kerry is a worthless lying sack of crap so it doesn't surprise me that a socialist rag like yours would back him. I hope your cynical ploy blows up in your cowardly faces, you bunch of mealy-mouthed morons!
United States

I used to visit the UK every year. I love the history and culture of your country. But after I heard about your campaign to influence our elections, I've decided that neither myself, nor my family will ever visit again. I'm offended by your campaign and because of it, I'm remembering more of the negative aspects I've seen in the UK than the positive ones. Though I still love the castles!
Detroit

Dear British friends,
I think you have an interesting idea to encourage international grassroots efforts, but I sincerely doubt most Springfielders are going to be influenced by letters from a country they probably can't even point to on a map. I wish you luck with your campaign, but I warn you that you're not likely to accomplish much.
Dayton, Ohio

You radical leftwingers are worse than the Taliban. I suggest you stand back and take a good hard look at yourselves.

PS: When do you propose to add Michael Moore to your staff of lunatics?
United States

I suggest that if a particular reader of the Guardian would like to vote in America - would really like to influence the American election, say - that reader should move to America, become a citizen of the United States. Everyone is welcome here. Even the readers of the Guardian. But if you don't wish to be an American, to live in Ohio, for instance, and participate in the American political process, that is too bad. Perhaps there is something wrong with you. Perhaps it is your teeth.
New York

Go back to sipping your tea and leave our people alone.
Ohio

As an American who is afraid of the terrible ramifications if Bush is elected, I commend your efforts to try to get Britons involved. Although many Americans would be critical of British people "meddling" with our politics and elections, all the world will share in the disaster if Bush is re-elected. Many of us are very concerned. I teach young adults, most of whom have been very uninvolved in voting and politics. Many of them are going to vote. We need all the help we can get.
United States

As a US citizen, I want to advise you that you and anyone that participates in subverting the US presidential election can be criminally charged and perhaps even charged as spies.
California

Thank God above for you English! Just when I was beginning to despair at the thought of Bush being re-elected, you come along with a strategy to help us! Your invitation to your readership and rationale for offering it are provocative at the least, and laudable at best.
Springfield, Ohio

· www.guardian.co.uk/clarkcounty

God We Need Tort Reform.

2004-10-22T08:56:00.000-05:00

From the notoriously liberal Washington Times:

Attorneys general in Connecticut and Texas have filed suit against ASAP Meds Inc. of Fort Lauderdale, Fla., for flu-vaccine price gouging. [....] "As vicious as the flu virus is the human virus of greed exploiting it -- huge price hikes, putting our most vulnerable citizens at risk. This lawsuit is a shot in the arm -- strong medicine and a simple message for anyone profiteering or price gouging in a public emergency," Blumenthal said.

Silly me...I thought it was frivolous lawsuits that had caused the shortage to begin with!