Pontificator

2006-08-21T21:48:00.000-04:00

Peter King is Going Down!

It's 2006; Democrats are in ascendence. And it's time to settle some scores. One of those scores we'll settle is Katerine Harris.

We'll, we've already won that one. But here's another. New York grade-A-asshole Peter King:

Congressman Peter King (NY-R) on the White House lawn just before the 2004 presidential election. "The election is over. We won." (Reporter's voice, "How do you know that?") "It's all over, but the counting. And we'll take care of the counting," King boasts.

And here's another, more recent outrage:

King said the Connecticut primary has no bearing on his re-election race because "fortunately, [New York's]Third District is not composed of the left-wing bigots who went after Joe Lieberman."

Whaddya think -- does this guy deserve reelection. I think not. It's time to start crawling through the jungle with a knife between our teeth to take this guy out.

And in 2006, we can do it. Even with the insitution that is Peter King. And we have someone, respectable, professional, and competant, with the values of New York Third District, who seems primed to take on the task. Dave Majias, is just the guy we need:

Since making history in 2003 by becoming the first Latino ever elected in Nassau County government, Legislator Dave Mejias has been a vital partner in Nassau's remarkable financial turnaround. In his first two years, he has passed balanced budgets with no tax increases for residents while Nassau County has received ten bond rating upgrades from independent Wall Street rating agencies-more than any other municipality in America. Nassau now has an "A" bond rating for the first time in a decade.

It's time to elect Dave Majias to New York's Third District. Unless you'd like more of this:

Declaring that airport screeners shouldn't be hampered by "political correctness," House Homeland Security Chairman Peter King has endorsed requiring people of "Middle Eastern and South Asian" descent to undergo additional security checks because of their ethnicity and religion.

Discussing the recent revelation of an alleged plot in England to blow up U.S.-bound airliners, the Seaford Republican said yesterday that, "if the threat is coming from a particular group, I can understand why it would make sense to single them out for further questioning."

Let's give Dave Mejias a boost today!

2006-05-11T19:20:00.001-04:00

2006-05-11T19:20:00.000-04:00

2005-12-30T18:08:00.000-05:00

2005-10-30T12:39:00.000-05:00

Another Hurricane Wilma Photo

2005-10-30T12:34:00.000-05:00

Hurricane Wilma Photos

2004-11-03T16:10:00.000-05:00

Our Re-elected President

"Under the species of Syndicalism and Fascism there appears for the first time in Europe a type of man who does not want to give reasons or to be right, but simply shows himself resolved to impose his opinions."

Jose Ortega y Gasset quotes (Spanish philosopher and humanist , 1883-1955)

And the American People

"Usually a person has more faith in their fear than faith in their future." --Doug Firebaugh

2004-02-14T12:08:00.000-05:00

Time to Give Money to Kerry

He's going to be the nominee. Everyone who wants to defeat Bush should donate money, either a little or a lot, depending on how much you can afford. If Bush and Kerry had the same resources, there is no question who would win. Bush's biggest advantage is a financial one (he has over $100 million in the bank to spend on negative ads). While we can't eliminate that advantage, it is our duty to lessen the advantage as much as possible.

Contribute By Clicking Here

2003-12-12T16:18:00.000-05:00

Unelectable

Only one candidate is unelectable in 2004.

2003-11-19T13:56:00.000-05:00

Is Dean Electable?

Let's see -- to be electable, a Democratic candidate should be:

Moderate on social issues. Check

Fiscally conservative. Check

And, in this environment, anti-war (the Iraq war, that is). Check

Sounds pretty damn electable to me!

You know what, Fred Barnes doesn't disagree:

[E]ven if Dean is the nominee, he's likely to make an ideological beeline to the center and confront Bush as an antiwar fiscal conservative with liberal social leanings who wants to stabilize Iraq, not bug out. Having locked up the left, he can concentrate on wooing the center by limiting his tax hike to the so-called wealthy and emphasizing health care, an issue that reliably favors Democrats. And the press would probably treat him not as an egregious flip-flopper, but as a wily pragmatist looking to outsmart Bush.

I realize the scenario Barnes describes seems difficult to achieve. But if there's one thing Dean has demonstrated thus far, it's that he has a blue chip campaign team. Political experts have consistently bet against Dean and his team, and they have consistently been proven wrong. Perhaps Dean will be far more electable than most of the "experts" today believe. Especially if he picks a vice-president with national security expertise from a battleground State. Wesley Clark anyone?

2003-11-17T09:59:00.000-05:00

Howard Dean is a Centrist

It's time to launch the 'meme' -- Howard Dean is a centrist.

Evidence (among other things):

Pro-Gun-rights

Fiscally conservative

Governed as a moderate

The Republicans are going to paint him as 'far-left,' but they're laying off of him now, because they don't want to damage him in the primaries (they want to run against him -- so they're saving their ammo).

That's why it's critical that we make a strong showing now that Dean is a centrist. First impressions count, and a lot of people don't know Dean yet. Let's introduce him on our terms.

2003-11-03T14:21:00.000-05:00

Official Pontificator Primary Endorsement

The presidential election is about one year away. In that election, I will vote for, give money to, blog in favor of, and campaign for, whoever gets the Democratic nomination.

However, it's time to make the difficult choice for whom to vote for in the primaries. I am primarily animated by a desire to get Bush kicked out of office. Therefore, the most important factor motivating by endorsement is whom I believe is most 'electable' in the general election. However, I am also animated by a liberal philosophy (as the term is presently understood in modern political discourse), and therefore do not want to sell out to a conservative centrist in the belief that such a person would win getting the 'swing vote' (a strategy that failed miserably in 2002). I also recognize that, in the post 9-11 age, it is important to have a leader with experience and credibility on national security matters. Having examined all of these factors, I can say that I really wish I could endorse Howard Dean, since I greatly admire his grassroots campaign and am with him on the big issues. Ultimately, however, the person I am endorsing strikes me as someone who will both inspire the base AND bring in swing voters and, moreover, who will NOT force us to concede the south. Accordingly, in the Democratic primaries, I endorse:

Supreme Allied Commander Wesley Clark!

2003-10-11T23:56:00.000-04:00

Those Lovable Republicans

Now they want to hunt and kill endangered species!

The Bush administration is proposing far-reaching changes to conservation policies that would allow hunters, circuses and the pet industry to kill, capture and import animals on the brink of extinction in other countries.

[snip]

Animal welfare advocates question the logic of the new approach, saying that foreign countries and groups that stand to profit will be in charge of determining how many animals can be killed or captured. Advocates also warn that opening the door to legal trade will allow poaching to flourish.

"As soon as you place a financial price on the head of wild animals, the incentive is to kill the animal or capture them," Roberts said. "The minute people find out they can have an easier time killing, shipping and profiting from wildlife, they will do so."

The proposals also trigger a visceral response: To many animal lovers, these species have emotional and symbolic value, and should never be captured or killed.

What sucks about the Republicans is that, even when they're on the brink of electoral annihilation, they're willing to risk further political capital to further their radical right-wing agenda.

2003-10-10T16:11:00.000-04:00

Ask Rush. . .

Next time you call his show, ask Rush Limbaugh if he's in favor of amending the Family and Medical Leave Act to allow employees to take up to five weeks of unpaid leave for drug rehabilitation treatments.

2003-10-10T00:12:00.000-04:00

How to Solve Intimigate

Ask Robert Novak who gave him the leak. If he won't tell you, throw him in jail. Then don't let him out until he coughs up the name.

2003-10-09T16:51:00.000-04:00

Time for the Media to Stop Lying

The Bush Administration's latest "spin," (and I hesitate to even call it spin, given it's complete and total separation from reality), is that, had the member nations of the National Security Council known what was in the Kay report on Iraqi WMD's last winter, they would voted in favor of a second U.N. resolution in favor of war.

This statement is about as honest as Clinton's "I did not have sexual relations with that woman." (And we already have the blue dress to prove it)

The member nations declined to vote in favor of the U.N. resolution despite the fact that they believed that Saddam had active, usable chemical and biological weapons.

The Kay report shows definitively that there were no active, usable chemical and biological weapons, and that there were, in all likelihood, no chemical or biological weapons of any kind at all. (It also showed no nuclear program, as was the position of all the member nations except Britain and the USA).

In fact, the Kay report shows that, over the last decade, Iraq had dismantled its WMD, and that there is no evidence that they had taken any significant steps to revive it.

Thus, any honest reporter covering this latest Bush statement should say the following:

The Bush administration states that, had the member nations of the UN seen the Kay report back in February, they would have voted in favor of the Iraq war. This statement is patently false.

Unfortunately, I fear reporters will cover the statement thusly:

The Bush administration states that, had the member nations of the UN seen the Kay report back in February, they would have voted in favor of the Iraq war. Bush's critics disagree.

And, subsequently, 50-70% of the American people will believe the Bush administration position, just like a similar percentage thought, and still think, that Saddam was behind 9/11. And the media will therefore be a willing participant in the Bushies' fraud upon the American Public.

The media should understand that the Bush position is not one upon which two people could reasonably disagree. The Bush position is flat-out false. The media should act honestly, for once, and tell the American people that the Bush administration's latest political strategy is to lie through their teeth, and hope the media is too lazy and scared of Karl Rove to do anything about it.

2003-10-08T01:38:00.000-04:00

The Results Are In. . .

And, so far, more people voted for Gray Davis (i.e., voted "no" on recall), then voted for Ah-nold.

So, again, the Rethuglicans have stolen the election.

(Note: I may have to revise this post as the votes are counted. However, as of now, the trend is most definitely in Davis's favor)

UPDATE: Well, It's approximately 50/50 anyway. I am certainly NOT happy that Congressman Dan Dreier (R) is running Ah-nold's transition. Dreier, the Chairman of the ultra-partisan House Rules Committee, puts the proverbial "P" in partisan.

2003-10-07T16:01:00.000-04:00

We Need a Few Good Statisticians

There's been a lot of legitimate concern regarding the computer based diebold voting machines, and the potential for hackers to implement voter fraud. It appears that, since the Deibold machines do not dispense paper receipts for each vote, the only way to detect hacker-based voter fraud is through the professional use of statistics.

In other words, we need a few good statisticians to determine whether the diebold machines are recording votes in a ratio which seems off-base compared to the absentee ballots and the voting in counties which don't use the diebold machines. For instance, if you have two counties next to each other with similar past voting patterns, and the deibold county votes 60% in favor of recall while the non-diebold county votes 40% in favor of the recall, then we need to be aware of this fact so that an appropriate investigation can be conducted.

I hope there a few good California election law litigators who are on top of this and ready to take action.

2003-10-07T11:21:00.000-04:00

"Bush Lied" -- It's not just for Liberals Anymore

The right-wingers at WorldNetDaily now agree:

Forget that Bush lied about the reasons for putting our sons and daughters in harm's way in Iraq; and forget that he sent 140,000 troops there with bull's-eyes on their backs, then dared their attackers to "bring it on."

It was the height of irresponsibility to have done so in the middle of a war on al-Qaida, the real and proven threat to America. Bush diverted those troops and other resources – including intelligence assets, Arabic translators and hundreds of billions of tax dollars – from the hunt for Osama bin Laden and other al-Qaida leaders along the Afghan-Pakistani border. And now they've regrouped and are as threatening as ever.

That's inexcusable, and Bush supporters with any intellectual honesty and concern for their own families' safety should be mad as hell about it – and that's coming from someone who voted for Bush.

Couldn't have said it better myself.

2003-10-06T15:38:00.000-04:00

Bush v. Gore Redux

Prediction: Davis will get more votes than Ah-nold, yet Ah-nold will win. And once again we'll get Democracy, Republican style!

2003-10-06T14:36:00.000-04:00

Corporate Media Gets an Unfair and Unbalanced F for Recall Coverage

Anybody who's watched the media coverage of the recall election knows that Ah-nold gets about 10 times as many minutes of the free media's "news" coverage as does Bustamente. There's a simple reason for this -- the news networks' corporate masters believe that they'll get higher ratings covering a telegenic white movie star than they'll get covering a less sexy latino lieutenant governor. As a result, Bustamente, who was the frontrunner a few weeks ago, is now perhaps too far behind to recover. The news networks ought to be ashamed for acting like the E! Entertainment Channel, and ought to acknowledge their role in getting Ah-nold to where he is today.

2003-10-05T22:48:00.000-04:00

Shorter Vladimir V. Putin

If Bush wants a few Russian crumbs in Iraq, he had better be prepared to cave in to me on every other foreign policy issue in the world, because there is no way that I, Vladimir Putin, will pass up this opportunity to take advantage of Bush's weakness.

2003-10-05T22:22:00.000-04:00

"Late Hits" In the Recall Election

The usual suspects are decrying the "late hits" and "October Surprises" against Ah-nold in the recall election. What these knee-jerk Ah-nold defenders are forgetting, however, is that this bizarre recall process has been compressed into a lightning-fast six week campaign! Comparing the timing of the recent disclosures to a comparable 12 month Presidential campaign (I think we can all agree that the Republicans and the press have already started sliming Clark and the other primary candidates), the Thursday sex assault bombshells in the L.A. Times are about the equivalent of a Labor Day disclosure in a Presidential election. That's hardly an unfair "late hit" -- and anyone who says otherwise is just trying to distract voters from unpleasantly graphic nature of the sex assault allegations against Ah-nold the Barbarian.

2003-10-05T22:10:00.000-04:00

The L.A. Times Finally Gets It

Under Bush, GOP is the Grand hypOcrisy Party:

The Bush administration, which has responded swiftly and angrily to suspected leaks of classified information by officials in other branches of government, is now under fire for being slow to react to an apparent breach by one of its own.

In numerous instances since Sept. 11, the Bush White House has been quick to condemn others for failing to safeguard national secrets. Officials have scolded lawmakers for their allegedly loose tongues, fired off memos to military commanders seen as too cozy with the media, and backed up those admonitions with calls for investigations or threats to curtail access to classified data.

[snip]

The perceived disparity in the White House reactions has stoked criticism of the administration among members of Congress as well as current and former intelligence officials, who accuse the White House of applying a double standard when it comes to policing leaks to the media.

In fact, many Democrats on Capitol Hill claim that the White House has itself used selective leaks -- and selective outrage at the alleged leaks of others -- to advance its policies, particularly as it relates to the war in Iraq.

Some senior Democrats claim they repeatedly have been forced to defend their stewardship of secret information, and fight to maintain their access to it, even as the White House ignored an apparent violation by administration insiders.

"People are very upset about it up here," said Sen. Carl Levin, of Michigan, the ranking Democrat on the Senate Armed Services Committee.

"The contrast between their rhetoric and the casual way in which the president first treated this (disclosure of the CIA officer's name) is incredible," Levin said. "Here's a leak that is not only a felony but directly can jeopardize lives."

Even some Republicans say they have found the White House response to the matter lacking. Sen. Pat Roberts, R-Kan., chairman of the Senate Intelligence Committee, said the administration should have been quicker to take the offensive.

[snip]

Either way, the disclosure has outraged many people in the close-knit intelligence community, particularly veterans of the CIA's clandestine service.

"The whole thing is just so distressing," said a retired CIA case officer who spent his career working undercover overseas and asked to remain anonymous. "If some idiot in the White House set out to do this malevolently, he ought to have his tongue cut off."

[snip]

The lawmakers also complain that intelligence that undercut the administration's claims was kept classified, while information that supported the contention that Iraq posed a threat was cleared for release.

Some of those details -- including disagreements within the intelligence community over conclusions about Iraq's nuclear ambitions and alleged efforts to develop a fleet of unmanned aerial vehicles -- have since come to light, and are fueling a debate about the justification for going to war with Iraq.

Thanks for recognizing the obvious, L.A. Times (and staff writer Greg Miller). These aren't patriots in the White House, they're hypocritical partisans who care more about their political survival than the protection of classified information.

2003-10-02T00:44:00.000-04:00

The Perfect Storm

Right-wingers seem to have flown into what can only be described as the Perfect Storm of political disasters.

Drudge is reporting that Rush has abused pain pills, and that he has been caught on tape purchasing said pills. We should know by tomorrow whether this story has merit. It's been up for hours on Drudge's site, and since first being posted Rush has resigned from his ESPN gig. UPDATE: It's a real story. Rush is finished.

The L.A. Times has a devastating expose on Arnold the Octopus. 6 women, 2 named, and evidence of repeated, repeated, repeated bad behavior, covering three decades.

Meanwhile Plame-gate, or Traitor-gate, or whatever you want to call it, has seriously pissed off the American voters.

Finally, we apparently need to spend another $600 million to find WMD in Iraq. Talk about throwing good money after bad!

Oh well, at least no one got a blow job! (yet. . . )

2003-10-01T22:53:00.000-04:00

Either Rush Limbaugh is Going Down. . .

Or Matt Drudge is. Simply stated, one these two persons will have his reputation shattered by this time tomorrow. At this point, however, I really can't say which one it is.

2003-10-01T18:50:00.000-04:00

Looks like Somebody Needs W to Give Them a Presidential Pardon. . .

According to Larry Johnson just now on Buchanen and Press (who very artfully said something without saying something, if you know what I mean), it's the 8 of Spades.

2003-10-01T12:51:00.000-04:00

Naaaah, No Need for an Independent Counsel Here

Guess who's done campaign work for John Ashcroft since 1985, and was instrumental in getting Ashcroft appointed Attorney General?

Answer: Karl Rove

2003-09-30T23:41:00.000-04:00

Time for ESPN to Fire Rush Limbaugh

For those who thought Rush's idiotic hate-radio blather wouldn't infect his sports commentary on ESPN, well you're wrong. Rush adds new meaning to the term "color" commentator:

Limbaugh's idea of commentary Sunday involved an absurd attack on Eagles quarterback Donovan McNabb and on "the media" that have overrated him because "the media has been very desirous that a black quarterback do well. There's interest in black quarterbacks and coaches doing well." McNabb, Limbaugh said, isn't "as good as everyone says he has been."

Now, I'm not much of a football fan, so I'm not personally harmed by the fact that ESPN has decided to hire this pathetic moron. But my friend Troy is a HUGE football fan, and he is quite annoyed (to say the least) that he can longer do what he used to enjoy -- watch a quality ESPN sportscast -- without being assaulted by a moronic hate-monger. Troy writes the following:

1) Rush Limbaugh is obviously less knowledgeable about the game than I gave him credit for; black quarterbacks have been doing well in the NFL for some time now, as well as the NCAA. HIs comment therefore is innaccurate.

2) Rush is no idiot; he wants to be able to claim responsibility for good ratings, and he tries to do so by making inflammatory comments like this. His specialty when making such comments is the ones that deal with race, because they allow him to express a fraction of what he feels about minorities in a seemingly legitimate fashion. He is, without a doubt, a racist. Get mad all you want about me calling it like it is, but it's true. He's every bit as much a racist as O'Reilly and Coulter, and he's not ashamed of it, so dont waste your breath defending him.

3) THe way Philly fans are towards players has nothing to do with this; McNabb is an All Pro QB who has had a rough start, nothing more. To say he is not as good as advertised is beyond stupid. The man took the Eagles, without much wide receiver help, to TWO CONSECUTIVE NFC Championship games. He is a smart, quick and athletic QB, able to thrive in the pocket or on the run. He is as good as the hype indicates; if that was not the case, he'd never have experienced the degree of success that he's attained in such a short period of time. THe NFL does not allow half-steppers to thrive at quarterback. You play right or you get cut, no guaranteed contracts (other than the signing bonus).

And so there you have it - an ignorant, asinine comment made by the anus of the conservative nation, Rush Limbaugh. I quit watching ESPN's pregame shows because of him, and this is why. It truly irritates me to have my sanctuary, SUnday Football, invaded by such a repulsive presence. I'd no more want him in that spot on ESPN than I'd want Al Franken or Michael Moore. THe Dennis Miller experiment failed, let's allow this one to die it's natural death. Keep politics and sports separate!

ESPN should wake up and realize it's alienating 50% of its fans. More importantly, ESPN should wake up and realize that it has a hired a racist moron who doesn't know the first thing about football. It's time this little experiment ended. Rush should be fired NOW.

2003-09-30T22:34:00.000-04:00

Going Out on a Limb

Prediction: Plame-Gate will have a body count. Two senior white house officials will resign by the end of the week, and probably this Friday, October 3, sometime between 6:00 p.m. and 11:00 p.m. (i.e., the time period when the White House prefers to release bad news, because of the low news-viewership on Saturdays).

As to who resigns, that is a more difficult question. I think Rove has to go. If the Bushies try and blame it on Rove's lieutenants, (say, Dan Bartlett), those underlings will turn on Rove when faced with an attack-dog Justice Department prosecutor, and the White House's attempt to control the damage will then fail. If the White House wants to stop this, Rove has to go.

Unless, of course, Rove had no foreknowledge of, or participation in, the Novak leak. (LMAO!)

2003-09-30T19:08:00.000-04:00

Plame-Gate Defenders Enter 'Comical-Ali' Territory

The spin put out by the Bush defenders doesn't even begin to pass the laugh test. Scoobie Davis publishes the panicked hate-radio reaction, including the fact that Rush Limbaugh today suggested that Plame's identity was leaked by a Clinton holdover. The best the more serious hacks can come up with are irrelevant and unsupported attacks on Joseph Wilson.

As Comical Ali would say:

Joesph Wilson and Valerie Plame are putty in our hands!

The humiliation of the CIA is complete!

Karl Rove's Holy Republican Guards will crush the infidels!

2003-09-29T23:24:00.000-04:00

Enronomics at the Department of Defense

Looks like DoD is using Arthur Anderson to do its accounting:

The Pentagon's internal auditor is investigating allegations that Defense Department officials tried to hide $20 million from Congress by temporarily putting the funds in the budget of the Special Operations Command, Defense officials said yesterday.

Officials at that secretive military headquarters, which oversees the Green Berets and other units that specialize in clandestine operations, were first asked to hide $40 million, but told Pentagon officials that they couldn't handle so large an amount, according to an article in yesterday's edition of the St. Petersburg Times.

Oliver North meets Worldcom. Scandals of old are being replayed as farce.

2003-09-29T20:51:00.000-04:00

Glenn Reynolds Can't Read

Either that, or he's an intellectually dishonest liar.

Bob Novak, in trying to explain away his unethical publication of a CIA operative's identity, gives the right-wing hacks a kernel to snap at which, if they choose to be intellectually dishonest, will allow them to pretend that the statement exculpates the Bushies when, in reality, it does nothing of the sort:

'Nobody in the Bush administration called me to leak this. In July I was interviewing a senior administration official on Ambassador Wilson's report when he told me the trip was inspired by his wife, a CIA employee working on weapons of mass destruction.

Clearly, the import of the Novak explanation had nothing to do with whether the information was actually leaked, but rather had to do with who initiated the phone call in which it was leaked.

Professor Reynolds, however, chooses to read the explanation as exculpatory of the Bushies:

PEJMAN YOUSEFZADEH thinks that the air is going out of the Plame/Wilson affair as Robert Novak says it wasn't leaked by the Administration.

Since Prof. Reynolds is a law professor, and since law professors normally are skilled at discerning the truth in strangely worded statements, such as Novak's, I have trouble believing that the title of this post is true, and that Professor Reynolds can't read/. Rather, I think it's fairly clear that Professor Reynold is an intellectually dishonest liar.

2003-09-28T23:44:00.000-04:00

Going Down in Plames

Interesting weekend! A "senior administration official" (probably George Tenet or one of his top two deputies), accused two "senior white house officials" (probably Karl Rove and Dan Bartlett) of committing a felony punishable by 10 years in prison -- outing Valerie Plame as an undercover CIA agent -- in order to exact political revenge against Ms. Plame's husband, Joesph Wilson, who blew the whistle in Yellowcake-gate. Ashcroft's highly politicized Justice Department is purportedly "investigating" the accusation. And Condoleeza Rice believes that it's not the President's responsibility to determine if any of his employees committed a felony in the course of their employment.

It's not everyday that a sitting cabinet official accuses two top political operatives in the same administration of committing a major felony. It's kind of a newsworthy event, in my opinion.

But hey, at least no one got a blow job!

2003-09-26T21:22:00.000-04:00

That Familiar Voice

I've been thinking for awhile that Howard Dean's voice reminds me of someone else's, but I couldn't put my finger on who. Then, watching some repeat footage of this week's debate, it hit me.

Howard Dean sounds an awful lot like Kevin Costner.

Close your eyes when you listen to him, and then think back to Field of Dreams, or Bull Durham.

See?

2003-09-25T18:05:00.000-04:00

Latest Republican attack: Clark likes Republicans!

The latest Republican attack on Clark is that he "praised Republicans." This attack presumably has two goals: (1) to make Clark less popular in a Democratic primary; (2) to make Clark look inconsistent when he trashes Bush. The Republicans better hope that their attack delivers a knockout blow and keeps Clark from getting the nomination. If it doesn't, then the Republicans have just successfully painted Clark as a moderate who would be acceptable to all Americans in the general election.

The ferocity of the attack on Clark this early is stunning and unprecedented. No primary votes will be counted for almost four months. Given the fact that professional political operatives presumably know something about who would be an effective candidate in a general election, these continuing attacks are reason enough to support Clark. Simply put, the attacks demonstrate that Clark is the most electable candidate. So, if you're for getting rid of Bush, you should vote for Clark. The Republican attacks prove it's the right thing to do.

2003-09-25T12:12:00.000-04:00

Quid Pro Quo?

Here's how Bush's Campaign Manager, Ken Mehlman, concludes his most recent fundraising letter:

P.S. On Tuesday September 30, the Federal Election Commission will require every campaign to report how many people have contributed to their campaign and how much it has raised. Please make sure that your name is counted among those who support our President by making your contribution today. . .

Maybe I'm paranoid, but I detect in that language an unspoken promise and threat. Why is it so important that a contributor's name be counted? What benefits accrue from having the name counted? What penalties accrue if you are not on the list? Inquiring minds want to know!

2003-09-24T23:04:00.000-04:00

Jon Stewart Summarizes the Bush U.N. Speech

We were right. You were wrong. Give us money.
-- Jon Stewart, The Daily Show 9/23/03

2003-09-24T14:44:00.000-04:00

Checkbook Diplomacy

Bush's speech at the U.N. has been universally hammered for sticking with the same old unilateralist approach that got us into this mess in Iraq in the first place. On the other hand, despite Bush's belligerent public approach, there are signs of some diplomatic progress, including an apparent rapproachement with Germany.

So the question is, what exactly is going on?

In all likelihood, while Bush plays the unilateralist hardliner role for domestic consumption, behind the scenes his administration is giving away the store to get other countries on our side. Colin Powell is likely telling his diplomatic counterparts to ignore the puppet Bush speech, and that, as long as the media isn't looking, the United States is ready to sign any check and grease any palm to get the help it needs in Iraq.

2003-09-23T15:34:00.000-04:00

9-11 Commission Issues Second Interim Report

This is quite a report. No substantive conclusions, thus far, but it contains an enormously ambitious agenda over the next 9 months for getting to the bottom of the mystery which is 9-11. For instance, among many, many other things, the Commission will:

reconstruct[] the events of September 11, minute by minute, so that we can see the strengths and weaknesses in the way the air traffic control system, our air defenses, the national command authorities, and local emergency responders understood and responded to the attack

And it will:

develop[] a full depiction of the conspiracy to attack this country; how the plotters analyzed our weaknesses, the strategies they developed, the actions they took, and those who helped them.

I expect the Commission's activities, barely noticed now, will build up to a headline dominating news story over the next nine months.

Update: Here is an article on the interim report and the press conference held afterwards.

2003-09-23T10:55:00.000-04:00

War Hero Hackworth likes Clark!

I often find Colonel David Hackworth infuriating -- he can demagogue with the best of them. However, there's been noone more loyal to the troops on the ground in recent public discourse than Hackworth -- the most most decorated soldier in the Vietnam war. His article today on Clark could not be more positive. And this is especially notable in light of his dismissive 1999 article on Clark called the "perfurmed prince." Here, he admits straight up that he was wrong in his earlier article, and that Clark is THE MAN!

What I also find encouraging is that Hackworth is interviewing Clark for MAXIM magazine. Looks like Clark has smart media people -- who would of thought of doing a MAXIM interview? But that's perfect -- he'll reach politically apathetic, pro-military voters who would otherwise most likely vote for Bush (if they vote at all). And he'll get great copy from a genuine military hero to boot!

2003-09-22T12:22:00.000-04:00

When Republicans Attack

When Republicans attack, you get Novak articles such as "The Touble with Wes," an innuendo filled diatribe against a caricature of a person, free of any substantive criticism. Attacks like this are transparent attempts to strangle the baby in the crib, before he can get his sea legs. The Republicans don't want to run against Clark, and are unloading their ammunition now in an attempt to stop him. However, if Clark is still standing after these blows (and I expect he will be), he will be that much stronger in the general election, having survived the first round of GOP slings and arrows.

Someone like Dean, however, who the Republicans are laying off because they want to run against him, can expect this same treatment if he receives the nomination, but only after that nomination is secure. Dean would be much more vulnerable in that situation, having not previously survived a round against the Republican slime machine.

The more the Republicans attack Clark now, the more I am in favor of his candidacy. That's because the more they hit him now, the less effective those attacks will be when they're launched again next summer.

Personally, I think Clark should state the following in a speech:

"Well I've been watching Fox News recently, and it looks like the Republicans are scared of me, and are trying to stop my candidacy with false and malicious attacks. Well Republicans, here is what I say to that [Clark looks directly into the Camera] -- Bring it on!!!!!"

2003-09-21T23:19:00.000-04:00

Not Bad for for the First Week

For an election held today: Bush 47, Clark 43, Margin of Error, +/- 3%

And the first week isn't even over yet!

2003-09-21T16:30:00.000-04:00

Wesley Clark off to a Fast Fundraising Start

Over $750,000 in just three days. And that's in addition to the nearly $2 million that had been pledged to him beforehand. Those aren't Howard Dean numbers, and they aren't from Howard Dean's internet grass-roots contributors, but they are nevertheless impressive. I think it's fairly certain that, presuming Clark doesn't completely melt down in his first few weeks, his high profile and Clinton connections will make him a leader in the fundraising department. The real question, however, is will he be a minimally competent candidate? If he is, then it's going to be Clark and Dean going to down to the wire in the primaries.

The establishment Democratic support for Clark reminds me somewhat of the establishment Republican support for Bush in 2000. If the Democratic power establishment stays behind this guy, then the Clark-Dean race will resemble the 2000 race between Bush and McCain. The difference, however, is that the other candidates, Kerry and Gephart in particular, but also Lieberman and Edwards, are far, far more serious than the other also-rans in the 2000 Republican primary. Does anyone remember Steve Forbes? How about Lamar Alexander and Elizabeth Dole?

2003-09-21T14:55:00.000-04:00

A Big Story to Watch This Week

The 9-11 Commission will release its second interim report on Tuesday at 2:00 p.m. The first interim report (released last July), chided the Bush administration in general, and NORAD in particular, for being secretive and uncooperative in its responses to the Commissions' requests for documents and information. This second interim report will probably not have any substantive conclusions, but rather will simply discuss what ground has been covered, and what still needs to be done, and perhaps it will again chide the Bushies for being uncooperative.

The real fireworks, however, will be in May 2004, when the Commission releases its final report and then testifies in Congress. The members of the Commission seem like serious guys, and I have high expectatations that their final report will actually have some answers to the many unanswered questions about what exactly happened on September 11. I hope I am not disappointed.

2003-09-20T23:09:00.000-04:00

Cheney Dissed

This article by veteran reporter John Walcott of Knight Ridder Newspapers suggests that a number of "administration foreign and domestic policy officials" as well as other "senior officials," are ready to dispense with Cheney and Rumsfeld's hard-line approach on Iraq and the Middle East. This is quite simply the most serious criticism of the Bush hard-liner axis that I have seen come from within the White House. The key paragraphs are up front:

Faced with rising costs, sinking polls, unsympathetic allies, an increasingly skeptical Congress and potential splits in his political party, President Bush has begun to question the hard-line Iraq policies long championed by Vice President Dick Cheney and Secretary of Defense Donald H. Rumsfeld.

Foreign-policy concerns and domestic politics are prompting the administration to rethink its approach to Iraq, said a number of administration foreign and domestic-policy officials, who all spoke on the condition of anonymity because, as one of them put it, "the president hates seeing internal debates in the paper."

I personally think this is Karl Rove's handiwork. It's election time, and Rove's ready to triangulate the Democrats on foreign policy. In Rove's book, that means distancing Bush from the ever more unpopular and expensive policies of Cheney and Rumsfeld. If Rove succeeds, count it as good news for the Country and its interests in the middle east, but bad news for the Democrats in the upcoming election.

2003-09-20T12:37:00.000-04:00

How to Win in 2004 -- Attack Bush

I am in 100% agreement with Rick Perlstein's article in this week's Village Voice:

It is an unlovely fact, but a fact nonetheless. The surest way to win a presidential election is to successfully scare the bejesus out of the voters about what will happen if the opponent becomes, or remains, president of the United States. Not a pleasant thing for Democrats, who like to be nice, to have to ponder. Fortunately for the squeamish, they will simply be telling the truth. George W. Bush is scary. Going negative against him, early, even right out of the box, might be not just a winning strategy. It will also be the patriotic thing to do. Just ask Rand Beers.

I fantasize about the Democratic nominee kicking off his campaign with a TV spot like this:

Picture a man standing in an office, handsome, serious. It is Rand Beers, a former top Bush administration counterterrorism expert, looking into the camera and telling America the exact same words he told The Washington Post this past June when he resigned from his job with the National Security Council and joined the John Kerry presidential campaign: "The administration wasn't matching its deeds to its words in the war on terrorism. They're making us less secure, not more secure." (The words appear along the bottom of the screen, for emphasis: They're making us less secure, not more secure.)

Perhaps at this point a shot might home in on a document—the oath of office he keeps framed upon his wall. Then he might say something like: I served under presidents Ronald Reagan, Clinton, and George H.W. Bush. But what I saw under this president made me do something I never thought I would do: quit the government service.

Cue close-up: steely eyes.

Stirring music.

I decided this past June that the best way to keep my pledge to help secure my nation was to work full-time for the defeat of this president.

Is that too wordy? I don't know. I've never written a television commercial before. I suspect that this one might work, though, even if General Wesley Clark isn't the Democratic nominee.

Read the whole thing. Bush's reputation on the war on terror is getting justly battered. The Bush glorification that occured just after 9/11 and the war in Afghanistan is evaporating. Now is the time for the Democrats to twist the knife that has been stuck in the Republican national security reputation. We simply can't afford to let Bush weather the storm.

2003-09-20T00:20:00.000-04:00

Court Martial Time

Probably just writing an article that gets picked up in the Guardian is enough to get you kicked out of the armed forces in the Bush administration. Of course, the fact that he essentially calls Operation Iraqi Freedom a fraud seals the deal:

We are facing death in Iraq for no reason

A serving US soldier calls for the end of an occupation based on lies

Tim Predmore
Friday September 19, 2003

For the past six months, I have been participating in what I believe to be the great modern lie: Operation Iraqi Freedom.

[snip]

So what is our purpose here? Was this invasion because of weapons of mass destruction, as we have so often heard? If so, where are they? Did we invade to dispose of a leader and his regime because they were closely associated with Osama bin Laden? If so, where is the proof?

Or is it that our incursion is about our own economic advantage? Iraq's oil can be refined at the lowest cost of any in the world. This looks like a modern-day crusade not to free an oppressed people or to rid the world of a demonic dictator relentless in his pursuit of conquest and domination, but a crusade to control another nation's natural resource. Oil - at least to me - seems to be the reason for our presence.

[snip]

My time here is almost done, as well as that of many others with whom I have served. We have all faced death in Iraq without reason and without justification. How many more must die? How many more tears must be shed before Americans awake and demand the return of the men and women whose job it is to protect them, rather than their leader's interest?

· Tim Predmore is a US soldier on active duty with the 101st Airborne Division, based near Mosul in northern Iraq. A version of this article appeared in the Peoria Journal Star, Illinois

Now THAT is one courageous soldier!

2003-09-19T18:40:00.000-04:00

8-3

That's my prediction for the Ninth Circuit en banc vote on the recall, with 8 affirming the 9th Circuit panel's decision and three voting to reverse. How do I arrive at that decision? Simple. My presumption is that the Judges appointed by Democrats will vote to affirm and the judges appointed by Republicans will vote to reverse. (A reasonable assumption, in light of Bush v. Gore). The order setting the argument for Monday at 1:00 p.m. lists the judges on the en banc panel, and, after reviewing their backgrounds at this website here, I was able to calculate the 8-3 margin. Here are the details:

Chief Judge Schroeder -- Appointed by President Carter
Judge Kozinski -- Appointed by President Reagan
Judge O'Scannlain -- Appointed by President Reagan
Judge Kleinfeld -- Appointed by President Bush I
Judge Tashima -- Appointed by President Clinton
Judge SIlverman -- Appointed by President Clinton
Judge Graber -- Appointed by President Clinton
Judge McKeown -- Appointed by President Clinton
Judge Gould -- Appointed by President Clinton
Judge Tallman -- Appointed by President Clinton
Judge Rawlinson -- Appointed by President Clinton

Actually, my real prediction is a reversal 9th Circuit Panel by a vote of 6-5 or 7-4. Although Republican Judges will toe the party line on a fairly consistent basis, the Democrats, with their intellectual tradition of dissent and independence, are much more likely to vote against the wishes of the politicians of their party (See, e.g., Jones v. Clinton, where all four so-called "liberal" Supreme Court Justices voted to subject President Clinton to the frivolous Paula Jones lawsuit while he was still in office).

2003-09-19T11:39:00.000-04:00

The Big Dog

Why do I have a feeling we'll never see Bush doing this in Iraq:

Thousands of cheering ethnic Albanians greeted Bill Clinton in Kosovo on Friday as he made his second visit to the province since assembling a coalition that halted a brutal crackdown by Serb forces.

Guarded by an armored personnel carrier and NATO peacekeepers, the former president's motorcade streamed past flag-waving crowds as he traveled from the airport to the capital of the ethnically divided province. He then strode into the city's university to receive an honorary degree.

The only place Bush is going to get that kind of treatment is at Bob Jones University.

2003-09-18T16:59:00.000-04:00

The Gloves Come Off

Ted Kennedy with the uppercut:

The case for going to war against Iraq was a fraud "made up in Texas" to give Republicans a political boost, Sen. Edward Kennedy said Thursday.

In an interview with The Associated Press, Kennedy also said the Bush administration has failed to account for nearly half of the $4 billion the war is costing each month. He said he believes much of the unaccounted-for money is being used to bribe foreign leaders to send in troops.

[snip]

"There was no imminent threat. This was made up in Texas, announced in January to the Republican leadership that war was going to take place and was going to be good politically. This whole thing was a fraud," Kennedy said.

That's EXACTLY the right tack to take. None of this namby-pamby Joe Leiberman crap about how we like what Bush is doing in principle but we just thought he should have tried a teensy weensy bit harder to work with our allies. This whole Iraq war has been a public policy disaster that the American people were defrauded into supporting by BUSHCHENEY's exploitation of FEAR. It's about time someone started saying what is abundantly clear to any dispassionate observer. Iraq is a money pit, a blood and guts pit, an Al Qaeda Recruitment Video, a Republican re-election strategy, and it was created by a web of lies and deceit which a bunch of namby-pamby Democrats were too chickenshit at the time to do anything about. Thanks God the Democrats are finally, finally, acting SANE.

2003-09-18T15:51:00.000-04:00

Somebody Tell the Media that Hillary is NOT Running for President in 2004

Even Bob Novak knows this to be true:

Hillary and Bill Clinton, responding to growing speculation, advised a longtime Iowa supporter this week that under no conditions would the senator run for president in 2004.

The supporter, who has committed to Sen. John Kerry for 2004, personally asked the former president about renewed talk that his wife would enter the race. Bill Clinton said that would not happen. That was confirmed in a separate chat with Hillary Clinton.

So quit speculating to the contrary! We know the Republicans are only fanning these flames to help their fund-raising efforts. So how about the media quit reporting "facts" they know just aren't true?

2003-09-18T15:43:00.000-04:00

Texas Power-Grabbers Fighting Each Other

Looks like before the Texas Republicans can complete their unprecendented mid-decade redistricting effort, they have to get their own house in order. However, not even Tom Delay can keep the power-mad Republicans from tearing each other apart:

Texas Republicans, having finally muscled the Democrats into a corner in their four-month fight to redraw the state's congressional district lines, have moved on to a new phase of the operation: Now they are brawling among themselves over how to draw the map.

The internecine dispute has embarrassed Republican leaders and may imperil the party's plans to use its new dominance of the state legislature to push through a map designed to shift as many as six additional congressional seats into Republican hands.

[snip]

The intraparty dispute has become so intractable that Rep. Tom DeLay (R-Tex.), the House majority leader who has been actively involved in pushing the redistricting idea in the state legislature, flew to Austin last week to broker a compromise among the Republicans. He failed.

Let's hope the Rethuglicans keep their arrows aimed at each other. The longer they delay, the less chance they have of forcing their plan down Texans' throats before the 2004 election.

2003-09-17T20:52:00.000-04:00

Wes!

Wesley Clark is good for all the Democratic primary candidates. His very presence in the Democratic debates and on the campagin trail will give the Democrats national security gravitas. The very fact that a successful general could even BE a Democrat is enough to persuade a certain percentage of voters that maybe Democrats can be "tough" on national security after all.

2003-08-17T14:06:00.000-04:00

Hibernation

Some of you have written in asking what has happened to Pontificator? The Answer: Pontificator's author is taking a break so that he is well rested for the intense battles which lie ahead. The current plan is to resume frequent postings on or about November 1, 2003, i.e., approximately one year before the Presidential election.

Blogging for free takes time and effort, and I don't want to "burn out" during a critical time. This upcoming election will be more important than anything that has happened in this country since Watergate. I plan on being an active participant in the event (and I don't just mean voting!). I hope you do too.

2003-06-25T15:31:00.001-04:00

In honor of the impending war with Iraq, I changed the subtitle for Pontificator from "news and commentary" to "wag the blog."

2003-06-25T15:31:00.000-04:00

There is at least some good news on the judicial nominations front, as Bush and Schumer agree on three highly qualified, reasonable, and moderate nominees to the Second Circuit and to the Southern District of New York. The Second Circuit has historically avoided the vicious partisan fights that have characterized the nomination process in most of the other federal courts.

Why are there less fights over nominees in the Second Circuit? My guess is that Republican business interests actually need some judges somewhere who know what they're doing and can deal with complex cases, as opposed to less sophisticated right-wing ideologues who will muck things up with their inexperience and radical temperament. The Second Circuit, which covers New York, is a good choice to be the "reasonable circuit," since the radical religious right-wingers have little power there, and complex cases are legion.

2003-05-28T22:29:00.000-04:00

I'd Hate to Play Poker with These Guys

The Bushies have reconfigured their infamous Iraqi deck of cards -- elevating the position of several Iraqis who have already been captured. No explanation was given.

This latest deceit -- while trivial -- perfectly captures the the Bush-Rove modus operandi. Set a goal, fail to meet it, change the goalposts, brainwash the press into declaring a Bush victory.

Weapons of Mass Destruction anyone?

If someone calls Bush a straight shooter one more time I swear I'll. . . .

2003-05-28T22:18:00.000-04:00

Safety Last

Under Bush, we get less safe every day. The latest travesty -- firing 6,000 of the new Transportation Security Agency baggage screeners:

The Transportation Security Administration is planning to cut 6,000 of the screeners over the summer. The cuts are coming because the TSA's budget was cut by Congress, the same Congress that was whipped by President Bush into a $350 billion tax cut.

Several airport directors, including Logan's Thomas Kinton, worry that the cuts send a message to terrorists that airport security is returning to the lax days before Sept. 11. Even the directors of smaller airports are worried. After all, some of the Sept. 11 terrorists started their day by flying out of Portland, Maine. After officials at the Greater Binghamton airport in New York realized that the TSA cuts would eliminate their armed guards and force them to rely on law enforcement officials 15 minutes away, the Broome County security director, Carl Fenescey, told the Binghamton Press and Sun-Bulletin: ''Don't cut us below one. With everything going on, this just doesn't make sense. Doesn't make sense. We're playing the odds.''

But don't worry, at least there's money left over for the executives at Halliburton to get filthy rich off corrupt no-bid government contracts!

2003-05-28T14:25:00.000-04:00

Drinking Rumsfeld's Kool Aid

Anyone who believes that Saddam destroyed his weapons of mass destruction prior to the allied invasion, in secret, as Rumsfeld suggested the other day, is drinking the administration's Kool-Aid (as the Jim Jones-era expression goes).

It makes absolutely no sense to think Saddam would do such a thing. If he were to have destroyed his illegal weapons, don't you think he would have invited Hans Blix and the weapons inspectors to watch him do so, in public, and thus save his regime from a destructive invasion, as well as get positive international attention from France and the allies that were willing to give him a break?

For gosh sakes, when Saddam released the Iraqi political prisoners before the war started, he did so with great fanfare and publicity. Why on earth would he do the opposite by destroying the illegal weapons -- in secret!

If Saddam had destroyed the illegal weapons publicly, Tony Blair would have had no choice but to pull out of the coalition, and war would have been averted. By destroying them privately, all Saddam would have done is destroy his best weapons for use in the war -- the very war he was inviting by keeping the fact of such destruction secret.

By suggesting such an outlandish theory, Rumsfeld is ignoring a much more sensible, logical and NOT COMPLETELY IDIOTIC theory, that there were no such weapons of mass destruction in the first place!!!

2003-05-27T17:16:00.000-04:00

Something is Rotten on the O'Reilly Factor

O'Reilly is lying again -- this time about the country of Denmark. He said, on the air, that child molestation and child rape is legal in Denmark. WTF???

Does O'Reilly really think child molestation and child rape is legal in Denmark? That's what he said on the air, in the "highest rated" cable news show. Now the country of Denmark is demanding a retraction:

In the O’Reilly Factor show on May 13, 2003, in an interview with an attorney from the National Law Center, Bill O’Reilly said:

“You know, in Europe, this kind of child molestation and child rape is – you know, they let them do it. They don’t enforce it. And in countries like Denmark, it’s even legal.” – taken from transcript of the show made by FDCH e-media, Inc.

This is not true. Child molestation, child rape and child abuse in any form is illegal in Denmark. Spreading, acquiring or possessing child pornography is also against Danish law.
. . . .

The Danish Embassy has today written The Fox News Channel demanding that they issue a retraction of the statement in the O’Reilly Factor.

O'Reilly is either an idiot, insane, or simply doesn't care about the truth if it doesn't fit in with his reactionary political agenda. One of these days, this guy is going to get sued for libel, and his whole lifetime of outright lies and despicable, slanderous innuendos is going to get hashed out in court. I look forward to that day.

2003-05-27T14:05:00.000-04:00

Rehnquist and O'Connor are Retiring

Why else would they depart from their typical pro-States rights stance on Federalism cases and actually rule that the Family and Medical Leave Act (FMLA) applies to the States? O'Connor and Rehnquist are political animals, and they are trying lower the volume on judicial controversies prior to their retirement, in hopes of making in easier for Bush to appoint right-wing radicals. We can probably expect to have the Texas anti-sodomy statute struck down as well, for the same reason. So at least we'll get a few reasonable decisions this term, but let's not be fooled, it's all for the prupose of radicalizing the judiciary. When Rehnquist and O'Coonor retire, there will be no excuse for not fully mobilizing against any right-wing ideologue nominated (which, if you read the papers, seems to be just about everybody under consideration except for White House counsel Alberto Gonzalez).

2003-05-27T02:09:00.000-04:00

Another Must-Read from Krugman

Here:

The lunatics are now in charge of the asylum." So wrote the normally staid Financial Times, traditionally the voice of solid British business opinion, when surveying last week's tax bill. Indeed, the legislation is doubly absurd: the gimmicks used to make an $800-billion-plus tax cut carry an official price tag of only $320 billion are a joke, yet the cost without the gimmicks is so large that the nation can't possibly afford it while keeping its other promises.

But then maybe that's the point. The Financial Times suggests that "more extreme Republicans" actually want a fiscal train wreck: "Proposing to slash federal spending, particularly on social programs, is a tricky electoral proposition, but a fiscal crisis offers the tantalizing prospect of forcing such cuts through the back door."

And that is the goal -- force a fiscal crises, and then get rid of government, all of it, except for those big Halliburton contracts that keep Cheney and his revolving door pals in the money. But it's not just economists like Krugman who believe that this is the Republicans plan. The Republican elite actually admits that is their goal, and has done so in somewhat colorful language:

According to hard-right Republicans, killing off government to make way for corporate rule is truly at the core of the so-called "conservative agenda." For example, the lead cheerleader for Bush's tax-cutting fervor is a man named Grover Norquist, well known to every politician in Washington.

"I don't want to abolish government," Norquist told National Public Radio's Mara Liasson in a May 25, 2001 Morning Edition interview. "I simply want to reduce it to the size where I can drag it into the bathroom and drown it in the bathtub."

Charming, isn't he.

2003-05-08T12:49:00.000-04:00

Fox News to be Kicked Off British TV?

Britain's FCC-equivalent is investigating Fox News for "lack of impartiality," and, apparently, might kick Fox off the air!

In 1999 the ITC revoked the licence of Med TV, a channel aimed at the Kurdish diaspora, for failing to conform to the impartiality rules.

Julian Petley, chairman of the Campaign for Press and Broadcasting Freedom, called on the ITC to act against Fox News: "I'm not in favour of censorship, but Murdoch would like to do with British television news what he has done with newspapers, which is to force people to compete on his own terms.

"So if we allow into Britain the kind of journalism represented by Fox, that would bring about a form of censorship ."

Now I'm certainly not in favor of a government deciding what news should and shouldn't be on TV based on the content of that news. Such action constitutes government censorship of the worst type. Nevertheless, I'm overjoyed at the prospect of England kicking sand in Fox's "fair and balanced" face. They're not fair, they're not balanced, and, if England bans them, everyone will know it.

2003-05-07T16:24:00.000-04:00

Even the German are saying. . .

that the U.S.A. is turning into a police state.

2003-05-07T14:55:00.000-04:00

Royal Flush

Fox News just introduced a new set of playing cards.

2003-05-01T00:43:00.000-04:00

Yes, The Republicans Are Led By Bigots

Senator Rick Santorum, for instance, is still the third ranking Republican in the Senate, the Chairman of the Senate Republican Conference, and a bigot.

UPDATE: And this is what House majority leader Tom Delay had to say regarding Santorum's bigotry:

"I think Senator Santorum took a very courageous and moral position based upon principles and his world view," said Representative Tom DeLay, the House majority leader from Texas.

Mr. DeLay said he was proud of Mr. Santorum for "standing on principle."

Yes, the the Republicans are led by a bunch of bigots, and they're damn proud of it. Some things never change.

2003-04-27T22:39:00.000-04:00

Bush's Class Warfare

In light of the fact that thousands of poor people are about to lose their health care, I'm really glad we're cutting taxes on the wealthy:

Millions of low-income Americans face the loss of health insurance or sharp cuts in benefits, like coverage for prescription drugs and dental care, under proposals now moving through state legislatures around the country.

State officials and health policy experts say the cuts will increase the number of uninsured, threaten recent progress in covering children and impose severe strains on hospitals, doctors and nursing homes.

But those officials, confronting a third straight year of fiscal crisis, say they have no choice but to rein in Medicaid, the fast-growing program that provides health insurance for 50 million people.

Many state officials are pleading for federal help as they face an array of painful trade-offs, often pitting the needs of impoverished elderly people for prescription drugs and long-term care against those of low-income families seeking basic health coverage.

This is payback for Bush's campaign contributors, and Republican class warfare against the poor. As Bush pays off his buddies at Halliburton and the Hair Club for Growth (or whatever the latest trendy right wing business lobbying group is called), the poor , having already had their votes stolen in 2000, now get their health care stolen as well. Hell, even reactionary Democrats like John Breaux thinks Bush's actions are needlessly cruel:

Senator John B. Breaux, Democrat of Louisiana, said that in his state, where legislators face the prospect of cutting Medicaid's projected budget by one-third, "they're saying: `What can you do to help? Because if you don't, we'll have to cut the two most vulnerable areas, education and health care.' "

Signaling the political fight to come in Congress as President Bush pushes for a tax cut of $550 billion over 10 years, Mr. Breaux, an influential member of the Senate Finance Committee, said, "The problems we're facing now make you wonder why we're contemplating a tax cut of this size."

I say, let's filibuster the whole damn tax cut.

2003-04-26T18:50:00.000-04:00

Can You Spot the War Crime?

Read this article, and try to find it. You don't need a degree in international law, believe me.

2003-04-24T22:56:00.000-04:00

Secrets and Lies

The Cogent Provacateur wonders why we were so surprised that we never found any of those notorious Iraq weapons of mass destruction:

We really should have had a clue, shouldn't we? We did. Let's start at the shallow end of the open-source swamp.

Iraq told us they had nothing left. Take that with a large grain of salt ... the same officials swore "there are no infidels in Baghdad" ... but we played the same source cards high and low. When Saddam's in-law Kamel defected, we took his portrait of WMD programs straight to the bank. When Kamel told us the programs had been scrapped (as senior officials confirm in the post-Saddam era), we buried the story.

If we had a mountain of direct evidence, as claimed, Powell could have brought the Security Council more than a few shiny nuggets of fool's gold. He didn't.

More decisively, the very first week of renewed UN inspections produced unambiguous, direct categorical refutations of specific unhedged high-profile intelligence claims made by both US and UK.
Bush personally voiced specific accusations -- with supporting visual aids -- of "new construction" at Al Furat's former uranium enrichment plant. On-site inspection found no new construction ... only weathered rebar protruding from construction abandoned ten years earlier ... not the sort of thing you can readily counterfeit. Iraq suggested that corrosion on unprotected material gave it a different ("new") visual cast. Alternatively, improved high-resolution imaging capabilities may have exposed long present ("new") detail. Embarrassing either way.

Blair's Dossier fingered the al-Daura vaccine plant as a locus of resurgent bioweapons efforts. On the ground, no trace of anything resurging -- malevolent or benign. Again, politically-spun intelligence leads to embarrassment ... except for those who are incapable of embarrassment.
We were deep in the grip of war fever, and flashing neon warning signs of cooked intelligence went by the boards. Jane's Defence Weekly (2003-03-05) diagnosed a case of "incestuous amplification ... where one only listens to those who are already in lock-step agreement, reinforcing set beliefs and creating a situation ripe for miscalculation".

If we had a large portfolio of direct, reliable evidence, we should have fed UNMOVIC more than "shit, shit and shit" for leads. A single verifiable tip would have done wonders for US credibility, and would not have given away the store (unless the shelves were practically bare).

Did we share our best intel with UN inspectors? There is controversy on this point. We said we couldn't (UNMOVIC was bugged, inspections would be a tip-off, disclosure would spoil sources & methods or compromise targeting data, Special Forces would be put at risk). We said we had done ... at least for all high and medium-value sites. After-class chatter suggested neither was entirely true, and we never played straight with anybody, least of all ourselves.

The strongest inference flows directly from the infertility of US intelligence ... from the pattern of haystacks torched and needles not found when the ashes were sifted.
Suppose -- per the standard thesis -- Saddam had major WMD research, production, inventory and deployment programs. That implies thousands of incriminating points of presence ... physical artifacts, persons, documents, messages. And suppose -- again per standard -- that we had immense stocks of specific leads ... some direct, some inferential, but altogether thousands of points of interest.

We wouldn't expect a perfect match, but what were the odds that these two lists would not overlap at a single point? Not likely. After probing enough points of interest, we'd have to hit some points of presence ... even if our suspect list was cranked out by monkeys with typewriters.

Benchmark illustration: US troops have already discovered caches of US currency, approaching a billion dollars worth ... stumbling on them in unlikely places, without looking for them, quite by accident. In case Saddam had 1,000 times as much WMD as he had cash, we should have found some by now.
CP could elaborate the damning Bayesian statistics here, but it comes down to a simpler rule of thumb: if a proposition is true and important, it's highly probable you can prove it without resort to probability theory. A universe of stubborn, contrary facts was screaming for attention, and we turned a deaf ear.

A endless series of slapstick intelligence antics led up to Snipe Season's opening gun. Home-brewed ricin in London ... a balsa wood Drone of Mass Destruction ... missiles that "could hit the US" (provided they were shipped here first) ... forged uranium transfer documents and the aluminum tube follies ... "mobile labs" that on firsthand inspection proved to be food testing trucks ... an intel dossier plagiarised (typos and all) from student papers with times, places and conclusions changed to bolster the argument.

Categorical refutation of a single highest-confidence intelligence estimate should have premised a discreet inquiry. Umpteen such events in rapid succession should premise an Inquisition.

The follies continued after the ground campaign got underway. A warehouse full of SCUDs in one news cycle evaporated by the next. A "nerve agent" cache was a pesticide dump. Buried "chemical warheads" near a northern airfield failed the acid test. Likewise a half-rack of MLRS rockets. Special Forces broke down a terrorist camp in Kurdish territory and found recipes for "three kinds of chlorine gas" (probably the same three kinds you'd produce at home if you ignored the warning labels on household bleach). Numerous CW "finds" were defensive -- gas masks and atropine injectors -- and often past shelf-date.

No inspection regime can find everything ... but no concealment regime can hide everything either. UNMOVIC probed aggressively starting in December. Special Forces probed more aggressively prewar. There's no concealment regime left, we've probed scores of high-value targets, hundreds of medium-value targets ... and we are still batting 0-fer. At some point the question morphs from "Where are the WMDs?" to "How did we let ourselves swallow that WMD line without de-baiting it?".

It is still possible that we'll find such weapons, but if even we do, it is clear that our intelligence services didn't have clue where they were, or if they even really existed. Yet we pretended we were sure (some would say we lied) to justify, both to the American people and to the world, a massive and unprecedented war, in which thousands of people died.

Oh well, at least no one lied about getting a blow job!

2003-04-22T23:46:00.000-04:00

Unwelcome Mat

The Republican National Convention is going to be in New York City for the 2004 convention. Apparently, Bush intends to exploit the City's September 11 tragedy to win re-election.

Now, as you may have guessed, Bush is not too popular in New York City. You might call it, "enemy territory" for him. My guess is New Yorkers, many of whom experienced September 11 first hand, will feel used and abused by Bush's September 11 exploitation. (Full disclosure, I live in NYC, feel strongly about September 11, and, as some of you may have guessed, would like to see Bush running a minor league baseball team starting around January 20, 2005).

The way I see it, us New Yorkers have to make common cause against the foreign Republican invaders. We have approximately 16 months to figure out how to most effectively interfere with the Bush September 11 propaganda machine. A run of the mill protest won't do it. But we're creative people, we ought to be able to think of something. . . .

More on this later.

2003-04-21T23:57:00.000-04:00

Competition is Healthy

Joe Scarborough, MSNBC's latest right-wing talk show nitwit, reams his Fox News competitor Bill O'Reilly, over his racially insensitive comment (he thought it might be funny to joke about about black schoolchildren stealing hubcaps at a charity for the kids' benefit).

SCARBOROUGH: It’s interesting that you said that he just dismissed it and said it was foolish. When Trent Lott got into the mess he got into this past winter for his remarks that he made at Strom Thurmond’s birthday party, Mr. O’Reilly said, “Excusing bad behavior by the powerful is a dangerous game. Trent Lott offended millions of Americans and probably didn’t even realize he was doing it. There comes a point in every person’s life when they either surrender to prejudice and ideology, or they become independent thinkers. It’s easier to surrender. The people of the United States must hold those in power responsible for what they do and say.”
Now, isn't what Bill O’Reilly said the other night about the same as what Trent Lott said in an off-the-cuff remark this past winter?

Damn right Scarborough. Now, I fully expect O'Reilly to counterattack, and hopefully the both of them will get stewed in their own bile.

2003-04-21T00:17:00.000-04:00

Filibuster Update

Bob Novack says the Republicans are growing tired of the fight over Bush's judicial nominations. Good, because the Democrats are totally stoked -- and will only grow stronger as the 2004 election approaches. But, if the Republicans still want to make a game of it, they're welcome to raise the stakes. I'm sure the theocratic whackjobs Bush enjoys nominating would play really well in mainstream American. Come on Bush, let's give it a go. Take your fight to the American people. We're ready.

2003-04-19T18:27:00.000-04:00

Beastmaster in North Korea

What do Kim Jong Il, the North Korean dictator, and Maax, the High Priest of the God Ar, played by Rip Torn in the movie "Beastmaster," have in common?

This is a serious question.

The answer: they both destroy little children based on a bizarre pseudo-astrological prophecy that those children will grow up and kill them. In Beastmaster:

As the story opens, three witches predict that Maax (pronounced May-ax, played by Rip Torn), the high priest of the god Ar, will die at the hand of the King Zed's unborn son. Maax determines to thwart the prophecy by cutting the fetus from the Queen's womb and sacrificing it to the god. However, before he can act, the King (Rod Loomis) discovers the plot and banishes Maax forever. Later that night, one of the witches sneaks into the King's chamber and magically transfers the baby from the Queen's womb into the belly of a cow and disappears before anything can be done. Once safely outside the city, the witch cuts the baby from the cow and begins making preparations to sacrifice it to the god. A traveler (Ben Hammer) overhears the baby crying and kills the witch. He takes the baby (who he names Dar) back to his home village of Emir and adopts it as his own. A few years later, Dar and his adopted father discover that his time in the cow's womb has given him a miraculous power—the ability to communicate with animals—when he saves his father from an attacking bear. But the true test of Dar's courage and abilities comes when he has grown into man (played by Marc Singer). His village of Emir is destroyed by a band of marauders called the Jun Hoard, led by none other than the evil priest Maax. As the only survivor, he sets out on a quest for revenge; his only companions a golden eagle, a black tiger, and two ferrets.

In North Korea:

All triplets in North Korea are being forcibly removed from parents after their birth and dumped in bleak orphanages.

The policy is carried out on the orders of Stalinist dictator Kim Jong-il, who has an irrational belief that a triplet could one day topple his regime.

I suppose Maax is not as bad as Kim Jong Il. After all, Maax only destroyed (or tried to destroy) one life based on this "prophecy." Kim Jong Il, by contrast, destroys dozens.

Oh yeah, and Kim Jong Il is real.

2003-04-19T16:59:00.000-04:00

Evangelicals out of Iraq!

This, is profoundly disrespectful:

When President Bush called his war on terrorism a "crusade," he backtracked quickly in the face of intense reaction at home and abroad. Now many people are worried that, in the case of Iraq, that inopportune choice of words may turn out to hold more than a modicum of truth.

As Christian relief agencies prepare to enter Iraq, some have announced their intent to combine aid with evangelization. They include groups whose leaders have proclaimed harshly negative views of Islam. They are also friends of the president. The White House has shrugged its shoulders, saying it can't tell private groups what to do, though legal experts disagree.

Yet to many Muslims and Christians alike, proselytizing at this highly volatile moment in the newly liberated country, with Muslims worldwide questioning US motives, could only spur outrage and undermine US policy in the region as well as in Iraq.

Look, the west has just completed a military conquest of a Muslim country. In the past, such conquests have been followed by attempts to destroy Islam and the people who insist on practicing it. We claim that we are different, that this military conquest was for the benefit of the Muslim people. To the extent that we try to convert them, or condition aid and comfort on their following of Christian practices, we undermine that message, play into anti-American stereotypes (which have historical legitimacy), and, ultimately, sacrifice national security by playing into the hands of the Al Qaeda haters who characterize the war against Iraq as a western crusade against Islam.

George Bush should order all evangelical Christian groups to leave Iraq now, in the name of national security and the war on terror.

2003-04-17T12:13:00.000-04:00

O'Reilly Racism Update

Unfortunately, the despicable Bill O'Reilly seems to have gotten away with another racist statement without consequence. To recap:

Emceeing Saturday night's Best Friends rock-and-roll gala at the Marriott Wardman Park -- which raised $800,000 for the 15-year-old charity benefiting inner-city schoolchildren -- the Fox News Channel star was trying to fill dead air during a lull in the entertainment.

Members of the "Best Men," as the sixth-to-eighth-grade boys in the program are called, were delayed getting onstage to perform a lip-synced rendition of the Four Tops standard "Reach Out (I'll Be There)." O'Reilly ad-libbed: "Does anyone know where the Best Men are? I hope they're not in the parking lot stealing our hubcaps."

Although brave bloggers like Roger Ailes and Jesse of Pandagon fame immediately noted the story and lambasted the cable talk show king, the SCLM then let the story die.

That's not right. We should continue to remind people that Bill O'Reilly's racist attitudes preclude him from hosting a cable show on a national network. O'Reilly should make a full apology, and Fox should fire him.

2003-04-16T16:16:00.000-04:00

The Speech

A clarion call for freedom, by Tim Robbins at the National Press Club in Washington, D.C., on April 15, 2003.

TIM ROBBINS: Thank you. And thanks for the invitation. I had originally been asked here to talk about the war and our current political situation, but I have instead chosen to hijack this opportunity and talk about baseball and show business. (Laughter.) Just kidding. Sort of.

I can't tell you how moved I have been at the overwhelming support I have received from newspapers throughout the country in these past few days. I hold no illusions that all of these journalists agree with me on my views against the war. While the journalists' outrage at the cancellation of our appearance in Cooperstown is not about my views, it is about my right to express these views. I am extremely grateful that there are those of you out there still with a fierce belief in constitutionally guaranteed rights. We need you, the press, now more than ever. This is a crucial moment for all of us.

For all of the ugliness and tragedy of 9-11, there was a brief period afterward where I held a great hope, in the midst of the tears and shocked faces of New Yorkers, in the midst of the lethal air we breathed as we worked at Ground Zero, in the midst of my children's terror at being so close to this crime against humanity, in the midst of all this, I held on to a glimmer of hope in the naive assumption that something good could come out of it.

I imagined our leaders seizing upon this moment of unity in America, this moment when no one wanted to talk about Democrat versus Republican, white versus black, or any of the other ridiculous divisions that dominate our public discourse. I imagined our leaders going on television telling the citizens that although we all want to be at Ground Zero, we can't, but there is work that is needed to be done all over America. Our help is needed at community centers to tutor children, to teach them to read. Our work is needed at old-age homes to visit the lonely and infirmed; in gutted neighborhoods to rebuild housing and clean up parks, and convert abandoned lots to baseball fields. I imagined leadership that would take this incredible energy, this generosity of spirit and create a new unity in America born out of the chaos and tragedy of 9/11, a new unity that would send a message to terrorists everywhere: If you attack us, we will become stronger, cleaner, better educated, and more unified. You will strengthen our commitment to justice and democracy by your inhumane attacks on us. Like a Phoenix out of the fire, we will be reborn.

And then came the speech: You are either with us or against us. And the bombing began. And the old paradigm was restored as our leader encouraged us to show our patriotism by shopping and by volunteering to join groups that would turn in their neighbor for any suspicious behavior.

In the 19 months since 9-11, we have seen our democracy compromised by fear and hatred. Basic inalienable rights, due process, the sanctity of the home have been quickly compromised in a climate of fear. A unified American public has grown bitterly divided, and a world population that had profound sympathy and support for us has grown contemptuous and distrustful, viewing us as we once viewed the Soviet Union, as a rogue state.

This past weekend, Susan and I and the three kids went to Florida for a family reunion of sorts. Amidst the alcohol and the dancing, sugar-rushing children, there was, of course, talk of the war. And the most frightening thing about the weekend was the amount of times we were thanked for speaking out against the war because that individual speaking thought it unsafe to do so in their own community, in their own life. Keep talking, they said; I haven't been able to open my mouth.

A relative tells me that a history teacher tells his 11-year-old son, my nephew, that Susan Sarandon is endangering the troops by her opposition to the war. Another teacher in a different school asks our niece if we are coming to the school play. They're not welcome here, said the molder of young minds.

Another relative tells me of a school board decision to cancel a civics event that was proposing to have a moment of silence for those who have died in the war because the students were including dead Iraqi civilians in their silent prayer.

A teacher in another nephew's school is fired for wearing a T- shirt with a peace sign on it. And a friend of the family tells of listening to the radio down South as the talk radio host calls for the murder of a prominent anti-war activist. Death threats have appeared on other prominent anti-war activists' doorsteps for their views. Relatives of ours have received threatening e-mails and phone calls. And my 13-year-old boy, who has done nothing to anybody, has recently been embarrassed and humiliated by a sadistic creep who writes -- or, rather, scratches his column with his fingernails in dirt.

Susan and I have been listed as traitors, as supporters of Saddam, and various other epithets by the Aussie gossip rags masquerading as newspapers, and by their fair and balanced electronic media cousins, 19th Century Fox. (Laughter.) Apologies to Gore Vidal. (Applause.)

Two weeks ago, the United Way canceled Susan's appearance at a conference on women's leadership. And both of us last week were told that both we and the First Amendment were not welcome at the Baseball Hall of Fame.

A famous middle-aged rock-and-roller called me last week to thank me for speaking out against the war, only to go on to tell me that he could not speak himself because he fears repercussions from Clear Channel. "They promote our concert appearances," he said. "They own most of the stations that play our music. I can't come out against this war."

And here in Washington, Helen Thomas finds herself banished to the back of the room and uncalled on after asking Ari Fleischer whether our showing prisoners of war at Guantanamo Bay on television violated the Geneva Convention.

A chill wind is blowing in this nation. A message is being sent through the White House and its allies in talk radio and Clear Channel and Cooperstown. If you oppose this administration, there can and will be ramifications.

Every day, the air waves are filled with warnings, veiled and unveiled threats, spewed invective and hatred directed at any voice of dissent. And the public, like so many relatives and friends that I saw this weekend, sit in mute opposition and fear.

I am sick of hearing about Hollywood being against this war. Hollywood's heavy hitters, the real power brokers and cover-of-the- magazine stars, have been largely silent on this issue. But Hollywood, the concept, has always been a popular target.

I remember when the Columbine High School shootings happened. President Clinton criticized Hollywood for contributing to this terrible tragedy -- this, as we were dropping bombs over Kosovo. Could the violent actions of our leaders contribute somewhat to the violent fantasies of our teenagers? Or is it all just Hollywood and rock and roll?

I remember reading at the time that one of the shooters had tried to enlist to fight the real war a week before he acted out his war in real life at Columbine. I talked about this in the press at the time. And curiously, no one accused me of being unpatriotic for criticizing Clinton. In fact, the same radio patriots that call us traitors today engaged in daily personal attacks on their president during the war in Kosovo.

Today, prominent politicians who have decried violence in movies -- the "Blame Hollywooders," if you will -- recently voted to give our current president the power to unleash real violence in our current war. They want us to stop the fictional violence but are okay with the real kind.

And these same people that tolerate the real violence of war don't want to see the result of it on the nightly news. Unlike the rest of the world, our news coverage of this war remains sanitized, without a glimpse of the blood and gore inflicted upon our soldiers or the women and children in Iraq. Violence as a concept, an abstraction -- it's very strange.

As we applaud the hard-edged realism of the opening battle scene of "Saving Private Ryan," we cringe at the thought of seeing the same on the nightly news. We are told it would be pornographic. We want no part of reality in real life. We demand that war be painstakingly realized on the screen, but that war remain imagined and conceptualized in real life.

And in the midst of all this madness, where is the political opposition? Where have all the Democrats gone? Long time passing, long time ago. (Applause.) With apologies to Robert Byrd, I have to say it is pretty embarrassing to live in a country where a five-foot- one comedian has more guts than most politicians. (Applause.) We need leaders, not pragmatists that cower before the spin zones of former entertainment journalists. We need leaders who can understand the Constitution, congressman who don't in a moment of fear abdicate their most important power, the right to declare war to the executive branch. And, please, can we please stop the congressional sing-a- longs? (Laughter.)

In this time when a citizenry applauds the liberation of a country as it lives in fear of its own freedom, when an administration official releases an attack ad questioning the patriotism of a legless Vietnam veteran running for Congress, when people all over the country fear reprisal if they use their right to free speech, it is time to get angry. It is time to get fierce. And it doesn't take much to shift the tide. My 11-year-old nephew, mentioned earlier, a shy kid who never talks in class, stood up to his history teacher who was questioning Susan's patriotism. "That's my aunt you're talking about. Stop it." And the stunned teacher backtracks and began stammering compliments in embarrassment.

Sportswriters across the country reacted with such overwhelming fury at the Hall of Fame that the president of the Hall admitted he made a mistake and Major League Baseball disavowed any connection to the actions of the Hall's president. A bully can be stopped, and so can a mob. It takes one person with the courage and a resolute voice.

The journalists in this country can battle back at those who would rewrite our Constitution in Patriot Act II, or "Patriot, The Sequel," as we would call it in Hollywood. We are counting on you to star in that movie. Journalists can insist that they not be used as publicists by this administration. (Applause.) The next White House correspondent to be called on by Ari Fleischer should defer their question to the back of the room, to the banished journalist du jour. (Applause.) And any instance of intimidation to free speech should be battled against. Any acquiescence or intimidation at this point will only lead to more intimidation. You have, whether you like it or not, an awesome responsibility and an awesome power: the fate of discourse, the health of this republic is in your hands, whether you write on the left or the right. This is your time, and the destiny you have chosen.

We lay the continuance of our democracy on your desks, and count on your pens to be mightier. Millions are watching and waiting in mute frustration and hope - hoping for someone to defend the spirit and letter of our Constitution, and to defy the intimidation that is visited upon us daily in the name of national security and warped notions of patriotism.

Our ability to disagree, and our inherent right to question our leaders and criticize their actions define who we are. To allow those rights to be taken away out of fear, to punish people for their beliefs, to limit access in the news media to differing opinions is to acknowledge our democracy's defeat. These are challenging times. There is a wave of hate that seeks to divide us -- right and left, pro-war and anti-war. In the name of my 11-year-old nephew, and all the other unreported victims of this hostile and unproductive environment of fear, let us try to find our common ground as a nation. Let us celebrate this grand and glorious experiment that has survived for 227 years. To do so we must honor and fight vigilantly for the things that unite us -- like freedom, the First Amendment and, yes, baseball. (Applause.)

Indeed.

2003-04-16T12:06:00.000-04:00

American Soldiers Fire on Political Rally

Yes, that's the headline. And 10 Iraqi civilians were killed and perhaps a hundred wounded. If the article is accurate, we're no better than Saddam.

2003-04-14T23:19:00.000-04:00

The Fix Was In?

What happened in Baghdad on April 9? Why weren't even the most basic defensive measures taken against U.S. Forces (such as blowing the bridges around Baghdad?). Where is Saddam? Where is Qusay? Where is the entire frikkin Baath leadership? Why were many of the Baghdad military and Baath party headquarters found empty and abandoned? Does anybody really care where Saddam is? Is anybody looking for him?

I don't know the answers to these questions. But this interesting Salon article has a theory:

Arabic media are speculating that a "safqua" -- Arabic for a secret deal -- was arranged between the United States and Iraq's Baath regime to hand over Baghdad. Although nobody can pinpoint the exact terms, there are three clear outcomes. First, the lives of many American and British forces as well as most senior Baath officials were spared. Second, Baghdad itself did not turn into the blood bath widely anticipated by military experts. Third, the war was shortened dramatically, saving the region -- especially Saudi Arabia -- from catastrophic consequences.

. . . .

While Arabs all over the Middle East now routinely talk of the deal that saved Baghdad, they also speculate that the same deal may have saved Saddam. Unlike the hunt for Osama bin Laden in Afghanistan, which preoccupied U.S. forces for months, the hunt for the dictator no longer appears to be the top priority for U.S. forces in the wake of Baghdad's fall.

Where could Saddam be if he is still alive? Some Arab media experts speculate he may have sought refuge in Mecca, the most sacred Islamic place in the world. No non-Muslims ever lived in and very few have even set foot in this holiest of Muslim cities.

If it turns out that Saddam is indeed in Mecca, it would be one further clue that the architect of the "safqua" or deal between the Baath and the United States was Saudi Crown Prince Abdullah -- a trusted intermediary of the Bush family and the only Arab leader invited to President Bush's Crawford ranch.

For the Saudis, as well as for many other Arab leaders, the deal offers the one hope of sparing the Middle East the consequences of a bloody and prolonged war of resistance in Iraq. For the Americans, the deal offers a chance of stabilizing postwar Iraq and its neighbors, leaving the door open for what Bush calls the road map to peace between Israelis and Palestinians.

Whether this fanciful theory is true or not, there certainly was, at some point last week, a command decision at the highest level to abandon ship. SKB observes:

Something troubling me is where is the Iraqi army? It is estimated they have over three million men of military age fit for duty. Recent estimates by Jane's put their regular army and Republican Guard troop strength at approx. 400,000. In addition, it has been estimated that they had 650,000 reserves and up to 60,000 paramilitary.

According to some estimates, we've killed about 4000 of them (not counting civilians) and taken about 7500 prisoner. Where are the other 388,500 ?

Have they all really just thrown down their weapons and faded back into the population? (My guess is that some of them are probably the looters, by the way). That's a scary thought. Can we really say they are defeated if they're just hiding? Remember Lexington and Concord?

And how is it we were so certain they wouldn't fight? I realize there were some hellish battles and that our guys are pretty good and we've got some pretty awesome firepower and technology. Not to mention control of the skies. And thankfully our casualites have been very light.

But an entire Republican Guard division (the Baghdad Division) destroyed without a single U.S. casualty? Not one Iraqi fighter in the sky? The Iraqi Army 5th Corps surrendering to the Kurds (according to their commander, the troops themselves seem to have vanished). No WMD deployed? And it seems like most of the resistance in the cities has been from paramilitary and imported terrorists, not regular army or Republican Guards.

What we have here is a riddle wrapped in an enigma in the middle of a question mark. I want to know the answers, and not just out of idle curiosity. I want to know the answers because, before we start another war, I'd kind of like to know how we won the last one.

Postscript: If anyone knows the answers to the questions asked in this post, this guy undoubtedly does.

2003-04-14T21:53:00.000-04:00

Summary Judgment

After 100 days as majority leader, it appears that Bill Frist is an abject failure!

2003-04-14T21:17:00.000-04:00

Blogdiction

Who do you think is right about the Agonist, Hesiod or Yourish?

If you even have an inkling about what I'm talking about, you might be spending too much time reading blogs.

2003-04-14T21:09:00.000-04:00

Corruption Watch

This is not from the Onion:

A state Senate committee accepted a $78,300 check from a special-interest group today and then approved a public school voucher program the group supports, saying the money was welcome given the state's financial crisis.

"If everyone would show up with a check, that would make this job so much easier," said state Sen. Ron Teck, a Republican from Grand Junction.

Lawmakers said they knew of no precedent for getting cash for a project, though they have approved legislation that allows programs only if they were financed through gifts and donations. Lawmakers said they would return the check if the bill is killed.

The headline is actually a little unfair, since none of the legislators will personally benefit from the check. However, in light of the prospect that this type of behavior will unfairly favor the rich over the poor in the legislative process, somebody should really see that this is stopped.

Of course, compared to the usual model of public corruption, where laws favoring special interests are passed in exchange for the financing of re-election campaigns, this is nothing. At least here the public treasury is enriched, as opposed to a re-election bank account.

2003-04-13T17:05:00.000-04:00

Andrew Sullivan is a Bitter, Hypocritical [fill in the blank]

Andrew Sullivan is approvingly quoting the New York Times again.

Wait Andrew, I thought the New York Times was dominated by a control-freak lefty who stamped his world-view on the entire newspaper, turning it into a left-wing rag?

Admit it Sullivan -- the New York Times is the premier news-gathering organ on the Planet! Although it's editorial page more frequently sides with the Democrats on issues than the Republicans, the news pages are unparalleled in their depth, breadth, and perspective on national and international events. Why don't you just admit that you're biased against the New York Times because (as you admit), it fired you!

2003-04-13T13:16:00.000-04:00

Opportunity in North Korea

Kim Jong Il seems to have opened the door to resolving the nuclear standoff in North Korea:

Today, the Korean Central News Agency quoted a Foreign Ministry spokesman as saying that if the United States was "ready to make a bold switchover in its Korea policy for a settlement of the nuclear issue," then North Korea would "not stick to any particular dialogue format."

To analysts of political discourse in the isolated nation, the report indicated that North Korea was moving away from insisting on one-on-one talks with the United States.

"North Korea seems to be saying they are ready to try a multilateral format," said Scott Snyder, author of "Negotiating on the Edge," about North Korean negotiating tactics. "The problem is that, given the mood of the moment, can the Bush administration take yes for an answer?"

So the key question: will the Bush administration grab this opportunity to negotiate with North Korea and make the most dangerous part of the world just a little bit safer? Or, are they so empowered by their military victory in Iraq that they'll refuse to give any ground on any issue and consequently precipitate a nuclear crisis?

As usual, I hope for the best and fear the worst.

2003-04-12T00:28:00.000-04:00

The New Cold Peace

Now that Bush junior has thumbed his nose at the United Nations, the “new world order” that Bush the elder was so eager to implement lies in ruins. Instead the future of geopolitics will probably feature a face-off between the United States on the one hand, and Russia, France and Germany on the other, each forming a power block to offset each others’ geopolitical interests. In terms of allies for the United States in this future “Cold Peace,” there are few. Britain will have trouble aligning with us as long as its public opinion remains so firmly anti-American. Japan has a strong interest in remaining with us, but also wants to stay on Russia’s good side, and wants good economic relations with the European Union.

In terms of competition between the two factions, France and Germany, the pillars of the European Union, loosely represent an economic market that, in the long run, could exceed that of the United States. Russia’s military and intelligence prowess is not to be messed with either, despite its faltering economy.

Ultimately, France, Germany and Russia may band together because, apart, they simply don’t have the clout to challenge the United States’ unilateral assertion of its own interests. Moreover, they’re probably sensing that the United States is not really in the mood to account for the interests of those who opposed them on Iraq. Together, however, the three could compete with us on a number of global economic and security issues in a manner that is unhealthy for our national interest.

On the other hand, a new cooperative government, such as one led by John Kerry or John Edwards, for instance, could persuade France, Germany and Russia that, as free-market democracies, our interests are all ultimately aligned and we’re better off working together than against each other. If elected, John Kerry (or any of the other Dems) could thus prevent this Cold Peace that Bush has created from lasting as long as the Cold War.

2003-04-11T11:45:00.000-04:00

Remember Anthrax?

According to today's Baltimore Sun, it appears that government investigators have finally succeeded in reverse-engineering the anthrax sent to Senators Daschle and Leahy in October 2001 and, surprise, have concluded it was most likely manufactured domestically in a make-shift lab:

Army scientists have reproduced the anthrax powder used in the 2001 mail attacks and concluded that it was made using simple methods, inexpensive equipment and limited expertise, according to government sources familiar with the work.

The findings reinforce the theory that has guided the FBI's 18-month-old investigation - that the mailed anthrax was probably produced by renegade scientists and not a military program such as Iraq's.

"It tends to support the idea that the anthrax came from a domestic source and probably not a state program," said David Siegrist, a bioterrorism expert at the Potomac Institute for Policy Studies. "It shows you can have a fairly sophisticated product with fairly rudimentary methods."

The most interesting part of the article, however, is this statement from New Jersey Congressman Russ J. Holt:

"Although I have been critical in the past of the conduct of the FBI's investigation, I am pleased to report today that the investigation seems to be making progress," Holt said. "The FBI has narrowed its search. That's about all I am permitted to say at this point."

It's hard to know exactly what this means, but perhaps the Anthrax investigation will be making some real news sometime soon.

2003-04-10T01:36:00.000-04:00

Arming the Imperium?

If the war's over, why are we moving several 21,000 pound MOAB bombs into the Gulf region?

MOAB stands for Massive Ordnance Air Blast, but it is known informally as the "mother of all bombs."

Developed by the Air Force Research Laboratory at Eglin Air Force Base in Florida, where it was tested last month, the bomb is a larger version of the 15,000-pound "daisy cutter."

The "daisy cutter" was used in Vietnam to clear jungle for helicopter landing pads, in the 1991 Gulf War to clear minefields and in Afghanistan to clear caves and strike fear into al-Qaeda and Taliban fighters.

I don't think we really need the "Mother of all Bombs" to take out scattered pockets of Iraqi resistance. Perhaps the Coalition believes the final battle for Tikrit is going to be far tougher then expected. Or, perhaps, this is a not so subtle signal to Iran and Syria that they could be next.

2003-04-09T00:31:00.000-04:00

Operation Iraqi Feel Good Phrase to Hide our True Imperialist Purposes

It's all well and good to be pleased, as Matthew Yglesias is, that, as by-product of our invasion of Iraq, the human rights condition of the Iraqi people may improve. That certainly might happen, and that would be a good thing.

However, the health of the Iraqi people is not the reason for the invasion, and, since that's not the reason, if our goals are otherwise met and human rights in Iraq do not improve, there's every reason to think that Bush and his pals will simply let things be.

How could this scenario come to pass? Oh. . . let's say a brutal tyrant grabs the reins of Iraq. And let's say that tyrant is someone in the vein of the tyrant currently in charge of Uzbekistan. Let's therefore posit that Iraq is taken over by someone who crushes all dissent, whether it be Shia or Kurd or Islamist, but who nevertheless manages to pay absolute fealty to his American benefactors. Let's also say that this cruel repressive tyrant gives the Americans all the best oil contracts, allows the Americans to spy on Iran and Syria, and allows the CIA and DoD to operate unfettered in the region.

Do you think we'd hear word one from the Bushies about the rights of the Iraqi people then? Do you think the Bush cheerleaders at Fox News would still care about IRAQI FREEDOM.

NFW!!!!!!!!!

This operation is about furthering American interests in the region. My view is that, in this regard, the mission is a mistake, because the backlash from rank and file Arabs over having one of their countries occupied will far outweigh any benefit we might be able grab in an uncertain future in Iraq.

But that's neither here nor there. The point of this post is to stop everybody from congratulating themselves over what a wonderful unselfish thing we're doing for the people of Iraq by giving them their "freedom," when, in reality, that freedom is merely a Madison Avenue gimmick which will be thrown in the garbage along with the Iraqi people as soon as it's convenient to do so.

2003-04-08T21:19:00.000-04:00

It Depends on What the Meaning of "At Will" Is . . .

According to Central Command, coalition forces can move through Baghdad "at will."

If that's the case, why didn't coalition forces immediately surround the building hit by yesterday's "leadership strike" on Saddam, after the B-1 dropped its Bunker Buster bombs, to mop up the operation and make sure Saddam didn't escape on foot?

In fact, coalition forces STILL do not appear to have secured the bomb site.

A good rule for following the war news -- watch what the troops do, not what they say. Although Fox News has already declared victory, my guess is the troops on the ground may beg to differ. . .

2003-04-08T14:13:00.000-04:00

New Bin Ladin Audio Tape

Osama's back, and he's echoing the superhawks.

"The United States has attacked Iraq and soon he will also attack Iran, Saudi Arabia, Egypt and Sudan," the speaker adds, in a suggestion that the recording was made in recent weeks.

Bin Laden must attend Defense Policy Board meetings, or maybe he just listens to James Woolsey.

2003-04-07T16:18:00.000-04:00

Kerry Still Standing

This is good news. John Kerry continues to attack Bush and attack his disastrous foreign policy, despite the fact that we are "at war." Bush's political strategy is to cow his opponents into refraining from any criticism of him whatsoever, by attacking them (through surrogates mostly) as unpatriotic for doing so during a time of war. If Rumsfeld's recent pronouncements carry any meaning, Bush may try to extend this strategy all the way through the 2004 election, by starting new wars with Iran and Syria. We have to show him now that that strategy will fail. You see, that's the only language these bullies understand -- brute force. Luckily, John Kerry seems to understand this:

U.S. Sen. John Kerry continued his vociferous criticism of the Bush administration's wartime foreign policy yesterday as he began a campaign swing through Iowa.

Speaking to a group of Democratic activists at a reception in a private home here, the presidential hopeful charged the administration with being ``irresponsible to the nth'' degree in allowing the situation in North Korea to ``fester.''

Kerry argued that the White House should restart a dialogue with the country, even as it fights the war with Iraq.

``There are a lot of people in Washington and elsewhere who believe that one of the reasons the administration won't do that is that you need a boogeyman over there in order to be able to build a missile defense,'' he said.

. . .

Kerry came under fire last week for saying that the United States, like Iraq, needs ``regime change,'' comments Republican critics used to try to cast Kerry as unpatriotic.

During the first day of a swing through the key caucus state, Kerry said the GOP ``picked the wrong guy to push around.''

Kerry suggested that former U.S. Sen. Max Cleland (D-Ga.) and former presidential hopeful Michael Dukakis would have fared better if they had fought back against Republican criticism of their patriotism.

``If I'm prepared to fight back, and I am . . . then let them come at me,'' Kerry said.

If Kerry sticks to his guns, he may very well have my vote in the Democratic primary.

2003-04-05T17:34:00.000-05:00

Fair and Balanced Throughout History

Fark.com reviews some screenshots of old Fox News footage

2003-04-05T16:51:00.000-05:00

Iraqi Civilian Body Count

Somewhere between 859 and 1032

2003-04-04T16:35:00.000-05:00

One Track Mind

The British Ambassador to the United States is saying that Bush wanted to attack Iraq immediately after 9/11, and had to be dissuaded from doing so by Tony Blair:

US President George Bush was persuaded by UK Prime Minister Tony Blair not to attack Iraq in the immediate aftermath of the 11 September terrorist attacks, it has been claimed.

According to a former British ambassador to Washington, the US president had come under intense pressure from some in his own military to attack Saddam Hussein in the days after the 2001 terrorist outrages in the US.

But, said Sir Christopher Meyer, when Mr Blair met the US president at his Camp David retreat a few days later he succesfully argued for al-Qaeda and the Taleban regime in Afghanistan to be confronted first.

"Tony Blair's view was: 'Whatever you're going to do about Iraq, you should concentrate on the job at hand and the job at hand was get al-Qaeda, give the Taleban an ultimatum'," Sir Christopher said.

The former ambassador was speaking on a documentary that will be screened on the PBS network in America on Thursday.

Called Blair's War, it looks at the prime minister's attempts to try and maintain an alliance against Saddam Hussein.

. . . .

He said that after listening to Mr Blair's argument, Mr Bush decided to "leave Iraq for another day".

Now, eighteen months later, we're at war with Iraq, and there is still absolutely, positively no evidence whatsoever connecting Iraq to the 9/11 attacks.

2003-04-03T16:59:00.000-05:00

Iran's Next

Apparently, Iran will send its militants into five Iraqi cities in order to fight U.S. forces after the fall of Saddam. Sounds like a "tripwire" for war to me. If these militants start harassing our troops, next thing you know, they'll end up killing a few. Then Rumsfeld will bomb Iran to "send a message." Following the bombing, Iran will step up its harrassment of U.S. troop, perhaps even sending in suicide bombers.

And, presto, war with Iran is next.

Unless, of course, we attack Syria first.

Looks like we should prepare our Imperial Army. We're going to need it!

2003-04-02T18:39:00.000-05:00

Witness Relocation

Al Jazeera just announced that Iraq was expelling one of its reporters and that another would no longer be permitted to file reports from Baghdad. More importantly, its live broadcasts are being suspended.

It looks like Iraq is eliminating the potential witnesses for the coming battle for Baghdad. This action indicates that, in the battle, Iraq will:

1. Use chemical weapons and deny it;

2. Kill civilians and blame coalition forces; and

3. Destroy cultural and religious monuments and blame coalition forces.

The expulsion of Al Jazeera journalists is one of the scariest things I've seen Iraq do yet. Without live footage, the only evidence for these war crimes will be the word of the American soldiers, who are not likely to be believed by the "Arab Street." Things in Baghdad could be getting very ugly, very fast.

2003-04-02T01:19:00.000-05:00

Heat Wave

On Sunday, the temperature in Baghdad could reach 104 degrees.

This heat wave could be bad news for our troops in the event of a chemical attack:

Simply put, if Americans have to fight in chemical suits in desert heat, enemy fire will not be their only worry: The Persian Gulf region becomes a furnace by early spring.

"The end of March or the first of April is when it really turns hot," said retired Army Lt. Col. Tim Eads, a Gulf War veteran who spent most of his military career in Army Rangers and Special Operations. He now works in the Washington, D.C., area."You'd like it (a war) to be over by then," Eads said. "The Army will tell you they can operate in hot weather wearing protective suits, but it slows the pace down. They (soldiers) wear out real quick."

. . . .

U.S. military planners calculate that wearing a [chemical] protective suit is like adding 10 degrees to the outside temperature and worry that extended operations in such suits could cause heat casualties once temperatures reach the 90-degree range. At the least, hot weather would significantly slow things down.

"The weather can be what we call a force multiplier," said Air Force Tech. Sgt. Wes Robinson, a meteorologist stationed at Charleston Air Force Base.

"Force multiplier" is military jargon for any unusual circumstance that military commanders must deal with when ordering troops into combat. In Kuwait, where Robinson spent the month of August, 2001, he said, "A typical high temperature was 120 to 125 degrees.

"The typical low was around 90. Sand storms also hit the area. And while the weather only occasionally interfered with operations, our people weren't wearing (protective) suits."

The protective suits are heavy head-to-toe overgarments that soldiers must wear whenever they suspect an enemy may attack them with chemical weapons. They cover the entire body.

In cold temperatures, the suits are almost welcome. In hot weather, they can be unbearable.

. . . .

Eads, now a lobbyist for a Fortune 500 company in Washington, emphasized how important the weather, especially the temperature, will be.

"The risk rises with the heat, and risks mean casualties," he said. "If you're at war there in mid-April, you really need to think about what you're going to be doing."

Let's hope for the best; but also, let's hope that we're adequately prepared for the worst.

2003-04-01T22:35:00.000-05:00

Could someone tell the Cogent Provacateur that we're all waiting for his analysis of GWII.

2003-03-31T00:50:00.000-05:00

The Big Mistake

All this endless chatter about the war effort and whether we gave the troops enough food rations or whether the “logistical tail” has enough air support or whether Donald Rumsfeld misapprehended the strength of Saddam Fedayeen is really beside the point. You see we’re not really being threatened in Iraq. Nothing that particularly dangerous or troubling to the United States’ interests is happening within Iraq proper at the moment.

The real danger is in Morocco, where 150,000 protestors want to suicide bomb American targets. The real danger is in Egypt, where thousands of Egyptian University students are burning American flags. The real danger is in Iran, where newly-energized protestors are chanting “death to America,” over and over and over again. The real danger is in Pakistan, where the Islamic radicals are knocking on Musharref’s door.

We were hated before this war, of course. Al Qaeda proved that. But as terrible as Al Qaeda is, it is the fringe of Islamist extremism. We could have limited its danger, or even, in the long run, eliminated it through targeted actions against the extremists, while simultaneously making grand gestures of tolerance towards, and discussing peaceful engagement with the more than one billion Muslims who inhabit this Earth. Those actions would have stopped the killers, while persuading the masses in Indonesia, Saudi Arabia, and Pakistan that the path of the killers is unjustified.

Instead, we chose to unleash hell. Driven by our paranoia, we attacked a Muslim country, one with a history of being attacked by the West, a history that has fed the Islamist movement and philosophy. In doing this deed, we have strengthened the radicals in their fight for the hearts and minds of the skeptical and undecided millions. While we thought we had justifications for the war -- perhaps there were weapons of mass destruction (mustard gas!) which might be “slipped” to terrorists – we didn’t really know how realistic these dangers were. Although we knew some of these weapons were probably there, we didn’t really know how likely it would be that those weapons would be slipped to the Islamists. All we had was the possibility that they would be, and the paranoia of the American people. This paranoia, however, was stoked and abused by the people in power, with their sly references to “secret” information which only they knew and which they assured us proved the danger, and by their media lapdogs who peddle fear as a business, and who were all too willing to turn the speculative danger of Iraq into a false impression of a clear and present spear pointed at America’s forehead. And thus, war.

But what we should have known, and what we likely did know but yet ignored, is the long terms effects this war would have in turning a problem of a small band of extremist terrorists into a mighty struggle of civilizations equipped with the weapons of Armageddon. The decision by the Bush administration to unleash hell, to start a thoroughly unnecessary war in the one part of the world where the potential for consequential violent actions, for blowback, for radicalization of the population at large, for one Al Qaeda to become 10 or twenty such extreme radical Islamists groups, is nothing short of suicidal.

We need the restoration of sanity. But we also need to save face. If anyone knows how to do that, please let me know!

2003-03-30T21:35:00.000-05:00

General Eric Shinseki for President (or maybe Senator)!

Why? General Shinseki predicted that we would need hundreds of thousands of troops to occupy Iraq, and, for his efforts, was publicly upbraided by Rumsfeld and called a Clintonite (a huge insult in the Bush administration) behind his back. He was also taken out of the loop on war-making plans.

Now, it looks like General Shinseki's predictions will be vindicated, and like Rumsfeld's plans for a much smaller invasion force could be a catastrophe.

General Shinseki suffered a severe wound to his career in the war between the generals and the political hacks. For that, he deserves a Purple Heart. More importantly, he deserves a shot at the Presidency (or at least at one of Hawaii's Senate seats!)