Hullabaloo

Saturday, March 22, 2003

 
Uh Oh.

He's into the Viagra and Makers Mark again. How much do you want to bet he's been listening to that CD of the Mormon Tabernacle Choir singing "Battle Hymn of the Republic," too. The fog of war (and bourbon) is making even him believe that 9/11 and Iraq are connected.

And the French should be embarrassed?

Update: Maybe this is what he's been swilling.







digby 3/22/2003 10:44:00 PM |

 
Practical Politics

Mary at the Watch posts some useful advice on how to deal with bullies. Considering that liberals like to deal in actual information it would seem obvious that we consult the experts. What they say is very interesting.

[...]

So what do we do? Orincus advocates shining a light on those that use intimidation to advocate violence. Some others say that if you keep your head down and don't disturb your neighbors, then you shouldn't have to worry about bullying. Others advocate noisily rallying against bullies. So what really does work?

One of the world's experts on bullying in schools can help as we try to find a way to counter the bullies in the White House. Dr. Ken Rigby has been studying bullying for a long time and has come up with a thesis that says the success of stopping bullying is based on the level of commitment that teachers (or adults) bring to that goal. He recommends that people who are serious about trying to counteract bullying begin by understanding how to get a commitment on what approach the group thinks will work. He says a concerted approach is more effective than a more ad-hoc, everyone do their own way approach. And he provides a worksheet that can be used by schools to help decide on tactics to confront bullies. I suggest we study the techniques and find ones that we think will work.

[...]

It would be very interesting to hear what people think is the right way to deal with it.







digby 3/22/2003 09:54:00 PM |

 
Secession

Thank you Kevin. Sometimes I think Americans are under the impression that California is a region of France or something.




digby 3/22/2003 08:23:00 PM |

 
Bad signs

From Tacitus

ABC News just aired a very troubling report from John Donvan, who was able to travel unescorted today in Safwan and other areas already overrun by Allied forces. He reports general hostility and suspicion among the locals (apparently they wanted to know if the Israelis were coming to take over), demands for immediate aid, and, disturbingly, active Iraqi irregulars still mounting attacks along the Kuwaiti border. (One wonders whether they had anything to do with today's attack on Camp Pennsylvania.)

Going on Donvan's anecdotal evidence, it seems that the local hostility stemmed mostly from a fear that self-government would be denied, and that aid would not be forthcoming. Three countermeasures immediately spring to mind:


Whatever reorganization of the civil administration is planned needs to follow as soon as possible behind the advancing Allied armies. If it does not include a strong component of local self-rule, it should. Whatever administration (and American administrator) is set up on high in Baghdad, the people of Safwan and every other hamlet in Iraq ought to feel in reason control of their own governance.


Civil affairs and psyops units have to do a much better job if Shi'as (who ought to welcome us) in Safwan think we're the leading edge of an Israeli occupation. Granted, they're probably concentrating on coaxing surrenders from conscript units on the front, but this is a task that cannot be ignored.


CA and psyops won't be able to do much of a job, though, unless aid -- lots of aid -- is delivered ASAP. Why we didn't have container ships loaded with pharmaceuticals ready to offload at Umm Qasr as soon as we took it, I'll never know. The Iraqis probably aren't starving, but they have lacked for decent medical care for over a decade. American aid personnel curing childhood ailments, conducting vaccinations, and rendering assistance to those wounded in the crossfire would go a long way toward establishing goodwill.

All in all, a rather discouraging development. This isn't going to be over this time next week. Not by a long shot.

UPDATE: This NYT piece has a surrendering Iraqi colonel who hates Hussein because -- get this -- he's almost certainly a secret American agent.

Building a civil society here is going to take a while.

All I can say is good luck. The Bush administration doesn't do nice and it doesn't do smart. It does bully. Look what they do to their fellow Republicans if they don't get with the program. Does anyone think they are going to futz around with a bunch of villagers?

All of you irrelevant anti-war protesters out there get out your pens and papers right now and writea firm but polite note to your congressman telling him that you want him to make Bush stop cutting taxes for his rich friends and spend some time getting the world stop hating us. Insist that he demand that George W. Bush allow us to be in on the planning for post war Iraq so that it can be done right. Stomp your little feet and threaten to hold your breath and turn blue if he refuses to do it.

Oh, and be sure and tell him you are a Republican. Democrats are best seen and not heard.



slightly edited for clarity.





digby 3/22/2003 05:12:00 PM |

 


Minneapolis, Minn


So, where did the signs come from?



digby 3/22/2003 04:42:00 PM |

 



What will we tell the children?




digby 3/22/2003 04:30:00 PM |

 
Doing Iraq Right

I am reading more earnest advice about how the war protestors should stop their bellyaching and get to work holding the Bush administration’s feet to the fire on its promises to build a democratic paradise in Iraq.

First, this assumes that war protestors even think it’s possible for such a thing to happen under current circumstances. I, for one, don’t think the analogies to post WWII Japan and Germany have ever made any sense. Aside from all the obvious arguments about the different cultural environments, the most salient issue is that the people of Germany and Japan were completely conquered, with no hope of any future allies and living in world that was totally in ruins. Both countries had been engaged in full out, nonstop war for many years.

Despite the public relations value of the term “shock and awe,” even if the United States completely levels Iraq in the next week, it will not have the same effect. Throughout the Middle East are excited and outraged young Muslims animated by the idea of fighting the foreign “occupiers.” Does anyone seriously believe that the al-Jazeera pictures of massive bombardment and American ground invasion are not being seen in the exact same context as Israeli troops in Gaza? And the pictures in the coming days, of American troops rolling through cities– even if many of them are being greeted with smiles – are far more likely to evoke the more recent images of Lebanon rather than scenes of European liberation in WWII. (This should have been one very good reason to have engaged in the Israeli Palestinian crisis before last Friday.)

By invading Iraq, virtually alone and with the disapprobation of the vast majority of the world, we have emboldened these jihadists to step up the fight. It should not be forgotten that al-Qaeda believe they were responsible in large part for destroying the Soviet Union.

From an interview with Dr. Ayman aL Zawaahri:

Here in Afghanistan, the course of history changed, when the Soviet Union, the largest land-based military force in the world, was dashed to pieces on the boulders of the Afghan Jihad. The Afghan nomads, villagers and their young comrades from the Arab and Islamic world, who destroyed the empire of the Soviet tyrant, were, Praise be to Allah, not affected by these opinions. For if they had, then the Soviet forces would today be in the Arabian Peninsula. The defeated Soviet Union fled from Afghanistan, turning their back only to face their own political break-up and intellectual collapse.

Clearly, they have a deluded view of their own potency and this operation, even if militarily successful, is unlikely to change it because of the fact that most of the world remained opposed, particularly the populations of the Arab world. He undoubtedly believes that he is isolating us, and in some ways he is right.

Unless one indulges in wishful thinking and believes that a miraculous democratic domino effect is likely, “doing Iraq right” is simply not possible as a unilateral American endeavor because no matter how many seeds of democracy are planted in Iraq, there is a much stronger and growing backlash against unchecked American power. “Doing Iraq right” really means that we must reverse the course of this administration’s foreign policy and it has to be done very, very quickly and unambiguously.

Under these circumstances, not to mention the obvious political realities in Washington, I simply don’t see how working the system can possibly accomplish much in the short term. The Democratic leadership, particularly the presidential candidates, threw away their ability to have any real effect when, in spite of receiving an unprecedented number of letters and phone calls from constituents begging them to vote no, they opted to give George W. Bush a blank check. (They may be in the process of doing the same with their capitulation on yet more tax cuts, ridiculously pretending that enacting 350 rather than 750 billion more is really a big win for our side.) Since the Democratic Party is too impotent to institutionally challenge the GOP’s radical policy agenda, you can’t blame people for thinking that the only way they can make their voices heard is though large public protests.

This grassroots public opposition to the Bush administration may be the only way that Americans of all stripes, and elected Democrats in particular, can see with their own eyes that Bush’s policies are not universally supported. Combined with the continued protests in the rest of the world, it may be the only way to actually stop Bush’s wider global plans at least until after the election.

Whether we can keep Iraq from disintegrating into chaos or being the ongoing catalyst for more anti-American terrorism is largely a matter of good luck until we can replace the current administration and begin the hard task of rebuilding trust with our allies. Only then will we be able to confront the terrorist threat and the dangers of proliferation with any hope of long term success.

William Saleton is joking here, isn’t he?





digby 3/22/2003 02:48:00 PM |

Friday, March 21, 2003

 
Going To The Mattresses

Bill Keller believes that Colin Powell should resign because Bush and his cronies are slightly mad and dangerously ambitious and he is the only sane one of the bunch.

For a time he managed to keep a lid on the new American exuberance. Our relations with Russia and China weathered the early roughhousing over missile defense and other disputes, in large part because Mr. Powell was such a calming figure. Old-fashioned diplomacy helped line up the world's support for our war in Afghanistan and the broader war on terror. Thanks to Mr. Powell we (belatedly) framed our grievance against Iraq as a United Nations grievance; that 15 to nothing vote on Resolution 1441 was probably the high-water mark of his diplomacy. Mr. Powell also, I am told, helped beat back the idea of fighting the war in Iraq on the cheap — with fewer troops, more high-tech dazzle, a little experiment with American lives. So he has won some big ones.

But that is exactly the problem. His formidable skills have been too much engaged in a kind of guerrilla war for the soul of the president, and it has shown. Critics in the administration and colleagues on this page have unfavorably compared his performance in the buildup to war with James Baker's whirlwind of global coalition-building before the gulf war in 1991. But Mr. Baker was operating as his president's right arm; Mr. Powell was busy protecting his right flank

[...]

The most important reason the secretary of state should go is that the president has chosen a course that repudiates much of what Mr. Powell has stood for — notably his deep suspicion of arrogant idealism. I don't mean that Mr. Bush is bent on a series of pre-emptive wars — surely the president would like to take the country into the election year at peace — but this is about how we throw our weight around in peacetime, too.

Critics of the Bush administration talk about the breach in the Atlantic alliance and the division at the United Nations as "collateral damage," as if, in the rush to get Iraq, the administration has blundered. That assumes it was an accident. It seems more plausible that this was not an attempt to put spine in the United Nations and NATO, but to discredit them. The global engineers talk with such contempt of these organizations, it is difficult to believe they want to salvage them as anything but appendages of American power.

[...]

Gosh Bill. Are you seriously suggesting that we would be better off if Bush hires another crazyass Cheney crony like the rest of his cuckoo's nest?

The non-borg war supporters are having quite a difficult time figuring out what to do about all this. They sincerely believed in the concept of freeing the Iraqi people and changing the repressive dynamic in the middle east, but they also have been slapped by the realization that Bush is so outrageously reckless that it is a mistake to hand him the means to unleash hell. This is a big lesson for some people, apparently. Yes, it's satisfying when somebody defies all the naysayers and growls, "Just Do It." Unfortunately, these same people are usually hot headed idiots who create far more problems than they solve. Sonny Corleone may be filled with righteous indignation and thoroughly justified in his outrage, but he's a dumbshit. He gets himself killed and makes everything worse, not better.

But, Keller's answer to the problem that Bush is out of control is bizarre. He seems to believe that Powell is the only one trying (and yes, mostly failing) to keep these guys from spinning out of control. But, he should resign in favor of someone who the President "trusts" and therefore, will help him to spin out of control.

Taken at face value, that's either deeply cynical or completely incoherent. But, there is the possibility that this is some kind of shot across the bow by Powell, who would cause a huge problem for Bush if he resigns. The word is that the Bush loyalists are pulling out the long knives and blaming him --- which Keller does too but only by saying that he is too good for such cretins, hardly a ringing indictment.

And he gets Powell on the record saying that he disagrees with the administration's view of America's role in the world. That's a big disagreement and he's gone public with it:

When I put the question of resigning to Mr. Powell yesterday, he was, characteristically, showing no signs of surrender. He has no intention of leaving, he said. He has the president's full confidence. He has been written off before. And Iraq is just Iraq — not the first in a series of military adventures.

"I think it's a bit of an overstatement to say that now this one's pocketed, on to the next place," Mr. Powell said. The larger question of America's role in the world, he said, "isn't answered yet."

Such a loyal and optimistic man would make some president a great secretary of state. Just not this president.

Who does he have in mind? Tony Blair?

Powell's not resigning. He's going to try to repair his tattered reputation (and maybe hold the line, if we're lucky.) And considering that his replacement would likely be some nut like John Bolton, it's just as well. An ineffectual Powell is still better than a wild-eyed neocon insisting on going to the mattresses. But, if this is Powell's way of making that statement, Keller sure did write it in the strangest form possible.




digby 3/21/2003 11:38:00 PM |

 
Misdirection

Gorilla-go-go points out that the brass ball House Republicans just slashed veterans benefits to the tune of almost 10 billion. Today. A-Day.

Forgetting the fact that it is being done so that the multi-millionaire Bush administration can cut their own taxes, and setting aside that it is the most blatently unpatriotic act I've heard of since 9/11, I have to wonder where these people get the sheer chutzpah to do this on the second day of our very first unilateral preventive invasion? I know they have no problem screwing the military personnel in favor of rich defense contractors, but this seems obtuse even by their standards.

Is it possible that the flaccid Democrats will even try to make these people explain themselves?

Update: Apparently this legislation actually passed on March 13th. Which answers my question. The Democrats are completely impotent.

From citizen k in the comment section:

Here's the quote [from Tacitus]:
"The crowd's loud cheers and shouts of applause were typical of the flatterer, excessive and insincere. Men vied with each other in their enthusiasm and prayers for his success, much as though they were sending off the dictator Ceasar or the Emperor Augustus. Their motive was neither fear nor affection, but a sheer passion for servility"
See the Republicans are right. Read the Dead White Males and learn about the Congressional Democrats. Zell, your master is calling. Oh, Congressman Gephart, it's goveling time.




digby 3/21/2003 09:07:00 PM |

 
Comment of the day:

by Hart

"A-Day..."

They left out "...that will live in infamy."




digby 3/21/2003 07:32:00 PM |

 
Grueling Schedule

TBOGG reports on President Skeepytime's week-end getaway.

The Commander In Chief takes his first R&R.




digby 3/21/2003 07:29:00 PM |

 
*Wargasm

Could somebody tell Wolf Blitzer to take a cold shower? He has done nothing but rhapsodise all day long about how "never in 30 years of journalism have I experienced such a bombardment, such a loud, nonstop, pounding cacophony of relentless American power, ogawdohgawdohgawd!"

This is why they are called media whores folks. Blitzer is in Kuwait City. He was responding to the same pictures that we all saw this morning. He didn't see anything we didn't see. But, like a good soldier he reported it as if he were live on the scene at Armageddon.

In theory, I don't object to this psy-ops campaign. If people give up before a lot of blood is shed, I couldn't be happier. But, Wolf Blitzer isn't faking it. He's a whore who loves his job.

(And, I would greatly enjoy seeing Wesley Clark grab Aaron Brown's toupe and shove it in his mouth the next time he makes some unctuous comment about the great job the troops are doing and then calls him Colonel. That's Supreme Allied Commander to you, Oprah.)


*The term "wargasm" stolen shamelessly from Atrios, who links to some excited little Freeper boyz.




digby 3/21/2003 04:45:00 PM |

 
You Want A Piece 'O Me?



White House political adviser Karl Rove tracked down the president of a conservative group at a friend's house and subjected him to a telephone tirade over perceived disloyalty. (Steve Pope -- AP)


Julia points out this article in the Washington Post that clearly reveals the Bush administration's only governing principles are loyalty to the President and strong arm tactics. Period.

[...]

As the United States wages war this week following a pair of ultimatums to the United Nations and Iraq, the airwaves and editorial pages of the world have been full of accusations that President Bush and his administration are guilty of coercive and harrying behavior. Even in typically friendly countries, Bush and the United States have been given such labels this week as "arrogant bully" (Britain), "bully boys" (Australia), "big bully" (Russia), "bully Bush" (Kenya), "arrogant" (Turkey) and "capricious" (Canada). Diplomats have accused the administration of "hardball" tactics, "jungle justice" and acting "like thugs."

At home, where support for the war on Iraq is strong and growing, such complaints of strong-arm tactics by the Bush administration nonetheless have a certain resonance -- even among Bush supporters. Though the issues are vastly different, Republican lawmakers and conservative interest groups report similar pressure on allies at home to conform to Bush's policy wishes.

Although all administrations use political muscle on the opposition, GOP lawmakers and lobbyists say the tactics the Bush administration uses on friends and allies have been uniquely fierce and vindictive. Just as the administration used unbending tactics before the U.N. Security Council with normally allied countries such as Mexico, Germany and France, the Bush White House has calculated that it can overcome domestic adversaries if it tolerates no dissent from its friends.

In recent weeks, the White House has been pushing GOP governors to oust the leadership of the National Governors Association to make the bipartisan group endorse Bush's views. Interest groups report pressure from the administration -- sometimes on groups' donors -- to conform to Bush's policy views and even to fire dissenters.

Often, companies and their K Street lobbyists endorse ideas they privately oppose or question, according to several longtime Republican lobbyists. The fear is that Bush will either freeze them out of key meetings or hold a grudge that might deprive them of help in other areas, the lobbyists said. When the Electronic Industries Alliance declined to back Bush's dividend tax cut, the group was frozen out when the White House called its "friends" in the industry to discuss the tax cut, according to White House and business sources.

[...]

Conservative interest groups get similar pressure. When the free-market Club for Growth sent a public letter to the White House to protest White House intervention in GOP primaries for "liberal-leaning Republicans," the group's president, Stephen Moore, picked up the phone at a friend's one evening to receive a screaming tirade from Rove, who had tracked him down. On another occasion when Moore objected to a Bush policy, Rove called Richard Gilder, the Club for Growth's chairman and a major contributor, to protest.

"I think this monomaniacal call for loyalty is unhealthy," Moore said. "It's dangerous to declare anybody who crosses you an enemy for life. It's shortsighted." Leaders of three other conservative groups report that their objections to Bush policies have been followed by snubs and, in at least one case, phone calls suggesting the replacement of a critical scholar. "They want sycophants rather than allies," said the head of one think tank.

Corporations are coming under increasing pressure not just to back Bush, but to hire his allies to represent them in meetings with Republicans. As part of the "K Street Project," top GOP officials, lawmakers and lobbyists track the political affiliation and contributions of people seeking lobbying jobs.

In a private meeting last week, chief executives from several leading technology firms told Rep. Calvin M. Dooley (Calif.) and other moderate Democrats that they were under heavy pressure to back the Bush tax plan, even though many of them had reservations about it. "There is a perception among some business interests there could be retribution if you don't play ball on almost every issue that comes up," Dooley said.

Read the whole thing. (And the editor's note at the beginning.) It is now out in the open. No excuses. Any real libertarian or conservative who continues to back these Mafiosi is complicit. These people are undemocratic and intolerant of dissent. They openly use threats to intimidate their allies and strike fear into their enemies. This is not business as usual. We are seeing more elements every day of a new and unique American form of totalitarianism

Refers to systems of government not representative in fact, characterized by the existence of a single political party, organized on a dictatorial basis, with so close an identity between such party and its policies and the governmental policies of the country in which it exists, that the party and the government constitute an indistinguishable unit, and the forcible suppression of opposition to such party.

There have been signs of this coming for the last 10 years. The propaganda machine, the intense partisanship, the trumped up impeachment (in collusion with the "independent" investigators and the courts), an unelected court deciding a presidential election and now an illegitimate and illegal war being pursued under a doctrine of preventive war in pursuit of American hegemony. And, we are operating under de facto one-party rule within which no dissent is tolerated.

What exactly do these people have to do to convince the Democrats that George W. Bush isn't running his Daddy's GOP? We are looking at something new here that is more than just the sum of it's parts.

Again, I urge everyone to read David Niewert's seminal series on Rush, Newspeak and Fascism. It isn't being hysterical or conspiracist to recognize that something has gone very, very wrong when virtually every country in the world and even many of his own political allies are saying that the President of the United States is a thug.





digby 3/21/2003 03:03:00 PM |

 
A-Day

Armageddon Day?


I'm watching the Al Jazeera feed on CNN. So are millions of people throughout the middle east.

I feel sick to my stomach.

What do you suppose people watching in Riyadh, Cairo, Amman, Beirut, Islamabad, Damascus and Gaza and elsewhere are feeling?





digby 3/21/2003 10:10:00 AM |

 
"The Constitution just sets minimums. Most of the rights that you enjoy go way beyond what the Constitution requires.''





Courtesy The Propaganda Remix Project


edited 3/21 -- corrected stupid error




digby 3/21/2003 12:20:00 AM |

Thursday, March 20, 2003

 
Oh Fergawdsake

But the government also consulted Parisoula Lampsos, who the Defense Department believes has passed a polygraph examination in support of her claim that she was Hussein's mistress in Iraq for many years. Lampsos has previously distinguished Hussein from his doubles in more than a dozen cases, one official said, and this time she said he was not the man in the broadcast.

This via Sean-Paul, the hardest working man in Blogtopia. His blog is the place to be for minute by minute analysis. (And here's to his lovely, understanding wife, the Russian beauty and her cat Barsik.)




digby 3/20/2003 11:44:00 PM |

 
Strange Bedfellows

We all know that Michael Kinsley is objectively pro-Saddam so there is no doubt that he deserves to be called a traitor for writing the following today in Slate:

Putting all this together, Bush is asserting the right of the United States to attack any country that may be a threat to it in five years. And the right of the United States to evaluate that risk and respond in its sole discretion. And the right of the president to make that decision on behalf of the United States in his sole discretion. In short, the president can start a war against anyone at any time, and no one has the right to stop him. And presumably other nations and future presidents have that same right. All formal constraints on war-making are officially defunct.

Well, so what? Isn't this the way the world works anyway? Isn't it naive and ultimately dangerous to deny that might makes right? Actually, no. Might is important, probably most important, but there are good, practical reasons for even might and right together to defer sometimes to procedure, law, and the judgment of others. Uncertainty is one. If we knew which babies would turn out to be murderous dictators, we could smother them in their cribs. If we knew which babies would turn out to be wise and judicious leaders, we could crown them dictator. In terms of the power he now claims, without significant challenge, George W. Bush is now the closest thing in a long time to dictator of the world. He claims to see the future as clearly as the past. Let's hope he's right.

I wonder though, if anyone asked the libertarian warmongers or the Republican patriot police about Joe Conason's post today pointing out that Charles V. Pena, director of defense policy studies at the libertarian Cato Institute, is also giving aid and comfort to the enemy when he says:

Ultimately, the path Bush has led the United States down is not about weapons of mass destruction, Security Council Resolution 1441, weapons inspections, or disarmament. It has always been about regime change and using America's military power to enforce a world order deemed favorable to U.S. interests. Further, the United States is setting a potentially dangerous precedent by engaging in preventative war -- not a pre-emptive strike against an imminent threat -- based on the uncertainty of not knowing whether a threat might materialize at some point in the future. Now that the administration is where it wanted to be all along and war seems certain, we must hope for a swift and decisive war with a minimum of casualties on both sides.

Anybody have a problem with that? Andy? Glenn?




digby 3/20/2003 08:13:00 PM |

 
All American Boys

Salon has a new column called "Homefront" collecting stories from around the land of the free during wartime. The first one is a doozy:

Windham, N.Y., is a ski town, nestled in the Catskills, about two and a half hours from New York City. Main Street, a short, quaint strip that cuts across the bottom of Windham Mountain, is where you can find everything you really need: a post office, a school, a deli, a diner, a gas station, and toward the end, an old restaurant and bar called Madison's.

Last Sunday, my friend Dawn and I found ourselves at this local haunt after a day of skiing. The place was dead. A lottery game and a golf tournament quietly flickered on the two TV sets. So we started making polite conversation with the bartender, and then the two men sitting next to us.

One was a 40-something, recently laid-off businessman from Little Silver, N.J., a town that's 15 minutes from where I grew up at the Jersey Shore. The father of two young girls, he had spent the day skiing with his family. His friend was a lawyer, a local, and the father of four, including three girls. They seemed amused to be sitting next to two young, single women from Manhattan, who were both journalists. After they gave us a tip about tax evasion at a local nightclub, they asked us what we thought of the war.

When Dawn and I said we were against the war, the men's expressions tightened and they looked down at their steaks. They were huge supporters of the war. They argued that if America didn't disarm Saddam Hussein, no one would, and that America usually acts alone anyway, so who cares what those European bastards think. I'd encountered opinions like theirs many times before. Their attitudes reminded me of many of the men I grew up with -- fiercely patriotic, desperate to protect their families from terrorism, bursting with faith in the president.

But when we suggested that Sept. 11 had nothing to do with Iraq, the conversation immediately shifted. Their faces reddened, and they began to talk quickly at the same time, the businessman slapping his hand against the bar to punctuate his outbursts:

"At some point, you have to trust your president! You have to believe that he knows something we don't!"

"They attacked our country. Now we have to get them!"

"I was down there at the Trade Center. I had a burning piece of paper on my face! Burning. Piece. Of. Paper. On. My. Face!"

The businessman seemed to have forgotten that thousands had perished at the towers -- he didn't mention them, anyway -- so consumed was he with his personal vendetta against the Sept. 11 terrorists, I mean, Saddam. In fact, our increasingly irate new friends accused us of supporting Saddam over Bush. When we explained that nobody "supports" Saddam, they went ballistic.

"You know what? You two are the reason why this country's going down the fucking toilet."

"This is why I hate you city folks. Fucking city folks. Why don't you go back to New York? The fucking toilet."

"Communists. That's what you are. Communist feminists. Fucking liberals."

As disturbed as we were, at that point all we could do was laugh. They were behaving so preposterously, each yelling louder than the other one, slamming the bar and sweating. A couple who'd arrived halfway through the conversation looked at them and shook their heads at us sympathetically. We shrugged.

They didn't appreciate our indifference to their anger. The calmer we were the more enraged they became.

The businessman slowly turned to face us directly.

"How 'bout this. You like those people so much? You like those fuckers so much? How 'bout I throw a veil over your head and drag you by your ponytail out the door? Veil. Over your head. Drag you. By your ponytail," he said, dissolving into a bizarre, almost tribal chant.

As I said before, these men had seemed familiar to me in some way. But their vitriol genuinely surprised me, especially since the prospect of gagging us with lace and pulling our hair really seemed to turn them on. Their excitement, as much as their hatred, was palpable. We grabbed our coats to leave.

"Hey, so I guess this means we don't get a kiss, huh!" the lawyer called after us, cackling ecstatically as we slammed the door.

I heard something similar not too long ago here in Southern California. Goose stepping to Rush isn't confined to the backwoods.






digby 3/20/2003 06:59:00 PM |

 
Power To The People

Yglesias approvingly quotes this TAPPED piece about the antiwar movement:

One of the problems with these big marches -- impressive as they may be as shows of strength -- is that they have little lasting value. The broad anti-globalization/anti-war movement has tended to disdain actual electoral politics, believing it to be corrupt beyond repair (which is, in its way, the ultimate kind of cynicism). But in the long run, the way you win in a democracy is by winning elections, and you win elections by organizing for candidates and helping them raise money.[...]If the people who spend their time organizing and marching would spend even a fraction of that energy and time involving themselves in real electoral politics -- not futile, Naderite third-party runs, another form of political narcissism -- they could actually punish Bush for what he's done

Well, yes. The organizers should all work to make sure that Bush is not elected in 2004. Everyone should get involved in electoral politics and try their damnedest to nominate the best possible candidate and they should give money and time to make that happen. Who can argue with that?

But, this isn't a zero sum game. In fact, for the average citizen, protests often serve as a catalyst for more general political involvement. It is very disheartening to read all these admonitions to this nascent antiwar movement saying that the participants are somehow being unserious.

We have spent years bemoaning the fact that people are politically disinterested, that voters are apathetic, that they don't feel they have a voice. Now, when rather large numbers of Americans have left the comfort of their homes and their shopping malls to make a sincere statement alongside a bunch of strangers, liberals behave as if it is nothing. Outside of college campuses, the fact is that street protests don't happen very often in America. Unlike in Europe, general strikes and large political protests are not a big part of our civic life. So, when it happens we should really take a good hard look at why. And we should pay special attention when the people who are protesting are average Joes and Janes who work for a living and have kids and own houses. Because that means that Americans are waking up and starting to pay attention.

Telling these awakened liberals that what they are doing makes no difference and that they should instead volunteer for a candidate and write a check is not exactly inspiring. But, getting citizens involved through a feeling of solidarity with millions of people all around the globe just might have the salutory effect of making a percentage of those protesters decide that they will write a check and walk a precinct in order to elect a candidate they believe in --- or to stop the war --- or to punish Bush.

People need to feel part of something in order to get involved in politics. And as someone who has volunteered in many a campaign I can tell you that for the last decade it has had all the uplifting inspiration of the Bataan death march. It is work with no satisfaction in the soul or spirit and without that politics becomes nothing more than a duty.

The Republicans have a base of committed true believers and we desperately need some of that too. Telling these newly galvanized Democrats that the only way they can legitimately express themselves is through the ballot box --- particularly in this day of manufactured, pre-fab campaigning --- is a very self-defeating idea.

We need to get our blood up if we expect to beat back the flag-waving cavaliers of the Republican party. This kind of tepid advice isn't going to cut it.



Post Script:
Tim Dunlop, erudite as always, on this topic.





digby 3/20/2003 04:18:00 PM |

 
Memo To The Democratic Presidential Candidates:

Do not fall for this bullshit:

While Democrats and Republicans closed ranks last night behind the troops, leaders of both parties have shown a willingness to seize on war issues to score political points. Many Republicans hope to chill criticism of Bush and his Iraq policy by sending a clear and early message that they will come down hard on vocal Democratic dissenters, especially those in positions of national prominence, GOP lawmakers said. These Republicans worry that France, Russia and other critics will seize on comments from high-profile Democrats to buttress their case internationally that a preemptive war is unwise and unwarranted.

[...]

Some Republicans see a longer-term political advantage in such applause. They believe Daschle and other Democrats will suffer in the 2004 elections, which may be dominated by themes of national security and terrorism, if voters view them as unpatriotic or soft on defense.

Most national polls show that about two-thirds of Americans back the war against Iraq. "When you are constantly criticizing the president, you are also criticizing the 70 percent of people supporting him," DeLay said.

National Republican Congressional Committee Chairman Thomas M. Reynolds (R-N.Y.) said Democrats will likely "pay a political price" for feeding the perception they opposed disarming and deposing Hussein. That is why most of the Democrats running for president have backed Bush in the conflict, Reynolds said.

Reynolds warned that politicians, such as Daschle, who hail from states Bush won in 2000 are particularly at risk in 2004 if they criticize the president's Iraq policy. This proves that attacks on Daschle are "so brazenly political and over the top and politically motivated," said Daschle's spokeswoman Ranit Schmelzer.

It should be obvious by now that there is no margin in playing Neville Chamberlain to Tom DeLay. Max Cleland proved that nothing will stop them from lying about your record and assassinating your character, no matter what you do. It will gain you nothing to worry about quelling Republican attacks on your patriotism.

If a Democrat wins, he will win despite being smeared as an unpatriotic coward by the Republican Party. Whether he supports the President or doesn't he will be portrayed as having tried to foil him at every turn. It is pointless to pretend otherwise. Put your head down and barrel along on your own terms.

Remember also, that the entire strategy is designed for only two reasons. The first and foremost is to get Bush legitimately elected, if possible (illegitimately, if not.) The second is to use his wartime popularity to pass their radical domestic agenda under threat of retaliation to moderates who stray. I doubt seriously that they have ever really understood that their bullying and hectoring is what drove Jeffords from the party, but they will likely not be quite as obvious about it as they were with him. It is in the Democratic Party's interest for Daschle and Pelosi to take some heat right now to give the GOP moderates some cover. This administration may very well overplay their hand (they're not good at sausage making and Frist is a virgin) so it is worth the Party's while to hang tough, really tough, on this budget. The presidential candidates can help by giving Daschle and Pelosi some cover as well. It's going to get bumpy and it would be nice if the Democrats could show a little bit of solidarity here. It would certainly be good for the country.

The Republicans have the strange habit of getting manic and agitated just after they win a battle. They become enraged when they find that winning didn't result in unconditional surrender by the political opposition. On the day the Washington Post revealed that the president had rallied 71% of the American public, George Will wrote:

Speaking of indiscriminate chaos, many elements of the Democratic Party, including most of its base and many of its most conspicuous leaders, seem deranged, unhinged by the toxic fumes of hatred and contempt they emit for the president. From what does this arise? It cannot just be Florida, the grievance that Democrats, assiduous cultivators of victimhood, love to nurse. No, many Democrats' problem, which threatens to disqualify their party from presidential responsibilities for a generation, is their incontinent love of snobbery and nostalgia -- condescension toward a president they consider ignorant, and a longing for the fun of antiwar days of yore

I don’t know why Republicans have such an overwhelming need for their opponents to cry Uncle and completely capitulate. I suspect it may be from frustration at fighting for an aggressive policy against Soviet communism but never being allowed a final, mano-a-mano battle from which they could derive the masculine satisfaction of dominance and victory. I don’t know. But, it is never enough that they win, they want the Democrats to grovel.

It is more and more clear that those who hated it the most developed a sort of Stockholm Syndrome in which they came to admire many facets of Soviet totalitarianism, one of the most obvious being the efficiency and power offered by the one party state. These people do not believe there is such a thing as the loyal opposition. Opposition is, by definition, disloyal.

Rush has been known to say, “I’d like to keep one liberal around in a museum so every body could see what they look like.” Republicans believe we are the enemy. We cannot win unless we understand this.





digby 3/20/2003 02:38:00 PM |

 
The War Show

CNN has it goin' on. Baghdad Under Seige, Part I put them on the map and they own the sequel, too, so far. Nic Robertson is the only guy worth watching. Aaron Brown's trying to be Dan Rather, but Dan Rather is still here and he does this verbose sanctimony so much better.

FoxNews proves what we always knew. It is to real news as professional wrestling is to boxing. Fake. They have nothing to offer when something real is happening. Colonel Ollie is unintentionally hilarious.

CBS has the insignia of the military unit in which their correspondent is "embedded" up as a huge logo on the side of the screen, while said correspondent, all dressed up like big grown-up soldier, broadcasts by video phone which delivers its images in an otherwoldly green.

Brokaw suddenly and shockingly looks old and Ted Koppel looks uncomfortably like Dukakis in a tank. Big hair just doesn't work with the military thing.

And, according to Strangefeld, the war hasn't even started. When "Shock and Awe" does start, it will be "something we have never seen before." Cool. Maybe phasers and lasers and MOABS. So, there is still time to get the show together. Tom Friedman's poppin' up the Reddenbacher as we speak, rootin' for president Quarterback's Hail Mary to hit Saddam right between the eyes. I'll bet he's got that CD of "The Battle Hymn of the Republic" playing on a loop..

We're at blinking, neon orange. Tents are being pitched all over Washington as we speak. Atrios calls it "War Porn."




digby 3/20/2003 12:25:00 PM |

Wednesday, March 19, 2003

 


Who said that? I can't find the quote in the story.

Isn't it strange that this quote, "the evil one will run in defeat" is completely believable coming from either Saddam or Bush? ?




digby 3/19/2003 10:30:00 PM |

 
Resistance Is Futile

The United States knows all and sees all. Schwartzkopf said he's never seen anything like this "awesome" technology. The BBC said "it's as if the US has a 3 dimensional picture of every single thing that is happening in Baghdad." No need to tell the Brits about the strike, though. Gotta move fast. They may represent 70% of the coalition 'o the willin', but Blair is still a limey twit, always making Bush sound stupid. Killing Saddam's like swatting a fly. We have X-Ray vision and he's probably dead. We think. Like Osama.

Oh wait.

We got to watch Bush putting on his make-up on the BBC feed for about 5 minutes before the speech. He looked psyched. I believe he mouthed the words "what, me worry?"

Aaron Brown may cry at any moment with all this "exquisite tension." I believe he soiled his trousers when Nic Roberts said the word "anti-aircraft." Brian Williams needs some of that white stuff under his eyes but his shirt is mighty crisp. Oliver North is "embeded" with the Army and can't stop himself from screaming "charge, you cowards, charge!" The troops smile indulgently.

The war show is, so far, very disappointing. When Bernie and Peter were hiding under their beds back in '91 at the Baghdad Hilton, and a handsome gas masked Bibi spoke calmly from Tel Aviv in his mellifluous American accent, it was new and exciting. The Patriot missiles were faster than a speeding scud and could pluck that baby right out of the sky. Cool fireworks. (Of course, we later found out they couldn't hit water if they were pushed over the side of a boat.)

Still, it all was new and so post-pac man. I'm not seeing it now, no matter how they rhapsodise about the technology. I wonder if people are still watching. Especially since there's nothing to watch. We just turned on "Curb Your Enthusiasm."

But, I imagine it's pretty darned exciting in Baghdad this morning. I imagine it feels pretty real and stimulating to them.

In fact, I would imagine that in a day or two all those men and women and kids in Baghdad are going to feel like New Yorkers on the morning of September 11th .

They deserve it just as much as we did.





digby 3/19/2003 09:02:00 PM |

 
The opening stages of the "disarmament" of Iraq has begun.The President will speak to the nation at 10:15.

Fasten your seatbelt and start praying. Human beings are on the other end of those bombs.





digby 3/19/2003 06:49:00 PM |

 
I Can See Clearly Now

Real life has unfortunately intruded, so blogging is light at the moment. I hope to find some time later today.

Meanwhile, I find that my earlier post, "where'd they get all those flags?" has been answered.

Jesse links to the Chicago tribune article reporting that Clear Channel "sponsored" all those pro-war rallies of the last few days.

Now, why do you suppose they did that?

Clear Channel is by far the largest owner of radio stations in the nation. The company owned only 43 in 1995, but when Congress removed many of the ownership limits in 1996, Clear Channel was quickly on the highway to radio dominance. The company owns and operates 1,233 radio stations (including six in Chicago) and claims 100 million listeners. Clear Channel generated about 20 percent of the radio industry's $16 billion in 2001 revenues.

The media giant's size also has generated criticism. Some recording artists have charged that Clear Channel's dominance in radio and concert promotions is hurting the recording industry. Congress is investigating the effects of radio consolidation. And the FCC is considering ownership rule changes, among them changes that could allow Clear Channel to expand its reach.

Now, let me get this straight. Celebrities are stepping out of bounds when they express political views opposing the President. But, large media companies sponsoring phony pro-military "rallies" replete with free flag swag is perfectly a-ok. Just trying to get the rules straight.

"I think this is pretty extraordinary," said former Federal Communications Commissioner Glen Robinson, who teaches law at the University of Virginia. "I can't say that this violates any of a broadcaster's obligations, but it sounds like borderline manufacturing of the news."

No kidding. Perhaps the most interesting thing about this story is the fact that while rallies were extremely well covered this past week-end, they were presented as spontaneously growing up out of the pro-military grassroots. They were not portrayed as having corporate sponsorship and they certainly were not reported as being a product of a concerted talk radio campaign of right wing nut jobs and their GOP corporate masters.

And I didn't hear one journalist ask the obvious question of where they got all those damned flags! Somebody was handing them out and nobody asked who paid for them. More good work from the DeVry Institute School of spokesmodel journalism

Clear Channel stations are still banning the Dixie Chicks, as well, with the full support of their parent company. Since they own vast numbers of radio stations, and already practise a form of legal payola that is rivaled only by the Mafia, we can consider this a "Luca Brazzi sleeps with the fishes" kind of message to the beleagered recording industry. Of course, the fact that the Dixie Chicks' next tour is sponsored by Clear Channel may explain why they dragged poor Natalie out to make one of those SOS eye-blinking POW statements. They've got those girls by their black-roots.

Clear Channel plays Mighty Wurlitzer music only. And they are more than happy to pay for the privilege.




digby 3/19/2003 12:21:00 PM |

Tuesday, March 18, 2003

 
Crony Hegemony

Seeing The Forest quotes Drudge today :

THE BLITZ, THEN SIEGE OF BAGHDAD STARTS IN FOUR DAYS: Troops hope to have Saddam Hussein surrounded in Baghdad within four days after an unprecedented aerial blitz which will obliterate one in 10 major buildings in Iraq... Developing...

He then comments:

This fits with one of these rumors we have been hearing -- that the Iraq war is happening because the right wingers want to demonstrate America's superior power to the world. They want to show the world what we can do to anyone that opposes us.

Destroying one of every ten major buildings in Iraq? Because we think Iraq might attack us someday? Because, as Bush said in his speech last night, they might attack us in five years?

I might add that there now appears to be several other very important reasons to destroy one in ten buildings in Baghdad:

Bechtel
Halliburton
Fluor
Parsons
LBG
etc

These are American owned international construction firms. In a move so cynical and so audacious that it is hard to wrap your arms around, it would appear that the Bush administration is preparing to destroy the infrastructure of an entire country and then repay their largest campaign contributors with huge no-bid contracts to rebuild it.

And, happily for all concerned, these companies --- operating outside the onerous regulatory climate of the United States --- can cut corners to their hearts content while obscenely overbilling the government by the billions, all under the fog of war. And nobody pays any taxes at all!

This is not unprecedented, of course. There is a long history of war profiteering on the part of major players in this administration going all the way back to the 30's. Crony capitalism is nothing new. National corporatism has been seen before (notably Nazi Germany.) Colonialism is the oldest story in the book. But, this takes it to a new audacious level.

It's not all about oil. It's simpler than that. It's just all about money. Big Business spent over 100 million dollars installing the idiot sock-puppet to do its bidding and he is doing it --- not that he, or even many of those surrounding him probably know it explicitly. He thinks he's been ordained by God and some others are sincere, if deluded, in their belief that the best thing for the world is American "benevolent hegemony," however oxymoronic that is in the context of "Shock and Awe." Being generous one could say that those neocon idealists like William Kristol, who laid out the positive vision for the Pax Americana, are the most useful idiots the corporatists could have ever dreamed of.

The real question now is whether the businesses who own the Bush administration are thinking long term or short term. Do they value stability and predictablity to protect their long term investments or are they modern quick hit artists? If it is the latter then we are led back to the corporate scandals and find that the scariest aspect of this is that Bush's single most enthusiastic big money supporter was a company built on a foundation of quicksand --- Enron.

It's bad enough that the powers behind the throne are ruthless enterprises that care nothing for democratic institutions. What if the truth is that the modern American crony-run operations that really call the shots are not only undemocratic but incompetent as well? It's literally the worst of all possible worlds.





digby 3/18/2003 12:24:00 PM |

Monday, March 17, 2003

 
Corporate Welfare Queens

Yglesias posts this shocker via Marshall:

The Bush administration's audacious plan to rebuild Iraq envisions a sweeping overhaul of Iraqi society within a year of a war's end, but leaves much of the work to private U.S. companies.

The Bush plan, as detailed in more than 100 pages of confidential contract documents, would sideline United Nations (news - web sites) development agencies and other multilateral organizations that have long directed reconstruction efforts in places such as Afghanistan (news - web sites) and Kosovo. The plan also would leave big nongovernmental organizations largely in the lurch: With more than $1.5 billion in Iraq work being offered to private U.S. companies under the plan, just $50 million is so far earmarked for a small number of groups such as CARE and Save the Children.

[...]

European officials, and even some prominent Iraqi dissidents, have reacted to the current U.S. plans with disbelief. They charge that efforts to keep the U.N. and non-U.S. contractors on the sidelines will delay reconstruction in Iraq and stir deeper ill will toward Washington. Some U.S. humanitarian groups charge the Bush administration has downplayed the difficulty of the postwar work in the hopes of scoring some quick public-relations points.

[...]

Much of the heaviest work will fall to U.S. companies through a growing web of contracts with the Pentagon and the U.S. Agency for International Development. USAID is expected this week to pick the prime contractor for a $900 million job rebuilding Iraq's infrastructure, including highways, bridges, airports and government buildings. The agency is also contracting for five other large jobs, worth a total of between $300 million and $500 million, administering Iraq's seaport and international airports, revamping its schools and health-care system, and handling large scale logistics such as water transport. The Army Corps of Engineers is also taking bids for work worth up to $500 million for building projects such as roadways and military barracks. Additional contracts to refurbish Iraq's neglected oil industry would likely be handled through the U.N., which currently administers Iraq's oil exports.

Four groups of U.S. companies are competing for the $900 million contract, which was put out for bids in secret last month. The companies were picked under rules that allow U.S. agencies to skirt open and competitive bidding procedures to meet emergency needs. All have done government work for years and have deep political ties to Washington. Vice President Dick Cheney once served as head of Halliburton Co., whose subsidiary Kellogg Brown & Root is part of one bidding consortium.

Other big bidders are Bechtel Group Inc.; Parsons Corp., which has allied with Brown & Root; and Louis Berger Group and Fluor Corp., which are bidding as a team. These companies made political contributions of a combined $2.8 million between 1999 and 2002, more than two-thirds of which went to Republicans, according to the Center for Responsive Politics, a watchdog group. Bechtel was the largest single donor, having given $1.3 million in political contributions.

[...]

The U.S. postwar plans for Iraq, being directed by the new Office of Reconstruction and Humanitarian Assistance in the Pentagon, are striking in their scope and intended speed. The administration's plan to rehabilitate the Iraqi school system, for example, envisions the chosen contractor sending in teams to obtain payroll lists and assess teacher salaries just as U.S. military forces secure parts of Iraq, according to a 10-page USAID contract proposal that went out to companies last month. The contract, officials say, could total $100 million, and will cover five pilot programs for "accelerated learning" to be launched within three months, and then rolled out nationwide within 10 months. Only a third of Iraqi children now enroll in secondary school, but within a year the contractor will have "all children back in school.

I see. Sure. Piece of cake.

I hear there are quite a few former Enron executives who are "at liberty." They should be brought in immediately to show some of that good ole Murikan know-how. Lord knows we have oodles of Americans who have the requisite knowledge of Iraqi culture. We should be able to bring this one in under budget and ahead of schedule, no problema.

I'm awfully relieved, though, that President GI Joe is eradicating evil and terror because it sure seems like it would be a teensy weensy bit dangerous for all those American targets there in Iraq if he doesn't. It's damned lucky that he has the whole world on our side so we won't have to keep hundreds of thousands of troops there to protect the corporate welfare queens from those pesky suicide bombers.

Jesus. This just keeps getting better and better...







digby 3/17/2003 04:37:00 PM |

 
A River Of Refugees

Seth D. Michaels has a very good post up about the possible scenarios facing American troops within the next week or so.

Excerpt:

Picture this scenario: a war some decades in the future between the U.S. and Canada. Canada informs us that in three days, Chicago will be no more, so people had best evacuate. How would they all get out? Cars would be clogging the roads, people would leave on foot, panic would set in. Where would these people go? Stay in hotels? Stay with friends? Imagine the impact of three million people, proud owners only the possessions they can carry, suddenly thrust into the suburbs and countryside. What would they eat? Where would they sleep? How many would have no choice but to stay and be killed?

Now, consider that Baghdad is bigger than Chicago, and that the area around has less infrastructure - no motels, no ATMs, no supermarkets. This is the humanitarian crisis the U.S. will be faced with - not at some unknown hypothetical future point, but in a matter of ten days or so.

Again, despite the unprecedented incompetence that defines this administration so far, we have to hope against hope that they achieve virtual perfection in this military operation. If they screw this up as badly as they have screwed up the federal budget, national security and world opinion we are in big trouble. We must place our faith in the professional military and hope they are less bloodthirsty and more competent than their civilian bosses --- and that they are allowed to run the show once the fighting begins.

The thought of Junior, Newt and Rummy in the war room scares the living shit out of me.






digby 3/17/2003 12:54:00 PM |

 
Let Me Introduce To You...

The one and only "Compassionate Conservatives!"





digby 3/17/2003 12:32:00 PM |

 


Where did all those exact same sized flags come from, anyway? Who paid for them?






digby 3/17/2003 11:16:00 AM |

 
Collateral Damage

British and American military commanders in the Gulf insisted yesterday that Saddam Hussein could not hide his elite forces inside Baghdad with impunity, saying they would target military units with "precision" while seeking to minimise civilian deaths.

The warning to the Baghdad regime will be seen as preparation of world public opinion for potential heavy loss of life among the Iraqi population in the event of US and British troops having to fight house-to-house in urban areas.

[...]

Gen Franks told ABC News: "The one who holds the key to civilian casualties . . inside Iraq is Saddam Hussein. We continue to see examples of the placement of military command and control, and military weapons, close to hospitals and close to schools and close to mosques and that sort of thing."

He said that targets where civilian lives were at risk were not "off-limits" but "one takes a very careful look at that and balances cost and reward."

Since Newtie and Strangefeld have apparently been fine tuning the battle plans, (they both watched "The Longest Day" more than 6 times, so they are experts) I have the sickening, sinking feeling that the actual war may end up being as fucked up as the non-diplomacy leading up to it.

God, I hope not. The only thing we can hope for at this point is that it is short and successful with a minimal loss of life. A unilateral preventive war waged by the most powerful military the world has ever known against a weakened dictatorship has almost no legitimacy as it is. If it requires a massive loss of life it will likely be looked upon by history as a war crime.

If you are a praying type, pray for a very quick victory.




digby 3/17/2003 10:39:00 AM |

 
Commander In Chief

Our Supreme Omniscient Commander of Good went out of his way after 9/11 to tamp down any vigilantism against American Muslims. But French people in America should not expect that he will show the same forbearance. In fact, just last week he spoke to regional reporters and made it clear that he endorsed the backlash against the French:

With the Mexican press full of a debate over the ramifications of a vote against the resolution, Bush added, “But, nevertheless, I don’t expect for there to be significant retribution from the government.”
His emphasis was on the word “government,” raising the possibility of adverse reaction to Mexico from the American business community and average citizens.

Making that point, he cited what he called “an interesting phenomena taking place here in America about the French.”

With many Americans unhappy at French resistance to a war in Iraq, the president said there has developed “a backlash against the French, not stirred up by anybody except by the people.”

Anyone who says the man doesn’t have leadership qualities isn’t looking in the right place. Atrios found this article from Houston:

For Francoise Thomas, the anger against France for its continuing opposition to military action against Iraqi President Saddam Hussein hadn't hit home until she read about it on one of her doors.

When Thomas took out the garbage Saturday morning, she saw red letters spray-painted on the garage door of her townhouse.

"Scum go back to France," it read.

I guess Karl isn’t worried about the “French” vote.

Here's More:

THE message scrawled on the side of an American bunker-busting bomb being wheeled out into the desert was blunt: “Fuque the French” had been scrawled on the side by a member of the US Air Force.

digby 3/17/2003 09:39:00 AM |

Sunday, March 16, 2003

 
Under Siege

Calpundit highly recommends this piece by Fareed Zakaria in Newsweek and it is very good. In fact, even for someone as deeply mistrustful of the Bush administration as I it is shocking to read that every single country that has had dealings with the United States in the last year (except Britain and Israel who are probably lying) has been left feeling humiliated. Yowza.

Kevin then makes the following comment:

Zakaria's observation that the most powerful nation in the world somehow feels as if it is "besieged" is a telling one. Time and again, when I try to figure out what is happening in America, I keep coming back to the palpable sense of fear that seems to envelop us. We are seemingly afraid of everything: child molesters, terrorists, street crime, sharks — in a way that is wildly out of proportion to the actual danger they present.

[…]

Our reaction to 9/11 has been the same. Instead of making use of the outpouring of support that we got in its aftermath, we have turned in on ourselves, and in the process we have changed from the flawed but generous nation that we are into a mean and paranoid country that lashes out at friends and enemies alike.

I have thought a lot about this question as well. I spent some of my grade school years in Kansas, where my father worked on the missile silos. Every single day at school we practiced diving under our desks in anticipation of a nuclear attack. When JFK was killed, the town I lived in went on nuclear alert. The assumption was that the Soviets had to be behind it.

But, I do not think there was the kind of pervasive paranoia and sense of fear that we see today. Maybe it was that many people had recent memories of war so they had a more philosophical perspective, I don’t know. Paradoxically, despite the fact that nuclear annihilation was an everyday concern, people didn’t seem to be afraid.

I think this current sense of being besieged stems in large part from the emergence over the last 10-20 years of the tabloid TV news media. In our insular society, where many people experience their community by watching the local news, the “if it bleeds it leads” directive makes people believe that they are inundated by crime and pestilence and deviant sex and everything else that a tabloid press has always used to sell advertising. I have seen polls that indicate that even when crime has gone down significantly, as it did during the late 90’s, people are still convinced that their community is drowning in crime. If you watch the 11 o’clock news here in LA, you are easily convinced that you are living in post-modern anarchy and that it is relentless and escalating even though statistics show otherwise. Fear is stimulating and stimulation is what gets people to pay attention in a sea of white noise and talking heads. It's very hard to look away.

But, there is more to it than that. We are in one of those periods in which the paranoid style in American politics has become dominant. Listen to talk radio or watch cable news, the two most explicitly political forums in the electronic media, and the paranoia is palpable. This sense of being under siege is fed daily by the likes of Rush and the rest, who mercilessly pound home to their devoted listeners the idea that they are victims of a liberal, permissive culture that is trying to undermine their values and a bloated, consuming government that is trying to steal their money. Everything they care about is in danger of being invaded, overtaken and eliminated by the political opposition. Even those who do not listen are subtly influenced by the conversation in the background. It drifts through the body politic like smoke.

Strangely then, it’s within the safety of their living rooms and their cars that the profitable message of paranoia is drummed into the minds of the free people of the United States over and over and over again. America’s insularity is the instrument of its fear.





digby 3/16/2003 11:30:00 PM |

 
Convincing Evidence

Bill Schneider on CNN just justified the US defying the UN on Iraq by showing a list of other wars that were fought without UN approval. He summed up by saying something like It may be better to defy the UN than to seek its approval. The list?

France invading Algeria
Vietnam
The Soviet invasion of Afghanistan
The Falklands

Well now, I don't know about you, but that list doesn't exactly make me feel any better, particularly considering that the first 3 were unequivocal quagmires. Not to mention morally bankrupt.






digby 3/16/2003 03:46:00 PM |

 
Great Game

Kevin links approvingly to Emma's interesting post about French motivation in opposing the invasion of Iraq and "how the game of nations is played."

However, I'm afraid I think her assessment is entirely too cynical. Yes, Chirac is a snake and nations act out of their own interests. Much more than principle or morality, by necessity and because we are humans, always goes into foreign policy. Nobody with any brains is arguing that France is acting purely out of altruistic love of the Iraqi children or entirely because they have a moral objection to war. That would be a silly and naive position.

But, neither can it be discounted that France is a democracy and Chirac is responding to the will of his citizens. Perhaps public opinion is irrelevant to him, but one cannot prove it merely by assertion. There is every reason to believe that Chirac would find himself under the kind of pressure that Blair is under and has decided to take a different tack based upon his personal self-interest, which is how the system is actually designed to work. It's hard to see that Chirac was particularly free under those circumstances to decide the issue based solely upon France's oil interests in the mid-east or his ambition to lead the EU, even if he wanted to. If he were acting out of economic self-interest alone, Chirac would have held out for the best deal and then played ball. That is certainly what the Bush administration expected to happen.

I also think she gives short shrift to the notion that the "Old Europe" experience of the last century has left them with a genuine suspicion of grand global plans like the starry-eyed neocon dream of Pax Americana and that assessment does have some basis in morality. (Certainly, the German position is undeniably rooted in its moral culpability for WWII.) They all see their own security in terms defined by two world wars fought on their own soil and they rightly mistrust propagandist phrases like "benevolent hegemony." Yes, that is "self-interest" but it isn't necessarily cynical and it isn't necessarily a hypocritical stance that would change if the players were different.

In other words, it's not naive to believe that there is a mix of genuine democratic principle and hard edged self-interested realism in France's position. That position, after all, is mirrored by far more countries than ours is and most of them do not have interests in Iraq that make it the least bit worth their while to side against the United States. Indeed, it cannot be seen as in the self interest of any individual nation. The U.S. is a powerhouse, both militarily and economically and there is little to be gained by a country like Chile or Mexico defying us on a war in a far off region in the world.

It is not believable to me that this large collection of democratic countries throughout the world are lining up against the US out of calculated individual self-interest alone. There are selfish motives involved in each, to be sure, but they are responding to their people and taking a big gamble that their collective power will serve to check what seems to be a very aggressive U.S. foreign policy doctrine. It's a ballsy move that makes no real sense if there is not a deep seated feeling amongst these players that the US must be put on notice that we do not have unfettered support for these global ambitions.

That global alliance of the unwilling simply cannot be explained as another Great Game.





digby 3/16/2003 03:19:00 PM |

 
Show Yer Cards


What a cocky, smirky, son-of-a-bitch.

This guy had a hard-on for war today. He is angry and he is excited and he is babbling incoherantly.

Yee Haw.


"We'll Meet Again Someday....."

Post Script:

It will be interesting to see if Karl's vaunted bandwagon effect will come to pass as it's obviously designed to do. Now that it's on for sure will everybody come scampering to be with the "winners?" We're about to find out.

And somebody should have given Junior a couple of valium before he went out there. He sounded suspiciously like he was about to declare war on France.









digby 3/16/2003 11:09:00 AM |

 
Bush aide: Inspections or not, we'll attack Iraq

GEORGE Bush's top security adviser last night admitted the US would attack Iraq even if UN inspectors fail to find weapons.

Dr Richard Perle stunned MPs by insisting a "clean bill of health" from UN chief weapons inspector Hans Blix would not halt America's war machine.

Evidence from ONE witness on Saddam Hussein's weapons programme will be enough to trigger a fresh military onslaught, he told an all- party meeting on global security.

Former defence minister and Labour backbencher Peter Kilfoyle said: "America is duping the world into believing it supports these inspections. President Bush intends to go to war even if inspectors find nothing.

"This make a mockery of the whole process and exposes America's real determination to bomb Iraq."

Dr Perle told MPs: "I cannot see how Hans Blix can state more than he can know. All he can know is the results of his own investigations. And that does not prove Saddam does not have weapons of mass destruction."

The chairman of America's defence policy board said: "Suppose we are able to find someone who has been involved in the development of weapons and he says there are stores of nerve agents. But you cannot find them because they are so well hidden.

"Do you actually have to take possession of the nerve agents to convince? We are not dealing with a situation where you can expect co-operation."

Mr Kilfoyle said MPs would be horrified at the admission. He added: "Because Saddam is so hated in Iraq, it would be easy to find someone to say they witnessed weapons building.

"Perle says the Americans would be satisfied with such claims even if no real evidence was produced.

"That's a terrifying prospect."

First of all, why the hell is Richard fucking Perle speaking for this country before members of parliament? Can somebody please explain what position he holds that allows him to go around the world shooting his mouth off as if he has some position of authority?

There can be no good purpose for them to want him telling the Brits at this moment that the entire inspections process has been a sham from the get-go. Why do they let him do this?

He seems to be having a bit of a public meltdown, what with the Hersh nuttiness, and I have to wonder why they don't tell him to shut his piehole.





digby 3/16/2003 10:39:00 AM |

 
It's Over?

Jayzuz, that's got to be the shortest "summit" in history.

President Sleepytime must have to get back before "the Wonderful World of Disney" starts tonight.

talk about pointless....




digby 3/16/2003 10:33:00 AM |

 
Whaddo I do now, Condi?

I haven't read Woodward's book "Bush at War" because, well, the thought of paying money to Bob Woodward to observe him give George W. Patton a metaphorical blow job smacks a little too much of voyeurism. But, it seems I'm going to have to do it just for the shock and awe value.

Maureen Dowd, in a surprisingly dark and realistic column today (and one which should be shoved into her face the next time she goes all Alpha Bitch Queen and forgets that she's not writing about the entertainment business) says:

And America is not known for its long attention span or talent for empire building. As Bob Woodward reports in his book "Bush at War," a month into the bombing of Afghanistan, when the Taliban stronghold of Majar-i-Sharif fell, Mr Bush turned to Condoleezza Rice, in a moment right out of "The Candidate," and asked: "Well, what next?"

He turned to Condi and asked what next. Has there ever been a more callow, infantile president in history?
President GI Joe likes to play with the toys that go ker-pow, but he's "not into nation building." What do you suppose the chances are that he remains interested in Iraq after Shock and Awe starts to get so, like, boring?






digby 3/16/2003 10:16:00 AM |

 
This Summer I Hear The Drumming

Atrios via Roger Ailes points out this nice story of some fine military "security" officers and their off base cross burning antics. These are some of the same military "security" officers who have authorization to use deadly force to protect residents and equipment from protesters on base --- at their discretion

Not all MP's are white supremecists by any means, but it should be remembered that this is why we have a system of justice. We don't let cops shoot to kill except in self-defense. It is impossible to believe that protesters could threaten some sort of vital equipment at Vandenberg Air Force base in California that would threaten the lives of servicement in Iraq. If they can, then somebody needs to take a much harder look at the security of the base overall rather than putting out the word that they are going to shoot first and ask questions later.








digby 3/16/2003 08:37:00 AM |

Saturday, March 15, 2003

 
Tin Soldiers And Junior Coming

Vandenberg Air Force Base authorizes 'deadly force' against trespassing protesters

VANDENBERG AIR FORCE BASE, Calif. (AP) - Security forces at Vandenberg Air Force Base may use "deadly force" against protesters if they infiltrate the military complex if a war starts, officials said.
Some anti-war activists plan to trespass onto base grounds in hopes of disturbing Vandenberg's mission and to vandalize sensitive equipment they contend helps guide the war effort.

Vandenberg officials revealed Friday that military security police may shoot to kill, if necessary, to protect base residents and machinery.

Anti-war protesters have a habit of threatening "base residents." And protecting "machinery" is a patriotic duty. Shoot the bastards. Where do they think they live, America?









digby 3/15/2003 03:05:00 PM |

 



Strangely, I've seen lots of this kind of thing, but I have yet to see any kind of "Down With Saddam" signs. Who, exactly do these people think we are going to war with?


Hesiod links to the following article and explains that this means the "pro-war" rallies are actually "pro-al Qaeda" rallies.

Anger on Iraq Seen as New Qaeda Recruiting Tool
By DON VAN NATTA Jr. and DESMOND BUTLER


LONDON, March 15 — On three continents, Al Qaeda and other terror organizations have intensified their efforts to recruit young Muslim men, tapping into rising anger about the American campaign for war in Iraq, according to intelligence and law enforcement officials.

In recent weeks, officials in the United States, Europe and Africa say they had seen evidence that militants within Muslim communities are seeking to identify and groom a new generation of terrorist operatives. An invasion of Iraq, the officials worry, is almost certain to produce a groundswell of recruitment for groups committed to attacks in the United States, Europe and Israel.


"An American invasion of Iraq is already being used as a recruitment tool by Al Qaeda and other groups," a senior American counterintelligence official said. "And it is a very effective tool."

Another American official, based in Europe, said Iraq had become "a battle cry, in a way," for Qaeda recruiters.

Some of the information about Qaeda recruiting comes from interrogations of captured operatives and from materials found at the house in Rawalpindi, Pakistan, where Khalid Shaikh Mohammed, the third-ranking Qaeda leader, was arrested this month, officials say.

digby 3/15/2003 02:45:00 PM |

 
Crystal Ball

Matthew Yglesias says:

I've often wondered what, exactly, the UN's critics proposed that we put in its place. Well, David Gelernter has risen to the challenge with results that are a bit ... odd.

The core of the new organization--call it the Big Three--would be a Britain-Russia-America triumvirate. The underlying principle: No credible world organization could include only countries we like. But Russia's fluid condition gives us an unusual opening. Russia is a big country with a vivid history. No organization that includes Russia could possibly be America's cat's-paw. Yet Russia is uncertain of what she wants; she is open to persuasion. Yes, that means money; but international prestige is worth even more, especially to a humbled former champion. Including Russia (but not China or France) in the ruling committee might impart just the right soupçon of anti-Americanism to the new organization, which must be credible yet not intractable

There is much one can say about this, the most obvious being that this ridiculous concept that time is going to stand still and the US, Britain and Russia will always be in the exact positions they are currently in is well...dumb. But, instead of writing a thousand words I'll offer this instead:







digby 3/15/2003 01:12:00 PM |

 
Proud To Be An American


I just saw some fair and balanced footage of rallies, with scrupulously equal time given to the story of the hundreds of anti-war rallies thoughout the world and the one "Patriot" rally in Atlanta on CNN. They reported that the pro-war rally had expected 10,000 but were happily surprised to have doubled that number. The organizers finally feel they are "getting their message out."

To the melodic strains of Lee Greenwood, I watched one of the speakers whip the crowd into a frenzy by saying We thought they were the only ones out there...the ones with hairy underarms...lesbians or whatever. (much hooting and laughing from the crowd) We thought we were surrounded by...California. (booooooo) But that's not true. We surround them!"

The commentator said that most of speeches were primarily concerned with criticizing Hollywood and anti-war protesters.

Has anyone heard a lot of speechifying at the anti-war rallies against fellow citizens? I have been to some and watched a bunch on C-Span, and I don't remember anybody saying anything disrespectful of the American people, but instead confined themselves to the politicians who are making war policy -- which, after all, is the traditional way of politics.

I could respond in kind and insult say...the entire red-state region with rude comments about certain rural stereotypes, but that wouldn't be polite.


Hey, TBOGG....

UPDATE:

Here's the transcript. I forgot about the "freaks in limousines." Note the fawning CNN commentary:

DAVID MATTINGLY, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Well, promoters here were predicting a crowd of about 10,000 here at Atlanta, at the Rally for America, but they're now saying on the podium that they have more than doubled that.

Let's take a look at this crowd. People coming out today, decked out in their red, white and blue, thousands of people. Thousands of people carrying banners and signs, offering patriotic sentiments and supporting U.S. troops.

A part of what you're looking at could also be the power of talk radio. Stations across the country have been promoting rallies for America. They've been striking a chord that seems to resonate deeply with people in this crowd. They are pro-U.S., pro-military.

And some of the featured speakers also taking shots at anti-war demonstrators, particularly Hollywood celebrities protesting war in Iraq.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: We were starting to believe that we were surrounded by them, by the ones that are the freaks in the limousine, the ones with the hairy armpits and the lesbian, whatever that is. We thought we were being surrounded by California.

Today, today, I'm proud to tell you they are clear, we surround them

(END VIDEO CLIP)

MATTINGLY: Things wrapping up right now. They just had the song, "Proud to be an American" playing. People singing along with it.

Again quite a few thousand more people than they expected for this rally, particularly with this kind of rain. So promoters very happy with the showing here today and people leaving with a very good feeling that their opinion is being made known across the country.

Back to you.

WHITFIELD: And David, to make it clear, the folks that are assembling there in Atlanta say this is not a pro-war rally but instead, it is one showing patriotism, showing support of the troops, as you mentioned, as well as the president's plans?

MATTINGLY: That is the theme here, support for the troops, for American soldiers right now in the Middle East. They say they don't want a repeat of what they saw after Vietnam, where soldiers came home and were not treated with respect. They want to make sure that does not happen again this time.

But there are some political undercurrents going on. There's a lot of signs here, a very partisan in support of the president, and a lot of signs critical of anti-war protesters, as we showed you before

That's an undercurrent??










digby 3/15/2003 12:44:00 PM |

 
Bush must follow in Queen Victoria's footsteps

Conservative Commentator explains it all:

ASTONISHINGLY GOOD COVER STORY from Daniel Kruger in today's Spectator. His thesis is complex, but essentially he argues that the West as a whole is divided fundamentally into foxes and hedgehogs. The foxes, hippy-dippy postmodernist intellectuals who don't believe in objective truth or ethics - the sort of people who can't bring themselves to use the word 'wrong' without speech marks - are represented by France, Russia, Germany, Belgium, the UN and the EU. The hedgehogs, more simple and single-minded in their ideals, comfortable with certainty and moral truths, are represented by the United States, the UK, Israel, Australia and Canada and NATO. These camps have existed side-by-side for a long while, mainly because of hedgehog American military support for fox France. But that cannot go on:

We stand at a parting of the ways. The coming war with Iraq is going to decide which side goes forward to face the next great threat to the West. If it goes badly, the foxes win. If it goes well, the 1990s myth of a post-modern order - beyond power, beyond war - will be finished. The day of the hedgehog will dawn. He compares tomorrow's chief hedgehog - Bush's America - to that of the 19th Century - Queen Victoria's Britain, and sees a similar role for her. This role is the assertion of liberty, democracy and the rule of law - the morally superior values that prevail in the West but are the right of all. Just as the British Empire saw its duty as the enforcement of its ban on slavery, America's role is to fight for these values across the world, exterminating terrorists and stopping rogue states just as Britain used the Royal Navy to smash the slave trade. Neo-colonialism, he says, is America's future.

Hedgehogs good. Foxes bad. Isaiah Berlin could have saved himself some breath, apparently.

And Pootie-Poot and the Russians are hippy dippy postmodernists just like their soul mates the pansy Belgians. Groovy. Who knew?



This fellow does have a little tiny bone to pick with Queen George, though:

A DAY AND A HALF after it was revealed, I still find it hard to believe that the business contracts for the rebuiling of post-war Iraq have all been given to American companies. It isn't that the war itself has not yet begun that concerns me - planning for after it is over is just sensible forward-thinking. It is the blazen disregard for a loyal ally, and indeed for Iraq itself, which surely can be better served by a greater variety of countries bidding to offer the best services. On what authority were such decisions made? Doesn't the next Iraqi government deserve a say?

Such actions are not only indefensible and petty, but they help put skin on the bones of paranoid conspiracy theories about the war being fought for the sake of US business interests. Just as these were finally being shown for the nonsense we knew them to be, every opponent of war is armed with a fresh arsenal of argument and some solid evidence.

I do not doubt for a moment that this war is right, but this incident alone has made me ask myself why Britain should not merely give America what America gave us as we fought the Battle of Britain single-handedly - our best wishes. Certainly, ending the Baathist Socialist regime in Iraq and disarming its weapons of mass destruction is in Britain's national interest. But if the United States is going to do this anyway, why not allow them, support them and stay out?

I suppose part of the answer is Britain's excellent training and special forces, which are of particular use where brute force and military might are not as effective as something more subtle. We can potentially make this war less bloody for the allies and end it more quickly. And by giving our help and making this an international force that is disarming Saddam, we show ourselves again to be the closest friends of the leading world superpower, which can only be a good thing.

But incidents like these do shake me, and make me ask rationally just what we gain from the special relationship. America's support made an immense difference in the Falklands, certainly, but that was over twenty years ago - and if we are going back decades it seems rather to have been cancelled out by Eisenhower's folly at Suez in trying to curry favour with the Arabs by opposing Britain, France and Israel - a ploy that failed miserably.

If the IRA starts up again in a few years time, will the US help us exterminate terrorism in Ulster the way we helped them in Afghanistan? They'll do their bit with regards intelligence, certainly, and it would be unfair to expect America to fight a threat to Britain alone the way Britain treated a threat to all of Western civilisation. So perhaps it would be unreasonable to expect such help. But that still leaves unanswered the question of what we get out of it. I certainly support the United States and the Bush Administration, but active support is another matter altogether. I think if Britain is to engage in active support for the US, it is right to expect some active support in return. Yesterday's revelations shook my confidence that we do receive such a thing. If they are a freak occurrence, they can be forgotten at once. But if, as is possible, they represent a more general trend, some serious questions need to be re-examined.

Was he under the impression that we were going to share in the spoils of post war Iraq? That Queen George feels some sort of loyalty to the United Kingdom?

Piss off you limey loser. The US 'o A is the only right and true true hedgehog on the entire goddam planet and you'd better get used to it.


Thanks to Baskett's Case for the link. Lotsa good stuff there.







digby 3/15/2003 10:20:00 AM |

 
Chile Proposal A Nonstarter

The Freepers,of course, are now boycotting Chili. With and without beans.






digby 3/15/2003 01:10:00 AM |

Friday, March 14, 2003

 
No More Time

As usual, the Republicans are in a big hurry. Urgency and technicalities are their main governing principles.

But Republican and Democratic pollsters, economists and operatives said part of the urgency for Bush is tied to his political standing at home. They said the uncertainty related to the war is depressing consumer confidence and postponing the sort of robust economic recovery Bush will need to win reelection.

A Gallup poll this month showed a decline in Americans' confidence to a seven-year low, with 36 percent satisfied with the country's direction and 61 percent dissatisfied. It is a decline that began in December 2001. The ABC News-Money magazine's gauge of consumer confidence released this week showed that 23 percent of Americans thought the economy was in good shape, the fewest in more than nine years.

"The number one concern is the impact [Iraq] is having on the economy and the harness it's putting around certain sectors and causing negative growth," GOP strategist Scott Reed said. "It's reaching into all nooks and corners, and causing great concern in both corporate boardrooms and small businesses and their bankers."

If consumer confidence and employment are not growing substantially by early next year, Bush's reelection could be jeopardized...

[...]

Analysts said a further delay also poses risks to Bush's political standing that go beyond the economic. In the most recent poll by the nonpartisan Pew Research Center, 54 percent of Americans approved of his job performance, 3 percentage points higher than in August 2001. At the same time, narrow majorities of Americans favor military action against Iraq without allied support. Both gauges will jump once hostilities begin, but "the question is how long it's going to last," poll director Andrew Kohut said.

[...]

Since last year, administration officials have said the weather would be too hot to launch an attack after early spring. But in recent weeks, defense officials have said that is less of a concern than originally believed and that another month's wait could be tolerated.

[...]

well, well, well.





digby 3/14/2003 10:43:00 PM |

 
Nothing To See Here, Move Along

This is completely illegitimate, I'm sure. Jay Rockefeller wants to have a little investigation into how we happened to be using blatently forged documents to bolster our case that Iraq has nuclear weapons.

Sarah Ross, a spokeswoman for Senate Intelligence Committee chairman Pat Roberts, said the committee will look into the forgery, but Roberts believes it is inappropriate for the FBI to investigate at this point.

The documents indicated that Iraq tried to by uranium from Niger, the West African nation that is the third-largest producer of mined uranium, Niger's largest export. The documents had been provided to U.S. officials by a third country, which has not been identified.

A U.S. government official, who spoke on the condition of anonymity, said it was unclear who first created the documents. The official said American suspicions remain about an Iraq-Niger uranium connection because of other, still-credible evidence that the official refused to specify.

In December, the State Department used the information to support its case that Iraq was lying about its weapons programs. But on March 7, Mohammed ElBaradei, head of the International Atomic Energy Agency, told the U.N. Security Council that the documents were forgeries.

Rockefeller said U.S. worries about Iraqi nuclear weapons were not based primarily on the documents, but "there is a possibility that the fabrication of these documents may be part of a larger deception campaign aimed at manipulating public opinion and foreign policy regarding Iraq."

Yah think?

Personally, I don't see any reason to investigate this until all congressional committees finally clear up the issue of whether Hillary was involved in firing the travel office staff back in 1993. They only spent 4 years on that subject, so I can't really feel confident that they got to the bottom of it. You've just got to have some priorities.








digby 3/14/2003 10:04:00 PM |

 
"Pivoting"

Forrest Sawyer just asked David Gregory if the White House is in chaos. Gregory said no, the White House says it is "pivoting" in a number of different directions.

This is also known as running around in circles.


heh.



digby 3/14/2003 07:21:00 PM |

 
Required Reading

Josh Marshall says to read this and he's right. It is devastating.

By Michael Lind


The United States is now more isolated from its major allies and more internally divided over foreign policy than at any time since 1945. The strategy of the Bush administration-and not merely its style-is to blame.

The grand strategy of the Bush administration rests on three axioms: American global hegemony; preventive war; and the so-called “war on terror.” All three axioms are fallacies that inevitably produce counterproductive and misguided policies. What the great French diplomat Talleyrand said of Napoleon’s execution of the Duc d’Enghien applies with equal force to Bush’s grand strategy: “It is worse than a crime; it is a mistake.”

Go





digby 3/14/2003 03:21:00 PM |

 
Not Quite Enough

With Democratic presidential candidates under fire for their reluctance to speak out about Iraq, Massachusetts Sen. John Kerry delivered a major policy address in San Francisco Thursday -- and omitted any substantive mention of the looming war.

In a 40-minute speech to a packed hall sponsored by the Commonwealth Club of California, Kerry offered a stinging indictment of Bush domestic policies on the environment, homeland security, eroding civil liberties and the declining economy. But he saved his comments on the war for a question-and-answer session afterward, and even in those tempered remarks, his position on Iraq was less than clear-cut.

The ongoing failure of the Bush administration to win allies in the U.N. Security Council "displays some of the weakest diplomacy we've ever seen in the history of the continental U.S.," Kerry said after the speech.

Although he voted last fall to authorize the president to use military force against Iraq and said Thursday that he did not regret his vote, Kerry did not say whether he still believes force should be used -- or if so, when. "The United States should never go to war because it wants to go to war," he said, echoing statements made in January. "We should go to war because we have to go to war. And that is not clear at this time."

He did flesh out a rather fine critique, however, of the Bush administration's handling of the diplomacy. Why he couldn't do it in his speech is anybody's guess, but I assume it's because he's afraid of Sean Hannity and Ari Fleischer:

Only one-third of the job of president is to be "CEO of the domestic choices of the country," he said in response to one question. "Two-thirds of the job of president is head of state -- therefore chief diplomat."

And the international chaos of recent months proves the need to have a strong person in that position, he said, suggesting that neither Bush nor Secretary of State Colin Powell have measured up well in the job.

In 2002, there was clearly a path to the inspections process that brought legitimacy and consent to an international endeavor, he said. What led to its demise is an endemic unwillingness to strengthen relationships with European nations. "I don't know if they put the lock and key on the airplane so he [Powell] isn't allowed to travel," Kerry said, "but somehow this has been a secretary of state who's been unwilling to go over and build those relationships."

"I regret the way this administration has conducted foreign policy and given the back of its hand to so many nations," he said. "The United States, the strongest military power on the face of this planet, has not had diplomacy that matches it."

I don't understand why Kerry can't just say that he is for ousting Saddam, but that they hashed it up so much and are so incredibly incompetent that the congress is going to have to assert itself like never before to ensure that they do not create complete chaos in the region, and the next president is going to have to clean up the mess that's been made of our international relations. He should be thundering his criticism of the unilateralist bent of the administration and their inability to convince the world that the invasion scheme is the right one.

He voted for the damned war. If he'd stick to his guns and use the opportunity to show how the Republicans have compromised their own goals, he would be a principled politician that even the doves could respect. Instead, he just seems vague and scared.

People are not going to vote for a candidate who is trying to split the difference on national security.

These Democrats have got to realize that there is no margin in trying to appease the GOP. They are going to get it coming and going, no matter what they say. They have to concentrate, instead, on laying out a principled alternative to Bush Imperialism and let the chips fall where they may. The have got to step up and fight and that does not mean that they must be doves. It just means they must stand for something.

And, it's not like the Republicans haven't given them enough to criticize, for gawd's sake. They've fucked up even on their own terms. How hard is it to make a passionate speech about Bush's failure in international relations?



digby 3/14/2003 02:36:00 PM |

 
All The Sock-Puppet's Men

TBOGG is on to Howard Fineman.






digby 3/14/2003 01:40:00 PM |

 
Burning CD’s

People are (literally) burning the Dixie Chicks' CD’s because of their treasonous statements objecting to the imminent invasion of Iraq. And, if that wasn’t bad enough, they also said they were ashamed that George W. Alamo is from Texas. The humanity.

I must remind all of you people who would like to show solidarity with the coalition of the willing, it really shouldn’t stop with the Dixie Chicks.

I wrote before that Shania Twain, Hank Williams Jr., Willie Nelson, Trisha Yearwood, Vince Gill, Reba McIntyre, Earl Scruggs, Mark Wills, Tom T. Hall, Lee Ann Womack, and George Strait all work for that Saddam loving enemy, Vivendi of….gasp….France.

I urge all righteous God fearing Americans to call Rush and Sean and the rest and let them know you want them to use their clout in the radio industry to put a stop to this traitorous war profiteering on the part of their employers. They, of all people, understand that allowing the radio and record industry to put profits over freedom is Un-American. DEMAND that Rush tell Clear Channel to stop playing the following artists immediately:


U2, Bob Marley, Elton John, Eminem, Nelly, Diana Krall, George Benson, John Coltrane, Enrique Iglesias, Limp Bizkit, No Doubt, Sheryl Crow, Sting, Ashanti, Elvis Costello, Smokey Robinson, B.B. King, Melissa Etheridge, Blink 182, Cranberries, Mary J Blige, Erykah Badu, Stevie Wonder, Ja Rule, Nirvana, 50 Cent, The Temptations, Bon Jovi, Ludacris, Jay Z, Shaggy, Placido Domingo, Andrea Bocelli, Lionel Richie, Hansen, Hooba stanks, Injected, Tatu, Wallflowers, MS Dynamite, 2 Pac, Ms Jade, American HiFi, Def Leppard, Die Trying, Letter Kills, PJ Harvey, Portishead, MJ Cole, Rosy, Shorty 101, Hoobastank, A Teens, Avant, Res, The Roots, Brian McKnight, India Arie, Remy Shand, AZ Black Coffey, Corey, DJ Rogers J,r Melanie Durrant, Dave Hollister, India.Arie, Jene Jose Brian McKnight, Stephen Marley, Remy, Shand, Charlie Haden, Al Jarreau.

These people are making blood money off of the backs of America’s freedom and they need to know that if they don’t quit working for the godless, Iraq loving French enemy, we will end their careers. You know that Rush will put his career on the line for this and require his employer to either stop playing all artists that work for Vivendi or he will quit.

He’s a patriot above all else. You know he is.

Update:

YOU can call The Rush Limbaugh Show program line between 12 Noon and 3PM Eastern Time at: 1-800-282-2882

You can e-mail Rush at: rush@eibnet.com

You can fax Rush at: 212-563-9166

You can write Rush at:
The Rush Limbaugh Show
2 Penn Plaza
New York, NY 10121


Update II: I can't believe I have to do this, but my comments section proves that I have been much too obscure with my little satire.

I don't really think that we should be boycotting Vivendi and I think the Dixie Chicks are a-ok. What I was trying (and obviously failing) to do, was show that Rush and his hate radio cohorts are being hypocritical in calling for a boycott of French products, when their own employers are making zillions from playing artists who work for one of the biggest French companies in the world.

It would be fun to see whether Rush would be willing to put his career on the line by threatening to quit Clear Channel if they continued to make money from a French company, but I have no illusions that he would give up one single penny in this cause. I would love to see him explain why, though, wouldn't you?

whew.






digby 3/14/2003 01:07:00 PM |

 
Word To The Wise

I don't subscribe to any GOP e-mail lists and I certainly don't have access to the daily talking points that so obviously are passed around amongst the bow-tied, doughboy Republican cognoscenti, but it doesn't take an insider to figure out what they are since they multiply like bacteria into the media within minutes of introduction.

Here's the current infection:

Yesterday, Perle gave aninterview on RTL in which he claimed that Chirac and Hussein have been "good friends" since the 70's. This is not news, but it was also put forth as a startling revelation on Brit Hume's show on Fox News yesterday. I would bet that it's all over Talk Radio again today.This adds to the contention that Chirac has given so much illegal contraband to his friend in the hopes of good deals on oil leases that he's petrified that good people everywhere will recoil in disgust when they find out the truth.

Charles Pierce pithily retorts to that last accusation today on Altercation saying, "if you’re keeping score at home, it should be noted that it wasn’t the Freedoms who redacted 12,000 pages of the Iraqi weapons report before they made it public. What did we edit out? The receipts?"

No way, Marseilles. Just so's ya knows -- Jacques has promised his lover Saddam a stocking full 'o Nukes for Christmas. And, apparently, out 'o principle, John Negropont and Don Rumsfeld kept those 12,000 pages of love letters from the world in order to spare Mrs. Chirac the embarrassment. Or something.

The Wurlitzer always plays on key.



digby 3/14/2003 11:37:00 AM |

 
Iraq, the Middle East and Change: No Dominoes

A classified State Department report expresses doubt that installing a new regime in Iraq will foster the spread of democracy in the Middle East, a claim President Bush has made in trying to build support for a war, according to intelligence officials familiar with the document.

The report exposes significant divisions within the Bush administration over the so-called democratic domino theory, one of the arguments that underpins the case for invading Iraq.

[...]

The domino theory also is used by the administration as a counterargument to critics in Congress and elsewhere who have expressed concern that invading Iraq will inflame the Muslim world and fuel terrorist activity against the United States.

But the theory is disputed by many Middle East experts and is viewed with skepticism by analysts at the CIA and the State Department, intelligence officials said.

Critics say even establishing a democratic government in Iraq will be extremely difficult. Iraq is made up of ethnic groups deeply hostile to one another. Ever since its inception in 1932, the country has known little but bloody coups and brutal dictators.

Even so, it is seen by some as holding more democratic potential — because of its wealth and educated population — than many of its neighbors.

By some estimates, 65 million adults in the Middle East can't read or write, and 14 million are unemployed, with an exploding, poorly educated youth population.

Given such trends, "we'll be lucky to have strong central governments [in the Middle East], let alone democracy," said one intelligence official with extensive experience in the region.

The official stressed that no one in intelligence or diplomatic circles opposes the idea of trying to install a democratic government in Iraq.

"It couldn't hurt," the official said. "But to sell [the war] on the basis that this is going to cause 1,000 flowers to bloom is naive."

Some officials said the classified document reflects views that are widely held in the State Department and CIA but that those holding such views have been muzzled in an administration eager to downplay the costs and risks of war.

[...]

Middle East experts said there are other factors working against democratic reform, including a culture that values community and to some extent conformity over individual rights.

"I don't accept the view that the fall of Saddam Hussein is going to prompt quick or even discernible movement toward democratization of the Arab states," said Philip C. Wilcox, director of the Foundation for Middle East Peace and a former top State Department official. "Those countries are held back not by the presence of vicious authoritarian regimes in Baghdad but by a lot of other reasons."

Bush has responded to such assessments by assailing the "soft bigotry of low expectations."

Wow. Move over George Kennan. I thought he said that the new regime would be reformers with results, leaders who knew how to lead. He said he had some stong talks with the Iraqi exiles and felt they would make fabulous leaders. He believes they can be united not divided and he promises to smoke out Saddam and keep him on the run. I never heard him say that not believing in fairy tales was the soft bigotry of low expectations though.

And then, there's the deft handling of US Russian relations.

Oh Dmitri...

Washington had calculated that Putin, a pragmatist, valued Russia's relationship with the United States above all other foreign policy issues. U.S. officials also thought that Moscow's interests in the Iraqi oil business and its desire to see Iraq repay $8 billion of debt would be enough to ensure Russian compliance.

There have been some veiled threats, however, notably from a senior Bush administration official in Moscow recently who warned Russia of the economic costs of blocking U.S. objectives.

"What we have said is that if you're concerned with recouping your $8 billion in debts and if you're interested in economic opportunities in liberated Iraq, it would be helpful if you were part of the prevailing coalition," that official said at a background briefing for reporters last month.

"The Americans failed to understand that in order to make Putin change his position on Iraq, it was necessary to offer and actually give him something," said one Moscow analyst, Viktor A. Kremenyuk of the USA-Canada Institute. "In fact, the Americans have done nothing real to attract Russia and win it over to their side."

These guys are so gooood.

That official, by the way, was likely our suave and debonair Assistant Secretary of State for Arms Control and International Security --- John "there is no such thing as the UN" Bolton. He's the Zelig of diplomatic screw-ups.


digby 3/14/2003 12:12:00 AM |

Thursday, March 13, 2003

 
Be Nice To Colin, Junior

I made a private bet that Colin Powell would resign from this administration over policy. That was 2 years ago and I thought I'd lost. Maybe not.

Fineman seems to think that the scapegoating is about to begin now that even he has acknowledged that the administration's diplomacy has been a joke. Powell has his own constituency, particularly in the media. The Bushies had better be very, very careful. A Powell resignation could be the tipping point for a Bush freefall.



digby 3/13/2003 10:56:00 PM |

 
Here We Go Again

Even some antiwar Democrats are insisting they won't criticize the Bush administration once the fighting begins. Massachusetts Sen. John Kerry, who's staked out a complex pro-disarming Saddam, anti-unilateral-war approach to the mess, says he'll hit the mute button immediately. Former Vermont Gov. Howard Dean, a more unequivocal war opponent than Kerry, told the Boston Globe he's not sure he'll keep it up once the shooting starts. War critics like former Sen. Gary Hart and Florida Sen. Bob Graham may postpone official announcements of their candidacies if war begins, as expected, in the next couple of weeks. Only Rep. Dennis Kucinich and former Sen. Carol Mosely-Braun, who are not given much chance of winning the nomination, have had the courage to tell reporters that they'll stick with their antiwar message come war.

This timidity is Reason No. 392 for the political question vexing Democrats right now: Why is it that polls show President Bush losing the '04 election to an "Unnamed Democrat," but beating all the Democrats who are currently in the race? Everyone knows this president is supremely vulnerable. He's plundered the surplus and pushed an economic policy that has arguably worsened the recession. He's angered most of our allies and is now on the verge of a potentially disastrous war whose rationale changes every day. His poll numbers dip almost daily, too.

But Bush can still probably beat any of the Democrats lined up against him, because no one yet has shown the charisma or the courage to break out of the pack. And otherwise admirable candidates like Kerry and Dean seem to be faltering in this early test of political integrity

[...]

Not just Kerry but the whole pack of '04 candidates seems overmatched by the current global crisis. In a disturbing Adam Nagourney piece in Monday's New York Times, dithering Democrats were featured complaining that in Iowa, nobody wants to listen to their speeches about women's issues or unemployment or the healthcare crisis; they only want to talk about war! Even Dean, who's benefited most from the surge of antiwar feeling in Iowa, whined to Nagourney: "I had a press conference and it was all about the war. And finally I said, 'Would anybody like to talk about the enormous jump in the unemployment rate that was announced in the morning papers?'"

[...]

...They may suffer politically, for a while, whatever they do, because it's true that the nation rallies around its president in a time of war.

But they'll suffer more permanent political damage if they look like they're backsliding on their antiwar views. Democrats have to remember this is a mess that's at least partly of their own making. They've been treating Iraq like a tough campaign curveball, rather than a test of leadership and conscience, since before the midterm election. Democratic Leadership Council chair Sen. Evan Bayh of Indiana typified the party's cowardice when he told reporters last year: "The majority of the American people tend to trust the Republican Party more on issues involving national security and defense than they do the Democratic Party. We need to work to improve our image on that score by taking a more aggressive posture with regard to Iraq, empowering the president."

Democrats mostly followed Bayh's bad advice, caving on the vote that essentially gave the president a blank check back in October, to polish their "image" and put the issue behind them -- so they could get back to talking about Social Security reform on the campaign trail. But voters didn't listen. "I hope the party learned a lesson in November 2002 about the perils of going into a fetal position," David Wade, a spokesman for Massachusetts Sen. John Kerry, told ABC News just a few days before his boss issued his statement about not criticizing Bush once war begins.

This is a trainwreck. If the Democrats cannot formulate a respectful, principled opposition to the crazyassed imperialistic foreign policy of this administration we are in big trouble. They have simply got to stop being afraid of the the Republicans. They will be called traitors even if they don uniforms and go into battle themselves. Saxby Chambliss proved that there is no limit to how far they will go to impugn the patriotism of Democrats so they have absolutely nothing to lose by telling it like it is. That the GOP is so brutal and dishonest is actually freeing. Since their characters will be assassinated anyway, they are free to speak their minds.

The question is probably whether they know their own minds enough to speak them. And that's depressing.




digby 3/13/2003 07:39:00 PM |

 
Necrophilia

Update: Apparently it is unclear that this post is referring to the absurd idea of bringing back remains of servicemen killed in France during WWII. The link below connects to that story. Kevin also has commentary.

They are working themselves into a complete frenzy, now.

This is embarrassing. I thought that only Condi Rice was deluded enough to believe that we joined WWII to "liberate the Germans from Hitler," but apparently this is common knowledge amongst the scholors on the right.

On September 1, 1939 Germany invaded Poland. Great Britain and France declared war on Germany on September 3, 1939. In May of 1940, Hitler invaded France using Blitzkrieg tactics.

We didn't rush right in to save the day like Superman as these morons apparently believe. While Hitler cut a swath through Europe we were sending some supplies and debating whether we should help out. When we were attacked at Peal Harbor on December 7, 1941 we declared war on Japan the next day. And on December 11th Germany and Italy declared war on us.

There was no overwhelming public outcry to liberate the French by good and wholesome Americans who cared nothing for their own lives but merely wanted to save all the little children. We went in because we had no choice. We had watched the war from afar for 2 long years before we actually joined and it was isolationist Republicans who were the most vociferous in their objections to doing it.

It was DAMNED LUCKY for us that it was the French women and French children and French old people who had to try to survive in a war zone on their own soil (not to mention for the American Jews who daily blessed their good fortune to escape the fate of the hundreds of thousands of French Jews who were carted off to concentration camps.) It is estimated that at least 150,000 French civilians died from bombing and Nazi terror and that's not even counting those who died in concentration camps. In Britain, from August 1940 to May 1941 alone, more than 40,000 civilians were killed and 40,000 more were seriously wounded in bombing attacks.

This petty French bashing is obviously being coordinated by the Wurlitzer to give their neanderthals somebody new to hate. But to distort the meaning of WWII for partisan reasons is beyond the pale. It dishonors the regular guys like my Dad who fought in that war. I do not recall ever hearing him say that France, England (or even Germany or Japan) owed the United States their blind allegiance until the end of time. To him, doing the right thing was its own reward. This seems to be one of those much vaunted values that the current spoiled, silly trivial warmongers seem to have overlooked.

The French paid their dues in the fight against Hitler. They do not owe us anything. We were on the same side in a war against a tyrant who threatened the entire world and the French people paid a price for that fight that we can only imagine in our worst nightmares. To demean their experience in the war as these people are doing is shameful.


We used to be better people than this.



digby 3/13/2003 06:41:00 PM |

 
A Certain Kind of Nonsense

A Brooklyn Bridge has a number of good posts up on the Arlon Lindner (R-Homophobe Nutcase) scandal.

He alerts us to yet another fine, upstanding religious ministry that has taken up the fine Christian tradition of lying about history to further its Christian message of hate.

Given his connection to Abiding Truth Ministries ("Helping families protect themselves from the 'gay' agenda"), Lindner's views about gays and the Holocaust are hardly surprising. Of the 19 books and tapes they offer, 15 of them are about gays and lesbians. (The others probably are, too, but they weren't explicit in the descriptions). Like its founder (and author of The Pink Swastika), Scott Lively, ATM seems to be convinced of deep connection between gays and Nazis. In addition to an article, "Is there a Gay Basis to Nietzche's Ideas?", there this book:


"The Poisoned Stream"
Traces the "poisoned stream" of homosexual influences throughout history, particularly in Germany between 1890 and 1945


Is this an emerging meme? Should we expect "homonazi" jokes on Limbaugh? Andrew Sullivan (who so far has managed to miss the Lindner controversy), did catch a truly vile ad in the Weekly Standard.


Unintended Humor Department: among ATM's recommend links are FoxNews, WorldNet Daily, and — rimshot, please — the Drudge Report.

Now, Peggy, I'm sure, will be having none of this. As she so righteously noted:

Republicans by and large don't suffer from blind loyalty or blind antagonism. They would think it irresponsible to the country. They will bolt on one of their own if he insists on a route they think is seriously wrong (the first Bush on taxes). They will kill his presidency if they conclude he is essentially destructive (it was his Republican base in Congress that ended Richard Nixon's career). Recently it was Republicans who did in their own Senate majority leader because they would not accept a certain kind of nonsense.

Needless to say, Peggy would not think it was a matter of conservative political philosophy to blatently lie by saying that gays were not amongst those targeted for extermination in the holocaust. Certainly, she must agree that saying that gays caused German fascism is a "certain kind of nonsense."

Will she lead the charge to purge the party of Lindner's outrageous hate mongering? Of course she will. This is Peggy we're talking about.



digby 3/13/2003 03:58:00 PM |

 
Past Not Prologue

Patrick at Electrolite opened his blog up to another round of Nader discourse, otherwise known as beating your head against a wall.

I argued so vociferously during the campaign and vented my spleen so often in the months just after the election that I no longer have it in me. I like Greens and Nader voters and I just want to call a truce. As far as I'm concerned the whole thing is ancient history.

But, I do have one request. Knowing what we all know now, we really have to make a pact that all progressive, liberal, sane normal people band together and promise to work as hard as we can to oust Emperor Bloodlust in 2004.

No one could be worse, not even Joe Lieberman ( gawd forbid.) This administration has taken extreme steps to create an Imperial foreign policy AND an Imperial Presidency. This is what must be halted as quickly as possible. They have assumed so much power in the executive branch that our government is seriously out of balance. Only another party can right that. And, for better or worse, that party is the Democratic Party.

If it is difficult to rationalize with your principles, I say vote for a Green for congress and allow the GOP to maintain control. I will hate it, but compared to this cabal in the white house the congressional Republicans are pikers. The presidency simply cannot be left in the hands of Junior and The Retreads.

There really is no choice. So, I say let bygones be bygones. The campaign of 2000 is over and I'm willing to put it to bed. But, going forward, we need every liberal with a pulse (and even those without one) to vote against George W. Bush.

Can we all agree on this, at least?






digby 3/13/2003 03:31:00 PM |

 
Another One Bites the Dust

Atrios goes to the dark side. What's next? Joining the Fox News AllStars? Partying all night with Ceci and Kit? Sharing a bottle of "151" with Hitch? My Gawd, sir! Have you no decency?



Seriously, congratulations to King of Left Blogtopia.May we dare hope that he will be getting some $$$$?







digby 3/13/2003 02:59:00 PM |

 



Well, here's a big surprise. It turns out that Shock and Awe is yet another one of those dusty tomes that Strangelovean neocons have kept in their back pocket just waiting for a Chauncey W. Bush to be installed so they could test its crazy theories. Here's the official DOD book on Shock and Awe. It's part of a military doctrine called Rapid Dominance.

Rapid Dominance would seek to be more universal in application through the overriding objective of affecting the adversary's will beyond the boundaries traditionally defined by military capability alone.

I hear that they originally wanted to call it Hegemonic Terrorism, but they figured that might have bad public relations implications.

To affect the will of the adversary, Rapid Dominance will apply a variety of approaches and techniques to achieve the necessary level of Shock and Awe at the appropriate strategic and military leverage points. This means that psychological and intangible, as well as physical and concrete effects beyond the destruction of enemy forces and supporting military infrastructure, will have to be achieved. It is in this broader and deeper strategic application that Rapid Dominance perhaps most fundamentally differentiates itself from current doctrine and offers revolutionary application.

Flowing from the primary concentration on affecting the adversary's will to resist through imposing a regime of Shock and Awe to achieve strategic aims and military objectives, four characteristics emerge that will define the Rapid Dominance military force. These are noted and discussed in later chapters. The four characteristics are near total or absolute knowledge and understanding of self, adversary, and environment; rapidity and timeliness in application; operational brilliance in execution; and (near) total control and signature management of the entire operational environment.

Whereas decisive force is inherently capabilities driven—that is, it focuses on defeating the military capability of an adversary and therefore tends to be scenario sensitive—Rapid Dominance would seek to be more universal in application through the overriding objective of affecting the adversary's will beyond the boundaries traditionally defined by military capability alone. In other words, where decisive force is likely to be most relevant is against conventional military capabilities that can be overwhelmed by American (and allied) military superiority. In conflict or crisis conditions that depart from this idealized scenario, the superior nature of our forces is assumed to be sufficiently broad to prevail. Rapid Dominance would not make this distinction in either theory or in practice.

To their credit, the planners did offer the following caveat:

We note for the record that should a Rapid Dominance force actually be fielded with the requisite operational capabilities, this force would be neither a silver bullet nor a panacea and certainly not an antidote or preventative for a major policy blunder, miscalculation, or mistake. It should also be fully appreciated that situations will exist in which Rapid Dominance (or any other doctrine) may not work or apply because of political, strategic, or other limiting factors.

No shit.


Thanks to High Water for the link. He also links to this analysis called "Awe Shocks" by Joseph Stromberg.

Here's a bit:

Chapter Three catalogues and evaluates recent US interventions and teases out apparent lessons. There is muted praise for our sometime friend Saddam Hussein's ruthless rocket attacks on Tehran, undertaken back when he was still salonfähig, attacks approvingly said to have "amounted to a reign of terror."

It really does: Here's what it says:

When our troops were having difficulty dislodging Grenadian soldiers from their main fortress, Marine tanks were sailed around the island to confront them. At the sight of tank guns, the seemingly stubborn occupants surrendered almost immediately without a fight.

The cease fire in the bloody Iran-Iraq war was quick to follow after the commencement of daily Iraqi long-range rocket bombardments of Tehran that amounted to a reign of terror. Given that both sides were exhausted at that point, a show of force could have been convincing. Strong U.S. action in response to Iran's mining of neutral waters may also have had a sobering effect on the mullahs. Not only were Iran's vulnerable oil-producing platforms in the Gulf boarded and destroyed with impunity by the U.S., but Iranian naval forces that had come out to challenge the U.S. Navy were destroyed. Iraq's reign of terror, and the strong American message to Iran, possibly helped end the war.

You cannot make this stuff up. Read the whole document, if you can stomach it.

All I can say is, "Gee, I wish we had one of them doomsday machines."





digby 3/13/2003 02:39:00 PM |

 
Thank You Peggy

It was so nice of her to help out the hapless Dems with some sad, heartfelt observations of our snobbishness, elitism and exclusionary tactics. She said:

"Be pro-free-speech again. Allow internal divisions and dissent. A vital political party should have divisions and dissent."

"Stop being the party of snobs. Show love for your country and its people--all its people. Stop looking down on those who resist your teachings

"Stop the ideology. A lot of Democratic Party movers and intellectuals have created or inherited a leftist ideology that they try to impose on life. It doesn't spring from life; it's forced on life, and upon people. Stop doing that--it's what weirdos who are detached from reality do."

That was such good advice. You can't say too much about it. What could be more important to a political party's intellectual vitality
than to allow all points of view?This is what makes Peggy a national treasure. Her consistency, her caring advice to the opposition, her committment to values and principles that all Americans should (and so rarely do) hold dear are the very definition of the American character.

It's called Honor and Integrity

Or, as Peggy says, "It's called, class."




digby 3/13/2003 01:49:00 PM |

Wednesday, March 12, 2003

 
Eastern Front

MOSCOW - The US envoy to Russia has warned Moscow to think twice about the consequences of using its UN veto to block military action against Iraq.

And in a further sign of deteriorating US-Russia relations over the Iraq crisis, a top Russian official said Washington's bellicose stance could freeze a key nuclear arms pact

Why are we ratcheting up the rhetoric at this particular time? What could be causing this relationship -- with a country that actually has a whole big bunch of nuclear weapons -- to deteriorate like this? It just doesn't seem like a good idea to be even thinking about freezing nuclear arms pacts and withholding economic aid from Russia right now. Who would even think of such a thing?

A Kremlin spokeswoman said US President George W Bush discussed the Iraq crisis with Russian President Vladimir Putin by telephone on Wednesday.

Not a good idea.

I knew President Merkin Muffley. President Merkin Muffley was a friend of mine. And you sir are no President Merkin Muffley.




digby 3/12/2003 06:59:00 PM |

Tuesday, March 11, 2003

 
Psychotic Break

Kieren and others are talking about how den Beste has lost his bearings, but it's pretty clear it's just symptomatic of a much wider form of mass psychosis on the right.

Michael Ledeen, esteemed fellow of the American Enterprise Institute, and intimate of the neocon nutballs who are running our foreign policy has gone completely around the fucking bend:

A Theory

What if there’s method to the Franco-German madness?

Assume, for a moment, that the French and the Germans aren't thwarting us out of pique, but by design, long-term design. Then look at the world again, and see if there's evidence of such a design.

Like everyone else, the French and the Germans saw that the defeat of the Soviet Empire projected the United States into the rare, almost unique position of a global hyperpower, a country so strong in every measurable element that no other nation could possibly resist its will. The "new Europe" had been designed to carve out a limited autonomy for the old continent, a balance-point between the Americans and the Soviets. But once the Soviets were gone, and the Red Army melted down, the European Union was reduced to a combination theme park and free-trade zone. Some foolish American professors and doltish politicians might say — and even believe — that henceforth "power" would be defined in economic terms, and that military power would no longer count. But cynical Europeans know better.

They dreaded the establishment of an American empire, and they sought for a way to bring it down.

If you were the French president or the German chancellor, you might well have done the same.

How could it be done? No military operation could possibly defeat the United States, and no direct economic challenge could hope to succeed. That left politics and culture. And here there was a chance to turn America's vaunted openness at home and toleration abroad against the United States. So the French and the Germans struck a deal with radical Islam and with radical Arabs: You go after the United States, and we'll do everything we can to protect you, and we will do everything we can to weaken the Americans.

The Franco-German strategy was based on using Arab and Islamic extremism and terrorism as the weapon of choice, and the United Nations as the straitjacket for blocking a decisive response from the United States.


[...]

If this is correct, we will have to pursue the war against terror far beyond the boundaries of the Middle East, into the heart of Western Europe. And there, as in the Middle East, our greatest weapons are political: the demonstrated desire for freedom of the peoples of the countries that oppose us.

Radio Free France, anyone?

Somebody had a little Ecstasy with his Freedom Toast this morning.

The next time somebody says that the left is full of conspiracy theorists I'm going to pop a gasket. This guy is a MAINSTREAM Republican, writing on the National Review website, for crying out loud. His nutsy wife worked in the Reagan administration and formerly ran the Barbizon School of Dyed-Blond Former Prosecutors.

Michael Ledeen gets invited to the White House. He is crazy as a loon.










digby 3/11/2003 07:09:00 PM |

 
Epitaph

"One of the tests of a leader is to convince your allies what's right and what's wrong," Bush said. "And that's what a leader does. A leader builds up alliances."

December 1999, ABC "This Week"

I hear ye, Junior.






digby 3/11/2003 04:59:00 PM |

 

OPERATOR

Colonel, you better have a look at this radar.

COLONEL

What is it, son?

OPERATOR

I don't know, sir, but it looks like a giant--

CUT TO COCKPIT - JET

PILOT

Dick!

CO-PILOT

Yes?

PILOT

Take a look out of starboard.

CO-PILOT

Oh my God, it looks like a huge--

CUT TO WOODS

MAN

Pecker!

WOMAN

Where?

He raises his binoculars.

MAN

Over there. A rare red-billed woodpecker!

(looks over with binoculars)

What sort of bird is that? Oh goodness, it's not a bird, it's-

CUT TO ARMY BASE

SERGEANT

Privates! We have reports of an Unidentified Flying Object. It has a long, smooth shaft, complete with-

CUT TO BASEBALL DIAMOND:

UMPIRE

Two balls! No strikes.

(looking up)

What is that? It looks just like an enormous--

CUT BACK TO RADAR ROOM:

COLONEL

Johnson!

RADAR OPERATOR

Yes, sir?

COLONEL

Get on the horn to British Intelligence and let them know about this.



Official transcript







digby 3/11/2003 04:22:00 PM |

 
Tory Unrest

If the Tories are starting to falter then there is a faint (very faint) possibility that the Brits will drop out. If that happens, then all bets are off.

Conservative whip John Randall has quit his post because of his concerns over a possible Iraq war.

With the Tory leadership backing Tony Blair's stance on the Iraq crisis, Mr Randall's resignation shows divisions are not exclusively confined to the Labour benches.

His move comes after International Development Secretary Clare Short launched a searing attack on Mr Blair's "reckless" Iraq policy.

One Labour ministerial aide, Andy Reed, has already resigned over his concerns and others have signalled they will follow if war begins without new United Nations backing.

[...]

They're coming at Bush's Freedom Poodle now from the right as well as the left. It's probably just a "Ron Paul" moment, but you never know.




digby 3/11/2003 03:30:00 PM |

 
A Good Dad

TBOGG proves that it's the smart, sensitive people who are the most devastatingly funny.

Here's my pick for "oh my Gawd, my life just changed" reading:

When you look directly at an insane man all you see is a reflection of your own knowledge that he's insane, which is not to see him at all. To see him you must see what he saw and when you are trying to see the vision of an insane man, an oblique route is the only way to come at it. Otherwise your own opinions block the way... The ghost [Phaedrus] pursued was the ghost that underlies all of technology, all of modern science, all of Western thought. It was the ghost of rationality itself."

Oooh baby.

I was 17 years old and the world tipped off its axis and sent me flying in a brand new direction.



digby 3/11/2003 01:55:00 PM |

 
Orcinus

If those of us on the left read nothing else, we need to read this series from David Neiwert, called Rush, Newspeak and Fascism.

He is writing about something that we really don't want to hear about. Marshalled with data and first hand experience in the field, he is laying out the scenario --- step by step --- for how the United States of America can slowly but inexorably move into fascism.

This is not hysterical nonsense nor is it tin-foil hat conspiracy mongering. Those of us who like to think of ourselves as fairly earthbound (polemic blogging notwithstanding) and who have grown up in a time of unprecedented peace and prosperity where nothing really politically catastrophic has happened to us, are hard pressed to believe that something truly bad can happen here.

I have friends who have maintained until just recently that we would not go to war because well.. it didn't make sense and the wise men who "really run things" wouldn't let it happen. I know other who have faith that our electoral system could never be compromised in any serious way because well...it's America. We don't do that.

And, indeed, we have had an incredible run. We always existed within the context of the time, and as such we perpetrated genocide, institutionalized slavery, pandered to every bigoted and racist proclivity known to man. As a culture we have been no better (and probably no worse) than any other collection of flawed human beings. Rather, it has been the government, while certainly corrupt at times and thoroughly tainted by the necessity for the human species to run it, that has been the fundamental basis of the bold American experiment. A certain committment to that ideal has formed the core of what it means to be an American.

But, there is no guarantee that it remain so. Under stress, whether real or manufactured, the institutions we take for granted are subject to change. We are not immune from the dark side of human ambition or the folly of small men with grand ideas and little know how. It's impossible to know if we are marching toward fascism but there is no law of nature that says it is impossible.




digby 3/11/2003 12:54:00 PM |

 
How Inappropriate

Bob Novak (singing along with the Mighty Wurlitzer) is upset that Jimmy Carter is speaking out of turn and criticizing President Legacy:

NOVAK: There was a time when ex presidents acted like elder statesmen, rarely seen, almost never heard. But on "60 Minutes" this past weekend, there was Bill Clinton, basking in the spotlight of big money and criticizing President Bush's proposed tax cut. Even that wasn't as grading (sic) as yesterday's sanctimonious op-ed column in "The New York Times" by Sunday school teacher and ex-President Jimmy Carter. "As a Christian and as a president who was severely provoked by international crises, I became thoroughly familiar with the principles of a just war, and it is clear that a substantial unilateral attack on Iraq does not meet these standards."

He's right, as always. But, I really think he needs to have a talk with this guy too:

''We need to make clear the new world order is not some code for American imperialism, but making freedom and self-determination widely accepted norms''

It's highly inappropriate for former presidents to speak out of turn this way.




digby 3/11/2003 10:06:00 AM |

Monday, March 10, 2003

 
Ari and Karl Do The Tango

The new NY Times Poll has a roaring headline saying:

Growing Number in U.S. Back War, Survey Finds

Americans are growing impatient with the United Nations and say they would support military action against Iraq even if the Security Council refuses to support an invasion, according to the latest New York Times/CBS News Poll.

The poll found that 58 percent of Americans said the United Nations was doing a poor job in managing the Iraqi crisis, a jump of 10 points from a month ago. And 55 percent of respondents in the latest poll would support an American invasion of Iraq, even if it was in defiance of a vote of the Security Council.

The problem with this headline is that they didn't mention that while the public feels the United Nations isn't "managing" the crisis well, the Bush administration has a bare 51% of Americans who think that he is. And that number hasn't budged. The same number feel he is doing a good job on foreign policy in general, 51%.

The second question concerning defiance of a Security Council vote has never been asked before, so saying that such sentiment is growing is based upon total conjecture.

On the other hand the answers to many of the questions are so contradictory and incoherent that you really have to wonder what the hell people are thinking.

My personal favorite is:

From what you have seen or heard so far, how much progress have the U.N. weapons inspectors made in finding weapons of mass destruction in Iraq --- a lot, some, not much, or none at all?

9% say "a lot", 47% say "some", 33% say "not much", 8% say "none at all", and 3% say "don't know."

56% of the public believe that the inspectors have made some or a lot of progress finding weapons of mass destruction. I suppose they could mean since 1991, but surely a fair number think that Blix and his boys have found them in this last round.

oh...


digby 3/10/2003 08:26:00 PM |

 
Are We Better Off Now Than We Were Six Months Ago?

Vote Quimby points out that the very hegemony and military dominance so prized by the neoconservative warmongers, and on which they base their starry-eyed plans for a Pax Americana, is being seriously diminished by the incompetence of this administration.

Let's just look at this last few months and ask this simple question: Is America more powerful than it was last summer, or less?

I thought that perhaps the answer was 'more' after seeing the 15-0 Security Council vote that got inspectors back on the ground. Achieving unanimity on a security council that included Syria was no mean feat.

But since then, America's ability to influence events has receded dramatically. We've seen a coalition of the unwilling form between France, Germany, Russia and China; and we've been blown off by Turkey(!). It's unclear how many of these diplomatic failures were caused by massive disagreement over matters of substance vs. team G-Dub's ultra-manly approach to getting what it wants. But it seems pretty clear to me that the most powerful nation in the world gets less powerful every time another country publicly refuses to go along with its positions.

Be careful what you wish for, boys...




digby 3/10/2003 06:42:00 PM |

 
Judy Garland Bush

Uppers and Downers:

One of the leaders described Bush as "cocky and relaxed" and said he conveyed the clear impression that he had concluded that attacking Iraq was inevitable. Another lawmaker described Bush as being "in high spirits." This leader said that at the congressional breakfast a month earlier, Bush had "seemed to have the weight of the world on his shoulders."

The lawmakers' accounts were echoed by Bush's aides, who said he is still an optimist in settings unrelated to the war. People close to Bush said he has kept to his usual schedule of sleeping from roughly 10 p.m. to 5:30 a.m. And they said he continues to work out for at least half an hour, at least five or six days a week, alternating between weight-lifting and running -- sometimes on a treadmill and sometimes on an outdoor track.

"I do work out daily. And I'm sleeping well at night," Bush told a roundtable for regional newspaper reporters Monday.

digby 3/10/2003 01:46:00 PM |

 
How Low Can We Go?

This is just wonderful, just peachy. It makes me proud to be an American.

Now, let's suppose the (suspected) terrorist (supposedly) knows that there is going to be a terrorist attack somewhere at sometime in the future. In order to protect the innocent people who might be harmed, isn't it incumbent upon us to torture his children to find out that information?

Because, if torture is called for because of the number of innocent lives that could possibly be saved, then there really is no limit on who is eligible for the torture, is there? Since the moral argument rests on "we have to do it to save lives" then the calculus is pretty straightforward.

Boys "Quizzed" About Their Terrorist Boss Father

Yousef al-Khalid, nine, and his brother, Abed al-Khalid, seven, were taken into custody in Pakistan in September when intelligence officers raided a flat in Karachi which their father had fled hours earlier. They were found cowering behind a wardrobe with a senior al-Qaeda member.

The boys have been held in Pakistan, but this weekend they were flown to America to be questioned about their father.

CIA interrogators confirmed on Saturday that the boys were staying at a secret address.

"We are handling them with kid gloves. After all, they are only little children," said an official. "But we need to know as much about their father's recent activities as possible. We have child psychologists on hand at all times and they are given the best of care."

Yeah, I'm sure that these kids have a lot of important information to impart.

(Hey, aren't 7 year old's eligible for the death penalty in Virginia? If they aren't, they should be, little terrorist bastards...)

Of course there is that pesky little problem of whether torture actually works.

Patrick Nielsen Hayden posts a spot-on comment from one of his readers, James D. Macdonald, that really should give pause to even the most bloodthirsty proponents of the "torture for the sake of the greater good" school of cruelty:

Oliver, lad, let me explain something to you.

Give me a pair of pliers, a soldering iron, and two hours alone with you, and you will confess to being a member of Al Qaeda. Another half hour or so, and I'll have a list of all the terrible things you did, and most of the details of the things you plan to do. Then I'll get a list of the other secret members of Al Qaeda you know. Give me a little time with them, and they'll confess too, confirming that you're a terrorist.

Are we so fucking deluded that this is not completely and totally obvious?

I give up.






digby 3/10/2003 01:19:00 PM |

 
General Dynamic

I hope that the Democrats face up to the reality that national security is going to be the foremost issue in the coming Presidential campaign and find a way to deal with the fact that we are considered to be complete losers on the issue. This is a HUGE problem and it's not going to magically disappear no matter how badly they manage to fuck up the economy. They are going to keep asserting that the economy is in the ditch because of the "war" on evil and there is nothing to be done but to keep cutting taxes and invading countries that might threaten us someday. They are committed to this and they aren't going to budge.

And we are going to lose if we don't find a way to answer the charge that Democrats are pussies.

I like Dean's feisty iconoclasm and I've always thought that Kerry is a good man. Hart is one of the smartest politicians, ever. But, all of these guys are going to be going up against a guy whose hagiography has turned him into a cross between Winston Churchill and Stonewall Jackson. It's bullshit, but you have to picture the flagwaving, near hysterical cheering crowds that will be seen every single day on the whore media for the next two years as President AWOL begins his re-election campign in earnest. And they will consistently portray him as resolute, strong, manly, etc., etc., etc., while Kerry will be seen as a creature of the Senate debating society and Dean as an obscure northern Governor with no foreign policy experience. Hart = Monkey Business.

And, to ignore the importance of the southern constituency at a time when the public is very evenly divided is folly. As Michael Lind pointed out in his fascinating article called "America's Tribes", the martial tradition in the south is a fundamental, defining issue in american politics and we Democrats ignore it at our peril.

I have held off really looking closely at this guy until now because I had no idea of his domestic positions and I wasn't sure if he was going to be a reliable Democrat. This article , called "Mr Credibility" by Michael Tomasky went a long way toward allaying those concerns, at least in the short term. (I also noticed that he has quite a bit of education and some political experience ('75-'76 White House Fellow OMB) in economics.)

Think Sen. John Kerry (D-Mass.) looks good because he fought in a war? Well, check Clark out. Clark, now 58, fought in Vietnam, too, of course, but that was just his stretching routine. He won a war. He was NATO commander during the Kosovo operation. Granted, this may not be the military equivalent of beating back Adolf Hitler. But it arguably is something of a moral equivalent in that it led to the downfall of a Hitler manqué in the person of Slobodan Milosevic. It was, however sliced, a successful, multilateral mission that largely achieved its objectives, both military and political. And the Kosovo campaign was merely the most recent in a long line of Clark's feats. After graduating from high school in Little Rock, Ark., in 1962, he went to West Point, where he finished first in his class; after that, to Oxford University, where he earned a master's degree in philosophy, politics and economics as a Rhodes Scholar (an Arkansas Rhodes Scholar, eh?); to Vietnam in the late 1960s; thence up the ladder, all the way to NATO command, which Bill Clinton bestowed on him in 1997. Although both from Arkansas, Clinton and Clark first met, Clark says, at a 1965 student leadership conference while both were in college. Since then, Clark has won the Defense Distinguished Service Medal, a Silver Star, a Purple Heart, and more accolades and decorations than Secretariat.

So there's all that. And there's this: He votes Democratic. In Arkansas most voters enroll with no party affiliation; you show up on primary day and select the ballot of whichever party you want to support. Clark told me he voted in the Democratic primary in last year's state elections. He seriously considered seeking the Democratic nomination for governor of Arkansas in 2002, challenging Republican incumbent Mike Huckabee. He told me in an interview that he favors both abortion rights and affirmative action. We spoke just after the Bush administration filed its brief against the University of Michigan's admissions policy, and Clark said he was "surprised and dismayed" by the president's decision. He has "tremendous regard" for the Clintons. And, just as a little sweetener for the culture department, he quotes Bob Dylan toward the end of his book, Waging Modern War, and writes affectionately about the protest folk music that he used to love to listen to as a young man.

A lot of this is still sketchy, but I am gravely concerned that we are going to be in a campaign framed as if it is between John Wayne and Michael Jackson and if that is so, we are going to be in deep shit.

I think he could be the one --- and I mean at the top of the ticket, not the bottom.




digby 3/10/2003 12:28:00 PM |

 
Oh, That Explains It

I had long wondered why the very influential Richard Perle, who often acts as spokesman for the administration position both here and abroad, wasn't brought on in any official capacity. They hired Elliot Abrams, John Negropont, John Poindexter and Otto Reich, so they are certainly not constrained by matters of reputation or even criminality when bringing zealots and crazed ideologues in to the administration. So why not Perle?

Well, it would appear to be the oldest reason in the book. Greed. According to that well known terrorist Sy Hersh, he stands to make a great deal of money with his new company (coincidentally, I'm sure) formed in November 2001 that sells homeland security and defense products.

Of course, the good news is that he still maintains all the influece he could possibly want with Rummy and Wolfie, but he doesn't have to give up making huge sums of money to do it. In fact, his crazy-assed scheme to remake the world in his own image is finally being implemented and he can make a boatload of money from it at the same time.

Is this a great country or what?

(But, I still don't think we have the full story on what Bill Clinton knew about that 1985 check they found in the trunk of that rusted out Chevy. Corruption in high places is intolerable.)




digby 3/10/2003 10:55:00 AM |

Sunday, March 09, 2003

 
Beware The Ides Of March

Zizka is back and asks the logical question:

What do we do when the war starts? He has a list of possibilities, beginning with the obvious call to arms for regime change at home.

Matt Yglesias has also brought this up a number of times, particularly as it pertains to the anti-war movement shifting its emphasis from stopping the war to re-building Iraq properly.

I have been convinced that the war would happen since last August, barring a miraculous spine transplant from the Democrats or the UK bowing out. Since neither of those things have happened, we're going, (supposedly on the 17th, although just because this group is so incredibly predictable, it will probably be on the 15th. Hail Caesar.)

Leap-frogging over the horrible carnage we are about to wreak but over which we so clearly have no say, I ask all 12 of my readers to weigh in on this because I'd really like to know. Taking all of Zizka's points into account, how can we also persuade the Bush administration to deal with post-war Iraq properly?







digby 3/09/2003 01:59:00 PM |

 
The Regents and the Dauphin

The most confounding aspect of this Iraq debate is the question of motivation. Why in the world are we really doing this? Clearly, the official explanations don't make sense, the "case" has been presented over and over again, but it has never been made. We spend hours and days researching the past writings of the advisors, reading 5 pound tomes about the history of the middle east, and desperately scanning the foreign press for hints about what they are really up to. We force ourselves to fight the nausea that listening to the President inevitably brings and make ourselves watch him repeat his bumper stickers mantras over and over again. Oil, Pax Americana, personal revenge, bloodlust, delusions of grandeur, Israel, end-times...it goes on and on.

Oddly, it's a somewhat serious Maureen Dowd who most accurately answers the question of motivations, and illustrates why the "case" has been so shockingly incoherent:

The president wants to avenge his father, and please his base by changing the historical ellipsis on the Persian Gulf war to a period. Donald Rumsfeld wants to exorcise the post-Vietnam focus on American imperfections and limitations. Dick Cheney wants to establish America's primacy as the sole superpower. Richard Perle wants to liberate Iraq and remove a mortal threat to Israel. After Desert Storm, Paul Wolfowitz posited that containment is a relic, and that America must aggressively pre-empt nuclear threats.

And in 1997, Bill Kristol of The Weekly Standard and Fox News, and other conservatives, published a "statement of principles," signed by Jeb Bush and future Bush officials — Mr. Rumsfeld, Mr. Cheney, Mr. Wolfowitz, Scooter Libby and Elliott Abrams. Rejecting 41's realpolitik and shaping what would become 43's pre-emption strategy, they exhorted a "Reaganite policy of military strength and moral clarity," with America extending its domain by challenging "regimes hostile to our interests and values."

And then there is Karl, whose influence is easily as great as any of the above and who weighs in with the electoral calculation and the motivation that has to be a primary one in Junior's mind --- not to be booted out of office after having attained it on a technicality, an asterisk forever after his name, less successful even than his wimp of a lip reading Poppy. Bush family honor, sis boom bah.

And, there is the scary question of Bush believing he is anointed by God, as Jack Beatty writes about so vividly in the Atlantic:

Why? The surface explanations—Saddam has weapons of mass destruction, has used them on his neighbors, on his own people, and "could" use them against us—fall short, don't balance the heaping price Mr. Bush is prepared to pay. To judge by his rhetoric, the President believes God has chosen him to lead the U.S. in a war against "Evil"; beside that eschatological assignment, NATO, the UN, our allies, Arab opinion, world opinion, the war on terror, the budget, are as nothing.

So, the problem isn't that there is one overarching sinister reason for the insane foreign policy actions we are taking. It's that every member of the administration has his own overarching reason, and they are all competing and conniving and complimenting to the extent that we are now being pushed by events and nobody knows quite how or why we are doing it.

All of this comes around, once again, to the absolute folly of allowing a callow, gladhanding brand name to assume the office on the assurance that he would be "advised" by a committee of cool hands with limitless expertise. Human nature and history shows that this never works. An ignorant, childlike Dauphin is always spoiled, stubborn and convinced of his own infallability while also being easily manipulated by his Regents. They battle amongst themselves, and with him, until the government becomes nothing more than a game board upon which each faction presses his advantage of the moment, only to be outmaneuvered or overtaken by a rival. The boy-king, meanwhile, is always also held close by some who whisper in his ear that he has been ordained by God to maintain the power of his forebears.

Democracy and an open meritocratic society were supposed to insure that the government was never led again by a silly boy and his unaccountable cabal. Yet here we are, once again.








digby 3/09/2003 12:55:00 PM |

 
The Experts

Right wing talk show hosts have been highly critical of "Hollywood celebrities" like Janeane Garafolo because, while they certainly have a right to speak, they don't have the expertise or credentials to discuss serious issues of foreign policy and national security. They should not be taken seriously, nor should they be given valuable air time when such grave matters as war and peace are at stake.

I agree. Therefore, I think that such celebrities as Rush Limbaugh (3 semesters at Missouri State before dropping out to become a top 40 radio DJ), Michael Weiner Savage (PhD in ethnobotany) and Sean Hannity (biography only states he was a college radio DJ, no mention of where anywhere) should not be allowed to expound for a combined 40+ hours per week on radio and television stations throughout the country about their political beliefs.

Discussions of national security are much too important to be left to unqualified celebrity dilettantes.





digby 3/09/2003 10:15:00 AM |

Saturday, March 08, 2003

 
For All of Your Boycott Needs

I keep reading about how the public is getting really charged up about this "grassroots" boycott of French products. They are going to give up eating that smelly cheese, and drinking that icky wine and guzzling that fancy water.

But, I would hate for them to miss out on the opportunity to boycott the traitors who help line the pockets of those French batards in Old Europe by continuing to work for the perfidious company known as Universal...oh wait....Vivendi Universal.

We know that good Americans never buy the products of sick and twisted liberals like Sheryl Crow or U2 anyway, but I think they should get out their phones and start dialing radio stations, because they're going to want to persuade them to stop playing Shania Twain, Hank Williams Jr., Willie Nelson, Trisha Yearwood, Vince Gill, Reba McIntyre, Earl Scruggs, Mark Wills, Tom T. Hall, Lee Ann Womack, and George Straight.

Fortunately, Lee Greenwood has released "God Bless the USA" on virtually every one of his albums since he originally recorded it for Universal MCA in 1985, so when they wear out this years tape they can just be sure to buy it on one of the newer CD's.

(They should also be prepared to hold the line by not seeing "The Hulk" or "Bruce Almighty" when they come out and I'd hate to be the one who has to break it to the President, but "The Cat In The Hat" is out, too.
No, "Law and Order", "Blind Date" or "Nashville Star," either. And, I'm afraid that long held dream of being featured on "Jerry Springer" is just a memory, too.)

It's a big sacrifice, but good Americans will be more than willing to make it. Surely, they can live without all those Reba and Shania records. And by the time we need ole Hank's football song, we'll probably have nuked France back into the stone age!

I'm just sure that Rush and Sean and Neal and Mikey are going to get right on this considering their clout on Clear Channel and Premiere Radio. They should put their foot down and demand that their stations stop playing the entire Vivendi-Universal Music Group roster (the biggest in the world.)

It's the patriotic thing to do.



digby 3/08/2003 04:54:00 PM |

 
Mr Big

As reported in The New Republic:

Expecting such consistency from intellectual columnists, however, is another matter--and George Will, as the blogger Atrios (atrios.blogspot.com) has noted, isn't living up to expectations.

When is Santorum up for re-election?





digby 3/08/2003 01:51:00 PM |

 
You're Just Mentioning This Now?

Thanks to Atrios for sending me in the direction of Jonathan Alter's new piece (web-only, needless to say) headlined "Totally Unconvincing."

It's great to see that the somnambulent press corp have started to stir and all, but I am gobsmacked that they are only now bringing attention to something that has been glaringly obvious since Junior was unveiled as the Official Brand Name of the Republican Establishment 2000:

His habit—on display again Thursday night—is to simply assert, assert, assert until the message sinks in. It’s as if war supporters believe that if they repeat the Saddam-Al Qaeda connection enough, people will eventually believe it.

I understand that this works on the sub-rational superstitious types that make up a large part of his base, but why the liberal media haven't gotten fed up with it by now is truly a mystery to me.

The classic example, of course, is the "Who's your favorite political philosopher?" question in the primary debate. Everyone remembers that he said, "Christ. He changed mah heart," after which he smirked, shifted and did his little curt dismisssive nod. But, what is forgotten is that the questioner actuallly followed up and asked if he would elaborate. He replied, "Well, if they don’t know, it’s going to be hard to explain … when you accept Christ as your savior, it changes your heart, it changes your life.”

None of this assertion as argument is new. The following are quotes from the presidential campaign. He's always done this.

"I’m a person who does in office what I say I will do.

As friends begin to work on my behalf around the country, I hope the people of
America will learn what the people of Texas know: that I base decisions on a
set of core, conservative principles from which I will not waver.

As Governor of this great state, I have proven I know how to lead. I know
that a leader must clearly see a better tomorrow. A leader must make
decisions based on principles. And a leader must be a uniter, not a divider."

I've been underestimated before, and Governor Richards regrets it. (Laughter) I understand labels and how the politics works, and the only thing I know to do is to lay my record out, share my heart as best I can, and in a system that often times gets filtered, I know that. That's why these town hall meetings are important for me. And you can take a look. You can take a look and... and you can say, I trust him. I trust his judgment. Or, you know, got a nice mother, but maybe he doesn't hack it. When I first got going, people said he doesn't want to come to our state that much. But it took a while. I knew it was going to happen. Then they say, he didn't say anything. And now they're not saying that. And now they're saying, you know you know, whatever they said George Bush, you know, he's not smart enough. Well, as I said, I'd rather be underestimated."

"I mean, I'm a doer. I'm a problem-solver. I get things done."

"No, I believe the people are going to elect me president because I’ve got what it takes to be the leader. I’ve got a clear vision. People know that I have a uniter not a divider, that I’ve got a solid record of setting goals and leading people to achieve those goals.

But the point is, my record shows that I’ve been the governor of the second biggest state in the union, and I’m going to talk about that proudly, and I’m going to have Democrats stand by my side and talk about that proudly. But in order to get elected, this country needs somebody to set a positive vision for America. Somebody—people of both parties can understand where I want to lead."

I'm interested in solving problems. That's what a leader does."

As glad as I am that the media has taken its first baby steps to discussing what has been obvious from the beginning, it's hard not to stand up and shout "Where the hell have you people been!"

He's always been completely inarticulate, he's always used circular logic and argument by assertion, and he always repeats his Karen Hughes bumper sticker slogans in a boring matra as an answer to any question no matter how irrelevant. The Emperor has been doing a lap dance on American public but until now, nobody bothered to mention that he was stark raving naked.

oy vey.









digby 3/08/2003 12:40:00 PM |

Friday, March 07, 2003

 
Best Line of the Week

The human race sometimes makes me feel as if they're playing the violin with my plumb line.

Julia commenting on Emma's great post.



digby 3/07/2003 09:03:00 PM |

 
Melancholia

Nitpicker expresses what is at the bottom of the burgeoning depression that's coming over me:

As you'll notice, I haven't written in a couple of days. I apologize to my faithful reader. I'm sorry, Mom. However, I just wonder whether it's worth it at all anymore. Honestly, people, we are currently living in a country where people are recommending pre-emptive nuclear strikes on North Korea, where it is now argued that we may have to go to war with Iraq just because it would make us look bad if we didn't go ahead and kill a bunch of their people, and guys who probably vote Democrat are saying that we should be allowed to torture people for information.

Good God.

Doesn't the whole idea of who we are as a nation have to change now? I don't mean once these things are done, either, but just because there are people in power who aren't disgusted by these arguments?

Yep. We aren't even paying lip service to decency anymore.This isn't the nation I have believed in for my whole life. I feel like I've been duped. We're just another wealthy, conquering military power getting drunk on our own ambition.

Jim Henleysays it too, in a different way:

Welcome to the Southern Cone - Why shouldn't we have people like Khaled Sheik Mohammad tortured, even though they are mass-murdering scum? There are various prudential reasons, which I went into last year. Twice. But there's a more important reason.

Because we're the fucking United States of America!

I weep to think that we ever took it upon ourselves to criticize Argentina for the "dirty war" of the late 70s. Evil as the junta was, it was at least responding to a concerted campaign of urban guerilla warfare. ("At the time, political kidnappings, violent strikes and bombings had become commonplace," notes the Christian Science Monitor.) How little it took, really, to bring far too many Americans down to juntahood - a single, terrible, terrible morning. Perhaps al Qaeda already got its weapon of mass destruction, a virus capable of making all infected forget the most basic facts about who they are, or at least who they were supposed to be. We even know when they used it. From here out, we may live or die, may win or lose, but not as Americans.

digby 3/07/2003 06:29:00 PM |

 
He's Resigned To Being Caesar

I just noticed this letter written by one of Andrew Sullivan's fans. You can hear the heartfelt regret that this Bush worshiper and budding Imperialist feels at the loss of allies that have existed since the dawn of the Republic now that they are with the terrorists.

He just seemed very, very sad that it must come to this. Very sad to have to admit that France and Germany are likely never going to be 'allies' of ours again. Forcing the vote will force their hands...they will reveal whether they are with us or the terrorists...then there will be a break. Bush seems full of regret that this break will happen. I think he's disappointed in Putin, too, whom he trusted. But he didn't seem defeated to me. Howard Fineman said it best. He was grim, somber, inexorable...he was Shane, the reluctant cowboy, strapping on a gun to protect his family. I didn't think he looked tired...just terribly regretful and thoughtful.

Brings a tear to the eye doesn't it?

And they are right about one thing. Sleepy boy woke up all bright eyed and bushy tailed one time during the conference and it was to say:

No matter what the whip count is, we're calling for the vote. We want to see people stand up and say what their opinion is about Saddam Hussein and the utility of the United Nations Security Council. And so, you bet. It's time for people to show their cards, to let the world know where they stand when it comes to Saddam.

Yep. With us or agin' us. Show yer Cards, you lily livered yellow bellies.









digby 3/07/2003 03:05:00 PM |

 
Orrin Hatch: Drug Lord

Senator, His Son Get Boosts From Makers of Ephedra

Orrin Hatch has kept regulators at bay and benefited via campaign donations. Lobbyists linked to his son have received $2 million.

March 5, 2003

WASHINGTON -- For more than a decade, the dietary supplements industry has counted on Sen. Orrin G. Hatch to fend off tighter regulation of products such as ephedra, the controversial stimulant linked to more than 80 deaths — most recently a young Baltimore Orioles baseball player.

Among other things, the Utah Republican co-wrote the 1994 law that lets supplement makers sell products without the scientific premarket safety testing required for drugs and other food additives. That law has proved a major obstacle to federal control of ephedra.

For its part, the supplements industry has not only showered the senator with campaign money but also paid almost $2 million in lobbying fees to firms that employed his son Scott.

From 1998 to 2001, while Scott Hatch worked for a lobbying firm with close ties to his father, clients in the diet supplements industry paid the company more than $1.96 million, more than $1 million of it from clients involved with ephedra.

Hatch has been one of the most fervent believers in keeping the "supplement" industry free from regulation. He has no problem with the selling of mind altering herbs over the counter as long as one of his campaign contributors is making a bundle.

Perhaps the medical marijuana advocates should just start paying off politicians directly. Clearly, Americans are free to do as many drugs as they want, as long as they go through channels and get the ok of medical experts like Orrin Hatch.

The drug war isn't about illegal drugs, per se. It's about who gets a piece of the action.








digby 3/07/2003 02:16:00 PM |

 
Tortured Logic

For any of you who think that torture is ok because we can be sure of our righteous good intentions, because we know when and where it is right and wrong to do it, because bad guys "deserve it" and we always get only the bad guys, please read this powerful piece by Emma.

None of that makes any difference. By not understanding the ramifications of going down this path, there are many who are one short step away from becoming what they claim to abhor.






digby 3/07/2003 01:52:00 PM |

 
Leap Frogging

I heard a long discussion on CNN about who the Bush administration will be putting in charge of the three areas they plan to designate within the "Iraq federation." The names, where they will be stationed and how they plan to "administer" the various areas until elections can be held were all discussed in some detail.

Apparently, the war is over. Hip, hip hooray.

The Better Rhettor deconstructs the latest Bush rhetorical ploy --- "Leap-Frogging" --- and finds that it's a tried and true Karl Rove special.

It’s a bait and switch. Rather than continuing to argue for the merits of their position—an argument they have concluded they cannot win—they now want to shift the terms of the debate. They don’t want to talk anymore, in other words, about whether we should invade Iraq. We are supposed to accept the fiction that this has been already settled, and we are now in the "next phase" of discussing what to do in post-war Iraq. That way they can shift the discussion, aided by our feckless media, away from their losing hand and onto another topic—one that presumes the Bushies won the original debate.

Read on. You'll learn that as with everything else with these guys, it always comes back to Florida.




digby 3/07/2003 12:32:00 PM |

 
Post Mortem

Uggabugga has the definitive word-for-word rundown on the press conference.

And check out the new blog Vote Quimby on Timmy Russert's bizarre and inexplicable endorsement of Bush's move to single handedly amend the constitution.

Timmy said: He laid out the case in his way - an interesting way. He said something very straightforward, that he has analyzed all the information, all the intelligence, all the data. That he had concluded as commander-in-chief that Saddam Hussein is a risk to American security and that he has made a decision. Therefore he has to act and has a constitutional duty to act.

You can not argue with that premise. You can argue that he is misinterpreting the data or the intelligence or he should have reached a different conclusion. But, the president will counter saying, “I’m sorry, you have a right to disagree with me. I have made this decision.”

I can't? Watch me.

Although the President was extremely careful to avoid using the word "war" to describe the methods by which the United States would force Iraq to disarm, virtually nobody believes that an attack on another country that has its own stable government would not constitute a war.

So, although G-Dub put his hand on the bible (didn't you just love that touch?) and swore to protect the Constitution of the United States, he cannot do so by attacking Iraq. If he wants to protect our Constitution, he will ask Congress to declare a war, which he will then prosecute as the Commander in Chief of our armed forces.

There. See how easy that was? I didn't have to quibble with Bush's interpretation of the data one iota. Hell, I could make the argument even if I granted the presupposition that Saddam's Iraq poses a threat. Regardless of how seriously Bush takes his oath o' office, war is simply not his call. Yes, Congress voted to cede that authority a few months ago, but again, the Constitution makes no provision for a branch of government signing away its authority on any matter, much less the gravest matter a nation can undertake. Which is to say, it wasn't their call, at least not then.

Yeah, it's an "interesting" new take on the whole "congress shall have the power to declare war," constitutional thing. The congressional wimps may have abdicated their constitutional responsibility to the President in the case of Iraq , but they haven't gotten around to giving him that power under the constitution yet. Perhaps they are saving it up for when they "constitutionally" declare him King.

William Saleton says that Bush knows the difference between a lie and the truth but that's all he knows. Uh, Will, don't think so. Bush definitely doesn't know the difference between a lie and the truth. This means that we are back where we started. Bush doesn't know anything.

And Tom Shales has the temerity to actually report on the elephant in the East Room (and I'm not talking about Karen Hughes.) The former hard-partying, frat-boy, mean drunk may be on prescription drugs:

The contrast between the foggy Bush of last night and the gung-ho Bush who delivered a persuasive State of the Union message to Congress not so long ago was considerable. Maybe Bush thought he was, indeed, coming across as cool and temperate instead of bored and enervated, and this was simply a rhetorical miscalculation. On the other hand, it hardly seems out of order to speculate that, given the particularly heavy burden of being president in this new age of terrorism -- a time in which America has, as Bush said, become a "battlefield" -- the president may have been ever so slightly medicated.

He would hardly be the first president ever to take a pill.

Not that there's anything wrong with that mind you. Those Dr.'s Feelgood over at Walter Reed prescribe only the very best. (Just so long as it isn't something really bad that requires the use of certain paraphernalia, if you know what I mean.) It is actually a citizen's patriotic duty to use mind altering prescription drugs because it creates jobs in the pharmaceutical industry.


UPDATE:

TBOGG informs me that the probable drug in question is called "Weazac," a sedative used on weasels and press secretaries. I did some research and it is a new combination therapy that is usually prescribed to counteract a Viagra and Ritalin addiction which is apparently becoming epidemic in the flabby, middle aged Republican doughboy population. Good to know.



digby 3/07/2003 11:34:00 AM |

 


I think that says it all.




digby 3/07/2003 08:26:00 AM |

Thursday, March 06, 2003

 
Nobody Does It Better

Atrios links to a mutual hero, Charles Pierce subbing for Eric Alterman

WELCOME AGAIN TO THE MUSTANG RANCH

This overripe piece of faith-based palaver has been on the newsstands for four days now, long enough for the rot to endanger whatever honest journalism may be placed next to it on the shelf. For sheer sucking up to established power, Howard Fineman makes Larry King look like Thomas Paine, and there is so very much in this with which to make happy sport. (Cover your ears, Nick Kristof.)

Let us begin with the obvious: there’s absolutely no goddamn way how to know how genuine someone’s faith is. Perhaps W does spend every morning with a book of sermons. (The Bible, after all, has all those inconvenient passages about rich men, camels, and the eyes of needles.) It doesn’t matter if he spends it playing handball with the ghost of Thomas Aquinas. What goes on in his mind — insert cheap joke here — as regards the family Deity is so far beyond empirical proof that you might as well assert as fact that he’s leading the country based on his dreams.

There's more where that came from







digby 3/06/2003 09:10:00 PM |

 
A Lazy Schoolboy

OK. He's doing what he always does. He repeats his bumper sticker bullshit over and over again in slightly different ways, taking his time, speaking very slowly and in tententious tones, not making any real sense, but with an attitude of seriousness. The clock ticks while he says nothing. Freedom, God, Security, Oath, blah, blah, blah...

A few questions, he says nothing, the pundits say he hit a home run, Churchill is back.

He is like the 6th grader who didn't do his homework and is called to the front of the class to tell us what he's learned. "The first president of the United States was George Washington. He was called the father of our country. He was called the father of our country because he was the first president. And the first president is known as the father of our country because he was first. His name was George Washington. He was the first and he was the father and he was the President. amen."

He should just memorize Tony Blair's answers.

UPDATE:

"The North Korean nukular weapons might end up in the hands of dictators."

Boy, I sure hope not. That would be awful. They might even have ICBM's and be able to hit the United States. I hope they can talk Kim Jong Il out of making any and selling them to...say, dictators.

And he really did say that "we will disarm Saddam Hussein" line.

This was bad.

And Tim Russert just ejaculated.

UPDATE:

Chris Matthews just said aloud that Bush repeated himself endlessly. That was a big mistake. He's going to be replaced any day now with the new Lyndon LaRouche show.

Sorry, he wasn't Churchill.

Fineman tells us he is "Shane, strapping on his six-guns to protect his family.The rejection of the UN is a badge of honor. He swore an oath on the Bible to protect the American people."

Much better. He's not a rootin' tootin' cowboy, he's a reluctant cowboy.

UPDATE:

It's kind of scary when the borg over at the Corner are unable to pull out a rah, rah for the Cheerleader in Chief.

"He's tired," they all say. He's a tired and sleepy little cowpoke and that makes him somber.

And repetitive. And rambling. And stupid.

Geez. Doesn't this guy already sleep about 13 hours a night? He sleeps more than my cat.




digby 3/06/2003 05:30:00 PM |

 
Porno and Prayers

Avedon Carol has a number of great posts up from the last couple of days and I urge you to go read them. This one, however, a letter from one of her readers taking issue with the ridiculous numbers used in Nicholas Kristof's article about how the poor Christian right is treated in the media is particularly great.

I've gotta tell you, if Kristoff's numbers were true, then the rest of us are buying porn and drinking whiskey and watching debauched television every single waking minute of the day because these industries are sure as hell making billions off of somebody.

It reminds me of the great story (possibly apocryphal) about a porno store owner in Utah who was busted and tried for violating community standards. However, his defense attorney was able to prove that some huge number of locals watched porno on their cable television and that the local hotels all carried it on their closed circuit systems. Ooops.

This entire line about America being the "most religious" country on earth is belied by what we see every day in our popular culture. (If you define shopping as a religion, then perhaps it's true.) Otherwise, people are quite obviously defining themselves to pollsters as "religious" if they have even a vague belief in God or go to church on Christmas eve. I do not know how many truly devout religious people there are, and I'm sure there are many, but clearly this is not a majority and this constant citing of polls as if they mean something on a subject like this is absurd.

In a nation where the entire congress goes completely apeshit over the words "under God" in the silly pledge of allegiance, is it any wonder that people tell pollsters they are religious? I'm sure they even believe it. They also believe that watching "Secret Co-ed Web Cam" is a sacrament, apparently.




digby 3/06/2003 04:28:00 PM |

 
Hell Froze Over?

Tonight at 8 ET, President George W. Patton is having his second prime time press conference since taking office.

He's reportedly going to break news by saying, "if Saddam Hussein does not disarm, with a coalition of the willing, I will disarm Saddam Hussein. I understand there are some who don't believe that Saddam Hussein presents a true risk to the United State and we just have a difference of opinion."

Unnamed White House sources said that the President also planned to tell the American people, "Saddam gassed his own people, he's a cold-blooded dictator."

With respect to al Qaeda, he will publicly reveal that "We've got 'em on the run. We will bring 'em ta justice." But, he is expected to also remind the public, "I told the Murican people they were gonna have ta be patient, an I meant it!"

Reporters will undoubtedly give the president no quarter as they confront him for the first time in the formal East Wing setting since just after September 11th. It is assumed that they will ask such hard hitting questions as:

"Do you feel that exercise is important at times of stress?"

"How much did your heroic experience as a fighter pilot contributed to your understanding of the military planning in Iraq?"

"Do you think that your faith has played a part in your overwhelming popularity among the American people?"

"How does the first lady feel about all this snow?"

"Saddam Hussein is reported to have gassed his own people. How do you feel about that?"

"Is the current planned amount of badly needed tax relief for the hardest working most productive members of society really going to be enough, or do you plan to ease the terrible burden even more, so that this economy will continue to grow as you predicted it would?"

"Now that the United Nations has been proven irrelevant, do you plan to seize its assets and deport the anti-american diplomats who sought to humiliate you and failed?"

"What would you tell average Americans to do when they see a muslim terrorist in their neighborhood?"

"Are you glad that God has chosen you to eradicate evil on this earth?"


It should be exciting. Bush appearing before the public without his cue cards is always suspenseful. But then, he does benefit from the bigotry of low expectations. If he doesn't vomit on somebody, he's already outshown his father.

If you all are praying types, put one in for the washington press corp to grow some journalistic cojones in the next couple of hours. This President only answers wide ranging questions once every 18 months or so. We could be in nuclear winter the next time Karl decides he's in sufficient trouble to require taking the chance that President Pom Pom will break into the "Barney" song and start singing "I love you, you love me" on national television. Let's hope they make the most of it.





digby 3/06/2003 01:35:00 PM |

 
A Mediwhore's Gotta Do What A Mediawhore's Gotta Do

TBOGG's back (whew, I was having withdrawal) and he quotes Chris Matthews on Imus:

Matthews: “It's about changing these governments around so that they play ball with us and I think that's what the game has been from Wolfowitz and Feith and Rumsfeld and Cheney -- they're all hardliners. You know, when they get off the air with me they always giggle, 'You know, I hope they don't disarm.' That's their worst fear, that Saddam Hussein will throw all his guns out in the street in front of 'em, then we can't go to war and these guys will be miserable. It's not about guns. It's about ideology. These guys want to change that part of the world and they're damned, they'll come up with any excuse to do it. And look, that's an idealistic Wilsonian notion. I think it's squirrelly. It's going to make every Arab kid grow up to hate our guts for the next thousand years, but that's they're (sic) point of view and I've got mine."


TBOGG: So why doesn't Matthews confront them about their off-screen comments the next time they come on? Is it Hardball or T-Ball?

I think the Boggster was out of town when the MSNBC circular was sent around. It went like this:

Donahue presented a "difficult public face for NBC in a time of war......He seems to delight in presenting guests who are anti-war, anti-Bush and skeptical of the administration's motives." The report went on to outline a possible nightmare scenario where the show becomes "a home for the liberal antiwar agenda at the same time that our competitors are waving the flag at every opportunity."

Chris, of all people, understand that the only thing standing between him and obscurity is a "liberal anti-war agenda." As long as he remembers that he doesn't even have to get ratings.





digby 3/06/2003 12:29:00 PM |

 
Bush 'n God

Mary, the estimable Natasha's tag team partner over at The Watch has a nice dissertation on war and religion, Bush style.

I remain dumbfounded that this government would choose to ever discuss this war in religious terms, much less in terms of Bush being anointed by God. The enemy are religious fanatics in case anyone failed to notice. But, I guess we are too, now.

So, is everybody up for a good old fashioned religious crusade with a post modern nuclear twist? Oh goodie.

3/6 3:40: informed of typo. Corrected. thanks.



digby 3/06/2003 12:00:00 PM |

 
Promiscuous Girl Monkeys

Calpundit posts an interesting observation about evolutionary psychology today:

"Evolutionary psychology attempts to explain why we do the things we do, and it succeeds better at some things than at others. But it certainly doesn't suggest that innate behavior is either moral or desirable. In fact, since the entire goal of civilization for the past 10,000 years has been mostly to rein in and modify innate human behavior, this should be obvious too, and the lessons of EP can help us in this ancient and worthy effort. If research suggests a reason why little boys do one thing and little girls do another, for example, the lesson should not be that we are forced to accept this behavior even if we don't like it, but that we should try even harder to modify it because it's probably going to be a real bear getting the job done.
As indeed it is, a lesson we all learn daily. If only all those other guys could just listen to sweet reason....."

This is interesting and quite true, but it should also be kept in mind that a lot of evolutionary psychology appears to conveniently uphold certain cultural expectations, particularly as it pertains to gender roles. Since the science is far from conclusive, and so much of it is used to buttress arguments favoring traditional roles, I don’t think it’s out of bounds to be skeptical of much of it for the time being. I have no doubt that it is a field well worth studying and that it will eventually provide some interesting insights into our behaviors, but considering the vacuousness of many of the conclusions so far, I am not signing on to any particular theory. I would imagine that we will be seeing some very interesting work coming down the pike in the next few years, however.

For instance, the excellent science writer, Natalie Angier, in her book, Woman: An Intimate Biography unearths numerous exceptions and alternative explanations to the current conventional wisdom that males are biologically driven to spread their seed far and wide while females are biologically driven to need security. DNA studies, for example, show that female chimpanzees risk "life and limb" and the lives of their offspring to cheat on their possessive mates. If women have lower sex drives than men, Angier argues, it may not be the fault of biology: Cultural mores across the centuries have punished women for their carnal interest.

I have to say that I too wondered why, if the conventional view of male/female evolutionary psychology were true, that so many cultures have gone to such great lengths to subdue female sexuality --- clitoral circumcision being the most blatant and violent current example?

In any case, I agree with Kevin that evolutionary psychology does not make a value judgment about human behavior, no matter what the conclusion. Science isn’t right or wrong, in a moral sense. It just is. But, this particular science is highly speculative, as is much of the field of psychology generally, so there is no great sin in maintaining a healthy skepticism about its sometimes glaringly "obvious" conclusions. It's going to be very hard to know how much biology, as opposed to culture, brought us to the point we are today, particularly since evolution is a reaction to environment rather than a cause.

I'm against policy being based upon this science's conclusions just yet.






digby 3/06/2003 11:26:00 AM |

 


Courtesy Brief Intelligence via Barney Gumble





digby 3/06/2003 09:38:00 AM |

Wednesday, March 05, 2003

 
Because I Said So

It is truly outrageous that our "President" is not required to hold open televised press conferences and that the press does not adequately cover what this dumbass says in the few instances they let him talk.

Yesterday, he met with several news services for about 35 minutes. What he said was un-befucking-lievable.

Some highlights of our fearless leaders "thinking" on various current events:

"The president alternated between humor, determination, sarcasm and reflection throughout the 36-minute session held in the Roosevelt Room, pointedly opening the interview by calling attention to President Theodore Roosevelt’s Nobel Peace Prize on the mantel over a crackling fire.

The prize, he said, 'is an interesting tribute to a president who had a vision about how to keep the peace and was willing to take risks to achieve peace.' "

Obviously, Karl or Karen or somebody told Junior that he is going to win the peace prize, like that muscular Teddy Roosevelt, for invading Iraq. TR killed a lot of Fillippinos, to be sure, and he looked mighty good on a horsie, but his "vision" about how to keep the peace was the international tribunal in the Hague, a "League of Peace" and the use of arbitration treaties amongst all nations to avoid war. He won the Nobel for mediating the end of the Russian-Japanese war.

Somehow I don't think President Legacy knows that. And, apparently, the press wasn't inclined to ask him just what the hell he meant when he said it. Wouldn't you think that a reporter would be interested in what the president meant when he talked about an "interesting vision of peace" and "the risks" he was willing to take, on the eve of an unprecedented preventive war? I know I would.

"I believe we can deal with this issue diplomatically by convincing China and Russia and South Korea to join us in convincing North Korea that it is not in their nation’s interest to be threatening the United States.”

But when asked if a diplomatic approach had been successful, the president replied carefully, “It’s in process.”

Reflecting the growing tensions, the president added, “If they don’t work diplomatically, they’ll have to work militarily. And (the) military option is our last choice. Options are on the table, but I believe we can deal with this diplomatically. I truly do.”

One wonders what he would have said if someone had forcefully pressed him on the contradictions between what we see happening with Saddam destroying missiles and what he is saying about North korea. We know how Ari dances around the issue, but I'd love to see Junior try it.

But he insisted that he has paid attention to the protesters.

“Of course, I care what they believe. And I’ve listened carefully. I’ve thought long and hard about what needs to be done,” he said. “And obviously some people in Northern California do not see there’s a true risk to the United States posed by Saddam Hussein. And we just have a difference of opinion.”

There you have it. Smirking smart-ass prick. It always comes through at some point. His essential Nixonness -- the barely suppressed disdain for his fellow Americans. He really is not our president. Not because we say so, but because he does.

Asked about protests overseas, the president initially downplayed the extent of the problems he has encountered with normally friendly nations.

“There are two nations in Europe – France and Germany – who do not see Saddam Hussein as a direct threat. And we just have a difference of opinion. But there are a lot of other nations who do,” he said.

But pressed, the president acknowledged that sympathy for America has diminished since the days immediately after Sept. 11, 2001. He blamed some of the protests on lingering unhappiness over his early decisions against international agreements on global warming and an international criminal court.

“So, yes, I see the protests and I know they’re large at times. But I’m not so sure I’d jump to the conclusion that everybody in those parts of the world are anti-American,” he said.

No, they're anti-Bush, clearly. And, yes his early decisions contributed to the problem, but his biggest problem is that huge majorities of the people in most countries of the world do not support a preventive war with Iraq if inspections are working. He clearly doesn't understand that he is commander in chief of the Armed Services during wartime, he is not the commander in chief of the American people or the rest of the world at ANY time. This is something they failed to get through to him during his civics all-nighter before the inauguration.

“We’ll be disappointed if people don’t support us [in the security council],” he said pointedly.

With the Mexican press full of a debate over the ramifications of a vote against the resolution, Bush added, “But, nevertheless, I don’t expect for there to be significant retribution from the government.”

His emphasis was on the word “government,” raising the possibility of adverse reaction to Mexico from the American business community and average citizens.

Making that point, he cited what he called “an interesting phenomena taking place here in America about the French.”

With many Americans unhappy at French resistance to a war in Iraq, the president said there has developed “a backlash against the French, not stirred up by anybody except by the people.”

Nice. The President is lying blatently about the coordinated GOP movement to "punish" France and Germany, even to the extent that congressional representatives and Senators have taken up the cause. It's a grassroots movement who's roots begin and end at Grover's Wednesday meeting. Looks like Mexico is next on the "hate" list (although it's always been on it with his white supremecist nase.)

What a petty little backbiter he is. And nobody in the press corp says a word.

If Mexico – or other countries – oppose the United States, he said that “there will be a certain sense of discipline.” But he quickly added, “I expect Mexico to be with us.”

Yeah, well people in hell want icewater, too. Last I heard, Mexico was a sovereign nation that was not required to meet the US President's "expectations" or submit to its "discipline." Maybe if President Brat hadn't treated his good friend Vicente like shit, particularly at the meeting in Cabo where he shut down the press conference in a snit, then maybe things would go easier for him. Maybe Vinnie wouldn't look like Bush's abused chihuahua. Somebody (Bar?) forgot to teach Junior any manners.

He said he also is sustained by his own prayers, noting, “I’m reading the Bible every day.”

I'm sure that will make a good recruiting slogan for the islamic fundamentalist terrorist movement. It's a great idea to cite religion as much as possible when we are at "war" with religious fanatics. Let the Bible be our guide. They are on the side of evil, after all, and we shall smite them sayeth the President. Excellent.

He added, “This is a difficult decision for any president to make. I’ve thought about the consequence of doing nothing. I’ve thought about the consequences of military action.”

This is so typically Bush. He tells us he's thought about all this. And we should be impressed that he has done so. Period. No need to discuss it further. It would be wrong for the press to ask for further explanation of those "thoughts." Anti-american, in fact. He is their commander in chief, after all.

But he said the blame for any war falls on Hussein for his failure to abide by 12 years of U.N. demands for disarmament.

The president also insisted that his policies on Iraq are based solely on what is good for the United States. He bristled slightly at a question suggesting he was motivated by Hussein’s past attempt to assassinate his father, former President George H.W. Bush, and current first lady Laura Bush in the early 1990s.

“The fact that he tried to kill my father and my wife shows the nature of the man ... he’s cold-blooded. He’s a dictator. He’s a tyrant,” said Bush. “And the decision I’m making, and have made, to disarm Saddam Hussein is based upon the security of the American people.”

Asked if he harbored personal anger toward Hussein, he replied, “No. I’m doing my job as the president based upon the threats that face this country.”

Well, guess that clears that up. That "he tried to kill my father and my wife" thing sure will make a nice headline in Arab papers, though, don't you think?

I take back what I said. He should be kept from the press at all costs. It can only hurt the country to let him speak.



digby 3/05/2003 10:45:00 AM |

Tuesday, March 04, 2003

 
Kurdled Democracy

These damned Islamofascists are really starting to get Hitchypoo hot under the collar, especially the democratically elected allies in Turkey. They are humiliating his hero, Captain James T. Bush who is not to be faulted for selling out those Kurds, oh no. (He is, after all, the only man on the entire planet who who sees the world in the same childlike Manichean terms as Hitch.) Those Turks are imperfect and, therefore, are not worthy of our great goodness.

The situation with the Kurds is extremely complicated. Neither the Turks or the Kurds are our enemies (indeed, until recently they were fervent allies) but we have somewhow managed to make them so with just a few stupid words from Dick Cheney and Paul Wolfowitz.

Of course we shouldn't let the Turks go in and "clean out" Kurds in northern Iraq. But, neither should we even think of abandoning the only real democracy in the region because...well...I thought that was the whole goddamned point!

It may now be argued that, in order to shorten the period of hostilities with Saddam Hussein and minimize casualties, the Iraqi border should be secured from all directions. But the Turks do not propose to help guarantee this border or to protect those who live within it. Rather, they propose to cross the frontier for no better reason than to aggrandize themselves and to prolong the subjection of their own Kurdish population. This doesn't just disgrace the regime-change strategy. It actually destabilizes it. And it's humiliating to see the president begging and bribing the Turks to do the wrong thing and to see them in return reject his offer. He should take their ugly egotism and selfishness as a compliment to his policy, cut off their aid, leave them to put their own case to the European Union, and tell them to get out of Cyprus into the bargain. Then we could be surer that we were really "remaking" the region

Hey, Hitch. Why stop there? Let's remake the entire world in your image. Then it will be a confused, unkempt, incoherant, aggressive mess.

Oh wait...



Thanks for the tip Matthew.


digby 3/04/2003 04:42:00 PM |

 
It Gets Worse

Bush Is Undeterred by Opposition to Using Force Against Iraq

[...]

And yet Mr. Bush not only sounds more certain than ever that he is about to lead the United States into war — he also talks almost as if Mr. Hussein has already been deposed.

In a deliberate and risky strategy, Mr. Bush appears to be dropping out of the public debate over whether there is value in further inspections or any alternative to ousting Mr. Hussein, or sending him into exile.

"The United States has no intention of determining the precise form of Iraq's new government," Mr. Bush said in his Saturday radio address, skipping past the question of how he plans to remove the current one.

It was one of many phrases, one of his senior aides said this weekend, that "reflect the leapfrog strategy," an effort to jump over French, German and Russian objections, Turkish intransigence, North Korean provocations, anxiety from the Arab League, and hand-wringing by Americans who are nervous about a go-it-alone approach.

"In his mind, the old debate about whether Saddam will disarm is over," one of Mr. Bush's senior aides said late last week. "We're on to the next phase, even if everyone else isn't there yet."

[...]

White House aides argue that the president cannot talk about casualties without scaring Americans. If, however, either the war or — after the presumed American victory — the occupation of Iraq goes badly, such a failure to hint at the problems may come back to haunt the president.

Nonetheless, Mr. Bush has been relentlessly optimistic. In his speech last Wednesday and again on Saturday, he talked of an occupation that would resemble the American liberation of Germany and Japan. But both of those were well-defined nations before their conflict with the United States.

Iraq is not — and could blow apart. "Of course, in our internal discussions we raise the Yugoslavia analogy," one administration insider said.

"We talk about what happens if there is score-settling. But this isn't the moment for the president to be talking about that risk."

It doesn't seem as if the President is much interested in talking about any risks.

It's not relentless optimism. As Thomas Carothers of the International Endowment for International Peace said in last Sunday's NY Times Magazine, "It's called Magical Realism, Middle East style."





digby 3/04/2003 12:47:00 PM |

 
TAXICAB CONFABULATIONS
(with Pegger Nooner)

By Guest Contributor
The Farmer

Celebrated Dada author and diviner of notions, Peggy Noonan, reveals to viewers the intimate thoughts of unwary fares as they motor along with her, in the her magic taxicab, through the busy streets of the nations capitol. This week, Peggy channels the convictions of an aging Republican supply-sider couple visiting from Charlotte North Carolina, who silently long for the bygone halcyon days of right wing latin American death squads, Jim and Tammi's waterslide and the lost splenders of the Shining City giftshop on the Hill.

Next in the cab is a black couple from Baltimore, who reveal to Peggy, through a series of psychic gospel rhythmns, their soul deep regrets at ever having heard of that philanderer priest Jesse Jackson or Tavis Smiley or the NAACP, and their quiet agonized yearning for the buccolic lost splender of the plantation porch swing.

Next Peggy mirrors for us the supressed regrets of an old hippy who wrestles with horrific naked lunch flashback nightmares of long ago candlelight peace vigils and lurid fleeting Hollywood images of a scantily clad tattooed Goldie Hawn wiggling around like a distempered sex-viperess on the Rowan and Martin Show.

Peggy excitedly babble-channels the expectations of a yet unborn child when an unwed nineteen year old lesbian playwright enters the cab and alarms Peggy with the opinion that Bill Bennett is a fat old patent leather busybody pecksniff with tiny feet and big old stupid sanctimonious puritanical morality fetish. Peggy becomes unglued when the young woman's twenty year old blonde haired girlfriend from Lincoln Nebraska begins recounting their previous summer adventures bartending at the Pied Piper in Provincetown and their brief encounter with arch media blog-feind Andrew Sullivan and his French sailor-friend who were slobbering over garlic knots in front of Spritus Pizza at 3 am. Now clearly distressed and half crazed with the haunting shrieks and tortured wails of long ago buried Daughters of the American Revolution chickenhawk dinners Peggy unloads the giggling Sapphics in front of the Washington Memorial, takes a couple of swigs of Old Gipper, points her cab at the sniper alley I-66 Western road... and careens through the early autumn night toward an undisclosed secret destination in Fort Royal Maryland.

I have no idea what happened in Fort Royal. My psychic eye has gone dark. I hope the Peggy is ok, all alone out there in the wilds of the Shenandoah, with the roving Marxist wolves of labor and the bong pirates and the camo-hillbillies for a better whup-ass Jesus. We're praying for you Peggy. Praying like jerkers in the service of the Reign of our Sovereign Lord, Rove Inc., Texas and Kennebunkport the forty first, and of Crawford the forty third. Anno Domini, 2003. (or whatever)

And, casting about for you, with our minds eye.

digby 3/04/2003 11:32:00 AM |

 
"Just when I think I'm out, they pull me back in."

Via Atrios and reader Matthew Davis I find that my previous post praising the enlightenment of James Pinkerton was so threatening to his position as a member of the Borg Collective that he has gone into full retreat and written the most sickening ecomium to Bush's heroic manhood since Howard Fineman penned that breathless valentine praising Junior's magical ability to wear both epualets and ermine.

These guys may be complete failures at running a government, but they are excellent enforcers.





digby 3/04/2003 03:42:00 AM |

 
Maybe He Should Be Sent To An Unnamed Third Country For Questioning

The indictment of a former Florida professor on charges of being a Palestinian terrorist has cast a very different light on some past punditry.

After flying to Tampa to interview him, New York Times columnist Nicholas Kristof wrote last year that the University of South Florida's attempt to fire Sami Al-Arian shed light on "what kind of universities we desire, how much dissent we dare tolerate and how we treat minorities in times of national stress." He noted that the proceedings began after "Bill O'Reilly invited Mr. Al-Arian on his Fox News show and virtually accused him of being a terrorist."

[...]

O'Reilly says that "we took a lot of heat. And when it comes our way, no fruit basket. We had this guy dead. . . . The game being played now in the media, if you're in a minority group, is that if you can't win the debate, you demonize the person reporting the story by calling them anti-whatever. I'm not playing that game."

I guess they repealed that pesky presumption of innocence thing in the Patriot Act. Or has The O'Reilly Factor been deputized by Ashcroft to act as a fair and balanced military tribunal?





digby 3/04/2003 02:16:00 AM |

Monday, March 03, 2003

 
Peggy: A Case Study

Name of blog notices Safire's gone all Noonan using the tiresome trope of channeling the dead for convenient conversations supporting their positions. Normal people call this fiction writing, but hey, in this Republican world we live in, it’s called journalism.

Which brings me to La Noonan’s thoroughly bizarre piece today, a “letter” so twisted that I am forced to conclude that this person is in need of some psychiatric intervention of the political kind.

Political Projection is an involuntary process motivated by emotions wherein a person imposes a subjective feeling or a thought on the other political party. Patients like Peggy are unaware of 'projecting' or how and why they do it. There is such an emotional need and frustrated feeling involved in such 'emotional-mental' projection that when you read one of these”advisories,” it’s looking into the psyche of a very wounded and troubled woman.

When read correctly, we can see that Peggy is deeply unhappy with the Republican Party. Let’s try to see beneath the words and help Peggy understand the hidden feelings and emotions that drive her to constantly analyze the Democrats and innappropriately offer her counsel:

"In the Democratic Party now, and for some time, I have not perceived that they are trying to get us to a good place. They seem interested only in thwarting the trek of the current president and his party, who are, to the Democrats, 'the other.'"

Clearly, Peggy is extremely guilty about the 8 years of coordinated and malicious character assassination that she and others like her perpetrated against the last President.

"You have grown profoundly unserious. This is the result of the win-at-any-cost mindset."

This is a recurring theme of Peggy’s writings since George W. Bush was anointed to the office of President through a patently legalistic technicality rather than a clear mandate of the people. She is obviously deeply troubled by her driving desire to see the Republicans win by any means necessary in 2000.

"Democratic leaders, on the other hand, have by and large approached Iraq not with deep head-heart integration but with what appears to be mere calculation. What will play? What will resonate?"

Karl Rove has done great damage to Peggy’s fragile psyche with his intervention into the foreign policy of the country for electoral advantage and the obvious political calculations he uses to distance the president from his father, the “wimp.” Peggy is ashamed of her complicity in using GOP talking points and advancing an agenda for purely political reasons. Peggy should stay very far away from Karl, for the sake of her delicate mental health.

"You have become the party of snobs. You have become the party of Americans who think they're better than other Americans."

Here we have the case of someone who lives a life far away from the ordinary Americans she purports to represent and who feels that she is betraying her roots. Yet she is also one who quite openly presumes to write this criticism of the 50% of Americans who vote with the other party. She is becoming confused and irritated. Her self-hatred comes to the surface.

Her piece then devolves into a long remembrance of her history, that of a working class girl who became disillusioned with her chosen party because it ceased to care. It stopped being serious. It became radical and rude and mean, forcing old ladies to lose all their money on the bus and taking her hard earned money in taxes. She says,

“All of it came together bit by bit, and I started to become a conservative, and in time a Republican. And for the very reasons that my father was a Democrat.”

Oh my. Are we close to a breakthrough?

But no, she digresses into a long dissertation on gun control and abortion, veritably begging the Democrats to adopt the position of the Republican Party. She says,

"Democratic leaders are radical on abortion because they live in fear of--brace yourself, more snobs coming--a pro-abortion lobby that has money, clout and workers, and that can kill the hopes of any Democratic aspirant who doesn't toe the line. And that pro-abortion lobby is largely composed of the professionals, journalists, lawyers and operatives who long ago showed such contempt for America."

Read that again. Journalists, lawyers and operatives who long ago showed such contempt for America. Peggy has just disowned her public self.

She then gives the Democrats some concrete advice:

"Look at the clock. Know what time it is. Half the country is wondering if we are in the end times. (Excuse me, I mean they fear man may be living through a final, wrenching paroxysm, the result of man's inhumanity to man and of the inevitable culmination of several unhelpful forces and trends.) So wake up and get serious."

Half of the people are wondering if we are in the “end times.”

The Democrats need to wake up a get serious.

Oh Peggy

"Don't 'position' yourself on issues like Iraq, think about your position on Iraq and be guided by a question: What will be good and right for America and the world? Reach your conclusions and hold to them as long as you can hold them honestly."

Peggy obviously feels uncomfortable with the myriad lies and distortions that have been told by this administration. She doesn’t like the fact that the administration position is best called the “unilateral-regime-change-disarmament-exile-UN-coalition-of-the-willing-we’ll-go-it-alone-because-they-have-nukes-drones-terrorists-evil-gas-his-own-people-moral-clarity-doctrine-everybody-in-the-whole-world-hates-Bush-Doctrine.”

"Stare down the abortion lobby, the gun-ban nuts, etc. Be moderate. Make progress."

Peggy is telling the Republican Party that they need to listen to the few remaining moderates in the party. Poor Peggy.

"Be pro-free-speech again. Allow internal divisions and dissent. A vital political party should have divisions and dissent."

More of Peggy’s discomfort with the mechanical Borg-like message machine of the GOP organization. She remembers a Republican party of old that held views from Rockefeller to Goldwater. Her envy of the diversity and tolerance of a party that holds views from Kucinich to Lieberman is palpable.

"Develop a new and modern Democratic rationale--the reason regular people should be Democrats again. Stop being just the We Hate Republicans Party. That's not a belief, it's a tic."

Those Clinton hating dittoheads are getting on Peggy’s nerves. She’s tired of hearing the daily ranting of those who blame all the problems in the world on “liberals.” She yearns for the day when Republicans can let go of the Neanderthal hatred of the “other.” She hates herself for being part of something so ugly.

"Stop being the party of snobs. Show love for your country and its people--all its people. Stop looking down on those who resist your teachings."

And by this letter of advice she embodies the very thing she imputes to the Democrats. Has there ever been a woman who was less self aware?

"Stop taking such comfort in Bill Clinton's two wins. Move on. He was a great political talent, but he won by confusing the issues, not facing them. That's a trick that tends to work only at certain times and only with powerful charisma... Ask him to stay home. He reminds people of embarrassment. He uses up all your oxygen."

Peggy has a powerful attraction to Bill Clinton and it discombulates her considerably. She is distracted by his presence and finds it hard to breathe. He makes her think dirty thoughts.

"Stop the ideology. A lot of Democratic Party movers and intellectuals have created or inherited a leftist ideology that they try to impose on life. It doesn't spring from life; it's forced on life, and upon people. Stop doing that--it's what weirdos who are detached from reality do."

Peggy has truly grown to despise the likes of Grover Norquist, Bill Kristol and Newt Gingrich. The “movement ideologues” make her sick, she thinks they are wierdos who are detached from reality. She feels that they are imposing themselves on her. It would seem that she feels imposed upon by many men. (Although she only describes one as having “powerful charisma.”)

"And by the way, I'd like it if you started smoking again, at least for a while. Democrats were nicer when they smoked. Then they let all those Carrie Nation types in the party beat them to a pulp, and regular Democrats stopped feeling free to be regular flawed messy humans."

This is a cry for help. Peggy is clearly nearing a suicidal crisis. She feels flawed and messy and horny and she can’t live with it. It may be time for an intervention.

"You're still one of our two great political parties. Show some class, the good kind. Throw your cap over the wall as JFK said, and boldly follow."

Yes. Become Republicans. The very existence of the Democratic Party is painful and frustrating to Peggy Noonan.

Earlier in the piece she said the Democrats of the 60's adhered to the following credo:

"We do not love this place; we prefer leaders unsullied by the grubby demands of electoral politics; we are drawn to the ideological purity of Ho, Fidel, Mao. And by the way we're taking over: Oppose our vision and we'll take care of you by revolutionary means."

These words come from the heart. She does not love this place. She prefers leaders unsullied by such grubby demands of electoral politics as adhering to the notion that a duly elected President should not be “unelected” by a partisan impeachment for a personal indiscretion, or grubby demands that votes be counted. She is drawn to the ideological purity of McCarthy, Father Coughlin, Perle.

And by the way, she’s taking over: Oppose her vision and she’ll take care of you by revolutionary means…like paperless voting machines.









digby 3/03/2003 07:42:00 PM |

 
Willful Misapprehension

Thank you Matthew Yglesias for blogging what I have been screaming at the television since Saturday in response to the smug argument coming from certain quarters that the capture of Khalid Sheik Mohammed somehow proves that the US can successfully wage war against Iraq and al Qaeda:

But no. We're not at war with Iraq right now. And yes, the administration could be more preoccupied with Iraq than it is today. We could, for example, be waging a shooting war against their army which, I hope, would attract some attention. You also need to consider that the bulk of the terrorism-based anti-war argument has to do with the notion that a war will inflame public opinion against us, which really has nothing to do with this arrest.

In fact, one could argue that the high profile arrest, coming on the eve of the invasion may have the exact opposite effect that it is designed to have --- that is to cow the tremulous terrorists into throwing up their arms in surrender at the sight of our massive martial superiority.

I am in favor of arresting al Qaeda terrorists and bringing them to justice (and by that I do not mean the kind of justice Judge George W. Bean endorses, i.e. the "they won't be bothering us any longer heh, heh, heh" kind.) A series of these high profile arrests, with the aid of countries from all over the world, particularly Muslim countries, and a transparent open legal proceeding would have been the way to deal with the issue. By framing it as a "war" it played into the megalomaniacal mindset of the terrorists. Had they been designated as global criminals in dry legal language, rather than with the religious rhetoric as the personification of "evil" they would have been somewhat marginalized as martyrs and it would have allowed the Muslim nations to respond with more vigor.

But then, a megalomaniacal mindset is not confined to terrorists, is it?






digby 3/03/2003 02:36:00 PM |

 


Fineman Gives Bush the Big Lewinsky in front of God and everybody.

Rated NC17
digby 3/03/2003 01:34:00 PM |

 
BlunderBush

The LA Times has lately been running some highly critical news analysis of the Bush administration. In fact, the Times is out front on a lot of issues pertaining to the mid-east, largely because of its fine expert Robin Wright, who is one of the most insightful analysts of the politics of the region around.

Today, the LA Times has two interesting reviews of the Bush administration’s “diplomacy”, the first being a global analysis of how their blunderbuss technique is perceived both overseas and domestically, and the second is a scathing indictment of Paul Wolfowitz’s obviously inept diplomacy in Turkey:

The World Casts a Critical Eye on Bush's Style of Diplomacy

By Doyle McManus

"If we're an arrogant nation, they'll view us that way," George W. Bush said during his 2000 presidential campaign. "But if we're a humble nation, they'll respect us."

Little more than two years later, the world's verdict on President Bush's diplomacy is split -- between critics who see it as arrogant and allies who support its goals but sometimes wonder where the "humble" went.

The leaders of France, Germany, Russia and China, all nations Bush hoped to count as allies in the confrontation with Iraq, have joined to resist the president's drive toward war, with complaints over what they see as American highhandedness.

Even staunch allies such as Prime ministers Tony Blair of Britain and Jose Maria Aznar of Spain have sent word to Bush that some U.S. bravado -- like Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld's dismissal of "Old Europe" -- has done more harm than good.

Bush and his aides, not surprisingly, push back.

"What you have here is a president who is willing to point out what's right and wrong, maybe sometimes undiplomatically," said a senior administration official who spoke on condition of anonymity.

[…]

Can you believe this? I'm going to have to begin to give more credence to the idea that President Gantry actually believes that he has been chosen by God to lead this Crusade. He alone is endowed with the wisdom to proclaim what is right and what is wrong.

This is precisely the kind of provocative fundamentalist sloganeering that plays into bin Laden's hands while offending the more modern rationalists who make up the moderate muslim factions in the mid-east, not to mention our allies and cultural compatriots in the rest of the world.

They really are two of a kind.

Turkish Vote Is Study in Miscalculation

By Richard Boudreaux

Early last month, Vice President Dick Cheney telephoned Turkey's prime minister with an urgent message: The Bush administration wanted the country's parliament to vote within days-- just before the Muslim holiday of Bayram-- on a request to base U.S. troops in Turkey for an assault on Iraq.

The timing of the pressure struck a raw nerve here, one that was still aching when Turkish lawmakers finally took up the request Saturday and dealt it a surprise defeat. As Turks offered explanations Sunday for this stinging defiance of their strongest ally, tales of American insensitivity were high on the list.

[...]

"The Americans kept giving ultimatums and deadlines, asking Turkey to jump into a barrel of fire," he said. "They seemed to think we could be bought off, but we had real security concerns about what Iraq would look like after Saddam. They never addressed those concerns."

[…]

For their part, U.S. officials believed the Turks could not afford to turn them down. On the assumption that Turkish leaders understood this, officials led by Paul D. Wolfowitz, the deputy Defense secretary, kept pressing hard for a decision. When Turkey balked, U.S. officials, in private comments to reporters, often questioned the country's value as an ally.

"The disinformation campaign against Turkey played a big role in upsetting national feelings," Erdogan told reporters Sunday.

In the end, Washington tried to bargain for Turkey's loyalty with the promise of an aid package that would include $6 billion in grants. The deal nearly fell apart last week when Turkey balked at one of the conditions-- that it agree to strict International Monetary Fund guidelines for reform of its economy.

By week's end, the government had accepted the condition, but it had no time to explain and sell the accord to lawmakers, many of whom felt that Turkey had been shortchanged.

"The time pressure put on Turkey did not help the Americans' case," a senior Turkish diplomat said, because it forced the government to call a vote prematurely.

It is not surprising, when you think about it, that the Bush administration has little patience for the needs of a democratic country to heed the will of its people. There is a strong undemocratic streak running through the modern Republican party that has been becoming more and more obvious over the last 10 years. They are simply not very attuned to the needs of politicians who feel that they must adhere to the wishes of their constituents. This is just as obvious in the way they are treating elected American representatives as in their treatment of overseas allies.

It's also another reason why we should not place too much store in their professions of desire for democracy throughout the mid-east. This is one concept where practicing what you preach is truly a prerequisite for requiring it of others.








digby 3/03/2003 01:11:00 PM |

Sunday, March 02, 2003

 
PSYCHOMACHIA

Today, in his ongoing quest to find some way to reconcile his sophomoric cheerleading for the past year with the fact that the team he’s cheering is simultaneously more cynical and more incompetent than his idealistic, childish view of them ever dreamed, Tom Friedman is reduced to sports metaphors. But, he is clearly having a problem letting go of the fantasy that his team aren’t Knights of the roundtable, they are reckless buffoons.

He frames the coming war as a “drama” to which he’d love to pull up a chair and pop up a big bowl of popcorn and just enjoy for the sheer pleasure of watching George W. Bush (professional cheerleader) throw the long bomb. (Has there ever been a less appropriate metaphor? It’s enough to make the stomach churn --- even more so if you have a loved one in the military or you happen to be an unfortunate Iraqi likely to be on the receiving end of Bush’s throwing arm. What was he thinking?)

But the truth is that Friedman doesn’t really see this as a dramatic sporting event. He’s no jock, and it shows. He sees it as some sort of medieval morality play in which George W. Bush is Strength, Saddam and bin Laden are Satan and Evil and the Middle East is a democratic Paradise waiting to be born. Strength and Force (with a little help from the comical Crazy) will lead a Crusade to teach the twins, Ignorance and Poverty, that Democracy is their Savior.

But, the long litany of mistakes and miscalculations that Friedman subsequently narrates --- what he calls his “dilemma” --- is so unintentionally hilarious that it is obvious that what we are seeing is actually a Mack Sennet Keystone Kops farce. Friedman says he thinks the “plan” to spread wholesome democratic capitalistic all-American goodness would have been better served if the Bush administration hadn’t angered all of Europe by trashing the Kyoto treaty, hadn’t alienated the Russian national security elite by trashing the ABM treaty, or hadn’t proposed one radical tax cut on top of another one on the “eve of a huge, costly nation building marathon abroad.”

And Tom thinks Bush made a mistake in not rallying the country for energy conservation, and should have initiated a Manhattan Project for alternative energy. He should have also been deeply involved in resolving the Israeli Palestinian conflict even to the extent that we would threaten to withdraw funds from Israel if they did not cease building settlements. And needless to say it would have been better if the administration had put the Arab countries (like Saudi Arabia, perhaps?) on notice that we would not sit idly by while they tolerated extremists.

It’s actually difficult to watch someone flail so helplessly against that undertow of realism that flows though his column today. He frets that because of all these errors in judgment that “Bush has told us the right thing to do, but he won’t “be able” to do it right.” It apparently doesn’t occur to him that people this inept are highly unlikely to complete a hail mary pass. In fact, President Quarterback hasn't connected even once in the entire game.

This wishful thinking is running amuck among people who are even less dazzled by the President’s manufactured machismo than Tom Friedman. They cling to the idea that even though this administration has fouled up every single foreign policy initiative, that they wasted all of the U.S. moral authority emanating from 9/11, that they have been proven over and over again to be the boldest and most shameless liars to ever occupy the White House, that somehow they “Just Have To” do this one right. The long bomb “Just Has To” connect.

I think it’s time for everybody to start considering just what we are going to do in the event this thing, like every single other thing this administration has done, goes wrong? What are we going to do when the "It Just Has To Work" theory of geopolitics fails?




Update:

David E.gives Gridiron Tom a damned good fisking.




digby 3/02/2003 12:56:00 PM |

Saturday, March 01, 2003

 

Courtesy Brief Intelligence via The Agoniste both of which I have sadly neglected to add to the blogroll until today.

I have also added the fine blogs:


Dratfink
ArchPundit
Wampum Blog
Stoutdem
Tom Moody
Reveries Of The Solitary Blogger
everything is wrong
Nobody Knows Anything
Byzantium's Shores
Something's Got To Break




digby 3/01/2003 08:11:00 PM |

 
The Sack Of Iraq*

I imagine that a lot of us have picked up our copies of "The Guns of August" in recent weeks. There is a sense of things hurtling out of control, nothing going quite the way anyone conceived it. Hubris and belligerant confidence seem to overrule rational analysis in much the same way that the great powers miscalculated and overreached in the early days of WWI.

Vaara points out in a very interesting essay that this is not surprising --- that our feelings of deja vu are because the coming invasion, rather than being a "Project For A New American Century," is really the final chapter of the last one.


It's a very provocative and interesting piece.

* Phrase also coined by Vaara, but I plan to use it liberally.





digby 3/01/2003 04:52:00 PM |

 
My Poor Eyes

I received an e-mail this morning from blogger Centerpoint who kindly pointed me to his site where I could learn how to make my print more readable. Being HTML impaired, I appreciate all the help I can get.

I learned that blogger does not require me to set the font size, which means that everyone can adjust the font on their browsers to the size most comfortable for them. On the larger and largest font sizes on Explorer, the print is quite large and in bold. I hope this helps.

I also changed the font to Ariel, which is the font that I have always preferred for letters. I hope this helps, too.




digby 3/01/2003 02:22:00 PM |

Friday, February 28, 2003

 
We Don't Need Your Stinking War

Monkey Media Report has a very interesting post up about the alternative to war:

Not sure why I haven't seen more discussion of this one in the blog world: With Weapons of the Will: How to Topple Hussein Nonviolently by Peter Ackerman and Jack DuVall. It's a 'must-refute' for those in favor of a costly U.S. invasion/occupation. Originally published in Sojourners magazine last September (and linked approvingly in a fascinating 3-part analysis at One Hand Clapping), the article points out that civilian populations have risen up a number of times to overthrow dictators who were at least as willing to engage in mass murder as Saddam:

"It's essential to understand that unless a regime wants to murder the entire population, its ability repressively to compel a population's compliance is not infinitely elastic."

According to the authors, the key to sparking the kind of resistance that overthrew Nicolae and Elena Ceausescu in Romania and Augusto Pinochet in Chile is breaking the stranglehold of fear that keeps the people in check. Once that happens - look out, dictator:

"No one doubted the willingness of Pinochet's regime, in the 1970s and early 1980s, to use terror as an instrument of repression in order to assure the regime's control: Disappearances, brutal killings of dissidents, and arbitrary arrests had silenced most dissenters. But once that silence was broken in 1983 in a way that the regime could not immediately suppress -- through a one-day nationwide slow-down, followed by a nighttime city-wide banging of pots and pans in Santiago -- the regime was no longer able to re-establish the same degree of fear in the population, and mammoth monthly protests were soon under way."

In the case of Romania in 1989, it was the population of Timisoara that lit the bonfire:

"[Shoot to kill orders] arrive in Timisoara that afternoon. At 17:00 water cannons and tear gas are used against the people, tanks and APD's enter the streets and the shooting begins at about 18:00. They fire indiscriminately into the crowd. This was the watershed of the Revolution - differentiating it from previous demonstrations such as strikes in the Jiu valley and the 1987 riots in Brasov. News spreads quickly, especially by foreign TV and radio transmissions from neighbouring countries. The scale of the massacre becomes more and more exaggerated with reports of up to 60,000 dead in Timisoara...That same night there are sporadic anti-Ceausescu riots in other towns..."

Yep, that's how successful popular revolt usually works. It's interesting that when President Bush went to Romania last November, he called upon the memory of Ceausescu to drum up support for invading Iraq. "From that balcony, the dictator heard your voices and faltered," Bush said, while failing to mention that no foreign army had been necessary. (It should be added that Soviet hands were probably pulling strings behind the scenes in 1989, just as U.S. hands would pull them in Iraq today).

Ackerman and DuVall also note a key point about Saddam's rule that may make it easier to bring down than the regime of someone like Pinochet:

["Saddam's] hold on power is even more reliant on personal loyalties and their reinforcement by material rewards and mortal penalties. As such, the frequent reports of his repression should be seen not only as a sign of his brutality, but as evidence of the disaffection that his capricious, personal style continues to breed: He would not have to crack down if there were no one who might be disloyal."

In other words, if Hussein started ordering mass executions of crowds in broad daylight - a likely move - a military mutiny like the ones that took place in Romania and Chile would be an even more likely countermove. And it turns out there's also a strategic advantage from the perspective of a hawk like Rumsfeld:

"[If a campaign began with] civilian-based incidents of disruption that were dispersed around the country and that did not offer convenient targets to shoot at, any attempt to crack down would have to depend on the outermost, least reliable members of Saddam's repressive apparatus".

Why is this not the plan on the table in the White House? Why are we spending billions of dollars and endangering the lives of, for instance, my roommate's brother-in-law? The authors' final paragraph says it all:

"Regimes have been overthrown that had no compunction about brutalizing their opponents and denying them the right to speak their minds. How? By first demonstrating that opposition is possible, peeling away the regime's residual public and outside support, quashing its legitimacy, driving up the costs of maintaining control, and overextending its repressive apparatus. Strategic nonviolent action is not about being nice to your oppressor, much less having to rely on his niceness. It's about dissolving the foundations of his power and forcing him out. It is possible in Iraq."

Sound like pie in the sky?

Tell it to Nikolae and Elena


This would have worked. With modern media and a concerted effort in other countries in the region, it would have worked. But, it would not effectively establish our reputation as the meanest muthafuggahs on the planet and that, after all, is what this is all about.

"You Will be democratic, and I mean now" is an interesting, if completely incoherant, concept.

Read the entire post. He has many great links to the subject. This, it seems to me, was the real alternative to war.






digby 2/28/2003 01:39:00 PM |

 
Cakewalk

Matthew Yglesias has an interesting post up about the propaganda efforts headed up by Westwood One in the mid-east. He says:

You want to convince people that the United States is not determined to destroy their traditional values, and that democratic procedures and basic human rights are compatible with a variety of cultural forms, and this program sounds like it's doing the exact reverse.

The problem, of course, is that the only values the United States has been very interested in promoting are the values of capitalism. And those values, while fine as far as they go, without an equal emphasis on democracy, freedom and opportunity have helped to sow the resentment and hatred we are now seeing. Everytime we broadcast about our opulent way of life to a bunch of poor people with little hope living under a tyrannical despot, we are asking for their rage to be turned toward us.

The Westwood One executive is quoted as saying:

When we play a song by Jennifer Lopez, we talk about all the difficulties she has overcome," he says. "Those are great stories about the kind of things that can happen to you when you live in a democracy." As long as ratings are Pattiz's first and last concern ("don't lead with what makes us unpopular," he lectures me), METN will do little more than pander to the lowest common denominator in his trademark, Pepsi-Generation style.

Sad to say that because of their circumstances and experiences in life, the average youth in the mid-east is a much more serious person than that. And we should be much more serious about giving them something more than consumerism because they don't have the money or the inclination to buy if that's all we're selling.

Which brings me to this most disturbing article from today's LA Times. If this is any indication, Richard Perle is gonna have some splainin' to do when we are greeted with terrible hostility rather than a road to Baghdad strewn with rose petals.

[...]

Here, in the middle of the desert, closer to the Saudi Arabian border than to Amman, Jordan's relatively cosmopolitan capital, it is easier to hear the unvarnished sentiments and frustrations of this Arab country.

"Maan is a case study for Jordan. It reflects how we think in this country," said Taher Masri, an urbane former prime minister who remains close to the government. The confrontational statements, he says, are part of a complex philosophy common in this part of the world.

"Saddam is not liked for himself. He is liked, if he is liked, because he stands up to America and Israel -- and it has developed that the source of power for Israel is America and this is, of course, what" Al Qaeda's Osama bin Laden has been saying.

"And what you will see in the streets is not support of Saddam, it's anti-American, anti-Israeli feeling," Masri said.

The confrontation in Maan also suggests how far even moderate Arab governments might go in responding to further unrest that could be ignited by a war in Iraq. It demonstrates that when moderate Arab countries repress the most vociferous Islamist voices, they run the risk of inflaming anti-American sentiments because the repression appears to be in the service of U.S. interests.

[...]


They love us. They really love us.

What a terrible, terrible mess.

3/4 - I apologize for the misspelling of Yglesias's name again. I know someone with the "I" spelling and it seems to be a block. But, I'm sure that a guy who occasionally makes a typo or two, as Mr. Yglesias does, won't hold it against me.



digby 2/28/2003 01:08:00 PM |

 
Closets

Atrios links to this article by Michelangelo Signorile on the Koufax matter and his comments section has a very lively debate going on the subject.

I think that Signorile and some of the commentors are dancing around another issue, but I'll get to that.

First, I don't agree with whole "public figure" aspect of this argument at all. If somebody makes an issue of their sex lives, then it becomes an open topic. Similarly, if you make public pronouncements about other people's sex lives then you have opened up your own for scrutiny. But, if you are just living your life, (as a long retired athlete, for instance) you have a right to have keep your sex life private, period. The issue with the media is sexual privacy no matter what the gossip item refers to, whether it has to do with being gay or having blow jobs in the oval office.

Tabloids are exploitive, lying, piece of shit rags that feed the base nature of everybody who reads them and as much as I believe in free speech I can't say that I wouldn't feel gleeful at the sight of a pile of New York Posts going up in flames. They are a destructive force in our culture and if you don't believe me then just turn on
television news for 10 minutes and you'll understand what I'm talking about. It is no coincidence that Bill "Enemy of the State" O'Reilly came from that bastion of respectable journalism, "Inside Edition." It is a pervasive influence in our politics and has been instrumental in the dumbing down of our national media and the trivializing of our political system to such a degree that an ignorant sock-puppet could be elected President because the news media were obsessed with the superficialities of the candidates to the exclusion of everything substantive.

The argument should not be about whether there exists a double standard, but why there aren't more standards to begin with.

But, with the case at hand, there is more to it than that, isn't there? From what I can tell, people are dismayed that the issue was blown up because of the nature of the "charge" --- that is that he was accused of being gay and it was treated as if he had been a "child molester." This is true. But, there's a little Claude Raines action going on here, too. It is wholly unsurprising that in the macho world of sports that an item like this would gain attention and approbation. But, it's not fair to say that the sportwriters across the board find it "contemptible" that someone would be accused of being gay. After all, they didn't react to the original blind item at the time and the reaction to the Mike Piazza rumor was far less energetic.

Part of what they are reacting to (and I don't doubt that there is quite a bit of homophobia involved as well) is that this is Sandy Koufax, a legend and notoriously private man, who has been falsely accused of making a deal with an author contingent upon her not revealing that he is gay. It's not just the gay thing, it's also the idea that he was portrayed as an underhanded liar. A lot of people admire Sandy Koufax, for more reasons than his pitching arm, and that hurt. But, to be fair, they also reacted strongly when Koufax quit the organization and a lot of them said that it was "wrong" for him to be accused of being gay by using rather obtuse language.

Which brings us to the heart of the matter. In some of the commentors's arguments the idea is bubbling that because there is nothing wrong with being gay, that a public figure of integrity should not object to being called gay, whether he is or not. One could correct the record for accuracy's sake, but it really shouldn't be much of a concern because, after all, there's nothing wrong with being gay so what's wrong with people thinking you are?

This is a fatal error, I think, because it supposes that people, gay or straight, should not mind if others misrepresent their sexual orientation. If it is not ok to force gay people to publicly live as if they are straight, is it really much different to ask straight people to behave as if it doesn't matter if they are perceived as being gay?

I realize that there are many people who have an ambiguous sexual orientation and that is a perfectly natural state for them. But, for many others, sexual orientation is an intrinsic part of who they are and it is fundamental to their identity. To assume that it should not matter to people how they are perceived in that way is asking to change something very basic in human nature. This seems to me to be the very essence of the gay rights movement. It's not just about being who you are --- after all, you have no choice in the matter --- it's about being seen and accepted for who you are.

Sandy Koufax, rightly or wrongly, will now be the Hall of Fame pitcher who will be known for his blazing fastball and also the guy about whom it will be said "he was gay." The truth or untruth of that is certainly not relevant to his standing as a legendary athlete. But, to him, as a person it might matter a great deal if it is not true, not because he finds being gay "contemptible" but because it is a fundamental misrepresentation of who he really is.

One should not have to be willing to have the world believe one is gay, in order to be completely open and accepting of homosexuality. I don't think we can ask people to live a lie, or to acquiesce to lies told about them, no matter what cause it purports to serve. Nothing good can come of it.

(For the record, I've been called gay by wing-nuts in comments sections and in e-mail many, many times. When idiots call someone "gay" on the internet, it is so stupid that one can only laugh in return. I don't consider morons hurling "gay" as an epithet the same as normal people misperceiving someone as being gay when they are not. A fine distinction, but a distinction nonetheless.)

Update:

In retrospect, I think I was unfair in categorizing Signorle as one who thinks people should accept a designation of gay to further the cause. He clearly states in his article an admiration of the way Mike Piazza handled the situation, which was to deny that he was gay and shrug it off while offering support to gay players. And, he further stated clearly that he thought one of the issues that needed tending was the sensitivity of athletes. To that I can only agree, but one couldn't confine it to the gay issue. Jocks are about the most insensitive humans on earth. It's a big job.





digby 2/28/2003 11:18:00 AM |

Thursday, February 27, 2003

 
41

Seth Michaels was at the George the First speech at Tufts and gives us a rundown. It's very interesting that Senior is in a bit of a defensive posture as he tries to explain why he didn't "finish the job" as the neocon imperialists accuse him of 20 times a day all over the media. He had some very good reasons, one of which was that they would never have been able to fulfill Madrid if they had exceeded the UN mandate.

And, Madrid and the peace process managed to ratchet down the violence in Israel for almost 10 years and was very well worth trying. It's one of the main keys to future peace in the region and at least Poppy had the brains to see that.

I'm not a big fan of the guy in general, but I have to admit that the press treated him unfairly today by only highlighting his rude joke:

"We've now found another real good reason to use duct tape"

It's a typical Bush smartass remark, but according to Seth he'd also said this:

"I understand where they're coming from, and I hope they'll listen and understand where I'm coming from...I hope those demonstrators, who are speaking from their hearts, understand this...what we seek is not hegemony, but compliance with a wide variety of UN resolutions. I think there is such a concept as a just war...the 43rd president shares the innately human desire to avoid conflict that might kill innocent people."

Seth says: Pretty classy for a 78-year-old guy who just got the finger from a 20-year-old. Also worth noting is that he did not, as his son and his son's administration have done, try to link Iraq directly to Al-Qaeda:

"Today we have another ingredient we didn't have in 1991 - Sept. 11. I'm not saying that there's a conspiracy between Saddam Hussein and Osama bin Laden, but the U.S. must protect its citizens and friends."

It's always been my contention that the bitchy, Dowdian KewlKidz style of political reporting started with Bush and that supermarket scanner. It was misrepresented at the time and then used against him as if what they'd said was true. Needless to say, Clinton and Gore suffered from the same treatment.

I naturally assumed that any president would be subjected to this treatment going forward, but I was wrong. President FratBoy was exempted from any serious scrutiny from day 1. I can only assume that the Republicans became so good at manufacturing these scandals and embarrassments that the press forgot how to do it for themselves. Today, they were reminded by seeing ole' 41 and they fell back into step. I can't think of how else to explain it.




digby 2/27/2003 10:13:00 PM |

 
Walk Toward The Light, Jim.

How come nobody’s noticed that James Pinkerton has crossed over from the dark side?

Check out these columns from the past few weeks.

This guy used to be a dyed in the wool reactionary but I've noticed that lately he's been well...pretty sensible and rational. I hate to make too big of a thing about it because he'll probably lose his children's slots at Sidwell Friends or get drummed out of the segregated country club, but it's so rare these days that a pundit escapes from the underworld and lives to tell about it. (And you can't really blame them since the brilliant 12 year old marketers are convinced that anyone who is "anti-war, anti-Bush and skeptical of the administration's motives" is, like, such a total loser.)

Anyway, I'd like to propose a toast to Jim Pinkerton, former Republican lackey. To Courage and Integrity!





digby 2/27/2003 07:38:00 PM |

 
Everyday People

I just love San Francisco



digby 2/27/2003 06:40:00 PM |

 
Ungentle Reminder

Les Dabney at Testify! reminds us of that strangely ignored little scandal called Iraqgate.

I know that the republic will never, ever recover from the high crime of 12 furtive hallway blowjobs, but this little scandal seems to have led to 12 years of non-stop regional blowback. The mediawhores sure are on the ball, aren't they?


UPDATE:

Robert Parry of Consortium News also has a new article online about the Missing US-Iraq history

Before George W. Bush gives the final order to invade Iraq -- a nation that has not threatened the United States -- the American people might want a few facts about the real history of U.S.-Iraq relations. Missing chapters from 1980 to the present would be crucial in judging Bush’s case for war.

But Americans don’t have those facts because Bush and his predecessors in the White House have kept this history hidden from the American people. When parts of the story have emerged, administrations of both parties have taken steps to suppress or discredit the disclosures. So instead of knowing the truth, Americans have been fed a steady diet of distortions, simplifications and outright lies.

This missing history also is not just about minor details. It goes to the heart of the case against Saddam Hussein, including whether he is an especially “aggressive” and “unpredictable” dictator who must be removed from power even at the risk of America’s standing in the world and the chance that a war will lead to more terrorism against U.S. targets.

Fuggedaboudit. It's the premiere of Survivor: Iraq and nothing must stand in the way of our new show.








digby 2/27/2003 04:30:00 PM |

 



Why It Won't Work

Back in the late 90's while most of us were watching the bimboes of the Barbizon School Of Former Prosecutors dissect the legal strategy behind Ken Starr subpoenaing Monica's pedicurist, others were noticing that a foreign policy debate was taking place and they wrote about it:

Pax Americana: The Impossible Dream

To sum up, then: foreign fears of a hegemonic America imposing its will on others are misplaced. The U.S may have the raw military power to attempt such a role and some influential Americans call for it but the country has not developed the necessary will, temperament or strategy to succeed as a hegemon. It spends a great deal on international affairs, but does not allocate its resources wisely. It is overcommitted in the military field and undercommitted in the diplomatic field. It proclaims strategic doctrines that are designed more to win the next election than to secure international support. Its leadership groups enjoy the aura of world leadership, but they are unwilling to make any sacrifices themselves in pursuit of leadership. Any quest to establish a Pax Americana that involves sacrifice will therefore lack legitimacy. It will be deprived of the political and moral underpinning that makes a sustained effort at global hegemony possible.

The danger in fact lies elsewhere. The world is unlikely to see a Pax Americana but, depending on political fortunes, it might see an effort to attempt one. The effort would fail -- but with it would also die the commitment to internationalism that is a prerequisite for American leadership. And no one should be in doubt that the loss of that leadership would be extremely harmful.


They didn't even try to use 9/11 to call for sacrifice, they completely ruined our diplomatic relations with the world and they have allocated our resources so ineffectively that we are going to have the equivalent of the Argentine economy in a matter of a few years. In pursuit of their absurd fantasy, they have exacerbated every single weakness the U.S. had and yet they persist in allowing those like the Jesse Helms acolyte, John Bolton and the delusional Richard Perle speak for this country and take us to the point of no return.

The failed attempt at Empire is going to cost us far more than doing absolutely nothing would have done.






digby 2/27/2003 02:18:00 PM |

 
"You're Next. Very Efficient Diplomacy"

Rittenhouse Review calls the following passage in an article in the Philadelphia Inquirer "Comic Book Diplomacy."

Hawkish administration officials argue that ousting Hussein and his regime could remake the Middle East and help safeguard the world from the specter of international terrorists armed with nuclear, chemical or biological weapons.

In their best-case scenario, regime change in Baghdad would trigger the spread of democracy and freedom throughout the Mideast. Awed by America's power, Muslim support for terrorism would evaporate; Palestinians and Israelis would make peace; and global anti-American sentiment would evolve into gratitude and goodwill.


This is not news, though. Richard Perle said the following on PBS in October 2001

Is there any point about Iraq one must understand so that an educated view can be made?

It's important to recognize that Iraq is a country with an enormously talented people, and that is well understood by the rest of the Arab world. So there is real concern when the rest of the Arab world observes suffering in Iraq, which is now widely attributed, I think wrongly, to the embargo that's been in effect for many years. That is very different from believing that the Arab world supports Saddam Hussein, or that it would not welcome the elimination of Saddam Hussein's regime. I think there would be dancing in the streets if Saddam were removed from power, and that reaction of the Iraqi people would be reflected in the attitude of the Arab world, generally. So the notion that if we go after Iraq we are somehow going to advance in the direction of a war against Islam that will turn out to be far worse for us, I think is really quite mistaken. ...


The common belief is that our soldiers are not welcomed very easily in any Arab nation today, even when there is no battle going on. It's hard for an American public to believe that the Arab allies will indeed welcome us with open arms in any endeavor against any other Arab nation. Is that a mistaken a view?

Yes, I think it's a mistaken view. This idea of Arab solidarity is complete nonsense. It's been nonsense for as long as I can remember. They're at each other's throats all the time. Saddam invades Kuwait. You have a war between Iraq and Iran. Although Iran is not an Arab nation, it's a Muslim nation. You have Jordan fighting Syria in the 1970s. It's just nonsense to suggest that there's solidarity. There is no solidarity there. ...

If we go into Iraq and we take down Hussein?

Then I think it's over for the terrorists.

Why so optimistic?

Because having destroyed the Taliban, having destroyed Saddam's regime, the message to the others is, "You're next." Two words. Very efficient diplomacy. " You're next, and if you don't shut down the terrorist networks on your territory, we'll take you down, too. Is it worth it?" Of course it isn't worth it. It isn't worth it for any of them.


Read the whole interview, keeping in mind that he gave it in October 2001, just a few weeks after 9/11. The only significant change in plan has been that we have pretty much told the Iraqi National Congress to take a hike. And when you read it, you will see that Mr. Perle is completely unhinged.

These guys are radical, violent idealists and they always have been.

From the outset, the chief architects of the push to get Saddam Hussein have been Deputy Defense Secretary Paul Wolfowitz and Richard Perle, who, as chairman of the Defense Policy Board, is not technically a member of the Bush administration. As prize students of arch-hawk, Albert Wohlstetter in the 1960s, the two men have been comrades-in-arms in a series of crusades against détente, arms control, and any multilateral effort that might constrain Washington's freedom of action to do what it wants, where and when it pleases, dating back to the early 1970s.

These are the "grown-ups" folks. Fasten your seatbelts.







digby 2/27/2003 01:40:00 PM |

 
Enemies Of The State

Courtesy of MWO, I find that Bill O'Reilly has issued the following warning:

"Once the war against Saddam Hussein begins, we expect every American to support our military, and if you can't do that, just shut up.

Americans, and indeed our foreign allies who actively work against our military once the war is underway, will be considered enemies of the state by me.

Just fair warning to you, Barbra Streisand and others who see the world as you do. I don't want to demonize anyone, but anyone who hurts this country in a time like this, well. Let's just say you will be spotlighted.

Talking points invites all points of view and believes vigorous debate strengthens the country, but once decisions have been made and lives are on the line, patriotism must be factored in."

The phrase "Enemy of the State" is not usually used by Americans, now is it? But, it certainly has a familiar ring to it. Where have we heard it before??



The Kulaks Are the Enemy of the State
-- Joseph Stalin


The Indian shopkeepers are the Enemy of the State
--Idi Amin



The white farmers are the Enemy of the State
-- Robert Mugabe


The Jewish shopkeepers are the Enemy of the State
-- Adolph Hitler




Great minds do think alike.





digby 2/27/2003 12:05:00 PM |

Wednesday, February 26, 2003

 
Hesiod Says The Myth Of The Liberal Media Is Dead

This is my favorite part of the Donahue memo:

Donahue presented a "difficult public face for NBC in a time of war......He seems to delight in presenting guests who are anti-war, anti-Bush and skeptical of the administration's motives." The report went on to outline a possible nightmare scenario where the show becomes "a home for the liberal antiwar agenda at the same time that our competitors are waving the flag at every opportunity."

You can tell by this that we are dealing with a shallow, braindead, PR KewlKid asshole. Not one original thought in evidence. This is the reason why MSNBC is so lame.

I think that the Bill Press/Pat Buchanan show is the best one on the network, mainly because they have a good guest line-up and Buchanan is a paleoconservative at a time when the neocons are dominating the foreign policy debate. It makes for unpredictable and slightly more interesting television because the paradigm of GOPBorg vs. ineffectual psuedo-liberal "journalist" is just so damned yesterday.




digby 2/26/2003 09:12:00 PM |

 
Never Give Up. Never Give In.

Skippy's right.

If at first you don't succeed, try again on Thursday.




digby 2/26/2003 08:34:00 PM |

 
The Iraq Threat Doesn't Exist In A Vacuum

Josh Marshall notices the following little problem in our quest to overthrow Saddam Hussein.

Even our would-be supporters in regime change don't want to be associated with an occupation by a foreign (and non-Muslim) power. And yet there's almost no way we're going to achieve our objectives without a long occupation which is deeply-entrenched and so overwhelming numerically that it can throw a blanket of enforced peace over all the tensions, divisions and rage that Saddam's tyranny has both created and held in check for three decades.

The real problem is that we're embarking on an enterprise which does not admit of half-measures. As Fouad Ajami notes in this article, an American invasion of Iraq will at first almost certainly be viewed as a neo-Imperialist attempt to take over an Arab country, secure its oil wealth, and do various other bad things.

No kidding.

I am stunned that we are only days or weeks away from war and this subject is suddenly floating to the surface as one of concern, since some people, like me, have been pounding this drum since the very beginning. In fact, it is my main objection to the blasted war in the first place.

Let’s try it very s-l-o-w-l-y and try to make the point one last time.

Many of us who are opposed to the invasion are not opposed because we are pacifists. I supported the Afghanistan campaign to oust the Taliban and I am generally, and as a matter of principle, in favor of stopping tyrants from killing large numbers of people when we can do it. Nobody has to make the humanitarian argument to me, and frankly I'm somewhat sickened when I hear people like Tucker Carlson self-righteously invoke it when he never gave a moments thought to the Iraqi people until it showed up on a list of "well polled" arguments from Karl Rove's office.

And, I am deeply concerned about the spread of nuclear weapons. The science is now accessible and reasonably simple. The only serious roadblock seems to be obtaining uranium in sufficient quantities. But, I also do not see that we are going to be able to contain the spread simply through military force. I’m not sure how we can contain them, truthfully, but I know that invading and occupying the Axis of Evil is not going to solve the problem and if the current situation in North Korea is any guide, our policy seems to ensure that there will be more countries with nukes sooner rather than later. Saddam Husseins and Kim Jong Ils have existed since the dawn of time and there will always be another one. Getting rid of them is only a stop gap measure. (Missile defense is a childish fantasy that can only make us less safe as it invites aggressors to use everything they’ve got, knowing that some (all?) will evade the system.) We must find a way to either contain the material required to make nukes or get rid of it altogether. It is not possible to change human nature so fundamentally that people will not try to obtain such awesome power.

I also believe in international institutions, treaties and laws. I understand that they are cumbersome and bureaucratic and inefficient, just like any legal system. But, it was a great step forward for humanity to begin working toward a global rule of law and although it does not provide a perfect system it at least provides a basic set of rules that can be understood by everyone concerned. It doesn’t cover everything, but those things it does cover (like a prohibition against preventive war) are civilized advances over what came before in the same way that the criminal justice system is an advance over vigilantism. It does not always provide for perfect justice or perfect security but, all things being equal, it is an improvement over the endless territorial and tribal wars that came before. Imperfect, but better. Therefore, one of my objections to this war is the unilateralist intent, in spite of the lip service that has been paid to the UN (as a stalling device for logistical reasons and a helping hand to Tony Blair, in my opinion.)

However, my fundamental argument against invasion and overthrow has always been that without a clear and convincing act of aggression by Iraq, it is the worst kind of hubristic folly to put a US army on the ground in the middle east so soon after 9/11 under circumstances that appear to make Osama bin Laden’s worst accusations appear to be true. Only a megalomaniac would believe that it is wise, without adequate preparation and long term planning, to take actions seemingly designed to prove to the millions upon millions of would-be terrorists that bin Laden is right. Could we not have at least waited until the dust settled on the World Trade Center before elevating bin Laden to the status of prophet?

And to so miserably fail to make a credible case tying Saddam to 9/11, to rush headlong with little real deliberation (the phony UN debate notwithstanding), to fail to bring along world opinion and prepare the American people, and most of all to treat this war as if it exists in a complete vacuum without any consequence to the larger issues of Islamic terrorism, the Israeli Palestinian conflict and anti-American sentiment that is growing and metastasizing with every step they take toward invasion is to consciously and actively make the situation more dangerous.

None of this is to say we do nothing and try to roll up our shores and retreat from the world. But, this war was on the table long before bin Laden became a worldwide hero to millions of resentful young Muslims and long before terrorism became a serious threat to American security. It is the wrong war at the wrong time and despite the neocon dream that the United States will so impressively defeat Saddam that our enemies will retreat and withdraw from the field when confronted with our mighty sword, it is far more likely to make us less respected, less feared and less safe.

I’m all for ridding the world of WMD and terrorism. But, neither of these goals is going to happen as a result of invading armies occupying countries or pie-in-the-sky missile defense programs that don’t work. It’s going to require some new thinking and some different strategies. Dragging out your favorite dog-eared war plans and throwing them at the problem is the worst possible way to confront the new threats. It is arrogant, clumsy and, worst of all, ineffectual.

Members of the administration have made it clear that their intent is as much to create a new middle east as it is to stop Iraq from obtaining WMD. They believe that this will show that America is to be the civilizing force in the world --- beyond “indispensable” to “preeminent.” But, they are hazy on the details, seemingly assured that our military strength and wealth will be enough to make it happen.

This is dangerously naïve. And the repercussions of such naivete have been obvious from the start. It’s not dovish or pacifist to weigh the long term risks of the Iraq operation and find that it is the wrong plan under the current circumstances. I have not yet heard from Kenneth Pollack or Josh Marshall or other thoughtful liberal internationalists a convincing argument that Saddam is so imminently dangerous that the risks are worth running after the seminal event of September 11th.

For better or worse, Saddam and the threat of international Islamic terrorism are now inextricably linked to the national security of the United States. The problem is that we are the ones who have linked them and by doing so we will have eliminated a petty tyrant who may have become a problem in the future only to create an implacable worldwide foe today. And doing it the way we did it, we have alienated even our closest allies.

I honestly don’t know how this could have been handled any worse.







digby 2/26/2003 07:29:00 PM |

Tuesday, February 25, 2003

 
Yeah!

At what point did this simpering, inarticulate, embarrassing excuse for a leader decide that all of these men were irrelevant, and that he and he alone possessed greater knowledge and insight than all of them and those before them? When and how did his minions and cheerleaders suspend disbelief, conjuring up hallucinations of emperor’s clothes that are not there, to arrive at the conclusion that this man, this lucky sperm club poster boy, has opinions or even a fleeting random thought that should be weighed on the same scales as great men of intelligence and accomplishment?

And now, we are to let this buffoon and his shadowy handlers lecture us and the rest of the world as to what is irrelevant?

OK, then. Whatever. No wonder we are the laughing stock. History will judge us for electing (if you can call it that) this imbecile. This President will be the one judged irrelevant, if he doesn't destroy the planet first. We can only hope that the rest of the world doesn't decide WE are irrelevant and leave us behind before we can remove this embarrassment and apologize for inflicting him on the world.

Thanks South Knox Bubba. I needed that.



digby 2/25/2003 02:10:00 PM |

 
Snow Art

Avedon Carol directs us to this beautifully composed snow picture. Notice how it clings so prettily to the trees.



To an Alaskan however, snow is abstract art, smashing all the conventions and everything in its way.





copyright1999-2002 by the very talented Alaskan art photographer, Kate Salisbury Wool





digby 2/25/2003 12:58:00 PM |

 
Our ships must all sail in the same direction. Otherwise, who can say how long your stay with us will last. It's not personal, it's only business. You should know, Godfather"

Bush Message Is That a War Is Inevitable, Diplomats Say

As it launches an all-out lobbying campaign to gain United Nations approval, the Bush administration has begun to characterize the decision facing the Security Council not as whether there will be war against Iraq, but whether council members are willing to irrevocably destroy the world body's legitimacy by failing to follow the U.S. lead, senior U.S. and diplomatic sources said.

In meetings yesterday with senior officials in Moscow, Undersecretary of State John R. Bolton told the Russian government that "we're going ahead," whether the council agrees or not, a senior administration official said. "The council's unity is at stake here."

A senior diplomat from another council member said his government had heard a similar message and was told not to anguish over whether to vote for war.

"You are not going to decide whether there is war in Iraq or not," the diplomat said U.S. officials told him. "That decision is ours, and we have already made it. It is already final. The only question now is whether the council will go along with it or not."


They figure that everyone is like a moderate Republican or a battered liberal. Do as we say or it'll only get worse for you. They assume that everyone will fall into line once they thwack their meaty virility on the table with a big huge thump. Maybe so. But, trust and esteem are destroyed and all you have left is force.

The fallout from this could be enormous.


UPDATE: Chris at Interesting Times has a great series of posts and links on the issue of Bush's credibility gap and how it affects our "diplomatic" efforts.












digby 2/25/2003 11:24:00 AM |

 
Federalist Society Star

Ashcroft said the defendants are alleged to have knowingly and intentionally sold the items for use with illegal narcotics. Many of the items were disguised as common objects like lipsticks or hi-lighter pens, used by students to elude detection as drug paraphernalia.

The defendants face a maximum sentence of three years in prison and a $250,000 fine.

He said sellers of drug paraphernalia were just as responsible as others for the illegal drug trade. "They are as much a part of drug trafficking as silencers are a part of criminal homicide," Brown said.

But...silencers are legal.




digby 2/25/2003 10:14:00 AM |

 
The Dauphin and his Advisors

John Judis provides a clear, succinct rundown of the screw-up otherwwise known as the Bush administration Iraq policy and strategy.

Again. This would be much less likely to happen if the person actually charged with making the decisions weren't an empty slogan in a suit. Everybody thought it would be a great idea to have a presidency run by a committee of grown-ups, just like say...Enron.

As ye sow and all that jazz.




digby 2/25/2003 10:12:00 AM |

Monday, February 24, 2003

 


Bush Faces Increasingly Poor Image Overseas







digby 2/24/2003 10:39:00 PM |

 
Passing Thought

Scott Rosenberg in Salon says of Al-Arian/Rove-gate:

In the meantime, the strange saga of Al-Arian should remind us all that defining terrorism is a far more complex problem than our current president's blunt moral compass allows. After all, Bush's own most trusted advisors, with all their intelligence resources, embraced the same Al-Arian whom they now seek to convict. Should Rove now show up on an FBI watch list for consorting with known terrorists? (And can anyone doubt that if 9/11 hadn't happened, Rove would still be courting the Al-Arian vote?)


Picture if you will the same story circa 1996. Would the words "resignation" not be in the frenzied headlines by the second day?




digby 2/24/2003 10:02:00 PM |

 
Lethal Technicalities

The other day I wrote a post asking people to suport the Innocence Protection Act. I wrote, "Whether or not you believe in the death penalty, I think it's fair to say that nobody believes in executing innocent people."

I was completely wrong.

Please, law and order types, please spare me any more whining about somebody getting off on a technicality. You live by technicalities, whether it's conflicting deadlines for counting votes or arbitrary cut-off dates for claims of actual innocence. And worse, you do it in the name of efficiency. At least the laws protecting defendents are in place to keep the country from turning into a lawless police state. You guys just want to make the trains run on time.

Sick, amoral and unjust. What is happening to this country?




digby 2/24/2003 08:01:00 PM |

 
Public Relations War

The Better Rhettor:

For months both major U.S. cable news networks have acted as if the decision to invade Iraq has already been made, and have in effect seen it as their job to prepare the American public for the coming war.(Paul Krugman)

And how is this done, exactly? How is a population made to believe that war is inevitable, the enemy implacable, the government a source of unerring wisdom and might? Let us count the ways:

o The news programs with their zingy, multi-colored, eye-snagging graphics: "Target Iraq; "Countdown Baghdad" etc, as though war were comparable to a Monday night football game or an upcoming TV mini-series.

o The seemingly endless rounds of interviews with miscellaneous generals and preening pundits who discuss in lascivious detail the mechanics of war, i.e., the capacity of American missiles, the ideal weather for infantry attacks, the armaments of the Iraqi Republican Guard, as though questions of "why" and "whether" were irrelevant and all that remained were "how" and "when."

o The demonization of the enemy into a single malevolent personality—quick, who has the trendier one-word name these days, "Shaq," "Kobe," or "Saddam"?—who serves as a cartoon figure that forestalls more complicated discussions of history, politics, and economics. (What happened to "Osama," by the way? He’s off the "A-list," at least for now.)

o The relentless assaults on talk radio against the patriotism, character, morality, and mental stability of those who dare to oppose the war. You are either with us or you are morally defective.

The good folks at Political Research Associates have done a nice job of cataloging some of these antics as they have taken place on the covers of the conservative publication, The Weekly Standard in 2001-2002. The covers, when you consider them together, offer a fine example of how citizens are prepared to accept war as inevitable, their leaders as noble, and their enemies as vile, terrifying characters who deserve pretty much whatever they’ve got coming to them. Here’s the visual gallery, with a few of my own comments underneath each image:

Go see the gallery. It's amazing.



digby 2/24/2003 07:30:00 PM |

 
Wish I'd Said That

Kevin at Lean Left cuts to the chase of the Bell Curve debate:

The larger point is that it does not matter. Even if there was a strong correlation between race and "intelligence" (defined as you wish), it does not matter. It has no practical effect, other than the spread of racism. Why? Because the individual range is so obviously great.

Try it this way. Duke Ellington is a genius. Dr. Carver is a genius. John Rocker is a moron. History demonstrates that all races are capable of producing genius, and all races are capable of producing people so stupid you wonder if they will forget how to breathe, and of producing both in large numbers. In both "races", history shows us that genius is rare but not unknown, stupidity is less rare, and the vast majority muddle along in the middle. From a practical stand point, it does not matter if the median white is dumber than the median black. As a society, you must allow for the geniuses of both groups to flower, and build institutions to contain the damage the morons of both groups could do. To do otherwise would be to doom your society, in the long run.

Yep.





digby 2/24/2003 06:32:00 PM |

 
Shock Jockying For Power

I was going to write a long piece dissecting Slate's assertion that shock jocks are the voice of liberal radio. There are some aspects of that thesis with which I agree, but the larger point is that they are not explicitly political, and more importantly, they are not consciously aligned with the Democratic Party in the same way the right-wing talkers blatently work hand in glove with the Republicans. To the extent shock jocks are political, they are like Ross Perot or Jesse Ventura -- they represent the male yahoo anti-vote. They are certainly not the answer to the imbalance on the AM dial.

However, Yuval Rubenstein at Groupthink Centraldoes such a thorough job of refuting the central theme of the article that I am going no further. Just go read it.




digby 2/24/2003 06:16:00 PM |

 
Talking Past Each Other

Calpundit writes a somewhat poignant post today.

For my part, I never meant to imply that Kevin is anything but a fine person and someone with whom I agree 99.9% of the time. I believe that the argument about "intelligence" is one of semantics and where race is concerned, I think that semantics are a huge issue. Kevin may disagree, but I don't think that there is any fundamental disagreement with respect to how we view race and racism. I wish that I had made that more plain.

Furthermore, I respect the angst and difficulty Kevin has had in coming to his position on Iraq and I recognize that this is so for many liberals. His position is not indicative of a knee jerk support of Dubyah or a sense of adolescent bloodlust like so much of the blogosphere. It comes from a sense that it is better to take care of the problem sooner than later even under our current terrible leadership.

But, I disagree. I do believe that terrorism and petty tyrants with nukes are exceedingly dangerous and that we cannot afford to disengage from those issues. But, I think that the way we do it is almost as important as doing it at all. In this modern world of cable news and internet chatrooms and seething resentment and economic interdependence it is no longer possible to be an imperial power without almost instantaneous blowback.

I believe that terrorism is the biggest immediate danger facing America and that the Axis of Evil could have been kept in a box long enough to subdue that threat, at least to some degree. I think that blowing our relationships with those in the region and allies elsewhere was absurd considering the threat we are under. I grant that my mistrust of this administration is so thorough that I cannot believe anything they say, but they have been singularly unconvincing in the matter of Iraq's immediate threat.

Public record shows that neoconservative foreign policy ideologues have been pushing for invasion for years and it shows that their most important rationale for invasion was to show the despots of the world that we would invade and overthrow those who would attempt to gain WMD. And they believe that this show of strength will change the dynamic in and of itself to one of a more acquiescent mid-east and a more reasonable Kim Jong Il.

This is what's wrong with the invasion. I believe it is likely to have the opposite effect that it is intended to have and indeed the situation in North Korea suggests that I'm right. I believe that to wait would have been a better choice.

But, I too commented back in October on another blog (in answer to the charge that that antiwar rallies would likely turn into pro-Saddam rallies) that says some of the same things that Kevin and others are saying now:

I don't think the pro-Saddam rally will be well attended.

But, there will be prayer vigils and sleepless nights on the part of those of us who hope that this incompetent administration doesn't fuck it up so much that all hell breaks loose in the region, including the real possibility of nuclear war and many american and arab casualties. And we'll be wishing fervently that terrorism on US soil doesn't become something we'll have to learn to live with because we just can't seem to kill all the people who hate our guts and multiply exponentially with every aggressive action that we take. And we'll sure hope that we can get some cooperation from the unstable regimes that finance them without having to invade and depose their leaders, too.

And, if everything works out, let's keep our fingers crossed that we can turn the mideast into a democratic paradise quickly because judging from our experience in Afghanistan, our President meant it when he said he "wasn't into nation building." We really don't need to fight this war again.

And I know that a lot of us will probably get together around the dinner table and water coolers to talk about the enormous sums of money remaking the mideast is costing, and will continue to cost for years to come, while we worry about whether we'll have jobs or health care or a chance of a comfortable retirement.

So, rather than attending pro-Saddam rallies, people who are against this war being waged by someone in whom they have no faith will instead be gathering together to fervently pray that his adventure goes perfectly every step of the way.

Once the die was cast, and I believe it was cast last August during the meetings in Crawford with all the military brass, I don't know that there was ever much we could do but register our doubts, make our statements, protest and go on the record and then hope that it doesn't go as badly as we think it might.

At this point, what choice to we have?

Atrios says it better than I can.

Sorry Kevin. I think I'm getting edgy. Wartalk and terrorism does that, what with the lack of sleep and obsessive internet reading. Enjoy the movie. Make it a comedy.


UPDATE:

Charles Murtaugh writes: "Calpundit has become a one-stop shop for all my anguished-liberal needs," which made me wonder: Is there such a thing as an anguished conservative? I can't think of one.

And that observation, in turn, reminded me of the post I linked to from Interesting Times last week:

The two psychologists think that inept people are often self-assured because they lack self-monitoring skills, which are the same skills required for competence. Subjects who scored in the lowest quartile in tests of logic, English grammar, and humor were also the mostly likely to ``grossly overestimate'' how well they performed.

``Not only do (incompetent people) reach erroneous conclusions and make unfortunate choices,'' wrote Dr. Kruger, ``but their incompetence robs them of the ability to realize it

Ah. That explains it.







digby 2/24/2003 02:39:00 PM |

 
Degenerate Art

Why didn’t the artists speak out last night on the Grammys? I don’t know. I imagine it’s for many of the same reasons that many liberals in the US haven’t been speaking out --- fear of being called unpatriotic, the sense that 9/11 is sacred (and Iraq, however inexplicably, is attached to it), knowledge that the war is inevitable and a genuine feeling of ambivalence about the goals if not the motivations of those who are waging it. It is also true that the Grammy’s were in New York City; there are those who feel that it is hallowed ground.

And, one cannot look at this without noting that the corporation that owns CBS also owns MTV and VH1, and that the large corporate entities that created many of these “artists” have a huge stake in the success of George W. Bush’s administration. Self-interest is our civic religion these days even if it's subliminal.

But, I’d like to address another aspect of this issue. From what I’ve read today, it is taken as an article of faith from those on the right that artists are ignorant, ill-informed and so completely out of the mainstream that they should be treated as children and be seen and not heard. I have read at least 5 different comments today, and received several e-mails, saying that awards shows are properly places for the little tykes to clap their pudgy hands and giggle with glee when they get their nice awards, but they should leave the serious issues to the really important people (like warbloggers, presumably.)

(I have to say that calling artists “stupid” in the face of a president who cannot string two words together coherently is so chillingly obtuse that I’m afraid that a few of these people may be beyond reach. But, that’s another post….)

This view shows a complete lack of understanding of the history, function and purpose of art. So, let me try to clear up a few of the misconceptions that seem to be plaguing the right (who, as commenter Cheryl adroitly pointed out, revere the only entertainer to ever ascend to the presidency, Ronnie Reagan.)

There are two reasons why artists speak out on politics and why they tend to be overwhelmingly liberal. First, the practical reason is that they have an audience. It has been asked repeatedly why an awards show should serve as a platform for political sentiment. Well….

BECAUSE MILLIONS OF PEOPLE ARE WATCHING, THAT’S WHY!

If artists/citizens feel strongly about a political issue they may also feel they have an obligation to use their access to large numbers of people to make that point. Those of us who blog or are actually active in politics from either side of the debate should understand this better than anyone. If you care, you try to persuade. And anybody who wants to can participate. It’s called democracy.

Which brings us to the second reason. Artists are overwhelmingly liberal because conservatives are always trying to tell them what they can and cannot say, write, paint, or make. There is nothing more precious to an artist than free speech and history is filled with examples of governments cracking down on art and speech they determine to be a threat to the nation. Even here in the US. And, certainly there. It is only logical that civil liberties would be of prime importance to artists, particularly those who use their art as a means of political expression and it should not surprise anyone that the more conservative and authoritarian governments are always the ones that are trying to curb them. Artists know this and usually support liberal politics as a result.

It is just reverse elitism to assume that the artistic community is any more stupid than any other group of people in this country. Some are, some aren’t. This smug snobbishness is quite revealing, particularly coming from the group that allows the likes of Jerry Falwell to speak for them on political issue ranging from taxes to war strategy.

I think it shows they’re scared. Smart Republicans understand something else about this phenomenon and that is that certain artists bring with them a powerful image that can be extremely useful if applied correctly --- Charlton Heston as Moses for instance --- Reagan in a cowboy hat. If the broad artistic community becomes truly engaged in politics, the right will have a problem on their hands. Popular Culture is a sleeping political and public relations giant and when it is awakened it can be a formidable foe. And it is overwhelmingly liberal.

And they know that the likes of Rupert Murdoch will never forego profits for politics. Ever. If the artistic communities make liberalism visible again, and by extension they make their art explicitly or implicitly political and profitable, the Republicans will be in trouble. FoxNews is only entertaining to dittoheads and masochistic Democrats. Everybody else is watching the real liberal media like Murdoch's most successful television show ever --- The Simpsons --- the most subversively liberal TV show in history.

The musicians did a big el-foldo. Let's see if the filmmakers can do a little bit better.





digby 2/24/2003 12:49:00 PM |

Sunday, February 23, 2003

 
Imperialist Stunt

I saw this the other night and I almost couldn’t believe it. If it were anyone but Sy Hersh making the claim I would have to say it was tin-foil time.

When the war began, even though this is-- again, you know, this is complicated. Musharraf asked, as a favor, to protect his position. If we suddenly seized, in in the field, a few dozen military soldiers, including generals, and put them in jail, and punished them, he would be under tremendous pressure from the fundamentalists at home.

So, to protect him, we perceive that it's important to protect him, he asked us-- this is why when I tell you it comes at the level of Don Rumsfeld, it has to. I mean, it does. He asked-- he said, "You've got to protect me. You've got to get my people out."

The initial plan was to take out the Pakistani military. What happened is that they took out al Qaeda with them. And we had no way of stopping it. We lost control. Once there planes began to go, the Pakistanis began-- thousands of al Qaeda got out. And so-- we weren't able to stop it and screen it. The intent wasn't to let al Qaeda out. It was to protect the Pakistani military.

But, when you think about it, it actually makes sense in Bush terms. In order to preserve Musharref’s tenuous hold on a nuclear nation that could easily be overwhelmed by Islamic fundamentalists like the Taliban, the US had to agree to evacuate the Pakistani military who were helping to train the Taliban and al Qaeda in Afghanistan. In the process, we evacuated al Qaeda and Taliban to Pakistan. From the war we were waging in Afghanistan against the Taliban and al Qaeda.

The more we hear of things like this the more plausible it really is that the Bush administration doesn’t find the terrorist threat to be very serious and the war with Iraq is being waged as an easy, splashy “pageant” meant to put the world on notice that they should simply give up in the face of our awesome Death Star technology. To do this, it must be an easy win. Whatever the consequences, they’ll wing it.

Neal Gabler makes this case in his "A splendid little war"


The Spanish-America War, like the imminent war in Iraq, had its origins not in any direct threat to American security or in treaty obligations to allies or even in some affront to American honor, but in a desire to project a new sense of the country's power and responsibility -- in historian Frank Friedel's words, "to see the United States function like a great nation." Though the world of the late 19th century was not, like ours, dominated by a single superpower, America possessed an abiding faith in her own moral superiority to every other regnant nation, just as it does today. This was (and is) not entirely without justification. At the time, America was certainly more idealistic than Germany, France, England, Japan or Spain. She believed in the values of democracy and equality even if she didn't always believe in their actual exercise -- Third World nations would need a lot of help -- and she increasingly saw her role as international cop, enforcing what other nations were too craven to enforce.

It’s probably only a coincidence, but Karl Rove calls himself a “student” of the McKinley presidency. (This is mostly because McKinley was really a creature of his political handler Mark Hanna, I suspect; they were almost always pictured together, as partners, in political cartoons like the one below.)




There are many other parallels between the two Presidents, not the least of which is that the war was fully supported, if not created, by the press. War --- but most especially victory --- is very good for the media business.

It would be a good idea, considering all this, to keep in mind that the rallying cry of “Remember The Maine,” referring to the incident that precipitated our declaration of war, was very likely an engine explosion, not a Spanish bomb, as we contemplate the impending and inevitable “material breach.”

Gabler concludes with:

In the end, as much as doves may hate to say it, Bush may be right. Why not go to war? The Cuban portion of the Spanish-American War did last less than 90 days, and it resulted not only in Spain leaving Cuba but in America taking Guam, Puerto Rico and the Philippines and thus asserting her power. But if Spain was quickly vanquished, the Philippine portion of the war dragged on for years as America tried to pacify insurgents there, resulting in 4,000 American dead and hundreds of thousands of Philippine civilian casualties. (Anyone looking for the analogy to Vietnam will find it here.) As the saying goes, watch what you wish for ...

Of course the assumption, in 2003 as in 1898, is that war will be quick and bloodless -- that it won't be hell but a piece of cake. At least, that is what the Bush administration is telling us and that is what many of us want to believe. We are going to war no matter what and no matter why. If that sounds vaguely familiar, it is. We have been here before. It is 1898 all over again.

But, there were no Pakistans with nukes or bin Laden’s with al Jazeera. The world is much smaller now and the stakes are much bigger. This kind of adventure is beyond risky in the nuclear age. It's reckless.


Thanks to Testify for the NPR link





digby 2/23/2003 05:49:00 PM |

 
The Norwegians—who gave us the term "quisling"—awarded former President Jimmy Carter the Peace Prize
Ann Coulter

Kevin proposes that Jimmy Carter be appointed as civilian leader of Iraq.

Sure, conservatives hate him, but consider: he was president of the United States for four years and knows a bit about running a country. He's a prominent dove and would be trusted by lots of people who otherwise wouldn't give Bush the time of day. He's rather famously sympathetic to the Palestinian cause, which means he'd be trusted by the Arabs. And he's a humanitarian, which means he'd be genuinely motivated to help Iraq and the Iraqi people.

If Bush did this he would cut the Democrats off at the knees. It would be brilliant. It would be right.

It is, therefore, impossible.




digby 2/23/2003 03:13:00 PM |

 
Huh???

Bush Cited Report That Doesn't Exist

Bush and White House Press Secretary Ari Fleischer went out of their way Thursday to cite a new survey by "Blue-Chip economists" that the economy would grow 3.3 percent this year if the president's tax cut proposal becomes law.

That was news to the editor who assembles the economic forecast. "I don't know what he was citing," said Randell E. Moore, editor of the monthly Blue Chip Economic Forecast, a newsletter that surveys 53 of the nation's top economists each month.

"I was a little upset," said Moore, who said he complained to the White House. "It sounded like the Blue Chip Economic Forecast had endorsed the president's plan. That's simply not the case."

Deputy White House Press Secretary Claire Buchan insisted Friday that the survey, which mentioned "the likelihood that some version of the Bush administration's latest stimulus package will be enacted," justified the president's claim. Moore said that a survey taken in January before the president announced his plan forecast 3.3 percent annual growth between the last quarter of 2002 and the last quarter of 2003. A survey taken in February reached the same consensus.

Sure. That makes sense. And, it's not like it's about sex or anything.




digby 2/23/2003 02:14:00 PM |

 
You kin keep yer 1945 Mouton Rothschild, Frenchy. It ain't no different than a 1998 Damianitza Melnik innyhow

BULGARIA is turning into a competitive threat to French wine exports to the US market after members of the US Congress said they were considering a boycott of all French goods, especially wines.

At the end of 2002, Bulgaria occupied sixteenth place in the list of wine exporters to the US with only about 209 000 litres, while France was the second leading exporter of wine to the US with more than 74 million litres, behind Italy, which is the top importer.

US lawmakers, angry over France's opposition to the White House administration's Iraq policies, are considering retaliatory gestures such as trade sanctions against the French, the Washington Post said last Wednesday. The 17 senators that are behind the move have reportedly initiated a subscription list as well.

Bulgarian-language media reports this week said that the US Embassy in Sofia, as well as trade attaches, have been instructed to co-operate in increasing Bulgarian wines' market share in the US.

"France and Germany are losing credibility by the day, and they are losing, I think, status in the world," House of Representatives Republican Majority Leader Tom DeLay said, quoted by the Post.

House Speaker J. Dennis Hastert, angered by France's policies on agriculture as well as on Iraq, has told associates he would like to target two of that nation's most sacred drinks: water and wine. Hastert talked to House members about slapping restrictions on French imports of bottled water and fine wine.

Thanks to Stoutdem




digby 2/23/2003 01:08:00 PM |

 
Rule 'o Law

Nathan Newman points out that Godwin's Law has already been repealed by...Donald Rumsfeld and Condoleeza Rice.

But, he forgot my favorite:

"How could any German say such a thing after all the United States had done to liberate Germany from Hitler?"

Our President's national security advisor actually said that, yes she did.






digby 2/23/2003 11:31:00 AM |

 
American As Apple Pie

Dwight Meredith To Enter Baseball's Hall of Fame

Congratulations, Dwight! I'd love to attend the ceremony, but I'll be in Las Vegas where I hear the average winner at the Million Dollar Spin gets a million dollars. I could use the money.



digby 2/23/2003 09:34:00 AM |