Hullabaloo

Tuesday, May 30, 2006

 
Grandpa's Good Little Boy

by digby


I notice that everyone's on the case of the latest Ben Domenechist hire, Karl Zinsmeister. He's quite the guy. A liar, of course, and completely full of shit but he's perfect to replace the person who was arrested for shoplifting toiletries from Target. In an administration that cares nothing for policy, these jobs are all just patronage gigs. And old Karl has been a good little wingnut. He deserves a nice Whitehouse gig on his resume.

John Amato has all the dirt on this fine fellow, but he leaves out what I think is the most impressive item on Karl's list of accomplishment. It seems he writes comic books too:

Longtime embedded journalist Karl Zinsmeister (Boots on the Ground: A Month with the 82nd Airborne in the Battle for Iraq) and penciler Dan Jurgens (Thor, Superman) chronicle three months in the lives of the 82nd Airborne in the Battle for Iraq in this groundbreaking series. Collects Combat Zone: True Tales of GI's In Iraq #1-5.

Some people love it for its classic "Sgt Rock" quality. Others, not so much:

I bought this because of the positive reviews and because it sounded like it might be pretty good. It's not. The drawings are well-done. Beyond that, this could easily have been written during the WWII Africa campaign with a few updates on weapons and jargon.

All the sterotypes are here. There's Duhon, the dumb but friendly Southerner, Kulzinski, the brawny Pole, Dean, the third-generation Army brat, Marco, the tough Texan, Gordon, the wet-behind-the-ears Lieutenant, and Brown, the token black. I'm pretty sure I've seen all these guys in a John Wayne movie or three. Oh, right, Wayne's there too, playing the cowboy sharpshooter.

The dialogue is wordy, freighted with needless backfill, and just plain corny. Here are a couple of example quotes:

Lt. Gordon: "I know we're still in shock over losing Sgt. Kramer. But we've got a job to do. Now I know I'm just a kid out of college, and that my joining the Army to try to make the world safer may seem a little goofy to you. But we all agree we have to succeed here."

Capt. Kirkwood: "There's a good chance one of those cavalry gun trucks could get ambushed and pinned down. If that happens, I want you to treat it like a downed helicopter, understand? We are not going to lose another one of those men. You drop everything until those soldiers are saved. That's what we do for other Americans who risk their lives with us."

These wingnut guys are all living out their Hollywood war fantasies. It's pathetic.

Here's the story told in a more relevant way:

The documentary [Soundtrack To War]is simply a series of interviews with soldiers about the CDs they’ve brought with them to Iraq and which ones they prefer to play when they roll out on a mission. Turns out, every Humvee, Bradley fighting vehicle, and Abrams tank is wired in such a way that it’s easy to hook a CD Walkman up to the internal sound system that each soldier hears in his or her headphones. And though it’s an open secret that the military’s own psy-ops folks are partial to AC/DC as a means to psych up their troops for battle, there don’t appear to be any official regulations regarding what a tank commander can and can’t play. Both 50 Cent and Jay-Z turned out to be popular among rap-loving crews; here the filmmakers might have asked how the military brass feels about the message of some of 50’s rougher raps. Among those in the know, Mystikal was a favorite because he himself is a former military man. One white private turned out to be a big fan of Jay-Z because he’s from the same part of Brooklyn and The Black Album reminds him of home. (I did find myself wondering whether psy-ops distinguish between pre– and post–Bon Scott AC/DC: though Scott’s "Highway to Hell" would have to be high on anyone’s list of kick-ass rock and roll, the post-Scott albums Back in Black and For Those About To Rock are more explosive. I’m sure they’ll be convening a committee to recommend regulations on the use of AC/DC any day now.)

More typical are the tank crews who blast new metal by the likes of Drowning Pool with lyrics like "Let the bodies hit the floor," drums that sound like artillery explosions, and shrapnel-spraying guitars set to hard-hitting martial rhythms.

[...]

The most disturbing part of Soundtrack to War is the revelation of how closely rolling out into a tank battle resembles playing a tank-battle video game. With Drowning Pool blasting through the headphones, the gunner targeting the enemy with a joystick on a digital computer screen, and "smart" ammo directing the shell to its target before the enemy even knows he’s under attack, you get a real sense of how life imitates art in the confines of an Abrams tank. The experience is depersonalizing in a way that doesn’t prepare the average soldier to deal with the reality of blown-apart bodies once he or she emerges from the tank.

Now that's interesting. Retread comic book dialog from episodes of "Combat" in 1963 isn't interesting. It's so typical of conservatives to be culturally stuck in their grandparents era. It's always been like that. When I was a kid they were talking about getting a malted down at the olde soda shoppe while the rest of us were getting stoned. (Not that we wouldn't have greatly enjoyed a malted down at the soda shop under those circumstances, but you get the picture.)

This guy has gone on to advise the president of the United States about domestic policy, which he seems highly qualified to do. He's a comic book writer for a cartoon administration.



None of this should be construed as a put down of comics or graphic novels in general. It's this comic I'm dissing.

Hat tip to a reader. You know who you are. I lost your email.



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digby 5/30/2006 05:24:00 PM |

 
Erosion Of Powers

by digby


This dailyKos diary by Captain Doug linking to to my earlier post led me to an interesting document that I haven't come across before.

As we contemplate why Joe Klein the DLCers and the rest of the Democratic establishment are stuck in 1972 mode, petrified of the "angry left" and worried sick that we are going to scare away the real Americans, take a look at this FBI report:

May 9, 1968

Our Nation is undergoing an era of disruption and violence caused to a large extent by various individuals generally connected with the New Left. Some of these activists urge revolution in America and call for the defeat of the United States in Vietnam. They continually and falsely allege police brutality and do not hesitate to utilize unlawful acts to further their so-called causes. The New Left has on many occasions viciously and scurrilously attacked the Director and the Bureau in an attempt to hamper our investigation of it and to drive us off the college campuses. With this in mind, it is our recommendation that a new Counterintelligence Program be designed to neutralize the New Left and the Key Activists. The Key Activists are those individuals who are the moving forces behind the New Left and on whom we have intensified our investigations.

The replies to the Bureau's request have been analyzed and it is felt that the following suggestions can for counterintelligence action can be utilized by all offices.

1. Preparation of a leaflet designed to counteract the impression that Students for a Democratic Society (SDS) and other minority groups speak for the majority of students at universities. The leaflet should contain photographs of New Left leadership at the respective university. Naturally, the most obnoxious pictures should be used.

2. The instigating of or the taking advantage of personal conflicts or animosities existing between New Left leaders.

3. The creating of impressions that certain New Left leaders are informants for the Bureau or other law enforcement agencies.

4. The use of articles from student newspapers and/or the "underground press" to show the depravity of New Left leaders and members. In this connection, articles showing advocation of the use of narcotics and free sex are ideal to send to university officials, wealthy donors, members of the legislature and parents of students who are active in New Left matters.

5. Since the use of marijuana and other narcotics is widespread among members of the New Left, you should be alert to opportunities to have them arrested by local authorities on drug charges.

6. The drawing up of anonymous letters regarding individuals active in the New Left. These letters should set out their activities and should be sent to their parents, neighbors and the parents' employers.

7. Anonymous mailings should be made to university officials, members of the state legislature, Board of Regents, and to the press. Such letters could be signed "A Concerned Alumni" or "A Concerned Taxpayer." [emphasis added]

8. Whenever New Left groups engage in disruptive activities on college campuses, cooperative press contacts should be encouraged to emphasize that the disruptive elements constitute a minority of the students and do not represent the conviction of the majority. The press should demand an immediate referendum on the issue in question.

9. There is a definite hostility among SDS and other New Left groups toward the Socialist Workers Party (SWP), the Young Socialist Alliance (YSA), and the Progressive Labor Party (PLP). This hostility should be exploited wherever possible.

10. The field was previously advised that New Left groups are attempting to open coffeehouses near military bases in order to influence members of the Armed Forces. Whereever these coffeehouses are, friendly news media should be alerted to them and their purpose. In addition, various drugs, such as marijuana, will probably be utilized by individuals running the coffeehouses or frequenting them. Local law enforcement authorities should be promptly advised whenever you receive an indication that this is being done.

11. Consider the use of cartoons, photographs, and anonymous letters which will have the effect of riduculing the New Left. Ridicule is one of the most potent weapons which we can use against it.

12. Be alert for opportunities to confuse and disrupt New Left activities by misinformation. For example, when events are planned, notification that the event has been cancelled or postponed could be sent to various individuals. Director to All Field Offices, July 5, 1968

I'm sure this had nothing to do with why the "silent majority" voted Republican. Nor does it have anything to do with why Joe "gag me with a spoon" Klein is so hostile to liberalism even today or why the Democrats in washington scurry at the slightest conflict. It's not like they could have been played by a disinformation campaign that became conventional wisdom, right?

This report is also a good reminder of why some of us don't trust the FBI to be the good guys in these political battles and why we think there should be pretty strict separation of powers and very strong oversight. Police agencies have a tendency to forget their limitations. And so do presidents:

CHENEY: All right. But in 34 years, I have repeatedly seen an erosion of the powers and the ability of the president of the United States to do his job. We saw it in the War Powers Act. We saw it in the Budget Anti-Impoundment Act. We've seen it in cases like this before, where it's demanded that presidents cough up and compromise on important principles.

ROBERTS: And they always do.

CHENEY: Exactly, and that's wrong.

ROBERTS: So in the end, it always comes out anyway, so why...

CHENEY: It's wrong. And--well, but the...

ROBERTS: ... go through this agony?

CHENEY: Because the net result of that is to weaken the presidency and the vice presidency.

And one of the things that I feel an obligation, and I know the president does too, because we talked about it, is to pass on our offices in better shape than we found them to our successors. We are weaker today as an institution because of the unwise compromises that have been made over the last 30 to 35 years.

That was in January of 2002. Cheney has been upfront about this from the get. He believed that the nation was better served when someone like Nixon could do whatever he wanted. He believes that the FBI should be able to do what he thinks is necessary to "protect" to country from people like me.

He just simply believes that the presidency should be more powerful than the other two branches (as long as a Republican occupies it, of course. Let's not kid ourselves about that):

December 21, 2005

ABOARD AIR FORCE TWO -- Vice President Dick Cheney yesterday said President Bush is aggressively consolidating the powers of the presidency, reversing a weakening of the office dating back more than 30 years.

"We've been able to restore the legitimate authority of the presidency," he told reporters after inspecting earthquake-relief efforts in Pakistan.

Mr. Cheney, who was President Ford's chief of staff, said "an erosion of presidential power and authority" emerged during that era but that the pendulum has now "swung back."

"At the end of the Nixon administration, you had the nadir of the modern presidency in terms of authority and legitimacy," he said. "There have been a number of limitations that have been imposed in the aftermath of Vietnam and Watergate."

He said the Bush administration has reversed that trend in a variety of ways, ranging from its successful fight to keep secret the deliberations of its energy task force to its muscular assertion of authority at home and abroad in the wake of the September 11 terror attacks.

"We've been very active and very aggressively defending the nation and using the tools at our disposal to do that," he said.

[...]

Speaking to reporters while flying from Pakistan to Oman, the vice president also suggested that the strengthening of the presidency is not finished. He noted that no president has eliminated the War Powers Act, which he said "many people believe is unconstitutional."

"That was an infringement on the authority of the president," he said. "It's never been tested. It will be tested at some point."

Again he's totally candid. He did it, he believes he has the right to do it and the fact that war protestors or political dissidents are being monitored is a feature not a bug.

And about that disinformation and propaganda, I think we have a little hint about where that's going in this era as well:

Bush 'planted fake news stories on American TV'

Federal authorities are actively investigating dozens of American television stations for broadcasting items produced by the Bush administration and major corporations, and passing them off as normal news. Some of the fake news segments talked up success in the war in Iraq, or promoted the companies' products.

Investigators from the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) are seeking information about stations across the country after a report produced by a campaign group detailed the extraordinary extent of the use of such items.

[...]

The range of VNR is wide. Among items provided by the Bush administration to news stations was one in which an Iraqi-American in Kansas City was seen saying "Thank you Bush. Thank you USA" in response to the 2003 fall of Baghdad. The footage was actually produced by the State Department, one of 20 federal agencies that have produced and distributed such items.

As far back as 1968 they were doing this in other forms and I have little doubt that among their many lies they are spreading disinformation about the left today as well. Cheney sees the GWOT as equivalent to the Cold War (or maybe the War of the Worlds.) He sees nothing wrong with expanding the police powers of the executive branch as far as he thinks necessary.

Keep your eyes wide open for signs of the kind of program outlined above against the New Left. Everything old is new again.



If you have an interest in seeing Richard Pryor's FBI file you can see it here. He was a very serious threat to the nation, you know. He made people like Dick Cheney feel all wierd. You can understand why it was important for the government to keep tabs on him.



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digby 5/30/2006 04:14:00 PM |

 
Limning The GWOT

by digby

I have long thought, and written, that the "GWOT" is a false construct. And common sense says to most people that it is pretty nonsensical. We might as well have a war on sadness or a war on jealousy or a war on hate. As Pach writes in this post from the week-end, terror is a human emotion and you can't fight a war against it. In fact, war creates it.

But then it isn't really fair to deride it as a "war on terror," is it? That's just the shortcut phrase. The real term is "war on terrorism" which makes just as little sense but in a different way. Terrorism is a method of warfare --- a specific type of cheap and dirty violence which is not eradicatable, certainly not eradicatable by force. It is special only in the sense that it makes no distinctions between civilians and warriors. (And if you could eliminate a particularly harsh and inhumane method of warfare, it would certainly make no sense at all to try to do it by throwing aside all civilized norms and engaging in even more odious taboos like torture.)

When you think about it, a "war on terrorism" is actually a "war on warfare" which kind of brings the whole damned thing home, doesn't it? All warfare is terrifying. Metaphorically, a war on warfare is a nice concept. I can picture some lovely bumper stickers and t-shirts along the lines of "War is not healthy for children and other living things." "Let's declare war on warfare" expresses a rather basic premise that war is a bad thing. (Somehow, I don't think that's what the architects of the GWOT had in mind.)

A war on warfare is entirely absurd, however, in a literal sense. Using war to eradicate terror or terrorism is an oxymoron. And yet the nation has been drunkenly behaving as if it is a real war, spending the money, deploying the troops, inflicting the violence.

Setting Iraq aside, which was a simple imperialist invasion with no ties to this threat of terrorism, we are dealing with a "war" against certain stateless people who are loosely affiliated with Muslim extremism but could just as easily be nationalists or Christian fanatics or even environmentalists, as our justice department has recently decreed. make no mistake: the GWOT is not a simple shorthand for fighting the "islamofascists." Islamic extremism is an ideology centered in a religion and it has no "place" --- it is not a nation or even a people. Warfare as it has been understood for millenia will not "beat" it. The GWOT masterminds knew this which is why the phrase War on Terrorism was coined: it represents a permanent state of war, which is something else entirely.

This is the problem. This elastic war, this war against warfare, this war with no specific enemy against no specific country is never going to end. It cannot end because there is no end. If the threat of "islamofascim" disappears tomorrow there will be someone else who hates us and who is willing to use individual acts of violence to get what they want. There always have been and there always will be. Which means that we will always be at war with Oceania.

I am not sanguine that we can put this genie back in the bottle. The right will go crazy at the prospect that someone might question whether we are really "at war." They are so emotionally invested in the idea that they cannot give it up. Indeed, the right is defined by its relationship to the boogeyman, whether communism or terrorism or some other kind of ism (negroism? immigrantism?) They will fight very, very hard to keep this construct going in the most literal sense. And they will probably win in the short term.

But it is long past time for people to start the public counter argument, which has the benefit of appealing to common sense. Many Americans are emerging from the relentless hail of propaganda that overtook the nation after the traumatic events of 9/11. Iraq confused people for a while, but that confusion is leaving in its wake a rather startling clarity: the "war" as the governmehnt defines it is bullshit. It will take a while for this common sense to become conventional wisdom, but it certainly won't happen if nobody is willing to say it out loud.

What we do about Islamic fundamentalism is a topic we must deal with. I suspect that it will take a global effort and a willingness to deal intelligently with the impending global oil crisis. There will be other challenges as well, including potential wars and regional strife and any of the other things that have marked civilization from the beginning. All peoples must deal with such things.

But there is no war on terrorism. The nation is less secure because of this false construct. We are spending money we need not spend, making enemies we need not make and wasting lives we need not waste in the name of something that doesn't exist. That is as politically incorrect a statement as can be made in America today. But it's true.



More on this topic from Atrios, Matt Stoller, Chris Bowers, Pachatuchec, Kevin Drum. More to come, I suspect.

And I suspect, too, that I will be long in my grave before the "war on terrorism" is a thing of the past. It was a terrible accident of history that September 11th happened when the lunatic neocon cabal was in power. Nothing could have been worse. It was more damaging than the attacks themselves. We'll be dealing with the fall out from that strange happenstance for a generation.



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digby 5/30/2006 12:41:00 PM |

 
"As Bad As You Can Make It"

by digby

Good news. South Dakotans got the repeal of the coathanger law on the ballot. But what's most impressive is that they got 37,846 signatures on their petitions. That's a lot of signatures in a state than only has about 770,000 people and almost 27% of them are under 18 and can't vote. Let's hope they vote this cruel law down in November. South Dakota is as red a state as there is. If this things has gone too far for them then there's no way anyone can claim it is a mainstream position.

I hadn't seen this cartoon by Stephanie McMillan about our good friend Bill Napoli, the creator of the Sodomized Virgin exception. You can buy a print or a t-shirt here and it will go to benefit family planning clinics.

And it will greatly annoy Bill Napoli:

“The cartoon generated a huge amount of filth, intolerable filth.”
-- Senator Bill Napoli

He knows from filth:

A real-life description [of an exception] to me would be a rape victim, brutally raped, savaged. The girl was a virgin. She was religious. She planned on saving her virginity until she was married. She was brutalized and raped, sodomized as bad as you can possibly make it, and is impregnated. I mean, that girl could be so messed up, physically and psychologically, that carrying that child could very well threaten her life.

This is a man who thinks he has right to tell women what they can do with their own bodies.



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digby 5/30/2006 11:20:00 AM |

 
Missing Something, Folks?

by tristero

Please don't get me wrong: I've been a member for a very long time of MoveOn, and I love the group. I've also given them thousands of dollars I can't afford to give, and I have every intention of continuing to do so. But I happened to notice that there is one set of major issues missing from this list.* Care to guess what it is? Three hints:

1. The Democrats did their best to try to ignore it during the 2004 elections.

2. The Democrats are still doing their level best to sidestep the issue because so many of them behaved like fools from the beginning, and are still doing so.

3. The issue begins with "I" and ends with "raq."


And there can be no list of "big, positive, goals" that doesn't meet this issue head on. "Global leadership through diplomacy" - you gotta be joking. That makes "Cumbayah" sound like a thoughtful plan.

I know what they're trying to do - come up with something we're all "fer" and not just always be "a'gin." However, we're living in a time when our tax dollars are being used to prosecute a thoroughly illegal and pointless war which has included the wholesale murder and torture of innocents. To pretend otherwise is stupid; Iraq must be addressed. Directly. And MoveOn is one of the few organizations in a position to do so and actually have a chance to hold a few feet to the fire. Not much, but some.
tristero 5/30/2006 10:54:00 AM |

Saturday, May 27, 2006

 
Mean Girls

by digby


Ezra took Jonah Goldberg to task for his egregious Gore trivia column this week-end but I don't think he goes far enough. Jonah clearly thought this would be an entertaining riff for his little circle jerk to giggle over as they sipped their frappucinos, but I think it's actually a perfect example of the symbiosis between the wingnut noise machine and the robotic mainstream media, which Jonah Goldberg (!) now embodies.

The "Gore is a crazy liar" meme just pops out naturally, as does the speculation about the Clintons' sex lives or the idea that Dean is a screaming freak. These are established GOP narratives that the lazy media, both right and mainstream, just pull out of mothballs for their own amusement and I'm not sure it isn't too late to stop them. I'm frankly a bit stunned they still feel comfortable doing it what with all the death and destruction of the last five years, but it's quite obvious they have done no introspection whatsoever. If, after all that's happened, the media can slip so effortlessly into both the Clenis and Crazy Gore memes without even a moments pause, then a bold new strategy is required.

As a card carrying member of the rightwing noise machine Goldberg is very aware that trivializing Democrats is helpful to his cause. His harpy mother made a career out of it. And he is also aware that ridicule and cheesy gossip are very effective ways to make liberals' appear to be insubstantial and beside the point. It gets people's attention in ways that other forms of criticisms don't. The cartoonizing of Democratic politicians is one of their most effective tools and we've made a grave error in not better understanding it and using the same methods to equalize the playing field.

Here on the blogs we have some masterful voices of ridicule and Jon Stewart and Stephen Colbert are liberal heroes for the same reason. Wr have tons of biting, dizzyingly precise take-down artists on our side. But none of these themes seem to capture the mainstream media as do the wingnut themes and I have concluded that it is because they are too sophisticated. Just like Goldberg and his frappucino sipping sycophants, we too entertain ourselves with this stuff. But unlike them, we only entertain ourselves. They entertain the press.

The right specializes in schoolyard taunts and sleazy gossip because they must attract the stupid vote in order to get elected and that's the only humor stupid voters understand. But it's also because it's what the media prefers --- they too have to attract the masses.

We have tried their comic book insult method on occasion, but it has always seemed to backfire. The Republicans, having shrewdly capitalized inherent rightwing insecurity, are remarkably successful at parrying. My favorite was this:

Dean: "You think people can work all day and then pick up their kids at child care or wherever and get home and still manage to sandwich in an eight-hour vote? Well Republicans, I guess can do that. Because a lot of them have never made an honest living in their lives."

The right went into a full-on screaming frenzy over that. It was as if Dean had said the Republicans eat children for lunch. They went nuts, claiming that you should never insult average voters. Many Democrats agreed that it was clumsy and crude to put it that way. But put the word liberal or Democrat in there and see if it works a little bit better:

"You think people can work all day and then pick up their kids at child care or wherever and get home and still manage to sandwich in an eight-hour vote? Well liberals, I guess can do that. Because a lot of them have never made an honest living in their lives."

I don't know about you, but I've heard that kind of thing thousands of times from every strata of the right's hierarchy. Bashing rank and file liberals is so common that you don't even have to make the explicit argument anymore --- you just say it with an appropriate sneer and everyone gets the picture. Of course, some on the right do enjoy spelling it out:

Here at the Spawn of Satan convention in Boston, conservatives are deploying a series of covert signals to identify one another, much like gay men do. My allies are the ones wearing crosses or American flags. The people sporting shirts emblazened with the "F-word" are my opponents. Also, as always, the pretty girls and cops are on my side, most of them barely able to conceal their eye-rolling.

[...]

As for the pretty girls, I can only guess that it's because liberal boys never try to make a move on you without the UN Security Council's approval. Plus, it's no fun riding around in those dinky little hybrid cars. My pretty-girl allies stick out like a sore thumb amongst the corn-fed, no make-up, natural fiber, no-bra needing, sandal-wearing, hirsute, somewhat fragrant hippie chick pie wagons they call "women" at the Democratic National Convention.

And it's not just the cranks and the professional provocateurs like Coulter. Remember this?

U.S. Sen. Trent Lott today told an enthusiastic Neshoba County Fair crowd that Democratic presidential nominee John Kerry is “a French-speaking socialist from Boston, Massaschusetts, who is more liberal than Ted Kennedy.”

Imagine if Ted Kennedy had used similar stereotyping and said "George Bush is a slow-talking hillbilly from the old confederacy who is more racist than Strom Thurmond." Do you even want to think about the uproar? (And has any Democratic politican in recent years said anything close to that?)

Lott's remark got big laughs down in Mississippi. And I have little doubt that it got big laughs in press rooms all over the country. I don't recall anyone but a few bloggers being a bit insulted by his comment.

Certainly, New England didn't rise up in high dudgeon and demand that Lott retract his comment. That's partially because the phrase "Massachusetts liberal" is now simple shorthand for cowardly jerk-off and people in Massachusetts seem to have resigned themselves to it. (Birthplace of the American revolution be damned. Only the secesssion is to be revered as an inviolable symbol of our heroic heritage these days.)

If someone from Massachusetts had said anything, they would have been told to lighten up. It's only a little gentle ribbing. God you Democrats are a bunch of frail little wusses. How can you protect America? Meanwhile, you're walking on the fighting side of Trent if you go after him with stereotypical taunts about southern culture. They can play into all these subterranean psychological currents, but nobody else can. Works great. For them.

We could play their game too, but it's very difficult for liberals over the age of twenty to get in touch with their inner seventh grade asshole. I'm not sure why, but we seem to prefer a more subtle form of humor. I suspect it could be because of this:

An investigation by Simone Shamay-Tsoory and colleagues shows that the ability to understand sarcasm depends on a carefully orchestrated sequence of complex cognitive skills in specific parts of the brain.

Dr Shamay-Tsoory, a psychologist at the Rambam Medical Centre in Haifa and the University of Haifa, said: "Sarcasm is related to our ability to understand other people's mental state. It's not just a linguistic form, it's also related to social cognition."

The research revealed that areas of the brain that decipher sarcasm and irony also process language, recognise emotions and help us understand social cues.

"Understanding other people's state of mind and emotions is related to our ability to understand sarcasm," she said.

[...]

The study showed that people with damage in the prefrontal lobe struggled to pick out sarcasm. The others, including people with similar damage to other parts of the brain, were able to correctly place the sharp-tongued words into context.

The prefrontal lobe is known to be involved in pragmatic language processes and complex social cognition. The ventromedial section is linked to personality and social behaviour.

Dr Shamay-Tsoory said the loss of the volunteers' ability to understand irony was a subtle consequence of their brain damage, which produced behaviour similar to that seen in people with autism

"They are still able to hold and understand a conversation. Their problem is to understand when people talk in indirect speech and use irony, idioms and metaphors because they take each sentence literally. They just understand the sentence as it is and can't see if your true meaning is the opposite of your literal meaning."

Now, I would hesitate to say that the right does not understand irony and therefore, are brain damaged. That would be very rude. Still, you have to admit that this proves my point:

A good sign that Tom DeLay doesn’t have the facts on his side: the top source for his latest defense against his critics is Stephen Colbert.

This morning, DeLay’s legal defense fund sent out a mass email criticizing the movie “The Big Buy: Tom DeLay’s Stolen Congress,” by “Outfoxed” creator Robert Greenwald.

[...]

DeLay thinks Colbert is so persuasive, he’s now featuring the full video of the interview at the top of the legal fund’s website. And why not? According to the email, Greenwald “crashed and burned” under the pressure of Colbert’s hard-hitting questions, like “Who hates America more, you or Michael Moore?”

Apparently the people at DeLay’s legal fund think that Colbert is actually a conservative. Or maybe they’re just that desperate for supporters.

This is not surprising to me. You can tell when some of the rightwingers go on the show that they don't know what they are dealing with. They suspect that something is up because of the audience, but they really don't get it. "Their problem is to understand when people talk in indirect speech and use irony, idioms and metaphors because they take each sentence literally."

I have also long suspected that the media doesn't know that Stewart and Colbert are satirizing them as well. They get the part about the politicians. everybody makes fun of them. But they don't see that the entire premise of the show is that TV news people and pundits are idiots. It explains why more than few of them weren't quite sure what to make of Colbert's "partisan" speech at the White House correspondents dinner.

They operate on the same seventh grade level as the Republicans. Here's Joe Klein:

SCARBOROUGH: You know, it's interesting you say that. If -- of course, if Hillary Clinton were to be elected and then re-elected, you could go back to 1980, and there would have been a Bush or Clinton as president or vice president from 1980 to two thousand -- I guess it would be 2016.

KLEIN: Gag me with a spoon.

I rest my case.

What do we do about it? I don't know. But we can't pretend that the press' willingness to run with this puerile crapola for their own amusement doesn't hurt us. We would like to stop them by appealing to their better natures, but that hasn't exactly worked out. And now they are behaving like shocked little schoolmarms that the left is "angry" about what they've done. It appears that no matter what happens --- even Armageddon apparently --- they are going to run with the breathless, sophomoric Democratic narrative the Republicans created. And they are too powerful to ignore.

So perhaps we should think about how to give them what they want: a Republican narrative that appeals to their seventh grade sensibilities. I throw this out there for you to discuss. (I'm going to have to have an aspirin and coke and listen to "Last Train To Clarksville" before I can properly get into the mood.)



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digby 5/27/2006 09:57:00 AM |

Friday, May 26, 2006

 
Cultural ID

by digby

Chris Bowers writes about one of my favorite subjects today: American tribal identity.

Over the past year and a half, I have slowly developed an argument that the electorate is, in general, non-ideological, not interested in policy, and generally unmoved by the day-to-day minutia of political events that, within the blogosphere, are treated as cataclysmic events. Sure, most people hold general political beliefs, but in general national voting habits are motivated by something else--something more basic. As we look for ways to motivate voters in November, we need to remember the powerful role that identity plays in political decision-making. As progressives, we shrug off concepts such as the "battle of civilizations," but if you look closely at demographic data, maybe it is a battle of civilizations taking place after all. We may very well be living in an era of identity politics. Who knows, maybe every era of American politics is an era of identity politics.

I think the evidence is overwhelming that it is. He reproduces one of those great maps that break down everybody by something or other and like most of them, it ends up showing the south as being a homogenous region surrounded by a hodgepodge of different things everywhere else. In this case it's religion, but it could be anything, including electoral results or sociological indicators. It's just a fact that the south has a very strong regional identity of its own. And I don't think the rest of the country is quite like it. That divide has been with us since the beginning and it far transcends any mommy/daddy party dichotomy.

I watched the country music awards the other night and saw what looked like a typical bunch of glammed up pop stars like you'd see on any of these awards shows. Lots of cowboy hats, of course, but the haircuts, the clothes, the silicone bodies were not any different from any other Hollywood production. But the songs were not. There are plenty of Saturday night honky tonk fun and straightforward gospel style religious and patriotic tunes. But there is a strain of explicit cultural ID that wends through all of them.

Gretchen Wilson and Merle Haggard's song "Politically Uncorrect" perfectly captures the sense of exceptionalism and specialness of southern culture:

I'm for the low man on the totem pole
And I'm for the underdog God bless his soul
And I'm for the guys still pulling third shift
And the single mom raisin' her kids
I'm for the preachers who stay on their knees
And I'm for the sinner who finally believes
And I'm for the farmer with dirt on his hands
And the soldiers who fight for this land

Chorus:

And I'm for the Bible and I'm for the flag
And I'm for the working man, me and ol' hag
I'm just one of many
Who can't get no respect
Politically uncorrect

(Merle Haggard)
I guess my opinion is all out of style
(Gretchen Wilson)
Aw, but don't get me started cause I can get riled
And I'll make a fight for the forefathers plan
(Merle Haggard)
And the world already knows where I stand

Repeat Chorus

(Merle Haggard)
Nothing wrong with the Bible, nothing wrong with the flag
(Gretchen Wilson)
Nothing wrong with the working man me & ol' hag
We're just some of many who can't get no respect
Politically uncorrect
(Merle Haggard)

Now that's identity. I emphasized the "can't get no respect" part because I think that's key, as I have written many times before. The belief that these ideas are particular to this audience, that they stand alone as being politically incorrect and are "out of style" for holding them, is a huge cultural identifier. And it's held in opposition to some "other" (presumably someone like me) who is believed not to care about any of those things --- particularly the welfare of the common man.

Bowers writes:

Motivating voters and pulling off a landslide election will require a gut-level change of attitude about the two parties among millions of Americans. For all of the great policies everyone will suggest Democrats to run on this fall, ultimately winning will be based just as much on how Americans view their identity in relation to the image of the two coalitions as anything else. We need to avoid falling into the wonk trap of assuming that people are motivated by policy details. It is the identity, stupid. We need to explore ways to motivate voters for progressive causes with that in mind.

The conservative southern coalition has a very clear sense of identity. They always have. I would suggest that back in the day the New England and Midwestern cultural identifiers were pretty solidly Main Street bourgeois --- if you made it your kids got to go to college and you got to join the chamber of commerce and the country club. But that's no longer the case. The non-southern Party appears to exist mainly as a repository of opposition to conservative policies. Is that true?

Perhaps the big question is this: If you could write a country song about Blue State identity, what would the lyrics say?



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digby 5/26/2006 02:17:00 PM |

 
Extra!

by digby


Media Matters has determined that the alleged "concern" about this woman Big Bill (the 60 year old quadruple bypass survivor) is supposed to be schtupping comes from one year old Globe Magazine cover story:

Healy offered no specific reasons for this purported interest among "prominent Democrats" aside from the amount of time the Clintons spent apart, a mention of a decade-old affair, and a reference to year-old "concern[]" over a "tabloid photograph showing Mr. Clinton leaving B.L.T. Steak in Midtown Manhattan late one night after dining with a group that included Belinda Stronach, a Canadian politician." Healy continued: "The two were among roughly a dozen people at a dinner, but it still was enough to fuel coverage in the gossip pages."

It was also enough to fuel a front-page New York Times article, and the rapt attention of the Washington press corps, as Media Matters has documented.

Healy did not identify the "tabloid" in question, but he seems to be referring to the Globe magazine, which in the spring of 2005 ran a headline about Clinton and Stronach that read "Bill caught with blonde AGAIN! New divorce battle with Hillary."

The New York Times is literally circulating rumors from the Globe and the giggling schoolmarms of the DC press corps are eating it up. Ok. Fine.

But as Jane pointed out the other night, and Media Matters notes today, the Globe has another shocking cover story up right now, and one that should be of grave concern to the screeching magpies:





Has anyone informed David Broder and Chris Matthews of this development? Not only isn't the president sleeping with the first lady, he's drinking again. I am very "concerned."



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digby 5/26/2006 12:34:00 PM |

 
Fool Me Once

by digby


There is a lively debate going on in the blogosphere about whether the FBI should be allowed to raid a congressman's office. I will let others make the legal and philosophical arguments. I would just offer this from the Church Committee files:

The historical backround of political abuse of the FBI involves at least three dimensions. The first is the Bureau's subsurvience to the Presidency, its willingness to carry our White House requests without question. When L. Patrick Gray as Acting FBI Director destroyed documents and gave FBI reports to Presidential aides whom the FBI should have been investigating after the Watergate break-in, he just carried to the extreme an established practice of service to the White House. The other side of the practice was the Bureau's volunteering political intelligence to its superiors, not in response to any specific request. And the third historical dimension was the FBI''s concerted effort to promote its public image and discredit its critics.

[...]

The committee staff found in these "O" and C" files ("Official and Confidential") such special memoranda on ... all the members of the Senate Subcommittee chaired by Senator Long which threatened to investigate the FBI in the mid-1960's. Some of these "name check" reports and special memoranda contained derogatory information about his wife. The reports on members of the Long Committee were compiled in a briefing book, with tabs on each senator.

[...]

In 1965, the FBI declined a request of the Justice Department Criminal division to "wire" a witness in the investigation of former Johnson senate aide Bobby Baker. Although the FBI refused on grounds that there was not adequate security, the Criminal Division had the Bureau of Narcotics in the Treasury department "wire" the witness as a legitimate alternative. When the Baker trial began in 1967 this became known. Presidential aide Marvin Watson told the FBI that President Johnson was quite exercized, and the FBI was ordered to conduct a discrete "run-down" on the head of the Criminal Division in 1965 and four persons in Treasury and the Narcotic Bureaus, including specifically any associations with former Attorney General Robert Kennedy.

[...]

At the request of President Johnson made directly to FBI executive Cartha Deloach, the FBI passed purely political intelligence about United States Senators to the White house which was obtained as a by-product of otherwise legitimate national security electronic surveillance of foreign intelligence targets. The practice also continued at the request of Mr. H.R. Haldeman.

That is just a tiny bit of the Church Committee summary of the historical political abuses perpetrated by the FBI through the mid-70's. It was bipartisan, which is why I chose to highlight the incident with Johnson.

I am quite sure that Congressman Jefferson is nobody I want to defend (for his politics and much as his criminality.) But the FBI and the executive branch have a long sordid history of using their power for political ends. (Even Hoover never believed they could raid a congressman's office, however.)

Recently, the FBI's conservative culture has led to some in the bureau covertly helping Republicans as we saw during the Clinton years. Convicted spy Robert Hanssen had a relationship with Robert Novak that seemed to be based upon his political loathing of Janet Reno, although as with so many of these cases, it's hard to tell what motivates individuals. But history shows that the FBI can be used by any party for nefarious purposes which is bad enough and requires constant vigilance and oversight. When it is used for partisan reasons directly against the congress you have a problem of an even greater dimension.

The reason to be against this is political and constitutional, not legal. It's entirely possible that the warrant they got was proper and that their cause is just. And I have no doubt that Hastert had a hissy fit and got Bush to seal the documents to cover his own ample ass. But the bigger issue is something that someone wrote in an email a couple of days ago: This Republican Justice Department, led by a lifetime Bush loyalist and good friend to Karl Rove now has every Democratic strategy memo that ever came across Congressman Jefferson's desk. Trust 'em?



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digby 5/26/2006 09:12:00 AM |

Thursday, May 25, 2006

 
War Crime

by digby


The New York Times is verifying that the Pentagon now acknowledges that a massacre took place at Haditha. In fact, they are briefing members of congress on it to try to keep the story from blowing up into a huge scandal on the level of Abu Ghraib.

Considering the explosion of outrage on the right against John Murtha for discussing it earlier, this concerns me:

The first official report from the military, issued on Nov. 20, said that "a U.S. marine and 15 Iraqi civilians were killed yesterday from the blast of a roadside bomb" and that "immediately following the bombing, gunmen attacked the convoy with small-arms fire."

Military investigators have since uncovered a far different set of facts from what was first reported, partly aided by marines who are cooperating with the inquiry and partly guided by reports filed by a separate unit that arrived to gather intelligence and document the attack; those reports contradicted the original version of the marines, Pentagon officials said.

You will recall that Joseph Darby, the soldier who blew the whistle on the Abu Ghraib abuses was vilified by his neighbors. And then there was this:

He was a 24-year-old pilot flying over the Vietnamese jungle on March 16, 1968. The crew's objective: draw Viet Cong fire from My Lai, so helicopter gunships could swoop in and take out the enemy gunners.

Thompson spotted gunfire but found no enemy fighters. He saw only American troops, who were forcing Vietnamese civilians into a ditch, then opening fire.

Thompson landed his helicopter to block the Americans, then instructed his gunner to open fire on the soldiers if they tried to harm any more villagers. Thompson and two other chopper pilots airlifted villagers to safety, and he reported the slaughter to superiors.

"We saw something going wrong, so we did the right thing and we reported it right then," Thompson said.

The Vietnamese government estimated that more than 500 were killed.

Army Lt. William Calley Jr. was convicted in a 1971 court-martial and received a life sentence for the My Lai massacre. President Nixon reduced the sentence, and Calley served three years of house arrest.

Thompson received the prestigious Soldier's Medal -- 30 years after the fact.

His acts are now considered heroic. But for years Thompson suffered snubs and worse from those in and out of the military who considered his actions unpatriotic.

Fellow servicemen refused to speak with him. He received death threats, and walked out his door to find animal carcasses on his porch. He recalled a congressman angrily saying that Thompson himself was the only serviceman who should be punished because of My Lai.

Does anyone think that it will be any different this time?



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digby 5/25/2006 09:10:00 PM |

 
Pam And Tommy

by digby

Jane's tending to her sick pup so I've got a post up over at FDL this afternoon. That is if anyone's interested in a little more Broder bashing (with a sprinkling of Chris Matthews squealing like a blushing schoolgirl.)



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digby 5/25/2006 02:37:00 PM |

 
V For Victory

by digby

Give a big shout out to Move-On and Matt Stoller for successfully turning out grassroots support for net neutrality. It just passed the House judiciary committee 20-13.

This was a real grassroots victory --- until recently, it seemed like an easy gimme to the wealthy telcos. This is good news for us intrepid bloggers, but it's good news for the internet in general. Much like the FEC regulations that we managed to stave off earlier my support for net neutrality not based upon a general disdain for regulation. Regulation is often a necessary thing. But this medium is just too new, too important and too democratizing to allow corporate interests to sneak in the back door with phony concerns designed simply to enhance their profits at others' expense.

If the internet needs regulating in some presently unimagined way, I'm sure we will all see it. Right now, if it ain't broke don't fix it.



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digby 5/25/2006 10:44:00 AM |

 
Moving Past It

by digby


I don't live in DC and I'm sure it's not nice of me to be derisive about its culture. After all, I live in the biggest glass house in the world --- LA --- where high culture is defined by fake breasts and "the zone" diet. But still. I can't help but feel that there is something really wrong with a place that elects themselves a "wise man" like this:

From A Tiny Revolution:

Perhaps you've already seen this column by David Broder, Dean of the Washington Press Corps, in which he explains what he's interested in:

But for all the delicacy of the treatment, the very fact that the Times had sent a reporter out to interview 50 people about the state of the Clintons' marriage and placed the story on the top of Page One was a clear signal -- if any was needed -- that the drama of the Clintons' personal life would be a hot topic if she runs for president.

Now, here's the Broder on Meet the Press last December, explaining what he's NOT interested in:

MR. RUSSERT: David Broder, is it possible for official Washington--the president, Democratic leaders, Republican leaders--to arrive at common ground, a consensus position on Iraq?

MR. DAVID BRODER: It's possible, Tim, but they won't get there by arguing about who did what three years ago. And this whole debate about whether there was just a mistake or misrepresentation or so on is, I think, from the public point of view largely irrelevant. The public's moved past that.(more)

There you have it. The public has moved past all that ugliness about whether the president lied about a war that's killing thousands of people and draining the treasury at a mind boggling pace. But they can't get enough of 60 year old Bill and 58 year old Hill's bedroom habits.

This man really needs to leave the beltway more often. I would advise him to come out here to California and spend some time in Malibu. Maybe he'll even catch a glimpse of Angelina and Brad. They could be worth fantasizing about (although I think he should keep his sexual thoughts off the pages of the Washington Post. It's kind of trashy, don't you know.)



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digby 5/25/2006 09:50:00 AM |

 
Kenny Boy, We Hardly Knew Ye

by digby


So Kenny Boy Lay went down today. Let's hear if for the justice system.

But let's also hear it for the White House press corps who after eight long years of invetigating every transaction that members of the Clinton administration ever made, never really gave a damn about Kenny Boy's very intimate connection to George W. Bush and apparently still don't.

Now that we have the guilty verdict, let's revisit what we know of that relationship, shall we? From Consortium News, 2002:

George W. Bush is trying to rewrite the history of his and his family’s relationship with Enron Corp.’s disgraced former Chairman Kenneth Lay. So far, Bush has enjoyed fairly good success as the U.S. news media has largely accepted the White House spin.

But the reality, as established by a wealth of historical record and recent disclosures, is that Lay and Enron were instrumental in Bush’s rise to power – and Bush played an important behind-the-scenes role in advancing Enron’s aggressive deregulation agenda, which helped the energy trader ascend to its lofty perch as the seventh-biggest U.S. company.

The Bush-Lay coziness earned the Enron chief a nickname from Bush as "Kenny Boy." But more importantly for Enron, Bush pitched in as governor and president whenever the energy trader wanted easier regulations within the U.S. or to have U.S. taxpayers foot the bill for loan guarantees or risk insurance for Enron's overseas ventures.

The Bush-Lay relationship helped Enron extend its reach across the globe, with the appearance of a successful company, as it pulled in billions of dollars in investment money from tens of thousands of unwary investors.

Now, in trying to insulate Bush from the spreading Enron scandal, White House aides have emphasized that administration officials rebuffed Lay and other Enron executives who sought a federal bailout to save their corporate skin. But the documentary record paints a different picture, showing that the administration did what it could last year to help Enron, until the Houston energy trader's collapse was so far advanced that its deceptive bookkeeping could no longer be kept out of public view.

[...]

With Enron’s ignominious collapse over deceptive accounting, Bush began to act as if he barely knew Lay. On Jan. 11, Bush told reporters that Lay "was a supporter of Ann Richards in my run in 1994." Bush implied that he had gotten to know Lay as a Richards holdover appointee to a Texas business council. The impression Bush sought to create was untrue.

The Bush-Lay relationship can be traced back at least a half decade before the 1994 race. It grew out of the Houston social circle where oil tycoons have long rubbed shoulders with political players – and where Ken and Linda Lay had grown close to George H.W. and Barbara Bush in the 1980s. Since 1988, when Lay backed the elder George Bush in his run for the White House, Enron and its executives have written big checks for one Bush initiative after another.

Besides the political financing, Lay has supported private and charitable activities of the Bush family. Lay joined one of Barbara Bush's charities to promote literacy as he served as the honorary chairman of the Celebration of Reading at Houston Wortham Theatre Center. [The Guardian, Jan. 30, 2002]

A trustee of the George Bush Presidential Library Foundation, Lay has donated $50,000 as a patron as well, the New York Daily News reported. In 1999, the Lays chipped in $100,000 for the Andersen Cancer Center at Texas A&M University in a fundraising drive led by then-Gov. George W. Bush and his wife, Laura.

During the Republican presidential primaries in 2000, Enron corporate jets were made available eight times to Bush's campaign staff and his parents, with the future president sometimes personally arranging the flights. [New York Daily News, Feb. 3, 2002]

[...]

In 1985, Lay created Enron by merging his company, Houston Natural Gas, with one of the largest pipeline companies in the world, Nebraska-based InterNorth. Lay named the new company, Enron, and set its sights high. Political allies would be critical to Enron’s growth.

In his first major venture into politics, Lay went to work raising money and organizing support for then-Vice President George H.W. Bush’s campaign for the Presidency. Bush, who built his own fortune in the Texas oil fields, was appreciative as he battled through a tough Republican primary and then defeated Democratic nominee Michael Dukakis.

In the weeks after the 1988 election, Lay may have gotten his first dividend on his investment in the Bush family. Enron had joined the bidding for a contract to build a $300 million pipeline in Argentina. The government appeared close to choosing between two other companies -- one from Italy, Ente Nazionale Idrocarburi, and the other a partnership between Argentine firm Pérez and America’s Dow Chemical.

Argentina’s Minister of Public Works, Rodolfo Terragno, later told Mother Jones that he considered Enron’s one-page project outline "laughable." He also noted that Enron "wasn't well established in Argentina." [Mother Jones, March/April 2000]

But Enron apparently was getting well established in the power corridors of the U.S. A few weeks after the 1988 elections, Terragno said the president-elect’s eldest son, George W. Bush, called to check up on "the slow pace of the Enron project."

[...]

George Bush ran a hard-hitting campaign, suggesting that Richards was soft on crime. Critical to the campaign was getting his message out, and critical to that effort was money. Bush turned to his father’s old political benefactor, Ken Lay. Enron and Lay contributed $146,500 to the Bush campaign, seven and a half times more than they contributed to the Richards campaign. Lay also publicly endorsed Bush. [Texans for Public Justice]

[...]

n the 2000 campaign, Lay was a Pioneer for Bush, raising $100,000. Enron also gave the Republicans $250,000 for the convention in Philadelphia and contributed $1.1 million in soft money to the Republican Party, more than twice what it contributed to Democrats. [www.opensecrets.org]

Lay and his wife then donated $10,000 to Bush’s Florida recount fund that paid for Republican lawyers and operatives to ensure that a full recount of Florida’s ballots never occurred. To this day, Bush has refused to release an accounting of how that recount fund money was spent.

After Bush took the White House in January 2001, Enron Corp., Enron’s President and Chief Operating Officer Jeffrey Skilling, and Ken Lay contributed $100,000 each for a total of $300,000 to the Bush-Cheney Inaugural Fund.

These contributions cemented Lay’s standing with the White House. From the beginning of the administration, Lay advised on policy and personnel. The Enron chief was on the short list for two Cabinet posts, Energy and Treasury, though he ultimately stayed in the private sector.

Starting in late February 2001, Lay and other Enron officials took part in at least a half dozen secret meetings to develop the Bush's energy plan. After one of the Enron meetings, Vice President Cheney's energy task force changed a draft energy proposal to include a provision to boost oil and natural gas production in India. The amendment was so narrow that it apparently was targeted only to help Enron's troubled Dabhol power plant in India. [Washington Post, Jan. 26, 2002]

Other parts of the Bush energy plan tracked closely to recommendations from Enron officials. Seventeen of the energy plan’s proposals were sought by and benefited Enron, according to Rep. Henry Waxman, D-Calif., ranking minority member on the House Government Reform Committee. One proposal called for repeal of the Public Utility Holding Company Act of 1935, which limits the activities of utilities and hindered Enron’s potential for acquisitions.

Besides listening to Lay's advice, Bush put the corporation's allies inside the federal government. Two top administration officials, Lawrence Lindsey, the White House’s chief economic adviser, and Robert Zoellick, the U.S. Trade Representative, both worked for Enron, Lindsey as a consultant and Zoellick as a paid member of Enron's advisory board. [http://www.public-i.org/story_01_011102.htm]

Bush also named Thomas E. White Jr., an 11-year veteran of Enron's corporate suites, secretary of the Army. White had run a key subsidiary, Enron Energy Services, which is now the focus of allegations about accounting irregularities. After taking office in May, White vowed to apply his Enron experience to privatizing utility services at military bases. White's subsidiary had been responsible for selling energy services and Enron was eager for contracts with the U.S. military.

Public Citizen, a liberal watchdog group, has demanded that White fully explain 29 meetings and phone calls with senior Enron officials after White became Army secretary. White says the conversations were with "personal friends" about "Enron's deteriorating financial conditions." [Washington Post, Jan. 27, 2002]

At least 14 administration officials owned stock in Enron, with Undersecretary of State Charlotte Beers and chief political adviser Karl Rove each reporting up to $250,000 worth of Enron stock when they joined the administration.

Those are just a few of the many highlights. Bush's career had in many ways been enabled by his relationship with Kenny Boy --- and Enron's scams had been helped along by Kenny' Boy's relationship with George W. Bush.

That story was never of any interest to the press corps. (Perhaps if Kenny Boy had worn a striking yellow pantsuit things would have been different.) The fact that the biggest campaign contributor to the occupant of the white house was in charge of the biggest corporate ponzi scheme in history should have been news. It wasn't.

Kenny Boy's going to jail. Let's hope he ends up rooming with Karl Rove. There would be a very nice symmetry to that.


Update: Here's a first person account from one of the many tens of thousands of people whose lives were adversely affected by Lay, Skilling and Bush in the Enron debacle. It's journlaistic malpractice that the press never made this clear.
digby 5/25/2006 09:16:00 AM |

 
Is He Serious?

by digby


Jacob Weisberg says:

Bush doesn't worry about being politically correct or care what other people think of him. He likes to listen to white guys singing country and rock and doesn't care if Jerry Falwell objects to some of the lyrics.

Right. He's a real maverick:

He flew halfway across the country in a vain effort to save her life, but in the week since, President Bush has retreated back to his ranch and remained largely out of sight as the nation wrestled with the great moral issues surrounding the fate of Terri Schiavo.

The president has said nothing publicly about the bitterly contested case since Wednesday, when reporters asked about it and he said he had exhausted his powers to intervene. On Saturday, as he used his weekly radio address to express condolences to the victims of a school shooting in Minnesota and extol a "culture that affirms life," he did not mention the most prominent culture-of-life issue in the public eye.

The juxtaposition of racing through the night in Air Force One to sign legislation intended to force doctors to reinsert Schiavo's feeding tube and choosing not to use his bully pulpit to advocate for her life afterward demonstrates how uncomfortable the matter has become for the White House. For years, Bush has succeeded politically in stitching together the disparate elements of the conservative movement, marrying the libertarian and family-values wings of his party. Now he faces a major Republican rupture.

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digby 5/25/2006 08:54:00 AM |

 
The General And The Giant Ape

by tristero

Man, this has me steamed:

Reporters en route to Arizona on Air Force One last week opted to watch the movie "King Kong" in the press cabin. Not so Tony Snow, the new White House press secretary and former Fox News commentator, who told reporters that he spent the flight in the staff cabin watching Gen. Michael V. Hayden's confirmation hearings to be the new C.I.A. director — on CNN.

Okay, once you're back from the dental surgery room and had your jaw returned to its proper place, let's state the obvious:

In a country with a rational press, any reporter on that plane who was watching "King Kong" instead of the Hayden hearings would be fired within 1 hour of the publication of Bumiller's story. Including, apparently, Bumiller herself.

Like I just said, no one was fired, as far as I know. And the farce of an open press continues - not that anyone other than the press itself believes it.

And there's also an obvious question here: What the hell was Bumiller thinking? She couldn't have possibly realized that she portrayed herself and her pals as exactly as lazy and dangerously incompetent as we thought they were. If she had, she never would have let that paragraph see the light of day.

Now, because I think there are a few important but easily overlooked issues at stake in this seemingly minor incident, I'd like to mull it over a bit. It's another one of those "yeah, it's oh-so-telling, but cmon, it's trivial" things that really isn't trivial at all. Let's start by trying to figure out what got Bumiller motivated to write this clearly embarassing if not potentially self-destructive lead in the first place.

I'm pretty sure Bumiller started out with this. She wanted to stroke Tony Snow, telling him - but more importantly, his masters - that he takes his job seriously. If you read the rest of the article - a sniffy, snooty account over the tussle to have something other than extremist propaganda available to watch in the press cabin - you learn that at an earlier time, poor Tony overstepped his bounds as press secretary and was gotcha'd by a former colleague at Fox (now, that's trivial, imo). And then, it becomes explicit that Bumiller was buttering Snow when she writes:

Mr. Snow, who is at the White House by 5:30 a.m. to start plowing through his briefing books...

and she continues, clucking sympathetically (did I just mix metaphors? Butter Snow? Clucking? Nevermind) over the dilemma poor Snow faces being fair - but not too fair - to his tv ex-station. (Nothing about being balanced, tho.)

But here in the lead, she just wanted to be humorous and light in her praise. So Bumiller used somewhat self-deprecating humor but basically standard office joshing and jocularity in a passive-aggressive effort to be charming as in, "Ha! Here we are enjoying a new movie but Tony, you can't do that anymore, can you? Nose to the grindstone, you poor guy, hope you really enjoyed watching those hearings 'stead of Naomi Watts! (grin) "

But by doing so, in writing up the lead, it simply never occurred to Bumiller that the true subject was not the workaholic Snow but her pals. She hadn't thought to consider -was she drunk?- that she was calling herself and her colleagues lazy, incompetent, and willfully, deliberately ill-informed and disinterested in their jobs. From her point of view, it's was just, "Hey! We work really hard, we need to unwind like everyone else, what's the big deal? And besides, it our job to report the White House, not hearings of White House appointees. Can I get some more sherbert, please?"

In other words, The White House press corps is so utterly corrupt and inept that it doesn't even know what working, nevermind working as a reporter, means. Bumiller wasn't arrogantly flaunting her laziness and incompetence. She couldn't even see it. Nor is it likely she could ever be taught to see it. Otherwise, it would have been utterly impossible to have written anything like that for her boss to see. "Tough day, Mr. Keller? Not me, I was catching up on my movies during the Hayden hearings! Gosh, I'm sleepy, gotta turn in now. Kiss-kiss bye bye!"

It's almost as if the press corps clowns are preparing for a return engagement of the infamous March of Folly press conference.

For reasons that I'm sure say much about my mechnanisms for association, I was reminded of Temple Grandin's efforts to make conveyor belts leading animals to their death in the slaughterhouse as stress-free as possible, by keeping them ignorant of the dreadful fate that will soon befall them. And then I thought, yeah, and I'm on that conveyor belt, too, but y'know, fellow beasts:

I'd really really appreciate it if I got just a teensy bit of the good skinny on what is happening right now, and why. My distressingly imminent fate may be to wind up as a tub of glue, but even so, I wouldn't mind being apprised of the glue factory's conditions.

If it's not too much trouble, of course.

But seriously, who cares? Bob Somerby notes the mordant humor in it, but finds more important things to focus on. And he very well may be right. But I do care about this one (and the others, too, duh). If only because as a symbol of the rot at the heart of American mainstream journalism, I would care. This story makes its point in the most direct and devastating way: Congress is getting bamboozled yet again by the Bushites, and the press is boggled by bouncy KIng Kong and his paw candy. It's let 'em eat cake for the Wired Age.

But it's more than a starkly obvious symbol. There are two realities here that bear taking a moment to tweeze out.

First of all, the time to express outrage is before things get so bad there's a second March of Folly. People got killed - lots and lots and lots of innocent people, thousands of people - in good measure because the American, and especially the Washington press corps, were mesmerized by the sight of an earlier eight hundred pound gorilla - the Bush administration's shock and awe propaganda of 2002 and 2003.

Dammit, those bozos should be fired now, not later when they've done -yes, done as in Judy Miller done - major damage. So I'll object loudly now, when it's seemingly trivial. It may not make any immediate difference, but it just might straighten up a few toes when it gets serious.

The second issue is the other main subject, besides fluffing Snow (that a better metaphor?), of Bumiller's column. CNN is not very good, but it is a news outlet, not a 24/7 source of extremist propaganda (well, not yet anyway, even if that CCC graphic is truly scary). It should be a matter of grave concern that this is not only the main source of information for the Bush/Cheny administration but that the administration went to ridiculous lengths to make sure that rightwing propaganda, and only rightwing propaganda, be broadcast to the press corps when traveling with the president. How ridiculous were those lengths? They were so extreme that it was only by asking the question publicly, and very carefully by pre-emptively insisting that the question was entirely serious, that anything changed. Before that, all attempts to get the situation changed were rebuffed.

C'mon! Isn't it just a matter of opinion, that Fox is what you call "extremist propaganda?" After all, American officials nicknamed CNN the "Communist News Network." Different strokes is all. And since it's just opinion, it's silly and trivial.

No.

Saying that Fox News [sic] is extremist propaganda may not have the same value as an assertion of fact, as say, the claim that all life has common ancestry and evolved over billions of years. However, the ungodly extent of Fox's lies, distortions, and far right boosterism has been objectively documented over and over again. These aren't "mistakes" or nuances resulting from differing perspectives. This is deliberate radical activism with a particular goal: to advance an extreme right agenda. There is nothing comparable at CNN or at any other national television outlet. None. Only Fox would permit a scoundrel to compare a vice president of the United States to Goebbels and not so much as even make a token objection. Or even take note of it.

To demand that the American press subject itself to extremist indoctrination whenever the administration had the opportunity to manipulate what they could watch was not immature behavior for a presidency, but scandalous behavior by a government working hard to emulate a tinpot dictatorship. It's also telling. And very ominous.

Of course, does this really need to be said? - it's only a trivial incident when compared to the slaughter, torture, misery, and corruption the Bush administration has perpetrated. But just as it obviously isn't the worst by a long shot - for my money, the 9/11 intelligence failure, Iraq, the war on science, and Katrina are the worst, so far - the dangers of a US government all but compelling a literally captive audience of reporters to watch propaganda should not be minimized or ignored.

"Right! "'All but,' you said it yourself! They may be sometimes strapped in but they can do what they want! The press don't have to watch TV, y'know, they can read a book and actually learn something, hunh."

Ok, very slowly now. It is a simple fact that Americans mostly get their news from television. At the very least, it behooves a responsible press corps to watch a fair amount of televised news. At the very least. On the other hand, there simply is no reason for the press to watch a steady diet of extremist propaganda unless someone wants them to take it seriously as fact. It is outrageous that the administration was trying to pass off one as the other and offer it with a straight face. It is outrageous that the press apparently permitted them to do so for so long.

(Insert boilerplate here that reading books is also a good idea for the press to do more often than they have. Oh, and it's also a good idea to wear socks much of the time.)

(Edited slightly after initial posting.)
tristero 5/25/2006 07:26:00 AM |

Wednesday, May 24, 2006

 
The Elephant In His Pants

David Broder comes right out and admits what we all suspected:

But for all the delicacy of the treatment, the very fact that the Times had sent a reporter out to interview 50 people about the state of the Clintons' marriage and placed the story on the top of Page One was a clear signal -- if any was needed -- that the drama of the Clintons' personal life would be a hot topic if she runs for president.

Yes it was, wasn't it? The press is putting everyone on notice that they are going to keep their noses firmly buried in Hillary Clinton's panty drawer for the next two years. As he gazes upon her "striking appearance in a lemon-yellow pantsuit" old Dave is so aroused he can't concentrate on her serious energy speech. Hillary and Bill are more potent than Viagra to these nasty old geezers in the Washington Press corps

Oooh. What delicious, delicious fun it is for these shriveled old crones. Finally they can write about things they really enjoy instead of all this boooring corruption, war, terrorism and political failure. Damn it's invigorating to be back in the saddle isn't it Dave?!

I am actually kind of impressed with Broder's candor here. He's not mincing any words. He comes right out and admits that the press is laying down the gauntlet: if Hillary runs, the Washington Press Corps is going to treat her like a whore. A frigid whore, of course, but a whore nonetheless. No games, no pretense. They are primed and cocked for a full-on Clenis porn-fest. It's clear they are desperate for it.

Broder is, of course, the man who famously said the Clintons came to town and trashed the place. And it's some fine place it is. It's social leaders have all the style of Pyongyang combined with the sophistication of Fresno. And like busybodies in all bourgeois backwaters, when the leading denizens decide that somebody's a little bit too human, they viciously tear them apart for pure sport.

Broder concludes:

Three times in the question-and-answer session, she referred to her husband as "Bill," praising him for seeing that his library in Little Rock incorporated a lot of energy-saving features.

Other than that, the elephant in the room went unmentioned.

But it got a rubdown didn't it Dave, you sick creep.



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digby 5/24/2006 08:51:00 PM |

 
Regrettable

by digby


FYI, Lou Dobbs responded to Greg Sargent today about how they used that Aztlan map created by the CCC:

In response to my questions, CNN sent over the following statement from spokesperson Christa Robinson:

A freelance field producer in Los Angeles searched the web for Aztlan maps and grabbed the Council of Conservative Citizens map without knowing the nature of the organization. The graphic was a late inclusion in the script and, regrettably, was missed in the vetting process.

The network declined to go any further.

Uhm, excuse me CNN, but that is really missing the point. The problem isn't that the map was from the CCC, it's that the CCC is making maps about this alleged issue and you are reporting it as if it's credible. Nobody's alarm bells went off today when they found out that a racist organization was pimping this ridiculous notion that there is a serious movement to take over several western states? No, nothing, just regret that they didn't pull the right map off the internet --- you know, the one that didn't have the words CCC on the bottom. The intention behind the story is just hunky dory.

I certainly hope that anyone who goes on Dobbs' show to debate his obsession will bring this up. The mere fact that the CCC is pushing this Aztlan nonsense should automatically discredit it among decent people. There is no threat and no "movement;" seriously reporting about it is inflammatory and racist. But then Lou Dobbs is inflammatory and racist too, so there's no surprise.



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digby 5/24/2006 07:48:00 PM |

 
It's All About Me

by digby


I realize that quite a few people are upset with the Democrats for joining Hastert in condemning the Justice Department for raiding William Jefferson's capitol hill office, but I think this may be a blessing in disguise.

First of all, it really does look suspicious to me that Jefferson is the first one out of all these crooks they've done this too. The didn't raid Cunningham's office and they haven't raided Delay's. I can't for the life of me think of why that would be. But regardless, this is a very dicey subject because we are dealing with an administration that has absolutely no respect for the co-equal branches of government. They believe in this unitary executive theory (aka elected monarchy) and they are not afraid to use that power against the legislature.

Now we can all say that the legislature deserves it in these corruption cases, no doubt about it. But then you have to ask yourself why of all the GOP crooks in the congress, and they are legion, the Bush justice department has only taken this unprecedented step with the one outright crook we know of from the Democratic party? The danger of the executive branch using its power for partisan purposes is one of the prime reasons why we are all so suspicious of the illegal wiretapping and the rest of this power grab. And here we have it staring us right in the face.

Which brings us to Denny. This news tonight that he is under scrutiny certainly explains why he is suddenly so all concerned about the separation of powers --- something he and the rest of his boys didn't give a damn about when the president was asserting the right throw out any pieces of the Bill of Rights they find inconvenient. That's the silver lining. Hastert and others on the GOP side are probably just covering their asses, but this may just cause the congress as a whole to wake the hell up and recognize that the administration is out of control. There is value in that, even with the GOP Eunuch Caucus in charge.

This is one of those typical cases where until the politican actually experiences something personally, he could give a damn. You know the type: the free market privatizer who suddenly becomes concerned with government funding for Hodgkins disease when his wife gets it. Or the rightwing moralist who gets all relativistic when his son is arrested for drug dealing. It happens all the time.

Today, the congress had a taste of what it is like to have its constitutional rights walked on by this imperious executive branch and they didn't like it. Good. Maybe they'll get some religion on this checks and balances thing.



Update: To be clear, I'm not defending Jefferson. He's a scumbag on many levels and he should resign. I'm also not defending the Congressional Black caucus, but I do understand that they tend to get a little defensive when their members are singled out all the time --- especially during close elections when the rightwing rednecks are having problems turning out their base. They are probably wrong in this case, but I understand it.



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digby 5/24/2006 06:58:00 PM |

 
Just Do It

by digby


Following up on my post below lambasting the Democrats for failing on the Michael Hayden nomination, I see that the Senate leadership is whipping the caucus into not helping out vulnerable Republicans with bipartisan legislation in an election year. This is good news.

But, that is just a defensive move and it doesn't address what I think is the much bigger problem which is that on high profile nominations and big ticket legislation, the Democrats do not use those opportunities to publicly draw stark distinctions and call the Republicans out. Instead, when the cameras are rolling and the press is paying attention they do the big el-foldo. I don't see how this helps us.

Look, we would have lost the Hayden nomination. They are the majority. But even if they like Hayden they should have voted against him. They could have used that vote as a show of solidarity against Bush's executive infallibility doctrine, complained vociferously about the lack of checks and balances and set oureslves up as being in united opposition to Bush. Being seen as obstructionist against a 29% president is A GOOD THING! He does not have the country's support. The issue itself is secondary to the optics of the Democrats opposing this administration in a high profile way.

I'm glad that Shumer and Reid are reminding the senators that helping Republicans win by giving them bipartisan cover isn't really a good idea. (I'm a little stunned that they need to be whipped to do this, but ... well. Yeah.) But that's pretty weak gruel considering that what the country wants and needs is for the Democrats to show that they are going to do something completely different than this failed administration and failed GOP congress are doing now. They need to demonstrate this, not yammer about what we should do and what we will do if only we win. Do it now.



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digby 5/24/2006 02:49:00 PM |

 
The Sequel

by digby


Straight Talk McCain unveils his secret plan to end the war:

"One of the things I would do if I were President would be to sit the Shiites and the Sunnis down and say, 'Stop the bullshit,'" said Mr. McCain, according to Shirley Cloyes DioGuardi, an invitee, and two other guests.

You've got to love the Republicans. Their solution to everything is to say they will knock some heads together and "stop the bullshit." Just trust them.

This one's my favorite, from Junior in 2000:

Bush said today that he would bring down gasoline prices by creating enough political good will with oil-producing nations that they would increase their supply of crude:

“I would work with our friends in OPEC to convince them to open up the spigot, to increase the supply. Use the capital that my administration will earn, with the Kuwaitis or the Saudis, and convince them to open up the spigot.”

How's that working out for everybody?

It's nice that these tough guys like to pretend that they can rule the world with their impressive codpieces, but I think we've had enough of this impotent GOP posturing. McCain was a very tough guy years ago, but now he's prostituting himself to the rightwing and believing his own hype.

As Ezra says:

Woo! That's bracing stuff! And then, after the hasty consultations with translators to make sure he actually said that, the participants would stare at him quizzically, wondering what the straight-talk solution to oil sharing, political representation, entrenched hatreds, and varying conceptions of secularism will be. So what is it? McCain demands that they "stop the bullshit." What are his next ten words?

Exactly. It's funny, but it's just possible that George Bush's failure using a faux McCain image has ruined it for John McCain. That ballsy fighter jock thing just doesn't have the same resonance it used to have. McCain's playing the lead in a cheap sequel of his own story.



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digby 5/24/2006 01:12:00 PM |

 
Silverback Males

by digby


The New York Times got scooped today on another hot sexy story about a presidential candidate. This time it's about Bill Frist, whose wife needs to keep her hubby on a leash when he's hanging around female Wapo reporters:

At 9:30 a.m., Frist opened the Senate, gripping the corners of the lectern, as he had the operating table. Across the city, rolling in a bed of hay, Kuja opened his eyes and grunted. The gorilla kept touching his tongue to his tooth. Something had changed inside of the beast while he slept. Frist smiled and spoke unremarkably from the lectern, reeking of silverback testosterone.

Granted, this article is about Frist operating on gorillas for National Zoo, which is nice considering his history of cat killing. But the term "silverback" is not only applied to gorillas. It's also a slang term for sexy middle aged human males. How this applies to Bill Frist, I'm not sure, but then who can account for people's taste in members of the opposite sex? Henry Hyde and Newt Gingrich are prime examples of this conundrum.

But I'm sure this reporter knew nothing about that silverback thing, Mrs Frist. All that hot imagery about the beast within and silverback testosterone is completely innocent. Still, it might be a good idea to have Patrick Healy look into the Frist marriage for the Times. This doesn't look good.



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digby 5/24/2006 12:27:00 PM |

 
Charlie Brown Politics

by digby


Glenn Greenwald has a depressing post up about the Democratic retreat on Michael Hayden:

But by and large, what happened yesterday with Gen. Hayden's nomination is exactly what would have happened in 2002 and 2003. Democrats are afraid to challenge the President due to their fear -- always due to their fear -- that they will be depicted as mean, obstructionist and weak on national security. And so, even with an unbelievable weakened President, and even with regard to the most consequential issues -- and can one doubt that installing Gen. Hayden as CIA Director is consequential? -- Democrats back away from fights, take no clear position, divide against each other, and stand up for exactly nothing.
cimply
It is quite possible that Democrats would not have been able to stop Gen. Hayden's nomination. It is true that they are still in the minority and thus are limited in what they can achieve legislatively. But that's really irrelevant. Gen. Hayden is a symbol and one of the chief instruments and advocates of the administration's lawlessness. He refused to say in his testimony even whether he would even comply with the law. Opposing his nomination is both compelled by a principled belief in the rule of law as well as justified by the important political opportunity to highlight this administration's lawbreaking. Sen. Feingold, as usual, shows how this works:

The Democrats who voted against the nomination were Russell D. Feingold of Wisconsin, Ron Wyden of Oregon and Evan Bayh of Indiana. Each cited concerns about General Hayden's role in a controversial domestic surveillance program he ran while head of the National Security Agency.

"I am not convinced that the nominee respects the rule of law and Congress's oversight responsibilities," Mr. Feingold said.

In other words, there are serious questions about whether Gen. Hayden will comply with the law and whether he believes in the rule of law, so perhaps it's not a good idea to install him as CIA Director. Is there some reason Democrats were afraid to make that clear, straightforward, critically important point?

Glenn answered that question in his first paragraph. National security has the Democrats so spooked they are paralyzed and for some reason they don't seem to understand that every time they retreat they look like they are frightened of their shadows --- and thus appear to the American people to be incapable of protecting the country. And what's depressing is that their primary political concern can be rather easily alleviated by doing the right thing and standing up for their principles. George Bush has no credibility. Perhaps some people don't grasp the significance of the illegal wiretapping per se, but they are certainly open to argument if someone would care to make one. It's not as if they trust this president to make good decisions.

More importantly, for electoral purposes, the Democrats simply have to show that they are willing to fight this weakened unpopular president or people will see no point in kicking the bums out --- and certainly will not believe that the Dems are capable of taking on someone of real strength. As bad as it was in 2002 and 2003, how pathetic is it that the the Democrats rubber stamping Bush when he's at 29%? How unpopular do his policies have to get before Democrats take the side of the majority?

Glenn goes on to speculate about the future and sees that there is not likely to be a whole lot of action on these matters going forward, even if we win. And that is my great fear, too. The Democrats have the GOP snake by the neck but I'm pretty sure they don't have the nerve to kill it. And that is a huge mistake as has been demonstrated over and over again for the last 30 years.

Here's Robert Parry discussing the last time we had a chance to follow up and knock off the criminal element:

My book, Secrecy & Privilege, opens with a scene in spring 1994 when a guest at a White House social event asks Bill Clinton why his administration didn’t pursue unresolved scandals from the Reagan-Bush era, such as the Iraqgate secret support for Saddam Hussein’s government and clandestine arms shipments to Iran.

Clinton responds to the questions from the guest, documentary filmmaker Stuart Sender, by saying, in effect, that those historical questions had to take a back seat to Clinton’s domestic agenda and his desire for greater bipartisanship with the Republicans.

Clinton “didn’t feel that it was a good idea to pursue these investigations because he was going to have to work with these people,” Sender told me in an interview. “He was going to try to work with these guys, compromise, build working relationships.”

Clinton’s relatively low regard for the value of truth and accountability is relevant again today because other centrist Democrats are urging their party to give George W. Bush’s administration a similar pass if the Democrats win one or both houses of Congress.

Reporting about a booklet issued by the Progressive Policy Institute, a think tank of the Democratic Leadership Council, the Washington Post wrote, “these centrist Democrats … warned against calls to launch investigations into past administration decisions if Democrats gain control of the House or Senate in the November elections.”

These Democrats also called on the party to reject its “non-interventionist left” wing, which opposed the Iraq War and which wants Bush held accountable for the deceptions that surrounded it.

“Many of us are disturbed by the calls for investigations or even impeachment as the defining vision for our party for what we would do if we get back into office,” said pollster Jeremy Rosner, calling such an approach backward-looking. [Washington Post, May 10, 2006]

I urge you to read the whole article. It shows just what a massive failure it was on the part of Democrats and Clinton not to follow through. Unsurprisingly, the Republicans didn't see this "let bygones be bygones" attitude as anything but weakness. Clinton was rewarded with a partisan impeachment for his trouble.

This issue perfectly defines the real argument between the netroots and the establishment. We want to engage the opposition head on and they simply refuse. It is not about policy, although there is plenty to discuss on that count. It is about enabling criminal, radical, undemocratic politics to go unchecked in the name of some sort of bipartisan comity that only Joe Lieberman and his friends at the Democratic Leadership Council believe still exists. It's about not letting Lucy pull the football away again.

It's true that we are a vanguard at the moment, but this new media technology makes it far easier for a vanguard to become a movement than it used to and we have the momentum. What is happening in Connecticut is the canary in the coal mine if these establishment types care to actually see it instead of flailing about incoherently that leftists are ruining their party like it's 1968 and we're all on acid.

Glenn thinks that here in our blogospheric bubble it appears that things are changing when they aren't. I have to disagree a bit with that. It's true that the blogospheric bubble often gives the false impression that there is more momentum on our side than there actually is. I suspect that true inside any movement or campaign where you spend most of your time with fellow travellers. But that doesn't mean things aren't changing. We are now a factor. They may hate us, fear us and dismiss us, but we're here and we aren't going anywhere. (Say it loud, I'm blog and I'm proud!)

Rick Perlstein noted in the discussion of "Before The Storm" and the conservative movement last week-end at Firedoglake that history is complicated, it moves like a battleship. Things aren't going to turn around overnight. But we are beginning to affect the way the media sees itself and we are putting political pressure on the party. This is how change is made. We'll ride all their asses like Zorro until they get the message. We're in for the long haul.



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digby 5/24/2006 09:29:00 AM |

 
Bravo

by digby

A Hullabaloo reader's letter was published in the New York Times today:

To the Editor:

Re "For Clintons, Delicate Dance of Married and Public Lives" (front page, May 23):

I'm not quite sure what to make of your report about Bill and Hillary Clinton's marriage as provided by anonymous experts.

What I do know is that I'll be looking forward to the same thorough reporting into the marriages of other presidential hopefuls, like John McCain and Rudolph W. Giuliani, including "interviews with some 50 people and a review of their respective activities."

I assume that those critical investigations will be prominently placed in The Times as well; I'd really hate to miss them.

V.L.
New York, May 23, 2006

Thank you!



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digby 5/24/2006 09:19:00 AM |

Tuesday, May 23, 2006

 
It Was Just A Matter of Time

by digby

... before Lou Dobbs went full-on racist on the immigration question. Liberal Oasis has the story:

Today on "Lou Dobbs Tonight," CNN ran a graphic sourced to the Council of Conservative Citizens, a group deemed to have a "white supremacy" ideology according to the Anti-Defamation League.

During a piece about illegal immigrants in Utah, reporter Casey Wian said, "Utah is also part of the territory some militant Latino activists refer to as Aztlan, the portion of the southwest United States they claim rightfully belongs to Mexico."

The CCC is a well known neo-confederate group that is the direct heir to the White Citizens Councils of the Jim Crow south. Trent Lott probably would have kept his leadership post had it not been for a previous scandal featuring him and the CCC which caused quite a furor in 1999:

By Charles Pope, CQ staff writer
February 2, 1999, 11:52AM. EST

The last thing Trent Lott needs is another controversy with staying power.

But floating around the Senate majority leader is a storm that has been rumbling for weeks, fueled by race, partisan politics and, most of all, the weather-makers at the Council of Conservative Citizens and its leader, Gordon Lee Baum.

The council claims 15,000 members nationally and has an active chapter in Republican Lott's home state of Mississippi, according to the Southern Poverty Law Center, which studies hate groups. The law center and other critics characterize the council's agenda as racist and white supremacist; at least one member of the Republican National Committee has called the group "unsavory."

It is, according to the Southern Poverty Law Center, "the reincarnation of the racist white Citizens Councils" that became a potent political force in the 1950s in the South to fight integration. Moreover, the law center concludes the council is "shot through with white supremacist views, members and political positions."

Baum and other leaders vigorously dispute those labels, but writings in council publications have likened interracial marriage to white genocide and suggested that Abraham Lincoln was elected by communists.

It is not the type of group to which a national politician like Lott wants to be linked. But linked he is, despite repeated efforts to distance himself from the group and claims he was not aware of their views.

When these things happen nobody, it seems, are aware of the CCC's views. I am sure that Lou Dobbs will say the same. He's only a credentialed journalist, after all. You can't expect him to have nose for racist propaganda.

This certainly does bring up an interesting question for me, however. I never thought of the CCC as being a white supremecist organization in the mode of say "Stormfront" or something like that. It's a neo-confederate group which is certainly racist but organized explicitly around hatred of African-Americans. The fact that they are touting the ridiculous Aztlan "threat" puts the lie to any claims that this immigration debate isn't being fueled by racism. (Not that that's a big surprise.)

When you go back to those articles I linked above to the CCC scandal back in 1999, there is a clear desire on the part of the institutional GOP to back away from any association with these people. The party was very, very anxious to shed its racist image. Some of these articles even applaud the end of the southern strategy. Yet here it comes again. This time it's the "aliens" rather than the blacks, but it's the same old drill.

It is a sign of Republican weakness this time. They should not have to be shoring up their base with this tired old stuff. But their racist base is restive, looking for a fight, wanting to kick someone's ass to account for their own feelings of impotence in a complicated world. (Same old shit.) The leadership knows it is a losing long term strategy but they're left with nothing else.

Lou Dobbs pops an aneurysm any time somebody says that this debate might just be a teensy bit racist. I would suggest that any time someone goes on his show they mention that only a racist would use information from the CCC, the progeny of the White Citizen's Councils, and not recognize it for what it is.

Here's the contact info for CNN.



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digby 5/23/2006 08:31:00 PM |

 
The Discreet, Measured Tone Of The Right

by tristero

Occasionally, I get taken to the carpet for my angry tone. Occasionally, the person complaining is right, but most of the time they're not. And here's why.

The unprincipled fuck in the video at the link gets paid to compare a Vice President of the United States to a Nazi propagandist (and notice: no one tells him he's gone "too far," no one tries to interrupt what he's saying; this is considered reasonable discourse on Fox News). And why does this shithead get paid to do such a thing? It's not because he believes it. He knows he's spouting bullshit. No, this asshole gets paid to say things like that because he knows Gore's argument is good and he can't attack it on his merits.

Now, you may respond that calling this unprincipled fuck an "unprincipled fuck" simply perpetuates his sin or worse, that I don't have any way to attack his position on its merits.

You're 100% right about your first objection. It does perpetuate a pithecanthropic level of discourse for a very good reason: there is no possible way to avoid doing so without being a total fool. You think you can "politely engage" someone who compares an American vice-president who served his country honorably for 8 years - not to mention his previous services to America in government - to a Nazi? You can't, or rather, you shouldn't. Nor can you ignore it (although the vice-president should). The terms of engagement have been set by this slimeball - the rhetorical battle-field must always be level. There is no higher ground and attempts to claim it will lead to your destruction (see Daschle, Tom for details).

As for that second objection you could make, well I gotta admit it: you are right once again. I do have no way to attack his position on his merits, again for a very good reason. What he is discussing is not Gore's ideas or global climate change. No, what he's talking about, the only subject is, "how exactly comparable is Al Gore to Josef Goebbels" and I will not dignify this scumbag's comparison by explaining in measured, avuncular tones why such a comparison is, and I hesitate timidly before saying it, "unfortunate?" There is no way to attack his position on the merits because there is no merit to his position. And he knows it.

If this is how the right wants to discuss Gore's movie, I'm ready. And I'm not gonna deplore the low level they've set. I'll simply meet them, tit for tat. Oh, yes, I can give people the facts, too. But this isn't about facts, but something else. And those who come to Gore's defense in the media over the next few weeks have to be prepared truly to engage that "something else" and do a good job of it before facts can have a chance of being heard. And yes, if Sterling Burnett's appearance is any indication, it will be ugly, and not in a good way.*

Hat tip to Atrios for the link.


*And no, I'm not simply referring to Burnett's Hot Or Not? prospects: that would be cruel. I'm referring only to what he said. On that basis alone, he would score a 0; his rugged manly (if you're a chickenhawk) looks could only raise his hotness quotient.



[Edited slightly after original posting. Spelling error in Burnett's last name corrected (thank you HC in comments). Spelling of "pithecanthropic" corrected (thak you "u..." in comments. )]
tristero 5/23/2006 02:27:00 PM |

 
Winning

by digby


Matt Yglesias subbing for Marshall at TPM makes the point that despite the fact that Democrat William Jefferson is obviously a crook, he's just a run of the mill free lance criminal rather than being part of a criminal syndicate like Tom DeLay and Duke Cunningham. This is true and Democrats have a right to make this distinction and should.

But I think the most important thing about all this culture of corruption stuff isn't who benefits from it as a rhetorical device in upcoming political campaigns. What's important is that the GOP machine be broken up into little pieces.

I like the "culture of corruption" as a rhetorical frame, and frankly I think it's probably working quite well. I wrote about this some time back: images are far easier to stick on political opponents if they fit in with preconceived notions of how their side tends to work. Democrats tend to be concerned with issues that affect the weaker members of society and are therefore more easily tarred as "soft." It's why the Republicans have always found it easy to win in times of perceived danger --- and if we aren't in times of perceived danger, they'll create danger out of whole cloth. (Sex is a threat to civilization!)

Republicans tend to look after those with wealth and power and are therefore more easily tarred as greedy and crooked. I'm glad the Republicans gave us such an easy frame for our congressional elections. But I'm even happier that they were so transparently corrupt that even a Republican justice department couldn't ignore it.

That K Street Project was going to kill us. If the Republicans had played it cool they could have fashioned an impermeable national political machine that could have locked us out for decades. Fortunately, they are greedy and stupid and couldn't keep themselves from stealing while still in office.

The long term health of our democracy and the long term health of our party required that this machine be shut down. Whether they can effectively frame this as a bipartisan problem or not the truth is, regardless of their hype, this was the GOP's baby all the way and it has been irreparably damaged. No matter what happens in the fall, in a larger respect we have already won.



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digby 5/23/2006 12:47:00 PM |

 
Uncivil Liberties

by digby



Here's a great post by Glenn Greenwald in which he proves that the pollution of our political discourse can be simply defined as anyone publicly disagreeing with Republicans:

So, that's the behavioral standard that Bush followers are advocating. The greatest sin against civility is to boo someone while they give a political speech, and those who do that show that they are deranged and "angry" and are therefore acting at their own peril.

[...]

According to Instapundit -- who cited the Gateway Pundit post and said that "a Hateful anti-war speech by Rep. Lacy Clay (D-MO) . . . provokes a near riot" -- this episode "[s]eems to illustrate the point made in this WSJ editorial about the Democrats' penchant for self-marginalization and self-destruction." The WSJ Editorial to which Instapundit cited condemned the heckling and booing by the New School students of McCain's speech. But to Instapundit, that same Editorial also shows that Democrats are acting stupidly and angrily when they give commencement speeches and are heckled by Republican students to the point where they need security to be escorted out.

Can't win for losing. But you must admit that it's heartwarming for the concern trolls to be so worried about the Democratic penchant for self-marginalization. But when your president is at 29%, you've probably got some people closer to home who need some of your good advice about how to avoid self-destruction.

The right has been thuggish and uncivil for decades. And they are very good at smirking faux outrage at the other side doing anything comparable. They call for the smelling salts with such over-the-top fluttering of delicate little hands and eyelashes that you have to laugh. Elephants in a tutu. It's a parody.

This is one case where I think we just have to play the game they've set out. I'll match my outrage to their outrage any day. It's not particularly pleasant, but blogs are an appropriate place to do this sort of thing in a way that nobody else can.

So bring it. You want examples of incivility? I'll give you examples. How about this:

Is the Democratic Party the "Party of Death"?

If you look at their agenda they are.

IT’S NOT JUST abortion-on-demand. It’s euthanasia, embryo destruction, even infanticide—and a potentially deadly concern with "the quality of life" of disabled people. If you think these issues don’t concern you—guess again. The Party of Death could be roaring into the White House, as National Review senior editor Ramesh Ponnuru shows, in the person of Hillary Rodham Clinton.

In The Party of Death, Ponnuru details how left-wing radicals, using abortion as their lever, took over the Democratic Party—and how they have used their power to corrupt our law and politics, abolish our fundamental right to life, and push the envelope in ever more dangerous directions.

[...]

Ponnuru’s shocking exposé shows just how extreme the Party of Death has become as they seek to destroy every inconvenient life, demand fealty to their radical agenda, and punish anyone who defies them. But he also shows how the tide is turning, how the Party of Death can be defeated, and why its last victim might be the Democratic Party itself.*

This from a highly regarded conservative intellectual who supported the violent killing of thousands of actual living Iraqi children for no good reason. I call that uncivil in the extreme.



*Ponnuru claims that this book jacket doesn't reflect the actual theme of the book which is that the Party of Death isn't really the Democratic party, but rather some other non-partisan death party, which doesn't actually exist. Right.



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digby 5/23/2006 11:56:00 AM |

 
Desperate Lightweights

by digby

Did you know that the Democrats have to "root, root, root" for material to beat the Republicans? Via Peter Daou, The Note Says so:

"As is always the case with the out-of-power party, Democrats have to root root root for bad news. And no bad news source is better for the Democrats' election prospects than the bad news from Iraq."

It doesn't seem to me as if the Dems have to do anything but sit on their asses and eat freedom fries; the bad news is falling from sky like rain. It's everywhere you look. So why does the voice of DC conventional wisdom portray the political situation as the Democrats feverishly trying to dig up dirt?

Well, that would be the first step in framing the upcoming election as the Democrats unfairly smearing Republicans. It's quite predictable, really. The derisive coverage of Democratic infighting, the constant refrain that the people will have to hold their noses to vote for Democrats, and now the cranking up of the trivia and tabloid machine, I think it's quite clear that we are not going to have any easier ride with the mainstream media than we ever had.

No matter how much the GOP destroys the country, the media, for whatever reason, continues its assault on Democrats. We are going to have our hands full for the next two years --- and if we win, for the forseeable future. Nothing has changed except for adding the "angry left" meme to the established narrative of Democratic triviality, mental instability and immorality.

Imagine how well this narrative will serve Republicans in the upcoming elections this fall and in 2008: Yes, the country has problems. Yes, they need fixing. But the Democrats are frivolous lightweights who will mire the nation in tabloid scandals and silly personality issues and aren't we all sick of that? Do we need yet more of this tiring partisanship? (Pssst. By the way, did you hear about Russ Feingold's divorce? Biden's personality defects? No? Well, pull up a chair, Ken Mehlman faxed over this hilarious ...)

By contrast John Mccain/Rudy Giuliani/George Allen/whomever are maverick GOP tough guy outsiders who will knock some heads together on both sides and get things done. The looney, scandalous Democrats simply aren't serious enough to run things.

Reader Kay, in the comments below, puts it this way:

Whatever my problems with President Clinton pale in comparison with the insanity that stalked his presidency from the right using an apparently lobotomized national media and the malignant incompentence that has follwed it.

While the GOP masters of this slight-of-hand game never quite succeeded in stealing Clinton's presidency and bringing him down personally, they did manage to make off with the 2000 election, the Congress, and any serious debate about issues that actually matter. You can make a pretty good case that the Ken Starr driven tabloidization of the Clinton presidency drowned out the discussion of terrorism that we ought to have had in the late 90's.

But I agree completely that this is not about the Clintons. HillBill is their easiest target, sure. Because of the familiar "storyline," Hillary can be attacked for all of Bill's shortcomings while being simultaneously measured unfavorably against his talents and virtues. It's a triple play when used against Hillary, distraction, personal attack and professional minimalization.

So it's easier and it's deadlier for her but this type of "concerned" investigation is part and parcel of a GOP meme that the media adores for its "entertainment" value.

It might be worse if Hillary really runs for president but even if she decides to stay home and bake cookies, this crap will not go away --- we will just get some other form of tabloid political analysis shoved down our throats. Did John marry Theresa for love or money? Did you hear he shot himself to win one of those purple hearts? Did Murtha too? How embarassed was Tipper by that too mushy to be real kiss at the convention? (Remember? I know they do.) Did Al start embellishing the truth (you know... inventing the internet and all) to impress his remote, unloving dad? Did Elizabeth Edwards really beg John to stay home with their family in her trying time? (You know he ran off to politics just after another family crisis. Nudge, wink.)

If everything goes according to plan, some fledgling Joe Klein will write a "hip insider" novel explaining the psychological shortcomings of whomever (oops... entirely fictional person who just happens to resemble the nominee) the Democrats eventually nominate.

So just forget Hillary and pretend that the same article was written Feingold's unmarried status or why Mrs. Dean stays in Vermont. This is really all an entirely different overly familiar storyline from the GOP called alternately "family values" or "character matters." It is now, just as it once was, GOP-wingnut strategy writ large by a lazy and complicit media.

Democrats, you see, don't really have families, marriages, true friends, career accomplishments or character. If they appear to have any of those things, there must be, say the wingnutters, a devious ruse that requires endless investigation and liberal doses of unsubstantiated "fun" gossip. If the press is slow on the uptake, they fill the air with innuendo and "everybody knows..." whispers until the press catches on.

All that "fun" stuff can distract us from tedious discussions about war, torture, health care, privacy rights, global warming, competent national security, and staggering budget deficits. God forbid that the right be held in an honest debate about any of that stuff --- Joe six pack might get bored or (worse) learn something.

I suspect that if this is not challenged vociferously right now, the press will guide the public to listen to the serious political discussion that the serious Republicans will wage among themselves over the next two years. The Democrats, however, will be relegated to celebrity gossip and cheap armchair psychoanalysis --- even if we win in the fall. The political debate will, once more, be between the right and the far right.

Update: This is sort of funny. I interpreted "root, root, root" to mean "dig" which is bad enough. But upon reflection, I see they clearly meant that Democrats are rooting for death and destruction in Iraq which is just outrageous.

I guess we can add incomprehensibly sadistic to our tabloid reputations. Good to know.



Update II: Check out Greg Sargent's The Horse's Mouth's take on the Clinton NY Times Story. This blog is devoted to analyzing the press and Sargent is unsparing; it will be worth keeping an eye on.



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digby 5/23/2006 10:02:00 AM |

 
Right Wing Hack Mark Steyn Lifts In Part From Linguist Geoff Pullum's Post

by tristero

Thanks, PZ, for turning me on to this most amusing post.* To add to the amusement, Steyn had to resort to plagiariz...sorry, "borrowing," merely to diss the style of author Dan Brown. Talk about being lazy! Pundit Steyn even paraphrased - and poorly - the famous title of the original source, "Renowned author Dan Brown staggered through his formulaic opening sentence."

(Special note to less-than-quick-on-the-draw-but-who-think-they're-really-geniuses- rightwing readers: No kidding? You noticed my own careless deployment of anarthrous occupational nominal premodifiers? Whoa, are you sharp!)

* And PZ, I loved reading about the evolution of whale morphology, too, and think I got the basic points, even if many of the details were beyond my immediate knowledge. But as it happens, I wrote the music for the whale evolution section of the PBS Evolution series, so some of the issues were familiar. Fascinating stuff.
tristero 5/23/2006 10:00:00 AM |

 
Shorts

by tristero


[Update: Tip of the prop to Steve Silberman, the author of the Wired article discussed below, who is participating in the discussion in comments. Thanks so much for taking the time to do so! He also corrected some information about the legal status of model rocket engines that I misremembered from his article (it was not in front of me), which I appreciate. Sorry to have misrepresented it.

I was thrilled to hear from from a longtime model rocketeer, who will be attending the National Sport Launch in Waco, TX this weekend. He wrote to inform me that there has been a significant increase in the number of women involved in the sport, which is great news. I'm hoping I can persuade him to write a little bit about his experience down in Waco!

Finally, I'd like to address the issue of mandatory vaccination against cervical cancer, which came up in comments. If - a big if - the cervical vaccine is as safe and as effective as is claimed, then it is immoral - no, make that evil - not to require the widest possible vaccination of youngsters. Period. That protecting your child from cancer has become a political football for the rightwing is simply beyond belief.

Of course, if there are serious reasons not to vaccinate an individual child - eg certain medical conditions, for example - there should be available some mechanism for opting out. But there are ways of creating an opt-out without indulging the rightwing's perverse desire to place the lives of their children in danger's way from this kind of now-preventable cancer.

As far as I know, however, there may be some scientists who are urging commonsense, but there are no serious plans to mandate vaccination in the US, nor will there be, for the simple reason that ignorant rightwing creates will create too much of a fuss. The lack of a mandatory vaccination program doesn't make such neglect any less evil simply because a large part of the presently acceptable cultural discourse has been hijacked by crazy people. This campaign against a non-existent mandatory vaccination program is merely a way to limit, as much as possible, the distribution of the vaccine to those who, if they knew about it, would insist upon having their children protected from a ghastly, deadly cancer.

The only conclusion I can reach from this is that the evilosity of the right knows no bounds. Even children are endangered by their idiocy? Yes, even children.]


Cervical Cancer Vaccine - The Times has an article that mentions the rightwing opposition to the wide distribution of a truly astounding vaccine that could seriously reduce the incidence of cervical cancer. I discussed this recently in the War On Fucking series. If ever there was an issue in which the utterly evil stupidity of the rightwing agenda is exposed for what it truly is, this is it. No genuinely serious system of moral values could ever justify a campaign to minimize the distribution, if not the outright witholding, of a significantly important life-saving medicine from a child (which is the best time for this vaccine to be administered). For most of us, this is a given. But not for the extreme right of Dobson, Robertson, and their numerous allies in the Bush administration. It would be extremely interesting to get Bush himself on record as to what he thinks should be done.


The War On Brains - Wired magazine has an article in the current issue (not yet online) about the increasing discouragement of real science opportunities for kids. Chemical sets, which were once boxes filled with wonder and (carefully circumscribed) danger, have been emasculated due to liability concerns. And some scientific supply houses have undergone extensive harassment, all in the name of fighting terrorism of course, in order to shake out information on who orders what chemicals and when.

The upshot is that it is becoming increasingly difficult for smart kids to get hands-on experience in chemistry and other sciences. And under the Bush administration, it is becoming near hopeless. As Wired explains it, the problem is not only that it deprives many of our children of a wonderful hobby, but that it seriously stunts the educational development of scientists, who should learn to "speak" chemistry - by doing chemistry - as young as possible. Nearly every scientist I know traces their interest, not surprisingly, to a childhood fascination with their science toys. Yes, there are potential dangers with some of this stuff but the article responds "So what?" and makes a good case.

This fear of science has been taken to ludicrous extremes by political opposition (Schumer, among others) which has led to attempts to ban the sale of model rocket engines. I'll have more on this later when I've had a chance to do more research, but it seems as if the article is mistaken [UPDATE: Not so, see Steve Silberman's discussion in comments for details], that model rocket engines aren't being banned exactly, but some legal things are still being left up in the air -so to speak. The larger point of the article, tho, is right on: This country should be doing everything possible to encourage scientific curiousity and experimentation among our kids, not finding excuses to lock up bicarbonate and vinegar so that a science teacher has to check the stuff out whenever he wants to do a demo. Given our shameful ignorance of science and its methods, this is close to being a serious national emergency.

As I said, more later. I think model rocketry is a very important subject - recreationally, educationally, culturally, and politically - which deserves more attention than it's received.

Christianism - Due to some other stuff, I missed out on my regular sojourn amongst the blogs last week and learned that Andrew Sullivan recently suggested the use of the term "Christianism" to denote the political ideology that makes use of Christian symbolism.

Dave Neiwert credits me with the original coinage of the term three years ago, and links to this post from back then. Not quite, which I'll explain in a second. But it's the larger issue that needs to be emphasized:

There is a difference in kind between religious belief and politics that hides behind religious belief to escape criticism. Whether you call such politicians "Christianists" or "Dominionists" as Dave Neiwert suggests isn't terribly important, I think.

What is crucially important is that such a distinction be drawn. The christianists have co-opted not only the symbols of Christianity but have succeeded in forcing the media to mislabel their political behavior as "Christian." Thus, we hear about "Christian values" such as opposition to the teaching of science, which have nothing whatsoever to do with the religion that worships Christ as Savior. Christianists, of course, are free to call themselves whatever they like. But there is no excuse for permitting them to hijack the term "Christian" for their specific political purposes, let alone the symbols of that religion.

Regarding coinage of the term, according to William Safire, Andrew Sullivan first used the term "Christianism" 1 day before I did. For the record, I never read, and still haven't read, Sullivan's post. (He's not on my list to read, which is long enough, thank you very much. In fact, I doubt I've read more than two or three of his posts, total.) While I'm quite sure I used the term online before that post, I don't care that much about priority to bother to search it out. (Besides, as Safire's article points out, the word goes back to Milton.)

What I did do regularly, and what I still do regularly, is discuss the importance of calling christianists to account for their hijacking of religion - Dave and I had an interesting discussion about it, which he mentions in his post, and I initiated others as well. I gather Sullivan just used the term and dropped it - like I said, I have no idea what he writes or says.

If, by pushing the term "christianist" I helped some folks distinguish between genuine religious devotion and cynical political activism hidden under the skirts of priests, then I am glad. But my efforts are minor compared to the work of many priests, ministers, rabbis, mullahs, and other devoutly religious people who have been struggling for decades - often futiliely - with a concerted right wing assault on their congregations and institutions.
tristero 5/23/2006 08:44:00 AM |

 
Stars

by tristero

As Digby mentioned, the tale of Iran forcing Jews, et al to wear distinctive clothing or badges is apparently false. It seems to have been concocted by American rightwing propagandists and has no basis in fact.

On the other hand, Operation Red Scare, in which the Santa Rosa Junior College Republicans posted Red Stars on the doors of professors they identified as advocating communism is true.



tristero 5/23/2006 03:16:00 AM |

Monday, May 22, 2006

 
Heathers Reunion

by digby


I don't know it it's coincidence or by design, but today I have seen three --- count 'em --- three different stories trashing the GOP's favorite Democratic punching bags in that patented superficial tabloid nastiness that we have mercilessly been spared since the Bush administration came to town and trashed the country ( to paraphrase a famous insider bon mot.) Now why is that? I'm sure it can't be because the GOP is back to its smearing ways just because they are on the ropes. They wouldn't do that would they? Why we're at war!

I wrote about the two Drudge blasts from the past earlier today. Now here comes another one, this time from the New York Times: what are all the wags saying about that famous Washington power couple who might be running for the White House? Prominent Democrats are very concerned about the state of their marriage and how that will affect the wife's ability to run for president. He's a playboy and she's a frigid bitch, in case you didn't know. But they pretend to love each other because they are both superficial, calculating power freaks, which sets them apart from most leading Democrats who are just plain crazy. The grassroots, we know, are very, very angry. (Joe Lieberman is really the only sensible one.)

I have to assume that it is a slow news day at the Times or that a big story fell out and they had to fill it with something because I can't believe somebody thought it was actually newsworthy to put this on the front page. And it's a doozy, filled with all kinds of juicy People magazine style armchair psychology as related by anonymous "friends." Substitute the names and you could be reading about the travails of Brad and Jen or Tom and Katie --- all that's missing is the fake breasts, although it's possible I missed a reference somewhere. Atrios wonders why they couldn't get anyone on the record about the frequency of the couple's lovemaking, but I think they actually hinted quite broadly that they aren't getting it on often enough to satisfy the public. Page six couldn't have done any better than this:

Friends -- eager to smooth any rough edges on the relationship -- tell old-married-couple stories of them gardening, playing Scrabble, and dining out at Le Cirque, Rasika, and Bayou in Harlem with old pals like the former party leader Terry McAuliffe, the power broker Vernon Jordan, and others. Last Christmas Eve, they wandered through the near-empty Chappaqua Village Market together, noticed by the occasional fellow shopper.

Rarely, however, do the Clintons appear in public when they are together. That physical distance is largely driven by their careers, but it is also partly by choice.

[...]

Democrats preparing for 2008 describe the political challenge this way: Clinton could prosper as a presidential candidate, yet the return of "the Clintons" could revive memories including the oft-derided two-for-the-price-of-one appeal of his 1992 presidential campaign, her role in the universal health care debacle, and the soap opera of infidelity.

No folks, that excerpt isn't from Hello magazine or even Vanity Fair. That's the New York fucking Times and it's on page one. If people aren't thinking about the Clintons in terms of infidelity and betrayal now, New York's newest tabloid rag is going to make damned sure they are reminded of it.

I do not know if Hillary is running for president and I'm not making a case for her candidacy. I do, however, think she has the right to try to earn the nomination without this gossip-at-the-hair salon coverage by the NY Times. And believe me, it won't just be her. Look at the spooky picture of Mark Warner on the cover of New York Times Magazine. He looked like something out of a David Lynch movie. I have no doubt that we are going to be reading many derisive accounts of Al Gore the bearded, earth toned circus freak. It's quite clear that if the Democrats are are coming into power, the Times is going to pick up right where it left off when it was last obsessed with Clinton's crotch and Hillary's cold, cold heart. Or perhaps, more to the point, this piece is just a first notice that they plan to.

Democrats be advised: the press is a bunch of braindead robots who are uninterested in changing their puerile Democratic storyline even in the face of the most disasterous administration in American history.It's shocking. You can love Hillary or hate her, I don't care. But goddamit the intimate state of her marriage to Bill Clinton is nobody's business and it NEVER HAS BEEN. If the gossip rags want to play this game, there's nothing anyone can do. But it is just shameful that the New York Times would go back to their cheap, tabloid coverage of politics when the world is on fire. I'm honestly stunned that this is happening again.

I am writing letters to the editor about this and I urge everyone else to do it too. Perhaps we can request that they put other politicians' marriages under this kind of scrutiny. John McCain's wife had some problems if I recall. How's she doing with that? Maybe a reporter should go around and ask all of her friends to comment off the record. The presidency is a very stressfull job for a first lady. Can she take the pressure without resorting to ... well, you know. People are asking. It's a factor. And hey, what about Rudy? He's got a helluva marital track record. Matt Stoller has another suggestion, here.

Seriously, I think this deserves some pushback from the blgosphere. Regardless of your feelings for Hillary, this is obviously just the beginning of another trivializing smear fest against Democrats in general. This stuff is done for no other reason than to make Democrats appear unserious, immoral and halfway nuts. There is a concerted effort coming from somewhere to create a drumbeat that when Democrats are in the spotlight the country is going to be back in trivial tabloid scandal land. It almost has the feeling of being a threat. The mainstream press, having apparently learned absolutely nothing from their failures of the last decade are obviously eager to put on their Heathers costumes and have a little bitch party.

This time they need to hear from us. Here is the page with all the email addresses for letters to the editor and to the ombudsman. Let them know we aren't going to let this happen again without a fight.



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digby 5/22/2006 10:32:00 PM |

 
Holy Hell

by digby

Ok. we are getting into some seriously weird territory now. This diary over at Kos about the Christian youth "Battle Cry" rally sounds so dangerous and creepy that I think we need to call in Dave Niewert to translate it for us:

BattleCry Philadelphia was more than just a vulgar carnival designed to suck donations into the coffers of Ron Luce's corporation "Teen Mania". Indeed, it had a point, to recruit the future elite "warriors" in the coming battle against the separation of church and state. It turned dark and frightening on Saturday afternoon. After Franklin "Islam is a Wicked Religion" Graham came out to thunder against the evils of homosexuality and the Iraqi people (whom he considers to be exactly the same people as the ancient Babylonians who enslaved the tribes of Israel and deserving, one would assume, the exact same fate) we heard an explosion. Flames shot out on stage and a team of Navy Seals was shown on the big TV monitors in full camouflage creeping forward down the hallway from the locker room with their M16s. They were hunting us, the future Christian leaders of America. Two teenage girls next to me burst into tears and even I, a jaded middle-aged male, almost jumped out of my skin. I imagined for that moment what it must have felt like to have been a teacher at Columbine high school. 10 seconds later they rushed out onstage and pointed their guns in our direction firing blanks spitting flames. About 1000 shots and bang, we were all dead.

WTF??? What does that mean (besides revving up a bunch teen-agers with violent sensationalism for no apparent reason?) It appears that the "Navy Seals" are a group of ex-special forces called Force Ministries who do this schtick at rallies and the like. Can you believe people make a living doing this stuff?

This story has been verified by others, who also report this little synergistic touch:

It began with fireworks so loud and startling I screamed. Lights and smoke followed, and a few kids were pulled up on stage from the crowd. One was asked to read a letter.

This was the letter that opened the event. Its author was George W. Bush. Yes, the president of the United States sent a letter of support, greeting, prayer and encouragement to the BattleCry event held at Wachovia Spectrum Stadium in Philadelphia on May 12. Immediately afterward, a preacher took the microphone and led the crowd in prayer. Among other things, he asked the attendees to "Thank God for giving us George Bush."

Yikes.



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digby 5/22/2006 07:29:00 PM |

 
Sigh-Ops

by digby


I'm sure most of you have heard this bizarre story about Iran forcing Jews and other religious minorities to wear badges. (In a nice touch of historical color, the Jewish badges are allegedly yellow.) Well, it turns out this was simply made up out of whole cloth and filtered into the media through an affiliate of the Benador Group which include such credible wingnuts as Laurie "Saddam is comin' ta git yah" Mylroie and Michael "let's invade France" Ledeen. You have to wonder what they thought they would accomplish by putting out something so falsifiable. I think Jim Henley has it right:

Why? So that months from now, someone hearing about plans to bomb Iran, or seeing footage of bombing on TV, will say to themselves, “Didn’t I read that Iran was going to round up all the Jews and make them wear yellow stars like the Nazis? Something like that. Well, good riddance.” All the story had to do was live long enough to get into circulation.

I actually have a personal anecdote that pertains to exactly that. Before the first Gulf war I was talking about whether or not we should intervene with my brother-in-law, a decent liberal who normally is not one to get onboard military adventures unless something very important is at stake. He was a big supporter of the Gulf War based on that story about killing the babies in their incubators (which had set my bullshit detectors to screaming when I heard it.) He believed it and it made him very hawkish.

It's as Henley says, these things make their way into the consciousness and pop out down the road when people are being forced to decide if a military action is necessary. They're planting seeds.

The press is not running with this en masse the way they did with all the earlier nonsense, but it's all over the rightwing noise machine so there will be plenty of people who believe this crap. Still, it's a small comfort that the mainstream media is getting a little less easily played.



Update: Greg Sargent has more.



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digby 5/22/2006 05:04:00 PM |

 
You Oughta Know

by digby


Poor, poor Republicans. They are reduced to dragging out that poor old fossilized 90s retread Drudge to falsely smear Democrats again. (Geez, next they'll be starting flame wars on usenet!) That's a sad comment on the rightwing blogosphere if you ask me.

Old Drudge has found out today, however, that things don't work quite the same way as they did back in the good old days of "Mad About You" and the screeching harpies of the Barbizon school of blond former prosecutors. Drudge got a letter this morning from the DNC's lawyer for libeling Howard Dean yesterday and took down his false story.

And later today there was this:

Matt Drudge is looking for any excuse to smear Al Gore and his new movie, An Inconvenient Truth. He’s been running this story, unsourced, all day:

Burn: Gore and entourage took 5 cars to travel the 500 yards from hotel to screening of global warming pic in Cannes.

ThinkProgress contacted Gore’s representatives, who unequivocally confirmed that Al Gore and his associates walked from the Majestic Hotel to the screening at Cannes. Further, Paramount has committed to making the entire tour promoting the film carbon neutral.

UPDATE: At 3:38 PM EST, about an hour after this post, Drudge yanked the smear on Gore from his site.

This is very reminiscent of another false story about Gore that the press refused to acknowledge was a GOP plant: that stupid canoe trip which, naturally, the Daily Howler has covered in depth.

They're running the sad old Gore playbook, and some of the media is playing along like good little robots. But it won't work like it did before. You want to know why? Because there is a counter force to that little weasel Drudge and his fellow character assassins this time --- us. Lefty bloggers will be all over the mainstream media if they do this again. We will ensure they get a snootfull of our vaunted liberal anger if they decide that "it's just fun" to destroy Democrats on behalf of Republican thugs.

(And I'll add that if a liberal Drudge comes along who works as a tool of the GOP sludge machine and is used to discredit the left blogosphere --- wittingly or unwittingly --- we will not take the bait. Chris Bowers at MYDD makes this argument explicitly, here.)

I liked the 90s as much as the next person. I tried ecstasy and bought that Alanis Morrisette album and everything. But that was a long time ago. The rightwing noise machine will not be allowed to entertain the boys and girls of the press corps with silly, trumped up bullshit like this ever again without a price being paid. The political media really need to think long and hard about who's their daddy this time out.



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digby 5/22/2006 03:58:00 PM |

 
Nothing To Offer

by digby


One of the things I find most interesting about the global warming debate is that the libertarian view of how to run the world is completely inadequate in the face of such a thing. Not that it stops them from trying to fit the square peg into the round hole, of course.

Last week the "Competitive Enterprise Institute" unveiled a couple of hilarious ads about global warming in which they literally extoll the virtues of carbon monoxide as "life." But how else can a group that sells itself like this come to grips with a global, environmental problem:

We believe that individuals are best helped not by government intervention, but by making their own choices in a free marketplace.

That sounds awfully clever until you start talking about global warming, doesn't it? Both Paris Hilton and I are in the same boat when it comes to being able to breathe on this planet. "Choices" in a free marketplace are beside the point when the very ground we walk on, the very air we breath, the very world in which all of us, rich and poor, live is under threat. Dealing with global warming is the ultimate example of the common good and it's the most powerful issue upon which the right's edifice of free market individualism crumbles into irrelevance.

Global warming is a mutual, planetary challenge and the conservatives and wingnut libertarians who see money as freedom can do nothing but put their heads in the sand and pretend it isn't happening. The only question is whether it will kill their bankrupt ideology before their bankrupt ideology kills the planet.

"An Inconvenient Truth" is coming to your town. Go see it. This is one where we are all, literally, in this thing together.



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digby 5/22/2006 01:18:00 PM |

 
Hmmm

by digby


Atrios wonders why everyone is so upset about Bolivia (and Venezuela) all of a sudden.

I have no idea. Certainly, there can be no domestic political considerations. I don't get it.



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digby 5/22/2006 01:06:00 PM |

 
Military Chumps

by digby


Mercenaries. I've been wondering when this topic would finally make its way out of the ther and be discussed openly. Atrios links to a report by Ted Koppel in which Koppel wonders why we just don't privatize part of the army, calling it:

"the inevitable response of a market economy to a host of seemingly intractable public policy and security problems."

The issue is raised by our "over-extended military" and inability of the United Nations to form adequate peace forces. Meanwhile, Americans business interests grow ever more active abroad in dangerous spots.

"Just as the all-volunteer military relieved the government of much of the political pressure that had accompanied the draft, so a rent-a-force, harnessing the privilege of every putative warrior to hire himself out for more than he could ever make in the direct service of Uncle Sam, might relieve us of an array of current political pressures," Koppel explains, tongue possibly in cheek.

"So, if there are personnel shortages in the military (and with units in their second and third rotations into Iraq and Afghanistan, there are), then what's wrong with having civilian contractors? Expense is a possible issue; but a resumption of the draft would be significantly more controversial....

"So, what about the inevitable next step — a defensive military force paid for directly by the corporations that would most benefit from its protection? If, for example, an insurrection in Nigeria threatens that nation's ability to export oil (and it does), why not have Chevron or Exxon Mobil underwrite the dispatch of a battalion or two of mercenaries?"

Koppel notes that Cofer Black, formerly a high-ranking C.I.A. officer and now a senior executive with Blackwater USA, "has publicly said that his company would be prepared to take on the Darfur account."

He concludes: "The United States may not be about to subcontract out the actual fighting in the war on terrorism, but the growing role of security companies on behalf of a wide range of corporate interests is a harbinger of things to come."

I assumed this was satire when I read it. But I didn't chuckle knowingly and move on. It doesn't work as satire because the nation is, in fact, actually doing this.

Rather than make arcane arguments about whether its right or moral to hire a private army, which will fall on the American public's deaf ears, perhaps we should just talk about the fact that each "soldier" makes about six figures, can quit anytime he wants and is subject to no rule of law, either local, international or military. Clearly, the administration thinks the regular military are a bunch of stupid chumps. Why don't Republicans support the troops by spending that money on real soldiers?



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digby 5/22/2006 12:20:00 PM |

 
Still Trying To Make The Case

by digby


The poodle comes to town:

The Prime Minister will appeal to his critics to look at his record in a different light after the formation of an Iraqi government. He will say the war in Iraq was in line with an interventionist or "activist approach" to foreign policy he also pursued in Kosovo and Sierra Leone, which enjoyed greater public support.

He will also say it was consistent with his policies on the Middle East, Africa and climate change.

Mr Blair will say he floated the idea of humanitarian interventionism, dubbed "liberal imperialism" by some of his advisers, in a speech in Chicago in 1999.

In the last of three speeches on foreign policy, Mr Blair will call for reform of the United Nations, saying that today's international institutions were designed for the Cold War era.

He believes that the UN's failure to approve a fresh resolution authorising military action in Iraq in 2003 showed that the organisation shies away from rather than confronts problems.

That's the kind of speech that'll make Peter Beinert feel all funny down there. This is the vision of liberal hawks who insist that we need to keep invading countries for their own good because underneath all the death and destruction is a humanitarian mission. (Meanwhile, in Darfur, well....)

I'm not sure if Blair has deluded himself into believing this horseshit to justify his actions or whether he really is a member of the future neocons club. (I suspect that Joe Lieberman, if he remains a Democrat, is going to be the new Scoop Jackson around whom all the little liberal hawks will flock.) It doesn't really matter: he's throwing down the gauntlet. What is the left's foreign policy philosophy?

A lot of people are talking about this and it's important. Foreign policy is not going to go away just because Bush has fucked things up so badly. And we can't just accept the Beinert wing's romantic WWII fighter ace version of liberal hawkishness just because it's the only idea floating around. I'm waiting for a big name Democrat to articulate a foreign policy philosophy that makes sense.

In the meantime, I think I'll go with a couple of big name bloggers' approach as a starting point instead. Here's Matt Yglesias:

Dan Drezner notes that "liberal internationalism" is a term "foreign policy wonks like to throw around, but often means very different things to different people" and offers his own definition: "A marriage between the pursuit of liberal purposes (security, free trade, human rights, rule of law, democracy promotion, etc.) and the use of institutionalist means to pursue them (multilateral institutions of various stripes -- not only the UN, but NATO or the G-7 as well)." I prefer an alternative formulation of my own recent devising. Liberal internationalism not as a method, but as a goal: The creation of an international order that is effectively governed by reasonably just rules.

Clearly, in the wrong hands, ideas about pursuing liberal "purposes" can be very, very dangerous if they stand without any limits by law or philosophy. Might cannot make "spreading democracy" right all by itself as we have just proved to the entire world. Perhaps it would be best to be a bit more humble in our purposes than Drezner, but a bit more explicit in our methods than Yglesias.

In any case, it is impossible to withdraw from the world even if we wanted to so liberals do have to make a decision about our relationship to it going forward. Iraq was a nonsensical, inexplicable action, but that does not mean we will be spared having to make much tougher calls in the future. It seems to me that the best hope is through cooperation with others toward the plain goal Yglesias lays out. That is not a pie in the sky, kumbaaya dreamworld goal, nor is it mired in cynical, national interest "realism." Indeed, it is the most likely to produce the kind of necessary coordination we will need to handle the emerging challenges and threats of a global nature, like terrorism and global warming.

Tony Blair is apparently still going to insist that Iraq was a "threat" that had to be met come hell or high water, (let no facts interfere with that judgment.) He will attack international institutions for failing to intervene. In truth, the international institutions (which are hardly infallible) made the correct decision this time. The alleged "liberal internationalist" Blair made the wrong one. The lessons there are clear. When a nation decides that it is "good" enough or strong enough to up-end the rule of law and international civilized norms, that is a signal that they are neither. Liberal internationalism, if it is to be credible, has to admit this, repudiate the actions of Blair and Bush and make it explicit that its goals are reasonable and constrained by the rule of law. Otherwise, "liberal internationalism" is just another way of saying we can do as we choose. I'm not signing on to that; I don't care whether Joe Klein says that means I hate America or not. After Vietnam and this latest debacle, I'm through with both dreamy, romantic notions of interventionist foreign policy and manipulative Great Gamesmanship. Keep it simple stupid.



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digby 5/22/2006 11:14:00 AM |

 
Defensive Fatigue

by digby

"The president's run into a perfect political storm where the confluence of natural disasters from last fall, gasoline prices, staff changes, the continuing war in Iraq, all are giving conservatives a defensive fatigue," said Kenneth Khachigian, a California GOP strategist who served in Ronald Reagan's White House. "And let's put immigration in there, too. . . . There's just wave after wave washing over them at this point."

Oh please. This is not an act of God. There's a tsunami of corruption and epic failure crashing over their heads --- and it's one of their own making. As for their "fatigue" maybe they should try being being on 24/7 defense for eight long years as Clinton was and then complain, the WATB chickenshits.

These fragile little flowers really should be frightened of the Democrats taking over the congress. If they are falling apart with "defensive fatigue" already, they obviously are not cut out for long term survival in the rough game they created. Bush was treated like a Roman god for more than four years. For a time it was patriotically incorrect to even utter criticism of him in public (just ask the Dixie Chicks.) He had a free hand and he fucked everything up royally. Now, after six months of pressure, they want to blame it all on external events and whine about how tired they are of being on the defensive. Boo fucking hoo.


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digby 5/22/2006 09:39:00 AM |

 
Viguerie And The Fine Art Of Rhetorical Omission

by tristero

Poor Richard Viguerie. Betrayed by George W. Bush:

The main cause of conservatives' anger with Bush is this: He talked like a conservative to win our votes but never governed like a conservative.

This is just the latest talking point of course, but what's interesting is what Viguerie didn't discuss. Some are obvious and I'll let you have the pleasure of finding them (grin). Here are a few that are a bit more subtle.

Let's start with a small omission. Unlike others on the far right, Viguerie's not claiming that Bush governed as a liberal. Rather, he says Bush is just a corrupt, incompetent, deceitful, Big Business pork-feeder.

If one were trusting, one could think of that as progress of a sort, meaning Viguerie's reality-testing is improving, and that bodes well for the future of American politics. But being cynical about all things right wing, I tend to read this as - possibly - a weird feeler to the Lieberman wing of the Democratic party, to see if they might be willing to buy some of Viguerie's mail order snake oil. He does say, after all, his new movement will be "independent of any party."

More importantly, Viguerie doesn't want to distract attention from the distinction he wants to draw between the evil Biz Repubs and the saintly "real" conservatives. For even if he sees Bush's character and concerns with something resembling partial acuity,Viguerie, on all other subjects, is still out there in rightwing nutland - mewling over the morals and ethics of a science policy he doesn't know the first thing about, gibbering on about the dangers of letting two people who love each other get married, and professing wariness of the conservative cred of two judges who make Roger Taney look like a multi-culturalist.

In short, by consigning Biz Cons and Bush to hell for betraying the "real" conservatives, Viguerie sees a political opportunity right now, a potential realignment of voters who are outraged at the sops to Big Biz and deeply concerned about other things, presumably things that directly affect them.

And then, being a Con-man from way back, Viguerie pulls a fast one. He links opposition to the evils of Big Biz to his own far-rightwing agenda. Quite a slick trick.

Now this would be a ridiculous idea, and majorly bizarre, if it weren't for the fact that Viguerie is quite serious and rightwingers have been making these kinds of illogical links for years. Worse, many important folks strongly opposed to Viguerie and his agenda, both Democratic and Republican, still haven't figured out a way to link opposition to Big Biz to opposition to Big Cons like Viguerie himself without sounding like Marxists. (That, too, is majorly bizarre, but that's another post. Here, I'd just like to look a little closer at what Viguerie says. 'Cause it's good news, I think. )

Now, Viguerie is partly correct, if not exactly original. The Biz Republicans don't have any kind of wide national base - the most rabid and wealthiest of these creatures total far less than 1% of the population - which is why they've tolerated loony nuts like Robertson, Dobson, and Viguerie himself. And which is why a spoiled rich brat like George W. Bush loves to affect the thickest down-home Texas accent he possibly can, 'cause it makes him "sound like an American," not the filthy rich elitist he clearly is.*

But Viguerie is quite wrong in assuming that the folks united against the decadence of America's corporate rich and the obscene tax giveaways to large corporations and their wealthiest members are all fellow loons on his moon. They're not and 20 seconds of thought should make it clear how illogical Viguerie is being, and how desperate he is for us not to notice.

Ken Lay may disgust you but that doesn't necessarily mean you're pro-coathanger - Viguerie wants to pretend that it does. In fact, those of us who work for a living and haven't bought the sick, rightwing framing of the issue know very well that there are times when carrying a pregnancy to term is a choice, and that choice should never be made by politicians but by ourselves.

LIkewise, contempt for Halliburton's unspeakable behavior does not translate into strong opposition to marriage rights and benefits for all couples that want to get hitched. Again, those of us who live in the real world have far more important things to worry about - like job security, health benefits, education, and the like. (BTW, I'm avoiding the terms "populist" and "populism" here because I think they have meanings that make it easy to miscontrue a very fluid and complex reality.) But Viguerie wants us to ignore the non sequitur and think that because you don't like Halliburton bigshots, you have to hate gay people.

And that brings us to yet another omission in Viguerie's essay, which should make it quite clear what a fast one Viguerie is pulling here. And how much trouble he sees for the far right agenda if ever the Democrats wake up. Check it out:

Viguerie brought up the godless UN - which affects directly nearly none of the people Viguerie is claiming as a conservative base - but neglected to mention the failed assault on Social Security, which affects all of us.

Now why would Viguerie forget to rant against Social Security, that commie central-planning nonsense left over from the Nazi Roosevelt Administration? After all, it's the fluoridated water of entitlements, corrupting Americans and sapping all our precious bodily fluids, Well for one thing, he can't use it to pretend Bush isn't a "real" conservative and without that, his argument falls flat on its Laffer Curves.

In fact, Bush and the other rightwing nuts tried like hell to eliminate Social Security by proposing a path to disaster a la FEMA and CIA. And Bush failed to wreck Social Security because of a simple fact Viguerie dare not mention: The base he's talking about isn't nearly as far-right as he'd have us believe. They aren't all Birchers or Randall Terry lovers; in fact, my guess is that if the Vigueries of American politics were properly labeled as the extremists they really are, and not accorded WaPo op-ed privileges and the like, the apparent support for rightwing conservatism shown in the polls would be far lower.

So yes, there are a lot of folks who can no longer be counted upon to vote in goosestep for the next corporate shill the Republicans put up for national office. But this is not an opportunity for so-called "conservatives" -actually rightwing radicals -of Viguerie's stripe. This really is a splendid opportunity for Democrats, and even liberals.

So, Democrats: Don't blow it this time around, okay? Bush has handed you on a platter both the potential for marginalizing the very dangerous American right plus the potential for political dominance. It will never get better than 2006 and, potentially, 2008. Don't blow it, people.

--

*Oversimplified, naturally, in order to get at an idea that doesn't depend upon the complications. For the record, George W. Bush is, indeed, a Biz Con all the way through. He is also a cultural Con in Viguerie's sense all the way through. To certain readers, this may seem a logically impossible assertion: How can someone be all one AND all the other? Well, it's rather hard to explain in a brief footnote, but it's kinda like transubstantiation or being many substances at the same time. As for being "impossible," I refer you the living contradiction that is George W. Bush for proof of its reality.
tristero 5/22/2006 07:40:00 AM |

Saturday, May 20, 2006

 
Nedrenaline!

by digby


Wow. I go off-line for a few hours and look what happened: Ned Lamont and his team, backed by the netroots activists like Hamsher and Stoller (didn't they write "Hound Dog"?) got 30% of the vote at the Connecticut Democratic convention, which has to seem like a tidal wave to Joe Lieberman. And according to Colin McEnroe, local Connecticut journalist, there would have been plenty more where that came from if there had been a secret ballot:

The real number is lot worse for Lieberman than 33 percent. I don't know how big the Lamont vote would get if you could tabulate the no-shows and the sleeper cells of delegates who plan to vote differently in the primary, but I do know it's a bigger number. And the convention is full of party regulars, usually the easiest people to keep in line. Wisdom of the ages would suggest that the "amateur" voters are potentially much more rebellious.

I will admit that I have always believed it would be difficult for Lamont to win this race, as I'm sure everyone agrees. Incumbency is the most powerful tool in a politicians box. My main reasons for being enthusiastic is that I do not think Blue State pols like Liebermann should get a free ride when they consistently enable the opposition. (There's a lesson here for other Blue State Dems who insist on letting their iconoclastic self-image sabotage the Party in a hyperpartisan era --- Bob Casey, take note.)

After last night I think this might actually happen. Lieberman may break from the party if he fails to win the Democratic nomination and run as an independent --- and he may win as an independent too, with his large Republican following. It would be tough to beat him. Bring it. It's long past time for Democrats to draw some lines. This is going to be a brawl for the foreseeable future and we need Democratic partisans not Republican appeasers.



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digby 5/20/2006 11:45:00 AM |

Friday, May 19, 2006

 
Centrist Know Nothings

by digby


This is getting stupid. The NY Times is creating a false impression about the netroots support for Ned Lamont over Joe Lieberman as an expression of anti-war fervor. I think that is missing the greater point.

There are quite a few Democrats who voted for the war. They certainly have some work to do to convince many of us that they have seen the light. But the reason the netroots are taking on Joe Lieberman is because he enables Republicans on a host of issues and consistently shows disloyalty to the party in a hyper-partisan era. Alone among Democrats at the time, he went on the floor of the Senate and excoriated Bill Clinton for personal failures (that's what the speech was about) and gave support to the hypocritical Republican witch-hunters. Then, once again, alone among Democrats, he stood up for George Bush as it became obvious that the justification for the war in Iraq was based upon lies and hype. These are just two telling examples of where Lieberman tends to come out on issues that mean something to the Democratic party in a larger sense.

He comes from Connecticut. There is no excuse that he's in a Red State and has to pander to conservatives. He does this completely for its own sake. And inevitably, he gets the highest accolades from Republicans for doing so; he actually seems to revel in his position as George Bush's favorite Democrat. It is understandable that a Democratic senator lauded constantly by the right wing noise machine is going to be suspect among Democratic partisans.

There was a time when a vital center coalition existed in the Senate, where there was room on both sides for trading votes across party lines. The Republicans destroyed that coalition and Liebermann, inexplicably, doesn't seem to get that. Even worse, when the shit comes down, he inevitably sides with them. Many Democrats took a long time to learn the harsh lessons of GOP political hardball and had to lose to a bunch of thuggish right-wingers before they began to recognise what they were up against. Lieberman still refuses to accept the fact that his high minded centrism is a weapon in the hands of the radical Republicans.

The netroots are bringing some heat from the partisans and even if Lamont loses maybe this will move Lieberman's ass a little bit back to the party that brung him. That is not illegitimate politics. It is the only way to educate him apparently. He certainly has not listened to anything else.

The DLC's Al Frum says at the end of the article:

"A very simple thing happened that changed Democratic politics dramatically, and that was that the war turned bad," Mr. From said, adding of the senator's critics: "There's a group in our party that makes a lot of noise and I don't think they've ever won an election. They're trying to take out one of the great statesmen our party has and that's wrong."

So he agrees with Karl Rove that the only thing that happened recently was that the war wasn't a resounding, yellow ribbon victory. They are both wrong. The GOP has proven that it can't govern its way out of a paper bag on any issue --- and the Democratic grassroots have been fed up for some time with this play it safe losing strategy that empowered the most anti-democratic government since Nixon.

From really shouldn't talk so much about who has won and lost elections. Since the DLC became the guiding force in the Democratic establishment the Party has lost everything. We are making a lot of noise because assholes like Al From have allowed the Republicans to turn liberalism into a bucket of warm spit --- and put the government entirely in the hands of the far right. It's not about the war. That's just the most visible example. It's about having no standards, no loyalty, no principles --- and losing because of it!

This great statesman Joe Lieberman supported the president in his illegal, immoral war, sold out his party on numerous occasions and is being challenged for it. You'd think that a great student of the Talmud would see the good old fashioned message of divine retribution in that.



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digby 5/19/2006 10:32:00 AM |

 
The War On Fucking

by tristero

In today's Times, Lauren Winner writes:

If we are truly to help our teenagers adopt the countercultural sexual ethic of abstinence until marriage...

Wha? As the father of a soon-to-be ten year old daughter, why on earth would I want my future teener not to have sex until she got a state license?

Of course, I don't want her to get pregnant until she and her partner-to-be are emotionally ready and prepared to raise a child in a loving environment. And certainly, I don't want her to get sick or make others sick. But "help" her to refrain from enjoying the pleasures of intimacy? I don't get it - why would I want to help with something so psychologically and morally crippling?

And what's this "we" shit? Also, check out that "countercultural" - wow. Who knew that not fucking was the new LSD?

To change the tone of my post, please note the rhetorical devices here, in particular the intense barrage of baseless assertions - the "we" assuming everyone agrees that so-called "premarital" sex is a bad thing (and notice how she witholds the specific qualifier, "Christians," until long after the "we" has worked its magic); the weird assumption that abstinence is a sensible thing to inflict on a kid, a strange assumption even if you do think that teen sex is not necessarily a good idea; and the bizarre delusion that not having sex until officially licensed flies in the face of official values (see Virgin, The Forty-Year Old, and the hundreds upon hundreds of slasher films where the teen couple that just had sex inevitably gets dismembered in all sorts of gruesome ways ).

This is all of a piece with modern rightwing propaganda style, to pack as much loopy nonsense as possible into every sentence. This makes it exceedingly difficult to confront and rebut, but not because there's a solid argument to "engage." Firstly, the sheer amount of garbage that needs to be cleared away all but requires, as it does here, a response longer than the original winger passage. Secondly, the whackiness of many of the secondary assertions makes it extremely easy to get distracted onto tangents - for example, into a debate on exactly what is meant by "countercultural." Thirdly, the effect is literally paralyzing and intimidating. To read the word "we" in this context stops us (heh heh) dead in our tracks - huh? - and then "we" wonder what's wrong with us that "we" aren't focused on helping us make our kids' teen years as miserable as they possibly can be ("and no, little Ethel, no masturbation, either, that's a sin, and I really don't like you smooching little Lucy, either. You're too old now.").

This packing tactic was, if not pioneered by him, surely brought to a new level of obnoxiousness by Robert Novak many, many years ago, when he would ask a Democrat a trick question filled with screwy righty assumptions that simply would have to be dealt with before the question even could be addressed, thus enabling Novak to accuse the hapless Dem of wimpiness and evasion.

Finally, notice the appropriation and inversion of liberal/lefty rhetoric. We wish to help our teenager. We are the counterculture, sticking it to The Man. This is very common and very old. The early pro-coathanger activists would adapt Beatles songs and old 60's protest chants ("All we are saying, is give life (sic) a chance") and Lauren Winner is steeped in that tactic. And what are "we" gonna do in retaliation? It's not as if there are that many compelling rightwing songs around to rip off ("The Ballad of the Brie Ballet," maybe? Nah...).

Lauren Winner's op-ed is full of it - rightwing rhetoric, that is. Rhetoric that comes so naturally even to mediocrities like the inaptly named Winner they just speak it as a matter of course. Liberals and Dems have nothing comparable and they need to develop it. That's why those of us who've been shouting about rhetoric and framing long before Lakoff got famous insist that yes, ideas but also yes, you gotta talk real good, too. Liberals have many great ideas, but they matter nought if they're tongue-tied.
tristero 5/19/2006 03:58:00 AM |

Thursday, May 18, 2006

 
Not Taking Any Chances

by digby

SIOUX FALLS, SD – Today’s Argus Leader newspaper revealed that Attorney General Larry Long has been asked to give his opinion on the timeframe for the circulation of petitions to refer the abortion ban passed by the legislature to the voters of South Dakota.

Central to the request of the Attorney General is a question being forwarded by two South Dakota legislators who are working on an expensive legal strategy to prevent the people of South Dakota a chance to vote to keep or repeal the near-total ban on abortions.

State Senator Lee Schoenbeck and State Representative Roger Hunt, the chief author of the abortion ban, are concocting a legal strategy to shut down the petition-signing process nearly three weeks before the deadline set under South Dakota law and confirmed by Secretary of State Chris Nelson. Nelson has consistently said the deadline for petitions is June 19, but Hunt and Schoenbeck believe it should be nearly three weeks earlier, shutting off opportunities for South Dakota voters to sign petitions.

You have to wonder why they would bother with this unless they have information that leads them to believe the referendum rejecting the draconian coat-hanger law might succeed.


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digby 5/18/2006 01:39:00 PM |

 
Now She Tells Us

by digby

Judy Miller has regrets about being too careful in her reporting:

I had begun to hear rumors about intensified intercepts and tapping of telephones. But that was just vaguest kind of rumors in the street, indicators … I remember the weekend before July 4, 2001, in particular, because for some reason the people who were worried about Al Qaida believed that was the weekend that there was going to be an attack on the United States or on a major American target somewhere. It was going to be a large, well-coordinated attack. Because of the July 4 holiday, this was an ideal opportunistic target and date for Al Qaida.

My sources also told me at that time that there had been a lot of chatter overheard -- I didn't know specifically what that meant -- but a lot of talk about an impending attack at one time or another. And the intelligence community seemed to believe that at least a part of the attack was going to come on July 4. So I remember that, for a lot of my sources, this was going to be a 'lost' weekend. Everybody was going to be working; nobody was going to take time off. And that was bad news for me, because it meant I was also going to be on stand-by, and I would be working too.

"I was in New York, but I remember coming down to D.C. one day that weekend, just to be around in case something happened … Misery loves company, is how I would put it. If it were going to be a stress-filled weekend, it was better to do it together. It also meant I wouldn't have trouble tracking people down -- or as much trouble -- because as you know, some of these people can be very elusive.

"The people in the counter-terrorism (CT) office were very worried about attacks here in the United States, and that was, it struck me, another debate in the intelligence community. Because a lot of intelligence people did not believe that Al Qaida had the ability to strike within the United States. The CT people thought they were wrong. But I got the sense at that time that the counter-terrorism people in the White House were viewed as extremist on these views.

"Everyone in Washington was very spun-up in the CT world at that time. I think everybody knew that an attack was coming -- everyone who followed this. But you know you can only 'cry wolf' within a newspaper or, I imagine, within an intelligence agency, so many times before people start saying there he goes -- or there she goes -- again!

That would have been a blockbuster story. It might have even spooked the terrorists. But Judy is nothing if not meticulous. (Well, except for her stuff about the WMD in Iraq.) She does have some regrets, as does the editor who wouldn't run with this story:

Like Miller, Steve Engelberg, now managing editor of the Oregonian in Portland, still thinks about that story that got away. "More than once I've wondered what would have happened if we'd run the piece?" he told the CJR. "A case can be made that it would have been alarmist, and I just couldn't justify it, but you can't help but think maybe I made the wrong call."

Engelberg told us the same thing. "On Sept. 11th, I was standing on the platform at the 125th Street station," he remembered ruefully more than four years later. "I was with a friend, and we both saw the World Trade Center burning and saw the second one hit. 'It's Al-Qaida!' I yelled. 'We had a heads-up!' So yes, I do still have regrets."

So does Judy Miller.

"I don't remember what I said to Steve on Sept. 11," she concluded in her interview with us. "I don't think we said anything at all to each other. He just knew what I was thinking, and I knew what he was thinking. We were so stunned by what was happening, and there was so much to do, and I think that was the day in which words just fail you.

"So I sometimes think back, and Steve and I have talked a few times about the fact that that story wasn't fit, and that neither one of us pursued it at that time with the kind of vigor and determination that we would have had we known what was going to happen. And I always wondered how the person who sent that [intercept] warning must have felt.

"You know, sometimes in journalism you regret the stories you do, but most of the time you regret the ones that you didn't do."

I'd imagine so. Engleberg seems to be geniunely pained that they didn't run with the story, although he knows it was a tough call. Judy, not so much. But then she not only had the story of an impending major terrorist attack and didn't get it in the paper but she then reported a bunch of manufactured drivel on Iraq's fantasy WMD and managed to help the administration start an unnecessary war. She's a one-woman wrecking crew, that one.

But what-ever! Let's all go have one third of a martini in a gorgeous glass.


Update: I think it's fair to note that this is not news except to the extent that Judy Miller had the story. Richard Clarke's testimony to the 9/11 commission covered this ground before. The administration did consider Clarke and others who were running around with their "hair on fire" to be extremists. And we knew that the 4th of July that year was considered a prime possibility for an attack.

And it is still inexplicable why the Bush administration failed to lurch into high gear --- except for the fact that we know know that if there is a decision to be made, The Decider inevitably makes the wrong one.



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digby 5/18/2006 09:34:00 AM |

 
"I Suppose Asians Too"

by digby


John Gibson is NOT a racist. He'll tell you so himself:

GIBSON: Some misunderstandings about a recent "My Word." I've been accused of being a racist because I said something simple. It was a couple of days ago, and I said procreate not recreate. It was a thought or two about demographics, about the science of looking into population trends and making predictions.

My concern was simply that I didn't want America to become Europe, where the birth rate is so low the continent is fast being populated by immigrants, mainly from Muslim countries, whose birth rate is very high. That fact was coupled with a news item that said half of all babies in America under five are minorities and the majority of those are Hispanic.

I said, fine, but it was also a good idea if people other than Hispanics also got busy and had more babies. Those people would include both blacks and whites. I suppose Asians, too. I said you can't expect Hispanics to do all the work when it comes to supplying our country with babies.

Well, you would have thought I put on a sheet and a pointed cap and started riding around at night carrying torches. People called me a racist. And for what? For simply saying that we ought to be having more babies in this country, and that while Hispanics were doing their part, others should be doing more.

If you look at the demographic trends, as I have, you could conclude, as I have, that 50 years from now, Europe will be brown and Muslim, and America will be brown and Christian. I am fine with that, America, and I've said so many times. I'd rather live with the Christians here than live in -- under Sharia law in Europe. Of course, I won't be alive anyway, but I hope you get the point.

The overall point here today is to say people are wrong if they say I am urging white people to have more babies because I'm afraid of more brown people and I'm a racist. Couldn't be farther from the truth. Not that the truth matters when people want to lie about you for their own personal and vicious motives, which seems to happen a lot lately. That's "My Word."

Well ok then. That clears that up. People need to stop lying about him for their own personal and vicious motives. He was just worried about the muslims invading and forcing sharia law on the Mexicans --- as are we all. That should have been obvious to anyone.



transcript via media matters



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digby 5/18/2006 08:53:00 AM |

 
There Goes The Neighborhood

by digby


I wrote yesterday about why the Democrats should not fear running on congressional oversight and wondered why the press is so anxious to avoid the fat, juicy stories that might come from these investigations. I'm glad to see that John Conyers, the investigative black boogeyman who has Joe Klein and the Republicans on the verge of tears, has explained why it's important for the congress to oversee the executive. Now let's see how the press reacts.

My guess is that they are going to be obsessed with this:

"At the end of the process, if -- and only if -- the select committee, acting on a bipartisan basis, finds evidence of potentially impeachable offenses, it would forward that information to the Judiciary Committee."

I also suspect they are going to ask every Democrat (accompanied by much wailing and rending of garments) if he or she will "back" Conyers' call to forward information about impeachable offenses to the Judiciary Committee. They are quite concerned, I believe, about whether a Democratic congress is going to behave properly. Certainly, the voice of beltway intellectual torpor, Joe Klein, is concerned that dark hued Democratic members have a problem with proper decorum. (We all saw that horrible, horrible funeral for Coretta Scott King.) You can understand why the press is nervous. They would hate to see the congress suffer the indignities of a circus-like atmosophere.

Certain people coming back into power in their town and "trashing the place" has them nervous. After all, it's not their place.



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digby 5/18/2006 08:25:00 AM |

Wednesday, May 17, 2006

 
Morally Awake

by digby


Ok, who put the LSD in the DC water system? George Will is making sense. And he even (almost) accurately describes Democratic party values in a way that doesn't make us sound like a bunch of ninnies:

Conservatives should be wary of the idea that when they talk about, say, tax cuts and limited government -- about things other than abortion, gay marriage, religion in the public square and similar issues -- they are engaging in values-free discourse. And by ratifying the social conservatives' monopoly of the label "values voters," the media are furthering the fiction that these voters are somehow more morally awake than others.

Today's liberal agenda includes preservation, even expansion, of the welfare state in its current configuration in order to strengthen an egalitarian ethic of common provision. Liberals favor taxes and other measures to produce a more equal distribution of income. They may value equality indiscriminately, but they vote their values.

Among the various flavors of conservatism, there is libertarianism that is wary of government attempts to nurture morality and there is social conservatism that says unless government nurtures morality, liberty will perish. Both kinds of conservatives use their votes to advance what they value.

I would also argue that libertarians who are wary of government attempts to nurture morality can just as easily be Democrats --- and I don't think that Democrats value equality indiscriminately. But other than that, he's being rather bracingly ... fair. And it confuses me. Again, do you think it's something in the water or are we looking at a Starbucks conspiracy here?



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digby 5/17/2006 11:16:00 PM |

 
Heckuva Job, Mikey

by digby

NSA killed system that sifted phone data legally

Sources say project was shelved in part because of bureaucratic infighting


By Siobhan Gorman
Sun Reporter

May 17, 2006, 10:27 PM EDT

The National Security Agency developed a pilot program in the late 1990s that would have enabled it to gather and analyze massive amounts of communications data without running afoul of privacy laws. But after the Sept. 11 attacks, it shelved the project -- not because it failed to work -- but because of bureaucratic infighting and a sudden White House expansion of the agency's surveillance powers, according to several intelligence officials.

The agency opted instead to adopt only one component of the program, which produced a far less capable and rigorous program. It remains the backbone of the NSA's warrantless surveillance efforts, tracking domestic and overseas communications from a vast databank of information, and monitoring selected calls.

[...]

n what intelligence experts describe as rigorous testing of ThinThread in 1998, the project succeeded at each task with high marks. For example, its ability to sort through massive amounts of data to find threat-related communications far surpassed the existing system, sources said. It also was able to rapidly separate and encrypt U.S.-related communications to ensure privacy.

But the NSA, then headed by Air Force Gen. Michael V. Hayden, opted against both of those tools, as well as the feature that monitored potential abuse of the records. Only the data analysis facet of the program survived and became the basis for the warrantless surveillance program.

The decision, which one official attributed to "turf protection and empire building," has undermined the agency's ability to zero in on potential threats, sources say. In the wake of revelations about the agency's wide gathering of U.S. phone records, they add, ThinThread could have provided a simple solution to privacy concerns.

A number of independent studies, including a classified 2004 report from the Pentagon's inspector-general, in addition to the successful pilot tests, found that the program provided "superior processing, filtering and protection of U.S. citizens, and discovery of important and previously unknown targets," said an intelligence official familiar with the program who described the reports to The Sun. The Pentagon report concluded that ThinThread's ability to sort through data in 2001 was far superior to that of another NSA system in place in 2004, and that the program should be launched and enhanced.

Is it possible that these people are actually working for Al Qaeda? It's almost impossible for anyone to fuck things up this consistently without consciously trying.

WTF????


BTW: I don't know if everyone has noticed, but this reporter Siobhan Gorman has been doing excellent work on this NSA story for the Baltimore Sun. Some kudos accolades are in order.



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digby 5/17/2006 11:02:00 PM |

 
Just War

by digby

So, Don Rumsfeld admits that the pentagon is still weighing whether they need to treat "unlawful combatants" humanely or whether our military can be depraved barbarians and make them walk around on all fours and bark like dogs after sitting in their own vomit, excrement and feces for hours on end. It appears to be quite a dilemma for some people. Evidently, the idea of universal human rights, much less the idea that some "combatants" don't deserve fewer human rights just because they don't wear a uniform, are much too limiting.

And now this:

Pentagon probe into the death of Iraqi civilians last November in the Iraqi city of Haditha will show that U.S. Marines "killed innocent civilians in cold blood," a U.S. lawmaker said Wednesday.

From the beginning, Iraqis in the town of Haditha said U.S. Marines deliberately killed 15 unarmed Iraqi civilians, including seven women and three children.

One young Iraqi girl said the Marines killed six members of her family, including her parents. “The Americans came into the room where my father was praying,” she said, “and shot him.”

On Wednesday, Rep. John Murtha, D-Pa., said the accounts are true.

Military officials told NBC News that the Marine Corps' own evidence appears to show Murtha is right.

A videotape taken by an Iraqi showed the aftermath of the alleged attack: a blood-smeared bedroom floor and bits of what appear to be human flesh and bullet holes on the walls.

The video, obtained by Time magazine, was broadcast a day after town residents told The Associated Press that American troops entered homes on Nov. 19 and shot dead 15 members of two families, including a 3-year-old girl, after a roadside bomb killed a U.S. Marine.

On Nov. 20, U.S. Marines spokesman Capt. Jeffrey Pool issued a statement saying that on the previous day a roadside bomb had killed 15 civilians and a Marine. In a later gunbattle, U.S. and Iraqi troops killed eight insurgents, he said.

U.S. military officials later confirmed that the version of events was wrong.

Murtha, a vocal opponent of the war in Iraq, said at a news conference Wednesday that sources within the military have told him that an internal investigation will show that "there was no firefight, there was no IED (improvised explosive device) that killed these innocent people. Our troops overreacted because of the pressure on them, and they killed innocent civilians in cold blood."

Military officials say Marine Corp photos taken immediately after the incident show many of the victims were shot at close range, in the head and chest, execution-style. One photo shows a mother and young child bent over on the floor as if in prayer, shot dead, said the officials, who spoke to NBC News on condition of anonymity because the investigation hasn't been completed.

One military official says it appears the civilians were deliberately killed by the Marines, who were outraged at the death of their fellow Marine.

“This one is ugly," one official told NBC News.

Three Marine officers — commanders in Haditha — have been relieved of duty, and at least 12 Marines in all are under investigation for what would be the worst single incident involving the deliberate killing of civilians by U.S. military in Iraq.

This war was waged for inexplicable reasons and in the course of waging it, the administration has presented a split version of reality that troops have to try to sort out. Liberating the "Iraqi people" and fighting "the terrorists" all of whom look alike to these marines. I don't excuse them for one minute for emptying guns into three year olds out of anger at their mate being killed. There is no excuse. But when you have the civilian leadership of the military publicly pondering the relative humanity of various enemies, you can see where the troops might just get a little bit addled.

What a mess. What a horrible, horrible mess. This stuff is sickening and wrong when it happens in a war of self-defense. When it happens in a war for Karl Rove's majority or a war for Halliburton or a war for whatever the hell they started this one for, then it is a moral failure of epic proportions.



Update: John Amato has the video of john Murtha's statement on Haditha, here.

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digby 5/17/2006 06:56:00 PM |

 
The Evils Of Illegals

by digby


Paul Glastris has posted this Washington Monthly article from a year ago (that I'd read and then typically forgot where I'd read it and went crazy because I couldn't find it.) thank yooooo

This article points out that one of the big reasons for this new obsession with the evils of illegals is that the migration pattern has changed: many are settling in towns that never saw any latinos before. The culture shock is disturbing to people who aren't used to hearing Tejano music and seeing burrito stands crop up in their neighborhoods. And it's not just that they are settling in regions that are unfamiliar --- it's that they are settling in smaller towns which are by definition less cosmopolitan. This is new for them.

And, because all these things are happening in smaller towns in the south it is evoking certain anxieties and knee jerk reactions among some people --- and panic among business owners and others who are desperate to keep migrant workers in the labor pool or lose what they have. Culture meets economic necessity in places like Kentucky and it isn't an easy problem to solve. Read the article.

There is another angle to all this that is much more disturbing, however. Immigration has been a political football for as long as I can remember. This too shall pass, I think. But there is a dark force at work underneath all this that I mentioned the other day in the context of that startling post by Vox Day about the Nazi's terrific success at deportation. Glenn Greenwald sees this happening too and put it this way:

They're ... clearly tired of slogging through the political and ethnic complexities of Iraq. That country just doesn't lend itself to any morally clear good/evil dichotomies. There are no good cartoon villains to hate. Calls for increased "ferocity," less "sensitive" approaches ("bomb some more mosques!"), and less discriminate bombings can generate some temporary enthusiasm -- as it did for a day or so with Shelby Steele's column -- but Iraq is so muddled and ambiguous, and not all that emotionally satisfying. It's pretty depressing, actually, to think about how everything they said would happen there is not happening, and trying to figure out solutions, ways out, is just not very invigorating stuff for those who thrive on Hating and Warring Against Evil.

As a result, attention gets turned to immigration -- Mexican immigration specifically. It entails the opportunity to rail against "appeasement" (of Vincente Fox); to create the anti-terrorist/pro-terrorist dichotomy on which they thrive; and to demonize a clear, foreign enemy as threatening not just our economic prosperity but also our national security (the "Mexican invaders"). And if the weakened, ready-to-be-tossed aside failure, George Bush, is one of the spineless appeasers this time, so be it.

I see that people are beginning to make the national security/mexican invasion argument successfully, now, and that liberals are beginning to discuss explicitly what that means. It's a problem. And there's a very apt historical example as to why it's a problem. From Jesse Walker at Hit and Run:

It reminds me of one of Charles Alexander's explanations for the nativist and racist sentiment that surged following the first world war:

During the war the American people had been subjected to the first systematic, nationwide propaganda campaign in the history of the Republic. From both official and unofficial sources poured a torrent of material having the objective of teaching Americans to hate -- specifically to hate Germans but, more broadly, everything that did not conform to a formalized conception of "100 percent Americanism." In the fall of 1918, just as the indoctrination process was reaching its peak, as patriotic feeling was mounting to frenzy, the war came abruptly to an end. Americans who had stored up an enormous volume of superpatriotic zeal now no longer had an official enemy on whom to concentrate this fervor.

Walker observes that the war isn't over, so this may not be a perfect example, but I wonder if that's true. Isn't the "war" as constructed by the Bush administration over? World War IV seems to have shriveled overnight into a smallbore police action without a bang a whimper or even a muttered grunt. We've just spent the last four and a half years in a frenzy of nationalistic passion, going so far as to burn The Dixie Chicks in effigy and change the name of french fries in the congressional cafeteria (a direct homage to the World War I era change of the word saurkraut to "liberty cabbage.") Now it looks like we are settling down into an acceptance of the fact that we need to do everything we can to stop terrorist attacks, but if one happens the country will survive and life will go on. We have, after all, just proved that.

So where are the fevered 101st keyboarders and their yellow elephant buddies going to put all that frustrated, video game-fueled testosterone and hatred for "the enemy?" They're going to put it where it's easiest, where they can enjoy it and where they don't have to put their own miserable lives on the line: against illegal immigrants, including women and children.

It's pathetic, but predictable. When the government gins up martial madness, talking about "gittin' em dead or alive" it's hard to put it back in the bottle until the true believers just run out of steam. We aren't there yet. Somebody has to pay. The newest brownest foreigner in town will do.




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digby 5/17/2006 04:18:00 PM |

 
Investigative Journamalism

by digby



I realize that there is a growing contigent of readers who find me guilty of innumerable crimes of bad judgment and hyperbolic swamp fever. (I'm not sure why this is only now becoming a problem --- I've always been this way.) In any case, here I go again:

I simply cannot understand why there is even a debate among Democrats, much less a public debate, about whether or not they should openly call for investigations if they win office. I realize that the Republicans are mau-mauing the hell out of them on this --- and the press is hungrily eating it up --- but it still makes no sense to me.

First, on principle, the congress has a constitutional duty to do this. If Democrats want people to know that we stand for something, they need to start with the constitution. It is, regardless of the political challenge, their obligation as citizens and elected officials to provide oversight to any executive, much less an openly lawless one. Sorry, kids. You have no choice. I know it would be nice to pretend all this ugliness never happened, but it did. Precedents have been set, wars have been waged, lives have been lost, billions have been wasted, one of our great cities has been destroyed, our moral standing around the globe is nil and everybody knows it. The congress is mandated to oversee the executive and they have failed to do that for the past five years. If the Democrats continue in that failure, they are also guilty of shirking their constitutional duty. It's that simple.

Second, as a matter of long term political consideration there is the moral hazard of letting the Republicans skate again on what they've done. After three Republican administrations out of the last four were revealed to have ignored the will of the congress and operated imperial presidencies, I think it's pretty clear that they do not believe in a neutral system of checks and balances between the branches; they believe that Republican presidents have unfettered power to do whatever they wish and that Democratic presidents must submit to non-stop harrassment by the congress. This is not a matter of opinion. This is how they have behaved when they have had power, either executive, legislative or both. To let these actions go unexplored, undebated, unchallenged by the congress is to validate this premise. It will happen again --- and why shouldn't it? The Republicans know that the only thing they will suffer from doing this is a temporary loss of power (time for them to catch their breath and count their profits) until things improve and they can go back in and experiment, consolidate and plunder some more. This has been the pattern for the last 40 years. There has been no price to pay. The Republican party is not going to have a "come to Jesus" moment and recognize that they have been on the wrong track lo these many years and they need to clean up their act. This is how they do things and will continue to do things unless the country calls a halt. They cannot do that if they are not informed of the scope and meaning of these actions.

Now I realize that this is not an argument a politician can easily make in his stump speech. But it is a valid argument that Democrats should be making to themselves. And I mean making to themselves, not on the front pages of the New York Times using named surrogates to carry the message that top Democrats don't want to make publicly.

Third, as a matter of short term political consideration I simply do not agree that this is an electoral loser. The country is very upset with George W. Bush and the Republican congress. The wrong track number is at 70%. It's bizarre that politicians believe that the voters don't want investigations into what in the hell went wrong, just because the Republicans say they don't. By what strange mathematical equation can Democrats believe that when two thirds of the country thinks the nation is going off the rails and the same two thirds disapprove of the president that they don't want any accounting? That doesn't seem human to me.

Zachary Roth has written an interesting article in the latest Washington Monthly on the subject in which he concludes that the Democrats would be best served by holding bi-partisan investigations should they win in November. I don't disagree, if they can keep the Republicans on the straight and narrow. It's always more powerful to have both parties involved --- and it might just happen what with Bush being repudiated on the right for his kumbayaa liberalism and all. But I wouldn't trust them as far as I can throw them. One wonders if their cooperation is even possible considering their decision to run against the crazed lynch mob Democrats, but if Democrats could pull it off, it would be fine with me. I'm not holding my breath.

Roth himself points out that the Republicans did a nice job of innoculating against any investigations by bringing up the "partisan withchunt" boogeyman which they, of course, embodied in the 90's:

Since 1997, the House Government Reform committee has issued over 1000 subpoenas related to allegations of misconduct involving the Clinton administration or the Democratic party—compared to just 15 related to Bush administration or Republican abuses. The seemingly endless probes of the Clinton administration turned up little in the way of corruption, and stymied the Republican revolution: In the 1998 midterm elections, with the Lewinsky scandal in the news, Democrats picked up seats in Congress.

But those investigations left a residue of ill will that Republicans have cleverly turned to their own advantage. In a stunning display of chutzpah, GOP leaders are now exploiting voters' fears of endless partisan investigations—fears that they themselves created with their own behavior in the '90s—to caution with faux solemnity that Democrats, if given control of one or both houses of Congress, would impeach the president and plunge the nation into turmoil. In a recent fundraising email, RNC chairman Ken Mehlman warned that Democrats “will censure and impeach the President if they win back Congress.”

They've got big brass ones, you have to admit. They behaved like a slavering lynch mob for six solid years and now evoke that image against the party they lynched.

I'm not sure how this call for the smelling salts will play to the independents and Democrats who are watching this thing play out with jaws dropped to the floor, but there's one constituency who is eating it up:

The press corps has been quick to take the bait. “If Democrats win in the midterm elections in November, will the Democrats in Congress move to impeach this president?” Norah O'Donnell breathlessly asked DNC chair Howard Dean on MSNBC's “Hardball” in April. Dean's response suggests how deeply this line of attack has Democrats spooked: He hedged, assuring O'Donnell that impeachment “is going to come pretty low on the list,” and quickly pivoted to talk about jobs and port security. And Dean is the Democrats' attack dog! Other party leaders want even less to do with the question, for fear of giving the Republicans ammunition to argue that a Democratic House would mean endless partisan rancor.

Let's first deal with Chairman Dean whom I greatly admire and usually find refreshingly candid in these situations. WTF? I can understand him punting a bit on the impeachment question, but why not use that opportunity to make a case for congressional oversight? Democrats need to focus on those things that are emblematic of the administration's failure and incorporate the need for investigations of them into their platform, not try to pivot away from the issue and look frightened of the prospect. Running from a direct question like that is transparent to any viewer; politicians fool nobody with a "change of subject" on such a loaded question. Frankly, it feeds directly into the widely held impression that "they all do it." By hedging on the question of accountability, Dems are perceived as either weak or corrupt themselves. Big mistake.

But what can we say about the press? It's nuts that they are so eager to sound the GOP alarm about Democrats going off the deep end with investigations. Why in the world wouldn't any journalist's juices be flowing profusely at the idea of somebody cracking the vault after all these years?

I find this very interesting in light of the fact that they eagerly swallowed every tid-bit of evidence that Dan Burton and Al D'Amato and Ken Starr dribbled down their willing throats. It really makes you wonder, doesn't it? We all try to figure out what motivates the political media and we usually figure it has something to do with kissing up to power or social pressure or careerism. But this breathless recitation of the GOP's primary talking point for the upcoming election, using it as a cudgel in questions put to Democrats as if they are suggesting legalizing pedophilia or putting Republicans in stocks for double parking, cannot be explained by any of these things.

They seem to agree, as John Dickerson did recently in Slate that Democrats are making a big mistake if they promise investigations, even going so far as to use the 1994 takeover as an example of a party taking the high road. (Media Matters ably dispensed with that silly misreading of history.)

Perhaps the press have not yet internalized the implosion of the GOP establishment. Maybe they can't remember a world in which Republicans do not have the upper hand. It doesn't matter. The fact that they are out there raising the "spectre" of investigations like it is even more dangerous than illegal wiretaps on their own phones is extremely revealing. If they ever had any journalistic instincts they've been bred out of them by 15 years of GOP establishment rule. The kindest thing one can say is that they don't know how to be real reporters anymore. I suspect that a fair number of them never wanted to be --- and quite a few more have an interest in maintaining the status quo. I'll leave it to you to speculate why that might be.



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digby 5/17/2006 12:57:00 PM |

Tuesday, May 16, 2006

 
The Crack-up Continues

by digby

A reader sent me this, which is evidently floating around in conservative circles:




Yes, even Don Rumsfeld and Dick Cheney are now liberals. But then, they can't be conservatives, can they? They are failures, after all.

Hate to toot my own horn, but I predicted this.




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digby 5/16/2006 04:33:00 PM |

 
Pull The Plug

by digby


The Hotline Blogometer reports:

THOUGHT OF THE DAY: A Blog Divided Against Itself...

If you thought immigration was dividing the GOP, just look what its doing to the righty blogosphere. The group-blog site Polipundit has been ripped asunder by the issue. Lorie Byrd at Byrd Droppings explains: "I received a lengthy email from Polipundit tonight alerting us to an editorial policy change that included the following: "From now on, every blogger at PoliPundit.com will either agree with me completely on the immigration issue, or not blog at PoliPundit.com." I would provide additional context, but Polipundit has asked that the contents of our emails not be disclosed publicly and I think that is a fair request. There has been plenty written in the posts over the past week alone to let readers figure out what happened. Polipundit ended a later email with this: "It's over. The group-blogging experiment was nice while it lasted, but we have different priorities now. It's time to go our own separate ways."

Polipundit responded: "So far, I've allowed the guest bloggers here to write pretty much what they pleased about all issues, including illegal immigration. But on the illegal immigration issue, I now find myself having to contend with at least three out of four guest bloggers who will reflexively try to poke holes in any argument I make."

I hate when that happens...


Update: The 101st Keyboarders think they have PTSD. I'm not kidding.



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digby 5/16/2006 12:36:00 PM |

 
She's Baaaack

by digby

... and she's right where she belongs. Judy Miller is writing op-eds for the Wall Street Journal. She's found her tribe.

(It's actually quite an interesting piece about Libya. Who knows if it's true, though?)



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digby 5/16/2006 11:55:00 AM |

 
Da Da Vinci Hype

by tristero

There's a a couple of interesting things in this shameless New Yorker puff piece for a Hollywood film that probably cost more to make and market than the 10 year income of all the residents of Darfur combined.* Let's start with a strange sin of omission.

Nowhere in this article does it mention the genuinely troubling ties between Opus Dei and the Scalia family or other American rightwing theocrats who have more influence in the American government than they should.

The other is a discussion of the mortification practices enjoyed...oh, I'm sorry, I meant employed... by Opus Dei members. Many of the Opus folks wear a barbed rope called a celice around one of their thighs for two hours a day, and also regularly beat themselves with a knotted rope.

This is true, ladies and gentlemen, they whip themselves, just like in that parody of a medieval procession in a Monty Python movie, except in Opus Dei, they do it for real. Dan Brown - who, by comparison, makes John Grisham look like the American Flaubert - doesn't have enough interest in his characters to come up with something like that.

Now if the thought that a justice of the Supreme Court in 2006 might be flagellating himself in the name of his religious belief** makes you not a little nauseous, then, well, I'll let the article explain it:

[Opus Dei member Father William Stetson] and others frequently point out that corporal mortification, which may seem a throwback to medieval mysticism, was not uncommon even among recent exemplars of spiritual piety. Mother Teresa of Calcutta wore a cilice and used the discipline, telling her Sisters, ‘‘If I am sick, I take five strokes. I must feel its need in order to share in the Passion of Christ and the sufferings of our poor.”

Y'see? If Mother Teresa did it, then it's perfectly ok.


---

*But looked at another way, the film certainly cost less than 24 hours of shocknawe in Iraq, so we can think of Da Vinci Code as mere bargain basement entertainment by Bush's standards.

**Surely someone in comments will describe the rationales behind the medieval practice of mortifications of the flesh, writing in a dispassionate voice that implicitly urges tolerance for religious practices that seem fucking sick to normal people living in the early 21st Century - and in the most technologically advanced society on the planet to boot. In response, I'd like to point to my dear friend, Ms. Joan of Arc, born 1412, who to the best of my knowledge never beat herself, and had a taste, if not a flair, for clothes that were both practical and very fashionable. She wouldn't be caught dead in anything like a celice. She'd experienced enough real pain from her war wounds not to go out and seek it.

Finally, longtime readers of mine know that Joan speaks to me as directly as God speaks to the Wondrous Fisherman of Crawford. Therefore, I can personally assure you St. Joan of Arc thinks torturing yourself to get close to God is just about the stupidest thing anyone could do.

[UPDATE: Hat tip to commenter yam for the link to the celice jpg.]
tristero 5/16/2006 07:15:00 AM |

 
Special Republican Edition iPod

by tristero


Now you can get your own Special Republican Edition iPod Video. I'm serious. It's sort of like a U2 iPod but different. You get Bush instead of Bono and The Edge. Apparently you can't buy it, you have to earn it but it comes with all sorts of very cool stuff including:

The full-length, deeply inspiring music video by former Attorney General John Ashcroft, When the Eagle Soars plus an EXCLUSIVE behind the scenes Making of "When The Eagle Soars" documentary!

Special firewall software that makes it impossible to download any video with St*ph*n C*lb*rt.

La Bamba - Entirely in English!

Automatically contacts the NSA to record all downloads and makes sure you're not enjoying something you're not supposed to.

A sneak preview of an edgy new hip hop mix, Mis-Mis-Missionary Position ("It's Republican Tradition/It's our Lyin' Disposition/And It Ain't No Imposition") served up by The Hymen Bruthaz.

The long version of the smash hit single Wearin' Yer Underwear To War by the 101st Fighting Keyboarders.

An enclosed coupon with a special offer to purchase a beautifully boxed set of every Lawrence Welk episode ever broadcast plus a hilarious bonus bloopers DVD - folks, it just doesn't get better than this, trust me.

The Singing Dogs perform My Boyfriend's Back - produced by hipper-than-you-could-ever-be blogger Jeff Goldstein.

Excerpts from President George W. Bush's upcoming book, Mission Truly Accomplished: How I Caught A 7 1/2 Pound Bass In My Own Lake On My Summer Vacation in a special "pondcast" -get it? It's called a "pun!"- narrated by the president Himself.
tristero 5/16/2006 01:47:00 AM |

Monday, May 15, 2006

 
Ain't Misbehavin'

by digby


In our regular Joe Klein is an idiot report, please find Joe decrying Karl Rove's plan to use racism to win the election in the fall by highlighting the potential horror of negroes with subpeona power --- and then decrying the horror of negroes with subpoena power.

In fairness, Klein argues that Democrats should not have have allowed these chairmen to be chairmen because they are tainted by being too hot-headed and indiscrete and well ... inappropriate. They are more of those horrible 60's liberals, who "cry" victimization and racism at the drop of a hat.

Why oh why can't all these blacks be more like that nice Condi Rice who is so ladylike and listens to classical music and knows how to act at a funeral??? Until Democrats can find some of those, they really need to put these bad negroes on the back bench and get some good, solid white centrists to chair committees. Otherwise, we could end up with those horrible '60s liberal African Americans like Barbara Jordan making speeches like this:

Mr. Chairman, I join my colleague Mr. Rangel in thanking you for giving the junior members of this committee the glorious opportunity of sharing the pain of this inquiry. Mr. Chairman, you are a strong man, and it has not been easy but we have tried as best we can to give you as much assistance as possible.

Earlier today, we heard the beginning of the Preamble to the Constitution of the United States: "We, the people." It's a very eloquent beginning. But when that document was completed on the seventeenth of September in 1787, I was not included in that "We, the people." I felt somehow for many years that George Washington and Alexander Hamilton just left me out by mistake. But through the process of amendment, interpretation, and court decision, I have finally been included in "We, the people."

Today I am an inquisitor. An hyperbole would not be fictional and would not overstate the solemnness that I feel right now. My faith in the Constitution is whole; it is complete; it is total. And I am not going to sit here and be an idle spectator to the diminution, the subversion, the destruction, of the Constitution.

[...]

"If the impeachment provision in the Constitution of the United States will not reach the offenses charged here, then perhaps that 18th century Constitution should be abandoned to a 20th century paper shredder."

Whine, whine, whine. Notice that she mentions her colleague Mr Rangel, one of the uppity blacks Klein worries will become chairman of the House Ways and Means Committee and hold hearings and "shoot his mouth off." It's been more than 30 years and Klein is worried that now powerful black politicians are going to misbehave in public. What do you call that kind of thinking?



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digby 5/15/2006 03:19:00 PM |

 
Final Solution

by digby

Dear God. Crooks and Liars caught the World Net Daily making explicit arguments that the US should use the example of Nazi Germany to expel illegal immigrants:

Not only will it work, but one can easily estimate how long it would take. If it took the Germans less than four years to rid themselves of 6 million Jews, many of whom spoke German and were fully integrated into German society, it couldn't possibly take more than eight years to deport 12 million illegal aliens, many of whom don't speak English and are not integrated into American society.

"Rid themsleves" is an interesting way of putting it, don't you think? I'm not surprised at this. They are working themselves into a complete frenzy on the right over immigration. (Lou Dobbs is so excited about this speech he is frothing at the mouth and almost incoherent.)

These same people, not a year ago were obsessed with terrorism. I guess the thrill of screaming about the Islamofascists wore off. Now they want to follow lead of the Germano-fascists to "rid themselves" of the mexican vermin. It's all part of the same great racist roar.

Glenn Greenwald notes the rising hysteria of the rightwing; some are now calling for Bush's impeachment over this issue:

I think a lot of the Malkin types have become bored with the whole "War on Terror" business, which provided them good, strong emotional sustenance for the last four years. But September 11 is now almost five years away. There have been no good "battles" for a long time; we don't even pretend to capture or kill any high-ranking Al Qaeda members any more; and while invocations of "war" will always be good for some blood-rushing excitement, the whole thing seems so distant and abstract at this point. It's just not enough any more.

They're also clearly tired of slogging through the political and ethnic complexities of Iraq. That country just doesn't lend itself to any morally clear good/evil dichotomies. There are no good cartoon villains to hate. Calls for increased "ferocity," less "sensitive" approaches ("bomb some more mosques!"), and less discriminate bombings can generate some temporary enthusiasm -- as it did for a day or so with Shelby Steele's column -- but Iraq is so muddled and ambiguous, and not all that emotionally satisfying. It's pretty depressing, actually, to think about how everything they said would happen there is not happening, and trying to figure out solutions, ways out, is just not very invigorating stuff for those who thrive on Hating and Warring Against Evil.

As a result, attention gets turned to immigration -- Mexican immigration specifically. It entails the opportunity to rail against "appeasement" (of Vincente Fox); to create the anti-terrorist/pro-terrorist dichotomy on which they thrive; and to demonize a clear, foreign enemy as threatening not just our economic prosperity but also our national security (the "Mexican invaders"). And if the weakened, ready-to-be-tossed aside failure, George Bush, is one of the spineless appeasers this time, so be it.

Karl Rove today took a decidely different tack as he explained the administration's position:

"I don't care if you're hunting deer in February or mowing the roads in the middle of the pasture in August, you'll find somebody carrying a plastic jug and a plastic bag in the middle of the cold winter or the very hot summer, trying desperately to get north in order to earn money to put food on the table for their families. We've got to deal with that reality," he said.

"And you also have to deal with the reality that we've got a border that is so porous and so insecure that who knows whether that is simply an illegal immigrant looking for getting a job in a landscaping company or throwing tar, or whether it's somebody who wants to do something worse? So we need to get a better control on our borders. The only way to do this is through a comprehensive program," he said.

As Greenwald shows, this is a huge issue for the base of the GOP. They are use it as their excuse to toss Bush overboard. Why would Karl Rove get all squishy about the mexican invaders?

Because he can count. Immigration may get his base out in the fall, and the issue may make this a closer election than we'd like. But history shows these immigration fevers come and go. Losing any hope of the hispanic vote with a bunch of Nazi talk about "ridding the country of its problems" is the end of the whole enchilada. The Republicans cannot be a majority is they lose the hispanics. Rove knows this better than anyone --- and it's got him dancing on the head of a pin unable to please anyone.

That is one atomic wedgie he's feeling right now. But hey, when he and his pals decided to exploit racial fears way back when, they consolidated a bunch of people under their tent who have a proclivity for unpleasant behavior toward those of other cultures and races. They are demanding that their party kick some dark hued ass, preferably close enough to home where they can really enjoy it.

For those of you looking for some sane talk on immigration, check out the New Democrat Network's Responsible Immigration Policy website. I don't agree on every point, but overall is it a thoughtfuld, reasoned approach. These guys have turned to the hispanic leadership in the party for input and it shows --- and they are engaging in massive outreach to the hispanic communities all over the country to explain the difference between the two parties on this issue. Karl Rove, representing the party of wealth, intolerance and racism, is simply not credible when he talks about having sympathy for the plight of people who just want to put food on the table. Democrats do.

Update: I've been meaning to blog about this for ages, and keep forgetting. Chris Hayes has written a most fascinating piece about the origins of the latest anti-immigration "movement." There is much in it that will surprise you, particularly the fact that it was started by a liberal environmentalist who thinks that Mexican immigrants are akin to an alien species invading an eco-system. I cannot tell you how much this guy creeped me out. He and that World Nut Daily Nazi have a lot in common.



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digby 5/15/2006 02:09:00 PM |

 
The Enemy Within

by digby


Following up on my post below featuring Rick Perlstein's Nixonland, I see that Josh Marshall made a similar argument, without the historical context, today also:

I think part of the issue for many people on the administration's various forms of surveillance is not just that some of activities seem to be illegal or unconstitutional on their face. I think many people are probably willing to be open-minded, for better or worse, on pushing the constitutional envelope. But given the people in charge of the executive branch today, you just can't have any confidence that these tools will be restricted to targeting terrorists. Start grabbing up phone records to data-mine for terrorists and then the tools are just too tempting for your leak investigations. Once you do that, why not just keep an eye on your critics too? After all, they're the ones most likely to get the leaks, right? So, same difference. The folks around the president don't recognize any real distinctions among those they consider enemies. So we'd be foolish to think they wouldn't bring these tools to bear on all of them. Once you set aside the law as your guide for action and view the president's will as a source of legitimacy in itself, then everything becomes possible and justifiable.

The key here, I think, is to recognize that they will say that monitoring the communications of the press or political opponents is for the sake of national security. This is what comes of seeing your fellow Americans and political opponents as "enemies" to be eliminated. There is no logical or emotional leap to make between spying on terrorists in Dubai and spying on war protesters in Dubuque and spying on reporters in DC. It's the natural result of this manichean mindset that openly touts a "with us or against us" philosophy and sees political dissent as acts of treason.

Conservatives have been selling the idea of "the enemy within" for many decades. It's what they do. Richard Nixon and Henry Kissinger, as amply demonstrated in the excerpt of Perlstein's book below, rationalized their spying on the press and dissenters as necessary to plug national security leaks. Likewise, the Bush administration will have no problem doing it either.

I personally wouldn't support giving Gandhi and Jesus Christ the unfettered power to spy on Americans. But allowing these people to do it is unfathomable.


Update: Greg Sargent from TAPPED has a new blog called The Horse's Mouth. He takes us down another trip through time, reminding us that Republicans have been trashing the press for generations.

(All this reminiscing about my youth is making me yearn for a bottle of Boones Farm Apple wine and a fat joint with seeds popping in it.)



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digby 5/15/2006 12:46:00 PM |

 
Same As It Ever Was

by digby


In light of today's predictable revelations that the administration is spying on the press, Rick Perlstein has given me permission to publish an excerpt from his forthcoming book "Nixonland".

The trust in President Nixon might have been shaken somewhat on Day 101, when the ranking Republican on the Senate Foreign Relations Committee repeated something he first said in October of 1966: time to declare victory and go home. "Common sense should tell us that we have now accomplished our purpose as far as South Vietnam is concerned," Vermont's George Aiken proclaimed. It was time for an "orderly withdrawal." It might have been shaken more on May 9, when after six straight days with nothing on the front page of the New York Times about the fighting in Vietnam, a tiny item in the bottom right corner obscured by a feature on Governor Rockefeller's collection of primitive art revealed that bombing was taking place in Cambodia.

In a May 14 [1969] TV speech from the White House the president announced, "The time is approaching when the South Vietnamese will be able to take over some of the fighting fronts now being manned by Americans." Columnists vied with each other to predict the draw-down numbers: 50,000, 100,000, even 200,000. He also offered simultaneous mutual withdrawal of U.S. and North Vietnamese forces (He counted on short memories, having charged of LBJ's non-simultaneous withdrawal proposal in 1966, "Communist victory would most certainly be the result of 'mutual withdrawal.'") It came the week Gallup made phone calls for its polls released June 1. That poll gave him an approval rating of 65 percent. Maybe, a nonplussed public concluded, if any had noticed the Time's dispatch, Cambodian bombing was what it took to bring the horses into the barn.

Henry Kissinger was not nonplussed. On the morning of the 9th, a Germanic screech rang out from the porch of the Key Biscayne Hotel:

"Outrageous! Outrageous.... We must crush these people! We must destroy them!"

He referred to the Secretaries of Defense and State, whose offices he suspected had leaked the existence of Operation Menu to the New York Times. He rang up Melvin Laird, pulling him off the golf course at Burning Tree Country Club: "You son of a bitch!" (Laird hung up.) Or maybe it had come from the NSC office in the basement of the White House. "If anybody leaks anything, I will do the leaking," he had told his people at one of their first meetings. The thought of a runaway staff was enraging -- not just for diplomatic reasons but for what it suggested to the security-besotted bulldogs around Nixon about an NSC top-heavy with Harvard grads and Kennedy vets.

Kissinger's rage had been building at leaks since an early April New York Times piece appeared anticipating troop pullouts. It flared in May, when the Times' Pentagon correspondent reported modifications in nuclear strategy being considered by the Pentagon, then of administration deliberations over the North Korean spy plane shoot-down.

The Cambodia article wasn't even damning. It was flattering. The point of "Raids in Cambodia by U.S. Unprotested" was how nicely the Cambodian government was cooperating with the U.S. military. It concluded that "there is no Administration interest at this time in extending the ground war into Cambodia or Laos." It might not have even been based on leaks: a London reporter had made aerial photographs of bomb craters close enough to the border to raise suspicions, and the Times' enterprising reporter had gone to check things out.

That wasn't the point. The point was that they feared the White House's secrets were being betrayed.

Kissinger called J. Edgar Hoover and told him it was time to move forward on a project they had discussed: wiretaps of the homes and offices of NSC staffers Morton Halperin, Daniel Davidson, and Helmut Sonnefeldt; of Melvin Laird; and of Secretary Laird's senior military assistant. Thus did the FBI learn about things like Mrs. Halperin's concern for the surgery of a relative in New York, and the three Halperin boys' favorite playmates--and that when reporters asked Mr. Halperin to leak Kissinger statements, he steadfastly refused. The tap on Mel Laird was more productive: Kissinger drew a bead on the activities of a hated bureacratic rival. What he didn't find was any leakers. So the program was extended, on May 20, with wiretaps on two more NSC staffers.

A reporter was next. This time, however, it wasn't Kissinger working through the legal channel of the FBI. It was the President, tapping one of Henry Kissinger's friends, in a way that Henry Kissinger couldn't find out. John Ehrlichman knew just the guy: he got John Caulfield, a new addition to the White House staff, a former detective of New York's version of the Red Squad who had known Nixon since he'd protected him on the campaign trail in 1960. Caulfield called a friend, who'd worked sweeping Nixon's hotels for bugs during the 1968 campaign. They cased the target's Georgetown townhouse and told Ehrlichman the job would be very, very difficult. Ehrlichman insisted they go forward, because national security was at stake. So they scrounged up some phone company credentials and shimmied up a pole to affix a bug to the writer's phone wire.

He was Joseph Kraft, the same journalist who'd lectured his fellow media professionals to stop coddling liberals. Nixon was tapping Kissinger's favorite journalist friend to keep tabs on the aide who was supposedly closest to him. Which was only fair. Kissinger was working towards opening an entirely separate channel to glean the secrets Nixon might keep from him.

I hesitate to even comment on this; the implications are so painfully obvious. As time goes on, it has become clear that this administration has in essence been nothing more than a GOP mulligan. Nixon: Part Deux.

The claims that these encroachments on civil liberties are benign are disproven by the actions of another Republican administration within my own lifetime. Many of the architects of today's imperial presidency learned politics and policy in the Nixon era. It's almost unbelievable that it could play out like this again, in virtually the same way, but it has, even the infighting. It's a recurring Republican nightmare. They are asking us to ignore history, specifically their own history, and just "trust them." Why would this country ever be so foolish?

And once again, the establishment press gets hoist with its own petard.



Perlstein's "Nixonland" will be released in a few months. about a year. He'll be taking questions at the second Firedoglake book salon meeting about his Goldwater book, "Before The Storm" next Sunday.



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digby 5/15/2006 10:47:00 AM |

 
Aborting The Prescription

by digby

Every time a woman comes into a gynecologist’s office, ACOG wants the doctor to offer her advance prescriptions of the morning after pill. But it is apparently not enough to simply make the offer; indeed, some women are reporting that their gynecologists are insisting that they take the prescription—even if they say repeatedly that they don’t want it. The doctors urge them, "it’s good for a year!" This kind of scenario makes a mockery out of the phrase "pro-choice." In a situation like this, how can anyone not conclude that "pro-choice" is really "pro-abortion?"

Don't get me started. Just go read TBOGG. He'll tell you all about it.



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digby 5/15/2006 09:40:00 AM |

 
The Christianists Betrayed

by tristero

Looks like the rightwing operatives who hide behind the skirts of priests are so pissed they are threatening to tell their followers not to vote for Republicans this fall. Good.

I think it's important, however, to make a distinction that Dave Neiwert made when Judge Roy Moore - he who blasphemed the Ten Commandments by turning them into a textbook example of idolatry - was thinking of running for president and many of us including yours truly were cynically and wrongly cheering him on.

It's one thing to encourage the Republican party to tell the christianists to crawl back underneath whatever rocks they hale from. The sooner the Dobsons of the world are politcally marginal in the US, the better. It's quite another, in an effort to defeat Republicans, to root for a splintering of the GOP into two groups such that the christianists establish a seriously powerful second national party* in opposition to Republicans.

As the past five plus years have shown, the last thing this country needs is a wealthy politcal party hellbent on inflicting its nutty theocratic agenda on the rest of us. Divested of the (admittedly weak) secular anchor of the rest of the GOP, these people could wreck this country even faster than you could say George W. Bush.

So if the christianists are to break away and establish a National Christianist Party - let's call it the NaXi Party - it should be accompanied by strenuous efforts to exacerbate their tendency to fight amongst themelves, thereby making it impossible for them to cohere around a national agenda. This is not as far-fetched as it sounds at first glance, what with their alarming goose-stepping solidarity in opposing marriage rights and adequate healthcare for the poor. There are major differences between Catholic christianists and Protestant ones and they can be exploited. And there are other ways to weaken them politically. Let's not forget that evangelicals had a long tradition of focusing on their own salvation and avoiding national political organizing, as they did in the decades immediately post-Scopes. This, too, can be used to limit their effectiveness (yes, I know it's a lot more complicated than that, but Christianity is supposed to be a religion, for crissakes, not a political movement, and it's time evangelical leaders looked at the log in their own eye).

So, yes, Republicans should boot the Bible-thumpers out of positions of serious influence in their party. But no, the christianists should not be encouraged to form a NaXi Party as that could rapidly lead to Very Bad Things which all of us, especially liberals, would come to regret. And let's not make the mistake many liberals (and mainstream conservatives, too) made in the 70's and 80's. The christianists represent a very, very dangerous element in American culture; they should not be ignored, dismissed, underestimated, or in any way encouraged.


*For many years, the Democrats have failed to demonstrate they are serious about being a national politcal party. Although Dean's work as Chairman is encouraging, and more so the more I hear of what he's doing, the jury is still out as to whether other influential Democrats actually will permit him build a viable party, ie, one capable of winning and retaining either house of Congress, not to mention the presidency.
tristero 5/15/2006 05:37:00 AM |

Sunday, May 14, 2006

 
Hear The Hum

by digby

Nobody senses the zeitgeist like Atrios. If he says he hears it, believe it. Stay tuned.




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digby 5/14/2006 05:42:00 PM |

 
60's'60s Trip

by digby

Some of us are gathering over at Jane's place at 2pm (5 ,est eDt) to discuss Rick Perlstein's classic book "Before the Storm" about the Goldwater campaign. It has much to teach us now...

Come on by.






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digby 5/14/2006 01:34:00 PM |

 
"A Red-Ass In A Hurry"

by tristero

Dave Neiwert succinctly discusses Bush's character now that the blinders have been removed from the American public. David also links to this important, famous Gail Sheehy article in Vanity Fair from October, 2000 which, sadly, the country has learned far too late, is all-too-accurate. It's worth reading again 5 1/2 years later::

Once, after his mother banished him from the golf course, she turned to Hannah and declared, "That boy is going to have optical rectosis." What did that mean? "She said, ‘A shitty outlook on life.'"

Even if he loses, his friends say, he doesn't lose. He'll just change the score, or change the rules, or make his opponent play until he can beat him. "If you were playing basketball and you were playing to 11 and he was down, you went to 15," says Hannah, now a Dallas insurance executive. "If he wasn't winning, he would quit. He would just walk off.... It's what we called Bush Effort: If I don't like the game, I take my ball and go home. Very few people can get away with that." So why could George get away with it? "He was just too easygoing and too pleasant."

Another fast friend, Roland Betts, acknowledges that it is the same in tennis. In November 1992, Bush and Betts were in Santa Fe to host a dinner party, but they had just enough time for one set of doubles. The former Yale classmates were on opposite sides of the net. "There was only one problem—my side won the first set," recalls Betts. "O.K., then we're going two out of three," Bush decreed. Bush's side takes the next set. But Betts's side is winning the third set when it starts to snow. Hard, fat flakes. The catering truck pulls up. But Bush won't let anybody quit. "He's pissed. George runs his mouth constantly," says Betts indulgently. "He's making fun of your last shot, mocking you, needling you, goading you—he never shuts up!" They continued to play tennis through a driving snowstorm.

It is something of an in-joke with Bush's friends and family. "In reality we all know who won, but George wants to go further to see what happens," says an old family friend, venture capitalist and former MGM chairman Louis "Bo" Polk Jr. "George would say, ‘Play that one over,' or ‘I wasn't quite ready.' The overtimes are what's fun, so you make your own. When you go that extra mile or that extra point ... you go to a whole new level."

Yessirree, that's Bush, alright. And for those folks who think this is merely the Cheney administration with a total puppet for president, please recall the fall of 2000 and the numerous congressional battles, and the total ignoring of any and all laws. Then re-read the above. That's Bush's personality at work, my friends. Yes, it's Cheney too, but don't misunderestimate Bush's influence.

And then there's this, which gives us a sense of the seriousness with which the man takes his job. For in fact, as Bush sees it the presidency is just a necessary evil on the journey to his true destiny:

"He wanted to be Kenesaw Mountain Landis," America's first baseball commissioner, legendary for his power and dictatorial style. "I would have guessed that when George grew up he would be the commissioner of baseball," says Hannah. "I am still convinced that that is his goal."

One assumes that this close pal of the Republican presidential candidate is speaking with tongue in cheek. But no. "Running for president is a résumé-enhancer for being the commissioner of baseball," he insists. "And it's a whole lot better job."

Truer words have never been written about the character of George W. Bush. No wonder that memo in August 6, 2001 didn't make an impression. And then:

He proudly rejects introspection and has no interest in looking back over the "youthful indiscretions" that characterized his first 44 years. In interviews Bush repeatedly says, "I'm not one of those people who say, ‘Gosh, if I'd have done it differently, I'd have ... '" He pauses for a few seconds to contemplate his life, then confidently concludes, "I can't think of anything I'd do differently."

Man, that's so painful to read now, because we know that in a few years he will stand in front of the nation, having launched a useless war, having ignored intelligence of an imminent bin Laden attack, and be totally stumped when asked to name a single mistake he had made.

Be sure to read the entire Sheehy article if you haven't already.The article's long, but the ending will give you tremendous insight into Bush's plans to tackle the related problems of air pollution and global climate change.
tristero 5/14/2006 07:33:00 AM |

Saturday, May 13, 2006

 
Address All Future Correspondence To: "Frank Rich, Guantanamo Bay, Cuba"

by tristero

Looks like Mr. Rich may be the next candidate for an extended Carribean holiday at government expense:

It's the recklessness at the top of our government, not the press's exposure of it, that has truly aided the enemy, put American lives at risk and potentially sabotaged national security. That's where the buck stops, and if there's to be a witch hunt for traitors, that's where it should begin.

...


It's often those who make the accusations we should be most worried about. Mr. Goss, a particularly vivid example, should not escape into retirement unexamined. He was so inept that an overzealous witch hunter might mistake him for a Qaeda double agent.

...

It was under General Hayden, a self-styled electronic surveillance whiz, that the N.S.A. intercepted actual Qaeda messages on Sept. 10, 2001 — "Tomorrow is zero hour" for one — and failed to translate them until Sept. 12. That same fateful summer, General Hayden's N.S.A. also failed to recognize that "some of the terrorists had set up shop literally under its nose," as the national-security authority James Bamford wrote in The Washington Post in 2002. The Qaeda cell that hijacked American Flight 77 and plowed into the Pentagon was based in the same town, Laurel, Md., as the N.S.A., and "for months, the terrorists and the N.S.A. employees exercised in some of the same local health clubs and shopped in the same grocery stores."

If Democrats — and, for that matter, Republicans — let a president with a Nixonesque approval rating install yet another second-rate sycophant at yet another security agency, even one as diminished as the C.I.A., someone should charge those senators with treason, too.

Do I need to point out the obvious here to you folks? That Rich is accusing not only the people he directly names of incompetence so profound it looks like treason, but also the person who nominated them? I thought not.

About time.
tristero 5/13/2006 10:51:00 PM |

 
Leadership

by digby


Leading Democrats tell the New York Times that it would be better if the party doesn't win in the fall --- and if it has the sad misfortune to do so, it would be better off not holding any investigations into the Bush administration.

And if, somehow, the party does unfortunately win and "the loud left" insists that the party holds Bush responsible for his misdeeds against the wishes of these wise men, we already know Democrats will be like the Republicans in 1996 who lost seats because they shut down the government and like Republicans in 1998 because they impeached Bill Clinton. (Lord knows the Republicans have suffered in the wilderness ever since then.)

Besides, everything's a big old mess and you just know the Republicans are going to blame it all on us. Wouldn't it be better to let Bush stew in his juices until 2008? Of course, the country will still be in a mess then (undoubtedly worse than it is today even) and the loud left will be causing all sorts of trouble so maybe it would be just as well if they don't win then either.

In fact, the best thing to do would be to keep losing until everything is perfect so they don't have to do anything unpleasant and the loud and angry left will have nothing to scream about.

If anyone's wondering what the Democrats' master plan has been for the last few years, I think we've found it.

Memo to the party mandarins dispensing all this wise advice: If you have a chance to win, you win. Not because you want to do a victory lap but because you care about the country and you will do anything you can to stop the hell these crazy bastards have unleashed and start down a new path. Do you want them to continue to have free reign over the next two years while they pump up this phony threat with Iran? Do you want them to be in charge of another natural disaster like Katrina? More money thrown into the black maw of GOP contributors? What are you thinking?

This is why the establishment is becoming irrelevant. It isn't a game to us hicks out here in America. These are our lives these people are talking about.



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digby 5/13/2006 10:25:00 PM |

 
Ladies Men

by digby


Everybody needs to go over and read the delicious, juicy stuff Laura Rozen has today on Brent Wilkes and Dusty Foggo's ways with the ladies.

Have you seen pictures of these two guys?



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digby 5/13/2006 10:24:00 AM |

 
History Rhymes

Guest Post by poputonian


Boston attorney James Otis was especially offended. The British were free people. When he argued in 1761 against the Writ of Assistance, that scurrilous document which allowed the British government access to a citizen's home and personal records -- without having first obtained a court issued warrant -- Otis used the British constitution as evidence that the writs were illegal.

He did not make any claims that Americans were unique and deserved special freedoms, but instead asserted the rights of the British citizen, of which he and the others in Massachusetts Bay colony were one. There was no thought of rebellion or independence. At trial on February 24, 1761, Otis argued against his own government that the writs were…

"…the worst instrument of arbitrary power, the most destructive of English liberty and the fundamental principles of law, that ever was found in an English law-book. I will to my dying day oppose, with all the powers and faculties God has given me, all such instruments of slavery and villainy as this Writ of Assistance is."

Otis spoke before the five judge panel in opposition to his own government for more than four hours. He cited English law and the precedents against entering someone’s home:

"One of the most essential branches of English liberty is the freedom of one's house. A man's house is his castle; and while he is quiet, he is as well guarded as a prince in his castle. This writ, if it should be declared legal, would totally annihilate this privilege."

"Custom-house officers may enter our houses when they please; we are commanded to permit their entry. They may enter, may break locks, bars, and everything in their way; and whether they break through malice or revenge, no man, no court can inquire. Bare suspicion without oath is sufficient."

Otis continued by calling the general writs a "wanton exercise of power" and warned the Royal Court in Massachusetts about what happens to political tyrants who wrap themselves double-speak:

"I argue with the greater pleasure, as it is in favor of British liberty at a time when we hear the greatest monarch upon earth declaring from his throne that he glories in the name of Briton, and that the privileges of his people are dearer to him than the most valuable prerogatives of his Crown. And as it is in opposition to a kind of power that cost one king of England his head and another his throne, I have taken more pains in this cause than I ever will take again."

At this point Otis shifted to the natural liberties of man, which, along with the Magna Charta formed the foundation of English law. Although no transcript exists, another Boston lawyer, twenty-five year John Adams, was in the courtroom and described Otis’ dissertation:

"Otis asserted these rights were inherent, inalienable, and indefeasible by any laws, pacts, contracts, covenants, or stipulations which man could devise. These principles and these rights were wrought into the English constitution as fundamental laws. And under this head he went back to the old Saxon laws, and to the Magna Charta and the fifty confirmations of it in Parliament, and the executions ordained against the violators of it, and the national vengeance which had been taken on them from time to time."

"He asserted that the security of these rights to life, liberty, and property had been the object of all those struggles against arbitrary power, temporal and spiritual, civil and political, military and ecclesiastical, in every age."

"He asserted that our ancestors, as British subjects, and we their descendants, as British subjects, were entitled to all those rights by the British constitution as well as by the law of nature and our provincial character as much as any inhabitant of London or Bristol orany part of England, and were not to be cheated out of them by any phantom of "virtual representation" or any other fiction of law or politics or any monkish trick of deceit and hypocrisy."

Historian John Galvin in a work titled "Three Men of Boston" summarized Otis' court room speech:

"But it was not simply because of the dangers involved that the writs of assistance should be rejected. Otis assured the court that the greatest legal minds had supported the assertion that any act contrary to the unwritten British constitution was void. British law was based on the Magna Charta and the undeniable rights of man. Parliament, as a part of the scheme of this constitution, had to act with reason and justice, and could not be arbitrary. It had the power to create laws but had to frame its legislation within the bounds of equity and reason set by the constitution and natural law. It was therefore simple enough for any man to see: if writs violated the natural law, the basis of the British constitution, no amount of approvals, imprimaturs, or precedents could make them legal."

"Since every barrister for miles around had been present in the room, Otis’ words were prime news in Boston and the province for days. He had detailed the drift away from charter rights, constitutional principles, and most of all from the former respect for individual rights. He had illuminated for all to see the movement of arbitrary power away from the traditional democratic bases of British government."

Next, a most important point from Galvin:

"In these aspects Otis was not at all revolutionary; in fact, he was calling for a reestablishment of ancient liberties under common law and saying that power was dangerous when it became arbitrary, overtopping the bounds of the constitution. It was soon clear to perceptive political thinkers that he had seized on theories that could match the power of parliamentary decrees. No single arbitrary act, he said, could stand against the constitutional history of the country or against the rights of free men." [Galvin, Three Men of Boston, Washington, 1976, 33-34]

Otis wasn't revolutionary at that moment, but because his government continued, and accelerated its act of coercion, Otis' disagreement with his government indeed became a revolutionary cause. Recalling the emotions he felt watching Otis on February 24, 1761, John Adams pinpointed that day as the beginning of a chain of causation:

"Otis was a flame of fire; with a promptitude of classical allusions, a depth of research, a rapid summary of historical events and dates, a profusion of legal authorities, a prophetic glance of his eyes into futurity, and a rapid torrent of impetuous eloquence, he hurried away all before him."

"American Independence was then and there born. The seeds of patriots and heroes were then and there sown. Every man of an immense crowded audience appeared to me to go away, as I did, ready to take arms against Writs of Assistance. Then and there was the first scene of the first act of opposition to the arbitrary claims of Great Britain."

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digby 5/13/2006 06:40:00 AM |

 
Private Lessons

by digby


I'm a big believer in privacy as people can probably gather from the fact that I guard mine so zealously. It's a matter of temperament as much as anything. But it has also been my experience that busy bodies, witch hunters and authoritarians always find good reasons for not minding their own business:

It all seemed darkly funny at first.

Eric Haskett was merely taking a nap in a car when he roused suspicion in a rural Frederick County neighborhood. A neighbor traced Haskett's license plate to an address once used by a registered sex offender.

Then his girlfriend's parents told him to scram; law enforcement officials, including three FBI agents, began investigating; and Haskett began fearing that the suspicions could cost him his job at a gag shop that sells such kid-friendly items as whoopie cushions.

"It blew me away that a federal agent was sticking a badge in my face. Three agents, dog -- like I'm the ringleader!" said Haskett, 28, of Mount Airy.

After allaying the concerns of several law enforcement officials over the past few weeks, Haskett also asked them what he could do to clear his name.

"They said the best bet is to leave the area," Haskett said.

Every night on the local news here in LA there's another story of "pedophiles living in your neighborhood." I'm not defending pedophiles living in your neighborhood, but it's obvious that this culture is working itself up into another one of its periodic frenzies about satanism or crazed day care providers or whatever. These stories are hysterical. But then, it's sweeps, isn't it?

The blond teacher bumping and grinding in her web cast for the 14 year old kid was played over and over again, all with a narration of shocked priggishness (barely covering a lewd snicker.) Dateline is running this entrapment series where they get these creeps to show up to what they have been led online to believe was a 14 year old girl. They're all scumbags, but the sanctimonious "journalist" pruriently going over every tittilating detail of the emails for their TV freakshow is no better.

And then the bored TV watchers get all worked up to the point where they report some poor schlub for taking a half hour nap in his car before he goes in to dinner and turn his life into a nightmare. With no regrets, I might add.



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digby 5/13/2006 06:15:00 AM |

 
Southern Idol

by digby


This article in Facing South asks why it is that all the American Idol favorites are southerners:

One theory points to the South's rich music tradition, and the fact that most forms of American music -- jazz, blues, country, gospel, and their progeny such as rock -- can be traced back to the region. The Southern church alone is a crucible that has cast many singers, especially the working-class, small-town kids like those who end up on Idol. Says Nigel Lythgoe, one of the producers of Idol:

I think there's a lot of church-going [in the South] where they literally learn their craft and they're singing there every single week and [perfecting] the performance that goes with that. And I think there's a lot of soul there.

But Ken Warwick, another Idol producer -- who says "we've asked this question ourselves time and time again" -- has a different explanation, related to the economics of the music industry:

The thing is, if they're [from the] North and they're talented, then they tend to go professional. They go to New York, they come to L.A., they go to San Francisco and they get jobs. But if they're in the South, maybe there's a little less opportunity, so there's more talent ... floating around. And that's what we're after. We like the fact that the kid comes from nothing and becomes a huge star."

Then there's the "fanatic voter" theory, which postulates that Southern voters just get more excited about things like Idol and are more motivated to vote (the Post dismisses speculation that more Southerners are watching Idol -- while it's true the show rates high in areas like Birmingham and Raleigh/Durham, the actual number of watchers this translates into is dwarfed by the millions tuning in from California and New York).

What do I think? I think all of the above have some merit, although I'll throw in a fourth theory. As writers like John Egerton and later Peter Applebome have noted, the South holds an idealized place in our culture. Like family farms or Norman Rockwell paintings, the South is held up as a symbol of what's real and authentic about America -- a simpler place that, like "roots music," is a "roots place" with an enduring soul able to withstand the glitter and insanity of mass culture.

Given the spread of Wal-Marts, bank towers, and other influences in the South, it's often more myth than reality. But it's a powerful myth, one that the country especially yearns for when the frenzied pace of "progress" feels out of control. That makes a plain-speaking, down-to-earth American Idol kid from the South -- and maybe even a Southern presidential candidate -- so appealing, not just in the South but across the country.

I think it's because the roots of all great American popular music come from the south. It's no surprise to me that southerners would be the leaders in a vocal talent show.

But there's also merit in that last argument. For whatever psychological reasons, contrary to myth, most Americans of all stripes actually like southern culture, southern people, southern music --- all of it. (I like the food, which isn't good for me.) It's their politics the rest of us (and that includes at least 40% of southerners themselves) aren't so crazy about.

Viva Dixie, baby. Go Taylor.


Update: John Tierney used to think that Idol was like watching a car crash. Now he
thinks ... this:

I no longer think the Nascar theory is sufficient. "Idol" taps deeper emotions. My new Meistersinger hypothesis is that the "Idol" formula for success comes from Wagner, the composer who turned timeless passions into endless operas.

Wagner created the "Idol" format in "Die Meistersinger von Nürnberg," his opera about a 16th-century song contest that has traditionally been judged by the guild of master singers according to their own set of convoluted rules. But a burgher named Sachs, arguing that singers should instead be wooing the "untutored" hearts of the masses, proposes letting the winner be chosen instead by a young woman named Eva along with the rest of the public.

The prospect of a "Bavarian Idol" appalls the guild members, who warn that their art will be ruined "if it runs after the favors of the people." They also reject Sachs's suggestion that the contest include an outsider, a handsome young knight with an unorthodox singing style.

But after much scheming (this is a five-hour opera), Sachs manages to open up the competition, first by arranging for the guild's ultraconventional singer to suffer through a Nascar-style flameout. The crowd laughs at his song and mocks him as a "booby" with no sex appeal.

Then Sachs explains to the crowd that it's actually a beautiful song that has been "distorted" by the performer. (Or, as Simon Cowell put it to one "Idol" contestant: "I think you just killed my favorite song of all time.") Sachs brings on the handsome knight to perform the song. The crowd loves the rebel in shining armor — "No one can woo like him!" — and he ends up winning the competition and Eva's hand.

OK...



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digby 5/13/2006 06:05:00 AM |

 
Tinker to Evers to Chance

by digby


If you'd like to have some fun, check out Rick Perlstein, David Sirota and Mike Stark sticking it to the conservatives on the radio show Beyond the Beltway. (Left column, second hour)

Liberals can be good at this if they aren't full 'o cocktail weenies.



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digby 5/13/2006 06:02:00 AM |

 
The Retreads Strike Again

by digby


Yesterday when reading Jason Vest's interesting historical post about the young Dick and Don agitating for executive infallibility back in the 70's, I clicked over to this story in Mother Jones and read this article about how Dick n' Don also had been in favor of "privatising" government functions back in the 70's:

In 1969, President Richard Nixon appointed Rumsfeld, a 37-year-old congressman from Illinois, to head the Office of Economic Opportunity, which was responsible for overseeing the War on Poverty. Nixon wanted the agency restructured, and Rumsfeld, with the assistance of his chief aide, Cheney, quickly began bringing in management contractors to do the work of the agency's top civil servants.

In The Shadow Government, a 1976 book about the federal consulting industry, Daniel Guttman and Barry Willner quote Cheney as saying, "Don found himself with a bureaucracy that hated him.... [He] was forced to seek outside help. I remember Don reciting to me the Al Smith statement, 'If I don't look to my friends for help, who do I look to, my enemies?'"

[...]

Rumsfeld's successor at the agency was Frank Carlucci, who later became Ronald Reagan's Defense secretary. In 1971, Carlucci told Congress that he was dramatically curtailing the agency's spending on management contractors, which amounted to $110 million between 1965 and 1971. "We did not think we were getting our money's worth," Carlucci testified.

There's a surprise.

Fast forward to today and this article by Greg Palast:

... the snooping into your phone bill is just the snout of the pig of a strange, lucrative link-up between the Administration's Homeland Security spy network and private companies operating beyond the reach of the laws meant to protect us from our government. You can call it the privatization of the FBI -- though it is better described as the creation of a private KGB.

The leader in the field of what is called "data mining," is a company ... called, "ChoicePoint, Inc," which has sucked up over a billion dollars in national security contracts.

Worried about Dick Cheney listening in Sunday on your call to Mom? That ain't nothing. You should be more concerned that they are linking this info to your medical records, your bill purchases and your entire personal profile including, not incidentally, your voting registration. Five years ago, I discovered that ChoicePoint had already gathered 16 billion data files on Americans -- and I know they've expanded their ops at an explosive rate.

They are paid to keep an eye on you -- because the FBI can't. For the government to collect this stuff is against the law unless you're suspected of a crime. (The law in question is the Constitution.) But ChoicePoint can collect if for "commercial" purchases -- and under the Bush Administration's suspect reading of the Patriot Act -- our domestic spying apparatchiks can then BUY the info from ChoicePoint.

[...]

And now ChoicePoint and George Bush want your blood. Forget your phone bill. ChoicePoint, a sickened executive of the company told us in confidence, "hope[s] to build a database of DNA samples from every person in the United States …linked to all the other information held by CP [ChoicePoint]" from medical to voting records.

[...]

" And that scares the hell out of me," said the executive (who has since left the company), because ChoicePoint gets it WRONG so often. We are not contracting out our Homeland Security to James Bond here. It's more like Austin Powers, Inc. Besides the 97% error rate in finding Florida "felons," Illinois State Police fired the company after discovering ChoicePoint had produced test "results" on rape case evidence … that didn't exist. And ChoicePoint just got hit with the largest fine in Federal Trade Commission history for letting identity thieves purchase 145,000 credit card records.

But it won't stop, despite Republican senators shedding big crocodile tears about "surveillance" of innocent Americans. That's because FEAR is a lucrative business -- not just for ChoicePoint, but for firms such as Syntech, Sybase and Lockheed-Martin -- each of which has provided lucrative posts or profits to connected Republicans including former Total Information Awareness chief John Poindexter (Syntech), Marvin Bush (Sybase) and Lynn Cheney (Lockheed-Martin).

This has the ring of truth to it. Regardless of the outcome of investigations into NSA programs, this is probably the wave of the future. (Rumsfeldian Zombie conservatism apparently will not die.) Heckuva job cronies are making big bucks collecting and selling data and they may very well continue to do it after these bozos are long gone. We are seeing the creation of an Information Industrial Complex.

Privacy is going to be a new battleground in the culture war and it's a fight that we on the left civil libertarian side are going to have to lead. The rightwing religions are already trying to invade the bedroom and the hospital room (not to mention women's uteruses.) And people do not recognise yet that collection of data to find out what brand of yogurt you prefer is not all that benign in the hands of businesses with government contracts. This is the twin Big Brothers of Corporate America and Government creating a new industry of legal convenience to buy and sell your data for whatever reasons they deem necessary --- and use your own tax dollars to fund it.

Oh, and Porter "Brownie" Goss and his pals are going to be running the thing.


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digby 5/13/2006 06:00:00 AM |

Friday, May 12, 2006

 
Baby Huey vs The Dauphin

by digby


They really didn't need to do this poll on whether Clinton outperformed Bush. It's obvious to anyone who lived through the era. What the story fails to mention is that Clinton outperformed Bush while fighting off the rabid, slavering GOP congress of Newt Gingrich and Trent Lott that was determined not only to thwart his program but used every institutional lever of power they had to destroy him personally. He wasn't perfect, but the guy had the most amazing grace under pressure I've ever seen. He even showed good humor about it most of the time:

"I'm a lot like Baby Huey. I'm fat. I'm ugly. But if you push me down, I keep coming back."

Bush by contrast has had a free hand. He had an historical moment that could have brought the country and the entire world together --- which he decided instead to use as an opportunity to aggressively assert arrogant partisan and American power. Rather than being a "uniter not a divider" as he promised in the campaign, he roared into office with his one vote majority and treated the Democrats like lackeys, behaving as if he had a mandate to enact the most extreme items on the GOP agenda. He used patriotism as a bludgeon to intimidate all dissent against his inexplicable war with Iraq. At every turn he behaved with insolence and hubris and his failure has been manifest. Now he lives in a bubble, wandering around dazed and confused about what is happening to him --- which is not the result of Democratic partisanship, I might add, but rather the assessment of the American people. (The Democrats were paralyzed during most of his term.) Perhaps that's why his fall has been so steady --- the slow realization among the people that being a leader takes more than a manly swagger and a down home accent.

Bill Clinton may have been an imperfect human being but he was a president. This guy is, and always was, just a brand name in a suit.



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digby 5/12/2006 07:19:00 PM |

 
Terror Management

by digby

Here's an interesting post at Thought Theatre about something called Terror Management Theory, which is a fascinating study of how people react to the knowledge of their own mortality. It's particularly relevant to this ongoing sense among some Americans that terrorism is an existensial threat even if they live in Topeka (or especially because they live in Topeka.)

When looking at the fact that nearly two thirds of Americans polled seemingly accept a program of widespread domestic surveillance, the theory offers a plausible explanation. Essentially, anything that helps assuage the fear of death can potentially be seen as an acceptable situation whether it be rational, real, or imagined. To offer an analogy, one might look at those who refuse to fly in an airplane…despite statistics demonstrating that flying is safer than driving, the fear of what is perceived to be a more certain death can overcome the logical data. I suspect this same thinking is, to a degree, at play in these otherwise confounding numbers.

In fact, after the 2004 election, a number of psychologists speculated that fear of death may have actually given President Bush the needed edge.

Michael Tomasky over at TAPPED also attributes the public's evident acceptance of the NSA spying on citizens to a fear of terrorism. Perhaps that's true. I would certainly agree that it was true in the first years after 9/11. (Ezra says the public hasn't thought it through and Greg Sargent says the Washington post poll is flawed.)

I suspect, however, that we are dealing with something completely different: people are just not shocked at having their personal information in a data base. After all, it seems like any Tom, Dick or Ravi has access to your financial information, your shopping habits and your online surfing habits. Perfect strangers can google your name and find the term paper you wrote in the 8th grade, along with your last four addresses and your current phone number. You can call up that satellite mapping thing and zoom in right on your house --- and find out how much it and all your neighbors' houses are worth. It just doesn't seem like a big deal in America anymore to have strangers know your habits.

What Americans are not used to, however, is a government invading their privacy and using the long arm of the law against them for its own purposes. Corporate Big Brother is mostly just an opportunity to sell you things or to deny you the ability to buy things --- a pain in the neck, but rarely ruinous. Government Big Brother is a whole different animal. You get caught in that maw and you might just not come out. I don't think they understand the difference.

The key way to talk about this, I think, is to focus on the fact that they've been lying about it for no good reason. For instance, it's quite strange that they keep making the bizarre argument that terrorists didn't know their phones were being tapped. Is there anybody above the age of six who believes that? (And anyway, if they're that stupid, they'll reveal themselves in some other way and the FBI can just get a court order like they would with any other stupid criminal.) If this program is legal then there's really no logical reason why they didn't make it public. They must be hiding something.

That's something the public can understand. They don't trust this administration but they just haven't been shown a good reason why allowing the government to handle the same private information that Verizon and Bell South has is more dangerous to their health than the terrorist boogeyman coming to Topeka to kill them in their beds. You've got to raise their suspicions, not rely on principle. In this age of no privacy, they don't see why it's a big deal.



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digby 5/12/2006 05:26:00 PM |

 
Groundhog Day

by digby


This premature poll in the Wapo this morning has predictably led the little kewl kidz to conclude that the nation is so afraid of terrorism that they will go along with any number of invasions of their civil liberties. That may be true (although I have my doubts.)

But I wonder what the nation would think if they knew that the very same people who initiated this program in the name of the war on terror tried this long before there was any war on terror: more than 30 years ago. From Jason Vest at POGO blog:

None too pleased about AT&T, Verizon and BellSouth doing the National Security Agency's (NSA) bidding, Arlen Specter says he's going to haul the three telecom companies before the Judiciary Committee for some pointed questions. Deja vu; in 1976, the now-deceased Rep. Bella Abzug did the same thing with three telegraph companies for their similar handmaiden-to-NSA roles. Looking back to those events, we can't help but wonder if there's more history that will repeat itself--will the Bush Administration try, as the Ford Administration did, to extend executive privilege to private industry.

After the Church Committee revealed the existence of NSA's Project SHAMROCK, Abzug, the chair of the House Committee on Government Operations Subcommittee on Government Information and Individual Rights, wanted to go deeper. Abzug promptly subpoenaed not just current and former Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) and NSA officials involved in SHAMROCK, but also the CEOs of Western Union, ITT and RCA Global.

The Ford White House responded by ordering, on the grounds of executive privilege, the FBI and NSA employees to remain silent before Abzug. But Ford also went one amazing step further: "For the first time in history," James Bamford wrote in The Puzzle Palace, "the concept of executive privilege was extended to a private corporation." Attorney General Edward Levi actually asked Western Union's president not to comply with Abzug's subpeona as a means of "honor[ing] this invocation of executive privilege." He later making a similar request of RCA.

While the FBI and NSA officials did as ordered by Levi and then-Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld, Western Union and RCA didn't, with both companies's executives testifying and furnishing the Abzug Subcommittee with documents. (Apparently acknowledging their failure, Ford officials refrained from trying to muzzle ITT, which also cooperated with the committee.)

When the history of this period is written, one of its most important characteristics will be this zombie conservatism. Their leader, Richard Nixon, was destroyed by hubris at the very zenith of his power but it didn't stop them. They just keep coming back with the same imperial presidency theory whenever they get the chance.

Vest quotes an old intelligence hand who recalls meetings at the time:

There were some meetings, he said, that were particularly memorable because of the vehement opposition voiced by two men who were intractably hostile to the notion that executive privilege did not allow for things like surveillance without oversight and gagging civil servants and CEOs before Congress.

"Their great fear was that oversight and procedures and legislation would fatally undermine the presidency by neutering executive privilege," he recalled. "I don't know where all of this will ultimately go, but I don't think this Administration would be at all unhappy for hearings that have NSA and telecom [company] guys subpeoaned, which they'd regard as an opportunity for a showdown over executive privilege."

Those two men? Guess who...

















In light of this history, I think Specter's plan to haul the telcos before the committee is the best approach, just as Abzug did in the 70's. Many people may not think there's anything wrong with the government collecting their phone records, but I seriously doubt that they will be happy to see the government claiming executive privilege to keep a telco corporation from having to testify before congress.

I'll bet money they are going to do just that. These zombies just keep doing the same stuff over and over and over again. Who on earth ever said they were the ones with the new ideas?



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digby 5/12/2006 03:32:00 PM |

 
More Bad Guys

by digby

This diary over at DKOS illustrates why we should be worried about the administration asserting they are only targeting "the bad guys."

We stood with about 50 others on rte 674 and when the motorcade came by there was assault rifle OUT the window pointing at ALL of us and the cars all looked like I remember seeing in the Hitler motorcades in the movies when I was a child, all boxy and black and one had the Pres seal and American flag on the sides. It was absolutely chilling!

[...]

Mary, Nic, and I were there as well; and yes, it went down exactly as Barbara and John have said below. I don't think I've ever felt such a sense of foreboding in my life as when I saw that automatic rifle pointed at us, peaceful protesters.

At the time September 11th happened, I worked at a military base near where I used to live before we moved to FL. Immediately after 9/11, our base was at Threatcon D, meaning that the military personnel guarding our base had to be armed. Yeah, I saw sharp-shooters and automatic rifles; but I took some kind of comfort in the notion that these measures were meant for the "bad guys."

On Tuesday, the message that the sniper hanging out the window with his automatic weapon had for us was that we peacefully-protesting Americans were the "bad guys." And that thought alone gave me the chills.

Which is exactly what they want us to feel. This isn't about security, national or otherwise. It's about intimidation.



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digby 5/12/2006 11:43:00 AM |

 
And The Deaths Continue

by tristero

Four Marines killed in Iraq when their tank rolled off a bridge into a canal. We've been assured their deaths were not the result of hostile attack.

Of course It was just an accident. What reason could anyone have for doubting that?
tristero 5/12/2006 08:57:00 AM |

 
Quotes Of The Day

by tristero

Courtesy Salon:

The ideologists of the conservative revolution superimposed a vision of national redemption upon their dissatisfaction with liberal culture and with the loss of authoritative faith. They posed as the true champions of nationalism, and berated the socialists for their internationalism, and the liberals for their pacifism and their indifference to national greatness.

Fritz Stern, The Politics of Cultural Despair: A Study in the Rise of the Germanic Ideology by Fritz Stern. 1961.

Christians have an obligation, a mandate, a commission, a holy responsibility to reclaim the land for Jesus Christ -- to have dominion in civil structures, just as in every other aspect of life and godliness.

But it is dominion we are after. Not just a voice.

It is dominion we are after. Not just influence.

It is dominion we are after. Not just equal time.

It is dominion we are after.

World conquest. That's what Christ has commissioned us to accomplish. We must win the world with the power of the Gospel. And we must never settle for anything less...

Thus, Christian politics has as its primary intent the conquest of the land -- of men, families, institutions, bureaucracies, courts, and governments for the Kingdom of Christ.

George Grant, The Changing of the Guard: Biblical Principles for Political Action. 1995

The Salon piece is an excerpt of Michelle Goldberg's new book, Kingdom Coming: The Rise of Christian Nationalism which looks to be a very useful introduction to the less well-known ultra-radical christianists whose ideas, a la Orcinus, get "mainstreamed" by more well-known political operatives like Falwell and Robertson.
tristero 5/12/2006 06:22:00 AM |

 
Dinner With A Liberal Hawk

by tristero

Last night, I went to the annual dinner of a liberal group, and sat next to a very smart, very successful, and very well travelled man in his mid 60's. I found him likable, talkative and in many ways, quite an interesting fellow.

He told us he supported the Bush/Iraq war because 9/11 was a wake-up call and it was inconceivable to him that the Bush administration would lie the United States into an invasion. Another reason: he had been in Cambodia and seen firsthand the capacity of human beings to do evil. Also, he said that during his lifetime, there was the Holocaust. If there was a chance to prevent that kind of horror from re-occurring, then he felt it was important to take that chance.

My mind started to reel from the effort of discerning what the connection was between Pol Pot's atrocities and the September 11, 2001 attacks. Yes, they were both horrible and both were inflicted on innocents. But how did that lead one to conclude: "Invade Iraq?" And as catastrophic as the Holocaust was, I couldn't figure out how the desire to prevent another such tragedy factored into his willingness to support the pre-emptive invasion and conquest of a country which, while brutal, had apparently given up gassing its citizens right around the time Donald Rumsfeld no longer was in a position to shake Saddam's bloody hand.

There's something about such reasoning that strikes me as profoundly illogical, as if history literally repeats itself and therefore we're now getting a second chance to "get it right." Time The Revelator (in Gillian Welch's brilliant phrase) has other tricks up Her sleeve and never repeats, only cycles.

I tried to interrupt - as I said, he was talkative. But when he claimed that the Middle East had been "deadlocked for years," I saw my chance, "What's so bad about a deadlock? It certainly beats sheer chao..." and then he repeated everything in the first paragraph again. He seemed calm to me as he went through his reasons, but I noticed he spilled some wine on what looked to be a rather pricey shirt. He dropped his fork just a mite too loudly on his plate.

My friend on the other side managed to slip in, "Y'know, Tristero got it right from the start. He knew Bush was lying. He was right. And he was worried about the aftermath from the start."

"So, you were right," he said, a little bit of anger now creeping into his voice.

"Yes, I was right, and I knew I had to be right from the beginning, in 2002 and 2003," I said, with not a trace of false modesty - or any other kind.

"Okay," he rapidly wiped his lips with a napkin. "You know, a stopped watch is right twice a day."

"True," I said, "but I wasn't a stopped watch about Iraq."

Eyes blinked, but he didn't skip a beat.

"Okay, you were right. I 'll grant you that. You were right when the rest of us were wrong..."

"Well, actually..." I was trying to tell him that in fact the majority of the world opposed the invasion and I was simply in the majority, but I couldn't. He was angry and unstoppable.

"No, no, let me ask you a question. How come you, a musician, maybe a good one, maybe a well-read one, but a musician with no training in affairs of state - how come you of all people were right about Iraq but the most respected, most experienced, most intelligent, most serious thinkers in the United States got it wrong?"

"That is a question I ask myself every day, because it scares the daylights out of me," I replied.

My eyes started to tear up and the winter of 02/03 raced through my head. That awful sense of dissociation watching every American media outlet try to outdo its rivals by printing lies, the unspeakable dread as I watched my country willingly go over the abyss. The shock of realizing that nearly everyone I knew had bought the myth of the Good War and that nothing I could say or do, nothing anyone could say or do could change their mind. It was too late.

I tried to say more, but I couldn't, and then the subject changed and the dinner went on.

[Update: Link added to the great Gillian Welch's album, Time (The Revelator), and my shameful misspelling of her name corrected. ]
tristero 5/12/2006 03:31:00 AM |

 
Objectively Bad Guys

by tristero

Let's not forget that there are those amongst us who opposed the Liberation of Iraq. They were, and they remain, objectively pro-Saddam and therefore "not neutral" in the Great Crusade against evilosity. A Crusade, I remind you, in which God On High personally guides the decisive decisionmaking of George W. Bush.

In short, dear friends, it is not only a patriotic duty - nay, honor - for phone companies to turn over the records of these damned souls for data mining. It is a solemn spiritual obligation, a tithe, as it were. What mortal Verizon employee would dare risk damnation -ie, working for a bloody phone company for all eternity - by objectively defying the Will of the Lord?
tristero 5/12/2006 02:27:00 AM |

Thursday, May 11, 2006

 
Bad Guys

by digby

One senior government official, who was granted anonymity to speak publicly about the classified program, confirmed that the N.S.A. had access to records of most telephone calls in the United States. But the official said the call records were used for the limited purpose of tracing regular contacts of "known bad guys."

"To perform such traces," the official said, "you'd have to have all the calls or most of them. But you wouldn't be interested in the vast majority of them."

Well, that's good. I feel so relieved. But it sure would be nice to know what the criteria for "known bad guys" are. There are, after all, people who work for some security agencies who have some funny ideas:

"You can make an easy kind of a link that, if you have a protest group protesting a war where the cause that's being fought against is international terrorism, you might have terrorism at that protest. You can almost argue that a protest against [the war] is a terrorist act."

And you just never know when somebody's going to take it into their heads that it's a threat to national security to dissent, do you? Why, it's already happening:

The demonstration seemed harmless enough. Late on a June afternoon in 2004, a motley group of about 10 peace activists showed up outside the Houston headquarters of Halliburton, the giant military contractor once headed by Vice President Dick Cheney. They were there to protest the corporation's supposed "war profiteering." The demonstrators wore papier-mache masks and handed out free peanut-butter-and-jelly sandwiches to Halliburton employees as they left work. The idea, according to organizer Scott Parkin, was to call attention to allegations that the company was overcharging on a food contract for troops in Iraq. "It was tongue-in-street political theater," Parkin says.

But that's not how the Pentagon saw it. To U.S. Army analysts at the top-secret Counterintelligence Field Activity (CIFA), the peanut-butter protest was regarded as a potential threat to national security. Created three years ago by the Defense Department, CIFA's role is "force protection"—tracking threats and terrorist plots against military installations and personnel inside the United States. In May 2003, Paul Wolfowitz, then deputy Defense secretary, authorized a fact-gathering operation code-named TALON—short for Threat and Local Observation Notice—that would collect "raw information" about "suspicious incidents." The data would be fed to CIFA to help the Pentagon's "terrorism threat warning process," according to an internal Pentagon memo.

The fact this administration continues to say "trust us, we're only going after Al Qaeda" even though we already know they are tracking political dissenters is galling in the extreme. There is every reason to believe that the government that has instituted surveillance on protesters, that revealed the identity of a CIA agent for political purposes and that continues to characterize each revelation of their unconstitutional acts as a threat to national security will use this illegal NSA program to invade the privacy of Americans for political reasons. It's insulting to the nation's collective intelligence to suggest otherwise.

To this administration it's "L'etat c'est moi." If you are against the administration, you are against the country. Which means that 71% of Americans are unamerican.



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digby 5/11/2006 10:20:00 PM |

 
See No Evil

by digby

With primary election dates fast approaching in many states, officials in Pennsylvania and California issued urgent directives in recent days about a potential security risk in their Diebold Election Systems touch-screen voting machines, while other states with similar equipment hurried to assess the seriousness of the problem.

"It's the most severe security flaw ever discovered in a voting system," said Michael I. Shamos, a professor of computer science at Carnegie Mellon University who is an examiner of electronic voting systems for Pennsylvania, where the primary is to take place on Tuesday.

[...]

David Bear, a spokesman for Diebold Election Systems, said the potential risk existed because the company's technicians had intentionally built the machines in such a way that election officials would be able to update their systems in years ahead.

"For there to be a problem here, you're basically assuming a premise where you have some evil and nefarious election officials who would sneak in and introduce a piece of software," he said. "I don't believe these evil elections people exist."

Of course they don't.





















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digby 5/11/2006 09:58:00 PM |

 
Freefall!

President Bush’s job-approval rating has fallen to its lowest mark of his presidency, according to a new Harris Interactive poll. Of 1,003 U.S. adults surveyed in a telephone poll, 29% think Mr. Bush is doing an “excellent or pretty good” job as president, down from 35% in April and significantly lower than 43% in January.

Roughly one-quarter of U.S. adults say “things in the country are going in the right direction,” while 69% say “things have pretty seriously gotten off on the wrong track.” This trend has declined every month since January, when 33% said the nation was heading in the right direction. Iraq remains a key concern for the general public, as 28% of Americans said they consider Iraq to be one of the top two most important issues the government should address, up from 23% in April. The immigration debate also prompted 16% of Americans to consider it a top issue, down from 19% last month, but still sharply higher from 4% in March.

The Harris poll comes two days after a downbeat assessement of Bush in a New York Times/CBS News poll. The Times, in analyzing the results, said “Americans have a bleaker view of the country’s direction than at any time in more than two decades.”

Oh, and Jane says the Rove Grand Jury has been called tomorrrow. Fasten your seatbelts.



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digby 5/11/2006 08:51:00 PM |

 
And I Thought I Was Jaded

by tristero

During the past five godawful years, I've tried as hard as I could, as a defense and therapy, to cultivate a zen-like attachment that is beyond shock. And yet, dammit, It's simply impossible.

The moment I think the group of morons running amok in my country couldn't possibly make bigger fools of themselves, they manage to surpass their previous idiocy by being more incompetent than anyone, not even I, could possibly imagine:

Inside Higher Ed reports that some people got together and went through David Horowitz’s book The Professors: The 101 Most Dangerous Academics in America looking for errors. They found a bunch, of course, but by far the funniest one was the discovery that “While Horowitz’s book promises a list of the 101 most dangerous academics, he actually includes only 100.”

PZ Myers makes the excellent point that this means that those of us who are royally pissed that we weren't included can assume it was just an inadvertent editing snafu (I'm no professor but I have taught at some good universities on occasion, and did my best to corrupt young minds by exposing them to leftist/liberal masterpieces like the Marriage of Figaro. Man, I so totally deserve to be 101.)

(slightly edited after original posting.)
tristero 5/11/2006 07:52:00 PM |

 
Fiercely Protecting Our Privacy

by digby


I love to bash the Bush hadministration as much as the next person, but all this talk about trashing the Bill of Rights has got to stop. The administration has a stellar record of protecting American's civil liberties, even in the darkest early days, just a couple of months after 9/11. I'm sure you all remember this:

Ashcroft Blocks FBI Access to Gun Records

Critics Call Attorney General's Decision Contradictory in Light of Terror Probe Tactics

By Peter Slevin
Washington Post Staff Writer
Friday, December 7, 2001; Page A26

The FBI will not be permitted to compare the names of suspected terrorists against federal gun purchase records, Attorney General John D. Ashcroft told the Senate on December 6, offering no encouragement to senators willing to guarantee the FBI the authority to do so.

Defending his decision to block the FBI from using gun documents in its terror probe, Ashcroft said the law does not allow investigators to review the federal records created when a buyer applies to purchase a weapon at a gun store.

Some critics charged that Ashcroft's strong opposition to gun control is interfering with his role as the government's top cop. Democrats on the Senate Judiciary Committee, accusing him of "handcuffing" the FBI, pressed him unsuccessfully to say why he did not seek access to gun records when he claimed expanded investigatory powers after the September 11 terrorist attacks.

When Sen. Edward M. Kennedy (D-Mass.) asked Ashcroft whether he wants the power to review gun records in the fight against terrorism, Ashcroft replied that he would not comment on a "hypothetical."

Bush administration officials said information collected by gun stores for use in background checks was not intended for other law enforcement purposes. White House spokesman Ari Fleischer said the administration is following a regulation signed in January by Attorney General Janet Reno, who ruled that records can be used only to audit the background check system.

Such regulations are easily changed, countered Clinton administration officials and other critics. They pointed out that Ashcroft has issued an order permitting federal investigators to listen to attorney-client conversations and sought to lengthen the time illegal immigrants can be held before being charged. At his request, Congress has granted many other powers in recent months.

When you hear all these shrieking moonbats going on and on about the Republicans shredding the constitution, remind them of this. When the whole nation was losing its head, the Bush justice department kept its eye on the ball. Their priorities were straight. It is better that a hundred terrorists have an arsenal than even one citizens' gun buying records are saved long enough to compare them to a terrorist watch list. That's the kind of integrity this administration has.

So why should we suspect them of using these illegal wiretaps for partisan purposes? When it comes to fighting terrorists, the Bush administration has never played politics.



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digby 5/11/2006 03:16:00 PM |

 
The F Word Goes CNN

by tristero

Cafferty and be sure to watch:

Cafferty: We all hope nothing happens to Arlen Specter, the Republican head of the Senate Judiciary Committee, cause he might be all that stands between us and a full blown dictatorship in this country. He's vowed to question these phone company executives about volunteering to provide the government with my telephone records, and yours, and tens of millions of other Americans.

Shortly after 9/11, AT7T, Verizon, and BellSouth began providing the super-secret NSA with information on phone calls of millions of our citizens, all part of the War on Terror, President Bush says. Why don't you go find Osama bin Laden, and seal the country's borders, and start inspecting the containers that come into our ports?

The President rushed out this morning in the wake of this front page story in USA Today and declared the government is doing nothing wrong, and all this is just fine. Is it? Is it legal? Then why did the Justice Department suddenly drop its investigation of the warrantless spying on citizens because the NSA said Justice Department lawyers didn't have the necessary security clearance to do the investigation. Read that sentence again. A secret government agency has told our Justice Department that it's not allowed to investigate it. And the Justice Department just says ok and drops the whole thing. We're in some serious trouble, boys and girls"

Yup. And one more time for the slow readers amongst us:

A secret government agency has told our Justice Department that it's not allowed to investigate it. And the Justice Department just says ok and drops the whole thing.

But not to worry. The NY Times webpage greets us with this reassuring news: Bush Says U.S. Spying Is Not Widespread. And let's face it, he's right. After all there are, what, 250 million Americans, and Bush has only "obtained information on on numbers dialed by "tens of millions of Americans" and used it for 'data mining.' "

That's right. Tens of millions.Do the math, people, there's no widespread spying in the US if less than 100 million people are being spied on and no one's claiming that many. The spying effort is carefully focused on the mere 10's of millions of evil Americans. Those of us, the good people, needn't concern ourselves. And besides, we can't. It's too top secret.

Whew, for a moment there, I was worried.
tristero 5/11/2006 02:51:00 PM |

 
Help Me To The Fainting Couch

by digby

...pass me the smelling salts, burn some feathers, throw vinegar in my eyes. I'm having a spell. Roy Edroso is so appallingly uncivil!!!



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digby 5/11/2006 01:42:00 PM |

 
Man's Better Hells Angels

by digby


It appears that Judge Michael Luttig learned the hard way that believing certain men can be entrusted with extra-constitutional powers because they are "good" is foolish. You'd think that a member of the "Federalist Society" would have known better since the main author of The Federalist Papers made it pretty explicit that this was the reason for the three separate branches of government. Luttig got burned in the worst possible way; he put his reputation on the line and they used it like toilet paper and then threw it away. And predictably they are now busily smearing his character:

When the opinion was issued on Sept. 9, Judge Luttig delivered a coup: a unanimous opinion, written by himself, declaring that the president's powers to detain those he considered enemy combatants apply anywhere in the world, including the U.S.

Judge Luttig, according to a person familiar with the court proceedings, put his own credibility on the line, drawing on his own experience in national-security law and confidence in Bush administration officials he knew. He argued to his colleagues that the government wouldn't have sought such extraordinary powers unless absolutely necessary, this person says.

Then, in November, the administration suddenly announced that it didn't consider Mr. Padilla an enemy combatant any more and would charge him in a regular federal court. The move came just two days before the government's deadline to submit briefs to the Supreme Court, which was weighing an appeal of the Fourth Circuit's September decision.

A person familiar with the judge's thinking says it's evident he felt the government had pulled "the carpet out from under him." In an interview yesterday, Judge Luttig said, "I thought that it was appropriate that the Supreme Court would have the final review of the case."

Attorney General Gonzales offered no explanation for the move, but critics accused the government of gaming the court system. By making the Supreme Court appeal moot, the government could avoid a possible reversal at the nation's highest court while preserving the favorable Fourth Circuit ruling.

Instead of granting what the government considered a pro forma request to transfer Mr. Padilla to civilian custody, Judge Luttig ordered the parties to submit arguments over the question. On Dec. 21, Judge Luttig delivered a judicial bombshell: a carefully worded order refusing to move Mr. Padilla until the Supreme Court decided what to do. The order all but accused the Bush administration of misconduct.

"The government's abrupt change in course" appeared designed "to avoid consideration of our decision by the Supreme Court," Judge Luttig wrote. The government's actions suggested that "Padilla may have been held for these years...by mistake" and, even worse, that the government's legal positions "can, in the end, yield to expediency." Such tactics, Judge Luttig warned, could exact a "substantial cost to the government's credibility before the courts."

A furious Bush administration asked the Supreme Court to overrule the Fourth Circuit. The ruling "second guesses and usurps both the president's commander-in-chief authority and the Executive's prosecutorial discretion in a manner inconsistent with bedrock principles of separation of powers," Mr. Clement, the solicitor general, wrote.

The Supreme Court agreed to let Mr. Padilla move -- he is now in a Miami jail -- but the administration's strategy of funneling war-powers cases to the Fourth Circuit was in tatters.

"Luttig's parting shot as a judge may be the most defining opinion that he's written," says A.E. Dick Howard, who taught Judge Luttig at the University of Virginia School of Law and has been his friend since. Prof. Howard says the opinion reminds him of a line from Shakespeare's "Macbeth": "Nothing in his life/ Became him like the leaving it."

People familiar with Judge Luttig's thinking say he knew his condemnation of the administration would bring a personal cost but he believes that judges must apply the law regardless of its political implications. These people say he has been disillusioned by the encroachment of politics on the judiciary -- and the view that judges are on "our team" or "their team."

People close to the Bush administration see it differently. They dismiss Judge Luttig's opinion as a judicial tantrum, noting that it came after he was passed over three times for a Supreme Court position. President Bush nominated Judge Roberts, Harriet Miers (who withdrew) and Judge Samuel Alito.

Welcome to our nightmare, Judge.

And then, of course, we find out just today that the government has been lying through its teeth about its illegal wiretapping when they said it was carefully targeting to only Al Qaeda suspects making calls to or from a foreign country. Basically they've been gathering information about every American's telephone and email habits. What they've done with all that information we do not know.

This is the same government that Michael Luttig told his fellow judges on the fourth circuit could be trusted because they would never do such things unles they absolutely had to ... the same government that turned around and punked Michael Luttig by doing an end run around the Supreme Court which precipitated him leaving the court.

This is not an abstract argument anymore. It's not just about what might happen if we slide down the slippery slope and somebody really bad takes power and uses these powers to do bad things. The people in power right now are doing bad things and lying about it, as Michael Luttig, one of their own, found out personally. They are the reason the Bill of Rights were written in the first place.

Look for Karl Rove and his band of media sycophants to start agitating for the Democrats to lay off this issue again because it will make them look weak on terrorism. Everyone needs to start asking themselves why Karl would be warning Democrats not to do something that he believes will benefit him.



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digby 5/11/2006 11:22:00 AM |

 
I See Gandhi Peering Through Overton's Window. And Weeping.

by tristero

I'd like to add some more thoughts to what Digby discusses here. First of all, while it may seem from a casual reading that Digby is endorsing Trevino's concept of strategizing which he (Trevino) calls Overton's Window, in fact he is not. Certainly the right has been remarkably effective at getting the screwiest ideas accepted. That doesn't mean the way in which they go about it will work for un-screwy ideas. Like liberal ones. It would helpful, sez Digby, to discuss how we can think of modern day politics so that we can get those good ideas to become acceptable as policy proposals. That is a discussion well worth having. Boy do we need it!

That said, while (or since) Overton's Window as described by Trevino (aka Tacitus, who is well known to many of us) is, I believe, a genuine rightwing strategy to advance an extremist agenda, I think it has limited usefulness for liberals. Short version: the Window is an approach that is optimized for inflicting deeply unpopular policies on a country that really doesn't want them. Most liberal goals are far more popular, or have the potential to be popular, than the crackpot notions of the extreme right and there are more effective ways to formulate ideas that the majority of people actually like.

Nevertheless, it is vital that we understand what Republicans have been doing, be it the Wedge strategy of Intelligent Design, Frank Luntz and Newt Gingrich's framing, or what Trevino says the think tanks are up to. And yes, the Trevino's take on the Overton Window smells like the Right. It sounds superficially reasonable and plausible, the fruit of apparently careful thought by serious people. But it's not.

Essentially, Trevino means moving a given idea slowly from the "unthinkable" to the "radical" to the "debatable" and through more steps into policy. In order to do this, you take a topic, say, use of force in foreign policy, and you arrange the possibilities as a continuum that is roughly far right to far left:

-- Massive first-strike Hydrogen Bomb assault on dozens of cities with no warning.

-- First-strike assault with atomic weapons on 5 cities. Two hours warning.

-- First-strike tactical nuclear attack. Twenty-four hours warning.

[skipping across the continuum]

-- Invasion, overthrow of the enemy government, and occupation of the country.

[Skip]

-- Diplomatic efforts to defuse a serious crisis coupled with covert efforts to undermine the enemy regime.

-- Diplomacy, no covert action.


And so on (for the purpose of illustration, as Trevino himself says, the details of what specific action is more right or more left are not critical.). Then you identify what the public will currently accept and that is the "window" in which there is an opportunity to move the debate in the direction several notches in the poltical direction you want.

In truth, this is a distorted, but operational, version of Gandhi's famous quip,"First they ignore you, then they laugh at you, then they fight you, then you win."

But this is the far right, after all, not Mahatma Gandhi. And what, in the hands of the Great Soul, was a strategy for liberation of an oppressed people becomes in the right's grubby paws an excuse for blatant lying, outright deception, no-holds barred bullying, intimidation to the extreme of eliminationist rhetoric. As Trevino knows as well as anyone, the particular characterization of the "methodology" he extols for opening up "political possibilities" is actually a recipe for engaging in some seriously intense rightwing shit-slinging.

You see, what Trevino describes hinges upon vilifying and destroying the political center while portraying far right extremists as moderates. It simply cannot work without recasting the political center as extremist. And so, with a breathtaking cynicism for the truth and ethical principle, Trevino and his fellow Fellows - along with their less-privileged familiars in the rightwing punditocracy - have proceeded with tremendous enthusiasm to slime and smear their betters - decent politicians in the political mainstream like Kerry, Gore and many others with a lifetime of exceptional service to their country. These centrists are portrayed, by Trevino and his pals, as far-left extremists, corrupt liars, un-American cowards, and outright traitors. Moderately liberal pro-globalization economists such as Krugman are "quasi-socialist" and Powell is, of all things, a liberal one step removed from Vidal. Because it's not just "liberals" they go after. Richard Clarke - no liberal - and the other mainstream conservative truth-tellers are rewarded for their decades of public service by having their reputation befouled by an unpricipled bastard like Rove. And when Trevino and fellow operatives like Krauthammer want to be charitable, these sensible, competent, centrists - many of whom, like Powell, have been seriously compromised in the past five years but whose service to their country is far greater than the chickenhawks - are described, with a resigned, pitying shake of the head, as hors de combat due to mental instability.

In Trevino's world, prominent mainstream voices must be miscast as marginal lunatics because, as it happens - and many commentators have remarked upon this - the vast majority of the American people finds the view of America Trevino, et al subscribe to as a political vision that is quite revolting and frightening. Americans don't think Social Security or Medicare weaken the moral fabric of the nation and lead to communism. The American majority has an abiding love for and desire to protect the environment. They also like sex a lot, and unlike poor Jeff Goldstein and the odious Rick Santorum, no dogs are necessary. Americans well know that stunts like Schiavo serve no purpose in illuminating the kinds of wrenching medical decisions real American families face but are just grotesque opportunities for sleazy Republican senators to wave Bibles about.

True, the American public may not support - yet - marriage rights for every couple in love. And yes, the American public still has, at best, an incomplete grasp of the sheer immorality and practical stupidity of the death penalty. (And let's not mention how ignorant we Americans are of basic scientific fact and reasoning.) Even so, that doesn't mean for a moment the majority of the country thinks the right's screwy war-mongering, their cultural radicalism, their priggishness, and their greed is a Good Thing. They seriously don't.

Yes, indeed. Quite a remarkable strategy Trevino depicts. To identify carefully then mischaracterize, mock and discredit many of the beliefs most Americans hold, all the while disguising an extremist agenda with hallucinated Orwellian language.

But enough abstraction, let's get down to brass tackiness. For Overton's Window to be effective in the rightwing way Trevino describes, it requires the GOP to brand a genuine war hero (and principled objector to the war in which he acted heroically) as a liar and a coward, while a rich young drunk who went AWOL becomes an American icon. For no other reason than that the war heroes beliefs are centrist and the drunk is a neo-Bircher who can be of use in moving the discourse right.

Make no mistake. For Trevino's friends, because the war hero is a political centrist, a man far more dangerous than a genuine leftist or serious liberal, he must be utterly destroyed. Popular centrists - for some odd reason, Bill Clinton comes to mind - must be impeached, by any means necessary, no quarter given. Conversely, a genuinely vacuous, malicious coward like Bush - as extremist as any Bircher or Fundamentalist - must get packaged as a brave centrist with bold ideas. Hold their noses the thinktankers might have to do at Bush's ignorance, but he is crucially important. So... that quip about wanting to become a dictator was just a joke, for heaven's sake! He's a regular guy and that's how they talk.

Sure, Trevino & Co. are very educated people; why given half a chance, they'll be happy to trot out their superior knowledge of Latin and Greek, which of course makes them quite trustworthy when they assert the solid reasoning behind the statistics in The Bell Curve. And yes, of course they know that arguing ad hominem is a crude rhetorical fallacy, but they also know it's a very effective persuasive device that can utterly destroy an opponent if used with cunning and in an extreme fashion. And they are more than willing to do so.

Will Overton's Window work for liberal and progressive causes as well? Not as Trevino describes it, it's iliberal. (OTOH, Gandhi had a pretty smart attitude we could easily learn from. Let's start there.)

Briefly, Trevino's rightwing shtick isn't necessary. True, liberals need to learn how to show the Trevinos of American politics no mercy; meaning it's high time we treated them exactly they way they've treated America's most mainstream (many of them superb) political leaders, from Powell to Feingold. And also true, liberals need seriously to polish their ideas and rhetoric.

But in no way does the task of competently advocating an intelligent commonsense (ie, liberal) agenda for the US require the lying and smearing of decent people and majority beliefs that follow from Trevino's "methodology" as surely as pus flows from a deadly infection.

[UPDATE: Commenter Alyosha makes the good point that

The Overton Window is an extremely useful strategic idea; what you're arguing about are the tactics, the implementation of how you follow the strategy.

I think it can be well adapted for liberal purposes. Instead of employing unethical right wing games and tactic, we use the power of truth, but in smart, tactical ways that fit the overall strategy.

The Overton Window acknowledges a simple fact that is true regardless the ideas you wish to promote, or the tactics you choose to use: people have to be prepared for new ideas, and there is an evolution in this readiness on the part of people to accept them.

Not quite, as I see it. In thinking about Gandhi's remarks and the Window a little closer, they both count upon recasting majority opinion as inherently, deeply, profoundly, wrong.

But Gandhi depended upon targeting the actual racism and injustice of colonial rule. His goals were not to "move" the debate in a particular left/right axis, but rather to redress a wrong.

The Window as Trevino described it is a rightwing tactic, a deliberate and cyncial effort to reclassify mainstream political belief as extremist regardles of the contents of that belief. It is not about preparing people to accept new ideas but about eliminating mainstream discourse in order to consolidate/seize power.

Gandhi's is a tactic to redress a substantive power inequality and therefore is liberal. It stops when the grievance has been addressed. The latter is a tactic to seize power, is inherently limitless, and is illiberal. They are very different. Even if it is difficult to quantify exactly where redressing ends and power grabbing begins in some cases, they are quite different in where they place their emphases.


CAVEAT: The only version of the window I know is Trevino's. He may be seeing it through his own distorted lens but that is the version I object to. ]
tristero 5/11/2006 09:16:00 AM |

 
Doctrine From Hell

by digby


Matt Yglesias recommends this new book by Will Marshall. It is, apparently, a series of essays by various writers critiquing the Bush administration's foreign policy ideology and offering an alternative path for progressives in the liberal, internationalist tradition. It sounds interesting.

Yglesias says, however, they the book never mentions Iraq and wonders how any candidate can possible expect to get away with not addressing that vital question:

Obviously, any candidate for office in those elections is going to be expected to say something about Iraq. Among other things, we have over 100,000 soldiers currently fighting a war there, which is a situation being are going to be asked to comment on. And, of course, while one's view of the wisdom of the initial decision to invade hardly determines one's view of what should be done from here, the questions have a certain obvious interrelationship.

But beyond that narrow question, it's extremely hard to analyze the GOP's "flawed ideology" without saying something cogent about George W. Bush's most high-profile national security initiative and his own characterization of the same. Democrats have gotten a lot of mileage out of -- and achieved a reasonable degree of unity by focusing on -- the question of Republican incompetence in managing the occupation of Iraq. But, as Ed says, it's vitally important for progressives to be able to transcend this critique and say something about the failure of conservative ideology and the availability of a superior progressive alternative.

That requires one to take a stand on whether or not the invasion of Iraq is consistent with the "internationalist tradition" in which most Democrats situate themselves.

For me, this is a no-brainer. You either repudiate the Bush Doctrine or you don't. And if you don't, you will not get my vote.

This concept of preventive war (which is a term of art that as with so many other words, they simply cynically changed to "pre-emptive --- probably because it sounded more truthy.)

Let's reveiw the Bush Doctrine. Originally it was a simple-minded "if it looks like a terrist, if it harbors a terrist, if it smells like a terrist --- it's a terrist!"

It wasn't long before it evolved into a full-on neocon wetdream that included preventive war (called "preemption"), which they characterized as self-defense in that we had a right to defend ourselves against something somebody might want to do in the future.

In other words, you can kill your neighbor "in self defense" because you know he hates you, he has weapons in his house (and has talked about getting some more!) and you can't just wait for the smoking gun to be a mushroom souffle. Invade his home and kill him. (Oh and hold a gun to his kids' heads and force them to pick a new daddy for the family. That way, it'll be their decision.)

Which leads to the next part ---- the United States is on orders from the Almighty to spread his gift of freedom and democracy to the world whether they want it or not. (They might get their hair mussed --- a few hundred thousand, tops.)

The next pillar of the Bush Doctrine is that we can, and should, tear up any international law or treaty that we've signed that doesn't suit our immediate needs. And we should work unilaterally if it's more convenient rather than trying to get our stupid sluggish allies to pitch in. Fuck 'em. (And while we're at it, let's destroy every international institution we don't care for too. It limits our freedom --- and the Almighty's against that.)

The final pillar of the Bush Doctrine is that the US must remain the world's only superpower. Whatever it takes.

Now the democracy thing and the superpower thing aren't new. They are part of what used to be a post cold war bipartisan consensus. I'm not sure anyone in the country knew that or that it was ever properly debated, but it's not original. Nobody besides Junior took those concepts quite that literally, of course, but nobody else took John Wayne movies literally either.

The meat of the Bush Doctrine, and what must be repudiated by any Democrat, is the war of aggression (preventive war) part and the unilateral abrogation of all civilized law part.

It's hard for me to believe that my country put those things on paper in the first place. And they just reiterated it last month, despite the iraq debacle, if you can believe that. Froomkin wrote about it at the time:

This morning's news that President Bush is reasserting his doctrine of preemptive war is a bit of a surprise because, well, I think most people thought the Bush Doctrine was dead.

How can Bush still argue for attacking another country based on his suspicions about their intentions -- when the first time he tried it, his public case turned out to be so utterly specious?

The idea that the American public or the international community would tolerate such behavior once again seems highly unlikely at this point in time. The American people, for one, won't be keen on putting troops in harm's way again on spec anytime soon.

Winning support for the application of a doctrine of preemption requires enormous credibility. It requires public trust in intelligence and motives. And that trust isn't there.

The rearranging of the intelligence community's deck-chairs has not resulted in any great surge of confidence in the nation's intelligence gathering or, more importantly, any assurance that policymakers will not abuse that intelligence.

Yup. Which is why the proper approach to explaining the Democratic position on Iraq is by repudiating the Bush Doctrine, particularly as we see them ramp up for Iran.

Now, we know the Republicans will start jumping up and down like those monkeys at the end of "2001: A Space Odyssey" at the idea of Democrats fiddling with their macho foreign policy. They will try to psych out any Dem who says he or she would change it, painting him or her as a sissified Frenchie. The Democrats should not listen to this. This doctrine is what justified our invasion of Iraq and Iraq is not supported by a vast majority of the public.

Dems have to stop being afraid of this stuff. The people do not support the Bush Doctrine --- it's unamerican and people feel this on a fundamental level. They don't think we should do it alone. They never did. And after not finding WMD after touting them as potentially being minutes away from dive bombing Manhattan with drone planes, the case that we "know" somebody is plotting against us in the future is not likely to be received with any credulity again for quite some time. (Indeed, Bush has fucked up our credibility so much that most people won't believe our government if it said the Wednesday followed Tuesday.)

Democrats should run against the Bush Doctrine and use it to explain why we would never have gone into Iraq without it and why it will be tossed on the dungheap of history as soon as Democrats take power. (In fact, Bush is so spectularly unpopular that anything that has his name on it should be among those things Democrats run against.)

This is a bright line difference between the two parties on foreign policy, it seems to me, most importantly the unilateralism and the "pre-emptions" portions. Those two things are going to make being an American a very dangerous thing to be in this world if we don't stop it now. (You don't even want to think about this doctrine in the context of nukes --- unless you are Joe Klein, of course, whose only problem with it is that Junior isn't the right guy to pre-emptively drop one.)

I'm hoping that this isn't even slightly controversial among Democrats in congress. Is that being naive?



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digby 5/11/2006 08:56:00 AM |

Wednesday, May 10, 2006

 
Oh NO!

by digby

Howard Fineman writes:

The way I read the recent moves of Karl Rove & Co., they are preparing to wage war the only way open to them: not by touting George Bush, Lord knows, but by waging a national campaign to paint a nightmarish picture of what a Democratic Congress would look like, and to portray that possibility, in turn, as prelude to the even more nightmarish scenario: the return of a Democrat (Hillary) to the White House.

Rather than defend Bush, Rove will seek to rally the Republicans’ conservative grass roots by painting Democrats as the party of tax increases, gay marriage, secularism and military weakness. That’s where the national message money is going to be spent.


... before this election season is over, Republican and conservative voters are going to know a lot about Conyers. To hear the GOP tell it, the impeachment of the president will be the No. 1 priority if Conyers gets his say, which of course Rep. Nancy Pelosi will be only too happy to give him. The aim will be to rally the GOP base with talk of a political apocalypse.

The issue of gay marriage will play a part. So far this year, at least seven states will have on their ballots measures to ban same-sex marriage: Alabama, Idaho, South Carolina, South Dakota, Tennessee, Virginia and Wisconsin. There are citizen-led campaigns seeking to add the issue to ballots in Arizona, Colorado and Illinois.

[...]

Bush and Rove are daring the Democrats to turn the nomination of Gen. Michael Hayden as head of the CIA into a fight over the president’s secret eavesdropping program. That’s a fight they think they can win politically, by turning a legitimate constitutional issue into another Us vs. Them morality play.

Can someone please tell me how this differs from any Republican campaign of the last 25 years? Bush was at 70% in the last mid-term and the whole campaign was about how Democrats like Tom Daschle and Max Cleland were in cahoots with Osama bin Laden and Saddam Hussein. They always say we are going to raise taxes. They always say we are degenerates. If they can find a dark-skinned boogeyman, they'll use that too.

The only new thing in this is the psych out in which they are supposedly "daring" the Dems to make a big deal out of the domestic spying stuff. You certainly can't say they don't have chutzpah. They are barely breathing and they are still issuing threats. (And the Dems should really wonder why they are so vocal about this. You'd think if it was such a winner for them they'd just let the Dems run with it, wouldn't you?)

Overall, this is just a standard issue, off the rack Republican campaign. I'm sure this one will be even more excessively dirty than usual. And if they lose they will howl to high heaven that the election was stolen by illegal immigrant voter fraud. SOP.

Hopefully, the Dems are finally confident enough (31%!) to run their own campaigns and not worry about this stale, negative GOP cant. It's all they know how to do. There's nothing we can do about it.



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digby 5/10/2006 06:01:00 PM |

 
Preparing The Ground

by digby


I'm sure that most of you read Daily Kos and have come across this diary by thereisnospoon, but if you don't you really should check it out.

Do you see how this works? Systematically, piece by piece, the GOP takes what had been considered impossibly radical positions and makes them worthy of consideration just by talking about them--and then makes what had been considered outside possibilities truly possible. Now, I happen to believe that legalization of homeschooling is a good thing (though there should be oversight)--others may disagree.

But the important thing to remember is that the Republicans are carrying out this same exercise with every public policy debate today--from invading Iran to making birth control illegal to eliminating Social Security. The once unthinkable becomes possible--and they don't care if they take some heat for it initially.

I would love to see bloggers on our side engage this issue because I think we might just be able to influence how certain ideas bubble up into the zeitgeist over the long haul, and this is a very interesting way to think about it.

I have long felt that one of the things the right does well is prepare the ground for ideas that are not considered mainstream. The ideas themselves ... well, that's another story and their ideas often fail on their own merit. But they are very good at bringing their ideas into mainstream dialog and making them sound comfortably familiar. And with each success, they move the goalposts farther to the right.

I was struck by this when I was reading an old article about Newt Gingrich from the mid-80's. The writer went on at some length about his crazy, freaky idea to change social security to a privatized "IRA" type system. The tone was of stark disbelief that anyone could come up with such a crackpot scheme. But, of course, this idea became quite mainstream within a little more than a decade.

I just think there is merit in thinking about the right tactics for advancing big ideas that may not be on the radar screen right now, but could be if we are tactically intelligent about advancing them. And I think the blogosphere may be a good place to get these ideas percolating.



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digby 5/10/2006 02:06:00 PM |

 
Extremes

by digby


I love Will Bunch's post about Democrats being the new "silent majority." Even if it weren't true, which it is, it is just a terrific way to frame our political situation right now.

Many of my fellow baby boomer liberals believe that the country recoils from extremes and they are right. But they are stuck in a time warp. They don't see that in 2006, the extremes don't look like this:




















They look like this:















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digby 5/10/2006 11:28:00 AM |

 
Hit After Golden Hit

by digby


Atrios is doing a fun series on Richard Cohen's greatest hits. If you haven't been over there to read them, check them out. The man has a very interesting history. He thinks racial profiling is perfectly understandable --- and really gets upset when his readers aren't perfectly polite in their disagreement with him on that. He thinks that women are asking for it. They should be aware that it's their fault if dirty old men like Cohen lose control when they think a woman is dressed provocatively in the office. (That's why Allah invented the Burka!)

Yet people in Washington think of Richard Cohen and others like him are the kind of liberal whom they can really respect --- not that icky uppity kind who insist that racism is wrong or that disgusting pigs like Richard Cohen don't get to dictate the office dress code in order to keep themselves from acting out. This filters into the elected Democrat mindset. They spend time in the capital, they absorb this stuff.

And to the extent it filters out to the country and the media, people see a schizopherenic vision of liberals --- wingnut radio says we are shrieking hippie communists who "smell" (a common rightwing moronic slogan) while the mainstream media reveres milquetoast apologists whom nobody really understands or respects except the beltway establishment. It's a problem. And it's a problem that winning this next election won't solve.



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digby 5/10/2006 09:47:00 AM |

 
That's Our Fratboy

by digby

Steve Benen at The Carpetbagger Report caught this little gem. Those fancy pants Connecticut blue bloods sure do have lousy manners:

The AP ran a report last night on Bush visiting Florida to tout his Medicare prescription drug plan. It was mostly boilerplate stuff, with one exception.

He stopped by Broward Community College, where government officials set up tents and tables with laptops to help dozens of seniors there choose among the myriad plan options available.

Bush visited with some waiting in a courtyard where Frank Sinatra's "Young At Heart" played on the loudspeakers, then he went indoors where people were looking over the laptops. He walked around giving handshakes and hugs to those who rose for his entrance, and greeted a man who remained sitting in a wheelchair with, "You look mighty comfortable." (emphasis added)

Now, I realize the president was probably kidding. For all I know, the senior citizen laughed.

But I have to wonder what on earth Bush was thinking. Maybe the president has never had a friend or family member confined to a wheelchair, but as a rule, noting how "comfortable" they look is rarely a friendly way to start a conversation.

No it isn't. But then neither is noting someone's baldness or that they've gained weight and Junior does that all the time too. It's his way of putting people off balance and getting everyone on his side to pile on another.

There's an interesting simple psychology involved in such things. If someone can coerce those in a group to help him attack a single member they become his accomplices. For instance, getting everybody in the press corps to laugh at a reporter's baldness makes those reporters part of the president's gang. And, of course, it intimidates them. If they stray, they too will be subject to that kind of public humiliation. It's the evil fratboy theory of social relations, very primitive stuff.

That Bush may be reduced to plying this unconsciously with senior citizens in wheelchairs is not surprising, given his poll numbers.


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digby 5/10/2006 09:11:00 AM |

Tuesday, May 09, 2006

 
For History's Sake

by digby

Ms. Harris was on hand this morning to meet President Bush as he stopped in Tampa en route to a Medicare event in this nearby, senior-rich town — just one day after Governor Jeb Bush said publicly that he did not believe Ms. Harris could win against the Democratic incumbent Senator here, Bill Nelson.

[...]

After saying hello to his brother and straightening his tie, the president shook hands with Ms. Harris and spoke with her for roughly 30 seconds, with Ms. Harris talking far more than the president, who did not kiss her or put his arm around her — or do anything more than pat her on the back.

An aide to the president said later that they were only speaking about "the weather," and a spokesman for Ms. Harris refused to divulge the details of the conversation.

She knows a whole lot of details about what went down in Florida in 2000.



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digby 5/09/2006 09:23:00 PM |

 
Getting Played

by digby


I certainly hope that Democrats aren't going to follow John Dickerson's tepid analysis that concludes they shouldn't mention investigations or risk losing in November. They are being played.

Over at Political Animal, Zachary Roth writes:

It's also worth noting that Republican attempts to highlight the investigations issue have come almost exclusively in fundraising emails. In other words, they're using it as a tactic to gin up their plugged-in supporters, but not, so far, as a part of their broader message to ordinary voters. And when you think about it, you can see why they might not be too enthusiastic about a campaign message that draws voters' attention, even obliquely, to the slew of scandals and screwups of the Bush years. After all, it's not exactly inconceivable that voters might welcome the prospect of a party pledging to look into, and then fix, the policies of a president with a 32 percent approval rating.

Ya think? The Republicans are in free fall. Considering that, is it not possible that the American people would like to find out what happened to the billions missing in Iraq? That they would be happy to see the congress exercize its oversight of the executive branch? That looking into the hanky panky leading us into a dramatically unpopular war is good for the country? Hello?

Many in the establishment believe that Democrats are in grave danger if they ever show they give a damn about anything. It's one of the reasons why people don't feel anything for the Democrats. And for some, the strategy is always the same no matter what the circumstances: when the Republicans are popular, don't make waves. When the Republicans are unpopular, don't make waves.

But think about this. Do the Republicans really want all these scandals being brought up constantly during the campaign? I don't think so. That's why they are trying to manipulate the Democrats into keeping quiet about them. Any six year old could see through this cheap ploy.


Update: Yglesias has more on this, here. He makes the interesting point that "One of the main things those people might be hoping for from a Democratic congress would be a check on Bush's power. Indeed, many of them may not be very interested in a progressive agenda for America at all, just scared of where the current crew is heading things. By promising oversight, Pelosi is re-iterating that though you can't vote the unpopular Bush out of office, you can vote in a congress that will keep him under control."

Update II: Billmon says Rove is smoking crack if he thinks ginning up the wiretapping is going to work:

The point is, when you get down to 31% approval in a Gallup Poll, and your disapproval rating is trying to poll vault over the record high set by Richard Nixon just before he resigned in disgrace, it means the American people essentially think you're the political equivalent of crab lice. At that point, they're probably going to hate anything and everything you do -- even if they actually agree with it -- just because you're the one doing it.

Update III: Harold Meyerson writes:

...to stave off the specter of Democratic rule, Rove has decided that the only way to rally the Republican base is to invoke the specter of Democratic rule. Democrat John Conyers, who would become chairman of the House Judiciary Committee, has spoken of investigating the president for high crimes and misdemeanors. Henry Waxman and Ted Kennedy will get subpoena power if the Democrats win both houses. Unspecified horrors lurk behind every corner if the Democrats take control and hold hearings about the administration's relations with the oil and pharmaceutical industries. A sea of partisan vendetta, Republicans prophesy, stretches to the horizon if the Democrats are allowed to win.

As a strategy, this has its shortcomings. It's not clear how many independents, or even conservatives, will warm to a campaign that focuses on forestalling congressional oversight -- not with gas prices soaring and the American military bogged down in a war with an increasingly undefinable mission.

Again, I think Rove is trying to mau-mau the Democrats and getting the always compliant press to help him do it. He's shaping the battlefield the way he wants it. It won't work unless Democrats take the bait.



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digby 5/09/2006 05:16:00 PM |

 
All That's Left Is Our Friendship

by digby


I have had a few conversations and email exchanges over the past few months in which we all sort wondered whether it was such a good idea for Bush and Cheney to be so publicly derisive of the CIA. Calling them incompetent and lazy and (*gasp*) liberal just seemed like stupid thing to do with an agency filled with spies.

Then I read this today, from Tim Grieve in Salon and I just have to wonder...

The White House said Monday that it intends to hire as the No. 2 man at the CIA a former agency official who quit in 2004 in a dispute with Porter Goss. As admissions of mistakes go, this is a pretty big one -- even if no one at the White House will actually admit it.

Stephen Kappes, the CIA's deputy director for operations, resigned from the agency in November 2004 after Patrick Murray -- a former Hill staffer who was serving as Goss' chief of staff at the CIA -- ordered him to fire his deputy, Michael Sulick. As the Washington Post reported at the time, Murray's order to Kappes came after Sulick had confronted Murray about a threat Murray had made to another agency official.

The threat? That the agency official would be held responsible if anything from the personnel file of the "newly appointed executive director" made it into the media. And the "newly appointed executive director"? He wasn't identified in the Post's account back in 2004, but we all know his name now: Dusty Foggo, who resigned from the CIA yesterday amid a corruption probe.

[...]

So where are we today? Goss is gone. Murray is presumably gone. Foggo is gone. And the White House is trumpeting the fact that Kappes will be coming back. "The move was seen as a direct repudiation of Goss' leadership and as an olive branch to CIA veterans disaffected by his 18-month tenure," the Post says this morning.

Holding out an "olive branch"? From here, it looks more like "falling on your sword." The White House may indeed be interested in repudiating Goss, but let's not forget who forced his brand of "leadership" on the CIA in the first place.

Just what happened to make the white house change it's approach on this when it refuses to do the kind of things that might boost them in the polls and help their guys win in the fall is anybody's guess. But you have to wonder if it went something like this:

GEARY

I didn't do anything.

TOM

It's okay. You're very lucky -- my brother FREDO operates this place, he was called before anyone. If this had happened someplace else, we couldn't've helped you..

GEARY

I -- when I woke up, I was on the floor -- and I don't know how it happened.

TOM

You can't remember?

GEARY

I passed out.

[He stands up and moves over the bed where we see a bloody dead girl.]

I -- I'll fix it.

[He unties the girl's hand from the bed post.]

Just a game.

[He takes a towel and begins to wipe up the blood that is all over her. He looks at the towel and wipes off his hands.]

Jesus, Jesus.

[He begins to cry. As he does, TOM looks over at NERI who is wiping his hands in the bathroom.]

Jesus, God -- Oh, God. I don't know -- and I can't understand -- why I can't remember.

TOM

You don't have to remember -- just do as I say. We're putting a call into your office -- explain that you'll be there tomorrow afternoon -- you decided to spend the night at Michael Corleone's house in Tahoe -- as his guest.

GEARY

I do remember that she was laughing...we'd done it before -- and I know that I couldn't've hurt -- that girl

TOM

This girl has no family -- nobody knows that she worked here. It'll be as if she never existed. All that's left is our friendship.

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digby 5/09/2006 04:44:00 PM |

 
Spook Kabuki

by digby


Now here's something to make you scratch your head. Jason Vest over at the Project For Government Oversight blog points out that the congress always intended for the CIA director or his deputy to be someone from the military, active or retired, and until recently it was actually explicit:

First, pertinent legislative history about intelligence chiefs: Since the CIA’s beginning, it has been, as our august legislators put it, "the sense of Congress" that "it [wa]s desirable" to have as either Director or Deputy Director "a commissioned officer of the Armed forces, whether in active or retired status," or someone who has "by training or experience, an appreciation of military intelligence activities and requirements." Congress specifically stated that only one position could be filled by an active duty officer, and further mandated that such an officer be removed from the Defense Department’s chain of command.

In 2004, when the Intelligence Reform and Terrorist Prevention Act severed the dual DCIA/DCI roles (acronym translation: where the head of the CIA also headed the entire intelligence community) and created the new Director of National Intelligence (DNI), Congress amended the existing statute, and applied the language to the new DNI and his Deputy. For some reason, however, Congress neglected to re-apply the same language to the new CIA Director and Deputy Director positions (indeed, Congress actually forgot to re-authorize the Deputy Director position altogether). But last year--in addition to correcting that little boo-boo--the Senate intelligence committee suddenly decided, after all these years, that the top two CIA officials should only hail from “civilian life.” (Of 19 CIA directors, six have been active-duty flag officers, five have had some previous military service as commissioned officers, and three have previous served as intelligence officers.)

Isn't that interesting? From what we have been hearing, Hayden being a member of the active duty military is unprecedented. I confess that although I knew several directors had military titles, I assumed they were retired. WTF?

But the point of Vest's post is not actually this interesting new spin point, it's that the congress has been, typically, rubber stamping every intelligence function the pentagon wanted, particularly empowering the rightwing ideologue Stephen Cambone. This entire debate is some sort of kabuki.

But even more galling about the sudden flurry of Congressional concern about the Pentagon’s influence over intelligence is that the biggest enabler of expanded military intelligence power has been Congress itself. The Armed Services’ committees happily (and quietly) acceded to Donald Rumsfeld’s request to create a Deputy Undersecretary for Intelligence in 2002; in 2003, the Senate committee took about 15 minutes to confirm Stephen Cambone after a farcical hearing. Since then, Cambone’s set to building himself an empire that’s rife with red flags, ranging from unresolved Abu Ghraib related matters, to sketchy overseas covert units to troubling domestic intelligence activities. The state of things at the miltiary’s National Ground Intelligence Center hasn’t exactly inspired confidence.

[...]


There are no shortage of reasons to be leery of Hayden as potential DCIA. But if Congress is really worried about expanding military control of intelligence, they might want to consider the performance not of four-star generals who’ve been statutorily taken out of the military flow chart, but of certain Pentagon civilian officials who direct military intelligence policy and generals under them.

[more]

Now check this out from Dennis Hastert today (via Roll Call):

Speaker Dennis Hastert (R-Ill.) has come out against the nomination of Air Force Gen. Michael Hayden to head the CIA, calling the ousting of former Rep. Porter Goss (R-Fla.) from the agency's top post "a power grab" by John Negroponte, the director of national intelligence.
Hastert's opposition to Hayden is not based on any personal reservations about the nominee. Rather, Hastert is concerned that installing a top-ranking military official at the "CIA would give too much influence over the U.S. intelligence community to the Pentagon."

"I don't know anything about him. He has never darkened my doorstep," Hastert told reporters on Monday in Aurora, Ill., when asked about Hayden. "I don't think a military guy should be head of CIA, frankly."

Hastert added: "I don't oppose him, I don't know anything about him." Hayden has been serving as Negroponte's deputy following a six-year stint as head of the National Security Agency.

Hastert's aides later expanded on his comments. "The Speaker does not believe that a military person should be leading the CIA, a civilian agency," said Ron Bonjean, Hastert's spokesman.

Hastert also said Negroponte stopped by his office Wednesday and made no mention of the fact that Goss, who served in the House with Hastert for 16 years, would be stepping down as CIA director two days later.

"It looks like a power grab by Mr. Negroponte," said Hastert.

I don't pretend to understand the byzantine maneuverings of the spooks, the pentagon and the congress on this issue. But you would think that somebody in the press would have noticed that this argument about Hayden being in uniform is bizarre considering that six Directors of 19 have been active duty and that until recently the congress explicitly desired a military man in charge, wouldn't you?

And this caterwauling about the pentagon having too much control of intelligence is obvious bullshit since they've been giving Rumsfeld everything he wants in that area for years. There may be a turf war going on, but it looks like there's a very active CYA operation in the congress as well.

This story gets stranger by the day.


If there are any mainstream reporters out there reading this, you should make it a habit of checking out Vest's stuff. He consistently sees things that others in the field do not.



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digby 5/09/2006 04:04:00 PM |

 
Nothing A Glass of Bourbon Couldn't Cure

by digby


I got in late last night and was able to only muster a short spurt of lefty blogger vitriol for Richard Cohen before I collapsed, but I've had my coffee and I realize that I'm not finished with him.

First, let's just stipulate that this "war" between the blogosphere, its readers and the mainstream media is completely understandable. People like Cohen's only feedback for thirty years has been a letter or two from cranky old ladies in Bethesda and a good natured spirited debate about motherhood over a bottle of fine 1998 Hirsch Vineyard Pinot Noir at George Tenent's house. He is out of touch. And that is the problem.

He believes that his angry readers of all political persuasions are crazy and violent because they are angry. Today he calls the lefty criticism a "Digital Lynch Mob." When the right barraged him with criticism over a column about Bernard Kerik in 2004, he wrote:

I got a bucket full of obscene e-mails right in my face. I was denounced over and over again as a liberal who, moreover, never would have written something similar about anyone Bill Clinton had named. This would be news to Clinton.

What struck me about the e-mails was how none of these writers paid any attention to what I had to say. Instead, they preferred to deal with a caricature -- someone who belonged to a movement, a conspiracy, and was taking orders in the service of some vast, nefarious cause. E-mails are the drive-by shootings of the common man. The face of the victim is never seen...We have become a nation of B-52 bombers, hitting targets we never see.

"The drive-by shootings of the common man." My, my, my. One does tend to get a bit non-plussed when the hoi polloi forget their place, doesn't one?

Critical Emails are neither ropes, rocks or drive by shootings. (And in this day and age foul language is not "obscene.") They are the written opinions of Richard Cohen's readers, many of whom until recently didn't know what dreck the columnists for the Washington Post produced everyday. The internets have brought him legions of new readers --- many of whom are appalled at what he writes.

This is why:

Even the after-hours camaraderie of Washington is gone. Republicans hang with Republicans, Democrats with Democrats -- and they all get out of town as fast as possible. A little bourbon would do wonders for our dysfunctional government.

The reason I started with the startling scoop that George Tenet has a mother is that too often, especially in Washington, it is easier to avoid such humanizing touches than to deal with them. Like Will Rogers, I (almost) never met a man I didn't like -- and after that, honest, rigorous criticism becomes very hard indeed. It is easier by far to turn government officials from conscientious public servants, or even just hapless human beings, into mere celebrities. But they don't make big money in their jobs (though some, of course, do later on), and they almost always work very hard. And when they screw up it often appears on the front pages of newspapers or on the nightly news. Sometimes, when things are dark and people are dying, they sit before the TV and watch what they have done -- and cry. They do, and I know this for a fact.

Boo fucking hoo.

Damn that partisanship, and damn both sides equally for this sordid state of affairs. The fact that character assassination of Democrats is a fundamental tenet of the peculiar institution of the Republican party does not mean that it isn't Democrats' fault for not trying harder to be friendly. A little honey works better than vinegar, after all. Except ... except, it actually doesn't. The Republicans rolled them and rolled them and rolled them; the GOP took total control of the US government and then they rolled them again. All the while the alleged liberal Richard Cohen has been wandering through Georgetown drawing rooms having conversations about people's mothers and, apparently, watching others weep as they confront the fact that they are responsible for killing people (which is, I agree, better than when the president lifted his fist and said "feels good!" in the moments before he ordered the invasion of Iraq.)

The media elite's wide eyed shock that average Americans are angry about this state of affairs is simply mind-boggling. The polls show that it isn't just the "angry" left, it's the entire Democratic party, most of the independents and a growing number of Republicans too. Does he not know how his condescending elitism sounds to the people who read his column? (Joe Klein similarly goes on and on about populism in his new book Politics Lost, his tone dripping with contempt for the idea that common rabble are challenging those who know what's best for them.)

We are dealing with a political culture so insular that that they no longer resemble the seat of power in a democracy but rather the court of Versailles. Richard Cohen and the rest of the professional political class in the capital are misreading what is happening just as Louis XVI did when he asked "This is a revolt?" ---- to which the duc de la Rochefoucauld-Liancourt replied, "No, sire. It is a revolution."

For the first time, I'm truly feeling the democratizing power of the internet (and I'm realizing why the powers that be are trying to cut off its oxygen.) The beltway courtiers are nibbling idly at their cakes, unnerved by the unruly mob of common men committing drive-by emails and digital lynch mobs and storming the stifling, airless social club that has become the nation's punditocrisy. They don't realize yet that this isn't a fringe group of long haired hippies (not that there's anything wrong with that) who are going to make the whole country hate us for our unruly ways. It ain't 1968. There's a lot of water under that drawbridge.

And, of course, it wasn't that simple anyway. Liberals of a certain age are just terrified of liberal passion because they believe that 60's leftists destroyed the Democratic party. (I would argue that it was the overreaction --- the pale, flaccid, politics of the Richard Cohen school that killed us.) In any case, they always failed to notice the lurking radical rightwing beast that was just as active during that radical period building a movement that was far more damaging to Democrats than anything the SDS ever dreamed up. (But then, they are nothing if not pathologically self-absorbed.)

The 60's New Left is not particularly relevent to this debate. It's time that establishment liberals exorcized those demons. The political architects of today's political era are not FDR liberals, but Nixonian conservatives. It's stunning to me that after all this time they still fail to recognize that.

We may win an election or two coming up. I fervently hope so. But if anyone thinks that the conservative movement is just going to shrivel up and die, they have another thing coming. We are still fighting on their turf and will be for some time to come. Worrying about offending the "silent majority" again is beside the point. Our little blogswarms can hardly cause a backlash that would rival the non-stop anti-liberal rhetoric that's been spewed into the atmosphere for the last two decades. But it's just possible that we might convince a few people out there that the Democratic party still has a pulse.

And as I wrote last night: there is no political downside to hating Richard Cohen. Everybody does. And why shouldn't they? He stands for nothing. The problem is that he's been sold as a liberal --- which is why we are bothering with him at all. He's the poster boy for flaccid, ineffectual progressive politics and we're sick of it. He is not us.



Update: Swopa notices that Cohen's latest trip to the fainting couch over the digital lynch mob is quite at odds with his earlier view that character assassination is the coin of the realm in DC --- and that we who complained should grow up.

I can see why he thinks bourbon is the answer. He must need a lot of it to calm the competing voices in his head.

UpdateII: Jonathan Schwartz comments on Cohen's equivalence theory. Check this one out too.



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digby 5/09/2006 10:01:00 AM |

 
Words Fail Me

by tristero

As Atrios says, Alphonso Jackson immediately must resign:

Once the color barrier has been broken, minority contractors seeking government work may need to overcome the Bush barrier.

That's the message U.S. Housing and Urban Development Secretary Alphonso Jackson seemed to send during an April 28 talk in Dallas.

Jackson, a former president and CEO of the Dallas Housing Authority, was among the featured speakers at a forum sponsored by the Real Estate Executive Council, a national minority real estate consortium.

After discussing the huge strides the agency has made in doing business with minority-owned companies, Jackson closed with a cautionary tale, relaying a conversation he had with a prospective advertising contractor.

"He had made every effort to get a contract with HUD for 10 years," Jackson said of the prospective contractor. "He made a heck of a proposal and was on the (General Services Administration) list, so we selected him. He came to see me and thank me for selecting him. Then he said something ... he said, 'I have a problem with your president.'

"I said, 'What do you mean?' He said, 'I don't like President Bush.' I thought to myself, 'Brother, you have a disconnect -- the president is elected, I was selected. You wouldn't be getting the contract unless I was sitting here. If you have a problem with the president, don't tell the secretary.'

"He didn't get the contract," Jackson continued. "Why should I reward someone who doesn't like the president, so they can use funds to try to campaign against the president? Logic says they don't get the contract. That's the way I believe."

Anyone want to calculate the odds Jackson will stay?
tristero 5/09/2006 08:32:00 AM |

 
Feingold Talks Like A Democrat

by tristero

I'm sorry to say that this kind of genuine straight-talk is so rare it's refreshing:

"We must get out of our political foxholes and be willing to clearly and specifically point out what a strategic error the Iraq invasion has been," Feingold, D-Wis., told a National Press Club audience.

He said some Democrats in Congress gave in to "intimidation" by the Bush administration when they voted to authorize the war in 2002, and warned: "If we do not show both a practical and emotional readiness to lead in the fight against terrorism, we will lose in '06 and we will lose in '08, just like we did in '02 and '04."

In March, Feingold called for the censure of Bush over the administration's warrantless surveillance program. So far, only two Democrats, Tom Harkin of Iowa and Barbara Boxer of California, have signed on as co-sponsors.

Good for Feingold. However, I really would like to comment briefly on this next point of his, at the risk of being completely misunderstood:

Feingold, who also has proposed that U.S. troops leave Iraq by the end of the year, rejected criticism that such a move could lead to chaos.

"I believe the situation would probably get better" if U.S. troops left, he said. "The lesson of insurgency is when the occupying power leaves, it tends to lessen, rather than increase, the level of violence."

I disagree and the reason I do is because the tragedy goes beyond the dichotomy of stay or leave.

The truth is that as long as Bush is in power, it doesn't matter whether the troops leave or stay. If they stay, the Bush administration's utter incompetence will ensure that the way in which they stay will be fine-tuned to maximize Iraq's slide into disaster.

Likewise, if the troops withdraw, Bush's incompetence will guarantee that the troops will be withdrawn in such a fashion as to all-but-guarantee they will leave a catastrophic situation in such a state that it will rapidly get much worse.

An effective approach towards confronting the problems in Iraq may, repeat may, be possible once Bush is no longer in office and a sensible administration is in charge. Until then, which will not be until 2009 at the earliest, the situation is tragically beyond relief. No matter what this US administration does, they will make the worst of it.

Therefore, Feingold's prediction that things could improve if the troops leave strikes me as unfounded. He has not properly factored in how poorly the Bush administration would handle a withdrawal.

If a responsible, competent government were in place, I would immediately side with those demanding immediate withdrawal. But given Bush, I'm afraid in Iraq there is only disaster, death, chaos, and a slide into the abyss no matter course he chooses to take.

I realize this is a dreadful position to take, that nothing can be done until 2009. To be clear: I don't want to see US soldiers killed or maimed - or killing and maiming in the pursuit of an insane, pointless war - anymore than anyone else does. And I also don't want to see innocent Iraqis slaughtered and brualized, either by US troops, each other, or other countries. But if Bush keeps the troops in place the slaughter will continue to escalate. But if Bush withdraws the troops the slaughter will continue to escalate. I see nothing good coming of either as long as this malicious scoundrel is president.

A responsible approach to ending the misery in Iraq can only begin to be imagined after Bush is back at his lake doing what he loves - pretending to be a great fisherman - and the country (hopefully) is back in the hands of mature, responsible people.

Arguments that it is the troops' presence that are the main problem strike me as not quite accurate. It is the troops presence plus Bush's incompetence that are the main problem. Ditto, arguments that if the troops leave the problems will start to lift are not accurate. If Bush withdraws, given the near perfect storm he's created in every area and around every issue and action, then increasing disaster is all but sure to follow because of the way the withdrawal will be run.

Put another way, step one for Iraq is that Bush must leave. Discussions of the relative worth of different approaches to Iraq are pointless until then. And I think Feingold runs the risk of being tragically contradicted because he misuderestimates Bush's sheer incompetence.
tristero 5/09/2006 06:27:00 AM |

 
The War On Fucking

by tristero

As the father of a 9 year-old daughter, I take this story personally. Turns out that Merck has developed a cervical cancer vaccine that is coming up for FDA approval:

Gardasil was developed by Merck in Montgomery County. It targets the human papilloma virus. Virtually all cervical cancers are caused by some strain of this virus, known as HPV. It's very common among both men and women, and is transmitted by sexual contact.


Most women never know they're infected with HPV until a suspicious Pap test...or worse.

Dr. Richard Boulay of Lehigh Valley Hospital says Gardasil breaks the infection chain.

Dr. Richard Boulay/Lehigh Valley Hospital: "Those that get the vaccine can expect greater than 90 percent protection&Many studies have shown 100 percent prevention."

According to the current Discover Magazine (not yet on line) this could potentially save 2,500 lives. As Alan Kaye of the National Cervical Cancer Coaltion says in the article, "How could we deny our children and grandchildren awin against cancer...Why should we?"

Well, as it happens, our morally-stunted fellow citizens on the right have the answer to the questions. Turns out the the best time to administer the vaccine is when the girl is between 10 and 12 years old. And Hal Wallace, head of the anti-fucking activist group that's deliberately mislabeleld as"Physicians Consortium," believes that vaccinating an 11 year-old girl against cervical cancer would send a message "that you just take this shot and you can be as sexually promiscuous as you want." And the equally loony Family Research Council (James Dobson's band of self-righteous prigs) says "it would oppose any measures to legally require vaccination."

Since it is likely to win approval (sounds like there's at least some integrity left somewhere at the FDA), let's assume here that the vaccine is as effective as Merck claims. And that it's safe. It would border on the criminal to withold this vaccine, to ensure that every child receives it at the optimum age to guarantee efficacy. It would be simply insanely stupid to advocate such an idiotic reason as fear of increased promiscuity to oppose its administration to pre-pubescent girls. (Oh, for those of you who like to waste time refuting utterly stupid arguments with facts that are irrelevant to the stupid, it turns out, that according to Discover, there is proof that such vaccinations will not alter the sexual habits of the vaccinated. Duh.)

Obviously, if the vaccine is not as safe or effective as Merck claims, the case for widespread use becomes morally complex. But as it stands, the only reason to oppose this cancer vaccine is because you believe that fucking should harm, if not kill, you. Unless, that is, you refrain from sex until you've received a state license to procreate. And you don't fuck anyone else. Especially if you're a woman.

If these people have any moral values at all except for a belief in excrutiating punishment and death if you don't agree to forgo all pleasure by debasing your mind and body by submission to their weird beliefs, I can't see them. This isn't morality. Opposition to the wide distribution of a cancer vaccine that is apparently both highly effective and safe is nothing but perversion, pure and simple. To knowingly deny a child prevention against a terrible disease flies in the face of everything I believe in.

[UPDATE: A Spork in the Drawer has some info on how a public discussion on the uselessness of "abstinence only" sex education - for which little positive can be said other than the composition of numerous bad jokes - was forced into a fake semblance of "balance" by Republicans.
tristero 5/09/2006 04:52:00 AM |

 
Lapfull of Dick

by digby


Richard Cohen got 2,000 mean e-mails and this signals the end of the Democratic party. I'll leave you to figure out why that should follow. In case Cohen hasn't noticed nobody on the fucking planet likes squishy faux liberal courtiers. There's no political downside to hating Richard Cohen.

I do have to highlight one particular passage of this waste of valuable Wapo real estate:

I said the man wasn't funny and not funny has a bullying quality to it; others (including some of my friends) said he was funny. But because I held such a view, my attentive critics were convinced I had a political agenda. I was -- as was most of the press, I found out -- George W. Bush's lap dog. If this is the case, Bush had better check his lap.

Where on earth would anyone get the idea that Cohen might be one of Bush's lapdogs?

Given the present bitterness, given the angry irresponsible charges being hurled by both camps, the nation will be in dire need of a conciliator, a likable guy who will make things better and not worse. That man is not Al Gore. That man is George W. Bush."

Richard Cohen has been upset by the angry mob for some time. And when that happens he inevitably turns to the Republicans to set things right. They are, after all, the "conciliators." But far be it for me to say he has a political agenda. I frankly don't think he does. He is just easily upset by human beings who object to being treated like imbeciles by sniffing sycophants like Richard Cohen and don't feel like taking his condescending shit anymore.

I'm not quite as old as Cohen but I lived through the same era. How pathetic now to see liberals of my generation get so exercised over a few hostile emails. It's obviously been a while since they felt anything more strongly than irritation at too much foam on their cappucino. They sound exactly like the older generation sounded when we were young --- afraid of change and seeing political passion as being "hateful" and dangerous. Baby boomer elites are now that creepy old guy muttering at the kids to stop walking on his lawn or he'll call the cops.

And by the way, all that "hate " in 1968 may have upset the Democratic party, but that misbegotten piece of shit war would still be going on if it hadn't been for those "haters" who were willing to take on their own party when it behaved in an immoral fashion. Cohen's hero George W. Bush and his followers are too busy playing one-handed "Kill the Islamofascist" XBox in their basements to fix the damned mess their brand name in a suit has made. We of the perpetually angry left will have to step up and do the dirty work one more time.


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digby 5/09/2006 12:24:00 AM |

Monday, May 08, 2006

 
Crawling With Liberals

by digby


You can't make this stuff up.

Yesterday I wrote this:

Today, the CIA is crawling with liberals. The military is crawling with liberals. The Bush administration itself is nothing but a bunch of liberals as must be the GOP congress since they signed off on everything Bush has proposed. The media are, needless to say, nothing but squishy liberals.

The country is going to hell in a handbasket. The president and the congress and all their policies are dramatically unpopular. This, then, is just further proof of the failure of liberalism.

Today, the Nationl Review writes this:

Too often the agency has performed that job miserably, the greatest example being its gargantuan miscalculations about the Soviet Union. In retrospect, this is perhaps unsurprising. The CIA has always had a leftist bent, well represented in its upper echelons even under directors of staunchly anti-Communist and pro-national-security orientation.

And in a terrific rhetorical sleight of hand they then write this:

Porter Goss, a former Republican congressman who once served as an official in the CIA’s clandestine service, was named by President Bush to head up the agency 19 months ago. His primary task was to end its bare-knuckles insurrection and policy interference, and return it to the business of intelligence collection and analysis. His tenure was marked by non-stop turmoil and bickering, as he moved to root out the insurgents and they fought back with a vengeance.

Goss’s sudden ouster is, at best, ill timed. He had merely scratched the problem’s surface. Further, the lack of a clear explanation for his departure is extremely harmful. It is certain to be spun as a coup by the insurgents. Such a perception will only embolden them, laying the groundwork for more leaks—and more damage to national security.

Leftists = Insurgents, the term that is used interchangeably by Republicans with the word "terrorist."

And by the way, it's worth mentioning again and again that while the CIA was often wrong during the cold war, it never even came close to being as wrong as the conservatives and necons were wrong, which was completely and totally and comprehensively wrong in every single case. While they continue to conduct their Stalinist purge in the CIA, let's not forget that.

Porter "Brownie" Goss is about to be succeeded by Michael "Andropov" Hayden. It never gets any better.

Hat tip to Glenn Greenwald for pointing me to this editorial.


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digby 5/08/2006 03:26:00 PM |

 
No... Wire... Hangers

by digby


Perhaps this has gotten wide distribution, but I hadn't seen it before. It's a personal account of an Ann Coulter appearance at Loyola University in Chicago. It's amazing. Here's just a little snippet:

I went to my seat and prepared myself mentally to take in Ms. Coulter objectively. The Loyola Anti-War Network protested her appearance by forming a chain in the back of the auditorium and facing the other way. As soon as Ms. Coulter came out she said, "Since you are feminists, standing makes your butts look really big." I was a little upset by this comment, but I held my cool. I was stupid and had the college republicans seat me up close so I could get good pictures. Needless to say I was sitting next to some Coulter-lovers who were practically foaming at the mouth in ecstacy with all of Coulter's comments. All of the protestors were taken out by security. This elevated the level of joy in the Coulter-supporters sitting around me.

Coulter of course went on her usual bloviating saying that Democrats have bumper stickers that say, "I heart partial birth abortion."

[...]

he protesting from the balcony only increased with time with shouts of "ANN IS A RACIST" to even an immature, yet mildly amusing, call for "Show us your tits."

Ann addressed her supporters in the crowd with this statement. "You're men. You're heterosexuals. Take 'em out." She chided them further when they did not rise. Before you knew it there was about 25 students marching to the balcony to supposedly "take out" the protestors above. I saw a priest holding students back and deans and security warning the students to go back to their seats. Chaos erupted. Ann left after taking one question. The question was, "How can you justify the marginalization of women when you yourself are a woman?".

To which Ann replied, "I don't."

Does anyone get the feeling that Coulter is on the verge of doing a Joan Crawford turn? Keep her away from the pruning shears.



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digby 5/08/2006 03:05:00 PM |

 
If You Build it, They Will Use It

by digby


As Bush continues to push his party over the cliff with this nomination of Michael Hayden, I'd like to look once again at the Hayden quote I posted over the week-end:

I'm disappointed I guess that perhaps the default response for some is to assume the worst. I'm trying to communicate to you that the people who are doing this, okay, go shopping in Glen Burnie and their kids play soccer in Laurel, and they know the law. They know American privacy better than the average American, and they're dedicated to it. So I guess the message I'd ask you to take back to your communities is the same one I take back to mine. This is focused. It's targeted. It's very carefully done. You shouldn't worry.

This same man, also quoted in that post, became indignant when asked if the NSA was spying on Bush's political enemies. He seems to truly believe that the nation must trust him and all the other people in the government to do the right thing because they are good people. This is the same attitude we see coming from George W. Bush.

And yet history suggests that we have ample reason to suspect people of using the awesome power of government to spy on political enemies if they are allowed the latitude to do so. Totalitarian systems around the world do it. We've had ample evidence of such activity within my own lifetime --- in this country. McCarthy, Hoover and Nixon all abused their power this way. General Hayden was alive during that period too. He must know this.

And then, you read things like this:

In the Atlanta suburbs of DeKalb County, local officials wasted no time after the 9/11 attacks. The second-most-populous county in Georgia, the area is home to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, the FBI's regional headquarters, and other potential terrorist targets. Within weeks of the attacks, officials there boasted that they had set up the nation's first local department of homeland security. Dozens of other communities followed, and, like them, DeKalb County put in for - and got - a series of generous federal counterterrorism grants. The county received nearly $12 million from Washington, using it to set up, among other things, a police intelligence unit.

The outfit stumbled in 2002, when two of its agents were assigned to follow around the county executive. Their job: to determine whether he was being tailed - not by al Qaeda but by a district attorney investigator looking into alleged misspending. A year later, one of its plainclothes agents was seen photographing a handful of vegan activists handing out antimeat leaflets in front of a HoneyBaked Ham store. Police arrested two of the vegans and demanded that they turn over notes, on which they'd written the license-plate number of an undercover car, according to the American Civil Liberties Union, which is now suing the county. An Atlanta Journal-Constitution editorial neatly summed up the incident: "So now we know: Glazed hams are safe in DeKalb County."

Glazed hams aren't the only items that America's local cops are protecting from dubious threats. U.S. News has identified nearly a dozen cases in which city and county police, in the name of homeland security, have surveilled or harassed animal-rights and antiwar protesters, union activists, and even library patrons surfing the Web. Unlike with Washington's warrantless domestic surveillance program, little attention has been focused on the role of state and local authorities in the war on terrorism.

A U.S.News inquiry found that federal officials have funneled hundreds of millions of dollars into once discredited state and local police intelligence operations. Millions more have gone into building up regional law enforcement databases to unprecedented levels. In dozens of interviews, officials across the nation have stressed that the enhanced intelligence work is vital to the nation's security, but even its biggest boosters worry about a lack of training and standards. "