Goldberg and Guthrie

I'm stealing this directly from Kos.

Picture of Bush rally:





Picture of Kerry rally:

searching through the CNN archives. From the late 90s... very interesting.

Discuss

I have wanted to post about this strange lie that Hannity tells over and over again. Incomparably, the Daily Howler has beaten me to it. Read it: Hannity consistently shows an interview with John Kerry from the 1970s, and then misquotes it. He does this over and over again. Why? Because he can.

Goldberg's note: This entire post is the product of friend of G&G P.S. It wass sent to me via an email entited "Purple Heart vs. Pay Stubs"

Start with some premises.

1. The American attack on Vietnam was among the most divisive wars in American history, one which divided families, households, and people in the military. Unsurprising that veterans aren't united about Kerry.
2. War crimes were committed in Vietnam, Laos, and Cambodia by
   individual members of the military. (Let’s set aside the larger
   systemic and structural issues for now).
3. Criticizing the military for war crimes is not only patriotic but
   obligatory under Nuremburg precedents, Geneva Convention, and the UCMJ.
4. While in VVAW, Kerry, perhaps a little late, pointed to some war
   crimes he believed were committed by U.S. troops.

Kerry did an honorable thing in using his abilities, experience,
and connections, to help in a small way in the long effort to end the
war against Vietnam and in pointing out that some war crimes were
committed in the field by U.S. troops.

I can understand how members of the military would feel angered by
charges of war crimes by a fellow service member, particularly if
painted with a broad brush or based on loose facts. Those on the left
must recognize that O’Neill, etc. spoke for millions of Americans and
hundreds of thousands of troops who were incensed by certain voices in
the anti-war movement.

But these understandable feelings do not change the facts of war
crimes, do not make the war just, and do not make criticizing the war,
either as an activist or before Congress, an anti-military or unpatriotic
action. I can empathize with those who were upset, but cannot join in
a goose-stepping patriotism in which no flaws are to be conceded, the
military always and everywhere operates with only the noblest
intentions, and criticism of war crimes or opposition to war is
rejected out of hand as an attack on the ‘integrity of our heros’.
The historical precedents on this score are too unsettling to ignore.

So why this discussion?

Because I think this re-fighting of the Vietnam War by Swift Vets,
Corsi, etc., stems from the ideological fights of that era (assuming
it is not merely a political operation, similar to that used against
McCain in South Carolina in 2000).

My strong view is that if Kerry had not joined VVAW, many of these
critics would now be silent, not the political operatives, of course,
but the people they are using.

My feeling is that the crime making Kerry unfit is NOT that he
scrounged around for medals, etc., but that he dared to question the
war and to help organize, if only briefly, to bring it to an end while
charging war crimes.

They are still fighting the Vietnam cultural war. They see Kerry and
think Hanoi Jane and long hairs. They cannot see that opposing the
war, including the crimes carried out by soldiers, need not imply
dehumanization of the individual soldier or a denial of their genuine
sacrifices.

This race is shaping up exactly the way right-wing guru Paul Weyrich
foresaw.

Weyrich wrote, in part:

Right now, voters are beginning to get a vague picture of Kerry.
They like what they see. He seems to be always surrounded by veterans.
They probably have heard that he saved a man in Viet Nam who is now
campaigning for Kerry. They may have seen Kerry suited up and out on
the ice with Hockey players. Hockey is no game for the faint of
heart. They perhaps read that Kerry won lots of medals for bravery in
Viet Nam.[as of mid-August that’s a check; his favorables have
climbed from low 30s to low 50s, negatives have also increased, but
not that much]

The Bush people seem to think that they can just paint Kerry as a
liberal like Ted Kennedy, and suddenly millions of voters will flock
to Bush’s side. I have news for the Bush team. It won’t happen. Kerry
has already inoculated himself against the charge that he is a Walter
Mondale style tax increaser. Kerry has said he will keep the Bush tax
cuts that helped the middle class. But he will repeal the tax cuts for
the rich to help pay for expanded health care coverage. That pitch has
a lot of appeal to the swing voters.

If the Bush campaign allows the Kerry-the-hockey-playing-war-hero
image to be emblazoned in the minds of the swing voters for very long,
by the time politics gets serious in September, it won’t matter what
Bush and company say. That is unless Kerry is stupid enough to give
some Dukakis- like answers in the Presidential debates. My bet is that
Kerry is smarter than that.

And yes, Kerry did things that anger some veterans, such as
throwing other people’s medals away and testifying as to the supposed
atrocities of our servicemen. But if those charges are thrown around
in September, most swing voters will say, ‘That’s just ugly politics.’

Here we are nearly in September and the ugly politics have started.

The new book by GOP activist O’Brien, a Chuck Colson pupil, and Jerome
Corsi makes certain dramatic charges about Kerry’s Vietnam service to
support the conclusion he is “Unfit for Duty”. With Bush having next
to nothing going, including a questionable military 'record', they
must do everything in their power to destroy the picture Weyrich
paints.

The "Unfit" book and the Swift Vets TV ads make identical charges: Kerry did little or nothing to earn his medals in the war, was a coward, was posing for a political future,
etc. Serious stuff.

But see: “Republican-funded Group Attacks Kerry's War Record: Ad features vets
who claim Kerry "lied" to get Vietnam medals. But other witnesses
disagree.”

What we have here is two sets of witnesses.

We have one set of witnesses who did not serve on Kerry’s boat, were
not present for most of the acts for which he received commendations,
some are funded by a Republican activist from Texas, and two authors,
one of whom the acolyte of Nixon bag-man Colson.

Then we have a second set of witnesses, Sandusky, Rassmann, Zaladonis,
Wasser, etc., who were there, who can say themselves what happened,
and who knew Kerry personally. (Of the ten men on that boat,
Democrats and Republicans, only one is anti-Kerry and his is an
interesting story to say the least…’I had no trouble shooting gooks’).

I think generally juries and judges go with the eye-witness testimony over the hearsay. I think I’ll believe the Green Beret conservative Republican from Oregon, Rassmann, who says Kerry saved his life by pulling him out of the water. I presume he was closer to the action than Kerry’s critics, [name redacted] or me.

Some other choice Jerome Corsi lines - to give you some flavor of the type of person we are dealing with:

CORSI: “Maybe while he's there he can tell the UN what he's going to do about the sexual crimes committed by "priests" in his "Church"
during his tenure. Or, maybe that's the connection -- boy buggering in
both Islam and Catholicism is okay with the Pope as long as it isn't
reported by the liberal press (3/30/2003)
CORSI: Let's see exactly why it isn't the case that Islam is a
worthless, dangerous Satanic religion? Where's the proof to the
contrary? (4/24/2004) [Ummm, where to start?]
CORSI: Islam is like a virus -- it affects the mind -- maybe even
better as an analogy -- it is a cancer that destroys the body it
infects... No doctor would hesitate to eliminate cancer cells from the
body. (11/26/02)

So, I propose we make ALL the years 1966-1973 an important part of the
political discourse. Absolutely, let’s do it.

Let’s make this campaign about Vietnam and the two men’s service as
much as humanly possible. There is just no way that dialogue will
break Bush’s way.

Sure, the right-wing wackos will get their shorts all twisted about
Kerry's embellishments, but the Reagan Democrats and swing voters will
listen to Rassmann and McCain. Then the comeback from the Dem's is
dental records, pay stubs, and the missing six months and this thing
is done. Kerry will not be Clelanded or Dukasised.

A TALE OF TWO ELITES: PURPLE HEART vs. PAY STUB

One volunteers to serve…the other volunteers for the beer run.

One saves his brothers’ lives…the other’s life is saved when Poppy
bumps him to the top of the list into the TX Air National Guard.

One returns stateside and works to end an unjust war…the other
disappears into the smoke, surfacing for dental exams and ‘odd jobs’
that no one can remember...

After hearing churlish Republican hacks struggle to paint the hero-
worshipping event that was the Ds convention as ‘relentlessly
negative’ with ‘unrelenting attacks on Bush’ I just had to laugh.
Then when I had a chance to see the ‘extreme makeover’ spin the Reps
were coughing up, I just couldn’t stop laughing.

So, are we going to see the two Pats (Robertson and Buchanan) and an uplifting message focused on policy issues in NYC?

No.

We get the Hypocrisy in the Garden where, according to AP reporter
Fournier:

Bush and his political team contend that Kerry made two mistakes at
his convention, and they vow not to repeat them:
* Kerry and his surrogates didn’t criticize Bush enough.
* There was relatively little talk about Kerry’s policies, though the
Democrat has enough proposals to literally fill a book.
Bush and his allies won’t be shy about going negative against Kerry
during their Aug. 30 through Sept. 2 convention, White House advisers
said.

This race is shaping up to be far more competitive than I figured some
months ago, though Bush's best shots are yet to come. Kerry’s raised
more money than I figured, clearly the genius moniker for Rove was
overplayed, the economy is terrible, Al Qaeda is reorganizing, and
Iraq looks like a catastrophe with others looming in Iran, North
Korea, or in space.

Is it just me or do the Republican strategists just seem less
intelligent than in past years? I mean, they are botching this up.
If I hear Matthew Dowd say one more word out of the side of his mouth
I will never stop laughing

People justly mocked Gore for losing under favorable electoral
conditions. I still think Bush will likely win, but just how stupid
and aggressively reactionary do these strategists need to be to have a
sitting President, during a time of wars, with threats of terrorism
all about, sitting on a razor’s edge for his re-election? Any other
President with another collection of advisors is coasting to victory.
Of course, any other President probably would have had some post-war
plan beyond throwing money at Halliburton and Bechtel.

It is remarkable that Bush is even in a position to possibly lose.

Look, the bottom line, is both these guys are huge problems for anyone
concerned about creating and sustaining a just future. If Kerry wins,
the struggle will still be daunting, in some ways more so. I have no
reason to trust Kerry or believe in him as some kind of positive force
for good.

But Bush is Bush. This guy is setting the world on fire while
cracking jokes.

And when the chips were down, when two sons of privilege were faced
with the choice of serving their country in what they believed then
was a just war, one ran to the enlistment office, volunteered for
combat, was wounded, saved his brothers and the other ran for cover.
It really is that simple.

Nothing could be sweeter than Rove and crew choking on their Chicken
Hawk bone.

In the midst of another terrible Reds season, Adam Dunn just hit a home run 535 feet. For those who aren't baseball fans: that's far.

The ball went into the Ohio River, which I believe is technically in Kentucky. Therefore, he hit the ball into another state. Nice work, Adam.

...did this:

Bush also said high taxes on the rich are a failed strategy because "the really rich people figure out how to dodge taxes anyway."

I was going to comment on this, but what's the point?

So, Guthrie's been posting like a bat out of hell, and I've been idle. Times change, I guess. Anyway, got a cousin in town visiting, and my parents come in tomorrow, so it will probably be a slow weekend, post-wise. Well, I pretty much agree with everything Guth wrote. This should be added to any "Scumbags for Truth" (TM: Digby) story. It's on the guy who "wrote" the Scumbags for Truth with Kerry-hater John O'Neill (as the aforementioned Digby has said: "John O'Neill has done nothing noteworthy in his life except oppose John Kerry. Indeed, he barely exists as a human being being except for his opposition to John Kerry.")

Anyway, this is it. Read it, and you'll get a sense of how seriously we should take Scumbags for the Truth.

I have been hesitant to link to this site, mostly because there is a shirt available for order on it which appears to advocate killing Bill O'Reilly. (It's a play on the movie title Kill Bill, but it still seems inappropriate to me.)

However, two things have changed my mind:

1.) For the most part, this web site perfectly captures my feelings about Bill O'Reilly - to the point where I seriously wonder whether I'm running this web site in my sleep.

2.) Only about three people read Goldberg and Guthrie, so I don't think this link will do all that much harm.

Enjoy: www.sweetjesusihatebilloreilly.com.

Apparently, George W. Bush is now against legacy admissions to Yale. This is somewhat akin to Justice Thomas being opposed to affirmative action.

On a related note, I am now against admitting theatre majors from Otterbein to the University of Chicago. The last thing my alma mater needs is those fruit cakes prancing about its hallowed halls.


(A harsher comparison would be my intellectual opposition to most legalized gambling and the lottery coupled with my frequent poker-playing trips to Gary, IN.)

Kerry is criticizing Bush for what he did on 9/11. I don't think this is fair - the only reason it was so great in Fahrenheit 9/11 was because it debunked the myth of Bush as fearless leader. But Kerry shouldn't be getting into this muck.

I agree with him; I just don't think it's smart politics. I think Bush is going to get a bounce after his convention because he will "remind" people how great he was after 9/11 - and he did provide some measure of comfort by, you know, not dying or immediately surrendering to Osama. I just think this attack comes off as petty.

G & G hasn't commented on this, because it's so disgusting that I can't really think about it without wanting to vomit. It's typical Bush-family politics: even when they are favored to win an election, they simply can't do it without resorting to vicious and ugly personal attacks. Dukakis. Clinton (ironically, the one time it didn't work was when most of the attacks were true). McCain. Gore. Now Kerry.

Of course, there is no evidence that the Bush campaign supports these ads - there never is. But it does not appear that the White House has taken John McCain's suggestion and denounced them.

For those who don't know, a group of "veterans" - I hesitated to use a word normally associated with honor and heroism to describe this collection of human filth - have released a book that argues that Kerry's service in Vietnam was less than honorable; that he fabricated conduct in order to receive medals (but that they were given anyway to boost his unit's morale); that Kerry shot a bunch of small animals with a machine gun (I'm not making it up - that's the allegation); that Kerry shot a teenager in the back; that this brave group was forced to keep quiet until now because of the "military machine" (always well known to favor liberal Democratic Senators from Massachusetts).

Here's the kicker, though: NONE OF THESE PEOPLE SERVED WITH KERRY AND THE PEOPLE WHO SERVED WITH HIM SUPPORT HIM. Despite this fact, millions of idiots will read Drudge and see the ad and think there is a semblance of truth to these allegations. There isn't. Six soldiers served with John Kerry on his boat - five support his campaign and one is dead.

In fact, these allegations are so preposterous and such obvious fabrications that I have actually entertained the possibility that Kerry is somehow behind them - to make Bush look desperate; to convince McCain to come over to our side, etc. But then I remembered - you can tell absurd lies - e.g., claiming that Gore said he "invented" the internet - and despite irrefutable and widely available proof that what you are saying is a lie - the "fair and balanced" media will still report it; after all they have to report both sides.

I personally think Democrats need to respond to this with a vicious personal attack of their own - I don't care. There were always the rumors that Bush impregnated some woman and forced her to have an abortion. You could have a nice ad, run it in the south: "While John Kerry was serving his country, George Bush stayed at home and killed unborn children." That should cut into his base. Of course, this story isn't true - but that's not the standard any more.

On both sides... I can think of no reason not to believe this Spinsanity article: neither Kerry's nor Bush's plan for reducing the deficit makes any sense. Of course, why should one bother to tell the truth about your own numbers when Bush proved in 2000 that you can lie about them at will and the media will never call you on it? I am so glad to be supporting a liar who lies only slightly less than Bush. However, the liar I support served in Vietnam - so take that, Bush.

Chad Johnson is fast becoming my favorite Cincinnati athlete... Sean Casey, Adam Dunn and Wily Mo Pena are also in the running. From the Bengals' web site... I bolded my favorite parts.

7/11 OR CNN?
Pro Bowl receiver Chad Johnson’s enthusiasm is everywhere down here at Georgetown College. On Wednesday, he called for a cameraman to take a shot of him lined up against cornerback Deltha O’Neal in one-on-drills.

On Tuesday, he leaped head first into a scuffle between receiver Kevin Walter and defensive back James Allen to break it up and ended up doing a handstand. If he’s not doing that, he’s on the camp walkie-talkies telling workers to come over and watch him, or running downfield on the scout kick team screaming his head off.

“I’m going to do something,” said Johnson of the end-zone celebrations that got him so much notoriety and at least one 15-yard penalty last year. “But nothing that’s going to hurt the team.”

As for the officials supposedly cracking down on DBs for putting their hands on receivers after the wideouts are behind them at least five yards down field, Johnson shrugged.

“No one is going to touch me after five yards,” he said.

I needed a break at work, so I thought I'd take on a Corner post. Kathryn Lopez didn't disappoint...

KERRY'S WAR [KJL]

I'm on some annoying Kerry-Edwards e-mail list for donations and nonsense. The e-mail that just came in has the subject line: " What we're fighting for: health care." Yep. That's the war. Over health care. Can we please lay off the war/battle analogies while we're actually fighting a war against people who WANT US DEAD RIGHT NOW?

I sent her an e-mail with the following.

Ms. Lopez-

With regard to your "Kerry's War" post, I found the following after searching for the word "fight" on the Bush/Cheney web site. I look forward to another post along these lines.

President Names Leader in Global Fight Against AIDS
http://www.georgewbush.com/News/Read.aspx?ID=1927


President Helps Communities Fight Illegal Drug Abuse
"There's another war at home, too, and that's to win the war against the scourge of drugs..." George W. Bush
(This only 3 months after 9/11.)
http://www.georgewbush.com/News/Read.aspx?ID=1547

Mrs. Bush Salutes Those Dedicated to Alzheimer's Fight
http://www.georgewbush.com/News/Read.aspx?ID=2365

"The fight against domestic violence is a national movement. I urge people to join the movement. Part of an awareness month is not only making people aware, but a call to service." George W. Bush
http://www.georgewbush.com/News/Read.aspx?ID=2053

I'll let you know if she responds.

UPDATE: Before I actually sent the e-mail, I realized another reader had already made the exact same point. DOH!

Below, I excerpted the part of the article dealing with the specific instances.

CAP went ahead and digested the other part of the article for us--the part dealing with the systemic nature of the abuse:

IRAQ – PENTAGON WITHHOLDING PRISON DOCUMENTS: Rolling Stone reports that newly-revealed Pentagon documents show how far up the food chain the Iraq prison abuse scandal goes. The documents, withheld by the Pentagon from Gen. Antonio Taguba's report, "make clear that responsibility for...abuses extends to several high-ranking officers still serving in command positions." For instance, Maj. Gen. Geoffrey Miller, "who is now in charge of all military prisons in Iraq," was dispatched to Abu Ghraib by Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld last August. In a report marked "secret," Miller recommended that military police at the prison be "actively engaged in setting the conditions for successful exploitation of the internees." After his plan was adopted, guards began depriving prisoners of sleep and food, subjecting them to painful "stress positions," and terrorizing them with dogs. The Rolling Stone report adds more evidence to an earlier Newsweek report that said President Bush, "along with Defense Secretary Rumsfeld and Attorney General John Ashcroft, signed off on [the] secret system of detention and interrogation that opened the door" to the prison abuse scandal in the first place.

See, just a few bad apples, sure.

Rolling Stone has an article entitled "The Secret File of Abu Ghraib," referring to the 106 "annexes" of the Taguba Report. Many members of Congress have seen these files, and the pictures and video that goes along with them, yet have decided, at the behest of the Pentagon and the Administration, to not hold any more hearings on the subject. Less you forget what, specifically, we're talking about here, I'm going to excerpt the part of the article that simply lists some of the 94 documented abuses. But don't worry, I'm sure it's all the work of a few bad apples. This is a longer excerpt than I normally would use, but I didn't feel I could cut any more of it out.

In one sworn statement, Kasim Mehaddi Hilas, detainee number 151108, said he witnessed a translator referred to only as Abu Hamid raping a teenage boy. "I saw Abu Hamid, who was wearing the military uniform, putting his dick in the little kid's ass," Hilas testified. "The kid was hurting very bad." A female soldier took pictures of the rape, Hilas said.

During the Muslim holy period of Ramadan, Hilas saw Spc. Charles Graner Jr. and an unnamed "helper" tie a detainee to a bed around midnight. "They . . . inserted the phosphoric light in his ass, and he was yelling for God's help," the prisoner testified. Again, the same female soldier photographed the torture.

Another prisoner, Abd Alwhab Youss, was punished after guards accused him of plotting to attack an MP with a broken toothbrush. Guards took Youss into a closed room, poured cold water on him, pushed his head into urine and beat him with a broom. Then the guards "pressed my ass with a broom and spit on it," Youss said.

Mohanded Juma, detainee number 152307, testified that on his first day at Tier 1A, the west wing of the Hard Site where prisoners were brought for interrogation, he was stripped and left naked in his cell for six days. Graner, the guard in charge of the tier, entered Juma's cell at 2 a.m., cuffed his hands and feet, and took him to the shower room, where a female interrogator questioned him. After she left, Graner and another man threw pepper in Juma's face, beat him with a chair until it broke and choked him until he thought he was going to die. The assault lasted for half an hour. "They got tired from beating me," Juma told investigators. "They took a little break, and then they started kicking me very hard with their feet until I passed out." In another instance, Graner and a fellow guard reportedly beat a detainee until his nose split open.

...

The sworn statement of Amjed Isail Waleed, detainee number 151365, is especially graphic. On his first day at the Hard Site, he told investigators, guards "put me in a dark room and started hitting me in the head and stomach and legs." Then, one day in November, five soldiers took him into a room, put a bag over his head and started beating him. "I could see their feet, only, from under the bag. . . . Some of the things they did was make me sit down like a dog, and they would hold the string from the bag, and they made me bark like a dog, and they were laughing at me." A soldier slammed Waleed's head against the wall, causing the bag to fall off. "One of the police was telling me to crawl, in Arabic," he testified, "so I crawled on my stomach, and the police were spitting on me when I was crawling and hitting me on my back, my head and my feet. It kept going on until their shift ended at four o'clock in the morning. The same thing would happen in the following days."

Finally, after several beatings so severe that he lost consciousness, Waleed was forced to lay on the ground. "One of the police was pissing on me and laughing at me," the prisoner said. He was placed in a dark room and beaten with a broom. "And one of the police, he put a part of his stick that he always carries inside my ass, and I felt it going inside me about two centimeters, approximately. And I started screaming, and he pulled it out and he washed it with water inside the room. And the two American girls that were there when they were beating me, they were hitting me with a ball made of sponge on my dick. And when I was tied up in my room, one of the girls, with blond hair, she is white, she was playing with my dick. I saw inside this facility a lot of punishment just like what they did to me and more. And they were taking pictures of me during all these instances."

...

Al-Yasseri and the other prisoners arrived at the Hard Site with empty sandbags over their heads to prevent them from seeing where they were and their hands bound behind their backs with plastic handcuffs. The guards threw the men against the walls until they collapsed on the floor in what England called a "dog pile." Some of the MPs took turns running across the room and leaping on top of the men. "A couple of the detainees kind of made an 'ah' sound, as if this hurt them or caused them some type of pain," Spc. Jeremy Sivits testified in a sworn statement. While the Iraqis were on the floor, England and Sgt. Javal Davis stomped on their fingers and feet. Sivits was certain that the men felt pain this time because he heard them scream.

So did Sgt. Shannon Snider, who was working in an office on the top tier. Drawn by the cries of pain, Snider leaned over the railing and in a fury yelled down to Davis to stop abusing the prisoners. Davis stepped away from the men, and Snider left.

...

After Snider had gone, the MPs pulled the prisoners to their feet one by one and removed their handcuffs. Graner, who had learned a few key phrases in Arabic, ordered the detainees to strip. As one prisoner took off his clothes, Graner cradled the man's head in one arm and smashed his fist into the naked and hooded man's temple. "Damn, that hurt!" Graner complained, waving his hand in the air. The prisoner went limp, and someone removed his hood. "I walked over to see if the detainee was still alive," Sivits testified. "I could tell that the detainee was unconscious, because his eyes were closed and he was not moving, but I could see his chest rise and fall, so I knew he was still alive."

According to [Pvt. Lynndie] England, Staff Sgt. Ivan Frederick made an X on another prisoner's chest with his finger and said, "Watch this." Then the six-foot-tall Fredericks punched the man in the chest. The hooded prisoner lurched backward and fell to his knees. He gasped for air. "Frederick said he thought he put the detainee in cardiac arrest," Sivits later told investigators. England was asked why she thought Frederick assaulted the man. "I guess just because he wanted to hit him," she said.

Eventually, all seven Iraqis were standing naked and hooded, and the MPs got out their cameras. A few pictures had been taken earlier in the evening, but now the abuse turned into a photo-op. Men taught to be ashamed of appearing naked in front of other men were forced to assume a series of humiliating and bizarre poses. Graner had them climb on top of each other to form a human pyramid, and the MPs took turns taking each other's picture standing behind the men. In one photo, Graner and England smile and give the thumbs-up sign behind the men, who are naked except for the green sandbags covering their heads. The Iraqis were made to crawl across the floor on their hands and knees while the guards rode on their backs. Two were posed as if performing oral sex on each other, and others were lined up against the wall and forced to masturbate while England pointed at their genitals and leered. And all the while, the Americans were laughing, cracking jokes and taking pictures.

No reason to investigate this, no.

Shorter Mortimer Zuckerman:

Terrorism is bad. We should, like, totally try to stop it

I was going to do a whole excerpt-and-comment thing with this, but got lazy.

Wondering if anyone will get my post title. We'll see.

I know this is shocking and surprising, but it appears that the Bush Administration may, you know, let politics dictate its homeland security policy. From the Times:

Much of the information that led the authorities to raise the terror alert at several large financial institutions in the New York City and Washington areas was three or four years old, intelligence and law enforcement officials said on Monday. They reported that they had not yet found concrete evidence that a terrorist plot or preparatory surveillance operations were still under way.
But the officials continued to regard the information as significant and troubling because the reconnaissance already conducted has provided Al Qaeda with the knowledge necessary to carry out attacks against the sites in Manhattan, Washington and Newark. They said Al Qaeda had often struck years after its operatives began surveillance of an intended target.

It goes on to say that the bulk of the information "described reconaissance carried out before the Sept. 11 attacks." Now, this still is serious, but there seems to be no reason at all why the warning was issued this week, as opposed to last month, or say, early September (hmm, what's going on then that Bush wouldn't want bumped from the front pages?). And why would Bush want terror on the front pages over last weekend and into this week? Couldn't be because of this, could it?

Well, I turned 26 today. My little sister called me all the way from Australia, which was a very nice surprise.

Took a hiatus for the weekend...just not much to say, I guess. And Guth was movings across town, so it makes sense that he didn't post anything. Got a couple of things I want to post on that I read today--I'll try to get to it before work tomorrow. First is a gut-wrenching article in Rolling Stone, based, I think, on the "secret" annexes to the Taguba Report. If the descriptions of Abu Ghraib in that article don't convince you that this is really the only issue that matters, you have no shame.

On a lighter note, the other thing I want write about is Mort Zuckerman's latest attempt to definitively prove that, yes, if you own the magazine, you can regurgitate pure shit and still put it in the prime inside-back-cover slot. Unbelievably terrible claptrap.

Oh, one more thing: a friend recommended this new "Modest Mouse" CD that's been getting a lot of word-of-mouth these days. I've listened to it one and a half times, and, overall, seems pretty damn good. Not comfortable making a full-on G&G endorsement yet (with great power comes great responsibility, after all!), but so far, I'm impressed.

Now, my Republican friends would say this has no bearing on how Republicans really feel about race. You can be the judge on that one:

President Bush's re-election campaign insisted on knowing the race of an Arizona Daily Star journalist assigned to photograph Vice President Dick Cheney.

The Star refused to provide the information.

Cheney is scheduled to appear at a rally this afternoon at the Pima County Fairgrounds.

A rally organizer for the Bush-Cheney re-election campaign asked Teri Hayt, the Star's managing editor, to disclose the journalist's race on Friday. After Hayt refused, the organizer called back and said the journalist probably would be allowed to photograph the vice president.

"It was such an outrageous request, I was personally insulted," Hayt said later.

Danny Diaz, a spokesman for the president's re-election campaign, said the information was needed for security purposes.

"All the information requested of staff, volunteers and participants for the event has been done so to ensure the safety of all those involved, including the vice president of the United States," he said.

Diaz repeated that answer when asked if it is the practice of the White House to ask for racial information or if the photographer, Mamta Popat, was singled out because of her name. He referred those questions to the U.S. Secret Service, which did not respond to a call from the Star Friday afternoon.

Hayt declined to speculate on whether Popat was racially profiled, but said she is deeply concerned.

"One has to wonder what they were going to do with that information," Hayt said. "Because she has Indian ancestry, were they going to deny her access? I don't know."

Journalists covering the president or vice president must undergo a background check and are required to provide their name, date of birth and Social Security number. The Star provided that information Thursday for Popat and this reporter.

"That's all anybody has been asked to provide," said Hayt, adding that this is the first time in her 26-year career that a journalist's race was made an issue.

Organizer Christine Walton asked for Popat's race in telephone conversations with two other Star editors before she spoke to Hayt. They also refused to provide the information. Walton told Hayt that Popat's race was necessary to allow the Secret Service to distinguish her from someone else who might have the same name.

Via atrios

From my inbox:

Hopefully you have all been watching the Democratic National Convention. For those of you who have not, Professor Obama was incredible last night, he brought tears to the eyes of many. Anyway, Thursday night, right before Senator Kerry accepts the nomination, the former Law School Democrats President, Lisa Ellman, will be appearing onstage as part of the program that night. She will be representing, with seven others, young voters of America.
As of right now she is scheduled to appear between 8:45 and 9:00 p.m. but that
is obviously subject to change. Make sure to watch for her Thursday night.

An email I got this morning from a Republican friend (and a really, really Republican friend, at that):

My mom and brother both called after the speech. Both are die-hard Republicans. Both said they would vote for Obama if given the chance. My mom said as she was watching speech she thought "here is our future first black President."

I don't know his mom, but his brother owns every Ann Coulter book written, and he even owns some book titled "George and Laura--a Love for the Ages" (or something like that).

The transcript can be found here.

Now, it seems everyone loved the speech, and for good reason.  Even Bob Dole gave him an "A" for his speech. 

The beginning of the speech, the part excerpted in the post below, was the weakest part.  Probably for two reasons:  (1) he never said that part of the speech before--it was new; (2) he's probably just not as comfortable talking about his upbringing and himself than he is talking about his vision of the country going forward.

But after the autobiographical part, Obama really hit his stride.   He loosened up, got fired up, and got everyone else fired up.  My favorite part, which I'd heard before as part of his primary stump speech, was this:

A belief that we are connected as one people. If there’s a child on the south side of Chicago who can’t read, that matters to me, even if it’s not my child. If there’s a senior citizen somewhere who can’t pay for her prescription and has to choose between medicine and the rent, that makes my life poorer, even if it’s not my grandmother. If there’s an Arab American family being rounded up without benefit of an attorney or due process, that threatens my civil liberties. It’s that fundamental belief—I am my brother’s keeper, I am my sisters’ keeper—that makes this country work. It’s what allows us to pursue our individual dreams, yet still come together as a single American family. “E pluribus unum.” Out of many, one.

A true vision for America.

Well, I don't have too much to add. Great speech. Better than I expected.

Yes we can!!  Not a bad speech, huh?

Well, many of you know that both Guthrie and I were early Howard Dean supporters. And I can tell you, without a doubt, that was the worst speech I've heard him give. Not that it matters, but it just wasn't any good. Oh well.

I am of two minds about the decision to allow Michael Moore to sit near President Carter at the convention.

On one hand, it makes me seriously question the wisdom and judgment of John Kerry and every single person at the DNC who is serious about electing John Kerry president. This is a deeply divisive figure, with a history of distorting the truth who, as I have previously argued, is in no small part responsible for Bush winning in 2000. It seems not all that dissimilar to the RNC allowing Ann Coulter to give lap dances to Gerald Ford during Nancy Reagan's speech. (Or, more accurately, to the RNC placing Rush or Hannity or Coulter in any sort of prominent position at their convention.)

On the other hand, it at least shows some sort of attempt to reach out to a large, disaffected part of the Democratic base - some of whom have never forgiven the Democrats for the rightward march of the Clinton administration and some of whom have not forgiven Kerry for beating Howard Dean.

(Does anyone care at all that Nader is highly likely to tip a key swing state or two - again? No? Just me?) (Of course the Democratic party's very liberal response is to try to keep him off of ballots - that's a great message to your base - we won't give you what you want, but we will try to make it so our candidate is the slightly least crappy one available - oh, and here's Michael Moore sitting next to Jimmy Carter... enjoy!)

I am busy and this makes no sense. I actually did enjoy the convention last night - but I still believe there is something deeply and fundamentally wrong with the Democratic party. Why do we worship the man who is MOST responsible for Democrats losing control of Congress and the courts after thirty years? Because he can talk well? Why do we worship the man whose face fucking made it possible for George W. Bush to come into the White House after 8 years of peace and prosperity? (There's a better answer to that... because of the 8 years of peace and prosperity.)

I should be a team player like Dean. Sorry. Go Kerry.

The prepared remarks are excerpted on the campaign's blog:

Tonight is a particular honor for me because – let’s face it – my presence on this stage is pretty unlikely. My father was a foreign student, born and raised in a small village in Kenya. He grew up herding goats, went to school in a tin-roof shack; his father -- my grandfather -- was a cook, a domestic servant. But my grandfather had larger dreams for his son. Through hard work and perseverance my father got a scholarship to study in a magical place – America – that stood as a beacon of freedom and opportunity to so many who had come before.

While studying here, my father met my mother. She was born in a town on the other side of the world, in Kansas. Her father worked on oil rigs and farms through most of the Depression. The day after Pearl Harbor he signed up for duty; he joined Patton’s army and marched across Europe. Back home, my grandmother raised their baby and went to work on a bomber assembly line. After the war, they studied on the GI Bill, bought a house through FHA, and moved west, in search of opportunity. And they, too, had big dreams for their daughter.

A common dream, born of two continents. My parents shared not only an improbable love; they shared an abiding faith in the possibilities of this nation. They would give me an African name, Barack, or “blessed,” believing that in a tolerant America your name is no barrier to success. They imagined me going to the best schools in the land, even though they weren’t rich, because in a generous America you don’t have to be rich to achieve your potential.

I have seen this discussed in the past, but I guess it never dawned on me how weird it was: John Kerry voted against the first Gulf War. Here's his speech defending that vote. What happened in the intervening 15 years that made him change his mind? September 11? Can't be - the Dem's primary argument against the war in Iraq is that it had nothing to do with September 11. WMDs? No - we already knew Saddam had those back then - he used them against the Kurds in the 1980s. (And, the goal of the first Gulf War was never to take Saddam out of power anyway.) I suppose in the speech he indicates that the public support wasn't there the first time - but that's sure not how I remember it and, besides, the reason the public support was so strong this time was that no important figures in the Democratic party (save one) spoke up against the war while it was popular. (I take that back - two did: Howard Dean and Al Gore.) I guess one preposterous theory is that he knew he was running for President the second time around. (By the way, Howard Dean did support the first Gulf War.)

Maybe he just changed his mind.

I got my hands on some quotes from Clinton's prepared remarks for tonight:

“Tonight I speak as a citizen, eager to join you here in Boston as a foot soldier in the fight for our future, as we nominate a true New England patriot for President.  The state that gave us John Adams and John Kennedy has now given us John Kerry, a good man, a great Senator, a visionary leader.” 

***

“We Democrats will bring the American people a positive campaign, arguing not who’s good and who’s bad, but what is the best way to build the safe, prosperous world our children deserve.” 

 “Democrats and Republicans have very different ideas on what choices we should make, rooted in fundamentally different views of how we should meet our common challenges at home and how we should play our roll in the world.  Democrats want to build an America of shared responsibilities and shared opportunities….Republicans believe in an America run by the right people, their people.” 

"Don't let the Supreme Court pick the next President. And don't let this President pick the next Supreme Court."

Some of you may recall that I and a few other ex-U of C law students hosted a fundraiser for Barack Obama back in March before the primary. Here's the link to the post with some pictures, and with the Economist article about that fundraiser. The reporter called the fundraiser a "low-budget affair."

Well, The Economist remembers that fundraiser, and still thinks it was pretty bush-league (I'm not saying it wasn't). From an article in the current issue, on Obama (subscription required):

THE ECONOMIST first came across Mr Obama last winter in a basementwhere he was surrounded by law students drinking beer from plastic cups. Now throngs of Chicago's finest queue up to hear him talk about foreign policy, and he is feted at pricey Democratic fund-raising meetings from coast to coast. As if to confirm that he is the next big thing in American politics he has just been asked to give a keynote speech at the Democratic convention.

As jk told me earlier today, we apprently set the "shithouse" standard in Obama's "shithouse to penthouse" story.

Just talked to the campaign Just called the general info number of the Obama campaign, like any idiot can do; he goes on at 8:45pm CDT.

That said, I agree with Guthrie below; I'm not voting for Obama, because once in high school he may have watched a football game instead of studied for a test.

This shocking development in the Illinois Senate race, from an otherwise flattering article about Obama:

Democratic leaders say this law school professor has botched little in his professional and political life. But in his personal life, Obama — whose Kenyan father and American mother divorced when he was young — acknowledges an adolescence of rebellion, which included focusing on sports more than school and experimenting with drugs.

(emphasis added)

I, for one, cannot believe that Illinois was this close to electing a Senator who once focused on sports more than school. Thank God Obama has at least had the decency to confess this shortcoming, and we can now beg Jack Ryan to get back into this race and give us the Senator we deserve.

 
Set your Tivos.

I have been reading a lot about this story in recent days, and I think today's Daily Howler summarizes the situation as we understand it. The big Republican "victory" in the Joe Wilson case is that, it turns out, Bush just didn't know whether Iraq had sought uranium from Niger: and, apparently, it's OK to state such a fact when trying to convince people that allowing their sons and daughters to die is a good idea as long as you add the caveat "The British government has learned..."

Having said that, there's plenty of blame on the other side. Here's what the Howler has to say:

Over the last year, Wilson’s presentations have foundered on a simple fact—a fact he has never seemed able to grasp. Here it is: Joe Wilson doesn’t know if Iraq sought uranium in Africa. Two weeks ago, Lord Butler looked at the British intelligence, and he said that the intel was good on this point. What was Wilson supposed to say? He doesn’t even know what is in it!

Furious partisans will shake their fists and insist that none of this really matters. But it does really matter, in one key way. Wilson has overstated so many things that the Republican Party’s current attacks have a measure of truth to them. For example, he has persistently called Bush’s statement a “lie,” although he doesn’t know if the statement is true or false. He seemed to acknowledge that fact in his original piece, but slowly slid into overstatement.

Bush didn’t know if Iraq sought uranium. For that reason, he shouldn’t have said that he did, and he took a load of heat for his 16-word statement. But Wilson doesn’t know if Iraq sought uranium either. He is now starting to take some heat for acting as if he did.

Furious partisans will shake their fists and insist that none of this really matters. And of course, it doesn’t matter—unless you care about the truth, and unless you want Kerry to win.

This is what I love about Republicans now. When Clinton tried to cover up an affair by totally and completely honestly asking what the word "is" meant in a question (and, by the way, the meaning of the word "is" in that question was not at all clear), Republicans acted like the world had come to an end with his parsing of the English language. When Bush left himself linguistic outs as he tried to convince the country to go to war, it's fine.

 
And this time it takes Stephen Holden and strips him of whatever dignity he once had.  The first paragraph of his review of "The Bourne Supremacy":

It may sound odd to call a chilly, paranoid thriller like "The Bourne Supremacy" entertainment comfort food. But in the wake of 9/11, this globe-trotting post-cold-war melodrama full of standard cloak-and-dagger intrigue has the reassuring aroma of a home-cooked meal served while riding the world's smoothest roller coaster.

God help us.

Watching the Today Show, how in God's name does Al Roker deal with those terribly annoying crowds every day?  I'd have taken some sort of high-powered weapon and wreaked some havoc on Rockefeller Center months ago. 

I remember that Professor Winston Smith wrote this last fall when it seemed the Wes Clark supported the flag-burning amendment. It's kind of circuitous, but I think it gets to the heart of the matter:

This is an issue that seems minor to some people, or seems like a close call, but I disagree. I am inclined to think that this issue divides the people who get it from the people who don't. That is, it divides those who have a more-or-less confused or superficial commitment to the principles that underlie the constitution from those who really understand those principles and feel the force of them in their guts.

The flag burning issue is the political equivalent of crucial experiment in science. It's often the case that two incompatible theories make many of the same predictions. To separate the theories, to tell which one is true (or at least remains a candidate for truth) and which one is false, you often have to go to extraordinary lengths. A famous case like this happened in 1919 when Arthur Eddington went to Principe in the Gulf of Guinea to conduct an observation that would pull Newtonian physics apart from General Relativity. You know the story: the two theories make mostly the same predictions under normal conditions on Earth (ignore messy details here please), but General Relativity predicts that light will bend as it passes close to a massive body. So Eddington went off to Principe when and where there would be a total eclipse. Under those conditions, he could determine whether there was any change in the apparent position of stars when their light passed close to the sun. There was. Einstein vindicated.

Somebody who didn't understand what was at stake in that case might ask "Well, who cares whether starlight seems to move a little bit on Principe during an eclipse? That's trivial!" But of course nobody really cares about the change of apparent position per se. What they care about is that this tiny difference indicates which of two radically different theories about the world is true.

Similarly, how one comes down on the flag-burning case--let me suggest--indicates which of two radically different views of America and the idea of liberal government one has. If, like Madison, you think that freedom of conscience is the fundamental right, then you are committed to being more-or-less an absolutist about the freedom of expression, holding that this right is protected even when it involves the desecration of revered symbols. The principle trumps the symbol. And you hold that it's not even a tough case. The alternative seems to be to hold that freedom of conscience and expression can be trumped when the expression involved is sufficiently upsetting to enough people. But that's not minor difference of opinion, that involves a completely different conception of the legitimate powers of government. As in the case of Newtonian physics and General Relativity, these two different conceptions of government entail the same consequences under most conditions. But the flag-burning question is the political analog of starlight passing near the sun--a case that can seem trivial or esoteric, but which has profound implications, indicating which of two radically different views of America someone holds.

It's back, and apparently the vote will be "razor thin."
 
I know many Democrats may support it.  Apparently, the majority of Americans support it.  And God knows Republicans - by and large - support it.   All of these people are idiots.  If you support the flag burning amendment, you are an idiot.  You don't understand anything about democracy.  If some of these people are not idiots, they are bad people.  If an otherwise smart person supports the flag burning amendment, they are either suffering from a mental disability or they are simply a bad person. 

I am embarrassed and ashamed that members of my party will vote for this.  I am embarrassed and ashamed that even one American thinks this is a good idea. 
 
That's my contribution to the political discourse today.