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What Goes Around Comes Around

Yesterday the March 11 edition of The New York Review of Books arrived in Yokohama. The cover design, which features a sketch of Richard Perle, instantly draws the eye to the text, "Thomas Powers: Richard Perle's Dream World." One cannot help noticing that positioned just above it is another line, "Ian Buruma & Avishai Margalit: The Anti-Occident Revolution." The juxtaposition of the two stories is clearly not accidental. Nor should it be.

Richard Perle, most of us probably know already, is one of the PNAC hardliners responsible for pushing the US into war with Iraq. His book An End to Evil, co-authored with David Frum is a vigorous defense of a foreign policy that is, it argues, firmly anchored in the reality of a world filled with enemies who must be defeated and destroyed because they cannot be negotiated with.

According to Powers, the idea at the core of the book "turns out to be a kind of mirror image of the President's claim that terrorists hate America for what it is--Western, tolerant, pluralist, and so on." But where does this hatred come from? Perle's diagnosis is one with which many liberals can agree.

Take a vast area of the earth's surface, inhabited by people who remember a great history. Enrich them enough that they can afford satellite television and Internet connections....Then sentence them to live in choking, miserable, polluted cities rulled by corrupt, incompetent officials. Entangle them in regulations and controls so that nobody can ever make much of a living except by paying off some crooked official....Kill, jail, corrupt, or drive into exile every political figure, artist, or intellectual who could articulate a modern alternative to bureaucratic tyranny....[Ensure] that the minds of the next generation are formed entirely by clerics whose own minds contain nothing but medieval theology and a smattering of third world nationalist self-pity. Combine all this, and what else would one expect to create but an enraged populace....

The problem is not, however, in Perle's diagnosis but rather his prescription. The answer is radical, military surgery, to remove the dictators who create these conditions and replace thm with new governments like the one that Perle envisions for Iraq,

...if its bureaucracy is generally honest and competent and its courts are fair, if Iraqis can engage in private business without harassment and favoritism, if Iraq's communities can live without fear--then that is an achievement as impressive as anything the democratizers could hope for.

Sounds good doesn't it?..... Except that is for the slip of mind and tongue that writes "that is an achievement" instead of "would be." Here is where the aptness of juxtaposing Power's review of Perle with Buruma and Margalit's "Seeds of Revolution" leaps to our attention.

The Buruma and Margalit article begins by recalling the novel Altneuland by Theodor Herzl, founding father of the Zionist movement. The authors describe it as follows,

"Altneuland is a blueprint of the perfect Jewish state, a technocratic utopia, a socialist dream with all the advantages of capitalism, an idealistic colonial enterprise, a model of pure reason, a "light unto the nations."

Herzl himself called the book a "fairy tale." Buruma and Margalit note that while it was published in 1902, it "belonged firmly in the century before." It is, in another word's a 19th century utopia. In it, big men with big ideas transform a society in which,

The alleys were dirty, neglected, full of vile odors. Everywhere misery in bright Oriental rags....a pictue of desolation...[in which] the blackish Arab villages looked like brigands. Naked children played in the dirty alleys.

The result is, literally, a new Jerusalem,

intersected by electric street railways; wide, tree-bordered streets; homes, gardens, boulevards, parks; schools, hospitals, government buildings, pleasure resorts.

It is a place, Buruma and Margalit write, in which,

Arab and Jew would live happily together in the New Society....and all the nations of the world would meet in Jerusalem at the Palace of Peace.

Looking at today's reality, an Israel transforming itself into one, gigantic gated community, hoping to keep outside threats not abated in the least--rather exacerbated--by a vigorous iron fist, one can only weep at what has become of Herzl's dream. And, more to the point here, note the likely outcome of attempting to impose Perle's utopian dream on the Middle East by military force (a point not missed before the war by such eminent "unrealistic" tender-hearted and soft-headed critics as former Reagan administration Undersecretary of the Navy James Webb).

Nor does it lend much credence to Perle's call for competent and honest bureaucracy, fair courts, etc., that the administration for which he speaks is so thoroughly dishonest, so thoroughly determined to bend the courts to its will, so committed to a religious and ideological agenda that so closely resembles the "medieval theology" and"nationalist self-pity" on which America's foreign policy now seems predicated.

One can only hope that our own "enraged populace" will strike back at the ballot box this fall.

posted by John 8:57 PM

The Other Dick

Despite all the apt comparisons between the machinations of the Bush administration and those of the Nixon administration, there's one you can't make, and it regards the personalities of the men themselves. Nixon was a character of Shakespearean depth, whereas Bush is more what--Dr. Seuss? ("I not go AWOL in my plane/I never ever used cocaine"--feel free to supply your own additional couplets.) Befitting a character with so many facets, David Greenberg has written Nixon's Shadow: The History of an Image. The book analyzes the various Nixons in different eras and through different eyes--among them Nixon the anti-communist, Nixon as both liberal critics and Republican defenders saw him, Nixon as the media saw him, Nixon as madman, Nixon as foreign policy wizard, and Nixon as elder statesman. I've read a lot of Nixon books over the years--next to Abraham Lincoln, he's the president who interests me the most--but Nixon's Shadow is one of the best. It's both tremendous scholarship and entertaining reading, a daily double that's not easy to hit. It's beach reading for political geeks, even if it's not quite beach season yet.

posted by jabartlett 9:52 AM

Osama on Ice?

AP is reporting that the U.S. is denying an Iran State Radio Report that Osama has been captured and the U.S. is waiting until a politically propitious moment to announce it. Those pesky Iranians...Evelyn Keyes

posted by Jerry Bowles 9:48 AM

Beyond breathless

Did Jean Seberg drink the wrong brand of wodka? J. Edgar Hoover thought so…

Revisiting Jean-Luc Godard’s first film “Breathless” (1959) and its star Jean Seberg, Jerry wonders if he’s just getting old or if French “new wave” cinema is really as bad as it seems almost half a century later…

Understanding “Breathless” means understanding France. Understanding Jean Seberg means understanding what happens when the odds are 18,000 to 1 and you win a “become a star in Hollywood” contest. She could have become a Mouseketeer instead of Joan-of-Arc if the roulette ball had dropped into the next slot. A product of the same cornfed Midwestern culture that produced Charlie Starkweather and Caril Fugate.

Before doing “Breathless,” Godard was a film critic for Cahiers du Cinema, the French equivalent of the New York Review of Books for the movies. Paris was full of GI’s… yes, even Teddy Kennedy did a tour as an Army enlisted man over at NATO headquarters during the 1950s. And the first generation of CIA culture cops, the Congress for Cultural Freedom. Ask Arthur Schlesinger what it was like in the days when "being on the payroll" really meant something. Or go read Simone de Beauvoir’s “The New Mandarins” for details.

France was in the midst of an identity crisis, getting their butts kicked in Indochina, blundering through the Suez crisis and turning Algeria into a meat grinder. Young people were restless, suffering from what sociologists (we don’t hear about them any more) call cultural anomie.

No wonder that the catchphrase of “Breathless” was… “to become immortal and then to die.” When I look back at the film I see a bad road movie with players behaving like “beatniks.” I also see elements of genius that crop up in places like David Lynch’s “Wild at Heart” and Tarantino’s “Pulp Fiction.”

Twenty years later, Jean Seberg was found dead in the back seat of her car, eleven days after an apparent overdose of barbiturates. There was a lot of sotto voce about her left wing politics, notably support for the Black Panthers and our beloved quadroon-in-denial J. Edgar Hoover taking a personal interest in St. Jean when he became convinced she was pregnant with a black child.

Seberg’s former husband and father figure, French diplomat, war hero and author (the only French person to ever win the Prix Goncourt twice) Romain Gary, took his own life after hearing of her “suicide.”

There were others who followed in the wake of Seberg’s ephemeral cool. Capucine, a bad actress with great looks who played opposite Laurence Harvey in Edward Dmytryk’s film of the Nelson Algren book “A Walk on The Wild Side.” And Dominique Sanda.

The question for Jerry, who wrote the definitive history of the Mouseketeers, is… what would Jean Seberg have been like if she was the 18,000-1 shot chosen by Disney productions instead of Alfred Hitchcock. What part of Annette Funicello did Jean Seberg not understand. Inquiring minds want to know. Are we ready for Naomi Watts or Anne Heche in "The Jean Seberg Story" directed by Roman Polanski?

posted by Groom 5:39 AM

Friday, February 27, 2004

Dennis Caves

House speaker Dennis Hastert agreed to give the independent panel investigating the 9/11 attacks an extra two months to finish its report. Guess the White House decided that the public wasn't buying the story that it couldn't control the mighty mouse of the house.

posted by Jerry Bowles 3:50 PM

The winning ticket: Kerry-Gore

Kerry has said that he wants to choose a vice-president who has experience and is ready to step into the job of president if need be. There's a guy from Tennessee who fills the bill.

Stop laughing and hear me out.

Lots of mainstream Democrats like Al Gore and would vote for him, in spite of the media's opinion of him. Independents would vote for him, too.

Kerry-Gore would unite the establishment and insurgent wings of the party. This is the Year of Unity for the Democrats, and what better way to proclaim it?

This would give all those people who voted for Bush in 2000 and now have buyer's remorse a chance to vote for Gore again, partially rectifying their mistake. There are many voters in the country who would like a re-do on the 2000 election. (It would be an error, however, for Kerry or Gore to even bring up the issue. Let the stolen election be the stolen election, in the background of voters' minds, but not an overt campaign issue.)

This would provide a ticket strong in experience and would reassure people who are afraid of changing horses in midstream, before we've crossed the River of Terrorism. Though the Bushies would no doubt say that Gore didn't do enough for terrorism when the Clinton-Gore team was in the White House, Gore could successfully fend off these charges, if he would--and I think he would. He could talk about what the Clinton-Gore team did to counteract terrorism (more than the Bush team and the media give them credit for) and could discuss lessons learned. At the very least, he wouldn't need as much on-the-job training as any other vice-presidential candidate.

Gore would be a stronger candidate as vice-president in 2004 than he was president in 2000. He knows now about the need to fight back. He wouldn't stay above the fray--and vice-presidential candidates aren't supposed to stay above the fray anyway. Kerry could continue to be the statesman while maligning Bush in a statesmanlike way, and Gore could be the one who does the trash-talking against the Bush administration.

One downside is that the ticket would have two politicians who are considered awkward and less than engaging. But that could be seen as a plus: two calm, reassuring guys in charge. Maybe they would each enhance the other's warmth (yes, they do have warmth).

Don't we need a fresh face this year, you ask? Well, sure, that would be nice. The phrase "Kerry-Edwards" has a nice ring. But since 9-11 Changed Everything, as Bush and the media are forever telling us, we need experience and fortitude more than we need to take a chance on a fresh face. Vicki Meagher

Ed Note: Our guest blogger of the week James Barlett is busy today so we a guest blogger for our guest blogger. JB

posted by Jerry Bowles 11:10 AM

Reasons to Like Kerry

TalkLeft gives us two more reasons to prefer Kerry over Edwards. Kerry favors the death penalty only for cases of terrorism and supports the legal use of medical marijuana. Edwards is pro-death, anti-blow.

posted by Jerry Bowles 10:30 AM

La Recherche du Temps Perdu

Funny thing...memory. "Breathless" was one of the first new wave French films I ever saw and I've always remembered it fondly as a favorite. I watched it again for the first time in 40 years the other night and found it incredibly silly--implausible people, dreadful, arty dialogue, cartoonish acting and holes in the plot that you could drive a Renault through. Belmondo channeling Bogart without the charm.

Aside from the pretentiousness, what struck me most in the new watching was the gratuitous smoking--Gauloises and Chesterfields lit and consumed by the carton. Jean Seberg's smoke-filled apartment seemed to be sans ashtray so the lovers casually flipped butts out the window, presumably onto the heads of passersby.

And speaking of the beautiful and doomed Seberg, four decades ago a blonde, borderline nut case American girl with near-perfect French living in Paris was my idea of a femme fatalle. Today, Seberg reminds me of the most valuable piece of advice anyone ever gave me--when you see a large rock in the road you don't have to go through it, you can walk around it. I can't decide if "Breathless" was always this bad or I just got old.

posted by Jerry Bowles 8:54 AM

Washington Post blames the boomers too

more jacking the facts on jacking Social Security

What happened to the “Bush debt” and his $5 billion plus a month Iraq war, and the “twin towers” of massive trade deficit and our huge foreign debt? These were the reasons Greenspan gave for jacking Social Security less than 72 hours ago. Now, without bothering to check out the soundness of the Social Security Trust Fund, the Washington Post puts all of Social Security’s problems on the size of the baby boomer generation.

According to the Social Security Trustees’ report, however, the program can pay all benefits through 2042 without any changes at all. Ironically, four of the six trustees that signed off on this report were appointed by George W. Bush. By that time we'll all be dead. So will Greenspan. Ditto the editorial writer who penned the partisan lies in the pay of the Washington Post.

Mark Weisbrot of the Center for Economic and Policy and Research offers some excellent analysis of what’s behind the move by the Beltway Bandits to hype the urban legend that Social Security is in big trouble.

Lip service from Kerry and Edwards about protecting Social Security is hardly reassuring. And the lack of any substantive response from Uncle Dem and “big labor” merely increases the possibility of AARP sending out free tubes of K-Y to ease the pain when an entire generation of boomers gets bent over.

posted by Groom 6:25 AM

Thursday, February 26, 2004

Spin alert… NPR flips on jacking social security

Yesterday NPR’s “Talk of the Nation” lead story was Alan Greenspan calling for cuts in Social Security and Medicare benefits instead of tax increases in order to pay for astronomical debt racked up by the Bush administration. Today’s lead story on “Talk of the Nation” says that the real reason Greenspan is calling for the cuts is because Social Security is not able to cover the benefits of the retiring baby boomers, taking the onus off of the “Bush debt“ and the “twin towers.” Makes you wonder who threatened to take their lunch money away if they didn’t change the story...

posted by Groom 4:09 PM

The Conversation

Those of you with active synapes will recall that in the immediate weeks leading up to the invasion of Iraq, there was a mini-flap about the U.S. asking Britain for help in electronic eavesdropping on a number of allies' embassies to try to get a heads up on how they would vote on a new Security Council resolution. Katharine Gun, an employee at the Government Communications Headquarters (GCHQ), the British intelligences services' listening station, leaked the e-mailed request to the British press. This was at a time when war fever was at its peak, embeds were being embedded, mushroom clouds from Saddam's deadly arsenal were gathering over Kansas, so the American press completely ignored the story. Yesterday, the British government dropped charges against Ms. Gun rather than discuss the matter in open court.

Today, we find out from Tony Blair's former Cabinet minister Clare Short why we asked the cousins to handle the bugging for us--they're damned good at it. According to Short, British spies have been listening in on all of Kofi Annan's conversations for a long time now. Spot on, Tony.

posted by Jerry Bowles 3:43 PM

Black Market Nukes for Peace

Interesting listening on NPR this morning with Joseph Cirincione, director of the Non-Proliferation Project at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace. A thriving black market in nuclear materials was recently uncovered in Pakistan, which supplied countries such as Libya, North Korea and Iran with nuclear materials. Cirincione calls this the "most significant hemorrhaging of nuclear technology since the Russians penetrated the Manhattan Project" in the Rosenberg days of the 1950s. But he says our alliance with Pakistan in the war on terror hinders our efforts at stopping proliferation. Although the scientist reponsible for the black market has been caught and pardoned by the Pakistani president, nobody's talking about punishing Pakistan for spreading this technology because they're such a great ally of ours. Cirincione says it's not the first time we've done something like this--we tend to punish countries and regimes that import weapons technology, but let countries that export it go free. Our good guys/bad guys view of the world costs us credibility as the world's nuclear cop, too--some countries get to have weapons and others don't because we say so, and it's not always clear to the rest of the world why this should be.

This just in: Bush still plans to run for reelection on the basis that he's made the world safer. Are you feelin' it?

posted by jabartlett 12:51 PM

Is McCain Plan B

I had to run to the john last night when the bloviating Chris Matthews gave Sen. John McCain a lay-up on Bush, "And has this President in your opinion grown in the job since 9/11?" I half-hoped that McCain would betray at least a bit of equivocation in his response. After all, McCain is supposed to be our assurance that the intelligence failure commission will be honest. But no. This on top of the "campaign" appearance in New Hampshire right before the primary there.

What is going on? Other than Max Cleland, no one in America has more right to hate the BushCo smear machine.

What form of political lobotomy has been performed? Or, could it be ... that McCain is Plan B if Lord Cheney is axed?

posted by Evelyn 10:02 AM

Another War, Another Tale

Once the rationale for fighting the war in Iraq shifted from finding very specific amounts of very specific weapons to the righteousness of a general crusade against badness, we started hearing some gruesome tales of just how evil Saddam Hussein was. One of the worst was his alleged use of a "human-shredding machine." Something like a wood-chipper, apparently, into which one of Saddam's sons liked to feed live victims. A British MP revealed its existence days before the war began last spring, and it's surfaced periodically since then as a symbol of both Saddam's evil and the craven cowardice of those who opposed a war to remove him.

Well, guess what? It turns out that like the anthrax and nukes and sarin gas and other WMDs, nobody's yet found this infamous shredding machine, either. No Iraqis who worked at the prison where the machine was supposedly housed can corroborate its existence. Neither can Amnesty International or Human Rights Watch. The British MP who told the first story of it claims she saw something in a dossier shown to her by a Fox News reporter (whose name she cannot recall), but she didn't read much of it because it was written entirely in Arabic.

Of course, by administration standards of proof, that's practically an eyewitness report. For the rest of us, it looks like another link in the centuries-long chain of dubious atrocity stories spread for propaganda purposes.

posted by jabartlett 9:09 AM

Today's Must Read

"Like father, like son; like Atwater, like Rove; no one spreads sewage quite like the Bushes." Harold Meyerson, Washington Post, 02/26/04

posted by Jerry Bowles 8:50 AM

Colombia… billions in US aid gives us a large shipment of “H”

After watching his US-trained army get their butts kicked by the FARC, Colombia’s neo-fascist president Alvaro Uribe yesterday sacked six top generals including heads of the intelligence services. Colombia gets more direct and indirect US military assistance than any other nation except Israel and Egypt. Yesterday, NPR aired portions of a new study indicating that cheap heroin “is back” and being marketed to the “thirteen year old crowd” on the streets of the US. Much of it is coming from… Colombia. The dime bag question is, when did it go away.

Let the French take the lead on Haiti

If Arnold Schwarzenegger and his LDS pal Sen. Orrin “Booby” Hatch (R-Ut) have their way, maybe Jean-Bertrand Aristide can seek exile in the US and become president after 20 years of residence. Entretemps, perhaps it’s a good idea for our unenthusiastic administration to take a powder and defer to the French on Haiti. Watching Shrubby’s nervous body language and shaky voice pattern yesterday during his media pop quiz on Haiti makes you wonder why polls still indicate he is the “national security” president.

Over in the land of banned foie-gras, the Quai d’Orsay is already on the record that it’s time to shitcan Aristide and his crack and smack dealer-backed government. Haiti, like neighboring Dominican Republic is one of the major transshipment points for cocaine and heroin into the US. France has been getting a bad rap on Haiti in some US quarters, characterized as the “former colonial power.” But the Brits exploited the island people as much if not more... and don't forget those times we sent in the Marines and the Wackenhut blacklegs, who were led by the father of "Stormin' Norman" Schwarzkopf. French language and culture remain dominant among Haiti’s political class and its insurrectionists. Laissez-faire… ou laissez-les bon temps roulez. As for Shrubby, he once owned a baseball club. Maybe they can give him a cue card that says they make baseballs over in Haiti.

posted by Groom 4:08 AM

Wednesday, February 25, 2004

Paging Jim Garrison

While pretending to support a two-month extension for its handpicked 9/11 commission, the White House has apparently decided to let House speaker Dennis Hastert take the heat for shutting it down. Hastert has served notice that he doesn't intend to bring the extension up for a vote in this session which means that the commission will fold the tent when the original deadline is up on May 27.

After months of stonewalling on delivering documents, three of the key people who know what the White House knew and when it knew it have refused to testify under oath before the commission. Bush and Cheney have even declined to meet with the entire commission and Condi Rice has declined to affirm that the testimony that she gave is the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth. There can be only one reason that they would not testify freely and under oath--they know a lot more than they're telling.

Of all the semi-truths, ofuscations, and downright lies told by this administration, none matches its assertion of "total cooperation" with the 9/11 Commission for sheer, shameless baldfaced mendacity. The American people are entitled to an honest accounting of who was paying attention and who wasn't in the months and weeks before the little brown guys with the boxcutters struck. Thanks to the administration's successful stonewalling and withholding of key information, this Commission will not provide that accounting.

Somewhere, out there in the Pennsylvania countryside, where United Flight 93 may well have been shot down on 9/11 by vice presidential order (a wild assertion, you say; the White House could easily disprove it with some cooperation), I hope there's a nut case district attorney who plans to make the rest of Condi Rice's life miserable when she departs the protective cocoon of the White House.

I sent an e-mail to Dennis Hastert here which said: Extend the Commission. Stop the Cover-Up. You could do the same if you were so inclined.

posted by Jerry Bowles 8:42 PM

States' Rights? What's That Again?

The Republicans used to love all that stuff about federalism and local control--until they took over both the White House and Congress. All of a sudden, Washington knows best--on school standards, on environmental protection, and now, on prescription drugs. Several Midwestern governors are pushing programs to permit residents to buy less-expensive prescription drugs from Canadian pharmacies. This violates the terms of the federal health care bill passed earlier this winter, but the govs basically say they don't care. Unlike many issues, where Republicans sign up Zell Miller and call it "bipartisan support," the reimportation of drugs from Canada has real support from both sides. For example, Democrat governors Jim Doyle of Wisconsin and Rod Blagojevich of Illinois and Republican Tim Pawlenty of Minnesota favor reimportation. (Wisconsin launched a reimportation website just today.)

The Department of Health and Human Services (headed by the former four-term governor of Wisconsin, Tommy Thompson) keeps rolling out the same argument it used during debate on the prescription drug benefit last year: You just can't trust those shifty Canadians, and as a result, reimported drugs might not be safe. But if that's the best HHS can do, that's not going to convince very many people who haven't already sipped the administration's Kool-Aid. The FDA can't cite a single instance in which somebody was harmed by Canadian-bought drugs. And Tom Frazier, head of the Coalition of Wisconsin Aging Groups, identifies what he calls "a far bigger safety issue than re-importation from Canada"--not being able to afford your prescribed medications at all.

posted by jabartlett 6:04 PM

Greenspan wants to steal your money

Josh can ask about Sigmund Freud. But I'm going to ask about John Dillinger... either tatalech Greenspan is serious about jacking Social Security to pay for Shrubby’s debt or in his heart of hearts he wants to see the emperor in his new clothes.

For those of you who have lost out in IRAs, corporate pensions and other retirement products, or are just cookie cutter victims of bad pension accounting standards, $900 a month may not seem like much. But that’s about the CIA fact book average annual income of a citizen of Haiti.

Howard Dean was the only Democrat who stumped on the probability that the Shrub Club would jack Social Security. Greenspan has let the other shoe drop. But we’re not seeing a full broadside attack from John Kerry, John Edwards, Terry McAuliffe, Tom Daschle, the AFL-CIO. This should be an au barricades issue for Uncle Dem.

Even if Democrats in Congress bend over for a GOP bill that ups the age limits it means that the pols you voted into office want you to die before you get to the cookie jar…

posted by Groom 2:35 PM

What Would Freud Say About Bush?

It strikes me that any shrink would have a field day with Bush’s first purely political speech of 2004 to Republican governors on Monday. It’s clearly projection and a defense mechanism for Bush to charge Democrats, especially a nameless one from Massachusetts, with wanting it both ways: for the war, not for the war; for the Patriot Act, not for the Patriot Act; for NAFTA, against NAFTA.

In psychiatric terms, projection is “a defense mechanism, operating unconsciously, in which what is emotionally unacceptable in the self is unconsciously rejected and attributed (projected) to others.” And defense mechanisms “include repression and denial, which serve to prevent unacceptable ideas or impulses from entering the conscience. Secondary defense mechanisms: generally appearing as an outgrowth of the primary defense mechanisms; include projection, reaction formation, displacement, sublimation, and isolation.” Sound like anyone we know?

Bush wants it both ways: compassionate and conservative; WMDs present an imminent danger, WMDs are not the reason we went to war; no time (prewar) for inspectors to do their job, need more time (postwar) for inspectors to do their job (postwar); no need for UN support (prewar), need UN support (postwar); for regulating relationships (civil unions) at the State level, but against States having the right to define marriage; for reducing the cost of health care but against the State of Vermont negotiating a whole sale discount on prescription drugs with Canada; this election is about the future, except for Kerry’s past; etc.

This is not politics as usual. We all do a certain amount of projection, but Bush’s behavior has reached a psychotic level—and this is just the beginning of the campaign. The good Doctor Dean went down this path, and no doubt even inspired Republicans to rip off this charge against Kerry and others. But, just as people didn’t buy Dean’s argument, I expect most folks will find Bush’s "projections" to be even more transparent, untreatable, and duplicitious.

posted by Josh 1:26 PM

Dubious Choice

For the past several years, Milwaukee has been home to one of the nation's most widely publicized experiments in school choice. The Milwaukee Parental Choice Program allows low-income parents to receive state-funded tuition vouchers to send their children to private schools. This week, the biggest scandal in the history of the program continues to unfold--the Mandella School of Science and Math was ordered closed by a judge last week after officials admitted improperly cashing $330,000 in state checks. (The school's principal spent 65 large to buy two used Mercedes, one of which is a convertible titled in the school's name.) This week, Milwaukee Public Schools officials have been scrambling to place Mandella's 190 students elsewhere within the district.

The Parental Choice Program was created by the Wisconsin legislature with minimal provisions for state oversight--a flaw it shares with many voucher programs nationwide. Despite the PR that voucher schools provide a better education than public schools can, achievement test data collected in Milwaukee is ambiguous at best. Voucher schools are exempt from state standardized testing programs, although a recent survey reported that 92 percent of Milwaukee's 168 voucher schools do testing each year. (Less than half administer the same test public schools are required to give.)

The Milwaukee voucher program writes checks to parents, which parents sign over to the school of their choice. So it's up to the parents to determine whether that school is doing its job. Buyer beware, in other words; the good old marketplace model that makes everything all right. But parents can lack the expertise to make this evaluation--and sometimes they lack more than that. For example, at least one parent of a Mandella student said she thought Mandella was a public school. So the program can be ripe for picking by sharpers who are so inclined. For example, we've already seen Internet-based high schools of dubious origin and storefront schools with students enrolled but no actual educational programs.

Voucher critics are sometimes called racist--the majority of participants in the Milwaukee program are African American and Hispanic, and criticism of the program is often interpreted as criticism of its participants. But the basic question about vouchers is simple and color-blind: If public schools need strict fiscal and academic accountability, why not voucher schools? Here in Wisconsin, we're still waiting for somebody to tell us why.

posted by jabartlett 9:31 AM

Ashen Wednesday: The Morning After Marriage Amendment Tuesday

It’s a cloudless sunny morning in New York today, but I woke up in a grey, ashen mood, depressed over the Unifier-in-Chief’s unleashing of another dividing wedge in America, all in the name of protecting the “naashon,” as he likes to call the country, and powerless to do anything about it.

Today is the Day of Ashes, the first day of Lent, a forty day period before Easter that is a time for sober reflection, self-examination and spiritual redirection. Growing up as a kid in one of the most extreme Christian fundamentalist homes you could imagine, I always wondered, but never asked, why some people walked around with dirty smudges on their forehead. It was the kind of question you wouldn’t ask my father.

Later I learned that it was a symbol of mourning and penance, a particular practice in the Catholic Church dating back to the 900’s. Not something fundamentalist would do—it’s too Catholic, too pagan. Nevertheless, it’s a sign of ownership and those who choose to have the symbol of the cross on their foreheads are saying they belong to Christ. It starts off that way but smudges into a grey blob of soot as the day wears on. No doubt there is a metaphor here for what is happening in America in general and this issue in particular.

So where is this leading and why am I ashen today? In politics especially, timing is everything. So why now? Why on the eve of Ash Wednesday? Why on the eve of Mel Gibson’s release of his controversial, excessively violent movie about the last hours of Christ that is specifically calculated to force us to confront our images of the roots of Christianity, the fundamentalist version at least? Why not next week to steal the Democratic thunder on Super Tuesday? Or a month from now?

For the life of me I can’t explain the timing, except to note the coincidences?! One thing is certain, Bush has unleashed, not a time of sober reflection associated with the onset of Lent, but a time of thrashing and lashing, of good vs. evil, as seen in Gibson’s “Passion of the Christ.” This is no way to be a president. This is no way to be a unifier, not a divider. This is no way bridge the gaps between Islam and Christianity that divide much of the world. This is no way to start a re-election campaign as a “compassionate conservative.”

posted by Josh 9:12 AM

A sick chicken in every pot

Howard Dean has compared the Bush administration with that of William McKinley in part because both presidencies have been overshadowed by wars prosecuted under dubious circumstances. Now, as more nations slam the door on US poultry exports Dean's comparison takes on greater poignancy. Considering this administration's propensity to rig scientific data, we're back to an era of Upton Sinclair and his book The Jungle. This is the book that gave us the Pure Food and Drug Act and the Meat Inspection Act.

With the Spanish-American war as its piece de resistance, the McKinley administration conveniently turned a blind eye to urban poverty, child labor, low wages, environmental pollution and unsafe and unhealthy working conditions. Sound familiar?

It's not at all reassuring to think that a cover-up specialist like Condi Rice is part of the mix now that the safety of our food supply is a national security concern. There's very little old media coverage of what's being done to contain the avian flu other than to minimize its impact. With much of Congress on the pad from the meat, poultry and global agribusiness lobbies we can't expect much from that quarter either. And don't forget "mad cow" disease and the botch on this year's flu vaccine.

For now, there's zero accountability. Not from the White House, or the NIH or the CDC. The only Muckrakers seem to be hanging out here in the Blogosphere. Will Poppy Bush and his friends at the Carlyle Group make some calls, throw around some schmiergeld and get the Russians to take a flyer on a big order of Bush Legs?

posted by Groom 5:33 AM

Overrating Karl

Is it possible that we've all overrated Karl Rove or is "Bush's brain" just having a bad patch? Watching the Shrubster stumble through a series of disasters, large and small, over the past few weeks you have to wonder if the plan to re-elect Bush Junior somehow got lost among the plans for managing post-war Iraq and those dreaded weapons of mass destruction. Sure, it's early and BushCo hasn't dragged out the big ammo yet and they do have all that money to create hate ads that divide the country and make everybody angry, but right now Shrub looks like a man doing his damndest to keep from drowning.

The White House has been on the defensive on the non-existent WMDs and the monumental loss of jobs for weeks now and the best Karl can come up with is some half-baked idea to go to the Moon. And who, exactly, is Karl trying to make happy with "immigration reform"? It sure as hell ain't conservatives. And, isn't the first axiom of politics to ignore the Christian right (or looney left, if you're a Democrat) because they're going to vote for you anyway? By wading into what will clearly be perceived as politically-motivated pandering, the Shrubster not only alienates gays, moderates and independents, he also loses points with the liberatarian "don't fuck with my Constitution" crowd. With this kind of help, Kerry doesn't have to be very good. Maybe, Karl will cop to the Valerie Plame thing and take himself out of a losing game.

posted by Jerry Bowles 12:51 AM

Tuesday, February 24, 2004

Information Awareness

When Congress spiked the funding for John Poindexter's Total Information Awareness project last year, you could feel the waves of relief emanating from Washington. Why, certainly, this decisive act would dissuade anyone in government from any attempt to assemble massive information dossiers on every citizen just because they could, in case the dossiers might be useful someday. Ding dong, DARPA is dead. Personal privacy is saved. Right?

Well, no. The Christian Science Monitor reported this week that when Congress was driving a stake into TIA, it left funding intact for a similar program under a different name, run by another agency. So it's no surprise to read the report in Wired News that says some of the same companies and researchers who were under government contract to help develop TIA are still at work on the same sorts of things. And we already know that similar data-mining intiatives like CAPPS II (profiling airline passengers) and MATRIX (an anti-crime database using publically available information) are proceeding.

But no one should get upset about all this. Law-abiding citizens have nothing to worry about from these programs. Keep your nose clean and you'll be OK. Move along, now, sonny. There's nothing to see here.

posted by jabartlett 8:52 PM

The Besties

Forget the office pool. Herewith, the BoB “should have been” nominated list for the Academy Awards:

Best Editing: Shrub’s "live" pre-war press conference.

Best Original Screenplay: Ahmad Chalabi's "The case of the Disappearing WMDs."

Best Action Scene: Saddam’s “capture.” (A special assistance thank you to the Kurds). Runner-up "Saving Private Jessica."

Best actress in a supporting role: Katherine Harris. Passed over for the Florida Senate nomination by the RNC, guilty consciences must recognize team player Katherine as a glamour-soaked Congresswoman. Bob Mackie, where are you? (Runner up: Mary Cheney)

Best Actor in a Supporting Role: Strom Thurmond was not convincing as a living creature, so the award goes to Little Buddy, Rick Perry, in his gender-bending performance as a straight upholder of family values. Award presented by Tom Cruise.

Best Actress: Condi. And don’t forget to thank Halle Berry, who had to have sex with Billy Bob Thornton to get hers. Remember to burn that August 6, 2001 memo, sweetie.

Best Actor: Although the seasoned veteran usually bests the energetic newcomer, Rush’s role was relatively niche. For boffo box office, we have to go with Shrub. Don’t drink too many non-alcoholic beers before your thank you speech and go easy on the pretzels.

Best Director: The Dark Lord of the Rings, Mr. Cheney, please accept the grateful thanks of a nation.

Best Picture: The WAR on IRAQ, produced by Fox and the Embedded Media. Eat your heart out, Michael Cimino.

Make up your own. (Evelyn Keyes)

posted by Jerry Bowles 6:46 PM

Dear Mary:

Mary Cheney, phone home.

posted by Jerry Bowles 4:23 PM

Abe's Troops Check In

“Log Cabin Republicans are more determined than ever to fight the anti-family Constitutional amendment with all our resources,” said Log Cabin Executive Director Patrick Guerriero, in response to the President’s announcement that he will push for the anti-family amendment. “Writing discrimination into our Constitution violates conservative and Republican principles. This amendment would not strengthen marriage—it would weaken our nation.”

“As conservative Republicans, we are outraged that any Republican—particularly the leader of our party and this nation—would support any effort to use our sacred United States Constitution as a way of scoring political points in an election year,” Guerriero said. Read the rest.

posted by Jerry Bowles 4:21 PM