Blair seeks distance from Bush for elections

FRASER NELSON
POLITICAL EDITOR


Key points
• UK government to become more critical of Bush following handover of power
• Polls reveal Blair suffering from association with Bush with Labour voters
• Straw criticises Americans for demobilising Iraqi army

Key quote
"It’s hardly a great surprise that I don’t subscribe to a neoconservative view of life" - Jack Straw, Foreign Secretary

Story in full
TONY Blair is to drop his policy of unflinching support of George Bush’s foreign policy, deciding that the handover of power in Iraq has now released him from his diplomatic obligations.

The Prime Minister has made it clear to Jack Straw, the Foreign Secretary and Geoff Hoon, the Defence Secretary, that they can now point out where disagreement with the Bush administration occurs.....

posted by John 8:46 AM

Rule Number One In Handling Wingnuts

NOVAK: I didn't say he was engaging -- and you're lying.

BEGALA: I'll read your words.

NOVAK: And when I said that . . .

They hate to get called on their bullshit!

posted by Michael 1:15 AM

Friday, July 02, 2004

Colin Powell plays Christopher St.
It's wicky-wacky-woo time in Jakarta, with our moral compass playing the gay blade to close down an Asian security summit. The only thing missing was a Blue Light Special with little boys pants half off. Since it's outside his jurisdiction, FCC topper Michael Powell can only read it and weep. Props to Colin for having a sense of humor.

Don't Axe, Don't Tell

posted by Groom 6:09 PM

Nader's Nadir

Could this be the beginning of the end for Ahmad Chalabi look-alike Ralph Nader? The Arizona Republic is reporting that his people have taken him out of the race in that state. Over in New Mexico it's not uncommon for dead people to sign election petitions. Arizonans (and the "independent" Democrats who filed a legal action to challenge Nader) see things a little differently.

posted by Groom 5:40 PM

Speaking of the Pope

My friend, Tom Teicholz, interviews famous producer/husband/cokehead/raconteur Bob Evans today in the LA-based, Jewish Journal, about Bob's favorite picture: no, not Chinatown, but his documentary about John Paul II.

posted by Evelyn 3:21 PM

Stop the Bubba machine

Bubba Bandar won't admit it, but all is not well between the House of Saud and the Bushovic. The International Herald Tribune reveals that Crown Prince Abdullah isn't comfortable with the Chalabi boys strutting around Baghdad in their Saville Row suits. Lord Cheney of Halliburton can't keep the Dems from further outing the Saudis on money laundering for terrorists and Al Qaeda. The Saudis have "flip-flopped" on their support for Saddam more than the GOP says John Kerry has "flip-flopped" on national security issues. Will a Saudi-financed team rescue Saddam from his captors and spirit him off to Mecca where he could live out his years as a Saudi retainer in a penthouse hotel suite, much as Idi Amin did?

posted by Groom 2:23 PM

Krugman for Pope

Got to give major props to Krugman for finding something new to say about Farenheit 9/11. At this point, it's not easy but his notion that many red state salt-of-the-earth types are shocked by the film because the "respectable" media has failed to report or glossed over many of its inconvenient truths strikes me as dead on. Those of us who read and write blogs already knew that the Bushes and the Saudis were tight; that Prince Bandar is known within the family as "Bandar Bush." We knew that Shrub sat and read "My Pet Goat" with the kids for seven long minutes after learning that the country was under attack while he waited for Andy Card to call Uncle Dick and find out what to do next. We knew that being a cool Neocon doesn't mean you have good personal hygiene.

But, a lot of people didn't know these things. In its efforts to play fair and balanced, (and, no doubt, cowed by all the flagwaving) the establishment media played along with the myth of Shrub, the decisive leader, immediately springing into action and rallying the forces of good. Moore deflates the myths that the mainstream press not only allowed to develop but actively promoted. And he's done it in a way that reaches the level of society hardest hit by Dick Cheney's dirty little war of choice.

posted by Jerry Bowles 11:37 AM

The Wind Done Come Back

Not too long ago, I came across my grandmother's application to join the Daughters of the American Revolution, in which she details the military credentials of an illustrious ancestor who joined up as an officer and was discharged as a private.

I've also heard the other side of my family extol the virtues of my great, great uncle who despite being a friend of General Lee and a university graduate, was a private in the infantry, becoming Yankee cannon fodder on Cemetary Ridge, and leaving a mind cultivated with Latin and Greek in an unmarked grave. (This happening almost on this day in 1863.)

As lacking in luster as these ancestors were, they formed a piece of the rich history of my Southern upbringing, placing me firmly in a cosmology that extended deep into our country's history.

How delighted I was then to read in the New York Times today that Essie May Washington, illegitimate daughter of Dixiecrat and Senator Strom Thurmond, is applying to the UDC, the subject of Eudora Welty stories and object of any well-born Southern girl. Pleased not only because Essie Mae's entrance will flush out any remaining racists in the membership, and there is not a chance she will be denied admittance, but also because it signals her forgiveness of the people and the past that kept her and her mother down. (She's also planning to join the DAR, who sixty-five years ago kept Mahalia Jackson from performing in their hall in Washington.) Those old gals on the membership committee should get take her application and write back on the nicest monagrammed paper a big "Thank you, Essie Mae," for joining up and not doing to us what we did to you.

posted by Evelyn 8:57 AM

Name the Underblogs

It's Friday before a long weekend; many of our regular readers have probably hit the beach or the backyard wading pool already. Let's have some fun. Take a look at our list of "Top Blogs" in the left column and tell us who should be on the list but isn't and who's on the list and shouldn't be...with a couple of sentences why. That's it. You don't win anything but you can do that rude Tony Soprano thing with the Italian sausages while barbequing if you like.

posted by Jerry Bowles 8:26 AM

The following article appeared in today's Tokyo Weekender.

What will John Kerry’s election mean to Americans living in Japan?

The obvious answer is straightforward, a feeling of immense relief. It will be simply and truly wonderful not having to cringe every time a Japanese or European friend mentions the Bush administration and asks about its arbitrarily walking away from international treaties, the missing weapons of mass destruction, the missing link between Iraq and Al Qaeda, the pictures from Abu Ghraib, the memos from administration lawyers claiming that the President may authorize torture and decide arbitrarily who is or is not an “enemy combatant,” or—from the business minded—the fiscal insanity that is putting the whole global economy at risk.

Along with that relief, there will also be a feeling of hope. John Kerry is an internationalist and an advocate of free trade. He has also been a staunch defender of the natural environment and a vigorous advocate for ending both US and global dependence on the world’s dwindling petroleum resources. Women will rest assured that this President will be a staunch defender of reproductive rights and very unlikely, indeed, to appoint Supreme Court or other Federal judges who would threaten those rights. Educators will know that this President will not cynically support a program named “Leave No Child Behind,” brag about it in his campaign speeches, then deliberately cut the funding for it, leaving schools facing new demands without the resources to meet them and forcing school districts to seek increases in property taxes or cut other programs.

Military personnel will know that John Kerry won’t wrap himself in the flag, waste taxpayers’ money on carrier landing publicity stunts to announce the end of an unended war, accuse his opponents of failing to support the troops—then turn around and slash veterans’ benefits. They may recognize, too, that here is a genuine hero, who went deliberately in harm’s way to save the life of a soldier for whom he felt responsible, and a man with the good sense to recognize when a war has gone wrong and speak out against it. (“Treason!” shout his enemies. “Tell it to Generals Clark, McPeak, Odom, and Zinni,” say his friends.)

Members of the business community will also have reason for optimism. Instead of an administration with ideological blindfolds and a President Bush described by former Treasury Secretary Paul O’Neill as impervious to rational argument, even from members of his own party—the deaf leading the blind—they will, instead, be able to work with a thoughtful pragmatist. President Kerry will know the difference between strong convictions tempered by awareness of changing realities and blind faith in divine election.

We should not look for radical changes in trade or security policy vis-à-vis Japan, say Washington insiders. What we should expect is more attention to economic and trade issues, a more engaged posture, and tougher stance toward currency manipulation, an issue in dealing with China as well as Japan. There will also be greater willingness to engage in bilateral negotiations with North Korea as well as continued participation in the current six-nation process.

Make no mistake about it: the problems that face the world today—terrorism, ethnic conflict, genocide, epidemic disease, environmental destruction, depleted resources, and the awful poverty that affects more than half of humanity—will not go away on the day that John Kerry is inaugurated as America’s forty-fourth president. But Americans living in Japan will, like people everywhere, enjoy a rekindled hope—the hope that America will, indeed, “be America again.”

John L. McCreery
International Vice Chair
Democrats Abroad

posted by John 3:16 AM

Day-um! I Sure Loves Me Some Freewayblogger.com!

posted by Michael 12:25 AM

Thursday, July 01, 2004

What If

Somehow last week I managed to miss this: "Voting Official Seeks Terrorism Guidelines," in which the chairman of the Election Assistance Commission says hey, we need some guidelines for canceling or rescheduling elections in case terrorists try to strike on or close to Election Day. The chairman, DeForest Soaries, notes that the September 11 attacks happened on the day of New York's mayoral election. And also, he says, remember what happened with the train bombings in Spain.

Talking about the train bombings in Spain is a bit of a red herring, though: they didn't disrupt the election all that much. It went off as scheduled, all except for the part where the party of coalition-of-the-willing member Jose-Maria Aznar got beat. And you can argue that even if there'd been a law in place that mandated, say, an automatic 60-day delay in the event of an attack, the mere fact of the attack would have affected the election anyhow. As for the idea of "canceling" elections--let's not even go there, Bubba.

But let's give the commission the benefit of the doubt, even though it owes its existence to the Help America Vote Act, which some suspect is designed to do the opposite, at least to some voters. It's a fine idea to put some sort of guideline in place. Do I think we'll get it by this fall? No chance. This is one issue I am guessing Bushco would rather trust to improvisation--and serendipity.

posted by jabartlett 6:14 PM

Florida Judges Get Even

A state court has ruled that CNN and other news organizations can obtain a copy of Florida's list of convicted felons who are ineligible to vote.

posted by Evelyn 5:51 PM

Saddam's New Look

Someone call Queer Eye for the Iraqi Guy:



Brian Rodgers

posted by FPN 3:18 PM

If it's the Sudan, it's slavery
Show me an Arab in the Sudan who doesn't call a black African a slave and I'll show you an Arab without a machine gun. Slavery continues big time in the Sudan and elsewhere in the Arab world. Some might think that "Arabs" are getting a bad rap on this, but the historical antecedents are there, ditto Euro colonial powers like Portugal. How ironic it is that arch Semite and Nation of Islam honcho Louis Farrakhan, with his light skin, doesn't seem to mind what's happening to his dark brothers and sisters.

posted by Groom 2:31 PM

Paging Atticus Finch

According to the nice folks over at Hit & Run, who got it from a reader who got it from a friend who reads Arabic newspapers, Saddam Hussein has requested a copy of his favorite novel whose title, when translated back into English, is "Kill the Bird That Laughs" and was written by a certain Miss Harper Lee. Looks like the evildoer de tutti evidoers is really a Boy Scout at heart. (Ok, ok, I hear the groans.)

posted by Jerry Bowles 12:32 PM

Out of the Closet

The name of the CIA guy who wrote Imperial Hubris is Michael Scheuer and he doesn't really want to be anonymous--the Company is just doing damage control, according to the The Boston Phoenix. Scheuer has been with the CIA for 22 years and was in charge of its Osama bin Laden station.

posted by Jerry Bowles 10:47 AM

Depose the Dictator, Dismantle the Infrastructure, Stir Up an Insurrection, And

According to this GAO report summarized in The Seattle Times, Iraq is, no duh, substantially worse off in several important respects than it was under Saddam Hussein. Who but the carpetbaggers, a.k.a. Halliburton, is making out over there?

posted by John 8:49 AM

Well, What Does a Party Do When It Controls The White House and Both Houses of Congress?

We Democrats expect the Republicans to govern badly. But whoever thought they'd have trouble governing at all, their control of the White House and both houses of Congress notwithstanding? Reading Jonathan Weisman in the Washington Post on The Budget Impasse in Congress, we find that the monolith is cracking, with moderate Republicans joining Democrats to beat back the charge of right wingnuts who never saw a tax they didn't want to cut regardless of putting the nation's finances in the toilet. Let's hear it for sanity.

posted by John 7:43 AM

More Money and Tighter Fisted, Too

Interesting item in The Hill.

Some feared that McCain-Feingold would be the death of political parties. Given what I heard at the legal briefings laid on for last weekend's Association of State Democratic Chairs (ASDC) meeting in Boston last weekend, it has, at the very least, created hellish complications and generated lots of new business for lawyers with plausible interpretations of what the bill actually says.

That makes it very interesting, indeed, that both parties have already raised more hard money this year than the total amounts of hard and soft money raised in 2000. Plus, on the other side of the ledger,

The efforts to raise so-called hard dollars have been labor-intensive and costly. Some fundraisers quip that these funds are truly “hard” dollars because they must be raised in limited increments, which means that the parties must persuade thousands of people to give $10, $20 or $30 to raise an amount that a wealthy individual could once match with a single six-figure soft-money check.

To avoid spending the bulk of their contributions on the towering cost of small-bore fundraising, the parties have had to dramatically cut their costs and drop many of the perks formerly enjoyed by donors and staff members.

.

Gone are the goodies of yesteryear when parties were thrown at top-class hotels and staffers flew full-fare, using bought at the last minute tickets, as they jaunted about the country. Now it's all lean and mean, with half the folks doing twice the work.


P.S. The Christian Science Monitor has also picked up this story.

posted by John 6:25 AM

Forget it Jake, its E-mail
Chinatown was a movie. But this is for real. The Washington Post examines why E-mail does not have the same legal protection as telephone conversations. With the power to become a private sector NSA for E-mail, the big E-mail services, inter alia AOL and Earthlink, are already out with their damage control denials. The blogosphere has been uncharacteristically quiet...

posted by Groom 5:29 AM

Wednesday, June 30, 2004

So you think your e-mail is private...

Think twice... the 1st US Circuit Court of Appeals in Boston has ruled that its ok for companies who offer email to surreptitiously track subscribers messages. Caveat emptor.

posted by Groom 6:08 PM

God Help Us

Forget Edwards, Drudge says it's going to be Hillary. Any takers?

UPDATE: I suspect (hope) that this is right-wing disinformation designed to "re-energize" the Bushies who are beginning to stray from the fold. Nothing Kerry could do would be more likely to doom his chances than going with the Hil. Now that he's put the alligators to sleep, it would be incredibly stupid to wake them up.

posted by Jerry Bowles 2:38 PM

John Axecroft... 86

That's the buzz. The worst US attorney general since Harry "Teapot Dome" Daugherty during the super-corrupt Harding administration. The Kompassionate Kristian Krooner won't need Spencer Stuart or Korn-Ferry to hook him up at the job he's eminently qualified to perform... director of the Convention & Visitors Bureau in Branson, Missouri.

posted by Groom 1:40 PM

Irrational Thoughts

Joel Steinberg is getting out of prison today after serving a 15-year sentence for brutally beating his 6-year-old adopted daughter, Lisa, and leaving her to die on the floor of his Greenwich Village apartment while his battered, perpetually stoned-out-of-her-mind companion, Hedda Nussbaum, tried to decide what to do. Nussbaum was originally charged with Steinberg but the charges were dropped when she agreed to testify against him. She went on to become something of a poster gal for battered women. To this day, Steinberg, who was then a successful attorney, has denied responsibility for Lisa's death

There are certain crimes that grab you by the gut and never let go. For me, this is the one. I don't believe in the death penalty and I no longer hunt since the last of my hillbilly uncles died. But I have this little piece of deep-woods property in southern West Virginia that I'd love to show to Mr. Steinberg sometime. And, frankly, I think Hedda ought to see it too.

posted by Jerry Bowles 11:45 AM

Bushovic as Elmer Gantry

A photo-op, preaching the gospel of Christian theocracy to the unwashed in Istanbul. As empty as photo-op in Louisiana the day the Saudis attacked America. As empty as our efforts to press the Turks to participate in the Northern Front that would have "won" the "War of Lies?" It's not about Democracy, or "winning"... it's about "churching" the heathens.

posted by Groom 10:10 AM

Alas, Edwards

There is a rising drumbeat among bloggers and political junkies for John Kerry to put aside the matter of lack of personal chemistry and choose John Edwards as his running mate. For awhile it looked like Kerry might need some buffing on the military/tough on terrorism front but now that most of the country agrees that Iraq was a mistake he no longer needs to go that route. Thus, Wes Clark is expendable. Dick Gephardt would make a great Secretary of Labor and even his fellow Missourians prefer Edwards for the VP spot. Tom what's his name contributes nothing to the campaign and probably gives the press and the RNC new meat for the sausage grinder.

The common wisdom now is that Kerry is more than a match for Bush on the fundamentals; what he needs most is a personality. That's where sunny John Edwards comes in.

Now, I grew up south of the Mason-Dixon and have done a lot of business with guys who hustle around Atlanta in their alligator shoes. When Edwards launches his "born in a mill town" routine I instinctly check to see if I still have my wallet. He is Slick Willie in a pink bow and dancing heels, multiplied by two; an ambulace chaser and born politician, which is not meant as a compliment. He didn't win a single primary in which he ran.

Still, if this is what it takes to beat Shrub, bring him on.

posted by Jerry Bowles 9:51 AM

You Mean We Lost?

The Bush administration was apparently so stunned by the Supreme Court's radical decision to uphold the principal that "a citizen has the right to be free from involuntary confinement by his own government without due process of law" that nobody bothered to develop a Plan B in case they lost. Reports the Los Angeles Times:

"They didn't really have a specific plan for what to do, case-by-case, if we lost," a senior defense official said on condition of anonymity. "The Justice Department didn't have a plan. State didn't have a plan. This wasn't a unilateral mistake on DOD's part. It's astounding to me that these cases have been pending for so long and nobody came up with a contingency plan."

Have we ever had a bigger band of incompetents running our government?

posted by Jerry Bowles 12:04 AM

Tuesday, June 29, 2004

Jackass This

My e-mail pen pal James Taranto weighs in today with this gleeful item:

9/11' Is No. 2
It's been widely reported that the first-weekend box-office receipts of "Fahrenheit 9/11" set a new record for documentaries. Blogger Frank J. notes that this isn't true. "Jackass: The Movie," released in 2002, grossed $22.8 in its first weekend, a million dollars more than Michael Moore's gross-out flick.

Alas, James is looking at the preliminary figures; the actual total for Farenheit 9/11 is $23.9--$1.1 million more than Jackass, which isn't really a documentary anyway.

posted by Jerry Bowles 6:36 PM

The Doofus Card

There is a new meme developing that must be crushed before it turns into a full-fledged mindstorm and that is the notion of Shrub as victim. Under this formulation, our president is a likeable doofus who has been misserved by those around him, especially Dick Cheney. Maureen Dowd used it in her column last Sunday:

By playing on the insecurities of an inexperienced leader, Mr. Cheney has managed to change W. from a sunny, open, bipartisan, uniter-not-a-divider, non-nation-builder into a crabby, secretive, partisan, divider-not-a-uniter, inept imperialist.

Now, Moisés Naím has returned to the theme in a piece called Bush's Willing Enablers in the July/August of Foreign Policy:

Today, few doubt that the Bush administration's postwar planning was disastrous. Insiders' books, congressional testimony, and recent investigative reporting indicate that the miscalculations resulted from a toxic combination of ideology, terrorism, and an incurious president who allowed Vice President Dick Cheney and his allies to implement their unrealistic policies.

There are a lot of sins we can afford to forgive in our presidents; being a dummy is not one of them.

posted by Jerry Bowles 4:56 PM

Law west of the Tigris...

He's theirs now. But Iraq hasn't spent any of our tax dollars to build a Sing-Sing for Saddam, so we're keeping him at Camp Cropper, the Hanoi Hilton on the 19th hole of the Baghdad-Halliburton International Aprport. Salim Chalabi, the Pee-wee Herman look-alike cousin of Ahmad the Kleptocrat, who has a Cialis-style hard on for the ex-dicktator, is running the "Special Tribunal" to bring Saddam and other known war criminals, to justice... Iraqi style. Stylepoints courtesy of Roy Cohn, Nino Scalia and Volksrichter Freissler. Here's the current list of "names" who are being "turned over" to Iraq. It is not known whether the new "democratic" government of Iraq, the US, or possibly the food service folks over at Halliburton provide food tasters for these men of such high intelligence value.

posted by Groom 12:09 PM

Death of a Dream

Buried somewhere in the rubble of the Iraq folly--alongside the idea of preemptive war and those pesky weapons of mass destruction related program activities--is the cherished liberal notion that American military power should be used to prevent humanitarian diasters in places where large numbers of people are likely to die if we don't.

Sticking our nose into other people's business is a natural extension of our sense of American exceptionalism--we are powerful and good and there is no problem that we can't fix. It's a naive idea, to be sure, but is there any one of us who doesn't wish we had a second shot at Rawanda or Srebrenica?

The desire to save the world or, at least, make it a better place is the one thing that many liberals and neoconservatives had in common. That's why we intervened in Bosnia and Kosovo after old Europe showed little inclination to get involved. That's why our troops were in Mogudishu the day the Black Hawks went down.

Conservatives used to ridicule the idea of "do-gooder" military incursions and the follow-on twin evil of "nation-buiding." Republicans in Congress--many of them the same ones who are now saying that we went into Iraq mainly to liberate the Iraqi people from a tyrant--opposed getting involved in Bosnia and Kosovo. As a presidential candidate George Bush called for "humility" in foreign policy. His national security guru Condi Rice assured the American public that 101st Airborne troops would not be taking children to school in a Bush administration.

Three years later, we are in the early stages of the biggest external nation-building effort in American history, if you don't count Israel. American troops will be taking Iraqi children to school for a very, very long time.

Putting aside the increasingly indisputible fact that this was an unnecessary war, Donald Rumsfeld, Paul Wolfowitz, Dick Cheney, Douglas Feith and the gang have so thoroughly botched the aftermath that every day more and more Americans--left and right--are coming to believe that wars of good intentions are a dumb idea. The Bush administration has given humanitarian war a bad name from which it may never recover.

posted by Jerry Bowles 9:51 AM

After bathing at Bremers

One of Jerry Bremer’s last acts Sunday was to sign a decree making US contractors immune from the laws of “democratic” Iraq the Washington Post reports. The immunity bath applies only to all situations connected to "reconstruction” work.

posted by Groom 4:22 AM

Free At Last

via Knight Ridder:

President Ghazi al-Yawar, in his trademark flowing robes and Arab headdress, strode through the building with a regal air unseen in 15 months of American occupation.

Greetings went from American-style handshakes to Arab-style kisses on the cheek. Traditional lamb was brought in on platters. Sweet tea flowed.

People began smoking in the building.

So, that's why they were so anxious for us to leave.

posted by Jerry Bowles 12:02 AM

Monday, June 28, 2004

Good News, Bad News

The latest New York Times/CBS News Poll has Shrub's job approval rating at the lowest point in his presidency and a majority of Americans believing the war in Iraq has not been worth the cost in American lives. None of which appears to have bolstered Kerry all that much; the race is still a dead heat. I sure hope what we're seeing from our guy is a little strategic rope-a-dope and not just a dope. I'm too old to learn a new language.

posted by Jerry Bowles 10:39 PM

Cluck-cluck... pass the buck

After more than 15 years of global research saying "yes it is" and denials by the CDC, NIH and HHS the verdict is in. Avian flu a/k/a "bird flu" really does kill people like me and you. This flu "plays Russian Roulette with the human genome" researchers say. Dial P for profits...dial P for pandemic...dial no more Peking Duck at those lobbyist hosted K Street lunches. Last time I looked in the beef cooler at my local Kroger-owned supermercado, generic round steak was $4.75 per pound. We're dumber than we were four years ago. We're poorer than we were four years ago. We're more "rice and beans" than we were four years ago. There's gotta be enough in all that for Shrum to come up with a good campaign slogan. Anybody got some ideas?

posted by Groom 6:24 PM

Everyone must get stoned...

Taking a break from Iraq on the brain, perhaps it's time once again to remind America Lobotomized that the Bushovic is implementing MANDATORY mental health screening. Not only does Uncle Bushovic want you, he wants your DSM-IV functionality rate. Under the fog of war in Iraq this train has left the station folks. Write your congressman... before Eli Lilly writes your congressman a check.

posted by Groom 4:33 PM

Supremes Get It Partly Right

Cowardly verdicts in the Hamdi, Padilla and Gitmo cases but the good news is that everyone--Americans and foreigners--has a right to challenge their confinement in an American court. I would have preferred that the Supremes deliver a solid 9-0 go fuck yourself to the administration but this is better than nothing.

posted by Jerry Bowles 11:55 AM

That’s Show Business

Remember the last GOP convention when the organizers papered the hall with black and Hispanic faces to show how “inclusive” they are and to demonstrate that they are not the kind of closet racists who feed white southern fears to win elections?

Well, here they go again, lining up the three most prominent “moderate” voices in their party to speak in primetime in an effort to demonstrate that they are not a bunch of abortion-clinic bombing, quack science promoting, radical Christian nationalists who--at enormous human, monetary and moral expense--preemptively invade countries for the hell of it and disastrously bungle their occupation.

Dick Cheney, John Ashcroft and Tom DeLay—the real ugly faces of the Republican Party--will be carefully hidden off camera while Arnold, Rudy and John McCain, three honest men who would have absolutely less than zero influence with a second Bush administration and are barely tolerated by the GOP conservative establishment, front points for torturers, war criminals and wild-eyed, dirty-haired incompetents. .

Gentlemen, you deserve better than to be used in this crude, embarrassing way. Your country deserves better.

posted by Jerry Bowles 11:11 AM

Speaking of fiction…

Congressman Jim McDermott of Washington state is an MD who spent time as a foreign service officer dealing with psychiatric issues in Zaire. Interviewed by Michael Moore, McDermott’s analysis of how the Bushovic and Obersturmbannfuehrer Rove have used fear and neurolinguistic programming to mollify the body politic into buying the War of Lies is a key element of Fahrenheit 9/11. He delivered his “Big Lie” speech on the floor of the US House of Representatives last week.

posted by Groom 9:39 AM

Prosperity is Just Around the Corner

The check is in the mail, and the economy is getting better, we just refuse to see it. The Center for American Progress has a good wrap-up for why this dog won't hunt, and the success that the Administration is enjoying in selling this latest fiction.

posted by Evelyn 8:37 AM

The Heat is on in Baghdad

The U.S. gave Iraq back its country this morning.

The official handover was supposed to be Wednesday but Jerry Bremer--the Lance Ito of occupation czars--had already passed out all the lucrative contracts to Republican contributors and apparently couldn't wait to get the hell out of there. Anyway, it's their problem now. Right?

posted by Jerry Bowles 7:26 AM

Fahrenheit: The Four-One-One:

My wife and I saw the movie early this afternoon, in a packed theater in Santa Rosa. I second a lot of what others have said about it, and just want to note that Moore makes two salient points I haven't really heard expressed so succinctly before:

1. The double-standard under which Bush's immediate post-9-11 actions have been judged: "Imagine what would have been the reaction, in the days following the Murrah Building bombing in Oklahoma City, if Clinton had made extraordinary arrangements to fly Timothy McVeigh's family out of the country?" Followed by a stock movie shot of villagers putting torch to pyre . . .

2. Bush has broken even the harsh bargain we've made with our "all volunteer" (read: impoverished, poorly-educated, with few choices) military: "In exchange for them sacrificing their time, their efforts, sometimes even their very lives, we make them a bargain: We won't send them into harm's way unless it's absolutely necessary."

I very clearly heard Moore say that Saudis were allowed to fly out of the country AFTER September 13th, so I'm not sure what Michael Isikoff's complaint is about (the movie's truthful information wasn't imparted emphatically enough to overcome his cognitive dissonance?). Lastly, I'd point out that the gruesome visage of neither Karen Hughes nor Lynn Cheney appears in the movie, so -- thankfully -- it avoids an NC-17 rating.

posted by Michael 12:49 AM

Sunday, June 27, 2004

5-6-7-8 now's the time to... demonstrate

Kidnapping in Mexico is a growth industry that touches the middle class as much as the wealthy elite. Hundreds of thousands clogged the streets of Mexico City over the weekend demanding that the government of PANista president Vicente Fox enact tougher laws in the hope that a modern legal system will help discourage kidnappers. But kidnappers in Mexico now have less to do with extremist politics than with gangs that have connections inside the government. While it has gotten lukewarm reviews, “Man on Fire” starring Denzel Washington offers a surprisingly realistic portrayal of the process. Why not borrow a page from our neighbors in Mexico... it shouldn't be that difficult for MoveOn to rustle up a few hundred thousand citizens in New York and San Francisco and Washington to demand tougher laws and protest the kidnapping of our Constitution and Bill of Rights by the Bushovic, or the kidnapping of hundreds of billions of dollars by Halliburton and Enron, Worldcom. As Michael Moore points out in Fahrenheit 9/11… not one US Senator would sign on and support members of the US House of Representatives to challenge the tally of the 2000 presidential election… not one.

posted by Groom 10:25 PM

United We Stand

You have to admit that George Bush is more of a uniter than most of us have given him credit for--the Democrat Party has never been this united. John Kerry is the best-financed presidential challenger in history although he is hardly the first choice of the Democratic wing of the party and has all the charm and personality of a chronic acid reflux sufferer. (As Billy Chrystal said to him the other day: "You should be a happy man. Tell your face.") Even those generally fractious folks in the Green Party have declined to play spoiler by telling Ralph Nader (in the good natured spirit of our vice president)to go fuck himself.

posted by Jerry Bowles 11:55 AM

Why Kerry Wins

The Economy. Things started to pick up at the end of the Bush/Clinton campaign, too. But not enough to help Popster, and to prevent a lot of working stiffs for voting for one of the other guys. Watch not just the employment figures, but the market gauges. With the widespread ownership of stocks and bonds, the undecided voter is more than likely still holding on to a few depleted equities and is not going to be feeling “optimistic” until he starts opening his Merrill Lynch statement again.

The Daddy Factor. Americans are scared shitless. It’s been a long, long time since anyone attacked them on their own turf. More than liking their next President, they want him to protect them. This is good for Kerry, who is dull, but dull in a grown-up, “leave it to me, son,” Ward Cleaver sort of way. Think Bush = Sonny and Kerry = the Don. And we all know what happened to Sonny.

The Debates. Josh is right, the debates are going to be telling. But whereas candidate Bush was able to manage expectations by lowering them through the basement, President Bush just might have to live up to a higher standard. Of course the bought-and-paid for media will be tempted to declare a Bush “victory” if he just refrains from giving Kerry a nickname, but now we have had a lot more time to game these contests. And while currently lacking in spontaneity, his history shows that Kerry is a “clutch player,” and when unexpected things turn up, he will not pull his punches.

Iraq. We can run but we can’t hide. Yep, we can turn over “sovereignty” to a few hapless representatives of the many and warring factions, but those troops aren’t going nowhere fast. If only to make sure that the “insurgents” don’t take their Iraqi Army-issued toys to Bubba Bandar’s backyard, we are going to continue to need to deploy. And if the troops are there, the media stays. Nixon had a “secret plan” to end the war, but basically Humphrey, who was very likeable, lost because the failure of Vietnam was nailed to him, and the voters wanted a way out, any way out.

You Got to Have Friends. You get the sense with Bush that when he gave up drinking, he dumped all those Falstaff characters with whom he “shared.” That doesn’t leave him a whole lot of friends who are not friends of his family or paid retainers. Even “lil’ buddy” Putin seems not to be calling. Moreover, Bush’s way of dealing with people from rival teams makes them yearn to see him lose. On the other hand, for all his Wasp coolness, Kerry seems to have made real friends along the way, not as many as Bill, of course, but enough and with some value to offer to his campaign, like the veterans with whom he served, the Senators with whom he worked, his kids, his wife’s kids, etc. In a tight race, you got to have a lot of relationship equity in the bank. Further, who knows how many of Daddy’s friends are going to bale Jr. out this time?

The Numbers Don’t Lie. Whichever poll you read, the incumbent should be worried. With fewer than 50% approval ratings across the board, and with his numbers for competency in fighting terror sinking, Bush will need more than one bin Laden to pull out of his cave. Besides, with 130,000 troops in Iraq, a few thousand in Afghanistan, and a whole bunch of new al-Qaeda recruits itching to prove their manhood, there are a lot more opportunities for September surprises that are truly unscripted.

posted by Evelyn 9:24 AM

Roadmap to hatred

Red state? Blue state? How 'bout Hate state... click here for the Southern Poverty Law Center's map of hate groups across the US.

posted by Groom 5:52 AM

The Difference Between Michael Savage and Tom Metzger? You And I Own Savage's (FCC) License To Spew Racial Hatred

From Media Matters For America:

On his June 23 radio show, host Michael Savage asserted that only when he sees Muslim extremists "hanging from lampposts in the entire Middle East . . . with their guts hanging out, then I'll believe that there's a difference between radical Islam and the rest of Islam over there."

Compare that to this, about Tom Metzger:

In 1988, three young skinheads in Portland, Oregon - members of a group called East Side White Pride - used a baseball bat to beat an Ethiopian student to death. The three were caught and convicted - that was the easy part. The important fact for [the Southern Poverty Law Center], however, was that East Side White Pride was affiliated with a much larger and more powerful group called the White Aryan Resistance (WAR), based in California.

Tom Metzger, WAR's leader, trained young racists in techniques of violence and incitement, and then sent them out to other areas to train others in their turn. [ . . . ]

One of the three youths convicted in the case had, in fact, at 16 been recruited and trained by John Metzger, Tom Metzger's son and the leader of WAR Youth, and then dispatched to Portland to make contact with East Side White Pride. SPLC was even able to obtain the letter of introduction he brought from WAR to ease his acceptance into the Portland group. Another of the killers - the one who actually swung the bat - called Tom Metzger from jail after his arrest. There was enough evidence to pursue the Metzgers and WAR for their responsibility in the crime.

Using Oregon's existing wrongful death statute, the Center sued WAR on behalf of the murdered student's family. SPLC was able to demonstrate that, even though the Metzgers were 1,500 miles away at the time of the murder, and didn't know it was being committed, they nonetheless shared in responsibility for it as a result of their urging and training the ringleader to commit this sort of violent, hate-inspired act. By careful detective work, and by gaining the help of the ringleader, who gave evidence against his former mentors, The Center obtained a $12.5 million settlement for the Ethiopian student's family, and effectively put WAR out of business.

The question is, do we have to wait for some Savage acolyte to actually kill a Muslim or an Arab, before we decide this kind of racist incitement isn't deserving of the taxpayers' license to use OUR public airwaves?

(And as a cardcarrying member of the ACLU, I can say I have no problem with kicking Savage off the air for spewing this kind of hatred. He can stand up on a soapbox in a public park, to say all this, if he wants. I just don't think he deserves nationwide syndication to broadcast such filth -- and it's a helluva better example of a "clear and present danger" to our youth than, say, catching a fleeting glimpse of Janet Jackson's titty.)

posted by Michael 12:56 AM