The Sideshow
Archive for September 2002
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The SideshowArchive for September 2002 |
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Monday, 30 September 200202:01 BST: Permalink
What if your 21st birthday were a death sentence? Nick has 145 days left.Gore to give new policy speech.
Lego Star Wars! (Via Greg Greene.)
Sunday, 29 September 200217:10 BST: Permalink
Thank Gore!I don't know much about Minnesota Senator Mark Dayton, and for all I know he's been saying Go Slow on Iraq all along, but now it's in The Washington Post:
What a difference an administration makes.Gore's speech was one that had to be made, and it had to be made whether Gore is planning to run for the presidency again or not. It had to be made because the principles our country stands for matter, and because too many people had forgotten that. And because it's insane to rush into potential bloodbath without stopping to ask if it's a good idea. Although Gore has been accused by the Republicans of political opportunism, it's a silly charge - especially coming from them; their reaction to 9/11 has been political opportunism, but Gore has done what had to be done. Rob Humenik made a quick analysis after the speech:Congressional leaders who are hurrying votes on Iraq had very different views when the president was a Democrat named Bill Clinton. They made more sense back then.
After Saddam Hussein bounced U.N. inspectors in January 1998, then-Senate Majority Leader Trent Lott said on Feb. 12: "I had hoped that we could get to the point where we could pass a resolution this week on Iraq. But we really developed some physical problems, if nothing else. . . . So we have decided that the most important thing is not to move so quickly but to make sure that we have had all the right questions asked and answered and that we have available to us the latest information about what is . . . happening with our allies in the world.
"The Senate is known for its deliberate actions. And the longer I stay in the Senate, the more I have learned to appreciate it. It does help to give us time to think about the potential problems and the risks and the ramifications and to, frankly, press the administration."
The Republican-controlled Senate took five more months to pass a resolution that year, and it did not authorize President Clinton to use military force. After Saddam Hussein invaded Kuwait in 1990, the Senate also deliberated five months before authorizing what became the Persian Gulf War.
Yet now Congress is being rushed to pre-approve whatever President Bush decides to do, which includes something no president has done before: start a war. According to researchers at the Library of Congress, the United States has never in its 213-year history launched a preemptive attack against another country.
Never.
During the past 50 years, our leaders have confronted dangerous dictators who possessed weapons of mass destruction. Yet they protected our country and the planet by preventing war, not by starting one. Some members of Congress and the administration are now demanding that we rush to vote so that we can rush to war. Such haste is unnecessary, reckless and foolish.
In effect, Gore provided the blueprint for the Democrats to take a stand on the issue of Iraq and pre-emption (though he received scant coverage from major media outlets). I wonder if it will be enough to motivate the Democrats to begin questioning the administration more frequently and forcefully. This is not to say that a war with Iraq should be out of the question, rather that Congress should not rubber-stamp the President's Iraq resolution or accept Bush's new pre-emptive doctrine without question.It does seem to have done the trick. Amusingly, the right-wing hate machine, by reacting with such venom and derision to the speech, gave it the publicity the "respectable" media had not - although, to be fair, The Washington Post does have Dan Balz's story listed as a front-pager. (But I see when I actually go to the page it's in the Federal Page section. Where did it actually appear in the print edition? In the IHT it really was on the front page, above the fold, with a good photo.) But Wednesday's paper had this:On a more political note, there was a lot of talk on MSNBC as to whether this speech means that Gore is officially in the ring for 2004. I am not convinced that his purpose was to deliver this speech as candidate Gore. As I mentioned before, this speech is a good read, but Gore’s delivery of the speech did not seem to be an attempt to drum up campaign support. In fact, the actual delivery of the speech was not impressive. I think Gore, who is essentially the leader of the Democratic Party, was trying to get his fellow Democrats to wake up and start asking questions. If the purpose of Bush's speech to the UN was to make a case for going to war, Gore's purpose was to provide a rebuttal.
Dozens of congressional Democrats are frustrated with their leadership for rushing to embrace President Bush's Iraqi war resolution and fostering an impression the party overwhelmingly backs a unilateral strike against Saddam Hussein.Why do they "concede" that generating significant public opposition to unilateral action in Iraq is "an uphill and likely unwinnable battle"? And why would a reporter use that verb? These lawmakers may think it, but the use of the word "concede" instead suggests that they were pressed to say so against their wills and in the face of overwhelming fact. What overwhelming fact says that there isn't significant public opposition to unilateral "action" (invasion)? It doesn't appear to me that support for invasion is all that strong - indeed, the problem isn't the public at all, it's the media, who are still too often unwilling to acknowledge that Bush is being rash and careless (to put it charitably). The poll numbers reflect far more thoughtfulness on the part of the public than we have seen from politicians and the press.Some are now looking to former president Jimmy Carter and former vice president Al Gore to help generate significant public opposition to unilateral action in Iraq, which they concede is an uphill and likely unwinnable battle. They also are drafting alternative congressional resolutions that would require Bush to win United Nations approval before attempting to oust the Iraqi leader.
And then in Friday's IHT I found this editorial which originated in the NYT:
President George W. Bush and the Democrats in Congress are suddenly in meltdown mode over the issue of who is playing politics on the eve of a possible war with Iraq. Bush has begun using the campaign against terrorism in his stump speeches, declaring that Democrats are "not interested in the security of the American people." On Wednesday Tom Daschle, the Senate majority leader, fired back with an impassioned denunciation of Bush. Meanwhile, Al Gore is accusing the president of being political, and being accused of the same thing by the White House. None of this is unhealthy. We just wish that all this intensity was being directed at the issue of Iraq instead of at people's political motives.That might have been fair comment if they'd left out the sentence about Gore, but the fact is that Gore's speech was about the issues of terrorism and Iraq, and it wasn't until the Q&A afterward that someone asked Gore if he thought the administration was motivated by politics. (He seemed reluctant, but said he thought that might be true.) And then they say:
Gore no doubt made a political calculation in deciding to attack the war against Iraq. The mere impudence of his thinking that he might have something to say has alarmed many let's-change-the-subject Democrats and sent Republicans into a gleeful litany of personal attacks against a favorite enemy. But the fact is that many Democrats in Congress who are rushing to get a resolution passed say privately they agree with Gore, who accused the White House of botching the campaign against terrorism and mobilizing the United States for war with Iraq to avoid having to talk about its economic failures.Pardon me while I gape: "impudence"? It's hard to tell whether the NYT was making an ironic comment about the behavior of Democrats or actually saying it was impudent of the man the people elected to the presidency to actually speak on a subject of vital importance to the nation, but it's certainly not too much to expect The New York Times to refrain from allowing room for such an inference. Every politician makes "a political calculation" before making a public statement on any even mildly controversial issue, and it would be silly to expect Gore not to have considered both the advantages and disadvantages - to himself, to the party, and to the nation - of his making such a statement. It is downright sleazy of the NYT to have pointed it out as if there is something special about Gore having done so.Nevertheless, it's nice to see newspaper pieces, including this one, that state forthrightly what the rest of us already knew:
It is not, and should not be, possible to debate sending troops into battle without people getting passionate and angry. There is no more grave obligation for members of the House and Senate than to look carefully at such a question. The Bush administration has to recognize the legitimate concerns of lawmakers who do not want to give the president a blank check to wage war wherever he wants in the region and without any initial steps being taken to try to avoid a conflict. Casting slurs on the patriotism of anyone who raises a question is unfair and borders on un-American.
Saturday, 28 September 200221:00 BST: Permalink
The Polls20:30 BST: PermalinkOver at The Hill, James G. Wieghart asks, Bush’s high approval rating — Is it for real?
LAKE, Mich. — The big mystery out here in the land of woods and lakes is: Who are the pollsters polling when they keep coming up with such high numbers for President Bush’s approval rating?Meanwhile, Joan Walsh is ready to re-elect Gore in 2004:The people I talk to around here — farmers, insurance salesmen, factory workers, food service employees and retirees — have very little good to say about the president’s performance thus far.
In general, they regard him as a lightweight, out of his depth, a show-and-tell president who scares them with his constant talk about widening the “War against Terrorism” and his repeated assurances that the economy is basically sound when it is obviously in the tank.
This is not partisan carping either. While Bush failed to carry Michigan in 2000, mid-Michigan is hardly a Democratic stronghold. It is an area that voted solidly for our outgoing three-term Republican governor, John Engler, and has consistently elected Republicans to Congress and the state Legislature.
Like most Americans elsewhere, people around here rallied around the president and his War on Terrorism after the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks on the World Trade Towers and the Pentagon. But serious questions are now being raised as to the pace and scope of that war, and the effectiveness of the steps taken thus far to make Americans more secure from terrorist attacks.
The last week has turned me around. If Gore keeps hammering Bush, he'll have my vote, and plenty of others, too. Give-'em-hell Al is reasserting his claim on the Democratic nomination. If he's playing politics, that's fine with me. This is the way politics is supposed to be played: with conviction, and to win.I love the picture at the top of that one, too.
DC DEMO: Max has your free speech right here:20:00 BST: Permalink
This story also makes clear the police intent to prevent assembly. Now the unsympathetic may find it amusing that demonstrators were foolish to trust that the police would keep to their word. What a hoot; trusting the police. But this episode will be remembered and cooperation next time will not be an important objective of protestors. Illegal activity beyond civil disobedience is logically the responsibility of the police at this point, since they have shown their disinterest in cooperating with non-violent protest. Up to now, despite Chief Ramsey's babbling about the threat of violence, the only such incidents was one episode where some windows at a Citibank were broken and some smoke bombs set. Perhaps the Chief was referring to the threat of violence by his own men, which has not proved to be lacking.I will not hold my breath for an explosion of dismay by those on the Right who profess to love liberty. They have not figured out that liberty includes the right to be unlike themselves.
Alex Frantz has a little primer on how to smear Al Gore, and raises an interesting question: What can we make of the likes of Instapundit, who continue to purvey these smears? Surely Glenn Reynolds cannot possibly be so ignorant that he still doesn't know that you can't believe a single thing the right wing says about Gore, especially if a lot of people on the right wing are saying it. When someone - particularly a right-wing source - tells you about the latest evil by Al Gore, you'd have to be a real idiot to respond with anything other than a lot of distrust and questions about what the real story is.15:21 BST: Permalink
Dwight Meredith makes a thorough analysis of the coursening our public discourse that is well worth reading:15:10 BST: Permalink
It is not our intention to rehash any or all of those charges. It is not our purpose to decide if any of those attacks were parody, comedy, fair comment, justified by conduct on the other side, responses to the Bork hearings or any other justification. We have opinions as to which side was the larger offender and so, probably, does each reader. It is not the purpose of this article to settle those debates. Our point is that the political culture was rotten and George W. Bush rightly promised to clean it up.With the passage of almost two years since the election, it is possible to assess whether or not George Bush kept his promise to change the tone and be a uniter and not a divider. The evidence to date suggests that President Bush has broken his promise. Indeed, the evidence to date suggests that the Democrats have attempted to dampen the divisive rhetoric while the administration tends to whip up divisiveness.
On the Radio13:15 BST: PermalinkI've actually started building my page on media concentration, which hasn't come very far but if you have good links on the subject, by all means send them.
Meanwhile, TomPaine.com has two items on doings on the radio:
- an interview with Arnie Arnesen, the first woman to win New Hampshire's gubernatorial nomination (she lost), and now a drive-time radio host.
- an article about how the American Family Association is using an FCC loophole to grab NPR stations for Donald Wildmon.
Spine sighting:
Democrat Mike Feeley vowed Wednesday night to single out "every chicken-hawk Republican running for office" if President Bush doesn't apologize for making political remarks about the possible war on Iraq.Not enough spine. Time to call 'em what they really are. Then again, Alan Bisbort at American Politics Journal has this diagnosis:Feeley, who is running for the 7th Congressional District, followed the lead of Senate Majority Leader Tom Daschle, who earlier in the day harshly criticized Bush.
An emotional Daschle demanded that Bush apologize to the American people for saying that the Democratic-controlled Senate was "not interested in the security of the American people."
White House spokesman Ari Fleischer said Daschle misstated comments Bush made earlier this week. Fleischer said Bush believes that if the Senate does not pass legislation to create a new Department of Homeland Security, "the security of our country will not have been protected."
Feeley, a former Marine, came out swinging at an evening debate at Red Rocks Community College, saying he was "really upset with our president right now."
"It is not the time to play politics with the possibility of going to war with Iraq and the possibility of losing young American lives," Feeley said.
If he doesn't get an apology, Feeley said, "we'll play politics.
"I'll talk about every chicken-hawk Republican running for office - who never served a day in uniform defending this nation - asking for your vote so they can go to Washington and send someone else's child to war."
Whether George W. Bush is or was an alcoholic is not the point here. I am taking him at his word that he stopped what he termed "heavy drinking" in 1986, at age 40. The point here is that, based on Bush's recent behavior, he could very well be a "dry drunk." Of course, he may just be an immature bully who will gladly sacrifice thousands of lives to get his way even against the advice of the most respected and mature members of his own party.Still, Bush's past battles with the bottle are worth pondering at a time like this, one of the most dangerous in the nation's history. When a recovering alcoholic begins to engage in what AA calls "stinking thinking," he or she begins to exhibit the old attitudes and pathologies of their drinking years. These include an increase in anxiety, mild tremors, mild depression, disturbed sleep patterns, inability to think clearly, craving for junk food, irritability, sudden bursts of anger and unpredictable mood swings. According to AA literature, "Boredom and listlessness may alternate with intense feelings of resentment against family and friends, and explosive outbursts of violence."
[...]
The question is then begged, and seems to at least deserve some pause for pondering: how did he, at age 58, get so fumble-tongued, incapable of stringing more than two coherent sentences together, snippily irritable with anyone who dares disagree with him or even ask a question, poutily turning his back on the democratically elected president of one of our most important allies because of something one of his underlings said about him (Germany's Schroder, of course), listlessly in need of constant vacations and rest, dangerously obsessed with only one thing (Iraq), to the exclusion of all other things (including an economy that is slowly sucking the life from the nation as ! well as the retirement savings of anyone reading these words)?Furthermore, why is Bush so eager to engage in violence and so incapable of explaining why?
For drunks to function for any length of time in the world, they need enablers. Congress is filling that bill splendidly right now for Bush. As BuzzFlash put it about the recent corporate scandals, "For most of his adult life, those people around him enabled Bush's alcoholism. Now the Democratic Senate is enabling the corporate corruption problem of his administration by not using their Constitutional powers to demand the truth."
[...]
But we can't look away. George W. Bush needs an intervention. Let's be his interveners. Let's raise our sober voices. Let's ask questions, demand more than temper tantrums and pouting from the Commander in Chief. Let's do this before it's too late and a dry drunk's dream of glory becomes our national nightmare.
Friday, 27 September 200214:16 BST: Permalink
algore04.com has a video link for Gore's Iraq speech, now. And meanwhile, he's made a new speech - no transcripts or video, yet, but it's their top story:13:52 BST: Permalink
WILMINGTON, Del. - - Former Vice President Al Gore said Thursday that some of the Bush administration's security measures in the past year amount to an "attack on civil liberties."Salon also has the story (I know 'cause Atrios said so) with more details:In his second strong criticism of administration policies this week - - he said Monday that moves toward war with Iraq harm the anti-terror effort - - Gore said "highly questionable" decisions are being made in the criminal justice system.
"What's going on nationally, with the attack on civil liberties, with American citizens in some cases just disappearing without right to counsel, without access to a lawyer, I think that is disgraceful," he said.
"I think we need to stand up for our principles in this country and stand up for what this nation represents, even as we face the terrible dangers that we have to confront in the world today."
Speaking at a Democratic fund-raising breakfast in Wilmington, Del., Gore took issue with the administration's handling of intelligence information prior to the Sept. 11 attacks and for its treatment of some terrorism suspects since then."The warnings were there" before the attacks, Gore said. He asserted that Bush's Justice Department had devoted more time and agents to investigating a suspected brothel in New Orleans than to monitoring bin Laden and his al-Qaida network.
The amazing Mike Ford, whose moving "110 Stories" you may remember, has produced a response to the thread about Frank & Jessie James at Electrolite - which cracked me up. Go enjoy it, and then remember that sf authors with pre-existing conditions, no matter how brilliant they are, have lousy medical insurance. Isn't it time you contributed to the Mike Ford Trust?13:15 BST: Permalink
War on TerraBush's reprehensible document is so appalling that even Molly Ivins is at a loss for jokes:
No. This is not acceptable. This is not the country we want to be. This is not the world we want to make.And Richard Cohen is worried about the historical perspectives of Bush's advisors:The United States of America is still run by its citizens. The government works for us. Rank imperialism and warmongering are not American traditions or values. We do not need to dominate the world. We want and need to work with other nations. We want to find solutions other than killing people. Not in our name, not with our money, not with our children's blood.
[...]
"The National Security Strategy of the United States -- 2002" is repellent, unnecessary and, above all, impractical. Americans are famous for pragmatism, and we need a good dose of common sense right now. This Will Not Work.
[...]
This creepy, un-American document has a pedigree going back to Bush I, when -- surprise! -- Dick Cheney and Paul Wolfowitz were at the Department of Defense and both were such geniuses that they not only didn't see the collapse of the Soviet Union coming, but they didn't believe it after they saw it.In those days, this plan for permanent imperial adventurism was called "Defense Strategy for the 1990s" and was supposed to be a definitive response to the Soviet threat. Then the Soviet threat disappeared, and the same plan re-emerged as a response to the post-Soviet world.
It was roundly criticized at the time, its manifest weaknesses attacked by both right and left. Now it is back yet again as the answer to post-Sept. 11. Sort of like the selling of the Bush tax cut -- needed in surplus, needed in deficit, needed for rain and shine -- the plan exists apart from rationale. As Frances Fitzgerald points out in the Sept. 26 New York Review of Books, its most curious feature is the combination of triumphalism and almost unmitigated pessimism.
Until Friday, when the thing was re-released in its new incarnation, it contained no positive goals for American foreign policy -- not one. Now the plan is tricked out with rhetoric like earrings on a pig about extending freedom, democracy and prosperity to the world. But as The New York Times said, "It sounds more like a pronouncement that the Roman Empire or Napoleon might have produced."
The breach between Germany and the United States has produced an odd but possibly illuminating rewriting of history. I am referring not to the stupid remark of the German justice minister in which she purportedly likened President Bush's tactics to those of Hitler but to the response that came from national security adviser Condoleezza Rice: How could any German say such a thing after all the United States had done to liberate Germany from Hitler?And Selig Harrison says in the IHT that The Bush team is letting Pakistan drift toward chaos:The problem is that Germany was not liberated. Instead, Germans fought on behalf of a criminal regime until the bitter end. They fought even after defeat was certain. They fought after U.S. troops had crossed into Germany from the west and Soviet troops from the east. They ceased fighting only after Hitler killed himself. Then and only then was Germany "liberated."
Rice made her remark to the Financial Times, a British newspaper. She understandably expressed dismay at what the German justice minister, Herta Daeubler-Gmelin, had said, because it truly was in rotten taste. Even that opportunistic critic of U.S. policy, German Chancellor Gerhard Schroeder, felt obliged to write Bush a letter of apology, and yesterday he accepted Daeubler-Gmelin's resignation.
But Rice went on: "How can you use the name of Hitler and the name of the president of the United States in the same sentence? Particularly, how can a German [say such a thing], given the devotion of the U.S. in the liberation of Germany from Hitler?"
Coming from a student of history, this is bad history. It happens to coincide with what the Communist East German government once held: Hitler was imposed on the German people. This is why the Communist East, as opposed to the democratic West, paid no reparations to Holocaust survivors. What happened, the Communists contended, wasn't the fault of Germans.
A single remark does not a doctrine make, and it's possible Rice merely misspoke. But I cannot overlook how much Saddam Hussein is being likened to Hitler (and Bush to Churchill) and how some influential people are arguing, in essence, that the United States will not be making war on Iraq, it will be liberating it. The personification of that thinking is the defense intellectual and Pentagon adviser Richard Perle: "If I had to guess, I would predict that Hussein ultimately would be destroyed by his own forces, whose loyalty he has good reason to question."
As evidence mounts that Pakistan is now the global hub of Qaeda operations, Musharraf is raising his price for cooperation with Washington, demanding large-scale military aid, including F-16 fighter jets, on top of the bonanza of economic aid already showered on Islamabad since Sept. 11.Equally important, he made clear during his U.S. visit last week that he plans to perpetuate his military regime indefinitely and expects Washington to look the other way when he rigs the Pakistani elections next month.
So far the Bush administration has allowed Musharraf to call the tune. The Pentagon has just approved $230 million in subsidized military sales to Pakistan and has opened a dialogue with Islamabad on its military needs in a newly reactivated Defense Consultative Committee.
At the same time, the White House has been craven in its tacit approval of Musharraf's steady assumption of dictatorial powers during recent months, climaxed by his promulgation of 29 constitutional amendments that allow him to dissolve an elected National Assembly at will and to make all important appointments to the armed forces, the judiciary and provincial governorships without legislative approval.
The Pakistani journalist Ahmed Rashid has predicted "an inevitable political crisis, either before or after the elections," pointing to increasingly bitter opposition to the military regime from all political parties, outraged by election rules that bar most established political figures from running for office.
At best, Pakistan is likely to be engulfed in growing instability in the months ahead that will make it easier for Islamic extremists to operate. In the worst-case scenario, Musharraf's fellow generals will decide that he is more of a liability that an asset, opening the way for a series of military coups in which a hard-line Islamic extremist sympathizer such as General Mohammed Aziz, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, could well come out on top.
Thursday, 26 September 200214:50 BST: Permalink
"Gore Nails it," said Liberal Oasis Tuesday in response to the President-elect's speech on Iraq. And more than that, despite the usual alleged sniping from unnamed Democrats (and named Joe Liebermans):13:06 BST: Permalink
The fact is, Gore saved the Democratic Party yesterday, even if the party doesn't realize it.I agree. There is a later post talking about the problem of those anonymous snipers, who are actually damaging the Democratic Party greatly. It's about time someone told the party leadership that there are an enormous number of Democrats - probably more than half the party's base - who just about throw up when they see the Dem leadership trying to act like Bush clones. People who are not so faithful to the party - those much-sought-after swing voters - see only the attacks on Democrats and don't contextualize it, so it just makes the party and all its candidates look bad. If Democrats are actually saying these things, they should indeed shut up.(And I can't help but wonder if they are the same people who also say this stuff publicly, who then give anonymous quotes to make it look like there are more of them than there really are. It wouldn't surprise me at all to find the likes of Howard Fineman aiding and abetting such dishonesty. I'd like to see members of the press challenge those people - like Lieberman - to confirm that they have not been the source of such unattributed sabotage.)
Meanwhile, Gore and Daschle aren't the only ones to have spoken out, now, and Howard Dean is actually stepping up:
Dean, who spoke Monday night at the Iowa Memorial Union, also said he would endorse a pre-emptive strike against Iraq if it can be proven that Saddam Hussein has access to weapons of mass destruction and the means to discharge them. He said President Bush has never proven that case.There are stirrings in even the Washington press corps, and I really recommend reading the transcript of Wednesday's briefing:"Pre-emption is not off the table, but the moral high ground does matter," Dean told the audience of roughly 60 people. "It's important that others respect our decision, and it's important that we respect our own decision."
[...]
"I'm tired of being bullied by the right wing," he said. "We're going to bring this country back to the middle. Our president has taken us so far to the right, we've forgotten what the middle looks like."
Q The President, whenever he talks about homeland defense on the stump, says something to the effect of the Senate is more interested in special interests than in the interests of the security of the American people. On Monday, and at least one other time this month, he has said instead that the Senate is more interested in special interests in Washington, and not interested in the security of the American people. When he said that Monday, and he said it in Kentucky, did he misspeak? Or does he really believe that Democrats are not interested in the security of the American people?And the amazing thing is, that's only one of the exchanges, with one reporter, among several at this session. And none of them appears to be Helen Thomas.MR. FLEISCHER: Ron, this is a policy debate, where people have said of the President, in terms of his positions on these flexibility measures that I just cited, they have differences with the President. And the President has differences, and he's working with the Democrats and Republicans to bring people together so that we can have a homeland security department. And that's where the President is on this.
Now, in terms of what the President said, I'm aware of the debate that is taking place on Capitol Hill, and the accusations that have been made about the President on this. And now is a time for everybody concerned to take a deep breath, to stop finger-pointing, and to work well together to protect our national security and our homeland defense.
[more Ari-babble]Q I appreciate that. But the question wasn't about what Senator Daschle said; it's what the President said in that speech and in one in Kentucky, where he says -- I'm taking his words literally -- "the Senate is more interested in special interests in Washington, and not interested in the security of the American people." Did the President mean to say that the Senate is not interested in the security of the American people, or did he misspeak?
MR. FLEISCHER: There is no doubt about it. If this does not pass into law because special interest provisions will have prevailed, the Senate will not have acted in the best interests of the American people. And the interests of the special interests will have been put ahead, and the result will be that the Senate will not have acted in that interest, for the national security.
Q Sorry, I don't want to be argumentative here, but you're not responding to the question, because that's not what the President said. The President said, "the Senate is more interested in special interests in Washington, and not interested in the security of the American people." Did he mean to say that the Senate is not interested in the security of the American people, or did he misspeak? It's one of the two.
MR. FLEISCHER: The President is stating the fact that unless and until this passes, the Senate will not have acted in the interests of the security of the American people. Homeland security is just that; it is the security of the American people.
Q That's not what he said. He said, "the Senate is not interested in the security of the American people." He didn't say "if" or "whether" or "but."
MR. FLEISCHER: He made that --
Q He said, "the Senate is more interested in special interests in Washington, and not interested in the security of the American people." Did he mean to say that, or did he misspeak?
There's a maddening lack of permalinks on Headblast's broadsheet-style front page, but it's fun to read and a bit too quotable. Wow, I can remember when I had that kind of energy - and coffee can compensate for only so much. Much is quotable, so here's just one:12:00 BST: Permalink
Nixon Rises From HellDemocratic Senator Robert C. Byrd of West Virginia, speaking out against Bush administration attempts to seize autocratic power and conduct a war with no consent, said, "For all of their blustering about how al-Qaida is determined to strike at our freedoms, this administration shows little appreciation for the constitutional doctrines and processes that have preserved those freedoms for more than two centuries ... I have not seen such executive arrogance and secrecy since the Nixon administration, and we all know what happened to that group." Interesting choice of words. What indeed did happen to that group? Some of them -- Cheney and Rumsfeld for example -- have resurfaced and are in control of the government right now. See The West Virginia Gazette.
Dick Cheney spotCheney responds to Iraq's agreement to weapons inspections
Wednesday, 25 September 200223:24 BST: Permalink
Inexcusable18:31 BST: PermalinkBush said: "The House responded, but the Senate is more interested in special interests in Washington and not interested in the security of the American people."
Daschle said: "That is wrong. We ought not politicize this war. We ought not politicize the rhetoric about war and life and death."
And: "You tell those who fought in Vietnam and World War II they are not interested in the security of the American people because they are Democrats. That is outrageous. Outrageous."
And: "I didn't make up those quotes from pollsters and from Karl Rove about how important the war is as a political issue."
And then the Republicans complained that Daschle's response was "unhelpful".
You know, I am running out of vocabulary. I just don't seem to have enough words left to characterize these nasty, mendacious little weasels who are infesting the White House.
Tapped has an interesting entry about Bill Keller's article on Wolfowitz, in which they refer to an old piece by Jonathan Chait about confusing personality with political stance. The Chait piece is one I didn't see at the time, so looking at it two years later I was interested to see that he, too was talking about how Bush was conveying the impression that he was moderate while, in fact, telegraphing that he was a rightwing fruitcake. A lot of centrists, alas, were picking up the former message rather than the latter.18:02 BST: Permalink
Last Monday, George W. Bush visited a retirement home to discuss Medicare and prescription drugs. On Tuesday, his topic again was health care. On Wednesday, he turned to the environment. On Thursday, it was education and the achievement gap. The theme, his campaign explained, was "Real Plans for Real People."There's much more in the article, and it's a shame its content wasn't more widely known in 2000. Still worth reading, though.Or, put another way, "I'm a moderate"--which has been the message behind practically every Bush slogan for the last year. "Compassionate conservatism" meant "I'm different from the Republican Congress." "Reformer With Results" meant "I'm as different from the Republican Congress as John McCain is." Bush's convention refrain--"They have not led. We will"--meant "I'll pursue the same goals as the Clinton-Gore administration, only more effectively." "Real Plans for Real People" means "My policies are as mainstream as Al Gore's."
Given the political landscape--most voters support the Democratic positions on major issues--Bush's message of moderation is good strategy. It is also a lie. In the substance of his program, Bush is running to the right of Bob Dole in 1996 and to the right of today's Republican Congress. His proposed policies, if enacted, would alter government more dramatically than anything in the last three generations. "We will look back at the Bush years," predicts GOP activist Grover Norquist, "as moving the country further and faster toward individual liberty than the Reagan years." Conservative columnists George Will and Lawrence Kudlow have independently hailed Bush and Dick Cheney as the Republican Party's most conservative ticket since Calvin Coolidge. Accordingly, conservatives--the same cantankerous bunch that castigated stalwarts like Newt Gingrich and Trent Lott as apostates--have fallen behind Bush in lockstep.
And yet Bush's true radicalism has not been wellunderstood outside the right. The mainstream media generally describes W. as a Republican counterpart to Bill Clinton--a moderate who, as USA Today put it, will "govern from the center, rejecting the shrill conservative absolutism that turned off swing voters after Republicans won control of Congress in 1994." And so, by this interpretation, the right's embrace of Bush is a calculated compromise born of desperation for victory.
But the proper ideological analogue for Bush is not Clinton in 1992 but Michael Dukakis in 1988. Clinton captured the center by confronting his party's base on issues such as the death penalty, welfare, and tax cuts. Dukakis, by contrast, hewed to liberal policies but tried to escape liberalism's stigma by emphasizing his personal qualities. He sought to allay fears that he was a big spender, for instance, not by proposing domestic budget cuts but by stressing his personal frugality. Bush, similarly, has upheld conservative dogma while stressing his tolerant and compassionate style. The mystery is not why conservatives see Bush as a man of the right but why so many moderates and liberals do not.
[...]
But the stereotype has stuck, and Bush's masterstroke has been to embrace it. He has invoked conservatism and compassion as a kind of yin and yang, as if merging the two concepts into a Republican third way. He surrounds himself with African American and Latino children, thereby illustrating his promise to "leave no child behind," while steering clear of the Republican Congress, which presumably wants to do just that. When Bush unveiled his prescription-drug plan two weeks ago, he began by praising Medicare, the quintessential Great Society program, and implicitly acknowledging that past generations of Republicans had erred in trying to tear it down. But, if you listen closely, it becomes clear that Bush believes traditional conservative policies have been compassionate all along. "It is conservative to cut taxes," he has said. "It's compassionate to let people keep more of their own money." Bush's frequent declarations of kindheartedness do not represent a break from right-wing policies; they represent a new way of portraying them. Bush has said it himself. "The Republican Party," he once declared, "must put a compassionate face on a conservative philosophy."
Maureen Dowd is using her powers for Good, again:17:19 BST: Permalink
Don't feel bad if you have the uneasy feeling that you're being steamrolled. You are not alone.As my girlfriend Dana said: "Bush is like the guy who reserves a hotel room and then asks you to the prom."
As the Pentagon moves troops, carriers, covert agents and B-2 bombers into the Persian Gulf, the president, Dick Cheney and Donald Rumsfeld continue their pantomime of consultation.
When Senator Mark Dayton of Minnesota asked the defense chief on Thursday, "What is compelling us to now make a precipitous decision and take precipitous actions?" an exasperated Mr. Rumsfeld sputtered: "What's different? What's different is 3,000 people were killed."
The casus belli is casuistry belli: We can't cuff Saddam to 9/11, but we'll clip Saddam because of 9/11.
Mr. Rumsfeld offered sophistry instead of a smoking gun: "I suggest that any who insist on perfect evidence are back in the 20th century and still thinking in pre-9/11 terms."
Ah, Rummy. Evidence, civil liberties, debating before we go to war . . . it's all sooo 20th century.
Adam Cohen in the NYT last Sunday: Justice Rehnquist's Ominous History of Wartime Freedom
When America is at war, according to Chief Justice William Rehnquist, people have to get used to having less freedom. There is a limit to what courts will do to help those deprived of rights, he says, because judges have a natural "reluctance" to rule "against the government on an issue of national security during wartime." In fact, there is "some truth," he concludes, to the Latin maxim "inter arma silent leges" - in time of war, the law is silent.With all of the war talk today - the so-called war on terror and the prospect of a real one in Iraq - it may sound as if the chief justice is laying the groundwork for a drastic rollback in civil liberties. But these reflections come from a history book, "All the Laws but One: Civil Liberties in Wartime," that he wrote four years ago. When it came out, "All the Laws but One" seemed like an academic exercise. But with several major terrorism cases headed to the Supreme Court, court watchers are starting to pick it up as a possible guidebook.
If Mr. Rehnquist the jurist sees the world as Mr. Rehnquist the historian does, there is cause for concern.
The Supreme Court term that begins next month could prove momentous. It will be the justices' first chance to rule on the impact on civil liberties from the Sept. 11 attacks and their aftermath. The court could resolve several key questions: whether American citizens can be held indefinitely without access to lawyers simply because they have been labeled "enemy combatants," whether terrorism suspects can be held in secret detention and whether their deportation hearings can be closed to the public.
"All the Laws but One," which discusses civil liberties during the Civil War and World Wars I and II, does not answer those questions. But its central message is that in wartime, the balance between order and freedom tips toward order. In recounting the history, Justice Rehnquist gives all the arguments for order, and far too few for freedom. The people whose liberties are taken away are virtually invisible.
[...]
Justice Rehnquist's eagerness to see things from the viewpoint of those charged with keeping order - and his relative lack of concern about their victims - could have important implications for the cases the court hears this term. If the justices think only of terrorism and the threat to national security, they may be inclined to uphold whatever restrictions the Bush administration imposes. The more they actually consider the people being held in secret, or denied the right to see a lawyer, the more likely they are to appreciate the costs of those policies.Another problem with "All the Laws but One" is its contention that presidents cannot be reined in during wartime, so it is pointless to try. Justice Rehnquist quotes, with approval, Francis Biddle, President Franklin Roosevelt's attorney general, who said, "The Constitution has not greatly bothered any wartime president." The opposite case can be made. When President Harry Truman tried to seize the nation's steel mills during the Korean War - arguing that an impending strike threatened national security - he backed down when the Supreme Court objected. Other presidents would probably be just as compliant.
But the most disturbing aspect of Justice Rehnquist's book is the lack of outrage, or even disappointment, he evinces when rights are sacrificed. The greatest American patriots have been eloquent about the danger of letting freedom lapse even briefly. Benjamin Franklin said, "They that can give up essential liberty to obtain a little temporary safety deserve neither liberty nor safety." There are times when Justice Rehnquist sees the wisdom of standing up to wartime fervor - he is particularly good about the importance of freedom of speech and assembly. But too often, giving up essential liberty for temporary safety seems an easy call for him.
Shortly after "All the Laws but One" came out, in an interview on C-Span, Justice Rehnquist was asked what he thought of writing books. "It's very nice," he responded, "to be able to write something you don't have to get four other people to agree with you [on] before it can become authoritative." This may be the term when we see which of these views he can get four justices to agree with him on. His colleagues should be cautious. If we keep sacrificing "one" law to save "all the laws," there will eventually be no laws left to save.
Tuesday, 24 September 200222:54 BST: Permalink
Pardon me if I understated the case earlier:17:38 BST: PermalinkU.S. sent Iraq germs in mid-'80s
WASHINGTON - American research companies, with the approval of two previous presidential administrations, provided Iraq biological cultures that could be used for biological weapons, according to testimony to a U.S. Senate committee eight years ago.West Nile Virus, E. coli, anthrax and botulism were among the potentially fatal biological cultures that a U.S. company sent under U.S. Commerce Department licenses after 1985, when Ronald Reagan was president, according to the Senate testimony.
The Commerce Department under the first Bush administration also authorized eight shipments of cultures that the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention later classified as having "biological warfare significance."
Between 1985 and 1989, the Senate testimony shows, Iraq received at least 72 U.S. shipments of clones, germs and chemicals ranging from substances that could destroy wheat crops, give children and animals the bone-deforming disease rickets, to a nerve gas rated a million times more lethal than Sarin.
Disclosures about such shipments in the late 1980s not only highlight questions about old policies but pose new ones, such as how well the American military forces would be protected against such an arsenal - if one exists - should the United States invade Iraq.
Josh Marshall has a thoughtful post at Talking Points Memo on language, Iraq, Orwell, "regime change", and the debate about the war. He notes that lots of people are quoting Orwell, often in ways that seem inconsistent with Orwell's own writings. The favorite, he notes, is the 1946 article 'Politics and the English Language', in which Orwell calls a euphemism a euphemism. Says Orwell:12:54 BST: Permalink
Defenseless villages are bombarded from the air, the inhabitants driven out into the countryside, the cattle machine-gunned, the huts set on fire with incendiary bullets: this is called pacification. Millions of peasants are robbed of their farms and sent trudging along the roads with no more than they can carry: this is called transfer of population or rectification of frontiers. People are imprisoned for years without trial, or shot in the back of the neck or sent to die of scurvy in Arctic lumber camps: this is called elimination of unreliable elements. Such phraseology is needed if one wants to name things without calling up mental pictures of them.Marshall says:
Which brings us back to 'regime change.' Like many phrases Orwell had at, 'regime change' is one that comes with the evasion and concealment prepackaged within it. We all know more or less what the phrase means: the violent otherthrow of one government and its replacement with another, chosen by the power which overthrew the first one, or, in other words, by us. So why not say so? Using an abstract and antiseptic phrase like 'regime change' for a process which is neither abstract or antiseptic is corrupting.Actually, I think overthrow of government is still euphemistic; what we've clearly been asked to support, above anything else, is the idea of getting rid of one man, and his probable replacement with another who is not necessarily much different. Assassination, in other words, seems to be the priority. (Unless, that is, you think making all-out war to boost Bush's power and poll numbers is what we're really being asked to support.) This is one of the things that sits badly with some people who are watching the debate: if the target is Saddam Hussein, which it really does seem to be, why are we preparing to make war on an entire country? (And, for that matter, what makes anyone so sure the new boss will be all that much better than the old boss?)
I don't pretend that the short-hand of 'regime change' is the end of the world in itself. But it is the exposed tip of an extremely dishonest public debate -- one in which assertions which are widely understood to be false are stated and not corrected, in which important distinctions are clouded with obscuring phrases, and in which discussion of the long-term consequences of specific actions are trumped by slogans. And that's a very big deal.Well, yes, it is, but "weapons of mass destruction" is one of those slogans, and it is hardly opaque. But it is waved in our faces a lot in order to make us forget that we are supposed to be at war with extremist Islamist fundamentalists, not just some despot who happens to have fallen out of favor with the Bush family. In the hands of this administration, "Let's Roll!" is used for this purpose. We are supposed to be whipped up into a mindless frenzy of grief, anger and fear so overwhelming that we forget who actually did this thing that launched us down this road in the first place.
The lack of serious debate is not limited to the hawks. The opponents of deposing Saddam are often similarly muddled. Many Democrats have busied themselves with asking good questions rather than proposing a credible alternative policy. Meanwhile, many people in the peace camp are simply not willing to face seriously the belligerence, recklessness and brutality of Saddam Hussein's regime. They are not willing in most cases to consider the consequences of a nuclear-armed Iraq under Saddam Hussein's control. They often won't face the pressing nature of the issue, one in which time is not necessarily on our side. But mostly these are simply matters of evasion, an unwillingness to seriously consider the issue. There's little of the casual making up of stories that is the staple of this administration's arguments.I confess to being unfamiliar with any peace-nick apologists for Saddam Hussein, Benevolent Ruler. What I see is mostly people who don't think getting rid of Saddam actually is more important than dealing with Al Qaeda, and many of whom think invading Iraq has too much potential to make the fight against terrorism harder rather than facilitating it.And then there's this other question: What made Saddam so much more dangerous now than he was not that long ago when he was good pals with the Bush administration? Or even more recently, when he was doing deals with Dick Cheney? (Should we be asking what Cheney sold him that makes Cheney think he's so dangerous now?)
Personally, I have other questions: When has Saddam ever done anything really awful without the permission of the United States? Oh, sure, he invaded Kuwait, but only after Bush's mouthpiece-in-situ, April Glaspie, said it was okay. Yeah, he used WMD against his own people, but that, too, was with the knowledge and lack of objection of the Reagan-Bush administration, who he was chums with at the time. Yes, he doesn't actually have our permission for exploiting the current sanctions as an excuse to starve his people and pretend it's everyone else's fault, but when has the US ever gone to war with someone for letting their people starve?
(Of course, there is always that paranoid little voice in the back row that says, "And wasn't the invasion of Kuwait convenient for a president who was pretty unpopular even with his own base? A little war to make the numbers shoot up? Hmmm...")
It's that feeling that, once again, we are being jerked around by the Bush Family Empire while they play dangerous games in the rest of the world - in our name. And, seriously, while we're all in favor of re-thinking our policies in the region, we see not one reason at all to let Bush, Inc. be in charge of the re-thinking.
Well, looks like Liberal Oasis rendered my entire rant from yesterday pointless:12:20 BST: Permalink
On the Sunday shows, there was no discussion of last week's House and Senate Armed Services Committee hearings on Iraq, the concerns raised at the hearings by Dems and GOPers, and the holes in Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld's testimony.Damn, I really should know better by now.Right now you might be saying, "What hearings? I didn't see any media coverage about any hearings."
That's right, you didn't. But they happened.
[...]
This is what everybody wanted. The Administration making the case. Democrats asking questions. And the media yawned.
The top story at MWO might end up being re-titled, "compassionate conservatives kill my mother." MWO says:12:01 BST: Permalink
In the latest outrageous assault on ordinary Americans, the White House has announced a proposal for deep reductions in Medicare payments for a wide range of drugs and medical devices which untold numbers of Americans seniors need just to stay alive.
Here is the complete transcript of Al Gore's speech (Via Atrios), and here is how much room Reuters and The Washington Post had for it. I think you'll have to find the whole thing archived on video at C-Span to get the Q&A part after the speech - that's the part where the man who was chosen by the voters to be President of the United States was asked, and answered, questions of real substance - answered them in good humor, thoughtfully, and without dissing any reporters. (But it wasn't one of Al's "on" nights. Still, his delivery was a damn sight better than George "I can only memorize the words in groups of three" Bush ever gives.) Here at The Sideshow, we have room to quote this much:11:54 BST: Permalink
To begin with, I believe we should focus our efforts first and foremost against those who attacked us on September 11th and have thus far gotten away with it. The vast majority of those who sponsored, planned and implemented the cold blooded murder of more than 3,000 Americans are still at large, still neither located nor apprehended, much less punished and neutralized. I do not believe that we should allow ourselves to be distracted from this urgent task simply because it is proving to be more difficult and lengthy than predicted. Great nations persevere and then prevail. They do not jump from one unfinished task to another.Not bad, but I think Gore needs to read more weblogs. Although this speech puts him well ahead of most Democrats who are in office right now, I think he needs to see more of the debate on that "regime change" thing.
[...]
On the domestic front, the Administration, having delayed almost ---months before conceding the need to create an institution outside the White House to manage homeland defense, has been willing to see progress on the new department held up, for the sake of an effort to coerce the Congress into stripping civil service protections from tens of thousands of federal employees.Far more damaging, however, is the Administration's attack on fundamental constitutional rights. The idea that an American citizen can be imprisoned without recourse to judicial process or remedies, and that this can be done on the say-so of the President or those acting in his name, is beyond the pale.
Regarding other countries, the Administration's disdain for the views of others is well documented and need not be reviewed here. It is more important to note the consequences of an emerging national strategy that not only celebrates American strengths, but appears to be glorifying the notion of dominance. If what America represents to the world is leadership in a commonwealth of equals, then our friends are legion; if what we represent to the world is empire, then it is our enemies who will be legion.
At this fateful juncture in our history it is vital that we see clearly who are our enemies, and that we deal with them. It is also important, however, that in the process we preserve not only ourselves as individuals, but our nature as a people dedicated to the rule of law.
[...]
I believe that we can effectively defend ourselves abroad and at home without dimming our principles. Indeed, I believe that our success in defending ourselves depends precisely on not giving up what we stand for.
Sam Heldman eschews a vow of poverty. This is good, righties want us to prove our virtue by being poor...so they can have it all. Stupidly, a lot of lefties have actually let themselves get guilted into that way of thinking. (Wake up, Dems! Make money! Buy out all the shares in media companies and take them over!)11:22 BST: Permalink
Bob Somerby sounds like he's having more fun:
Exactly! Why are conservatives Having More Fun? Because it's easy to Have More Fun when the rules are all stacked in your favor. In the late 60s, Abby Hoffman was Having More Fun — because the weltanschauung of the era allowed pseudo-liberals to say any dumb thing they liked. Now, the same red carpet is rolled out for pseudo-cons, who are allowed to just make their sh*t up. When Coulter tangled with Couric, for example, Mickey Kaus politely pretended that Coulter had won the big battle of words (see THE DAILY HOWLER, 7/20/02). Kausfiles readers were encouraged not to know the truth about Coulter's — yes — lying.And Max - oh, well, this is just priceless.
Monday, 23 September 200216:59 BST: Permalink
Politics and Partisans03:01 BST: PermalinkWell, Broder is right for a change, except that he leaves out the fact that all the Democrats have done is join the Republicans in putting Politics Over Principle. Single-minded partisanship has long been the Republican strategy, even when their principles all seemed to be in direct conflict with each other's. (Well, except for shared hatred of programs for the poor, affirmative action, and women's equality.)
One of the most instructive parts of my schedule is the hour spent every other week or so with fellow citizens in the chats that appear on washingtonpost.com.Well, yeah, you can understand that at this point reducing the Republicans' power really is that important (and since David Broder and his kind appear to have given up principle a long time ago, it's a bit late to suddenly start expecting the Dems to tread a moral high ground that for the last decade got them nowhere. (There seem to be an awful lot of people at The Washington Post who think that only Democrats are obliged to be chaste, principled, honest, and always 100% right. What's up with that?)They are not a cross section -- these are people seriously engaged in politics and public policy -- but the shifting tone and content of their questions and comments offer important clues to the trend of opinion, at least in that influential segment of the population.
Last week's chat was, of course, dominated by the topic of Iraq, with probing questions about U.S. strategy and its chance of success. But a provocative second theme emerged: Where are the Democrats on that issue -- or, for that matter, on any other?
Here are a couple of samples. From Philadelphia: "I'm a Democrat. Considering that talk of an attack on Iraq has dominated the news, I'm really upset that Democrats have done so little to try and neutralize the Republicans on national security issues. Is there any way they can do that? Are there any prominent Democratic politicians who could give their party credibility on foreign policy or national security? Our party should not be at the mercy of the news media by hoping that domestic issues lead the news."
And here's another, from Madison, Wis.: "During the Vietnam War, antiwar forces were vocally represented by Sens. Morse, Gruening, Fulbright, McCarthy, McGovern, Robert Kennedy, etc. But we do not hear antiwar voices in the Senate today. . . . The Democrats are even less likely to voice critical views than the Republicans. . . . Whatever the merits, the restriction of the legitimate boundaries of debate does not seem to be in the interests of our democracy. What's going on?"
Good question. The party certainly has potential spokesmen, including the chairmen of the Senate Foreign Relations and Armed Services committees and veterans of the Clinton administration Cabinet and National Security Council. Several things are going on, specific to Iraq. First, Saddam Hussein has no defenders in American public life. Almost everyone would like to see him gone. Second, there's a strong feeling he has been thumbing his nose for years at the United Nations and its inspectors. Third, no alternative strategy to reduce the threat of his using weapons of mass destruction is obvious. Fourth, the president, as commander in chief of the war on terrorism, has a standing that makes almost every politician wary of challenging him.
But there is something deeper -- and less justifiable -- at work. The Democratic leaders in Congress, in both the House and Senate, largely have abandoned principle and long-term strategy for the short-term tactics they think will help them in this November's election.
Except that I'm not so sure the Democratic leadership has picked such a good strategy. This idea that principle and pragmatism must always be in conflict is, well, lame, and it hasn't worked for us all that well in the past - why cede to the Republicans all the terms of debate, even going so far as to accept the idea that morality (outside of presidential blow-jobs) is a dead issue that is always trumped by bombs and money?
Thing is, everyone has figured out that we are contemplating the invasion of a foreign country, and that lots of people are going to get killed - you know, all that war stuff that might not be good for children and other living things. And even the Republicans are arguing about it. So folks can't really help but notice that the Democrats aren't saying much. It smells bad.
I don't think it would hurt Democrats all that much to keep asking, "What about Al Qaeda? What about finishing what we started in Afghanistan?" and pointing out that when the administration tries to suggest Saddam is in possession of a working nuclear arsenal (or will be before November) this is, well, not likely to be true.
Maybe if David Broder and his colleagues were prepared to show some principle, it would embolden the Democrats. It's not exactly a secret that Bush, Inc. has no evidence that Iraq had anything to do with 9/11 and that Saddam is not known to have any good reason or ability to start a nuclear exchange. The idea that Saddam would give WMD to religious fanatics is actually pretty whacky, and starting a war against him when we have so little support from other nations has real potential to blow up in our faces - not to mention the faces of our friends who are actually in bombing distance of these people. So how did the American people get the impression that this is not the case?
Well, they got it from the Stepford Press, who happily carry every lie the administration spills, leaks, or states outright in front of god and everyone with a straight face, as if it were undisputed gospel. Perhaps Mr. Broder would like to point out in his columns, and encourage his colleagues to point out (on the front page would be good - above the fold), that as far as anyone knows Iraq is not really all that close to being a nuclear power and they don't have the delivery systems even if they had the bombs.
All that aside, though, Broder is absolutely right that it's past time for the Democrats to stand up, and there are some issues on which their cowardice is not even a little bit justifiable on pragmatic grounds:
An even clearer case is the Democrats' rollover on taxes and the budget. On the same day that the Philadelphia Democrat said Democrats should not rely on the news media to put domestic issues to the fore, Daschle took the Senate floor to start a concerted effort to put Bush on the defensive on the country's economic performance.Too right. And what's wrong with those Democrats who voted for that tax cut in the first place? And why can't they just now say, "We were wrong"? Gee, it would be embarrassing. Well, that's just too bad. Should the nation be bankrupt because someone might be embarrassed?The Democrats do not lack for ammunition on that front. From the losses in retirement funds to the scandals in corporate suites to the unwillingness of House Republicans even to risk a vote on the inadequately funded appropriations bill for health and education and welfare, there is plenty for Democrats to criticize.
But the single biggest economic decision Bush has made was to push through a massive tax cut -- and his insistence that its future largess to high-income families not be touched, even though budget surpluses have melted into deficits.
Daschle targeted that Republican policy in his speech, saying, "They have one economic all-purpose antidote for everything, and that is tax cuts -- tax cuts largely dedicated to those at the top." But he and Gephardt made the tactical decision early this year not to challenge those tax cuts, lest the minority of Democrats who voted for them be embarrassed and potentially weakened in their reelection bids.
The Democrats' refusal to face up to that fundamental issue leaves them without credibility for their entire critique of Bush's economic policy.
No wonder those Democrats who contacted me are upset.
And should we be dragged into a war - unnecessarily, and against every principle we have stood for in the past - because the Democrats are afraid to lose seats in an election? The time to attack the Republicans' credibility is before their lies get accepted in the mainstream as "facts". It's hardly as if we don't, as usual, have the evidence on our side. Though the rightist hawks have tried to discredit him, Scott Ritter has been a pretty strong example of principled pragmatism at the expert level. Here he is talking to William Rivers Pitt:
Pitt: Does Iraq have weapons of mass destruction? Ritter: It's not black-and-white, as some in the Bush administration make it appear. There's no doubt that Iraq hasn't fully complied with its disarmament obligations as set forth by the UN security council in its resolution. But on the other hand, since 1998 Iraq has been fundamentally disarmed: 90-95% of Iraq's weapons of mass destruction capability has been verifiably eliminated. This includes all of the factories used to produce chemical, biological and nuclear weapons, and long-range ballistic missiles; the associated equipment of these factories; and the vast majority of the products coming out of these factories.It sure sounds to me like there's an important case to be made. The administration and their supporters have made it clear that they don't give a damn, but the only reason anyone has to vote for the Democrats is because we do care. If, that is, we really do.Iraq was supposed to turn everything over to the UN, which would supervise its destruction and removal. Iraq instead chose to destroy - unilaterally, without UN supervision - a great deal of this equipment. We were later able to verify this. But the problem is that this destruction took place without documentation, which means the question of verification gets messy very quickly.
P: Why did Iraq destroy the weapons instead of turning them over?
R: In many cases, the Iraqis were trying to conceal the weapons' existence. And the unilateral destruction could have been a ruse to maintain a cache of weapons of mass destruction by claiming they had been destroyed.
It is important to not give Iraq the benefit of the doubt. Iraq has lied to the international community. It has lied to inspectors. There are many people who believe Iraq still seeks to retain the capability to produce these weapons.
That said, we have no evidence that Iraq retains either the capability or material. In fact, a considerable amount of evidence suggests Iraq doesn't retain the necessary material.
I believe the primary problem at this point is one of accounting. Iraq has destroyed 90 to 95% of its weapons of mass destruction. Okay. We have to remember that this missing 5 to 10% doesn't necessarily constitute a threat. It doesn't even constitute a weapons programme. It constitutes bits and pieces of a weapons programme which, in its totality, doesn't amount to much, but which is still prohibited. Likewise, just because we can't account for it, doesn't mean Iraq retains it. There is no evidence that Iraq retains this material. That is the quandary we are in. We can't give Iraq a clean bill of health, therefore we can't close the book on its weapons of mass destruction. But simultaneously we can't reasonably talk about Iraqi non-compliance as representing a de facto retention of a prohibited capability worthy of war.
Or are Democrats hinky about all this for another reason? Ritter continues:
R: When I left Iraq in 1998, when the UN inspection programme ended, the infrastructure and facilities had been 100% eliminated. There's no debate about that. All of their instruments and facilities had been destroyed. The weapons design facility had been destroyed. The production equipment had been hunted down and destroyed. And we had in place means to monitor - both from vehicles and from the air - the gamma rays that accompany attempts to enrich uranium or plutonium. We never found anything. We can say unequivocally that the industrial infrastructure needed by Iraq to produce nuclear weapons had been eliminated.What happened later is that the weapons inspectors were pulled out - by the US, who didn't want to hit them when we bombed Iraq. And, um, who did that? Well, for once, it appears, we are not talking about something that didn't happen during the Clinton administration.
Question Mark #18: 'It's Time For Every Son To Be A Soldier'02:29 BST: Permalink
This story is actually from the NYT but since it may disappear before you read it, check out Atrios, who copied much of it:02:16 BST: Permalink
Criminal justice experts say they have become increasingly concerned that the Justice Department under Attorney General John Ashcroft is moving to exert political control over previously independent agencies within the department that collect crime statistics and grant crime research awards.We will soon be hearing that all crime is caused by pornography and marijuana.At stake, they say, is the integrity of statistics about whether crime is increasing or decreasing and the findings of scholars about what causes crime and how to reduce it.
Blog reading02:00 BST: PermalinkDemosthenes has an interesting thought:
Pretty much everything that the warblogger/neo-conservative right have been calling for is pretty much exactly what Osama wanted, so much so that I wonder whether he wasn't much, much smarter than we've given him credit for. After all, he wanted the U.S. troops out of Saudi Arabia, he wanted the House of Saud overthrown, and he wanted war between the west and Islam... and by inflaming the rage of Americans with his attack and then making sure that Al Qaeda is too difficult and diffuse a target to satisfy that rage, he's moved a lot closer to those goals than anyone would have dreamed a while ago.Toby's Political Diary says Those Who Benefit from the Denial of Freedom are the Enemies of Freedom.A Level Gaze indicts the administration.
Dwight Meredith doesn't just explain a whole lot about politics and issues, but also compares the GOP to the Mets. Of course, there is one big difference: I have sometimes been known to root for the Mets.
Take it as Red has the story about how a venerable old London bookshop, Housmans, is being squeezed out of business as a result of Britain's stupid libel laws.
The Agora is on the same page with me on where to go looking for terrorists. How come no one else seems to be?
Do not drink anything (especially Pepsi) while reading this post, or indeed anything else Northrup posts.
The righties love to pick on Sebastian Mallaby, which may all by itself be a good reason to read him. Here he is with War, Then It Gets Hard:
The Bush folk have been justly whacked for fighting a war in Afghanistan and then fumbling the reconstruction. But if they repeat this formula in Iraq, their mistake won't be equivalent. It will be worse, much worse. Indeed, it will undermine the whole argument for attacking Iraq in the first place.
Sunday, 22 September 200222:00 BST: Permalink
A useful piece by Michael Kinsley, in his capacity as Man Who States the Obvious 'Cause No One Else Will at The Washington Post:21:02 BST: Permalink
Of all the explanations for Sept. 11, 2001, and the subsequent alleged war on terrorism, the least illuminating is that it's all about evil. We didn't know or didn't appreciate that there is evil in the world. Now we do know, or ought to. In President Bush's "axis of evil" speech last January, the first item on his list of truths "we have come to know" after 9/11 is that "evil is real, and it must be opposed."Well, yeah. Of course, these are people whose base definition of "evil" roughly translates as "liberals" on most days of the week, so they probably haven't noticed that there's always been a liberal discourse on evil in which the definition is a little different from theirs. Strange as it may seem, a thing doesn't have to outrage right-wing fruitcakes in order to fit our definition.In fact, the very reasons we are "evil" to them are part and parcel of the constellations in which we find evil. Racism, for example, is one of the things we find evil - and that's one of the first things about liberals that really outraged the right-wing. These are people who call themselves Christians but somehow think that being white or rich makes them superior to anyone else, despite the many passages in the Bible (and particularly the teachings of Jesus) that pretty clearly say otherwise.
Kinsley names an evil, too:
Bennett's evidence that the concept of evil is endangered is pretty thin. He scrounges up a couple of professors making moral-relativist noises about understanding terrorists as people and the possibility that America's own actions may have contributed to America's current dilemma. Neither of them is actually quoted as dissing the word "evil." My own impression, for what it is worth, is that concepts such as "bad" and "wrong" did pop up occasionally before 9/11 and that there has never in our history been a proposition from which fewer Americans dissent than, "Osama bin Laden is evil." Calling terrorists "evil" requires no courage and justifies no self-congratulatory puffing. It's just not a problem.It's a long habit of the right wing to dismiss any examination of root causes as mere excusing, of course. If you try to explain that most violent offenders start out as victims of violence (or repression) themselves, they claim you're excusing violence, though in fact you're doing nothing of the kind.But it's also not a solution.
[...]
If the great essential truth about terrorism is that some people just hate the United States, the obvious next question is: Why? But that is precisely the question that offends the All-About-Evil crowd, because it leads in two unacceptable directions. One is toward psychology, trying to understand how a human mind could plot the deaths of so many innocents and gladly die in carrying it out. "Root causes" is what this kind of thinking is called in the context of domestic social issues such as crime and welfare, and conservatives regard it as a major liberal disease, with symptoms that include coddling criminals and forgiving sloth.If the subjective basis for terrorists hating America is off-limits for consideration, that would seem to leave the objective basis: Is it something we did, or didn't do, to them or theirs? But this violates the ancient conservative taboo against "blaming America first." So check and mate: Terrorism is evil, evil, evil -- gosh, it's evil -- and there's nothing else to discuss.
This is an astonishingly philistine, know-nothing posture for a group of people (mostly neoconservative would-be muscular-intellectual types) who generally preen as the guardians of intellectual standards. They are so afraid of the fallacy of tout comprendre c'est tout pardonner that they fall right into it: In order to avoid the danger that understanding terrorism might lead to excusing terrorism, they put understanding itself beyond the pale. This is not just anti-intellectual but actually a hindrance to the war on terrorism. Blocking any deeper understanding of the terrorists' mentality and motives cannot be good for the war effort.
Something I used to run into on alt.feminism a lot was guys saying, "Why do women do X?" or "Why did this woman do X?" and of course some of us would try to explain the thinking behind that kind of behavior, and then be accused of "siding with" the women who do X. But we hadn't been asked, "Is this behavior good and justifiable?" but rather why it is done at all, and it's the latter question we were answering. How you respond to such questions depends an awful lot on whether you are in pursuit of understanding in order to solve the problem or just looking for an excuse to condemn others.
In the discussion of racial issues, there are serious consequences to asking a question and then refusing to understand the response as an answer to that specific question. Racists ask, for example, why blacks are disproportionately poor and disproportionately represented in prison populations, with the clear intention of implying that this is evidence of moral and mental inferiority on the part of blacks. When you try to explain the myriad ways in which these numbers represent the results of racism and poverty, you're accused of excusing every act of murder and mayhem ever committed by a black person.
If Americans are asking, "Why do they hate us?" - why do they hate us enough to murder thousands of ordinary Americans who, as far as they know, have never done a thing to them? - glib answers about "evil" really don't get us anywhere. Something focused their rage on us, something made us a target. These things don't just come out of nowhere. And it's simply not good enough to say, "We're basically a good country, even if our foreign policies haven't always been perfect." Our foreign policies don't have to justify Osama bin Laden in order to deserve re-examination as potential causes of anger and resentment.
In the end, of course, the individual choices of the people who hijacked planes for the sole purpose of committing the enormity of 9/11 didn't really begin with political reasons. Everything we know about them says that at least a few of the ringleaders were men who had started off perfectly willing to go to the West, enjoy its fruits, embrace it. But they felt rejected, rebuffed, excluded, when they came to our cities. The West did not embrace them in return, and in their isolation they became vulnerable to the proselytizing of those who promoted a hateful, anti-western ideology.
But the ethnocentrism and racism of the West that those men met here is not unique to us; in America, it is largely an import from every part of the world, including theirs. Yes, it is an evil, but it is not an especially American one, or even a western one. Their choice, to hate us, to see us as the source of their pain, was ignorant at best.
In fact, most of the people who "hate us" don't hate us at all; what they hate is the activity of many of our business and political leaders - activity which is not, in fact, endorsed by most Americans (who are not normally kept apprised of these machinations outside of our borders) - that often directly harms them. Out there in the rest of the world, most folks understand all of this, but they also know that until Americans wake up to what is done in our name, it will not stop. How can they wake us up? They would not have wished for 9/11, and many of them cried and mourned with us (although, interestingly, the American news media chose to be remarkably selective in showing it). But if we refuse to let even this great horror open our eyes, we can drive them to despair. And despair, I'm sure, is an evil.
Patriotism20:45 BST: PermalinkIT'S MORE THAN putting a flag on your front porch
"The highest form of patriotism," says U.S. Rep. Dennis Kucinich, "is a willingness to challenge the direction the country is going at a moment of fear and fury."The one-time boy mayor of Cleveland turned congressman, whose emotional "Prayer for America" speech stirred rumors that he might be the next Democratic candidate for president, is talking about the nation's outpouring of patriotism since terrorists hijacked four jets and plowed three of them into their intended symbolic targets last year.
"Patriotism is a love of country," Kucinich says. "I have a very strong love of this country. But I believe that if you love your country and see it going in a direction you don't like, then it is an obligation to say so."
Rafe Colburn struggles with a common problem:10:59 BST: Permalink
That's my problem in a nutshell. I know for a fact that Saddam Hussein is a dangerous man, and that he poses a threat (to some degree) to me, and a much greater threat to every one of his neighbors and to all of the citizens of his own country. This man really should be behind the walls of a prison somewhere, or dead. Certainly he shouldn't be the totalitarian ruler of a country with the fate of millions in his hands. At the same time, I don't trust George Bush. I don't trust Dick Cheney. I don't trust Donald Rumsfeld, and I certainly don't trust Paul Wolfowitz and Richard Perle. They hold the lives of millions in their hands as well. Not only the lives of every Iraqi, but the lives of every American soldier as well. And to be frank, I feel like this is a group that feels the need to have an enemy with a return address. They're a bunch of nonreconstructed cold warriors who aren't comfortable with the challenges that the war on terrorism really poses. Iraq is important, and something has to give in our current relationship with Iraq, but is it the most important thing right now? I don't know. But more importantly, I don't trust the powers that be to figure that out, or to tell me the truth even if they do figure it out. These are trying times.A couple of weeks ago, The Arkansas Times said, in an editorial:
One thing that has changed about this country since 9/11/01 is that we now have a commander-in-chief who threatens pre-emptive war. This is a concept American leaders used to renounce. If somebody else started something, we'd finish it, that was understood, but the United States would not be the aggressor. It was a point of honor.That, of course, is a point of honor, too.After two world wars that began with pre-emptive strikes, most other nations came to understand that the American position was sound practically as well as morally. The United Nations charter, which the U.S. signed (and wrote, mostly) after WW II, does not condone pre-emptive war. As French President Jacques Chirac told The New York Times last week, "As soon as one nation claims the right to take preventive action, other countries will naturally do the same. If we go down that road, where are we going?"
Where indeed? China taking pre-emptive action against Taiwan? India against Pakistan, or vice versa? The whole world like the Middle East, where Israeli and Arab have been pre-empting each other for half a century, and the end is not in sight?
Reportedly, President Bush and his advisers have been trying for more than a year to connect Iraq with the terrorist attack on this country. Iraqi involvement in 9/11 would be cause for war, if there was proof. There is not, not a shred. In America, punishment is reserved for the guilty, not administered to those we wish were guilty, or those we think might be guilty someday.
The Bloviator discusses, "A disastrous trend that can't help but have a tragic ending," in state policies allowing Medicaid to pay only for the higher dosage of an antidepressant, to save money, and requiring poor folk to cut the pills in half in order to get the proper dose.10:30 BST: Permalink
Want to know how they came to the decision that it was OK to force the state's poorest, most vulnerable (not to mention depressed) patients to do this? Here's policymaking at its finest, folks:Illinois Medicaid officials, however, said they have studied the issue and tested the ease of splitting a Zoloft tablet."We sat around at a conference table breaking them in half and decided it would work with this drug to require that they be prescribed in this manner," said James Parker, deputy administrator of medical programs for the Illinois Department of Public Aid. "It cuts the [state's] cost of their prescriptions in half."
Mark Crispin Miller says that Bush's inability to utter the last part of the adage that starts, "Fool me once, shame on you," is scarier than it sounds:01:04 BST: Permalink
Sure, it's funny, even the toadies of the TV news were chuckling over it. But let's not laugh so long and hard that we don't notice what that moment really tells us. That gaffe did NOT reveal that Bush is simply stupid. In fact, it tells us something much more worrisome.What was it that the president just could not bring himself to say? "Shame on me." The president could not say "Shame on me," not if his life depended on it -- an inability that's perfectly in character. Search all throughout the mammoth archive of his off-the-cuff remarks (and his scripted statements, too), and you won't find a single moment of self-criticism, self-doubt, ambivalence, or even open-mindedness or simple curiosity. You'll find a lot of pseudo-Christian boilerplate, but not a hint of genuine contrition. Hence, Bush's tongue went AWOL at the prospect of admitting error, weakness, or shame -- and so he had to quote The Who instead.
That bias is very telling: Bush actually believes that he can do no wrong. This fixed conviction of his own infallibility has come out often, in remarks not laughably sub-literate or confused. He's boasted that he knows what he believes, and that he never changes his position, or his mind, and that he sees the world in black and white, and so on. He's made it clear repeatedly: George W. Bush is always right, George W. Bush can do no wrong. And now he's accidentally made the point again, by showing himself incapable -- psychologically, and therefore physically -- of saying "Shame on me."
It's time to see the man for who he is, and to pay close attention to his moves, and to the moves of his cabal. While Bush's grandiosity -- and shamelessness -- have been apparent all along, since 9/11 he's been acting on them big-time. This so-called "conservative" wants absolute and total power to fight whatever war he wants, and in whatever way he wants, and for as long as he may want. That way, he won't be the only one incapable of shaming him -- for everybody else will be too scared to speak the truth. And so it really isn't very funny after all.
Unless he's speaking from a script, Bush is at grave verbal risk whenever he must feign emotions that he doesn't really feel.
Tbogg says:00:18 BST: Permalink
READ MEMan, he is not kidding, you really gotta read The Right's Judicial Juggernaut by Jack Newfield, which is a meaty and frightening look at both the substance and process of how the far right is taking over our judicial system, with chilling evidence like this on a Bush nominee:Very important article in The Nation
If you need only one reason to make sure that the Democrats hold the Senate, this is it.
Perhaps the most damaging evidence against Estrada comes from two lawyers he interviewed for Supreme Court clerkships. Both were unwilling to be identified by name for fear of reprisals. The first told me: "Since I knew Miguel, I went to him to help me get a Supreme Court clerkship. I knew he was screening candidates for Justice Kennedy. Miguel told me, 'No way. You're way too liberal.' I felt he was definitely submitting me to an ideological litmus test, and I am a moderate Democrat. When I asked him why I was being ruled out without even an interview, Miguel told me his job was to prevent liberal clerks from being hired. He told me he was screening out liberals because a liberal clerk had influenced Justice Kennedy to side with the majority and write a pro-gay-rights decision in a case known as Romer v. Evans, which struck down a Colorado statute that discriminated against gays and lesbians."And that's just one little thing. Definitely read the article now.I also interviewed a young law professor and former Justice Department attorney who told me a very similar story. "I was a clerk for an appeals court judge," the professor told me, "and my judge called Justice Kennedy recommending me for a clerkship with him. Justice Kennedy then called me and said I had made the first cut and would soon be called for an interview. I was then interviewed by Miguel Estrada and another lawyer. Estrada asked most of the questions. He asked me a lot of unfair, ideological questions, a lot about the death penalty, which I told him I thought was immoral. I felt I was being subjected to an ideological litmus test. Estrada was being obnoxious. He was acting like it was his job to weed out liberal influences on Justice Kennedy. I was never called back by anyone."
Joe Conason chimes in on the question of invading Iraq, and he's pretty sure the reasons the White House has been giving actually have nothing to do with why they think it's so urgent. The article is behind the Premium wall at Salon, so non-subscribers might want to look at MWO for some excerpts, like:00:01 BST: Permalink
It certainly isn't to prevent proliferation of chemical and biological weapons. As the Washington Post reported yesterday, current U.S. policy is actually designed to thwart completion of a new international regime against biological weapons. ...MWO also provides a link to the Jon Stewart segment on the Bush reaction to Saddam's announcement that weapons inspectors would be allowed to return to Iraq, complete with Breaking News. Click here for RealPlayer clip.
Epicycle has been fun the last few days, with an important link to a page conclusively proving that the moon landings were faked (genuine must see stuff, as he advises), a link to another useful article at Dan's Data, a groovy picture of the computer Epicycle's proprietor has been building which is getting to look downright spooky, and this:
So, another Linux worm... And a very interesting one, too, in that right now nobody knows quite what it is going to do! Slapper infects Linux servers via the well-documented OpenSSL vulnerability in the Apache web server, forming them into peer-to-peer networks with each infected machine sharing data with it's peers and capable of assuming control over the network as a whole.
Saturday, 21 September 200223:00 BST: Permalink
I be grumpy04:57 BST: PermalinkAs I have mentioned earlier, I'm stingy about adding new links for blogs, in part because I know that adding new links diffuses the impact of the existing links, and one reason those links are there in the first place is that I'd rather like people to click on them. (And not everyone reads as fast as Gary Farber.) I also claimed that I have a secret formula for adding new links, known only to me. Actually, this isn't true, because I don't know what it is, either. There are weblogs I really like that aren't there yet, and I'm not entirely sure why. But, obviously, the best way to get there is to keep doing things that call my attention to you in a positive way. Naturally, one of these is to come to my notice via other blogs I read, but if you're really interested in a link from me you'll aim your method at me personally. One of these is to drop me a line saying you've posted an article that is likely to appeal to me, of course; people who I link here in main-text a couple-few times stand a pretty high chance of showing up on the right eventually. (This only applies to people who I don't think are idiots, of course.) Another is to link to me in such a way that I start to notice your URL showing up in my referrals.
But, I'll tell ya, I really dislike it when people write and ask me to trade links. Maybe I'm a tight-ass, but I find this a bit, I dunno, wrong. I mean, if you like The Sideshow enough to link it at all, why didn't you link it already? That's what I did. I didn't run around asking people to put those links there in exchange for a link I wanted to post anyway. Sure, there are weblogs out there that I think ought to be linking to me (because we are obviously playing on the same team), but I usually find that if I link to them, a link from them to me usually appears within a matter of days. If it doesn't, well, it doesn't, but that doesn't mean I think their weblog is any less worth reading, so the link stays. Note, for example, that I continue to link to Jim Henley even though he has only a short list of links that doesn't include me. I don't mind; Henley is a good and thoughtful writer who says a lot of things that I regard as useful contributions to the discourse, in addition to the fact that his heart is in the right place and he frequently links me in his main text. (Look now! Good stuff there!)
Yes, there have been a couple of times when someone nudged me about linking to them, and that pushed me over to sticking a link up, but they were already linking to me. And yes, there has been an occasion where I asked someone why he wasn't linking to me - but, of course, I was already linking to him. In both cases, it was that little nudge that was needed to make it happen. (When Alterman was having his little link contest, I did write and offer a list of a few weblogs I liked, and suggested myself as well, but again, I was already linking him.) But that's not the same as asking for a trade. Asking for a trade feels to me like saying, "This isn't about me wanting to support and recommend something good, it's about me wanting to promote myself, and assuming you want the same." Maybe that's an uncharitable interpretation, but that's how it feels. And, see, my priority isn't about hustling up links for myself, it's about trying to offer people information and share some thoughts with those who want them. Sure, I've got an enormous ego and all that, but I'm old enough to know that not everyone's gonna love me - and anyway, with an ego this size, I always get to rationalize that if they don't love me, it's just 'cause I'm too smart for them.
Anyway, I am posting this link purely out of sheer egomania, and because you can't let something like that go unthanked. So, thanks, Crazy Soph!
Jeff Cooper has some thoughts on judicial nominations, and on one nomination in particular.01:04 BST: PermalinkThis link is for a Liberal Desert item explaining just why the Bush rollback on air-conditioner standards is not a trivial problem...but there's lots of other good stuff on the site, too.
In Arguendo has a good little piece on the story about Clinton's request for reimbursement of Whitewater costs...and the mysterious silence of the press about Richard Mellon Scaife's reimbursement request. (Also a link for voting on Rudy Giuliani's new hairstyle!)
Patrick has been rounding up the scores on the Iraq debate, here and here and here and here. I don't feel any better about the war, but I do feel better seeing more people inching around to the "maybe not" side.
And today's movie: Mark Fiore's Protect 09/18/02
Tbogg says:00:18 BST: Permalink
READ MEMan, he is not kidding, you really gotta readThe Right's Judicial Juggernaut by Jack Newfield, which is a meaty and frightening look at both the substance and process of how the far right is taking over our judicial system, with chilling evidence like this on a Bush nominee:Very important article in The Nation
If you need only one reason to make sure that the Democrats hold the Senate, this is it.
Perhaps the most damaging evidence against Estrada comes from two lawyers he interviewed for Supreme Court clerkships. Both were unwilling to be identified by name for fear of reprisals. The first told me: "Since I knew Miguel, I went to him to help me get a Supreme Court clerkship. I knew he was screening candidates for Justice Kennedy. Miguel told me, 'No way. You're way too liberal.' I felt he was definitely submitting me to an ideological litmus test, and I am a moderate Democrat. When I asked him why I was being ruled out without even an interview, Miguel told me his job was to prevent liberal clerks from being hired. He told me he was screening out liberals because a liberal clerk had influenced Justice Kennedy to side with the majority and write a pro-gay-rights decision in a case known as Romer v. Evans, which struck down a Colorado statute that discriminated against gays and lesbians."And that's just one little thing. Definitely read the article now.I also interviewed a young law professor and former Justice Department attorney who told me a very similar story. "I was a clerk for an appeals court judge," the professor told me, "and my judge called Justice Kennedy recommending me for a clerkship with him. Justice Kennedy then called me and said I had made the first cut and would soon be called for an interview. I was then interviewed by Miguel Estrada and another lawyer. Estrada asked most of the questions. He asked me a lot of unfair, ideological questions, a lot about the death penalty, which I told him I thought was immoral. I felt I was being subjected to an ideological litmus test. Estrada was being obnoxious. He was acting like it was his job to weed out liberal influences on Justice Kennedy. I was never called back by anyone."
Joe Conason chimes in on the question of invading Iraq, and he's pretty sure the reasons the White House has been giving actually have nothing to do with why they think it's so urgent. The article is behind the Premium wall at Salon, so non-subscribers might want to look at MWO for some excerpts, like:00:01 BST: Permalink
It certainly isn't to prevent proliferation of chemical and biological weapons. As the Washington Post reported yesterday, current U.S. policy is actually designed to thwart completion of a new international regime against biological weapons. ...MWO also provides a link to the Jon Stewart segment on the Bush reaction to Saddam's announcement that weapons inspectors would be allowed to return to Iraq, complete with Breaking News. Click here for RealPlayer clip.
Epicycle has been fun the last few days, with an important link to a page conclusively proving that the moon landings were faked (genuine must see stuff, as he advises), a link to another useful article at Dan's Data, a groovy picture of the computer Epicycle's proprietor has been building which is getting to look downright spooky, and this:
So, another Linux worm... And a very interesting one, too, in that right now nobody knows quite what it is going to do! Slapper infects Linux servers via the well-documented OpenSSL vulnerability in the Apache web server, forming them into peer-to-peer networks with each infected machine sharing data with it's peers and capable of assuming control over the network as a whole.
Friday, 20 September 200215:41 BST: Permalink
Another interesting item from Nathan Newman on a subject close to my heart:15:00 BST: Permalink
Rhetoric and Nominations- It's all part of the game, as conservatives vent with Casablanca-style outrage that they are shocked, shocked to find politics involved in the judicial nominations process. See here for one example. Now, if Bush was regularly sending up Lani Guinier lefties in his mix of rightwing nominees, this whole rhetorical debate wouldn't be so silly. But Bush is picking judges because they are hard-line pro-life and pro-corporate and the Dems are knocking them down for the same reason-- "advise and consent" at its best. The inevitable result is not gridlock, since the Dems have approved many of Bush's more moderate nominees-- it just means that the most conservative judges get knocked out, just as the Gingrich-Dole Congress knocked off any of Clinton's more liberal nominees.Too liberal for the Contract on America crowd, but most of them weren't too liberal for most Americans when you get right down to it.
The result is no doubt a blander judiciary, but that's what the voters ordered when they voted in divided government. The third branch is inevitably going to reflect the same stalemate.I have to disagree that "that's what the voters ordered" or that they were voting for this kind of government. The vast majority of Americans are unlikely to be in favor of Heritage Foundation types on the bench.And right now the judiciary isn't all that divided - the Republican court-packing campaign has been going on for a long time and has been pretty successful in ensuring that a significant majority of new appointments are of right-wing judges, most of them much younger than Democratic appointees, who have tended to be much more centrist than Republican appointees. Let's not pretend this is a matter of simply maintaining balance on the bench - we need to fight to bring back even a semblance of balance, and that requires more than simply filling vacancies with moderates. Those young right-wingers are going to be there for a long time.
Charles Dodgson has been very hot for the last few days, and provides a particularly interesting response to the use of the term "Elders of Zion" in reference to arguments for a war on Iraq at USS Clueless - disagreeing with it (and, says Atrios correctly, he's right), but then going on to find the real problems with Den Beste's approach:14:26 BST: Permalink
What den Beste's essay does represent, which I think is important, and worrisome, is the return of the White Man's Burden. Historically, that was all too often just an excuse for commercial exploitation of the weak. And there are certainly people playing that tune on Dubya's war drums, what with his economic advisor, Larry Lindsey, suggesting that the war would be so cheap that it would effectively pay for itself in reduced petroleum prices --- implying that he expects a replacement regime in Iraq which is so thoroughly a U.S. puppet that it will pursue American interests in preference to its own. But that's not den Beste's argument, so let's put that aside and return to den Beste.Dodgson makes his own suggestion about how to deal with the culture that creates anti-American terrorists, and while it may or may not be the best of ideas, I think it deserves discussion a lot more than invading Iraq does.The striking thing to me about den Beste's essay is the lack of connection between the ends, elimination of the terrorist threat from Islamist radicals, and the means, a military attack on, and defeat of, the secular Baathist regime in Iraq --- a regime which the Wahhabi-inspired religious fanatics who drive al-Qaeda view as an ally of convenience at best. (If at all; Dubya's crowd is soft-pedaling the argument that Hussein has something to do with al-Qaeda, because they haven't been able to show convincing evidence).
So, suppose we fight what den Beste views as the battle of Iraq in the War on Islamia, or something like that, and suppose we win. Will that, in fact, refute any of the arguments of the Islamists? No. It will play into their hands. We will show them an Arab country which has adopted a secular regime, with no religious trappings, getting the pants beat off of it in a conflict with the actual West, which will only reinforce their argument that religious revival is a road to glory. And, as Demosthenes points out, it will play into their own "clash of civilizations" rhetoric. The mere fact of a military defeat, particularly of a secular regime, won't dampen their movement --- in fact, by den Beste's own argument, it is a sustained record of military defeats at the hands of the West, over hundreds of years, which has given rise to it.
If Bush's "convince them I'm a madman" sabre-rattling gets inspectors into Iraq, hey, that's a good thing, I'm all for it. Inspectors did a lot to reduce the latitude Saddam had for creating WMD last time, and they destroyed a lot of his stuff, too. If we can prevent Dick Cheney and his friends from selling him any more materials, the threat from Saddam may be entirely defused.
And then we can talk about why the Republicans have this nasty habit of actively working in opposition to US government foreign policies whenever they are out of office.
Thanks to Lenny Bailles who sent a link for free music downloads at Lojo Russo, and to Jim Sweeny who provided this link for future celebrations of Talk Like A Pirate Day.12:55 BST:And here is a short Crab Nebula Time-Lapse Movie (RealPlayer).
Hey, could someone please tell me where Ally McBeal's daughter came from? Someone around here who isn't me messed up taping that episode.
