I'm really glad that the President was able to spend at least a couple hours Thanksgiving Day with the troops in Iraq. They deserve some attention from their Commander-in-Chief (especially since he doesn't have time to attend any of their funerals - though fund-raisers are, of course, not a problem to fit into his busy schedule). Still, there is room for at least one question about it.
A story in the LA Times notes that on Sunday, Condi Rice appeared on the Sunday morning talk-shows, defending the trip:
"This trip was an effort by the commander in chief on Thanksgiving Day to take to the American forces … the best wishes of the American people, to thank them for their service, to tell them that he and the American people are personally committed to seeing and staying the course here, to take a message to the Iraqi people that this is their opportunity to seize the moment for freedom," national security advisor Condoleezza Rice said.Wouldn't it have been more effective for the President to give a message of hope to the Iraqi people if he'd actually spent any time with them? Of course, I do understand that there are security concerns, but at the same time, one has to wonder if the decision to remain at the military compound was purely for security reasons, or just another one of Bush's infamous dodges of any group that might not be unanimous in a positive reception of him (cf. The "Free Speech Zones" at most Bush speaking engagements and his recent decsion to forgo addressing the British Parliament while on a state visit to the country in order to avoid potential hecklers.)
I hate to have to do this, because I really wanted to see a strong group of liberal blogs working together, but unfortunately, I'm no longer comfortable being a member of the League of Liberals.
This was posted at The Truth Laid Bear this morning. Apparently, 5 of the roughly 50 blogs in the League have had multiple Site Meter counters on them. NZ Bear believes that this is artificially inflating the traffic counts to all of the blogs in the group. The 5 blogs in question are run by Barry and his family, and he has posted a response (you may need to scroll down as the permalink doesn't seem to be working) explaining why that's not the case, and noting that there are a large number of questionable traffic reports for conservative blogs.
In terms of the technology, I'm not enough of a geek to fully understand either the accusation OR the explanation. I am simply not comfortable at all with the situation.
I do want to note that it is only a very small number of League blogs (5 out of about 50) that are in question, and all are owned and operated by the same family. Just as I was unaware that this was being done, so were most other League members.
Some people will probably say I'm being "weak" or a "chickenshit", and am not willing to stand up to conservatives making false accusations. Perhaps I am - I really don't know at this point, especially since I don't understand the technology of the Site Meters enough to understand if the accusations are false or not. My problem is that one of the things I've tried hard to build with "different strings" is a reasonable amount of credibility. It's why I've tried to own up to it when I make mistakes, why I try to make sure I understand (and provide) the context of a quote I'm criticizing rather than just running with the "questionable" portion that's being cited elsewhere, and many of the other things I do.
I make no claim to or pretense of being unbiased - I AM a liberal - and how I view or interpret things will be very different from how a conservative may view or interpret the same information, actions, statements or situation. But I want to at least try to provide enough information about the subject matter that someone can go, read it for themselves and make their own evaluation of it. To me, all of this comes under the concept of "playing fair" - and that's the approach I want to take with this blog.
So, even though I realize that it is very likely that no actual "wrong" was done, the fact is that it simply looks bad, and it looks like at least one group of blogs may (may) have been trying to take advantage of technical weaknesses in the system. Whether they were or not, I leave up to you to decide for yourself. You can read the accusation and responses at the links noted above.
I know this may not make sense to some people - my leaving when I can't say for sure if anything wrong was actually done, and I'm sorry for that. It's just what I think I have to do.
The Illinois Reader recently ran a letter to the editor in rebuttal to several readers who'd written in claiming that America is a Christian nation. Robert Carver in Massachusetts responded in a sober, rational, well thought-out piece, explaining that many of the quotes used to support the idea that the Founding Fathers wanted the US to be a Christian nation are from people who were either living in a different time than the Founding Fathers or who may have lived during the time that the Constitution and Bill of Rights were written, but had no part in their creation. He then offers a number of quotes from Jefferson, Madison and others involved in drafting our governing documents. It is an excellent piece and I highly recommend it. My favourite part, from near the end, is quoted below - but be sure to go to the site and read the entire letter.
You are free to attend any church you desire, to pray anytime you wish, to read any religious text that interests you. You may post the Ten Commandments anywhere on your property, in your house, on your car and advertised on a T-shirt. Some people can actually try to live by them rather than forcing them on others. You have several radio stations, cable channels, publications and Internet sites all dedicated to religious messages, covering all beliefs. You have the right to raise your children in the belief system of your choosing, to speak to others about what you hold to be true and to decide for yourself which religion is right for you or even if no religion is right for you.So ask yourself why does your God need the help of the government? Does he really need state welfare to succeed? Benjamin Franklin sums up the issue of governmental involvement in religion quite well. He stated, "When a religion is good, I conceive it will support itself; and when it does not support itself, and God does not take care to support it, so that its professors are obliged to call for help of a civil power, ‘tis a sign, I apprehend of its being a bad one." (The Complete Works of Benjamin Franklin, editor John Bigelow, vol. 13)
So will you support the Constitution and our civil liberties by supporting the wall of separation between church and state, or do you believe your deity is so weak and in need of governmental assistance that you will follow revisionists like Angela Wittman in destroying our freedom?
One more thing that kind of hacked me off more than just a little bit.... this is a recent press release from MoveOn.org about Fox News' involvement in the all-night GOP Senate slumber party:
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
Friday, November 21, 2003
Contact: Simon Aronoff, Jenny Park, 415-901-0111"Fair and Balanced?": Fox News Was PR Brains Behind GOP's "All Nighter" Protest Over Blocked Judicial Nominees
MoveOn.org Launches Online Fox Watch Group to Track Fox News's Partisan Bias
WASHINGTON, DC -- The wall between objective journalism and partisan politicking at Fox News fell last week when it became clear that Fox News staff contributed to the orchestration of the Republican-led 39-hour Senate talk-a-thon intended to counter the Democrat filibuster against four of President Bush's most radically conservative judicial nominees.
"While Howard Dean has claimed the mantle of the 'Democratic wing of the Democratic Party,' Fox News has clearly become the public relations wing of the Republican Party," said Eli Pariser, international campaigns director for MoveOn.org.
The idea for the food-and-cot political spectacle, also known as "Justice for Judges Marathon," had its origins on the editorial pages of the Rupert Murdoch-owned Weekly Standard. Also owned by Murdoch, Fox News took the idea a step further. Fox News anchors Brit Hume and Tony Snow pitched the idea outright to Senator Majority Leader Bill Frist on the October 26th broadcast of Fox News Sunday. Two weeks after Frist appeared on the show, the two-day marathon was announced.
To chart this alarming disintegration of journalistic standards, MoveOn.org recently created an online "Fox Watch" group made up of thousands of Americans who have signed up to monitor Fox News daily and hold it accountable for specific instances of manipulations or distortions of truth and partisan bias.
In recent weeks, the evidence of partisan bias at Fox News and in other Murdoch-owned media outlets has been rolling in from watchdog sources. Here are some additional highlights:
The credibility of Fox's so-called commitment to 'fair and balanced' reporting has been completely shattered," said Eli Pariser, international campaigns director for MoveOn.org. "Brit Hume and others on his staff need to ask themselves if their job is to cover the news or make the news by orchestrating PR coups for Bush Republicans."
- May 19: The Murdoch-owned Weekly Standard publishes an editorial calling for "marathon, stay-up-all-night sessions like those of yesteryear" in response to Senate Democrats' efforts to block Bush's four most radical judicial nominees.
- October 26: Fox News anchors Hume and Snow, in an interview with Senator Frist, challenge the Senator's repeated contention that an all-night protest session would be counterproductive. Snow prods, "Make people stay in all night. Make it the central political event in Washington. Why won't you do it?"
- November 12: According to a leaked email, a producer for Hume's evening news show, Special Report with Brit Hume, worked directly with a staffer for Senator Frist, in an effort to choreograph the launch of the Republican protest as a "live opening shot" for Hume's November 12 newscast. As reported in The Hill, the leaked memo read:
"It is important to double efforts to get your boss to S-230 on time ... Fox News Channel is really excited about this marathon and Brit Hume at 6 would love to open with all our 51 senators walking onto the floor -- the producer wants to know will we walk in exactly at 6:02 when the show starts so they get it live to open Brit Hume's show? Or if not, can we give them an exact time for the walk-in start?"- 9/11 Commission News Blackout: Following the 9/11 terrorist attacks, Congress created a 10-person commission over intense White House objections. Thomas Kean, the former New Jersey Republican governor and chair of the commission has called it "the largest investigation of the United States government in U.S. history." Yet Murdoch-owned media including Fox News, New York Post and Weekly Standard have virtually blacked out all commission-related news. In the case of the Standard, there has not been one single mention of the commission in the nearly 50 issues that have come out since the commission was formed.
- November 17 Sun exclusive: President Bush granted a single one-on-one interview to the British press for his visit to England: the Murdoch-owned London tabloid The Sun. No surprise here. This is the same newspaper responsible for a recent story, "Bush Shows Tax Cuts Can Boost Economy."
Documentation available at:
http://www.moveon.org/mediacorps/fairandbalanced_sources.html
Shock and Awe, the blog, reports on the return of Shock and Awe, the tactical maneuver.
I'm still not really "back" yet, but this one just pissed me off a bit too much. We've back to nighttime explosions in Baghdad, "and surrounding cities that have been hotbeds of a determined underground Iraqi resistance."
From this week's VerifiedVoting.org Newsletter:
GREAT NEWS! CALIFORNIA GOES VERIFIABLEYou may have already heard, but it's worth repeating. This is a huge win.
Last Friday, November 21, California Secretary of State Kevin Shelley announced that the state will require an accessible voter-verifiable paper audit trail on all voting equipment by July 2006. His announcement was a response to rising concern in California, along with the rest of the nation, about the increasing use of computerized touch screen voting systems.
In February 2003 Secretary Shelley appointed a task force, including yours truly, to analyze touch-screen voting and report its recommendations. Our final report included many recommendations to improve the security of electronic voting systems. It also included a recommendation to require a voter-verifiable audit trail on all new election equipment by 2007. Kim Alexander of the California Voter Foundation, Dr. David Jefferson of Lawrence Livermore Laboratories, and I strongly expressed the need to impose
such a requirement much sooner.Even though we were in the minority, Secretary Shelley was obviously listening - to us and to over 4,000 letters his office received favoring a voter-verifiable paper trail requirement. His order is more aggressive than the task force recommendation. It requires that all equipment purchased after July 1, 2005 include a voter verifiable paper trail, and it bans paperless touch-screen machines by July 2006.
While many of us would have liked to see an even more aggressive timeline, this announcement is still a WIN of huge proportions. Remember, the entire country has been watching California. We are such a big market for voting equipment that vendors are sure to produce equipment to meet our requirements and those machines will be available everywhere else in the country.
You can read the news release here:
http://www.ss.ca.gov/executive/press_releases/2003/03_106.pdf
MORE GREAT NEWS! H.R. 2239 NOW HAS REPUBLICAN CO-SPONSORSSince mid-October, when VerifiedVoting.org's calling campaign began, the number of co sponsors has nearly doubled. As of this writing, H.R. 2239 has 82 co-sponsors, and three of them are Republicans. They are: Tom Davis (R-VA), Chairman of the Government Reform Committee; Christopher Shays (R-CT); and Charles Bass (R-NH). We deeply appreciate the courage of these
three men.Our thanks also goes to the many VerifiedVoting.org volunteers and the countless others across the nation who joined in and have clearly brought this important issue to the attention of Congress.
In Representative Holt's press release announcing the Republican support, he said, "I am very pleased that my Republican colleagues have joined my effort to protect the future integrity of our elections. There's clearly momentum building in Congress and across the country to see this legislation pass. I expect we'll see even more cosponsors sign on in the days and weeks to come." http://holt.house.gov/issues2.cfm?id=7225
OPEN LETTER TO THE HOUSE ADMINISTRATION COMMITTEESix VerifiedVoting.org volunteers have written an open letter to the committee where H.R. 2239 currently resides. The letter was faxed to all members of the committee on Wednesday, November 19.
Using words spoken by Senators and Representatives during the HAVA deliberations, it reminds the committee members of the democratic intent of the legislators when they passed HAVA. It points out that the goals for HAVA are not being reached and that H.R.2239 must be passed immediately in order to attain the legislators' stated goals.
We are actively working to get this letter published in newspapers in the states (ideally districts) served by the members of the committee:
California, Connecticut, Florida, Georgia, Michigan, New York, Ohio, and Pennsylvania.
You can read the letter at
http://www.verifiedvoting.org/openletter2003Nov19.htm.We encourage you to add your endorsement.
TAKE QUICK AND EASY ACTION FOR H.R.2239EFF has set up an action page where you can easily send a letter to your Representative supporting H.R.2239. Even if you have already called and emailed and written, please take a moment to go to www.verifiedvoting.org and click on the second action item at the top of the page. We suggest that you fax the letter. We understand that faxes are more effective than emails to Representatives.
Taking a bit of a break from the book to try and find something to make me laugh, and I sure succeded:
Of course, the good news is now that he's got a cell phone, he can call me from the store if he forgets what he's supposed to get or not sure what exactly I meant when I said what I needed, so he doesn't have to go back so often, but still....
[What's worse? Even if I give him a written list, he doesn't always remember to actually LOOK at it.... ::sigh:: Guys? Care to explain yourselves? ::giggle::]
Even though I'm still on my mini-hiatus, I would be remiss if I failed to do my League of Liberals duty and not vote for one of the entries in the New Blog Showcase at The Truth Laid Bear.
Jeff, from "This Lousy T-Shirt", has a great post about parental vegatable-eating tactics and the recent Senate Slumber Party. Take a minute and give it a look!
It was a close ruling - 4 to 3 - but Massachusetts' Supreme Court declared today that the state's ban on gay marriage was unconstitutional. The state now has 180 days to bring it's marriage laws in line with the ruling, and, if all goes well, after that gays should be able to start getting married.
BOSTON (Reuters) - Massachusetts' highest court has ruled that the state must give gay and lesbian couples the legal rights of marriage, which could make the state the first in America to legalise gay marriage.Of course, conservatives and fundamentalists are foaming at the mouth about this. Hopefully, though, the rule of law can override the rule of bigotry.In a 4-3 ruling, the Supreme Judicial Court said Massachusetts cannot deny civil marriage rights to two people of the same sex who wish to marry -- although it stopped short of ordering the state to start issuing marriage licenses.
"Barring an individual from the protections, benefits, and obligations of civil marriage solely because that person would marry a person of the same sex violates the Massachusetts Constitution," the court said on Tuesday, saying state law forbids the creation of second-class citizens.
Under the ruling, the state is required to issue civil marriage certificates, but no church or clergy are required to perform ceremonies for gays if they don't want to. This, of course, is as it should be. Marriage exists as two distinctly different entities - one being the civil marriage - the joining of two households in the eyes of the law, which is what the state governs. It is what grants the various legal benefits and obligations that come with being married, such as the ability to visit a spouse in the hospital and make decisions about their care, tax breaks and burdens that come from a combined household, the ability to share in work-related benefits - like health insurance - that are granted by businesses to their employee's spouses, obligations for mutual support and so on.
Marriage also exists as a spiritual institution - the joining of two souls in the eyes of the Divine (however that may be defined in any particular religion). What that consists of and what benefits and burdens it confers varies with each faith. This form of marriage is not regulated by the state, and no laws have - or should - be passed telling churches and other religious bodies which unions they must recognize or deny.
Opponents of gay marriage conflate the two - and claim that allowing civil marriages will somehow damage the institution of spiritual marriage, without stopping to realize that spiritual marriage isn't addressed by any laws, and that their religious bodies are still free to teach whatever beliefs they want to about the nature of spiritual marriage. Just as the fact that alcohol is legal does nothing to prevent various churches from teaching that drinking is wrong, making gay marriage legal won't keep any church from teaching that homosexuality is wrong, if that's what they believe, or that a gay marriage is not viewed as spiritually valid. Just as the legal availability of alcohol doesn't stop thousands - if not millions - of adults from not drinking for spiritual reasons, the legal availability of gay marriage won't stop thousands - if not millions - of heterosexual adults from not marrying same-sex partners.
In any event, I'm glad to see the state's Supreme Court making such a wise and just decision. Congrats to the future happily married gay couples in Massachusetts!
Sorry for the slow blogging yesterday, but it's probably going to be slow for the next few days. Yesterday was my birthday and my parents got me a copy of Neil Peart's book "Ghost Rider" - a chronicle of time he spent riding a motorcycle around Canada, parts of the western US, down into Mexico and back again while trying to heal from the double blow he suffered when his daughter and wife died within 10 months of each other.
Peart is best known as the drummer for the rock group Rush, so the book has a special poignancy for me. I've been a die-hard fan of the band for almost 25 years now, and many of their songs have a very special meaning to me. One in particular has had a significant impact in my life.
Back in January of 1990, I became suicidal after a relationship ended and I found myself almost entirely isolated. I'd met the guy shortly after moving back to Kansas City from Seattle, and he'd been letting me borrow a computer of his, through which I'd been slowly making friends at the various local BBSes (this was before the Internet was so readily available for non-collegiate types). I'd also made a few friends in a club we'd belonged to together. When he broke up with me, he took with him his computer - and my only link to those friends, and he also seemed to get custody of the club friends as well - except for two who stood by me. I'm now married to one of them, but at the time, we were just getting to be friends.
At any rate, as I've mentioned before, I've been clinically depressed for years, and it's only been in the last decade or so I've been able to get properly medicated for that, so the loss of my boyfriend and the near total loss of my social structure sent me reeling. I landed in the psych ward of one of the local hospitals. I wasn't allowed to bring much with me, but one of the things I brought was Rush's new "Presto" album. There's on song on there called "The Pass" which is about suicide. Peart - who wrote the book I'm now reading - is the band's lyricist, and lying there in my hospital bed, trying to figure anything out, I let myself really listen to it for the first time:
proud swagger out of the schoolyardThose words hit something inside me, [and the music they're set to could not have been better for setting the mood and atmosphere needed for the full weight of meaning to come through] and more than any of the therapy the hospital gave me over the next two weeks, thinking about what the song was saying and the stark truth behind it - in particular "it's not as if this barricade blocks the only road / it's not as if you're all alone in wanting to explode / someone set a bad example made surrender seem all right / the act of a noble warrior who lost the will to fight" really resonated with me, and helped me be able to start thinking again with my rational mind instead of my depressed mind.
waiting for the world's applause
rebel without a conscience
martyr without a causestatic on your frequency
electrical storm in your veins
raging at unreachable glory
straining at invisible chainsand now you're trembling on a rocky ledge
staring down into a heartless sea
can't face life on a razor's edge
nothing's what you thought it would beAll of us get lost in the darkness
Dreamers learn to steer by the stars
All of us do time in the gutter
Dreamers turn to look at the cars
turn around and turn around and turn around
Turn around and walk the razor's edge
Don't turn your back
And slam the door on meit's not as if this barricade
blocks the only road
it's not as if you're all alone
in wanting to explodesomeone set a bad example
made surrender seem all right
the act of a noble warrior
who lost the will to fightand now you're trembling on a rocky ledge
staring down into a heartless sea
done with life on a razor's edge
nothing's what you thought it would beno hero in your tragedy
no daring in your escape
no salutes for your surrender
nothing noble in your fate
Christ, what have you done?
Maybe it seems weird, but to a great extent, that song is why I'm still here. Over the years, I've had a number of times when I can start feeling that crushing sadness - especially in the last several years since I've been homebound - and if I put the song on, it triggers a near-conditioned response in me - and it helps me pull myself back from that brink a bit. And with that little kick start, I can refocus myself, pull out the other techniques I've learned for dealing with depression when it gets bad and eventually get back on an even keel again. The song doesn't magically "fix" me, but it's very much like a little flicker of hope that helps me remember which way is "up".
At any rate, when someone's written words that have such a profound impact on your life, you tend to have something of a fondness for that person - whether you know them or not. Well, at least I do. So when I first heard about the tragedies that Neil had thrown at him, I felt genuinely sad for him, and hoped he'd find his way through it all ok. Thankfully, he did - but it was extremely difficult. This man, who is considered one of the finest rock drummers - if not one of the best drummers overall - and who has made his living for over 2 decades as a working musician was so devastated by his loss that for nearly 5 years, he couldn't play at all. There was no indication if the band would ever make a new album or even play together again. [In one of the better displays of loyalty and true friendship that I've seen in the rock world, his band mates had decided that it simply didn't matter if the band ever worked together again or not - they only concern was that Neil get through this, and to be there as his friends. They left it up to him to let them know when - if ever - he was ready to work again, and worked on their own projects in the meantime. As good of musicians as they all are, it's unlikely either of them would have had nearly as much success with a solo project as the three of them have had as Rush - but they were willing to just let that all go if that's what was needed.]
With this book, Neil shares the story of how he made it through. I'm only about 2 and half chapters into it, and I can tell already that it's going to be very hard to put down. It's also difficult to read on an emotional level - probably more so for someone like me who's been a fan for so long and has a strong connection to the music he and his band mates have made over the years - but the way he's written it, you don't have to be a fan of Rush - or even know who the hell the band is, for that matter - to enjoy it. He writes about the places he sees, the things that happen to him on "the healing road" as he calls it, and about the memories he has of his wife and daughter and how he learns to deal with that being all he has left of either of them.
So I'm not likely to be blogging much the next couple of days. I've read just over 50 pages so far, and cried through about a third of them. It doesn't leave a lot of room to want to read about how much worse things are getting in Iraq, or which civil liberties are being trampled on next. I'm not really up to listen to the faux outrage of the Limbaughs, Brooks', O'Reilly's and so on, as they ignore things being done by conservatives that they'd be calling for heads-on-pikes over were a liberal involved. In a way, I think I kind of need a bit of a break from the craziness that passes for politics right now. Not a long one - just a couple days to catch my breath, think about something totally different, and maybe get reminded that there are people who've had to deal with things that are considerably worse than anything I've faced on a personal level, and they've not only survived, but they've come all the way back to where they started from. You know - all that neat hope and inspiration stuff. So don't worry if you don't see anything for a few days. I'm still here, and I'll be back.
Take the time to stop by Ayn Couter's site and enjoy her beautiful parody of all that is blogging:The Blogfather. It lays out the tale of Instypoobah and his sons as they battle the menace of the Liberals and the nascent League of Leftys.
Nice work, Ayn!
As a reward for Fox News owner Rupert Murdoch's pro-war Sun tabloid in Britain, President Bush has given them an exclusive interview in advance of his upcoming visit to the UK. The Sun is most well-known for it's daily topless "Page 3" girls and wild stories that would fit right at home in the National Enquirer.
It is also reporting this week on a woman who is "made of two women" and "is NOT the biological mother of two of the children she conceived and had naturally." Other news items highlighted on the Sun's Web site: "Man begins 12-day sausage, bean and chip bath to promote Brit food," "German saboteurs plotted to bomb Palace with peas in WW2, files reveal," and "Sobbing islanders say sorry to the ancestor of minister eaten by natives."Of course, you can imagine what the response would have been if a Democratic president - in particular President Clinton - had given an interview to a combo girlie-mag/tabloid - especially if that magazine was owned by the same person who's stateside publications included one that was notorious for its unblinking support for the President, his party and its policies. There would be yelps of favouritism, claims that his actions were mocking the dignity of the office of the President and embarrassing to the American people. There'd be snide snickers and comments about how, given the President's current credibility, maybe a tabloid was the most appropriate place to publish an interview with him.
And you know what? They'd be right. Something like this DOES smack of favouritism, it is beneath the dignity of the office (could you imagine any other country letting their head of state be interviewed by the National Enquirer?), it is embarrassing for the country and - given Bush's complete lack of credibility, it really is the best place for his words to be placed.
The Washington Post has a page where they are featuring photographs of most of the soldiers who have died during the war in Iraq, as well as information about the individuals. It's called Faces of the Fallen and is a sobering reminder that the death toll is more than just a number.
I swear, stuff like this is going to give me an aneurysm if I'm not careful. I just posted a few minutes ago about how Bush hasn't been meeting with the families of US soldiers who died fighting his war, and now find that he is planning to meet with the families of British soldiers who have died.
When asked about the families of the 54 British soldiers killed in Iraq, President Bush said: "I am going to meet some.So, it's OK for him to be seen comforting the families of soldiers from OTHER countries who died, but he doesn't have the time to meet with the families of the US soldiers he's killed."There's two messages. One, the prayers of the American people and the prayers of the president are with them, as they suffer.
"Secondly, that I will tell them that their loved ones did not die in vain. The actions we have taken will make the world more secure and the world more peaceful in the long run."
One father in the UK, however, seems to have Bush's number pretty good:
However, the father of the youngest UK soldier killed in Iraq said Mr Bush and Mr Blair did not care about the deaths of British troops.No. He really doesn't. He doesn't care about the UK families, and he sure doesn't care about the US families. He's a craven, desperate petty man. I will never understand why anyone thought he was the least bit qualified to run this country. As for those who believe that he was "appointed" or "anointed" by the Christian God, well, it sure doesn't speak well of His judgment. Very few of his (Bush) actions do.Andrew Kelly,18, from Tavistock, in Devon, died in a shooting accident near his barracks in the southern city of Basra on 6 May.
His father Robert, from Saltash, in Cornwall, told BBC Radio 4's Today programme he had not been invited to meet Mr Bush, and did not want to meet him.
"For these people to meet families, it is only for their own gain," he said.
"What does George Bush care about our families and my family? He doesn't care."
From All Facts and Opinions comes this story about Bush's claim that he welcomes the protests planned against him next week in Britian.
"I'm so pleased to be going to a country which says that people are allowed to express their minds," Bush said. "That's fantastic. Freedom is a beautiful thing."So, does this mean that his friends and supporters here will begin to welcome the protests against him and his war by their fellow Americans? Probably not - since Bush's actions - as always - are going to speak louder than his words, and - as always - his action is to demand that those protesters he's so welcoming towards are kept as far away from him as possible.
Andrew Rosenthal has a moving editorial about the way the Bush administration is trying to keep any concrete reminders of just how many of our young men and women have for Bush's Folly. The administration, however, apparently views the idea of having someone of appropriate stature greet the families coming to claim the bodies of their loved ones as a matter of convenience.
Some Republicans say it would take up too much of the president's time to attend military funerals or meet the coffins returning from Iraq. "They're coming back continually," the conservative commentator Bay Buchanan said on CNN on Tuesday. "The president cannot be flying up there every single week."Why not? Except for when he's out of the country, he seems to be able to fly anywhere else he wants to in order to hold fund-raisers, and he had enough time to take the entire month of August as a vacation. Why, then, can't he squeeze in time to take even a few minutes to meet with the families of the soldiers he's killed?
Back in December, Bush didn't seem to think he'd have a problem with this part of the job. Speaking in Washington DC on December 13, he made a statement that was quickly added to the catalogue of his oddly mangled quotes - but the point of the comment was that he has a serious responsibility when it comes to the commitment of troops:
"And there's only one person who hugs the mothers and the widows, the wives and the kids on the death of their loved ones. Others hug, but having committed the troops, I've got an additional responsibility to hug, and that's me, and I know what it's like."Now that he's faced with those mothers, widows and kids he said he knew he'd have to hug, he turns his tail and runs. Not surprising for someone who went AWOL from a National Guard unit.
The League of Liberal's "And then...." takes a unique look at the Republican Senate sleepover in protest of the Democrats only approving 168 of Bush's judicial nominees instead of all 172.
Looks like I had some good reason for being concerned yesterday about possible "trickiness" on the part of the White House with regards to their agreement to give the 9/11 comission access to the documents they need. It's not nearly as straight-forward as I initially thought.
The compromise will allow the 10-member commission to create a four-person subcommittee that will have varying degrees of access to the documents known as Presidential Daily Briefs from the Bush and Clinton administrations, according to a commission statement and sources familiar with the agreement.The White House should just simply let the commissioners have access to the information, not go though some kind of dog-and-pony show hoop jumping just to get to have a few of them look at "parts" of the briefings, with further reviews and restrictions on what information can then be shared with other commissioners. Yes, I know there are security concerns, but there should also be security concerns regarding how the administration let the 9/11 attacks happen. The only way anyone can understand for sure what happened is if the investigators are allowed to know what the decision-makeers knew prior to and on that day. Otherwise, they're just making guesses in the dark, and that isn't going to do a whole lot to protect the country in the long run.But the accord also includes restrictions limiting what parts of the briefings can be seen and what parts can later be shared with the rest of the bipartisan panel, and it includes White House review of much of that information, sources familiar with the agreement said. Those with direct access will take notes, and those notes are subject to review by the White House before being shared with others, sources said.
Roy Moore was handed his biggest setback today as the Alabama Court of the Judiciary removed Moore from the office as the state Supreme Court's cheif justice for his refusal to obey a Federal Court order to remove a 2.5 ton granite monument to the Ten Commandments from the state rotunda. Last week, the US Supreme Court refused to hear Moore's appeal of the Federal Court decision.
Moore does have the option of appealing his ousting to the Alabama state Supreme Court, but it's doubtful that he'd win there - it was his colleagues on the state Supreme Court who had previously voted that the monument be moved in order to comply with the Federal Court ruling and then suspended Moore from his position until the ethics case could be heard by the Court of the Judiciary.
Prosecutors are expected to next seek Moore's disbarment over his failure to follow the rule of law.
There is some concern that by ousting him from his Supreme Court position that it may leave Moore open to run for governor in the next election - which would be pretty disasterous for Alabama should he win. Sadly, the man has a fair amount of support and his supporters are exceedingly loyal.
My favourite quote from the MSNBC story though, had to be this one:
Greg Sealy, head of the Sitting at His Feet Fellowship in Montgomery, an inner-city mission, said Thursday was the “darkest day” he had seen in America since he moved to the United States from Barbados 23 years ago.I suspect he now understand a bit better how Democrats have felt since the US Supreme Court appointed Bush as or leader. At least in the case of Moore, the Court of the Judiciary had good cause for their actions. Moore has no understanding of the separation of church and state, and has consistantly held himself to be above the law - including the Constitution. Hopefully, if Moore does try to run for elected office again in the future, the people of Alabama will realize that these traits make him manifestly unsuited to public service and that he should be left to find whatever employment is available to him in the private sector.
“They stole my vote. The judiciary stole my vote. I voted for Roy Moore,” he said.
In a bit of - hopefully - good news, the White House and 9/11 panel have come to an agreement that will allow at least some members of the panel to see the classified documents they recently threatened to subpoena.
The 10-member panel will designate a subcommittee that will examine the most sensitive documents and report back, commissioner Richard Ben-Veniste said.In addition, they commission has sent subpoenas to both the FAA and the Pentagon. I'm glad that the White House has agreed to this compromise and I hope it really will give the commission the information its needs to do their job properly. I'm also very pleased that the head of the commission, former Governor Thomas Kean, has been so stubborn in doing his job and didn't let the White House's delaying tactics deter him from doing what he thinks is necessary. I just hope that there won't be any kind of trickery or other dishonesty involved in how the White House upholds their end of this deal. Sad to say, I tend to expect that there will be - at least from this administration. Maybe they can surprise me for once. It'd be nice...“We believe this agreement will prove satisfactory and enable us to get our job done,” according to a statement by the commission.
The White House was pleased by the development. “We look forward to the recommendations to make America safer,” spokeswoman Ashley Snee said. At President Bush’s direction, she said, the White House “has been working closely with the commission to ensure they have the information they need to be successful.”
Bush said last month that the dispute concerned “the presidential daily brief,” a classified written intelligence report he gets each morning.
Apparently, there's some confusion about Larry Flynt's comments regarding his purchase of the alleged nude photos of Jessica Lynch. According to the Fox News story published yesterday, Flynt had issued a statement that he had purchased the pictures "in order to keep them out of circulation, not to publish them." But another story in the New York Daily News, also published yesterday, contradicts that statement:
Flynt said "he bought the photos last month from the men who purportedly participated in the amateur shoot with the undressed Army supply clerk. The soldiers “wanted to let it be known that she’s not all apple pie,” Flynt said.When I had read the first story, saying that he had bought the pictures to keep them from being published, I thought his behaviour was laudable. Now that his motives are less clear, I'm not so sure. I'm glad that Flynt decided not to publish them - I think the media, as a whole, has already done enough to Lynch - but I don't have quite as much admiration as I did.“My first intention was to publish them, but I don’t think it was the best, positive move I could make,” Flynt said in a telephone interview. “She’s very much a pawn for the government. They force-fed us a Joan of Arc.”
Not content to just try and squelch protests by people opposed to his regime or his policies here at home, Bush is now trying to prevent any protests against him during his vist to London.
American officials want a virtual three-day shutdown of central London in a bid to foil disruption of the visit by anti-war protesters. They are demanding that police ban all marches and seal off the city centre.The stated justification for the demand is that terrorists could use the crowds as cover for launching an attack against Bush, but given his history of insisting that all protesters here in the States be kept in areas where he can neither see nor hear them shows that his inability to face criticism is, at the very least, a significant part of the reason. According to the article, White House officials have already conceded that it is a factor.But senior Yard officers say the powers requested by US security chiefs would be unprecedented on British soil. While the Met wants to prevent violence, it is sensitive to accusations of trying to curtail legitimate protest.
Secrecy surrounds his itinerary during the trip, which starts on 19 November. He will stay at Buckingham Palace and his staff want The Mall, Whitehall and part of the City closed. Besides provoking a civil liberties backlash, the Met fears such a move would cause traffic chaos and incur huge loss of business across the capital.This kind of behaviour is just embarrassing, really. The British law-enforcement services have to deal with protecting not just members of the British government - whom a lot of people get upset at (as with any government, really), but they also have to help with protecting the Royal Family - who certainly would be a nice symbolic hit for any of a number of groups around the world. They've been dealing with terrorism related to the problems in Ireland for decades. But Bush doesn't think he'll be safe unless all protesting crowds are kept far away from him - and doesn't seem to care what problems it might cause for his hosts. Nice way to show confidence in our allies, eh?White House officials have already vetoed the traditional drive in an open carriage along the Mall. They fear it would make Mr Bush too vulnerable to attack or confrontations over British support for the US in Iraq.
Anti-war groups such as the Stop The War Coalition, and the Muslim Association of Britain, have made no secret of their wish to harass Mr Bush wherever he goes. But they insist they are only planning "non-violent direct action".
Link via Byte Back
Earlier today, NZ Bear took a bit of a snarky shot at a "Cost of the War in Iraq" counter that my League of Liberals cohort, Rick's American Cafe, (like many other sites) has posted on his blog. Rather than just lashing bac, Rick, instead, wrote an incredibly thoughtful - and thought provoking - piece on what he feels about the situation in Iraq and why. In ways far more eloquent than I can usually muster when the topic has me a bit hot under the collar, Rick lays out his reasoning, the questions he has, and why he thinks it will take a team other than the Bush administration to do the job right. Below is an excerpt from his article, but please, take the time to read it. I didn't find much in there that doesn't express exactly how I feel - and even that comes pretty close. Since he put it better than I ever could, I'll let him do the talking on this one.
Toppling Saddam was a good thing, but it will take unknowable resources (political, financial, temporal, physical . . .) to make sure that the power vacuum in that country is filled with a representative government that can effectively and humanely govern. This took years to accomplish in Panama, which is NOTHING like Iraq (for starters, Panama had a more or less stable infrastructure and a stable economy pegged to the Dollar, not to mention the presence of U.S. Southern Command) and there wasn't nearly the resentment toward the U.S. that we find in Iraq. All this by way of saying that I think we bit off far more than we could chew, and we did it at a time when we should have been focusing on national security, specifically the holes in our visa and intelligence systems.A word on perspective: Terrorism is not nearly as big a threat to the lives of U.S. citizens as automobile accidents, pollution, or suicide. I believe our outrage and resources would be better devoted to tackling these problems. If you accept that counter-terrorism should be our number one priority, Saddam was less of a threat to the U.S. than Osama, and less of a threat than homicidal traitors like Timothy McVeigh, and less of a threat than Pakistan or North Korea. The risk of Saddam getting WMDs and passing them on to terrorists who would use them against US citizens was less than that of terrorists getting their hands on weapons-grade uranium from former Soviet republics. So I don’t think it was worth it there. And if you believe that our first priority should be liberating oppressed people, well, I’d like to agree with you but I can’t.
But what is done is done. We have just put our foot through a very expensive door that opens up on a very, very long hallway, and I think the chances of true success are slim. We're in, though, and probably have no better choice than to keep moving forward -- but let's do it with serious reflection and concern for the short and long-term effects. The short-term effects of the tax cut and the war may have been to topple a despicable regime and boost a staggering economy -- but what will the long-term effects be? Will they be increased hatred of (and therefore terrorism against) the US? Years of guerrilla warfare and instability in Iraq? A devastating national debt? A draft? Inadequate military resources for our own defense? Or will it be increased stability in a notoriously unstable region? The foundation for a new world order in which American intervention is welcomed by suffering people?
I believe that the answers are still being written, and much depends on the actions of our government in the coming months and years. What troubles me – and the reason that I am no supporter of the current administration – is that I have little confidence that the team in charge will move forward with the sort of perspective and thoughtfulness that I would hope for.
Mark at Earthly Passions had commented on my post about the soldiers from the first Gulf War who are trying to get compensation from frozen Iraqi assets for their having been tortured while in captivity. Apparently, I hadn't been as clear as I had intended as to why I brought up the issue of the tax cuts in connection with the dispute.
Kriselda at different strings posts a troubling issue regarding compensation for soldiers from Gulf War I. She and I will agree on half and disagree on half. She's right that those soldiers deserve to be compensated. But I don't make the connection with the tax cut here in the U.S. Seems to me that this is an Iraqi obligation to our soldiers, not a U.S. one. If I'm mistaken somehow that we've taken on that obligation, then add it to the deficit. It'll become a surplus soon enough as the economy gets rolling again.Below is the response I posted to his site - I thought I'd go ahead and post it here as well, in case anyone else wasn't sure what I was getting at.
The suit by the soldiers, establishing their claim on the Iraqi assets was filed prior to the confiscation, but the administration is basically saying that doesn't matter - the assets are now American assets and they aren't required (or able) to fulfill any obligations that Iraq may have had or claims made against those assets. They're saying that allowing the soldiers to have this roughly $1 billion in assets would significantly damage our ability to finish the job in Iraq.
My feeling is that if America's purse-strings are that tight right now, then rather than stiffing the soldiers, repeal part of the tax cut, use that money for rebuilding Iraq and let the soldiers have the proceeds from the Iraqi assets that the court has said they're entitled to. We do have an obligation to the Iraqi people to rebuild the damage we've done to their country, so let the Iraqi assets pay for compensation to the soldiers and take back just a small fraction of the tax cut. Recovering $1 billion - roughly the amount of the Iraqi assets - from the tax cuts wouldn't take that much given that the entire $87 billion that's been requested to rebuild Iraq is less than 1/4 of the total amount of the tax cuts passed so far.
Yeah, that headline might sound a bit weird, but that's basically what's happening. Apparently, someone has been trying to shop around some nude photos that are supposed to be of Jessica Lynch.
Rumors of nude photos of Lynch, 20, have been swirling for several months.Well, the pictures have now been purchased - by Larry Flynt, of Hustler fame. What makes the story interesting is that he didn't buy them to use in any of his magazines - he bought them so that they wouldn't be published anywhere.In September, two Army ex-comrades allegedly tried to sell topless pictures of Lynch to Globe, a supermarket tabloid, for $200,000.
That's certainly not the expected behaviour from someone like Flynt, but I have to say I'm quite impressed, and more than a bit grateful. Pvt. Lynch has already been exploited by so many people and for so many purposes that I find it touching that someone - anyone - is trying to look out for her for a change, and not just what she can do for them.
Link via Atrios
Imagine that you get a phone call from the office of a nationally-known politician, saying that they want to give you an award. You'd likely call back, right? Even if you weren't too sure what, exactly, they were giving you an award for?
Apparently, that's what Tom DeLay and his office are hoping - and all you have to do to claim your award is make a suggested donation of between $300 and $500 to DeLay's campaign.
Air Force Chaplain James Helton says he was flabbergasted when he first heard the news from his wife. “She told me you’ve been selected for a national award by Congressman DeLay, and they really want you to call the office.”
Helton wondered why a powerful Republican leader would want to honor a humble Air Force reservist and quickly returned the call. He was so upset by what he heard that he invited NBC News to record the conversation when he called back a second time.
First there was a recorded message: “This is Congressman Tom DeLay. I’m asking you to serve as an honorary chairman on our business advisory council, and you will be recognized with our national leadership award.”
Then, a telemarketer came on the line: “You’d be invited to private dinners with congressmen and quarterly strategy sessions in Washington.”
In the call, Helton was also promised an exclusive black-tie president’s dinner and his name in a newspaper ad.Then came the pitch from the telemarketer: “We’re asking each chairman for a one-time gift of $300 or $500 for the ad. Can we count on your support?”
Helton replied: “That’s pushing my budget a little. Does it have to be paid all at once?”
“Would $100 or $200 be any better for you? And I could even split that down into two payments as well,” replied the telemarketer.
You know, I get annoyed when I get mailings from different groups telling me I may have "won" something and would I like to give them a contribution in return, but generally, I can spot those things a mile away just by the **CAR-RT SORT** label, and I don't recall having gotten any such pitches from any politicians. They may tell me they want my greatly valued opinion on matters and, while I'm at it, would I care to maybe give them a few dollars to help defray the cost of their processing it - but they've never said they were going to "give" me an award.
This kind of thing is just sad. It's not really a "trick", per se, from what I can tell, but it sure is walking close to the edge. I just hope most people have the sense to realize that unless you've done something that's gained other attention, odds are that a well-known politician isn't going to be giving you an "award" - and if it IS a genuine award, they're sure not going to be asking you for a donation in connection with offering it to you.
And before anyone asks, yes, I'd be just as upset if this was a democrat as I am with it being done by a republican. Slimey tactics are still slimey either way.
Today is Veterans Day - a day for us to honour and remember the many men and women who have been willing to risk their lives for the good of the country. Among Heathens, today (as at Memorial Day) we also give a special honour to the Einherjar - those warriors who have made that ultimate sacrifice on our behalf.
It would be easy to day to use the opportunity to go over all the different ways that the Bush administration is mistreating our veterans, but my heart's just not in it. Thinking about it makes me very angry, and the feeling I have today is one of gratitude and I don't want to taint it with my fury.
Instead, I just want to offer a very heartfelt "Thank you" to all the men and women who have served - or are currently serving - in the Armed Forces, and to the families of our past and current soldiers. Handling the work of war is dangerous, but necessary, and it is work that the people in my family have been unable to do for health reasons. Your willingness to face the risks involved in war is what allows the rest of us to have the lives here that we do, and regardless of whether I agree with the reasons for a war or not, you will always have my support.
I also heard about a situation in Colorado Springs that I found rather touching. Harbard, who belongs to one of the Heathen lists I'm on, had this to say about it:
Just as an aside, Colorado Springs had it's Veterans Day parade on Saturday, and this year's parade was specifically designated (with plenty of mediaIt is far beyond time for us to have recognized that the soldiers who went to Vietnam are deserving of our support and gratitude, just as the soldiers of other wars have been. The war itself may have been wrong, but that is not the fault of the men and women who went there to fight it on our behalf. I'm glad to see that at least one community is trying - even at this late date - to recognize that, and even more so to hear from a Vietnam vet that the gesture was appreciated. I can only hope that other such attempts to reach out and recognize the service of those soldiers can be made throughout the country.
coverage) as a very belated 'welcome home' for the veterans of Viet Nam -- the parade we never got. It touched a lot of us. The veterans of 'Nam are pretty much middle aged now (and many of us still bear the scars, both physical and emotional); it's so good to see that people remember, and are beginning to accept that while the reason for the war was dubious, what we
did there wasn't.
Lastly, for this message, at least, I want to offer a pointer to the Iraq Coalition Casualties list maintained by LunavilleThese men and women, killed in the war in Iraq, are the newest American Einherjar. I raise my horn to them and offer a sincere "Hail!"
I posted earlier today about how the Bush administration is trying to prevent 17 soldiers who were awarded close to $1 billion by the courts as compensation from frozen Iraqi assets for tortured that they suffered during the first Gulf War. Tom Tomorrow posted the following excerpt from a morning press gaggle in which Scott McClellan attempts to present the White House's position on the issue. It seem that it isn't so much that the men don't deserve any money, but rather appears to be that since "no amount of money" could make up for their suffering, its better if the Bush administration just keeps it to use for the reconstruction of Iraq and the soldiers get nothing at all.
That's my take, anyway - can you make anything less vile out of it?
Q Scott, there are 17 former POWs from the first Gulf War who were tortured and filed suit against the regime of Saddam Hussein. And a judge has ordered that they are entitled to substantial financial damages. What is the administration's position on that? Is it the view of this White House that that money would be better spent rebuilding Iraq rather than going to these former POWs?When McClellan talks about it having been "addressed earlier this year" he's apparently referring to the fact that, just before the war started, American confiscated all of the frozen Iraqi assets and once Saddam was ousted, removed Iraq from the list of terror-sponsoring countries. The law that allowed the suit only permits suits to be filed against countries that are considered sponsors of terrorism. The administration's position seems to be that, even though the suit was filed before the assets were confiscated and Iraq was reclassified, it appears that the Bush administration is asserting that since the assets no longer belonged to Iraq and since Iraq was no longer considered a terror-sponsoring country by the time the verdict was rendered, the soldiers didn't have any real right to win the case - their claims were no longer valid.MR. McCLELLAN: I don't know that I view it in those terms, David. I think that the United States -- first of all, the United States condemns in the strongest terms the brutal torture to which these Americans were subjected. They bravely and heroically served our nation and made sacrifices during the Gulf War in 1991, and there is simply no amount of money that can truly compensate these brave men and women for the suffering that they went through at the hands of Saddam Hussein's brutal regime. That's what our view is.
Q But, so -- but isn't it true that this White House --
Q They think they're is an --
Q Excuse me, Helen -- that this White House is standing in the way of them getting those awards, those financial awards, because it views it that money better spent on rebuilding Iraq?
MR. McCLELLAN: Again, there's simply no amount of money that can truly compensate these brave men and women for the suffering --
Q: Why won't you spell out what your position is?
MR. McCLELLAN: I'm coming to your question. Believe me, I am. Let me finish. Let me start over again, though. No amount of money can truly compensate these brave men and women for the suffering that they went through at the hands of a very brutal regime, at the hands of Saddam Hussein. It was determined earlier this year by Congress and the administration that those assets were no longer assets of Iraq, but they were resources required for the urgent national security needs of rebuilding Iraq. But again, there is simply no amount of compensation that could ever truly compensate these brave men and women.
Q: Just one more. Why would you stand in the way of at least letting them get some of that money?
MR. McCLELLAN: I disagree with the way you characterize it.
Q: But if the law that Congress passed entitles them to access frozen assets of the former regime, then why isn't that money, per a judge's order, available to these victims?
MR. McCLELLAN: That's why I pointed out that that was an issue that was addressed earlier this year. But make no mistake about it, we condemn in the strongest possible terms the torture that these brave individuals went through --
Q: -- you don't think they should get money?
MR. McCLELLAN: -- at the hands of Saddam Hussein. There is simply no amount of money that can truly compensate those men and women who heroically served --
Q: That's not the issue --
MR. McCLELLAN: -- who heroically served our nation.
Q: Are you opposed to them getting some of the money?
MR. McCLELLAN: And, again, I just said that that had been addressed earlier this year.
Q: No, but it hasn't been addressed. They're entitled to the money under the law. The question is, is this administration blocking their effort to access some of that money, and why?
MR. McCLELLAN: I don't view it that way at all. I view it the way that I stated it, that this issue was --
Q: But you are opposed to them getting the money.
MR. McCLELLAN: This issue was addressed earlier this year, and we believe that there's simply no amount of money that could truly compensate these brave men and women for what they went through and for the suffering that they went through at the hands of Saddam Hussein --
Q: So no money.
MR. McCLELLAN: -- and that's my answer.
Obviously, I disagree with the government's position, and McClellan's tap-dance during the press gaggle is just pathetic.
For anyone who's curious to see what's in "The Reagans" mini-series, Salon has posted a .pdf copy of the 213-page script, along with this caveat:
A few words of caution: This script is undated, and, though it most likely represents a "shooting script" matching the version of the miniseries that was originally planned for broadcast, we cannot be sure that the script itself was not further edited, and it's likely that additional changes were made during editing. Showtime, the cable network that has acquired "The Reagans" from CBS, has announced that it will "collaborate with the filmmaker to create a final film," so the Showtime version is likely to differ further from this script.While there shouldn't be any problems downloading it from Salon, just in case, I've also uploaded a copy here.
In 1996 a law was passed allowing suits to be filed for injuries suffered at the hand of the foreign governments who had been designated as sponsors of terrorism. Since Iraq had been designated as such, a group of 17 soldiers who had been tortured while held captive by the Iraqi government during the first Gulf War filed a suit for compensation for their injuries. The courts found in their favour and the group was awarded nearly $1 billion which was to be paid for from Iraqi assets that have been frozen for a number of years.
For most of the men, the purpose of the suit was to recognize that they had been tortured by the Iraqi government. It was a validation of their experience. It said that yes, they had been tortured; yes, the Iraqi government was responsible and yes, the Iraqi government should pay.
The Bush administration, however, says that the soldiers are not entitled to an award because the frozen Iraqi assets were converted to American assets shortly before the war via an executive order, and once Saddam was removed from power, Iraq was taken off the list of countries that sponsor terrorism. They also maintain that if the confiscated Iraqi assets are used to pay for this war, it would damage the ability of our government to rebuild Iraq.
"No amount of money can truly compensate these brave men and women for the suffering that they went through at the hands of a truly brutal regime," said Scott McClellan, the White House spokesman. "It was determined earlier this year by Congress and the administration that those assets were no longer assets of Iraq, but they were resources required for the urgent national security needs of rebuilding Iraq."Part of the problem, it seems, is one of timing. The soldiers filed their suit in April, when the assets were still considered as Iraqi assets and, with Saddam still in charge, Iraq on the list of terror-sponsoring governments. The Iraqi government never responded to the suit and in July, the judge ordered a default judgment in favour of the soldiers. By that time, Bush had converted the Iraqi assets and removed Iraq from the terrorism list.
Still, I find it troublesome that the Bush administration feels we can afford to retain all of the massive tax cuts he gave to his wealthy friends, but we can't spare $1 billion in confiscated Iraqi assets to try and compensate some of the soldiers who fought and suffered terribly during the first Gulf War.
I find that every time the administration says they have to cut back on some benefit for the military or even for the civilian population of this country on the grounds that we can't "afford" it due to the war, but does nothing to roll back any of the tax cuts that have recently been enacted, I get a bit angrier. The tax cuts totaled around $450 billion. If the administration would just repeal even a quarter of the tax cut, we'd have the full $87 billion for reconstruction - and then some. And we wouldn't have to shaft any soldiers to do it.
Everyone's heard of pool sharks and loan sharks - people who are known to make large amounts of money through trickery, cheating, extortion and/or intimidation. Well, there's another kind of shark that needs to be added to that list - land sharks. These are people who prey on individual land owners and coerce them into either selling their property at greatly reduced prices or arrange to have the government steal it out from under them. One of the more well-known land sharks is our current President - George W. Bush.
Back in the 1990's, he bought a part-ownership in the Texas Rangers and, along with his partners, got the state of Texas to help them steal 270 acres of land from the landowners in and around Arlington. They only really needed about 17 acres to build the stadium they wanted, but grabbed the extra land anyway and turned it into commercial development. Bush put down about $600,000 for his investment in the team, and when it came time for him to be cash out, his share was worth $14.9 million - most of that from the the increased value of the land for and around the stadium.
There's now talk that the Texas Rangers organization is wanting to donate some of that land for George W. Bush's Presidential Library. Over at the Mahablog, Barbara's feeling a bit thrilled at the prospect - not because she thinks its a good idea, but because it gives her a chance to revisit the story of how the Texas Rangers got the land, how they stiffed Arlington and how no one seems to be paying any attention at all to the story. She's got a lot of good information together, and when you're done reading, I suspect that, like me, you'll be wondering why this has gone without scrutiny for so long. It sure makes me wonder what would happen if the tables were turned - if, by some odd chance, a Democratic governor-turned-president were to possibly have been involved in a somewhat shady land deal....
A few days ago, I posted about an Amber Alert that had been issued for a young boy named Marquis Jobes. Part of the reason I'd included it was because the case has gotten very little attention in the media - something that many attribute to either his being black or from a poor family, since children from both minority families and lower-class familes often receive little attention when they've disappeared.
There's now been an update to the Amber Alert issues. Apparently both the boy's mother and the original suspect in his disapperance have been found shot to death. There is still no sign of the boy. Here's the updated information:
The Virginia State Police issued the Amber Alert after finding the boy's mother shot to death in their Chesterfield County home.
Marquis Jobes
13 yrs., black male, 5', 110 lbs. with brown eyes and black hair. He has been missing since last week. Police say his mother was found shot to death in her home Saturday morning October 25th.
Police found the body of the original suspect Anthony Rankine in a parked van on Wednesday November 5. Rankine had been shot to death and there was no sign of Marquis.
Marquis is believed to be in extreme danger.
Anyone with information is asked to call the Virginia State Police at 800-822-4453, or Chesterfield County Police at 804-748-1832 or dial 911.
I think Donald Rumsfeld has simply gone around the bend. I'm not sure how else to explain this. The Ocala Star Banner has an article today about how Rumsfeld is now trying to deny having made some of the statements he's on record as having said prior to the war.
You know, I'm not sure which bothers me more - that he'd try something this crazy, or that he apparently thinks he's got a reasonable chance of getting away with it. Either way, it's pretty damn pathetic and says a lot about how desparate he must be feeling if he's going to put what credibility he has left on the line like that.
UPDATE: Tom Tomorrow reminds us of the predictive power of satire with a pointer to this comic from last month.
Last week, Scotland's Sunday Herald ran a story about a theory that the Israelis might have been involved in or behind the 9/11 attacks. Personally, what I've seen of what's being presented as evidence that they were involved doesn't convince me much, but it's out there, and it gets talked about.
This week, the Herald is doing a follow-up story pointing out some of the various places that had posted about their original story from the week before. Only two blogs are listed - Andrew Sullivan's (which I won't link to on general principles), and the League of Liberal's own Musings of a Philosophical Scriviner run by Len Cleavelin. While this particular post is one of his shorter ones, its still good to see him getting some of the attention he deserves. Go take a look at it, and then hang around for a few minutes and read some of the other things he's had to say - it'll be worth your time!
Ok, I was wrong when I wrote that the Senate Intelligence Committee might be closed down because of Republican "outrage" over the Democrat memo about how they might be able to get a more thorough investigation done. Apparently, Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist already has shut it down, and says it won't start attending to business again until the memo's author has been unmasked and the Dems have apologized and disavowed it.
Angry about a leaked Democratic memo, the Republican leadership of the Senate yesterday took the unusual step of canceling all business of the committee investigating prewar intelligence on Iraq.Interesting that the administration will resort to tactics of this nature to find out who wrote a memo that proposes the kind of strategy an opposition party should be considering, and which doesn't advocate anything unethical or illegal - yet no one in the administration has yet found an effective tactic to find out who leaked the name of a covert CIA agent in an apparently fit of pique.
Majority Leader Bill Frist (R-Tenn.) called on the author of the memo -- which laid out a possible Democratic strategy to extend the investigation to include the White House and executive branch -- to "identify himself or herself . . . disavow this partisan attack in its entirety" and deliver "a personal apology" to Sen. Pat Roberts (R-Kan.), chairman of the Select Committee on Intelligence.Only if those steps are taken, Frist said, "will it be possible for the committee to resume its work in an effective and bipartisan manner -- a manner deserving of the confidence of other members of the Senate and the executive branch."
From Calpundit, I found this deeply touching piece by Tacitus on his struggles with depression while serving in the military.
I don't often agree with what he says, but as someone who has struggled with clinical depression for over 2 decades, I can tell you that his description of feeling depressed is dead-on accurate. I can only imagine, though, what the military's culture, with its intolerance for anything that might appear to be "weakness", could do to exacerbate someone's depression. I have no doubt that it would be a far greater struggle than most I have personally faced, and am glad to know that he has managed to deal with it apparently rather well.
Something that comes up in my posts from time to time is talking about the concept of being honourable. In his post, Tacitus describes a decision he had to make while in the midst of dealing with depression - one that came with a significant personal cost, but was clearly the right thing to do - not just for himself, but for others whom he might have had to work with. THAT act is as good of an example of acting honourably as I've seen in a while, and I want to commend him for having had the kind of courage and integrity - even in the face of his depression - to make it.
Anway, go read it. Its a solid reminder that sometimes courage isn't demonstrated by taking risks and charging headlong into a fight, but by the quiet grace under pressure that shows up when wisdom and honour are allowed to determine one's path, rather than raw instinct, obedience and self-interest.
I've not said much yet about the Democrat memo that has Republicans on the Senate Intelligence Committee all up in arms because I just haven't been sure what to say. I mean, the memo itself isn't all that bad - it basically just says that, while the Democrats on the Committee have had some luck in getting Republican cooperation, it still seems like the Republicans are stonewalling on some important avenues of investigation because they want to protect the President, so Democrats should be prepared to do some investigating on their own if necessary and use other legal and legitimate tactics to press the issue. That's it. And yet the Republicans are so "outraged" by the existence of the memo that there have been threats made saying that the committee could be closed down (at least temporarily) if the Democrats don't apologize for, well, acting like an opposition party should.
The heart of the matter is that the Republicans only want to look at the intelligence gathered by the CIA and other intelligence resources and in what ways it might have been deficient, but they don't want to look at the other problem - which is what the administration did with the intelligence it was given and whether they manipulated, misrepresented or distorted the evidence in order to win support for the war in Iraq. The Democrats rightly think that those are areas that should be explored because it's just as important an issue as whether the intelligence given to the administration was accurate or not. But because the Republicans refuse to even consider investigating that aspect of the story, the Democrats have been trying to find way to essentially force their hand - which isn't a bad thing for them to do.
Kevin at Calpundit has one of the best commentaries on the memo I've seen online yet. He goes through the memo section by section and provides a "translation" for the bureaucratically-impaired.
Mark at Earthly Passions has an amusing look at the new design for our nickels.
Apparently, the French are a bit miffed.
The Internet knows no bounds... We Want Your Soul can give you a free, no-obligation quotation on how much your soul is worth, and also how pure your soul is compared to others who have gotten quotes. As for mine? It's a lot purer than I had expected! According to "We Want Your Soul", my soul is worth £34135, and 24% of people have a purer soul than I do.
If you go get a quote on your soul, post a note back here -- I want to know just what kind of filthy sinners are reading my blog! ;)
Investigations into the helicopter crash early Friday morning that left six more soldiers dead have come up "inconclusive", but a lack of certainty as to what caused the crash didn't stop US troops from retaliating against the town of Tikrit, located near to where the crash occurred. From Fox News:
The U.S. military swept through Iraqi neighborhoods early Saturday, firing at houses suspected to be harboring hostile forces in the wake of an apparent attack on a Black Hawk helicopter that killed six U.S. soldiers.From CNN:Backed by Bradley fighting vehicles, American troops bombarded buildings with machine guns and heavy weapons fire.
"This is to remind the town that we have teeth and claws and we will use them," said Lt. Col. Steven Russell, commander of the 1st Battalion, 22nd Infantry Regiment.
Two F-16s flew low over the marshy area and dropped at least two 500-pound bombs near where the helicopter crashed, CNN Senior International Correspondent Nic Robertson reported from Tikrit, 110 miles (175 km) north of Baghdad.I have no problem with us taking retaliatory strikes against targets when we know or even have good reason to believe that they've attacked our troops. In this case, though, we don't even know for sure if this helicopter was shot down or not, and I've heard nothing to indicate that the people we're bombing and shooting at in Tikrit are connected to either of the two helicopters that we know have been shot down. It makes it look like we're just taking out our frustrations on the citizens of Tikrit rather than actually striking back at the forces that attacked us.Dozens of artillery shells, mortars and howitzers rained down on the area, Robertson said, beginning late Friday and going into early Saturday.
Aside from just the basic moral principal of not killing those whom we don't know or can't prove have wronged us, attacking a town when we can't even prove that the helicopter was intentionally shot down (never mind being able to show who did it) does little other that give more ammunition to the leaders who are trying to recruit people to fight against us.
An incident like this will be easy for them to portray as the US being indifferent to who we kill, or that we're taking out or frustrations on innocent Iraqis because we can't keep our helicopters aloft. Hearing that we bombed this town, that we drove our tanks around shooting at any house we thought might be hiding members of the resistance, even though we couldn't say for sure if our copter crashed or was shot down is going to inflame a lot of tempers and make it just that much harder for us.
Retaliation, when used in justifiable situations, is important. The enemy needs to know we will come after them, and come after them hard. But its also crucial that the civilians who aren't fighting against us - who are trying to just live their lives - need to know that they won't become arbitrary targets when we don't know or can't prove who actually attacked us. If they can't trust that we won't just go after them because there "might" be resistance fighters, terrorists or others who want to hurt us in the area, they're not going to be willing to trust us for much else - and they're going to get angrier and angrier as the death toll mounts. Those are the places where the enemy forces will be able to recruit from, and in the long run, we'll just be adding to our own problems.
Understand, I'm not saying we shouldn't strike back when we're attacked. That would be pure folly. What I am saying is that we should make sure that if we're going to retaliate, we can justify having done so, so that we aren't giving the Iraqis more reasons to be angry with us and the terrorists more "horror stories" they can use to recruit more people to fight against us. Winning a war is hard enough as it is. If we don't fight smart, we just make it that much harder for ourselves.
The ACLU is looking into a new government program called - believe it or not - MATRIX. Here is a copy of their latest press release about their investigation:
NEW YORK—The American Civil Liberties Union today filed simultaneous state “Freedom of Information Act” requests in Connecticut, Michigan, New York, Ohio and Pennsylvania about those states’ participation in the new “MATRIX” database surveillance system. It also released an Issue Brief explaining the problems with the program, which also operates in Florida and Utah.They just don't ever give up, do they?“Congress killed the Pentagon’s ‘Total Information Awareness’ data mining program, but now the federal government is trying to build up a state-run equivalent,” said Barry Steinhardt, Director of the ACLU’s Technology and Liberty Program.
“In essence, the government is replacing an unpopular Big Brother initiative with a lot of Little Brothers,” he added, noting that the program is receiving $12 million from the Departments of Justice and Homeland Security. “What does it take for the message to get through that government spying on the activities of innocent Americans will not be tolerated?”
The ACLU’s requests, which were filed under individual states’ open-records laws, come on the heels of a federal Freedom of Information Act request it filed October 17. A similar request was also filed in Florida, where the program originated. The goal of the requests is to find out what information sources the system is drawing on – information program officials have refused to disclose – as well as who has access to the database and how it is being used.
According to Congressional testimony and news reports, The Matrix (which stands for “Multistate Anti-Terrorism Information Exchange”) creates dossiers about individuals from government databases and private-sector information companies that compile files on Americans’ activities for profit. It then makes those dossiers available for search by federal and state law enforcement officers. In addition, Matrix workers comb through the millions of files in a search for “anomalies” that may be indicative of terrorist or other criminal activity.
While company officials have refused to disclose details of the program, according to news reports the kind of information to be searched includes credit histories, driver’s license photographs, marriage and divorce records, Social Security numbers, dates of birth, and the names and addresses of family members, neighbors and business associates.
Raising even more issues, the Matrix is operated by a private company, Seisint Inc. of Boca Raton, Florida. Ironically, the company’s founder was forced to resign after information about his own past came to light: according to Florida police, he was formerly a drug smuggler who had piloted multiple planeloads of cocaine from Colombia to the U.S.
“Members of Congress who voted to close down TIA in the belief that they were ending this kind of data mining surveillance must demand more information about The Matrix,” said Steinhardt. “And then they should shut it down too.”
Copies of the ACLU’s state and federal FOIA requests as well as the Issue Brief about The Matrix are online at http://www.aclu.org/Privacy/Privacy.cfm?ID=14240&c=130, and can also be accessed at www.aclu.org/privacy.
A special Web feature about the defunct TIA program is online at http://www.aclu.org/Privacy/Privacylist.cfm?c=130.
Oh, and if you're curious - you can also check out the government's MATRIX website.
The Bush White House, irritated by pesky questions from congressional Democrats about how the administration is using taxpayer money, has developed an efficient solution: It will not entertain any more questions from opposition lawmakers.So begins an article in todays Washington Post about how the Bush administration has decided it avoid dealing with queries from Democratic legislators.
A new rule will now require any questions for the House and Senate Appropriations committees to first go through the committee chairmen - who are Republicans. If the chair doesn't think the question is appropriate, it just won't get asked.
This came up after House Democrats tried asking how much it had cost to make and hang the "Mission Accomplished" banner for the President's aircraft carrier landing in May.
The director of the White House Office of Administration, Timothy A. Campen, sent an e-mail titled "congressional questions" to majority and minority staff on the House and Senate Appropriations panels. Expressing "the need to add a bit of structure to the Q&A process," he wrote: "Given the increase in the number and types of requests we are beginning to receive from the House and Senate, and in deference to the various committee chairmen and our desire to better coordinate these requests, I am asking that all requests for information and materials be coordinated through the committee chairmen and be put in writing from the committee."Despite the White House's attempt to portray this as a move designed to increase efficiency, even a congressional representative at the American Enterprise Institute - a neocon think tank - says "This is obviously an excuse to avoid providing information about some of the things the Democrats are asking for."He said this would limit "duplicate requests" and help answer questions "in a timely fashion."
The article doesn't indicate if this new methodology will remain a rule just for the Appropriations committees or if it will be expanded to include other committees as well, but I suspect if this change doesn't create too much of an outrage, the White House may try expanding it to include additional committees where they would find it useful to be able to duck questions from their opponents.
Gunther at the League of Liberals' newest member blog, The Gunther Concept, has found yet another example of the White House cleaning up a transcript.
The basic gist is that at a recent press event with President Bush and Paul Bremer, a reporter had asked a two-part question and tried to ask a follow-up after the President had answered the first two parts. Gunther thought he heard the President cut off the reporter, telling her "That was your question", but when he looked at the White House transcript later, that part of the exchange was not included. He then located a transcript done by CNN which showed that Bush had, in fact, cut the reporter off rather abruptly, telling her "No, that's your question." The links above go to the actual pages, or if you'd like a quick comparison, I've made screenshots and highlighted the relevant section: [White House version] [CNN version]
Now, leaving out those few words isn't an earth-shattering event. It doesn't even change the meaning of anything that was said. But the way the President actually handled the situation was, well, rude, and apparently the White House doesn't want to admit that the President is sometimes a bit ill-tempered.
I suspect at least some of the President's supporters will try to defend Bush's treatment of the reporter by saying that she'd already had two questions and shouldn't have tried to ask a third. And that may well be a reasonable response to his behaviour, but it misses the point. The issue here isn't whether the reporter was out of line or not, nor is it whether Bush was rude or not - it's that what he actually said was left out of the transcript.
Just like the change to the Australian speech was apparently intended to avoid admitting that the President misspoke, this change is also about maintaining the President's image. The problem is, the President does make mistakes and he is ill-tempered from time to time. People know it, they hear it and they see it. Trying to hide it in the 'official' record doesn't really do a whole lot to make him look better, it just makes him look even more petty than he does already.
For a group of people who threw such a hissy fit about Clinton trying to determine the meaning of "is" and other such word trickery (which I personally cared for as little from him as I do anyone else), the conservatives have sure been squawking a lot about which specific words were actually used in describing the impending Iraq war. In the most recent issue "The Hill", Josh Marshall decides to poke a few holes in their current favourite whipping boy - the idea that no one ever claimed that Saddam was an 'imminent threat'.
Let's start by looking at what the president's spokesmen said about the "imminent threat" claim before things in Iraq started going sour.[NOTE: Just for the sake of reference, and so that the quotes could be seen in context, I've looked up the quotes from Ari Fleischer on the White House website so. The first, from October 16, 2002 can be found here, and the second from May 7, 2003 can be found here.]Last October, a reporter put this to Ari Fleischer: "Ari, the president has been saying that the threat from Iraq is imminent, that we have to act now to disarm the country of its weapons of mass destruction, and that it has to allow the U.N. inspectors in, unfettered, no conditions, so forth."
Fleischer's answer? "Yes."
[...]
A month after the war, another reporter asked Fleischer, "Well, we went to war, didn't we, to find these - because we said that these weapons were a direct and imminent threat to the United States? Isn't that true?"
Fleischer's answer? "Absolutely."
I could go on. But I trust you get the point.
So, whether or not anyone in the administration actually said "Saddam is an imminent threat," when asked if Saddam was an imminent threat, the White House's official spokesman - who, as any good spokesperson is wont to do, takes great care to make sure that any questions he's asked are first framed in such a way that there can be no misunderstanding either the answer itself or what the answer is specifically in response to - twice responded affirmatively to questions confirming that Saddam was considered to be an imminent threat. If "Saddam is an imminent threat" was a message that the White House did not want to send - if it was not something the administration believed and intended to communicate - Fleischer would either have taken the opportunity to have that portion of the question clarified or rephrased before answering, or he would have rephrased the question in giving his answer to make it clear which part he was agreeing to and which part he wasn't.
Fleischer didn't do that, however. He answered the questions exactly as asked. Some may try to argue that Fleischer "misspoke", but if that's the case, why was no correction ever issued or any kind of discipline administered. Since there was no indication from anyone else within the administration that Fleischer was wrong, the only rational assumption would be that his statements did, in fact, accurately reflect the administration view. If that's not the case - if we cannot take something like a confirmation by the White House press secretary on the reason we went to war as being an accurate reflection of the administration's position - why should we take the press secretary's word on anything else?
No, either the press secretary is a useless position whose statements cannot be trusted, or the people who are trying to claim that the administration never said Saddam was an imminent threat are completely full of crap. I think I have a pretty good idea of which it is, don't you?
I just thought this quote from Eric Alterman's article on CBS's decision to pull the Reagan biopic was worth sharing:
Amazing but true, the far-right media machine has successfully held CBS entertainment to a higher standard of truth regarding the docudrama, "The Reagans" than the news media manages to hold the Bush administration regarding the war in Iraq.
Or "...and the Right Wing thought Clinton was a slick little parser...."
The Wingnut Debate Dictionary evolved out of a thread at Eschaton where Atrios was discussing four of the more common tactics conservatives have been using to avoid actually discussing issues or acknowledging what Bush has actually said or done (for example, their recent defense of Bush, claiming he didn't mislead the country on the war in Iraq because he never actually said that Iraq was an "imminent" threat - even though everything he said or did gave that exact message, very clearly).
At any rate, one of his visitors took all of the suggestions and has compiled them into a webpage with all the terms and definitions laid out for easy reference. It's a priceless resource that all good Liberals should make themselves well-familiar with. :)
Unlike the US, in Denmark, there is an official state church. That church, however, has the authority to recognize other religions, giving their clergy the ability to have their religious ceremonies - such as weddings - recognized by the state. Recently, they granted such recognition to Forn Sidr, an Asatru/Heathen group that serves as an "umbrella" organization for both solitary Heathens and Heathen church-like groups, generally called Hearths or Kindreds.
Home to the Vikings of yore, Denmark said Wednesday it will let a group that worships Thor, Odin and other Norse gods conduct legally-recognized marriages.This makes Denmark the second nation (that I'm aware of) to grant official status to Heathens. Asatru, the most common "denomination" is officially recognized by Iceland. While these recognitions may not seem like a big deal overall - especially in a country such as this where there are no "official" religions - but each time a nation investigates a Heathen tradition and decides that it can be granted official recognition, it helps add legitimacy to the religion as a whole."To me, it would be wrong if the indigenous religion of this country wasn't recognized," Tove Fergo, the minister for Ecclesiastic Affairs and a Lutheran priest, told The Associated Press.
Under Danish law, the state Evangelical Lutheran Church has sole authority to recognize other religious communities.
The 240-member Forn Sidr, which worships Odin, Thor, Freya and the other members of the Norse pantheon, sought recognition in 1999, said Tissel Jacobsen, the group's president.
Last year, an Ecclesiastic Affairs panel of scholars recommended that Forn Sidr, whose name mean "Old Custom" in old Norse, be approved, but only if their rituals were clearly detailed in its bylaws.
"At a general assembly, we added and described our four annual heathen rituals -- spring and fall equinoxes, and the summer and winter solstices, and our marriage ceremony," Jacobsen told the AP. "We then returned our application and the panel approved it."
Fergo said she would give her final approval "in a few days."
About 1,000 people worship the ancient gods in Denmark, Jacobsen said.
This is an issue even in the US, despite the fact that the US does not have a list of accepted religions or religions that are considered "unrecognized" or "invalid", but because most Pagan and Heathen traditions don't use the same kind of system to ordain their clergy that most Christian denominations do, some states are still hesitant to recognize Pagan and Heathen clergy as being able to perform legally binding weddings, officiate at funeral services or serve in other kinds of official clergy roles. While there are groups trying to find legitimate ways to alleviate the problem, if the question of whether or not a religion is "real" comes up, being able to point to other nations that have given the religion official recognition can make a big difference.
Congratulations to the members of Forn Sidr, and thank you for taking the time and putting in the effort to earn recognition!
UPDATE: 9/24 pm 11/06 - be sure to read the comments section, as Ole has posted a clarification on the story.
Josh Marshall has the scoop on the altered transcript of Bush's speech to the Australian Parliament. As noted previously, when giving the speech, he said that "We see a China.....", but after the statement was widely questions (because it just didn't really make any sense), the copy of the speech at the White House website was changed to read "We seek a China...."
According to one of Josh's sources, the President actually was supposed to say "seek", but screwed it up, and used the wrong word. Marshall notes that, oddly, when the flap over the statement first arose, the White House tried to defend the statement. At some point, though, they apparently figured out that Bush had read the speech wrong, and rather than just issue a statement saying Bush had inadvertently misspoken, they said nothing, and just changed the White House version of the transcript to read what he was supposed to have said, as opposed to what he actually did say.
I just really don't "get" this administration sometimes. What would have been the harm of issuing a statement simply acknowledging that the President misspoke? If they wanted the official transcript to reflect what he was supposed to have said rather than what he did say, they could simply have put an asterisk after the word "see" in the transcript with a footnote saying that the word should have been "seek". As it stands, there are now two "official" records of the speech, one on the White House website showing what the President was supposed to have said, and one in the official record of Australia's parliament showing what he actually did did say.
[Note: The above link goes to the official Australian record at their website. White I doubt that will be modified the way the White House record was, I've gone ahead and saved a copy anway, which can be found here. In either case, to see the sentence in question, go to page 10 of the document, and it's about 1/3 of the way down the first column.]
At any rate, in the overall scheme of things this may not be as bad of a "revision" as some of the others we've seen from this administration, but at the core, it's still just another example of how the White House can't tolerate being seen as having made an error, even one as simple as inadvertantly using the wrong word in a speech.
From the The Daily Show:
Jon Stewart: But the President's Republican allies feel strongly that our commitment [to Iraq] must remain strong.[Video footage of Senator Ted Stevens (R-AK) addressing the Senate]: "One thing is very clear. As the President has said time and time again, "We will not walk away from Iraq."
JS: You mean that in a positive way, right?
Billmon has a great take on the news today that CBS has caved in to conservative concerns and is shifting the unwatched-yet-controversial biographical miniseries about President Ronald Reagan. Hopefully his obvious writing skill is significantly better than his prognostication abilities.
As to my thoughts on the decision, well, I think CBS is being a real weenie about it. This is the same series that earlier this year broadcast a docudrama about Hitler's early years, even though some concern was expressed about whether or not it might make him look too sympathetic. (Since I didn't see the show, I can't comment on whether the concerns were valid or not.) But CBS isn't exactly known for being timid. Their flagship franchise, the Crime Scene Investigations shows, feature some incredibly graphic images - I'm married to a horror movie freak, so believe me, I've seen more than my share of R-rated gore, and I still quite often find myself shielding my eyes during CSI and trying to avoid looking at the screen until I can tell a scene has ended. Yet they backed down, almost without a fight, when the Republicans complained that their portrayal of Saint Ronnie might be less than stellar.
I suppose in principle, their decision to pull the show can be justified. TV networks are businesses that have to decide what to show based on what they think will let them make the most money. That's what ends up determining content - and, really, that is as it should be.
Just because I agree with the principle of the market determining what the product should be, however, it doesn't follow that I like what the Republicans have done or that I don't think they're full of it in expressing concern for "historical accuracy". As I noted the other day, they sure didn't have any problem with the historical inaccuracy of Showtime's recent docudrama about Bush's activities on 9/11.
So, while it may well be infuriating when the Republicans can pull something like this and get what they want - and it certainly shows that they're not being silenced by the "liberal media" - it's the same mechanism that other groups can use to try and prevent racist, homophobic, or other objectionable material from being shown. It's not perfect, but it's what we've got.
The WINvote electronic voting machines - made by Advanced Voting Solutions of Frisco, TX - wound up causing some difficulties for Fairfax County, VA. Apparently, 9 of the machines developed technical glitches, and when rebooting the machines at the election site failed to solve the problem, the machines were taken to a centralized location, fixed, and brought back to be used for the rest of the election.
The new machines, meant to simplify voting, made the tallying of the votes more problematic, with more than half of precinct officials resorting to the old-fashioned telephone to call in their numbers or even driving the results to headquarters, elections officials said. A handful of precincts resorted to paper ballots.Personally, I can't think of too many situations in which it should be considered appropriate to take a voting machine out of the voting booth after voting has already started, take it to an off-site location, have someone tinker around with it, and then return it to the voting booth to be used again.Election officials said it was the slowest performance in memory for counting votes on election night in the county. The problem came when precinct workers tried to electronically send results from the 953 new machines to election headquarters, unexpectedly overloading computer servers.
When the electronic system of sending results over telephone modems failed, precinct workers tried to call in the results but were met with busy signals. Many decided it would be quicker to drive.
Some voters also complained about using the new machines, and officials said that resulted in slow going at some polling places during the day. For example, a line of 100 people snaked around the polling room at Sleepy Hollow Elementary School Tuesday morning, workers said.
Fairfax election officials expressed surprise at the glitches.
"I don't know what the holdup is," Margaret K. Luca (D), secretary of the county's three-person elections board, said late Tuesday night. "I thought we had it covered. We tested all week in the county."
At least one candidate - Mychele Brickner, a Republican - has filed a suit to set aside votes from the machines in question until a judge can decide if the votes were recorded correctly or not. In addition, Christopher Craig, the attorney for the Republicans, notes that legally, machines should not be removed from a polling place and then returned for further use.
I've noted before that I believe that the security and effectiveness of electronic voting machines is something that should be of concern to all voters, not a partisan issue. In this case, it's a Republican who may have been hurt by the problems with the machine (though the reports indicate that they don't think the total number of votes in question would change the outcome), and I sincerely hope that she is able to get some kind of relief though her suit, though without a paper trail, I don't really know how that will work.
In this situation, there doesn't seem to be any reason to suspect actual fraud, but that just highlights another danger of these machines. Even if no one tampers with them, these machines are, at their heart, computers - pretty much like the ones we use everyday. They may work well most of the time, but they don't work all the time, and if one does break, there's no permanent record that can be used to verify that no damage has been done.
A quick look at some of the best from the League of Liberals tonight:
blunted on reality tackles the media's seeming indifference to children from lower-class families who are kidnapped or missing.
Since this story isn't getting as much media attention as it should, I want to post the information about Marquis Jobes here, also. Please post this to your own blog as well, if you would. The notice says that this boy is thought to be in extreme danger, so spreading the words is important. I'll post a note if and when I hear any further information.
13 yrs., black male, 5', 110 lbs. with brown eyes and black hair. He has been missing since last week. Police say his mother was found shot to death in her home Saturday morning.
Police are looking for Anthony Rankine (bottom photo) a black male, 5' 10", 160 lbs. with brown eyes and black hair, and has scars on his head and chest. They may be in a white 1999 Isuzu Rodeo with Virginia tags, JHA-2602.
Marquis is believed to be in extreme danger.
Anyone with information is asked to call the Virginia State Police at 800-822-4453, or Chesterfield County Police at 804-748-1832 or dial 911.
Democratic Veteran talks about todays mortar attacks at or near the American civilian HQ today and wants to hear from Vietnam veterans about thier experiences as the Vietnam war descended into a quagmire. While the Republic of Seabrook is asking if the Bush administration getting ready to reinstate the draft?.
The Patriot Act, which was intended to be used against terrorists, turned out to be useful for investigators looking into political corruption, The Spy Game tells us.
The Philosophical Scriviner muses on the Supreme Court's apparent attempts to amuse themselved while hearing a case.
Mahablog writes about the Democratic forum hosted by Rock the Vote tonight, and the controversy over Dean's comment that he wants to be "the candidate for guys with Confederate flags in their pickup trucks."
Norbizness has a few words of wisdom for David Brooks, while Kynn Shocks and Awes us with his desire to protect us from crappy porn.
Mad Kane treats us to a new tune, all about the joys of spinning.
Here's the latest from Atrios on dispute with Donald Luskin. Congrats for getting it resolved, guys! Glad to see it could be done with civility.
A Joint Statement from Donald Luskin and Atrios"We both regret a series of misunderstandings that have resulted in something that neither of us intended. We have discussed our differences, and both of us are confident that such misunderstandings will not occur again in the future. As a result, Mr. Luskin is retracting his demand letter of October 29, 2003. We congratulate each other on having quickly achieved an amicable resolution. We are both glad to have put this behind us."
-Atrios 5:02 PM
Last week I had noted that Neal Pollack was going to declare November 5th "Donald Luskin is a Stalker" day in support of Atrios in dealing with Luskin's threatened lawsuit. In his most recent post, however, Pollacks notes that Luskin is a Stalker Day HAS BEEN CALLED OFF for a pretty good reason, really:
I must also announce that tomorrow's previously proposed protest, Donald Luskin Is A Stalker Day, has been indefinitely delayed at the request of my good friend Atrios, the Internet's latest potential free-speech lawsuit victim. Apparently, Atrios believes that reasonable discourse will solve his problems better than wise-assed agitation. We shall see, oh great liberal blogmaster. Tomorrow won't be Donald Luskin Is A Stalker Day after all. For now, hold your fire.Please pass this around and post it to your blogs if at all possible, so that we don't inadvertantly damage Atrios' ability to reach a diplomatic solution.
Wired is running a story that California has halted the certificatio process on new Diebold machines after they learned that in one county, reportedly Alameda, the Diebold machines in use in the recent recall election may have had uncertified software installed by Diebold.
Alameda County, a Democratic stronghold that includes the cities of Berkeley and Oakland, converted to all-electronic voting last year at a cost of more than $12 million. The county used the machines in state elections last year and in last month's gubernatorial recall election. The machines will also be used in tomorrow's municipal election in Alameda.This report is similar to reports from Georgia that, prior to the 2002 elections, Diebold patched the software on many of those machines. Software on voting machines is supposed to be certified prior to an election, and if any changes are made to the software (such as a patch would do), the software is supposed to be recertified before it can be used. In the Georgia races, questions about the software certification have come up in large part because many of the races in last years elections reported surprising results - with all the good news in favour of Republican candidates. Diebold's president is known to be a staunch Republican.The only other California county currently using the Diebold touch-screen machines is Plumas. No one was available for comment on whether uncertified software may have been installed on machines used in Plumas.
Oh, one other comment from the California article I found interesting:
Diebold officials, who were attending the meeting, seemed surprised by the announcement and expressed displeasure to several panelists afterward that it had been introduced in a public forum.I'll bet they were. I, however, think it was the perfect place to raise the issue. The public needs to be aware of these kinds of problems, and needs to be able to see where patterns of illegal or unethical behaviour are forming.
Yes, that last post has me royally pissed off. It's been over and hour and my blood is still boiling. Then I read this quote of his, from a comment he made about the soldiers that were killed in the Chinook incident over the weekend.
"We mourn every loss," the president said. "We honor every name. We grieve with every family. And we will always be grateful that liberty has found such brave defenders."He couldn't even come up with an original sentiment for the occasion - he'd used that line before - in a speech he gave at Pease Air National Guard Base in Portsmouth, NH.
The little asshole that's supposedly running our country [into the ground] may say that he "honours" those who die in the war, but he refuses to treat their bodies - or their families - with the traditional honours because it might make his regime look bad. He and his administration have worked to cut both imminent-danger and family-separation pay* (though the Senate has, just today, passed a bill that would increase these benefits to those in the military and their families), as well making budgetary requests that fail to provide them with equipment such as body armour that might help save the lives of some of our soldiers.
He lies to get us into the war and tries to spin everything so he can claim it's going well. His administration's webmasters are cleansing stories and articles to change what they did say to what they wish they had said or think they should have said.
Bush HAS no honour. He is a nithing. I only hope that when his time comes (naturally and in due course - I have no desire to see him killed or injured) he will be treated with all of the cumulative "honour" he has shown the young men and women whom he has sent off to war. I hope the emptiness of his words will be reflected in the emptiness of his eternal fate.
[*Note: One of the things discussed in the article is that hospitals are charging soldiers $8.10 per day for their meals. There has been a lot of disagreement over whether this charge is fair or unfair to the soldiers. What is happening is that when a soldier is in the hospital or otherwise away from his base or other normal source of military food service he has an $8.10 per diem added to his base pay to help cover the cost of any meals he has to purchase himself. The meals provided in the hospital, however, are already paid for by the military, so when the soldier gets the per diem in his check, he's being given money for meals he got that were already paid for. That money is then added back into the hospital bill so that that the soldier is still getting his meals free, but he's not getting "extra" money for them. Some think this is rather chintzy on the part of the military, but with as many injuries as happening in the war, the extra $8.10 per soldier per day could add up fairly fast.]
Atrios points to an article at CNN in which Mark Shields hits the nail on the head about Bush's banning of the welcoming ceremony for the bodies of fallen soldiers from the Iraqi war.
WASHINGTON (Creators Syndicate) -- At Harvard on January 19, 2000, then-Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Gen. Hugh Shelton provided a valuable standard, both to determine whether the United States ought to send the nation's warriors into combat and to enlist "the support of the American people as well as the Congress" needed to sustain that involvement. In Shelton's judgment, such a grave decision :"(M)ust be subjected to what I call the 'Dover test.' Is the American public prepared for the sight of our most precious resource coming home in flag-draped caskets into Dover Air Force Base in Delaware -- which is a point entry for our Armed Forces?
This is an issue, I think, that should be raised early on. It should be discussed, and it should be decided by our political leadership before any operation begins."
In the invasion and occupation of Iraq, the Bush administration chose instead to duck Shelton's "Dover test." The scene so familiar to older Americans -- of the military honor guard in white gloves, respectfully accompanying from the aircraft to the waiting loved ones the remains of the fallen warrior in the coffin covered by Old Glory, often with a military band offering an appropriately solemn piece -- was simply banned. George W. Bush's war against Iraq could not flunk the Dover test because there would be no Dover test.
[...] Where is the outrage on the part of the press? Are we lapdogs? The administration in full spin control insists that the reality on the ground in Iraq is much more positive than the press reports. Yet the administration denies reality at home -- the reality of the recent heroism of this nation's fallen sons and daughters.
By official government policy,. there is no band to welcome them home. No honor guard to present the folded flag to their widow and orphan, to make certain the family knows that their loss is also their country's loss, that they do not weep alone. It is a cruel and ugly policy that robs the patriot of the glory and public honor he has earned and deserves.
The time is long past in 2003 to take the Dover test.
More evidence today of the government scrubbing various web pages of potentially embarrassing information.
1. Kevin Drum at Calpundit notes that the USAID (United States Agency for International Development) has removed the transcript of an interview by Nightline's Ted Koppel in which USAID Representative Andrew Natsios says that the cost to US taxpayers for rebuilding Iraq will be right around $1.7 billion once international assistance and oil revenues are taken into account.
TED KOPPELKevin also points to a Google cache of the page in question. I've made some .gif screenshots of the page in case the Google cache gets overwritten or otherwise disappears (I'm not suggesting that it would disappear by nefarious means, I just don't know how long Google keeps their cache pages, and I've had times when the cache didn't exist any longer for pages I was trying to find.) I've also made a screenshot of the page at the USAID site where the article used to be, which now shows up as a 404.
(Off Camera) All right, this is the first. I mean, when you talk about 1.7, you're not suggesting that the rebuilding of Iraq is gonna be done for $1.7 billion?ANDREW NATSIOS
Well, in terms of the American taxpayers contribution, I do, this is it for the US. The rest of the rebuilding of Iraq will be done by other countries who have already made pledges, Britain, Germany, Norway, Japan, Canada, and Iraqi oil revenues, eventually in several years, when it's up and running and there's a new government that's been democratically elected, will finish the job with their own revenues. They're going to get in $20 billion a year in oil revenues. But the American part of this will be 1.7 billion. We have no plans for any further-on funding for this.
On the screenshots, I've pointed an arrow over to the URL in the address page on the 404, so you can verify that it's the page in question, and on the Google cache, I've got the URL highlighted in the status bar showing what page the Google cache was taken from.
Google cache screenshots: page 1 | page 2 | page 3 | page 4 | page 5 | page 6
USAID original page, now 404
2. Josh Marshall points out that in the original transcript of Bush's recent speech to the Australian Parliament, it'd reported one of his quotes as "We see a China that is stable and prosperous, a nation that respects the peace of its neighbors and works to secure the freedom of its own people." This quote was widely reported, including in a copy of the transcript posted by FOX News.
Thinking the quote had sounded odd, Josh made a .PDF of the original transcript as posted by the White House website. If you scroll down near the bottom, you'll see the original quote, complete with the "We see...." phrasing.
Now, take a look at the current web page showing the same speech. It NOW reads "We seek a China that is stable and prosperous -- a nation that respects the peace of its neighbors and works to secure the freedom of its own people." As Josh says:
Now, I've heard some speculate that the president had meant to say 'seek' but somehow misspoke or perhaps was supposed to say 'seek'.I've made screenshots of the revised page in case things ever get changed again. The quote in question is on page 5.Maybe.
But I find that a touch dubious because I think that on such a delicate matter the White House would check the 'transcript' against the prepared speech that the president read from.
Archived copy of original page .pdf (in case something happens to Josh's)
Screenshots of "corrected" page: page 1 | page 2 | page 3 | page 4 | page 5 | page 6
[UPDATE - 4:26pm 11/5 - Josh Marshall has the scoop on what happened with the Austrailian speech. Apparently Bush was supposed to say "seek", but flubbed it. The White House initially defended the "see" version, until they realized he'd made a mistake, and then they just quietly changed the transcript to reflect what he should have said, as opposed to what he really did say. Not the worst case of revisionism, but still not great. More of my thoughts here, if you're interested.]
3. Slate's Fred Kaplan writes about a report originally posted on the Center for Army Lessons Learned website, which has since been removed:
Two pieces of evidence shine all too glaringly: 1) an official, unclassified, and highly critical report on the U.S. Army's inefficient-to-shoddy intelligence practices in Iraq and Afghanistan, written by the Center for Army Lessons Learned in Ft. Leavenworth, Kan.; and 2) the removal of this report from the center's Web site, after the Washington Post published a story summarizing its contents.Global Security.org has maintained a copy of the report on their side, and I've copied one to my own files as a backup.
These can be added to the apparently growing list of pages that have been changed or removed after they've become embarrassing to the President or the administration. The most well-known of these incidents is, of course, the changing of the White House website pages referring to Bush's May 1st speech aboard the USS Abraham Lincoln.
I find the White House making these kind of changes to be a serious violation of the public trust. The documents on that site are to be a reflection of what our government has said and done, not what they wish they had said and done or what they now realize they should have said or done. Changing the truth after the fact is "revisionist history" at its worse, and seems to be one of the few things this administration seems to do well at.
While I'd hate to have to see our congressional leaders waste their time dealing with an issue like this, I'm beginning to think that maybe there needs to be some kind of legislation put in place that would disallow the changing of any web pages on any official government site without some kind of notation being left behind to explain what the change was and why it was made. It's the least we should expect from a government that has a responsibility to keep us informed.
What's really sad is that these are just the one's we catching. There's so much information being put up on the websites - and possibly being changed - every day that it's almost impossible to track it all.
If you're interested in more about issues related to secrecy, be sure to check out Stephen Pizzo's "Hiding the Truth", a report on secrecy in the Bush administration.
Update - looks like Mark Kleiman is on the case, too - he has information on the Center for Army Lessons Learned report and the Slate article as well.
UPDATED 6:24am 11/4/03 - I neglected to include a few necessary links, so I went back and added them. Sorry 'bout that!
e.the People has a very nicely done quiz tool to help in seeing what (by their measure) your beliefs on foreign police are. Their goal is to get 100,000 people to take the survey and, hopefully, participate in other educational and activism related efforts to help Americans understand more about what issues are involved in setting foreign policy and where, perhaps, our country's efforts should be focused. You can find it at the e.thePeople : American Choices website.
Here are the results from my quiz, and, for the most part, I think they're reasonably accurate - at least as accurate as something like this can be. The "*" on the scales under each question show what my score is.
Your Foreign Policy Priorities:In taking the quiz, I went with my gut instincts. The next question for me, of course, is to determine if that's where my beliefs should be.Primary: Protections
Secondary: Military, Human Rights, Cooperation1. Should we increase emphasis on diplomatic or military means to secure peace?
Diplomacy |-----|-----|-----|-----|-----||--*--|-----|-----|-----|-----| MilitaryAs the world's only superpower, we can lead an effort to maintain peace and stability. This is best accomplished by building wide coalitions with allies, but we must reserve the right to act unilaterally when necessary.
2. Should we aggressively promote human rights in other countries or respect their sovereignty?
Sovereignty |-----|-----|-----|-----|-----||-----|--*--|-----|-----|-----| Human Rights
As 9/11 demonstrated, repression abroad can feed terrorism and threaten our freedom at home. Where possible, we should use our economic and military power as a "carrot" to encourage positive reforms in repressive regimes.
3. Should we push the development of free global markets or allow for protections of local industry, labor and the environment?
Protections |-----|-----*-----|-----|-----||-----|-----|-----|-----|-----| Global Markets
Globalization is running rampant over the rights and well being of people everywhere. We need stricter control of our borders, better protection of working standards and greater regulations on the conduct of multinational corporations.
4. Should we emphasize cooperation with other nations or the pursuit of national interest?
National Interest |-----|-----|-----|-----|-----||-----|--*--|-----|-----|-----| Cooperation
As the wealthiest nation, the US has an obligation to help others , and a large stake in seeing a strong and stable international order. So as not to waste money, we should make sure our priorities are focused and our oversight is diligent.
One thing I found a bit frustrating - which, as with any "forced choice" survey tool, is actually part of the point - was the way some of the questions looked like they were setting up polar opposites when they really were. Some of the questions were structured about like the following (I'm using a "pulled out of think air" example so as not to ruin the questions on the survey itself:
In your opinion, which of the following is more important?Where I got tripped up is that I like peanut butter and jelly a lot and I don't like mayo - but rather than just being able to choose having PB&Js without mayo, I had to choose whether I wanted PB&J so bad I'd be willing to have some with mayo occasionally OR if I hate mayo so much, I'd be willing to give up PB&Js all together.Option 1: Eating peanut butter and jelly sandwiches, including, when necessary, those with mayonnaise.
Option 2: Avoiding mayonnaise at all costs, even on peanut butter and jelly sandwiches.
Even though they were frustrating, though, they were good questions - I really had to think about what my answer would be for that....
Anyway, go take the quiz and see where you come up.
There are a couple quotes from Paul Wolfowitz being spread throught the liberal blogs today. Most of the sites are 2 questions and excerpts from Wolfowitz's answers from a recent Georgetown Q&A session. I am going to go ahead and post both the questions and his complete answers, so that it's clear that the outrageousness of his answers isn't due to selective editing, but is because Wolfowitz quite simply crossed a line when he told these two people that they don't love America. [Note: Emphasis added to make the specific offending statements easier to locate.]
Q: Hi, Mr. Wolfowitz. My name is Ruthy Coffman. I think I speak for many of us here when I say that your policies are deplorable. They're responsible for the deaths of innocents and the disintegration of American civil liberties. [Applause] We are tired, Secretary Wolfowitz, of being feared and hated by the world. We are tired of watching Americans and Iraqis die, and international institutions cry out in anger against us. We are simply tired of your policies. We hate them, and we will never stop opposing them. We will never tire or falter in our search for justice. And in the name of this ideal and the ideal of freedom, we assembled a message for you that was taken away from us and that message says that the killing of innocents is not the solution, but rather the problem. Thank you. [Applause and jeers]I wonder if this would be a good time to remind Wolfowitz about his statement earlier this year in an interview with Sam Tannenhaus from Vanity Fair, where he explains that, while the criminal treatment of the Iraqi people by Saddam Hussein was a serious concern, on its own, it doesn't justify a war of this nature. Here is the section from the DOD transcript of the interview as posted at the DoD News site. I've highlighted the most relevent comments.Wolfowitz: I have to infer from that that you would be happier if Saddam Hussein were still in power. [Applause]
I wish you could have come with me in July when we visited a little Marsh Arab village called al Amarah near the Iranian border. To get there you have to fly over desert the size of New Jersey. It is a man-made desert, created by Saddam Hussein in the aftermath of the Gulf War. For thousands of years it's been a lush marsh. The Marsh Arabs are one of the oldest continuous human civilizations. They had figured out how to get milk out of water buffalo by breeding a new kind of water buffalo. It's not a small achievement. They produced some very large percentage of the vegetables for the entire country. They were peaceful people, but they also provided a refuge for the rebels that Saddam Hussein feared. So in the true traditions of Nebuchadnezzar, he simply proceeded to wipe them out by drying them out, by creating an environmental catastrophe.
There were half a million Marsh Arabs in 1991. The estimates today are somewhere between 40,000 and 200,000. When we got off the helicopters, the population was overwhelmingly women and children. The children's hair had that ugly rusty color that indicates severe malnutrition. But they were smiling and cheering and saying "Thank you Bush", "Down with Saddam" and finally hopeful that they might have a future.
For most of the Marsh Arabs liberation was too late, but for those people it came just in time. I think you ought to think about that. They're innocents as well. Far, far more innocent.
This has been a war that's been -- War is an ugly business. It is a brutal business. And a lot of those innocents died, by the way, because Saddam Hussein put his weapons in hospitals and other places. But it's ugly and it's brutal. But the alternative was far, far uglier, far more brutal. There's no question about that in my mind. [Applause]
Q: I'd just like to say that people like Ruthy and myself have always opposed Saddam Hussein, especially when Saddam Hussein was being funded by the United States throughout the '80s. And -- [Applause] And after the killings of the Kurds when the United States increased aid to Iraq. We were there opposing him as well. People like us were there. We are for democracy. And I have a question.
What do you plan to do when Bush is defeated in 2004 and you will no longer have the power to push forward the project for New American Century's policy of American military and economic dominance over the people of the world? [Applause]
Wolfowitz: I don't know if it was just Freudian or you intended to say it that way, but you said you opposed Saddam Hussein especially when the United States supported him.It seems to me that the north star of your comment is that you dislike this country and its policies. [Applause] And it seems to me a time to have supported the United States and to push the United States harder was in 1991 when Saddam Hussein was slaughtering those innocents so viciously.
Look, let's back up a little bit. You and I should both calm down a little here.
Q: Okay. [Laughter]
Wolfowitz: This is not ideological, I don't believe. I think it is a moral issue. I respect the fact that you and the last questioner have deep moral concerns. War is an ugly thing. I agree with that. But butchers like Saddam Hussein are incredibly ugly.
I've known a lot of dictators fairly up close and personal. I take some pride in having helped to get rid of Ferdinand Marcos. I tried to get some changes in Indonesia and I took some pleasure when President Suharto left. But to quote that famous Vice Presidential debate, or to paraphrase it from a few years ago, Ferdinand Marcos was no Saddam Hussein. Ferdinand Marcos was not responsible for the deaths of a million Muslims.
I don't think there's much question here about the morality of having gotten rid of that regime. I also think that it's worth stopping and thinking from the point of view of the Iraqi people, and I'm not saying that they're the ones who should vote in our election. We should decide our President based on who Americans think is good for the American people. But I have to tell you that it sends a very unsettling message to Iraqis that our elections might decide their future.
When I visited the city of Najaf in July, met with the town council, and as I guess most of you, a well-informed audience know, this is one of the two holy cities of Shia Islam. It was pretty remarkable to be sitting with a town council that included one woman, a religious cleric as the head, and about 15 or 16 professionals for the most part in the rest of the group.
One of these professionals, I can't remember whether he was an architect or an engineer, asked me a two-part question. Part two, I'll start with, borders on the paranoid. He said are you Americans just holding Saddam Hussein as a trump card over our head? You may think that's paranoid, but if you'd been through what they went through in 1991, the suspicions about our intentions run very deep. The fear of what can happen to them if that regime comes back is palpable and enormous.
But the first question wasn't paranoid at all. In fact it was pretty sophisticated. He said what's going to happen to us if George Bush loses the election?
I told him as best I could, and I still believe it, that at bottom, no matter how partisan we get in our political debates, the American people stay to a certain center. If you look at the perseverance we had over many years of the Cold War, in spite of some pretty fierce policy debates, the United States really did stay the course. I think I did a pretty good job, maybe not of convincing him completely, but convincing him that we were with the people of Iraq until they succeeded.
I think this Madrid Conference sends a message that it's not just the United States. It's 70 countries in the world. And the fact that Najaf is now under the direction of a Spanish brigade with a Polish commander probably sends a good message.
But I have to tell you that when they hear the message that we might not be there next year they get very scared, and that fear leads them not to give us information about where the bad people are. It leads them not to want to serve on the town councils. It leads them not to want to risk their lives as policemen.
There are thousands of Iraqis right now who are risking their lives for future freedom for that country, and I think it would be good if they got an unequivocal message of support from this country. Thank you. [Applause]
Wolfowitz: [...] The truth is that for reasons that have a lot to do with the U.S. government bureaucracy we settled on the one issue that everyone could agree on which was weapons of mass destruction as the core reason, but -- hold on one second --In other words, had it not been for the issue of weapons of mass destruction (which we still haven't found any evidence of) and Saddam's links to terrorism (which even Wolfowitz acknowledges were the subject of strong disagreement), it wouldn't have been worth sacrificing our soldiers just to free the Iraqi people from Saddam's tyranny.(Pause)
Kellems: Sam there may be some value in clarity on the point that it may take years to get post-Saddam Iraq right. It can be easily misconstrued, especially when it comes to --
Wolfowitz: -- there have always been three fundamental concerns. One is weapons of mass destruction, the second is support for terrorism, the third is the criminal treatment of the Iraqi people. Actually I guess you could say there's a fourth overriding one which is the connection between the first two. Sorry, hold on again.
Kellems: By the way, it's probably the longest uninterrupted phone conversation I've witnessed, so --
Q: This is extraordinary.
Kellems: You had good timing.
Q: I'm really grateful.
Wolfowitz: To wrap it up.
The third one by itself, as I think I said earlier, is a reason to help the Iraqis but it's not a reason to put American kids' lives at risk, certainly not on the scale we did it. That second issue about links to terrorism is the one about which there's the most disagreement within the bureaucracy, even though I think everyone agrees that we killed 100 or so of an al Qaeda group in northern Iraq in this recent go-around, that we've arrested that al Qaeda guy in Baghdad who was connected to this guy Zarqawi whom Powell spoke about in his UN presentation.
Does that mean he would be happier if Saddam were still in power?
Also from the dead bird boys comes word of the Federation of American Scientiests Project on Government Secrecy. It's a great resource on information on what the government is trying to keep hidden.
Via the Dead Parrot Society comes a very interesting piece by David Finley on the poor management of the White House website including unnecessary duplicates of many documents, at least 2 documents that are very difficult to find (one of which is the actual transcript from Bush May 1 address aboard the USS Abraham Lincoln), some odd little modifications and some comments on the robots.txt file (which, according to Keith Spurgeon, who originally discovered the problem, has now been corrected).
"Revisionist" insiders at work on the White House web site?Check out the whole thing. It's a bit on the tech-y side, but it's still very interesting - and in a few places a bit amusing. As David says:
Or - How NOT to Run a Web Site
Based on recent reports that access to some documents on the White House web site for indexing by search engines was being blocked, I undertook an investigation of the matter, and found that the situation with White House online documents is actually far worse than was previously thought.Short Summary
In this "digital age", the White House online public documents could be the primary, authoritative record of public information released by the Executive Branch. Those documents should be managed in such a way that their historical integrity is transparently verifiable by the public to whom those documents are addressed.However, the document management system that has been put in place by this White House involves changing a substantial portion of the source documents on at least a monthly basis, completely unnecessarily, in order to update unrelated information that is displayed on each page along with the original source material.
Whether by design, or as merely an unintended consequence, the White House has thereby made it extremely difficult for those who value truth and integrity to determine the extent to which this administration, that has shown reckless disregard for truth and integrity, has been changing its own written record as it goes along.
The Federal budget has tanked; Afghanistan is a basket case; Iraq is a terrible, expensive, and lethal disaster; the different parts of the Bush regime are engaged in internecine combat to the finish -- why should we expect the White House web site to be anything but a mess?
What has long been the largest unsolved serial murder case in America is now one step closer to being solved. The BBC is reporting that Gary Ridgeway, 54, will admit to being the "Green River Killer" and plead guilty to 48 counts of murder in exchange for a life sentence, rather than being put to death.
The Green River case is one that has long fascinated me. I have no idea why, but I've always had a thing for reading about true crimes - serial killers in particular. I don't like to read things from the killer's perspective or that paint them as some kind of folk hero - instead, I prefer the kind of true crime books that look at the crime and the psychology of the criminal - including what might have gone wrong that allowed him to choose to become a killer - but do so without trying to create sympathy for the bastards.
But back to the Green River case. I had lived in Seattle from the mid- to late- 80's, during a time when the case was still getting some publicity. I remember one night there was a large-scale search being done at the home of a suspect, which, sadly, didn't lead to anything at the time. Even after leaving Seattle, I've keep an ear out for updates on the case and was quite pleased when Ridgeway was arrested. I had long ago given up hope that the culprit would be caught.
I think, for me, one of the most fascinating aspects of this case is that Ridgeway had been a suspect back in the 80's, and in 1987, the police had him bite down on a swab to get a sample of his saliva - and 14 years later, that sample was matched to DNA taken from the victims, and Ridgeway was arrested. Whoever had the foresight to save that sample deserves to be given a medal - because that was the key that finally unlocked the mystery.
I'm sure many people are quite disappointed that Ridgeway will be allowed to live out his full life - whatever that may be - rather than being killed by the state, but as much as I think he deserves to die for what he did, being able to get a confession - giving that final knowledge to the victims' families that their loved ones' killer has been caught, and the certainty that Ridgeway will be punished for his crimes (since there is always a bit of uncertainty in any rial situation) make it a wise decision on the part of the prosecutors. The rest of his life won't be pleasant, and, I suspect, it may not be long. Prisons aren't always known to be hospitable places to notorious criminals - look at Father Geoghan and Jeffery Dalhmer for examples of that.
So, tonight, I raise my horn to Tyr, for seeing to it that a measure of his justice has been meted out after all these many years, and to the many men and women who have carried the burden of this case for so long, and who have built it strong enough that Ridgeway decided it was wiser to confess than try to fight the charges in court. Hail!
I posted earlier about Ed Gillespie's desire to "review" the upcoming miniseries "The Reagans" that CBS is preparing to air, to ensure that it is "historically accurate."
Michigan Congressman John Dingell (D) decided that he, too, feels the movie should be historically accurate, and sent the following letter to CBS with a few helpful suggestions of what someone should include.
Dear Mr. Moonves:I certainly hope that Mr. Moonves will take Rep. Dingell up on his suggestion, and I would agree that these are important facts that need to be presented for the Reagan story to be complete.I write to you with regard to your upcoming mini-series "The Reagans." I share the concerns expressed by others that it may not present an accurate depiction of the Reagan administration and America during the 1980s. I trust that CBS will not be a party to a distorted presentation of American history, and that the mini-series will present a fair and balanced* portrayal of the Reagans, the 1980s and their legacy.
As someone who served with President Reagan, and in the interest of historical accuracy, please allow me to share with you some of my recollections of the Reagan years that I hope will make it into the final cut of the mini-series: $640 Pentagon toilets seats; ketchup as a vegetable; union busting; firing striking air traffic controllers; Iran-Contra; selling arms to terrorist nations; trading arms for hostages; retreating from terrorists in Beirut; lying to Congress; financing an illegal war in Nicaragua; visiting Bitburg cemetery; a cozy relationship with Saddam Hussein; shredding documents; Ed Meese; Fawn Hall; Oliver North; James Watt; apartheid apologia; the savings and loan scan
I hope you find these facts useful in accurately depicting President Reagan's time in office.
*Copyright and Trademark of Fox News Corporation
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| <-- ? In MY Opinion # --> | ||||||||||
| « # blogshares ? » | ||||||||||
| « # Scorpio ? » | ||||||||||
| < # Blogrollers ? > | ||||||||||
| < ? six degrees # > | ||||||||||
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| domain whore | ||||||||||
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Are you a  ? Domain . Addict # |
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)O(
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