An open letter to Charlie Gibson and George Stephanapoulos

And it is a good one:

You implied throughout the broadcast that you wanted to reflect the concerns of voters in Pennsylvania. Well, I'm a Pennsylvanian voter, and so are my neighbors and most of my friends and co-workers. You asked virtually nothing that reflected our everyday issues -- trying to fill our gas tanks and save for college at the same time, our crumbling bridges and inadequate mass transit, or the root causes of crime here in Philadelphia. In fact, there almost isn't enough space -- and this is cyberspace, where room is unlimited -- to list all the things you could have asked about but did not, from health care to climate change to alternative energy to our policy toward China to the deterioration of Afghanistan to veterans' benefits to improving education. You ignored virtually everything that just happened in what most historians agree is one of the worst presidencies in American history, including the condoning of torture and the trashing of the Constitution, although to be fair you also ignored the policy concerns of people on the right, like immigration issues.

You asked about gun control -- phrased to try for a "gotcha" in a state where that's such a divisive issue -- but not about what we really care about, which is how to reduce crime. You pressed and pressed on those capital gains taxes, but Senators Clinton and Obama were forced to bring up the housing crisis on their own initiative.

Instead, you wasted more than half of the debate -- a full hour -- on tabloid trivia that for the most part wasn't even that interesting, because most of it was infertile ground that has already been covered again and again and again. I'm not saying that Rev. Wright and Bosnia sniper fire and "bitter" were never newsworthy -- I myself wrote about all of these for the Philadelphia Daily News or my Attytood blog, back when they were more relevant -- but the questions were stale yet clearly intended to gin up controversy (they didn't, by the way, other than the controversy over you.) The final questions of that section, asking Obama whether he thought Rev. Wright "loved America" and then suggesting that Obama himself is somehow a hater of the American flag, or worse, were flat-out repulsive.

Are you even thinking when simply echo some of the vilest talking points from far-right talk radio? What are actually getting at -- do you honestly believe that someone with a solid track record as a lawmaker in a Heartland state which elected him to the U.S. Senate, who is now seeking to make some positive American history as our first black president, is somehow un-American, or unpatriotic? Does that even make any sense? Question his policies, or question his leadership. because that is your job as a journalist. But don't insult our intelligence by questioning his patriotism.

An amazing list of issues never raised. I have suggested (almost tongue-in-cheek) that while campaign finance reform may be unworkable, perhaps we could work on some debate reform where we force the candidates to answer real questions about their job. The fact that Obama's lapel pin is still a subject for, well, anyone, is ludicrous.

Oops

One book from the 90s suggests that Hillary Clinton had a much different take on Southern working class whites In 1995:

"In January 1995, as the Clintons were licking their wounds from the 1994 congressional elections, a debate emerged at a retreat at Camp David. Should the administration make overtures to working class white southerners who had all but forsaken the Democratic Party? The then-first lady took a less than inclusive approach.

'Screw 'em,' she told her husband. 'You don't owe them a thing, Bill. They're doing nothing for you; you don't have to do anything for them.'"

Even more interesting and oddly making Bill look good (in my mind) is his followup:

I know how you feel. I understand Hillary's sense of outrage. It makes me mad too. Sure, we lost our base in the South; our boys voted for Gingrich. But let me tell you something. I know these boys. I grew up with them. Hardworking, poor, white boys, who feel left out, feel that our reforms always come at their expense. Think about it, every progressive advance our country has made since the Civil War has been on their backs. They're the ones asked to pay the price of progress. Now, we are the party of progress, but let me tell you, until we find a way to include these boys in our programs, until we stop making them pay the whole price of liberty for others, we are never going to unite our party, never really going to have change that sticks.

Of course, that last one sounds remarkably like Obama, and is what Hillary 2008 would call elitist and patronizing.

One of Sully's readers on elitism

The Daily Dish | By Andrew Sullivan

My background: I'm an educated centrist, and as it were, gun-owner and sometime duck hunter.
On the 'elitist' debate: I've been amused to see the likes of Bill Kristol, Roger Kimball and Rich Lowry and other conservative commentators so incredibly desperate in their efforts to convince people like me that we're being looked down upon by Obama -- a black guy raised by a single mom who worked as an organizer among the poor of Chicago, etc. etc.
I personally don't feel in the least that Obama is an elitist. Rather, I feel the elitists are those highly educated, inside-the-beltway weenies like Kristol, the bow-tie wearing Kimball, the UVA grad and prepster Lowry who are tripping over themselves to tell me how offended I ought to feel when I know damn well I'm not offended. Id be shocked if Roger Kimball, Lowry or God knows Bill Kristol know the first thing about hunting ducks, or if they could survive ten minutes in a cold duck blind before dawn, the artery-clogging breakfast that follows or the round of beer and whiskey drinking that goes on the night before.

In my opinion, listening to these folks go on and on about how offended I should be makes me feel a hell of a lot more condescended to than hearing some single throw-away line at a fundraiser. Obama said his thing once; these wankers won't shut up. It's as if they think I'm too stupid to figure things out for myself, so they can't miss an opportunity to tell me how I've been slighted. Well sorry, weenies -- I just don't feel slighted, and that's because I'll be damned if I'm going to pick a president based on a stupid gaffe when there is a war going on and when the economy is going in the shitter. These guys must really think I'm a moron.

It is funny to see wealthy, elitist Republicans chiding a guy who grew up with his single mom. Of course, this is from the same people who said that Bush was a war hero and John Kerry a draft dodging hippie.

On some things, we have made some progress...

I hope. Here is a sexist commercial from the past courtesy of Boing Boing.

Idiots and morons

No, not the Bush admin, though they do qualify, but rather our press corps. Sadly, No! is "about to lose it" after reading Chris Cillizza's take on the Obama stupidity.

Critical mass has been reached. “Bitter” and “cling” will forever be tied to Sen. Barack Obama (Ill.) in the same way that “Tuzla” and “the laugh” will always evoke Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton (N.Y.) when a political junkie thinks of the 2008 Democratic race.

Brad, at Sadly, No! responds:

Goddammit, I hate our press corps. I have never in my life seen a such a large collection of catty, shallow and gossipy pieces of garbage. Instead of, say, talking about health care, gas prices, inflation, the Iraq war or the environment, these useless gasbags waste our time finding the most idiotic and petty anecdotes to spread around, all while dutifully handing John Effing McCain boxes of donuts. Do I really give a rat’s ass about how Hillary Clinton laughs? Are you serious?"

That is the nature of our press corps. Stupid, and ridiculously following the inconsequential and trivial rather than the substantive. Can Obama bowl? Is he "black enough?"

****

Jon Stewart had a great take on the whole "bitter" issue last night, and really pointed out how silly and destructive this political fear of "elitism" has become. Fear of elitism, according to Hillary, cost both John Kerry and Al Gore the presidency. And I think she is right. Think how many people voted for Bush because he seemed a "regular guy." Give me a break. As Jon said last night, "hey, if you don't think you are better than us, what the f*ck are you doing?" I know a lot of people who are very nice people, who I like personally, who I drink beer or coffee with. But none of them are qualified to lead our country.

Seriously, anyone who votes for the next President because they think the candidate is just like everyone else in the country--is AN IDIOT! How about we choose our leaders based on their ability and try to elevate the "best and the brightest" and then watch them like a hawk? Instead of electing the mentally challenged and giving them carte blanche. Talk about monumentally stupid.

I will say this about Bush. Clinton's (both of them) over the last few months have more than excused everyone who voted for Bush in 2000. They are insufferable and I now remember just how tired of them I was at the time, and how frustrated I was with the constant spinning and politicizing of so many issues.

But 2004 is a different issue. And we are paying the cost of this monumental stupidity. Deregulated industry and economy. Actually, Bush doesn't deregulate, he just appoints more monumentally stupid people to oversee critical areas like the housing market or aviation safety or mine safety and makes sure that no actual oversight occurs. But however you count it, in year 8 of his presidency, we are in 2 wars with no end in sight; 3 trillion dollars in debt and no end in sight; our social safety net shattered; our regulatory agencies gutted; our Justice Department packed with Pat Robertson clones, etc.

And our idiot press corps cares more about one phrase in a speech than all of that.

Congressman apologizes, still doesn't seem to get the point

TPM Election Central | Talking Points Memo |: "'My poor choice of words is regrettable and was in no way meant to impugn you or your integrity,' Davis wrote in a letter that was delivered to Obama's Senate office. 'I offer my sincere apology to you and ask for your forgiveness.'"

Congressman, your offense was more than "impugning his integrity," and you should know that.

No, race is not a problem any more, no sir!

And certainly not in the Republican party.

Talking Points Memo | Hmmmm: "Rep. Geoff Davis (R-KY) on Obama: 'I'm going to tell you something: That boy's finger does not need to be on the button. He could not make a decision in that simulation that related to a nuclear threat to this country.'"

Holy Shit! In 2008, a Republican congressman refers to an African American US Senator as "boy."

The Torture President

I know this is nothing new on this blog, but it is still amazing how involved this President has been in the torture of others. As many have noted, it was rather shocking last week to find that the President's top advisors met in the White House in meetings chaired by Condi Rice, and attended by Cheney, Powell, Ashcroft and others to discuss individual torture techniques and to approve them. Shocking enough, that, but then Bush admitted to Marth Raddatz that he not only knew of the meetings and what went on in them, he approved.

"Anthony Lewis writes in the New York Review of Books (subscription required): 'In these last weeks of turbulent events, the single most significant has not been the financial crisis, not the fall of a governor, not the passing of the fifth year of the war without end in Iraq. It has been an American president's formal blessing of the use of torture.

'That was what President Bush did in early March when he vetoed legislation prohibiting the use of brutal methods of interrogation by American intelligence agents. His action was quickly overtaken by other news. But in its redefinition of American values--of the American character--it had profound implications.

'I grew up believing that Americans did not torture prisoners, as Hitler's and Stalin's agents did. There were rogue episodes of American brutality, but to make torture a national policy? Unthinkable.

'No one should be in any doubt that torture was what President Bush had in mind. No one should be fooled by Orwellian talk of 'enhanced interrogation techniques.' . . .

'George W. Bush can seek his God's mercy for trying to legitimize torture by Americans. But here on earth he cannot escape judgment. For me he will always be the Torture President.'"

I agree. He will always be that in my mind as well.

Monday morning annoyances

First, let me say that I am really annoyed by the Clinton, Rove and McCain response to Obama's speech last week where the Illinois senator suggested that small town America was "bitter" because of lost opportunities and declining jobs. Hillary Clinton jumped on it as "elitist," but had no such objection when Obama noted that "fire was hot" and "gravity makes things fall." Ok, I made that last part up, but it might as well be true. Obama spoke the truth, and Hillary knows that. As many have noted, her husband said the same essential thing back in 1991. Sure, Obama most likely misspoke or could have stated it better. He isn't perfect. But the response from the Clintons to act in Rovian style is disheartening.

****

Saw this story over at Mainstream Baptist. I have not been a Southern Baptist now for many, many years, but my past affiliation seems hard to completely drop. Even after the organization turned into a clapping factory for George W. Bush and to this day, as far as I know, has yet to take a stance against the administration's torture policy. Oh, and then there was the year they demanded that women get back to beings submissive... and the year they invited Condi Rice to speak and cheered loudly at news of a dead terrorist....

But Ethics Daily has this bit on how Richard Land (once of the worst comb-over in American history) was criticizing the new Baptist organization of being partisan. How dare they, he asked, when the SBC is clearly the most partisan, most whore-like for the GOP? Ok, he didn't actually ask that, but he might as well have. The new baptist organization (which I am not joining either, mind you) has not taken a political stance, but has invited a lot of Democrats to speak. They invited people like Huckabee as well, but I think inviting Democrats to speak is the original sin. I still remember hearing people ask (honestly) if there was such a thing as a "Christian democrat." And in 1998, Land said that the denomination wanted a close relationship with the GOP:

''The go-along, get-along strategy is dead,'' Land told the New York Times discussing the GOP in 1998. ''No more engagement," he said. "We want a wedding ring. We want a ceremony. We want a consummation of the marriage.''

I think someone who wanted the SBC to become a wholly owned subsidiary of the Republican party is in any position to criticize any other religious organization for "politicizing religion."

***

Interesting side note from the same piece was a discussion Land had about the SBC and poverty. He claims that the SBC gives nearly 75 cents of every dollar to alleviating suffering. Ethics Daily suggests that those numbers are not exactly right:

While 72.79 percent of the current Cooperative Program budget--the name for the SBC's unified giving plan--does go to world mission ministries, just $8 million of nearly $290 million received by the International Mission Board in 2006-2007 was designated for hunger and relief. The North American Mission Board spent $1.2 million on disaster relief out of a budget of $125 million.

Interesting.

This is a good thing

In two ways. First, renaming a peak called "Squaw Peak" seems a good thing, in this day and age, and way too late. And then the person they chose to honor.

"A federal agency with dominion over such things has renamed it Piestewa Peak, in honor of Lori Piestewa, who became the first Native American woman to die in combat as a member of the U.S. military when she was killed in Iraq in 2003."

Piestewa was killed in the same hostile action where Jessica Lynch was captured. All of the attention was lavished on the white girl capitve, and ignored the service and sacrifice of Piestewa. Ignored, that is, except by Lynch who referred to Lori Piestewa as the true hero of that day, and later named her daughter in memory of Lori.

Saturday

I am tired this morning and glad it is Saturday. I need to do some grading but don't want to. So there.

I have been busy with a project. I might say more about that later. But it means that I am not as up on the news as I have been. I only noted that Dick Cheney was in Grand Junction, Colorado to raise money for a Senate candidate. It is hard to imagine the place where Cheney is remotely popular. After all, his approval ratings hover in the low 20s.

And the guy he is fundraising for? TPM notes that he is from the Abramoff mode and seems to think that sweatshops and forced abortion might be a good model, to say nothing about slave labor:

"When Republican Senate candidate Bob Schaffer freely offered earlier this week that the Northern Mariana Islands, notorious for human rights abuses and sweatshops, were a great model for a nationwide guest worker program, it seemed to be coming out of the blue. But a look at Schaffer's time in the House (where he represented Colorado's 4th District from 1997 through 2003) shows that he was one of the most reliable allies for the islands, which were represented for most of that time by lobbyist Jack Abramoff.

The Denver Post reported today on a trip Schaffer took to the islands in August of 1999. The trip was nominally funded by the Traditional Values Coalition, though like all the other junkets to the islands, it was really organized by Abramoff."

Seriously. Can the Republican party nominate anyone who doesn't with one hand quote the bible and with the other advocate the worst human behavior?

****

But this made me smile.



From Boing Boing, the coolest spoon and bowl set I have ever seen.

:)

Are the Olympics relevant?

Honestly, I don't know. Though I end up watching some of the games, I have lost a great deal of interest. The games seem to have lost much meaning. On the athletic front, they were the rarified air where obscure sports specialists practiced their craft or even mainstream competitors got to play at a international level. But now? Tennis players compete in international competitions every day. And each year, we are given some "sport" like snowboarding or motocross bikes or trampoline.

But the great olympic moments of the past have been deeply connected to the cold war, and when that ended, the games degenerated into just another sporting event. Worse, they degenerated into a huge orgy of consumption and advertising, complete with idiot coverage that injects "drama" into every moment. Well, every moment about American athletes. Who can forget the "rivalry" between the American and Australian swim teams? Yawn.

But this year is different. Because of China's horrible human rights record, people around the world are protesting even the movement of the olympic torch. I don't recall the torch being news before. (Note, China responds to complaints about human rights from the US by pointing to Iraq and Guantanamo.) Some are angry about the protests, like this writer from the Dakotas:

"But the Olympics shouldn’t be about politics. The games should offer a chance to put all of those worries and troubles aside, if only for a few weeks every four years.

President Bush feels the same way. A spokesman last week said “the president’s position about the Olympics has been that this is not a political event, but a chance for athletes to compete at the top of their class.”"

Of course, citing the President ALWAYS helps strengthen an argument, but the underlying sentiment is simply ridiculous. The Olympics have always been about politics, and even importantly so. Without the Cold War, the "miracle on ice" was just another hockey game. Watching Paris erupt over the flame brought out conflicted feelings. One was a sense of complicity, that my government has become rather blase about repression of human rights and so connected to China's economy that we cannot really speak our minds and values. The other was a sense of interest for the first time--that the Olympics were once again going to make people (perhaps) more important than the Pepsi sponsorship.

The President could not be more wrong (again). This is a perfect time and place to talk about politics.

Ah, religion and stupidity.

Sorry, but that was the first thing that came to mind when I saw that Mike Huckabee intends to form another religious right political organization. I can almost see the motto now: "because truth has a well known liberal bias." Huckabee promises first to fight evolution on every front and then to turn his attention to gravity believers. "After all, gravity is unprovable as well. If God wants to raise people off the ground, he can do so despite what science has to say."

Ok, I mad all of that up--except Huckabee forming this new organization. My second thought, of course, was "wow, that is what this country really needs. Another religious right organization. We are so much better off because of the 25 we have now."

Sigh.

Had lunch today with Anglican (no, he doesn't make me think of religion and idiocy) and while waiting for him read letters to the editor on the Sally Kern issue. You remember that she received some flack for comparing homosexuality to cancer and said "I honestly think it’s the biggest threat even, that our nation has, even more so than terrorism or Islam, which I think is a big threat, OK.” She also suggested that Christianity is the favored religion in our country by design--even though the constitution doesn't pick and choose.

What struck me about the responses was the common refrain that I have grown to really dislike from conservative Christians. It goes something like this: "your problem isn't with Sally Kern, it is with God. All she did was quote the Bible."

Never mind that I object to that being a trump card. As I have said on more than a few occasions, with all due respect, I don't need a Bible verse to tell me that racism is evil or that women are equal.

But what bothers me even more about that refrain or retort, is that it is patently disingenuous and really dishonest. If all Sally Kern said was that she believed that homosexuality was immoral, she would be within some boundaries of reasonable people reading the Bible (and basing their moral stance there). But she said compared it to a physical cancer and said it was more dangerous than Islam. (Not "radical Islam," mind you, but Islam, period. So she is a religious bigot as well). But even if we overlooked the anti-muslim speech, when her defenders invoke the Bible and "God's word" to defend her, they are clearly not being honest. Unless there are verses about Islam and the "homosexual agenda" in the Bible.

No, Mr. and Mrs. Bible Thumper, our problem is not with God. It is with how you interpret her and pretend the Creator shares your personal beliefs. I would respect you a lot more if you didn't hide behind the Bible and blame your bigotry on God. Stand up and admit that you are afraid of homosexuality and you don't know one way or another how the Creator of the Universe stands on the issue. Because you don't.

Heh

The Daily Dish | By Andrew Sullivan: "'In a move that's sure to be seen as controversial, Hillary has contacted the NCAA Board of Directors to argue that Memphis is actually better qualified to be National Champion.

Ms. Clinton stated that Memphis, while losing the game, had actually shown more ability to act like a National Champion on Day One. She argued that Memphis had passed every test during the game, including scoring more points than Kansas for 38 minutes. For 38 minutes they had shown the experience necessary to be National Champion. 'Just because some team comes along in the last minute and scores more points than the other guy doesn't mean they're necessarily able to be National Champion on Day One,'' - DPolitico.

As if I wasn't in bad enough mood

I read this great synopsis of Pat Robertson's sleaze. He is just one reason I distrust Christians who claim to know what God thinks about anything. In this case, surprise, surprise, God always agrees with Pat and wanted him to be very rich and powerful.

All I can say is that if true, God went from seeking leaders like Moses to trolling for the absolute scum of the earth.

Somehow I don't think that is the case, but try telling that to all the millions who either turn to the idiot for advice or send him money.

Your favorite book(s)?

My earlier snarky post on the Bible as America's favorite book elicited some great responses from Anglican and Jessika, and actually spurred me to think a little more about it. To a certain degree, I suspect that Jessika is correct, that a great many people choose the Bible because they think it makes them sound righteous. But it could also be, as Anglican notes, that people don't actually read much and so can only think of a few. Perhaps I am too hard on them. But in compiling my own list, I must say that the Bible is no where to be found. I respect the wisdom and lessons, but would have to say that it is not my favorite read. Sorry.

Part of the problem is the vague idea of "favorite book." Favorite what kind? In fiction, my tastes run from thoroughly enjoying what my brother calls "plane trash" or quick reads by Robert Parker or David Baldacci. I also love the Stephen Hunter "sniper series." For a little more serious fare, I love the James Lee Burke "Dave Robicheaux" series and think they are among the best detective fiction ever written. I also think Jon Krakauer's books are fantastic. For slightly better fiction, Michael Malone's "Cuddy and Justin" series are really smart and thoughtful. I reread them often.

Favorite history book? There are many that impress me. William Cronon's Nature's Metropolis and Gordon Wood's Creation of the American Republic still rank as two of the most impressive books I have ever read. Richard White's book on the Columbia river, Paul Boyer's When Time Shall Be No More, Stephen Prothero's American Jesus and the oft mentioned Mark Noll Scandal of the Evangelical Mind are on the short list. Tony Horowitz's Confederates in the Attic and Susan Faludi's Stiffed are also high on my list.

Over the years, the books that have probably changed me the most were those like Hemingway's Old Man and the Sea, Lee's To Kill a Mockingbird (I did read that several times) and Alex Haley's Autobiography of Malcolm X. Those all challenged me at some fundamental level.

So, what are your favorite books? And why?

Before I forget, a great post on better sleep

Lifehacker Top 10: Top 10 Ways to Sleep Smarter and Better

Bible is America's favorite book--yay!

I am going to have to call bullshit on this one. Seriously? I am not doubting that a good many Americans read the Bible, but it is their favorite book? Do they love the lesser respected version that says that torture is cool? Or the one that urges believers to support warfare and ignore the poor and the environment?

Let's just say I am cynical about this. Of course, it doesn't help America's case when their next favorite book list includes "Gone with the Wind" and "The Da Vinci Code." At least Harper Lee made the list.

Just annoying

Sarah notes two stories where AmeriChristians attack atheists as either dangerous or, in the mind of one church sign, nonexistent. These people make Christianity look really, really, really bad.

Rep. Monique Davis (D-Chicago) interrupted atheist activist Rob Sherman during his testimony Wednesday afternoon before the House State Government Administration Committee in Springfield and told him, “What you have to spew and spread is extremely dangerous . . . it’s dangerous for our children to even know that your philosophy exists!

“This is the Land of Lincoln where people believe in God,” Davis said. “Get out of that seat . . . You have no right to be here! We believe in something. You believe in destroying! You believe in destroying what this state was built upon.”

Sigh.

One reason we are a torture nation

Because the right, as exemplified by a Weekly Standard Editor thinks it is just fine, in a blog post entitled "Torture Yoo Can Believe In." Clever and witty, because Torture is a point of humor for them, not concern:

I haven't really been following this issue, mostly because I'm pretty sure that whatever the government is doing to these terrorists wouldn't 'shock my conscience.' Like my man Scalia says, sometimes you're going to have to take these terrorists and 'smack them in the face.' But, some folks are more easily shocked than I am, and they are in full moral outrage mode this morning with the release of a 2003 memo by John Yoo (now a professor at Berkeley!) approving 'harsh interrogation techniques.' Oh, the humanity!"

Translation: "Whatever my conservative government does in my name is fine, and I won't worry that they might have tortured innocent Iraqis and turned them into terrorists, because we are righteous and good, even when we dunk detainees in freezing water."

No wonder Bush hasn't fretted the public opinion consequences of torture. His base loves it, and if anything, wants more of it.

Sigh.

Interesting read on the rise of neoconservatism

This book review suggests that we can blame individual neocons like Wolfowitz and Perle all we want, but we will have to acknowledge that the roots lie in the American public's penchant for a good v. evil world where America, of course, is purely good. Not addressing that issue, the writer suggests, will not help us stop the next neocon war.

A must read on torture

From Vanity Fair, this expose of how our administration gave The Green Light to torture.

Sands suggests that the people involved are in real danger of war crimes if they ever step outside the country. What is more, they might be further undone by the very Military Commissions act intended to protect them. And it seems very, very, very clear that our government tortured detainees in our name.

Mohammed al-Qahtani is among the first six detainees scheduled to go on trial for complicity in the 9/11 attacks; the Bush administration has announced that it will seek the death penalty. Last month, President Bush vetoed a bill that would have outlawed the use by the C.I.A. of the techniques set out in the Haynes Memo and used on al-Qahtani. Whatever he may have done, Mohammed al-Qahtani was entitled to the protections afforded by international law, including Geneva and the torture convention. His interrogation violated those conventions. There can be no doubt that he was treated cruelly and degraded, that the standards of Common Article 3 were violated, and that his treatment amounts to a war crime. If he suffered the degree of severe mental distress prohibited by the torture convention, then his treatment crosses the line into outright torture. These acts resulted from a policy decision made right at the top, not simply from ground-level requests in Guantánamo, and they were supported by legal advice from the president’s own circle.
Those responsible for the interrogation of Detainee 063 face a real risk of investigation if they set foot outside the United States. Article 4 of the torture convention criminalizes “complicity” or “participation” in torture, and the same principle governs violations of Common Article 3.
It would be wrong to consider the prospect of legal jeopardy unlikely. I remember sitting in the House of Lords during the landmark Pinochet case, back in 1999—in which a prosecutor was seeking the extradition to Spain of the former Chilean head of state for torture and other international crimes—and being told by one of his key advisers that they had never expected the torture convention to lead to the former president of Chile’s loss of legal immunity. In my efforts to get to the heart of this story, and its possible consequences, I visited a judge and a prosecutor in a major European city, and guided them through all the materials pertaining to the Guantánamo case. The judge and prosecutor were particularly struck by the immunity from prosecution provided by the Military Commissions Act. “That is very stupid,” said the prosecutor, explaining that it would make it much easier for investigators outside the United States to argue that possible war crimes would never be addressed by the justice system in the home country—one of the trip wires enabling foreign courts to intervene. For some of those involved in the Guantánamo decisions, prudence may well dictate a more cautious approach to international travel. And for some the future may hold a tap on the shoulder.
“It’s a matter of time,” the judge observed. “These things take time.” As I gathered my papers, he looked up and said, “And then something unexpected happens, when one of these lawyers travels to the wrong place.”

Hmm. The voters should be respected in one, but not the other?

Hillary Clinton Asks Obama Pledged Delegates In North Dakota To Switch:

Sen. Hillary Clinton made a blunt appeal to North Dakota delegates to switch their support to her, despite the fact that Sen. Barack Obama handily defeated her in the state's caucus in February.

But...
As for Michigan and Florida?

Some say their votes should be ignored and the popular vote in Michigan and Florida should be discounted. Well, I have a different view," Clinton said at a rally here. "The popular vote in Florida and Michigan has already been counted. It was determined by election results, it was certified by election officials in each state, it's been officially tallied by the secretary of state in each state, and the question is whether those 2.3 million Democrats will be honored and their delegates seated by the Democratic party."

The vote should be honored unless it goes against Hillary?

Not impressive.

Saturday morning--Friday afternoon scare turns out well

This week was exhausting for both of us, and I think we are both glad to welcome a weekend. Yesterday proved to be even more stressful, when our dog Abbie got out of the backyard for at least 20 minutes. One of our neighbors down the street saw me as I was frantically looking for her and offered to help. As I was returning to the house to take the car looking for her, he found her under a bush across the busy street. I can't thank him enough for finding her.

We think the meter reader for the gas company left the gate open. I have watched them over the years do this. They come in one way, read the meter, and then climb over the fence to get into the neighbor's yard--usually with no regard either for the gate or for the fence. And I must say, the gas company has had the absolutely worst customer phone service over the years, and yesterday was no exception. She was churlish and hardly helpful. I have no real good faith that the gas company will tell their meter readers anything at all. We may move to reading that meter ourselves, and still allow the electric company to read. In contrast with the gas company, the electric people were very helpful and even apologetic for an incident they had not caused.

Reminds me of another gas company story. A few years ago, they replaced our meter and had to dig up part of the yard. In fairness, they did little damage to the yard, and it was more of an inconvenience than problem. But then they came and reconnected the gas and we did a quick check inside to see if the stove and water heater worked. 20 minutes later, however, I tried to take a shower only to find cold water. I called, and they said that since it had been working when the guy left, I would have to pay for a relighting visit. I believe I stuttered at that point and pointed out they had just dug up my back yard. Yes, she agreed, but then added, "but we aren't charging you for that."

Sigh.

****

We are shopping for a new camera, btw, and wonder if anyone has some suggestions. We like Canon, and are looking for a digital camera with 7 or so mp that is small and easy to carry around.

****

Couple of news items caught my eye. The first, is just a sad reminder of unintended consequences. I wonder if the conservative Christians who supported this war from the beginning realize that the war has made Iraq completely unsafe for Christians. Despite the horrors of Saddam, Christians were not persecuted under his rule. Now, Christian leaders are being killed. I hear very little from the conservative Christian segment about this.

*****

I have had several conversations about the press lately and am still amazed that so many conservatives just accept blindly the charge that the media is liberal. In one recent conversation, I kept pointing out the blind support from the media when the war was unfolding, and they seemed to agree with that, but somehow that didn't count now that the media was critical. And being critical, it seems, means reporting bad news from the war. That makes them liberal, I guess, and reminds me of Stephen Colbert's great line, "The truth has a well-known liberal bias."

A good take on this is from Greg Mitchell, who here relates his conversation with Bill Moyers from 5 years ago. His criticism of the media and the public is still timely.

"MOYERS: What do you think is stake for democracy and how we journalists cover this war?

MITCHELL: Edward R. Murrow had a quote on his wall in his office from Thoreau in which he said something like, 'To speak the truth, you need two people. One to speak it and one to hear it.' And I think that sums up the relationship not only between the military and the press but the press and the American people. You know, the press often is reporting factual matters. And the public sometimes turns away from it. We entered this war, with upwards of half the people in the country believing that Saddam Hussein was behind the 9/11 attack."

Yoo didn't even tell Ashcroft

Administration Asserted a Terror Exception on Search and Seizure - washingtonpost.com: "Retired Air Force Gen. Richard B. Myers, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff when the memo was written, said that he never saw the document authorizing harsh military interrogations and that its narrow definition of torture is 'absolutely ludicrous.'

'I frankly don't know anyone in the military who bought into that as a good definition of when you cross the line,' Myers said this week. 'In the end, you want to do the right thing. I worry most about reciprocity, how other countries will treat us.'

Neither the attorney general at the time, John D. Ashcroft, nor his deputy, Larry D. Thompson, were aware of the 81-page memo when it was written and sent to the Pentagon in March 2003, according to several former senior department officials. The Pentagon was told in December 2003 to disregard the legal advice in the memo after Justice Department lawyers raised objections.

The memo was written by John C. Yoo, then a deputy in the Justice Department's Office of Legal Counsel, who also wrote or co-wrote many of the key legal opinions that asserted an expansive view of presidential power in the Bush administration's early years. Now a California law professor, Yoo has defended his work as a 'near boilerplate' defense of presidential prerogatives and said subsequent criticism has been motivated by politics."

I knew it!

Daily caffeine "protects brain"

Wow, abstinence only really doesn't work--and other news

And as we have discussed, it is worse than not effective:

"A recent survey that found some Florida teens believe drinking a cap of bleach will prevent HIV and a shot of Mountain Dew will stop pregnancy has prompted lawmakers to push for an overhaul of sex education in the state.
The survey showed that Florida teens also believe that smoking marijuana will prevent a person from getting pregnant.
State lawmakers said the myths are spreading because of Florida's abstinence-only sex education, Local 6 reported.
They are proposing a bill that would require a more comprehensive approach, the report said.
It would still require teaching abstinence but students would also learn about condoms and other methods of birth control and disease prevention."

Sure glad that faith based sex ed has kids thinking about DRINKING BLEACH!

****

Oh, and I am guessing that some of these people are also included in this group of Missouri Baptists who think that the Confederate flag is godly.

****

Oh, the Bush admin seems to never find the bottom. Now this report from NPR says that our Justice department fired a very qualified attorney because she was gay. Her performance evals were always at the top, but this justice department fired her anyway. Of course, competence could easily be a problem for people who thought Gonzo was qualified to be AG.

****

And this guy has a radio show:

"[Y]ou have to understand the mindset of a lot of these feminists and women. They think they're owed this — just like Obama supporters think they're owed this. These women have paid their dues. They've been married two or three times; they've had two or three abortions; they've done everything that feminism asked them to do. They have cut men out of their lives; they have devoted themselves to causes and careers. And this — the candidacy of Hillary Clinton — is the culmination of all of these women's efforts. And if it gets stolen from them [by] a rookie, radical black guy who can't tell the time of day, they are going to be so miffed," - Rush Limbaugh.

Monumentally stupid keeps coming to mind this week.

***

But all is not lost. Fafnir explains "why we fight:"

Nothing less will stop the monster in the closet from allying with the boogeyman under the bed to form a sinister new Axis of Spooky
To gently massage foreign dictatorships into stable liberal democracies through the subtle and delicate eastern art of acubombing
All the older presidents an senators were all hangin out in the boys room an lookin cool an smokin cigarettes an passin around faulty pre-war intelligence an we just hadda invade
In solemn memory of that hypothetically terrible day when Saddam Hussein sent pretend terrorists to attack fictional buildings with weapons of mass imagination
We dared them, and then they double-dared us, and then we triple-dog-dared them, and if we say uncle now all the mullahs'll know we're chicken!
You wanna be president, you gotta pop at least one third-world country before you're parta the gang
If we stopped randomly blowing people up now, someone might think something's wrong with us.

More McCain as "maverick" nonsense

Crooks and Liars: Race For The White House: Scarborough Doesn’t Need No Stinkin’ Facts To Know McCain Is A MaverickAnd I love Rachel Maddow. Stands up to Joe here very well:

JS: He refused to tell Tim Russert that he made a mistake voting against—he was one of two Republicans that voted against Bush’s tax cuts. Conservatives will tell you that two things that Bush did right…

RM: And then he changed his mind about them, Joe.

JS: No, he hasn’t changed his mind.

RM: He says he wants them to be permanent now…

JS: He told Tim Russert on Meet the Press in New Hampshire when his life…political life was on the line that he made the right call. He was glad he voted against them.

RM: And now he wants them to be made permanent. He is…He’s pandering to the right and it defies the media happy talk that they like about John McCain…

JS: Okay …whatever…

RM: …but how else to do you explain going after the John Hagee endorsement, going after the Rod Parsley endorsement…

JS: Okay…You know what? Let’s see, let’s see…the Democrats…

RM:…changing his mind on torture, changing his mind on the tax cuts…

JS: Rachel… Good lord…

Who is as dumb as Sally Kern?

The SBC who flooded to OK to show support for someone so monumentally stupid that she thinks my gay friends are a bigger threat than terrorism. One further who says that this is a free speech issue.

Sigh.

Is it wrong to want to send this group money?

Check it out. The perfect legacy for this administration.

:)

Torture Memo--it is ok when we do it

Hard to read about John Yoo's horrible legal justification for torture and not think that is the upshot--torture is fine if we do it overseas, and as long as it is not done with "malice or sadism." Anything done to protect the country from an attack is ok in that logic.

And I, as a liberal, am the relative moralist.

Sigh.

Some good news

For some of us. Fafblog is back to save the universe.

Still the worst President we have ever had

In case anyone was checking.

And this is a good example of why. The other day, Bush took to the mound to throw out the ceremonial pitch for the Washington Nationals. Perhaps the best thing he has done in office, he threw the best pitch I have ever seen in that kind of situation. The guy has an arm.

But unfortunately, he was out of his town-hall setting and was widely booed. (Is it wrong that makes me chuckle?) But Froomkin's point here is a good one, that this guy rarely, if ever, allows himself to face the broad spectrum of the American people. I think he really doesn't consider himself my president. He only serves those steadily decreasing few who like him.

"Back during Bush's Social Security barnstorming, University of Texas political scientist Jeffrey K. Tulis noted: 'Certainly, in the past, presidential advance teams have on occasion taken steps to assure friendly audiences. It has not been uncommon for presidents to seek invitations to speak at friendly venues. But systematically screening audiences. . . . may be a new phenomenon, and one that the president should be asked to defend and justify in terms of his constitutional obligations.'"

****

Later, in the same piece, Froomkin notes the increasing problem of the "lame duck" president both overseas and at home. When asked about that, he compares himself to Truman, or Lincoln. Never, oddly enough, to Hoover or Andrew Johnson. Of course not. He wants desperately to believe that his administration has not been a total disaster.

"The problem is that Mr. Bush's legacy is unambiguously dismal. He is leaving the economy in worse shape than he found it, with an extra $4-trillion added to the national debt for good measure.

"He presided over a vast expansion, and abuse, of the powers of his office. The legacy of Guantanamo, torture and wiretaps will not soon be forgotten.

"The war on terror has had few tangible successes and many apparent failures. And elsewhere in foreign policy, the record has been bleak. . . .

I am still waiting for the GWOT successes, but that will wait for another time. But in the kindest take, the list of successes for this Presidency could be summarized in a text message. Easily.

"It is possible that posterity will be equally kind to Mr. Bush. But if you're going to compare yourself to Mr. Truman, it helps to have your own equivalent of the Marshall Plan, the containment policy against Russia, the formation of NATO, the defence of South Korea and desegregation of the armed forces on your résumé. What in the Bush legacy even comes close?"

McCain the Maverick. whatever

For those interested in voting for John McCain, you might want to read this list of how he has, er., evolved on policy issues. Oops. Can't say that in conservative circles. Hmm. How he has intelligently designed his answers, perhaps? Wait. That doesn't really work either unless he was told to change his positions by an intelligent creator. Or at least an intelligent, Karl Rove-like advisor. Or even Karl Rove.

Let's just call them flip flops and be done with it. Unless that only applies to Democrats. And some of his are real doozies. The very things that he used to justify his claim to be a "different kind of Republican" have been thrown under the "Straight Talk Express." Of course, we should have known that when the same man who denounced Jerry Falwell as an agent of intolerance, but then hugged the most ridiculous of the religious right. Notice, btw, how many times in this list he opposes his own legislation. Even as much as John Kerry might have deserved criticism, he didn't come close to this level of flip flopping.

Oh, but I am sure republicans don't mind, and I fear mostly don't mind because McCain is essentially 4 more years of Bush. If you like this last 8 year disaster, then buckle up. But for those who have told me that this last 8 years was an abject failure, or even suggested that it was time for a change, this may not be your guy.

Heh

Gene Kelly's widow takes umbrage at the Bush comparison:

"Re ''Soft Shoe in Hard Times'' (column, March 16):

Surely it must have been a slip for Maureen Dowd to align the artistry of my late husband, Gene Kelly, with the president's clumsy performances. To suggest that ''George Bush has turned into Gene Kelly'' represents not only an implausible transformation but a considerable slight. If Gene were in a grave, he would have turned over in it.

When Gene was compared to the grace and agility of Jack Dempsey, Wayne Gretzky and Willie Mays, he was delighted. But to be linked with a clunker -- particularly one he would consider inept and demoralizing -- would have sent him reeling.

Graduated with a degree in economics from Pitt, Gene was not only a gifted dancer, director and choreographer, he was also a most civilized man. He spoke multiple languages; wrote poetry; studied history; understood the projections of Adam Smith and John Maynard Keynes. He did the Sunday Times crossword in ink. Exceedingly articulate, Gene often conveyed more through movement than others manage with words.

Sadly, President Bush fails to communicate meaningfully with either. For George Bush to become Gene Kelly would require impossible leaps in creativity, erudition and humility.

Patricia Ward Kelly
Los Angeles, March 16, 2008"

She had me at "articulate."

Our president and 4,000 dead

We reached that bloody milestone this week. Hard to think about this war any longer. What a monstrous catastrophe this administration gave us--and gave us rather casually. We were told we would win easily--that we would be greeted as liberators--that the oil revenues would pay for the reconstruction. Now 800 billion later, 4,000 dead, and no end in sight.

Caught this from a C&L post about Dana Perino having to answer questions about how the President responds to these deaths. She assures us that he grieves each and every one, and stops and prays about that loss. He assures us that he is sleeping fine and has no regrets. MediaBloodhound chronicles the ways this President has shown little regret about those deaths--from his joking about WMD to this last announcement where the milestone found him cuddling up with the Easter Bunny.

As Edward M. Gomez pointed out in the San Francisco Chronicle:

Noted the British newspaper the Daily Express yesterday: "Bush larked about with a 6-[foot-tall] Easter Bunny yesterday [Sunday, March 23] as his troops mourned their 4000th death in Iraq. The grim milestone was reached after four U.S. servicemen were killed when their patrol in southern Baghdad was hit by a roadside bomb on Easter Sunday. The president was pictured hugging the [Easter Bunny] at the White House as children...took over the South Lawn for the [annual] Easter Egg Roll...."

The same post links to a stunning essay by E. L. Doctorow entitled, "The Unfeeling President" where he asks:

How then can he mourn? To mourn is to express regret and he regrets nothing. He does not regret that his reason for going to war was, as he knew, unsubstantiated by the facts. He does not regret that his bungled plan for the war's aftermath has made of his mission-accomplished a disaster.

But his opening speaks to the vast difference between this president and some who have carried this burden in the past:

I fault this president for not knowing what death is. He does not suffer the death of our 21-year-olds who wanted to be what they could be. On the eve of D-Day in 1944 General Eisenhower prayed to God for the lives of the young soldiers he knew were going to die. He knew what death was. Even in a justifiable war, a war not of choice but of necessity, a war of survival, the cost was almost more than Eisenhower could bear.

But this president does not know what death is. He hasn't the mind for it. You see him joking with the press, peering under the table for the weapons of mass destruction he can't seem to find, you see him at rallies strutting up to the stage in shirt sleeves to the roar of the carefully screened crowd, smiling and waving, triumphal, a he-man.

Brilliant!

Friday morning

Yesterday was pretty much a wash. Woke up with a mild fever and spent the day in bed. SOF had a similar experience on Tuesday, so I think we both had a 24 hour virus of some kind. As such things go, pretty mild. I just had a headache and felt tired.

But this morning, I feel better and am trying to get going. Unfortunately, that means reading the news this morning. Damn the internets. Life used to be easier when I had to wait for several days to learn that my country's leaders were inept and incompetent. Of course, it is hard to believe that any country's leaders have been this inept and this incompetent.

Item one on that list, (H/t to SOF) for this NYT's story on the destroyed CIA tapes. Turns out, they may have mucked up future and past legal cases. That's right, messed up cases against actual terrorists because they destroyed evidence. The article suggests that the only thing they may have accomplished was to destroy the evidence needed to charge someone for illegal torture (remember, there George? Torture is illegal?). Nice to know they are on our side.

****

But their prosecution of the war against sex continues. Feministe notes that with all the noise about Reverend Wright's wacky ideas about AIDS, the President nominated another person--Jerry Thacker--to the Presidential advisory on HIV and Aids, and a man who called AIDS a "gay plague." Thacker had to withdraw his nomination.

Of course, this President has done all sorts of things that are as wacky as Jeremiah Wright. You know, like appointing an anti-birth control doctor to his family planning program. Or of course, the obvious of continuing to fund "abstinence only" programs that don't work. Speaking of wacky and misleading statements, some of the pro-life groups that Bush likes to fund, spread horrible information about contraceptives and stds, such as that condoms do nothing to prevent HIV transmission, or that stds can be spread through "skin to skin" contact.

With all of that, the claim that the government spread AIDS on purpose looks wacky, but at least this man wasn't elected President.

****

Some good news from Bush justice. Don Siegelman will be released on bond during his appeal. That case stinks to high heaven and I am glad to see him out of jail.

*****

In other news, however, the surge appears to be faltering, though Bush uses the uptick in violence to suggest the opposite.

Meanwhile, military leaders told Bush the military is badly strained by this. I am less than optimistic it will result in any kind of action. Bush has done more to undermine our troops than any president in recent history, yet Republicans still get to claim they are "pro-troops."

****

Other news. Seems odd that the very same US Attorney's office of public corruption in LA has now been disbanded. After the US Att scandal and Don Siegelman, let's just say I approach this move with healthy skepticism.

*****

The Senate is investigating the bailout of Bear Stearns. On one hand, I think that these bailouts are necessary to keep our economy from cratering. But it goes against the conservative lie of "keeping government out of business" and is just ridiculous when we hear McCain and other Republicans talking about the poor and working class families needing to live with their bad decisions. If we are going to bail out the big guys, then we need to have some latitude for people who had less knowledge of their bad decision. As BB and WJ noted in the comments, I have no sympathy for those getting "interest only" loans to get a bigger house, or those speculating in the market. But those who barely qualified for their first house and are working hard to maintain that dream should not be punished for this.

*****

That is enough for this morning. Here is hoping that Friday is a good day for all of you, and that this day sees some rapprochement between the Clinton and Obama camps.

Some music for the mid week

I have previously groused about the grim prospects for new music this year. After last year's Wilco, Arcade Fire, New Pornographers, etc., I was looking at new releases by Kathleen Edwards and, well, nothing else. When I heard that Tift Merritt had a new album, my reaction was "eh." We saw her twice in Austin--the first time, she was electric and captivating; the second time, boring. Her first album was ok, but then really didn't have any legs.

But I heard some good buzz about her new album, and have always thought her voice was one of the more unique and beautiful in the business. When it showed up on Emusic, I downloaded it and it has been in my playlists often of late.

I particularly like this song. Enjoy. And let's hope that Wednesday is better than Tuesday this week. :)

Moral hazard

I think Bitebark will enjoy this column by Robert Reich. He suggests that conservatives claim "moral hazard" to avoid helping individual home owners who made bad decisions (how else will they learn?) yet are more than willing to bail out the large Wall Street firms who clearly knew better.

"It's true that people tend to be less cautious when they know they'll be bailed out. Economists call this 'moral hazard.' But even when they're being reasonably careful, people cannot always assess risks accurately. Many of the mostly poor home buyers who got into trouble did NOT in fact know they couldn't afford the mortgage payments they were signing on to. The banks and mortgage lenders that pulled out all the stops to persuade them to the contrary were in a far better position to know; after all, they had lots of experience at this game. So did the credit-rating agencies that gave these loans solid credit ratings, as did the financiers who bundled them with less-risky loans and sold them to other financial institutions, and the hedge fund managers who quietly tucked them into their portfolios."

Regular people are held to a different standard by conservatives. As Reich points out, Donald Trump can declare bankruptcy casually and protect his own personal fortune. Regular people now have a much harder time declaring bankruptcy. The people who clearly knew they were making bad loans get bailed out, while the sometimes ignorant or unlucky who took the loans are told to learn from their mistakes. I am so tired of conservatives.

Another Conservative for Obama

Andrew J. Bacevich suggests that Obama is a better choice for conservatism than McCain. True conservatism, he suggests, in the way of

a commitment to individual liberty, tempered by the conviction that genuine freedom entails more than simply an absence of restraint;

a belief in limited government, fiscal responsibility, and the rule of law;

veneration for our cultural inheritance combined with a sense of stewardship for Creation;

a reluctance to discard or tamper with traditional social arrangements;

respect for the market as the generator of wealth combined with a wariness of the market’s corrosive impact on humane values;

has fared poorly over the last 20 years:

"The presidency of George W. Bush illustrates the point. In 2001, President Bush took command of a massive, inefficient federal bureaucracy. Since then, he has substantially increased the size of that apparatus, which during his tenure has displayed breathtaking ineptitude both at home and abroad. Over the course of Bush’s two terms in office, federal spending has increased 50 percent to $3 trillion per year. Disregarding any obligation to balance the budget, Bush has allowed the national debt to balloon from $5.7 to $9.4 trillion. Worse, under the guise of keeping Americans “safe,” he has arrogated to the executive branch unprecedented powers, thereby subverting the Constitution. Whatever else may be said about this record of achievement, it does not accord with conservative principles."

Is this how conservatives see race?

I would have ignored this from Pat Buchanan except it sounds a lot like the rant Glen Reynolds linked to the other day about race.

First, America has been the best country on earth for black folks. It was here that 600,000 black people, brought from Africa in slave ships, grew into a community of 40 million, were introduced to Christian salvation, and reached the greatest levels of freedom and prosperity blacks have ever known.

Wright ought to go down on his knees and thank God he is an American.

Second, no people anywhere has done more to lift up blacks than white Americans. Untold trillions have been spent since the ’60s on welfare, food stamps, rent supplements, Section 8 housing, Pell grants, student loans, legal services, Medicaid, Earned Income Tax Credits and poverty programs designed to bring the African-American community into the mainstream.

Is this the way conservatives see race? That slavery, segregation, lynching, etc., were simply minor blips to offering great opportunities to African Americans?

Perhaps the best take on the Obama/Wright controversy

From Frank Schaeffer, the son of the late Francis Schaeffer:

"When Senator Obama's preacher thundered about racism and injustice Obama suffered smear-by-association. But when my late father -- Religious Right leader Francis Schaeffer -- denounced America and even called for the violent overthrow of the US government, he was invited to lunch with presidents Ford, Reagan and Bush, Sr.

Every Sunday thousands of right wing white preachers (following in my father's footsteps) rail against America's sins from tens of thousands of pulpits. They tell us that America is complicit in the "murder of the unborn," has become "Sodom" by coddling gays, and that our public schools are sinful places full of evolutionists and sex educators hell-bent on corrupting children. They say, as my dad often did, that we are, "under the judgment of God." They call America evil and warn of immanent destruction. By comparison Obama's minister's shouted "controversial" comments were mild. All he said was that God should damn America for our racism and violence and that no one had ever used the N-word about Hillary Clinton."

Saturday morning

Still recovering from the trip. That drive home is harder.

Love this story about the White House email problems. I am sure you remember that a computer expert called their system "primitive" and said that it was highly likely that data would be lost. Now we find out just how important that was to these people:

"Under pressure to provide details about its computer system, the White House told the congressional committee that it never completed work that began in 2003 on a planned records management and e-mail archiving system. The White House canceled the project in late 2006 and says it is still working on a new version."

I am sure they will have a plan in place for 1-20-09.

****

In other news, the Bush people seem to have rediscovered budget cuts. Spend a trillion dollars on two wars and no bid contracts? No problem. Provide educational opportunities that might allow people to escape poverty? No, sorry. No money for that.

****

Speaking of that war, according to Bush, Mission Accomplished. Again.

As Froomkin put it:

The supposed victory against bin Laden that Bush is celebrating is belied by the fact that al-Qaeda wasn't in Iraq before the invasion, that its Iraqi namesake is a mostly home-grown version with limited ties to bin Laden's organization, that the administration's own intelligence has concluded that the war has helped rather than hurt al-Qaeda -- and that bin Laden himself likely remains safely ensconced in Pakistan.

I love how this administration moves the goal posts. "Starting now, things are great and you can't criticize us for the past decisions" has been their mantra. Bush trumpets the surge and ignores the previous four years--the four years in which he stubbornly and churlishly refused to alter the course, fire Rummy, or even acknowledge problems in Iraq--because of his giant ego. In fact, he kept Rumsfeld on precisely because critics wanted him to go. And in doing so, cost how many American and Iraqi lives? And that is supposed to pass for leadership?

****

When Cheney was asked about the American people, he doesn't care what we think and that makes him just like Lincoln.

Raddatz: "Two-thirds of Americans say it's not worth fighting, and they're looking at the value gain versus the cost in American lives, certainly, and Iraqi lives."

Cheney: "So?"

Raddatz: "So -- you don't care what the American people think?"

Cheney: "No, I think you cannot be blown off course by the fluctuations in the public opinion polls. Think about what would have happened if Abraham Lincoln had paid attention to polls, if they had had polls during the Civil War. He never would have succeeded if he hadn't had a clear objective, a vision for where he wanted to go, and he was willing to withstand the slings and arrows of the political wars in order to get there."

Funny. I thought we were living in a democracy. I also remember this ass being more than willing to tout public support in the polls when it was on his side. Ass.

Back

Back. SOF and I left town last Sunday for a little skiing and cursing (most of the cursing was mine) and some great dinners with a nice group of families who let us in on their tradition. That is cool enough. The skiing was good and I went down a slope as steep as I have ever seen.

But for now, we are trying to unpack and catch up. Our motel promised wireless, but it was down all week. In many ways, I am glad, because it allowed for a more real vacation experience. But I had intended to inform more that we were on the road.

Today was spent driving and catching up on the news. I may need to read more, but it strikes me as extremely odd that Barack Obama is getting criticism for his pastor's criticism of America. Evidently, his pastor subscribes to some of the more ridiculous conspiracy theories about the government and Black America. Yeah. And John McCain's two spiritual advisors think God destroyed New Orleans because of the gays, and that America was founded to destroy Islam.

Oh, and one of his previous buddies from the religious right said that liberals and feminists allowed 9-11. Why is it that white idiots are not a political liability?

I will leave my bright blog friends to answer that. I am off to finish some dinner. Hope you are all well.

This explain much but makes my head asplode

Seriously. Bush now thinks serving his country is romantic. Of course, when he had the opportunity in that war, you know, where he drank and avoided service, he, well, drank and avoided service. But now...

"'I must say, I'm a little envious,' Bush said. 'If I were slightly younger and not employed here, I think it would be a fantastic experience to be on the front lines of helping this young democracy succeed.'

'It must be exciting for you ... in some ways romantic, in some ways, you know, confronting danger. You're really making history, and thanks,' Bush said."

The term "Chickenhawks" comes to mind. Cowardly, and entitled assholes who now send young men and women into harm's way. Am I the only one who wants to scream now?

Just sent this to the Clinton campaign

I am a loyal Democrat and have sworn that after this last 8 year disaster, I would never vote for a Republican again. John McCain is just more of the same. Until a few days ago, I was just happy with both Democratic candidates and so proud of the history unfolding before us.

But Senator Clinton, if you continue this "scorched earth" campaign against Senator Obama and actually win the nomination, I will stay home. I cannot support this Rovian politics that you seem to have embraced. What ever happened to "I am proud to be up here with Senator Obama?" What happened to that Senator who was running a reasoned and passionate campaign? Now you are playing the race card and playing coy with the Muslim whisper campaign? And suggesting that Senator McCain would be a better President than Obama?

Keith Olbermann is right, Senator, you need to reclaim the reins to your campaign. Unless this is exactly what you want. I can't count how many times I have defended you and your husband to Republican friends. That is at an end as well.

More McCain advisor scandal

McCain's Spiritual Guide: Destroy Islam: "Senator John McCain hailed as a spiritual adviser an Ohio megachurch pastor who has called upon Christians to wage a 'war' against the 'false religion' of Islam with the aim of destroying it."

I keep telling you people. Watch Parsley sometime on TBN and see if you can spot the crazy. It does not surprise me one bit that he is declaring war on Islam. But it does make me sad.

Tuesday rant

It has been a while since I really ranted. Unfortunately, item one is from here in Oklahoma where State rep Sally Kern said that the gays are a bigger threat than terrorism and even compares homosexuality to cancer. Today (or yesterday) she responded to the national uproar over such comments:

"“To put this simply, as a Christian I believe homosexuality is not moral. Obviously, you have the right as an American to choose that lifestyle, but I also have the right to express my views and my fellow Oklahomans have the right to debate these issues."

Absolutely, Sally, you have the right to spew whatever. But when you say things like this, it makes you look bigoted and small. And I suspect that if I were to suggest that religious fundamentalism was a "cancer" you might object. Such as when you and other fundies pass legislation making it against the law for an earth science teacher to count a student wrong for dating the earth at 6000 years? (Will legislation follow that makes me allow students to say that the Constitution was written by God?) Or when they elect a President like George Bush?

****

Oh, Elliot Spitzer, what the hell were you thinking? Not only hiring a prostitute, but evidently arranging for her to cross state lines thus violating the oddly-named Mann act. While the facts appear clear that he did use prostitutes and that is clearly wrong (and illegal) the hypocrisy appears a little troubling. First, the Bush people seem to be investigating Democrats much more than Republicans. And second, the same Republicans who will no doubt be tsking at the immorality of this act (and were apoplectic about Clinton's hummer) gave David Vitter a standing ovation.

Why is it that John McCain is given a pass for the fact that he cheated on his first wife before divorcing her for a much younger and richer woman? Why is it that the family values crowd gave us the first divorced President (Reagan) while it is the Democrats who are supposedly the immoral cheaters?

(Former Republican rep) Mickey Edwards suggests that it is because Newt Gingrich turned politics into a zero-sum game.

(W)hile I was in the House, Newt Gingrich sort of rose in power. And Newt decided that the purpose of the Republican in Congress was not to carry out the fundamental principles that they had originally believed in, but to defeat Democrats. That was all that mattered. And it became how do— it’s always war Democrats versus Republicans, all the time. And when you look at it from that mindset, you have a Republican president — you know, he is not any more the head of a different branch of government. He’s your team captain. He’s your quarterback.

To hell with the rest of the country. Cheney appears to operate by the same rules.

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I may have posted this before, but have had to really work on my instinct to give the finger to anyone in a Hummer. Something unbelievably obscene about those "vehicles" in today's world. Since they seem to be giving the finger to the planet, our troops, and anyone else on the road, it only seems fitting.

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And finally, one of Sully's readers sends in a good reason why today's conservatism is off the rails crazy:

The same people who say the government is incapable of providing basic health care for its citizens are the same who say that it’s capable of torturing people responsibly. Of course that will change in January now won’t it?

The same goes for the death penalty. The incompetent and corrupt justice system is fine when it is executing the poor and minority prisoners. Can't be trusted to address the telecoms, mind you, but can oversee killing. Or torture.

Sigh.

More than Bush's veto that is problematic

As several have noted, Bush and company seem to have succeeded in the word game where torture becomes "harsh interrogation techniques." And that, in some ways, is scarier.

Ok, you guys explain this

Many are writing about Bush's veto of the torture bill. I find it horrific and the last in a long line of shameful acts by this President. But it does raise a question in my mind. Why would he do this? He has ignored Congressional action before. He wrote a signing statement on the first anti-torture bill where he said he would ignore it if he felt it in our national security.

So why not simply sign it into law and then ignore it if he feels like it? Why attach his name to torture as his administration's legacy? Surely his political people have suggested that. Unless, of course, they really believe that the Bush base doesn't mind torture (which I also believe). But that doesn't explain this completely.

Any ideas?

Well, we knew this was coming-Updated

But Bush Vetoed torture bill. We knew he would do it. He has made his stand that his presidency will be known for defending torture.

"'President Bush's veto will be one of the most shameful acts of his presidency,' Senator Edward Kennedy said in a statement Friday. 'Unless Congress overrides the veto, it will go down in history as a flagrant insult to the rule of law and a serious stain on the good name of America in the eyes of the world.'"

And that is a long list--most shameful of this presidency. But it is truly mind boggling that we are here at this place in time.

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The Democratic primary is wearing on all of us, I think. I wanted to like Hilary, I really did. But her scorched earth tactics against Obama make that harder and harder. At this point, if she were to win, I would vote for her against McCain--simply because I cannot vote for another Republican until there is some reckoning of the damage the GOP has done to our country. Just look at item one in this post. McCain urged Bush to veto this bill not because he supports torture, but because he knows the GOP base loves torture and wants more. Enough said.

But Hilary is making the case for more of the same. More of the politics of Rove and division. More of the self-centered President. If I ever had any doubts about Obama, they have been erased in the last few weeks. Hilary trying to change the rules of the Democratic primary during the contest, etc.

Obama really is a departure from the past.

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I am looking for a new bumper sticker. Actually, I want a magnet. When this president is gone, I don't want to display anything about him on my car. The magnet I found so far is from here and I like their stuff, but the one that comes closest what I want is this one.



A good one, don't get me wrong. But I really just want one that says "1-20-09," or "1-20-09 can't get here soon enough."

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Update:
As usual, Obsidian Wings has a great take on this:

"The torture debate has two parts that often get conflated – (1) the morality/legality of the act itself, and (2) administrability (i.e., how do we know these powers won’t be abused?). Bush’s supporters tend to ignore the second point altogether, although it’s arguably the strongest – and most Burkean – argument against “coercive interrogation.”"

Publius connects this very well to the death penalty in a way that I have argued before. To support the death penalty you have to believe it is moral in some cases, but that isn't enough. You also have to believe that it can be administered fairly and effectively. Most people stop with the first question and never bother to check if it is implemented correctly. What is more, they don't seem to care. The correlation to torture is telling. And, I might add, that logical fallacy seems to underscore a great many failed policies, from supply side economics to abstinence only. People stop with the theoretical and then never even check to see if they actually work. And academics are divorced from the real world?

Troubling

Some of our top Iraq contracting firms have found ways to avoid paying US Taxes. That's right, we pay for their services, but they don't pay taxes.

Katha Pollitt rips Charlotte Allen's "women are dumb" essay

And it is worth reading. Several great lines, but here are couple:

"Women even read fiction by men and about men, further evidence of their imaginative powers -- while men, if they do pick up a novel, make sure it's estrogen-free. Who's really the dim bulb, the woman who doesn't see the beauty of 'Grand Theft Auto,' or the man who thinks Tom Clancy is a great writer?"

and this:

But I suspect that Allen, who works for the right-wing anti-feminist Independent Women's Forum, is just annoyed that so many educated middle-class women are cultural, social and political moderates and liberals. Democrats, in other words.

. . . Hillary Clinton running for president instead of spending the rest of her life apologizing for her marriage -- it does indeed make a picture. But it isn't one of women's unique "stupidity" -- raise your hand if you think Hillary Clinton has a lower I.Q. than George W. Bush. What bothers Allen about this picture is that these women reject, with every fiber of their latte-loving beings, the abstinence-only, father-knows-best, slut-shaming crabbed misogyny of the Republican right.

Heh.

Great post on migraines

As everyone here knows, Wilco and Jeff Tweedy are among my favorites. One reason, I think, is that Tweedy himself certainly appears to be an interesting and complex person. If you rent the dvd Sunken Treasure not only do you hear some great acoustic guitar work, but you get a glimpse into his personality.

I knew he had a problem with prescription drugs and knew that A Ghost is Born came out of much of that experience (just about my favorite song "Handshake Drugs" comes from that album) but didn't know much behind that. In this interesting NYT blog post, Tweedy explains his battle with migraines and panic attacks. Not only does it explain some of the songs on that album (read the post) but it is a great example of introspection and brutal self-honesty.

A glimpse at wingnuttery

Josh has a great video collection of the idiot Hagee and his new BFF (John McCain). My favorite is his explanation of hurricanes and Katrina as timed to destroy a gay pride parade. Seriously. God, evidently, is such a bad shot that he had to destroy much of the state and even parts of Mississippi--to say nothing of the bulk of New Orleans--just to stop a gay pride parade. And evidently, God has it in mostly for the poor people of NOLA. Because they were the gayest?


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And then Charlotte Allen answers questions about her "column." She does little to dispel the idea that she is batshit crazy. And hey, all the batshit crazy wingnuts like Katrina. No wonder they didn't punish Bush for his horrible response. My favorite is when she uses the fact that many poor people have been unable to return to New Orleans as proof that the hurricane was good at breaking their dependency on welfare. Gah.

Primary wildness

A month ago this would not have surprised me at all. Actually, a month ago, Hilary was holding an 18 point lead in Ohio and a large lead in Texas as well. So in that terms, Obama did very well, and we are still waiting to see how the delegate count works out. Some I read suggest that it won't change the delegate math much at all.

Also significant (possibly) was Fathead Limbaugh calling on Republicans to go vote for Hilary in Ohio. Be interesting to see how many dittoheads there still are out there. I don't think any of them read this blog, but who knows?

Oh, and finally, the fake candidate
dropped out.

McCain's good buddy Hagee

Lengthy kos diary on the ramblings and craziness that is John Hagee. Many miss that his brand of Zionism masks anti-semitism--they like Jews, but only as converted to Christianity or foils for the end times. Make no mistake about it, Hagee is one messed up dude. The fact that the GOP cuddles up to him is sickening for the party and for our country.

Dumbest column ever?

Perhaps, and it isn't even written by Bill Kristol or plagiarized by a White House staffer. Instead, it is an obnoxious anti-feminist screed written by an anti-feminist woman who argues that women swooning over Obama is proof that women, in general, are not as bright as men.

"I am perfectly willing to admit that I myself am a classic case of female mental deficiencies. I can't add 2 and 2 (well, I can, but then what?). I don't even know how many pairs of shoes I own.

And then gets worse:

"So I don't understand why more women don't relax, enjoy the innate abilities most of us possess (as well as the ones fewer of us possess) and revel in the things most important to life at which nearly all of us excel: tenderness toward children and men and the weak and the ability to make a house a home. (Even I, who inherited my interior-decorating skills from my Bronx Irish paternal grandmother, whose idea of upgrading the living-room sofa was to throw a blanket over it, can make a house a home.) Then we could shriek and swoon and gossip and read chick lit to our hearts' content and not mind the fact that way down deep, we are . . . kind of dim.'"

Well, I am glad she admits she isn't that bright, but I am deeply saddened that she thinks it is because she is female.

Sunday morning Music

This week we will have one of the few really anticipated album releases of this year (for this household, anyway) when Kathleen Edwards releases her third album--Asking for Flowers. Edwards was one of our favorite acts at the last ACL festival and her first two albums are regulars in my playlists. Her first album (Failer) was just stunning, and I really thought her sophomore (Back to Me) was even stronger. Amazing voice and solid song writing. Here is a video off that second album, and another about this most recent album.

So, Tuesday morning, I will be at the record store buying this cd.

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Wilco played on SNL last night. It was kind of cool, though I thought they were not nearly as good as normal. But still better than the average fare. Speaking of that, the band played 5 nights in Chicago recently which must have been amazing. See for yourself (if interested) as you can download mp3s from this run of shows. I have four of the nights in my Itunes right now--7 hours of wilco live. See you in 8 hours....

How we got the "compassionate conservative"

Or at least one reason. A compelling examination of the press coverage of Bush and Gore.

Saturday morning news

From the west coast comes this story about a Quaker teacher fired for altering her loyalty oath and is about as dumb as it gets. This woman actually read her loyalty oath, and thoughtfully signed it as an honest reflection of her values. But to do so, she inserted "non-violently" before "support and defend (the state and US constitution) and "affirm" instead of "swear."

Sure glad the loyalty oath people caught her. I feel safer already.

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While I was at the San Francisco paper, this great column on the challenges facing the GOP if Obama is the Democratic challenger. Because, as he notes, the name calling (Obama's middle name) is too easy and will surely inflame the denizens of "Bush's 'Merka" into "loading up the bunker with Ding-Dongs and Coors just in case the Muslim radicals take over."

No, the problem for GOP strategists is not how to inflame the troglodytic, Limbaugh/Coulter-grade sects of the party who, assuming Obama goes the distance, are already hugely terrified of the notion of a black liberal president, given how he'll surely be a slippery slope straight to gay marriage and rampant lesbianism in schools and hourly shriekings to Allah as everyone's forced to give up their guns and drive a hybrid moped to the tofu store.

The true difficulty facing the GOP's henchmen in the coming months will be how to get those who are just a tiny bit smarter, calmer, less easily swayed, those on the right who might actually be a bit impressed and charmed by Obama's obvious intelligence and oratory power, to hate him, fear him, find his genuinely moving brand of hope and inspiration to be suspicious and problematic and even deeply dangerous.

It won't be easy. Because at the same time, they must make their own unlikely candidate, a feisty but fuzzy 71-year-old war hawk whose entire campaign is apparently now being fueled by a giant hunk of Cold War phlegm, the nauseating notion that not only is a perpetual state of war and aggression desirable for America, but is actually essential to a healthy and functioning nation, they must make John McCain's musty, patriarchal brand of regurgitated Republicanism seem fresh and visionary and not horribly regressive and embarrassing.

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More on Hagee. Earthquakes are God's loudspeaker and he shouts at the gays and the liberals. Hear that, Cali-liberal-fornia?

So why doesn't God just "shout" at Iran and take care of this little problem?

Hilzoy notes that the comparison is not actually Farakhan,

it's the flap over Donnie McClurkin, the gospel singer who " has detailed his struggle with gay tendencies and vowed to battle "the curse of homosexuality,"", and who was invited to participate in some Obama events in South Carolina. The comparison is instructive.

And in stark contrast, Obama denounced the homophobia and actually did so in an African American church. To keep up, McCain would have to go to Hagee's Corporation church and preach tolerance toward Catholics and Muslims. Don't hold your breath.