Bush and language

Perhaps this is too mean of me, but watching the man speak really does give me the heebies. But yesterday's presser (besides the idiot question from Bill Sammons of Fox News allowing the President to be very "disappointed in the Democrat leaders" for not being more offended by the MoveOn ad) was just another example. Really funny, btw, was his attempt to use his "return on success" line and bungle it. Perhaps even he doesn't believe it.

He likes to drop in these little stories as if HE thought of them:

Part of the reason why there is not this instant democracy in Iraq is because people are still recovering from Saddam Hussein’s brutal rule. I thought an interesting comment was made when somebody said to me, I heard somebody say, where’s Mandela? Well, Mandela is dead, because Saddam Hussein killed all the Mandelas. He was a brutal tyrant that divided people up and split families, and people are recovering from this. So there’s a psychological recovery that is taking place. And it’s hard work for them. And I understand it’s hard work for them. Having said that, I’m not going the give them a pass when it comes to the central government’s reconciliation efforts.

I suspect that interesting "comment" came from a speech writer or political hack. And to watch him mangle this effort is really amazing. When John Kerry mangled a joke, it was offensive, when Bush mangles a sentence it is called "Tuesday."

Oh, and this is just lovely

In yet another example of how the Republicans in charge really don't understand our history, take a look at this story on the mercenary company called Blackwater and convince me that the Founders would not freak the hell out about a standing mercenary army that functions without oversight and with the direct support of the government? Convince me of that, given the Founders concerns about a standing army of any kind.

" The State Department allowed Blackwater's heavily armed teams to operate without an Interior Ministry license, even after the requirement became standard language in Defense Department security contracts. The company was not subject to the military's restrictions on the use of offensive weapons, its procedures for reporting shooting incidents or a central tracking system that allows commanders to monitor the movements of security companies on the battlefield.

'The Iraqis despised them, because they were untouchable,' said Matthew Degn, who recently returned from Baghdad after serving as senior American adviser to the Interior Ministry. 'They were above the law.' Degn said Blackwater's armed Little Bird helicopters often buzzed the Interior Ministry's roof, 'almost like they were saying, 'Look, we can fly anywhere we want.' '"

GOP and our constitution and our troops

In our conversation yesterday, our commentator raised the issue of values. At the same time, the GOP blocked a vote that would have returned habeas review to terror suspects. Why? I have no idea. But evidently, Republicans don't think that Habeas Corpus is a value worth fighting for. With all due respect, I would suggest that our enemies also disdain such legal protections. How nice that we are following them, rather than our own principles.

But that isn't the only bill the GOP blocked. Let me say here, that I fully respect the right of the minority to play obstructionist. It is the only thing that allowed Democrats to stop Bush and Cheney from paving over the Grand Canyon or invading Canada. We should note that the Republicans complained incessantly when Democrats used this feature (fillibuster) but that is the nature of politics. They aren't complaining about that now. But they are using it in ways that I don't understand. I think our system is strong enough to allow habeas review to ensure that terror subjects actually are terror subjects. And likewise, when the GOP killed a bill that would extend leave for our soldiers, well, I just throw up my hands.

Republicans say they support the troops and accuse anyone like me of not, yet they cut their pay, extend their tours, and then kill a bill that might have at least given them as much time at home as it did in country. RNC Chair Martinez proved my point, accusing those of us who might want such legislation as actually demeaning the troops:

" I think we would demean their service if we were to say to them that there had to be a parity between the time in service out of the country and the time at home. "

I think I see the trend. Anything the Republicans do--even if it is to allow war vets to be treated in sqalor or using the back-door draft to keep our struggling Army together--well, that is "supporting the troops." Anything Democrats do--even pushing for more training, or research into brain injuries, or daring to suggest that they have more time at home--we are anti-troops. Got it.

Bush/Cheney Conservatism--lie even when you know it is a lie

This whole MoveOn fracus is ridiculous. According to Crooks and Liars, our good friend John McCain not only suggested that MoveOn be kicked out of the country, but now uses them as a prop wherever he goes. They asked a damn question about the key political issue of the day. That is what we should all be doing. But the conservatives don't give a shit about that. They have seized on this as a wedge issue and now are lying about the NY Times giving them a reduced rate. And look who is leading the lie-fest? Dick Cheney.

I am so very tired of all of these people. The right wing has done so much to ruin our country. From demonizing government to politicizing every possible policy, they have undermined our very ability to live among each other. What is worse, they have demonstrated a completely disregard for the truth and lie whenever they want. John Kerry told us in the 04 race that Bush wanted to privatize SS and that the war was going to cost us way more than Bush said. The Bush people called Kerry names for both things. The right wing spin machine was in full throat about it. Right after the election, we find out that the cost of this war is well above what Bush promised, and also that his big initiative (failed, of course, because he has no real policies) was to privatize Social Security. They knew that in the fall, but honesty is, evidently, not a Christian virtue when it is practiced by the President.

I am so tired of them.

Haven't read Jon Swift in a while

And he has three beauts up now. Today, a post entitled "are we tasering people enough?" referring to Florida police tasering a kid who asked John Kerry a tough question. Kerry didn't mind the question, but the police dragged him out and tasered him anyway.

Second item (you can page down) is a post entitled, "At the Emmys Fox Guards the Hollywood Henhouse of Obscenity" referring to Fox censoring Emmy winner Sally Field who, according to observers started to make an anti-war statement. That statement, was something along the lines of "If mothers ruled the world, there would be no Goddamned wars in the first place." Fox went to black the moment she started the "no" part of her sentence. Seriously, are we that sensitive that we can't even hear something like that? I say, go for it, Sally. We are all sick of this war. Well, except those at Fox. Unless their years of running sleazy programming has made them suddenly concerned about offensive language?

Third, Mr. Swift brilliantly references the Moveon.org ad last week asking General Petraeus not to "Betray us." Personally, I thought it was a decent question and was set up completely by the White House talking about their political people writing his "report." I think reasonable people can question the authenticity of this voice, especially since there are so many reports suggesting that the Pentagon has cooked the numbers and the surge really isn't working the way they want. Anyway, Jon's post was entitled, "MoveOn.org and Other Traitors Are Welcome To Advertise Here."

Brilliant site, just brilliant.

Oh, my former state, what happened?

Oh right, Grover Norquist happened. Yeah, the man who wants to shrink government to the point of disuse, has nearly done that in the state of Colorado, where despite relative wealth, they have fallen in some key issues of taking care of people and educating their future.

One of the chapters in The Conservatives Have No Clothes: Why Right-Wing Ideas Keep Failing tells the story of what happened in Colorado under TABOR. The bottom line is pretty straightforward. By virtually every ranking imaginable related to government performance, the state with the tenth highest median household income plummeted to the very bottom of the pack, competing with Mississippi and other poor southern states for last place. With respect to health care, TABOR caused Colorado drop below at least 45 other states in the share of low-income residents covered by Medicaid, the portion of low-income children lacking health care coverage, and the percentage of low-income adults under 65 without health insurance. Colorado’s national ranking in access to prenatal care declined from twenty-third in 1990 to forty-eighth in 2004.

How about education? Classroom sizes in Colorado escalated primarily because of TABOR so that student-teacher ratios in Colorado – one of the most prosperous states in the country – were worse than in all but eight states. The ratio of teacher salaries to average private sector earnings is lower in Colorado than in any other state. As for higher education, total state support to colleges and universities grew at the second lowest rate in the nation, so that now Colorado ranks forty-eighth for state higher education funding as a share of personal income.

Damn Norquist and his entire bunch of anti-government freaks. Government isn't magical, but it is one of the ways we live to gether as a people.

This is pretty cool

I don't know when this occurred, but before an NBA game last year, a young girl forgot the words to the National Anthem. A potentially hugely embarrassing moment is rescued by class act Maurice Cheeks. Watch the video. It will make you feel a little better about humankind.

Republicans and capitalism

Michael Kinsley has a great essay on the student loan industry and its lack of connection to actual sound business or capitalism principles. Yet, it is supported by the very Republicans who constantly lecture me on the merits of free-market capitalism.

It's Republicans, who adopted the student loan "industry" in its infancy, like a stray cat, and have nurtured and protected it ever since. There actually is a parallel student loan program that uses government funds. It was started in the early days of the Clinton administration. It costs less to operate, and it has not been tainted by scandal. But when the Republicans regained control of Congress in 1994, they pushed through a law forbidding the Education Department to encourage use of this program. As a result, direct federal loans account for only 25 percent of all student loans.

Because that would be socialism? Or maybe just because it isn't as profitable. Kinsley notes the prevalence of kickbacks where prestigious universities accept payments to push this more expensive loan program.

But this is best when he dissects the supposed capitalism here.

But why do Republicans love student loans? Oh, there are the usual reasons: lobbyist and campaign contributions. There is almost sure to be at least one of these firms -- the local bank, if no one else -- in their district. But there is more. Student loans are the clearest example of the common Republican confusion between free-market capitalism and business. Capitalism is an economic system that is held, with some justification, to be the best guarantor of prosperity. Business can be capitalism in action, or it can be something entirely different. There is very little about the student loan program that has anything to do with free-market capitalism. Yet whenever the student loan system comes under criticism, lobbyists, "industry" leaders and supportive politicians haul out the same old cliches, as if they were defending Adam Smith's famous pin factory itself.

When you add that to the Bush people quashing mad cow testing by private companies wanting to set themselves apart, or the role that Haliburton plays in our Iraq disaster, or the sheer unwillingness to allow for the cost of environmental cleanups to be included in operating costs, you realize that they don't understand free-market capitalism at all. Nor, it seems, do they care to. And here, in the one thing that can help people alter their lives in a fundamental way--through education--Republicans either cut loan programs or make sure they are more exploitative.

Seriously, does Bush actually think this?

Dan Froomkin - Bush's Battlefield Envy - washingtonpost.com: "President Bush wishes that he could be alongside the troops in Iraq -- except that he's too old.

At least that's what he reportedly told a blogger embedded with U.S. troops in Iraq. In the first session of its kind, Bush spent almost an hour on Friday talking with 10 so-called "milbloggers," including two who participated by video conference from a military base outside Baghdad.

" N.Z. Bear," one of the eight guests sitting around a table with Bush at the White House, reported: "Responding to one of the bloggers in Iraq he expressed envy that they could be there, and said he'd like to be there but 'One, I'm too old to be out there, and two, they would notice me.'"

Umm. For some reason I remember this one war, yeah the same war that Bush says we should have kept fighting. I remember that this same man could have fought alongside the troops then. But he preferred drinking and womanizing. But now he is a "war president."

Sigh.

Strange bedfellows? Or simply that Republicans out of touch?

Looks like Republicans are losing some of their iron grip on Western Colorado over, oddly enough, some environmental issues. Perhaps people recognize that some limits are good.

In Colorado, Drilling Some Holes in the Republican Base - washingtonpost.com: "'I can only speak for myself and I'm a registered Republican, but last year I voted a straight Democratic ticket. First time in my life,' said Bob Elderkin, 68, who heads the town of Rifle's chapter of the Colorado Mule Deer Association, a hunting group that has made common cause with environmentalists against drilling. 'The Republicans have kind of lost touch with reality.'"

Sunday morning musings

First, some good news for a chance, and in that horrible `Jena Six' case in Louisiania where whites hung nooses from a tree in school colors, yet black youths found themselves facing serious time.

"A state appeals court Friday tossed out the aggravated battery conviction that could have sent a black teenager to prison for 15 years in last year's beating of a white classmate in the racially tense north Louisiana town of Jena."

As one blogger noted, clearly a victory, but one we shouldn't have to fight for so hard in 2007.

*****

Horses Mouth has an interesting story of different gaffes. Remember John Kerry's failed joke about if you are dumb and don't apply yourself in school, you end up in Iraq? He clearly meant Bush, but Republicans and the media ran with it to the point that it dominated just about everything. I saw numerous Republican operatives, and even heard from some people personally, how Kerry hated the troops and had fully intended to insult them. Yeah, right.

Well, the other day, Republican Minority Leader John Boehner was asked how much longer Americans should be expected to lose blood and treasure in Iraq. Boehner responded that the costs are "a small price" to pay for the overall mission. Can you imagine the response had John Kerry said that? Outrage. But here, very little. Republicans still benefit from some bizarre "pro-military assumption" despite gutting the military, cutting funding, treatment, etc.

******

Thanks to Ubub, I am reading Summer for the Gods: The Scopes Trial And America's Continuing Debate over Science And Religion. I have been working on it off and on for a while, but am constantly impressed with this book. I will report more on it later, but was struck again by a couple of aspects of the anti-evolution talk from the 19teens and 20s. One was the concern that WJ Bryan had that belief in a "brutish past" would encourage more war and mistreatment of people, in which he referenced the survival of the fittest, and was responding to very real intellectual movements such as Social Darwinism which tried to blame poverty and slums on those who lived there.

Reading this book, I am still reminded that the debate has so little to do with science, in that if the arguments were just about plants and animals evolving--or the flu virus--we would not have an argument. Because it touches on the origins of man, I am afraid that a majority of Americans would throw evolution out. And with it, all the scientific and medical advances that we have discovered because of it.

*******

Ok, enough. I drained the pond yesterday and am attempting to fix a leak in the concrete sides. So, I better get on that. Hope you all have a good Sunday.

Oh, ACL

After attending ACL for the first 5 years (yes, we were there at the very beginning), we decided to skip this year's fest and today it started without us for the first time. We will go back, but needed a little break from the heat and the crowds--of course that means the crowds will be lower this year and they will enjoy cool weather!

Anyway. Any of you who are going, drop us a note and tell us about the great bands.

Yosemite Sam

Scanning the blogs I don't see many of my usual reads very impressed with the President's speech last night. Watching last night, I was reminded of the comedian Kathleen Madigan's take on which Bush we get in press conferences or speeches. In one, there is the smug Bush, she compares this one to Yosemite Sam. But last night was the "contrite" Bush and didn't even seem to need an instruction to "be serious." As Sully noted:

He seemed almost broken to me. His voice raspy, his eyes watery, his affect exhausted, his facial expression almost bewildered. I thought I would feel angry; but I found myself verging toward pity. The case was so weak, the argument so thin, the evidence for optimism so obviously strained that one wondered whom he thought he was persuading.

....

The low-point was his almost desperate recitation of a poignant email that posited that this war is one between "good" and "evil". I don't doubt the sincerity of the sentiment; I don't doubt either that the murderous extremes of sectarian hatred or religious fanaticism are, at some level, evil. I know that the motives of many people who supported this war - and many who still support it - are honorable. And I know that America is ultimately a force for good in this world. But that doesn't mean that America is incapable or error or immorality. And to reduce the immense complexity of Iraq to such a binary moralism is a sign of a president reaching for comfortable, Manichean abstractions as a replacement for strategic judgment and knowledge. The American people deserve better from a war-president: more honesty, more candor, more realism.

Well said. When the President read that email, I thought of all the other emails or letters he could have read--or blogs or op eds from people who have lost relatives in this war of choice. And that is what I would like him to acknowledge. This is his war of his choosing and his management. He can talk about the "generals on the ground" all he wants. But we all know he has ignored any advice counter from what he already believes. That isn't leadership.

Seriously

I watched the President speak tonight. I won't tell you the words I used because they are not polite. And this from an award-nominated, and "fun" blog.

But our President was not honest. When he talks about chaos in Iraq, or emboldening Iran, or allowing Al Qaeda to take hold, he omits that it was his decision to invade, and then his decision to allow Rummy to dictate troop strenght that allowed all of that to occur.

He is not honest and he is not good. That is all I will say about this President.

The church and the war

Christian ethics prof, David Gushee writes in the Associated Baptist Press what many of us have been saying for a long time--that Bush (and the country) over reacted to 9-11 and attacked the wrong country. He further notes that this disastrous war has made us less safe, our military less strong and respected, and has undermined our moral standing throughout the world.

"And the church? In general, the American churches have lacked the political independence, the discernment, and the courage even to understand and name what has gone wrong, let alone to resist it. A domesticated church has been employable as a servant of the state, even to the point of defending torture.

It seems to me that 9/11 in a way unhinged our nation and sent us hurtling down the wrong path. But the American church bears considerable responsibility for its inability to stand fast on the solid rock of Jesus Christ in the midst of this unhinging -- yet one more reason to bow our heads in sorrow on 9/11."

Blog Awards

And I do mean that. The 2007 Okie Blog Award nominations are out and Streak's Blog was nominated for Best Commentary. I believe this is our first nomination, and it made our day. Thanks to anyone who nominated us. We are in good company and against some brisk competition with Dwight and Sarah's Two-Headed Blog, Life and Deatherage, and Bruce Prescott's well-respected Mainstream Baptist. Not to be trite, but to be nominated in such good company is reward enough. I would like to thank the academy, the viewers.....

Also nominated in other categories were people we know or blog-know. The McCarty's McCarty Musings was nominated for Best Writing, and Tim Sean, Mainstream Baptist (again) and Greg's the parish for Best Inspirational Blog. Nice to see such good blogging from Oklahoma Bloggers.

Who we are 6 years after 9-11

I am not sure who we are any longer. The Bush/Cheney response, as far as I can tell, has exploited the legitimate fear and horror of 9-11 to build their own power. In the face of a real and credible threat of Al Qaeda, we have subverteed our own justice system and undermined our basic constitutional protections.

This morning on NPR, I listened to a story on the Lackawanna Six--or the supposed success story at stopping a home-grown terrorist attack. The author of a new book discussed her contention that these men were not the threats that the government suggested. In an op-ed, she talks about the role that our President and VP played in their arrest:

"And that might well have happened had someone in the Lackawanna Muslim community not sent an anonymous letter to the FBI’s Buffalo field office. The Lackawanna Six were arrested within days of the first anniversary of 9/11. Both President Bush and Vice President Dick Cheney personally told FBI Director Robert Mueller to bring them in. Absent any special reason to arrest them or any action that indicated that they were particularly threatening, it’s difficult not to see the timing as political. A year after the attacks, the Bush administration needed a win, and the Lackawanna Six’s story seemed to give them one. "

In her NPR story, she said that Cheney pressed Mueller to give a "100% guarantee that these men would not do anything" to which, of course, Mueller could not. Bush and Cheney said, "then arrest them." Steve Inskeep and the author (Dina Temple-Raston) suggest this is the first of many examples of "pre-emptive justice."

In her op-ed, she suggests rethinking this:

Perhaps we are far enough away from 9/11 now to see that the United States is best served when we hold ourselves to the highest standards of fairness and inclusiveness. Selectively abandoning civil liberties and due process to wage the war on terrorism only plays into bin Laden’s hands. Al-Qaida succeeds at changing America simply by threatening it.

We can't control them very well, but we do have great control over who we are. And taking away our own civil rights and subverting our very constitutional protections is playing right into their hands.

Bush's war

H/t to Shaun at Upper Left for this NYTimes oped: Hiding Behind the General. It is rather amazing that we have heard Bush talk about General Petraus for the last year, and sometimes we forget that he pushed out Generals who disagreed with his surge all the while talking about listening to the "Generals on the ground." But this week, we are supposed to hear a report--one that we already know is politicized and controversial, and the Times suggests is just a smokescreen.

"Mr. Bush, deeply unpopular with the American people, is counting on the general to restore credibility to his discredited Iraq policy. He frequently refers to the escalation of American forces last January as General Petraeus’s strategy — as if it were not his own creation. The situation echoes the way Mr. Bush made Colin Powell — another military man with an overly honed sense of a soldier’s duty — play frontman at the United Nations in 2003 to make the case that Iraq had weapons of mass destruction. Mr. Bush cannot once again subcontract his responsibility. This is his war.

....

Nothing has changed about Mr. Bush’s intentions. Waving off the independent reports, he plans to stay the course and make his successor fix his Iraq fiasco. Military progress without political progress is meaningless, and Mr. Bush no more has a plan for unifying Iraq now than when he started the war. The United States needs a prudent exit strategy that will withdraw American forces and try to stop Iraq’s chaos from spreading."

Magic

I remember a Robert Fulghum story about dancing at a bar. As I recall, he noted that sometimes there was nothing there but people drinking and music--but occasionally, just occasionally, the magic happened and people experience something better.

I remember my cousin's outdoor wedding in Colorado. There was much about the wedding that was a bit hokey. No offense to my cousin, but when the grooms all rode in horseback, I have to admit I rolled my eyes just a bit. But they are ranchers and rodeo people and that is what they wanted. We then had barbecue and the live band played for people to dance. But no one really danced and we all looked at each other. Then an afternoon storm came through in typical Colorado high country fashion. It was brief and not even that severe, but we had to take cover for a bit. And when the rain lifted, something magical had happened. People danced and truly smiled at each other. Magic.

Tonght we went down to the local park to hear a trio of fine musicians--Kevin Welch, Kieran Kane, and Fats Kaplan. They started on stage and then the rain started coming down. Not hard, but enough to irritate. Kaplan had to put his fiddle away and we were losing the evening. They decided to move into the gazebo and play an accoustic set with limited sound.

So we crowded in and they were so good. All three of them played with such talent. Welch plays the accoustic guitar the way I dream of doing--flatpicking and turning the guitar into a percussion instrument (almost). Kane and Kaplan played several instruments--and all of them well. And the harmonies were the kind that make you smile. As SOF and I listened, she looked at me and said, "if this doesn't perk someone up, they are made of stone." I agree.



Live music has its own challenges. You know, like the jackass behind you talking on his cell phone. Or the giant black lab that joined the group in the gazebo. Or the woman who tripped over the microphone.

Or the little kids peering through the rails of the gazebo. My cell isn't the best camera, but I think you can see what I am talking about.



As Old Lodgeskins said, "sometimes the magic works, and sometimes it doesn't." Tonight it did. Pure magic.

Hmm, nice to have friends

In high places. Why, I remember in the olden days, whenever one of Clinton's friends got a contract or cushy job, they were referred to as a FOB (Friend of Bill) and that wasn't meant as a compliment. One of the more amazing aspects of the Bush administration has been their ability to disparage aspects of the Clinton admin and then do that same thing, only worse without consequence. Clinton was accused of being in campaign mode constantly--Bush and Rove made them look like amateurs. Republicans liked to accuse Clinton of politicizing everything (even though on many key policy issues, Clinton actually hired and listened to experts)--Bush and Rove and Cheney indeed have politicized everything from climate studies to reproductive health. Or the actual Department of Justice, which even the sleazy Bradley Schlozman admitted hired only partisan hacks:

Bradley Schlozman, the former Justice Department official and U.S. attorney who's been at the center of the firings controversy, admitted that he'd once urged hiring certain prosecutors for his office based on their political affiliation. It's against civil service laws to do so.

So how has Bush dealt with the pesky "Lincoln Bedroom" scandal? I have no idea if he sold it to the highest bidder, but he has done much, much worse. As Rajiv Chandrasekaran demonstrated in Imperial life in the Emerald City, Iraqi Reconstruction jobs went to Bush loyalists even if they were idiots. Applicants were asked about their stance on Roe v. Wade, and others undertook an anti-smoking campaign rather than trying to just stop the killing.

Oh, and the corruption and fraud? Yeah, Bush has responded to that, hasn't he? Yes, by punishing whistleblowers. Nothing makes corruption and fraud disappear when you punish those who point it out.

So, with that background, you can understand why I am a bit skeptical when I read on TalkingPointsMemo that an Oil company from Texas (Hunt Oil) has secured a contract to extract Kurdish Oil supplies. Hell, it might be a good deal for everyone, I don't know. Might help the Kurds, and might add to regional stability. I have no idea. But Josh looked at Mr. Hunt's bio:

'In October 2001 and again in January 2006, Mr. Hunt was appointed by President George W. Bush to the President's Foreign Intelligence Advisory Board in Washington, D.C.'"

I am not naive. I know this occurs on both sides of the aisle. But what puzzles me is that from the very beginning with Haliburton and Brown and Root, or through the outsourcing of Walter Reed, these people have actually made no pretense of anything other than helping their rich friends.