[2004.02.28 - 10:00 A.M.] Bush Reloads Bioethics Council: "They Weren't Servile Enough" Prez Says
From this morning's Washington Post: Bush Ejects Two From Bioethics Council
President Bush yesterday dismissed two members of his handpicked Council on Bioethics -- a scientist and a moral philosopher who had been among the more outspoken advocates for research on human embryo cells.
In their places he appointed three new members, including a doctor who has called for more religion in public life, a political scientist who has spoken out precisely against the research that the dismissed members supported, and another who has written about the immorality of abortion and the "threats of biotechnology."
The turnover immediately renewed a recent string of accusations by scientists and others that Bush is increasingly allowing politics to trump science as he seeks advice on ethically contentious issues.
Why do they bother with this charade? Seriously. Regardless of the subject, Bush doesn't actually care about opposing views. We know this. When his policy decisions don't accord with the facts on the ground, the facts always get shown the door. We know this. It's a pattern that extends even to matters such as climate change, where most sane people would defer to the consensus of the scientific community. Everybody knows this. We know these things because they don't even attempt to hide them from us.
So why the charade of this bogus "Bioethics Council"? In the eyes of the rational public, these hand-picked, pre-approved dupes are not about to confer legitimacy on Bush's politically-driven policies. And in the eyes of Bush's religiously insane base, science and philosophy don't matter anyhow. Why waste the energy?
[2004.02.27 - 08:00 A.M.] Krugman on Trade & Jobs
Absolutely check out Paul Krugman today on trade, jobs, and social policy. Even by his standards this is an unusually brilliant column, and I'm not just saying that because the esteemed professor happens to agree with me (emphasis mine):
[I]t's bad economics to pretend that free trade is good for everyone, all the time. "Trade often produces losers as well as winners," declares the best-selling textbook in international economics (by Maurice Obstfeld and yours truly). The accelerated pace of globalization means more losers as well as more winners; workers' fears that they will lose their jobs to Chinese factories and Indian call centers aren't irrational.
Addressing those fears isn't protectionist. On the contrary, it's an essential part of any realistic political strategy in support of world trade. That's why the Nelson Report, a strongly free-trade newsletter on international affairs, recently had kind words for John Kerry. It suggested that he is basically a free trader who understands that "without some kind of political safety valve, Congress may yet be stampeded into protectionism, which benefits no one."
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[F]ree trade is politically viable only if it's backed by effective job creation measures and a strong domestic social safety net. And that suggests that free traders should be more worried by the prospect that the policies of the current administration will continue than by the possibility of a Democratic replacement.
[2004.02.26 - 03:05 P.M.] Beinart Sets The Kerry Fundraising Record Straight
Like many Democrats watching the primaries shake out, I was extremely alarmed to find out that front-runner John Kerry takes more special interest money than any other senator. I mean, here the guy is trying to run against special interest money in Washington, and he takes more special interest money than any other senator. We're screwed! The Bush campaign, of course, quickly picked up on this, publishing a web ad trumpeting the fact that John Kerry takes more special interest money than any other senator. They based their ad on a Washington Post story which first broke the news that Kerry takes more special interest money than any other senator. At this point, some of you may be saying "OK, OK, yes, we already know how John Kerry takes more special interest money than any other senator. Enough!"
Well, if so, then you and I both ought to be more careful about what we think we know. Thumbing through last week's New Republic, I came across a piece by Peter Beinart examining the accusation against Kerry (subscription reqd.). Here's the key graf:
[T]he [Washington] Post figure is misleading because it ignores the fact that Kerry has largely eschewed money from political action committees (PACs), a major source of funds for most of his colleagues. When you combine money from paid lobbyists and PACs--which makes sense, since they're both conduits for "special interests"--Kerry actually ranks ninety-second out of 100 U.S. senators. That doesn't make him pure, but it makes him purer than most serious candidates for the White House. And it puts him on a different planet from President Bush, who accepted more money from lobbyists last year alone than Kerry has in the last 15.
Ninety-second??? Little bit of context goes a long way, doesn't it? Of course I can see where "John Kerry takes the ninety-second largest amount of combined lobbyist and political action committee money of any senator" just doesn't have as much punch to it.
[2004.02.26 - 01:25 P.M.] Writers: Earn Your "Pro-Trade" Stripes In Three Easy Steps!
That's right, now you too can join the ranks of pundits and press hounds mocking the middle class with their silly fears of off-shored jobs. You too can smugly castigate the politicians who exploit them! Don't believe it? Let Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist Tom Friedman show you how in just three easy steps:
Step One: Smear your opponents. Go ahead, grab a great big broad brush and paint away! Call 'em names and look smart doing it. Like this:
I've been in India for only a few days and I am already thinking about reincarnation. In my next life, I want to be a demagogue.
Yes, I want to be able to huff and puff about complex issues — like outsourcing of jobs to India — without any reference to reality.
"Demagogue" is a particularly excellent word choice when you want to not only dismiss your opponents, but make them sound scary in the process. It's the sort of word that dulls the critical thought processes by conjuring up images of overbearing, screeching know-it-alls. Or ugly, pus-oozing demons. I forget which. Anyhow, nothing a demagogue says can be true, right?
Step Two: Toss out a facile argument. Be sure to include a few details in the mix so that it appears you've done your homework. Like this:
"How can it be good for America to have all these Indians doing our white-collar jobs?" I asked 24/7's founder, S. Nagarajan.
Well, he answered patiently, "look around this office." All the computers are from Compaq. The basic software is from Microsoft. The phones are from Lucent. The air-conditioning is by Carrier, and even the bottled water is by Coke, because when it comes to drinking water in India, people want a trusted brand. On top of all this, says Mr. Nagarajan, 90 percent of the shares in 24/7 are owned by U.S. investors. This explains why, although the U.S. has lost some service jobs to India, total exports from U.S. companies to India have grown from $2.5 billion in 1990 to $4.1 billion in 2002. What goes around comes around, and also benefits Americans.
Mind you, don't get too specific. In the passage above, for example, you don't want to ask how many jobs Compaq added in order to produce the computers they sold to 24/7, and you certainly don't want to ask what sort of jobs those were and how much they paid. Likewise with Microsoft, Lucent, Carrier, and Coke. Don't get into tricky questions like what U.S. investor ownership share has to do with job creation here at home. (In general, it's always a good idea to blur the lines between the interests of wealthy investors and the interests of the masses. Keeps 'em guessing.) Finally, if there's an inconvenient fact in the mix, like the exact number of American jobs that have been off-shored to India, you can obscure that number with vague words like "some" and implied pejoratives like "service". "One million $30K/yr tech support jobs off-shored" sounds alarming, yes? "Some service jobs"? Not so much.
Step Three: Baffle 'em with bullshit. Go ahead, spend the next six to seven hundred words babbling on about some fringe market case that's completely beside the point. Like this:
Consider one of the newest products to be outsourced to India: animation. Yes, a lot of your Saturday morning cartoons are drawn by Indian animators like JadooWorks, founded three years ago here in Bangalore. India, though, did not take these basic animation jobs from Americans. For 20 years they had been outsourced by U.S. movie companies, first to Japan and then to the Philippines, Korea, Hong Kong and Taiwan. The sophisticated, and more lucrative, preproduction, finishing and marketing of the animated films, though, always remained in America. Indian animation companies took the business away from the other Asians by proving to be more adept at both the hand-drawing of characters and the digital painting of each frame by computer — at a lower price.
Indian artists had two advantages, explained Ashish Kulkarni, C.O.O. of JadooWorks. "They spoke English, so they could take instruction from the American directors easily, and they were comfortable doing coloring digitally." India has an abundance of traditional artists, who were able to make the transition easily to computerized digital painting. Most of these artists are the children of Hindu temple sculptors and painters.
Granted, by the time you get to the part about how Indian artists are "more comfortable doing coloring digitally" you might lose a certain percentage of your audience to the Who-Gives-A-Fuck Effect, but many more will keep slogging through, confident that you're telling them something important, although they know not what it is. The important thing is to weave a story, tell a yarn, keep 'em reading. With enough work, they'll forget what the nuts and bolts of your argument were. They'll just walk away thinking happy thoughts of Indian animators, without a care in the world about where their IT career is going or what their financial future may be.
Trust me: Try this formula out at home, journalist wanna-bes. Someday you too might earn a Pulitzer.
[2004.02.26 - 12:58 P.M.] Clean Channel Radio? Please.
Hot damn! Is the Culture War rearing its ugly head these days or what? First the brouhaha over Janet's titty, then Bush decides he wants gay nuptials to be unconstitutional, and now this: Clear Channel Radio has axed Bubba the Love Sponge and suspended Howard Stern for indecent content. Somewhere, Joe Lieberman is kicking himself for dropping out of the campaign early.
As my legions of dedicated readers have no doubt intuited by now, I'm not someone who gets my nuts in a knot about "decency". I don't think seeing a little tits and ass on television -- or hearing the words "tits" and "ass" on the radio -- is going to lead to the downfall of our civilization. Persistent structural inequities in the distribution of wealth? That might lead to the downfall of our civilization. Bubba the Love Sponge broadcasting some guy having sex in a church? Whatever.
It really does make me laugh, though, to hear Clear Channel waxing apoplectic about this degradation of the public airwaves. This is the same company, mind you, that has ruthlessly homogenized radio programming across the country. They kill local programming, substituting in its place nationally syndicated "personalities" like Bubba and Howard. They dumb down playlists so that all you can hear is the same twenty-or-so songs being pimped by the record industry this month. Oh yeah, and they put their corporate muscle behind faux-grass-roots pro-war demonstrations. Nice. I'm supposed to believe these clowns give a rat's ass about the public good?
Alas, on the other hand, I'm not going to get all worked up about the fate of our premiere shock jocks either. Howard Stern, in particular, I hold directly responsible for the complete absence of listenable FM music programming on morning radio. Used to be you could put on the local rock station and actually hear songs during the morning drive. Sure, the DJ's would get a little rowdier between songs, but it was still music programming. Then along came Howard, who somehow convinced millions of listeners that they'd rather hear hours on end of fart jokes and puerile blather instead of music. Local markets, ever eager to copycat, spawned local howards. Hartford had Dee Snider doing a (really) dumbed-down version of Stern's show and Sebastian with his... just... painfully unlistenable... interminable yapping. Awful stuff, really. No more music, just those WILD and CRAZY ASSHOLES showing you how SHOCKING they can be!!!
So, yeah, I'm not shedding any tears on this one for either side. I'm just going to sit back and watch them bluster it out.
[2004.02.26 - 11:00 A.M.] Stop With The Pro-Oversimplification Rhetoric!
Skimming Google News just now, I ran across this headline from the San Jose Mercury News:
Anti-Trade Pitch a Tough Sell In State
If you've been following the Kerry and Edwards campaigns, you know both candidates have made statements recently that are critical of multilateral trade agreements. They've also aired concerns about increased off-shoring of American jobs. Taking this as a jumping off point, the author of the above article, Laura Kurtzman, suggests that the two candidates may want to moderate their rhetoric in a state that relies heavily on exports to keep its economy humming along. Kurtzman quotes Garry South, a former Lieberman strategist, as saying "If I were a Democratic candidate, I would be a little careful of bashing trade in California."
Excuse me, but does anyone else notice a missing link or two in this chain of logic?
From the headline and tone of this article, you'd think Kerry and Edwards were ready to close our borders, shut down our ports, and set up a self-contained economy within the United States. This is ludicrous. At what point in this debate did any criticism whatsoever of corporate-friendly treaties like NAFTA, GATT and the like become "Anti Trade"? At what point did voicing concerns over displaced workers become "Trade bashing"? Why is it "Anti Trade" to note the dissimilarities in regulatory environments between the U.S. and many of its third-world trading partners?
I understand that a certain amount of nuance is necessarily lost when you're trying to keep a newspaper column or a television piece within size or time limits, but this is absurd. Pundits and journalists, do you not see the error of your ways? Perhaps a few analogies will help:
Environmentalists who want to lower auto emissions are not "Anti Transportation".
Labor activists who are concerned about third-world sweatshops are not "Anti Work".
Critics of nuclear power are not "Anti Energy".
The reason Kerry and Edwards are spending so much time talking about jobs - and the effect trade agreements have on the job market - is that the voters are worried. They see high paid, high-skilled jobs heading overseas and they're scared shitless and they have every right to be. The candidates are not stoking that fear, they're addressing it, and in the process they're starting a conversation that's long overdue: What should our economy look like? What are our priorities? How important is the American Dream of a strong middle class and high living standards for all? Are we willing to bend government policy to foster that dream, or should Uncle Sam turn his back while the Invisible Hand flips millions of hard-working Americans the bird?
Unfortunately, our ability to have this conversation is being actively impaired by media groupthink that says "globalization" on Corporate America's terms is just A-OK. They'd rather not discuss the subject at all, but if they're forced to they're going to paint any critical position as simply "Anti Trade". Using loaded language like this, they're framing the debate and cutting off discussion. After all, who in their right mind wants to be seen as against "trade"?
Our response has to be in kind: Take the language back. Just as we told the Pro-Lifers that they're not "Pro Life" they're "Anti Choice", we need to reframe this debate as well. The candidates have started already. Edwards peppers his speeches with references to "Fair Trade, not Free Trade". Next time someone accuses Kerry of being "Anti Trade" he should say "I'm all for trade - I just don't want to trade away America's future." We have to turn the rhetoric around, and we have to do it soon. I'm not willing to see my job go on an exotic third-world vacation just because some politician was afraid of being tarred as "Anti Trade".
[2004.02.25 - 10:17 P.M.] Bush Says "I Do" Support Anti-Gay Marriage Amendment
After a month or so of pussyfooting around with the issue, George Bush finally went all-in yesterday, endorsing a Constitutional amendment banning gay marriage. The move is being almost universally described as an attempt to pacify Bush's right-wing base, at a time when his broader support continues to erode. This Washington Post analysis sums the CW up nicely:
Bush's plan was to run for a second term on the basis of his performance as a war leader and as a tax cutter, eschewing divisive social issues as he did in 2000 while campaigning as "a uniter, not a divider." But in the end, Republican strategists said, Bush had no choice but to change course and add a highly charged cultural issue to the center of the campaign.
Bush's conservative base of support, despite three years of cultivation, had grown restless over the budget deficit, government spending and his plan to liberalize immigration. At the same time, he was on the defensive over the economy and the Iraq war, and facing an uncharacteristically unified Democratic Party./P>
So when gay marriages advanced in Massachusetts and San Francisco, Bush felt a need to respond to the cries of social conservatives -- even if it meant losing some swing voters he needs in November.
The meat of this story is in the political risk involved for the administration. As Liberal Oasis points out, "If the Bushies thought a constitutional amendment banning marriage for gays was a political winner, Dubya would have backed one a long time ago." In an attempt to gauge the degree of danger linked to this move, Josh Marshall examines the reaction among Republicans in Congress to Bush's decision. (They are less than enthused.)
Rather than adopting the cause of anti-gay bigotry willingly, Bush has been forced into it, and it could blow up in his face. True, a majority of Americans are uncomfortable with gay marriage, but in general people don't like fucking around with the Constitution, and adding an amendment that restricts the rights of a whole class of people strikes me as the sort of thing that will make even those in the ambivalent middle on this issue pretty uneasy.
At the very least, this issue has come up at a really bad time for Bush:
..[A] Senate Republican with ties to the religious conservative movement said "the last place Bush wanted to be" at this time in the electoral cycle was wooing his base of support. "He should be coasting on being the war president and deliverer of tax cuts; instead, he has to take a divisive role on a contentious social issue that could undercut him as a compassionate conservative," this official said.
I see this as a win-win-win scenario:
Bush is being put on the defensive, forced to tend to his wingnut flock, at a time when he'd be much better off doing his phony fearless leader act.
Bush has now very publicly come down on the wrong side of this issue. Once you back a Constitutional amendment on something like this, your wiggle room is pretty much gone.
We should have this debate. We should fight this fight. Unlike many on the left, I'm not afraid to fight the culture wars. Our side is right, the bigots and theocrats are wrong, and if they want to argue about it, I say drop the gloves and go.
[2004.02.20 - 07:50 P.M.] Lone Voice on the Op-Ed Page
Do you think the editors of the New York Times read Bob Herbert, one of their regular contributors who appears just across the page? I wonder.
Herbert is a lone voice in the wilderness these days, one of the only prominent journalists who routinely stands up and points out the dangers of Corporate America's offshoring craze. In his piece today, he takes aim at those who slavishly support "free" trade arrangements that line the pockets of powerful multinationals while screwing middle-class workers:
The classic story of the American economy is a saga about an ever-expanding middle class that systematically absorbs the responsible, hard-working families from the lower economic groups. It's about the young people of each successive generation doing better than their parents' generation. The plotline is supposed to be a proud model for the rest of the world.
One of the reasons there is so much unease among voters this year is the fact that this story no longer rings so true. Books based on its plotline are increasingly being placed in the stacks labeled "fantasy."
The middle class is in trouble. Globalization and outsourcing are hot topics in this election season because so many middle-class Americans, instead of having the luxury of looking ahead to a brighter future for the next generation, are worried about slipping into a lower economic segment themselves.
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The simple truth... is that enormous numbers of well-educated, highly skilled white-collar workers are having tremendous trouble finding the kind of high-level employment they've been trained for and the kind of pay they feel they deserve.
The knee-jerk advocates of unrestrained trade always insist that it will result in new, more sophisticated and ever more highly paid employment in the U.S. We can ship all these nasty jobs (like computer programming) overseas so Americans can concentrate on the more important, more creative tasks. That great day is always just over the horizon. And those great jobs are never described in detail.
As I'm sure Mr. Herbert realizes, the Knee-Jerk Advocate camp includes his bosses. Just yesterday, assessing the two-man race between Kerry and Edwards, the Times editors opined:
[I]t's too bad that their fiercest competition is a battle to see who can outpander the other on trade. Mr. Edwards hammered hard on Mr. Kerry's Nafta vote as he wooed blue-collar workers in Wisconsin, and Mr. Kerry picked up the theme, lashing out at George Bush's economic adviser for daring to suggest that there are positive aspects to outsourcing jobs abroad.
As one can easily see from this quote, the editors at the Times take the notion that outsourcing will result in a net benefit to Americans as an article of faith, casually dismissing the Dem candidates attempt to raise the issue as mere "pandering". I have no idea why this belief is so widely held, even among card-carrying members of the so-called "Liberal" media. Perhaps it's because their jobs cannot, by their very nature, be "outsourced". Or perhaps it's because, as Eric Alterman has repeatedly pointed out, even journalists who are left-leaning on social issues tend to be more conservative on economic policy.
Whatever the reason, the groupthink in the mainstream press on "free" trade, globalization, and offshoring has seriously suffocated debate and discussion on these matters at a time when a thorough conversation is desperately needed. Kudos to Bob Herbert for having the bravery to start that conversation and keep it going when his colleagues would just as soon let the matter drop.
[2004.02.14 - 02:45 P.M.] Bivens on FileGate
Matt Bivens at The Nation has a take on the Illegal File Access-Related Activities of those crazy Republican Senate staffers:
Try this on: You notice that a rival at work is away from his desk. You sneak in and make secret copies of all of his private files -- with the intention of passing off some of his ideas as your own, and sabotaging the others. You enjoy doing so for several months, until you get caught. By way of a defense, you blame your rival: He ignorantly left his computer running with the password logged in, he didn't lock his office door, he didn't lock his office filing cabinet. It was just "sheer luck" that you "found" his files.
As alibis go, this is equivalent to a burglar protesting his innocence on grounds that he'd "found," by "sheer luck," a spare key recklessly left under the welcome mat. Only the morally retarded could offer it.
So meet the Bush Republicans. Caught sneaking into the files of Democratic colleagues in the Senate, they have blamed ... the Democrats. (When are those awful Democrats going to take personal responsibility for their actions?)
Senate Republican staff for many months secretly gamed a Congressional computer server both parties share to download thousands of Democratic internal memorandums. The memos were leaked to conservative outlets like The Washington Times, The Wall Street Journal edit page and columnist Robert Novak; they were also allegedly used to prepare some of President George W. Bush's judicial nominees for confirmation hearings.
Here's how one of the Republican Senate staffers involved -- who worked for Orrin Hatch and Bill Frist -- manfully takes responsibility: "[The Democratic memos] were inadvertent disclosures that came to me as a result of some negligence on the part of the Democrats' technology staff."
Great stuff, huh? You know, if these guys really wanted to be honest, they could use a modified version of the Scorpion Defense:
"Hey, you knew we were a bunch of morally-bankrupt scumbags when you agreed to share a server with us!"
What surprises me about this whole fiasco is not the theft of the files in and of itself -- that is exactly the sort of thing you'd expect from this band of filth masquerading as a legitimate political party -- but rather what they did with the files after they got them. Did they think the Dems wouldn't notice their own material turning up in the right-wing press? Did they not realize that sort of thing is what would get them busted?
It's a symptom of a larger pattern on the right: They commit their crimes in broad daylight, because they have come to fully expect that they can get away with anything. And it might just be that arrogance that leads to their downfall.
[2004.02.14 - 09:40 A.M.] Chutzpah Indeed
It's not often that the editors of a major newspaper will come right out and call one side in this endless political war of ours on their hypocrisy. But that's exactly what this Washington Post editorial does in response to the RNC's recent sliming of John Kerry as beholden to special interests:
IT'S HARD TO RECALL a more brazen display of political chutzpah than the Bush campaign's assault on Sen. John F. Kerry (Mass.) as a captive of special interests. A video e-mailed Thursday night to 6 million supporters attacks the Democratic front-runner as an "unprincipled" collector of special-interest cash. The video cites a report in this newspaper that Mr. Kerry led the senatorial pack in collecting money from the very Washington lobbyists that he is busy decrying on the campaign trail. As the dollar amount -- $640,000 -- shows on the screen, a female announcer emits a sound of pained surprise. "Oooh," she says, "For what? Nominations and donations coincided." The video concludes: "Fact. Kerry -- Brought to you by the special interests. Millions from executives at HMOs, telecoms, drug companies. Ka-ching!"
Mr. Kerry's fundraising and his relationships with Washington lobbyists are a legitimate topic, even more so now that he has positioned himself, or tried to, as the scourge of Washington business as usual. But -- how can we say this politely? -- let's consider the source.
Mr. Bush's acceptance of special-interest money and his subsequent rewards to the industries doing the giving dwarf anything in Mr. Kerry's record. According to the Center for Responsive Politics, whose figures are cited in the Bush campaign video, Mr. Bush has raised more than four times as much from lobbyists during the 2004 race as Mr. Kerry has -- $960,000 for Mr. Bush to $235,000 for Mr. Kerry. During the 2000 contest, the Bush campaign assigned an industry code to givers so it would know precisely how much it was beholden and to whom. As electric utility lobbyist Thomas Kuhn explained in a 1999 letter to fundraisers, putting the code on the check "does ensure that our industry is credited, and that your progress is listed among the other business/industry sectors." Mr. Kuhn's progress may well have been noted; he met at least 14 times with Vice President Cheney's energy task force.
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The Bush video may be a long-shot effort to help derail Mr. Kerry's march to the Democratic nomination. More likely, it's an attempt to neutralize the special-interest issue, to inoculate the Bush White House against accusations that it's a captive of special interests and to muddy the waters by convincing voters that both candidates are equally complicit. We don't think voters are quite that slow.
Note the unusual technique that the Post editors employ in this piece: They look at the facts related to the attack being made, then they look at the facts regarding the history of the people making the attack. Then they compare the two. Finally - and this is really the kicker - they make a judgement as to which side is worse.
Now, I ask you, outside of a Paul Krugman op-ed, when was the last time we saw something like this from a mainstream paper? Next thing you know, the Republicans will make an assertion and some brave editor will point out that it's untrue. This could be the start of a revolution, I tell you...
[2004.02.08 - 11:35 A.M.] Iraq Intelligence Commission
Bush's commission to investigate "intelligence failures" related to Iraq is going to be a complete joke. To understand why, read Dave Neiwart's post here and Josh Marshall's post here on the commission's Republican lead, Laurence Silberman. Then read Marshall's post here on the commission's mandate, which notably does not include looking into how intelligence was used by the White House. This is going to be a good old-fashioned white wash.
Luckily, in some quarters of the media, they're not buying the Bushies naked attempt to rewrite history. The Boston Globe, in a recent editorial, had this to say:
..[I]f Bush believes he can hide from questions about his use and misuse of intelligence by creating a commission that reports its findings after Nov. 2, he is deluding himself. The public and his political opponents already know that the stockpiles of chemical and biological weapons said to be in Saddam's possession have not been found.
They also know a great deal about the ways in which administration policy makers tilted the intelligence process to produce preordained conclusions. In an unprecedented gesture that was regarded at the CIA as an attempt to influence or intimidate agency analysts, Vice President Dick Cheney and his top assistants went to CIA headquarters in the run-up to the war to question agency analysts.
And here's an outstanding piece from the Minneapolis Star-Tribune:
Let's be clear: The failure of the administration's evidence on Iraq's WMD is not a case of 20-20 hindsight, as some apologists for Bush assert. The president himself was flat-out wrong when he said last week that Saddam Hussein refused to "let us in." Before the war, Blix's weapons inspectors were on the ground in Iraq examining the specific sites and looking for the precise materials mentioned in the brief Powell presented to the U.N. Security Council. And they were finding nothing. Very few people worldwide bought the American case for war -- before the war started.
Be clear about something else, too: The neoconservatives who designed this war had spent years criticizing the U.S. intelligence community for underplaying the threat from Iraq. The neocons were being fed a line of baloney by the Iraqi National Congress and its defectors, and the CIA wasn't buying it. When the Bush administration came into office, it thought so little of what the CIA and other agencies were presenting on Iraq that it set up a special, new unit at the Pentagon to go over the raw data and make its own judgments. For the neocons to suggest that the White House got sold bogus intelligence by the CIA is ludicrous.
Yes, by all means, let's be clear about both those things. And let's continue to be clear on them even as Bush's hand-picked commission, led by the monstrous Silberman, tries their damnedest to obfuscate and distort the facts.
[2004.02.08 - 10:40 A.M.] Bush on Russert
If you're missing the first half hour of Bush's Meet the Press appearance, here it is:
"But but but but Tim... Terra.. you need intelligence. Because.. intelligence... and terra - you need to understand that war against terra.. democracy, Tim, democracy is about terra from intelligence. And George Tenet gave good intelligence, but but but... the terra in Iraq was found. Saddam had programs that could produce madmen. Nucular peninshulas as well. Terra terra terrarized. I'm a war president, Tim. War is terra. I told that to the American people. Especially about the programs. I don't want terra, but terra is there and must be fought. Al Quaeda is about preventing freedom in parts of the world where terra hates democratic madmen. Forward strategy. The weapons, Tim, were were were were... etched in Saddam's heart."
General impressions?
Russert is asking the right questions, but he isn't really going on the offensive, and he isn't following up at all. Example: When Russert asked Bush about the 9-11 commission, Bush responded that the White House had gone to extraordinary lengths to cooperate with them. Polar opposite of the truth. No follow-up from Russert.
Bush appears rambling and clueless. Each of his answers seems like he's taking the same vague stock phrases and rearranging them. His demeanor seems... tired and put upon? I think that captures it. Weak, too. I'm watching this guy and thinking "This is the leader of the free world? We must be in dire straits."
Of course that's me. Hopefully there will be some "instant reactions" from around the blogosphere so I can see if I'm getting accurate impressions or if this is just my "Bush Hatred" talking...
[2004.02.06 - 07:00 P.M.] Military Service: Dems versus Repugs
Aaron Kinney over at Hornswaggler has a funny/angry-as-hell take on how a Kerry/Clark ticket would match up with Bush/Cheney on the issue of military service:
..[T]he troubling aspect for Republicans who have been attacking Dean has to be that Kerry does appear to be the more dangerous candidate in a general election. Last week I started to feel really optimistic about how a Kerry-Clark ticket, say, would fare against George W. Bush and Dick Cheney, especially in terms of credentials on military issues. Can you imagine the debates?
George W. Bush: "I avoided the Vietnam War, and then I avoided the thing I avoided it for."
Kerry: "I was shot, like, fifty times."
And the vice presidential debates:
Cheney: "I sit in a dark room filled with video monitors, thinking about the coming Armageddon. Sometimes I glower. On other occasions I cackle. I have a hatch in my back where you pour the oil in."
Clark: "I have more bars on my uniform than there are teeth in your dessicated skull."
Not that I'm casting a moral judgement on getting out of the draft for Vietnam, mind you. Plenty of people did it, including Dean and Bill Clinton. What I am condemning is the profound hypocrisy of being a draft dodger turned war monger who sends soldiers off to die seemingly indiscriminately, of a guy who fails to complete his obligations to the National Guard and then struts around the deck of an aircraft carrier in a flight suit like a supply-side monkey.
I'm condemning the hypocrisy of a man who partied and snorted coke in his day, yet wants to make harsher the drug laws that send people to prison for marijuana possession. Meanwhile his niece gets busted for narcotics and goes to rehab, because she's got the money, never mind the political connections, to afford good legal representation.
And I'm condemning the religious posturing of a man who talks about Jesus while ignoring every single thing that Jesus ever taught, and who believes morality applies to the private lives of citizens but not to corporations that take advantage of the public, that pollute - causing real-life damage to real, live people - and are allowed to get away with it.
And the hypocrisy of a man for whom free-market principles always apply, except when political expediency says otherwise.
Ooops, he kinda kept going there, didn't he? Once you get started on Bush Hypocrisy, I guess it's hard to stop.
For those of you who haven't stumbled across Aaron's blog yet, I highly recommend it. He's got the requisite lefty anger, but he's mastered the art of leavening it with some crazy-ass humor - a balancing act we're still working on here at TwoGlasses. And what can you say about a guy who even manages to turn the Philadelphia Eagles into an interesting subject to read about?
[2004.02.06 - 09:00 A.M.] Isn't Mikey Cute?
What on Earth has happened to Michael Kinsley? First there was his superficial hatchet job on Paul O'Neill a few weeks back. Now, this:
Democrats are cute when they're being pragmatic. They furrow their brows and try to think like Republicans. Or as they imagine Republicans must think. They turn off their hearts and listen for signals from their brains. No swooning is allowed this presidential primary season. "I only care about one thing," they all say. "Which of these guys can beat Bush?" Secretly, they believe none of them can, which makes the amateur pragmatism especially poignant.
Nevertheless, Democrats persevere. They ricochet from candidate to candidate, hoping to smell a winner. In effect, they give their proxy to the other party. "If I was a Republican," they ask themselves, "which of these Democratic candidates would I be most likely to vote for?" And by the time this is all over, most of the serious contenders will have been crowned the practical choice for at least a moment. First it was Lieberman the Centrist. "I'm actually for Dennis Kucinich," a Democrat might say, "because I like his position on nationalizing all the churches. But I'm supporting Joe Lieberman. His views on nearly everything are repellent to me, and I think that's a good sign."
Well, well. Isn't Michael Kinsley cute when he's being a snide, condescending asshole?
Kinsley has picked up on the latest meme of Campaign 2004 -- "Democrats are cashing out their ideals by deserting Howard Dean in the search for a more 'electable' candidate" -- and he's here to lecture us on the error of our ways. If he can't get through to us, he'll at least have a little fun comparing us to Republicans. That ought to be good for a few laughs around the Slate watercooler.
Mike. Mike? You got a minute? Good. Blow me.... Thanks. Now here are a few bullet points for you, shithead:
Democrats are not "richocheting" from candidate to candidate. Dean was the consensus front-runner for the past several months leading up to the primaries. Then he lost it. Part of that was because of the influx of non-hard-core voters who simply hadn't been paying attention to the primaries. The sort of people who aren't likely Dean voters. Part of it was also because the media beat Dean to a bloody pulp throughout December and January. So now Kerry is squarely in the lead and pulling away. See? One front runner. Now another. There's no third, fourth, or fifth in the offing. "Richocheting" indeed. Weren't you supposed to be one of the smart pundits?
Your publication, Slate, was right in there with the media pack that was tearing Dean apart. So isn't it just a tad hypocritical of you, Mr. "Founding Editor", to be seen publicly wringing your hands over those Democratic voters who have decided to take a second look at Dean's competition?
Personally, I've been a Howard Dean guy. I'm not sure I agree with the consensus opinion that he's "unelectable". But make no mistake: Choosing the candidate with the best possible chance to get elected is Job One. More important by far than any ties any of us have to our particular favorites. There's nothing shallow about that at all, either. Dems simply realize that, for all their minor variations in policies and personalities, any one of our guys is a vastly superior choice compared with The Worst President in United States History, so we're making that the priority.
John Kerry may not be the most inspiring candidate in the world, but that 92% ADA rating proves that he's no centrist punk either. In fact, straight-up on the issues, he's probably closer to most progressive Dems' views than Dean is. Put that in your smart-ass pundit pipe and smoke it.
Focusing on electability is not giving our vote, by proxy, to the other party. If we were trying to find a candidate Republicans would like, Joe Lieberman would be walking away with the nomination. Focusing on electability means we're looking beyond our own immediate preferences to find a candidate we, as a party, can all get behind. And you have a problem with that? Are you sniffing glue?
You know what? Kinsley's put-down that this pragmatic-minded voting mimics Republican behavior has a nugget of truth to it. For the last two decades Republicans have really had their shit together in terms of working the process. They act with greater unity. They don't attack their own. They win elections (well, the ones they don't steal, at least). Democrats? Our hearts and minds may be in the right place, but we've been a mess as a party. Mercifully, that phase of political history may finally have run its course, and if so it's something to get behind, something to be proud of, not something to piss and moan about.
In any case, Kinsley's sudden metamorphosis from a reliable voice of reason into yet another sneering Kool Kid in a city that's already teeming with such idiots is really repulsive. It was nice reading you, Mike. Have a nice career.
