[2004.10.27 - 01:46 PM] The Nation Speaks For Me
Over the last several weeks, I have read numerous endorsements of
John Kerry - most of which would more properly be called denunciations
of George Bush - from a variety of publications, mainstream and not, liberal and, shockingly, even conservative.
Each of these editorials brings the quirks, biases, obsessions,
illusions and delusions of the editorial staff in question to the table.
Each, therefore, provides much to disagree with. The New
Republic still believes that toppling Saddam was a fundamentally
sound idea. The American Conservative has already gone on record
saying they would stand in opposition to Kerry the moment he takes
office.
The Nation, however, has delivered an
endorsement of John Kerry which, unless I have overlooked something,
contains absolutely nothing with which I would disagree. It's the
endorsement I myself would have written, had I the wherewithal to do
so:
The presidential campaign debates are over, and the
time for decision has come. The Nation endorses Senator John Kerry to be
the next President of the United States.
Any stocktaking must begin, of course, by comparing
the records of Kerry and George W. Bush. Yet the upshot of such a
detailed comparison, though entirely favoring Kerry, is not our
principal reason for supporting him. To make clear why, despite strong
disagreements with Kerry, we not only recommend a vote for him but do so
with fervor, we must step back from the candidates and their positions
and set forth an independent view of what we believe are the stakes in
this election.
This magazine's disagreements with Kerry are deep and
touch on fundamental matters. We believed that the invasion of Iraq was
"the wrong war, in the wrong place, at the wrong time" (as he now
describes it) before the war was ever launched; he has come to that
conclusion only recently, having voted to authorize the war. We believe
the United States should withdraw from Iraq; he wants to "win" the war
there. We think the military budget should be cut; he plans to increase
it, adding 40,000 troops. (For what, exactly? to fight another wrong
war, at the wrong place, at the wrong time?) We reject preemptive war;
he embraces it. We oppose the wall that Israeli Prime Minister Ariel
Sharon is building on Palestinian lands; he supports it. We believe in
the elimination of all nuclear weapons; he wants only to stop their
spread. He calls for significant expansion of healthcare; we call for a
single-payer system that would cover everyone. He opposes gay marriage;
we back it. If he wins the election, The Nation will pursue each of
these differences vigorously.
But while we have sharp differences with Kerry, we
believe he has the qualities required for the presidency. He is more
than "anybody but Bush." His instincts are decent. He is a man of high
intelligence, deep knowledge and great resolve. At times in his
life--notably, when he opposed the Vietnam War--he has shown exemplary
courage. He respects the law. He believes in cooperation with other
countries and has the inclination and ability to bring America out of
its current isolation and back into the family of nations. As a senator,
he demonstrated concern for social welfare and has backed this up with
enlightened policy proposals. He has supported civil rights and labor
rights and opposed racism. He has supported the rights of women,
including the right to an abortion. He has been an advocate of nuclear
arms control and opposed the almost incomprehensibly provocative nuclear
policies of the Bush Administration. He would rescind the most unfair of
Bush's tax cuts for the wealthy. He would be a friend of the environment
and return the United States to the negotiations on global warming.
I urge you to read the rest for yourself.
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[2004.10.19 - 10:40 AM] Gregg Easterbrook Is A Feminine Hygiene Product
Gregg Easterbrook wore out his welcome with me a long time ago. The
guy is a talented writer, but he just can't seem to muster an argument
about anything in the realm of politics that passes the laugh
test.
Today, however, seeing his TNR
piece about lying in American life (subs. reqd.), I couldn't resist
giving him yet another chance. The article, which centers on a new book
called The Post-Truth Era by Ralph Keyes, starts out well enough.
Keyes' book addresses the underreported frequency with which we all lie
(so he claims). Specifically, it would seem that we lie about things
that happened in our past in order to make ourselves look better.
Hmmmm. Interesting notion. Certainly seems plausible. Of course,
being a walking paragon of virtue, I don't do any such thing. But now
that I know what the rest of you are up to, I'll be on my guard...
Anyhow, I'm motoring happily along thinking that Easterbrook's doing
a fair enough job on the topic. Until I come to this bit in the fourth
paragraph:
Today many would rather watch a docudrama, in which
viewers have absolutely no idea what is historical and what is
imaginary, than read carefully researched history. The made-up version
is more interesting! Many would rather listen to Michael Moore or the
Swift Boat guys--Moore on the left and the Swifties on the right being
current exemplars of post-truth politics--since the sort of arguments in
which it doesn't matter what is true are more fun than tedious
accuracy.
This stopped me dead in my tracks. I just thought "Nope. Not even
giving the rest of this a chance. You compare the Swift Boat Liars to
Moore and you're done."
Easterbrook is a classic example of those journalists who are more
interested in being perceived as "fair" than they are in being accurate.
Ironically, this places his journalistic efforts squarely in the
category of "post-truth" communication he seeks to discuss. I guess his
assumption is that his readers would rather be told that the ostensible
inaccuracies in Fahrenheit 9-11 are on par with the outright, deliberate
slander of the Swift Boat ads. Such a claim may be untrue but, hey, it
plays better, you know?
(sigh)
I will not read Gregg Easterbrook. I will not read Gregg Easterbrook.
I will not read Gregg Easterbrook. I will not read Gregg Easterbrook. I
will not read Gregg...
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[2004.10.17 - 11:00 A.M.] NY Times Endorses Kerry
For the life of me, I cannot fathom Atrios' negative reaction to this. I thought the Times' endorsement was eloquent, passionate without sounding rabid, and convincing (at least, I expect, to those still capable of being convinced):
Mr. Kerry has the capacity to do far, far better. He has a willingness - sorely missing in Washington these days - to reach across the aisle. We are relieved that he is a strong defender of civil rights, that he would remove unnecessary restrictions on stem cell research and that he understands the concept of separation of church and state. We appreciate his sensible plan to provide health coverage for most of the people who currently do without.
Mr. Kerry has an aggressive and in some cases innovative package of ideas about energy, aimed at addressing global warming and oil dependency. He is a longtime advocate of deficit reduction. In the Senate, he worked with John McCain in restoring relations between the United States and Vietnam, and led investigations of the way the international financial system has been gamed to permit the laundering of drug and terror money. He has always understood that America's appropriate role in world affairs is as leader of a willing community of nations, not in my-way-or-the-highway domination.
We look back on the past four years with hearts nearly breaking, both for the lives unnecessarily lost and for the opportunities so casually wasted. Time and again, history invited George W. Bush to play a heroic role, and time and again he chose the wrong course. We believe that with John Kerry as president, the nation will do better.
Voting for president is a leap of faith. A candidate can explain his positions in minute detail and wind up governing with a hostile Congress that refuses to let him deliver. A disaster can upend the best-laid plans. All citizens can do is mix guesswork and hope, examining what the candidates have done in the past, their apparent priorities and their general character. It's on those three grounds that we enthusiastically endorse John Kerry for president.
Reading the bill of particulars against Bush, I was struck yet again by what monstrous times we live in. Four years ago I thought the choice should have been obvious. But half the country was conned into taking a chance on the morally and intellectually bankrupt charlatan who has led us down this blind, dangerous alley we now find ourselves in. Now, after all that has happened, I sit here each day in stunned disbelief that, by all appearances, just about half the country still persists in their delusion that Bush's "leadership" is good and right and wholesome for this country and the world.
The unnamed aide in Suskind's piece said of the administration that "when we act, we create our own reality." Indeed they do. It's the alternate reality we hear Bush, Cheney, Rumsfeld, Condi and the rest speak of every time they open their mouths. To some extent, of course, we all create our own "realities", or rather our own models of reality. But when these models are too divergent from The World Out There, they tend to come crashing down. The administration simply could not have maintained the bogus "reality" trip they're on were it not for the diligent assistance of the 50% of us they have duped. I'm talking about the people who spend all day figuring out ways to deny or parry each piece of damning evidence the world hurls at our current "leadership". Those who, instead of considering the facts as they emerge, act as willing conduits for the Right Wing Noise Machine that seeks to drown out those facts. Understand, I'm not pointing to the media in this instance, although they have more than their share of blame coming. I'm talking about everyday citizens who expend their own energy co-creating this farcical universe in which invading Iraq was too a good idea, and what we really need at home are more tax cuts to get that economy going. These people live behind a barrier through which reason cannot pass, and the administration uses them as a willing, living anchor to keep us mired down in the fantastic nightmare they have created. The decision of what to feel towards them comes down to a choice of pity or contempt. Hope seems to no longer be an option.
Hope lies elsewhere. It lies with those damnable "undecideds" and with alienated non-voters. It lies with the progressive fringe who, hopefully, have managed to extract their heads from Ralph Nader's ass and will perhaps pull the lever for our imperfect Democratic Party which is, dis-spiriting though it may be, the only bulwark between the vision of our founders we aspire to on the one hand, and outright corporate fascism on the other.
Please let the polls be wrong. Please let Kerry win in a landslide. America, prove to me you're still sane.
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[2004.10.16 - 02:15 P.M.] TERRIFYING
Working my way through Ron Suskind's profile of Bush right now, and I came across what might be the most terrifying thing I've ever read:
In the summer of 2002, after I had written an article in Esquire that the White House didn't like about Bush's former communications director, Karen Hughes, I had a meeting with a senior adviser to Bush. He expressed the White House's displeasure, and then he told me something that at the time I didn't fully comprehend -- but which I now believe gets to the very heart of the Bush presidency.
The aide said that guys like me were ''in what we call the reality-based community,'' which he defined as people who ''believe that solutions emerge from your judicious study of discernible reality.'' I nodded and murmured something about enlightenment principles and empiricism. He cut me off. ''That's not the way the world really works anymore,'' he continued. ''We're an empire now, and when we act, we create our own reality. And while you're studying that reality -- judiciously, as you will -- we'll act again, creating other new realities, which you can study too, and that's how things will sort out. We're history's actors . . . and you, all of you, will be left to just study what we do.''
The consequences of this election could be more dire than any of us have imagined. These people are freaks. They are medieval-thinking lunatics who could very well drive the world straight off a cliff.
It is high time the "reality based community" kicked these insanely arrogant war-mongering theocrats back to the boondocks where they belong.
Update: Here's more:
And for those who don't get it? That was explained to me in late 2002 by Mark McKinnon, a longtime senior media adviser to Bush, who now runs his own consulting firm and helps the president. He started by challenging me. ''You think he's an idiot, don't you?'' I said, no, I didn't. ''No, you do, all of you do, up and down the West Coast, the East Coast, a few blocks in southern Manhattan called Wall Street. Let me clue you in. We don't care. You see, you're outnumbered 2 to 1 by folks in the big, wide middle of America, busy working people who don't read The New York Times or Washington Post or The L.A. Times. And you know what they like? They like the way he walks and the way he points, the way he exudes confidence. They have faith in him. And when you attack him for his malaprops, his jumbled syntax, it's good for us. Because you know what those folks don't like? They don't like you!'' In this instance, the final ''you,'' of course, meant the entire reality-based community.
Guess what? The feeling's mutual, motherfucker.
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[2004.10.15 - 11:35 PM] "Do You Hear That, Mr. Anderson?"
"That is the sound of inevitability."
So said Agent Smith in The Matrix.
Reading this article at TNR by the incomparable Jonathan Chait (sorry, subscription only), I was struck by this paragraph at the end (emphasis mine):
The biggest mystery may be why most pundits haven't noted how bad things look for Bush right now. Maybe the reason is that he's built an aura of inevitability, starting with his 2000 victory and continuing through his legislative triumphs. The man just doesn't seem to lose very often. And his campaign firmly believes in projecting an air of confidence in the belief that it's self-fulfilling. (Remember Bush in late fall 2000, in an effort to show he was so confident that he could play for a landslide victory, devoting time and money to California?) The day before the 2000 election, a front-page headline in The Washington Times read, "Bush campaign says it's in the bag; Top strategist sees 320 votes." In retrospect, we now know that Bush's victory was not exactly inevitable. So maybe it's just hard to believe that Bush will lose, even if the data suggest he will.
Chait's article is actually about how positive all the numbers and trends look for Kerry now, and as you can see, he's asking why no one seems to note this fact. The inevitability thing just struck me.
I remember when Bush first surfaced as a Republican candidate for the presidency. I knew nothing -- I mean nothing -- about the man, other than that he was Poppy Bush's kid, and yet I felt Dread. I had never heard of Karl Rove, and yet I felt Dread. When the election turned out to be a tie and the recount fiasco ensued, something in me knew that this man would prevail. I walked into work the next day and told a Republican friend of mine "Look, we can argue about this all day long, but is doesn't matter, you know they're going to give it to Bush."
There's something about Bush that demoralizes his opposition. I think it's his soullessness. You look at his face and he gives you that little wink that says "Yep. I'm a machine. An empty corporate suit. And you know I'm gonna get my way, don't you?" It's like the feeling that Sauron's enemies got when he put on the Ring of Power and entered the fray. An opponent that was merely formidable suddenly seems unbeatable.
Part of me still feels that about Bush. I know that, on the merits and on the strength of our candidate, we should win. But sometimes my heart sinks. I hope I'm wrong to be worried.
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[2004.10.15 - 06:00 P.M.] Retards and Politics
So, the other day, my friends and I have got a little back and forth going on our political e-mail distro about the GOP-funded Democrat Disenfranchisement operation called "Voter Outreach of America". My take, of course, was that this was just the latest atrocity in the torrent of illegal Republican maneuvers we've been seeing recently. And, as always, I pointed out that you simply do not see the Democrats doing anything remotely like this. (Why? Well, because we're better people, that's why. The GOP is ethically bankrupt, we're not, and them's the facts.)
Anyhow, our lone Republican participant, sensing that his party was once again under attack by us crazed lefties, went a-surfing in search of examples of Democratic perfidy. He brought back to us a tale of anti-Republican advertising that was truly below-the-belt: A flyer, ostensibly distributed by Tennessee congressional candidate Craig Fitzhugh, that had a picture of George Bush's head on the body of a special olympics kid with the slogan:
"Voting for Bush is Like Running in the Special Olympics -- Even if You Win, You're Still Retarded."
Now, putting aside the fact that I laughed out loud when I read that -- and fuck you if you have a problem with that; I may be liberal, but I'm not politically correct -- I had to admit that, as campaign advertising, it was in exceedingly poor taste. Still and all, objectionable campaign ads are not the same as voter fraud. Witness the fact that the latter is a felony punishable by up to five years in jail and the former, uh, isn't.
That was the end of that obscure little detour into Tennessee politics. Or so I thought...
...Until I ran across this post over at TPM, linking to this post over at The Washington Note:
[T]he Chairman of the Democratic Party Randy Button and Craig Fitzhugh have denied that these flyers were produced and/or distributed by Fitzhugh's or the campaign office.
Fitzhugh's office reported to me that they have asked the District Attorney's office to investigate and looks at this flyer and the attempt to pin it on Fitzhugh as a disgusting -- but more importantly -- an illegal act.
What has been reported is that these flyers were left in a trash can in Fitzhugh's office. No one on Fitzhugh's staff or among campaign volunteers saw that these flyers had been deposited by anyone in the garbage. Shortly after some unknown individual dropped the flyers in the trash can, another individual came into the office and found the flyers in Fitzhugh's trash -- and then made this public.
As several in the blogosphere have noted, citing Joshua Green's excellent Karl Rove expos, this has Rove's fingerprints all over it. He's pulled stunts exactly like this before.
Nick Confessore at TAPPED is all over this story:
Can you say "set-up"? Clearly, what was supposed to happen was that one operative was going to come into the campaign office and leave the flyers on a table full of other campaign materials, so that a second operative could come in, "find" the documents, and start raising a fuss. But Fitzhugh's quick-witted and observant volunteer, Kate Honey, spotted the materials and had them thrown away. So then the second operative comes by, expecting to find the materials there, and starts complaining about them -- before realizing that they've already been thrown away. As a backup, he goes out and retrieves them from the trash. Instantly, Dave Dahl's campaign, local Republicans, conservative bloggers (including Drudge), and the local and national branches of the Traditional Values Coalition are posting the flyer online and making noise about how awful it is.
Go ahead and read the whole post but -- SPOILER ALERT -- it turns out the guy who supposedly "found" the flier in Fitzhugh's office says he "has no idea" where it came from.
I'll close with this beautiful quote from Confessore:
The other reason this obviously baloney? Think about the phrasing of the flyer. Who on earth is it supposed to convince? People who were planning to vote for Bush but, on reflection, decide they won't want anyone thinking they're a retard? Please.
Hey, Nick, you never know. Consider the target audience. Maybe that approach just might work...
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[2004.10.15 - 03:20 PM] When Superstitions Collide
This story just struck me as hysterically stupid. Or stupidly hysterical:
SUNDAY HALLOWEEN IRKS SOME IN BIBLE
BELT
NEWNAN, Ga. - Across the Bible Belt this Halloween,
some little ghosts and goblins might get shooed away by the neighbors -
and some youngsters will not be allowed to go trick-or-treating at all -
because the holiday falls on a Sunday this year.
"It's a day for the good Lord, not for the devil,"
said Barbara Braswell, who plans to send her 4-year-old granddaughter
Maliyah out trick-or-treating in a princess costume on Saturday
instead.
"You just don't do it on Sunday," said Sandra Hulsey
of Greenville, Ga. "That's Christ's day. You go to church on Sunday, you
don't go out and celebrate the devil. That'll confuse a child."
Well... I mean... I don't know what to say. That was awfully
insensitive of us, wasn't it? Having the 31st of October fall on a
Sunday like that? Can't have those competing superstitions colliding
now, can we?
Tell you what: Let's swap the 30th with the 31st this year.
Whaddaya say, folks? Or maybe we could move November 1st up to Sunday,
and then have October 31st the following day? No, no, that could
interfere with that other pagan holiday, Monday Night Football.
Let's go with the 30th-to-31st swap.
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[2004.10.15 - 12:55 PM] Freeze Tag
This story made my head explode:
WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The United States on Friday
ordered a freeze on assets of the militant group led by Jordanian Abu
Musab al-Zarqawi, which has claimed responsibility for a series of
bombings, kidnappings and beheadings in Iraq (news - web sites).
The Treasury Department's Office of Foreign Assets
Control added Zarqawi's Tawhid and Jihad group to its list of suspected
terrorists and terrorism financiers.
The move, which came a day after Britain ordered
banks to seek out and freeze any assets of the group, blocks any
accounts, funds and assets of Tawhid and Jihad in the United States.
It's a good thing for me that a.) I can type when my head is missing
and, b.) It keeps growing back. Otherwise the last four years would
have been considerably more difficult.
(ahem)
WE'RE JUST DOING THIS NOW?????!!!!!
ARE YOU KIDDING ME????!!!!
Lemme get this straight: Terrorist Mastermind Abu Musab
al-Zarqawi -- the same Evil Genius whose activities we've been tracking
since before September 11th and who has been rocketing towards the top
of Billboard's Top 100 Terrorists ever since -- has been able to
move his money freely around the world's financial markets all this
time? Nice going! Nice piece of work there, guys!
Man, I guess we had to give him the benefit of the doubt, huh?
Wouldn't want to jam up the dude's ATM card just because he is thought to
have been behind the Madrid bombings. Wouldn't want to blacklist him at
Citibank just because he's been orchestrating the suicide bombings in
Iraq. No, that would be rash.
But perhaps it would have been a good idea to freeze his accounts
after he chopped a
guy's head off on television, no?
Truly, our anti-terrorism efforts are a well-oiled machine.
(OK, calming down now.)
See, this is the sort of thing that drives me to the brink of tears
when people talk about how well Bush is handling the war on terrorism.
This is so basic. No, it's not flashy. Freezing bank accounts
won't get top billing on CNN, nor will it get a jazzy new custom graphic
and theme song on FOX News. But you need to do it and you need
to do it sooner rather than later. Terrorist operations
do not run on fanaticism alone; they require money. Start
plugging up their cash flow and the Bad Guys will. Be. Less.
Effective.
You look at our lackadaisical efforts in this arena, and then you
look at the terrorist recruiting commercial war in
Iraq, and you have to wonder, are we trying to lose?
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[2004.10.14 - 10:00 P.M.] There's No Debate: Kerry Was Great.
So, in a nutshell, here's how the three presidential debates went:
Kerry: Windshield
Bush: Bug
Last night gave us the most relaxed and confident Kerry yet. He's been steadily improving on that score, gradually loosening up, and he's done it without losing any of his "gravitas". Calm, controlled, confident, and in command of the issues. Most importantly, not once has he let Bush get under his skin. All the shrill attempts to paste Kerry first with the flip-flopper label and then last night with the "Mazzechoosutts Librul" label just slid right off of him. Well done, Mr. Kerry. Well done.
One thing I want to note that has really felt great for me, personally, throughout these debates: For the first time in years, I'm not feeling that awful cognitive dissonance that comes from seeing and hearing one thing and then having the media (and the polls) tell me another. You all know what I mean. The Monkey responds to 9-11 like a frightened child, then flips and goes all Rambo, and all the while his approval ratings skyrocket and the pundits, left and right, lavish praise on his "strong leadership". We've had four straight years of this up-is-down crap.
Well, with these debates, I think we're at the end of it. The media and the general public finally seem to be back on board with the whole "reality" thing. From where I was sitting, Kerry clearly won all three debates, right? Well, amazingly, the post-debate polls have consistently reflected the same judgement. And even more startlingly, the media and the pundits (at least the ones whose tongues aren't plugging Karl Rove's butt) accurately reported the same thing.
This might take some getting used to.
Seriously. I don't want to harp on this too much, but... well, yes I do.
Fact checking. What, suddenly it's back in vogue? Where were these dogged media sleuths when Bush repeatedly claimed that Saddam didn't let the inspectors into Iraq? Where were they when Bush said we had "found the Weapons of Mass Destruction"? Where were they when Cheney kept linking Iraq and Al Qaeda? MIA, that's where. So imagine my surprise when they suddenly jump all over Dick "Never Met John Edwards" Cheney last week. Imagine my shock when they immediately pounce on George "Never Said I Wasn't Concerned About Osama" Bush. I mean, nice job, guys, but what the hell took you so long?
OK. End of media rant.
I don't know about my fellow liberals out there, but right now, with three weeks to go, I am feeling the Kerry campaign. Victory isn't in the hizzouse yet, but it's knockin' on the dizzoor. Our greatest hope has to be that, throughout the coming onslaught of ordure that Prince Karl is going to throw at our guys, America remembers the men they saw on stage, and forgets the phony BS caricatures the GOP tries to draw over them.
I really hope these debates left a lasting impression, because there's a certain parade I'd like to attend in DC this coming January.
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[2004.10.12 - 03:25 PM] Two Parties? Much Better Than One.
I was reading Dave Neiwert's latest post in his ongoing series about "Pseudo Fascism" and
Movement Conservatism. (See the earlier posts here, here, and here.) It's a great series if you've, um, got a couple days
to kill.
Anyhow, as any of you who read Neiwert know, his central concern recently
has been the increase in eliminationist rhetoric coming from the American
Right. This includes what I'll call "hard" eliminationist talk -- such as
'Wingers fantasizing in public about about how they want to gun down
liberals -- and "soft" eliminationist rhetoric, which focuses on depriving
liberals generally and Democrats specifically of their place at the
political table:
[W]hile the eliminationist motif plays out on the local
micro-level, it also manifests itself at the national level, particularly in
the strategies employed by movement-conservative leaders.
Indeed, if one were to search for evidence of a
totalitarian impulse in the modern American political arena, it would be
hard to find a clearer example than the discrete conservative movement's
drive toward creating a one-party state.
Take, for instance, Republican poobah Grover Norquist,
who has a noted propensity for indulging in the same fantasies. On more than
one occasion, Norquist has made clear that he intends to ride the
conservative movement to the transformation of America into a one-party
state -- and using any means necessary to achieve that end.
Neiwert isn't the only one to pick up on this trend. Robert Kuttner over
at The American Prospect had an outstanding
article back in February exposing the lengths the right has gone to in
their quest to acquire, consolidate, and hold on to a virtual monopoly on
political power in this country:
We are at risk of becoming an autocracy in three key
respects. First, Republican parliamentary gimmickry has emasculated
legislative opposition in the House of Representatives (the Senate has other
problems). House Majority Leader Tom DeLay of Texas has both intimidated
moderate Republicans and reduced the minority party to window dressing,
rather like the token opposition parties in Mexico during the six-decade
dominance of the PRI.
Second, electoral rules have been rigged to make it
increasingly difficult for the incumbent party to be ejected by the voters,
absent a Depression-scale disaster, Watergate-class scandal or Teddy
Roosevelt-style ruling party split. .. As the Florida debacle of 2000
showed, the Republicans are also able to hold down the number of opposition
votes, with complicity from Republican courts. Reform legislation, the 2002
Help America Vote Act (HAVA), may actually facilitate Republican
intimidation of minority voters and reduce Democratic turnout. And the
latest money-and-politics regime, nominally a reform, may give the right
more of a financial advantage than ever.
Third, the federal courts, which have slowed some
executive-branch efforts to destroy liberties, will be a complete rubber
stamp if the right wins one more presidential election.
Taken together, these several forces could well enable
the Republicans to become the permanent party of autocratic government for
at least a generation.
I realize that these dire predictions probably sound alarmist to some,
but if George Bush should win (or "win") the presidency this time around,
and if the Democrats don't manage to retake at least one house of Congress,
I truly believe the Democratic Party could be finished. Go ahead and read
Neiwert and Kuttner. Then ponder the endless stream of bullying, perversion
of governmental rules and norms, and extra-legal activity employed by the
Right in the last four years alone and tell me I'm wrong. Four more
years will be more than enough time for these ethically bankrupt bastards to
choke the remaining life out of their one viable opposition party --
certainly at the national level, at least, though regional and state-level
enclaves may survive.
The great irony I see is that, in this time of considerable peril, when a
totally ruthless GOP is close to achieving unchallenged dominance, there are
still people out there bitching and moaning about America's Two-Party
System. It boggles the mind. The Democratic Party is far from perfect, but
right now they are the last bulwark against Right-Wing Corporate
Totalitarianism.
You don't like our two-party duopoly? Try to imagine life under the
unrestrained iron fist of Tom DeLay, Dick Cheney, and Karl Rove. Then get
your ass out there and vote Democratic.
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[2004.10.12 - 09:55 AM] Might The Apocoilypse Finally Be Upon Us?
Kevin Drum has a post (and graph) this morning showing a continued sharp increase in oil prices. Normally this
isn't an issue I pay much attention to. As a kid in the seventies, I sat in
gasoline lines with my parents, and I remember all the hysterical talk
during that "oil crisis". Since then, my take has been, sure, we're going
to run out of oil someday, but the Coming Oil Cataclysm never seems to
materialize on schedule, so I'll blow it off and worry about it when it gets
here.
Short-sighted and dimwitted? Maybe. But, really, given the deeply
rooted interests that the Powers that Be have in maintaining an oil-based
economy, I don't see that there's much a guy like me can do to prevent the
Apocoilypse.
Here's the thing, though: I always figured that when the crude hit the
fan, it would take the form of a gradual running down of the oil industry.
Gas prices would drift slowly and inexorably upward, and government and
industry would finally be moved to shift to renewables and other alternative
sources. But what if it's not gradual? Kevin asks, "what happens when
global supply is 1% below global demand?" What happens indeed. Will gas go
to $10.00 a gallon? What about home heating oil? (Happily, we have an
electric hot-water based system at our apartment, but still, power prices
will go through the roof across the board if oil spikes.) In short, what if
there's a sudden increase in prices that is so steep, so out-of-proportion
to what we've been expecting, that we don't have any time at all to react
and adjust?
Suddenly, I find myself in the position of wishing I'd worried more about
this. Not that worrying would have necessarily helped.
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[2004.10.11 - 10:48 AM] Impeachable
From the LA Times:
The Bush administration plans to delay major assaults on
rebel-held cities in Iraq until after U.S. elections in November, say
administration officials, mindful that large-scale military offensives could
affect the U.S. presidential race.
"When this election's over, you'll see us move very
vigorously," said one senior administration official involved in strategic
planning, speaking on condition of anonymity.
"Once you're past the election, it changes the political
ramifications" of a large-scale offensive, the official said. "We're not on
hold right now. We're just not as aggressive."
Tailoring critical military operations in order to serve his domestic
political agenda.
Someone explain to me why we're not impeaching this man.
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[2004.10.08 - 11:50 P.M.] Calling A Spade
Following this debate, Digby had this to say about the Monkey:
Bush can still not give even one example of a mistake he's made --- except appointing certain people he appointed that he won't name. (It must be Paul O'Neill and Larry Lindsay because they are the only ones he fired.)
As he has always been, he remains, a piece of shit.
I point this quote out for one reason: It's true.
There are people out there who think that, if they vote for Bush, they're putting a Man in the oval office. You're wrong. You're not. What you're putting in the executive chair of the highest office of the land is a Piece of Shit. Cry all you want about bias and partisanship, but you're taking a Crap on the Oval Office chair.
I've called it the "Bag of Shit Principle": I'd elect a Bag of Shit to the White House over George Bush. The Bag would do less damage.
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[2004.10.08 - 07:55 P.M.] Debate II
So, all week long, Bush has been out on the stump talking major shit about Kerry. Tearing him apart. Saying how Kerry has been misleading with all his "flip-flops" on Iraq, blah blah blah. Saying how Kerry will make America less safe, blah blah blah.
And all week long I've wanted to say "Hey, fuckhead, you sure do talk a good game when you're back in front of your hand-picked audiences with nobody asking you any real questions. Where was this whole Confident Tough Guy routine last week, you fucking clueless, whimpering pussy?"
Here's what I think will happen tonight: I think the Coward In Chief has probably taken enough of an ego-beating hearing about what a stammering immature moron Kerry made him look like in Debate I. And I think that, as his speeches this week have indicated, he's going to come out swinging. Or what passes for "swinging" in Bush Land, which will look more like he's ineffectually waving his arms and slapping at Kerry like a five-year-old. But I digress.
If he does this, he's in for a world of hurt. First, Kerry will not sit back and take it. He'll respond with strength and reserve for the first few attacks, and then he'll start landing round-houses. Second, if Bush tries this crap, the contrast with his first debate performance will be so great that even our spineless media will have to take him to task for trying to affect a pose (remember what they did to Gore after his uneven performances?). It's a big lose either way.
I'm not up to live-blogging the debate, especially since half my attention will be on Yankees v. Twins Game 3. If you're looking for me, I'll be over at The All Spin Zone chatting in the debate comments thread with Rich, the Dentist, and the rest of the crew. (Trust me, it's just as fun as being at Atrios' or Kos' sites, only with about 100,000 fewer people to wade through.)
Good Luck, Big John! Tear the Monkey a brand new asshole!
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[2004.10.02 - 09:15 P.M.] No Cowboy
(via The Sideshow) George Bush ain't no Cowboy:
[L]iberals from both coasts and Europeans who derisively call Bush a "cowboy" foolishly insult not Bush, but one of America's prime ennobling myths. Instead of ridiculing the myth exploited by George W. Bush, they may want to measure him against it.
"The idea of the American cowboy is the direct lineal descendant of the chivalric knight," observes Bonnie Wheeler, a medievalist in cowboy country. "The only serious difference is that your status doesn't depend on your social class." Editor of Arthuriana, the journal of Arthurian studies, Wheeler teaches at Southern Methodist University in Dallas.
"Our president," she says, "is neither a knight nor a cowboy. He doesn't believe in taking care of the little guy, nor does he have the restraint or dignity of the cowboy."
Read the whole thing. I love seeing the point-by-point description of how Bush violates the Cowboy Code.
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[2004.10.01 - 08:00 P.M.] Carl Cameron Embarrasses Fox
Well, OK, I'm going out on a limb here assuming that Fox News has the capacity for embarrassment, but still, Cameron has given them a minor black eye by "accidentally" letting a parody version of a news story on John Kerry make it onto the Fox web site. Josh Marshall broke this little dust up earlier today. Here are a few grafs from the phony story, which Fox has since removed:
Rallying supporters in Tampa Friday, Kerry played up his performance in Thursday night's debate, in which many observers agreed the Massachusetts senator outperformed the president.
"Didn't my nails and cuticles look great? What a good debate!" Kerry said Friday.
Aides say he will step up attacks on the president in the next few days, and pivot somewhat to the domestic agenda, with a focus on women and abortion rights.
"It's about the Supreme Court. Women should like me! I do manicures," Kerry said.
Kerry still trails in actual horse-race polls, but aides say his performance was strong enough to rally his base and further appeal to voters ready for a change.
"I'm metrosexual he's a cowboy," the Democratic candidate said of himself and his opponent.
Pretty juvenile stuff, but let's be honest: Is anyone surprised that this is what passes for humor behind the scenes at Fox News?
Anyhow, Marshall contacted Fox to find out what was up after the fake story was pulled without comment:
Late this afternoon I spoke to Fox spokesman Paul Schur who told me the following ...
Carl [Cameron] made a stupid mistake which he regrets. And he has been reprimanded for his lapse in judgment. It was a poor attempt at humor.
So the Fox reporter covering the Kerry campaign puts together this Kerry-bashing parody right out of the RNC playbook with phony quotes intended to peg him as girlish fool and somehow it found its way on the Fox website as a news item.
Late today, Fox released a retraction and apology.
So, you want to hear something funny? Carl Cameron? I grew up across the street from him. Yep. Back then he didn't go by "Cameron". Carl was a good 5-6 years older than me. Mostly what I remember about him are the raging parties he used to throw when his parents were out of town. Guys pissing in the street. Cops coming at 3:00 AM to break things up. That sort of thing.
He seemed like a decent guy, if a bit irresponsible. I was shocked to find out, a few years ago, that he had taken up journalism -- or, in this case, "journalism" -- changed his surname to Cameron and was working at Fox. Word has it that his parents, when cornered on the question, gamely insist that the Fox News Channel is legit. Of course, what else are they going to do? Admit that their kid is a cog in the GOP's wholly-owned media subsidiary? Ah, such wasted potential. But at least he's still having "fun". Heh heh.
Maybe I'll see if I can e-mail him. I want to know if Fox allows them to bust on Bush as well, or if that's off-limits.
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[2004.10.01 - 11:01 AM] Debate I Wrap
OK, first off, I had a quick reaction post up last night -- or so I
thought -- but it appears to have vanished into the cyber-ether. Very odd.
Probably something to do with the TGSBW...
Anyhow, on to the post-debate discussion.
Kerry killed Bush. It wasn't a machine-gunning or a beheading, just a
long, slow blood-letting.
If it's true that the general public puts as much stock in the
candidates' mannerisms and bearing as they do in the substance of what they
say (and all the pundits have assured us that they do) then Kerry sent Bush
to the Moon last night. It was ninety minutes of a very
presidential-looking Kerry facing off with a cranky ADHD-afflicted five-year
old. And boy was it a blast to watch. I have got a bounce in my step this
morning, and Big John can expect a bounce in the polls over the weekend.
Bush seemed to do OK at first, but Howard Fineman nailed it when he said
Bush came to the stage with "thirty-five minutes of material for a ninety
minute debate." Seriously, by the twentieth or thirtieth time Bush said
that Kerry "changes his position" or that the Iraq war was "hard work" or
asked "what kind of message" it sends to call Iraq a diversion, I imagine
even Bush's supporters were getting a little tired of the mind-numbing
repetition. The Monkey just doesn't have much to give us except for tired
sound bites, and in a debate that -- surprisingly -- turned into an actual
exchange of ideas, that didn't get it done.
We watched the debate on C-SPAN, which, in defiance of the Debate
Commission's request, had split-screen action from the get go. It was
highly amusing watching the expressions that flickered across Bush's face as
Kerry bore into him. The Smirk, of course, was cycling by every few
seconds. But there was anger, annoyance, petulance, even disbelief as well.
Of course, the last may have just been cluelessness -- our president in
screen-saver mode. In any event, these "cut-away" shots gave the audience a
chance to look into Bush's "soul" last night. And guess what? It's a
festering pit of egotism and brittle arrogance.
Kerry's performance, by contrast, was solidly in the "A" range. His
stage presence and bearing were perfect, his pacing was even and confident,
and he seemed to be in constant command of the proceedings. As Rob
Salkowitz pithily
put it, Kerry used "the advantage that comes from actually understanding
the words that are coming out of your mouth". On substance, he hit
virtually every point he needed to. Iraq was a diversion from the real war
on terror. Osama attacked us, not Saddam, and Bush let the former get away
in order to focus on the latter. We're not doing what we need to do at home
to really make America safe. Bush had no substantive response to any
of these critiques. All he could do was retreat into the same mix of lies,
denial, and spin that his campaign has been doling out for months. My only
problem with Kerry -- and it's a small one -- is that he made so many good
points that sometimes he seemed to move on from them too quickly.
Repetition isn't always a bad thing, sir.
Kerry's two best lines:
[Y]ou know when I talked about the $87 billion I made a
mistake in how I talk about the war. But the president made a mistake in
invading Iraq. Which is worse?
It's one thing to be certain, but you can be certain and
be wrong.
Finally, I want to focus on one Bush theme in particular, his repeatedly
asking "what kind of message it sends" when Kerry questions the wisdom of
the Iraq war and it's relevance to the war on terrorism. This is typical
Bush idiocy combined with an unhealthy portion of audacity. By framing the
question this way, Bush is saying that any questioning of the reasons
for going to war is off-limits because it'll hurt the morale of our troops
in the field. This is beyond ludicrous. So here's an answer to your
question, Monkey. This is the "message" Kerry's sending: Your commander in
chief is an idiot. He made a bad choice. I'm going to do the best I can to
clean up his mess and get you the hell out of there.
If I were in Iraq right now, that message would be music to my ears.
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