Remember James G. Poulos? As I told you last year, he's the right-wing commentator (The Washington Times, The American Spectator, etc.) who thinks our children's moral well-being is threatened by wacky typography and deliberate misspellings. Well, he's been watching TV, and he's freaking again:
A television commercial. A young male soaps himself up in the shower. He's using man body wash. The brand is Old Spice. At the sink, a woman -- wife? girlfriend? lover? -- attends to herself. She asks: "If you were going to be with one of my friends, who would it be?" Cut to face of male. Cue face of soapy confusion. "Don't worry," she soothes. "I won't get mad or anything." Soapy male clutches his chest. Voice over explains: not everything has to be this difficult. Buy Old Spice man body wash.
... Our psychocapitalists -- in both meanings of that word -- toy with the deaths and dangers that must be repressed and sell the erotic charge any way they can, in both directions, at every turn....
Boycott Old Spice and damn them, for breaking that which is not to be broken and making a comedy of the shattered smithereens. Damn the way in which a laugh is meant to distract, to create the diverting illusion of escape from the inescapable. Seeping from every pore of the hollow joke is a nausea that may have to be experienced first to be believed....
Oh. My. God.
But wait -- Poulos wasn't finished!
...It's open to interpretation that the Old Spice girl (be she wife, girlfriend, or neither) is really not interested in the twisted kick she's trying to coax out of her man. She may really be trying to trap him into confessing his own private fantasies, the better to know her foe with. But the tone of the commercial, and the poise of her whole performance, is one of deliberate, toying ambiguity, the sort that plows a trail of tears through our sexier generations who seek the sexual cognate of self-justification so desperately that they are willing to try anything, physically and psychologically. They peep over the abyss of fleshly possibility and tumble in paralyzed. Egging them on is a whole culture.
... there is a world of difference between the gay marriage and the hip/bi threesome style. The screaming index of our cultural soul-sickness is the relentless making public of that which is private....
STOP! STOP! PLEASE STOP!
That Old Spice ad? I got a mild squirm out of it. Poulos? He gives me the creeps.
Sunday, March 19, 2006
OUR PALS
Philip Kennicott of The Washington Post doesn't much like Christian Frei's new documentary film about the Bamiyan Buddhas of Afghanistan, which were destroyed by the Taliban in early 2001, but he does note this detail Frei uncovered:
...it was the Taliban that destroyed them. With the help, we're told by a local, of engineers from Saudi Arabia and Pakistan, although the filmmaker doesn't bother to follow up on that tantalizing but possibly dubious nugget of complexity....
Interesting, if true. (What, not Iranian engineers, or Saddamist Iraqis? Aren't they the region's worst freedom-haters and evildoers?)
For what it's worth, when the prime minister and foreign minister of Sri Lanka tried to prevent the destruction of the Buddhas, they appealed not to anyone in the Taliban, but to Pakistan's Pervez Musharraf; Pakistan was one of only three countries that recognized the Taliban government, the other two being Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates.
Philip Kennicott of The Washington Post doesn't much like Christian Frei's new documentary film about the Bamiyan Buddhas of Afghanistan, which were destroyed by the Taliban in early 2001, but he does note this detail Frei uncovered:
...it was the Taliban that destroyed them. With the help, we're told by a local, of engineers from Saudi Arabia and Pakistan, although the filmmaker doesn't bother to follow up on that tantalizing but possibly dubious nugget of complexity....
Interesting, if true. (What, not Iranian engineers, or Saddamist Iraqis? Aren't they the region's worst freedom-haters and evildoers?)
For what it's worth, when the prime minister and foreign minister of Sri Lanka tried to prevent the destruction of the Buddhas, they appealed not to anyone in the Taliban, but to Pakistan's Pervez Musharraf; Pakistan was one of only three countries that recognized the Taliban government, the other two being Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates.
Saturday, March 18, 2006
Gee, how wonderful:
Afghan Man Faces Execution After Converting to Christianity
An Afghan man who recently admitted he converted to Christianity faces the death penalty under the country's strict Islamic legal system. The trial is a critical test of Afghanistan's new constitution and democratic government....
...officially, Muslim-born [Abdul] Rahman is charged with rejecting Islam and not for practicing Christianity.
...Officials say his family, who remain observant Muslims, turned him over to the authorities.
...If convicted, ... President Hamid Karzai ... would have to sign the papers authorizing Rahman's execution, a move that could jeopardize Mr. Karzai's standing with human rights groups and Western governments.
...political analysts here in Kabul say he will be under significant pressure from the country's hard-line religious groups to make an example of Rahman.
--VOA News
...I want you to understand that you're on the frontier of freedom.
--President Bush to troops at Bagram Air Base, Afghanistan, March 1, 2006
*****
(Via Democratic Underground.)
Afghan Man Faces Execution After Converting to Christianity
An Afghan man who recently admitted he converted to Christianity faces the death penalty under the country's strict Islamic legal system. The trial is a critical test of Afghanistan's new constitution and democratic government....
...officially, Muslim-born [Abdul] Rahman is charged with rejecting Islam and not for practicing Christianity.
...Officials say his family, who remain observant Muslims, turned him over to the authorities.
...If convicted, ... President Hamid Karzai ... would have to sign the papers authorizing Rahman's execution, a move that could jeopardize Mr. Karzai's standing with human rights groups and Western governments.
...political analysts here in Kabul say he will be under significant pressure from the country's hard-line religious groups to make an example of Rahman.
--VOA News
...I want you to understand that you're on the frontier of freedom.
--President Bush to troops at Bagram Air Base, Afghanistan, March 1, 2006
*****
(Via Democratic Underground.)
(What follows was written before I had a chance to read the Time story "How Operation Swarmer Fizzled." Wow, it's even worse than I thought.)
Here's what I don't get: If the Bush administration launched Operation Swarmer to focus America's attention on the skill of the Iraqi military, how was that supposed to help the administration in the polls? It seems obvious to me that if you're telling the public, "These Iraqis are really doing a really fine job," the American is going to think, "If they're so great, why the hell aren't we starting to get our troops out?"
Plus, it's a mixed message. The message is "The Iraqis are standing up," but it's also "Three years into the war, we feel we need to launch a huge air assault -- and yes, it has to be with our aircraft." That says, "We're taking it to the enemy" -- but it also says we're still struggling to defeat the enemy. It says the Iraqis can fight -- but it also says they still need us to give them a ride.
Only the Bush cultists were ever going to see this operation in a positive light. For everyone else, this was inevitably going to be seen as confirmation that we're still in this up to our necks.
Here's what I don't get: If the Bush administration launched Operation Swarmer to focus America's attention on the skill of the Iraqi military, how was that supposed to help the administration in the polls? It seems obvious to me that if you're telling the public, "These Iraqis are really doing a really fine job," the American is going to think, "If they're so great, why the hell aren't we starting to get our troops out?"
Plus, it's a mixed message. The message is "The Iraqis are standing up," but it's also "Three years into the war, we feel we need to launch a huge air assault -- and yes, it has to be with our aircraft." That says, "We're taking it to the enemy" -- but it also says we're still struggling to defeat the enemy. It says the Iraqis can fight -- but it also says they still need us to give them a ride.
Only the Bush cultists were ever going to see this operation in a positive light. For everyone else, this was inevitably going to be seen as confirmation that we're still in this up to our necks.
Friday, March 17, 2006
Nice to see John Ashcroft has found something to keep himself busy in his golden years:
...in the era of the Jack Abramoff scandal, Mr. Ashcroft has become a Washington lobbyist, setting himself up as something of an anti-Abramoff and marketing his insider's knowledge of how Washington works.
To do so, he has amassed a staff of Republican insiders and rented fancy offices. For corporations seeking contracts from the growing homeland security budget, Mr. Ashcroft promises to draw on his central role in the war on terror and in helping set up the Department of Homeland Security. For companies in trouble with regulators, he says his experience in cracking down on corporate corruption can provide valuable insights.
"Clients would call in an individual who has a reputation for the highest level of integrity," he said in an interview in his office. "Those who have been in government should not be forbidden from helping people deal with government, which is what I see myself doing." In the hourlong interview, Mr. Ashcroft used the word "integrity" scores of times....
Yeah, this has "integrity" stamped all over it:
One of Mr. Ashcroft's newest clients is ChoicePoint, a broker of consumer data that is increasingly being used by the government to keep tabs on people within the United States. The company received millions of dollars in contracts from the Justice Department under Mr. Ashcroft as part of the war on terror and has now hired him to find more.
"The Ashcroft Group contacted us and we initiated a relationship," said Chuck Jones, a ChoicePoint spokesman. "He's got a lot of knowledge that could benefit ChoicePoint."
... A further opportunity for Mr. Ashcroft arises from an investigation by the Securities and Exchange Commission into insider trading by the company's chief executive and chief operating officer.
Chris Jay Hoofnagle, senior counsel at the Electronic Privacy Information Center, a Washington digital rights group, said Mr. Ashcroft had the inside edge.
"As attorney general, Ashcroft created the conditions that allow companies like ChoicePoint to flourish," Mr. Hoofnagle said. "Ashcroft can open doors that others can't." ...
This, too:
After helping prosecute executives at Enron and WorldCom, Mr. Ashcroft also says he can counsel troubled companies on how to deal with government regulators and avoid the fate of Arthur Andersen, the accounting firm that collapsed after it was indicted in the Enron scandal.
"They need someone who can take threatening circumstances and neutralize them," Mr. Ashcroft said. "I'll be a lightning rod for people facing serious challenges." ...
As does his staff:
His staff includes David T. Ayres, his former chief of staff; Juleanna Glover Weiss, a Republican lobbyist and a former press secretary to Vice President Dick Cheney; and a Republican fund-raiser, William C. T. Gaynor II, who helped raise more than $300 million in the 2004 election. He opened his office 10 months after leaving the Justice Department.
Whom would Jesus schmooze?
...in the era of the Jack Abramoff scandal, Mr. Ashcroft has become a Washington lobbyist, setting himself up as something of an anti-Abramoff and marketing his insider's knowledge of how Washington works.
To do so, he has amassed a staff of Republican insiders and rented fancy offices. For corporations seeking contracts from the growing homeland security budget, Mr. Ashcroft promises to draw on his central role in the war on terror and in helping set up the Department of Homeland Security. For companies in trouble with regulators, he says his experience in cracking down on corporate corruption can provide valuable insights.
"Clients would call in an individual who has a reputation for the highest level of integrity," he said in an interview in his office. "Those who have been in government should not be forbidden from helping people deal with government, which is what I see myself doing." In the hourlong interview, Mr. Ashcroft used the word "integrity" scores of times....
Yeah, this has "integrity" stamped all over it:
One of Mr. Ashcroft's newest clients is ChoicePoint, a broker of consumer data that is increasingly being used by the government to keep tabs on people within the United States. The company received millions of dollars in contracts from the Justice Department under Mr. Ashcroft as part of the war on terror and has now hired him to find more.
"The Ashcroft Group contacted us and we initiated a relationship," said Chuck Jones, a ChoicePoint spokesman. "He's got a lot of knowledge that could benefit ChoicePoint."
... A further opportunity for Mr. Ashcroft arises from an investigation by the Securities and Exchange Commission into insider trading by the company's chief executive and chief operating officer.
Chris Jay Hoofnagle, senior counsel at the Electronic Privacy Information Center, a Washington digital rights group, said Mr. Ashcroft had the inside edge.
"As attorney general, Ashcroft created the conditions that allow companies like ChoicePoint to flourish," Mr. Hoofnagle said. "Ashcroft can open doors that others can't." ...
This, too:
After helping prosecute executives at Enron and WorldCom, Mr. Ashcroft also says he can counsel troubled companies on how to deal with government regulators and avoid the fate of Arthur Andersen, the accounting firm that collapsed after it was indicted in the Enron scandal.
"They need someone who can take threatening circumstances and neutralize them," Mr. Ashcroft said. "I'll be a lightning rod for people facing serious challenges." ...
As does his staff:
His staff includes David T. Ayres, his former chief of staff; Juleanna Glover Weiss, a Republican lobbyist and a former press secretary to Vice President Dick Cheney; and a Republican fund-raiser, William C. T. Gaynor II, who helped raise more than $300 million in the 2004 election. He opened his office 10 months after leaving the Justice Department.
Whom would Jesus schmooze?
More disgusting than green beer:
The head of the St. Patrick's Day Parade [in Manhattan] ignited march madness yesterday when he likened letting gays participate to allowing neo-Nazis and the KKK to join other ethnic events.
"If an Israeli group wants to march in New York, do you allow neo-Nazis into their parade? If African-Americans are marching in Harlem, do they have to let the Ku Klux Klan into their parade?" the parade's chairman, John Dunleavy, was quoted as saying in an interview with The Irish Times.
"People have rights," Dunleavy added. "If we let the [Irish Lesbian and Gay Organization] in, is it the Irish Prostitute Association next?"
When the Daily News caught up with Dunleavy at a dinner at The Waldorf-Astoria yesterday, he refused to discuss his remarks.
"I'm not talking to you. This is a private party," he said. "I'll have you removed." ...
The Irish Times interview is here. From another Irish Times article, we learn that a few people have been rejecting Manhattan for Queens, where they're a bit more welcoming:
In Woodside, Queens, where gay groups set up their own parade, the local anarchist marching band refused to march in the Manhattan parade because it excludes gays. The first openly gay speaker of New York city council, Christine Quinn, is also boycotting the Manhattan parade, as is author Frank McCourt, who noted that if you threw a bomb among the leaders of the Manhattan parade, you would kill "the cream of Irish mediocrity". His brother Malachy, dressed in an outlandish Tricolour hat for last Sunday's pro-gay Woodside parade, is even running for governor on the Green Party ticket to raise awareness of the anti-gay discrimination.
Nice. (You know all about Frank. Malachy's not a bad storyteller, either.)
That second Irish Times link notes that an earlier chairman of the Manhattan parade said "that homosexuality is a disease that can be cured in a hospital and that, if gays were allowed to march, they might attack children lining the parade route." It also notes that a bishop is trying to keep the National Organization for Women out of the parade in Morristown, New Jersey.
(And there's more -- about dwarves in Belmar, New Jersey, who either were or weren't too drunk at last year's parade there, and are banned and/or boycotting this year's parade. I bet they'd be welcome in Woodside.)
The head of the St. Patrick's Day Parade [in Manhattan] ignited march madness yesterday when he likened letting gays participate to allowing neo-Nazis and the KKK to join other ethnic events.
"If an Israeli group wants to march in New York, do you allow neo-Nazis into their parade? If African-Americans are marching in Harlem, do they have to let the Ku Klux Klan into their parade?" the parade's chairman, John Dunleavy, was quoted as saying in an interview with The Irish Times.
"People have rights," Dunleavy added. "If we let the [Irish Lesbian and Gay Organization] in, is it the Irish Prostitute Association next?"
When the Daily News caught up with Dunleavy at a dinner at The Waldorf-Astoria yesterday, he refused to discuss his remarks.
"I'm not talking to you. This is a private party," he said. "I'll have you removed." ...
The Irish Times interview is here. From another Irish Times article, we learn that a few people have been rejecting Manhattan for Queens, where they're a bit more welcoming:
In Woodside, Queens, where gay groups set up their own parade, the local anarchist marching band refused to march in the Manhattan parade because it excludes gays. The first openly gay speaker of New York city council, Christine Quinn, is also boycotting the Manhattan parade, as is author Frank McCourt, who noted that if you threw a bomb among the leaders of the Manhattan parade, you would kill "the cream of Irish mediocrity". His brother Malachy, dressed in an outlandish Tricolour hat for last Sunday's pro-gay Woodside parade, is even running for governor on the Green Party ticket to raise awareness of the anti-gay discrimination.
Nice. (You know all about Frank. Malachy's not a bad storyteller, either.)
That second Irish Times link notes that an earlier chairman of the Manhattan parade said "that homosexuality is a disease that can be cured in a hospital and that, if gays were allowed to march, they might attack children lining the parade route." It also notes that a bishop is trying to keep the National Organization for Women out of the parade in Morristown, New Jersey.
(And there's more -- about dwarves in Belmar, New Jersey, who either were or weren't too drunk at last year's parade there, and are banned and/or boycotting this year's parade. I bet they'd be welcome in Woodside.)
Besides noting that the what the Bushies are doing is obviously an election year stunt, I can't add a thing to what Barbara at the Mahablog says about the newly released Saddam documents. Read what she says here and here.
****
UPDATE: No, wait -- go read this, too, from Gavin at Sadly, No! It examines the absurd scenario the Bushies have concocted to explain why the allegedly really, really incriminating documents are trickling out so slowly. Their explanation: the president of the United States cowers in fear of his own director of national intelligence, John Negroponte, who's said to be the roadblock. It has nothing to do with election-year politics at all! But let Gavin explain in more detail.
****
UPDATE: No, wait -- go read this, too, from Gavin at Sadly, No! It examines the absurd scenario the Bushies have concocted to explain why the allegedly really, really incriminating documents are trickling out so slowly. Their explanation: the president of the United States cowers in fear of his own director of national intelligence, John Negroponte, who's said to be the roadblock. It has nothing to do with election-year politics at all! But let Gavin explain in more detail.
Thursday, March 16, 2006
The lyrics to the 1978 song "Bullet" by the punk band by the Misfits aren't very nice. They're about the assassination of JFK and the (imagined) degradation of Jackie Kennedy in the aftermath. But that's no excuse for this:
A Mars Hill College freshman says he's no fan of President Bush.
But Tim Willis claims he didn't mean to harm anybody when he changed song lyrics so they described the violent death of the president.
The Secret Service wasn't impressed, and seized the computer Willis used.
Willis says he made the posting to myspace.com in late February in response to a posting by a friend, whose computer also was seized.
The lyrics were from "Bullet," a 1978 song by the punk band The Misfits. Willis replaced references to President Kennedy with Bush's name.
A Secret Service agent who seized Willis's computer on March 7th declined to discuss the case.
What the hell is the Secret Service looking for on these kids' computers for nine days and counting? What do they expect to find? Bin Laden's ATM password? They're kids, for crissakes. They did a punk-rock thing to a punk-rock song and posted it as a joke to a very public site that has a gazillion users a day. How long does it take to figure out that they're not terrorists?
(Story via DU.)
A Mars Hill College freshman says he's no fan of President Bush.
But Tim Willis claims he didn't mean to harm anybody when he changed song lyrics so they described the violent death of the president.
The Secret Service wasn't impressed, and seized the computer Willis used.
Willis says he made the posting to myspace.com in late February in response to a posting by a friend, whose computer also was seized.
The lyrics were from "Bullet," a 1978 song by the punk band The Misfits. Willis replaced references to President Kennedy with Bush's name.
A Secret Service agent who seized Willis's computer on March 7th declined to discuss the case.
What the hell is the Secret Service looking for on these kids' computers for nine days and counting? What do they expect to find? Bin Laden's ATM password? They're kids, for crissakes. They did a punk-rock thing to a punk-rock song and posted it as a joke to a very public site that has a gazillion users a day. How long does it take to figure out that they're not terrorists?
(Story via DU.)
THE LARGE PRINT GIVETH AND THE SMALL PRINT TAKETH AWAY
USA Today notes that seniors and their families will soon have yet another reason to hate Bush and the Republicans:
Medicare drug plan gaps may hit soon
... A special 90-day transition period, set by Medicare to prevent beneficiaries from losing any drug coverage, ends April 1. Private insurance plans can then stop covering drugs they don't usually pay for. Most of the 36 states that stepped in on an emergency basis to help low-income beneficiaries also will stop paying.
State insurance counselors and health care advocates say the result could be a repeat of problems first encountered in January, when the program began. Thousands of beneficiaries were turned away from pharmacies when their records weren't found or their drugs weren't covered.
"Some of these people are going to be in really difficult spots," said Jude Walsh, special assistant to Maine Gov. John Baldacci. "I think they're going to be going without medication again."...
Ah, but don't worry -- the magic of privatization can make this all go smoothly!
Meanwhile, Medicare officials said insurance plans need to educate seniors about what happens when the transition period ends. Some seniors could have to change drugs, file appeals or pay out of pocket.
"We have a short time to be working with the plans to make sure the beneficiaries get the information," said Peter Ashkenaz of the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services. "Some plans are already doing it."
Or maybe not....
But dozens of state health insurance counselors in a nationwide conference call Wednesday said they were unaware of any insurance plans helping to educate seniors....
The private insurers aren't doing good customer service? I'm shocked. Shocked!
USA Today notes that seniors and their families will soon have yet another reason to hate Bush and the Republicans:
Medicare drug plan gaps may hit soon
... A special 90-day transition period, set by Medicare to prevent beneficiaries from losing any drug coverage, ends April 1. Private insurance plans can then stop covering drugs they don't usually pay for. Most of the 36 states that stepped in on an emergency basis to help low-income beneficiaries also will stop paying.
State insurance counselors and health care advocates say the result could be a repeat of problems first encountered in January, when the program began. Thousands of beneficiaries were turned away from pharmacies when their records weren't found or their drugs weren't covered.
"Some of these people are going to be in really difficult spots," said Jude Walsh, special assistant to Maine Gov. John Baldacci. "I think they're going to be going without medication again."...
Ah, but don't worry -- the magic of privatization can make this all go smoothly!
Meanwhile, Medicare officials said insurance plans need to educate seniors about what happens when the transition period ends. Some seniors could have to change drugs, file appeals or pay out of pocket.
"We have a short time to be working with the plans to make sure the beneficiaries get the information," said Peter Ashkenaz of the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services. "Some plans are already doing it."
Or maybe not....
But dozens of state health insurance counselors in a nationwide conference call Wednesday said they were unaware of any insurance plans helping to educate seniors....
The private insurers aren't doing good customer service? I'm shocked. Shocked!
Well, other bloggers have told you this, but you really will enjoy "The Final Word Is Hooray!," FAIR's compilation of premature celebratory quotes about the Iraq War from our journalistic betters back in the spring of '03. It's hard to pick a favorite -- this is just a mild example of the fun to be found within:
NPR's Mara Liasson: Where there was a debate about whether or not Iraq had these weapons of mass destruction and whether we can find it...
Brit Hume: No, there wasn't. Nobody seriously argued that he didn't have them beforehand. Nobody.
(Fox News Channel, April 6, 2003)
But, you know, some people will read that and not quite get what's so funny. Here's House Intelligence Committee chairman Pete Hoekstra (R-Mich.) responding to the Bush administration's release of Saddam documents, which began this week and will continue, apparently, right through this election year:
"Whether Saddam Hussein destroyed Iraq's weapons of mass destruction or hid or transferred them, the most important thing is we discover the truth of what was happening in the country prior to the war," he said.
Yeah, right, Pete. They were all spirited out in the dead of night just before the war, invisible to satellite photos and leaving behind no radiation traces or chemical traces or tire treads or any other kind of forensic evidence. Elves and fairies are really good at this kind of thing.
There are a couple of straws right-wingers will grasp at in this first batch of documents. Here's one straw:
The Pentagon Web site described [one] document this way: "2002 Iraqi Intelligence Correspondence concerning the presence of al-Qaida Members in Iraq. Correspondence between [regime] members on a suspicion, later confirmed, of the presence of an Al-Qaeda terrorist group. Moreover, it includes photos and names."
So I guess this is what the Bushites meant when they said Saddam was "harboring" terrorists -- they meant "they were in the country and at first he didn't know where the hell they were, or even if they were there at all." By that definition, the kids in the house in the Friday the 13th movies are "harboring" Jason.
Here's another straw for the right:
... one Iraqi intelligence document indicat[ed] Saddam's feared Fedayeen paramilitary forces were investigating rumors in the fall of 2001 that as many as 3,000 Iraqis and Saudis were going to fight in Afghanistan after the U.S. invasion.
... "After presenting the matter to the Supervisor of Fedayeen Saddam, he ordered that the matter should be looked into for verification of the truth of the rumor," the translation said.
So he couldn't prevent ordinary citizens from crossing his border to volunteer for a war. Good thing we cleared that problem up!
Ah, but it's Groundhog Day, folks. Did you catch this?
The U.S. ambassador to the United Nations, John Bolton, on Wednesday compared the threat from Iran's nuclear programs to the September 11 terror attacks on the United States.
"Just like September 11, only with nuclear weapons this time, that's the threat. I think that is the threat," Bolton told ABC News' Nightline program....
Arrrrgh! It's happening again! Please make it stop!
NPR's Mara Liasson: Where there was a debate about whether or not Iraq had these weapons of mass destruction and whether we can find it...
Brit Hume: No, there wasn't. Nobody seriously argued that he didn't have them beforehand. Nobody.
(Fox News Channel, April 6, 2003)
But, you know, some people will read that and not quite get what's so funny. Here's House Intelligence Committee chairman Pete Hoekstra (R-Mich.) responding to the Bush administration's release of Saddam documents, which began this week and will continue, apparently, right through this election year:
"Whether Saddam Hussein destroyed Iraq's weapons of mass destruction or hid or transferred them, the most important thing is we discover the truth of what was happening in the country prior to the war," he said.
Yeah, right, Pete. They were all spirited out in the dead of night just before the war, invisible to satellite photos and leaving behind no radiation traces or chemical traces or tire treads or any other kind of forensic evidence. Elves and fairies are really good at this kind of thing.
There are a couple of straws right-wingers will grasp at in this first batch of documents. Here's one straw:
The Pentagon Web site described [one] document this way: "2002 Iraqi Intelligence Correspondence concerning the presence of al-Qaida Members in Iraq. Correspondence between [regime] members on a suspicion, later confirmed, of the presence of an Al-Qaeda terrorist group. Moreover, it includes photos and names."
So I guess this is what the Bushites meant when they said Saddam was "harboring" terrorists -- they meant "they were in the country and at first he didn't know where the hell they were, or even if they were there at all." By that definition, the kids in the house in the Friday the 13th movies are "harboring" Jason.
Here's another straw for the right:
... one Iraqi intelligence document indicat[ed] Saddam's feared Fedayeen paramilitary forces were investigating rumors in the fall of 2001 that as many as 3,000 Iraqis and Saudis were going to fight in Afghanistan after the U.S. invasion.
... "After presenting the matter to the Supervisor of Fedayeen Saddam, he ordered that the matter should be looked into for verification of the truth of the rumor," the translation said.
So he couldn't prevent ordinary citizens from crossing his border to volunteer for a war. Good thing we cleared that problem up!
Ah, but it's Groundhog Day, folks. Did you catch this?
The U.S. ambassador to the United Nations, John Bolton, on Wednesday compared the threat from Iran's nuclear programs to the September 11 terror attacks on the United States.
"Just like September 11, only with nuclear weapons this time, that's the threat. I think that is the threat," Bolton told ABC News' Nightline program....
Arrrrgh! It's happening again! Please make it stop!
Wednesday, March 15, 2006
The government proposed a fine of $3.6 million against CBS and dozens of its stations and affiliates Wednesday in a crackdown on what regulators called indecent television programming.
The Federal Communications Commission said a network program, "Without a Trace," that aired in December 2004 was indecent. It cited the graphic depiction of "teenage boys and girls participating in a sexual orgy." ...
Rejecting an appeal by CBS, the FCC upheld its previous $550,000 fine against 20 of the network's stations for the Janet Jackson "wardrobe malfunction" at the Super Bowl two years ago....
--AP today
Just to put that in perspective, here's an AP story from last week:
The federal government said Wednesday it had fined the company that owns the West Virginia mine where a dozen miners were killed in January more than $100,000 in new penalties.
The fines were for 43 citations that had previously been issued but which had not yet received a price tag.
They are part of 208 citations that the federal agency issued against Ashland, Ky.-based International Coal Group for problems at Sago in the calendar year prior to the Jan. 2 explosion.
The new fines, totaling $105,840, are in addition to a little more than $24,000 previously assessed.
Many of the new fines are meant to address serious health and safety violations.
The largest fine was for $9,600 and involved roof support problems. Another fine for $9,200 dealt with ventilation problems.
None of the penalties the government previously issued at Sago exceeded $1,000, a fact that has drawn criticism from lawmakers and worker representatives.
... The agency's minimum penalty is $60, while $60,000 is its maximum....
Nice to see our government has its priorities straight.
(Emphasis mine throughout.)
****
UPDATE: You can read a description of the offending Without a Trace episode here; there's also a clip (which I can't tell you anything about because it's not loading on this computer). Yes, it all sounds quite racy. However, I'd like to ask Brent Bozell, whose Parents Television Council provided the synopsis and clip and also conducted a form-letter campaign regarding the episode, whether he'd be willing to go to West Virginia and tell the families of the dead miners that near-naked teen flesh on TV is 30 times worse than their relatives' deaths.
The Federal Communications Commission said a network program, "Without a Trace," that aired in December 2004 was indecent. It cited the graphic depiction of "teenage boys and girls participating in a sexual orgy." ...
Rejecting an appeal by CBS, the FCC upheld its previous $550,000 fine against 20 of the network's stations for the Janet Jackson "wardrobe malfunction" at the Super Bowl two years ago....
--AP today
Just to put that in perspective, here's an AP story from last week:
The federal government said Wednesday it had fined the company that owns the West Virginia mine where a dozen miners were killed in January more than $100,000 in new penalties.
The fines were for 43 citations that had previously been issued but which had not yet received a price tag.
They are part of 208 citations that the federal agency issued against Ashland, Ky.-based International Coal Group for problems at Sago in the calendar year prior to the Jan. 2 explosion.
The new fines, totaling $105,840, are in addition to a little more than $24,000 previously assessed.
Many of the new fines are meant to address serious health and safety violations.
The largest fine was for $9,600 and involved roof support problems. Another fine for $9,200 dealt with ventilation problems.
None of the penalties the government previously issued at Sago exceeded $1,000, a fact that has drawn criticism from lawmakers and worker representatives.
... The agency's minimum penalty is $60, while $60,000 is its maximum....
Nice to see our government has its priorities straight.
(Emphasis mine throughout.)
****
UPDATE: You can read a description of the offending Without a Trace episode here; there's also a clip (which I can't tell you anything about because it's not loading on this computer). Yes, it all sounds quite racy. However, I'd like to ask Brent Bozell, whose Parents Television Council provided the synopsis and clip and also conducted a form-letter campaign regarding the episode, whether he'd be willing to go to West Virginia and tell the families of the dead miners that near-naked teen flesh on TV is 30 times worse than their relatives' deaths.
Well, this is amusing -- it appears that Hillary Clinton's likely GOP opponent this year is a felon:
...Just-announced Republican Senate hopeful Kathleen McFarland ... a Reagan administration official in the early 1980s, has maintained two voting addresses since 1996: at her posh Park Avenue home and at her family's stunning second home on a small island near Southampton, according to the records.
She pingponged her vote from Manhattan to Southampton in various years, casting her ballot from the Ram Island address in 1998 and 1999, but voting from Park Avenue in 2000 and 2001.
She skipped the 2002 and 2003 elections, and then it was back to voting in Southampton in 2004, according to the records.
State law makes it a felony to be registered at two addresses during the same election cycle, according to state Board of Elections spokesman Lee Daghlian.
"When you change the place you've been voting, a new registration has to be filed, showing that you've changed your address," Daghlian said....
Right-wingers will scoff, but when they think Democrats are merely registering at a new address without voiding the old registration, they're the first to scream "Voter fraud!"
Maybe the New York GOP should reconsider the out-of-favor candidacy of former Yonkers mayor John Spencer. Er, no, wait -- he would apparently bring to the race marital troubles, "dicey friends, ... impulse-control issues and a spot on an FBI surveillance tape," among other items on his C.V.
Never mind -- stick with the felon.
(The story is from the New York Post -- which I believe is being nice to Mrs. Clinton because Rupert Murdoch thinks she'll be elected president in '08 and he wants to be sure he still has friends in high places.)
...Just-announced Republican Senate hopeful Kathleen McFarland ... a Reagan administration official in the early 1980s, has maintained two voting addresses since 1996: at her posh Park Avenue home and at her family's stunning second home on a small island near Southampton, according to the records.
She pingponged her vote from Manhattan to Southampton in various years, casting her ballot from the Ram Island address in 1998 and 1999, but voting from Park Avenue in 2000 and 2001.
She skipped the 2002 and 2003 elections, and then it was back to voting in Southampton in 2004, according to the records.
State law makes it a felony to be registered at two addresses during the same election cycle, according to state Board of Elections spokesman Lee Daghlian.
"When you change the place you've been voting, a new registration has to be filed, showing that you've changed your address," Daghlian said....
Right-wingers will scoff, but when they think Democrats are merely registering at a new address without voiding the old registration, they're the first to scream "Voter fraud!"
Maybe the New York GOP should reconsider the out-of-favor candidacy of former Yonkers mayor John Spencer. Er, no, wait -- he would apparently bring to the race marital troubles, "dicey friends, ... impulse-control issues and a spot on an FBI surveillance tape," among other items on his C.V.
Never mind -- stick with the felon.
(The story is from the New York Post -- which I believe is being nice to Mrs. Clinton because Rupert Murdoch thinks she'll be elected president in '08 and he wants to be sure he still has friends in high places.)
The poor bastards. They were going to enjoy Able Danger so much. Everyone on the Bushista (and Clinton-hating) Right was feeling a surge of anticipatory ecstasy as the moment approached when all liberals and Democrats (and defenders of top Clinton Justice Department official Jamie Gorelick) would have to eat crow and reluctantly acknowledge the awesome power of Able Danger. Consider Fox News:
Fox, August 12, 2005:
'Able Danger' Could Rewrite History
The federal commission that probed the Sept. 11, 2001, terror attacks was told twice about "Able Danger," a military intelligence unit that had identified Mohamed Atta and other hijackers a year before the attacks, a congressman close to the investigation said Wednesday....
John Gibson, Fox, August 12, 2005:
I'm like a lot of my e-mailers: I think this business about the "Able Danger" unit at the Pentagon -- the people who had their eye on Mohammad Atta way before 9/11 -- is now going to come home to roost with the 9/11 commission itself.
The reason is simple. One of the 9/11 commissioners should have been in the witness chair during the entire hearings.
She was Jamie Gorelick, who was in the Justice Department making up the rules before 9/11.
She was the one who ruled that the spies and military analysts couldn't tell the FBI things about people like Atta they had found information on.
This is the so-called wall -- civil liberties, you know -- that protected you from the evil old feds investigating you here at home in the land of the free and home of the brave. And under this thinking, a guy like Atta could be in the crosshairs of the spooks but wander around free as a bird because the spooks had been told they couldn't tell the feds charged with tracking terrorists that they had one on the radar.
This is not to say 9/11 is Jamie Gorelick's fault....
Fox, August 23, 2005:
A second military officer has publicly backed claims by a military intelligence officer that a Pentagon unit named "Able Danger" identified lead Sept. 11 hijacker Mohamed Atta in early 2000 as a security risk....
Fox, August 28, 2005:
A third person has now come forward to verify claims made by a military intelligence unit that a year before the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks, it had information showing that lead hijacker Mohamed Atta and other terrorists were identified as being in the United States....
Whoops! Sorry -- never mind:
Late one night in June, Rep. Curt Weldon (R., Pa.) stood up in a largely empty House chamber and made an incendiary charge.
With dramatic rhetorical flourish, he said that a secret military intelligence program called Able Danger fingered Mohamed Atta and two other al-Qaeda hijackers before the 9/11 attacks -- and that the government had failed to act....
But Weldon's story, which unleashed a wave of national media attention as well as probes and congressional hearings, is unraveling.
He now says that he's not sure the chart had a picture of Atta, as he has sometimes maintained, and that he has been relying on the memory of an intelligence analyst who helped produce it.
Meanwhile, other key players in the story ... contradict Weldon, saying they never saw Atta's picture. Moreover, several government investigations have failed to find any documentation so far that the program had identified hijackers before the attacks, and Weldon has begun to allow that there are parts of his story that may not be proven....
Here's my favorite part of this:
...Weldon has said Rep. Dan Burton (R., Ind.) went with him to Hadley's office to discuss the Able Danger program and to deliver the chart produced by the Able Danger team.
But a spokesman for Burton said that while he was at the meeting, he does not recall seeing Atta's name or picture on the chart....
Man, if Dan Burton won't back your right-wing conspiracy theory, you've got problems.
Fox, August 12, 2005:
'Able Danger' Could Rewrite History
The federal commission that probed the Sept. 11, 2001, terror attacks was told twice about "Able Danger," a military intelligence unit that had identified Mohamed Atta and other hijackers a year before the attacks, a congressman close to the investigation said Wednesday....
John Gibson, Fox, August 12, 2005:
I'm like a lot of my e-mailers: I think this business about the "Able Danger" unit at the Pentagon -- the people who had their eye on Mohammad Atta way before 9/11 -- is now going to come home to roost with the 9/11 commission itself.
The reason is simple. One of the 9/11 commissioners should have been in the witness chair during the entire hearings.
She was Jamie Gorelick, who was in the Justice Department making up the rules before 9/11.
She was the one who ruled that the spies and military analysts couldn't tell the FBI things about people like Atta they had found information on.
This is the so-called wall -- civil liberties, you know -- that protected you from the evil old feds investigating you here at home in the land of the free and home of the brave. And under this thinking, a guy like Atta could be in the crosshairs of the spooks but wander around free as a bird because the spooks had been told they couldn't tell the feds charged with tracking terrorists that they had one on the radar.
This is not to say 9/11 is Jamie Gorelick's fault....
Fox, August 23, 2005:
A second military officer has publicly backed claims by a military intelligence officer that a Pentagon unit named "Able Danger" identified lead Sept. 11 hijacker Mohamed Atta in early 2000 as a security risk....
Fox, August 28, 2005:
A third person has now come forward to verify claims made by a military intelligence unit that a year before the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks, it had information showing that lead hijacker Mohamed Atta and other terrorists were identified as being in the United States....
Whoops! Sorry -- never mind:
Late one night in June, Rep. Curt Weldon (R., Pa.) stood up in a largely empty House chamber and made an incendiary charge.
With dramatic rhetorical flourish, he said that a secret military intelligence program called Able Danger fingered Mohamed Atta and two other al-Qaeda hijackers before the 9/11 attacks -- and that the government had failed to act....
But Weldon's story, which unleashed a wave of national media attention as well as probes and congressional hearings, is unraveling.
He now says that he's not sure the chart had a picture of Atta, as he has sometimes maintained, and that he has been relying on the memory of an intelligence analyst who helped produce it.
Meanwhile, other key players in the story ... contradict Weldon, saying they never saw Atta's picture. Moreover, several government investigations have failed to find any documentation so far that the program had identified hijackers before the attacks, and Weldon has begun to allow that there are parts of his story that may not be proven....
Here's my favorite part of this:
...Weldon has said Rep. Dan Burton (R., Ind.) went with him to Hadley's office to discuss the Able Danger program and to deliver the chart produced by the Able Danger team.
But a spokesman for Burton said that while he was at the meeting, he does not recall seeing Atta's name or picture on the chart....
Man, if Dan Burton won't back your right-wing conspiracy theory, you've got problems.
Tuesday, March 14, 2006
Saw this at BuzzFlash yesterday:
Child sex suspect once was in 'ex-gay' ministry
The former Summit Christian School teacher arrested last weekend after admitting having sex with a teen boy was enrolled in a controversial "ex-gay" ministry whose adherents believe people can change their sexual preference through the power of Christ.
Love in Action International in Memphis, Tenn., is the oldest and best known of the ministries that try to counsel people away from homosexuality through spirituality....
[Chad] Stoffel, 29, a popular teacher and coach at Summit Christian School for more than five years, resigned in December, according to school officials.
It's not clear when Stoffel went to Love in Action, but on Feb. 1 a counselor there called a Palm Beach County Sheriff's Office detective and told him Stoffel had confessed to molesting "numerous" boys in South Florida, according to Stoffel's arrest report....
Oops.
When I was poking around looking for other comments on this, I saw a post at The Republic of T that cited a report on the "ex-gay" movement from the National Gay and Lesbian Task Force. I haven't read the report, but there's a summary here and it has some creepy details:
... A key finding of the report shows that, in this third wave of ex-gay activism, ex-gay programs and their evangelical Christian right allies are focusing less on "curing" adults of homosexuality and more on preventing its development by targeting parents, children and adolescents. Whether through ex-gay teen programs or traveling ex-gay conferences like Focus on the Family's Love Won Out ex-gay programs are recommending that parents commit their children to treatment of "prehomosexuality" even if it is against their children's wishes. Heterosexual youth are also being recruited in schools and churches to spread the message that homosexuality is a treatable mental illness.
"One of the most disturbing accounts in this report is a case involving a 5-year-old boy who was subjected to conversion therapy to address 'prehomosexuality.' The case involves a psychologist who claims that his theories and treatments are scientific," said study co-author Jason Cianciotto, the Policy Institute's research director....
"Prehomosexuality"? "Curing" five-year-olds? Recruiting fellow teens to propagandize for this quackery? These people are disgusting.
****
ALSO SEE this Alicublog post about the National Association for Research and Therapy of Homosexuality, which "Dr. Helen" (Mrs. Instapundit) believes is being brutally mistreated by the fascist jackboot-wearers of the American Psychological Association.
Child sex suspect once was in 'ex-gay' ministry
The former Summit Christian School teacher arrested last weekend after admitting having sex with a teen boy was enrolled in a controversial "ex-gay" ministry whose adherents believe people can change their sexual preference through the power of Christ.
Love in Action International in Memphis, Tenn., is the oldest and best known of the ministries that try to counsel people away from homosexuality through spirituality....
[Chad] Stoffel, 29, a popular teacher and coach at Summit Christian School for more than five years, resigned in December, according to school officials.
It's not clear when Stoffel went to Love in Action, but on Feb. 1 a counselor there called a Palm Beach County Sheriff's Office detective and told him Stoffel had confessed to molesting "numerous" boys in South Florida, according to Stoffel's arrest report....
Oops.
When I was poking around looking for other comments on this, I saw a post at The Republic of T that cited a report on the "ex-gay" movement from the National Gay and Lesbian Task Force. I haven't read the report, but there's a summary here and it has some creepy details:
... A key finding of the report shows that, in this third wave of ex-gay activism, ex-gay programs and their evangelical Christian right allies are focusing less on "curing" adults of homosexuality and more on preventing its development by targeting parents, children and adolescents. Whether through ex-gay teen programs or traveling ex-gay conferences like Focus on the Family's Love Won Out ex-gay programs are recommending that parents commit their children to treatment of "prehomosexuality" even if it is against their children's wishes. Heterosexual youth are also being recruited in schools and churches to spread the message that homosexuality is a treatable mental illness.
"One of the most disturbing accounts in this report is a case involving a 5-year-old boy who was subjected to conversion therapy to address 'prehomosexuality.' The case involves a psychologist who claims that his theories and treatments are scientific," said study co-author Jason Cianciotto, the Policy Institute's research director....
"Prehomosexuality"? "Curing" five-year-olds? Recruiting fellow teens to propagandize for this quackery? These people are disgusting.
****
ALSO SEE this Alicublog post about the National Association for Research and Therapy of Homosexuality, which "Dr. Helen" (Mrs. Instapundit) believes is being brutally mistreated by the fascist jackboot-wearers of the American Psychological Association.
There are some good posts up right now about Democrats and religion -- from Scott Lemieux, Avedon Carol, Atrios, among others. But I want to go to back to the Steve Waldman post that helped get Scott, Avedon, and Atrios riled up:
...I had been making a narrower point -- that many liberals carry an elitist attitude toward evangelical Christians.... I think a distinction should be made between the elites and the rank and file on this. The fact is that most Democrats are religious. But secular liberals, who made up about 16% of the Kerry vote (more stats here) seem to have a disproportionate impact on the party's image and approach.
The key words here, I think, are "elites" and "elitist."
Let's never forget that the discussion of Democrats and religion is very much a discussion of class and sociocultural status. The people who now respond to the message of the GOP are the spiritual (and sometimes literal) descendants of people who responded to the economic populism and elite-bashing of politicians like Huey Long decades ago -- but we've replaced the Wall Street tycoons as their big-city villains. They think all Democrats are effete cultural elitists who sneer at ordinary citizens. They think we think they're trash.
And, of course, a lot of elite Republicans (and their Democratic apologists, such as Waldman) wrap themselves in the mantle of regular-Americanness, regardless of how many movers and shakers they consort with. They help keep this sociocultural resentment alive.
Red-staters are thus primed to anticipate contempt from us -- and so yokel-bashing by individuals is said to represent every liberal or Democrat's point of view; a politician's unfamiliarity with NASCAR or newly purchased hunting camo is said to be a slap in the face at regular folks. The religion-bashing they claim to detect is just part of this.
I don't know what will help us persuade religious conservatives that we don't resent their faith but do resent attempts to compel us to live our lives according to religious beliefs we don't share. But I try to leave style differences out of the discussion -- I have no desire to mock NASCAR or megachurches or country music or Southern accents, though I will criticize what's said in a megachurch or in a Southern accent if it threatens people's liberties. I know, though, that that's not going to spare me -- I'm still going to be branded a religion-hating East Coast snob, because non-coastal people have a long history of feeling disrespected, and because Democrat-haters know very well how to use that feeling of disrespect.
...I had been making a narrower point -- that many liberals carry an elitist attitude toward evangelical Christians.... I think a distinction should be made between the elites and the rank and file on this. The fact is that most Democrats are religious. But secular liberals, who made up about 16% of the Kerry vote (more stats here) seem to have a disproportionate impact on the party's image and approach.
The key words here, I think, are "elites" and "elitist."
Let's never forget that the discussion of Democrats and religion is very much a discussion of class and sociocultural status. The people who now respond to the message of the GOP are the spiritual (and sometimes literal) descendants of people who responded to the economic populism and elite-bashing of politicians like Huey Long decades ago -- but we've replaced the Wall Street tycoons as their big-city villains. They think all Democrats are effete cultural elitists who sneer at ordinary citizens. They think we think they're trash.
And, of course, a lot of elite Republicans (and their Democratic apologists, such as Waldman) wrap themselves in the mantle of regular-Americanness, regardless of how many movers and shakers they consort with. They help keep this sociocultural resentment alive.
Red-staters are thus primed to anticipate contempt from us -- and so yokel-bashing by individuals is said to represent every liberal or Democrat's point of view; a politician's unfamiliarity with NASCAR or newly purchased hunting camo is said to be a slap in the face at regular folks. The religion-bashing they claim to detect is just part of this.
I don't know what will help us persuade religious conservatives that we don't resent their faith but do resent attempts to compel us to live our lives according to religious beliefs we don't share. But I try to leave style differences out of the discussion -- I have no desire to mock NASCAR or megachurches or country music or Southern accents, though I will criticize what's said in a megachurch or in a Southern accent if it threatens people's liberties. I know, though, that that's not going to spare me -- I'm still going to be branded a religion-hating East Coast snob, because non-coastal people have a long history of feeling disrespected, and because Democrat-haters know very well how to use that feeling of disrespect.
FOX NEWS CHANNEL: CABLE NEWS-TALK OUTLET -- OR CULT?
You decide:
Blogs for FOX
Blogs in support and defense of the defiant FOX NEWS CHANNEL. Also featured - articles about the Main Stream Media (MSM) and journalism. Scroll down the sidebar to find out how you can add your blog to the Blogs for FOX blogroll.
Maybe these people will all quit their jobs and start handing out Fox pamphlets door to door.
You decide:
Blogs for FOX
Blogs in support and defense of the defiant FOX NEWS CHANNEL. Also featured - articles about the Main Stream Media (MSM) and journalism. Scroll down the sidebar to find out how you can add your blog to the Blogs for FOX blogroll.
Maybe these people will all quit their jobs and start handing out Fox pamphlets door to door.
Monday, March 13, 2006
Sometimes I feel really, really dumb. I heard Bush's radio address on Saturday and couldn't figure out why the hell he was explaining to us that insurgents in Iraq
have resorted to brutal attacks against innocent Iraqis and American forces using improvised explosive devices, or IEDs. IEDs are homemade bombs that can be hidden in cars or by the side of a road and detonated remotely, using everyday devices like garage door openers and cordless phones.
I assumed that the Graydon Carter quip was all the explanation I'd get:
"He speaks to the audience as if they're idiots. I think the reason he does that is because that's the way these issues were explained to him."
But that's not it. At least not this time.
I figured out what's going on while watching a Jim Axelrod story on CBS tonight. The story was about a speech Bush gave today (video link here):
AXELROD: For a speech designed to build support for the war in Iraq, the biggest headline was accusing Iran of being behind some of the worst violence. Describing IEDs -- those roadside bombs detonated by remote control -- Mr. Bush said Iran is to blame for ever more lethal versions.
BUSH: Coalition forces have seized IEDs and components that were clearly produced in Iran.
That's why Bush is giving more speeches about Iraq -- to segue into Iran. He's talking about IEDs so he can call Iran evil. It really doesn't matter to him that he screwed up regime change in the ever-more-violent narco-state of Afghanistan and he screwed up far more appallingly in Iraq -- he wants to do it again. Yesterday's Washington Post told us that:
...Iran has vaulted to the front of the U.S. national security agenda amid Bush administration plans for a sustained campaign against the ayatollahs of Tehran.
...Members of the Hoover Institution's board of overseers who met with Bush, Vice President Cheney and national security adviser Stephen J. Hadley two weeks ago emerged with the impression that the administration has shifted to a more robust policy aimed at the Iranian government.
"The message that we received is that they are in favor of separating the Iranian people from the regime," said Esmail Amid-Hozour, an Iranian American businessman who serves on the Hoover board.
"The upper hand is with those who are pushing regime change rather than those who are advocating more diplomacy," said Richard N. Haass, who as State Department policy planning director in Bush's first term was among those pushing for engagement....
They were going to make so many dominoes fall in the Middle East -- and they can't believe they can't still do it. Regime change has given them victories in two election cycles, plus it's given the spoiled scion president a reason to get up in the morning, so they're just going to keep trying to do it.
(The Post story does suggest that they'd like regime change in Iran by nonviolent means. That's nice. But if that's the case, that means the Bushies think the people of Iran are going to openly side with America and simply overthrow the mullahs essentially all by themselves. If they really believe all that, they're too stupid to breathe.)
have resorted to brutal attacks against innocent Iraqis and American forces using improvised explosive devices, or IEDs. IEDs are homemade bombs that can be hidden in cars or by the side of a road and detonated remotely, using everyday devices like garage door openers and cordless phones.
I assumed that the Graydon Carter quip was all the explanation I'd get:
"He speaks to the audience as if they're idiots. I think the reason he does that is because that's the way these issues were explained to him."
But that's not it. At least not this time.
I figured out what's going on while watching a Jim Axelrod story on CBS tonight. The story was about a speech Bush gave today (video link here):
AXELROD: For a speech designed to build support for the war in Iraq, the biggest headline was accusing Iran of being behind some of the worst violence. Describing IEDs -- those roadside bombs detonated by remote control -- Mr. Bush said Iran is to blame for ever more lethal versions.
BUSH: Coalition forces have seized IEDs and components that were clearly produced in Iran.
That's why Bush is giving more speeches about Iraq -- to segue into Iran. He's talking about IEDs so he can call Iran evil. It really doesn't matter to him that he screwed up regime change in the ever-more-violent narco-state of Afghanistan and he screwed up far more appallingly in Iraq -- he wants to do it again. Yesterday's Washington Post told us that:
...Iran has vaulted to the front of the U.S. national security agenda amid Bush administration plans for a sustained campaign against the ayatollahs of Tehran.
...Members of the Hoover Institution's board of overseers who met with Bush, Vice President Cheney and national security adviser Stephen J. Hadley two weeks ago emerged with the impression that the administration has shifted to a more robust policy aimed at the Iranian government.
"The message that we received is that they are in favor of separating the Iranian people from the regime," said Esmail Amid-Hozour, an Iranian American businessman who serves on the Hoover board.
"The upper hand is with those who are pushing regime change rather than those who are advocating more diplomacy," said Richard N. Haass, who as State Department policy planning director in Bush's first term was among those pushing for engagement....
They were going to make so many dominoes fall in the Middle East -- and they can't believe they can't still do it. Regime change has given them victories in two election cycles, plus it's given the spoiled scion president a reason to get up in the morning, so they're just going to keep trying to do it.
(The Post story does suggest that they'd like regime change in Iran by nonviolent means. That's nice. But if that's the case, that means the Bushies think the people of Iran are going to openly side with America and simply overthrow the mullahs essentially all by themselves. If they really believe all that, they're too stupid to breathe.)
John McCain hugged George W. Bush at the '04 convention, says he would have signed the South Dakota abortion bill, and tried to rally conferees around the president at the Southern Republican Leadership Conference meeting this past weekend -- and guess what? The GOP Right still hates him.
If you can't tell, let New York Daily News gossip columnist Lloyd Grove present the evidence:
Is John McCain a lesbian? Maybe we'll learn the answer from Edward Klein, who insinuated as much about Hillary Clinton in his 2005 biography -- largely a clip-job of hit pieces, reviewers said -- and is apparently hard at work on a poison-pen book about the Arizona senator. According to Crain's New York Business, Klein claims he'll chronicle the Republican presidential front-runner's "sexual infidelity, chronic gambling and anger management." I can hardly wait.
Klein may not have always been a soldier in the right-wing attack army, but he's one now. Go here and read about the extensive publicity campaign mounted by the Scaife-funded NewsMax operation for Klein's book on Hillary Clinton. He'll get a lot of help from the NewsMax crowd for this book as well.
Oh, and see this item at the Drudge Report -- Drudge insists that McCain's attempt to get voters in the SRLC straw poll to write in Bush as their '08 presidential choice was meant to cover over the fact that he expected to lose the poll; Drudge calls it an "embarrassment" and notes with a sneer that McCain finished fifth.
****
UPDATE: Atrios has a point -- Klein's Hillary book was so nasty it was disowned even by much of the right. But the timing of the McCain book will be very, very different -- it'll be coming out just as McCain is about to face a pool of voters that will include a lot of people who'll actually believe whatever nonsense Klein dredges up. Remember what happened with the Hillary book -- decent people across the political spectrum denounced it, but it hit #2 on the New York Times bestseller list. Somebody must have believed it. With McCain, again, Klein doesn't need the approval of the high-minded -- he just needs to sell books, and his pals need him to queer the pitch for McCain in South Carolina once again.
If you can't tell, let New York Daily News gossip columnist Lloyd Grove present the evidence:
Is John McCain a lesbian? Maybe we'll learn the answer from Edward Klein, who insinuated as much about Hillary Clinton in his 2005 biography -- largely a clip-job of hit pieces, reviewers said -- and is apparently hard at work on a poison-pen book about the Arizona senator. According to Crain's New York Business, Klein claims he'll chronicle the Republican presidential front-runner's "sexual infidelity, chronic gambling and anger management." I can hardly wait.
Klein may not have always been a soldier in the right-wing attack army, but he's one now. Go here and read about the extensive publicity campaign mounted by the Scaife-funded NewsMax operation for Klein's book on Hillary Clinton. He'll get a lot of help from the NewsMax crowd for this book as well.
Oh, and see this item at the Drudge Report -- Drudge insists that McCain's attempt to get voters in the SRLC straw poll to write in Bush as their '08 presidential choice was meant to cover over the fact that he expected to lose the poll; Drudge calls it an "embarrassment" and notes with a sneer that McCain finished fifth.
****
UPDATE: Atrios has a point -- Klein's Hillary book was so nasty it was disowned even by much of the right. But the timing of the McCain book will be very, very different -- it'll be coming out just as McCain is about to face a pool of voters that will include a lot of people who'll actually believe whatever nonsense Klein dredges up. Remember what happened with the Hillary book -- decent people across the political spectrum denounced it, but it hit #2 on the New York Times bestseller list. Somebody must have believed it. With McCain, again, Klein doesn't need the approval of the high-minded -- he just needs to sell books, and his pals need him to queer the pitch for McCain in South Carolina once again.
It's not a conservative crack-up yet, but this is a small shot across the bow:
A Reckoning In Crawford Texas!
Protest Bush for not stopping the illegal alien invasion Saturday May 6, 2006
The good citizens of the United States of America with the help of the patriotic media will be in Crawford Texas to lawfully and peacefully demonstrate against George W. Bush's lack of enforcement of immigration law. For calling the Minutemen and other border watchers "vigilantes", for not directing ICE to round up illegal aliens in our cities, for willfully failing to put our miltary on the border, For being a Mexican president and the best friend an illegal alien can have, for putting American citizens last. We, the American people will be in Crawford Texas May 6 2006, for a reckoning. Join us! God Bless America.
When: 1 PM Saturday May 6, 2006 Where: Crawford Texas next to the Crawford Community Service Center 999 East 4TH Street on the parking lot of the football field....
Minuteman founder Jim Gilchrist will be among our speakers at this event!
I wonder if they'll do more of this when Bush and the press corps are actually hanging around.
Demo or no, if Bush ever insists that GOP members of Congress stand with him on a guest-worker program, he's going to suffer some defections. It might not be another Harriet Miers or Dubai, but it could be rather unpleasant.
A Reckoning In Crawford Texas!
Protest Bush for not stopping the illegal alien invasion Saturday May 6, 2006
The good citizens of the United States of America with the help of the patriotic media will be in Crawford Texas to lawfully and peacefully demonstrate against George W. Bush's lack of enforcement of immigration law. For calling the Minutemen and other border watchers "vigilantes", for not directing ICE to round up illegal aliens in our cities, for willfully failing to put our miltary on the border, For being a Mexican president and the best friend an illegal alien can have, for putting American citizens last. We, the American people will be in Crawford Texas May 6 2006, for a reckoning. Join us! God Bless America.
When: 1 PM Saturday May 6, 2006 Where: Crawford Texas next to the Crawford Community Service Center 999 East 4TH Street on the parking lot of the football field....
Minuteman founder Jim Gilchrist will be among our speakers at this event!
I wonder if they'll do more of this when Bush and the press corps are actually hanging around.
Demo or no, if Bush ever insists that GOP members of Congress stand with him on a guest-worker program, he's going to suffer some defections. It might not be another Harriet Miers or Dubai, but it could be rather unpleasant.
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