Take A Skate, Guys

I don't usually get into sports much, but with the NHL finally beginning a new season, I'm just "tapping my stick," figuratively, to four greats who have just retired.

Scott Stevens of the New Jersey Devils - Lord knows I got tired of watching him splatter guys all over the place, especially when they wore the "orange and black," but if he were a Fly Guy, I'd be cheering his every move (like I may end up doing with Derian Hatcher this year if he can stay healthy). He won a few Cups and gave as good as he got. The league shouldn't have let him get away with some of the forearm/shoulder shots he dished out to guys' heads, but that is because of the sometimes stone age nature of the sport, and he just played within those archaic rules. He won at least two Cups, maybe three...I don't remember exactly.

Al MacInnis of the St. Louis Blues - He won a Cup with Calgary in '86, played well defensively, and possessed a 100-mph slap shot. MacInnis played in the NHL for 23 seasons, which is unbelievable. He managed to recover and continue to play from many severe injuries, including one to an eye that kept him out of most of the 2003-2004 season. He exemplified class, skill, and sportsmanship. My only regret is that I didn't see him much because he played for Western conference teams.

Ron Francis of the Carolina Hurricanes - As noted on ESPN, Francis played for Hartford, Pittsburgh, Carolina and Toronto, and leaves the game with a resume few can rival. He is second to Wayne Gretzky with 1,249 assists, and ranks among the league's all-time leaders with 1,731 games (third), 549 goals (19th) and 1,798 points (fourth). He won a pair of Stanley Cups in Pittsburgh in 1991 and 1992, and helped the Hurricanes make a surprise run to the Cup finals in 2002. In addition, Francis was a three-time winner of the Lady Byng Trophy, awarded to the player exhibiting sportsmanship and gentlemanly play combined with playing ability.

Mark Messier of the New York Rangers - Quite simply, Messier is one of the greatest team leaders in sports history. I'm not even going to try and summarize his accomplishments; the information from this link will begin to give you a picture of what he did. The Edmonton Oilers lost a whole bunch of great players from the mid '80s until the early '90s, but their Cup reign didn't end until Messier went to the Rangers. As much as I dislike the "Broadway Blueshirts," I had to admit that watching them win that Cup in '94 (especially with former Flyer coach Mike Keenan) was a truly great moment in sports.

Update 10/19: Add one more All Star and Cup winner to the list.

Welcome To Bushville

(By the way, I’m sure any blogger who may be reading this has joined the “Impeach Bush” coalition by now. If not, please click the button under the exchange links in the right column to find out more.)

Here is a link to information on the FEMA-supervised conditions for refugees from Hurricane Katrina (sounds a lot like the Okies moving west to escape “the dust bowl”…real “Grapes Of Wrath” stuff).

I forget who the Repug was, identified on “The Huffington Post” yesterday, who said that “God did to New Orleans public housing what we’ve been trying to do all along,” or something like that (referring to Katrina, of course - Update 9/14: Because of the amazing "My Hometown" video from "Bring It On" that I've linked to in the right column, I found out it was Repug U.S. Rep. Richard Baker of Louisiana...the arrogance takes your breath away sometimes), but believe me, those remarks sound like they come straight from Wingnuttia, to quote Atrios, but rest assured that these people are serious about this stuff (which, I think, puts the story in the link above into the appropriate context).

And why stop at herding people into difficult living conditions? (Oh, but “The Beautiful Mind” thinks this is such an improvement for them, and her daughter-in-law was out there trying to spread the "Don't Worry, Be Happy" mantra also.) Why not, say, just for the heck of it, decide to start rolling back civil liberties, court rulings that ensured people’s rights, and a fair wage established by congressional legislation?

And who has authored all of this? (I hate to keep taking shots at my own race, but sometimes the shoe really does fit after all, though this cabal of oppressors is much higher on the economic and political “food chain,” if you will, than I will ever be.)

Update: The Smirking Chimp has another chilling tale to tell in Bush's "Battle of New Orleans."

Good Luck, Ginny

More PA politics...

Ginny Schrader withdrew her candidacy for the Democratic nomination to run against Repug Mike Fitzpatrick for the U.S. House’s 8th district seat yesterday. I think she would have made a good rep, but after a couple of tries, I think it’s plain that the voters don’t want her there. The Bucks County Courier Times said last year that she should “aim a little lower” to get some background in government before she takes another shot, and I reluctantly have to admit that they’re right (which makes Andy Warren’s move all the more ridiculous, since he was already set to coast his way out of the picture in PA state government).

Besides, I know Patrick Murphy is trying to make his case to the blogger community, and that will definitely help him (in this day and age, I actually don’t think a Dem can make it on any level without that type of support).

Swann "Slants" Right

I’ve teed off on Lynn Swann in the past because, even though he is absolutely one of the all-time great NFL wide receivers who played on some of the all-time great Pittsburgh Steeler teams, in my mind, his qualifications to run for governor of Pennsylvania are as thin as the zones on the football field into which he would run to make spectacular receptions before he was creamed by an NFL defensive back.

I give him credit for his accomplishments, and he has as much of a right to seek elected office as anyone, but let it be known by one and all that I support Ed Rendell, driving 100 mph down the PA turnpike and all. And right now, I see NOTHING in Swann’s background or qualifications that earns my vote over the Democrat incumbent.

And I’ll be honest with you – though it is completely expected for Dubya to want to “chill” with his new famous homey (re: the photo on the home page of ESPN’s web site), it still sickens me to see The Man Who Allowed New Orleans And The Gulf Coast To Drown as well as preside over the staggering loss of life in Iraq (and never forget that the CIA had a chance to take out al Zarqawi before Iraq War II even began) trying to attach himself to a pro athlete or celebrity trying to earn a job that (so far) I believe he doesn't merit.

Mr. Swann, I respect your athletic accomplishments and the life you have made for yourself off the field. But as far as I’m concerned, you are now a Repug, with your vacuous, empty rhetoric that hides your true intentions.

And I’m going to call you out, because now, it’s smash mouth time.

Waddling Into The Truth

OK, I’m good and steamed now.

The Daily Kos reports that, in a never-ending effort to try and distract this country from Bushco’s myriad horrific screwups (trying to use polite language here), the right-wing noise machine (courtesy of The National Review) is focusing on the documentary “March Of The Penguins” as testimony that intelligent design is practiced in real life and is not merely theoretical (link to New York Times article here).

You know, as much as I despise the Repugs, I really have to give them credit for creativity. I never would have even thought to concoct such preposterous nonsense.

I took the young one to see this movie a few weeks ago, and it is wonderful. I was familiar with the story of the Emperor Penguins before the movie, but even though I knew a lot going in, it was still interesting and new to me. The movie was directed by Luc Jacquet, and the photography from National Geographic is amazing (especially some of the underwater shots while the mother penguins are looking for food).

Another good thing about the movie (as any parent with a young child is aware of) is that the length is perfect (about 75 minutes). He started to get antsy after about an hour, but ended up making it all the way through.

So this movie is some kind of life-affirming declaration about “family values” in the “culture wars,” is it? (I’ll ask the question again – I’ve done so several times and never received an answer; who started this so-called “culture war” anyway? If nothing else, I think that phrase is ridiculous because it trivializes REAL war, which we are DEFINITELY FIGHTING in Iraq, where over 100 people have died from car bomb attacks over the last two days, lest we not forget – update: more getting killed today.)

Well, I have news for you. The Penguins are “monogamous” during the period when they mate and take care of the egg, in which they show incredible sacrifice in the face of sub-zero temperatures and triple-digit wind chills, to say nothing of the birds of prey that come after the penguins and try to steal the babies just learning to walk the minute they stray from the herd. But after they do this and return to the ocean on their way back to Antarctica, they basically return to their partying ways looking for food and generally taking it easy (a break they definitely earn by raising their progeny in the face of these horrific conditions). In the spring, the whole cycle begins anew with new partners in accordance with their “coding” from nature. So, far from showing a “lifetime commitment,” these brave mammals are really randy, libido-driven, uninhibited little bastards who are, to paraphrase Dan Aykroyd on “Saturday Night Live,” “hopping from mate to mate with the frequency of a cheap HAM radio.” What kind of “family values” are those:- ).

(I just checked back to the New York Times story a bit further down and saw where some fundamentalist nutball says that the movie also condemns gay marriage. Yeah, right. Gay Penguins. Are these people loopy, or what?)

There’s another moment in the movie I want to point out for the benefit of all the right-wing crazies (though I readily admit that they probably aren’t reading this anyway). Aside from the few minutes in the movie that shows the mother and father penguins getting picked off by other animals when they’re looking for food (lesson: Penguins succeed by working together, and the minute they stray, many of them die. When have you ever heard of penguins arguing with another about whether they’re a liberal or a conservative…yes, I know that’s a silly argument), the saddest moment of the movie comes when some of the penguin eggs are exposed to the cold and freeze to death, killing the penguin baby (hey, this is nature…the penguins practice a tedious ritual of exchanging the egg by rolling it from one to take care of it so the other can get food, and some of the penguins mess up the ritual). When that happens, sometimes the mother penguin tries to steal another egg for herself, but the other penguins form a group to stop her. It’s a heartbreaking moment, actually, when you see all that the penguins endure to get to that point only to lose their child (my guess is that it is something like Cindy Sheehan and other parents of our service people killed or maimed in Iraq must be feeling).

Here’s the bottom line: “March Of The Penguins” (and, by the way, Morgan Freeman’s narration is perfect) is a great movie about nature, which has no political agenda, but treats everything and everyone of any political affiliation the same way (need I point out again how that has been displayed in the Gulf Coast recently?).

Update 9/15: Hmmm...never too old to learn something, I guess.

A Job For Ralph Kramden

(A “Honeymooners” reference for the uninitiated - or possibly Lloyd Bridges)…

I hope this puts a rest to the new, big Repug smear about Ray Nagin and Kathleen Blanco dropping the ball on not using school buses to rescue Katrina victims on New Orleans once and for all (as if THAT is a critical issue in light of all the other governmental screwups – trying to use polite language).

Update: Speaking of Katrina, if you can find the spot in this story where it states what the makeup of this Senate panel is going to be (how many Repugs vs. how many Dems), I'd appreciate it if you let me know.

Stupid Caucasians Strike Again

None more so than the preznit…mighty decent of him to restate the obvious, isn’t it (re: the CNN screen shot with the text in the red headline)? He should polish off that sign on his desk in the Oval Office that Harry Truman put there and read it in between sessions on his Gameboy.

(the headline states that Bush takes responsibility for the poor response by the Feds to Katrina - I thought the screen shot resolution would be better).

Arianna Huffington (who, in no way, reflects the title of this post) recently said that the Repugs are now using the aftermath of Katrina as an occasion for “gleeful opportunism,” and, as if on cue, the NRA issues this bit of bombast.

“Hey Wayne, can you do me a favor? The living room is starting to capsize and we need some 1 percent milk and a loaf of whole wheat bread. Go wade on over to the Piggly Wiggly, smash the storefront window and grab some for me, OK?”

Condi Needs A New Pair Of Shoes

(I love the look on her face in this story, by the way, a variation of which we’ve seen so often over lo these many years…typical Repug – always ready for a fight).

This country is supposed to be diverse, Madame Secretary. We’re not supposed to get special awards for that.

And I also love the bland generalizations about “What we’re supposed to do about race in this country,” by the way. Are you prepared to lead a panel discussion of Republicans and Democrats meeting with everyday Americans on this issue (and note that, by offering a bipartisan makeup of the panel, I’m taking a lead that you own party isn’t prepared to follow concerning the makeup of the so-called “Katrina Commission”).

(Actually, I think she’s more correct in her remarks than she realizes, but in typical Repug fashion, she’s twisting the context. Yes, this, in part, is “a vestige of the Old South,” which you and your fellow Repugs have encouraged and cultivated, beginning with Ronald Reagan’s presidential campaign in 1980 that began in Philadelphia, Mississippi, scene of some this country’s most horrific racial violence).

"Real Time" Update

After some funny stand up (“I heard that Monica Lewinsky wants to be a psychology major in college…she wants to blow people’s minds”), Bill Maher interviewed Walter Maestri via a remote feed, the director of emergency management for Jefferson Parish, LA, and though Maestri admitted that a lot of people didn’t leave because they thought they could “ride out” Katrina, he was still pretty PO’ed at FEMA for the reasons we’ve already described.

Maher then spoke to Joe Scarborough via remote, a pretty well-know right-wing barking head, who said that “blame is equally shared because everyone dropped the ball.” I don’t believe that, and neither did Maher, but Scarborough, with his “aw shucks, Bill” country boy act said with this dopey look on his face that, “hey, Bill, I don’t know if you’re trying to pick a fight, but I already said that I thought Bush was partly to blame.” Scarborough was quick to echo one of the right-wing talking points coming out of this, that “Jeb Bush and Lawton Chiles, a Republican and a Democrat governor of Florida, didn’t have the problems like they did in Mississippi and Louisiana,” and Maher was quick to point out the electoral vote importance of getting this sort of thing right in Florida. I could get a bead on Scarborough pretty quickly, but I can see how he can manipulate people who don’t know what he’s all about.

The three panelists were Jim Glassman of the American Enterprise Institute (referred to him in an earlier post…the show was due for a right-wing nut job, and though he wasn’t as strident as bubblehead Kellyanne Conway from the first show, he filled the bill), Cynthia Tucker, op-ed writer (editor?) for the Atlanta Constitution, and George Carlin. Glassman immediately starts with the “everybody screwed up” line, which is true actually, though he’s trying to echo Scarborough and make it sound like blame should be apportioned evenly. Cynthia Tucker quickly pointed out that New Orleans mayor Ray Nagin asked for help repeatedly and didn’t get it. Carlin’s rhetoric, though I agreed with the substance of it (“people in New Orleans are chronically poor because of a badly tilted game”), was pretty incendiary towards Glassman, but the problem is that he engaged in generalities about how the poor in this country are systematically screwed over without providing data to back up his argument, and Glassman pretty much took him apart on that score.

Also, regarding the media coverage, I thought Bill Maher made an excellent point (Maher was pretty feisty, though he did take it easy on Glassman a couple of times, telling the audience, “hey, he has to tow their line, so cut him some slack”). He said that when Bush said there would be zero tolerance for looting, that was the signal to the media to make that the primary focus of their coverage (if that’s true, then the MSM is even more pathetic than I thought, but I can see Maher’s logic on that). Maher pointed out that the coverage of the looting should have been proportional to the other, more important elements of the story, which I agreed with 100 percent. And as if to inadvertently support Maher’s argument, Glassman immediately chimed in with something on “The mob angle” again, as well as “the complete breakdown of law and order,” and Cynthia Tucker, who I thought was the most well-spoke panelist, calmly and rationally refuting Glassman’s arguments, pointed out that there were so many rumors about what was going on down there that we can’t be completely certain of what happened.

More Glassman lines: “Nature unleashed a fury on New Orleans. Why can’t we just recognize that,” and “mistakes were made” (no shame at all). In response, Tucker pointed out that “the 82nd Airborne can get anywhere in the world in 18 hours. Why can’t it get to New Orleans in that amount of time for a food drop?” Glassman proceeded to throw a bunch of generalizations out there before Maher asked him, point blank, if we should repeal the tax cuts because of Katrina’s damage, and Glassman tap danced his way to a non-answer. Maher also pointed out that he thought Bush’s recovery team was like Harvey Keitel (“The Cleaner”) in “Pulp Fiction,” which I thought was clever (emphasis on appearances, that is).

Also, the group managed to discuss Barbara Bush’s quote about the homeless in the Astrodome, and that led Maher into a funny Hallmark card parody. Kurt Vonnegut, Jr. appeared via remote to promote his book and also give a despairing look to the state of mankind in general. Vonnegut remarked that he thought people in this country were getting stupider, and Glassman took issue with that afterwards, pointing out how many college students are enrolled in this country, though Tucker and Carlin pointed out that those numbers are going down, and more sciences students are studying overseas. Glassman then said something to the effect of, “well, we cured cancer in this country,” and the panel immediately seized on that, pointing out what a foolish remark it was.

Also, on the subject of Bush nominating two judges now for the Supreme Court, even Carlin acknowledged that we can just about kiss Roe v. Wade goodbye, with Carlin adding sarcastically, “The court chose Bush, so Bush should be able to choose the court.”

In Maher’s closing remarks, he said that Bush “governs like Billy Joel drives,” and called Bush “a catastrophe that walks like a man.” Maher also made an extremely convincing case, I thought, for Bush to give up the presidency altogether (I’ll try to get a transcript of what he said, because I thought it was poetry).

Update 1: In a similar vein, E.J. Dionne does the best job to date, as far as I'm concerned, of sizing up Dubya's failed reign.

Update 2: Thanks for the "prop" to Pixel Monkey (right back atcha) and check out his 9/14 post to read Maher's closing remarks.

Cause And Effect

Cause: This stupid argument that has been boiling in this country over the last 25 years about states rights versus the role of the federal government, foisted on us largely by the Repugs, particularly Ronald Reagan and William Rehnquist, which to me originates back to the Civil War and is a byproduct of the festering dislike of the North by the South and has been cleverly exploited by the Repug pro-business and fundamentalist conservative coalition.

Effect: What we’ve been watching on our TV screens in the Gulf Coast area for the last two weeks.

Anyone who thinks the “cause” argument I mentioned above is theoretical only hasn’t been paying attention.

As any person of common sense knows, there are things states should be allowed to do (I’m not big on state-by-state abortion laws, but I’ll acknowledge that right, as well as anything related to gay marriage), but there are things that ONLY THE FEDS CAN DO, and it is beyond tragic and disgusting that there aren’t more people on either side of the aisle who seem to understand that.

Actually, I thought this Letter To The Editor in the Inquirer today summed it up well:

President Bush and others who share his political philosophy have built careers convincing people that a strong federal government compromises life, liberty, and pursuit of happiness. Why, then, would he be quick to direct the antagonist to come to the rescue of those in need?

The slow response could have been predicted as surely as the storm was.

Rebecca C. Greenhow
West Chester

Louisiana can’t coordinate enough forces from National Guard units in other states to lend a hand because some of their own Guard forces have been deployed to Iraq. Louisiana couldn’t coordinate food drops (which should have happened) or transportation of refugees to other states for shelter. Only the Feds can do that.

To get a better context, I think it would help to review FEMA’s history. Jimmy Carter creates the agency and got it to run well. Reagan comes in and lets his buddies run it, but fortunately nothing happens (I can’t recall anything, nothing like Katrina anyway). I don’t remember what H.W. does, but I don’t think he did much either. Clinton comes in and brings in James Lee Witt to rebuild the agency and get it to run well and do what it’s supposed to do. Dubya gets in and brings in Joe Allbaugh (who subsequently leaves after the “Mission Accomplished” farce to make money referring reconstruction jobs in Iraq to Halliburton) and then Mike Brown. I’m sure you see the same pattern that I do.

Update: The beat goes on in the Gulf Coast reconstruction (by the way, you can see that 86 percent of those polled thought the jobs should have been awarded through competitive bids).

Finally, to get an idea of how desperate some of Bush’s supporters are regarding their hero’s failure regarding Katrina, I heard this argument from an American Enterprise Institute right-wing know-it-all named Jim Glassman the other night on “Real Time With Bill Maher” (the update is forthcoming). He said, “Of course the states screwed up. We had two hurricanes hit Florida last year, and everything ran well and we had nothing like this. It seems that Florida can get its act together, but Louisiana and Mississippi can’t.”

(I swear, all you can do is laugh sometimes…in a related vein, Glenn McCoy had a sick and truly propagandistic cartoon in today’s Inquirer to support the garbage from Glassman that I mentioned above.)

Gee, maybe the fact that last year was an election year and the incumbent’s brother was the governor of Florida (as well as the fact that the state decided the 2000 election…well, sort of – I won’t go there) had something to do with it, or am I just being cynical again?

One more thing: If you continue to be as PO’ed about this as I am, then please go to the prior post and sign Jim Dean’s petition to establish an INDEPENDENT bipartisan commission to investigate this travesty.

Fight For The Commission

I just signed on a minute ago.

Last Thursday, Jim Dean called for the White House to quit dodging responsibility for mishandling the response to Hurricane Katrina. Since then, over 32,000 people have joined the drive to get the White House to establish an Independent Commission to find out what went wrong and make sure it never happens again.

That's a good start -- but to get the Bush administration's attention, we need to gather enough signatures to send an unmistakable message that Americans want answers. We need to get 50,000 people to support an Independent Commission -- by Wednesday.

Sign the petition here:

We saw the scenes of thousands stranded in the devastation of New Orleans. We heard the stories about whole Mississippi towns still overlooked by FEMA a week after the storm. Yet Bush still has his team of political cronies -- complete with Michael 'Heck of a Job' Brown, the director of FEMA -- in place to lead the recovery effort, despite their record of costly mistakes.

This is madness. We know the people of the Gulf Coast need massive help in rebuilding their lives. They can't afford more mistakes. That's why this recovery effort needs sound, experienced leadership. We can only get that by finding the sources of the mistakes and rooting them out.

Let's get 50,000 signatures on the petition for an Independent Commission by Wednesday. Sign it here:

Bush's press secretary gave Americans who want accountability the back of his hand last week. He wrote off the outcry about Katrina -- from us, and from across America -- as a "blame game."

To families still living in shelters, campers, and tents -- looking for loved ones and wondering if they can ever go home -- this is no game. Those are the people the White House needs to answer.

This is a pattern. When the CIA leak investigation into Bush advisor Karl Rove heated up, the press secretary said, "Now is not the time to talk about it." Simple questions from the press about the failed Katrina response now get the same answer: "Now is not the time."

Nonsense. In a government of the people, a president owes answers to the people. We can make that happen -- but we need 50,000 signatures by Wednesday to send Bush the message that America wants an independent investigation of the response to Katrina.

Sign here now:

Thank you,
Tom Hughes
Democracy for America

Update: Brown is out for good (go back to the horsies, Mikey). Actually, this is a surprise...I can't remember the last time (or even the first time) someone in Bushco bit the dust, but Brown was a minor player by comparison, and "President 39 Percent Mandate" needs a scapegoat.

The PR Flaks Earn Their Dough

Nice photo, Karl. You've got your guy giving the firefighter a firm handshake, and have him wearing a denim shirt to give the appearance of a regular guy. Great body language also...all kinds of sympathetic angles of interaction and posture between Dubya and his props to make it look like they've actually known each other for longer than five minutes.

(Yes, I know that's a cheap shot at the rescue workers and their great efforts, and I apologize, but at this point, if they decided to participate in Bushco propaganda, then they should be slapped down also.)

And of course, it wouldn't be a Repug photo op if the flag wasn't stuck in there somewhere for everyone to see.

Damn, I have to admit that these guys are good, which, unfortunately, is part of the problem.

The Horror On A Beautiful Day

“Autumn in New York is often mingled with pain…”
“Autumn in New York,” by Vernon Duke, 1934

How the hell am I ever going to explain this to the young one?

I sat today on our front step and watched him dig in our garden with great effort, unearthing one of his Matchbox cars that he’d buried between a begonia and the green Vinca (this was a Woody wagon, circa 1962) so he could race it with a metallic blue Camaro of approximately the same era and size on the sidewalk.

It was at that point, with my mind temporarily on hold, that it started coming back to me (the words of actor David Ogden Stiers, who played Major Winchester on M.A.S.H and provided the narration for Ric Burns’ documentary, “New York: The Center Of The World,” summarize it all too well – they are blockquoted below):

“On a perfect, almost achingly beautiful late summer morning in September, a day of almost infinite clarity, referred to as 'severe clear' by reporters, the unthinkable happened. The center of the most powerful nation that hadn’t been attacked on its own territory in nearly 200 years would encounter a horror the like of which had never been seen before.”

I take a sip of coffee and read, in the Inquirer, about The Center of Peace, a small spiritual community in Philadelphia, which will hold its second annual Stand for Peace rally at 11 a.m. at LOVE Park, 16th Street and JFK Boulevard. I also read that the Agape choir will then headline a 9/11 peace concert at 8 p.m. at Irvine Auditorium, 3401 Spruce St. That concert will be opened by the Common Ground Community Choir, an interfaith, multicultural ensemble from Philadelphia and the nearby suburbs. Visiting Buddhist monks from the Drepung Goman Monastery in India will perform a prayer ceremony for world peace in the Philadelphia area also.

Such wonderful, hopeful gestures of healing and goodwill. Perfectly appropriate. Truly the best medicine.

There’s only one problem.

I still want to see everyone dead who had anything whatsoever to do with any of this (I know I state on this page that I don’t advocate physical violence against anyone. I’m making an exception here).

Everyone.

“In a little less than two hours, with an almost poetically horrifying symmetry, the symbols and instruments of New York City’s uniquely air-minded culture – skyscrapers, industrialization, and the mass media – would be turned back against each other in a devastatingly lethal effect.”

He looks up at me, since he notices that I’ve been staring off a bit sipping my coffee and not saying anything. I can only imagine the look on my face, since I can see a trace of apprehension on his own.

“Around 8:45 AM, the west side of Manhattan heard the piercing of a jet plane moving south down the Hudson River. Everything about its trajectory was wrong. Heading south along an airway normally reserved for northbound traffic, it was moving much too fast and close to the ground. Nearly 500 miles per hour at an altitude of just 900 feet, more than twice the speed allowed for aircraft that low.”

Mike Bane of Marsh and McLennan, Larry Senko of Alliance Consulting, Don Jones and Joshua Reiss of Cantor Fitzgerald (the whole goddamn company died that day also)…

And Don Havlish of AON…

Victor Saracini, the pilot of the plane that hit the south tower of the World Trade Center…

The entire “Windows Of The World” restaurant including most of the staff…

So many others…

“It took less than 90 seconds for American Airlines Flight 11 to hurtle the entire length of Manhattan Island. A little after 8:46 AM, the huge 137-ton Boeing 767 flashed across Canal Street to the north tower of the World Trade Center, and tore through the north wall of the tower between the 93rd and 99th floors, instantly killing everyone onboard and wreaking incomprehensible carnage inside the building. An observer noted that the building ‘took a hell of a punch,’ creating five vertical ‘sways’ that ran up and down the length of the entire structure."

“Dad, are you OK?”

I temporarily refocus and come over to play with him for a few minutes. I then busy myself by coming back inside the house and tending to the wash and feeding the cat. I continue performing these tasks, watching him from the front window.

Watching, and thinking about nothing once more. Nothing, but…

“At 9:02 AM, a little more 15 minutes after the first attack, millions of people in the metropolitan region of New York City and tens of millions more across the country and around the globe were staring intently at the smoldering skyline of lower Manhattan, when a dark shape (United Airlines Flight 175) appeared above the horizon of the New Jersey lowlands and came across the upper bay, over the Statue of Liberty, and it smashed into the south wall of the south tower.”

“A massive shower of paper rained down from the sky (we would later discover than many personal photos in the John F. Kennedy archive had been destroyed also), and, as columnist Pete Hamill recalled, ‘an amazing fireball came roaring towards Broadway’."

He comes inside the house for some milk and decides to go back downstairs to watch Nick Toons and play with his Kinex™ and Magnetix™ toys for a little while, but not after I make sure he scrubs his hands first.

I was driving westbound on the Pennsylvania Turnpike and listened to KYW News Radio as all of this unfolded four years ago. I recall news announcer Harry Donahue as being more indignant than anything else at that moment, though I honestly can’t imagine how a TV or radio announcer would find the composure to handle themselves with something like this going on, and I believe that he did his job as well as he could. Of course, by the time I arrived at work in King of Prussia, PA, everybody knew and was watching the events unfold in conference rooms or their hand-held devices. Soon afterwards, our management held a meeting to make sure we knew the whereabouts of everyone who was traveling, and also to make sure the people visiting our offices called home to their locations so everyone knew they were all right.

“When the planes hit each building, the kerosene jet fuel ignited a fire instantly across multiple floors. The amount of paper in the offices sustained the fire long enough for it to melt the center steel building supports.”

“The second plane had struck the south tower at 9:02 AM. By then, the first teams of fire and rescue workers had already arrived at the foot of the north tower, and they met with horror and devastation that defied the imagination. There were corpses everywhere, along with the mangled bodies of men and women who had already jumped from the upper floors of the building, including the remains of passengers from Flight 11, some still belted into their seats.”

“The gaping black holes in the buildings where the planes had entered marked a stark dividing line between life and death.”

A year or so ago, I watched some footage shot by a French film crew run by two brothers who happened to be making a documentary on New York City firefighters at that time. I remember watching where they entered the north tower, and you could hear what sounded like gunshots, causing everyone to flinch, though it turned out that that was the sound of the bodies of the people who had jumped hitting the roof above them.

A little while after our company meeting to check on everyone’s whereabouts (when we were getting ready to go home, since our management – in an unusual moment of wisdom for them – realized that we weren’t going to get any work done in light of all that was going on), I remember that a real upbeat guy who everyone liked, a logistics business analyst named Cornee (I think he was Swedish or Dutch) came out and told us that the north tower had collapsed (again, some people had seen it live). His face was completely blanched and I thought his knees would buckle at any moment. I thought mine would too, actually. As I had almost arrived home, I heard that the south tower did likewise, watching the pictures of both soon afterwards.

All of the events of that almost unspeakable day have faded a bit. The sense of panic and desperation has certainly subsided. However, I cannot imagine that this day will ever again, in my life, be anything but permanently a time “out of joint” with everything else.

Also, despite what I think of Bush (especially in light of the bungling related to Hurricane Katrina), I do not believe that he knew the 9/11 attacks were coming. I believe that his administration ignored every imaginable warning sign (primarily from Richard Clarke) for three reasons: 1) The assumption from the prior Clinton Administration was that the next administration would assign the same priority to events that they did – with al Qaeda getting the Number One spot there – and as far as Bushco has ever been concerned, anything from Clinton was BAD; 2) Devoting resources to counterterrorism to thwart something like 9/11 took resources away from their number one priority, which was the invasion of Iraq; 3) A catastrophe like 9/11 fit into the conservative “Project For A New American Century” written by Paul Wolfowitz and others as a means that could be used to consolidate popular support for the Bush regime.

Also, I don’t believe they knew 9/11 was coming because Barbara Olson, wife of connected conservative lawyer Ted Olson, died when her plane hit the Pentagon, and if they were really trying to stage something, no one of their own kind would have been killed (she was also a popular TV spokesperson for the Repug agenda). However, a co-worker has suggested that Flight 93 was shot down over Pennsylvania, and I think that is a very plausible theory (also, Rumsfeld made a slip of the tongue a few months ago that leads me to believe that that is true). Finally, it is a blight upon the conscience of all the nations of the world that, to date, no one has been convicted of these monstrous acts.

I notice that I haven’t heard from the young one for a little while, and since he’s in the house, I think this is a good sign. I feel that I can go on now a bit more and tend to what else needs to be done, since I’ve had my moment to reflect now, and I can, for a little while anyway, put aside the remembrances of four years ago, when I first encountered the horror on a beautiful day.

Update 9/15: Cenk proves my thesis that bin Laden is protected and will never be caught (at least, not by Bushco).

Update 9/18: I meant to include this with the original post for reasons that will become apparent as you read it.

Can You Say "Quid Pro Quo"?

Judge J. Michael Luttig rose a little higher on Dubya's short list for the next Supreme Court vacancy with this ruling (may have to register).

What's ironic about this is that, though this is but another "slab of marble," if you will, mounted onto Bushco's kingly pedestal, Padilla is a thoroughly unrepentant character who does not deserve to be held in high regard in any way.

Friday Katrina Roundup

(A little late due to Blogger database maintenance - hey, it happens)...

OK, so let me get this all straight…

Colin Powell, who lied to us about Saddam Hussein’s capability to deliver chemical weapons tipped onto nuclear warheads and thus destroy large portions of our population (which he later called “the lowest point of his life”…waaaaah!), helping to cause the war in Iraq (remember?) which has led to the deaths of almost 1,900 of our people and thousands of innocent Iraqis, is now trying to re-establish himself as some sort of statesman with credibility by telling us that there were failures on all level of government before, during and after Hurricane Katrina?

Gee, maybe there is a new job awaiting him with Bushco after all! Let’s appoint him “UNDERSECRETARY OF THE BLEEPING OBVIOUS,” OK??!!

And Vice Admiral Thad Allen is taking over for “Brownie” so he can go home and broker the sale of more Arabian horses, right?

Oh, and The First Lady decides to interact with Negroes also (better wear your hairnet to keep cooties out of the food, Mrs. Bush…and by the way, the racist element of this whole tragedy was put into place by your husband’s administration and its followers long before Katrina hit).

I guess that about sums up the latest developments (I’ll try to debunk more big lies as the Repug echo chamber proceeds to manufacture them…and speak of the devil, go to The Daily Kos to read about Kyra Phillips’ obnoxious reaction to a caller who criticized her for her interview with Nancy Pelosi yesterday).

And last but definitely not least, Cenk nails it again.

Update 9/9: You go, Al!

Update 9/11: I just got a thought. I'm glad I supported the Kerry-Edwards campaign last year, of course, but how clueless was Kerry not to make the politicization of FEMA an issue in the election? Surely he must have known that Joe Allbaugh, a member of the Bushco "inner circle," and Mike Brown were nothing but typical carpetbaggers with no experience in disaster management. Of course, this ties back to the stupid battle within the Kerry campaign between the Clintonites who wanted to rerun the '90s campaigns and the Kerry staffers who actually understood the mood of the voters and the issues they cared about most, which has a lot to do with why he lost (of course, there are other reasons I and others have mentioned already that we can rehash at another time).

A Bush Vacation Photo

Thoroughly tasteless and dis-obedient I know, but they deserve it (and I'll try to be careful with the photos because I know they take up a lot of space on the server).

(God, will you look at those damn liberals making fun of our president again? At least we got Clinton out of there! He's a serial rapist. Ann Coulter said so!)

Update: David Sirota comments on the metaphorical equivalent brought to us by Bushco.

What A Rude Surprise

(and over breakfast, no less...)

This appeared in this week's issue of Time Magazine towards the back of the issue (it covered a full page).

This is the best contact information I can find so far to complain, which admittedly isn't much; I haven't been able to track down any Email addresses yet. However, I will keep on this and try to update this post.

We were going to let our subscription expire anyway, but this is another good reason for others to do the same.

Calling Him Out

I second, third, fourth, fith, and sixth the sentiments expressed below from The Bulldog Manifesto.

The time has come. It's time to stay on point. The blogs need to unite around a rallying cry of "IMPEACH BUSH." As of this post, the term "impeach bush" is the third most popular search term at Technorati.

President Bush has totally and utterly failed the American people. Almost every day we are presented with further proof why he should not be our president. From 9/11, to WMDs, to Iraq, to Katrina-- the reasons are many and obvious. We need to impeach him NOW.

The only point that should be discussed is-- "IMPEACH BUSH NOW!" We need to pound this point over and over again. It should be mentioned wherever possible, and it should not stop until the mainstream media and all politicans realize that we, the people, will not stand for gross incompetence, nor the utter lies, any longer.

The Bulldog Manifesto hereby calls upon every blog, from large to small, from Eschaton to Spontaneous Arising, from The Daily Kos to Martian Anthropologist, from Crooks and Liars to Bring it On, from The Rude Pundit to The Talking Dog and EVERY BLOG IN BETWEEN!

The Bulldog Manifesto hereby calls upon every activist, from the national activists to the pissed off mothers, from the local politicians to the military families, from the school teachers to the student, spread the word, it is time to IMPEACH BUSH NOW. Cut and paste this post and email it to friends and family, write letters to your senators and congressperson, start your own impeachment blog, sign the Impeach Bush Petition, just do something! It begins with ALL OF US!

It doesn't matter whether the House of Representatives consists of a Republican majority, we cannot wait around until 2006 for that to change. We can no longer afford to wait. Impeachment begins NOW, with all of us!

Amen, brother. A stain on a blue dress doesn't mean jack compared to any of Bushco's antics.

The MSM Strikes Back?

Gail Shister is an excellent TV and radio columnist for The Philadelphia Inquirer. She gets a little too chatty and a little too cute for me at times, but she definitely knows her way around her subject matter. What follows is her most recent column that appeared today.

To show or not show bodies
Networks won't be dictated to by FEMA.

Should networks show images of dead bodies from New Orleans?

The Federal Emergency Management Agency prefers they don't. Media experts and network executives say a government agency shouldn't shape post-Hurricane Katrina coverage.

Particularly when that agency is FEMA.

"This is about message management, not sensitivity," says Tom Rosenstiel, director of the Project for Excellence in Journalism. "FEMA's message management is as messed up as its disaster management."

Under blistering attack for its slow response to flood-ravaged New Orleans and surrounding areas, FEMA discourages journalists from accompanying their boats as they recover bodies.

As many as 10,000 people have died, according to estimates. Thousands of bodies have been floating in floodwater since the levees were breached Aug. 30.

FEMA has no official policy on photographing bodies, says agency rep Mark Pfeifle. It does, however, advise against the practice out of respect for the families of dead and missing loved ones, he says.

Also, FEMA needs space in its boats for rescuers and recovered bodies, he says. Still, several news organizations, including CNN yesterday, have ridden in agency craft, he adds.

Alex Jones, director of Harvard University's Shorenstein Center on the Press, Politics and Public Policy, labels FEMA's stance a public-relations move.

"I think they want to minimize the perception that the government didn't do its job," says Jones, a former New York Times reporter and Pulitzer Prize-winner. "I'm very suspicious of their motives."

CBS's Marcy McGinnis, senior vice president, news coverage, draws a parallel between FEMA's request in New Orleans and the Bush administration's ban on media photographing of flag-draped coffins of troops arriving at Dover Air Force Base from Iraq and Afghanistan.

In both cases, the government said it was disrespectful to show images of dead Americans.

"I find nothing more respectful than a casket, draped in an American flag, being carried by a military honor guard," McGinnis says.

CBS would never show a close-up of a dead person's face, she says. Before running any video, "we take into consideration what time it would air, and on what broadcast. We are totally respectful of the dead and how we portray them."

While the government can control media access to Dover, it cannot prevent journalists in New Orleans from following FEMA's boats in their own vessels during recovery missions, says Rosenstiel, whose organization is associated with Columbia University's Graduate School of Journalism.

"One of the reasons the press is particularly impassioned about this story is precisely because the government wasn't equipped to corral reporters the way they typically do on most major stories," he says. "We've probably seen more dead bodies from New Orleans than from Iraq."

The experts agree that images of the dead are an important element in telling the catastrophic New Orleans story, and that those images should be in good taste and shot from a distance.

"These are difficult and delicate operations for the authorities," says Bob Steele, who teaches ethics at the Poynter Institute for Media Studies, a journalism think tank in St. Petersburg, Fla.

"It's our obligation as journalists to be there, to seek and report the truth as meaningfully as possible. ... Skillful videographers can capture the images in ways that are both truthful and respectful."

Jon Petrovich, chairman of the broadcast department at Northwestern University's Medill School of Journalism and a 15-year CNN veteran, says networks must "cautiously mask the effects of what a dead person looks like."

"It's a matter of taste. It's up to each network to make that decision. You don't want to appeal to a prurient interest by showing something gruesome. We don't need to see maggots crawling over a dead person's skin."

According to Rosenstiel, the single most indelible image of the failure of FEMA and chaos in New Orleans last week was that of a dead elderly woman, alone and slumped in a wheelchair at the Convention Center.

"People were informed by that image. I don't think anybody was offended."

The only people who were offended were Bushco and their zombified loyalists because they couldn't control the pictures for a change (Hunter over at The Daily Kos called Bushco "unrepentant, syphilitic dog whores" yesterday. Whoa!).

A Message From Jim Dean

(By the way, if you get a minute, go to Atrios along with most everyone else and read about the outrageous exchange between CNN "anchor" Kyra Phillips - a pure Buscho partisan as I live and breathe - and House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi).

Last week, devastation struck the City of New Orleans. The first disaster was natural. The second was a failure of leadership. Our federal government's response to Hurricane Katrina was slow and mismanaged. And now, hundreds, if not thousands, of Americans are dead.

So what went wrong? This question must be answered -- for the sake of the victims of Hurricane Katrina -- and for future generations. Please join me in calling for an Independent Commission to investigate what went wrong and make sure that this never happens again. Sign the petition:

http://www.democracyforamerica.com/accountability

Republican Senator Bill Frist was right when he said, "America deserves answers."

But Senator Frist and the Republican leadership believe that they should lead the investigation. This is the same Republican leadership that has consistently voted to cut funding for flood control and prevention in the Gulf Coast. And the same Republican leadership that has suggested it is not worth rebuilding one of the most historic cities in America.

Americans want the truth. We cannot allow for the Republican leadership to investigate itself. And we cannot allow Congress to be distracted from the main task at hand -- aiding the victims of this disaster and providing extensive recovery relief.

We need to find out what went wrong -- and we need to find out the truth. But the only way to successfully achieve this is through an Independent Commission. Join me today:

http://www.democracyforamerica.com/accountability

Thanks for all you do.

Sincerely,

Jim Dean
Democracy for America

Defending Daylin

I thought Lower Merion, PA attorney Robert M. Lipshutz made some excellent points regarding the saga of PA House representative Daylin Leach that has been raging in the Philadelphia Inquirer over the last few days (this is more PA political stuff, starting with "The Half-Full Glass" post a few days ago...I don't agree with Lipshutz's assessment of John Roberts, however - this appeared in today's Editorial section of the paper).

Over three days last week, there were several news stories on my state representative, Daylin Leach (D., Montgomery). Did the coverage deal with his final success in bringing hybrid cars into the commonwealth's auto fleet? Did it address his efforts to resolve the medical malpractice issue, or his constituent services, his work on the budget, or his giving up his law practice when he entered the General Assembly?

No.

Instead, focus fell on his off-hours entertainment - a non-governmental Web site, now removed, that he composed for the amusement of his friends and himself. Even though I am a news junkie, I didn't know about the Web site until newspaper articles told of its existence. Did the Web site reveal a sense of humor that is sophomoric and sex-obsessed? Probably, but isn't the sense of humor of 99.3 percent of all men (including me) the same? Isn't he joking about things most men joke about with their friends?

Leach is a man who has been described by 23-year veteran Rep. Frank LaGrotta (D., Lawrence) as: "a real person who doesn't take himself or his title too seriously." He further said of Leach: "... of every person who walks in - or ever has walked into the Capitol, Daylin is the least prejudiced, most open-minded, most inclusive person I have ever met." Larry Ceisler, a political consultant with decades of experience in Pennsylvania politics, said: "If more legislators in Harrisburg were like Daylin, there would be more civility and bipartisanship."

The past of every American is an open book, thanks to Google, Lexis Nexis, litigation databases, our credit-card bills, and, as Law and Order fans know, the logs of our phone calls and ATM transactions. Our present is often captured by the security cameras of banks, convenience stores and toll booths, the camera cell phones of passing pedestrians, by E-Z Pass or by Global Positioning Systems such as On-Star. For most of us, our privacy is best protected by our anonymity.

The end of privacy is having a devastating effect on public service. Call it the "John-Roberts-ization" of American politics. Quite aside from the nominee's qualifications, President Bush clearly put forth Judge Roberts because he has never been quoted as saying, doing or even thinking anything that could be found to be offensive to anyone, ever.

Our increasing ability to observe and permanently record everyone all of the time will soon cause anyone wishing a career in public life to be forced, clearly before reaching puberty, to adopt the "Spouse-Wallace" test: "Would you say, do, or even think what you are about to say, do or think if your spouse (or future spouse) and/or Mike Wallace and a 60 Minutes camera crew were confronting you about it?"

In the 2000 presidential campaign, then-Vice President Al Gore hired a feminist writer, Naomi Wolf, at $15,000 a month to tell him how to appeal to people. Her advice, in summary, was: "Get out of the blue suit and act like a human being."

Daylin Leach does not have to hire someone to tell him how to act like a human being. He is one. He is not the robot that the media's system of relentless exposure would require as a public servant. And if, for the sake of a few column inches of "gotcha" journalism, the papers make him a victim of "Republicans ... targeting his 149th District as a winnable seat next year," then they will not only have harmed a good man and a good public servant, but also the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania.

Is This A Surprise?

The intial results are in...

And Bernard Weiner asks an excellent question here.

(Light blogging lately - I may return to my normal mode soon.)

The Whitewash Kicks Into Overdrive

Harry Reid is absolutely right about this face-saving PR gesture from Bushco and the Repugs in Congress (you may have to view a Dell PC ad before you can read this).

Oh, and Tom DeLay is suddenly such a statesman for suggesting the consolidated House-Senate Repug panel, isn’t he (the fact that HE suggested it should be the first clue that “the fix is in”).

And the Talking Points Memo Cafe has this illuminating moment with Larry Johnson and MSNBC.

Meanwhile, the ugly reality continues to deflect Bushco’s PR spin (and Greg Mitchell nails it also).

Update: "Mr. Rove says to tell those freeloader cancer patients to get with the program. The President needs a photo-op and he needs it now!"

(Thanks to The Raw Story...I can hardly wait to read any one of the books that are going to be written about this depressing fiasco.)

And I'll Be At Tipitina's

Thank you, Jerry Shriver of USA Today, for providing this fond memory. May everything you describe return one day.

Didn't Hafta Vote For CAFTA

(Sorry – I know, it was too easy)…

So our U.S. Congressman Mike Fitzpatrick spent yesterday telling us in the Bucks County Courier Times how much he opposed the fraud energy bill that the Repugs ramroded through the supine Congress a little while ago. How nice of him to be so selective in opposing the royal Bushco scam that is being foisted on all of us on a day-to-day basis.

(By the way, I would link to the story except for one problem. The Bucks County Courier Times has absolutely, without a doubt, the worst web site for a newspaper that I have ever seen. It is IMPOSSIBLE to find the story or column I want, though I usually can link to anything written by their Harrisburg correspondent, Alison Hawkes. I have a feeling that they’re trying to manage their content “on the cheap.” That is usually the reason and not the fault of a particular person.)

I’m not forgiving of Fitzpatrick because, among the other criminal acts brought to us by the individuals supposedly working on our behalf, he supported the Central American Free Trade Agreement, otherwise known as CAFTA. This fact was not ignored by David Sirota and Public Citizen (link one for information on the questionable votes and link two for more FTAA context), who to their credit are holding Fitzpatrick and others (including, sadly, some Dems in name only) accountable.

This analysis by Krystal Kyer also provides more information regarding the evils of this dreaded agreement, which will inevitably entail the loss of more jobs in this country as Central America becomes the new headquarters of offshoring in the ongoing effort of the investor class to forever pillage everyone but themselves.

Why I Hate The Repugs

This is a case study.

So Scumbag Santorum gives an interview and says that people who cannot leave pending disaster sites in advance of warnings should be penalized. Of course he’s referring to people in New Orleans and elsewhere on the gulf coast who surely would have left if they could (or, as Bill Maher said in tongue-in-cheek fashion last Friday, making fun of Bushco’s attitude towards the poor along the Gulf Coast: “I don’t understand it. Why didn’t these people just load up the Range Rover with extra cases of spring water and drive off to their summer homes?”).

So the Casey, Jr. campaign FINALLY shows a sign of life and calls Santorum on his remarks. Santorum backpedals and says, no, of course I wasn’t referring to the people I was really referring to. But local officials should be blamed for not making transportation available to people who needed it.

I hate to agree even slightly with anything from the Repugs, but I have to give them that. Gov. Kathleen Blanco should have seen to it days in advance that people were transported out of there if possible. However, that will be one of the subjects of the investigation into this disaster that will follow, and it may turn out that she took the correct action but was ignored. Also, to criticize her for this is utterly incidental when looking at FEMA’s managerial and administrative incompetence and Bushco’s failure to coordinate the relief effort in time despite NUMEROUS warnings that a Category 5 hurricane would hit the area one day.

So Casey Jr.’s people said Santorum should have clarified his remarks. They’re right, and that should have been the end of it.

But no. Dan Ronayne, Santorum’s spokesman, said this about Casey Jr.

"This is exactly the kind of lowbrow politics that Casey Jr.'s campaign employed against Ed Rendell because they have a candidate with a thin resume who doesn't take positions on issues," he said.

Mr. Ronayne, your guy screwed up. Again. Be a man, take the hit, and shut up.

Reconsidering Forrestine '05

This editorial in today's Philadelphia Inquirer got me to thinking a bit.

The race for governor of New Jersey has gotten nastier than usual, earlier than usual. So far, Democrat Jon Corzine and Republican Doug Forrester have not given New Jersey residents the campaign they deserve.

Their camps spent most of August trading "gotcha" accusations over the legality of Forrester's large campaign donations to fellow Republicans and Corzine's gift mortgage loan to a former girlfriend.

Neither of these tempests provides valuable insight into how either man would govern. Now that Labor Day has arrived, it's time for the candidates to get their messages across on issues that will make a difference in the lives of New Jerseyans.

Property taxes, which are the highest in the nation, should receive much of the attention. Corzine and Forrester have yet to make a convincing case that they can provide sustainable relief.

Forrester's plan is to amend the state constitution to guarantee a 30-percent reduction in property taxes over three years.

He proposes to pay for these automatic rebates partly by cutting waste in state government. Hmmm, where have we heard that before? Only from every candidate who wanted to sound like he had a tax reform plan when he really didn't.

A tip-off that Forrester's not serious: He pledges not to raise other taxes. Forrester says his plan would involve about $6 billion over three years; Democrats say the figure is more like $10 billion.

Railing against wasteful spending always sounds nice. But many politicians have charged the ramparts of waste, fraud and abuse only to find that the savings don't add up to their promises. Forrester claims he'll find the savings in a state budget that rose $14 billion in four years.

Corzine says he will increase state property tax rebates by 10 percent per year for homeowners and renters earning less than $200,000. This, after a budget season in which a Democratic governor and Democratic lawmakers fought over trimming those rebates.

He projects that his plan would cost $7.67 billion over four years. He, too, needs to specify how he'd make the books balance. Republicans say Corzine's plan offers too little relief to the average homeowner.

Acting Gov. Codey did take steps this year toward controlling the state budget; both candidates need to spell out in far more detail their plans for restraining spending - being honest that sometimes what will be cut is a program that is useful, not wasteful, but simply is a lower priority.

With gas prices rising, Forrester says he is opposed to raising the state's gasoline tax. But the state's transportation trust fund is running on empty. Corzine has said he would raise the tax only as a last resort. Fine, gentlemen, explain how this bankrupt fund will somehow manage to keep New Jersey's roads, bridges and mass transit in decent repair.

The list of New Jersey's pressing needs goes on. Combating corruption, making higher education more affordable, curbing sprawl - all must be prominent in this discussion.

Right now, these candidates are flunking the job interview by squabbling between themselves rather than addressing the questions their prospective employers - the voters - really want answered.

To learn more, I visited the web sites of the Forrester and Corzine campaigns so I could read up and feel a little less jaded about this whole race.

I actually have to admit that Forrester seems to be better ideas related to homeland security, including training modules for first responders and security cameras in smaller airports, but somehow I don’t think that money for these ideas is going to be forthcoming when New Jersey or Pennsylvania can’t even get the matching federal funds for security measures that are already in place.

However, Corzine does a much better job of articulating the problems facing the state concerning the environment and the day-to-day issues of kids, families, and jobs. His site articulates ivory-tower goals for a wider range of issues than Forrester does (with Forrester mimicking much of the same type of rhetoric, which every politician does, I realize).

Also, Corzine’s site is pleasantly free of the “Doug did this, Doug did that” stuff that pollutes Forrester’s home page against Corzine, as well as the typical Repug snarly attitude that reverberates all over the place. I realize that that’s the way it goes when you’re trailing and all you can do is follow the playbook given to you by your handlers in Washington, D.C., but that’s still no excuse (and if Forrester cared a whit about appearances – and he obviously doesn’t – he would do what Frank Lautenberg said and give back the campaign money he raised when Karl Rove appeared with him, though I’m sure Forrester needs all the dough he can get with the question of the campaign donations he was not allowed to make still up in the air).

Oh, and regarding allegations of impropriety, am I the only one who greeted the news of Corzine’s half-million dollar loan to his girlfriend with a great big yawn? Wow, a Democratic politician in New Jersey in bed with organized labor (literally and figuratively). Stop the presses!

Does that make it right? Of course not. Is there a lot of institutional rot in New Jersey from years of primarily Democratic patronage? Apparently so (I can’t say for certain because I don’t live there, but that’s what I hear).

But Forrester is nothing but a Repug water boy for the cabal of crooks and supposed Jesus freaks that are running our country right into the ground. Better the imperfect status quo with potential for improvement with Corzine than the ruin, budget deficits and pseudo-neocon blather of Forrester as he tries to turn New Jersey into a satellite of Bushworld.

See Ya' Little Buddy

May you ride a nice, pleasant little cloud of hemp up to the great beyond, while all here remains as primitive as can be.

And with that in mind…

Just sit right back and you’ll hear a tale
Of our old prosperity
No war, job growth, and the stock market
Were making history

The mate was a prince but a mannequin
The “skip” had much allure
They butted heads but ruled as one
And a “third term” seemed so sure, a “third term” seemed so sure

(feel free to supply your own sound effects…)

The weather started getting rough, the ship of state was tossed
The millennium saw the Florida crash and everything was lost

Now we’ve set ground on the shore of this uncharted desert aisle
With Gilligan (the preznit)
The Skipper too (Cheney)
The millionaire and his wife (“Poppy” and the “beautiful mind”)
The movie star (Ahh-nold)
The Professor (Rove)
And Mary Ann (Condi)

Here on Dubya’s Isle.

Yeah, I know, I can do better. I wish I could've found a way to fit Rummy in also.

That's More Like It

I lambasted Clinton on Saturday for his initial response to Bushco's feeble effort, if you can call it that, as a result of Katrina's devastation, but this is a much more realistic analysis. Say what you want about him, but he's way too smart to actually believe what he said standing next to Dubya a couple of days ago.

Also, it's nice to see the Bush clan continuing to win popularity by blaming others for their mistakes. Memo to H.W. - The New York Times isn't responsible for the deaths of what could turn out to be 10,000 people, if New Orleans mayor Ray Nagin's grim estimate is correct. Your boneheaded progeny (who, of course, is now blaming Louisiana Gov. Kathleen Blanco - also see "Bush and Blanco" at The Daily Kos yesterday) took care of that on his own (and kudos to Blanco for bringing on former FEMA director James Lee Witt to oversee the recovery efforts, according to the New Orleans Times-Picayune).

The MSM Returns To Work

What follows is “analysis” from Ron Fournier of the AP regarding John Roberts’ nomination as Supreme Court chief justice (courtesy of the Bucks County Courier Times):

In fairness to Bush, he had weeks to consider Roberts’ qualifications, and a summer spent in the spotlight turned up no warts on the nominee.

Obviously, Fournier has not taken the trouble to review either this blog or those of some of the big-hit lefties out there such as Atrios or The Daily Kos. I guess this is another feeble attempt at justifying Roberts as a “safe” pick for Supreme Court justice instead of confronting the bald-faced absurdity of naming a guy who hasn’t even been confirmed for the high court yet.

(Someone else theorized that this is another Bushco game to get the Dems to lay off Roberts and let him walk in while the Dems gear up to attack the next nominee who will be the likely swing vote on the court. I sincerely hope the Dems don’t fall for that, though their recent track record isn’t encouraging. With Roberts’ conservative baggage and Bush’s plummeting approval rating in the wake of Katrina, I see ABSOLUTELY NO REASON why the Dems shouldn’t fire at will on Bush and his cronies on a 24/7/365 basis.)

"Real Time" Update

Finally…

I already referred to Anderson Cooper earlier in another post and his excellent interview on “Real Time,” though it seemed as if he wanted to make another point before Maher cut him off. Also, climatologist Stephen Schneider stated that most of his peers in the field have accepted global warming as a reality and have taken it as a given that it played a part in Hurricane Katrina. Schneider said that even a temperature fluctuation of one to two degrees in the water can turn a bad hurricane into something like Katrina, and we can't keep dumping garbage into the atmosphere from our industrial processes and not expect that to happen.

The panel discussion guests last Friday night were writers Michael Eric Dyson and Mary Frances Berry, both of whom are African American, and actor Bradley Whitford from “The West Wing,” who is not.

(Rep. Marsha Blackburn, a Repug from Tennessee, was scheduled to appear but didn’t, though Berry filled in well I thought. I’m sure Blackburn was supposed to be the token Bush apologist, though I don’t see how anyone could have performed that task in the aftermath of Katrina. Maher started the discussion by acknowledging that there were three liberals on the panel, or words to that affect, and he knew someone would complain that there was no conservative, but for tonight, given the fallout from Katrina, he didn’t care. As it was, everyone blasted Bushco and FEMA for their incompetence.)

Michael Eric Dyson also took on Bill Cosby, saying you don't hear a thing from Cosby for years and years about race, though he's donated and helped behind the scenes, but suddenly he comes out and makes critical remarks towards blacks. Chris Rock is popular on race, for example, because he says critical things about both blacks and whites.

Maher said later, again, that he couldn’t find anyone to absolve Bush, and Berry defended Bush a bit because the state disaster plan, which wasn't followed or maybe even created properly, wasn't his responsibility. Maher also made a remark to the effect of Bush congratulating himself at the end of the day after he arrived on the scene “for hugging so many Negroes today” which brought forth a few chortles.

Maher also spoke with commentator Fareed Zakaria via satellite, and Zakaria said, about Iraq, that even though the scenario isn't as rosy as Bush says, it's still interesting and encouraging to see the religious factions in Iraq trying to work together on a constitution (and Maher also mentioned how first we wanted the Sunnis out when we disbanded the military, then decided at the last minute that we'd better get them back into the picture, and what a goof that was).

In a comedy bit about how the drug makers are opposing the “Plan B” morning after pill, Maher came up with some suggested products that the drug makers might want to market themselves ("Pepto Jizz No" or something was amusing).

Bradley Whitford came up with some good lines, I thought, saying that, because of the general absence of Democratic leadership vs. the Republicans, it’s like “a jazz fusion band vs. The Rolling Stones,” which was a bit clever I thought. Also, since the answer to everything for the Republicans seems to be tax cuts, Whitford stated that, to all these co-called Christians, “tax cuts are their Jesus.” Maher responded that (and I’m paraphrasing), speaking of Him, if he came back now, speaking out about helping the poor, against war and against corporate greed, they would think he's a lazy hippie, a skinny Michael Moore.

It was a good show, but as I said earlier, without much fireworks.

Apple Doesn't Rot Far From The Tree

A great big nod of gratitude to DavidNYC and The Daily Kos for this one (makes my skin crawl)...

Barbara Bush - the woman whom no less an authority than Dick Nixon said "knows how to hate," the woman who didn't want to trouble her "beautiful mind" with thoughts of "body bags and deaths" - has now offered us yet another gem. After visting refugees staying at the Houston Astrodome, she had this to say:

"And so many of the people in the arena here, you know, were underprivileged anyway, so this (she chuckled slightly)--this is working very well for them."

What a cold, callous, wretched ghoul of a person. I just don't even know what else to say.

Neither do I. Previously, I had a modicum of respect for her. That is gone.

Daylin Leach Equals Dumb Laughs

That having been said, though, I should point out that I think John Grogan did a hatchet job on Leach today in the Inquirer (I would link to it, but you have to register...more PA politics, re: "The Half-Full Glass" below).

Look, I know what Leach posted in his blog was moronic and offensive on all kinds of levels including ethnicity, sexual orientation, and glorification of drinking to excess (and those are only the once I can remember off the top of my head).

But I'm sorry - I just find it hard to get worked up by stupid frat boy antics when the pay raise issue is still out there, and I, for one, am paying closer attention to how these clowns in Harrisburg spend our money (actually, I find John Perzel's sanctimonious disdain for even addressing the pay raise issue to be a lot more galling than any of Leach's nonsense).

I'm sure Grogan is particularly peeved because I have a feeling Leach represents the district where he lives. He has a perfect right to feel that way. So, he can choose to pour his time and energies into working for Leach's opponent in the next election (and Grogan is absolutely right that Leach's next opponent is going to bludgeon him over this).

Still, though, I was annoyed when Grogan took Leach's statement about "progressive values" out of context. Grogan also failed to mention the anecdote about Leach and his wife naming their daughter "Brennan" after former Supreme Court justice William Brennan, which I found to be touching.

Finally, Grogan referred to Leach's "not-quite-an-apology." Leach did apologize, and this leads me to this question.

Is forgiveness a possibility for a contrite individual, which I believe Leach is? As with Bill Clinton, how many times is someone supposed to apologize after they've done wrong (and yes, I know Clinton lied and shaded the truth all over the place before he finally caved and said, yes, I received a carnal favor from Monica Lewinsky). What did Leach do to imperil someone's health or livelihood or that of their family? What is his voting record regarding legislation that affects our lives? That is the stuff that I care about.

And consider this; outside of Richard Clarke's tearful admission to the families of the 9/11 victims, when was the last time you heard a Republican apologize for anything? Take your pick...failure to heed warnings from the intelligence community before the attack on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon, as well as the PA plane crash, the rush into Iraq War II, the disaster of Katrina, etc.

Yes, I'm probably "mixing apples and oranges," but it's all politics in the end, whether local or national. And Daylin Leach's stupid remarks about "ta tas" and getting stoned with Henry Kissinger don't mean much to me with everything else going on.

The Gloves Come Off

Keith Olbermann on MSNBC absolutely nailed it today.

SECAUCUS — Secretary of Homeland Security Michael Chertoff said it all, starting his news briefing Saturday afternoon: "Louisiana is a city that is largely underwater..."

Well there's your problem right there.

If ever a slip-of-the-tongue defined a government's response to a crisis, this was it.

The seeming definition of our time and our leaders had been their insistence on slashing federal budgets for projects that might’ve saved New Orleans. The seeming characterization of our government that it was on vacation when the city was lost, and could barely tear itself away from commemorating V.J. Day and watching Monty Python's Flying Circus, to at least pretend to get back to work. The seeming identification of these hapless bureaucrats: their pathetic use of the future tense in terms of relief they could’ve brought last Monday and Tuesday — like the President, whose statements have looked like they’re being transmitted to us by some kind of four-day tape-delay.

But no. The incompetence and the ludicrous prioritization will forever be symbolized by one gaffe by of the head of what is ironically called “The Department of Homeland Security”: “Louisiana is a city…”

Politician after politician — Republican and Democrat alike — has paraded before us, unwilling or unable to shut off the "I-Me" switch in their heads, condescendingly telling us about how moved they were or how devastated they were — congenitally incapable of telling the difference between the destruction of a city and the opening of a supermarket.

And as that sorry recital of self-absorption dragged on, I have resisted editorial comment. The focus needed to be on the efforts to save the stranded — even the internet's meager powers were correctly devoted to telling the stories of the twin disasters, natural... and government-made.

But now, at least, it is has stopped getting exponentially worse in Mississippi and Alabama and New Orleans and Louisiana (the state, not the city). And, having given our leaders what we know now is the week or so they need to get their act together, that period of editorial silence I mentioned, should come to an end.

No one is suggesting that mayors or governors in the afflicted areas, nor the federal government, should be able to stop hurricanes. Lord knows, no one is suggesting that we should ever prioritize levee improvement for a below-sea-level city, ahead of $454 million worth of trophy bridges for the politicians of Alaska.

But, nationally, these are leaders who won re-election last year largely by portraying their opponents as incapable of keeping the country safe. These are leaders who regularly pressure the news media in this country to report the reopening of a school or a power station in Iraq, and defies its citizens not to stand up and cheer. Yet they couldn't even keep one school or power station from being devastated by infrastructure collapse in New Orleans — even though the government had heard all the "chatter" from the scientists and city planners and hurricane centers and some group whose purposes the government couldn't quite discern... a group called The U.S. Army Corps of Engineers.

And most chillingly of all, this is the Law and Order and Terror government. It promised protection — or at least amelioration — against all threats: conventional, radiological, or biological.

It has just proved that it cannot save its citizens from a biological weapon called standing water.

Mr. Bush has now twice insisted that, "we are not satisfied," with the response to the manifold tragedies along the Gulf Coast. I wonder which "we" he thinks he's speaking for on this point. Perhaps it's the administration, although we still don't know where some of them are. Anybody seen the Vice President lately? The man whose message this time last year was, 'I'll Protect You, The Other Guy Will Let You Die'?

I don't know which 'we' Mr. Bush meant.

For many of this country's citizens, the mantra has been — as we were taught in Social Studies it should always be — whether or not I voted for this President — he is still my President. I suspect anybody who had to give him that benefit of the doubt stopped doing so last week. I suspect a lot of his supporters, looking ahead to '08, are wondering how they can distance themselves from the two words which will define his government — our government — "New Orleans."

For him, it is a shame — in all senses of the word. A few changes of pronouns in there, and he might not have looked so much like a 21st Century Marie Antoinette. All that was needed was just a quick "I'm not satisfied with my government's response." Instead of hiding behind phrases like "no one could have foreseen," had he only remembered Winston Churchill's quote from the 1930's. "The responsibility," of government, Churchill told the British Parliament "for the public safety is absolute and requires no mandate. It is in fact, the prime object for which governments come into existence."

In forgetting that, the current administration did not merely damage itself — it damaged our confidence in our ability to rely on whoever is in the White House.

As we emphasized to you here all last week, the realities of the region are such that New Orleans is going to be largely uninhabitable for a lot longer than anybody is yet willing to recognize. Lord knows when the last body will be found, or the last artifact of the levee break, dug up. Could be next March. Could be 2100. By then, in the muck and toxic mire of New Orleans, they may even find our government's credibility.

Somewhere, in the City of Louisiana.

Hard Labor Day

Here are links to three articles to read and contemplate (hope the sun in shining as it is here, even in the blighted Gulf Coast - Arianna referred her readers to Instapundit for a bunch of other links where they can go to give help...fortunately, no shortages in that area, and I'll put aside my differences with Glenn Reynolds and his crew if it means lending a helping hand):

1) Lee Drutman reviews a new book on Wal-Mart that is surprisingly even handed and looks the problem square in the face as far as I'm concerned.

2) Stanley Aronowitz takes a look at the AFL-CIO split (I'll dig deeper into that later).

3) (added 9/6) Molly Ivins provides some excellent, though sadly accurate, analysis.

One more thing...I haven't forgotten about the wrapup for this week's "Real Time With Bill Maher" episode. It's on the way.

Unconfirmed, But Presiding Over All?

Uh, I'm no scholar in the process of confirming a Supreme Court judge, but doesn't this person have to be already sitting on the bench before he/she is named to be in charge?

Well, I hope this makes Scalia, Thomas, Kennedy and Sandra Day O'Connor happy (I guess O'Connor doesn't care at this point, though), because their perverse ruling (along with the late but not lamented - by me, anyway - Rehnquist) in Bush vs. Gore 2000 enabled the empty-suit-in-chief to take up residence at 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue. I guess they were expecting Dubya to "scratch their back"...

(For the information of this "gang of four," I just did a Google search on "George W. Bush" and "Bait and Switch" and came back with 96,500 hits. There's a message there.)

George W. Bush isn't just egotistical beyond belief and totally ignorant of the workings of our government. He's certifiably nuts.

The Eye Of Another Storm

As far as Trudy Rubin's excellent column is concerned, Rudy Giuliani and Newt Gingrich can both take a long walk off a short pier (never thought I'd say that about Giuliani after 9/11, but he's shown himself to be a shameless opportunist unfortunately), but otherwise, this is definitely food for thought.

There's something ghoulishly fitting about talking by phone to Baghdad while watching the chaos in New Orleans.

In my ear I'm hearing about the absence of electricity or water in 120-degree heat and daily shooting in Baghdad's streets. On CNN, a doctor from New Orleans' Charity Hospital is relating how nurses are giving each other IVs so they can keep working because there's no more water or food. Meanwhile, there's gunfire in the hospital's garage.

How is it possible that Americans have been watching victims of Hurricane Katrina clinging to rooftops for days? How is it possible that we watched, like helpless voyeurs, as mothers and babies roasted in the Superdome without food or water - while women were reportedly raped in the restrooms?

Do we not live in the richest country on earth? How dare anyone claim that it is "playing politics" to ask why officials weren't prepared to cope with this hurricane.

The Baghdad and New Orleans debacles lay bare the dangerous American aversion to long-term planning. Lack of planning for the postwar gave us the current mess in Iraq. Lack of preparedness for a New Orleans flood produced a disaster that makes America look like a Third World country. Offers of help are pouring in from around the world as if we were Bangladeshis; even Cuba offered more than 1,000 doctors.

Who can believe, after the New Orleans fiasco, that the Bush administration is prepared to handle another terrorist outrage? As former Republican House Speaker Newt Gingrich asked bluntly on Friday: "If we can't respond faster than this to an event we saw coming across the Gulf [of Mexico] for days, then why do we think we're prepared to respond to a nuclear or biological attack?"

There were plenty of predictions about a catastrophe in New Orleans (just as there were plenty of warnings about violence in postwar Iraq). In 2001, the Federal Emergency Management Agency ranked a hurricane strike in New Orleans among the three most likely catastrophic disasters facing America. In July 2004, federal, state and local officials carried out a drill, called Hurricane Pam, that predicted 10 to 15 feet of water covering much of the city and evacuation of one million people.

Many studies predicted that the levees might be breached by a hurricane; the New Orleans Times-Picayune did an award-winning series three years ago called "Washing Away." But federal officials were never willing to spend the money to fix the problem.

The Bush White House axed funding requests from the Army Corps of Engineers to improve the levees. It lobbied against plans to rebuild coastlines and wetlands that serve as buffers against hurricanes.

A former Republican congressman and assistant secretary of the Army named Michael Parker told the Washington Post that the governnment resisted long-term investment in projects like flood control. Parker was fired by the Bush White House after accusing it of shortchanging the Corps of Engineers.

Parker nailed the problem. Federal flood-control projects offer protection against future dangers but provide no political gains in the short term. Especially if the money would be spent on New Orleans, where the population is largely poor and black.

Such projects aren't attractive to an administration that wants to "starve the beast," i.e., shrink federal government. Flood control costs big bucks at a time when the administration prefers to cut taxes for the rich.

In a sane world, the New Orleans tragedy would sound a wake-up call. The failure of national planning has shocked the world as well as American citizens. It has raised questions about America's internal strength. Osama bin Laden must be chuckling; one Kuwaiti newspaper published an article by a religious official praising Hurricane Katrina as a "wind of torment" sent to punish the American empire.

In a sane world, the White House would rethink its aversion to rebuilding America's infrastructure. It would finally provide adequate funds to secure America's ports, railroads and chemical plants.

It would rethink its method of organizing for natural disasters. It would rethink the doctrine of "regime change" - which has strained the military and National Guard. It would reconsider tax cuts that will strap the country in its rebuilding effort.

And the White House would appoint former New York City Mayor Rudolph Giuliani to head up disaster relief for New Orleans and the South. This was Newt Gingrich's excellent suggestion. He knows Giuliani could rally the country for a massive reconstruction effort in a way the President has failed to do during these crucial days.

That would be the first sign of a long-term plan by an administration whose planning failures have disgraced our country.

Who'd have imagined a situation where Castro would be offering charity to the suffering people of New Orleans?