Dubya’s Final “FU” To The CPB

Eric Boehlert of Media Matters for America tells us a few things in this post; one is that President George W. Milhous Bush just presented, in his last budget, the largest cut ever proposed to public broadcasting (timed, coincidentally, before the presentation of “Bush’s War” on “Frontline” to coincide with today’s fifth anniversary), and Boehlert also tells us that Dubya received a little help in the anti-PBS propaganda department recently from Charles McGrath of the New York Times here (the Corporation for Public Broadcasting is in charge of PBS, by the way).

I thought that Boehlert might have been a little harsh, so I went back and read McGrath’s original Times commentary called “Is PBS Still Necessary.” And after doing so, I still think Boehlert erred slightly, but only because he may have been too kind.

As Boehlert states, McGrath argues that public television may be obsolete (an opinion I contest greatly), though McGrath curiously defends public radio. And in attacking public TV, McGrath argues that cable provides comparable or better programming alternatives.

However, my old standby argument still holds up, and it is that public TV provides better programming for kids, for example, over cable satellite and premium channels by leaps and bounds (something McGrath doesn’t bother to mention). Also in his critique, McGrath laments that public TV has “settled into an all-Jane Austen format” regarding its dramas (and even if that were true, and it isn’t, how exactly is that bad?). McGrath also snidely states that the main character in the “Brit-com” called “Keeping Up Appearances,” Hyacinth (a middle-aged lady who pretends to be more affluent than she is) “is practically a parody of a certain strain in public broadcasting: the one that puts on airs and wants to pretend to singularity.”

And on top of that, we have McGrath’s snarky remark that Jim Lehrer, the host of the “News Hour” formerly with co-host Robert MacNeil, has been with the show “so long that some of his early viewers are now in assisted living” (would that all TV journalists possessed Lehrer’s diligence, talent and integrity), and McGrath calls public TV pledge drives, “the fundraising equivalent of water-boarding” (I don’t like them either to say the least, but I think that comparison is in bad taste).

And contrary to any typically delusional right-wing propaganda, the Corporation for Public Broadcasting has been run by various individuals across the ideological spectrum, including Richard Carlson (Tucker’s father) and Sonia Landau under The Sainted Ronnie R, former head of “Women For Reagan-Bush” (noted here). And as noted here (correcting “Falafel Boy” yet again)…

In addition, the Public Broadcasting Act of 1967 formally ensures that no one political party dominates. The law requires that "[n]o more than 5 members of the [nine-member] Board appointed by the President may be members of the same political party." The board elects its own chairperson. The law has recently ensured the appointment of Republicans by President Clinton, including (Kenneth) Tomlinson, whom Clinton appointed in 2000; and Katherine Milner Anderson, whom Clinton appointed in 1997. She had previously served as the associate director of the White House's Office of the Cabinet in 1983 and 1984 under Reagan.

I would argue instead that, aside from the almost continual effort to put public TV out of business by the Repugs, the biggest problems faced by PBS are ideological (such as here, where Pittsburgh’s public station was forced to return a $5,000 underwriting donation from Planned Parenthood because the station’s license holder, Duquesne University – a Catholic college – objected), and managerial (here, where the infamous Bill Marrazzo of WHYY in Philadelphia pulls down the highest salary of anyone in public broadcasting – a related post is here).

Music For The Anniversary

Black Sabbath ("War Pigs")...



...Richard Thompson ("Dad's Gonna Kill Me")...



...Jackson Browne ("Lives In The Balance")...



...and John Flynn ("Dover").



Update 3/20/08: "So," indeed.

Tuesday Stuff

No, we sure as hell don't...



...oh, and by the way, it would be nice if our totally-bought-and-paid-for corporate media spent a mere fraction of the time it has spent anguishing over whatever the hell The Rev. Jeremiah Wright said or didn't say and how much Obama believes or doesn't believe it and used it instead to take a look at the relationship between "Senator Honor And Virtue" and a gay-bashing demagogue like Rod Parsley (to say nothing of John Hagee, of course, which is what Hagee would deserve were this not an election year)...



...and I might as well let him just keep digging, right? (oh, but wait...Wolf Blitzer is here to tell us that he's read some tea leaves and consulted a Ouija Board that says that - OMIGOD! Barack Obama is REALLY A MUSLIM AFTER ALL!! AND THE REV. JEREMIAH WRIGHT IS HIS HENCHMAN! RUN FOR YOUR LIVES!! And that, of course, gives the perfect excuse to ignore what McCain says here; to me, my most shocked reaction didn't come from his constant repetition of the phrase "Judeo-Christian values," but to the moment where he tells us the founding fathers basically said "the separation of church and state" shouldn't exist.

Read this, McCain; Thomas Jefferson, a far better man than you or I, said that "that act of the whole American people which declared that their legislature should make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof, thus building a wall of separation between church and state."

Now what exactly do you think he meant by that?)



...oh, and last but not least, John McBush is wrong on the economy also, just to let you know.

Condi And Gates Get “Check Mated” On Russian Reforms

This Moscow Times story tells us that Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice and Defense Secretary Robert Gates met recently with some of the Kremlin’s political opposition, but did not meet with its most vocal opponents, notably chess legend Garry Kasparov.

Kind of makes you wonder how serious they truly are about encouraging democracy, doesn’t it? But then again, why should we be surpised?

As noted here…

"The opposition - from the left and the right - can never really challenge the regime through elections," Kasparov said in the interview seen by AFP (Kasparov called the March 2nd election in which Dmitry Medvedev replaced Vladimir Putin “meaningless”).

"Putin is putting the nails in the coffin of democracy," he added.

"If we don't stop them we can have a funeral for Russian democracy. They have been killing it for seven years, slowly poisoning it."

Kasparov said Bush has helped Putin, a former Soviet KGB officer, run roughshod over human rights and democracy by failing to step forward with criticism of his Russian counterpart.

"Putin is immune (from criticism) unless he hears a firm reaction from the top man," Kasparov said.

"He doesn't care about clerks, even (US Secretary of State) Condoleezza Rice. Only a message from the top counts."

But the US president "says nothing about most of the assaults on democracy in Russia," lamented Kasparov, who himself contemplated a run for the Russian presidency before abandoning it December in the face of harassment and ostracism.

"He says nothing to Putin and continues to do business with him."

The former chess champion, who entered politics in 2005, recalled a 2001 encounter in which Bush said he looked Putin "in the eyes" and saw someone he could rely on.

"Putin looked into Bush's eyes as well. He saw he could push Bush's limits. .... He pushes, and Bush does nothing," Kasparov concluded.

And regarding Putin being named “Person Of The Year” by Time Magazine last December (here)…

I understand that this award is not intended to be a beauty contest. But for all of Putin’s attacks on the West, this will be promoted widely within Russia and around the world as a victory and an endorsement by the West of Putin’s policies and practices of dictatorship. It’s an early Christmas present to the Kremlin when what they really deserved was a lump of coal.

I will add a brief response to Putin’s jibe in the TIME article about my speaking English to reporters after my arrest last month. First, I also spoke in Russian, which oddly enough never makes the Kremlin-controlled newscasts. Second, since opposition statements are almost completely banned in the Russian media the foreign press usually makes up 90% of attending media at opposition events. Lastly, I would be delighted to show Mr. Putin which of us speaks and writes better Russian. Perhaps he will accept my challenge to a debate on national television or allow an editorial of mine to appear in a major newspaper.

Looks like Kasparov and those who had the best chance of effecting reform got “rooked” by Bushco, sadly. Sorry to say that they’re not the first, and probably won’t be the last.

Pro Versus Con At The Five-Year Mark

(And I don’t have to answer the question “Of what?,” do I?).

Max Follmer of HuffPo interviews John Walcott, the Washington bureau chief for McClatchy Newspapers (formerly Knight Ridder), one of the group of reporters from that organization who actually practiced serious journalism prior to the beginning of the war (here).

Of all of the good questions from Follmer and better answers from Wolcott and the team, this may be tops as far as I’m concerned…

And what was it about the way that you and the Knight Ridder team were approaching the story from a tradecraft point of view that make it different from what the public was seeing in the Times and the Post and the Wall Street Journal?

I think we approached this by asking the question every time the administration made an allegation "is this true?" "Is this true" is the basic question any journalist must ask any time a government, any government, makes an assertion. Governments do things for their own reasons depending on what the administration is. There could be altruistic reasons. But particularly a government that is politicized as the Bush Administration, one has to ask that question even more intensely. So we were doing that. We were also listening to people who were coming to us and saying "we don't think this is right. We don't believe that the intelligence is as strong as the administration is making it out to be." And indeed you saw that in open source reports. I'm referring to the unclassified version of the National Intelligence Estimate on Iraq's weapons of mass destruction which everyone had available to it, including members of congress.

First you had on September 3, 2002 the famous New York Times "aluminum tubes" piece by Judy Miller and Michael Gordon. That same day you had Vice President Cheney and then-National Security Adviser Condoleezza Rice appear conveniently on the Sunday talk shows to talk about what had been extremely classified information that had appeared that day, in the New York Times. And then on September 10 you had the same allegations made to the world by the President of the United States from the podium of the United Nations. And then the following week the President made the same assertion that these aluminum tubes were for a nuclear weapons program that Iraq had hidden from UN weapons inspectors in an address to the nation. Then you had the unclassified version of the National Intelligence Estimate, which said there is division within the intelligence community on exactly what these tubes are all about.

I raise this point because this was one data point in what we had seen was a trend by this administration of exaggerating the intelligence it had on Iraq. We began tracing It back to right after 9/11 when Warren [Strobel] did the first story quoting analysts as saying it was unlikely that Iraq was involved in the World Trade Center attack. Then he went on to disclose that the former director of the CIA [James] Woolsey had made official visits to Britain on behalf of the Pentagon to check out a cockamamie tale that Ramzi Yousef, who we have in jail for the first World Trade Center attack, was not actually Ramzi Yousef but an Iraqi agent. And then right after the US went into Afghanistan, he and John [Walcott] did a story on how the administration had made a decision to oust Saddam Hussein. And we kept asking the question "why do they keep talking about Iraq when the problem is Al Qaeda in Afghanistan? Why do they keep talking about Iraq?" And we were already in that thinking mode when we started working on the stories in the lead up to the war. We were just doing the journalism that our journalism was pushing at.

And now, for the completely opposite side, we have Deadeye Dick Cheney here saying “it’s good to be back in Iraq” here.

Yeah, Dick – I think I speak for many people when I say that it’s good that you’re there also. And here’s more…

Cheney, who was in Iraq 10 months ago, said the Iraqis have made legislative advances that would be vital to the country's future. He also said there was no question but there had been a dramatic improvement in security.

(Iraq Prime Minister Nouri) Al-Maliki, speaking through an interpreter, also cited security improvements and said he and the vice president had talked about negotiations under way to spell out the legal basis for the presence of U.S. troops on Iraqi territory and to establish the legal rights and obligations of the troops, the so-called “status of forces agreement.”

And by the way, just to note here, the Status of Forces Agreement is something that was originally discussed in 2005, and three years later we still have no idea whether or not it is even remotely close to completion (and that’s also putting aside the fact that, without it, our personnel still have no legal basis for remaining in Iraq).

And here’s something else on the status of forces agreement from Defense Secretary Robert Gates (from about a month ago here)…

"The status-of-forces agreement that is being discussed will not contain a commitment to defend Iraq and neither will any strategic framework agreement," Gates told a U.S. Senate panel.

"We do not want, nor will we seek, permanent bases in Iraq," he later told a U.S. House of Representatives committee.

Gee, I'm sure that’s news to the Friends Committee on National Legislation, which has identified 13 such bases here.

And for more information on how to try and bring this nightmare to an end, here once more is the video with Darcy Burner and other Democrats and related experts with their plan and what we can do to help (here).

Another Blown Bushco Opportunity?

This story tells us that, in response to increased grumbling from his countrymen (and women, I’m sure), Cuban leader Raul Castro is loosening the restrictions on computers, DVD and other video players and other appliances entering his country (of course, they then become the property of the government and are marked up as much as 240 percent, as noted in the story).

However, if we had serious, adult leadership in the White House, the person in charge would recognize this as an opportunity to reach out in a reciprocal fashion in an effort to slowly lower (and eventually abolish) our trade embargo with that country in the hope of eventual Democratic reforms. Fortunately, though, there are groups in this country such as USA Engage (which counts former Dem House Rep Lee Hamilton and Repug Senator Richard Lugar and former Senator Jim Kolbe as members, hardly people I would call partisans, though Kolbe has issues I know) that are trying to help this process along however they can.

And as long as we’re discussing Cuba, this takes you to an issues fact sheet for all of the still-running presidential candidates, noting the following…

Hillary Clinton: Consider responding positively to "some action that demonstrates they are willing to change" in Cuba. Not willing to meet new Cuban leader Raul Castro before Cuban policy changes.

Barack Obama: Ease trade embargo if Havana "begins opening Cuba to meaningful democratic change." Ease restrictions on family-related travel and on money Cuban-Americans want to send to their families in Cuba. Open to meeting new Cuban leader Raul Castro without preconditions.

John McCain: Ease restrictions on Cuba once U.S. is "confident that the transition to a free and open democracy is being made."

And another thing as long as we’re talking about Cuba: I seriously wish that our next president (God willing, not McCain) pushes as hard as he or she can to abolish once and for all the disgraceful Helms-Burton Act, a product borne of spite due to the fact that two planes hired by an anti-Castro Cuban organization called Brothers To The Rescue were shot down by Cuban fighter jets shortly before the bill was introduced and passed (signing it into law was definitely not a shining moment for The Big Dog). Helms-Burton has become (rightfully) an object of international scorn and ridicule, and putting a match to it would be a signal to the rest of the world that we are prepared to enter a civilized community of nations once more.

More Housing Lowlights With Dana Perino

(By the way, before I get to the substance here, I want to point out that I care less than nothing about hearing politicians talk about religion regardless of their affiliation. I give Barack Obama credit for trying to reach out to people if this apparently is what it takes to make them understand and support his candidacy better, but I care about politicians who are going to craft legislation and support policy that actually helps me and my family on a day-in, day-out basis…you know, silly stuff like authoring spending bills that balance our budgets, advocating policy that supports our environment and passing legislation that properly funds our schools. And I know Obama supports all of this too as well as HRC, but I would only waste calories over what they think of religion if they were running for Pope, which they obviously aren’t.)

Update: And yes, I realize that Obama gave his speech in Philadelphia, but nonsense like this is why I don't care; I was tempted to compliment Smerky on an earlier Obama column - good thing I didn't (and I might as well forget about comparable media coverage for the nutball utterances from Baptist minister Mike Huckabee).

Update 3/19/08: Well, I guess this is why I'm nothing but a filthy, unkempt liberal blogger...so glad the folks in Ohio and Missouri who oppose Obama here aren't just a bunch of utterly clueless lemmings who absorb anything fed to them by those pretending to present the news to them on their televisions (the folks with the initials for names, of course)...right?

(Also, regarding the campaign silliness between the two Democratic contenders – and again, people, this is politics; let’s all get a grip, OK? – I happened to come across a Daily Kos blog post linked from HuffPo where a diarist said they weren’t going to post on The Daily Kos because they said the site supported Hillary Obama (my bad) and they thought kos was being unfair to her Hillary…but the post appeared on The Daily Kos written by someone saying they weren’t going to post there any more even though kos allowed the post – aaaaaaaarrrrggggghhhhh!!!!! ENOUGH OF THIS NONSENSE!)

OK, thanks for indulging me on that (update: I was more or less referring to this). Now…

This takes you to yesterday’s White House press briefing with the following disinformation from Dana Perino…

Q …people who are facing, say, foreclosure, the individuals, the little guys who are facing a foreclosure are looking at the big guys getting government, if not brokered, certainly they're overseeing deals that are engineered to sort of keep the big picture financial community afloat, and they're saying, well, where's my boost of liquidity (re: the J.P. Morgan/Bear Stearns deal)?

MS. PERINO: They're going to get that boost of liquidity in the form of a stimulus package and a tax rebate that's coming to them the second week of May.

Q But that's not going to save their houses.

MS. PERINO: The other way to help work on the housing issues is to take advantage of some of the programs that we have in place, to talk with HOPE NOW or Project Lifeline, for those who are in more serious dire straits, and also to work -- for us to continue from the administration to call on Congress to finally take action on Federal Housing Administration reforms, which we think are necessary to help homeowners across-the-board.

From here…

NEW YORK (CNNMoney.com) -- By early April, both chambers of Congress are likely to tie the bow on a bill that would expand the reach of the Federal Housing Administration, which aims to provide safe loan alternatives to subprime mortgages and make homeownership more accessible.

Different versions of the FHA modernization bill passed in the House and the Senate last year, and both Senate Banking Committee Chairman Christopher Dodd, D-Conn., and House Financial Services Chairman Barney Frank, D-Mass., said last week that the differences between the chambers could be resolved in short order.

"I think we are fairly close to having an FHA reform bill that we will be able to adopt very quickly," Dodd said on the Senate floor.

I realize that so-called FHA “modernization” is one tool to help subprime mortgage holders in default, but I’m skeptical to say the least about this though I know it’s necessary. We started out “going FHA” by putting 3 percent down, and loosening even an already loose requirement like that is risky (but, again, necessary I know). That’s why I for one want to see the House and Senate work out the details carefully as they blend their matching bills into a single piece of legislation for President Brainless to (dare I hope?) sign into law.

And as far as Hope Now or Project Lifeline are concerned (from here)…

The Bush Administration's latest initiative, Project Lifeline, exemplifies its hands-off approach to the workings of the market. In fact, it's not a government program at all. It's a statement of intent by six major lenders—Bank of America (BAC), Citigroup (C), Countrywide Financial (CFC), JPMorgan Chase (JPM), Washington Mutual (WM), and Wells Fargo (WFC)—that they will stop the clock on foreclosure for 30 days for borrowers who are identified by the lenders as good candidates for a home-saving workout. The banks, in the words of a Bank of America press release, "will target severely delinquent borrowers to encourage them to respond to their mortgage servicer and pursue loan modification options."

Predictably, Project Lifeline was quickly attacked by critics as too little, too late. Senator Richard Durbin (D-Ill.) issued a statement saying: "Homeowners at risk of foreclosure are floating 50 feet from shore while Project Lifeline throws them a 30-foot rope."

…

Project Lifeline appears even less substantial than Hope Now, an earlier Bush Administration initiative aimed at more credit-worthy borrowers. Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson has refused to say how many people benefited from loan workouts arranged through Hope Now. Only about 10,000 delinquent borrowers have even been advised to seek workouts in the past two months via a hotline (888 995-HOPE), The Wall Street Journal reported, citing the nonprofit Homeownership Preservation Foundation, which operates the hotline.

The foundation, which pre-dates the Hope Now initiative, told the Journal that hotline counselors recommended a workout for 9,975 borrowers, told 4,410 people to "seriously consider selling their home," and referred 12,113 borrowers for in-person counseling and services such as job-placement help. That's a tiny fraction of the millions of people who are struggling to make payments or have become delinquent on their home mortgages.

So now that we know what the Dems are trying to accomplish versus yet another ridiculous Bushco shell game, let’s go back to Our Gal Dana, shall we?

Q The President, in his radio address Saturday, said that the housing crisis was the root of a lot of the troubles. Mr. Frank and Mr. Dodd have the legislation on the Hill that will call for a write-down on some of the principal, and then have FHA come in and guarantee the rest of those mortgages. The market is looking for a floor. Wouldn't that kind of legislation give the market a floor?

MS. PERINO: I'm not that detailed into it, Roger, that I could provide that. But I'll refer you to Treasury.

Q The administration opposes that legislation; is that correct?

MS. PERINO: I think we've said that we would not support -- I can't remember exactly what that legislation says, so let me go back and either get back to you or refer you to somebody who can.

307 days and counting, people (sigh)…

Monday Stuff

There goes The Onion almost but not quite intruding on reality again...


Army Holds Annual 'Bring Your Daughter To War' Day

...and more on this great video featuring Darcy Burner is here, with congressional Dems and other experts coming together with a plan to end the war (for real)...



...and kudos to Cliff Schecter and Jeralyn Merritt for handling the whole "OMIGOD, those divisive Democrats are at it again! How can they be expected to govern" nonsense from this corporate media hairdo; I didn't catch her name and I don't care...but ooohh, that makes me a filthy, unkempt liberal blogger I guess for saying that, though - sue me...



...finally, I've been feeling sorry for him all day since he officially got fleeced today by that psycho Heather Mills (here) - we're with you, Sir Paul; I think this song is apropos.

Snarlin' Arlen "Scribes" On Our Dime

This tells us that Sen. Arlen Specter has written a book about his struggle with cancer and the chemo- therapy treatments that he endured to fight it.

I give him credit for sharing his story (his treatments took place in 2005), particularly for the benefit of anyone fighting cancer or any other life-threatening illness. And I can only imagine how difficult his struggle was given his high-profile job (though the confirmation of Hangin’ Judge J.R. took a lot of his time I realize, I don’t see how that was more stressful than anything else he did; I mean, was there ever a doubt Roberts would get the nod?).

And I’m completely serious about everything I just said, by the way – no snark whatsoever. Good for him, and I hope he stays well.

All of that having been said, though, I do have some concerns (based on what you might call the “Patrick Murphy rules” for book publication if you’re a member of Congress based on the recent outcry concerning Patrick’s tome written about serving in Iraq and on Capitol Hill).

One of them concerns any royalties Specter may receive; as noted here, members of Congress can receive a book deal while in office only if they agree to forego a cash advance in favor of collecting royalties from book sales. Has anyone bothered to report on whether or not Specter accepted the cash advance or will collect royalties instead?

Also, Mike Walsh, spokesman for Tom Manion (Patrick’s Repug opponent for the 8th District U.S. House Seat in the November election) had this to say about Patrick’s book deal (and I made the appropriate update from this post)…

...the book is a glaring example of the freshman congressman's veteran senator's “misplaced priorities.”

“Here we have the lowest rated Congress in history and [Murphy's] [Specter's] priorities are writing a book and, now, publicizing it,” Walsh said. “The people in Bucks County Pennsylvania didn't send him to Washington to write a book.”

And as Donald Petrille, Jr., past president of the Bucks County Federation of Young Republicans, noted here…

Mr. Murphy and I have daughters born about a month apart, yet I do not have the benefit of a $165,000 salary, along with a $100,000 advance on a book deal, with which to pay these onerous taxes (re: Petrille’s largely fictitious numbers concerning tax increases brought to us by the “Democrat” Party in Congress), as he does.

Well, since Petrille disclosed Patrick’s salary, I think disclosing Specter’s salary against any projected monies the senator is expected to receive from his book is nothing more than “turnabout, fair play.”

Otherwise, I think we have the makings of a genuine ethics issue here (but as usual, don’t hold your breath waiting for our dear corporate media cousins to report on any of this…because, as we know, all of this is “OK if you’re a Republican”).

How To Railroad A Democrat

Lest we forget, the trial of former Allegheny County, PA coroner Dr. Cyril Wecht is still going on (here)…

…(Wecht) faces 41 counts, mostly mail and wire fraud, alleging that he had his county employees send correspondence relating to his private practice from the coroner's office on county time.

(Wecht Defense Attorney Jerry) McDevitt accused prosecutors of trying to bulldoze the jury into convicting Wecht with an avalanche of documents. He noted that 24 of the 41 counts involve faxes that cost the county a total of $3.96.

And as Paul Kiel of TPM Muckracker notes here, Wecht’s indictment originally contained 84 counts (no word on why the count was reduced to 41), and “Wecht's lawyers have calculated that the cumulative cost for the 37 charges in the indictment that involve improperly charging the county for gasoline and mileage costs add up to $1,778.55” (today’s CNN story, though, tells us that Assistant U.S. Attorney James Wilson alleges that Wecht profited by about $790,000 – that’s an enormous discrepancy; I don’t know about you, but I’m starting to smell a great big Bushco-leftover-from-the-Alberto-G-DOJ rat here).

The TPM story from last October (which has a lot of great stuff, by the way) also notes that…

The most colorful of the charges, of course, involve(d) (an) elaborate body snatching scheme: prosecutors allege that Wecht gave a local Catholic university unclaimed bodies in exchange for laboratory space.

No word of that in today’s CNN story, though.

Also, as noted here, former PA governor and longtime Repug honcho Dick Thornburgh tells us that this whole case was brought against Wecht by U.S. Attorney Mary Beth Buchanan ostensibly because he was a high-profile Democrat (Buchanan also milked the whole fandango of “Operation Pipe Dreams” for some nice PR, netting a conviction against Tommy Chong – and we all know what an irredeemable character and threat to society he is…snark).

That may be oddly appropriate, though; don’t be surprised to find one day that the case against Wecht will go “up in smoke” also, along with all of our tax dollars spent on its prosecution.

Stop Planning For Defeat Already!

Democratic strategist Donna Brazile, who managed Al Gore’s campaign for president in 2000, wrote this column that appeared in the Bucks County Courier Times yesterday, including the following…

As a neutral superdelegate who is becoming increasingly frustrated at the campaign's divisive attitude and growing animosity between the Clinton and Obama camps, I don't have a clue what the outcome will be. Nor do I have the power with my one vote to change the trajectory of this race. What I do know is that the tone of this campaign must change or the party will be torn apart — and President McCain will be sending thank-you notes to the Democratic Party.

So upon what does Brazile base this dire claim that all of this back-and-forth is so terrible to our party’s chances in November?

The Geraldine Ferraro mess. And that’s it.

Now, if Brazile had a case to be made about anything untoward from the Obama side, she didn’t make it. And I’ll admit that I’m pretty fed up with this soap opera also. However, I see Hillary continuing to be led by people who either have no clue about how to win the primary campaign, or are purposely leading her to electoral oblivion for reasons of their own.

Obama, on the other hand, accepted the resignation from senior advisor Samantha Power soon after she called Hillary “a monster,” which is laughably tame by comparison.

But I think Brazile has a questionable pedigree when it comes to analysis of her own party anyway; I tend to believe much of what is said here in this kos post since it seems to fit into what I’ve heard and read about recent Democratic national campaigns, and almost as if to emphasize that, here is an NPR article with Brazile telling anyone who cares to listen that she’ll quit her position at the DNC “if her superdelegate colleagues decide the party's nomination.”

Uh…is that supposed to be some kind of a threat? And isn’t this a bit presumptuous anyway? And why exactly should I care again?

I suppose there are a bunch of well-heeled and appropriately connected insiders like Brazile who find themselves growing anxious over the continued competition between Hillary and Barack Obama for the nomination (which is – and this is really important to remember for the benefit of anyone who never studied civics – after all, a good thing), and I don’t know whether or not this is causing them to “lose it.”

However, these people really do a disservice by assuming some position of authority within the Democratic Party and trying to tell both sides to play nice (especially when evidence indicates that the “mud,” as opposed to the legitimate questions about qualifications, appeared to be coming primarily from one side). It’s not as if they’re going to listen anyway (and besides, our dear media cousins will present it as “more good news for Republicans” regardless).

Update 1: No sooner did I press the ENTER button on this post then I got an Email from Jim Dean from Democracy For America asking me to sign a letter to be sent to the Clinton and Obama campaigns telling them to “fight McCain, not each other.”

This is absolutely surreal; all of the corporate, Repug-friendly media must be laughing their asses off over this.

This is the stupidest thing I’ve ever heard of! Let both sides go at it and back off! It’s called “fighting to win the nomination” (and as someone else once said, “this ain’t beanbag”).

And call me naïve, but somehow I think most of this country will see that, even with the “below-the-belt” stuff from Ferraro and possibly the odd Obama mailer or two, this does not mean that the Dems won’t come together in some fashion when all is said and done for the general election (this ain’t Ted Kennedy vs. Jimmy Carter in 1980; the senator deserves plaudits now, but he was a tyrannical little baby back then).

Besides, as John Edwards once said (can’t recall the exact quote), what Clinton and Obama are doing are exchanging love taps compared to what the Repugs will do to the nominee of our party after the convention, regardless of who it is.

Update 2: This is kind of related; looks like the man who once sang "I thank the Lord for the people I have found" is taking sides, which is fine by me. He's been a friend to Philly, and I think he's a good dude - I wish I could point out how he can't possibly be right about what he says, but I can't.

Broder Bombs Big Time On The Budget

David Broder of the WaPo communicated the following yesterday (in a column about outgoing comptroller general David Walker; he was the head of the GAO who frequently warned our federal government to get its fiscal act together under Bushco)…

The last time the broad public grasped the danger of budget deficits was in 1992, when Ross Perot paid for half-hour television infomercials, complete with dramatic charts and graphs, as part of his presidential campaign. That seeded the ground for Bill Clinton's 1993 effort that succeeded briefly in wiping out those deficits.

I honestly don’t know what that means (the effort to balance the budget did begin in '93, though), but this tells you that Clinton, after tax increases and cuts in services, delivered a balanced budget in February 1998, with projected savings to go into Social Security (sounds like ancient history now, which it is, sadly).

(Also, some have questioned the accounting used by the Clinton administration to arrive at their totals, but I think this provides additional clarification that tells us that the numbers are still sound.)

I don’t know what role Ross Perot supposedly played in this (though his “giant sucking sound” remark turned out to be prescient, unfortunately), and it took five years for Clinton and his people to straighten things out, but they got it done.

Legitimizing The Lie

I embedded this great new Robert Greenwald video a few days ago about how Faux News “spreads the virus” against Barack Obama to the Associated Press, Washington Post, New York Times, and other media outlets.

Well, I came across an example here of “spreading another virus,” and that is the notion that, somehow, a White House win for the Democrats would provide aid and comfort to the terrorists, or something.

Here is how Libby Quaid of the AP reported the story…

Republican John McCain said he worries that terrorists might try to influence the November general election with increased attacks in Iraq.

"Yes, I worry about it," he said Friday, responding to a question at a town hall-style forum. "And I know they pay attention, because of the intercepts we have of their communications."

The questioner asked if McCain feared al-Qaida in Iraq or another group might attack in an effort to aid the Democratic nominee, because Democratic Sens. Hillary Rodham Clinton and Barack Obama both favor a withdrawal of U.S. forces.

So we have reporting on a question posed to McCain about the presidential election (a stupid question I think, but a question all the same).

And without any additional context provided, namely the fact that there’s no reliable way to determine how those attacking our military would be inclined to view the election.

And if you don’t want to believe me, fine. Believe that noted political sage and impartial observer Flush Limbore here…

Which way will they go? Which way will the terrorists vote? More attacks or a timeout? More threats or fake piece overtures? So, we have two questions: Who are they rooting for and what will they do about it? Sadly, I haven't seen the latest Zogby poll that has polled the terrorists or the jihadists or Al Qaeda on their preference. There is no Ali Abdullah Morris; there is no Yasser Pew, and there is no Ali Zogby or Hakim Rasmussen that I have seen.

But of course, the lack of any kind of measurable data that is somewhat reliable never stopped Flush from issuing his prognostications which I would guess (I myself don’t have data on this either) are usually wrong.

And so he tells us (from October 2006, just before the mid-term elections, conveniently enough)…

The insurgents have made up their minds and they are voting. They are trying to create as much havoc as possible, raise the level of violence in order to affect the midterm elections. Sounds to me like they're voting Democrat. Sounds like the terrorists around the world, and particularly, those in Iraq, are voting Democrat today, because they think an increased level of violence and death will cause you -- I'm not talking about you cut-and-run conservatives because you're not voting, but those of you who are going to vote -- you're going to vote against the Republicans because you're going to blame the Republicans for the increased insurgency and death and destruction in Iraq.

So, it's obvious now what they want and we no longer have to guess -- drive-by media has told us: Terrorists have voted Democrat. The early voting's begun; they're voting Democrat plain as day.

Here we have an example of how the notion that voting for a Democrat means that somehow you’re aiding the terrorists becomes “conventional wisdom”; you have Limbore broadcasting it nearly a year and a half ago with many knowledgeable people (including yours truly) laughing at him (using the “Democrat” slur as much as he can), then it is repeated over time in one form or another, and now, we have a questioner parroting it back to McCain who is only too happy to take this “softball” and “hit it out of the park,” with no context provided by the reporter.

Well, the good news is that, in 2006, the majority of voters did not take Flush seriously and elected the Democrats take over Congress. However, the “vote for Dems and the terrorists win” lie hadn’t seeped far enough into what passes for journalism by our media, still waay too obsessed with “the horserace” to call this stuff for what it is.

So let’s keep it that way by calling it out for the guttural garbage that it is every chance we get.

Sunday Videos

I know I'm not really doing the music videos any more, but this is such a great tune that I have to embed it ("So Happy," by Theory Of A Deadman - the new CD will arrive next month; we should all be screaming this at the top of our lungs on 1/21/09, and I'm sure someone out there will do a Dubya montage to this that will instantly go viral)...



...now, time to do a "180"; I probably won't have much to say about St. Patrick's Day tomorrow, though I know already that I'll be dealing with a good bit o'blarney, so here's Nanci Griffith with The Chieftains performing "Red Is The Rose" from 1991 (have to turn the volume up slightly, but it's worth it).

Take The "Senator Hothead" Quiz

The following appeared in the most recent issue of The New Yorker (so don't blame me for the bad words, OK?)...

Senator Hothead: The McCain Quiz by Paul Slansky

1. What did Richard Kimball, John McCain’s opponent in his 1986 Senate race, do during a debate that got McCain so upset that, according to his aide Jay Smith, he “wanted to kill” Kimball?

(a) He pointed out that McCain had referred to the retirement community Leisure World as “Seizure World.”

(b) He revealed that McCain was standing on a riser behind his podium.

(c) He said, “I’m not the one who left his disabled first wife so he could marry a rich young beer heiress.”

2. Who is Harry Jaffe?

(a) The writer who first called McCain “Senator Hothead.”

(b) The journalist who helped break the 1994 story of Cindy McCain’s addiction to Percocet and Vicodin, which led her to steal pills from a relief organization she’d founded.

(c) The reporter whose question prompted McCain to respond that he was “fine” with a hundred-year U.S. military presence in Iraq.

(d) The politician who said of McCain, “His volatility borders in the area of being unstable. Before I let this guy put his finger on the button, I would have to give considerable pause.”

3. What prompted Jon Stewart, on “The Daily Show,” to ask, “Has John McCain’s Straight Talk Express been rerouted through Bullshit Town?”?

(a) McCain decided to speak at Jerry Falwell’s Liberty University six years after calling Falwell and Pat Robertson “agents of intolerance.”

(b) McCain claimed that the Confederate flag flying over the South Carolina capitol symbolized “heritage,” although he was on record as having called it “a symbol of racism and slavery.”

(c) McCain said of George W. Bush, “I support him. I am grateful to him. And I am proud of him.”

4. Which of these statements about McCain is true?

(a) He used to be against Bush’s tax cuts and for overturning Roe v. Wade, but now he’s for extending the tax cuts and against overturning Roe v. Wade.

(b) He used to be against allowing illegal immigrants to earn citizenship, but now he’s for it.

(c) He used to be against Bush’s tax cuts and overturning Roe v. Wade and for allowing illegal immigrants to earn citizenship, but now he’s for extending the tax cuts and overturning Roe v. Wade and avoids talking about illegal immigrants earning citizenship.

5. McCain told workers at a gun factory, “I will follow Osama bin Laden to the gates of Hell and I will shoot him with one of your products.” How did he later clarify this declaration?

(a) “Of course, I didn’t mean the literal gates of Hell. I don’t even know where they are.”

(b) “I shouldn’t limit myself to your products, because, when I find him, I may not be carrying a gun made by you.”

(c) “I certainly didn’t mean I would actually shoot him. I am certainly angry at him, but...I would not shoot him myself.”

6. Two of these statements refer to Bush. Which refers to McCain?

(a) At thirteen, he yelled “Fuck this” when he played golf poorly, prompting his mother to make him go sit in the car.

(b) As a toddler, if he didn’t get his way he’d hold his breath until he fainted.

(c) When he was a boy, he liked to blow up frogs with firecrackers.

(Note: One of the selections in the print version was removed.)

7. True or false: When Chelsea Clinton was eighteen, McCain told this joke: “Why is Chelsea Clinton so ugly? Because Janet Reno is her father.”

8. What did McCain say to Edward Kennedy?

(a) “Shut up.”

(b) “Fucking jerk.”

(c) “Fuck you.”

9. What did McCain say to John Cornyn?

(a) “Shut up.”

(b) “Fucking jerk.”

(c) “Fuck you.”

10. What did McCain say to Charles Grassley?

(a) “Shut up.”

(b) “Fucking jerk.”

(c) “Fuck you.”

11. What was McCain referring to when he told reporters, “It’s up to you to find that out, kids”?

(a) The extent of the Bush campaign’s involvement in rumors that McCain had fathered a half-black child.

(b) The financial connections between Cindy McCain and Charles Keating, the man behind the nation’s biggest savings-and-loan collapse.

(c) Why he condemned the 2004 Swift Boat Veterans ads smearing John Kerry, then hired the agency behind them.

12. Who said, “I like McCain a lot...There’s something about matching the character with the script”?

(a) Pat Buchanan.

(b) Sylvester Stallone.

(c) Senator Thad Cochran.

13. Who said that McCain “will make Cheney look like Gandhi”?

(a) Pat Buchanan.

(b) Sylvester Stallone.

(c) Senator Thad Cochran.

14. Who said of McCain, “The thought of his being President sends a cold chill down my spine”?

(a) Pat Buchanan.

(b) Sylvester Stallone.

(c) Senator Thad Cochran.

15. Last year, McCain said, “When I voted to support this war, I knew it was probably going to be long and hard and tough, and those that voted for it and thought that somehow it was going to be some kind of an easy task, then I’m sorry they were mistaken.” What did McCain say before the war started?

(a) He told Larry King that “success will be fairly easy.”

(b) He told Wolf Blitzer, “I believe that we can win an overwhelming victory in a very short period of time.”

(c) “It’s a safe assumption that Iraqis will be grateful to whoever is responsible for securing their freedom.”

(d) All of the above.

Answers...(1)b, (2)a, (3)a, (4)c, (5)c, (6)b and c, (7)True, (8)a, (9)c, (10)b, (11)b, (12)b, (13)a, (14)c, (15)d.

Friday Stuff

Kelvin Lovely of GoLeft TV has a few words for Dennis Miller (nice)...



...the great Rush Holt of New Jersey speaks to the House about the FISA bill crafted today (well done)...



...and we keep being told how bad it is that our kids are trailing Asian children in math and science; now, the Onion tells us that African kids are ahead of ours in another category - more on this story as it (hopefully) doesn't develop...



...and Robert Greenwald and Brave New Films show us how "Fox Attacks" (and, by extension, everyone else) Barack Obama...again (and how much do you want to bet this will get ignored...h/t Prof. Marcus).

Friday Wrapup (3/14/08)

Last December 23rd, Mark Bowden of the Inquirer wrote the following in this column…

No one should be prosecuted for waterboarding Abu Zubaydah.

Several investigations are under way to find out who ordered the destruction of CIA interrogation videotapes, apparently an effort to cover up evidence of (his) torture.
…

In the unlikely event that Zubaydah knew nothing of value and that every bit of information he divulged was false (regarding the 9/11 World Trade Center attacks and possibly the bombing of the U.S.S. Cole), it was still reasonable to assume in 2002 that this was not the case. If his interrogators were able to stop one terror attack by waterboarding him, even if they violated international agreements and our national conscience, it was justified. All nations have laws against killing, but all recognize self-defense as a legitimate excuse. I think the waterboarding in this case is directly analogous, except that Zubaydah himself, although he richly deserves it, was neither killed nor permanently harmed.

I can understand why someone at the CIA ordered the videotapes destroyed. It was both to protect those who did it (more from their own government, I suspect, than from terrorist reprisals) and to prevent the images from ever becoming public. We have seen the disastrous, self-defeating consequences of such pictures, which untethered from context assume a damaging life of their own. Whoever made the call now runs the risk of being prosecuted for obstruction of justice, a risk I am sure was evaluated before making the choice.

Last Sunday, however, Bowden wrote the following here – late getting to this, I know…

With the first two terrorism cases from the Guantánamo Bay detention center in the pipeline at last, the United States has an important opportunity.

Open and honest proceedings could showcase Western values and stand in sharp contrast to the horrid little jihadist snuff videos furtively circulating on the Internet. The opportunity may be squandered, however, if the government proceeds with plans to try inmates with evidence obtained in coercive interrogation.

News that the military has employed "clean teams" to reinterview some inmates who gave self-incriminating evidence under coercive interrogation is hardly reassuring. Such efforts are no more than a fig leaf.

…

It is important here to distinguish between two kinds of interrogation. One kind is for the purposes of intelligence gathering; its purpose is to obtain information to prevent attacks. This is the only circumstance in which coercive methods can be justified morally, if not legally. The other kind of interrogation is for the purposes of criminal prosecution, to prove and punish acts committed in the past. Extracting confessions through torture is the opposite of justice, and such evidence has no place in any fair judicial setting.

I believe the “fig leaf” remark, but my point here is that Bowden is trying to have it both ways, saying on the one hand that, yeah, torture (called “coercive methods” by the author - I don't buy Bowden's attempt to differentiate between the two) is bad if you’re trying to “gather intelligence,” but it’s OK if you’re trying to “prevent attacks.”

Torture is bad under any circumstances. Period (and here’s some appropriate reading material). And I’m not going to waste my time linking to yet another post explaining that the “intelligence” you get from it isn’t any good anyway, episodes of “24” notwithstanding.

I received the following communication from Joe Sestak of PA’s 7th Congressional District yesterday…

Dear Friend,

I now have a very serious Republican challenger. At the 11th hour, the Republicans recruited an assistant US District attorney (who is also a decorated F/A -18 aviator from the First Gulf War; a colonel in the U.S. Marine Corps Reserve; and who served as legal counsel to the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff) to run for this seat.

I am only the second Democratic Congressman to hold this seat since the Civil War -- a District where Republicans outnumber Democrats by almost 2:1. I am asking you to please help me with my fundraising this most crucial quarter.

Please contribute: click here.

It appears that national security views will again play a role in this campaign season, as my opponent has articulated views on Iraq and the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA) with which I disagree. The campaign season will flush out our other differences on domestic issues, but I need your help now.

Please contribute: click here.

The amount of money that we raise by March 31st is crucial because this quarter will be my opponent's first reporting period. There is no more important quarter for a challenger than his first -- and, therefore, for me also. We know. Two years ago, when I was the challenger, our campaign was viewed as competitive at the outset -- and attracted additional funding in subsequent quarters -- because we nearly out-raised a 20-year Republican Congressman in our first quarter. A particularly strong fundraising effort by the FEC reporting date of March 31st -- whereby we significantly out-raise my opponent -- will prevent him from gaining "financial credibility" and therefore "traction" in terms of future fundraising support in the quarters to come.

Please contribute: click here.

With 35% of the electorate in my District registered Democrat -- and given that I am only the second Democratic Congressman over the last 142 years since the Civil War -- my opponent has been running hard in raising funds this quarter because of the Republicans' belief that this is "their seat". I disagree -- it is the "people's seat". I believe in a new approach to politics that benefits everyone -- not just one party. With your support, significantly out-raising my opponent sends this signal, while at the same time, deterring future fundraising support for him after this quarter.

Please contribute: click here.

I have enjoyed my first year as a Congressman. Please know that I do not ever forget your support, and am forever grateful for all that you have done. I would not be doing this job, were it not for you.

Warmly,

Joe Sestak

No word on whether or not Admiral Joe’s opponent will be Patrick Meehan, who may decide to bail on the Vince Fumo corruption trial since Fumo is stepping down from the PA state house due to health reasons.

Also, I know Admiral Joe has been lending a hand to the presidential campaign of Hillary Clinton, which seems to define a good day any more as one without any implosions, but at the end of the day, we're all Democrats (well, most of us), so let's not forget that.

And finally, I couldn’t let the week go by without noting the passing of former Ohio Senator Howard Metzenbaum at 90. He won a few battles and lost a few (some of his own making), but he kept fighting (even with John Glenn, who defeated him to win election to the Senate, though they worked together again later in political life to help Metzenbaum get re-elected).

The Inquirer, in the link to his obituary, described the former “Senator No” as an “unabashed liberal,” a badge of honor I would be happy to wear one day if and when the time comes to look back upon your humble narrator with either fondness or disdain (hopefully not for a looong time, though, I want to emphasize).

Where The Rubber Meets The Road (3/14/08)

As reported in last Sunday's Philadelphia Inquirer, here is how Philadelphia-area members of Congress were recorded on major roll-call votes last week (barely worth the trouble to post, as it turns out).

House

Mental-health insurance. In a 268-148 vote, the House passed a bill (HR 1424) requiring the same level of coverage between mental and physical illnesses in group medical plans. The bill applies to employers with more than 50 workers.

A yes vote was to pass the bill.

Voting yes: Robert E. Andrews (D., N.J.), Robert A. Brady (D., Pa.), Michael N. Castle (R., Del.), Charles W. Dent (R., Pa.) Chaka Fattah (D., Pa.), Jim Gerlach (R., Pa.), Tim Holden (D., Pa.), Frank A. LoBiondo (R., N.J.), Patrick Murphy (D., Pa.), H. James Saxton (R., N.J.), Allyson Y. Schwartz (D., Pa.) and Joe Sestak (D., Pa.).

Voting no: Joseph R. Pitts (R., Pa.) and Christopher H. Smith (R., N.J.).

Yep, Joe Pitts would have been crazy to vote for something that makes as much sense as this does (sorry, too easy - and to help Bruce Slater, click here).

Senate

Safety commission overhaul. In a 79-13 vote, the Senate passed a bill (S 2663) to expand powers of the Consumer Product Safety Commission while more than doubling the agency's budget over 10 years and beefing up its staff and testing capabilities.

A yes vote was to pass the bill.

Voting yes: Joseph R. Biden Jr. (D., Del.), Thomas Carper (D., Del.), Bob Casey (D., Pa.), Robert Menendez (D., N.J.), Frank Lautenberg (D., N.J.) and Arlen Specter (R., Pa.).

And Nancy Nord still is in charge, by the way, despite this (and this tells you who the 13 cretins were who voted No, including Diaper Dave Vitter, who still takes up space in the Senate while Eliot Spitzer prepares to vacate the governor's mansion in Albany).

Tune in for more fun next week.

How “Unromantic” Can The V.A. Get?

President George W. Milhous Bush yesterday when discussing the war in Afghanistan with civilian and military personnel (here)…

"I must say, I'm a little envious," Bush said. "If I were slightly younger and not employed here, I think it would be a fantastic experience to be on the front lines of helping this young democracy succeed."

"It must be exciting for you ... in some ways romantic, in some ways, you know, confronting danger. You're really making history, and thanks," Bush said.

After a certain point, pointing out the failings of this numbskull kind of becomes similar (I would guess) to the same sensation you feel after punching a wall made out of Silly Putty for about a half hour or so.

What best describes that phrase? Naïve? Misinformed? Blindly optimistic? Inappropriate?

STOO-PID??!!

Well, while trying to figure out how to respond, I finally decided that the best way to do so would be to try and figure out what is going on with the Veterans Administration; you know, that agency whose title is more or less self-explanatory formerly run by Repug “rainmaker” Jim Nicholson before he was replaced by Dr. James Peake?

I was hoping that Peake had somehow straightened out that maligned department, but apparently not...

SAN FRANCISCO, Feb 29 (IPS) - Another high-ranking George W. Bush administration official has resigned. The Department of Veterans Affairs Undersecretary for Benefits Daniel Cooper quit Thursday amid mounting criticism over a backlog of disability claims for injured veterans that runs six months long and an appearance he made in a fundraising video for an evangelical Christian organisation where he said Bible study was more important than doing his job.

And why exactly should I be surprised by stories like this by now?

Cooper has been under fire for using his office to proselytise for evangelical Christianity ever since he appeared in a 2004 fundraising video for Christian Embassy, which carries out missionary work among the Washington elite as part of the Campus Crusade for Christ.

In the video, Cooper says of his Bible study, "It's not really about carving out time, it really is a matter of saying what is important. And since that's more important than doing the job -- the job's going to be there, whether I'm there or not."

Well, apparently, it seems that the job remains of course, but Cooper will now go off to study the Bible while the backlog of veterans in need of VA services continues to build.

And given all of this, I think it’s important to revisit some meanings of the word “romantic” as used by Dubya concerning our military, and those would be “imaginative, not practical,” and “imaginary or fictitious.”

That seems to describe the possibility that this agency will ever operate efficiently under the Bushco gang.

The "Blunder From Down Under" Returns

In today’s Philadelphia Inquirer “Back Channels” column, Kevin Ferris tells us of former Australian PM John Howard’s recent visit to the American Enterprise Institute.

I’ll spare you the exceedingly tedious details and just try to highlight some major points instead (the West must hold fast to its values and resist “vacuous” calls for change, Howard “modernized” Australia’s economy partly through labor law changes, the Archbishop of Canterbury is wrong to state that “some acceptance of sharia law was inevitable in Britain,” each of our countries must be “culturally assertive” in a manner advocated by Maggie Thatcher and The Sainted Ronnie R, and of course, Iraq and Afghanistan are both fronts on the GWOT against “Islamic Fascism”; this is a recording).

Yeah, I can remember Howard being “culturally assertive” all right when he said here that Osama bin Forgotten was “praying” for Barack Obama to win the U.S. presidency, earning Howard a swift rebuke over his country’s troop presence in Iraq which was virtually nonexistent when compared to ours.

(Oh, and speaking of Iraq, I’d still like to find out about that little alleged “quid pro quo” whereby Howard sent more troops to Iraq if we in turn didn’t look into some of the “financial relations” between Saddam Hussein and the Australian Wheat Board here).

And Ferris tells us of another wonder of Howard’s tenure, which was his “tax reform” that, apparently, actually helped his country’s economy (Wikipedia tells us here that part of that supposed reform was Howard’s institution of a Goods and Services Tax during his second term, something he said he wouldn’t do when he first ran for prime minister.

However, it seems that the issue that trumped all for the Aussies in last year’s election was the environment, made so by that country’s seven-year drought, as noted here; Howard was defeated by Labor party opposition leader Kevin Rudd who was aided in no small part by Peter Garrett, law graduate and environment spokesman and also former lead singer of the band Midnight Oil (it’s hard to blame Howard for the environment, but he can be faulted for sucking up too thoroughly to Dubya…and by the way, Howard and his coalition lost big last year, giving up 23 seats in Parliament – it was an unusually decisive blow given their electoral history).

And Ferris noted that Howard said the following to his sympathetic AEI audience...

Some would counter that the West, particularly Bush's America, is already too arrogant, too willing to ignore the needs or values of other cultures and nations. Why not give a little?

"We should not think that by trading away some of the values which have made us who we are will buy us either immunity from terrorists or respect from noisy minorities," Howard says.

"If the butter of common national values is spread too thinly, it will disappear altogether."

Yep, just like Howard’s career in public life, apparently (and he and Ferris know a thing or two about “noisy minorities,” I’ll admit).

A Real Joker Plays The Race Card Again

The Rev. Al Sharpton, as quoted in this New York Times story yesterday about the Democratic presidential primary, which has now shifted to my home turf of course (with a reference to the Gerri Ferraro mess, which seems to have abated for the moment)…

In addition to Ms. Ferraro’s remark, Mr. Sharpton cited (Sen. Hillary) Clinton’s decision not to fire her top ally in Pennsylvania, Gov. Edward G. Rendell, for saying in February that some white voters there were “probably not ready to vote for an African-American candidate.”

“When you hear the lack of total denunciation of Ferraro, when you hear Rendell saying there are whites who will never vote for a black, one has to wonder if the Clinton campaign has a Pennsylvania strategy to appeal to voters on race,” Mr. Sharpton said in an interview. “I would hope Mrs. Clinton would make it clear that she is not doing that.”

Mr. Sharpton ran against Ms. Ferraro in 1992 in New York in a primary for a Senate seat.

A “Pennsylvania strategy”? Let’s see, how many ways do I object to that term (and though I suppose Tawana Brawley will always claim that she was gang-raped, what little credibility Sharpton had took a serious hit over that to the point where I don’t think he has the right to represent or speak for anyone). How much do I personally object to being lumped into such a demeaning characterization?

While I will admit that Ed Rendell’s statement looks bad when you consider that it comes on the heels of the Ferraro mess for the Clinton campaign (which also counts Rendell as a supporter of course), the fact of the matter is that Rendell happens to be right; he’s not attacking Obama in any way, but merely speaking the truth.

But of course, we can’t have Reverend Al admitting that, so instead, he has to create another tempest in the proverbial tea pot by linking Rendell somehow with Ferraro; I do not consider the former to be racist in any way, while I think the latter person needs to either obtain counseling or sit down with an audience of African American Democrats for a serious “heart to heart.”

I think Barack Obama has handled this whole mess fairly well, trying to stay out of the fray with Ferraro and let it run its course. But if The Reverend continues to interject himself into the campaign as a one-man “race police” squad, then I think the senator from Illinois should take this blowhard aside and tell him to shut his yap or else Obama will publicly disavow him (“reject,” “denounce” – whatever term meets the approval of Clinton and Tim Russert).

Thursday Stuff

I should have put this up yesterday since that's when I was reaming out that mental flea Jonah Goldberg, but better late than never...



...and I have to admit that this is a clever idea from Eli Pariser and MoveOn.org (apparently, today was a good day for the Clinton campaign in that no one did anything stupid - at least, nothing we know about).

Hopefully, A Road Never Traveled Again

When I see the byline of certain writers in an AP story (Nedra Pickler, Anne Flaherty), I try to pay extra-special attention because there’s a chance they’ll end up giving me something to do. And being that Andrew Taylor is another one of those people, I found this interesting item in his article yesterday about the Dems and Repugs jousting in Congress over budget priorities…

The rival budget plans display the difficult trade-offs facing the next president, who must weigh tax cuts that expire at the end of 2010 with popular spending programs like education, highway construction and Medicare. Simply put, it's impossible, under current estimates, to have it all and still claim a balanced budget.

I have to admit that I’ve never seen those items grouped together before; I mean, while Medicare is a wonderful entitlement that we’ll have to figure out how to fund under the watch of responsible adults (automatically ruling out anything until 1/21/09 at the earliest), this country could go on without it (though it would impose great hardship). However, without funding education or highway construction, this country simply cannot exist; you cannot simply write them off as “popular spending programs.”

And this made me a bit curious as to how we could have arrived at such a state where funding of our highways could be such a point of contention, so I did a little digging and found out a thing or two.

This tells us about the 1998 Transportation Equity Act for the 21st Century (TEA-21), which…

…was signed into law, allowing nearly $200 billion for highway construction and maintenance from 1998 to 2003. Most of the money for federally subsidized highway and airport projects comes from excise taxes on fuel, airplane fares, trucks, and related products. Americans also spend more than $1 billion annually on tolls. In 2003 the Bush administration was working with Congress to develop a replacement package for TEA-21, which expired in September 2003.

And in anticipation of that expiration, what did Bushco do? Well, this New York Times story from February 2002 tells us that…

…Senior members of Congress from both parties said today that they would reject President Bush's proposal for a 28 percent cut in federal highway spending, one of the largest in the entire budget.

Lawmakers said the cuts would be unwise as the nation struggles to climb out of a recession and unthinkable in an election year. Building roads creates jobs, lawmakers said over and over. It also provides tidy bundles of federal cash for lawmakers to send to their home districts.

''It's hard to say anything nice about this proposal,'' Senator Richard C. Shelby, Republican of Alabama, said.

And when George W. Milhous Bush once more had the opportunity to fund our highways in 2005 (noted here)…

Former Transportation Secretary Norman Mineta recalls how his boss, President George W. Bush, bristled at the idea of raising gasoline taxes in the 2005 highway bill.

``He took his Sharpie out and said, `Norm, get those tax increases out. I don't want a tax increase,''' says Mineta.

While Bush is still opposing higher fuel taxes, the Aug. 1 (2007) Minneapolis bridge collapse has altered the political landscape. The calamity, in which at least 12 people died, has become a rallying cry for the U.S. Chamber of Commerce and trade groups representing the likes of Caterpillar Inc. and Terex Corp. that want to boost spending to repair the nation's roads and bridges.

The result is that, even as Bush aides warn of a possible veto, the odds are growing for the first gasoline-tax increase since 1993. House Transportation Chairman James Oberstar, a Minnesota Democrat, proposed a new bridge-repair fund a week after the collapse that would be financed by a nickel increase in the tax, which is currently 18.4 cents a gallon.

I haven’t been able to find out what happened to Oberstar’s proposed gasoline tax increase; even if it somehow had passed (dubious for many reasons, one of which is that tax breaks for Big Oil have not been removed and it would be political suicide to pass a gas tax increase unless the tax breaks were gone), I cannot see how Incurious George would ever sign it into law anyway.

And now, with the prospect of gas at $4 a gallon for our summer vacations (those patriotic Americans at ExxonMobil and co. always find a way to “pump us,” if you will, just when we’re getting ready to hit the road in the warm weather months), I would say that the best chance for us to pay a gas tax increase for road and bridge repair has evaporated like a plume of crude from a blown PCV valve.

So there you have it; our preznit has “held the line” on a “popular spending program” like highway construction. What a guy.

Let’s continue, then, to hope and pray that another bridge collapse doesn’t occur, or at the very least, we don’t suffer a busted car axle or two from discovering a heretofore unknown pot hole on one of our highways.

And Oh Yeah, About The War...

This is why Joe Galloway gets paid to do this and I don't...

This month marks the beginning of our country’s sixth year of war in Iraq, and still the question is: Why? The other question is: When will it end?

President George W. Bush, who started the war with the advice and go-get-em’s of his neo-conservative friends, is now doing everything he can to ensure that whoever succeeds him next January will find him or herself deeply mired in Iraqi quicksand.

Bush has signaled that in coming months he'll negotiate a long-term status of forces agreement with the Iraqi government so American troops and bases can remain there. In fact, the deal may obligate us to remain in Iraq for years and to continue paying billions to the kleptocracy we’ve installed there.

Bush also has signaled that he'll press ahead with an executive agreement and bypass the untidy bit of the U.S. Constitution which says that treaties with foreign governments must be ratified by Congress. That's no big deal for a White House, a president and a vice president who've gleefully and routinely ridden roughshod not only over the Congress, but also over the Constitution, the Bill of Rights, federal laws, international laws, conventions and treaties.

The presumed Republican nominee for president, Sen. John McCain, R-Ariz., thinks that remaining in Iraq is just what the doctor ordered, and he predicts that our occupation and the war will drag on for decades.

McCain and others who favor a "Long War" haven't bothered to address how we'll pay for an open-ended commitment that's now costing $170 billion a year in visible spending, and with a long-term tab that's estimated at $3 trillion or so — more than any other war we've fought except for World War II — even we left Iraq tomorrow.

Nor have they addressed the issue of what another five or 10 years or more of regular combat tours in Iraq would do to those few in uniform who've borne the burden of fighting in Iraq for five years and multiple deployments — and to their families and to their war-fighting equipment, which is already worn out or wearing out.

When the price of a gallon of gasoline and a loaf of bread both hit $5, and a full-blown recession has a chokehold on the country, how many Americans will be willing to keep pouring billions and trillions down the rat-hole of a pre-emptive war of choice in the wrong place, for the wrong reasons?

It doesn’t really matter whether the temporary surge of American troops to Iraq has worked, or whether the improvement in security has come about because old Sunni Muslim enemies have become our new rent-a-friends for reasons of their own and the Shiite Sadr militia has taken a long vacation for reasons of its own.

Improved security was meant to encourage the Iraqi government and parliament to start building a real nation where warring tribes and co-religionists could set aside their feuds old and new and live together in peace. Fat chance.

Meantime, while George Bush wrestles with the demons of his own creation in Iraq, things continue to go south on us in two places that really matter — Afghanistan and Pakistan — where the demons are real and the stakes are high.

Only now, after the Bush administration's attempts to hand that forgotten war off to our reluctant NATO allies failed miserably, are we beefing up U.S. forces in Afghanistan to near 30,000. Do any of the decision-makers in Washington remember that not very long ago the old Soviet Union sent some 100,000 troops against the Afghan tribesmen and laid waste to the countryside, but were still driven out with their tails between their legs?

While we've poured the bulk of our troops and money and equipment into Iraq, where the real al Qaida isn’t, we've starved the effort to secure and rebuild and strengthen Afghanistan and bet all our chips on the wrong guy in Pakistan — two places where the real al Qaida and the real Taliban are growing stronger and more dangerous.

Benign neglect of your sworn enemies in a place such as Afghanistan calls for a combination of arrogance and ignorance that's not just risky, but also truly dangerous. These are the people who really did attack our country and kill thousands of innocent people on 9/11; these are the people who sheltered the real terrorists and defied us to do anything about it.

We let most of them and their leaders escape across the border into the wildest parts of Pakistan, where they've burrowed in, regrouped and are enjoying a recruiting boom that's sparked largely by the hatred born of our actions in Afghanistan, Iraq and Guantanamo Bay. Now they pose a threat to Pakistan itself, a nation that has a hundred or more real nuclear weapons, unlike Iraq, whose nuclear and other weapons of mass destruction existed only in the fevered minds of a frightened president and his arrogant accomplices.

The next time that we Americans start thinking about maybe electing someone with no known talent, limited useful experience and an IQ that's barely equal to his body temperature, what say we just leave the presidency vacant and the White House shuttered for eight years or so?

And I have only this to add.