Astros win the Pennant

Better a day late than never. The Astros have played much better this year than I had hoped. Last night’s 5-1 victory was a satisfying display of quality hit-and-run baseball combined with one of the best pitching performances you are likely to see these days from NLCS MVP Roy Oswalt.
I’d love to see the Astros go all the way and win the World Series, but even if they don’t it is great that they were finally able to get over this hump. I have to admit I did not have high hopes for the Astros this season after they lost Carlos Beltran to free agency and Jeff Bagwell went on the disabled list.
Oddly enough, the last two Major League baseball games I have seen in person was the Astros vs. the Reds at Enron, oops, I mean Minute Maid Park in Houston and the White Sox vs. the Tigers at U.S. Cellular Field in Chicago.

S-A-T-U-R-D-A-Y Night!

I was reminded reading this CNN piece on the dearth of TV programming on Saturday nights that it wasn’t always that way.

...during the early 1970s, CBS on Saturday night had the single best night of prime-time TV ever: "All in the Family," "M*A*S*H," "The Mary Tyler Moore Show," "The Bob Newhart Show" and "The Carol Burnett Show."

Wow! I remember watching those shows on Saturday nights when I was a kid.
Of course, today I don’t watch much television on any night of the week unless it’s a recorded version of Barney the Dinosaur.
I’m not particularly devoted to any TV shows these days with the exception of “Lost” and “ER.” I have been trying to watch the new show “Invasion” although I don’t know how long that will last. I’ve also caught a few episodes of the new “Night Stalker,” but I’m predicting it will be canceled after one season.

It’s kind of a shame that the networks aren’t even trying to do programming on Saturdays anymore, but I suppose it was inevitable with the advent of cable, DVDs and DVRs.
I think it would be interesting, though, to find out how many people stay home on Saturday nights to watch their DVD collections of “The Mary Tyler Moore Show,” “M*A*S*H” and “All in the Family.”

Hurricane Fitzgerald to hit D.C. next week

It could be raining indictments next week in Washington.
Rumors are rampant with some sources saying as many as 22 potential indictments could be handed down encompassing everyone from Vice President Dick Cheney all the way down.

Another widely circulated rumor states that if Cheney is forced to step down he would be replaced by Condi Rice.

Of course, no one knows what is going to happen at this point, a testament to the professional manner in which Special Counsel Patrick Fitzgerald has run a relatively leak-free shop.
But the NY Times reports today that

Fitzgerald “has no plans to issue a final report about the results of the investigation, heightening the expectation that he intends to bring indictments, lawyers in the case and law enforcement officials said yesterday....
By signaling that he had no plans to issue the grand jury's findings in such detail, Mr. Fitzgerald appeared to narrow his options either to indictments or closing his investigation with no public disclosure of his findings, a choice that would set off a political firestorm.”

I think there is zero chance that he would just shut down his investigation at this point, so the odds are that the political firestorm is about to begin.

One strike away...

Oh, agony! I can’t believe the Astros lost last night. They were one strike away from celebrating their first trip to the World Series ever and then everything just fell apart. That was one of the most painful, last-minute setbacks I have ever seen.
They still have two more chances to secure another victory and win a trip to the big game, but having that victory last night snatched away at the last possible moment may have shaken their confidence. I hope not.
The Astros and the Rangers are the two oldest teams in Major League Baseball to have never been to the World Series. It’s just not fair, I tell you!! If they don’t win tomorrow I’m going to stamp my feet and whine some more!

Comics contest

The Express-News is letting its readers pick the comic strip that will replace Calvin and Hobbes when its limited run ends at the end of December. The good news is that two of the five comics in the running look to be really good - Candorville and Retail (which oddly seems to have no web presense whatsoever). The bad news is that two other choices seem to be really lame - Brevity and Bliss - and one is just awful - Prickly City.

The fact that they might bring back the wretched Prickly City is motivation enough for me to participate in their little survey.

Missing deadlines

I didn’t get the big Valerie Plame/Judith Miller story in my Sunday New York Times this weekend and this appears to be the reason.
Miller was so uncooperative working with her own newspaper that they busted their deadline and couldn’t get the story into the edition that went out to national subscribers like myself. And to top things off, they didn’t deliver my Monday paper so I can’t even see if they ran it the next day or not. So I had to settle for printing up a web version of the story which is highly annoying.

Traditional values: $$$$

This story in the Washington Post really shows how rotten the core of the conservative movement has become since it gained power.

The Post tells the story of how a bill to ban Internet gambling went down to defeat back in the summer of 2000 after looking like it was on its way to being passed overwhelmingly. The bill was scuttled at the last minute, according to the story, by a senior aide to Tom DeLay at the behest of conservative super-lobbyist Jack Abramoff. I guess that DeLay managed to keep his hands clean on this one since the Post is forced to lay the whole thing at the feet of his senior aide Tony Rudy, as if it was a freelance operation and DeLay wasn't fully versed with what was going on.

Abramoff helped scuttle the bill on behalf of his client eLottery Inc. which would have been out of business if the bill had become law. What is most amazing is that Abramoff was able to pull this off with the help of a number of the key players in the religious right establishment which is popularly believed to be opposed to gambling.

The work Abramoff did for eLottery is one focus of a wide-ranging federal corruption investigation into his dealings with members of Congress and government agencies. Abramoff is under indictment in another case in connection with an allegedly fraudulent Florida business deal...

Abramoff quietly arranged for eLottery to pay conservative, anti-gambling activists to help in the firm's $2 million pro-gambling campaign, including Ralph Reed, former head of the Christian Coalition, and the Rev. Louis P. Sheldon of the Traditional Values Coalition. Both kept in close contact with Abramoff about the arrangement, e-mails show. Abramoff also turned to prominent anti-tax conservative Grover Norquist, arranging to route some of eLottery's money for Reed through Norquist's group, Americans for Tax Reform.

So the former head of the Christian Coalition and the leader of the Traditional Values Coalition were both on board this effort to prop up Internet gambling which is little more than outright robbery. That just shows that their real committment isn't to "values" so much as it is to the all-mighty dollar.

Will there be anyone left to turn out the lights?

What with former GOP Majority Leader Tom DeLay doubly indicted and now GOP Senate Leader Bill Frist issued a subpoena as part of a growing SEC investigation into his all-too-convenient stock dealings, who is going to be left to lead the Republican’s in Congress?
And then, of course, the Wall Street Journal is reporting that Special Counsel Patrick Fitzgerald’s investigation into the Plame scandal appears to be widening and is expected to soon lead to indictments of a number of Bush administration officials including Karl Rove and Scooter Libby. This could lead to more infighting inside the administration and further deteriorate Bush’s anemic poll numbers which of course is all good news for Democrats in 2006.

No excuse for this

I used to think it was just a celebratory thing. After every strikeout the catcher would whip the ball down to first base and then it would go around the horn before being tossed back to the mound.
But last night the backup catcher for the Angels took the third called strike and just rolled it back to the mound in what proved to be a costly mistake that led to a White Sox victory in the ninth inning.
The catcher should have known better. Always throw to first after every strikeout, no matter.
I bet he doesn’t make that mistake again.

Bob Dylan: Song stylist

My good friend Jose Johnson has recently launched his own blog and commented the other day on the Martin Scorsese-directed documentary about Bob Dylan’s early days.

Joe notes that watching the film has made him rethink his opinion of Dylan who he admits he used to not like because of his “nasal, toneless voice that just absolutely grated on me.”

Now, Joe says he has a greater respect for Dylan as a songwriter and as “one of the few artists of that time who truly captured the zeitgeist of the era.”

But Joe concludes that he would still always prefer hearing Dylan’s music sung by someone else.

I have to disagree. While Dylan may not have the sweetest singing voice, it is still tremendously expressive and most of his songs are far from being what one would call sweet. Having a rough or gravely voice is certainly not an impediment to a singer, just look at Louis Armstrong.
Dylan was more than just a talented songwriter. He was a song stylist. Many of his songs were perfectly suited for his rough voice with their often-times bitter, angry and sarcastic themes.

While there are plenty of performers who did well singing Dylan’s songs - Peter, Paul & Mary, The Byrds, Johnny Cash - there are many more songs that wouldn’t be the same if they were sung by anyone else.

Chomsky Bashing

Expressing admiration or respect for Noam Chomsky these days can get a person into a lot of trouble. Chomsky is a popular target for ridicule and denigration from folks on both the right and the left.

While I don’t consider myself a Chomskyite or any such thing, I do acknowledge that he has influenced my political thought over time and I continue to hold him in high regard as an intellectual heavyweight of the Left. That doesn’t mean I agree with everything he says or endorse all of his positions. Nor do I wish to defend all of his past controversial statements or make apologies for his mistakes. But I do like to read his thoughts on current issues. To that end, I find it interesting that he now keeps a blog which is updated fairly regularly and even allows for comments.

As an illustration of the unifying effect that Chomsky-bashing can have, I was amused to read the following exchange the other day by two frequent commenters at All Things Conservative in which they suddenly found themselves in agreement after going at one another for several rounds.

“I'm no fan of that putz Noam Chomsky,” declared commenter Libertas. “I am a socially conservative Libertarian. This is the direct opposite end of every spectrum from Chomsky's Atheistic Socialist totalitarianism.”

“It's a relief to know you are no Chomskyite,” chimed in commenter X “That was perplexing me. Someone so evenhanded, reasonable and generous in debate could not possibly be a Noam fan.”

It was almost touching the way these two fierce debating opponents were suddenly able to find common ground in their mutual disdain for Professor Chomsky. Maybe that has been Chomsky’s secret plan all along, to bring people with divergent views together by giving them a common enemy to despise. But, then again, maybe not.

Baseball playoffs

The Red Sox and the Padres are gone. The Yankees are on the ropes and now so are the Braves.
It's been a pretty good playoff series so far. Here is what it looks like for those who haven't been paying attention:

ALDS: Chicago White Sox defeat Boston Red Sox 3-0
ALDS: L.A. Angels lead N.Y. Yankees 2-1
NLDS: St. Louis Cardinals defeat San Diego Padres 3-0
NLDS: Houston Astros lead Atlanta Braves 2-1

I'd like to see the Yankees come back and I hope the Astros can finish off Atlanta in Game 4. If the Yankees don't make it, I will be rooting for the White Sox to go all the way and win the World Series, unless they end up playing the Astros. As long as the Astros are still in it they will be my favorites, but if they get knocked out I will revert back to either the Yankees or White Sox.

By the way, does anyone know why the Angels are now called the Los Angeles Angels if they are still playing in Anaheim?

Losing their grip

Republicans are starting to lose their grip in Washington.
They are having an increasingly difficult time getting their awful legislation through Congress.

Today we had another GOP arm-twisting marathon vote that resulted in a bill that would shovel more government largess to the oil industry at a time when they are already making out like bandits across the country.

WASHINGTON, Oct. 7 - It took more than 40 raucous minutes of pleading and cajoling, bargaining and begging on Friday. But House Republican leaders managed to squeeze through an oil refinery bill in a tumultuous floor vote that severely tested a leadership team rocked by the indictment of Representative Tom DeLay, Republican of Texas.

After teetering on the verge of an embarrassing defeat, desperate party leaders managed to persuade enough of their members to switch positions to win narrow 212-to-210 approval of a measure that its backers said would expedite refinery construction and crack down on price gouging.

"House Republicans have taken the lead in providing America with price stability and a bold plan for this nation's energy future," said Speaker J. Dennis Hastert, who along with Mr. DeLay and other senior lawmakers buttonholed and browbeat resistant Republicans as the clock ticked on the vote.

Democrats attacked the substance of the bill and the process that the Republicans employed to force it through. The Democrats accused the majority of abusing House rules by stretching what should have been a five-minute vote to deliver a bill that Democrats said would benefit profitable oil companies but do little for American drivers.

"It took that long for the indicted leader of the House of Representatives to twist the arms necessary to get a vote against the American people, against the consumer, against the taxpayer and against the environment - in favor of the energy companies," said the minority leader, Representative Nancy Pelosi of California.

The good news is that the bill will probably die in the Senate thanks to a Democratic filibuster.

It could have been worse

The best that can be said of President Bush’s choice of Harriet Miers for the Supreme Court is that it could have been much worse.
There is a big, long line of knuckledragging neanderthal judges anxiously waiting for the chance to roll-back all the advances of the 20th Century and take us back into the dark ages.
I don’t think Miers is capable of doing that even if she did share their views simply because she has no experience in the realm of constitutional law.
She might turnout to be the fifth vote that overturns Roe vs. Wade and sends thousands of poor women to the back alleys to end unwanted pregnancies. But she also might not be. And just the fact that there is that slight chance is about the best that we could hope for after Bush won the 2004 election.

I find the right-wing handwringing over Miers to be delightfully entertaining. But there is one line of criticism of Miers that reflects the nation’s elite east-coast, west-coast bias that I find highly offensive. I wonder if there would be as many people saying Miers is unqualified for the court if she had been an attorney with a major law firm in New York or L.A. and had attended an elite Ivy League school rather than Southern Methodist University?

Harriet Miers: stealth liberal?

More evidence that Harriet Miers is far from the ideal conservative that many on the far right were hoping for:

From a June 27, 1992 Texas Lawyer piece written while she was president of the State Bar of Texas:

How does a free society prevent a man from climbing to the top of a tower on a university campus and randomly killing whoever is in sight? How does a free society prevent a man from driving a truck into a cafeteria and executing patrons? How does a free society prevent a man from entering a courtroom and opening fire? We are loath to hear the answer to these questions as it comes from our lips, because the suggested solutions usually infringe on precious, constitutionally guaranteed freedoms.

The same liberties that ensure a free society make the innocent vulnerable to those who prevent rights and privileges and commit senseless and cruel acts. Those precious liberties include free speech, freedom to assemble, freedom of liberties, access to public places, the right to bear arms and freedom from constant surveillance. We are not willing to sacrifice these rights because of the acts of maniacs.

...

The hearings also underscored that the lack of resources in some areas of the state not only has a dramatic impact on the courts' performance of all of their obligations, but also unduly burdens the ability of lawyers to maintain a private practice. Lawyers must, in the interest of the administration of justice, be aggressive advocates for increasing the resources available for the representation of indigent defendants.

Additionally, we are reminded that success in fighting crime in our nation is more than treating symptoms. We will be successful in solving our massive crime problems only when we attack the root causes. All of us, men and women, young and old, must pledge ourselves to address the ills that surround us in our communities.

We all can be active in some way to address the social issues that foster criminal behavior, such as: lack of self-esteem or hope in some segments of our society, poverty, lack of health care (particularly mental health care), lack of education, and family dysfunction.

It sounds to me like she could fit in quite well with the moderate/liberal wing of the court.

The stealth crony

President Bush’s selection of Harriet Miers to replace Sandra Day O’Connor on the Supreme Court has infuriated movement conservatives and given some small hope to the rest of the nation that maybe we will get someone who will be more pragmatic than ideological.

The New York Times editorial board is somewhat hopeful in this aspect:

Ms. Miers's record is so thin that no one seems to have any idea of what she believes, and she was clearly chosen because of her close ties to the president, not her legal qualifications. Still, there is no evidence as yet that she is an ideological warrior who would attempt to return American jurisprudence to the 18th century...

Ms. Miers's résumé gives at least some reason to hope that she could be a moderate, pragmatic judge in the mold of Justice Sandra Day O'Connor, whose seat she will fill if she is confirmed. She has spent much of her career in corporate law firms and bar associations, environments that encourage pragmatism over ideology.

But far-right conservatives are either angry or disappointed with the selection. Here is a handy rundown of right-wing reaction via Kevin Drum at Political Animal.

• Steve Dillard: I am done with President Bush.

• John Podhoretz: I think this was a pick made out of droit de seigneur — an "I am the president and this is what I want" arrogance.

• Peter Robinson: What people see in this is the Bush of the first debate, the Bad Bush, the peevish rich boy who expects to get his way because it's his way.

• Andrew Sullivan: Boy, does this pick remind us of who GWB is: about as arrogant a person as anyone who has ever held his office. Now the base knows how the rest of us have felt for close to five years.

• Stephen Bainbridge: I got a lot of criticism for saying that George Bush was pissing away the conservative moment via his Iraq policies....With this appointment, I'd echo Andrew's sentiment with something a tad more off color: Bush is now peeing on the movement.

• Rod Dreher: As for me, I am really, really disappointed in the president.

• Bill Kristol: It is very hard to avoid the conclusion that President Bush flinched from a fight on constitutional philosophy.

• Pat Buchanan: What is depressing here is not what the nomination tells us of her, but what it tells us of the president who appointed her....In picking her, Bush ran from a fight. The conservative movement has been had — and not for the first time by a president by the name of Bush.

• David Frum: The record shows I fear that the president's judgment has always been at its worst on personnel matters.

• Michelle Malkin: Message to the White House: Don't get stuck on stupid.

• Jonah Goldberg: Bush's instincts about where his principles should be are often right. But in this case the principle seems to be that Bush's instincts are principle enough.

And these are the reactions coming from Bush’s base!

I have to agree with Atrios about the source of right-wing angst being directed at Bush and Mier:

Wingnuttia is rather angry at the choice. I don't think this is because they're really concerned that she's not conservative enough for their tastes, although that's part of it. They're angry because this was supposed to be their nomination. This was their moment. They didn't just want a stealth victory, they wanted parades and fireworks. They wanted Bush to find the wingnuttiest wingnut on the planet, fully clothed and accessorized in all the latest wingnut fashions, not just to give them their desired Court rulings, but also to publicly validate their influence and power. They didn't just want substantive results, what they wanted even more were symbolic ones. They wanted Bush to extend a giant middle finger to everyone to the left of John Ashcroft. They wanted to watch Democrats howl and scream and then ultimately lose a nasty confirmation battle. They wanted this to be their "WE RUN THE COUNTRY AND THERE'S NOTHING YOU CAN DO ABOUT IT" moment.

But there are some on the right who are willing to fall in line and support Bush’s pick such as my friend Bill Crawford.

Bill has decided that he can support Mier because she has been a member of Valley View Christian Church in Dallas for the last 25 years. One of the church elders describes it as a "conservative evangelical church” and from that Bill deduces that Mier must be in lockstep with the entire social conservative agenda.
That may be so, but does membership in this church prove that? If you look at what the church says it believes on its web site you find this interesting clarification:

We try not to be dogmatic about matters on which believers hold divergent views. Our core beliefs are centered in Christ and His message as supported by Scripture. More obscure doctrine, as well as controversial issues about which the Bible is silent, are left to believers to sort out on their own. On these issues we take no official/dogmatic position.

Then they go on to list official church positions which are pretty much consistent with what any mainstream church believes.

Still, Bill clings to the hope that Mier is secretly a dogmatic right-wing ideologue on abortion because she tried to get the American Bar Association to change its position on abortion back when she was serving as president of the Texas chapter. Of course it was a pretty feeble effort. She wasn’t even trying to get the ABA to come out against abortion, she just wanted them to take a neutral position and she failed to do even that. But then she pragmatically continued to be a supportive member of ABA afterward.

Kevin Drum also points out several things about Miers that will likely rub movement conservatives the wrong way including her chairing a committee that wrote a report recommending support for the rights of gay couples to adopt children and the establishment of an International Criminal Court.

Then there is the fact that Miers was a Democrat throughout the Reagan years and even contributed money to Al Gore and Lloyd Bentsen in 1988.
The biggest thing going for her among conservatives is that she latched on to George W. Bush when he ran for governor of Texas in 1990 and had held a tight grip ever since.

The truth is that no one really knows what Miers would do on the Supreme Court. But I can say that her selection does not surprise me. In fact, it is the kind of nomination I have come to expect from Bush and is highly reminiscent of his appointment of Michael Brown to be the head of the Federal Emergency Management Agency.

Cisneros investigation won't end

This is unbelievable. Absolutely unbelievable.


This spring, Republicans and Democrats voiced outrage over the news that independent counsel David M. Barrett was still pursuing a decade-long, $21 million investigation into a crime long confessed and paid for.

Yes, I wrote about it at the time. But now it turns out that Barrett's investigation just keeps on going.

Without debate, the Senate unanimously agreed to strip Barrett of further funding for his inquiry on former housing secretary Henry G. Cisneros.

But, prodded by conservative commentators, House Republican leaders grew convinced that Democrats were trying to suppress embarrassing revelations about the Clinton administration. The Senate provision was ditched behind closed doors, and Barrett and his staff continue to work -- at a cost to taxpayers of nearly $2 million a year -- on an inquiry that seemingly ended 13 months ago.

What this demonstrates is that the House Republican leadership does not believe in good government, they believe only in hard-ball politics. Shut down a pointless investigation that is just wasting taxpayers' money? Not when there is some vague hope, no matter how small, that they may turn up some fresh dirt to throw at Bill Clinton.

From the very beginning, Republicans have used the power of the federal government to launch countless partisan investigations of their political foes. Drunk with power, they are completely unconstrained in spending millions upon millions of taxpayer dollars in pursuit of their political agenda.

In its semiannual audit, the Government Accountability Office said yesterday that Barrett spent $930,742 from October 2004 to March 2005, six years after Cisneros pleaded guilty to the charges Barrett was appointed to investigate -- and more than a year after Barrett submitted his 400-page report for final judicial review. The GAO did not indicate what Barrett has been doing since he finished his report, other than maintain staff and office expenditures that have continued to rise since the investigation ended.

Do you suppose they will finally be shamed into pulling the plug on this waste of an investigation this time?

It's tough at the top

It’s tough being a leader in the House and Senate these days. Not that I have any sympathy for Tom DeLay, but I can’t help but notice a distinct pattern of tragic consequences befalling these folks in recent years.

Go back to Speaker Jim Wright whose tenure was cut short by a scandal that in retrospect seems laughably insignificant today. He was replaced by Tom Foley who then became a target of Republican opposition and ended up losing his House seat in the 1994 mid-term election that brought the Republicans to power in the House.

Next we had Speaker Newt Gingrich whose rapid rise to power eventually flamed out in the midst of a sex scandal that probably would have gone unnoticed if he hadn’t been leading the charge to impeach President Clinton over the Monica Lewinski affair. Gingrich was followed by Robert Livingstone whose career as House Speaker lasted less than a day when it was quickly revealed that he too was cheating on his spouse.

So far, Speaker Dennis Hastert has managed to avoid any serious repercussions, but that is probably because all of the attention has been focused on DeLay as the one wielding the real levers of power.

On the Senate side we had Tom Daschle who would probably still be in the Senate today if he had not taken on the leadership role of the Democratic Party during the last election. Before ascending to the rank of minority leader, Daschle was a relative unknown outside of his own state. But once in the seat of power he became a target of daily abuse from the likes of Rush Limbaugh and the Fox News talking heads and the GOP dumped tons of money into their ultimately successful race to unseat him.

And let’s not forget on the Republican side we had Trent Lott who had to give up the reins of power after making racially insensitive remarks at the late-Strom Thurmond’s 100th Birthday celebration. His replacement, Bill Frist, is now the target of an SEC investigation looking at allegations of insider trading involving his family-owned business and it is probably just a matter of time before he will be out the door along with DeLay and the others.

Tom DeLay gets hammered

Could things get any worse for Republicans?

A Texas grand jury on Wednesday charged Rep. Tom DeLay and two political associates with conspiracy in a campaign finance scheme, forcing the House majority leader to temporarily relinquish his post.

Somehow I don’t think it is going to be just a temporary absence from his leadership post.

Even though this was a long-time coming, it is still extremely satisfying for Democrats like myself who are still outraged about the shenanigans that DeLay and company pulled back then.
It remains to be seen whether the indictments will lead to a conviction, but the political damage is done none-the-less.

At the same time that the fire has been turned up on DeLay, Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist is under scrutiny for a recent stock deal that reeks of insider trading.

And, of course, we still have Patrick Fitzgerald’s investigation into the Valerie Plame outing scandal to look forward to with the possibility of indictments for Karl Rove, Scooter Libby and who knows who else.

And all of this is going down while Republicans in Congress are bashing Bush’s FEMA response to Hurricane Katrina.

In the past, Bush has been able to distract the nation’s attention from domestic troubles like this with his aggressive foreign policy antics. But warning about yet another upsurge of violence in Iraq is not the type of distraction he was hoping for, I’m sure.

The next question is whether or not Bush’s poll numbers can sink any lower.

Racial stereotypes in pop culture

I was listening to one of those old-time radio programs recently on satellite radio when I was struck by how casually racial stereotypes were inserted into the programming back then. It was an episode of a serial crime drama called The Fat Man about a portly private investigator that aired back in the late ‘40s and early ‘50s. I came into the middle of the program so I don’t know exactly what was going on, but the Fat Man was somewhere on the Mexican border investigating a murder when he had a brief encounter with one of the locals. I don’t recall what it was about but the exchange ended with the Fat Man saying:

“You can go back to your siesta now, Pedro, I’ll take it from here.” To which “Pedro” responded with a meek “Si, senor” before exiting stage right.

I remember just sitting there with my jaw hanging open thinking to myself, did I hear that right? Of course, back in the late 1940s when this program originally aired I doubt that anyone gave that particular bit of throw-away dialogue a second thought.

Then a few days later I was indulging my facination with old pop-jazz music and picked up a collection of Peggy Lee music at the local library. I fell in love with Peggy Lee’s voice after hearing her sing some duets with Bing Crosby on his old radio show and I wanted to get more of her music. But one particular song in the collection just bowled me over. It is an upbeat number called “Manana (is soon enough for me)” and features Peggy singing in an emphasized, almost cartoonish Hispanic accent. The lyrics are printed below and, as you can see, they wouldn’t go over very well in today’s age.

Mañana is soon enough for me (1948)


The faucet she is dripping and the fence she's fallin' down
My pocket needs some money, so I can't go into town
My brother isn't working and my sister doesn't care
The car she needs a motor so I can't go anywhere
(mañana, mañana, mañana is soon enough for me)

My mother's always working, she's working very hard
But every time she looks for me I'm sleeping in the yard
My mother thinks I'm lazy and maybe she is right
I'll go to work mañana but I gotta sleep tonight
(mañana, mañana, mañana is soon enough for me)

Oh, once I had some money but I gave it to my friend
He said he'd pay me double, it was only for a lend
But he said a little later that the horse she was so slow
Why he give the horse my money is something I don't know
(mañana, mañana, mañana is soon enough for me)

(mañana, mañana, mañana is soon enough for me)

My brother took a suitcase and he went away to school
My father said he only learned to be a silly fool
My father said that I should learn to make a chile pot
But then I burned the house down, the chile was too hot
(mañana, mañana, mañana is soon enough for me)

The window she is broken and the rain is comin' in
If someone doesn't fix it I'll be soaking to my skin
But if we wait a day or two the rain may go away
And we don't need a window on such a sunny day
(mañana, mañana, mañana is soon enough for me)  Oba! Oba!
(mañana, mañana, mañana is soon enough for me)  Oba! Oba!

As I understand, the song was a big hit when it was released in 1948, but I imagine that any radio station that played it today would be burnt to the ground.

Of course, Hispanics weren’t the only minority group subject to this kind of treatment back then. African-Americans were the most frequent targets for abuse (when they weren’t being ignored altogether).
I know there are many examples of this kind of Jim Crow treatment in popular film and music, but it still shocks me today when I come across it.
As a huge Bing Crosby fan, I’ve long been troubled by a song that was a big hit for The Rhythm Boys in the 1930’s and ‘40s called “Mississippi Mud.” The song was written by Harry Barris, one of the original members of The Rhythm Boys that also included Crosby and Al Rinker. Oddly enough, you can’t even find the original lyrics to the song on the web today - only a sanitized version printed below:

Mississippi Mud Lyrics

When the sun goes down, the tide goes out,
The people gather 'round and they all begin to shout,
"Hey! Hey! Uncle Dud,
It's a treat to beat your feet on the Mississippi Mud.
It's a treat to beat your feet on the Mississippi Mud".
What a dance do they do!
Lordy, how I'm tellin' you...
They don't need no band...
They keep time by clappin' their hands...
Just as happy as a cow chewin' on a cud,
When the people beat their feet on the Mississippi Mud.

Lordy, how they play it!
Goodness, how they sway it!
Uncle Joe, Uncle Jim,
How they pound the mire with vigor and vim!
Joy! that music thrills me!
Boy! it nearly kills me!
What a show when they go!
Say! they beat it up either fast or slow.

When the sun goes down, the tide goes out,
The people gather 'round and they all begin to shout,
"Hey! Hey! Uncle Dud,
It's a treat to beat your feet on the Mississippi Mud.
It's a treat to beat your feet on the Mississippi Mud".
What a dance do they do!
Lordy, how I'm tellin' you...
They don't need no band...
They keep time by clappin' their hands.
Just as happy as a cow chewin' on a cud.
When the people beat their feet on the Mississippi Mud.

The original lyrics use the racial term “darkies” rather than the generic “people” as the ones making all the music down on the riverbank. It is really a catchy song and was quite popular in its time. The santitized version was later recorded by everyone from Dean Martin to Ray Charles and even The Muppets.

I don’t think this song is as offensive as the Manana tune. I don’t even think that Barris or Crosby meant the song to be negative towards African-Americans. I’m sure they felt at the time that it was a celebration of black music. However, it still represents a period in our history when racial stereotypes were readily accepted in our popular culture. Fortunately, we’ve come a long way since then.

Not a drop

You would think with a Level 5 hurricane bearing down on you it might result in just a little bit of rain. But noooo, we got nary a drop here in San Antonio.
In fact, the only thing we got from Hurricane Rita, besides a flood of evacuees from the coast, was blisteringly record hot temperatures as Roscoe notes here, - 103 on Saturday, 104 on Sunday.

Radicals in charge of the purse strings

E.J. Dionne gets a bit impolitic in his Washington Post column today when he rails about how “fundamentally stupid our budget policies have been over the past five years.”

Dionne notes that the cost this year alone of the Bush tax cuts enacted in 2001 and 2003 comes to $225 billion, more than enough to pay the costs of the Katrina recovery. Unfortunatley, the Republicans will wreck our economy, allow our infrastructure to deteriorate and sink us under a mountain of debt before giving up one penny of their tax cuts for the rich.

This devotion to tax cuts above all else is not “conservative” as Dionne rightfully notes, it is “radical.”

...our current budget policies are built not on honest coherence but on incoherence or, even worse, a dishonest coherence. The president and members of Congress always insist that they are fiscal conservatives who believe in balanced budgets. Yet their actions bear no relationship to their words, and labels such as "conservative" have no connection to their policies. Our federal purse strings are in the hands of fiscal radicals.

Dionnes says he would have more respect for these guys if they would at least be honest about their radicalism:

... if they just came out and said: "Look, we love deficit spending. That's why we waged wars in Iraq and Afghanistan and cut taxes at the same time. It's why we'll talk about offsets for Katrina and Rita but never enact them, except maybe a few cuts in programs for the poor. All we really care about are passing tax cuts -- and popular spending programs that get us reelected so we can enact more tax cuts."

I just hope our nation is strong enough to withstand three more years of this radical mismanagement of our government and economy.

A smart move

After failing five times in two years to develop a fair and equitable tax system to finance public education, Gov. Rick Perry has now done the smartest thing he has ever done during his entire administration - he has appointed former Texas Comptroller John Sharp to chair a committee to find a bipartisan approach for fixing the current system.

Perry and Sharp agreed that a bipartisan approach is necessary to fix the current system, which has been found unconstitutional by a state district judge.

John Sharp, or The Man Who Should Have Been Governor, is perhaps the last best hope Texas has to getting out of this school financing mess. Unfortunately, it looks like he may have allowed the new committee to be cut off at the knees before it even gets started by agreeing to leave the possibility of a state income tax off the table.

Both Perry and Sharp said that any effort to reduce the state's heavy reliance on property taxes to fund public education would not include an income tax.

OK, maybe that is politically necessary for them to say that at this time. But after the new committee has flopped around for awhile it will come to the conclusion that they can’t make the money magically appear by wiggling their noses or waving a wand in the air. At that point they will have no choice but to look at where the money is and actually consider a state income tax just like nearly every other state in the U.S. Then it will be imperative on Perry to consider their recommendation and hopefully do something to enact it.

Of course, as Burnt Orange Report has noted, this means that Sharp is not going to be running for governor next year as I had hoped.

Homecoming

My brother-in-law is finally back from Iraq after spending the past year stationed at Camp Victory in the heart of Baghdad with the Louisiana National Guard. He’s the old guy on the left - Class of ‘86. The youngster on the right is Class of 2004.
My sister was picking him up at the airport this morning. Welcome home!

Two sides of the same coin

The aftermath of Katrina has once again sparked a debate over the proper role of government in our society.

I’ve addressed this issue in the past, specifically here and here.

It is my contention that neither pure capitalism nor pure socialism are viable economic forms suitable for modern society. While many people see them as opposites, I see capitalism and socialism as two sides of the same coin. I believe it is necessary to have a mixture of the two.

I previously tried to make this point using the analogy of an automobile (one that I am kind of proud of) and I will repeat it here:

“Let us look at the U.S. economy as a car where capitalism is represented by everything that makes that car go - the engine, the drive shaft, the steering column, the brakes and so forth. Socialism is represented by everything that goes into the car to make the ride more comfortable, but is superfluous to making it go. That would be the cushioned seats, the plush interior, the windshield to keep the bugs out of your face, shock absorbers, power steering, power brakes, power windows, power locks, the A/C and heater, the radio and cd player, and on and on....

I think this is a great example of the growth of government and the increasing expectations of the people it serves. How much is too much? When you go to buy a car, what do you expect it to have at a bare minimum? I just bought a new car last year. It was the first car I’ve ever bought that had power locks and power windows. I used to think those were silly extras that I would never need. Now they are practically standard on every car and I personally love the convenience.
The government is the same way. Without some of the social programs in place, capitalism would be a bumpy ride. But too many programs weighs everything down and hinders our forward progress. So we are constantly struggling to come up with the proper balance. When critics urge the elimination of welfare, ag subsidies, Medicare and Social Security - it’s like trying to sell the American people a car with metal seats and no shock absorbers. They are not going to be happy. They won’t buy the car and they won’t vote for your candidate. That is the reality.”

Very few people think that we have the perfect formula in place. Most people believe that we have too much of one side and not enough of the other. Whichever side that is would probably place you on either the right or left half of the ideological spectrum.
I tend to think that we have a pretty good system in place overall, but I am open to arguments that we need more of some things and less of others. What I reject are the extreme arguments from either side that claim the current system is somehow an abomination (or unconstitutional) and needs radical altering.

Stephen, one of my frequent commenters here, has recently made an argument along these lines, specifically in regards to welfare:

We will always have the orphaned, the aged, the sick of body, mind and soul. And we have an aching responsibility to care for them as best we can. Add to them the sufferers of some catastrophic event. In that category reside those who, for one reason or another, have suffered a set-back. Any profit conscious society would see the value of giving those persons a hand up. .... All others fall into a bracket we might label scum. It is THIS category – the scum of the earth – that welfare statism has so successfully nurtured and perpetuated.

The “unfortunate” I describe above are a tiny, tiny minority. We need not concern our government with the care of those few, but deserving people. We are the most charitable nation on earth. Moreover, there is nothing in our Constitution that warrants that concern.

Finally, I do recognize that these despicable humanoids I have labeled “scum” produce children. These children are “orphans” in every sense of the word. It is the duty of everyone to be on the lookout for them so that we might remove them from their diseased environments as early as possible. Again this is a community concern; a deep responsibility we must all bear.

It is my position that, were it not for government, the scummy multitudes would not exist at all; given their penchant for knifing each other in dark alleys, overdosing on drugs and committing crimes that would ensure a lifetime in prison, or a place on the gallows. But, by virtue of the trillions of dollars we have spent guaranteeing that these malicious and contemptible people will have plenty to eat, air conditioned bedrooms, and a new Lexis to get them to McDonalds and the lottery machine, they have multiplied into the tens of millions.

First, I want to applaud Stephen for acknowledging society’s need to take care of “the orphaned, the aged, the sick of body, mind and soul.” Unfortunately, his contention that this group - along with the “sufferers of some catastrophic event” - make up a tiny, tiny minority is not at all in touch with reality. Perhaps I misread him and he meant to say that the group he labels as “scum” is the tiny minority. That would be closer to the truth.

But let’s talk for a moment about the “scummy multitudes” whom Stephen believes would not exist is if were not for government aid programs. How many people believe that there was no poverty before government welfare programs were established? Can I see a show of hands?
Hmmmmmm. It’s obvious that some folks could use a bit of a history lesson.

Let’s not pussyfoot around. There are obviously plenty of able-bodied people who end up on welfare in one form or another - perhaps even some who deserve the label of “scum.” But arguing over whether or not they deserve to recieve government handouts ignores the central role they play in our economic system. The purpose of government welfare, as Frances Fox Piven and Richard Cloward pointed out long ago in their classic work “Regulating the Poor : The Functions of Public Welfare” is to regulate labor.

”When mass unemployment leads to outbreaks of turmoil, relief programs are ordinarily initiated or expanded to absorb and control enough of the unemployed to restore order; then, as turbulence subsides, the relief system contracts, expelling those who are needed to populate the labor market.”

Note that it only expels those who are “needed to populate the labor market.” This raises another interesting aspect about capitalism that conservative critics of welfare tend to overlook or ignore - the role that unemployment plays in keeping wages down. Our economic system depends on having a certain percentage of people unemployed (usually between 4 and 6 percent) so as to keep pressure on workers and prevent them from having the upper hand in wage disputes. If we had full employment, then workers could go and demand higher wages from their bosses with no fear of reprisal - rising wages would mean higher costs for businesses which would be passed on to consumers through inflation.
But by having a constant pool of unemployed people in need of work, the laborer is constrained from demanding higher wages for fear that the boss would fire them and hire the next guy desperate for a job and willing to work for the same or less pay. This helps to keep a cap on inflation and stabilizes our economic system.

It strikes me, then, as the height of cruelty to have a system that depends on a certain percentage of people being unemployed that would then deny them the basic necessities of life - food, shelter, medical care - while they are serving that purpose.

Fortunately, we do not have such a cruel society. And the welfare program that we do have takes up only a very tiny portion - less than 2 percent - of our nation’s $2.5 trillion annual budget.

Delusional columnists

Two columns in Sunday’s Express-News show people in a delusional state of mind - one from the right, and one from the left.

First we have conservative Jonathan Gurwitz who is still desperately trying to justify his support for the invasion of Iraq in light of the fact that the imminent threat from the Weapons of Mass Destruction turned out to be a hoax perpetrated partly by Hussein himself and partly by his enemies.
Now Gurwitz is trying to use the latest report on the U.N.’s oil-for-food scandal to prop up the dead horse notion that Saddam Hussein was a threat to anyone outside of his own country.

Saddam was able to skim ($12 billion) from the program and divert (it) for largely military purposes. Gurwitz announces breathlessly.

The fact that Hussein and his Baathist regime were corrupt shouldn’t have been a surprise to anyone.
And Hussein obviously didn’t do a very good job of building up him military with that money based on what we saw when we invaded. Hussein’s military folded almost immediately and months of fruitless searching afterwards revealed no evidence of any kind of WMD program that we did not already know about and have under wraps via U.N. inspections.
The money that Hussein skimmed most likely went into his pocket and to prop up his corrupt government which was based largely on bribery and theft. Gurwitz’ contention that Hussein was getting stronger at the time that we invaded is flatly contradicted by the Iraq Survey Team which concluded that Hussein’s military might had been steadily deteriorating since the end of Gulf War I.

Next, we have liberal Susan Ives with a column that seems like it was intended to confirm every negative stereotype against liberals that I have ever tried to knock down. How embarrassing.
Ives thinks we need to have another cabinet level position in our government - to the tune of about $8 billion annually - to promote “peace and nonviolence.”

A Department of Peace would add more tools to the president's toolbox., Ives says.

Arghhh! I don’t even want to hear all the stupid jokes about people standing around in a circle singing “Kumbaya.” Please, just spare me that. This is the stupidest idea I think I have ever heard from folks on my side of the fence.
First off, we already have a cabinet level department that is supposed to promote peace and non-violence. It’s called the State Department. That’s what they do. They negotiate and barter and design peace accords and all that other diplomatic stuff short of waging wars. If the State Department is not doing a good job at that lately its because we have lousy leadership at the top.
A Department of Peace and Nonviolence like Ives wants would be totally redundant. And furthermore, what good would it do to have a department like that if Bush is still going to be the one appointing the people to run it? Can you imagine?
I can see it now. Bush’s first appointee to be the new Secretary of Peace and Non-violence would be someone like B-1 Bob Dornan.

Pete Seeger: American Hero

This post about Pete Seeger, the legendary folk singer, caught my attention the other day.

The Ranting Raven is a friend of mine whose politics tend to skew pretty hard right most of the time. After reading his post I felt that I should offer some kind of defense of a man who I believe to be a true American hero.

Raven seems to think that Seeger’s music - including famous songs like “If I Had a Hammer,” “Where Have All the Flowers Gone,” and “We Shall Over Come” - is all part of some kind of grand communist conspiracy to brainwash our youth and open our nation up to being set upon by commie hordes. The musical equivalent of putting fluoride in the drinking water, I guess.
All of Seeger’s songs “were designed by a self-admitted communist for the express purpose of altering your outlook to be more favorable to the communist cause,” Raven rants.
Of course, I think this is silly nonsense. But I was intrigued by the link he provides to a “conservative intellectual” who authored a lengthy article in some right-wing journal that calls Seeger America’s Most Successful Communist.

It is true that Seeger was a member of the American Communist Party beginning in 1942 and that he continued to hold very strong leftist and socialist views after leaving the party in 1950. But some of the things that Husock alleges aren’t borne out by the facts.
Husock writes:

In keeping with the line adopted after the 1939 Hitler-Stalin pact (which caused many U.S. party members to quit in disgust), for example, the Almanacs warbled against American entry into World War II, foreshadowing the preference for peace at any price that later characterized the McGovernite Left. “Franklin D., listen to me,/You ain’t a-gonna send me ’cross the sea.” The group continued in this vein into the late 1940s.

Note: The Almanacs was the musical group that Seeger was a member of at the time.
But that does not jibe with Seeger’s biography in Wikipedia:

An example of Seeger's pro-Soviet and pro-Stalin attitude can be seen during the period of the Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact, the short-lived alliance between the Soviet Union and Nazi Germany. His anti-war record Songs for John Doe, released in 1941, where he called President Franklin D. Roosevelt a warmonger who worked for J.P. Morgan, expressed his displeasure about FDR's increasingly confrontational attitude with Nazi Germany. Like most members of the CPUSA, Seeger was opposed to any action against Hitler from the time of the signing of the non-aggression pact until it was broken by Operation Barbarossa on June 22, 1941. After the breaking of the pact, Seeger along with the rest of the Almanacs, ordered all copies of "Songs for John Doe" be recalled and destroyed. Only a few copies exist to this day. After the invasion of the Soviet Union, Seeger returned to his earlier stance as a strong proponent of military action against Germany; he was drafted into the Army, where he served honorably in the Pacific. Seeger left the Communist Party in 1950, five years before Nikita Khrushchev's Secret speech revealed Stalin's crimes and led to a mass exodus from the Party. He became an anti-Stalinist but retained his belief in Socialism.

So, far from continuing the ‘peace at any price’ stance into the late ‘40s, as Husock claims, we see that Seeger had already reversed himself by 1942 and then served honorably in the Army during WWII.

Seeger was still a leftist. There is no doubt about that. But so what? All that means is that he had a good heart and wanted to help people who were suffering.
Raven points to another Seeger song “Turn, Turn, Turn” based on a passage from the Book of Ecclesiastes in the Bible (it was a hit for The Byrds in the late-‘60s) and takes offense at the last line that he added “A time of peace, I swear it’s not too late.”

Raven notes this “anti-war twist” as an example of how “the bustards permeated our society, and using such tactics, managed to hide in plain sight.”
Adding a line about peace in a Biblically-based song is somehow supposed to be subversive???

The sad thing is that Seeger was an extremely talented musician and songwriter who could have been far more successful during his career except that he was blackballed during the McCarthy period.

…Regardless of Seeger's feelings about the Party, it didn't take him very long to realize that amidst the paranoia and reaction of the Cold War, the union movement had no interest in associating itself with singing radicals. In 1948 Seeger accompanied Progressive Party presidential candidate Henry Wallace as he toured the South, an experience that seemed particularly depressing and alienating. Soon the People's Songs collective Seeger had established in 1945 fell apart. On September 4, 1949, Seeger's car was attacked and his wife and three-year old son were slightly injured by shattered glass at the infamous Peekskill, New York, riot. Seeger's creativity has always seemed nurtured by adversity. Amid the siegelike climate of the late '40s, he and Lee Hays co-wrote "If I Had a Hammer," one of the most optimistic paeans to the possibilities of constructive social change. By 1950 Hays and Seeger, along with Fred Hellerman and Ronnie Gilbert, formed the Weavers and enjoyed instant success with highly sweetened versions of "Goodnight Irene" and other folk tunes.

Just as quickly as the Weavers topped the charts, however, their career was torpedoed by blacklisting, Red-baiting, and numerous cancellations of their performances at the last minute. Seeger spent the fifties defining and nurturing his own audience. He still performed occasionally with the Weavers, but he mainly supported his family with appearances on the college circuit and at Left summer camps. He also recorded five to six albums per year for Folkways Records.
In 1955 Seeger was subpoenaed by the House Un-American Activities Committee and became one of the few witnesses called that year who didn't invoke the Fifth Amendment. In a dramatic appearance before the committee, Seeger claimed that to discuss his political views and associates violated his First Amendment rights.
The following year, which saw Seeger compose "Where Have All the Flowers Gone?", Seeger, Arthur Miller, and six others were indicted for contempt of Congress by an overwhelming vote in the House of Representatives. In 1961 he was found guilty of contempt and on April 2 he was sentenced to ten years in prison. The following year his ordeal ended when the case was dismissed on a technicality.

It is scary to think that the madness and hysteria of the McCarthy era could erupt here again one day.

Seeger never shied away from doing what he thought was right no matter what it did to his career as a musical artist. He was active in the Civil Rights movement of the ‘50s and ‘60s, the anti-war movement of the ‘60s and ‘70s and, later in life, became very involved in the environmental movement.

Today Pete Seeger is 86 years old. He has finally received some of the acclaim that was long denied him:

In 1994, Pete received the Presidential Medal of the Arts and a Kennedy Center Award. He was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 1996 for his contribution to the development of rock. In April of the same year he received the Harvard Arts Medal. Finally, in February of 1997 he won a Grammy Award for Best Traditional Folk Album for his work, Pete.

Perhaps Seeger’s music did have some influence on political events of the past 60 years, but if so all I can say is that it was to the betterment of our society and our nation. We are a better country as a result.

Republican War on Science

Salon has an excellent review of Chris Mooney’s new book ”The Republican War on Science.”

Note: You have to watch a brief ad to access the full article. Here is an excerpt:

...the conservative wing of the Republican Party has launched an unprecedented and highly successful campaign to sow widespread confusion about the conclusions of science and its usefulness in political decision making. Using methods and strategies pioneered under the Reagan administration by the tobacco industry and anti-environmental forces, an alliance of social conservatives and corporate advocates has paralyzed or obfuscated public discussion of science on a whole range of issues. Not just climate change but also stem cell research, evolutionary biology, endangered-species protection, diet and obesity, abortion and contraception, and the effects of environmental toxins have all become arenas of systematic and deliberate bewilderment....

Many conservatives, Mooney argues, have stopped regarding science as an objective search for truth (conditional as that truth necessarily is). Instead, they see it as just another realm of naked power politics or, less cynically but more ominously, as a contest between a pseudo-socialistic, tree-hugging worldview and one that is avowedly pro-Christian and pro-capitalist. Furthermore, right-wingers have mystified this conflict almost completely, cloaking it in self-defined terms of "sound science" (i.e., science that agrees with them, or reaches no conclusions at all) versus "junk science" (anything that might impinge on corporate profits or conflict with the most extreme version of Christian morality).

New old music

New albums out by The Rolling Stones and Sir Paul McCartney and they both look promising.

Critics are comparing the Stone’s new album to the best work they’ve done since the early 1970s. Likewise, I have seen glowing reviews of McCartney’s new album that say it is the best he has done in several decades.

I’ll be interested to see how much of that is more than marketing hype. I’ll be happy with some halfway decent music. I don’t tend to be as picky as most rock music critics. I discovered the Stones in the mid-70s when they were in their Pretty Girls and Tattoo You era. But I didn’t actually buy any of their music until I was in college and the first one I got was Exiles on Main Street which is still my all-time favorite.

I first discovered Paul McCartney when he was singing duets with Stevie Wonder. It wasn’t until much later that I connected him with the Beatles and became a huge fan. I really liked his late ‘80s album Press To Play which tends to get overlooked these days.

What have conservatives accomplished?

As you may have noticed, Republicans, and more specifically conservatives, control nearly every aspect of the federal and state government today. We’ve had a Republican president since 2000 - one of the most partisan and ideologically right-wing ever to hold the office; A Republican-controlled House since 1994; A Republican-controlled Senate since 2002; A Supreme Court with 7 of 9 justices appointed by Republicans and appellate courts which are being stuffed to the gills with hardline conservative ideologues. And here in Texas, of course, we have complete one-party dominance thanks in part to Tom DeLay and his corporate buddies.

And yet, what have conservatives really accomplished during this period of near total dominance of the political sphere?

Kevin Drum takes a look at some of the major legislative and executive actions of the Bush presidency and finds them to be somewhat sparse on actual conservative accomplishments:

1. No Child Left Behind
2. Some big tax cuts
3. Big spending increases, both in defense and nondefense spending
4. The stem cell straddle
5. Patriot Act
6. Invasion of Afghanistan
7. Sarbanes-Oxley
8. McCain-Feingold
9. Department of Homeland Security
10. Invasion of Iraq
11. Medicare prescription bill
12. Some conservative judges

Of these, some are just plain liberal (3, 7, 8, 11), some were basically neutral or bipartisan (1, 5, 6, 9), and only a couple are clearly conservative (2, 12). Of the remaining two items, the stem cell straddle was....a straddle, and if the Iraq war is a conservative cause, it's only because George Bush is fighting it. Outside of PNAC circles, conservatives have not exactly been baying for more foreign wars over the past decade.

The fact is, conservatives haven't won much of anything in the last 10 years except a PR triumph. Their biggest successes have been on taxes — a Pyrrhic victory at best without corresponding spending cuts — and in the court system, which hasn't actually delivered much real world benefit. Plus they have a war in Iraq, for whatever that's worth. Public opinion simply hasn't allowed them anything more.

This lack of conservative “progress” has not gone unnoticed by conservative intellectuals who are beginning to complain.
Here Ross Douthat poses some pertinent questions for conservatives to ponder as they consider where the conservative movement has lead these past few years.

1) Conservatives have controlled both houses of Congress for the better part of the last decade. Since the 1996 Welfare Reform was passed, name a major legislative accomplishment other than the Bush tax cuts that made you proud to have a conservative majority in power.

2) Do you believe in small/limited government? If so, are you pleased with the growth in federal spending during the last six years of nearly-undivided Republican control?

3) Do you believe in effective government? If so, are you pleased with the federal response, four years after 9/11 supposedly "changed everything," to the challenge posed by Hurricane Katrina? Are you pleased with the ability of the federal government, four years after 9/11, to effectively patrol our southern border?

4) Which of the following represents a triumph for conservatives? Choose one: the Highway Bill; the Energy Bill; the Medicare Bill; the failure of Social Security reform.

5) Do you feel that having a conservative majority has fundamentally changed the culture of cronyism and influence-peddling in Washington D.C.? Please explain with reference to 1) Jack Abramoff, 2) Ralph Reed, or 3) Michael Brown.

6) Are you a social conservative? If so, do you feel that conservatives are "winning" on (choose one, or all): the cloning debate; the stem-cell debate; the gay-marriage debate? Do you feel that American popular culture has grown more or less coarse, puerile, and sex-obsessed during this era of conservative dominance?

The problem for the conservative intellectuals is that the current batch of GOP politicians in Washington aren’t as interested in pushing for change as they are in lining their pockets and those of their political cronies.

Has the buck finally stopped?

NEWS FLASH

Bush says he takes responsibility
for the federal government's failures in responding to Hurricane Katrina.

“Katrina exposed serious problems in our response capability at all levels of government and to the extent the federal government didn't fully do its job right, I take responsibility," Bush said.

This will no doubt come as a shock to Bush’s most devout followers who are still in full denial mode that there was any problem with the federal government’s “speedy response” to the disaster.

Movie watching update

It’s September and so far I have seen only four movies that were released in 2005. That’s just part of the sacrifice of being a new parent. With a 2-year-old in the house and another due in November, it will be sometime before I start making regular trips back to the cineplex. So my movie watching is relegated to the videos that I rent or purchase.
We made a special exception this year to go see Star Wars: Revenge of the Sith with some friends in Houston while the grandparents watched after the little one. Other than that, I haven’t been inside a movie theater at all this year.
The other 2005 films I have seen include:
Hitch
Constatine
The Upside of Anger

Hitch was pretty good, Constatine was OK and The Upside of Anger was a big disappointment that neither one of us liked.

The 2005 movies that are already out that I would like to see include:

War of the Worlds
Batman Begins
Charlie and the Chocolate Factory
Madagascar
Fantastic Four
Robots
Sahara
Cinderella Man
Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy
Kingdom of Heaven
The Island
The Brothers Grimm
The Constant Gardener
Kung Fu Hustle
Enron: The Smartest Guys in the Room

As usual, most of the movies I’ve seen this year are 2004 movies that I’m still catching up on. Here are the 2004 films that I have seen so far:

Shrek 2
*Spider Man 2
*The Incredibles
*Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban
*The Bourne Supremacy
*National Treasure
*Shark Tale
I, Robot
*Troy
*Van Helsing
*Fahrenheit 9/11
Lemony Snicket’s A Series of Unfortunate Events
*The Aviator
*Collateral
*Ray
*Hidalgo
Kill Bill Vol. 2
Hellboy
*Finding Neverland
*Home on the Range
Spanglish
*Sky Captain and the World of Tomorrow
Around the World in 80 Days
Laws of Attraction
DeLovely

(* indicates a video that I own)
And finally, here are the 2004 movies that I still haven’t got around to seeing that I still might watch someday:

Passion of the Christ
The Day After Tomorrow
The Polar Express
Ocean’s Twelve
Dodge Ball
The Village
Million Dollar Baby
Starsky and Hutch
SpongeBob Squarepants Movie
The Terminal
Ladder 49
Sideways
The Manchurian Candidate
Miracle
Friday Night Lights
*Phantom of the Opera
Secret Window
Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind
Alexander
Closer
*Hotel Rwanda
Ella Enchanted
*The Alamo
House of Flying Daggers
Kinsey

Are there any that I should add or subtract from the list?

Fall movies

I thought I’d take a short break from my Bush-bashing crusade to talk about the new movies coming out this fall. The NYTimes had a beg write up on them this Sunday and the LATimes has a handy list here.
Here are some that caught my interest:

I think the Johnny Cash biopic “Walk The Line” should be good with Joaquin Phoenix and Reese Witherspoon in the lead roles. Hopefully it will be on par with the Ray Charles biopic from last year.

Another biopic on Truman Capote with Philip Semour Hoffman in the title role looks like a case of perfect casting.

Then there is Tim Burton’s “Corpse Bride” as a follow-up to his “Nightmare Before Christmas” film. I can’t tell if Danny Elfman will be doing the music for this one but I hope he is.

I don’t know much about Wallace & Gromit, but I’m looking forward to seeing the new movie by the same folks that did “Chicken Run.”

Disney is also coming out with “Chicken Little,” it’s first computer animated film that is not by Pixar. I personally think they need to reopen their traditional animation studio and just re-up their contract with Pixar, but I’ll check out the new films just the same.

I think there is supposed to be another Harry Potter movie this fall and a movie based on C.S. Lewis’ “The Lion, The Witch and The Wardrobe.”

But this also looks to be another big year for the Lord of the Rings alumni. Peter Jackson, the director of “Lord of the Rings” is set to release his “King Kong” film just before Christmas. Elijah Wood, who played Frodo is starring in two films - “Green Street Hooligans” and “Everything is Illuminated”; Viggo Mortensen, who played Aragorn, is starring in “A History of Violence”; Orlando Bloom, who played Legolas, is in the new Cameron Crowe film “Elizabethtown”; and Sean Bean, who played Boromir, rounds out the all-star cast of “North Country.”

Some more bad ideas

From the NYTimes yesterday:

Republican leaders in Congress and some White House officials see opportunities in Hurricane Katrina to advance longstanding conservative goals like giving students vouchers to pay for private schools, paying churches to help with temporary housing and scaling back business regulation.

Oh goody! Conservatives never seem to miss a chance to try and tear down the public education system. It would be one thing if they were offering the displaced students federal grants or hardship scholarships to go to private schools. But vouchers simply transfer money from the public schools which are already hard up and into the pockets of the private schools.

But that's not the only place that conservative Republicans want to funnel our tax dollars:

"There are about a thousand churches right here in Houston, and a lot of them are helping people with housing, but FEMA says they can't reimburse faith-based organizations," Representative Tom DeLay of Texas, the House majority leader, said, referring to the Federal Emergency Management Agency.

Why do we have to reimburse churches for doing good works? My church is doing an enormous amount of work on behalf of the refugees here in San Antonio - collecting donations of cash, food and other necessities; volunteering time and resources at the various shelters - but the last thing I expect is for my church to get a big fat reimbursement check from the government. The churches should be doing things in addition to what the government has to do, not in place of what the government should be doing.

Colin Powell joins the Angry Left

It looks like former Secretary of State Colin Powell has joined the ranks of the “Angry Left” in pointing fingers and casting blame over Hurricane Katrina.

"There have been a lot of failures at a lot of levels -- local, state and federal," Powell said in an ABC interview for the "20/20" program to be broadcast on Friday evening.

"There was more than enough warning over time about the dangers to New Orleans. Not enough was done. I don't think advantage was taken of the time that was available to us, and I just don't know why," Powell said.

Meanwhile, it looks like FEMA Director Michael Brown has been handed his head and told to go back to Washington.
The administration’s spin is that Brown is needed back in D.C. to “carry out broader responsibilities,” but the odds are that we will never hear from him again.

That is unless President “The Buck Never Stops Here” Bush decides to award him the Presidential Medal of Freedom.

The Onion strikes again

The satirical newspaper The Onion outdoes itself again this week with its biting commentary on the federal government’s slow response to Hurricane Katrina.

Government Relief Workers Mosey In To Help

NEW ORLEANS—Federal Emergency Management Agency director Michael Brown, leading a detachment of 7,500 relief workers, moseyed on down to New Orleans Monday afternoon. "Well, I do declare, it's my job to see if any of these poor folks need any old thing," Brown said from his command rocker on the command post porch, adding, "Mighty hot day, ain't it?" Follow-up teams of emergency relief workers are expected to begin ambling into the Gulf Coast region as early as this weekend. "They should be getting the trucks good and warmed up anytime now, and they'll be cruising into town just as soon as all the reservists stroll in," said Brown, who is currently at his desk awaiting offers of food, water, and evacuation buses to roll in from "somewhere or other."

While Rome burns...

There is just no excuse for this.

The top U.S. disaster official waited hours after Hurricane Katrina struck the Gulf Coast before he proposed to his boss sending at least 1,000 Homeland Security workers into the region to support rescuers, internal documents show.
Part of the mission, according to the documents obtained by The Associated Press, was to "convey a positive image" about the government's response for victims.

Acknowledging that such a move would take two days, Michael Brown, director of the Federal Emergency Management Agency, sought the approval from Homeland Security Secretary Michael Chertoff roughly five hours after Katrina made landfall on Aug. 29.

Before then, FEMA had positioned smaller rescue and communications teams across the Gulf Coast. But officials acknowledged the first department-wide appeal for help came only as the storm raged.

Think Progress helpfully puts together the complete timeline of events.

Here is a sample:


Friday, August 26

GOV. KATHLEEN BLANCO DECLARES STATE OF EMERGENCY IN LOUISIANA: [Office of the Governor]

GULF COAST STATES REQUEST TROOP ASSISTANCE FROM PENTAGON: At a 9/1 press conference, Lt. Gen. Russel Honoré, commander, Joint Task Force Katrina, said that the Gulf States began the process of requesting additional forces on Friday, 8/26. [DOD]

Saturday, August 27

5AM — KATRINA UPGRADED TO CATEGORY 3 HURRICANE [CNN]

GOV. BLANCO ASKS BUSH TO DECLARE FEDERAL STATE OF EMERGENCY IN LOUISIANA: “I have determined that this incident is of such severity and magnitude that effective response is beyond the capabilities of the State and affected local governments, and that supplementary Federal assistance is necessary to save lives, protect property, public health, and safety, or to lessen or avert the threat of a disaster.” [Office of the Governor]

FEDERAL EMERGENCY DECLARED, DHS AND FEMA GIVEN FULL AUTHORITY TO RESPOND TO KATRINA: “Specifically, FEMA is authorized to identify, mobilize, and provide at its discretion, equipment and resources necessary to alleviate the impacts of the emergency.” [White House]

Sunday, August 28

2AM – KATRINA UPGRADED TO CATEGORY 4 HURRICANE [CNN]

7AM – KATRINA UPGRADED TO CATEGORY 5 HURRICANE [CNN]

MORNING — LOUISIANA NEWSPAPER SIGNALS LEVEES MAY GIVE: “Forecasters Fear Levees Won’t Hold Katrina”: “Forecasters feared Sunday afternoon that storm driven waters will lap over the New Orleans levees when monster Hurricane Katrina pushes past the Crescent City tomorrow.” [Lafayette Daily Advertiser]

9:30 AM — MAYOR NAGIN ISSUES FIRST EVER MANDATORY EVACUATION OF NEW ORLEANS: “We’re facing the storm most of us have feared,” said Nagin. “This is going to be an unprecedented event.” [Times-Picayune]

4PM – NATIONAL WEATHER SERVICE ISSUES SPECIAL HURRICANE WARNING: In the event of a category 4 or 5 hit, “Most of the area will be uninhabitable for weeks, perhaps longer. … At least one-half of well-constructed homes will have roof and wall failure. All gabled roofs will fail, leaving those homes severely damaged or destroyed. … Power outages will last for weeks. … Water shortages will make human suffering incredible by modern standards.” [National Weather Service]

AFTERNOON — BUSH, BROWN, CHERTOFF WARNED OF LEVEE FAILURE BY NATIONAL HURRICANE CENTER DIRECTOR: Dr. Max Mayfield, director of the National Hurricane Center: “‘We were briefing them way before landfall. … It’s not like this was a surprise. We had in the advisories that the levee could be topped.’” [Times-Picayune; St. Petersburg Times]

LATE PM – REPORTS OF WATER TOPPLING OVER LEVEE: “Waves crashed atop the exercise path on the Lake Pontchartrain levee in Kenner early Monday as Katrina churned closer.” [Times-Picayune]

APPROXIMATELY 30,000 EVACUEES GATHER AT SUPERDOME WITH ROUGHLY 36 HOURS WORTH OF FOOD [Times-Picayune]

Monday, August 29

7AM – KATRINA MAKES LANDFALL AS A CATEGORY 4 HURRICANE [CNN]

8AM – MAYOR NAGIN REPORTS THAT WATER IS FLOWING OVER LEVEE: “I’ve gotten reports this morning that there is already water coming over some of the levee systems. In the lower ninth ward, we’ve had one of our pumping stations to stop operating, so we will have significant flooding, it is just a matter of how much.” [NBC’s “Today Show”]

MORNING — BUSH CALLS SECRETARY CHERTOFF TO DISCUSS IMMIGRATION: “I spoke to Mike Chertoff today — he’s the head of the Department of Homeland Security. I knew people would want me to discuss this issue [immigration], so we got us an airplane on — a telephone on Air Force One, so I called him. I said, are you working with the governor? He said, you bet we are.” [White House]

MORNING – BUSH SHARES BIRTHDAY CAKE PHOTO-OP WITH SEN. JOHN MCCAIN [White House]

11AM — BUSH VISITS ARIZONA RESORT TO PROMOTE MEDICARE DRUG BENEFIT: “This new bill I signed says, if you’re a senior and you like the way things are today, you’re in good shape, don’t change. But, by the way, there’s a lot of different options for you. And we’re here to talk about what that means to our seniors.” [White House]

LATE MORNING – LEVEE BREACHED: “A large section of the vital 17th Street Canal levee, where it connects to the brand new ‘hurricane proof’ Old Hammond Highway bridge, gave way late Monday morning in Bucktown after Katrina’s fiercest winds were well north.” [Times-Picayune]

11:30AM — MICHAEL BROWN FINALLY REQUESTS THAT DHS DISPATCH 1,000 EMPLOYEES TO REGION, GIVES THEM TWO DAYS TO ARRIVE: “Brown’s memo to Chertoff described Katrina as ‘this near catastrophic event’ but otherwise lacked any urgent language. The memo politely ended, ‘Thank you for your consideration in helping us to meet our responsibilities.’” [AP]

2PM — BUSH TRAVELS TO CALIFORNIA SENIOR CENTER TO DISCUSS MEDICARE DRUG BENEFIT: “We’ve got some folks up here who are concerned about their Social Security or Medicare. Joan Geist is with us. … I could tell — she was looking at me when I first walked in the room to meet her, she was wondering whether or not old George W. is going to take away her Social Security check.” [White House]

9PM — RUMSFELD ATTENDS SAN DIEGO PADRES BASEBALL GAME: Rumsfeld “joined Padres President John Moores in the owner’s box…at Petco Park.” [Editor & Publisher]

Tuesday, August 30

9AM – BUSH SPEAKS ON IRAQ AT NAVAL BASE CORONADO [White House]

MIDDAY – CHERTOFF FINALLY BECOMES AWARE THAT LEVEE HAS FAILED: “It was on Tuesday that the levee–may have been overnight Monday to Tuesday–that the levee started to break. And it was midday Tuesday that I became aware of the fact that there was no possibility of plugging the gap and that essentially the lake was going to start to drain into the city.” [Meet the Press, 9/4/05]

PENTAGON CLAIMS THERE ARE ENOUGH NATIONAL GUARD TROOPS IN REGION: “Pentagon spokesman Lawrence Di Rita said the states have adequate National Guard units to handle the hurricane needs.” [WWL-TV]

MASS LOOTING REPORTED, SECURITY SHORTAGE CITED: “The looting is out of control. The French Quarter has been attacked,” Councilwoman Jackie Clarkson said. “We’re using exhausted, scarce police to control looting when they should be used for search and rescue while we still have people on rooftops.” [AP]

U.S.S. BATAAN SITS OFF SHORE, VIRTUALLY UNUSED: “The USS Bataan, a 844-foot ship designed to dispatch Marines in amphibious assaults, has helicopters, doctors, hospital beds, food and water. It also can make its own water, up to 100,000 gallons a day. And it just happened to be in the Gulf of Mexico when Katrina came roaring ashore. The Bataan rode out the storm and then followed it toward shore, awaiting relief orders. Helicopter pilots flying from its deck were some of the first to begin plucking stranded New Orleans residents. But now the Bataan’s hospital facilities, including six operating rooms and beds for 600 patients, are empty.” [Chicago Tribune]

3PM – PRESIDENT BUSH PLAYS GUITAR WITH COUNTRY SINGER MARK WILLIS [AP]

BUSH RETURNS TO CRAWFORD FOR FINAL NIGHT OF VACATION [AP]

Blame, blame, blame

Is it really fair to blame President Bush for the flooding of New Orleans?
By making that charge I have attracted the wrath of a number of my conservative blogger friends who have said I was showing a lack of decency as well as being overly partisan, soulless and Loony.

But apparently I am not alone as the waves of incrimination have come beating down on the Bush administration:

Here is conservative columnist Georgie Anne Geyer giving the Bush administration a swift kick in the pants:

The first President Bush (father George H.W.) had a favorite word which we all heard him use so repeatedly it was a kind of joke. The word was "prudent," which means "marked by wisdom or judiciousness" and "shrewd in the management of practical affairs." He was a worthy son of the American Revolution.
The second President Bush (son George W.) is marked, instead, by an overriding and unapologetic recklessness, which means "lacking in caution and deliberately courting danger."

Of course, she is kind compared to what the more moderate and liberal commentators have to say about the situation. Here is just a small sampling:

Paul Krugman - A Can't-Do Government and Killed by Contempt ;
Maureen Dowd - United States of Shame;
Frank Rich - Falluja Floods the Superdome;
Eugene Robinson - It's Your Failure, Too, Mr. Bush;
Eleanor Clift - A Colossal Failure of Leadership

And there are many, many, many more.

But one of the most concise and well reasoned critiquest comes from Kevin Drum at Political Animal who makes clear that he is not just bashing Bush for political gain, but has very specific concerns all stemming from Bush’s conservative philosophy of government.

In addition to Bush's listless lack of leadership and life-as-usual politicking early in the week, what happened was the result of a series of decisions, all flowing out of his natural conservative governing instincts, that taken together made Katrina more damaging than it had to be and seriously eroded our ability to react to its aftermath. These decisions were deliberate and disastrous, and that's why I think Bush deserves a large part of the blame for what happened.


FactCheck.org also does a fairly decent job of trying to summarize the argument over who is to blame for the breached levee system here.

I don’t think there should be any question that Bush should share a good portion of the blame for this catastrophe. The fact that he chose to slash funding for the levee projects during his administration was a huge gamble on his part that turned out to be “lacking in caution and deliberately courting danger” (as Georgie Anne Geyer would say).
Just because the storm may have swamped a fully-funded levee system is no excuse for underfunding the program all these years. Nor is it a legitimate excuse to say that other presidents didn’t fund it adequately so why should I? Bush was the person at the helm when this ship went aground and he can’t turn around and blame it all on mistakes made by previous captains.

To address one of the arguments made in the comments of the previous post, let me say that funding for the levee system should not have come at the expense of our troops in Iraq. But it certainly should have taken precedence over Bush’s tax cuts for his wealthy friends.

If Bush thought that the levee program was a waste of money due to corruption or poor planning or what have you, then why didn’t he demand a better solution rather than just cutting its funding to a trickle?
The problem here is that building up and maintaining the levee system around one of our most important port cities was a job that demanded federal oversight. It was and is too big for just the local government officials to handle. But the Republican philosophy is to leave everything to the local governments and claim that government is the problem and not the solution. Unfortunately for all of us, these are the people who are in charge of our government today and they are doing their best to prove that government doesn’t work.

Adieu, Prickly City

The Express-News has decided to ax the conservative comic strip Prickly City. to make room for a six-month run of classic Calvin and Hobbes strips. It won’t be missed.

I have complained before that Prickly City was not much better than the awful Mallard Fillmore strip. Both are crudely drawn, have little to no character development or plotlines and essentially serve as a backdrop for the authors to spout their right-wing views through the mouths of a cartoon character.
In the case of Prickly City, you have a white conservative male cartoonist who uses a young African-American female character as the mouthpiece for his daily rants attacking liberals. Very odd.