Here is a recent picture of President Bush leading supporters at a rally in a chant of "Four More Years!"
Friday, August 27, 2004
Wednesday, August 25, 2004
Bush's unanswered questions
We’ve spent several weeks now consumed with the back-and-forth bickering over John Kerry’s service in Vietnam. It should be clear by now to anybody not completely blinded by partisan politics that the main charges brought by the Swift Boat Liars for Bush have been thoroughly refuted by both the official records and by numerous eyewitnesses who have recently come forward.
I would also point everyone to this excellent post today at eTalkinghead where I am an occasional contributor.
But what still amazes me is that in the thick of this fight over how many bullets were wizzing over Kerry’s swift boat and how much blood spilled out of his arm when he was struck with schrapnel, George aWol Bush and Chickenhawk Cheney are still getting a free pass when it comes to their less than meritorious activities in the late-60s and early-70s.
USA Today still has some unanswered questions for President Bush:
• Why did Bush, described by some of his fellow officers as a talented and enthusiastic pilot, stop flying fighter jets in the spring of 1972 and fail to take an annual physical exam required of all pilots?
•What explains the apparent gap in the president's Guard service in 1972-73, a period when commanders in Texas and Alabama say they never saw him report for duty and records show no pay to Bush when he was supposed to be on duty in Alabama?
•Did Bush receive preferential treatment in getting into the Guard and securing a coveted pilot slot despite poor qualifying scores and arrests, but no convictions, for stealing a Christmas wreath and rowdiness at a football game during his college years?
The first question is the one I most answered most of all. How could Bush just blow off his flight physical during the middle of a war and throw away all the time and money the military spent training him to be a fighter pilot without any repercussions whatsoever?
Why won’t anybody ask Bush that question?
I would also point everyone to this excellent post today at eTalkinghead where I am an occasional contributor.
But what still amazes me is that in the thick of this fight over how many bullets were wizzing over Kerry’s swift boat and how much blood spilled out of his arm when he was struck with schrapnel, George aWol Bush and Chickenhawk Cheney are still getting a free pass when it comes to their less than meritorious activities in the late-60s and early-70s.
USA Today still has some unanswered questions for President Bush:
• Why did Bush, described by some of his fellow officers as a talented and enthusiastic pilot, stop flying fighter jets in the spring of 1972 and fail to take an annual physical exam required of all pilots?
•What explains the apparent gap in the president's Guard service in 1972-73, a period when commanders in Texas and Alabama say they never saw him report for duty and records show no pay to Bush when he was supposed to be on duty in Alabama?
•Did Bush receive preferential treatment in getting into the Guard and securing a coveted pilot slot despite poor qualifying scores and arrests, but no convictions, for stealing a Christmas wreath and rowdiness at a football game during his college years?
The first question is the one I most answered most of all. How could Bush just blow off his flight physical during the middle of a war and throw away all the time and money the military spent training him to be a fighter pilot without any repercussions whatsoever?
Why won’t anybody ask Bush that question?
Monday, August 23, 2004
Larry Gatlin vs Bruce Springsteen
Country Singer Larry Gatlin wrote an op-ed piece for the Wall Street Journal today. There is no link for it so I transcribed it below. It was apparently written in response to this op-ed piece that Bruce Springsteen wrote recently for the New York Times.
I wouldn’t expect to find any great political wisdom in an article by Gatlin (or Springsteen) but the naivete and errors in fact that are sprinkled throughout his writing is evident of someone who must get all their information from Fox News and Rush Limbaugh.
So here is Mr. Gatlin with my comments in bold:
Since Bruce Springsteen is about to “Rock the Vote” for John Kerry, I’d be only too happy to start booking my motel rooms to hit the road for George W. Bush. With my brothers Steve and Rudy, my buddies the Oak Ridge Boys, Lee Greenwood, Mark Wills and any number of other country music artists who get their support from the Heartland, I’m going to find the time, come fall, to tell America that we’re playing, and praying, for President Bush.
Mr. Gatlin is already touring on behalf of the Bush campaign. He has performed at a number of Bush rallies and is scheduled to perform at the Republican National Convention next week.
Musicians can be political, and when the right time comes - and the right cause - they will be. But while I respect Bruce Springsteen’s artistry and even his opinions on the current political situation (as expressed not long back in the New York Times), I see the world differently. Here’s my take.
The intel on Iraq that President Bush saw raised red flags to some analysts and doubt in others. Some said there was an imminent threat, some said there was not. I believe that if one of Mr. Springsteen’s friends were to swear to him that his house was on fire and another that it was not, he, or anybody, would surely check it out.
I’m not sure whether Mr. Gatlin’s ‘house on fire’ analogy here is supposed to refer to the 9-11 terrorist attacks or the allegations that Iraq had weapons of mass destruction. It would appear that it is being used to represent both. Like many Fox News viewers, Mr. Gatlin has been mislead to believe that Iraq had something to do with the attacks on the United States.
Well, our house was on fire. President Bush and an army of “the good guys and the good gals” checked it out. Big Time. And as a result, the bad guys have not been able to set our house on fire again.
In either case, we were able to “check out” the fire analogy without launching a pre-emptive war in Iraq. We checked out the 9-11 attacks and found the cause to be al-Queada which was holed up in Afghanistan and we promptly (and properly in my view) launched a military action there. We were also “checking out” the WMD story via the United Nations weapons inspectors who were requesting more time to finish their job before President Bush pulled the trigger on the costly military invasion that is still killing our soldiers and draining our resources. As for not being able to ‘set our house on fire again’ that remains to be seen.
To say, as John Kerry has, that “If attacked I will respond decisively” is not enough in today’s world. Good Lord, Senator Kerry - Barney Fife would respond decisively if we were attacked again! President Bush had the strength of will and courage to pre-emptively take out those who would attack us. I say “Rock on, Mr. President” (you too, Bruce). Keep checking out the bad guys and let Barney keep peace in Mayberry (a little humor in the middle of a very serious situation).
It is obvious now that Iraq did not attack us the first time and was not in a position to attack us afterwards either. North Korea, on the other hand, does have that capability. As a charter member of Bush’s “Axis of Evil” and one that definitely does have WMDs, would Mr. Gatlin tell President Bush to “Rock on” and attack them as well?
My gratitude to the president isn’t confined to his role in keeping us safe. His tax cuts have helped all Americans who pay federal income taxes and have jump-started an economy that was in recession through no fault of President Bush.
So this is what a jump-started economy looks like? And how does Mr. Gatlin substantiate this claim that all Americans have been helped by Bush’s tax cuts? (Never mind the record national deficits.)
Those who refuse to see that have their heads in the sand and a “Kerry for President” bumper sticker on their SUVs. (I’d say the former condition is pretty much a prerequisite for the latter).
Oh, I see. By telling anyone who doesn’t agree that they have their head in the sand. Nice.
I’m no economist, but I do know two things for sure: I never got a job from a poor man; and the more money people have in their pockets, the more jobs they create by spending the money.
Bush’s first tax cuts took effect before 9-11 and the Republican-controlled Congress has passed more since then and yet Bush is still going to be the first president since Herbert Hoover to have a net loss of jobs during his watch.
President Bush’s attempts at education reform have been thwarted at every turn for fear that vouchers might actually work. (Imagine that, Ted Kennedy!)
Bush’s education reforms have never been adequately funded by the Republican-controlled Congress. Ted Kennedy had nothing to do with it. He is stuck in the minority.
His faith-based initiatives tried to help those who can’t help themselves, only to be “shot down” for fear that someone might get well and that God might have something to do with it.
OK, now he is getting a little wierd. Bush’s faith-based initiatives haven’t been ‘shot down’. The person Bush tapped to head his program quit in disgust a while back and said Bush was never serious about tackling social problems.
I was lucky. I had the money for my little “28-day vacation in pajamas” 20 years ago. There are millions out there who are not so lucky. So they die in the back streets of America for want of help. God only knows how many. (But there’s the rub - we can’t say God and government on the same page.)
Millions dying on the backstreets for want of help? Does he think we are living in Sudan? And all because some unnamed people have allegedly blocked Bush’s faith-based initiatives?? Whatever.
In closing I’d say this to Bruce Springsteen: We do have something in common - we were both “Born in the USA.” From the bottom of my heart I say, Thank God.
I got to see Larry Gatlin peform live a number of years ago at the Houston Livestock Show and Rodeo. I’ve never seen Bruce Springsteen perform, but I do have a lot of his records.
I wouldn’t expect to find any great political wisdom in an article by Gatlin (or Springsteen) but the naivete and errors in fact that are sprinkled throughout his writing is evident of someone who must get all their information from Fox News and Rush Limbaugh.
So here is Mr. Gatlin with my comments in bold:
Since Bruce Springsteen is about to “Rock the Vote” for John Kerry, I’d be only too happy to start booking my motel rooms to hit the road for George W. Bush. With my brothers Steve and Rudy, my buddies the Oak Ridge Boys, Lee Greenwood, Mark Wills and any number of other country music artists who get their support from the Heartland, I’m going to find the time, come fall, to tell America that we’re playing, and praying, for President Bush.
Mr. Gatlin is already touring on behalf of the Bush campaign. He has performed at a number of Bush rallies and is scheduled to perform at the Republican National Convention next week.
Musicians can be political, and when the right time comes - and the right cause - they will be. But while I respect Bruce Springsteen’s artistry and even his opinions on the current political situation (as expressed not long back in the New York Times), I see the world differently. Here’s my take.
The intel on Iraq that President Bush saw raised red flags to some analysts and doubt in others. Some said there was an imminent threat, some said there was not. I believe that if one of Mr. Springsteen’s friends were to swear to him that his house was on fire and another that it was not, he, or anybody, would surely check it out.
I’m not sure whether Mr. Gatlin’s ‘house on fire’ analogy here is supposed to refer to the 9-11 terrorist attacks or the allegations that Iraq had weapons of mass destruction. It would appear that it is being used to represent both. Like many Fox News viewers, Mr. Gatlin has been mislead to believe that Iraq had something to do with the attacks on the United States.
Well, our house was on fire. President Bush and an army of “the good guys and the good gals” checked it out. Big Time. And as a result, the bad guys have not been able to set our house on fire again.
In either case, we were able to “check out” the fire analogy without launching a pre-emptive war in Iraq. We checked out the 9-11 attacks and found the cause to be al-Queada which was holed up in Afghanistan and we promptly (and properly in my view) launched a military action there. We were also “checking out” the WMD story via the United Nations weapons inspectors who were requesting more time to finish their job before President Bush pulled the trigger on the costly military invasion that is still killing our soldiers and draining our resources. As for not being able to ‘set our house on fire again’ that remains to be seen.
To say, as John Kerry has, that “If attacked I will respond decisively” is not enough in today’s world. Good Lord, Senator Kerry - Barney Fife would respond decisively if we were attacked again! President Bush had the strength of will and courage to pre-emptively take out those who would attack us. I say “Rock on, Mr. President” (you too, Bruce). Keep checking out the bad guys and let Barney keep peace in Mayberry (a little humor in the middle of a very serious situation).
It is obvious now that Iraq did not attack us the first time and was not in a position to attack us afterwards either. North Korea, on the other hand, does have that capability. As a charter member of Bush’s “Axis of Evil” and one that definitely does have WMDs, would Mr. Gatlin tell President Bush to “Rock on” and attack them as well?
My gratitude to the president isn’t confined to his role in keeping us safe. His tax cuts have helped all Americans who pay federal income taxes and have jump-started an economy that was in recession through no fault of President Bush.
So this is what a jump-started economy looks like? And how does Mr. Gatlin substantiate this claim that all Americans have been helped by Bush’s tax cuts? (Never mind the record national deficits.)
Those who refuse to see that have their heads in the sand and a “Kerry for President” bumper sticker on their SUVs. (I’d say the former condition is pretty much a prerequisite for the latter).
Oh, I see. By telling anyone who doesn’t agree that they have their head in the sand. Nice.
I’m no economist, but I do know two things for sure: I never got a job from a poor man; and the more money people have in their pockets, the more jobs they create by spending the money.
Bush’s first tax cuts took effect before 9-11 and the Republican-controlled Congress has passed more since then and yet Bush is still going to be the first president since Herbert Hoover to have a net loss of jobs during his watch.
President Bush’s attempts at education reform have been thwarted at every turn for fear that vouchers might actually work. (Imagine that, Ted Kennedy!)
Bush’s education reforms have never been adequately funded by the Republican-controlled Congress. Ted Kennedy had nothing to do with it. He is stuck in the minority.
His faith-based initiatives tried to help those who can’t help themselves, only to be “shot down” for fear that someone might get well and that God might have something to do with it.
OK, now he is getting a little wierd. Bush’s faith-based initiatives haven’t been ‘shot down’. The person Bush tapped to head his program quit in disgust a while back and said Bush was never serious about tackling social problems.
I was lucky. I had the money for my little “28-day vacation in pajamas” 20 years ago. There are millions out there who are not so lucky. So they die in the back streets of America for want of help. God only knows how many. (But there’s the rub - we can’t say God and government on the same page.)
Millions dying on the backstreets for want of help? Does he think we are living in Sudan? And all because some unnamed people have allegedly blocked Bush’s faith-based initiatives?? Whatever.
In closing I’d say this to Bruce Springsteen: We do have something in common - we were both “Born in the USA.” From the bottom of my heart I say, Thank God.
I got to see Larry Gatlin peform live a number of years ago at the Houston Livestock Show and Rodeo. I’ve never seen Bruce Springsteen perform, but I do have a lot of his records.
Saturday, August 21, 2004
A piece of the Alamo
While we were in Chicago we had a friendly native point out an interesting feature about the Tribune Tower where the Chicago Tribune offices are located. All around the outside of the building they have collected bits of stone, brick and earth that was picked up at various famous places around the world.
There were pieces of the Great Pyramid in Egypt, the Taj Mahal in India, Notre Dame cathedral in France, and so forth.
Well, after a little searching we finally found the most important artifact in their collection:
There were pieces of the Great Pyramid in Egypt, the Taj Mahal in India, Notre Dame cathedral in France, and so forth.
Well, after a little searching we finally found the most important artifact in their collection:
Friday, August 20, 2004
Final word on the Swift Boat smear campaign
The New York Times has what should be the final word
on the slimy Swift Boat Liars for Bush story.
This comes just a day after the Washington Post exposed one of Kerry’s chief critics as a liar. Larry Thurlow, who commanded another swift boat during the incident when Kerry earned his Bronze Star, is contradicted by the military records that document his own Bronze Star that was earned on the same day. Thurlow has tried to claim that there was no enemy fire during the incident when Kerry fished James Rassmann out of the water, contradicting both Kerry and Rassmann and every other member of Kerry’s swift boat crew. Now, we find that the military records for Thurlow’s own Bronze Star make reference to enemy fire directed at all the swift boats at that time.
In response, Thurlow now makes the laughable suggestion that Kerry was responsible for writing up his commendation. How sad that this guy, who is by all rights a legitimate war hero, would stoop to defaming his own commendations in an effort to score political points against Kerry. Sad and pathetic.
But back to the NY Times piece. They start by showing the deep connections between the Swift Boat Vets group and the Bush campaign:
“Records show that the group received the bulk of its initial financing from two men with ties to the president and his family - one a longtime political associate of Mr. Rove's, the other a trustee of the foundation for Mr. Bush's father's presidential library. A Texas publicist who once helped prepare Mr. Bush's father for his debate when he was running for vice president provided them with strategic advice. And the group's television commercial was produced by the same team that made the devastating ad mocking Michael S. Dukakis in an oversized tank helmet when he and Mr. Bush's father faced off in the 1988 presidential election.”
Then they show how the leaders of the group have contradicted themselves over the years, some as recently as just a year ago:
“In an unpublished interview in March 2003 with Mr. Kerry's authorized biographer, Douglas Brinkley, provided by Mr. Brinkley to The New York Times, Roy F. Hoffmann, a retired rear admiral and a leader of the group, allowed that he had disagreed with Mr. Kerry's antiwar positions but said, "I am not going to say anything negative about him." He added, "He's a good man."
In a profile of the candidate that ran in The Boston Globe in June 2003, Mr. Hoffmann approvingly recalled the actions that led to Mr. Kerry's Silver Star: "It took guts, and I admire that."
George Elliott, one of the Vietnam veterans in the group, flew from his home in Delaware to Boston in 1996 to stand up for Mr. Kerry during a tough re-election fight, declaring at a news conference that the action that won Mr. Kerry a Silver Star was "an act of courage." At that same event, Adrian L. Lonsdale, another Vietnam veteran now speaking out against Mr. Kerry, supported him with a statement about the "bravado and courage of the young officers that ran the Swift boats."
"Senator Kerry was no exception," Mr. Lonsdale told the reporters and cameras assembled at the Charlestown Navy Yard. "He was among the finest of those Swift boat drivers."
Those comments echoed the official record. In an evaluation of Mr. Kerry in 1969, Mr. Elliott, who was one of his commanders, ranked him as "not exceeded" in 11 categories, including moral courage, judgment and decisiveness, and "one of the top few" - the second-highest distinction - in the remaining five. In written comments, he called Mr. Kerry "unsurpassed," "beyond reproach" and "the acknowledged leader in his peer group."
It sounds like the Kerry campaign could make a pretty good comercial of their own using these guys’ statements and the official record. Talk about flip-flopping!
The story goes on to relate how the Swift Boat group, with the backing of big Republican campaign donors, hired a private investigator to try and dig up dirt on Kerry’s war record. And he apparently accomplished this by misleading the people he interviewed and then misrepresenting what they said:
“Patrick Runyon, who served on a mission with Mr. Kerry, said he initially thought the caller was from a pro-Kerry group, and happily gave a statement about the night Mr. Kerry won his first Purple Heart. The investigator said he would send it to him by e-mail for his signature. Mr. Runyon said the edited version was stripped of all references to enemy combat, making it look like just another night in the Mekong Delta.
"It made it sound like I didn't believe we got any returned fire," he said. "He made it sound like it was a normal operation. It was the scariest night of my life."
The story goes on to poke further holes in the Swift Boat Vet’s allegations and by the end it is clear that their real gripe with Kerry is that he chose to protest the war after leaving Vietnam.
It is unfortunate that the group didn’t stick with that criticism instead of resorting to making false and malicious smears against Kerry’s military service. By casting aspersions on Kerry, they are also calling into question the credibility of every member of the military who served in Vietnam and received commendations. If we supposedly cannot trust the documentation for Kerry’s wartime medals (or for Thurlow’s) then can we trust any of them? I believe that we can and I find the charges being leveled by the Swift Boat Vets group to be scurrilous and denigrating to all military veterans. A truly despicable enterprise and one that George W. Bush should have denounced long ago if he had a shred of decency.
on the slimy Swift Boat Liars for Bush story.
This comes just a day after the Washington Post exposed one of Kerry’s chief critics as a liar. Larry Thurlow, who commanded another swift boat during the incident when Kerry earned his Bronze Star, is contradicted by the military records that document his own Bronze Star that was earned on the same day. Thurlow has tried to claim that there was no enemy fire during the incident when Kerry fished James Rassmann out of the water, contradicting both Kerry and Rassmann and every other member of Kerry’s swift boat crew. Now, we find that the military records for Thurlow’s own Bronze Star make reference to enemy fire directed at all the swift boats at that time.
In response, Thurlow now makes the laughable suggestion that Kerry was responsible for writing up his commendation. How sad that this guy, who is by all rights a legitimate war hero, would stoop to defaming his own commendations in an effort to score political points against Kerry. Sad and pathetic.
But back to the NY Times piece. They start by showing the deep connections between the Swift Boat Vets group and the Bush campaign:
“Records show that the group received the bulk of its initial financing from two men with ties to the president and his family - one a longtime political associate of Mr. Rove's, the other a trustee of the foundation for Mr. Bush's father's presidential library. A Texas publicist who once helped prepare Mr. Bush's father for his debate when he was running for vice president provided them with strategic advice. And the group's television commercial was produced by the same team that made the devastating ad mocking Michael S. Dukakis in an oversized tank helmet when he and Mr. Bush's father faced off in the 1988 presidential election.”
Then they show how the leaders of the group have contradicted themselves over the years, some as recently as just a year ago:
“In an unpublished interview in March 2003 with Mr. Kerry's authorized biographer, Douglas Brinkley, provided by Mr. Brinkley to The New York Times, Roy F. Hoffmann, a retired rear admiral and a leader of the group, allowed that he had disagreed with Mr. Kerry's antiwar positions but said, "I am not going to say anything negative about him." He added, "He's a good man."
In a profile of the candidate that ran in The Boston Globe in June 2003, Mr. Hoffmann approvingly recalled the actions that led to Mr. Kerry's Silver Star: "It took guts, and I admire that."
George Elliott, one of the Vietnam veterans in the group, flew from his home in Delaware to Boston in 1996 to stand up for Mr. Kerry during a tough re-election fight, declaring at a news conference that the action that won Mr. Kerry a Silver Star was "an act of courage." At that same event, Adrian L. Lonsdale, another Vietnam veteran now speaking out against Mr. Kerry, supported him with a statement about the "bravado and courage of the young officers that ran the Swift boats."
"Senator Kerry was no exception," Mr. Lonsdale told the reporters and cameras assembled at the Charlestown Navy Yard. "He was among the finest of those Swift boat drivers."
Those comments echoed the official record. In an evaluation of Mr. Kerry in 1969, Mr. Elliott, who was one of his commanders, ranked him as "not exceeded" in 11 categories, including moral courage, judgment and decisiveness, and "one of the top few" - the second-highest distinction - in the remaining five. In written comments, he called Mr. Kerry "unsurpassed," "beyond reproach" and "the acknowledged leader in his peer group."
It sounds like the Kerry campaign could make a pretty good comercial of their own using these guys’ statements and the official record. Talk about flip-flopping!
The story goes on to relate how the Swift Boat group, with the backing of big Republican campaign donors, hired a private investigator to try and dig up dirt on Kerry’s war record. And he apparently accomplished this by misleading the people he interviewed and then misrepresenting what they said:
“Patrick Runyon, who served on a mission with Mr. Kerry, said he initially thought the caller was from a pro-Kerry group, and happily gave a statement about the night Mr. Kerry won his first Purple Heart. The investigator said he would send it to him by e-mail for his signature. Mr. Runyon said the edited version was stripped of all references to enemy combat, making it look like just another night in the Mekong Delta.
"It made it sound like I didn't believe we got any returned fire," he said. "He made it sound like it was a normal operation. It was the scariest night of my life."
The story goes on to poke further holes in the Swift Boat Vet’s allegations and by the end it is clear that their real gripe with Kerry is that he chose to protest the war after leaving Vietnam.
It is unfortunate that the group didn’t stick with that criticism instead of resorting to making false and malicious smears against Kerry’s military service. By casting aspersions on Kerry, they are also calling into question the credibility of every member of the military who served in Vietnam and received commendations. If we supposedly cannot trust the documentation for Kerry’s wartime medals (or for Thurlow’s) then can we trust any of them? I believe that we can and I find the charges being leveled by the Swift Boat Vets group to be scurrilous and denigrating to all military veterans. A truly despicable enterprise and one that George W. Bush should have denounced long ago if he had a shred of decency.
Wednesday, August 18, 2004
Republican congressman outs himself
U.S. Rep. Doug Bereuter, R-Neb., is coming out of the closet.
No, not that kind of closet. The closet where they stuffed all of the Republicans who didn’t agree with President Bush’s pre-emtive invasion of Iraq.
Here is what Bereuter told his constituents the other day:
”I've reached the conclusion, retrospectively, now that the inadequate intelligence and faulty conclusions are being revealed, that all things being considered, it was a mistake to launch that military action," Bereuter wrote in a letter to constituents in the final days of his congressional career.
That's especially true in view of the fact that the attack was initiated "without a broad and engaged international coalition," he said.
"Knowing now what I know about the reliance on the tenuous or insufficiently corroborated intelligence used to conclude that Saddam maintained a substantial WMD (weapons of mass destruction) arsenal, I believe that launching the pre-emptive military action was not justified."
As a result of the war, he said, "our country's reputation around the world has never been lower and our alliances are weakened.”
Wow, John Kerry couldn’t have said it better.
Bereuter is not just any old congressman either. He is a senior member of the House International Relations Committee and vice chairman of the House Intelligence Committee.
Of course, Bereuter is only saying all this on the last day of his Congressional career before he steps down to take a job in the private sector, perhaps to clear his conscience or something.
No, not that kind of closet. The closet where they stuffed all of the Republicans who didn’t agree with President Bush’s pre-emtive invasion of Iraq.
Here is what Bereuter told his constituents the other day:
”I've reached the conclusion, retrospectively, now that the inadequate intelligence and faulty conclusions are being revealed, that all things being considered, it was a mistake to launch that military action," Bereuter wrote in a letter to constituents in the final days of his congressional career.
That's especially true in view of the fact that the attack was initiated "without a broad and engaged international coalition," he said.
"Knowing now what I know about the reliance on the tenuous or insufficiently corroborated intelligence used to conclude that Saddam maintained a substantial WMD (weapons of mass destruction) arsenal, I believe that launching the pre-emptive military action was not justified."
As a result of the war, he said, "our country's reputation around the world has never been lower and our alliances are weakened.”
Wow, John Kerry couldn’t have said it better.
Bereuter is not just any old congressman either. He is a senior member of the House International Relations Committee and vice chairman of the House Intelligence Committee.
Of course, Bereuter is only saying all this on the last day of his Congressional career before he steps down to take a job in the private sector, perhaps to clear his conscience or something.
Monday, August 16, 2004
A jazzy new blog
My friend Robert Shearer has invited me to join him as co-author of a new weblog that will focus on classical music and jazz.
The new blog is called Theme and Variations and it will serve as an outlet where Robert and I can earnestly explore, espouse and express our enthusiasm for these great forms of music.
So I would entreat you to drop by and check it out on occasion as we embark on this exciting endeavor to eloquently elucidate our enjoyment of everything from Bach to Benny Goodman. OK, enough already.
The new blog is called Theme and Variations and it will serve as an outlet where Robert and I can earnestly explore, espouse and express our enthusiasm for these great forms of music.
So I would entreat you to drop by and check it out on occasion as we embark on this exciting endeavor to eloquently elucidate our enjoyment of everything from Bach to Benny Goodman. OK, enough already.
Sunday, August 15, 2004
The Bean
I finally figured out how to upload pictures to my personal web page provided by my ISP so now I can post them on my blog.
This is a picture of the new sculpture at Millennium Park in Chicago that I thought was so neat. They call it the Bean.
Wow, this is cool!
This is a picture of the new sculpture at Millennium Park in Chicago that I thought was so neat. They call it the Bean.
Wow, this is cool!
Mixed music
I got this idea from Rox
Populi who added me to her blogroll recently for reasons unknown to me.
I don't have an iPod or any other kind of MP3 player, but I do have iTunes
on my Mac at work and I have loaded up quite a few songs over time. It is
not by any means a comprehensive representation of my collection and right
now it has a lot of Bing Crosby and Bob Dylan. (My computer crashed a while
back and I lost all of the Beatles and Rolling Stones that I had put on it).
But for now here is what I came up with when I generated a random set of 12
songs:
"Life Could Not Better Be" - Danny Kaye
"Dust In the Wind" - Kansas
"Answer Me, My Love" - Bing Crosby
"Home on the Range" - Bing Crosby
"Ma-Ma-Ma Belle" - Electric Light Orchestra
"My Back Pages" - Bob Dylan
"Swinging On a Star" - Bing Crosby
"A Fine Romance" - Bing Crosby and Dixie Lee
"The Last Roundup" - Bing Crosby
"You're Getting To Be a Habit With Me" - Bing Crosby
"Dead Man Blues" - Jelly Roll Morton's Red Hot Peppers
"Sam's Song" - Bing and Gary Crosby
I thought that was a lot of Bing Crosby, so I did it one more time and came
up with this list:
"Smoke on the Water" - Deep Purple
"Jump" - Van Halen
"Crying in the Chapel" - Elvis Presley
"I Got the Sun in the Morning" - Bing Crosby
"Hotter Than Hell" - KISS
"Are Your Lonesome Tonight" - Elvis Presley
"Oh, Lady Be Good" - Ella Fitzgerald
"The Spaniard That Blighted My Life" - Bing Crosby and Al Jolson
"Poundcake" - Van Halen
"The Jones Boys" - Bing Crosby
"Bobby Jean" - Bruce Springsteen
"Be Careful, It's My Heart" - Bing Crosby
Populi who added me to her blogroll recently for reasons unknown to me.
I don't have an iPod or any other kind of MP3 player, but I do have iTunes
on my Mac at work and I have loaded up quite a few songs over time. It is
not by any means a comprehensive representation of my collection and right
now it has a lot of Bing Crosby and Bob Dylan. (My computer crashed a while
back and I lost all of the Beatles and Rolling Stones that I had put on it).
But for now here is what I came up with when I generated a random set of 12
songs:
"Life Could Not Better Be" - Danny Kaye
"Dust In the Wind" - Kansas
"Answer Me, My Love" - Bing Crosby
"Home on the Range" - Bing Crosby
"Ma-Ma-Ma Belle" - Electric Light Orchestra
"My Back Pages" - Bob Dylan
"Swinging On a Star" - Bing Crosby
"A Fine Romance" - Bing Crosby and Dixie Lee
"The Last Roundup" - Bing Crosby
"You're Getting To Be a Habit With Me" - Bing Crosby
"Dead Man Blues" - Jelly Roll Morton's Red Hot Peppers
"Sam's Song" - Bing and Gary Crosby
I thought that was a lot of Bing Crosby, so I did it one more time and came
up with this list:
"Smoke on the Water" - Deep Purple
"Jump" - Van Halen
"Crying in the Chapel" - Elvis Presley
"I Got the Sun in the Morning" - Bing Crosby
"Hotter Than Hell" - KISS
"Are Your Lonesome Tonight" - Elvis Presley
"Oh, Lady Be Good" - Ella Fitzgerald
"The Spaniard That Blighted My Life" - Bing Crosby and Al Jolson
"Poundcake" - Van Halen
"The Jones Boys" - Bing Crosby
"Bobby Jean" - Bruce Springsteen
"Be Careful, It's My Heart" - Bing Crosby
Friday, August 13, 2004
Shifting the tax burden
Here is a news story obviously written by some liberal reporter at the Washington Post...
Tax Burden Shifts to the Middle
“Since 2001, President Bush's tax cuts have shifted federal tax payments from the richest Americans to a wide swath of middle-class families, the Congressional Budget Office has found, a conclusion likely to roil the presidential election campaign.
The CBO study, due to be released today, found that the wealthiest 20 percent, whose incomes averaged $182,700 in 2001, saw their share of federal taxes drop from 64.4 percent of total tax payments in 2001 to 63.5 percent this year. The top 1 percent, earning $1.1 million, saw their share fall to 20.1 percent of the total, from 22.2 percent.
Over that same period, taxpayers with incomes from around $51,500 to around $75,600 saw their share of federal tax payments increase. Households earning around $75,600 saw their tax burden jump the most, from 18.7 percent of all taxes to 19.5 percent.”
It is nice to know that my share of the tax burden has gone up at the same time that the country has accumulated a record budget deficit and our troops are tied down in a bloody and expensive war in the Middle East with no end in sight.
Four more years of George Bush gets scarier and scarier all the time.
Tax Burden Shifts to the Middle
“Since 2001, President Bush's tax cuts have shifted federal tax payments from the richest Americans to a wide swath of middle-class families, the Congressional Budget Office has found, a conclusion likely to roil the presidential election campaign.
The CBO study, due to be released today, found that the wealthiest 20 percent, whose incomes averaged $182,700 in 2001, saw their share of federal taxes drop from 64.4 percent of total tax payments in 2001 to 63.5 percent this year. The top 1 percent, earning $1.1 million, saw their share fall to 20.1 percent of the total, from 22.2 percent.
Over that same period, taxpayers with incomes from around $51,500 to around $75,600 saw their share of federal tax payments increase. Households earning around $75,600 saw their tax burden jump the most, from 18.7 percent of all taxes to 19.5 percent.”
It is nice to know that my share of the tax burden has gone up at the same time that the country has accumulated a record budget deficit and our troops are tied down in a bloody and expensive war in the Middle East with no end in sight.
Four more years of George Bush gets scarier and scarier all the time.
Journalists and Pro Wrestlers
Ken Rodriguez, a sports writer who took over the metro column at the Express-News when Rick Casey left, today slanders all journalists by comparing them to pro wrestlers. Rodriguez claims that the media is finally revealing that it has a leftist bias and compares it to wrestlers admitting that their matches are fake and scripted.
That is quite a slap in the face from a fellow journalist who really should know better. I’ve been a journalist now for 14 years and I obviously have liberal political beliefs, but that does not mean that I am incapable of being professional in my work and writing news stories that are free of bias and opinion. I have worked in some very conservative communities for most of my career - Kerrville, Lubbock - and have never once been accused of being biased in my reporting. But obviously Rodriguez doesn’t believe this is possible. Maybe as a sports writer he is incapable of writing about a game between two teams without making it clear to the reader which of the two teams he favors. But most good reporters are capable of doing just that.
To make his case, Rodriguez points to the New York Times’ as one example. Well, yes, the NYT should be viewed as a “liberal” paper in the same way that the Wall Street Journal is viewed as a “conservative” paper. But that pertains mainly to the editorial pages and should not (and in most cases does not) make a difference for the straight news reporting which is excellent for both papers.
He also points us to a study by the American Society of Newspaper Editors that showed that most journalists are more liberal than their readers. But the study does not say that the work performed by these reporters is biased. To the contrary, most liberal journalists go out of their way to avoid even the slightest hint of liberal bias (and will even add a helping of conservative bias) to avoid the scolding they would recieve from right-wing “watchdog” groups that constantly attack the media for being too liberal.
But the most interesting thing about Rodriguez’ column is who he taps to support his claim not just that reporters tend to be liberal, but that their output is biased and untrustworthy (like the phony pro wrestlers) - He looks to the conservative editorial page at the Dallas Morning News, conservative Washington Post columnist Robert J. Samuelson and Charles Krauthammer, another conservative Washington Post columnist.
That is quite a slap in the face from a fellow journalist who really should know better. I’ve been a journalist now for 14 years and I obviously have liberal political beliefs, but that does not mean that I am incapable of being professional in my work and writing news stories that are free of bias and opinion. I have worked in some very conservative communities for most of my career - Kerrville, Lubbock - and have never once been accused of being biased in my reporting. But obviously Rodriguez doesn’t believe this is possible. Maybe as a sports writer he is incapable of writing about a game between two teams without making it clear to the reader which of the two teams he favors. But most good reporters are capable of doing just that.
To make his case, Rodriguez points to the New York Times’ as one example. Well, yes, the NYT should be viewed as a “liberal” paper in the same way that the Wall Street Journal is viewed as a “conservative” paper. But that pertains mainly to the editorial pages and should not (and in most cases does not) make a difference for the straight news reporting which is excellent for both papers.
He also points us to a study by the American Society of Newspaper Editors that showed that most journalists are more liberal than their readers. But the study does not say that the work performed by these reporters is biased. To the contrary, most liberal journalists go out of their way to avoid even the slightest hint of liberal bias (and will even add a helping of conservative bias) to avoid the scolding they would recieve from right-wing “watchdog” groups that constantly attack the media for being too liberal.
But the most interesting thing about Rodriguez’ column is who he taps to support his claim not just that reporters tend to be liberal, but that their output is biased and untrustworthy (like the phony pro wrestlers) - He looks to the conservative editorial page at the Dallas Morning News, conservative Washington Post columnist Robert J. Samuelson and Charles Krauthammer, another conservative Washington Post columnist.
Thursday, August 12, 2004
An OK film and a great film
Finally got around to seeing "Matrix Revolutions" (the third one) last week. I bought it on DVD a while back (used from Hollywood Video where I get most of my movies these days).
It wasn't as bad as I had feared, but I can see why it was such a disappointment after the first two films. Some of my biggest gripes would spoil the movie for anyone who hasn't seen it, so I will just say that when it was all over you wondered what the point of all that fighting was. How many times do we need to watch Neo and Agent Smith slam into one another at super speed?
More recently we just finished watching "Master and Commander" and that was a very good film. Definitely deserving of the Best Picture nomination that it received. Russell Crowe continues to impress with just about every film he does. Although I still think his best role was in "LA Confidential."
By the way, both films had actors who were in "Lord of the Rings." Hugo Weaving plays Agent Smith in Matrix and is also Elrond in the Rings trilogy. Billy Boyd, who played Pippin in LOTR, was one of the sailors in "Master and Commander."
It wasn't as bad as I had feared, but I can see why it was such a disappointment after the first two films. Some of my biggest gripes would spoil the movie for anyone who hasn't seen it, so I will just say that when it was all over you wondered what the point of all that fighting was. How many times do we need to watch Neo and Agent Smith slam into one another at super speed?
More recently we just finished watching "Master and Commander" and that was a very good film. Definitely deserving of the Best Picture nomination that it received. Russell Crowe continues to impress with just about every film he does. Although I still think his best role was in "LA Confidential."
By the way, both films had actors who were in "Lord of the Rings." Hugo Weaving plays Agent Smith in Matrix and is also Elrond in the Rings trilogy. Billy Boyd, who played Pippin in LOTR, was one of the sailors in "Master and Commander."
The authority to wage war
I like Adam Felber's take on this charge that Kerry is supposedly flip-flopping by defending his vote to give Bush the authorization needed to wage war in Iraq.
"Let's imagine that I have a son, a little nine year-old boy. Let's name him Thaddeus, too, because there's no harm in giving imaginary kids humiliating-but-undeniably-cute names.
So one summer afternoon, little Thad comes scampering into the house, trailed by the unmistakable sound of an ice cream truck's melody. "Dad," says Thad, "Can I get some some ice cream?"
"Why, of course, Thad," I say, remembering my youth and wanting only the best for young Thaddeus. He charges outside, yelling, "Ice cream! Ice cream!" I smile fondly at his retreating form...
Outside, young Thaddeus grabs a baseball bat, a sturdy Louisville Slugger, runs to the ice cream truck, and assaults the ice cream man. He beats him bloody, renders him unconscious, and ties him up in the back of the truck. Thad takes the ice cream truck for a 2 hour, reckless joyride, knocking over road-signs, terrorizing the neighborhood, squashing Mrs. Abram's dog, and traumatizing several local children for life. Thad finally runs the truck over a cliff, jumping out just in time before it plummets 200 feet onto a rocky beach, sending the ice cream man and all his tempting confections to a fiery doom.
Twenty minutes later, Thaddeus comes home, munching happily on a Chocolate Swirl-Kone with sprinkles. Immediately, I lay into him, lecturing him sternly, grounding him, and venting my extreme disapproval. Thad looks at me squarely and protests, "But Dad, you said I could get ice cream."
I'm nonplussed. He's got a point. Am I a flip-flopper?"
By saying that he still would have voted to give Bush the authority to wage war even knowing what we know today, Kerry is paying Bush an undeserved compliment. He is not saying that he would have supported going to war. Just that he still believes the president should have that as an option if he deems it necessary. Kerry was willing to give Bush that authority, but Bush misused it.
I said at the time that Bush was actually aiding the U.N. inspectors by threatening force against Saddam. Unfortunately, Bush had an itchy trigger finger and failed to play to diplomacy game the way his father did. Now we are paying the price.
"Let's imagine that I have a son, a little nine year-old boy. Let's name him Thaddeus, too, because there's no harm in giving imaginary kids humiliating-but-undeniably-cute names.
So one summer afternoon, little Thad comes scampering into the house, trailed by the unmistakable sound of an ice cream truck's melody. "Dad," says Thad, "Can I get some some ice cream?"
"Why, of course, Thad," I say, remembering my youth and wanting only the best for young Thaddeus. He charges outside, yelling, "Ice cream! Ice cream!" I smile fondly at his retreating form...
Outside, young Thaddeus grabs a baseball bat, a sturdy Louisville Slugger, runs to the ice cream truck, and assaults the ice cream man. He beats him bloody, renders him unconscious, and ties him up in the back of the truck. Thad takes the ice cream truck for a 2 hour, reckless joyride, knocking over road-signs, terrorizing the neighborhood, squashing Mrs. Abram's dog, and traumatizing several local children for life. Thad finally runs the truck over a cliff, jumping out just in time before it plummets 200 feet onto a rocky beach, sending the ice cream man and all his tempting confections to a fiery doom.
Twenty minutes later, Thaddeus comes home, munching happily on a Chocolate Swirl-Kone with sprinkles. Immediately, I lay into him, lecturing him sternly, grounding him, and venting my extreme disapproval. Thad looks at me squarely and protests, "But Dad, you said I could get ice cream."
I'm nonplussed. He's got a point. Am I a flip-flopper?"
By saying that he still would have voted to give Bush the authority to wage war even knowing what we know today, Kerry is paying Bush an undeserved compliment. He is not saying that he would have supported going to war. Just that he still believes the president should have that as an option if he deems it necessary. Kerry was willing to give Bush that authority, but Bush misused it.
I said at the time that Bush was actually aiding the U.N. inspectors by threatening force against Saddam. Unfortunately, Bush had an itchy trigger finger and failed to play to diplomacy game the way his father did. Now we are paying the price.
Wednesday, August 11, 2004
That's all I have to say about that...
OK, I've read about all I can stomach of this sniping about Kerry's war record.
I think it is sad that Kerry tells his story, has it backed up by all the formal military documentation that was signed by his superior officers, and it is corraborated by all the veterans who served with him on his boat and were closest to the action, and yet his political detractors still claim that he is lying.
They question the severity of his wounds that led to two of his Purple Hearts (I take it that they begrudgingly grant that he earned his second Purple Heart). But Kerry could have lost both legs and an arm like Max Cleland did and that still would not have stopped them from denigrating his service to his country.
They say that his first wound was just a scratch, but I would think that having a piece of shrapnel lodged in your arm would sting just a bit more than that. They also have someone coming forward claiming that he was the one who treated the wound even though his name is not on the medical records. That individual, Dr. Letson, says it was his assistant who signed the paperwork. But that does not make sense to have one person treat the wound and another person sign the paperwork. I don't believe him.
They claim that Kerry does not deserve either his Silver Star or his Bronze Star. In the case of the Silver Star they claim that Kerry chased down a wounded Viet Cong and shot him in the back to earn the commendation. Yet the documents make no reference to Kerry shooting anyone and instead cite his heroism in charging his boat directly at a group of Viet Cong that had ambushed them. Kerry did jump off the boat and shoot a Viet Cong who was carrying a rocket launcher and thus could have killed every man on his boat.
In questioning the Bronze Star incident they claim that there was no enemy fire when Kerry retrieved Jim Rassman who had fallen over board after the boat was struck by a mine. But that charge is in stark contrast to what Rassman says. He says he was ducking under water to dodge bullets until Kerry came to fish him out. Kerry's critics would have us believe someone who was several hundred yards away who 30-plus years later now claims that there was no enemy firing at Rassman.
I've read a lot of nitpicking on right-wing web sites that quite frankly disgust me at this point. These people have no right to be questioning these awards 30 years later when all they have is the foggy recollections of people who were not anywhere near the action as it occurred and now have a political agenda that they are serving.
They whine that Kerry hasn't released all of his military records when there are reams of paperwork available on his website at www.johnkerry.com. It is an impressively complete collection. I wish I had that much documentation on my father's service in Vietnam but I quite frankly don't know where the paperwork is or if it still exists, if it ever did. We have seen how much trouble Bush has had pulling together all of his National Guard paperwork.
And then there is this nonsense about Kerry lying about going into Cambodia around Christmas of 1968. It is well documented today that we had troops and intelligence people going into Cambodia back then even though it was not admitted at the time. It would make no sense for Kerry to make up a story like that and the fact that there is no official record of such action is not proof that it did not happen.
When Kerry came back from Vietnam he joined a group of veterans who were lobbying against the war. This is the main reason that most of the Swift Boat Vets for Bush are participating in this smear campaign. I suppose they think that if you feel that a war that is slaughtering thousands of your fellow soldiers is wrong and bad policy the best thing to do is to keep your mouth shut. I admire Kerry for standing up for what he believed was right in the face of such lock-step opposition. Kerry was a moderating influence on the protest group and eventually quit when they became too radical. The worst that can be said about Kerry is that he gave voice to some allegations of wartime atrocities that painted with too broad a brush. Kerry has admitted that he would have voiced these things differently if he had it to do over. I can forgive him for that. Others obviously can't.
The final word is that Kerry volunteered to go to Vietnam while George Bush used family connections to secure a spot in the Texas National Guard. There is evidence that Bush failed to show up for at least five months of his service in 1972 and did not take his flight physical that year which resulted in his being grounded - thus wasting all of the military training that had gone into teaching him to fly. But Bush supporters are willing to forgive him for that, which is fine.
We should look at what these two individuals will do for our country during the next four years and not obsess so much with what they did in the distant past.
I think it is sad that Kerry tells his story, has it backed up by all the formal military documentation that was signed by his superior officers, and it is corraborated by all the veterans who served with him on his boat and were closest to the action, and yet his political detractors still claim that he is lying.
They question the severity of his wounds that led to two of his Purple Hearts (I take it that they begrudgingly grant that he earned his second Purple Heart). But Kerry could have lost both legs and an arm like Max Cleland did and that still would not have stopped them from denigrating his service to his country.
They say that his first wound was just a scratch, but I would think that having a piece of shrapnel lodged in your arm would sting just a bit more than that. They also have someone coming forward claiming that he was the one who treated the wound even though his name is not on the medical records. That individual, Dr. Letson, says it was his assistant who signed the paperwork. But that does not make sense to have one person treat the wound and another person sign the paperwork. I don't believe him.
They claim that Kerry does not deserve either his Silver Star or his Bronze Star. In the case of the Silver Star they claim that Kerry chased down a wounded Viet Cong and shot him in the back to earn the commendation. Yet the documents make no reference to Kerry shooting anyone and instead cite his heroism in charging his boat directly at a group of Viet Cong that had ambushed them. Kerry did jump off the boat and shoot a Viet Cong who was carrying a rocket launcher and thus could have killed every man on his boat.
In questioning the Bronze Star incident they claim that there was no enemy fire when Kerry retrieved Jim Rassman who had fallen over board after the boat was struck by a mine. But that charge is in stark contrast to what Rassman says. He says he was ducking under water to dodge bullets until Kerry came to fish him out. Kerry's critics would have us believe someone who was several hundred yards away who 30-plus years later now claims that there was no enemy firing at Rassman.
I've read a lot of nitpicking on right-wing web sites that quite frankly disgust me at this point. These people have no right to be questioning these awards 30 years later when all they have is the foggy recollections of people who were not anywhere near the action as it occurred and now have a political agenda that they are serving.
They whine that Kerry hasn't released all of his military records when there are reams of paperwork available on his website at www.johnkerry.com. It is an impressively complete collection. I wish I had that much documentation on my father's service in Vietnam but I quite frankly don't know where the paperwork is or if it still exists, if it ever did. We have seen how much trouble Bush has had pulling together all of his National Guard paperwork.
And then there is this nonsense about Kerry lying about going into Cambodia around Christmas of 1968. It is well documented today that we had troops and intelligence people going into Cambodia back then even though it was not admitted at the time. It would make no sense for Kerry to make up a story like that and the fact that there is no official record of such action is not proof that it did not happen.
When Kerry came back from Vietnam he joined a group of veterans who were lobbying against the war. This is the main reason that most of the Swift Boat Vets for Bush are participating in this smear campaign. I suppose they think that if you feel that a war that is slaughtering thousands of your fellow soldiers is wrong and bad policy the best thing to do is to keep your mouth shut. I admire Kerry for standing up for what he believed was right in the face of such lock-step opposition. Kerry was a moderating influence on the protest group and eventually quit when they became too radical. The worst that can be said about Kerry is that he gave voice to some allegations of wartime atrocities that painted with too broad a brush. Kerry has admitted that he would have voiced these things differently if he had it to do over. I can forgive him for that. Others obviously can't.
The final word is that Kerry volunteered to go to Vietnam while George Bush used family connections to secure a spot in the Texas National Guard. There is evidence that Bush failed to show up for at least five months of his service in 1972 and did not take his flight physical that year which resulted in his being grounded - thus wasting all of the military training that had gone into teaching him to fly. But Bush supporters are willing to forgive him for that, which is fine.
We should look at what these two individuals will do for our country during the next four years and not obsess so much with what they did in the distant past.
Tuesday, August 10, 2004
Truth or Smear
This website has one of the best point-by-point rundowns of all the allegations raised by the Swift Boat Vets for Bush.
FactCheck.org is another good place to go for a thorough examination of the charges and countercharges.
I've just started reading through it all and will post more when I have time.
FactCheck.org is another good place to go for a thorough examination of the charges and countercharges.
I've just started reading through it all and will post more when I have time.
Saturday, August 07, 2004
Ideology over science
The Bush administration has "reassigned" the senior career official in the Endangered Species Office at the Interior Department, according to The New York Times .
Gary Frazer had produced serveral scientific findings that angered his political superiors in the Fish and Wildlife Service. Ideology over science is a major theme of the Bush team. So Frazer is out.
Remember when President Clinton fired the director of the White House Travel Office? Remember the huge fuss that Republicans and the media made over that? The Frazer story was buried on page A10 today. Wow. Some liberal media we have.
Gary Frazer had produced serveral scientific findings that angered his political superiors in the Fish and Wildlife Service. Ideology over science is a major theme of the Bush team. So Frazer is out.
Remember when President Clinton fired the director of the White House Travel Office? Remember the huge fuss that Republicans and the media made over that? The Frazer story was buried on page A10 today. Wow. Some liberal media we have.
Friday, August 06, 2004
Swift Boat Liars for Bush
The new ad by the group Swift Boat Veterans for Truth is the most disgusting and despicable political attack I think I have ever seen.
The men in the ad claim to have served in Vietnam with Kerry and then question his veracity, his honor, his leadership and just about everything else. As it turns out, none of these veterans who claim to have such intimate knowledge of Kerry's service in Vietnam were actually on his boat or under his command at any time. The ones who actually did serve side by side with Kerry have all vouched for his heroism and are supporting his campaign for the presidency.
Atrios and Kos have done a lot of the heavy lifting already to expose the ads as false and malicious.
Sen. John McCain has also come out in Kerry's defense.
And it is especially galling that Republicans feel they can make points by attacking Kerry's service in Vietnam when their own guy not only avoided going to Vietnam by using family connections to secure a cushy slot in the Texas National Guard, but he didn't even bother to show up for a five-month period in 1972.
What makes me the most angry about all of this, however, is that if these people can get away with smearing Kerry by calling into question whether he truly deserved or earned his medals, then they could do the same to anyone who fought for their country and received a commendation. As I've noted before, my father was a Vietnam veteran who recieved a Silver Star for valor the same as Kerry. Everytime I hear these shameless Republican drones attack Kerry, the same way they attacked Max Cleland and John McCain, I imagine them doing the same thing to my father and it makes my blood boil.
Kerry has released all of his military records and they show glowing testaments from his commanding officers and his medals and commendations are all documented. If that is not good enough then nothing ever will be for these people.
If these veterans want to say that they don't agree with Kerry's political philosophy or his economic and foreign policies then that is fine. But saying that Kerry did not serve honorably in Vietnam and alleging that he did not deserve his medals is the lowest and slimiest political stunt I have ever seen.
The men in the ad claim to have served in Vietnam with Kerry and then question his veracity, his honor, his leadership and just about everything else. As it turns out, none of these veterans who claim to have such intimate knowledge of Kerry's service in Vietnam were actually on his boat or under his command at any time. The ones who actually did serve side by side with Kerry have all vouched for his heroism and are supporting his campaign for the presidency.
Atrios and Kos have done a lot of the heavy lifting already to expose the ads as false and malicious.
Sen. John McCain has also come out in Kerry's defense.
And it is especially galling that Republicans feel they can make points by attacking Kerry's service in Vietnam when their own guy not only avoided going to Vietnam by using family connections to secure a cushy slot in the Texas National Guard, but he didn't even bother to show up for a five-month period in 1972.
What makes me the most angry about all of this, however, is that if these people can get away with smearing Kerry by calling into question whether he truly deserved or earned his medals, then they could do the same to anyone who fought for their country and received a commendation. As I've noted before, my father was a Vietnam veteran who recieved a Silver Star for valor the same as Kerry. Everytime I hear these shameless Republican drones attack Kerry, the same way they attacked Max Cleland and John McCain, I imagine them doing the same thing to my father and it makes my blood boil.
Kerry has released all of his military records and they show glowing testaments from his commanding officers and his medals and commendations are all documented. If that is not good enough then nothing ever will be for these people.
If these veterans want to say that they don't agree with Kerry's political philosophy or his economic and foreign policies then that is fine. But saying that Kerry did not serve honorably in Vietnam and alleging that he did not deserve his medals is the lowest and slimiest political stunt I have ever seen.
Thursday, August 05, 2004
"The Boss" says Vote for Kerry!
Bruce Springsteen is leading an all-star contingent of rock and rollers to stump for John Kerry this fall. The lineup is pretty impressive:
Bruce “The Boss” Springsteen and the E Street Band
REM
John Mellencamp
Dave Matthews Band
Pearl Jam
Bonnie Raitt
Jackson Browne
The Dixie Chicks
John Fogerty
James Taylor
Springsteen even wrote an The New York Times > Opinion > op-ed in the NY Times today...
“Like many others, in the aftermath of 9/11, I felt the country's unity. I don't remember anything quite like it. I supported the decision to enter Afghanistan and I hoped that the seriousness of the times would bring forth strength, humility and wisdom in our leaders. Instead, we dived headlong into an unnecessary war in Iraq, offering up the lives of our young men and women under circumstances that are now discredited. We ran record deficits, while simultaneously cutting and squeezing services like afterschool programs. We granted tax cuts to the richest 1 percent (corporate bigwigs, well-to-do guitar players), increasing the division of wealth that threatens to destroy our social contract with one another and render mute the promise of "one nation indivisible."”
Go Bruuuuuuuuuce!!!!
Bruce “The Boss” Springsteen and the E Street Band
REM
John Mellencamp
Dave Matthews Band
Pearl Jam
Bonnie Raitt
Jackson Browne
The Dixie Chicks
John Fogerty
James Taylor
Springsteen even wrote an The New York Times > Opinion > op-ed in the NY Times today...
“Like many others, in the aftermath of 9/11, I felt the country's unity. I don't remember anything quite like it. I supported the decision to enter Afghanistan and I hoped that the seriousness of the times would bring forth strength, humility and wisdom in our leaders. Instead, we dived headlong into an unnecessary war in Iraq, offering up the lives of our young men and women under circumstances that are now discredited. We ran record deficits, while simultaneously cutting and squeezing services like afterschool programs. We granted tax cuts to the richest 1 percent (corporate bigwigs, well-to-do guitar players), increasing the division of wealth that threatens to destroy our social contract with one another and render mute the promise of "one nation indivisible."”
Go Bruuuuuuuuuce!!!!
Wednesday, August 04, 2004
Attack, attack, attack
A letter to the editor in the Chicago Tribune last week pointed out a basic flaw in two Republican lines of attack against John Kerry:
Republicans charge that Kerry is the most ardent liberal member of the the Senate. They also charge him with being an indecisive flip-flopper on every issue. How can he be both?
Obviously he can’t be both and in fact neither allegation is true. The flip-flop canard is ridiculous on its face. Any politician can be accused of flip-flopping and there are far more examples of Bush flip-flops than Kerry.
But it is not surprising that a Party that values conformity and adherence to a strict ideology would find fault in someone who is willing to reflect on past decisions and perhaps change their mind.
Another more recent line of attack against Kerry is the charge that he has few legislative accomplishments during his 20 years in the Senate. But this is a highly hypocritical charge coming from Republicans who claim to be in favor of smaller and more limited government. Would they like Kerry better if he had a long list of pork-barrell projects that he sponsored during his legislative career?
It is also galling coming from Bush and Cheney as noted by Atrios:
In 11 years in the House, Cheney sponsored just 2 pieces of legislation that became law.
Here is Congressman John Spratt (D-SC) quoted in a Kerry press release:
“Dick Cheney served in the Congress for 11 years. I served with him for most of these years. In that time, he only passed two bills. One was to build a flood plain on the Colorado River and the other was a bill to help a constituent. What’s even more telling about Dick Cheney’s record in the House is not what he supported but what he opposed – things like Headstart and funding for seniors. It seems pretty dishonest for Bush and Cheney to be attacking John Kerry - who passed 57 bills in the Senate – for his legislative accomplishments.”
Republicans charge that Kerry is the most ardent liberal member of the the Senate. They also charge him with being an indecisive flip-flopper on every issue. How can he be both?
Obviously he can’t be both and in fact neither allegation is true. The flip-flop canard is ridiculous on its face. Any politician can be accused of flip-flopping and there are far more examples of Bush flip-flops than Kerry.
But it is not surprising that a Party that values conformity and adherence to a strict ideology would find fault in someone who is willing to reflect on past decisions and perhaps change their mind.
Another more recent line of attack against Kerry is the charge that he has few legislative accomplishments during his 20 years in the Senate. But this is a highly hypocritical charge coming from Republicans who claim to be in favor of smaller and more limited government. Would they like Kerry better if he had a long list of pork-barrell projects that he sponsored during his legislative career?
It is also galling coming from Bush and Cheney as noted by Atrios:
In 11 years in the House, Cheney sponsored just 2 pieces of legislation that became law.
Here is Congressman John Spratt (D-SC) quoted in a Kerry press release:
“Dick Cheney served in the Congress for 11 years. I served with him for most of these years. In that time, he only passed two bills. One was to build a flood plain on the Colorado River and the other was a bill to help a constituent. What’s even more telling about Dick Cheney’s record in the House is not what he supported but what he opposed – things like Headstart and funding for seniors. It seems pretty dishonest for Bush and Cheney to be attacking John Kerry - who passed 57 bills in the Senate – for his legislative accomplishments.”
Look at the numbers
Michael Kinsley Does the Math in his latest Washington Post column and finds that Democratic presidents have a much better record than Republicans in nearly every category since 1960.
”It turns out that Democratic presidents have a much better record than Republicans. They win a head-to-head comparison in almost every category. Real growth averaged 4.09 percent in Democratic years, 2.75 percent in Republican years. Unemployment was 6.44 percent on average under Republican presidents and 5.33 percent under Democrats. The federal government spent more under Republicans than Democrats (20.87 percent of gross domestic product, compared with 19.58 percent), and that remains true even if you exclude defense (13.76 for the Democrats; 14.97 for the Republicans).
What else? Inflation was lower under Democratic presidents (3.81 percent on average, compared with 4.85 percent). And annual deficits took more than twice as much of GDP under Republicans as under Democrats (2.74 percent versus 1.21 percent). Republicans won by a nose on government revenue (i.e., taxes), taking 18.12 percent of GDP compared with 18.39 percent. That, of course, is why they lost on the size of the deficit. Personal income per capita was also a bit higher in Republican years ($16,061) than in Democratic ones ($15,565). But that is because more of the Republican years came later, when the country was more prosperous already.”
Kinsley even anticipates Republican complaints that they were born again under Ronald Reagan and should be looked at from that point forward. But even reworking the numbers starting in 1981 changes only one result...
“The Democrats pull ahead of the Republicans on per capita personal income.”
”It turns out that Democratic presidents have a much better record than Republicans. They win a head-to-head comparison in almost every category. Real growth averaged 4.09 percent in Democratic years, 2.75 percent in Republican years. Unemployment was 6.44 percent on average under Republican presidents and 5.33 percent under Democrats. The federal government spent more under Republicans than Democrats (20.87 percent of gross domestic product, compared with 19.58 percent), and that remains true even if you exclude defense (13.76 for the Democrats; 14.97 for the Republicans).
What else? Inflation was lower under Democratic presidents (3.81 percent on average, compared with 4.85 percent). And annual deficits took more than twice as much of GDP under Republicans as under Democrats (2.74 percent versus 1.21 percent). Republicans won by a nose on government revenue (i.e., taxes), taking 18.12 percent of GDP compared with 18.39 percent. That, of course, is why they lost on the size of the deficit. Personal income per capita was also a bit higher in Republican years ($16,061) than in Democratic ones ($15,565). But that is because more of the Republican years came later, when the country was more prosperous already.”
Kinsley even anticipates Republican complaints that they were born again under Ronald Reagan and should be looked at from that point forward. But even reworking the numbers starting in 1981 changes only one result...
“The Democrats pull ahead of the Republicans on per capita personal income.”
Saturday, July 31, 2004
Turning the corner to where?
You almost have to feel sorry for the Bush campaign.
Here they go and launch their new campaign theme that states "We've turned the corner and we're not turning back" and on the same day the Commerce Department reports that the economy is sputtering once again.
WASHINGTON (AP) -- The U.S. economy slowed dramatically in the spring to an annual growth rate of 3 percent, as consumers, worried about higher gasoline prices, cut back their spending to the weakest pace in three years, the Commerce Department reported Friday.
It does us no good to "turn a corner" when we've been going the wrong direction all along.
The Bush team really has nothing positive to work with so expect lots more negative attacks from that side.
Here they go and launch their new campaign theme that states "We've turned the corner and we're not turning back" and on the same day the Commerce Department reports that the economy is sputtering once again.
WASHINGTON (AP) -- The U.S. economy slowed dramatically in the spring to an annual growth rate of 3 percent, as consumers, worried about higher gasoline prices, cut back their spending to the weakest pace in three years, the Commerce Department reported Friday.
It does us no good to "turn a corner" when we've been going the wrong direction all along.
The Bush team really has nothing positive to work with so expect lots more negative attacks from that side.
Friday, July 30, 2004
Record deficit - again
Here is the big news that the Bush administration sat on until today so that the Democrats couldn’t use it to criticize the president during their convention:
WASHINGTON (AP) -- The White House projected Friday that this year's deficit will hit a record $445 billion, further fueling a campaign-season dispute over President Bush's handling of the economy.
The figure easily surpassed last year's $375 billion, making it the largest-ever in dollar terms.
Kerry is going to have such a mess to clean up when he moves into the White House next year.
WASHINGTON (AP) -- The White House projected Friday that this year's deficit will hit a record $445 billion, further fueling a campaign-season dispute over President Bush's handling of the economy.
The figure easily surpassed last year's $375 billion, making it the largest-ever in dollar terms.
Kerry is going to have such a mess to clean up when he moves into the White House next year.
Sandy Berger: smeared then cleared
Remember those news reports right before the Democratic convention that said former Clinton national security advisor Sandy Berger was being investigated for stealing classified documents relating to the 9/11 investigation from the National Archive? They quoted annonymous sources charging that Berger had snuck the documents out hidden in his pants and socks? It made great fodder for lots of editorial cartoons and conservative commentators.
Well, nevermind.
The Wall Street Journal is reporting today that no original materials are missing and nothing Mr. Berger reviewed was withheld from the 9/11 Commission on which he serves. At worst, Berger admits that he inadvertently took some photocopies of some material that was later returned. He denies stuffing the documents in his pants.
“Officials looking into the removal of classified documents from the National Archives by former Clinton National Security Adviser Samuel Berger say no original materials are missing and nothing Mr. Berger reviewed was withheld from the commission investigating the Sept. 11, 2001, terror attacks.
...
The conclusion by archives officials and others would seem to lay to rest the issue of whether any information was permanently destroyed or withheld from the commission.
Archives spokeswoman Susan Cooper said officials there "are confident that there aren't any original documents missing in relation to this case." She said in most cases, Mr. Berger was given photocopies to review, and that in any event officials have accounted for all originals to which he had access.”
Just another non-story that was blown all out of proportion by our so-called-liberal media and conveniently served the purposes of the Bush administration.
Update
The right-wing web site Newsmax.com has put out a story headlined Archives Denies Report That Berger Is in the Clear.
But if you read the story you see that the headline and lead paragraph are misleading. The spokeswoman for the Archive is not denying or disputing the WSJ story. She is only reaffirming a “no comment” statement that she probably gave to the WSJ as well.
Apparently the WSJ has better sources for their story and they did not let a “no comment” from the Archive’s PR flack prevent them from finding out what is really going on like NewsMax has done.
But NewsMax is not a real newsgathering organization. It is a propaganda tool and should be viewed as such. Unfortunately, many conservatives rely on websites like NewsMax and DrudgeReport to get all their information and so they stay constantly misinformed and do silly things like voting for Bush.
Well, nevermind.
The Wall Street Journal is reporting today that no original materials are missing and nothing Mr. Berger reviewed was withheld from the 9/11 Commission on which he serves. At worst, Berger admits that he inadvertently took some photocopies of some material that was later returned. He denies stuffing the documents in his pants.
“Officials looking into the removal of classified documents from the National Archives by former Clinton National Security Adviser Samuel Berger say no original materials are missing and nothing Mr. Berger reviewed was withheld from the commission investigating the Sept. 11, 2001, terror attacks.
...
The conclusion by archives officials and others would seem to lay to rest the issue of whether any information was permanently destroyed or withheld from the commission.
Archives spokeswoman Susan Cooper said officials there "are confident that there aren't any original documents missing in relation to this case." She said in most cases, Mr. Berger was given photocopies to review, and that in any event officials have accounted for all originals to which he had access.”
Just another non-story that was blown all out of proportion by our so-called-liberal media and conveniently served the purposes of the Bush administration.
Update
The right-wing web site Newsmax.com has put out a story headlined Archives Denies Report That Berger Is in the Clear.
But if you read the story you see that the headline and lead paragraph are misleading. The spokeswoman for the Archive is not denying or disputing the WSJ story. She is only reaffirming a “no comment” statement that she probably gave to the WSJ as well.
Apparently the WSJ has better sources for their story and they did not let a “no comment” from the Archive’s PR flack prevent them from finding out what is really going on like NewsMax has done.
But NewsMax is not a real newsgathering organization. It is a propaganda tool and should be viewed as such. Unfortunately, many conservatives rely on websites like NewsMax and DrudgeReport to get all their information and so they stay constantly misinformed and do silly things like voting for Bush.
Thursday, July 29, 2004
War in Iraq: Have to vs. Want to
One thing John Kerry said tonight summed up my whole frustration with the Iraq war situation. That is when he said that our standard for going to war in the future should be only when we have to and not because we want to.
That is what I felt from the beginning and is the reason why I opposed the war. I never felt like we had to go to war. I never felt that there was an imminent threat hanging over us at any time. But I did feel like George W. Bush and the Republicans very much wanted to go to war.
* They wanted to go to war because it would take the country's attention away from the poor economy.
* They wanted to go to war to advance their ideological foreign policy goals of remaking the Middle East in their own image.
* They wanted to go to war because it would boost the president's popularity and make the Democrats look weak during the mid-term elections (and it worked!).
* They wanted to go to war because they were convinced that it would be a quick and easy victory.
And they thought this because they viewed the intelligence data through ideological blinders - ignoring intelligence that didn't match their predetermined beliefs and embracing that which did regardless of its strengths or merits.
That is what I felt from the beginning and is the reason why I opposed the war. I never felt like we had to go to war. I never felt that there was an imminent threat hanging over us at any time. But I did feel like George W. Bush and the Republicans very much wanted to go to war.
* They wanted to go to war because it would take the country's attention away from the poor economy.
* They wanted to go to war to advance their ideological foreign policy goals of remaking the Middle East in their own image.
* They wanted to go to war because it would boost the president's popularity and make the Democrats look weak during the mid-term elections (and it worked!).
* They wanted to go to war because they were convinced that it would be a quick and easy victory.
And they thought this because they viewed the intelligence data through ideological blinders - ignoring intelligence that didn't match their predetermined beliefs and embracing that which did regardless of its strengths or merits.
Tuesday, July 27, 2004
Obama's keynote address
Now I know why the Republicans can't find someone to run for the Senate in Illinois. They might as well just concede the seat to Barak Obama after his masterful keynote speech at the Democratic Convention last night.
While we were in Chicago the media was still all abuzz about former Bears coach Mike Ditka nixing a Senate run. And then during the week they were touting this other local politician Jerry Dillard as a possible candidate before he bowed out too.
I don't blame him. No one wants to be the sacrificial lamb to get steamrolled by this guy.
While we were in Chicago the media was still all abuzz about former Bears coach Mike Ditka nixing a Senate run. And then during the week they were touting this other local politician Jerry Dillard as a possible candidate before he bowed out too.
I don't blame him. No one wants to be the sacrificial lamb to get steamrolled by this guy.
Monday, July 26, 2004
Snippy vs Foul-Mouthed
A good politician never lets the public see them get riled by a journalist or a political opponent. Of course, nobody is perfect and Teresa Heinz Kerry is no exception.
But the attention being paid to this non-story is really ridiculous. When I first heard that Sen. Kerry's wife had told a right-wing editorial writer who was harassing her to "shove it," my first thought was 'Wow, she's awfully polite.' I mean, just a few weeks ago we had Vice President Cheney telling a Democratic Senator to go F### himself. And Cheney didn't even feel the need to apologize afterwards.
To understand Mrs. Kerry's frustration with this particular "journalist" one needs to know the context of the situation. The reporter in question is actually the editorial page editor for a right-wing paper in Heinz-Kerry's home state of Pennsylvania that has been hounding her for months over her family's philanthropic foundation. I wrote about this issue here at eTalkinghead.
But the attention being paid to this non-story is really ridiculous. When I first heard that Sen. Kerry's wife had told a right-wing editorial writer who was harassing her to "shove it," my first thought was 'Wow, she's awfully polite.' I mean, just a few weeks ago we had Vice President Cheney telling a Democratic Senator to go F### himself. And Cheney didn't even feel the need to apologize afterwards.
To understand Mrs. Kerry's frustration with this particular "journalist" one needs to know the context of the situation. The reporter in question is actually the editorial page editor for a right-wing paper in Heinz-Kerry's home state of Pennsylvania that has been hounding her for months over her family's philanthropic foundation. I wrote about this issue here at eTalkinghead.
My Kind of Town
Chicago is my kind of town. Seriously. I loved it. It is right up there with Boston and New York on my favorite towns to visit list now. We spent all of last week living out of a hotel room in downtown Chicago and never ran out of things to do. And that was all on foot with my 11-month old son in tow which did limit some of our options (no movies or broadway shows and not many late nights out). Other than one trip on the L (Chicago’s subway) out to the Cell to watch a White Sox vs. Tigers game, we spent the entire trip hiking around Chicago on foot and being constantly amazed at the fun things we found to do.
First, the newly opened Millennium Park is fantastic. So it was four years behind schedule and $450 million over budget. Big deal. “The Bean” sculpture alone is worth that small price. That is going to be drawing tourists from around the world for generations. That and the giant face fountains where kids run about gleefully as parents sit back and gawk. I wish that San Antonio had something like that downtown next to the Alamo.
We saw Picasso’s and Monet’s at the Art Institute of Chicago, visited “Sue” the world’s largest Tyranesoarus Rex skeleton at The Field Museum and also went through the special exhibit on The Forbidden City in China featuring relics from the Quin-long era - early 1700s. We ate several styles of Chicago pizza and had some great steak at Harry Carry’s restaurant (the late sports broadcaster from Chicago).
The White Sox game was a lot of fun and I got to see Ivan (Pudge) Rodriguez get his 2,000th career hit with the Detroit Tigers. I still can’t believe how stupid the Texas Rangers were for trading him away. I’m sure watching him lead the Florida Marlins to a World Series crown the next year must have been painful. He is currently the batting leader in the American League.
All in all is was a great trip and Nathan did exceptionally well. We did break down and buy a stroller on the second day which saved our aching backs. I also enjoyed reading the two local papers all week - the Tribune and Sun Times - although the Trib’s editorial page was almost as bad as the Wall Street Journal’s.
First, the newly opened Millennium Park is fantastic. So it was four years behind schedule and $450 million over budget. Big deal. “The Bean” sculpture alone is worth that small price. That is going to be drawing tourists from around the world for generations. That and the giant face fountains where kids run about gleefully as parents sit back and gawk. I wish that San Antonio had something like that downtown next to the Alamo.
We saw Picasso’s and Monet’s at the Art Institute of Chicago, visited “Sue” the world’s largest Tyranesoarus Rex skeleton at The Field Museum and also went through the special exhibit on The Forbidden City in China featuring relics from the Quin-long era - early 1700s. We ate several styles of Chicago pizza and had some great steak at Harry Carry’s restaurant (the late sports broadcaster from Chicago).
The White Sox game was a lot of fun and I got to see Ivan (Pudge) Rodriguez get his 2,000th career hit with the Detroit Tigers. I still can’t believe how stupid the Texas Rangers were for trading him away. I’m sure watching him lead the Florida Marlins to a World Series crown the next year must have been painful. He is currently the batting leader in the American League.
All in all is was a great trip and Nathan did exceptionally well. We did break down and buy a stroller on the second day which saved our aching backs. I also enjoyed reading the two local papers all week - the Tribune and Sun Times - although the Trib’s editorial page was almost as bad as the Wall Street Journal’s.
Friday, July 16, 2004
On Vacation
I’m leaving tomorrow for a week-long vacation in Chicago. The hotel has wireless and broadband Internet access, but since I don’t have a laptop it doesn’t do me any good. So I will most likely be offline for the duration. Should be a fun trip, especially with an 11-month old in tow.
Blood Saves
My brother-in-law, who works for the blood bank in Houston, sent me this link to their new web site. It’s a pretty cool site and hopefully it will encourage more people to donate blood.
I especially like their new TV commercials.
I especially like their new TV commercials.
Wednesday, July 14, 2004
Where are all of the conservative bloggers?
Oh, I know the web is chock full of ‘em. I mean the ones I first butted heads with here in Texas when I first set up this blog a year and a half ago.
When I first ventured out into the blogosphere in January 2003, the first folks I ran into were the guys at Burnt Orange Report and Charles Kuffner at Off the Kuff. They’re still there and going strong, but they are also liberal Democrats like me. What I am concerned about are all the conservative Republicans I first ran into who have been dropping like flies recently. What’s going on??
* My fellow San Antonian Mark Harden at InSane Antonio hasn’t updated his blog since May 17. I suspect that he is just distraught by the near certainty of a Kerry victory in November and just can’t bring himself to write about it anymore.
* Then there is Courtney, also of San Antonio, who has been on an extended hiatus since Nov. 28, 2003.
* Beldar of BeldarBlog hasn’t been heard from since April 19.
* Kevin Whited, who runs the popular PubliusTX Weblog, recently shut down his more politically oriented site Reductio Ad Absurdum for “maintenance and redesign.”
* And Owen Courreges, who sparred with me on a number of occasions over the Republican mid-decade re-redistricting power grab, has stopped updating his self-titled blog now that he is too busy being a regular contributor at Chronically Biased, which also features Kevin and Rob Booth of Slightly Rough. I also noticed recently that Owen is listed as a contributor at the newly launched Redstate which is trying to be the Republican response to the mighty Daily Kos.
* Then I was saddened to learn recently that Joe Kelley who runs The Sake Of Argument site has been hospitalized with pneumonia and spinal meningitis.
That leaves Owen and Jed at Boots and Sabers which is still going strong. However, Jed, the Texas-based half, has lately been a bit pre-occupied with law school leaving it to the more prolific Owen, who is based in Wisconsin, to do most of the posting. And Owen naturally focuses most of his attention on politics in Wisconsin.
So Texas would seem to have a shortage of conservative bloggers. Go figure.
When I first ventured out into the blogosphere in January 2003, the first folks I ran into were the guys at Burnt Orange Report and Charles Kuffner at Off the Kuff. They’re still there and going strong, but they are also liberal Democrats like me. What I am concerned about are all the conservative Republicans I first ran into who have been dropping like flies recently. What’s going on??
* My fellow San Antonian Mark Harden at InSane Antonio hasn’t updated his blog since May 17. I suspect that he is just distraught by the near certainty of a Kerry victory in November and just can’t bring himself to write about it anymore.
* Then there is Courtney, also of San Antonio, who has been on an extended hiatus since Nov. 28, 2003.
* Beldar of BeldarBlog hasn’t been heard from since April 19.
* Kevin Whited, who runs the popular PubliusTX Weblog, recently shut down his more politically oriented site Reductio Ad Absurdum for “maintenance and redesign.”
* And Owen Courreges, who sparred with me on a number of occasions over the Republican mid-decade re-redistricting power grab, has stopped updating his self-titled blog now that he is too busy being a regular contributor at Chronically Biased, which also features Kevin and Rob Booth of Slightly Rough. I also noticed recently that Owen is listed as a contributor at the newly launched Redstate which is trying to be the Republican response to the mighty Daily Kos.
* Then I was saddened to learn recently that Joe Kelley who runs The Sake Of Argument site has been hospitalized with pneumonia and spinal meningitis.
That leaves Owen and Jed at Boots and Sabers which is still going strong. However, Jed, the Texas-based half, has lately been a bit pre-occupied with law school leaving it to the more prolific Owen, who is based in Wisconsin, to do most of the posting. And Owen naturally focuses most of his attention on politics in Wisconsin.
So Texas would seem to have a shortage of conservative bloggers. Go figure.
Remembering Ken Schmidt
I was shocked to learn the other day that Ken Schmidt died over the weekend as a result of a kayaking accident. Ken was the chief photographer at the Kerrville Daily Times when I worked there in the mid-1990s. He was also the long-time staff photographer for the Kerrville Folk Festival.
Ken was without a doubt the best photographer I ever worked with in my 15-year career as a journalist. Flipping through my portfolio of stories from that period I am amazed at how his photos stand out above all the rest. Every reporter wanted Ken to take the photos for their story. He could make a shot of a county commissioners meeting look interesting. He had an eye for framing a shot and/or picking out one person in a room and catching an expression on their face that would tell much of the story.
But Ken was all about action. He preferred to cover stories that were exciting - car wrecks, fires, sporting events, and so forth. I always felt privileged when I could get Ken to go out and shoot a photo for one of my stories. When I interviewed George W. Bush during his first run for governor, Ken took so many good shots that they decided to run a spread of them accompanying my story. There were many times when I would be working on a feature story and Ken would come out of the dark room and show me the photo he took for the story and I would think ‘Wow, now I have to write a piece that will live up to this.’
When I knew Ken, he was one of the most fun-loving people I had ever met. He was always planning his next outing or telling stories of his most recent adventure. I take some solace in the fact that he died doing something that he loved. He certainly packed more good times into his 41 years than most people do who live to be 100.
When most people think about dying they imagine spending eternity in paradise. But I imagine that if Ken had the choice he would choose to be reincarnated so that he could take another go around at life because Ken’s attitude was that he was already living in paradise.
Ken was without a doubt the best photographer I ever worked with in my 15-year career as a journalist. Flipping through my portfolio of stories from that period I am amazed at how his photos stand out above all the rest. Every reporter wanted Ken to take the photos for their story. He could make a shot of a county commissioners meeting look interesting. He had an eye for framing a shot and/or picking out one person in a room and catching an expression on their face that would tell much of the story.
But Ken was all about action. He preferred to cover stories that were exciting - car wrecks, fires, sporting events, and so forth. I always felt privileged when I could get Ken to go out and shoot a photo for one of my stories. When I interviewed George W. Bush during his first run for governor, Ken took so many good shots that they decided to run a spread of them accompanying my story. There were many times when I would be working on a feature story and Ken would come out of the dark room and show me the photo he took for the story and I would think ‘Wow, now I have to write a piece that will live up to this.’
When I knew Ken, he was one of the most fun-loving people I had ever met. He was always planning his next outing or telling stories of his most recent adventure. I take some solace in the fact that he died doing something that he loved. He certainly packed more good times into his 41 years than most people do who live to be 100.
When most people think about dying they imagine spending eternity in paradise. But I imagine that if Ken had the choice he would choose to be reincarnated so that he could take another go around at life because Ken’s attitude was that he was already living in paradise.
Monday, July 12, 2004
Why do these conservatives hate America???
The AP has a story today about a group of big-shot conservatives who meet on a regular basis in Washington, D.C.
Normally, I suppose, they just blow kisses at the Bush administration and so it is generally not very newsworthy. Plus the meetings are private and closed to the media. But this time the key speaker had some nasty things to say about the Bush team’s little misadventure in Iraq...
“Nearly 150 conservatives listened in silence recently as a veteran of the Nixon, Ford and Reagan administrations ticked off a litany of missteps in Iraq by the Bush White House.
"This war is not going well," said Stefan Halper, a deputy assistant secretary of state under President Reagan.
"It's costing us a lot of money, isolating us from our allies and friends," said Halper, who gave $1,000 to George W. Bush's campaign and more than $83,000 to other GOP causes in 2000. "This is not the cakewalk the neoconservatives predicted. We were not greeted with flowers in the streets."
Note the guy’s No.1 complaint: ”It’s costing us a lot of money!”
I guess only wimpy liberals complain about things like the deaths of more than 850 U.S. troops.
But this is the part of the story I liked the best...
“The marquee speaker sent by the administration was Eric Ciliberti, who spent several weeks in Iraq this year and told the audience of broad progress being made there.
Ciliberti complained to the group that those in the news media were not reporting the positive developments out of Iraq. Ciliberti did not return several calls late in the past week from a reporter seeking his account.”
So here is an administration official who will tell this group of privileged conservatives meeting in private all about the positive developments in Iraq but he won’t return phone calls from reporters seeking his account of events. And then he has the nerve to whine that the media is not reporting about the positive developments in Iraq. How typical.
Normally, I suppose, they just blow kisses at the Bush administration and so it is generally not very newsworthy. Plus the meetings are private and closed to the media. But this time the key speaker had some nasty things to say about the Bush team’s little misadventure in Iraq...
“Nearly 150 conservatives listened in silence recently as a veteran of the Nixon, Ford and Reagan administrations ticked off a litany of missteps in Iraq by the Bush White House.
"This war is not going well," said Stefan Halper, a deputy assistant secretary of state under President Reagan.
"It's costing us a lot of money, isolating us from our allies and friends," said Halper, who gave $1,000 to George W. Bush's campaign and more than $83,000 to other GOP causes in 2000. "This is not the cakewalk the neoconservatives predicted. We were not greeted with flowers in the streets."
Note the guy’s No.1 complaint: ”It’s costing us a lot of money!”
I guess only wimpy liberals complain about things like the deaths of more than 850 U.S. troops.
But this is the part of the story I liked the best...
“The marquee speaker sent by the administration was Eric Ciliberti, who spent several weeks in Iraq this year and told the audience of broad progress being made there.
Ciliberti complained to the group that those in the news media were not reporting the positive developments out of Iraq. Ciliberti did not return several calls late in the past week from a reporter seeking his account.”
So here is an administration official who will tell this group of privileged conservatives meeting in private all about the positive developments in Iraq but he won’t return phone calls from reporters seeking his account of events. And then he has the nerve to whine that the media is not reporting about the positive developments in Iraq. How typical.
Friday, July 09, 2004
How convenient!
Pentagon: Bush record accidentally destroyed
WASHINGTON -- Military records that could help establish President Bush's whereabouts during his disputed service in the Texas Air National Guard more than 30 years ago have been inadvertently destroyed, according to the Pentagon.
Oopsie! I’m sure it was just an accident. Oh darn! I guess we will never know for sure whether Bush actually fulfilled his National Guard duty back then.
WASHINGTON -- Military records that could help establish President Bush's whereabouts during his disputed service in the Texas Air National Guard more than 30 years ago have been inadvertently destroyed, according to the Pentagon.
Oopsie! I’m sure it was just an accident. Oh darn! I guess we will never know for sure whether Bush actually fulfilled his National Guard duty back then.
Investigative partisanship
In the Washington Post yesterday,
Congressman Henry Waxman layed out the despicable record of the Republican Congress when it comes to investigating alleged wrongdoings in the executive branch...
“During the Clinton administration, Congress spent millions of tax dollars probing alleged White House wrongdoing. There was no accusation too minor to explore, no demand on the administration too intrusive to make.
Republicans investigated whether the Clinton administration sold burial plots in Arlington National Cemetery for campaign contributions. They examined whether the White House doctored videotapes of coffees attended by President Clinton. They spent two years investigating who hired Craig Livingstone, the former director of the White House security office. And they looked at whether President Clinton designated coal-rich land in Utah as a national monument because political donors with Indonesian coal interests might benefit from reductions in U.S. coal production.
Committees requested and received communications between Clinton and his close advisers, notes of conversations between Clinton and a foreign head of state, internal e-mails from the office of the vice president, and more than 100 sets of FBI interview summaries. Dozens of top Clinton officials, including several White House chiefs of staff and White House counsels, testified before Congress. The Clinton administration provided to Congress more than a million pages of documents in response to investigative inquiries....
When President Clinton was in office, Congress exercised its oversight powers with no sense of proportionality. But oversight of the Bush administration has been even worse: With few exceptions, Congress has abdicated oversight responsibility altogether....
Republican leaders in Congress have refused to investigate who exposed covert CIA agent Valerie Plame, whose identity was leaked after her husband, Joe Wilson, challenged the administration's claims that Iraq sought nuclear weapons. They have held virtually no public hearings on the hundreds of misleading claims made by administration officials about Iraq's weapons of mass destruction and ties to al Qaeda.
They have failed to probe allegations that administration officials misled Congress about the costs of the Medicare prescription drug bill. And they have ignored the ethical lapses of administration officials, such as the senior Medicare official who negotiated future employment representing drug companies while drafting the prescription drug bill.
The House is even refusing to investigate the horrific Iraq prison abuses.... Compare the following: Republicans in the House took more than 140 hours of testimony to investigate whether the Clinton White House misused its holiday card database but less than five hours of testimony regarding how the Bush administration treated Iraqi detainees.
There is a simple but deplorable principle at work. In both the Clinton and Bush eras, oversight has been driven by raw partisanship. Congressional leaders have vacillated between the extremes of abusing their investigative powers and ignoring them, depending on the party affiliation of the president.”
Congressman Henry Waxman layed out the despicable record of the Republican Congress when it comes to investigating alleged wrongdoings in the executive branch...
“During the Clinton administration, Congress spent millions of tax dollars probing alleged White House wrongdoing. There was no accusation too minor to explore, no demand on the administration too intrusive to make.
Republicans investigated whether the Clinton administration sold burial plots in Arlington National Cemetery for campaign contributions. They examined whether the White House doctored videotapes of coffees attended by President Clinton. They spent two years investigating who hired Craig Livingstone, the former director of the White House security office. And they looked at whether President Clinton designated coal-rich land in Utah as a national monument because political donors with Indonesian coal interests might benefit from reductions in U.S. coal production.
Committees requested and received communications between Clinton and his close advisers, notes of conversations between Clinton and a foreign head of state, internal e-mails from the office of the vice president, and more than 100 sets of FBI interview summaries. Dozens of top Clinton officials, including several White House chiefs of staff and White House counsels, testified before Congress. The Clinton administration provided to Congress more than a million pages of documents in response to investigative inquiries....
When President Clinton was in office, Congress exercised its oversight powers with no sense of proportionality. But oversight of the Bush administration has been even worse: With few exceptions, Congress has abdicated oversight responsibility altogether....
Republican leaders in Congress have refused to investigate who exposed covert CIA agent Valerie Plame, whose identity was leaked after her husband, Joe Wilson, challenged the administration's claims that Iraq sought nuclear weapons. They have held virtually no public hearings on the hundreds of misleading claims made by administration officials about Iraq's weapons of mass destruction and ties to al Qaeda.
They have failed to probe allegations that administration officials misled Congress about the costs of the Medicare prescription drug bill. And they have ignored the ethical lapses of administration officials, such as the senior Medicare official who negotiated future employment representing drug companies while drafting the prescription drug bill.
The House is even refusing to investigate the horrific Iraq prison abuses.... Compare the following: Republicans in the House took more than 140 hours of testimony to investigate whether the Clinton White House misused its holiday card database but less than five hours of testimony regarding how the Bush administration treated Iraqi detainees.
There is a simple but deplorable principle at work. In both the Clinton and Bush eras, oversight has been driven by raw partisanship. Congressional leaders have vacillated between the extremes of abusing their investigative powers and ignoring them, depending on the party affiliation of the president.”
Thursday, July 08, 2004
The point of government, Part II
Well, there is quite a bit to chew on from the comments to the previous post. I invite anyone interested to go back and read those comments as I will now try and address some of the points that were made. And let me add that I greatly appreciate the intellectual weight and civil tone of all of the posts.
First, I’m glad to see that K2 appears to have backed off on his contention that “The whole point of government is not to spend money.” It is, in fact, about little else. Of course, upholding the Constitution is the primary reason for spending all the money. That point was never in dispute. So what politics comes down to is who should be in charge of the pursestrings. K2 thinks it should be the Republicans based on his misperception that Republicans favor smaller government and less spending. However, as we have seen during these past four years, a Republican-controlled Congress and a Republican president have taken a $236 billion federal surplus and turned it into a $400 billion-plus deficit.
I guess I could just declare victory at this point and go home, except that K2 now says the point is irrelevant and goes on to make a number of other assertions that need to be addressed.
The gist of K2’s argument is that government is inherently bad and that taxation and regulation are burdens upon the economy that prevent hardworking Americans from becoming wealthy. He also contends that a vast array of federal programs including Medicare, Social Security, agriculture subsidies, scientific research, USDA meat inspections, protecting the environment and welfare, should be left up to the states and goes so far as to imply that the Constitution requires this. However, if that were the case one would assume that the Supreme Court would have at some point in the past 200 years declared these federal programs unconstitutional. The fact that it has not done so leads me to beleive that K2’s assertion in this case is without foundation.
One area I would like to jump into is this whole notion of pitting capitalism against socialism as if the two were totally incompatible. The reality is that capitalism works best when it is tempered with socialism. The neverending argument comes in determining how much of each is necessary or desirable to achieve the ideal economic formula. K2 gives us the analogy of cattle to a farmer to illustrate his contention that socialism leads to a loss of freedom and ingenuity.
I will put forth a different analogy to make my point. 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 K2 urges 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.
I stand by my assertion that FDR’s New Deal saved capitalism. After the car wreck that was the Great Depression, people weren’t going to buy that kind of jalopy anymore. The government had to change the formula to keep it viable.
K2 argues that our nation’s industrial might helped us to win WWII and not high taxes, but he fails to consider what it was that built up our industries at that point - government spending. When the government comes and tells your company to build as many gadgets as possible and they will buy them all, then of course the business is going to grow. That is exactly what was happening back then. We needed tanks and planes and jeeps and bombs and medical supplies and fuel and all kinds of things and our industrial production blossomed as a result.
I’m not going to get into economic theory and political philosophy. K2 can quote Friedrich Von Hayek and Milton Friedman and I’ll quote John Maynard Keynes and John Kenneth Galbraith but then I don’t know where that would get us.
But I would like to recommend that anyone who is interested in the theory behind welfare check out Regulating the Poor: The Functions of Public Welfare by Frances Fox Piven and Richard A. Cloward. The book makes the argument that welfare was put in place not to lift people out of poverty, but to keep them from becoming restless and prone to riots which would be damaging to capitalism. It is quite an interesting read for folks on both sides of the political spectrum.
I will make one last point about bureaucracies which is that they are not exclusive to the public sector. If you have ever worked in or dealt with a large private corporation you will find that bureacracies are inherent in almost any large organization.
I think K2 acknowledged this when he said “I feel that government is inherently flawed, in that it is run by people.” I would just say that in some ways, government bureaucracies are preferable because they at least have an obligation to serve the public. Private bureaucracies have no such obligation and can be a nightmare to deal with.
K2 says he is most concerned about the restrictions on his freedom that government imposes. This is commendable and I believe necessary to have people who will stand up and say ‘enough’ to government expansion (even if they don’t always get their way). But they should understand as well that we would not be any more free without government, in fact, I believe we would be less so. People are always going to try and impose their will upon one another and the government serves to restrict that imposition as much if not more than it facilitates it. I think both Robert and Alan were trying to make similar points along that line.
Finally, as to Robert’s jibe about my having once been a “rabid right-winger,” that is not entirely accurate. While it is true that I was enamored with Ronald Reagan while in college and voted a pretty much straight Republican ticket in 1984, my political views were not fully formed at that time. As my knowledge and understanding of world events grew during that time, my political inclinations leaned left (aided in part by my revulsion of the Iran-Contra scandal). But I think I have always maintained a healthy dose of realism or pragmatism. I’m still ticked at Michael Moore, Barbara Ehrenreich, Jim Hightower and Molly Ivins (to a lesser degree) for supporting that idiot Ralph Nader in 2000 and delivering the White House to GW Bush.
You have to realize that Robert has been living up in Vermont for some time and is under the misperception that he is a moderate because he occasionally disagrees with his socialist congressman Rep. Bernie Sanders.
Oh, and one last word of advice, or rather a request directed to K2... Please, please, please don’t get Robert started on Microsoft!!!! Sheesh!
First, I’m glad to see that K2 appears to have backed off on his contention that “The whole point of government is not to spend money.” It is, in fact, about little else. Of course, upholding the Constitution is the primary reason for spending all the money. That point was never in dispute. So what politics comes down to is who should be in charge of the pursestrings. K2 thinks it should be the Republicans based on his misperception that Republicans favor smaller government and less spending. However, as we have seen during these past four years, a Republican-controlled Congress and a Republican president have taken a $236 billion federal surplus and turned it into a $400 billion-plus deficit.
I guess I could just declare victory at this point and go home, except that K2 now says the point is irrelevant and goes on to make a number of other assertions that need to be addressed.
The gist of K2’s argument is that government is inherently bad and that taxation and regulation are burdens upon the economy that prevent hardworking Americans from becoming wealthy. He also contends that a vast array of federal programs including Medicare, Social Security, agriculture subsidies, scientific research, USDA meat inspections, protecting the environment and welfare, should be left up to the states and goes so far as to imply that the Constitution requires this. However, if that were the case one would assume that the Supreme Court would have at some point in the past 200 years declared these federal programs unconstitutional. The fact that it has not done so leads me to beleive that K2’s assertion in this case is without foundation.
One area I would like to jump into is this whole notion of pitting capitalism against socialism as if the two were totally incompatible. The reality is that capitalism works best when it is tempered with socialism. The neverending argument comes in determining how much of each is necessary or desirable to achieve the ideal economic formula. K2 gives us the analogy of cattle to a farmer to illustrate his contention that socialism leads to a loss of freedom and ingenuity.
I will put forth a different analogy to make my point. 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 K2 urges 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.
I stand by my assertion that FDR’s New Deal saved capitalism. After the car wreck that was the Great Depression, people weren’t going to buy that kind of jalopy anymore. The government had to change the formula to keep it viable.
K2 argues that our nation’s industrial might helped us to win WWII and not high taxes, but he fails to consider what it was that built up our industries at that point - government spending. When the government comes and tells your company to build as many gadgets as possible and they will buy them all, then of course the business is going to grow. That is exactly what was happening back then. We needed tanks and planes and jeeps and bombs and medical supplies and fuel and all kinds of things and our industrial production blossomed as a result.
I’m not going to get into economic theory and political philosophy. K2 can quote Friedrich Von Hayek and Milton Friedman and I’ll quote John Maynard Keynes and John Kenneth Galbraith but then I don’t know where that would get us.
But I would like to recommend that anyone who is interested in the theory behind welfare check out Regulating the Poor: The Functions of Public Welfare by Frances Fox Piven and Richard A. Cloward. The book makes the argument that welfare was put in place not to lift people out of poverty, but to keep them from becoming restless and prone to riots which would be damaging to capitalism. It is quite an interesting read for folks on both sides of the political spectrum.
I will make one last point about bureaucracies which is that they are not exclusive to the public sector. If you have ever worked in or dealt with a large private corporation you will find that bureacracies are inherent in almost any large organization.
I think K2 acknowledged this when he said “I feel that government is inherently flawed, in that it is run by people.” I would just say that in some ways, government bureaucracies are preferable because they at least have an obligation to serve the public. Private bureaucracies have no such obligation and can be a nightmare to deal with.
K2 says he is most concerned about the restrictions on his freedom that government imposes. This is commendable and I believe necessary to have people who will stand up and say ‘enough’ to government expansion (even if they don’t always get their way). But they should understand as well that we would not be any more free without government, in fact, I believe we would be less so. People are always going to try and impose their will upon one another and the government serves to restrict that imposition as much if not more than it facilitates it. I think both Robert and Alan were trying to make similar points along that line.
Finally, as to Robert’s jibe about my having once been a “rabid right-winger,” that is not entirely accurate. While it is true that I was enamored with Ronald Reagan while in college and voted a pretty much straight Republican ticket in 1984, my political views were not fully formed at that time. As my knowledge and understanding of world events grew during that time, my political inclinations leaned left (aided in part by my revulsion of the Iran-Contra scandal). But I think I have always maintained a healthy dose of realism or pragmatism. I’m still ticked at Michael Moore, Barbara Ehrenreich, Jim Hightower and Molly Ivins (to a lesser degree) for supporting that idiot Ralph Nader in 2000 and delivering the White House to GW Bush.
You have to realize that Robert has been living up in Vermont for some time and is under the misperception that he is a moderate because he occasionally disagrees with his socialist congressman Rep. Bernie Sanders.
Oh, and one last word of advice, or rather a request directed to K2... Please, please, please don’t get Robert started on Microsoft!!!! Sheesh!
Monday, July 05, 2004
The point of government
Commenter K2Aggie07 recently took takes issue with a snarky comment I made over at Boots and Sabers and makes the following argument:
“The whole point of government is not to spend money. The point of our government is to uphold the Constitution for the United States.”
That would seem to be a sensible statement until you consider what it really means to “uphold the Constitution.” How do you “…establish justice, ensure domestic tranquility, provide for the common defense, and promote the general welfare…” without spending money? What do those things mean anyway?
Provide for the common defense seems simple enough. That means the military and that is a hefty chunk of change in and of itself. But it probably also includes the CIA, the State Department and our network of ambassadors, and our foreign aid programs all meant to provide stability in other parts of the world so that events don’t get out of hand and threaten our interests.
Establish justice… I suppose that would be our courts and criminal justice systems – including police officers, prisons, the FBI, etc.
Ensure domestic tranquility? I suppose that could be the public parks, national monuments, public libraries… How about roads and bridges? Our highway system? Rails, mass transit, sea ports, airports? What about the education system? There sure wouldn’t be a lot of domestic tranquility with a bunch of uneducated kids roaming the streets everyday. What about public utilities – electricity, water, sewer, garbage disposal. Yes, I know that there are lot of private companies out there that can and do provide these essential services, but it still falls upon the government to make sure that those services are made available to everyone.
And then there is promoting the general welfare. What a great catch all that is! Medicare, Social Security, nursing homes, agriculture subsidies, scientific research to cure diseases, USDA meat inspections, protecting the environment and, of course, the scourge of the radical right – welfare itself!!!
And I haven’t even mentioned one of the Republicans’ favorite government programs – the Small Business Administration – which doles out millions in corporate welfare every year. And I’m sure there are dozens more worthy government entities that have their hands outstretched every year at budget time. I haven’t named one single thing that doesn’t cost money.
Do we really need all of these programs? K2 seems to be enamored with life in the U.S. prior to the Great Depression…
“Prior to the great depression the government gave *no* (as in, none, zero) support to the poor. It was left up to private charities and churches. And you know what? People survived. Want to know how? They worked for what they got, and the government didn't tax 50% of their income. In fact, if you get into the economics of it, by pre-great depression standards (or any standards for that matter) the only reason Americans aren't filthy rich is because fully half of our income goes to support an over-stuffed fat beaurocratic leeching self-righteous government.”
Ah yes, I remember when I used to think that life was so simple. Everything was wonderful back in the good old days before big, bad bureaucrats screwed everything up. Liberals bad, conservatives good, blah, blah, blah. But then I graduated from college and moved out into the big, complex, real world.
Prior to the Great Depression, America was not the world power that it is today. In fact, it was questionable whether or not the country was going to make it at all. We had managed to pull ourselves together after a bloody Civil War, but the Great Depression nearly brought an end to capitalism as we know it. It was Franklin Roosevelt and the New Deal that saved capitalism. Conservatives should honor his name rather than bitch continuously about his accomplishments.
We won World War II because the government spent money by the bucket loads and taxed the beejeezus out of folks to pay for it. But it was worth it. When everything was said and done we were the strongest and most powerful country in the world. And we still are, for the most part, in spite of Bush’s best efforts to weaken us with his ill conceived tax cuts which have wiped out our surpluses and left us with record deficits while shipping our troops out on this WMD snipe hunt without enough support and equipment.
Then there were the social programs like Social Security and welfare and Medicare that have freed people from having to spend all their time and efforts caring for elderly and sick relatives. With that burden lifted people suddenly found their standard of living dramatically improved. They were able to spend their time and money pursuing other things that helped to grow the economy.
Capitalism works and America is a great country today because of these programs. That is what the radical right fails to understand or refuses to see. And since the radical right has taken control of the Republican Party today, it is left to the Democrats to uphold the standards of good government that have kept our nation strong all these years. That is why, as I noted in my previous post, real conservatives should appreciate the things Bill Clinton accomplished, especially in light of the miserable failure that George W. Bush has been. Clinton reduced the size of government, decreased government spending and balanced the federal budget. Bush has increased spending, grown the size of government and left us with a record budget deficit, all while presiding over a pitiful economic performance to become the first president since Herbert Hoover to lose more jobs than were gained during his tenure.
In conclusion, I would just say that I much prefer living in a country like the U.S. that provides all of these government services and programs as opposed to any other country in the world, and I suspect even K-2Aggie would have to agree with that.
“The whole point of government is not to spend money. The point of our government is to uphold the Constitution for the United States.”
That would seem to be a sensible statement until you consider what it really means to “uphold the Constitution.” How do you “…establish justice, ensure domestic tranquility, provide for the common defense, and promote the general welfare…” without spending money? What do those things mean anyway?
Provide for the common defense seems simple enough. That means the military and that is a hefty chunk of change in and of itself. But it probably also includes the CIA, the State Department and our network of ambassadors, and our foreign aid programs all meant to provide stability in other parts of the world so that events don’t get out of hand and threaten our interests.
Establish justice… I suppose that would be our courts and criminal justice systems – including police officers, prisons, the FBI, etc.
Ensure domestic tranquility? I suppose that could be the public parks, national monuments, public libraries… How about roads and bridges? Our highway system? Rails, mass transit, sea ports, airports? What about the education system? There sure wouldn’t be a lot of domestic tranquility with a bunch of uneducated kids roaming the streets everyday. What about public utilities – electricity, water, sewer, garbage disposal. Yes, I know that there are lot of private companies out there that can and do provide these essential services, but it still falls upon the government to make sure that those services are made available to everyone.
And then there is promoting the general welfare. What a great catch all that is! Medicare, Social Security, nursing homes, agriculture subsidies, scientific research to cure diseases, USDA meat inspections, protecting the environment and, of course, the scourge of the radical right – welfare itself!!!
And I haven’t even mentioned one of the Republicans’ favorite government programs – the Small Business Administration – which doles out millions in corporate welfare every year. And I’m sure there are dozens more worthy government entities that have their hands outstretched every year at budget time. I haven’t named one single thing that doesn’t cost money.
Do we really need all of these programs? K2 seems to be enamored with life in the U.S. prior to the Great Depression…
“Prior to the great depression the government gave *no* (as in, none, zero) support to the poor. It was left up to private charities and churches. And you know what? People survived. Want to know how? They worked for what they got, and the government didn't tax 50% of their income. In fact, if you get into the economics of it, by pre-great depression standards (or any standards for that matter) the only reason Americans aren't filthy rich is because fully half of our income goes to support an over-stuffed fat beaurocratic leeching self-righteous government.”
Ah yes, I remember when I used to think that life was so simple. Everything was wonderful back in the good old days before big, bad bureaucrats screwed everything up. Liberals bad, conservatives good, blah, blah, blah. But then I graduated from college and moved out into the big, complex, real world.
Prior to the Great Depression, America was not the world power that it is today. In fact, it was questionable whether or not the country was going to make it at all. We had managed to pull ourselves together after a bloody Civil War, but the Great Depression nearly brought an end to capitalism as we know it. It was Franklin Roosevelt and the New Deal that saved capitalism. Conservatives should honor his name rather than bitch continuously about his accomplishments.
We won World War II because the government spent money by the bucket loads and taxed the beejeezus out of folks to pay for it. But it was worth it. When everything was said and done we were the strongest and most powerful country in the world. And we still are, for the most part, in spite of Bush’s best efforts to weaken us with his ill conceived tax cuts which have wiped out our surpluses and left us with record deficits while shipping our troops out on this WMD snipe hunt without enough support and equipment.
Then there were the social programs like Social Security and welfare and Medicare that have freed people from having to spend all their time and efforts caring for elderly and sick relatives. With that burden lifted people suddenly found their standard of living dramatically improved. They were able to spend their time and money pursuing other things that helped to grow the economy.
Capitalism works and America is a great country today because of these programs. That is what the radical right fails to understand or refuses to see. And since the radical right has taken control of the Republican Party today, it is left to the Democrats to uphold the standards of good government that have kept our nation strong all these years. That is why, as I noted in my previous post, real conservatives should appreciate the things Bill Clinton accomplished, especially in light of the miserable failure that George W. Bush has been. Clinton reduced the size of government, decreased government spending and balanced the federal budget. Bush has increased spending, grown the size of government and left us with a record budget deficit, all while presiding over a pitiful economic performance to become the first president since Herbert Hoover to lose more jobs than were gained during his tenure.
In conclusion, I would just say that I much prefer living in a country like the U.S. that provides all of these government services and programs as opposed to any other country in the world, and I suspect even K-2Aggie would have to agree with that.
Saturday, July 03, 2004
A flag waving mea culpa
I was getting upset recently when I kept seeing businesses all over town that were still flying their flags at half-mast. I figured the flags would have been raised after Reagan's funeral was over. When they were not I suspected some folks of making a political statement. ("We liked Reagan so much we are going to leave our flags at half-mast longer than anyone else", or something like that.)
Then I figured that maybe there had been some government edict come down to leave them at half-mast til the end of the month. But they were still down on July 2! Now I was really getting ticked!!
Well it turns out that I was wrong. The U.S. flag code says flags should be flown at half-mast for 30 days after the death of a president. So for Reagan that means through July 5. So I'm a little ashamed for thinking all those bad things of those people. As long as we have the same observances for all presidents then I have no right to complain. My apologies.
Then I figured that maybe there had been some government edict come down to leave them at half-mast til the end of the month. But they were still down on July 2! Now I was really getting ticked!!
Well it turns out that I was wrong. The U.S. flag code says flags should be flown at half-mast for 30 days after the death of a president. So for Reagan that means through July 5. So I'm a little ashamed for thinking all those bad things of those people. As long as we have the same observances for all presidents then I have no right to complain. My apologies.
Friday, July 02, 2004
Bill Cosby's "tirade"
Bill Cosby had some good advice for everybody the other day.
Unfortunately, the Associated Press labeled his comments as a “tirade” and the rest of the national media has jumped on that bandwagon to portray him as some kind of crank with nothing but “harsh words” for the black community.
Now, I’m sure that Cosby could have phrased his comments more delicately and he could have been more politically correct, but when you get to be his age I’m sure you start to lose patience with those kinds of niceties and you just cut to the chase.
Now I realize that Cosby was addressing the black community with his comments, but I believe that we could all benefit by listening to what he had to say. Pretending that his criticisms only apply to poor blacks really misses the point.
It is not like poor blacks are the only ones who have a problem with keeping their kids in school and out of prison, finding jobs and dealing with domestic violence.
I still believe that government has a role and a responsibility to help people who are down and out, but it makes that job a lot easier when the folks needing help are actively working to pick themselves up rather than sitting around blaming the system for all their problems.
Unfortunately, the Associated Press labeled his comments as a “tirade” and the rest of the national media has jumped on that bandwagon to portray him as some kind of crank with nothing but “harsh words” for the black community.
Now, I’m sure that Cosby could have phrased his comments more delicately and he could have been more politically correct, but when you get to be his age I’m sure you start to lose patience with those kinds of niceties and you just cut to the chase.
Now I realize that Cosby was addressing the black community with his comments, but I believe that we could all benefit by listening to what he had to say. Pretending that his criticisms only apply to poor blacks really misses the point.
It is not like poor blacks are the only ones who have a problem with keeping their kids in school and out of prison, finding jobs and dealing with domestic violence.
I still believe that government has a role and a responsibility to help people who are down and out, but it makes that job a lot easier when the folks needing help are actively working to pick themselves up rather than sitting around blaming the system for all their problems.
More evidence of Bush's economic leadership
Oh dear, it looks like Bush’s economic recovery, such that it is, is stalling once again. Such a shame.
“The nation's expanding economy produced 112,000 new jobs in June, the Labor Department reported today, far fewer than expected and well short of the numbers generated in the previous three months...
“The 112,000 job growth number was a bit of a shock to economists, who had predicted steady increases in the range of 240,000 for June. The most significant slowdown occurred in the manufacturing sector, which shed 11,000 jobs after four months of growth. Five thousand government jobs were lost and construction employment was flat.
All of June's job growth came in service industries.”
Oh goody! More service sector jobs!
As Atrios notes, it takes at least 140,000 jobs just to keep up with population growth in the job market.
“The nation's expanding economy produced 112,000 new jobs in June, the Labor Department reported today, far fewer than expected and well short of the numbers generated in the previous three months...
“The 112,000 job growth number was a bit of a shock to economists, who had predicted steady increases in the range of 240,000 for June. The most significant slowdown occurred in the manufacturing sector, which shed 11,000 jobs after four months of growth. Five thousand government jobs were lost and construction employment was flat.
All of June's job growth came in service industries.”
Oh goody! More service sector jobs!
As Atrios notes, it takes at least 140,000 jobs just to keep up with population growth in the job market.
Thursday, July 01, 2004
A president that conservatives can admire
Bruce Bartlett, a senior fellow at the conservative National Center for Policy Analysis, has an Op-Ed in the NYTimes today that makes the obvious point that conservatives should rethink the Clinton presidency and admit that he was a better president than they have given him credit for.
Here are some of Clinton’s accomplishments (as summarized from the article) that should have pleased any fair-minded conservative:
*Bringing the federal budget into surplus is obviously an achievement. After inheriting a deficit of 4.7 percent of gross domestic product in 1992, Mr. Clinton turned this into a surplus of 2.4 percent of G.D.P. in 2000 — a remarkable turnaround...
*Clinton achieved his surplus in large part by curtailing spending. Federal spending fell to 18.4 percent of G.D.P. in 2000 from 22.2 percent in 1992. Although he raised taxes in 1993, he cut them in 1997. He even reduced the capital gains tax — something his predecessor, George H. W. Bush, tried but failed to accomplish.
*Clinton signed welfare reform into law in 1996, the only time in American history when an entitlement program was abolished.
*Clinton was also steadfast in his support for free trade. It is doubtful that anyone else could have persuaded Congress to approve the North American Free Trade Agreement.
*...he reappointed Alan Greenspan, a Republican, as chairman of the Federal Reserve, thereby helping to bring inflation down to its lowest sustained level in a generation.
By contrast, Mr. Clinton's Republican successor has caused the surplus to evaporate, raised total federal spending by 1.6 percent of G.D.P., established a new entitlement program for prescription drugs and adopted the most protectionist trade policy since Herbert Hoover.
I think he makes a very persuasive argument. If you want to go back to the good old days of balanced budgets and fiscal responsibility... vote Democratic!
Here are some of Clinton’s accomplishments (as summarized from the article) that should have pleased any fair-minded conservative:
*Bringing the federal budget into surplus is obviously an achievement. After inheriting a deficit of 4.7 percent of gross domestic product in 1992, Mr. Clinton turned this into a surplus of 2.4 percent of G.D.P. in 2000 — a remarkable turnaround...
*Clinton achieved his surplus in large part by curtailing spending. Federal spending fell to 18.4 percent of G.D.P. in 2000 from 22.2 percent in 1992. Although he raised taxes in 1993, he cut them in 1997. He even reduced the capital gains tax — something his predecessor, George H. W. Bush, tried but failed to accomplish.
*Clinton signed welfare reform into law in 1996, the only time in American history when an entitlement program was abolished.
*Clinton was also steadfast in his support for free trade. It is doubtful that anyone else could have persuaded Congress to approve the North American Free Trade Agreement.
*...he reappointed Alan Greenspan, a Republican, as chairman of the Federal Reserve, thereby helping to bring inflation down to its lowest sustained level in a generation.
By contrast, Mr. Clinton's Republican successor has caused the surplus to evaporate, raised total federal spending by 1.6 percent of G.D.P., established a new entitlement program for prescription drugs and adopted the most protectionist trade policy since Herbert Hoover.
I think he makes a very persuasive argument. If you want to go back to the good old days of balanced budgets and fiscal responsibility... vote Democratic!
Friday, June 25, 2004
Actors who sing vs singers who act
Why is it that we are more accepting of singers who try to become actors than we are of actors who try to become singers?
Look at all of the singers who have gone on to have successful acting careers, even going so far as to win Oscar recognition for their work:
Bing Crosby - Best Actor for “Going My Way”
Frank Sinatra - Best Supporting Actor for “From Here To Eternity”
Barbara Streisand - Best Actress for “Funny Girl”
Diana Ross - Oscar nominee for “Lady Sings the Blues”
Cher - Best Actress for “Moonstruck”
Will Smith - Oscar nominee for “Ali”
Queen Latifah - Oscar nominee for “Chicago”
And then there are others who went on to have solid film careers:
Dean Martin
Tina Turner
Dolly Parton
Olivia Newton John
Kris Kristofferson
Mark Wahlburg
Jennifer Lopez
Whitney Houston
Ice Cube
Even Elvis Presley and Madonna have had better film careers than most actors have had singing careers. Oh, you will have the occassional singer whose movie will bomb - like Maria Carey in Glitter or anything Britney Spears has been in so far. But given time they may eventually get a good role and suddenly they are respectable.
Now compare that with the derision and scorn that is heaped on actors who dare try to record their voices on anything other than a novelty record:
Eddie Murphy
Bruce Willis
David Hasselhoff
William Shatner
Leonard Nimoy
Jennifer Love Hewitt
Even the ones who avoid singing and opt to just play bass guitar with a band like Kenau Reeves and Russell Crowe are given no respect.
I can think of only one actor who went on to have any success as a singer. That would be Jim Nabors (i.e. Gomer Pyle) who became popular on the gospel circuit.
Am I leaving anyone out?
Why are we so picky about our singers, but not so much with acting?
I figure it is because we tend to listen to songs over and over again, but we don’t watch a particular perfromance in a movie with the same amount of repitition. I’m sure the first time most people heard Eddie Murphy’s song “Party All the Time” they probably thought it was pretty good, but by the 10th or 20th time it starts to wear thin.
Look at all of the singers who have gone on to have successful acting careers, even going so far as to win Oscar recognition for their work:
Bing Crosby - Best Actor for “Going My Way”
Frank Sinatra - Best Supporting Actor for “From Here To Eternity”
Barbara Streisand - Best Actress for “Funny Girl”
Diana Ross - Oscar nominee for “Lady Sings the Blues”
Cher - Best Actress for “Moonstruck”
Will Smith - Oscar nominee for “Ali”
Queen Latifah - Oscar nominee for “Chicago”
And then there are others who went on to have solid film careers:
Dean Martin
Tina Turner
Dolly Parton
Olivia Newton John
Kris Kristofferson
Mark Wahlburg
Jennifer Lopez
Whitney Houston
Ice Cube
Even Elvis Presley and Madonna have had better film careers than most actors have had singing careers. Oh, you will have the occassional singer whose movie will bomb - like Maria Carey in Glitter or anything Britney Spears has been in so far. But given time they may eventually get a good role and suddenly they are respectable.
Now compare that with the derision and scorn that is heaped on actors who dare try to record their voices on anything other than a novelty record:
Eddie Murphy
Bruce Willis
David Hasselhoff
William Shatner
Leonard Nimoy
Jennifer Love Hewitt
Even the ones who avoid singing and opt to just play bass guitar with a band like Kenau Reeves and Russell Crowe are given no respect.
I can think of only one actor who went on to have any success as a singer. That would be Jim Nabors (i.e. Gomer Pyle) who became popular on the gospel circuit.
Am I leaving anyone out?
Why are we so picky about our singers, but not so much with acting?
I figure it is because we tend to listen to songs over and over again, but we don’t watch a particular perfromance in a movie with the same amount of repitition. I’m sure the first time most people heard Eddie Murphy’s song “Party All the Time” they probably thought it was pretty good, but by the 10th or 20th time it starts to wear thin.
Wednesday, June 23, 2004
Top movie songs
The American Film Institute’s latest list purports to reveal the top 100 songs in movies during the past 100 years.
The top 10:
Over the Rainbow (THE WIZARD OF OZ)
As Time Goes By (CASABLANCA)
Singin' In The Rain (SINGIN' IN THE RAIN)
Moon River (BREAKFAST AT TIFFANY'S)
White Christmas (HOLIDAY INN/WHITE CHRISTMAS)
Mrs. Robinson (THE GRADUATE)
When You Wish Upon a Star (PINOCCHIO)
The Way We Were (THE WAY WE WERE)
Stayin' Alive (SATURDAY NIGHT FEVER)
The Sound of Music (THE SOUND OF MUSIC).
As always, I could quibble with the order. For instance, I would bump up Bing Crosby’s “White Christmas” ahead of “Moon River” and I wouldn’t include “The Way We Were” or “Stayin’ Alive” in my Top 10.
But my biggest gripe, as always, is with the blatant ommissions. Looking over the list of 400 nominated songs there are quite of few deserving tunes that didn’t make the cutoff for the Top 100. Most significantly, in my opinion, are the Disney and Pixar tunes:
Chim Chim Cher-ee (Mary Poppins)
The Bare Necessities (Jungle Book)
Friend Like Me (Aladdin)
Under the Sea (The Little Mermaid)
Whistle While You Work (Snow White and the Seven Dwarves)
You’ve Got A Friend In Me (Toy Story)
Then there are these shocking ommissions:
If I Only Had A Brain (Wizard of Oz)
Ghostbusters (Ghostbusters)
I Am A Man of Constant Sorrow (O Brother, Where Art Thou?)
Live and Let Die (Live and Let Die)
The Time Warp (Rocky Horror Picture Show)
You’re the One That I Want (Grease)
And finally, songs that were not even on the list of 400 nominees:
Spoonful of Sugar (Mary Poppins)
Oompa Loompa (Willie Wonka and the Chocolate Factory)
The Maladjusted Jester (The Court Jester)
Yellow Submarine (Yellow Submarine)
I’m sure I will think of more...
UPDATE:
Pink Elephants on Parade (Dumbo)
The top 10:
Over the Rainbow (THE WIZARD OF OZ)
As Time Goes By (CASABLANCA)
Singin' In The Rain (SINGIN' IN THE RAIN)
Moon River (BREAKFAST AT TIFFANY'S)
White Christmas (HOLIDAY INN/WHITE CHRISTMAS)
Mrs. Robinson (THE GRADUATE)
When You Wish Upon a Star (PINOCCHIO)
The Way We Were (THE WAY WE WERE)
Stayin' Alive (SATURDAY NIGHT FEVER)
The Sound of Music (THE SOUND OF MUSIC).
As always, I could quibble with the order. For instance, I would bump up Bing Crosby’s “White Christmas” ahead of “Moon River” and I wouldn’t include “The Way We Were” or “Stayin’ Alive” in my Top 10.
But my biggest gripe, as always, is with the blatant ommissions. Looking over the list of 400 nominated songs there are quite of few deserving tunes that didn’t make the cutoff for the Top 100. Most significantly, in my opinion, are the Disney and Pixar tunes:
Chim Chim Cher-ee (Mary Poppins)
The Bare Necessities (Jungle Book)
Friend Like Me (Aladdin)
Under the Sea (The Little Mermaid)
Whistle While You Work (Snow White and the Seven Dwarves)
You’ve Got A Friend In Me (Toy Story)
Then there are these shocking ommissions:
If I Only Had A Brain (Wizard of Oz)
Ghostbusters (Ghostbusters)
I Am A Man of Constant Sorrow (O Brother, Where Art Thou?)
Live and Let Die (Live and Let Die)
The Time Warp (Rocky Horror Picture Show)
You’re the One That I Want (Grease)
And finally, songs that were not even on the list of 400 nominees:
Spoonful of Sugar (Mary Poppins)
Oompa Loompa (Willie Wonka and the Chocolate Factory)
The Maladjusted Jester (The Court Jester)
Yellow Submarine (Yellow Submarine)
I’m sure I will think of more...
UPDATE:
Pink Elephants on Parade (Dumbo)
Monday, June 21, 2004
Rowland pays while Bush plays
The resignation of Connecticut Gov. John Rowland was probably inevitable and therefore not surprising. If anything, I was mostly surprised that he held on for so long in today’s media culture where the hint of a scandal can sometimes produce a feeding frenzy.
But this wasn’t really a feeding frenzy, at least not on a national level. The charges leveled against Rowland - that he lied about getting gifts and favors from friends, state contractors and state employees - didn’t get too many people excited outside of the Nutmeg State.
I had an inkling that it would come to this, however, because of my personal experience with the typical Connecticut Yankee’s intolerance for these types of scandals. In April of 1992, I was working as a young reporter for a chain of weekly papers along the Connecticut coastline.
Once I was called to fill in for a vacationing reporter at one of the papers and cover a legal hearing in the upscale community of Madison where the local chief of police was in the process of being drummed out of his job. His crime? When the department got new police cruisers from a local dealer (Three 1991 Ford Crown Victoria’s), the chiefs car came with a trunk-mounted, 10-disc compact disc player that the dealer had thrown in.
Now this was back when having a cd player in a car was still kind of unique, and a 10-disc changer was something out of Star Wars. At the hearing I covered, the prosecuting attorney grilled the local dealer about how much the 10-disc changer cost (he refused to say) at a time when AM/FM radios with cassette decks was the standard.
I remember sitting there watching this hearing unfold thinking ‘What’s the big deal’? But obviously folks in Connecticut took this kind of stuff very seriously.
So when I saw what Rowland was charged with I knew his days were numbered. Here is the NYTimes summary:
“(Rowland’s wealthy friends) fixed up his cottage in bucolic Litchfield, where Connecticut's movers and shakers summer, complete with a hot tub given to him by a state employee. The governor got thousands of dollars in Cuban cigars and French champagne, a vintage Ford Mustang convertible and free or discounted vacations at the estates of friends -- contractors who won substantial business from the state.”
So while I’m not trying to defend what Rowland did, I think I can say that a certain former Texas Governor should be thankful that the folks in the Lone Star State were much more lenient about such things.
But this wasn’t really a feeding frenzy, at least not on a national level. The charges leveled against Rowland - that he lied about getting gifts and favors from friends, state contractors and state employees - didn’t get too many people excited outside of the Nutmeg State.
I had an inkling that it would come to this, however, because of my personal experience with the typical Connecticut Yankee’s intolerance for these types of scandals. In April of 1992, I was working as a young reporter for a chain of weekly papers along the Connecticut coastline.
Once I was called to fill in for a vacationing reporter at one of the papers and cover a legal hearing in the upscale community of Madison where the local chief of police was in the process of being drummed out of his job. His crime? When the department got new police cruisers from a local dealer (Three 1991 Ford Crown Victoria’s), the chiefs car came with a trunk-mounted, 10-disc compact disc player that the dealer had thrown in.
Now this was back when having a cd player in a car was still kind of unique, and a 10-disc changer was something out of Star Wars. At the hearing I covered, the prosecuting attorney grilled the local dealer about how much the 10-disc changer cost (he refused to say) at a time when AM/FM radios with cassette decks was the standard.
I remember sitting there watching this hearing unfold thinking ‘What’s the big deal’? But obviously folks in Connecticut took this kind of stuff very seriously.
So when I saw what Rowland was charged with I knew his days were numbered. Here is the NYTimes summary:
“(Rowland’s wealthy friends) fixed up his cottage in bucolic Litchfield, where Connecticut's movers and shakers summer, complete with a hot tub given to him by a state employee. The governor got thousands of dollars in Cuban cigars and French champagne, a vintage Ford Mustang convertible and free or discounted vacations at the estates of friends -- contractors who won substantial business from the state.”
So while I’m not trying to defend what Rowland did, I think I can say that a certain former Texas Governor should be thankful that the folks in the Lone Star State were much more lenient about such things.
Wednesday, June 16, 2004
The rich get richer...
There is at least one constituency group that has made out like gangbusters these last few years under President Bush, according to the Wall Street Journal:
Millionaires
The WSJ reported Tuesday that the number of millionaires in the U.S. is up 14 percent. The 2004 World Wealth Report revealed that the U.S. and Canada added more new millionaires last year than Europe, Asia, Latin America and the Middle East combined.
“In the U.S., rising stock markets, strong real estate prices, wealth-friendly tax cuts and low interest rates combined to create strong returns for the wealthy.”
And needless to say, they aren’t exactly spreading this wealth around (except for their donations to the Bush election campaign). Meanwhile, the economy continues to lose jobs as it sputters along while the government racks up record deficits.
Millionaires
The WSJ reported Tuesday that the number of millionaires in the U.S. is up 14 percent. The 2004 World Wealth Report revealed that the U.S. and Canada added more new millionaires last year than Europe, Asia, Latin America and the Middle East combined.
“In the U.S., rising stock markets, strong real estate prices, wealth-friendly tax cuts and low interest rates combined to create strong returns for the wealthy.”
And needless to say, they aren’t exactly spreading this wealth around (except for their donations to the Bush election campaign). Meanwhile, the economy continues to lose jobs as it sputters along while the government racks up record deficits.
Tortured reasoning
Here is an interesting article in Slate about President Bush’s chief legal counsel Alberto Gonzales.
Gonzales, a political appointee from Texas, was apparently the author and co-author, respectively, of two of the infamous memos that try to provide justifications of the torture of foreign prisoners.
The thing that caught my attention, though, was the headline Slate used for the story out on their front page:
Bush’s Execution-Lovin’, Torture-Denyin’, Treaty-Hatin’ Lawyer
It would be funny if it weren’t so true.
Gonzales, a political appointee from Texas, was apparently the author and co-author, respectively, of two of the infamous memos that try to provide justifications of the torture of foreign prisoners.
The thing that caught my attention, though, was the headline Slate used for the story out on their front page:
Bush’s Execution-Lovin’, Torture-Denyin’, Treaty-Hatin’ Lawyer
It would be funny if it weren’t so true.
Celebrity endorsements update
Time to update my running list of celebrity endorsements for this year’s presidential campaign.
Needless to say, John Kerry is the runaway favorite among most celebrities.
According to The Hill:
“A horde of celebrities has asked if they can help the Kerry campaign defeat Bush in November. There were so many requests, in fact, that it’s almost more celebrity help than the Kerry campaign needs or can use.”
Here are the latest additions to the Kerry celebrity endorsement list:
Jon Bon Jovi
James Gandolfini
Steve Buscemi
Richard Belzer
Robin Williams
Billy Crystal
Neil Diamond
Robert Redford
Tom Hanks
Danny DeVito
Dave Mathews Band
The Eagles
Sheryl Crowe
Bruce Springsteen
Emmylou Harris
Blink 182
Willie Nelson
John Mellencamp
Wyclef Jean
Whoopi Goldberg
Ben Affleck
Rhea Perlman
Ben Stiller
Dustin Hoffman
Richard Gere
Jessica Lange
John Williams (film score composer)
James Brolin
Ted Danson
Mary Steenburgen
Jason Alexander
Christina Applegate
Oliver Stone
Sharon Stone
Angelica Huston
Tobey Maguire
Brad Pitt
Christian Slater
Julia Louis-Dreyfus
Barry Manilow
Jack Nicholson
Martin Sheen
Maya Angelou
Michael Douglas
Wesley Snipes
Goldie Hawn
Sally Field
Christopher Reeve
John Travolta
Annette Bening
Kevin Spacey
Alan Cumming
Ed Begley Jr.
Steve Harvey
Leslie Ann Warren
And those previously mentioned:
Meg Ryan
Leonardo DiCaprio
Jennifer Aniston
Kevin Costner
Barbara Streisand
James Taylor
Larry David
Carole King
Dennis Hopper
Kathleen Turner
Kenneth “Babyface” Edmonds
Moby
Aaron Sorkin
Quincy Jones
Penny Marshall
Bette Midler
Jerry Seinfeld
Uma Thurman
Stephen Stills
Chevy Chase
Kevin Bacon
Paul Newman
Kate Hudson
Russell Crowe
Harvey Weinstein
Jennifer Garner
Robert DeNiro
Michael J. Fox
Peter Yarrow (of Peter, Paul & Mary)
As for the Bush campaign, the list is sparse by comparison. A web search only came up with three new names I had overlooked before:
Golfers Ben Crenshaw and Fuzzy Zoeller
and comedian Dennis Miller
Previously mentioned were:
Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger
Bruce Willis
Tom Selleck
I’m sure there are a few more out there but so far they aren’t making themselves too visible.
Needless to say, John Kerry is the runaway favorite among most celebrities.
According to The Hill:
“A horde of celebrities has asked if they can help the Kerry campaign defeat Bush in November. There were so many requests, in fact, that it’s almost more celebrity help than the Kerry campaign needs or can use.”
Here are the latest additions to the Kerry celebrity endorsement list:
Jon Bon Jovi
James Gandolfini
Steve Buscemi
Richard Belzer
Robin Williams
Billy Crystal
Neil Diamond
Robert Redford
Tom Hanks
Danny DeVito
Dave Mathews Band
The Eagles
Sheryl Crowe
Bruce Springsteen
Emmylou Harris
Blink 182
Willie Nelson
John Mellencamp
Wyclef Jean
Whoopi Goldberg
Ben Affleck
Rhea Perlman
Ben Stiller
Dustin Hoffman
Richard Gere
Jessica Lange
John Williams (film score composer)
James Brolin
Ted Danson
Mary Steenburgen
Jason Alexander
Christina Applegate
Oliver Stone
Sharon Stone
Angelica Huston
Tobey Maguire
Brad Pitt
Christian Slater
Julia Louis-Dreyfus
Barry Manilow
Jack Nicholson
Martin Sheen
Maya Angelou
Michael Douglas
Wesley Snipes
Goldie Hawn
Sally Field
Christopher Reeve
John Travolta
Annette Bening
Kevin Spacey
Alan Cumming
Ed Begley Jr.
Steve Harvey
Leslie Ann Warren
And those previously mentioned:
Meg Ryan
Leonardo DiCaprio
Jennifer Aniston
Kevin Costner
Barbara Streisand
James Taylor
Larry David
Carole King
Dennis Hopper
Kathleen Turner
Kenneth “Babyface” Edmonds
Moby
Aaron Sorkin
Quincy Jones
Penny Marshall
Bette Midler
Jerry Seinfeld
Uma Thurman
Stephen Stills
Chevy Chase
Kevin Bacon
Paul Newman
Kate Hudson
Russell Crowe
Harvey Weinstein
Jennifer Garner
Robert DeNiro
Michael J. Fox
Peter Yarrow (of Peter, Paul & Mary)
As for the Bush campaign, the list is sparse by comparison. A web search only came up with three new names I had overlooked before:
Golfers Ben Crenshaw and Fuzzy Zoeller
and comedian Dennis Miller
Previously mentioned were:
Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger
Bruce Willis
Tom Selleck
I’m sure there are a few more out there but so far they aren’t making themselves too visible.
Tuesday, June 15, 2004
Summing up the outrages
It is difficult to summarize all of the outrages of the Bush administration into just one paragraph, but Eric Alterman makes a good effort:
“It’s hard to say which is the best representation of what this war is doing to and has done to this country. Is it the lies that were told to get us into it? Is it the fact that we are picking up innocent people off the street and torturing them? Is it that we have suspended the most basic civil liberties in our own country? Is it that the work of professional intelligence agencies has been corrupted? Is it that we have drawn resources away from the fight against Al Qaida which has completely regrouped? Is it that we are creating more terrorists? Is it that more than 700 Americans have been killed and thousands have been seriously injured? Is it that thousands of Iraqis have been killed but nobody is keeping an account of the numbers of their deaths? Is it that we are now more hated around the world than we have ever been? Is it that we have spent hundreds of billions of dollars while actually decreasing our security? Is it that we are doing all this while starving the most crucial homeland security programs? Is it that everyone who told the truth about what was being planned has been dismissed and seen their characters attacked? The usually soft-spoken and moderate intelligence analyst and author Thomas Powers does not exaggerate when he notes that Bush and the neocons have "caused the greatest foreign policy catastrophe in modern U.S. history."
And that is just the foreign policy outrages.
“It’s hard to say which is the best representation of what this war is doing to and has done to this country. Is it the lies that were told to get us into it? Is it the fact that we are picking up innocent people off the street and torturing them? Is it that we have suspended the most basic civil liberties in our own country? Is it that the work of professional intelligence agencies has been corrupted? Is it that we have drawn resources away from the fight against Al Qaida which has completely regrouped? Is it that we are creating more terrorists? Is it that more than 700 Americans have been killed and thousands have been seriously injured? Is it that thousands of Iraqis have been killed but nobody is keeping an account of the numbers of their deaths? Is it that we are now more hated around the world than we have ever been? Is it that we have spent hundreds of billions of dollars while actually decreasing our security? Is it that we are doing all this while starving the most crucial homeland security programs? Is it that everyone who told the truth about what was being planned has been dismissed and seen their characters attacked? The usually soft-spoken and moderate intelligence analyst and author Thomas Powers does not exaggerate when he notes that Bush and the neocons have "caused the greatest foreign policy catastrophe in modern U.S. history."
And that is just the foreign policy outrages.
Monday, June 14, 2004
Emperor Bush has no clothes!
A group of 26 former diplomats and military officials have joined forces to oppose Bush's reelection campaign.
"Prominent members include retired Marine Gen. Joseph P. Hoar, commander of U.S. forces in the Middle East during the administration of Bush's father; retired Adm. William J. Crowe Jr., ambassador to Britain under President Clinton and chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff under President Reagan; and Jack F. Matlock Jr., a member of the National Security Council under Reagan and ambassador to the Soviet Union from 1987 to 1991."
"We agreed that we had just lost confidence in the ability of the Bush administration to advocate for American interests or to provide the kind of leadership that we think is essential," said William C. Harrop, the first President Bush's ambassador to Israel, and earlier to four African countries."
Finally more people are starting to come forward and admit that the emperor has no clothes. The group is supposed to issue a formal statement on Wednesday so I will link to that when it becomes available.
"Prominent members include retired Marine Gen. Joseph P. Hoar, commander of U.S. forces in the Middle East during the administration of Bush's father; retired Adm. William J. Crowe Jr., ambassador to Britain under President Clinton and chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff under President Reagan; and Jack F. Matlock Jr., a member of the National Security Council under Reagan and ambassador to the Soviet Union from 1987 to 1991."
"We agreed that we had just lost confidence in the ability of the Bush administration to advocate for American interests or to provide the kind of leadership that we think is essential," said William C. Harrop, the first President Bush's ambassador to Israel, and earlier to four African countries."
Finally more people are starting to come forward and admit that the emperor has no clothes. The group is supposed to issue a formal statement on Wednesday so I will link to that when it becomes available.
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