Torture case

The case of Maher Ararshould be very disturbing to most Americans. He is a Canadian citizen of Syrian descent who was falsely accused of being an Islamic extremist by the Candadian authorities in 2002.

The Syrian-born Mr. Arar was seized on Sept. 26, 2002, after he landed at Kennedy Airport in New York on his way home from a holiday in Tunisia. On Oct. 8, he was flown to Jordan in an American government plane and taken overland to Syria, where he says he was held for 10 months in a tiny cell and beaten repeatedly with a metal cable. He was freed in October 2003, after Syrian officials concluded that he had no connection to terrorism and returned him to Canada.

So when our government was informed that this man may have had connections to al-Qaeda our first reaction was to have him shipped over to Syria and tortured. And of course that was soooo effective considering that he immediately confessed to training with al-Qaeda at one of their camps in Afghanistan. But that turned out to be complete B.S. - he had never been to Afghanistan and had zero connection to al-Qaeda or any other extremist groups - so it was all for nothing. Meanwhile, we lied to the Canadians about his whereabouts so that they could not intervene.

As if this story was not awful enough, President Bush and the morally bankrupt Republican Party continues to push legislation that would make torture the common, everyday routine practice of our government - not even something that we would try and cover up anymore.
Quite frankly, the November elections can't get here soon enough. I just hope that there are still enough decent Americans paying attention to what has been going on to make a difference on election day.

The Devil made us do it

While making one of his patented Bush-bashing speeches at the U.N. today, Hugo Chavez, the brash, outspoken leader of Venezuela, waved a copy of a book by Noam Chomsky, demonstrating that he at least has good taste in literature.
This will, of course, excite a lot of the right-wing Chomsky-bashers into a frenzy of condemnation of the Cambridge-based linguist and U.S. foreign policy critic. But of course, Chomsky can’t control who reads his books (not that he would want to) nor does the character of the person reading the book detract from its truthfulness and sincerity.
But Chavez didn’t stop there in his provocations. I think he stepped over the line when he referred to President Bush as the Devil. This was an outrageous statement from a national leader and Chavez should apologize promptly. First off, it is clearly not true. Everybody knows that Dick Cheney is the Devil. Secondly, even if he was the Devil, we as U.S. citizens have the right to elect whomever the Supreme Court says we can. That’s what democracy is all about.

Which to believe?

Yesterday’s Washington Post had this article:

Corruption That Shook Capitol Isn't Rattling Elections

For all the influence-peddling that has been exposed in the run-up to the midterm election, corruption on Capitol Hill has not become a decisive issue -- here or in much of the country.

Today’s Wall Street Journal has this article:

Candidates Find It Hard To Shake Scandal

Politicians and pollsters say this year, widespread voter dissatisfaction with Congress has the electorate in a less forgiving mood. This campaign season also is marked by a number of close contests, making politicians vulnerable to charges of ethical lapses -- and raising the political stakes if the charges stick.

The blind leading the blind

Reason 1,567 why George W. Bush is a doofus who should never have been elected president.
This is truly astounding. Here is a story in the Washington Post explaining in part why things are such a mess today over in Iraq. It's because this administration valued ideology over competence when picking people to send to help rebuild Iraq.

...A 24-year-old who had never worked in finance -- but had applied for a White House job -- was sent to reopen Baghdad's stock exchange.
... The daughter of a prominent neoconservative commentator and a recent graduate from an evangelical university for home-schooled children were tapped to manage Iraq's $13 billion budget, even though they didn't have a background in accounting.

It seems the most important consideration when picking people to rebuild Iraq was not whether they knew what they were doing and could get the job done, but whether they were loyal devotees of George W. Bush and fellow travelers in the right-wing conservative movement.

The decision to send the loyal and the willing instead of the best and the brightest is now regarded by many people involved in the 3 1/2 -year effort to stabilize and rebuild Iraq as one of the Bush administration's gravest errors. Many of those selected because of their political fidelity spent their time trying to impose a conservative agenda on the postwar occupation, which sidetracked more important reconstruction efforts and squandered goodwill among the Iraqi people, according to many people who participated in the reconstruction effort.

If you can stomach it, I would recommend reading the whole article. Why anyone would ever support anyone involved with this administration again is beyond me. It can only be explained by blind ideology or willful ignorance.

Launching this war in the first place was one of the worst, most-boneheaded decisions ever made by a U.S. president, but screwing up the occupation afterwards is probably a close second.

Tortured logic

I should know better than to ever let my radio dial stray anywhere near a station that plays Rush Limbaugh. The other day while I was surfing the AM stations I let it stay on Rush Limbaugh for just 30 seconds, but that’s all it took for him to say something that just ticked me off for the rest of the day. Rush Limbaugh is such a lying pig. People who listen to his show must just get stupider by the day. It is unreal.
During that 30 seconds, Rush was in a huff about critics of Bush’s interrogation policy and he suddenly announced that waterboarding is not torture because our own troops go through waterboarding as part of their training.
Bull! They do not!! Argghhh!!! Such a liar!!!!
I can guarantee you that our troops do not get strapped to a board and submerged underwater and made to think they are going to drown as part of any kind of training.
Now there is one secretive program at Fort Bragg, as I understand, where a few elite troops who regularly go behind enemy lines are specially trained to resist torture techniques, one of which is a form of waterboarding. But to imply that all our troops receive such training, or that waterboarding is therefore not a form of torture is B.S.
I remember my dad talking about his Air Force survival training before he was sent to Vietnam. It mainly involved being dumped out in the middle of a desert with little more than a pocket knife and a compass. It certainly did not involve being strapped down and held underwater.
But Rush Limbaugh wants his gullible listeners to think that waterboarding is no big deal. Just another college frat prank like George W. used to pull all the time at Yale. HaHaHa.
Like I’ve said before, torturing people is wrong. I don’t care if we are talking about Osama bin Laden himself, it is still wrong. We are better than that and for our president to insist that we must stoop down to Saddam Hussein’s level is just shameful.

RINO victorious

The Republicans managed to prop up liberal Sen. Lincoln Chaffee the other day by dumping a lot of money into the Rhode Island Republican Primary so that he could ward off a stiff challenge from a conservative newcomer.
I was conflicted by the results. A victory by the conservative candidate would have pretty much guaranteed a Democratic victory in November — Rhode Island is about 80 percent Democratic. Republicans were prepared to pull up stakes and concede the seat in that case.
But by winning, Republicans will have to spend even more money in the fall if Chaffee hopes to hang on against Democrat Sheldon Whitehouse.
I can think of worse ways for Republicans to spend their money than supporting a guy who I agree with about 90 percent of the time. Heh heh heh.

Ann Richards remembered

One of my favorite politicians has died.
Ann Richards was 73.
It was a thrill to see her win the governor's election in 1990, defeating a prominent Aggie by the name of Clayton Williams. How prominent? The Texas A&M Association of Former Students building is named after him, if that's any indication.
I still have my "Aggies for Ann Richards" T-shirt from her first gubernatorial campaign. A very rare item indeed.
I had an Ann Richards for Governor bumper sticker on my truck when I got married. And one of the first trips my wife and I took after our honeymoon was to go to Ann Richard's inauguration in Austin.

I thought she did an excellent job as governor and truly deserved a second term. Her one big mistake, in my opinion, was signing the Texas Lottery into law. Unfortunately, I think public support for a lottery back then was so strong that it would have been hard for any politician to stand in its way and it probably would have been approved regardless of who was governor.
I only got to meet Richards one time, during an Aggie Democrats function during her first campaign (Carol Channing was there too!) In 1994, she did not campaign in Kerrville (one of the most solidly Republican areas in the state) so I did not have the opportunity to interview her like I did George W. Bush.
Bush wasn't a bad governor, but he has been a lousy president. It is too bad that Ann Richard's political career ended so soon. If she had won re-election, and Bush had been forced to go back and do something he was good at, like being part-owner of the Texas Rangers, then things would be very different today. We would not be bogged down in Iraq. Osama bin Laden would already be dead or captured. And we might even still have a surplus.
Rest in Peace, Ann Richards.

Tie a yellow ribbon

It’s getting easier to find my car in the parking lot these days. All I have to do is look for the one that still has one of those yellow-ribbon magnets on the bumper.
It used to be that the those yellow-ribbon magnets were everywhere, but now it seems as if the novelty has worn off. I think it is ironic that I would be one of the last ones still sporting a “Support the Troops” sticker on my car, considering that I have opposed this war from the start. However, the beauty of the yellow ribbon sticker was that it could mean different things for different people. For war supporters it meant “I support the troops, now go kick some butt!” While for war opponents it meant “I support the troops, now get them the Hell out of there!”
But today the predominant message seems to be one of bored indifference. Except for those people who have family or friends in Iraq, the war coverage doesn’t excite us anymore. In fact, it has become something of a bummer and most of us would just as soon watch a re-run of CSI-Miami rather than hear about the latest attacks by the insurgency. The war in Iraq is suffering the same fate as a once-successful football team that is now having a string of losing seasons. When the team is winning, everyone is a fan. But when it is losing, the fans disappear and move on to the next winning team.
There are still some diehard fans of the war, cheering enthusiastically regardless of the reality in Iraq. And there are still some diehard opponents of the war who insist (rightfully so in my opinion) that we need to pull the plug on the whole operation. But the vast majority of folks in the middle seem to have just lost interest altogether. They seem content to just let Bush and Co. coast along with the status quo until his term in office ends. And the dearth of yellow-ribbon stickers on cars is just one small indication of our national boredom with the war.

What could have been

In recognition of the 5th anniversary of 9-11 I am posting an address that former Vice President Al Gore gave to the Council on Foreign Governments five months after the tragedy that I found over at Political Animal.

Al Gore
Address to the Council on Foreign Relations
February 12, 2002

I am grateful to be back before the Council on Foreign Relations and I want to congratulate Les Gelb and the entire Council — its staff and its members — on the great work you have been doing to deepen our understanding of America’s role in the world.

A lot of people have let me know they wished I had been speaking out on public affairs long before now. But in the aftermath of a very divisive election, I thought it would be graceless to do so and possibly damaging to the nation. And then came September 11th.

In the immediate aftermath, I expressed full support for our Commander-in-Chief, President George W. Bush. Tonight I reaffirm that support of the President’s conduct of the military campaign in Afghanistan, and I appreciate his candor in telling the American people that this will be a long struggle — for which the nation must be braced and its political leadership united across party lines.

Indeed, President Bush deserves tremendous credit for the way he has led the nation in a highly successful opening counter-attack in the war against terror.

All Americans are proud of our nation's triumph — and especially proud of the courage and skill that our armed forces have demonstrated in winning swift and decisive victories. Our men and women in uniform have shown uncommon valor and the highest levels of dedication, professionalism and preparedness in responding to this enormous challenge. They have proved they are up to the task and I know they will continue to protect and defend us in the coming stages of the military campaign as well.

If yesterday marked the five month anniversary of the darkest day in American history, today — the Day After — must mark the anniversary of one of the greatest days in American history: because on September 12, a bruised and battered nation began to fight back. Some fought back by rushing to aid and rescue the few surviving victims of the tragedy — and to aid and comfort the grieving and bereaved. Here in this city, even this today, remains are still being removed from the World Trade Center site.

Some fought back by reporting to reserve units or shipping out for extended tours of duty. And still others reported for duty on the front lines of our homeland defense as firefighters, police, nurses, border patrol, and others whose courage and sacrifices are admired and appreciated now more than ever.

The Axis of Evil

I also support the President's stated goals in the next phases of the war against terrorism as he laid them out in the State of the Union. What I want to talk about tonight are the fundamental, strategic questions before us as a nation. What are the next steps in the war against terrorism? And beyond immediate next steps, what is the longer-range plan of action? And finally, what should be done to deal with root causes of this threat?

Since the State of the Union, there has been much discussion of whether Iraq, Iran and North Korea truly constitute an "Axis of Evil." As far as I'm concerned, there really is something to be said for occasionally putting diplomacy aside and laying one's cards on the table. There is value in calling evil by its name.

One should never underestimate the power of bold words coming from a President of the United States. Jimmy Carter's espousal of human rights as an integral part of American foreign policy was in truth the crucial first step towards the democratic transformation of Latin America. And Ronald Reagan's blast against "the evil empire" was a pivotal moment reminding everyone that there was more at issue in the struggle between east and west than a contest for power.

As important as identifying Iraq, Iran and North Korea for what they are, we must be equally bold in identifying other evils that confront us. For there is another Axis of Evil in the world: poverty and ignorance; disease and environmental disorder; corruption and political oppression. We may well put down terror in its present manifestations. But if we do not attend to the larger fundamentals as well, then the ground is fertile and has been seeded for the next generation of those born to hate us, who will hold these things up before the world's poor and dispossessed, and say that all these things are in our image, and rekindle the war we are now hoping to snuff out.

"Draining the swamp" of terrorism must of course in the first instance mean destroying the ability of terrorist networks to function. But drying it up at its source must also mean draining the aquifer of anger that underlies terrorism: anger that enflames the hearts of so many young men, and makes them willing, dedicated recruits for terror. Anger at perceived historical injustices involving a mass-memory throughout the Islamic world of past glory and more recent centuries of decline and oppression at the hands of the West.

Anger at the cynicism of Western policy during the Cold War: often aligning itself with corrupt and tyrannical governments. And even after all that, anger at the continued failure to thrive, as rates of economic growth stagnate, while the cohort of unemployed young men under twenty continues to increase.

This is anger different than the pure evil represented by terrorists, but anger nonetheless — anger which is the medium on which the impulse to terrorism thrives. The evil we now confront is not just the one-time creation of a charismatic leader and his co-conspirators, or even of a handful of regimes. What we deal with now is today's manifestation of an anger welling up from deep layers of grievance shared by many millions of people.

Military force alone cannot deal with this. Public diplomacy alone cannot drain this reservoir. What will be needed is a far reaching American strategy for encouraging reform, and for engaging day in and day out with societies that are trying to cast off the curse of bitter experience relived continuously. Hope for the future is the only way to put out these fires.

What is "evil" anyway? I do not pretend to have the answer to such a question but my faith tradition teaches me that all of us have the potential inside of us for both good and evil. Indeed, the first example of murderous violence in the Bible is the story of the two sons of Adam and Eve. With slight differences, it is the same story told in Chapter five, verses 27 through 31 of "Sura" in the Koran, where Muslims read that both Cain and Abel "offered an offering, but it was accepted from one of them and was not accepted from the other." Feeling disrespected by God, Cain said to his brother, "I will most certainly slay you... then his mind facilitated to him the slaying of his brother, so he slew him; then he became one of the losers."

Disrespect, the feeling that what one has to offer in life has been rejected, the feeling that one has joined history’s losers can make us as human beings more vulnerable to evil.

Conservative theologian Michael Novak wrote recently of America’s founders’ view that, "there is evil in the world and it coagulates, it gathers force, and if it bursts its bounds endangers everybody." In a brilliant essay that was otherwise full of praise for President Bush’s actions in the war against terror, Novak concluded with an important caution: "The word ‘evil’, when used only of others, can intoxicate the user before he knows it. I commend to him [the President], and all of us, [Reinhold] Neibuhr’s pregnant warning: ‘the final enigma of history is therefore not how the righteous will gain victory over the un-righteous, but how the evil in every good and the un-righteousness of the righteous is to be overcome.’"

We must also expand our idea of what constitutes a threat to our security in the long run, and be prepared to confront and deal with these things, too. It is time to accept that massive environmental disorder including global warming is literally a threat to international peace and stability. We must finally develop alternatives to mid-eastern oil, internal combustion engines, inefficient boilers and the inertia that has paralyzed needed efforts at conservation.

HIV/AIDS is a national security threat. It is now the most deadly pandemic in the history of the world. U.S. leadership is needed.

We must acknowledge that the utter poverty of hundreds of millions of people is not a matter for compassion only, but a threat in the long term to the growth and vigor of the global economic system. We must see it as a part of our charge to help create economic opportunity so that the gap between the richest and poorest does not grow ever wider.

Globalized crime is a cousin to globalized terror, and along with corruption needs to be dealt with as an urgent threat to civil society.

Our most important immediate task is to continue to tear up the Al Qaeda network, and since it is present in many countries, it will be an operation, which requires new forms of sustained cooperation with other governments.

Even if we give first priority to the destruction of terrorist networks, and even if we succeed, there are still governments that could bring us great harm. And there is a clear case that one of these governments in particular represents a virulent threat in a class by itself: Iraq.

As far as I am concerned, a final reckoning with that government should be on the table. To my way of thinking, the real question is not the principle of the thing, but of making sure that this time we will finish the matter on our terms. But finishing it on our terms means more than a change of regime in Iraq. It means thinking through the consequences of action there on our other vital interests, including the survival in office of Pakistan's leader; avoiding a huge escalation of violence in the Middle East; provision for the security and interests of Saudi Arabia, Turkey and the Gulf States; having a workable plan for preventing the disintegration of Iraq into chaos; and sustaining critically important support within the present coalition.

In 1991, I crossed party lines and supported the use of force against Saddam Hussein, but he was allowed to survive his defeat as the result of a calculation we all had reason to deeply regret for the ensuing decade. And we still do. So this time, if we resort to force, we must absolutely get it right. It must be an action set up carefully and on the basis of the most realistic concepts. Failure cannot be an option, which means that we must be prepared to go the limit. And wishful thinking based on best-case scenarios or excessively literal transfers of recent experience to different conditions would be a recipe for disaster.

But still, the question remains — what next? Is Iran under the hard-liners less of a proliferation threat than Iraq? Or less involved with terrorism? If anything, Iran is at this moment a much more dangerous challenge in each area than Iraq. Iran is flight-testing longer range rockets. Iran has loaded up at least one merchant ship with a cargo of death for Israel.

The vast majority of the Iranian people seem to disagree with the policies and actions of the small group of mullahs now in control of their military and intelligence apparatus. We have to deal with that nation’s actions as they take place. In the process, however, we should find ways to encourage the majority who obviously wish to develop a more constructive relationship with us.

On the Korean peninsula, unlike in the previous two cases, we have a strong ally in South Korea. It is not enough to call North Korea what it is — evil. We need to continue to keep the peace by remaining ready for war, as we have for almost fifty years. We also need to work with President Kim Dae Jung and the government in the Republic of Korea to galvanize positive action on the peninsula. Throughout the 1990s we proved that a creative, sustained program could help move the North Korean regime in new directions. Such creativity and commitment to addressing our interests in Korea are needed more than ever now.

And supposing even that we could eliminate the threat presented by the "Axis of Evil?" at what point, can the United States declare that the job is done, and leave the scene? Here, a too narrow definition of the threat, and a too limited assessment of its causes, can lead us into trouble.

It is important that America not just stand tall against terrorists, but America must also stand for economic opportunity and democratic freedoms. America must stand for human rights. America must stand for the rights of women. America must stand for environmental protection and energy conservation.

Unilateralism and hubris

The Administration in which I served looked at the challenges we faced in the world and said we wished to tackle these "With others, if possible; alone, if we must." This Administration sometimes seems inclined to stand that on its head, so that the message is: "With others, if we must; by ourselves, if possible."

The coalition so skillfully assembled by the President is one that may dissipate as rapidly as it coalesced, unless we make an investment in its permanence, beginning with a more evident respect on our part for the views and interests of its members. As regards our most important established alliance, NATO, we convey impatience and disdain for the military capabilities of its other members, and little patience for their views about longer-term objectives.

Maybe they have earned a good deal of that by their failure to invest in capabilities they only talk about; maybe some of them have been much too ready to believe that the best way to deal with dangerous forces is always to engage them in dialogue. Maybe some of them have bought peace for themselves by not looking too hard for terrorists who plot against us on their soil, so long as their plans did not disturb domestic tranquility.

But we need them with us — and equally for sure, we cannot bind them to us for fierce battle over the long term if we take them lightly. We may be the world’s sole remaining super-power but we are going to need allies. In Greek mythology, Hercules was the super-power of his day, but when he faced his most dangerous foe, the multi-headed Hydra which — like the terrorist networks of today — grew two new heads every time one was cut off — he had to build a coalition. Uncharacteristically he teamed up with an ally because it was the only way he could prevail.

Continuity of effort

One of the truly bad things about our politics is that it incites each administration to attack every last thing its predecessor has done, and to either tear down what was left or rename it so that its parentage can be forgotten. We did some of that — but we also kept a lot of what we inherited from the first Bush administration and we protected it and built upon it. The struggle against terror may last for a very long time, even past a shift of parties in power. You know, the Cold War was won by the cumulative work of administrations from Harry S Truman to George H. W. Bush. And I hope that the present administration chooses to invest in reconstructing a sense of what bipartisanship in the defense of the country is all about: even after the planes land and the guns stop firing.

I don't pretend to any received wisdom but I learned a lot from my experience in the Clinton-Gore administration: lessons I think are worth remembering and incorporating into the normal practice of our diplomacy — and of protecting from the vicious rip- tides of our politics. I know from experience that bi-partisanship is no easy matter. It is difficult to go against one's own political base, whether it’s a Democrat supporting the MX missile or a Republican trying to cancel an obsolete 70 ton artillery piece.

Above all, I learned that our engagement with others on behalf of common values is something that must be of profound intent, and of long duration. It isn't enough to destroy what is evil, and then seek to leave by the nearest door. We must make the commitment to work with those whom we have rescued until they can stand on their own feet.

That means supporting an increase in the size of the international security force in Afghanistan and enlarging its mandate beyond Kabul to the whole country. And it means remaining engaged ourselves, if not with a small symbolic presences in the international force on the ground, then at least as on the horizon ready to respond with help from the air when needed.

When all is said and done, I hope that when the people of our country next return the White House for a time to the Democratic Party, our leadership then will be big enough to salute the present administration for what it will have done that is wise and good. And to build upon it forthrightly.

Towards that end, we must now expand our concept of what is needed to reach the goals upon which we all agree. The United States needs to create a world made more just and more hopeful, not just a world made more profitable for ourselves. I hope that this President’s record makes it damn hard for the competition to complain about his record in foreign policy. That may be bad for the loyal opposition. But it’s good for the people, who deserve it. And I promise my support for whatever he may do in support of that prayer.

A hunting we will go...

Check out the front page of Saturday's San Antonio Express-News.
A big photo of Gov. Rick Perry in full hunting regalia complete with a dead buck. And here is the caption that runs with the photo (I kid you not):

Gov. Rick Perry's image as a hunter is so important in Texas politics that his campaign provided this picture.

And so, of course, the Express-News dutifully ran the picture on the front page of the paper today. Thank you, Express-News! I'm sure the Rick Perry for Governor campaign greatly appreciates it!

Sheesh! I suppose tomorrow they might as well formally endorse the governor and drop the charade of being objective in this election.

Update

On Sunday the E-N had another story on the governor’s race, this one about the importance of religion in the campaign. The only surprise was that they did not run a photo of Gov. Perry on his knees, praying in church. I suppose the Rick Perry for Governor campaign missed a great opportunity by not supply the E-N with that photo.

9-11 will never happen again

The one thing that still strikes me about 9-11 is how ingenious it was. They couldn't fly a plane over here and drop bombs on us, so they hijacked planes instead and turned them into bombs. The hijackers didn't need explosives or WMDs. Just some box cutters.
Nobody saw it coming and thus they were able to pull it off at first. But the novelty wore off before the attacks were even finished. Once the passengers on United 93 found out via cell phones that other planes had been used to strike the World Trade Center and the Pentagon, they fought like hell and brought the plane down.
That's why there will never be another 9-11 like that. It doesn't have anything to do with what President Bush has or has not done with regards to Homeland Security. It is simply a matter of a change of perspective of airline passengers. A terrorist today could not take control of a plane using just a razor blade or a knife. People today just aren't going to let them take control of a plane without putting up a fight. The days of passengers sitting back on hijacked planes expecting that they will just be flown to some other location where the hijacker will seek asylum are over. In fact, I would bet there have been fewer hijackings since 9-11 because of this. I don't actually know if that is true, but that would be my guess.
And even if someone did get control of a plane, our military would not hesitate to shoot it out of the sky before it could get near any major target areas.

What still worries us, however, is that bin Laden probably knew it was a one-shot deal and is now busy plotting other very different, but equally ingenious ways to attack us. That fear of the unknown is what has kept the Bush administration propped up these past five years. But now, at long last, people are finally starting to realize that this president, the worst president in modern history, is not making us safer and more secure. To the contrary, he has depleted our military resources, inflamed Muslim passions against us and provided al-Qaeda with incredible recruiting opportunities which they are currently using to great effect in Iraq and Afghanistan to launch suicide bombing attacks everyday.

Things are looking brighter

I’m still wary of being overly optimistic about the upcoming mid-term elections, but stories like this one are beginning to give me hope that the American electorate may have finally regained its sanity.

This administration has been a complete and total disaster by every conceivable measure. There is nothing they can show as a positive in trying to make the case for keeping their party in power and the best they can do is yell “Booga, booga!! The terrorists are gonna’ get you!!” at every opportunity.

There was a graphic that ran in Sunday’s NY Times that made a particularly compelling case about the precarious position House Republicans find themselves in today. It compared a number of statistics between past mid-term elections and the one coming up next month. Here is the gist of it looking at the 1994 election that ushered the Republicans into power 12 long years ago:

President’s approval rating:

1994: 45 percent
2006: 37 percent

Percent of voters who say their vote will be against the president:

1994: 18 percent
2006: 35 percent

Congress’ approval rating:

1994: 27 percent
2006: 27 percent

Favorable rating of the Republican Party:

1994: 63 percent
2006: 40 percent

Percent satisfied with national conditions:

1994: 24 percent
2006: 30 percent

Gasoline prices per gallon:

1994: $1.52
2006: $2.92

In 1994, Democrats lost 53 House seats as Republicans took majority control of Congress for the first time in decades.
In 2006, Republicans need only lose 15 House seats to lose their tentative grip on the House majority.

Croc Hunter RIP

I hated seeing the news about Steve Irwin dying the other day. I think it is the most tragic celebrity news I’ve seen since the late Christopher Reeve fell off his horse and became a parapalegic. Irwin was the kind of guy you expected to live forever, despite the fact that he constantly took risks. Kind of like Evil Kneivel.
The Crocodile Hunter was a favorite show at our household where the TV can usually be found skipping between Animal Planet, The Discovery Channel and Home and Garden Network.
I think what disturbed me the most is that he was only a few years older than me and his son is the same age as my little boy. Life is precious and he lived it to the fullest. My most sincere condolences to his family.

The Armitage revelation

My friend Mark Harden is dancing a little jig in the endzone to celebrate what he believes is the ignominious end of the CIA Leak scandal brought on by the revelation that Robert Novak’s primary source was Richard Armitage, a top aide to then-Secretary of State Colin Powell.
Why this should make any difference is unclear to me, however. We know that Novak was not the first journalist to learn about Valerie Plame, just the first to actually go to press with it. We also know that Novak went to Karl Rove with this information to get confirmation before going to press.

Kevin Drum sums it up well here.

Armitage is hardly the end of the story. Whether his gossiping was innocent or not — about which I remain agnostic — the fact remains that several other people were also aggressively talking to multiple reporters about Plame's role at the same time. If Armitage really didn't have any malicious intent, it's a helluva coincidence that he happened to be gossiping about the exact same thing as a bunch of other people who did have malicious intent.

And David Corn makes clear why and how the White House campaign to discredit Ambassador Wilson set the ball to rollling in the first place.

The Armitage leak was not directly a part of the White House's fierce anti-Wilson crusade. But as Hubris notes, it was, in a way, linked to the White House effort, for Amitage had been sent a key memo about Wilson's trip that referred to his wife and her CIA connection, and this memo had been written, according to special counsel Patrick Fitzgerald, at the request of I. Lewis Scooter Libby, the vice president's chief of staff. Libby had asked for the memo because he was looking to protect his boss from the mounting criticism that Bush and Cheney had misrepresented the WMD intelligence to garner public support for the invasion of Iraq.

Finally, if the fact that Armitage was Novak’s primary source somehow makes everything OK with respect to the administration’s involvement in outing a covert CIA operative, why did Patrick Fitzgerald go forward with the investigation anyway? We also know that Novak went to Fitzgerald at the outset and told him who his sources were. So Fitzgerald has known all along that Armitage was Novak’s first source, and yet he pushed forward with the case and still indicted Scooter Libby for perjury and obstruction of justice. So the Armitage revelation changes nothing in that respect.
Also, if it was all no big deal, as Bush supporters are now claiming, why did Libby perjure himself before the grand jury?

Bush hosting murdering, theiving dictator

Remember this the next time Bush talks about his support for freedom and democracy around the world:

This week President Bush will be rolling out the red carpet for Nursultan Nazarbayev, the autocratic leader of Kazakhstan who is currently under investigation by the Justice Department for accepting millions of dollars in bribes.

Nazarbayev has banned opposition parties, intimidated the press and profited from his post, according to the U.S. government. But he also sits atop massive oil reserves that have helped open doors in Washington.

Nazarbayev is the elected leader of Kazakhstan in the same way that Saddam Hussein was the elected leader of Iraq. He won his last “election” with more than 91 percent of the vote, but that’s not hard to do when you have outlawed the political opposition and when your political opponents keep winding up gunned down on the side of the road.

Canon Rock

I can’t believe this kid hasn’t been signed to a recording contract yet! Are the record company executives insane?
If the Baha Boys were able to make a mint with “Who Let the Dogs Out?”, then surely Jeong-Hyun Lim and the composer Jerry Chang should make a small fortune for this.
They should invite these two fellows to perform this piece during the halftime show at the Super Bowl.

Chicks’ boost country music sales

I finally bought the Dixie Chick’s latest cd last week and was intrigued by this story about the last country radio station in L.A. shutting down:
Despite big sales, L.A. loses country radio

...the city lost its last country music channel when KZLA-FM (93.9), self-billed as "America's most listened-to country station," changed its format for the first time in 25 years - to a pop format focusing on beat-heavy R&B and dance tunes....

Ironically, KZLA's change comes at a time when country music is flourishing. While album sales of most musical genres have declined, country music has experienced one of its best years. During the first six months of 2006, U.S. sales of country albums increased by 17.7 percent to 36 million, according to Nielsen SoundScan. Best sellers from bands such as Rascal Flatts and the Dixie Chicks have driven those increases.

So if I am getting this straight, the Dixie Chicks are helping to boost country music sales at a time when country radio stations are suffering. The irony, of course is that many of these country radio stations refuse to play the Dixie Chicks despite their popularity because they are run by people who are unhappy with the Chicks’ political views. I guess it is just too much to expect that these stations would play the music that people want to hear. They would rather stick to their right-wing agenda even if it means that they will suffer financially.

A good government success story

In the comments to the previous post, my friend Mark Harden had this to say about welfare reform:

...what, exactly, the success of welfare reform was all about: removing the culture of dependency which, among other things, condemned two generations of poor blacks to poverty and misery. Welfare prior to 1995 was not "care" for citizens, Ann: it actively HARMED them. For example: welfare regulations encouraged single motherhood. Single motherhood is the greatest single factor correlating with poverty...higher than race, higher than lack of education. And your "caring" welfare program encouraged it.

By the mid-1990s the welfare system was in need of reform. It was expensive, inefficient and prone to abuse. But to say that it “actively harmed” people is utterly ridiculous. Believe it or not, but poverty existed long before the federal government stepped in and started passing out welfare checks. To say that welfare condemned people to poverty is like saying that the firefighters responding to a three-alarm fire were somehow the cause of the fire. They may not be spraying their water in the most efficient manner to put out the fire, but they certainly did not start the fire. And shutting off their hoses and walking away will not make the fire go away. Neither will poverty go away if the government shuts down its poverty programs and quits passing out checks.

Prior to the 1996 Welfare Reform Act, poor people were not “trapped” by welfare. It was not the monthly subsistence checks that were holding them down. Rather it was the lack of any other means to pull themselves out of poverty. What they needed other than just the threat of being cut off from welfare was the education, job training and child care programs that became available once the welfare reform act began redirecting money in that direction. It was those Clinton-era programs, combined with the Clinton-era prosperity that helped welfare reform make such dramatic strides in getting people off the welfare rolls. In other words, good government programs helped to fix a problem that was clogging up another good government program.

But Mark, unfortunately, is one of those conservatives afflicted with a malady known as Government Derangement Syndrome which makes him see all government progams as inherently evil. It is similar to Bush Derangement Syndrome which he often accuses me of having only about 10-times worse. (Poor Mark is also beset by a number of other similar maladies including Hillary Clinton Derangement Syndrome; Liberal Media Derangement Syndrome; Michael Moore Derangement Syndrome; and Democratic Presidential Nominee Derangement Syndrome among others.)

Thomas Frank in yesterday’s NYTimes had a facinating article about how the conservatives’ trashing of government suits their long-term interests even when it is their own people (Jack Abramoff, Tom DeLay, etc.) who are doing the trashing. This is because it promotes overall cynicism about the effectiveness of government and plays into the hands of the GOP, the anti-government party of today.

What really worries me, though, is that our response to all this may be to burrow deeper into our own cynicism, ultimately reinforcing the gang that owns the patent on cynicism and thus setting us up for another helping of the same. This may not be apparent now, with the identity of the culprits still vivid and the G.O.P. apparently heading for a midterm spanking. Recall, though, that while the short-term effects of the Watergate scandal were jail sentences for several Republicans and the election of many Democrats to Congress in 1974, its long-term effect was the destruction of public faith in government itself and the wave that swept in Ronald Reagan six years later.

Welfare reform is actually a success story for good government, but Mark would rather portray it as a failure of government so that people will continue to support anti-government politicos from his party. And unfortunately, this would be bad for our country, whether Mark can see it or not.

Welfare reform needs tweaking

I was one of those critics of welfare reform back in the 1990s who feared that it would be a disaster, especially when the economy took a downturn (which it did as soon as the incompetent George W. Bush took charge).
So I was pleasantly surprised to see that my worst fears were not confirmed in this case.
The number of people on welfare plunged by 60 percent, employment among single mothers is up and child support collections have nearly doubled since the law was changed.
But while these changes have been good, there has been a slight uptick in the poverty rate among single women since Bush has been in office. One researcher says there has been a “disconcerting increase in the number of poor mothers with no obvious source of income.”
Some of the answers are obvious and once we get some responsible leadership in the White House they will likely be addressed quickly. We need to increase the minimum wage to catch up with a decade of inflation and make it a livable wage once again (without breaking the bank by giving a huge windfall of tax cuts to the super- ultra-wealthy). And if we are going to insist that these single mothers work, we must spend more on child care programs.
These are the kinds of things that can be done without reversing the positive aspects of the Clinton-era reforms.

There is no escape

In case you haven't heard, the authorities have finally arrested someone in connection with the 10-year-old murder investigation of Jon Benet Ramsey. And the only way you might not have heard is if you've been living under a rock all this past week.
Last night, CNN's web site ran one of its bright red banner alerts at the top of its page which are generally used for breaking news of the highest importance. I began reading that the plane carrying Ramsey's accused killer had .... (What?! The plane crashed?!, I thought. What could be so important?) .... landed at LA International Airport.

Oh My! Thank you for that bit of earthshattering news CNN.

Now this morning I see that the top-of-the-fold lead story in the San Antonio Express-News is giving me a detailed, minute-by-minute rundown of the entire plane flight including what the accused fellow ate and what he was wearing.

Absolutely appalling! And this story pushed down to the bottom of the page the news that snipers in Baghdad had opened fire on a Shiite Muslim religious procession killing 20 people and wounding 300. Ho-Hum. Just another day in lovely Iraq where freedom is on the march and the insurgents are in their last throes.