September 30, 2004
Galluping Toward Vote Fraud?
Like a lot of political observers, I've been somewhat mystified by how far
off the norm Gallup and a few other pollsters have been. Most polls I've
seen have the race leaning slightly toward Bush, but within the margin of
error. But Gallup for the past few weeks has been WAY out there, and
currently is showing Bush with 13-point lead.
My original supposition was that the poll was artificially jacked up (by
adding more Republicans than Democrats into the polled-voter list) in order
to give the impression that Bush had the big momentum, and those sitting on
the fence better jump aboard the GOP bandwagon before it's too late. With
that big a lead indicated, the hope of the Bush Campaign was that many
Democrat voters would get discouraged and not even head for their precinct
on Election Day.
But there may be something even more nefarious going on. Short version: It's
possible we are being set up for tally-manipulation on Election Day.
This longer version takes a bit of explanation. Follow me on this one:
If the polls in a state indicated a slight lead for Kerry going into the
election, or a tied race, and Bush emerges the winner by a few percentage
points, there might well be immediate calls for recounting the ballots. But
if Bush is given, say, a 10-to-13-point cushion in the rigged polls, and he
wins by, say 2 or 3 points, this victory would not excite that much
suspicion, and the recount issue might not come into the picture.
("Recount," as you realize, is a meaningless term for those who cast their
ballots on touch-screen computer-voting machines that do not provide
verified-voting receipts. A "recount" merely would once again spit out the
same skewed numbers.)
The Gallup poll, and similar suspicious ones, thus give Rove the cushion he
needs to hide whatever electoral manipulations need to be carried out. You
remember that the proprietary software for counting the votes is controlled
by the Republican-supporting companies that manufacture the computer-voting
machines, and that the software can be diddled-with without leaving any
trace.
Some of the thinking above was hinted at in "Gallup
Polls: Conditioning the Public for Vote-Rigging?", by Stephen Crocket
and Al Lawrence of Democratic Talk Radio.
For more on the Gallup Organization, and how it works, check out Steve
Soto's "Gallup
Is At it Again -- Yesterday's National Poll Had 12% GOP Bias".
Also, be sure to see Ruy Teixeira's
"The "How Can Gallup........Game", where he uses Gallup's own
state-by-state figures to demonstrate the phony nature of the supposed 13%
Bush lead.
FLIPPING THE FLOPPER
I'm writing this late-Wednesday, a day before the all-important synchronized
swimming event known as the "debate" -- where true confrontations and
spontaneity are kept to an absolute minimum. But surely, one of the key
charges on which Bush will rest his case is the "flip-flopper" one, trying
by constant repetition to convince voters that Kerry is simply not
consistent or strong enough to earn anybody's vote.
I think Kerry is prepared to deal with that one, in the same way he dealt
with enemy attackers along the river in Vietnam, when he turned his boat
toward them, powered onto the shore and went after the Viet Cong with guns
a-blazing. My guess in the debate is that Kerry will execute a ricochet.
Bush will make the charge and then Kerry will bounce the charge right back
at him, rolling out instance after instance when Bush flip-flopped on vital
social and military issues, ranging from Iraq to the 9/11 Commission to
Osama bin Laden and on and on. One can hope that Kerry's frontal attack will
take the sting out of this issue once and for all.
Along these lines, check out Mark Sandalow's important front-page San
Francisco Chronicle story on Bush's Iraq flip-flops,
"Record Shows Bush Shifting on Iraq War: President's Rationale for the
Invasion Continues to Evolve". Here are some key paragraphs:
"Mixed signals are the wrong signals,'' Bush said last week during a
campaign stop in Bangor, Maine. "I will continue to lead with clarity, and
when I say something, I'll mean what I say.''
Yet, heading into the first presidential debate Thursday, which will focus
on foreign affairs, there is much in the public record to suggest that
Bush's words on Iraq have evolved -- or, in the parlance his campaign
often uses to describe Kerry, flip-flopped.
An examination of more than 150 of Bush's speeches, radio addresses and
responses to reporters' questions reveal a steady progression of language,
mostly to reflect changing circumstances such as the failure to discover
weapons of mass destruction, the lack of ties between Iraq and the al
Qaeda terrorist network and the growing violence of Iraqi insurgents.
A war that was waged principally to overthrow a dictator who possessed
"some of the most lethal weapons ever devised'' has evolved into a mission
to rid Iraq of its "weapons-making capabilities'' and to offer democracy
and freedom to its 25 million residents.
The president no longer expounds upon deposed Iraqi strongman Saddam
Hussein's connections with al Qaeda, rarely mentions the rape and torture
rooms or the illicit weapons factories that he once warned posed a direct
threat to the United States.
In the fall of 2002, as Bush sought congressional support for the use of
force, he described the vote as a sign of solidarity that would strengthen
his ability to keep the peace. Today, his aides describe it unambiguously
as a vote to go to war.
Whether such shifts constitute a reasonable evolution of language to
reflect the progression of war, or an about-face to justify unmet
expectations, is a subjective judgment tinged by partisan prejudice.
Yet a close look at the record makes it difficult to support Bush
campaign chairman Ken Mehlman's description of the upcoming debate as a
"square-off between resolve and optimism versus vacillation and defeatism.''
FLIP-FLOPPER-IN-CHIEF
Also, read Jim Hightower's
"Flip-Flopper-in-Chief":
If you're a toad, don't try to call a frog ugly.
This refers to Bush's toadiness in trying to label John Kerry a
flip-flopper on a variety of issues. Kerry has indeed changed his
positions on several matters -- and thank goodness he has, since most
shifts were to a more progressive position!
But who is the flip-flopper-in-chief? His Georgeness, of course.
For example in his 2000 presidential run, Bush declared that gay marriage
was a matter for the states to decide -- now he's crying for a
Constitutional amendment to federalize and criminalize the issue. He also
promised in 2000 that he would put our nation's Social Security trust fund
in a lock box so politicians couldn't spend it on their pet projects --
but he has now totally looted that "lock box," having spent all the money
the trust fund will build up through the year 2013 on such pet projects as
his tax giveaways to the rich.
Then there's Osama bin Laden. Remember Bush's braggadocio after September
11, declaring that he'd get Osama "dead or alive?" Three years later,
Osama is still on the loose and George meekly says, "I don't know where he
is. ... I truly am not that concerned about him."
One of his most acrobatic flip-flops was on the need for a "Patients Bill
or Rights," se we can sue HMOs that wrongfully deny us medical treatment.
In his 2000 campaign, Bush loudly bragged that he had "delivered" such a
bill for Texans while he was governor of Texas. But this was a lie, for he
actually had vetoed the state legislation. Yet, in 2000, he promised a
national patients bill of rights. As president, however, Bush has done a
double flip-flop, threatening to veto a patients bill and adamantly
claiming in federal court that states cannot pass their own laws.
No one can beat George W when it comes to flip-flops. He does more
flipping than IHOP.
And, finally on this issue, see CBS News political writer David Paul
Kuhn's
"Bush's Top Ten Flip-Flops".
WHICH REALITY DO YOU SEE?
Perhaps the major substantive topic for the first debate will be which
version of reality Bush and Kerry use as their prism for interpreting what
is happening in Iraq.
Bush will be the rosy-eyed optimist: There are a few problems, establishing
democracy isn't easy but we're making great progress, the people and
government of Iraq are behind us, we're mopping-up the few insurgents and
terrorists, we have to stop "them" (implication: al Qaida) there so as to
prevent them from attacking us here again, democratic elections in Iraq are
coming in January, don't change horses in the middle of a war -- you know
the drill.
Kerry, if he's smart, will quote liberally from Bush's own Secretary of
State (Colin Powell said
things
are "getting worse" in Iraq, not better and
national-security experts) to back up his reading of the situation, that
Iraq is a disaster area. And that the catastrophe could have been prevented
had Bush and his neo-con advisers not taken one wrong step after another in
the way they lied us into the war, thoroughly botched the occupation, and on
and on.
(For more on the Iraq/reality question, check out Adam Entous' Reuters
dispatch
"Key Bush Assertions About Iraq in Dispute", Robert Dreyfuss'
"Well,
Iraq Worked, Right?", and Atrios'
"Reality As Presented").
In the debate, Kerry needs to look "presidential" and confident, to stay on
the offensive as much as he can, and self-effacingly humorous on occasion. I
think he'll do just fine, and by doing so will put into stark contrast the
reckless rote-reciter currently in charge of things.
Naturally, of course, no matter how badly Bush does and how well Kerry does,
Dubya will be declared the "winner" almost immediately by the
Bush-supporting pundits on the networks and cable. As a matter of fact, even
before the debates, those spinners are at work by lowering the expectations
for Bush; if he doesn't drool, stutter, and smirk too much, he'll obviously
be the "winner."
Should be fun. We'll have a full analysis roundup Monday here at The Crisis
Papers.
W'S HOMETOWN PAPER ENDORSES KERRY
Finally, in case you haven't seen it, here are key excerpts from the
editorial endorsing Kerry from the Lone Star Iconocast, the paper in Bush's
hometown of Crawford that endorsed Bush in 2000.
Read the whole thing; it's a beaut:
Few Americans would have voted for George W. Bush four years ago if he
had promised that, as President, he would:
- Empty the Social Security trust fund by $507 billion to help offset
fiscal irresponsibility and at the same time slash Social Security
benefits.
- Cut Medicare by 17 percent and reduce veterans' benefits and
military pay.
- Eliminate overtime pay for millions of Americans and raise oil
prices by 50 percent.
- Give tax cuts to businesses that sent American jobs overseas, and,
in fact, by policy encourage their departure.
- Give away billions of tax dollars in government contracts without
competitive bids.
- Involve this country in a deadly and highly questionable war, and
- Take a budget surplus and turn it into the worst deficit in the
history of the United States, creating a debt in just four years that
will take generations to repay.
These were elements of a hidden agenda that surfaced only after he took
office.
The publishers of The Iconoclast endorsed Bush four years ago, based on
the things he promised, not on this smoke-screened agenda.
Today, we are endorsing his opponent, John Kerry, based not only on the
things that Bush has delivered, but also on the vision of a return to
normality that Kerry says our country needs.
Four items trouble us the most about the Bush administration: his
initiatives to disable the Social Security system, the deteriorating state
of the American economy, a dangerous shift away from the basic freedoms
established by our founding fathers, and his continuous mistakes regarding
terrorism and Iraq.
...When he finally emerged from his hide-outs on remote military bases
well after the first crucial hours following the attack, he gave
sound-bytes instead of solutions.
He did not trust us to be ready to sacrifice, build up our public and
private security infrastructure, or cut down on our energy use to put
economic pressure on the enemy in all the nations where he hides. He
merely told us to shop, spend, and pretend nothing was wrong.
Rather than using the billions of dollars expended on the invasion of Iraq
to shore up our boundaries and go after Osama bin Laden and the Saudi
Arabian terrorists, the funds were used to initiate a war with what Bush
called a more immediate menace, Saddam Hussein, in oil-rich Iraq. After
all, Bush said Iraq had weapons of mass destruction trained on America. We
believed him, just as we believed it when he reported that Iraq was the
heart of terrorism. We trusted him.
...We presumed the President had solid proof of the existence of these
weapons, what and where they were, even as the search continued.
Otherwise, our troops would be in much greater danger and the premise for
a hurried-up invasion would be moot, allowing more time to solicit
assistance from our allies.
...Once and for all, George Bush was President of the United States on
that day. No one else. He had been President nine months, he had been
officially warned of just such an attack a full month before it happened.
As President, ultimately he and only he was responsible for our failure to
avert those attacks.
We should expect that a sitting President would vacation less, if at all,
and instead tend to the business of running the country, especially if he
is, as he likes to boast, a "wartime president." America is in service 365
days a year. We don't need a part-time President who does not show up for
duty as Commander-In-Chief until he is forced to, and who is in a constant
state of blameless denial when things don't get done.
What has evolved from the virtual go-it-alone conquest of Iraq is more
gruesome than a stain on a White House intern's dress. America's
reputation and influence in the world has diminished, leaving us with
brute force as our most persuasive voice.
Iraq is now a quagmire: no WMDs, no substantive link between Saddam and
Osama, and no workable plan for the withdrawal of our troops. We are asked
to go along on faith. But remember, blind patriotism can be a dangerous
thing and 'spin' will not bring back to life a dead soldier; certainly not
a thousand of them.
Kerry has remained true to his vote granting the President the authority
to use the threat of war to intimidate Saddam Hussein into allowing
weapons inspections. He believes President Bush rushed into war before the
inspectors finished their jobs.
Kerry also voted against President Bush's $87 billion for troop funding
because the bill promoted poor policy in Iraq, privileged Halliburton and
other corporate friends of the Bush administration to profiteer from the
war, and forced debt upon future generations of Americans.
...The publishers of the Iconoclast differ with Bush on other issues,
including the denial of stem cell research, shortchanging veterans
entitlements, cutting school programs and grants, dictating what our
children learn through a thought-controlling 'test' from Washington rather
than allowing local school boards and parents to decide how young people
should be taught, ignoring the environment, and creating extraneous
language in the Patriot Act that removes some of the very freedoms that
our founding fathers and generations of soldiers fought so hard to
preserve.
...The re-election of George W. Bush would be a mandate to continue on our
present course of chaos. We cannot afford to double the debt that we
already have. We need to be moving in the opposite direction.
John Kerry has 30 years of experience looking out for the American people
and can navigate our country back to prosperity and re-instill in America
the dignity she so craves and deserves. He has served us well as a highly
decorated Vietnam veteran and has had a successful career as a district
attorney, lieutenant governor, and senator.
Kerry has a positive vision for America, plus the proven intelligence,
good sense, and guts to make it happen.
That's why The Iconoclast urges Texans not to rate the candidate by his
hometown or even his political party, but instead by where he intends to
take the country.
The Iconoclast wholeheartedly endorses John Kerry.
September 28, 2004
How Much "Success" Can We Take in Iraq?
As we approach D-Day on Thursday, here are some thoughts about what will
be the main topic for the evening's debate: the absolute disaster that is
U.S. policy in Iraq.
Bush seemed to be implying the other day that the U.S. problems in Iraq
added up to a great success in the sense of diverting terrorists from doing
damage in the United States. In other words, by messing up royally in the
"post-invasion" phase of the war, the U.S. created a magnet effect for
terrorists from all over the world. They were drawn like flies to honey in
wanting to fight the American Satan.
So, instead of planning attacks on the U.S. mainland and other major
American targets abroad, this tortured Bush logic goes, the terrorists have
fallen into our trap and are congregated in Iraq, where it's easier to kill
them en masse and one by one.
Never mind that this incoherent, ongoing war in Iraq also is breeding
thousands of more anti-American terrorists by the week. Bush&Co. really seem
to believe this new rationale (#27 in a long list) for why the
Administration invaded that hapless country.
Our plan all along, according to this revisionist Bush logic, was to appear
to be struggling in Iraq, so as to lure all the bad guys into the same
place. Then we'll wipe them out with our precision, bunker-busting missiles,
thus cleansing the world of those violent scum.
Talk about disconnecting from reality! By trying to keep American casualties
to a minimum in this election runup, the U.S. is relying almost totally
these days on air power. Bombing from the air is notoriously inefficient,
and a sign of weakness on the ground, not strength. Plus it engenders lots
of "collateral damage"; those increasing civilian deaths merely make the
situation even more tenuous for the U.S. military, and provide more reasons
for young, unemployed Muslim men to join the insurgency against the American
occupiers.
The insurgent guerrillas are swimming in the sea of the citizenry and, for
the most part, are not being reported to the authorities. Some of that
silence comes from fear of these violent rebels, but a lot is simply
nationalist hatred toward the occupying power and desire to see the U.S.
leave as quickly as possible. Continued chaos and destruction is more to be
feared among many Iraqis than somebody, anybody, stabilizing things and
taking charge.
The U.S. has proven it can't do it, even with all its might and technology
and money. The non-elected Allawi interim government, a U.S. puppet, can't
do it. Bush can't do it, given his single-minded focus on tough-love
destruction. Were Kerry to be elected, it's probable he couldn't do it,
especially if he thinks the best policy is to stay and tough it out.
The Iraqis themselves don't know what the solution is -- maybe they'll just
have to fight amongst themselves to determine who can control the situation.
The hope for a democratically-elected government that will come in and turn
things around probably is an illusion a well. See next item.
PARTIAL ELECTION IN IRAQ
Rumsfeld
said the upcoming "democratic" election in Iraq might have to be a
partial one. ( ) That is, since some key areas and cities are too risky for
election officials to enter, we'll skip those and hold the vote in the areas
that are under control. The winner of the partial vote -- maybe held in
three-quarters of the country -- will assume "full sovereignty."
Two things: 1. It would appear that all the talk of an Iraqi election in
January is so much hot air, an illusion to convince America before our own
election in November that things are progressing just fine toward democracy
and free markets in Iraq, not to worry, just move along, folks, nothing to
see here.
In reality, there is precious little chance there will be a free and fair
election in Iraq in the near future. The situation there simply is too
dangerous and insecure for even the election framework to be established.
(Contradicting his boss's rosy pronouncements, Secretary Powell said the
other day that
the
situation is "getting worse," not better). The United Nations,
which is supposed to set up the election process, is barely on the ground
with a few officials, and probably will be attacked again and then decide
it's unwise to carry on further.
Also, even if the election were to proceed, and it was relegated to the
"safe" areas -- the Kurdish region, Basra and a few other provinces --
entire ethnic and political sectors of Iraqi society would be
disenfranchised, especially the Sunnis and many Shias as well. There is no
way, given that scenario, that the "winning" candidate would be thought of
as legitimately elected in a fair and full election. Civil war might be just
around the corner.
PARTIAL ELECTION IN U.S.?
2. When I heard Rumsfeld's partial-election scenario, a bell went off in my
head. Didn't the Bush Administration propose something like that for America as
well?
Sure enough, Administration
lawyers have written legal memoranda asserting the possibility of
"postponing" the electoral process in certain locations of the country in
the event of a major terrorist attack or, presumably, the "credible" threat
of a major terrorist attack in certain threatened states. The election would
proceed in the rest of the country, and the winner would be based on the
totals amassed in that truncated vote.
In other words, in this scenario, Bush might declare a State of Emergency
around November 2 in, say, the Western coastal states (California, Oregon,
Washington) and some Eastern states (Massachusetts, New York, New Jersey) --
based, Ridge will tell us, on "highly credible" threats of a major
biochemical attack by Al Qaida. Voting will proceed in the rest of the
country, and the winner of that partial election would be certified as the
next President.
Now, true, these were only legal justifications for such action. Congress
would have to approve to put this extreme plan into force.
But, given the ease with which the Bush Administration was able to slide the
Patriot Act through a terrified Congress in the days after 9/11 and the
anthrax attacks, it is not outside the realm of possibility that, should a
major terrorist attack occur in the nation's capital, the Congress might be
equally scared and pass such emergency legislation, effectively turning over
the election process to one of the candidates in the running, to wit George
Bush and his cohorts.
We live in politically frightening times. Anything is possible. Not likely,
but possible. Stay alert.
CBS' COWARDLY SELF-CENSORSHIP
Here's how it works. CBS gets snookered into accepting memos about Bush's
incomplete National Guard duty without establishing the chain of provenance
-- i.e., where those memos came from and who handled them along the way --
and suddenly, CBS becomes the story rather than the well-documented running
of Bush the other way when it came to doing his duty in the Vietnam era.
We don't know who set up CBS, but certainly one key suspect -- the party
that stands to benefit the most -- is the Bush Campaign. And it smells very
much like similar scams
run by Karl Rove in the past. Whether we'll hear the truth about the CBS
scandal by Election Day is problematic.
What we won't see or hear is the story that was bumped by CBS' "Sixty
Minutes" show in order to run the memos "scoop." A delay in that bumped
story by a week or two wouldn't have been the end of the world, but it might
well have had an influence on the election. Now we'll never know.
That story dealt with how the Bush Administration came to include the
"Iraq-seeking-uranium-from-Africa" charge in Bush's State of the Union
speech in 2003, even though the CIA had warned the Administration that the
uranium story was shaky and based on forged documents. (Still unknown is the
identity of those forgers. Hmm.)
Again, delaying that story by a week or two would have been understandable.
But CBS, owned by conglomerate Viacom, is so gun-shy right now about doing
anything that looks "political" that it has gone deep into cowardly
self-censorship. It has announced that
it
will not run that uranium story or any other story that aims its
attention on Bush policies or scandals prior to the election.
In short, whether or not it was intended to turn out that way, CBS' memo
flap couldn't have worked out any better for Rove and his minions in the
Bush Campaign. We report the news, you decide.
"SUPPRESSING" DEMOCRAT VOTES
We've talked a lot in this space about the dangers of computer-voting, how
the ballot-tallying software can be manipulated without anybody being the
wiser. But the Republicans have a lot of other tactics at their disposal,
and they're pulling out all the stops in using them.
One is to scare voter with lies about the opposition candidate. The
Republican National Committee has admitted that it's been
sending out mail-flyers that claim a vote for Kerry might well result in
the Bible being "banned" and that married gays may move into your
neighborhood. Rove's Big Lie technique -- similar to the whisper campaign
against John McCain in 2000, that he was a bit loose upstairs and fathered a
black baby anyway, or suggesting a judge they didn't like was a pedophile --
except that this time they're not whispering. They're right out there in the
open, saying and doing these things, arrogantly asserting that it's OK to
say anything to win, even if it's pure bullbleep.
Another highly-effective tactic is to lop registered citizens off the voting
rolls, or make it very difficult to get on the voting rolls. Gov. Jeb Bush
had removed upwards of 50,000 such voters in Florida in 2000 -- most of them
Democrat-leaning African-Americans -- and tried to do something like that
again earlier this year, but had to back down when the word got out. (But
ex-President Jimmy
Carter, leading an international team of observers, says the situation
in Florida is likely to repeat its "irregularities" from 2000, since those
in charge exhibit "bias." Gee, I wonder towards whom.)
Now it's happening elsewhere as well: the Secretary of State of Ohio (a
Republican, of course)
illegally has
rejected many thousands of voter registration forms, most from black
wards in the big cities, because they are on the "wrong" thickness of paper
stock, a technicality from an earlier era of technology. Whether the bulk of
those registrations can be re-done in enough time is problematic, since the
registration deadline is looming. Somebody should take Blackwell, the
secretary of state, into court for an immediate judgment; as
Atrios reminds us, Blackwell is violating the Federal Voting Rights Act
of 1971, which prohibits keeping someone from voting for "immaterial"
reasons.
Another tactic is to place state and local police outside mainly rural
voting precincts and question minority citizens, especially older ones, when
they attempt to enter the voting area, sometimes demanding photo IDs, even
though doing so is often against the law. Clearly, these are intimidation
methods, to "suppress" the vote of Democrat-leaning minorities. That
"suppress" term was
used by a Republican lawmaker, urging such a practice against voters in
Detroit, who are overwhelmingly African-American.
SOME STERLING BLOGS
Finally, here are a few dynamite blogs you should check out.
On the Iraq situation:
1. Juan Cole's
"Bush Falsehoods About Iraq", which quotes liberally from the excellent
i##Reuters' dispatch
"Key Bush Assertions about Iraq in Dispute."
2.
Xymphora's untitled September 27, 2004 blog.
3. Digby's
"Embolden This".
And:
On the question of allies and how to offend and keep them: Digby's
"You Can't Build an Alliance..."
On sage advice to Kerry for the debate: Scott Rosenberg's "Speaking
Unblinking Truth to Power"
September 23, 2004
We Once Were Lost, Now Getting Found
Last week, a play of mine about the Israel/Palestine struggle, entitled
"Playing for Peace," was performed as part of a "Writers With Attitude"
festival of socially-relevant works in the San Francisco Bay Area. Seven
short plays were presented, all dealing with fairly heavy topics -- ranging
from Iraq to the homeless -- and yet the large, sold-out audience was
attentive throughout the long program, and expressed deep appreciation for
the evening in their comments and applause.
In recent weeks, I've attended a number of events sponsored by MoveOn.org,
the Kerry-Edwards Campaign, environmental organizations, etc. The same deep
interest and concern evident at the "Writers With Attitude" program was
manifest at these political fund-raisers.
What is obvious from the above, and from similar reports all around the
country, is that -- thanks to the Bush Administration's reckless policies
and thorough incompetence -- there is a renewed surge of involvement in the
political process. Not only about the vote on November 2 -- though that, of
course, is the main focus --but, more importantly, in trying to restore the
energy in and behind our democratic institutions.
We liberals have been far too complacent for decades, figuring that our
democratic institutions were stable and working just fine, so no need for us
to get our hands dirty doing the political maintenance work. We failed to
notice other, less-benign forces that were aiming to replace democracy with
some sort of Darwinesque elitism, which now has morphed over the years into
one-party authoritarianism and which threatens to become an American kind of
fascism.
The result of that lapse in our attention was to permit the well-financed
forces of conservatism and reaction -- and then BushCheney extremism -- to
build an entire superstructure in government, the media, and academia/think
tanks. While that was going on, we were in denial about the erosion and rot
in our own liberal, pro-democracy institutions and mind-set.
Given this semi-slumber, we were shocked by what appeared to be the "sudden"
emergence of HardRight conservatism as the driving force left of center, and
thus were ill-equipped politically to deal with the hardball,
go-for-the-jugular politics those folks practiced.
MAKING POSITIVES FROM NEGATIVES
The threat of four more years of even more extreme policy-making by those
HardRight forces FINALLY! has awakened much of the liberal/progressive Left
all around the country -- and also awakened traditional conservative forces,
appalled at the way their party has been hijacked by radicals and how all
sorts of conservative principles are being violated in the process -- and we
are beginning to see the enormous positive force of united re-commitment to
our democratic institutions.
Organizations like MoveOn.org and the emergence of Air America on the radio
and think-tanks like the Center for American Progress -- and an alternative
press that reaches millions daily, on the internet -- these are all hopeful
signs. Small moves in the correct direction, but at least movement that
suggests pre-thought and a strategy -- and that can be cultivated and
strengthened in the post-November 2 period.
Whether we've awakened in enough time to defeat the extreme Right on
Election Day is still up in the air. The Kerry Campaign is battling mightily
in the home stretch (after some amateurish delays and uncertainties), facing
not only a mass-media aligned with BushCheney but also an onslaught of
dirty-tricks being rolled out in massive proportions. Slime, sleaze, sludge,
intimidation, "suppressing" the minority vote, you name it.
But, even with those obstacles, I continue to believe -- based on my reading
of the political tea leaves, correspondence with voters all over the country
(especially traditional conservative Republicans), and my travels around
America over the past year or so -- that the chances are good for a Kerry
victory in November.
POLLSTER TRICKERY
There is a groundswell of opposition to Bush coming from both the left,
middle and, yes, the traditional right that is not always evident in the
pro-Bush polls. Just take one example: most polls are conducted by
telephone. Hundreds of registered voters are called. Those that choose to
respond to having their dinner or TV-watching interrupted -- it's estimated
that only 10% these days talk to the pollsters -- are reached by land-line
phones. Polling organizations do not call cell-phone numbers.
Does that tell you anything? Most younger citizens operate from their
cell-phones. An entire demographic slice of the population is not being
polled. Younger types tend to be more liberal. You get the picture.
Even with such polling errors, and with several of the key polling
organizations leaning to the GOP in the way they phrase their questions and
in whom they call (read: over-weighted with Republicans), the national
figures indicate a neck-and-neck race. In the tossup states, Kerry is doing
quite well. In fact, some polls indicate that Kerry is considerably ahead in
many of those key states.
That should not make us complacent. Karl Rove no doubt has even more dirty
tricks up his sleeve, just waiting to be unleashed in the final weeks of the
campaign, when it will be difficult to counter them effectively -- and, who
knows?, the massive terrorist attack the Bush folks have been warning us
about, and almost inviting, could happen just prior to Voting Day.
In short, we need to redouble our efforts in these final weeks of the
campaign, to build up the popular vote totals nationwide and in the various
states -- to make it more difficult for computer-voting manipulations to do
their dirty work unnoticed -- and to bear down in the swing states to ensure
a Kerry victory big time. A landslide defeat of Bush is what's really needed
to begin to get this country back onto a more sane centrist/progressive
track. Money, support, activism, getting out the vote, talking up your
friends and neighbors and colleagues -- let's do it!
WHO IS BEHIND THE MEMOS SCAM?
It's still a bit early to see if the CBS/Killian Memos brouhaha will impact
Kerry's growing momentum. And it's still early to make definitive statements
about how this whole episode unfolded.
This much we do know: Dan Rather did not properly vet the source of the
documents presented to him by Bill Burkett. At first, Burkett said he'd
received them from a fellow National Guard officer; now he claims the
genesis was a phone call from one "Lucy Ramirez" who said she'd pass him the
documents in Houston.
When he got to the pickup spot, Burkett reports, a man said he would do the
honors instead of "Lucy Ramirez," and gave him the documents. Apparently, in
a classic demonstration of poor journalistic practice, Rather did not
contact the officer Burkett first named; had he done so, that person would
have indicated he knew nothing about such documents.
Is Burkett telling the truth now? Or trying to divert attention away from
himself? If he's lying, and carried out all by himself, the damage is bad --
CBS still has to take its well-deserved punishment -- but can be dealt with.
(This assumes that the Kerry Campaign had no hand in any of this, which
appears to be the case.)
If Burkett is telling the truth, who set him up with documents that could
easily be regarded with suspicion? (Note: The internet attack on the
validity of these memos, in great typographical detail, began mere minutes
after CBS displayed the documents on 60 Minutes. The instantaneous timing,
with such detailed accusations, seems a bit suspicious on its face.)
WHO GAINS? AND WHO IS ROGER STONE?
So, who would stand to gain by such a scam? Not Kerry, for sure. Not CBS New
s, for sure. That leaves only one party that benefits: the Bush Campaign.
The rumor going around political circles as I write this late-Wednesday (all
of which could change by Thursday -- this story is fast-unfolding) is that
the Rove operative behind the entire affair may be Roger Stone, a famous GOP
dirty-trickster from the Nixon Era, currently working for anti-Kerry forces.
Stone was deeply involved in the phony "riot" outside the vote-counting room
in Florida in 2000.
(In case you've forgotten: Supposedly angry Florida citizens were banging on
the doors demanding that the recount be halted; those folks, it turned out,
were paid employees of various right wing congressmen, flown in from out of
state precisely to provide anonymous bodies to yell and scream and
intimidate the voting officials. Roger Stone organized all that.)
But, assuming Burkett's story is valid, unless some forensic proof is
obtained, or somebody talks, it's difficult to see how to tie Burkett to the
mysterious "Lucy Ramirez" to the unknown man to Roger Stone to the Bush
Campaign. Some enterprising investigative reporter might be able to discover
the connections, but we shouldn't count on that.
CENTRAL GUARD FINDINGS STILL VALID
The other thing that is known -- though you wouldn't know if from reading
the mass media -- is that the truth in the "Killian memos" was documented
see here and
here long before the 60
Minutes story aired: Bush was given a direct order to take a flight
physical, but did not do so. And he was prohibited from flying because of
that and "failure to perform" to USAF and National Guard standards.
Rather, in his apology on CBS, unaccountably did not mention that the
CONTENT of the memos remains true, even if the papers passed on by unknown
sources are questionable. The White House has not addressed itself to the
truth or falsity of the content -- one would guess because they know, or
suspect, that the original Killian memos may be out there somewhere. If they
question the truth of the memos, they may have to face the prospect that
someone will step forward and produce the actual documents -- and that would
be disastrous for their campaign.
Oh, it's all so convoluted -- and detracts from the major news that,
finally!, John Kerry is addressing these days: Bush's war in Iraq -- how we
were lied into it, and how the incompetent way it's being managed is harming
our national security. See
Kerry's important speech on the war, delivered at NYU.
COMPARE AND CONTRAST
You know the previous comparison: Bill Clinton lied and embarrassed himself;
George Bush lied and at least 25,000 people have died. Now comes another
classic comparison,
this one by
Kos:
Dan Rather, CBS News Anchor
1. given documents he thought were true 2. failed to thoroughly
investigate the facts 3. reported documents to the American people as true
to make his case 4. when confronted with the facts, apologized and
launched an investigation 5. number of Americans dead: 0 6. should be
fired as CBS News Anchor
George W. Bush, President of the United States
1. given documents he thought were true 2. failed to thoroughly
investigate the facts 3. reported documents to the American people as true
to make his case 4. when confronted with the facts, continued to report
untruth and stonewalled an investigation 5. number of Americans dead: 1100
6. should be given four more years as President of the United States.
THE GLORY OF JUAN COLE'S MIND
Juan Cole is a national treasure. The
university professor is best known as perhaps this country's leading expert
on all things Arabic, and his reports on the deteriorating situation in Iraq
and the rest of the Middle East are absolutely essential to understanding
that complex region.
But his blogs on the American political situation are equally as sharp and
trenchant. Check out this one,
"Bush Taunts Kerry":
I just heard President Bush taunt John Kerry for suggesting that the US
was not safer because Saddam Hussein was deposed, and for saying that the
US was in fact less safe because of the chaos in Iraq.
Bush attempted to turn this statement around and suggest that Kerry was
preferring dictatorship to democracy.
Iraq, however, does not have a democracy, and cannot possibly have a
democracy any time soon because of events such as those described below
(and they are only 24 hours' worth) -- that is, because of a failed state
and a hot guerrilla war.
Moreover, if Mr. Bush abhors dictatorships so much, why hasn't he
overthrown that in China? North Korea? Zimbabwe? Or, say, Egypt? There are
enormous numbers of dictatorships in the world. Is the US to overthrow
them all? Putin's decision to appoint provincial governors rather than
allowing them to be elected (as though Bush should appoint the governors
of US states) is a step toward dictatorship. Shall we have a war with
Russia over it?
Surely the conditions under which the Palestinians live in the West Bank
are a form of dictatorship (they haven't voted for their Israeli military
rulers). Why not invade the West Bank and liberate the Palestinians?
Obviously, what was obnoxious to the American people about Saddam Hussein
was not that he was a dictator. Those are a dime a dozen and not usually
worth $200 billion and thousands of lives. It is that he was supposedly
dangerous to the US because, as Bush alleged, he was trying to develop an
atomic bomb.
But whatever nuclear program he had was so primitive as not to be worth
mentioning, and there is no evidence that Saddam posed any threat at all
to the United States' homeland, or would have in his lifetime.
I have a sinking feeling that the American public may like Bush's cynical
misuse of Wilsonian idealism precisely because it covers the embarrassment
of their having gone to war, killed perhaps 25,000 people, and made a
perfect mess of the Persian Gulf region, all out of a kind of paranoia fed
by dirty tricks and bad intelligence. And, maybe they have to vote for
Bush to cover the embarrassment of having elected him in the first place.
How deep a hole are they going to dig themselves in order to get out of
the bright sunlight of so much embarrassment?
Here's another, longer essay by Cole that is essential reading:
"If America Were Iraq, What Would It Be Like? Here's a sample;
read the whole thing:
What would America look like if it were in Iraq's current situation?
The population of the US is over 11 times that of Iraq, so a lot of
statistics would have to be multiplied by that number.
Thus, violence killed 300 Iraqis last week, the equivalent proportionately
of 3,300 Americans. What if 3,300 Americans had died in car bombings,
grenade and rocket attacks, machine gun spray, and aerial bombardment in
the last week? That is a number greater than the deaths on September 11,
and if America were Iraq, it would be an ongoing, weekly or monthly toll.
BUSH'S LOST YEAR: NO, NOT THAT ONE
Finally,
Lambert at Corrente quotes from a long piece, "Bush's Lost Year: How the
War in Iraq Undermined the War on Terror," by James Fallows in the October
Atlantic Monthly, not yet online. Well worth a read. Here's a brief sample:
"Let me tell you my gut feeling," a senior figure at one of America's
military-sponsored think tanks told me recently, after we had talked for
twenty minutes about details of the campaigns in Afghanistan and Iraq. "If
I can be blunt, the Administration is full of shit. In my view we are
much, much worse off than we were than we went into Iraq. This is not a
partisan position. I voted for these guys. But I think they are
incompetent. Whatever tactical victories we may gain along the way, this
will prove to be a strategic blunder."
This man will not let me use his name, because he is still involved in
military policy. He cited the experiences of Joseph Wilson, Richard
Clarke, and Generals Eric Shinseki and Anthony Zinni to illustrate the
personal risks of openly expressing his dissenting view. But I am quoting
him anonymously” as I will quote some others—because his words are
representative of what one hears at the working level.
Professionals argue that by the end of 2002 the decisions the
Administration had made—and avoided making—through the course of the year
had left the nation less safe, with fewer positive options. Step by step
through 2002 America's war on terror became little more than preparation
for war in Iraq.
September 21, 2004
DANGERS OF POLITICAL DODGEBALL: ASK DAN RATHER
Politics is dodgeball. Sometimes you get hit by the ball -- thrown at great
velocity toward your head or stomach -- and sometimes you get to hit the
other guy.
Sometimes, both hits seem to happen at the same time. Take the "CBS Memos"
story, which continues to grow more convoluted each day. (I'm writing this
late-Monday; no telling how the story will shift by Tuesday, when this blog
will appear.)
Even though the Kerry Campaign apparently had nothing to do with CBS'
judgment to reveal the controversial "Killian Memos" on its 60 Minutes show
-- memos from Bush's commander Jerry Killian ordering Bush to take his
flight physical (which he never did), and had Killian talking about being
pressured from on high to "sugar coat" Bush's performance ratings -- nothing
but bad news will accrue to Kerry as a result of that poorly vetted
decision. The entire episode gives off a foul odor. It's happened to
rightwing journalists and now it's happening to a mainstream one. Bad form.
But, hold on. Nobody has proven that the CONTENT of those memos -- whether
real or facsimiles -- is false. As it turns out, those memos merely
corroborated what already was known -- see here and
here --
about Bush's cavalier treatment of his National Guard duties and the missing
chapters in that sorry little saga. Killian's secretary recently reported
that the content of those memos was what her boss was saying about Bush at
the time, though she didn't type those particular documents.
Not even the White House has chosen to question the truth of the content of
those memos, leading one to believe that Rove&Co. are frightened to do so,
because they suspect the original Killian documents are out there somewhere
and could be placed into the public record the minute they make the forgery
assertion.
So, here's where we are on this story. Dan Rather has a black eye for
improperly relying on assertions as to the memos' source, and not doing his
own due-diligence to verify. Bill Burkett -- the person who turned over
copies of the alleged memos, and who some years back stated that he was
privy to the destruction of many of Bush's Guard records when Bush was going
to run for governor -- claims now that he won't reveal the original source
of the memos because to do so would put that person at risk. Truth or
fiction? Was Burkett the source? Could it be from a Karl Rove operative?
Still to be determined.
Seems like a stalemate favoring Bush. Except -- that even without the
missing original documents (either destroyed, as Burkett suggests, or
withheld by the White House because they reveal too much of what they don't
want known), the evidence is out there for all to see that Bush flipped off
his Guard duty and, essentially, went AWOL, counting on his daddy's friends
to get him his honorable discharge. (Also check out the
new story at Blue Lemur
about possible criminal tampering with Bush's official Guard records. )
If you want to read the best summing-up article about this whole sorry
episode -- which rests to a large degree upon the
meticulous research of Paul Lukasiak --
check out Eric Boehlert's
"Bush in the National Guard: A Primer". It's a compact eye-opener.
And, for timely blogging on the subject of CBS, Dan Rather, the Killian
memos, the role perhaps played by Karl Rove in suckering CBS, etc., check
out ##Digby's
"OxyMorons for Truth", and
Xymphora's
"More on Bloggergate").
IT'S IRAQ, STUPID!
It's tempting to get deeply involved in the byways of the Killian Memos/AWOL
puzzles -- it's like a good political thriller -- but nobody is quite sure
how interested voters are in the whole issue of what Bush and Kerry did 30+
years ago.
But we do know that they are vitally interested in what's happening right
now in Iraq, and how this will affect them, their draft-age children,
stateside Guard and Reserve units who may be sent to Iraq, on the faltering
economy as more and more billions are siphoned from the budget and spent
instead on war and reconstruction corruption, on the possibility of
engendering more terrorist attacks on Americans here and abroad, etc.
John Kerry, in case you missed it, is finally taking off the gloves -- he's
about six months late, but better late than never -- and is attacking Bush
frontally on his war policies, both in how he took the U.S. into war under
false pretenses and how he's waging it now. Go, John!
Check out his major
NYU
speech Monday on Iraq. Here are some sample quotes:
KERRY'S TOUGH TALK ON IRAQ
In June, the President declared, "The Iraqi people have their
country back." Just last week, he told us:
"This country is headed toward democracy… Freedom is on the march."
But the administration's own official intelligence estimate, given to the
President last July, tells a very different story.
According to press reports, the intelligence estimate totally contradicts
what the President is saying to the American people.
So do the facts on the ground.
Security is deteriorating, for us and for the Iraqis.
42 Americans died in Iraq in June -- the month before the handover.
But 54 died in July…66 in August… and already 54 halfway through Se
September.
And more than 1,100 Americans were wounded in August -- more than in any
other month since the invasion.
We are fighting a growing insurgency in an ever widening war-zone.
In March, insurgents attacked our forces 700 times. In August, they
attacked 2,700 times ? a 400% increase. Falluja…Ramadi… Samarra …
even parts of Baghdad are now no go zones … breeding grounds
for terrorists who are free to plot and launch attacks against our
soldiers. The radical Shia cleric, Moktada al-Sadr, who's accused of
complicity in the murder of Americans, holds more sway in the suburbs of
Baghdad.
Violence against Iraqis… from bombings to kidnappings to intimidation … is
on the rise.
Basic living conditions are also deteriorating.
Residents of Baghdad are suffering electricity blackouts lasting up to 14
hours a day.
Raw sewage fills the streets, rising above the hubcaps of our Humvees.
Children wade through garbage on their way to school.
Unemployment is over 50 percent. Insurgents are able to find plenty
of people willing to take $150 for tossing grenades at passing U.S.
convoys.
Yes, there has been some progress, thanks to the extraordinary efforts of
our soldiers and civilians in Iraq. Schools, shops and hospitals
have been opened. In parts of Iraq, normalcy actually prevails.
But most Iraqis have lost faith in our ability to deliver meaningful
improvements to their lives. So they're sitting on the fence…
instead of siding with us against the insurgents.
That is the truth. The truth that the Commander in Chief owes to our
troops and the American people.
It is never easy to discuss what has gone wrong while our troops are in
constant danger. But it's essential if we want to correct our course
and do what's right for our troops instead of repeating the same mistakes
over and over again....
The President has said that he miscalculated € in Iraq and that it
was a catastrophic success. € In fact, the President has
made a series of catastrophic decisions … from the beginning … in Iraq.
At every fork in the road, he has taken the wrong turn and led us in the
wrong direction.
The first and most fundamental mistake was the President's failure to tell
the truth to the American people.
He failed to tell the truth about the rationale for going to war.
And he failed to tell the truth about the burden this war would impose on
our soldiers and our citizens.
By one count, the President offered 23 different rationales for this war.
If his purpose was to confuse and mislead the American people, he
succeeded.
His two main rationales -- weapons of mass destruction and the Al
Qaeda/September 11 connection -- have been proved false… by the
President's own weapons inspectors… and by the 9/11 Commission. Just
last week, Secretary of State Powell acknowledged the facts. Only
Vice President Cheney still insists that the earth is flat.
The President also failed to level with the American people about what it
would take to prevail in Iraq.
He didn't tell us that well over 100,000 troops would be needed, for
years, not months. He didn't tell us that he wouldn't take the
time to assemble a broad and strong coalition of allies. He didn't
tell us that the cost would exceed $200 billion. He didn't tell us
that even after paying such a heavy price, success was far from assured.
And America will pay an even heavier price for the President's lack of
candor.
At home, the American people are less likely to trust this administration
if it needs to summon their support to meet real and pressing threats to
our security.
Abroad, other countries will be reluctant to follow America when we seek
to rally them against a common menace -- as they are today.
Our credibility in the world has plummeted.
FLOATING A TRIAL BALLOON
Rightwing columnist Robert Novak can always be counted on to serve as a
conduit for Karl Rove and his minions at the White House. Novak did so
notoriously, of course, when he outed covert CIA agent Valerie Plame at the
behest of "two senior Administration officials," and now he's floating a
story, "Quick Exit from Iraq Is Likely" that the White House wants out there
about Iraq.
The story is that Bush may be willing to cut-and-run in Iraq after the
election -- the same charge Bush is leveling at Kerry.
Passing on this rumor does not even come close to passing the smell test.
Clearly, it's designed as a way for Bush to have it both ways in trying to
lure more voters into his camp. Publicly, Bush is a hard-liner on the Iraq
issue -- all is going swimmingly, we'll have democracy there shortly, the
insurgents are "terrorists" and we'll wipe them out -- but he can feel the
heat not only from the
intelligence community, which gave him the Iraq-as-disaster news months
ago, but also from fellow Republicans who are telling him to wake up and
smell the reality-coffee in Iraq, that the war is a catastrophe and is only
going to get worse. See what prestigious
Republican Senators said
over the weekend. Tough comments.
By floating the trial balloon, Rove can intimate that Bush will announce his
"secret plan" to withdraw from Iraq after the election. Of course, there is
no such plan. The only plan is to somehow slide by in Iraq until the
November 2 voting; if Bush wins, he doesn't have to pay anybody any mind.
He'll just increase the war effort -- already Marines have been told to
prepare for major assaults on Fallujah and Samara and other
insurgent-dominated cities before the end of the year -- and continue his
utopian scheme to beat Iraq to a pulp as a warning to Syria and Iran that
they could be next, unless they get on board.
For more on this Novak subject, see
Josh Marshall's blog
,
Robert Dreyfuss'
"Getting Out", and
Kevin Drum's "Reading the Tea Leaves").
OSAMA'S CHOICE FOR PRESIDENT
Finally, some remarks on the unconscionable statements by Dick Cheney and
Speaker of the House Dennis Hastert, desperate enough to declare that Osama
Bin Laden prefers John Kerry over Bush. Juan Cole in "Bin
Laden Doesn't Care Who Wins" says it much better than I could:
The remark of Speaker of the House Denis Hastert that al-Qaeda would
like to manipulate the US election with a terrorist bombing and would be
happier with Kerry as president is simply wrong. The Democrats are correct
that such comments are a form of fear-mongering aimed at stampeding the
American public into voting for Bush out of terror. Indeed, if the US
public votes for any candidate because of concern for Bin Laden, then Bin
Laden has been handed precisely the victory that Hastert professed to
abhor.
But Hastert is just wrong. Al-Qaeda does not care who wins the elections.
If the US withdraws from Iraq (which could happen willy-nilly under Bush
as easily as under Kerry), that would be seen as a victory by al-Qaeda. If
the US remains in Iraq for years, bleeding at the hands of an ongoing
guerrilla insurgency, then that is also a victory for al-Qaeda from their
point of view. They therefore just don't care which candidate wins. They
hate general US policy in the Middle East, which would not change
drastically under Kerry. To any extent that al-Qaeda is giving serious
thought to the US elections, it would see no significant difference
between the candidates. But given its goal of creating more polarization
between the US and the Muslim World, it is entirely possible that the
al-Qaeda leadership would prefer Bush, since they want to "sharpen the
contradictions."
September 13, 2004
SHOVE IRAQ AND THE ECONOMY DOWN BUSH'S THROAT
The Kerry Campaign, knowing Karl Rove's tendency to go on the attack with
slime and sleaze, should have been at least somewhat prepared for slime and
sleaze. And yet they seemed to be caught totally off-guard by the
Rove-organized Smear Boat assault on Kerry's Vietnam war record, went into
shock for a few days, and only after about a week managed to mount a
meaningful defense.
(Coming out of the Dem convention, what Kerry could have said, and should
have said, was something like: "Just want you to be aware that, if the Bush
Campaign continues its long tradition, there will be a lot of smear and dirt
and distortion coming at me -- the intent being to throw a lot of smoke in
your face, in hope you'll wonder if maybe there's fire there -- so be
prepared to be skeptical and to keep your attention on the key issues in the
campaign: Bush's atrocious policies in Iraq, on the economy, on education
and pollution....etc." That might have taken some of the sting out in
advance.)
During that Smear Boat week, Kerry lost traction, and was forced to divert
his attention from the items on his agenda -- attacking Bush's domestic and
economic policies -- in order to do damage control.
Things seem to be much better now -- and a few of the old Clinton hands are
now on board to help focus the Kerry Campaign -- but in a race this tight in
several toss-up states, losing traction and control of the agenda for even a
few days is dangerous.
Add the rightwing media -- and a few over-the-top, pro-Bush polls into the
mix -- and the impression given is that Kerry is way behind, better jump on
board that Bush bandwagon while you still can. As it turns out, Kerry is not
that far behind nationally -- and in many key states is still ahead or dead
even -- but if the Dems don't start to move the numbers, regain the
momentum, focus attention on Bush's weaknesses, it might be difficult to
finish the race strong. (The daily Rasmussen polls are showing a steady climb back for Kerry.)
Counting on Kerry to wipe Bush all over the floor in the two debates -- or
maybe just one, as Bush seems to be backing away from the second one --
would be a big mistake. Bush is no debating slacker when properly primed,
and you can bet that he'll be loaded with attack phrases and snappy talking
points. Unless Kerry is likewise prepared, it could be a wash. Kerry needs a
smashing success, not an ordinary performance, to "win" the debates. (Also,
the debates will turn on which journalists are chosen and how friendly they
are to Bush, sending him puffball questions, while flinging tough dart-like
queries at Kerry.)
While we're waiting for the debates to start, Kerry, it seems to me, needs
to remember where Bush is most vulnerable and go for the jugular in those
areas. I'll just mention two here; there are plenty of others. (You'll
notice that I'm not even listing Bush's AWOL problem; I think Kerry should
slip that zinger in at the right moment and move on to issues that seem to
resonate more with voters today.)
IRAQ WAR NOT BENEATH THE RADAR
Rove's entire aim in Iraq was to turn over "full sovereignty" (NOT!) to the
interim government and its troops in order to significantly reduce the
number of U.S. dead and wounded, thus making this a war beneath the radar
for American voters. The truth is that the insurgency is so strong, and
seemingly growing stronger, that the dead and wounded figures remain about
where they were before the "handover," and, in some areas, are even worse.
(Question: Why does the media not question the 1000+ figure of U.S. dead in
Iraq? And the supposed 6000+ wounded? These are Bush figures, which means we
should be very skeptical of their validity. I've seen figures as high as
17,000+ wounded.)
The RoveCheney campaign is still trying anything to make the American voters
forget Iraq as an issue -- including effectively turning over key cities and
areas of the country to the insurgents, anything to keep the U.S. troops
from having to engage -- but nothing seems to work. Kerry has an opening.
The war is totally FUBAR, a disaster. Kerry is staying away from having to
make any specific suggestions for how to make it better, because in truth
there aren't any. So badly has the Bush Administration made a mess of it
there that the options are limited to two and they are reminiscent of the
mess in Vietnam: get out as quickly as possible, or pour more troops and
money down the rathole and have to get out later. (Bush, obviously, is
choosing the latter option.)
Bush has made one major misstep after another, starting with the decision to
rush into war on the basis of phony rationalizations, then not recognizing
when the Iraqi army didn't engage that the U.S. military was being set up
for urban guerrilla war, then not having enough troops with the correct
equipment and plan, then not keeping the Iraqi soldiers as an on-salary
defanged military force, then not letting the Iraqis rebuild their own
society but turning over the reconstruction to outside corporations who
don't know what they are doing and don't care (since they're making billions
in any event), then authorizing policies that led directly to torture and
rape of Iraqi male and female and children detainees, and on and on.
Kerry needs to bring the issue of Iraq -- the way Bush got the U.S. into
that war, and his incompetent handling ever since -- front and center and
keep pounding on it, the absolute waste of American lives sent into harm's
way for no good reason.
Kerry also has an opening for attacking Bush and Cheney for the shameless
way they are continuing -- in the face of overwhelming evidence and
Bush's own
admission that it's not true -- to
attempt to link Saddam Hussein and 9/11. This lie is all the
Administration has left as a reason for war -- all the other supposed
reasons have not panned out (WMD, imminent threat, "mushroom clouds," etc.)
-- but it doesn't pass the smell test in the slightest.
In sum, if Bush wants to run proudly as the "war president," make sure the
American electorate realizes that if they vote for Bush, they're going to
get four more years of unnecessary wars, heavy casualties, incompetent
tactics and strategies, and more terrorist attacks aimed at us. Since polls
for the past several months have shown nearly more than half of the
population (and growing) think it was
a mistake to go into Iraq, Kerry definitely has a wedge opening
and a good question to ask American citizens: How much FUBAR are they
willing to put up with? Better to get a new commander-in-chief in there and
start fresh.
THE FAILING ECONOMY & JOBS SITUATION
My degrees are in government and international relations, but even I know --
and I know very little about economics -- there is something very wrong with
our economy. The middle-class is being squeezed badly, while the wealthy are
provided by Bush with more tax breaks and more opportunities to make lots
more money at the expense of those beneath them. (See
John Cassidy's important New Yorker article, "Tax Code.")
In addition, even though Bush brags about the occasional miniscule rise in
monthly employment numbers, those jobs tend to be low-paying ones, with few
benefits. The good new jobs, ones that pay a decent salary and that come
with benefits, are few and far between. There's a net loss of about one
million such good jobs since Bush was installed in the White House -- and,
worst of all, it doesn't look like those jobs are coming back any time soon.
(Many are off-shored to countries where the pay is minimal.)
Bush is keeping fairly quiet about our slumping/stagnant economy, in hopes
nobody will notice how bad things really are. Kerry occasionally makes
noises about Bush's faulty stewardship of the economy, but not in a
passionate, concerted way that will resonate with lots of voters. He needs
to kick it up a notch -- and, more importantly, continue to hammer away at
the direct connection between the $200+ billion (with a B, John!) being
spent in the disastrous Iraq adventure and the weak economy at home.
If Bush manages to win in November, the gloves will be off and his program
for the economy will bring ruin to entire segments of our society, as he
pushes privatization of more and more facets of government programs,
starting with Social Security and Medicare and phony drug "discounts" for
the elderly. All this will be pushed under the rubric of the "ownership"
society. As columnist Matt Miller has written, Bush and his cohorts, who
know nothing about how real people have to struggle just to get by, are
saying "Let
them own cake."
BLOGGERS SPEAK OUT ON THE IRAQ DEBACLE
For some superior blogs on aspects of the Iraq War and how it could affect
the presidential race, check out:
Josh Marshall: It's a super analysis; here are a few sample excerpts:
"Iraq has quite simply become a disaster for the United States. And
while people disagree over why this has happened, no thinking person can
now fail to see that it has happened. In the last two months, all of this
has been pushed to the side of the election debate -- either by rhetorical
tangles over 9/11 and terrorism, or attack politics centered on the two
men's war records or lack thereof. That is the reason for the president's
resurgence in the polls. It's really that simple. There's another
point that worth noting here too. And it's at least played a role in
pushing Iraq out of the political debate. That is, that President Bush has
been able to mobilize his manifest failure as a political asset, and the
Kerry campaign has allowed him to do so."
"...Politically, Kerry needs to ignore the commentators who will press him
to come up with a twenty point plan that will immediately rectify the
situation in Iraq. Yes, he needs to give an idea of what he'll do if and
when he takes over. But the emphasis should be on the undeniable fact that
though the way forward may be murky, the last person you want to lead the
country down that foggy path is the guy who screwed everything up so badly
in the first place."
Atrios spots political micromanaging all over the U.S. policy in
attacking and then not attacking in Fallujah. Some sample quotes:
"So, it's pretty much the case that we went into Fallujah because some
warbloggers got excited about the video of the desecration of the dead
civilian contractors. And, apparently the White House ordered it so
they could look tough."
He [Marine Lt. General James T. Conway, in charge of Western Iraq]
echoed an argument made by many Iraqi politicians and American analysts --
that the U.S. attack further radicalized a restive city, leading many
residents to support the insurgents. "When we were told to attack Fallujah,
I think we certainly increased the level of animosity that existed,"
Conway said.
He would not say where the order to attack originated, only that he
received an order from his superior at the time, Army Lt. Gen. Ricardo
Sanchez, the overall commander of U.S. forces in Iraq. Some senior U.S.
officials in Iraq have said the command originated in the White House.
"And, here's what Bush told
Russert in February:"
The thing about the Vietnam War that troubles me as I look back was it
was a political war. We had politicians making military decisions, and it
is lessons that any president must learn, and that is to the set the goal
and the objective and allow the military to come up with the plans to
achieve that objective. And those are essential lessons to be learned from
the Vietnam War.
Kos
summarizes Newsweek's story ( www.msnbc.msn.com/id/5973272/site/newsweek on the
Iraq-FUBAR situation:
"There's widespread agreement that Washington needs to rethink its
objectives, and quickly. 'We're dealing with a population that hovers
between bare tolerance and outright hostility,' says a senior U.S.
diplomat in Baghdad. 'This idea of a functioning democracy here is crazy.
We thought that there would be a reprieve after sovereignty, but all hell
is breaking loose.'
"No rational person thought there would be 'a reprieve after sovereignty',
given that Iraq doesn't have true sovereignty. But whatever, the war is
worsening."
"Force Bush to defend his 'war presidency.' He's got nothing to brag
about."
Steve
Gilliard quotes huge chunks of a Progress Report study by David Sirota/Christy
Harvey/Judd Legum/Jonathan Baskin about the enormous mess the Bush
Administration has created in Iraq:
The Bush White House is blithely insisting elections will occur in
January as planned. Security concerns, however, have left others less
confident. Former Secretary of State Madeleine Albright stated this
weekend on Meet the Press that "It would be lovely if they took place in
January, but I sure don't see it." Iraqi officials are also increasingly
skeptical. One senior Iraqi official told Newsweek, "I'm convinced that
it's not going to happen. It's just not realistic. How is it going to
happen?" Foreign Minister Hoshyar Zebari echoed that thought, saying, "The
timetable really depends at the end of the day on the security situation."
Some worry that the Bush administration, desperate to avoid the appearance
of yet another setback, will stick to the schedule despite ongoing
problems. Ghassan Atiyya, director of the independent Iraq Foundation for
Development and Democracy, warns, "Badly prepared elections, rather than
healing wounds, will open them."
Let's close with some choice words from a choice
BuzzFlash
editorial "It's Time to Cream Him, John":
This is not business as usual. This is not just politics. John Kerry is
running against a political criminal enterprise. If that statement shocks
you, than you don't understand the dire straits that we are in, not even
remotely.
Since the Republican Party was taken over by the Radical Right Wing --
beginning with the Nixon administration (in which Rumsfeld and Cheney
began their ascent -- and remember that Cheney is our President for
International Affairs, with Karl Rove his aide de camp for domestic
affairs) -- the GOP has run campaigns and the country with three basic
tools: demagoguery, the creation of manufactured images of leadership, and
the criminal abuse of our justice department and legislative process.
...The good news is that it is not too late. Kerry is within striking
distance -- especially in the crucial battleground electoral states. In
fact, some polls show him currently ahead in likely electoral votes.
But he won't win by adopting a de facto air that Bush is somehow a
legitimate leader, or that Iraq was a reasonable war. You can't win by
subliminally reinforcing the facade that is created by your opposition.
The only way to win against the right wing thugs who stole the American
government is to cream them, rip off their masks and put them on the
defensive through Election Day. Then, after you win, put them in the
hands of the Department of Justice. It won't be long before they are
behind bars.
...In this age of television news: form is content. Bush gets off being a
leader when he is a bungling failure, who ruins the nation, not runs it.
You are a natural leader for the times, but need to project that in a
television age. Dramatic gestures count. Modern politics is like a
sporting event. You don't win playing defense -- and image, unfortunately,
trumps content.
Now is the time to kick him in the balls and win.
If that sounds too nasty, your opponent wouldn't have it any other way,
John. That is HIS politics.
Remember, this is not just an election that you and John Edwards win or
lose against Cheney and Bush.
This is an election that will determine, perhaps, whether the American
democracy founded in 1776 continues to exist.
September 7, 2004
READING & LEARNING (OR NOT)
As those who've read my essays and blogs over the past several years are
quite aware, my attacks on Bush&Co. have been fairly intense and constant.
As a result, I often hear from friends and others who say: "It can't be that
bad, Bernie."
The answer is that it's even badder -- worse than you could even imagine in
your nightmares. You want specifics? Because the corporate-owned mass-media
don't provide those details, it is left to book-authors (and us internet
writers) to get the required specifics out to the public.
There are so many good, solid books out there -- with more to come, such as
Sy Hersh's Iraq tortures/war blockbuster, due out next week -- but I'll just
mention a few here that I've found most useful and informative, filled with
specific details of the high crimes and misdemeanors of Bush&Co. (Aside from
the just-released Miller book, I've cribbed excerpts from my earlier reviews
of the other tomes.)
I even know a few conservatives who have left the Dark Side and decided not
to vote for Bush as a result of reading some of the books discussed below.
So, if you want to get some solid information into the hands of your
moderate-Republican (or Naderite) friends, here are five highy recommended
reads:
MARK CRISPIN MILLER'S CRUEL AND UNUSUAL
In "Cruel and Unusual: Bush/Cheney's New World Order," by Mark Crispin
Miller, author of the invaluable "The Bush Dyslexicon," the author doesn't
pull any punches. He lays it all out, almost more in sorrow than in anger.
He's a strong, clear writer, and the case he makes is a compelling one that
Bush&Co. have taken us well down the road to a reckless imperialist foreign
policy abroad and a kind of American fascism at home.
Think those terms are too strong? Read the narrative and see how Miller came
to those conclusions. Lots of facts, footnotes, references, many from
Bush&Co. leaders themselves.
There is so much to quote from in "Cruel and Unusual," but I was especially
impressed by this long section (which I've broken up into shorter
paragraphs), since it reveals an underlying problem in Bush's way of
assessing reality, and why therefore the country is in such horrendous
situations domestically and abroad:
This simple doctrine of the iron mind is Bush's managerial credo. "A
president has got to be the calcium in the backbone," he told Bob Woodward
in August of 2002. "If it weakens, the whole team weakens. If I'm
doubtful, I can assure you there will be a lot of doubt."
Of all our presidents, this Bush is certainly the only one who would thus
cast himself as a hard mineral with a primitive cohesive function. His
metaphor suggests not wordly leadership of either the civilian or the
military kind, for heads of thriving states and winning armies must alike
be capable of improvising, innovating, changing course as circumstances
change. They have to think.
On the other hand, Bush sees himself not as a mind, or even as one part of
a collective mind atop the goverment, but only as an ossifying agent,
rather like cement or starch. In his command there is no flexibility, no
openness, only fear of weakness -- which the president apparently
associates with thought itself: "If I'm doubtful, I can assure you there
will be a lot of doubt." In Bush's moral universe, doubt is the bad
opposite of godly zeal. The latter he must endlessly and vividly -- and,
necessarily, unthinkingly -- exude, as the inspiring figurehead of a
crusade.
Doubt, on the other hand, he must avoid as if were the plague. To raise
questions, study every option, call on expertise outside the leader's
inner circle, would be a sign of insufficient faith. Bush regards it as
perhaps his greatest virtue that he has his mind made up and tightly
closed. "I believe what I believe is right,' as he put it to a pack of
unbelieving journalists in Rome in the summer of 2001.
His presidency is, in short, a radical faith-based initiative [as opposed
to the Jeffersonian ideal of learning]... Bush/Cheney, on the other hand,
do not believe in anybody learning anything: not the people, whom they
prefer to keep completely in the dark; and not themselves, as they believe
they know it all already. Certainly the people still can learn, despite
the vast impediments thrown up by this regime, but the regime itself just
does not want to know, and therefore has learned -- can learn, will learn
-- nothing. (pp.46-47)
This strange attitude of Bush&Co. helped me understand the deeper meaning
underlying the
recent comment by Andrew Card, Bush's Chief of Staff. Card, on the
campaign trail, said:
"This president sees America as we think about a 10-year-old child.
I know as a parent I would sacrifice all for my children."
In short, we citizens are but children, watched over by the wise daddy,
who acts in our stead, without consulting us, since we are but ignorant,
unshaped kids. When we deign to ask questions or demur, we are in violation
of the sacrosanct order of things, and therefore must be brought back into
the fold and educated, or dealt with harshly as ungrateful apostates.
JOHN W. DEAN'S WORSE THAN WATERGATE
The full title --
"Worse Than Watergate: The Secret Presidency of George W. Bush" --
indicates how bad the situation is. For those who've forgotten, Watergate
was the Nixon-era umbrella term that represented the felonies and other
crimes committed by that administration in an effort to gain and stay in
power -- everything from setting up a secret police unit inside the White
House to "get" the president's enemies, to breaking-and-entering to bribery
to burglary to dirty election tricks to a massive cover-up to hide all these
nefarious activities from the public.
So when John W. Dean says that the Bush Administration is "worse than
Watergate," you know we're dealing with real "worstness" here, not merely a
repetition of the Nixon-like felonies, which look almost quaint in
comparison. With Bush&Co, we're talking about acts that have resulted in
thousands of deaths, among many other high crimes and misdemeanors.
In the few excerpts that follow, Dean gives the general flavor of his
argument against the "shared presidency" of Bush/Cheney, all well-sourced
and with footnoted factual evidence.
Their secrecy is extreme -- not merely unjustified and excessive but
obsessive...It has given us a presidency that operates on hidden agendas.
To protect their secrets, Bush and Cheney dissemble as a matter of
policy...Cheney openly declares that he wants to turn the clock back to
the pre-Watergate years -- a time of an unaccountable and
extra-constitutional imperial presidency. To say that their secret
presidency is undemocratic is an understatement.
Cheney formed what is, in effect, a shadow NSC [National Security
Council]...It is a secret government -- beyond the reach of Congress, and
everyone else as well...Cheney knew that terrorism was the perfect excuse,
an ideal raison d'etre, for his 'let's rule the world' philosophy.
Politically, it would be much easier to be seen as shooting back instead
of shooting first, given the caliber of weapon Cheney sought to wield. But
he and his team did far worse than simply waiting for an attack that would
kill a sufficient number of Americans...It is reasonable to believe that
they planned to exploit terrorism before 9/11 handed them the issue
ready-made for exploitation -- a fact they obviously want to keep buried.
Not since Lyndon Johnson hoodwinked Congress into issuing the Gulf of
Tonkin Resolution, which authorizes sending American troops to Vietnam,
has a president so deceived Congress about a matter of such grave national
importance...Bush and Cheney took this nation to war on <i>their<-i>
hunches, their unreliable beliefs, and their unsubstantiated intelligence
-- and used deception with Congress both before and after launching the
war....The evidence is overwhelming, certainly sufficient for a prima
facie case, that George W. Bush and Richard B. Cheney have engaged in
deceit and deception over going to war in Iraq. This is an impeachable
offense.
The Bush-Cheney secrecy and style of governing carries with it potential
consequences that are far worse than any political scandal. Their secret
presidency is a dangerous threat to democracy in an age of
terrorism...Bush and Cheney have picked up where Nixon left presidential
power. They seek to free the presidency of all restraints. They want to
implement their policies -- a radical wisdom they believe serves the
greater good -- unencumbered by those who view the world differently.
DAVID BROCK'S BLINDED BY THE RIGHT
Remember how the conservative press -- indeed, virtually all the pundits,
regardless of political stripe -- jumped all over Hillary Clinton when she
said that a "vast rightwing conspiracy" had been out to get Bill Clinton for
a long time before the impeachment drive?
Ha ha, another conspiracy theoris -- Hillary would say anything to deflect
attention from her husband, the talk-show pundits proclaimed. Nothing to see
here. Just move along, folks.
Well, it turns out she was right on the button. And David Brock's
"Blinded by the Right: The Conscience of an Ex-Conservative" is by a
former card-carrying member of that "vast rightwing conspiracy."
Brock, before he realized what was happening to his soul and got out, was a
hired-gun writer who specialized in smearing those who got in the way of the
HardRight agenda. He did a sleaze job on Anita Hill, in the Clarence Thomas
episode, and he's the journalist who got the Paula Jones/Bill Clinton story
started. In short, Brock was a scumbag who took the dirty money and did the
hatchet work.
Eventually, appalled by the hypocrisy and political immorality of the folks
he was working for and with, Brock couldn't take any more. His coming-out
party was "Blinded by the Right."
In the book, he apologizes to those whose reputations he ruined. And he
names names and dates and places where he, and other, HardRight
conspiracists did their slimy work. Brock was privy to the highest echelons
of that network, funded by the likes of media mogul Richard Mellon Scaife
and other dirt-obsessed rightwing highrollers. He knows where the bodies are
buried and isn't afraid to show us the maps.
That inside knowledge is now being put to good use in the important
progressive website that Brock founded and edits,
Media Matters for America. Check
it out. Go get 'em, Brock!
SEBASTIAN HAFFNER'S
DEFYING HITLER
This book, written in the '30s by a law student in Germany, would seem to be
about old history, unconnected to our own time. But Haffner reveals how easy
it was for good, Christian Germans like him to slide into fascism and
brutality. (Excerpts from my review follow:)
What distinguishes "Defying Hitler," in addition to its superb writing,
is that Haffner focuses on "little people" like himself, rather than on
the machinations of leaders. He wants to explore how ordinary Germans,
especially non-Nazi and anti-Nazi Germans, permitted themselves to be
swallowed whole into the Hitlerian maw.
Haffner tries to solve the riddle of the easy acceptance of fascism in
Hitler's Third Reich. In March of 1933, a majority of German citizens did
not vote for Hitler. "What happened to that majority? Did they die? Did
they disappear from the face of the earth? Did they become Nazis at this
late stage? How was it possible that there was not the slightest visible
reaction from them" as Hitler, installed by the authorities as Chancellor,
began slowly and then more quickly consolidating power and moving Germany
from a democratic state to a totalitarian one?
All along the way, Hitler would propose or actually promulgate regulations
that sliced away at German citizens' freedoms -- usually aimed at small,
vulnerable sectors of society (labor unionists, communists, Jews, mental
defectives, et al.) -- and few said or did anything to indicate serious
displeasure. In the early days, on those rare occasions when there was
concerted negative reaction, Hitler would back off a bit. And so the Nazis
grew bolder and more voracious as they continued slicing away at civil
society. Many Germans (including some of Hitler's original corporate
backers) were convinced Nazism would collapse as it became more and more
extreme; others chose denial. It was easier to look the other way.
Nazi propaganda, policies and terror had broken down traditional
support-networks. You couldn't be sure whom to trust. Everyone could be on
the government payroll, or could turn into informants to save their skins.
And so arms went out in Nazi salutes, militarist songs were sung at
rallies and on the streets, "each one of us the Gestapo of the others." In
fear, individualism was crushed, leaving most citizens to relate only to
The Leader, or to their military units, the comradeship offered by
fascism.
When Hitler's in-your-face brand of "beyond" power -- with its meanness
and arrogance and menace, throwing opponents in jail, beating them, even
killing them -- met the traditional democratic culture, those on the other
end often had no tools at their disposal to combat the new hardball
politics: "It was then that the real mystery of the Hitler phenomenon
began to show itself: the strange befuddlement and numbness of his
opponents, who could not cope with his behavior and found themselves
transfixed by the gaze of the basilisk, unable to see that it was hell
personified that challenged them."
And so it becomes easier to simply permit oneself to sink, ever so slowly
into this collective illness, into accommodation with the ruling party,
even though the police-state is constantly violating citizens' privacy.
"We were pursued into the farthest corners of our private lives; in all
areas of life there was rout, panic, and flight. No one could tell where
it would end. At the same time we were called upon, not to surrender, but
to renege. Just a little pact with the devil -- and you were no longer one
of the captured quarry. Instead you were one of the victorious hunters."
Certainly, Haffner and others like him felt their own slide toward
complicity with the Nazis, as their sense of self faded. "Things were
quite deliberately arranged so that the individual had no room to
maneuver. What one represented, what one's opinions were in 'private' and
'actually,' were of no concern and set aside, put on ice, as it were. On
the other hand, in moments when one had the leisure to think of one's
individuality... one had the feeling that what was actually happening, in
which one participated mechanically, had no real existence or validity. It
was only in these hours that one could attempt to call oneself morally to
account and prepare a last position of defense for one's inner self."
Haffner was approaching decision time about his future if he stayed in the
Third Reich. But it's clear which way he was leaning, as his analyses got
darker and darker. "It is said that the Germans are subjugated. That is
only half true. They are also something else, something worse, for which
there is no word: they are 'comraded,' a dreadfully dangerous condition.
They are under a spell. They live a drugged life in a dream world. They
are terribly happy, but terribly demeaned; so self-satisified, but so
boundlessly loathsome; so proud and yet so despicable and inhuman. They
think they are scaling high mountains, when in reality they are crawling
through a swamp. As long as the spell lasts, there is almost no antidote."
Get the picture?
DANIEL ELLSBERG'S SECRETS
Similar to Haffner's book, Ellsberg's
"Secrets: A Memoir of Vietnam and the Pentagon Papers," concentrates on
times past -- here Ellsberg's decision to release the so-called Pentagon
Papers to the press -- as a way of helping stop the immoral, unwinnable,
stalemated Vietnam War.
But, again, there are lessons to be learned for our own situation as the
United States is once again fighting nationalist guerrillas as an occupation
force in a very foreign country, and facing a similar stalemated future.
[Here are some review excerpts:]
The common wisdom is that "you can't keep secrets in Washington," and
that someone always deliberately leaks or inadvertently blabs. But, says
Ellsberg, who was privy to some of the most top-secret material for years,
"the fact is that the overwhelming majority of secrets do not leak to the
American public.
This is true even when the information withheld is well known to an enemy
and when it is clearly essential to the functioning of the congressional
war power and to any democratic control of foreign policy...Secrets that
would be of the greatest importance to many of them can be kept from them
reliably for decades by the Executive Branch, even though they are known
to thousands of insiders."
And who is in charge of the current government's secrets today? The
Hard-Rightists who control American policy and who have made the Bush
Administration the most secretive, closed shop -- isolated from the real
world in which most of us live -- of any administration in modern times.
(Senator Patrick J. Leahy, the Vermont Democrat first elected in 1974,
said, "Since I've been here, I have never known an administration that is
more difficult to get information from." Senator Charles E. Grassley,
Republican of Iowa, said things are getting worse, and "it seems like in
the last month or two I've been running into more and more stonewalls.")
In those days, citizens tended to believe what their officials told them
and so the untruths rarely were caught. Again, the similarities to
contemporary times are instructive: An administration needs an enemy,
needs a war, in order to carry out its hidden agenda with the support of
the American people, and so the true motives are concealed and lies are
dispensed. Not quite as many citizens are inclined these days to believe
everything they're told by their government leaders, but the pattern is
still there. And still works. As Ellsberg says of Vietnam but which can
apply to our current situation as well: "The President was determined to
mislead the public... to conceal that he was taking the country into a
major, prolonged war."
Underlying U.S. policy at that time was a belief that America knew what
was best for other countries. "To presume to judge what was best for them,
with life and death at stake, was the height of imperial arrogance, the
'arrogance of power,' as Senator Fulbright later called it." This
observation has a certain ring of familiarity about it, as the Bush
Administration arrogantly moves around the globe today like a big bully,
informing other countries and their leaders what should be done and if
they won't do it voluntarily, the U.S. will make sure it happens, one way
or another.
Five Presidents were tragically wrong with regard to Vietnam; and our
current resident in the White House is wrong with regard to his secretive
war policies. The lock on secrets must be broken once again, before we
become permanently engaged in an imperial foreign policy that will bring
death and destruction down upon the world and that will leave our own
society morally adrift and, as in the Vietnam era, close to a political
civil-war. Let us learn from history and stop our leaders before it's too
late. We must all become Ellsbergs.
George W. Bush doesn't read books -- other than ones with lots of
pictures, especially if they involve pet goats. If his mean-spirited
education policies continue, a lot of young people coming up aren't going to
be able to read books either -- which may be part of the plan. Check out
this blog by
Kevin Drum: EVERY SCHOOL A FAILURE....,
Via Mark Kleiman.
The New York Times has a story about some unexpected consequences of the
No Child Left Behind Act. It turns out that
an awful lot of schools are getting failing grades:
In North Carolina, which pioneered one of the nation's most
sophisticated accountability systems, more than 32 schools ranked as
excellent by the state failed to meet Washington's criteria for academic
progress. In California, 317 schools showed tremendous academic growth on
the state's performance index, yet the federal law labeled them
low-performing.
....In Florida, Gov. Jeb Bush announced that the state had rated more than
two-thirds of Florida's 3,100 schools as high-performing. But
three-quarters were rated as low-performing under the federal law.
"We have a school down here that is absolutely extraordinary — all the
kids take Advanced Placement courses,'' said Jane Gallucci, chairwoman of
the Pinellas County School Board and a past president of the Florida
School Boards Association, "and the feds called it a failing school. Now
that's ludicrous."
Later on the story quotes some suburban parents who are concerned that
labeling their local school a failure will cause their property values to
fall. This might actually be amusing if it weren't for the fact that
labeling schools as failures isn't an unexpected consequence of NCLB. In
fact, it's precisely the point of NCLB — at least for some people.
As I mentioned last year, NCLB mandates that each state has to set standards
for student achievement, and by 2014 every single student must meet those
standards. Any school with less than 100% success is deemed to be failing.
What's more, even in the period between now and 2014, while pass rates are
"only" 80 or 90 percent and we're still working our way toward the El Dorado
of 100%, there's an absurd concoction of thinly sliced categories mandated
by the act, and failure in any one category marks the offending school as a
failure. It's pretty obvious that there are a suspiciously large number of
ways to fail, and as the years go by the number of "failing" schools will
slowly increase to 100%.
I suspect that a lot of people who supported the worthier goals of NCLB
simply didn't realize they were getting snookered: the fact is that the Bush
administration wants to see lots of public schools labeled as failures. It's
basically a long-term plan to erode the public's faith in public schools and
thereby increase support for private schools and vouchers.
This is part of a pattern from conservatives, who realize that their
domestic agenda is actually pretty unpopular and can be passed only if
people don't realize what they're getting. NCLB is an example of this kind
of stealth legislation, and both last year's Medicare bill and this year's
"ownership society" are additional examples. In the end, though, NCLB may
turn out to have been too clever by half, as parents rebel against being
labeled failures instead of meekly accepting the verdict of the federal
government.
Of course, that's not the only surprise the Bush administration has in store
— surprises that they're hoping nobody will notice until they're either
safely reelected or out of office.
For some other lively blogging commentary, check out our
Recommended Blogsites,especially
those this week by Juan Cole, Josh Marshall, Kos, Corrente, Digby, Steve
Gilliard, Kevin Drum, Atrios, Scott Rosenberg, David Neiwert.
September 2, 2004
PENTAGON PROBE WIDENING & DEEPENING
It's no longer just speculation. The spy/mole-in-the-Pentagon investigation
is much, much bigger than one guy passing some classified info to an Israeli
contact. They could be even more potentially treasonous -- and thus VERY
harmful to Bush's campaign. Read these two excerpts from
Juan Cole's assessment:
Jim Lobe
argues that the FBI investigation that caught up Pentagon Iran expert
Lawrence Franklin is much wider than initially thought, and focuses on the
unauthorized transfer to Israel of highly sophisticated military software
and designs. Since many Israeli arms merchants connected to the government
in Tel Aviv sell to the black market, some of this military technology has
ended up in the hands of countries that have poor relations with the US,
and some may have ultimately been resold to al-Qaeda.
And, quoting the
Boston Globe:
Senate Intelligence and House Judiciary Committee staff members say
inquiries into the Near East and South Asia Affairs division have found
preliminary evidence that some officials gathered questionable information
on weapons of mass destruction from Iraqi exiles such as Ahmed Chalabi
without proper authorization, which helped build President Bush's case for
an invasion last year.
The investigators are also looking into a more serious concern: whether
the office engaged in illegal activity by holding unauthorized meetings
with foreign nationals to destablize Syria and Iran without the
presidential approval required for covert operations, said one senior
congressional investigator who has longtime experience in intelligence
oversight.
Cole continues: A pattern of illegal payments for such information is also
at issue. Laura
Rozen says she has evidence that Pentagon officials paid Manuchehr
Ghorbanifar for documents he provided.
CHOOSE THE LEAKER
In my previous blog on this subject, I speculated that the timing for last
weekend's Pentagon-spy leak may have originated in the Bush inner circles.
More and more, such appears to be the case. Franklin -- the original subject
of the year-long FBI investigation, a key Iran analyst in Doug Feith's
Office of Special Plans -- had been cooperating recently with the FBI,
leading them into the wider circles of the scandal to contacts in Israel and
Iran.
Suddenly, somebody leaks the investigation to CBS News (let's play whose
office it originated in: Rove? Cheney? Rumsfeld?), and one can surmise that
the investigatory balloon then popped. Blogger
Xymphora is perhaps the most cynical:
Already the story is being polished, with Franklin being described as
'naive' and 'strange'. His role in the Pentagon, and even his competence
at his job, is also being denigrated. The spin will be that his stupidity
may have led him to inadvertently disclose to AIPAC officials information
which he did not realize was sensitive. The AIPAC officials will be said
to have received this information innocently, and the whole incident will
be shelved. As the FBI operation has been 'blown', any investigation of
the deep issues will be dropped, with the added bonus that there will be
no more wiretaps of AIPAC (I'd like to know which FBI official has such
enormous balls that he would approve the surveillance of AIPAC in the
political climate in the United States today). The investigation of the
Office of Special Plans will be hobbled until Bush wins the election (the
FBI is already "wrapping this thing up"), at which point it will quietly
disappear. Franklin probably won't even be indited, and certainly nobody
at AIPAC will feel the slightest pressure (an apology to AIPAC and to
Israel is probably in the works). All in all, a very successful leak.
Stay tuned. This one ain't goin' away.
LET'S CALM DOWN, FOLKS
There is a lot of Democratic gnashing of teeth that the Kerry Campaign is
blowing it right now, and that the momentum is swinging way over to the Bush
side. See Josh Marshall's blog:
To summarize the well-connected, level-headed Washington insider: there's
room for worry, but not panic:
If you're a regular reader of this column, you'll know I've been very
critical of the rapid-response from the Kerry campaign (wherever it may
have gone to) as well as their seeming disinclination to go on the
offensive and stay there.
But the difference between the race today and where it was two, three or
four weeks ago is still very small. The difference in the national polls
is very slight. The last nine major national polls have ABC (tied), ICR
(+3 Kerry), Time (+2 Bush), Fox (+1 Kerry), CNN (+2 Bush), NBC/WSJ (+2
Bush), LAT (+2 Bush), NPR (+4 Kerry), IBD/CSM (tied)...
Let me be clear: Those polls tell me the momentum of the race has clearly
moved in the president's direction. And some of the state-by-state numbers
(like PA, for instance) show that even more clearly. For all that, though,
it is difficult to say that Kerry has lost the race when it's not even
clear that he's behind.
Again, this is not a Pollyannaish post. The Kerry campaign needs to get
control of the debate back from the president. And they need to start
hitting much harder. But Democrats themselves need to be a lot tougher and
hardier about the cycles campaigns go through. And that applies to
self-serving Democratic 'insiders' too. Discipline pays rewards.
I share the general Dem frustration that the Kerry Campaign took much too
long to respond to the lies of the Smear Boat vets. They should have seen
what was coming -- that Rove always slimes and always goes for an opponent's
strength -- and should have been ready to punch back immediately, not five
or six days later.
But they eventually got their act together and the polls indicate that most
voters realize the Smear Boat attacks are partisan and originated in the
White House, so the belated damage-control worked. (But they'd better be
ready for Round 2: attacks on Kerry's anti-Vietnam War statements, and more
on his service record.)
OFFENSE ALWAYS BEATS DEFENSE
The broader point apparently missed by the Kerry Campaign is that they can't
let Rove keep setting the agenda. Fighting defense is a losing proposition.
Kerry-Edwards need to go on the attack, where Bush is most vulnerable:
* The growing spy-scandal in the Pentagon.
* Bush's de facto status as a military deserter in the early-'70s, when all
signs lead one to only one conclusion: when he was supposed to be finishing
out his National Guard duty in Alabama, he was AWOL. For the mountain of
evidence, see Paul Lukasiak's voluminous research in his article
"Deserter," and on
his website ( http://www.glcq.com.
* The growing disaster in Iraq.
* The stagnant, sliding economy -- and, as a corollary, the jobless
"recovery".
ROPE-A-DOPE?
There are eight weeks to go, and Kerry should have finished off Bush long
ago with a few roundhouse rights. Instead, he seems content to jab, strike a
few glancing blows, and move on. It this rope-a-dope or is this just plain
dopey?
Still, Kerry has a good shot at taking Bush down in many of the big swing
states. So many conservatives just can't bring themselves to vote for Bush
and his incompetent, extremist crew. They may not vote for Kerry, but may
well stay home on voting day, which is just as good.
But Kerry can't count on that help from traditional conservative
Republicans. Nor should he count on the corporate media doing anything to
help. The energy and momentum has to come from Kerry & Edwards -- thus
re-energizing the base -- and it has to come now. Later may be too late.
HASTERT: SOROS A DRUG-CARTEL CONDUIT?
We know how anxious Rove is to drive the Smear Boat lies stake into the
heart of Kerry's campaign. So good ol' loyal Republican icon Bob Dole is
hauled out to underline the Vietnam lies, and then former President Bush
Sr., without ever directly endorsing the Smear Boat lies, says he goes along
with Dole's statements since Dole would never smear anyone. Disgraceful!
But here's an even better example of how desperate Bush&Co. are getting.
House Speaker Dennis Hastert went ballistic on Fox News Sunday and insinuated
that Dem backer George Soros may be getting his money from illegal drugs.
"You know, I don't know where George Soros gets his money. I don't know
where - if it comes overseas or from drug groups or where it comes from,"
Hastert mused. An astonished Chris Wallace asked: "Excuse me?" The Speaker
went on: "Well, that's what he's been for a number years - George Soros
has been for legalizing drugs in this country. So, I mean, he's got a lot
of ancillary interests out there." Wallace: "You think he may be getting
money from the drug cartel?" Hastert: "I'm saying I don't know where
groups - could be people who support this type of thing. I'm saying we
don't know."
Maybe saying something that stupid might make a certain sense a day or
two before Election Day -- when it would be too late for Soros to do
anything about such slander -- but doing it now, eight weeks out? To borrow
a Republican phrase from the Watergate days, if he keeps going after Soros,
a man not without resources and connections, he's liable to wind up with his
tit in a wringer.
Plus, behaving in such bullying fashion may send a chilling message to other
corporate CEOs: If Bush&Co. are crazy enough to do that to a billionaire
like Soros, what might they do to me? Maybe these guys ARE too extreme,
after al.
Update: Soros has sent Hastert a letter demanding a retraction and apology.
Hastert is trying like crazy to slide out from this one, by "clarifying"
what everyone heard him say, but he's doing so in a way that continues the
slime attack on Soros. What a creep -- two heartbeats from the presidency.
And how truly desperate these guys are to remain in power.
SHORT TAKES: THOMPSON AND REDACTION
1.
Atrios quotes Bush's Secretary of Health & Human Services Tommy Thompson
on CNN making this wonderful slip-of-the-truth:
I think Arnold Schwarzenegger's, Governor Schwarzenegger's, speech last
night was one of the finest I've ever seen at a convention, and I've been
going to conventions for 28 years. His speech was outstanding, he gave a
portrayal, he painted a picture of why people should be a Democrat, better
and more ably than any person I've ever heard before.
[Says Atrios:] Indeed he did.
2.
The
Memory Hole -- also commented on by
David Neiwert -- has come up with a classic example of the Bush
Administration's absurd dedication to hiding that which could embarrass it:
Anybody who has read many official documents—including those makiing
headlines in the last year or more—has seen plenty of redactions (thhose
portions that are blacked out or otherwise made unreadable). This, we're
told, is for legitimate reasons, such as "national security" or
"protecting intelligence sources and methods." But now we have absolute,
incontrovertible proof that the government also censors completely
innocuous material simply because they don't like it.
The Justice Department tipped its hand in its ongoing legal war with the
ACLU over the Patriot Act. Because the matter is so sensitive, the Justice
Dept is allowed to black out those passages in the ACLU's court filings
that it feels should not be publicly released.
Ostensibly, they would use their powers of censorship only to remove
material that truly could jeopardize US operations. But in reality, what
did they do? THEY BLACKED OUT A QUOTATION FROM A SUPREME COURT DECISION:
"The danger to political dissent is acute where the Government attempts to
act under so vague a concept as the power to protect 'domestic security.'
Given the difficulty of defining the domestic security interest, the
danger of abuse in acting to protect that interest becomes apparent."
The mind reels at such a blatant abuse of power (and at the sheer chutzpah
of using national security as an excuse to censor a quotation about using
national security as an excuse to stifle dissent).
It's hard to imagine a more public, open document than a decision written
by the Supreme Court. It is incontestably public property: widely
reprinted online and on paper; poured over by generations of judges,
attorneys, prosecutors, and law students; quoted for centuries to come in
court cases and political essays.
Yet the Justice Department had the incomprehensible arrogance and gall to
strip this quotation from a court document, as if it represented a grave
threat to the republic. Luckily, the court slapped down this redaction and
several others. If it hadn't, we would've been left with the impression
that this was a legitimate redaction, that whatever was underneath the
thick black ink was something so incredibly sensitive and damaging that it
must be kept from our eyes.
Now we know the truth. Think about this the next time you see a black mark
on a public document.