Protest Too Much, Much?

As rightwing posts go, this wingnut screed if full of ranty goodness.

The amount of heat and lack of light in this post from the Thune-associated South Dakota Politics blog makes me think there may be more to the Gannon story than previously suspected. It's a pretty astounding level of hyperventilation [warning: 350 kB Ivan Stang .wav file].

And the guy is evidently a history professor. Imagine that.

He tries to use some scattered lefty comments to smear the whole Democratic party as angry. Then he supports his argument with an un-disclaimered link to Little Green Footballs, which has long brimmed with hate and racism. Yowza, way to undermine your argument, professor.

He also makes this interesting claim: "Reporters have recently told me that the Daschle campaign had been sending them photos of Gannon for at least a year to discredit him. " So they knew he was a prostitute a year before most others new, and they kept quiet about it? I think there's a story or two in that alone.

I Wonder...

Has George W. Bush ever said he was committed to do something sizable (not just a small percentage of the budget, but something over a few billion dollars) but decided he couldn't do it because of the cost? What's the meaning of money to this Administration in areas it really cares about?

Why'd he pick Social Security to use that argument? Rather than, say, a multi-billion dollar missile defence program that doesn't work and won't protect us against terrorists? Or a pork-barrel drug-benefit program? Or ....

If only Social Security could be changed so it would help pharmaceutical companies... or defense contractors ... or Wall Street. Then it would be affordable.

In part because benefits for millions of American seniors would be cut.

Hard Core Troubadors

Appearing at CPAC, The Right Brothers - Issue based, Conservative music.

Wow, what powerful words and music, like this from the song "Trickle Down:"

If the rich man didn't spend his cash
on cars and boats and planes
there'd be a lot of average joes
out of work today

His dollar helps America's
economy to thrive
The rich man keeps the workin man
working and alive.

Chorus
Trickle down, trickle down
Let the money trickle down
It won't do anybody good
buried in the ground
Trickle down, trickle down
Let the money spread around
And one day it'll be my turn
And mine'll trickle down.

A song celebrating the rich and lower marginal tax rates on them! These guys are really going to bust the charts wide open.

Link from Unemployed Kerry Staffer.

Secret Logic

DoJ attorneys are now trying to deprive a person of liberty not only based on secret evidence, but on secret legal arguments:

ATTORNEYS FOR the Justice Department appeared before a federal judge in Washington this month and asked him to dismiss a lawsuit over the detention of a U.S. citizen, basing their request not merely on secret evidence but also on secret legal arguments. The government contends that the legal theory by which it would defend its behavior should be immune from debate in court.

This seems to exemplify the current administration's audacity: they're constanly pushing the bounds in whatever area not only beyond the seemly, but beyond what I would consider even conceivable to a reasonable person.

I guess that's what we're dealing with: unreason, and unreality. Scary times.

WH Press Corps

I've been studying the Jeff Gannon/ James Guckert fracas with some shadenfreude.

A few things to note:

1) Being a prostitute is not a private act. Posting pictures of yourself nude on the world-wide-web is even less private. Gannon/Guckert made his flesh public by putting it on the web. People who investigate your sex-for-money schemes are not "invading your privacy." They are looking into your business dealings.

2) This Gannon/Guckert person, a prostitute, was called on by President George W. Bush to ask a question in a nationally televised Press Conference. No modern president asks questions at random to specific persons in a crowd -- they are pointed to this "reporter" or that one.

How did that come about?

Beyond that, for now, let's point towards Keith Olbmermann, who even works on Sunday and makes several cogent points.

I'm sure no one would have to mention any of this if a Democrat were in the White House while a prostitute asked a Democrat a question. Real Media would be all over that. Since it's a Republican man-whore asking a Republican president a question, we should all be reverent.

Abstinence-Only Education Sites

For the girls: IRON HYMEN

For the boys: Sex is for Fags

Someone's been doing some strategic thinking.

Alayn Greenscum

Alan Greenspan has been taking some heat (not nearly enough) for his putrid double-dealing about Social Security.

But how could a hard-core Ayn Randian not hate Social Security? It'd be an article of faith.

I'm still surprised by the number of people who are not aware that Greenspan is a Randian. He was, in fact, a member of what could charitably be called her "salon," but seems awfully cultlike in fact.

Here's a good roundup by Bill Bradford of the Alan Greenspan and Ayn Rand. Read it and you'll see why it's no wonder the guy's a dickhead, even with his small indiscretions against pure Randianism.

Lest you think this infatuation with Objectivism was a youthful indiscretion, read to the bottom of the Bradford piece linked above.

And, as his friend Joan Mitchell Blumenthal has observed, “Alan is very devoted to Ayn. He still thinks of her most kindly

Or

Journalist Michael Lewis recently wrote that Greenspan “has preserved a hard core of fanaticism, encas- ing it in a shell of pragmatism. No more waiting for everyone to realize that extreme laissez-faire capitalism is the best system: He’s taking control of the process himself, ever so quietly.”

What would you expect from someone devoted to the writer of the following loathsome prose:

The man at the top of the intellectual pyramid contributes the most to all those below him, but gets nothing except his material payment, receiving no intellectual bonus from others to add to the value of his time. The man at the bottom who, left to himself, would starve in his hopeless ineptitude, contributes nothing to those above him, but receives the bonus of all of their brains. Such is the nature of the 'competition' between the strong and the weak of the intellect. Such is the pattern of 'exploitation' for which you have damned the strong.

-- Ayn Rand, Atlas Shrugged

It's no wonder Greenspan wants Social Security killed. He's smarter than the people who need it to live on in their old age.

Camel's Nose?

Finally, after many weeks of pressuring, George W. Bush said that, in the luminous fog of his Social Security "reform" plan, he's not ruled out raising the ceiling on FICA taxes. He's almost soundling like he could remotely be serious about shoring up the relatively minor problems in Social Security. But, he's still pushing private accounts, which makes one think he's not really serious about that.

The day after he says that maybe raising the FICA ceiling is ok, the AP puts out the folllowing story:

Social Security Tax May Mean More Money

Increasing Social Security taxes for the wealthiest Americans could raise more than $100 billion a year — enough to shore up the retirement system's finances for 75 years, pay for President Bush's plan for private accounts, or part of each

So now I see another way that Bush could gut Social Security in years to come. It could go something like this. Bush and his wealthy partisans willl say something like:

"Bush bent on increasing the FICA ceiling. That'll give us enough money to not only plug holes in Social Security for decades, but gives us enough revenue to take funds out of the trust and put it in private accounts."

"See, Bush paid for private -- I mean personal -- accounts! Let's do it!"

Of course, the road to private accounts will gut Social Security in the long run, and will still cost the government in fees, paying out benefits, disability and survivor benefits, paying out ersatz benefits from people whose "private accounts" fail. And, Bush will still have to cut benefits.

But it's a linguistic road to make all this lunacy seem reasonable.

Keep your eyes on the "FICA dividend." It will be rhetorically leveraged into all sorts of things it cannot economically support.

Still, it's a pig in a poke, just a poke a bit more gossamer than it was two days ago.

EDIT: I see that DeLay and Hastert are saying they'd consider a raise in the FICA ceiling a tax increase. That, of course, would be paying bills with actual money instead of fairy farts, so any increase is against Republican dogma.

And Kevin Drum has a few words that play off my thoughts.

Eyes on the Sleaze

This is a bit of an old story in blogosphere terms, but I wanted to explicitly tie two different threads together, so bear with me -- if you wish.

Eyes on the Prize was (I use the past tense advisedly) a landmark documentary telling the story of the Civil Rights struggles in the fifties and sixties. Widely lauded, it encapsulated the era of struggle and success.

What's happened to this documentary appears to encapsulate more recent eras in American history: rampant greed, abuse of copyright laws, lack of a social conscience, toadying to corporations, and shameless self-promotion.

"Eyes on the Prize" is a natural for viewing in Black History Month. But you probably won't see it this year unless you break (or bend) copyright laws. A Virginia school, which had bought a legal VHS copy of the documantary back when it was still available, received a threatening legal letter demanding that they not show the documentary.

They did not show the film in that school.

A group called Downhill Battle has tried to distribute the movie via BitTorrent. Since legally purchased copies cannot be shown even in a school, this seems to be a sympathetic form of civil disobedience. Of course, the real problem is that copyright and the threat of legal action is being used to silence this highly praised version of the story of civil rights.

Reports of this travesty of copyright abuse don't explain who is demanding licensure payment for what part of the documentary. But my bets are on a group that appears to have totally perverted Martin Luther King's message -- the family of Dr. King and their related businesses.

Some of the things they've done to sully their family name are truly stunning.

• Letting the King Center in Atlanta fall into wretched disrepair while several Kings are taking six-figure salaries.
  
  
• Plans for a memorial to Dr. King on the Mall in Washington, D.C. were halted when the King family demanded a fee to use his image.
  
  
• They have sought to license King's words and image to corporations (Alcatel, Cingular, Time-Warner) while threatening legal action or demanding exorbitant payment from scholars who seek to reproduce King's speeches or other writings.
  
  
• The King estate wrote a threatening letter to Henry Hampton, the maker of "Eyes on the Prize," for using King's image in the movie without giving them enough money or control. Eventually the production company sued the King estate to to license the use of King in the documentary.
  
  
• The head of the MLK foundation, Dr. King's son Dexter, seems to see his father's legacy as a means to enrich himself monetarily while neglecting his father's meaning to the US and the world.
  

It just goes on and on, and it's horribly sordid.

To return to the current fracas about forcing the school to not show the documentary, the lawyer who wrote the school referred only to issues at the "licensee level." What are the chances that most, if not all, of that pressure, comes from the relatives of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. himself?

Of course, "Tribute to the King" has multiple meanings. Too bad the King family has lost sight of all those meanings that don't include coughing up ducats.

Pig In A Poke

George W. Bush on open and full debate in a democracy about changing the most popular domestic program in history:

Even when pressed, the president refused to say whether he would favor an increase in the cap as part of an overall solution.
.
“The tendency in Washington is, ‘OK, Mr. President, you play your cards now and we’ll decide if we’re going to play ours,’ ” Bush said. “I’m not going to do that. I’m keeping them close to the vest.”

In short, he's trying to sell us a pig in a poke.

Hey Mr. President, it's your grand idea to change this program. It's up to you to put your cards on the table. It's your plan Congress will be voting on.

After all, I don't want you playing poker with my retirement money, no matter how much fun you may have doing it.

Play poker with your own money, not mine.

War on Ira*

Lots of interesting stuff in this AP Article titled "Iraq's Shiite leaders grilled by U.S. on nature of Iran ties." But this paragraph jumped out at me:

In recent talks, U.S. diplomats have bluntly asked the leaders how a Shiite-dominated government would react if Iran came under attack by an outside power because of its suspected nuclear weapons program, according to a high-ranking member of one Shiite party.

That sure sounds like war with Iran is almost a done deal.

The article's focus on how close the Shiite government will be to Iran is very insteresting, too. I wonder how many Iraqi politicians who will be killed in the coming months and years will die not at the hands of the insurgency?

Will Righties Call Them Ragheads Again?

Iraq Winners Allied With Iran Are the Opposite of U.S. Vision (washingtonpost.com)

When the Bush administration decided to invade Iraq two years ago, it envisioned a quick handover to handpicked allies in a secular government that would be the antithesis of Iran's theocracy -- potentially even a foil to Tehran's regional ambitions.

But, in one of the greatest ironies of the U.S. intervention, Iraqis instead went to the polls and elected a government with a strong religious base -- and very close ties to the Islamic republic next door. It is the last thing the administration expected from its costly Iraq policy -- $300 billion and counting, U.S. and regional analysts say.

Ouch, those people who won seem to be wearing headgear very similar to the Ayatollahs in Iran. Boy, that's a funny coincidence, isn't it?

Yesterday, the White House heralded the election and credited the U.S. role. In a statement, President Bush praised Iraqis "for defying terrorist threats and setting their country on the path of democracy and freedom. And I congratulate every candidate who stood for election and those who will take office once the results are certified."

Bush congratulated the Iran-lovers, and even the Communists, who got three seats, even more than about a dozen other parties.

Bush congratulating Communists for winning seats in an election. Boy, that hurts. Should Bush be congratulating Communists? Too late, he already did it. Scott McLellan should backpedal from that tomorrow.

Iran is a winner, and Israel is a loser (see here: " But at all the Supreme Council for Islamic Revolution rallies and Friday prayers services, crowds chant "Death to Israel!"' Remember when the neocon fantasy included an Iraqi government that was pro-Israeli? Yet another fantasy down the drain.

And, "Since the United Iraq Alliance received nearly half of the votes over-all, then 205,000 or so of the votes would be awarded to it after the fact, or 2.4 percent. Presto, the religious Shiites have 51 percent."

The Iranian Ayatollahs should be very happy today. I'm not.

Mathematically Impossible

Michael Kinsley finds what he calls The Meathead Proposition (washingtonpost.com), whcih logically and irrefutably demonstrates that:

Like the argument I have been hawking (see www.latimes.com/proof), this one doesn't merely suggest that Bush is making bad policy. It demonstrates with near-mathematical certainty that the idea he endorses can't work. Period.

But, of course, logic doesn't mean much anymore:

Bush might as well be proposing legislation that two plus two is five. And if that happened, there would be no shortage of Republicans prepared to endorse this view, experts on arithmetic to declare that it is a very difficult question, research to indicate that the answer may lie anywhere between 2.3 and 7.09, moderate Washington sages to urge caution, media to report both sides of the question, and media critics to accuse the media of a subtle bias in favor of two plus two is four.

Then Kinsley goes on to demonstrate yet another thing about the Bush plan that demonstrates a particularly vapor-headed approach to policy by the right wing.

As policy, it is yet another vapor-headed way of fudging numbers.

As politics, we have to make this mistake really hurt the Republicans for years, since it makes their intent obvious.

Three Guesses Why

Poll: Seniors Key to Slip in Bush Rating

The public's confidence in President Bush's job performance and the nation's direction has slipped in the opening weeks of his second term, particularly among people 50 and older, according to an Associated Press poll.

Adults were evenly divided on Bush's job performance in January, but now 54 percent disapprove and 45 percent approve. The number who think the country is headed down the wrong track increased from 51 percent to 58 percent in the past month.

Wow, that seems like a precipitous drop. Back to the AP:

The survey wasn't all bad for the Bush administration: People are slightly more optimistic about the possibility of a stable, democratic Iraq.

The poll, conducted for the AP by Ipsos-Public Affairs, was taken after the president's State of the Union address and the elections in Iraq and at the start of a heated debate over creating personal Social Security accounts.

I know things move fast, but I expected the good feelings from the Iraqi election to last a bit longer (even though subsequent events soured me pretty quickly afterwards).

Let's hope these poll results are something that Dems can build on.

Variety

250 MP3 versions of House of the Rising Sun.

That's two hundred and fifty. And that's House of the Rising Sun.

It's not perfect, however. I was surprised to learn that Hank Williams had recorded a version of the song. He didn't: the MP3 is Hank Williams, Jr. Massive difference. I'd also bet that the "Doc and Richard Watson" entry (number 58) Is actually Doc and Merle Watson. But the site is slow, so I may never know.

Iran!!!!! Not North Korea.

Pay no attention to the man behind the curtain.

This will be all over the place in a few hours (at least it should be), but it's illustrative of the fecklessness of the Bush Administration's foreign policy:

MSNBC - N. Korea acknowledges it has nuclear arms

SEOUL, South Korea - North Korea publicly admitted Thursday for the first time that it has nuclear weapons, and said it wouldn’t return to six-nation talks aimed at getting it to abandon its nuclear ambitions.

Iran is Condi's and Bush's focus, and it's not surprising. They've totally dropped the ball on North Korea's nukes.

Seems like they'd be more concerned about actual US security than scoring petty political points. It would seem that way if we hadn't lived through the past four years.

Nicholas Kristof is sometimes pretty dumb, but even he understands this.

Private Accounts, Personal Accountability

The Securities and Exchange Commission has some helpful information about diving into the world of private accounts.

Wait, the government won't let me use my private or personal accounts any way I want?

If I don't even have a chance of getting rich in my dotage, what's the point of Bush's Social Security plunder?

Downer

I haven't seen much mention of this, but it's curious:

U.S. general says he believes British plane was downed by hostile act, not accident

WASHINGTON (AP) A senior U.S. general said Wednesday he believes the British C-130 aircraft that crashed in Iraq on Jan. 30, killing all 10 people aboard, was downed by hostile action rather than by a mechanical problem. The British government has not said whether it was shot down.

''I personally believe there may have been either hostile action or something that happened inside the aircraft, but I doubt that it was mechanical in nature, if you know what I mean,'' Air Force Lt. Gen. Lance Smith, the deputy commander of U.S. Central Command, told reporters.

[....]

Smith said there have been reports that ground fire was seen in the area at the time of the crash, and this is being investigated by the British government.

He expressed doubt that a shoulder-fired missile brought down the C-130, but he left open the possibility that it could have been a radar-guided surface-to-air missile or small arms fire.

''I don't believe that airplane went down from a missile,'' he said, noting later that he was referring specifically to what the military calls a man-portable air defense weapon, or Manpad.

''There are other likely scenarios, whether it's small arms fire that hit something in the rear, or a lucky shot from an RPG (rocket-propelled grenade),'' he said. ''There are just so many scenarios, the one that seems least likely to me because it would have been seen is the Manpad one.''

This would be a troubling development if it pans out -- and it's not just a one-off instance of the guerillas getting lucky (in their eyes).

Until we know more, there's no obvious way to defend against it. But it it indicates any growing sophistication in the insurgency, it's bad news. Particularly since roads are so dangerous that flying is the safest transport available for Americans and Brits in Iraq.

The Paris Hilton Age

Just hearing a bit about Bush's budget, we're back into the Paris Hilton age.

No inheritance tax? That helps Paris Hilton and no middle class people.

Cutting capital gains taxes? Helps Paris Hilton and a lot of children of the rich and maybe -- maybe -- a handful of middle class people.

Cutting Social Security benefits and allowing the government to default on the Social Security Trust fund? Help Paris Hilton, really hurts middle and lower class people.

Cutting taxes for the rich and cutting programs for the middle class and poor? That's the Bush Budget. Helps Paris Hilton and her friends. Hurts everyone else.

Finally, of the people dying in Iraq (and in the military in general around the world) how many does Paris Hilton know? But they die to help her be fabulous.

We're back in the Paris Hilton age.

I hope the Paris Hilton age ends soon. People who aren't Hiltons can't afford to subsidize Paris Hilton forever.

It's not funny anymore.

War of Ideas

Obsidian Wings pointed to this Christian Science Monitor piece: Koranic duels ease terror

When Judge Hamoud al-Hitar announced that he and four other Islamic scholars would challenge Yemen's Al Qaeda prisoners to a theological contest, Western antiterrorism experts warned that this high-stakes gamble would end in disaster.

Nervous as he faced five captured, yet defiant, Al Qaeda members in a Sanaa prison, Judge Hitar was inclined to agree. But banishing his doubts, the youthful cleric threw down the gauntlet, in the hope of bringing peace to his troubled homeland.

"If you can convince us that your ideas are justified by the Koran, then we will join you in your struggle," Hitar told the militants. "But if we succeed in convincing you of our ideas, then you must agree to renounce violence."

The prisoners eagerly agreed.

Now, two years later, not only have those prisoners been released, but a relative peace reigns in Yemen. And the same Western experts who doubted this experiment are courting Hitar, eager to hear how his "theological dialogues" with captured Islamic militants have helped pacify this wild and mountainous country, previously seen by the US as a failed state, like Iraq and Afghanistan.

Two things: As Sebastian said, this really is a good story about moderate (well, at least not extremist) Muslims fighting terror.

But secondly, I really hope it's true that "Western experts" are looking at this fellow and others with simiilar intentions throughout the Muslim world. It seems like we've really let the ball drop on the war of ideas.

I realize that Bush says "freedom" a lot, but I'm afraid that doesn't convince me that we're even playing the idea game seriously. And even if I did believe it, I certainly wouldn't believe that serially occupying Islamic countries would win that war.

So let's hope we're pursuing other seemingly good ideas like this one.

Kinsley's Parable

Michael Kinsley, speaking on Al Franken's show on Air America moments ago, told this parable about how Bush's private accounts will make any problems with Social Security worse. (This is neccesarily a paraphrase -- I wasn't transcribing when listening).

It's like if you're in the desert and thirsty. You'd like some water. Bush comes up and says "How would you like lemonade? It's way better than water." "Ok," you say.

Whereupon, Bush gives you a package of dry lemonade mix and says "There you go. Just add water!"

Purple Means ... Sharia?

Looks like there's a great chance that some form of Sharia will be enshrined in the Iraqi Constitution. We have yet to see if it's to be a soft form, where women will be only moderately less equal than men and Sharia will only determine parts of the law, or a harder form where Shiite "legal authorities" will determine most or all laws.

The leading Shiite clerics say they have no intention of taking executive office and following the Iranian model of wilayat al-faqih, or direct governance by religious scholars. But the clerics also say the Shiite politicians ultimately answer to them, and that the top religious leaders, collectively known as the marjaiya, will shape the constitution through the politicians.

Some effects are already being felt locally. In Basra, the second-largest city in Iraq, where one of Ayatollah Sistani's closest aides has enormous influence, Shiite religious parties have been transforming the city into an Islamic fief since the toppling of Mr. Hussein. Militias have driven alcohol sellers off the streets. Women are harassed if they walk the streets in anything less than head-to-head black. Conservative judges are invoking Shariah in some courts.

For those who don't know, all majority Muslim nations aren't equal regarding freedom of women. Afghanistan under the Taliban was on the extreme in the repression of women, and Saudi Arabia is somewhere close to them (Women can't buy an airline ticket without a male relative's written permission, and can't go out unaccompanied by a man, for instance). Iraq actually was pretty good for women's rights: there were many women Ph.D.s under Hussein, and women in government and civil society. The veil was not required clothing.

Of course, if you spoke out against Hussein, all bets were off. But there are quite a few countries in the region -- some of whom the US supports (We don't hear Bush yelling about Saudi Arabia or Egypt, for instance) -- where speaking against the leadership is not good for your health.

It seems likely that one consequence of the invasion of Iraq will be reducing freedom for women in the country.

I somehow think we'll not hear a lot about that.

Maybe "Not On the Agenda Table?"

MSNBC - Rice: Attack on Iran 'simply not on the agenda'

[Concerning military action against Iran] “The question is simply not on the agenda at this point,” Rice said at a news conference"

versus

"As I've said repeatedly, I have no plans on my desk at this point in time." [Bush about war in Iraq.]

He used variants of "no plans on my desk" several times in 2002 and 2003. From NewsHour

GWEN IFILL: Up until literally weeks before the first bombs fell, the president used a certain formulation with foreign leaders, with members of Congress, with members of the press. He said, "I have no war plans on my desk." Was that literally true?

BOB WOODWARD: I've seen his desk a number of times and there's nothing on it, so I guess literally that's true. But, as I write in the book, it was not full disclosure, and he had used some formulations earlier when he said, "I'm going to keep my options close to my vest."

And that probably would have been the proper response. At the same time, there were leaks about the war plans. There was this kind of war fever, march to war, building in the country, particularly in the summer of 2002. And I think it was his way of calming things down.

Woodward usually paints Bush with the best possible brush. When we're further wrecking our military, I'm sure Woodward will point out that Bush is good to puppies. If they're not in a country he's ordered attacked.

But sure people shouldn't give away war plans. However, the phrasing is similar enough so that I'm pretty sure plans for war (probably with Iran, possibly other countries) are working their way up to somewhere very near -- but not exactly upon -- Bush's desk.

Social Security Flim-Flam: Class Warfare

As Warren Buffett said: "If class warfare is being waged in America, my class is clearly winning."

If you want to see how well the richest do under Bush's plan to (apparently) default on Social Security Trust Fund bonds, look at this report from 2001 by the Center for Economic and Policy Research.

Some findings:

• 95 percent of households would be net losers if the Federal government defaults on its debt to Social Security.
  
  
• if the default takes place in 2002, it would lead to a net transfer of nearly $370 billion from households in the bottom 95 percent of the income distribution to the households in the top 5 percent.
  
  
• the richest 1 percent households would have a net gain of more than $270 billion
  
  
• the net loss from default to households in the bottom four quintiles would be equal to approximately 10 percent of a year’s income
  
  
• the gains to the richest 1 percent would average more than $300,000 per household
  

It sure looks like Bush's plan is another battle in an ongoing class war. Sung to the tune of "What's good for Paris Hilton is good for the American Working class."

2001: Bush Raided Social Security Trust Fund

Bush was beginning his destruction of Social Security in 2001. And this is from August before 9/11, so he didn't even have that excuse:

From USA Today, 08/16/2001 : U.S. taps Social Security reserves

WASHINGTON — Despite their ardent pledges to place surplus Social Security funds in a "lock box," President Bush and Congress are already picking the lock, congressional sources from both parties say.

The Congressional Budget Office (CBO) is expected to release a revised budget-surplus estimate on Aug. 28 that indicates Social Security reserves will be tapped for other government spending during the current fiscal year, which ends Sept. 30.

The White House budget office soon will produce its own estimate that shows the Social Security surplus untouched — but only because of a change in long-standing accounting methods that the administration says make surplus data more accurate. "The president's budget fully protects Social Security," Bush's spokesman, Ari Fleischer, said Wednesday

Now we know one thing the Administration was doing pre-9/11: changing longstanding accounting rules. They were raiding Social Security from Day One. And they started lying about it at the same time.

SOTU Past, Present, and Evermore

Here's a relatively small thing that really grates on my about Bush's delivery of prepared speeches.

• Eyes on the left Teleprompter, head begins to turn to the center TelePrompter.


• Eyes snap to the center TelePrompter, head begins to turn to the right Teleprompter.


• Eyes snap to the right Teleprompter, head begins to turn to center Teleprompter.

Repeat ad lib (sometimes move eyes before head, or have the eye-move to head-move time gap stretch eerily long, which looks like physical dyslexia).

That's one reason I don't like to watch the guy. When giving speeches he looks positively Animatronic.

As for the substance, I'm sure it's about as balanced, sober, and accurate as his SOTU from 2003. Take the time to read it again, especially the parts about Iraq. It's like a used car salesman's schpiel.

Try this with that 2003 speech: print it out and, with a highlighter, mark all the places where he talks about or hints darkly about Iraqi WMD Them mark all the places he talks about Iraqi democracy or elections with another color highlighter. You may as well use a dried up highlighter for the latter, because he is silent on it. If you want to highlight "freedom" as relating to Iraq, that'll take you a tiny little bit more.

You better pick your favorite color for the WMD highlighting because you'll be seeing a whole lot of that color. Much like the CIA has.

Mitigated Excitement

This short post from I Love Radio .org is swirling with so many hitherto (to me) unexplored facets of our universe that I'm yet more slack-jawed than usual.

Bob Edwards got a super-cheap going-away jacket from NPR? And it didn't fit? And he gave away the going-away jacket? And the recipient is auctioning it? And giving the proceeds to American Public Radio, NPR's bloody fanged arch-nemesis?

Well, okay, those things really aren't that befuddling. However, as an inhabitant of the non- Canadian English-speaking part of North America, I'm stunned to consider that there is radio coverage of curling!

Maybe radio coverage of baseball could be considered dull. But in comparision to curling, it has to be super-gut-gripping.

And the stone has left the hand straight down the center line. There's a miniscule anti-clockwise rotation to the slowly moving discoid. Rooney and Looney are scrubbing the ice feverishly [Seven seconds of silence. Dull "tap."] Looks like another good throw for the Creston Codswallopers.

Yes I realize I'm showing my philistinism. But if you can't be philistine about curling, what is left?

This, however, is otherwise perfectly comprehensible:

"On a related note, I have a beige leather tie which I wore once covering a curling tournament in 1991 in Creston B.C. First $150 gets it."

The guy does have a sense of humor.

Not Lose, For Once?

There's been significant -- and justified -- pleasure among Democrats due to this Congressional Quarterly snippet excerpted by Joshua Micah Marshall:

Not a single Senate Democrat will support President Bush’s proposal to divert a portion of the Social Security payroll tax to personal investment accounts, Minority Leader Harry Reid, D-Nev., said Tuesday.

If he is right, Bush’s plan will be dead on arrival in the Senate, where a supermajority of 60 votes will be needed to overcome a filibuster by opponents. Republicans have 55 seats.

...

“We want to make sure that the American people understand that we’re not for benefit cuts and we’re not for privatization,” Reid said. “There’s no crisis in Soc>ial Security.”

I uttered a "Whew" when I read this.

A few caveats:

1. "Democrat" is from the Greek for "failing when success is assured." Vigilance is a must.
   
2. I am still curious for the real reason for trying to diminish Social Security. As Kevin Drum asked "But here's the funny thing: surely Karl Rove knows this [riffle: that this SS ploy is a loser]? Unless I'm missing something, it seems like a no brainer. So what's the point?" So I'm waiting for the third shoe to drop. Yes, they're true believers, but look at the approach to abortion and gay rights -- it's not a full court press to change the laws in those (admittedly social, not economic) areas. So, still, what gives? It kinda gives me the willies.
   
3. If this holds, it should be good for the Democrats, but they have to extend this and not be blindsided on other issues. Good luck to us all on that score.
   

Genie Out of the Bottle

Hullabaloo:

"There was a time when I thought that someone like Instapundit was a cut above this type of thing, but no more. It's no longer just right wing talk show hosts ostensibly 'entertaining' the folks. It's law professors and Claremont fellows publicly accusing 'the left' of being terrorist sympathizers.

Some people need to get out of the right wing echo chamber and breathe some fresh air. They have lost the capacity to see and hear what they and their allies are really saying. This is a very destructive genie they have let out of bottle. "

I'm afraid they don't care that much about what they have set loose on the land. They want the daily hit, and it's addictive.

Two Inside Jokes

By happenstance, I ran across two inside jokes today.

1. Mornington Crescent, a game developed on the BBC radio show I'm Sorry, I Haven't A Clue, which apparently sprang from the show I'm Sorry, I'll Read That Again.
   
   There are abstruse pages about Morningon Crescent. And quite a few sites that delve deeply into the lore and legend of the game.
   
   This page has a charming implentation of the game in java if you scroll down a bit.
   
   However, if you want to have the inside joke blown, it's revealed here. I suspected as much early on, but it was good to have someone write about it who had experienced it in the trenches.
   
   
2. The second inside joke is one that has purportedly been a standard gag backstage for comics for many decades. It's called "The Aristocrats" and is the basis for a movie of the same name by Penn Jillette (of Penn and Teller and the Showtime series Bullshit!) and Paul Provenza. The movie features over a hundred famous comedians (such as Drew Carey, George Carlin, Phyllis Diller, Eric Idle, Eddie Izzard, et al.), many of them household names.
   
   I'm not totally sure if the "joke," and therefore the movie, is on the level. Perhaps, recursively, they've made up this so-called "inside joke" so they can have another inside joke that we non-comics don't know about.
   
   Warning: everything I've seen about "The Aristocrats" as a joke is incredibly filthy. There is a video of the South Park characters telling a version of the joke that is horribly disgusting, and yet Jillette says it's not even in the top five filthiest versions in the movie.
   
   In the links above you can find (but do not follow them if any profanity, much less horribly disgusting profanity, offends you), you can find a link to the video of the South Park characters telling the joke (very vile, not for under 21 years of age), and a report of Gilbert Gottfried using the joke at a Friar's Club Roast (again, very vile). And much more that one should not download if squeamish.
   

I suppose I could write about the nature of inside jokes. Or perhaps of anti-humor, or Shaggy Dog Stories, or trolling. But I'm not up for that.

But, oddly, in one day I ran across two elaborate inside jokes that I don't recall having heard of before.

How did I come across them? "The Aristocrats" was featured on The Sundance Channel's programs about the current Sundance Festival, which I watched in part for information about the Strangers with Candy movie. I ran across Mornington Crescent when looking for some old BBC comedy, since podcasting has left me and my new MP3 player cold. This nice fellow has a remarkable set of (non-filthy) old BBC radio programs featuring Stephen Fry up in MP3 form. The main show I was interested in, broadcast in 1987-88 (I think), was Saturday Night Fry, and featured Fry, Hugh Laurie, Emma Thompson, and Jim Broadbent, and is an example of the ilk of British humor I really enjoy (self-referential, playful with language, and sharp), but which I'd never heard before. Recommended.

Not to mention that Hugh Laurie, Stephen Fry, Jim Broadbent, and Emma Thompson have each gone on to some pretty spectacular things after this little comedy show.

If you're into British comedy, by the way, watch Spaced (by the fellows who created the very savvy and funny Shaun of the Dead). It's currently (as in at this very minute as I post) playing on the Trio Channel on cable in the US. I liked Shaun of the Dead a lot, but Spaced is even richer and more hilarious.

Good, Considering

One reasonably good day in Iraq, which is a rarity recently. Apparently quite a few people actually voted, though turnout in Sunni areas was weak.

Downside: about 37 or so people were killed by attackers, despite draconian security measures (no civilian car traffic, for instance). And somewhere upwards of 10 UK soldiers died when a transport plane crashed (if that's how to describe what happened, I haven't seen reports of what happened to the plane). My sympathies to the wounded and the families.

As for further commentary, I think I'll wait until I get a firmer idea of the election outcome, how it came about, and what Iraqis feel about the results of the election.

And, of course, we'll have to see if there are subsequent elections.

But I think a lot of Iraqis felt positively about being able to vote today, and that's a good thing.

One Good Thing

Juan Cole reports the results of a poll of Iraqis by Zogby

I think most Americans will be baffled by having all these flavors of Islam. Oddly enough, US taxpayers are are paying for supporting one or another flavor, and having US soldiers die to make this or that flavor ascendent., with no real clue about what that means.

I know a bit of this arcana and I don't want US soldiers dying to establish a Shiite theocracy, which may happen even though Americans say it should not happen. Funnily enough, I recently ran across a strong booster of Bush's policy who quieted down when I asked him a simple geopolitical question: why the Turks may be interested in the outcome of the election, and why Turkey may take military action in Iraq based on the political landscape there. This fellow had no idea why Turkey had any interest in the political structure in Iraq. I didn't even get into discussing why tribes are so important in Iraq, and why tribes are not just a faraway schema like something out of "Dances with Wolves."

But this polling from Zogby is a bit of good news, at least for the time being:

Iraqis who would support a religious government: 33%

I bet that number isn't far from any true polling in Iran about religious government. Stilll, Iran has a theocracy. And is building nukes.

If the US attacks Iran, how likely is it that the number supporting a theocracy would go up?

Ask Condi Rice. I'm sure she has an opinion, and that opinion will be proven wrong in six months.

Hack Gap

A couple years ago I would Glenn Reynold's Instapundit every day. I started trailing off and then, about a year ago, I stopped dead. I don't recall if there was a single post that pushed me over the edge. He just became such a hack that I removed his bookmark. Practically the only time I even hear of him is when someone points to his site. His peddling the Kerry intern story was such hackishness, and I would be shocked if he didn't pump the Swiftboat liars stories too -- even the ones that are demonstrably false beyond question to any reasonable observer (not to a hack).

It's repugnant how he became such a Republican partisan, while claiming to be a Libertarian. I'm sure he still pays lip service to Libertarian ideas. But he's part of the smear machine, and there need be no factual basis for his smears -- he'll spread them if they help his side and hurt the other side, while, I'm sure, decrying one or two of them so he can be a little above Ann Coulter.

Some hyperbole during an election could conceivably be written off, though I don't think some of Reynold's calumnies were mere hyperbole. I see that he continues to this day, even after the election. Max Speak's burst of disgust at Reynold's tactics is spot on, as is that of Oliver Willis.

People such as Reynolds, scream about Michael Moore but do even worse than Moore does at distorting the truth and manufacturing outrage. If he teaches his students with that style of argumentation, University of Tennessee Law School is going down the drain quickly.

I guess he's found that the court of opinion of his public is far below the standards of any true court, and he's going for it. Politics is dirty business, but there are people who do it honorably. Glenn Reynolds is not one of them. And don't get me started on Little Green Footballs or, for that matter, Powerline. The big lefty bloggers (Atrios and Kos), while occasionally incendiary, aren't regularly mendacious like these three rightwing blogs. The hack gap is real.

I suppose I should make an obligatory statement about blogosphere triumphalism, too. Here it is: Blogs aren't the baby Jesus. I'm in agreement this post byEzra Klein, at his spiffy new site. Jeff Jarvis is mentioned therein, and he's a prime example of the thinking about blogs that makes me cringe. I like a lot of things Jarvis says, and he is demonstrably not a hack like Reynolds, but he gets tiresome quickly when he gets on his "blogs will reshape humankind" hobbyhorse.

Of course, riffle will reshape humankind. But calling riffle a blog is like calling a pebble a boulder.

China In A Bull Shop

Economist: China Loses Faith in Dollar:

China has lost faith in the stability of the U.S. dollar and its first priority is to broaden the exchange rate for its currency from the dollar to a more flexible basket of currencies, a top Chinese economist said Wednesday at the World Economic Forum.

At a standing-room only session focusing on the world's fastest-growing economy, Fan Gang, director of the National Economic Research Institute at the China Reform Foundation, said the issue for China isn't whether to devalue the yuan but "to limit it from the U.S. dollar."

[....]

"The U.S. dollar is no longer -- in our opinion is no longer -- (seen) as a stable currency, and is devaluating all the time, and that's putting troubles all the time," Fan said, speaking in English.

So we't not only lost the high moral ground, the fear of our military, and diplomatic strength. We've also lost faith in the soundness of the dollar among some of our biggest creditors.
I don't know a lot about economics, but I can't believe this is good news.

Regional War?

Turkey Warns Kurds About Kirkuk Control:

Another imminently foreseeable problem with Iraq again rears its head:

Turkey's military warned Wednesday that the migration of large numbers of Kurds into the oil rich Iraqi city of Kirkuk could sway the results of the upcoming elections and possibly lead to clashes that could draw Ankara into the dispute.

[....]

Turkey has repeatedly warned that Kurdish control of the city would make an independent Kurdish state more viable, a development that Ankara has repeatedly said it won't accept. Turkey fears that a strong Kurdish entity in northern Iraq could inspire Kurds in Turkey, where Kurdish rebels have battled the Turkish army since 1984.

"Hundreds of thousands of Kurds migrated to Kirkuk and registered to vote," Gen. Ilker Basbug, deputy head of the Turkish military, said at a news conference. "This could make the results of the elections questionable."

"Even worse," he added, "these developments could threaten the territorial and political unity of Iraq. We're worried that such a development would pose an important security problem for Turkey."

I actually doubt that such a regional war will break out. But consider how poorly everything else about the Iraq adventure has gone. Does anyone truly trust the Bush administration, or Condi Rice, to be able to handle all the situations that stand to make the prolbems in Iraq a) worse and b) spread to neighboring countries?

Jesusland, Scanty on the Jesus

The Scandal of the Evangelical Conscience is a meaty rundown of the moral deficiencies of the Moral Majoritarians:

"Whether the issue is divorce, materialism, sexual promiscuity, racism, physical abuse in marriage, or neglect of a biblical worldview, the polling data point to widespread, blatant disobedience of clear biblical moral demands on the part of people who allegedly are evangelical, born-again Christians. The statistics are devastating."

Jesus was strongly against divorce and remarriage. But Jesusland isn't, apparently.

Even more than the materialism and war-mongering of this crowd, the fact that they don't look to Jesus' own repeated statements about about divorce makes their harping about gay marriage and abortion -- on which Jesus is silent -- even more hypocritical.

But, as we've seen, they don't know the Bible too well anyway.

Link via Oliver Willis, and the whole piece is worth reading: it gives chapter and verse and is damning.

Unreality-Based Leadership

From a Middle East Policy Council forum called Iraq, Afghanistan, and the War on "Terror":

"Anyway, the other day I understand that someone went into the Oval Office - someone known to everybody here, a rather senior person who is on his way out of the administration - and was asked by the president what was going on in Iraq, and said, with his characteristic bluntness, we're losing - and was asked to leave the office forthwith and not continue the discussion.

So there's a question about what is going on in Iraq, and perhaps the competition between reality-based analysis, much disparaged in Washington these days, and hallucinatory optimism, which is the alternative."

--Chas. W. Freeman, Jr. President, Middle East Policy Council

From Dan Froomkin, via First Draft.

Yes, I've Said These Things

From McSweeney's Internet Tendency:

"THINGS I'D PROBABLY SAY
IF THE BUSH ADMINISTRATION WERE JUST
A WEEKLY TV SHOW AND I WERE
A REGULAR VIEWER."

Read the whole list.

Don't Do Stuff Like This

Lawmaker's Son Charged in Tire-Slashing

The sons of a first-term congresswoman and Milwaukee's former acting mayor were among five Democratic activists charged Monday with slashing the tires of vans rented by Republicans to drive voters and monitors to the polls on Election Day.

How disgusting. As a Democrat, I'm ashamed of these guys. Throw the book at them.

Don't do stuff like that.

Bush the Dip. Lomat

From The Washington Post: Bush Doctrine Is Expected to Get Chilly Reception, a few choice excerpts:

When President Bush flew to Canada in his first international trip following his reelection, the White House portrayed it as the beginning of a fence-mending tour to bring allies back into the fold after a tense first term. But after Bush left, the Canadians were more furious than before.

They were stunned when Bush leaned across a table in a private meeting and lectured Prime Minister Paul Martin about opposing the U.S. missile defense system. And they were later taken aback by a speech filled with what they considered the same "old Bush" foreign policy pronouncements that opened the divide with the allies in the first place.

"If he's going to take that speech to Europe," said a top Canadian official who attended the meeting between Bush and Martin, "he's not going to get a good reception."

[....]

Yet many Democrats, as well as Republicans from the traditional school of U.S. foreign policy, see Bush heading down a treacherous road that will further unravel a half-century of international relationships. The rupture over Iraq, they fear, may presage a widening divide with the rest of the world over the next four years.

[....]

But Bush did confront Martin and used the sort of language that sets Canadians on edge. "He leaned across the table and said, 'I'm not taking this position, but some future president is going to say, 'Why are we paying to defend Canada?' " said the senior Canadian official who was in the room and noted that he had been assured by Rice and Secretary of State Colin L. Powell personally that Bush would avoid the subject.

"Most of our side was trying to explain the politics, how it was difficult to do," the official said. But Bush "waved his hands and said, 'I don't understand this. Are you saying that if you got up and said this is necessary for the defense of Canada it wouldn't be accepted?' "

The next day Bush gave a speech in Halifax that to the Canadians sounded as tough and uncompromising as ever. "We were all looking at each other and saying this is a speech for somebody else. It certainly wasn't for Canadians."

It's apparent, not only from this story but from practically every aspect of the Bush administration, that he has an odd view of the word "dialogue." His view appears to be closer to what most would consider monologue: naked assertion of his thoughts is his prime mode of discourse. He usually doesn't try to persuade so much as indicate that it's his way or the highway.

Of course, that's not going to convince many people who aren't already on board. And, as we've seen, most of the world is not on board with Bush.

And he even gins up this repugnant bullshit when Condi and Powell have promised that Bush would steer clear of the precise axe he's grinding. It's going to be a long four years of Bush monologue.

Facts on the Ground

Knight Ridder discovers that U.S. in danger of losing the war. I'd say that what they are reporting looks lot more like "has already lost the war."

The whole article is worth a read, but I'll pick out one point with some juxtapositions:

Attacks on the U.S.-led coalition since November 2003, when statistics were first available, have risen from 735 a month to 2,400 in October. Air Force Brig. Gen. Erv Lessel, the multinational forces' deputy operations director, told Knight Ridder on Friday that attacks were currently running at 75 a day, about 2,300 a month, well below a spike in November during the assault on Fallujah, but nearly as high as October's total.

Things have really gone to hell since November 2003. I suppose that has nothing to do with Condoleeza Rice being named to unstick things in Iraq in October 2003.

The new structure will give Bush's top White House aides a stronger voice in decisions and will make the president more directly accountable. Because of their close relationship, many people will assume Bush signed off on Rice's decisions.

Okay, I'll be nice and point out that the increase in insurgency is not because Rice was appointed to fix things in late 2003. However. we all should note who was supposed to refrain from exacerbating the increasingly disastrous Iraq debacle. This is the person whose genius is now to be elevated to run the whole State Department. God help us.

Of course, in her confirmation hearings, Condi took full responsiblity for the failure of her Iraq Stabilization Group, right? Oh, you know better than that.

SEN. KERRY: The Iraqi Stabilization Group that you were put in charge of, October 2003 -- by almost everybody's judgments, it has disintegrated. People have left it. It has not been successful. And I wonder if you would speak to that. I mean, there were a half-dozen agencies or so that were supposed to identify and resolve problems. How would you characterize the work and effect of that group?

MS. RICE: The Iraq Stabilization Group, Senator, was actually an internal NSC group. It was not an interagency group. It --

SEN. KERRY: But you had a half-dozen agencies that were part of it, that were reporting to you as part of it, were they not?

MS. RICE: No, the role of the Iraq Stabilization Group was to improve the information flow during the period of time when we had the CPA in place. It was to try and de-bottleneck back here when there were problems for the CPA. We were very active and, I think, played a very important and useful role in the governance issues, so that Bob Blackwill, who at time -- at the time was heading the Iraq Stabilization Group on Governance and had an undersecretaries group on governance -- he was very active in working with Lakhdar Brahimi in bringing about the Iraq interim government. So that was a very successful outcome of having the Iraq Stabilization Group.

But it was a group that was really there for the period in which the Coalition Provisional Authority was moving from one that had been almost exclusively in the chain of command for the Defense Department to one that needed more interagency backstopping back here.

Many of those functions have really now been taken over by the United States embassy and by the State Department.

SEN. KERRY: Well, in The Washington Post, and maybe they got it wrong, but they characterized it as the new group to be led by National Security Adviser Condoleezza Rice and drawn from more than a half-dozen Cabinet agencies --

MS. RICE: Let me just make the distinction.

SEN. KERRY: -- is intended to -- (inaudible word).

MS. RICE: The Iraqi stabilization group was an intra-NSC group.

SEN. KERRY: No, I understand that.

MS. RICE: It reached out to and tried to help the CPA by bringing together interagency teams when it was necessary to try and get something done. We tried to improve the information flow, we tried to improve the coordination back here, we tried to de-bottleneck for the CPA. When the CPA needed some help, for instance, on the currency forms, we worked with the Treasury to get the right people out there from Treasury to do the currency reform, which was actually very successful.

SEN. KERRY: Was this an effort to try to straighten out what the military itself was not able to do or not doing?

MS. RICE: It was an effort to move from a stage at which it had been almost exclusively Defense Department and military to a period at which you needed better interagency support for what the CPA was doing.

SEN. KERRY: How successful would you say it was?

MS. RICE: I think it was successful in a number of ways. If you look at several projects, the currency reform, I think, was very successful; I think that we were very successful on the governance issues. Again, Bob Blackwill, who was the chair of the governance Iraq stabilization group, was very active with Lakhdar Brahimi in bringing about the Iraqi interim government. I don't think it would have happened without the activities of that group. So it had its successes. Bottlenecks also remained and we continue to work on them. I think it's a much smoother system, frankly, with an embassy and an ambassador who can oversee those things with the backstopping of the State Department and the interagency process of which the State Department is in the lead.

SEN. KERRY: Has been -- ?

MS. RICE: I think it's been smoother --

SEN. KERRY: Smoother.

MS. RICE: -- with an embassy in place that can be the coordination in the field. We've always had the view that most of the interagency coordination ought to actually be done in the field.

Rice seems to have a problem accepsting responsibility for anything that goes wrong on her watch at the National Security Council. But it's really hard to believe what she's trying to say here. Her group had committees on counterterrorism, economic development, and political affairs (and media messages, too -- no doubt the most important). Each committee was headed by a Rice deputy and included representatives of the State, Defense and Treasury departments and the CIA. The group was called the "Iraq Stabilization Group," for goodness sakes. Everything her committees have touched have gotten arguably worse, most things have gotten much worse, and still she's elevated based on failure.

This seems to be the Bush strategy, often noted: Fire people who were right, promote people who were wrong or incompetent. Condi's just one major international incident disaster from a Presidential Medal of Freedom.

Let's just hope she isn't awarded that medal based on the debris of American foreign policy that is yet more harmful to American interests than what she's already been responsible for.

Bullshitter In League With Satan

That means Bullshit in ASL.

And that they're in league with Satan to Europeans.

Nice to have visual confirmation of the world's opinion.


Thanks to BoingBoing for the graphic.

Forked Tongue

Matthew Yglesias likes Michael Gerson's speechwriting quite a bit. But he clearly lays out the problem with the policies that conflict with the speech:

Our actual policies take the following shape:

"Outposts of Tyranny":

* Cuba
* Burma
* North Korea
* Iran
* Zimbabwe
* Belarus

Allies In the War On Terror

* Tunisia
* Saudi Arabia
* Uzbekistan
* Egypt
* Jordan
* Kuwait

Ambiguous Third Category

* Russia
* China
* Vietnam
* Syria

Specifically Cited By Bush Administration As Models of Democracy

* Pakistan
* Algeria

One Election Makes a Democracy In...

* Afghanistan
* Iraq
* Palestine after Arafat died

One Election Does Not A Democracy Make In...

* Venezuela
* Haiti
* Palestine before Arafat died

You all see, no doubt, where I'm going with this. You can take current American policy toward any country on this list and offer a decent defense for acting the way the Bush administration has acted. What you can't do is look at American policies toward all of these countries -- toward the world, in short -- and come close to explaining how this constitutes an instantiation of the Gerson Doctrine or reflects any sort of coherent view of the world.

And that's the problem. Freedom is great, everyone agrees. But that's not a policy, and it's certainly not Bush's policy. It's just empty happy-talk.

I'm sure that if WMD had been found in Iraq, the speech would have been much lighter in rhetoric about freedom. This is just an ass-covering sloganeering dressed up as a grand worldview.

Twee-dom

Bush said "freedom" about 30 times in his inaugural address today. His belief that "if I merely say it, that makes it so" is routine by now, and the Washington Post points that out in this story:

President Bush's soaring rhetoric yesterday that the United States will promote the growth of democratic movements and institutions worldwide is at odds with the administration's increasingly close relations with repressive governments in every corner of the world.

Some of the administration's allies in the war against terrorism -- including Egypt, Saudi Arabia, Pakistan and Uzbekistan -- are ranked by the State Department as among the worst human rights abusers. The president has proudly proclaimed his friendship with Russian President Vladimir Putin while remaining largely silent about Putin's dismantling of democratic institutions in the past four years. The administration, eager to enlist China as an ally in the effort to restrain North Korea's nuclear ambitions, has played down human rights concerns there, as well.

I realize his fans only care about his repetition of shibboleths, but even the most sycophantic of them should see that plunging Iraq into ferocious internicene brutality while letting our "friendly" thugs run roughshod over their citizens doesn't do much for human rights and freedom.

But why see that when you can just listen to Michael Gerson's pretty words?

Inconsequential

Froomkin finds a nugget in a NY Times interview with Laura Bush:

'And she confessed that on the last day of the fall campaign her daughter Jenna announced that she and her sister, Barbara, would be joining their parents in an Iowa town, Sioux City, which Jenna pronounced 'Sigh-yocks City.'

' 'Don't put that in!' Mrs. Bush said quickly, as her listeners exploded in laughter. 'It was so funny. She was totally humiliated.''

Not nearly enough.

Church Failure

A Nation of Faith and Religious Illiterates

The sociologist Peter Berger once remarked that if India is the most religious country in the world and Sweden the least, then the United States is a nation of Indians ruled by Swedes. Not anymore. With a Jesus lover in the Oval Office and a faith-based party in control of both houses of Congress, the United States is undeniably a nation of believers ruled by the same.

Things are different in Europe, and not just in Sweden. The Dutch are four times less likely than Americans to believe in miracles, hell and biblical inerrancy. The euro does not trust in God. But here is the paradox: Although Americans are far more religious than Europeans, they know far less about religion.

In Europe, religious education is the rule from the elementary grades on. So Austrians, Norwegians and the Irish can tell you about the Seven Deadly Sins or the Five Pillars of Islam. But, according to a 1997 poll, only one out of three U.S. citizens is able to name the most basic of Christian texts, the four Gospels, and 12% think Noah's wife was Joan of Arc. That paints a picture of a nation that believes God speaks in Scripture but that can't be bothered to read what he has to say.

I was wondering how Jesus came to glorify wealth and love war. I guess this explains it: churches aren't preaching the Bible, but increasingly they're preaching Republicanism:

How did this happen? How did one of the most religious countries in the world become a nation of religious illiterates? Religious congregations are surely at fault. Churches and synagogues that once inculcated the "fourth R" are now telling the faithful stories "ripped from the headlines" rather than teaching them the Ten Commandments or parsing the Sermon on the Mount (which was delivered, as only one in three Americans can tell you, by Jesus). But most of the fault lies in our elementary and secondary schools.

I'm sure the schools could be teaching religious studies. I'm not opposed to that, if they reach a wide array of religions rather than proselytize for any one. How likely is that in, say, Georgia?

But of the 38 percent of the US population who go to church weekly, a small chunk know what should definitely be common knowledge about Christianity. If churches can't teach the basics any better than that, they really are failing their members.

A Friend Calls Condi a Liar

From the radio show On Point, an interview about Rice Confirmation Hearings.

Scroll to about 36 minutes in, and the host (Warren Olney) is speaking with Larry Diamond.

HOST: How do you see Condoleeza Rice's integrity?

LARRY DIAMOND: Well let me say a couple of things. Number one, she's been a friend and I'm not gonna challenge her integrity directly in this way and therefore I can't speak entirely objectively. There are ties of affection. I'll say only two other things.

Number one, I think there is indications from what Greg Thielmann has said and what's been brought out that she's not been truthful and candid. That's point number one. Number two, these issues were raised when she was provost of Stanford University.

HOST: In what context?

DIAMOND: There were groups -- student groups and faculty groups -- who felt that she did not deal with them truthfully

Third, I want to say, listen if you want a standard for untruthfullness and absolute deceit in a secretary of State, you know, look at Henry Kissinger. It's not like she would be the first secretary of state who has brazenly lied in the conduct of her job. So, my feeling is that I'm not excusing it. I think what's being brought out I can't clarify one way or another. I find it troubling. But when you look at the options we have for Republican Secretary of State under George Bush, frankly I will tell you I breathed a sigh of relief when I heard it was going to be her and not some of the possible alternatives.

So, she's on par with Kissinger for mendacity. She's lied for years in other jobs. But she's not as batshit crazy as the absolute worst person Bush could have nominated.

Some endorsement, friend!

Anyone have any ideas what he's talking about regarding her days as Provost of Stanford?

There's a lot more insight into Condi in that program -- I recommend a listen.

A few notes: This program was aired Tuesday, January 18. I transcribed this and transcription errors are mine only. Larry Diamond is a fellow at the conservative think tank the Hoover Institution. Initially pro-war, he went to Iraq after the invation and wrote a much-noted essay titled What Went Wrong In Iraq?

Social Security: There Is No Crisis -

Social Security: There Is No Crisis -

To repeat: There is no Social Security Crisis. That's a fact.

Saying there is a crisis is the equivalent of "Iraq has WMD NOW! NOW! NOW!" Of course, we find out later that Iraq had no WMD and Social Security is not in crisis.

Thanks to Pandagon for the link. Nice job.

Amen

"The American Dream"

Oh yes, love is the way. Love is the only absolute. More and more I see this. I’ve seen too much hate to want to hate myself; hate is too great a burden to bear. I’ve seen it on the faces of too many sheriffs of the South—I’ve seen hate. In the faces and even the walk of too many Klansmen of the South, I’ve seen hate. Hate distorts the personality. Hate does something to the soul that causes one to lose his objectivity. The man who hates can’t think straight; the man who hates can’t reason right; the man who hates can’t see right; the man who hates can’t walk right. And I know now that Jesus is right, that love is the way. And this is why John said, "God is love," so that he who hates does not know God, but he who loves at that moment has the key that opens the door to the meaning of ultimate reality. So this morning there is so much that we have to offer to the world.

We have a great dream. It started way back in 1776, and God grant that America will be true to her dream.

--Martin Luther King

Inept product naming

Midnight Express Comforter set.

"Rejuvenate the look of your bedroom with this luxurious Midnight Express comforter set. "

Midnight Express (1978 movie).

The movie that gave the phrase "Turkish prison" new currency.

Foreseeable Consequence

Bush on his "Bring 'em on" idiocy:

Yahoo! News - Bush Admits Misgivings About Famed Phrases: "'Sometimes, words have consequences you don't intend them to mean,' Bush said Thursday. ''Bring 'em on' is the classic example, when I was really trying to rally the troops and make it clear to them that I fully understood, you know, what a great job they were doing. And those words had an unintended consequence. It kind of, some interpreted it to be defiance in the face of danger. That certainly wasn't the case.'"

The consequences may not have been intended by a lamebrain like Bush, but they were totally foreseeable because of what the phrase he uttered actually means. Telling someone to "Bring 'em on" or "Bring it on" is trashtalking that means "come fight."

A predictable consequence of that phrase is that your enemy will rally and "come fight." If it had an effect, it likely has had the consequence of more Iraqis and international jihadis saying "Ok, Bush, we'll fight America."

On top of that, insurgents are now using the phrase in taunting propoganda videos:

"George W. Bush; you have asked us to 'bring it on'. And so help me, (we will) like you never expected. Do you have another challenge?," asked the narrator before the video showed explosions around a U.S. military Humvee vehicle.

Bush's error wasn't in the unintended consequences of his phrase. Any idiot could have known the likely consequences.

Bush's problem -- and even more, ours -- is that he's not just any idiot.

Useless Juvenility

From the wierdos at Fark.com, an image manipulation thread:

Photoshop classic paintings for modern times.

This Photoshop contest had a higher ratio of hits to misses than usual. I even laughed at some of them.

Flypaper Folderol

Dana Priest reports: the CIA has discovered that Iraq Is A New Terror Breeding Ground. Gee, who could have foreseen that?

Iraq has replaced Afghanistan as the training ground for the next generation of "professionalized" terrorists, according to a report released yesterday by the National Intelligence Council, the CIA director's think tank.

Iraq provides terrorists with "a training ground, a recruitment ground, the opportunity for enhancing technical skills," said David B. Low, the national intelligence officer for transnational threats. "There is even, under the best scenario, over time, the likelihood that some of the jihadists who are not killed there will, in a sense, go home, wherever home is, and will therefore disperse to various other countries."

The "flypaper theory," which was always ludicrous, seemed to be based on the assumption that there was a fixed number of terrorists and we just have to kill that number.

Well, it appears we've made more terrorists, and they're getting training and networking now in Iraq which they were (at least largely) denied after the fall of the Taliban.

Since we can't even kill all the insurgents (estimated now in the tens, perhaps hundreds, of thousands), we can be fairly sure we won't do such a great job of killing these budding terrorists. And, as Mr. Low says above, they'll probably leave Iraq with that know-how at some point. So even the sticky aspect of the flypaper theory probably won't pan out. We've just made more terrorists.

"The al-Qa'ida membership that was distinguished by having trained in Afghanistan will gradually dissipate, to be replaced in part by the dispersion of the experienced survivors of the conflict in Iraq," the report says.

The Vietnam war sucked, but at least it didn't create thousands of jihadis hell bent on killing Americans on our soil

This will be a long war against terror. Too bad George W. Bush made it so much more difficult.

How Bad It Is

AP: War Veteran Refuses 2nd Iraq Deployment: "A mechanic with nine years in the Army, including a role in the assault on Baghdad, has refused to return to Iraq , claiming 'you just don't know how bad it is.'"

Hey, it's not bad over there. Just ask George W. Bush.

Thank you, George W. Bush!

Why so quiet?

The Washington Post tells us that the Search for Banned Arms In Iraq Ended Last Month. Somehow Bush hasn't made a big deal out of that.

A while back I pored over the pre-war Bush State of the Union address, and the case for taking down Iraq in that is almost totally based on WMD, with a minute sop here and there to humanitarian impulses. But I'm sure you knew that.

Bush has expressed disappointment that no weapons or weapons programs were found, but the White House has been reluctant to call off the hunt, holding out the possibility that weapons were moved out of Iraq before the war or are well hidden somewhere inside the country. But the intelligence official said that possibility is very small.

I doubt we'll hear much about WMD from Bush, and a supine press corps won't ask him about it.

What a total disaster.

Spinach Salad, ma'am?

Triple X Goldteeth offers the incredible hygenic benefits of spinning teeth.



If you browse around that site, you'll see many other dental delights.

For those of you who don't know, these fancy teeth are removable and are stylish. And, in light of the Armstrong Williams fiasco, I have to say I'm not receiving any compensation from Triple X Goldteeth, or any other tooth-monger such as Mr Bling.

Gee, tortured the wrong guy...Again

German's Claim of Kidnapping Brings Investigation of U.S. Link

German citizen, with no ties to terrorism and under no suspicion of terror, is abducted, taken to Afghanistan, held for five months, and claims to have been tortured.

It was the first day of what Mr. Masri said would become five months in captivity. In an interview, he said that after being kidnapped by the Macedonian authorities at the border, he was turned over to officials he believed were from the United States. He said they flew him to a prison in Afghanistan, where he said he was shackled, beaten repeatedly, photographed nude, injected with drugs and questioned by interrogators about what they insisted were his ties to Al Qaeda.

He was released without ever being charged with a crime.

Two years ago, maybe even a year ago, I wouldn't have beleived the US could be involved in this. Now it's all too possible.

And what will we hear from all the people who are, in word only, "against torture" but who never seem to mind it actually happening?

"Regrettable." "Tragic miscarriage...." All kinds of stuff which boil down to "Shit happens."

Thanks George W. Bush.

More Mess

Incredible. A few desperate thugs laid an esplosive that killed seven US troops in Baghdad, capital of Iraq--not out in Podunk. And those troops were in a Bradley fighting vehicle, a tank killer. Jeez.

Two other GIs killed in the same day on top of that.

Ok, a Bradley isn't quite a tank, but it's a tank killer. What kind of explosives can blow up a Bradley and kill seven troops inside?

Probably explosives that are desperate. Terribly desperate.

Thank you, George W. Bush.

Dems and Gonzales

I've had my fantasies about what I'd wish one or another Dem would do during the Gonzales hearings.

One is to play the famous dental torture scene from Marathon Man, with the volume cranked. Note that there was no organ failure, so that would be OK based on the infamous torture memo.

"So, according to these standards, Mr. Gonzales, this scene did not depict torture, correct?"

Secondly, find a totally innocent Iraqi who was abused or tortured, and have him face down Gonzales. Tell the guy's story, that he was an ordinary dude, not a terrorist, and he was tortured by US troops, and wave that memo at Gonzales again.

And conclude with "Every country in the world knows what George Bush thinks of human rights by the fact that he appointed a torture-enabler to be the head law enforcement officer in the US. "

The Scream

I admit I haven't had the heart for politics recently. Bush won and that really was a national disgrace. But I recently posted this picture I took on the street and I suppose I should speak up a bit, since it asks some questions I have asked myself.




Successive Grafitti

VOTE OR DIE!

Now What?

Revolt

I'm there with Atrios, Josh Marshall, and others in saying that if Democrats can't stand up for Social Security, what the hell will they stand up for? Maybe they'll consider rewriting the Thirteenth Amendment. Maybe every bit of progressive legislation in the past two centuries is up for grabs.

I'm only partly joking. Where will the Democrats fight back? Apparently nowhere.

There is no frontier the Republicans can cross that the establishment Democrats won't say "Ok, we can live with that and nibble around the edges."

Redistribution to the rich? Hey that's ok. Torture? Hey, that's ok, too -- maybe a good thing, even. Union busting? Fine. Pollution? If Bush says so. Larger deficits so more money goes into the pockets of the already rich? No quibbles there.

I've become disgusted with the opposition party, since they don't seem to oppose anything that's screwing this nation and this world. And even when you expect them to mount an offensive on some minor point, they are so incompetent as to be losers from word one.

Why is it business as usual in DC with the Dems, while the Republicans are constantly and aggressively taking new territory in every congressional district, judgeship, rhetorical perch, and dog catcher slot? I've voted largely Democrat all my life, but if they don't get their shit together, why should I bother to vote for them at all?

The Democrats lost this presidential election by a relatively small sliver of national votes. Why are they acting like they are a tiny party in a huge coalition government?

I have no idea. But, even worse, the Dems appear to have no clue.

The current state of the Democrats is even more depressing to me than Kerry losing. I want some aggressive and thoughtful lines in the sand. To me, these are not just sane policy, but winning political positions. To the DC Democrats, they are evidently "not prudent."

Get real or get gone.

Riffle

Riffle

Bathing Beauties and Big Boobs (1918)

Yes, morality police, there was a movie released by Vitagraph in 1918 called Bathing Beauties and Big Boobs.

I found this page with some information about the moviemaker Larry Semon and the movie itself.

One of Semon's first West Coast comedies was Bathing Beauties and Big Boobs (July 22, 1918), whose title actually made it past the censors. For some reason, somebody at Vitagraph liked these ______ and ______ titles because every Big V comedy from this period has them. The film is a nice little romp on the beach, a quick and typical schedule filler while the new studios were being completed with Larry, some bathing babes, and his new leading lady, the charming Madge Kirby, who was a fine comedienne in her own right.

Well I'll be damned.