In less than 20 minutes today on “Meet the Press,” the debate over Iraq came into clear focus.
Freshman Democratic Sen. Jim Webb cut through the Republican fog of obfuscation and called Iraq by its proper name--not a war but a “botched occupation.”
As Sen. Lindsey Graham, parroting the Bush line about fighting terrorism, kept ducking behind Gen. Patraeus, Webb pointed out that the occupation brought Al Qaeda to Iraq, that the Iraqis are telling us to get out and our troops have lost faith in the operation and want to come home.
Pitting pitiful Graham against Webb was a mismatch. The South Carolina Senator, whose military experience consists of doing legal paperwork, was up against a Vietnam veteran with the Navy Cross, whose family has served the country since the American Revolution and who has helped run the Defense Department.
If patriotism is the last refuge of scoundrels, Webb was having none of Graham’s and the session led to verbal fisticuffs that, on the scorecard of a not-impartial judge, ended with a KO by Webb.
It was encouraging to watch the senator from Virginia have Graham for breakfast. Hillary Clinton backers have been touting him as a running mate, and it’s easy to see why.
Sunday, July 15, 2007
Terrorists Get Old, Too
Time works its will on everyone, even fanatics. Those who don’t strap explosives to themselves and ascend to their 72 virgins are not immune to the coming of age.
Here is Osama bin Laden in the latest terrorist video, looking wan and grey, reduced to a 50-second cameo, waxing philosophical:
"So this whole broad life is summarized by him who was inspired by God, the Lord of the heavens and earth, praised and exalted is he. This glorious prophet who was inspired by God summarized this entire life by these words...Happy is the one who was chosen by God as a martyr."
That elegiac snippet of uncertain vintage suggests aging and the loss of fire in the belly. In Wordsworth’s words, “Whither is fled the visionary gleam?”
But compared to Carlos the Jackal, bin Laden is still in his prime. Venezuelan-born Vladimir Ilich Ramirez Sanchez, who bombed his way to fame in the 1970s, in an interview from a French prison this week, called the current Islamic terrorists the Gallic equivalent of whippersnappers.
“They are not professionals,” Carlos scoffed. “They’re not organized. They don’t even know how to make proper explosives or proper detonators.”
In his day, Carlos pointed out, killing people at random was amateur night. He selected his targets to make a point.
Comforting as it is to know that terrorists get old and flabby, like the rest of us, it would be churlish not to wish them an early death to escape these mortal pangs.
Here is Osama bin Laden in the latest terrorist video, looking wan and grey, reduced to a 50-second cameo, waxing philosophical:
"So this whole broad life is summarized by him who was inspired by God, the Lord of the heavens and earth, praised and exalted is he. This glorious prophet who was inspired by God summarized this entire life by these words...Happy is the one who was chosen by God as a martyr."
That elegiac snippet of uncertain vintage suggests aging and the loss of fire in the belly. In Wordsworth’s words, “Whither is fled the visionary gleam?”
But compared to Carlos the Jackal, bin Laden is still in his prime. Venezuelan-born Vladimir Ilich Ramirez Sanchez, who bombed his way to fame in the 1970s, in an interview from a French prison this week, called the current Islamic terrorists the Gallic equivalent of whippersnappers.
“They are not professionals,” Carlos scoffed. “They’re not organized. They don’t even know how to make proper explosives or proper detonators.”
In his day, Carlos pointed out, killing people at random was amateur night. He selected his targets to make a point.
Comforting as it is to know that terrorists get old and flabby, like the rest of us, it would be churlish not to wish them an early death to escape these mortal pangs.
Saturday, July 14, 2007
George Bush's Groucho Moment
Now that Iraqi Prime Minister al-Maliki has suggested we’ve overstayed our welcome, the President should take a look at Groucho Marx’s classic example of a graceful exit from an embarrassing situation:
Hello, I must be going/I cannot stay/I came to say/
I must be going/I'm glad I came/But just the same/I must be going... Ta-Ta!
Protocol requires a polite response to the PM’s statement that Americans can leave “any time they want” and his top aide’s saying we are treating Iraq like "an experiment in an American laboratory."
For the sake of diplomacy, as we go out the door, we should be deaf to the complaint that our military is committing human rights violations, embarrassing the Iraqi government and cooperating with "gangs of killers" in the campaign against al-Qaeda.
But no good guest should overlook his host’s heavy hints that the party’s over. Groucho never would have. Here are our hats, what’s our hurry?
Hello, I must be going/I cannot stay/I came to say/
I must be going/I'm glad I came/But just the same/I must be going... Ta-Ta!
Protocol requires a polite response to the PM’s statement that Americans can leave “any time they want” and his top aide’s saying we are treating Iraq like "an experiment in an American laboratory."
For the sake of diplomacy, as we go out the door, we should be deaf to the complaint that our military is committing human rights violations, embarrassing the Iraqi government and cooperating with "gangs of killers" in the campaign against al-Qaeda.
But no good guest should overlook his host’s heavy hints that the party’s over. Groucho never would have. Here are our hats, what’s our hurry?
ABC's Leaky Terrorist Coverage
Al Jazeera West is at it again. ABC TV’s doughty “investigative team,” which specializes in Al Qaeda handouts, is reporting the impending Mother of All Terrorist Attacks, as gleaned from an exclusive interview with Taliban military commander Mansour Dadullah.
"You will, God willing, be witness to more attacks," he told a Pakistani journalist, according to ABC.
“Just last month,” the network notes, “Dadullah presided over what was termed a terror training camp graduation ceremony in Pakistan, supposedly dispatching attack teams to the United States, Canada, Great Britain and Germany.”
The question arises: Why are Dadullah and his “Pakistani journalist” being so good to ABC? Last month, they gave the network an exclusive on the “graduation ceremony,” which was dutifully reported without qualification.
No one would want to dampen the investigative team’s zeal for terrorist coverage, but perhaps Brian Ross and his crew are cultivating their sources a bit too much.
Terrorists must have their Scooter Libbys, too, and it would be a shame if American journalists hadn’t learned to be more skeptical of all leakers bearing gifts.
"You will, God willing, be witness to more attacks," he told a Pakistani journalist, according to ABC.
“Just last month,” the network notes, “Dadullah presided over what was termed a terror training camp graduation ceremony in Pakistan, supposedly dispatching attack teams to the United States, Canada, Great Britain and Germany.”
The question arises: Why are Dadullah and his “Pakistani journalist” being so good to ABC? Last month, they gave the network an exclusive on the “graduation ceremony,” which was dutifully reported without qualification.
No one would want to dampen the investigative team’s zeal for terrorist coverage, but perhaps Brian Ross and his crew are cultivating their sources a bit too much.
Terrorists must have their Scooter Libbys, too, and it would be a shame if American journalists hadn’t learned to be more skeptical of all leakers bearing gifts.
Chertoff's Squirrel Spies
Now that the Iranians have blown their cover, the story of our rodent black ops can be told.
Last week, in a desperate last-ditch attempt to preserve their covert status, Homeland Security Director Michael Chertoff attributed information about imminent terrorist activities to his “gut feeling.”
Now it can be revealed that he was relying on the work of the Squirrel Intelligence Corps, whose existence was unknown until a number of agents were ferreted out and detained by the Islamic Republic’s Secret Police.
"In recent weeks, intelligence operatives have arrested 14 squirrels within Iran's borders," the state-sponsored news agency IRNA reported. "The squirrels were carrying spy gear of foreign agencies, and were stopped before they could act, thanks to the alertness of our intelligence services."
Our secret squirrels were trained by the Harvard Division of Engineering and Applied Sciences, which concealed its efforts by leaking data about allegedly jocular experiments in “squirrel fishing.”
A critical element of the Iranian operation was timing. According to the journal Scholarly Squirrel, although males of the species “are notorious for chasing females...between July and August, female squirrels are ready to mate only one day out of each season.” Islamic agents apparently took advantage of our operatives’ distraction in anticipating the crucial date.
In keeping with security procedures, Director Chertoff would not comment, but a spokesperson reflected Homeland Security’s disappointment by an off-the-record reference to the observation of Sarah Jessica Parker, “You can't be friends with a squirrel. A squirrel is just a rat with a cuter outfit.”
Last week, in a desperate last-ditch attempt to preserve their covert status, Homeland Security Director Michael Chertoff attributed information about imminent terrorist activities to his “gut feeling.”
Now it can be revealed that he was relying on the work of the Squirrel Intelligence Corps, whose existence was unknown until a number of agents were ferreted out and detained by the Islamic Republic’s Secret Police.
"In recent weeks, intelligence operatives have arrested 14 squirrels within Iran's borders," the state-sponsored news agency IRNA reported. "The squirrels were carrying spy gear of foreign agencies, and were stopped before they could act, thanks to the alertness of our intelligence services."
Our secret squirrels were trained by the Harvard Division of Engineering and Applied Sciences, which concealed its efforts by leaking data about allegedly jocular experiments in “squirrel fishing.”
A critical element of the Iranian operation was timing. According to the journal Scholarly Squirrel, although males of the species “are notorious for chasing females...between July and August, female squirrels are ready to mate only one day out of each season.” Islamic agents apparently took advantage of our operatives’ distraction in anticipating the crucial date.
In keeping with security procedures, Director Chertoff would not comment, but a spokesperson reflected Homeland Security’s disappointment by an off-the-record reference to the observation of Sarah Jessica Parker, “You can't be friends with a squirrel. A squirrel is just a rat with a cuter outfit.”
Bush on Mt. Rushmore
The George W. Bush Afterlife Society will please come to order. First, the invocation from Rabbi Joe Lieberman:
“(H)e will be judged as a president who saw the threat, and in the midst of an unpopular war, he stuck with it...his ratings among the historians will be greater than his ratings in the polls today.”
The Reverend Rush Limbaugh rises to expand on this theme in today’s sermon:
“Long after we’re all dead and gone, when historians who are not yet born begin to write about this era, they’re going to place George Bush in the upper echelon of presidents who had a great vision for America.”
And then the featured speaker, the theologian and scholar at the American Enterprise Institute Michael Novak, who had a few words to say about the honoree:
"Faith is not enough by itself because there are a lot of people who have faith but weak hearts. But his faith is very strong. He seeks guidance, like every other president does, in prayer. And that means trying to be sure he's doing the right thing. And if you've got that set, all the criticism, it doesn't faze you very much. You're answering to God."
Amen. At this point, members will pray for the historians who answered a survey of the History News Network--338 heretics said they believed President Bush is failing, while 77 said he is succeeding. Fifty heathen thought he was the worst president ever, worse than Buchanan. We will pray for enlightment for these lost souls.
The final item on the agenda this evening will be a report from the Committee to Raise Funds for the George W. Bush Sculpture on Mt. Rushmore
“(H)e will be judged as a president who saw the threat, and in the midst of an unpopular war, he stuck with it...his ratings among the historians will be greater than his ratings in the polls today.”
The Reverend Rush Limbaugh rises to expand on this theme in today’s sermon:
“Long after we’re all dead and gone, when historians who are not yet born begin to write about this era, they’re going to place George Bush in the upper echelon of presidents who had a great vision for America.”
And then the featured speaker, the theologian and scholar at the American Enterprise Institute Michael Novak, who had a few words to say about the honoree:
"Faith is not enough by itself because there are a lot of people who have faith but weak hearts. But his faith is very strong. He seeks guidance, like every other president does, in prayer. And that means trying to be sure he's doing the right thing. And if you've got that set, all the criticism, it doesn't faze you very much. You're answering to God."
Amen. At this point, members will pray for the historians who answered a survey of the History News Network--338 heretics said they believed President Bush is failing, while 77 said he is succeeding. Fifty heathen thought he was the worst president ever, worse than Buchanan. We will pray for enlightment for these lost souls.
The final item on the agenda this evening will be a report from the Committee to Raise Funds for the George W. Bush Sculpture on Mt. Rushmore
Friday, July 13, 2007
Wiping Away Bush's Grin
Peggy Noonan, who used to write for George Bush’s father and now writes for the Wall Street Journal, has had enough. She wants to fire the President. One of the reasons is that he’s in too good a mood.
At yesterday’s press conference, she notes: “There was the usual teasing, the partly aggressive, partly joshing humor, the certitude. He doesn't seem to be suffering, which is jarring. Presidents in great enterprises that are going badly suffer: Lincoln, LBJ with his head in his hands. Why doesn't Mr. Bush?”
When Lincoln lost an election, he remarked that he “was too old to cry, but it hurts too much to laugh.” Not Bush, and his “What? Me Worry?” grins are driving former supporters like Noonan up the wall.
“President Bush,” she writes, “was hired to know more than the people, to be told all the deep inside intelligence, all the facts Americans are not told, and do the right and smart thing in response.
“That's the deal...If you are a mid-level Verizon executive who lives in New Jersey, this is what you do: You hire a president and tell him to take care of everything you can't take care of--the security of the nation, its well-being, its long-term interests. And you in turn do your part...You work, pay your taxes...become involved in local things--the boy's ball team, the library, the homeless shelter. You handle what you can...and give the big things to the president.
“And if he can't do it, or if he can't do it as well as you pay the mortgage and help the kid next door, you get mad. And you fire him.
“Americans can't fire the president right now, so they're waiting it out. They can tell a pollster how they feel, and they do, and they can tell friends, and they do that too. They also watch the news conference, and grit their teeth a bit.”
So do we all.
At yesterday’s press conference, she notes: “There was the usual teasing, the partly aggressive, partly joshing humor, the certitude. He doesn't seem to be suffering, which is jarring. Presidents in great enterprises that are going badly suffer: Lincoln, LBJ with his head in his hands. Why doesn't Mr. Bush?”
When Lincoln lost an election, he remarked that he “was too old to cry, but it hurts too much to laugh.” Not Bush, and his “What? Me Worry?” grins are driving former supporters like Noonan up the wall.
“President Bush,” she writes, “was hired to know more than the people, to be told all the deep inside intelligence, all the facts Americans are not told, and do the right and smart thing in response.
“That's the deal...If you are a mid-level Verizon executive who lives in New Jersey, this is what you do: You hire a president and tell him to take care of everything you can't take care of--the security of the nation, its well-being, its long-term interests. And you in turn do your part...You work, pay your taxes...become involved in local things--the boy's ball team, the library, the homeless shelter. You handle what you can...and give the big things to the president.
“And if he can't do it, or if he can't do it as well as you pay the mortgage and help the kid next door, you get mad. And you fire him.
“Americans can't fire the president right now, so they're waiting it out. They can tell a pollster how they feel, and they do, and they can tell friends, and they do that too. They also watch the news conference, and grit their teeth a bit.”
So do we all.
Giuliani, Thompson: Tainted New Friends
As America’s Mayor goes South and Fred Thompson comes North looking for support, they are not being too choosy about the company they keep.
This week Giuliani lost his Southern chairman to a sex scandal. Last month saw the departure of his South Carolina chairman Tom Ravenel, indicted for selling cocaine. Filling in is his father, a former Congressman who called the NAACP the "National Association of Retarded People" during a debate over the Confederate flag in 2000.
Meanwhile, Thompson is in Manhattan guided by his New York Chairman, former Sen. Alfonse d’Amato, an ethically challenged public figure whose other job these days is Chairman of the Poker Players Alliance lobbying to overturn a federal ban on internet gambling.
Fonzie arranged a breakfast yesterday for Thompson with Uniformed Firefighters Association President Steve Cassidy, who holds Giuliani responsible for the deaths of his members on 9/11. At an ensuing press conference, Thompson praised Cassidy’s union, saying “They've paid a terrible price. They sacrificed for all of us.”
As the two Republic front runners contest for the nomination, it may be a colorful campaign with no holds barred.
This week Giuliani lost his Southern chairman to a sex scandal. Last month saw the departure of his South Carolina chairman Tom Ravenel, indicted for selling cocaine. Filling in is his father, a former Congressman who called the NAACP the "National Association of Retarded People" during a debate over the Confederate flag in 2000.
Meanwhile, Thompson is in Manhattan guided by his New York Chairman, former Sen. Alfonse d’Amato, an ethically challenged public figure whose other job these days is Chairman of the Poker Players Alliance lobbying to overturn a federal ban on internet gambling.
Fonzie arranged a breakfast yesterday for Thompson with Uniformed Firefighters Association President Steve Cassidy, who holds Giuliani responsible for the deaths of his members on 9/11. At an ensuing press conference, Thompson praised Cassidy’s union, saying “They've paid a terrible price. They sacrificed for all of us.”
As the two Republic front runners contest for the nomination, it may be a colorful campaign with no holds barred.
Two Cheers for the Plan B Lifestyle
The surging sales of the morning-after pill evoke mixed feelings. While the new contraceptive certainly gives women (and men) more freedom of choice, its popularity raises qualms about how far we’ve gone toward becoming a Plan B society.
Marry the wrong person? No-fault divorce. Stuff your face for years? Try diet pills and, if they don’t work, surgery. Run up too many bills? Go bankrupt.
In a society that believes in second chances, it’s hard to argue against the right to correct mistakes, but whatever happened to pay as you go, look before you leap or plain old think twice?
More to the point, there is still no totally free lunch. Uproot your children’s lives, tamper with your body chemistry, lose your credit rating, the “delete” button won’t solve everything.
At the risk of sounding like an old scold, one thing more: Get into the wrong war and try to find a Plan B pill for that.
Maybe we should be taking a longer, harder look at the Plan A’s in our lives.
Marry the wrong person? No-fault divorce. Stuff your face for years? Try diet pills and, if they don’t work, surgery. Run up too many bills? Go bankrupt.
In a society that believes in second chances, it’s hard to argue against the right to correct mistakes, but whatever happened to pay as you go, look before you leap or plain old think twice?
More to the point, there is still no totally free lunch. Uproot your children’s lives, tamper with your body chemistry, lose your credit rating, the “delete” button won’t solve everything.
At the risk of sounding like an old scold, one thing more: Get into the wrong war and try to find a Plan B pill for that.
Maybe we should be taking a longer, harder look at the Plan A’s in our lives.
Political Theater of the Absurd
The tragic comedy in Washington is beginning to look like an Absurdist revival. George Bush is “Waiting for Godot” while Congress is doing “Rosencrantz and Guildenstern Are Dead.”
Godot is Gen. Petraeus and, as in Beckett’s play, he is unlikely to appear, at least not in the sense the President is expecting. In September, when Petraeus comes on stage, the best Bush can hope for is an ambiguous soliloquy that, as the General has already indicated, measures progress in terms of years, even decades.
Meanwhile, Congress wrestles with a script of declarations, non-sequiturs, evasions and pauses that seek the certainty of withdrawal but only demonstrate the futility of language.
In a prolonged final act of bitter, chaotic conflict, the actors keep milling around the stage, striking poses and making their speeches but is anyone listening?
What’s left of the audience, even those who applauded the first act, is heading for the exits while the carnage continues offstage.
Godot is Gen. Petraeus and, as in Beckett’s play, he is unlikely to appear, at least not in the sense the President is expecting. In September, when Petraeus comes on stage, the best Bush can hope for is an ambiguous soliloquy that, as the General has already indicated, measures progress in terms of years, even decades.
Meanwhile, Congress wrestles with a script of declarations, non-sequiturs, evasions and pauses that seek the certainty of withdrawal but only demonstrate the futility of language.
In a prolonged final act of bitter, chaotic conflict, the actors keep milling around the stage, striking poses and making their speeches but is anyone listening?
What’s left of the audience, even those who applauded the first act, is heading for the exits while the carnage continues offstage.
Thursday, July 12, 2007
"My Country, Right or Wrong"
John Boehner is a living metaphor for the political muddle in Washington over Iraq.
During a meeting of the Republican Congressional caucus yesterday, the House Minority Leader reportedly characterized Senate colleagues as “wimps” for backing away from unquestioning support of the Bush policy.
He was rebuked by Rep. Heather Wilson, a former Air Force officer, who expressed admiration for Sen. Richard Lugar’s speech about rethinking Middle East policy.
Boehner is an emotional man. In May, before debate about the Surge, he wept openly as Rep. Sam Johnson talked of his years as a POW in North Vietnam, describing how his captors would play tapes of antiwar protesters back home over prison loudspeakers.
The Minority Leader was strongly moved by Johnson’s analogy of his experience in hearing that opposition to any expression of Congressional disapproval of the policy in Iraq.
There is no reason to question Boehner’s sincerity or patriotism, but his judgment is another matter. He embodies a classic American debate.
In 1816, after a victory, Naval Commander Stephen Decatur proposed a toast: “Our country! In her intercourse with foreign nations, may she always be in the right; but our country, right or wrong.”
In 1872, Sen. Carl Schurz, a former General, amended that declaration: “My country, right or wrong; if right, to be kept right; and if wrong, to be set right.”
George Bush has complicated that difference by re-defining patriotism as support for a mindless, belligerent foreign policy that has alienated our country from almost all of the civilized world.
In Boehner’s heart, it may simply be a question of patriotism, yes or no. But someone should explain to him that Bush’s Neo-Cons have hijacked American patriotism and that some of those in both parties who truly love their country are fighting to get it back.
During a meeting of the Republican Congressional caucus yesterday, the House Minority Leader reportedly characterized Senate colleagues as “wimps” for backing away from unquestioning support of the Bush policy.
He was rebuked by Rep. Heather Wilson, a former Air Force officer, who expressed admiration for Sen. Richard Lugar’s speech about rethinking Middle East policy.
Boehner is an emotional man. In May, before debate about the Surge, he wept openly as Rep. Sam Johnson talked of his years as a POW in North Vietnam, describing how his captors would play tapes of antiwar protesters back home over prison loudspeakers.
The Minority Leader was strongly moved by Johnson’s analogy of his experience in hearing that opposition to any expression of Congressional disapproval of the policy in Iraq.
There is no reason to question Boehner’s sincerity or patriotism, but his judgment is another matter. He embodies a classic American debate.
In 1816, after a victory, Naval Commander Stephen Decatur proposed a toast: “Our country! In her intercourse with foreign nations, may she always be in the right; but our country, right or wrong.”
In 1872, Sen. Carl Schurz, a former General, amended that declaration: “My country, right or wrong; if right, to be kept right; and if wrong, to be set right.”
George Bush has complicated that difference by re-defining patriotism as support for a mindless, belligerent foreign policy that has alienated our country from almost all of the civilized world.
In Boehner’s heart, it may simply be a question of patriotism, yes or no. But someone should explain to him that Bush’s Neo-Cons have hijacked American patriotism and that some of those in both parties who truly love their country are fighting to get it back.
Nice Guy Nixon, Longing to Belong
Even in the White House, he felt the whole world was a club that wouldn’t take him in as a member.
New documents and tapes released yesterday by custodians of the de-sanitized Nixon Library and Museum only add to the picture of an angry, isolated, paranoid President plotting to get everybody else before they got him and, at the same time, wanting to be perceived as a regular guy.
There is an 11-page memo from 1970 complaining that he never got credit for being “nicey-nice,” listing all his "good deeds"--calling sick people, writing to those who were experiencing hard times, giving parties for the poor. "There are innumerable examples of warm items," he wrote, echoing his exaggerated sense of being unappreciated.
Typically Nixon wanted to manipulate an outcome without getting caught doing it. "With regard to the whole warmth business, a very important point to underline is that we do not try to broker such items," he wrote, not wanting the White House to be seen as promoting them but letting them be "discovered."
Somewhere under all that insecurity and misplaced guile was the man Nixon wanted to be. I got a glimpse of him in 1966 when the former Vice President and failed candidate for Governor of California was practicing law in Manhattan.
When conversation at the dinner table turned to baseball, his calculating manner gave way to enthusiastic fan talk. That led me to suggest there was a perfect job opening for him--Commissioner of Baseball.
His eyes lit up. “Can you get it for me?” he asked.
If he had gotten that job, there would be no library and museum now, but he might have had a happier life, as would we all.
New documents and tapes released yesterday by custodians of the de-sanitized Nixon Library and Museum only add to the picture of an angry, isolated, paranoid President plotting to get everybody else before they got him and, at the same time, wanting to be perceived as a regular guy.
There is an 11-page memo from 1970 complaining that he never got credit for being “nicey-nice,” listing all his "good deeds"--calling sick people, writing to those who were experiencing hard times, giving parties for the poor. "There are innumerable examples of warm items," he wrote, echoing his exaggerated sense of being unappreciated.
Typically Nixon wanted to manipulate an outcome without getting caught doing it. "With regard to the whole warmth business, a very important point to underline is that we do not try to broker such items," he wrote, not wanting the White House to be seen as promoting them but letting them be "discovered."
Somewhere under all that insecurity and misplaced guile was the man Nixon wanted to be. I got a glimpse of him in 1966 when the former Vice President and failed candidate for Governor of California was practicing law in Manhattan.
When conversation at the dinner table turned to baseball, his calculating manner gave way to enthusiastic fan talk. That led me to suggest there was a perfect job opening for him--Commissioner of Baseball.
His eyes lit up. “Can you get it for me?” he asked.
If he had gotten that job, there would be no library and museum now, but he might have had a happier life, as would we all.
The Queen, Kramer and Other Celebs
Amid all the glum stuff, some major news has been, as they say on the Daily Show, falling through the cracks:
*In a shoot, celebrity photographer Annie Liebovitz tells Queen Elizabeth to lose the crown--it would look better, “less dressy.” The Sovereign is not amused and asks with annoyance, ”Less dressy--what do you think this is?” In earlier times, a beheading might have ensued.
*Kramer is cooling it in Cambodia. After his comedy-club expletive outburst, Michael Richards is finding peace at daily spiritual seminars conducted by a Hindi monk known as Swami G., who is "on a mission to re-establish the science of inner bliss on planet Earth." Kramer, minus his slide step, will be touring temples and visiting Angkor Wat.
*It won’t be featured on the “Weddings” page of the Sunday New York Times, but Osama bin Laden’s fourth-eldest son Omar, 27, has married a 51-year-old British grandmother. They "met cute" while she was riding a horse near the Great Pyramid in Egypt. Jane Felix-Browne, who has had five previous husbands, is trying to get a visa for her newest, who is working as a scrap metal dealer in Saudi Arabia.
*Once home to William Randolph Hearst and Marion Davis, the most expensive U.S. residence is for sale in Beverly Hills. Asking price: $165 million. On 6.5 acres, it has 29 bedrooms, three swimming pools, tennis courts, a state-of-the-art movie theater and disco. The current owner, an attorney, is looking for a “lifestyle change.”
If there’s a theme here, it escapes me.
*In a shoot, celebrity photographer Annie Liebovitz tells Queen Elizabeth to lose the crown--it would look better, “less dressy.” The Sovereign is not amused and asks with annoyance, ”Less dressy--what do you think this is?” In earlier times, a beheading might have ensued.
*Kramer is cooling it in Cambodia. After his comedy-club expletive outburst, Michael Richards is finding peace at daily spiritual seminars conducted by a Hindi monk known as Swami G., who is "on a mission to re-establish the science of inner bliss on planet Earth." Kramer, minus his slide step, will be touring temples and visiting Angkor Wat.
*It won’t be featured on the “Weddings” page of the Sunday New York Times, but Osama bin Laden’s fourth-eldest son Omar, 27, has married a 51-year-old British grandmother. They "met cute" while she was riding a horse near the Great Pyramid in Egypt. Jane Felix-Browne, who has had five previous husbands, is trying to get a visa for her newest, who is working as a scrap metal dealer in Saudi Arabia.
*Once home to William Randolph Hearst and Marion Davis, the most expensive U.S. residence is for sale in Beverly Hills. Asking price: $165 million. On 6.5 acres, it has 29 bedrooms, three swimming pools, tennis courts, a state-of-the-art movie theater and disco. The current owner, an attorney, is looking for a “lifestyle change.”
If there’s a theme here, it escapes me.
"The Civil War Nobody Voted For"
OpEds come and go, but there was an unusual one in the New York Daily News the other day. Titled “This Is Not Our Fight,” its subhead read, “Congress must end U.S. role in a civil war nobody voted for.” The byline: “Robert Byrd & Hillary Clinton.”
Its final paragraph: “As Bush admitted in his State of the Union address in January, ‘This is not the fight we entered in Iraq.’ We could not agree more. This is not the fight Congress authorized, Mr. President. If you want to continue to wage this fight, come to Congress and make your case. Otherwise, bring our troops home.”
This was a collaboration by one Senator who wrote an OpEd (in the New York Times) in October 2002 opposing the resolution to allow Bush to invade Iraq and another who, while expressing admiration for his warning, voted for it.
Its appearance signals the seriousness of an effort this month to introduce a resolution to withdraw the 2002 authorization.
Of the myriad of proposals for bills to bring home the troops, this one offers the best hope for a Congressional challenge that, if passed by a veto-proof two-thirds vote in each house, would provoke a Constitutional crisis that might end up in the Supreme Court and test whether or not Justice Anthony Kennedy has become a permanent member of a conservative majority.
The OpEd itself, appearing in a major newspaper that has been gung-ho for the war, is a sign of the times. If a tabloid can change its mind, why can’t Congress?
Its final paragraph: “As Bush admitted in his State of the Union address in January, ‘This is not the fight we entered in Iraq.’ We could not agree more. This is not the fight Congress authorized, Mr. President. If you want to continue to wage this fight, come to Congress and make your case. Otherwise, bring our troops home.”
This was a collaboration by one Senator who wrote an OpEd (in the New York Times) in October 2002 opposing the resolution to allow Bush to invade Iraq and another who, while expressing admiration for his warning, voted for it.
Its appearance signals the seriousness of an effort this month to introduce a resolution to withdraw the 2002 authorization.
Of the myriad of proposals for bills to bring home the troops, this one offers the best hope for a Congressional challenge that, if passed by a veto-proof two-thirds vote in each house, would provoke a Constitutional crisis that might end up in the Supreme Court and test whether or not Justice Anthony Kennedy has become a permanent member of a conservative majority.
The OpEd itself, appearing in a major newspaper that has been gung-ho for the war, is a sign of the times. If a tabloid can change its mind, why can’t Congress?
Wednesday, July 11, 2007
Farewell to a Lady
"My mother," Lynda Bird Johnson once told me, "thinks well of everybody. She's even sure the Devil's been maligned. Just got a bad press.”
I got to know the First Lady during the time her daughter worked for me when I was editor of McCalls.
She was womanly in a way that has gone out of style. Without the chic of Jacqueline Kennedy or the country-club cool of Laura Bush, Claudia Taylor Johnson devoted most of her life to herding a bull-in-the-china-shop husband from the Texas panhandle to the White House.
When he had a massive heart attack in 1955, she slept for a month on a cot in his hospital room.
"I never turned over in the night," LBJ later recalled, "that I didn't hear Lady Bird's feet hit the floor coming to see what I needed." After that, she changed his diet, subdued his frantic schedule and kept him alive with her positive outlook.
She will be remembered for her dedication to beautifying America with wildflowers, but Lyndon Johnson was her life’s work. She never stopped.
Not long before he died, I spent a weekend at their ranch as she was managing his life down to the last millimeter to keep him from sliding into despair.
At dinner I watched Lady Bird covertly sliding serving dishes out of reach and subtly signaling the server to remove them before he could ask for more and keeping the conversation cheerful, making sure to focus on him so he would be forced to respond. She surrounded him with friends and grandchildren and, as always, kept him within bounds by softly saying, “Now, Lyndon...”
History will have mixed feelings about a President who changed race relations in America forever by pushing through Congress against all odds the Civil Rights Act of 1964 with the rallying cry of the movement, “We shall overcome,” and then damaged the country with his stubborn refusal to end a disastrous war.
But whatever he achieved would never have been possible without the loving woman who died today at 94.
I got to know the First Lady during the time her daughter worked for me when I was editor of McCalls.
She was womanly in a way that has gone out of style. Without the chic of Jacqueline Kennedy or the country-club cool of Laura Bush, Claudia Taylor Johnson devoted most of her life to herding a bull-in-the-china-shop husband from the Texas panhandle to the White House.
When he had a massive heart attack in 1955, she slept for a month on a cot in his hospital room.
"I never turned over in the night," LBJ later recalled, "that I didn't hear Lady Bird's feet hit the floor coming to see what I needed." After that, she changed his diet, subdued his frantic schedule and kept him alive with her positive outlook.
She will be remembered for her dedication to beautifying America with wildflowers, but Lyndon Johnson was her life’s work. She never stopped.
Not long before he died, I spent a weekend at their ranch as she was managing his life down to the last millimeter to keep him from sliding into despair.
At dinner I watched Lady Bird covertly sliding serving dishes out of reach and subtly signaling the server to remove them before he could ask for more and keeping the conversation cheerful, making sure to focus on him so he would be forced to respond. She surrounded him with friends and grandchildren and, as always, kept him within bounds by softly saying, “Now, Lyndon...”
History will have mixed feelings about a President who changed race relations in America forever by pushing through Congress against all odds the Civil Rights Act of 1964 with the rallying cry of the movement, “We shall overcome,” and then damaged the country with his stubborn refusal to end a disastrous war.
But whatever he achieved would never have been possible without the loving woman who died today at 94.
Blonde Loyalty to Bush
Is there something in the White House water that deprives young women of free will and at the same time lightens their hair color?
The question is raised by Senate testimony today of Sara Taylor, following on recent public performances by Monica Goodling and Deputy Press Secretary Dana Perino.
In answering some and evading other questions by the Judiciary Committee, Ms. Taylor showed a familiar undeviating loyalty to the Bush Administration and its master political chemist Karl Rove while navigating the narrows between perjury and contempt of Congress.
Pressuring the former White House political director, Democrats have a perception problem of their own, the risk of old pols appearing to bully a sincere young woman into betraying her former bosses.
"Having worked most of her adult life for President Bush,” her attorney wrote to the committee beforehand, “she is unquestionably loyal to the president. If there is to be a clash, we urge the Senate to direct its sanction against the White House, not against a former staffer."
It appears that Sen. Leahy et al will get very little help from Ms. Taylor. If they want the truth about the U.S. Attorney firing scandal, it will take a legal battle about executive privilege to get Rove’s testimony under oath.
Meanwhile, watching Ms. Taylor today evokes speculation about how different Paris Hilton’s life might be today if she had applied for a White House internship.
The question is raised by Senate testimony today of Sara Taylor, following on recent public performances by Monica Goodling and Deputy Press Secretary Dana Perino.
In answering some and evading other questions by the Judiciary Committee, Ms. Taylor showed a familiar undeviating loyalty to the Bush Administration and its master political chemist Karl Rove while navigating the narrows between perjury and contempt of Congress.
Pressuring the former White House political director, Democrats have a perception problem of their own, the risk of old pols appearing to bully a sincere young woman into betraying her former bosses.
"Having worked most of her adult life for President Bush,” her attorney wrote to the committee beforehand, “she is unquestionably loyal to the president. If there is to be a clash, we urge the Senate to direct its sanction against the White House, not against a former staffer."
It appears that Sen. Leahy et al will get very little help from Ms. Taylor. If they want the truth about the U.S. Attorney firing scandal, it will take a legal battle about executive privilege to get Rove’s testimony under oath.
Meanwhile, watching Ms. Taylor today evokes speculation about how different Paris Hilton’s life might be today if she had applied for a White House internship.
Color the Congressman Rage-Red
The Chairman of the House Committee on Homeland Security had a few words today for the Homeland Security Secretary. Rep. Bennie G. Thompson sent Michael Chertoff a letter about his gut-feeling forecast (see below) of terrorist attacks on the U.S. this summer. Here is part of what he wrote:
Words have power, Mr. Secretary. You must choose them wisely--especially when they relate to the lives and security of the American public. What color code in the Homeland Security Advisory System is associated with a “gut feeling?” What sectors should be on alert as a result of your “gut feeling?” What cities should be asking their law enforcement to work double shifts because of your “gut feeling?” Are the American people supposed to purchase duct tape and plastic sheeting because of your “gut feeling?”
The Committee on Homeland Security has repeatedly emphasized the importance of getting specific, actionable information to our first preventers in law enforcement and other emergency response providers. I urge you to follow up on your “gut feeling” and share whatever information our nation’s first preventers need to be on alert and prepared. Otherwise, we run the risk of communities taking it upon themselves to mobilize for every possible threat. This not only would result in communities depleting their scarce homeland security resources but runs contrary to your efforts to move toward a risk-based approach to homeland security.
This kind of rebuke may be devastating for a person of Mr. Chertoff’s sensitivity. One can only hope that he doesn’t take the Chairman’s reaction personally.
Words have power, Mr. Secretary. You must choose them wisely--especially when they relate to the lives and security of the American public. What color code in the Homeland Security Advisory System is associated with a “gut feeling?” What sectors should be on alert as a result of your “gut feeling?” What cities should be asking their law enforcement to work double shifts because of your “gut feeling?” Are the American people supposed to purchase duct tape and plastic sheeting because of your “gut feeling?”
The Committee on Homeland Security has repeatedly emphasized the importance of getting specific, actionable information to our first preventers in law enforcement and other emergency response providers. I urge you to follow up on your “gut feeling” and share whatever information our nation’s first preventers need to be on alert and prepared. Otherwise, we run the risk of communities taking it upon themselves to mobilize for every possible threat. This not only would result in communities depleting their scarce homeland security resources but runs contrary to your efforts to move toward a risk-based approach to homeland security.
This kind of rebuke may be devastating for a person of Mr. Chertoff’s sensitivity. One can only hope that he doesn’t take the Chairman’s reaction personally.
Chertoff's Gutsy Forecast
In addition to those color-coded threat levels, the nation now has a new indicator of the imminence of a terrorist attack--the intestinal state of U.S. Homeland Security Secretary Michael Chertoff
Briefing the editorial board of the Chicago Tribune, Chertoff reported a “gut feeling” that the U.S. would be attacked soon. "Summertime seems to be appealing to them," he said, referring to Al Qaeda.
Chertoff’s stomach and keen insight into terrorist tastes should be enough to compensate for the fact that his Department has been politicized to the point of the lowest morale of all federal agencies with one-quarter of its top positions unfilled.
In this new era of vulnerability, we have to rely on non-traditional intelligence-gathering such as, perhaps, the Homeland Security head watching CNN coverage of the attempted attacks in Britain.
Chertoff is to be commended for his leadership daring but he may never reach the level of Sen. Joe Lieberman’s achievement in re-seating Democrats and Republicans of his Homeland Security Committee in boy-girl dinner party arrangement instead of opposite sides of the table to let citizens see them side by side as they “work together to make our nation more secure.”
In matters of such gravity, little things can be important. Chertoff’s guts and Lieberman’s sensitivity may help keep us safe.
Briefing the editorial board of the Chicago Tribune, Chertoff reported a “gut feeling” that the U.S. would be attacked soon. "Summertime seems to be appealing to them," he said, referring to Al Qaeda.
Chertoff’s stomach and keen insight into terrorist tastes should be enough to compensate for the fact that his Department has been politicized to the point of the lowest morale of all federal agencies with one-quarter of its top positions unfilled.
In this new era of vulnerability, we have to rely on non-traditional intelligence-gathering such as, perhaps, the Homeland Security head watching CNN coverage of the attempted attacks in Britain.
Chertoff is to be commended for his leadership daring but he may never reach the level of Sen. Joe Lieberman’s achievement in re-seating Democrats and Republicans of his Homeland Security Committee in boy-girl dinner party arrangement instead of opposite sides of the table to let citizens see them side by side as they “work together to make our nation more secure.”
In matters of such gravity, little things can be important. Chertoff’s guts and Lieberman’s sensitivity may help keep us safe.
Giuliani Strategy Going South
America’s Mayor wants to come off as what used to be known in the New York neighborhoods as a stand-up guy. His entire campaign is about character, and Giuliani keeps reminding voters that on 9/11 they saw he has plenty of it.
But as he pursues a “Southern strategy” to make the Hard Right forget he is a multiply married New York liberal who sometimes dresses in drag, Giuliani is finding bumps in the pickup-truck road and has to keep swerving to avoid them.
Yesterday he was backing away from Sen. David Vitter, his Southern chairman and wannabe running mate, just as quickly as the Mayor dumped his South Carolina chairman last month after he was accused of dealing cocaine.
Vitter’s prostitute problem, Giuliani said, was “a personal issue.” So it is. But then again, the candidate has been distancing himself from so many issues of personal preference--from abortion to flying the Confederate flag-—that it may be casting doubt on his don’t-tread-on-me image.
While puckering up to Pat Robertson last month in his leadership lecture at Regent University, Giuliani stressed the importance of optimism. If his new Southern friends keep tripping him up on the run to the White House, he’s going to need it.
But as he pursues a “Southern strategy” to make the Hard Right forget he is a multiply married New York liberal who sometimes dresses in drag, Giuliani is finding bumps in the pickup-truck road and has to keep swerving to avoid them.
Yesterday he was backing away from Sen. David Vitter, his Southern chairman and wannabe running mate, just as quickly as the Mayor dumped his South Carolina chairman last month after he was accused of dealing cocaine.
Vitter’s prostitute problem, Giuliani said, was “a personal issue.” So it is. But then again, the candidate has been distancing himself from so many issues of personal preference--from abortion to flying the Confederate flag-—that it may be casting doubt on his don’t-tread-on-me image.
While puckering up to Pat Robertson last month in his leadership lecture at Regent University, Giuliani stressed the importance of optimism. If his new Southern friends keep tripping him up on the run to the White House, he’s going to need it.
Out-of-Iraq Shell Games
After years of blundering, the proprietors and enablers of this misbegotten war seem determined to end it the way they began it and waged it--with lies, evasions and cowardice.
The opinion polls show growing public impatience, but the politicians keep playing the same old games.
President Bush is being bubbled around the country to puff out his chest for groups of businessmen and proclaim, "Troop levels will be decided by our commanders on the ground, not by political figures in Washington, D.C."
Faithful Sen. Chuck Grassley, who does not have to face voters next year, tells wavering Republican colleagues who do that they should wait to hear from Gen, Petraeus since they confirmed him by such an overwhelming margin.
But in Baghdad, Petraeus is telling reporters, "We're still at the harder-before-it-gets-easier point” and reiterating, as he has be doing from the start of the Surge, that any solution in Iraq has to be political, not military.
So, as we watch their hands carefully, we have no idea of what, if anything, is under which shell. Does the political have to get better before the military can? Or is it the other way around? Or do both have to improve at the same time? Or are they making it up as they go?
In the Senate, multiple shell games are being played, with Democrats devising different formulas to cut funding or withdraw troops or rescind the 2002 war resolution, while Republicans look for ways to be in favor of ending the war but not just yet or not in any way that might come back to haunt them.
Before the month is out, dozens more of our young people will have died in Iraq and billions of dollars more gone down the drain while, in Washington, they will still be playing these games.
How long do they think they can keep snookering us? Even at carnivals, they sometimes give the suckers an even break.
The opinion polls show growing public impatience, but the politicians keep playing the same old games.
President Bush is being bubbled around the country to puff out his chest for groups of businessmen and proclaim, "Troop levels will be decided by our commanders on the ground, not by political figures in Washington, D.C."
Faithful Sen. Chuck Grassley, who does not have to face voters next year, tells wavering Republican colleagues who do that they should wait to hear from Gen, Petraeus since they confirmed him by such an overwhelming margin.
But in Baghdad, Petraeus is telling reporters, "We're still at the harder-before-it-gets-easier point” and reiterating, as he has be doing from the start of the Surge, that any solution in Iraq has to be political, not military.
So, as we watch their hands carefully, we have no idea of what, if anything, is under which shell. Does the political have to get better before the military can? Or is it the other way around? Or do both have to improve at the same time? Or are they making it up as they go?
In the Senate, multiple shell games are being played, with Democrats devising different formulas to cut funding or withdraw troops or rescind the 2002 war resolution, while Republicans look for ways to be in favor of ending the war but not just yet or not in any way that might come back to haunt them.
Before the month is out, dozens more of our young people will have died in Iraq and billions of dollars more gone down the drain while, in Washington, they will still be playing these games.
How long do they think they can keep snookering us? Even at carnivals, they sometimes give the suckers an even break.
Tuesday, July 10, 2007
Uh-Oh
All japing about the D. C. Madam must cease. Possibly dire consequences may arise from her disclosures.
Last night Sen. David Vitter, whose phone number was on her list, admitted “a very serious sin in my past.”
Today there is word of Mrs. Vitter’s response, when during the Clinton impeachment, she was asked if her husband were as unfaithful as Bill Clinton, would she be as forgiving as Hillary Clinton?
“I’m a lot more like Lorena Bobbitt than Hillary,” Mrs. Vitter answered. “If he does something like that, I’m walking away with one thing, and it’s not alimony, trust me.”
“I think fear is a very good motivating factor in a marriage,” she added. “Don’t put fear down.”
Last night Sen. David Vitter, whose phone number was on her list, admitted “a very serious sin in my past.”
Today there is word of Mrs. Vitter’s response, when during the Clinton impeachment, she was asked if her husband were as unfaithful as Bill Clinton, would she be as forgiving as Hillary Clinton?
“I’m a lot more like Lorena Bobbitt than Hillary,” Mrs. Vitter answered. “If he does something like that, I’m walking away with one thing, and it’s not alimony, trust me.”
“I think fear is a very good motivating factor in a marriage,” she added. “Don’t put fear down.”
Health Care, Seriously
“Sicko” aside, health care is moving front and center as the domestic issue for Democrats while Republicans still maunder about keeping us safe from terrorists.
A Washington Post headline today sums up their approach: “For Democrats, Pragmatism On Universal Health Care”
It’s a little like saying, “There are burglars in the house, but let’s be cautious about getting them out.”
The burglars are private insurers who take almost one out of every three dollars we spend and give us the most expensive and some of the worst care in the world. But no one wants to get them out, lock the doors and start over.
Whenever good sense enters the debate, lobbyists for the thieves yell “socialized medicine” and politicians duck for cover. But when the rest of America complains about anti-social medicine, they turn deaf.
The situation is neatly summed up by Jonathan Gruber of MIT, who has become, according to the Post, “possibly the party's most influential health-care expert and a voice of realism in its internal debates.” But even the realist knows better.
"Plans which minimize the disruption to the existing system are more likely to succeed than plans that rip up the existing system and start over," said Gruber, a consultant for the three leading Democrats. "It doesn't take a genius to see that. That's not to say that plans ripping it up wouldn't be better--I just think they're political non-starters."
The “non-starters” are variations of a single-payer system which, according to the more than 8,000 physicians who back it, would save $350 billion a year, “enough to provide comprehensive, high-quality coverage for all Americans.”
Opponents raise the terrible specter of a government bureaucracy that would replace the private one that spends so much time and effort finding ways to deny claims rather than facilitate them.
We get most of our mail through “a self-supporting postal corporation wholly owned by the federal government” while those who can afford it use FedEx and other private providers. Why not our medical care? We have the example of Medicare which is far from perfect but works reasonably well for older Americans.
As we gird ourselves for the headache-inducing health care plans of the Presidential candidates, someone should stand up for the “non-starter,” a potential cure that none of them has the courage to propose.
A Washington Post headline today sums up their approach: “For Democrats, Pragmatism On Universal Health Care”
It’s a little like saying, “There are burglars in the house, but let’s be cautious about getting them out.”
The burglars are private insurers who take almost one out of every three dollars we spend and give us the most expensive and some of the worst care in the world. But no one wants to get them out, lock the doors and start over.
Whenever good sense enters the debate, lobbyists for the thieves yell “socialized medicine” and politicians duck for cover. But when the rest of America complains about anti-social medicine, they turn deaf.
The situation is neatly summed up by Jonathan Gruber of MIT, who has become, according to the Post, “possibly the party's most influential health-care expert and a voice of realism in its internal debates.” But even the realist knows better.
"Plans which minimize the disruption to the existing system are more likely to succeed than plans that rip up the existing system and start over," said Gruber, a consultant for the three leading Democrats. "It doesn't take a genius to see that. That's not to say that plans ripping it up wouldn't be better--I just think they're political non-starters."
The “non-starters” are variations of a single-payer system which, according to the more than 8,000 physicians who back it, would save $350 billion a year, “enough to provide comprehensive, high-quality coverage for all Americans.”
Opponents raise the terrible specter of a government bureaucracy that would replace the private one that spends so much time and effort finding ways to deny claims rather than facilitate them.
We get most of our mail through “a self-supporting postal corporation wholly owned by the federal government” while those who can afford it use FedEx and other private providers. Why not our medical care? We have the example of Medicare which is far from perfect but works reasonably well for older Americans.
As we gird ourselves for the headache-inducing health care plans of the Presidential candidates, someone should stand up for the “non-starter,” a potential cure that none of them has the courage to propose.
Mighty Mouth Eats the Media
Michael Moore is like one of those huge cartoon creatures on Monty Python that would suddenly open its maw and swallow up the contents of city blocks. This week Wolf Blitzer, Sanjay Gupta and all of CNN are in the path of his giant jaws.
For a time, the Mouth with a baseball cap was funny and even marginally useful with his cutesy primers: Gun Control for Dummies, George Bush for Idiots and now Health Care for Those Who Haven’t Been Paying Attention.
His shtick of confronting the rich and powerful was amusing to a point but, now that he has expanded beyond a cottage industry, Moore is blurring the lines between self-promotion and being a total pain in America’s ass.
To promote “Sicko,” he has eaten his way through the State Department, Fred Thompson, Good Morning America and is now regurgitating CNN on his web site while chomping on “secret” memos from Blue Cross trembling in fear of his film.
Get it together, Michael. Others were against corporate greed, wanted gun control before you were born and tried to stop the war in Iraq, so get out of our faces and take it outside and start playing nice with the other rich kids. Being obnoxious while raking it in is not the only career choice.
For a time, the Mouth with a baseball cap was funny and even marginally useful with his cutesy primers: Gun Control for Dummies, George Bush for Idiots and now Health Care for Those Who Haven’t Been Paying Attention.
His shtick of confronting the rich and powerful was amusing to a point but, now that he has expanded beyond a cottage industry, Moore is blurring the lines between self-promotion and being a total pain in America’s ass.
To promote “Sicko,” he has eaten his way through the State Department, Fred Thompson, Good Morning America and is now regurgitating CNN on his web site while chomping on “secret” memos from Blue Cross trembling in fear of his film.
Get it together, Michael. Others were against corporate greed, wanted gun control before you were born and tried to stop the war in Iraq, so get out of our faces and take it outside and start playing nice with the other rich kids. Being obnoxious while raking it in is not the only career choice.
The Panic of the Least Political President
In my lifetime of observing 12 American Presidents, none has been as politically incompetent--or to be more accurate, uninvolved in the process--as George W. Bush. He is highly partisan, but not political.
So it comes as no surprise that insiders are admitting the White House “is in panic mode” over defections of Senate Republicans from their four years of unwavering support for the President’s Iraq policy.
On CNN last night David Gergen, who worked in several Administrations, expressed bewilderment at Bush’s failure to engage directly with legislative leaders of his party, instead sending his National Security Adviser on a “scouting trip” rather than attempting personally to keep his troops from breaking ranks.
From the extreme of Lyndon Johnson, who twisted arms, to Dwight Eisenhower, who believed in “reasoning” with legislators, every President has worked hard as an advocate, cheer-leader and horse trader to get Congress to do what he wanted.
Bush seems to disdain all that. Perhaps his life experience explains why. Unlike others who had to strive and struggle to get there, Bush came to the White House after a lifetime of getting what he wanted through family connections.
In 2000, he was practically anointed as the Republican nominee by name recognition and massive early fund-raising that came with it. When John McCain became a potential road block after winning in New Hampshire, Rove and his gang of Bush family retainers blasted him out of the way.
Now, perhaps for the first time in his life, the scion of the Bush line is facing a challenge that hired hands can’t handle for him. Will he have the instincts and the guts to meet it? Or will he become the lamest Lame Duck of all time?
So it comes as no surprise that insiders are admitting the White House “is in panic mode” over defections of Senate Republicans from their four years of unwavering support for the President’s Iraq policy.
On CNN last night David Gergen, who worked in several Administrations, expressed bewilderment at Bush’s failure to engage directly with legislative leaders of his party, instead sending his National Security Adviser on a “scouting trip” rather than attempting personally to keep his troops from breaking ranks.
From the extreme of Lyndon Johnson, who twisted arms, to Dwight Eisenhower, who believed in “reasoning” with legislators, every President has worked hard as an advocate, cheer-leader and horse trader to get Congress to do what he wanted.
Bush seems to disdain all that. Perhaps his life experience explains why. Unlike others who had to strive and struggle to get there, Bush came to the White House after a lifetime of getting what he wanted through family connections.
In 2000, he was practically anointed as the Republican nominee by name recognition and massive early fund-raising that came with it. When John McCain became a potential road block after winning in New Hampshire, Rove and his gang of Bush family retainers blasted him out of the way.
Now, perhaps for the first time in his life, the scion of the Bush line is facing a challenge that hired hands can’t handle for him. Will he have the instincts and the guts to meet it? Or will he become the lamest Lame Duck of all time?
D. C. Madam: More Discreet Than the Media
It’s easy to see now why Deborah Jeane Palfrey did so well in her chosen profession. She is a model of sensitivity.
When the so-called D. C. Madam decided to make her phone records available to journalists as a public service, Ms. Palfrey was too trusting and naïve to realize that media people don’t have the scruples of madams.
Sending out 54 discs to news organizations and bloggers, she insisted that the list not be published in its entirety. But Ms. Palfrey’s attorney says “we got calls and e-mails saying there wasn't any security on the coding and the numbers were going to be all over the place.”
Ms. Palfrey, “concerned about manipulation of the database with false and misleading information,” published the list on her own web site to maintain the integrity of her records.
Despite all her precautions, the repercussions have started. Republican Sen. David Vitter of Louisiana issued a statement last night apologizing for "a very serious sin in my past" after his telephone number appeared.
Ms. Palfrey seems befuddled by all the commotion, since she insists she operated a "legal, high-end erotic fantasy service" and that women who worked for her signed contracts in which they promised not to have sex with clients.
You just can’t trust anybody these days.
When the so-called D. C. Madam decided to make her phone records available to journalists as a public service, Ms. Palfrey was too trusting and naïve to realize that media people don’t have the scruples of madams.
Sending out 54 discs to news organizations and bloggers, she insisted that the list not be published in its entirety. But Ms. Palfrey’s attorney says “we got calls and e-mails saying there wasn't any security on the coding and the numbers were going to be all over the place.”
Ms. Palfrey, “concerned about manipulation of the database with false and misleading information,” published the list on her own web site to maintain the integrity of her records.
Despite all her precautions, the repercussions have started. Republican Sen. David Vitter of Louisiana issued a statement last night apologizing for "a very serious sin in my past" after his telephone number appeared.
Ms. Palfrey seems befuddled by all the commotion, since she insists she operated a "legal, high-end erotic fantasy service" and that women who worked for her signed contracts in which they promised not to have sex with clients.
You just can’t trust anybody these days.
Monday, July 09, 2007
Slight Glitch in Homeland Security
If we are going to be safe from terrorist attacks, Pat Robertson’s law school will have to expand.
According to a Congressional report released today, the Bush Administration “has failed to fill roughly a quarter of the top leadership posts at the Department of Homeland Security, creating a ‘gaping hole’ in the nation's preparedness for a terrorist attack or other threat.”
"One of the continuing problems appears to be the over politicization of the top rank of Department management," the report concludes.
In the Justice Department, as we learned from the case of Monica Goodling, the Administration’s preference has been for graduates of Regent University where professors “integrate biblical principles into areas of the law.”
This year’s student body at Regent was inspired by a lecture on leadership by America’s Mayor Rudy Giuliani, who told them that terrorists “planned to kill us, and they want to do it again.”
But there won't be enough of such highly trained and motivated recruits to fill the Homeland Security void, which may be partly due to the fact that the Department’s employees reported the lowest job satisfaction among 36 federal agencies earlier this year.
But not to worry. The Senate’s Homeland Security Committee passed a bill in March based on the 9/11 Commission’s recommendations that Chairman Joe Lieberman called “a critical step toward building a safer and more secure America for the generations to come."
That nobody is around to implement them is just a minor housekeeping detail.
According to a Congressional report released today, the Bush Administration “has failed to fill roughly a quarter of the top leadership posts at the Department of Homeland Security, creating a ‘gaping hole’ in the nation's preparedness for a terrorist attack or other threat.”
"One of the continuing problems appears to be the over politicization of the top rank of Department management," the report concludes.
In the Justice Department, as we learned from the case of Monica Goodling, the Administration’s preference has been for graduates of Regent University where professors “integrate biblical principles into areas of the law.”
This year’s student body at Regent was inspired by a lecture on leadership by America’s Mayor Rudy Giuliani, who told them that terrorists “planned to kill us, and they want to do it again.”
But there won't be enough of such highly trained and motivated recruits to fill the Homeland Security void, which may be partly due to the fact that the Department’s employees reported the lowest job satisfaction among 36 federal agencies earlier this year.
But not to worry. The Senate’s Homeland Security Committee passed a bill in March based on the 9/11 Commission’s recommendations that Chairman Joe Lieberman called “a critical step toward building a safer and more secure America for the generations to come."
That nobody is around to implement them is just a minor housekeeping detail.
Bush 41, Edwards, Dowd and Me
In her New York Times column today about John Edwards, Maureen Dowd takes a detour when the candidate tells her that, after praising a book about Socrates, he was “jumped on” because the author, I. F. Stone, was allegedly a Soviet agent.
In response, Dowd writes: “I tell the Democrat that Poppy Bush drolly told the story about his ’64 Texas Senate race, when a John Birch Society pamphlet suggested that Barbara Bush’s father, the president of McCall Publishing, put out a Communist manifesto called Redbook.”
That comes as news to me, and I was editor of Redbook at the time, working for Mrs. Bush’s father, who was as Republican as you can get but had Democrats like me editing his magazines because, as Henry Luce succinctly put it, “Those Republican bastards can’t write.”
Now, almost half a century later, here I am blogging away at the Bushes’ son for subverting American democracy. Maybe those John Birch Society nuts were onto something.
In response, Dowd writes: “I tell the Democrat that Poppy Bush drolly told the story about his ’64 Texas Senate race, when a John Birch Society pamphlet suggested that Barbara Bush’s father, the president of McCall Publishing, put out a Communist manifesto called Redbook.”
That comes as news to me, and I was editor of Redbook at the time, working for Mrs. Bush’s father, who was as Republican as you can get but had Democrats like me editing his magazines because, as Henry Luce succinctly put it, “Those Republican bastards can’t write.”
Now, almost half a century later, here I am blogging away at the Bushes’ son for subverting American democracy. Maybe those John Birch Society nuts were onto something.
Libby: Better Marc Rich Than a Dreyfus
As House Democrats talk of investigating and even censuring President Bush’s commutation of his sentence, Scooter Libby is being compared by Republicans to Marc Rich, the recipient of Bill Clinton’s pardoning largesse.
This debate promises to be more tonic for the state of public morality than the one that would have been followed Bush’s failure to do so.
Imagine the righteous fury of Rush Limbaugh and right-wing bloggers playing Zola to Libby’s Captain Dreyfus with photoshopped images of Cheney’s former chief of staff in prison stripes with numbers on his chest. Compare that to their muttering and bumbling defense of the commutation.
Libby as rescued loser serves the cause of exposing Bush-Cheney lawlessness much better than Libby the martyr would have.
"We're trying to examine the use and misuse of the clemency power and the commutation power," says John Conyers, chairman of the House Judiciary Committee as Rep. Robert Wexler drafts a resolution to censure Bush for "an unconscionable abuse of authority."
With the coming Senate showdown over subpoenas of White House witnesses in the U.S. Attorneys scandal, this proposed examining and censuring, although it will lead nowhere, is a nice side show to the main attraction.
This debate promises to be more tonic for the state of public morality than the one that would have been followed Bush’s failure to do so.
Imagine the righteous fury of Rush Limbaugh and right-wing bloggers playing Zola to Libby’s Captain Dreyfus with photoshopped images of Cheney’s former chief of staff in prison stripes with numbers on his chest. Compare that to their muttering and bumbling defense of the commutation.
Libby as rescued loser serves the cause of exposing Bush-Cheney lawlessness much better than Libby the martyr would have.
"We're trying to examine the use and misuse of the clemency power and the commutation power," says John Conyers, chairman of the House Judiciary Committee as Rep. Robert Wexler drafts a resolution to censure Bush for "an unconscionable abuse of authority."
With the coming Senate showdown over subpoenas of White House witnesses in the U.S. Attorneys scandal, this proposed examining and censuring, although it will lead nowhere, is a nice side show to the main attraction.
Bulletin From the Bush Bunker
One of the few lines of communication into the besieged White House is Plame-thrower Robert Novak, who set off l’affaire Libby by naming Joe Wilson’s wife in print.
From the entrails of Novak’s recent columns, things do not go well for the Decider. Today he reports on the pre-holiday “scouting trip” of the President’s Security Adviser Stephen Hadley to check the mood of senior Senate Republicans.
“The tone set by Hadley,” Novak writes, “signaled that the White House did not understand that Lugar, in his fateful speech on the Senate floor the night of June 25, was sending a distress signal to Bush...that it is imperative he act now. Hadley was told that it is not too late to go back to the Iraq Study Group's 79 recommendations, neglected since their release in December.”
Novak’s account suggests that Bush’s deafness continues: “Based on what Hadley said, one senator concluded that ‘they just do not recognize the depth of the difficulty they are in.’”
In his convoluted style, Novak goes around the barn with Democratic Sen. Carl Levin reporting on generals who turned down the war “czar” job because "hawks within the administration, including Vice President Cheney, remain more powerful than the pragmatists looking for an exit strategy in Iraq."
This month, with an appropriations bill and a House anti-war resolution coming up, Congressional Republicans are going to have to join Democrats in speaking louder and more clearly to be heard. All indicators, including their message through Novak today, are that they will.
From the entrails of Novak’s recent columns, things do not go well for the Decider. Today he reports on the pre-holiday “scouting trip” of the President’s Security Adviser Stephen Hadley to check the mood of senior Senate Republicans.
“The tone set by Hadley,” Novak writes, “signaled that the White House did not understand that Lugar, in his fateful speech on the Senate floor the night of June 25, was sending a distress signal to Bush...that it is imperative he act now. Hadley was told that it is not too late to go back to the Iraq Study Group's 79 recommendations, neglected since their release in December.”
Novak’s account suggests that Bush’s deafness continues: “Based on what Hadley said, one senator concluded that ‘they just do not recognize the depth of the difficulty they are in.’”
In his convoluted style, Novak goes around the barn with Democratic Sen. Carl Levin reporting on generals who turned down the war “czar” job because "hawks within the administration, including Vice President Cheney, remain more powerful than the pragmatists looking for an exit strategy in Iraq."
This month, with an appropriations bill and a House anti-war resolution coming up, Congressional Republicans are going to have to join Democrats in speaking louder and more clearly to be heard. All indicators, including their message through Novak today, are that they will.
Sunday, July 08, 2007
West Coast Social Note
Los Angeles Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa, a Democrat supporting Hillary Clinton for ’08, is taking some heat off the Republican front runners.
Voters are being distracted from questions like the hotness of Fred Thompson’s wife and the serial marriages of Rudy Giuliani by the L.A. soap opera of the Mayor divorcing his wife and admitting to an affair with Telemundo reporter Mirthala Salinas.
"I don't believe that the details of my personal life are relevant to my job,” the Mayor said at a recent press conference. If he really meant that, he is not living in today’s LaLaland but in some Hollywood costume drama of the past century.
No word of Sen. Clinton’s reaction, but the news may be creating flashbacks for her.
Meanwhile, HBO should have Antonio Banderas and Catherine Zeta-Jones standing by for “Villaraigosa, the Movie.”
Voters are being distracted from questions like the hotness of Fred Thompson’s wife and the serial marriages of Rudy Giuliani by the L.A. soap opera of the Mayor divorcing his wife and admitting to an affair with Telemundo reporter Mirthala Salinas.
"I don't believe that the details of my personal life are relevant to my job,” the Mayor said at a recent press conference. If he really meant that, he is not living in today’s LaLaland but in some Hollywood costume drama of the past century.
No word of Sen. Clinton’s reaction, but the news may be creating flashbacks for her.
Meanwhile, HBO should have Antonio Banderas and Catherine Zeta-Jones standing by for “Villaraigosa, the Movie.”
Colin Powell: Shooting the Wounded
Murray Kempton, a great journalist of the century past, once wrote, “There is a certain kind of politician who stays safely in the hills during a battle and then comes down and shoots the wounded.”
It’s painful to apply this to Colin Powell. I admire him in so many ways, but there is no other way to describe what he is doing now. Long after his speaking out or resigning could have made a difference, he is now telling us how hard he tried to persuade George W. Bush not to invade Iraq.
“I tried to avoid this war,” Powell told the Aspen Ideas Festival in Colorado this week. “I took him through the consequences of going into an Arab country and becoming the occupiers.”
Now it’s too late. “The civil war will ultimately be resolved by a test of arms,” he said. “It’s not going to be pretty to watch, but I don’t know any way to avoid it. It is happening now.”
All that U.S. troops can do now, according to Powell, is put “a heavier lid on this pot of boiling sectarian stew.”
The time to have told us that was when Bush’s Neo-Cons were slicing and dicing the truth about Iraq and lighting the fire.
It’s painful to apply this to Colin Powell. I admire him in so many ways, but there is no other way to describe what he is doing now. Long after his speaking out or resigning could have made a difference, he is now telling us how hard he tried to persuade George W. Bush not to invade Iraq.
“I tried to avoid this war,” Powell told the Aspen Ideas Festival in Colorado this week. “I took him through the consequences of going into an Arab country and becoming the occupiers.”
Now it’s too late. “The civil war will ultimately be resolved by a test of arms,” he said. “It’s not going to be pretty to watch, but I don’t know any way to avoid it. It is happening now.”
All that U.S. troops can do now, according to Powell, is put “a heavier lid on this pot of boiling sectarian stew.”
The time to have told us that was when Bush’s Neo-Cons were slicing and dicing the truth about Iraq and lighting the fire.
What's Wrong With America's Newspapers?
If we had been fighting in Iraq 50 years ago, we might have never left. Back then, the morning printfest was the only game in town and, from the performance of American dailies today, there would have been no clamor to get out.
Today, some 51 months, 3600 military deaths and $441 billion after it started, a New York Times editorial finally says, “Enough.” Titled “The Road Home,” it begins: “It is time for the United States to leave Iraq, without any more delay than the Pentagon needs to organize an orderly exit.”
The Times took its time deciding that, yet even so it is in the vanguard.
According to Editor & Publisher, “very few newspapers in the U.S. have endorsed a withdrawal from Iraq or even a timetable for that, despite the overwhelming shift in public opinion on that question. Momentum has started to shift in that direction, however, with a handful of papers --from the Los Angeles Times to, just this week, The Olympian in Washington--backing a pullout.”
Why has it taken so long? Have newspapers under corporate ownership lost touch with their communities and the pain this war has been inflicting on readers? Back when A.J. Liebling famously said, “Freedom of the press is guaranteed to those who own one,” were benevolent publishers more empathic or more responsive?
Not in my long experience. Daily newspapers back then were just as out of touch with public sentiment, routinely endorsing Republican Presidential candidates in the overwhelmingly Democratic era of Roosevelt and Truman.
If there is an answer, it may be in the newspaper tradition of never getting too far ahead of, or in many cases, even abreast of its readers on controversial issues.
During the days of McCarthyism, Vietnam and even Watergate (with only Woodward and Bernstein the dazzling exception), magazines, book publishers and even network TV took the lead in delivering the bad news just as cable and bloggers have been doing about Iraq.
Marshall McLuhan said, “People don’t actually read newspapers. They get into them every morning like a hot bath.”
Finally the New York Times at least has decided it’s time for a cold shower.
Today, some 51 months, 3600 military deaths and $441 billion after it started, a New York Times editorial finally says, “Enough.” Titled “The Road Home,” it begins: “It is time for the United States to leave Iraq, without any more delay than the Pentagon needs to organize an orderly exit.”
The Times took its time deciding that, yet even so it is in the vanguard.
According to Editor & Publisher, “very few newspapers in the U.S. have endorsed a withdrawal from Iraq or even a timetable for that, despite the overwhelming shift in public opinion on that question. Momentum has started to shift in that direction, however, with a handful of papers --from the Los Angeles Times to, just this week, The Olympian in Washington--backing a pullout.”
Why has it taken so long? Have newspapers under corporate ownership lost touch with their communities and the pain this war has been inflicting on readers? Back when A.J. Liebling famously said, “Freedom of the press is guaranteed to those who own one,” were benevolent publishers more empathic or more responsive?
Not in my long experience. Daily newspapers back then were just as out of touch with public sentiment, routinely endorsing Republican Presidential candidates in the overwhelmingly Democratic era of Roosevelt and Truman.
If there is an answer, it may be in the newspaper tradition of never getting too far ahead of, or in many cases, even abreast of its readers on controversial issues.
During the days of McCarthyism, Vietnam and even Watergate (with only Woodward and Bernstein the dazzling exception), magazines, book publishers and even network TV took the lead in delivering the bad news just as cable and bloggers have been doing about Iraq.
Marshall McLuhan said, “People don’t actually read newspapers. They get into them every morning like a hot bath.”
Finally the New York Times at least has decided it’s time for a cold shower.
Reality Check for Nixon's Lying Library
Congressmen who are frustrated by current White House stonewalling may want to look at how long it has taken to get out the truth about our 37th President.
This Wednesday, the Richard Nixon Presidential Library and Museum will re-open after being closed for months to tear out the Watergate Gallery, which for 17 years has been giving visitors a fictionalized version of events that led to his resignation--a “coup” led by his enemies with Woodward and Bernstein “offering bribes” to help distort their coverage.
In March, workers roped off the exhibits and began to destroy the cabinets and plexiglass-sandwiched documents with hammers, crowbars and electric saws.
In 1990, the Library had opened with ceremonies attended by three Republican presidents--Ford, Reagan and George H.W. Bush. What nobody seemed to notice was that Nixon had rewritten Watergate history, edited the crucial Oval Office tapes and omitted any mention of the dirty tricks, break-ins and other illegal activities that led to his impeachment and resignation.
This Alice-in-Wonderland version of Watergate was seen by almost three million visitors before the library, museum and Nixon’s birthplace in Yorba Linda, California were transferred to the National Archives this year, presumably for taxpayers to take over expenses that had previously been underwritten by private donors.
The new federal director ordered demolition of what one Nixon scholar called "another Southern California theme park" with “a level of reality only slightly better than Disneyland" and replace it with what he tactfully describes as less of “a shrine.”
The library will now have 78,000 pages of previously withheld papers and 800 hours of tapes as well as copies of “All the President’s Men” by Woodward and Bernstein in the book store.
One thing that won’t change is that the reproduced White House East Room will still be available “for weddings, bar mitzvahs and other events.”
This Wednesday, the Richard Nixon Presidential Library and Museum will re-open after being closed for months to tear out the Watergate Gallery, which for 17 years has been giving visitors a fictionalized version of events that led to his resignation--a “coup” led by his enemies with Woodward and Bernstein “offering bribes” to help distort their coverage.
In March, workers roped off the exhibits and began to destroy the cabinets and plexiglass-sandwiched documents with hammers, crowbars and electric saws.
In 1990, the Library had opened with ceremonies attended by three Republican presidents--Ford, Reagan and George H.W. Bush. What nobody seemed to notice was that Nixon had rewritten Watergate history, edited the crucial Oval Office tapes and omitted any mention of the dirty tricks, break-ins and other illegal activities that led to his impeachment and resignation.
This Alice-in-Wonderland version of Watergate was seen by almost three million visitors before the library, museum and Nixon’s birthplace in Yorba Linda, California were transferred to the National Archives this year, presumably for taxpayers to take over expenses that had previously been underwritten by private donors.
The new federal director ordered demolition of what one Nixon scholar called "another Southern California theme park" with “a level of reality only slightly better than Disneyland" and replace it with what he tactfully describes as less of “a shrine.”
The library will now have 78,000 pages of previously withheld papers and 800 hours of tapes as well as copies of “All the President’s Men” by Woodward and Bernstein in the book store.
One thing that won’t change is that the reproduced White House East Room will still be available “for weddings, bar mitzvahs and other events.”
Saturday, July 07, 2007
Lindsey Graham Soldiers On
One thing about the senior Senator from South Carolina: He’s tenacious. As the prospective running mate of John McCain, he is resolutely optimistic about two apparently lost causes--his Arizona colleague’s candidacy and the war in Iraq.
But here is Graham, back from another trip to Baghdad with McCain and, as other fearful Republican Senators break ranks, practically breaking into song: “The military part of the surge is working beyond my expectations. We literally have the enemy on the run.”
On this trip, McCain and Graham bypassed the chance to go shopping in Baghdad again, but they did have lunch in Ramadi and attend an Independence Day ceremony at which 161 U.S. troops became naturalized citizens. McCain made a speech, and Graham led the new citizens in reciting the Pledge of Allegiance.
"Morale was very high," Graham said. "It was something to see."
Back home, his support of the McCain-Kennedy immigration bill has infuriated some constituents as well as Rush Limbaugh who has dubbed him Senator "Grahamnesty," which could lead to a challenge in next year’s Republican primary.
If McCain should turn into Rocky Balboa and win, that would be academic. If not, Graham won’t go down. Ever since he rode Bill Clinton’s impeachment to national recognition as a member of the House Judiciary Committee to replace Strom Thurmond in the Senate in 2000, he has always managed to survive.
But here is Graham, back from another trip to Baghdad with McCain and, as other fearful Republican Senators break ranks, practically breaking into song: “The military part of the surge is working beyond my expectations. We literally have the enemy on the run.”
On this trip, McCain and Graham bypassed the chance to go shopping in Baghdad again, but they did have lunch in Ramadi and attend an Independence Day ceremony at which 161 U.S. troops became naturalized citizens. McCain made a speech, and Graham led the new citizens in reciting the Pledge of Allegiance.
"Morale was very high," Graham said. "It was something to see."
Back home, his support of the McCain-Kennedy immigration bill has infuriated some constituents as well as Rush Limbaugh who has dubbed him Senator "Grahamnesty," which could lead to a challenge in next year’s Republican primary.
If McCain should turn into Rocky Balboa and win, that would be academic. If not, Graham won’t go down. Ever since he rode Bill Clinton’s impeachment to national recognition as a member of the House Judiciary Committee to replace Strom Thurmond in the Senate in 2000, he has always managed to survive.
Fred Thompson's Brief Honeymoon
Media cycles are getting shorter. After weeks of blowing kisses at the unannounced candidate who is front-running in Republican polls, reporters are piling on.
Last week’s sighing over his track record with the ladies as a bachelor has turned into clucking over the drawbacks of having a “trophy wife.”
On one coast, the New York Times reports that Thompson’s supporters “have been wrestling with the public reaction to Jeri Kehn Thompson, whose youthfulness, permanent tan and bleached blond hair present a contrast to the 64-year-old man who hopes to win the hearts of the conservative core of the Republican party. Will the so-called values voters accept this union?”
On the other coast, the Los Angeles Times reveals that the former Senator-actor “accepted an assignment from a family-planning group to lobby the first Bush White House to ease a controversial abortion restriction.”
Suddenly, the earthy, straight-shooting country-boy candidate is being re-cast as a dirty old man who talks out of both sides of his mouth about the sacredness of unborn life.
Welcome to 21st century Presidential politics, Senator. After they love you to death, the harpies will turn on you. Ask John McCain about “media payback.”
But don’t be discouraged. The next cycle will undoubtedly be devoted to debunking some of the debunking.
Last week’s sighing over his track record with the ladies as a bachelor has turned into clucking over the drawbacks of having a “trophy wife.”
On one coast, the New York Times reports that Thompson’s supporters “have been wrestling with the public reaction to Jeri Kehn Thompson, whose youthfulness, permanent tan and bleached blond hair present a contrast to the 64-year-old man who hopes to win the hearts of the conservative core of the Republican party. Will the so-called values voters accept this union?”
On the other coast, the Los Angeles Times reveals that the former Senator-actor “accepted an assignment from a family-planning group to lobby the first Bush White House to ease a controversial abortion restriction.”
Suddenly, the earthy, straight-shooting country-boy candidate is being re-cast as a dirty old man who talks out of both sides of his mouth about the sacredness of unborn life.
Welcome to 21st century Presidential politics, Senator. After they love you to death, the harpies will turn on you. Ask John McCain about “media payback.”
But don’t be discouraged. The next cycle will undoubtedly be devoted to debunking some of the debunking.
Clinton-Obama: They I-They Divide
Opinion polls are revealing in the difference between what people say about themselves and an anonymous “they.” Today’s figures from Newsweek show that dramatically.
While 92 percent of respondents would vote for an African American candidate, only 59 percent believe the U.S. is ready. Although 86 percent say they would vote for a woman, only 58 percent believe the country would accept the idea.
That divide, which has been shrinking over the past year, seems to reflect the common tendency to claim “correct” attitudes for one’s self and project ambivalence onto others “out there.”
If so, Sens. Clinton and Obama can take heart that their newness is gradually being accepted.
In this uncharted political terrain, time is helping the former First Lady. When expressing their “comfort level,” more than two-thirds of voters feel Clinton has enough experience in government to be a good president. For Obama, the number is 40 percent.
Whichever of them becomes the Democratic nominee will benefit from this long season of persuading Americans to bridge the gap between themselves and the anonymous “they” toward a confident “we.”
While 92 percent of respondents would vote for an African American candidate, only 59 percent believe the U.S. is ready. Although 86 percent say they would vote for a woman, only 58 percent believe the country would accept the idea.
That divide, which has been shrinking over the past year, seems to reflect the common tendency to claim “correct” attitudes for one’s self and project ambivalence onto others “out there.”
If so, Sens. Clinton and Obama can take heart that their newness is gradually being accepted.
In this uncharted political terrain, time is helping the former First Lady. When expressing their “comfort level,” more than two-thirds of voters feel Clinton has enough experience in government to be a good president. For Obama, the number is 40 percent.
Whichever of them becomes the Democratic nominee will benefit from this long season of persuading Americans to bridge the gap between themselves and the anonymous “they” toward a confident “we.”
Friday, July 06, 2007
All the Votes Money Can Buy
Despite the clamor over his defecating dog, Mitt Romney is in clover for the early primary races. Polls show him ahead in Iowa and New Hampshire after starting the year in single digits.
But that was $32 million and 4,500 commercials ago. While McCain, struggling to raise money, lays off staffers and Giuliani keeps repeating his mantra, 9/11, Romney has been selling his blandness like soap or toothpaste, boosting his brand share seven to nine percentage points above them in those early states.
Nationally, the man who has spent $0 million, still undeclared Fred Thompson seems to be proving that absence makes voters hearts grow fonder by taking a 27-24 percent lead over Giuliani.
But Romney can’t keep spending at that pace and Thompson can’t hide forever. Will charisma trump cash? But then again, New York billionaire Mayor Mike Bloomberg, now a former Republican, may come in to run as an Independent.
If he does, the question becomes moot.
But that was $32 million and 4,500 commercials ago. While McCain, struggling to raise money, lays off staffers and Giuliani keeps repeating his mantra, 9/11, Romney has been selling his blandness like soap or toothpaste, boosting his brand share seven to nine percentage points above them in those early states.
Nationally, the man who has spent $0 million, still undeclared Fred Thompson seems to be proving that absence makes voters hearts grow fonder by taking a 27-24 percent lead over Giuliani.
But Romney can’t keep spending at that pace and Thompson can’t hide forever. Will charisma trump cash? But then again, New York billionaire Mayor Mike Bloomberg, now a former Republican, may come in to run as an Independent.
If he does, the question becomes moot.
Sound Study of Sexual Differences
Results of new research published in Science show that, contrary to popular belief, women don’t talk more than men—-at least, not much.
From microphones on 396 college students for up to 10 days, researchers found only a slight difference in the amount of verbiage: women, 16,215. men, 15,669.
You don’t say.
From microphones on 396 college students for up to 10 days, researchers found only a slight difference in the amount of verbiage: women, 16,215. men, 15,669.
You don’t say.
Supreme Court Racist: Free at Last
As he goes off on vacation, perhaps to write the book for which Rupert Murdoch gave him a $1 million advance, Clarence Thomas can take satisfaction in having embarked on his real life’s work--dismantling the progress in race relations since Brown v Board of Education in 1954.
In her syndicated column today, Ellen Goodman points out a significant statement by the usually silent Supreme Court Justice in the decision striking down voluntary integration plans in Seattle and Louisville schools:
“One sentence leaps out of the footnotes: ‘Nothing but an interest in classroom aesthetics and a hypersensitivity to elite sensibilities justifies the school districts' racial balancing programs.’ He trivialized the values of diversity to a matter of aesthetics and closed with a warning: ‘beware of elites bearing racial theories.’ So much for a half-century of civil rights.”
With Bush appointees Roberts and Alito enabling a 5-4 conservative majority on the Court, Thomas is, in the words of the man who made it possible for him to pursue his life goal, “free at last” to express his inner disdain for African-Americans without the skills, desire or coldness of heart to Uncle Tom their way to the top.
Thomas didn’t invent the stereotype of a self-hating minority member--Jews have had their share--but he is practicing the art at the highest level ever.
In her syndicated column today, Ellen Goodman points out a significant statement by the usually silent Supreme Court Justice in the decision striking down voluntary integration plans in Seattle and Louisville schools:
“One sentence leaps out of the footnotes: ‘Nothing but an interest in classroom aesthetics and a hypersensitivity to elite sensibilities justifies the school districts' racial balancing programs.’ He trivialized the values of diversity to a matter of aesthetics and closed with a warning: ‘beware of elites bearing racial theories.’ So much for a half-century of civil rights.”
With Bush appointees Roberts and Alito enabling a 5-4 conservative majority on the Court, Thomas is, in the words of the man who made it possible for him to pursue his life goal, “free at last” to express his inner disdain for African-Americans without the skills, desire or coldness of heart to Uncle Tom their way to the top.
Thomas didn’t invent the stereotype of a self-hating minority member--Jews have had their share--but he is practicing the art at the highest level ever.
Our Own Tiny Axis of Evil
In today’s Wall Street Journal, Sen. Joe Lieberman achieves a rare feat in the history of puckering up to powerful backsides—-not only fronting for Bush and Cheney but blowing a kiss to the Journal’s soon-to-be-owner Rupert Murdoch with an OpEd urging Congress to “respond” to Iran’s “offensive against us throughout the Middle East.”
While the rest of our lawmakers, including endangered Republicans, are trying to disentangle from Iraq, Independent Joe, safely reelected last year after being repudiated in the Democratic primary, has a new mess for us to jump into in his favorite part of the world.
“The Iranian government, by its actions, has all but declared war on us and our allies in the Middle East,” he proclaims. “America now has a solemn responsibility to utilize the instruments of our national power to convince Tehran to change its behavior, including the immediate cessation of its training and equipping extremists who are killing our troops.”
This follows up on his chest-pounding last month on CBS’ Face the Nation that “we've got to be prepared to take aggressive military action against the Iranians to stop them from killing Americans in Iraq."
As a weakened President Ahmadinejad tries to cope with unrest in Iran, Lieberman keeps handing him rhetoric to unite his country against the threat of the Great Satan.
Way to go, Joe. You're getting to be a 97-pound gorilla. Do you have anything in mind for North Korea?
While the rest of our lawmakers, including endangered Republicans, are trying to disentangle from Iraq, Independent Joe, safely reelected last year after being repudiated in the Democratic primary, has a new mess for us to jump into in his favorite part of the world.
“The Iranian government, by its actions, has all but declared war on us and our allies in the Middle East,” he proclaims. “America now has a solemn responsibility to utilize the instruments of our national power to convince Tehran to change its behavior, including the immediate cessation of its training and equipping extremists who are killing our troops.”
This follows up on his chest-pounding last month on CBS’ Face the Nation that “we've got to be prepared to take aggressive military action against the Iranians to stop them from killing Americans in Iraq."
As a weakened President Ahmadinejad tries to cope with unrest in Iran, Lieberman keeps handing him rhetoric to unite his country against the threat of the Great Satan.
Way to go, Joe. You're getting to be a 97-pound gorilla. Do you have anything in mind for North Korea?
Republican Retreat From Iraq
As the tote board fills up with GOP diehards ready to pull out our troops, there should be satisfaction and relief for those who have opposed this insane war from the start. But there is only rage and disgust at what it has taken to get them there.
Sen. Pete Domenici now solemnly announces he has “carefully studied” the situation and decided to “support a new strategy that will move our troops out of combat operations and on the path to coming home."
He joins Hagel, Lugar, Warner, Voinovich, Norm Coleman, Gordon Smith and Lamar Alexander in defecting from the Bush fiasco. Others will follow.
Domenici has been in the Senate 34 years, but his safe seat will be tested next year not only because of his unfailing loyalty to a failed policy but the testimony of ousted U. S. Attorney David Iglesias that Domenici pressured him to speed up prosecution of Democrats before last year’s election.
So it is clear that Domenici’s decision to stop sending young men and women to be killed in Iraq is based, not on seeing them as human beings to be saved, but on his narrow self-interest. If public opinion hadn’t turned against the war, he would still be for it.
What kind of people make life-and-death decisions solely on what’s in it for them? If Domenici thought the war was justified last week, last month, last year, what else but fear of losing his cushy job has changed his mind? What has he “carefully studied?” Where has he been?
Disgust is too mild a word for the feelings roused by watching these weasels crawl toward doing what’s right in the hope of saving their own skins. But let’s get on with it and stop the bloodshed.
Sen. Pete Domenici now solemnly announces he has “carefully studied” the situation and decided to “support a new strategy that will move our troops out of combat operations and on the path to coming home."
He joins Hagel, Lugar, Warner, Voinovich, Norm Coleman, Gordon Smith and Lamar Alexander in defecting from the Bush fiasco. Others will follow.
Domenici has been in the Senate 34 years, but his safe seat will be tested next year not only because of his unfailing loyalty to a failed policy but the testimony of ousted U. S. Attorney David Iglesias that Domenici pressured him to speed up prosecution of Democrats before last year’s election.
So it is clear that Domenici’s decision to stop sending young men and women to be killed in Iraq is based, not on seeing them as human beings to be saved, but on his narrow self-interest. If public opinion hadn’t turned against the war, he would still be for it.
What kind of people make life-and-death decisions solely on what’s in it for them? If Domenici thought the war was justified last week, last month, last year, what else but fear of losing his cushy job has changed his mind? What has he “carefully studied?” Where has he been?
Disgust is too mild a word for the feelings roused by watching these weasels crawl toward doing what’s right in the hope of saving their own skins. But let’s get on with it and stop the bloodshed.
Thursday, July 05, 2007
Hugh Grant's "Pretty Woman"
In the Cinderella ending of the most romantic hooker movie ever made, Richard Gere climbs a fire escape ladder to save Julia Roberts from The Life.
Now we have a real-life counterpart, sort of, in the story of Divine Brown, who has gone on to fame and fortune after an encounter with Hugh Grant twelve years ago.
The transaction went public after police officers noticed the brake lights of the actor’s BMW convertible flashing on and off as he was being orally stimulated by Ms. Brown, leading to headlines over their arrest for lewd behavior.
Her 15 minutes of fame, thanks to the debonair British movie star, took Ms. Brown from a shabby Oakland apartment to what the Daily Mail describes as a four-bedroom home near Beverly Hills, driving a Mercedes Benz and wearing a mink coat, diamond earrings, and more diamonds around her neck, ankles and feet. She has put two daughters through private school and is still making lucrative appearances on TV shows and in commercials.
Mr. Grant, however, was led away in handicuffs, fined $800, sentenced to attend an AIDS awareness program, lost his girl friend, Elizabeth Hurley, and had to go on the “Tonight” show to make a contrite confession to Jay Leno.
While it isn’t quite “Pretty Woman” or “Love, Actually,” it certainly is a 21st century reversal of the old axiom, “It’s always the woman who pays.”
Now we have a real-life counterpart, sort of, in the story of Divine Brown, who has gone on to fame and fortune after an encounter with Hugh Grant twelve years ago.
The transaction went public after police officers noticed the brake lights of the actor’s BMW convertible flashing on and off as he was being orally stimulated by Ms. Brown, leading to headlines over their arrest for lewd behavior.
Her 15 minutes of fame, thanks to the debonair British movie star, took Ms. Brown from a shabby Oakland apartment to what the Daily Mail describes as a four-bedroom home near Beverly Hills, driving a Mercedes Benz and wearing a mink coat, diamond earrings, and more diamonds around her neck, ankles and feet. She has put two daughters through private school and is still making lucrative appearances on TV shows and in commercials.
Mr. Grant, however, was led away in handicuffs, fined $800, sentenced to attend an AIDS awareness program, lost his girl friend, Elizabeth Hurley, and had to go on the “Tonight” show to make a contrite confession to Jay Leno.
While it isn’t quite “Pretty Woman” or “Love, Actually,” it certainly is a 21st century reversal of the old axiom, “It’s always the woman who pays.”
Arkansan for "Chutzpah"
The President’s Press Secretary Tony Snow asked a linguistics question today in response to the Clintons’ criticism of President Bush’s commutation of Scooter Libby’s sentence.
Always eager to further the education of the White House culturally deprived, herewith a definition: Chutzpah is an old Ozark expression for the meshugas of taking a nation into war by lying, trying to discredit those who expose the lies and then, when one of the smearers is caught and convicted, sanctimoniously springing him for self-protection.
Gezundtheit, Mr. Press Secretary.
Always eager to further the education of the White House culturally deprived, herewith a definition: Chutzpah is an old Ozark expression for the meshugas of taking a nation into war by lying, trying to discredit those who expose the lies and then, when one of the smearers is caught and convicted, sanctimoniously springing him for self-protection.
Gezundtheit, Mr. Press Secretary.
Bush as George Washington
The cliché about people gone over the edge used to be thinking they were Napoleon. George Bush, who never falters in his patriotism, is convinced he’s George Washington.
The delusional attempt to impersonate a great military commander is understandable in those who feel overwhelmed by stress and impotent to deal with it.
Yesterday Bush told a huge hangarful of Air National Guard members: “Our first Independence Day celebration took place in a midst of a war--a bloody and difficult struggle that would not end for six more years before America finally secured her freedom.
“Like those early patriots, you’re fighting a new and unprecedented war--pledging your lives and honor to defend our freedom and way of life.”
The President did not wear the dress-up flight suit of the “Mission Accomplished” speech on the aircraft carrier so no one had the heart to tell him that Iraq is not colonial America, the al Qaeda folks are not Redcoats and he is not Washington crossing the Delaware--not until January 2009 when the proper attire may be a straightjacket.
The delusional attempt to impersonate a great military commander is understandable in those who feel overwhelmed by stress and impotent to deal with it.
Yesterday Bush told a huge hangarful of Air National Guard members: “Our first Independence Day celebration took place in a midst of a war--a bloody and difficult struggle that would not end for six more years before America finally secured her freedom.
“Like those early patriots, you’re fighting a new and unprecedented war--pledging your lives and honor to defend our freedom and way of life.”
The President did not wear the dress-up flight suit of the “Mission Accomplished” speech on the aircraft carrier so no one had the heart to tell him that Iraq is not colonial America, the al Qaeda folks are not Redcoats and he is not Washington crossing the Delaware--not until January 2009 when the proper attire may be a straightjacket.
Edwards: Hair Is His Lewinsky
At first, it just seemed like an indiscretion, a couple of $400 haircuts while he was away from home. But John Edwards’ passion for his hair is now a full-blown campaign issue with his Beverly Hills stylist telling all today to the Washington Post.
It started, as these things often do, with a few casual trims in 2003 and 2004 and no money changing hands. The stylist Joseph Torreneuva waived his usual $175 fee. "I was just doing it because I'm a Democrat," he recalled.
But since then it has gone on to expensive trysts in California hotels, Washington, Ohio and a $1250 session in Atlanta.
How will the affair of the hair affect Edwards’ presidential hopes? As always, it may be less about what actually happened than Edwards’ attempt to cover it up. When the $400 do’s went public, the candidate claimed his staff had arranged for them and he didn’t know how much they cost.
So far in all this, there is no suggestion of Edwards lying under oath, but it’s clear he is going to have a bad hair year.
It started, as these things often do, with a few casual trims in 2003 and 2004 and no money changing hands. The stylist Joseph Torreneuva waived his usual $175 fee. "I was just doing it because I'm a Democrat," he recalled.
But since then it has gone on to expensive trysts in California hotels, Washington, Ohio and a $1250 session in Atlanta.
How will the affair of the hair affect Edwards’ presidential hopes? As always, it may be less about what actually happened than Edwards’ attempt to cover it up. When the $400 do’s went public, the candidate claimed his staff had arranged for them and he didn’t know how much they cost.
So far in all this, there is no suggestion of Edwards lying under oath, but it’s clear he is going to have a bad hair year.
Busy Year Ahead for Secret Service
When a President’s daughter, Lynda Bird Johnson, was working for me, I got to know her Secret Service agents quite well. One of them almost shot me at Trader Vic’s in Manhattan.
An agent new to her detail saw me put my arms around her when we unexpectedly met and, as I later learned, was “ready to react.”
As we know from endless movies, protecting presidents is a job that calls for an unusual combination of courage, judgment and quick reflexes. In the coming year, the Secret Service will be hard-pressed to provide enough of them.
After 9/11, the Bush administration doubled the number of top officials for protection, from 26 to 54.
The agency will need 103 new agents for President Bush and his family when he leaves office in January and, for all those who want to replace him, is proposing to spend more than $100 million on campaign protection in 2008, roughly $35 million more than in 2004.
Because of undisclosed threats, the Service is already spending $44,000 a day on around-the-clock security for Barack Obama in addition to the protection provided for Hillary Clinton as a former First Lady. At some point, they will be assigned to other candidates as well.
This burden will draw some agents away from other investigations, of financial crimes and Homeland Security matters.
All in all, we are in an era when protection is a growth industry.
An agent new to her detail saw me put my arms around her when we unexpectedly met and, as I later learned, was “ready to react.”
As we know from endless movies, protecting presidents is a job that calls for an unusual combination of courage, judgment and quick reflexes. In the coming year, the Secret Service will be hard-pressed to provide enough of them.
After 9/11, the Bush administration doubled the number of top officials for protection, from 26 to 54.
The agency will need 103 new agents for President Bush and his family when he leaves office in January and, for all those who want to replace him, is proposing to spend more than $100 million on campaign protection in 2008, roughly $35 million more than in 2004.
Because of undisclosed threats, the Service is already spending $44,000 a day on around-the-clock security for Barack Obama in addition to the protection provided for Hillary Clinton as a former First Lady. At some point, they will be assigned to other candidates as well.
This burden will draw some agents away from other investigations, of financial crimes and Homeland Security matters.
All in all, we are in an era when protection is a growth industry.
Wednesday, July 04, 2007
Doggone American!
The newest inductee into my personal Hall of Fame is a 23-year-old college student named Joseph Christian Chestnut who today, fittingly enough, brought back home the world title in that most American of sports, hot dog eating, by defeating six-time defending champion Takeru Kobayashi. The final score was 66-63 in 12 minutes.
Those old enough to remember Pearl Harbor wept at this latest vindication of our national honor. Mr. Chestnut’s feat was only slightly marred by the fact that Mr. Kobayashi was suffering from an injury that left him unable to open his mouth more than the width of a fingernail.
Those fastidious few who scoff at events sanctioned by the International Federation of Competitive Eating during a time of world hunger fail to understand how they foster an Olympic-like spirit among enthusiasts who avidly consume news about competition in hamburgers, pie, pork ribs and shortcake, among other comestibles.
Their spirit was perhaps best reflected at today’s contest by a fan waving a sign, “Give peas a chance!”
Those old enough to remember Pearl Harbor wept at this latest vindication of our national honor. Mr. Chestnut’s feat was only slightly marred by the fact that Mr. Kobayashi was suffering from an injury that left him unable to open his mouth more than the width of a fingernail.
Those fastidious few who scoff at events sanctioned by the International Federation of Competitive Eating during a time of world hunger fail to understand how they foster an Olympic-like spirit among enthusiasts who avidly consume news about competition in hamburgers, pie, pork ribs and shortcake, among other comestibles.
Their spirit was perhaps best reflected at today’s contest by a fan waving a sign, “Give peas a chance!”
Madness, Theirs and Ours
At the end of "The Bridge on the River Kwai," after the carnage caused by fanaticism and misplaced loyalties, a dazed British doctor wanders among the bodies, repeating over and over, "Madness, madness."
That image can be the only response to the revelation now that an al Qaeda leader told a British cleric who lives in Iraq that "those who cure you will kill you."
Canon Andrew White, who heads Baghdad’s only Anglican parish, met him at a meeting about religious reconciliation held in Amman, the Jordanian capital: “He talked to me about how they were going to destroy British and Americans. He told me that the plans were already made and they would soon be destroying the British. He said the people who cure you would kill you.”
Looking back, the cleric says, "I met the Devil that day."
Canon White is too generous. If he exists, Satan would surely be more devilishly clever and competent than this band of insane thugs. As we face threats from their counterparts, madness is a more accurate diagnosis.
N.B. Six months ago, I used the "River Kwai" image in reaction to President Bush's proposed Surge. It still applies.
That image can be the only response to the revelation now that an al Qaeda leader told a British cleric who lives in Iraq that "those who cure you will kill you."
Canon Andrew White, who heads Baghdad’s only Anglican parish, met him at a meeting about religious reconciliation held in Amman, the Jordanian capital: “He talked to me about how they were going to destroy British and Americans. He told me that the plans were already made and they would soon be destroying the British. He said the people who cure you would kill you.”
Looking back, the cleric says, "I met the Devil that day."
Canon White is too generous. If he exists, Satan would surely be more devilishly clever and competent than this band of insane thugs. As we face threats from their counterparts, madness is a more accurate diagnosis.
N.B. Six months ago, I used the "River Kwai" image in reaction to President Bush's proposed Surge. It still applies.
Ahmadinejad, Oliver Stone Trade Barbs
The movie-maker who never met an anti-American he didn’t want to film has met his match. The president of Iran has refused to cooperate with Oliver Stone, his flack saying that Stone may be “considered part of the opposition in the U.S., but he is still part of the Great Satan."
A friend of Fidel Castro who is unaccustomed to being turned down by tinpot dictators, Stone responded with the unkindest cut of all, comparing Ahmadinejad to George Bush.
"I wish the Iranian people well,” Stone said, “and only hope their experience with an inept, rigid ideologue president goes better than ours."
Then again, Ahmadinejad may be a film buff who has seen JFK, Nixon and other paranoid biopics of Stone’s. On his blog a while back, the President praised “Iranian filmmakers who refused to participate in a Denmark film festival in protest at the blasphemous caricature published by a Danish newspaper against Prophet Mohammad (Peace Be Upon Him) last year.”
The man is a tough critic.
A friend of Fidel Castro who is unaccustomed to being turned down by tinpot dictators, Stone responded with the unkindest cut of all, comparing Ahmadinejad to George Bush.
"I wish the Iranian people well,” Stone said, “and only hope their experience with an inept, rigid ideologue president goes better than ours."
Then again, Ahmadinejad may be a film buff who has seen JFK, Nixon and other paranoid biopics of Stone’s. On his blog a while back, the President praised “Iranian filmmakers who refused to participate in a Denmark film festival in protest at the blasphemous caricature published by a Danish newspaper against Prophet Mohammad (Peace Be Upon Him) last year.”
The man is a tough critic.
From Medicine to Mass Murder
The aborted bombings in Britain raise the question of how men trained as healers could be converted to indiscriminate killers.
What political, ethnic and/or religious grievances would persuade them to turn from saving lives to taking them?
The British equivalent of the Hippocratic Oath, as formulated by the General Medical Council, obligates physicians, among other duties, to:
“Make the care of your patient your first concern.
“Protect and promote the health of patients and the public.
“Never abuse your patients' trust in you or the public's trust in the profession.”
How do doctors and medical workers go from treating diseases and wounds to packing cars with gasoline, gas cylinders and nails to explode and kill or mutilate as many innocent human beings as possible?
How can they be transformed from serving a society to trying to destroy it and in the name of what sacred cause?
Even more horrific is the possibility that some or all came to Britain as sleepers with the intention of terrorism, multitudes of Manchurian Candidates waiting to strike.
Their ineptitude argues against that, but it certainly is possible.
In any case, the fact that they failed doesn’t erase the haunting questions. Whatever answers we get will tell us painful things about the human condition in the 21st century.
What political, ethnic and/or religious grievances would persuade them to turn from saving lives to taking them?
The British equivalent of the Hippocratic Oath, as formulated by the General Medical Council, obligates physicians, among other duties, to:
“Make the care of your patient your first concern.
“Protect and promote the health of patients and the public.
“Never abuse your patients' trust in you or the public's trust in the profession.”
How do doctors and medical workers go from treating diseases and wounds to packing cars with gasoline, gas cylinders and nails to explode and kill or mutilate as many innocent human beings as possible?
How can they be transformed from serving a society to trying to destroy it and in the name of what sacred cause?
Even more horrific is the possibility that some or all came to Britain as sleepers with the intention of terrorism, multitudes of Manchurian Candidates waiting to strike.
Their ineptitude argues against that, but it certainly is possible.
In any case, the fact that they failed doesn’t erase the haunting questions. Whatever answers we get will tell us painful things about the human condition in the 21st century.
Tuesday, July 03, 2007
O.J. Gives Valerie and Joe Wilson New Hope
On the heels of Scooter Libby’s escape from jail, Valerie Plame and Joe Wilson can take heart from a new court decision in Florida, made ten years after Fred Goldman filed a civil suit against O.J. Simpson.
A judge has awarded the victim’s family all rights to O.J.’s pseudo-confession, “If I Did It,” which they may rename “Confessions of a Double Murderer.”
"Ron Goldman LLC will own Simpson's name, likeness, signature and story and will hawk it to satisfy this terrible judgment," the family’s lawyer announced. "Justice has arrived in Miami."
This decision should hearten the Wilsons as they pursue their civil suit against Dick Cheney, Karl Rove, Richard Armitage and Libby.
Their feelings may be tempered, however, by the realization that, if and when they win their case, the value of those names, likenesses and signatures may have plummeted in the market for trashy stories.
A judge has awarded the victim’s family all rights to O.J.’s pseudo-confession, “If I Did It,” which they may rename “Confessions of a Double Murderer.”
"Ron Goldman LLC will own Simpson's name, likeness, signature and story and will hawk it to satisfy this terrible judgment," the family’s lawyer announced. "Justice has arrived in Miami."
This decision should hearten the Wilsons as they pursue their civil suit against Dick Cheney, Karl Rove, Richard Armitage and Libby.
Their feelings may be tempered, however, by the realization that, if and when they win their case, the value of those names, likenesses and signatures may have plummeted in the market for trashy stories.
When They Look Back at Libby
Future researchers digging through the legal and political rubble of US v. I. Lewis Libby may be puzzled to find:
“If there's a leak out of my administration, I want to know who it is," the President said in 2004 about the outing of Valerie Plame. "If the person has violated law, that person will be taken care of.”
In 2007, he took care of the leaker by commuting his 30-month sentence before it started.
Libby, who was found guilty, did not serve one minute. A New York Times reporter was behind bars for 85 days.
The Vice President’s former chief of staff was fined $250,000. His admirers raised $5 million for his defense, none of which, they insisted, would be used to pay that obligation.
The day after the commutation, a New York Times editorial titled “Soft on Crime” said Mr. Bush “sounded like a man worried about what a former loyalist might say when actually staring into a prison cell.”
The same day on the facing page, columnist David Brooks wrote: “The farce is over. It has no significance. Nobody but Libby’s family will remember it in a few weeks time.”
Whatever those future researchers conclude, they may find it a curious setback for the rule of law, separation of powers, freedom of the press and, perhaps most of all, plain-spoken honesty in public discourse.
“If there's a leak out of my administration, I want to know who it is," the President said in 2004 about the outing of Valerie Plame. "If the person has violated law, that person will be taken care of.”
In 2007, he took care of the leaker by commuting his 30-month sentence before it started.
Libby, who was found guilty, did not serve one minute. A New York Times reporter was behind bars for 85 days.
The Vice President’s former chief of staff was fined $250,000. His admirers raised $5 million for his defense, none of which, they insisted, would be used to pay that obligation.
The day after the commutation, a New York Times editorial titled “Soft on Crime” said Mr. Bush “sounded like a man worried about what a former loyalist might say when actually staring into a prison cell.”
The same day on the facing page, columnist David Brooks wrote: “The farce is over. It has no significance. Nobody but Libby’s family will remember it in a few weeks time.”
Whatever those future researchers conclude, they may find it a curious setback for the rule of law, separation of powers, freedom of the press and, perhaps most of all, plain-spoken honesty in public discourse.
Tall Corn in Iowa
Half a century ago, in “The Music Man,” there was a song about Iowa being contrary: “And we're so by God stubborn/We can stand touchin' noses/For a week at a time/And never see eye-to-eye.”
This week the state’s Republicans updated the lyrics for a political visit by the Clintons: "After Bill Clinton tarnished the name of the president of the United States, the Republican Party restored hope, respect and morality within the Oval Office by bringing positive ideas and conservative values back to the White House," the Party said in an e-mail to reporters.
To round out the picture, the U.S. Department of Agriculture is reporting that “Iowa’s corn growers are poised to harvest the biggest acreage ever.”
This week the state’s Republicans updated the lyrics for a political visit by the Clintons: "After Bill Clinton tarnished the name of the president of the United States, the Republican Party restored hope, respect and morality within the Oval Office by bringing positive ideas and conservative values back to the White House," the Party said in an e-mail to reporters.
To round out the picture, the U.S. Department of Agriculture is reporting that “Iowa’s corn growers are poised to harvest the biggest acreage ever.”
Iffy Expert on White House Crime
After the Scooter Libby commutation, Keith Olbermann interviewed two people this evening--former Ambassador Joe Wilson, husband of Valerie Plame, the object of Libby’s lying and obstruction of justice, and John Dean, Nixon’s White House counsel in his new career as the Bush Administration’s harshest critic.
For someone who lived through and reported on the Watergate years, Dean’s resurrection is a little hard to take. It’s like listening to sermons from a whore. For those too young to remember, this from Wikipedia’s will serve as a catch-up:
“Dean pled guilty to obstruction of justice before Watergate trial judge John Sirica on November 30, 1973. He admitted supervising payments of ‘hush money’ to the Watergate burglars, notably E. Howard Hunt, and revealed the existence of Nixon's enemies list.
“On August 2, 1974, Sirica handed down a sentence of one to four years in a minimum-security prison. However, when Dean surrendered himself as scheduled on September 3, he was diverted to the custody of U.S. Marshals and kept instead at Fort Holabird (near Baltimore, Maryland) in a special ‘safe house’ holding facility primarily used for witnesses against the Mafia.
“He spent his days in the offices of the Watergate Special Prosecutor and testifying in the trial of Watergate conspirators Mitchell, Haldeman, Ehrlichman, Robert Mardian, and Kenneth Parkinson, which concluded on January 1, 1975. Dean's lawyer moved to have his sentence reduced, and on January 8, Sirica granted the motion, adjusting Dean's sentence to time served.”
Civilized human beings believe in redemption, but does that extend to making the fallen experts and moral arbiters? Dean was a willing White House accomplice to criminal activity until he saved his skin by helping expose the people he worked for and with.
That’s understandable, but more sensitive souls will pardon me for not wanting to hear his opinions on today’s public morality ad nauseam. Olbermann might think about finding instead some of the people who risked their careers opposing Nixon’s criminality while he still had power.
If Alberto Gonzales or any of his cohorts finally spill the beans on Rove and Bush out of fear of going to prison, that will be fine for American democracy. But will it mean having to listen to them as moral exemplars during some scandal decades from now?
For someone who lived through and reported on the Watergate years, Dean’s resurrection is a little hard to take. It’s like listening to sermons from a whore. For those too young to remember, this from Wikipedia’s will serve as a catch-up:
“Dean pled guilty to obstruction of justice before Watergate trial judge John Sirica on November 30, 1973. He admitted supervising payments of ‘hush money’ to the Watergate burglars, notably E. Howard Hunt, and revealed the existence of Nixon's enemies list.
“On August 2, 1974, Sirica handed down a sentence of one to four years in a minimum-security prison. However, when Dean surrendered himself as scheduled on September 3, he was diverted to the custody of U.S. Marshals and kept instead at Fort Holabird (near Baltimore, Maryland) in a special ‘safe house’ holding facility primarily used for witnesses against the Mafia.
“He spent his days in the offices of the Watergate Special Prosecutor and testifying in the trial of Watergate conspirators Mitchell, Haldeman, Ehrlichman, Robert Mardian, and Kenneth Parkinson, which concluded on January 1, 1975. Dean's lawyer moved to have his sentence reduced, and on January 8, Sirica granted the motion, adjusting Dean's sentence to time served.”
Civilized human beings believe in redemption, but does that extend to making the fallen experts and moral arbiters? Dean was a willing White House accomplice to criminal activity until he saved his skin by helping expose the people he worked for and with.
That’s understandable, but more sensitive souls will pardon me for not wanting to hear his opinions on today’s public morality ad nauseam. Olbermann might think about finding instead some of the people who risked their careers opposing Nixon’s criminality while he still had power.
If Alberto Gonzales or any of his cohorts finally spill the beans on Rove and Bush out of fear of going to prison, that will be fine for American democracy. But will it mean having to listen to them as moral exemplars during some scandal decades from now?
Monday, July 02, 2007
A Confessional Commutation
The President proved today that there is honor among thieves. His commutation of Scooter Libby's sentence is a confession of guilt on his own behalf and that of his Vice President.
Failing Upward, Going In
Two days after cleaning out his desk at the World Bank after resigning in disgrace, Paul Wolfowitz has a new job advising the American Enterprise Institute on "entrepreneurship and development issues, Africa and public-private partnerships."
The good news is tempered by word that Wolfowitz's colleague in getting us into Iraq will have to start serving his 30-month term as soon as the U.S. Bureau of Prisons tells him where and when.
Life just isn't fair.
The good news is tempered by word that Wolfowitz's colleague in getting us into Iraq will have to start serving his 30-month term as soon as the U.S. Bureau of Prisons tells him where and when.
Life just isn't fair.
Non-Stop Newt Is Too Busy to Run
The Energizer Bunny of American politics has too much on his plate to campaign for the White House. "The presidency is a minor post on the scale of change I'm describing," he tells the Washington Post.
But a moment later, he sounds like Alfred P. Doolittle (in “My Fair Lady”): "I don't have to be president," he says. "I'd be willing to be president."
Gingrich is an assembly line thinker-—if you don’t like one theory, another will be right along. “He has a new idea every five seconds," says Tom DeLay, a former House colleague and no admirer. “He's trying to appeal to everyone and cover up who he really is--which is typical of Newt."
But then, DeLay is still facing money-laundering charges while the object of his scorn is, according to the Post, running “a multimillion-dollar enterprise that keeps three dozen camp followers gainfully employed and Gingrich earning what he terms ‘adequate’ income in the seven figures.”
If he gives in and decides to run, there will be some explaining to do, even to conservatives, about shutting down the government in 1995, impeaching Bill Clinton for office sex while carrying on an affair in his own and, later, having to pay a $300,000 fine by the House ethics committee. But if anyone can, the voluble former Speaker of the House is the man.
If not, Gingrich will settle for being Benjamin Franklin: “He didn't think he was less than Washington or Jefferson. He was deliberately eclectic and deliberately complex, and happy to be so. He was pretty interesting. If you had told him, 'If you could have been simple, you could have been president,' he would have said, 'That's pretty stupid.'"
But a moment later, he sounds like Alfred P. Doolittle (in “My Fair Lady”): "I don't have to be president," he says. "I'd be willing to be president."
Gingrich is an assembly line thinker-—if you don’t like one theory, another will be right along. “He has a new idea every five seconds," says Tom DeLay, a former House colleague and no admirer. “He's trying to appeal to everyone and cover up who he really is--which is typical of Newt."
But then, DeLay is still facing money-laundering charges while the object of his scorn is, according to the Post, running “a multimillion-dollar enterprise that keeps three dozen camp followers gainfully employed and Gingrich earning what he terms ‘adequate’ income in the seven figures.”
If he gives in and decides to run, there will be some explaining to do, even to conservatives, about shutting down the government in 1995, impeaching Bill Clinton for office sex while carrying on an affair in his own and, later, having to pay a $300,000 fine by the House ethics committee. But if anyone can, the voluble former Speaker of the House is the man.
If not, Gingrich will settle for being Benjamin Franklin: “He didn't think he was less than Washington or Jefferson. He was deliberately eclectic and deliberately complex, and happy to be so. He was pretty interesting. If you had told him, 'If you could have been simple, you could have been president,' he would have said, 'That's pretty stupid.'"
Clinton-Obama: Sound Bites and Bucks
Barack Obama won the fund-raising contest for the past quarter, but Hillary Clinton “won” the Democratic debate Thursday night and holds a big lead in the polls.
In the coming months, we may be seeing a contest of “new politics” that isn’t quite what analysts have been predicting. Their demographic newness is obvious--first woman President, first of color--but Clinton and Obama bring deeper divides than their half-a-generation age difference to the Party and national table.
Sen. Clinton has been winning debates the old-fashioned way with carefully prepared images and sound bites: “The American village has failed our children” and “If HIV/AIDS were the leading cause of death of white women between the ages of 25 and 34, there would be an outraged outcry in this country.” Cheers and applause.
Obama has been criticized for lagging in the sound-bite battle, but that may be a matter of choice. He seems more intent on creating a framework for his candidacy than scoring points and is sometimes telling voters what they may not be eager to hear.
Thursday night he noted that “it is absolutely critical for us to recognize that there are going to be responsibilities on the part of African-Americans and other groups to take personal responsibility to rise up out of the problems that we face.”
On AIDS, he said “one of the things we’ve got to overcome is a stigma that still exists in our communities. We don’t talk about this. We don’t talk about it in the schools. Sometimes we don’t talk about it in the churches. It has been an aspect of sometimes homophobia that we don’t address this issue as clearly as it needs to be.
“(A)ll the issues we talk about--the problems of poverty, lack of health care, lack of educational opportunity--are all interconnected. And to some degree, the African-American community is weakened. It has a disease to its immune system. When we are impoverished, when people don’t have jobs, they are more likely to be afflicted not just with AIDS but with substance abuse problems, with guns in the streets. And so it is important for us to look at the whole body here...”
That kind of talk will not draw applause from African-American audiences any more than some of Obama’s analyses of problems like health care are getting from others.
But for the longer haul, cheers may be beside the point. At the moment, supporters are voting with their money--258,000 of them in the past quarter giving $32.5 million. Unlike Clinton, Obama has a long way to go in getting Americans to know him. So far, many of them like what they see and hear.
In the coming months, we may be seeing a contest of “new politics” that isn’t quite what analysts have been predicting. Their demographic newness is obvious--first woman President, first of color--but Clinton and Obama bring deeper divides than their half-a-generation age difference to the Party and national table.
Sen. Clinton has been winning debates the old-fashioned way with carefully prepared images and sound bites: “The American village has failed our children” and “If HIV/AIDS were the leading cause of death of white women between the ages of 25 and 34, there would be an outraged outcry in this country.” Cheers and applause.
Obama has been criticized for lagging in the sound-bite battle, but that may be a matter of choice. He seems more intent on creating a framework for his candidacy than scoring points and is sometimes telling voters what they may not be eager to hear.
Thursday night he noted that “it is absolutely critical for us to recognize that there are going to be responsibilities on the part of African-Americans and other groups to take personal responsibility to rise up out of the problems that we face.”
On AIDS, he said “one of the things we’ve got to overcome is a stigma that still exists in our communities. We don’t talk about this. We don’t talk about it in the schools. Sometimes we don’t talk about it in the churches. It has been an aspect of sometimes homophobia that we don’t address this issue as clearly as it needs to be.
“(A)ll the issues we talk about--the problems of poverty, lack of health care, lack of educational opportunity--are all interconnected. And to some degree, the African-American community is weakened. It has a disease to its immune system. When we are impoverished, when people don’t have jobs, they are more likely to be afflicted not just with AIDS but with substance abuse problems, with guns in the streets. And so it is important for us to look at the whole body here...”
That kind of talk will not draw applause from African-American audiences any more than some of Obama’s analyses of problems like health care are getting from others.
But for the longer haul, cheers may be beside the point. At the moment, supporters are voting with their money--258,000 of them in the past quarter giving $32.5 million. Unlike Clinton, Obama has a long way to go in getting Americans to know him. So far, many of them like what they see and hear.
Myth of the Washington Outsider
As Republicans run away from George Bush in’ 08, one avenue they will take is that of the “Washington outsider.” Giulani and Romney can legitimately do that, and even Fred Thompson, who started as a Party lawyer during Watergate and went on to years as a lobbyist followed now by a second generation, will try.
But there is a contrarian case to be made that much of the Washington mischief of the past half century goes back to White House outsiders who didn’t know the rules of the game and where the boundary markers were.
Start with Nixon, the insider who always felt like an outsider, and surrounded himself with the likes of Mitchell, Erlichman and Haldeman, who didn’t know enough to worry about being caught doing the dirty tricks that brought them down.
During Reagan’s time, it was Oliver North et al who stepped over the line with Iran-Contra and got caught.
Now, with so much focus on Cheney’s fiefdom, it’s easy to forget that Karl Rove’s overreaching is at the heart of what Pat Leahy, Henry Waxman and other Democrats are trying to lay bare. It isn’t hardened Washington operators, but true-believing amateurs like Alberto Gonzales and his crew who stepped over well-established lines in the Justice Department.
This is not to glorify traditional politicians but, as voters look for answers, they may want to look carefully when candidates promise to change the ways of Washington rather than get the political process back under control. So far, the alternatives to politics as usual have turned out to be politics as nightmare.
But there is a contrarian case to be made that much of the Washington mischief of the past half century goes back to White House outsiders who didn’t know the rules of the game and where the boundary markers were.
Start with Nixon, the insider who always felt like an outsider, and surrounded himself with the likes of Mitchell, Erlichman and Haldeman, who didn’t know enough to worry about being caught doing the dirty tricks that brought them down.
During Reagan’s time, it was Oliver North et al who stepped over the line with Iran-Contra and got caught.
Now, with so much focus on Cheney’s fiefdom, it’s easy to forget that Karl Rove’s overreaching is at the heart of what Pat Leahy, Henry Waxman and other Democrats are trying to lay bare. It isn’t hardened Washington operators, but true-believing amateurs like Alberto Gonzales and his crew who stepped over well-established lines in the Justice Department.
This is not to glorify traditional politicians but, as voters look for answers, they may want to look carefully when candidates promise to change the ways of Washington rather than get the political process back under control. So far, the alternatives to politics as usual have turned out to be politics as nightmare.
Sunday, July 01, 2007
New Low in Lieberspeak
The Senator who has made “Independent” a dirty word in Washington outdid himself today.
On ABC “This Week,” Joe Lieberman found unspeakable new ways to attack the Party that nurtured his political career and rejected him only after his cheerleading for George Bush in Iraq.
"The leading Democratic candidates for president,” he intoned, “are competing with each other to see which one can more quickly pull more of our troops out of Iraq, while our troops are there fighting and now succeeding with a lot on the line."
They are doing this, Lieberman says, to satisfy "vested interest groups within the left" and so he now inclines toward Giuliani and McCain for ’08.
The real test may come when Mike Bloomberg decides to run as an Independent. It was Bloomberg who saved Lieberman’s sorry hide last November with manpower and money, but loyal old Joe may forget that as easily as his pompous declarations that it was the idealism of John F. Kennedy that inspired him to go into politics.
Being kissed in public by George W. Bush, like being bitten by a vampire, is obviously a life-altering experience
On ABC “This Week,” Joe Lieberman found unspeakable new ways to attack the Party that nurtured his political career and rejected him only after his cheerleading for George Bush in Iraq.
"The leading Democratic candidates for president,” he intoned, “are competing with each other to see which one can more quickly pull more of our troops out of Iraq, while our troops are there fighting and now succeeding with a lot on the line."
They are doing this, Lieberman says, to satisfy "vested interest groups within the left" and so he now inclines toward Giuliani and McCain for ’08.
The real test may come when Mike Bloomberg decides to run as an Independent. It was Bloomberg who saved Lieberman’s sorry hide last November with manpower and money, but loyal old Joe may forget that as easily as his pompous declarations that it was the idealism of John F. Kennedy that inspired him to go into politics.
Being kissed in public by George W. Bush, like being bitten by a vampire, is obviously a life-altering experience
Should the British Build an Ark?
While coping with the wave of car bombings, the most unflappable people on earth were being warned of even greater disaster this weekend.
The Rt Rev Graham Dow, Bishop of Carlisle, is telling them that recent floods around the country “are not just a result of a lack of respect for the planet, but also a judgment on society's moral decadence...We are reaping the consequences of our moral degradation, as well as the environmental damage that we have caused."
The Bishop, a leading evangelical, made it clear that the floods, which have left thousands homeless, were brought on by recent legislation approving gay marriage.
The Rt Rev Richard Chartres, Bishop of London, joined in the warning: "Instead of living as if we owned the earth we need to recover a sense of being participants in a web of life with responsibilities to other life forms and to our children."
The weekend forecast calls for more torrential rainstorms. There was no word on how “other life forms” would be chosen if an ark were built.
The Rt Rev Graham Dow, Bishop of Carlisle, is telling them that recent floods around the country “are not just a result of a lack of respect for the planet, but also a judgment on society's moral decadence...We are reaping the consequences of our moral degradation, as well as the environmental damage that we have caused."
The Bishop, a leading evangelical, made it clear that the floods, which have left thousands homeless, were brought on by recent legislation approving gay marriage.
The Rt Rev Richard Chartres, Bishop of London, joined in the warning: "Instead of living as if we owned the earth we need to recover a sense of being participants in a web of life with responsibilities to other life forms and to our children."
The weekend forecast calls for more torrential rainstorms. There was no word on how “other life forms” would be chosen if an ark were built.
Bush's "Sunset Boulevard"
It’s beginning to look like Billy Wilder’s classic about the aging movie queen with a loose grip on reality in scenes staged by her faithful retainer.
Karl Rove is no Erich von Stroheim, but he is directing an alternate reality for George Bush. This week the locale was the Naval War College, where extras in dress uniform watched in awe the Commander-in-Chief, with maps and illustrations, giving a presentation about how well things are going in Iraq.
Back in Washington John Warner, Dick Lugar and other Senate Republicans were telling the White House staff that July 15th, when a Congressionally mandated, preliminary report on progress in Iraq is due, will be pivotal.
The cameras are set to roll. Will George Bush be ready for his close-up?
Karl Rove is no Erich von Stroheim, but he is directing an alternate reality for George Bush. This week the locale was the Naval War College, where extras in dress uniform watched in awe the Commander-in-Chief, with maps and illustrations, giving a presentation about how well things are going in Iraq.
Back in Washington John Warner, Dick Lugar and other Senate Republicans were telling the White House staff that July 15th, when a Congressionally mandated, preliminary report on progress in Iraq is due, will be pivotal.
The cameras are set to roll. Will George Bush be ready for his close-up?
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