Open eyes, open ears, open mind

2003-12-04T23:23:00.000-06:00

That's all, folks!
For various reasons, I've decided to move on from Blogger and take my blog to a site which requires me to spend some money. For the past few days, I've been double-posting here and at the new site, http://edwardpig.typepad.com/.

This will be my last post at this site, though if any of my legion of fans would like to take over here, let me know, and we can work something out. It seems that it may be possible for me to export the contents of this blog to the new site; I'll try to get that done in the next few days.

Hope to see you over there! Don't forget to reset your bookmarks!

2003-12-04T23:07:00.000-06:00

Terrorists? Protestors? What's the Difference?
So, I've had a thread running for the past week or so about official suppression of legitimate opposition speech under the guise of fighting terrorism. So it should come as no surprise that the FBI is tacitly targeting legitimate protests as part of the War on Terror.

But I was surprised anyway.

At first, I didn't think this memo really had anything to do with official abuse of the War on Terror for political ends, until I saw the very last line: "Law enforcement agencies should be alert to these possible indicators of protest activity and report any potentially illegal acts to the nearest FBI Joint Terrorism Task Force."

2003-12-04T22:55:00.000-06:00

A Confession . . .
Okay, I admit it. That wasn't a nice thing I did just now. In the previous post, I unfairly characterized the defenders of the Plame leak by intentionally citing their weakest, most surreal arguments, and providing none of their stronger arguments.

They actually do have one moderately strong argument: it seems likely that Aldrich Ames blew Valerie Plame's cover back in 1994, in which case nothing Karl Rove or Bob Novak says about her should matter now. You need to pay to see Nicholas Kristof's original article about this, but as usual, Calpundit gives a good explanation of things.

Ordinarily I would never play such a mean-spirited trick on my opponents, but I do have a reason for stooping to this level: the Bush team is engaging in exactly this sort of puerile behavior. Bush recently started a running a campaign ad in Iowa which states, among other things, that "Some are now attacking the president for attacking the terrorists." There is no doubt that this is true, but most of the folks who are upset with Bush actually have valid reasons, not the stupid one cited in the ad (see rest of blog).

(In case the Aldrich Ames thing has shattered your faith, there are at least two reasons why the Kristof article shouldn't undermine the case against Rove: (1) It seems the CIA only suspects that Ames gave Plame to the Russians; they aren't certain about it, and (2) Publishing an agent's name in the paper is on a whole separate plane of wrongness from simply revealing her to a foreign intelligence agency.)

2003-12-04T22:14:00.000-06:00

Principled or Hypocrite? You Decide!
Since people are starting to talk about the Plame thing again, albeit for all the wrong reasons, I thought now would be a good time to continue our comparison of two leaks: the Plame leak, and Katherine Gun's leak. You may recall that I posted a fun game comparing these two stories some time back.

This time, instead of comparing the leakers (Katherine Gun, who has readily admitted that she leaked, and Karl Rove, who is relying on reporters to fulfill their professional obligation not to reveal their sources), let's compare the folks who defend the leakers.

Believe it or not, all of the following are arguments set forth by defenders of the Bush administration, in an attempt to convince us all that the Valerie Plame thing is no big deal:

The Wilson's [sic] protest too much about being outed.
Joe Wilson drank tea on his trip to Niger.
Now that her cover has been blown and it can't possibly matter any more, Ms. Plame is pictured in the upcoming issue of Vanity Fair with her husband.

Now, those are pretty compelling reasons to just give up on Plamegate and call it a day. In fact, I won't be surprised if Ashcroft drops the ostensible Justice Department investigation for reasons just this sound.

As for Ms. Gun, well, she herself provides the best reason for defending her: she leaked a secret email because it was The Right Thing To Do. "I will defend the charge against me on the basis that my actions were necessary to prevent an illegal war in which thousands of Iraqi civilians and British soldiers would be killed or maimed."

2003-12-03T22:14:00.000-06:00

Plamegate
So the media have finally given some more attention to the Valerie Plame story. Unfortunately, the defenders of the Bush administration see this as an excuse to dump the whole investigation.

So I said to Roger Simon:

"Let me make sure I've got this straight. It seems to me that you wingnuts contend: 1) Some senior administration official outed a covert CIA operative working on WMD. Whether you accept that this was done to intimidate other potential whistleblowers or to punish Wilson, U.S. intelligence operations were compromised. 2) As a consequence, Plame's career is over. 3) She has said that she does not want to appear in or speak to the media. 4) But it seems that she recently changed her mind. 5) And so, the fact that a senior administration official committed a felony and compromised the war on terror (see (1)) is no big deal. As Glenn Reynolds would say: Interesting."

2003-12-03T13:16:00.000-06:00

Unseal Everything
Analysts are starting to see the presidential race as Bush vs. Dean. They are also, interestingly enough, starting to remark on the similarities between them.

One unsettling similarity these two former governors share is a desire to conceal facts about their terms as governor. The Washington Post reports that the GOP is going after Dean because Dean took steps to insure that records of his tenure as governor of Vermont remain sealed for 10 years --- 4 years longer than what is typical for a Vermont governor.

Sure, this is a little suspicious, but the Bush camp is suffering from a severe case of 'Hello, Kettle, this is Pot, you're black' by criticizing Dean here. Three weeks before taking the presidential oath of office, Bush shipped all of his gubernatorial records off to his father's Presidential library, where there was some doubt whether they would be accessible to the public. After a court battle, it appears that the public can now make requests for these records.

Of course, Bush's penchant for secrecy didn't end there. Shortly after the 9/11 attacks, Bush issued an executive order which allows a sitting President to withhold records from his or any previous administration, an act which experts called 'unprecedented'. And most recently, of course, the Bush team has succeeded in restricting the independent commission investigating 9/11 from viewing most of Bush's daily briefing documents leading up to 9/11.

Until Bush revokes his executive order, and gives the 9/11 commission access to every single document they ask for, I don't want to hear Ed Gillespie or any Republican criticizing Dean on this issue.

2003-11-30T21:59:00.000-06:00

More From Miami
Today, at least one Florida paper devoted an extensive amount of space to the police abuse at the FTAA meeting in Miami. The St. Petersburg Times corroborates other reports that police use of force was excessive and often arbitrary, and exercised with little accountability.

The Times also mentions the checkered past of Miami police chief John Timoney, who apparently gained his current position by using his ruthlessly effective techniques to suppress protestors' right to free speech at the 2000 Republican National convention.

For this and other reasons mentioned here, I expect that the 2004 RNC convention will feature Bush/Ashcroft/the Republican party using the First Amendment for toilet paper.

Apparently Kevin Phillips thinks the same thing (link via Atrios).

2003-11-30T20:42:00.000-06:00

Via Atrios . . .
Bush has some competition for the Republican nomination.

This guy's candidacy is almost certainly going nowhere. But it's fun to fantasize about him distracting Bush from his relentless craven attacks on Democrats' patriotism.

More important, it good to see at least one Republican stand up and acknowledge that Bush is not governing in line with traditional conservative principles.

2003-11-29T21:52:00.000-06:00

Watergate Redux
No, I'm not going to talk about the story that a GOP staffer seems to have hacked into Democrats' computers. This is a bigger deal than that.

Cliff Schecter reports at TomPaine.com that there have been two incidents in the past year of "'politically motivated investigations' and the questionable methods employed to conduct these investigations by two U.S. attorneys with strong Republican credentials."

More:

"In both Pennsylvania and Georgia, private computers and personal records have been confiscated from Democratic elected officials before charges have been issued. In two of the cases, the timing has been suspiciously close to important elections with national implications. And the refusal of FBI officials to publicly comment on the nature of these investigations has only fueled the fire of those who claim that political character assassination is the only motive. (snip) In light of the leak of a CIA agent's name as a political tactic by the White House, the bullying and redistricting mid-session in Texas and other very similar stories of politically motivated, alleged prosecutorial misconduct, the question many Democrats are asking themselves is what they will do in the face of what seems like an all-out assault intended to turn our country into a one-party state."

2003-11-29T21:19:00.000-06:00

We Can't Even Trust the 'Good Guys'
There's a Boston Globe article republished today in Truthout (scroll down), in which a U.S. Lieutenant General stationed in Iraq makes a couple of interesting comments.

First, he tells us that "We still haven't conclusively established an al-Qaida operative in this country." Sure, there's every reason to believe that al-Qaida is behind at least some of the attacks on U.S. troops, but it's a bit unsettling that the military hasn't been able to conclusively prove that yet.

The more troubling revelation is that, apparently, some U.S.-trained Iraqi police and civilian informants appear to have conducted some of the attacks.

This seems to further corroborate my earlier conclusion that the United States has now irrefutably and irreversibly lost the peace in Iraq.

2003-11-27T23:27:00.000-06:00

Of Course You've Heard of 'The Miami Model'
As usual, I'm amazed at the minimal press coverage of the FTAA protests in Miami and subsequent police abuse. A search in the 'liberal' Washington Post turns up nothing. A search in the 'liberal' New York Times turns up two articles, both buried.

A search in the Miami Herald turns up a few articles, but almost none of them discuss allegations of police abuse of authority. The one editorial which does discuss the issue makes two interesting statements. The opening sentence asserts "it's fair to say that the worst fears -- on both sides -- about protests during the conference didn't materialize," which suggests that both the police and the protestors were well-behaved. However, the fourth paragraph contains this: "It didn't seem to make much difference if you were a peaceful demonstrator, trouble-causing provocateur or a working member of the press. Your chances of getting shot with pepper balls or rubber bullets were about the same at times."

I guess he's right, though. Random people getting shot by pepper spray and rubber bullets for no discernible reason isn't the worst thing the police could do.

Apart from the few articles cited in the earlier post (from a British news source and a little-known leftist radio show, you'll notice), the only significant coverage is at Common Dreams, where a lot of folks sound off. Even in the blogosphere, there's little or no discussion about it.

Well, Instapundit mentions it in passing, but only to denigrate the protestors.

2003-11-27T22:56:00.000-06:00

Forget the Patriot Act, We've got Bigger Problems
"Armed checkpoints, embedded reporters in flak jackets, brutal suppression of peaceful demonstrators. Baghdad? No, Miami." That was the tag line to an article published in The Guardian yesterday, concerning protests and the police response to them at the recent FTAA meeting in Miami. Among other things, protesters allege:

". . . police had fired on unarmed protesters with rubber bullets that left large welts, forced them to the ground and handcuffed them at gunpoint and used pepper spray on them. They said the police also stopped hundreds of people on the streets, searched them without cause and sometimes seized their possessions. Dozens of protesters were jailed for hours or even a few days, and the coalition members said many had been denied water, food and, in some cases, medical treatment."

The allegations of abuse (which are quite credible, by the way) are disturbing enough. What's really frightening, though, is that there's every reason to think that, as the mayor of Miami put it, this will become 'a model for homeland defense'. After all, the Miami cops paid for their efforts using $8.5 million of the $87 billion earmarked for Iraq.

Bush's campaign ads insinuate that those who disagree with his policies are aiding the terrorists, but the events in Miami prove that he's not just running a smear campaign --- he really intends to treat the constitutionally protected right to dissent as an act of terrorism.

Read the Guardian piece and Jeremy Scahill's article on the Miami model to get a glimpse of the next phase in Bush's war on free speech. Next to this, the Patriot Act is small potatoes.

2003-11-26T10:22:00.000-06:00

Mistakes were made
The Boston Globe has published an interview with former Iraqi administrator Jay Garner, in which he enumerates several mistakes the Pentagon made in post-war Iraq. While acknowledging that he made some mistakes during his tenure, he also criticizes his successor, Paul Bremer, for disbanding the Iraqi army. "You're talking about around a million or more people ... that are suffering because the head of the household's out of work."

Garner also gives some crucial insight into why it was that the Army had no plan for postwar Iraq. Apparently Powell had completed a 'study' for postwar Iraq, and Garner had brought in a senior State Department planner, Tom Warrick, to discuss the plans. But Rumsfeld insisted that Garner fire Warrick:

"Tom was just beginning to get started with us when one day I was in the office with the secretary of defense, and he said 'Jay, have you got a guy named Warrick on your team?' I said, `yes, I do.' He said, 'well, I've got to ask you to remove him.' I said, `I don't want to remove him; he's too valuable.' But he said, 'This came to me from such a high level that I can't overturn it, and I've just got to ask you to remove Mr. Warrick.'"

I can only think of two possible 'higher levels' above Rumsfeld, so one has to ask: Didn't Bush or Cheney realize that by firing Warrick they were leaving the military hanging without a postwar strategy?

Garner also throws his support behind the 'flypaper' theory for the war on terror. Garner says about the fact that international terrorists appear to be swarming to Iraq to battle our troops: "That's not all bad. Bring 'em all in there, we'll kill 'em there." Lovely.

2003-11-25T23:06:00.000-06:00

The most brutal attack on American soldiers?
In a follow-up to the previous post, I should mention that there are now conflicting accounts of exactly how brutal the recent attack in Mosul was. In a follow-up story on NPR, John Daniszewski reports that although all eyewitness accounts confirm that there was a mob attack, the Army reports that the only injuries to the soldiers were bullet wounds.

It's probably worth mentioning that the original report states that American soldiers seemed to believe the mob theory.

The Army has an obvious motive for wanting to dispel the notion that this was a mob attack; it's less clear why all Mosul eyewitnesses would want to exaggerate the seriousness of it. But even if the mob element of this story really is just a myth, the fact that so many people in Mosul want us to believe it was extremely brutal goes to show how deep the anti-American sentiment is among ordinary Iraqis.

2003-11-25T22:45:00.000-06:00

It's Over, Guys (WARNING: Links to strong language)
There has been considerable comment sparked by a letter Salam Pax, the Iraqi blogger wrote to The Guardian (you can scroll down to see it, but it is reproduced in most of the other links referenced here). On the one side, we have James Lileks, who seems to have captured the essence of the war hawks' view, along with Glenn Reynolds, Roger Simon and N.Z. Bear. On the other side, we have Dan Drezner and others. Drezner does a good job of summarizing the whole exchange.

It seems to me that the hawks' argument boils down to this: Sure, Bush and co. have made some mistakes in Iraq, but our soldiers are dying out there trying to help the Iraqi people, so Pax shouldn't be so 'snarky' when he criticizes Bush. Lileks in particular seems offended that Pax is writing to Bush in a condescending tone when he and the Iraqi people 'owe' the U.S. for deposing Saddam.

Lileks' rage is understandable, but entirely beside the point. Without realizing it, N.Z. Bear highlighted the true relevance of Pax's remarks when he closed his rant by saying to Pax: ". . . realize that like it or not, you now speak for your whole country --- and what matters is not just what you say, but how you say it."

That's exactly right. Pax has eloquently summarized in just a few paragraphs the mood of most Iraqis, and instead of sitting over here and shouting obscenities at Pax through their blogs, it's time the pro-war crowd woke up and recognized that Pax's letter foreshadows an unprecedented depth and breadth of Iraqi hatred toward America which will mark the months to come. Of course the pro-war crowd doesn't like it. No one should like it, because it's going to get unspeakably ugly, but it's important to understand that Pax is just a symptom of a much bigger problem, and venting our spleen on Pax does nothing to address that problem.

The problem is, whether or not you supported the war, the United States has now irrefutably and irreversibly lost the peace in Iraq. 434 American casualties is nothing compared to what we're likely to see in the next 6 months.

You want proof? Three days after Salam's letter appeared, we saw what was probably the most brutal attack on American soldiers since 'major combat operations' ended. The Guardian description of events is less graphic than others I have heard or read, but should still make anyone's blood run cold: "Witnesses described seeing the gunmen shoot the soldiers before a crowd dragged their bodies out, beat them and stole their equipment."

Note that a crowd dragged the soldiers' bodies out of the car and beat them (with cinderblocks, I've heard). Sure, it was militants who shot and killed them, but everyday Mosul citizens who trashed the corpses.

As ugly as this incident was, is it perhaps the nadir of the post-war troubles? Not likely. NPR reports that the Coalition has only managed to stockpile about 20% of the heating oil necessary to get through the winter. Iraqis are likely to blow up American humvees and outposts just to stay warm.

So let's suck it up and get the UN and/or NATO in to help clean things up. If it means that Halliburton and Bechtel have to share some of their war profits with *gasp* foreign interests, who cares? It might save some lives.

2003-11-25T09:51:00.000-06:00

Fiscal Conservatives
Via Calpundit, the House Democrats have produced a report which outlines how the number and overall cost of pet projects, known as "earmarks" have exploded since the Republicans took control of Congress.

You remember how the Republicans took control of Congress, with the infamous Contract With America. That's the contract where, among other things, the Republicans vowed to "restore fiscal responsibility to an out-of-control Congress."

2003-11-24T16:04:00.000-06:00

The Patriot Act
The Christian Science Monitor's 'Daily Update' today is about the Patriot Act, and how the feds are using it to investigate things other than terrorism.

This isn't new, but one quote caught my eye:

"The administration presented the Patriot Act to the Congress two years ago as a carefully tailored and limited piece of legislation specific to targeting terrorism. And now they're using it for purposes that are obviously and completely unrelated to terrorism."

And what treasonous, terrorist-loving liberal spewed forth this slander? None other than former Georgia congressman Bob Barr, co-author of the federal Defense of Marriage Act and one of the first in Congress to call for Bill Clinton's impeachment.

If the conservative Christians Bush and Ashcroft are losing the support of even the ultraconservative Christian Barr, you know they're going too far.

Other intersting links from the daily update:

The feds use the Patriot Act to investigate strip club owners in Las Vegas.
The feds use the Patriot Act to investigate money laundering and other non-terrorism crimes.

2003-11-22T22:55:00.000-06:00

The Federal Marriage Amendment
Here is the text of a proposed amendment to the U.S. Constitution:

"Marriage in the United States shall consist only of the union of a man and a woman. Neither this Constitution or the constitution of any State, nor state or federal law, shall be construed to require that marital status or the legal incidents thereof be conferred upon unmarried couples or groups."

I oppose this amendment for the following three reasons:

The U.S. Constitution was written to guarantee rights to our citizens, not restrict them. This amendment would restrict same sex couples from getting married (indeed, that is the whole point). Constitutional amendments which are designed to restrict rather than protect freedom are antithetical to what the United States and its Constitution are about (for this reason, I also oppose the 'Anti-Flag Desecration Amendment' or whatever it's called), and generally don't fare so well (think about prohibition).
Whenever conservatives lose a battle in the courts, they seem to want to enforce their will on the country by screwing with the Constitution. This document is the blueprint for our Democracy, not a way to circumvent court rulings you disagree with.
And in this particular instance, of course, I disagree with the policy underlying the proposed amendment. There is no legitimate reason to define marriage as an institution strictly for people of the opposite sex. I believe that people who oppose the right to marry do so mostly because they don't really believe that two men can love each other the same way a man and a woman can. They don't believe this is possible because they have gone to great lengths to distance themselves from anything to do with homosexuality. In short, these people want to enshrine their prejudice into the U.S. Constitution.

So, I was thinking about all of this, and reading about the recent furor the Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court decision has caused, when it hit me: We really do need a Federal Marriage Amendment. We just need to change the wording slightly.

How about this:

"Marriage in the United States and the legal incidents thereof shall be conferred unconditionally upon any two consenting individuals who are both above 18 years of age and who are not already married. Neither this Constitution or the constitution of any State, nor state or federal law, shall infringe upon this fundamental human right."

I think this amendment actually is necessary, unlike the one Republicans are kicking around, and if some brave legislator would actually introduce it, then we could start talking about the real question.

Instead of asking "What can we do to stop people of the same sex people from getting married?", we should be asking "Why aren't all mature, responsible adults allowed to marry whomever they choose?"

2003-11-22T22:25:00.000-06:00

Alas, the Medicare Bill
First Florida in 2000. The Republicans used systematic intimidation of blacks, illegal absentee ballot applications, and late-received absentee ballots, along with the help of their friends on the U.S. Supreme Court, to screw the will of the majority and install Bush in the White House. Then Texas and California on 2003, where Republicans successfully passed a partisan redistricting plan for the second time since the 2000 census (yes, this was unprecedented), and successfully recalled a governor who was deeply unpopular but not corrupt or incapacitated.

Now this. In a concerted effort to give Bush his medicare and energy bills before Thanksgiving (bills which were largely written by Bush's major campaign donors, who --- by an amazing coincidence --- are also the bills' main beneficiaries), the House leadership kept debating the medicare bill until 3:00 AM this morning, then voted on it.

They lost. Votes in the House are typically concluded after 15 minutes. After 15 minutes, the vote stood at 195 in favor, 210 opposed, with 30 members not voting. So much for Bush and his corporate buddies, right?

Well, of course not. If the Republican party has demonstrated anything in the past 3 years, it is that they will stop at nothing to get their way. Dennis Hastert and Tom DeLay --- models of integrity both, and both fiercely committed to our nation's democratic principles --- began walking around the House chambers, trying to strongarm recalcitrant Republicans into line.

They managed to push their numbers up to 216 in favor versus 218 against with one (Democrat) abstaining. They brought in Health and Human Services Secretary Tommy Thompson. They brought in Bush (by phone). Still no movement.

Then they started telling their members that the Democrats were planning to bring up a different medicare bill if this one failed, one with more spending on the sick and elderly, and less spending on subsidies to big corporations. And the Republican membership couldn't stand that. Two Republicans switched their votes, and it was all over.

Were the Democrats really going to introduce such a bill? Who cares? The important thing is, after 2 hours and 51 minutes (more than twice the length of the previous longest House vote) Dennis Hastert and Tom DeLay got the bill passed, like the good little footsoldiers they are in Bush's systematic funneling of taxpayer dollars to corporate profiteers.

And if you listened very carefully in the background, you could hear our Democracy gasping its last.

The Washington Post relates the whole, sickening story.

2003-11-21T12:03:00.000-06:00

A Letter to All of the Townhall Conservatives (except one)

I have noticed a troubling number of articles in recent weeks and months detailing the various ways in which our troops are not receiving the level of support they need and deserve from our government. First, MSNBC reports that the Bush administration is going to court to prevent 17 Gulf War POWs from receiving compensation from Saddam's regime (http://www.msnbc.com/news/945622.asp). It's bad enough that these veterans, who suffered untold hardship at the hands of Saddam Hussein, are getting ignored. But our current forces serving stateside are getting the support for their families cut, as reported by The Army Times (http://www.armytimes.com/story.php?f=0-ARMYPAPER-2335705.php). But worst of all, our active duty personnel in Afghanistan and Iraq are not getting paid and are being denied medical care. Stars and Stripes reports that "Army National Guard soldiers activated to fight in Iraq and Afghanistan are plagued with pay-and-benefits problems and even denial of medical care to those wounded." (http://www.estripes.com/article.asp?section=104&article=17997&archive=true) The public needs to know about these and other abuses, so that they can let Congress and President Bush know that it must stop. So far, I've only found one conservative journalist who addresses this issue: Paul Craig Roberts (http://www.townhall.com/columnists/paulcraigroberts/pcr20031001.shtml). I hope that you will use your position as a prominent conservative columnist to publish the truth, so that our fighting men and women will get the support they deserve. They would do it for you.

Actually, this letter went to every Townhall columnist except Paul Craig Roberts who, as noted above, has already written an article on this topic (actually it was an article about how this country treats illegal aliens better than its military, but just the same, it's refreshing to see a conservative take on the administration).

And I went ahead and sent it to Thomas Sowell anyway, even though he will probably give a response to the effect that the concept of 'Supporting Our Troops' is undefinable.

In the course of researching whether any of the Townhall conservatives had written on this topic, I came across this quote from Oliver North, who writes of:

". . . the men and women of our armed forces, who have seen their pay raises cut and killed, their benefits diminished, and their weapons and equipment worn out -- all while being deployed to exhaustion. They have been treated like lab rats in radical social experiments and dispatched like a global 'Meals on Wheels' program."

North was talking about the treatment of the military under Clinton, of course; this article was written in February 2001.

I don't know whether there's any validity to the charge that the troops were treated this way under the Clinton administration. But doesn't it sound like an accurate description of their treatment over the past 2 years? But I'm sure North would have written about it if it were, and my search through the Townhall archives shows he hasn't.

2003-11-20T09:13:00.000-06:00

Support Our Troops!
Yet another story about the Pentagon letting down the active-duty troops in Iraq and Afghanistan.

I feel another letter to the Townhall conservatives coming on . . .

2003-11-19T12:45:00.000-06:00

Stop the Energy Bill!
I knew the proposed energy legislation in Congress was bad, but I didn't realize just how bad until I read Calpundit's latest post about it. Note the New York Times article he cites which states that The Heritage Foundation, The Cato Institute, Citizens for Tax Justice and Public Citizen are all opposed to the bill. If all of these organizations can agree that a bill is bad, then it must be bad.

Now, I'm a Minnesotan, and worked for a time on Paul Wellstone's last campaign, so I'm already painfully aware that Norm Coleman is not only supporting this bill, but thinks "it's a tremendous opportunity for Minnesota, and I think it's an important bill for America". This should give you a good idea about Senator Coleman's integrity. But what's really got me upset is that apparently our other senator, Democrat Mark Dayton, is also considering voting for it (reason: the bill contains $800 million for a coal gasification plant on Minnesota's Iron Range and a biodiesel tax credit, along with other sops to the agricultural states).

All that agricultural stuff may or may not be good, but folks, come on! This bill provides $25 BILLION (that's 'BILLION' with a 'B') in tax breaks to polluting industries over 10 years, and significantly erodes environmental protections. And what do we get for it?

According to the directors of 19 environmental groups, we get extensive damage to the environment. According to John Podesta, we get weakened national security and a devastating blow to our economy. According to Lynn Hargis of Public Citizen, we open the door for more Enron-style scandals. And as all of these writers note, the bill doesn't really do much of anything to solve America's energy problems.

So. I'm asking all who read this to contact your senator (the bill has already cleared the House) and urge him/her to vote against the energy bill. If one or both of your senators happen to be Democrats, tell them you would support a filibuster. Were this bill to become law, it would be simply another disaster in a long list of disasters that has been the Bush presidency.

If you're a Minnesotan, you may contact Mark Dayton at 1-202-224-3244.

Otherwise, it's really, really easy to look up contact info for your senator(s) at Project Vote Smart.

2003-11-18T23:47:00.000-06:00

"Gay Marriage" versus "Freedom to Marry"
In an interview in the UC Berkeley News, linguistics professor George Lakoff argues that Democrats are losing influence because of their inability to 'frame' national debate in terms favorable to them. One example he gives is that of 'gay marriage'. The phrase 'gay marriage', most often used in the media, emphasizes the 'gay' aspect of same-sex marriage, conjuring images of all sorts of sexual activities which would appall many heterosexuals. And while it's true that same-sex couples do engage in sexual practices which don't appeal to most heterosexuals, we all know that the concept of marriage encompasses much more than sex: love, caring, compassion, spiritual interconnectedness, etc.

It may surprise most folks on the 'ban gay marriage' side of this argument that gays and lesbians who want to marry experience all of these feelings for their partners, too. In other words, this issue really isn't about sex at all, but about marriage and all it entails. This is why Professor Lakoff recommends that Democrats frame the issue as 'Freedom to Marry', which is not only a more accurate description of the issue, but one which immediately disposes the listener to sympathize with the 'support the freedom to marry' point of view.

I'm bringing all of this up because, in light of today's decision by the Massachusetts' Supreme Judicial Court that Massachusetts has been violating its state Constitution by denying the "legal, financial and social benefits of marriage" to people of the same sex who wish to marry, there is considerable concern that many more legal challenges to the traditional notion of marriage will ensue. Both The National Review Online and The Washington Post predict that we are likely to see a large volume of challenges to laws which require the concept of marriage to be restricted exclusively to opposite-sex couples.

The right has seen the battle coming, and is prepared for it. In addition to supporting a Federal Marriage Amendment, Republicans are likely to make heavy use of the fact that the likely Democrat nominee, Howard Dean, signed Vermont's civil unions legislation into law, making Vermont the only state in the union (until today) which recognized something like same-sex marriage.

So okay. This is going to be a big issue next year. That's unfortunate, because I believe that there are many more pressing issues to discuss, like our troops coming home from Iraq in 'transfer tubes', and a net loss of nearly 3 million jobs since Bush took office, and giveaways of our tax dollars to polluting corporations, and a litany of lies, disinformation, stonewalling and felonies. But, since the conservatives will want to discuss gay marriage (excuse me: I meant "the freedom to marry"), so be it.

Can anyone advance a sensible reason for opposing the freedom to marry which has nothing to do with religion? Many religions have their own rules about who may marry whom, and that's great. I would never presume to tell some church that their definition of 'marriage' is wrong. But fortunately, we live under the U.S. Constitution, not under the Taliban, and so religious considerations really have no place when formulating public policy.

So, I did a brief Google search and read up on the some of the reasons why some people oppose the freedom to marry. Howard Kurtz actually gives a fair number of them, both in The Weekly Standard and in The National Review Online. But they all sound pretty weak, when given even a moment's thought:

Slippery slope: If we expand the definition of marriage to include same-sex couples, then there's nothing to prevent further expansion to polygamous or polyamorous (group marriage) unions. Kurtz notes fairly emphatically that there are already groups advocating for legalized polygamy and polyamory. That may be so, but there's also a group that wants every county government in the country to erect a monument to Ronald Reagan. Just because some fringe elements want something to happen doesn't mean it is destined to be. Furthermore, the freedom to marry is simply about removing the gender restriction on the definition of marriage: why would that necessarily open the door to changing the number of people involved in a marriage?
Goodbye to monogamy: " . . . gay marriage will almost certainly weaken the belief that monogamy lies at the heart of marriage". There is a belief that gays and lesbians are more sexually promiscuous than heterosexuals. There seems to be little evidence to support or refute this thesis, but if true, do you suppose that it might have anything to do with the fact that there is still a great social stigma to being gay or lesbian, not to mention the fact that, um, same-sex marriage is currently prohibited, so it's more difficult for same-sex partners to publicly commit to one another, and internalize this commitment? Just a thought.
Marriage of convenience: Once same-sex marriage becomes law, two people of the same sex can set up a sham marriage just to reap the financial benefits. This is true. And two people of the opposite sex can do the exact same thing today. Kurtz gives no argument to support the assumption that people will be more likely to engage in this kind of unethical behavior with a person of the same sex than with someone of the opposite sex. So let me give him an argument. One could argue that the institution of marriage between a man and a woman is held in sufficiently high regard that few people would make a mockery of it in this manner. I expect that's true. My counter to that argument is that the freedom to marry will not lower anyone's regard for marriage as an institution; it will simply allow more people to participate in it.

I found one other non-religious argument opposing the freedom to marry, given by Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist in citing his support for the Freedom to Marry Amendment: he's concerned that the freedom to marry will lead to another kind of slippery slope in which "criminal activity within the home would in some way be condoned", which is a statement so absurd that I only included it as comic relief.

At its essence, the Freedom to Marry is all about granting all couples who wish to publicly declare their committed love for one another the opportunity to do so; it's all about 'loving individuals committed to each other's welfare'. Yes, it means that gays and lesbians will get the same work benefits and tax consequences as opposite-sex couples, and why shouldn't they? More than that, it's about family values. Kurtz mocks the thesis of Al and Tipper Gore's book Joined at the Heart, that a family is defined by the way people feel about one another, and not about such essentially superficial things as gender. But Kurtz should not mock this idea. All good 'family values' conservatives should instead applaud it, because if 'family values' doesn't mean 'loving individuals committed to each other's welfare', then it has no meaning at all.

2003-11-17T20:29:00.000-06:00

Patriot or Traitor? You Decide!
Have you noticed all of the buzz lately concerning Valerie Plame, and the way she was thrown 'into the cold' by an anonymous senior White House staffer? No? Perhaps that's because no one has written anything about her in almost a month. The Washington Post hasn't printed anything substantive since October 24, same for the New York Times, etc. etc.

Well, I got to thinking about how startlingly similar the Valerie Plame leak is to the leak reported here yesterday, so I thought it would be fun to compare the leakers in each case, and determine which is the Patriot and which is the Traitor. So, buckle your seat belts, kids, and get ready for some fun!

Leaker	Information Leaked	Probable Motivation	Practical Outcome	Patriot or Traitor?
????? (Most likely Karl Rove)	Told Robert Novak and 5 other journalists that Valerie Plame, wife to Joe Wilson, was a CIA operative.	Wilson had made Bush look foolish by reporting that there was no basis for the claim in Bush's State of the Union message that Iraq had attempted to acquire nuclear materials from Niger. Most likely the leak about his wife was undertaken to punish Wilson for embarrassing the president, and to serve as a caution to others in the intelligence community who might be inclined to leak incriminating information to the public.	We have no way of knowing how many other potential whistleblowers were silenced. What we do know is that years of deep cover work on WMD were put at risk, as well as the lives of many of Ms. Plame's contacts. Furthermore, Ms. Plame's exposure may give foreign agents clues about the identity of other CIA agents. Ms. Plame's career is finished and many of her personal relationships have been damaged.	You decide
Katherine Gun	Told the media that the Bush administration had used the NSA to conduct illegal surveillance of foreign UN delegates for the purpose of potentially blackmailing them into supporting a resolution for an invasion of Iraq.	In the words of Ms. Gun, any alleged leaks exposed 'serious illegality and wrongdoing on the part of the US Government' and were designed to prevent 'wide-scale death and casualties among ordinary Iraqi people and UK forces'.	Remains to be seen. This story actually broke briefly back on March 2, then was bottled up under a British statute which The Guardian calls "An Odious Law". With any luck, the American people will wake up to the fact that the Bush administration will take all steps necessary, including the commission of felonies, to advance its agenda, and will send Bush and his cronies to the resounding defeat they richly deserve next November.	You decide

In conclusion, my old college classmate, who knows Ms. Gun personally, has sent the additional links about her story (most of these are referenced above), and asks that we all express our support for her:

2003-11-17T19:05:00.000-06:00

Loose ends
First, an update on my efforts to persuade a conservative columnist (or really, any columnist) to write about the shameless way in which House Republicans stripped an anti-profiteering amendment from the Iraq spending bill. It's been more than a week since I sent the email out, and had received only one response, so I figured my efforts were a bust.

Well, maybe not. Rich Tucker has now written back, and he was much more polite than Thomas Sowell was. In fact, he went so far as to say that he "may write about" the issue.

So I guess the word "war-profiteer" doesn't pose any particular obstacles for him.

Also, in the new weblog showcase over at Truth Laid Bear, edwardpig placed fourth in the 'political blog' category, out of, um, six. Yeah, but it was really close. Edwardpig finished only four votes out of third and 11 votes out of second. And the first place blog only had --- well --- 46 more votes than I did.

Oh well, one can't win them all. Thank you to the folks who did vote for edwardpig. If you haven't already done so, why not take a look at the winning entry over at And Then....

2003-11-16T22:40:00.000-06:00

Katherine Gun: Another Heroic Whistleblower
An old college classmate of mine just called my attention to the following story in The Guardian. It appears that back in March, when the U.S. and Britain were still going through the motions of attempting to obtain UN approval for the war on Iraq, the U.S. National Security Agency was brought in to help 'persuade' certain delegates thought to be on the fence. Specifically:

"The NSA made clear that the particular targets of what was described as an eavesdropping 'surge' were the delegates from Angola, Cameroon, Chile, Bulgaria, Guinea and Pakistan - the six crucial 'swing votes' on the security council. A memo sent by Frank Koza, a senior NSA official, said the information would be used for the US's 'QRC' - quick response capability - 'against' the key UN delegations."

The upshot here being that the NSA was hoping to get some dirt on the swing voters in order to threaten them into supporting the war resolution.

In short, the U.S. was trying to blackmail UN delegates into approving the war.

If all of this happened back in March, why are we only hearing about it now? Well, it seems that we wouldn't be hearing about it at all were it not for a certain intelligence employee named Katherine Gun, who has now sacrificed her career and quite possibly her freedom in order to bring these facts to light. She leaked this information back in March, was arrested, and the information bottled up again by the British legal system. A fuller explanation comes from my college contact, who is a long time family friend of Ms. Gun:

"Katherine has worked as a Chinese translator for British intelligence for the last few years, and was arrested back in March for leaking to the press a document from the most secretive of the US intelligence agencies, the NSA, asking British intelligence to help them gather information about the UN reps of various countries with critical swing votes that could influence the vote on war with Iraq in the hope that they could use the information gathered to blackmail those countries into voting for the war. British law mandates a media blackout in cases like this so there was no press coverage of her arrest when it happened. She and her parents decided to keep silent about it, hoping that she would not end up getting charged. Now that she has been formally charged, apparently some coverage is allowed, and the Harwoods want everyone to know about it."

Over at UK Indymedia, someone has bothered to point out that people with Ms. Gun's inside connections are thoroughly vetted, and so almost never leak information like this. The fact that she felt compelled to do so speaks to the seriousness of what the U.S. was doing.

We can only hope that others in the intelligence community will perform similar acts of conscience.

2003-11-14T18:17:00.000-06:00

The Truth Laid Bear
So, in an effort to promote edwardpig (this blog), I have registered in the New Blog Showcase at the Truth Laid Bear site.

The upshot is, if more bloggers in the ecosystem vote for edwardpig than for any of the other newbies registered in the showcase, then I get fame.

However, in order to qualify, I am obliged to vote for a minimum of three other newbie blogs myself, by linking to them. So here goes:

Observations, Complaints and Lamentations. This entry discusses a new Planned Parenthood clinic which is going up in Austin, Texas, and the efforts of the Catholic church and other opponents of legalized abortion to prevent it. I believe this is counterproductive. I believe that the best way to reduce the number of abortions is to provide young women with as much information and medical counseling/assistance as possible, and this is exactly what Planned Parenthood is trying to provide. If the anti-choicers have their way, they will have insured that no abortions will take place at the new clinic. But some of the women who would otherwise have had abortions there will still have them, just in other, less well-supervised places. And the real kicker is that many women who would have received counseling and birth control from the clinic will now end up with unintended pregnancies, and I can't imagine that's what the anti-choicers want.
Bawstin Tech Pundits. This post is about Sprint's plan to broadcast TV on cell phones, and I agree that it's probably not worth the effort.
Collected Miscellany. Apparently every post to this blog is a book review or interview, which is cool but probably a lot of work. This particular post is an interview with a guy named John Derbyshire, who wrote a book on the Riemann hypothesis. As a former mathematician, I found it interesting.

Unfortunately, one must be registered in the ecosystem in order for links to edwardpig to count as votes, but I'll take links from anyone willing to give them out.

And I want to extend a special thanks to my colleague over at Mike's Astronomy Weblog, the first to link to edwardpig, even before it was registered in the Showcase.

2003-11-14T09:58:00.000-06:00

More on Moore . . .
Prediction: Should Bush win election in 2004 (or weasel his way into the White House, like he did last time), he will eventually nominate Roy Moore to the federal bench. If possible, he'll nominate Moore to the same federal court which ordred him to remove his Ten Commandments monument.

I should have realized this yesterday. But even I am often fooled by the administration's veneer of reasonability, and often forget that Bush will do anything to appeal to religious conservatives.

2003-11-14T09:52:00.000-06:00

More on Powell . . .
The White House may want to muzzle Powell. Recall that some diligent folks unearthed a statement he made back in February 2001 to the effect that Iraq had no significant WMD capability. When confronted about this later, Powell replied that he had made the statement early in Bush's term (the implication, I guess, is that Powell hadn't learned his script yet).

And just now I ran across a report published by The Guardian in May of the transcripts of private conversations between Powell and British Foreign Secretary Jack Straw, in which both men express serious doubts about the quality of the evidence of Iraq's weapons capabilities. Apparently Powell and Straw expressed these doubts to one another shortly before Powell appealed to the UN to support military action, and six weeks before the invasion of Iraq.

It takes a special kind of man to go in front of the UN and claim "every statement I make today is backed up by sources, solid sources. These are not assertions. What we are giving you are facts and conclusions based on solid intelligence," when he himself believes that the evidence is "at best, circumstantial evidence highly tilted in favour of assessments drawn from them, rather than any actual raw intelligence" (The Guardian's paraphrase of Powell's privately expressed views).

Specifically, it takes a man who's had too much Ambien.

2003-11-14T09:39:00.000-06:00

Surreal quotes from the administration
The editor over at blah3.com calls out a rather remarkable admission by Colin Powell in an interview he gave to a New York based Arab newspaper. It seems that Rush Limbaugh isn't the only one who has been in an altered state recently.

And you've probably already heard about the wacky statements General William "my God is bigger than your god" Boykin has made, but I just today learned that he apparently believes that Bill Clinton became president by divine appointment:

"Boykin routinely told audiences that God elevated George W. Bush to the presidency. 'Why is this man in the White House? The majority of Americans did not vote for him,' he would say. 'I tell you this morning that he’s in the White House because God put him there.' Boykin now explains that he believes God routinely decides American elections and has done the same thing for 'Bill Clinton and other presidents.' This is surely the first time a conservative evangelical has argued that Clinton’s election was caused by divine intervention."

If there are any conservative Christians reading this, remember: You may not have wanted Bill Clinton to be president, but according to Gen. Boykin, God did.

2003-11-13T13:26:00.000-06:00

Thank God
(Now former) Alabama Chief Justice Roy Moore has been removed from office for his refusal to follow a federal court order to remove a 5,000 pound monument to the Ten Commandments which he had designed, commissioned, and placed in Alabama's Supreme Court building in the middle of the night 2 years ago, without asking for anyone's permission or approval.

Moore's supporters are upset, of course, perhaps because they're concerned that God's law will not be upheld unless they have Roy Moore around to unilaterally make decisions about the architecture of government buildings in Alabama. When asked why he didn't remove the monument, Moore responded: "It would have violated my conscience, violated my oath of office and violated every rule of law I had sworn to uphold."

Um, no, actually, refusing to follow a court order violates his oath of office and every rule of law he had sworn to uphold. See, he had sworn to uphold and comply with federal and state laws, not God's law.

Another interesting quote from this article:

Greg Sealy, head of the Sitting at His Feet Fellowship in Montgomery, an inner-city mission, said he moved to the United States from Barbados 23 years ago and that this is the "darkest day" he has seen in America in that time. "The stole my vote. The judiciary stole my vote. I voted for Roy Moore," he said.

The 'darkest day' in America in 23 years? Darker than the day the Challenger or Columbia space shuttles blew up? Darker than the day of the Lockerbie bombing? Darker than the day David Hinkley shot Ronald Reagan? Darker than the day the Murrah Federal Building, or the World Trade towers, or the U.S.S. Cole were bombed?

Darker than 9/11/2001?

And the judiciary did not steal your vote. You voted for a man who won an election, was sworn into office, and then abused his office. An example of the judiciary stealing your vote would have been if the candidate you voted for got the most total votes, but due to confusing ballots, systematic voter intimidation and fraudulent absentee vote counts, his opponent was declared the winner by less than one one-hundredth of one percent of the votes cast, and then the judiciary blocked a full hand-recount of the ballots in order to preserve the flawed outcome.

That is an example of the judiciary stealing votes.

2003-11-13T09:44:00.000-06:00

Bob Harris?
Tom Tomorrow has a guest blogger filling in for him while he's out of town, a guy named Bob Harris. Bob is prolific. Tom's only been gone about 16 hours, and Bob has already posted 5 times.

His most recent post is great. The last paragraph sums up conservative hypocrisy quite nicely.

2003-11-12T16:54:00.000-06:00

Depressing . . .
Al Gore's speech to MoveOn makes me realize how different things would be today if he were president. There would almost certainly be no war in Iraq. There might not have been a 9/11, and even if there was, there probably would be no Patriot Act. John Ashcroft would certainly be enjoying a well-deserved retirement in Missouri.

Of course, there probably would still be something like No Child Left Behind; the only difference is that it would have adequate funding, since Gore's proposed tax cuts amounted to a fraction of those Bush got passed. And most of the rest of the world would still view America as a defender of Democracy and human rights.

Our allies would still like us.

We must do whatever needs to be done to get King George out of the White House and back to his Crawford ranch.

2003-11-12T10:51:00.000-06:00

Thomas Sowell replies!
Hey! I actually received a response from a Townhall conservative to the letter I wrote a few days ago about war profiteering! Here is Thomas Sowell's response, complete and unedited:

I never cease to be amazed at people who not only use undefinable words but think that laws should be based on them.

Apparently he thinks that its not possible to codify the concept of 'war profiteering' into law (what other word in my letter comes close to meeting the definition of 'undefinable'?).

I don't think I managed to persuade him.

2003-11-11T19:52:00.000-06:00

Support Our Troops!
Do you notice a theme running through my recent posts?

For the record, I have never served in the armed forces, so I don't know what it means to be a veteran. I always thought a veteran was anyone who put oneself in harm's way in service to our country, but apparently I'm wrong about that. Apparently there's also a requirement that one be opposed to peace.

Anyway, since the question of what it means to be a veteran is far too complex, I thought I'd research what it means to 'Support Our Troops'. More and more, it seems that people only say 'Support Our Troops!' when they really mean 'Only Someone Who Hates America Would Question Any Of Bush's Policies!' But in order to conduct an impartial (if not very meaningful) study of what we mean by 'Support Our Troops', I entered the phrase into a Google search. Here's a summary of the first 30 sites Google came up with:

6 of the sites merely had links to other sites.
2 of the sites were very useful, with lots of good suggestions and information about how you can really support the troops. 2 other sites had their hearts in the right place, but suffered from poor design.
3 of the sites had forms to send a 'thank-you' to the troops. Some allow you to personalize your 'thank-you' more than others.
3 of the sites were using the issue to promote the conservative political agenda.

The other 14 were either essentially content-free, were no longer maintained, or were designed to extract money from the unsuspecting. One was an Australian site which allowed one to send email in support of Australian troops.

Only this TomPaine article mentions the plethora ways in which the Pentagon and the Bush administration are failing to support our troops. This is a shame, because although I believe that there is no place for politics in supporting our troops, I also believe that supporting the troops means supporting all of the troops. And any site devoted to support of the military ought to publicize articles like this one, as well as today's Paul Krugman article, so that people will know what Bush is doing to our fighting men and women and take steps to stop him.

Unfortunately, people are most likely to remember the two positive policy moves Bush made today, as window-dressing for Veterans' Day.

But enough carping. I believe today is an important day to honor our men and women in uniform, past and present. So I'll close by providing links to the few useful sites I found in my Google search:

Write a Letter

For More Useful Suggestions

Take a minute right now to write a letter, or better yet do something even more meaningful. It's important. Our troops would do it for you.

2003-11-10T12:12:00.000-06:00

Support Our Troops!!
A story in The Army Times tells how The Pentagon is planning to close up to 38 commissaries and "close or transfer control of the 58 schools it operates" in the continental U.S. The Army Times characterizes these actions as "the latest in a string of actions by the Bush administration to cut or hold down growth in pay and benefits, including basic pay, combat pay, health-care benefits and the death gratuity paid to survivors of troops who die on active duty."

Col. John Kidd, garrison commander of Fort Stewart, Ga., called this action a "betrayal" and stated "As a commander, I will fight this tooth and nail. Folks down there are not just militant on this issue. They will march on Washington."

Man, I hope they do, and I wish them all the best. After all, I know how important it is to Support Our Troops!

2003-11-10T11:57:00.000-06:00

Support Our Troops!!
By which, of course, I mean 'Support Our President and his policies.' I'm not so concerned about actual support for the troops currently fighting in Iraq. And as for the troops who fought in the FIRST Gulf War, well, forget about them. Fat, no-bid contracts for Bechtel and Halliburton (with no particular penalty for profiteering, you'll recall) are much more important.

Tom Tomorrow republishes an interesting bit of a White House press conference from last week.

2003-11-10T09:45:00.000-06:00

More 'good news' from Iraq
When the administration makes one of its accusations about how the media are failing to report all of the 'good news' from Iraq, one frequently mentioned item is the fact that there is an Iraqi Governing Council which represents the beginning of a transition from U.S. control to Iraqi control of the country.

Well, turns out the news about the IGC isn't as good as the administration has claimed (try to contain your surprise). Yesterday's Washington Post reports that "The United States is deeply frustrated with its hand-picked council members because they have spent more time on their own political or economic interests than in planning for Iraq's political future, especially selecting a committee to write a new constitution." An unnamed 'well-placed' U.S. official states that the council has done "nothing of substance" since they were appointed 2.5 months ago.

Apparently, the U.S. is even reconsidering a proposal the French made to transfer authority to the Iraqis, if you can believe that. Sacre bleu!

2003-11-09T22:33:00.000-06:00

It's official: There was no plan
The Guardian is reporting that the U.S. has initiated "their most furious attack in Iraq since the official end of the war" in response to the escalation in guerilla attacks which has resulted in the deaths of 34 U.S. troops since the start of November.

The Guardian, surprisingly, buries the lead in this story, though. The real news is the revelation that an official Army review of the war thus far reveals (in The Guardian's words) "the army had no plan for the occupation of Baghdad." The report was leaked to GlobalSecurity.org.

I haven't read the whole report (it's 281 pages long), but it's not too difficult to find statements like:

"We must be ready for success. Follow-on SASO [Security and Support Operations] plans must be developed in advance and the necessary resources readily available for commitment."
"Prior planning for a force protection mission would have aided the transition."
"Plan for SASO before combat operations begin and be prepared for transition to SASO early."
"Facilities engineer support is critical during SASO and has to be planned for prior to the beginning of combat operations."
The report states that Baghdad International Airport had been ". . . an objective throughout the entire development of the [combat] plan, but no specific plan existed for the occupation of the site."

All of these statements, by the way, come at the end of various subsections of the report under the title "Lessons Learned," indicating that these statements are in the report because SASO planning did not occur prior to the beginning of combat operations this time around.

There's also a section on embedded reporters which I haven't read, but might be interesting.

Many conservatives (Ann Coulter in particular) have chosen to defend Bush by saying, in effect, "When the battle starts, all plans go out the window". That may be so. But the Army still seems to believe that it is nevertheless a good idea to have a plan in the first place.

2003-11-07T12:44:00.000-06:00

ABC, watch out . . .
Jessica Lynch confirms to Diane Sawyer in an interview to be broadcast on ABC on Tuesday that the U.S. Army made up most of the stuff it told the press about her capture and 'rescue'.

However, ABC had better hope Tuesday gets here quickly, or the GOP might demand that they burn it. After all, they managed to get the CBS miniseries 'The Reagans' canned in order to protect the myth of Ronald Reagan's greatness; they almost certainly want to protect the myth of Jessica Lynch's rescue.

2003-11-07T11:56:00.000-06:00

No, really. The outrage. Where is it?
Maybe it's just me, but I think the Republicans' tacit approval of war profiteering is absolutely disgraceful. When I first read about this in The Hill, I thought the press coverage would be huge.

Well, I just ran a search against all of my favorite 'liberal' and moderate news sources, and none of them picked up the story. I also searched Townhall.com ("Conservative News and Information"), with equal lack of success.

So I sent the following letter to every single columnist at Townhall (this didn't take as long as it sounds). I hope I make it clear in this letter why this is such a big deal, in case anyone out there is confused.

I just read an article in The Hill which details how congressional Republicans stripped an anti-profiteering amendment out of the bill authorizing $87.5 billion for Iraq reconstruction. http://www.thehill.com/news/110503/profiteering.aspx I am amazed that Republicans are not lining up to vigorously support such an amendment. For one thing, the traditional Republican value of fiscal responsibility demands that we make certain that every taxpayer dollar which is spent is spent wisely (after all, "it's our money"). For another, if we're going to invest $87.5 billion in Iraq, we owe it to our fighting men and women that they get the best possible support that money can buy (support our troops!). And finally, I want to believe that all Americans, whether Republican, Democrat or independent, consider war profiteering to be tantamount to treason. For that reason alone, we should all support stringent safeguards which insure that any company found guilty of such activity is severely punished. I certainly hope that you will use your position as a prominent conservative commentator to bring this issue to your readers' attention and urge support for the follow-up stand-alone bill introduced by Vermont senator Patrick Leahy which contains the anti-profiteering measure. Thank you.

No, I don't expect to get (m)any responses, but if I get any at all, I'm sure they will be interesting.

Guess I'll work on liberal columnists next. Unfortunately, I don't know of a good single location, like Townhall, where they all hang out . . .

2003-11-06T12:53:00.000-06:00

If you want a vision of what the future will be like . . .
. . . read this analysis in The Economist. A brief summary: George Bush has set this country down the road to unprecedented budget deficits for the foreseeable future, and all of the Republican optimism that a strong economy will erase the deficits is dead wrong.

In fairness, The Economist also points out that none of the Democrats running for the nomination have an economic plan which will solve the problem.

Their conclusion? "Long after Dubya is back on his ranch, Americans will be trying to recover from the mess he created."

2003-11-06T10:25:00.000-06:00

Back channel to Baghdad
According to The New York Times, Iraqi officials made numerous attempts to strike a deal with the U.S. to avoid war, the last of which came in early March 2003. The Times summarizes the Iraqi offer thus:

Iraqi cooperation in fighting terrorism.
"Full support for any U.S. plan" in the Arab-Israeli peace process.
"The U.S. will be given first priority as it relates to Iraq oil, mining rights."
Iraqi cooperation with U.S. strategic interests in the region.
"Direct U.S. involvement on the ground in disarming Iraq."

The story also mentions that Iraq offered to hand over Abdul Rahman Yasin, indicted for the 1993 WTC bombing, and even offered the promise of democratic elections within 2 years.

Of course, Saddam Hussein has a long and distinguished history of getting out of tight situations by making promises and then failing to follow through, and there's every reason to view these offers with skepticism. On the other hand, the hard fact of U.S. troops massing on Iraq's border did make the Iraqis more cooperative with the inspections regime than they had been at any time in the previous 10 years. It's possible that America could have used its very big stick to coerce Iraq into genuine, peaceful reforms. Granted, it would have taken a great deal of time, and diligence, and oversight, and an extended U.S./UN presence in the region. But we're facing the same thing now, only with a lot more death and destruction.

Too bad we'll never know how things might have turned out.

2003-11-06T09:59:00.000-06:00

Clean air, clear skies, healthy forests . . .
The New York Times is reporting that the EPA has decided to drop investigations into more than 50 power plants charged with violating the Clean Air Act. The reason is that the EPA has revised its rules about the conditions under which plants need to install anti-polluting technology. Under the new rules:

      ". . . any renovation project that costs less than 20 percent of the power-generating unit's
    value will be exempt, and no pollution controls will need to be added even if the project
    increases emissions."

The Times states that "The Bush administration has said its goal is to ensure cost-effective improvements to air quality," but it seems quite clear that the real goal is to ensure that their buddies in the power and oil industries will no longer be bothered with pesky requirements which protect the environment.

The Washington Post reports that the number of cases/investigations to be dropped could be as high as 83. Of course, the EPA insists that investigations which are currently in litigation will move forward. Sure they will.

2003-11-05T22:36:00.000-06:00

Let's See Some OUTRAGE!!!
Back in May, The Nation wrote an editorial on the topic of war profiteering. It was very illuminating.

      "During World War II Harry Truman referred to some forms of war profiteering as 'treason.'
    When he heard rumors of such profiteering, Truman got into his Dodge and, during a Congressional recess,
    drove 30,000 miles paying unannounced visits to corporate offices and worksites. The Senate committee he
    chaired launched aggressive investigations into shady wartime business practices and found 'waste,
    inefficiency, mismanagement and profiteering,' according to Truman, who argued that such behavior was
    unpatriotic. Urged on by Truman and others in Congress, President Roosevelt supported broad increases in
    the corporate income tax, raised the excess-profits tax to 90 percent and charged the Office of War
    Mobilization with the task of eliminating illegal profits."

There has been a lot of talk, but not enough outrage, about the way the U.S. has contracted corporations to provide services to our troops and for Iraq's reconstruction. First of all, there are literally hundreds of private companies involved in some aspect of troop support or Iraq's reconstruction. The potential for abuse is greater than at any other time in U.S. history. The most disturbing stories, however, involve no-bid contracts to companies like Halliburton and Bechtel. Since a company with a no-bid contract doesn't have to worry about some competitor undercutting their contract price (remember the free enterprise system?), there's a significant potential to inflate costs at the expense of taxpayers.

And of course, the most serious problem surrounds Dick Cheney's huge conflict of interest given his continuing financial ties to Halliburton in the form of stock options. That Cheney can hold these options and still continue to claim, with a straight face, that he has "gotten rid of all my financial interest" in Halliburton is cause enough for a Truman-style investigation, but somehow I don't see Cheney driving 30,000 miles --- or even lifting a finger --- to insure that our tax dollars are being spent prudently.

However, the congressional magazine The Hill just reported today on a story which underlines the deep contrast between the Roosevelt and George W. Bush administrations on this issue. An amendment to the $87.5 billion supplemental spending bill for Iraq, authored by Democrats, would have imposed severe penalties for any corporation found guilty of war profiteering. Who could possibly oppose such an amendment? There was sufficient Republican support in the Senate to pass the amended bill, but it was stripped out in conference due to lack of support by Congressional Republicans. Why did the House Republicans reject it? One reason given was that they were "'uneasy' about adding this kind of criminal law without input from the White House and the Department of Justice." The Bush administration, apparently, does not have an opinion about whether this amendment is a good idea.

Why, I can just hear Bush's defenders now: "You see, Bush and Cheney can't possibly be assisting Halliburton and Bechtel in war profiteering, because the administration doesn't care about war profiteering!"

2003-11-04T15:28:00.000-06:00

CBS wimps out
Unbelieveable. Rush Limbaugh can accuse Hillary Clinton of murder for days on end, but conservatives get their undies in a bunch when a docudrama about their beloved Ronnie isn't sufficiently reverential.

2003-11-04T14:33:00.000-06:00

Conspiracy theories
I haven't posted in a few days, because quite honestly, I haven't come across anything I felt was worth posting. But as I mentioned a few posts back, I've had some thoughts about 9/11 rolling around in my gut, and I thought I'd throw some of them out now.

This decision was spurred by a story in Scotland's Sunday Herald, which suggests that Mossad, the Israeli intelligence agency, had advance knowledge of the 9/11 attacks and did nothing to stop them. I hesitate to even mention this story for obvious reasons: it lends support to the various conspiracy theories that the Jews were behind the attack, or that the Jews are secretly planning to take over the world, and more broadly, it is a very serious thing to charge that anyone who had advance knowledge of the attacks would have stood passively by and allowed them to happen.

Due to the sensitive nature of this story, I've done some research and corroborated most of the claims. The Jewish Week confirms that indeed, five Israeli citizens were arrested within hours of the 9/11 attacks. These men were in possession of a white van which contained, among other things, more than $4000 in cash and at least one pair of box cutters of the type used in the attacks. These men had also taken pictures of themselves, smiling, with the wreckage of the towers in the background.

Other sources (given above) cite the FBI's conclusion that at least two of the five men were Mossad operatives, and that Urban Moving Systems, the company the men worked for was really a front for Mossad. Shortly after the five men were arrested, Urban Moving Systems closed up shop and the putative owner fled to Israel. In fact, the Jewish newspaper The Forward reports that the Israeli government has since acknowledged the operation and apologized to the U.S. for conducting espionage on American soil without permission.

Apparently, they weren't alone. According to a report by Intelligence Online (subscription required) that there were around 20 Israeli intelligence cells operating in the U.S., and "according to the FBI, Arab terrorists and suspected terror cells lived in Phoenix, Arizona, as well as in Miami and Hollywood, Florida, from December 2000 to April 2001 in direct proximity to the Israeli spy cells." At least two of the 9/11 hijackers were among the cells under Israeli surveillance. The Forward mentions this story, and states that while the FBI officially denies that the Israelis, posing as art students, had any connection to Israeli intelligence, it also quotes knowledgeable sources who believe that the Intelligence Online report is correct. So is it possible that Mossad agents were trailing the al-Qaeda cells inside the U.S. as they planned the attacks, and yet weren't able to figure out what they were up to?

Of course, this does not prove that Mossad had advance knowledge of the attacks. Indeed, a single report doesn't definitively prove that Mossad was even conducting a spy operation on Al-Qaeda cells in the U.S., much less that Mossad knew what Al-Qaeda was planning. But the fact that The Forward, a venerable Jewish newspaper with no obvious axe to grind with Israel, is reporting these things gives them credibility. And credible reports such as this merit further investigation.

In the same way, there are a lot of serious questions raised about the Bush administration's behavior in the days and months prior to 9/11. We know that urgent warnings from Richard Clarke and George Tenet prior to the attacks went largely unheeded. That would be the same Richard Clarke who was the counterterrorism chief under Bill Clinton, and who worked hard to convince the Bush administration of the urgent need to attack al-Qaeda --- a need which was largely ignored until September 4, 2001. And we know that on August 6, 2001, Bush received a memo which prominently stated "Bin Laden Determined to Strike in U.S.," and which suggested that the strike would involve hijacked airplanes.

Add to this a whole host of unanswered questions about the events of 9/11, and the fact that the administration appears to be stonewalling the independent commission investigating 9/11 (a commission whose creation Bush opposed, you'll recall), and doubt starts to creep into my mind. By all means, we should be willing to grant the Bush administration, indeed, any administration, the presumption that they took all appropriate actions based on the information they had.

But when an administration is so secretive, and so willing to attack the patriotism of anyone who questions them, you have to wonder what they're hiding. Certainly the report of the five Israelis raises serious questions. The actions of the Bush administration raise serious questions.

It's time the media got involved in aggressively asking those questions, and it's time we the people got answers.

2003-10-30T18:49:00.000-06:00

Let's Hear it For Bipartisanship . . .
Congressman David Obey (D-Wisc) has published an open letter to Congressman Ralph Regula (R-Ohio) in which he details the Republicans' latest effort to 'change the tone' in Washington.

Regula is the chairman of the Subcommittee on Labor, Health and Human Services, and Education. Apparently his committee submitted an appropriation bill which offered $8 billion less for No Child Left Behind than was authorized when that legislation passed 2 years ago, and $1.2 billion less for education of disabled students than the Republican leadership had authorized in a budget resolution just three weeks earlier. Apparently we can afford $1.62 trillion in tax cuts and $87 billion for the war in Iraq, but not $9.2 billion for education.

Not surprisingly, all 205 congressional Democrats voted against the appropriation. Not surprisingly, Republicans were upset about it.

So Regula and the Republicans on his subcommittee have decided to retaliate by adding $1 billion in 'earmarks' --- little pork-flavored gifties directed to specific congressional districts --- into the appropriations bill, none of them going to Democratic districts. This is clearly being done to punish the Democrats for voting their conscience.

One might be tempted to conclude that this is politics as usual, but at least according to Obey, it's not. He writes:

      "Significant earmarks did not begin to appear in the Labor-HHS-Bill until after 1995. In the fiscal year 1996
    appropriation, after the Republican takeover, $33 million was earmarked. Two years later, earmarks jumped
    to $97 million and the following year (fiscal year 1999) earmarked Labor-HHS funds jumped to $300 million.
    In fiscal year 2000 they jumped to $453 million and the following year to $911 million. In fiscal year 2002
    they hit $1 billion."

So the Republicans seem to believe that we can't afford $1.2 billion to help educate disabled kids, but we can afford to spend $1 billion to spite our political enemies. How compassionate.

2003-10-30T16:15:00.000-06:00

Children Left Behind?
According to Jay P. Greene and Greg Forster of the Manhattan Institute, only 70% of all students in public high schools graduate, and only 32% of all students leave high school qualified to attend four-year colleges. Stated another way, the overall high school dropout rate is 30%.

This is bad enough, but in a companion piece on NPR's All Things Considered, Professor Greene discusses how pretty much all of the states systematically underreport their dropout rates. Some of the key tidbits from that story:

The Department of Education reports that the national dropout rate is no more than 11%, versus the 30%-plus Greene computed
Texas is singled out as a state with a 33% dropout rate, compared to the 4.2% dropout rate reported by the state.
The state of Florida reports a 3% dropout rate, while Greene's report names Florida as having the highest dropout rate in the country at 44%.
In New York (City?) and Houston, school administrators forced underperforming students out of school so that average test scores weren't dragged down. These students were not included in dropout totals.

It goes without saying that a high dropout rate is alarming, but just to drive the point home, NPR interviewed Franklin Schargel, a former New York City schoolteacher and author of several books on dropouts, about the consequences of such a high dropout rate. Schargel noted that:

According to the Justice Department, 82% of all prisoners are dropouts.
Only 60% of dropouts find a job within one year of leaving school.
Half of all people who earn the minimum wage are dropouts.
Dropouts are more likely to live in poverty, more likely to join gangs, and more likely to develop drug problems.

How do the states get away with underreporting the problem? Partly through sloppy bookkeeping (if a student transfers schools, s/he is often 'lost'), partly through making exceptions (for example, students who go to prison and never finish school are not counted as dropouts), and partly through mechanisms peculiar to each state (in Texas, students who flunk the state's gateway test and thus never graduate are not counted).

The upshot is, this is a huge, huge problem which we cannot even start to address because the dropout rates reported by the states are wildly inaccurate. Greene and Schargel both point out that it would be fairly easy and inexpensive for the federal government to mandate that states monitor and report accurate dropout rates, which would bring the problem into relief and allow the feds and the states to start taking concrete steps to address it. However, this is unlikely to happen any time soon, because the real numbers are so embarrassing.

So instead the feds and the states, and the media (except for this one NPR story) take no notice.

2003-10-30T15:01:00.000-06:00

News From Iraq
The administration complains that the media are underreporting the positive things that are happening in Iraq. That may be, but it looks like they are also underreporting the negative things. From today's New York Times:

"U.S. forces are suffering an average of 33 attacks a day -- up from about 12 daily attacks in July."

Maybe I've just been out of it, but this is the first time I've heard that U.S. forces are enduring multiple attacks every day. Fortunately it seems that only a very small percentage of the attacks are fatal. Unfortunately, it appears that the number of such attacks is climbing sharply.

I can understand the administration's frustration about good news being underreported, but I don't think the reason for such underreporting is liberal media bias (which, I'm convinced, is not nearly so pervasive nor agenda-driven as conservative media bias). I think the press is doing the same thing in Iraq that it does in the U.S.: emphasizing the big, eye-catching stories and ignoring the less sensational ones, like non-fatal attacks on U.S. troops and schools opening.

2003-10-28T17:07:00.000-06:00

Bullets or Ballots?
A quick follow-up to the earlier discussion about problems with touch-screen voting.

First of all, Avi Rubin, principal author of the Johns-Hopkins paper about the problems with Diebold's touch-screen voting system, has acknowledged that he had a conflict of interest in producing the report, as he held stock options in and was a member on the technical advisory board of VoteHere, a competitor of Diebold.

The concept of 'conflict of interest' is that Professor Rubin had an obligation to present a fair and unbiased report on the merits of Diebold's voting system, while at the same time he had a personal interest in promoting VoteHere. One might conclude that Professor Rubin neglected his academic obligation and undermined Diebold to help VoteHere. I'm only bothering to explain the concept in such detail because there are many conservatives who deny that John Ashcroft has a conflict of interest in investigating who leaked Valerie Plame's name to Robert Novak. Do you get it now, folks?

So, does this mean we should all ignore Professor Rubin's report? Well, not necessarily, but we should evaluate it with much more scrutiny.

What lends the Rubin report some credibility is that Rubin had three co-authors, none of whom had a similar conflict of interest. Then there's the fact that Rubin didn't cook up this story on his own; apparently it all started with a part-time Seattle journalist named Bev Harris, who brought this issue to Rubin's attention. And other scholars, cited in the Seattle Times piece, support Rubin's conclusions.

Amid all of the chatter, it's important to hold on to one fact. The Diebold machines do not produce a printed ballot. About this one thing, everyone agrees. And no matter how wonderful these machines might otherwise be, this is a fatal flaw in their system, and they should not be used.

Why? Because if there is no paper trail, then there can be no auditing, no independent verification that the machines are working correctly. The concept of a 'recount' is completely lost (after Florida 2000, some may feel that this is a good thing), because there's nothing to count. If someone demanded a recount, a worker would simply ask the machine to check its results, and the machine would spit back the same number it produced before. That worker wouldn't know whether the machine got it right. The voters wouldn't know. Judges wouldn't know. The candidates wouldn't know. The people who designed and programmed the machines wouldn't know. It would be absolutely impossible to determine whether the machines got the count right!

This seems like a pretty serious problem to me. Not only because it means that we are now placing the very heart of American democracy in the hands of machines which may or may not be reliable, but because such a system is simply begging to get hacked. Maybe these machines have absolutely bulletproof security, but if a hacker did get in and tamper with the results, we would never know about it.

So when I see a Diebold official saying ". . . election supervisors would detect any manipulation of votes," my immediate response is "how"? If the folks who coded the machines in the first place can't detect it, then how is a volunteer election judge with little or no knowledge about computers supposed to detect it? So far, Diebold hasn't answered. And in reality, they can't. It's all a bluff.

And I'm a little confused when a University of Iowa computer science professor says "While the facts she's reporting appear to be accurate and carefully researched, the tone appears to be alarmist." Um, yeah. If you agree that she's reporting the facts accurately, then wouldn't you also agree that she has very good reason to be alarmed? The main thing that holds a democracy together is the idea that no matter who wins an election, that person won the election fairly. If there's no way to confirm that the vote count was accurate, then that sense of fairness is gone, and with it, any reason for folks on the losing side to accept defeat gracefully. I'd say that's pretty alarming.

Of course, if you really want to see something alarmist, you should read Victoria Collier's article. She claims, among other things, that any paperless voting technology is illegal, because the law requires that the vote counting process be open to the public. If the actual vote counting takes place in the guts of some machine, then by its very nature it is not open to the public.

Her tone is definitely alarmist. But that doesn't mean that she's wrong.

And by an amazing coincidence, Tom Tomorrow again echoes my theme.

2003-10-27T21:06:00.000-06:00

That said . . .
It's becoming clearer with every passing day that the Bush administration is going to have to give up on its charm offensive to convince the public that everything is really okey-dokey dandy-fine. In the White House photo op where Bush and Bremer answered questions about this weekend's attacks, Bush and Bremer mentioned the success(?) of the recent donor's conference, the creation of an Iraqi cabinet (which, although it is a sign of progress, has been marred by the assassination of one of its members), the fact that "all schools and hospitals are open", and "electricity is back at pre-war levels". All of which, while possibly overstated, is indeed positive.

The problem is, these guys refuse to acknowledge that they have a problem. That's disturbing, because we all know that the first step to solving a problem is to recognize that the problem exists. In spite of all of the fuss that's been made about Rumsfeld's memo, it seems as if the administration is merely asking itself whether their strategy is failing, rather than acknowledging it and taking steps to correct it.

Consider the White House 'photo op' with Bush and Bremer. Bremer called the past two days, which have seen more violence than any days since the infamous aircraft carrier landing on May 1, "rough days", downplaying their significance. And two different reporters asked Bush essentially "What measures are being undertaken or discussed to insure better protection for our troops?" Bush dodged the question the first time, and referred it to Bremer --- who dodged it --- the second. Each time, instead of answering the question, Bush and Bremer went on at length about how bad the attackers are, that they were acting out of "desperation" because we're making so much "progress".

To me, this indicates that the administration doesn't know how to respond, but wants to keep the public from getting upset by continuing to emphasize the whole "good versus evil" metaphor they've been running with ever since 9/11. When asked "What do you know about who is behind these attacks? Is it Saddam?", Bush replied "(they) are cold-blooded killers, terrorists. That's all they are." And that's a great way to build up support for your cause, by dehumanizing the enemy. But if the U.S. really doesn't have a better handle on who the enemy is than "they're bad guys", we could be looking at a very long, hard slog indeed.

And here's a really terrifying thought. The Bushies have received a lot of criticism about "cherry-picking" intelligence data before the war and "stovepiping" anything that supported their case uncritically up to senior management. You know the list: claims about Iraq's nuclear capability, it's ability to strike quickly and without warning on targets in the U.S., the supposed Iraq/al-Qaeda link, etc. etc. Recall that there was also a claim that the Iraqi people would greet our troops with open arms and flowers.

Well, maybe they stovepiped and cherry-picked exactly that evidence not only because it's what they believed, but because it's what they wanted to believe. And maybe they still want to believe it, so much so that instead of viewing yesterday as a wake up call, they see it as merely a "rough day," which we must struggle through in order to get to the open arms and flowers. It is certainly difficult to believe that the administration could be so clueless, but they've been dead wrong about most other aspects of the war (except for correctly predicting that the U.S. would take control of the country fairly easily --- and boy, was that ever a bold prediction!), mostly because they steadfastly clung to beliefs which the best information from our intelligence community contradicted.

And a number of people have pointed out how insulated and introspective the Bush administration is. Heck, Bush doesn't even read the news, he relies on his advisers for that. In a recent interview with Brit Hume, he says ". . . the best way to get the news is from objective sources. And the most objective sources I have are people on my staff who tell me what's happening in the world."

Uh huh. I think we must at least consider the possibility that Bush really thinks reality will bend to his will if just keeps the faith and wants it badly enough.

2003-10-27T19:07:00.000-06:00

Progress
First off, I am obliged to call out a bit of anti-Bush spin in the Washington Post. This article leads off with the sentence:

      "President Bush this morning said the increasing attacks on U.S. personnel and supporters
    in Iraq are a sign of progress because the attacks indicate Iraqi opponents are getting
    increasingly desperate."

This is misleading. It makes it sound like Bush actually considers the attacks themselves to be a sign of progress. As if more frequent, more devastating, better organized attacks on U.S. troops and Iraqi authorities and civilians is actually a good thing. Why, what we really need is a 9/11-style attack on Baghdad, then we'd really be making progress!

No, if you look at the White House transcript of the photo op with Bush and Bremer (that's actually what the White House calls it, a 'photo opportunity'), Bush never says this. The essence of his message is best summarized in this statement:

      "(T)here's a handful of people who don't want to live in freedom, aren't interested
    in their children going to schools, aren't -- don't really care about the nature of the health
    care they get, aren't pleased with the fact that the electricity is coming back on line, aren't
    happy about the fact that Iraq is now selling oil on the world markets and people are
    finding work. And they'll do whatever it takes to stop this progress."

His point is, that the progress the U.S. is making is causing the opposition to get more "desperate", not that the opposition attacks themselves are a sign of progress.

I'm serious about trying to keep the media honest, without spinning toward the right or the left.

2003-10-24T14:21:00.000-05:00

I see a 'red state', and I want to paint it black . . .
Of course I'm dimly aware that a number of people have voiced what seem to be quite legitimate concerns about the U.S. voting system. I even sent out one or two rants about it in the forum which preceded this blog. Here's a sampling of data:

This is the first story I saw on the issue.
Here's the lone academic study I'm aware of, done by some researchers at Johns Hopkins University.
Here William Rivers Pitt interviews three experts on the topic of touch-screen voting, and does a great job of breaking the issue down into digestible pieces.
And finally, the link Ken just sent me, which is the first time I've seen the amazing allegation that vote-tampering actually occurred in Florida during the 2000 Presidential election.

I have difficulty knowing how to deal with this information.

First of all, I must reluctantly acknowledge that this information is credible. Perhaps because I work in the computer industry (though my work in computer security has been minimal), I understand that designing and building 100% secure systems is fantastically difficult. It's difficult enough to build a system which actually does what it's supposed to do let alone secure it from evildoers. I would imagine that anyone reading this can tick off dozens of times their computer crashed or locked up on them, or their internet connection was dropped. And I'm sure you've noticed that every software company in the universe offers updates and patches to their software on a regular basis. There are a lot of reasons for this, and a discussion about why software quality is so poor is a completely separate, long, boring discussion, but the fact is that bug-free software is sort of a mythical illusion rather than a reality.

However. I'm willing to accept that it's possible, with lots of independent review and testing (which, apparently, Diebold refuses to submit to), to write a touch-screen voting system which works perfectly. That still leaves the problem of security. And in case anyone thinks that such a thing as 'bulletproof security' exists, consider how much trouble Microsoft has keeping their stuff secure. In fact, just look at all of the security updates Microsoft issues on a near-daily basis. One might argue that the main reason for Microsoft's security problems is that they emphasize new features over all other considerations, and security is mostly an afterthought. Nevertheless, Microsoft is sadly typical of most software companies, and none of the companion links cited above give reason to believe Diebold is any better.

I recall one security expert I used to work with who described optimal computer security using this analogy. Think of a safe. This safe has an optimal security design if I can give you an open copy of the same safe, allow you to take it apart and examine it as much as you like, and you're still unable to break in to the original safe. Similarly, if Diebold's computer security is sufficiently robust, they should be willing and able to undergo scrutiny from independent security experts without an increased risk of vulnerability to their systems. The fact that they refuse to submit to such scrutiny does not give me confidence in their system.

So sadly, this seems to be a real problem. The question is, what to do about it?

It's tempting to throw up one's arms and say "well, the system's broken and no one seems to care, so I guess we just give up." I've been tempted to do that. A less defeatist response is to stick your head in the sand, and pretend that the problem doesn't exist. I hate to admit it, but I think that's where I've been for the past 6 months.

Unfortunately, I believe the bottom line is that a slim majority of folks still support Bush, and wouldn't believe that he or the GOP are capable of such treachery and (this is the really devastating part) wouldn't be all that upset if they were. Although I certainly don't have any hard evidence to back this up, I suspect that most conservatives don't care that the system is broken, because right now, it's broken in favor of their guy. In all fairness, I expect most liberals wouldn't care that much if the broken system favored them (they would care a little more than the conservatives, but not much).

Until the majority of people realize that this problem exists and acknowledge that goes far beyond mere partisanship, things ain't gonna change. On the other hand, if the day ever comes when the majority does acknowledge that this is a serious problem and things don't change, I believe we'll have mayhem.

2003-10-23T12:52:00.000-05:00

Because imminent doesn't mean 'imminent'
I wasn't going to write anything today, but then I read The Daily Howler, which pointed me to George Will's Washington Post column, which got me all annoyed about conservative hypocrisy.

Will writes:
      ". . . critics profess themselves shocked and angered because
    (Rumsfeld), Powell and the president supposedly said, repeatedly,
    something that none of them actually ever said. At least, says
    a Rumsfeld aide, an electronic search finds not a single instance
    of them using the argument that Iraq posed an 'imminent' WMD
    threat to the United States."

This is absurd. George Will is a very smart man; he is certainly smart enough to know that it is possible to communicate the idea that there is an 'imminent' threat without actually using the word 'imminent'. In his October 7, 2002 speech in Cincinnati, Bush said that Iraq posed a 'grave threat'. He said that America is resolved to 'confront every threat, from any source, that could bring sudden terror and suffering to America.' He said 'Iraq could decide on any given day to provide a biological or chemical weapon to a terrorist group or individual terrorists.' Considering that he mentions 9/11 five times in the same speech, and al-Qaeda six times, wouldn't a reasonable person conclude that Bush wants us to believe:

That there is some link between Iraq and al-Qaeda (another unproven assertion)
That Iraq and al-Qaeda can attack the U.S. 'on any given day', i.e. that the threat is 'imminent'?

Why yes. A reasonable person probably would conclude that Bush meant to communicate those ideas. But either the conservative spin doctors like Will aren't reasonable people, or they're counting on the fact that their readers won't go look up Bush's old speeches and invest some careful thought in analyzing them. Actually, those are both pretty safe assumptions.

This is what I mean about the conservative propaganda machine. I entered 'Bush imminent threat' in Google, and in the first three pages I got six different conservative spinmeisters all making the same tired argument: "Well, he never used the word 'imminent'!"

This is why we need to focus on things like Col. Gardiner's psyops report when we discuss Bush administration lies and deceit, and not such straightforward, simple accusations as 'you claimed Iraq posed an imminent threat and you were wrong!'

Anyway, I've taken my own advice (see The New Model Republican Party post from October 15 --- sorry, I don't have my archives linked, don't know how/whether it's possible on Blogger), and sent an email to Will pointing out his intellectual dishonesty. After making a reasoned explanation as to why his words are meaningless, I went on to point out that Bill Clinton denied having 'sexual relations' with Monica Lewinsky, but he never denied 'receiving oral sex' from her, and therefore it must follow that Will agrees with me that Clinton's impeachment was a travesty carried out by partisan zealots.

And as long as I'm on the subject of language, I'd just like to point out that Al Gore never said that he 'invented the internet.' The actual quote is:

      "During my service in the United States Congress, I took the initiative
    in creating the internet. I took the initiative in moving forward a whole
    range of initiatives that have proven to be important to our country's
    economic growth and environmental protection, improvements in our
    educational system."

You see, he was claiming credit for initiating and promoting legislation that allowed the internet to come into existence, not for, say, writing packet-switching protocols and laying fiber-optic cable.

Yes, conservatives are very adept at using Google and Lexis-Nexis when they have their own semantic hairs to split, but when they want to promote a canard that makes the presumptive Democratic nominee for president look like a smug, pompous idiot, they don't bother with the fact-checking too much.

And as long as I'm on the subject of conservative hypocrisy, I really liked Tom Tomorrow's latest cartoon.

2003-10-22T15:11:00.000-05:00

A Now, a Word About Our Environment . . .
This will be short. It just so happens that there are two screeds about Bush's treatment of the environment today, over at TomPaine.com. The first talks about Bush's dismantling the most important environmental regulation you've never heard of. The second argues that Bush will favor big business over the environment, even when there's a compelling economic argument to do otherwise.

Also, William Rivers Pitt has written another of his outstanding screeds denouncing Bush and his misadministration. Whenever I read one of his articles, I marvel that 50% of the people in this country still give Bush an 'excellent' or 'good' job approval rating. These people must not be reading Pitt (the most likely explanation; his stuff is terribly undercirculated), or they think he's a liar (even though it's fairly easy to verify his claims by spending some quality time with Google), or they read his articles while thinking to themselves: "Blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, I can't HEAR you!!!, blah, blah, blah, I'm not LISTENing!!! blah, blah, blah . . . "

Finally, I reread Seymour Hersh's New Yorker article referenced here a few days ago, and decided I like it even better the second time around. If you haven't read it even once, you should.

2003-10-21T12:56:00.000-05:00

Support our troops!
The Christian Science Monitor has a wonderful, semi-daily feature called the Daily Update. This link usually has lots of interesting information about the war in Iraq and the War on Terror (note that these are two distinct things), not mention the nearly-forgotten war in Afghanistan (yes, our troops are still fighting and dying there, though not at so alarming a rate as in Iraq).

The problem is that, as the name suggests, the content changes roughly every day or so, and you need to act quickly to see the best links. This is an effort to persist some of them here so folks can browse them at a more leisurely pace.

It should go without saying that I support our troops. In fact, I thought they should have stayed home, safe and sound in the first place. I don't understand how that qualifies as failing to support our troops, or in any way unpatriotic, but since Bush's supporters have made a habit out of questioning the patriotism of those who bring up inconvenient facts, I thought I should make that statement. My main concern for the soldiers in Iraq is that they all come to their families.

It's not clear that the administration shares this concern.

First, let's focus on what our troops are accomplishing in Iraq. The administration insists that things are improving every day, and in some ways I'm sure they're correct. However, given that there are fresh attacks on our troops on an almost daily basis, you would think that a high priority would be given to attempts to win the hearts and minds of the Iraqi people. However, our troops seem to be going about it all wrong. There is a report that troops are mistreating Iraqi prisoners of war, even beating one to death. And though there haven't been any reports recently, there have been at least two incidents of U.S. soliders attacking and killing Iraqi policemen. Human Rights Watch has issued its own report about Iraqi civilian casualties at the hands of U.S. forces.

But maybe these are just unfortunate, extreme cases. In fact, in the police killings (and probably in many of the civilian ones), the problem was that the U.S. troops couldn't quickly and accurately distinguish friend from foe, and after 101 troop deaths and counting since May 1, I'm sure most U.S. forces have a rather itchy trigger finger.

Less tragic, but more difficult to understand, is the recent report that our troops are destroying the crops of farmers who refuse to provide information about guerilla attacks. Again, it's understandable that the U.S. wants to take extreme measures to track down and capture(?) those responsible for the guerilla attacks, but isn't it counterproductive to destroy the livelihoods of Iraqi innocents? I mean, look at the relationship between Israel and the Palestinians. The Israelis have responded to Palestinian terror attacks with 'targeted assassinations' and bulldozing the homes of suspected terrorists, the same kind of thing U.S. soldiers are doing in Iraq.

And how effective has it been?

Finally, I want to get back to the question about how well the Bush administration is succeeding in its patriotic (not to mention Constitutional) duty to 'support our troops'. Based on this report by UPI, not very well. According to Stars and Stripes, morale is pretty low, for a plethora of reasons.

Another story about how the Bush administration is ignoring or mistreating our troops shows up every few days. I'll make an effort to point them out when I see them.

2003-10-20T22:29:00.000-05:00

Up the stovepipe
The New Yorker's Seymour Hersh posits another explanation for the source of the 'crudely forged documents' which started the whole Plame/Wilson/yellowcake fiasco. In a just-published article, he quotes an unnamed former CIA officer as stating that a bunch of retired CIA operatives made the whole thing up in an attempt to embarrass Cheney.

The administration had set up a system of 'stovepiping' intelligence. 'Stovepiping' is a term used in the intelligence community to describe the process when intelligence supporting a certain policy position is uncritically passed up the chain of command to the highest levels, thus assuring maximum possible support for that policy. The ex-spooks knew the administration was stovepiping to support the invasion of Iraq, and they weren't happy about it, to put it mildly. So a bunch of them got together and created documents which were obvious forgeries, knowing that Cheney would present them as valid and be embarrassed later to have been taken in by such obviously fraudulent data.

I guess things didn't quite work out as the ex-spooks expected. Not only was Cheney not embarrassed, the contents of the documents went largely unchallenged by anyone (other than Jospeh Wilson) until this summer. And thanks to the conservative propaganda machine, the administration is successfully avoiding embarrassment even now.

2003-10-20T21:30:00.000-05:00

PsyOps
There's been a fair amount of back-and-forth recently between administration supporters and critics about whether the administration misled, lied to and deceived Congress, the country and the world in the run-up to the war on Iraq. Those accusing the administration of dishonesty are doing a good job of mining Google to come up with damning quotes and facts of one sort and another, while Bush's defenders are increasingly falling back on Clinton-style hair-splitting, which would be funny if the whole thing weren't so serious.

Finally, a couple of weeks ago, a guy named Sam Gardiner released a 56-page summary detailing how the U.S. and U.K. governments " . . . conducted a strategic influence campaign that:

Distorted perceptions of the situtation both before and during the conflict,
Caused misdirection of portions of the military operation,
Was irresponsible in parts,
Might have been illegal in some ways,
Cost big bucks, and
Will be even more serious in the future."

It's nice to have most of the major lies and distortions all gathered up in a single document. What makes it compelling is the fact that Sam Gardiner is no simpering liberal Bush-basher. He's a retired Air Force Colonel who has spent his career teaching the fighting men and women of our military about psychological warfare. So, this is a guy who knows what he's talking about.

In the preface, he states that he had been working on this paper with Mark Fineman of the Los Angeles Times, and that he had not intended to write the paper himself. As it happened, Mr. Fineman died of a heart attack while reporting from Baghdad. This resulted in a rather fragmented, hard to read paper, full of spelling and grammar mistakes. This is a shame, because I believe that Col. Gardiner's story is a very important one. Here are just a few of the many points he makes:

The administration cynically manipulated public opinion before the war by pretending to care about the plight of women in Afghanistan and Iraq. He notes that Laura Bush and Cherie Blair made almost identical remarks about the punishment for a woman who dares to wear nail polish. However, this was just a case of crocodile tears; in the war's aftermath, the situation for women is still dire, and the administration is now silent on the issue.
Saddam loyalists who were not part of the regular army were originally characterized as "irregulars", then "fidayeen", then "terrorist people dressed in civilian clothes" before the administration settled on "terrorist death squads". The use of the word "terrorist" here no doubt supported the non-existent link between Saddam and 9/11, never mind the fact that it's inaccurate to describe attacks on a foreign military within your borders as a "terrorist" attack.
Wolfowitz' bogus claim that Iraq was gearing up to stage a cyberattack against the U.S. There were no major attempts to penetrate any U.S. systems during the war.
False reports that Saddam's thugs hanged a woman for waving to coalition troops.
Numerous falsehoods/inconsistencies surrounding the Jessica Lynch story.
The administration made numerous absolute statements that Iraq was executing prisoners of war. To date, there is still no solid evidence to support this.

There were two bits that I found especially interesting. The first was in the context of the Jessica Lynch story. U.S. media received a lot of information about PFC Lynch which was deemed classified. Col. Gardiner points out "This was a major pattern from the beginning of the marketing campaign throughout the war. It was okay to release classified information if it supported the message." It occurs to me that perhaps this systematic use of classified information to support the cause is what led the unknown administration official to think it was acceptable to blow Valerie Plame's cover.

The other interesting bit also ties in to the Plame/Wilson/yellowcake story. Gardiner refers to this story and mentions the fact (which has been lost in recent media coverage) that the initial allegations of Iraqi attempts to acquire uranium from Niger were made in documents which ultimately proved to be crude forgeries. To date, I have never heard any speculation as to who might have done the forging, or their motive for doing so. Gardiner suggests three possibilities for the source: the Department of Defense could have manufactured the documents as part of the campaign to deceive the public; it could have been Israeli intelligence, as Israel stood to benefit greatly from the war, or it could have been the Iraqi National Congress, a group of expatriate Iraqis opposed to Saddam's regime and funded in part by the U.S. government. The INC has an obvious motive for making charges against Saddam, but as time goes one, it becomes more and more clear that information from the INC is not reliable.

All of the various accounts come together to pose a pretty convincing case that the Bush administration is every bit as guilty of lies, deception and distortions as their accusers say they are, and probably more so. The most chilling report is that there's no reason to think they're ever going to stop. They've learned from the mistakes they've made so far, and are honing their skills to manipulate the public even more in the future. Gardiner says:

      "My story would be important if it were the last
    chapter of the book. It's not. There is more to come.
    As the United States struggles with a post-conflict Iraq,
    distortions continue. Probably of more concern, major
    players in the game are working on ways to do it 'better'
    in future conflicts."

You can hear an interview with Col. Gardiner, or watch it, at Democracy Now.

2003-10-15T15:35:00.000-05:00

Fair and Balanced
Some folks may feel that I violated my creed by calling out FOX News as a tool of the conservative propaganda machine. However, this is not merely my opinion or that of other liberals; Harold Meyerson reports that a group called the Program on International Policy Attitudes has just completed a study supporting this claim.

Meyerson summarizes the results as follows. Given the following three false statements:

The United States has uncovered evidence of a strong working relationship between Saddam Hussein and Al Qaeda.
Weapons of Mass Destruction have been discovered in Iraq.
Most people in other countries had backed the U.S. war against Saddam Hussein.

the researchers studied how likely a person was to believe one or more of them based on that person's primary news source.

The results show that

80% of FOX viewers believed at least one of these statements; 45% believed all three.
71% of CBS viewers believed at least one of these statements, while only 15% believed all three.
Only 23% of PBS viewers/NPR listeners believed at least one statement, and only 4% believed all three.

Meyerson goes on to make some conjecture that FOX News is really an organ of the Republican Party. I won't go that far. I'll simply point out that FOX News is run by Roger Ailes, described by Fairness and Accuracy in Reporting as "one of the savviest and most pugnacious Republican political operatives in Washington."

2003-10-15T11:27:00.000-05:00

The New Model Republican Party
I'm accustomed to receiving email from folks pointing me to one link or another, but I was really quite surprised yesterday when two people independently sent me this link from Calpundit. I mean, these supermarket worker strikes are a serious issue, but it's not exactly the kind of thing that makes you want to quit your job and take an unpaid internship at MoveOn.org just so you can be sure you've done all you can to get the word out to people.

So, apparently there was something goofy going on with Calpundit yesterday, because I eventually learned that my two fellow travelers had meant to point me to this link, which I'm sure you'll agree is much more compelling.

To summarize, Kevin Drum found a copy of the Texas Republican party platform, which he accurately summarizes as follows:

      "(We) won't rest until abortion is completely outlawed, Social Security
    is abolished, the welfare state is completely rolled back, the book of Genesis is taught in science
    classes, and the federal income tax is abolished."

His basic thesis is that pretty much everyone should be worried about this. Liberals should be worried about it for obvious reasons, and conservatives should be worried about it because even though such views don't represent mainstream conservatism, it is precisely these Texas Republicans, in the persons of George Bush, Karl Rove and Tom DeLay, who are in control of the national Republican party and the country.

They may sugar-coat their agenda in the guise of "compassionate conservatism", but their agenda is spelled out in black and white in the Texas GOP platform, and it's something that probably at least 85% of the country doesn't want.

So I join with Calpundit in sounding a call to arms not only to all liberals, but also to all conservatives who care about their party and their country: LET'S GET RID OF THESE EXTREMISTS! I recommend courses of action:

Broadcast the original Calpundit post as widely as possible, so that as many people as possible will understand the threat we're facing. This means blogs, ordinary web sites, letters to the editor, word of mouth, call-in radio/TV shows, the works.
Work to eliminate the conservative propaganda machine. For conservatives, that means you need to stop listening to Ann Coulter, Rush Limbaugh, and FOX News, and stop reading the Washington Times. For everyone else, this means that we need to challenge media spin whenever we encounter it. Write letters to the editor pointing out factual inaccuracies and misleading statements, and write to columnists who willingly distort facts to serve a political agenda (even a liberal political agenda). No party can slime it's way into power if we have a fair, impartial and accurate media, but unfortunately we don't have one currently. See The Daily Howler for a daily account of how dysfunctional the media are.
VOTE the extremists out of office. It's easy enough to tell liberals and independents to vote against Bush, harder to persuade conservatives. That's okay, you don't actually need to vote against him; you can stay home instead. If you really can't refuse your support to an incumbent GOP president, read the synopsis of how Bush and his dirty tricksters screwed sensible Republicans out of a decent candidate in 2000. Hey, it's not too late to try to draft McCain for 2004; if enough conservatives are willing to reject Texas-style conservatism, he might even get nominated.

2003-10-14T15:14:00.000-05:00

Ahhhnold!!! (Take three, and hopefully the last)

Well, I guess I can't blame Arnold's election entirely on the hypocrisy of California Republicans (none of whom, incidentally, wrote to explain their rationalizations to me). It seems that a small number of Democrats, and a healthy number of independents voted for him as well.

Which is all well and good. The voters of California have had their say for the second time in a little under a year. And I sincerely hope that Schwarzenegger is a great governor, in spite of the fact that he's given no one any reason to think he will be. I say this for two reasons.

First, California has the world's fifth largest economy, and it's in pretty bad shape. It's the main reason the recall supporters were able to get the recall on the ballot in the first place. I don't know a whole lot about economics, but it's a pretty sure bet that it can't be good for the world economy, let alone the U.S. economy, if California's economy is mismanaged. One reason to be optimistic is that Schwarzenegger has retained financial genius Warren Buffet to be his economic counselor; however, it seems that Arnold feels free to ignore his advice when it's politically unpalatable.

Second, I believe that this recall could be just the first step in making American politics even more poll- and personality-driven, if such a thing is possible. Schwarzenegger got a surprisingly high percentage of the vote, about 47 percent of the votes cast. However, considering that the electorate ousted Gray Davis principally on the basis of his perceived incompetence, that 47 percent approval rating could plummet if Arnold doesn't deliver some results and soon.

Put another way, as I understand it, it only takes a petition with a number of signatures equal to 12 percent of the votes cast in the previous election to force a recall. That's a bit less than a million signatures. I expect we could find a million Californians willing to order a recall on Schwarzenegger immediately if someone would only bankroll the effort --- think about how many folks probably stayed home in disgust over the whole recall circus. And even 53 percent of those who did vote voted against Schwarzenegger, though admittedly that doesn't automatically mean that they would sign up for another recall.

The point is, there is no reason to think Arnold will do any better than Davis did. Considering

His complete lack of experience in elected office,
Not to mention that he's a Republican governor facing a Democrat legislature, and the fact that
Thanks to the initiative process, the governor and legislature have very little discretion in writing a budget

there's a good chance his approval rating will drop quite a bit in the next 8-12 months.

What's to prevent someone from bankrolling a recall for Schwarzenegger? Thanks to the frankly ludicrous manner in which recalls are decided (the incumbent needs 50 percent plus one vote to keep his/her job, while the replacement simply needs more votes than anyone else), partisan politics will make it very easy to play the recall game once or twice a year, allowing California voters to continually vent their frustration on the incumbent while doing nothing to fix the actual problems. And of course, such a system acts very well to discourage anyone from making the tough decisions necessary to fix the state.

Seems to me that the best way to prevent such a nightmarish scenario is for Governor Schwarzenegger to accumulate some successes over the next 8 months or so. Things need to get better, or there's a good chance they will get much, much worse.

So, best of luck to you, Arnie.

2003-10-14T10:19:00.000-05:00

Hi hi hi there! Did you miss me?

My trip to St. Louis was great. If you ever go, and you have young kids (ages 3 to 12), be sure to visit the City Museum. It's a child's paradise.

Speaking of St. Louis, whenever I drove someplace there, I couldn't help but notice two things:

That city has traffic jams pretty much 24/7, and
The staff at three different supermarket chains are on strike for some reason.

One might naively think that I would be able to determine the reason by watching the local news. But no, while the news quite happily reported on the effects of the strike (more people are shopping at farmers' markets!), it gave no explanation as to why the workers were striking in the first place.

I guess they assumed that all of their viewers already knew all about the reasons for the strike, and only cared to hear a handful of 'shopper on the street' soundbites.

Anyway, when I got back here to my computer, I had email awaiting me from Dr. Doug, who demanded that I post this link, and then, after thinking things over for a minute, said "ummm please".

I'm always happy to oblige. This offers some insight into why workers in St. Louis and Southern Califonia are striking (actually, the workers of at least one St. Louis chain are locked out rather than striking, but the long-term effect is the same).

As long as we're on the subject of worker's rights and labor actions, there's also this article about a looming threat to the software industry. This one hits a bit closer to home for me.

It's probably worth noting at this point that the Bush administration has not exactly been the friend of the working person, or the underemployed person, or the unemployed person, or the homeless person. Take a look at In These Times or this piece by Iowa senator Tom Harkin in the St. Paul Pioneer Press.

Kind of depressing, huh? It makes me wonder whether anyone's job is safe, apart from a handful of already wealthy CEO's. I think Bush should be concerned about his hob as well.

2003-10-06T12:44:00.000-05:00

Ahhhnold!!! (Take two)
I'm sorry. The Schwarzenegger allegations just seemed to me to be

Obviously credible, and
Worse than most of what Clinton was accused of,

so I didn't bother to discuss them in detail. However, after perusing today's Daily Howler, I see that there are apparently several apologists for Arnold on the right.

Hopefully, Mr. Somerby makes it painfully clear why anyone who used his sexual misconduct as a reason to impeach Clinton should either vote for McClintock or stay home tomorrow.

2003-10-06T12:18:00.000-05:00

I'm going to be out of town for a week, so this will be my last post for a while.

Ahhhnold!!!
I admit that the timing of these allegations of sexual misbehavior is very suspect. It smacks of a cheap, last-minute attack.

Unfortunately, they also seem quite credible. So to all of you California Republicans, before you go and vote for Schwarzenegger, take a minute to remember whether you supported Clinton's impeachment. If you did, and you still vote for Schwarzenegger, let me know how you manage to rationalize your hypocrisy.

The Middle East
Good to see that Bush's road map to peace is yielding such great results. But at least Bush took action immediately after yesterday's events. He called Ariel Sharon to offer his condolences for the terrorist attack, and then went back to his golf game.

That's just a joke. Bush may or may not have been golfing. But he pointedly did not call to offer condolences to anyone in Syria, even though it is a matter of dispute whether Syria had anything to do with the attacks. But the State Department did make an effort to rein in the Israelis. They issued a statement urging everyone to 'exercise restraint'.

But of course, there's no reason why the Israelis should think that they can't get away with bombing Syria and threatening Iran, since Bush has made it clear that he considers both of those states to be bad guys. Expect to see increased restraint by Hamas, in the form of increasingly violent suicide bombings, and by Israel, in the form of more targeted assassinations, demolition of Palestinian homes, and possibly even more attacks on sovereign nations. Yes, the Bush 'road map to peace' is humming along nicely.

Iraqistan
How well are things going in Afghanistan and Iraq? So well that Bush has decided to scrap his post-war strategy and start over. Given what we've seen in the past months, this is a good thing. Though to be honest, I have my doubts that Condoleeza Rice will be able to handle things any better than Don Rumsfeld has.

Let's hope I'm wrong.

2003-10-03T12:35:00.000-05:00

BLINDING INSIGHT!!
Note that in Novak's follow-up column, he states that the CIA 'denied that Wilson's wife had inspired his selection' as the agent to investigate the Niger yellowcake charges. So if Plame didn't recommend Wilson for the assignment, why did the 'senior administration official' say that she did? One of the following things must have happened. Either this administration official:

Thought, incorrectly, that Plame had nominated Wilson, and
Known, correctly, that Plame was a CIA operative, and so
Told Novak the incorrect information in (1), while simultaneously
Not knowing, or forgetting that it was a felony to blow a CIA agent's cover, thus revealing that tidbit to Novak as well, even though it really wasn't relevant to the question.

OR. . .

The official knew quite well that Plame had nothing to do with the selection of Wilson, but saw an opportunity to blow Plame's cover and took it.

I'm sorry folks, I've tried to keep an open mind on this, but at this point, I'm convinced that this was an intentional leak. The only questions now are: Who leaked? and Will s/he be caught?

The second question is one of growing importance, for a lot of obvious reasons. And I can't believe I completed my last post without also mentioning the staggering conflict of interest inherent in John Ashcroft's Justice Department investigating a leak in which Karl Rove is a prime suspect.

2003-10-03T12:02:00.000-05:00

More about Plame.

So, no one seems to dispute (other than possibly Novak) that within a week of Joe Wilson's criticism of Bush for continuing to use discredited intelligence information, someone in the White House blew Valerie Plame's CIA cover. As I noted yesterday, Novak insists that it wasn't really a leak, just an offhand remark some official made when Novak was questioning him/her about the Wilson affair.

The more I think about it, the more the 'offhand remark' statement lends credibility to the idea that there was a systematic attempt to blow Plame's cover. Think about it. For the sake of argument, let's assume that Wilson is right, and someone in the White House decided to get retribution on Wilson in order to intimidate other agents who might be thinking about blowing the whistle on the White House. If someone seriously wanted to blow Plame's cover, what would be the best way to do it?

Well, they most likely would not call a press conference and say 'I'd just like to announce that Valerie Plame, wife of Joseph Wilson, has worked as an undercover agent for the CIA for more than 30 years.' While that approach would be effective, it would be suicide for the leaker. Nor would the leaker make a covert effort to contact journalists and make such a straightforward statement. Even then, there would be a risk of the journalist calling the FBI, and at a minimum, most professional journalists would know better than to print such a thing.

No, the only way to have a hope of it working is to make the decision to leak, and then look for opportunities to do so. Volunteer nothing, but if a journalist should call asking about the Wilson allegations (and the leaker knew that dozens of journalists would call, as the yellowcake story got quite a bit of press), try to find a way to casually drop the Plame revelation into the conversation. If you make a big deal about it, that would raise a red flag for the journalist. But if you treat it as no big deal, as an offhand remark, then there's a chance of it slipping under the journalist's radar (as it did Novak's) and getting published.

There's even a good chance that no one outside the intelligence community will even notice it. Indeed, this whole story almost did pass unnoticed by everyone but Joseph Wilson, his wife and, no doubt, others in the intelligence community.

This is just my conjecture of course, and it proves nothing. However, Wilson has said that he suspects Karl Rove is behind the leak, and others among the six reporters have privately named Rove as well (scroll down to 'Audio reports'). This still isn't solid proof that Rove is the one who did the leaking, but this leak does seem to have Rove's fingerprints on it. Take a look at these articles by Lou Dubose in The Nation and Wayne Madsen in CounterPunch to learn more about Mr. Rove's long and sordid career in politics.

Finally, I couldn't help myself. I know I should probably ignore her, but Ann Coulter and her book Treason really annoy me. And since the Plame revelation certainly qualifies as treason (it put 30+ years of research on WMD at risk), I wanted to see what Ms. Coulter had to say about it. Not surprisingly, I've been unable to find her views about it published anywhere, so I wrote her a letter (actually, it went to some guy named Tom, who clearly screens her email for her):

      I'm a little surprised that I have not yet seen an article
    by Ms. Coulter on the whole Valerie Plame affair. Since
    Ms. Coulter's latest book is all about the subject of treason,
    I would think she would have a great deal to say about
    the allegations that a member of the Bush White House
    blew the cover of a CIA operative, which potentially did a
    great deal of damage to this country's reasearch about WMD.

      These allegations, if true, certainly constitute treason.
    I would like to know Ms. Coulter's views on the subject

We'll see what response, if any, that elicits.

2003-10-02T17:23:00.000-05:00

More on the Plame wars. Bob Novak has published his reaction to the investigation his story started. As a supporter of the administration, he offers several explanations as to why this story is really no big deal, including:

The White House official who made the revelation about Wilson's wife did so 'offhand'.

The White House official who made the revelation was 'no partisan gunslinger'.

'The published report that somebody in the White House failed to plant this story with six reporters and found [Novak] as a willing pawn is simply untrue'.

He was only asking questions in the first place because he couldn't understand why the Bush administration picked a liberal to investigate the Niger report.

The fact that Valerie Plame was a CIA operative was 'not much of a secret'.

An 'unofficial source' at the CIA says that Plame was an analyst, and not involved in covert operations.

'The Justice Department investigation was not requested by CIA director George Tenet'.

That's a pretty impressive list of explanations. Let's analyze them one at a time.

It seems that Novak's argument in the first explanation is that the comment was not an intentional leak. If the White House were truly leaking in order to make an example of Wilson, they wouldn't have been so casual about it. That may be true, however, if someone knew they were breaking the law by leaking such information, it is in their interest to make such a leak appear accidental. Besides, it strains credibility to state that a high-ranking White House official could be so careless with a CIA agent's identity, especially in this White House, which emphasizes its main focus as the "war on terror". In either case, whether accidental or not, the damage has been done.

The second explanation is faintly ludicrous. Of course all of Bush's team are partisan Republicans, just like the close advisers of any President are deeply committed to their side. And Bush's team is particularly partisan in, for example, questioning the patriotism of anyone who disagrees with them.

It's a little unclear what Novak is claiming as 'untrue' in the third explanation. Is he simply denying his status as 'a willing pawn' (which is sort of what you'd expect) or is he denying that six different reporters were contacted? Given that the Guardian has contacted all six reporters about this story, it seems more likely Novak is disputing that he was a willing pawn. And the fact that six reporters were given this info would seem to indicate that this was an intentional effort to leak information, no matter how 'offhandedly'.

It is true that Joe Wilson is an avowed Democrat, and is currently working on John Kerry's presidential campaign. However, given Wilson's distinguished service as a career diplomat, I doubt that his political affiliations would unduly influence his report on Iraq's attempts to obtain yellowcake from Niger. Besides, even if Joe Wilson were the country's most horrendous anti-Bush partisan, that wouldn't justify felonious conduct from Bush's staff.

Of course it's impossible now to determine how many people knew Valerie Plame's real occupation before Novak blew her cover on July 14. It's certainly possible that Novak is telling the truth here. However, I tend to trust former CIA analyst Larry Johnson, a lifelong Republican, more than I trust Novak in assessing just how serious this is. In fact, this counters Novak's sixth point as well.

Finally, the Washington Post and other media outlets maintain that Tenet did request the investigation. So it boils down to who you believe. But that really doesn't matter. The Justice Department is investigating the allegations of a leak, which they likely would not be doing if the allegations weren't credible.

Overall, I conclude that Novak wrote his rebuttal because he had to, and doesn't want to look like a patsy, but it doesn't change the fact that this really is a big deal.

And as a bonus (and proof that it's a big deal), we now have the Hardball transcript in which Ed Gillespie, chair of the Republican National Committee, does indeed admit that this leak would be bigger than Watergate, if proven out.

2003-10-01T11:38:00.000-05:00

Just wanted to follow up on yesterday's post. As of now, we have no proof of official misconduct in the White House, only allegations from multiple sources. However, the administration's response doesn't pass the smell test. Here's why.

First, consider the Bush administration's 'Standards of Official Conduct', which was published on the day George Bush was inaugurated. If the Bush administration wishes to live up to those standards, wouldn't it be reasonable to expect that they would take the allegations in the Plame affair very seriously? Wouldn't they conduct their own, internal investigation immediately in order to arrive at the truth of the matter, and punish the offender? And yet, when Novak's column first appeared on July 14, the White House did nothing. When George Tenet first requested a criminal investigation in late July, the White House did nothing. And now that the media are making a big deal about it? The White House is still taking no action, firmly stating that the Justice Department is the proper agency to handle the investigation.

Well, that may be a fair response, but can John Ashcroft's Justice Department be trusted to handle such an investigation fairly? Not surprisingly, everyone in the Bush administration seems to think so, as do most Republican members of congress, which is a bit odd, considering that many of these same Republicans didn't think that Janet Reno could conduct an impartial investigation into the Clinton White House.

This comparison was made in the White House press conference referenced above. Here's the story of that press conference from someone who was there.

2003-09-30T21:42:00.000-05:00

Wow, I'm just barely up and running, and already I've got a hands-down, no fooling Bush White House scandal to write about! Of course I'm talking about the accusation that one or more senior officials in the Bush White House illegally blew the cover of Valerie Plame, formerly a deep undercover CIA agent investigating weapons of mass destruction (WMD). In the unlikely event you've found this site without hearing all about it, the Washington Post provides a fairly detailed overview of what's going on.

Is this something to be concerned about? I think that, objectively speaking, the answer would have to be 'yes'. But as per my Declaration of Principles, I'll document that conclusion. First of all, note that in Novak's original column, he indeed refers to Wilson's wife as 'an Agency operative on weapons of mass destruction'. So even if it makes a difference whether Plame was an 'analyst' or an 'operative', clearly the person doing the leaking thought she was an operative, and so clearly wasn't concerned about committing a felony. Anyway, whether Plame was actually an 'operative' or merely an 'analyst' is irrelevant. The News Hour aired an interview with a former coworker of Plame's who states emphatically that Plame had been undercover for three decades.

There are even clues about who did the leaking; none other than 'Bush's Brain' himself, Karl Rove. Of course we can't know that for certain yet, but according to Julian Borger of The Guardian, several reporters are privately naming Rove (click on the audio link under 'Audio Reports').

So, based on the evidence we have so far, it appears that Karl Rove, the man who has engineered most of Bush's political successes, committed a felony and put at risk 30 years of undercover work on WMD in an effort to intimidate members of the U.S. intelligence establishment who might, like Wilson, come forward and blow the whistle on how badly people like Bush and Rove were cooking intelligence data.

Remember, these are the same people who have suggested that criticism of Bush's policies might assist the terrorists. It's kind of hard to believe that they really care anything about national security, this country, or anything other than their own political agenda after this.

Ordinarily, directing a statement like that toward a sitting administration could be considered nothing more than a partisan cheap shot. But have I really violated my Principles on just my second day of blogging? Well, I have offered documentation for my statements from credible sources. Perhaps more convincing is the fact that sources which tend to be partisan conservative sources support this conclusion as well. For example, I would never cite Newsmax when it criticizes the left, because it makes no effort to conceal its highly partisan conservative agenda. Which is why it's so stunning that they're admitting this is a big deal. Even more unbelievably, early reports indicate that Ed Gillespie, chair of the Republican National Committee, will admit on tonight's edition of Hardball that these allegations, if true, would be "worse than Watergate".

If that's not a fair and balanced indictment of the administration, I don't know what is!

By the way, those wishing to investigate this story in much greater deapth are encouraged to visit Calpundit.

2003-09-29T19:50:00.000-05:00

Hello.

If you've read this far, then you must have some interest in politics. This blog will feature almost nothing but politically-oriented content, so if politics bores you, surf elsewhere now.

Also, if you think you're interested in politics, but your definition of 'politics' is a shouting match, you too are politely asked to leave. I aim to speak to people who can disagree with someone without questioning their intelligence, religion, patriotism or sexual practices. Note the 'well-reasoned' qualifier in my mission statement.

Finally, all statements should be backed up by actual knowledge. Consider the following statements:

Weapons of mass destruction (WMD) have been discovered in Iraq.
George W. Bush regularly used cocaine in his college and early post-college years.

A person possessing actual knowledge would not make either of these statements, since the first is known to be false and the second is fanciful conjecture at best. Note the 'informed' qualifier in my mission statement. I will make every effort to document the statements I make in this blog. Should you feel compelled to write to me (and you are encouraged to do so), you should make an effort to hold yourself to the same standard.

Examples of reputable sources for documented truths are generally those like:

    The Economist
    The Christian Science Monitor

Examples of disreputable sources for distortions and misinformation are generally those like:

    Ann Coulter
    Rush Limbaugh

and lots and lots of angry blogs and websites run by those on the left AND the right with a fairly obvious agenda.

Fans of the cinema may recall the famous 'Declaration of Principles' scene in Orson Welles' epic film Citizen Kane. As you know, Kane goes on to break each of the principles he sets out for himself when he first enters the publishing business. The principles I've outlined above are the ones I aim to hold myself to in the course of publishing this here blog. If at any time you feel I've strayed from them, please feel free to let me know about it.