Thursday, May 27, 2004
Kerry, Gore
We interrupt this flagellation of President Bush to bring you the start of a real plan to rebuild this nation's shattered dignity, among other things.
OK, now back to making fun of Bush.
I watched part of Hannity & Colmes last night (while flipping through anything to avoid watching Diana Degarmo sing during American Idol), just enough to see some conservative talk radio host ripping Democrats and Al Gore for not killing bin Laden while they were in power or something. Which was funny, because just two hours earlier I had resumed reading Richard Clarke's "Against All Enemies" and was at the point where he discusses how we went into Afghanistan with the fewest troops possible, relying on the Northern Alliance for ground support with a limited number of Special Forces on the ground, thus letting bin Laden and Mullah Omar escape instead of nabbing them. You can thank Rumsfeld's doctrine of using a small number of highly trained troops rather than overwhelming force for that. That's kind of a picky thing to criticize, but less picky than blasting Gore for not bombing the hell out of Afghanistan, considering that when Clinton launched cruise missiles at bin Laden once he was accused of trying to distract people from the impeachment trial. Somehow I doubt an invasion of Afghanistan (in a pre 9/11 world) would have gone over too well. And don't get me started on Clinton's efforts against Al Qaeda compared to Bush's efforts pre-9/11.
Anyway, I wanted to link to Gore's speech and quote the part that I think best captures how completely Bush has ruined any pro-American sentiment we had left:
OK, now back to making fun of Bush.
I watched part of Hannity & Colmes last night (while flipping through anything to avoid watching Diana Degarmo sing during American Idol), just enough to see some conservative talk radio host ripping Democrats and Al Gore for not killing bin Laden while they were in power or something. Which was funny, because just two hours earlier I had resumed reading Richard Clarke's "Against All Enemies" and was at the point where he discusses how we went into Afghanistan with the fewest troops possible, relying on the Northern Alliance for ground support with a limited number of Special Forces on the ground, thus letting bin Laden and Mullah Omar escape instead of nabbing them. You can thank Rumsfeld's doctrine of using a small number of highly trained troops rather than overwhelming force for that. That's kind of a picky thing to criticize, but less picky than blasting Gore for not bombing the hell out of Afghanistan, considering that when Clinton launched cruise missiles at bin Laden once he was accused of trying to distract people from the impeachment trial. Somehow I doubt an invasion of Afghanistan (in a pre 9/11 world) would have gone over too well. And don't get me started on Clinton's efforts against Al Qaeda compared to Bush's efforts pre-9/11.
Anyway, I wanted to link to Gore's speech and quote the part that I think best captures how completely Bush has ruined any pro-American sentiment we had left:
How did we get from September 12th , 2001, when a leading French newspaper ran a giant headline with the words "We Are All Americans Now" and when we had the good will and empathy of all the world -- to the horror that we all felt in witnessing the pictures of torture in Abu Ghraib.Gore's been a little feisty lately, but you have to admit you'd be pretty pissed too if you won the popular vote, lost the election by 500 votes in Florida and then had to watch as the other guy pissed the country you love (and should have been leading) down the toilet.
Tuesday, May 25, 2004
Op-Ed Reading
It's been a few days since my last post on here, so I thought hey, why not just reprise all the links that you can otherwise get here at the New York Times Op-Ed page? But the articles today are kind of interesting and I wanted to offer my own opinions of their opinions so I thought I'd go over them one by one.
Paul Krugman has some more required reading as to why adding 900,000 jobs in the past four months doesn't really mean squat. He gives good historical background to put the economic recovery into perspective. I particularly like the parallel with 1994, and the poll numbers of whether or not Americans think the country is headed in the right direction. Hopefully the end result in November is the same as it was in 1994 (as in throwing incumbents out of office, not throwing the Democrats out). My take on it is that with all the money we've pumped into the economy with tax cuts and deficit spending, we should be doing a lot better than we are now. I mean, in 1993 Clinton raised taxes and we got the job creation numbers Krugman gives in 1994. So with Bush's masterful supply-side policy of injecting money into Americans' hands by dumping billions of dollars into the bank accounts of the rich, we should be doing even better, right? The idea is that the government is wasteful and inefficient, so we need to give that money back to the people, who'll spend it on efficient and non-wasteful products like a $1000 frittata, even if it means running $400 billion dollar deficits... isn't that the idea?
Anyway, on to David Brooks, whose column I thought was the funniest. Basically he's saying that Bush is conducting an experiment in Iraq to see if democracy and freedom are strong enough to withstand even our attempts to undermine them. No, really:
Finally, there's Gregg Easterbrook, who used to entertain me as the Tuesday Morning Quarterback on ESPN.com until he began annoying me and eventually got canned for singling out the Jews for media violence. Anyway, here he happens to defend Kerry (and later, Bush's current economic advisor who suggested the same idea) for supporting a 50-cent-a-gallon gas tax increase. He brings up the good point that even though this is a dreaded "tax increase" it could be made revenue-neutral by cutting other taxes. Yes, certain heavy drivers would suffer more than others and not everyone would be happy, but the idea is that cars would be made more efficient and we would become less dependent on foreign oil. It's probably too late for that now, and the fact that demand is now outpacing supply will probably result in this 50-cent increase in gas prices anyway, only the money goes to Saudi Arabia and not America. But he makes a good case for why it would be a good idea, and frankly I'll pay the extra taxes if it means there are fewer 5,300 pound SUVs getting 14 mpg ready to demolish my car in a head-on collision. I know you have to cart your kid's soccer team and all their gear around, but come on, my mom did that and it didn't require a 5,300 pound behemoth.
Paul Krugman has some more required reading as to why adding 900,000 jobs in the past four months doesn't really mean squat. He gives good historical background to put the economic recovery into perspective. I particularly like the parallel with 1994, and the poll numbers of whether or not Americans think the country is headed in the right direction. Hopefully the end result in November is the same as it was in 1994 (as in throwing incumbents out of office, not throwing the Democrats out). My take on it is that with all the money we've pumped into the economy with tax cuts and deficit spending, we should be doing a lot better than we are now. I mean, in 1993 Clinton raised taxes and we got the job creation numbers Krugman gives in 1994. So with Bush's masterful supply-side policy of injecting money into Americans' hands by dumping billions of dollars into the bank accounts of the rich, we should be doing even better, right? The idea is that the government is wasteful and inefficient, so we need to give that money back to the people, who'll spend it on efficient and non-wasteful products like a $1000 frittata, even if it means running $400 billion dollar deficits... isn't that the idea?
Anyway, on to David Brooks, whose column I thought was the funniest. Basically he's saying that Bush is conducting an experiment in Iraq to see if democracy and freedom are strong enough to withstand even our attempts to undermine them. No, really:
On the other hand, if we muddle through in Iraq and some semidemocratic nation slowly emerges, it won't be because of American skill. It will be because the democratic creed is so strong it can withstand the highest incompetence.That's like saying, "Thank God that I beat my wife, otherwise I wouldn't know if she really loved me or not." Of course, we could have managed post-war Iraq competently and showed them the benefits of a free society immediately, but with the continued violence, mistakes by the CPA, and rampant torture of Iraqi prisoners, what a great opportunity to see whether or not democracy can survive a bungled attempt to install it at the point of a gun! Next week David Brooks will explain how drinking a 12-pack of Coors Light and going for a spin in his Lincoln Navigator is an "epic gamble" to test the life-saving question of whether or not Detroit has improved the rollover characteristics of its SUVs and whether or not they're safe enough to survive even the most incompetant driving.
Finally, there's Gregg Easterbrook, who used to entertain me as the Tuesday Morning Quarterback on ESPN.com until he began annoying me and eventually got canned for singling out the Jews for media violence. Anyway, here he happens to defend Kerry (and later, Bush's current economic advisor who suggested the same idea) for supporting a 50-cent-a-gallon gas tax increase. He brings up the good point that even though this is a dreaded "tax increase" it could be made revenue-neutral by cutting other taxes. Yes, certain heavy drivers would suffer more than others and not everyone would be happy, but the idea is that cars would be made more efficient and we would become less dependent on foreign oil. It's probably too late for that now, and the fact that demand is now outpacing supply will probably result in this 50-cent increase in gas prices anyway, only the money goes to Saudi Arabia and not America. But he makes a good case for why it would be a good idea, and frankly I'll pay the extra taxes if it means there are fewer 5,300 pound SUVs getting 14 mpg ready to demolish my car in a head-on collision. I know you have to cart your kid's soccer team and all their gear around, but come on, my mom did that and it didn't require a 5,300 pound behemoth.
