disconnect

You know things may have gotten a little out of control in the Bush administration when you need a guide to the torture memos. I have to say I'm kind of nostalgic for the days when such a thing wasn't really necessary.

Robyn and I saw Fahrenheit 9/11 last night. You can probably guess that we liked it a lot. We discussed it for a while last night and I had several thoughts I considered post-worthy, but I don't want to start a whole thread getting into the details when you can see it for yourself. I will bring up one thought though, that I'm glad there's now a documentation of some of these events on film, just like I try to document things on here. There are just so many examples of dumb policy, corruption, cronyism and lies that it's difficult to bring them all together. It's almost like there are so many that individual acts can get lost in the background noise; inappropriate acts and conflicts of interest become so commonplace that we don't even notice them anymore. I feel it's worth noting that a lot of the stuff we know is possible due to the open nature of this society that seems rapidly to be fading. When Moore shows that a man's name in Bush's National Guard medical records that's blacked out is really "James R. Bath", we only know this because non-blacked out versions were previously available. Pulling a cloak of secrecy over things like Cheney's energy policy, or censoring parts of 9/11 hearings, or John Ashcroft refusing to give Congress memos on torture makes all this impossible. If we don't have the information, we can't ask any questions about it. Of course, this is exactly the point. If we hadn't had an uncensored version of those records from before, we wouldn't have known whose name was censored and we couldn't ask questions about Bath and Bush's relationship with the Saudis and Bin Laden's family. And that's a perfectly acceptable question to ask - if we decide that the relationship is just a normal business partnership then that's fine, but it seems reasonable that in the "most free country on Earth" that we be allowed to ask such a question. If we accept that everything is just supposed to be kept secret from us, anyone can do whatever they want with no repercussions. Clearly I would like to have the freedom to decide these things for myself.

Overheard on CNN this morning, naming the beheading victims: "Daniel Pearl, Nicholas Berg, Paul Johnson and the South Korean." Hey guys, you might not have heard this yet, but they have names over there in Korea. It's not as if "Kim Sun-il" is a terribly long name or even that difficult to pronounce. They covered Paul Johnson's funeral live, the least they can do is mention the guy's name, personalize him a little. The fact that he's Korean really shouldn't matter.

One of my previous post ideas that I hadn't gotten around to posting yet: What was the last good piece of news you've heard from the Middle East? I was trying in my mind to think of what I would say if I was a Bush apologist (it can be useful to try to see things from other people's point of view... certain members of the executive branch might want to be clued in on that) trying to defend the war on Iraq. And I realized that really, I couldn't remember a single really good piece of news from anywhere in the Middle East for a very long time. I guess the most recent story that is at all positive would be when Thomas Hamill, the Halliburton driver who was kidnapped, escaped. That was over a month ago, wasn't it? When a hostage escaping is the only bright spot in an entire region, it's probably bad. Before that I would have to say it would be the interim constitution being signed in Iraq, but now that's basically in danger of falling apart because of the Kurds potentially seceding, so I have to disqualify that one. Plus a constitution doesn't mean anything if the people enforcing it don't even control the country in a secure way. So before that I have to go back to Libya agreeing to get rid of its weapons of mass destruction programs. That's pretty good news. But then it came out that Muammar Qaddafi wanted to assassinate the Crown Prince of Saudi Arabia, so it kind of dampened that enthusiasm. I guess you have to go back to Saddam's capture for the last pure good news out of the Middle East. That was over six months ago. If an entire region is devoid of any meaningful good news, or any meaningful positive outcome for six months, I think it's pretty clear that the war has been an abject failure. Since there were no weapons of mass destruction threatening us, the only real reason for war would have been to topple Saddam's regime. But toppling a regime isn't an end to itself, you presumably do so to bring something better into the country and the region (you also do it to get your hands on their oil, but we'll set that one aside for now). At the moment though, it doesn't really seem like anything good has come to that part of the world after the billions of dollars we've spent and thousands of people who've died. That's how you define failure.

Normally, Dick Cheney using the F-word would be something of a non-story, even if it was on the Senate floor to a Democratic Senator. The guy's had a rough couple of months what with nothing at all going right for the Bush administration and his regime in danger of losing power and all, so I'm sure he's a little testy. But because he and Bush (and the rest of their administration) make such a big deal about returning civility and respect to the White House after what apparently was the law of the jungle under Clinton, it warrants mentioning. The fact of the matter is that people vote for Bush/Cheney thinking that they need moral and pious leaders, when in all honesty John Kerry would fit the bill just fine in that department (I would of course argue that he would be more moral than Bush, but then again I'm one of those liberals without a black-and-white morality so I guess that'll have to be a matter of opinion).

CNN link to the go f--- yourself story.
CNN link to the email implicating Cheney's office in the Halliburton contracts, which he still denies, and which prompted his ire.

I've had an idea for another post for a couple of days now but haven't had the time to write about it yet. Maybe later.

I liked this article on Arnold Schwarzenegger this morning in the NY Times. The best part:

On fiscal matters, Mr. Schwarzenegger considers himself an old-school Republican determined to ferret out waste. No item is too minor to escape his attention.

For instance, since Mr. Schwarzenegger took office on Nov. 17, the toilet paper in the Capitol has been switched from two-ply to one-ply, a saving of thousands of dollars over the years. "It's not anymore the two-ply," he said. "Because you know what? We're trimming. We're living within our means."

FYI, read earlier about this tent he's set up in the Capitol courtyard for "trimming" as it applies to him. Why do I feel like his bathroom is still the two-ply?

Last night I was watching the Daily Show from Monday night, and they showed a clip of Cheney being interviewed on CNBC recently. It was regarding the Iraq-Al Qaeda connection, and the subject of Mohammed Atta and the alleged meeting with an Iraqi intelligence official in Prague in April 2001 was brought up. The woman interviewing him said, "You've said in the past it was, 'pretty well confirmed'..." at which point Cheney broke in and said "No, I never said that." The interviewer looked a little stunned and he repeated that he never said that. So the Daily Show cuts to a clip of Cheney on Meet The Press in December 2001 where he says, "It's been pretty well confirmed that he did go to Prague and he did meet with a senior official of the Iraqi intelligence service in Czechoslovakia last April." Great stuff. Actual quotes here; get them before the Ministry of Truth comes to clean it up. It's not like he didn't remember it, he didn't say "I don't recall ever saying that." He said, "Absolutely not." Um, Dick, you kinda did. Karl Rove must have calculated somewhere along the line that it doesn't matter of x% of people catch you lying, as long as (x+y)% never catch the lie and come out with a more positive impression of you after they heard it. That's why this site is here - to catch them.

Along those lines, here's another story from MSNBC about Tom Pickard, the former acting director of the FBI and a few others contradicting what John Ashcroft said under oath to the 9/11 commission. It looks pretty clear that one of these men is lying. Who do you think that might be? Who had more incentive to lie under oath in this case? Seeing as presidents have been impeached for lying under oath about the serious matter of oral sex, one can only hope that lying under oath about readiness for terrorism is treated fairly seriously. Unfortunately I think the pressure on the commission to be bipartisan will water down the language and conclusions reached in the final report, and any insinuation that any Bush officials were not telling the truth to the commission will be viciously attacked as a partisan attack, an attempt to bring down the administration, an attack on our troops by someone who "hates our country" or something of that nature.

I wanted to link to this Seymour Hersh article in the New Yorker as it mentions some disturbing things going on in Iraq with the Israelis and the Kurds (namely that Israel is training the Kurds to claim their own independence in order to have an ally after Iraq falls apart). Here are some choice cuts:

The official compared the situation to the breakup of Yugoslavia, but added, “In the Balkans, you did not have oil.” He said, “The lesson of Yugoslavia is that when you give one country independence everybody will want it.” If that happens, he said, “Kirkuk will be the Sarajevo of Iraq. If something happens there, it will be impossible to contain the crisis.”

A former White House official depicted the Administration as eager—almost desperate—late this spring to install an acceptable new interim government in Iraq before President Bush’s declared June 30th deadline for the transfer of sovereignty. The Administration turned to Lakhdar Brahimi, the United Nations special envoy, to “put together something by June 30th—just something that could stand up” through the Presidential election, the former official said.

That last excerpt in particular paints a picture of an administration trying to cobble something together that will make Iraq look stable through the election, at which point everything falls apart and the region ignites into war. My one problem with the article though is that normally when Republicans talk about how Democrats are always pessimistic about everything and focusing on the negatives instead of the good things being accomplished, I think it's stupid because the bad things have been being whitewashed by the administration as a matter of policy. This article though is a tad too far on the gloomy side. I agree with most of it, but it goes a bit far with the "everything's in shambles" attitude. For example, in describing the new Iraqi Prime Minister Iyad Allawi, it bashes him as working for Saddam in the 70's, even saying that his medical degree "was conferred upon him by the Baath party." Except don't you usually have to go through the government to get accredited as a doctor? In any case, if working with Saddam years ago was grounds for worrying about the competency of a government official, I think Donald Rumsfeld disproved that theory straight away, right? Um...

Today's daily (weekly?) Krugman contains some more Ashcroft-is-bad ammunition. In case you weren't convinced that Ashcroft is an incompetant fool, you ought to read it. And of course it's fun for those of us who know he's an incompetant fool, except for the fact that it reminds us that he's in charge of the Justice Department and prosecuting terrorists.

And finally, David Brooks complains that Kerry isn't being religious enough. I agree he could use more of the religious voting bloc, but what's he supposed to do, pull an anti-Kennedy and say that the Pope will be dictating his domestic policy? Brooks includes the following keen insight:

A recent Time magazine survey revealed that only 7 percent of Americans feel that Kerry is a man of strong religious faith. That's a catastrophic number. That number should be the first thing Kerry strategists think about when they wake up in the morning and it should be the last thing on their lips when they go to sleep at night. They should be doing everything they can to change that perception, because unless more people get a sense of Kerry's faith, they will feel no bond with him and they will be loath to trust him with their vote.

Yet his campaign does nothing. Kerry talks about jobs one week and the minimum wage the next, going about his wonky way, each day as secular as the last.

It's mind-boggling.

Yeah, what an idiot, talking about the problems facing the country instead of doing something sensible like promoting a Creationist-based education program for the nation's schools. What a buffoon! Doesn't Kerry know that Americans don't care how much money they have, or whether or not they have a job, they care about how pissed off God is going to be if he sees two men holding hands? I mean, has the country gotten that bad? Where scheduling speeches talking about jobs, social programs and national defense is a "mind-boggling" strategy because you're not pandering to evangelical Christians enough? Does Kerry need to schedule some appearances at Bob Jones University or something? I mean, David, I get the point that lots of Democrats are secular (or maybe more accurately that lots of secularists are Democrats). But it's not as if Kerry goes out there and purposely alienates religious conservatives. The guy goes to church more regularly than Bush does (as I understand it, Bush has stopped going while at the White House, but I don't have a link on hand to back this up). It's not as if he's making speeches saying we're not killing enough fetuses.

I'm just... I guess "mind-boggled" is the best word to describe the sentence, "Kerry talks about jobs one week and the minimum wage the next, going about his wonky way...". Kerry may have more than his fair share of "wonkiness", but it is not his focus on jobs and the minimum wage that perpetuates it. To paraphrase the "esteemed" Justice Antonin Scalia, if it is reasonable that the campaign for President of the United States is supposed to involve no discussion of economic, social or defense issues and focus on who can pander to God the most, the Nation is in deeper trouble than I had imagined.