disconnect

I suppose one of the worst things about Zell Miller's speech last night is the fact that liberals will widely view it as a disaster, while conservatives will widely view it as great stuff. So I feel I have to waste some time here to point out what is obvious to me, that Zell's speech last night was horrific, simply so I can have it documented here in one place as evidence for people who loved it (assuming such people ever read this). I think that the fact that that kind of speech can have such polarizing reactions is not healthy, but I'll get into that in a bit.

The first reason I thought the speech was appalling was simply the demeanor of Zell Miller. To borrow some language which has been applied to John McCain and most recently Howard Dean, the guy looked unhinged. This picture that Brett linked to in the comments says it all... that's not just a bad shot, that's what he looked like the whole time. I was hoping that no Democrats were on the floor waiting to protest, because I thought Zell would pull a machete from behind the podium and hack them to pieces. It was as close to pure, unbridled hate as I think you can come in prime-time of a political convention. If you still don't believe me, watch Zell's interview with Chris Matthews on MSNBC after the speech. You can try this link, or if that doesn't work, scroll halfway down this page to the video link where it says "Miller defends tactics". He actually says he wants to challenge Matthews to a duel. He's not kidding.

Reason number two is the general theme of "Democrats are evil" behind his speech. As I mentioned last night, McCain was on NBC right afterwards trying to explain that he doesn't believe Democrats are unpatriotic. People get on my case for liking McCain, but it's things like that that earn my respect. If it was Zell Miller or some Bush campaign spokesman, they would have clouded their answer in all sorts of conditions and campaign-talk. McCain just answered the question of, "Is Kerry fit to be commander-in-chief?" with, "Yes." But back to my point, generally it was thought that the two parties in Congress had to have a working relationship in order to work on behalf of the American people. If Zell's attitude becomes the norm, and judging by the reception it got it may well be already, cooperation will be essentially impossible. That's not healthy if you're a Democrat or a Republican. Believing that you are always right and the other side is always wrong is one of the tenets of fundamentalism. No debate is possible under those circumstances.

Look, contrast the keynote speech last night to the Democrats' keynote speech by Barack Obama. It was an extremely positive speech, coming from a party Republicans like to describe as "pessimistic". About the worst thing you could say about Obama's speech was that it was too idealistic, or that maybe he was just saying those things as a politician to get votes and he didn't mean them. By contrast, Zell Miller basically implied that if John Kerry was elected, his grandchildren would die agonizing deaths at the hands of our enemies, said to roaring shouts of approval from the audience. I would prefer that the Republicans just get up there and announce that they intend to abolish Social Security and cut all taxes for the wealthy as opposed to the kind of scene that went on last night, where John Kerry was basically described as a traitor. That's scary, "Triumph Of The Will"-type stuff. And the theme of the convention last night was "A Land of Opportunity".

I probably should have mentioned that you can read Zell Miller's remarks here if you didn't get to see the speech last night. It would be better to watch the actual video though, to get the full effect of Zell Miller's body language and tone of voice during the speech. You can try a direct link here, or else go to the GOP's site here and look for the "Speech Video" link under "Keynote Address - Sen. Zell Miller (D-GA)".

Finally, I need to take a moment to actually address what Zell Miller said. He referred several times to things in John Kerry's record which have been proven demonstratably false. He said:

Senator Kerry has made it clear that he would use military force only if approved by the United Nations. Kerry would let Paris decide when America needs defending. I want Bush to decide.

First off, I don't think Bush has done anything resembling a good job of determining when to use military force, but that's not even the issue here. The issue is that John Kerry has never said that he would only use military force only if approved by the United Nations, or by France, or by Osama bin Laden. For an example, let's use Kerry's acceptance speech at the Democratic National Convention:

Let there be no mistake: I will never hesitate to use force when it is required. Any attack will be met with a swift and certain response. I will never give any nation or international institution a veto over our national security.

I mean... that's the biggest speech of John Kerry's life, and Zell's up there acting like it never happened. I have to believe that someone from the Republican Party may have watched Kerry's acceptance speech and therefore known that what Zell Miller said last night was a blatant lie. Then they probably said, "Eh, what the hell, let's let the crazy bastard say whatever the hell he wants. Someone might believe him." The truly frightening part is that someone will believe him, simply because they can't fathom that someone could give the keynote address at the Republican convention and unabashedly say things that are demonstratably false. Last night proves convincingly that it is the intention of the Republican Party to get people to cast their votes for their candidate based on lies endorsed by them. I don't see how that can be contested any more after something like this.

Just to give one final example of lies that need disproving, Miller also said:

Together, Kennedy/Kerry have opposed the very weapons system that won the Cold War and that is now winning the War on Terror.

Listing all the weapon systems that Senator Kerry tried his best to shut down sounds like an auctioneer selling off our national security but Americans need to know the facts.

[listing of various weapons systems Kerry is said to have opposed]

Thankfully, this claim has already been debunked back in April, when Bush ran ads asserting this. I wrote about this on April 29, and included this link to factcheck.org which tells you everything you need to know. Unfortunately, Zell Miller doesn't read my blog or fact check anything the Republicans tell him. It's one thing to air an ad that's misleading about Kerry's voting record. That's standard "smoke and mirrors" stuff, I understand that it happens in campaigns a lot (though seemingly more on the Republican side this year). It's an entirely different story to appear in front of a prime-time TV audience and stand there and describe to everyone specific things supposedly visible in the smoke and between the mirrors that are not and were never there. Saying Kerry voted against these weapons systems and is unfit to lead the country is like saying someone who votes against the "Kill All Jews And Save Orphaned Children Act" supports letting adorable orphans die on the streets. It's not only false but morally reprehensible as well.

That is my argument as to why Zell Miller's speech last night must rate among the foulest speeches ever given to a mass political audience, and why such rhetoric coming from the convention of the current ruling party in our country is truly frightening.

I watched the Zell Miller speech after all on NBC, and I will probably have more to say on it tomorrow given how psychotic it was (for reasons which I am too tired to list in this post). After the speech, Tom Brokaw interviewed John McCain, who had to distance himself from what Zell said. He had to clarify that he doesn't think Democrats are unpatriotic, they just have different views on how best to lead the country (something that was a focal point of Bill Clinton's speech), and he reiterated that he believed Kerry was fit to be commander-in-chief (after Miller spent nearly his entire speech practically branding Kerry a traitor).

Sometimes I have to calm myself down after witnessing all these partisan politics, and remind myself of the general idea McCain was talking about, that Republicans aren't bad people, they just have different beliefs and ideas as to how to lead the country. They don't want to impose fascism, Bush is not Hitler, and they're not evil. Just calm down, this country is strong enough to endure four more years of George W. Bush in case the worst happens.

Then I see a speech like Zell Miller's, and I think, "Holy shit. I've got to get the hell out of this place while I still can."

I mentioned a couple of days ago that Speaker of the House Dennis Hastert made some accusations that liberal financier George Soros is funded by drug cartels. You can watch video of the actual accusation that started all this here. It's much worse when you see the actual video and see just how blatantly he can spread these lies and look really pleased doing it. This is the leader of the House of Representatives.

More from TPM here, here, and here.

OK, I don't intend to nor do I want to post little comebacks to every quip or stupid statement the Republicans make during their convention, but there were three things I thought of last night that I wanted to comment on. I actually wasn't watching most of the convention, I was flipping to it during commercials of the World Series of Poker, but I did hear three things I thought deserved a comment or two.

The first was delivered by Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist, who said in his speech, "Let's be clear: you can no longer be both pro-patient and pro-trial lawyer. John Kerry has made his choice. He put a trial lawyer on his ticket." This is a textbook example of a false dichotomy, a choice between two things that are not mutually exclusive - in other words, you can be both pro-patient and pro-trial lawyer if you take more than half a second to think about it. It's like saying that you're either with George W. Bush or you're for the terrorists... which actually is being said, but that's another issue.

What's funny about this is that John Edwards's most famous case is one where he represented a girl who had her intestines sucked out of her by a faulty pool drain. This girl is effectively a patient for life now, so I guess Edwards was bring "pro-patient" when he won her $25 million from the company selling the defective drains, which, by the way, knew about the problem already but did nothing to fix it or warn people about it. The company originally offered $100,000 to settle. You see, trial lawyers aren't always just gouging good doctors on behalf of people out to make a quick buck. Get this, sometimes they defend the average Joe against companies that would otherwise screw them over unlawfully to make a quick buck. That's what John Edwards was up to, but I guess it's easier to demonize him because he's a trial lawyer and people don't like lawyers. Of course, I didn't think most people were too fond of corporate CEOs either, particularly ones that set up offshore subsidiaries in the Cayman Islands so that they can do business with Iran in violation of federal law, but that hasn't stopped the Republicans from nominating one as their Vice President.

Second, I only caught a tiny bit of Arnold's speech, so I'm sure he said plenty of stuff that I'm glad I didn't hear, but I did want to comment on one brief thing he said. He recounted a story from his childhood behind the Iron Curtain about stopping at a checkpoint manned by Soviet soldiers and being afraid that they might take his father or uncle away and he would never see them again. It struck me that for the past year, Iraqis traveling around their country and around their own neighborhoods have been living in the same fear - that they might stop at a checkpoint and soldiers would take them or a member of their family away to some prison infamous for horrible abuses, or that soldiers might raid their house and similarly arrest someone for some unknown reason. Except it's our soldiers doing it this time. I guess that, plus the constant lawless violence and the fear of random insurgent or terrorist attack once you step out of your house, is just part of the gift of freedom we gave to the Iraqi people. I'm sure Bush's incoming mail at the White House is just stuffed full of their thank-you cards.

Finally, a lot of what I was hearing from Laura Bush and from other speakers last night was focusing on what a great guy the President is and how full of compassion he is, part of the "compassionate conservative" theme being beaten over our heads this week. So I was wondering, you know how virtually every Republican who's been asked about the Swift Boat Vet attacks on Kerry has said that he opened himself up to questioning about his Vietnam service when he made it such a focal point of his campaign? Does this mean that everyone's free to start ripping into Bush's kindheartedness? Can we dredge up some guy Bush beat the hell out of in a drunken barfight in the 70's and put him on the air talking about what a meanspirited, booze-crazy lout Bush was? Let's have some more of those ads where McCain berates Bush for his attacks during the 2000 primaries and then tick off every smear ad the Bush family has ever had a part in. Let's get that clip of Bush calling a reporter a "major league asshole" during the 2000 campaign and see if we can't get the cable news networks to play it as much as they played the Swift Boat ads. I mean, Bush has made his compassion a central issue in the convention, so it's fair game, right?

Of course, I don't really want to open the floodgates of negative campaigning, I'm just trying to point out how idiotic the Republican excuses for these attacks are. It's almost a relief to see the "compassionate conservative" thing being dragged out of the attic again, because it means they've realized that they actually have a candidate to promote and can take a rest on the Kerry attacks.

Along those lines, I made a post a couple weeks ago about how georgewbush.com had no pictures of Bush on their site but about five of Kerry up there. Apparently they've found some pictures of the president (they can be hard to find sometimes) and now have them on their website.

What's funny though is that on GOP.com, the official site of the Republican National Committee, Kerry still beats Bush in the picture count by 3 to 2, and Bush's two pictures are both lower on the page than Kerry's pictures. Furthermore, the link bar on the left of the page that says "Inside GOP.COM" has the links "Kerry On Iraq", "Kerry Corner", "Kerry vs Kerry" and "Kerryopoly". So... what's inside the GOP is... a pervasive hatred of John Kerry? Haven't these guys had control of Congress and the White House for the past four years? Shouldn't they be running on what they've accomplished in that time? I mean, we're all better off now than we were four years ago and we all agree that our country's headed in the right direction, united under the leadership of George W. Bush, right?

On second thought, maybe they'd better stick to the Kerryopoly.

On the front page of CNN.com right now, there are four links to stories about Republicans being "compassionate conservatives" and three links to things about Republicans bashing Kerry or Michael Moore. There's no story about Bush's flip-flop saying that we can't win the war on terror this weekend and today saying that we can. There's nothing pro-Kerry on there, and the only thing vaguely anti-Bush is a story entitled "Police brace after ugly turn in protests", which is about the protests but focusing on what an unruly band of misfits the protesters are. So I thought I would do a little statistical analysis to show whether or not this is fair and also follow up on my post from yesterday about Congressman Ed Schrock (R-VA).

The number of protesters that participated in Sunday's march past Madison Square Garden was expected to be 250,000. Organizers said it got up to 500,000, but we'll stick with the conservative estimate here. Approximately 250 people were arrested. This means that 0.1% of the protesters on Sunday were arrested.

The number of co-sponsors in the House for the Federal Marriage Amendment was 127. Of those 127, so far, one has been caught soliciting gay sex through telephone chat lines. This means that 0.79% of the congressmen co-sponsoring the Federal Marriage Amendment personally enjoy partaking in hot man-on-man action.

In short, it is almost eight times more likely for a member of Congress to cruise phone lines for gay sex while attempting to enshrine discrimination against homosexuals into the Constitution than it is for a protester in New York City to be arrested.

But you know, I can see why this Schrock story isn't being picked up by CNN.com. It has deviant sexual rumors, political scandal, campaigns being terminated, constitutional amendments, and massive, massive amounts of irony. In other words, nothing CNN considers newsworthy at all. Or maybe it just got pushed aside because of real, hard-hitting exposes like an investigation into solid issues like what a big tent the GOP has.

Yet more class coming from the Republican convention:

Delegates to the Republican National Convention found a new way to take a jab at Democratic presidential candidate John Kerry's Vietnam service record: by sporting adhesive bandages with small purple hearts on them.

Now why didn't we think of that? Just think, we could've all shown up at the 1996 Democratic convention wearing fake gimpy arms, mocking Bob Dole's WWII wound. Hilarious! Maybe whoever introduces Bush will come out in a wheelchair with their legs made to look like they've been amputated and proceed to do a devastating impression of Max Cleland. Hey, I have an idea - if McCain wins the nomination in 2008, let's start the proceedings with a parody skit of him getting tortured in Hanoi for five years. Ho ho ho.

Do I even have to point out how crazy this is coming from a convention that's nominating a guy who ducked out on Vietnam, skipping ahead of a long waiting line to get into the National Guard? Now they're mocking a guy who was wounded fighting for his country? Did I wake up in bizarro world this morning? Can you imagine what the reaction would have been if, at the Democratic convention, people were handing out bottles of tequila and bags of while powder with "George W. Bush Refreshment Pack" on them? You know, regarding those 15+ "lost years" where he was an alcoholic and allegedly used drugs. If mocking war wounds is fine, surely that would have been portrayed as playful humor.

I'm pretty annoyed now. It's only partly due to the ongoing convention, less so than you might think. I did just hear John McCain make a reference to Michael Moore though, and upon the crowd noticing that Moore was in the audience, a roar of boos came up that was more ferocious than anything directed at Bush during the entire Democratic convention. I think the Two Minutes Hate is alive and well. But what was McCain even bringing up Moore for? What does that have anything at all to do with where the country's going to be headed in the next four years? It would be like if Bill Clinton had taken a moment out of his speech to bring up Bill O'Reilly out of the blue, followed by a chorus of boos, followed seconds later by every cable news commentator simultaneously declaring that the Democratic Party is the party of negativity.

Anyway, reading Talking Points Memo just now I came across one example after another of Republicans just mercilessly smearing people and of hypocrisy and lies to no end. I can't even excerpt them, there are too many, so I'll just link to the whole lot.

Here and here are posts about ads that the Bush campaign say accuse them of poisoning pregnant women, ads they say are examples of how the president has been attacked by 527s also. Although the ads don't accuse him of that. And they weren't aired by 527s either.

Here is a post about Bob Novak interviewing an "independent" who questions one of Kerry's war wounds... the kind of independent who's given thousands of dollars to Bush's campaigns and is a law partner of one of the Republicans running this week's convention.

Here is a post about how Scott McClellan dismisses charges by Ben Barnes, a former Speaker of the House and Lieutenant Governor of Texas who says he helped Bush get into the National Guard (here and here), by saying Barnes is a "partisan Democrat"... the kind of partisan Democrat who helps the State Comptroller reelection campaign of Republican Carole Keeton Strayhorn, who happens to be Scott McClellan's MOTHER. (I think this is where I lost it. McClellan slams a guy who helped his own mom get reelected because he happened to mention that he helped Bush get in the National Guard back in the day, an allegation which is only really being brushed off with "well, they didn't ask for the help." Real classy.)

Finally, here Speaker of the House Dennis Hastert lets slip that George Soros gets some of the money he's spending to fight against Bush from drug cartels, an accusation that would be shocking and extremely damaging if, in fact, it had any bit of evidence or truth behind it at all, which it does not. This is the Speaker of the House saying this. And Michael Moore is supposed to be a dangerous peddler of lies.

However, the grand prize tonight goes to none of these. It goes to this story about a Republican congressman from Virginia who was a co-sponsor of the constitutional amendment to ban gay marriage... a guy who just happens to seek out gay sex on telephone dating services. Needless to say he's not running for re-election anymore. I guess it's alright if you hook up for some sodomy with some random dude you meet over the phone, but if you try to marry him, God REALLY gets pissed. Clearly, we need to amend our constitution to keep that from happening.

These guys control both houses of Congress and the White House. And they want our vote for four more years. They may just get it. Perhaps you can see why I'm a little peeved.

I just had to comment on this:
Bush Suggests Terror War Cannot Be Won

In an interview on NBC-TV's "Today" show, Bush vowed to stay the course in the war on terror, saying perseverance in the battle would make the world safer for future generations. But he suggested an all-out victory against terrorism might not be possible.

Asked "Can we win?" Bush said, "I don't think you can win it. But I think you can create conditions so that the — those who use terror as a tool are less acceptable in parts of the world."

Democrats, looking for ways to deflect the spotlight from Republicans as they opened their convention in York, pounced.

"After months of listening to the Republicans base their campaign on their singular ability to win the war on terror, the president now says we can't win the war on terrorism," said Democratic vice presidential candidate John Edwards. "This is no time to declare defeat."

This is the kind of thing the Republicans tear Kerry apart for saying... I mean seriously, George, no one's keeping you around for your economic wizardry or your domestic plans. If you can't win it, that either implies that we'll lose it or that it'll be one of those perpetual "1984" wars that just exists to keep the populace under control... I guess this is what happens when you declare war on an amorphous emotion.

On another subject, I have the convention on in the background here and there's nothing happening... there was hardly anyone in the place at 7:45, and they're just going to go through a roll call until 9 or so. At the Democratic convention there were tons of speakers starting in the afternoon... at this time on Monday of the Democratic convention, Al Gore was talking. I think this is partly because a lot of people are out at those parties all the corporations are throwing for various delegates and Republicans in positions of power. Also, it's not like they exactly want to dwell on what's been happening over the past four years.

In the Washington Post last week, there were a few examples where Bush or Cheney twist John Kerry's words around and use them against him. Here's one example from the article:

"Lee Hamilton, the co-chairman of the 9/11 commission, has said this administration is not moving with the urgency necessary to respond to our needs. I believe this administration and its policies is actually encouraging the recruitment of terrorists. We haven't done the work necessary to reach out to other countries. We haven't done the work necessary with the Muslim world. We haven't done the work necessary to protect our own ports, our chemical facilities, our nuclear facilities. There is a long, long list in the 9/11 recommendations that are undone." -- Kerry, Aug. 2

"My opponent says . . . that going to war with the terrorists is actually improving their recruiting efforts. I think the logic -- I know the logic is upside down. It shows a misunderstanding of the nature of these people. See, during the 1990s, these killers and terrorists were recruiting and training for war with us, long before we went to war with them. They don't need an excuse for their hatred. It's wrong to blame America for anger and the evil of these killers. We don't create terrorists by fighting back. You defeat the terrorists by fighting back." -- Bush, Aug. 18

If people thought Clinton was a master of stretching the truth, these guys have picked up where he left off admirably. You can't call it lying exactly, because it's more like a misinterpretation of what Kerry said. Kerry's saying that our policies help recruit more terrorists, while Bush says that Kerry's saying that fighting the terrorists create more terrorists. Yes, fighting the terrorists is one of our policies, but that was not what Kerry was referring to. There are plenty of other policies that create terrorists that this administration carries out... like fighting other Arabs that aren't terrorists - Saddam's Baathists, for instance. Bush could have simply misinterpreted this out of ignorance, but I give Bush more credit for his intelligence than most liberals would probably give him and I think he understood what Kerry was saying. I think that he (and his advisors) deliberately changed the meaning of what Kerry was saying in order to mislead people into thinking that Kerry simply wants to appease terrorists and not hit them back when they hit us. It's not a lie per se, but it appears to be a deliberate attempt to mislead people and to put words in Kerry's mouth that put him in a negative light. Also, note the bit about "blaming America". Kerry hardly "blames America" for the actions of al Qaeda. He is blaming the Bush administration for its policies that help create more terrorists, and blaming the administration and blaming America are two wholly different things. Unfortunately, under this administration, it's well known that any criticism of the president is seen as unpatriotic and tantamount to blaming America.

The semantic distinction between all that and "lying" is slim enough that you could call Bush a liar for saying what he said about Kerry's statements. Unfortunately that would lead to conservatives screaming about what a hysterical loonie you are, not to mention how disrespectful you're being, accusing the President of the United States of being a liar. So I prefer "deliberately misleading". And if you catch flak for the "deliberately" part, I guess you can take the opinion that Bush isn't smart enough to know what he's doing or know what the heck's actually going on around him, so he's merely misleading the American people, that's all.

This weekend, I downloaded an RSS aggregator and thought it would be a good time to mention it on this site.

To briefly describe what RSS is, I'll quote from this page:

RSS is a format for syndicating news and the content of news-like sites, including major news sites like Wired, news-oriented community sites like Slashdot, and personal weblogs. But it's not just for news. Pretty much anything that can be broken down into discrete items can be syndicated via RSS: the "recent changes" page of a wiki, a changelog of CVS checkins, even the revision history of a book. Once information about each item is in RSS format, an RSS-aware program can check the feed for changes and react to the changes in an appropriate way.

This site has always had an RSS/Atom feed but I hadn't bothered to link to it before, so today I've replaced the completely empty "links" section on the upper left with a link to the site feed. You can download an RSS reader/aggregator to get the content of this site and any other site with RSS feeds (there are many) delivered to you every hour or at any other interval you choose. This can be useful if you visit lots of news sites or blogs and/or you don't want to keep refreshing this page to see if it's changed. What tipped the scales for me is that this blog's comments are also available in an RSS feed, which is a pretty convenient way to see if anyone's commented on any posts. The full text of my posts are syndicated (as opposed to just an excerpt) and the full text of the comments are on the comments feed as well, though you'll have to come to the actual site to post any comments. Just thought I'd bring it up.