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Saturday, July 26, 2003


Free Congress Foundation - Out of the Loop?

On Friday, John Nowacki of the Free Congress Foundation had an op-ed in USA Today in which he accused Senate Democrats of seeking to usurp presidential powers when it comes to judicial nominations. Seeking to paint them as obstructionists, Nowacki claimed that Bush has been more than willing to consult with senators when it came to making nominations

In fact, President Bush has consulted senators since the beginning. He refrained from nominating Peter Keisler and Brett Kavanaugh of Maryland and Chris Cox of California, listening to their home-state senators even though all three would have made excellent judges. He renominated Clinton nominee Roger Gregory of Virginia, becoming the first president to do that for an opposite-party president's choice. And he sought to work with Sens. Carl Levin and Debbie Stabenow about appointing two other Clinton picks to the district court, although the Michigan senators refused to accept anything less than appeals court nominations.

It is interesting to note that, on the exact same day, Bush nominated Brett Kavanaugh to the DC Circuit - apparently over the opposition of Maryland's senators. So much for Nowacki's argument - and Bush's so-called efforts to seek compromise.


Update: In the "Comment" section, Jonathan Adler points out that I am an idiot. Although, in my own defense, I might argue that when senators object to a specific nominee, simply nominating that person to a different circuit (a circuit that, but its very nature, has no "home state" senators who could object) is probably not remaining true to the spirit of "consultation." Or I might not.

posted by Eugene Oregon at 12:59 PM


Friday, July 25, 2003


Good Start

It looks like it just started, but I am plugging John Moltz's blog simply based on the comments he left on a few of our posts today.

If his comments and the few posts he has made on his blog are any indication of what we can expect, I expect that I'll be reading him daily.

posted by Eugene Oregon at 6:57 PM




As If We Didn't Have Enough Problems Already

It looks like humans are actually pushing the stratosphere away. Yes, that's right folks. The sky isn't falling, it's rising. Barkeep...make it a double.

posted by Helena Montana at 5:42 PM




Christian Fundamentalism + (Pseudo)Science = Creationism Science Fair!

I wish I had made this up. I really do. But if I had, it wouldn't be quite so funny as this website on Creationist Science Fairs!

Here are some recommended sample topics for the 2004 Home School Science Fair in Roseville, Minnesota!
"Have you been to the Home School Science Fairs? They are great! Some of the best and brightest kids in Minnesota were there. You could have learned how stable the Ark was in strong winds..."
(snip)
The fear of God is the beginning of knowledge. Proverbs 1:7

This is a list of questions kids have asked in our brain storming sessions for science fair topics. These are the raw questions as I have not had time to clean them up or rephrase them in a statement for a hypothesis.
(snip)
1. A virus can mutate (alter) the DNA code of the host cell and reproduce a new species. Does this prove evolution by mutation is true or does it show adaptation (variety) within a species?
2. How many shades of skin color are there? Use a paint scanner to test 100 people. [Seems a bit ambitious. How many different shades do you think they'll find in Minnesota?]
3. Make a computer model of the Flood currents. [Not a flood, the Flood.]
10. What was life like before the Flood?
12. Trilobites prove Noah's flood because they are curled up or not? [Painful logic accompanies painful grammar.]
21. Does a bad mood spread?
29. Why do some foods give you a stomach ache? [Might require a trip to the emergency room.]
33. Why is hair thicker on the head than the rest of the body? [This one seems like an invite to play "doctor."]
35. Why does the Bible say there is one glory of the sun, one glory of the moon, and one glory of the stars?
58. Why did God create the moon to control the tides?
95. Are humans mammals? We thought they were made in God's image and not related to animals.
102.Why do we have pimples? Did God goof?

From a list of 114. Check 'em all out.


posted by Zoe Kentucky at 3:59 PM




Keeping the Meme Alive

Yesterday, Dick Cheney gave a speech before the American Enterprise Institute, ostensibly to discuss this administration's "War on Terror." And for one and one-third of his three and a half-page speech, that is exactly what he did, reminding his listeners that

For decades, terrorists have attacked Americans - and we remember every act of murder, including 17 Americans killed in 1983 by a truck bomb at our embassy in Beirut; and 241 servicemen murdered in their sleep in Beirut; an elderly man in a wheelchair, shot and thrown into the Mediterranean; a sailor executed in a hijacking; two of our soldiers slain in Berlin; a Marine lieutenant colonel kidnapped and murdered in Lebanon; 189 Americans killed on a PanAm flight over Scotland; six people killed at the 1993 World Trade Center bombing; 19 military personnel killed at the Khobar Towers; 12 Americans killed at our embassies in East Africa; 17 sailors murdered on the USS Cole; and an American diplomat shot dead in Jordan last year.


But then, shortly after declaring that "terrorists intend to strike America again" he made the following two-sentence transition

In Iraq, we took another essential step in the war on terror. The United States and our allies rid the Iraqi people of a murderous dictator, and rid the world of a menace to our future peace and security.

From here on out, the rest of his speech was dedicated to the war in Iraq. Not having learned anything from the Iraq/Niger blow-up, it appears as if the administration is sticking to its game plan of justifying the war via fraud, misrepresentation and lies.

Where, I might ask, is the proof that Iraq had any ties to al Qaeda? Hasn't this piece of false information been totally discredited by now? David Corn seems to think so.

Nonetheless, Cheney repeats the false accusation in an attempt to tie their actions in Iraq to their larger "war on terror" and then, in an pathetic attempt to spin the issue and cover his sorry ass, says

Critics of the liberation of Iraq must also answer another question: what would that country look like today if we had failed to act? If we had not acted, Saddam Hussein and his sons would still be in power. If we had not acted, the torture chambers would still be in operation; the prison cells for children would still be filled; the mass graves would still be undiscovered; the terror network would still enjoy the support and protection of the regime; Iraq would still be making payments to the families of suicide bombers attacking Israel; and Saddam Hussein would still control vast wealth to spend on his chemical, biological, and nuclear ambitions.

"Critics of the liberation of Iraq"? Nobody is criticizing the liberation of Iraq - they are criticizing this administration's dishonesty.

But ignoring this cheap rhetorical smear, I'd like to ask just which "terror network would still enjoy the support and protection of the regime." Al Qaeda? If that is what Cheney means, then he is flat-out lying. If, on the other hand, he is referring to Hussein's past support of Palestinian suicide bombers, then the question is why isn't the US targeting, bombing and kill Hamas or Islamic Jihad members or the members of any of the other militant Islamic groups targeting Israelis in the Occupied Territories?

His reference to a "terror network" is intentionally vague and clearly meant to induce the listener to think back to the "terror network" he discussed earlier - al Qaeda.

Only one question remains: when will they stop lying about this?

posted by Eugene Oregon at 2:49 PM




Justice DeLayed is Justice Denied

Hot on the heels of this Washington Post piece about Tom DeLay's mammoth fundraising operations created to fuel his insatiable lust for power comes this New York Times piece on his plans to travel to the Middle East in order to de-rail the "road map" to peace.

In turn, these two articles reminded me of this lengthy Washington Post Magazine cover-story from a few years back.

Read it in order to remind yourself of just how narrow-minded, egotistical, evil, and hate-filled DeLay truly is.

posted by Eugene Oregon at 1:33 PM




That Didn't Take Long

From the Associated Press

A conservative group that supports President Bush is using an official Navy photo of the president greeting troops aboard an aircraft carrier to raise money.

Citizens United for the Bush Agenda sent copies of the picture to about 30,000 people last month, along with a request for donations in increments of $25 to $1,000.

The picture was taken by a Navy photographer after Bush landed on the USS Abraham Lincoln in May to declare an end to major combat operations in Iraq.

"He is clearly a commander in chief who is proud to be in the company of his troops — a striking contrast to former President Bill Clinton, who openly 'loathed' the military," the group's president, David Bossie, wrote in a fund-raising letter accompanying the photograph. The mailing was first reported in Thursday's editions of The Boston Globe.

Bossie, a former congressional aide and one of Clinton's harshest critics, said the photo was taken from a U.S. Navy Web site and properly credited to the Navy in the mailings.

Citizens United, which is not affiliated with the Republican Party or the president's re-election campaign, will use money generated from the fund-raising pitch to create television ads praising Bush's leadership in the war on terrorism.

Glenn Flood, a Pentagon spokesman, said once the picture is posted on the Internet, it's in the public domain and can be used by anyone as long as the photo is credited.

"We don't know what the end use is when an organization takes the picture down," Flood said. "We can't stipulate how they can use it."

Some Democrats complained that the trip, with the president decked out in Navy flight gear, had political overtones and that landing in a jet was a waste of taxpayer money.

Citizens United has already aired two TV ads supporting Bush's decision to send troops to Iraq and honoring soldiers serving in the war.


posted by Eugene Oregon at 1:08 PM




Death to the "Powell Doctrine"

It's nice to see Colin Powell arguing strongly for intervention in Liberia. As he told the Washington Times

"In Liberia if you ask the question, 'What is our strategic, vital interest?' it will be hard to define it that way," he said. "But we do have an interest in making sure that West Africa doesn't simply come apart. We do have an interest in showing the people of Africa that we can support efforts to stabilize a tragic situation as we work with others to bring relief to people — people who are desperately in need."

But it raises an interesting question about the continuing relevance of the military doctrine that bears his name

Essentially, the Doctrine expresses that military action should be used only as a last resort and only if there is a clear risk to national security by the intended target; the force, when used, should be overwhelming and disproportionate to the force used by the enemy; there must be strong support for the campaign by the general public; and there must be a clear exit strategy from the conflict in which the military is engaged.

From what I have read about the possibility of intervention in Liberia, the mission appears to meet exactly none of these requirements.

Has Powell changed his views since leaving the Pentagon? It doesn't really matter, because the Pentagon itself hasn't abandoned this doctrine, as reported in the NYT

Two days after Secretary of State Colin L. Powell called for the speedy deployment of troops to Liberia, the top two American military officers warned today of significant dangers facing United States military involvement there and called for a clear mission and a strategy for its successful end before any troops are sent.


Not that we should be relying on the Pentagon to step-up in the face of a humanitarian crisis, as they have a well-deserved reputation for being unwilling to send US soldiers into such situations, as evidenced by their actions during the 1994 genocide in Rwanda . As Samantha Power reported in the Atlantic Monthly

The fear, articulated mainly at the Pentagon but felt throughout the bureaucracy, was that what would start as a small engagement by foreign troops would end as a large and costly one by Americans. This was the lesson of Somalia, where U.S. troops had gotten into trouble in an effort to bail out the beleaguered Pakistanis. The logical outgrowth of this fear was an effort to steer clear of Rwanda entirely and be sure others did the same.

I'm waiting to see how the Bush administration handles this issue - and maybe they could learn something from Wesley Clark

Lieutenant General Wesley Clark looked to the White House for leadership. "The Pentagon is always going to be the last to want to intervene," he says. "It is up to the civilians to tell us they want to do something and we'll figure out how to do it."




posted by Eugene Oregon at 11:16 AM




Friday Morning Political Grab Bag

Sen. Cantwell says Springer Would Be Fine Senator

"Draft Traficant for President 2004" gets OK to start campaign

GOP Reps complain that David Keene is selling out conservatism

Merle Haggarad defends the Dixie Chicks

posted by Helena Montana at 10:43 AM


Thursday, July 24, 2003


Crying Uncle on the Overload of Coulter Coverage?

You might want to make room for one more story, this one by Slate's Sam Tanenhaus. It's funny and finally goes beyond the easy outrage of most columnists to place Coulter in the John Birch tradition to which she rightly belongs. Here's a teaser:
Ann Coulter, the right wing's dial-900 girl—a rail-thin, chain-smoking, hard-drinking, big-eyed leggy blonde who winkingly serves up X-rated ideological smut on liberals—is at it again. "Whenever the nation is under attack, from within or without, liberals side with the enemy," Coulter writes—or sneers—in Treason, her follow-up effort to the best-selling Slander. Like its predecessor, Treason sits atop the best-seller charts, riding higher than one of Coulter's signature miniskirts.
It won't beat Bill Maher's piece for funniest thing of the day, but that'd be asking an awful lot.

posted by Helena Montana at 2:44 PM




Intentional public disturbances

Bizarre, inane and just for fun. Who do you have to know to get invited to participate in a smartmob or flashmob?



posted by Zoe Kentucky at 1:29 PM




Piggybacking off Tapped

Yesterday, I linked to a Tapped post on Scott McClellan's pathetic attempts to spin the Valerie Plame issue. And Tapped is back at it today.

Nonetheless, I am going to add my own thoughts on the issue.

During yesterday's press briefing, the following exchange occurred

Q Scott, has there ever been an attempt or effort on the part of anyone here at the White House to discredit the reputations or reporting of former Ambassador Joe Wilson, his wife, or ABC correspondent Jeffrey Kofman?

MR. McCLELLAN: John, I think I answered that yesterday. That is not the way that this White House operates. That's not the way the President operates. And certainly, I first became aware of those news reports when we were contacted by reporters and the questions were raised. It's the first I had heard of those. No one would be authorized to do that within this White House. That is simply not the way we operate, and that's simply not the way the President operates.


"That's not the way this White House operates" seems to be McClellan's default talking point, but it begs the question: if the White House really doesn't operate this way and leak the names of covert CIA operatives in an attempt to discredit unflattering political news, why not, when asked if this happened, simply say "No, it didn't"? His refusal to directly say that the White House didn't leak Plame's identity coupled with his insistence on hiding behind irrelevant rhetoric is essentially an admission of guilt.

Furthermore, addressing a question and answering it are two different things. McClellan did not answer this question yesterday - he addressed it and then avoided it by repeating his "That is not how this White House works" mantra. He has certainly leaned Ari Fleishcer's basic technique very well: if they don't like your first vague non-answer, too bad. Simply keep repeating it.

Shortly thereafter, this exchange occurred

Q Are you trying to do an internal investigation to find out?

MR. McCLELLAN: I have no reason to believe that there is any truth that that has happened. So if I thought that there was any reason to believe that something like that had happened, I would --

Q So you're saying that reporters just made it up?

MR. McCLELLAN: -- try to get to the bottom. Campbell, I just said that anonymous is someone I would like to know who that is, but it's usually a fruitless search.


First of all, they are not "anonymous," they are "senior administration officials." Secondly, even if they were truly anonymous, does that automatically preclude any sort of investigation. So if the President Bush receives anonymous threats, does the Secret Service simply refuse to investigate them because doing so would just be a "fruitless search"?

Here's an idea: why not simply ask a few "senior administration officials" if they leaked the information?

Liars



posted by Eugene Oregon at 1:23 PM




Changing One's Mind in the Nick of Time

Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Orrin Hatch (R-Utah) seems to be taking his cues from Congressman Bill Thomas, the committee chair who tried to get police to evict Democrats last week from a committee hearing. Yesterday, Hatch proved that little things like integrity and fairness are far too inconsequential to get in the way of an important mission like pushing through the federal courts nomination of William Pryor.

Wednesday, during a very testy Senate Judiciary Committee hearing over Pryor's nomination, Democrats on the committee tried to invoke a rule that requires at least one member of each party to vote for sending a nomination to the floor. Hatch flat-out dismissed the request. (This very rule had been used to help torpedo Clinton judicial nominees.) Dems on the Senate Judiciary Committee quickly pointed out to Hatch that, only a few years before, the Utah senator had personally endorsed the use of this rule as appropriate under Senate rules. So then what did Hatch have to say in response? You have to hear it for yourself to believe it. Scroll down on NPR's Morning Edition page and click on the story "Pryor Hearing."

posted by Frederick Maryland at 12:11 PM




Daniel Pipes Update

According to this CAIR news release, Pipes' nomination will have to wait a bit longer.
A vote had been scheduled, but was postponed because too many senators left the meeting to maintain a quorum.

During the discussion of Pipes' nomination to the USIP board, Sens. Edward Kennedy (D-Mass.), Christopher Dodd (D-Conn.) and Tom Harkin (D-Iowa) described Pipes variously as a "provocative" and "highly controversial" candidate whose "decidedly one-sided" views would be in "direct contradiction" to USIP goals.

Sen. Harkin, who said he took the time to investigate the nominee, spoke at length about Pipes' statement warning of the "dangers" posed by the enfranchisement of American Muslims and of his web site (http://www.campus-watch.org) that sought to create "dossiers" on academic critics of Israeli policies.

Harkin said the ongoing controversy generated by Pipes' possible confirmation would "overshadow" the work of the institute. He also said Iowa is home to the oldest operating mosque in America in Cedar Rapids and that Muslims are a vibrant segment of that state's population. "(Daniel Pipes is) not the person that ought to be on the United States Institute of Peace board," said Harkin.

Sen. James Jeffords (I-Vt.) said the fact that Pipes would stimulate debate was "hardly a reason" to support his nomination. Only Senator John Ensign (R-Nev.) offered a cautious defense of the nominee, saying he agreed with Pipes' position on peacemaking needing to be backed up by strength.
It's pretty amazing that this press release is the most informative thing that Google News picked up. Is this not a worthy news story? I know that the Pryor nomination is Big News (tm), but c'mon, a little multi-tasking here.

posted by Helena Montana at 11:45 AM




Even Worse Than We Thought

What is "the greatest tragedy ever to befall children -- ever" in the state of Massachusetts?

According to a newly released report by state Attorney General Thomas F. Reilly, it's the sexual abuse scandal within the Archdiocese of Boston. The sexual abuse suffered by minors, the report declares, involved many more priests and many more victims than Catholic church officials have publicly disclosed.

The report notes that in 1984, Bishop Robert J. Banks of the Boston archdiocese urged prosecutors and a judge to be lenient toward a priest who had pleaded guilty to raping an altar boy -- even though he, Banks, knew something that prosecutors did not know: the priest had previously victimized others. Banks is now bishop of the Green Bay, Wis., diocese.

Here's an executive summary and a complete copy of Reilly's report, which was compiled after a 16-month investigation.


posted by Frederick Maryland at 11:43 AM




Southern Appeal

Jonathan Adler, guest-blogging over at Southern Appeal, predicts that moderate Democrats will use Hatch's violation of Rule IV of the Senate Judiciary Committee's Rules of Procedure as a "smokescreen" to justify their (probable) filibuster William Pryor.

Frankly, I don't see that they need a "smokescreen" - Pryor's record and public statements are enough to justify a filibuster by themselves.

Adler then goes on to allege that

There is evidence that Democratic opposition to Owen and Charles Pickering hurt Senate Dems in the 2002 election. Polling further suggests that the Estrada filibuster may hurt Dems with the Hispanic vote in 2004.

I have seen no evidence that opposition to Owen and Pickering had any impact on the 2002 elections whatsoever, and Adler does not provide any. As for polls suggesting that the filibuster against Estrada will hurt Democrats with Hispanic voters in 2004, see this or this.

Finally, Adler gives us a little history lesson, noting that the last time Democrats blocked a conservative nominee to the 11th Circuit, that nominee, Jeff Sessions, went on to become a Senator.

Well, let's hope the same happens to Pryor - if the people of Alabama want to elect this sort of lunatic to represent them in Congress, they have that right and I, for one, would easily prefer that outcome to confirming Pryor to a lifetime seat on the federal court.

As I have said before, Pryor ought not to be filibustered - he ought to be defeated outright on the Senate floor. And in order to accomplish this, Daschle ought to try to work out a compromise with those Democrats and moderate Republicans who are trying to invoke cloture on Estrada and Owen. He should promise Miller, Nelson, Chafee and Snowe that the Democrats will vote to end the filibuster on one or both of these nominees, or agree to confirm Pickering, in return for their promise to vote against Pryor when his confirmation comes up.

The Democrats need to pick their battles, and sacrificing Owen, Pickering or Estrada in order to defeat Pryor would be a smart move and would yield an important victory.

posted by Eugene Oregon at 11:02 AM




Are Dems Really That Dumb?

A new national poll shows Joseph Lieberman, closet Republican and outwardly pious boob, leading the field of potential presidential nominees among Democratic voters.

What a great Democratic rallying cry: If you can't beat 'em, Join 'em!



posted by Theora at 10:37 AM




OHMIGAWD it's a PURPLE POLAR BEAR!

It's name is Pelusa (spanish for "fuzzy") and it is very, very purple indeed.

Sorry for the interruption. Now back to our regularly scheduled program.

posted by Zoe Kentucky at 10:20 AM




Maher on Davis

Bill Maher weighs in on the effort to recall Gray Davis - from the LA Times

New rule: No do-overs. Once you elect an official, unless he runs off with public funds or gets caught with kiddie porn, you're stuck with him.

He's the governor, not some dude you married in Las Vegas.

What's going on here in California, if you're lucky enough to not have been following this, is that the economy turned, so we're getting rid of the governor. But what if we drive him out of office and the economy still doesn't get better? I guess we'll have to burn him. And if that doesn't work, we'll kill his dog.

Yes, in baseball when the team stinks, you fire the manager. But you don't fire him because it rains. And you don't let the opposing team choose a new manager for you.

And you don't fire him between innings. And replace him with a Viennese weightlifter.

Here's why the economy turned: The dot-com bubble burst. (Obviously on the orders of Gray Davis.) The airline industry collapsed. (Just as Gray Davis planned.) We fought two wars. (Playing right into Gray Davis' hands.) And Dick Cheney's friends at Enron "gamed" the energy market and ripped off the state for billions.

So you can see the problem: Gray Davis.

And the obvious solution: A Viennese weightlifter. Arnold Schwarzenegger. Finally, a candidate who can explain the Bush administration's positions on civil liberties in the original German.

But there are still a lot of Democrats with sour grapes over the last presidential election, and they're not collecting petitions to replace George Bush with Bernie Mac.

Now, I'm not saying that I like Davis. Being enthusiastic about Davis would be like saying your favorite food is straw. But he fought for his country in Vietnam and won a fair election, and he's entitled to his term.

Maybe he's a lousy governor, but he was the one elected by voters who bothered to show up at the polls. Their efforts shouldn't be undone by disgruntled shoppers signing a petition on their way out of Target.

Anyone who thinks this recall is some great affirmation of democracy should review early American history. This is precisely the kind of direct involvement by the howling masses that the framers wanted to avoid.

But, hey, let's have the recall. And then the people who voted for Davis can have a recall and put him back in. And then we can throw him out again. It works well in Italy.

And it'll really help the state economy, too, when investors realize our political system is on par with Belize.

Oh, and a recall election will cost the state up to $35 million. Money we would otherwise just waste on schools and roads. And we'll still have to have a regular election in March.

But this really isn't about elections at all. This is about a congressman named Darrell Issa, a Republican car alarm magnate who wants to be governor and has spent $1.5 million of his own money to fund the recall effort.

Think about that as the silver lining the next time a car alarm wakes you up in the middle of the night.


posted by Eugene Oregon at 10:07 AM


Wednesday, July 23, 2003


The Prince of Crawford Texas

According to The Weekly Standard's Bill Kristol, what appears to most people as a really bad couple of weeks for the White House is in fact a brilliant Machiavellian strategy by George W. Bush to trip up his political opponents:

Smelling blood, just as they'd been meant to, first the media--and then the Democratic party--dove into the resulting "scandal" head first and fully clothed.

Belatedly, but sometime soon, the divers are going to figure out that they've been lured into a great big ocean--with no way back to shore. Because the more one learns about this Niger brouhaha that White House spokesmen have worked so hard to generate, the less substance there seems to be in it. As we say, George W. Bush is a genius.

[edit]

That muffled sound you hear coming from 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue is the sound of George W. Bush chuckling at the success of his nefarious scheme. Misunderestimated, once again.


Eureka! Only now do I see the genius of Bush's plan. Thanks to Kristol, the pieces have all fallen into place:

Step1: Admit error. A "senior White House official" confirms that the SOTU uranium claim was false. Certainly a brilliant move--one sure to inspire overconfidence among peacenik Democrats. But this is only one strand of the web that the President weaves for his foes.

Step 2: Deflect blame. Rather than accept responsibility himself, Bush points fingers at his CIA director. The advantages here are threefold. First, the president alienates the intelligence community (more on this in a moment). Second, everyone knows how much Americans respect politicians who pass the buck. Still, the Bush administration takes this idea to a whole new level by suggesting that Bush isn't actually responsible for the words (at least the controversial ones) that come out of his mouth. Third, his denial prompts difficult questions from a normally compliant press; but of course, that's exactly what our svengali-in-chief wants.

Step 3: Switch stories. (As Kristol points out, this is all part of the plan: "As instructed, and with the rhetorical ear and political touch for which they have become justly renowned, assorted senior administration officials, named and unnamed, proceeded to unleash all manner of contradictory statements.") The uranium story is no longer false. It is, as Condi and Rummy so adroitly put it, "technically accurate." Any self-respecting political operative understands the positive effects of spewing awkward legalisms. After all, the phrase "no controlling legal authority" made Al Gore one of the most beloved figures in American politics.

Step 4: Project an air of incompetence. This serves as a smokescreen to confuse the Democrats. The administration does this ably by asserting that neither the President nor the National Security Advisor actually took the time out to read the 90-page National Intelligence Estimate on Iraq in the months leading up to war. Have I said "genius" yet?

Step 5: Exact petty revenge. The administration accomplishes this by shooting the messenger, Ambassador Joseph Wilson and outing his wife, Valerie Plame, as a covert CIA agent. As in step 2, this has the desirable effect of alienating (and possibly outright killing) unreliable members of the intelligence community.

Step 6: Switch stories again. This is the savvy maneuver that separates the political masterminds from all of us more simple-minded folks. Before the press and the opposition have a chance to wrap their heads around the administration’s last cover story, pull the old switcheroo by admitting that a ranking member of the National Security Council staff actually did know that the uranium claims were false. Betcha didn’t see that one coming.

Step 7: Who (with the possible exception of Bill Kristol) knows? All that I know is that it’s sure to be absolutely diabolical. Surrender reporters! Give up, Democrats! Resistance is futile.

posted by Noam Alaska at 5:44 PM




Lincoln's Sad Little Log Cabin

In instances like these I really do feel sorry for Log Cabin Republicans (LCR). Like a lot of LCRs, I don't believe that every card-carrying Republican is anti-gay. (I happen to know a few staunch Republicans who believe that my partner and I should have the right to marry, have kids, etc.) However, if this what LCRs regard to be a gay-friendly victory then they need to revist the definition of friendly. I just got this via e-mail...


Sent: Wednesday, July 23, 2003 3:53 PM
To: LCR-IW@LCR.ORG
Subject: [lcr-IW] Inclusion Wins! July 23, 2003

INCLUSION WINS!
JULY 23, 2003
*******************
Coleman calls anti-gay marriage amendment premature

U.S. Senator Norm Coleman of Minnesota (R) said Monday that he doesn't agree with some GOP colleagues who argue that a constitutional amendment is necessary to prevent gay marriage in the United States. "At this point, it's a little premature," Coleman said in a telephone interview to The Advocate. Shortly after the Supreme Court threw out a Texas law banning gay sex, Senate majority leader Bill Frist (R-Tenn.) said he would support a constitutional amendment banning gay marriage. Frist later backpedaled, however, saying he would take a "wait and see" approach favored by President Bush, who said the amendment is not needed yet.

Coleman noted that Congress has already passed the Defense of Marriage Act, a 1996 law allowing states not to recognize gay marriages performed in other states. Coleman said he supports that law. "You don't need to rile up these waters right now," he said. "That's the law of the land, and at this point it's not necessary to talk about a constitutional amendment. The law is pretty clear."


posted by Zoe Kentucky at 4:22 PM




White House Logic: Senior Administration Official = Anonymous

Tapped has a great post analyzing Scott McClellan's attempts to spin the White House leak of Valerie Plame's identity to Robert Novak.

Go read it.

posted by Eugene Oregon at 3:17 PM




The Prohibition on Assassination

The AP has a great piece on this issue

In theory, pursuing with intent to kill violates a long-standing policy banning political assassination. It was the misfortune of Saddam Hussein's sons, Odai and Qusai, that the Bush administration has not bothered to enforce the prohibition.

[edit]

The ban has been overlooked so often in recent years that some wonder why the administration doesn't simply declare the measure null and void.

[edit]

The ban on assassinations, spelled out in an executive order signed by President Ford in 1976 and reinforced by Presidents Carter and Reagan, made no distinction between wartime and peacetime. There are no loop holes; no matter how awful the leader, he could not be a U.S. target either directly or by a hired hand.

[edit]

Ford's executive order was in response to the general revulsion over disclosures by a Senate committee about a series of overseas U.S. assassination attempts some successful, some not over many years.

The committee found eight attempts on the life of Cuban President Fidel Castro. Other targets included Rafael Trujillo of the Dominican Republic and Patrice Lumumba of the Congo, both in 1961; and Ngo Dinh Diem of South Vietnam in 1963. Lumumba and Diem were both assassinated, although the degree of U.S. involvement has never been clear.

[edit]

... the old assassination taboo lives on, at least on paper.

"There's an executive order that prohibits the assassination of foreign leaders, and that remains in place," a White House spokesman said just as the Iraq hostilities were about to begin.


posted by Eugene Oregon at 1:20 PM




Paul Weyrich's Closet

The head of the Free Congress Foundation takes on Bravo's "Queer Eye for the Straight Guy," noting that

It should come as no surprise that I do not feel compelled to take any fashion or lifestyle tips from the homosexual movement, and I say that as someone who was wearing pink shirts back in the 1960s before the color was seized by homosexual activists and politicized. Nowadays, I still wear a pink shirt every now and then as a sign of rebellion against a movement that expects wearers of that color to be sympathetic to their agenda, which I most certainly am not.

Really? You don't say. I would have thought that he supported "their agenda," judging by his subsequent statement that "[t]he fact is that the homosexual lifestyle is one that is dysfunctional, unhealthy and can even be deadly, not to mention that it is immoral."

Thanks for weighing in, Pinky.

Editor's Note: Paul Weyrich will heretofore be referred to as Pinky Weyrich in all future Demagogue posts - at least in those posts written by me.

posted by Eugene Oregon at 12:18 PM




The "You've gotta be kidding" award of the day goes to...

Flowers v. Clinton, Carville, and Stephanopoulos

Flowers' Clinton lawsuit revived: Judge rules conspiracy claim against former first lady, aides may proceed

Gennifer Flowers may proceed with a lawsuit that accuses Hillary Rodham Clinton of conspiring with [James Carville and George Stephanopoulos ] to defame her during the 1992 presidential election campaign, a federal judge in Las Vegas has ruled...According to Flowers' lawsuit, Hillary Rodham Clinton organized and directed a conspiracy to defame her.


Hey lady, you slept with the woman's husband for 12 years and now you have the gall to sue her for defamation? Sheesh.

posted by Zoe Kentucky at 12:05 PM




Out of Africa, Out of Mind

Now that Bush has returned from his trip to Africa, he appears to have forgotten all about Liberia - from the NYT

Three weeks after signaling it might send American troops to Liberia as part of an international peacekeeping operation, the Bush administration today disputed any suggestion that it was deliberately delaying a decision even as the Liberian capital of Monrovia endured another violent day.


They can deny that they are stalling all they want, but that does not change the fact that that is exactly what they are doing.

Bush never had any desire or intention of sending US soldiers to serve as peacekeepers in Liberia. It only became an option because it happened to coincide with this trip to Africa. And now that he is home, he will just continue to drag his feet until Taylor leaves the country on his own or the rebels push him out - either one of which will probably bring an official end to the civil war. And then Bush will probably send a token force.

From what I understand, Liberians aren't begging for US help after the civil war has ended - they are begging for US intervention to stop the war before any more civilians get killed. But that is not Bush's concern, as his only goal is to make it appear as if he cares without having to actually do anything useful.

posted by Eugene Oregon at 11:48 AM




Call Me Cynical

I can't help but think that the White House chose to time the release of its latest bit of SOTU bad news so that it would be drowned out by the good news in Iraq. After all, the administration generally only mentions controversial matters on Friday nights after the close of the news cycle, so that they're lost in little-read Saturday editions of newspapers.

posted by Noam Alaska at 10:53 AM




Iraqi Deaths and the "Data Point"

The White House staff may have been giving each other high-fives upon hearing news of the apparent deaths of Saddam Hussein's two eldest sons. However, there is little to cheer about for the families of two soldiers who are the latest victims of the persistent guerrilla war in northern Iraq. The two servicemen died when their convoys were attacked in separate ambushes.

These casualties bring the death toll for U.S. troops to 155, which exceeds the number of those who died in the 1991 Gulf War. The White House had a strategy to wage the war, but appears to have overlooked how it would keep the peace.

Meanwhile, the Boston Globe's Derrick Jackson tears apart claims by Condoleezza Rice and Colin Powell that people are overreacting to President Bush's now infamous 16-word, State of the Union warning about Iraq and uranium. Rice has called Bush's warning nothing more than a "data point." (So where's the data, Condi?) And Powell declared, ''Too much is being made out of this single statement."

In his column, Jackson notes that the administration's uranium warning was not a single statement. For example, Jackson writes that the fact sheets that "the White House handed out for press consumption the day of the State of the Union address ... emphasized that Saddam ''recently sought significant quantities of uranium from Africa, according to the British government.' "

posted by Frederick Maryland at 10:47 AM




What's In A Smear?

Apparently several GOP senators think that any investigation into whether William Pryor may have lied to the Senate Judiciary Committee about his role in soliciting political donations for the Republican Attorneys General Association is nothing but a "campaign to smear a good and honest man."

Strange, but they seem to have no objections when the Committee for Justice accuses anyone who opposes Pryor of being "anti-Catholic."

posted by Eugene Oregon at 9:19 AM


Tuesday, July 22, 2003


This Man Thinks the West is Too Nice

And sadly, George Bush thinks he should be appointed to the U.S. Institute for Peace. In fact, his Senate hearing is tomorrow and he has no qualms writing this:
"All previous threats in the history of mankind have had one element in common. They were posed by historical groups that had created the weapons -- both physical and cultural -- that they used to threaten their enemies." States achieved their military power through their own labor and sacrifice, developing their own economies, organizing their societies, training their own troops, and building their own arsenals.

But the same cannot be said of the threats emanating from the Muslim world. Al-Qaeda destroys airplanes and buildings that it itself could not possibly build. The Palestinian Authority has failed in every field of endeavor except killing Israelis. Saddam Hussein''s Iraq grew dangerous thanks to money showered on it by the West to purchase petroleum Iraqis themselves had neither located nor extracted.

How, despite their general incompetence, has this trio managed to guide the course of events as if they were Powers in the traditional sense?

The cause of this anomaly, Harris replies, is that the West plays by a strict set of rules while permitting Al-Qaeda, the Palestinians, and Saddam Hussein to play without rules. We restrain ourselves according to the standards of civilized conduct as refined over the centuries; they engage in maximal ruthlessness.
So here's a list of the Senators who will be voting on his nomination in the Health, Education, Labor and Pensions Committee. I think you can figure out what to do with that.

posted by Helena Montana at 4:54 PM




Good Riddance

Uday and Qusay are dead - or so says the US military

The two notorious sons of Saddam Hussein, Uday and Qusay, were killed today in an extended firefight with American forces in the northern Iraqi city of Mosul, the United State military said today.


posted by Eugene Oregon at 4:18 PM




Forced Humanitarianism

Via Tom Paine we learn of this Adam Wolfson piece in the National Review.

In Wolfson's view, even if we fail to find WMDs or any specific Iraq/al Qaeda ties, the war was still justified on humanitarian grounds and those on "the left" are hypocrites for opposing it. As he sees it

The war in Iraq was fought for several very specific reasons. Indeed, it is rare in American history that an administration has been so careful to spell out the causes for going to war. First, said the Bush administration, only a war fought now will prevent a sworn enemy from threatening us later with weapons of mass destruction. Hussein's use of chemical and biological weapons against his neighbors as well as his own people combined with his efforts to develop a nuclear device conjured up the very real possibility of an attack on the United States that would have made September 11 look like child's play. In the next place, argued the administration, regime change in Iraq was necessary to disrupt the possibility of an emerging Iraq-al-Qaeda alliance — an alliance that would put the vast resources of an oil-producing rogue state at the disposal of fanatical terrorists who had already demonstrated their intent and ability to target American cities.

And, finally: The Bush administration argued in favor of going to war on humanitarian grounds — in order to liberate the Iraqi people from a brutal dictator, one who regularly employed poison gas, torture, ethnic cleansing, and mass rape as his preferred methods of "statecraft." Taken together, our goals were to defend ourselves and to bring a more decent and democratic rule to the Iraqi people.

[edit]

The upshot would be that the Iraq invasion was not in our "national interest," at least narrowly conceived, and that we thus fought the war exclusively for humanitarian reasons. This was Bush's third rationale for the war, and it has proven impregnable.


Maybe Wolfson is on to something - perhaps along with his doctrine of pre-emptive military action, Dubya has created a new foreign policy tool for future Democratic presidents.

As I see it, in the future, when we want to use the US military to intervene in order to stop humanitarian catastrophes, all we need to do is simply lie about our objectives.

From now on, we simply need to concoct a few false threats to our national security or national interest as cover in order to get the Republicans to back our war, which we are actually launching for purely humanitarian reasons.

Knowing that conservatives always oppose humanitarian intervention, we need merely to trick them into supporting it in any way we can, be it by ignoring, fabricating or misinterpreting intelligence or intimidating dissenters or whatever. When, after the war is over and our stated reasons fall apart, we can simply say it was a humanitarian mission all along and Republicans should stop complaining because, in the end, we did a good thing.

I'm sure Republicans would have no objections to being blatantly lied to and manipulated. Except for maybe these guys from the Cato Institute and the Heritage Foundation, who are flat-out opposing humanitarian intervention in Liberia.

Sure, maybe a few right-wing lunatics would be upset, but that is only because they hate America.

posted by Eugene Oregon at 4:05 PM




Plame Game

Tapped points out a disturbing story from Newsday proving that the administration "outed" Ambassador Joseph Wilson's wife, Valerie Plame, as an undercover CIA agent.

The identity of an undercover CIA officer whose husband started the Iraq uranium intelligence controversy has been publicly revealed by a conservative Washington columnist citing "two senior administration officials."

Intelligence officials confirmed to Newsday yesterday that Valerie Plame, wife of retired Ambassador Joseph Wilson, works at the agency on weapons of mass destruction issues in an undercover capacity - at least she was undercover until last week when she was named by columnist Robert Novak.

[edit]

Wilson and a retired CIA official said yesterday that the "senior administration officials" who named Plame had, if their description of her employment was accurate, violated the law and may have endangered her career and possibly the lives of her contacts in foreign countries. Plame could not be reached for comment.

"When it gets to the point of an administration official acting to do career damage, and possibly actually endanger someone, that's mean, that's petty, it's irresponsible, and it ought to be sanctioned," said Frank Anderson, former CIA Near East Division chief.

A current intelligence official said that blowing the cover of an undercover officer could affect the officer's future assignments and put them and everyone they dealt with overseas in the past at risk.

"If what the two senior administration officials said is true," Wilson said, "they will have compromised an entire career of networks, relationships and operations." What's more, it would mean that "this White House has taken an asset out of the" weapons of mass destruction fight, "not to mention putting at risk any contacts she might have had where the services are hostile."


posted by Noam Alaska at 3:03 PM




Gay Marriage Ruling

Any day now, Massachusetts' highest state court is expected to issue its ruling on the issue of gay marriage. The pending case, Goodridge v. Department of Public Health, was brought by seven same-sex couples who are challenging the state's refusal to grant them civil marriage licenses. Stateline.org offers this overview of the case.


posted by Frederick Maryland at 2:49 PM




In Debt Forever

Or so Slate's Daniel Gross predicts

When he announced the record $455 billion federal deficit last week, Office of Management and Budget Director Joshua Bolten reassured Americans that the red ink will evaporate as soon as the economy perks up. In the long term, Bolten insisted, rapid economic growth will generate the federal revenues needed to close the gap.

Bolten's faith in history is charming, but worrisome. His implication is that just as the '90s boom erased the deficit President Clinton inherited, so economic growth will eventually wipe out the deficit President Bush created.

But Bush's own policies make that very unlikely. Even if the economy rebounds, the tax revenue the federal government needs to balance the budget won't return.

[edit]

As they did in the '90s, the wealthy will receive a disproportionate share of the reward when the economy and the markets pick up again. But because of these tweaks to the tax code, the government will harvest much less of the windfall than it did during the Clinton years.

[edit]

The Bush administration has been woefully off-base when it comes to projecting federal revenues and expenditures. Even if economic growth meets its expectations, the recovery in federal revenues won't. They have changed the rules too much.


posted by Eugene Oregon at 2:13 PM




Elsewhere in Africa

While Liberians continue to die, and those who don't continue to beg for US intervention to stop the bloodshed in their country, it should be remembered that the arrival of peacekeeping troops is rarely enough to stop the fighting, as evidenced by the Congo

French peacekeepers found the hacked bodies of 22 elderly people, women and children in a village outside the Congolese town of Bunia after trading gunfire with militiamen, a spokesman said on Tuesday.



posted by Eugene Oregon at 12:27 PM




Pure Evil

Before reading this Washington Post article about Tom DeLay's political fundraising operations, I assumed that he cared about only two things: money and power.

After reading it, I learned that I was wrong.

He only cares only one thing: power (money is merely the means to that end.)

posted by Eugene Oregon at 11:46 AM




Disingenuous, Disappointing DiFi

Senator Diane Feinstein has been such a disappointment on the Iraqi war and other issues that it was somewhat anti-climactic when the California Dem announced in a Washington Post op-ed today that she supports the Bush administration's private-school voucher plan for Washington, D.C. DiFi's op-ed may impress Al From and other DLC types, but it is rife with misleading double-talk.

"… I am inclined to support (Mayor) Williams' effort to experiment with this (voucher) program." To suggest that this plan is "Williams' effort" shows that Feinstein is working from the Bush administration's talking points. The whole idea was hatched by Education Secretary Rod Paige. It was weeks after the proposal was announced that Mayor Williams changed his position on vouchers and expressed lukewarm support.

"I believe that education is a local issue and that if the mayor wants this program, it should be given the chance to work." If education's a local issue, then leave this decision in the hands of the District, its school board and city council -- the mayor isn’t the sum total of District government. For Feinstein to call this a "local issue" even as she announces her support for Congressional action to create the voucher program is completely disingenuous.

The D.C. voucher program should have "full accountability and sufficient oversight." Well, it doesn't. If she doesn't know that, her staff hasn't done its homework. For example, the voucher schools -- unlike public schools -- would not be required to meet the testing and other mandates in Bush's "No Child Left Behind" Act.

"We all know D.C. public schools need improvement." So do public schools in Los Angeles, Oakland and other large cities. Yet Feinstein hasn't supported vouchers either time they've been placed on the ballot in California. Why the hypocrisy here? Why are members of Congress so fond of treating D.C. as their favorite test tube for experiments they won't support in their own states?

Californians, it's time to identify a solid primary opponent for DiFi. And I'm willing to dig into my pocket to help out.

posted by Frederick Maryland at 10:42 AM




Intelligence?

The biggest emerging problem in the Bush Administration is that apparently they really don't like to read. Not just Bush in particular-- remember on the campaign trail when Bush was asked to name something he wasn't good at and he replied "sitting down and reading a 500-page book on public policy or philosophy or something"? Apparently this weakness is systemic, that no one in the Bush administration likes to read. Especially frivolous things like intelligence reports written by the pesky CIA. Keep this in mind as the Iraq-intelligence scandal brews.

Apparently last October, when Bush began making his case for war against Saddam Hussein by claiming he has WMD and is a threat to the US, that in fact his administration had received a classified intelligence report that said the exact opposite. The National Intelligence Estimate report published early last October said if Hussein does have WMD that a war against him might put the US at greater risk.

Lookie here. The thing I don't understand is that the Bush Administration submitted parts of this report as a defense against the yellowcake scandal.

"Iraq could decide on any given day to provide a biological or chemical weapon to a terrorist group or individual terrorists," President Bush said in Cincinnati on Oct. 7. "Alliance with terrorists could allow the Iraqi regime to attack America without leaving any fingerprints."

But declassified portions of a still-secret National Intelligence Estimate (NIE) released Friday by the White House show that at the time of the president's speech the U.S. intelligence community judged that possibility to be unlikely. In fact, the NIE, which began circulating Oct. 2, shows the intelligence services were much more worried that Hussein might give weapons to al Qaeda terrorists if he were facing death or capture and his government was collapsing after a military attack by the United States.


The only way the Bush Administration can talk themselves out of this verbal quagmire is if they say that as a rule they don't trust intelligence, which is why they don't bother to actually read intelligence reports-- that instead God just tells 'em what to do and they do it.

posted by Zoe Kentucky at 9:56 AM


Monday, July 21, 2003


Who's Enabling Whom?

In a post from last week, we noted that President Bush's defenders among the punditocracy are labeling as essentially pro-Saddam reporters and politicians who ask questions about the administration's justifications for war. Today, William Safire piled on:

[Saddam] presumes that British and American journalists, after the obligatory mention that the world is better off with Saddam gone, would — by their investigative and oppositionist nature — sustain the credibility firestorm. By insisting that Bush deliberately lied about his reasons for pre-emption, and gave no thought to the cost of occupation, critics would erode his poll support and encourage political opponents — eager to portray victory as defeat —to put forward a leave-Iraq-to-the-Iraqis candidate.


Inquisitive journalists are not Saddam's enablers. On the contrary, it is the press' responsibility to keep policy makers honest by questioning them when their rhetoric doesn't square with the facts. If anyone is enabling here, it is Safire, et al. Safire enables a dissembling President by assigning blame everywhere but where it belongs.

And, I wonder who Safire could be referring to when he talks about "a leave-Iraq-to-the-Iraqis candidate." As far as I know, none of the current Democratic presidential contenders (and certainly no one with a chance at the nomination) has called for a quick retreat from Iraq now that we're there. In fact, Howard Dean, one of Bush's most outspoken opponents on Iraq has made it clear that he has always been a believer in nation building. Bush, on the other hand, is a reluctant nation builder and given the mess on the ground in Iraq today, it shows.

posted by Noam Alaska at 6:37 PM




Sarah Brady = Idi Amin?

It's hard to keep up-to-date with all of the latest absurdities floated on the National Review web site. However, this post from The Corner takes the cake for today:

GUN-CONTROL & AMIN [Dave Kopel]
As the world prepares for Idi Amin's imminent death, let us remember that his genocide was made possible by gun-control laws which Amin's government inherited from the British colonial government. Historically, genocide almost never occurs without the prior imposition of gun laws which disarm the victim population.


posted by Noam Alaska at 5:00 PM




Harry Potter and the Scientific Method

I've read lots of conservative attacks on Harry Potter over the years. However, none of them prepared me for a review in the right-wing rag, Human Events, suggesting that Rowling's "lazy, amoral, 'magical', worldview" puts the scientific method at risk:

...in a culture where scientific thinking is going extinct, people begin to view power over the world in magical terms, because to them the scientific method is indistinguishable from sorcery. Power over the world, over others, continues to preoccupy everyone more than ever, but mastery of scientific knowledge and technique is no longer understood as the means to that end.


It seems to me that the Right's pseudo-scientific intelligent design theory (which Human Events has promoted in the past) is a much greater threat to "scientific thinking" than the popular children's book series.

posted by Noam Alaska at 4:37 PM




Physicians Detect a Pulse at DNC

Don't look now, but the Democratic National Committee appears to be standing on both feet and doing what its presidential candidates have been doing for weeks now -- taking President Bush to task for misleading the American people about the intelligence on Iraqi WMDs. The DNC has launched a new television ad on the Bush Iraqi uranium debacle. The video of the new DNC television ad and its transcript can be viewed here.

posted by Frederick Maryland at 1:36 PM




Dissing Your Best Intelligence Source

For many months preceding the Iraq war, the Bush administration painted the United Nations weapons inspectors as modern-day Keystone Cops. Last August, Vice President Dick Cheney bellowed, "Even as they were conducting the most intrusive system of arms control in history, the (UN) inspectors missed a great deal."

Yet, as if it isn't bad enough that the Bush administration relied on highly dubious intelligence to make its case for war, an excellent New York Times article from Sunday reveals that the administration was actually dissing one of its best sources for intelligence: the UN.

Last fall, as the White House's pro-invasion rhetoric grew, the Times explains that Bush officials argued that "the United States had new or better intelligence that Iraq's weapons programs were accelerating …" But this public position was patently false, and even a Pentagon official has confirmed it.

The Pentagon source told the Times, "Once the inspectors were gone, it was like losing your G.P.S. guidance" -- an abbreviation referring to sophisticated spy satellites.

In January, days before Bush delivered his now infamous State of the Union address, Deputy Defense Secretary Paul Wolfowitz was unjustifiably smug, claiming that the administration's warnings about Iraq were "grounded in current intelligence." Those words were simply a lie.

As the Times noted: "In hindsight, it is now clear just how dependent American intelligence agencies were on the United Nations weapons inspections process. The inspections aided intelligence agencies directly, by providing witnesses’ accounts from ground level and, indirectly, by … forcing [Iraq] to try to move and hide people and equipment, activities that American spy satellites and listening stations could monitor."

It is shameful that the Bush administration presented flimsy intelligence as credible. But it is doubly shameful that in the administration's desire to get the UN inspectors to leave Iraq, the White House actually worsened our capacity to gather intelligence. The administration's UN haters got their way, but left America more in the dark than ever. So even if Saddam Hussein had been close to producing nukes, the Bush administration would probably never had known it.


posted by Frederick Maryland at 12:02 PM




Foodland can't keep its $5 Jessica Lynch T-shirts in stock

Regardless of what actually happened to Jessica Lynch in Iraq, she's now being packaged and sold like Harry Potter.

To read about tourists flooding her hometown, click HERE

To read about the CBS made-for-TV-movie (which CBS has decided may be a little tacky) click HERE

To read about the NBC made-for-TV movie click HERE

To read about the A&E special (already ran) click HERE

Of course, there are also cheezy songs about her on the radio and I am sure an action figure and Christmas tree ornament are in the works.

Maybe she'll even reach Happy Meal status.

Of course, Bush will continue to screw over the rest of the men and women serving in the military.


posted by Theora at 11:19 AM




Welcome to the Enron Era of Education Reform

Now I'm not saying that the Bush administration is lying when they name their education plan "No Child Left Behind." It's just that it's really more their style to erase records altogether. As this story from The Hill reports, Education Secretary Rod Paige has been touting NCLB for its tough accountability measures, but critics say that it encourages schools to try to beat the system by altering data or shoving lagging students out the door.

For those joining our programming already in progress, Paige's credibility came from his previous job, school superintendent for Houston, and his "accountability" plans became the model for NCLB. Well, let's see how things are panning out in Houston a few years after Secretary Paige's much-lauded stewardship. This NYT story is not linkable anymore, but it's free abstract tells the important stuff:
State audit in Houston, Tex, finds more than half of 5,500 students who left in 2000-1 school year should have been declared dropouts but were not; that year Houston schools reported only 1.5 percent of its students dropped out; audit recommends lowering ranking of 14 of 16 Houston middle and high schools from best to worst; audit is stunning blow to Houston school system, largest and most celebrated district in state and winner of $1 million prize as best urban district in country; Houston has been pillar of so-called Texas miracle in education, whose emphasis on grading school performance became model for rest of country; some in Texas are now questioning whether miracle may have been smoke and mirrors, at least on high school level; they suggest that Houston is model of how focus on school accountability can sometimes go wrong, driving administrators to alter data or push students likly to mar school's profile out the back door; Pres Bush's Secretary of Education Rod Paige, who ran Houston system from 1994 to 2001, refuses comment on undercounting of dropouts; current Houston school officials are appealing proposed reclassifications of their schools, saying problem is one of sloppy record keeping rather than large-scale fraud.
This Houston Chronicle story from early July looks at the case of one high school in more detail. Is this story doomed to languish in obscurity? Let's hope not. The NYT is doing their part with today's editorial: Houston's School Dropout Debacle.

posted by Helena Montana at 9:53 AM


Sunday, July 20, 2003


Liberal Talk Radio

Will liberal talk radio take off? What's holding it back and who are the liberal icons who could help it soar? The New York Times' Frank Rich examines these and other questions in this excellent article from Sunday's edition, "Why Liberals Are No Fun."

posted by Frederick Maryland at 6:32 PM



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