Xark!

Amy Goodman arrested in St. Paul

Journalist Amy Goodman of Democracy Now is an honest, sensible, principled journalist and American.

What the hell is going on in Minnesota?

Pushback in London

It didn't take people long to push back against those "report odd photographers" posters put up by the police in London...

Mellowing back to sanity

Cal Thomas and I disagree on some fairly important stuff (Thomas believes that the Bible is reason enough to uphold laws banning gay sex; I believe gay couples should have the same civil rights as straight couples), but it turns out there's some pretty important stuff on which we agree entirely:

As with religion, some people on the right have used patriotism, which should be a unifying theme, to divide Americans. My liberal friends love America as much as I do. They might disagree on some, or all, of my political and religious beliefs, but that does not make them less in love with America, much less un-American.

I don't want to put too much weight on this column (which I appreciated on several levels) or on some kind of conversion by Thomas, who has actually cautioned the right against some of its whacko excesses, like that overblown "War on Christmas" Fox gave us back in 2005. But I do think that it's a good sign that we're hearing this now. Not so much the words, even, but the tone of those words.

Dick Cheney: Not part of Executive Branch

(Cartoonist note: I didn't really get to complete this one before I went to work this morning, so this updated, final version has some differences from the one I put up earlier today-- dc)

Mooninites for morons

Attention, citizens of Boston (and over-sensitive drama queens everywhere)!

This is a mooninite. A mooninite is an advanced, absurdly arrogant and highly annoying creature from the Moon. They first appeared in an episode of Aqua Teen Hunger Force in October of 2001 and have since been featured in five additional shows (they showed up again for single episodes in 2002, 2003 and 2006, and in two 2004 episodes). The original mooninites episode is still probably the show's zenith (although for me, it's a toss-up between the mooninites and The Wisdom Cube).

They are all excellent spellers, but they are not terrorists. And those alleged bomb-like packages that got Boston's panties all in a twist? This is what they looked like. Terrified yet?

Some people were -- and are -- highly upset about the fact that a couple of "hoaxsters" put these up in Boston (funny -- in nine other cities the people who put them up were called "marketers" and nobody got upset). Then again, some people really need to get over themselves. It's a stupid joke. Laugh or don't. But don't ask me to take this stuff so seriously.

We do whatever we want whenever we want, at all times. -Ignignokt, a moonite

Torture: Pragmatism and politics

The GOP's current intra-party revolt against the Bush administration -- led by presidential hopeful Sen. John McCain and his supporters in the Senate --  is telling us quite a bit about the next two years.

Bush, overburdened with global responsibilities and deprived of maneuver room, has decided that his new strategy for the Nov. 7 mid-term Congressional elections will be to sell his old ideas more forcefully. If he succeeds and the GOP retains its control of both chambers of Congress, then he is virtually assured of completing his second term without facing hard questions about his administration's conduct.

That sounds like a win to some conservatives, but to Bush's critics within the GOP, it's a temporary -- and ultimately destructive -- victory. From their perspective, retaining the House and Senate on the President's terms only delays an inevitable accounting for the mistakes of the past four years. And that could turn 2008 -- a presidential year -- into a debacle for the Republican Party.

If you're McCain, standing on a stack of favorable polling results and gazing ahead at the Presidential horizon, getting that unpleasant accounting started in January just makes sense. So while some see this as nothing more complex than a principled stand, it also adds up to an aggressively smart political move.  Like an early break-away in a critical stage of the Tour de France, McCain is out to win the 2008 nomination right now, a move that could fundamentally change a lot of assumptions within the political class.

Presidents in their final years often slump into lame duck status, but this week's defiance by McCain and three other members of the Senate Armed Forces Committee threatens to turn Bush into a potted plant. Not only is McCain positioning himself to run against Bush's record, his defiance is forcing Republican incumbents toward  a tough choice:  cast their lot with their party's leader-in-waiting, or support Bush and make ready to defend that decision to angry voters.

To clarify: This is not WWII

Time out.

This is not 1939.

President Bush is not Winston Churchill.

Our Islamist enemies are not Adolph Hitler.

Your political critics are not Neville Chamberlain.

You are not Audie Murphy, or Ike, or Ernie Pyle.

There was only one "Greatest Generation," and the rest of us don't get to play rhetorical piggyback on their story. 

This is not the eve of World War II, even though some of us clearly wish it were, conveniently forgetting the horror and devastation caused by "The Good War." Viewed across a gulf of more than 60 years, it all seems rather cinematic now -- archetypal, clean -- and our tendency to find parallels to its storylines is understandable. World War II shaped our modern military, vaulted the United States into the role of superpower and reinvented our sense of national identity and purpose. It was our defining moment in the 20th century, and we yearn for its clarity.

We miss the black-and-white moral choices of that conflict,  the obvious targets, the stand-up fights against a uniformed enemy.  We want its mantle, its righteous cause, its sense of shared sacrifice (not the actual sacrifices, mind you, but the sense of them). We want the blessings of history, the trappings of heroism.

This isn't that.

It's been said that the longer an argument goes, the likelihood that somebody will invoke Hitler approaches zero. Considering that we've been fighting the War on Terror longer than our grandparents fought the Axis, I suppose this current obsession with WWII was inevitable. But we need to resist it.

"Refighting the last war" is a classic military blunder, an occupational hazard for generals. It's worth remembering that this is also true for armchair generals.  Success demands that we recognize the reality now, and confront it with tools that match the job.

Comparisons of our current troubles to those of 1939 are comforting to some and profitable to others. But the blessings of history will be on those who see things as they are, not as they once were.

We could tell you, but then we'd have to kill you

Justice Department attorneys said in their legal brief that the legality of the president's actions could only be properly judged by understanding "the specific threat facing the nation and the particular actions taken by the president to meet that threat."

"That understanding is not possible without revealing to the very adversaries we are trying to defeat what we know about them and how we are proceeding to stop them," they wrote.

The Associated Press: White House Invokes Privilege in Spy Cases, May 27, 2006

 

A psychological enigma

NYU journalism professor and PressThink founder Jay Rosen dipped into his own comment section Saturday to leave this remarkable summary of our current state of political and rhetorical affairs. I reproduce it here with only minimal editing:

Maybe some people think that it's not all that important for the stated reasons to go to war (Saddam has WMD, Saddam is in bed with al-Qaeda)  and the clinching reason ("we don't want the smoking gun to be a mushroom cloud") to be the actual reasons, or even to be true at all.

If it doesn't matter because the war is just and necessary, then I could see how all this furor over the rationale for going to war seems absurd and highly unfair (A variant on this theory: it doesn't matter because Bush went to war with (a) wink, and most Americans saw the wink and understood that he had many excellent reasons and picked the one that would shut the U.N. up, or sound the best to potential allies, and quiet the press, etc.).

That part I can grasp.  I don't agree with it; but I can grasp it.

What I can't grasp is why, if you hold this view, you then fight tooth and claw against the growing pile of evidence that the books were cooked and the intelligence slanted and the nuclear threat turbo-hyped and the decision to go war was a foregone conclusion from 2002 on.

In the realpolitik world where it doesn't matter what the stated reasons were because the cause is just and the deed necessary, it is precisely Bush's willingness to do such things (and take the heat) that would mark him as a leader fit for the times, tough enough for an era of global terrorism. Here's a man who does what it takes. He finds a way. He doesn't let the cumbersome formalities of reason-giving, of building a case before the eyes of the world, become an obstacle to doing what's right, what's necessary, and what's in American interests.

This should be a point of pride among Bush supporters. Instead (as this thread shows) they are being driven crazy by every piece of evidence that comes out showing that, as expected, the stated reasons were not the actual reasons, the intel was slanted to fit a pre-determined conclusion, the facts were fixed around the policy, and the decision was made to go to war regardless of all the formalities.

Why do they refuse pride and pick hand-to-hand combat over every fact emerging? I don't know the answer, but my suspicion is that the ultimate reasons are not political but psychological, or let's say they lie within the realm of political psychology. (And here I speak not of individuals but tendencies in the 35-40 percent of the body politic still with the President.)

In their view, Bush is "guilty" only of doing what's necessary for the country, even if that means breaking the rules and customs of our democracy, cooking the books, and bullshitting the world. But while his supporters admire him, a true leader, for taking on that guilt, (which they don't see as real guilt) they accept none of it for themselves. Their innocence has to remain undisturbed.  Perfect, in fact.

This, of course, is impossible.

Posted by: Jay Rosen  at April 15, 2006 08:50 PM | Permalink

I'd say that pretty much sums up my thinking on the matter, only with far greater eloquence.

E-mails from the new "Know-Nothings"

When American nativism first crawled out of the sewer in the 19th century, its targets weren't always so easy to spot: fellow Europeans who had the disqualifying characteristic of having arrived after the "real Americans" who had been born here (often to immigrant parents). Their approach to the problem? Violence, discrimination and bad government policies. With their penchant for thuggery, the group took on the name of its standard response when confronted with evidence of crimes: members would say they "knew nothing."

Today's "know-nothing nativists" aren't the violent brawlers their ideological forebears were. But if you want to see the racist mindset behind the moderate media face of the anti-immigration movement, consider these e-mails that I've received in the past week (I wound up on some interesting mailing lists after subscribing to multiple conservative newsletters)...

THE ILLEGAL IMMIGRANTS' POEM
I cross ocean,
poor and broke,
Take bus,
see employment folk.

Nice man treat me
good in there,
Say I need to
see welfare.

Welfare say,
"You come no more,
We send cash
right to your door."

Welfare checks,
they make you wealthy,
Medicaid it keep
you healthy!

By and by,
I got plenty money,
Thanks to you,
American dummy.

Write to friends
in motherland,
Tell them 'come
fast as you can.'
 
They come in turbans
and Ford trucks,
I buy big house
with welfare bucks

They come here,
we live together,
More welfare checks,
it gets better!
 
Fourteen families,
they moving in,
But neighbor's patience
wearing thin.

Finally, white guy
moves away,
Now I buy his house,
and then I say,
"Find more aliens
for house to rent."
And in the yard
I put a tent.
 
Send for family
they just trash,
But they, too,
draw the welfare cash!

Everything is
very good,
And soon we
own the neighborhood.
We have hobby
it's called breeding,
Welfare pay
for baby feeding.

Kids need dentist?
Wife need pills?
We get free!
We got no bills!
American crazy!
He pay all year,
To keep welfare
running here.

We think America darn good place!
Too darn good for the white man race.
If they no like us, they can scram,
Got lots of room in Pakistan.

SEND THIS TO EVERY AMERICAN TAXPAYER YOU KNOW!