Heroism

The Reverend David Alston served on a swift boat with John Kerry, and gave a speech at the convention. The speech received what I thought was disgracefully little attention from the news media. So I thought I would share it here. The whole thing. Without comment.

"Good evening.

My name is David Alston, and I am a minister from Columbia, South Carolina. I join you here tonight in Boston, birthplace of the American Revolution, to celebrate the bedrock ideals on which our nation was founded - freedom, equality, and democracy.

I also come here tonight to honor a friend of mine, a man of courage and conviction who has fought for these ideals his entire life: John Kerry. Many of you in this hall already know John Kerry well. Others across this land are still learning about his long and distinguished record of public service.

I know him from a small boat in Vietnam, where we fought and bled together, serving our country. There were six of us aboard PCF-94, a 50-foot, twin-engine craft known as a "Swift Boat." We all came from different walks of life, but all of us - including our skipper, John Kerry - volunteered for combat duty. And combat is what we got.

We usually patrolled the narrow waterways of the Mekong delta, flanked on both sides by thick jungle. As our crewmate Gene Thorson put it, we were a traveling bulls-eye. And we often came under sudden attack from the enemy, hidden in the shadows. Machine-gun fire, rocket-propelled grenades, it all came fast and furious, and Lieutenant Kerry had to make quick, life-or-death decisions for the entire boat.

You have to realize, a Swift Boat isn't armored. The hull is aluminum, about as thick as two nickels. And in the middle of a narrow river or canal, with no cover at all, even small-caliber bullets could punch right through it - and often did.

Manning the deck guns, most of us got wounded sooner or later, including Lieutenant Kerry. It would have been easiest, in an ambush, to simply rake the shore with return fire and roar on down the river to safety. But Lieutenant Kerry was known for taking the fight straight to the enemy. I can still see him now, standing in the doorway of the pilothouse, firing his M-16, shouting orders through the smoke and chaos.

Once, he even directed the helmsman to beach the boat, right into the teeth of an ambush, and pursued our attackers on foot, into the jungle. In the toughest of situations, Lieutenant Kerry showed judgment, loyalty and courage. Even wounded, or confronting sights no man should ever have to see, he never lost his cool.

And when the shooting stopped, he was always there too, with a caring hand on my shoulder asking, "Gunner, are you OK?" I was only 21, running on fear and adrenaline. Lieutenant Kerry always took the time to calm us down, to bring us back to reality, to give us hope, to show us what we truly had within ourselves. I came to love and respect him as a man I could trust with life itself.

I am a man of faith, and I did not come here tonight to glorify what we did. I came here to share my personal knowledge of a young naval officer who rose to the challenges and responsibilities of leadership, and who has always shown the courage to speak truth to power.

The 27th Psalm tells us, "Though an army besiege me, my heart will not fear. Though war break out against me, even then I will be confident" I stand before you tonight alive, while many of our brothers never made it home. I am grateful to have lived to enjoy my children, to see them grow up. But I stand here before you only because almighty God saw our boat safely through those rivers of death and destruction, by giving us a brave, wise, and decisive leader named John Kerry.

Today, 30 years after Vietnam, American soldiers are once again fighting and dying on distant battlefields, at war with an elusive enemy. We pray for these brave men and women. They are our friends, our neighbors, our loved ones. Their loss brings all of us sadness beyond measure.

In a few short months, we will choose our next President. I believe we need to elect a man of faith, experience, and wisdom. A man who knows that defending America means defending our most fundamental rights. A man who knows that leadership is not just about telling others what to do, but inspiring them to do it. A man who knows the true meaning of freedom, equality, and democracy. And that man is my former skipper, my friend, and our next commander-in-chief, John Kerry.

Friends, here in this city more than two centuries ago, patriots launched a revolution that changed history. Generations since have marched, fought, and died to defend the sacred ideals of life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness-and to make these ideals a reality for every American.

It is now our turn to defend these ideals. It is our time to speak out. It is our duty to exercise our most precious right as Americans: the right to vote.

So come November 2nd, join me in casting your ballot for a new, principled, and courageous leader-America's next president-John Kerry.

Thank you."

Carter's Speech

I've never thought of Jimmy Carter as a particularly dynamic public speaker. But he delivered one terrific, terrific speech. He really smacked Bush around. But the fact that he didn't even mention Bush's name, and the fact that it was coming from such a genteel old Southerner made it seem less harsh than it was. But this speech contains MANY oblique little jabs at the Shrub. He was pointed, blunt, uncompromising, and absolutely correct. I think I'll place some of the swipes in boldface.

"Thank you very much. My name is Jimmy Carter, and I am not running for president. (Cheers, applause.) But here's what I will be doing -- everything I can to put John Kerry in the White House with John Edwards right there beside him.

Unlike Al Gore, President Carter puts John Kerry front and center. Good.

"As many of you may know, my first chosen career was the United States Navy where I served as a submarine officer. At that time, my shipmates and I were ready for combat and prepared to give our lives to defend our nation and its principles. At the same time, we always prayed that our readiness would preserve the peace. I served under two presidents -- Harry Truman and Dwight Eisenhower -- men who represented different political parties; both of whom had faced their active military responsibilities with honor.

They knew the horrors of war, and later, as commanders in chief, they exercised restraint and judgment. And they had a clear sense of mission. (Applause.) We have a confidence -- we had a confidence that our leaders, both military and civilian, would not put our soldiers and sailors in harm's way by initiating wars of choice unless America's vital interests were in danger. We also were sure that these presidents would not mislead us when issues involved national security.

Today our Democratic Party is led by another former naval officer, one who volunteered for military service. He showed up when assigned to duty and he served with honor and distinction. He also knows the horrors of war and the responsibilities of leadership. And I am confident that next January he would restore the judgment and maturity to our government that nowadays is sorely lacking. I am proud to call Lieutenant John Kerry my shipmate, and I'm ready to follow him to victory in November.

And unlike Gore, Carter gives distinct second place to economic issues and focuses on national security as of prime importance. Contrary to the conventional wisdom, foreign policy is NOT one of Bush's strong point, and it seems that Carter thinks so, too.

"But the biggest reason to make John Kerry president is even more important. It is to safeguard the security of our nation. (Applause.) Today our dominant international challenge is to restore the greatness of America, based on telling the truth, a commitment to peace, and respect for civil liberties at home and basic human rights around the world.

Truth is the foundation of our global leadership, but our credibility has been shattered, and we are left increasingly isolated and vulnerable in a hostile world. Without truth, without trust, America cannot flourish. Trust is at the very heart of our democracy, the sacred covenant between a president and the people. When that trust is violated, the bonds that hold our republic together begin to weaken."

Remember when Bush was regarded by the bootlicking press as "forthright" and "honest." How much has changed. Talk about lies, and the lack of honesty, and the violation of trust, and you don't even have to mention his name. Everyone KNOWS who you are talking about.

"After 9/11, America stood proud, wounded but determined and united. A cowardly attack on innocent civilians brought us an unprecedented level of cooperation and understanding around the world.

But in just 34 months we have watched with deep concern as all this good will has been squandered by a virtually unbroken series of mistakes and miscalculations. "

"What a difference these few months of extremism have made."

He used the "E" word!

"The United States has alienated its allies, dismayed its friends, and inadvertently gratified its enemies by proclaiming a confused and disturbing strategy of preemptive war. With our allies disunited, the world resenting us, and the Middle East ablaze, we need John Kerry to restore life to the global war against terrorism."

These are some of the prices our government has paid with this radical departure from basic American principles and values that are espoused by John Kerry. In repudiating extremism, we need to recommit ourselves to a few common-sense principles that should transcend partisan differences.

First, we cannot enhance our own security if we place in jeopardy what is most precious to us; namely, the centrality of human rights in our daily lives and in global affairs.

Second, we cannot maintain our historic self-confidence as a people if we generate public panic.

Third, we cannot do our duty as citizens and patriots if we pursue an agenda that polarizes and divides our country.

Next, we cannot be true to ourselves if we mistreat others.

And finally, in the world at large we cannot lead if our leaders mislead.

You can't be a war president one day and claim to be a peace president the next depending on the latest political polls.

The Democrats should take this and use it verbatim for a campaign commercial.

"But I am not discouraged. I really am not. I do not despair for our country. I never do. I believe tonight, as I always have, that the essential decency and compassion and common sense of the American people will prevail.

And so I say to you -- and so I say to you and to others around the world, whether you wish us well or ill, do not underestimate us Americans.

We lack neither strength nor wisdom.

There's a road that leads to a bright and hopeful future. What America needs is leadership. Our job, my fellow Americans, is to ensure that the leaders of this great country will be John Kerry and John Edwards.

Thank you, and God bless America."

And thank YOU, Mr. President.

"It reads like a mystery, a novel. It's well written." - Bush, on the 9/11 Commission Report.

Holy CRAP, what a dork.

He's probably waiting to see how it turns out.

"Uncle Dick, this is a fun book, but who's this 'Bush' character? He seems totally clueless!"

Gore's Speech

Here 'tis.

"I’m going to be candid with you. I had hoped to be back here this week under different circumstances, running for re-election. But you know the old saying: you win some, you lose some. And then there’s that little-known third category."

Al starts with an old joke he's used a thousand times. He should have tried a new one. But the rest of the joke is new, and rather clever, I think:

"But I didn’t come here tonight to talk about the past. After all, I don’t want you to think that I lie awake at night counting and recounting sheep. I prefer to focus on the future, because I know from my own experience that America’s a land of opportunity, where every little boy and girl has a chance to grow up and win the popular vote."

A Republican friend of mine says, "Well, maybe when Al grows up, he'll win the popular vote," which I must admit is a good riposte. But I think Al's dealing with the 2000 election in a self-effacing manner is rather effective. And this is strong and resounds somewhat:

"The second lesson from 2000 is this: What happens in a presidential election matters. A lot. The outcome profoundly affects the lives of all 293 million Americans, and people in the rest of the world, too. The choice of who is president affects your life and your family’s future."

And he's right to point out the fact that these clowns aren't "conservative" at all. What the hell, exactly, are they conserving?

"And it is in that spirit, that I sincerely ask those watching at home tonight who supported President Bush four years ago: did you really get what you expected from the candidate you voted for? Is our country more united today? Or more divided? Has the promise of compassionate conservatism been fulfilled? Or do those words now ring hollow?

For that matter, are the economic policies really conservative at all? For example, did you expect the largest deficits in history, year after year? One right after another? And the loss of more than a million jobs?"

His rap on the economy is accurate, but pretty weak: he's right, of course, that the new jobs being "created" aren't as good as the old ones, but without specifics, the statement has no force. The specifics are that not only are their one million fewer jobs, but the new jobs being created have an average salary of 9,000 a year LESS than the ones being lost. 9 grand a year. That's one large chunk of change.

He's good to challenge the Naderites, too:

"And I also ask tonight for the consideration and the help of those who supported a third party candidate in 2000. I urge you to ask yourselves this question: Do you still believe that there was no difference between the candidates? Are you troubled by the erosion of America’s most basic civil liberties? Are you worried that our environmental laws are being weakened and dismantled to allow vast increases in pollution that are contributing to a global climate crisis? No matter how you voted in the last election, these are profound problems that all voters must take into account this Nov. 2."

And THANK GOD, the Democrats aren't ONLY talking about the economy, but are having to courage to "bring it on" when the subject is Iraq. Bush has ROYALLY screwed up foreign policy like it's never been screwed up in my lifetime and the Democrats should say so loud and clear:

"Regardless of your opinion at the beginning of this war, isn’t it now abundantly obvious that the way this war has been managed by the administration has gotten us into very serious trouble? Wouldn’t we be better off with a new president who hasn’t burned his bridges to our allies, and who could rebuild respect for America in the world? Isn’t cooperation with other nations crucial to solving our dilemma in Iraq? Isn’t it also critical to defeating the terrorists?

We have to be crystal clear about the threat we face from terrorism. It is deadly. It is real. It is imminent. But in order to protect our people, shouldn’t we focus on the real source of this threat: the group that attacked us and is trying to attack us again: Al Qaeda, headed by Osama bin Laden? Wouldn’t we be safer with a president who didn’t insist on confusing Al Qaeda with Iraq? Doesn’t that divert too much of our attention away from the principal danger?"

This is all good. But he should have talked more about Kerry. His buildup of Kerry at the end of his speech comes across as an afterthought, and lacked specifics. Democrats should NOT be afraid of specifics.

"For example, he had the best record of protecting the environment against polluters of any of my colleagues bar none. He never shied away from a fight, no matter how powerful the foe. He was never afraid to take on difficult and thankless issues that few others wanted to touch. like exposing the threat of narcoterrorism and tracing the sources of terrorist financing. He was one of the very first in our party to take on the issue of drastic deficit reduction. And he’s developed a tough and thoughtful plan to restore our economic strength and fiscal discipline."

This stuff cries out for fleshing out with specifics. HOW did the expose the threat of "narcoterrorism"? HOW did he take on deficit reduction? This is stuff most Americans are unaware of, and they should be MADE aware of it.

Vague BS favors the Republicans. Specific facts favor the Democrats.

FEEL-GOOD SPEAK
Cheney this
BY CONGRESSMAN BARNEY FRANK, FOURTH DISTRICT, MASSACHUSETTS

With increasing pressure on the FCC to step up its role as censor, finding language that appropriately communicates the depths of one’s feeling (especially when speaking on the record or within earshot of the press) while remaining within the bounds of propriety has become difficult. As a public-spirited move, I am recommending to my fellow elected officials — and to others engaged in public controversies — a semantic solution to this dilemma: use the word "Cheney" where discretion is required in the expression of frustration, anger, or extreme derision.

Here are some examples of how this would work.

• Go Cheney yourself.

• How the Cheney would I know?

• Cheney you.

• I don’t give a flying Cheney.

• Who the Cheney do you think you are?

In some cases, substitution of Cheney for its synonym would be particularly appropriate. For example:

• George Bush sure has Cheneyed up the situation in Iraq.

• The Bush administration’s position is that it is none of our Cheneying business who helped formulate its pro-oil energy policy.

• In some cases, Halliburton seems to be Cheneying the American taxpayer.

Vice-President Cheney himself said after using the blunter word that it made him feel better. It makes me feel better to suggest a way of expressing the same sentiments while paying appropriate tribute to the vice-president’s role in our society.

As you probably heard, President Clinton gave a great speech last night. Here's the text:

Some excerpts:

"Republicans in Washington believe that America should be run by the right people, their people, in a world in which America acts unilaterally when we can, and cooperates when we have to. They believe the role of government is to concentrate wealth and power in the hands of those who embrace their economic, political and social views, leaving ordinary citizens to fend for themselves on important matters like health care and retirement security.

"Now, since most Americans aren't that far to the right, our friends have to portray us Democrats as simply unacceptable, lacking in strength and values. In other words, they need a divided America. But we don't."


"you might remember that when I was in office, on occasion, the Republicans were kind of mean to me. (Laughter.) But soon as I got out and made money, I became part of the most important group in the world to them. It was amazing. I never thought I'd be so well cared for by the president and the Republicans in Congress. (Laughter) I almost sent them a thank-you note for my tax cuts until I realized that the rest of you were paying for the bill for it, and then I thought better of it."

They chose to protect my tax cut at all costs, while withholding promised funding for the Leave No Child Behind Act, leaving 2.1 million children behind.

They chose to protect my tax cut while cutting 140,000 unemployed workers out of their job-training programs, 100,000 working families out of their child-care assistance, and worst of all, while cutting 300,000 poor children out of their after-school programs when we know it keeps them off the streets, out of trouble, in school learning, going to college and having a good life!


They're taking police off the streets while they put assault weapons back on the street. Now if you agree with that choice, by all means vote to keep them in office. But if you don't, join John Kerry, John Edwards and the Democrats in making America safer, smarter and stronger again. (Cheers, applause.)


Now we tried it their way for 12 years. We tried it their way for 12 years. We tried it our way for eight years. Then we tried it their way for four more. By the only test that matters, whether people were better off when we finished than when we started, our way works better. (Cheers, applause.)

It produced over 22 million good jobs, rising incomes for the middle class, over a hundred times as many people moved from poverty into the middle class, more health care, the largest increase in college aid in 50 years, record homeownership, a cleaner environment, three surpluses in a row, a modernized defense force, strong efforts against terror and a respected America in the world. (Cheers, applause.) It worked better.


Strength and wisdom are not opposing values. (Cheers, applause.) They go hand in hand. (Continued cheers, applause.) They go hand in hand, and John Kerry has both.


"My friends, at every turning point in our history, we the people have chosen unity over division, heeding our founders' call to America's eternal mission to form a more perfect union, to widen the circle of opportunity, deepen the reach of freedom, and strengthen the bonds of our community. It happened every time because we made the right choices.

In the early days of the Republic, America was divided and at a crossroads, much as it is today, deeply divided over whether or not to build a real nation with a national economy and a national legal system. We chose to build a more perfect union.

In the Civil War, America was at another crossroads, deeply divided over whether to save the union and end slavery. We chose a more perfect union.

In the 1960s, when I was a young man, we were divided again over civil rights and women's rights. And again we chose to form a more perfect union.

As I said in 1992, I say again tonight: we are all in this together."

Somebody told a reporter to "SHOVE IT"?

ALRIGHT! That's TOUGH, BLUNT, and HONEST! It's about time someone had the guts take on that damned LIBERAL MEDIA!

What?

Ummm...you say it was a DEMOCRAT who said it?

Umm...I MEANT to say "She must be a DANGEROUS LOOSE CANNON."

Is anybody out there still a Naderite?

Perhaps THIS will dissuade you.

"Consumer advocate Ralph Nader's quixotic presidential campaign says it submitted about 5,400 signatures to get on the Michigan ballot, far short of the required number of 30,000. Luckily for him, approximately 43,000 signatures were filed by Michigan Republicans on his behalf, more than meeting the requirement."

Get it straight, people: I KNOW you'd like to reform the Democratic Party. But if Bush gets four more years, you might not be ABLE to vote for a non-Republican in 2008.

"We don't ask enough questions. We didn't in the run-up to the war. The Senate was silent. When it came to the run-up to the war in the last few days, the silence was deadening -- we failed." -Sen. Robert Byrd

"I feel good about the way he [Kerry] relates to voters. I'm going to give a talk and get out of town." - President Bill Clinton

"By coming and making news of the event, you [the news media] are saying this is important. Then you get there as reporters and say this is all fake. If it's that bad, why are you here?" - Jay Rosen, Chairman of NYU's Journalism Department, on Convention Coverage

Some right-wing lunatics were protesting at a Kerry campaign stop in Columbus, Ohio yesterday, and they started screaming "FOUR MORE YEARS, FOUR MORE YEARS."

Check out what Kerry responded:

"Four more years of what? Four more years of jobs being lost, four more years of the deficit growing bigger and bigger? Four more years of losing our allies around the world? We know we can restore our alliances around the world and make America strong again."

Nice.

Remember those records about Bush's National Guard service that were destroyed? Ooooooooooops.

Pentagon Finds Bush's Guard Records

The Pentagon on Friday released newly discovered payroll records from President Bush's 1972 service in the Alabama National Guard, though the records shed no new light on the future president's activities during that summer.

A Pentagon official said the earlier contention that the records were destroyed was an "inadvertent oversight."

Like records released earlier by the White House, these computerized payroll records show no indication Bush drilled with the Alabama unit during July, August and September of 1972. Pay records covering all of 1972, released previously, also indicated no guard service for Bush during those three months.

The 9/11 Commission Report is on the shelf of your local bookstore (and how do they DO that so fast?  What, did they print and distribute a million copies last night?)

Every partisan asshole in the country is busy mining it for ammunition, but I intend to listen to nobody and read it myself.   I'd like to buy the book, in order to keep my eyeballs from falling out, but the whole thing IS online right here, for those who have the strength to read it off of a computer screen.

We all know that the Republican will invent scandals out of whole cloth.  So when they actually HAVE something to criticize - like the business of Sandy Berger taking his notes and some copies of documents - they pile it massively high and deep.

For the record though:  What Berger did was REALLY stupid.  But it didn't compromise a damned thing, and, for whatever reason he did it, it obviously wasn't to hide anything, since the original documents remained right where there were.  He took copies.That matter was settled on CNN's "Lou Dobbs Tonight," with Dobbs interviewing two members of the 9/11 Commission:

DOBBS: Let me ask you, not necessarily directly on point, but certainly related. Sandy Berger, the former head of the national security -- national security adviser under the Clinton administration, accused of, and admitting taking classified documents from the National Archives, those notes, whether copies or originals still unclear. Did the commission review that material, to what -- can you shed any light on what happened there? Slade Gorton, first.

GORTON: Well, we can't shed any light on exactly what happened there and on Sandy Berger's troubles with the Justice Department and the Archives. What we can say unequivocally is we had all of that information. We have every one of those documents. All of them have -- are infused in and are a part of our report.

DOBBS: So the commission was denied no information as a result of whatever Sandy Berger did or did not do at the National Archives?

GORTON: That's precisely correct.

GORELICK: And we have been so assured by the Justice Department.

Lou Dobbs Tonight, July 22nd 2004

Bush Blocks Tax Cut

The Bush White House has finally met a tax cut it didn't like. Which tax cut? A tax cut for the middle class.

"The White House helped to block a Republican-brokered deal on Wednesday to extend several middle-class tax cuts, fearful of a bill that could draw Democratic votes and dilute a Republican campaign theme, Republican negotiators said."

Got that? They decided to vote against the tax cut because too many Democrats would be for it, and they wouldn't be able to play politics with it.

That's not my spin on it. The Republicans actually SAID that.

"Claire Buchan, a White House spokeswoman, said the administration was still trying to negotiate. But Republican Congressional officials said the administration did not want a deal that Democratic lawmakers might support, giving them a tax-cutting credential, too.

Senator John Kerry of Massachusetts, the presumptive Democratic presidential nominee, had already said he would retain most of Mr. Bush's middle-class tax cuts, and many Democratic lawmakers said they would vote for a modest extension of the tax cuts even if the extension was not paid for.

"If the Democrats had been on the same side, it would have taken a lot of arrows out of the quiver,'' said one Republican staff member."

It doesn't get clearer than that. In order to prevent the Democrats from looking like they favored a tax cut, the Republicans BLOCKED a tax cut that they claimed to support because the Democrats favored it.

In other words, Bush killed the tax cut because too many people thought it was a good idea.

The Republicans have basically admitted that they AREN'T in favor of tax cuts for the middle class - they just like to PRETEND that they are so they can play politics.

Republicans don't want you to vote.

When I was growing up, it was considered an assumption of decent citizenship that voting was good. And it was believed that every decent American had a vested interest in getting as many people to vote as possible. Because voting is synonymous with Democracy, itself. Public Service announcements would say things like, "If you can't vote my way, at least VOTE." And civic groups formed with one, non-partisan purpose: to increase voter turnout, whoever those voters would actually choose. That was what it meant to be a good citizen: encouraging voting.

Which makes you wonder how these right-wingers actually justify, even to themselves, their attempts to depress voter turnout.

State Rep. John Pappageorge, R-Troy was quoted in July 16 editions of the Detroit Free Press as saying, "If we do not suppress the Detroit vote, we're going to have a tough time in this election."

"I'm extremely disappointed in my colleague," state Sen. Buzz Thomas, D-Detroit, told reporters Wednesday during a conference call. "That's quite clearly code that they don't want black people to vote in this election."

Blacks comprise 83 percent of Detroit's population, and the city routinely gives Democratic candidates a substantial majority of its votes.

Pappageorge's remark reflected the GOP's failure to send black voters a persuasive message, said Rep. Alexander Lipsey, D-Kalamazoo.

"This is the endgame strategy the Republican Party has decided to utilize, rather than positive strategies," he said. "They are strategizing, "How can we get those folks we don't care about from going to the polls?"'

It honestly makes me wonder. The Republicans consciously know that the fewer Americans who vote, the better it is for their party. How can any decent human being not recognize that that means there is obviously something radically wrong with what they stand for?

As you probably know, the other day George W. Bush turned self-delusion into an art form with THIS truly remarkable statement:

"The enemy declared war on us, and you just got to know nobody wants to be the war President. I want to be the peace President."
- George W Bush, Cedar Rapids Iowa, July 20, 2004

Needless to say, he said this to a roomful of handpicked supporters, probably because he didn't want the top news story of the night to be the loud guffaws he would have received from an audience of sane people.

Gee, George, if you want to be peace president, you sure have a funny way of showing it. And here I thought you were bragging when you said this:

"I'm a war president. I make decisions here in the Oval Office in foreign policy matters with war on my mind. "
- George War Bush, NBC's Meet the Press interview with Tim Russert, February 8, 2004

But one thing that has gone unnoticed is that Bush, remarkably, appers to be imitating a guy he no doubt thinks of as a liberal panty-waist, Dennis Kucinich:

KUCINICH: As president, I will see myself as a peace president.

George Bush: The Peace President.

It doesn't GET more Orwellian than that.

Dueling Quotes

"To whom much is given, much shall be required." - Jesus Christ (Luke 12:48)

"By the way, to whom much has been given, much is owed." - George W. Bush, July 20, 2004

Attribution

Thanks to Board of Pomposity for bringing this one to my attention.

 

Jon Stewart is a better reporter than damned near any TV talking head who claims to be part of the "legitimate" media.

Isn't it a shame that our most responsible reporter is a comic?

There ARE a few real Republicans left who aren't maniacal radicals. They're either staying home or voting for Kerry.

One of the Environmental Protection Agency’s earliest leaders, flanked by Republican state politicians, blasted the president’s record on the environment Monday during a news conference organized by an anti-Bush environmental group.

Russell Train, a Republican, was the EPA’s second chief under presidents Richard Nixon and Gerald Ford. But he said Bush’s record is so dismal he’s casting his presidential vote for Democrat John Kerry in November.

"It’s almost as if the motto of the administration in power today in Washington is not environmental protection, but polluter protection," he said. "I find this deeply disturbing."

Train also accused Bush of letting weakening the Clean Air Act. The record, he added, falls short of those set by former Republican presidents ranging from Theodore Roosevelt, who advocated creating national parks and forests, to George H.W. Bush, who supported new anti-air-pollution standards.

The Bush record is "appalling, with very, very few exceptions," Train said. He described presidential policies as "geared to rolling back environmental protections."

Well, isn't that special

I've had about enough of this administration's lying, duplicitous bullshit. I have had it so up to here I'm ready to spit blood.

It doesn't MATTER how often his lies are exposed. He just ignores it and LIES AGAIN.

And it doesn't matter how much disaster he causes. He just ignores it and does the SAME THING AGAIN.

And the worthless press refuses to call him on it.

Bush, CIA at Odds on Iran
The president's interest in a possible 9/11 link goes against the agency leader's assessment.

President Bush said Monday that his administration was investigating possible links between Iran and the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks, a statement that distanced the president from acting CIA Director John McLaughlin, who had downplayed a possible connection a day earlier.

"As to direct connections with Sept. 11, we're digging into the facts to determine if there was one," Bush said of Iran.

Translation: "I don't give a crap what those who have some experience and knowledge say about it. I know better, even though I don't know a damned thing, and even though I've been wrong about every prediction I've made so far. I DON'T LEARN."

If this moron is re-elected, he fully intends to start a war with Iran, and he is doing the SAME DAMNED THING that led up to the war with Iraq: he's cherry-picking intelligence, and putting pressure on the intelligence community to tell him what he wants to hear instead of telling him the truth, and he's blithely ignoring all information that conflicts with what he's already decided.

As is his usual pattern, he has decided on a course of action, not because of the realities of the situation, but because of his ideological world-view. And, instead of making decisions on the basis of what's actually happening, he will try to spin reality so that it justifies his pre-planned decisions.

Iran's emerging prominence in the Sept. 11 investigations looms as a potentially difficult issue for the White House, because it could raise new questions about why Bush led a war against Iraq but so far has taken a distinctly less bellicose stance toward Iran.

McClellan argued that the United States indeed had been "confronting" the threat from Iran, which Bush in 2002 listed, along with Iraq and North Korea, as part of an "axis of evil." He added, however, that Iraq was "a unique situation" because it had invaded its neighbors and had possessed and used weapons of mass destruction.

And in addition, he's STILL blathering out that crap about Iraq and their weapons of mass destruction, and what a terrible threat they were. And at this point, if we had a REAL press, they'd be openly asking whether the man is delusional or simply lying. Because it is CERTAINLY one or the other.

Here's a cost of the war that didn't even occur to me: with the National guard over there, what do we do if we need them HERE?

"With tens of thousands of their citizen soldiers now deployed in Iraq, many of the nation's governors complained on Sunday to senior Pentagon officials that they were facing severe manpower shortages in guarding prisoners, fighting wildfires, preparing for hurricanes and floods and policing the streets.

Much of the concern has focused on wildfires, which have started to destroy vast sections of forests in several Western states...."We're praying a lot that a major fire does not break out," Ted Kulongoski, the governor of Oregon said. "It has been dry out here, the snow pack's gone because of an extremely warm May and June and the fire season came earlier."

He added, "You're just going to have fires and if you do not have the personnel to put them out, they can grow very quickly into ultimately catastrophic fires."

Mea Culpa

The Times has decided to apologize for its gross irresponsibility which has resulted in thousands of deaths - so far.

"We did not listen carefully to the people who disagreed with us. Our certainty flowed from the fact that such an overwhelming majority of government officials, past and present, top intelligence officials and other experts were sure that the weapons were there. We had a groupthink of our own.

"If we had known that there were probably no unconventional weapons, we would have argued earlier and harder that invading Iraq made no sense."

"Sorry about that, guys. Our bad."

The time for reponsible reporting is BEFORE you go to war, you idiots.

Remember when they used to call it "bribery" and "graft"? Now they call it "political contributions."

But if DeLay goes down - Lord, it couldn't happen to a nicer guy.

In only a few e-mails, Enron employees laid bare the reality of politics: the money trail from companies seeking favors from lawmakers with the power to grant them.

The e-mails circulated among Enron officials in 2000 and 2001, before the collapse of the Houston energy company, are under review by the House ethics committee, which is considering whether to investigate the fund-raising activities of the No. 2 leader in the House, Rep. Tom DeLay, R-Texas....

Attention has refocused on the e-mails since a Texas Democrat filed an ethics complaint last month against DeLay. Rep. Chris Bell accused the majority leader of soliciting and accepting political contributions from a Kansas energy company, Westar Energy Inc., in return for legislative favors...

The e-mails show ``pretty clearly corporations were being asked for contributions by members of Congress who held the fate of legislation important to corporations in their hands,'' said Trevor Potter, president and general counsel of the Campaign Legal Center, a campaign finance monitoring group.

We need laws that call this crap exactly what it is: bribery. It should be plainly and clearly illegal.

There's only one problem: the ones whose job it is to PASS those laws - are the ones DOING it.

Maybe Dante was right and they'll wind up boiling in pitch for all eternity.

One can always hope.

As a fine complement to "George W. God," below, Nicky Kristof exposes the hideous underbelly of the Radical Religious Right.

"If the latest in the "Left Behind" series of evangelical thrillers is to be believed, Jesus will return to Earth, gather non-Christians to his left and toss them into everlasting fire:

"Jesus merely raised one hand a few inches and a yawning chasm opened in the earth, stretching far and wide enough to swallow all of them. They tumbled in, howling and screeching, but their wailing was soon quashed and all was silent when the earth closed itself again."

These are the best-selling novels for adults in the United States, and they have sold more than 60 million copies worldwide. The latest is "Glorious Appearing," which has Jesus returning to Earth to wipe all non-Christians from the planet. It's disconcerting to find ethnic cleansing celebrated as the height of piety.

If a Muslim were to write an Islamic version of "Glorious Appearing" and publish it in Saudi Arabia, jubilantly describing a massacre of millions of non-Muslims by God, we would have a fit. We have quite properly linked the fundamentalist religious tracts of Islam with the intolerance they nurture, and it's time to remove the motes from our own eye."

I think that the only difference between the nutjobs here and the nutjobs there is that we have a stable governmental system to keep the nutjobs over here from actually committing violence. If our society was as chaotic as the societies in the Middle East, some organizations of the "Christian" right would be just as prone to atrocities as the Al Qaeda Muslim fundamentalists.

Mrs. Ignatz thought I should post this. She's right, I should:

"Oh shit, he is even dumber than I thought!"

George W. God

Man, you go away for a few days, and when you come back, the first thing you read is this:

"I trust God speaks through me. Without that, I couldn’t do my job.’’
 
Bush apparently tossed out THAT winner while addressing some Old Amish.

Look, I'm a very active member of a Christian Church, myself - but that statement is scary.
 
It's one thing to pray that God speaks through you or to hope that God speaks through you. It's a whole other thing to just assume He DOES.

And it's downright delusional for a politician to say that if God DOESN'T speak through him, he can't do his job.

But it MIGHT explain why Georgie can't imagine ever making any mistakes.

And I think it's fair to ask if he reacts with such hostility to questioning because he thinks questioning him is some sort of blasphemy. After all, God speaks through him. So questioning what he says is the same thing as questioning God, right?

And I think it's time that the press started seriously asking if the Man In the White House has Messianic delusions.

This may sound weird, but one common end-time scenario bandied about among fundamentalists and evangelicals involves the belief the second coming will be preceded by the Mother Of All Wars in the Middle East.

I have wondered more than once if Bush may be so bull-goose loony that he somehow INTENDS to create the Mother Of All Wars in the Middle East because he believes it is a necessary first step toward the Second Coming. And he wants to bring that about.

That may sound crazy, but the more I see this guy in action, the more I wonder about it.

It may sound crazy - but what the man has done has BEEN crazy.

You need two Johns to flush the crap out of the White House.

Florida

Gee - why don't people trust the Bushes to protect our voting rights?

Here's the whole article in case you aren't registered:

Voter list mess shows officials can't be trusted

BY JIM DEFEDE

Sharon Lettman-Pacheco was driving to her office in Tallahassee Saturday when her cellphone rang with the news that Florida had just scrapped its voter purge list of 47,763 suspected felons.

''Completely?'' she asked. ``You mean we finally wore them down? Wow.''

As a national field director for People for the American Way, Lettman-Pacheco had been fighting the list for months. PFAW, along with the ACLU, the NAACP and other groups, were convinced that many of the names on the list were wrong, and that individuals -- especially blacks -- would be barred from voting this year as they were in 2000.

They wanted to verify the list's accuracy, but the state refused to make it public. The groups, along with members of the media and U.S. Sen. Bill Nelson, then sued the state.

On July 1, a Tallahassee judge ordered the list released, but before he did, The Herald obtained a copy, analyzed it, and found more than 2,100 people who were on the purge list despite having their rights restored through clemency.

Rather than admit the list was filled with errors, Secretary of State Glenda Hood defended her agency's shoddy work and attacked The Herald. She even had the chutzpah to offer a ''tutorial for all reporters'' last week on the purge list and how it was created, ''in order to prevent factually inaccurate articles such as those reported by The Herald'' from being repeated.

Turns out, it was Hood who needed the tutorial.

Since The Herald story, more revelations have followed. The Sarasota Herald-Tribune reported Wednesday that out of the nearly 48,000 names on the list, only 61 were Hispanic. Once again Hood and her boss, Gov. Jeb Bush, stood by the list.

Then on Saturday, The New York Times showed why Hispanics, who largely vote Republican, were kept from the list while blacks, who overwhelmingly vote Democratic, remained. It turns out, the Department of Corrections database follows the federal standard for race, classifying Hispanics as white, and the election department rolls identify voters by ethnicity. Since the two databases didn't mesh, the identity of Hispanic felons couldn't be verified and were therefore kept off the list.

''Unbelievable,'' Lettman-Pacheco sighed. ``Unbelievable.''

Soon after the Times story broke, Hood, who, at this rate, may soon be as reviled as her predecessor, Katherine Harris, finally caved in and dumped the purge list.

''That's what I call justice,'' Lettman-Pacheco said, applauding the media and groups such as her own for discovering a serious flaw that would have been ignored by the state.

''At the end of the day, though, it is the state that has a responsibility to put in place systems that are fair and equal,'' she said. ``And Florida is simply not doing things fairly. With all the billions of dollars we have allocated in our state government, you would think they would have an information technology division that was objective and knew what it was doing. Or was this intentional?

''This kind of malfeasance of justice clearly has every degree of manipulation written all over it,'' she continued. ``But I'm going to let the public decide how deliberate it was.''

''I can tell you with the utmost certainty that it was unintentional and unforeseen,'' responded Hood spokeswoman Nicole de Lara.

I don't know how de Lara can be so certain. I don't know how she can so casually disregard the possibility there's been an orchestrated attempt to defraud the public and that no one in the state knew about the flaws.

As far as I'm concerned, there is no more trust. There are no more second chances. Glenda Hood must resign. She is either amazingly incompetent or the leader of a frightening conspiracy, but either way she should go.

Next, the governor should remove himself from matters affecting elections and an agency such as the U.S. Commission on Civil Rights should step in and assume direct oversight of the state's election system.

Florida is simply a joke that just isn't funny any longer.

Suspending Elections

You know the old saying: you aren't paranoid if they really ARE out to get you.

Officials discuss how to delay Election Day

Is this a call for a legitimate contingency plan, or a blatant, cynical attempt to ensure power? Tough to say, actually, but it is certainly either evil, or simply wrongheaded.

"U.S. officials have discussed the idea of postponing Election Day in the event of a terrorist attack on or about that day, a Homeland Security Department spokesman said Sunday.

Newsweek said the discussions about whether the November 2 election could be postponed started with a recent letter to Homeland Security Secretary Tom Ridge from DeForest Soaries Jr., chairman of the U.S. Election Assistance Commission.

Soaries, who was appointed by President Bush, is a former New Jersey secretary of state and senior pastor of the 7,000-member First Baptist Church of Lincoln Gardens in Somerset.

Newsweek reported that Soaries expressed concern that no federal agency had the authority to postpone an election and asked Ridge to ask Congress to give his commission such power."

Don't you just love the way right-wingers insist that the Federal Government has too much power - but now they complain that it doesn't have the power to suspend elections?

"Homeland Security Secretary Tom Ridge warned last week that Osama bin Laden's al Qaeda network want to attack within the United States to try to disrupt the election."

Hmmmm. So if Osama Bin Laden attempts to disrupt the election, they are going to make sure he accomplishes precisely that: They will do what he WANTS them to do, and disrupt the election.

After all, what could be a greater "disruption" than postponing or cancelling it?

John Kerry should use this nonsense to show some REAL Presidential leadership, which has been sorely lacking from this White House. Kerry should give a public address saying something like, "No damned terrorists are going to delay national elections in the United States for so much as one day. And I am confident that should a terrorist attack occur just before or on election day, Americans will climb over the rubble to get to the polling places... and they will do it in record numbers."

Not only would such a statement simply be right, but Kerry saying it would certainly tighten the elastic on George W. Bush's shorts.

And perhaps everytime we hear "terrorists want to disrupt the election," the rank-and-file (that's you and me) should respond with, "Well, that must mean that the terrorists want to keep Bush as president."

President Abraham Lincoln - a REAL war President - on the possibility of suspending the 1864 election during the Civil War.

This was written with armed enemy soldiers just miles from the Capitol.

Response to a Serenade

November 10, 1864

It has long been a grave question whether any government, not too strong for the liberties of its people, can be strong enough to maintain its own existence in great emergencies.

On this point the present rebellion brought our republic to a severe test; and a presidential election occurring in regular course during the rebellion added not a little to the strain. If the loyal people, united, were put to the utmost of their strength by the rebellion, must they not fail when divided, and partially paralyzed, by a political war among themselves?

But the election was a necessity.

We can not have free government without elections; and if the rebellion could force us to forego, or postpone a national election it might fairly claim to have already conquered and ruined us. The strife of the election is but human-nature practically applied to the facts of the case. What has occurred in this case, must ever recur in similar cases. Human-nature will not change. In any future great national trial, compared with the men of this, we shall have as weak, and as strong; as silly and as wise; as bad and good. Let us, therefore, study the incidents of this, as philosophy to learn wisdom from, and none of them as wrongs to be revenged.

But the election, along with its incidental, and undesirable strife, has done good too. It has demonstrated that a people's government can sustain a national election, in the midst of a great civil war. Until now it has not been known to the world that this was a possibility. It shows that, even among candidates of the same party, he who is most devoted to the Union, and most opposed to treason, can receive most of the people's votes. It shows also, to the extent yet known, that we have more men now, than we had when the war began. Gold is good in its place; but living, brave, patriotic men, are better than gold.

On Larry King Live, King asked Kerry why he didn't plan to see Fahrenheit 9/11:

Kerry said: "I've seen it. I've watched it for the last 4 years."

Interesting. Drudge has this:

ENRON DOCUMENTS SHOW TOM DELAY'S REDISTRICTING EFFORTS... MORE... WASH POST PLANNING ENTIRE ABOVE-FOLD FRONT PAGE SPLASH, NEWSROOM SOURCES TELL DRUDGE. 3,200-WORD STORY... // DeLay requested donation come from 'combination of corporate and personal money from Enron's executives,' with the understanding that it would be partly spent on "the redistricting effort in Texas," said the e-mail to Ken Lay... The e-mail, which surfaced in a subsequent federal probe of ENRON, is one of at least a dozen documents obtained by POST that show DeLay and his associates directed funds from corporations and Washington lobbyists to Republican campaign coffers... MORE...

The question about Delay, of course, isn't whether or not he's corrupt - that's a given - but what lunatics actually vote for him?

It is also good to remember that the entire Republican Congress has voted to give this disgusting man power and authority.

So Delay's corruption smears the whole party.

Truth

There are times when I genuinely like Kerry, and this is one of them.

He appears to be unwilling to allow the GOP the grandiose claim of being the party of "values," and he brings it right to them on something they consider their exclusive territory. And he puts it in stark, clear, moral terms:

President Bush has governed in a dishonest fashion, trampling values on every issue except fighting terrorism and leaving voters "clamoring for restoration of credibility and trust in the White House again," John F. Kerry and John Edwards said in an interview.

"The value of truth is one of the most central values in America, and this administration has violated" it, Kerry said in an interview with The Washington Post aboard the Democrats' campaign plane Friday. "Their values system is distorted and not based on truth."...

In one of a series of interviews since teaming up on Tuesday, Kerry and Edwards predicted they would win the political fight over which party best exemplifies the values and ethics of most Americans, but Kerry said they would wage that battle on their terms and not what he called the Republican Party's "little political, hot-button, cultural, wedge-driven, poll-driven values."

Nice. It's about time that someone pointed out that you can't lie all the time, and still claim to represent "old-fashioned values." And pointed out that their "values," like everything else, is all talk and no substance.

From - believe it or not - TIME Magazine. Great picture, too.

Destroyed Records

Just a little info about Bush's Guard records being destroyed. This little snippet come from the Dallas Morning News way back in February:

Retired National Guard Lt. Col. Bill Burkett said Tuesday that in 1997, then-Gov. Bush's chief of staff, Joe Allbaugh, told the National Guard chief to get the Bush file and make certain "there's not anything there that will embarrass the governor."

Col. Burkett said that a few days later at Camp Mabry in Austin, he saw Mr. Bush's file and documents from it discarded in a trash can. He said he recognized the documents as retirement point summaries and pay forms.

Bush aides denied any destruction of records in Mr. Bush's personnel file. "The charges are just flat-out not true," said Dan Bartlett, White House communications director. He said the president has been forthright in producing all documents relevant to his stint in the Texas Air National Guard, from 1968 to 1973. He dismissed Col. Burkett as a disgruntled former officer of the Texas Guard. Mr. Allbaugh, now a Washington lobbyist, called Col. Burkett's assertions "hogwash."

From the Associated Press:

"Contrary to U.S. government claims, the insurgency in Iraq is led by well-armed Sunnis angry about losing power, not foreign fighters, and is far larger than previously thought, American military officials say.

"The officials told The Associated Press the guerrillas can call on loyalists to boost their forces to as high as 20,000 and have enough popular support among nationalist Iraqis angered by the presence of U.S. troops that they cannot be militarily defeated.

"That number is far larger than the 5,000 guerrillas previously thought to be at the insurgency's core. And some insurgents are highly specialized - one Baghdad cell, for instance, has two leaders, one assassin, and two groups of bomb-makers."

As per their usual pattern, this administration totally screws things up by assuming the BEST-case scenario, and basing thier decisions on the assumption that everything will be just rosy.

And that's giving them the benefit of the doubt and assuming that their problem is just incompentence, as opposed to lies and villainy.

The Bush campaign is running an ad called "First Choice" featuring Senator John McCain, implying that he was Kerry's "first choice" and Edwards was actually his second choice.

Two obvious points:

1)CHENEY was actually Bush's "second choice," and he chose himself after McCain turned Bush down.

McCain: “I’m not running for vice president. President Bush in 2000 asked me if I was interested in being vice president. I said no then. I’m not interested in being vice president now.” [NBC, “Today,” 3/18/04]

McCain: “I don’t want to be vice president of the United States... I would not be vice president of the United States on either ticket. I told President Bush when he asked me in 2000 when he asked me if I was interested.” [CBS, “The Early Show,” 3/18/04]

2)McCain flatly denies that Kerry asked him to run.

Here's the interview:

SNOW: Well, you're absolutely right though, it's going to be fun to see. Now John Kerry, is it true that John Kerry asked you to be his vice president?

McCAIN: Uh, no. No, it was never offered.

SNOW: It was never offered. So, it may have been discussed elliptically, but never flat out request.

McCAIN: Never was an offer, no.

SNOW: When you had conversations, did you think it was a little weird that he’d be calling you, even in general terms about this sort of thing?

McCAIN: Well, he and I have been friends for a number of years because of our efforts on POWs and MIAs which was a very hot issue back in the early 90's, a lot of people have forgotten about it, but it was a- and we worked together to try to resolve that issue and I appreciate the work that he did on it. And, so it’s not unusual for us to have conversations.

SNOW: Right. But, so- I want to just lay to rest once and for all: never approached you, never hinted that he wanted to talk to you about being vice president. All that kind of stuff was made up.

McCAIN: Well, I cannot attest to that. All I can tell you is my conversations with him were private conversations, but he never offered it.

So, Kerry never asked McCain to run, and Bush's "First Choice" statement is bullshit.

But isn't it interesting watching Tony Snow, on "Fair & Balanced" Fox News so blatantly indulge in innuendo and try to lead McCain into declaring that Kerry ("elliptically") asked him to run, while McCain refuses to bite. Snow DOES eventually back off, though.

How con-veeeen-ient

"Military records that could help establish President Bush's whereabouts during his disputed service in the Texas Air National Guard more than 30 years ago have been inadvertently destroyed, according to the Pentagon." Attribution

Bush walks away

They asked Bush about Kenny-Boy.

He walked away.


"US President George W. Bush walks away from a briefing with the media, refusing to answer questions after he was asked about Enron and the reported indictment of former CEO Kenneth Lay, who was a close adviser and fund-raiser for Bush and his father, earning him the presidential nickname of 'Kenny Boy.'(AFP/Paul J. Richards)"

Thanks to Brian at the Board of Pomposity, I found a link to a Transcript of Fahrenheit 911 at a blog called "In Java, Literally." For those who wish to quote from the movie without having to typing dialogue in themselves, or for those (like Mrs. Ignatz) who fear that the graphic nature of the movie may give them the willies, this may come in handy.

For your perusal and viewing pleasure, here is the Christmas note sent from Kenny-boy Lay to his GOOD, GOOD friend, Little Georgie Bush:

Neocons attack neophyte

I'm not sure WHY the Republicans have decided that the "experience" smear is the one most likely to resonate with the voters; it strikes me as a rather weak attack on a veep. But apparently, they have:

"WASHINGTON, July 7 - At President Bush's first campaign stop in North Carolina on Wednesday morning, he was asked how Vice President Dick Cheney stacked up against the new Democratic vice-presidential candidate, who, the president was told, is already being described as "charming, engaging, a nimble campaigner, a populist and even sexy."

Mr. Bush was ready with a one-liner: "Dick Cheney can be president."

Good idea, George: keep saying "Dick Cheney can be president." Many American are painfully aware that, yes, he CAN be, and the idea that he MIGHT be scares the crap out of most of us.

With that sharp retort, Mr. Bush showed how aggressively Republicans were moving to expose what party leaders view as Senator John Edwards's greatest vulnerability: his lack of experience.

E.J. Dionne, in the Washington Post, had this to say about that:

"When you hear Republicans disparage Sen. John Edwards's lack of experience, remember the words of Sen. Orrin Hatch, spoken to George W. Bush at a debate on Dec. 6, 1999.

"You've been a great governor," Hatch declared of his rival for the Republican presidential nomination. "My only problem with you, governor, is that you've only had four and going into your fifth year of governorship ... Frankly, I really believe that you need more experience before you become president of the United States. That's why I'm thinking of you as a vice presidential candidate."

Which is exactly what Edwards was chosen for yesterday."

If the Bushies keep it up, they should be hammered with Hatch's quote until they start vomiting it up.

This Won't Hurt Much

From the UK Guardian, courtesy of Monty Python alumnus Terry Jones:

For some time now, I've been trying to find out where my son goes after choir practice. He simply refuses to tell me. He says it's no business of mine where he goes after choir practice and it's a free country.

Now it may be a free country, but if people start going just anywhere they like after choir practice, goodness knows whether we'll have a country left to be free. I mean, he might be going to anarchist meetings or Islamic study groups. How do I know?

The thing is, if people don't say where they're going after choir practice, this country is at risk. So I have been applying a certain amount of pressure on my son to tell me where he's going. To begin with I simply put a bag over his head and chained him to a radiator. But did that persuade him? Does the Pope eat kosher?

My wife had the gall to suggest that I might be going a bit too far. So I put a bag over her head and chained her to the radiator. But I still couldn't persuade my son to tell me where he goes after choir practice.

I tried starving him, serving him only cold meals and shaving his facial hair off, keeping him in stress positions, not turning his light off, playing loud music outside his cell door - all the usual stuff that any concerned parent will do to find out where their child is going after choir practice. But it was all to no avail.

I hesitated to gravitate to harsher interrogation methods because, after all, he is my son. Then Donald Rumsfeld came to my rescue.

I read in the New York Times last week that a memo had been prepared for the defence secretary on March 6 2003. It laid down the strictest guidelines as to what is and what is not torture. Because, let's face it, none of us want to actually torture our children, in case the police get to hear about it.

The March 6 memo, prepared for Mr Rumsfeld explained that what may look like torture is not really torture at all. It states that: if someone "knows that severe pain will result from his actions, if causing such harm is not his objective, he lacks the requisite specific intent even though the defendant did not act in good faith".

What this means in understandable English is that if a parent, in his anxiety to know where his son goes after choir practice, does something that will cause severe pain to his son, it is only "torture" if the causing of that severe pain is his objective. If his objective is something else - such as finding out where his son goes after choir practice - then it is not torture.

Mr Rumsfeld's memo goes on: "a defendant" (by which he means a concerned parent) "is guilty of torture only if he acts with the express purpose of inflicting severe pain or suffering on a person within his control".

Couldn't be clearer. If your intention is to extract information, you cannot be accused of torture.

In fact, the report went further. It said, if a parent "has a good-faith belief [that] his actions will not result in prolonged mental harm, he lacks the mental state necessary for his actions to constitute torture". So all you've got to do to avoid accusations of child abuse is to say that you didn't think it would cause any lasting harm to the child. Easy peasy!

I currently have a lot of my son's friends locked up in the garage, and I'm applying electrical charges to their genitals and sexually humiliating them in order to get them to tell me where my son goes after choir practice.

Dick Cheney's counsel, David S Addington, says that's just fine. William J Haynes, the US defence department's general counsel, agrees it's just fine. And so does the US air force general counsel, Mary Walker.

In fact, practically everybody in the US administration seems to think it's just fine, except for the state department lawyer, William H Taft IV, who perversely claims that I might be opening the door to people applying electrical charges to my genitals and sexually humiliating me.

So I'm going to round up all the children in the neighbourhood, chain them and set dogs on them. I might accidentally kill one or two - but I won't have intended to - and perhaps I'll take some photos of my wife standing on the dead bodies, and then I'll show the photos to the other kids, and finally, perhaps, I might get to find out where my son goes after choir practice. After all, I'll only be doing what the US administration has been condoning since 9/11.

· Terry Jones is a writer, film director, actor and Python

The pathetic attempt at a cover-up continues:

Sifting through old classified materials in the days after the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks, FBI translator Sibel Edmonds said, she made an alarming discovery: Intercepts relevant to the terrorist plot, including references to skyscrapers, had been overlooked because they were badly translated into English.

In a rare maneuver, Attorney General John Ashcroft has ordered that information about the Edmonds case be retroactively classified, even basic facts that have been posted on websites and discussed openly in meetings with members of Congress for two years. The Department of Justice also invoked the seldom-used ''state secrets" privilege to silence Edmonds in court. She has been blocked from testifying in a lawsuit brought by victims of the Sept. 11 attacks and was allowed to speak to the panel investigating the Sept. 11 attacks only behind closed doors.

''I'm alarmed that the FBI is reaching back in time and classifying information it provided two years ago," Senator Charles E. Grassley, a Republican from Iowa and a leading advocate for Edmonds, said last Friday. ''Frankly, it looks like an attempt to impede legitimate oversight of a serious problem at the FBI."

Trial Lawyer

In the coming weeks and months, we will be hearing many times - with utter horror, no doubt - that John Edwards was a trial lawyer. It appears to be the Official Approved GOP Attack Point.

Two points:

1) The Republicans are trying to spin a positive into a negative. Everytime Edwards talks about the law, he's GOOD. And the ability to explain laws and their ramifications is a major positive for a legislator, whose JOB is to make and pass law. In the Senate, he has more than once taken GOP bills and subjected them to a brutal legal analysis, exposing the rancid underbelly of the proposed law.

2) As a lawyer, his strength has been filing grievances against some appallingly negligent near-criminal corporations.

This is from the Washington Monthly, emphasis mine:

"The defining case in Edwards' legal career wrapped up that same year. In 1993, a five-year-old girl named Valerie Lakey had been playing in a Wake County, N.C., wading pool when she became caught in an uncovered drain so forcefully that the suction pulled out most of her intestines. She survived but for the rest of her life will need to be hooked up to feeding tubes for 12 hours each night. Edwards filed suit on the Lakeys' behalf against Sta-Rite Industries, the Wisconsin corporation that manufactured the drain. Attorneys describe his handling of the case as a virtuoso example of a trial layer bringing a negligent corporation to heel. Sta-Rite offered the Lakeys $100,000 to settle the case. Edwards passed. Before trial, he discovered that 12 other children had suffered similar injuries from Sta-Rite drains. The company raised its offer to $1.25 million. Two weeks into the trial, they upped the figure to $8.5 million. Edwards declined the offer and asked for their insurance policy limit of $22.5 million. The day before the trial resumed from Christmas break, Sta-Rite countered with $17.5 million. Again, Edwards said no. On January 10, 1997, lawyers from across the state packed the courtroom to hear Edwards' closing argument, "the most impressive legal performance I have ever seen," recalls Dayton. Three days later, the jury found Sta-Rite guilty and liable for $25 million in economic damages (by state law, punitive damages could have tripled that amount). The company immediately settled for $25 million, the largest verdict in state history. For their part, Edwards and Kirby earned the Association of Trial Lawyers of America's national award for public service."

In the words of President Worthless: "Bring It On."

The DNC has a new ad, and it's courtesy of - John McCain.

"You can't fly in on an aircraft carrier and declare victory and have the deaths continue. You can't do that."

"Nothing we are called upon to do comes close to matching the heroism of our troops. All we are called upon to do is to not spend our nation into bankruptcy while our soldiers risk their lives. I fondly remember a time when real Republicans stood for fiscal responsibility."

Poor McCain: I wouldn't vote for him because I totally disagree with most of what he says, but at least I respect him.

He's trying to retain some principles in a party that has ceased to have any.

Sometimes, you just have to love cyberspace. Posted on www.usaviation.com on July 5, 9:44 pm, almost 11 hours before the news broke in the rest of the media, was the REAL scoop:

Posted by: aerosmith
Posted: Jul 5 2004, 09:44 PM

"John Kerry's 757 was in hgr 4 pit tonight John Edwards vp decals were being put on engine cowlings and upper fuselage."

"Michael Moore may be an ass, and impossible to like as a public figure, and a little loose with the facts, and greedy, and a shameless panderer. But he wouldn't be necessary if even one percent of the rest of us had any balls at all. If even one reporter had stood up during a pre-Iraq Bush press conference last year and shouted, "Bullshit!" it might have made a difference. If even one network, instead of cheerily re-broadcasting Pentagon-generated aerial bomb footage, had risked its access to the government by saying to the Bush administration, 'We're not covering the war unless we can shoot anything we want, without restrictions,' that might have made a difference. It might have made this war look like what it is — pointless death and carnage that would have scared away every advertiser in the country — rather than a big fucking football game that you can sell Coke and Pepsi and Scott's Fertilizer to."
-Matt Taibbi

Trading Terrorists

I have not said anything this strong before, but I am beginning to believe that George W. Bush should be impeached for treason.

Of course, it won't happen: Republicans control both houses, and they impeach Democrats for blowjobs, but they wouldn't dream of impeaching one of their own for small, unimportant stuff like freeing terrorists to gain support for a war that was based on lies.

But what can you expect from these people? As usual, it's party first, country second for the Republicans.

Did I say "second"? Heck, country is probably not even third, since it seems to come behind party, greed, and personal power.

Saudis freed Britons in a secret swap of prisoners
By Andrew Buncombe and Kim Sengupta
05 July 2004

Six Britons convicted on terrorism charges in Saudi Arabia were released last year as part of a secret three-way deal in which the US set free a number of Saudi prisoners being held at Guantanamo Bay. The deal was brokered to obtain Saudi support for the invasion of Iraq.

Diplomatic and intelligence sources have confirmed to The Independent that the Britons, convicted of a fatal car-bombing, were released last August after the US returned five Saudi prisoners, at least two of whom were believed to have trained in al-Qa'ida camps.

At the time, the release of the Saudis was opposed by the Pentagon and the CIA. But the joint releases were subsequently presented as diplomatic triumphs by both the British and Saudi governments.

A senior British source said yesterday: "Of course there were government-to-government talks. We were all anxious to solve the problem. But one must bear in mind that it was the Americans who held the aces with the Saudi detainees, the British government did not have that kind of leverage. So the term 'negotiations' should really be applied to the American-Saudi dialogue. But it was a particularly difficult time with Iraq, and a solution was in everyone's interest."

These bastards claimed to be fighting terrorism. When in reality they were freeing terrorists in order to gain support for the war in Iraq.

I am totally aghast. And there are no words to describe my disgust.

Impeach George W. Bush.

He is a disgrace to America.

At a campaign rally, in a public place, on - God help us - the Fourth of July. :

Regarding Saddam, the deposed Iraqi president, Bush said: "Because we acted, the dictator, the brutal tyrant, is sitting in a prison cell."

Two Bush opponents, taken out of the crowd in restraints by police, said they were told they couldn't be there because they were wearing shirts that said they opposed the president.

Somehow, this has gone unreported by the mainstream press: more than 16,000 service men and women have been injured or wound in Iraq.

This comes from the Veteran's for Common Sense, reporting on a PBS Interview:

"The national press missed this blockbuster on June 18: the Pentagon confirms more than 16,000 U.S. service members have been wounded or injured in the Iraq War. DoD failed to report 11,000 soldiers who were wounded or injured. The TV networks and newspapers failed to follow-up on this major scoop. As Steve Robinson of the National Gulf War Resource Center said, 'They [the military] believe that by putting this information out, it's somehow going to affect public opion.' Donald Rumsfeld must believe that good public relations is far more important than medical care for our wartime wounded."

Yes, I know the right-winger say that Moore's movie is "all lies" - but they said that before it even came out.

These folks disagree:

"What we want to say is how important Michael Moore's movie is ... in bringing back the ability to have a dialogue" about the issues surrounding the war." - Nancy Lessin of the group Military Families Speak Out, whose stepson is a Marine.

"What we're trying to do here is to tell the administration ... not only see it but then come out ... and explain why this happened, why we went to Iraq and why 9/11 happened." - Ivan Medina, former Marine from Middletown, N.Y., who served in Iraq and whose twin brother Irving was killed there.

"I'm disappointed that the movie would be attacked just because (Moore) wants to consider the questions." - April Gallop, a Pentagon employee injured in the 9/11 attacks.

Kerry Hits

The official press script on Kerry is that he's patrician, boring and waffling. But you know what? The man can hit. I'm not sure if the press will let the facts change their script, though.

"Did he forget his voting record, a voting record that makes him the most liberal member of the United States Senate?" Cheney asked. He cited Kerry's votes against a ban on flag-burning, tax relief and banning what opponents call partial birth abortion.

The Kerry campaign was quick to respond. "Considering that Dick Cheney got five deferments from the military to avoid combat, he's the last person who should be attacking Vietnam veteran John Kerry's commitment to the flag," said spokesman Phil Singer. He added that if the Bush campaign choses to use "shrill speeches, they're going to do so at their own peril."

Ouch.

Did Rummy OK abuse?

General Karpinski says he did.

The dam may be breaking.

"The former head of the U.S. prison system in Iraq told The Signal this week that Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld personally authorized the same types of coercive interrogation methods for detainees at Abu Ghraib that he approved for use on prisoners at Guantanamo Bay."

From the Denver Post:

Did the news media go along for the ride?

Now that every columnist in the country has opined about "Fahrenheit 9/11's" portrayal of the Bush administration, I would like to see at least one editorial about its secondary target: the media. The film's most effective tactic is the use of self-incriminating archival footage - such as clips of Colin Powell and Condoleezza Rice declaring Iraq militarily impotent before September 2001. But if news outlets had such footage, why didn't they vehemently challenge our leaders on the glaring discrepancies between these and later assertions before we launched a pre-emptive war? Either the media has been derelict in its constitutional duty as guardian of the public's trust or it is fully complicit in the Bush administration's misinformation campaign. Love or hate it, the movie's stunning box-office numbers are representative of just how disillusioned the public is with mainstream news' increasingly disreputable homogeneousness.

Mark Schiff, Denver

Perhaps, America is finally catching on.

"The public is catching on. Americans heading into the Fourth of July weekend are increasingly concerned that the war in Iraq, rather than bringing stability to the Middle East and a greater sense of safety here at home, has in fact made the world more dangerous and the U.S. more vulnerable than ever to terror attacks.

A Wall Street Journal/NBC News poll published yesterday found that a majority of Americans now believe the war has increased the threat of terrorism. A New York Times/CBS News poll earlier this week found that 47 percent of respondents believe the terror threat has increased, while only 13 percent say it has declined. Thirty-eight percent of the respondents in that poll said the war had not made a difference.

There is a sound basis for the concern. The U.S. invasion and occupation of Iraq has been a gift-wrapped, gilt-edged recruiting tool for Al Qaeda and its offshoots. If Osama bin Laden had personally designed a campaign to expand the ranks and spread the influence of anti-American terrorists, it's hard to imagine him coming up with a better scenario than the U.S. invasion and occupation of Iraq.

"We have created the greatest recruiting tool possible for bin Laden and his ilk," said Bob Boorstin, a national security specialist at the Center for American Progress."

Kristof actually gets one right. Even Bush's sympathizers seem to have had it up to here with his hubris:

"But the neocons refused to hear it. From their Washington and New York cocoons, they insisted that ordinary Iraqis welcomed an invasion. Ahmad Chalabi had told them so. Or they read it in The Weekly Standard....

President Bush's narrative for the war was: "Altruistic Americans risk their lives to topple evil dictator and establish democracy and human rights." The Arab narrative was: "The same Yankees who pay for Israelis to blow up Palestinians are now seizing Iraqi oil fields and maiming Iraqi women and children."

Fahrenheit 9/11 Production Budget: $6 million

Fahrenheit 9/11 Marketing Costs: $10 million

Fahrenheit 9/11 First weekend gross: $21,958,000

Watching a bunch of right-wingers go into total meltdown and start
screeching in rage like a tribe of red-assed baboons: PRICELESS

Curses! Foiled Again!

"IRAQ ROCKETS FOUND IN LATE JUNE TEST NEGATIVE FOR CHEMICALS

Baghdad, Iraq - On June 16, 2004, an Iraqi civilian led Polish Soldiers to two 122mm rockets he had found in Al Hillah.

The rounds were tested and showed positive for Sarin gas. It has been determined that the rounds were left over from the Iran-Iraq war.

Due to the deteriorated state of the rounds and small quantity of remaining agent, these rounds were determined to have limited to no impact if used by insurgents against Coalition Forces.

The source led Soldiers to 16 more 122mm rockets over a period from June 23 - 26, 2004. Those 16 rounds were all empty and tested negative for any type of chemicals."

I get letters - so should Bush

Got this in my email:

Let's all flood the quaking, crumbling remnants of the Bush Dynasty with Farenheit 911 ticket stubs!

Here's what to do with your "Fahrenheit 9/11" ticket stub....

After you go to "Fahrenheit 911," keep your ticket stub and mail it to:

George W. Bush
1600 Pennsylvania Ave
Washington DC 20500

With a note attached, "I saw what you did last summer."

Sounds worth 37 cents to me.

Clinton vs. Bush

"At the end of his second term, Clinton had the highest approval rating of any departing president in polling history, and even now, two-thirds of Americans approve of the job he did. That's primarily because during his presidency, America experienced the longest-running, peacetime economic expansion in our history — with more than 20 million new jobs created — which resulted in Clinton having created the largest budget surplus ever when he left office. Also, during those years, crime plummeted, welfare rolls and poverty levels shrunk dramatically and an unprecedented number of minorities were appointed to federal judgeships and other top offices.

In foreign relations, Clinton was able to lead America and its NATO allies to victory in Kosovo over genocidal dictator Slobodan Milosevic. He also brokered peace in Northern Ireland and his aggressive, balanced involvement in the Israeli/Palestinian conflict resulted in a remarkably peaceful eight years in the Middle East. When Clinton left the White House, America was liked and respected internationally, while here at home there existed an undeniable air of optimism.

So the more the Republicans want to talk about stained dresses and $200 haircuts, the more Clinton will let them hang themselves — and the more he'll use his matchless intellect and full-Bubba charm to make the case that America can certainly do better than George W., a man who couldn't tear himself away from the reading of My Pet Goat after being informed on 9/11 that a devastating attack was underway on American soil.

When Lyndon Johnson was under siege during Vietnam, he literally hid in the Oval Office and cried his eyes out. When Nixon was ready to be impeached, he was gulping down booze and talking to paintings. In contrast, what people will be reminded of upon seeing Clinton on this book tour, at the Democratic Convention and on the stump for Kerry is a tough-as-nails guy who somehow remained positive, relentless and focused in the teeth of withering adversity — and in doing so fashioned one of the most successful presidencies of the 20th century.

That's the Clinton legacy. And that's why he scares Republicans to death."

Krugman on 9/11

"There has been much tut-tutting by pundits who complain that the movie, though it has yet to be caught in any major factual errors, uses association and innuendo to create false impressions. Many of these same pundits consider it bad form to make a big fuss about the Bush administration's use of association and innuendo to link the Iraq war to 9/11. Why hold a self-proclaimed polemicist to a higher standard than you hold the president of the United States?" - Paul Krugman, Attribution

"Saddam Hussein is being tried for crimes against humanity.

"With the Bush administration in charge, isn't that a misdemeanor?" - Randi Rhodes

List of Lies

As I decried below, The Times' Nicholas Kristof defended Bush against charges that we was a liar.

So from The Poor Man comes this handy little clip and save list, with links:

He has lied about his time in the National Guard, and lied about his criminal history. He lied about his relationship with Ken Lay, he lied about who would benefit from his tax cuts, and he lied about stem cells. He lied about his visit to Bob Jones University, he lied about why he wouldn't meet with Log Cabin Republicans, and he lied about reading the EPA report on global warming. He lied about blaming the Clinton administration for the second intifada, he lies constantly about how he pays no attention to polls, he lied about how he loves New York, and he lied about moving the US embassy in Israel to Jerusalem. He lied about finding WMD in Iraq, he lied about making his decision to go to war, he lied about the CIA's dismissal of the yellowcake rumors, and he lied about the IAEA's assessment of Iraq's nuclear program. He lied about funding the fight against AIDS in Africa, he lied about when the recession started, and he lied about seeing the first plane hit the WTC. He lied about supporting the Patient Protection Act, and he lied about his deficit spending, and now my wrist hurts.