I can't imagine Cardinal Arinze's edict being anything other than a huge political break for John Kerry, and a non-starter for the Roman Catholic Church. In his passionate defense of the Church, Why I Am a Catholic, Garry Wills notes that for much of American history, the Roman Catholic Church officially opposed the Constitutional doctrine of the separation of church and state; instead, the Church held that it was the only true religion of state, that "error had no rights" and that toleration of Protestantism or Judaism was not permitted in Catholic dogma. This lasted until the late-50's, when John F. Kennedy's nascent campaign for the Presidency brought to the forefront the internal debates within the Church about its proper role in the modern, democratic world.

Kennedy, remembering the anti-Catholic bigotry that sank Al Smith's Presidential campaign in 1928, took great pains to disavow any notion that he would be the Pope's servant in the White House, and in a famous speech in Houston, shamed the Protestant majority into acknowledging the patriotism of American Roman Catholics. Kennedy shrewdly realized that his independence from the Church was not only necessary to winning the Presidency, it was a stance that had no downside with rank-and-file Catholic laity, who had grown increasingly distant from the reactionary policies of Rome. Not wanting to torpedo JFK's candidacy, the Church was forced to accept the doctrine of church-state separation, and the assumption of John XXIII to the papacy further accelerated efforts at reform which culminated in the Second Vatican Council in 1962 (Wills, pp. 214-221).

Now, a second JFK is being challenged to restate his position on the separation of church and state. Cardinal Arinze's trial balloon has no official standing as Church dogma, so American bishoprics will continue to remain divided on permitting dissenters to receive the Eucharist. Any further action to impose sanctions on pro-choice Catholic politicians will prove to be ineffectual, and may do more than a thousand attack-ads to reverse the perception that Kerry's views are malleable. A candidate who would seemingly risk excommunication in order to remain true to his principles would certainly be viewed as a formidable political force, one not to be underestimated, and certainly not one whose toughness to deal with terrorists could be challenged. So if Rome wants to press this issue further, I say, "Bring it on !!"

Dr. J gives Friends the warm, loving tribute it deserves.

The tinfoil-hat-wearing brigade, when they aren't making dark allusions to John Kerry "faking" his injuries during the Vietnam War, are now obsessed with the so-called "oil for food" scandal involving the U.N. While it does seem obvious that Saddam profited rather handsomely from the foreign aid that trickled into Iraq after the first Gulf War (surprise, surprise), conspiracy theorists who see the U.N. as a satanic front are using documents "uncovered" within the Iraqi Oil Ministry as evidence that the entire Security Council (save the U.S. and U.K.) was on the take. I suppose I would take this "scandal" more seriously if I didn't see the fingerprints of the Iraqi Governing Council and Ahmed Chalabi all over this. Forged documents implicating the enemy de jour have been abundant since we pulled the statue of Saddam down last year, and it's not as if baksheesh is all that unusual in the Middle East. I mean, when was the last time a Likud Prime Minister wasn't on the take?

In short, the "oil for food scandal" is a desperate attempt to shift the blame for the debacle now occurring in Iraq from the incompetents who started the war to those countries that refused to buy into our rationale. It isn't France's fault that Paul Wolfowitz is a clueless putz, and Russia is not to blame for the chickenhawk's great adventure into oblivion.

Pat Tillman, R.I.P. No one can say that he was just a cheering from the sidelines.

The person whom Meryl Streep says she patterned her character after in the upcoming remake of The Manchurian Candidate, Peggy "the Dolphin Queen" Noonan, has written another one of her fellative tributes to God's Holy Warrior. I guess it's one thing to feign surprise that Bush's approval ratings did not immediately plunge as a result of the setbacks at home and abroad the past two weeks; after all, Jimmy Carter's approval ratings soared after the hostages were taken in Tehran in 1979, and again after the failed rescue attempt in the desert in 1980. The immediate instinct of the public is to rally behind the leader when bad news hits. It's quite another to claim that President Bush is a "popular" president, liked and admired by "the people". His approval ratings are between 47 and 52 percent, hardly the marks of a beloved leader (and about ten points below Bill Clinton's the day he was impeached), and the most recent polling shows him anywhere from five points up to four points down against Kerry. He might still win reelection, but "the people" barely tolerate him.

A new poll in the LA Times shows Kerry with a commanding 12-point lead over the President in California. Since Gore defeated Bush by 13 points in this state last time out, the Times poll is in line with national polling that shows a dead-even race. After everything that has happened the last three years, the political dynamic doesn't seem to have changed a whole lot.

The "Sakharov of Israel", Mordechai Vanunu, was released from prison this morning, eighteen years after he had been kidnapped in Rome by the Israeli Secret Service. Vanunu, who spent much of his time in prison being held in solitary confinement, was convicted of "treason" in 1985 in a secret trial for detailing that nation's nuclear secrets (and lack of security over same) to the Times of London. Upon release, Vanunu immediately defied the gag order that had been imposed on him as a condition of his release (another condition, btw, forbids him from accessing the internet, so don't hold your breath waiting for the VanunuBlog), renewing his attack on Israel's nuclear program. Mazel tov !!

Nothing says "freedom" in Iraq like the Second Amendment.

The Bush Serenity Prayer, as told by Neal Pollack:

Heavenly Father, give me the power to try to change what I cannot, and to not change what I can. Give me the strength to believe what is obviously false. And grant me the lack of wisdom not to know the difference.

Two new polls are out showing Ralph Nader with between 4-6% of the vote if the election were held today, turning a dead-even race into a Bush win. I don't pretend to be an insider, but I'm quite sure that almost nobody believes he will attain that level, particularly since he got only 2.7% of the vote last time, when he was on the ballot in almost every state, running at the head of a legitimate (albeit minor) political party, and still possessing a positive reputation with the public. Frankly, I'd be surprised if he topped one percent in November (Pat Buchanan, who was on the ballot in every state in 2000, got less than half a percent), and any pollster that continues to treat him seriously is committing malpractice.

As Prof. J. reminds us, this will not be the first Presidential election at risk from the threat of terrorist thugs....

George Bush got a lot of mileage in the mid-term elections by attacking Democrats who opposed his version of the legislation creating the Dept. of Homeland Security because it didn't contain labor protections for employees of the new department. It was a cynical maneuver; as we have learned from the Kean Commission, the mistakes that led to 9/11 resulted from policy neglect, particularly from the Bush Administration, and not because of lax overtime standards in the Defense Department. As a matter of policy, though, it was also a shortsighted attack, since it is precisely those occupations where organized labor is still strong, such as the police, that often have the best view as to our vulnerabilities to a terrorist attack.

One particularly important union in any effort to stop terrorism is the ILWU, representing longshoremen and maritime workers. While the attack on September 11 has us increasingly focused on attacks from the sky, it is no less important that we be vigilant elsewhere, especially in our nation's ports. This letter, sent last month from ILWU President James Spinosa to the Director of Port Security for the D.H.S., chillingly details the complete failure of port operators to implement basic security measures mandated by the government. Even more disturbing has been the lack of response by the DHS; apparently, trying to enforce regulations against private companies violates the political credo of this administration, while bashing unions remains par for the course.

The long-awaited return of Prime Suspect will air tomorrow on your local PBS affiliate, going head-to-head with The Sopranos, Alias, 24 (preempted Tuesday because of Bush's press conference), and State of Play (on BBC America). And they all start at 9:00 p.m. !! This may be the Greatest Single Night in the history of the boobtube (ironically, it is also the start of TV Turn-Off Week), and it would take two TIVO subscriptions to capture it all. Her appearance, however, will not be until next week's episode.

I think we can safely say that Kobe has been forgiven for Sunday.

Mention "Nagano" to an American hockey fan, and they will as likely as not refer to a team that pillaged through the Olympic village en route to ignominy. Say the word to a Canadian, and they will sadly remember the Gretzky/Sakic/Roy-led Dream Team that came home without a medal. But if you say the word to a Czech fan, will they think, "opera"? Matt Welch informs us over at Hit & Run that a production based on the Czech Republic's gold medal winning team has debuted recently in Prague, to the delight and consternation of high, middle and low-brow alike. LA Kings fans might be interested that the protagonist of the piece is "Milan Hnilicka", whose real-life counterpart currently tends goal for the team's minor league affiliate.

Hard to believe the next football season is only five months away....

Just two weeks after its debut, Air America has been pulled from the airwaves in L.A. and Chicago due to a legal dispute with its radio "landlord" (actually, the company which allows it to use its spectrum). Listeners in sunny California who tuned in this morning expecting to hear Al Franken's take on last night's press conference instead got something akin to Spanish language Christian radio. Anyways, Air America Radio has filed for a temporary restraining order, here.

I don't care what political views you hold or what party you belong to, anyone who was not thoroughly depressed by the stumbling, incoherent performance of the President tonight is missing a heart. His pre-9/11 actions have been in the spotlight recently, but this evening's almost surreal outing in prime-time showed that he's still the same clueless hack that he was when he took office. It was the most embarassing effort by a political figure since Dan Quayle debated Lloyd Bentsen.

But tonight there was a feeling of melancholia, a sense that he was just going through the motions. Regardless of how one might feel about the 2000 election or about George Bush as a person, I'm sure there was a time, possibly on the day he was sworn in, when he dreamed of greatness, that he could be another Lincoln, another FDR, someone who would make a difference in the lives of his countryman in a positive way. It's safe to say that's not going to happen, and he knows it. He has spent a large chunk of money in the last two months, against an opponent who has either been convalescing or on vacation, and he has barely nudged the polls. His wartime stewardship has come under question, his lackadaisacal approach to terrorism before 9/11 (something that we can all plead guilty to, by the way) is under withering assault, and now the press and public can barely contain their laughter at the fact that he can't go before his own commission without having his Vice President hold his hand.

The obvious historical analogy is with Warren Harding. Also a late bloomer, with modest political aspirations at first, Harding could be a little prick, too, but he also had this almost puppy-dog desire to be "one of the boys". Like Bush, he didn't have the heart to fire any of the incompetents in his retinue, and it drove him to an early grave.

After tonight, it wouldn't surprise me if Bush decided he didn't want any of this anymore; that the "war on terror" took precedent over his own ambitions, and that rather than face the distraction of having to campaign for reelection while all hell is breaking loose in the Middle East, he would focus his energy on "staying the course" in Iraq, and not seek a second term. He would look statesmanlike, could hand-pick the GOP nominee before the convention, and the election could be a referendum on his policies without the distortion of his contentious personality. Then he could retire to his "ranch", and hope that, in time, the American people would look back and remember what it was they liked about him, and perhaps forget his ineptitude in dealing with the economy, the runaway deficits, the ineffectual strikes against Al Qaeda, and the ongoing debacle in Iraq. Even now, he can still do some good.

The Day After: Bush's reaction to the August 6 briefing.

Now that Barry Bonds has caught him on the all-time home run list, I thought now would be as good a time as any to post this tribute to the Say-Hey Kid, by the late actress and raconteur, Tallulah Bankhead.

Local legend Marc Cooper has started a blog, and he has an hilarious yet smug take on the official website of Our Favorite Shiite, the Ayatollah Sistani. This type of snark is a key reason the left gets wiped out in that half of the country that still believes in creationism, et al., and it's probably not a good idea to send insulting e-mail to one of our only remaining friends in Iraq, but still...if I have to give up certain practices because they are Makrooh, then the terrorists will have won.

Howard Owens has a nice encapsulation of what-I-did-last-night, here. Little to add, except that the League Fathers of arena football might consider adding a little defense to the sport; it was easier to score than at an SC sorority mixer.

The big problem Dr. Rice had this morning was that she wasn't Richard Clarke. His straightforward, honest, direct answers left a much better impression on the neutral viewer; perhaps her oleaginous, tone-deaf excuse-mongering (especially after Ben-Veniste and Kerrey made her seem more like a character in Glengarry Glen Ross than someone who has responsibility for preventing attacks on our nation's soil) might have worked three weeks ago, but now it just seems hollow. Dr. Rice represents everything the Bushies have come to symbolize: incompetence, ideology and sycophancy are valued, while results and achievement aren't. I predict she's going to find her true calling selling some choice property to retirees in Florida when this is all over.

QUOTE OF THE YEAR:

"Why do papers like the [NY Times] and [Washington Post] misread the plainly vague meaning of Bush's words?"
--Mickey Kaus

Those who look carefully enough may notice that I now have something like an RSS feed, whatever that is. Let me know if it works.

Former-marxist-turned-neo-fascist writer Oriana Fallaci has a new book out, which blames Arab immigrants for every problem now afflicting Europe, and hypothesizes that the Roman Catholic Church is now controlled by a Wahhabist cabal (ed.--yeah, it's called Opus Dei). If another Hitler ever rises to power in the future, he will probably scapegoat Muslims.

Worth reading: a very eloquent post by "Kos" on his mixed feelings over the deaths at Fallujah, told from the perspective of someone who grew up in a country torn apart by guerilla warfare, and who has actually fought in a war himself.

UPDATE: Dr. J. has more on Blackwater Security, the organization that employed the four men killed last week. Needless to say, while I don't believe that anything they might have been doing justified either the barbaric way in which they were murdered last week or Kos' insensitive remarks concerning same, I believe it should be a matter of concern that we are tolerating the use of mercenaries (or "private security contractors") in Iraq. His language was clumsy and cruel, more reminiscent of an LGF post on Rachel Corrie, but compared with much of the crap that exists in the b-sphere, Kos is actually a moderate voice (as far as I can tell, he hasn't called for the extermination of the Palestinian people), and, unlike the Kerry Campaign Blog, I will not allow his unfortunate venture into the realm of Political Incorrectness determine his position on my humble blogroll.

As it turns out, not everyone appreciated Mr. Clarke's eloquent testimony to the 9-11 Commission. Charles Krauthammer, whose Pulitzer Prize is more in the tradition of Walter Duranty's and Janet Cooke's, goes on the attack, denouncing Clarke's apology to the 9-11 victims as "phony", and then ridiculing those same families for claiming "special status" as victims.

Dr. Krauthammer's rationale, such as it is, is that since Clarke admitted that even if the Bushies had followed his advice, the 9-11 attacks still would have taken place, there was nothing that could have been done to prevent what happened. Everyone did there best, so no apology was in order. Besides the incredible defeatism of that conceit (no matter how hard we try, the terrorists will inevitably succeed), it also misses the point completely. Clarke was the anti-terrorism tsar. If he couldn't devise something to prevent 9-11 from taking place, and if the Bushies were clearly disinterested in the whole subject of non-state-supported terrorisms before 9-11 to have ignored Al Qaeda, the American people are owed an explanation why. Clarke gave them one, by taking accountability, showing them the respect that Krauthammer couldn't find in his heart to give.

This week, Sports Illustrated has an excerpt in its GolfPlus Special from the recently published tome by Alan Shipnuck on last year's failed effort to integrate the home of the Masters, The Battle for Augusta National. Shipnuck, who covers the sport for the magazine, has some particularly interesting insights on the sad role blogs played in the whole affair. The villain (or hero, amongst the bedsheet-wearing crowd) of the piece is a Beltway flack named Jim McCarthy, who was hired by the restricted country club to go "on the attack--investigate the activists, hold them accountable for their track record and their ideological inconsistencies. You have to take on the press that is often conspiring to give the activists a platform to espouse their views. It's like the argument of appeasement versus aggression in geopolitics, and we all know how Neville Chamberlain fared."(emphasis added)

McCarthy, an avid readers of blogs, planted stories with Internet conservatives to shift the focus away from Augusta National's sorry track record on racial and sexual discrimination and instead towards the New York Times and Howell Raines. With Raines, et al., already unpopular on the right for the Times' oft-critical reporting of the Bush Administration, McCarthy's flackery found a receptive audience in the blogosphere, and hostile coverage elsewhere effectively mau-maued the Times into silence on the issue. As of today, Augusta National still has no female members, and only a smattering of token non-whites, and stands as a shabby symbol of the sport of golf. [additional links via The National Debate]

Today was the long-awaited debut of the "liberal" talk radio network, Air America. For the most part, aside from some annoying opening-day glitches, it isn't bad, but I don't see Limbaugh, Hannity, et al., shaking in their boots. One of the problems is the lack of experienced talk radio hosts on the network; much of the output so far has seemed like Pacifica Lite, with an especially irritating tendency of complaining about stories that aren't being covered by the Establishment Media for reasons of bias or expediency. It may be true, but I'm a pessimist by nature; the last thing I want to listen to on the way to court is how the whole world is conspiring to silence me. The new network does promise to be blog-friendly, though, with Atrios earning major props for his stint as a guest on the evening show. You can listen to the live feed on the Air America website, or the west coast feed (from Portland) three hours later.

After a long hiatus, Neal Pollack has returned, chastened but unbowed:

Thank goodness that I have this forum in which I can address those of you who are sitting in front of your computers, or who have programmed updates to this website directly into your cell phones. Your government failed you. Those entrusted with providing you the best in fact-based Web opinion failed you. And I failed you. I tried hard, but that doesn’t matter, because I failed. For that failure I would ask, once I’ve explained to you why I stopped blogging, for your understanding and your forgiveness.

Allah akbar.

Richard Clarke: the public speaks !!

March Madness nearly being complete, and the Final Four/Frozen Four set, I am now ready to return to blogging forthwith. Not that I wouldn't have sacrificed a few minutes during the Tournaments if events had warranted, but the major story (Richard Clarke) was being addressed by voices more eloquent than mine, and the Presidential campaign is currently in stasis: the Democrats, having jumped out to a quick early lead, is resting its big guy, while the Republicans, with a big war chest and with the commercial airwaves to itself, is struggling to put some space between the candidates before the summer. The 9-11 Commission has served to thwart the efforts by the President to build a commanding lead, and the closer this race remains going into the Democratic Convention, the more likely it is Kerry will pull away at the end, when the candidates will be on relatively equal footing, in terms of both money and stature.

For the second time in as many months, the White House has seemed inept in dealing with a frontal assault on its competence. Last month, it was the National Guard story that they managed to turn from a minor hiccup into a major embarrasment; now, it's their reaction to Richard Clarke's book and testimony before the 9-11 Commission. As any number of commentators have pointed out, Clarke's revelations are nothing new. Clarke made for a compelling witness last week, telling the family members of the 9/11 dead that he had failed them (btw, when was the last time anyone can recall a politician using the active tense when discussing his mistake?), but Kerry's campaign manager must have woke up the next morning with some serious wood after seeing the GOP's inept response. Some free advice to Karl Rove, Bill Frist, et al: never even hint that your adversaries aren't telling the truth, since a) it only reminds people how mendacious you guys are, and b) you never seem to be able to deliver the goods. Also, fire Condi Rice. It's never a good thing when the whole world is laughing at you.

Law of Unintended Consequences: An Israeli writer believes that the big winner in the Israeli take-out of Sheik Yassin last week will be Hamas, the group Sharon intended to destroy. If there is any world leader who is less competent than George Bush in dealing with terrorism, it's Arik the Whale. [link via Tom Paine]

Any doubt that George Bush is unfit to hold the office of President was resolved this week, in the aftermath of the Richard Clarke revelations. His patent inability to admit error would be the envy of any fifteenth century papist. At some point, one would hope that a more rational head in the Administration would say to His Highness that having his flacks (or as one cartoonist says, his "flying attack monkeys") use every charge in the books to assasinate the character of his critics is not only immoral, but politically counterproductive as well. I suppose that's what you get for having a President who sees himself as God's Righteous General. As William Saleton writes in Slate this morning:

It's funny, in retrospect, that Bush ran for president as a uniter. To unite a country, you have to acknowledge and reconcile differences. Bush doesn't work toward unity; he assumes it. He doesn't reconcile differences; he denies them. It's his tax cut or nothing. It's his homeland security bill or nothing. It's his terrorism policy or nothing. If you're playing politics, this is smart strategy. But if you're trying to help the country, it's foolish. The odds are that 50 percent of the other party's ideas are right. By ruling them out, you start your presidency 50 percent wrong.

Some of the resulting mistakes may be inconsequential. Some may cost 3,000 lives. Some may cost 2 million jobs. "If the Democratic policies had been pursued over the last two or three years … we would not have had the kind of job growth we've had," Cheney bragged three weeks ago. That's the way this administration thinks: We do things differently. But being different doesn't guarantee you a better result—just a different one.

Taken together with Mr. Clarke's testimony this afternoon before the 9/11 Commission, in which he did something that Bush, Rumsfeld, Rice, et al., have refused to do, which is take responsibility, it is a damning portrait.

Every now and then I wonder how it is that the GOP has proven utterly incapable of receiving significant support from outside its white male base, and then I read a blogpost like this, and the answer becomes obvious. A white reporter joking that a team in the NCAA Tournament will lose a game because it has "too many white players" is not the same thing as a white pundit with a history of racial bigotry saying that a black quarterback who has taken his team to three consecutive conference championships is overrated because he is black.

Moreover, the comparison made between basketball and NASCAR is utterly bogus. Black racers were shut out of auto racing by the bylaws of the sport, which limited participation to members of the Caucasian race; today, that earlier exclusion means that there is less interest in NASCAR, both as a career objective for potential black participants and as a pastime to follow on the weekends. Either formally (as in golf) or informally, the same was true in almost every other sport. The fact that black athletes were able to take part in some college football and basketball programs north of the Mason-Dixon Line before the Jackie Robinson Era gave those sports added cache with African Americans. White players have never been shut out of basketball because of skin color or racial prejudice, no more than they've been shut out of football, baseball or hockey.

In case you were wondering, Joanna Kerns (TV's "Maggie Seaver" from Growing Pains) has sold her home in Brentwood. According to the LA Times, which broke the story Sunday, she intends to build a new house in the area, no doubt with the $3.5 million she got from the sale of her three bedroom, three and a half bathroom mansion. No word on the lucky sap who can now boast to friend and stranger alike that he owns the old "Joanna Kerns Estate".

The last word on Spain:

"Spanish voters weren't intimidated by the terrorist bombings — they turned on a ruling party they didn't trust. When the government rushed to blame the wrong people for the attack, tried to suppress growing evidence to the contrary and used its control over state television and radio both to push its false accusation and to play down antigovernment protests, it reminded people of the broader lies about the war.

By voting for a new government, in other words, the Spaniards were enforcing the accountability that is the essence of democracy. But in the world according to Mr. Bush's supporters, anyone who demands accountability is on the side of the evildoers. According to Dennis Hastert, the speaker of the House, the Spanish people "had a huge terrorist attack within their country and they chose to change their government and to, in a sense, appease terrorists."

So there you have it. A country's ruling party leads the nation into a war fought on false pretenses, fails to protect the nation from terrorists and engages in a cover-up when a terrorist attack does occur. But its electoral defeat isn't democracy at work; it's a victory for the terrorists."

--Paul Krugman

Occam's Mach3: One can make all the arguments you can trying to explain the latest polls that Kerry has lost his mojo, that Bush's ad-attacks are working, that Kerry as a campaigner has fundamental weaknesses, and you can boil them all down and you still wouldn't have enough crack left to get a buzz. The amount Kerry has lost in the polls to Bush is almost exactly the same as the amount Ralph Nader gets now that he is included in the horse race. Kerry is in trouble only if you believe that Nader is going to double his 2000 vote, which the latest polls all indicate.

There will be even less output than usual for the next few days, due to a bad case of Tournament Flu that I've come down with (btw, any who would like to take part in my brackets pool, just drop me a line), as well as a truckload of legal work that has to get done.

Kevin "Sherlock Holmes" Drum, whose investigative skills were praised in this month's Vanity Fair by James Wolcott, has a good analytic post on the Spanish election. He focuses on the feeling of betrayal by the electorate in the days immediately after last week's atrocities, towards a government that seemed more interested in using the bombings to score domestic political points, rather than showing that the Spaniards are Tapas-Eating Surrender Monkeys and the like. Those who have characterized yesterday's vote as being objectively pro-terrorist, or as evidence of moral cowardice by the electorate, have lost almost all credibility at this point.

The use of the "war" analogy really obscures the fact that most people don't simply fear terrorist attacks as something that might happen to their country, but as something that might happen to themselves. The Bush Administration often ridicules its critics as people who believe that terrorism should be treated as a "law and order" issue, fought with subpoenas rather than bullets, with laws rather than smart bombs. In over-simplifying the matter, they risk losing the American people by over-emphasizing the military aspect of this fight, while ignoring the crime prevention aspect. Some terrorists are state-sponsored, and in those cases we should treat the nations that support them as hostile, but most aren't, or are sponsored only tenuously. In those cases, the only way to fight back, and win, is to use all the weapons at our disposal. And yes, those weapons include the subpoena, the levy, and the arrest warrant, where the nefarious dealings of the underworld are exposed to the light of day. After all, we didn't crush the Mafia by nuking Sicily.

In that respect, the neo-conservatives are starting to resemble the liberal establishment of the '60's, which believed that problems such as crime were social disorders which would go away once the "War on Poverty" succeeded, while not taking seriously the public's desire to feel safe walking the streets. What has happened in Spain the last two days should be a wake-up call: the people will show no loyalty to a government that seems ineffectual when it comes to protecting the people it serves. We don't want crusades; we're not going to wait until you reshape the Middle East. We want the problem stopped. Now.

The people of Spain get serious about taking the fight to the terrorists, bouncing the government that supported Bush's diversionary vendetta. Any opponent of the President has to be chilled by the result; what happened last week is a taste of what we might get just before the next election, and the impact that might have is far more important than the results of any partisan dispute.

Eric Alterman, co-author of the excellent The Book on Bush, will be in L.A. this weekend, signing books at the Midnight Special in Santa Monica this Sunday, and no doubt giving advice on filling out brackets for next week. His website, which is less a blog so much as a daily column, does an excellent job spotlighting less-famous writing talent (in the guise of a "Correspondents Section"), which is often more entertaining than the column itself. To wit, check out yesterday's tribute to the "A.J. Soprano of politics".

An unsubtle example of "working the ref": John Ellis, the man who mau-mau'ed the networks into prematurely calling Florida for Bush in 2000 (and a cousin of the President, to boot), attacks the lib'rul media for going "easy" on John Kerry. Considering the hatchet jobs the press gave to President Clinton for eight years, and the atrocious job they did on Al Gore four years ago, Bush's supporters have little to complain about this time. Ellis complains:

Republicans are amazed by the disparity in the news coverage of Senator Kerry and President Bush. As well they might be. Kerry's triple back-flips on virtually every issue are "explained" in The New York Times and The Washington Post as the products of a "nuanced" mind at work. President Bush's straightforward assertions are portrayed as the lies of an ill-advised moron. What's going on here?

What's going on is that some members of the media take their responsibility to be impartial seriously. When the Bush campaign attempted to use the flip-flop issue to attack Kerry, a few reporters actually looked at the record and found that the attacks were weak and deceptive. And like the rest of the country, members of the news media no longer take a word the President says at face value; the fact that he can lie with a straight face doesn't carry him as far as it used to. Ellis later complains that the media largely shares a personal animus of Kerry, but they haven't allowed that bias to color their coverage of the candidate. If true (and let's remember, it would be hard for anyone to be a bigger a-hole than the incumbent), that would be an historic mark of maturity in the Fourth Estate.

One of the consequences of deciding to fight peripheral targets, rather than the people who actually attacked us on September 11, occurred today in Madrid. Bush has pretty much chosen not to be serious about Al Qaeda and its sources of support in the Middle East, and I doubt our European allies are going to be too enthused about following our lead in the future until we get serious. They may have to wait til next January for that to happen.

Why can't the U.S. of A. have a Labor Secretary as good as the one the Iraqis have? [link via WWDT]

In describing the significance of Monday night's acquisition of forward Anson Carter, the local paper of record notes:

"[H]e becomes the fourth African American player to suit up for the Kings in their 37-season history, joining Grant Fuhr, Nathan Lafayette and Mike Marson."

Isn't that a good example of why labeling people isn't necessarily appropriate? Carter, in fact, is a native of Canada (as were Fuhr, Lafayette and Marson), and is therefore as much of an "African-American" as Lennox Lewis or Kip Keino; in fact, Charlize Theron is more of an "African-American" than he is. In any event, for most hockey fans, the notion of a "black" hockey player is not much of a novelty: Fuhr was recently elected to the Hockey Hall of Fame, and besides Carter, Jerome Iginla has been one of the top players in the league for the past three seasons. But as with most hockey players, they are Canadians, not Americans, and are not hyphenated-Americans in any event.

I had never listened to her program while it was still on KCRW, and I am coming rather late to this controversy, but the firing last week of humorist Sandra Tsing-Loh from her gig on public radio has pissed me off no end. One can talk about censorship, free speech, the creativity of an artist, or whatever, but what it really signals is that the SoCal area has a public radio station run by a timid programmer. And for me, that's everything.

Public radio is something that I wished I listened to more often. Usually, it's just for the news and political coverage, and "Which Way L.A." with Warren Olney, and even then infrequently, but I'm glad that there is someplace on (as Al Smith would put it) the raddio where the programming isn't entirely dominated by market considerations and safe, centrist political views. It's good to know that it's there, and that it's relatively uncensored.

To put it another way, it's radio for adults. And adults, every once in awhile, swear. There is a time and place for four-letter words: in casual conversations with friends, or in heated arguments, they're part of the vernacular; in church, at an elementary school, or with one's grandmother, some discretion should be used. I try to steer clear of such language on this blog, partly because it limits the audience that can access this site (web-blockers already make some blogsites difficult to access at government offices and high schools), but also because this site is a creative outlet for me, and I would prefer to articulate the same sentiments with less vulgar language, if possible. But it's not always possible.

Not having heard the program in question, I'm not going to venture whether Ms. Loh's use of the f-word was appropriate in the context of her piece, or whether the piece itself was funny, because frankly, I don't care. The issue is not whether her rights have been violated; it is, instead, my desire as a consumer to hear and experience the work of creative people in an unedited manner, when I choose. It is from that desire that the right of free speech is based. The decision about whether she could use the word in question was resolved when she was hired to do the program (or at least, when the station agreed to air the pre-taped piece twice the same morning). Public radio's mandate is different from the mandate of, let's say, NBC or Nickelodeon; it's not like SpongeBob SquarePants was using the word at 8:00 p.m. I don't want to believe that the battles posthumously won forty years ago by Lenny Bruce are going to have to be refought everytime a woman's breast is exposed, or a rock star extemporaneously exults at winning an award.

As with Howard Stern, there is a fair amount of hypocrisy involved here on behalf of the programmers. Clear Channel knew that Stern's radio show was vulgar and sick; that was the whole point, and those that listened, and those that refused to listen, knew what they were getting. They didn't act until the government began another one of its three-times-a-decade rampages on morality in popular culture. With Loh, I haven't seen any evidence that she made a habit of skirting the boundaries of good taste, but that doesn't matter. If she had been little more than a female version of Andrew Dice Clay, then KCRW is hypocritical for pulling the plug now after all this time. On the other hand, if this was just a one-time occurrence, then nothing will create a climate of fear with the rest of the talent more than firing a long-time employee for an innocent mistake.

There is currently a boycott right now of KCRW, but I can't honor it, for the same reason I couldn't honor a boycott of Rush Limbaugh's show, or the 700 Club. You can't "boycott" something you have no intention of patronizing in the first place. A public radio station that places draconian content restrictions on its programming isn't much better than the 24-7 news on KNX, so why would I listen? Just to listen to the pledge drives? It would be like if I decided to "boycott" peas, and that's just fucking crazy.

More evidence that the flip-flop attack on Kerry is a campaign loser: Dick Morris thinks its brilliant !!!

I suppose one way we can test the credibility of former "weakman" ruler Jean-Bertrand Aristide is to demand that he return to Haiti post-haste. After all, if he was kidnapped by foreign armies (that is to say, the U.S. and its beloved ally, France), and if he is currently free to move around in exile, as he claims, then there should be no problem for him to return and resume power in Port-au-Prince. The fact is, democratically elected or not, Aristide was a thug, and his unpopularity with his constituents sealed his fate. Although we shouldn't be in the business of rubber-stamping military coups, such as the one we backed several years ago in Venezuela, the United States cannot provide protection to every third world despot, elected or not, simply because the alternative may be worse.

Too often, we look at the veneer of democracy, and ignore the fact that the government we are propping up is as autocratic as the typical military junta (and to a lesser extent, the same could be said for Hugo Chavez, Ariel Sharon, and whichever puppet of the mullahs happens to be in control of Iran). South Africa, for crying out loud, had the outer appearance of a democracy for a century, yet liberals hardly demanded that we send in the Marines to defend P.W. Botha. Being able to participate in contested elections is no substitute for possessing the full human rights of a citizen.

For those of you who wondered whatever happened to Jose Offerman, this story gives the skinny. Like many small-market teams, the Twins are pursuing a variation of the Billy Beane philosophy, and larding up on players who get on base, take pitches, and basically act like a schnorrer to the opposing pitching staff, and that's what Offerman does. He had his best years with the Royals, where they downplayed his defensive shortcomings and tried to find a niche for the talents he actually possesses, which is to take pitches like a mother/father and hit triples. He did those things with LA and Boston (at least he did his first two years with the Sox) too, but the teams, and by extension the local media, were more obsessed with what he couldn't do, such as catching anything that was hit at him or stealing bases, and the result was unfortunate for all concerned.

My college football blog, Condredge's Acolytes, is going to start covering the NCAA Tournaments in basketball and hockey. Since it's a collaborative site, I welcome the contributions of any who have two cents they'd like to put in.

Best news of the day for Democrats: Dick Morris is predicting a Bush landslide.

What to do, if the goals of fighting terrorism and fighting Saddam conflict? Well, if you're this President, to hell with 9/11, you give this guy a pass, and he ends up killing several hundred people in Iraq.

Slate takes John Kerry to task for "flip-flopping", a meme hatched by Karl Rove, et al. Most of the examples are bogus, or can be easily explained, but the question I have is, who f---ing cares? "Flip-flopping" is an attack that only resonates in primary contests, when you are trying to convince base voters that the other guy is insincere. In general elections, it's a loser issue, the type of thing that people who don't like you and won't vote for you anyway will use to rationalize their votes.

One example of that attack failing miserably was Jerry Brown's reelection bid in 1978. Brown turned the entire dynamics of that election on its head by changing his position on Proposition 13, which he had fought against when it was on the June 1978 ballot. After the initiative passed, Brown suddenly became its biggest supporter, defending its constitutionality in the courts, and earning kudos from Howard Jarvis in the process. His opponent, Evelle Younger, who had led in the polls, made Brown's "flip-flops" on that and other issues the centerpiece of his campaign. The voters, instead, returned Brown to office by an overwhelming margin. Clinton's strategy of triangulation after the 1994 elections is another example of how a politician who changes his position on issues not only survives, but thrives before the electorate.

One of the dirtiest secrets in politics is that voters in a democracy not only tolerate a politician who changes his mind, they demand it. If swing voters are unsettled by Iraq or the economy, they are not going to give a rat's ass whether Kerry changed his mind about welfare reform in the mid-90's. And since many of those same voters performed the same "flip-flops" over the Patriot Act and the war, it doesn't do the Republicans any good to rub their noses in it.

WACK JOB WATCH: James Lileks jumps the shark here, with a pitiful claim that supporters of Kerry are objectively pro-terrorist. And a Republican Congressman goes one-up on Move On, comparing Kerry to Adolf Hitler. Oh, yeah, he's "French" looking, too. Also, Donald Luskin links to a clearly bogus "corrections" site for the New York Times, fooling (among others) Mickey Kaus. Lastly, Ilsa, She-Wolf of the S.S. has her unique take on the latest Mel Gibson movie; no surprise here, she loves it [link via Pandagon].

UPDATE: A reader (Kaus, actually) writes in to explain to your ignorant correspondent what "doppel" means. Turns out he wasn't fooled, but I was. That, and the fact that I actually missed a question on the Harrick Jr. Final Exam, means that my entire week has been one of humiliation and despair. I SUCK !!

First of all, the fact that a criminal defendant has claimed that he provided several baseball superstars with the juice should be taken with a grain of salt. The bigger the story he can tell in court, and the bigger the names he can bring down, the more leniency the court will grant him when it comes time for sentencing. In that sense, Barry Bonds should be given the same benefit of the doubt that Lance Armstrong was given.

Second, any lawyer who puts out a statement that his client "never knowingly" did something should be disbarred for rank incompetence, or even worse, made to practice in the field of workers comp. If an attorney is going to be that stupid, why not just put out a statement saying that there is "no controlling legal authority" to implicate your client and be done with it. Far better for Sheffield's attorney to have just kept his mouth shut, or at least said that his client will have no comment on what was or wasn't said to the Grand Jury.

Third, steroid use in baseball will be The Big Story for the next year, and will probably color how fans eventually look back at the last decade in the sport. Obviously, Bonds' single-season home run record will come into question (as will McGuire and Sosa, btw), but he has had such an impressive career that he will still be viewed as one of the all-time greats. Less fortunate will be players like Sheffield or Giambi (or Nomar, or Piazza, or any other player who gets caught up in this net), who may not have a pre-steroid portion of their career they can point to if they get implicated. Any well-sculpted ballplayer from the last fifteen years is going to be tainted by rumors of steroid use, regardless of guilt, in much the same way that the late Flo-Jo was after the 1988 Olympics. Sheffield, for example, with three consecutive MVP-candidate seasons, was just starting to put together a legitimate case for Hall of Fame consideration, which the steroid rumors may have irreparably damaged. This is a scandal the sport can ill-afford.

Prof. Johnson presents: "The Passion of Elvis".

Contrary to my post last week, the Seeds didn't open for the reclusive Ken Layne & the Corvids last Thursday. No matter; it was still worth the $7 cover to see the opening night of the "Minotour". The group keeps getting tighter, and the night was marred neither by Matt Welch's solo cover of "Only Women Bleed" nor by the obscenity-laced spat over welfare-reform between Mickey Kaus and Sky Saxon that interrupted the concert for ten full minutes until the police finally arrived. Saturday, in Huntington Beach, they were even better, debuting three new songs, including one kick-ass blast that sounded like an unholy mixture of Johnny Cash, Buck Owens, and "Him or Me" by Paul Revere and the Raiders. Hopefully, a "Maxotour" is in store for the rest of the country real soon. And by all means, if you go see them, print out one of their flyers....

Any doubts I may have had about John Kerry being a better president than George Bush were resolved by his answer to yesterday's debate's final question: Is God on our side? A good leader often tells people what they don't want to hear, and Kerry's answer actually seemed to have been generated out of some thought on his part. There was none of the phony religiosity that one gets out of W, who clearly sees matters of faith as a prop he can use to pick up Red State votes, rather than something that actually has meaning to him. I'm still voting for the ambulance chaser tomorrow, but my respect for the frontrunner has gone up enormously.

I certainly wouldn't begrudge her the Oscar she won tonight, but does anyone else think that Charlize Theron maybe was under a heatlamp for too long this week?



UPDATE: Nope, turns out she just overdid the make-up. Check out this photo from the night before, at the Independent Spirit Awards. I'm told that an exaggerated "tan" is often used to cover up acne problems, an especially acute problem when a significant share of the audience (particularly in Hollywood) is tuning in to the show via TV sets of the high-definition variety. Anyway, she's not necessarily a candidate for a melanoma...whew.

Atrios...revealed !!

Needless to say, I disagree with the President's call for a constitutional amendment to outlaw gay marriages and civil unions. I have nothing to add to what has been so eloquently stated this morning by Andrew Sullivan, except to pray that Senators Kerry and Edwards do the right thing on this issue, even if it means four more years of W. In the end, it is not a political position, it is a point of decency.

For whatever reason, I don't think John Edwards' inability to answer a question on the foreign corporate tax credit and its relation to the European Union is going to be a big issue come Super Tuesday. Reporters seem to think that playing "Stump the Candidate" is an effective way to demonstrate how much more learned they are than the people running for office, so last time we had some smartass reporter questioning candidate Bush on who the President of Taiwan was, and now we have this story.

It is an article of faith that one of the more significant after-effects of 9-11 has been the creation of a substantial segment of former liberals whose backing of the President in the "War on Terror" will realign American politics into the foreseeable future. This group, disproportionately represented in the blogosphere, sees Bush as a modern-day combination Woodrow Wilson and Winston Churchill, galvanizing the forces of freedom in a twilight struggle against Islamofascism, and they uncritically supported the decision to go to war with Iraq, no matter what the current rationale happened to be. The Democrats, with their support of such trivialities as "international law", were derided as unserious, doomed to a certain landslide defeat in November 2004.

Well, as it turns out, the more important segment of the voting public, albeit one that hasn't had the gumption to set up their own vanity sites with Blogger yet, are the voters who cast their lot with George Bush in 2000, and who have now gotten a case of buyer's remorse. Up to eleven percent of the people who voted for Bush last time now say they will pass on the G.O.P. this time, as opposed to only five percent who now regret their vote for Al Gore in the last election. The key issues: anger over the decision to go to war in Iraq, and concern over the President's economic priorities. In particular, independents now overwhelmingly disapprove of Bush's performance as President. [link via CalPundit]

Two big music events this week: tonight, the singer with the voice of Patsy Cline and the looks of Tara Reid, Annette Summersett, plays at the Springbok in Van Nuys at 9:00 p.m. And of course, Thursday will bring us the start of the Ken Layne & the Corvids 2004 World Tour, at King King in Hollywood. The Seeds (of "Pushin' Too Hard" fame) will open, and many elite SoCal bloggers will be there to sign autographs and pose for pictures beforehand. For those of you who bought the CD, liked what you heard, but have yet to hear them perform live, it the universal consensus (actually, just me and Kaus) that the Corvids are even better in concert.

Smythe's World is officially endorsing Damien for President !!

Twenty-five of the forty-two men to have been President were, by profession, lawyers. For men and women whose ambitions aim towards a life in politics, the practice of law is a popular choice: both Kerry and Edwards are lawyers, and Bush famously was rejected when he applied to law school at the University of Texas. Although the education, training, and even the definition of what it is to be an attorney have changed during the history of the republic, it has from the outset been the career option most taken by politicians before they sought office.

Very few of the lawyers who became President, though, could truly be said to have "practiced" law. Clinton, for example, pretty much went straight into politics after law school, with a brief sojourn as a law professor, and I doubt FDR ever saw the inside of a courtroom. Kerry worked as a D.A. for a few years, but pretty much was angling for a career in public service from the moment he passed the bar. Being an attorney opens some doors for the would-be public servent, and a legal education exposes one to many of the same issues faced by politicians, but the actual nitty-gritty details of representing a client, building a practice, handling a caseload, and sweet-talking a jury, are well outside the norm for what someone whose ultimate goal is to run for high office.

That makes the case of John Edwards somewhat extraordinary. He is not just a lawyer. He was one of the top trial attorneys in America when he decided to run for the Senate in 1998. Not only was he gifted in court, but for most of his adult life, it was how he fed his family. Clearly, he practiced law because it was what he did for a living, not so that he could get placed on the fast track to the Presidency.

Thus, Edwards is the exception among lawyer-politicians, not the rule. Looking back at the men who preceded him, only a few stand out as having been skilled in the practice of law. Adams, of course, made his name in the pre-Revolutionary period representing British soldiers involved in the Boston Massacre, and his son was an accomplished attorney himself. Lincoln, who incidentally never went to college, much less law school, secured some degree of wealth for his family representing anyone who could pay a retainer (including a few odd debtors in bankruptcy). Of the rest who actually practiced law, almost all of them worked at some level for the government, usually as prosecutors, except for Nixon, who started off as a low-level attorney in the government during WWII before joining a small transactional firm in Whittier.

Anyways, I hope to begin a study of the legal careers of Presidents, and eventually give you some idea as to what kind of practitioner someone like James Monroe or Chester Arthur was before they became Commander-in-Chief. In the meantime, if anyone can identify another President who was a trial lawyer between Honest Abe and Senator Edwards, I'd love to hear from you.

The latest Gallup Poll now has both Kerry and Edwards with double-digit leads over George Bush among likely voters. The combination of the Kay Report, the AWOL charge and now the admission that the employment forecast last week was bogus operate as an anchor around the President. If Kucinich pulls ahead in the horse race numbers, SELL !!

Osama Found !?! If true, what does this say about whom we really are fighting?

Michael Totten discovers the "Little Green-Eyed Monster" phenomenum. [link via Roger L. Simon]

Remember last week's story, about how a "stadium full" of soccer fans in Mexico had supposedly taunted American players during an Olympics qualifying tournament with the chant, "Osama, Osama"? Turns out it didn't quite happen that way....

Those who forget history...a previous whitewash in twelfth century England, compliments of The Guardian:

"I find the allegation by the Broadsheet of the Borough of Canterbury and its reporter, Andrew of Gillingham, that four knights acting on the orders of King Henry murdered Archbishop Thomas Becket to be totally without foundation and tantamount to libel.

"Archbishop Becket was a well known eccentric and I totally accept the evidence of the respected knights that he repeatedly ran at, and impaled himself upon, their swords when they entered the cathedral to make confession.

"The suggestion that the knights had previously had any communication with King Henry is a gross calumny on the part of the BBC.

"While the allegation that there had existed some dispute between the archbishop and the king is regarded by some as important, it is outside the remit of my inquiry and has no bearing on my investigation."

The Lord Brian de Hutton

[link via Avedon Carol]

I never thought this could happen to me...Why does every "account" of political correctness on college campuses read like it was drafted by the editor of the Forum section of Penthouse.

Obviously, this has not been a good week for our War President. The document drop at the end of the week doesn't appear to have killed the media's interest in his activities (or lack thereof) in the National Guard thirty years ago (here, here, and here). An exonerating witness comes forward to place him with the Alabama Guard, but his story is discredited by the President's own records. The Kay Report has shattered the President's credibility with the American people, diminishing the one aspect of his personality that people liked. His likely opponent continues to gather momentum, and a potential sex scandal involving Kerry has apparently fizzled for lack of evidence, innoculating him from future accusations. Bush has not only fallen behind Kerry in almost all of the national polls, but according to this poll, he's barely beating the Democrat frontrunner in Kansas. Needless to say, if the Jayhawk State is in play this November, then a Democratic landslide may be in order.

It ain't September 12th anymore, and neither Bush nor his supporters appear to have adjusted to that reality. This election may follow the historical precedent of 1920, but in reverse. In that election, the American people, having grown tired of the moralistic, hyper-religious scold residing in the White House, and unwilling to embark on any more crusades, dealt the Democratic Party a crushing defeat, one that the party did not recover from for ten years. Bush has run perhaps the most negative, pessimistic presidency since Nixon, and as I wrote a few weeks back, his type generally doesn't get embraced by the public for too long.

According to AP (and Drudge, who seems to be abandoning the Kerry-Intern story), Bush is prepared to release his entire military records. I doubt anything is in there that will be as damaging as the appearance over the past few weeks that he had something to hide.

Paul Krugman:

"To understand why questions about George Bush's time in the National Guard are legitimate, all you have to do is look at the federal budget published last week. No, not the lies, damned lies and statistics--the pictures. By my count, this year's budget contains 27 glossy photos of Mr. Bush. We see the president in front of a giant American flag, in front of the Washington Monument, comforting an elderly woman in a wheelchair, helping a small child with his reading assignment, building a trail through the wilderness and, of course, eating turkey with the troops in Iraq. Somehow the art director neglected to include a photo of the president swimming across the Yangtze River.

(snip)

There is, as far as I can tell, no positive evidence that Mr. Bush is a man of exceptional uprightness. When has he even accepted responsibility for something that went wrong? On the other hand, there is plenty of evidence that he is willing to cut corners when it's to his personal advantage. His business career was full of questionable deals, and whatever the full truth about his National Guard service, it was certainly not glorious."

One of the more curious aspects of the idolatry that Bush seems to inspire from some quarters is this view that he is a man of honesty and integrity. I've come to verbal blows with people who were absolutely convinced that the President was a principled man of courage, a leader with a "vision", rather than just a politician with an ideologically relativistic view of the truth. That is why it is important to hold him (and any other politician, for that matter) to a higher standard when it comes to the words that come out of their mouths. It is as bad to recklessly misstate the facts as it is to intentionally do so.

On the National Guard issue, it is becoming clearer that the "modified limited hangout" position of releasing partial documents isn't going to work, and that the President will have to bite the bullet pretty soon and release everything; stuff like today's record of a visit to the dentist in Alabama is becoming like Chinese water torture for the Republicans, keeping the story alive longer than it needs to be. Bush seemed to catch a break later in the day when an Alabama guardsman told the Washington Post that he recalls seeing the future President eight to ten times between May and October, 1972, for about eight hours each time, performing clerical work and reading flight magazines. That statement conflicts with the payroll records the White House released earlier in the week, indicating that Bush was missing up until the last weekend of October, as well as the fact that Bush's transfer to Alabama duty wasn't approved until September of that year. Releasing the entire file will clear up such discrepancies, and the alternative is so much worse from a political standpoint, regardless of whatever drug tests he might have failed (or whatever it is he's hiding) that I think the end of this story will come sooner rather than later.

In perhaps the clearest sign that his presidency is in trouble, Bush is calling on Congress to pass a constitutional amendment that would allow states to ban gay marriages. Such an amendment would be only the second provision in the constitution to expressly limit individual rights, putting gay marriages on a moral par with slavery. Incumbents who have to make such desperate appeals to the ideological fringe of their own party in an election year are usually considered to be in deep, deep s***. The only advantages I see for Bush is that it ensures the electoral votes of Mississippi, Texas and Utah, and it gives the press something else to talk about for a day other than why he won't release his complete National Guard file.

J-GARN ALERT: It may already be too late, what with Kerry sweeping the primaries in the two border states tonight, but it appears that the all-important Sydney Bristow endorsement is going to...(drumroll)...John Edwards. UPDATE: A cagey maneuver, though; Julia Thorne is backing John Kerry.

Looks like Saddam is keeping busy....

The AWOL story is starting to remind me of the bête noire of the Clinton Administration, "Whitewater". Both seem to involve matters of rather trivial embarassment to the President. Neither scandal played a large role during the first campaign, although major media outlets (NY Times for "Whitewater", Boston Globe for AWOL) broke stories on each. Both issues emerged, with a vengeance, in the third year of the first term. In both cases, the initial White House response was to stonewall, and to accuse the other side of playing politics. Once the media increased their attention on the subjects, the next move was to release limited parts of the record, as the White House has done today with the release of payroll records. While that move would have probably put this baby to bed six weeks ago, any sort of limited release now only generates further suspicion, as the press grilling of Scott McLellan this morning attests.

I have been skeptical (see May 9) of the allegations that the President was "AWOL" thirty-two years ago, and nothing that has come out in the last few days has swayed my opinion. However, it is also becoming increasingly clear that there was something that the President did while in the Air National Guard that he wasn't particularly proud of, and his unwillingness to release his complete military record, as his father did before him, indicates that. He may not have violated the law, but he probably did something that he would prefer remain hidden, and his superiors, for whatever reason, chose not to press the issue. As Beltway pundit Richard Cohen himself noted, at the time Bush served, it was not unusual for a weekend warrior to blow off his service and get paid for drills he never attended, without being at risk of serving in Vietnam or receiving a dishonorable discharge; in fact, it was what happened to Cohen.

Let us remember that Bill and Hillary Clinton didn't break the law with their investment in the Whitewater development, and most of the reporting on the subject was pretty atrocious. In the end, it was just a bad investment they made with a friend who turned out to be a petty crook, and they simply didn't want their dirty laundry aired. And yet each move, each limited release of information, only intensified the public's curiosity about what's not being revealed. Now it's Bush's turn to go through the ringer, and see each piece of exonerating evidence only lead to more questions. I can only imagine what a tough life people who get into politics must have, where any evidence of moral imperfection is fodder for the public trough.

Omigod !! John Kerry was once in the same vicinity as Jane Fonda !!!

Bill O'Reilly is doing something I wish the President was man enough to do: apologize for getting it wrong about WMD's in Iraq.

The Bush-AWOL story has developed legs recently, and the President was thrown a number of softballs from Tim Russert this morning on that very topic. My position has been that there was nothing there; Bush was honorably discharged, and whether it happened because he actually completed his requirements or because someone in the chain of command decided to turn a blind eye to the antics of a VIP's son, was in the end just a biographical anecdote, not important in determining who should lead our country thirty years after the fact.

Kevin Drum, however, has been looking closely at a document that Bush supporters have claimed showed he put in the points to complete his service, and has come to an even more interesting conclusion: the President was transfered out of the Texas Air National Guard for failing to complete his physical, and into something called the "Air Reserve Force", which was supposedly a paper unit where soldiers who were being disciplined were sent as a possible prelude to being sent overseas. Since American troops were being withdrawn from Southeast Asia at the time, and considering that his father was a powerful figure in Washington, Bush was allowed to "serve" out his time in the Reserves. In other words, it would remove the AWOL allegation only to replace it with a charge that he shirked his duties.

If true, this is a devastating charge. Since the discovery of the aforementioned document, the supporters of the President have devised a history of his participation in the TANG over his last two years of service that now becomes completely inoperative. In other words, Bush Lied Again.

Moreover, Mr. Drum is not the first person to have deduced this; a casual search of Google brought me to this site, where the same conclusion was reached three years ago, and the document in question has been available for perusal by members of the news media since 2000. Another liberal blogger, Jesse Taylor, believes that there may be a more benign interpretation of these documents, relating instead to his request to attend Harvard Business School in 1973. In any event, now that the President has agreed to release his entire military file for inspection, we should be closer to getting definitive answers.

UPDATE: Calpundit continues to kick everyone's ass on this story. Here, he points out that the first set of drills Bush got credit for were in the last weekend of October, 1972, ten days before the election on which he was supposedly working. There were no drills scheduled in Alabama that weekend, so it means that if he did anything, it must have been in Texas. Although Mr. Drum doubts that Bush would have taken a weekend off on the eve of an election for which he was the political advisor to do Guardsman drills, it is possible: the Senate candidate Bush was working for, Winton Blount, was getting trounced by the Democratic incumbent, John Sparkman (who ended up winning by 30 points), and then-President Nixon, who was the principal political benefactor of Bush's dad, had already taken steps to mend fences (see page 10) with Sparkman. Our Wartime President may have simply decided to abandon ship.

Well, on this issue, Roger Simon is dead to rights. Lost in Translation, which I finally saw this afternoon, is one great picture. I would second his assertion that Sofia Coppola "could give nepotism a good name", were it not for the fact that her directing is so subtle and low-key that it's hard to believe she's the daughter of Francis Ford. The opening scene, with Bill Murray being driven through Tokyo at night, had all the awe and marvel that her father sought (and failed to achieve) in One From the Heart, but at much less expense. It was a pleasure seeing a movie devoid of film school tricks and self-referential bullshit, one which allowed the actors great leeway to develop their characters. Pay the twenty bucks and see it in a movie theatre, then buy the DVD !!

Less than three weeks 'til the Minotour starts...though it would be nice if they actually gave you the time the festivities begin each night. Hope to be there all three shows, contingent only on whether Layne, Welch, et al. comp my hotel expenses in San Diego and O.C.

"Meet the Press", by Samuel Beckett:

Russert: And we are in the Oval Office this morning with the President of the United States. Mr. President, welcome back to Meet The Press.

President Bush: Thank you, sir.

Russert: On Friday, you announced a committee, commission to look into intelligence failures regarding the Iraq war and our entire intelligence community. You have been reluctant to do that for some time. (despairing) Why?

President Bush: Well, first let me kind of step back and talk about intelligence in general, if I might. Intelligence is a vital part of fighting and winning the war against the terrorists. It is because the war against terrorists is a war against individuals who hide in caves in remote parts of the world, individuals who have these kind of shadowy networks, individuals who deal with rogue nations. So, we need a good intelligence system. (whimsically) We need really good intelligence.

So, the commission I set up is to obviously analyze what went right or what went wrong with the Iraqi intelligence. It was kind of lessons learned. But it's really set up to make sure the intelligence services provide as good a product as possible for future presidents as well. This is just a part of analyzing where we are on the war against terror.

(pause) There is a lot of investigations going on about the intelligence service, particularly in the Congress, and that's good as well. The Congress has got the capacity to look at the intelligence gathering without giving away state secrets, and I look forward to all the investigations and looks. (despairing) Again, I repeat to you, the capacity to have good intelligence means that a president can make good calls about fighting this war on terror.

Russert: Prime Minister Blair has set up a similar commission in Great Britain.

President Bush: (pause) Yeah.

Russert: His is going to report back in July. Ours is not going to be until March of 2005, five months after the presidential election.

President Bush: (pause) Yeah.

[snip]

Russert: There is another commission right now looking into September 11th.

President Bush: (pause) Yeah.

Russert: Will you testify before that commission?

President Bush: We have given extraordinary cooperation with Chairmen Kean and Hamilton. As you know, we made an agreement on what's called "Presidential Daily Briefs," and they could see the information the CIA provided me that is unique, by the way, to have provided what's called the PDB, because...

Russert: Presidential Daily Brief?

President Bush: (pause) Right.

[snip]

Russert: Let me turn to Iraq. And this is the whole idea of what you based your decision to go to war on.

President Bush: (pause) Sure, sure.

Russert: The night you took the country to war, March 17th, you said this: "Intelligence gathered by this and other governments leaves no doubt that the Iraq regime continues to possess and conceal some of the most lethal weapons ever devised."

President Bush: (pause) Right.

Russert: That apparently is not the case.

President Bush: (pause) Correct.

[snip]

Russert: When allegations were made about John McCain or Wesley Clark on their military records, they opened up their entire files. Would you agree to do that?

President Bush: Yeah. (pause) Listen, these files, I mean, people have been looking for these files for a long period of time, trust me, and starting in the 1994 campaign for governor. And I can assure you in the year 2000, people were looking for those files as well. Probably you were. (pause) And, absolutely. I mean, I...

Russert: (despairing) But would you allow pay stubs, tax records, anything to show that you were serving during that period?

President Bush: Yeah. If we still have them, but I, you know, the records are kept in Colorado, as I understand, and they scoured the records. (exit)

Well, it's just a first draft....

It's back !! The bankruptcy "reform" act was recently attached to legislation concerning debt relief for farmers, and is, unbelievably, even worse than the legislation killed in committee last year. Among the new provisions: a "reform" that would permit investment bankers to be employed in bankruptcies involving companies for which they worked. Neat trick, that; you sell securities on behalf of a company that tanks, then you get to decide whether holders of those securities get paid by the bankruptcy court. Ch-ching !!!

What Judith Miller did was ten times worse than anything Andrew Gilligan has been accused of. At least Gilligan's story was accurate; his problem was that his source didn't say what he said he did. Miller, either knowingly or recklessly, quoted sources of questionable veracity, and put out false and misleading information about Iraq's WMD capability to the public. To date, she has not offered to resign [link via Atrios].

"The big fight right now between John Kerry and George W. Bush is over their military service. And Bush is on the attack - he's accusing John Kerry of ducking time in the Texas Air National Guard once a month by hiding in the jungles of Vietnam.''
--Jay Leno

Bush's Nuts 'n Sluts Defense: It is absolutely shocking that this judge will be the co-chair of the President's Committee investigating pre-war intelligence. Someone who theorized that Anita Hill was a "lesbian acting out" fantasies over her former boss when she testified at the Clarence Thomas hearings will no doubt be a vigorous and neutral arbiter when it comes to Dick Cheney. Any power exerted by Laurence Silberman in this context will almost certainly be used to whitewash the Oval Office.

You have to admit this is a novel attack on John Kerry: claiming that he was a "war profiteer" because he risked his life in Vietnam even though he questioned the war at the time, and (even worse) attended an Ivy League school where many of his compatriots opposed the war. A traitor to his class, indeed.

Thank God that after 9-11, our nation was blessed with conscientious men of principle like Perle, Wolfowitz, DeLay, Lott, Bush, and Cheney, who had refused to similarly profit from the Vietnam War, instead courageously manning the trenchs, tunnels and swamps of college. Because of the sacrifice those fratboys made, their less-privileged brethren were given the opportunity to reap the fruits of battle, and if they were (in the infamous words of the Wall Street Journal op-ed page) "lucky duckies", to "profit" by having their names posthumously etched on a black wall in D.C.

In the end, though, it's an issue of character, and Karl Rove will surely have the last laugh. John Kerry selfishly put the interests of his country ahead of his own skepticism about the cause back in 1966, and now he wants to be President? If there's one thing we know in the blogosphere, it is that true courage and patriotism is to be found not on the battlefield, fighting for your country and risking your life to save your countrymen, but must instead be sought behind a computer terminal, playing junior orwell in the war against the islamofascists and their idiotarian, fifth-columnist allies.

So far, the most accurate polls in the primary season are coming from much-derided Zogby, according to Daily Kos.

Finally, the President comes clean on why we went to war with Saddam....

The Washington Post tackles the Bush-AWOL flap. This is a pretty significant article, not for what it reports (it's pretty much just an exegesis of past articles from other newspapers on the subject), but for the fact that it was even printed. As one blogger noted, the Post is pretty much our national version of Pravda, a newspaper that publishes the party line of the Ins (especially on its editorial page) pretty much verbatim. Writing that there is no documentary evidence that Bush completed his service shows that the President is starting to lose his Beltway support, and could be in for much tougher media coverage than he received back in 2000.

For what it's worth, I don't remember Mondale ever leading Reagan in the polls taken in 1984, or, for that matter, Dole leading Clinton in 1996. So for Kerry to lead at this stage isn't entirely meaningless [link via CalPundit].

Matt Welch reports on how you can be a daddy, and owe child support, without ever having met the mom. It's all because of a scam of convenience, in which the state has a vested interest (thanks, in no small part, to the 1995 Welfare Reform Act) in enforcing thoroughly bogus default judgments against men who have the same name as a deadbeat dad. Whoever said that the law had anything to do with justice?

Those of you who have Jeff Jarvis on your blogroll may be interested in this little gem, where he ridicules the clinical depression of another blogger. As someone who has battled that disease, my anger at such wanton cruelty towards another should be obvious. I mean, can you imagine the flack I would get if I were to express my disagreement with the political views of Andrew Sullivan by making an AIDS joke? Is this what the blogosphere is coming to?

As a follow-up to Friday's post about our "Type-A" President, George Bush is now calling for the establishment of a commission to look into the "intelligence failings" that led to the fiasco in Iraq. Frankly, this should have been done months ago, after the CIA concluded that there were no WMD's in Iraq, but better late than never. By implicitly conceding that he made a mistake, he is in better position to take the issue off the table when he goes before the voters, and certainly is a more honorable course of action than having your shills debate whether or not you ever said Saddam was an "imminent" threat.

He is still trying to have his cake and eat it too, by limiting the focus of the commission, as well as mandating that it not issue a report until after the November election. But "investigations" like the one conducted by Lord Hutton are a rarity here; there is an expectation in Great Britain that an official inquiry will be used to defend the government, as the Hutton Commission did, while in America, the expectation is usually that any comparable inquiry, such as the Tower Commission, will try to uncover official malfeasance. And as Matthew Yglesias writes, any investigation into intelligence breakdowns will necessarily have to deal with the pressure the Administration brought to bear on the CIA before the war to exaggerate WMD claims. Bush's earlier attempt to stack the inquiry looking into 9-11 by nominating Henry Kissinger to head it failed disastrously, and any similar move here will discredit the commission before it starts.

Prof. Johnson has a modest proposal on how to solve one state's budget shortfall.