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It's Karl Rove's world. We just live in it.


Saturday, January 24, 2004  

In 2002, the Bush administration and the GOP Congress gave certain laid-off workers what they claimed was a nifty way to obtain health insurance -- tax credits! Tax credits that would pay part of the cost of health insurance for people who have no jobs whatsoever (and thus, presumably, little or no income).

Senator Olympia Snowe (R-Maine) simply can't figure out why laid-off workers aren't taking advantage of this program. The New York Times quotes her:

"We have to find out immediately what's limiting the success of this program. We are talking about health insurance for people who have lost their jobs. The delays are troubling and unacceptable."

Roy J. Ramthun, a senior adviser on health initiatives at the Treasury Department, is equally baffled:

"We are surprised that more people have not signed up for the advance payment option. We've tried to do everything we can to make the process of qualifying for the credit as simple as possible."

E, you don't suppose these laid-off workers aren't giving the miss because, y'know, they can't afford the co-payment, do you?

Mrs. Craven said she and her 61-year-old husband had lost their jobs in a Pillowtex mill where they worked for three decades. She has asthma. He is diabetic and has had a heart attack. Mrs. Craven said the premiums for the insurance offered to them ranged from $1,700 to $5,400 a month. Their share of the premiums would be $595 to $1,890 a month.

The couple, drawing $416 a month in unemployment benefits, was in no position to pay such costs, Mrs. Craven said....


Nah! That can't be the explanation! It's obviously a complete mystery!



posted by Steve | 11:57 PM
 

Terrific news from Newsweek:

Overall, 52 percent of those polled by NEWSWEEK say they would not like to see Bush serve a second term, compared to 44 percent who want to see him win again in November. As a result, Kerry is enjoying a marginal advantage over Bush, a first for the poll. Forty-nine percent of registered voters chose Kerry, compared to 46 percent who re-elected Bush. In fact, all Democrats are polling better against Bush, perhaps due to increased media attention to their primary horserace: Clark gets 47 percent of voters’ choice compared to 48 percent from Bush; Edwards has 46 percent compared to Bush’s 49; Leiberman wins 45 percent versus Bush’s 49 percent; and Dean fares the worst with 45 percent of their votes to Bush’s 50 percent.

posted by Steve | 11:47 PM
 

Good Lord -- did a New York Times reporter actually refer to Joe Lieberman's smile as voluptuous?

Yup -- in the eleventh paragraph of this story.

The mind reels.

posted by Steve | 12:17 PM


Friday, January 23, 2004  

David Kay stepped down as leader of the U.S. hunt for banned weapons in Iraq on Friday and said he did not believe the country had any large stockpiles of chemical or biological weapons....

"I don't think they existed," Kay said. "What everyone was talking about is stockpiles produced after the end of the last (1991) Gulf War, and I don't think there was a large-scale production program in the '90s," he said....


--Reuters

If he keeps saying this, I think Mr. Kay is about to get a little visit from the Politics of Personal Destruction Fairy....

posted by Steve | 7:11 PM
 

Not even trying to conceal it, are they?

Two senators have written Chief Justice William Rehnquist to raise concerns about Justice Antonin Scalia's impartiality in a case that involves the White House's energy task force.

Scalia went on a hunting trip to Louisiana with Dick Cheney, a longtime friend, shortly after the court agreed to review a lower court's decision that required White House to identify members of the vice president's task force.

Scalia has said there is no reason to question his ability to judge the case fairly.

But in their letter, Democratic Sens. Joe Lieberman of Connecticut, a presidential candidate, and Patrick Leahy of Vermont questioned whether the court can disqualify a justice who declines to withdraw from a case. The lawmakers asked if the court has issued any guidelines about accepting gifts or travel....

Scalia also had dinner with Cheney in November, two months after the administration asked the justices to overrule the lower court....


--AP

And, annoying as we may find him, let's give Lieberman a little credit for this. You know, he wouldn't be such a bad guy if he'd just stop telling us how superior a human being he is to all other Democrats.

posted by Steve | 6:28 PM
 

This is weird:

MOSES LAKE, Wash. -- In the days after the U.S. Department of Agriculture announced that mad cow disease had been discovered in a Holstein in Washington, officials insisted that the cow was a "downer" -- unable to walk.

The government's most significant subsequent step to prevent spread of the disease -- a Dec. 30 ban on processing "downer" cows for food -- stemmed from that finding.

Now, three people have come forward to assert that the cow was not a downer. While their stories vary on what happened Dec. 9 at Vern's Moses Lake Meats, their accounts agree on a key point: The cow was able to walk on its own.

The distinction on whether the cow could stand is significant. The department's search for mad cow disease has focussed on downed cattle or those with obvious signs of neurological damage....

... three people who were at Vern's Moses Lake Meats on the day the cow was killed told The Oregonian the cow was a "walker." Those men include the plant manager, a former employee and a man who was present when the cow was delivered to the site. The third man asked not to be identified....


--The Oregonian

We've really shrugged this incident off -- OK, we'll test a few more downer cows and everything will be hunky-dory again (not that it wasn't hunky-dory already!). But if this wasn't a downer, that's a reminder that we don't really know what warning signs to watch for, isn't it?

posted by Steve | 5:12 PM
 

Rod Dreher is the Dallas Morning News columnist who's collaborating with Peggy Noonan on the Case of the Mysterious Papal Quote. Dreher's a Catholic -- but he thinks the Vatican might be trying to screw with him by denying that the Pope praised his favorite movie, and it's really pissing him off. Here's the lead of his latest column:

Whom do you trust, Hollywood or the Vatican? That used to be an easy call. Not anymore. This week, we see that either top officials of Mel Gibson's production company are manipulative deceivers or the top aide to Pope John Paul II and the papal spokesman is.

"Manipulative deceivers"! But wait -- Dreher's not finished. Here he is talking to ABC News:

Dreher is not convinced and says he thinks the Vatican is trying to reverse itself, adding, "I think it's a disgrace. I think the Vatican has to remember the commandment 'Do not bear false witness.'"

Lecturing his church on morality? Sure. If the church is getting in the way of the right-wing culture war, then the church is The Enemy.

posted by Steve | 3:28 PM
 

Lucianne Goldberg, vileness personified, on the ABC interview of Howard and Judy Dean:

Judy, the un-Hillary sweet., with just a tiny touch of Hedda Nussbaum

In case you don't recognize the allusion:

Ten years ago, Hedda Nussbaum became a household name. Her face, shattered and scarred after years of physical abuse by her live-in partner, Joel Steinberg, was splashed across newspaper and magazine covers when Steinberg beat the couple's 6 year old adopted daughter Lisa to death.

(That's from SafeNet, which also reproduces a picture of the abused Nussbaum shortly after Steinberg's arrest -- an image that's burned into a lot of memories around here.)

Goldberg worked this riff yesterday as well. And Peggy Noonan and National Review Online's Kathryn Jean Lopez have had a good chuckle over this little quip, in reference to Dean's Iowa speech: There's an old joke that Goerge Bush 41 reminds women of their first husband. Howard Dean last night reminds women of their first husband against whom they had to take out a restraining order.

Yeah, I know -- your opponent's drowning, you toss in an anvil. But there are anvils and anvils. Absence evidence, a charge like this, or even jokes like this, should be beyond the pale. This is essentially calling the man a domestic Hitler.

posted by Steve | 12:06 PM
 

Lead story in today's Wall Street Journal:

Wage inequality -- the gap between America's highest and lowest earners -- has started widening again....

New data from the Labor Department show that after adjustment for inflation, salaries of the country's lowest-paid workers -- those who fall just inside the bottom 10% of the pay range -- fell 0.3% last year from 2002. Meanwhile, the salaries of the highest paid workers -- those who are just inside the top 10% -- were unchanged. The divergence appeared to grow in the fourth quarter as higher-paid workers gained ground and lower-paid workers slipped further....


(Emphasis mine.)

Gee, the fourth quarter of '03 -- that's the quarter the Bushies are always boasting about, isn't it?

The numbers continue a movement to greater wage inequality that began around the time President Bush succeeded President Clinton....

posted by Steve | 11:14 AM
 

As we belabor the subject of "temperament" and a certain candidate's marriage, let's not forget that four years from now many of the people who are criticizing or questioning Howard Dean (and Judy Dean) will be calling for a Giuliani presidency.

You remember Rudy Giuliani -- a guy who was really angry much of the time (no, not in the aftermath of 9/11, but virtually every day prior to that in his eight years as mayor). Giuliani as mayor was snappish, punitive, and vindictive. Giuliani also once went ballistic before a crowd in the midst of a campaign, in 1992 -- but he didn't merely rally the faithful with an overabundance of enthusiasm. What he did was unleash a profanity-laden denunciation of then-mayor David Dinkins before a crowd of cops objecting to a proposed mayoral commission on police corruption. The cops subsequently rioted. (See Wayne Barrett's Rudy!, pp. 259ff.)

Oh, and Giuliani's wife also famously absented herself from many events she was expected to attend with him -- she too said it was because she had a career separate from her husband's. Her absence was the subject of occasional snickers on the inside pages of the papers, but that was that ... until it became clear that, unlike the Deans, the Giulianis hated each other's guts and were headed for the sort of ugly divorce you'd try to avoid if you were a grown-up.

But none of this will matter in '08. Rudy doesn't stand a chance to get the GOP nomination -- he's pro-choice and pro-gay rights, although I suppose his positions on these issues could "evolve" -- but he's loved in the media. And among the people who'll gush over Rudy most audibly will be Diane Sawyer and David Letterman, who took Dean to the woodshed last night on national TV.

posted by Steve | 9:26 AM


Thursday, January 22, 2004  

Yikes!

Report: Rumsfeld considers striking Hizbullah to provoke Syria

US Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld is considering provoking a military confrontation with Syria by attacking Hizbullah bases near the Syrian border in Lebanon, according to the authoritative London-based Jane's Intelligence Digest.

In an article to be published on Friday, the journal said multi-faceted US attacks, which would be conducted within the framework of the global war on terrorism, are likely to focus on Hizbullah bases in the Bekaa Valley of eastern Lebanon.

It noted that the deployment of US special forces in the Bekaa Valley, where most of Syria's occupation forces in Lebanon are based, would be highly inflammatory and would "almost certainly involve a confrontation with Syrian troops."

Such a conflict might well prove to be the objective of the US, said the journal...

The journal noted that the US administration has long considered Damascus "a prime candidate for regime-change," along with Afghanistan, Iraq, Iran and, possibly, Saudi Arabia.

"Syria, once a powerhouse of Arab radicalism that could not be ignored, has been seriously weakened, both militarily and politically. Washington may feel that the time is coming to oust Assad and the ruling generals....


--Jerusalem Post

UPDATE: Here's part of the Jane's story. (The rest is for subscribers only.)

Yeah, I think this is coming. The lead story in today's edition of Conrad Black's New York Sun was "Syrians Airlifted Arms to Hezbollah." It's not available to nonsubscribers, but here's how it starts:

A Syrian earthquake-relief flight to Iran returned to Damascus from Tehran earlier this month loaded with a lethal cargo of weapons bound for the Hezbollah terrorist organization, American intelligence shows.

Administration officials told The New York Sun that American intelligence agencies have collected overhead photographs of a Syrian aircraft that delivered relief aid in December to the victims of the Bam earthquake.

The plane was loaded with small arms in Tehran before its return flight to Damascus. This was also confirmed by American signal intercepts suggesting that the weapons were destined for Hezbollah camps in southern Lebanon....


And there's this, from Reuters:

U.S. Senate Intelligence Committee chairman Pat Roberts says there is some concern Iraqi weapons of mass destruction have gone to Syria, as Washington vowed to carry on searching for such arms in Iraq.

Roberts, a leading member of President George W. Bush's Republican Party, said in Washington on Wednesday: "I think that there is some concern that shipments of WMD (weapons of mass destruction) went to Syria." He did not elaborate....


Weapons shipments or no weapons shipments, I think an attack of the kind that's apparently being contemplated would make a lot of center-dwellers start asking whether we lefties have been right along when we've said that Bush is a war-happy lunatic.

posted by Steve | 6:40 PM
 

A couple of weeks ago, a Sean Hannity fan sent Sean a funny:

Many thanks to the loyal 3-hours a day listener that sent in this unique photo of a soldier meeting New York Senator, Hillary Clinton while she was on her "troop tour." Pay attention to the "hand shaking." Enjoy!

Here's the picture.

Now imagine this photo with Laura Bush or Barbara Bush substituted for Hillary -- and with the little message at the top of the photo the same. Think our soldier would already have been dishonorably discharged, under pressure from right-wing Web vultures, GOP congressmen, and talk radio?

posted by Steve | 4:04 PM
 

The Economic Policy Institute confirms what we already know:

Jobs shift from higher-paying to lower-paying industries

In 48 of the 50 states, jobs in higher-paying industries have given way to jobs in lower-paying industries since the recession ended in November 2001. Nationwide, industries that are gaining jobs relative to industries that are losing jobs pay 21% less annually. For the 30 states that have lost jobs since the recession purportedly ended, this is the other shoe dropping -- not only have jobs been lost, but in 29 of them the losses have been concentrated in higher paying sectors. And for 19 of the 20 states that have seen some small gain in jobs since the end of the recession, the jobs gained have been disproportionately in lower-paying sectors....


A story in the L.A. Times summarizes the findings for California:

Statewide, since the national recession officially ended in November 2001, the jobs that have been created are in industries that pay an average of 40% less than do those in which jobs have disappeared, the Economic Policy Institute said....

...California lost 127,000 manufacturing jobs and 55,000 jobs in the information sector from November 2001 to November 2003. Meanwhile, the leisure and hospitality sector gained 48,000 jobs, retail trade grew by 32,000 and health and education, which includes day-care teachers and low-wage hospital crews, grew by 65,000.


It's pretty much like that for every state in the union.

Here's the EPI's data chart (warning: it's a PDF) and here's the California story in graph form from the Times.

posted by Steve | 12:39 PM
 

Weird:

U.S. Official: No Truth to Rumor Bin Laden Captured --Reuters

OSAMA CAPTURE DENIED --Sky News

"There is no way this could be true. Drudge never mentioned it." --comment at Free Republic

Are we actually getting somewhere in this quest, or are the Bushies floating disinformation because, post-Iowa, they now think they're going to have a competitive election?

posted by Steve | 11:41 AM
 

Skimble has turned a Washington Post profile of the vice president into a poem that I find quietly chilling: It's called "The Silence of Cheney."

An excerpt:

He likes to ask questions,

pointed and at times rapid-fire.

This is a variation on silence

in that he does not explicitly express his views

or divulge information.

He just acquires.

posted by Steve | 10:51 AM
 

A lot of people (myself included) have called Peggy Noonan a liar for declaring in December that the Pope had said of Mel Gibson's The Passion of the Christ, "It is as it was" -- which the Vatican denies.

But Noonan insists she's not a liar. She's not a liar because the movie's producer told her that Monsignor Stanislaw Dziwisz told him that the Pope told him, "It is as it was."

In a follow-up column today, Noonan acknowledges that, er, yeah, when she e-mailed the Pope's spokesman, Joaquin Navarro-Valls, hoping for confirmation of the quote, she didn't get it:

So I e-mailed Dr Navarro Valls at the Vatican telling him I wanted to write a piece for OpinionJournal and asking him about the quote. I didn't hear back and sent another: "Dr. Navarro Valles [sic], my deadline is in two hours and I do hope you'll let me know if there is anything on the Pope's reaction beyond 'It is as it was'--wonderful words, and I know you have already been in touch with Steve about them, but I would greatly appreciate it if there's anything you could add regarding general Vatican feeling on the film, any further comment from the Holy Father, etc. Best, Peggy Noonan"

I got a response. "Dear Peggy, I don't have for now any other comment on this. I [sic] anything is said in the future I will send it to you. Greetings, J. Navarro-Valls."


So, no confirmation. But the guy who produced the movie -- and who presumably stands to make or lose a lot of money, depending on how it does at the box office -- said the quote was legit. And that was enough for Ol' Peggy.

After Noonan's "It is..." column appeared, the producer sent her an e-mail that included a Navarro-Valls message confirming the quote. But Navarro-Valls has now e-mailed Noonan and said that that quote confirmation was fabricated. (Gosh -- a Hollywood guy faking a rave review? That would never happen, would it?)

Of course, Noonan ran with the quote before getting any confirmation of it whatsoever, real or fake, and after failing to get a confirmation from the Vatican. But hey -- pass up a major propaganda coup? A good right-wing apparatchik would never do that.

(UPDATE: Yeah, World O'Crap got to this story first, and is a lot funnier.)

(UPDATE: And TBOGG is funny and nasty.)

posted by Steve | 9:45 AM


Wednesday, January 21, 2004  

Let's do the math:

Bush proposes $250,000,000 for job training.

We have 8,774,000 unemployed people.

That's $28.49 for each unemployed person in America.

That wouldn't buy much job training, would it?

posted by Steve | 11:15 PM
 

I should also have mentioned a couple of other highlights of the new New York Times bestseller list: Not only is Ron Suskind's book at #1 on the nonfiction list, as I noted below, but at #3, #4, and #5 (after Pete Rose at #2) are American Dynasty, the Kevin Phillips book on the Bushes; Dude, Where's My Country? by Michael Moore; and Lies ... by Al Franken. Oh, and John le Carre's Absolute Friends, which includes passages critical of the Iraq war, is at #3 in its first week on the fiction list.

posted by Steve | 10:48 PM
 

On the new bestseller list that was e-mailed today by The New York Times, the #1 nonfiction hardcover is Ron Suskind's The Price of Loyalty.

That's good, but unfortunately this book is already "so five minutes ago" as far as the press is concerned. We proles are just going to have to be gauche and keep talking about it.

posted by Steve | 5:42 PM
 

Reuters reports that a Belgian cardinal has called the vast majority of gay men and lesbians "sexual perverts"; at National Review Online's blog, Mike Potemra declares that this is actually a compassionate statement. Don't ask me to explain Potemra's logic -- just read the links yourself. Where does the right find these people?

(OK, maybe this will help: Potemra notes that the cardinal thinks only about 5-10% of gay people are really gay -- the rest are just, in Potemra's paraphrase, "libertine dabblers." Can we safely assume that this cardinal doesn't get out much? And didn't I see the Libertine Dabblers opening for Wall of Voodoo at Irving Plaza back in the '80s?)

posted by Steve | 2:16 PM
 

When last weekend's New York Times/CBS poll showed Bush's approval rating slipping to 50%, Andrew Sullivan declared that the books were cooked: He quoted "a seasoned Republican analyst" who said in an e-mail,

...in the CBS/NYT poll on Sunday, the party ID was 34 percent GOP and 47 percent Democratic. Is it any wonder the numbers were what they were? This is more evidence, in my judgment, why you shouldn't trust the NYT polls.

It's not clear where the "seasoned Republican analyst" got these numbers -- they didn't appear anywhere in the stories on the poll published by The Times and CBS -- but if "a seasoned Republican analyst" said it was so, that was good enough for Andy. He called for an investigation by the Times ombudsman.

Then Sullivan heard from Rich Meislin, the Times's editor for news surveys and election analysis. To his credit, Sully reprinted what Meislin had to say:

I'm not sure where your seasoned Republican analyst is getting his numbers, but they seem to be incorrect....

The latest NYT/CBS News poll, taken Jan. 12-15, has this party ID breakdown:

Republicans 28

Democrats 32

Independents 31


So Sully libeled the Times based on a GOP operative's lie.

Incidentally, Gallup has an instant poll today on the State of the Union address. Here's the headline:

Speech Watchers React Positively to Bush's Message

Want to know what the breakdown of poll respondents was?

The sample consists of 46% of respondents who identify themselves as Republicans, 26% who identify themselves as Democrats, and 28% who identify themselves as independents.

Nearly twice as many Republicans as Democrats. No comment on this from Sullivan.

posted by Steve | 11:40 AM
 

I thought it was the most belligerent State of the Union that I have ever seen. It was the return of President Bring 'Em On featuring one narrowed eye, the smirk, and an occasional glare towards the Democrats, particularly when they applauded at this:

Key provisions of the Patriot Act are set to expire next year. (Applause.)

...throwing the boy off his rhythm. It was scattershot and bizarre (steroids? WTF?)...


That's TBOGG on the speech. I agree, I agree.

More here.

posted by Steve | 10:45 AM
 

OK -- it was an easy speech to criticize. But the Iraq section of the speech was premised on the notion that Democrats have no reply when Bush says, Hey, I got rid of Saddam, and what was your plan? Not getting rid of Saddam? -- and that's still a compelling message for a lot of voters.

We talk about Bush's "ever-shifting" justifications for the Iraq war, but for him (and for roughly half of America, alas), that ever-expanding list of reasons for war is a strength: Hey, the Iraqi people now have FREEDOM!, and Saddam had weapons programs, and ... and ... and hey, Qaddafi just disarmed! That's another good thing!

Everyone in America knows the reason-turned-multiple-reasons for the Iraq war. The counterargument just isn't as familiar to American voters. Oh, sure -- people say, "Well, what about doing something for this country?" But an awful lot of Americans still think we did a Good Thing in Iraq. We gave them Freedom.

Did we? Despite the best efforts of the troops on the ground, it looks as if we gave them chaos and anarchy, thanks to the Bush administration's "Duh, what do we do now?" approach to the "postwar" period.

Bush says, without fear of contradiction, "The world is a safer place." But Iraq is dangerously unstable. How does that make the world a safer place? And we have ten times as many troops in Iraq as we have hunting al-Qaeda in Afghanistan. We captured Saddam, yet air travel got more dangerous -- and even in Iraq violence and unrest didn't abate.

And where was the threat to the U.S. in Iraq? Where were the weapons? We had Saddam in a box. Republicans talk as if we did nothing unpleasant to Saddam between the end of the '91 war and March of 2003 -- as if the sanctions and the bombing runs in the no-fly zones were a slap on the wrist. These measures were rarely mentioned by the media, so Republicans can argue that Clinton wrung his hands while Bush did something. The fact is that we had an unpleasant but measured and effective response to Saddam, then, using 9/11 as a pretext, Bush launched a war that killed five hundred Americans (and counting) to contain a threat that was already contained -- and that had nothing to do with 9/11.

I'm belaboring the obvious -- but it's not obvious to a hell of a lot of voters. This counterargument just isn't familiar out in the heartland. If that continues to be the case, the winner in November, appalling as we may find it, will be Bush, the war hero.

posted by Steve | 9:36 AM


Tuesday, January 20, 2004  

Practically the first thing out of George Stephanopoulos's mouth on ABC was his assertion that the State of the Union address framed the upcoming election as a choice "between optimism and pessimism."

Hunh? I defy you to find anything in the speech itself that makes that assertion. It's just not there. It's not in the speech -- it's in the spin. I heard the same "optimism" line on NPR this morning, and no doubt you've heard or read it too, somewhere or other.

Does our press even know the difference anymore between objective reality and spin?

(UPDATE: Now Peter Jennings -- who's sometimes kind of snarky about this administration -- is asking John Kerry about Bush's "optimistic" speech. Kerry, defensively: "Well, I'm optimistic." Enough already!)

posted by Steve | 10:23 PM
 

Well, they removed the Ten Commandments monument. No, not that one -- another one:

A Ten Commandments monument has been removed from the grounds of city hall in Winston-Salem, North Carolina....

A city council member had the granite marker placed in front of city hall yesterday, when it was closed for the Martin Luther King Junior holiday. Vernon Robinson says he was inspired by Alabama's former chief justice, who had installed a Ten Commandments monument at the state courthouse -- and lost his job over it.

A Winston-Salem city spokeswoman says officials feared the four-foot-tall monument would topple over....


--AP

The right-wing World Net Daily had this when the monument went up:

...Vernon Robinson, a candidate for a vacant U.S. House seat, said he paid $2,000 out of his personal funds to install the monument on a walkway yesterday in front of the city hall, which was deserted because of the Martin Luther King holiday, the Winston-Salem Journal reported.

...The city council member said he wanted the monument to be a surprise to the city's citizens and insisted he had no thought of what effect it would have on his campaign for the Republican nomination for the 5th Congressional District, the Winston-Salem paper said.


No thought about how it would affect his campaign for Congress -- oh yeah, that's plausible.

So, who is Vernon Robinson anyway? Well, he's not really himself. Click on the "candidate for a vacant U.S. House seat" link in that quote and you get, in addition to the home page, a pop-up ad that says, proudly,

"Jesse Helms is back! And this time, he's black." --The Winston-Salem Journal

The ad features a picture of a smiling Mr. Robinson -- who is, yes, black -- along with Ol' Jesse, who's also smiling.

Not much more you need to know about Vernon Robinson, is there?

But you should go to the Robinson for Congress issues page. Among the matters that exercise Mr. R. are "the feminization of the military"; his discussion of abortion fixates on

a prostitute who is pregnant for the eighth time. In the ninth month of her pregnancy she finds out that her child is a girl and not a boy, so she decides to have a late term, sex-selection, partial birth abortion. Because she is too poor to afford the procedure, she wants you to pay for it with your tax dollars.

Because that happens all the time in this country -- right?

Oh, and the godly Mr. Robinson believes in guns. Dusty Rhoades, a columnist for The Pilot in Southern Pines, North Carolina, wrote this a year ago:

Robinson, a Republican city councilman from Winston-Salem, suggested during the recent Orange Alert that folks preparing for terrorist attacks make sure they augment their survival kits with their trusty shotgun, rifle, or other firearm of choice. Robinson made his remarks at a joint meeting with Winston-Salem Mayor Allen Joines, held at the Green Street United Methodist Church....

Does Robinson think that we’re going to need weapons to fight off human wave attacks of wild-eyed, shoe-bombing Muslim extremists? Nope. The threat Robinson envisions comes from your fellow Americans, or to be more specific, those folks who failed to heed the words of Homeland Security and who didn’t stock up. "Robinson said people who stocked up on food and water would need guns to fend off people who had no supplies," according to a story in the News and Observer....


Yeah, that sounds just like the approach Jesus would take, doesn't it?

posted by Steve | 5:00 PM
 

Ah, if only...

If Iraqis ever see Saddam Hussein on trial, they want his former American allies shackled beside him.

"Saddam should not be the only one who is put on trial. The Americans backed him when he was killing Iraqis so they should be prosecuted," said Ali Mahdi, a builder.

"If the Americans escape justice they will face God's justice. They must be stoned in hell." ...

In street interviews, Iraqis said Saddam must be tried by an Iraqi court prepared to hand down the death penalty and examine his ties to past U.S. governments....

"Saddam was a top graduate of the American school of politics," said Assad al-Saadi, standing with friends in the slum of Sadr city, formerly called Saddam City, a Shi'ite Muslim area oppressed by Saddam's security agents.

"My brother was an army officer who was executed. Saddam is a criminal and the Americans were his friends. We need justice so that we can forget the past." ...

"The Americans and Saddam should face justice. Do you really think the Americans are going to put themselves on trial?" said Ali, a U.S.-trained policeman.

"Of course we hope the Americans and Saddam will face trial. But will it ever happen? I doubt it."


--Reuters

posted by Steve | 2:17 PM
 

The Vatican makes it official -- Peggy Noonan is a liar:

Pope never commented on Gibson's 'Passion' film, says papal secretary

Pope John Paul II never said "It is as it was" after watching Mel Gibson's film on the passion of Jesus, said the pope's longtime personal secretary, Archbishop Stanislaw Dziwisz.

"The Holy Father told no one his opinion of this film," the archbishop told Catholic News Service Jan. 18....


--Catholic News Service

Here's the lie, in a December Wall Street Journal column from lying liar Noonan:

'It Is as It Was': Mel Gibson's "The Passion" gets a thumbs-up from the pope.

Here's some happy news this Christmas season, an unexpected gift for those who have seen and admired Mel Gibson's controversial movie, "The Passion," and wish to support it. The film has a new admirer, and he is a person of some influence. He is in fact the head of the Holy Roman Catholic and Apostolic Church.

Pope John Paul II saw the movie the weekend before last, in the Vatican, apparently in his private rooms, on a television, with a DVD, and accompanied by his closest friend, Msgr. Stanislaw Dziwisz. Afterwards and with an eloquent economy John Paul shared with Msgr. Dziwisz his verdict. Dziwisz, the following Monday, shared John Paul's five-word response with the co-producer of The Passion, Steve McEveety.

This is what the pope said: "It is as it was."...


In yesterday's New York Times, Frank Rich could confirm only that the film's assistant director said that Archbishop Dziwisz said that the Pope had said the film "is as it was" -- third-hand hearsay.

Today's Times follow-up summarizes what's in the Caholic News Service story, though it ends with a blind quote that's clearly intended either to spare Noonan embarrassment (assuming she's capable of it) or to express solidarity with her and with Robert Novak, Matt Drudge, and all the film's other right-wing defenders:

One prominent Roman Catholic official close to the Vatican, speaking on the condition of anonymity, said he had reason to believe that the pope probably did make the remark about the film.

"But I think there's some bad feeling at the Vatican that the comment was used the way it was," the official added. "It's all a little soap-operatic."


Rich's column, by the way, quotes a few viewers who've seen the film and have been less than enthusiastic:

Mark Hallinan, a priest at St. Ignatius Loyola Catholic Church, found the movie's portrayal of Jews "very bad," adding, "I don't think the intent was anti-Semitic, but Jews are unfairly portrayed." Robert Levine, the senior rabbi at Congregation Rodeph Sholom in Manhattan, called the film "appalling" and its portrayal of Jews "painful." On Christmas Day, Richard N. Ostling, the religion writer of The Associated Press, also analyzed "The Passion," writing that "while the script doesn't imply collective guilt for Jews as a people, there are villainous details that go beyond the Bible."

A discussion of Rich's column at the right-wing chat site Free Republic doesn't mince words -- it's called

The Pope's Thumbs Up for Gibson's 'Passion' (Liberal Jewish writer accuses Mel of using the Pope)

Lovely.

posted by Steve | 12:35 PM
 

Too soon for direct Iraqi elections? As Juan Cole notes in his blog, the British are saying no, according to this story from the Financial Times:

British officials in Basra no longer oppose early elections in Iraq, saying security and procedural obstacles to polls could be surmounted before the transfer to civilian control on June 30.

"We have a working hypothesis that you could manage an electoral process within the timeframe and the security available," said Dominic D'Angelo, British spokesman for the UK-led southern zone of the Coalition Provisional Authority in Basra.

...British officials said their discussions involved a plan whereby voters in municipal and provincial polls would elect two-thirds of the Electoral College that will nominate delegates for a national assembly. The remaining third would be selected by the Governing Council.

The officials said that, while Ayatollah Sistani's proposal to base an electoral roll on ration cards was "flawed", an electoral roll drawn up from a mixture of ration, health and identity cards could prove acceptable....


Cole does note that

The British may in part been driven to this announcement by pure fear. They appear to have upped their estimate of the number of protesters last Thursday from 30,000 to 3 to 10 times that.

posted by Steve | 9:16 AM
 

Iraqi women recently got shafted -- something your newspaper didn't tell you. Here's the lead of a story from last night's All Things considered:

Despite Saddam Hussein's tyranny, women in Iraq enjoyed some of the broadest legal protections in the Muslim world. But the U.S.-backed Governing Council has voted to eliminate those protections. The decision came in an unpublicized meeting last month, when the council ordered that the "personal status" law, as it's known, be canceled. Family issues would be placed under the Islamic legal doctrine known as sharia.

To listen to the story, scroll down to "Iraqi Women Protest Loss of Rights" here; you can read Juan Cole's article on this here.

posted by Steve | 7:32 AM


Monday, January 19, 2004  

Dean is the only major Democratic candidate to evade the sissifying barbs of the GOP's shock-jock surrogates. First, comely John Edwards was labeled "the Breck girl." (He trimmed his hair, to no avail.) When Edwards flagged and John Kerry emerged, he was dubbed "Mr. Ketchup," implying that his wife's fortune, and by extension Teresa Heinz Kerry herself, wears the pants in their manse.

--Richard Goldstein in last week's Nation

I bring this quote up because a lot of people have been worried that Howard Dean would have been too vulnerable to attacks in the general election, and many of those people, I guess, are relieved, if not delighted, to see the Iowa result.

I understand that. But remember: Kerry's not going to be the candidate -- he may be the party's nominee, but if he is, Ketchup Boy is going to be the candidate. And if Edwards is nominated, Breck Girl is going to be the candidate.

You know what I mean: The process of turning the Democratic nominee into an awkward, pathetic loser and oddball is going to happen, no matter what -- the process just happened to kick into high gear a lot earlier for Dean. The mainstream press isn't parroting GOP attacks on most of the Democratic candidates yet, but it'll happen soon.

And you have to ask yourself who has the backbone to stand up to that kind of crap. Does Kerry? Does Edwards? I worry, especially about Edwards -- it's not that a sunny-dispositioned guy can't fight a bare-knuckle brawl and win (see Clinton, Bill), but right now Edwards is getting so many brownie points from the press for being nice that I'm afraid he'll be putty in Karl Rove's hands.

Well, we'll see. I suppose you could say these guys fought back in Iowa. But their primary antagonist was Howard Dean, and when they responded, the press piled on with them. The press damn sure isn't going to pile on with the Democratic nominee in the fall.

I want someone who can take hits and keep swinging. It doesn't have to be someone like Dean who seems like a battler -- maybe someone whose personality is a little less "hot" (as ol' Marshall McLuhan used to say) would play better in Peoria. But it's got to be someone who can take a low blow without crumpling, and who can battle back. I have trouble seeing Edwards as that candidate, or Kerry for that matter. But maybe they'll surprise me.

posted by Steve | 11:16 PM
 

Over in the A section of yesterday's New York Times, did Jodi Wilgoren, in what was supposedly a straight news story on Howard Dean, really go on about milkshakes for three paragraphs?

Yup:

And Dr. Dean, the man who would be president, stood at [Senator Tom] Harkin's feet, slurping a strawberry milkshake.

Never mind the 12 pounds, mostly from chocolate-chip cookies, he has put on in the past few months of the campaign. Forget the cameras following his every move. In 109 days of campaigning here in Iowa since February 2002, Dr. Dean has rarely missed a milkshake opportunity. He even had one poured into a glass perched on his head last month at Stella's Diner in Urbandale.

Unsure whether to believe the lengthening list of polls showing his lead here and elsewhere slipping, or the ever-expanding cadre of consultants assuring him that his ground troops are unmatched, Dr. Dean stared into his glass. Strawberry is his favorite.


And a few paragraphs later, utterly pleased with herself, she returns to the beverages again, calling Dean "shake drunk" as she describes him pressing the flesh.

Oh well -- at least she's not doing what they did to Al Gore in 2000 with all that talk about "earth tones." At least she's not wasting time talking about Dean's clothes....

He even borrowed a sweater from his deputy campaign manager to fit in better with his new roadie, Mr. Harkin, but instead of looking more comfortable, he seemed to miss having sleeves to roll above the elbow.

Whoops -- sorry. I guess she is.

posted by Steve | 9:14 AM
 

In a fine New York Times Magazine article about a woman's futile strruggle to leave the ranks of America's working poor, David K. Shipler makes an important observation about what's sacrosanct in this country. The woman, Caroline Payne, gets a manufacturing job but is required to work rotating shifts -- sometimes days, sometimes evenings, sometimes nights. She can't construct a regular routine, for herself or any caregiver, so she sometimes has to leave her profoundly retarded 14-year-old daughter (who also has epilepsy) home alone -- which leaves her open to charges of neglect. Shipler writes:

Perhaps the most curious and troubling facet of this confounding puzzle was everybody's failure to pursue the most obvious solution: if the factory had just let Caroline work day shifts, her problem would have disappeared. She asked a supervisor and got brushed off, but nobody else -- not the school principal, not the doctor, not the myriad agencies she contacted -- nobody in the profession of helping thought to pick up the phone and appeal to the factory manager or the foreman or anybody else in authority at her workplace.

Indeed, this solemn regard for the employer as untouchable and beyond the realm of persuasion unless in violation of the law permeates the culture of American antipoverty efforts, with only a few exceptions. The most socially minded physicians and psychologists who treat malnourished children, for example, will advocate vigorously with government agencies to provide food stamps, health insurance, housing and the like. But when they are asked if they ever urge the parents' employers to raise wages enough to pay for nutritious food, the doctors express surprise at the notion. First, it has never occurred to them, and second, it seems hopeless. Wages and hours are set by the marketplace, and you cannot expect magnanimity from the marketplace. It is the final arbiter from which there is no appeal.


Business in this country is like an abusive father -- it causes pain, but we need it, or assume we do, assume we'd be left out in the cold without it, so we protect it -- we close ranks with it and don't let anything harm it.

posted by Steve | 9:05 AM


Sunday, January 18, 2004  

There's one little flaw in Maureen Dowd's argument today:

Presidential campaigns trace the patterns of mythological adventure, as contenders strive to show they are superior in the knightly virtues of temperance, loyalty and courage.

Once candidates showed that they had completed the "hero-task" by highlighting their war exploits — J.F.K. and PT 109, George Bush senior getting shot down as a young Navy pilot over Chichi Jima.

Candidates in the Vietnam War generation who chose not to go to Vietnam had to find more personal dragons and giants to slay. Bill Clinton told the story of confronting an abusive and alcoholic stepfather; George W. Bush recounted overcoming alcoholism and career drift by embracing Christ....

...a race rooted mainly in attacking the president may not take Dr. Dean far enough. Voters want someone who's been through the fire. They care about character. They want to know the evolution of the man, even if it's a myth.


The flaw is that in 2000 George W. Bush got fewer votes from the Great Unwashed, for whom Dowd claims to speak, that Al Gore did. Gore didn't talk much about his own "character"-- maybe a bit in the convention speech. And what the public thought it knew about his life story was nonsense concocted by the GOP and spread by willing accomplices in the press, as Bob Somerby's Daily Howler points out regularly (e.g., here).

Yet Gore got half a million votes more than the guy who told us his liquor cabinet was personally emptied by God.

posted by Steve | 11:52 AM
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