March 29, 2004
Did You Know George Bush Voted Against Happiness 1,472 Times?
By the way, more anti-Bush/pro-Kerry politicians. Of course, some of them are Norwegian...and you know those Norwegians...
LOLin'
When you don't know what humor is, don't comment on it. (Is it just me, or is today stern taskmaster day?)
By the way, heavily partisan sites should also refrain from using requested feedback from readers to make any sort of point about how anyone but partisans feel about something. Taranto says that of 111 letters written to an deeply conservative site, 108 support his/its viewpoint. Wow.
If I told every reader of Pandagon to tell me who they were voting for in the next election, does anyone not think that it would tilt incredibly heavily towards people who supported Kerry? Would it prove anything? Well, except for the fact that I can run thought exercises (quick, tell me what comes to your mind when I say "pink elephant"!), no.
Note To Future Op-Ed Writers
A bit of advice from me: resist the urge to make what you think are really clever observations about something that's supposed to tie your supposed thesis together without actually exploring the answer to the question you pose.
Diana West asks how, exactly Richard Clarke could possibly have any credibility after seemingly contradicting himself...as if Clarke never offered up an explanation for his statements, including the rather obvious point that the statements don't contradict - they just have a different focus.
By the way, catch Kaus Hackula on Clarke:
CLARKE: Last time I had to declare my party loyalty, it was to vote in the Virginia primary for president of the United States in the year 2000. And I asked for a Republican ballot.
There's no direct contradiction--just a clear willingness to mislead. This doesn't encourage trust in Clarke when it comes to his bigger points.
Alas, Mickey Kaus is able to root out the "deep-seated character flaws" even in Richard Clarke - he's a Republican who voted for a centrist Democrat (after voting for and supporting John McCain while he was still employed by Bill Clinton)! He shows a disturbing tendency not to support George W. Bush! Therefore, he's a misleader!
Does opposing Dick Clarke immediately make you dumb, or is it the other way around?
Three More Days
Bill O'Reilly's early:
Espionage
Well, someone's stolen John Kerry's FBI files.
Nicosia reported the theft Friday to the Twin Cities Police Department, which covers Larkspur and Corte Madera in Marin County, where he lives. The police report found no sign of forced entry.
"It was a very clean burglary. They didn't break any glass. They didn't take anything like cameras sitting by. It was a very professional job," Nicosia said.
Let the conspiracy-theorizing begin. (And the not-so-conspiratorial theorizing.)
Someone's Not Paying Attention
Okay, the new entry template:
If Republicans are going to criticize [whoever they hate now] for [action], then maybe they shouldn't be using [Republican] who [did some action which, if not the exact same thing, is so close as to be virtually the same] to make the criticism.
This hour's entry is party flip-flopper Norm Coleman critcizing John Kerry for flip-flopping. I'm pretty sure you have to *work* to be this incompetent.
"Okay, we need someone to criticize John Kerry for meeting with this evil, evil dictator. Rummy, can you handle that? And Dick, how about you tackle him on being personally unlikeable? We should get Ashcroft out there criticizing Kerry for being intolerant of gays...how's that Islam Karimov ad lambasting Kerry's record on human rights going? He needs another giant vat? What the hell for?"
Christian Over Here, Kerry Over There
Besides writing a really long, highly inaccurate piece on Kerry's reading of James 2:14 (a distinction that I've never understood among faith-alone Protestants is how they can read the line "[F]aith by itself, if it is not accompanied by action, is dead" and say that this reinforces their viewpoint), La Shawn Barber makes this really strange statement:
First, the implications on Bush's faith-based program in light of this statement are huge. By this standard, churches shouldn't accept Bush's offer of taxpayer money, because doing so would negate any faith-based mission they might have. If that's his position, fine, but it's seemingly contradictory to the President he supports.
Second, the statement simply makes no sense. If faith can't inform government activity, why is the Religious Right so powerful in the Republican Party? Why do they have an active and well-defined political agenda? Or is this a standard made up to argue against a liberal interpretation of the Bible? (Particularly since Barber disallows any interpretation of the Bible which privileges works - i.e., Catholics and the section of James which he says doesn't say what it says.) If faith calls you to works, and as James says you can only judge faith by the works left in its wake - what, exactly, is wrong with saying that one of the most faith-driven presidents in history, one who finds himself driven largely based on his faith, doesn't have the body of works to back it up? If you're going to say that taxpayer money can't accomplish faith-based works, maybe someone should relay that to George at some point.
Let's just cut out all the bull from here on in - Republicans think they own Christianity, and get really, really pissed when a liberal challenges that, particularly by reading the text that defines it.
You Don't Know Me!
Jonah Goldberg has a very strange post on the Corner. He lauds the conservative embrace of philosophers and thinkers (however erroneous that embrace may be), yet ponders with an obviously made-up mind that liberals don't adhere to the same attachment to philosophical lineage that conservatives do, even going so far as to give this assessment of conservatism:
That statement leads me to believe that Jonah doesn't hang out around many non-elite conservatives, if any, and that his relative realm of conservative intake is narrowly tailored, at best. But that's beside the point.
Continue reading "You Don't Know Me!"
Return of the Christ. Now With More Gore.
Tomorrow, the Left Behind series will finally achieve climax with the sweet release of its final effort, "Glorious Appearing". I have to admit to a certain amount of confusion as to the appeal of these books, I never thought cheap dime novels with religious imagery would sell all that well. Stranger yet is the logic behind the novel. It all happens in the aftermath of the Rapture, the seven years following the moment when the giant sucking sound is created not by outsourcing but by Christians popping up to heaven:
What shocks me about LaHaye's books is that he seems to have read only the bits of the Bible with guns and paradise. The whole thing is about how absolutely sweet heaven is going to be in comparison to Earth followed by the Mighty Morphin Megazord smackdown the all-merciful Jesus Christ is going to lay upon the (dismembered) heads of the unbelievers:
God versus Bruce Lee. Cosmic ninja smackdown! With special appearance by the Predator!
This is going to be so sweet.
Interludes
Am I the only one who really hates the little skits and interruptions peppering hip-hop CDs? Sometimes they're trying to create a more artistic album, sometimes they're just trying to be funny, but I find that they inevitably destroy the flow of an album and get old after the second time around. Maybe those tracks can self-destruct after two or three plays.
No Limit Souljah
In a rather hackish attack on John Kerry, "Greyhawk" launches this rather, ah, stupid attack on him.
Yep. The only way to define black voters is gangsta rap. Besides the utter historical stupidity this shows in how the first black president was defined (although I have the feeling Toni Morrison is anathema to him), why are black voters defined by gangsta rap? I just find it interesting that that's the first thing you define black voters by, but maybe it's just me.
Ronald Reagan: Terrorist Appeaser?
The reaction the right had to the Socialist victory in Spain upset me in a way most partisan conflicts don't. The audacity it took to demand that the Spanish continue to fight a war they never wished to enter, all for the ironic purpose of promoting democracy, astonished and offended me in a way few positions do. Forget that the defeated Government immediately attempted to twist the attacks for political gain, forget that the Socialists were within the poll's margin of error for victory, forget that the constant proclamations that the cowardly Spanish had allowed the terrorists to win certainly reinforced any victory the terrorists might have claimed, the very idea that we could somehow evaluate their foreign policy's morality through the lens of our own interests mere days after a vicious terrorist attack showed how little these people understood 9/11. For a group that is quick to grasp for ownership of the tragedy and quicker to remind us of its significance, they completely lost the ability to treat a grieving country with even a modicum of respect.
That, much more than the arguments over whether or not the terrorists won, is what incited my ire. But it's not the first time a government had given into terrorists.
Ronald Reagan's major military action was in Lebanon, where he deployed peacekeeping troops in the aftermath of Israel's 1982 invasion. Not long thereafter, a terrorist drove a truck packed with explosives into the headquarters of the First Battalion, killing 241 American servicemen. A few months later, Reagan pulled the troops out of Lebanon, placing them on offshore ships instead. Explained spokesman Larry Speakes: "We don't consider this a withdrawal but more of a redeployment."
So a terrorist killed hundreds of Americans in the hopes of getting us out of Lebanon and quickly succeeded. There was no other explanation, no other motivation for the "redeployment". In the face of terrorists, Reagan promptly gave into their demands.
So I want to know. Was Reagan an appeaser to terrorists? A coward? Unable to stand up to evil?
And if not, then how dare you open your mouth to criticize the Spanish.
Analogous To A Fault
Matt Welch takes on the increasingly useless and disjointed Michael Totten's assertion that going to war with Saddam was like going to war with Hitler, because neither had anything to do with the sneak attacks that precipitated conflict with different entities. Matt makes the most important point - Hitler declared war on us.
The main reason that war on Iraq isn't comparable to war on Germany is that the two situations are totally different. Amazingly, people older than me can use analogies poorly as well...strange, that. Two allied states having declared war on the United States is not the same as a stateless terrorist organization having launched an attack on the United States (as well as all of Western Civilization) being connected with a secularized pan-Arab nationalist state with no significant ties to either the attack in question or, in any large part, the overall operational goals of the stateless terrorist organization. (Unless you're Laurie Mylroie, in which case Saddam is also behind the pothole on your street not getting fixed.)
At this point, supporters of the war need to sit down and realize that we went to war for a reason outlined by the government who conducted it, not their particular reason which is, more often than not, cleverly justified so as to be either ultimately unprovable or dependent on references to other conflicts, regardless of how accurate they are. War on Iraq can't be justified because war on Hitler was justified - it has to be justified on its own merits.
Work It
I love this piece on David Brooks, mainly because it reveals what was originally an influential, if cloying series of observations as a series of factually bereft ejaculations made up to advance a thesis that isn't borne out at all.
He's very emblematic of the whole breed of conservative sociologists, people who see America as some conveniently delineated series of conservative and liberal bastions, who can only see the Home Depots and Wal*Marts of Red America and the upscale coffee shops and specialty boutiques of Blue America.
My favorite part is Brooks' response: "You're taking a joke and distorting it." After which he accuses the author of unethical behavior, truly a classy move (Disclaimer: Sasha and I attended Swarthmore together, although he graduated before I did). Brooks lays out a political and cultural topography of Red and Blue America, although the way he does it is predisposed towards reinforcing his point. Take the Red Lobster tale:
Well, damn. If "mini-dinners" are the course of the day, then I can prove Kettering (an affluent suburb to the south of Dayton) is part of Brooks' mistaken conception of "Red America" by going to L'Auberge and ordering a cheap appetizer and water. It's impossible to spend $20 there!
Sasha did excellent work on this one. And Brooks' prior reputation is taking a true beating.
Christploitation
A Bush administration representative has said that it was "beyond the bounds of acceptable political discourse" for Kerry to mention Scripture in his rebuke of Republican policies.
Does this strike anyone else as the biggest steaming pile of horse manure ever dragged out and plopped onto the stage of the national discourse? Conservative Christian Republicans, headed by a man who said Jesus was his favorite philosopher, who in turn appointed a man who said we had no king but Jesus to the AG's office, are now assaulting a man for speaking accurately in religious terms.
If you believe that your faith calls you to political service (I don't, but many do), then James 2:14-17 is a perfect summary of what you are called to do:
A party that's crafted its appeal to voters in explicitly religious terms, often claiming to be better Christians than its opposition (to the point where its opponents are evil - see Jerry Falwell and Pat Robertson, for instance) has no business whatsoever criticizing anyone else for their use of the Bible. None.
Contramadictions
Last week, the Bush administration said that Bush never asked Clarke to find information on Iraq on September 12, 2001 in relation to the previous day's terrorist attacks. Yesterday, they admitted that the conversation happened (which was pretty damn stupid to deny in the first place, given that Clarke had two independent witnesses to confirm his story).
Regardless of the particulars of Clarke's story, which at this point are more subject to snide remarks than substantive factual criticisms, does it strike anyone else that maybe Rice won't go under oath because she still doesn't know what she's going to say?
Invasion!
Trafficking in political non-reality can sometimes earn one a rather healthy career as a political commentator - see Joel Mowbray for an example.
The 1993 World Trade Center attack was followed by… nothing. Ditto for the Khobar Towers bombings in 1996, which at first appeared to have Iranian origins, but now seems to have at least had al Qaeda’s help. The 1998 East Africa Bombings got somebody else’s factory bombed in Sudan. And the U.S.S. Cole attack that killed 17 soldiers and wounded more than 100 in 2000 produced a response of, well, a briefing.
You know, if I could rewrite history according to my will...I, too, would be a mediocre conservative pundit. There has to be a better outlet for this great power...help children in impoverished countries by retroactively making their country flush with riches and comestibles! Instead, we just make America and the world a more dangerous place for George W. Bush's benefit. It's like Superman using his powers to watch free porn in the apartment next door.
Let's You And Me And Irony Have A Talk
After embarassing themselves last week by having a functionary openly contradict himself in accusing a man of a federal crime then admitting he had no idea if his charges were true (clever!), the Bush team is now inviting in Karen Hughes to defend the White House while simultaneously going on a book tour hawking a book that's a defense of the White House.
Really, is there anything you can add to this? The only thing left for them to do is to get Bill Janklow to accuse him of gross disregard for human life.
William Rehnquist Says No Clapping
Seems like our Chief Justice can't give it out, but isn't so proficient when it's dished back at him:
The vote was unanimous, Newdow said.
"Well, that doesn't sound divisive," the chief justice observed.
Newdow shot back, "That's only because no atheist can get elected to public office."
The courtroom audience broke into applause, an exceedingly rare event that left the chief justice temporarily nonplused. He appeared to collect himself for a moment and then sternly warned the audience that the courtroom would be cleared "if there's any more clapping."
Richard Clarke is Making Sense
I don't care which side of the aisle you're on, Richard Clarke simply makes sense on terrorism:
And that's the second reason. The attack in Madrid showed the vulnerabilities of the rails in Spain. We have all sorts of vulnerabilities in our country, chemical plants, railroads. We've done a very good job on passenger aircraft now, but there are all these other vulnerabilities that require enormous amount of money to reduce those vulnerabilities, and we're not doing that.
Russert: And three?
Clarke: And three is that we actually diverted military resources and intelligence resources from Afghanistan and from the hunt for bin Laden to the war in Iraq.
Russert: But Saddam is gone and that's a good thing?
Clarke: Saddam is gone is a good thing. If Fidel were gone, it would be a good thing. If Kim Il Sung were gone, it would be a good thing. And let's just make clear, our military performed admirably and they are heroes, but what price are we paying for this war on Iraq?
Say What?
Matt's found the most confusing poll ever. Marvel at its complexity, exclaim over its paradoxes, bask in the light of clarity's antimatter.
March 28, 2004
Scintillating Dialogue
This is one conversation I don't want to hear:
While stressing that he is still a competitor in the race, the independent presidential hopeful said he views his candidacy as a "second front against Bush, however small."
"The American people deserve a choice. They're begging me to run."
"Ralph, those are Republicans. They're not going to vote for you."
"Yes, but they want me to run. I need to raise issues in this debate! After all, do you believe in Universal health Care?"
"Of course I do. I have a plan that would allow every American to buy into the same health care plan I have, and those who can't afford it will be subsidized."
"Fine. Health care or not, this country need electoral reform and you don't support it."
"That's not true either. Paul Wellstone and I co-sponsored the most far-reaching campaign finance reform bill the Senate's ever seen, a bill that would completely take the money out of politics. You remember, the Clean Money, Clean Elections act?"
"Well that's nice, but corporations have too much power and commit too much fraud, it must be stopped!"
"I've got a whole plan to crack down on them. We're going to close the loopholes they dodge through and make the SEC more powerful. I've spent half my campaign railing against them, have you been listening?"
"Yeah, well I want to end poverty."
"Me too. I have a host of policies dedicated to keeping the needy afloat and helping them enter affluence."
"I want to create jobs by investing in Americans!'
"Who doesn't?"
Continue reading "Scintillating Dialogue"Enter The Grand Guignol
The Washington Post has a story with a remarkably fitting quote from John McCain.
Something that the Clarke fiasco is quickly making clear is that whenever attacked on their credibility, the administration's first response is to ramp up the political horror show and subsequently parade ever-escalating charges past the public's ever-less credulous eyes and ears.
There's almost no defense of Bush's policy in light of Clarke's charges - halfhearted efforts at reclaiming his manufactured legacy eventually peter out in a flurry of that fact stuff they never seem able to get a grasp on. It starts as an indignant denial of the charges so vague and/or factless as to deny all but the most partisan of defenders an actual explanation. Soon after that was dropped, we moved on to the utterly illogical, but somehow entirely enervating efforts to impugn Clarke's motive.
Richard Clarke is equal parts money-hungry shark, partisan opportunist, grandstander, credit-grabber, attention-grabber, insane, lying, racist, bitter, and, I think, a Shriner. We've seen varied facets ofthis advanced by virtually every person who's stepped in the White House in the past three years, including deputy assistant secretaries, spokespeople, and Mrs. Henning's third-grade class from Norfolk, VA.
"All together now...Richard Clarke caused September 11th!!!! That's great kids - everyone can have a cookie, and the black kids can go take a picture with the President."
Any defense of the Bush record happens either through the telepathy of partisanship or through the dark insinuation that anyone who actually believes these critiques is simply abetting the dissolution of a sacred bond between Republicans and the presidency. Sacrilege, I say.
What Richard Clarke has shown more than anything else is the man behind the curtain (or, more accurately, the well-coordinated group with the really, really bad ideas). The mechanisms of Bushism (not the jumbled utterances of the man, but the refined practice of maintaining power for George W. Bush) are on full, naked and gory display here. It's said that at times of crisis, true character shines through. It's the biggest point of crisis in the Bush Presidency, the point at which the legitimacy and credibility of this administration's ideas are most imperiled and we're seeing their character. Condoleezza Rice wants to use the 9/11 Commission to repair her image, away from the prying eyes of the American public or the American legal system. Bill Frist alleges a federal crime on the floor of the Senate, then remembers to mention afterward that he has no idea if what he said is actually true or not. The White House is pushing for the declassification of testimony for the sole purpose of silencing a domestic political critic.
This is freakish, at best. The focus of the executive branch of government is not on fulfilling its duties - it's on covering its own ass against an attack it swears has no validity whatsoever, a contention it's found itself utterly incapable of addressing in any serious or convincing fashion. You can enter into a realm of the bizarre and the macabre, a phantasmagorical flagellation of the intellect and the heart...or you can just watch CNN tomorrow and watch the latest Bush defense, which is quickly approaching the revelation of heretofore secret documents that Richard Clarke changed his name to Nassaar al-Islam in 1994.
Oh, You White Guy
Charles Pickering on 60 Minutes: "Accusing a white Southerner of being a racist is about the worst thing you can do."
Really? Really?
(I'm more opposed to Pickering because his decision in the cross-burning case showed bad judgement, not racial insensitivity. But the above statement is vastly overblown.)
March 27, 2004
Feel Me Thrumming
Oh sweet Jesus this Lileks quote is stupid:
"Hitler wasn't around on 9/11, there was no reason to make the skies "thrum" with bombers."
"What're those quote marks for?"
"Well, the adjective is stupid. I can almost see Lileks getting hard as he wrote it."
"Yeah, me too. Disgusting, isn't it? Regardless, you're absolutely right Johnny. There was no reason to invade Germany on 9/11 because Hitler wasn't there. Now, 8 years ago Osama Bin Laden hadn't flown planes into the Twin Towers and there was no good reason to bomb our nominal allies in the Taliban. Since we couldn't see 8 years into the future, there was no defensible reason to bomb the Taliban. Therefore, and this is tough, we did not bomb Afghanistan. What Lileks is talking about I simply don't know, but it has no analogue in rational policy making."
"So why did he say it?"
"Because he is part of that weird wing of the right that gets a hard on for military machinery in action. Therefore his favored way to make a political argument is to contrast peace and prosperity with war and destruction, assuming the American people will prefer the latter. It's really quite sick. He somehow thinks that since Bush attacked Afghanistan (after Clarke convinced him not to attack Iraq first) after the terrorist group the Taliban harbored attacked us this somehow shames Clinton for not attacking Afghanistan before Al-Qaeda launched a major attack on us. It is completely insane."
Colmes the Barbarian
Just to riff off of Jesse's post noting Novak's accusation that Clarke is a racist, the GOP just doesn't get it. They don't get to use civil rights against us. I know they figure that it should be a transferrable issue and they should get to play the race card, but they're just wrong. They try it every so often and not only doesn't it work, it just makes them look whiny. I remember the Trent Lott scandal where some angry African-American appeared on Hannity and Colmes demanding the destruction of Senator Byrd because he was in the KKK 45 years ago.
Ever seen Colmes destroy someone? Yeah, I hadn't either. Until then. The guy just imploded on himself, it was painful to watch. It was straight carnage, even Hannity didn't try to help; he knew that battle was lost.
We've got civil rights. Jesse Jackson, Al Sharpton and John Lewis are on our side. As soon as the right starts talking about how Clarke is racist, you get some of our guys on the stations actually talking about who is or isn't racist and that's just damaging for the GOP. I know they're running out of ideas, but this one is really scraping the bottom of the barrel. And if they try it, particularly with Novak's ridiculously convoluted case, they're gonna get one hell of a splinter.
And then Clarke will kick their asses. Again.
Wargames
You heard right - today on NPR, Richard Clarke answered the thermonuclear attack of the Bush administration on his 2002 testimony with his Giant Fucking Armageddon Beam - declassify everything.
The Bush Administration has no choice but to come back with the Ultimate Nullifier: Richard Clarke is the Dirty Bomber. Either that, or we're all of a sudden going to find out about an elevated terrorist threat right...about...now.
Them Nigrahs
Josh Marshall makes a good catch: the next line of defense against Clarke is to accuse him of being racist, as Bob Novak (the ivory-toothed cabana boy of the Bush Adminstration) and Ann Coulter (Skeletor) have made readily apparent.
Next up: misogyny!
Actually, I think they'll be more original than that. Let's play a game: What Will Richard Clarke Be Accused Of Doing?
My bet is either sexual harassment or embezzlement.
Good for Him
Today, Kerry took his first baby steps into the Clarke infested waters:
Kerry also said Condoleezza Rice, President Bush's national security adviser, should testify in public before the commission investigating the Sept. 11, 2001, terror attacks.
"If Condoleezza Rice can find time to do `60 Minutes' on television before the American people, she ought to find 60 minutes to speak to the commission under oath," Kerry told reporters. "We're talking about the security of our country."
While on the subject, I want to point you all to Josh Marshall's excellent post describing the central tenent of the smear campaign as "maybe, maybe, maybe". The interesting thing about the White House's attacks has been their probabalistic nature. It's like they're using quantum physic to smear Clarke. Maybe this testimony has something bad, maybe he disagree with himself years ago, maybe he beats his wife. None of it has been proven, in fact, the accusers often don't know of what they speak (see Frist, Bill). But by making the connections so stridently and publicly, they hope to make Americans believe that there's substance in these baseless, unknown charges. It's not that Clarke is hiding anything, it's that he might be. It's the same technique they used to sell the Iraq/Al-Qaeda connection. It's not about the reality of the charges, only the proximity of the terms and the frequency on the accusations.
As Josh says, maybe maybe maybe.
Tee-Hee
Guess who lied? It rhymes with Tush Badministration.
Remember, the Bush Administration was supposed to have approached terrorism with more energy than the Clinton Administration ever did. I mind that they're lying sacks...but more than that, I mind that they're lying sacks who are attempting to shut down legitimate debate about their response to terrorism by making up complete horseshit.
Boom!
I'm tempted to make jokes about Dick Morris blowing something here, but this a blog for grownups.
So I'll just deal with Tough-Actin' Tinactin on his own merits, which are none and absolutely none. The crux of Morris' argument is this:
1.) He likes Bush.
2.) Negative ads have impacted Kerry, which means that he cannot possibly recover from the statistical tie he's in with Bush in the next seven months.
3.) John Kerry will run the exact same campaign for the next seven months, and Bush's charges will never go challenged or answered during that time period.
If you agree with those three points, then I've got some Kerry/Clinton '04 bumper stickers for you to put on your super jet-car. Because there's super jet-cars in fantasy land.
Remember, folks: Dick Morris is predicting a Bush blowout, which, using the Morris Corrolary, means that Kerry will win by a slim but sure margin.
I Will Show You My Pistol
Courtesy of Hip Hop Music, the single dumbest story I have ever seen WND put out.
Anyone else get the feeling Pat Benatar would be edgy for these people?
It's True
Line of the day (from a blog that will go unlinked to in a post in reference to mine on Chomsky):
Indefensible?
The Instapundit is very upset that pro-Bush Matt Margolis got roughed up for counter-protesting an anti-Bush rally. The incident wasn't that big of a deal, but I reproduce Matt's retelling here so I'm not accused of misrepresentation:
It all happened very fast – but at the same time, seemed to happen in slow motion. I remember being with everyone cheering for Bush, and the union worker had been engaging us, and Aaron had also exchanged some words with him, then the guy just jumped down and charged at Aaron. He took a swing at him (missing his face by a hair – knocking off his glasses) and then everything just exploded. I went right for that guy and jumped at him, getting a few punches in before I got tackled (presumably by another union worker), and got thrown to the ground. I ended up getting my face slammed down and held to the ground. I believe someone got him off of me and I got back up as the altercation was broken up.
We were not broken up by the Boston Police Department. However, after being consulted with medics and being accosted by members of the Lawyers’ Guild, the police did show up and from that point on we had their protection.
In the end, James got his glasses smashed; Aaron took a punch or two, I got a scrape on my face and my knee – we all got roughed up a bit. In the end, it got broken up before anyone got really hurt. So to clear things up – I was not “beat up,” we are all okay and we stood our ground after things calmed down. We did not retreat, we responded with stronger chants in support of Bush. All in all, I had a great time.
Or was it? Glenn certainly thinks so. He publishes the E-mail of one Greg Miskin which hysterically tells us that:
There is no room for dissent, discourse, debate. My experience is that people behave this way when they hold indefensible beliefs, and they know just how weak their position is. A dog with this behavior is called a "fear-biter" and I can think of no better description for these people.
Military Families
This piece on military families is really worth reading. I don't have much to say about it, save that it's a really eye-opening and heart-wrenching look at what goes on in families who lend a crucial member to their country for an unspecified amount of time.
Who Rules the Roost?
I want to talk a bit about the picture of Dick Cheney that emerges from Rise of the Vulcans. Cheney started out as an aide to Rumsfeld and spent, as far as anyone can tell, the next 25 years of his life following in Rummy's footsteps. When Rumsfeld became Ford's Chief of Staff, Cheney became the Deputy Chief of Staff. During those years, the CIA gave him "perhaps the most apt code name it had ever designed". The code name?
Backseat.
Cheney's power comes not from flash or glitz, but from steadily working behind the scenes, grinding away in advocacy of his chosen objectives. The dangerous thing is he permits little oversight; he works in the shadows and shuns the light. What's more important is that Cheney isn't just working to help those above him, he's got a distinct and steady ideological agenda. Keep in mind that the following quote has no analogue among what's said about Powell, Rumsfeld, Rice, Wolfowitz or even Bush. Cheney is alone in his ideological extremity:
It's worth thinking about what role Cheney actually plays in this Administration. I've spoken to a lot of Texans on both sides of the aisle who are firm in their shock and outrage over what Bush has done in the White House. He simply didn't govern so far to the Right in Texas and he never seemed so intent on sparking ideological wars. They had no idea he would act in the way he has.
Continue reading "Who Rules the Roost?"Patting The Trolls On The Head
Because he was trolling here for a while the past couple of days, and because I've been having hours of unintended fun marveling at the continual lowering of the intellectual standards needed to make a complete (if nonsensical) sentence on ready display at his site, I thought I'd direct everyone back towards "Lying Liars", the "factcheck" on Al Franken with enough mind-boggling stupidity on a single page to keep TBogg busy for a week.
Get That Paper
The Bush campaign rolled this one out a couple of days ago on the economy, and it's struck me as incredibly strange since I first heard it. Bush has started taking focus off of how his tax cuts supposedly encourage entrepreneurship because they put more money in the hands of businesses and entrepreneurs (which doesn't really help with startup costs, a business plan, or earning the money in a stagnating economy, but we'll ignore that for now) into how the amount of paperwork supposedly involved in correcting his policies will turn away businesses.
Republicans have a strong message at times when it comes to reducing bureacracy and the redundancy of some regulations. But paperwork in and of itself isn't a particularly strong issue. If I have to fill out a couple of extra forms to pay a lower tax rate, I'll do it. Besides Bush's record on this (has he instituted any significant reform in any bureaucratic structure?), paperwork alone seems like a really desperate last gasp for an economic plan that's not working. He's not even really arguing against onerous regulations, in general or in specific - he's simply talking about how onerous the process supposedly is, in a really vague manner.
Sure, his economic policies aren't really creating many jobs, there's no real wage growth, and Americans are more in debt than ever...but at least there's less paperwork to fill out to perpetuate the cycle! Whee! Vote Bush!
Terrorists Take It To OT
Known fag expert Kathleen Parker (she slept on their gay, gay floors!) is weighing in about two weeks late with her well-reasoned opinion that the terrorists are winning.
Timed just three days before the country's election, the train explosions that killed nearly 200 and wounded 1,800 had the desired result.
One day conservative Prime Minister Jose Maria Aznar, among the staunchest U.S. allies in the war on Iraq, was certain to win election for a third consecutive term. Boom! Seventy-two hours later, he's gone, and newly elected socialist leader Jose Luis Rodriguez Zapatero immediately begins threatening to withdraw Spanish troops from Iraq.
Any way you cut it - however one explains the electoral shift - that's effective terrorism.
Besides the fact that the two parties were running very close to each other before the attack, besides the fact that Aznar purposefully obfuscated about the nature of the attack, besides the fact that 90% of the Spanish people were against going into Iraq in the first place...actually, there really isn't a "beside" that - in order to believe Parker, you'd have to enter the pages of Marvel Comics' erstwhile What If? series (sidebar: I had a professor in college who taught Judaism, and he was obsessed with What If? and the Watcher. Every class, we'd have some reference to either Uatu or Galactus, often for no apparent reason.).
Continue reading "Terrorists Take It To OT"To All Economists
Can someone make a coherent case for "double taxation" that doesn't require one to either say that the exact same phenomenon is different because it happens to different people, or that wouldn't essentially include all taxation?
Double taxation is like that old saw about recessions and depressions: it's taxation when it happens to you, it's double taxation when it happens to me.
Wrestlemania! (Just Like That! Just Like That!)
Finally, a disagreement with Jonah Goldberg that can be settled without coming to verbal blows!
The Rock follows a long line of professional wrestlers (well, relatively speaking) who went into films retaining his pro wrestling name. In fact, Roddy Piper still maintained his kayfabe name, given that his real name was Roderick George Toombs.
Other great thespians include Terry Gene Bollea (Hulk Hogan for the uninitiated) and Randy Poffo ("Macho Man" Randy Savage, also the voice behind a 50 Cent-endorsed rap album). Amazingly, I know this more because it's a constant that professional wrestlers tend to have incredibly dorky real-life names (re: Dwayne "The Rock" Johnson).
Two Republican Candidates, Part Deux
Well, Nader is becoming the second Republican candidate - which I'm assuming will tell him absolutely nothing about his campaign whatsoever.
Nearly 10 percent of the Nader contributors who have given him at least $250 each have a history of supporting the Republican president, national GOP candidates or the party, according to computer-assisted review of financial records by The Dallas Morning News.
Among the new crop of Nader donors: actor and former Nixon speechwriter Ben Stein, Florida frozen-food magnate Jeno Paulucci and Pennsylvania oil company executive Terrence Jacobs. All have strong ties to the GOP.
They all deny doing it to help Bush, but I really wish I had a thousand dollars to drop out of a sense of offended propriety.