�today we offer for your consideration one of the strangest pieces of punditry that we have seen in quite some time emanating from what was once thought of as a big league icon of professional journalism, former New York Times executive editor A. M. Rosenthal. In this column for the New York Sun, Mr. Rosenthal is disturbed, nay, even disgusted at the cowardly reluctance - or even, perhaps, malevolent refusal � of journalists and editors to render stories of the brutal abuse and murder of MILLIONS of innocent people by Saddam Hussein as background and �context� to the current front page news of prisoner abuse committed by US forces.

�Strangely, we are uneasy even at the very idea of bringing up the mass Iraqi torture and murder. That is an insult to all those murdered masses of Iraqis, Kuwaitis, Jews, and Iranians.�

How? Why? What evidence exists to suggest that journalists or editors are �uneasy� about mentioning Saddam�s past vicious behavior, especially in the context of the current scandal? A suitably contrarian question should be posed: what contextual value is added by rehashing the brutality of the Hussein regime with regard to the current scandal. To offer up the genocidal behavior of the past, even as background to the ongoing trials, investigations, and revelations of Iraqi prisoner abuse at the hands of US personnel, suggests nothing less than an effort to create a climate of moral relativism on a par with the esteemed Senator from Oklahoma, Mr. James Imhofe, who seems to operate on the �eye for an eye� side of the Golden Rule and the Third and Fourth Geneva Conventions.

It is inconceivable that there exists in this county a single person who has not been trapped in a mineshaft for the past couple of years who isn�t aware of the Hussein regime�s brutality toward its own people. This has become, after the demise of the WMD rational, one the main reasons for our incursion into Iraq. Anyone with sufficient attention span to qualify as a participant in the discussion is fully aware of the murders, the mass graves, the torture, and all the rest. In addition, it has been frequently been pointed out in the news reporting concerning the current prisoner abuse scandal that Abu Ghraib prison was in fact a primary location for such atrocities during Saddam�s reign. Senator Edward Kennedy, one might recall, referred to it in just such a context just a week ago, although his actual choice of sentence construct created a bit of a dust-up that may have obscured that fact.

� Since the latest torture story, many editors have failed to present background stories about the millions killed by Saddam.

They worry about being accused of minimizing the brutalization of Iraqi prisoners by Americans, if they recall in print the masses of people Saddam slaughtered.

These journalists are truly embarrassing.�

To repeat, the fundamental question has to be asked �what value, with respect to the current story, would these background stories provide?� The simplest answer is �none.� You either already know about the past atrocities or you are still celebrating with loved ones your rescue from that desert island on which you were marooned for the last decade. The only likely outcome of these �background� stories would be to minimize in some minds the brutality visited on Iraqi prisoners by people representing the US. The �millions� killed by Saddam are not being dishonored by any failure to retell their story in the context of the current prisoner abuse, nor are journalists an embarrassment for failing to bring up their story at this time. To claim otherwise is just simply strange�.

�and the results are in. Kerry wins by an expectedly huge margin (82%). Dennis Kucinich finished with a somewhat surprising 16% of the vote, but this is probably explainable by the fact that he and his small group of family, friends, and campaign supporters have spent so much time in Oregon over the last couple of months that they were able to gain residency status and actually cast ballots themselves. Kucinich has, with this outcome, achieved his stated goal of acquiring a hand-full of basically worthless delegates (in terms of their power-brokering value, not their personal characteristics; I�m sure they a fine upstanding group of people). Kucinich has stated that he was staying in the race to acquire enough delegates to �have a place at the table�. With his Oregon success, he has in all likelihood vaulted from sommelier all the way up to head waiter�.

�the truly surprising outcome was the garnering of 2 % of the Democratic primary vote by Lyndon LaRouche, Jr. Democratic state party officials will no doubt be looking to begin the laborious task of tracking these voters down and having them taken into protective custody to avoid the risk of injury to either themselves or those with whom they might come into contact.

Although you didn�t know it, given all the naked prisoners and such, John Kerry spent a couple of days in Oregon, speaking to enthusiastic crowds, seeing the sights, having lots of little informal chats with folks that crossed his path, and startling the holy daylights out of four women rollerbladers in Portland�s Waterfront Park when he flopped down next to them and asked if he could sit there for a moment wilst waiting for a milkshake ordered from a nearby shop to be made. He also held an outdoor rally with Howard Dean (who is still quite popular with Oregon Democrats) and visited a program for inner-city youth called Self-Enhancement, Inc, which earned a bit of local notoriety a couple of years ago when Gee Dub visited it while in town; fighter-jock-in-chief went to great public lengths to praise this program as being just the sort of effort that needed to be devoted to inner-city children, then flew immediately back to D.C. and eliminated all federal funding for this and similar programs from the budget...oh, but stop me if you�ve heard this one before�

�as has become their pattern, the Bushies have decided to respond to Kerry�s time in Oregon by staging a follow-up campaign of their own. Apparently Gee Dub is going to be busily engaged in an effort to erase a bunch of digital photo�s from his Oval Office hard drive, so Laura Bush will come to town on his behalf to tout the success and benefits of the �No Child Left Behind� act. At first look, this would appear to be an odd choice in what is said to be a crucial battleground state; Laura Bush is easily the least visible First Lady in a generation and it seems her appearance would generate far less buzz amongst the faithful than would that of�oh..say, the twins, for example, or maybe cousin Lauren Bush. There are some fine brewpubs in the greater Portland area to satisfy the first Twins� needs and they definitely will need something to distract the crowd if they plan on getting up onstage to talk about the least favorite initiative amongst Oregonians since the last sales tax proposal�

�but, on second thought, if you're planning on gathering a few of the faithful together in front of a school (no doubt in front of a huge painting of a school that looks just like the school that it's hiding with some diagonal repetetive phrase like "Our Children...Our Future" or some such nonsense) and you plan on doing this in a state with dire school funding issues and insufficient resources to meet the NCLB requirements (which then means that a portion of those insufficient resources must be devoted to extra requirements), maybe it's a good idea to send as the messenger someone who seems on the surface to have that mantle of presidential authority but who won't receive much coverage outside of the immediate area.....

...clever little weasels, these bushies...

...finally the citizens from the great state of Orygun have the opportunity to have their voices heard in this momentous national conversation over who should be the Democratic challenger to the failed presidency of George W. Bush. Who is going face to face in this titanic struggle for the heart of the Democratic party??

John Kerry.

Dennis Kucinich.

Lyndon LaRouche.

Yep, good to know my vote counts in this grand democratic institution of ours. Maybe next time we should schedule the primary to just prior to the Convention so we can really have an impact on the process....

...as a kid, I was fascinated by all things military. As the son of a World War II combat veteran and a devotee of all those epic WWII movies ("The Battle of Britian", "The Longest Day", "The Battle of the Bulge"...the list goes on and on), and as a boy who assumed that one day I too would take my turn in uniform, I held among my strongest contemporary heroes the plucky little nation of Israel and it's brave and resourceful military: Moshe Dayan and his eye patch leading outnumbered tank units into the swirling dusty hell of close-quarters battle in the 1967 6-Days War; the Israeli Air Force sweeping a numerically superior enemy from the sky; the heroic struggle to fight back from the initial surprise and sieze victory in the 1973 Yom Kippur war. There was a particular special goodness and rightness to their struggle: unlike American forces fighting and dying for the more ephemeral causes of South Vietnamese freedom and stopping the march of Communism, the Israeli Defense Force was fighting for the very survival of their small nation...stirring stuff to inject into the testosterone-rich blood stream of a young American patriot....

...you get older, though, and your view changes. I never went on to don a uniform in defense of the United States, coming of enlistment age at the end of US combat involvement in Viet Nam, when the overall climate in the country didn't lead one naturally to a career in the military (although I did come very very close to joining a friend in going into the Coast Guard). Israel has changed, too. There is no longer the sense that it is a small plucky nation clinging desperately to its very survival in a hostile land; it now seems more the Big Dog on the block (perhaps the rumored possession of nuclear weapons will pump up your rep that way). It still holds in its possession the West Bank and Gaza Strip that it occupied during the 1967 war, which has led to periodic episodes of horrible violence committed against the Israeli people and occasionally vicious retaliation by IDF forces.

One IDF response to the suicide bombings at various times over the last several years has been the destruction of the homes of the families of the suicide bombers. This as always been troubling because - aside from the fact that it didn't appear to serve much of a deterring effect - it seemed like sort of a "closing the barn door too late" sort of endeavour. And now we have this, a seemingly heavy-handed response, although there may well have been incidences where Palestinians homes have been used as firing and observations. The problem is, this just reeks of collective punishment which - although Israel uses a convoluted explanation to excuse itself from international law in its handling of the so-called Occupied Territories - is seen by many as a violation of the Fourth Geneva Convention. Willing as I may be to accord any latitude to the heroes of my youth, I just have to say that my heroes would never engage in collective punishment as a means to its own end in dealing with a hostile occupied people...

...the problem is, collective punishment under the excuse of tactical necessity is what they're doing. What the hell happened to my heroes?

�in yet another chapter in the on-going ruckus over whether public figures who support a woman�s right to choose to have an abortion should be allowed to partake of Holy Communion in the Roman Catholic Church, the Archbishop of Portland, Oregon, issued an advisory opinion Thursday that Catholics who publicly disagree (and more on that in a moment) with the church on this or any other issue considered to be of church teaching should refrain from taking Holy Communion. Among those taken surprise by this issued opinion is Ted Kulongoski, Governor of Oregon, abortion rights supporter, and one of the 300,000 Roman Catholics in Archbishop John G. Vlazny�s diocese. In an interview last evening on Oregon Public Broadcasting, the Governor chose not to opine publicly about the Archbishop�s statement but did express an interest in speaking to him privately about the subject (apparently a perk of governorship not enjoyed by the run-of-the-mill lay person).

�this whole furball got started, of course, at the behest of a group of conservative Catholics engaging in a bit of good ol� fashioned back alley politics in an effort to create distracting issues for John Kerry. They were able to quickly find a willing accomplice in Archbishop Raymond L. Burke of St. Louis, who created nationwide debate by instructing the priests in his diocese to refuse Holy Communion to Catholic politicians known to support abortion or euthanasia. While the effect of the initial effort was targeted at a handful of nationally prominent Democrats, the effect of this most recent attempt by the Roman Catholic Church to exert it�s influence on the secular world is beginning to branch out, reaching down to even county and local-level politicians, as in the Oregon episode. What is interesting about Archbishop Vlazny�s written opinion, however, is that it draws a distinction between the public profession of disagreement and a private or little-known disagreement. In his opinion, only those who publicly disagree with Church teachings on such things as abortion, stem-cell research, euthanasia, or same-sex marriage should refrain from the sacrament; others who hold contrary views privately or have only shared their thoughts with close friends and family are not held to this standard, which introduces a degree of nuance that I must confess I�m having a bit of trouble unraveling. John Kerry has provided nuance of his own, stating that he is actually opposed to abortion but feels it inappropriate to force church teachings onto a secular setting, making him anti-anti-abortion rather than pro-abortion�

�it�s understandable that such a nuanced argument would be latched onto by conservatives as another example of waffling, given that they as a rule aren�t given to spending much time thinking hard about things (that�s how you arrive at being a conservative, after all) and wouldn�t recognize nuance if you painted it on the head of a splitting maul and wacked them up-side the head with it�not that I would ever for one second even suggest, much less condone such a horribly vicious and violent act; I�m merely employing a literary device�anyway, this is really where the relationship between the Church and it�s followers should reside. Aside from it�s rather bizarre objection to what some church leaders refer to as �illicit� embryonic stem cell research (which is based on the production of stem cells from embryos� created by in vitro fertilization, to which the church is also staunchly opposed), the Catholic Church is opposed to a variety of issues centering around women�s reproductive rights, which the church generally views in roughly the same light as the National Cattlemen�s Association views the reproductive rights of cows. Even further, the Catholic Church was a leading source of muscle and money in the effort that forced the citizens of Oregon to, for a second time, pass the so-called �physician-assisted suicide� law and demonstrate that, yes, we really did mean it when we passed it the first time�

�as a life-long Lutheran, a member of the original Reformation denomination founded by a dissident Catholic priest, I suppose it�s not terribly likely that I�m going to have warm fuzzy ecumenical feelings towards attempts by the Roman Catholic Church to force its teachings on me in the form of state and federal statutes in any case. It might have helped a little if they would have spent even the amount of time that some leaders are devoting to help create political problems for primarily Democratic politicians to explaining why they put so much effort into protecting and sheltering (and continually enabling) priests guilty of felony sodomy and sexual abuse committed against children. By trying to force Catholic politicians to vote in accordance with church teachings under threat of the loss of rights to a sacrament, the church is attempting to force its viewpoint onto a wider secular society. On the other hand, by not addressing other Catholic politicians who hold a more expansive view on the death penalty than that of the church or cast their support for military conflict that doesn�t meet the church�s definition of �just war�, they sacrifice moral authority on the alter of hypocrisy, becoming just as much �cafeteria Catholics� as those so eagerly labeled such by conservative Catholics�.

�liberal Catholic politicians need to hold their ground. To say �I am personally opposed to [sin du jour here] but it is not proper to force my views onto others� is a reasoned moral stand to take when the interests of a multi- (or even anti-) denominational and multicultural society collide with one church�s teachings. Whether we're talking about a county commissioner or a Presidential candidate, the views of your constituients should matter more than the views of your church....

...the concept of "just in time" supply delivery has been a mainstay of industry and commerce, such as car manufacturing, for many years. The concept centers around saving money by avoiding the costs incurred in keeping lots of supplies in storage for an extended period of time until they are needed. Anyone living in a small-town setting like mine has no doubt had the experience of having to wait a day or two (or more) for some part or supply for the car or house or garden tiller that wasn't kept in stock by the local retailer. In a market economy, this sort of supply strategy makes a certain sense. In a war zone, it's an entirely different matter.

Military supply experts are warning that the current tempo of military action in Afghanistan, Iraq, and elseware is beginning to put a tremendous strain on the supplies necessary to repair and maintain military equipment - especially in Iraq - and will inevitably lead to shortened service life and necessary early replacement of all sorts of equipment. Everything from helicopter blades to batteries for personal equipment is being delivered just in time, with no allowance for building up a surplus of supplies. In addition, the heavy haul trucks needed to transport those supplies are putting on 10 times the miles that would normally be expected, with will lead to the need for earlier than anticipated replacement at a cost that has not yet been accounted for. According to General Paul Kern, head of the Army Material Command:

"We're meeting the requirements, but we don't have a lot of slack....If you're in the supply business, you'd like to say you have six months of supplies on the shelf. Right now, we are delivering to meet demands. We're not building any significant reserves."

Aside from the fact that this spells trouble if the need for an increased tempo in operations were to arise, this increased need for supplies and oncoming need for sooner than anticipated replacement of equipment suggests a degree of expenditure that has not been previously discussed. The Bushies have already been forced to ask for an extra 25 billion dollars that they had hoped to hide until after the November election, given that each supplemental request pushes them to and beyond the estimate offered by former administration economic advisor Larry Lindsay before he was defenestrated; some experts feel that this extra $25 billion won't be nearly enough to cover even the near term costs.

There were those beside Mr. Lindsay, of course, who felt that the cost of going into Iraq for whatever the heck reason it was that the administration is finally going to settle on would cost far more than the original $87 billion originally requested. The need to sustain a large force for a longer period of time than that stated by the Bushies guaranteed a larger cost all by itself; the failure to focus on finishing the job in Afghanistan, coupled with the general understanding that we were basically being lied to about how easy the conquest of Iraq would be, made that original estimate a laughable mockery of reality and could almost make one feel a glint of sympathy for Larry Lindsay were it not for the fact that...well, let's just say that some folks don't make very sympathetic victims. But now we're talking about the possible need to replace a significant portion of the heavy hauling assets of the regular Army, as well as of the Reserve and Guard, as well as a significant portion of the Humvee fleet that will become worn out before it's scheduled time because of the extra stress placed on each one by the addition of the heavy - and still somewhat to mostly ineffective - supplemental armor that these vehicles weren't really designed to carry in the first place.

"We're going to go through the life span of equipment faster," Kern said, "and it's clearly accelerated the need to replace Army equipment."

It doesn't represent the same sort of cost as that represented by the loss of treasure and blood of the 700+ dead soldiers and a couple thousand wounded, not to mention the almost uncountable Iraqi loss of life and limb; it's just one more thing , one more element in the breach of faith between this administration and the American people. Even for those willing to accept, after the failure of the WMD excuse, the immoral (from a Christian perspective)explanation that we needed to overthrow another government through war in order to create a free and democratic state in the Middle East, this is an unanticipated cost for which this administration should be expected to be held accountable....

...on Saturday evening, there will be a gala fund-raising event in Beverly Hills sponsored by the Juvenile Diabetes Research Foundation (JDRF). At this event Nancy Reagan, who is viewed by Republicans as no less than the Queen Mother of the Partyand whose husband is easily the most famous Alzheimer's Disease patient in the world, will be receiving an award for her support of stem cell research from Michael J. Fox, who is afflicted with Parkinson's disease, and is expected to speak out in support for renewed federal support for embryonic stem cell research. This is expected to bring the battle over embryonic stem cell research back to the front pages, given that both President Reagan's and Fox's diseases, as well as the Type 1 diabetes that the foundation seeks money to combat, are all viewed as diseases that stem cell research offers a hope for a cure.

The subjects of juvenile (insulin dependent) diabetes and stem cell research are not only extremely important here at Ruminate This but also serve as a connecting thread that caused our gracious hostess Lisa English to hand me a set of keys to the car - as it were - a few months ago, allowing me to spread my babbling nonsense into blogtopia; both of us have sons who are diabetic and who could conceivably benefit from a cure arising from the outcome of stem cell research. It is a relatively rare disease; only 10 percent of all diabetes sufferers have Type 1 diabetes, which is an auto-immune disease where the body attacks and destroys the pancreatic cells that produce insulin. The vast majority of diabetes sufferers have Type 2 (or adult onset) diabetes, wherein the body for a variety of reasons has lost the ability to use the insulin it does produce in metabolizing blood sugar.

On August 9, 2001, Gee Dub, after what was allegedly described an an agonizing decision-making process (a bit of administration fluff that was primarily devised to make him look intellectually substantial), arrived at the conclusion that his anti-abortion supporters must be served and declared that federal funding would not be allowed for research on anything but the 66 existing collections of stem cells he said had been identified. Federal funds could not be spent on research on lines of cells that may subsequently be developed from embryos that were the product of in vitro fertilization activities. As has happened so much in this administration, he lied. There were, it transpired, only about 19 lines of stem cells that were available for research. The direct result was the almost total halting of stem cell research seeking cures for Alzheimer's disease, Parkinson's disease, and juvenile diabetes, amongst other efforts. Federal funding was available; source material was not.
As a result, leadership in the field of stem cell research passed to Europe and Asia, leaving a profoundly underutilized resource languishing in the United States.

The JDRF, seeing the problems being thrown in the path of promising research, responded in a good old American tradition: they began grass-roots lobbying of federal legislators, using families with diabetic children to tell the stories of their lives. As a result, last week over 200 members of the House of Representatives, including nearly 3 dozen staunch abortion opponents, signed a letter to Gee Dub asking for reconsideration of the policy of forbidding the use of federal funds on embryonic stem cell research involving lines of cells developed from left-over in vitro fertilization efforts. A parallel Senate effort is in place, involving long-time research supporter Arlen Spector and, surprisingly, Bill Frist, who started this whole mess in the first place and -as of now - is still the last guy I'm letting in the life boat if we ever end up on the same sinking cruise ship (I'm saving the spot for Orin Hatch, with whom I would disagree on virtually any subject you could thing of mentioning but who was a staunch supporter of embryonic stem cell research throughout the wild angry debate of three years ago).

Gee Dub's initial "tortured" decision of three years ago should have served as a wakeup call to the nation about the facile empty nature of his so-called convictions and that whole "compassionate conservative" nonsense. It was Arlen Spector and Orin Hatch and a few others of varying conservative stripes that demonstrated what conservative compassion looked like. Gee Dub's act was little more than cheap political theater intended from the outset to make it look as though he might consider abandoning his anti-abortion and Pharisee religious base. The subject at hand was the use of embryos that were destined to be dedstroyed without ceremony, embryos that had been created outside of the normal biblically mandated biological process and - being excess to the in vitro process - would be destroyed without acknowledgement or ceremony. As could be predicted for a guy who mostly employs empty false-front facades in the place of truly thought-out moral convictions, he chose the soft flat broad path of political expediency to respond to a particular core support group rather than exploring the possiblities of creative compromise that would have distinguished a true leader (but, what the hell can you expect from second place)....but....

...but, if Gee Dub were to place his head to the floor tonite he just might hear the drum of the approaching hoofbeats. He got a free ride on a cheapjack political decision back in 2001 because it was such a long time until the next election and, after all, how long can folks beside those of us who have had to spend the last several years watching our diabetic children staring longingly at one of those huge chocolate chip/M&M; cookies in the bakery section at the grocery store knowing that they can't even ask if they can have one....just a stupid cookie, one that you might not otherwise give a second thought to buying for the trip home, but filled with far too many grams of carbohydrates to be able to fit into the poor kid's tightly regulated diet...how long can people other than these stay worked up over the decision. Well, now it's 2004 and the election isn't 3 years away any more and - thanks to the efforts of groups like the JDRF and others - ol' Gee Dub will have the opportunity to reaffirm that decision in the white-hot light of an election campaign. It might not have the power of issues such as the economy or our failed incursion into Iraq, but it will matter to the families of people with a host of debilitating diseases for which embryonic stem cell research offers a glimmer of hope. If you'll excuse me now, I'm off to write a letter to my lame excuse of a Republican Congressman to ask him why he isn't among the list of names asking for a relaxing of the stem-cell funding rule....

...let's face it; Don Rumsfeld through his Pentagon has mishandled nearly every aspect of this exciting adventure of Iraqi regime change and nation-building we've been engaged in over the last year. He messed up the number of troops needed to successfully garrison the country once we had taken it over; he didn't appear to have anything approaching a plan for post-invasion reconstruction, nor has he come up with anything more than hammer-vs.-nail solutions for dealing with the opposition to American occupation. Along with everything else, he maintained a seemingly willful disinterest in anything having to do with long-rumored and not-so-recently reported prisoner abuse by soldiers in various detention centers in Iraq until it bacame impossible to ignore last week; now he has been reduced to a futile parsing of the difference between "abuse" and "torture", as if the former is a somehow more benign description of the behavior of American MP's at Abu Ghraib prison and potentially elsware.

With the prison abuse photo's serving as the catalyst and last straw for members of the loyal opposition, who have no doubt grown tired of having to deal with his abrasive and patronizing attitude, calls have gone out for his resignation or firing. While I believe that his continued presence serves the loyal opposition's purposes better than would his removal from office from a purely political standpoint, it would no doubt improve our standing in the world by showing that we hold the highest levels in a command structure responsible for the attrocities of their subordinates. Lord knows we have nothing to lose in attempting to repair our image in the eyes of Arab observers, especially after Gee Dub took his well-known congenital inability to apoligize for anything on it's little road trip through the Arab world on Wednesday. Leave it to Tom Delay and and his li'l Texas remora to place calls for Rummy's resignation into the proper Republican context:

...�this morning, in a calculated and craven political stunt, the national Democratic Party declared its surrender in the war on terror.�

Democrats, said Rep. Michael Burgess, R-Texas, �basically are giving aid and comfort to the enemy.�

...really? "Craven"? I'm not sure which "War on Terra" Delay is referring to; I thought we were fighting one against people who really don't like us and would be happy to do us harm. Rummy's studious incuriousity about all those rumors and reports of prisoner abuse and failure to make sure none of it was true seem particularly well geared to add numbers to that particular interest group, and removing his particular sort of contribution to that aggregation of anti-Americanism could only be classified as surrender through the most painfully torturous reasoning. As far as Congressman Burgess is concerned, let's just say that there's probably a good reason none of us have ever heard of him. Apparently communication skills and vigorous intellectual rigor are not considered highly prized traits by some Texas voters.

...perhaps lost in all the storm noises over the last few days regarding those intriguing new initiatives in Iraqi penal reform being explored by the Pentagon, the Republican-led Congress has been moving foreward in doing the peoples business....

...specifically the business of the people named George W. Bush. Many of Gee Dub's tax cuts came with sunset provisions attached to them in order to make the numbers work out. In order to appear to be on the side of the little people (and Republicans always want to cast the appearance of being on the side of the litttle people in hopes that those little folks won't notice that the meat from the bone they've been tossed has been passed off to other, fatter subjects) the majority has been pushing making permanent marriage penalty relief, expansion of the child tax credit, and expansion of lower-income tax brackets. There has even been talk, spurred in large part by the Democrats, to make revisions to the dreaded Alternative Minimum Tax that is starting to put increasing pressure on all sorts of middle class families for whom the AMT was never intended to apply but which has started to create an impact. Democrats, finding themselves faced with assuming the anti-deficit role originally occupied by Republicans, have addressed this opportunity to appear to be voting against the moral equivalent of Santa Claus by trying with little success to offset the permanent loss of revenue in these measures by increasing tax rates on the wealthiest hand full of citizens.

There may be some question, however, as to how this election-year effort on the part of Republicans to try to get folks to forget all those other ways that they have been trying to individually and collectively screw them over the last couple of years will actually pan out. One of the primary complaints raised against Gee Dub's tax cuts was that they actually offered very little to working/middle class Americans, reserving most of their benefits to the sorts of folks that we don't even know, much less resemble in a financial way. It may well be that the little people were led to unfulfilled expectations by Gee Dub's exhortations about the benefits they would see from his tax cuts:

A poll released Wednesday by the University of Pennsylvania's National Annenberg Election Survey found that only 9 percent of Americans believe they paid less in federal taxes this tax season because of Republican tax cuts. Only 1 percent say the tax cuts helped them, and they have not decided which presidential candidate they will support.

If one thinks back on the investment that the Bush administration made in trying to convince the American people that huge benefits would be directly reaped by even the lowest income earners, this poll can't be the sort of thing that Karl Rove ever hoped to be reading over his elegant morning repast. The words of Adam Clymer, the political director of the Annenberg poll are as good a benediction to Republican tax-cutting efforts as anything I might think of:

"When only one American in 11 thinks his or her taxes were reduced by the tax laws ... and hardly any of them are swing voters, those impressions strongly imply that the Bush tax cuts are not helping his candidacy very much."

...yup, that says it all....

...back in April, John Kerry said during his appearance on Meet the Press that the Bush Administration had gone off the rails - or taken us off the rails - by characterizing the struggle against terrorism as a war.

"It's an intelligence gathering, law enforcement, public diplomacy effort, and we're putting far more money into the war on the battlefield than we are into the war of ideas....We need to get it straight."

Gee Dub was almost immediately hustled out onto the stage to state that, nosireebob, this most certainly isn't a law enforcement matter, this is a real live shootin' war, sonny, and every man-jack of ya better be pickin' up a weapon and gittin' with the program. Even today, at one of those bizarre staged events - this one at a high school in Niles, Michigan - where only those with Republican I.D. numbers tatooed inside their lips like cattle are allowed within 500 yards of the facility by bulky stern-faced men sporting high-powered weapons and a limitless supply of plastic wrist and ankle ties, the Prez once again hammered on the war theme, using virtually the same phrases he's relied on for the last couple of weeks:

"Listen, some have said this is just a matter of law enforcement. This isn't a matter of law enforcement. We tried that attitude before. And while we had that attitude that this was just a law enforcement matter, the enemy was planning and plotting. No, this isn't -- this isn't a law enforcement matter; this is a war. And the President of the United States must use all the assets of the United States to defend America."

Stirring stuff, that. It would almost make one want to snatch old Glory from the hands of a fallen comrade and, side by side with the little drummer boy, march off into the face of the withering enemy guns if it weren't for one nagging little contradictory factoid: it's not true.

In the aftermath of 9/11, with enough evidence of Al Qaeda involvement in our own terrorist attacks to sink a boat, there was ample public interest in striking at the heart of the brutal scumbags that would bring such horror to so many innocent lives almost solely for the purpose of making a political statement. In the larger arena of public opinion, the idea of overthrowing the Taliban government in Afghanistan and driving the terrorists from their safe haven could almost be seen as a position of moderation. The Viet Nam-era policy of my callow youth - "Kill them all and let God sort them out" - no doubt simmered just below many people's emotional surface. As Americans, with our own history of rebellion and civil war over matters of freedom and governance, we have never been consistently tolerant of those who seem to allow themselves to be subjugated by a dictatorial authority (witness our 40+ years of tolerance of our country's approach to Castro's Cuba). As a result, the Afghan operation held widespread support, although there were certainly instructive signs regarding the lack of a well-develolped post-war plan that should, but didn't, set off alarm bells in even the most hawkish minds when the subject turned to Iraq....

....ah, yes, Iraq. The weapons. The terrorist connections that originally were supposed to mean Al Qaeda connections but that have now morphed into support of Hamas or suicide bombing Palestinians or evil Islamic pet abusers or whatever. The vital need to take this step as part of the ongoing war against terrorism. The outcome: virtually nobody of importance in the "war on terrorism" has been apprehended; Iraq is a more unstable place than it was on the day prior to our crossing over the border; the Middle East has, instead of a shining beacon of democracy, a subjugated state overseen by the newly revived Great Satan (courtesy of Gee Dub's hearty endorsement of Ariel Sharon's failed withdrawal plan). The "War on Terra" has - in Iraq - turned into a deadly and volatile situation with seemingly little positive influence on the safety of Americans....

...and then there's the much-disparaged "law enforcement" side, the type of approach that neo-con's love to rake Bill Clinton over the coals about, even though any proposal to invade Afghanistan, much less Iraq, prior to 9/11 would have been met with nothing less than a firestorm of disapproval (witness the "wag the dog" scenarios played out when Clinton did launch cruise missle attacks against Al Qaeda sites). So how's that been going? Well, here are just the recent results:

BRITAIN: 10 people of North African and Kurdish origin arrested Monday in and around Manchester amid media reports they planned to blow up Manchester United soccer stadium.

FRANCE: Six Moroccans arrested in April in connection with 2003 bombings in Casablanca that killed 33, along with 12 bombers.

JORDAN: Four men suspected of having ties to al-Qaida killed by police after investigators deterred simultaneous bomb and chemical plots against U.S. Embassy and other targets. Officials said planned attacks could have killed 20,000 people and levelled parts of the capital, Amman. Authorities said plot foiled with arrests of several suspects in two raids in late March and early April.

SAUDI ARABIA: Five militants captured after suicide car bomb detonates in Riyadh, killing six people, including bomber, and destroying government building. On Friday, five terror suspects - two on government's most-wanted list - killed in shootouts over two days. Saudi authorities arrested or killed dozens of alleged al-Qaida militants since suicide attacks killed 51 people in Riyadh last year. Police and security forces also have died.

SWEDEN: Four men - two from Iraq, two of Lebanese origin - arrested for alleged links with terror groups outside Europe.

SPAIN: More than 20 suspects arrested in March 11 Madrid train bombings that killed 191 people; international warrants issued for more. At least five prime suspects believed among seven alleged terrorists who blew themselves up as police moved to arrest them in Madrid, April 3.

PHILIPPINES: Six suspected members of al-Qaida-linked Abu Sayyaf arrested in March with about 35 kilograms TNT. Suspects allegedly confessed to plotting bombings of U.S. and Israeli embassies in Manila, shopping malls and oil depots.

This doesn't even include arrests and/or convictions in New York, Oregon, and Florida (although there are certainly questions over the...em....enthusiam with which law enforcement has gone after some subjects. Nor does it cover other arrests that have gone down, especially in Europe, since 9/11. This is too an exercise in law enforcement and intelligence. Our military forces, as brave and professional as they are, are suited to overthrowing countries that harbor or sponser terrorism (whether or not that's a good idea), but they cannot in many, if not most, cases actually stop terrorist cells operating within the confines of otherwise free, self-determining sovereign states. The neighbors just simply aren't going to tolerate Bradley Fighting Vehicles tearing through the rose bushes and knocking over the green house.

It almost seems as though Gee Dub clings to and insists upon this "war" image as not just a means to an electoral end, but because (and we've all heard about his conviction that God has placed him here for this moment) of some feeling that he was destined to be a war-time President. It's almost as if he wants to position his portrait in the top tier of warring presidents, along with Washington, Lincoln, and FDR, a man of divine destiny charging through the smoke of the cannon fire to lead this great nation to victory against an evil enemy, informing the sort of glorious self-image that half a dozen Patriot Actss could never accomplish. It should certainly be profoundly instructive to those with 'eyes to see and ears to hear' that the only successes that have been scored in the war against terror since talk of Iraqi incursion first began 18 months ago have, in fact, been in the fields of law enforcement and intelligence and not on the fields of battle that Gee Dub's view of this war envisioned. Given that the military war on terror hasn't produced nearly the results that solid police work and intelligence have over the last year and a half, let's hear it for the solid police work...at least that's working...

...so this morning was the first time in over 20 years I have turned on the radio at 5 a.m. on a weekday morning with no official expectation of hearing Bob Edwards on NPR's Morning Edition. Instead, this morning it was Steve Inskeep and Renee Montagne doing absolutely nothing to suggest that there was any difference in the show except the hosting voices. No new direction; no ear-catching change in the music or the format or the execution; just different voices....

...so this morning at 6 a.m., Oregon Public Broadcasting launched their week-long spring radio pledge drive. Sorry, guys, not this time; keep the coffee cups...

...and so it is made clear by Joint Chiefs of Staff chairman General Richard Myers that one of the main reasons we laid siege to Fallujah (thanks to Kos for the link) was to track down and "bring to justice" the perpetrators of the murder and mutillation of the Blackwater employees:

We've got to deal with the extremists, the foreign fighters; got to get rid of the heavy weapons out of Fallujah; and we've got to find the folks who perpetrated the Blackwater atrocities against the Blackwater personnel. (emphasis added) Those are the objectives.

Aside from the assumption that the somewhat disproportionate response is due to the unspeakably heinous nature of the murders, the question is raised regarding under what jurisdiction any suspects who are caught would be charged and tried, given the lack of judicial structure in Iraq....

...and now we find, as the story about prisoner abuse in Baghdad's Abu Ghraib prison unfolds, that military intelligence personnel and private military contractors' employees may well have had involvement in these incidents of abuse. Despite General Myers' statement that abusive contractor's employees would be handled under the US justice system, there is a profoundly murky gray area enveloping the questions of what laws apply to Coalition contractors:

Normally, an individual's crimes would then fall under the local nation's laws. But there are no established Iraqi legal institutions - that is why we are running their prisons in the first place - and, in any case, coalition regulations explicitly state that contractors don't fall under them. In turn, because the acts were committed abroad, and also reportedly involve some contractors who are not US citizens, the application of US law is problematic. As one military lawyer said: "There is a dearth of doctrine, procedure, and policy."

...it just seems rather ironic somehow that we seek to capture one group of people under uncertain jurisdiction to punish them for a certain type of attrocity while we don't even seem to be investigating another group of people regarding the commission of another type of attrocity (one that, though less ultimately brutal, has much larger ramifications for the ultimate success of our so-called plan in Iraq) occuring in the same climate of uncertain jurisdiction...

...the West Bank village of Biddo has recently become a hotspot for protests against the construction of the Israeli security fence, featuring almost daily confrontations between rock-throwing Palestinians and Israeli security forces. Last week a foreign news photographer captured an image of an innovative tactic the security forces chose to employ to combat the rock throwers. By lashing 13-year-old Muhammed Badwan to the windshield screen of a military vehicle, they apparently hoped to convince the stone throwers to cease and desist. A left-wing rabbi, Arik Ascherman, was detained and also claimed to be employed as a human shield by security forces when he attempted to intervene in young Mr. Badwan's situation...

...after first denying the episode, Israeli spokespersons said that Justice ministry folks would be investigating. Official sources also offered the additional telling statement:

...Israeli security forces insist they do their utmost to avoid civilian casualties and accuse Palestinian militants of routinely using non-combatants for cover...

..."accuse Palestinian militants of routinely using non-combatants for cover." Excellent, guys, and thanks for sharing that, not that it has a hell of a lot to do with what we're talking about here! The Fourth Gevena Convention is pretty plain-spoken about this matter:

Article (34) �The taking of hostages is prohibited."

Article 51 of the Additional Protocols added to this Convention in 1977 says in part:

"...The Parties to the conflict shall not direct the movement of the civilian population or individual civilians in order to attempt to shield military objectives from attacks or to shield military operations...

...but whadaya gonna say? The official American attitude toward the troubles in Israel and the Occupied Territories has served to wrap their actions in the welcoming cloak of "the War on Terrorism" rather than allowing them to be seen as part of an ongoing territorial conflict between an Occupying power and the unwillingly occupied. The unique, virtually theocratic mantle draped over the state's very existence tends to serve as an insulator against criticism, introducing the potential for charges of anti-semitism in response to criticism of bulldozing houses as collective punishment or chopping down orchards as collective punishment or the importation of Jewish settlers into occupied territory that has not otherwise been annexed or even, say, the use of 13-year-old children as shields against rock-throwing protesters.

Israel's Supreme Court declared two years ago that civilians were not to be used as human shields (which would seem to be an unnecessary ruling giving the restrictions of the Fourth Geneva Convention except that Israel doesn't recoginize the West Bank and Gaza as qualifying as Occupied Territories nor does it view itself under the terms of the convention as the Occupying Power). Now - primarily because of the photographic evidence and international press coverage - they will be forced to conduct some sort of investigation, the outcome of which I am confident we will never be made aware. The apparent lack of concern expressed by the United States, coupled with our general abandonment of any appearance as a neutral peace broker, virtually guarantees that little will come of this exposure that will cause Israeli security forces to reconsider some of their operational practices...

...and the violence will continue....

..in just another episode in an ongoing quest to seek excellence in the field of pissing off the greatest number of Iraqis in the shortest possible time, the Iraqi Governing Council yesterday announced the abandonment of the existing national flag and the adoption of a new one.

It would probably be bad enough that the IGC would make such a sweeping change in a fundamental icon of national identity, given that it is held in such low regard by many Iraqis, being viewed as little more than a meat puppet lending a veneer of legitamacy to the actions of the de facto US rulers. The singular obtuseness of this move is compounded, as only the American-led Provisional Authority can, by a striking thematic resemblance to the flag of Isreal (a sure hit in a solidly arabic muslim country) and a total abandonment of the traditional pan-arabic colors of red, black, green, and white which are found on the flags of most of the arabic nations, as well as on every variant of the Iraqi national flag dating back to 1921. Suffice it to say that the new flag has met with widespread disapproval.

It's not a big thing, but it is another thing. It's probably not enough to send people into the streets, but it is enough to remind them that a figurehead government appointed by the occupying force is dictating fundamental aspects of their lives without any public input, while their daily lot in life doesn't seem to be getting any better. It strikes me as a rather bone-headed move on the part of the Provisional Authority to introduce this extra stress through the IGC at a time when there are questions over whether this whole grand nation-building experiment is about to spin out of control, but it is what we have come to expect as the norm from this crowd. They've gotten little right from the outset and, as this little flag-flap demonstrates, there's little reason to expect any change to their track record in the foreseeable future....

...ok, if I may be so bold, let us engage in a little episode of "Compare And Contrast":

THE COLLEGE YEARS

George W. Bush: Used family influence to gain admittance to America's finest Ivy League institutions. By self-admission, was a diffident, unaspiring student who occupied a space that may well have been better used by a more deserving student with lesser family clout.

Pat Tillman: Through personal dedication and athletic ability, was awarded a football scholarship at Arizona State University. As a Senior, playing as an undersized linebacker, was named Pac - 10 Defensive Player of the Year. Graduated in 3 1/2 years (a remarkable achievement under any circumstances, but particularly difficult under the time constraints imposed by an evey fall semester being consumed by football) suma cum laude with a 3.8 grade point in Marketing.

WORK CAREER

George W. Bush: Established a track record comprised primarily of underperforming in various entrepeneurial efforts and avoiding Securities and Exchange Commission investigations that would bring a lesser man - specifically one not related by blood to the sitting president - to his knees. Managed to win election as Governor; most notable achievements in this role were gaining league-leader status in the field of state executions and brokering a baseball team sale that parlayed a relative small personal investment into a return of millions of dollars (and not a single cattle future purchase or sale was involved). Alleged achievement of the "Texas Miracle" in education reform turns out to be a house of cards who's inevitable collapse conjures the frequent use of the word "scandal".

Pat Tillman: Drafted by Arizona Cardinals, overcomes physical limitations to become one of the more respected safeties in the National Football League. Turns down a huge salary offer by likely Super Bowl candidate St. Louis Rams to stay - at half the salary - with the woeful Cardinals out of a sense of loyalty and a desire to be part of the new powerhouse that might be build in Arizona. At the end of his first contract in the fourth year of his pro career, turns down 3.6 Millon Dollars per Year and leaves football.

MILITARY CAREER

George W. Bush: Uses family influence to move to the front of the line in front of hoards of senior candidates. Despite bare minimum test scores, is accepted to flight program to be trained to become a fighter pilot. After tens of thousands of dollars of taxpayers money is expended in flight training, removes self from flight status by transfer, refuses a flight physical that would maintain that status when back with the Texas Air National Guard (an almost unheard-of occurance amongst fighter jocks) and receives a requested discharge early in order to return to college, leaving a position that otherwise could easily have been filled by a more enthusiastic pilot candidate with lesser family connections.

Pat Tillman : Profoundly affected by 9/11, feels a tremendous responsibility to give back something to his country as have his great grandfather and other family members. Walks away from a contract renewal at the end of his fourth NFL season to join the Army with his younger brother, in the bargain giving up $3.6 million a year and the glamour of the NFL lifestyle for the daily rigors, at $18 thousand a year, of the military. Successfully completes the challenges of Ranger training to become an Army Ranger of the 75th Ranger Regiment. Serves in Iraq; is killed in action in Afghanistan.

Is Pat Tillman a special sort of hero? Probably not; lots of people entered military service after 9/11 as a way of expressing support for the country. Any person willing to put himself or herself in a position where he or she can get shot at in service to our country is a hero...and that pretty much encompasses anyone who puts on a military uniform and offers him- or herself up to the combat theater. Tillman felt that way himself; he steadfastly refused to entertain "football star becomes a military hero" interviews, saying at one point that he would do an interview once everybody else under arms in the war against terror had had one first. His story, however, provides a tremendous degree of instruction, when compared with some others, as to how one might respond to his country's call to service, whether it is against the evils of communism or the threat of terror. He is also a face that helps bring the sacrifice asked of some into a clear focus for a larger audience. I confronted this issue of sacrifice just over a year ago when the younger brother of a fellow that I've coached with and against in our small community's Little League and kids basketball programs over the last five years was killed just outside of Baghdad. I wasn't part of the inner circle of grief, but I was brought face to face with it, standing by helplessly while watching the emotional toll that was exacted on the family.

For the vast majority of Americans, however, losses suffered in Afghanistan or Iraq have been somewhat less personal, although weekly news magazines and web sites have done their best to try to bring a human face to each lost soldier (which, from the perspective of a Viet Nam-era kid, is rather remarkable compared to the manner in which we treated those 50-some thousand dead at the time). Pat Tillman was known by thousands of people from his football exploits, and his loss creates a connection with all of those thousands that thumbnail sketchs of all those equally valuable but less well known lost soldiers can't quite do.

This particular combat fatality says nothing about our Iraqi incursion, of course. Tillman died in the original - and now largely forgotten - theater of action against terrorism. But it is hugely instructive of the value that we put at risk when we are forced to send troops in harm's way. It also offers - at least for those of us who spend way too much time looking at the "Just for Men" hair-dying section in the hair care section at the grocery store - an opportunity to contemplate a long view of history, armed conflict, and how people end up where they do: how those who display a spark, a certain promise of the potential of the great things that could come end up being fond memories wrapped in a gauze of painful loss (sometimes carved on a black granite wall, sometimes on a single marker) while others who were little more than a remora clinging to the shark-belly white underside of a powerful family legacy acquire residence in positions that are far beyond anything their knowledge, skills, and abilities would suggest they could - or even should - attain.

Pat Tillman's story was of the remarkable sort, and it has ended tragically. He would probably not be pleased by the tremendous coverage his death has received, becaues he seemed to just want to be another soldier serving his country which - in the larger picture - he was. He died fighting in the country that, though seemingly forgotten because of the Iraq mess, actually spawned the terrorist attack that led to his being there in the first place. I pray that we may eventually have the leadership that will make itself, through focus on what is truely important in this war on terrorism, worthy of the sacrifice that he has made.....

...and as we approach that busy summertime vacation flying season we find that...well...who knows what it is exactly it is we find, except that the Transportation Safety Administration's federal airport screeners are doing a poor job, according to a couple of secret studies. Apparently, in an effort to keep hysteria from sweeping through the airline-travelling community, the Department of Homeland Security and Government Accounting Office are keeping their actual findings secret and will only characterize the results of their covert testing as "poor"....

...Yup! Works for me!!

Although TSA officials claim that there has been a 70% increase in efficiency since they began testing (which apparently consisted of naked people with sticks of dynamite strapped to their torso's trying to sneak on board flights), the reports seem to be saying that screeners are less able to identify certain threats due to lack of training and equipment and the distribution of resources. Oregon Congressman Pete DeFazio goes so far as to claim that we are no better of than we were 17 years ago, but Pete's known for becoming a bit hyperbolic at times.....at any rate, the reports concerned the House Aviation Committee enough to lead them to call for secret hearings within the next 10 days, not that there's anything to worry about or anything like that....

...in the meantime, a long time friend, a federal employee with many years of faithful service to the people of the Unite States who has lived a remarkably boring private life, will continue to get pulled out of every airport security line he's in, taken to a back room, and strip-searched for reasons that it is becoming clear he will never be allowed to understand. Me, I'm thinkin' that the long-planned cross-country family trip to Disneyworld this summer just might take place on a Greyhound bus...

...it is good to see that the Bushies' continued efforts to make us safe at home and abroad are all having about the same level of success....

...in rather stridently-worded comments to a gathering of newspaper editors and publishers yesterday, Gee Dub announced that any Iranian efforts to support a nuclear weapons program or produce nuclear weapons would be "intolerable".

"The development of a nuclear weapon in Iran is intolerable. And a program is intolerable. Otherwise they will be dealt with, starting through the United Nations." (my emphasis)

"Starting" through the United Nations!? And what steps would be taken to finish dealing with Iran, pray tell? Embargos? Cruise missle attacks? Full-blown boots-on-the-ground invasion? Is there another of those Woodwardesque scenes going down where Gee Dub has called Rummy aside to order a war-plan for Iran? Is this an implicit threat of armed conflict being thrown at a nation that has a population that, aside from being three times the size of Iraq, is primarily composed of one relatively unified and strongly nationalistic cultural group (Shiites)?

...intolerable...unacceptable...unbearable..."this will not stand".....

These sorts of bellicose statements no doubt serve the desired effect of stirring the hearts of the faithful and showing that we have a tough, hardnosed leader leading the fight against global terrorism, but they are so absurdly empty. If Gee Dub's excellent adventure in Iraq has demonstrated anything, it is that - despite the skill and courage of our armed forces - this administration isn't intellectually geared to handle virtually unilateral incursions into far-off sovereign lands....

...since tough talk isn't going to accomplish much more than inflame passions anyway, it's time for Gee Dub to try a novel new approach...like, oh, say diplomacy of a sort beyond this "starting with the UN" stuff....

...Pat Toomey is a third-term conservative Republican Congressman running to unseat Arlen Specter in the Pennsylvania US Sentate contest. It's been a lively battle, with each contestant drawing up just short of accusing the other of supporting child pornography, and one of Congressman Toomey's main points, which seems to be gaining some traction with likely Republican primary voters, is that Specter is a RINO (Republican in...well, you know the rest) totally out of step with all the values of the party. Democrats are, of course, watching with extreme interest because they feel that their candidate, Joe Hoeffel, would match up very nicely against the very conservative Mr. Toomey. As Atrios notes, Toomey seems to be closing in fast on Specter's once commanding lead in the polls. Obviously, what better time could there be than last Friday night for Toomey to flash his style and substance before Chris Matthews on Hardball?

Toomey appeared on screen, a handsome young man with a great smile, articulate and intellegent, the embodiment of reasonable rational compassionate conservatism:

MATTHEWS: ...Let me ask you this. What�s the different between you, Pat Toomey, and a veteran, Arlen Specter, serving in the next six years representing Pennsylvania?

TOOMEY: Well, in a nutshell, Chris, the difference is I represent the Republican wing of the Republican Party, and Arlen Specter represents the Ted Kennedy wing of the Republican Party.

You know, whether we�re talking about economic or business, social, cultural or legal issues, Arlen Specter comes down on the side of the liberals and the Democrats. And I�m a mainstream Republican so, we just disagree on the issues. I just think it really matters now because Republicans are in control.

MATTHEWS: But don�t you also disagree with George W. Bush and Rick Santorum, the very conservative other senator from Pennsylvania? They�re both backing Specter. What is this, the buddy system?

TOOMEY: Yes.

MATTHEWS: How would you explain why they�re backing Specter if he is a liberal?

TOOMEY: Sure. Well, Chris, I know you have been in this business long enough to understand people in political office have political obligations. This White House, like every White House I have ever heard of, has a standard operating procedure of supporting all incumbent Republicans. And you can imagine, if they came out against one of the 51 Republican senators, the kind of trouble they would have getting legislation through the Senate.

Matthews even provided Toomey with the opportunity to take a couple of shots at the kidneys:

MATTHEWS: Is Arlen Specter an honest man?

TOOMEY: He hasn�t been terribly honest in this campaign, Chris. He has been pretty dishonest, in fact.

MATTHEWS: How so?

TOOMEY: Well, for instance, he has accused me of voting against pay raises for men and women in the military, which is flat-out false. I voted for a pay raise each and every year I have been in Congress. There are no exceptions. In fact, twice, he voted against a pay raise. I think he figures he has got more money, so he can define what the truth is, but that�s not being very honest.

...

...He raises a lot of money from liberal organizations. Organized labor and the trial lawyers are the two biggest contributors to him. He has got money from George Soros and Harold Ickes and Jack Valenti, and Alan Dershowitz. So I think it�s pretty clear where he raises his money from. He can raise a lot of it, but it�s OK. It�s not enough to overcome 24 years of voting against Republicans and voting with liberals, so we�re doing fine...

...

...I think of Arlen�no, I think of Arlen Specter as a liberal Republican. I think Arlen Specter is way to the left of Tom Ridge. He is way to the left of most Republicans. Again, you can pretty much pick your issue area. Arlen Specter is outside the mainstream of our party. Take the first Bush tax cuts...

... There�s something wrong when he is never with us. There�s something wrong when he is so far outside the mainstream on virtually every single issue. The people that you have mentioned are generally good Republicans. And occasionally they differ with conservatives, and that�s fine. This should be a party of a big tent...But when you want to represent a big state like Pennsylvania in the United States Senate and you want to run as a Republican, you ought to represent at least most of the Republican values, and Arlen Specter just doesn�t, whether it�s taxes or spending, tort reform, cloning. Across the board, this guy is way to the left, and just outside the mainstream...

...last Thursday the Bush version of the Magical Mystery Tour came to Des Moines, Iowa, to...well, zip around to a couple of media events and look presidential and give a speech insisting that his tax cuts be made permanent (apparently hoping in hitting on this theme again that he had to make most of his tax provisions contain a sunset clause so the math would even come close to working out). The student journalists of the school newspapers at Iowa State University, the University of Iowa and an local community college applied for press credentials to cover some of the days events and were summarily denied press passes. Not satisified to leave well enough alone, the White House Press office took the time to call one of the young journalists to explain that the President didn't want sudents covering the events....

...well, yeah, as my first-born would say. It is a daunting enough task to control the professional media through the perks of access, office selection, and bestowning of nicknames. Whaddaya gonna do with a bunch of kids that you can't control through the normal process of presidential perogative. Just imagine the embarrassing real live questions they might ask if the opportunity presented itself; that would be a nightmare from which Karl Rove might never physically recover. God only knows what these dope-addled, hormonally overcharged, virtual....teenagers, for crying out loud, might come up with...

...it is said that John Kerry has, in some polls, a 10-point advantage over Gee Dub among college students. Sure doesn't look like that poll number will be shifting in Gee Dub's favor any time soon...

...when the Londonderry, New Hampshire, based 94th MP Company was initially mobilized in December, 2002 (just over a year after returning from a 9-month deployment in Bosnia), the general expectation was that they would be on active duty for 12 months. After a few months in Louisana, it was off to Iraq for an anticipated 9-month deployment.

Unfortunately for them - along with other Reserve and National Guard units in Iraq - it was already becoming apparent that Don Rumsfeld's effort to use the conquest of Iraq as a test-drive for his vision of a new lighter, leaner military wasn't panning out. In keeping with one of the two overarching principles of the Bush administration - never, ever admit that you made a mistake and need to reevaluate your position - the nation-building gang, without prior warning and spouting a bunch of mendacious BS about continuity and predictability, extended tours to 12-months incountry. While this no doubt had an impact on morale, they pressed on with their mission while adjusting their internal calendars in anticipation of a mid-April rotation date...

...but now it's happened again. As they approach what they thought was the end of a deployment that has stretched almost 17 months, the troops of the 94th have been informed that they will be extended for another three months. Some members were within hours of leaving Kuwait; they had already thrown away desert uniforms, sunscreen, lip balm, and other hot-weather items. One 6-person detachment had already returned to New Hampshire as an advance team preparing for the company's return; they will be turning around and heading back to Kuwait.

"I'm irate. I've gone past crying and hysteria. Now I want answers," said Nancy Durst of Buxton, whose husband, Scott, is a staff sergeant with the 94th.

"We have been kicked in the gut so many times now, with the six-month extension this fall, and then hours before we are to leave we get this," Scott Durst wrote in an e-mail, saying the reservists have watched in frustration as active-duty Army soldiers have been sent home. "We are tired and beat up and now they want to send us back . . . We were so lucky to get back without anyone being killed," he said, adding that several of the unit's soldiers were injured.

This is just one face of the story behind the 90 to 120 day deployment extension announced yesterday by the Pentagon, but there are many others. The extended deployment falls heavily on everyone, but it may be a sharper blow to the Guard and Reserve troops than to the regular forces because of the length of their deployments. Most of these units, which comprise up to 25% of the troops covered by yesterday's announcement, spent three to four months in full-time duty status doing training and other missions before being sent to Iraq or Kuwait, meaning they have been away from their real lives, families and jobs for 15 or more months...

...it could probably be argued far into the night whether more troops on the ground from the outset would have forstalled the current combat. Many current and former military leaders insisted that we should have had twice as many troops for peacekeeping than Rummy and his gang would allow. Nothing that has happened over the past few months would suggest that they didn't know what they were talking about, while every evidence indicates that the Bushie boys hadn't even a glimmer of an idea of what was needed to make this ill-advised little nation-building adventure turn out alright. They appear to have gotten the WMD issue wrong; they got the mood of the Iraqi people wrong; they got the post-war planning wrong (an extremely charitable observation, granting them the assumption that they actually had a plan); they got the costs wrong; they got deBaathification wrong; they got peace-keeping troop strength wrong; they got the handling of nationalistic minor Shiite religious leaders wrong; if they let Chalabi anywhere near the keys to power they will have gotten the creation of the interim government wrong...and because of all of that and so much much more, soldiers and marines who already served one hitch in Iraq during the invasion are being faced with redeployment and Reservists and Guardsmen who thought they would be gone for a year are now looking having to complete a 20-month deployment before they can go home. Hopefully no copies of "Catch-22" get loose within the ranks; reading Heller's book might be enough to make some folks just start walking home.

...so as the Jack K. family sat around the dinner table listening to Gee Dub's press conference Tuesday evening, we heard one particular question response that arched our eyebrows and - at the same time - made our neck hairs stand up:

"I also have this belief, strong belief, that freedom is not this country's gift to the world; freedom is the Almighty's gift to every man and woman in this world. And as the greatest power on the face of the Earth, we have an obligation to help the spread of freedom."

Huh?

Aside from the obvious confusion over whether we're supposed to be doing all this freedom-spreading because we're the greatest power on earth or because it's God's gift that we are somehow empowered to spread, there are some other obvious theological quibbles to be had with this assertion:

In the first place, freedom as a gift from God - as defined by our Theocrat-in-Chief - is not the commonly accepted definition of 'God's gift of freedom'. God's gift of freedom, as explained by the Reverend Avery Dulles and in the writings of the canonized Reverend Josemaria Escriva, among others, is the freedom of self-possession and self-determination. It is the personal freedom to make choices between good and evil, between salvation through choosing to hear and heed God's call and condemnation through choosing to ignore Him. It is not a socio-political freedom having to do with particular forms of governance or the behavoiral freedoms of the governed.

In the second place, God has not - so far as the Bible is concerned - directed or obliged any nation to go to war in order to bring any sort of freedom to anybody. The concept of 'just war', which is violated both by Bush's adventure in Iraq and by his entire policy of preemption as he has defined it, creates a loop hole in the pacifism taught by Jesus and that whole "thou shalt not kill" thing in the 10 Commandments that allows nations to defend themselves from imminent attack. There is no room under the teachings of Jesus or his Apostles for any state, regardless of it's power, to wage war against another state to bring political freedom to that state's citizens.

As a moderately progressive lefty Christian (which is probably a group that can get by with a pretty small clubhouse), it greatly disturbs me to see the core tenants of Christianity being misused - or even perhaps willfully misinterpreted - in order to acheive a particular political agenda. By wrapping himself in the flag of the Christian faith to which he claims to profess while engaging in a nation-building exercise that in large part responds only to the secular political and enteprenurial desires of the People for a New American Century, Gee Dub creates the image of a theocratic regime operating off of some bizarre personal interpretation of scriptural teaching in just about the last place on earth moderately sane people would ever consider pulling such a stunt....

...yup, I - personally - feel safer already...

I have to write that I'm impressed. A group of affinity groups have taken the UIUC admin building, and reading Dave Rolland's articles Lessons for the practical activist, Sit-in in progress, and Sit-in impressions, reads very well. Inspiring.

At present there are 40+ people inside the Swanlund Administration Building on the campus of the University of Illinois, and another 60+ people outside. They are sitting-in in an effort to force the University to eliminate Chief Illiniwek as it's mascot. A few minutes ago the inside-negotiations team met with Nancy Kantor, the Chancellor of UICU, who is accompanied by 5 uniformed campus police
officers.

I'm on the phone with Tulsie Darmaraja, outside-spoke for the action, and getting mail from Dave, who's on the inside.

I've sent an annoucement to the triballaw mailing list, and to Atrios (Escheton), Marcos (dailyKos), and Air America.

Update: The first round of negotiations have resulted in an agreement to place one campus police officer inside Swanlund, the officer to be selected by the inside-negotiations team, and maintain a permiable boundary, allowing food in to the inside-teams, and a video conference with the Trustees, on the issues.

...four months ago National Park Police Chief Theresa Chambers was quoted in several media outlets, most notably the Washington Post, as commenting about unpublicized cuts in the NPS police budget and the likely impact on security at America's National Monuments and Parks, particularly those around DC. She was immediately suspended, slapped with a gag order, and presented with a proposal of dismissal containing several charges against her with the most notable being insubordination, unauthorized lobbying and public disclosure of budget information. Possibly much to the consternation of the political leaders of the Interior Department (of which the NPS is a part) and those politically ambitious civil service types desperate to curry favor with their political masters and thereby gain advancement in the agency, Shee's Baaacckkk! Along with local media appearences, Ms. Chambers was also the subject of an NPR Weekend Edition interview.

With all the BIG ISSUES that have been occupying the minds of Americans and dominating the public discourse, little items like this have been percolating along in relative anonymity. Suffice it to say that much has been going on in the this small corner of the world. The Fraternal Order of Police immediately jumped to her defense, with a spokesman asking - quite appropriately - why the Chief of the Park Service wasn't facing similar punishment for a press appearance decrying the NPS budget and asking the President for intercession regarding the Statue of Liberty. A nonpartisan coalition of retired NPS employees (led by former civil service bigwigs like regional and park directors) held a press conference revealing letters written by regional directors to local staff that in essence instructed them to LIE about the impact of undisclosed budget cuts on NPS services. The US House of Representatives Democratic House Whip, Steny Hoyer, wrote a letter to the Inspector General of the Interior Dept. questioning a leaked memo that became a Moonie Times article that seemed most intent on trashing Chief Chambers reputation in recounting security problems at Washington Mall (OK, now stop me if you've heard this one before). A group called Public Employees for Environmental Responsibility (PEER), an offshoot of a group originally founded by a small group of US Forest Service employees to defend those employees who faced adverse employment actions because of their opposition to agency projects, has taken up representation on Chief Chambers behalf and strongly opposes the basic legitimacy of the termination charges against the Chief. The Office of Special Counsel is investigating that very legitimacy.

This isn't a big issue that garners days worth of press coverage; it doesn't have the sense of immediacy and threat as the current actions in Iraq or the "He said/She said" soap opera fascination of the 9/11 commission. But it's part of the overall pattern of this administration that seems to catch my eye. Like the saying goes, "it's not one thing after the other; it's the same damn thing day after day.) It's another small example of the two worst fundamental charactersics of this appointed gang of thugs and fixers: the almost congenital need to lie when the truth would be easier and more convenient, and the pathological need to attempt to personally destroy anyone who interferes with the carefully crafted portrait that they are trying to paint about how swimmingly things are going under the quavering drug-addled hand of the Bush Administration. In an otherwise perfect world, as Dr. Pangloss would say, I would hope that all the words that ever needed to be written about the dangers facing a free society by a dangerously out-of-control administration would have already been committed to paper by my hero Dr. Hunter S. Thompson in his essays about the Nixon Adminstration. So I was wrong; it happens. At least now I finally have started to develop that first faint glimmering of understanding of those wacko's that moved to Southern Oregon a generation ago and began clearing fields of fire around the disheveled ridge-top cabins that they built on their properties out in the woods, preparing themselves for that final Apocolyptic battle. I wonder if any of those places are for sale....

...former Calpundit-ite Kevin Drum writes of his breakfast-time discovery this morning of an LA Times opinion piece (registration required and, man, am I getting tired of that) putting the citizens of Inglewood, CA, to the lash for rejecting a virtual Wal-Mart town consisting of a Super Wal-Mart and as many as 60 other small shops. The author of the piece, Jay Nordlinger, argues that the good people of Inglewood have not only denied themselves the opportunity for low prices and good jobs, but also have squarely dopeslapped the American Way of Life. The Money Quote:

Wal-Mart is gloriously, unashamedly, star-spangledly American. I hope it's not too McCarthyite to suggest that those who despise Wal-Mart are the very ones who may not be so crazy about the United States tout court.

...well...yeah, it probably is. Wal-Mart has developed something of a reputation for driving small community businesses to extinction upon its arrival, fueling a sort of hatred on the part of the entrepenuerially-spirited, who would consider their own support for the concept of small locally-owned businesses to be unabashedly American in its own right. There is, however, more at play in this situation that might just make a person cast a McCarthyite eye at Sam Walton's creation in search of anti-American tendancies.

This weeks ballot measure in Inglewood was not just a referendum on the City Council's refusal to grant approval for the development. This initiative, which if passed would grant the authorization for development without further city involvement, was a mind-breakingly explicit 71-page development plan detailed down to the very building materials to be used and plumbing fixtures to be employed in this new facility. Furthermore, the initiative contained a provision requiring that the only way any of the terms of the development plan could be changed would be by a 2/3rds vote of the people. As a result, control over permitting, the development process, and land use planning would be effectively taken away from the elected representatives of the people and turned over to Wal-Mart.

...now, this may well be viewed by conservatives as being intended to represent true Americanism at its finest. Raw, domineering corporate control of our daily lives does seem to be a theme attractive to conservatives these days. Somehow, though, I think a lot of Americans would reject the notion that the usurpation of the people's right to exercise local control over such develops through their elected representatives; I suspect that they wouldn't find it at all to be "gloriously, unashamedly, star-spangledly American."

...there are those days when you realize that life will no longer provide any safe haven from the wacko's and waterheads that seem to be so much a part of the conservative side of the political spectrum. Today just seems to be one of those day. In two separate articles that I stumbled across, commentators are taking John Kerry to task for what appears to be either insufficient or insincere belief in the teachings of the Roman Catholic Church, of which he professes to be a member. The origin of this sudden outpouring of concern for the preservation of the Vatican's power and authority comes from a New York Times story where Kerry was questioned about the apparent conflict between his Roman Catholic faith and his support for such things as abortion and same-sex unions:

Mr. Kerry became combative when told that some conservatives were criticizing him for being a Roman Catholic who supported policies, like abortion rights and same-sex unions, that are at odds with Catholic teaching.

He added: "I'm not a church spokesman. I'm a legislator running for president. My oath is to uphold the Constitution of the United States in my public life. My oath privately between me and God was defined in the Catholic church by Pius XXIII and Pope Paul VI in the Vatican II, which allows for freedom of conscience for Catholics with respect to these choices, and that is exactly where I am. And it is separate. Our constitution separates church and state, and they should be reminded of that."

This exchange was immediately hopped on by Hugh Hewitt in World Net Daily and Carson Holloway in National Review Online. While both pieces are intended as desperate attempts to rip as many Roman Catholic voters away from the Democratic party as possible, each in it's own way suffers from the standard conservative impediment of being forced to discuss moderately complex positions from the shallow end of the ol' intellectual swimming pool.

Hewitt's piece is probably the most embarassing of the two. After demonstrating that he really doesn't know anything about the Roman Catholic faith, he demonstrates that he isn't really interested in even looking into any of it's aspects, characterizing Kerry's response as a new Catholic doctrine and "a familiar dodge", citing the Catholic catechism (specifically Article 5) for it's prohibition against abortion but - in his view - occasional acceptance of capital punishment. Holloway's column, while more professional in its presentation, suffers from some of the same problems, juxtaposing Kerry's response (in particular the abortion vs. capital punishment part) against a simple and uninformed view of the body of Catholic thought about either the church's teachings without consideration of the concept of "freedom of conscience" with regard to the issue of infallibility or the open on-going theological debate about these issues.

It would be cheap fun to spend hours fisking these lame attempts to open another Republican front against the "apparent Democratic nominee", but the time grows late and Momma's oft-stated prohibition against making fun of "those who aren't as blessed as you" keeps echoing in my mind. Suffice it to say that Holloway's apparent effort to bait the Catholic Church into either censuring or...what the heck...excommunicating John Kerry coupled with Hewitt's claim that Kerry has "created" a catechism of convenience demonstrate that non-Catholic conservatives - to extend the above metephor- should probably keep out of the deep end of the pool. As they don't understand the concepts of dissent or the important distinction between infallible and non-infallible pronouncements within the Roman Catholic Church, they have nothing of importance to contribute to the discussion and may probably serve only a self-defeating purpose in their efforts to shill for the Republican party....

...and what is it about Roman Catholics and Jews, anyway? Why are believers in those particular faiths targeted for political adherence to the spiritual beliefs of those particular faiths. It alternately amuses, saddens, and angers me (depending on...oh, I don't know, perhaps the percent of cloud cover, or maybe how much sleep I got last night) that of all the sects within the vast Judeo-Christian world, that these two are singled out for such intense focus when it comes to the beliefs vs the politics of their members. Martin Luther started the Reformation movement (and my denomination) when he hammered a bunch of objections to Roman Catholic practices to a parish door, yet no one would question any diversity between my personal views and those of my church. George W. Bush supposedly pulled out of some unspeakable personal tailspin and became a presumably devout member of the United Methodist Church, yet little more than a whisper ever crops up over the obvious disparity between his view of capital punishment and that of the church itself, which calls for abolition of the practice.

The bottom line in these exercises is that there is more than enough dirty laundry to be flashed around. It is quite simply intellectually dishonest (or, since we're talking about conservatives, intellectually inept) to misuse interpretations of a particular candidate's church teachings to attempt to smear or diminish that candidate (as if I didn't know that these sorts of things go on). Most of life may be politics as usual, but uninformed hatchet jobs wacking away and the most personal of beliefs and relationships of any candidate is really a treacherous trail to begin hiking down, especially given the profound moral quandries that may be presented to and by your own candidate. The Pharisees should probably stick to what they know and keep harping on that tax cut thing....