May 31, 2004
To Tell the Truth …
… is still a foreign concept in the Bush administration:
It was a typical week in the life of the Bush reelection machine.But why let a little thing like the truth get in the way of a good story, eh?Last Monday in Little Rock, Vice President Cheney said Democratic presidential candidate John F. Kerry “has questioned whether the war on terror is really a war at all” and said the senator from Massachusetts “promised to repeal most of the Bush tax cuts within his first 100 days in office.”
On Tuesday, President Bush’s campaign began airing an ad saying Kerry would scrap wiretaps that are needed to hunt terrorists.
The same day, the Bush campaign charged in a memo sent to reporters and through surrogates that Kerry wants to raise the gasoline tax by 50 cents.
On Wednesday and Thursday, as Kerry campaigned in Seattle, he was greeted by another Bush ad alleging that Kerry now opposes education changes that he supported in 2001.
The charges were all tough, serious — and wrong, or at least highly misleading. Kerry did not question the war on terrorism, has proposed repealing tax cuts only for those earning more than $200,000, supports wiretaps, has not endorsed a 50-cent gasoline tax increase in 10 years, and continues to support the education changes, albeit with modifications.
Wait, there’s more:
Vice President Dick Cheney’s office denied Sunday that he was involved in a coordinated effort to secure a multibillion dollar Iraq oil deal for Halliburton, his former employer.If you buy the story that these guys have restored honor and dignity to the White House, I’m a beluga whale.A reference to such an arrangement was made in an internal Pentagon e-mail from an Army Corps of Engineers official to another Pentagon employee, Time magazine reports in its June 7 edition, which is due on newsstands Monday.
The existence of the e-mail was confirmed to CNN by a senior administration official familiar with it.
The e-mail — dated March 5, 2003 — says Douglas Feith, undersecretary of defense for policy, approved the arrangement to award the contract to the oil-services company, the administration official said.
According to an e-mail excerpt in Time, the contract was “contingent on informing WH [White House] tomorrow. We anticipate no issues since action has been coordinated w[ith] VP’s office.”
The Corps of Engineers gave Halliburton the contract three days later without seeking other bids, Time reports.
By the Way …
… you didn’t believe I would let the entire month of May go by without posting, did you?
Who Put Gollum In Charge of the Traffic Information System?
Seen on an information board on the Atlanta Perimeter road [Interstate 285] a couple of weeks back:
CAR ACCIDENT AHEAD
2 MI N OF LAVISTA RD
THREE LEFT LANESS CLOSED
If I hear a traffic reporter calling the Downtown Connector “my preciousssss,” I’ll know we’re screwed.
Color Me Surprised …
… at this starling revelation from Taegan Goddard’s Political Wire:
A recent poll in Alabama by Capital Survey Research shows Sen. John Kerry trailing President Bush 37% to 56%, with 8% undecided …Ah, they never learn. As I tell my friends, Alabama is a good place to be from.
April 25, 2004
World o’ Greg
Seeing as how I’ve hardly pretended to hold up my end of the bargain here at the Green[e]house for the last few weeks, I thought I might make it up to you by giving you a glimpse into the lives of a few other people named Greg. If I can’t serve up the original, after all, I might as well let you have the next best thing — right?
So, to dispense with further ado …
- Greg Allen of Greg.org stumbled into a bit of wink-an-a-nod wisecracking about Kevin Spacey that — when I read it — just about made me do a spit-take;
- Greg Valiga turns up a stranger-than-fiction of discrimination based on sexual orientation [emphasis added]:
I have just one word: wha?!!I think someone needs to slap the manager of Big Ruby’s, a hotel that caters to gays in the downtown area of Key West, FL. According to this story, three straight couples who’d been vacationing with a gay couple were asked to hit the road just because of their sexual orientation. And this despite the fact that Key West has a city ordinance banning housing discrimination.
- At The Talent Show — which sports a spiffy new design these days — Greg
StoreySaunders [my apologies] points to a critique of the president that comes from from an unlikely source; - Gregg Easterbrook continues his up-is-down take on the Bush administration’s attitude toward the environment. His take this time? Republicans love nature — they just don’t want you to know it. Convincing stuff, eh?
- At Airbag, Greg Storey — aside from musing about how he misses A Life Uncommon, an old favorite weblog of mine — opens his heart to our buds at the White House by ginning up a redesign of the infamous Aug. 6, 2001, national intelligence estimate. Ah, the thrill of good graphic design …
April 23, 2004
Shameless Shilling
Let me completely wreck my reputation for consistent blogging by continuing to pimp for my candidate, Cathy Woolard. No hard sale here, though — this time, I just want you to come to the grand opening of the headquarters this weekend, on Sunday at 3 p.m.
Interested? Meet us at 120 W. Ponce de Leon Ave. in downtown Decatur, right between Quizno’s Subs and the Crescent Moon Diner. Those who need a landmark can look for us just a stone’s throw down the hill from the old courthouse.
Hope I see all of you there. Bring lots of money. [Only kidding!]
April 17, 2004
A Man, No Plan
The Failed M.C. nails it:
Read more about … well, whatever the hell Bush managed to put together in today’s Post.George Bush had a secret war plan for Iraq drawn up in about November of 2001.
I’m shocked by this news. Not because he wanted to invade Iraq, but because we had no evidence until now that he had a plan of any sort at all.
April 14, 2004
Naked, Shameless Begging! …
… but hey — give me credit for saying so up front. =)
As you know, my sometime and current boss has decided to run for Congress. I signed up earlier this month as her press secretary and research director. Between now and then, though, is the small matter of a campaign. We feel good about our odds — but running a campaign these days, it goes without saying, takes a healthy chunk of change. The primary comes in July, which means we only have a little bit of time to get this bus fueled up.
So make Greg Greene a happy man. Chip in to the Send Greg to Washington Fund™.
Alright, alright, we don’t really call it that. =, But go ahead and give to the Friends of Cathy Woolard fund. To give you the rundown about her, she’s Atlanta city council president, a fiscal moderate, social progressive, years of experience — I vouch for her, and not just because she signs my paycheck. =, She’s good people. Learn more about her @ cathywoolard.com/.
If you like what you see — heck, if you just like me — make your way to the contribution page and give what you can. You can tack on $0.07 to help the campaign track contributions that come through the blogosphere. Those who give will have my eternal gratitude — and dibs on a return favor of their choice. [Or a tall, cold beer. Whichever strikes your fancy.]
Muchos gracias. Holler at me if you want to hook into the campaign — we start canvassing this weekend.
Anybody Seen the Fourth Amendment?
Back in my beloved Charlottesville, Kevin Drum reports, the police appear to have gone off the deep end:
I spent seven years of my life in Charlottesville, so let me say it straight and plain: this p–––es me off. I hate rape, and refuse to be treated as though suspect of one because I have a high melanin quotient. I have too much pride to bother with this sort of nonsense — and after 31 years of hard work and clean living, I believe I’ve earned the right to a little respect.DNA TESTING….CNN has a story this morning about Timothy Longo, the police chief of Charlottesville, who has been collecting DNA samples from black men to try and identify a serial rapist:
As of Monday, Longo said, 690 men have been eliminated from the list of possible suspects and 10 have refused to submit to a swab test, in which DNA is collected from a potential suspect’s cheek.
One woman in the audience asked if the police would conduct widespread testing of white men if the rapist were white.
“Absolutely,” Longo said, adding that he’d do the same if a criminal suspect were Asian or a woman. “I will do them all.”
[…] I’m not normally a big fan of slippery slope arguments, but … mass testing is troublesome. After all, do you think those 10 men in Charlottesville who refused to provide a sample are under increased suspicion now? It would be naive to think otherwise. But should they be?
And really, that’s beside the point. In the absence of due suspicion, every black man in Charlottesville deserves more respectful treatment than that. Longo can take his test and … well, use your imagination.
Catherine of Unrequited Narcissism lives in Charlottesville today, and has this to say:
i have no comment on the story, but would rather like to bring light to the world o’crap that is the charlottesville police force. they use excessive force. many of them are racist. very racist (did i mention they once arrested wynton marsalis, who was having an on-campus concert, because they thought he was a robber?). they hate free speech. in my four years at uva, i can’t count the number of times a police officer was suspended or fired for inappropriate actions.so this whole dna-testing thing doesn’t surprise me. what i would like to know is if they would do the same thing if some frat boy was accused of rape. would they dna test every white frat boy at uva? seeing as that would take them, oh, about 500 years, i doubt it.
Yeah. So do I.
Randy Andy
The guys at Not Geniuses have a scoop: it appears that Andrew Young — a leading Georgia Democrat talked of as recently as 2003 as a candidate for the Senate — contributed $2,000 this year to President Bush. Yes, that President Bush. All while Young held the co-chairmanship of the Wesley Clark campaign.
Now, I want to see the FEC disclosure before I go off half-cocked, but I double-checked at OpenSecrets.org and found the same result. So pardon my impertinence — what with Andrew Young being a legend of the civil rights movement, and me being a schmoe with a blog — but methinks the Reverend Young has some ’splaining to do.
Compare and Contrast
Yesterday, April 13, marked the 261st birthday of Thomas Jefferson, our third president — the man whose memory prompted President Kennedy, as he addressed a group of Nobel laureates, to tell his guests that they could be “the most extraordinary collection of talent, of human knowledge, that has ever gathered together for dinner in the White House … with the possible exception of when Thomas Jefferson dined alone.” A man given to introspection both about himself and America, Jefferson wrote, in his Notes on the State of Virginia: “I tremble for my country when I reflect that God is just.”
Yesterday also occasioned a press conference by our forty-third president — a man resistant to introspection of any type. He proved that once again yesterday, in the course of answering — or attempting to answer — a question about whether he believed he had made any mistakes since September 11. He said:
I’m just sure something will pop into my head here in the midst of this press conference, with all the pressure of trying to come up with an answer, but it hadn’t yet.For Bush — or any man who says he belongs to a faith that postulates the inherent imperfection of humanity — to have such a hard time remembering having made even one mistake … well, I feel as lost for words as the president.I would have gone into Afghanistan the way we went into Afghanistan. Even knowing what I know today bout the stockpiles of weapons, I would still have called upon the world to deal with Saddam Hussein. … I hope I — I don’t want to sound like I’ve made no mistakes. I’m confident I have. I just haven’t — you just put me under the spot here, and maybe I’m not as quick on my feet as I should be in coming up with one.
Much more of this, and I might have to tremble right alongside Jefferson. If this president’s total remove from reality leaves you untroubled, we must be far gone.
Huh?!
What? I have a blog?! Darn it — why do people always leave me in the dark about this stuff?
Really, sincerest apologies for the extended absence. Busy stressing out over work [and frolicking with my old friend the black dog — I tell you, I know where Heather comes from these days, except for that newborn baby part =, ]. Trust me: starting a campaign takes hard work.
Anyhow, let’s catch up on things, shall we?
April 05, 2004
More Kos Had-a-Fit Analysis
ThreeFour favorite bloggers of mine managed to nail my opinion about the Kos affair more aptly than I could bring myself to bother to …
Continued »
Duller by Design
This site needs a makeover.
With a campaign on my plate, that sounds like a silly problem to bother with. But I regard this site as my public face, at least online. At this point, that face looks pretty worn.
The green-on-green motif? A snoozer. The blogroll? Endless. The template? Bores me to tears. Just about every facet of the design leaves me dissatisfied — the whole thing looks straight outta 2003. [Which might be because it is.]
Anyhow, it looks like someone needs to brush up on his coding skills. [If anyone wants to buy that someone the web design books on his Amazon wish list, now would be the time.] I don’t see myself developing a hot hand at this anytime soon, though — so if you have suggestions, I’d love to hear ’em.
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