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Collective Interest Radio Program Guide–Download it HERE
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| On The Air Now–Click HERE to Listen: | ||||||||
| Christine Cegelis for Congress! Airtimes: Daily at Noon and 11:00 pm Carl speaks with Christine Cegelis, Democrat for the US House of Representatives. Cegelis is running aganst Clinton nemesis Henry Hyde (R). Listen, and offer up your support. We have got to get rid of this bunch of Republicans.... |
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| Respectful of Otters Airtimes: Daily at 10:00 am & 6:00 pm Carl speaks with the blogger known as Respectful of Otters on the psychological profile of presidents, especially number 43. Affectionately known as Shrub, "W," and "that $@#$#*$#(*@(#($@#*($@#*! |
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| Comedy by the Quality 5 Airtimes: Daily at 9:30 am, 3:00 & 9:30 pm Political comedy and laughables from the Quality 5, Chicago's newest comedy troupe. The members of Q-5 have been writing and performing together since 2001. They are: Jay Gish, Scott McNulty, Rich Riley, Adam Zwirek, and Jeff Zwirek. You can see their live sketch comedy at various venues across Chicago, and every show contains new material. More to come! |
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| Billmon's Whiskey Bar–Free Thinking in a Dirty Glass Airtimes: Daily at 9:00 am, 1:00 and 5:00 pm The blogger known as Billmon joins Carl for an hour of free-thinking on George Bush's attempt to wrap himself in the mantle of the late Ronald Reagan. And how he will fail miserably. |
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| Rob Sarra, Iraq War Veteran Airtimes: Daily at 11:00 am, 2:00 & 8:00 pm Mr. Sarra is a recently discharged Marine Corps Sergeant, and veteran of the Iraq War. Since his return from the Middle East, he most recently spoke at the Vietnam Veterans Against the War Memorial Day ceremony in downtown Chicago, Illinois 5/31/04 |
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| David Leip on the 2004 Presidential Election Airtimes: Daily at 6:30 pm Mr. Leip is the creator of "Dave Leip's Atlas of US Presidential Elections", a great website for political junkies. Mock elections, electoral college calculators, polls, and your opportunity to handicap the 2004 Presidential election |
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| Laura Kipnis on Love and Politics Airtimes: Daily at 4:00 and 10:00 pm Author Laura Kipnis discusses her new book "Against Love", little politics. Read the review here. Buy it from Amazon here. For upcoming readings and appearances, click here. |
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Collective Late Night:
BRAND NEW MUSIC from Higher Than Why, JR Jam, and the new album from Bebel Gilberto |
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| Collective Interest Radio Featured Artist: Higher Than Why Political Hip-hop and rap from Austin, Texas. Lyrically diverse and politically active, Higher Than Why is in-your-face political music along the lines of the 90's rapper Paris. From their website: Born out of improv super-group Mweepo and the discovery of computer loop sequencers, Higher Than Why harnessed the formerly untapped rapping menace-to-the-powers-that-be that lay ready for ambush in Josh Logan aka Justice, a man who previously lent his musical talent to the wholloping of Austin,TX drum sets. The three-piece is completed by beat-making masters and melodic shapeshifters Zack Logan aka 'Ahr Loughrd Kryst and Steve Varner aka Dr. Delivery. Bear vs. Shark is the trio's debut and the incendiary album is a DIY labor of love--self produced, recorded, printed and released . With a focused mission to blend political fury with a musical psycholofist, Higher Than Why is blazing a trail for underground electronica-fused hip-hop. Higher Than Why has no formula for songwriting, no boundaries on material considered appropriate for sampling, no fear of the heavy beat, no limits on the placement of sonic beauty, and no aversion to biting the hand that doesn't feed them: the corporate rap and hip-not that floods America's airwaves. Their album, "Bears vs Sharks," will be the featured artist at Collective Interest Radio. You'll be able to hear their music in between segments, and at the Midnight Collective, every night at midnight. |
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Dear Free World • TalkingPointsMemo • Eschaton • Daily Kos • Informed Comment • Washington Monthly • Brad DeLong • Oliver Willis • OneThousand Reasons • Sebastian Holsclaw • The Decembrist • Press Think • The Blogging of the President • Tacitus• • The Emerging Democratic Majority • Red Line Radio • |
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| Kerry/Edwards On the Issues | ||||||||
| •National Security •The Economy •Health Care •Homeland Security •Energy •Education •Environment •Civil Rights •Children & Families •Science & Technology |
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Your Home for Debunking Political Ads and Spin • DBunker–The Kerry Campaign's Site for Debunking GOP Attack Ads and Doublespeak • Spinsanity • The Daily Howler • Campaign Desk • Claims v. Fact Database • Media Matters for America |
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| "Voter terrorism" For decades, Republicans have mounted highly organized operations to discourage minorities from voting. Experts say there's no reason to believe this year's presidential campaign will be any different. Wednesday, September 22 (Salon.com)–Philadelphia's 2003 mayoral election did not set especially high standards for civic discourse in the city where American democracy was born. Talking to Philadelphians about the bitter contest between John Street, the African-American incumbent Democrat, and Sam Katz, the white Republican challenger, is like discussing an election in some upstart Latin American democracy. During the course of the race, Street's office was bugged by the FBI, a Katz field office was "firebombed" by an unlit Molotov cocktail, and on Election Day, the Philadelphia Inquirer reported, 84 voting-related incidents were called in to police, including "assaults, disturbances, threats, harassment, vandalism" and one bona fide "polling-place brawl." Amid the general ugliness of the race, though, there's one incident that Democrats in the city remember with a distinct sense of unease. The story, which was first reported by The American Prospect in February, and has since been broadcast by activist groups like MoveOn.org, goes like this: In an attempt to intimidate African-Americans and deter them from showing up at the polls, the Katz campaign, or one of its associates, put together a team of men dressed in official-looking attire -- dark suits, lapel pins bearing insignia of federal or local law-enforcement agencies -- and sent them into areas of the city with large black populations. According to Sherry Swirsky, a local antitrust attorney who is active in Democratic politics and who worked as an election monitor that day, the men carried clipboards and drove around in unmarked black vans. More |
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| Bush Dismisses Gloomy CIA Report on Iraq Wednesday, September 22 (Reuters)–President Bush, determined to put an optimistic face on deadly conditions in Iraq, said on Tuesday that the CIA was just guessing when it said the war-racked country was in danger of slipping into civil war. "The CIA laid out several scenarios. It said that life could be lousy, life could be OK, life could be better. And they were just guessing as to what the conditions might be like," Bush told reporters during a picture-taking session with Iraqi Prime Minister Iyad Allawi. Bush and Allawi met for 45 minutes on the sidelines of the U.N. General Assembly. More |
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| C.I.A. Review Is Critical of Prewar Iraq Analysis Wednesday, September 22 (New York Times)–A review by the Central Intelligence Agency has identified serious weaknesses in analytical work on Iraq but continues to hold that the prewar conclusion that Iraq possessed illicit weapons was reasonable based on the information available at the time, an internal document shows. "We're not kidding ourselves," John E. McLaughlin, the acting director of central intelligence, said Tuesday in an hourlong interview in his office at the agency's headquarters here. "Reasonable doesn't mean we were right." More |
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| At UN, Bush Defends Iraq War Tuesday, September 20 (Washington Post)–President Bush today called for greater international support in the war on terrorism and declared America's determination to "destroy terrorist networks wherever they operate" while promoting democracy in the Middle East as bulwarks against them. In a speech to the United Nations General Assembly in New York, Bush also presented an optimistic picture of what he described as the advance of freedom in Iraq and Afghanistan, and he urged members of the world body to support those nations as they move toward elections and permanent democratic governments. More |
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| John Kerry's Iraq Plan–9/20 Speech at New York University Monday, September 20 (Kerry/Edwards.com)–"...Our troops have served with extraordinary bravery, skill and resolve. Their service humbles all of us. When I speak to them… when I look into the eyes of their families, I know this: we owe them the truth about what we have asked them to do… and what is still to be done. In June, the President declared, “The Iraqi people have their country back.” Just last week, he told us: “This country is headed toward democracy… Freedom is on the march.” But the administration’s own official intelligence estimate, given to the President last July, tells a very different story. According to press reports, the intelligence estimate totally contradicts what the President is saying to the American people. So do the facts on the ground. Security is deteriorating, for us and for the Iraqis. 42 Americans died in Iraq in June -- the month before the handover. But 54 died in July…66 in August… and already 54 halfway through September. And more than 1,100 Americans were wounded in August – more than in any other month since the invasion. We are fighting a growing insurgency in an ever widening war-zone. In March, insurgents attacked our forces 700 times. In August, they attacked 2,700 times – a 400% increase. Falluja…Ramadi… Samarra … even parts of Baghdad – are now “no go zones”… breeding grounds for terrorists who are free to plot and launch attacks against our soldiers. The radical Shi’a cleric, Moktada al-Sadr, who’s accused of complicity in the murder of Americans, holds more sway in the suburbs of Baghdad." More |
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| Kerry Says Iraq War Raises Questions on Bush's Judgment Monday, September 20 (New York Times)–Sen. John Kerry said Monday that mistakes by President Bush in invading Iraq could lead to unending war and that no responsible commander in chief would have begun the war knowing Saddam Hussein didn't possess weapons of mass destruction and wasn't an imminent threat to the United States. ``Yet today, President Bush tells us that he would do everything all over again, the same way. How can he possibly be serious?'' the Democratic presidential candidate said at New York University. ...``By one count, the president offered 23 different rationales for this war,'' Kerry said. ``If his purpose was to confuse and mislead the American people, he succeeded.'' Kerry said Bush's two main rationales -- weapons of mass destruction and a connection between al-Qaida and the Sept. 11 attacks -- have been proven false by weapons inspectors and the bipartisan commission investigating the attacks. ``This president was in denial,'' Kerry said. ``He hitched his wagon to the ideologues who surround him, filtering out those who disagreed, including leaders of his own party and the uniformed military. The result is a long litany of misjudgments with terrible consequences.'' More |
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| Taking the Offensive, Edwards Says a Kerry Administration Would 'Crush' Al Qaeda Monday, September 20 (New York Times)–Opening a weeklong Democratic offensive on Iraq and terror, Senator John Edwards promised Sunday that a Kerry White House would eliminate what he called a "backdoor draft'' of Reservists and National Guard members and would "crush'' Al Qaeda. On a day when he alone among the presidential and vice-presidential candidates campaigned, Mr. Edwards, the Democratic vice-presidential nominee, added fresh elements to his standard remarks on war and terror, two subjects that polls suggest rank at the top of voter concerns. More |
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| Why the Race Is Closer Than People Think Wednesday, September 15 (Donkey Rising)–Is Bush ahead by a little or a lot? Is it close to a tie ball game or has Bush surged to a commanding lead? The conventional wisdom inclines to the latter not the former. The reason has a great deal to do with two persistent problems with contemporary polls that--at least at this point in time--tend to considerably inflate Bush's apparent lead. But once you dissect the available data with these problems in mind, a truer picture of the race comes into focus which suggests that the race continues to be very close. The two problems are: (1) samples that have an unrealistic number of Republican identifiers and hence tend to favor Bush; and (2) the widespread and highly questionable practice of using likely voters (LVs) instead of registered voters (RVs) to measure voter sentiment this far before the election. More |
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| RE: PREVAILING ON DEMOCRATIC IDEAS AND VALUES Report on the Democracy Corps’ Post-convention polls Wednesday, September 15 (Democracy Corps Online)–The election campaign in August, dominated by lots of detours and distractions and a Bush campaign relentlessly focused on security, put George Bush marginally in the lead for president. His lead is real, and there is no doubt that Kerry has lost ground on a range of issues. But we should not exaggerate what has happened or lose sight of the contours of this race. The election is still close and competitive. Voters still want change. They are upset with Bush’s direction on Iraq and the economy, and have serious doubts about him. They respond strongly to Kerry’s vision. The president has a lead of about 5 points, if we look at the average of all the public polls done after the convention; the Democracy Corps poll completed last Thursday shows the president with a 3-point lead. In any case, Bush is at 49 percent with the former estimate and 48 in our survey. At the height of Bush’s convention bounce, he is just at the edge of electability. His position is simply not that strong. If his bounce recedes, as it did for Kerry, and if Kerry takes the race to Bush, the president could easily be endangered again. More |
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| Fawell Set to Flip Tuesday, September 14 (Chicago Sun-Times)–Scott Fawell, a former top aide to former Gov. George Ryan, is expected to plead guilty this afternoon in a McCormick Place corruption case and continue his key cooperation with federal prosecutors. The cooperation by Fawell, 47 — first reported in the Sun-Times — could provide a serious boost to the federal case against Ryan, who is charged in a separate corruption investigation. Ryan is scheduled to go to trial in March. “I have no concerns about it,” Ryan said in a brief phone interview today about Fawell’s cooperation. “I certainly wish Scott the best.” More |
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| $3 Trillion Price Tag Left Out as Bush Details Agenda Tuesday, September 14 (Washington Post)–The expansive agenda President Bush laid out at the Republican National Convention was missing a price tag, but administration figures show the total is likely to be well in excess of $3 trillion over a decade. A staple of Bush's stump speech is his claim that his Democratic challenger, John F. Kerry, has proposed $2 trillion in long-term spending, a figure the Massachusetts senator's campaign calls exaggerated. But the cost of the new tax breaks and spending outlined by Bush at the GOP convention far eclipses that of the Kerry plan. Bush's pledge to make permanent his tax cuts, which are set to expire at the end of 2010 or before, would reduce government revenue by about $1 trillion over 10 years, according to administration estimates. His proposed changes in Social Security to allow younger workers to invest part of their payroll taxes in stocks and bonds could cost the government $2 trillion over the coming decade, according to the calculations of independent domestic policy experts. And Bush's agenda has many costs the administration has not publicly estimated. For instance, Bush said in his speech that he would continue to try to stabilize Iraq and wage war on terrorism. The war in Iraq alone costs $4 billion a month, but the president's annual budget does not reflect that cost. More |
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| The Dishonesty Thing By PAUL KRUGMAN Friday, September 10 (New York Times)–It's the dishonesty, stupid. The real issue in the National Guard story isn't what George W. Bush did three decades ago. It's the recent pattern of lies: his assertions that he fulfilled his obligations when he obviously didn't, the White House's repeated claims that it had released all of the relevant documents when it hadn't. It's the same pattern of dishonesty, this time involving personal matters that the public can easily understand, that some of us have long seen on policy issues, from global warming to the war in Iraq. On budget matters, which is where I came in, serious analysts now take administration dishonesty for granted. Advertisement It wasn't always that way. Three years ago, those of us who accused the administration of cooking the budget books were ourselves accused, by moderates as well as by Bush loyalists, of being "shrill." These days the coalition of the shrill has widened to include almost every independent budget expert. More |
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| Young Republicans Support Iraq War, But Not All Are Willing to Join the Fight Thursday, September 9 (Knight Ridder)–Young Republicans gathered here for their party's national convention are united in applauding the war in Iraq, supporting the U.S. troops there and calling the U.S. mission a noble cause. But there's no such unanimity when they're asked a more personal question: Would you be willing to put on the uniform and go to fight in Iraq? In more than a dozen interviews, Republicans in their teens and 20s offered a range of answers. Some have friends in the military in Iraq and are considering enlisting; others said they can better support the war by working politically in the United States; and still others said they think the military doesn't need them because the U.S. presence in Iraq is sufficient. More |
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Family "Thanks" Bush for the Death of Son Thursday, September 9 (WKYC.com)–In Geauga County, anger and frustration over the death of a young soldier inside Iraq has prompted one family to send a personal message to President Bush. Ken and Betty Landrus have put up a large sign outside their home near Thompson, Ohio that is sharply critical of the Bush administration. The sign reads "Thanks Mr. Bush for the death of our son." More |
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| "I'm very ashamed" The former Texas official who got George Bush into the National Guard apologizes for making sure that young men with important "family names" did not have to fight in Vietnam. Wednesday, September 8 (Salon.com)–Another bombshell in the battle over Vietnam service that has been raging in the 2004 presidential race exploded on the Web Friday. In a video originally posted on the Web by a pro-Kerry organization in Austin, Texas, Ben Barnes, a former lieutenant governor of Texas, apologized for his role in getting a young George W. Bush into the Texas Air National Guard while young men who were not from prominent or wealthy families "died in Vietnam." "Let's talk a minute about John Kerry and George Bush, and I know them both," said Barnes in the video, which was filmed at a gathering of about 200 Kerry supporters in Austin on May 27. "I got a young man named George W. Bush into the Texas National Guard when I was lieutenant governor, and I'm not necessarily proud of that. But I did it. I got a lot of other people in the National Guard because I thought that was what people should do when you're in office, and you help a lot of rich people." More |
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| A Copernican Foreign Policy Tuesday, September 7 (Washington Post)–"...We Americans are sometimes like the ancient Greek astronomer Ptolemy. That is, we see the United States as the fixed center of the universe, with other nations and events revolving around us. I think it's one of our endearing qualities, this ebullient national self-centeredness -- except when it leads to errors in geopolitical navigation...The problem for the United States is the disconnect between this self-image and the way the rest of the world feels about us. Increasingly, people in other countries don't see America as that beacon of idealism but as something menacing. We can think they're wrong and we can choose to ignore them, but unfortunately, that won't change the way they feel. ...The Ptolemaist in me wants to tell the rest of the world to go to hell. In economic, military and political terms, the United States is the center of the universe -- and it does have a historic mission to spread its ideals of liberty and democracy. You could hear a roar of approval for this view when Bush told the Republicans last week: "I believe that America is called to lead the cause of freedom in a new century." But we should consider the need for a Copernican revolution in the way we think about America and the world. As students of history recall, the 16th century Polish astronomer Nicolaus Copernicus shattered conventional wisdom when he argued that Earth is not at the center of the solar system but is one of many planets revolving around the sun. This theory was a blow to the idea that God had set Earth at the center of his creation... One of John Kerry's strengths in this presidential campaign is that he's a Copernican. He understands that however powerful and important the United States may be, it isn't the fixed center of the world. There are other nations, traveling in their own orbits -- with their own cultures, traditions and values -- which must be taken into account. Kerry takes a lot of flak from Republicans for this view, but critics miss the point.... More |
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| To put it bluntly, tactless Keyes isn't senatorial Eric Zorn's Column Tuesday, September 7 (Chicago Tribune.com (subscription))–"...Condemning homosexuality in general but refusing to condemn an individual gay person because of partisan or personal sensitivities would be craven hypocrisy. Perhaps inadvertently, Keyes' candor reminds us of another truth that can be spoken: When you rail against homosexuals, you're not railing against faceless beings whose sole attribute is that they "use the organs intended for procreation for purposes of pleasure," as Keyes is known to say disapprovingly. You're railing against real people--daughters, sons, friends, colleagues, neighbors--who are really hurt by scornful rhetoric that trivializes their relationships. Unyielding, in-your-face application of one's moral certainty works well in academia, in the pulpit and, often, on talk radio and in newspaper columns--where provocation is a tool in the quest for insight, and invoking the judgment of God against your foes is just another gambit. But it's disastrous in politics and government venues in which compromise and, yes, diplomacy, are necessary to advance programs and principles in the face of competing ideas, and where a term like "selfish hedonist" is a polarizing stink-bomb...." More |
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| Card says president sees America as a child needing a parent Friday, September 3 (Boston Globe)–White House Chief of Staff Andrew Card said yesterday that President Bush views America as a ''10-year-old child" in need of the sort of protection provided by a parent. Card's remark, criticized later by Democrat John F. Kerry's campaign as ''condescending," came in a speech to Republican delegates from Maine and Massachusetts that was threaded with references to Bush's role as protector of the country. Republicans have sounded that theme repeatedly at the GOP convention as they discuss the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks and the war in Iraq. ''It struck me as I was speaking to people in Bangor, Maine, that this president sees America as we think about a 10-year-old child," Card said. ''I know as a parent I would sacrifice all for my children." The comment underscored an argument put forth some by political pundits, such as MSNBC talk-show host Chris Matthews, that the Republican Party has cast itself as the ''daddy party." More |
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| What Obama Built Up, Miller Angrily Tears Down Friday, September 3 (Chicago Sun Times)–"...Miller's address -- on paper -- laid out Kerry's Senate record on national security and defense votes. On paper, Miller talked about bi-partisanship, aimed at undecided or wavering voters. On paper, Miller's blistering attack on Kerry for voting against certain weapons systems was potentially devastating. But he seemed so angry. When I watched Miller on television, rather than reading the text, I got a whole other message, of an angry man with a personal grudge. The centerpiece content of Obama's speech was his unusual biography. He had a simpler task that Miller, who had to deconstruct a long Senate voting record. Obama's written text seemed less than stirring, but his oratorical skills breathed life into his words. Obama, too, had a message targeted to independents and swing voters -- that there is not a black, or white, or Latino or Asian America, there is one America. I could see how people regarded his rhetoric as inspirational..." More |
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| Dirty Tricks, Patrician Style Thursday, September 2 (CBS News.com)–If you had any thought that the first presidential campaign after 9/11 would be especially sober and responsible, give it up. There are a million angles to the saga of John Kerry and his swift boat enemies and none of them reveal anything virtuous about politics. But one element that is missing from this story is surprise. Any student of Bush family campaigns could have seen the swift boat shiv shining a mile away. This old family has traditions – horseshoes, fishing, bad syntax and having the help do the dirty work in campaigns as well as the kitchen. And they are very good at getting jobs done without leaving fingerprints, without compromising their patrician image and their alleged character. More |
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| US Third Quarter Productivity Revised Down in Economic Report Thursday, September 2 (US Bureau of Labor Statistics)–The Bureau of Labor Statistics of the U.S. Department of Labor today reported revised productivity data--as measured by output per hour of all persons--for the second quarter of 2004. The seasonally adjusted annual rates of productivity change in the second quarter were: 1.5 percent in the business sector and 2.5 percent in the nonfarm business sector. In both sectors, increases in productivity were smaller than reported on Aug. 10, as output was revised down and hours were revised up. (See table C.) In manufacturing, the revised productivity changes in the second quarter were: 6.9 percent in manufacturing, 4.9 percent in durable goods manufacturing, and 9.7 percent in nondurable goods manufacturing. In total manufacturing, the change in productivity was revised down from a preliminary estimate of 7.5 percent. More |
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| Alan Keyes Lashes Out At Cheney's Gay Daughter GOP Candidate Labels Homosexuality 'Selfish Hedonism' Wednesday, September 1 (TheChamplainChannel.com)–Alan Keyes, the Maryland Republican seeking a U.S. Senate seat in Illinois, is coming under fire for comments about homosexuality. In an interview Monday night with a satellite radio station that provides programming targeting gays and lesbians, Keyes called homosexuality "selfish hedonism" and said Vice President Dick Cheney's lesbian daughter, Mary, is a sinner. More |
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| They Knew How to Win, Does John Kerry? Wednesday, September 1 (Salon.com)–..."The response to the Swift Boat controversy was not at a level it should have been," says Paul Alexander, director of "Brothers in Arms," a new documentary about Kerry's Vietnam days. "The question should be, what about Bush's military record? That's the response. Not that there were 12 bullet holes on the side of Kerry's boat in Vietnam. The only way to beat Karl Rove and that level of viciousness is to hit back harder. If Democrats don't understand that...well then, you can finish that sentence." More |
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| Wednesday, September 22 | ||||||||
| 9:47 am–It's Nice To See The Media Catch Him Lying The thing is, he does it so often on the campaign trail. Check out Peter Jennings and ABC do some basic journalism (Quicktime or Winamp TV required). Thanks Oliver Willis!  |
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| Tuesday, September 21 | ||||||||
| 4:51 pm–Their Thinking is the Problem Bush's speech before the UN today, and the linked article on Kerry's Iraq plan prompted this thought: The conventional wisdom is that John Kerry can do nothing about Iraq. This wisdom is born of 3 1/2 years of the black v. white thinking of George W. Bush and his administration. There are new ideas out there, new ways to approach old problems. But when our leaders have a worldview that allows for either good or evil, weakness or strength; then there can be no new ideas. In that worldview, new is weak, old is strong. Prior to 9/11, the mindset of this administration was that Communism was evil, and they were in office to put the final end to it. Osama bin Laden modified their binary thinking to replace communism with terrorism. The change was good, but the static mindset they quickly attached to it is debilitating. We can achieve what we want in Iraq, but not with George W. Bush in office. The Euros want nothing to do with him. Partly because they're bound by previous rhetoric, partly because they see that what Bush touches turns to lead. Let's not reward failure with 4 more years. |
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| Monday, September 20 | ||||||||
| 11:11 am–George W. Bush, Circa 1972 Nice piece on what W was doing back when John Kerry was doing things of magnitude and importance. |
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| 7:54 am–The Emperor, Unclothed One of the many things that helped get George W. Bush elected was his performance at the debates. The bar had been set so low for his performance. The American people knew he was a lightweight, so as long as he managed to form a sentence, he was OK. Instead of Gore treating Bush as a recalcitrant 8-year older, he let Bush's rhetorical "skills" get under his skin, and came off as a whiner. Bush enjoys no advantage this time. We know his speaking skills are suspect. However, I must confess the feeling that for the Bush v. Kerry debates, the president will let go the tendency to speak to the idiot in the crowd. He will try to connect complex ideas and show something more to voters than reciting RNC talking points. Whether this proposed strategy will work, we'll see. It relies on the aforementioned "talking frog" theory; where people will be so mesmerized that the frog speaks they forget that he is talking gibberish. The strategy also doesn't address the fact that Bush has nothing in his record to defend. Medicare reform was a payoff for HMO contributions, the tax cuts were partly a paen to executives and a tribute to Grover Norquist, education reform was a smokescreen for charter schools, etc. All in all, the advantage is Kerry's. He'll have the opportunity to question the record of the man who attempts to trash his. Kerry will have the chance to look decisive next to the man who looks resolute, but flip-flops more than flapjacks at the Pancake House. Bush will be under pressure to answer questions in a hostile forum. No pre-screened audiences, no prescreened questions. I'm looking forward to this. |
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| Tuesday, September 14 | ||||||||
| 3:22 pm–From Juan Cole's Informed Comment, "September 11 and Its Aftermath" An advanced course in Middle Eastern history from one of the brightest thinkers around. In order to evaluate the aftermath of September 11, we first must understand that event. What did al-Qaeda intend to achieve? Only if we understand that can we gauge their success or failure. From the point of view of al-Qaeda, the Muslim world can and should be united into a single country. They believe that it once had this political unity, under the early caliphs. Even as late as the outbreak of World War I, the Ottoman state ruled much of the Middle East, and the Ottoman sultans had begun making claims to be caliphs (Muslim popes) from about 1880. In the below map, blue indicates heavy Muslim populations, green means medium, and yellow means the Muslims are a significant minority.  From al-Qaeda's point of view, the political unity of the Muslim world was deliberately destroyed by a one-two punch. First, Western colonial powers invaded Muslim lands and detached them from the Ottoman Empire or other Muslim states. They ruled them brutally as colonies, reducing the people to little more than slaves serving the economic and political interests of the British, French, Russians, etc. France invaded Algeria in 1830. Great Britain took Egypt in 1882 and Iraq in 1917. Russia took the Emirate of Bukhara and other Central Asian territories in the 1860s and forward. Second, they formed these colonies into Western-style nation-states, often small and weak ones, so that the divisive effects of the colonial conquests have lasted. (Look at the British Empire and its imposition on much of the Muslim world, e.g.:) The Soviet invasion of Afghanistan was not an unprecedented event from the point of view of Bin Laden and his followers. Far from it. It was only the latest in a long series of Western predations in Muslim lands. The British had conquered Palestine, Jordan and Iraq, and had unilaterally opened Palestine to Jewish immigration, with the colonized Palestinians unable to object. The Russians had taken the Caucasus and Chechnya in the early nineteenth century, and had so brutally repressed the Muslims under their rule that they probably killed hundreds of thousands and expelled even more to the Ottoman Empire (now Turkey).  From al-Qaeda's point of view, the Soviet attempt to absorb Afghanistan was the beginning of the end of the colonial venture. They demonstrated that even a superpower can be forced to withdraw from a Muslim land if sufficient guerrilla pressure is put on it. Bin Laden sees the Muslim world as continually invaded, divided and weakened by outside forces. Among these is the Americans in Saudi Arabia and the Israelis in geographical Palestine. He repeatedly complained about the occupation of the three holy cities, i.e., Mecca, Medina and Jerusalem. For al-Qaeda to succeed, it must overthrow the individual nation-states in the Middle East, most of them colonial creations, and unite them into a single, pan-Islamic state. But Ayman al-Zawahiri's organization, al-Jihad al-Islami, had tried very hard to overthrow the Egyptian state, and was always checked. Al-Zawahiri thought it was because of US backing for Egypt. They believed that the US also keeps Israel dominant in the Levant, and backs Saudi Arabia's royal family. Al-Zawahiri then hit upon the idea of attacking the "far enemy" first. That is, since the United States was propping up the governments of Egypt, Israel, Jordan, Saudi Arabia, etc., all of which al-Qaeda wanted to overthrow so as to meld them into a single, Islamic super-state, then it would hit the United States first. The attack on the World Trade Center was exactly analogous to Pearl Harbor. The Japanese generals had to neutralize the US fleet so that they could sweep into Southeast Asia and appropriate Indonesian petroleum. The US was going to cut off imperial Japan from petroleum, and without fuel the Japanese could not maintain their empire in China and Korea. So they pushed the US out of the way and took an alternative source of petroleum away from the Dutch (which then ruled what later became Indonesia). Likewise, al-Qaeda was attempting to push the United States out of the Middle East so that Egypt, Jordan, Israel and Saudi Arabia would become more vulnerable to overthrow, lacking a superpower patron. Secondarily, the attack was conceived as revenge on the United States and American Jews for supporting Israel and the severe oppression of the Palestinians. Bin Laden wanted to move the timing of the operation up to spring of 2001 so as to "punish" the Israelis for their actions against the Palestinians in the second Intifadah. Khalid Shaikh Muhammad was mainly driven in planning the attack by his rage at Israel over the Palestinian issue. Another goal is to destroy the US economy, so weakening it that it cannot prevent the emergence of the Islamic superpower. Al-Qaeda wanted to build enthusiasm for the Islamic superstate among the Muslim populace, to convince ordinary Muslims that the US could be defeated and they did not have to accept the small, largely secular, and powerless Middle Eastern states erected in the wake of colonialism. Jordan's population, e.g. is 5.6 million. Tunisia, a former French colony, is 10 million, less than Michigan. Most Muslims have been convinced of the naturalness of the nation-state model and are proud of their new nations, however small and weak. Bin Laden had to do a big demonstration project to convince them that another model is possible. Bin Laden hoped the US would timidly withdraw from the Middle East. But he appears to have been aware that an aggressive US response to 9/11 was entirely possible. In that case, he had a Plan B: al-Qaeda hoped to draw the US into a debilitating guerrilla war in Afghanistan and do to the US military what they had earlier done to the Soviets. Al-Zawahiri's recent message shows that he still has faith in that strategy. The US cleverly outfoxed al-Qaeda in Afghanistan, using air power and local Afghan allies (the Northern Alliance) to destroy the Taliban without many American boots on the ground. Ironically, however, the Bush administration then went on to invade Iraq for no good reason, where Americans faced the kind of wearing guerrilla war they had avoided in Afghanistan. Al-Qaeda has succeeded in several of its main goals. It had been trying to convince Muslims that the United States wanted to invade Muslim lands, humiliate Muslim men, and rape Muslim women. Most Muslims found this charge hard to accept. The Bush administration's Iraq invasion, along with the Abu Ghuraib prison torture scandal, was perceived by many Muslims to validate Bin Laden's wisdom and foresightedness. After the Iraq War, Bin Laden is more popular than George W. Bush even in a significantly secular Muslim country such as Turkey. This is a bizarre finding, a weird turn of events. Turks didn't start out with such an attitude. It grew up in reaction against US policies. It remains to be seen whether the US will be forced out of Iraq the way it was forced out of Iran in 1979. If so, as al-Zawahiri says, that will be a huge victory. A recent opinion poll did find that over 80 percent of Iraqis want an Islamic state. If Iraq goes Islamist, that will be the biggest victory the movement has had since the rise of the Taliban in Afghanistan. An Islamist Iraq might well be able ultimately to form a joint state with Syria, starting the process of the formation of the Islamic superstate of which Bin Laden dreams. If the Muslim world can find a way to combine the sophisticated intellectuals and engineers of Damascus and Cairo with the oil wealth of the Persian Gulf, it could well emerge as a 21st century superpower. Bin Laden's dream of a united Muslim state under a revived caliphate may well be impossible to accomplish. But with the secular Baath gone, it could be one step closer to reality. If you add to the equation the generalized hatred for US policies (both against the Palestinians and in Iraq) among Muslims, that is a major step forward for al-Qaeda. In Saudi Arabia, al-Qaeda has emerged as a dissident political party. Before it had just been a small group of Bin Laden's personal acolytes in Afghanistan and a handful of other countries. Although the United States and its Pakistani ally have captured significant numbers of al-Qaeda operatives in Afghanistan and Pakistan, a whole new generation of angry young Muslim men has been produced. Al-Qaeda has moved from being a concrete cell-based terrorist organization to being an ideal and a model, for small local groups in Casablanca, Turkey, Saudi Arabia, Indonesia and elsewhere. The US is not winning the war on terror. Al-Qaeda also has by no means won. But across a whole range of objectives, al-Qaeda has accomplished more of its goals than the US has of its. There will be a test on Thursday.... |
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| 2:53 pm–The Veracity of the Fundamentalists I recall shocking the hell out of someone when I said "organized religion is the worst thing to happen to spirituality. These days, one must choose sides. Are you saved or going to hell? Are you a true follower of the Koran, or an infidel? The leaders of the movements are louder and more hateful than ever. Is it just me, or does the rhetorical veracity of the radical evangelical right match that of the radical Islamic fundamentalists? It is said that nature abhors a vaccum, and the more I read and hear from both of these sides, the more I feel they have in common. I recently read an article in Time magazine on how a Saudi Arabian father sends the son to the UK in order to keep him away from terrorist influences. Lo and behold he comes back from merry old England with the long beard of the Islamic fundamentalist, unable to acknowledge the fact that millions of Muslims live in peace with a myriad of other religions each day. In the same article is the story of a young British Muslim who, if he ever gets his passport back, will leave to become a terrorist. Fundamentalist Christians see many of today's political machinations in the Middle East as the most recent version of Armageddon-related events. If the Middle East falls apart, somehow the Chinese will get involved and–BOOM! Welcome to the Second Coming of Christ. Unfortunately for the rest of us, xenophobia is at the heart of both movements. To each group, the world must be converted to Jesus, or the infidels must be eliminated. Both groups believe their holy texts can ONLY be interpreted literally. Somehow each group coopts the tacit support of the moderate majorities. I believe this support is based in the good intentions– living a good life or standing up for those who have always been down. Like it or not, this is a war. The cultures are clashing. It has been a long time coming. For Muslims, its a reaction to ancient abuses excacerbated by events beginning in the 20th century. The fact that the Middle Eastern kings kept the masses at the brink of poverty while allowing the most hateful version of a peaceful religion to spread freely. For Christians it seems to be a periodic phenomenon rooted in a couple of the seven deadly sins, greed and pride. There will be more casualties. The key for the rest of us is to mitgate the length and impact of this conflict by peeling away the tacit support of the moderate majority. Only by revealing the ideological corruption at the heart of each movement can this be done. |
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| Monday, September 13 | ||||||||
| 8:58 am–LBJ and GWB: Bound by Ideology, Cursed by Rhetoric This article in the Washington Post promted this post. One of the downsides of being driven by political rhetoric and the headlong rush for power is that, no matter your intent, your actions become so enmeshed with the care for politics you lose objectivity. President Lyndon Johnson, was the most powerful Democrat coming out of the Texas delegation. His ability to cajole and twist arms was legendary. He headed one of the finest political machines in the middle 20th century. Always a good American, he hated communism as much as the next guy. It is no secret that the Gulf of Tonkin resolution authorizing the slippery slope that became the Vietnam War was a political document borne of trumped-up charges and Cold War xenophobia. When the war started turning south, and the solutions of the military men didn't thwart the determination of the Viet Cong, Johnson personally began plotting missions and establishing strategy. This, as we know was the last of the downward spiral. LBJ had tried to take care of both sides by prosecuting a foreign war he couldn't win and setting up a second domestic front by battling poverty with his Great Society program. On the war, he truly felt he was doing the right thing by battling communism. He didn't want to be the first American president seen as weak in the face of the Red Menace. But at the same time, as a good Democrat, and a former poor boy; he knew the government had a place and duty in helping to raise poor people up to that point where they could begin to better themselves. Feeding and educating children, providing livable housing conditions, and other things were obligations hardwired into his Democrat heart. But there wasn't the money or energy to fight these wars. Johnson didn't have the objectivity to see this until it was much too late to do anything about it. And the repercussions of his decison reshaped America for decades. I see the presidencies of George W. and Lyndon Johnson as very similar. Both are fighting two wars they cannot win. Bush wants to prosecute a war against "terrorism" and wage a second one against high taxes, government, and on behalf of supply-side economics. Again, as in LBJ's time, these wars are dividing the country. 9/11 was an honorable reason to smash the Taliban in Afghanistan; but Iraq was a war fought to defend the geopolitical calculations of the neoconservatives. Bush isn't smart enough to see the parallel; and Karl Rove is too personally involved to see it either. By the time it becomes clear to them, God knows where their political bungling will leave this country. Personally, I see no correlation between the role of government in poverty relief in the 1960's, and millionaire relief in the 2000's. But both men are determined that their cause is just. Unfortunately for us, Bush and Rove haven't learned from Johnson's particular chapter or US history. Both men probably don't understand how a ragtag bunch of peseants can stick a finger in the eye of the US military. Both men feel that by pursuing their domestic goals, the necessary growth will occur that can fully fund both wars. But no matter the honor or folly of their goals, history has already taught us the lesson that George W. Bush and Karl Rove are trying to ignore. |
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| Friday, September 10 | ||||||||
5:11 pm–What Would the GOP Do if Jesus Were a Democratic Candidate? Courtesy of the America-hating traitors at Mad Magazine (snicker...snicker....) |
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7:51 am–Mind Control! Vote for Bush or DIE! Ha-ha-ha-ha.... |
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| Thursday, September 9 | ||||||||
| 2:42 pm–Letter to a Friend I have a friend, one from my high school years, who is now a Texas conservative. We spar from time to time on the issues of the day. I recently had a few sharp things to say about the Bush tax cuts, and how they were misdirected to the top 1% instead of the middle class. Well his reply broke my heart. Apparently I shocked his sensibilities. I apologize, and am sharing with you my reply to him: Sorry! I see you are a dyed-in-the-wool supply sider. Didn't mean to infuriate you. I like exchanging these emails, because it helps me avoid the demons of "group-think." I don't disagree with tax cuts, as I like them. I don't believe in soaking the rich, as I'd like to become one. I just don't buy into the theory that tax cuts for 2.5 million $200k+ households drive the fortunes of 54 million households that make $35k-$199k per year. The spending power of 54 million is much larger, because these people have to spend the majority of the money they make in order to carry on with day to day life. This is not grounded in some DNC talking point. My company used to be family owned. The money they had to put into the company as the result of a personal income tax cut could never match a 5% increase in annual sales. I used to work for a franchisee who looked hard for more ways to increase sales and cut costs instead of plowing his own money into the business. The personal income tax rate of the business owner doesn't influence whether or not people buy from him. Remember the one-time tax rebate and child care credit payments a couple of years ago? The economic effects were immediate. They weren't targeted to benefit the top, rather the middle. The middle (as you well know) spends more money to keep their households going than the top. Buying cars, paying down debt, paying for education, medical and dental bills, child care, groceries, home repair and refurbishing, clothing, the list goes on. The money didn't vaporize. The businesses consumers bought from took the opportunity to invest and add staff as well. The effects weren't necessarily "trickle-down," rather more "trickle-out." Democrats and the media generally pooh-poohed it as too little. They have a minor point, but the Bushies didn't do a good enough job of communicating the resulting beneficial effects of those programs. Imagine the stimulative effects had the Bushies put together a tax cut plan that benefitted the 54 million middle class households more than the 2.5 million. The 2000, 2001 & 2003 tax cuts offered relief to the middle, but that relief was largely front-loaded. Relief in subsequent years went to the top. Relief to the top was also at a higher percentage. There also were breaks on managing withdrawls from trust funds, and other long term financial holdings other than property. Plus we repealed the "death tax" which I won't get into. They made out better. Considering the Reagan cuts, and the 3 Bush cuts, we've taken 4 shots at supply side tax cuts. The results are mixed. That's why I'm not fearful of repealing tax cuts to the top 1%. The middle will spend the money that the top doesn't. Small businesses will see the increase in sales post tax-cut (just like they did after the tax rebate and child care credits). Why? The personal income tax rate of the business owner doesn't influence whether or not people buy from him. I'm a Democrat. I'm going to have ideas on how to do things in different ways than GOP'ers. 9/10 Update: A couple of other people agree with me. Angry Bear, and a guy from Slate. And they're a lot smarter! |
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| Wednesday, September 8 | ||||||||
| 4:21 pm–And If We Elect Bush/Cheney, We'll Get 4 More Years of Defecits, an Ailing Economy, War, Government By and For Southern Baptists, Lies, and John Ashcroft. PLUS We'll Reward Them for 4 Years of Failure. Wheee!!! Read. |
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| 11:55 am–A Couple Hundred Thousand Troops Here, and There and We'd Have Had this Country Under Control The headline of this story in today's New York Times pretty much sums up the biggest failure of the Bush administration. The inability to heed advice from military experts on how many troops it would have taken to pacify a post-war Iraq. The repercussions of that single botched decision will resonate for decades. General Zinni, General Shinsecki, and others tried to tell this bombastic administration that the US needed more troops to stabilize Iraq. Rumsfeld, Wolfowitz, Feith, and the rest of the chickenhawks pooh-poohed the advice. Please, please, please don't reward failure with another 4 years in office. |
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| Tuesday, September 7 | ||||||||
| 4:17 pm–Pray for the Troops, on This Dark Day MSNBC says it all. Iraq Casualties has an in-depth look at the casualty count. |
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| 4:02 pm–Give to These People, 'Til it Hurts Check out this new ad from "Texans for Truth." John Kerry need not waste time replying to the lying scum swiftboaters. Democrats need to give money to this group in order to put the focus where it belongs: Bush had his father arrange for a cush posting in order to avoid Vietnam. |
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| 11:51 am–Richard Perle, Your Orange Jumpsuit is Almost Ready He and that other schmuck Lord Conrad Black looted the Chicago Sun-Times for their own personal gain. The .pdf version is here, and the html version here. Now Perle claims Black misled him. Whatever. I wish he would do time in maximum security, but that's wishful thinking. I hope his roommate in the country club prison is a DEMOCRAT. |
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| 9:17 am–Garrison Keillor on Today's Bunch of Republicans I found this in my inbox from a friend of mine: We're Not in Lake Wobegon Anymore By Garrison Keillor Something has gone seriously haywire with the Republican Party. Once, it was the party of pragmatic Main Street businessmen in steel-rimmed spectacles who decried profligacy and waste, were devoted to their communities and supported the sort of prosperity that raises all ships. They were good-hearted people who vanquished the gnarlier elements of their party, the paranoid Roosevelt-haters, the flat Earthers and Prohibitionists, the antipapist antiforeigner element. The genial Eisenhower was their man, a genuine American hero of D-Day, who made it OK for reasonable people to vote Republican. He brought the Korean War to a stalemate, produced the Interstate Highway System, declined to rescue the French colonial army in Vietnam, and gave us a period of peace and prosperity, in which (oddly) American arts and letters flourished and higher education burgeoned-and there was a degree of plain decency in the country. Fifties Republicans were giants compared to today's. Richard Nixon was the last Republican leader to feel a Christian obligation toward the poor. In the years between Nixon and Newt Gingrich, the party migrated southward down the Twisting Trail of Rhetoric and sneered at the idea of public service and became the Scourge of Liberalism, the Great Crusade Against the Sixties, the Death Star of Government, a gang of pirates that diverted and fascinated the media by their sheer chutzpah, such as the misty-eyed flag-waving of Ronald Reagan who, while George McGovern flew bombers in World War II, took a pass and made training films in Long Beach. The Nixon moderate vanished like the passenger pigeon, purged by a legion of angry white men who rose to power on pure punk politics. "Bipartisanship is another term of date rape," says Grover Norquist, the Sid Vicious of the GOP. "I don't want to abolish government. I simply want to reduce it to the size where I can drag it into the bathroom and drown it in the bathtub." The boy has Oedipal problems and government is his daddy. The party of Lincoln and Liberty was transmogrified into the party of hairy-backed swamp developers and corporate shills, faith-based economists, fundamentalist bullies with Bibles, Christians of convenience, freelance racists, misanthropic frat boys, shrieking midgets of AM radio, tax cheats, nihilists in golf pants, brownshirts in pinstripes, sweatshop tycoons, hacks, fakirs, aggressive dorks, Lamborghini libertarians, people who believe Neil Armstrong's moonwalk was filmed in Roswell, New Mexico, little honkers out to diminish the rest of us, Newt's evil spawn and their Etch-A-Sketch president, a dull and rigid man suspicious of the free flow of information and of secular institutions, whose philosophy is a jumble of badly sutured body parts trying to walk. Republicans: The No.1 reason the rest of the world thinks we're deaf, dumb and dangerous. Rich ironies abound! Lies pop up like toadstools in the forest! Wild swine crowd round the public trough! Outrageous gerrymandering! Pocket lining on a massive scale! Paid lobbyists sit in committee rooms and write legislation to alleviate the suffering of billionaires! Hypocrisies shine like cat turds in the moonlight! O Mark Twain, where art thou at this hour? Arise and behold the Gilded Age reincarnated gaudier than ever, upholding great wealth as the sure sign of Divine Grace. The concentration of wealth and power in the hands of the few is the death knell of democracy. No republic in the history of humanity has survived this. The election of 2004 will say something about what happens to ours. The omens are not good. Our beloved land has been fogged with fear-fear, the greatest political strategy ever. An ominous silence, distant sirens, a drumbeat of whispered warnings and alarms to keep the public uneasy and silence the opposition. And in a time of vague fear, you can appoint bullet-brained judges, strip the bark off the Constitution, eviscerate federal regulatory agencies, bring public education to a standstill, stupefy the press, lavish gorgeous tax breaks on the rich. Whenever I think of those New Yorkers hurrying along Park Place or getting off the No.1 Broadway local, hustling toward their office on the 90th floor, the morning paper under their arms, I think of that non-reader George W. Bush and how he hopes to exploit those people with a little economic uptick, maybe the capture of Osama, cruise to victory in November and proceed to get some serious nation-changing done in his second term. |
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| Friday, September 3 | ||||||||
| 4:18 pm–Aaarrgh! I'm listening to some undecided nut on NPR emote on how "undecided" he is. After a quick dissection of Kerry, and a small sonnet about Bush, he says Kerry needs to "give me a reason not to vote for Bush." The man is a free citizen, with access to more information than ever. Why can't he decide? What's he waiting for? Has he no eyes to read, fingers to tap on keyboards, or ears to hear? The undecided voter is a myth for 2004. Of those that call themselves undecided, why waste time spotlighting people so lazy they can't get online and read what the candidates have to offer? Why can't they take the sum of what they've learned about Kerry to now, and experienced with Bush over the past 4 years, and make a call? There are so few truly undecided voters these days, why mess with them? Why reward laziness with 15 seconds of fame? |
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| 3:43 pm–Those Damn Numbers.... Change* in real median household income (2003 adjusted dollars): "41": ($1,535) Clinton: $5,489 "43": ($1,314) Change* in number of Americans living in poverty: "41": 4,280,000 Clinton: (6,433,000) "43": 6,269,000 Take it from the Bushies. If the sum of the numbers continue to betray you, change the equation. Check this out. |
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| 2:44 pm–Alan Keyes Is a Talking Frog Alan Keyes is the talking frog of the GOP, much like the frog in the famous Looney Tunes cartoon. Since his first run for president, conservatives have looked at each other and exclaimed "oh he's so well spoken." It's as if he were a talking frog at a carnival. Everyone is overwhelmed with the fact the frog can talk. They listen for hours at how this frog can speak. They've been so enthralled with Keyes the talking frog, they've given him money for political races, and a TV show. But what nobody noticed is that the talking frog made no sense whatsoever, emoting eloquent streams of illogical gibberish. During GOP convention week, Keyes, the Illinois candidate for US Senate, has managed to shun his state party contingent. He breezed through breakfast, shaking hands and promptly leaving before the event got started. Needless to say, if you're trying to embrace the people and leaders of the state you've been specially imported to represent, you should probably hang with the hands that feed you. But not the talking frog. Keyes reached out to feel the embrace of the conservatives on Talk Radio Row. He did bits with Sean, Rush, and the boys. Keyes also managed to reach out to liberals, mostly to scold and offer scorn. It was during a chat with a gay radio station where he endeared himself to no one by saying Vice President Cheney's daughter, a lesbian, was a "selfless hedonist," and "a sinner." See what I mean about how the talking frog makes no sense? In a few words, Keyes had no control over, he managed to offend the most offensive Republican at the convention. Dick Cheney is no one's "warm and fuzzy." Days later, Keyes is being shunned by the Illinois delegation, as well as the GOP in general. Check this article out from today's Chicago Sun–Times. But Keyes, ever the talking frog, continues on. He blames the media for personalizing the incident. But how can you blame them for wanting to see the talking frog speak? |
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| Thursday, September 2 | ||||||||
| 9:02 am–Zell Miller, Disgrace I didn't listen to the speech live, I caught the stream later that evening. The fact that he was up there, a Democrat flailing his own party, didn't make me mad. Lots of people switch, some in more prominent roles than others. But as the speech wound itself into a rope of hate and lies, a sense of betrayal began to overtake me. Not for me on a personal level, but for the people who Miller had worked with on the many campaign trails of his long career. People who had looked up to him, who he had shared hard work and a slice of pizza with. Constituents he had helped, kids he had helped nominate to service academies, and others who felt Zell Miller was trustworthy and a man of character. That's who I feel bad for. |
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| Wednesday, September 1 | ||||||||
| 9:04 am–A Peaceful and Independent Iraq.... So Grand Ayotollah Ali Al-Sistani comes back from the hospital and promptly accomplishes in a couple of days what the US, Bremer, and Allawi couldn't. Get Al Sadr and his insurgents to seriously start the process of laying down their arms. All parties were at the negotiation table. Peace was at hand, at least in this particular case. But Allawi pulled out at the last second. Get a load of why, according to the New York Times: "Last night there was a deal," said Yusef al-Nasiri, the leader of the Mahdi Army in Sadr City. "This morning there was supposed to be a press conference. But then Allawi surprised us, and he has taken us back to zero." Simultaneous news conferences scheduled by Dr. Allawi and the Mahdi Army to announce their earlier deal were called off. Mr. Nasiri said he had been told by one of the government's negotiators, Qassim Daoud, the minister of state, that Dr. Allawi had objected to the restrictions placed on Americans soldiers operating in the area. Under the agreement, the Americans would be limited to performing reconstruction work; anything more aggressive than that would require the permission of the Iraqi government." Let me see if I'm thinking this through straight. The head of the new Iraqi government is not signing on to a peace deal because he doesn't want a foreign occupying army to come under his control? Wasn't one of the selling points of this new government the fact that the US military would go wherever the Iraqi government needed them? Am I getting this right? But as the article continues, is the above the real story? Check this out: It was the second time this month that Dr. Allawi had backed out of a tentative peace deal struck by his negotiators, who are led by his national security adviser, Mowaffak al-Rubaie, a Shiite political leader who is close to Ayatollah Sistani. Earlier this month, with the fighting raging in Najaf, Dr. Rubaie announced that he had struck a deal with Mr. Sadr, only to see Dr. Allawi renounce it. Advertisement Indeed, the abrupt cancellation of the agreement seemed to reveal a split within Iraq's Shiite political leadership, and even inside Dr. Allawi's government, over how to deal with the threat posed by Mr. Sadr and his legions of armed men. Several Iraqi newspapers reported this week that Dr. Rubaie intends to resign over differences with Dr. Allawi, who is a Shiite as well. Both Dr. Rubaie and Dr. Allawi have denied the strains. The differences between the two are reflected in the larger Shiite community, which has been divided on the issue of dealing with the challenge posed by the Mahdi Army. Mr. Sadr, a 30-year-old street cleric, is disliked by Iraq's Shiite religious establishment, which has felt increasingly threatened by his growing popularity. Some Iraqi leaders, especially the Shiite ones, have quietly raised the prospect of killing or arresting Mr. Sadr as a way of eliminating him as a threat. Other Shiite leaders advocate a more diplomatic approach to Mr. Sadr, based on the notion that aggressive action would only inflame his large following. Now I see. Politics. I commend Allawi for wanting to cut his own deal. But I'm concerned, especially with American lives at stake, that politics and ego may mean Sadr's insurgency will continue longer than necessary. Allawi and the rest of the new government had better get used to Al-Sistani. Sistani is the key to peace, and the credibility Allawi and the rest of the government needs. |
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