Bush's delusions about the Mideast further undermining US credibility

Contrary to most of the rest of the world, the White House has been saying that the latest Mideast war is really an opportunity:

"This moment of conflict in the Middle East is painful and tragic," Bush said in his radio address Saturday. "Yet it is also a moment of opportunity for broader change in the region. Transforming countries that have suffered decades of tyranny and violence is difficult, and it will take time to achieve. But the consequences will be profound for our country and the world."

That viewpoint is openly mocked by foreign policy experts:

[Richard] Haass, the former Bush aide who leads the Council on Foreign Relations, laughed at the president's public optimism. "An opportunity?" Haass said with an incredulous tone. "Lord, spare me. I don't laugh a lot. That's the funniest thing I've heard in a long time. If this is an opportunity, what's Iraq? A once-in-a-lifetime chance?"

Good point. Bush and his foreign policy crew talk a good game. But their track record is one of abysmal failure. What in anything Bush has said or done in foreign policy (or any policy for that matter) provides even a sliver of hope that he's right this time? NOTHING. Read the rest of this post...

Excellent Dan Savage editorial in the Sunday NYT on same-gender marriage

Just read it. Read the rest of this post...

Kennedy says Alito and Roberts misled Judiciary Committee

Big surprise there. Actually, this is a very good op ed by Kennedy, do read it. Read the rest of this post...

Open thread

I hear it's hot in DC :-) Read the rest of this post...

Is US actually pushing escalation of Mideast war?

Read Josh Marshall's post on this subject of escalation. It's enlightening in a very frightening way -- and helps explain the seemingly hapless way the US has conducted itself during this war:

There's a mix of public and private communications going on between Jerusalem and Damascus. Israel is trying to assure Damascus that they don't plan or want to expand the war to include Syria. Syria is clearly worried that they will and has their troops on full alert. Israel is also warning in no uncertain terms that Syria getting involved will spark massive retaliation.

But there are persistent signs that the US is egging Israel on to bring the war to Damascus.

Here's a clip from the end of an article today in the Jerusalem Post ...

[Israeli]Defense officials told the Post last week that they were receiving indications from the United States that the US would be interested in seeing Israel attack Syria.

And there are other ominous indications of the US pressing for expansion the Israelis don't seem to want.

There's more here than the US not wanting a ceasefire before meaningful changes on the ground have happened in south Lebanon. Or at least I fear there is. This started because Israel doesn't want and won't tolerate a menacing militia building up on their northern border and lashing out with occasional raids or missile attacks, especially in the context of withdrawals from other areas.

The Israelis aren't interested in a war with Syria, but we are.

This is scary stuff. Read the rest of this post...

Seniors learning the Bush/GOP drug plan is a disaster

The seniors are realizing that they're getting screwed. They have to be reminded every day that this is Bush/GOP plan:

The calls are starting to come in from shocked or angry seniors. They have just learned that their Medicare drug plans are maxing out on early coverage and that they must now spend $2,850 from their own pockets before coverage will resume.

"I can't pay for my medications," one man told Howard Houghton of the Fairfax Area Agency on Aging the other day. "What do I do?"

There's only one thing to do: In 100 days, change the Congress. Read the rest of this post...

What would happen if Americans actually had to watch real images of war?

This morning, I woke up to CNN"s coverage of the bombing in Qana. There was a riot in Beirut at U.N. Headquarters. The CNN Beirut reporter, Brent Sadler, started his report like this:

In the beginning, there was a spontaneous reaction as Lebanese watched the Qana attack unfold on their television screens. Now, unlike CNN, we take a view that not all the most graphic and horrific pictures from such an attack are shown on our screens, but in Lebanese homes and across the Arab world, uncensored pictures of the aftermath of the Israeli airstrike had been broadcast, and that has hit home deeply in the psyche of the Lebanese.

Does the edited and sanitized coverage of news by American media give us a warped view of war? Would Americans react differently if we saw "graphic and horrific pictures," not only in Lebanon, but in Iraq? The U.S. government won't even show pictures of the caskets of the soldiers who died for their country.

Imagine if we had to face a daily barrage of death and destruction. Would Americans become immune or would they begin to realize the horrors of war?

We hear stories about the number of dead and some video of the aftermath of incidents. Most Americans have already turned against the war in Iraq. What would Bush do if the media actually covered the war in an unedited manner, like in most of the rest of the world?

The American media conglomerates are complicit in the censorship. But what are they supposed to be protecting us from? Read the rest of this post...

Israeli air strike kills 34 children

But...

Israeli said it targeted Qana because it was a base for hundreds of rockets launched at Israeli, including 40 that injured five Israelis on Sunday. Israel said it had warned civilians several days before to leave the village.

So here's the ethical question of the day. Someone is firing hundreds of missiles at your citizens each day, and launching them from civilians areas because think they think you won't hit back (or hope you do, and thus kill civilians, causing a storm of bad publicity). As for the civilians, it's an open question whether they are helping harbor the guys with the missiles or not, i.e., whether or not they have a say in telling Hezbollah to take a hike (and if they do have a say, would that change your answer)?

So the question is this, under those circumstances, what do YOU do as the leader of country that's receiving 100 rockets a day raining down on your cities?

Second question, which I've posed before. At what point does a local citizenry become responsible for the crimes it supports? When Israel is on the receiving end of bombs, I hear a lot of talk about how every Israeli is a legitimate target because they all support the government. So does the same apply to every Arab, every Muslim, every southern Lebanese, and every American?

I'd just like to see some real discussion of where the line is here, and why some folks seem to care less when the targets are Jewish civilians. Read the rest of this post...

Normal evangelicals are starting to fight back

Thank God, and about time.

Mr. Boyd finally became fed up, he said. Before the last presidential election, he preached six sermons called ‘The Cross and the Sword’ in which he said the church should steer clear of politics, give up moralizing on sexual issues, stop claiming the United States as a ‘Christian nation’ and stop glorifying American military campaigns.

“When the church wins the culture wars, it inevitably loses,” Mr. Boyd preached. “When it conquers the world, it becomes the world. When you put your trust in the sword, you lose the cross.”....

“More and more people are saying this has gone too far -- the dominance of the evangelical identity by the religious right,” Mr. McLaren said. ”You cannot say the word ‘Jesus’ in 2006 without having an awful lot of baggage going along with it. You can’t say the word ‘Christian,’ and you certainly can’t say the word ‘evangelical’ without it now raising connotations and a certain cringe factor in people.

“Because people think, ‘Oh no, what is going to come next is homosexual bashing, or pro-war rhetoric, or complaining about ‘activist judges.’ ”

That is the reason Christians are feeling oppressed. Not because of Mel Gibson's "fucking Jews," and not because of the ACLU. Christians are feeling oppressed because their own wacko evangelical fringe has so abused Christ as to make him a bad word. When I was a kid, it was a badge of honor to be a regular church-goer - it meant you came from a good family. Nowadays, if you say you're going to church on Sunday, my first thought is usually "is he going to hate me because I'm gay?"

America is less tolerant towards religion. And that's because the religious right has used religion as a sword against everyone its disagrees with. And that creates enemies. Not just for the religious right, but for the God on whose behalf they claim to speak. Read the rest of this post...

I'm pwn3d

This is what I wake up to this morning. Sushi in all his glory, inside my suitcase. Then, no less than two minutes after taking that picture, I'm busy typing and I hear some noise behind me. This is what I find.



Now, I don't claim to understand cats, but I think we have a contest going for Uncle John's affection. Or a contest for Uncle John's subjugation. Hard to tell. Read the rest of this post...

New York Times editorial: Dump Lieberman, Vote Lamont

Wow.

The United States is at a critical point in its history, and Mr. Lieberman has chosen a controversial role to play. The voters in Connecticut will have to judge whether it is the right one.

As Mr. Lieberman sees it, this is a fight for the soul of the Democratic Party ? his moderate fair-mindedness against a partisan radicalism that alienates most Americans. ?What kind of Democratic Party are we going to have?? he asked in an interview with New York magazine. ?You've got to agree 100 percent, or you?re not a good Democrat??

That's far from the issue. Mr. Lieberman is not just a senator who works well with members of the other party. And there is a reason that while other Democrats supported the war, he has become the only target. In his effort to appear above the partisan fray, he has become one of the Bush administration?s most useful allies as the president tries to turn the war on terror into an excuse for radical changes in how this country operates....

And Mr. Lieberman has helped that effort. He once denounced Democrats who were ?more focused on how President Bush took America into the war in Iraq? than on supporting the war?s progress.

Bingo. Despite what Barney Frank thinks, we are witnessing the dismantlement of our democracy in a rather frightening manner. We are watching the public disagree with this president's action in record numbers,yet do nothing about it. And we are watching a Democratic party trip over itself in its confusion over how and whether to oppose turning American democracy into some kind of police state.

As some new French friends said to me last night over dinner, if so many of you don't like Bush - 60-some percent in all the recent polls - then why don't you do something about it?

Good question.

Part of the reason we don't is because we have Democrats like Joe Lieberman who give aid and comfort to the dismantlement of our democracy. It's difficult enough to stand up to post-9/11 Republican charges that Dems are soft on Osama, but when one of your own joins the Bush brigade and accuses fellow Dems of simply speaking out for partisan gain, that makes it excruciatingly difficult to continue speaking up because it gives the Republicans the perfect weapon to use against any Democrat who dares speak out. See, just like Joe said, the Dems don't care about September 11, they don't care about national security, they simply care about scoring political points at the expense of all of our lives.

That is why this blog, at least, can't stand Joe Lieberman. America can't afford any more Joe Liebermans at this juncture in our history. We are turning into a police state. No, there are no ovens and mass executions in America. But if people believe that the only lessons we learned from World War II, from fighting the Soviets, and from every other war, cold and hot, that America ever fought is to simply avoid genocide, well, that's a rather short-sided lesson to take from history.

I hate to quote Star Wars as the authoritative word on freedom, but there was a hell of a quote in the last film:

"So this is how democracy dies, to thunderous applause."

And currently, the lion's share of that applause in the Democratic party is coming from Senator Joseph Lieberman.

It's not about the war. It's about our country. Read the rest of this post...

Sunday Talk Shows Open Thread

Looks like it's all Lebanon. Why does anyone think the U.S. Government, which can't solve it's own Iraq quagmire, is going to be able to solve this one? And does the media even remember the Iraq quagmire?

FOX NEWS SUNDAY....: Undersecretary of State R. Nicholas Burns ; L. Paul Bremer , former head of the Coalition Provisional Authority in Iraq; Steven A. Rosenberg , chief surgeon at the National Cancer Institute.

THIS WEEK (ABC....: Burns ; Israeli Ambassador Daniel Ayalon ; seven-time Tour de France winner Lance Armstrong .

FACE THE NATION (CBS....: Lebanese Prime Minister Fouad Siniora ; Israeli Deputy Prime Minister Shimon Peres .

MEET THE PRESS (NBC....: Israeli Ambassador to the United Nations Dan Gillerman ; Lebanese special envoy Nouhad Mahmoud .

LATE EDITION (CNN), 11 a.m.: Burns ; Sens. Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) and Charles E. Schumer (D-N.Y.); Syrian cabinet minister Bouthaina Shaaban , and Israeli Tourism Minister Isaac Herzog .

Read the rest of this post...