Month: January 2003

Only 6 weeks ago the headlines said:

“White House Claims Election Is Broad Mandate”

My, how the mighty have fallen.

NY Times/CBS Poll

Nearly 50 percent of the public expressed disapproval of how Mr. Bush was handling the economy, while 41 percent expressed disapproval of his management of foreign policy, which has been the foundation of his extraordinarily high levels of support since Sept. 11. Those disapproval figures are the highest they have been since Mr. Bush took office.

Half of all respondents said Mr. Bush did not share their priorities for the country, an increase of 14 points from when the question was asked a year ago. That is a question pollsters watch closely to measure potential vulnerabilities of a candidate.

[…]

A majority of the poll’s respondents — including 49 percent of Republicans — said reducing the deficit would be more likely to revive the economy than would cutting taxes, the course pressed by Mr. Bush. The White House announced last week that the budget deficit for next year would reach at least $300 billion.

Finally, 63 percent said things were going worse in the country that they were five years ago.

[…]

Although Mr. Bush has signaled that he is prepared to lead a war against Iraq without the support of the Security Council, nearly two-thirds of Americans said they wanted him to try to find a diplomatic solution to the Iraq situation, while 31 percent said the United States should resort to military force. Even so, 64 percent said they approved of the United States taking military action to oust Saddam Hussein, while 30 percent said they disapproved.

[…]

The poll found that 54 percent of respondents said affirmative action in hiring, promoting and college admissions should be continued, while 37 percent said it should be abolished. Along those lines, the respondents said they expected Mr. Bush to appoint justices to the Supreme Court who will vote to make abortion illegal, but that stance was not shared by a majority of respondents.

So far, at least, Mr. Bush does not appear to have persuaded the nation that the way to repair the economy is a new round of tax cuts, or that the cuts he has proposed would not favor the wealthy.

And 58 percent of respondents said that Mr. Bush’s policies favor the rich, compared with 10 percent who said they favored the middle class. In addition, 26 percent said they treated everyone the same and 1 percent said they favored the poor. Two-thirds of respondents said big business had too much influence on this White House.

The poll pointed to some vulnerabilities in what has been Mr. Bush’s strong suit, foreign policy and the war on terrorism. By 55 percent to 40 percent, Americans said the administration was reacting to events as they occurred abroad rather than having a clear foreign policy plan.

[…]

Slightly more than half of the respondents said the United States was less respected in the world today than it was two years ago, when Mr. Bush took office, while one-third said relations with Europe had worsened. And while the public said they viewed Iraq as a bigger threat to world peace than North Korea, reflecting the White House view, respondents named Al Qaeda as the biggest threat of all.

The poll also suggested some concern about what the White House has done to forestall future domestic terrorist attacks. Just over 40 percent said Mr. Bush had a clear plan for fighting terrorism, while 53 percent said he was reacting to events.

Fifty-two percent said they believed the government had done “all it could be reasonably expected to do” to protect the country from future terrorist attacks. But 45 percent said it could have done more.

Now, that’s a mandate, my friends.

Oh, What Does He Know?

“President Bush has a vision that the U.S. should be the first to strike and will never be militarily challenged again,” Clark said. “It’s an incomplete vision. Those of us who have fought in wars know you don’t make friends when you use weapons.”

[…]

Clark said hatred toward the United States may have originated in the 1980s with the end of the Cold War and fall of the Berlin Wall in 1989.

“We seized the opportunity and took advantage of free trade and open markets,” Clark said. “We built tremendous prosperity, but we didn’t understand the risks we were taking over our economy, our environment and our lives.”

Clark said American Muslims who believe in peace and tolerance should be encouraged to help persuade extremists that American democracy does not threaten their way of life.

Clark commended the president’s response to the Sept. 11 attacks and the war on terrorism that followed. But, he said, the United States responded out of fear, which is foreign to Americans.

Clark said America’s mission in Iraq should include the best interest of all nations.

“When you use force and you talk about using force, it should be used as your last, last, last resort,” Clark said. “You have to use it with a lot of prayer because a lot of innocent people are going to get hurt.”

I continue to be impressed with Wesley Clark. It’s difficult to assess when I don’t know his positions of a wide variety of issues, but he sounds eminently reasonable to me on issues of war and peace. All things being equal, I think he would be a dynamite addition to the ticket.

Via Blah3: Thug Cabal’s Final Strategy: Call out the entire WORLD!!!

I don’t really think that’s overstated. They keep stating their case, but they haven’t made it. You can smell the desperation.

This is because they have what is called a “credibility gap.” Remember that? It’s what happens when an administration repeatedly lies, changes rhetoric but not goals and basically treats the public as if they are as stupid as President George W. Bush.

Very few voters are as stupid as George W. Bush.

Ahead Of The Curve

That damned LA Times is reading my blog again. That Greatest-Generation-is-against-the war-thing is sooo early January.

Moral Clarity

Ok. So let me get this straight just so I understand.

Foes of abortion believe that life begins at conception. And they believe that this life should be granted the same rights as the woman within whose body it must stay, at least for a period of time, if it is to develop and grow.

Fine. There is no moral distinction between the fully formed woman and the collection of cells that forms a zygote. From the moment of conception, this life has the same moral standing as a month old baby who sleeps in a bassinette in the nursery or a teen-ager or an old man. Life is life.

Therefore, it must be immoral to allow exceptions to a ban on abortion in the case of incest or rape. Would we kill a month old baby if we found out that it was the result of rape? Would we think that it was ok to smother a 6 month old child if we found out that it was conceived in incest? Of course not. What possible moral difference can it make how the child is conceived if it’s endowed with inalienable rights at the moment of conception? You may punish the rapist or the incestuous relative, but the child’s right to live is inviolable. Life is life.

In the case of choosing between the life of the child and the life of the mother, one is on delicate moral ground if the child is viable outside the womb. It is a Solomon’s choice and one which should probably be left to fate. Doctors may be willing to choose and perhaps husband’s or family, but it is not easy to morally defend.

Clearly, though, if a fetus has the same rights as any other human being, a doctor who performs abortions other than to save the life of the mother must be a murderer. But then, so must be the mother who willingly aborts. The life inside this woman has the same rights as any baby. Therefore, just like Andrea Yates, women who have abortions should be arrested and tried for murder. If found guilty she must go to jail. And those who argue for capital punishment for a mother who kills her baby must also agree that a woman who has an abortion must be tried as a capital murderer. Life is life.

I’m there, so far. But, if the life inside a woman’s body has the same legal rights as a two month old baby, then if a woman has a miscarriage, shouldn’t she be investigated by the authorities? If the fetus has the same rights as the woman who carries it and it suddenly “disappears” the police should be asked to find out whether this woman murdered her baby, just as the authorities would investigate if a woman’s one month old baby disappeared. After all, life is life.

Some jurisdictions are already intervening if women are caught taking drugs during pregnancy. This is the consistent moral stance. If a woman is abusing her body during pregnancy, she is also abusing a distinct human being who exists inside of her and that human being has the same right as she not to be abused by another person. Women must be held responsible for what they do to their babies inside of their bodies, just as they are held responsible for what they do to a 6 month old baby.

Considering these facts, I have to wonder at the moral obtuseness of a pro-life movement that would let murdering mothers go unpunished, negligent mothers go uninvestigated and, worst of all, endorse the legal killing of unborn children simply because they had the misfortune to be conceived in violence or incest. You would almost think that they believe there is a grey moral area on this question rather than the clear bright line of inalienable rights being proferred at the moment of conception. That can’t be right.

Because to allow for exceptions or to ignore the woman’s culpability in murdering or harming her child while it is inside the womb is to create the false impression that gestation is a unique period for the human species in which the woman and the baby are so inextricable that to all intents and purposes they are one person.

And one could then make the immoral assumption that because they are in all practicality one person, the sentient part of this person must be allowed to decide whether this “part of her” should grow and become an individual who is capable of living outside her body. Then no one would suspect her of criminal negligence if she miscarried after falling down the stairs and she could not be a considered a criminal child abuser if she had a glass of wine or a cigarette. Certainly she would not be a murderer if she felt she could not give birth to her own brother or the child of her rapist.

And if she’s not a murderer for aborting her rapists child, then she is not a murderer for aborting any child.

And that would be wrong. Life is life, isn’t it?

Gentle Persuasion

Come fly with me.

Via Musings

Divining the will of the voter

Avedon Carol has an interesting post up about VNS and the strange happenings with exit polls.

I’m not usually too much of a tin foiler, but I find it very strange that the VNS system went kerflooey at this particular moment in time. I hate to be paranoid, but there is such a strong undemocratic streak in the modern Republican party — a partisan impeachment, Florida, Supreme Court intervention in a presidential election, Florida, a professional propaganda operation, Republican corporate media, Florida, coordinated character assassination, GOP partisan ownership in voting systems, Florida etc, etc. that when it comes to elections or issues of political legitimacy I think it behooves everyone to be extremely skeptical of any changes during this administration.

These people cannot be trusted with the fundamental machinery of democracy.

They are the political heirs of Richard M. Nixon — without the brains or the scruples.

“It was opening us up to a broader knowledge of the situation”

During Campaign 2000, the press incorrectly reported Al Gore’s comments about the Love Canal to such an extent that the high school kids who were there felt compelled to issue a press release entitled “Top ten reasons why many Concord High students feel betrayed by some of the media coverage of Al Gore’s visit to their school.”

Now, the campaign against Patty Murray’s supposedly treasonous comments about Osama bin Laden to a senior honors class in Vancouver, Washington has been similarly exposed for the cynical manipulation it was. The students feel so strongly that the story was misrepresented that they also went to the media with a correction.

This seems to be a pattern.

Luckily for the future of the Republic, high school students have a far greater grasp of rational argument than right wing bloggers and Republicans do. It also appears that they are better able to understand the nuances of foreign policy than is the President of the United States. (But then, they are in a high school honors class so it’s probably unfair to make a comparison to the cheerleader legacy frat boy…)

Class defends Murray remark

By Eric Stevick

Herald Writer

EVERETT — For several days, seniors in an honors American government class at Cascade High School followed the public fury over comments Sen. Patty Murray made about Osama bin Laden to high school students in Vancouver.

Murray was criticized over the airwaves and in reader letters on editorial pages. Some called for a reprimand or censure.

All of which was a little hard for the Cascade students to comprehend.

Murray talked to their classroom in December just about the same time she made similar comments to students at Columbia River High School, according to a transcript. They didn’t see how her comments could be construed to be sympathetic or supportive of the al-Qaida terrorist leader and the main suspect in the Sept. 11 terror attacks on the United States.

The students considered writing their own letter to the editor but decided, instead, to take up their teacher’s offer to give their perspective in person.

To them, Democrat Murray was merely explaining how bin Laden could gain support in the Middle East.

“She didn’t make him up as some kind of humanitarian,” Ann Topham said.

“A lot of people thought she was forgiving 9/11,” Katie Kelley said. “She wasn’t defending it at all.”

“She was in no way glorifying him,” Becca Reynolds said. “She was just showing us the side we didn’t really see. … It was opening us up to a broader knowledge of the situation.”

That perspective was the fact that bin Laden strategically contributed to causes that helped gain public support in the Middle East, they said. Critics point to Murray’s lack of proof of any bin Laden humanitarian activities.

“He sees how to use his money to tender favor … so he could do what he wanted,” Will Shepherd said.

Students in Mike Therrell’s class were required to work a minimum of 25 hours last fall on political campaigns. Most worked on legislative campaigns, a few on congressional campaigns. Some worked for Republicans, others Democrats, a few for third-party candidates. Murray was not up for election when she visited the class.

“Patty Murray made it very clear that Osama bin Laden was a villain, and the things he was doing to ingratiate himself to the people he was not doing as an act of kindness,” said Therrell, who has been teaching for 35 years. “His ulterior motive was very evil.”

Perhaps I shouldn’t complain too vigorously about this since these politically interested kids will all be able to vote in the next election. They still have some ideals, you see. They still naively believe that silly concepts like intellectual honesty matter.

After seeing the party of honor and integrity up-close and personal, it’s quite likely they will vote Democratic.

If Anyone Was Wondering Why The GOP Is Moribund In California…

Another hilarious example of the comedy stylings of that funny, funny California Republican, Randy Ridgel:

[…]

The letter by retired white rancher Randy Ridgel, a member of the party’s Board of Directors, responds to complaints by state GOP Secretary Shannon Reeves, who is black. Earlier this month, Reeves said that some GOP leaders expect African Americans to “provide window dressing and cover to prove this is not a racist party, yet our own leadership continues to act otherwise.”

In his letter to Reeves, Ridgel, 72, wrote: “At my age, with the distractions of being a detestable, insensitive racist, I grow befuddled from time to time, but I just don’t remember your being hired as our black window dressing.”

Ridgel criticized Reeves for sharing his concerns with the news media and suggested that Ward Connerly, an African American who has led efforts to kill affirmative action programs in California, would be more suitable window dressing.

“Knowing your propensity to avoid public appearances, as the job of black Republican window dressing requires, I would have been inclined to hire someone appropriately black but perhaps more garrulous, than your bashful self — such as Ward Connerly, who, it may surprise you to learn, is not only satisfyingly black but a member of our party too,” Ridgel wrote.

“I don’t know why but I always fall down on my duties as Party Detestable Insensitive Racist when I encounter Ward; I actually like and respect him.”

What a loveable old codger, huh? Nothing like a little bit of rude sarcasm in the middle of a political firestorm to really turn up the heat.

Besides, he likes Ward Connerly. He’s not a racist. In fact, he’s so not a racist that he thinks the one “good” negro he likes ought to replace that big mouthed Reeves who told the news media that he was considered window-dressing. Ridgel doesn’t see him as window dressing. He just thinks he should be quiet and do what he’s told.

That’s why California Republicans are so successful these days. It’s their savvy.

1/25/03: If You are getting this post at the top of the page, please refresh your screen. Blogger is having problems for some people, apparently. There is a lot of recent stuff up.

digby

Moving The Goalposts

Chris at Interesting Times sees a pattern.

I just flashed on something. The Republican’s approach to Sadaam’s declaration on his WMD programs is similar to their approach to Clinton’s declaration of his involvement with Monica Lewinsky: no matter what is said, it will not be enough because the Republicans keep re-defining the parameters of what needs to be said. And the fact that Sadaam/Clinton fail to hit a moving target is taken as proof that they are guilty, unremorseful, and will do it again.

This is an excellent observation of a common GOP tactic that the mediawhores just love more than anything. Keep that story spinning at all costs. Nobody will notice that you are constantly moving the goalposts:

“If he comes forth and tells it and does it in the right way and there aren’t a lot of other factors to cause the Congress to say this man is unfit for the presidency and should be impeached, then I think the president would have a reasonable chance of getting through this,” said Hatch, R-Utah.

“I don’t know anybody at the top of the system,” Hatch said, “who really wants to see the president hurt in this matter.”

Weeks ago, Hatch made an offer of consideration for confession, which he repeated in some form in virtually every TV appearance.

[…]

After so much criticism of his promiscuous use of language, Clinton made his basic points very directly. “It was wrong.” “A personal failure.” His observation that even Presidents have private lives was compelling and legitimate–most Americans agree that what goes on in a President’s bedroom is no one’s business but his.

[…]

What a jerk.” ORRIN HATCH, Utah Republican Senator

[…]

Hatch was satisfied with Clinton’s contriteness, but it was the Starr part that got him blustering like a blunderbuss. There are, of course, plenty of reasons for Clinton to bash Starr. But Monday night was for taking responsibility. Hatch is right: getting caught is the chance every “jerk” takes when he cheats, and the guy who catches you is not the biggest problem. You are. That’s true even if your captor is a jerk as well.

Even if Saddam “disarmed” tomorrow, there’s no way in hell that he would do it “right.”

Note: Also read Chris’ outstanding coverage and commentary about the AntiWar protests in Portland and elsewhere.