Month: January 2003

Heavy

From alicublog at alicubi.

Sometimes you have to wonder if the people you read on the web intersect with reality at any point. So often they discuss matters of life and death as if they were After-School Special scripts.

A case in point is the popular Instapundit, who makes this bizarre observation on the current Korean crisis:

“LAST NIGHT there was a Cosby show rerun on Nickelodeon. Theo defies his parents, and they leave him with nowhere to live in order to teach him that actions have consequences, and forgiveness isn’t to be taken for granted…I wonder if there’s a parallel to be drawn here?…long-term, there’s a lot to be gained by reminding our triangulating allies that American love, and American forgiveness, are not to be taken for granted either. That’s a lesson we keep ramming home to the Germans. And the Koreans need to learn it too. We live in a world where most of our allies are Theo Huxtables…”

Maybe this guy should be writing for Bush. “Good and Evil” has been getting a little old as an metaphor, but “Cliff and Theo Huxtable” might have some juice in it. Plus, they’re black! Take that, Trent Lott!

The funny thing is that the serious part of Insty’s post is just as strangely otherwordly as the “Cliff and Theo” thing:

I haven’t written much on Korea, because I don’t know enough about what’s going on to have a very strong opinion about what ought to be done. On the one hand, North Korea is probably the worst place on the planet now. I suspect that the reason why some South Korean politicians want to prop it up is that when it comes out just how bad things have been there, which looks to be Pol-Pot-bad — and that they’ve known a lot more than they’ve let on while cozying up to and propping up the North — they’ll be seen as collaborators in horror. (And some, quite possibly, may turn out to be real collaborators, on the take from the North, and might be worried that that will come out).

On the other hand, North Korea is mostly inward-looking, and I don’t think it’s a big, direct threat. And, long-term, there’s a lot to be gained by reminding our triangulating allies that American love, and American forgiveness, are not to be taken for granted either. That’s a lesson we keep ramming home to the Germans. And the Koreans need to learn it too.

Wow. If he isn’t indulging in some very opaque irony, that is a testament to the wisdom of holding back an opinion when you are ill informed on the subject. Tell the North Koreans to go fuck themselves. They’re not a big, direct threat (like Iraq, I suppose). And tell those collaborationist South Korean bastards to shove it too, for that matter. Nothing bad’ll happen. Not a problem.

Cuz they’ll come crawling back, jes’ beggin for American love and forgiveness, you wait and see. Ram that lesson home again and again —- just like we keep doing to the Germans????

The sad thing is that I heard Ken Adelman make a very similar argument on NPR yesterday. And, unfortunately, he is on the Defense Policy Board and has the infuence to put the “Cliff and Theo Doctrine” into practice.

I think we are delving into psychological issues here rather than ideological ones. This puerile compulsion to demonstrate who’s boss is certifiably cuckoo.

Not bold. Reckless.

North Korea in a Vice

Here is an excellent analysis of the geopolitical strategies of the 4 big players in the Korean crisis (North and South Korea, Japan and the US.) It’s more complicated than I realized — by centuries of cultural animosity, economic frustrations and military ambitions, and a spectacularly ill-timed bellicose American foreign policy. From the New Left Review

[…]

Yet the thickening mesh of relationships between the two Koreas—a few of the many separated families had also been united—was taking place within an increasingly fraught international context: a deteriorating world economy, heightened competition between China and Japan, and an incoming American administration already seeking a more direct assertion of Washington’s primacy in the region. With the sharpening of US policy after 9.11 North Korea was declared one of the three members of the Axis of Evil in Bush’s January 2002 State of the Union address; and, with Iraq, was one of the two named ‘rogue states’ in the September 2002 National Security Strategy document. Meanwhile in Seoul, Kim Dae Jung’s five-year presidency staggs to its end in the December 2002 elections through a mire of corruption. Of the candidates looking set to replace him, the conservative Lee Hoi Chang of the Grand National Party, in particular, espouses a much harder rhetoric on North Korea.

Within this hostile forcefield, the Pyongyang leadership seems to have concluded that normalizing its relations with Tokyo and Washington—its former occupier, on the one hand, and the devastator of its civilian infrastructure, on the other—was now an essential goal. In October 2001, tentative feelers were sent out to Japan, seeking negotiations. Quiet diplomatic exchanges, involving at least thirty meetings between North Korean and Japanese diplomats over the following year, explored the outstanding issues: for Pyongyang, apologies and reparation for the atrocities committed during Japan’s four-decade occupation of the peninsula, from 1905 to 1945; for Tokyo, the encroachment of North Korean spy ships into Japanese waters, and the suspicions that a dozen or so of its nationals had been abducted by the DPRK. Broad principles were agreed over the summer of 2002 and the stage set for Koizumi’s 17 September visit to Pyongyang.

Are they so hard up for cops in Tennessee that they are handing out shotguns and badges to trigger happy paranoid morons?

The Smoak family was pulled over the evening of January 1 on Interstate 40 in eastern Tennessee by officers who mistakenly suspected them of a carjacking. An investigation showed James Smoak had simply left his wallet on the roof of his car at a gas station, and motorists who saw his money fly off the car as he drove away called police.

The family was driving through eastern Tennessee on their way home from a New Year trip to Nashville. They told CNN they are in the process of retaining a lawyer and considering legal action against the Cookeville, Tennessee, Police Department and the Tennessee Highway Patrol for what happened to them and their dog

“What did I do?” James Smoak asks the officers.

“Sir, inside information is that you was involved in some type of robbery in Davidson County,” the unidentified officer says.

Smoak and his wife protest incredulously, telling the officers that they are from South Carolina and that their mother and father-in-law are traveling in another car near them.

The Smoaks told CNN that as they knelt, handcuffed, they pleaded with officers to close the doors of their car so their two dogs would not escape, but the officers did not heed them.

Pamela Smoak is seen on the tape looking up at an officer, telling him slowly, “That dog is not mean. He won’t hurt you.”

Her husband says, “I got a dog in the car. I don’t want him to jump out.”

The tape then shows the Smoaks’ medium-size brown dog romping on the shoulder of the Interstate, its tail wagging. As the family yells, the dog, named Patton, first heads away from the road, then quickly circles back toward the family.

An officer in a blue uniform aims his shotgun at the dog and fires at its head, killing it immediately.

For several moments, all that is audible are shrieks as the family reacts to the shooting. James Smoak even stands up, but officers pull him back down.

“Y’all shot my dog! Y’all shot my dog!” James Smoak cries. “Oh my God! God Almighty!”

“You shot my dog!” screams his wife, distraught and still handcuffed. “Why’d you kill our dog?”

“Jesus, tell me, why did y’all shoot my dog?” James Smoak says.

The officers bring him to the patrol car, and the family calms down, but still they ask the officers for an explanation. One of them says Patton was “going after” the officer.

“No he wasn’t, man,” James Smoak says. “Y’all didn’t have to kill the dog like that.”

Brandon told CNN that Patton, was playful and gentle — “like Scooby-Doo” — and may have simply gone after the beam of the flashlight as he often did at home, when Brandon and the dog would play.

The Tennessee Department of Safety, which oversees the Highway Patrol, has said an investigation is underway.

Cookeville Police Chief Robert Terry released a statement on the department’s Web site Wednesday night describing the department’s regret over the incident. The Cookeville Police Department site was not responding Thursday morning.

Cookeville Police Chief Robert Terry released a statement on the department’s Web site Wednesday night describing the department’s regret over the incident. The Cookeville Police Department site was not responding Thursday morning.

“I know the officer wishes that circumstances could have been different so he could have prevented shooting the dog,” Terry wrote. “It is never gratifying to have to put an animal down, especially a family pet, and the officer assures me that he never displayed any satisfaction in doing so.”

Terry said he and the vice-mayor of Cookeville met with the family before they left “to convey our deepest sympathies” for the loss of their dog.

“No one wants to experience this kind of thing, and it’s very unfortunate that it occurred,” he wrote. “If we had the benefit of hindsight, I’m sure some — if not all of this — could have been avoided. I believe the Tennessee Highway Patrol feels the same way.”

Sure, some trained police officers would have immediately become skeptical of the carjacking claim when they realized that all the people in the car were together and nobody was being held against their will — because that would have meant that A MIDDLE AGED MAN, A MIDDLE AGED WOMAN, A TEEN-AGER AND 2 DOGS CARJACKED A LITTLE SUV FOR A PLEASURE RIDE around Tennessee.But that would have required them to have IQ’s above 26 and that presents a serious recruiting problem in certain parts of our country, evidently.

I sure hope nobody gets it in his head that this cop shouldn’t be carrying a lethal weapon because he’s so damned stupid, badly trained and trigger happy that he’s a danger to society. That would undermine our freedom.

Cojones the size of basketballs

Here come their drastic cuts in domestic spending to pay for their drastic tax cuts for cronies.LA Times

With budgets for most federal agencies still in limbo, congressional Republicans are drafting a spending bill for the 3-month-old fiscal year that would slash billions of dollars for domestic programs the Senate approved when it was under Democratic control last year.

The bill will hew to the tight constraint of $385 billion that President Bush set for domestic spending after the Republicans gained full control of Congress in the midterm elections. As a result, lawmakers from both parties face battles over how to divvy up scarce dollars among their favorite programs.

Among the potential trade-offs: Should the National Institutes of Health get a big boost at the expense of education programs? Should the U.S. Customs Service sacrifice to make room for reforms in election procedures? And should the government scale back parks and public land programs to bolster homeland security?

Thankfully, however, they will not be skimping on the salaries of the new accounting oversight board members. NY Times

Six months after it was created by Congress, the new board overseeing the accounting profession — the centerpiece of reform legislation after a year of corporate scandal — held its first formal meeting today without a permanent chairman, a senior staff or a final budget.

During the meeting, the new board members voted themselves annual salaries of $452,000, or $52,000 more than the pay of the president. (Once it has a chairman, the board said, it plans to pay that official $560,000.) They also ratified a lease to put their Washington headquarters in the K Street space that was vacated by the accounting firm Arthur Andersen after it collapsed last year.

Now, the SEC will probably have to wait for a while before it gets all the money it needs to more thoroughly oversee the US financial markets because, gosh darn it, we just don’t have the money.

President Bush signed with great fanfare the legislation calling for the $776 million budget last July. Less than three months later, his administration said it supported an appropriation of $568 million for the agency. After the administration was criticized for supporting the scaled-back budget, officials said they would be willing to seek more but never said how much.

In announcing his selection of Mr. Donaldson to succeed Mr. Pitt, President Bush vowed last month to seek a substantial increase in the S.E.C.’s budget for the 2004 fiscal year. Critics say that proposal, while helpful, would defer necessary increases in the agency’s staff and improvements in its outdated technology for more than a year after the passage of the law that both identified the shortfall in the agency’s resources and increased its mission.

But, not to worry. Tough new rules are being pushed through as quickly as humanly possible so that investors can once again have faith in the accounting of American businesses. And, thankfully, there is someone in charge who we know we can trust.

The board was formally introduced today by Harvey L. Pitt, who remains the chairman of the S.E.C. despite resigning two months ago because of criticism over the selection of the new oversight agency. He continues to serve during one of the commission’s busiest rule-making periods in history and plans to remain until the confirmation of William H. Donaldson, who has been selected to succeed him. That process could take months

Harvey Pitt is still on the job, overseeing the biggest retrenchment of the SEC since its inception.

Even though he was forced to resign because of his bad judgment with the Webster appointment.

WTF?

They get away with this crap because they have no fear of repercussions and no consciences. Their grand ambition, with it’s tentacles relentlessly slithering through all areas of government, is so overwhelming that you feel a creeping sense of paralysis when you consider their awesome singlemindedness. Casual hypocrisy, blatent corruption and outright mendacity are so pervasive in this administration that it’s exhausting trying to keep track of it all.

It’s a very effective strategy because after a while you can’t help but begin to think that Resistence Is Futile.

Why Me?

Work is interefering with my blogging. The humanity.

But, Aaaaahl Be Back.

And many thanks to that crazy Finn, Vaara, for relieving me of that unsightly banner ad. For those who miss his most entertaining blog, “Silt.” here’s a little tidbit I gleaned from Atrios’ comment section today. He’s so got lil’ Andy’s number.

Memo to Sully: You gaze with filial devotion upon the various distinguished raiment chosen by our President to enhance our appreciation of his lean, powerful frame and his unswerving dedication to the timeless principles on which our great nation was founded. I’m sure you know what I mean: that athletic-cut suit with jaunty flag lapel pin, that respectable red tie, those snow-white BVDs, those shiny wingtips, and that stern air of rugged, manly sternness and unswervingness.

But guess what?

He’s actually naked.

vaara

heh

He Loved that Sidney Poitier, too…by George Schultz

The Republican Party’s commitment to equality of opportunity has come under question in recent weeks, particularly its determination to deal effectively with racial segregation. That’s lamentable, for there is a laudable story to tell about the modern Republican Party and the efforts of a Republican president to ensure equal opportunity for all Americans.

[…]

I remember the meeting in the Oval Office to discuss these proposed events. Vice President Agnew warned the president not to go. There you will be in that room, Mr. President, I recall him saying. Half the people there will be black; half will be white. Pictures will be taken. When the schools open, there will be blood running through the streets of the South, and if you go, this will be blood on your hands. This is not your issue. This is the issue of the liberals who have pushed for desegregation. Stay away.

The president looked at me. I told him what was obvious: I can’t predict what will happen. The vice president may very well be right about violence, but you’re the president of the whole country. We should do everything we can to see that the schools open and operate peacefully and well.

The president decided to go ahead.

The meeting with the Louisiana group began early on Aug. 14, 1970. The going was tougher than with any other delegation. It’s one thing to gather across from the Oval Office and it’s another thing to sit around a table in a hotel meeting room. The president was due to arrive about noon, but as the time drew near, I had not reached the level of agreement that I wanted. “The president has just landed,” came word from the Secret Service. “The president is 10 minutes out.” We took a break. I went to meet the president, the vice president’s views in the back of my mind. “Mr. President,” I told him, “I haven’t got this group there yet. I’m afraid you’re going to have to finish the job.”

The president came in. He listened. He talked. He emphasized the importance of having the schools open peacefully. If there were problems, children would suffer.

That afternoon we met with the co-chairmen from the seven states. Everyone was on board. At the end of the meeting, the president went before the television cameras. From the heart of the South, he spoke forcefully about his determination to enforce the law, and the importance of community involvement.

It is quite true that while Nixon enthusiastically embraced the Southern Strategy, he also personally oversaw a smooth transition to desegregated schools in several states in the south in 1970. But before we get all misty about his generous committment to civil rights, it’s probably a good idea to listen in on a couple of Dick’s taped conversations just sitting around the Oval shooting the breeze with Ehrlichman and Haldeman (and Rummy) around the same time:

We’re going to (place) more of these little Negro bastards on the welfare rolls at $2,400 a family . . . let people like Pat Moynihan and Leonard Garment and others believe in all that crap. But I don’t believe in it. Total emphasis of everybody must be that this is much better than we had last year. . . . work, work, throw ’em off the rolls. That’s the key.”

(Uh, Mickey…..?)

“It hurts with the blacks. And it doesn’t help with the rednecks because the rednecks don’t think any Negroes are any good.”

“Yes,” Rumsfeld replied.

As for the notion that “black Americans aren’t as good as black Africans,” Nixon said, “most of them are basically just out of the trees. … Now, my point is, if we say that, they (opponents) say, ‘Well, by God.’ Well, ah, even the Southerners say, ‘Well, our ni**ers is (unintelligible).’Hell, that’s the way they talk!'” the president said on the tape.

“That’s right,” Rumsfeld said.

Nixon moved easily from Blacks to Mexicans in his conversations, because they just go together like a chitlins and tamales, I guess.

“I have the greatest affection for them (blacks) but I know they’re not going to make it for 500 years,” says Nixon. “They aren’t. You know it too. I asked Julie about the black studies program at Smith (College, which she attended).”

“The Mexicans are a different cup of tea,” says Nixon. “They have a heritage. At the present time they steal, they’re dishonest. They do have some concept of family life, they don’t live like a bunch of dogs, which the Negroes do live like.”

As so often happens in these conversations, the topic then smoothly moves on to gays, which really seems to work these guys up. This conversation took place over 30 years ago, but I imagine you can hear much of the same stuff today at pot luck suppers in the Southern Heritage Community :

You know what happened to the Greeks! Homosexuality destroyed them. Sure, Aristotle was a homo. We all know that so was Socrates.”

“But he never had the influence television had,” Ehrlichman says, apparently referring to Socrates.

“You know what happened to the Romans?” says Professor Nixon. “The last six Roman emperors were fags. Neither in a public way. You know what happened to the popes? They (had sex with) the nuns, that’s been goin’ on for years, centuries. But the Catholic Church went to hell, three or four centuries ago. It was homosexual, and it had to be cleaned out. That’s what’s happened to Britain, it happened earlier to France.”

“Let’s look at the strong societies,” says Nixon. “The Russians. Goddamn, they root ’em out. They don’t let ’em around at all. I don’t know what they do with them. Look at this country. You think the Russians allow dope? Homosexuality, dope, immorality are the enemies of strong societies. That’s why the communists and left-wingers are clinging to one another. They’re trying to destroy us. I know Moynihan will disagree with this, (Atty. Gen. John) Mitchell will, and Garment will. But, goddamn, we have to stand up to this.”

“It’s fatal liberality,” declares Ehrlichman, ever the sycophant.

“Huh?” says Nixon.

“It’s fatal liberality,” says Ehrlichman. “And with its use on television, it has such leverage.”

You know, I’m just stymied as to why the Republican Party’s commitment to equality of opportunity keeps coming under question. It just makes no sense. Trent Lott has a black maid. John Ashcroft loves spirituals. James Inhofe has a strong committment to Luxembourg’s cultural heritage. Jeff Sessions was deeply offended by the KKK’s embrace of reefer madness. (There was Strom, of course. And Jesse. They’re gone now, just like Tricky, who bore the white man’s burden with such class.)

But, before we start building memorials to their contributions to the civil rights movement, it would probably pay to remember that they never did one thing for one Black person that they were not absolutely forced to do, either by the courts or public opinion. Dick Nixon did desegregate southern schools during his term, but his conversations make it pretty clear that it wasn’t because of his adherence to these so-called bedrock Republican values of equal opportunity and color blindness, now was it?

Brought to you by the Crossburning Committee for the Annual Ashley Wilkes Sweet Magnolia and Antebellum Lynching Festival.

Morris Dees Fact Sheet

Apparently he’s a racist, homosexual, womanizing, communist, multi-millionaire. Obviously, a very complex man.

I could forgive him all that. I could even deal with the beating up of old ladies, the sleeping with his daughter in law and the stealing from destitute African-American clients. But, when I read that “Dees and the SPLC defames the entire Southern Heritage Community by labeling them Neo-Confederates,” well I just saw red.

The man is obviously deranged.

Blinded by the light, revved up like a deuce, another runner in the night

(or, dressed up like a douche another boner in the night. whatever.)

I don’t know when it disappeared. It could have been a day ago or a few minutes ago. It seems odd that I wouldn’t notice…

But, the incredibly cool person who bought out my ad needs to write to me so I that can properly thank him or her for doing such a nice thing.

From his mouth to Bozo’s ear

TBOGG reports that Saxby Chambliss is being looked to as an expert on terrorism by pResident Dubya.

I value his advice on terrorism,” Mr. Bush said of Mr. Chambliss at a March campaign rally in Atlanta. “He’s sound when it comes to counterterrorism. He’s been in the Oval Office to give me sound, solid advice. And I’ve listened to it every time he’s come in there.”

Now it all becomes clear.

As Atrios reported last November, the Saxter’s advice on counterterrorism is: “Just turn (the sheriff) loose and let him arrest every Muslim that crosses the state line.”

Yep. Bush is listening, all right.

As I told you yesterday and the day before, Helen. This President rejects the notion that he is a moron.

Dubya’s Genius Moment,

Blink and you may miss it by Tim Noah reminds me why I used to love Slate.

George W. Bush and his political Svengali, Karl Rove, are sharing a genius moment. Everyone in politics gets one, and this is theirs. It began right after Trent Lott stepped down as majority leader, with a Dec. 22 piece by Adam Nagourney in the New York Times headlined, “Shift of Power to White House Reshapes Political Landscape.” Nagourney quoted former Democratic Party Chairman Robert Strauss saying that Bush “and several talented people around him have made the White House a power center in ways that I haven’t seen in a long, long time—all the way back to Lyndon Johnson.”

[…]

Years from now, when we look back and puzzle over Dubya’s genius moment, a key historical document will be “The Leadership Genius of George W. Bush: 10 Commonsense Lessons From the Commander in Chief,” by business consultants Carolyn B. Thompson and James W. Ware. The just-published book’s strategy is to redefine Bush’s vices as virtues that the corporate world ought to emulate. “Much has been said about Bush’s deficiencies in foreign policy, lack of attention to detail, and big-picture orientation,” Thompson and Ware write. But “part of the leadership genius of George W. Bush is just that, knowing that no one can know everything.” Bush’s ignorance renders him unself-conscious about hiring “people who are smarter than he is.” From this, Thompson and Ware derive the lesson, “Check your ego at the door, and then get on with the recruiting!” Once Bush hired these smart people, did he boss them around? Did he show off by asking them complicated questions? Hell, no! That’s because Bush “also has the common sense and discipline to leave them alone to do their jobs.”

On some occasions, of course, Bush must make an actual decision himself. On such occasions, does he study up so he can understand the arguments on all sides? Hell, no! Naturally, this invites some criticism:

Many of Bush’s critics claim that he is not well-read. They say he does not spend enough time reading policy statements and studying long briefs. … [But] Bush’s honesty about intelligence and learning is downright refreshing. Rather than faking understanding, he will unashamedly admit that he isn’t following. At one large conference, Bush turned to New Mexico Governor George Johnson and said, “What are they talking about?”

“I don’t know,” Johnson replied.

“You don’t know a thing, do you?” Bush shot back.

“Not one thing,” said Johnson.

“Neither do I,” said Bush, and the two high-fived each other.”

Here, Thompson and Ware employ the very technique they praise by not bothering to check the name of New Mexico’s former governor, which is Gary, not George. One obstacle they may face in marketing their book is that remaining ignorant about what’s done in your name (or at least pretending to) is a strategy already in place in most of the nation’s boardrooms, as the recent corporate accounting scandals amply demonstrated. What’s new in “The Leadership Genius of George W. Bush” is the insight that feigned shallowness is a poor substitute for the real thing.

heh heh heh.