Month: April 2004

Freedom Crusade

Both TAPPED and the Political Animal praised Ron Klain’s admonition against making mock of President Bush’s invocation of religion in his press conference the other night. I think it’s probably true that his statement about the “Almighty” giving the gift of freedom to every human being is inspiring to many Americans and shouldn’t be laughed at. . However, Klain also seems to imply that the use of the term “unalienable” rights in the Declaration of Independence somehow justifies what appears to be a new global moral crusade to “bring freedom” to the world:

Rather than laughing at the president’s invocation of the notion of natural rights to justify his policies in Iraq, Democrats should make it abundantly clear that they share the president’s view that all humans are created free and are entitled to enjoy the benefit of that innate freedom. After all, wasn’t the idea of an “unalienable” right to liberty put into writing in 1776 by the father of the Democratic Party, Thomas Jefferson? And more recently, haven’t these been the ideals that Jimmy Carter, Bill Clinton and Gore pursued around the world — often with great derision from conservatives?

Instead of belittling the president’s reliance on the Almighty, Democrats should make clear that we share the president’s goals but think that his methods have been deeply flawed. The mission may be from above, but the planning has been from someplace else.

I don’t belittle his reliance on the Almighty, but straying from that to a messianic message of “spreading freedom” is quite obviously translating into the belief that the United States may use this as a pretext to invade countries irrespective of international law and civilized behavior. That kind of “liberation” is a goal I most vehemently do not share because the truth of the matter is that the United States is not imbued by the Almighty with omnipotence or any special claim to goodness and wisdom. Our crime statistics our justice system our poverty rate and any number of other serious flaws in our society prove this.

Freedom is a wonderful thing and I’m all for it, but I am a long way from being convinced that the United States of America is the best of all possible free worlds and I am deeply concerned by the idea that we are empowering leaders to take the position that we are so spectacularly superior to all other nations that it is an unalloyed good thing to “free” people around the world, including little children, even if it kills them. The price for this kind of liberation for many an individual is extremely high. It is very, very arrogant to assume that people are willing to pay it.

This is one good reason to have international institutions and a requirement for consensus before nations can go willy nilly “liberating” others. What we may see as “liberation” is oppression and exploitation to someone else, even within the US itself. We are not equipped either morally or intellectually to take this task upon ourselves. We simply do not have all the answers and Thomas Jefferson would be the first to admit that.

This is some dangerous shit, people. This is the kind of thing that makes people start humming “Ride Of The Valkyries,” and talking about Ubermenschen. I thought the shop worn myth of American Exceptionalism was disturbing but the “American Freedom Crusade” scares the hell out of me.

Bush and Blair Transcript

Q: Mr. President, some of your critics are saying that it’s a political ploy by you to stand firm to this June 30th deadline, especially that you don’t have an Iraqi organization to transfer power over to. What do you say to that? And what organization would you like to see transferred power over to – both of you, if you could answer that?

BUSH: The important thing to know is that if you look into an Iraqi soul you will see someone who doesn’t know what time it is. See, you have to remember these people come from a place where if you cut ‘n run you wind up raped in a grave, gassed and maimed and they can’t forget that so we have to be tough and stay the course. That’s why I will lead a coalition of the willing and I WILL disarm Saddam Hussein.

You have to understand that we don’t know what fear is because we are free. And we love freedom and being free and we want everybody to be free so they can love freedom everywhere where there can be freedom and people can be free. See, that means they’ll have hope. When they think we might cut ‘n run and not stay the course time goes by very slowly because you think there will be maiming and torture and killing and mass graves and gassing and then you won’t know what freedom is because you won’t be free like we are free and everyone else should be free. That’s why we will smoke ’em out o’ their caves, where the evil doers hide in spider holes hating freedom.

We are great countries because we believe that freedom is for everybody not just us so we will make everybody in the world free so the world will be a better place of peace and hope.

We will show these Iraqis that because they have been tortured and maimed and raped and gassed in massive rooms with their own people that what it takes to be civilized is a document we call the TAR. It’s a fantastic historic opportunity for them to learn how to protect tough minorities. I told the Iraqis we are giving them the freedom to be civilized and I meant it.

And the Palestinians have a fantastic opportunity for freedom at this historic moment, too, because they will have a solid foundation of big institutions instead of people just like us. They will live in security measures of peace and freedom. That means folks need to view it as a historic moment so the Palestinian state can live in peace with its neighbors. It’s a moment we’ve got to seize. Because final discussion will become a lot plainer once there’s a peaceful state full of hope and freedom. See, you have to understand that we think it’s possible because possible is what we think it is. If the Palestinians find peace and hope and the neighbors of the Palestinians will support the emergence of hope and peace in a peaceful state of hope it will be a fantastic opportunity to love their neighbors like they’d love to loved themselves.

This is a momentous, historic seizure. But, I don’t want to put words in the Prime Minister’s mouth:

BLAIR: Fuck. me.

Democratic Unity

Matt Stoller at The Blogging of the President has a very interesting post up about the “Democratic Coalition.” I urge everyone to read it because it discusses the challenge of governing if we do manage to wrest the presidency from Junior and the Retreads.

Matt sees the Party as being split between four groups. First, there is the party apparatus which consists of Hillary Clinton, Joe Lieberman and the writers of The Nation who are basically concerned with preserving their power. The second group is made up of those like Howard Dean and Al Gore who are forward looking and believe in refreshing the talent pool rather than clinging to outmoded power structures. Then there is group three who are essentially reformers first and politicians later, many of them the independents and third party types who might work with Democrats if they are willing to reform themselves in a way that pleases them. The fourth are leftist vanity players like Kucinich and Sharpton who are the poster children for what the wing-nuts describe as the deviant left.

I think that Matt may be a bit unnecessarily cynical about group number one and perhaps a bit naive about group number two, but aside from that, I think this is a good definition of a large portion of the party. I do think that you can’t discount the various constituency groups like unions, feminists, racial minorities and gays. This is an essential part of the coalition that is represented within our party for a reason — Democrats care about these people and Republicans don’t. Identity politics is a dirty phrase invented by the Wurlitzer to disparage Democrats.

I think that we will continue to have quite a bit of tension between all of these groups because well … we always have. The Democratic Party does not respond well to top-down hierarchical models of governance which makes us intrinsically at odds. Even FDR had a helluva time keeping it together and he had the mandate of all mandates. I can certainly understand the outrage of the Dean supporter at being asked to sign a “unity pledge” at a Democratic Meet-up:

I was and still am a Dean supporter. I cannot speak for supporters of Clark, Edwards, Gephardt, etc., but the pledge is clearly directed at those of us that did not support Kerry in the primary campaign. Apparently the Democratic Party thinks that it needs us to sign a unity pledge, to prevent us from peeling off into apathy or Naderland. I have been a Democrat all my life, and don’t feel that I need to sign anything to prove my loyalty, unity, status, etc.

Beyond that, I want to focus on the reason I was attracted to Dean in the first place. It was almost a year ago that I first saw Dean speak. He stepped up to the microphone and said “What I want to know is what all those Democrats in Washington are doing voting for George Bush’s [x, y, or z].” That hooked me! For the first time, here was someone that understood that for the past 25 years the Democratic Party has been bending over and accommodating the Republicans. We’ve been letting ourselves get steamrolled ever since Day One of the Reagan Administration, and Dean was calling the party out on it!

So I should not be expected to sign a unity pledge, or loyalty oath, or anything like it. Nor should Howard Dean. The people that should be signing the pledge, in a very public ceremony, should be Terry McAuliffe, Al From and the rest of the DLC, and all the Democrats in the House and Senate, including John F. Kerry, who voted for the Republican war in Iraq and the Republican Patriot Act, John Edwards, who voted for the Republican war in Iraq and the Republican Patriot Act, and Dick Gephardt, who co-wrote the Republican Iraq war resolution, and Wesley Clark, who had the audacity to run for the Democratic nomination for the presidency when he wasn’t even a Democrat.

Those are the people that need to be demonstrating that they will stand with the party!

Like I said, I would be outraged at being asked to sign any kind of “loyalty oath.” I hate stuff like that and I think it is antithetical to everything Democrats are supposed to believe in. But, surely we can all see the internal inconsistency of the argument as expressed here, can’t we?

“…The people who should be asked to sign a unity pledge …in a very public ceremony …are anybody…I … don’t…approve…of.

Matt says that this kind of rage is the result of a traditional party structure and he believes that someday the Party will “once again emerge as a source of self-expressive pride for a majority of the citizenry.” I don’t know that it ever has been that, really, but I certainly think it’s possible.

However, I will be my usual dark Cassandra in this argument and issue my standard warning. There is a great big political battle going on with a bunch of guys who take no prisoners. We are not dealing with our daddy’s Republican Party. They are not going to disappear and they are not going to allow us to enact a progressive agenda unimpeded. We’d best take that into account because simply reforming the Democratic Party into a fighting progressive voice for change ain’t gonna get it done. We need every last person for this battle from all those awful DLC’rs and Democrats in the House and Senate to John Edwards to audacious faux Dem Wes Clark to Howard Dean. We don’t have to sign any loyalty oaths but we do have to be serious and mature and understand how terribly difficult and how high the stakes are in trying to govern with the sort of opposition that puts a criminal like Tom DeLay into a leadership position. They will fight with everything they have.

If the Democrats take back the White House the Republicans are going to lose their minds, not because our party is faulty because theirs is. We need to remember that. We may be imperfect, but they are nuts.

Midterm Election Mistakes Redux

I’ve been supportive of John Kerry’s need to find an acceptable strategy for dealing with this mess in Iraq. The fact is that until we wean ourselves from our childish dependence on gas guzzling penis-mobiles, we are probably not going to be able to simply leave Iraq now that we have totally destabilized the region with Bush’s “call” to free the Iraqi’s from their lives. I do think that with a different president we might be able to summon up some sort of legitimate multinational commmitment to pour money and manpower into the country and at least make a serious attempt to help the Iraqi people create a decent political system. I don’t know if it will work, but I do know that it hasn’t been tried and it needs to be. Like it or not — and I don’t — unless we clean up this mess, the national security and economic ramifications are much more severe than I think people are willing to admit.

But, I also think Kerry’s framing and delivery of this message is just terrible. The choice in this is not between “cutting and running” and “staying the course” or between being “thoughtful” and “thoughtless.” It is between being honest and dishonest, persuasive and bullying, succeeding and failing. Kerry needs to sharpen his words and punch up his energy. This tepid me-tooism will not work. Having said that, I do think that Kerry is substantially right on the issue of Iraq.

On the other hand, this is simply mystifying:

“I think that could be a positive step,” the Massachusetts senator said, approving of the Bush-Sharon action regarding both refugees and Israel’s borders. “What’s important obviously is the security of the state of Israel, and that’s what the prime minister and the president, I think, are trying to address.”

I guess things just aren’t hot enough in the mideast right now.

Honestly, you can’t get any more cravenly chickenshit than this. Not only is it a monumental change in American foreign policy, it is a blatant domestic political maneuver at exactly the wrong moment.

There is a possibility that the action by Bush could further aggravate the situation in Iraq, just as Israel’s killing of a prominent Palestinian militant set off rioting in Iraq several weeks ago. Independent pollster John Zogby, who has surveyed extensively in the Arab world, said: “This is pretty much the final nail in the coffin of the peace process as far as Arabs are concerned.” He said his polling indicates the Palestinian cause is among the top three issues for 90 percent of Arabs in all Arab countries he has surveyed. “It’s not even a political issue, it’s a bloodstream issue,” Zogby said

[…]

“This will make it that much harder for John Kerry to win Florida,” said a Republican aide on Capitol Hill who refused to be identified because of the sensitivity of the issue. Associates said Bush’s strategists believe that even small inroads into the Jewish vote could mean the difference between winning and losing Florida, and several Republicans believe the announcement could further inhibit Kerry’s fundraising in the Jewish community.

For one thing, for Kerry to agree that the Florida Jews — most of whom are retired New Yorkers — will vote for Bush because of this is to completely insult them. They aren’t drooling idiots like so many of the GOP’s blind followers. They have enough sophistication to understand the complexity of this situation, no matter how much they may yearn for Israel’s safety and security.

And they, of all people, have a mighty motivation to oust Junior from the oval office. He and his followers have been calling them idiots for the last three years for not being able to decipher Teresa LaPore’s ballot hieroglyphics. They wouldn’t vote for Bush if Kerry soul-kissed Yassar Arafat on Saturday night Live.

I suppose that it is possible Kerry genuinely believes that jettisoning any hope of getting rid of the settlements or even a symbolic right of return is a good idea. If so, then we have serious problems because he apparently believes that the best way to negotiate is to take all of your negotiating cards off the table. Regardless of where you hope the process wil eventually lead, this is not good. Bush got rolled and Kerry threw his arms around his neck and rolled with him.

I am honestly stumped by this. If Kerry plans to win the election by endorsing all of Bush’s insane foreign policy pronouncements then it’s lost before it’s begun. I don’t demand that he abandon all pretense of moderation or that he embrace some sort of isolationism. I wouldn’t support that much less do I think it would win the election. I do however expect him to at least object to the Bush administration’s crazy, fucked up neocon wetdreams that are likely to get a lot of people — including Americans — killed.

If this really is all about fundraising then I think Billmon has it right:

It strikes me that bin Laden has been going about this all wrong. If he’d just started his own PAC, and spread enough money around, he probably could have gotten Congress to vote to blow up the World Trade Center.

Faux Outrage For Dummies

The incomparable Sommerby discusses the piece of RNC propaganda posing as news on the front page of the NY Times this morning. Jim Rutenberg dutifully parrots the painfully obvious Gillespin that the Democratic 9/11 commissioners (particularly Ben-Veniste) are blind partisans who are all over the television promoting themselves at the expense of truth, God and the American Way. This talking point was ALL over GOPTV yersterday, bursting forth from the mouths of every Bush shill from Tuckie Carlson to Brit Hume. In fact, I haven’t seen a case of such perfect conformity since the Taiwanese synchronized swim team got a perfect 10.

It so happens I was listening to my local NPR station on the freeway last night when I heard none other than Thomas Kean, Republican commision chairman, saying that the commission was encouraging the commissioners to give intereviews in the interest of openness. Even in the Times article he’s quoted saying:

“We made a conscious decision, and part of it was under strong pressure from the families, to make this commission as transparent and as visible as possible.”

I guess Cheney’s stooges forgot to tell Tommy that he was supposed to keep a lid on the bad news. Let’s hope Fredo doesn’t find out.

Sommerby points out the obvious fact that Ruttenberg doesn’t name any actual Democrats complaining about this openness (although they certainly could — John Lehman is all over the place, too.) He says they are, but can’t seem to quote one on or off the record. Maybe Zell’s trying to keep a lower profile these days. But, the fact is that this is step two in the coordinated GOP effort to discredit the 9/11 committee and anyone with half a brain can spot it a mile away. (Gingerly trashing the widows was step one.)

I’m of the opinion that the single most partisan act of the commission hearings came from the Attorney General of the United States when he appeared before them and testified as if he were a political hatchet man for Dick Nixon. Now that was a little bit unseemly, in my book. (And in Gary Hart’s book too.) But, apparently Jim Rutenberg loves those red kool-aid kamikazes they’re serving up down at RNC headquarters so much that he can’t help but grab Karl Rove’s dictation and yank for all he’s worth.

The NY Times is playing its useful idiot role once again. To use one of Karen Hughes’s favorite words, I’m sure the Republicans find that “comforting.”

Liberal radio stations silenced

I wondered what the hell was going on when I turned on Franken and heard Spanish language radio. I know someone who works for Arthur Liu and he’s a certifiable nutcase.

Update: Air America responds

Yep. He’s Naked

The New York Times finally notices that the Emperor has no clothes:

…his responses to questions were distressingly rambling and unfocused.

…his rhetoric, including the repetition of the phrase “stay the course,” did not seem to indicate any fresh or clear thinking about Iraq, despite the many disturbing events of recent weeks.

…Mr. Bush seemed to entertain no doubts about the rightness of his own behavior, no questions about whether he should have done something in response to the domestic terrorism report he received on Aug. 6, 2001.

…The United States has experienced so many crises since Mr. Bush took office that it sometimes feels as if the nation has embarked on one very long and painful learning curve in which every accepted truism becomes a doubt, every expectation a question mark. Only Mr. Bush somehow seems to have avoided any doubt, any change.

He was no more incoherent and stubbornly repetitive than usual last night. All you have to do is go back and read the transcripts of his other press conferences to see that he has always been this bizarrely robotic, unresponsive and ill informed. For some reason the press in this country decided not to notice for over 3 years that our president obviously has no grasp of the the complicated issues he faces.

It’s good that they are finally beginning to say something, but an awful lot of misery could have been prevented if they had done their job and instead of regurgitating RNC lies about Al Gore had reported the fact that the Republicans had nominated an idiot to run the most powerful country in the world.

I wish you would have given me this written question ahead of time, so I could plan for it. John, I’m sure historians will look back and say, gosh, he could have done it better this way, or that way. You know, I just — I’m sure something will pop into my head here in the midst of this press conference, with all the pressure of trying to come up with an answer, but it hadn’t yet…I hope I — I don’t want to sound like I’ve made no mistakes. I’m confident I have. I just haven’t — you just put me under the spot here, and maybe I’m not as quick on my feet as I should be in coming up with one.

This is the most powerful man in the world.

Update: NT Times Link fixed.

And Will Saleton has the stomach to deconstruct Junior’s press conference. It’s not pretty.

He Must Be Defeated

The Teacher’s Aid in Chief lectures the American people as if they are just as stupid as he is. As usual, he filibusters with his puerile incoherent blather, going on and on and on not making any sense, projecting arrogance and ignorance in equal measure.

I am deeply ashamed to be American right now.

Consummate Prick

Has there ever been a more blatantly partisan Attorney General than the Crisco Kid? This testimony today was contemptuous, dishonest and disturbingly inappropriate. In any other administration someone who acted out as he did today would be fired:

Attorney General John Ashcroft strongly defended the Bush administration and himself today before the 9/11 commission, laying the blame for intelligence failures prior to the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks squarely on the presidency of Bill Clinton.

Mr. Ashcroft said Al Qaeda was able to plan and carry out the attacks that killed some 3,000 people in large part because of policies of the Clinton administration and its deliberate neglect of the Federal Bureau of Investigation’s computer technology.

[…]

Mr. Ashcroft said that to the contrary, he personally went to the national security adviser, Condoleezza Rice, on March 7, 2001, and urged her to scuttle what he characterized as an ineffective policy of the Clinton administration specifying that Mr. bin Laden had to be captured, and only in a way that lawyers would approve.

“Even if they could have penetrated bin Laden’s training camp, they would have needed a battery of attorneys to approve the capture,” Mr. Ashcroft said sarcastically.

Mr. Ashcroft said that he wanted “decisive, lethal action” and had told Ms. Rice, “We should find and kill bin Laden.”

The attorney general sounded almost contemptuous as he spoke of a “legal wall” put into effect in 1995 to separate criminal investigators from intelligence agents in an effort to safeguard individual rights.

I’m afraid that Mr Ashcroft has a strange understanding of his job description. It was not his responsibility to tell the administration that he “wanted decisive, lethal action” overseas. It was his responsibility to deal with terrorism threats in the United States, a responsibility he failed miserably to meet.

I believe that he lied outright today when he denied (under oath) that he told Picker that he didn’t want to hear about terrorism anymore.

BEN-VENISTE: And according to the statement that our staff took from you, you said that you would start each meeting discussing either counterterrorism or counterintelligence. At the same time the threat level was going up and was very high. Mr. Watson had come to you and said that the CIA was very concerned that there would be an attack. You said that you told the attorney general this fact repeatedly in these meetings. Is that correct?

PICKARD: I told him at least on two occasions.

BEN-VENISTE: And you told the staff according to this statement that Mr. Ashcroft told you that he did not want to hear about this anymore. Is that correct?

PICKARD: That is correct.

Ashcroft:

“First of all, Acting Director Pickard and I had more than two meetings,” Mr. Ashcroft said evenly. “We had regular meetings.”

And far from turning away from briefings on terrorism, Mr. Ashcroft said, “I care greatly about the safety and security of the American people and was very interested in terrorism, and specifically interrogated him about threats to the American people, and domestic threats in particular.”

All of his actions indicate that he didn’t want to hear about terrorism. I’ll be expecting some harsh words from Senator Catkiller on the floor of the Senate tomorrow. Words like perjury and “letter of resignation.”

Yeah, I know. And people in hell want icewater.

Stretch?

A couple of other questions I’d like to see raised in Junior’s thrid prime time news conference:

1) Three months ago you proposed an ambitious multi-billion plan to send a mission to Mars and establish a permanent base on the moon in the next few years to harvest materials to process into rocket fuel and breathable air. How much of a priority will you place on this initiative in a second Bush administration?

2) There is no mention in your speeches of your immigration proposal announced this January, allowing large numbers of foreign guest workers to temporarily work legally in the United States. Do you plan to put the muscle of the White House behind the legislation proposals sponsored by Senators McCain and Hagel this session?