Month: May 2004

Moral Relativism

Reading the words in my post below by that glorious symbol of rectituide and traditional American values,Trent Lott, made me think back to a time when the good senator was extremely upset by some bad behavior:

Senate Majority Leader Trent Lott (R-Miss.) said yesterday President Clinton has lost credibility, stature and the ‘moral dimension’ of his presidency, but he withheld judgment on whether the president should resign or be impeached and removed from office.

Lott said his mention months ago of censure as a possible alternative to impeachment was not meant as a suggested course of action and he now appeared cool to the idea. ‘That was March. This is the first of September . . . and a lot has happened since then,’ Lott said, referring to Clinton’s acknowledgment he had an affair with former intern Monica S. Lewinsky after denying it for seven months.

Lott called the president’s relationship with Lewinsky ‘disgusting.’ He added: ‘I am very disappointed by what has been coming forward, that apparently these acts did occur in the White House and that he, in effect, lied about it.’

Lott, who has had little to say about Clinton since the president addressed the nation about the issue two weeks ago, volunteered his comments at the start of news conference shortly after the Senate returned from a month-long recess.

‘As a husband and father, I am offended by the president’s behavior,’ Lott said. But as a senator and congressional leader, he added, he must judgment until independent counsel Kenneth W. Starr submits his report to Congress about potentially impeachable offenses, presumably later this month.

Lott’s statement was in line with an earlier go-slow signal from House Speaker Newt Gingrich (R-Ga.), indicating a reluctance on the part of the top GOP leadership to appear overly partisan in pursuit of Clinton. It contrasted with a more aggressive approach by other Republican leaders such as House Majority Whip Tom DeLay (Tex.), who is pushing for Clinton to resign.

Despite reserving judgment on Clinton’s future, Lott left no doubt that he condemned the president’s behavior in the strongest possible terms. He said Clinton had set a “tragic example . . . for the young people of this country,” and added: “There is a moral dimension to the American presidency, and today that dimension, that power, has been lost in scandal and in deception.”

Lott stressed that the scandal would not undermine unity of the government in the face of terrorist or other threats but questioned whether Clinton could provide the leadership to cope with them.

“Can he provide leadership without the necessary respect and with the problems that he has?” Lott asked. “That’s what really matters: Will he, can he, provide leadership at a very critical time, internationally and domestically? And I guess only time will answer that question.”

Unlike some other Republicans, Lott did not quarrel with Clinton’s decision to go to Russia yesterday. “Obviously the timing is not ideal,” he said. But “I do think that if he had canceled at this particular time . . . it would have made perhaps a bad situation even worse.”

Lott also cautioned Clinton and the Democrats against confrontational tactics to divert attention from the scandal, saying the president has lost the credibility to blame Republicans if a government shutdown results from a standoff over spending bills for the fiscal year beginning Oct. 1.

Can you believe how seriously they took that nonsense? It’s almost quaint, isn’t it? This was only 6 years ago. It’s not ancient history.

Trent Lott and his friends were saying that the moral failing of the president, which consisted of 7 acts of consensual fellatio, was so great that it was questionable whether he could lead the country in the event of a crisis. It now appears that if Clinton had instead tortured or killed an innocent person he would have been in the clear.

What do you suppose Jesus would think of that, Trent?

Why’d They Bother?

So, the New York Times’ faceless editors fall on their swords and accept the blame for not properly questioning the disinformation that the neocon claque fed the country about the Saddam’s arsenal of evil. They name no names but are contrite about the mistakes that were made in reporting that helped the president lead this country into an immoral and useless war.

How touching.

Yet, when you read the page in which they link to the actual articles in question, you find that with the exception of two articles in 2001 about the Atta Prague meeting, all the rest of the bogus reporting featured the work of one reporter, Judith Miller, which we all knew already.

Has any person anywhere lost his or her job yet because of this unbelievable series of lies, errors and political misjudgement we call Iraq? What, exactly, is it going to take?

Judith Miller is a neocon hack, not a reliable reporter. She should never have been trusted in this area because she partnered in a book with a known tin foil hat lunatic, Laurie Mylroie, on the subject which should have tipped everyone off that she had no journalistic integrity. I don’t expect Republican stooges will pay the price for their crack pot schemes until the American people boot them out of office. But, the New York Times is supposed to be about credibility. Otherwise, they are just another boring piece of fishwrap.

The Stepford Soldiers

Some of my commenters have expressed surprise that Rush Limbaugh is broadcast to the troops via Armed Forces Radio Networks. In fact, this has been going on for many years and has been a long running bone of contention in the congress. Here’s an article from Stars and Stripes in 2000:

One plank to the Democrats’ platform addresses programming on Armed Forces Radio Network radio broadcasts. According to the platform, “AFN has broadcast an overwhelming number of ultraconservative radio programs, such as Rush Limbaugh, James Dobson, Paul Harvey and news items with commentary from the extreme right-wing USA Radio Network with no programs supporting the Democratic Party as balance.”

McQueen said his group has complained about the programming but was told by AFN that National Public Radio programs balance the broadcast.

Thomas Fina, executive director of Democrat Abroad in Alexandria, Va., said in a phone interview that this issue won’t be a big issue at the convention and will be overshadowed by other issues.

Jones agreed. “They won’t do anything about it,” he said. “This is a crybaby tactic about Rush Limbaugh’s popularity because [the Democrats] don’t have any commentator as popular as Rush.”

Another good argument for liberal radio, I’d say…

Here’s the daytime protion of the AFRN radio schedule for May 2004:

0550 Marketplace Morning

0605 Dy Joy Browne

0705 Newswheel

0735 Sports Byline

0805 ESPN: The Herd with Colin Cowherd

0905 Rush Limbaugh

1005 Dr Laura

1048 Paul Harvey News & Comment

1105 Jim Rome Show

1205 Mon-Fri Clark Howard

1305 Newswheel

1405 NPR All Things Considered

1505 NPR All Things Considered

1530 Marketplace

1605 Newswheel

1630 Sports Byline

1705 Newswheel

1730 Mon Face The Nation

Tue ABC World News This Week

Wed This Week on ABC

Thu Field & Stream

Fri Travel Radio

1805 Newswheel

1830 Marketplace

Fair and balanced? You bet. Right wing bombthrowers, Rush, Dr. Laura and Paul Harvey in the morning — and left-wing fire breathers, All Things Considered and Marketplace in the afternoon.

Our troops are getting the full complement of political and social views while they are away from home. Isn’t that nice?

So, as we wonder why some of our troops may believe that it is acceptable behavior to act like a bunch of barbarians with no conscience, this is one place we should probably look. Here’s an example of what the troops were hearing from back home one day this month:

LIMBAUGH: All right, so we’re at war with these people. And they’re in a prison where they’re being softened up for interrogation. And we hear that the most humiliating thing you can do is make one Arab male disrobe in front of another. Sounds to me like it’s pretty thoughtful. Sounds to me in the context of war this is pretty good intimidation — and especially if you put a woman in front of them and then spread those pictures around the Arab world. And we’re sitting here, “Oh my God, they’re gonna hate us! Oh no! What are they gonna think of us?” I think maybe the other perspective needs to be at least considered. Maybe they’re gonna think we are serious. Maybe they’re gonna think we mean it this time. Maybe they’re gonna think we’re not gonna kowtow to them. Maybe the people who ordered this are pretty smart. Maybe the people who executed this pulled off a brilliant maneuver. Nobody got hurt. Nobody got physically injured. But boy there was a lot of humiliation of people who are trying to kill us — in ways they hold dear. Sounds pretty effective to me if you look at us in the right context.

Then, of course, you have Hopalong Codpiece telling the whole world just last night:

… terrorists know that Iraq is now the central front in the war on terror. And we must understand that as well.

The return of tyranny to Iraq would be an unprecedented terrorist victory and a cause for killers to rejoice. It would also embolden the terrorists, leading to more bombings, more beheadings and more murders of the innocent around the world.

The rise of a free and self-governing Iraq will deny terrorists a base of operation, discredit their narrow ideology and give momentum to reformers across the region. This will be a decisive blow to terrorism at the heart of its power, and a victory for the security of America and the civilized world.

The troops in Iraq believe they are saving innocent Americans by fighting terrorists in Iraq. The Preznit told them so. It’s hard to tell the terrorists apart from the non-terrorists over there. They don’t talk English or anything. So, to be on the safe side we’d better play plenty rough. If they aren’t terrorists they shouldn’t look and talk like one.

It’s pretty clear that the troops are getting the message from certain of their leaders and popular political pundits that they have permission to kick ass against “the enemy,” the Iraqis. Just the other day, one of our most powerful Republicans said he thinks that prison is too good em:

“Frankly, to save some American troops’ lives or a unit that could be in danger, I think you should get really rough with them,” Lott said. “Some of those people should probably not be in prisons in the first place.”

When asked about the photo showing a prisoner being threatened with a dog, Lott was unmoved. “Nothing wrong with holding a dog up there unless it ate him,” Lott said. “(They just) scared him with the dog.”

Lott was reminded that at least one prisoner had died at the hands of his captors after a beating. “This is not Sunday school,” he said. “This is interrogation. This is rough stuff.”

I wonder when it’s going to occur to people that what President Bush is now saying is that we invaded Iraq to liberate a bunch of terrorists?

(Thanks to Political Animal for the Lott link)

Update: From the great minds think alike files, Salon posted this story tonight on the same subject.

Melvin Russell, director of American Forces Radio and Television Services, insists that Limbaugh’s controversial show is broadcast for only one reason — it gains big ratings in the United States. “We look at the most popular shows broadcast here in the United States and try to mirror that. [Limbaugh] is the No. 1 talk show host in the States; there’s no question about that. Because of that we provide him on our service.”

[…]

And if ratings drive the station’s programming choices, then why not carry Howard Stern, who draws nearly 8 million listeners a week and who in recent months has emerged as President Bush’s most high-profile critic on radio, declaring a “jihad” against the “arrogant bastard” in the White House? Although Stern’s often-bawdy show differs from Limbaugh’s politically, it fits Russell’s criterion of being popular. “Stern today is a mirror reflection of what Americans are listening to,” says Athans. In fact, Stern’s ratings surged this year after he began leveling his broadsides against the Bush administration. “I strategize more about my radio show than Bush does about the war in Iraq,” Stern quipped last month.

“My answer [on Stern],” says Russell, “is we have determined that that show, because of the [sexual] content, was not appropriate for a network that has just one or two stations broadcasting to an audience that ranges from 1-year-olds up to 50-year-olds.”

“Rush Limbaugh is appropriate?” says Franken. “Saying the troops at Abu Ghraib were just blowing off steam — that’s more appropriate than what Howard Stern says? It sounds to me like they’re rationalizing their decision.” Adds Athans: “That sounds like censorship. In one breath, in regard to Limbaugh, they say they don’t censor what the military listens to, and in the next breath they say Howard Stern is not appropriate.”

“We don’t censor, we provide,” answers Russell. “Our troops deserve the same information that’s available to them in the U.S.”

Other critics of the network wonder if it’s proper for the Pentagon to broadcast Limbaugh when he’s calling John Kerry a skirt chaser, labeling female activists Nazis and telling servicemen and -women “what’s good for al-Qaida is good for the Democratic Party in this country today.”

I think that a huge number of those in the military overseas would love to hear Howard Stern. If I were Howard, I’d start an on-air campaign to get included and I’d appeal to his fans in the military here in the states. There are millions.

Thank you, Ezra.

I was beginning to think I was going insane.

The fact that bad men might attend a wedding and, therefore, would present a nice fat target for heat seeking missiles logically should be mitigated by the fact that killing the other attendees — innocent women and children who have nothin’ to do with nothin’ — make the mission, shall we say, counterproductive to our stated goal of bringing freedom and democracy to the heathens.

I won’t even bother to mention that as this war is an unprovoked war of aggression on our part, rightwing braying about “self-defense” is just a little bit, shall we say, inappropriate.

The R Word

This psychiatric report on the torture at Abu Ghraib is partly white wash and partly true, I think. But at least he brings up the big brown-skinned elephant in the room, which I think is long overdue:

Report details root of abuse:

At the Abu Ghraib prison in Baghdad, “the worst human qualities and behaviors came to the fore” in an atmosphere of “danger, promiscuity and negativity” within a closed environment, wrote Nelson, a member of the Army’s investigating team. He noted training lapses, as others have, but also said that soldiers’ unfamiliarity with Islamic culture, their pervasive sense of danger and the indefinite nature of their tenure were factors that wore them down.

[…]

In highlighting psychological and cultural factors underlying the abuses, Nelson noted that soldiers sent to Iraq were immersed in Islamic culture for the first time and said “there is an association of Muslims with terrorism” that contributed to misperceptions, fear and “a devaluation of a people.” He reported that one military police platoon leader was openly hostile to Iraqis, and that a police dog handler was ‘disrespectful and racist’ — attributing to his dog a dislike of Iraqi “culture, smell, sound, skin tone (and) hair color.”

Gosh, I wonder where they could have gotten these ideas? It’s not like anybody was saying Iraq was the central front in the War on Terror or anything. And, it’s not as if anybody ever said the War on Terror as nothing less than the battle between Good vs Evil. Where would Goober and Gomer get the idea that the government would sanction them torturing the Iraqi terrorist evildoers in retaliation for 9/11?

The good news is that they pipe in Rush Limbaugh daily so they should be straightened out on all these misconceptions really soon.

Movement Defectors

Matt Yglesias said that the tide will turn on the Bush debacle when a hard liner turns on him, not some sort of mushy “bipartisan” type like Chuck Hagel. Atrios doesn’t think it’s possible because the party has morphed into a Crusader Codpiece cult in the last three years.

I agree that it won’t happen, but for different reasons. The “movement” is virtually defined by its take no prisoners stance. It’s not about philosophy or ideology, although that’s how it started out. It’s about power. And until the power players like Tom Delay and Grover Norquist are purged from GOP there will be no challenging the party line by anyone who wants to keep their seats.

A case in point is Dick Armey, hardly a goodie-two shoes himself, who has made the mistake of crossing the Nazicans.

And in a symbolic obliteration of Armey’s influence, DeLay took over a Web site Armey had used to promote his prized flat-tax proposal when he was in Congress. The URL — www.freedom.gov — remains the same. But now the site contains propaganda about the “Victory in Iraq.”

Armey opposed the invasion. In August 2002, he met separately with Bush and Vice President Cheney in an attempt to talk them out of it. “I said, ‘This has the potential to be an albatross at election time.’ I was so desperate that I quoted Shakespeare instead of Jimmy Buffett,” he said. “I don’t know the exact quote. Something like, ‘Our fears betray us,’ or ‘Our fears make cowards of us all.'”

While he believed that Saddam Hussein had weapons of mass destruction and links to terrorist organizations, Armey did not agree with the administration’s assessment of a dire and imminent threat. He said he told Bush and Cheney that it was “against the character of our nation” to strike a country that had not attacked first. Liberating the Iraqi people was the more resonant argument, Armey said, because it was in keeping with American principles. But that, of course, was not the stated reason for the war; had it been, it’s unlikely Americans would have supported the invasion.

Similarly, Armey said Congress probably would not have approved the Medicare bill had all relevant information been known before the vote last fall. Medicare’s chief actuary, Richard Foster, revealed after the vote that the Bush administration had threatened to fire him if he informed Congress of his true, higher cost estimate: not $400 billion but as much as $600 billion over 10 years.

If, by speaking out, Armey hopes to embolden his former colleagues to stand up to DeLay’s bullying, it’s not clear he will succeed. In interviews last week, several of the conservatives who voted against the Medicare bill were reluctant to say anything that might draw DeLay’s wrath. And Armey’s critiques do not sit well with others among his former Republican colleagues, some of whom view him as a hypocrite. “What did Armey do when he was in office to restrain the growth of government?” asked Rep. Ray LaHood, R-Ill. “He led the floor debate to create the Department of Homeland Security. I would say he contributed to the growth of government.”

Unlike DeLay, Armey, who now demands simon-pure conservatism, voted for final passage of the No Child Left Behind Act, the Bush-backed education reform much reviled by many on the right as meddling by the federal government in state and local matters.

To his critics, Armey says that’s precisely why he left his job as majority leader. He was having to make even more serious compromises on policy under a Republican president than he did under Clinton, and he no longer wanted to have to take party positions contrary to his philosophy.

The conservative revolution is bigger than George W. Bush. But, the presidency isn’t and he’s the incumbent so they are stuck with him. They’ll do whatever it takes to keep the executive branch in Republican hands including administering a few knuckles de sandwiches to members who stray from the reservation. Since they have held power they have solidified the most important powerbase in Washington, K Street:

For two years, the assistant who answered Rove’s phone was a woman who had previously worked for lobbyist Jack Abramoff, a close friend of Norquist’s and a top DeLay fundraiser. One Republican lobbyist, who asked not to be named because DeLay and Rove have the power to ruin his livelihood, said the way Rove’s office worked was this: “Susan took a message for Rove, and then called Grover to ask if she should put the caller through to Rove. If Grover didn’t approve, your call didn’t go through.”

If you don’t play ball with Rove, DeLay and Norquist, you don’t play.

Grover Norquist is probably the most influential Republican the country has never heard of and he is a true believer in power politics:

“…in the November 1992 American Spectator, he [Norquist] wrote an article titled “The Coming Clinton Dynasty,” in which he admitted that “any vision of conservatism as the ultimate winner in a two-steps-forward, one-step back Leninist march, is a flawed one.”

Instead, Norquist explained, the way a party ensures its perpetual dominance is by controlling the levers of power. In 1974, Watergate led to the election of 75 new Democrats in the House. In Norquist’s view, “this liberal band of congressmen” was “willing to change the rules to ensure their continuation in power.” Without the benefits of incumbency (bigger staffs, larger budgets, taxpayer-funded mail, pork, and the ability to “extort campaign contributions from industries”), Norquist argued, the Democrats could not have remained in office for the subsequent 18 years. Power perpetuates itself. The correctness of conservative ideas paled before the ruthless “minority ideological cabal” in Congress.

[…]

…these predictions illuminate Norquist’s profound respect for the power of the state. (They also show how closely Norquist’s politics track with the “paranoid style” described by the historian Richard Hofstadter.) Governments, if they are willing, can maintain themselves in power forever. This reverence for the state’s nearly limitless power explains both Norquist’s desire to dismantle the state as well as his insistence on using it for propagandistic ends, such as his Soviet-esque obsession with building monuments to the Great Leader (Ronald Reagan—including a campaign to replace Alexander Hamilton with Reagan on the $10 bill).

None of the above sounds that different from this (possibly apocryphal) quote:

“We must establish a Brezhnev Doctrine for conservative gains. The Brezhnev Doctrine states that once a country becomes communist it can never change. Conservatives must establish their own doctrine and declare their victories permanent…A revolution is not successful unless it succeeds in preserving itself…(W)e want to remove liberal personnel from the political process. Then we want to capture those positions of power and influence for conservatives. Stalin taught the importance of this principle.”

If there is anyone left in the GOP (besides the five “moderates” in the Senate) who has even a shred of integrity or independent thought left, I’m unaware of them. When we are hurling insults about the pussy Democrats we might give that some thought. It’s not like the other side is overrepresented with courageous, independent warriors for freedom. They are as whipped as whipped can be.

Black Widows

The General blows the lid off the greatest threat to family values since Jermaine Jackson tried to hit Michael’s high notes on the Motown 45th anniversary show — “widow on widow” marriage. According to Dr Dobson, this is another in a long line of the horrors that await us at the bottom of that astroglide-drenched slope where the doggies and donkeys line up for dates. The General explains why:

You see, widow women are experienced women. They know what it’s like to know a man in a biblical sense. They are also privy to the secret all married women share–sex with a man is never enjoyable. It’s true. I’ve been told this by every woman with whom I’ve shared my passion–yes, I sinned often in my younger days, but I’ve asked for and received our Lord’s forgiveness.

Widows who marry each other are making a statement. They’re exposing the married woman’s secret and telling the world that we’re just not all that good when it comes to lovemaking. We need to prevent that from happening. Otherwise, we might as well store our essence in mason jars, because that’ll be the only place left for us to put it.

Well said. I think we can see the result of this permissiveness in the strange behavior of the 9/11 widows. They have obviously strayed from the true path to salvation by questioning the actions of our Dear Leader, Reverend Codpiece. It’s only a matter of time before they reject men altogether.

They must be stopped. Personally, I think the hindu method is a good one. Only instead of throwing themselves on the funeral pyre, they should submit to some good old-fashioned fratboy hazing and then have their frozen bodies photographed to raise funds for the Republican Party. That would be the moral thing to do.

A Competitive Process

I’m just looking over some stuff that I haven’t had time to read thoroughly and I came across this item from last Friday’s LA Times,

Officials Say Rumsfeld OKd Harsh Interrogation Methods:

Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld last year personally approved a series of aggressive interrogation techniques for suspected Taliban and Al Qaeda detainees to extract information about the Sept. 11 attacks and help prevent future ones, Pentagon officials said Thursday.

Rumsfeld approved in April 2003 a request five months earlier by Army Maj. Gen. Geoffrey D. Miller, who had arrived at the U.S. naval base at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, in November 2002 to oversee prisoners. Miller sought permission to use a broad range of extraordinary “nondoctrinal” questioning techniques on an Al Qaeda detainee, a general with the Pentagon’s Judge Advocate General’s office said, speaking on condition of anonymity.

[…]

The effort to define how far interrogators can go in pressuring detainees for information without violating international law exposed the rift between interrogators and JAG lawyers, who considered some of the techniques Miller proposed to be illegal.

“You had intelligence officials that might have been pulling in a direction that was different from the lawyers,” Pentagon spokesman Lawrence Di Rita said. “It’s a competitive process.”

[…]

Rumsfeld trimmed the list of requested interrogation techniques by about one-third, and he insisted that he personally approve a “handful” of techniques, the senior Pentagon lawyer and the JAG official said. Rumsfeld approved the revised proposal in April 2003.

I’m just wondering what that “handful of techniques” are. And the article isn’t clear, but it sounds as if Rumsfeld also insisted that he approve particular instances of their use. If that’s the case, you have to wonder how many cases of torture Donald Rumsfeld personally signed off on.

That’s the kind of evidence that war crimes trials are made of.

If You Believe In Fairies, Clap Your Hands!

Ezra Klein agrees with Matt Yglesias that Bush making a speech a week is not exactly an inpired way of pressing his new PR campaign called “Iraq-is-a-quagmire-instead-of-the-cakewalk-I -promised-but-I’m-resolutely-stupid-so-you-should-vote-for-me-anyway,” because his speeches only make him look bad.

To me, his speeches have always been laughable — not for the content, which is quite often very well done, if completely wrong — but by the overblown and obviously coached delivery combined with the totally blank look in his eye. He’s like a Japanese speaking actor playing a role in phonetic English. No matter how passionately he delivers the lines, the inflection and the rhythm are always off because he doesn’t understand the language he’s speaking.

But as much as I find his speeches to be ridiculous (the one where he evoked the words of Pericles is a particular side splitter) I always remind myself that the bobble-head pundits’ favorite description of any speech he has ever delivered is “he hit it out of the park.”

The mediatools have been hard on Junior these last couple of weeks. They are sure to feel uncomfortable about that and be overcome with the desire to give him a little love. So, don’t be surprised if they blissfully gasp and squirm with heavy lidded Noonanesque pleasure at his masterful masculine prowess tomorrow night.

But, if they do, do not despair. They are mediawhores, after all, and there is so much juicy stuff, from dirty pictures to Iranian spies to Republican civil war going on, that they’ll be easily distracted from their codpiece slobbering.

And it’s always possible that the fact his face looks like he spent the night in a gutter (again) will make even Nooner see him less as a mythic cowboy and more like the inbred frat boy he really is.

What a fitting illustration of a world leader who has fallen flat on his face.

Swift and Decisive Action

Via Susan at Suburban Guerrilla I am vastly relieved to learn that when the Bush administration says its going to put an end to the problems in Iraqi prisons and elsewhere, they mean it:

Mobile phones fitted with digital cameras have been banned in US army installations in Iraq on orders from Defence Secretary Donald Rumsfeld, The Business newspaper reported today.

Quoting a Pentagon source, the paper said the US Defence Department believes that some of the damning photos of US soldiers abusing Iraqis at Abu Ghraib prison near Baghdad were taken with camera phones.

“Digital cameras, camcorders and cellphones with cameras have been prohibited in military compounds in Iraq,” it said, adding that a “total ban throughout the US military” is in the works.

As Susan says, “a few new rules, problem solved!”