Month: August 2006

Consequences

by digby

If Dan Bartlett is any indication, the administration is going completely over the bend and are going to try to convince the American people that “Islamic fascism” is literally equivalent to WWII.

Here’s what he just said on Hardball:

Nora O’Donnell: Dan do you agree that making an analogy to Hitler can be disproportionate with the current battles — while it’s extremely important, the war on terror — comparing it to WWII is overstepping

Dan Bartlett: Absolutely not. The fascist movement from that era is very similar to the totalitarian ideology that al-Qaeda and other extremists, those who are wanting to pervert a very rich tradition of peaceful religion – Islam – to accomplish a certain set of objectives.

They have taken 3,000 American lives on one single morning, they’ve attacked country after country after country throughout the world with a very determined idoelogy, they’re trying to overturn governments. They took control of Afghanistan, they’re trying to take control of Iraq, they’re trying to take control of Lebanon and they’re doing it for a very specific reason — they have territorial ambition, they want the resources, they want the nuclear weapons, they want to destroy the west.

Very similar in proportion I would argue, and many other people would argue as well. So it is a very important historical lesson for to understand today because the fight we’re in today is as consequential as the fight we fought in the last century.

Let’s think for a moment about what he’s saying. If it is true that they have suddenly discovered that this threat is equal to the threat posed by the axis powers in WWII, then they have clearly failed miserably to meet such an existential threat. These monsters are allegedly attacking “country after country after country” trying to seize territory so they can take the resources and get nuclear weapons and we are sending national guard troops over to Iraq for their fourth or fifth tours instead of mobilizing the entire nation? The only sacrifice Bush has asked of the Amrican people is to pay their taxes and spend money.

But there’s more to the story. Nora then commented on Bush’s insistence yesterday that this wasn’t “political” and admonishing others not to politicize it. Bartlett was having none of it.

He continued:

Dan Bartlett: It’s important that certain aspects or certain reflection points in this war that the president of the United States speak directly to the public about the conduct of this war, developments in this war and the consequences of this war. He is not partisan in the sense that he’s going out and attacking individual members of the other party or the like…

Nora O’Donnell: No, because you are going to leave this for Rumsfeld to do.

Dan Bartlett: Rumsfeld talked about [inaudible]who as you have pointed out are many times on this program go off and say the president lied and people died, that the president, the administration is incompetent, the administration is this, the administration is that, and it’s important that the administration clearly articulate and set the recod straight on many of these outrageous comments that people are making.

And some of the outrageous comments are coming from people who want to take control of the congress. Now there are consequences for the rhetoric they are employing at this time and at this juncture in the war on terror and it is incumbent upon officials in this administration to clearly explain to the American people what those consequences are, so…

It’s a two way street Nora and as long as our critics are out there, saying what they’re saying, often times not based on fact, it’s important for the administration to very very aggressively articulate what the facts are and why we believe it. There are two sides to this debate.

Well now. That certainly clears up what the real motivation for this PR offensive is, doesn’t it? Bartlett lost his shit and pretty much admitted that this is a simple political ploy — a gambit to draw attention away from Bush’s failures. (Shrum just called it a “Katrina foreign policy.”)

But if this takes hold and people really begin to accept this WWII analogy, the logical extension of the argument is that the US needs to do everything it possibly can to defeat this existential threat and that can only mean we must be willing to use nuclear weapons. They keep using the word “consequences” and I’m getting a rather ugly picture in my head of just what they might be.

Update: Glenn Greenwald notes the similarities between Bush’s Iraq speech in Cincinnatti and his speech yesterday. I don’t know if they’ve decided on war with Iran and/or Syria, but they most certainly are preparing the ground.

Greenwald advises the Democrats to go on the offensive and hit Bush hard. I agree, of course. I was a little bit depressed to hear Nora O’Donnell tell Jack Reed today that they’ve tried to get a Democrat to come on for days to rebut the Republican attack and couldn’t get any calls returned. I guess people are on vacation… All Reed could say is “I’m here now.”

Update II:

And a Freeper has an aneurysm:

To: governsleastgovernsbest

I wonder if oberman has children;or nephews/nieces etc. All of these idiots that refuse to allow the front loading of a looming confrontation will be directly responsible for the fact that in all likelihood OUR children will absolutely be involved in a life or death struggle to preserve OUR nation. The very same elitist , do nothing but babble , morons that decry every use of force , every vengeful indiscretion, every PERCIEVED slight, of a murdering Islamofacists rights, will be the very same people that squall like stuck pigs , when all of our children are fighting and dying because of the aformentioned idiocy.

I just hope the marksmanship I taught my children can keep them alive when it becomes the difference between those that make out alive and those that don’t .

The really terrifying aspect of all this is the open borders issue and how it darn near grandee’s that 5th columnist are or will be in place to harm us in a much more personal way than Hitler ever did. 56 posted on 08/30/2006 8:16:31 PM PDT by ping jockey (radical islam; the great evil of all times.)

Stateless Fascists

by digby

I find it fascinating that the administration has taken on the shibboleth of the nuttiest far right wingnuts and is calling Islamic radicals, fascists. Clearly, they are just throwing it around as some sort of boogeyman word because Islamic extremists are like fascists only to the extent that they are dangerous creeps. But then you could say that about a lot of people, couldn’t you?

They are all blathering stuff like this to explain it:

Charles Black, a longtime GOP consultant with close ties to both the first Bush administration and the current White House, said branding Islamic extremists as fascists is apt.

“It helps dramatize what we’re up against. They are not just some ragtag terrorists. They are people with a plan to take over the world and eliminate everybody except them,” Black said.

Run for your lives!!!

I know I don’t have to spell out all he ways in which Islamic radicalism is unlike fascism. But it is worth taking a look at the writings of the guy who pretty much invented fascism, good old Benito Mussolini. He wrote a little treatise back in 1932 that spelled it all out. It’s true that fascism considered itself an enemy of democracy (and Marxism) and it fetishized war and violence. And yes, one of its primary tenets was imperialism.

We can argue about whether any or all of those components are part of the “Islamo-fascist ideology,” but for the sake of argument, let’s agree that on some level they are. But there are a few defining characteristic of fascism — as defined by the man who made fascism a household name — that surely make Islamic radicalism something else entirely.

For instance:

…The Fascist accepts life and loves it, knowing nothing of and despising suicide: he rather conceives of life as duty and struggle and conquest, but above all for others — those who are at hand and those who are far distant, contemporaries, and those who will come after…

[…]

The foundation of Fascism is the conception of the State, its character, its duty, and its aim. Fascism conceives of the State as an absolute, in comparison with which all individuals or groups are relative, only to be conceived of in their relation to the State. The conception of the Liberal State is not that of a directing force, guiding the play and development, both material and spiritual, of a collective body, but merely a force limited to the function of recording results: on the other hand, the Fascist State is itself conscious and has itself a will and a personality — thus it may be called the “ethic” State…….The Fascist State organizes the nation, but leaves a sufficient margin of liberty to the individual; the latter is deprived of all useless and possibly harmful freedom, but retains what is essential; the deciding power in this question cannot be the individual, but the State alone….

Those two things, it seems to me, make any comparison between fascism and a loose confederation (if that) of suicidal religious fanatics spread all over the world, ridiculous. They might just as well have appropriated the phrase Mongol Hordes for all the sense it made. (Actually, Osama bin Laden has made that comparison — with the US.) Not that it will stop the wingnuts from pimping it like it’s the latest teen-age fad — making sense has never been a hallmark of these people.

The funny thing is that if you look at Mussolini’s definition it does fit some modern western political factions much better than Islamic radicalism. I leave it to you to figure out who they might be.

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Freedom

by digby

Hawlati: Couple were killed in Arbil for 6 minute sex video

8/3/2006 KurdishMedia.com

London (KurdishMedia.com) 03 August 2006: In Arbil, southern Kurdistan’s capital, a couple were killed after their pornographic video CD was distributed in the city’s market, according to news published in the Kurdish weekly Hawlati on Thursday.

The couple were killed within one week. The woman’s body was found on Tuesday. The video is only 6 minutes and 10 seconds and it is taken on a mobile telephone, Hawlati stated.

The event has been the topic of discussion all over Arbil and the religious community in the mosques issued decrees for clamping down on the couple, Hawlati added.

They have good reason to nip this in the bud. Just ask this mullah:

As the 21st century progresses, it seems that every day brings new extremes of sexual debauchery and degradation. Simply put, our society has become obsessed by perversity. The term “pornography” itself no longer carries much of a stigma culturally, because what was once taboo is now the norm. Obscene material that was confined to seedy bookstores on the wrong side of town is now aired on network or cable television during the “family hour.”

[…]

At the outset, let me be perfectly clear — especially to those who may shrug off or slyly wink at the cultural acceptance of pornography. Much like a mistress, the philosophical acceptance of this salacious material in everyday life is a wickedly insidious thing that, over time, will devastate individuals and families. We must assume a zero tolerance policy toward obscenity … With every new assault made on God’s sacred and holy gift of sex, the appetite for lascivious images grows more insatiable.

As far as he’s concerned, Iraqi society has the kind of morality we should aspire to. One wonders if he agrees with the sanctions. Let’s say I’m more than a little bit curious about what he means by “zero tolerance.”

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One Year Ago Today

by digby

Even though the media doesn’t seem to be buying it on the merits, I have to give the administration credit for their smooth pivot from their Katrina failure to defeating Hitler. It was savvy, you have to admit, to go down to New Orleans and give a couple of plodding, desultory speeches while Rummy delivered a half-mad stemwinder about appeasement in the 1930’s. Then, the minute the Katrina “anniversary” was over, Bush hightailed it out of town and immediately evoked the spectre of the Nazis, commies and martians coming to kill us all in our beds. I’m not seeing much about New Orleans anymore.

But I think it’s important to remember, nonetheless, that while Bush drones on and on about terror and fear and struggle and pain and sacrifice this morning, one year ago today Katrina was far from over. Indeed, the story of his incompetence was just beginning.

Today was the day he did this:

After he returned to Washington he held that bizarre, stiff press conference as we watched people begging to be rescued from the top of their houses.

The New York Times described it the next day:

George W. Bush gave one of the worst speeches of his life yesterday, especially given the level of national distress and the need for words of consolation and wisdom. In what seems to be a ritual in this administration, the president appeared a day later than he was needed. He then read an address of a quality more appropriate for an Arbor Day celebration: a long laundry list of pounds of ice, generators and blankets delivered to the stricken Gulf Coast. He advised the public that anybody who wanted to help should send cash, grinned, and promised that everything would work out in the end.

He can assume a strong, manly pose today and catterwaul about “the decisive ideological struggle of the 21st century,” and fearmonger about “a single movement, a worldwide network of radicals that use terror to kill those who stand in the way of their totalitarian ideology” from the comfort of a hand picked audience. But when the chips were down a year ago, he proved he couldn’t lead his way out of a FEMA trailer.

One year ago today, I think we were all just beginning to wrap out minds around the scope of what was happening. I went back and looked at my posts and I think I was watching television most of the time because I only wrote a few. The pace picked up significantly over the following week as we all watched, appalled, at what was happening in an American city.

But it was clear that things were horrible even this early. That morning I wrote:

The pictures coming out of New Orleans are all horrible. But the income disparities among the citizens are brought into stark relief by this tragedy. Everyone is affected of course, but those who had little to begin with are truly left with less than nothing now. A whole lot of people who were hanging by a thread already just dropped into total despair. That dimension of the tragedy really makes my heart ache

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As we know, it only got worse.

Think Progress has a very thorough timeline of events, here.

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The Other Media Ain’t Buyin’ It Either

by poputonian

Boston Globe: Loose lips sink history
The latest effort — transparent as it is inaccurate — tries to draw parallels between Iraq and World War II.

LA Times: Pipe Down, Rummy
Rumsfeld’s cranky outburst mangles a historical analogy, bad-mouths legitimate critics.

Seattle PI: Iraq War: The false specter
The defense secretary now deals with questioning of the mismanaged campaign by raising the false specter of World War II style appeasement.

Yahoo News: What Keeps Don Rumsfeld Up at Night?
Hint: It’s Not the Body Count in Iraq.

How do you eat an elephant?One bite at a time.UPDATE: Sara at The Next Hurrah on Murrow and OlbermannUPDATE 2: From the Salt Lake Tribune

A crowd of thousands cheered Salt Lake City Mayor Rocky Anderson for calling President Bush a “dishonest, war-mongering, human-rights violating president” whose time in office would “rank as the worst presidency our nation has ever had to endure.”

The group – including children and elderly and some hailing from throughout Utah – then marched to the federal building Wednesday to deliver a copy of a symbolic indictment against the president and Congress for abuse of power and failure to uphold the U.S. Constitution.

With their signs labeling Bush, Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice and Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld the “axis of evil,” calling the Iraq war a “mission of lies” or comparing the invasion of Iraq after Sept. 11, 2001, to invading Mexico after Pearl Harbor, the estimated 1,500 to 4,000 protesters hoped their demonstration at the Salt Lake City-County Building sent a message about the reddest state in the country.

“If they [the Bush administration] lack support in Utah, my God they’re in trouble,” the Rev. Tom Goldsmith of the First Unitarian Church told the lively gathering between protest songs and banner waving.

via: Dependable Renegade

See It Now

by digby

The full transcript is at Crooks and Liars.

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Springtime For Felix

by digby

I find it quite interesting that every few years another picture turns up of some powerful Republican Senator with the grand Kliegels of the Council of Conservative Citizens? George Felix Allen is just the latest.

Many of you will remember this picture from a few years back. (h/t Atrios)

Lott was criticized heavily for his association with the CCC back in the 90’s. Stanley Crouch wrote when the whole “Strom” thing blew up in 2002:

The “he,” of course, is Sen. Trent Lott (R-Miss.). In late 1998 and early 1999, when I was writing column after column about him and calling for his resignation because of his connection to the Council of Conservative Citizens, there was no response from the media at large, with the noble exceptions of Frank Rich and Bob Herbert, both of The New York Times.

That proved to me that all the talk about a liberal media bias was bunk – at least when it comes to race.

What better target could there have been? Here was a man from Mississippi, a heaven for rednecks. Here was the council, an organization that described itself as “pro-white,” that published articles in its organ, the Citizens Informer, that advocated separation of the races and discouraged interracial marriage.

Lott had published a column in the Citizens Informer and had his picture on the cover of an issue in 1992. The photograph showed Lott giving a speech to the council at “the exclusive” (guess what that means) Green Country Club in Greenwood, Miss. The accompanying article quoted Lott as saying: “The people in this room stand for the right principles and the right philosophy. Let’s take it in the right direction, and our children will be the beneficiaries.”

Peggy Noonan breathlessly agreed:

In the Lott scandal our indignation reached critical mass. A lot of conservatives, many of them 50 and under, decided enough is enough, let’s end this, let a new party be born. And by the way, in the particular case of Trent Lott, it didn’t start yesterday. Stanley Crouch just surprised me by sending me a column he wrote almost four years ago for the New York Daily News. It was about a Lott appearance before the Council of Conservative Citizens, a white-supremacist group. I said it was springtime and it’s time to throw out the garbage, and Mr. Lott should go.

I wonder if any Republicans will be willing to publicly decare their desire to throw old Felix out with the garbage? I tend to doubt it. Racism is the new black this election season. But even if they do, it’s quite clear there are many more where he came from. There always are.

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Nothing To See Here

by digby

The Hotline blogometer says:

So What?

In sum, that’s Ramesh Ponnuru response to lefty criticism of Club for Growth’s targeting of Sen. Lincoln Chafee (R-RI) at the possible expense of a GOP majority in the Sen. For months now, progressive bloggers have been decrying the lack of media attention RI SEN has received compared to their efforts to unseat Sen. Joe Lieberman (I-CT). There are many things that distinguish the two races (Chafee was never a GOP VP candidate, for starters) but the more important difference is mentioned by Ponnuru: the Club for Growth does not exist to help the GOP control Congress.

On the other hand, pure partisanship is the stated goal of DailyKos’ founder Markos Moulitsas in his book Crashing the Gates. This is part of what made the targeting of Lieberman such a story. Perhaps it is a function of who is in power, and who is not, but the lefty blogosphere is much more concerned with tactics and strategy than ideological purity. If the Dems have a Sweet November, then maybe we’ll see if Lieberman-like purges become the norm, instead of the exception.

Uhm. Ok. But if the lefty blogosphere, under the iron rule of our Exalted Overlord Markos, only cared about “pure partisanship” then why would we target a Democratic senator in a safe seat? Kicks? Anyway, I thought we were a bunch of fanatical hippies trying to inflict our marginal 60% Iraq position upon the Democratic party against its will in order to re-run the 1972 election. Which is it?

And, yes, it’s true that the Club For growth doesn’t “exist to help the GOP control Congress,” but then the GOP already controls congress, doesn’t it? It doesn’t make them any less partisan. Here’s what the Club For Growth itself has to say about its intentions:

The Club for Growth exists to encourage, and make possible, the enactment of pro-growth economic policies by the federal government. The primary tactic of the Club for Growth PAC has been to provide financial support from Club members to viable pro-growth candidates to Congress, particularly in Republican primaries.

—–

One lesson we’ve learned from the Left, is that if you really want to advance your agenda, take on an incumbent who opposes you. Let the people know the truth about how they vote in Washington. This terrorizes all the rest. In fact, it’s amazing how fast cowardly politicians see things our way when they believe that their political careers are in danger.

Ed Crane of the Cato Institute has praised the Club for Growth as “the conscience of the Republican Party.”

Yikes. Maybe they ought to change some of that “terrorize” rhetoric. Lord knows if we ‘angry leftists” said it there would be rending of garments from one end of the radio dial to the other. And I don’t know when the Club “learned” this from the left because the last I heard we blogofascists had just started this thing in Connecticut. When has this technique ever been used by lefty groups? Our special interests won’t even withhold their support from Republicans when they stab them in the back over and over again?

The Club For Growth admits that it exists for the sole purpose of hammering Republicans who don’t toe their line and puts big, big money into play in Republican primaries to mau-mau the incumbent or turn the seat over to someone they prefer. They brag about it all over their site. Yet we lonely bloggers sitting in our homes around the country, mostly as a hobby, are Stalinists who are purging the Democratic Party of anyone who deviates from our party line, which is … pure partisanship.

The Club For Growth wrote the book on purging the Republican Party of politicians whom they deem to be insufficiently conservative on issues they care about. Why it should be considered a national story when “the angry left” challenges a senator they believe is out of touch with their values and not a story when “the angry right” does the same thing makes no sense.

Certainly, it’s puzzling, to say the least, that nobody deems it a problem that a very close senate election looms — and “the angry, suicidal left” was pragmatic enough to choose a safe Democratic seat to make their point, while the Republican Club For Growth (don’t bullshit me) may just cost the Republicans the Senate.

No story there, nosiree.

I want to say thank you to the Club for Growth, one of the nation’s most conservative organizations! They’ve always taken on tough races in order to help conservative candidates win in Republican primaries. The Club for Growth added a significant punch – just when we needed it most.

—After winning the GOP primary run-off in North Carolina’s 10th district, Patrick McHenry,2004

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Closing Out Of Town

by digby

It looks like Bush has finished his walk-on performance in the Katrina pageant and is moving directly into his next project, “They’re Comin’ Tah Gitya! Part VXIII”

So far the critics aren’t impressed. From CNN:

QUESTION: So do you think your new series of speeches are going to have an impact on midterm elections?

BUSH: My series of speeches are — they’re not political speeches. They’re speeches about the future of this country, and they are speeches to make it clear that if we retreat before the job is done, this nation will become even more in jeopardy. These are important times.

And I would seriously hope people wouldn’t politicize the issues that I’m going to talk about. We have a duty in this country to defeat terrorists. That’s why we’ll stay on the offense to bring them to justice before they hurt us, and that’s why I work to spread liberty in order to keep the peace. Anyway, thank you all.

PHILLIPS: That was the president in Little Rock. He’s now on his way to Nashville, Tennessee. That’s where our White House correspondent Ed Henry is.

Ed, he has got these series of speeches talking about the war on terror, capabilities of al Qaeda, and what the administration has done to protect the nation but he’s saying these are not political speeches.

ED HENRY, CNN WHITE HOUSE CORRESPONDENT: Well, very interesting. The White House confirming today that the president will have a new series of speeches, as you’re noting. He will start it tomorrow at the American Legion, and will go right through September 19th when he speaks to the United Nations General Assembly.

Does this sound familiar, a series of speeches from the president? It should. He’s done at least three of these series. And I think this is a tacit acknowledgement by the White House that it really has not sold so far, and that’s why he’s taking yet another crack at it.

As far as the president’s claiming he does not want this to get political, that’s hard to believe at this point, obviously, given the fact that Democrats today are very upset with the comments yesterday from Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld, basically suggesting that critics of the White House war strategy are similar to those who were calling for appeasement that sparked Naziism back in the 1930s and ’40s. That’s gotten Democrats pretty hot today.

And it’s interesting given that last week the president said that he’s not questioning anyone’s patriotism when they criticize his war strategy. Then you hear that from Secretary Rumsfeld.

What we’re hearing from the White House is that the president is going to focus on broader themes about the struggle between freedom and tyranny. It certainly sounds like a two-prong strategy. The president putting out these larger, more flowery themes whereas some of his key officials like Secretary Rumsfeld really employing that hardball strategy, Kyra.

The previews don’t look so good. The press is all over Rumsfeld’s statements. Ken Mehlman on Hardball just about had a full-on meltdown under the withering questioning of Norah O’Donnell, of all people, who kept referring to Rumsfeld’s speech as calling the Democrats “Nazi-era appeasers.” (Evan Thomas even looked up from his snuff box, rearranged his lace cravat and intoned “it does have a whiff of desperation about it, what, what?”) Victoria Clark on The Situation Room twice raised her voice above a whisper and appeared to have a pulse under a grilling by the robot named John King.

Maybe it’s time for a rewrite. Or better yet, just close this turkey out of town.

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Berube Writes A Dangerously Great Book

by tristero

I’m on vacation, and net access is bad around here but I got an email from Professor Michael Berube, DP* and he informs me that his new book What’s Liberal About the Liberal Arts? is now available through Amazon. I’ve read it and it’s flat-out wonderful.

Like all of Berube’s writing, the book is crystal-clear, often very funny, and eloquent. His ostensible subject is the modern liberal arts education as seen from inside the belly of the beast, the English Department, ground zero of the extreme right assault on American academia. But as interesting as that is, and it’s very interesting, that’s just the maguffin (google it). It’s like saying Gravity’s Rainbow’s about WW II rocketry. Well, yeah, but…

To be brief about it, if you have any interest in what liberalism really is, what it can accomplish in the US today, and why it is crucial to vehemently resist the far right’s relentless obsession to eliminate it, you should read this book.

Full disclosure: Yes, Michael’s a friend of mine. If you read the book, you’ll understand why. He asked me to read What’s Liberal About the Liberal Arts? in galleys and, if I liked it, to blurb it. I did so, happily. In fact, I’m quite honored he asked me, of all the people he could have asked.

*DP = “Dangerous Professor.” Dr. Berube has been designated by David Horowitz one of the most Dangerous Professors in America and I am so totally jealousl I could spit.