Is there any less appropriate place for religious proselytising and political campaigning than in the active duty military? It boggles my mind that this is going on:
The Air Force is investigating whether a two-star general violated military regulations by urging fellow Air Force Academy graduates to make campaign contributions to a Republican candidate for Congress in Colorado, Pentagon officials said yesterday.
Maj. Gen. Jack J. Catton Jr., who is on active duty at Langley Air Force Base, sent the fundraising appeal on Thursday from his official e-mail account to more than 200 fellow members of the academy’s class of 1976, many of whom are also on active duty.
“We are certainly in need of Christian men with integrity and military experience in Congress,” Catton wrote.
Defense Department rules prohibit active-duty officers from using their position to solicit campaign contributions or seek votes for a particular candidate. An Air Force spokesman said yesterday that “appropriate officials are inquiring into the facts surrounding these e-mails.”
[…]
Both Catton’s e-mail and an accompanying note from Rayburn portrayed him as a candidate who would represent the military and conservative Christians.
“The lack of any Air Force presence within the Congress was particularly telling over the last few years,” Rayburn wrote, referring to controversy over proselytizing at the Air Force Academy and new Air Force regulations on religious expression. “For those of us who are Christians, there is that whole other side of the coin that recognizes that we need more Christian influence in Congress.”
He defends himself by saying his only offense was sending the email from his work computer. Apparently, the substance of the thing was just fine.
Something has gone terribly wrong with the Air Force. This stuff keeps coming up over and over again. It’s apparently turned into a Christian Right organization openly affiliated with the Republican party — probably affiliated with Focus on the Family which is located in Colorado Springs as is the Air Force Academy.
It’s quite clear that the highest reaches of the Air Force simply do not understand that they cannot inflict their religious and political views on others. Their allegiance is to the constitution and the office of the president, not to a political party or their church. If they can’t understand that they need to find another line of work. This is ridiculous.
So the big kahuna they are talking about to replace Porter Goss is General Michael Hayden. Yes. That General Michael Hayden:
Gen. Michael Hayden refused to answer question about spying on political enemies at National Press Club. At a public appearance, Bush’s pointman in the Office of National Intelligence was asked if the NSA was wiretapping Bush’s political enemies. When Hayden dodged the question, the questioner repeated, “No, I asked, are you targeting us and people who politically oppose the Bush government, the Bush administration? Not a fishing net, but are you targeting specifically political opponents of the Bush administration?” Hayden looked at the questioner, and after a silence called on a different questioner. (Hayden National Press Club remarks, 1/23/06)
I’m disappointed I guess that perhaps the default response for some is to assume the worst. I’m trying to communicate to you that the people who are doing this, okay, go shopping in Glen Burnie and their kids play soccer in Laurel, and they know the law. They know American privacy better than the average American, and they’re dedicated to it. So I guess the message I’d ask you to take back to your communities is the same one I take back to mine. This is focused. It’s targeted. It’s very carefully done. You shouldn’t worry.
All those pesky laws are for bad people, you see. Good people don’t have to follow them. People like John “death squads” Negroponte, Hayden’s good friend and boss. You shouldn’t worry.
After Goss’s announcement yesterday, Foggo told colleagues that he will resign next week. Last week, the agency confirmed that Foggo attended private poker games with Wilkes at a Washington hotel.
Larry Johnson is saying the Dusty Foggo isn’t implicated in the hooker scandal citing a friend’s email with a lot of details about Dusty’s completely above board poker parties. It sounds like total horseshit to me. Here’s an excerpt:
It would not surprise me if Brent used the same rooms at the Watergate and Westin for subsidized Congressional encounters with hookers, but I don’t know this to be the case. If Brent did, I doubt that he would’ve said anything to Dusty about it, because, for all of his judgmental shortcomings, Dusty has enough of a political antenna to realize that he shouldn’t be playing poker in the same room where Duke was availing himself of free hookers. As you probably know, Dusty is the type of guy who people either love or hate. In my experience, women who hate him do so because he is an unabashed chauvinist of the old school. Guys who hate him pretty much do so because they wish they had the moxie to get as much poontang as they think he is getting.
Right. A cigar chomping, poker obsessed chauvanist whom all his buddies assume is getting plenty of “poontang” wouldn’t go near any hookers provided by his good buddy Wilkes, the defense contractor. (Keep in mind that Foggo was the guy who was awarding contracts at the CIA before he was plucked from obscurity by Porter Goss and made the number three guy in the agency.)
Johnson says:
Dusty is an old friend of Brent Wilkes and there has been plenty of speculation and rumor suggesting that Dusty got his job because of Porter’s intervention. Not so says a friend. Dusty got the job thru the intervention of one of Porter’s senior aides, who pushed and got Dusty the job.
Poor Porter. Victimized by his overzealous staff, just like Tom DeLay. These powerful House Republicans are such trusting souls, aren’t they?
We will succeed in Iraq because Iraqis are determined to fight for their own freedom, and to write their own history. As Prime Minister Allawi said in his speech to Congress last September, “Ordinary Iraqis are anxious to shoulder all the security burdens of our country as quickly as possible.” That is the natural desire of an independent nation, and it is also the stated mission of our coalition in Iraq. The new political situation in Iraq opens a new phase of our work in that country.
At the recommendation of our commanders on the ground, and in consultation with the Iraqi government, we will increasingly focus our efforts on helping prepare more capable Iraqi security forces — forces with skilled officers and an effective command structure. As those forces become more self-reliant and take on greater security responsibilities, America and its coalition partners will increasingly be in a supporting role. In the end, Iraqis must be able to defend their own country — and we will help that proud, new nation secure its liberty.
It brings a tear to the eye, doesn’t it? And who says nobody is reporting the good news:
Human rights groups are particularly concerned that the Sadr and Badr militias, both Shia, have stepped up their attacks on the gay community after a string of religious rulings, since the US-led invasion, calling for the eradication of homosexuals.
Grand Ayatollah Sistani recently issued a fatwa on his website calling for the execution of gays in the “worst, most severe way”.
The powerful Badr militia acts as the military wing of the Supreme Council for Islamic Revolution in Iraq (SCIRI), which counts Ayatollah Sistani as its spiritual leader. Another fatwa from the late and much revered Ayatollah Abul Qassim Khoei allows followers to kill gays “with a sword, or burn him alive, or tie his hands and feet and hurl him down from a high place”.
Mr Hili said: “According to our contacts in Baghdad, the Iraqi police have been heavily infiltrated by the Shia paramilitary Badr Corps.”
Mr Hili, whose Abu Nawas group has close links with clandestine gay activists inside Iraq, said US coalition forces are unwilling to try and tackle the rising tide of homophobic attacks. “They just don’t want to upset the Iraqi government by bringing up the taboo of homosexuality even though homophobic murders have intensified,” he said.
Yeah, well, it may be that “freedom is not this country’s gift to the world; freedom is the Almighty’s gift to every man and woman in this world” but surely the Almighty didn’t intend for America to promote the Iraqi homosexual agenda — which includes being allowed to live.
The sadrists and the Ayatollahs are just doing God’s work as they see it. It’s really beautiful that America can take at least some credit for these faith based programs. I know it makes me very proud.
Glenn writes about the predictable smearing of Ray McGovern and notes:
Not only is a lopsided majority of Americans (like McGovern) against the war in Iraq, they also believe (like McGovern) that the Bush administration “intentionally misled” the country into war. The fringe, radical, discredited views on the war are not those expressed by McGovern, but are those expressed by Instapundit, LGF and company. And yet those same extremists continue to classify people who oppose the war as “radicals”and “leftists” because they apparently still believe — even in the face of all that evidence to the contrary — that it is their pro-war views which represent what mainstream Americans believe.
I disagree a little. They may not have internalized that reality, but I don’t think they would care even if they had. If that means they think the majority of Americans are Unamerican, no matter that it makes no sense, so be it.
It’s important, I think, to recognize that these people are not populists who hate the elites. They loathe and despise their fellow countrymen. By calling McGovern a moonbat, they are saying he is one of us — the loathsome liberal rank and file.
I did not weigh in yesterday on the all time nobel prize for wankerism, Richard Cohen’s masturbatory love letter to himself because well … I just can’t write about all the clubby DC insiders having hissy fits these days or I’d do nothing else. Greg Sargent did a great job of analyzing this battle between the blogosphere and the Smart People Who Are Authorized To Have Opinions. Peter Daou is also covering this brewing battle between the unwashed masses and their betters over at the Daou Report. And Robert Parry has written what I think is a valuable analysis of why the Colbert routine confused the poor little kewl kidz.
I do want to take this opportunity, however, to congratulate our first blogospheric graduate to full fledged membership in the kewl kidz club of America. It warms my heart to see one of our own making it big by trashing lefty bloggers in the pages of Joe Klein’s TIME magazine. Our own little Wonkette is all grown up:
The low point in the fake controversy over Stephen Colbert’s performance at the White House Correspondents’ Association dinner came when Gawker — the cracked mirror by which much of the media views its navel — ran a poll to determine whether, in fact, Colbert’s routine was funny. The poll determined that Colbert was an American hero, which may or may not make him funny, but the fact of the poll’s existence sure is. Talk about the politicization of comedy. Next we’ll get focus groups and image consultants (“Those clown shoes need to be three inches longer if you want to bring in the soccer moms”) and Joe Klein will write a book about how no one does improv anymore.
The politicization of comedy. Think about that. If you don’t see why that is an amazing statement, especially coming from someone who made her name by being a political humorist (of sorts) then it would probably be best to click over to Jeff Goldstein for some delicious paste and peanut butter sandwiches.
The blogospheric debate — whining, really — about the mainstream media’s “silence” on Colbert rumbled into existence with a post by Peter Daou. Almost 18 whole hours after the performance, Daou determined that the shtick — or, as one commenter put it, “a work of staggering genius that could only be pulled off by a man with testicles the size of Alpha Centauri” — was being ignored by the mainstream media in order to “shield Bush from negative publicity.” Daou even intuited why they didn’t laugh: because they were shamed “when Colbert put them in their place.”
Blindly pulling out quotes from comment sections — done like a pro. She’s getting her MSM chops perfectly honed. It’s important to portray the left blogosphere as not only absurd tin-foil hatters, but humorless and dull as well, which isn’t easy.
For the record, at the time Daou wrote his piece, there was tons of coverage of the dinner all over the television. The club was howling with delight at the good natured president laughing at himself with that impersonator. (Muy caliente!)
None of them mentioned Colbert. They didn’t pan him, they didn’t chastize him. They disappeared him. And if it hadn’t been for the blogospheric reaction, his entire performance would have gone down the memory hole. Now, I find that interesting, don’t you?
I agree completely that the press corps didn’t laugh because they were being put in their place — by Colbert. Two years ago they could hardly contain themselves when the good natured president exposed the entire press corps as idiots with his “jokes” about the missing weapons of mass destruction. Being put in their place by George W. Bush is something they positively love:
The Texas reporter began to ask his question, “You talked about the need to maintain technological”
But Bush, acting like an excited party guest who couldn’t keep a funny comment inside, interrupted the reporter to deliver the punch line. “A little short on hair, but a fine lad. Yeah,” Bush said, provoking a new round of laughter at the reporter’s expense.
The young reporter paused and acknowledged meekly, “I am losing some hair.”
The reporter then soldiered on with a question about whether the administration would “go forward with the V-22” warplane, a question of particular interest to the economy of Fort Worth, Texas.
Bush, however, wasn’t through having fun with the young reporter, who “represents Fort Worth,” Bush noted, prompting another round of knowing laughter from the national press corps.
Laughing along while the president humiliates one of their own publicly. Now that’s funny.
Cox then says this:
Daou didn’t actually make any specific claims as to the comedic value of Colbert’s speech, though if he were aiming to write something that would make Saturday night’s entertainment funny by comparison, he certainly succeeded.
How droll. And Michael Moore is fat, too. Snap! (Cue the kewl kidz to convulse in manly snorts.) Junior would approve.
Daou was obviously not trying to be funny with his piece. (He didn’t mention ass-fucking even once.) But never let that interfere with an opportunity to insult a lefty blogger for being humorless.
And then there is the requisite pulling of the most hysterical comments you can find and using them as an example of how crazy the left wing bloggers really are. It turns out that Ana Marie’s husband Chris Lehman didn’t find Colbert funny and wrote that Colbert was “shrill and airless” on the Huffington Post garnering a vitriolic response from Colbert fans. I couldn’t find the examples Cox used to illustrate this, but no matter. The Colbert lovers were often rude and we know how delicate the DC kewl kid sorority is. (Note to Mr and Mrs Wonkette: don’t become sports writers. You want to see rabid fans…..)
She goes on to explain that the unwashed hordes didn’t get what they wanted — an admission from the whole wide world that Colbert was like, totally funny — so we began to make too much of its “boldness” instead. And that is just naive. We lefty bloggers are nothing if not silly schoolgirls who don’t know how the world really works:
Comedy can have a political point but it is not political action, and what Colbert said on the stage of the Washington Hilton — funny or not — means far less than what the ardent posters at ThankYouStephenColbert.org would like it to. While it may have shocked the President to hear someone talk so openly about his misdeeds in the setting of the correspondents dinner — joking about “the most powerful photo-ops in the world” and NSA wiretaps — I somehow doubt that Bush has never heard these criticisms before.
To laud Colbert for saying them seems to me, a card-carrying lefty, to be settling. Colbert’s defenders might aim for the same stinging criticisms to be issued not from the Hilton ballroom but from the dais in a Senate Judiciary committee hearing. And I wouldn’t really care if they were funny or not.
Whose being naive, Kaye?
I’m actually fairly sure that Bush hasn’t heard these things before. The man is not exactly tuned into the zeitgeist. So we’ll take what we can get. Bush isn’t ever going to appear before the Senate Judiciary Committee — and the press hasn’t exactly pressed him on these matters over the last five years, have they?
Which is the point. It’s not about Bush or the Judiciary Committee. Who before has ever stood before the Washington press corps, assumed their sycophantic persona, and hoist them with their own petard? I can’t think of anyone.
Ana Marie Cox used to do that online, along with the rest of us uncouth bloggers who rose up in frustration and screamed that the Emperor and his scribbling coutiers were dancing in the streets stark raving naked. (It wasn’t a pretty sight, I might add.) Colbert took our message to them, in person, the other night and we celebrate it. That this witty pioneer of the blogosphere, who made her name deflating the pretentions of the insider club of thin-skinned mediawhores no longer identifies with that sentiment is a cautionary tale.
Oh what a bunch of crap. All of CNN is parroting this stoooopid Snow job about Goss resigning with no notice to turf wars between him and Negroponte. Right.
Paul Begala pointed out that if this is true then Goss is unpatriotic for abruptly stomping off in a huff instead of waiting for Bush to find a replacement. After all, these are troubled times in the American intelligence community. You’d think that he and Negroponte could have contained their pissing match for the good of the country. Why does Porter Goss hate America?
Update: TPM Muckraker owns this story and says there is probably even more to it than the ookers-hay.
UpdateII: MSNBC is being a little bit less credulous. Isikoff is speculating that this may be more to do with Goss as Chairman of the House Intelligence Committee’s asociation with Cunningham than anything he did at the CIA.
Andrea Mitchell is robotically regurgitating the spin that Negroponte is the hero who saved the CIA from Goss’ intransigence.
For Norah O’Donnell’s earlier report on this, check out Crooks and Liars.
Man, you go to a dentist’s appointment on a Friday morning and all hell breaks loose. Porter Goss, the GOP hack that Bush put in charge of our nations intelligence(!) during a dangerous time for our nation, has abruptly resigned. He was, typically for this administration, a partisan loser who was appointed for purely political reasons. And like the vast majority of elected Republicans, apparently, it looks like he may be a crook. (I realize this has not been confirmed — but as Peggy Noonan memorably opined, in these troubled times it is irresponsible not to speculate.)
Now, I would be wrong if I did not mention that Cynthia McKinney hitting a capitol hill police officer with her cell phone and Patrick Kennedy driving under the influence are ample proof that the Democrats are just as bad or even worse. That goes without saying and I certainly hope that we will see headlines tomorrow making that clear. The TV coverage today certainly makes that case.
Still, I am enjoying watching Wolf Blitzer talk about prostitutes and Porter Goss in the same sentence. Goss was, after all, the same snide jerk who said about the Plame leak, “somebody sends me a blue dress and some DNA and maybe I’ll do an investigation.” Who knows? There may even be some DNA involoved in this case. (I’m still holding out for the Big Kahuna, about which I responsibly speculated earlier. Not that there’s anything wrong with that.)
Whatever it is, it’s fair to assume it’s something quite serious and something we will find out about quite soon. They aren’t even trotting out the old “wants to spend time with his family.”
Update: It has come to my attention that some people believe that I was seriously comparing McKinney and kennedy to the Republican Crime Syndicate. I wasn’t.
Exactly right. I’ve been saying for the longest time that creationism isn’t only bad science, it’s crummy theology. Looks like the Vatican astronomer agrees:
BELIEVING that God created the universe in six days is a form of superstitious paganism, the Vatican astronomer Guy Consolmagno claimed yesterday.
Brother Consolmagno, who works in a Vatican observatory in Arizona and as curator of the Vatican meteorite collection in Italy, said a “destructive myth” had developed in modern society that religion and science were competing ideologies.
He described creationism, whose supporters want it taught in schools alongside evolution, as a “kind of paganism” because it harked back to the days of “nature gods” who were responsible for natural events.
Brother Consolmagno argued that the Christian God was a supernatural one, a belief that had led the clergy in the past to become involved in science to seek natural reasons for phenomena such as thunder and lightning, which had been previously attributed to vengeful gods. “Knowledge is dangerous, but so is ignorance. That’s why science and religion need to talk to each other,” he said.
“Religion needs science to keep it away from superstition and keep it close to reality, to protect it from creationism, which at the end of the day is a kind of paganism – it’s turning God into a nature god.
Yup.
Hat tip to PZ Myers, who rightly objects to Brother Guy saying science needs religion for a conscience, and who also has a great octopus pic for his Friday Cephalopod series. PZ, that is. He’s the one with the octopus pic. Just wanted to make that clear.
Well, well, well. Finally, the New York Times noticed the article in the Boston Globe that Digby linked to on April 30, about Bush’s infamous signing statements. I told a couple of people in the meatworld about this, including My Smart Spouse, who don’t follow the crimes of this administration closely, and they found it very hard to believe Bush was that imperious. But he is, my friends, so much so that even the Times can’t fail to notice it anymore:
President Bush doesn’t bother with vetoes; he simply declares his intention not to enforce anything he dislikes. Charlie Savage at The Globe reported recently that Mr. Bush had issued more than 750 “presidential signing statements” declaring he wouldn’t do what the laws required. Perhaps the most infamous was the one in which he stated that he did not really feel bound by the Congressional ban on the torture of prisoners.
In this area, as in so many others, Mr. Bush has decided not to take the open, forthright constitutional path. He signed some of the laws in question with great fanfare, then quietly registered his intention to ignore them. He placed his imperial vision of the presidency over the will of America’s elected lawmakers. And as usual, the Republican majority in Congress simply looked the other way…
The founding fathers never conceived of anything like a signing statement. The idea was cooked up by Edwin Meese III, when he was the attorney general for Ronald Reagan, to expand presidential powers. He was helped by a young lawyer who was a true believer in the unitary presidency, a euphemism for an autocratic executive branch that ignores Congress and the courts. Unhappily, that lawyer, Samuel Alito Jr., is now on the Supreme Court…
Like many of Mr. Bush’s other imperial excesses, this one serves no legitimate purpose. Congress is run by a solid and iron-fisted Republican majority. And there is actually a system for the president to object to a law: he vetoes it, and Congress then has a chance to override the veto with a two-thirds majority.
That process was good enough for 42 other presidents. But it has the disadvantage of leaving the chief executive bound by his oath of office to abide by the result. This president seems determined not to play by any rules other than the ones of his own making. And that includes the Constitution.
In Barbara Kopple’s great documentary on Woody Allen’s Dixieland band’s tour of Italy, there’s a scene where the band plays its heart out in an Italian town. Kopple cuts to the audience to get their reaction, and the audience is just sitting there, expressing as much emotion as if they were watching a lecture on the industrial uses of zinc. The band plays even more ecstatically, but the audience remains unmoved.
After the concert, the Mayor of the Italian town goes to Woody’s dressing room to congratulate him. He smiles ear to ear – he’s talking to il Maestro! And he’s dazzled. Pissed off at the tepid reaction, Woody decides to avoid the usual exchange of compliments: “Such a pleasure to be in your charming town!” but instead waxes sarcastic, pulling out all the stops, something like, “Oh yes, what a wonderfully responsive audience! Why there were several times I could swear they were so moved I heard a couple of them tapping a foot or two.”
The mayor continues to beam. He knows enough English to understand exactly what Allen said. But the Mayor is so starstruck and Allen’s nasty comments are so far beyond the conventions of congratulatory discourse with entertainters that he can’t hear them. Woody, fully confident that his celebrity will insulate him from a bop on the nose, continues to get away with insulting the Mayor’s town to his face.
And that’s a little like Bush and the signing statements. Presidents of the United States don’t do things like that. They just don’t. There is nothing in American history that prepares us for a president who acts like he’s Louis XIV. Not even the odious Nixon. And so, Bush blithely issues his signing statements, telling the country over and over and over that he simply has no intention whatsoever of obeying any law he doesn’t like. And the country not only doesn’t bother to notice. The country doesn’t have the political/cultural framework to notice. Look, Bush’s signing statements can’t be compared to those of a tinpot autocrat. We’re talking the United States of America here, the very symbol of democracy – remember government of the people, etc etc?. So whatever he’s up to and as much as you dislike him personally, the president of the United States is not a fascist dictator, relying on his personal charisma to do anything he wants to. Of course, he respects and obeys the Constitution, no matter what the signing statements say.
Wake up, boys and girls.
If, at the moment, this president has reserved torture and long imprisonment without trial primarily for non-US citizens, or for deeply marginalized citizens like Padilla (Hispanic, a felon, and a Muslim), there is nothing to prevent either Bush, or some other crackpot, from extending such practices to members of the larger population they don’t particularly like. For example, liberals. Or the “wrong kind” of Hispanics.
Or maybe in the future, the president will follow the logic of the Pat Robertsons, decide that abortion really is murder, and have women stand trial for 1st degree homicide. And there’s nothing to stop Bush, or any future US president, from unilaterally deciding – as per the dictator in “Bananas” – that all US citizens must change their underwear twice a day; therefore, all underwear will worn on the outside, “so we can check.”
Why not? Think it’s so implausible?
If you had told me in 1999 that, by 2006, an American president could openly declare that he had no intention of obeying 750 bills he had signed into law, including a law ordering the US to refrain from torture, I would have assumed you’d been Bogarting one two many j’s from Tim Leary’s private stash. But it’s happened. If, back then, you had told me that the governor of Florida would try to kidnap a brain-dead patient, nearly sparking an armed confrontation between state and local officials, and that that governor was the president’s brother, I would have agreed with you, not tried to get you any more psychotic, and backed away very, very carefully until I was safe enough to run and call 911 to bring Thorazine and restraints, stat. But that, too, happened.
Slowly, but not stealthily, the movement of the American government away from any semblance of democracy towards some kind of fascism shows every indication it will continue apace.* The only serious setback I know of to this trend was Kitzmiller v. Dover. And that was only because a christianist-infected schoolboard jumped the gun and moved a few years too soon, probably because its leader had become addled from an oxycontin addiction.
The 2006 elections are crucial – even in its weakened state, can the Bush administration and the Republicans maintain their vice grip (literally) on the government? If they can, it will become exceedingly difficult – next to impossible – for this country to reverse its tracks and recover. Even if Republicans do lose a house of Congress, it remains to be seen whether Democrats have the will, and the skill, to lead this country back from the abyss. The politics of national opposition to Bushism are exceedingly complex, as Kevin Phillips’ book points out (that’s an optimistic reading of it).
But I’m getting ahead of myself. These upcoming elections, let’s return to them. Krugman has made the point over and over that there are so many crimes the Republican leadership has committed that they have a tremendous incentive to do whatever it takes to remain in power, if for no other reason than to avoid long incarceration. It is going to a long, ugly, expensive, and potentially dangerous summer for the United States. But it cannot be avoided and all of you need to vote, to get involved with campaigns you feel you can support (even if they are not perfect), and to get your friends and neighbors to go to the polls to vote these bastards out.
*To continue that hypothetical lookback: If, back in ’99, you had told me I would write a sentence like that, I would have laughed uproariously. The very notion that I would be that involved and have such a “radical,” pessimistic attitude! But I have, because I’m convinced the country’s federal government – and many state governments as well – have moved to the extreme right of American politics. Let’s not forget John Ashcroft with his white supremacist ties, my friends. Or the Hitler-admiring piece of trash that governs California, due to the recall of a Democrat and a special election.