Digby's Hullabaloo Posts

Castrati Chat

by digby

Rush has been on a strange tangent the last couple of days. Aside from his strange sensitivity to the feelings of terrorist supporting middle eastern potentates (which actually makes sense when you stop and think about it) he also appears to be somewhat obsessive on other subjects:

Ladies and gentlemen, I’m tempted to say that we are on “Summers’s eve.” We are at Summers’s eve. I know Summer’s Eve is also — I think; I used to be an expert in these things — a feminine deodorant spray, but it’s also — it also designates, ladies and gentlemen, that we are in the last days of the administration of Larry Summers as president of Harvard. And, by the way, this happened — I think we need to change the name from Harvard to Hervard, because a bunch of angry feminazis took him out simply because he spoke the truth about diversity on campus and the differences in men and women.

The feminist movement is still alive and well, and it contains the central belief there’s really no difference between men and women, we’re all the same, we’re all just conditioned differently, but we can all do what everybody else does, we’re all equal, there is no inherent difference. Now, you think I’m laughing when I — joking when I suggest they change the name from Harvard to Hervard; they changed the word “history” to “herstory” at one point, remember, in the militant feminist movement. In fact, maybe we can have two schools, Hisvard and Hervard, and just sequester the students. Hervard: Übersexuals need not apply, metrosexuals would be welcome, but the few slots are very competitive. Transsexuals, your scholarship’s in the mail before you even apply.

And this, from the same day, is just strange:

OK, so there’s that. Lemme put that aside. Next little story, and this — this actually is from Sunday. It’s an Associated Press story: “Ginsburg bears burden without O’Connor. It’ll be a one-woman show in the Supreme Court starting Tuesday. Ruth Bader Ginsburg is the only female among the nine justices, and she’s not so happy about it.” So, resign. If you don’t like it, resign. If you don’t like being the only woman on the court, then go somewhere else. Besides, David Souter’s a girl. Everybody knows that. What’s the big deal? I’m talking about attitudinally, here, folks. You gotta — you just — Dawn [studio transcriber] agrees. She’s nodding her head in agreement.

The day before that:

Speaking of Jimmy Carter, did you see what his son, Jack, said? …”I am pro-choice as far as a woman choosing. But I am against abortion.” Well, there is a totally worthless view. This is just his version of, “I support the troops, but I don’t support the war.” Or “I’m against slavery, but I oppose freeing the slaves. I’m for jobs, but I’m not for Wal-Mart. I’m for open government, except when a Democrat’s in office, and I want to have the power to do what I want to do without anybody seeing me.”

I mean these people are just — they are so — just total wimps. Come on, Jack, tell us what you really believe, and stand for something, and come out and lead on that basis, Jack. This is — “No, I wanna make sure I don’t offend the women.” This — this is — here you go. Classic example of the castrati, the new castrati. Jack Carter is — has been castrated by the feminization of this culture since he grew up. He’s — he’s three years older than I am. He was subject to the same pressures I was, plus probably even more, what with his dad being in there in the White House and so forth.

You heard, of course, that he and Daryn Kagan broke up recently. (I know, I know)

It sounds like Rush has even more issues with women than he did before. It also sounds like he’s heavily trolling his favorite porn sites. He’s got transexuals and castrati on the brain again.

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Shipping News

by digby

CNN just reported that Condoleeza Rice called for Syria to cooperate in the investigation of the assassination of the Lebanese prime minister. She really ought to keep that issue quiet for the moment.

Check out this report from Robert Parry:

The Bush administration is letting the United Arab Emirates take control of six key U.S. ports despite its own port’s reputation as a smuggling center used by arms traffickers, drug dealers and terrorists, apparently including the assassins of Lebanon’s ex-Prime Minister Rafik Hariri.

Press accounts have noted that the UAE’s port of Dubai served as the main transshipment point for Pakistani nuclear engineer Abdul Q. Khan’s illicit transfers of materiel for building atomic bombs as well as the location of the money-laundering operations used by the Sept. 11 hijackers, two of whom came from the UAE.

But the year-old mystery of the truck-bomb assassination of Hariri also has wound its way through the UAE’s port facilities. United Nations investigators tracked the assassins’ white Mitsubishi Canter Van from Japan, where it had been stolen, to the UAE, according to a Dec. 10, 2005, U.N. report.

At that time, UAE officials had been unable to track what happened to the van after its arrival in Dubai. Presumably the van was loaded onto another freighter and shipped by sea through the Suez Canal to Lebanon, but the trail had gone cold in the UAE.

While not spelling out the precise status of the investigation in the UAE, the Dec. 10 report said U.N. investigators had sought help from “UAE authorities to trace the movements of this vehicle, including reviewing shipping documents from the UAE and, with the assistance of the UAE authorities, attempting to locate and interview the consignees of the container in which the vehicle or its parts is believed to have been shipped.”

The UAE’s competence – or lack of it – in identifying the “consignees” or the freighter used to transport the van to Lebanon could be the key to solving the Hariri murder. This tracking ability also might demonstrate whether UAE port supervisors have the requisite skills for protecting U.S. ports from terrorist penetration.

The Bush administration anticipated this and made sure this was addressed in the secret agreement:

Under the deal, the government asked Dubai Ports to operate American seaports with existing U.S. managers “to the extent possible.” It promised to take “all reasonable steps” to assist the Homeland Security Department, and it pledged to continue participating in security programs to stop smuggling and detect illegal shipments of nuclear materials.

That “reviewing shipping documents” thing might be a little problem though. There is this:

The administration did not require Dubai Ports to keep copies of business records on U.S. soil, where they would be subject to court orders. It also did not require the company to designate an American citizen to accommodate U.S. government requests. Outside legal experts said such obligations are routinely attached to U.S. approvals of foreign sales in other industries.

Let’s just hope that DHS doesn’t need to look at any “business records” in order to trace terrorist activity in the US. I’m sure it’s nothing to worry about.

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Civil War

by tristero

Is there now a civil war in Iraq, as the lunatic right is so eager to have its opponents claim? And would calling the horrors going on now within Iraq a “civil war” help or even further obscure any understanding of what’s going on?

Depends on the meaning of civil war which, I gather, is not at all a set definition among legitimate scholars. This, of course, lets the wingnuts play their grotestque sophistical games – Who sez it’s civil war? Only by liberals’ definition! – games made more perverse as the blood flows ever more freely. But there’s something more important at stake than arguing over when a civil war is “officially” a civil war or just “significant civic untidiness.” And that is trying to get some sort of conceptual handle with which to comprehend what is indisputably a violent, chaotic catastrophe.

How do I see the events of the last few days, the mosque bombing and the subsequent violence? I see them as making the issue of a disintegrative civil war in Iraq – and the scope of its tragic potential – an issue that is long overdue for serious focus. And make no mistake: The United States will be blamed for it. Not only Bush, but you and me. Although many of us fought as hard as we could to prevent Bush from doing anything as stupid as invading and conquering Iraq, we – and our kids- will be blamed; we will have to endure the consequences of the incompetence and stupidity of the Bush administration.

As a preliminary to a serious discussion, here are some remarks from September 16, 2005 from the Council on Foreign Relations. There is much more to be said, of course. And there are things I disagree with here. But they are interesting and thougthful comments:

Lionel Beehner,staff writer for cfr.org, asked several experts their opinions of what constitutes a civil war, and whether the situation in Iraq qualifies or not.
…

[Michael O’Hanlon] “The kind of civil war I’m worried about is of the ethnic-cleansing kind, where people form militias and clear out neighborhoods…If you saw the militia-style combats—clearing out neighborhoods, people fighting each other and getting killed in pitched gun battles versus car bombs, or leaders calling for more organized conflict—then that would constitute a civil war.”
…

[Kenneth Katzman] “Civil war is organized violence designed to change the political structure or governance within a country, or internal conflict within a state…

This week [September 16, 2005] it’s definitely become clearer that we’ve entered civil war, but whether it’s a sustained or permanent feature, we don’t know. Also, I wouldn’t say it’s full-blown, that is, where it’s neighborhood against neighborhood…just because you don’t have one side fighting back doesn’t mean you’re not in a civil war. “

…

[Marina Ottaway] “To go from acts of terrorism to civil war you need two population groups deliberately targeting each other. As long as it is insurgents trying to kill people to dissemminate terror, and the population is angry at the terrorists, that does not constitute civil war. In the case of Iraq, we would talk of civil war if the insurgents, who are overwhelmingly Sunni, started to deliberately target Shiites (or Kurds) and the targeted group reacted by holding every Sunni responsible, and thus would seek revenge against all Sunnis. I’m very hesitant to say you have a civil war in Iraq now. [Again, as of September 16, 2005].

I think Iraq is sliding very closely in that direction. It’s not quite there yet, but there is no longer a viable political process underway to halt the slide into civil war.”
…

[David Phillips] “It’s already civil war. Civil war is sectarian-based conflict that’s systematic and coordinated. This has been going on for some time [in Iraq]…Next, what happens is the political process breaks down and sectarian strife worsens, Iraqi Kurds withdraw their cooperation from the government, ethnic conflict ensues, and Iraq starts to fragment. This will force the United States to manage the deconstruction of Iraq, meaning the country is not viable, and the United States can’t have 140,000 troops in the middle of a civil war. We’ll have to withdraw troops to the north, draw a line in the thirty-sixth parallel [which formerly demarcated the largely Kurdish no-fly zone from the rest of Iraq], and secure U.S. national interests, in the form of Kirkuk’s oil fields and protecting democracy in northern Iraq.”
…

[Thomas X. Hammes]: “I think you know it when you see it, but we’re not there yet. In a true civil war, the mass of society on both sides is involved. Civil war would require family-on-family violence. That’s not the case yet…Obviously, all sides are preparing for the possibility [of civil war], but I think as long as [Shiites and Sunnis] are talking and trying to work through the constitution, we’re OK. “

…

[Steven Metz] “It’s really a whole spectrum because when we hear the phrase “civil war,” we think of the equivilance of total war. But I think there are lots of things at lower levels that constitute civil war. In terms of its definition, it’s obviously just war primarily internal to a country, even though it could have some external involvement. I’ve said all along the chances are perhaps fifty-fifty that the ultimate outcome [in Iraq] will be some sort of major civil war. I haven’t seen anything politically or militarily that would lead me to change that position.

The bottom line is Iraqis don’t have a strong sense of national identity but rather a sense of tribal and local identities. Countries like that are only able to avoid internal conflict if they have a powerful, central government, like Iraq had under Saddam Hussein. Unfortunately, a democracy is not the type of government equipped to hold together such a fractured society.”

Insider Outsiders

by digby

When did the mainstream DC press come to believe that they represent outside the beltway thinking?

Today, Josh Marshall notes:

…there’s just nothing more precious than seeing the faux-populist poseur Post editorial writers standing tough against an entrenched “establishment” of thirty-something, tenure-desperate semioticians and lit geeks in defense of “mainstream American values”, a well of mores and beliefs with which the Post is no doubt deeply in touch. (Peel away the Fred Hiatt mask and underneath it’s Bruce Springsteen; cut a little deeper and he’s an Iowa farmer.)

Precious indeed. I caught the same thing coming from the Wall Street Journal(!) editor “Paul Gigot, GOP good ole boy who apparently lives somewhere in rural Nebraska:”

…I didn’t speak to anybody from the White House or the vice president’s office all week on this. It was looking at it from outside the Beltway and saying where did this story stand on the relative scale of importance?

Gigot, too, evidently believes he has his finger on the heartland pulse.

This is why we are having such a disconnect with the mainstream press. They are laboring under some ridiculous belief that they are the voice of the people when they are actually the voice of the establishment — which is, by the way, Republican.

Democrats have a very bad habit of paying too much attention to the beltway punditocrisy. Online media isn’t going to change the world as we know it, but it might just be able to break up this abusive relationship and get them looking outside the beltway more. The establishment does not favor Democrats but thars gold in them thar hills if they care to look.

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Issues And Competence

by digby

TAPPED approvingly quotes this from a new Union blog called Laying it On The Line

We keep losing elections because the parties are fighting on two different levels. We talk about competence and issues. They talk about character and values.

We appeal to narrow self-interest and a laundry list of issues. We are down in the weeds. They appeal to a higher plane, as pollster Cornell Belcher puts it, getting a substantial number of low income whites to vote not ‘against their economic interests’ as some would have it, but for what they see as higher interests.

Democrats will continue to win on the issues but lose elections until we learn to cast our issues in terms of values and characater.

Or until people finally see that the Republican committment to values and character is nothing but a scam — which is happening — and they see that such things are not very well measured by someone spouting a few religious code words and being against abortion.

I’m all for inspirational and aspirational rhetoric. They are essential components of successful politics and I don’t think Democrats do enough of it. But the Republicans have bastardized these concepts of “character” to mean you don’t have sex and “values” to mean you are against gay marriage and abortion and they have become code words in themselves. Once people begin to separate this phony Elmer Gantry hucksterism from the actual performance of the Republican majority in office, perhaps some universal values like “honesty” and “responsibility” and “respect” might even come back into fashion. I suspect when that happens, many voters are going to be looking for teacher instead of a preacher. Issues and competence tend to become more highly valued when the shit comes down.

Update:

To clarify. Ever since Dukakis I have railed against using the “competence” argument. It’s flat and technocratic and doesn’t work when compared to the soaring “we are the greatest” or “we are the free-est” rhetoric coming from the right.

But right now we are seeing an epic meltdown in basic governance layered underneath years of values rhetoric, inspirational cant about freedom and democracy and fear mongering about “smokin’ em out o their caves.” I have a suspicion that we are going to have a couple of elections in which competence is going to be a substantial part of the discussion. The debacle in Iraq and the corruption scandals have turned the tables on the soaring rhetoric about freedom and the values arguments about personal character. They won’t play the way they used to — indeed, they are probably going to be most useful as criticism.

As I wrote, I’m a big believer in inspirational and aspirational rhetoric. I think we should get some. And I think we should talk about values like “honesty” “responsibility” and “respect.” I’ve been relentlessly hectoring the Democrats about showing conviction and fighting for fundamental principles. I believe this is essential.

But let’s not make the mistake of fighting the last war. We may just naturally be bringing something to the party that people want right now. Good government. Issues and competence are arrows we have in our quiver and we should not be afraid to shoot them when the time is right.

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Aw, That’s Too Bad, David Irving. We Got ACLU. Austria Doesn’t.

by tristero

I’m still trying to dig out from under the chaos that usually accompanies major concerts (oddly, before the performances, life stays pretty organized, why I don’t know) but thought I’d briefly weigh in with some thoughts on the Austrian conviction of scumbag David Irving for the crime of…being a scumbag.

Now, the Jerusalem Post appears to approve of Irving’s sentence to imprisonment for three years for denying the Holocaust. Yet their editorial takes note that Deborah Lipstadt, who famously was sued for libel by Irving – a case Irving lost and then some – believes that Irving has the right to lie through his teeth about Hitler, Jews, and the Holocaust without thereby becoming an involuntary guest of the Austrian penal system.

Of course, I agree with Lipstadt. Free speech means the freedom to offend. And that’s that.

Well… Not quite. It’s not that simple. Sure there’s free speech. And then there’s the indisputable fact that Irving is a lying, unprincipled, Nazi-loving, right wing sociopath who repeatedly has bent over backwards to exonerate Hitler for 6 million plus murders while, at the same time, ridiculing and sliming the lucky few who escaped the gas chambers and lived to tell the tale.

And so, to be perfectly blunt and honest about it, I really don’t give a good goddamm what happens to David Irving. Let the bastard rot in hell. Y’think I’d lift a finger to help him? Y’kidding?

Yeah, yeah, yeah, I’ve heard it a million times. Free speech, free speech! But when it comes to Nazi lovers, it ain’t me, babe. Sure, intellectually, I get it. But if you think I’m gonna take the time truly to defend Irving’s right to lie and rewrite some of the most tragic history – if not, the most tragic history – humans have endured, think again.

Ditto, if only slightly less ugly, the Danish newspaper editor behind the racist cartoons. Yup, yup, yup. He indeed had the right to publish them. But did you just say you want me to sign a petition in support of HIS free speech rights? Well, geez… you know, I have a serious case of writer’s cramp right now and my doctor forbids me holding a pen for at least the next 6 months, so, no I ain’t signin’ nuttin.’ Can’t.

And that’s why there’s the ACLU.

Well, to be precise, that’s why there would be the ACLU if these things happened here in the US. So let’s now leave David Irving in Austria, and Flemming Rose in Copenhagen, and return to America and free speech here. After all, why go all the way to Austria, or Denmark, to sniff out someone rotten? There are a lot of inflammatory stinkers in this country. I don’t mean only Pat Robertson and Antonin Scalia, of course. I’m thinking about that always useful nobody the right likes to smear lefties with, what’s his name – Ward Cleaver? Winston something? Anyway, that guy.

Life is far too short for me to waste a moment of it worrying in detail about the civil rights of a malicious ignoramus who called my friends and neighbors “little Eichmanns.” And I really don’t care at all about some jerks at U of Illinois, especially when there are people whose rights I DO care proactively to defend like say, parents who want their kids to learn science and not fundamentalist propaganda in science class. For this reason, if it appears that Ward Cleaver’s rights may be violated, then – because the principle of free speech and civil liberties simply must be respected regardless of my personal beliefs and feelings – it is essential to the operation of a modern democracy to support an organization like ACLU.

Strangely, many on the right and some others don’t quite get ACLU’s beat. Defending Oliver North or the Ku Klux Klan in no way implies endorsement of North’s loopy Cro-Magnon militarism or the Klan’s racism. The problem is this. Once you start infringing on Ollie’s constitutional right to be a flaming asshole,fundamentalist churches any NAMBLA are next. No great loss, you say? You’re right, I agree. But the problem with infringing those civil rights is that rapidly you reach the point where just about any kind of speech can be banned for any reason. And therein lies the problem.

First and foremost, the banning of speech and the curtailment of civil rights, is a political act, exercised by the powerful upon the weak. It is an immensely slippery and dangerous slope. Speech suddenly gets criminalized at the whim of the government or corporations in cahoots with the government. That is why those of us who don’t have any interest in speaking up in defense of major league jerks nevertheless refuse to give up our ACLU cards when they offer their services to defend someone we utterly detest. We know that, if they get away with shutting up Ollie or a Nazi, we’re next. Just as we don’t like Iran/Contra criminals, we don’t like NAMBLA either. But they all got rights. Or none of us really do.

It goes without saying that ACLU also defends a lot of right-on causes. Recently, ACLU was doing God’s work in the Dover “intelligent design” creationism trial (no irony intended; “God’s work” is an appropriate way to describe ACLU’s efforts on behalf of science, religion, and American education). And that’s just for starters.

But what makes ACLU so admirable is that that is not all that they do. They go beyond where my emotions can permit. Whereas I truly couldn’t care less whether a Nazi lover has free speech, they care long after my anger at Irving’s lies has forgotten the free speech principle that lets Irving off the hook, legally (but not morally). So by being an ACLU member, I unequivocally support free speech without ever having to speak up in defense of the Klan. So whatever flaws the organization might have, as long as ACLU cleaves to its mission to defend free speech, I will continue to support them no matter who they choose to defend. (Even, dammit, David Irving, if he ever gets in trouble over free speech issues in the US.)

I realize this appears not to be a rousing defense of freedom of speech. In fact it is. It simply takes into account that one of the best ways to uphold the principle without being exploited by cynical manipulators is to support an institution whose sole mission is to defend specific liberties like free speech without endorsing any specific ideology. Free speech – real free speech – is a complex issue, and an emotional one. Rightly so. There are ways to be pro-free speech without holding hands with the American counterparts of sleazy gits like David Irving or Flemming Rose. ACLU is one way.

[Not to rightwingers: You might object to what seems an unfair pairing of the likes of David Irving – a known liar and anti-Semite – with the Danish editor Flemming Rose (who is not known publicly to be either and who I assume in neither in private). It would appear to be obvious that I implied they are alike only in their appeal to free speech for their disgraceful behavior, but rightwing nuts have managed in the past to assume much more.

Therefore, always sensitive to the special needs of my readers on the right and their numerous cognitive challenges, let me be clear. I do not wish to enter into specious arguments as to which is a more cowardly scumbag, Irving or Rose. So, let’s all agree that “sleazy” refers only to Irving in the last sentence and “gits” to both.]

Innocent Life

by digby

As the country careens toward a supreme court showdown on Roe vs Wade, I just have to point out that columnists like EJ Dionne are full of shit when they say that most members of the right to life movement care more about a the taking of an innocent life rather than wanting to control a woman’s reproductive systems. They may think that’s what they care about but if that were true 81% of Americans, including many who call themselves “pro-life,” wouldn’t believe that abortion should be legal in case of rape or incest.

I hate to point out the obvious but children who are conceived in rape or incest are just as innocent as those who are conceived because birth control failed. The difference is not in the relative innocence of the children — it’s the “innocence” of the woman. Most people believe that she should not be forced to bear the child of her molester, her relative or her rapist. And I think it’s fair to assume that they think this because they believe that the pregnancy wasn’t her “fault.”

Some people would probably make the argument that having to bear a child in the case of rape or incest is too traumatic for the mother and that is why they shouldn’t have to bear the child. But people talk about giving up children for adoption as if that is somehow easier than the trauma of bearing her child concieved in rape and having to give it up for adoption. For some that might be true. But for others it most definitely is not. Indeed, it can be terribly traumatic to go through a full term pregnancy and then be unable to raise her child for any reason — a child who would be the brother or sister of her other children.

Neither do these people allow that it would be terribly traumatic to have a child while still in high school or after already having had three children in five years or many of the other circumstances that could make a pregnancy unwanted. I don’t buy the trauma argument. I think it’s pretty clear that most “pro-life” people who hold that abortion is ok in the case of rape or incest (all but the 19% who are opposed in all cases) believe this is so because the woman did not consent to sex, which makes her “innocent” too — and therefore she should not be punished as other women are by being forced to go through pregnancy and childbirth and all that goes with that.

They seem to think that sex isn’t a primary biological imperative — meaning that succumbing to the most primitive urge we have is an act which should be punished if it results in what nature intends — pregnancy. It is not a function of bad character. It’s a function of nature. There seem to be few people who are willing to admit that the sex drive is stronger than most people’s willpower from time to time — and therefore unwanted pregnancy will also happen from time to time.

We could take a fair amount of chance out of this equation by simply promoting the use and availability of birth control. The more available and easy it is to obtain the less likely unwanted pregnancy will happen. We could at least educate young people and make it easy for them to get reliable birth control. If pro-lifers really cared about not killing “innocent life” they would have condom machines in school alongside the cokes and candy bars. There is no group of people on earth who are more horny, more impulsive and more likely to think there is no tomorrow than teen-agers. Yet this is the group that the pro-life people most want to punish with early pregnancy if they fail to beat back their natural urges.

But let’s face it. Even if everyone had birth control, unwanted pregnancies would still happen. Nothing is foolproof. As the Republicans remind us incessantly, the only foolproof way to ensure there is no unwanted preganancy is abstinence. That’s the real message of the “pro-life” movement. If women don’t want to endure forced childbirth they shouldn’t have sex. Period.

Jane is asking people to contact Naral and Planned Parenthood to ask them to support Ned Lamont in the Connecticut senate race against Lieberman, whose loyalty to the Gang of 14 Milquetoasts was stronger than his loyalty to women. This is getting very serious now and it’s long past time for the anti-forced childbirth groups to play hardball.

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The Deal

by digby

From what I just heard from Senator Warner on CNN, it’s about maintaining access to the ports, as I guessed earlier. (Airfields too.) Ed Henry just said the UAE hosts more of the US Navy in the gulf than any other country. If we diss them and refuse to scratch their backs, they’ll get upset and pull back permission to dock our ships in their country. It’s nothing personal. It’s strictly business.

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His Petard

by digby

From Dave at Seeing the Forest, here’s Rush from yesterday:

This is the first time in four years that I can recall a Democrat seriously being concerned about this group of people, and this is racism. This is racism. We are concluding that all Arabs are terrorists. We are concluding that every damn one of them — be they a sheik, an emir — they are all terrorists. They all have ties to terrorists and they all seek our utter, total destruction, and we can’t risk an exception to that. They’re all that way — and welcome to racism Democrats, because the Democrats are leading the show on this just as well as a lot of conservatives are. So when Democrats are illustrating their racism, their xenophobia, they’re also demonstrating that they fully acknowledge we have an enemy. Well, this is a tenuous position for them to take because their kook base doesn’t believe any of this.

Uhm…

All right, well, I’m watching this during the break — the Senate hearings. I’m just watching Sen. “Dick Turban,” ah, Dick Turban is doing his — from Illinois — he of Club G’itmo fame. Ha! I wish Roberts would have shown up in the Club G’itmo T-shirt today. Maybe, maybe a Club G’itmo java coffee cup, just for Dick Turban. Ah, but anyway, Dick Turban is up there saying, “Ah, you’re going to judged here, Judge. You’re going to be judged on one question, just one question. You going to expand the personal freedoms of the Americans, or are you going to restrict them? You going to expand personal freedom, or you going to restrict personal freedom?”

Illustration from the August 2005 issue of The Limbaugh Letter

[Reading from AP report] “One detainee wrapped in an Israeli flag, some were shackled hand and foot in fetal positions for 18 to 24 hours, forcing them to soil themselves.” Ugh! I thought they did that anyway over there.

It’s awfully tempting to simply answer Rush’s maidenly concern about the UAE’s royal family’s delicate feelings with this:

If it were up to you people, we wouldn’t exist as a country today. You would have given in to the Soviets long ago, you would have appeased the Soviet communists. You would appease Iran right now. You probably wouldn’t have cared about the war on terror or the bombing on 9-11. You would have sought out bin Laden and tried to make a deal with him, and this country exists today only because we have been able to prevent you from gaining power to do that kind of thing. We’ve had our run-ins with Neville Chamberlain types, and you’re the modern incarnation

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Traitors.

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You Can Never Be Too Careful

by digby

Following up my post below, I’d like to recommend this diary over at Kos by hekebolos. I think this is an excellent insight into why this port issue is having so much resonance:

Time and time again, this president has said that his highest goal, superceding all others, and even superceding any previous precedent of executive authority–is to defend the American people. He has shown time and time again that neither international law, nor federal law, nor the constitution, nor the Legislative or Judicial Branches of the Government of the United States, will prevent him from executing that duty as he and he alone sees fit.

The Bush presidency has not really been the “fuck-you” presidency. Really, it has been the “I can act like a king because I do national security and after 9/11 you can never be too careful” presidency.

And right here, it all comes crashing down. Because for many Bush supporters, it doesn’t really matter whether Iraq helped or harmed national security. It doesn’t really matter whether the domestic spying program assisted or hindered surveillance of suspected terrorists. It doesn’t really matter whether the Patriot Act helps get new leads against terror suspects–because he’s trying his best to do what he thinks is right, in their view, and if they agree with him on other issues, they’ll be willing to forgive whatever mistakes have been made in his quest to protect the country, because he seems to care that much.

The Portgate scandal is crucial because Bush has violated his own doctrine. When Bush said that we need to justify holding a Middle Eastern company to a higher standard, he showed that he in fact does not agree with the key point of his own doctrine: namely, that in a post-9/11 world, you can never be too careful.

He needs to be secretly spy on American citizens without a warrant and he needs to be able to hold them indefinitely in jail without a trial and he needs to be able to torture innocent people with impunity because we just can’t be too careful after 9/11.

But there’s no reason to go overboard by saying that we shouldn’t outsource our port management to a company owned by a state whose leaders have been known to hang out with bin Laden.

Perhaps the best way to put this is that the administration seems to trust the leaders of the United Arab Emirates more than the US congress or the secret FISA Court.

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