Digby's Hullabaloo Posts

Rest In Peace You Brilliant Goddamned Beast

For some of us of a certain age, Hunter S. Thompson was our muse, our godfather, our Shakespeare. He spoke for us in a wierd sort of exaggerated drug addled way that defined the world. For some of us of a certain age who follow politics, his view of the game informs us in ways that we will never wholly shake off. “Fear and Loathing on The Campaign Trail” remains the seminal work of baby boomer campaign journalism. He took the genre, shot it up with mescaline and invited us all along for the ride.

I was just re-reading his collection of essays “Generation of Swine” about the political scene in the 1980’s a couple of months ago. He saw it all then— the bizarre up-is-downism, the hallucinatory nature of the modern media, the craziness of America in its days of dominance. I was struck, however, at how deeply uncynical he really was, how strangely hopeful and secure that the American people were simply too solid to be completely taken in by these people. The state of politics today must have made him feel like he was on a bad trip that would never end.

Skinner called from Washington last week and warned me that I was dangerously wrong and ignorant about George Bush. “I know you won’t want to hear this,” he said ‘but George is an utterly different person from the one he appears to be — from the one you’ve been whipping on, for that matter. I thought you should know…”

I put him on hold and said I would call him back after the Kentucky Maryland game. I had given 5 points and Kentucky was ahead by 7 with 18 seconds to go…George Bush meant nothing to me at that moment. The whole campaign was like the sound of some radio far up the street.

But Skinner persisted, for some reason….He was trying to tell me something. He was saying that Bush was not what he seemed to be — that somewhere inside him were the seeds of a genuine philosopher king.

“He is smarter that Thomas Jefferson., “Skinner said. “he has the potential to stand taller in history than both of the Roosevelts put together.”

I was shocked. “You lying swine,” I said. “Who paid you to say these things? Why are you calling me?”

“It’s for your own good,” he said. “I’m just trying to help you.” …. He took a call on one of his other lines, then came back to me in a blaze of disconnected gibberish.

“Listen to me,” he was saying. “I was with him last night, all alone. We sat in front of his fireplace and burned big logs and listened to music and drank whiskey and he got a little weepy, but I told him not to worry about it, and he said he was the only living voice of Bobby Kennedy in American politics today.”

“No,” I said. “Don’t tell me that swill, it’s too horrible. I depend on you for more than that.”

I laughed. It was crazy. Here was Gene Skinner — one of the meanest and most cynical hit men in politics — telling me that he’d spent the last two night arguing with George Bush about the true meaning of Plato’s Republic and the Parable of the Caves, smoking Dharum cigarettes and weeping distractedly while they kept playing and replaying old Leonard Cohen tunes on his old Nakamichi tape machine.

“Yeah,” Skinner said, “”he still carries that 250 with the Hallibuton case, the one he’s carried for years … he loves music, really high rock’n roll. He has tapes of Alice Stuart that he made himself on the Nak.”

Ye Gods, I thought. They’ve finally turned him; he’s gone belly up. How did he get my phone number?

“You hideous punk! Don’t call me anymore!” I yelled at him. “I’m moving to Hawaii next week. I know where you’ve been for the last two years. Stay away from me!”

“You fool!” he shouted. “Where were you when we were looking for you in New Orleans last week? We hung around for three days. George wanted to hook up with the Neville brothers. We were traveling incognito”…and now he was telling me that Bush — half mad on cheap gin and hubris, with 16 states already locked up on Super Tuesday — showed up at the New Orleans airport on Sunday night with only one bodyguard and a black 928 Porsche with smoked windows and Argentine license plates…

I felt sick and said nothing. Skinner rambled on; drifted from one demented story to another like he was talking to the Maharishi. It made no sense at all.

None of it did, for that matter. George Bush was a mean crook from Texas. He had no friends and nobody in Washington wanted to be seen with him on the streets at night. There was something queasy about him, they said — a sense of something grown back unto itself, like a dead animal … it was impossible that he could be roaming about Washington or New Orleans at night jabbering about Dylan Thomas and picking up dead cats.

Yes there was something wrong about it, deeply wrong, even queer … yet Skinner seemed to believe these things and he wanted me to believe them.

Why? It was like hearing that Ivan Boesky had written “The Rime of the Ancient Mariner,” or that Ed Meese wakes up every morning and hurls a $100 bill across the Potomac.

I hung up the phone and felt crazy. Then I walked back to the hotel in the rain.

March 21, 1988

He had it nailed. This world is a lonelier place without him in it.

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TBOGG Understands How This game Is Played

While all of the other bloggers are relishing the idea of the Eight Inch Bulldog being deposed on his connections to the White House, I’m much more interested in hearing about his full-time job as an Escort with Benefits in the DC area. In particular, a “client” list or little black book.

Do click the link for the most disturbing metaphor I think I’ve ever read.

But while we’re on on the rare and untrod subject of JimJeff “GG” Gannon, the loose cannon, I’m curious if anyone has talked to this guy about the GG matter? He is described by the Washington Post as “deputy director of the Office of Public Liaison, one of four White House political departments run by uberstrategist Karl Rove.” He was also appeared in his official capacity at both the 2003 and 2004 GOPUSA conferences in DC.

John F. Kennedy created the concept of a public liaison, Nixon institutionalized the office and Republicans say Bush has perfected it. Few, if any, have been as effective at using the taxpayer-funded staff to keep the base of the party happy and involved in the policymaking process. Rove’s intimate involvement in the office enhances its influence not only inside the White House but also outside with the scores of activist groups Bush relies on to help sell his agenda.

Most mornings at 8:30, Rove huddles with about eight White House aides from the four political offices to plot strategy. These offices are public liaison, intergovernmental affairs, political affairs and strategic initiatives.

This is where Rove, Goeglein and others share thoughts on synthesizing the president’s ideas, enlisting outside assistance to sell them and heading off potential fights with or among supporters on the outside. When the meeting lets out, Goeglein operates as an ambassador of sorts for Bush and Rove.

In Republican politics, a person’s conservative fervor is often judged by the people he worked for or with. In the eyes of many conservatives, Goeglein’s credentials are unassailable.

A product of Indiana from the era of Democratic Sen. Birch Bayh’s reign, Goeglein learned politics from the two conservative Dans of the Hoosier State — Coats in the Senate and later Quayle, when he was vice president.

After spending his first year out of college in broadcast media, Goeglein, a native of Fort Wayne, often found himself handling communications strategy for the two Indiana Republicans during the 1990s. In the 2000 campaign, he signed on as spokesman not for Bush, but for Gary Bauer, who ran as the most conservative conservative in the Republican primary.

Shortly after Bauer dropped out, Karen Hughes, one of Bush’s closest advisers, recruited Goeglein to help shop Bush’s message to voters and activists. Goeglein packed up his wife and two young sons and headed to a cramped apartment in Austin.

He assumed he was headed to the White House press shop after the election. But, he said, Rove phoned with an unexpected message: “I am calling to change your life.” A few minutes later, Goeglein was Rove’s right-hand man dealing with the political right. Goeglein plans to assume the same role in the second term. “I love people. I love policy, and I love politics.”

This fellow is both intimately familiar with GOPUSA and walks in the highest corridors of power in the White House. It would be quite interesting to know if he had any comment on how a GOPUSA “correspondent” got into the White House press room. He certainly seems like a guy with enough juice to make it happen.

Check out the links to the GOPUSA conferences. G. Gordon Liddy is referred to as a “former presidential advisor.” LOL.

Mega props to CSI dKos for gathering an amazing amount of information.

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Going Too Far

Americans Want an Opposition Party

“Americans want Democrats to stand up to Bush,” the Wall Street Journal’s Washington Wire reports. “Fully 60%, including one-fourth of Republicans, say Democrats in Congress should make sure Bush and his party ‘don’t go too far.’ Just 34% want Democrats to ‘work in a bipartisan way’ to help pass the president’s priorities.”

We all know that the Republicans have spent may years damning our party for being weak, traitorous and cowardly. This seems like a very good opportunity to begin to turn that around. People want the Democrats to obstruct the excesses of the GOP — even a quarter of the GOP itself.

Perhaps the best way to put this is simply to say it exactly as the question is worded. “We are keeping the Republicans from going too far.” There’s a certain common sense ring to that that I think a lot of people understand instinctively. This may be the key to why the public hasn’t rallied around the social security privatization phase out plan. They can feel that the Republicans are just going too far.

Update: Let me clarify that I am not advocating this as a campaign slogan or a Democratic rallying cry. I’m talking about a public legislative strategy, which is what I think was being addressed in this poll. We are in the minority and the American people have assigned us a role to play. We should play it, take the credit and position outselves as the voices of sanity against a radical right wing bunch of nuts — which happens to be true. One of the ways that we convey this is by standing together, not cutting deals and consistently portraying the other side as out of control — which also happens to be true.

This isn’t a capitulation. It’s framing us as the regular people and them as the crazies for a change — something that 60% of the American people seem to agree is at least a possibility. This is a good things folks. We can work with it.

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Another Cagey Interview

Thanks to Liberal Avenger we can hear another interview with JimJeff Gannon on WBUR from last week. Here’s what he said about Plame:

Q: We began by asking about the highly classified Plame documents which in the past Gannon boasted about having access to.

G: That’s not something I’m able to discuss.

Q: You discussed it on your web site

G: Let me just say this about this memo that’s being discussed. When I say accessible I am talking about information contained therein.

Q: As you well know, two New York Times reporters are facing jail sentences for not revealing their sources regarding the name Valerie Plame and they didn’t even comment or print anything about this

G: Yes that’s terrible. That’s unfortunate.

Q: Well has anyone from the Plame investigation contacted you?

G: Uh, yes

Q: And?

G: I really can’t speak to that. As a journalist it would be wrong to do that.

[…]

Q: Can you understand why some would say you’ve only written for two years, for a Republican backed blog, you’ve had no previous reporting experiences, why were you shown sensitive material regarding CIA material?

G: I can understand how somebody would ask that question but one had nothing to do with the other. I did good work. I pursued a story. I got a great interview with Ambassador Wilson. I should get an award for that.

Listen to the whole interview here.

I continue to be confused as to why Gannon didn’t just say, “I read about it in the Wall Street Journal like everybody else,” if that’s what happened. The question would just go away.

Update:

People continue to miss the point so I will spell it out. Yes, it is likely that GG just lifted the WSJ article. That’s what he calls journalism. However, he told people that he got the info from somewhere else and he has continued to be less than forthcoming about it. It is always possible that somebody told him about it AND he lifted the story from the WSJ.

My personal opionion is that he may have lied to the FBI and is afraid to admit that he had no “confidential source.” If that’s the case, Fitzgerald has a reason to squeeze this guy and who knows where that could lead? They are about to send two reporters to jail over this stuff.

But it could just as easily be that he still doesn’t realize what deep shit he’s in and thinks that he may someday work as a “journalist” again so he is afraid to admit that he was full of shit when he was bragging all over Free Republic. He doesn’t seem very bright.

But guys, it doesn’t matter. It’s this kind of thing that keeps this story alive. Connection to the Plame controversy is one of the hooks that the major media have to hang on to. As long as GG behaves in this way, it gives reporters another reason to keep digging. Capiche?

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Pass The Parsing

Could the next reporter who gets JimJeff in his crosshairs please pin him down on this Plame memo issue? This is ridiculous. He has never really answered the question properly.

Here’s the passage from the February 11th interview with E&P

Although he hinted that he had not seen a classified CIA document after all, he added, “I am not going to speak to that. It goes to something of a nature I do not want to discuss.”

He said nothing about the Wall Street Journal.

Here’s from his interview with Wolf Blitzer on February 14

GANNON: And the FBI did come to interview me. They were interested in where — how I knew or received a copy of a confidential CIA memo that said that Valerie Plame suggested that Joe Wilson be sent on this mission, something that everybody — they have all vigorously denied but is, in effect, true.

BLITZER: So they didn’t make you go testify before the grand jury?

GANNON: No.

BLITZER: Do you have to reveal how you got that memo?

GANNON: No.

BLITZER: They didn’t ask you?

GANNON: Well, the FBI kept asking. I said, well, look, I’m a journalist, I can’t —

BLITZER: You didn’t tell them?

GANNON: Yes. Can’t divulge that. And they accepted that, and I’ve never been asked again.

Again he didn’t mention the WSJ article.

Here’s an excerpt from Anderson Cooper’s interview on Friday

GANNON: I didn’t do that at all. I didn’t do that at all. If you read the question, and I provided — my article was actually a transcript of my conversation with Ambassador Wilson — I made reference to a memo. And this…

COOPER: How did you know about that memo?

GANNON: Well, this memo was referred to in a “Wall Street Journal” article a week earlier.

COOPER: So that wasn’t based on any information that you had been given by the White House?

GANNON: I was given no special information by the White House or by anybody else, for that matter.

Suddenly he’s pointing out that the memo was mentioned in the Wall Street Journal but he doesn’t say explicitly that he read it there.

Here’s what the NY Times reported today:

“What I said was no more than what was reported in The Wall Street Journal a week before,” he said.

In none of those statements does he simply say, “I got the information from the WSJ story.” Look how he dances around it. No “special” information. “What I said was no more that what was reported.” He has been coached to answer this way.

There is enough evidence now to indicate that he is not being straightforward on this question. Did he get the information from the WSJ article or not and if not, where else did he hear about it?

The question was who was spreading this bogus state department memo. From the Washington Post at the time:

“Sources said the CIA is angry about the circulation of a still-classified document to conservative news outlets suggesting Plame had a role in arranging her husband’s trip to Africa for the CIA. The document, written by a State Department official who works for its Bureau of Intelligence and Research (INR), describes a meeting at the CIA where the Niger trip by Wilson was discussed, said a senior administration official who has seen it.

“CIA officials have challenged the accuracy of the INR document, the official said, because the agency officer identified as talking about Plame’s alleged role in arranging Wilson’s trip could not have attended the meeting.”

Now maybe Gannon did just read about this in the Wall Street Journal. But if he did he sure has acted strangely about it, even as recently as yesterday when talking to the NY Times. It’s possible that he played games with the FBI when they came knocking and pretended that he had a confidential source when he didn’t. That, of course, would be against the law. A law that when broken can cost you a lot of money and possible jail time. You cannot lie to the FBI. That is why Martha Stewart is in jail and it’s why Henry Cisneros spent almost a decade in the dock of a special prosecutor —- he didn’t tell them the exact amount of money he paid his ex-lover.

I don’t know if that’s what happened, but something did. I do know that Gannon could end all the speculation by simply saying “I never saw the memo, I read about it in the paper and pretended that I did.” The question is why doesn’t he?

Update: Justin Raimindo has been on this angle for some time.

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Charlie Brown’s Slumber Party

Did anyone happen to catch the happy little hen party on Chris Matthews week-end show tonight in which Chris, Clarence Page, Kathleen Parker, Andrew Sullivan and Gloria Borger ripped Hillary for being a “castrating Bitch” and “Nurse Ratchet” replete with a full-on harpy imitation by Borger? I’ve never seen anything like this (at least where Ann Coulter and Nancy Grace weren’t involved.) Then they sharpened their claws on Martha Stewart, Gloria saying that people will find her interesting because the less they see of her the more they like her. Everyone cackled wickedly as she went on to mock her potential good works on behalf of women prisoners. Andy snorted delicately.

Then they all pitched in on the Stalinists at PCU who are allegedly persecuting Larry Summers. Clarence tried valiently to make an argument but both Andy and Gloria were eyerolling and smirking to such a degree that Chris couldn’t really keep a straight face. He told Gloria he liked the fact that she turned up her nose at this “PC nonsense.” She lowered her eyes flirtatiosly, batted her lashes and veritably glowed with his praise.

I’m not exaggerating about the castrating bitch line either. Borger said that as the jews gave Joe Lieberman a lot of trouble so will the women give Hillary problems. (I don’t remember the jewish community’s Lieberman rebellion, do you?) And Chris agreed that the men sitting in their chairs watching television are all thinking “I’ll never vote for this woman.” He does admit, though, that women become less threatening when they get old.

What in the hell is wrong with these people? Are they regularly appearing on television drunk now? It was like watching a sketch on The Daily Show. Can we get Soros or somebody to pitch in and just pay them to stop? I’ll donate.

Update: It appears they aren’t alone in meanspirited douchbaggery this week-end. Kevin Drum excerpts Susan Estrich’s latest little bit of nasty in her ongoing pursuit of being the most unlikeable person in the world as she battles wits with Michael Kinsley, editorial editor of the LA Times and Parkinson’s sufferer:

Far from being “pissed off,” I believe I have conducted myself with admirable restraint because of our past relationship and my honest concerns for your health.

….My suggestion that your publishing [my letter] would be better (for you too) than my having to go outside somehow constitutes me blackmailing you is so outlandish that it underscores the question I’ve been asked repeatedly in recent days, and that does worry me, and should worry you: people are beginning to think that your illness may have affected your brain, your judgment, and your ability to do this job.

For those who aren’t following this story (scroll down), Estrich is pissed off that Kinsley hasn’t been featuring more women, specifically her, on the op-ed pages of the LA Times. I cannot speculate about why there aren’t more women on the op-ed pages of the LA Times, but it’s my observation that Susan is no longer very coherent most of the time. She has become Fox’s Pat Cadell. I seem to recall that she was reportedly a bit tipsy in New Hampshire during the primary last year telling anyone who would listen, “they jussht pay us so mush moooney!!!”

Now we find out that she is simply a douchebag. Buh bye.

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Get Well Soon

Best wishes to Mrs Instapundit for a speedy recovery.

I’m very glad that she is fortunate enough to have access to good health care. Think how awful it is to be in that position without it.

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Dr Dobson’s Dark Suspicions

Before Junior ran for president he had some conversations with evangelical friend Doug Wead. He wasn’t quite sure how to handle the religious right. Wead taped the conversations.

Mr. Bush, who has acknowledged a drinking problem years ago, told Mr. Wead on the tapes that he could withstand scrutiny of his past. He said it involved nothing more than “just, you know, wild behavior.” He worried, though, that allegations of cocaine use would surface in the campaign, and he blamed his opponents for stirring rumors. “If nobody shows up, there’s no story,” he told Mr. Wead, “and if somebody shows up, it is going to be made up.” But when Mr. Wead said that Mr. Bush had in the past publicly denied using cocaine, Mr. Bush replied, “I haven’t denied anything.”

That “if nobody shows up” line sounds like something out of the Sopranos. He later says that his whole “young and immature” thing was “his schtick.” This comment makes me really believe, for the first time, that JH Hatfield was set up.

What is really revealing about these conversations is Bush’s attitude toward gays and the extent to which he kissed James Dobson’s ass.

In September 1998, Mr. Bush told Mr. Wead that he was getting ready for his first meeting with James C. Dobson, founder of Focus on the Family, an evangelical self-help group. Dr. Dobson, probably the most influential evangelical conservative, wanted to examine the candidate’s Christian credentials.

“He said he would like to meet me, you know, he had heard some nice things, you know, well, ‘I don’t know if he is a true believer’ kind of attitude,” Mr. Bush said.

[…]

By the end of the primary, Mr. Bush alluded to Dr. Dobson’s strong views on abortion again, apparently ruling out potential vice presidents including Gov. Tom Ridge of Pennsylvania and Gen. Colin L. Powell, who favored abortion rights. Picking any of them could turn conservative Christians away from the ticket, Mr. Bush said.

“They are not going to like it anyway, boy,” Mr. Bush said. “Dobson made it clear.”

Early on, though, Mr. Bush appeared most worried that Christian conservatives would object to his determination not to criticize gay people. “I think he wants me to attack homosexuals,” Mr. Bush said after meeting James Robison, a prominent evangelical minister in Texas.

But Mr. Bush said he did not intend to change his position. He said he told Mr. Robison: “Look, James, I got to tell you two things right off the bat. One, I’m not going to kick gays, because I’m a sinner. How can I differentiate sin?”

Later, he read aloud an aide’s report from a convention of the Christian Coalition, a conservative political group: “This crowd uses gays as the enemy. It’s hard to distinguish between fear of the homosexual political agenda and fear of homosexuality, however.”

“This is an issue I have been trying to downplay,” Mr. Bush said. “I think it is bad for Republicans to be kicking gays.”

Told that one conservative supporter was saying Mr. Bush had pledged not to hire gay people, Mr. Bush said sharply: “No, what I said was, I wouldn’t fire gays.”

I don’t pretend to know what animates Junior so much on the issue of gays, but something does. Clearly he’s very uncomfortable with the intolerance so many in his party show on the issue. Indeed, these conversations show him to be more liberal on this issue than any other I can think of. And it’s quite out of character.

But what does it matter when the asshole turned around and just ran a stealth campaign based entirely on homophobia? I doubt very seriously that he privately shared his tolerance for gays with that sadistic dog abuser James Dobson. (I would suspect that Dobson and his followers are going to be more than a bit miffed by these revelations.) In fact, Bush and his party had no problem gay baiting the entire Democratic party, particularly John Kerry, with their nasty frat boy innuendoes — as they have for the last thirty years. It isn’t, after all, just the Christian conservatives who so enjoy that towel slapping hyper-masculine swagger that Junior affects with such panache. There are plenty of good ole boys who trade in this form of macho posing as well. All this Bushian tolerance toward gays would have sorely tested that heroic manly red state image, wouldn’t it?

So he did what the Bushes always do. He played dirty. Speaking of Gore, not Kerry (but it makes no difference) he said “I may have to get a little rough for a while,” he told Mr. Wead, “but that is what the old man had to do with Dukakis, remember?”

This man who pretends to feel such empathy for gays is the same man who ran on a constitutional amendment to ban gay marriage, told James Byrd’s family to take a hike, signed off on 150 plus executions without looking up from his gameboy and now claims that the constitution gives him the total power to order torture and execution in the name of the War On Terror.

This goes beyond hypocrisy. It’s downright pathological. The Republican coalition consists of a racists, homophobes, dupes and the rich selfish bastards who tell them whatever they want to hear in order to get elected. I hope their religion is real because if it is they are all going to spend eternity in the ninth circle of hell.

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Are You Proud Of Yourself Condi?

Many have written about this moving and sad post at Riverbend and I hope that many people will read it and pass it on.

This Iraqi woman has not been liberated. She is being slowly imprisoned, probably for the rest of her life, by a male dominated fundamentalist (that’s a redundancy) religious political system that is going to ruin her life. You can feel it in her words. It’s one of the saddest things I’ve read in the long trail of horrors that this Iraq misadventure has wrought.

I nodded and handed over the bags to be weighed. “Well… they’re going to turn us into another Iran. You know list 169 means we might turn into Iran.” Abu Ammar pondered this a moment as he put the bags on the old brass scale and adjusted the weights.

“And is Iran so bad?” He finally asked. Well no, Abu Ammar, I wanted to answer, it’s not bad for *you* – you’re a man… if anything your right to several temporary marriages, a few permanent ones and the right to subdue females will increase. Why should it be so bad? Instead I was silent. It’s not a good thing to criticize Iran these days. I numbly reached for the bags he handed me, trying to rise out of that sinking feeling that overwhelmed me when the results were first made public.

It’s not about a Sunni government or a Shia government- it’s about the possibility of an Iranian-modeled Iraq. Many Shia are also appalled with the results of the elections. There’s talk of Sunnis being marginalized by the elections but that isn’t the situation. It’s not just Sunnis- it’s moderate Shia and secular people in general who have been marginalized.

The list is frightening- Da’awa, SCIRI, Chalabi, Hussein Shahristani and a whole collection of pro-Iran political figures and clerics. They are going to have a primary role in writing the new constitution. There’s talk of Shari’a, or Islamic law, having a very primary role in the new constitution. The problem is, whose Shari’a? Shari’a for many Shia differs from that of Sunni Shari’a. And what about all the other religions? What about Christians and Mendiyeen?

Is anyone surprised that the same people who came along with the Americans – the same puppets who all had a go at the presidency last year – are the ones who came out on top in the elections? Jaffari, Talbani, Barazani, Hakim, Allawi, Chalabi… exiles, convicted criminals and war lords. Welcome to the new Iraq.

[…]

It’s also not about covering the hair. I have many relatives and friends who wore a hijab before the war. It’s the principle. It’s having so little freedom that even your wardrobe is dictated. And wardrobe is just the tip of the iceberg. There are clerics and men who believe women shouldn’t be able to work or that they shouldn’t be allowed to do certain jobs or study in specific fields. Something that disturbed me about the election forms was that it indicated whether the voter was ‘male’ or ‘female’- why should that matter? Could it be because in Shari’a, a women’s vote or voice counts for half of that of a man? Will they implement that in the future?

Baghdad is once more shrouded in black. The buildings and even some of the houses have large black pieces of cloth hanging upon them, as if the whole city is mourning the election results. It’s because of “Ashoura” or the ten days marking the beginning of the Islamic New Year but also marking the death of the Prophet’s family 1400+ years ago in what is now known as Karbala. That means there are droves of religious Shia dressed in black from head to foot (sometimes with a touch of green or red) walking in the streets and beating themselves with special devices designed for this occasion.

We’ve been staying at home most of the time because it’s not a good idea to leave the house during these ten days. It took us an hour and 20 minutes to get to my aunt’s house yesterday because so many streets were closed with masses of men chanting and beating themselves. To say it is frightening is an understatement. Some of the men are even bleeding and they wear white to emphasize all the blood flowing down backs and foreheads. It’s painful to see small children wearing black clothes and carrying miniature chains that really don’t hurt, but look so bizarre.

I urge you to read the whole thing.

Despite what the right wing would have everyone believe, one of the primary reasons liberals supported the invasion of Afghanistan was to end the documented horrors that women suffered under the Taliban. Long before the Bush admnistration was negotiating with the Taliban or Republican congressmen were holding privatre meetings with Mullah Omar’s lieutenants trying to make deals for pipelines, Hollywood liberals like Mavis Leno were spearheading the despised Feminist Majority Foundation’s Campaign to Stop Gender Apartheid in Afghanistan. Everything about the Taliban was anathema to people like us who value freedom and equality. When that religious fundamentalist government enabled the direct attack on the United States there was every reason on both moral and national security grounds to support the invasion of that country. Life could not be much worse than it was under the Taliban.

Iraq was always much more complicated. Many of us were extremely suspicious of the evidence that Saddam posed a threat to the United States and as horrible as his regime was, there was always the liklihood that the country would eventually fall into civil war and itself become a fundamentalist theocracy — thus making daily life for a full fifty percent of the population many degrees worse than it was under Saddam. It was never a pretty calculation but it was realistic. We knew all this going in and it is one of the reasons why it was never easy to simply wave the flag and proclaim ourselves liberators. Unless everything went exactly as envisioned by the starry eyed neocons, there was every chance that we would actually make many people less free by our actions.

It appears that this is happening. Not that anyone cares, mind you. If half of the Iraqi population sees a substantial loss of personal freedom from our liberation, it isn’t really a problem. They are, after all, only women.

We on the left are being chastized daily for being terrorist sympathizers. Former presidents Jimmy Carter and Bill Clinton are said to be on the other side. Any criticism of the government is Unamerican. And all of this is based upon the idea that liberals are rejecting Western values and putting ourselves in league with Islamic fundamentalists. This is literally nonsensical.

In point of fact, the argument could much more easily be made that it is the other way around. It grows more and more likely that the right, who wholeheartedly supported the war and are currently supporting the political handling of the occupation, deposed a totalitarian dictator to install a repressive fundamentalist theocracy in its place. I fail to see how that advances the cause of our country or western civilization. Indeed, it is a betrayal of everything we stand for.

Who are the real traitors to western enlightenment values — those of us who find both totalitarianism and religious fundamentalism abominations or those who topple dictators to install theocracy? I’d ask the women of Iraq in about five years what they think. Of course, they won’t be allowed to speak freely, so we’ll probably never know.

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Rushing To Retch

The lewd side to the Manchurian Beefcake scandal hasn’t really fazed me. The world is full of porn. But this woke me up last night, churning and screaming from nightmares of a sick and revolting nature. Is there no decency left in this world?

Agency for International Development Administrator Andrew S. Natsios may be heading to Dubai and Afghanistan next week, taking along a small press contingent: Rush Limbaugh and, briefly, CNN anchor Daryn Kagan — they are a famous item these days — along with Mary Matalin, who is going as an ex officio White House adviser.

Of course, I’m not surprised that Rush is anxious to see Afghanistan. It is, after all, the opium capital of the world. (Maybe he and Kagan have a Sid and Nancy thing going on.) But dear merciful God, the mere idea of the three of them….((((shudder))))

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