Heartbreak and Joy
It’s a bittersweet day in blogland.
It is with a heavy heart that I share the news that Neal Pollack has shuffled off his mortal coil. Farewell, sweet teabag prince.
But, do not despair. James Wolcott — writer, gentleman and all around bon vivant (and occasional commenter on this blog, even) has decided to throw in with us lowly bloggers. It must be all the glamour and the money.
Welcome to our little obsession. I hope you don’t have a life or anything.
The Big One
At a loose moment on radio row in the Garden, I saw Bob Barr, off in a corner, hosting a talk-show. This set me to wondering about the other great Unmentionable — other than that bin Laden chap — at the Republican Zellapalooza this week.
Six years ago, the Republicans, for reasons of high principle and in defense of the rule of law and the Constitution, brought forth the only impeachment ever of an elected president of the United States. Remember the soaring rhetoric, the agonized lawmakers talking over their epochal decision with their dogs and their children. (I guess Cokie Roberts’s kids came through the Clinton years unscathed after all.) I particularly liked that one guy from California who went surfing, and the great power of the sea convinced him that, sadly, Bill Clinton had to go. It was a bold and brave moment for these young conservatives. Remember how proudly they bore themselves on the talk shows? Remember how nobly they suffered their betrayal at the hands of their Senate brethren? Remember how they attached themselves to the uncompromising Thomas More created by Robert Bolt in “A Man For All Seasons”? (They quoted that movie the way some sportswriter pals of mine quote “Caddyshack.”)
My question, then, is this: Where in hell’s the video tribute?
Where’s the 15-minute package honoring these selfless solons, some of whom got the boot shortly thereafter? Where’s the stirring music, the NFL Films narration? Where’s the appreciation from the Republican Party for what these courageous men of honor did? They fearlessly dragged out what Thomas Jefferson — a Democrat, and wouldn’t you know it? — famously called a “scarecrow,” and they used it on behalf of the laws to which we all must be subject.
Where’s the movie, y’all?
A couple of more conventions without one, and I might think the whole impeachment thing was a prolonged dirty-trick aimed at hamstringing a moderate Democratic president that you couldn’t beat at the polls, and rammed through because of some aggravated nutbaggery from the extremists in the House of Representatives. This would be very disappointing to me, and to Thomas More, I’m sure.
I was struck by this as well. The great battle of the blowjob was not even mentioned despite the grave danger to the nation it once presented. I fear that, like Vietnam, the wounds will never heal until we openly honor the brave fighters who served our nation in the great Clinton cockhunt. If we don’t, years from now a fine young Republican may wish to run for president and Democrats will mockingly wear condoms on their heads at their nominating convention. I’d hate to see that happen.
On the other hand, if these brave men and women were able to stop even one grown man from enjoying fellatio, then they can take pride that they did their duty. But sadly, like Vietnam, I’m afraid this may be another example of the “best and the brightest” sending our boys and girls out to fight an unwinnable war for the hearts and minds (and penises) of the nation. I could be wrong.
Tin Foil Soldier
Is it possible that they are incapable of doing anything that doesn’t smack of propaganda and self serving bullshit? Do they do this stuff just because it’s fun to get away with it time after time, even if they don’t have to?
Sigh. Remember the stirring letter from a soldier in Iraq that Bush quoted so dramatically last night?
It turns out that the guy is a soldier all right, but he’s also a “scholar” at one of the Scaife funded, right wing foundations.
I don’t suppose they could have found any letters of support from members of the military who aren’t employed as operatives in the VRWC.
Actually, now that I think about it, they probably couldn’t.
Clinton To Undergo Emergency Heart Surgery
Taken To Columbia-Presbyterian Hospital In New York City
Sen. Hillary Clinton Was At An Event In Syracuse
Sep 3, 2004 11:52 am US/CentralCBS News has learned that former President Clinton was hospitalized on Friday in New York City after complaining of chest pains.
A source close to Mr. Clinton tells CBS News that Mr. Clinton complained of chest pains Thursday night and was taken to a hospital near his home in Chappaqua, N.Y.
Doctors, according to our source, found a blockage. Mr. Clinton is now in the New York Presbyterian hospital in Manhattan.
The New York Times reports on its Web site that Mr. Clinton had a heart attack. CBS News has not independently confirmed that.
Mr. Clinton’s wife, Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton, D-N.Y., was attending an event in Syracuse, N.Y., when the news of her husband’s condition broke.
Clinton, who is 58, struggled with his weight during his presidency but has slimmed down since leaving office.
In July, the former president addressed the Democratic convention in Boston.
“We Democrats want to build a world and an America of shared responsibilities and shared benefits. We want a world with more global cooperation where we act alone only when we absolutely have to,” he said. “We think the role of government should be to give people the tools to create the conditions to make the most of their own lives. And we think everybody should have that chance.”
He appeared on the “Late Show with David Letterman” in August to promote his biography, but much of his talk was about the 2004 presidential race.
“Of all the people I dealt with in Congress,” Mr. Clinton said of Democratic nominee John Kerry, “he cared the most about trying to find programs that would keep young, inner-city minority kids out of trouble and out of jail and in school.”
Update (thanks to Fiat Lux)
Send Get Well cards to:
The William J. Clinton Foundation
55 West 125th St.
New York, NY 10027
White House Chief of Staff Andrew Card said yesterday that President Bush views America as a ”10-year-old child” in need of the sort of protection provided by a parent.
Card’s remark, criticized later by Democrat John F. Kerry’s campaign as ”condescending,” came in a speech to Republican delegates from Maine and Massachusetts that was threaded with references to Bush’s role as protector of the country. Republicans have sounded that theme repeatedly at the GOP convention as they discuss the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks and the war in Iraq.
”It struck me as I was speaking to people in Bangor, Maine, that this president sees America as we think about a 10-year-old child,” Card said. ”I know as a parent I would sacrifice all for my children.”
I don’t know about you, but there is something very discordant about that statement. Perhaps because having Bush for president then means a sixteen year old delinquent is in charge of the family. (Please don’t kill me, please don’t kill me.) And the “sacrifice all” is a bit much considering the fact that he’s never sacrificed anything in his entire life except getting drunk every night.
Or maybe it’s because adults — voters— usually don’t care to think of themselves as ten year old children. In any case, if this is true, I think his line about “people should be able to keep their own money” is a bit of a problem. As is all the imperial goosestepping. A country of ten year olds should concentrate on their reading and comprehension skills. But then, if they did that they’d probably vote big brother off the island.
Spurned Lover
And another party leaves him. Maybe it’s time he took a look in the mirror and asked himself what he might be doing to constantly alienate the ones he loves.
GOP backs away from Miller’s blast
Democrat ‘speaking for himself,’ Bush aide saysAfter gauging the harsh reaction from Democrats and Republicans alike to Sen. Zell Miller’s keynote address at the Republican National Convention, the Bush campaign — led by the first lady — backed away Thursday from Miller’s savage attack on Democratic presidential nominee John Kerry, insisting that the estranged Democrat was speaking only for himself.
Late Thursday, Miller and his wife were removed from the list of dignitaries who would be sitting in the first family’s box during the president’s acceptance speech later in the evening. Scott Stanzel, a spokesman for the Bush campaign, said Miller was not in the box because the campaign had scheduled him to do too many television interviews.
There was no explanation, however, for why Miller would be giving multiple interviews during Bush’s acceptance speech, or what channels would snub the president in favor of Miller. Nor was it made clear why Miller’s wife also was not allowed to take her place in the president’s box 24 hours after his deeply personal denunciation of his own party’s nominee.
The change was made only a few hours after Laura Bush, asked about Miller’s speech, said in an interview with NBC News that “I don’t know that we share that point of view.” Aides to President Bush and his campaign said Miller was not speaking for all Republicans.
[…]
The Bush campaign stepped backed from Miller’s comments Thursday after it was received with almost immediate criticism, including complaints from prominent Republicans like Sen. John McCain of Arizona.
“Well, Zell Miller is a very experienced politician,” McCain, who spoke earlier at the convention, told NBC News on Wednesday night.
“I’m sure he knew exactly what he was talking about. [But] I just don’t agree with the fact that the Democrats are unpatriotic or the assertion that the Democrats are unpatriotic,” he said. “I don’t think they are.”
In an interview Thursday, Laura Bush told NBC News’ Tom Brokaw: “I don’t know that we share that point of view. I mean, I think Zell Miller has a very interesting viewpoint, just like I had the personal viewpoint to talk about the president when I spoke on Tuesday night. …
“But, I mean, his voice is one with a lot,” the first lady said. “You also heard Senator McCain. You also heard Mayor Rudy Giuliani and Governor [Arnold] Schwarzenegger.”
A senior White House official, speaking to reporters before Bush’s address Thursday night, said, “Senator Miller was speaking on behalf of himself and obviously on behalf of himself.
Boy, those Republicans sure aren’t very steadfast and loyal, are they? But then, turncoat Zell couldn’t have expecting much on that score, now could he? As ye sow….
I imagine that overnight polling has shown that the frothing at the mouth wasn’t a big hit. I heard one of the pundits on CNN say earlier that polls showed Bush strengthening his support the red states and remaining static in the battle ground states. I haven’t seen any numbers, but that wouldn’t surprise me. If that’s true then their strategy may have failed. The speculation is that they were trying to cement their bond with white males in the mid-west with all the tough talk. It’s possible that they may have done that and lost an equal number of women and minorities.
We’ll see soon enough. But, clearly Zell was not a big hit, despite Maureen Dowd’s bizarre assertion that the convention was a masterpiece. (And she was acting so oddly that I was downright uncomfortable watching her. She is much too shy to be on TV, obviously.)
Demonstrators Were Held Illegally, Judge Rules
This was harsh. Two days in a holding pen is a long damned time. And, naturally, the police lied about it.
NEW YORK, Sept. 2 — A criminal court judge ordered the release of hundreds of anti-Bush protesters Thursday, ruling that police held them illegally without charges for more than 40 hours. As the protesters began trickling out of jail, they spoke of being held without access to lawyers, initially in a holding cell that had oil and grease spread across the floor.
Several dozen of those detained said that they had not taken part in protests. Police apparently swept up the CEO of a puppet theater as he and a friend walked out of the subway to celebrate his birthday; handcuffed two middle-aged women who had been shopping at the Gap, and arrested a young woman as she returned from her job at a New York publishing house.
[…]
Throughout this week, Deputy Police Commissioner Paul Browne had insisted that just a few dozen protesters had spent more than six hours behind bars without being charged or released. On Thursday, Browne acknowledged for the first time that large numbers of demonstrators had endured long detentions. But he blamed them for overwhelming the police department.
“It’s a new entitled, pampered class of demonstrators who want to engage in civil disobedience but don’t want to be inconvenienced by arrest processing,” Brown said. “There’s a lot of reasons for a holdup. If you were in a group this morning you are going to go through the process very quickly; if you were arrested with 200 people it’s going to take longer.”
[…]
Michael Sladek, who owns a film production company in Brooklyn, was arrested in Midtown two evenings ago as he photographed the police and demonstrators. He spent 48 hours in custody without access to a phone before he was charged with obstructing a pedestrian — an administrative violation — and released.
“For us, it was very clear this was a detention to keep people off the street,” Sladek said outside the jail. “And the saddest thing was that so many people had nothing to with protesting the convention.”
This is terrible, but I must say that I’m proud of the people who are willing to engage in acts of civil disobedience to preserve their right to free speech. Use it or lose it.
The innocent bystanders who were swept up and held for more than two days should sue the City of New York. There is no excuse for keeping people that long without charging them. None.
He’ll Fight That Sucker In A Phone Booth
On Monday morning I wrote a post called Cold-Cock Him saying that I hoped the Kerry campaign would metaphorically stalk across the ring and slam Bush right in the nose on the day after the convention and change that storyline immediately.
It looks like they are going to do just that. Atrios has the link to the prepared remarks and they are very tough. As TAPPED notes, Kerry announcing this speech on the day of Bush’s speech seems to have knocked them off their game a little bit:
CNN, 8:42 P.M.: The Kerry campaign has begun to make an impact with the press conference they’ve announced tonight. At midnight, John Kerry will begin returning fire with a surprise press conference, for which they’ve already released excerpted remarks. It’s all over the cable shows; Karen Hughes is on the defensive on CNN right now, and the first question that set her back was on the press conference. They’re late to the party, but it is possible that they brought punch.
Even more intriguing, Ryan Lizza at TNR says:
…tomorrow there will be a significant announcement from the Kerry campaign about a new media buy that will be far tougher than anything Kerry has done this year.
I’ve been hoping for “My Pet Goat”, but whatever it is, I’m looking forward to it. I think timing is important and perhaps laying out a bit and then stepping hard on Bush’s night was smart. The press corpse is slavering over the notion of a knock down drag out fight and Kerry is making a big show of it.
Tough Guy
Fuck this little right wing prick. I think I understand why the smirking codpiece likes him so much:
Porter Goss, tapped as the next CIA director, says the Senate lacked “balance” in its public hearings investigating the Iraqi prison scandal and should not have plucked military commanders from the field to question them about the abuse.
Goss took a hard line on interrogations in interviews with The Associated Press earlier this year, saying “Gee you’re breaking my heart” to complaints that Arab men found it abusive to have women guards at the Guantanamo Bay terror camp _ statements that could draw scrutiny during his Senate confirmation hearing, possibly next week.
During one interview in May, the eight-term House Republican from Florida said he couldn’t count the number of ongoing prison abuse investigations, but “we’ve got the circus in the Senate, which is always the likely place to look for the circus.”
“Even though I say that lightheartedly, I do honestly question whether or not they have balance over there on this issue,” said Goss, who has declined interviews since President Bush nominated him last month.
Let’s let Porter spend a little time having Lyndie walk him around on a leash and see if he still thinks the Senate is “unbalanced” by asking the military to answer a couple of tepid questions about its immoral torture policy. He’s a smart ass wingnut who has absolutely no business being anywhere near real power.
If he wants to see a circus, he should take a look at this sickening medieval sideshow:
The Bush administration is ignoring, if not defying outright, the U.S. Supreme Court’s ruling that all terror suspects must be able to challenge their imprisonment. The opening round of detainee military tribunals at Guantanamo Bay last week resembled something between a Mel Brooks farce and the kangaroo courts of former Ugandan dictator Idi Amin. Maybe Captain Kangaroo courts. The proceedings didn’t look anything like justice, military or otherwise. Meanwhile, two U.S. citizens still sit in military brigs, isolated from their lawyers and months if not years away from the hearings the high court says they deserve.
The U.S. criminal justice system, including its military stepchild, is supposed to stand for due process, impartiality and openness. These are the same principles, after all, that U.S. troops are fighting — and dying — to seed in Iraq and Afghanistan. But the slapdash preliminary hearings for the first four of some 600 Guantanamo detainees violated basic tenets of fairness.
The tribunals are an ad hoc invention, authorized by President Bush three years ago when he rejected the established military court-martial system and the federal criminal courts, either of which would have worked more smoothly. As a result, military officials have few precedents to follow and last week seemed confused about which rules or legal procedures applied.
Members of these tribunals — the jury, in effect — are military professionals appointed by the Pentagon. The tribunal’s chief officer is a retired Army judge, the only member of the panel with legal training. He is both the judge and a jury member, ruling on motions and voting with the five other commissioners.
In a criminal court, the lay jury decides the facts and the judge rules on questions of law. Here, however, tribunal members decide on both. Yet the five nonlawyers were clearly befuddled last week when asked to define concepts such as due process and reasonable doubt.
The cards are stacked against detainees in other ways too. Government prosecutors got spacious quarters and their own staff to prepare for the hearings. Military defense lawyers were crowded into one room. Midway through the week, the conference table they all shared was removed. The Arab interpreters were so incompetent that the proceedings resembled a game of “telephone,” in which the message veered closer to gibberish with each repetition. Yet this game is about men’s futures.
Given the confusion, officials must feel justified in limiting reporters to pen and paper, which might as well be quill and parchment. No photographic, video or audio recordings of the hearings will ever be released. From the government’s perspective, perhaps the less that Americans know of these bumbling proceedings, the less they’ll care.
The two U.S. citizens that Bush has labeled as enemy combatants, Yaser Hamdi and Jose Padilla, haven’t gotten even this much. Years after their arrests, each remains in a military brig, often in solitary confinement. Even after the Supreme Court’s declaration that they have a right to a hearing, government lawyers outrageously are fighting every lower court petition filed by lawyers retained by the men’s families. And still the government has filed no charges against Hamdi or Padilla.
The Supreme Court made itself clear in its June rulings: Terror suspects are entitled to at least bare-bones due process. For government lawyers to insist otherwise is unprecedented. Their assertion probably doesn’t scare terrorists, but it throws a pall on the lush praise for U.S. freedoms that decorate the Republican National Convention.
The rank dishonesty and hypocrisy of the Republicans turns my stomach. Freedom and democracy, my ass. We simply have to defeat these people.
Bad Omen, George
2.5 Million Told to Flee Fla. Hurricane
Residents and tourists in cars, trucks and campers clogged highways Thursday in the biggest evacuation ever ordered in Florida, fleeing inland as mighty Hurricane Frances threatened the state with its second battering in three weeks.
About 2.5 million residents were told to clear out ahead of what could be the most powerful storm to hit Florida in a decade.