Vaara’s blogging on the Road to Hong Kong!
"what digby sez..."
Vaara’s blogging on the Road to Hong Kong!
They don’t call it The Daddy Party for Nothin’
From the Liquid List
I’ve come to the conclusion that Republicans must need to regularly inflict a certain amount of self-flagellation. What other reason could there be to explain their tendency to make themselves look like idiots, over and over again, on most issues relating to the economy? What else accounts for pushing so many financially ruinous ideas on the public? Instituting debunked supply side schemes, cutting social programs that Americans support, forgetting the lessons of massive deficits, tax cuts for the super-rich that will do nothing for the big spenders…on it goes. Lather, rinse, repeat.
If I were a psychologist, I’d first look for any twisted parental relationships that might be at work here: “Son, take a bath or I’ll burn a cross in your room.” That kind of thing can damage a person, no? Make them feel bad about themselves? Make someone want to hurt themselves a little? “I’m not good enough for Daddy, so I’ll support this tax cut that will send the economy south, and I won’t get re-elected, which is what a bad boy deserves.” The bifurcation of the brazen quest for power and the self-loathing is just so pathetic.
The daddy issues aren’t always subtle, though. George W. Bush has spent the last six months trying to aim a big missile (more Freud there, don’t miss it) at, as he put it, “the man [who] tried to kill my dad.” But the young warmonger has missed the fact that it wasn’t Saddam who ended GHWB’s presidency. It was the economy, stupid! Bush enemy #1, with a bullet.
So here we are, stationed with 1991 Company at Camp Déjà Vu. The war, the economy, and the personnel. There’s trouble in Kennebunkport. Because 43 is all mixed up, see, just like all the other Republicans. He want’s to defend Daddy’s honor by grabbing power and killing Saddam, and at the same time he’s pushing this incredibly self-defeating economic policy — the kind that makes people think Republicans are bad boys.
It’s sad, really. Sometimes Republicans just need to be held.
Poor lil’ w.
To tell you the truth, this is the first time I’ve actually considered what it must have been like to grow up with Read My Lips for a father and Rhymes with Witch for a mother.
Jesus. Buy Gold and potassium iodide. We are in so much trouble…..
The Earth Moved
I need a cigarette and I don’t even smoke.
From the Poor Man Andrew Northrup.
The Republican ticket is a lock. Bush has matured into a masterful and commanding leader, and Dick Cheney is a widely respected policy heavyweight who has become the most active Vice President in American history. Combine this with high approval ratings, an untouchable war chest, a friendly Congress and an upcoming romp to victory in Iraq, and you’ve got an unbeatable combination for four more years … and beyond!
Or do you? I remember the election, and the thing that struck me, and most of the voting public, about Dubya, wasn’t that he was a “masterful leader” so much as that he was an “embarrassing fool”. A cartoonish, empty-headed serial idiot with a resume made up entirely of draft dodging, tequila shots, and gifts from daddy and a political platform composed entirely of lies, impossible promises, and stunningly, shockingly, record-breakingly empty rhetoric. And don’t tell me that this is some liberal propaganda – I watched the debates, I watched every step of the way, I watched you babbling on with a smirk on your face like some 4th grader giving the class his book report on a book he didn’t even read. Every time you spoke it was a breakthrough in the field of stupidity, opening up unexplored vistas of idiocy beyond anyone’s wildest imaginings. You don’t even read the paper, you don’t even have a single clue what’s going on in the world, and you don’t even fucking care. Knowing who is in charge of Pakistan isn’t like knowing the square root of pi – it’s in the paper every day, it’s not like some outrageously esoteric thing that only super big nerds know about. If you are going to be President, it’s something you might want to look in to.
And I know we were all supposed to be impressed with you after September 11th, and, yes, you did a good job of playing President. And everyone kind of forgot about all the dumb stuff for a little while, because we thought maybe we might all be dead tomorrow, so we’d better stick together, and if I say something mean about the President and then someone kills him I’ll feel pretty bad. And in a lot of ways you were very good, looking very grim and determined looking in a situation that was difficult emotionally, but, let’s face it, kind of a no-brainer policy-wise. “Kill the mutherfuckers” was, indeed, the correct response, and it was carried out with some efficacy, but it’s not exactly rocket science.
But you know what? Stupid’s not a passing thing. Stupid’s not some phase in life, like when you were really into MC Hammer or when you abused alcohol and cocaine for twenty years, which you suddenly recover from and no one is supposed to talk about anymore. Stupid’s forever, my friend, and you can’t get away from it. Stupid sticks. Stupid shows.
Do you even know what your Iraq policy is? Do you even really have one? I know what I hope it is, but every time I hear you talk about Iraq it’s something different. Sometimes it’s nuclear weapons, sometimes it’s terrorism, sometimes it’s human rights. Aside from moments of (scripted) lucidity, such as the speech to the UN, it’s all been very obscure. And what about North Korea? “I loathe Kim Jong Il!” What are you, two years old? Nobody likes Kim Jong Il, he’s a fucking maniac, but what’s your point? It is your job, as President, to do a little thinking about things beyond the level of ‘starving people is wrong and I hate it,’ beyond the level of being the national id. It’s your job to actually figure out how to deal with this guy. The whole Mr. Smith Goes to Washington, or Mr. Smith Goes to the OK Corral, or whatever it is schtick is getting pretty stale. It worked when the problem was medieval religious fanatic douche bags in Afghanistan who thought that they could deflect bombs with old tires, but when dealing with the real problems of the world, your faux-regular guy bullshit act is not going to cut it. And you got a free ride for a while now because of extenuating circumstances, but if you think the Democrats are still going to be playing patty-cake with you in 2004 you’re in for a surprise. If the war in Iraq doesn’t go like a picnic on a cloudless day (and it probably won’t, Sunshine), they’ll kill you with it. And it may not be fair at all, but that’s just too bad. And if you think that two years from now, when you have lowered taxes (on the rich), raised spending, the economy is going no where, and you’ve spent four years shitting on the environment, sucking up to the hard right wing, and embarrassing the country on the world stage, if you think that people are going to be satisfied with you gritting your teeth and telling people that you’re a man of conviction who says what he means or some John Wayne Hallmark card horseshit like that, well, you’ve got another thing coming. You are doomed in 2004, and I can’t wait until we dump your clueless ass.
Oh baby. Was it as good for you as it was for me?
The Mouth That Roared
Josh Marshall posts another very interesting tidbit on the Korea train wreck about James Kelly, in which he discusses some of Kelly’s questionable ties to certain Chinese businessmen and how that may be shaping the internal conflict in the administration between the “China Hawks” and what I like to call the “sane people.” Kelly, as Powell’s Asia policy person, has been lobbying from the beginning for a less bellicose approach to the North Korean situation and is viewed with some suspicion in the bully boy crowd. Marshall thinks these suspicions about his China ties may be playing into the debate.
But, somebody also needs to take a close look at the screaming jackass that Bush appointed as Under Secretary of State for Arms Control and International Security, apparently against Colin Powell’s wishes, John Bolton. It’s hard to keep track of all the neocon nutcases that populate this administration’s foreign policy shop, but this guy ranks up there with the worst. He won the post with a vote of 57-43 — fewer than Ashcroft. It was a disastrous decision.
Here are just a few of the highlights about Mr. Bolton:
Bolton on China/Taiwan: “…diplomatic recognition of Taiwan would be just the kind of demonstration of U.S. leadership that the region needs and that many of its people hope for. The notion that China would actually respond with force is a fantasy.”AEI web site, 8/9/99
Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty: “The Senate vote on the CTBT actually marks the beginning of a new realism on the issue of weapons of mass destruction and their global proliferation… the Senate vote is also an unmistakable signal that America rejects the illusionary protections of unenforceable treaties.” The Jerusalem Post, 10/18/99
North Korea: “A sounder U.S. policy would start by making it clear to the North that we are indifferent to whether we ever have “normal” diplomatic relations with it, and that achieving that goal is entirely in their interests, not ours. We should also make clear that diplomatic normalization with the U.S. is only going to come when North Korea becomes a normal country.” Los Angeles Times, 09/22/99
At a 1994 panel discussion sponsored by the World Federalist Association Bolton claimed “there’s no such thing as the United Nations,” and stated ”if the UN secretary building in New York lost 10 stories, it wouldn’t make a bit of difference.”
Sen. Jesse Helms on John Bolton: “John Bolton is the kind of man with whom I would want to stand at Armageddon.” Speech at American Enterprise Institute, 01/11/01
Past Scandals: As a young lawyer Bolton in 1978 Bolton helped Sen. Helms’ National Congressional Club form Jefferson Marketing “as a vehicle to supply candidates with such services as advertising and direct mail without having to worry about the federal laws preventing PACs, like the Congressional Club, from contributing more than $5,000 per election to any one candidate’s campaign committee” (Legal Times). He later defended the club against charges from the FEC that led to a $10,000 fine in 1986. As a reward for his service Sen. Helms “helped the career of John Bolton” by supporting him for his Department of Justice and State positions (Legal Times).
At the Justice Department, Bolton acted as the Department’s “no man” refusing to provide congressional committees documents on Supreme Court nominees William Renquist, Antonin Scalia and Anthony Kennedy. He also refused to provide information, including his personal notes regarding the Iran-Contra scandal, and aided congressional Republicans who attempted to stop investigations of Contra drug smuggling.
After leaving the State Department under the first Bush Administration, Bolton headed the National Policy Forum which “reportedly pursued money from overseas” for the RNC (Los Angeles Times). The NPF defaulted on a $1.3 billion loan guaranteed by Hong Kong businessman Ambrous Young, whose lawyer claimed his willingness to absorb the debt was “contingent upon Mr. Young getting something in return,” namely “business opportunities.” The Taiwanese government “served as an intermediary for a $25,000 contribution” to the NPF(Washington Post). At his confirmation hearing Bolton acknowledged that he had received $30,000 from the Taiwanese government for writing a series of papers.
At his confirmation hearing Bolton defended his ability to separate his personal beliefs from his professional duties: “Of all the different jobs I’ve had in government, I’ve never had any allegations that I wasn’t following the policies that were set.” Actually, Bolton ignored administration policy while in the Reagan Justice Department when he held an unauthorized press conference lashing out at special prosecutors. His comments drew sharp criticism from the White House when spokesman Marlin Fitzwater called Bolton “intemperate and contentious.”
Since his confirmation he’s been a total disaster.
It is widely assumed, his views on North Korea being what they are, that Bolton is one of those who pressed for it to be included in the “axis of evil,” one of many stupid pieces of advice.
On Feb. 22, 2002 he announced that the United States would no longer respect a long-standing agreement to limit consideration of a nuclear response only to attacks from a nuclear-armed foe. He said that the long-standing agreement to avoid using nuclear weapons reflected “an unrealistic view of the international situation.”
And then, there was this gem. Bolton, clearly off the reservation, said in early May 2002, that the administration may be targeting Cuba in its war on terrorism. His “Beyond the Axis of Evil” speech claimed, without any evidence, that Cuba was developing biological weapons and sharing its expertise with other U.S. enemies. It was a crock.
Throughout this period the administration was sending all kinds of mixed signals to the North Koreans, from the President calling Kim a “pygmy” to embarrassing the Prime Minister of South Korea (and Powell) by publicly dissing the sunshine policy without notice, to releasing $95M last April under the Agreed Framework even while claiming that North Korea was not in compliance. They were all over the place.
Then, once again, with administration’s hallmark arrogance and bad timing, on August 29th, Bolton let fly with what was probably the final straw:
North Korea is the world’s foremost vendor of missile technology and has “one of the most robust offensive bio-weapons programs on earth,” the top U.S. arms negotiator said Friday, echoing President Bush’s warnings about the communist state.
U.S. Undersecretary of State John Bolton called North Korea “an evil regime that is armed to the teeth, including with weapons of mass destruction and ballistic missiles.”
“President Bush’s use of the term ‘axis of evil’ to describe Iran, Iraq and North Korea was more than a rhetorical flourish — it was factually correct,” Bolton said in a speech to a a group of South Korean government officials and scholars.
“There is a hard connection between these regimes — an axis along which flow dangerous weapons and dangerous technology,” he said.
The chief U.S. arms-control negotiator was in Seoul for a three-day visit that included talks with South Korean officials on the communist North’s arms proliferation. He discussed the same topic with Japanese officials in Tokyo earlier this week.
His comments come at a sensitive time, as the two Koreas try to revive stalled reconciliation after months of tension. South Korea wants Washington to open dialogue with Pyongyang about the arms issue.
Bolton stressed that such overtures will depend on whether the North will stop developing and exporting missile parts and technology to “notable rogue state clients such as Syria, Libya and Iran.”
[…]
Bolton also said that there is “little doubt” that North Korea has an active chemical weapons program and has “one of the most robust offensive bio-weapons programs on earth.”
As Bolton spoke, economic officials of the two Koreas were meeting in Seoul to discuss a host of pending issues, including a cross-border railway. The talks were part of an agreement reached during Cabinet-level negotiations in Seoul earlier this month.
The revived inter-Korean dialogue has coincided with North Korea’s moves to reach out to the rest of the world.
Meanwhile, on Wednesday [same day] during a visit to Japan, Deputy U.S. Secretary of State Richard Armitage signaled that Washington was planning to send an envoy to Pyongyang in the near future.
“We have received a variety of messages from North Korea in recent months and it seems to me that the general thrust is that they would welcome a visit by assistant secretary (James) Kelly,” Armitage told a news conference.
His comments followed a brief meeting last month between U.S. Secretary of State Colin Powell and North Korean Foreign Minister Paek Nam Sun on the sidelines of a regional security meeting in Brunei.
Their brief informal chat over coffee was the highest-level contact between the U.S. and North Korea since a landmark visit to Pyongyang by Powell’s predecessor Madeleine Albright in October 2000.
Hello???
The North Koreans reacted very badly to this saying “Known as a standard-bearer among the notorious hard-line hawks of the Bush administration Bolton never opens his mouth without making anti-DPRK remarks, bereft of reason. Therefore, his recent outbursts do not deserve even a passing note,” said a DPRK foreign ministry’s spokesman on August 31. “If there is any security issue over which the U.S. should worry, it is entirely attributable to the Bush administration’s hostile policy toward the DPRK,” he added.
[…]
“It is also an unpardonable criminal act to vitiate a positive atmosphere of dialogue between the DPRK and the U.S. and between North and South Korea, which has been created with so much effort, and to strain again the military situation on the Korean peninsula,” it said, and continued: “This compels the DPRK to doubt the U.S. will to dialogue and interpret its call for dialogue as a fig leaf to conceal its moves to stifle the DPRK by force of arms.”
So, when they sent Kelly to Pyongyang in early October, the North Koreans were prepared to get in his face and they did. Bolton had made a fundamental mistake by embarrassing Kim Jong Il when he was in the middle of the Japanese reconciliation and the sunshine policy negotiations. To publicly disrespect him, in front of his adversaries whom at that very time he was trying hard to accomodate without losing face, was probably more than a neurotically proud tyrant of a seriously distressed country could take.
And, if Bolton’s speech was approved by the State Department, while at the same moment Armitage was in Japan talking about how North Korea would welcome a visit from Kelly, then you can only assume that the strategy was to drive Kim Jong Il over the bend. I’m afraid it’s far more likely that, once again, Bolton was off the reservation. Pure speculation on my part, of course, but unless Richard Armitage has become the rogue peacemaker at State, or this plan is so Machiavellian that even the players don’t know the final goals, then there are not a lot of other ways you can explain it.
So when all hell breaks loose, what does the administration do? They send Kelly and Bolton to Beijing to try to pressure the Chinese to put the heat on North Korea. This was so very intelligent, considering Bolton’s restrained public language about Taiwan and China. What a wise choice it was to send him in at a time of crisis to request Chinese cooperation in a ridiculous fuck-up of our own making. Needless to say, China has been somewhat opaque in its response to our foolish dilemma.
To summarize, John Bolton is a complete disaster. The Bushies seem to be intent upon keeping all of the members of the Reagan and Bush I administration who were involved in Iran Contra close and cozy, for reasons we can only guess. But, once one of these guys single-handedly bring the world to the brink of nuclear war with their big mouths, wouldn’t you think they could find them a nice quiet job writing policy papers on US Peruvian trade policy or something? Allowing crazy men to make speeches on behalf of the US Government is really not a good idea.
The Founders were Marxists! Who knew?
Reading a lively discussion on Atrios’ blog about the article linked in the post below, there is a debate about Bobo Brooks saying that “Most Americans do not have Marxian categories in their heads,” and it reminded me that the GOP seems unaware of the great mistrust of wealth inequality in this country going a little further back than old Karl (and I’m not talking about Rove.)
In an 1813 letter to John Adams, Thomas Jefferson wrote, “There is a natural aristocracy among men. The grounds of this are virtue and talents… There is also an artificial aristocracy founded on wealth and birth, without either virtue or talents; for with these it would belong to the first class… The artificial aristocracy is a mischievous ingredient in government, and provision should be made to prevent its ascendancy.”
Now, Jefferson may have been dead for 40 years when Marx published Das Kapital, but apparently he was a Marxist, being a proponent of “class warfare” and all.
And old Teddy Roosevelt actually WAS a Marxist, because in 1906 he said, while arguing for a graduated inheritance tax and a progressive income tax:
“The man of great wealth owes a peculiar obligation to the State, because he derives special advantages from the mere existence of government.”
Talk about class warfare! My God, didn’t he realize that he was cruelly punishing the most productive and hard working members of society who were just trying to keep their hard earned money so they could spend it on antiques and fine art and thus produce jobs for dead people?
Bobo tells us that Americans are just not receptive to arguments based upon “envy.” (Perhaps, although I certainly don’t see that Americans are lacking in that, any more than any other deadly sin. Bobo needs to take a good look around him at one of those DC cocktail parties if he wants to look into the eyes of the green eyed monster up close and personal.)
Kevin Phillips, with his usual insight, tells us in his book “Wealth and Democracy” and in a timely op-ed in yesterdays LA Times, that Bobo and the rest of the fat cat, investor class Republicans who are trying to press this line, are not only corruptly self-dealing in ways that Harding and his crew could only dream of, but they are badly misreading the political history of this nation. The Republicans have had their asses kicked repeatedly on this issue, but they can’t help themselves.
[…]
Historically, this is the great Republican Achilles’ heel — favoritism to the rich. The 2003 Bush tax cut proposal is the biggest, baldest example since the 1920s, when Treasury Secretary Andrew Mellon decided that if Congress wouldn’t let him cut income tax rates enough he’d just start giving money back, to individuals and corporations alike, through Treasury refunds, rebates and remissions. Given this recurrent thread over eight decades of GOP fiscal history, White House and congressional Republicans may be setting up a dangerous issue for the 2004 elections.
[…]
Will the Democrats, who in recent years have baa-baaed around Washington like clueless sheep on an Idaho hillside, somehow turn and swing this issue like a political power saw? They show some movement, but they have displayed too little knowledge of their own history — Thomas Jefferson’s fear of the money power; Franklin D. Roosevelt’s bold use of the inheritance tax; Harry S. Truman’s lambasting of Wall Street — to assume that they can call up a memory of the Republican fiscal heritage, however vulnerable.
Yet, the vulnerability is potentially huge. As Bush fiscal policy suns itself in the mentality of Coolidge-Hoover-era Treasury Secretary Mellon, it disdains the better legacies of other GOP presidents. Dwight D. Eisenhower favored taxes on excess wartime profits; Richard Nixon signed legislation imposing a higher top tax rate on unearned, rather than earned, income; Ronald Reagan’s 1986 tax reform insisted on equal top rates for earned versus stock-market income, eliminating the preference for capital gains. The first President Bush was the succeeding president who cried incessantly to restore capital-gains favoritism to investors. We should also mention Theodore Roosevelt, who called in peacetime for the progressive tax on large inherited fortunes that George W. Bush works to eliminate in wartime; and Abraham Lincoln, whose wartime taxes covered dividend income.
The Lincoln-Roosevelt-Eisenhower-Nixon-Reagan viewpoint still commands a fair minority of the Republican rank and file, if not among its Bush-era leadership. The only major Republican voice speaking for the old party, however, is that of McCain, who said in December, “We probably need to have tax cuts directed at lower-income Americans, such as payroll-tax reductions. … [L]ow-income Americans in totality bear a much higher tax burden than wealthy Americans do; therefore, there is a growing gap between the wealthiest and poorest Americans.” He scoffed at the notion that Bush’s tax policy embodies compassionate conservatism. McCain’s father and grandfather were four-star admirals; he learned a different tradition than that of the tax-shelter sale.
I live in California. What am I, French?
This is the most important reason Americans resist wealth redistribution, the reason that subsumes all others. Americans do not see society as a layer cake, with the rich on top, the middle class beneath them and the working class and underclass at the bottom. They see society as a high school cafeteria, with their community at one table and other communities at other tables. They are pretty sure that their community is the nicest, and filled with the best people, and they have a vague pity for all those poor souls who live in New York City or California and have a lot of money but no true neighbors and no free time
Oh yeah. Bobo Brooks knows all about real haaaartland Muricans.
I dun heard he’s a champeen cow tipper who kin toss a chew moren’ 50 feet in one spit.
Right in the middle of The Palms at lunch hour.
Carrie Nation tried this and it didn’t work
Talk Left links to an article about MADD that points up one of the dangers of do-gooding — it seems to have the unfortunate effect of turning genuine concern for the public good into self-righteous puritanism.
MADD is calling for the resignation of British Columbia Premier Gordon Campbell. Why? Because a few days ago, Campbell, in Hawaii on vacation, was pulled over by police as he was returning from dinner with friends and charged with alcohol impaired driving. Campbell does not intend to contest the charge and issued an apology after his arrest.
Why should MADD call for the resignation of a public official who committed a minor transgression in his personal life, on his own time and in another country? Who made them the arbiter of personal conduct by a public official? Sure, they have a right to call for whatever they want, but in oppposition, we should be making fun of them, not debating them. Arguing won’t do any good–they are out of control. We believe their true agenda is prohibition, on moral grounds. They are far outside the field people associate them with–safety on the public highways.
If MADD has become an official adjunct of the morals police, I would say their work is done and they can pack up their briefcases and pick up a Bible. Moral suasion is one thing. Moral coercion with the strong arm of the state behind you is quite another. On this, and most issues of civil liberties, privacy and personal behavior, count me with the libertarians.
Strangely enough it turns out that, for many people, drinking in moderation is actually good for you. Ayez un autre verre de vin rouge et vivez !
A Moral Void
I was going to expand on my post about the internecine struggle within the administration for Junior’s empty soul by looking at the contrast between George Ryan’s principled decision to commute the sentences of every person on death row due to the incurable flaws of the justice system in Illinois, and the cavalier faith-based assumption of judicial perfection of the President of the United States.
Jeanne D’Arc already nailed it.
And the moral struggle implicit in this passage — I spent a good deal of time reviewing these death row cases. My staff, many of whom are lawyers, spent busy days and many sleepless nights answering my questions. — brought to mind George Bush’s contrasting refusal to engage in thought, let alone an honest moral reckoning, when he responded to an AP reporter who asked about the possibility of innocent people being executed in Texas: “If you’re asking me whether or not as to the innocence or guilt or if people have had adequate access to the courts in Texas, I believe they have.” A report had indicated that the death penalty in Texas was a knot of racial bias and incompetent defense, but Bush didn’t even think it was worth looking into the issue. The refusal to bother asking yourself ethical questions must be the worst form of laziness. As Governor Ryan put it, “Many people express the desire to have capital punishment. Few, however, seem prepared to address the tough questions that arise when the system fails. It is easier and more comfortable for politicians to be tough on crime and support the death penalty. It wins votes. But when it comes to admitting that we have a problem, most run for cover.” Cowardice, as well as moral sloth.
As I listened to the Sabbath Gasbag Shows this morning, I found my stomach churning in visceral reaction to the cold-hearted, unmerciful attitudes of the majority of conservatives on this
issue. So many were completely unmoved that the judicial system in Illinois was so corrupt and incompetent that 17 death row inmates have been exonerated. Conservatives, in fact, seemed to take the position that the larger miscarriage of justice is that Ryan commuted the death sentences of over a hundred inmates to the “soft on crime” sentence of life without parole — even though the system that put them there has been proved beyond a reasonable doubt to be so unreliable that 17 innocent people lived with a sword hanging over their heads for years — a fact that only the hard work of volunteers and students brought to light. This commutation “sends the wrong message,” and is “throwing the baby out with the bathwater” despite the fact that the message that was already being sent is that the State of Illinois doesn’t care if it executes innocent people, so the baby in the bathwater had already drowned.
They seemed to have absolutely no empathy for the human beings, people who could be them or members of their family in a different life, who were caught in a horrible Kafkaesque nightmare in which despite their innocence the State brought it’s full power and authority to bear to kill them, refused to admit it when caught red handed and continued to defend its actions in the face of absolute proof of its corruption or error. Not only do they betray a singular lack of simple human compassion and heart, they betray the principles they fought for for over 50 years when they railed against the totalitarian Communist state and it’s rejection of individual rights.
Can we get down to brass tacks on this? When the judicial system is as arbitrary, corrupt and prone to error as the Illinois judicial system (along with most jurisdictions in America) it is immoral to entrust it with the ultimate punishment of death. And if one defends such systems in the name of the authority of the State, and believes that it is destructive to the State to question its infallibility, then one is a Totalitarian.
Many conservatives are flirting openly with Totalitarianism these days and their lack of empathy and moral judgment, even in the face of a gross miscarriage of justice, is indicative of a frightening will to power. All those years of studying Stalinism in order to defeat it seems to have evolved into a sort of Stockholm Syndrome in which the student has come to identify with the subject.
I think it is time for conservatives to take a hiatus from their Sabbath Gasbag assignments and check in with their priests. Because if they are unmoved when the State is willing to execute innocent people in their name, then their problems run much deeper than the moral relativism they love to pin on the left. They are operating in a moral void.
We know you weren’t getting ready for church…
(…so just what were you doing up this early on Sunday morning, young man?)
While we all know that Matt Iglesias is the philosopher king (and antichrist) of the left blogtopia, I think we sometimes overlook the fact that he is also really funny:
So has anyone ever noticed that at 5:30 AM EST on Sunday mornings Fox News has a show on hosted by a guy who looks virtually identical to Sean Hannity? Of course not — who would be watching Fox News at 5:30 AM EST on Sunday? Only crazy people. Still, it’s true, and it’s freaking me out.
“I do believe invading Iraq has become theological to certain people”
The buck stops…uh..somewhere. We’re not sure. It just happened. Somehow. Glenn Kessler continues with his inside look at the decision making process in the White House:
[…]
The previously undisclosed Iraq directive is characteristic of an internal decision-making process that has been obscured from public view. Over the next nine months, the administration would make Iraq the central focus of its war on terrorism without producing a rich paper trail or record of key meetings and events leading to a formal decision to act against President Saddam Hussein, according to a review of administration decision-making based on interviews with more than 20 participants.
Instead, participants said, the decision to confront Hussein at this time emerged in an ad hoc fashion. Often, the process circumvented traditional policymaking channels as longtime advocates of ousting Hussein pushed Iraq to the top of the agenda by connecting their cause to the war on terrorism.
With the nation possibly on the brink of war, the result of this murky process continues to reverberate today: tepid support for military action at the State Department, muted concern in the military ranks of the Pentagon and general confusion among relatively senior officials — and the public — about how or even when the policy was decided.
[…]
