William Saletan: Hard-Headed Howard
Dean can win, with a little tough love
Okay. We'll give Saletan a break..for the time being. From all I've read from him at Slate these past six months, he's a fickle and rather catty sort. But then again, so is the American public. Perhaps the Dean campaign could glean something positive from this bit of advice.
*note: Slate could use a new photographer...unless they intended to make Dean's head look misshapen.

Paul Krugman: The Awful Truth
".....People are saying terrible things about George Bush. They say that his officials weren't sincere about pledges to balance the budget. They say that the planning for an invasion of Iraq began seven months before 9/11, that there was never any good evidence that Iraq was a threat and that the war actually undermined the fight against terrorism.
-But these irrational Bush haters are body-piercing, Hollywood-loving, left-wing freaks who should go back where they came from: the executive offices of Alcoa, and the halls of the Army War College...having a few months of good news doesn't excuse a consistent pattern of dishonest, irresponsible leadership. And that pattern keeps getting harder to deny."

Washington Post: Release From Jail Sought for Cleared
Terrorism Suspect Benamar Benatta
By Michael Powell

credit: Washington Post
"...Benatta is one of the last lost men of 9/11. Jailed on the day of the 2001 attacks, the Algerian air force lieutenant has spent more than two years in federal prisons -- much of that time in solitary confinement -- even though the FBI formally concluded in November 2001 that he had no connection to terrorism...."

Crisis Papers: A Quick Pat on the Back-
Now Into the '04 Trenches
By Bernard Weiner, Co-Editor
".... half the population already is considering voting for someone other than George Bush and his extremist policies, thanks in no small measure to the work liberals, progressives, moderates and others have done over the past year.
-We should feel good about all that. Take a deep breath, smile, take in the props....OK, that's enough. Now we need to stop patting ourselves on the back, and get back to work...fasten your seat belts; it's going to be one hell of a scary, bumpy ride.."

Dean Calls War "Strategic Error"; Cites Army War College Report, Secretary O'Neill Statements, Carnegie Endowment
"....Time To Stand Up for America, Stand Against Administration that Misled Nation Into War.."

An Astute Observation by Josh Marshall

Number of days between Novak column outing Valerie Plame and announcement of investigation: 74 days.

Number of days between O'Neill 60 Minutes interview and announcement of investigation: 1 day.

Having the administration reveal itself as a gaggle of hypocritical goons ... priceless.

-- Josh Marshall

Either the Washington Press Corps has amnesia, they're timid lily-livers, or they've got an anti-Dean agenda

I'm just not sure which of the above is true, but the many of the total bores in the Washington Press Corps seem to think they will be able to control the People with their tripe being passed off as "professional journalism". They helped to ruin Gore with their ego-bloated idiocy in 2000.
This time the People have their number. They are becoming nearly as despicable as Bush himself. They have no right calling Howard Dean a conspiracy theorist, crazy, or any other negative insinuations or accusations. Read this Village Voice article. Are our memories that short-term...really?? What Howard Dean said on Diane Rehm does not even require a stretch of the imagination.

~~~~~~~~~~~~

Eric Boehlert has an article at Salon.com directly related to this topic. It's a definitive narrative of the history of the media's dysfunctonal relationship with Howard Dean:

Salon.com: The media vs. Howard Dean
Democrats haven't voted yet, but reporters have got the story: The former Vermont governor is angry, gaffe-prone and unelectable. How do they know? Republicans, and anonymous Democrats, told them so.
By Eric Boehlert

"........." For Dean's top backer there must be a sense of déjà vu in all of this. In 2000, Vice President Al Gore suffered from chronically caustic coverage that clung to all sorts of fictional, Republican-inspired spin about the vice president being an unlikable, untrustworthy exaggerator. Suddenly, as with Gore in 2000, it seems Dean is battling not only his Democratic opponents and Republican Party officials, he's also wrestling members of the media's chattering class who view him with growing unease and even contempt..."

"..It's the press, egged on by Republican spin and eager to play the role of hardheaded analyst, that has latched onto this notion that Dean is too passionate to be president....."

"...with all the focus on electability, most stories [re: questioning Dean's electability] seem short on data that proves their thesis....."

"....Sometimes the narrative starts with the mainstream media and gets picked up by the RNC, sometimes it's the other way around. What's beyond debate is that there's a media echo chamber -- and its focus has been on Dean's flaws. And if the trend continues, more voters may agree with Gore about the rightward bias of the media....."

The Guardian: Bush besieged
by war college
Suzanne Goldenberg 1/13/04

"....The Bush administration's doctrinaire view of the war on terror, which lumped together regimes like Saddam Hussein's and al-Qaida as a single undifferentiated threat, led the US on a dangerous "detour" into an unnecessary war, according to an unusually strong critique from the US army war college. "The global war on terrorism as presently defined and conducted is strategically unfocused, promises much more than it can deliver, and threatens to dissipate US military and other resources in an endless and hopeless search for absolute security," says the study by Jeffrey Record, a visiting scholar at the Strategic Studies Institute.
The report, endorsed by other scholars at the institute, appeared yesterday at a delicate moment for the White House, which was fending off damaging comments from a former cabinet member on its decision to go to war..."

"...Although he says that Washington may be able to defeat al-Qaida, he concludes that its war on terror has designated so many fronts and enemies that it is fundamentally unwinnable.
Meanwhile the war in Iraq has led it into an open-ended conflict that has drained resources from its efforts to secure American soil against another attack by al-Qaida..."

THE SSI REPORT CAN BE SEEN HERE

The 97-year-old woman who survived being buried in the rubble after the powerful earthquake in Bam, Iran had said that she'd recited poems of the great Persian poets Rumi and Saadi to keep herself from going mad.
I read there was a man found alive after being buried for thirteen days following the quake.
Thirteen days.
Sadly, I just read the news that he has died.

His name was Jalil. He was the father of eight children, two of whom died in the quake.

What do you think you would do if you were buried--fully conscious and waiting for help? Would you pray? Would you sing? Whose poetry would you recite? Whose song would you sing? Whose face would come to mind? What would pull you through?

Howard Dean supporters from all over the country are in Iowa in new/different campaign to get Iowans to the polls for their candidate:
Adam Nagourney Speaks About the Latest on the Democratic Race on PBS/Lehrer Hour


Tonight on the Jim Lehrer hour, NY Times' Adam Nagourney says there have been numerous polls in Iowa.. LA Times, Chicago Tribune, Zogby. He states that in any year, polls are not all that accurate or reliable in Iowa. Ex: weather in mid-January-Iowa can throw all poll results way off. He says this year is even more difficult than usual..so many new people are coming out for Howard Dean. He mentions that the use of cell phones are not included in random samples, so this also throws off the accuracy of predictability. He says several candidates are strong on the ground. He mentions Dean and Gephardt first, saying they are very strong..Gephardt being the more "old-fashioned" campaigner and Dean campaigning in a new/different way..with thousands of people who have arrived in Iowa from all over the country to get Iowans to the polls for Gov. Dean. Nagourney says the Kerry campaign is quite active. According to Nagourney, the best on ground activity is coming from the John Edwards camp. Nagourney says Dean is having a "difficult period", but he doesn't say why he thinks this is true. Interviewer Gwen Ifill does not ask him to expound on this point. It seems like one of those rather 'of-the-moment/will change tomorrow' comments (based on the nature of sheer fluidity and unstable flurry of political campaigning). (I see *Matt Drudge trying to make a "BFD" about it over on his site-Duh.) Tom Harkin endorsed Dean..and is also saying many good things about John Edwards. Nagourney figures the real fight is all about who's going to wind up coming in first on January 19th..and any votes for Edwards would take away from Gephardt.

*Druge Report says: "Dean's supporters expressed distress Monday at what many described as his faltering performance in a televised debate over the weekend, the latest in a series of difficulties he has encountered," Nagourney claims. "With the rest of the field working in Iowa, Gen. Wesley Clark has taken advantage in New Hampshire to move up in the polls behind Dean, drawing crowds that are beginning to rival Dean's and threatening his once dominant position in the state."*

If they are true Dean supporters, they shouldn't be distressed at all. They should be putting forth all that much more effort to help Dean win next week in Iowa...or they should travel to New Hampshire to campaign for him there.
I assume this "turbulence" of which Nagourney speaks is related to what we know will be coming in future primaries...Clark vs. Dean.
Dean supporters need to get tough and understand there will never be time for hand-wringing if they want their candidate to win.

If I didn't know better, I might suspect a stop-Dean tone to this type of reporting.
Let's hope I know better...
I'll be watching.
~~~~~~~~~
Update (1-12/11:30 pm): Well, here's the story.
"...General Clark's rise is threatening Dr. Dean's once-dominant position in the state and could dash his hopes of essentially ending the contest with an overwhelming victory there..."
"...He[Dean] seemed tired..."I am rejuvenated and ready to fight," he said. "When people attack me, that rejuvenates me".....Dr. Dean's advisers said Monday that they were neither surprised nor worried about the suddenly stormy climate.....some Dean supporters expressed distress at his halting performance at the debate, in which the Rev. Al Sharpton managed to do what none of Dr. Dean's more established competitors had managed this year: knock him off his game. ...."He looked like a deer caught in the headlights," Jeff Bovee, 33, a professor of exercise science at Central College and a Dean supporter, said..."
**Some "supporter" Jeff is.**

JTA/Global News Service of the Jewish People:
Howard Dean's Statement
"..Ultimately, only the Palestinians and the Israelis themselves can make and keep the peace and work out the specifics of a lasting agreement. It seems clear that this will not happen as long as Yasser Arafat is in control..."

...The United States and Israel are partners. Let me be clear: preserving Israel’s security is a bedrock principle that will guide my administration’s foreign policy.
On a tour of the Old City in Jerusalem during my 2002 trip to Israel, I experienced first-hand the miracle of the modern Jewish state.
I saw remains of a house next to a stone wall that King Hezekiah had ordered built to defend against invaders. In a neighboring house, I looked out the window down at the stone wall and the remains of that house and understood that 3,000 years ago people prayed the same prayers in the same Hebrew language.
That experience reinforced my commitment to the special relationship the United States has with Israel. Israel will always have the resources necessary to guarantee its long-term defense and security. And we do this not as a favor for Israel but because it is in America’s interests to do so.
I also believe that peace in the Middle East is a key U.S. interest and that the United States is the only intermediary that can bring the Israelis and Palestinians to the peace table. Playing the role of a fair and honest broker is consistent with the special relationship the United States has with Israel..."

"....we’re never going to get peace in the Middle East as long as we have terror. Israel has both the right and the responsibility to protect and defend its citizens against terrorists..."

Waiting for Hutton report on the Number 10/Dr. David Kelly case

The Law Lord's report will be ferociously spun by every side. That's why he is right to take time and great care crafting his verdict
by Andrew Rawnsley, Sunday January 11, 2004

"....Truth to tell, the only person who really knows what Lord Hutton will say is Lord Hutton. Maybe even he doesn't entirely know yet. As they wait for the inscrutable judge, journalists and politicians are left to stab in the dark, that place they most hate to be...."


Blair is being called to account on Hutton report

"... Michael Howard has stoked up the pressure on embattled Tony Blair, accusing the Prime Minister of having "something to hide" over the death of Dr David Kelly. The Conservative Leader has fired off a letter to Downing Street calling for clear cut answers to questions on the forthcoming, long-awaited, Hutton Report....."

Blair Will Resign If Found Lying....

.....Vows Not to Hide from Hutton Findings

Boston Globe: A bold, new messenger
By Eileen McNamara, 1/11/2004

"...Where his rivals hear anger, Dean's audiences hear hope for real change. What his rivals perceive as rashness, Dean's supporters see as boldness. When he tells them that he does not have the power to change the country, that they do, these voters believe him and, maybe for the first time, think the political process belongs to them, not the candidates hungry for their votes...."

BUSH KNEW TWO LOUD WORDS
by William Rivers Pitt
"...the 'preparedness-gap' becomes the whittled-down talking point du jour. This is a whiff of colossal proportions, the implications of which will echo down the halls of history unless someone develops enough spine to speak the truth into a large microphone. The talking point is not difficult to manage. It was splashed in gaudy multi-point font across the front page of the New York Post in May of 2002.
Two words: 'Bush Knew.'
It is, frankly, amazing that this has fallen down the memory hole...."

"....too many facts are now in hand, thanks in no small part to the work of 9/11 widows like Kristen Breitweiser, which fly in the face of the administration's demurrals..."

I took this 45-question test.
Look at which leader they tell me I'm most like:


~~~~~~~~~~

Have you seen the most-blogged-about books of 2003?

Know Thine Enemy:
Grover Norquist - "Washington Grotesque"

"...He leaves the impression that perhaps some of the 18 hours a day he devotes to establishing a permanent Republican majority has to do with punishing college tormenters..."

"...Some conservatives have attacked him for his outreach to Arab and Muslim Americans, charging that he has embraced radicals with ties to terrorism. Administration officials, including Rove, have said there is no truth to the allegations...Other conservatives offered reasons of their own for avoiding him. One called his meeting "a freak show" that is "intellectually insulting." Another said he "represents a rare level of vitriol and suspicion."

"...Norquist issued meeting guidelines, including: "No gossiping. No whining. No rambling discourses or philosophical discussions. We know we are hard core."

"....During a monthly conference call with the state meeting leaders, Norquist asked the Vermont representative for dirt on the former governor, Howard Dean, the front-runner for the Democratic presidential nomination. "It would be extremely helpful for you to get the information out," Norquist said. "So people around the country have talking points on Dean."

"....Democrats used to anger him, Norquist said. He's past angry now. "Do you get mad at cancer? We'll defeat and crush their institutions, and the trial lawyers will go sell pizza. We're not going to hang them. Most of the people on the left will be happy in Grover's world. I feel about the left the way [Donald H.] Rumsfeld felt about the Iraqis."

"....And after Norquist purges the United States, there is the rest of the world. He says this with the confidence of a man who uses a black laundry marker as a pen. He has helped start Wednesday meetings in Canada, New Zealand, England and Japan. He has learned to be patient: "I now understand you can't just explain to the idiots how to do it and to see it your way, because they're too foolish to see it."

~~~~~~~~~~~~

Labor Unions: Know Thine Enemy:

"..."The unions know that four more years of Bush will mean a huge number of union jobs lost to new free-trade agreements and the outsourcing of the federal work force." -Grover Norquist

Don't Miss Ken Burns' "Reconstruction" on PBS/American Experience


Richmond, Va. - photo by Iddybud

Airing Jan. 12th and 13th on PBS

Read about Ken Burns' new two-part documentary at USA Today.
It is also featured in the Boston Globe.

"....Southern blacks lost it all. That sweet thing they had tasted was gone. The promises of the 14th and 15th amendments, guaranteeing full citizenship and the vote, remained hollow for almost a century. If the North won the war, America's first modern horror, the South won its aftermath...."

Try this interesting feature at the PBS site: See what happened State-by-State after the war.

American Prospect:
In Hickory, N.C., they're trying desperately to save American jobs

Because of of lax -- and often unenforced -- trade laws, the Hickory-based hosiery industry still may lose out to cheap foreign labor


Hickory, N.C. - Circa 1912

I highly recommend reading this article. Journalist Ayelish McGarvey has done a good job of showing us how the WTO and lax enforcement of its rules are affecting real American lives.

Excerpts:

"....In 2001, China's entrance into the World Trade Organization took the American hosiery industry by storm; within one year, the value of that country's exports of non-cotton socks to the United States soared by 462 percent....

"....without political intervention, the leanest of American hosiery manufacturers are still no match for China, which boasts a huge labor force and an undervalued currency. These days, Dan St. Louis is turning his attention to the politics of free trade: At the end of next year, quotas on Chinese imports will be lifted, giving China unlimited access to U.S. markets. St. Louis is assisting manufacturers in drafting a safeguard petition to the Committee for Implementation of Textile Agreements to extend the quotas. "I realized that no matter what I do and no matter how efficient our people are, we are going to lose a majority of our industry if we don't do something about China," he says. "We feel like we've been sold out..."

"...China's violations of trade rules such as transshipment and patent protection put American manufacturers even further behind. Assistant Commerce Secretary William Lash said in November that he would give China a "gentleman's C to a D+" grade on its performance over the past year in enforcing World Trade Organization commitments...."

Composer John Adams
Interview on NPR

John Adams
Credit: Deborah O'Grady Copyright 2003
John Adams is one of the most oft-performed and influential living American composers.
He's featured today at NPR.

Paul O'Neill Exposes the Ugliness of Post-Reaganites

This WSJ opinion is only a beginning for the poison-pen articles and columns soon to be written about Paul O'Neill.
In reality, O'Neill's honest tattle-tales could fall out in unseen yet healing ways.
It's time to heal our nation. What will that entail?
It will entail exposing everything that was wrong about the Reagan era.
Ultra-Conservative Republicans want to perpetuate a myth about the greatness of it all.
They hope to hold on to the highest power over Americans by perpetuating the myth. We need an honest conversation.
We need to expose the Dick Cheneys, the Karl Roves and the Grover Norquistians (I certainly didn't say Christians) for what they are. They are greedy, ugly-souled, unAmerican devils with a vicious, blind and unjust ideology. They are pulling the strings of the 2000-carefully-placed Howdy-Doody Bush in our White House.
I'm glad Paul O'Neill had the ego sufficient to remain an honest Lone Ranger. It allowed him the opportunity to see what really went on in the secretive Bush administration and survive to tell the gory tales.

When Dick Cheney says: "Reagan proved deficits don't matter", he conveniently forgets that the visionary Bill Clinton came along for eight years to cover his ass. Deficits do matter to American parents who don't want to pass all their greedy debt onto the backs of their children.

Poll: Alternative News Gaining Influence

"....People are turning increasingly to alternatives such as the Internet for news about the presidential campaign, shifting away from traditional outlets such as the nightly network news and newspapers, a poll found..."

If this means a reliance upon cable news and SNL, I'm very afraid to tell you we're being dumbed down. Beware.
SNL has become nothing more than entertainment (without the intellect). Cable news is tabloid schlock.
If it means the Daily Show and the blogs are kicking in as a meaningful influence, it's encouraging news.
The fact that network shows like Nightline and any newspapers are being ignored/abandoned is very discouraging.
Like them or hate them, the newspapers are a wonderful source of learning about some of the most important issues.
Perhaps people are becoming discouraged in the lack of truly liberal treatment of issues in today's newspapers.
The Internet has taken up the flame that was once carried by bold newsprint journalists. In a way, that's sad. But I guess that's progress in (small d) democracy.

Notes on last night's Democratic debate

Maria Celeste Arraras, who co-facilitated last night's Democratic debate was unprofessional to throw in her personal statements after candidates had respectfully replied to her open-ended questions. I thought it was a poorly-led debate which produced nothing more than soundbites and barely-explored ideas. Adam Nagourney at the NY Times said "The debate revealed no major new differences among the candidates, and for the most part allowed them to use their last joint televised appearance to restate the themes most of them have been sounding in the state for more than a year."
I think that's a fair statement.

I'll give you an example of how Maria Celeste Arraras was unprofessional. Howard Dean was asked if those non-citizens who went to war for the U.S. should be granted citizenship. Howard Dean, while generally in support, said the issue needs to be carefully thought out to avoid Hispanics eager for citizenship disproportionately signing up to serve. Rather than asking him to explain, Maria Celeste Arraras said (not once, but after TWO of Dean's statements, that Puerto Ricans sign up for the military because "they want to".
"Because they want to"?! HELLO? What the hell does that mean? it could mean anything from -they need money; -they think it's their only route to citizenship; -it's their only hope of paying for an education; it's the only way to support their family...or maybe they really DO want the thrill of being in the middle of a war where people shoot at them daily.
"Because they want to" could mean anything.

If Maria Celeste Arraras had asked Dean the right questions rather than defensively assuming he was trying to keep "her kind" out of the white-man's United States, here is what I think she would have heard:
Dean, out of compassion and fairness to all people, doesn't want to use poor Hispanics as toy soldiers for the pleasure of chickenhawk-dreaming.

John Kerry pandered to Arraras, reassuring her (at any cost,apparently) that legal immigrants in the military have already met certain standards and should get automatic citizenship. This, in my opinion, only assures that it will be easier for our leaders to send needy young men to their fact-manufactured wars. We'll have more (poor/brown) bodies to play with.

Howard Dean is right in saying we need to have a bitterly frank conversation about race in this country.

I wish Dean would have stood up a bit more to Al Sharpton. Sharpton had every right to bring up the record of
having no people of color in his Vermont cabinet. I think Dean should have shamelessly explained that Vermont has
less than 1% black population as compared to nearly 13% in the entire country.

Sigh. Lester Holt brought up the Confederate flag issue again. (Sadly creating division rather than drawing out some new ideas from these 9 candidates). Both Dean and Edwards hopped on the bandwagon, calling the Confederate flag a dreaded ugly symbol. Edwards said that the flag was offensive "to all Americans." While I realize that's how many people see it, I also realize it's because many people are not properly educated about the Civil War. I hate seeing politicians perpetuating ignorance. Pardon my blatant honesty here, but I have no choice. I'm compelled to step aside politics and tell the truth.
Yes-the Confederate flag is a symbol of where we never want to be again as a nation. But the flag is a symbol of where we were..under which many American men died in a tragic and lengthy confrontation between fellow citizens..fellow immigrants..fellow brothers.
I think they both miss a fact that would ring true with many southern families (and perhaps citizens of other American states who have since relocated). A lot of American family ancestors died in the Civil War. The flag stands for a heritage that is not exclusively tied to slavery. The Civil War was about much more than slavery. The Emanicipation Proclamation turned out to be Lincoln's resort...not Lincoln's initial goal. While Lincoln believed slavery was "founded on the selfishness of man's nature---opposition to it on his love of justice", he also made it politically clear that, before becoming President, he'd had "no purpose to introduce political and social equality between the white and black races....". In a debate with Stephan Douglas on August 21, 1858, in Ottawa, Illinois, Lincoln said: "I, as well as Judge Douglas, am in favor of the race to which I belong having the superior position."
This is something not commonly known or taught in the public schools, but it is very true. Lincoln thought the black race was beneath the White. He said so himself...so please do not read this and consider me a race-beater. I am merely citing historical fact. In reality, I am a member of a racially-mixed family.
We cannot bury the truth, as hard as we try. We cannot bury the Confederate flag. And I don't think Democrats or Republicans should necessarily embrace it, but at the same time, they shouldn't totally toss it to the trash bucket of American history. I believe that, if we'd been taught HONESTLY in the public schools about the realities of the issues surrounding the Civil War, we wouldn't be living in this divisive twisted fantasy of Noth good/South bad today.

An honest discussion of America's perverted race-relations history is very necessary. Politicians must be honest about their stand on Reparations, too. Joe Lieberman was called on the issue last night and gave a vague-yet-fairly-appropriate reply (considering being put on the spot).

Governor Dean said a payroll tax cut would most likely come out of the general fund in the form of a tax credit. I hope he hurries. Thanks to smelly pigs like Grover Norquist, the general fund has been sucked nearly dry.

Silent thoughts:

"Ay-yi-yi...What am I doing working for this goob?........"
0
0
0

Credit: Reuters
Empty Promises, Empty Rhetoric, Empty Heads


No Child Left Behind, Two Years Later

Hmmmmmm....
Pentagon auditors set to clear Halliburton
"...The Defense Contract Audit Agency said Army Corps of Engineers officials overseeing the oil contract had promised a "business case" that showed prices billed by Halliburton unit Kellogg Brown and Root for fuel delivered by a subcontractor were "fair and reasonable" and the issue would then be closed..."
"....Pressure eased on the company over the pricing issue after Army Corps chief Lt. Gen. Robert Flowers signed a waiver on Dec. 19 that KBR did not need to provide certified "cost and pricing data" related to a sole-source fuel contract with Altanmia....."

~~~~~~~~

"..The Pentagon audit agency said earlier in the week that the Corp had already said the business case would show prices billed by Halliburton unit Kellogg Brown and Root (KBR) for fuel delivered by a subcontractor were "fair and reasonable."
"...Neither the Army Corps nor the Pentagon would provide details about the document, but they are expected to knock down price-gouging allegations against the company once chaired by Vice President Dick Cheney...." LINK



The DCAA seems to have waved a magic wand here...POOF! $61.7 million in overcharges gone!
Oye.
~~~~~~~~~

HMMMMMMM UPDATE--
Report: Pentagon Auditors Altered Files
Time for an investigation on the accuracy of the Halliburton/KBR overcharge whitewash?

Credit: Working for Change

NY Times: My So-Called Blog

This could be THE most important issue for Election 2004:
Verifiable Paper Trails - H.R. 2239


H.R 2239 is a bill in the house insuring a verifiable paper trail in the upcoming election.
There is a website which is hosting a petition: Working for Change
I'm urging you to go and sign.

You can write a letter (easily) here:Electronic Frontier Foundation. See Action page.

Also, write Rep. Bob Ney of Ohio who is the head of the committee holding H.R. 2239 hostage.
Give him a piece of your mind.

See ARMACT blog for more information

This is intimidating..check it out.

Dean and Clark-Dream Team? This is a time for caution/wisdom

I think Josh Marshall has a great point HERE.
Personally, I envision Clark and Dean as a dream team. The quickest way for Dean to lose ground to Clark would be to beat the "he-was-pro-war" drums. Clark, like Dean, is coming in from the outside of the Washington inner-circle. Just as I take Governor Dean at his word today, (giving trustful benefit of doubt about past statements), I personally believe General Clark's words about his stand on the war today. Governor Dean cannot employ the same tactics used by the corporate media to attack past statements made by another popular candidate. It only demeans his own campaign.
To me, it would be the most patriotic move these two gentleman could EVER make to come together in a refreshingly new way and fight Bush together.
We Dean-supporters should be very careful in distributing unofficial campaign literature. It could hurt Dean as easily as help. We know the type of media atmosphere against which we are fighting.

Shrines



They may be the center of our daily experience or exist on the fringes of our consciousness. They may be intentional, or accidental; they are the border between yesterday, today, tomorrow; between heart and spirit, despair and hope, time and timelessness.



"Meister Eckhart, the medieval Christian mystic, said that 'if gratitude were our only prayers, then that would be enough.' These little shrines here are very much an expression of that," he says. "They are filled with pictures of friends and family, and little things that I have picked up along the way - seashells or pieces of bark. Some of them I remember distinctly; over time, I have forgotten the specific significance of other things. But they all trigger a sense of gratitude in me, a sense of connection to people and places."



Shrine of a different color



900 "illegal" shrines demolished in Mumbai, India



'At all places where the eye rests, and also at places where the eye does not rest, the busy chisel of the artist has worked incessantly. The abode of god has been enveloped by a variety of figures depicting the good and the evil, the great as well as the insignificant, the daily occurences of human life....'
-Rabindranath Tagore

Paula the Whore (Or: 'Paula, You Ignorant Slut!')

Atrios reposts part of an interview with Dean manager Joe Trippi conducted by Paula Zahn, one of the queens of disinformation-spread. Joe handled it well.
I'm really getting sick of this shit. I know I'm not the only one.
The cable news media is overdue to be overthrown.
I propose an American revolution against these lazy gossip journalists.

Update/ABC News: "The Bloggy, Bloggy Banks
Twas There that Trippi Parted...with CNN's Paula Zahn"

Whaaaa????
I don't see any latte or sushi.....Where?
I've got some hot dogs on the grill and a Bud in the cooler.
No! That's not a Volvo, that's my raft.
What the heck are you goofy Growth Clubbers talking about, anyhow?
Are you nuts?! That's not a purebred..it's my darling mutt Mike!





"Gee whiz, Bill! Maybe them Deanies aren't the latte-sippin' Hollywood-lovin' weirdos we suspected them to be! The elderly couple on that there TV ad were only Hollywood actors tryin' to look like one of us, anyhow. Let's go crack a Bud with the gal and ler her tell us about Howard Dean!"

~~~~~~~~~~~~

We are the great grassroots campaign of the modern era, built from mouse pads, shoe leather and hope.

We seek to build a community of millions and strengthen the voice of the people.

And like the founders of our republic, we seek change.

Our campaign is about who we are as Americans. This President has forgotten ordinary people-- but you have the power to reclaim our nation's destiny.

Do so by taking action today:

Join the Dean Campaign.

Of Pipelines, Wars, Survival


Ted Rall has further thoughts on our reasons for the attack on Afghanistan.

An anonymous party wants us to think about unspoken reasons for war, too. Where will you be when the great Oil Crash comes?

I knew all along that a superior man could not stay with the blind Bush



"The superior man understands what is right; the inferior man understands what will sell.
-The superior man loves his soul; the inferior man loves his property.
-The superior man always remembers how he was punished for his mistakes; the inferior man always remembers what presents he got.
-The superior man is liberal toward others' opinions but does not completely agree with them; the inferior man completely agrees with others' opinions, but is not liberal toward them.
-The superior man is firm, but does not fight; he mixes easily with others, but does not form cliques.
-The superior man blames himself; the inferior man blames others.
-The superior man is always candid and at ease with himself or others; the inferior man is always worried about something."
-Confucius

Josh Marshall is talking in the mainstream media today. Josh is laying David Brooks out for his irresponsible slandering

"...Let's be clear on what's going on here. Pressure groups exist in politics. The loose association of people generally termed "neoconservative" use the term to describe themselves. And while no group is monolithic in its thinking, neocons generally think of themselves as a group and act in that fashion. The point is that this is an ideological group in American politics. The people who are a part of it see it as such, as do its critics and opponents. And yet many now want to use blanket criticisms of anti-Semitism to stigmatize and ward off any and all criticism.."

I am so glad this has been said.
As I mentioned earlier this week, injustices by so-called professional journalists need to be pointed out. They need to be shown as examples of what not to do if you plan to be seen as a credible journalist.
Again, Josh, thank you.

Bush Officials Slammed with RICO complaint-The Media is Blacking this out. WHY?

9-11 Widow Ellen Mariani's "Open Letter to Bush"

Listen to the media, the GOP, and the DLC screeching about how Dean is left-wing extremist. Consider the actual left-wing view. Get real.
If we're going to unseat the Bushies in November, we'd best get real. This isn't a game we're playing. Our troops are dying every day in a land in which we know they don't belong. The Bushies have gotten them into a quagmire situation.
They cannot leave Iraq for years and years because the moment they leave, the Iraqi government will be overthrown by the "occupied" people. Because we do not have world-cooperation in a true sense of the word, the coalition-propped Iraqi governing council will not be given legitimacy by the Iraqi people.
All this must change, and there is absolutely no indication that the Bushies plan to turn this around.
Left extremists are pie-in-the-sky to abandon the potential of Howard Dean to take this reality and turn it back to sanity. The more they rip away at Dean, the higher the chance they'll be handed the nightmare of the Bushies for another 4 years. And they'll be whining and protesting about the same thing all through those 4 years. How foolish. Bloody foolish.
When will we learn?

We've known about this long before Paul O'Neill confirmed it.
Today's Drudge Report top-headline goes like this:

"FORMER TREASURY SECRETARY PAUL ONEILL SAYS INVASION OF IRAQ WAS PLANNED IN THE FIRST DAYS OF THE BUSH ADMINISTRATION LONG BEFORE 9/11, IN AN EXCLUSIVE INTERVIEW SUNDAY ON "60 MINUTES"

This big news flash on the Drudge Report is something we have known for a long time. Why is it that, just because Paul O'Neill suddenly says so, it's now "legitimate" and headline-worthy whereas before it was left-wing lunacy?

I guess the reason the dusty old news is worthy of a headline today is because a Bush insider finally lets a truth pass over his previously-sealed lips (GASP).

May 4, 2003 /Iddybud:

LADIES AND GENTS- MEET YOUR WAR CABINET

9-11 was not caused by Saddam Hussein....
Hussein (granted, not a great guy) was nowhere CLOSE to having
WMDs that would threaten our national security...
but 9-11 was the perfect catalyst..the
"springboard to a dream" for the PNAC.
Jude 2:28 PM May 4, 2003

".."I owned a horse once. I loved him better than my own son," said Yusuf Majid, 58, a dignified but threadbare man who was eagerly pressing against the fence to watch one race. "Here in Iraq, times are bad, security is bad, work is bad. The only things we have to enjoy are these beautiful horses...."

Daily Times/Pakistan Op-ed:
Postmodernism and Islam: After 9/11? —Professor Akbar S Ahmed
The challenge to postmodernism did not come from the expected quarters. It came from George W Bush and Osama bin Laden...

"...postmodernism is, if nothing else, is resilient. Ideas of universal acceptance, compassion and understanding are difficult to erase. While Islam is being demonised by many in America as a religion of terrorists and extremists, books on Islam are doing brisk business at the bookstores.
Maulana Rumi, a Muslim mystic born centuries ago in what is now Afghanistan, is one of America’s favourite poets. Rumi’s example in itself is evidence the spirit of postmodernism still survives the Grand Narrative.
Indeed, it is desperately needed in the violent and anarchic world that September 11 has engendered. The predicament of living in the early part of the21st century will be assuaged by the promise and practice of universal compassion and understanding that lie at the heart of both postmodernism and Islam."

YES! Harkin Endorses Dean!



"He's the Harry Truman of our generation"
-Iowa Senator Tom Harkin on Howard Dean

Harkin blogs on BlogforAmerica.com after endorsing Dean in IA - Credit: photo by Ryan Witt/ DeanforAmerica.com

NostradamIddy Predicts-
October 31, 2004
U.S. ASTRONAUTS FIND SADDAM AGAIN!
THIS TIME ON MARS!!!

These are especially the times I realize we need new leadership

"Iran is ready to negotiate with all countries, and America is no exception," Foreign Minister Kamal Kharrazi said on state television. "If it adopts a new approach to Iran and is ready to interact with us based on mutual respect and the principle of equality, the atmosphere will change remarkably."

This is a great opportunity. I am hearing great messages of hope from leaders of Iran, Syria, Libya (although I have nothing but disgust for the appeased terrorist Osama Bin Laden Mu'ammar Gadhafi).

On one hand, we have Bush/Cheney/Rumsfeld and their track record of reliance upon (and involvement with) the NeoCon "no diplomacy" gang. They are a stubborn, mean lot. They refuse to play well with others. They would have failed Kindergarten...and I'm not joking about that.

On the other hand, we have hope. We we know now that will entail new U.S. leadership.

Nothing to Fear But Fear Itself

When a big head on your cable news TV screen (you know the type-perfect coif/chiclet-white teeth/doe eyes/glossy plastic-puffy lips) is telling you that the sky is falling and the code is yellow and the big bad wolf is out to kill you, kill you, kill you, kill you, ........

...remember that FEAR is POWER.


"An invisible man was gonna blow up the world yesterday. He didn't show up for his flight. But we know he was gonna do it. Chances are YOU would've died! The great Bush saved the world. We're all gonna die!"

I'm sick of the hopelessness and fear-mongering which is promoted on our media today.
Aren't you?
Did you ever think the Bush administration may LIKE you to remain afraid...feeling powerless? Needing them to take care of you?
The great hope of our Founding Fathers was self-government.
How is it that we have forgotten?

We, the People, have the POWER to take back our country and make it a place of hope once again, we need to remember the words of Franklin Delano Roosevelt (from his first inaugural speech):

"...This is preeminently the time to speak the truth, the whole truth, frankly and boldly. Nor need we shrink from honestly facing conditions in our country today. This great Nation will endure as it has endured, will revive and will prosper. So, first of all, let me assert my firm belief that the only thing we have to fear is fear itself—nameless, unreasoning, unjustified terror which paralyzes needed efforts to convert retreat into advance. In every dark hour of our national life a leadership of frankness and vigor has met with that understanding and support of the people themselves which is essential to victory..."
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Read the words of someone who doesn't happen to be American. Get some perspective, people.

"The sun set on the British Empire and we've pretty much managed to deal with it. You'll cope. And you'll cope a lot better if you start remembering that all those people coming into your country are mostly your guests rather than your enemies, and that they've come to visit the Land of the Free, a beacon of fairness and democracy in this benighted world...
.....Vigilance is an ongoing low-key kind of thing that involves people quietly observing and doing what needs to be done, not this arm-waving 'we're all going to die if we don't stop every brown-skinned person coming into our country' hysteria. Your country boasts continually about its intelligence gathering, yet from here I can't help thinking that your intelligence gathering isn't very effective if you can't actually find the people you're looking for – the ones who you claim to know about – without harrassing everyone else along the way.....

Helen Thomas: Remove Arrows from Dean's Back
Cocco: A Goal for Dean: Push a Multi-Faith Theme
Madison Capital Times: Dean's Right on Saddam
Lindorff: Dean and his Democratic detractors


Helena Cobban to U.S. Government: Grow Up/Stop lying and rewriting History/Recognize your place in the world

Grow up and get used to it, babe. People are still chewing and stewing about 1876.
Perhaps the readers at World Net Daily have forgotten about Sam Tilden vs. Rutherford B. Hayes, but historians are
still arguing the legitimacy of that one.
If you think people aren't going to be talking about Bush v. Gore in 2004, you're plum nuts.
Of course the GOP would be wary to respond.
Their guy won by one dubious vote (by hijacking robed partisans instead of the People) in a case never worthy to be used as precedent for any other future case that could be called "legal".
Rightwing screechmonkeys kept telling Dems to "get over it"...now I have to tell the rightwing screechmonkeys to get over it themselves. Criminy, their man won.
Grow up, already. Take the consequences of the dubious action, crybabies.

Gephardt and Kerry's desperate teams read the New York Times Pop-Schlock Op-Eds, Too
See?
Now, what did I predict just yesterday?

Oh, man..these hacks are so predictable....everything I said came true!
Look at what Gephardt's manager wrote to Dean manager Joe Trippi..in part:
"..In the past several weeks, it has come to our attention that your campaign in Iowa is engaged in an effort to violate caucus rules and send out-of-state supporters to pose as Iowa residents and caucus in cities and towns across the state.
First reported in Newsweek (November 22, 2003; enclosed), one of your staff members has contacted us to confess that efforts to send non-Iowans to caucus is indeed a critical piece of your "perfect storm" strategy. Despite your campaign's claim in the Newsweek story that action taken to organize out of state voters were those of a single "kid from Burlington," we have learned that the problem is much deeper than that....An op-ed in yesterday's New York Times (January 7, 2003; enclosed) correctly points out that one doesn't need "a valid voter registration card or proof of residency -- any identification at all -- to take part in Iowa's caucuses. [sic]..."
Letter and reply in entirety here.

Did I peg these selazoids or what?????

Not a word of these accusations are true. I volunteer on the Dean team...they are on the square about everything they ask us to do.
It's nothing more than opportunist filth borne of gossip journalism. Kudos to Dan Savage and especially the new Enquirer-style editors at the N.Y.Times! Bring Jayson Blair back! Woohoo.

By the way, I doubt there's a shred of truth to this sleazy accusation. It looks like a grande play on wording.

Powell Slams Carnegie Think-Tank Report on Iraq

...but Powell accepted policies on Iraq that he believed were calamitous. He is diminished as a result

Why should we now put our faith in the Sceretary who cried 'Wolf'?

Sure you do, rightwing screechmonkey, sure you do
I knew it would take these whiners about a minute to capitalize negatively on the Maidstone Club/Dean connection after reading Mark Singer's New Yorker piece.
Meowwwwww!

Did you ever ask yourself:
'What will David Frum look like in another 30 years?'



Wonder no more.
ANONYMOSES has developed new technology to allow you to glimpse into the Frum future.
It's amazing...absolutely amazing!

New Yorker/Mark Singer
Howard Dean--Running On Instinct
I'm going to sit in my comfy chair and read this new Mark Singer article about Howard Dean. It's in my January 12, 2004 edition of the New Yorker (which just arrived in my mail).
I wanted to make you aware that it's on the internet...so you can read along with me!
*I wish you could see the childhood photos of Governor Dean and his family.*

BBC News-"Your Party":
Howard Dean is the Inspiration for New British Political Party
"...The idea grew out of a disillusionment with mainstream politics, and a desire "to do some good, to make a difference". He also insists that Your Party is not a slave to any existing political ideology.
"There is no single political idea. It doesn't sit somewhere on the political spectrum.
"We believe that there should be some structure there which represents people on an issue-by-issue basis. We believe that should be a part of the political landscape."

New Republic is Decidedly Part of the Stop-Dean Machinery

They endorse Joe Lieberman
On the same day, they make a case for Wesley Clark.
(Seems oddly contradictory, doesn't it?)

As Dean supporters, New Republic's assault upon the intellect and morality of Howard Dean is incredibly insulting to OUR intelligence and OUR morality.
Quote: "The problem with Dean's vision of the Democratic Party is more than electoral; it is intellectual and moral."

To this, I can only reply that both Lieberman and Dean are intelligent, honest, moral men.
They have a difference in their views on how the Democrats conducted themselves over the past three years.
When it all falls out, we will be left behind to take those differences in ideology and let the chips fall where they may.
It is entirely out of line to make a moral issue of the differences.
After the heinous awakening in September, 2001, in the end, the choice between Lieberman and Dean is all about the ease with which the Democrats facilitated Bush's unnecessary (non-terror-related) war. Over 500 of our troops are gone now. We can't bring them back. Oh Lord, I wish we could. But we can insure we have a leader who won't hawkishly lead us (and our children) by the nose to another unnecessary war. The greatest case for Dean vs. Lieberman began in October, 2002. It is a matter of trusting the intelligent and reasonable intuition of a leader. We'll have rough waters to navigate over the next eight years. I trust Howard Dean the most. I'm confident most Americans will agree with me as we go through the nomination season.

Here's what I think about this New Republic Statement knocking Howard Dean:

"The Democratic Party is racing back to the '80s.."

If they mean the 1780s, they may be right.
Howard Dean is reminding us all what the Constitution means and that we, the People, have a vested interest in participating to create a healthier democracy. Our ideas matter..not the ideas of the "New Democrats" and the "DLC".....but all of us.

Take a look at this beauty from the New Republic endorsement:

"Liberals resent Lieberman's moralism."

That, my blogdom friends, is what we call a crock of shit (please pardon the French).

KOS has commentary about the TNR endorsement. He used the first phrase that came to my mind after reading the
schlocky piece: Did I mention TNR sucks?


~~~~~~~~~~~~

UPI Analysis: Is Clark on the Skids?

"...Why did retired Gen. Wesley Clark "take a Sherman" and bow out of consideration as Howard Dean's vice presidential running mate Sunday? Clark is clearly "going for broke," still convinced he can grasp the Democratic presidential nomination. But it does not appear to be a wise strategy.
....For Clark is being unexpectedly whipsawed from two directions. He now finds himself fighting a political war on two fronts, and he is losing both of them.....
....All this could yet change. Clark might after all defy the polls and humble Dean as he expected to in the South and West. But so far, the poll numbers and the other data flowing in from the field all point against it. Clark is not breathing down Dean's neck. The cold, icy ghost of Al Haig's presidential meltdown is breathing down his..."

Shame Upon our Nation:
Dr. Rafil Dhafir- Locked up in the Bush administration's "war on terror"

His "crime" was to help desperate Iraqis.

"....WHILE SADDAM Hussein remains locked up at an undisclosed location in Iraq, another Iraqi man is behind bars in Jamesville Penitentiary in New York state. The jailer in both cases is the U.S. government.
Dr. Rafil Dhafir has spent over nine months in various prisons in the area around Syracuse, N.Y. He was arrested on February 26, 2003, by federal officials for violating the International Economic Powers Act. This law prohibits individuals from providing material aid to the Iraqi people.
Dhafir has been targeted because of his work with the U.S.-based charity organization Help the Needy. Help the Needy was founded in 1994 with the intention of soliciting money for the starving and oppressed people of Iraq...
Was he just one more casualty in the government’s ruthless drive to war? Was this arrest and the intimidation tactics used against thousands of Arab-Americans and Muslims in this country simply a way to "shock and awe" potential antiwar activists into submission? Was Dhafir targeted to deflect attention away from Bush’s obsession with overthrowing Saddam Hussein?...
...In the final analysis, Dr. Rafil Dhafir is no criminal. Rather, he is a hero for his compassion, bravery and dedication to humanitarian causes. His victimization by the U.S. government should serve as a clarion call to alert us to a government and justice system that has turned the world of heroes and criminals upside down. "

-Dhafir has been an American citizen since 1972, but he was born and educated in Iraq. He is also a prominent member of the Muslim community in Syracuse, N.Y., and a much-respected doctor specializing in the care of cancer patients.-

Middle East/Food for thought:
Peace threats--Columnist asks why no peace-plan is "serious" enough for Sharon
"...The EU-Syria multi-billion euro Economic and Political Agreement is to be signed early this year.
This requires Damascus to implement its economic reform plans. Hence, the way forward for the young Assad is to continue to bombard Israel with peace threats..."
- Mustapha Karkouti, former president, Foreign Press Association in London

~~~~~~~~

Syrian President Assad's recent comments about nuclear proliferation have not helped to secure the
EU-Syrian Political and Economic agreement. (Assad had said he would not agree to destroy his chemical weapons unless Israel abandoned its undeclared nuclear arsenal, estimated at between 100 and 200 warheads. "Unless this applies to all countries, we are wasting our time," he'd said.)
The agreement would open the European markets to Syria, which was an isolated Socialist country. This could be a wonderful opportunity for Syria. I hope they don't blow it.
The European Union still believes that change must come from the young Syrian president who believes in modernism and reform. The delay in this track caused by Assad's negligent comments disappoints European friends who regard Syria's isolation as a setback for the region, and the West. We should all hope President Assad realizes the importance of this agreement and the dangers of WMD proliferation.
I think our own American leadership has been very poor in the area of stemming nuclear proliferation. We've neglected old treaties and have not bothered to reach out to the international community to reach any consensus of new ideas.
Worse yet, the Bush administration has alienated much of the international community and shown the U.N. that they are virtually nothing to us other than a useless hurdle.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Syrian President Bashar Assad began his visit to Turkey ­(the first by a Syrian president since the country’s independence in the 1940s). Many ­have hailed this visit as “historic and optimistic.”

Assad interview on Syria's relations with Turkey

~~~~~~~~~

Link between Syria and Spider-Man and Wal-Mart?
By J.R. Labbe/JWR
"A shopping spree turns into a geo-political awakening"

General Pervez Musharraf has a long, dangerous road ahead of him

Dean has not ruled out a "middle-class tax cut," but that the details have not been completed and the policy would not be announced until after primary voting has begun.

Some of Dean's economic advisors believe he should propose his own tax cuts for the middle class — both to ease the economic strain on working families and to avoid giving Bush an opening to run similar political ads. LINK

Josh Marshall on Davis Brooks 1-6 column

A Word About the 1-6 David Brooks Column
I just noticed that Josh Marshall wrote about the January 6 Brooks column and had similar things to say....in his own unparagoned way, of course. See Talking Points Memo.

"...One of the greatest rhetorical and moral challenges of opinion writing is how to respond to or critique aggressively dishonest or tendentious arguments. One part of you wants to discuss the underlying issue with its complexities and ambiguities intact
--- and every issue has complexities and ambiguities. But, in battles of ideas, decibels and clarity matter. And, to take up a different sort of metaphor, the niceties of conflict resolution are hardly appropriate or sensible if you’re trapped in a dark alley with a couple mafia goons...
A case in point is the increasingly brazen tendency for conservative columnists to label any critical discussion of neoconservatism as a form of anti-Semitic diatribe."

Thank you, Josh.

FLUMMERY Rocks!
This site has my TTLB New Blog Showcase vote..it's very funny!
Flummery: Howard Dean Says Something

Guardian: Carnegie group says Bush made wrong claims on WMD
Julian Borger in Washington
Thursday January 8, 2004
"...The Bush administration will today be accused of "systematically misrepresenting" the threat posed by "Iraq's weapons of mass destruction" in a comprehensive report on post-war findings.
The report, by four experts on weapons proliferation at the respected Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, is likely to reignite calls for acommission to look into the government's pre-war intelligence claims."


Washington Post article

Whoa! What happened? I stepped through the looking glass and......

The Five Hundred
By William Rivers Pitt
t r u t h o u t | Perspective
Thursday 8 January 2004

Fuzzy Math
"..The number of wounded American soldiers shipped home fails to find a consistent count. Some say 2,000, others say 9,000, and still others say 11,000 and rising. Another generation of shredded American veterans has been born, honored when the country needs heroes to inspire the next generation into enlisting, but forgotten the rest of the time, left to pinch pennies and rub the stumps where their healthy young legs used to send them running and leaping and dancing through a life they surrendered in a blinding flash of pain and light.

The number now stands at 487 Americans killed, according to figures provided by the Department of Defense. The Army Times, a reading staple for the enlisted ranks, had different numbers before the New Year. Jimmy Breslin, columnist from Newsday, wrote on December 30 that the Army Times said, "There were 506 killed by the time the newspaper closed last Friday. Since then, another seven have died. The newspaper has said this is the deadliest year for the U.S. military since 1972, when 640 were killed in Vietnam." That makes 513 Americans killed before the ball dropped in Times Square. Add the six who have died since then, and the number becomes 519. Even on this most important tabulation, the numbers are fuzzy...

There is no accurate accounting of the civilians who have died, but a cross-section of the math places their count in the tens of thousands. They died in their homes, shocked and awed before the fire took them. They died in the streets, fleeing the storm. They died in their beds from wounds, or disease, or despair."

David Brooks is falling in line (sheep-like) with the newly attempted Bush administration appearance to separate itself from the Neo-cons

What an intellectual weakling David Brooks seems to be. I'd expect something far more reasonable from him...some clue to show me he's not a victim of dependent thought.
I find it intellectually dishonest for Brooks to claim that there is an anti-Israeal component to any American's complaint about the troubling influence the PNAC has had with the Bush administration.
Brooks moans:
"..the people labeled neocons (con is short for "conservative" and neo is short for "Jewish") travel in widely different circles and don't actually have much contact with one another."

So who died and left David Brooks the judge and jury of who's an anti-Semite, already?

I am a liberal American who wants to see American support, fairness and safety for the people of Israel...and a solution to the two-state plan... and I realize it should NOT involve negotiating with terrorists. Now, how do we define terror?
Ariel Sharon was personally responsible for the slitting of the throats of many Palestinian villagers (see: Sabra and Chatila/Kibya/Commando Unit 101). Like Arafat, he's no stranger to terror. What if Bush had once ordered (and participated in) the slitting of throats of innocent people before he ever came to power over our nation? It would be like trusting Col. John Chivington to strike a peace negotiation with the Native Americans after the Sand Creek Massacre. Bush may be a puppet-warrior, but when he was (s)elected in 2000, we knew he had shirked violence as a young (AWOL) man. He's a tough-talking marshmallow chickenpuff. Not so with Sharon, I'm afraid. What I really hate to see is Bush patterning his war on terror based upon any Sharon-like unilaterlist tactics. It's a recipe for hate everlasting...war everlasting. When these leaders..Sharon and Arafat.. love and respect their duties to their respective citizens more than hating one another, perhaps real negotiation can take place.
Perhaps I'm anti-terrorist or anything remotely associated; perhaps I'm not fond of the Likud party; perhaps I am not fond of the American version of Likud (the Perles/Frums) infiltrating American foreign policy. Likud is a political party, by the way...not a people.
Someone should remind David Brooks. He may be confused..ignorant..deliberate?
Here's my point: No one can ever have the right to call me anti-Semitic...not David Brooks..not G-d Himself.

I'd tell Brooks to stop his false generalising about the Jewish-American population. They aren't all Richard Perles, nor are they all supporters of Douglas Feith or avid readers of William Kristol.
Sorry, David Brooks..those aren't requirements in G-d's pro-Semite playbook...only in the cheapshot partisan's playbook.

I find Brooks' apparent effort to divide us by his racist talk to be factionalising, condescending and ignorant. It's typical of the pop-schlock Conservative writer of today..abandoning honest intellectualism for factionalizing generalisation. It's no wonder we are so politically polarized in America. How shall we ever be able to help the people of Israel when we have these N.Y. Times pundits creating false suspicion and creating further divide between Americans? How can we look with any judgement toward people in foreign lands when our own house is so filled with partisan hatred?

Bush is worried about re-election..has the taint of the PNAC on him...can David Brooks help remove the scent of a Neo-Con? Fee-Fi-Fo-Fum...I smell the stench of Perle and Frum

Brooks also sounds absolutely daft in trying to portray the NeoCon philosophy as something that was never welcomed into the White House or their policies. Richard Perle and Douglas Feith are just two examples of people employed by the Bush administration to assist in consulting (and forming) U.S. foreign policy.

I'm highly suspicious of a new political trend here..perhaps a Bush re-election tactic.. in light of the fact that, on the Today show this morning, I heard there were going to be guests who "had the ear of the Bush administration, but now are criticizing their foreign policy". I thought to myself.."Hmmm....you mean NBC is actually going to put someone on the air who openly rips away at the Bush foreign policy? Whoa..I'm going to have to tune in....". So I waited. Guess who came on? Richard Perle and David Frum. What a joke! They stopped just short of saying we'd be warring with these nations in order to effect a regime change. Diplomacy was absolutely not in the cards with their way of thinking. All they wanted to do was to criticize the State Department (so Bush doesn't have to) and make way for filling Colin Powell's spot in 2004 (should Bush be re-elected) with a NeoCon-friendly hack who will submit to a regime change policy (ie:WAR) in Iran, Syria, and who knows where else?

Ready for the draft, American citizens?
American parents: Are you ready for your boys and girls to go to war?

Yes, yes..I know they're only teenagers now. But in another four years with George Bush, we'll need them
NOT in college classrooms (there won't be jobs for them or money for tuition)...Bush and Richard Perle will need them
to participate in the violent spreading of their co-opted and prostitutionalized version of democracyand freedom.
Keep reading David Brooks. If you believe his theory about reasonable people being "full-mooners", you'd best start preparing your children for an endless, unjust, and dirty, violent war that people like David Brooks (through his race-baiting conspiracy-theory-conspiracy-theory) consciously choose not to put the brakes on.

I'd like to tell Brooks to take his outright accusation of Americans like me being anti-Semitic and shove it. I'm absolutely appalled. He's way out of line. It's high time we start calling these people on such unfair commentary.

Here's a corker from Brooks:

"It's true that both Bush and the people labeled neocons agree that Saddam Hussein represented a unique threat to world peace. But correlation does not mean causation. All evidence suggests that Bush formed his conclusions independently."

To this, I say, most unequivocally, bullshit.

~~~~~~~~~~~

Read Karen Kwiatkowski's take on this issue.
She knows what's happening. She worked amidst it all.

".....The Frumster and Richer Perle have produced a book that finally reveals "their blueprint for what could become the Bush administration’s agenda in the war on terrorism." My dear, dear boys! Are you saying that in a fit of electoral excitement, young Dubya has already begun to diverge from your neo-Jacobin empire mongering? Is he beginning to exhibit a certain lack of concentration on cementing the White House-Likud Alliance? I mean, who could have predicted that in an election year?" ;)

~~~~~~~~~~~




Victory of the Loud Little Handful
by Mark Twain


The loud little handful - as usual - will shout for the war. The pulpit will - warily and cautiously - object... at first. The great, big, dull bulk of the nation will rub its sleepy eyes and try to make out why there should be a war, and will say, earnestly and indignantly, "It is unjust and dishonorable, and there is no necessity for it."
Then the handful will shout louder. A few fair men on the other side will argue and reason against the war with speech and pen, and at first will have a hearing and be applauded, but it will not last long; those others will outshout them, and presently the antiwar audiences will thin out and lose popularity.
Before long, you will see this curious thing: the speakers stoned from the platform, and free speech strangled by hordes of furious men...
Next the statesmen will invent cheap lies, putting the blame upon the nation that is attacked, and every man will be glad of those conscience-soothing falsities, and will diligently study them, and refuse to examine any refutations of them; and thus he will by and by convince himself that the war is just, and will thank God for the better sleep he enjoys after this process of grotesque self-deception.

Mark Twain, "The Mysterious Stranger" (1910)

The anti-Dean hatespeech is firing up on the right
..and the funny part is that anybody could take any sentence from this N.Y. Post hate-piece and put George W. Bush's name on it.
George the Coward. George the Fascist. Blah, blah.
This, my friends, is the real anger.
Howard Dean offers hope. His fiercest critics employ the very tactics of which they accuse Howard Dean.
Come and see the real anger when they know they know they've got nothing more..especially in the hope or reason department.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

The Club for Growth (the club for killing social democracy) is said to be getting ready to air a new ad. SEE AD HERE!
I hope Iowans appreciate being categorized and pandered to as redneck bumpkins by the Club.
Pssst--there are plenty of foreign car dealers, Japanese restaurants, and coffee-lovers in Iowa these days. They've even got those pesky old movie theatres where they can still catch an admiring glimpse of California's new GOP darling Hollywood-type.

In another article about the ad, it says: "That ad's just another stereotype of Iowans by people who think we all live on a farm and eat nothing but corn," grumbled Desirae Coker, 18. A body-piercer at a tattoo parlor, she was reached by phone at her other part-time job, creating lattes and cappuccinos at Java Station in Davenport, Iowa.

Not so,[Stephen]Moore said. "We're not at all ridiculing Midwesterners. What we're trying to do is poke fun at the cultural elite who are the real supporters of the Howard Dean program," he said.

But Coker didn't think so. "In a way, it's kind of like insulting people who are into piercing and coffee-drinking," she said. "It's like, they made some ad to criticize me?"

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"Something irrational comes over Republican governors when they start fraternizing with their Democratic counterparts. A few years ago when congressional Republicans were trying to cut the capital-gains tax and reform welfare — two issues that tremendously benefited states — the governors issued a whiney statement complaining that these policies might hurt the poor because federal payments to the states would be cut."

-Stephen Moore (President of "Club for GrowthKilling Social Democracy") in an article written with fellow social-democracy-killer Grover Norquist

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Arianna Huffington is all for Dean!

New Feature on Technorati-Top 100 Interesting Newcomers
I found this while doing a search.
Fellow League-of Liberals member Futurballa is on today's top 100.

Writer Dan Savage Accuses Dean supporters in Iowa of outright intent to cheat.
The NY Times editorial staff obviously finds this great fodder for gossip. I can just see William Safire and Joe Lieberman salivating now. Drrrrrip...drrrrrrip.
While I scour their pages for more information on the candidates' actual stand on issues..in their own words...I get tabloid-style gossip-mongering.
This attempt at humor is a poorly-masked and insulting accusation (insinuation at best) about the intent of honestly energized (hard-working) campaigners for Howard Dean. (Dean's not named in the column, but anyone with at least a pea-sized brain can figure it out).
Nothing against Dan Savage (he's funny and adorable...and amusingly disgusting for what he admits to having done in Iowa past)...but how about some substance from the NY Times? I mean, we're not all cheaters like Dan admits to being.

I've been turning to the Boston Globe and Washington Post first lately.
Paul Krugman and Bob Herbert are the shining columnists at the NY Times.
Frank Rich is still interesting..I don't see enough from him.
Safire's full of himself (Note: I didn't say full of sh-t..that recent Dean-attack column on the Biblical Job could have put a wildly spinning insomniac to sleep )...David Brooks doesn't apply enough solid reasoning behind his conservative arguments...All Thomas Friedman talks about these days is Poland (what's the obssession with Poland?)...Maureen Dowd is a sourpuss hiding behing her often-destructive line of humor.

William F. Buckley continues his washed-up rant against Howard Dean

"....He [Dean] puts too great a strain on us with his novel ideas about how to redirect America's destiny..."

I suppose, to the hopeless and the poor fearful fools who allow the orange threat level to wipe out the memory of the Constitution of the United States, this may be true.

I saw Gore Vidal virtually bitch-slap Buckley on an old tape of a debate from the late 60s. It was a real cat-fight with Vidal coming out the clear winner. With his great wit, Gore Vidal smilingly turned Buckley into a vitriolic spewing monster. It was priceless. (There's a 15-second clip of it here). I'd love to bitch-slap Bill the whiny Dean-hater myself..if not only to wake him up. Buckley's a wash-up. Retirement is always an option after the 2004 election...I don't think the flab around his jaded ego will energize him to do that anytime sooner.
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"A narcissist is someone better looking than you are."
- Gore Vidal

*Here's a wonderful Gore Vidal reference website*

Long Train's Journey into Night

"Journeys are the midwives of thought" -Alain de Botton
The India Times' Bachi Karkaria writes a personally erotic accounting of a communal experience.
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Food for thought:

"If only we could apply a travelling mind-set to our own locales, we might find these places becoming no less interesting than, say, the high mountain passes and butterfly-filled jungles of [Alexander von] Humboldt's South America."
-Alain de Botton



"One can leave the self through the senses. It is through the senses (though not exclusively) that one perceives what is outside the self--and then these perceptions confirm something within the self, of which one was previously unaware. This confirmation is mysterious--it's one of the sources of the human sense of mystery. The whole world is mysteriously within us."
-John Berger

Transcript of NPR Democrats' Radio Debate January 6, 2004
HOWARD DEAN ON IRAQ:
"I didn't want to go into Iraq in the first place. I thought it was a mistake. I thought that Saddam Hussein did not pose the kind of danger to the United States that, say, the Soviet Union did. But now that we're there, if we pull out precipitously, we may end up with a much greater danger.
Al Qaida was not in Iraq before, but they are now, almost certainly. And if we pull out precipitously, or if we give over the Iraqi government to the Iraqis precipitously, and Al Qaida establishes a foothold in Iraq, we have a much more serious problem in terms of our defense than we did before..."

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JOHN KERRY and CAROL MOSELY BRAUN on Pakistan:

CONAN: Senator Kerry, Pakistani officials are accused of trading nuclear weapons technology to other countries, including Iran, North Korea and, as we heard today, possibly to Libya as well. Pakistan is also an essential American ally in the war on terrorism, and you look at the map, it's crucial to any continuing operations in Afghanistan.
How do you balance those two issues?

JOHN KERRY: It's complicated, but you have to balance them and it's even more complicated than that. There have been two attempts on the life of President Musharraf. The specter of an Islamic radical state with nuclear weapons is unacceptable for the world.
And that is what is at risk in Pakistan today.
Pakistan has, frankly, misled the United States and the world with respect to its proliferation responsibilities for years. I remember meeting in Washington with President Zia, and he lied to my face about what they were doing with respect to nuclear weapons. And that's when we put sanctions in place on Pakistan as a consequence.
I believe that you have to walk a very fine line, but I am convinced we can be tougher with Pakistan. There are steps that we could take now to deal with the northwest component where Osama bin Laden is. We know he's up there. We have not pushed hard enough.
And I think there are combinations of initiatives we could take with India that would also help us resolve the tensions in that area.

CONAN: Ambassador Braun?

CAROL MOSELEY BRAUN: "Senator Kerry is exactly right. When Benazir Bhutto was president she swore directly to us that there was no nuclearizing going on, and we saw the O-rings on the Chinese boat in Karachi's harbor.
The fact of the matter is, Musharraf overthrew a democratically elected government there. We have to work with the Pakistanis but be very clear about the fact that our interests and their interests may not be coherent. There are rumors even that bin Laden is hanging out in the northwest territories there.
So the fact of the matter is, we have to, you know, take advantage of our -- we have to relationship-build even with bad people, but at the same time we have to be very clear about who it is we're dealing with."