True Prophets?

True Prophets?

Do a Google search today on "true prophets".
Out of 4,150,000 hits, "iddybud" is the first hit you'll come across. Go figure. ;)

The Environment and Biblical Obligations

The Environment and Biblical Obligations



Progressive politics and spirituality go hand in hand. A quote from a NYT article by Michael Janofsky:

"We believe that we have a rightful responsibility for what the Bible itself challenges. Working the land and caring for it go hand in hand. That's why I think, and say unapologetically, that we ought to be able to bring to the debate a new voice."

- Richard Cizik, vice president for governmental affairs, National Association of Evangelicals

Iraq in the News

Iraq in the News

Khalilzad Left Hanging by Pentagon's Mistakes in Iraq

Jackson Diehl [WaPo] believes that sticking to the wrong course in Iraq without adequate planning or strategy has made the job of Bagdhad envoy Zalmay Khalilzad extremely tough:

Almost orphaned by a president who limits his public discussion of Iraq to brave democrats and evil terrorists, the ambassador [Zalmay Khalilzad] has worked with enormous energy to channel the complex and increasingly violent struggle for power among Sunnis, Shiites and Kurds into elections and negotiations. The mistakes of the past 2 1/2 years have made his job much harder: Iraqis are far more polarized along ethnic lines than they were in 2003, and the insurgency is deeply entrenched, thanks to the Pentagon's slowness in taking it seriously.

A Horrible Way To Die

In an article by Steve Fainaru in the WaPo, a soldier named Aaron drives home a point that few of us make here in the States. Soldiers know they are dying - not for America - but for Iraq - and if you imagine they are any less confused than you or me about the cause in which we are engaged, then I think you are wrong. What makes me very sad is to understand that these loyal young men and women - our children, fathers, sisters, mothers in Iraq - do what they have agreed to do, and in the end, they do it for the love and respect they have for one another as team members and blood brothers. It makes me want to scream all the louder: Send them home!

"Dying for Iraq is a horrible way to die," said Spec. Aaron Novak, 25, of Billings, Mont. "But to die for your buddies, that's the way I look at it. Iraq is going to be here a long time after we're gone."

At Press Conference, Senate Intelligence Committee Vice-Chairman Rockefeller
Calls For Thorough, Credible, and Prompt Phase II Report
“We owe the American people a full and honest accountability of the intelligence that was used to make the case for going to war.”



Senator Carl Levin (D-MI):

Newly Declassified Information Indicates Bush Administration's Use of Pre-War Intelligence Was Misleading

Edwards Updates at Science and Politics

Edwards Updates at Science and Politics

At Science and Politics: A roundup of recent news about Senator John Edwards.

French Riots - Could it Happen Here?

"People are under pressure, they feel the anger of no jobs and no chance to improve their lives until finally -- boom! -- it just explodes."

_____ ______
"Just allow us the dignity of good jobs and a chance to make better lives. Then the French will have nothing to fear from 'dangerous Muslims'."

________________________________


The French Riots -
Could it Happen Here?
If we create a new federal vision that will fully value and support moderate American Muslims, welcome new Arab-world immigrants, and make policy to support the poorest in our society and in the world, we'll decrease the chances that it will ever happen here.


- UK prime minister Tony Blair is having second thoughts about the anti-terror law he'd proposed, which would allow for detaining suspects for up to 90 days without trial. In a liberal society, he is coming to understand that the Tories will never stand for it. Compromise or negotiation will be in necessary in a liberal society, even though Blair favors the rule. Perhaps the riots in France are causing everyone in Europe to have second thoughts about how to govern in societies with large (and often poor) Muslim populations. [BBC News]

A radical new antiterrorism package unveiled by Interior Minister Nicolas Sarkozy giving the French government the right to deport residents summarily and to strip some Muslims who are deemed "radical" of their naturalized French citizenship is a "zero tolerance" policy which many say will politically play into the hands of militants and strip freedom further away from consideration in the French rule of law. Analysts warn that a western approach which lumps together all forms of Islamism and brands them "radical" or "hostile" could strengthen the appeal of extremists. [source: BBC News]

Mark my words. This new trend of Westen governments summarily stripping people of their citizenship and smothering their freedom of speech is going to reinforce an already-growing image of Western elitism in the Middle Eastern world that will weaken the war of Western ideas and strengthen the cause of extremists.

__________

The Price of Ignoring Pleas for Social Justice:
Idolizing the Wrong Heroes

Let's look at today's Boston Globe:

- What do Osama bin Laden and Rodney King have in common? They are both heros of a young man in France - the son of poor Algerian immigrants -

"One because he gives pride back to the Muslims," the young man asserted as he and a trio of friends stood near the charred ruins of a carpet shop. "The other because he was just a poor man, a 'nobody man' of color, but he caused a great city to burn."

So - this is how terrorism plays out in a permissive society which prides itself so much on equality that it doesn't keep statistics that separate one race or religion from another. Unheeded and silenced cries for social justice snowball into a burning mass of chaos. You haven't seen that level of violence and destruction happening here in America. Why not?

France's failure to ensure the social mobility of ethnic minorities is a likely contributor to their current troubles. The growing appeal of radical Islam is another major contributor. America is not immune from either of these factors - especially with the economic and foreign policies promoted by the current presidential administration and the Republican leadership that has blindly supported those policies. We've made big cultural strides - backwards - for the past five years. We're inviting what we see happening in France today, but it's not too late to find our vision and to once again show this world how to lead - instead of following them down the path of sure failure.


Equality without social justice is meaningless
What about America?

America's population of immigrants from the Arab and Muslim world can be seen as a matter of class and economic status more than Muslim culture. We've heard the message about The Two Americas - what about the glaring problem of the two Middle Easts? Poor Muslims are harder to find in America - and there are reasons which we don't often think about. We've tended to see Muslim immigrants succeeding here in America, often surpassing the economic status of the average American. The transient poor of the Muslim world have drifted toward European cities - and in France's case, they have been virtually ignored in the odd name of equality. Equality without social justice is meaningless.

One surprising conclusion drawn from data collected by the US Census Bureau in 2000 was that people of Arab descent living in the US are better educated and wealthier than the average American of non-Arab descent. See "Culture is not the Culprit in Arab Poverty" [Carnegie Endowment]

That immigrants generally do better than their compatriots back home is no surprise. What is far less common is for immigrants to out-perform the average population of their adopted home. This should prompt debates on issues such as the notion that cultural factors lie behind the Middle East 's widespread poverty...

....if cultural impediments are behind the Arab world's disappointing performance, what explains the success of people of Arab descent in America? One common perception is that Arabs who come to the US come from the wealthier Arab countries and are already better off. Another answer, of course, is that the US offers them better opportunities and institutions. Arabs in the US have ample opportunities to prosper and can rely on institutions to protect their civil and economic rights to do so.

Why there and not here?

Why are Arab immigrants in Europe worse off than those in the US? Why are leaders of Arab communities in France seeing social and racial tensions that have created a social and political time bomb? Moises Naim , editor in chief of Foreign Policy magazine, hits the nail on the head when he says:

Arab leaders should be ashamed when they see their emigrants prospering in the US while their own people are miserable. Europeans, too, should consider why their Arab immigrants lag so far behind those in America..... Americans need to ponder if the changes instituted after the terrorist attacks of September 11 2001 will make future generations of Arab immigrants look more like their disadvantaged European compatriots than like today's successful Arab-Americans.

Let's Value and Support our Muslim Communities Here in America
The Rhetoric of Fear, Political Abuse, and Mistrust Must End

Our moderate Muslim communities should be respected and our policies should support them and promote the immigration of more people from the Middle East - not less. If we believe in our ideas, then why not set policy to WIN the war of ideas?

We should appreciate and support the wonderful Muslim communities that exist in our country today, rather than seeing and hearing partisan right-wing pundits rhetorically beating on them and accusing them of failing to speak out against terror. They deserve our full support - not our fearful suspicion! They are Americans, like you and me.

A 2004 study by The Institute for Social Policy and Understanding (ISPU)has provided an interesting profile of the active Muslim in the Detroit, MI area. See report here.

The average participant in a mosque is 34, is married with children, is well-educated, is an immigrant or born to immigrants, makes more than $75,000 a year, is either progressive (38 percent) or traditional (28 percent) in religious practice. The average Muslim is also politically conscious (68 percent registered to vote), a bit ethnocentric — there is some evidence of ethnic clustering around mosques — and is a political liberal (supports affirmative action, universal health care and tough environmental protection laws) but is socially conservative (worried about sexual promiscuity).

The community issues that mattered most to the respondents were
1. Education
2. Schools
3. Work
4. Unity
5. Spiritual growth.

Some believe that because America has given the Islamic community so much freedom that we have undoubtedly made it easier for them to "seduce U.S. citizens to join jihadist groups and seek to kill their countrymen." I think that is the talk of fearful people - or people using "fear" to usurp political influence or power. When did all communities of Muslim immigrants and their cultural integrity become suspect of evil? I believe that if we allowed 9/11 to destroy our faith in the goodness of our fellow man as well as the freedoms within our democratic social fabric, we are lost. When we err on the side of false imprisonment and blanket discrimination based on a person's ethnicity, we are lost.

Victor Davis Hanson has written a recent article for Front Page magazine and insisted that America's "elite commitment to multiculturalism also hamstrings us from taking the needed security steps."

For 30 years, our schools have pounded home the creed that all cultures are of equal merit[...]Millions of Americans consequently aren’t sure whether radical Islam is just another legitimate alternative to the dominant Western narrative.

I think Hanson's argument is ineffective. The answer is not to take away a student's ability to make critical judgement for themselves by dulling the reality of thought that exists in diverse cultures. That will only breed ignorance. There were root causes stemming from the culture from which the 9/11 plot originated - and it will never help us, as a society and a member of the international community, to ignore every single factor that led to the sad occurrence.

French public schools promote equality and secular thought, and look at what is still happening there! Islamic unrest has been relayed in a much different way in France this week than in America on 9/11. When a society ignores the calls from its own citizens for social justice, the resulting backlash from too many years of complacency is often shocking. It isn't Muslim culture that is the proximate cause of the strife in France - it's a social justice issue.

Islamic leaders and social commentators insist that the root causes of the violence in France are economic, not religious. In their hopelessness, those living in poverty and feeling that there is no escape are turning to dangerous ideas and desperate measures. People feel that they've been isolated in poor neighborhoods with inadequate schools and few opportunities. This sounds too close to today's America for comfort, especially with the foreign policy put into play by the Bush administration.

How long before the fever in Europe is spread to the streets here in American cities with poor Muslim immigrant communities like Lackawanna, NY or Lodi, CA where the poorer Muslim communities are looked at with little more than suspicion?

From a Lackawanna newspaper in 2002:

To be a Muslim teenager is to grapple with conflicting identities and cultures, to search for halal buffalo wings and modest clothing that still looks good. While the Yemeni community in Lackawanna supports its youth through an Islamic school, a soccer league and a community center, life beyond the First Ward - the city's shabbiest area housing its minority residents before a drive over a bridge yields a gentrifying downtown - can pose challenges.

"White people call them towelheads or ragheads," said Ron Jones, a black lifelong resident of the First Ward. "The bridge divides us. This is supposed to be a ghetto." [S. Mitra Kalita]

After 9/11, we became a fearful and closed society. If anyone so much as mentioned the root causes of violence in the months following 9/11, they were labeled as traitors. Artists are being labeled as terrorist sympathizers to this day if they dare to generate anything other than the fear of Muslims in their art. (Sound like McCarthy-era America?)

Poverty alone did not cause the planners of the attack to do harm to America that morning. Hatred and indifference to innocent life grew from many years of a cancer that grew in the Middle East. No one knows what causes cancer, but it silently grows and spreads, until it takes over the life support system. The poor and uneducated are easily co-opted for recruitment to terrorist ideas - and errant hero-worship - and civil unrest - perhaps violent and destructive unrest.

We can do better in America. We have done better - until the Bush administration and Republican leadership turned us into a weaker and fearful America, lashing out in vengeance and hiding our fear behind pre-emptive and unilateral attacks on a nation that never had a link to 9/11. It has unnecessarily taken thousands of lives.

We must see a new direction. We have lost our vision. When we look at France this week, we may gloat and feel vindicated by our society because it hasn't happened here. But, in other parts of the globe, our errant and wrong-minded federal government has completely failed to take constructive measures that would give promise or hope to the poorest and most uneducated of this world - and the extremists will continue to recruit them to lash back at the West in anger as long as we fail to do our part to send out a clear vision of hope and trust.


_____________

-A Firsthand View and Opinion

* Kevin Drum refers us to a blogger named Jerome with some firsthand knowledge of one of the neighborhoods where the riots are taking place. An excerpt from Jerome's post:

What's real is that social budgets for these cités (those that allow the associations to run sport activities, literacy classes and the like) have been cut in the past 3 years, because, as always, this is the easiest thing to do politically.

What is real is that local police forces have been reduced (in Clichy, where it all started, the police has 15 officers vs 35 in the past) and replaced by national police who do not know the neighborood and are pretty aggressive in their behavior - and especially in their overuse of ID controls which target only people of color.

What is real is that France made a choice 30 years ago to preserve the jobs of those already integrated, and made it difficult to join that core. Thus unemployment, or unstable employment (temping, short term contracts, internships) touches only those that are not yet in the system - the young and the immigrants, or those that are kicked out - the older and less educated blue collar workers in dying industries. So in neighboroods where you have a lot of young immigrants, the problems are excerbated.

____________

-Additional note: A leading Muslim group -- the Union of Islamic Organisations in France (UOIF) -- issued a fatwa or formal instruction urging Muslims not to take part in acts of violence.

-For columnist Mark Steyn, it's all Black and White and Gloat and Hatespeak. If you can't go in like imperial stormtroopers and bomb cities and round up and detain all the dark-colored men without cause or trial; if you can't unilaterally wipe out a nation's regime in the name of democracy, you're just not cool in Steyn's book. In this blogger's opinion, he comes off sounding like a Euro-bashing horse's ass with plenty of political complaints and no solutions.

-See Why France Is Burning by Doug Ireland.

Paris Riots

Cars for Homes

Cars for Homes
A Habitat for Humanity program

Your car donation can help Habitat for Humanity build homes in partnership with families in need of decent, affordable shelter within the local community and around the world.

Donate a car, truck, boat, RV or other vehicle to Habitat's Cars for Homes vehicle donation program by calling 1-877-277-4344 or visiting www.carsforhomes.org

It's quick and easy and with your help, more low income families can have a decent place to call home, and the hope of a better life.

*Tip of the hat to Geoff at Word of blog
Bloggers: You can support the Cars for Homes Program by going here.

GOP "Values-Void" Left Behind in Hurricanes' Aftermath

GOP "Values-Void" Left Behind in Hurricanes' Aftermath

Bush crony/then-active FEMA appointee Michael Brown preened in his e-mails as New Orleans suffered.

- - What has happened to our commonly shared value of empathy - simple care, respect, and concern for others?


It took President Bush over two months to appoint an overseer for the Gulf Coast hurricane recovery efforts. Barbara Major, co-chairman of NOLA mayor Ray Nagin's commission said, "Y'all in the federal government need to come up with some continuity about what y'all are doing. There seems to be a real lack of coordination."

- - What has happened to our commonly shared value of acting quickly and effectively for the common welfare?


The Davis-Bacon act was suspended, then lifted when the Bush administration knew they couldn't politically win. One Republican-leaning editorial in the Charleston (WV) Gazette (reposted at FortWayne.com) said: "Thanks to a coalition of Democrats and a clutch of wishy-washy Republicans, taxpayers will pay millions of dollars more for the cleanup of Hurricane Katrina than they should." They call it "inflated wages." Workers call it fair pay for a tough job that's been well-done.

- - What has happened to our commonly shared value of expecting to recieve fair pay for a fair day's hard work?


New Orleans is seeking federal aid and new loans to ride out a $204 million budget shortfall caused by the expected loss of all property tax revenue in the short term. At the same time, Louisiana is slapped with a bill for a whopping $3.7 billion that the U.S. government says is its share of hurricane relief...using the excuse that simply because Federal law requires it. Think about that - the worst storm in U.S. history - and a Federal law is not examined for its fairness, in this extremely unusual situation.

--What has happened to our commonly shared values of trust, integrity, and common sense?


Immigrants Rights activist Emile Schepers writes that "A good many immigrant workers, documented and undocumented, from outside the [New Orleans] area are being hired by contractors to work in the cleanup. Various sources report that day labor agencies around the country can’t keep up with the demand for contingent cheap labor in New Orleans and the Gulf, while people washed out of the Ninth Ward still do not know what is going to become of them. And, no doubt, labor laws, including overtime and health and safety regulations, are being flouted by unscrupulous contractors."

"The only way we can recover is with living wage jobs that go to Louisiana workers first. We are not just rebuilding Louisiana, we are rebuilding lives,” said Sibal Holt, president of the Louisiana AFL-CIO at a recent rally of about 1000 for jobs, living wages, affordable housing and public services for south Louisiana. Gov. Kathleen Blanco, the Rev. Jesse Jackson, AFL-CIO President John Sweeney and the Rev. Al Sharpton were in attendance.


-- What has happened to our commonly shared values of community-building, compassion, and fair opportunity?

Too many leaders in today's Republican party are revealing, by their policies-in-action, that there a a void of common traditional values shared by most Americans. This "values-void" is betraying the empty rhetoric we've heard for the past five years. The devastating hurricanes, especially Katrina, proved that the Bush agenda is emptied out of nearly all of its values, and America is left visionless.

A change must surely come.

Tikkun Features NSP Founding Conference

Tikkun Features NSP Founding Conference

For Spiritual Progressives, the November/December issue of Tikkun magazine is priceless. Last July's founding conference for the Network of Spiritual Progressives in Berkeley, California is featured. The morning after the conference, Jim Wallis, writer of the book "God's Politics," and Rabbi Michael Lerner took questions and responded.

A second conference, called "Reviving the American Spiritual Left--Conference May 17-20 2006 Plus: Creation of a Network of Spiritual Progressives" - will take up where the first conference left off. It's scheduled for May 17-20, 2006 in Washington, D.C.

This is an extremely popular movement which has generated so much interest that hundreds of people had to be turned away from the first conference, so be sure to register early for the D.C. conference.

In February, 2006, HarperSanFrancisco will publish Rabbi Lerner's new book "The Left Hand of God" which presents a full vision of the ideas behind The Network of Spiritual Progressives.

Elizabeth Edwards Writing Memoir

Elizabeth Edwards Writing Memoir

"Throughout my life, community has held me up, lending quiet strength and steady hope. I want now to tell the story of how all the communities, great and small, that make up America have the power to enrich, nourish, and support us when we are in need."

- Mrs. Edwards, from a statement issued through Broadway Books

WaPo, Oct 27

I'm glad that Mrs. Edwards has decided to make our communities the focus of her book. The community is the heart of politics - and all that politics should be about. Our children's values are shaped primarily at home, but they are also shaped, inevitably, by all people within the respective communities in which they live.

On December 9th, Elizabeth Edwards will give the keynote speech at the WIMG (Women in Municipal Government) Luncheon, National League of Cities' 2005 Congress of Cities & Exposition, in Charlotte, NC. The schedule of events is here.

David Brooks Blows Flimsy Air of Conspiracy

David Brooks Blows Flimsy Air of Conspiracy

David Brooks uses satire in his column today in order to to make light of Harry Reid's demand for a prompt investigation into the White House abuse of intelligence leading up to the Iraq war. I found it to be insulting to our intelligence. It's a no-brainer that a general belief existed, prior to the war, that Iraq still may have had stockpiles of chemical and biological munitions and some believed they had the capacity to restart its production program in the wink of an eye. Yet, the voices of those who had very important views to the contrary were silenced, attacked, and/or buried in the back pages of mainstream newspapers while outright lies were plastered on the front news pages.

Reducing the matter to a conspiracy theory is intellectually dishonest. The public opinion, in a Zogby poll from last June, revealed that a large majority of Democrats (59%) said that they agreed that the President should be impeached if he lied about Iraq. Among President Bush’s fellow Republicans, a full one-in-four (25%) indicated that they would favor impeaching the President under these circumstances. 43% of Independent voters said that they'd favor impeachment if Bush lied.

In the very latest Washington Post-ABC News poll, 55% of the American people now believe Bush misled the country in taking us to war.

The public's trust has been materially shaken by this. I think anyone who's publically supported Bush on his myriad rationales for the Iraq war should be eating humble pie right now - not mocking those who want to look into the bottom of the rationale bag to root out the rotted goods for once and for all.

Our nation has been weakened by the perception that our President and his administration lied to the public. I would think the Republicans would welcome this investigation, if they believe the President will be exonerated and that trust can be restored.

I think David Brooks can do better than this. I don't see his flight of fancy as serving our national interest in a constructive manner.

Scott McClellan: The Million Dollar Question

Scott McClellan: The Million Dollar Question

Here's a new question for contestants on the television game show Who Wants to be a Millionaire:

After the Joseph Wilson/Valerie Plame Wilson incident, White House press secretary Scott McClellan's reputation is:


a. Sterling
b. Questionable
c. Down the crapper
d. Unable to comment while investigation continues

Crystal Balls and Karl Rove

Crystal Balls and Karl Rove



Iddybud gazes into her crystal ball - she sees an Oval Office - wait -wait - there's someone missing - - why........Karl Rove is nowhere to be found!

*Could be he's out groveling, wormlike, for forgiveness.

Quote of the Day - On the Filibuster

Quote of the Day - On the Filibuster

There's "....a greater likelihood that the Republicans could find themselves in a minority in 2007, and may wonder about the wisdom of getting rid of the filibuster just as they may need it."

- DHinMI - Next Hurrah

Runner-Up goes to Mark Schmitt:

"..one thing is for sure: the prospect of a "final showdown" in which Alito is confirmed by the Nuclear tactic is just not going to happen in a Senate effectively run by Harry Reid."

- TPM Cafe

Dems on Iraq War - Mistakes Were Made

Dems on Iraq War - Mistakes Were Made

Last week on Meet the Press, I was disturbed to hear Senator Charles Schumer tell Tim Russert that he had no regrets about voting for the Iraq resolution in 2002. He should have regrets and I don't know why he can't admit that he has them. If he really doesn't have regrets, I have to wonder about his sense of consistency and conviction. This just didn't seem to be consistent with anything he's said in his crticisms of the entire war, from the lead-up until today. Americans aren't stupid. They know when certain statements just don't jibe with the overall set of statements from particular political leaders. Here's another example from my blog in May, 2004, when I felt that John Kerry was sending a very confusing message. In March, 2004, I wrote another post about the same kind of confused message and a need for clearer and more inspiring vision.

In August, 2004, as the presidential election got closer, I had written about some advice I had for John Kerry, of whom I had hoped would clarify his message and extend a tone of regret about his "yes" vote on the Iraq resolution:

If the Iraq resolution were presented knowing what we all know today, would Kerry still have voted “yes”? If so, why? Sending congressional authority as a strong message to Saddam Hussein may have been a fitting reason back in 2002, but why is Senator Kerry afraid to say he’d never have voted for that resolution knowing what he knows today? Would any of you readers have voted for the resolution knowing what you now know? Personally, I wouldn’t have voted for it back then and certainly would reject it today.

Today, we are seeing expressions of regret. How forgiving will Democratic voters be? I think, if each respective political leader can show humility paired with a vision for the future that inspires, we will be surprised at how the public, overall, will understand and accept the respective expressions of regret. Asking for apology of these Democrats, in my opinion, is asking too much. I think that the Bush administration and the mainstream media, who gave front page harbor to all the pre-war lies while relegating debatable points of dissent to the back pages, should apologize before anyone else.

A sampling of regret:

John Edwards -

[John] Edwards and [Steve] Forbes briefly answered questions from the audience on the Iraq war, the weakness of the Democratic party and poverty.Link

Did anybody go to see Edwards speak at NKU tonight?
There was a Q&A where Edwards was asked whether he thinks the US should pull out of Iraq. He began by saying that voting for the Iraq war was a mistake.
He was then interrupted by thunderous applause! Link

Daniel S. at the Kentucky Democrat attended yesterday's 2005 Alumni Lecture Series at Regents Hall:

Senator Edwards said that he regretted his vote on the war. He has suggested a timetable for withdrawing the troops.

John Kerry -

Kerry admitted that his vote in favor of the invasion was a mistake. “There is, as Robert Kennedy once said, ‘enough blame to go around,’ and "I accept my share of the responsibility" for the Iraq war, he said. "The mistakes of the past, no matter who made them, are no justification for marching ahead into a future of miscalculations[..] Kerry described the Iraq war as "one of the greatest foreign policy misadventures of all time". "It is time for those of us who believe in a better course to say so plainly and unequivocally." Link

Dick Gephardt:

Dick Gephardt, now in private life, will not be running again. Which may be why he is speaking so candidly about his vote in favor of the war.

"It was a mistake. . . . I was wrong," Gephardt was quoted as saying recently in Seattle.

According to the blog The Next Hurrah, Gephardt also said: "We never comprehended the complexity of the undertaking. I didn't. None of us did. . . . The President has never been honest about the sacrifices required . . . the lives lost, the eyes blown out. Bush fails the first test of leadership: 'Can you be honest with the people you lead?'" - Roger Simon

A citizen gives advice -

"Events on the ground have shown that George Bush's Iraq war was a tragic mistake in judgement on his part, and it was a mistake to support it. I thought I was doing the right thing by the country at the time I voted in favor of the war." Along those lines.
Rich Man, Poor Man - Meet John Edwards, your next president

** A Blast From the Past on Mistakes:
General Zinni: The 10 Mistakes

I go away for a few hours & look what happens

I go away for a few hours & look what happens

While I was at work today, something happened (to say the least).

Are we finally going to get the investigation for which we've had to beg for over two solid years while these Democrat-hating partisans of the GOP covered up a presidential administration's lies which culminated in the rash, poorly timed, disastrously planned, strategically flawed, and terror-increasing war in Iraq? How could they - any of these Republicans in power - have done this to the American people and thought they could have gotten away with it? I suppose they thought they could keep talking happy talk about the war and that it would all blow over. Well - now it's blown UP.

For three years, I've gone to bed each night asking how this could have happened in a democratic society like America. Over 2000 troops gone. Over 2000 troops gone. Over 2000 troops - - far more than just numbers - - - gone.

How many more will have to die?

I wrote to my (Republican) Congressman James Walsh last June and have never gotten a response or even an acknowlegement. Why does he feel unaccountable to constituents?

Perhaps now we'll finally get the answers that Senator "I choose party-loyalty-over-America" Pat Roberts has denied us for so long (along with the President and Senate majority leader Bill Frist.)

And that seasoned journalist named Jeff Gannon (aka James Guckert) was right on top of the Pat Roberts story. Hmmmm....Who was feeding him these assignments - and why?

I said this in November, 2003:

Good People of this nation:
If you aren't outraged, you simply aren't paying attention.
*see:Frist Freezes Senate Probe of Prewar Iraq Data

I hope we'll all pay attention now.

Mark Schmitt called this a political 'tipping point.' [TPM Cafe]

The GOP cried "Politics!" every time they were close to getting caught in their lies. If they were lies that didn't matter, it would be different. Since those lies were the proximate cause of the death of 2000 troops and all the people who loved them, I think they are material lies. If not for the lies, partisan-political maneuvering, and deliberate omissions, we would not have gone to war the way we did; at the time that we did. It's high time for an investigation into the use/abuse of intelligence.

_____________
See Dave Johnson's blogpost.

On the politics within the Senate chamber -

Look for plenty of kvetching about how Harry Reid is schooling hapless Bill Frist, and how the Senate Republicans can't control the chamber. One day after the Alito nomination, which is interpreted as Bush's caputulation to his conservative base, that can't be overlooked. After all, the Republicans will only want a fight if they think they can win, and fewer and fewer Republicans will believe Frist can ever lead them to a procedural victory. - DHinMI

NYT - Democrats Force Senate Into Closed Session Over Iraq Data

Raw Story - Democrats detail times their efforts to examine intel were blocked

Next Hurrah Story on Chris Matthews/DNC/Alito

Next Hurrah Story on Chris Matthews/DNC/Alito

Flu - - SCHMLU! Fear mongering isn't my cup of tea, but I suppose it's a good way for the Bush administration to divert all the public's attention away from their many troubles.

DHinMI has the most interesting story of today:
Boneheads of the Day: The DNC

I don't know who ever deemed Chris Matthews the "Archbishop of Democratic Ethics," although I think it was probably Chris Matthews himself. According to this story, Mr. Matthews alleged, all day long yesterday on MSNBC, that there was an "unfair and distasteful attack" by the DNC on Judge Samuel Alito, thus spinning a negative talking point that will, inevitably, soon hurl out of control. Gee, what fair journalism, Chris Matthews. The minority has an ultraconservative Supreme Court nominee shoved down their throats and you make a hyperspeed attack upon the minority. Way to go, Captain Courageous. Come out of the gate beating up on the citizens who don't care to have an extreme ideologue taking the place of "swing-vote Sandra Day O'Connor." That's how mainstream journalism speaks to power these days, eh?

The point DHinMI is making, which is a far more fair and balanced point than that of Chris Matthews, is not just a call of unfair mainstream journalism toward Mr. Matthews. He asks you to "choose the biggest DNC bonehead of the day."

While I understand the spirit of his comments, I think that DHinMI is being a bit too generous by saying:

We can and should be angry about how the press reacts to stuff like this, but in a sense it's like getting angry at your dog for eatiing the pot roast you put on the garage floor. You have to prevent screw ups like this, because it's easily exploitable into a "story" or a "controversy." People can argue about whether the press would be as likely to jump on the GOP if the situation were reversed; maybe hey wouldn't, and maybe the deck is stacked against us. But it is what it is, and you can't complain too much about the media environment we operate in if it distracts you from attending to the details and making sound decisions.

I agree that screw-ups open the door to mainstream grousing. However, we Democrats have lost too much political ground by the creation of a false conventional wisdom by this type of disproportionate concentration of criticism by MSM. The values of the people who belong to the Democratic party are not adequately represented when hay is made of small (yet admittedly relevant) details. I'm angry at MSM for their yapping and I'm upset at the DNC for making any case for the yapping to continue. I'm SICK of my values, as a Democrat, getting completely lost in this flurry of bullshit.

Billmon comments:

"...I personally have nothing against slime if it's well done -- we're in a war here and the Rovians have already made it clear that they don't respect the Geneva Conventions. But if the DNC really wants spread the rumor that Alito is soft on the Mafia, there are hell of lot more intelligent ways of getting the job done."

(*partial excerpt - see link for full text.)

At Slingshot.org, Dave Meyer has a theory about the Committee for Justice being behind the smear.

Joseph Wilson Speech - National Press Club

Joseph Wilson Speech - National Press Club
See Joseph Wilson at the National Press Club in Washington D.C. in a speech from yesterday, October 31, 2005. [CSPAN]

Quotes:

The nature of his mission - "I don't "do" clandestine - I "do" diplomacy."

The focus of the mission- "This was not a WMD issue. This was a mining issue. Uranium yellowcake is not WMD."

Regarding Bob Novak's curiosity as to why the CIA would send Joe Wilson, a Democrat, to Iraq: Mr. Wilson's answer was that the CIA did not send "Joe Wilson - a Democrat," but as an American diplomat with a certain amount of expertise in Niger. Wilson said he was well-known by Republicans as charge d'affaire for GHW Bush and GWH Bush's ambassador to African countries.

On his experience during the first Gulf war - "What I brought to the table for my argument was not any sense of partisanship. I brought my experience in Iraq during the first Gulf war... When I had met with the Iraqi government day in and day out - where I had worked 20 hours a day on behalf of my fellow citizens and on behalf of the notion that we had to do everything diplomatically that we possibly could to get Saddam Hussein out of Kuwait rather than to have to use American military to drive him out of Kuwait."

On Regime Change (for the sake of regime change): "WMD, disarmament of Saddam Hussein, was a legitimate international objective and a worthy American objective. Regime change, for the sake of regime change, was a recipe for future problems."

'The Challenge' was not about WMD: "I did not ever challenge the question of WMD or whether or not Saddam had WMD or had a nuclear program. I challlenged the rationale for regime change - not for disarmament.."

The Politics of the Alito Nomination

The Politics of the Alito Nomination

Conservative judge Samuel A. Alito has been nominated for SCOTUS by President Bush.

Bush winds up looking weak, weak, weak (Oh- and did I say weak?)

The stiff ghosts of truth have been biting at the heels of GW Bush in the aftermath of Scooter Libby's indictment and Harriet Miers' rejection by the religious right. The newspapers are ripe with a plentiful harvest of stories about the way Bush has hit political "rock-bottom" - and the rightwing pundits talk their happy-talk about how it can be only "up from here" for Bush.

Like a good boy, Bush has sent the religious right back into their cages and has proved to American voters (all across the board - not just Democrats) that he (and his party) desperately need the Dobsonites and Falwellians to hold onto power.

Citizens' common values are once again cast aside for a far more narrow (bowling-alley-shaped) version of "values" - with only one or two hot-button issues in focus. What an insult to citizens! American values are about so much more than one or two issues!

Harriet Miers was a "religious woman" - an "evangelical Christian" - and she was not good enough for the far religious right. Why? She was not an extreme ideologue with a track record.


I believe that the Democrats on the "Gang of 14" were remiss when they agreed to the limiting compromise on the filibuster rules in the name of "bipartisanship". Perhaps they felt it was all they could do at the time (to avoid Frist's Nuclear Option,) and to me, that is only a tribute to their ineffective communication of conviction, values, and leadership. Democratic leadership can do so much better!

Because of this "Gang of 14" filibuster-suicide pact, a SCOTUS nominee's philosophical views must amount to "extraordinary circumstances" in order for a filibuster to be deemed as "justified" - - but it can only be related to questions of personal ethics or character - not ideology.

In other words, I don't doubt that Alito will get an "up or down" vote. The Dems will only risk the threat of Nuclear Option if they attempt to filibuster.

Last Spring, in the name of all Democrats, seven Democratic representatives gave up opposition to three of Bush's bench nominees in exchange for nothing but the promise of a "nuclear option" showdown somewhere down the line.

I said it (last May and last July, (see: Dems Shouldn't Have Compromised on Filibuster)
I think you will now see the chickens of Democratic political miscalculation come home to roost. It's pretty much a no-win situation. The goalposts on the showdown on the Nuclear Option were simply moved - and the return "gift" was Pryor, Brown, and Owen on the bench. (With gifts like that - who needs gifts, already?)

When our only hope is to have a Republican like John McCain act as "big hero" and join in with Dems on agreeing to the terms of a filibuster, it is McCain who comes out to be the big political hero for centrist voters of all stripes. Grrrr.

Think 2008.
I believe the seven Dems were suckered into making guys like McCain look like Superman - while they looked like soggy marshmallows.

_____

DemFromCT has a recommendation at The Next Hurrah to brush up on Kagro X's Nuclear Option series. He says that we're going to need it before we're done.

Update: At the Next Hurrah, DHinMI sees the glass half-full, where I have been more pessimistic about the political outcome I foresee when the smoke has cleared from the Alito nomination:

There's "....a greater likelihood that the Republicans could find themselves in a minority in 2007, and may wonder about the wisdom of getting rid of the filibuster just as they may need it." - DHinMI

I"m looking at this from the Republican mindset - with an eye always on the future. I still believe this is the perfect political posturing-opportunity for 2008, and John McCain will come out smelling like a rose, leaving Frist in the dust.

This and That

This and That

I cannot help but to question the dignity of seasoned journalist Mike Wallace after hearing him on the Don Imus show this morning - in an interview where he seemed mentally scattered - calling for the firing (or resignation) of Dan Rather. What a catty thing to suggest, especially since the media storm over the whole thing has now blown over. To me, it appears to be lacking in grace and collegiality.

Speaking of Fox News Sunday, Brit Hume, whether consciously or unconsciously, showed yesterday that he still links being black with the civil rights demonstrators in Birmingham, Alabama circa 1963. He looked at Juan Williams, didn't like what he was hearing from Mr. Williams, and loudly proclaimed, "Someone needs to hose you down." What a jerk.

According to Media Matters, Brit Hume recently made false statements that "..'no one was prosecuting' those who violated a Connecticut law that prohibited the use or provision of contraceptives, which was overturned in the U.S. Supreme Court's 1965 decision in Griswold v. Connecticut -- the case that established the constitutional right to privacy. He got a hearty (and blatantly false) agreement from Douglas W. Kmiec, a constitutional law professor at Pepperdine University (who also called CSPAN this morning crowing about Alito's nomination to the Supreme Court.) Misinformation abounds on Fox News.

Alito's nomination sends the Religious Right back into their cages. It just goes to show you that Bush would never have been President had it not been for the radical religious leaders who pull his strings. White evangelical Christians are catching on to the sham of the myth of "Bush as remaker of America in God's image." In the most recent Pew Research Center survey, there has been a significant decline in favorable ratings of the GOP among white evangelicals and Catholics.

The same Pew survey lists former Senator John Edwards as the least polarizing Democrat in the field of potential 2008 presidential candidates. See my One America guest-blogpost.

Wilson/Plame/CIA Leak - My Archives

"I believe that citizens in a democracy are responsible for what government does and says in their name."

- Joseph C. Wilson IV

Wilson/Plame/CIA Leak - My Archives

I have posted an archive of my many of my posts related to the outing of Valerie Plame (Wilson), wife of former ambassador Joseph C. Wilson IV. See American Street.

See the Statement of Ambassador Joseph Wilson with Respect to the Indictment of I. Lewis "Scooter" Libby (at Citizens for Legitimate Government).

Our 27 Months of Hell by Joseph C. Wilson IV - LA Times