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unraveling
31.Oct.06
What Shall I Wear?
Haven't figured out a costume for tonight, but somebody put Dr. Seuss in
my head this morning... And it is election season...
But I'm not sure I have enough green makeup.
Serious Payback Time
The Interior Department said their case was hopeless,
so they dropped it. Quietly. A confidential letter 3 months ago.
"Never mind about those royalties," they said. You just go ahead with
those record profits, and remember where to send your gratitude in the
form of campaign donations, eh?
Audits? Enforcement? Renegotiation? Don't be silly.
The same sort of private access to the Vice President that these
companies have enjoyed is extended as standard operating procedure over
at Interior.
To protect what energy companies consider proprietary information, the
Interior Department does not announce that it is accusing companies of
underpaying royalties nor does it announce its settlements in these
disputes. The government also does not disclose how much money each
company pays in royalties.
Louisiana's lawyer—who won $100 million from Chevron in a suit
over underpaid royalties—puts it this way:
Is it even remotely likely that oil companies systematically underpay
private royalty owners and state governments, but pay the federal
government perfectly properly? Isn’t it more likely they are underpaying
everybody?
That's ok, if the oil and gas companies don't want to pay the tens and
hundreds and thousands of millions of dollars they owe, there are
plenty of regular old tax-payers to pick up the bill. Or, we can just
run up the debt and have some future generation pay for our wars and
entitlements.
30.Oct.06
Still Studying
The B.S. campaign manager answered my email, saying "this is a very
difficult issue." and a mention of the press release posted on their
website. She let me go find it myself, but I can do better than
that for my readers...
SALI CONTINUES RESEARCH ON PROPOSITION 2.
He hasn't "finalized" his position, "no matter what anyone else claims."
He's been saying all along he favors the "concept," but as a lawyer, he
acknowledges that the specifics matter.
True enough. Given how much of his funding is beholden to the Club for
Growth however, and given his rather limp repudiation of the Prop. 2
supporters' prominent use of his name in their literature and website,
we're smelling a dodge rather than a principle here.
Note to Bill: this is not a "false and inaccurate charge" against you,
just a stinking suspicion.
Rushing Fools
I have of course heard the phrase "Fools rush in where angels fear to
tread," but I didn't know it by author, or in any context before today,
when I read Alexander Pope's words anew,
in Juan Cole's Informed Comment, where they're given currency by
attack of the pundits.
But it was never about Iraq. It was about the all-purpose punditocracy,
the vicious jab, the smearing of those with whom one disagrees, in the
service of the rich and powerful. It is about the cheapening of our
democracy, the termite-like boring at the pillars of our republic.
Goldberg began by attacking me for saying that the 1997 elections in
Iran were more democratic than the January 2005 election in Iraq. He did
not critique my reasoning in saying this. He just attacked me. It turns
out that he didn't even know anything about the 1997 elections in Iran.
Likewise, Jarvis did not actually present any arguments about my
coverage of Iraq, he just accused me of spinning it negatively. It is
easy to make such an accusation, but hard to do the research and engage
in the years of study it would require to address the substance of my
weblog.
Ignorance is Strength
Leonard Pitts Jr., on the subject of rewriting history:
Simply Orwellian: Cutting and running from 'stay the course'
Sadly, there is more than this ludicrous attempt to deny the blindingly
obvious that we need to be concerned about.
Stephen Glain
describes the active exclusion of ideas and the people that hold
them, for our "protection against terrorism."
We who love freedom so dearly.
It's not a Fundraiser
It's a "Victory Rally" that
the Veep will stage with his closest friends in Coeur d'Alene. No
doubt the hand-picked crowd will greet him as a liberator. Maybe
there's a statue in the park they could pull down, too?
Monkey Wrench Bill
Here's another item for Bill Sali's reading list, for when he has more
free time after the election: the Wilderness bills that Senator Mike
Crapo and Representative Mike Simpson produced after many years of
working with a broad cross-section of interested groups and
citizens.
You would hope that someone running for office would be embarrassed to
admit that he hasn't taken the trouble to read important, current
legislation for his state, but not Sali: earlier this month he had to
tell Spokesman-Review reporter Betsy Russell that
he hadn't done his homework.
I'm sure if it were important, he would have, but his Club for Growth
philosophy leans toward "throw it at the free market," which has no need
for public lands. Idaho's forests are just a new boom on the hoof;
"forty percent of the mass of every tree in the forest is crude oil," he
says. (Do they teach a different sort of biology at BSU than I
learned at the University of Idaho? I remember xylem and phloem in
trees, but not petroleum.)
29.Oct.06
Tipping Point
Along with the questions about the Idaho races, the Statesman poll asked
about the country and the President. The headline tells the result:
Even
Idahoans are questioning President Bush's performance.
There are still more respondents rating his overall performance as
"excellent" or "good" (46%) than "poor" (40%), but the gap is closing.
More than half rate it "fair" to "poor," rather like little George
Bush's report cards. But Idahoans disapprove of his Iraq performance,
49% to 42%, and those seeing the country as on the "wrong track" now
exceed the "right track" group (albeit well within the poll's ±4%
uncertainty), 45 to 43%.
We haven't run out of optimism, though: more than three times as many
respondents still think Idaho's on the "right track" rather than
the wrong one.
B.S.: Nobody likes me!
The
Statesman/Today's 6 poll is the big draw for the Sunday paper,
and the news is that three statewide races are a dead heat:
Governer, 1st Congressional District, and State Superintendent of Schools.
All three are for open seats, with our current 1st CD representative,
"Butch" Otter, running for governor against Democrat Jerry Brady.
Five of the six candidates in the races
talked to
the Statesman about the poll results. Bill "Mr. Personality"
Sali sent a written statement, blaming "the efforts of the media to
vilify me while helping Larry Grant deceive voters on essentially every
key issue" for making the race so close. Those deceptive media!
If not for them, "voters would understand that he doesn't reflect Idaho
values and what little support he has would fall quickly."
Two-thirds of the poll respondents had an opinion about Sali, and they
were evenly split negative and positive. Fewer than half had an opinion
about Grant, but the tally was well more than 2:1 positive for those who
did (34% vs. 13%). I'd say that speaks of a lot of upside for the Grant
campaign.
So does
the Idaho Press-Tribune's unequivocal endorsement of Grant!
"Bill Sali does not have the quality of character required to serve
Idaho voters." Ouch. But wait, there's more.
(I)t is Sali’s abrasiveness, poor judgment and misleading
tactics—rather than politics—that make him unfit to serve
Idahoans who care about traditional values....
Finally, Sali insults Idahoans because he won’t come clean in his
opinion on Proposition 2, which threatens to make it very difficult for
local communities to manage growth. By not denouncing this defective
initiative like the supermajority of his Republican colleagues, Sali
threatens the quality of life for all Idahoans.
28.Oct.06
Suitable for Framing
In today's mail, a fold-out pin-up from the YES on 2! gang, "Please post
in your window." They call their business "ThisHouseisMYHome.com,"
and they want free advertising in my window? Ha! I don't think so!
MY Home!
This is better than the black helicopter scare: the bulldozers are
coming. "Is your home at risk? YES!" Big yellow print, you
can't get more scary than that, can you?
Truth is, the value of your property and your ability to enjoy it is
more at
risk from passing this Prop than killing it.
But that's not what I'm writing about. They claim a long list of
supporters, starting with Mr. Bill Sali of Kuna, candidate for U.S.
Congress. Yes, that's the same Bill Sali who said,
on live TV Tuesday night, that he was still
"in the middle of my analysis," and hadn't even read the proposition
yet.
In his defense,
Proposition 2 is long. Complicated. Legalistic. Stealthy.
Misleading, even. It's so long that what appears on our ballots is not
the propostion itself, but rather a "short title," followed by a "long
title," which unprepared voters may suppose is the actual proposition.
But no.
Back to Sali's endorsement of the Proposition. Did he give it "just
after" the debate, with this print job holding until the last moment?
If this went to print on Wednesday and out via bulk mail... no later
than Thursday, it could have been delivered today. But not
likely. Nor is it likely that Laird Maxwell and friends decided without
Sali's approval to add him to the list.
Since Sali didn't do what he said he would, post his "decision" on
his website by the
end of the week, we're left to draw our own conclusions. Given that
Sali's supporters include many others who appear with him on the Prop. 2
mailer (Sweet, Beck, Auld, Bayer, Kulczyk), we infer that this is not an
accident, and that Sali lacks the integrity to actually admit and
support his position in a public forum.
Given the much longer
list of
organizations and people who oppose Prop. 2, it's not that difficult
to cut through the B.S.
My Country
There are no "smart bombs." War is about destruction, and about
killing. It is not something to be undertaken lightly, or as anything
but a last resort. George W. Bush and his cohort gave lip service to
that "last resort" idea, but I find it impossible to accept their
assurance in any form.
Not to put too fine a point on it, that was a lie.
They were impatient. They were worried about Saddam's weapons, about his
oil, about their many corporate donors with a financial stake in the
Middle East. They were careless. They abused what intelligence was
available and either let themselves be deceived, or deceived us all to
accomplish ends they had already decided upon.
And now, hundreds of thousands are dead as a result. Iraq is in
shambles, in a civil war, with U.S. and other countrys' soldiers
in the middle of it, unable to make a positive contribution, as an
occupying force provides a focus for revenge, retribution,
desperation.
The New Hampshire license plate has the state's motto on it: Live Free
or Die. It's been a long time since that sentiment had to be carried
out on New England soil, but it is in every news report from the Middle
East.
We watched Laura Poitras' remarkable film,
My Country, My
Country on POV the other night. Just one story, really, but
seeing Dr. Riyadh standing outside the fence at Abu Ghraib, trying to
catalog the names and despair being called out from the prisoners,
challenging the assertion that a 9-year-old had any place behind the
barbed wire... what more description of hell is needed?
We are an occupied country with a puppet government? What do you
expect?
Whatever the intentions behind the war, the hopeful, rosy scenario for
it didn't turn out, and there is no realistic chance that our occupation
can make it turn out. Enough is enough.
It's time to Wage Peace.
Partisan Politics
God bless the Independents, for they shall inherit the decision-making
power from the straight-ticket voters. Maybe. The power and money
behind our two-party system is one hell of an obstacle to overcome.
The RNC does not care that there are
Republicans for Grant any more than they care that Idaho Republicans
voted in the primary for anybody-but-Sali by a 3:1 margin.
This is about control. They aren't interested in the best man for the
job, they need a foot soldier with the R brand.
In the
endorsements from Nampa's Idaho Press-Tribune, in neighboring
red-to-the-bone Canyon County, they actually found themselves with a
Democrat to support, prefacing the amazing event with this remarkable
statement:
There are some jobs where it matters if the person is from the majority
political party of the state.
(Never mind Otter's monopoly on the headline, or the unformatted heading
that fell in with the preceding paragraph, "Twilegar has skills for
role.") In other words, for some of the "jobs," they would recommend
voting for the party, not the particular man or woman? Idaho's
Controller is a "non-partisan servant." As opposed to our
partisan servants in those other elected positions.
Do endorsements matter, or will this state's voters just look for the R
and punch away? If they do matter,
Twilegar is a lock, and
Grant will be elected too.
Then there's the money to be followed. Signals are mixed, but
some hedging is going on, just in case the Party of Big Money loses
its grip.
27.Oct.06
Defined: Really Bad Year
Washington Week with Gwen Ifill has only half an hour to run down the
week's news, and with the election bearing down on us, there's a lot to
talk about this week. Hence, having our normally anonymous state get
mentioned is a Big Deal. Speaking of the problems Republicans are
having,
Janet Hook of the LA Times made the point:
"This is really a bad year if they have to fight for Idaho."
And fight they must, with almost $400,000 from the RNCC flowing into to
pump up their man Bill Sali.
More De-activist Judges
Constitutional Initiatives 97, 98, and 154 aren't going to pass in
Montana because
their Supreme Court said so. I like the proposed means to make it
so: don't count the votes "for." If you can't help but count them, then
we'll just say "they don't count."
The judges' affirmation, and the lower court ruling that was affirmed
didn't speak to the initiatives themsleves, but rather on the process
used to get the voter signatures that enabled them to go on the ballot:
"a pervasive and general pattern and practice of fraud and procedural
noncompliance" makes those ill-gotten gains no good.
He's Coming Baaack
The Veep? Again?! Yessirree, he and his boss need every House
Republican they can get, no matter how far off the deep end they fly.
Dick
"no-brainer" Cheney slated to
fly into North Idaho's luxury zone to stump some more for Bill
Sali. Or something. (Sali's campaign must not have got the memo, as they
couldn't find the appointment on Bill's calendar. Insufficient security
clearance?)
Maybe there will be more "supporters" than "protesters" this time?
At any rate, it's not about the money; we're told it's not a fundraiser
this time... which makes me think that is indeed true that money can't
buy you love.
Tip to
the nice lady at NewWest for the news.
The Medium is the Message
George Lakoff writes that
it just doesn't work to stop staying the course once you've started,
"Staying the Course Right Over a Cliff." All the virtue earned with
that clever turn of phrase, the motherhood-and-apple-pie framing
that can't be beat, turns against you when you try a new route.
It's like inertia. Or quicksand: the more you fight, the more it fights
back. I don't know if he chose the metaphor of his last sentence
carefully, or not, but since he is writing about the power of metaphors,
we suppose he did.
"Pitfalls" are most effective as a defense against people who "stay the
course"; you simply build your pit in the middle of the course.
26.Oct.06
Deep in the Heart of Texas
Ever-vigilant in search of dirt on their opponents,
the Republican Party of Texas is apparently shocked, shocked, that a
candidate for public office could be a "professed atheist." The Bible
just a "collection of myths"? Say it ain't so!
If we can believe the Party's web page (I'd do my own research, if it
were me), one must swear an oath ending with so help me God in
order to take office in the state. Again, it's all just innuendo, but
the implication is that... Ben Franks would have to choose between
compromising his non-belief (or, "his out of touch 'atheist. belief
system," as the Party puts it), or the state Constitution, so ha ha!
Or, so don't even think about voting for this guy! Or, something.
Should Franks decide to follow the script given in the Constitution,
we wonder if the Party would jump up and down and go "oo! oo! But he's
an atheist!" Of course, as an atheist, Franks can follow the script
without worrying about divine retribution.
Apparently the Texas GOP shares
George H.W. Bush's attitude and isn't very high on atheists.
Citizens? Patriots? No way. Electable? We should hope not! This is
a theocracy, ain't it?
25.Oct.06
A Real October Surprise
George W. Bush comes clean and levels with the American people. In
David Corn's dreams.
To move ahead, we must show the world—particularly our friends and
allies in Iraq—that we believe in accountability and
responsibility and, more important, that we can learn from our mistakes.
So today I am announcing that I have requested and received the
resignation of Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld....
Not a Stickler for Safety
Even with his own party controlling the Senate, their advice and consent
is a bridge too far for President Bush. Here's a thumb in their eye
with a recess
appointment of Richard Stickler to head the Mine Safety and Health
Administration. The Senate had sent the proposed appointment back to
Bush twice this year, with good cause, as West Virginia Senator
(Democrat) Jay Rockefeller notes:
The mines he ran when he was in the industry were some of the most
dangerous and the most frequently cited for safety violations in the
entire industry. In fact, despite broad bipartisan support for new, more
aggressive mine safety laws, Richard Stickler said in his Senate
nomination hearing that no new laws were necessary.
How is the targeting working?
Are you getting well targeted mail, email, phone calls, or badly
targeted ones? Or have you stopped paying attention to the flood of
marketing messages coming your way?
This election season, the data mining of the electorate is reaching
record highs, or lows, depending on your point of view. A
Marketplace segment earlier this month describes what's going on:
"17,000 different data points," "on about 150 million voters nationwide."
And that's just the Democrats.
"You should assume that the mass marketers know about any transactions
with respect to which you have swiped a credit card."
The first time Jeanette told me about this, it couldn't get through the
cognitive dissonance filter. My credit card? Our
transactions? Available in the wholesale market to political operatives
and anyone else willing to pay... whom, exactly, is maintaining the Big
Brother Database in the sky?
Lilley Coney of
the Electronic
Privacy Information Center says "it's just about impossible to opt
out of the data gathering, but you can limit your exposure."
How would you know? Consider what you're up against by looking at the
list of forty-three companies that have been subsumed into ChoicePoint,
on that EPIC page linked above.
One more thing from last night's debate
Jeanette reminded me of what that first question was that Bill Sali
didn't want to answer, before he puffed himself up for the opening
statement. I took a look at the archived file on
the Idaho Debates
page, and also at
Betsy Russell's blog entry (written from her perspective as one
of the three reporters on stage).
John Miller of the AP asked:
"Your campaign has given about $120,000 to Spartac (LLC), a firm run by
Christ Troupis, he's also the lawyer for groups hoping to restore the
Ten Commandments monument to a park in Boise. Can you tell us
what you gave him the money for, and whether or not any of this money
has gone to other groups that he represents?"
Sali started with a thanks to the hosts, and launched into an opening
statement. Marcia Franklin directed him to answer the question, and
noted that the format didn't include opening comments. Sali ignored the
instruction, and carried on, over Franklin's repeated instruction, until
he was done. Then he said
Spartac is a, uh, company that's registered with
the State of Idaho, we have, uh, used them for, uh, media advice, uh,
media purchasing, uh, we've used them for um, uh, some polling information,
and, uh, obtaining, uh, services for the campaign, uh... as far as I
know, none of the money that's been paid out of my campaign has gone to
anything other than direct services for the campaign.
Normally, I'd give the benefit of the doubt and elide all those "uhs"
in writing a transcript, but it's interesting to listen (or read) and
see the delays (evasion perhaps?) up until he gets to the "I know
nothing" legal disclaimer.
24.Oct.06
The Coffeehouse klatsch
Check out the fellow travellers that met at the Thomas Hammer
coffeehouse to watch, cheer, and blog together:
The Sniff Test,
Grassroots for Grant,
NewWest, IdaBlue, and the
previously noted
mcjoan,
of Daily Kos.
The ID-01 debate on Idaho Public TV
Right out of the chute, one candidate is dodging. The very first
question. Marcia Franklin had to ask twice:
"Mr. Sali, could you please answer the question?"
I start to see what people might not like about this guy.
And Larry Grant summed it up in his closing statement: largely
ineffective in his 16 years in the state legislature, and failed to earn
the respect of his colleagues. And Bill Sali wants Idaho to send him to
the big House? You cannot be serious.
Sali's main effort seems to be to (a) recite his list of key issues, and
(b) trick Grant into saying some key phrase that he can throw back at
him. This has apparently been an ongoing theme of the interaction
between the candidates.
I will concede that Sali's idea for his first legislation is a good one:
require Congress to act on single-subject legislation, rather
than these omnibus woolly milk-pig things that have a little pork (and
wool, and milk) for everyone and everything.
My guess is that it has no prayer of going anywhere.
Another good idea, from 4th-party candidate Olson: no pay raise if the
Congress is deficit spending, and start cutting the pay by 10% every
year they don't get it done. How about... pay Congressmen only out of
the budget surplus. No surplus, no pay.
Three candidates had thoughtful responses about the immigration issue.
Sali supports the 700 mile fence. Canada too! No amnesty. Workforce?
The law we have doesn't work, because workers don't "stay put," they
find better jobs. Damned immigrants seem to be hijacking our American
dream, how do you like that?!
Hedden-Nicely: "It's easier to come in illegally than it is to come in
legally." Grant: "We shouldn't be chasing people who want to work across
the desert." It distracts us from the security task, for one thing.
There were some "people on the street questions" directed to the
candidate, and for one of them, a classic Sali-ism: "I beg to differ
with the person asking the question."
Bill Sali said "the answer is about getting along with people."
I had to check my ear wax. Was he trying to get people to vote against
him, or is this an affirmation he's trying out?
More jes' folks quotes from the debate:
H-N: "We don't need any more lawyers in Congress!"
"We're gettin' squoze all over the place."
Sali: "the last thing we want to do is let the tax cuts go." It's the
Laffer curve all over again, let's party like it's 1982.
Grant: (about Nancy Pelosi) "I don't know what's so scary about a
66-year-old Italian grandmother."
Sali: "I'm not ready to say I do or don't believe" in global warming.
He is sure there are a lot of people talking about it. Study it
more?
H-N: $800,000, what is up with that, Bill Sali? Do you think this is
healthy for Idaho politics? How would you fix this?
Sali: I believe in free political speech, people able to give me all the
money they want to.
H-N: "vast amounts of out of state money" are bad for Idaho.
Grant: Prop 2, Howard Rich and Club for Growth says go, you say... ?
Sali: "I am in the middle of my analysis" and will be posting his
position on his website later this week.
Semi-live from downtown Boise
I'm supposed to be connected via the coffee shop, but my site survey
didn't turn 'em up. Next best link... doesn't quite work. It's scary
being out of the house.
So, I'll get there eventually, but not right during the debate,
apparently. Nevertheless, I am sitting next to
mcjoan
of the Daily Kos, which seems pretty cool. And found out we've known
her mom and brother for years.
Jill graciously offered me the use of her computer, but I had to explain
that I couldn't get here from there. Home-grown blog software. Worth
some sort of distinction, but "ease of use in strange places" is not one
of its features.
In Doubt, Even If Not Suddenly
The memories of reporters are shorter than decades, at least, so we can
forgive
Blaine Harden for comparing the prospect of a Democrat winning a
Congressional seat in Idaho with that of hell freezing over. And while
we do have "sacrificial lambs" from time to time, Larry Grant was never
one of them. The "suddenly" in his headline has more to do with
the MSM finally catching wind of what has been a competitive race since
the mustering of the 6-way Republican primary.
Nothing says "we might lose this one" like a third of a $million on
radio and TV advertising.
Vote if you're grown-up
Fred Barnes plays the "suppressing the vote!" and the "liberal media are
all for Democrats!" cards together, feeling it's a winning hand
for his Weekly Standard editors.
He cynically snarks at David Kuo's "cynically timed" book about the Bush
White House cynically using evangelical Christians, even as they make
fun of them behind their backs. The "home team" of the mainstream media
is the Democrats. Did you know?
On his side, there is the Republican Party, "the only vehicle through
which conservatives and moderates can accomplish their goals." Nice
dividing line, eh? All you lot in the middle, you're with us. He asks
whether Democrats would support his laundry list of conservative causes.
"Don't bet on it." And this:
Would they satisfy moderates by compromising with conservatives?
Only under duress.
And how about the conservatives compromising with moderates once in a
while? When is that going to happen?
Democrats no longer want to carry on a real war against terrorists.
Said "real war" being everything—and anything?—George Bush
says it is, the Churchillian tools to "finish the job" whatever
GWB&Co. say they need.
Howard Kurtz gives Fred the raspberry he so richly deserves for his
anti-petulance petulance, citing
Andrew Sullivan's pithy prognostication for good measure:
If the Republicans lose this election, it will be for a simple reason.
They have forgotten what conservatism means. You cannot spend and borrow
more than any Democratic Congress since FDR and remain a credible
conservative. You cannot elevate executive power permanently above
individual liberty and remain a credible conservative. You cannot wage a
war without the care, resources, and troops needed to win and remain a
credible conservative. You cannot wage a religiously-based culture war
and remain a limited government conservative.
I would add that you cannot start a war of adventure, either.
No amount of "care" can make such a war credible or legitimate for any
political stripe.
23.Oct.04
Ugly Truths
Dan Froomkin's column (or blog? or whatever it is) is making my head
spin. Scroll for Cheney's World, where the pre-war Iraq-al Qaeda
connection has never foundered, the worse it gets the better we're
winning, and his biggest regret is announcing we were over the hump too
soon. Bush stumping for mistress-beating Don Sherwood during
"National Character Counts Week"—that's just icing on the
cake.
This is not comedy, however, but tragedy. Ask Daniel Ellsburg,
reassessing what might
not have been, in Vietnam, if he'd blown the whistle
sooner:
The run-up to the 1964 Tonkin Gulf resolution was almost exactly
parallel to the run-up to the 2002 Iraq war resolution. In both cases,
the president and his top Cabinet officers consciously deceived Congress
and the public about a supposed short-run threat in order to justify and
win support for carrying out preexisting offensive plans against a
country that was not a near-term danger to the United States....
What do you do when your duty to the Constitution conflicts with your
secrecy oaths? There aren't many who can avoid the rationalization that
supports the more immediate, less catastrophic path of supporting lies,
one by one, until disaster comes.
Iran is the third act. Is there someone who will tell the truth
before it's too late this time?
Bill Sali: What Republicans Say
The campaign is heating up, which can only mean the ads are aiming more
directly for the lizard brain.
Here's one
for Larry Grant, answering the RNCC's buy for Sali in Idaho's 1st
C.D. With panache.
Funny how much more powerful it is to have someone read
a nice quote... highlighting a few words helps, too. "Incompetent,"
"dishonest," "deceitful," "embarrassment." And the bad picture, with
the dark circles around the eyes. (Presumably not stolen from the
opponent's campaign site.)
21.Oct.06
Without the sarcasm, irony and meta-analysis
Personally, I wish more people—a lot more people—would
vote. It astounds me that so many people are willing to forgo the most
basic and important of their civic rights and duties. A positive
interpretation is that it's a measure of what a good life we have in
this country, I suppose. The less positive interpretation is that it
speaks of the hopelessness of being unable to change a corrupt system that
has no interest in serving the people who aren't on the inside.
I have worked in politics and for political issues for many years,
nowhere near the top, but doing my part. Election day and the final act
of submitting my ballot is the thrilling conclusion of all that went
before, the Moment of Truth. It's hard to say what difference, if any,
I've made, but I know I've made an effort. And never in my life
have I been part of, or had direct experience of anything like a
"suppress the vote" effort. It's always been about getting out the
vote. Yes, I'll work much harder at convincing those who I agree
with to get out their vote, but if you're here on November 7th,
there will be only one, uncategorical command from fortboise:
VOTE.
I am not so naïve as to imagine that some do not work to
surpress the opposition through legitimate and illegitimate means. When
I read a broad and unsubstantiated accusation that "the left" has been
working to surpress their opponents' voting, it only makes me suspicious
about the person pointing the finger. The Gore-Bush election in 2000
stands as a signal event of manipulation, and it was not "the left" that
did all they could to surpress the opposition. At the top, "the left"
was prepared to accept the result, even before it was fully tested and
validated. Imagine that, the benefit of the doubt. And "the right"?
They manufactured a
"riot" to stop the recount.
You want radical ideas, try the message concluding another email I received
this morning, from one of my left-leaning friends:
Our real enemy is not another human being. The real war we have to wage
is against our fear, our wrong perceptions and our anger.
I know you are, but what am I?
The most extreme and illegitimate forms of argument are useful for their
self-revelatory qualities. One of our local fundamentalist firebrands,
deposed minister and now self-appointed Executive Director of the
Idaho Values Alliance,
Bryan Fischer sends out a daily newsletter. Working his own GOTV angle,
he writes under the subject "Voting and Voting Our Values":
The left has been working ceaselessly to discourage the family and faith
community from even showing up on election day. Leftists know that we
are the only thing that stands between them and a complete secularist
takeover of every major social institution in our nation.
Never mind that we've "pulled out the stops, using hate, vitriol,
anonymous accusations, and even unrepentant gay-bashing" (he's talking
about Mark Foley, not Larry Craig, btw) to scare
conservatives away from voting, those two introductory sentences speak
volumes about the mind behind them.
Do note that these damnable and faithless leftists are all devoid of
families. (Were they hatched?) And what they want! A complete secularist
takeover! Every institution! It's a wonder conservatives even come out
from under the covers in the morning.
Feeling run-down?
Ken Mehlman is spurring the troops with positive talk, under the subject
"Motivated to Win," uncharacteristically reciting some relatively dry
poll statistics to support his argument that the intensity is balanced,
at least. The first two sentences drip with unintended (I presume)
irony:
In recent days and weeks, the mainstream media have repeatedly claimed
that the Republican base is suffering from "low voter enthusiasm." It
is easy to believe a story that is repeated so frequently, but in fact
there is ample evidence to the contrary.
Given the demonstrable success the Republicans have had in getting
people to believe stories that have been "repeated so frequently," in
spite of ample evidence to the contrary, reading this statement from the
RNC chairman put me into an irony spiral that it might take a while to
break out of.
In the meantime, if I have any "base" readers out there, just keep
clicking your heels together and repeating this magic phrase: "my
enthusiasm is low. My enthusiasm is low."
20.Oct.06
"We don't do body counts"
Not so much a choice anymore, as an impossibility?
Baghdad Burning is back, after more than two months' hiatus, adding
a personal perspective to the mind-numbing casualty figures from
Iraq.
We literally do not know a single Iraqi family that has not seen the
violent death of a first or second-degree relative these last three
years. Abductions, militias, sectarian violence, revenge killings,
assassinations, car-bombs, suicide bombers, American military strikes,
Iraqi military raids, death squads, extremists, armed robberies,
executions, detentions, secret prisons, torture, mysterious
weapons—with so many different ways to die, is the number so far
fetched?
Dictatorship, Four Years at a Whack
John Yoo seems to be working full-time to earn a position in the
pantheon of American villians. And teaching law at Berkekey in his spare
time. Maybe this is what the people warning us about "trial lawyers"
were talking about. Here's his
message to the whole judicial branch: we cut off your legs.
It's all about "wartime" now, and the Executive is in charge, with
Congress left with a supporting role. The Global War on Terror is
against... well, everybody, potentially. (God knows, we're
losing friends in a hurry.) And none of them wear uniforms. So,
Habeus corpus simply doesn't apply. Even if it did,
the Constitution gives Congress the authority to determine the
jurisdiction of federal courts in peacetime, and also declares that
habeas corpus can be suspended "in Cases of Rebellion or Invasion" when
"the public Safety may require it."
That settles that, and a "stinging rebuke" to the SCOTUS, to boot!
Stay out of our business, eh?
I guess I missed the news about Congress actually carrying out its
Constitutional duty and declaring war. There have been plenty of
political figures who are declaring "we're at war," but this is a
subtlety that does not trouble the mind of Mr. Yoo. The general hue and
cry has been taken to establish that we are at war. With anyone we say
we are.
All those responsible for excess enthusiasm in bombing, rendering,
detaining, assassination, torture (we like to call it
"coercion") and so on, take heart:
Except for some clearly defined war crimes, whose prosecution would also
be up to executive discretion, it leaves interpretation and enforcement
of the treaties up to the president. It even forbids courts from relying
on foreign or international legal decisions in any decisions involving
military commissions.
Now this is the lawyer you want on your side when you're taking over.
Get out of War Crimes Free! Abrogate Treaties! Ignore the rest of the
world!
Privacy: Get Over It
Pui-Wing Tam reports on herself, as object of HP's
leak-investigation spying. She had nothing to do with it, it seems, but
the company was watching her for almost a year. Very creepy.
If, as Patricia Dunn suggested in one of her lame attempts at a defense,
"everybody's doing it," expect that this is the general shape of the
world of corporate espionage. There are still some bounds to what
the government can do, although the Unitary Executive Team
has worked dilligently to address that problem, too.
Thinking outside the box has given us clever solutions such as
enhancing "No Child Left Behind" into a
data mining opportunity: "military recruiters are entitled to
receive the name, address, and telephone listing of juniors and seniors
in high school." Quoted from
your Department of Education!
O brave new world, That has such people in't!
19.Oct.06
Ken Mehlman, you ignorant slut
Latest missive from the Team Leader Leader, hailing
"a significant victory in the War on Terror" with Bush's Monday signing
legislation "ensuring that America can continue interrogating dangerous
terrorists like 9/11 mastermind Khalid Sheikh Mohammed."
"Shockingly, 84% of the Democrats in the House voted against
interrogating terrorists, as did 73% of the Democrats in the Senate,"
Mehlman writes, underlining the point. Is that what the Democrats voted
against? "Out of concern for terrorist civil liberties," as he then puts
it? Mehlman has all the civil liberty he needs apparently, as chairman
of the party in control of all three branches of our government, at
least for a few more weeks.
The rest of us might wish for a different sort of "security" that
empowers our president to imprison whomever he wishes, as long as he
wishes, beyond the reach of what we used to know as the rule of law.
Idaho Might Lean the Other Way
Idaho's elections almost all go "likely" Republican, so when a contest
is upgraded to only "leaning," there's excitement in the air. Julie
reports on the
hot, hot race for the Idaho 1st Congressional District and the
attention it's drawing from national media.
The trouble with a one-party super-majority is that you end up with so
much room in the big tent that a stiff breeze can cause trouble. A
six-way contest in the Republican primary with two quality candidates
set up our present circumstance: the best-connected and most rabidly
right of the six edged the field thanks to well-targeted attacks on
Shiela Sorenson and Keith Johnson's relatively low profile as State
Controller. (Put another way, Republican primary voters preferred
someone other than Bill Sali by almost 3 to 1.) Hence,
Republicans for
Grant, along with the Democrats.
And here's a class act:
stealing a photo from your opponent's website for your attack ad.
Is this the sort of "free political speech" Sali was talking about
on Sunday? Maybe he should've been in church instead of
summoning demons in the Lewiston
Tribune.
18.Oct.06
Not so fast
Having just spent a weekend with my 'net connection throttled back to
dialup speed, this headline evoked some sympathy:
Iran cuts
Internet speeds to homes, cafes. I'm guessing the flow of essential
ideas will not be checked by this, but the overall annoyance level will
be increased.
Rumors from the last closet
83 comments and counting in the NewWest thread following
Mike Rogers' report bringing the rumors of our Senior and formerly
Singing Senator back to the surface. Somewhere between the extremes
there is an interesting discussion relating to the inevitable
recognition of same-sex relationships. Some folks will be dragged
kicking and screaming, but we'll all get there sooner or later. If
progress follows the poll numbers of support for G.W. Bush, Idaho will be
last or close to it.
Speaking of large animals in Idaho
Did you hear the one about the
babysitter shooting a bear? Stock in trade for "News of the Weird"
and its ilk. Henslee's 15-year-old sister, who "did not want her name
revealed" is referred to as a woman rather than a girl in the AP story
from Porthill (on the US/Canada border), and justifiably so.
(She) loaded her 7mm rifle and waited. The bear was distracted for a
moment by something at its feet and it looked down. Using that as her
chance, the babysitter slid the door open a foot and shot twice from the
hip at the bear just three feet away.
The bear dropped dead on the step.
Here's the part that makes it a genuine Idaho tale (as
reported by the AP):
"Henslee said her sister had a valid Idaho bear hunting tag."
The elder Henslee didn't say what might happen when the next bear
comes out to play.
Deer in the Headlight
The last thing Carol said before we left her house on Paradise Ridge was
"watch out for deer... and moose!" A moose would've been a lot worse
for us, when our turn finally came after more than half a century of
driving Idaho roads. As it was, our very-early start for the drive home
had an unpleasant side effect. The right side. Where I was trying to
catch some of the sleep I'd missed the night before with the ironic
combination of "a cold" and a fever.
Jeanette said it jumped up from the left side of the road, just after a
couple cars and a big truck had gone by. She didn't have time to swerve
or brake, as the deer almost made it across the road ahead of
us.
But not quite. After a bit of fender rebending, it was driveable, and
somewhere south of Lapwai in the morning twilight, that seemed like
the obvious option: drive on.
The rest of the trip to Boise was uneventful by comparison... rain
showers, fresh snow in the mountains down below 6,000', still the
vibrant fall colors in the draws and canyons, the occasional pocket,
hillside, or lone flaming arrow of a tamarack set against evergreen,
cottonwood and aspen yellows and gold, the prairies black and gold in
the Idaho colors of mollisol and stubble.
The Salmon River canyon above White Bird was dark gray, silver and green
from the first good rain in quite a while. Cooler. Smelled like winter
up in McCall.
16.Oct.06
With stewards like these, who needs rapists?
Butch Otter, likely next governor of the great state of Idaho, speaking
about one of the state's greatest treasures: wilderness is just "a nice
place for you to walk around and take pictures." (Quoted in
Eye on Boise)
Local Color
Betsy Russell profiles "professional thorn in the side of Idaho
Republicans" and smear specialist
Laird Maxwell. (He's no pal of any Democrats I know, either.)
Maxwell is a prime promoter of Proposition 2, supposedly a tonic for
"eminent domain abuse," but in reality a "sweeping new regulatory
takings law, requiring government to pay property owners if any land-use
regulation or change in farming or forest practice rules diminishes
their potential profits from full development of their land."
How about this for "home-grown" politics? "Of the initial $337,050 it
cost to get the measure on the ballot, just $50 came from
Idaho—and Maxwell paid that $50 himself."
Bringin' it on
Robert Scheer describes the latest broken leg in the Bush
administration's response to the tripod of evil: mirabile dictu,
ideology and confrontation are not enough. His immediate call is for
Bush &Co. to give a listen to James Baker; it's a start.
Those who can torture openly, can do anything
That's one of many conclusions Tom Englehardt draws in the teaser for
his new book (Mission Unaccomplished, Tomdispatch Interviews with
American Iconoclasts and Dissenters). His essay,
George Bush's
War of the Words, selects a few quotes from those interviews, and
describes how the sometimes stumbling, sometimes comedic, sometimes
frightening Bush administration has redefined its way to a new American
century.
You can read for yourself the long list of words that have been
redefined into tools of pacification. The most chilling of them is
democracy.
15.Oct.06
An Extremist in Sheep's Clothing
One full column of the
Lewiston
Tribune isn't enough to corral all the demons Bill Sali wants to
trot out and associate with his opponent for the first congressional
district in Idaho. I don't know if they let him write his own headline,
but it had the right tone of pugnacity to it: Who says Grant's stands
are moderate?
There's the usual rundown of Us vs. Them on economic issues (support the
party of record deficit spending and unimaginable new debt?), defense
and security (support the party that committed our military to an
unwinnable quagmire in the Middle East?), the illegal alien bogeymen
(an issue for which
Sali misrepresents Grant's position), all the fellow travelers that
Grant would be beholden to as a Democrat ("San Francisco ultraliberal"
Nancy Pelosi leading the parade as usual), and much, much more.
"Méngele-like experimentation on human embryos." "Valueless sex
education in the schools." (As opposed to... faith in the notion that
"abstinence only" could suffice?)
Sali wants to make English our official language; Grant opposes it.
Sali wants a Constitutional Amendment to override the First one in
regard to flag burning, and Larry Grant? Larry Grant is "supporting
flag burning."
Without irony, Sali derides Grant's desire for "more government control
over our First Amendment right to free political speech."
That's "free" as in the "free money" that Sali likes to collect from
wealthy donors who love the idea of the "majority of the majority"
Republican Study Committee keeping their lifestyles safe from
democracy.
Bill Sali starts with a litany of sameness: his views "hardly ever differed
from Butch Otter's" while Otter represented the district. "There isn't
a dime's worth of difference between Butch and me on national policy."
Golly, it's almost like he's the incumbent, huh? (All except the part
about being really likeable.)
Somewhere, there must be a measurable mark that Butch Otter made on
Congress during his stay, that Sali could aspire to? Unfortunately, the
only thing that comes to mind is Otter's pivotal vote in the overtime
manuevering that got Big Pharma's Medicare Drug Benefit through
the House of Representatives, long hours after midnight when his arm
had been twisted near off.
"Hard-core liberal" demons haunt Mr. Sali, in spite of their being damn
hard to track down in Idaho. He's promising more of the good old
policies that brought us where we are. As a campaign position. There's
no questioning that the man has a ton of faith, at least. What remains
to see is whether the voters of Idaho have enough credulity to buy what
he's selling.
Jamie Burton's nearby letter is a sign that some do. "I want Bill to be
in Congress where he can keep in touch with events in our world because
I can't trust the media."
"He won't burn our flag, he's not a traitor and he will keep me
safe."
I had to double-check that the next letter, headlined
"Your prayers needed" wasn't on the same subject.
11.Oct.06
Reap the Whirlwind
LONDON (Reuters) - "American and Iraqi public health experts have
calculated that about 655,000 Iraqis have died as a result of the March
2003 U.S.-led invasion and subsequent violence... (using) household
interviews rather than body counts to estimate how many more Iraqis had
died because of the war than used to die annually in peacetime."
The story doesn't mention if they also asked members of the 1,849
households surveyed "Are you better off today than you were four years
ago?" Let's just say that if the "liberators" were running for election
in Iraq next month, their chances would not be good.
9.Oct.06
Lurkers Unite (quietly, please)
As previously stipulated, Jakob Nielsen has
lots of ideas, many of them good ones. The
latest AlertBox starts with an observation that won't shock anyone
who has participated in online or email forums: participation is uneven,
with a small percentage of people creating a disproportionate share of
the heat (and light). Somehow the 80-20 rule gets translated into a
"90-9-1 rule": 90% of participants just lurk, 9% make occasional
contributions, and 1% account for most of the traffic.
He goes on to claim that blogs are even more unequal, with "only" 1.6
million postings a day, from just 0.1% of the 1.1 billion
internet users. Wikipedia mostly gets edited by a tiny nucleus of
regular contributors. And so on.
Nielsen lists the "downsides" of unequal participation, but not the
upside. We don't complain that only a tiny percentage of the people who
read the New York Times (or pick your favorite mass medium)
ever write anything that goes into it. Everyone has an opinion, but
some opinions are better informed and more intelligently expressed than
others. We select for those.
He decries the idea of "netroots" nomination of a political candidate,
because "postings on political blogs come from less than 0.1% of voters,
most of whom are hardcore leftists (for Democrats) or rightists (for
Republicans)." Maybe he's got numbers, but that sounds like a bald
notion to me. And search engine results... biased by those 0.1%
that do all the linking?
Not quite. Google's stunning success in making search work, simply,
is based on that unequal participation, and the usefulness
of the links made by active contributors to the web. Just because some
active contributors are noisy doesn't mean that 90-9-1 distributions
lead to a low signal-to-noise ratio. There are a lot of noisy signals
in the world, more than ever now accessible to anyone with a computer,
but we find our way to what we want P.D.Q. Quicker than ever.
We agree that we won't overcome participation inequality. We disagree
in how hard we should try to. Yes, you can get more "participation" by
letting someone submit a "review" that is one, two, three or four stars.
Or posting an online "poll" with no threshold for participation or
sampling of an actual group of interest. Template-based websites are
much easier to slap up. Have you seen a good one lately?
Sorry Jakob, you are seriously off the cliff on this one. Come back
when you have some ideas for increasing quality participation,
would you? (And while you're working on that, you really should have
a look at
"Explaining Quality in Internet Collective Goods: Zealots and Good
Samaritans in the Case of Wikipedia" (Anthony, et al., Nov.
2005), in which they found that Wikipedia's "highest quality
contributions come from the vast numbers of anonymous 'Good Samaritans'
who contribute infrequently." Frequency of editing is not tied to the
depth or quality of contributions.)
(By the way, I heard of that paper some time in the last 6 to 9 months,
but found it on Google as the top hit for "wikipedia contributor
percentages quality." Must be a lot of people linking to it.)
8.Oct.06
The Glorious Third Act
How charming that Carly "Tough Choices" Fiorina is on a book tour,
selling the product she's always been best at selling: herself. None of
the bad stuff was her fault, and even better: all the good stuff
that happened since she was fired is thanks to her brilliant strategy
and execution. "The company was transformed under my leadership," she
says.
That 56% drop in the stock price on her watch was... just preparation
for the great performance that followed her departure.
Leslie Stahl's softball one-on-one asked a few hard questions, but
very few. Stahl seems happy to sell the idea that Carly's only problem
was that she was a woman in a man's world.
Interesting that what galls her about the transition enough to mention
is that her temporary successor, the CFO, got "three and a half million
dollars for 45 days' work." For the gal who floated into the sunset
with a golden parachute worth TENS of million$, she should talk.
More Native Than Thou
Katie Breckenridge may be 61, photogenic, and a mistress of attractive
ungulates, but her notion of opposition in Idaho to the eminent domain
jackpot initiative is just one woman's opinion, featured to add
local color to
The New York Times' latest treatment. I'm not "connected to
the land" by her measure, I'm sure. I've lived in Idaho more than
30 years, and have chipped in plenty of taxes to support Ms.
Breckenridge's dusty, cheek-chapping lifestyle.
The Castle Coalition doesn't have any "eminent domain abuse" in Idaho to
cite, and figures it's "one of the best states in the country for
protecting owners from eminent domain abuse."
But that hasn't stopped Laird Maxwell's
This House is My Home
from being Howard Rich's surrogate stumpers here. (Warning: turn your
volume down for the rock music and and Flashy Sopranos ripoff...
speaking of property rights, did you pay for the rights to use that
music, Laird?) Consider the less picturesque but more telling anecdote
included in the NYT grab-bag: the government affairs director for the
Idaho Association of Realtors sums the proposition up succinctly:
"This is crazy."
6.Oct.6
Some lives are worth more than others, apparently
I forget who it was, but the video bite stayed with me: someone
supporting our continuing war in Iraq by pointing out that more
Americans died in one day on 9/11 than soldiers have died so far
in the whole Iraq war. A headline brought it back to mind this morning:
U.S. Puts Toll of Iraqi Police at 4,000 in 2 Years. That's just the
police, mind you. More than ten times that many Iraqis
have been killed since we re-started major combat operations in
that country in 2003.
"Remember, we're at war" keeps coming up as a justification for
all sorts of acts we wouldn't possibly excuse were we not at war.
Things like sacrificing centuries-year-old legal principles, and the
expectations of civil liberties that this country was founded on.
Then there's the fundamental issue which somehow can't get away
from being an asterisk: this war we decided we were at after the
terrorist attack in 2001 was not instigated by, started by, supported
by, or in any other manner related to Iraq. Our warriors decided
independently that the 9/11 attack made a good excuse to
depose Saddam Hussein, and so started that war.
We have the strongest military in the world, directed by men who profess
to fear bogeymen of their own making.
5.Oct.06
But they are reprehensible!
In between hand-picked audiences, there is the occasional opportunity
to speak truth to power. That's
when the Secret Service comes in handy. Steve Howards got in
Dick Cheney's face, and is reported to have said
"I think your policies in Iraq are reprehensible," or words to that
effect, en passant. Next pass, ten minutes later, he was cuffed
and taken to jail.
The good news is, it was the Eagle County Jail and not Gitmo. And the
Eagle Co. D.A. had the quaint notion that "charges" would require
"cause."
A Retroactive Keep Out of Jail Card
The Military Commission Act of 2006 doesn't look good on the surface of
it. The Congress capitulating to the Executive to exclude the
Judiciary? Is that legal? Ironically enough, it's up to the
Judiciary—the recently packed Supreme Court of the United States,
no less—to answer that question.
Reading that the bill is "take effect as of November 26, 1997, as if
enacted [on that date]"—what are we to make of that?
Richard Behan reads it as a tacit admission of guilt.
Après moi, le deluge
It seems only fitting that some bookstore leaked Carly's memoir, so that
John Markoff could write about it a few days before the embargo was up.
This is one book for which reading about it will suffice. No
need to peruse, or buy.
Her opion that "some board members’ behavior was amateurish and
immature" seems to have been borne out by subsequent events, and there's
no question that the company started doing really well right after
she left... but as a result of the "transformation" she worked on it?
It would be comforting to believe that, I'm sure. It's even possible.
But likely? Or provable? Probably not.
4.Oct.06
Rent-a-Republican
Moyers on America:
Capitol Crimes. This isn't one of those tinfoil hat conspiracies,
this is the Real Deal. Documented.
"Tom DeLay hoping you'll see Jesus in his mugshot? This is unbelievable!
You can't make this stuff up."
–Thomas Frank
"Deep in the plea agreements of Jack Abramoff and his cronies is the
admission that they conspired to use campaign contributions to bribe
politicians..." And it worked like a champ for a while.
Take your pick of
the emails to plumb the depths of the perfidy. My favorite is the
part where Ralph Reed is proving himself to be an even bigger scumbag
than Abramoff and Scanlon, taking them to the cleaners.
"He is a bad version of us! no more money for him."
Oh, and hearing Jack Abramoff speak so glowingly about Tom DeLay's great
success from "being true to our principles." That's special, too.
Governor Bill Who?
In their excitement over tomorrow's visit at the local Republican party
HQ, the press release writer apparently had Bill on his mind, when he
wrote the "WHO" line: Chairman Ken Mehlman, Gov. Bill Risch, Rep. Butch
Otter & Republican-candidate Bill Sali.
No big deal, he's not going to be governor much longer anyway.
Another Month of Denial
Given how many failings of the press have been so artfully timed (and/or
deflected) around recent elections, it seems that Bob Woodward's
State of Denial
at least comes at an appropriate time: right before an important
election. The debacle of the war on Iraq is being pretty fully
documented while the history is still fresh. The "defense" that this is
old news, no longer relevant... well, I don't buy it. The current
administration has committed us to a shocking, awful mess, and they have
not acknowledged the scope and breadth of their mistakes.
If you want different results, you have to do something differently.
Continued lying, unfounded optimism, refusal to change course, attacking
those who question decisions as unpatriotic (at least), as not supporting
the troops, as wanting to "cut and run," these are not signals that give
confidence we're headed in a new direction, or a the right one.
Here's Woodward, promoting his work, and its point of view
on The Newshour:
The postwar period, well, they thought it was going to be easy. And so
when Jay Garner, for instance, the general they put in charge of postwar
rebuilding, comes to the president—now this is three weeks before the
war—and says, "You've assigned me these nine tasks. Four of them I
can't do, the four most important ones."
And the president—it sails over his and everyone's head. And no one
says, "Well, who's going to do that? What do you mean you can't do it?"
And the president says, "Kick ass, Jay."
Woodward thinks reality is soon going to trump the state of denial that
is prevailing. We'll see. The administration isn't going to admit
anything about reality before November 7th. If the voters can
make themselves heard through Diebold's filter, reality may be imposed
on them, later this fall.
2.Oct.06
Final Choices
The Republicans are remembering our late Congressman (as she preferred
the term), Helen Chenoweth, said to be one tough lady. I was less than
impressed with her as a politician, but no point speaking ill of the
dead. It had more to do with disagreeing with just about every position
she had than anything personal.
News is, her daughter-in-law was driving a big SUV, apparently lost
control, and rolled it in a one-car accident. Chenoweth wasn't wearing
a seatbelt. She had her 5-month-old grandson on her lap.
Butch Otter wrote, "in every sense of her being, she fought for the
maximum individual liberty and the minimum in government." Apparently
the Nevada law requiring wearing of seatbelts and using child carseats
was past her personal limit.
Maybe grandson Bryan will grow with a different point of view, reminded
from time to time of how his grandmother died, while he somewhat
miraculously survived without serious injury, thrown out of a crashing
car.
Is the Place Haunted or Something?
The Idaho "governor's mansion," formerly potato king J.R. "Jack"
Simplot's sine qua non of personal expression, the house on the hill
with the flag the flaps the neighbors awake, is
halfway
to garnering $3 million in fix-up donations. Sheesh, that's a lot
of fixin' up, ain't it? And with so many actually worthwhile charitable
alternatives to give towards, besides.
It seems Dirk and Patricia never got around to moving in before he was
called away to be SecInt. Did short governor Risch move in? Both
candidates in this year's election have said thanks, but no thanks for
the housing deal; they don't want to move in if they win the job.
Cutting and Running from Cut and Run
The
Washington Times is calling the race for US Senate in Ohio
a dead heat, as the Republican candidate seeks to cut and run from
the President, and the failing Secretary of Defense. DeWine says he
wouldn't have voted for the war on Iraq had he know the WMD bluster was
just bluff.
In a claim worthy of Saint Peter, DeWine says "I don't use that term at
all," doesn't even know "cut and run": "I don't know what it
means," he said. "I don't know what it means to people."
You can watch the incumbent face off with Democratic challenger
Sherrod Brown on
Tim Russert's Meet the Press.
DeWine stresses that we can't leave the job undone in Iraq. That would
leave two alternatives: finish the job, or never leave. As
Thomas Ricks'
Fiasco describes in excruciatingly detail, there never was a
credible plan for men, women, and resources to finish the job, thanks
to the leadership's inability or unwillingness to think beyond Shock and
Awe.
So, No Exit. Bush has already told us that as an unwavering "principle"
of his administration. We won't leave. Plan on ten thousand attacks
on our soliders before the next Congress sits down to work.
1.Oct.06
The other front on the war on terror
Paul Sperry,
on what was missing from (what we've seen of) the April NIE:
"...the number of suicide bombings and roadside blasts from improvised
explosives in Afghanistan has mushroomed by 600 percent this year,
according to NATO. The Taliban say they have so many suicide bombers
signed up to hit U.S. and other Western forces they can't even arm them
all."
You remember Afghanistan, right? The country where Osama bin Laden
operated and organized the 9/11 attack? He's still there, as far as we
know, unless he's just over the border, in Pakistan.
Not that there isn't plenty of trouble in Mesopotamia. Tom Engelhardt
describes
George Bush's Iraq in 21 Questions. At least 23 militias. More
than 5,000 killed in Baghdad alone in July and August. Torture out of
control, and worse than it was under Saddam. And on and on.
By more than two-to-one, Iraqis want the U.S. out of their country.
(Our promotion of Iraqi democracy doesn't extend to letting them vote on
that, eh?) By staying there, we're stretching our military beyond
limits, and making our "homeland" less safe, by motivating terrorist
recruitment. But we can't withdraw... because it would require our
leaders to admit mistakes, and they don't do that.
The
continuing pattern of deception makes it clear that they know
about the mistakes, and recognize the consequences that would
come from the public knowing the truth. We can't handle the truth?
They can't handle the truth, at least. They mishandle it.
raveling
Tom von Alten
tva_∂t_fortboise_⋅_org
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Wednesday, 01-Nov-2006 22:36:23 MST
http://fortboise.org/blog/200610.html
