February 6, 2006 by lonbud
I’ve Seen That Movie, Too
The Senate Judiciary Committee opened hearings today into the Bush Administration’s domestic terrorist abatement initiative, with Chairman Arlen Specter telling Attorney General Alberto Gonzales in no uncertain terms he’d been called to account for the government’s refusal to abide by laws defining a “forceful and blanket prohibition against any electronic surveillance without a court order.”
This being the earliest stages of inquiry into what a clear preponderance of legal opinion on the matter has thus far construed to be violations of law by the Executive branch, the Republican majority on the committee declined to have Mr. Gonzales do so under oath.
Which ought not constitue a large thing in ordinary times. After all, most congressional testimony is unsworn, and sufficient penalties accrue to those who knowingly give false testimony to Congress, whether sworn or not.
But these are not ordinary times, as the adminstration has been ever fond of reminding us since 9/11.
We are, the administration would have it, under grave and constant threat of terrorist attack. And the hearings begun this morning go to the very heart of our approach to that threat (such as it may be in reality).
Why the Republicans would make a point of taking the Attorney General’s testimony without an oath, declining even, a Democratic motion for sworn testimony, contains the answer to much of what ails our body politic today.
In case no one noticed, Karl Rove is back.
Today confirmed that Bush’s Brain has been busily twitching away in the bowels of a White House lit recently by far more of the light of Congressional oversight and public attention than its occupants have come to expect or enjoy.
Mr. Gonzales professed his willingness to testify under oath, which is easy to do when one understands beforehand that it won’t — really — be necessary, and used his twenty minute opening statement to describe frightening and imminent dangers from which the adminstration’s warrantless NSA surveillance program is protecting the nation.
Throughout today’s testimony, Mr. Gonzales attested to his certainty of the Executive’s legal and constitutional authority to ignore the law, and gave his repeated assurance that the program is administered by “intelligence professionals.”
Coincident with the Attorney General’s house on fire testimony in defense of unfettered domestic police authority, the White House sent the undersecretary of state for arms control to the Foreign Press Center today to declare that Iran now has the capability to make atomic weapons.
On the heels of a breakdown in two years of negotiations between European and Iraninan officials, and a decision by the International Atomic Energy Agency’s board of governors to report Iran to the U.N. Security Council over its continued development of nuclear capabilities,
the Bush administration declared it’s refusal to permit a nuclear Iran.
“We are giving every chance to diplomacy to work,” the official said.
At the same time, “No options are off the table. We cannot tolerate a nuclear-armed Iran.”
It would seem, however more relevant to consider Iran’s tolerance for being not-protected by nuclear power. And how they, and we, might act differently with nukes between us.
Butler Crittenden - February 7, 2006 @ 1:35 pm
The whole scene yesterday was pure “Alice in Wonderland.” From Wikipedia: “It should be noted that while some assert that Lewis Carroll could have been a pedophile, it is far from an accepted fact.” I’ve read enough to know that today he’d be arrested and charged as one. However, in the case of the Republicans in congress, there’s no argument. They are psychopaths and cannot be trusted to mean a single word they utter. And most of the Dems aren’t far behind in the charade. Specter, Graham, and the others who APPEARED to be critical of Alberto G were there for the cameras and to have stuff to plug into their re-election campaigns, depending of course into which rabbit holes their focus groups say the voters have disappeared.
Michael Herdegen - February 7, 2006 @ 4:03 pm
It would seem, however more relevant to consider Iran’s tolerance for being not-protected by nuclear power.
Nuclear weapons DON’T protect Iran; rather, they expose Iran to destruction.
None of Iran’s neighbors have any intention of attacking Iran, and none has any CAPABILITY of attacking and defeating Iran with conventional means – although Pakistan and near-by Russia could nuke them…
Given that Iran faces NO conventional military threat, what purpose could be served by them acquiring nuclear weapons ?
Obviously, they seek to become a stronger regional power, and so it’s a policy of aggression for them, just as if they were to double the size of their standing conventional military forces, in the absence of any threat.
“Nuclear weapons” have an aura of death personified, but really they’re just very powerful explosives, with destructive effects that can be achieved with conventional explosives (excepting EMP effects and fusion weapons). We killed more people and caused more devastation by firebombing Dresden and Tokyo than we did by nuking Hiroshima and Nagasaki.
Given that nukes aren’t “doomsday weapons”, the question of ability to deliver such weapons becomes paramount. If Iran were only going to use them in a defensive war, then there’d be no question that they would be able to deliver them in a combat situation.
However, since Iran isn’t going to find itself in a defensive war anytime soon, do they have any ability to deliver them in an OFFENSIVE capability ?
The answer there is yes, but ONLY by stealth.
Iran has no ability to deliver nukes with missiles or by combat aircraft, so they’d have to sneak nukes into a target area in a shipping container or a passenger aircraft.
This is why nukes offer Iran no protection: Having nukes makes many nations with the capability to destroy Iran very nervous, but doesn’t enhance AT ALL Iran’s ability to respond to strikes, only their ability to perform surprise FIRST STRIKES.
Given that Iran is one of the world’s largest promoters of terrorism, and that Iran is located in what is currently one of the world’s most important areas, nobody is going to ignore the dangerous possibilities that a nuclear Iran poses.
That’s why Russia and China supported the IAEA reporting Iran to the UN Security Council.
Iran is increasing the likelyhood of their being attacked, without increasing their ability to respond to such attacks.
That’s stupid.
And how they, and we, might act differently with nukes between us.
If Iran demonstrates that they have nuclear weapons, it’s a 100% sure thing that Israel or the U.S. will attack them, which is certainly different from the status quo, which is a 100% sure thing that nobody is going to attack a non-nuclear Iran.
lonbud - February 7, 2006 @ 10:50 pm
I see I touched a nerve.
Notice I said protected by nuclear power, and not “protected by nuclear weapons.” Israel and/or the US will attack Iran (nuclear-armed or not) just as soon as either becomes too nervous about the balance of power in the middle east. Right now, given the course of affairs in Iraq and the results of the latest round of democratic elections in Palestine, both the US and Israel have to feel restive about the immediate future, at best.
So where does that leave Iran? Told the market for their sole source of income is on the wane, why deny them an opportunity to develop sources of energy that today benefit, India, Pakistan, and China in the chase for Life’s amenities?
Surely our vast powers of surveillance and intelligence gathering can prevent Iranian agents from sneaking a nuclear device into a shopping mall.
I don’t think it’s unreasonable to believe the Iranians when they say they want to develop nuclear energy production and not military capability. Even if they are totally bluffing, they aren’t likely to pull a surprise on anyone.
And even if they do, damages are likely to be within the range of acceptable. They would then be entitled to a proper smackdown.
This is all a bunch of hoo-ha to keep the American public at fearful wits end anytime an election draws nigh. Diversonary tactics designed to draw attentioan away from the administration’s real, day-to-day miscues and its sytemic inadequacies, AND to stoke the fires of paranoia among an increasingly insecure populace.
Iran is a red herring just as Saddam was. This whole song and dance has gotten very old.
Michael Herdegen - February 7, 2006 @ 11:25 pm
Surely our vast powers of surveillance and intelligence gathering can prevent Iranian agents from sneaking a nuclear device into a shopping mall.
Possibly, but not certainly.
I don’t think it’s unreasonable to believe the Iranians when they say they want to develop nuclear energy production and not military capability.
Yes, it is.
Find me ONE serious person in the entire world who believes that.
If all Iran wants to do is fire up a power plant, then why are they enriching their uranium to WEAPONS GRADE ?!?
Why did they reject the Russian offer to supply and remove fuel for their purported “power plant” ?
Why won’t they let international inspectors examine their facilities ?
And even if [Iran does attack someone with nuclear weapons], damages are likely to be within the range of acceptable.
Yes, that’s true, assuming that your end-goal is the destruction of the Muslim Middle East.
lonbud - February 8, 2006 @ 2:42 pm
Yes, that’s true, assuming that your end-goal is the destruction of the Muslim Middle East.
ummm, I thought that was the goal.
Michael Herdegen - February 9, 2006 @ 12:19 am
Ha.
Maybe so.
Gerald W - February 9, 2006 @ 5:41 pm
Just reminding y’all this man is the son of the man who was the head of the CIA and has been caught in many lies about his envolvement with espionage against say Cuba for instance, or the Kennedy assinatiion for instance. Surely at his daddy’s knee little George was taught about the way things really work, with secret prisons around the world, genital electric shocks for detainees-oh yeah baby and much worse. This is the type of ops he would know about and approved, Y’see this is how we got our man in office in most countries-lock up any opposition leaders and have them tortued by the locals we buy. Now couple that with his espoused religious beliefs. Jesus was against taxing the poor and letting the rich go scot free, but we all talk about the weather. Another subject for another Bush lie at another time(weather-polar ice caps aren’t really melting pshaw…enjoyed the venting and thanx
Gerald W - February 9, 2006 @ 5:52 pm
Drill me an oil well
or may gas
roll me a joint
and kiss my ass
So, drill me an oil well
right here in the ground
’cause we’re burning oil
as fast as it’s found
refrain:
We’ll do any thing
to keep us in style
but sacrifice comfort
or stop burning oil
So drill me an oil well
and put it in quick
’cause we’re running out
and in a real fix
Drill me an oil well
You son of a bitch
We’ll sell that oil
and get stinking rich
Tam O’Tellico - February 9, 2006 @ 10:05 pm
No one should delude themselves about Iran’s intentions with its nuclear program — this is not about a little cheap electricity. But if as Michael correctly points out, the bomb will not improve Iran’s defensive capabilities, why pursue such an obviously risky policy?
Because Iran, like most nations in the Mideast, has an overly developed sense of national pride coupled with a deep-seated sense of inferiority — a very dangerous combination. What else could be expected when Egypt, Syria and Jordan combined couldn’t even defeat a tiny, fledgling nation like Israel in the Six-Days War?
The Nuclear Option for Iran is in many ways like the schoolboy who sticks a gun in his pants and struts around the schoolyard. It is “proof” that the boy (or the nation) is someone who must be shown proper “respect”. Graveyards are filled with such children.
lonbud - February 9, 2006 @ 10:27 pm
Welcome, Gerald W.
And thanks for reminding us the apple don’t fall far from the tree.
Bubbles - February 10, 2006 @ 12:59 pm
Not that this is really news its more like finding Grant in Grant’s tomb.
http://news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20060210/pl_nm/iraq_usa_intelligence_dc
Tam O’Tellico - February 12, 2006 @ 4:11 pm
Brown-Out
I had the opportunity to observe some of the testimony this week during the Senate hearings on the Katrina disaster. It appears that the blame game is now in full swing. It also appears that a far different story is beginning to emerge now that Mike Brown has concluded his friends in the White House threw him under the bus.
Strangest of all is that the White House did not attempt to exert executive privilege to cover its ass. But it appears the reason that attempt was not made was that word had gotten back that Brown didn’t care; he was going to give his side of the story regardless. Thus his willingness to answer the 12 questions FEMA attorneys would not let him answer previously.
I must confess that the WH propaganda machine got to me , too, and many times my posts about Mike Brown have been derisive. But the hearings have led me to the conclusion that for all his lack of experience, Mike Brown very likely was not the biggest offender in this fiasco. Rather, he appears to have been made “the designated scapegoat” as was suggested by many during the hearings.
So where did the problem really lie? The jury is still out, but the evidence I heard leads me to conclude that Homeland Security head Michael Chertoff and the White House were chiefly responsible for the delays and the failure of the Federal government to do its part, which under the circumstances was the part that most mattered.
Yes, we are all judging now with the benefit of hindsight, but if we are to learn anything from all this, judgments must be made. For starters, it is now abundantly clear that the potential for disaster was well-known long before the event, and that the precise details of what would happen and how to mitigate against them were clearly spelled out well in advance of the disaster.
Given that the National Weather Service predicted this catastrophe four days in advance, the decision by President Bush and his chief of staff Andy Card to take vacations in the face of such a prediction can only be viewed as either criminally negligent or obscenely uncaring. This is particularly so since Mike Brown had operated directly through the White House during previous disasters.
But in this case, Brown was advised that he had to “go through channels” which meant dealing with Chertoff. This decision was made in spite of the fact that the White House had to have known about the ongoing pissing contest between Brown and Chertoff. Yet suddenly, the WH chose to assume a hands-off posture in the face of the greatest natural disaster in U.S. history.
One can’t help but wonder why. Is it possible the WH decided to use this disaster to embarrass Louisiana politicians like Nagin and Blanco? Can this be payback for the last election? Or is this really a case of racism? One shudders to think that such heartlessness is possible in any human being.
But if indifference wasn’t the cause, then the only explanation left is incompetence. And in this case, the WH did not have Rudy Giuliani to cover up for its failures.
Worst of all, testimony suggests that little has been done to prevent such an awful outcome in the event of the next huge disaster, say a dirty bomb or the breaching of a western dam. That conclusion seems to be confirmed in the 600 page House report on Katrina which is about to hit the streets.
Bottom line? The administration appears to have learned nothing from the Katrina disaster, or if it has, it doesn’t care to put those lessons into practice. And just as it was with Katrina, the consequences are predictable given an administration which favors cronyism, obsequiousness and political favoritism over dedication, talent and experience.
Bubbles - February 12, 2006 @ 6:38 pm
Worthy of posting for those who may not have access.
The Trust Gap
Published: February 12, 2006
We can’t think of a president who has gone to the American people more often than George W. Bush has to ask them to forget about things like democracy, judicial process and the balance of powers — and just trust him. We also can’t think of a president who has deserved that trust less. This has been a central flaw of Mr. Bush’s presidency for a long time. But last week produced a flood of evidence that vividly drove home the point.
DOMESTIC SPYING After 9/11, Mr. Bush authorized the National Security Agency to eavesdrop on the conversations and e-mail of Americans and others in the United States without obtaining a warrant or allowing Congress or the courts to review the operation. Lawmakers from both parties have raised considerable doubt about the legality of this program, but Attorney General Alberto Gonzales made it clear last Monday at a Senate hearing that Mr. Bush hasn’t the slightest intention of changing it.
According to Mr. Gonzales, the administration can be relied upon to police itself and hold the line between national security and civil liberties on its own. Set aside the rather huge problem that our democracy doesn’t work that way. It’s not clear that this administration knows where the line is, much less that it is capable of defending it. Mr. Gonzales’s own dedication to the truth is in considerable doubt. In sworn testimony at his confirmation hearing last year, he dismissed as “hypothetical” a question about whether he believed the president had the authority to conduct warrantless surveillance. In fact, Mr. Gonzales knew Mr. Bush was doing just that, and had signed off on it as White House counsel.
THE PRISON CAMPS It has been nearly two years since the Abu Ghraib scandal illuminated the violence, illegal detentions and other abuses at United States military prison camps. There have been Congressional hearings, court rulings imposing normal judicial procedures on the camps, and a law requiring prisoners to be treated humanely. Yet nothing has changed. Mr. Bush also made it clear that he intends to follow the new law on the treatment of prisoners when his internal moral compass tells him it is the right thing to do.
On Thursday, Tim Golden of The Times reported that United States military authorities had taken to tying up and force-feeding the prisoners who had gone on hunger strikes by the dozens at Guant√°namo Bay to protest being held without any semblance of justice. The article said administration officials were concerned that if a prisoner died, it could renew international criticism of Gitmo. They should be concerned. This is not some minor embarrassment. It is a lingering outrage that has undermined American credibility around the world.
According to numerous news reports, the majority of the Gitmo detainees are neither members of Al Qaeda nor fighters captured on the battlefield in Afghanistan. The National Journal reported last week that many were handed over to the American forces for bounties by Pakistani and Afghan warlords. Others were just swept up. The military has charged only 10 prisoners with terrorism. Hearings for the rest were not held for three years and then were mostly sham proceedings. And yet the administration continues to claim that it can be trusted to run these prisons fairly, to decide in secret and on the president’s whim who is to be jailed without charges, and to insist that Gitmo is filled with dangerous terrorists.
THE WAR IN IRAQ One of Mr. Bush’s biggest “trust me” moments was when he told Americans that the United States had to invade Iraq because it possessed dangerous weapons and posed an immediate threat to America. The White House has blocked a Congressional investigation into whether it exaggerated the intelligence on Iraq, and continues to insist that the decision to invade was based on the consensus of American intelligence agencies.
But the next edition of the journal Foreign Affairs includes an article by the man in charge of intelligence on Iraq until last year, Paul Pillar, who said the administration cherry-picked intelligence to support a decision to invade that had already been made. He said Mr. Bush and Vice President Dick Cheney made it clear what results they wanted and heeded only the analysts who produced them. Incredibly, Mr. Pillar said, the president never asked for an assessment on the consequences of invading Iraq until a year after the invasion. He said the intelligence community did that analysis on its own and forecast a deeply divided society ripe for civil war. When the administration did finally ask for an intelligence assessment, Mr. Pillar led the effort, which concluded in August 2004 that Iraq was on the brink of disaster. Officials then leaked his authorship to the columnist Robert Novak and to The Washington Times. The idea was that Mr. Pillar was not to be trusted because he dissented from the party line. Somehow, this sounds like a story we have heard before.
lonbud - February 13, 2006 @ 6:50 am
It’s almost like Groundhog Day. Where’s Bill Murray when we need him?
Tam O’Tellico - February 13, 2006 @ 2:18 pm
Among the countless instances of Doublespeak by this administration, add this: Trust me = Fuck you
Tam O’Tellico - February 13, 2006 @ 6:09 pm
Never Cry Wolf
None of us want to see Intelligence operatives hamstrung in their battle against terrorists. And quite frankly, I don’t much care what they do to U.S. citizens who are aiding and abetting Al Queda. But the proof of such traitorous actions requires more than “trust me”.
Bush asks us to trust him, but fact is, the FISA statutes were established because Richard Nixon proved it isn’t always wise to trust the President. Fact is, many of us don’t trust this President because we know the TSP program can’t possibly work without some sort of broadband net to “harvest” the intelligence particulars they are looking for. Fact is, many of us believe this President already has lied to us numerous times, lied to us about things far more important than whether NSA operatives sneak a peek at our emails or phone calls. Fact is, a great many of us believe that when it comes to losing our freedoms, we have more to fear from Bush and Cheney than we do from Osama bin Laden.
If that sounds like crying wolf, I guess I’m just following our President’s shining example. Surely, no one has cried wolf more often than Bush or Cheney. Frankly, my biggest fear is that they have done so so often that most people have stopped listening.
Michael Herdegen - February 14, 2006 @ 1:04 am
[A] great many of us believe that when it comes to losing our freedoms, we have more to fear from Bush and Cheney than we do from Osama bin Laden.
This is true.
However, al Qaeda isn’t interested in merely relieving us of our freedoms, they want to TAKE OUR LIVES.
Since there is no possibility whatsoever that al Qaeda or any affiliated organization or nation can bring down the U.S., if American society were such that we could accept the loss of a few hundred (or a few thousand) random innocent American lives per year, without political repercussion to our elected officials, then we could just ignore al Qaeda, except to loose our law enforcement and SpecOp agencies upon them.
However, objectively insignificant human losses due to terrorism DO cause extreme repercussions for American elected officials, which is why they have a “zero-tolerance” approach to fighting terror, an approach which causes them to push the envelope of allowed tactics.
An excellent example of why the Bush admin is doing so, is the tremendous upset that many contributors to this forum felt regarding Hurricane Katrina, which killed slightly over a thousand people, and wrecked one of America’s most degenerate and least-attractive cities.
Despite the fact that everyone knew WELL IN ADVANCE that they would be in danger, the posters here wailed and cried over the senselessly and needlessly self-inflicted deaths of 0.00003% of the American population, and the partial destruction of a medium-sized city that was so unloved that its population had been shrinking for decades.
Imagine that reaction multiplied by a thousand if some terror group succeeded in nuking a city that America actually cared about.
THAT is why the Bush admin is doing everything that they can, including rejecting Congress’ un-Constitutional claim to have the authority to regulate the Office of the President’s war-making powers.
The public demands it.
That’s also why deep-sixing the Patriot Act was a political loser for the Dems – only moonbats trust bin Laden more than Bush, despite the fact that Bush may not be all that trustworthy.
Michael Herdegen - February 14, 2006 @ 1:52 am
The Fake Science Threat
Sebastian Mallaby, February 6, 2006
The Washington Post
Tam O’Tellico - February 14, 2006 @ 8:52 am
Michael, it gives me cause for hope that you, too, appear to have some misgivings about the “truthiness” of this administration. And while I share your concern that Al Queda has the potential to cause America far more harm than Katrina, that sad reality only adds to my doubts about this administration.
So my questions remain: How much freedom are we willing to surrender to protect us from that danger? Whether it’s protecting us from Al Queda or from our own govt, has this administration proven itself worthy of trust? If this administration is incapable of dealing with a danger that was predicted (not predictable), how able is it to deal with one that may well be unforseeable?
Please believe me when I say it is not simply partisan politics to ask these questions. In fact, many Republicans are now asking the same questions, including members of the House committee that just issued a report on the failures of Katrina. While the report blames Nagin and Blanco, it plainly assigns a major portion of the failure to the White House:
“If 9/11 was a failure of imagination, then Katrina was a failure of initiative. The White House failed to de-conflict varying damage assessments and discounted information that ultimately proved accurate. The president’s Homeland Security team did not effectively substantiate, analyze and act on the information at its disposal.”
“If this is what happens when we have advance warning, we shudder to imagine the consequences when we do not. Four and a half years after 9/11, America is still not ready for prime time.”
Tam O’Tellico - February 14, 2006 @ 9:13 am
As for our ongoing debate on education, there is little question America still provides a great education for those at the top of the heap, else why would foreigners continue to flock to our best schools? As long as America continues to provide an environment where the best and the brightest feel unfettered and free to flourish, we will not suffer a brain drain.
But the “if” in that hypothesis remains a big question. That is why so many of us are so concerned about present policies that push political agendas into the scientific sphere. From Intelligent Design to stem-call prohibitions to shading of FDA and NIH reports, there is every reason to be concerned that academic freedom is under attack.
Which leads me back to those who are not at the top of the heap. Grave doubts remain about whether NCLB is really intended to provide a real education for students, or whether it is instead intended to provide the next generation of fry cooks and cannon fodder.
Call me a liberal if you must, but I’m old and crotchety enough to believe there is value in education beyond job-training. I would remind one and all that it was that raging liberal Thomas Jefferson who foresaw the first and most important aim of public education was to create an intelligent and informed electorate, else there was no hope for democracy.
One wonders what Jefferson would think about our educational system, about the electorate, and about Fox “fair and balanced” news.
Michael Herdegen - February 14, 2006 @ 8:44 pm
How much freedom are we willing to surrender to protect us from that danger?
How much freedom have we surrendered ?
While fanciful hypotheticals about what MAY happen abound, as a practical matter, the average person has given up the freedom to carry a knife aboard a public commercial aircraft, and must now keep in mind that if she makes a call to an overseas number, the conversation might be monitered.
Those hardly seem like an undue burden.
Whether it’s protecting us from Al Queda or from our own govt, has this administration proven itself worthy of trust?
So far, yes.
No more attacks by al Qaeda, and over the past fourteen years, the only proven case of domestic spying for political purposes was committed by the Clinton admin.
You don’t have to like or trust Bush to admit that so far his admin has been successful.
Grave doubts remain about whether NCLB is really intended to provide a real education for students, or whether it is instead intended to provide the next generation of fry cooks and cannon fodder.
Call me a liberal if you must, but I’m old and crotchety enough to believe there is value in education beyond job-training. I would remind one and all that it was that raging liberal Thomas Jefferson who foresaw the first and most important aim of public education was to create an intelligent and informed electorate, else there was no hope for democracy.
And I would remind all that most Americans SELF-SELECT the role of fry cook or cannon-fodder.
There is not, after all, any compulsory military service in America today, and universally available, free or nearly-free educational materials, (many of them couched as entertainment), allow ANY literate American to become an expert in nearly any field.
That some Americans choose to join the military, or that most Americans choose not to learn more than the minimum necessary for comfort, is not evidence of a conspiracy.
Job training at least provides a minimum set of skills that one could use to earn a middle class wage, which would be a step up for one out of four American workers.
As for the virtues of an old-time liberal education, it must be noted that 19th century high school graduates were MUCH superior to today’s – but that less than half of 19th century citizens completed high school, and a significant percentage didn’t advance beyond primary school.
If we compare the top third of our modern high-school graduates against the average product of the 19th century, which is a much closer apples-to-apples comparison, then we can see that we’ve not lowered the bar that much.
The most significant difference is that the students of yore were usually required to be proficient in Latin and/or Greek, whereas many schools today don’t require a foreign language for graduation.
One wonders what Jefferson would think about our educational system, about the electorate, and about Fox “fair and balanced” news.
I know what James Madison would think – he’d approve.
Why is it, do you think, that FOX has become so successful ?
If the commercial broadcast news, PBS, and CNN had accurately and completely presented all viewpoints, then there wouldn’t have been a huge audience and market for FOX, right ?
It would have been a niche network, like the Military Channel.
Therefore we can conclude that FOXNews is performing a public service, by breaking the stifling and oppressive gate-keeping cartel that had previously dominated the media.
As for “fair and balanced”, Madison wrote in The Federalist No. 10 that:
Meaning, “fair and balanced” would ONLY matter if most of the current media organizations were competing on quality grounds alone.
As they are NOT, and almost all of the current media organizations have aligned themselves on one side of an ideological and philosophical divide, whether FOXNews is truly “fair and balanced” is irrelevant.
It’s enough that they exist, for many of their viewers, since the previous media had ceased to serve their needs, and FOX appeals to already existing differences of thought and opinion.
Tam O’Tellico - February 15, 2006 @ 1:24 pm
So let me see if I’ve got this straight — you’re saying Fox tells only half the story, but that’s okay because we can get the other half from CNN? So, how many people of your acquaintance watch both? Is it any wonder our nation is so divided? And in any case, what does such an absurd approach have to do with the idea of “fair and balanced”?
While you choose to “conclude that FOXNews is performing a public service, by breaking the stifling and oppressive gate-keeping cartel that had previously dominated the media” I conclude that Fox’s success is largely due to turning the news into just one more lowest-common-denominator entertainment medium, filled with plunging neck lines, too-short skirts, sensationalism and simplistic sloganism. But hey, what else could I expect from Rupert Murdoch?
I admit that in the good old days, guys like Ed Murrow, Dan Rather and Peter Jennings may have leaned to the left, but none of them could possibly be considered radical. On the other hand, AM radio has always been filled with right-wing reactionaries who make Rush look like a Commie.
Speaking of Commies, Ed Murrow may have been a liberal, but I’d put his search for the truth up against anyone on the air today. And when it comes to speaking truth to power, he has no equal today. Just ask Joe McCarthy.
But maybe you’re right; maybe my own liberal bias prevented me from noticing when Cronkite, Severeid, Chancellor, Brokaw, et al, were proselytizing for a Communist or Socialist takeover. Hell, I couldn’t tell you for certain the political persuasion of any of these guys, and if you can, please tell me how you managed to do so based on their reading of the nightly news?
Rather than a hidden agenda, these men offered the fairest, most balanced and certainly most grown-up news of my lifetime, and the present-day pretenders are mostly not even deserving of the title journalist. Fox’s answer to Murrow? Bill O’Reilly. Fox’s answer to
Brokaw? Shepard Smith. Pleeeeeeeeeeease!
The truth the Wright doesn’t wish to acknowledge is that the so-called liberal media bias was an invention, a punishment for exposing the considerable sins of Richard Nixon. And if you really want to know why liberals like me — just for the record, I consider myself a true conservative — are up in arms about NSA warrantless spying, et al, look no further than our experience with the last President to claim imperial powers.
In addition to his own innumberable sins, George W. Bush suffers for the sins of Nixon. That may not be fair, but don’t expect any of us who lived through those days to “trust” this or any other President who sneaks his way around the law. And yes, you and Alberto can parse words and obfuscate, but there is no plausible rationale for this President by-passing FISA — unless he intends to use warrantless searches for purposes the FISA court disapproves.
But you and I probably don’t even agree about that.
You ask why this matters; let me tell you why. It matters because in my son’s Contemporary Issues class at the local high school, they watch Fox News exclusively. It matters because thanks to Fox, a great many Americans still believe in fairy-tales like WMD and the Saddam/bin Laden connection. It matters because a great many Americans believe this President has never lied to them — he’s just been misunderquoted by the “liberal media”.
And in the end, all this matters because unless we can achieve some sort of consenus about the truth, a consensus based in reality, we cannot possibly choose leaders who will pursue policies in the interest of the nation as a whole. We will continue to be ruled by those who most skillfully divide us for their own purposes.
If you want to see what happens in the alternative, keep watching the revelations in the Abramoff affair. Just don’t expect to see too much about them on Fox.
lonbud - February 15, 2006 @ 3:59 pm
the average person has given up the freedom to carry a knife aboard a public commercial aircraft, and must now keep in mind that if she makes a call to an overseas number, the conversation might be monitored.
Not exactly.
The average person has given up the freedom to arrive at the airport much less than an hour before her flight is due to depart.
The average person has given up the freedom to walk to his departure gate without first having to proffer an indentification card, stand in line to be barked at by self-important government functionaries, and disrobe to one’s stocking feet and shirtsleeves.
The average person has given up the freedom to wear metal jewelry or belt buckles while traveling, or at least the freedom to keep them on before boarding an aircraft.
The average person has given up the freedom to travel with a personal computer, a cell phone, or a set of car keys without first removing same from her luggage or pockets and presenting them for inspection by government authorities.
The average person has given up the freedom to refuse to be randomly selected for additional, close inspection of one’s person and belongings.
The average person has given up countless little freedoms by which life in the United States has become immeasurably more frustrating, bothersome, and sometimes degrading than it was even five short years ago — not to mention fifteen.
The so-called terrorists have already won quite significant victories in their quest to destroy our culture and our way of life, though little of it was won through any act of terrorism by them. Rather, we have accepted our own self-inflicted terrorism as a defense against theirs.
Michael Herdegen - February 15, 2006 @ 5:41 pm
lonbud:
But those are exactly the kind of things that YOU ADVOCATE should have been in place pre-9/11.
Or when you claim that Bush should have stopped 9/11 from happening, do you mean with magical powers that don’t disturb anyone ?
Perhaps Darth Cheney should have used The Force.
In any case, everyone including you can recognize how picayune it is to claim that having to get to the airport an hour earlier is such a brutal trampling of our liberties that the Republic is in peril.
The stuff about presenting identification, keys, or personal electronics, or submitting to additional inspection, is merely an enhanced enforcement of actions that they could have made a traveller perform pre-9/11. It just wasn’t much done.
But again, just how DO you expect security forces to attempt to protect us, without hands-on inspections and close scrutiny ?
lonbud - February 15, 2006 @ 9:19 pm
If it’s the hands-on inspections that make you feel so secure, Michael, how do you feel about going to an event at your local sports arena? Catching a train? Spending a weekend afternoon at the nearest mega-mall?
Please cite my advocacy of the idea current airport security procedures ought to have been in place pre-9/11.
The federal government ought to have prevented the epic events of that infamously gorgeous day, certainly posessed — and have never been called to explain the failure to use — sufficient resources to have kept those planes from crashing into the World Trade Towers and the Pentagon (if not the Pennsylvania field), and given the response to Hurricane Katrina some four years later, can not reasonably be viewed to have amassed any additional facility for disaster response.
It may well be picayune to lament the loss of laconic trifles of our pre-9/11 culture, but tis the death of just such freedoms, the inherited lagniappe of our true foudation in liberty. that defines the terorists’ victory.
Michael Herdegen - February 15, 2006 @ 10:08 pm
To the best of my knowledge, you’ve never made a specific recommendation for preventing 9/11, you’ve merely asserted that it should have been done – which you do again now.
Well, I’ve given you three choices: Intrusive security measures, magic, or The Force.
Since only one of those works nationwide, we can assume that you must either endorse the current security measures, or give up on claiming that 9/11 was preventable.
Or, you could surprise me, and present a well-thought-out alternative to intrusive security, that might have stopped 9/11.
And no, claiming that Darth Cheney should simply have told the FBI where the hijackers were and what they were up to is not a reasonable alternative.
Tam O’Tellico:
[A] great many Americans still believe in fairy-tales like WMD…
I’d like to respond to several of your points, but first you must debunk this post, based on Dr. Hans Blix’s 27 JANUARY 2003 report to the UN Security Council, in which Dr. Blix details all of the prohibited stuff that the weapons inspectors found in Iraq up until then, and also about how the Iraqi gov’t was refusing to cooperate with the weapons inspectors.
Or, since it is impossible to debunk the report, given that Blix’s teams found WMD, you can just post that you now believe that Iraq DID have WMD, and we can continue the conversation.
lonbud - February 15, 2006 @ 10:55 pm
Michael, I’ll debunk your fcuking post of Blix’s report — there was a boatload of Iraqi defiance of the International community’s insistence that it sit in the corner and STFU, but no actual discovery, ever, of physcial evidence of Saddam’s abilitly to deliver weapons of mass destruction against either Israel or the United States, as w, condi, powell, and blair all contended before the U.N. and the world was the threat at hand.
Within 30 minutes, Bush and Rice claimed.
how would i have prevented 9/11 without the intrusive security measures selectively applied today? i would have paid people more than $7.50 an hour to staff the fully adequate screening procedures in place at the time, and required the airlines themselves to participate in security precautions.
more specifically, when four commercial airliners flew off-course and were unresponsive to communication with an hour of one another, i would have scrambled the requisite number of fighter jets that could have intercepted them within fifteen minutes and shot down any one of them that failed to respond to a command to abort course and land immediately.
those are jus the last-minute emergency measures that could have thwarted Osama’s touchdown passes that day.
had condi taken seriously the clinton transition team’s warning that the gravest threat to the country’s continuing peace and prosperity lay in al Qaeda’s activities, had w been less busy with his summer vacation and the clearing of brush on his godforsaken ranch, the repurcussions of 9/11 could have been obviated.
all of that, however, is old news. w has proven his ineffectuality and lack of vision many times over in the last 5+ years. not only will he be judged by history as a man who squandered all the riches of the world, there remains enough time for him to be forced to actually leave office in disgrace.
Tam O’Tellico - February 16, 2006 @ 7:19 am
Thanks for rising to my defense, Bud, but the simple fact that M continues to assert the existence of invisible (or at least never-found) WMD says all that needs to be said on this subject. Must be he gets his information only from “fair and balanced” FOXNews.
While M is quite right that all these airport follies are mere inconveniences compared to having the plane you’re on flown into a building, that is hardly the point. These perfunctory searches have little if any effect other than to inconvenience travelers and swear them off our already struggling airlines.
What has kept our planes in the air since 9-11 is not body searches of my 85 year-old mother-in-law but the events aboard the flight that crashed in PA. What those events said very clearly was “Never again.”
Once our public stance was waiting out hijackers, a stance that for the most part proved effective. But no one is going to follow that stance anymore. Should one or two or even four or five terrorists commandeer a plane these days, they know they better be prepared to take on every other passenger on board. I don’t think that’s going to be accomplished with a box cutter or two.
Hell, I’d go after them even if they claimed to have a bomb or were holding my wife or son hostage. A slim chance is always better than none.
Unfortunately, this creates the potential for tragic misunderstandings like we recently witnessed in Atlanta. That, as Bud says, is the real victory of the terrorists — they have made us all fearful beyond the actual threat.
In any case, the real question that needs to be answered is what are these lunatics going to pull next now that planes have become a ring for a potential steel-cage match. We are told that the question will be answered thanks to w’s TSP surveillance plan. Given this administration’s record pre and post 9-11, including disaster-preparedness as witnessed with Katrina, I think I’d like more than w’s assurance and my having to undress down to my skivvies in order to board a plane.
Tam O’Tellico - February 16, 2006 @ 2:46 pm
“In an abundance of caution, we advise you that we have learned that not all email of the Office of the Vice President and the Executive Office of the President for certain time periods in 2003 was preserved through the normal archiving process on the White House computer system.”
So states SP Fitzgerald’s January 23 letter to Scooter Libby’s defense team.
Lonbud the Lawyer can translate that carefully worded statement into plain English, but it’s pretty obvious to this here redneck it means someone in the WH/VP offices is witholding evidence and interfering with an ongoing criminal investigation, both crimes in themselves. I wonder who that might be?
Anyone with a brain knows w and veep are inolved in this up to their stiff-necks and that w lied (okay maybe he just changed his mind) when he said he would do everything in is power to get to the bottom of the Plame Affair and fire whoever was involved. I’d say, he could start by opening the door to his office and asking karly and the veep to take a hike down to local jail house.
You’d think that anyone who insists that he has the power to ignore the law would have the power to demand a few incriminating emails. But maybe not. Since the veep has now thrown up the preposterous notion that w give him the authority to declassify whatever documents he damn well pleased, maybe w also delegated veep the authority to ignore court orders and shred emails.
I propose a new Secret Service ID for the veep: APCA. That’s an acronym for absolute power corrupts absolutely.
Can anyone any longer believe that these guys haven’t lost their frigging minds? Will somebody in Washington please post a sign on the front door of the WH:
“It isn’t the crime, it’s the cover-up, Stupid”
lonbud - February 16, 2006 @ 8:46 pm
Lonbud the Lawyer’s translation: Rosemary Woods is alive and well and still working at the White House.
Michael Herdegen - February 17, 2006 @ 1:24 am
Tam O’Tellico:
So let me see if I’ve got this straight — you’re saying Fox tells only half the story, but that’s okay because we can get the other half from CNN?
No, I’m saying that because CNN, commercial broadcast news, and PBS only tell 80% of the story, they left a huge opening for FOX or something like it – an opening so large that FOX is now more popular than CNN.
As Madison wrote, one safeguard against the tyranny of any particular faction is…
More factions.
That’s what FOXNews gives us, an alternative.
You’ve written in regard to Cheney that “absolute power corrupts absolutely”. Why would you believe that such would not apply to an oligarchical entrenched media ?
I conclude that Fox’s success is largely due to turning the news into just one more lowest-common-denominator entertainment medium, filled with plunging neck lines, too-short skirts, sensationalism and simplistic sloganism.
As opposed to CNN, which fills the airwaves with badly-dressed and unattractive people ?
C’mon, it’s a VISUAL medium.
Further, despite your oft-stated respect for “the common man”, you once again are expressing scorn for what they actually like.
One could get the idea that you only like “the little people” to the extent that they do as you think they ought. Harken back to our discussion about the airlines, and the effects of letting hoi polloi fly on the cheap.
[T]he so-called liberal media bias was an invention…
So you think that there is no repercussion whatsoever to the fact that self-reported Democrats outnumber self-reported Republicans by almost 4 – 1 in the media biz ?
While there are many conservative Dems, they still make up only a quarter of the party, which means that the liberal/conservative ratio in the media has to be at least 2/1.
Further, if there is no liberal bias in the media, then why is FOXNews so successful ?
If the rest of the media universe is balanced, on the whole, whence comes the demand for an unabashedly conservative network ?
[T]here is no plausible rationale for this President by-passing FISA — unless he intends to use warrantless searches for purposes the FISA court disapproves.
The problem is that technology has outstripped the law, and not just in this area.
The courts and legislatures have been wrestling with the problems of valuing and regulating digital content and software for twenty years.
For instance, until the Patriot Act, agencies had to get a warrent to tap a particular phone, and not to moniter a particular person – so if the subject used someone else’s cell phone to make a call, the agencies monitering that person couldn’t legally listen in, despite having a valid court order tapping that person’s own phone.
Obviously, that’s nuts.
In this case, the NSA cannot get a FISA warrent because they don’t know in advance whose call they’re going to listen in on.
They’re doing a huge search of millions of data-streams at once, and zeroing in on particular key-words, as they occur.
There’s no time to get a court-order.
But you and I probably don’t even agree about that.
Find an instance where the Bush admin spied on American citizens for domestic political reasons, and I’ll agree.
It’s the insistance that NO spying, for any reason, be done that’s killing liberals during elections.
The legacy of Tricky Dick is biting them on the behind, and it’s casting an extremely unflattering light on them.
Nixon’s abuses were over thirty years ago. Have they learned NOTHING since then ?
It’s like nuttering on about “overpopulation”. For goodness’ sake, open a book written during the past twenty years. The Boomers are fifty years old now, on average, and it’s time for them to start acting like adults.
[I]n my son’s Contemporary Issues class at the local high school, they watch Fox News exclusively.
That’s not good, but would it be better if they watched CNN or PBS exclusively ?
For a real education, they ought to watch six different coverages of the same issue, from ABC, CBS, CNN, FOX, NBC, and PBS.
Then they’d take ANY coverage with a grain of salt.
Perhaps I ought to make explicit that I don’t watch much FOX, nor do I approve of any conservative spin that they might put in coverage.
I’m simply a fan of their operations, and think that their success indicates a pent-up demand for what they’re providing, which tells us something about society.
In truth, I don’t normally watch ANY television news whatsoever anymore.
When possible, I prefer to read news on the ‘net.
And in the end, all this matters because unless we can achieve some sort of consenus about the truth, a consensus based in reality…
Well, WHOSE reality ?
We’ve been talking for months, maybe a year, and we rarely agree even about the parameters of problems, much less their ramifications and solutions.
I can say for certain that lonbud and I don’t live in the same universe – we communicate through a dimensional rift between two similar, parallel universes.
[T]he simple fact that M continues to assert the existence of invisible (or at least never-found) WMD says all that needs to be said on this subject.
Nobody who actually read the report could assert that.
Please read before commenting – it’s not long, magazine article length.
And, if you find within yourself a psychological resistance to reading the report, you should ask yourself why you don’t want to be convinced that Saddam did indeed have WMD.
You can still hold Bush in contempt, and think that the Iraqi pacification was a mistake, even if Saddam was murderous lying scum.
Michael Herdegen - February 17, 2006 @ 4:32 am
lonbud:
While I’m pleased that you responded directly to my pointed inquiry about how you would have prevented 9/11, it does illustrate that, for whatever reason, you are somewhat ignorant about this event that you are so impassioned about.
how would i have prevented 9/11 without the intrusive security measures selectively applied today? i would have paid people more than $7.50 an hour to staff the fully adequate screening procedures in place at the time…
As Tam O’Tellico point out, IT WAS FULLY LEGAL AND PERMITTED for the highjackers to carry boxcutters on the planes – which was why they were carrying boxcutters, and not AK-47s.
Therefore, the pre-existing screening procedures were clearly NOT adequate. Even if you had paid airport security personnel $ 100 an hour, they still would have let the highjackers carry the boxcutters onboard.
Further, as Tam also points out, our pre-9/11 airliner highjack policy was geared towards negotiating with the highjackers for the release of hostages, or at least a commando operation on the ground somewhere. We didn’t conceive that the highjackers might prefer an empty plane, that they weren’t interested in exchanging hostages for concessions – they simply wanted thousands of gallons of jet fuel, to use as an explosive.
more specifically, when four commercial airliners flew off-course and were unresponsive to communication with an hour of one another, i would have scrambled the requisite number of fighter jets that could have intercepted them within fifteen minutes and shot down any one of them that failed to respond to a command to abort course and land immediately.
Wise, except that, pre-9/11, IT COULDN’T BE DONE.
In the first place, assume that you scramble the jets and intercept the airliners, but they won’t talk to you.
Are you claiming that, as the President of the United States, you would have ordered the U.S. Air Force to shoot down fully-loaded CIVILIAN aircraft, BEFORE they started crashing into buildings ?
That’s absurd on the face of it.
It’s absurd even if you speculate that they DO talk to you, but won’t change course.
But the bigger problem is that we couldn’t have intercepted the planes, pre-9/11.
Our air defense scheme was predicated on the notion that we’d be facing an EXTERNAL threat, and that we’d have ample warning before having to engage an arial threat. Pre-9/11, there weren’t any fighter jets sitting on the runways, fully fueled and armed, ready to launch at a moment’s notice.
While we did eventually scramble some fighters, after the first plane hit the WTC, none of them could have intercepted any of the planes in time.
There was a Nat’l Guard training flight that was airborne at the time, that was diverted to intercept the plane that crashed in PA, but that jet was not armed. They would’ve had to PUSH the plane into the ground – which they could have done, jet fighters are powerful enough to destabilize a passenger jet, especially one flown by a rookie.
Essentially, you’re claiming that you would have stopped 9/11 using laws, policies, personnel, procedures, and equipment that wasn’t in place until AFTER 9/11.
had condi taken seriously the clinton transition team’s warning that the gravest threat to the country’s continuing peace and prosperity lay in al Qaeda’s activities…
Yeah, we’ve spoken about that before, and you’ve never explained how the Bush admin could have enacted post-9/11 policies BEFORE the tragedy took place.
For goodness’ sake, you’re complaining about those policies even though 9/11 DID occur !
How do you propose that ANY administration, whether of Bush or Gore, could have required air travellers to submit to the current indignities, pre-9/11 ?
not only will [Bush] be judged by history as a man who squandered all the riches of the world, there remains enough time for him to be forced to actually leave office in disgrace.
Yes, there’s time for that, but the most likely outcome is that history remembers him as it does FDR or Reagan – two other celebrated Presidents whose enormous deficit spending is a footnote to their legacies.
there was […] no actual discovery, ever, of physcial evidence of Saddam’s ability to deliver weapons of mass destruction against either Israel or the United States… – Within 30 minutes, Bush and Rice claimed.
True.
However, you have changed the standard, whether deliberately or not, and therefore I must conclude that you are aware that the UN weapons inspectors DID find prohibited stuff…
Just not things that would have been a “thirty minute” threat to the U.S. or Israel.
I actually wrote a long-ish post about the WMD, but then I got disgusted and tossed it.
If you don’t believe the UN weapons inspectors, or believe that they’re part of the plot, you certainly won’t be swayed by my quoting from their report.
You believe that Saddam didn’t have WMD, even though he used WMD…
You don’t even believe your own lyin’ eyes.
The bigger question is, why does an idealistic humanist, a guy who posts Zen philosophy on his blog, a guy who wants to protect the mosquitoes in ANWR from oil drilling and thinks that the Bush admin is filled with people who don’t care if we die choking due to pollution, why does this guy support the Butcher of Baghdad, Saddam Hussein ?
Saddam, a monstrous tyrant who has used poisonous gasses on enemies foreign and domestic, (including random innocent women and children), who for amusement used to watch videotapes of people being tortured, who allowed his sons to snatch random innocent beauties off of the street, to rape and torture; Saddam, who directed his security forces to feed people into plastic shredders, who is responsible for the worst environmental disaster in history, when he torched Kuwait’s oil wells in ’91 and flooded the Persian Gulf with crude oil; Saddam, a man directly responsible for over TWO MILLION unnecessary deaths, due to his wars of aggression, a man who squandered billions of dollars to build dozens of huge self-aggrandizing palaces while his people died by the hundreds of thousands for want of food and medicine…
The answer seems to be rather petty, and I surely hope that lonbud tells me that I’m full of it: lonbud seems to hate a Texas politician who, at worst, is a small, stupid, and smug figurehead, more that he hates Saddam, who as I’ve outlined is among the top-ten worst tyrants since Pol Pot.
It’s as if someone loathed FDR, and so decided to support Stalin.
a boatload of Iraqi defiance of the International community’s insistence that it sit in the corner and STFU
Iraq, as a condition of the ’91 cease-fire, agreed to give up certain weapons and weapons programmes, which it subsequently refused to do.
Is it your position that international agreements and treaties count for nothing ?
If so, then we would have simply crushed Iraq in ’91, rather than in ’03.
Further, some have mistakenly said that America is defying the “international community” by prosecuting the Iraqi war; if it’s to Iraq’s credit that they were defiant, then you must now conclude that America is correct to do so, no ?
lonbud - February 17, 2006 @ 9:09 am
I like that parallel universe, dimensional rift thing, Michael. Very true.
As to 9/11, it may well have been impossible to prevent under laws, procedures, and conditions at the time. I still believe the Bush admin’s inattention, generally, and Condi Rice’s personal hubris, specifically, contributed mightily to the inevitability of the event.
I also believe the Patriot Act, creation of the Dept. of Homeland Security, the NSA’s domestic spying program, and any number of other measures the administration has implemented since 9/11 have not rendered us any more-protected from a similarly tragic, destructive, and fantastic event than we were prior to 9/11.
Your protestation that NSA data mining ought not be subject to FISA because there’s no time to get a court-order doesn’t wash: the law provides for the court order to be issued within 72 hours of the surveillance on sufficient showing of probable cause. But the current junta can’t be bothered with notions of sufficiency or probable cause.
I have my opinion about the legality of what w is up to, but I’ll be the good citizen and wait for the SCOTUS to render its opinon before I bring it up again here.
You’ve pegged me well enough as an idealistic humanist who doesn’t think the answer to our pollution problem lies in drilling for more oil, and as someone who believes meditation on zen philosophy has the power to obliterate dimensional rifts (as it were), however you misread me entirely if you think I am, or was ever a supporter of Saddam Hussein.
The Butcher of Bagdhad is an all-time historical bad guy, and I won’t shed the first tear if the people of Iraq decide to dip him in acid on live TV for what he did to them and to their country.
But their fight is not our fight, their tragedy is not our tragedy, Saddam had nothing to do with 9/11, and the War in Iraq is not about eradicating or containing Islamofascist terrorism.
If Saddam and his WMD were a real problem, a real threat to us (which, even in the light of Mr. Blix’s report is a stretch), w has botched the job. Saddam’s evil piece may have been taken off the gameboard, but what this administration has wrought and left in his wake may well turn out to be far more destructive and threatening to us than Saddam himself ever was.
Michael Herdegen - February 17, 2006 @ 12:11 pm
[T]he War in Iraq is not about eradicating or containing Islamofascist terrorism.
Yes, it is, although we differ over the probability of long-term success using that method.
Saying that you “support Saddam” was a bit of rhetorical shorthand that may have led to an overstatement.
Fully explained, I should have written that I believe that your opposition to Bush leads you to write statements of support for Iraq that you wouldn’t otherwise write, and since Iraq was led by an all-powerful dictator, support for Iraq’s former foreign policy is necessarily support for Saddam’s continued rule, loathsome as he might have been.
If Gore had been elected in ’00, (or perhaps I should say, if Gore had been allowed to take office in ’01), would you still feel that Iraq’s refusal to honor the terms of the ’91 cease-fire, their lying to the UN Security Council, their perversion through bribery of the UN food-for-oil programme, and their possession of prohibited weapons was not worthy of forceful attention ?
For those who feel that more diplomacy was worth trying, we should note that America left the Iranian nuke situation up to European diplomats to solve, and not only did that effort fail, but the “EU-3” feel so bitter about it that France is now publicly calling for Iran to be punished for their “military nuclear programme”.
Diplomacy only works on the decent. The rest will do as they will, until they feel the lash.
Also, I note that your profession is ALL ABOUT drafting and enforcing contracts and agreements, whether commercial or social. If the Iraqi agreements in ’91 mean nothing, then the entire basis for your field of endeavor goes up in smoke.
It’s back to the biggest guy with the sharpest sword.
lonbud - February 17, 2006 @ 2:17 pm
It’s back to the biggest guy with the sharpest sword.
Sadly, that appears to be the case.
Tam O’Tellico - February 17, 2006 @ 3:23 pm
Gentlemen:
I congratulate you both on your reasoned, though heated, discourse. It’s almost as though I’m drawn back to the time of Adams v. Jefferson or Lincoln v. Douglas. Would that exactly this sort of discourse had taken place in the oval office before we went to war in Iraq. It might not have changed the decision to go to war, but at least we could feel as though the questions had been asked.
Instead, w.c (bush/cheney) kicked out the few like O’Neill and Shinseki who spoke truth to power and ignored the few like Powell who dared to offer a second opinion. Instead, w.c. resorted to the favorite dodge of the perpetually adolescent: it’s easier to get forgiven than it is to get permission.
Yeah, I know, they got Congress’s permission, but they did so by shading (at least) the truth, as the LA Times piece pointed out rather clearly. Not that the spineless bastards on either side of the aisle would have had the guts to do anything even if they had known they were being hoodwinked.
Sometimes it seems like the only guys in Congress who have any balls are the crooks like DeLay.
Tam O’Tellico - February 17, 2006 @ 5:02 pm
I remind my distinguished friend Michael that all of us want to put an end to Islamo-terrorism — our differences are about how best to do so, and whether this administration is capable of formulating and following an effective policy that will bring about that end.
It is hard for me to imagine that a “Texas politician who, at worst, is a small, stupid, and smug figurehead” is going to make that happen. But that may be a failure of imagination on my part.
On the other hand, is it really unreasonable for you to conclude that “Boomers are fifty years old … and it’s time for them to start acting like adults” when Bush has surrounded himself with the very men who helped create the paranoid, power-mad atmosphere around Dick Nixon — not that he needed any help on that score. It isn’t the “legacy of Tricky Dick… biting (this administration) on the behind”, it’s the actuality, Stupid. It’s the same guys saying and doing the same things. It ain’t deja vu when it’s actually happening.
Ironically, you used the word “nuttering” — I haven’t heard anything close since Spiro Agnew’s “nattering nabobs of negativism.” Maybe these guys are getting to all of us.
You ask for hard evidence of w’s using taps for political purposes, and I have none to offer. But given episodes like the McCain/SC and the Plame Affairs, let alone the attempted character assassination of Rep. Murtha, do you really think it’s unreasonable for me or anyone else to be concerned about the motives and methods of these people?
As for this forum and our inability to agree, I am not here to agree with you, nor do I expect you to agree with me. The point is, as long as we’re talking, we are less likely to be shooting at each other. And maybe, just maybe we can find some common ground and some consensus.
Sometimes it seems like we all live in parallel universes. I dealt with this subject in my own book. I borrowed from a cute story my high school math teacher used to explain irrational numbers like the square root of 2.
Mr. Berardini gave us a construct with a boy in CA and a girl in NY. He said to keep dividing the distance between then by half. Theoretically, he said, they’ll never touch, but they’ll get close enough for practical purposes.
As I grew older, I realized that little exercise had a far more profound meaning than I realized at the time:
“In our math class, we learned that parallel lines continue in the same incomprehensible infinity – always remaining divided, never touching no matter how far the lines are carried out. We accept this mathematical truth, but reality tests whether such truth is of any use in our ordinary lives. Reality teaches us to be suspect of perfect truth.
Two lines are parallel, we say, and so they never touch. But how do we know? Maybe the lines do touch, maybe we just haven’t followed them far enough. Maybe what’s lacking is our imagination. Surely men who can imagine pi can imagine some way to settle a simple border dispute.
Infinity is very a long way, and in an infinite universe, there must be infinite possibility.
Some people seem like those parallel lines. They seem to occupy separate worlds, eternally divided and unable to touch each other. But who knows – maybe they will end up like the boy and girl in Mr. Bernardini’s math class, never actually touching, but close enough for all practical purposes.”
So here we are, never actually touching one another in this strange universe. But I for one hope we can get close enough for practical purposes.
Michael Herdegen - February 18, 2006 @ 2:51 am
We’re close enough for practical purposes.
If, for instance, we three had to form a real-world government, we could do so.
Although we differ sharply over certain issues, we never talk about others because we’d all agree, or close enough.
Even with regards to education policy, we’re defending an ideal, and not saying that such is the ONLY way to operate, if we had to run a school or district.
Also, the social/political environment matters a lot.
If we had been talking back in ’98, we would still disagree about this thing or that, but probably not as heatedly. Times were good, we thought that we were at peace, and we agree more about Clinton than about Bush.
Some of our exchanges boil down to:
ME: “Bush and his associates aren’t evil incarnate.”
Y’ALL: “Yes they are.”
Sometimes amusing, but it gives the impression that we’re on opposite sides of a canyon, when really we’re just far apart on the same rim.
I mean it about lonbud and me, however; we really do have TOTALLY different paradigms for interpreting events.
Tam O’Tellico - February 18, 2006 @ 2:13 pm
Michael, it appears the score is now 4-1 in opposition to your view that the President has unlimited powers. The fourth vote comes from that raging liberal George Will who just gave witness in the court of pundit opinion:
No Checks, Many Imbalances
By George F. Will
Washington Post Op-Ed
Thursday 16 February 2006; A27
The next time a president asks Congress to pass something akin to what Congress passed on Sept. 14, 2001 – the Authorization for Use of Military Force (AUMF) – the resulting legislation might be longer than Proust’s “Remembrance of Things Past.” Congress, remembering what is happening today, might stipulate all the statutes and constitutional understandings that it does not intend the act to repeal or supersede.
But, then, perhaps no future president will ask for such congressional involvement in the gravest decision government makes – going to war. Why would future presidents ask, if the present administration successfully asserts its current doctrine?
This monarchical doctrine emerges from the administration’s stance that warrantless surveillance by the National Security Agency targeting American citizens on American soil is a legal exercise of the president’s inherent powers as commander in chief, even though it violates the clear language of the 1978 Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act, which was written to regulate wartime surveillance.
Besides, terrorism is not the only new danger of this era. Another is the administration’s argument that because the president is commander in chief, he is the “sole organ for the nation in foreign affairs.” That non sequitur is refuted by the Constitution’s plain language, which empowers Congress to ratify treaties, declare war, fund and regulate military forces, and make laws “necessary and proper” for the execution of all presidential powers . Those powers do not include deciding that a law – FISA, for example – is somehow exempted from the presidential duty to “take care that the laws be faithfully executed.
The administration, in which mere obduracy sometimes serves as political philosophy, pushes the limits of assertion while disdaining collaboration. This faux toughness is folly, given that the Supreme Court, when rejecting President Harry S Truman’s claim that his inherent powers as commander in chief allowed him to seize steel mills during the Korean War, held that presidential authority is weakest when it clashes with Congress.
Immediately after Sept. 11, the president rightly did what he thought the emergency required, and rightly thought that the 1978 law was inadequate to new threats posed by a new kind of enemy using new technologies of communication. Arguably he should have begun surveillance of domestic-to-domestic calls – the kind the Sept. 11 terrorists made.
But 53 months later, Congress should make all necessary actions lawful by authorizing the president to take those actions, with suitable supervision. It should do so with language that does not stigmatize what he has been doing, but that implicitly refutes the doctrine that the authorization is superfluous.
I couldn’t have said it better myself. But given that this is clearly an administration in which “mere obduracy sometimes serves as political philosophy” and which “pushes the limits of assertion while disdaining collaboration”, I would insist on clearer, stronger limiiting language than “with suitable supervision” to control a policy so potentially disastrous as surveillance of domestic-to-domestic calls.
complete text: http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/02/15/AR2006021502003.html
Tam O’Tellico - February 18, 2006 @ 2:19 pm
Michael said:
ME: “Bush and his associates aren’t evil incarnate.”
Y’ALL: “Yes they are.”
Not exactly. I say Bush is evil incompetent; Cheney is evil incarnate.
Tam O’Tellico - February 18, 2006 @ 4:35 pm
The Supreme Court has just agreed to allow the White House to join the Texas redistricting case. No doubt the White House wants to make sure that minority voters in Texas continue to get DeLayed. One wonders if this is the same sort of strict constructionism and states rights advocacy exhibited in the dispute over the 2000 Presidential election.
Washington, AP, February 17, 2006 – The Supreme Court granted the Bush administration’s request to join Texas in defending a Republican-friendly congressional map engineered by Rep. Tom DeLay.
Justices are considering whether the Republican-controlled Legislature acted purely for partisan gain in 2003 when it threw out district boundaries that had been used in the 2002 elections, and whether the new map violated a federal voting rights law. The congressional districts were redrawn after Republicans took control of the state House in 2002.
The Justice Department approved the plan although staff lawyers concluded that it diluted minority voting rights. The redistricting helped Republicans win 21 of Texas’ 32 seats in Congress in the last election, up from 15.