August 30, 2006 by lonbud
We Got The Funk
Thaddeus Russell, in a brilliant piece published today in Salon (which may require some hassle to view, but is well worth the annual subscription fee to have at one’s disposal), explains exactly why we can “cut and run” in Iraq, and leave the democratization of the Middle East to its citizens.
Now. Today.
Battles we have left to lose, but the War, we’ve already won.
w and Rummy and the rest of the Gang talked about a “long process” and a “hard slog” from the beginning, I’ll give ’em that; but there is actually no reason whatsoever for us to fight Islamofascism “over there.”
There is no reason for us to spend howevermany billions of dollars to deploy, supply, maintain, and risk our human, technological, and military assets in the sands of Arabia.
It may take some time, as Mr. Russell points out, but if history is our guide (and they say those who don’t know it are condemned to repeat it), within 15 years Islamic society will have readily assumed many of the trappings of our own, and within another 20, will be as firmly in the democratic and capitalist camps as are the nation-states of the former Soviet Union today.
The key weapon in the war against this “new” fascism, as Rummy called it this week, is precisely the freedom the president thinks his administration is protecting.
It will defeat Islamic fundamentalism — or keep it at bay more or less as we keep our own fundamentalists marginalized and contained — in the same way the seeds of freedom rooted and bloomed over a period of more than 250 years in the U.S., as it happened in post-war USSR, as it’s happening today in Mainland (formerly Red) China.
We must guard against, as always, proscriptions of freedom at home. And let the seeds of freedom bloom in the Middle East as they will.
Paul Burke - August 31, 2006 @ 10:14 am
Great article – easy to access – one car magazine ad for ten seconds – looked away then clicked through – all I gotta say is….”I love rock n roll put another dime in the juke box baby…”
Tam O’Tellico - September 5, 2006 @ 8:49 am
Well, Lon, it would be wonderful if the scenario you and Mr. Russell envision could come to pass. But liberty does not necessarily mean democracy – if all you mean by that term is freedom without responsiblity.
The liberating influence of such cultural phenomenon as the personal computer, the Internet and American pop culture may as easily lead to anarchy as democracy. While only time will answer that question, the consequences of the Hollywood/Hip-Hop/McDonalds/Walmart culture seem to argue more for the former than the latter
I find it curious that in this case you seem to be advocating the same sort of “market-place” determination that Michael so unrelentingly espouses – that in culture as in business, there is no place for determining what is truly good. You seem to suggest that standing idly by – and thereby tacitly encouraging the ascendancy of that which is crude, common and convenient – will somehow lead us all to Nirvana. Good luck.
Yes, I know, it is a challenge to decide what is good, and even more of a challenge to decide who decides. But difficult as that challenge may be, it seems a far more moral and practical solution than a surrender to the lowest common denominator. That attitude has led us to our present sorry state – the rise of the Hollywood/Hip-Hop/McDonalds/Walmart culture and the rule of the fool who would be king and his Machivellian minions.
Tam O’Tellico - September 5, 2006 @ 9:24 pm
I know this is a dead horse for those of us who don’t believe anything out of the moutns of Scooter or Shooter, but those still in denial about the fact that Valerie Plame was a valuable CIA operative need to read this:
http://www.thenation.com/doc/20060918/corn
Slice it anyway you like, Apologistas, but Shooter, Scooter, Roverboy, Arbitrage and even the Great Decider himself outed a CIA operative and broke the law. If there is any justice left in this country, sooner or later they will have to pay for it.
Michael Herdegen - September 5, 2006 @ 10:07 pm
LOL
Whatever gets you through the nights…
Maybe you’ll win the Lotto too.
lonbud - September 5, 2006 @ 10:47 pm
Tam O, I’m afraid your interpretation of my interpretation of Mr. Rusell’s article is slightly off the mark.
While democracy would appear to ensure most favorable conditions for its flourishing, liberty, like faith, is ultimately personal. It is in fact the complete inverse of freedom without responsibility. Each of us is responsible for our own liberty. By finding — not the lowest, but — the common denominator between us all, and protecting that, we ensure propagation of the species (Bonus: not just ours!) and preservation of the environment.
It’s not the actual Hollywoood/HipHop/MickeyD/WalWorld culture that matters here, it’s the ideas underlying each of those manifestations of liberty — what everyone (except for ideological fundamentalists) seems to agreee is what the world needs now.
The people of the Middle East, when they get around to it, will manifest different institutions of liberty, just as the Russians eventually got around to, just as the Germans and the Japanese got around to fairly pronto after WWII.
As I’ve tried to explain elsewhere, the fact liberty took hold when it did throughout the former Soviet Union had far more to do with the character and nature — as well as the economic circumstances — of the people in those lands than it had to do with Ronald Reagan’s amping of the arms race and his talk of the Evil Empire.
The mullahs of the Middle East will lose their power to the extent the people of the Middle East are willing to deny it to them. Neither w, John McCain, Hillary Clinton, Al Gore, nor anyone else in the United States or Great Britain will alter that fact.
We have much more to do here than we have to do there, in my opinion.
Michael Herdegen - September 6, 2006 @ 4:21 am
As I’ve tried to explain elsewhere, the fact liberty took hold when it did throughout the former Soviet Union had far more to do with the character and nature […] of the people in those lands than it had to do with Ronald Reagan’s amping of the arms race…
The problem is that you don’t “explain”, you simply ASSERT.
As you do here, in this thread. “The Russians ‘manifested’ liberty.”
How did that come to pass ?
You answer that yourself: Just like the Germans and the Japanese came to “manifest” liberty. Their previous, oppressive, governments and cultures got crushed, and voila, Sweet Liberty.
But there wasn’t much dissent BEFORE those cultures were destroyed by external forces.
The mullahs of the Middle East will lose their power to the extent the people of the Middle East are willing to deny it to them.
We note that it’s tough to deny political power to those with the power of life and death over you – unless a major power allies with the downtrodden.
The Afghanis were plenty miserable under the Taliban, but it took America to allow them to “manifest” liberty.
America herself would arguably not have existed if France had not come to her aid against Britain in the 18th century, despite all of the manifestations of liberty going on, the Declaration of Independence and so forth.
Pretty words, but empty until backed by steel.
The thought that liberal democracy cannot be imposed by force is correct; people have to accept it, to buy into the promise and the premise.
But it’s equally true that a simple longing for something better isn’t enough to transform an oppressive government into a responsive one.
If that were true, if simple desire were enough, then what would we say of all of those African nations suffering under brutal and in some cases insane rulers ?
That they’re sub-human, that they don’t want liberty ?
Why don’t they “manifest” some freedom and prosperity ?
Tam O’Tellico - September 6, 2006 @ 12:09 pm
None of us should expect to do justice to the question of how to establish and maintain a democracy in a forum such as this. Wise men of the ages have struggled with and pontificated on this subject, and their treatises on the subject fill libraries. Mill’s “On Liberty” is one such work, a work that though small contains a thousand times more thought than any of us can hope to express here.
Still, fools rush in …
Reluctant as I am to agree with Michael and his “steely resolve”, it is all too apparent that liberty is often preceded by the sword – this nation is itself proof of that. As Jefferson warned “the tree of liberty will need frequent watering with the blood of patriots”.
Certainly, it is unlikely that Germany and Japan would be the exemplars they are today without first having been bent to our sword. Japan in particular is refutation of the claim that democracy cannot be enforced at the point of the sword.
Japan also puts to the lie the racist notion that the “oriental mind” is somehow not wired for democracy. Certainly, no sane person these days would argue that Asians are an inferior breed – as the British long held and used as an excuse to plunder the resources of the Near and Far East.
Sadly, as Michael insinuates, that same racist notion continues to find favor in the diminution of Africa, as though the black man’s supposedly inferior mind was what held back that continent, and that the accident of geography, the events of history, the exploitation of colony, the horrors of slavery and African leaders’ tyranny had nothing to do with the present sorry state of most African nations.
Such a sorry view also ignores great African civilizations of the past such as Egypt – a nation that was highly advanced when western Europeans still lived in caves. Of course, some fools will argue that ancient Egypt was the product of light-skinned Africans. Racist indeed.
But let us take leave of the Dark Continent and return to the Land of the Rising Sun.
Japan did indeed adopt at least the appearance of democracy within the space of a generation. However, we should bear in mind that Japan’s transition from feudalism to democracy was possible only because the Japanese had a strong unifying force even more powerful than our nuclear sword – the Emperor. Without his lead, the transition would not have been possible. In fact, if the Emperor had so commanded, we might still be fighting a guerilla war in Japan.
Now let us leave Japan for the Land of the Risen Son.
As Junior Bush’s war in Iraq has made all too abundantly clear, there is no such unifying force in Iraq. He should have learned from George the Elder and the Realists who concluded a quarter-century ago that toppling Saddam would very likely topple Iraq. Or he might have listened to Colin Powell who warned: “You break it; you bought it.”
What did George the Elder know that Junior never will? It’s a complicated world not fit for fundamentalism or fools who would be cowboys.
Iraq makes it clear that in spite of rare exceptions like Japan, you can’t force democracy at the point of a sword – or a bomb. This is a lesson the fool who would be king has yet to learn. The same goes for his still misguided loyal supporters who cling to the idiotic notion that this disaster in the making is “all part of God’s plan”. A pox on their houses and their Heaven.
In fact, the missing unifying force in Iraq brings us round to Lon’s argument. For if the sword commands men’s arms and backs, the word controls their hearts and minds – as the Emperor of Japan proved. Without a strong unifying force and institutions that promote the idea of democracy and the love of that idea, there can be no democracy. And as Iraq – and Russia – are proving, people who have no such leader, no such education and no experience with such an idea are not likely to make the best of such an opportunity – however motivated they may be.
Which ought to make us much less reluctant to gloat about our own democracy. The rise of leaders who instill fear rather than hope, the failure or our educational institutions to teach the truth about politics and history, the co-opting of public opinion by an all-too compliant press, and our own unwillingness to educate ourselves leaves our democracy in peril. And that peril has increased dramatically over the last several decades.
We are like the Jews of Jesus’ time, waiting for a Messiah, a new David to ride to our rescue. For far too many, the fool who would be king was seen as that David – proving once again how far removed we are from the teachings of Christ and the teachings of the Founding Fathers.
More than 200 years later, Americans are still trying to establish the very kind of theocracy Jesus and Jefferson warned against. ‘Tis a pity we don’t remove the plank from our own eye before going after the speck in the eye of another.
Moral of the story? Freedom must always be learned as well as earned.
Michael Herdegen - September 7, 2006 @ 1:45 am
[Junior Bush the Magnificent] should have learned from George the Elder and the Realists who concluded a quarter-century ago that toppling Saddam would very likely topple Iraq.
Yes, 15 years ago Bush the Elder and his advisors decided against directly removing Saddam, for a number of reasons, but recall that at the time they hoped and believed that he would be toppled – just not by us.
And since then, we came to see that an un-toppled Iraq, headed by an un-toppled Saddam, was no better than an Iraq in turmoil after the removal of Saddam. The only point to leaving Saddam in place was the hope of future stability, but that hope was dashed.
After Old George, the Clinton administration’s official policy was that Saddam must go, although they never did much about it.
So the current situation is exactly in line with all U.S. policy towards Iraq since 1990, through three American Presidential administrations.
Which ought to make us much less reluctant to gloat about our own democracy. The rise of leaders who instill fear rather than hope, the failure of our educational institutions to teach the truth about politics and history…
[The] peril has increased dramatically over the last several decades.
That’s an interesting take on American politics, exactly the opposite of what I see. Which is why saying that “our educational institutions fail to teach the truth” is rather pointless – whose truth should they teach ?
You and I, for instance, would teach two radically different versions of politics and history, based on the same set of facts.
Case in point, I haven’t seen any “rise of leaders who instill fear rather than hope” over the past few decades. In fact, coming out of the 70s we’ve seen the exact opposite – a rise in leaders who preach hope and optimism, and deride defeatism.
Carter was notoriously dour, and Reagan was so cheerful that some labelled him “simple-minded”. Reagan was more in tune with the American mood; Carter lost, a rejection which has embittered him to this day. In 1984, Reagan was challenged by Mondale, who promoted a coming economic meltdown if we didn’t raise Federal taxes significantly, and soon – explicit fearmongering. Mondale won exactly ONE state.
Bush the Elder had his “thousand points of light”, and Clinton his “Bridge to the 21st Century”. In 2000, neither candidate was particularly promoting any kind of idea that they were the one person who could carry America through the coming storms, although Gore did have his “global warming” schtick, which he’s since turned into a “theatre of the absurd” comedy act, somewhat like the old Monty Python sketches.
So really, this concept that America’s leaders are ruling through fear and intimidation goes back only as far as 9/11/01 – an actual catastrophe that claimed thousands of lives and destroyed huge buildings, causing hundreds of billions of dollars’ worth of direct and indirect damage.
Since then, many other plots to harm people in the developed world have either been uncovered, or actually carried out, killing and maiming thousands in the past five years. The latest one was a mere five weeks ago.
So this isn’t some kind of fictional danger that politicians are promoting to gain power, it’s AN ACTUAL DANGER. Saying that it’s made-up is as silly as it would be to say that campaigns to get people to buckle their seatbelts while driving is “scaremongering”.
Tam O’Tellico - September 7, 2006 @ 12:03 pm
Well, I suppose that’ll learn me never to agree with you, Michael. So. let me return to pointing out once again the grievous faults in your reasoning.
M:”So this isn’t some kind of fictional danger that politicians are promoting to gain power, it’s AN ACTUAL DANGER.”
First of all, if the Islamo-Fascists didn’t exist, Junior and the Paranoiacs would surely have invented them. In fact, that is precisely what they have done in Iraq – created a new generation of terrorists.
And while the danger presented by Islamo-Fascists is real, and because of the actions of this administration growing, it does not rise to the level presented by either the Nazis or the Commies in the last century. The only danger that has risen to that level is the rhetoric issuing forth from the three blind mice, Cowpuke, Shooter and Rummie.
I for one am damned tired of being called a traitor and a coward by our “leaders” because I am appalled at their lack of leadership, their trampling of the law, and their fear-mongering. If Rummie wants to open the forum to comparisons to the Nazis, how about this: I have seen no match for this administrations paranoia and propagandizing since the Nazis. How can you or anyone else fail to see that the politics of fear may yet destroy from within what the Terrorists cannot destroy from without? How can you not remember that the Nazis, though a minority, took over Germany with barely a shot being fired? All that was required was for good men to remain silent.
M: “Yes, 15 years ago Bush the Elder and his advisors decided against directly removing Saddam, for a number of reasons, but recall that at the time they hoped and believed that he would be toppled – just not by us”
Like so many Americans, you fall victim to swallowing the propaganda that spews from Washington, but have you never wondered why Daddy hasn’t spoken up to defend Junior’s Big Adventure? Because the old man still thinks it’s a stupid idea. If Bush the Elder and his advisers really wanted Saddam toppled, they certainly didn’t put there money where the mouth was, and they stood-by when the Iraqis finally stood up. Didn’t you ever ask yourself why?
Because unlike the ignorant, malformed offspring that somehow issued from his loins, Bush I knew something about geo-politics. He knew what would most likely follow Saddam was another Islamic theocracy – one that would align itself with Iran. As long as Saddam maintained enough power to counter-balance the mullahs, Bush and his cronies were not anxious to see him eliminated, no matter the mouthings of their public posturing
Twenty years of dealing first-hand with Saddam had convinced Bush I that it was better to have a dictator who could be bought off than Mullahs who couldn’t. That should come as no surprise to no one, my myopic friend, because that has been the basis of US foreign policy as covertly administered by the CIA for more than half-a-century.
And just to set the record straight on your Rumsfeldian aspersions as to the “liberal” view of reality, no one is saying Islamo-Fascists aren’t a clear and present danger. But this gang of yahoos has proven over and again that they aren’t up to the task of dealing with the problem. In fact, all they have proven so far is that they are capable of manipulating the public, the press and the Supremes just enough to win closely contested elections. Period.
Let me put it so that maybe even the few remaining Bush loyalists can understand: Elections? Yes. Governance? No.
lonbud - September 8, 2006 @ 5:01 pm
It’s pretty clear that, like his president, Michael finds little interest in nuanced thought. Most things in life can be neatly compartmentalized into good or bad, evil or blessed, with us or agin’ us.
As far as these folks are concerned we are good and they are bad. All decisions and justifications flow from that simple matrix and any attempt to discern shades of meaning or morality detract from the plain and simple truth that our way of life is superior.
Ride ’em cowboy.
Tam O’Tellico - September 9, 2006 @ 8:07 am
Of all the hypocrisy foisted on the public by the DoLittle Congress, nothing is more glaringly representative of its unspeakable over-reaching then the attachment of the repeal of so-called Death Tax (otherwise known as welfare for billionaire children) to a bill that would at long last (after nearly a decade) raise the minimum wage.
For those who continue to delude themselves about the social consequences of this atrocity and would comfort themselves in the delusion that only teenagers are affected by this unmitigated greed, here are some statistics:
“Our research shows there are 14.9 million such persons representing 11% of the workforce. While teenagers are over-represented among workers earning exactly $5.15 an hour, more than 70% of workers who would benefit from a federal increase to $7.25 are adults. Furthermore, these workers earnings are crucial to their families well-being. Evidence from the last federal increase found that, on average, workers affected by the increase contributed more than half (54%) of their family’s income.”
Liana Fox, Policy Analyst, Economic Policy Institute
The politics of greed have exacerbated all our social and economic problems and created a dangerous sub-culture capable of exploding at any moment. One of the telling signs of this can be seen in the recent rise in violent crime rates. For Free-Marketers, the solution to this problem is to build more prisons to house the dispossessed, the disillusioned and the disaffected.
But prisons will not solve the problems in our cities any more than bombs will liberate Iraq. Free-Marketers must one day learn that we are all connected to the web, else another day, they will awaken to find themselves locked like preening birds in their own gilded cages.
bubbles - September 9, 2006 @ 12:25 pm
How about this Bush to Katie: “One of the hardest parts of my job is to connect Iraq to the war on terror.” huh?
“I mean that a defeat in Iraq will embolden the enemy, and will provide the enemy more opportunity, to train, plan to attack us, that’s what I mean. One of the hardest parts of my job is to connect Iraq to the war on terror,” Mr. Bush said. “I believe it, but the American people have got to understand that a defeat in Iraq, in other words if this government there fails, the terrorists will be emboldened, the radicals will topple moderate governments. I truly believe that this is the ideological struggle of the 21st century. And the consequences for not achieving success are dire.”
Except this is a situation he created there not one we reacted to. We reacted to a non-threat. Where’s that follow-up? Someone _please_ nail him on that.
Tam O’Tellico - September 9, 2006 @ 8:53 pm
Bubbles, you don’t actually expect a follow-up from a news-hound like Katie, do you?
Frankly, while I’m sure that at one time one of the hardest parts of Bush’s job was trying to connect Iraq to the war on terror, I don’t see how that can be a problem any longer. We all know that Iraq is now a hotbed of terrorism – and not just against us – they’re far busier killing each other.
What the colonial powers tried to put together for 75 years, Bush and Rumsfeld have torn utterly asunder in 3 years. Call it the Humpty Dumpty Syndrome – it looks like all the horses and all the men of the fool who would be king won’t be able to put it back together again. But he can’t say he wasn’t warned: “You break it, you bought it.”
Yes, there is terroism in Iraq – the same kind of terrorism that was used against Jews, the same kind used against Indians in this country, the same kind that has been going on for 400 years in Northern Ireland. Funny, but no one seems to make that connection – perhaps because good Christians would never behave like savage Muslims, right?
Tam O’Tellico - September 11, 2006 @ 7:16 am
For an alternate scenario of the Bush presidency, read this:
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/14753927/site/newsweek/
Paul Burke - September 12, 2006 @ 6:47 am
Lonnie we need a new post about last nights media blitz – get busy – here’s mine from the Journey Home Blog – post it a new and lets get rolling!
There is no more bright line between politicians and corporate America (perhaps there never was) and there is no more bright line between the media and corporate America – which is why I love reading your articles Dan and those of Dick Polman – seriously. The media now more than ever has an obligation – a patriotic duty to write independently about politics and the governing of our country. With the scary consolidation of financial power and the control of the media and the political process we are in a world of trouble if we can’t cry foul when we have been wronged.
Audible, credible dissent is the indicator of a true democracies health even in a Republic.
What galls me the most is that the Politicians have the nerve to wave the flag. They deliver their speeches calling for the support of the President, the support of the war, the President calling for the support of himself, and calling for the support our troops, and if you don’t you are un-American. That rhetoric is trumpeted far and wide in the public square and out in the open in front of carefully crafted media events. While behind closed doors our politician’s actual deeds and the words they put on paper and their behavior is divisive, corrupt and inflaming.
It would be easier for all of us to stand together with the war in Iraq and other administration initiatives if behind closed doors the President wasn’t giving huge tax breaks to the uber wealthy 1 percent of the population, giving tax payer subsidies to the uber profitable oil companies, shredding environmental laws like the clean air and water acts, trying to tell people who to love, how to love and when to have babies, distorting the true intention of the second amendment, advocating for a State sponsored religion, building bridges to nowhere, cutting our troops pay and benefits, not supporting our 9/11 rescue workers fully and completely, and basically screwing the little guy because the President’s constituency is “the haves and the haves more” (those are his words) and handing out fat contracts to his financial contributors while they fail to provide the necessary and basic equipment to our fighting men overseas and our rescue teams at home. These men in charge are horrible hypocrites and the whole world can see through their act. The citizens need to stop wondering why the rest of the world hates us and elect men and women of integrity. Now more than ever we need an independent press to say what is necessary and true. It is the balm that soothes our souls and the catalyst to cure our misdeeds. Otherwise it’s all one big propaganda machine and we are now the Soviet Union of the cold war. That’s not what I want for my country and I hope those who control the purse strings feel the same.
Michael Herdegen - September 13, 2006 @ 2:13 am
Well, I suppose that’ll learn me never to agree with you, Michael.
Did you perceive my post to be rude ?
I thought that I was being conversational.
First of all, if the Islamo-Fascists didn’t exist, Junior and the Paranoiacs would surely have invented them.
That idea is, in and of itself, paranoid, and it’s also completely unsupported by anything that “Junior” has done in the past. When, as Governor of Texas or during any political campaign, has Bush the Younger ever invented a boogeyman ?
More importantly, the idea is completely irrelevant to whether or not a terror danger actually exists.
And while the danger presented by Islamo-Fascists is real…
…no one is saying Islamo-Fascists aren’t a clear and present danger.
Here’s a free tip: When setting out to “[point] out once again the grievous faults in [someone’s] reasoning”, it’s counterproductive to your case to write that THEY’RE CORRECT.
But thank you for supporting my contention.
I agree that Islamofascists are no threat to the existence of advanced nations.
Still, that’s cold comfort if you’re one of the relatively few people who is a victim of their deranged violence, and it’s quite clear that although they cannot win, the terrorists could potentially kill hundreds of thousands of Americans.
That’s a serious threat, and worth fighting to prevent.
Twenty years of dealing first-hand with Saddam had convinced Bush I that it was better to have a dictator who could be bought off than Mullahs who couldn’t.
And yet Saddam wouldn’t stay bought, which is why Bush II deposed him, and why nobody cares if Bush the Elder thinks that his son’s invasion of Iraq was “a stupid idea”.
Bush I had his shot at Middle Eastern peace-making, and he blew it. It is in fact the example of Bush the Elder’s policy failure in containing Saddam that led Bush the Younger to try a different approach.
I have seen no match for this administration’s paranoia and propagandizing since the Nazis.
Slept through Vietnam and the Nixon administration, did you ?
Beyond that, you’re comparing an American Presidential administration to the leadership era of a foreign nation, which necessarily means that the history of the entire world since WW II is open for examples of “paranoia and propaganda” comperable to that of the Nazis. I’m sure that you’d agree that only a complete idiot would believe that the Bush II admin has been the worst in the world in the past sixty years in that regard – they aren’t even in the top twenty.
How can you not remember that the Nazis, though a minority, took over Germany with barely a shot being fired?
Yes, I remember that. Now, how about explaining why that’s relevant to today’s America ?
Since you maintain that Bush the Younger is as dangerous as the Nazis were, and since he took over America without firing a shot, is it your contention that, based on historical precedence, he won’t allow the 2008 Presidential elections to go forward, and will instead stay on as an explicit dictator ?
And if not, then what’s the point of bringing up the Nazis ?
The only danger that has risen to [the level presented by either the Nazis or the Commies] is the rhetoric issuing forth from the three blind mice, [Bush the Magnificent], [Cheney the Glorious], and [Rumsfeld the Supremely Effective].
Examples, please, including your analysis showing how anything that the trio has said approaches the danger posed to America by Communism.
Or shall we just acknowledge that the charge is simply hot air, and cannot be shown to be true; that there isn’t even a small shred of evidence that might point in the general direction of such ?
As far as these folks are concerned we are good and they are bad. All decisions and justifications flow from that simple matrix and any attempt to discern shades of meaning or morality detract…
Let’s get this straight: The avowed pacifist is unwilling to label terrorist killers of random innocents “bad” and “immoral” ?!?
But you are willing to say it of Wal~Mart.
That’s not “nuance”, that’s “garden-variety insanity”.
…the attachment of the repeal of so-called Death Tax (otherwise known as welfare for billionaire children) to a bill that would at long last (after nearly a decade) raise the minimum wage.
For those who continue to delude themselves about the social consequences of this atrocity…
If in fact one believes that there are “atrocious” consequences to having the Federal minimum wage set where it is, what then should one say of the Congressional Dems, who are willing to let (possibly) 14.9 million workers suffer hideously, just so that they can deny a few bucks to the already-rich ?
Is a “dog in the manger” mentality a mark of maturity, or of the juvenile ?
But we already know that. An adult seeks to alleviate suffering, even if imperfectly, and even though it might involve compromise.
Therefore, either the Congressional Dems are as childish as is the Angry Left, (eg. the DailyKos Kossacks), or else they know that the minimum wage issue is not of great importance, that nobody’s going to lose their place in Congress due to public anger over the failure to raise the minimum wage, despite the relief that such an action might bring to tens of millions of people.
(Mostly people who don’t vote, so they’re merely reaping what they’ve sowed. If you don’t fulfill your responsibilities by voting, you can hardly expect to gain the benefit of representation).
Michael Herdegen - September 13, 2006 @ 12:06 pm
It’s pretty clear that lonbud finds little interest in nuanced thought. In his view, most things in life can be neatly compartmentalized into good or bad, evil or blessed, with us or agin’ us.
The proof ?
Contrast this:
With this:
In other words, American culture and ideology is superior to anything else that exists or used to exist in the world, as well as anything that might be imagined.
We good, they bad. We win, they lose.
Ride ’em, imperialist running-dog cowboy.
As for the minimum wage issue, comes today the following article, in USA Today, a division of Gannett Co. Inc:
So, this ought to make everyone happy – assuming that those bemoaning the lack of an increase in the Federal minimum wage will actually be content with wage hikes. The Congressional Dems, for instance, seem more concerned with making political hay than with raising the minimum wage.
I, of course, am extra happy, because not only will a few workers get slightly higher pay, but also because it’s happening exactly as I predicted that it should.
Tam O’Tellico - September 13, 2006 @ 10:16 pm
Georgia Bush
My friend Joe, a recovering Republican, recently posed an interesting question: What if George W. Bush was a woman? Well, that would at least explain his campaign slogan “W Stands for Woman”. Imagine if you will, President Georgia Bush.
I won’t stoop to all the transgender jokes that leap to mind, nor will I plumb the depths of the all-too obvious psychological waters of oedipal rage and profound gender insecurity as the root cause of the behavior of most bullies. Tempting as that may be, let me will stick to the point of Joe’s piece, which is that in spite of his abject failures, Bush at least looks the part of a powerful man in command – an advantage he would not have if he were a woman.
I’ve always found Bush far from convincing in that role. I’ve seen way too many insecure posers, nervous strutters and belligerent loudmouths to view Bush as anything but the kind of guy who hides when the fight gets close. His curious attraction seems to me to be manufactured purely out of New Politics.
Politics was the art of compromise; but New Politics is the art of perception – and as we know all too well after the last six years, appearances certainly can be deceiving. What some thought to be reality, turned out to be Reality TV. Now we are an audience of prisoners watching poor actors in a Theater of the Absurd. Only in this theater there is no laughter, and minor players die by the thousands while nations become hostage to fanatical villains.
I suppose I should be careful of theatrical allusions. Some of the worst hate mail I ever received was for a piece in which I pointed out (quite correctly) that neither George W. Bush or John Wayne was ever a warrior or a cowboy. What both have in common is they were competent actors – in one kind of cardboard role (sorry Duke).
But events thrust Bush into a role he was wholly unprepared for – leader in a time of crisis. Every President cannot be a Washington or Jefferson or Lincoln, but in times of trouble, we can at least hope for someone a bit like Jed Bartlett on West Wing. Instead, it appears Bush may not even be a Warren G. Harding. Still, in spite of his ham-handed, stumbling, stuttering, one-dimensional portrayal of a President, he has so far gotten away with murder – literally and figuratively.
So much for the Crawford School of method acting – back to the premise – Bush as a woman. Truth is, that premise may tax the imagination beyond limit. Sorry, Joe, but there’s an easier way to test your “what if” premise.
What if the election of 2000 (and possibly the fate of the nation) had not hung on a few hanging chads? What if lists of felons ineligible to vote in Florida had not been made deliberately confusing so as to exclude tens of thousands of eligible black voters? What if the press hadn’t angered Katherine Harris with all those pictures in which she looked like an over-cosmeticated reject from a Tammy Faye look-alike contest and given her a flimsy excuse to violate her loudly espoused Fundamentalist Christian principles and pay off her political debts by certifying an inaccurate vote count? What if the Supreme Court hadn’t substituted the votes of five judges for the vote of the American public? In short, imagine every vote had actually counted and Al Gore became President.
Now, imagine the World Trade Center was blown-up on September 11th – but we don’t have to imagine that, do we?
Imagine the reaction, if when informed of the disaster, the “effete” Gore had hung around in shock for seven minutes, apparently reading My Pet Goat – then again, it’s probably too hard to imagine Gore reading My Pet Goat. Then imagine the disgust if Gore hid-out for several more hours while the nation appeared to be under attack. Imagine the howling pack of partisan coyotes that would have been after his hide in Congress and on Conservative talk radio.
Now imagine the wag-the-dog protests when Gore ordered the invasion of Afghanistan. Imagine the outrage if Gore left the job half-finished and got side-tracked by his long-held plans to attack Iraq. Imagine the furor if people in Gore’s White House outed a covert CIA agent in order to promote their war. Imagine, if you can, that Congress approved Gore’s plan to invade Iraq. Then imagine the complaints of cronyism if Gore had issued no-bid contracts to companies like Halliburton. Imagine the clamor if Gore had endangered the lives of our fighting men by issuing contracts for armor-plating and body armor to his well-heeled campaign contributors.
Imagine the protests if Gore had ruined our national image by authorizing torture at Gitmo, Abu Gharib and third-world prisons. Imagine the reaction when WMD weren’t found in Iraq. Imagine the cat-calls from partisans like Cheney and Rumsfeld if Gore had announced that the new reason for the war was to topple Saddam and promote democracy. Imagine the calls for Gore’s resignation if three years after declaring Mission Accomplished the cost of the war approached a trillion dollars – and we had no victory and no apparent way out short of failure. Imagine the cries of treason if Gore was suspected of cooking intelligence to lead us into the war.
While you’re at it, imagine the roar from Rush and the rest of that gout-riddled gang of ghouls if they discovered their telephone and internet records had been spied on. Imagine the press reaction if Gore had nominated someone as utterly unqualified as Harriet Miers to the Supreme Court. Imagine the cries of incompetence if Gore had failed to respond to Katrina as miserably as Bush and his cronies. Imagine the calls for his head if Gore had approved turning over American ports to Dubai.
Imagine Gore was the first President in history to give massive tax cuts to the wealthy in a time of war. Imagine as a result Gore sustained the largest budget deficits in American history. Imagine Gore wanted to drill in wildlife refuges – and sell off national park lands – and his only veto was to squash stem-cell research – and he despised intellectuals – and he couldn’t form a complete sentence – and he behaved like a crude buffoon in meetings with other world leaders.
But you can’t imagine most of this, can you? No, this wouldn’t happen unless Gore was a complete and utter fool.
But somehow, the fool who would be king has escaped answering for his failures. But who knows – maybe he’ll find a woman to blame it all on.
©2006 Tom Cordle
Tellico Plains, TN
Michael Herdegen - September 14, 2006 @ 5:59 pm
Yeah, it’s exactly that kind of ignorant analysis that makes it hard to take the speaker seriously.
For example, Katherine Harris’ certification of the Florida vote count in 2000 was entirely irrelevant to whether or not Bush became President, as we’ve covered at great length several times in this forum, and only a simpleton would find it “too hard to imagine Gore reading My Pet Goat” to schoolkids at a political photo opp.
Etc, etc.
bubbles - September 15, 2006 @ 8:34 am
W., Chaney and the Rove election machine don’t engage in legitimate political discourse or the formation of public policy for any discernable public purpose other than whip up hysteria and hyperbole for political gain –period. Nothing is off the table for these people, not torture, not the rights of the accused, not the social contract between government and the governed. They have skated so far out on the margin of American political tradition that its become nothing less than a melodramatic form of self-destruction. If it were not such a sad commentary on what passes for the political agenda in this country it would be hilarious.
Tam O’Tellico - September 16, 2006 @ 7:41 am
Michael, your are correct that there have been leaders of other countries who engaged in facist behavior and propaganda campaigns, and they might have rivaled Hitler save for one important difference: They were not in control of the mightiest armed forces on earth.
You need to keep that in mind when evaluating the harm caused by the fool who would be king and his propaganda minister Karl Rove. Bush does control the mightiest army on earth, though there certainly seems to be considerable dissension in the ranks of the military when it comes to the policies and practices and those of his first in command, Darn Old Rummy.
What would happen if Bush gave the order to attack Iran? The question is probably moot since we don’t have any soldiers to send there. An air strike? Possibly, but given present circumstances, such an order might lead to a military coup – in this country.
What makes w possibly even more dangerous than Hitler is the fact that there is no opposing army to thwart his megamanical aspirations – though to be fair that didn’t slow Hitler down much. Paradoxically, that is one of the few things preventing World War III. But if w continues to pursue his NeoConic vision of a “clash of civilizations” – his crusade set to the tune of “Onward Christian Soldiers”, we will have the war to end all wars sooner rather than later.
Tam O’Tellico - September 16, 2006 @ 8:04 am
M: “Yeah, it’s exactly that kind of ignorant analysis that makes it hard to take the speaker seriously.”
Methinks thou holds no truck with levity and rapier wit. If thou canst not find unfair Katherine all-too-ripe for the plucking, if thous believest her not all too apparent an object of derision, perhaps thou needest analysis.
Michael Herdegen - September 16, 2006 @ 9:42 am
What would happen if Bush gave the order to attack Iran?
[G]iven present circumstances, such an order might lead to a military coup – in this country.
LOL
A bit of reading about American history in general, and American military history specifically, might help one to avoid such fundamental errors in judgement and analysis.
If President Bush ordered an attack on Iran, then Iran’s nuclear facilities and probably most of their civilian infrastructure would be destroyed – simple as that.
Which is not to say that many senior officers might not resign in protest.
What makes w possibly even more dangerous than Hitler is the fact that there is no opposing army to thwart his megamanical aspirations…
More deluded and entirely unsupported ad hominem…
Please provide some examples of actions undertaken by Bush which could lead a rational person to conclude that Bush will not give up power in ’09, or that he in some other way seeks to conquer the world.
On the 13th of Sep. I asked you to more fully explain why any sane person should consider Bush to be a greater threat to world peace than was Hitler and the Nazi party, as you charged in your post of 7 Sep.; so far you have failed to provide ANY kind of support for your previous ad hominem flailing – you’ve merely rewritten the same nonsense.
Please note that simply repeating fantastic and unsupported allegations over and over convinces no one that such charges are true, they merely lead people to ignore the screamer.
So, how about it. Can you point to anything substantial which would tend to indicate that Bush=Hitler ?
We could say that the Patriot Act is similar to Nazi book-burnings, but the problem there is that the Patriot Act has been law for years, with no appreciable increase in fascism or oppression in America.
Or is it your contention that Bush is super-dangerous to the Free World in secret ways which cannot be defined ?
Methinks thou holds no truck with levity and rapier wit.
Are you implying that the post to which I replied contained any “rapier wit” ?!?
Now that is funny.
If thou canst not find unfair Katherine all-too-ripe for the plucking, […] perhaps thou needest analysis.
As does anyone who believes that the point of the original post was to make fun of Harris, or indeed, anyone who believes that my reply was a defense of Harris.
Bubbles - September 17, 2006 @ 9:24 am
From: The Greatest Story Ever Sold
“This is how the war was sold: We were told by Dick Cheney in late 2001 that an official Iraqi connection with the 9/11 terrorist Mohamed Atta was “pretty well confirmed.” In the summer of 2002, Cheney said that Saddam Hussein “continues to pursue a nuclear weapon” and that there was “no doubt” he had “weapons of mass destruction.” The vice president mentioned aluminum tubes (they had been reported on by Michael R. Gordon and Judith Miller in The New York Times), which Hussein would use “to enrich uranium to build a nuclear weapon.” This uranium, we were told, had been procured by the Iraqis from Niger. President Bush, in October 2002, said, “Facing clear evidence of peril, we cannot wait for the final proof — the smoking gun — that could come in the form of a mushroom cloud.”
We now know that none of these claims, which together constituted the official reason for unleashing a war, were even remotely true. The later excuses about honest beliefs based on faulty intelligence would have been more convincing if a memo had not surfaced from the British government, quoting the head of British intelligence as saying that the Bush administration had made sure that “the intelligence and facts” about the W.M.D.’s “were being fixed around the policy” of going to war. He said this in July 2002, eight months before the invasion of Iraq. Even without the memo, it has long been clear that some of the United States government’s own analysts had cast severe doubts on the reasons for going to war.
Tam O’Tellico - September 17, 2006 @ 11:10 am
M: “A bit of reading about American history in general, and American military history specifically, might help one to avoid such fundamental errors in judgement and analysis.”
There is ample evidence of American military leaders who dared to think the unthinkable. From Benedict Arnold to John C. Fremont to McClelland to Custer to MacArthur, many American military men would not have had the least compunction about initiating a coup – if they thought they had any chance of pulling it off.
Have you ever stopped to wonder why a huge and growing number of Americans don’t share your view or your evaluation of this administration – and why that includes a great many military leaders? And even many of those who agree with the NeoCons’ geo-political aims have come to see this administration as a bunch of dangerous incompetents.
It is such an aberration when military leaders speak out publicly, even retired military leaders, that wise men should take caution. Add to that the premature resignations in protest by so many in the military, as well as the intelligence services and the scientific community, and wise men should take heed. Now you may label these protests and mass resignations as “ad hominem attacks” against the person of the President, but an intelligent person would see them as clear evidence that something is indeed rotten in this White House.
I’m certainly not advocating a military coup – I’m just suggesting that all the elements are in place that might lead to one, given the lethal combination of aggression and incompetence evidenced by this administration. The movie Twelve Days in May offers a doppelganger version of an extremely plausible scenario how this might come about.
As for a Crawford CokeHead Putsch, that is even easier to imagine. How easy it would be for the defenders of the Unitary President who is above the law to justify a scenario under which this administration might attempt to postpone or set aside an election “in the interest of national security”. If you doubt that, remember they’ve already gone through the planning for just such an attempt in the run up to the 2004 election:
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/5411741/site/newsweek
Now I am not fool enough to suggest that Hitler and Bush are immoral equivalents. But it is certainly arguable that both men were/are equally delusional. Just as Hitler saw himself as the Chosen One to lead Germany, Bush sees himself as chosen by God to lead the war against the enemies of good Christian America. And while Bush may mouth all the propaganda-driven platitudes about “good Muslims”, no one should be deceived: The ultimate aim of the Radical Right is the destruction of the Muslims – and the Jews. The only thing holding them back from bringing on Armageddon is that first they gotta get the Jews to rebuild the temple so Christ can come again and throw all the Jews, Muslims, Atheists, Buddhists, Hindus, Secular Humanists and queers into the fires of Hell.
For sheer unmitigated evil, the Fundamentalist Freaks that are Bush’s undying base are every bit as frightening as the Al Quedans. See for yourself:
http://www.nytimes.com/2006/04/17/us/17picket.html?ex=1302926400&en=fa00fcbce509da8b&ei=5088&partner=rssnyt&emc=rss
Michael, you may find it comforting to be aligned with these people, but I say lunatics and fanatics are evil regardless of where they live or the religion they claim.
Michael Herdegen - September 18, 2006 @ 6:41 am
There is ample evidence of American military leaders who dared to think the unthinkable, [men who] would not have had the least compunction about initiating a coup – if they thought they had any chance of pulling it off.
Yeah, that’s my objection in a nutshell.
There is no chance whatsoever, given the current situation, that more than a handful of military members would support a coup, or that anyone in Congress would, or many of the American people. Successful coups require a passive population and/or desperate times, neither of which apply to today’s America.
Have you ever stopped to wonder why a huge and growing number of Americans don’t share your view or your evaluation of this administration…
Sure.
But a good quarter of the American people wouldn’t support Bush even if Jesus re-appeared and endorsed Bush personally, and among those that remain about 60% are generally supportive of Bush.
So my wonderings are more in the “why don’t they support him” vein, rather than “am I wrong ?” After all, I’m hardly an outlier in my opinion, at least in this specific case.
[Considering] the premature resignations in protest by so many in the military, as well as the intelligence services and the scientific community, and wise men should take heed.
“So many”? “Mass resignations”?
Since we’re talking about fewer than five dozen people over the course of more than five and a half years, it’s most likely that “an intelligent person would see them as clear evidence” that neither “many” nor “mass” applies to the number of such, and therefore that we’re probably talking about cases of bruised egos rather than support for the contention that “something is indeed rotten in this White House.”
How easy it would be for the defenders of the Unitary President who is above the law to justify a scenario under which this administration might attempt to postpone or set aside an election “in the interest of national security”. If you doubt that, remember…
What I remember is that that is EXACTLY the same charge and scenario that was feared about Clinton – but he left office on schedule, just as Bush will do.
The same dynamics that prevent a military coup in America also prevent political leaders from staying past their expiration date.
The ultimate aim of the Radical Right is [to] throw all the Jews, Muslims, Atheists, Buddhists, Hindus, Secular Humanists and queers into the fires of Hell.
For sheer unmitigated evil, the Fundamentalist Freaks that are Bush’s undying base…
While there are some people fitting this description, they’re a small minority in America’s religious community, and an even smaller sliver of the American electorate. They may well be part of Bush’s base, but they aren’t an important part.
In fact, the attitudes that you describe are more likely to be found among Catholics than Evangelicals, and Catholics are at best luke-warm towards Bush, and the GOP in general.
There are probably just as many homosexuals in America as there are people waiting for Jesus to come back and throw the gays into the pits of Hell.
bubbles:
No offense intended, but you’re far more than a little late to the party with that one.
For instance, we now know that Hussein did look into buying some uranium from Niger, or more accurately, some ore that contains relatively high concentrations of uranium.
One guess about what Saddam was hoping to do with such ore.
In any case, what do you think can realistically be done now, regardless of why Iraq was invaded ?
bubbles - September 18, 2006 @ 9:23 am
Michael,
It seems more than obvious at this point that the Kurds the Sunni and the Shiites need to go into their separate corners and cool-off, lets just call them autonomous zones. Then they not us will need to determine when and how to form a government or establish a democracy. Of course that would mean defining the conflict as something other than the WOT. Which doesn’t suit the political purposes of the regime here. Which brings us to the only way to accomplish the former is to have regime change start at home. The longer that takes the worse the toxic clean up of our Iraq policy will be. Whats your plan -stay the course-?
Tam O’Tellico - September 18, 2006 @ 9:20 pm
M: “In fact, the attitudes that you describe are more likely to be found among Catholics than Evangelicals, and Catholics are at best luke-warm towards Bush, and the GOP in general.”
Did you read the piece I cited that described the tactics and the luncay of the Funeral Protestors Against Fags? I can assure you that in this buckle of the Bible Belt Catholics are scarcer than hen’s teeth, but religioius fanatics abound.
While you are quite right that these lunatics are a minority, even among the remaining Bushites, they exert far more influence over this administration than those numbers ought to warrant. That leads me to the conclusion that their leader is more than a little in agreement with that execrable filth. Either that or he is a cheap philistine panderer to the worst in human nature.
Tam O’Tellico - September 18, 2006 @ 9:27 pm
M: “After all, I’m hardly an outlier in my opinion, at least in this specific case.”
If you mean that most Americans wouldn’t support a military coup, you are correct. But if you mean that most Americans support the policies and tactics of this administration, you are quite wrong. The political winds have changed, far too late as far as I am concerned. But I assure you there are many confirmed conservatives of my acquaintance who have had it with Bush. They know they have been lied to, and they know that Bush is, as one put it rather succinctly, “a damned loser”.
If you don’t see it that way, I’m afraid you are indeed an outlier.
lonbud - September 18, 2006 @ 9:42 pm
See how any fool with a love of numbers like Michael can appear to make a silk purse out of a sow’s ear?
a good quarter of the American people wouldn’t support Bush even if Jesus re-appeared and endorsed Bush personally, and among those that remain about 60% are generally supportive of Bush
Well, first off, the aftermath of 9/11 wasn’t exactly the 2nd Coming, but w’s approval rating reached 90% in those heady days, so Michael’s initial presumption is false by a factor of two and a half.
Taken on average, however, “The Great Liberator’s” highmark for approval among his subjects, uh, countryfolk is about 60%. While the number of those willing to back the man has been on a steady decline in the face of mounting evidence of both his mendacity and his ineffectiveness, for argument’s sake we could reasonably print the average floor at 40%.
So, Michael’s contention that 45% of the country (60% of 75%) are “generally supportive” is also off by at least 5%.
There are about 10% of the people in this country who wouldn’t support him no matter what, and another perhaps 30% who seem willing to ride with the MF right off the edge of the cliff. In the space of five years he’s managed to lose the support of over 80% of the people in this country who are willing to think for themselves.
Heckuva job, commander.
As for what we should do in Iraq now? Leave. It doesn’t matter who made the mess, the Iraqis are the only ones who can clean it up. We can and should leave, immediately, because things cannot possibly get worse for us if we do, while they can, and will, get worse for us if we stay.
bubbles - September 19, 2006 @ 8:26 am
I don’t know how many of you have access to HBO but they are airing a documentary film about Barry Goldwater, a man undoubtedly spinning in his grave. The film reminded me of something I forgot many years ago. Essentially what it was that I liked about some Republican politicians. While I disagreed with many of his hawkish policies he was unquestionably a man who held our Republic the elegance of its laws and structure and the intent of its fathers above the fray of political life. He himself credited as the “father of the conservative movement” would now be considered to be not only ‘Liberal’ but also radically left of ½ of the Democrat’s in Congress. Here’s a Republican senator who went into the office of a Republican President and said in effect, ‘game over’. I cannot think of a single Republican in Congress today that even remotely resembles that man.
Michael I feel compelled to remind you that George Bush came to Washington to “restore the integrity of the Presidency”. He and his supporters trumpeted a “no one is above the law” doctrine “not even the President”. He has subsequently established a new standard for working in the executive branch of government, in effect; anything goes ‘unless or until you are indicted for a federal crime’.
Now that the writing is on the wall for at least one branch of Government to potentially question his use of executive power he’s looking for immunity from prosecution for himself and other high-ranking officials by wordsmithing the Geneva Conventions and the FISA laws. Bush’s insistence on changes to these laws and treaties have nothing to do with national security whatsoever and everything to do with protecting him and others from prosecution before our constitutional system of checks and balances is applied to him and his colleagues. As I say Barry Goldwater is turning in his grave but his ghost looms large over your ‘Conservative Movement’.
lonbud - September 19, 2006 @ 10:10 pm
I got to thinking about that Jesus comment a little bit and realized there is no possible chance Jesus (if he happpened to come back and take even passing notice of the Empty Hat) would endorse w personally.
The man is a living embodiment of everything Jesus disdained and spoke against on his first tour of duty, and despite his pious pretensions to the contrary, our President would almost certainly be held by the Saviour as an example of everything we’ve failed to learn during his absence.
As for w’s credibility as a conservative, that was out the window within his first hundred days in office, if anyone was paying attention. The only things he ever tried to conserve are his own wealth and his own power.
Tam O’Tellico - September 20, 2006 @ 9:21 pm
M: “Mass resignations”? We’re talking about fewer than five dozen people over the course of more than five and a half years”
You may not be concerned, but those who know better are:
“An exodus of key leaders and scientists from the Centers for Disease
Control has raised grave concern among five of the six former directors who led the agency over the past 40 years. The most visible sign of potential trouble at CDC is the loss of more than a dozen high-profile leaders and scientists since 2004.
By the end of this year, all but two of the directors of CDC’s eight primary scientific centers will have left the Atlanta-based federal agency. The wave of departures – which numerous CDC leaders call unprecedented – also includes the agency’s top vaccine expert and world experts in several diseases. Just last week CDC’s pandemic flu coordinator said he’s leaving.”
Fact is, these unprecedented resignations are a reaction by scientists who won’t put up with having their research made to conform to political ideology. They feel compelled to give up projects that for many are their life’s work rather than surrender to ignorance and incompetence. Too bad there aren’t a few more in the White House with that kind of courage.
For the rest of the story, go here.
bubbles - September 21, 2006 @ 1:05 am
Ohh and at the Dept. of the Interior..
Lawsuits have surfaced as Democrats and Republicans alike are questioning the Bush administration’s willingness to challenge the oil and gas industry.
The new accusations surfaced just one week after the Interior Department’s inspector general, Earl E. Devaney, told a House subcommittee that “short of crime, anything goes” at the top levels of the Interior Department.
In two of the lawsuits, two senior auditors with the Minerals Management Service in Oklahoma City said they were ordered to drop their claim that Shell Oil had fraudulently shortchanged taxpayers out of $18 million.
A third auditor, also in Oklahoma City, charged that senior officials in Denver ordered him to drop his demand that two dozen companies pay $1 million in back interest.
And in a suit that was filed in 2004, Mr. Maxwell charged that senior officials in Washington ordered him not to press claims that the Kerr-McGee Corporation had cheated the government out of $12 million in royalties.
Article:
here.
Tam O’Tellico - September 21, 2006 @ 5:40 am
Bubbles, you can add to the horrors at Interior, the machinations of J. Steven Griles, former number two at the Department and bagman extrodinaire. Senate hearings revealed his all too cozy relationship with Jack Abramoff and the Committee for Republican Enviromental Advocacy – what a joke that is!
While Gale Norton, former DOI Secretary, has so far escaped charges, she has to be guilty of turning a blind eye to what was going on. Either that or she was totally incompetent. In this administration, it is so hard to tell.
The same grievous pandering to special interests and wholesale disregard for the public goes on in every department thanks to the spoils system engineered by Bush and Rove. While to some extent, this has always been the case, these “public servants” have taken things to a new low.
I’ve said it before, when the whole truth is finally revealed by history – or at least as much as can be dug out from under so many rocks – this President will stand (well, fall actually) as the worst in American history. And there won’t even be a close second.