Friday, January 23, 2004
Our lives begin to end the day we become silent about things that matter.
—The Rev. Martin Luther King Jr
The Democrats:
Firstly, we can’t let the ongoing campaign obscure the ISSUES and important DEVELOPMENTS that even in non-election years tend to get short shrift. So, though I lead with this, note the asterisked items, below.
Dean’s disappearing, aided by unflattering media portrayals. The Newsweek reporter (Eleanor Cliff) on NPR talked of Dean and “Judy Dean”, as she’s now called, as ‘decent people, but not up to presidential caliber.’ Huh? Compared to George and Laura? The negative press on Dean underscored the free ride that towel-snapper George has received.
In particular I thought that Dean was doing a predictable ‘firing-up” of his followers when he lost Iowa. Pundits deemed him “angry” or “insane”. Meanwhile Kerry appears well-established in New Hampshire, but is lacking organization in upcoming states. Edwards, who should win South Carolina, is the most effective, especially his presentation and his talk of “two Americas” however, unoriginal.
Do note this clever, model letter to the NY Times in Friday’s paper. Emulate!
To the Editor:
Although I have been a supporter of Howard Dean, I agreed with much of William Safire's Jan. 21 column, "Dean: Too Old to Cry."
There is, however, a disturbing double standard at work these days: political pundits freely pass judgment upon Democratic candidates while ignoring George W. Bush's unpresidential behavior, speech and intellect.
Pundits call John Kerry "aloof" and "patrician"; they describe Dr. Dean as both "chilly" and a "hothead."
To be fair, they should also observe that President Bush often wears a smirk, that he is chronically inarticulate (often to the point of incoherence), and that his geopolitical worldview is naïve and simplistic.
Yet even in letters to the editor, such observations do not see print. (Feel free to prove me wrong.)
CAROL V. HAMILTON
Pittsburgh, Jan. 21, 2004
Even if he fades out, Dean did fire up the other candidates, some of whom now mirror his ardor. Michael Moore, a Wesley Clark supporter, tries to cheer the Dean troops.
I can see, just from surfing the web, the debilitating affect the landslide loss in Iowa had on so many people who had placed so much hope in the man who created a grassroots revolution and was unrelenting in his attacks on Bush and on the war. If having the most volunteers, the most money (all small contributions from average citizens), and the boldest message can't win an election, say Dean's followers, then we might as well just give up.
As one who does not support Dean, I would like to say this to you: DON'T GIVE UP. You have done an incredible thing. You inspired an entire nation to stand up to George W. Bush. Your impact on this election will be felt for years to come. Every bit of energy you put into Dr. Dean's candidacy was -- and is -- worth it (http://www.michaelmoore.com/words/message/index.php)
*Playing to Win: Can the Democrats (and us) compete?
The Bushies are liars who never apologize; knowing the stakes, they do anything to win. Their opposition too often protests, whines and accepts the conservative framing of issues. That must stop.
Rumors, scuttlebutt and evidence exists that makes clear that the Republicans are actively trying to sabotage/corrupt this election. In that spirit, note the following, posted on Danny Schechter’s site (www.mediachannel.org)
THE CHARGE: REPUBLICANS INFILTRATE IOWA CAUCUSES
From a Dean group. My friend Dawn in Iowa told me the same thing - that they were stunned by the number of Republicans changing their registration at the door. It appears that possibly only 55% of the Iowa caucus voters were Democrats trying to cast a legitimate vote. We can expect this cross-over voting in any caucus where it's allowed. My impression is that it's allowed in a great number of the states. So whoever chooses our Democratic nominee, it won't really be Democrats. We have the same thing here as I've discovered when calling Democrats on election day, only to have some of them nastily and gloatingly tell me they're Republicans and have already voted - for Bush. Margie.
Another voice:
GOP crossover 45% in Iowa caucus*
I don't watch TV. My friend Cathy in Kansas is a huge CSPAN fan and reported the following this morning (comments edited). She called CSPAN complaining about all the Iowa shenanigans.
DEMOCRATS FOR A NIGHT
I called into CSPAN this morning at 6:30 AM and told them my view of the Republicans and Independents who got to cross-over and cause that surge that pushed Kerry over the top. I also agreed with another caller who was Republican, who said the media was running Dean as a big top dog and then when he did not win the number one spot he crashed a lot harder. The other caller also said the media did negative reporting towards Dean. I said that the history of the Iowa caucuses only sent two on to the presidency. The Iowans that were calling into the program Susan hosted were reporting the huge number of new voters...cross-overs who were Democrats for the night. They said they had never seen so many like last night! They ran out of the sign-up sheets. The workers at the caucuses were having to turn them over and use both sides of the sign-up sheets and then started using plain paper to sign up new voters. Susan on CSPAN quoted 45% new voter registration. That is big. They picked Iowa's guy by crashing the caucuses and voting for Kerry and Edwards. This is why the media had to tear down Dean and fix the bad Zogby poll then pack the caucuses to give Kerry & Edwards the votes. Republicans again picking our candidate.
*And, the Boston Globe (Charlie Savage) front-paged this, yet there is no firestorm of protest. Again, the Republicans will go ‘all-out. It’s evidence of the systematic law-breaking and dirty tricks that we’ve suspected.
Republican staff members of the US Senate Judiciary Committee infiltrated opposition computer files for a year, monitoring secret strategy memos and periodically passing on copies to the media, Senate officials told The Globe.
From the spring of 2002 until at least April 2003, members of the GOP committee staff exploited a computer glitch that allowed them to access restricted Democratic communications without a password. Trolling through hundreds of memos, they were able to read talking points and accounts of private meetings discussing which judicial nominees Democrats would fight -- and with what tactics.
The office of Senate Sergeant-at-Arms William Pickle has already launched an investigation into how excerpts from 15 Democratic memos showed up in the pages of the conservative-leaning newspapers and were posted to a website last November.
http://www.boston.com/news/nation/articles/2004/01/22/infiltration_of_files_seen_as_extensive/
State of the Union: The speech struck out with thinking people; not sure how it played with the large percentage that swallows whole the Administration’s “sell.” Good fun, as usual from Mark Fiore’s animation, on the Address. www.villagevoice.com/issues/0403/fiore.php.
WMD and the "weapons of mass destruction-related program activities” reminds me of Velveeta, a “cheese-food product”.
*Noteworthy: Thursday’s NY Times front-paged the AP report of veteran CIA’ers who don’t trust the Justice investigation of the outing of Valerie Plame. This is highly unusual stuff. [The investigation is proceeding, apparently at the grand jury phase.]
Members of Congress and 10 ex-CIA officials are seeking a broader inquiry into the leak of an undercover officer's name, aiming to determine if U.S. national security was compromised and to discourage future leaks.
In addition, a leading Democratic critic of the Justice Department investigation into the matter says the Bush administration should release details of the probe to show the public whether officials are cooperating as President Bush promised.
``A prosecutor has the responsibility to assure public confidence in criminal investigations, especially those of such a serious nature,'' Sen. Charles Schumer, D-N.Y., said in a letter Thursday to Deputy Attorney General James Comey.
Justice Department and FBI officials refused to comment on any aspect of the investigation, which began in September, other than to say it is continuing. Attorney General John Ashcroft has recused himself from the probe, which is led by Comey and U.S. Attorney Patrick Fitzgerald of Chicago.
http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/national/AP-CIA-Leak.html?pagewanted=print&position=
PBS’s Frontline further laid out the shameless distorting of wmd “evidence” prior to the war. A highlight was David Kay’s admitting that prior to the war the Administration’s evidence was limited to ‘grasping at straws.’ A war with thousands of deaths based on intelligence that was ‘grasping at straws’?
Obscene.
Iraq Media Coverage: One sided? Are newspapers one-sided in war coverage?
A report from Dan Wycliff of the Chicago Tribune
The fact is that the people demanding more "good news" from Iraq are themselves pursuing a political agenda and attempting to draft the news media into the effort. They want to shift the focus from safety and security in a still-unstable Iraq to sewers and streetlights. (Not unlike shifting the focus from non-existent weapons of mass destruction to "weapons of mass destruction-related program activities.")
The United States has 120,000-plus members of its armed forces in Iraq. They are being shot at, road-bombed, truck-bombed, mortared and otherwise attacked not because they're trying to build schools, generate electricity and fix sewer lines, but because they are American soldiers.
The Tribune--and most of the rest of the American news media, I suspect--continue to focus on safety and security issues because the lives and safety of our fellow citizens in uniform are most Americans' first concern. http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/columnists/chi-0401220354jan22,1,1571626.column
Krugman: Democracy at Risk (Voting Machine stuff)
The disputed election of 2000 left a lasting scar on the nation's psyche. A recent Zogby poll found that even in red states, which voted for George W. Bush, 32 percent of the public believes that the election was stolen. In blue states, the fraction is 44 percent.
Now imagine this: in November the candidate trailing in the polls wins an upset victory — but all of the districts where he does much better than expected use touch-screen voting machines. Meanwhile, leaked internal e-mail from the companies that make these machines suggests widespread error, and possibly fraud. What would this do to the nation?
Unfortunately, this story is completely plausible. (In fact, you can tell a similar story about some of the results in the 2002 midterm elections, especially in Georgia.) Fortune magazine rightly declared paperless voting the worst technology of 2003, but it's not just a bad technology — it's a threat to the republic…
What about the expense? Let's put it this way: we're spending at least $150 billion to promote democracy in Iraq. That's about $1,500 for each vote cast in the 2000 election. How can we balk at spending a small fraction of that sum to secure the credibility of democracy at home? http://www.nytimes.com/2004/01/23/opinion/23KRUG.html
Time –Out (not noteworthy): Attention all t.v. watchers of the 1950’s. Remember J. Fred Muggs? He was the chimp who worked with Dave Garroway when the Today show was new. Well, he’s alive and well. From the NY Observer (Joe Hagan)
"He has a little gray, mostly in his beard," said his owner and caretaker, Gerald Preis, 60, whom NYTV reached at his home in Citrus Park, Fla. "It’s like salt-and-pepper."
Mr. Muggs is now 52 years old, Mr. Preis explained, and lives in a 2,800-square-foot compound with his lifelong female companion, Phoebe B. Beebe, a 50-year-old chimp. The two lovebirds have their own swimming pool and a walk-in refrigerator.
On Feb. 2, 1953, the diaper-wearing Muggs, then 14 months old, began accompanying host Dave Garroway on the first incarnation of NBC’s Today Show—this was before Matt Lauer, mind you—and he did funny tricks like playing piano with Steve Allen, which pulled in big ratings. Legend has it that Muggs was such a huge boon to the show—Mr. Preis said that in 1979, Advertising Age reported that Muggs made $100 million for NBC during his career—that Mr. Garroway grew jealous and began spiking Muggs’ orange juice with Benzedrine to make him misbehave and deliver his human co-host back to center stage.
"He had to live with the issue that it took a quote-unquote monkey to save his show," said Mr. Preis. "And that bothered him very much throughout television history. And in a way, I don’t blame him, but Muggs was an animal that saved a TV show that is still in existence today. If it wasn’t for J. Fred Muggs, that show would not be on there."
As for those nasty, 50-year-old tabloid rumors that Muggs once bit Martha Raye: "That was bullshit—just plain bullshit," said Mr. Preis, who inherited the care of Muggs from his father, the late Bud Mennella, and Roy Waldron, who is now 80 and can no longer manage the old ape.
Meanwhile, CNBC is steering clear of the "Muggsy" moniker. And that’s good, because Mr. Preis said he had a copyright on the name and would enforce it.
"It’s a she, and they’re going to call her Ellie," said a CNBC spokeswoman. "Ellie is her name. She’s a very sweet monkey."
Whatever you do, Ellie: Don’t drink the orange juice!
http://www.nyobserver.com/pages/frontpage6.asp ,
-R
—The Rev. Martin Luther King Jr
The Democrats:
Firstly, we can’t let the ongoing campaign obscure the ISSUES and important DEVELOPMENTS that even in non-election years tend to get short shrift. So, though I lead with this, note the asterisked items, below.
Dean’s disappearing, aided by unflattering media portrayals. The Newsweek reporter (Eleanor Cliff) on NPR talked of Dean and “Judy Dean”, as she’s now called, as ‘decent people, but not up to presidential caliber.’ Huh? Compared to George and Laura? The negative press on Dean underscored the free ride that towel-snapper George has received.
In particular I thought that Dean was doing a predictable ‘firing-up” of his followers when he lost Iowa. Pundits deemed him “angry” or “insane”. Meanwhile Kerry appears well-established in New Hampshire, but is lacking organization in upcoming states. Edwards, who should win South Carolina, is the most effective, especially his presentation and his talk of “two Americas” however, unoriginal.
Do note this clever, model letter to the NY Times in Friday’s paper. Emulate!
To the Editor:
Although I have been a supporter of Howard Dean, I agreed with much of William Safire's Jan. 21 column, "Dean: Too Old to Cry."
There is, however, a disturbing double standard at work these days: political pundits freely pass judgment upon Democratic candidates while ignoring George W. Bush's unpresidential behavior, speech and intellect.
Pundits call John Kerry "aloof" and "patrician"; they describe Dr. Dean as both "chilly" and a "hothead."
To be fair, they should also observe that President Bush often wears a smirk, that he is chronically inarticulate (often to the point of incoherence), and that his geopolitical worldview is naïve and simplistic.
Yet even in letters to the editor, such observations do not see print. (Feel free to prove me wrong.)
CAROL V. HAMILTON
Pittsburgh, Jan. 21, 2004
Even if he fades out, Dean did fire up the other candidates, some of whom now mirror his ardor. Michael Moore, a Wesley Clark supporter, tries to cheer the Dean troops.
I can see, just from surfing the web, the debilitating affect the landslide loss in Iowa had on so many people who had placed so much hope in the man who created a grassroots revolution and was unrelenting in his attacks on Bush and on the war. If having the most volunteers, the most money (all small contributions from average citizens), and the boldest message can't win an election, say Dean's followers, then we might as well just give up.
As one who does not support Dean, I would like to say this to you: DON'T GIVE UP. You have done an incredible thing. You inspired an entire nation to stand up to George W. Bush. Your impact on this election will be felt for years to come. Every bit of energy you put into Dr. Dean's candidacy was -- and is -- worth it (http://www.michaelmoore.com/words/message/index.php)
*Playing to Win: Can the Democrats (and us) compete?
The Bushies are liars who never apologize; knowing the stakes, they do anything to win. Their opposition too often protests, whines and accepts the conservative framing of issues. That must stop.
Rumors, scuttlebutt and evidence exists that makes clear that the Republicans are actively trying to sabotage/corrupt this election. In that spirit, note the following, posted on Danny Schechter’s site (www.mediachannel.org)
THE CHARGE: REPUBLICANS INFILTRATE IOWA CAUCUSES
From a Dean group. My friend Dawn in Iowa told me the same thing - that they were stunned by the number of Republicans changing their registration at the door. It appears that possibly only 55% of the Iowa caucus voters were Democrats trying to cast a legitimate vote. We can expect this cross-over voting in any caucus where it's allowed. My impression is that it's allowed in a great number of the states. So whoever chooses our Democratic nominee, it won't really be Democrats. We have the same thing here as I've discovered when calling Democrats on election day, only to have some of them nastily and gloatingly tell me they're Republicans and have already voted - for Bush. Margie.
Another voice:
GOP crossover 45% in Iowa caucus*
I don't watch TV. My friend Cathy in Kansas is a huge CSPAN fan and reported the following this morning (comments edited). She called CSPAN complaining about all the Iowa shenanigans.
DEMOCRATS FOR A NIGHT
I called into CSPAN this morning at 6:30 AM and told them my view of the Republicans and Independents who got to cross-over and cause that surge that pushed Kerry over the top. I also agreed with another caller who was Republican, who said the media was running Dean as a big top dog and then when he did not win the number one spot he crashed a lot harder. The other caller also said the media did negative reporting towards Dean. I said that the history of the Iowa caucuses only sent two on to the presidency. The Iowans that were calling into the program Susan hosted were reporting the huge number of new voters...cross-overs who were Democrats for the night. They said they had never seen so many like last night! They ran out of the sign-up sheets. The workers at the caucuses were having to turn them over and use both sides of the sign-up sheets and then started using plain paper to sign up new voters. Susan on CSPAN quoted 45% new voter registration. That is big. They picked Iowa's guy by crashing the caucuses and voting for Kerry and Edwards. This is why the media had to tear down Dean and fix the bad Zogby poll then pack the caucuses to give Kerry & Edwards the votes. Republicans again picking our candidate.
*And, the Boston Globe (Charlie Savage) front-paged this, yet there is no firestorm of protest. Again, the Republicans will go ‘all-out. It’s evidence of the systematic law-breaking and dirty tricks that we’ve suspected.
Republican staff members of the US Senate Judiciary Committee infiltrated opposition computer files for a year, monitoring secret strategy memos and periodically passing on copies to the media, Senate officials told The Globe.
From the spring of 2002 until at least April 2003, members of the GOP committee staff exploited a computer glitch that allowed them to access restricted Democratic communications without a password. Trolling through hundreds of memos, they were able to read talking points and accounts of private meetings discussing which judicial nominees Democrats would fight -- and with what tactics.
The office of Senate Sergeant-at-Arms William Pickle has already launched an investigation into how excerpts from 15 Democratic memos showed up in the pages of the conservative-leaning newspapers and were posted to a website last November.
http://www.boston.com/news/nation/articles/2004/01/22/infiltration_of_files_seen_as_extensive/
State of the Union: The speech struck out with thinking people; not sure how it played with the large percentage that swallows whole the Administration’s “sell.” Good fun, as usual from Mark Fiore’s animation, on the Address. www.villagevoice.com/issues/0403/fiore.php.
WMD and the "weapons of mass destruction-related program activities” reminds me of Velveeta, a “cheese-food product”.
*Noteworthy: Thursday’s NY Times front-paged the AP report of veteran CIA’ers who don’t trust the Justice investigation of the outing of Valerie Plame. This is highly unusual stuff. [The investigation is proceeding, apparently at the grand jury phase.]
Members of Congress and 10 ex-CIA officials are seeking a broader inquiry into the leak of an undercover officer's name, aiming to determine if U.S. national security was compromised and to discourage future leaks.
In addition, a leading Democratic critic of the Justice Department investigation into the matter says the Bush administration should release details of the probe to show the public whether officials are cooperating as President Bush promised.
``A prosecutor has the responsibility to assure public confidence in criminal investigations, especially those of such a serious nature,'' Sen. Charles Schumer, D-N.Y., said in a letter Thursday to Deputy Attorney General James Comey.
Justice Department and FBI officials refused to comment on any aspect of the investigation, which began in September, other than to say it is continuing. Attorney General John Ashcroft has recused himself from the probe, which is led by Comey and U.S. Attorney Patrick Fitzgerald of Chicago.
http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/national/AP-CIA-Leak.html?pagewanted=print&position=
PBS’s Frontline further laid out the shameless distorting of wmd “evidence” prior to the war. A highlight was David Kay’s admitting that prior to the war the Administration’s evidence was limited to ‘grasping at straws.’ A war with thousands of deaths based on intelligence that was ‘grasping at straws’?
Obscene.
Iraq Media Coverage: One sided? Are newspapers one-sided in war coverage?
A report from Dan Wycliff of the Chicago Tribune
The fact is that the people demanding more "good news" from Iraq are themselves pursuing a political agenda and attempting to draft the news media into the effort. They want to shift the focus from safety and security in a still-unstable Iraq to sewers and streetlights. (Not unlike shifting the focus from non-existent weapons of mass destruction to "weapons of mass destruction-related program activities.")
The United States has 120,000-plus members of its armed forces in Iraq. They are being shot at, road-bombed, truck-bombed, mortared and otherwise attacked not because they're trying to build schools, generate electricity and fix sewer lines, but because they are American soldiers.
The Tribune--and most of the rest of the American news media, I suspect--continue to focus on safety and security issues because the lives and safety of our fellow citizens in uniform are most Americans' first concern. http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/columnists/chi-0401220354jan22,1,1571626.column
Krugman: Democracy at Risk (Voting Machine stuff)
The disputed election of 2000 left a lasting scar on the nation's psyche. A recent Zogby poll found that even in red states, which voted for George W. Bush, 32 percent of the public believes that the election was stolen. In blue states, the fraction is 44 percent.
Now imagine this: in November the candidate trailing in the polls wins an upset victory — but all of the districts where he does much better than expected use touch-screen voting machines. Meanwhile, leaked internal e-mail from the companies that make these machines suggests widespread error, and possibly fraud. What would this do to the nation?
Unfortunately, this story is completely plausible. (In fact, you can tell a similar story about some of the results in the 2002 midterm elections, especially in Georgia.) Fortune magazine rightly declared paperless voting the worst technology of 2003, but it's not just a bad technology — it's a threat to the republic…
What about the expense? Let's put it this way: we're spending at least $150 billion to promote democracy in Iraq. That's about $1,500 for each vote cast in the 2000 election. How can we balk at spending a small fraction of that sum to secure the credibility of democracy at home? http://www.nytimes.com/2004/01/23/opinion/23KRUG.html
Time –Out (not noteworthy): Attention all t.v. watchers of the 1950’s. Remember J. Fred Muggs? He was the chimp who worked with Dave Garroway when the Today show was new. Well, he’s alive and well. From the NY Observer (Joe Hagan)
"He has a little gray, mostly in his beard," said his owner and caretaker, Gerald Preis, 60, whom NYTV reached at his home in Citrus Park, Fla. "It’s like salt-and-pepper."
Mr. Muggs is now 52 years old, Mr. Preis explained, and lives in a 2,800-square-foot compound with his lifelong female companion, Phoebe B. Beebe, a 50-year-old chimp. The two lovebirds have their own swimming pool and a walk-in refrigerator.
On Feb. 2, 1953, the diaper-wearing Muggs, then 14 months old, began accompanying host Dave Garroway on the first incarnation of NBC’s Today Show—this was before Matt Lauer, mind you—and he did funny tricks like playing piano with Steve Allen, which pulled in big ratings. Legend has it that Muggs was such a huge boon to the show—Mr. Preis said that in 1979, Advertising Age reported that Muggs made $100 million for NBC during his career—that Mr. Garroway grew jealous and began spiking Muggs’ orange juice with Benzedrine to make him misbehave and deliver his human co-host back to center stage.
"He had to live with the issue that it took a quote-unquote monkey to save his show," said Mr. Preis. "And that bothered him very much throughout television history. And in a way, I don’t blame him, but Muggs was an animal that saved a TV show that is still in existence today. If it wasn’t for J. Fred Muggs, that show would not be on there."
As for those nasty, 50-year-old tabloid rumors that Muggs once bit Martha Raye: "That was bullshit—just plain bullshit," said Mr. Preis, who inherited the care of Muggs from his father, the late Bud Mennella, and Roy Waldron, who is now 80 and can no longer manage the old ape.
Meanwhile, CNBC is steering clear of the "Muggsy" moniker. And that’s good, because Mr. Preis said he had a copyright on the name and would enforce it.
"It’s a she, and they’re going to call her Ellie," said a CNBC spokeswoman. "Ellie is her name. She’s a very sweet monkey."
Whatever you do, Ellie: Don’t drink the orange juice!
http://www.nyobserver.com/pages/frontpage6.asp ,
-R
