Thursday, July 15, 2004
"Bin Laden would have been caught long ago. Tell me, how is it possible that we can't find a guy who's six-foot-six and supposedly needs a dialysis machine? Can you explain that one to me? We have all our energies focused on one place, where they shouldn't be focused.” - Donald Trump http://news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&cid=857&u=/nm/20040714/od_uk_nm/oukoe_media_trump_2&printer=1
Most Interesting Job in America:
George Bush's lawyer in the Plame investigation, James E. Sharp, just happens to be representing Ken Lay in the Enron case.
J.K. Galbraith on Corporate Power: He writes that corporate power is what drives U.S. foreign policy, that it’s a “cloud over civilization”, that it’s “widely accepted in Washington today that there is nothing wrong with a democracy dominated by the people with money. But of course there is. Money has democracy in a stranglehold and is suffocating it."
The corporate appropriation of public initiative and authority is unpleasantly visible in its effect on the environment, and dangerous as regards military and foreign policy. Wars are a major threat to civilised existence, and a corporate commitment to weapons procurement and use nurtures this threat. It accords legitimacy, and even heroic virtue, to devastation and death.
Power in the modern great corporation belongs to the management. The board of directors is an amiable entity, meeting with self-approval but fully subordinate to the real power of the managers. The relationship resembles that of an honorary degree recipient to a member of a university faculty.
The myths of investor authority, the ritual meetings of directors and the annual stockholder meeting persist, but no mentally viable observer of the modern corporation can escape the reality. Corporate power lies with management - a bureaucracy in control of its task and its compensation. Rewards can verge on larceny. On frequent recent occasions, it has been referred to as the corporate scandal.
As the corporate interest moves to power in what was the public sector, it serves the corporate interest. It is most clearly evident in the largest such movement, that of nominally private firms into the defence establishment. From this comes a primary influence on the military budget, on foreign policy, military commitment and, ultimately, military action. War. Although this is a normal and expected use of money and its power, the full effect is disguised by almost all conventional expression. http://www.guardian.co.uk/usa/story/0,12271,1261747,00.html
Our “Disappeareds” The Washington Post with an admirable editorial:
The CIA is still playing games with the Red Cross- hiding "high value" prisoners somewhere in the elaborate gulag the Bush administration has built around the world.
The Washington Post ‘steps up.’
For decades, the United States led the denunciation of despots whose enemies "disappear" -- vanish into official custody, with no accounting for their whereabouts or treatment, no notification of their families and sometimes, no acknowledgement that they are being held. Now that same term is being applied to prisoners held by the Bush administration in the war on terrorism. According to the International Red Cross, a number of people apparently in U.S. custody are unaccounted for. Most are believed to be held by the CIA in secret facilities outside the United States. Contrary to the Geneva Conventions, the detainees have never been visited by the Red Cross; contrary to U.S. and international law, some reportedly have been subjected to interrogation techniques that most legal authorities regard as torture. According to the independent group Human Rights Watch, this exceptional practice is "perhaps unprecedented in U.S. history." Like the Pentagon's mishandling of Iraqi detainees, it cries out for congressional review and reform. http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A50490-2004Jul14.html
That [terribly] flawed UN Speech by Colin
Days before Secretary of State Colin L. Powell was to present the case for war with Iraq to the United Nations, State Department analysts found dozens of factual problems in drafts of his speech, according to new documents contained in the Senate report on intelligence failures released last week.Two memos included with the Senate report listed objections that State Department experts lodged as they reviewed successive drafts of the Powell speech. Although many of the claims considered inflated or unsupported were removed through painstaking debate by Powell and intelligence officials, the speech he ultimately presented contained material that was in dispute among State Department experts…
The analysts, describing many of the claims as "weak" and assigning grades to arguments on a 5-star scale, warned Powell against making an array of allegations they deemed implausible. They also warned against including Iraqi communications intercepts they deemed ambiguous and against speculating that terrorists might "come through Baghdad and pick-up biological weapons" as if they were stocked on store shelves. The documents underscore the extent to which administration and intelligence officials were culling a vast collection of thinly sourced claims as they sought to assemble the case for war. But the origin and full scope of some errors remain unclear because Senate investigators were denied access to a number of relevant documents, according to aides involved in the probe. http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/nation/la-na-powell15jul15,1,2621877,print.story?coll=la-headlines-nation
Medicare Law Is Seen Leading to Cuts in Drug Benefits for Retirees
Are we surprised?
New government estimates suggest that employers will reduce or eliminate prescription drug benefits for 3.8 million retirees when Medicare offers such coverage in 2006.
That represents one-third of all the retirees with employer-sponsored drug coverage, according to documents from the Department of Health and Human Services.
No aspect of the new Medicare law causes more concern among retirees than the possibility that they might lose benefits they already have.
Democrats are likely to cite the new estimates as evidence to support their contention that the new law will prompt some employers to curtail drug coverage for retirees, forcing them, in some cases, to rely on Medicare's leaner benefits. Republicans do not want to see the government supplant employers in providing drug benefits to retirees.
Senior officials at the department have been saying for weeks that they believe federal subsidies will induce more employers to continue providing drug benefits to retirees. http://www.nytimes.com/2004/07/14/politics/14medicare.html?hp=&pagewanted=print&position=
Outfoxed: One can find places to view here: http://action.moveon.org/outfoxed/
U.S. Economy: Industrial Production:
Output at U.S. factories, mines and utilities fell unexpectedly in June, recording its largest drop in more than a year, the Federal Reserve reported on Thursday.
The Fed said industrial production fell 0.3 percent in June after a downwardly revised 0.9 percent May increase. Wall Street had expected the June reading to be flat. http://www.reuters.com/newsArticle.jhtml?type=businessNews&storyID=5680520
U.S. Economy: Retail Sales Fall Most Since Feb. 2003
U.S. retail sales fell in June by the most since February 2003, underscoring forecasts that consumer spending slowed in the second quarter from the previous three months.
The 1.1 percent decline reflected a drop in spending at automobile dealerships and department stores and followed a revised 1.4 percent increase in May, the Commerce Department said in Washington. Economists had forecast a 0.8 percent decrease. http://quote.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=10000103&sid=anSEMaeu0rjk&refer=news_index
Health Care I- David Broder:
That means dealing simultaneously with the problems of the uninsured, of cost controls, of uneven quality and of lagging technology. It will require government action, in cooperation with business, the medical establishment and patients themselves. It will be expensive, but private economists and government budget experts testify that without these needed reforms, pension systems, corporate balance sheets and federal budgets all face near-certain disaster in coming decades.
Last month G. Richard Wagoner Jr., the chairman of General Motors, was quoted in the Detroit Free Press as telling a business conference that rising health care costs are crippling the competitiveness of U.S. business and should be the top issue for the winner of November's presidential election.
"It is well beyond time for all of us to put partisan politics behind us," Wagoner said, "and get together to address this health care crisis."
The message is coming through -- loud and clear. Whoever is president will find the issue waiting for him. http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A50500-2004Jul14.html
Health Care II: Constitutional Amendment [in Mass.]Advances
Comprehensive and affordable health care coverage would become a constitutionally-protected right for all Massachusetts citizens under an amendment overwhelming approved Wednesday by a joint session of the House and Senate.
If approved by lawmakers again during the 2005-2006 session, the question would go before voters in November 2006. If successful, the state would then develop a specific plan for providing and paying for health care.
Under a change approved Wednesday, which made the amendment more palatable to some lawmakers, the payment and coverage plan would go back to voters for further approval, in November 2008 at the earliest.
"We're trying to provide justice in health care so that every single citizen has a health care plan," said Sen. Steven Tolman, D-Boston. "It is the citizens of Massachusetts that we are all looking out for here."
The amendment, which would make Massachusetts the first state in the nation to constitutionally guarantee health coverage for its citizens, was initiated by a petition signed by more than 70,000 registered voters
"The Legislature responded to their hopes that we can find a solution to their to their number one worry, which is the affordability of health insurance," said campaign co-chairwoman Barbara Roop.
The campaign argues that providing universal coverage, through a variety of public and private means, could be paid through with $5.7 billion in unnecessary costs currently built into the state's health care system. http://www.boston.com/news/local/massachusetts/articles/2004/07/14/legislature_approves_health_care_coverage_as_a_constitutional_right?mode=PF
Juan Cole Answers Bush Refrain
Bush:
' The world is changing for the better because of American leadership. America is safer today because we are leading the world. Afghanistan was once the home of al-Qaeda. Now terror camps are closed, democracy is rising, and the American people are safer," he said. '
Cole:
The Afghanistan war was the right war at the right time, and it did break up the network of al-Qaeda training camps from which terrorists would have gone on hitting the United States. But the fact is that Bush, Cheney and Rumsfeld did not want to fight that war after September 11. Rumsfeld sniffed that "there were no good targets" in Afghanistan. Bush, Rumsfeld and Cheney all wanted to leave al-Qaeda in Afghanistan and attack Iraq first. At first Wolfowitz was leaked as the proponent of this crazy idea, and although he did back it, it is now clear from insider accounts like that of Richard Clark that the three top leaders just mentioned wanted Iraq first. The UK ambassador to the US maintains that it was Tony Blair who talked Bush into going after al-Qaeda in Afghanistan first, with a promise that he would later support an Iraq war. MI6 would have been briefing Tony about the dire threat coming from Afghanistan, and he, unlike the Bush team, could see the dangers of getting bogged down in an Iraq quagmire while al-Qaeda and the Taliban were still in control of Afghanistan. (Can you imagine the full scope of that disaster that Bush had planned for us?)Even after Bush was dragged kicking and screaming into doing the right thing by Blair, he did it half-heartedly. He let Bin Laden and al-Zawahir escape. (I'll repeat that. He let Bin Laden and al-Zawahiri escape). Instead of rebuilding and stabilizing Afghanistan, as he promised, he put almost nothing into reconstruction for that country.Then he let the poppy growing industry come back with a vengeance. Afghanistan's GNP is $5 billion a year. At least $2 billion of that is poppies, and Afghanistan has become the top source for heroin in Europe. With al-Qaeda and the Taliban still powerful in the country or its borderlands, Afghanistan is on the way to becoming a terrorist's dream-- a place worse than Colombia from which narco-terrorism can be funded and launched. This looming disaster will certainly blow back on the American homeland. Yet Bush is doing nothing to avert it.
As for democracy and liberating 50 million people, neither the people of Afghanistan nor that of Iraq have elected national governments by popular sovereignty. It is not entirely clear when they will be able to do so. For the moment, there hasn't been any introduction of anything like democracy. The US invaded each and installed a government of its choosing. That isn't democracy. In Iraq, Paul Bremer repeatedly blocked democratic municipal elections. That was a great lesson for the people in democracy, all right. http://www.juancole.com/2004_07_01_juancole_archive.html#108969358993662374
Obama: Man to Watch
Much buzz about the candidate for Senator from Illinois.
The man who could become the third black senator since Reconstruction - Illinois Senate candidate Barack Obama - will deliver the keynote address at the Democratic National Convention.
Obama, a law professor and state senator, will speak on July 27, the second night of the convention, with Sen. Edward Kennedy, D-Mass. Obama will talk about the future of America that a Democratic administration would provide, along with the need to make jobs, families and communities top priorities in the lives of Americans.
"Barack is an optimistic voice for America and a leader who knows that together we can build an America that is stronger at home and respected in the world," Democratic presidential candidate John Kerry [related, bio] said in a statement.
Obama graduated from Columbia University in New York, and received his law degree from Harvard Law School. He became the first black president of the prestigious Harvard Law Review.
He worked as a community organizer in New York and Chicago on job-training programs and other projects, and as a civil rights lawyer. He is now a senior instructor in constitutional law at the University of Chicago Law School. http://news.bostonherald.com/national/view.bg?articleid=35628
ELECTION:
Polls:
South Carolina: [DeMint]:
Bush 51Kerry 44
North Carolina: [Mason-Dixon]
Bush/Cheney 48 Kerry/Edwards 45
And, Florida firefighters have endorsed Kerry. They had endorsed Junior in 2000, and brother Jeb in 1998 and 2002.
Scientists Organize: [Wall Street Journal, Antonio Regalado]
Scientists Take To the Streets Against Bush
Groups Accuse Administration of TwistingFacts on Warming and Stem-Cell Research
In a big shift for the normally docile scientific community, some leading researchers are mounting a political campaign to unseat President Bush this fall, accusing the administration of twisting scientific facts to fit its policies on issues such as global warming, sex education and stem-cell research.
While science issues don't loom as large as jobs and national security, Democratic strategists argue the president's record on science and environmental matters may prove vulnerable, at least to voters who haven't made up their minds. http://online.wsj.com/article_print/0,,SB108984212977664018,00.html
-R
Most Interesting Job in America:
George Bush's lawyer in the Plame investigation, James E. Sharp, just happens to be representing Ken Lay in the Enron case.
J.K. Galbraith on Corporate Power: He writes that corporate power is what drives U.S. foreign policy, that it’s a “cloud over civilization”, that it’s “widely accepted in Washington today that there is nothing wrong with a democracy dominated by the people with money. But of course there is. Money has democracy in a stranglehold and is suffocating it."
The corporate appropriation of public initiative and authority is unpleasantly visible in its effect on the environment, and dangerous as regards military and foreign policy. Wars are a major threat to civilised existence, and a corporate commitment to weapons procurement and use nurtures this threat. It accords legitimacy, and even heroic virtue, to devastation and death.
Power in the modern great corporation belongs to the management. The board of directors is an amiable entity, meeting with self-approval but fully subordinate to the real power of the managers. The relationship resembles that of an honorary degree recipient to a member of a university faculty.
The myths of investor authority, the ritual meetings of directors and the annual stockholder meeting persist, but no mentally viable observer of the modern corporation can escape the reality. Corporate power lies with management - a bureaucracy in control of its task and its compensation. Rewards can verge on larceny. On frequent recent occasions, it has been referred to as the corporate scandal.
As the corporate interest moves to power in what was the public sector, it serves the corporate interest. It is most clearly evident in the largest such movement, that of nominally private firms into the defence establishment. From this comes a primary influence on the military budget, on foreign policy, military commitment and, ultimately, military action. War. Although this is a normal and expected use of money and its power, the full effect is disguised by almost all conventional expression. http://www.guardian.co.uk/usa/story/0,12271,1261747,00.html
Our “Disappeareds” The Washington Post with an admirable editorial:
The CIA is still playing games with the Red Cross- hiding "high value" prisoners somewhere in the elaborate gulag the Bush administration has built around the world.
The Washington Post ‘steps up.’
For decades, the United States led the denunciation of despots whose enemies "disappear" -- vanish into official custody, with no accounting for their whereabouts or treatment, no notification of their families and sometimes, no acknowledgement that they are being held. Now that same term is being applied to prisoners held by the Bush administration in the war on terrorism. According to the International Red Cross, a number of people apparently in U.S. custody are unaccounted for. Most are believed to be held by the CIA in secret facilities outside the United States. Contrary to the Geneva Conventions, the detainees have never been visited by the Red Cross; contrary to U.S. and international law, some reportedly have been subjected to interrogation techniques that most legal authorities regard as torture. According to the independent group Human Rights Watch, this exceptional practice is "perhaps unprecedented in U.S. history." Like the Pentagon's mishandling of Iraqi detainees, it cries out for congressional review and reform. http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A50490-2004Jul14.html
That [terribly] flawed UN Speech by Colin
Days before Secretary of State Colin L. Powell was to present the case for war with Iraq to the United Nations, State Department analysts found dozens of factual problems in drafts of his speech, according to new documents contained in the Senate report on intelligence failures released last week.Two memos included with the Senate report listed objections that State Department experts lodged as they reviewed successive drafts of the Powell speech. Although many of the claims considered inflated or unsupported were removed through painstaking debate by Powell and intelligence officials, the speech he ultimately presented contained material that was in dispute among State Department experts…
The analysts, describing many of the claims as "weak" and assigning grades to arguments on a 5-star scale, warned Powell against making an array of allegations they deemed implausible. They also warned against including Iraqi communications intercepts they deemed ambiguous and against speculating that terrorists might "come through Baghdad and pick-up biological weapons" as if they were stocked on store shelves. The documents underscore the extent to which administration and intelligence officials were culling a vast collection of thinly sourced claims as they sought to assemble the case for war. But the origin and full scope of some errors remain unclear because Senate investigators were denied access to a number of relevant documents, according to aides involved in the probe. http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/nation/la-na-powell15jul15,1,2621877,print.story?coll=la-headlines-nation
Medicare Law Is Seen Leading to Cuts in Drug Benefits for Retirees
Are we surprised?
New government estimates suggest that employers will reduce or eliminate prescription drug benefits for 3.8 million retirees when Medicare offers such coverage in 2006.
That represents one-third of all the retirees with employer-sponsored drug coverage, according to documents from the Department of Health and Human Services.
No aspect of the new Medicare law causes more concern among retirees than the possibility that they might lose benefits they already have.
Democrats are likely to cite the new estimates as evidence to support their contention that the new law will prompt some employers to curtail drug coverage for retirees, forcing them, in some cases, to rely on Medicare's leaner benefits. Republicans do not want to see the government supplant employers in providing drug benefits to retirees.
Senior officials at the department have been saying for weeks that they believe federal subsidies will induce more employers to continue providing drug benefits to retirees. http://www.nytimes.com/2004/07/14/politics/14medicare.html?hp=&pagewanted=print&position=
Outfoxed: One can find places to view here: http://action.moveon.org/outfoxed/
U.S. Economy: Industrial Production:
Output at U.S. factories, mines and utilities fell unexpectedly in June, recording its largest drop in more than a year, the Federal Reserve reported on Thursday.
The Fed said industrial production fell 0.3 percent in June after a downwardly revised 0.9 percent May increase. Wall Street had expected the June reading to be flat. http://www.reuters.com/newsArticle.jhtml?type=businessNews&storyID=5680520
U.S. Economy: Retail Sales Fall Most Since Feb. 2003
U.S. retail sales fell in June by the most since February 2003, underscoring forecasts that consumer spending slowed in the second quarter from the previous three months.
The 1.1 percent decline reflected a drop in spending at automobile dealerships and department stores and followed a revised 1.4 percent increase in May, the Commerce Department said in Washington. Economists had forecast a 0.8 percent decrease. http://quote.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=10000103&sid=anSEMaeu0rjk&refer=news_index
Health Care I- David Broder:
That means dealing simultaneously with the problems of the uninsured, of cost controls, of uneven quality and of lagging technology. It will require government action, in cooperation with business, the medical establishment and patients themselves. It will be expensive, but private economists and government budget experts testify that without these needed reforms, pension systems, corporate balance sheets and federal budgets all face near-certain disaster in coming decades.
Last month G. Richard Wagoner Jr., the chairman of General Motors, was quoted in the Detroit Free Press as telling a business conference that rising health care costs are crippling the competitiveness of U.S. business and should be the top issue for the winner of November's presidential election.
"It is well beyond time for all of us to put partisan politics behind us," Wagoner said, "and get together to address this health care crisis."
The message is coming through -- loud and clear. Whoever is president will find the issue waiting for him. http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A50500-2004Jul14.html
Health Care II: Constitutional Amendment [in Mass.]Advances
Comprehensive and affordable health care coverage would become a constitutionally-protected right for all Massachusetts citizens under an amendment overwhelming approved Wednesday by a joint session of the House and Senate.
If approved by lawmakers again during the 2005-2006 session, the question would go before voters in November 2006. If successful, the state would then develop a specific plan for providing and paying for health care.
Under a change approved Wednesday, which made the amendment more palatable to some lawmakers, the payment and coverage plan would go back to voters for further approval, in November 2008 at the earliest.
"We're trying to provide justice in health care so that every single citizen has a health care plan," said Sen. Steven Tolman, D-Boston. "It is the citizens of Massachusetts that we are all looking out for here."
The amendment, which would make Massachusetts the first state in the nation to constitutionally guarantee health coverage for its citizens, was initiated by a petition signed by more than 70,000 registered voters
"The Legislature responded to their hopes that we can find a solution to their to their number one worry, which is the affordability of health insurance," said campaign co-chairwoman Barbara Roop.
The campaign argues that providing universal coverage, through a variety of public and private means, could be paid through with $5.7 billion in unnecessary costs currently built into the state's health care system. http://www.boston.com/news/local/massachusetts/articles/2004/07/14/legislature_approves_health_care_coverage_as_a_constitutional_right?mode=PF
Juan Cole Answers Bush Refrain
Bush:
' The world is changing for the better because of American leadership. America is safer today because we are leading the world. Afghanistan was once the home of al-Qaeda. Now terror camps are closed, democracy is rising, and the American people are safer," he said. '
Cole:
The Afghanistan war was the right war at the right time, and it did break up the network of al-Qaeda training camps from which terrorists would have gone on hitting the United States. But the fact is that Bush, Cheney and Rumsfeld did not want to fight that war after September 11. Rumsfeld sniffed that "there were no good targets" in Afghanistan. Bush, Rumsfeld and Cheney all wanted to leave al-Qaeda in Afghanistan and attack Iraq first. At first Wolfowitz was leaked as the proponent of this crazy idea, and although he did back it, it is now clear from insider accounts like that of Richard Clark that the three top leaders just mentioned wanted Iraq first. The UK ambassador to the US maintains that it was Tony Blair who talked Bush into going after al-Qaeda in Afghanistan first, with a promise that he would later support an Iraq war. MI6 would have been briefing Tony about the dire threat coming from Afghanistan, and he, unlike the Bush team, could see the dangers of getting bogged down in an Iraq quagmire while al-Qaeda and the Taliban were still in control of Afghanistan. (Can you imagine the full scope of that disaster that Bush had planned for us?)Even after Bush was dragged kicking and screaming into doing the right thing by Blair, he did it half-heartedly. He let Bin Laden and al-Zawahir escape. (I'll repeat that. He let Bin Laden and al-Zawahiri escape). Instead of rebuilding and stabilizing Afghanistan, as he promised, he put almost nothing into reconstruction for that country.Then he let the poppy growing industry come back with a vengeance. Afghanistan's GNP is $5 billion a year. At least $2 billion of that is poppies, and Afghanistan has become the top source for heroin in Europe. With al-Qaeda and the Taliban still powerful in the country or its borderlands, Afghanistan is on the way to becoming a terrorist's dream-- a place worse than Colombia from which narco-terrorism can be funded and launched. This looming disaster will certainly blow back on the American homeland. Yet Bush is doing nothing to avert it.
As for democracy and liberating 50 million people, neither the people of Afghanistan nor that of Iraq have elected national governments by popular sovereignty. It is not entirely clear when they will be able to do so. For the moment, there hasn't been any introduction of anything like democracy. The US invaded each and installed a government of its choosing. That isn't democracy. In Iraq, Paul Bremer repeatedly blocked democratic municipal elections. That was a great lesson for the people in democracy, all right. http://www.juancole.com/2004_07_01_juancole_archive.html#108969358993662374
Obama: Man to Watch
Much buzz about the candidate for Senator from Illinois.
The man who could become the third black senator since Reconstruction - Illinois Senate candidate Barack Obama - will deliver the keynote address at the Democratic National Convention.
Obama, a law professor and state senator, will speak on July 27, the second night of the convention, with Sen. Edward Kennedy, D-Mass. Obama will talk about the future of America that a Democratic administration would provide, along with the need to make jobs, families and communities top priorities in the lives of Americans.
"Barack is an optimistic voice for America and a leader who knows that together we can build an America that is stronger at home and respected in the world," Democratic presidential candidate John Kerry [related, bio] said in a statement.
Obama graduated from Columbia University in New York, and received his law degree from Harvard Law School. He became the first black president of the prestigious Harvard Law Review.
He worked as a community organizer in New York and Chicago on job-training programs and other projects, and as a civil rights lawyer. He is now a senior instructor in constitutional law at the University of Chicago Law School. http://news.bostonherald.com/national/view.bg?articleid=35628
ELECTION:
Polls:
South Carolina: [DeMint]:
Bush 51Kerry 44
North Carolina: [Mason-Dixon]
Bush/Cheney 48 Kerry/Edwards 45
And, Florida firefighters have endorsed Kerry. They had endorsed Junior in 2000, and brother Jeb in 1998 and 2002.
Scientists Organize: [Wall Street Journal, Antonio Regalado]
Scientists Take To the Streets Against Bush
Groups Accuse Administration of TwistingFacts on Warming and Stem-Cell Research
In a big shift for the normally docile scientific community, some leading researchers are mounting a political campaign to unseat President Bush this fall, accusing the administration of twisting scientific facts to fit its policies on issues such as global warming, sex education and stem-cell research.
While science issues don't loom as large as jobs and national security, Democratic strategists argue the president's record on science and environmental matters may prove vulnerable, at least to voters who haven't made up their minds. http://online.wsj.com/article_print/0,,SB108984212977664018,00.html
-R
Tuesday, July 13, 2004
As Texas goes, so goes the nation?
News Item: The Republican Party of Texas, President Bush's home state, has approved a plank in its platform affirming that "the United States of America is a Christian nation."
Delaying Those Elections (cont.)
Aside from trying to keep us nervous (and hoping for terrorism?- ever notice the slight smile that creeps across Condi’s and Junior’s face when they reference this?), this is another chance to spin that the “appeasement” party won in Spain, that the terrorists won’t accomplish that here (i.e. Kerry is the appeaser) But we know that terrorists have profited from Bush’s actions. Now the question is whether bin Laden et al take this as a challenge.
Reaction around the world. Example from a BBC solicitation:
I cannot even believe that this is being considered by Homeland Security. America cannot set yet another negative precedent of going against our Constitution. I do not see as how a terrorist attack should stop the American people from voting. I am strongly opposed to this idea, as I feel that we are leaning more towards some kind of Totalitarianism State rather than a Democracy. I am in no way a conspiracy theorist, but this current thought process portrayed from the top is making me extremely nervous. -Jenna, Texas, USA http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/talking_point/3887049.stm
Are We Ready for Terrorist Attack?
Psychiatrist Stanley Greenspan comments (Wash. Post)
Perhaps the most compelling evidence that this is so is the answer to this simple question: Would the average person really know what to do if there were a nuclear, biological or chemical attack in his or her neighborhood? Do people know a great deal more now about what to do than they did before Sept. 11?
The answer is no.
Almost as compelling is a logical follow-up question: Are there fully developed, organized plans between the federal, state and local governments to handle any type of nuclear, biological or chemical attack? If these plans are organized, in place and well-rehearsed, does the general public know about them?
The answer is no.
Have we fully solved the pre-Sept. 11 challenge of agency coordination and response to terrorist threats? It's been three years. Are we treating this challenge as a true emergency and harnessing our best efforts? Have we used every bit of skill, leadership and leverage available to fully engage the international community in preventing terrorism?
It was heartening to hear in Sept. 11 commission testimony that if a rogue airplane flew toward a major U.S. city today, we would be able to respond much more efficiently than we did before Sept. 11. But that information does little to prevent or deal with the consequences of the next attack, unless, of course, we really expect the next one to be an exact replica. http://65.54.186.250/cgi-bin/linkrd?_lang=EN&lah=2aa8045e27ee4ec9e383ec9c2e996786&lat=1089647320&hm___action=http%3a%2f%2fletters%2ewashingtonpost%2ecom%2fW6RH05A0A19F8EBA439543F962BA40
Logging Rule Changes. Still another example…
The Bush administration on Monday proposed scuttling a rule from the Clinton administration that put nearly 60 million acres of national forest largely off limits to logging, mining or other development in favor of a new system that would leave it to governors to seek greater - or fewer - strictures on road construction in forests.
The announcement abandoning the so-called roadless rule was made by Agriculture Secretary Ann M. Veneman in Boise, Idaho, where opposition to the rule issued by President Bill Clinton as he was leaving office was most pronounced.
Ms. Veneman described the proposal as a way to sidestep the tangle of litigation over building roads through national forests and to improve local participation and federal flexibility in determining the use of national forests.
"State governments are important partners in the stewardship of the nation's lands and natural resources," she said.
A spectrum of environmental groups reacted with disappointment and outrage to the announcement. http://www.nytimes.com/2004/07/13/politics/13forest.html?pagewanted=print&position=
Son of Star Wars. In case you forgot, it’s still out there. Kerry’s position?
The US Department of Defense is negotiating with Poland and the Czech Republic over positioning a missile defense site and related advanced radar stations in central Europe, reports the Guardian.
Pentagon officers have been scouting the mountain territory of southern Poland, pinpointing suitable sites for two or three radar stations connected to the so-called "Son of Star Wars" program... . Senior officials in Prague also confirmed that talks were under way over the establishment of American advanced radar stations in the Czech Republic as part of the missile shield project.
From its first days in office the Bush administration planned to build a missile interceptor shield to defend the US and its allies from rogue missile attacks. Two sites are currently being built in the US - one in California, the other in Alaska.
A site in Poland would be the first outside US territory and the only one in Europe. http://www.csmonitor.com/2004/0713/dailyUpdate.html
MEDIA:
Political Action: CBS-or was it Fox?- News Deserves a Complaint
CBS News carried the following report last week. Do note.
When Andrea and Dennis Cariello got married last year, they thought their taxes would go up, and were dreading writing out that check on April 15. But instead, they got back $4,000.
"It was just a tremendously wonderful surprise that we weren't being hit at the same rate I'd expected, and we weren't being hit with the marriage penalty," says Dennis Cariello.
The Cariellos are putting the money right back into the economy, and that means fixing up their house.
They've got just one request. "I'd tell the President to keep doing what he's doing and hopefully drop taxes down even further," says Dennis Cariello. http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2004/07/05/eveningnews/main627510.shtml
The trouble with this “news” item is that Dennis is the President of the NYC Young Republican Club. http://www.nyyrc.com/Officers.html
Don’t like this faux news? You can send a complaint to CBS via the following form. http://www.cbsnews.com/htdocs/feedback/fb_news_form.shtml
Outfoxed: The gist of the documentary is that the Fox News network is not news, is not ‘conservative’, but rather is an organ of the (far right) Republican Party. ‘Outing’ Fox is critical, as the other networks emulate it, to varying degrees, and otherwise commonly ‘report’ whatever the RNC / White House provide.
From outfoxed.org: “Outfoxed examines how media empires, led by Rupert Murdoch's Fox News, have been running a "race to the bottom" in television news. This film provides an in-depth look at Fox News and the dangers of ever-enlarging corporations taking control of the public's right to know” plays well with their core constituency that they have grown with repetition, dumbed down messenging, and attitude more than information. and the like. And it looks like some of it is NOT working as well as they hoped
From Salon’s Andrew O'Hehir:
As media critic Robert McChesney says in the film, it is much easier to propagandize a public that believes in its own freedom, and does not expect propaganda, than it was in a Soviet-style system where people were always suspicious of official pronouncements. In that context, it's no longer accurate to haul out the tiresome leftist chestnut and refer to a development like the rise of Fox News as "Orwellian." It's subtler, lusher, more sweeping and far more effective than anything Orwell ever imagined. http://www.salon.com/ent/indie/2004/07/13/outfoxed/index_np.html
Jon Stewart helps Wolf Blitzer look back: From Monday’s Daily Show;
STEWART: So what does the media do differently [now]?
BLITZER: I think we learned from our mistakes and try to do it better next time.
STEWART: Specifically. BLITZER: Specifically, we learned from our mistakes and try to do it better next time. We look back and we say, "You know what, we should have been more skeptical."
STEWART: But...Wolf...Come on! It was a...
BLITZER: We're trained to be skeptical by our very nature, that's what journalists...
STEWART: Why weren't you? Because people...
BLITZER: I think we could have been more skeptical, I think we...
STEWART: Are they afraid of the Bush administration? Is the Bush administration so ham-handed that - ham-handed, and this is coming from a Jew who knows nothing of ham - but are they so forceful that they have intimidated the press corps into NOT asking those questions?
BLITZER: No. The answer's no.
STEWART: So...is the press corps, and again I'm gonna use the word, suffering from groupthink? OR...OR...or another word, retardation?
(Audience explodes in cheers as Stewart grabs Blitzer by the shoulder and rocks him)
STEWART: Come on! Tell me the truth! I want to know! I'm really curious. I'm baffled.
BLITZER: It's groupthink. Not retardation. You know, when you're told repeatedly - and I was told going into the [Kuwait] war...everybody said the same thing. There is no doubt, there are stockpiles of chemical and biological weapons and it's only a matter of time before he has a nuclear bomb. Condoleezza Rice said on my show..."We can't wait for a smoking gun to be a mushroom cloud." You remember that?
STEWART: And as it turns out, Pakistan had already sold mushroom cloud material to every country in the area BUT Iraq! It's crazy! The whole thing's crazy!
http://hoffmania.blogspot.com/2004_07_11_hoffmania_archive.html#108970204769365157
E.J. Dionne on Bush Campaign emphasis on Values
Bush gave a powerful speech in York, Pa., last week describing his "values." He declared: "The culture of America is changing from one that has said 'If it feels good, do it, and if you've got a problem, blame somebody else' to a culture in which each of us understands we are responsible for the decisions we make in life."
That's a great idea. Applying it to the president means that he, not the CIA, is responsible for the case that was made for the war in Iraq. By the president's own logic, he can't blame a bunch of bureaucrats ("if you've got a problem, blame somebody else") for his administration's eagerness to offer the most lopsided picture possible of the threat Hussein posed.
"If it feels good, do it." Bush is absolutely right that this is an inadequate approach to the decisions we face in life. The "values" that lead Bush to reject this concept should pertain especially to decisions to start wars and to the methods used to sell them. http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A45366-2004Jul12.html
Republican Convention: Who Controls the Billboards?
From the WaPost (Michelle Garcia)
A public interest group on Monday accused media giant Clear Channel Communications Inc. of stifling speech by reneging on a contract to post an antiwar billboard in the heart of Times Square during the Republican National Convention in August.
In a lawsuit filed in federal court here, the Berkeley-based Project Billboard said Clear Channel, a company whose leaders have been strong supporters of the Bush administration, had breached a contract to put up the highly visible billboard that depicted a bomb with the words "Democracy Is Best Taught by Example, Not by War."
Clear Channel Outdoor, the division that controls the company's billboard leasing, rejected the ad, calling it "distasteful" and "politically charged," according to an e-mail the company sent to Project Billboard. After negotiations over the imagery, Project Billboard offered to replace the bomb with a dove but still failed to win approval. http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A45134-2004Jul12.html
Polls: I know it’s politically ‘incorrect’ to keep citing ‘em, but the public is curious.
From SurveyUSA:
Florida: Kerry 47-44%
Arkansas: Bush 49-47%
Missouri: Bush 48-46%
Virginia: Bush 50-45%
Rasmussen:
Virginia: Bush 48-45%
Michigan: Kerry 46-44%
Nationwide: Newsweek: Kerry 51-45%
USA Today/CNN/Gallup: Kerry 50-45%
-R
News Item: The Republican Party of Texas, President Bush's home state, has approved a plank in its platform affirming that "the United States of America is a Christian nation."
Delaying Those Elections (cont.)
Aside from trying to keep us nervous (and hoping for terrorism?- ever notice the slight smile that creeps across Condi’s and Junior’s face when they reference this?), this is another chance to spin that the “appeasement” party won in Spain, that the terrorists won’t accomplish that here (i.e. Kerry is the appeaser) But we know that terrorists have profited from Bush’s actions. Now the question is whether bin Laden et al take this as a challenge.
Reaction around the world. Example from a BBC solicitation:
I cannot even believe that this is being considered by Homeland Security. America cannot set yet another negative precedent of going against our Constitution. I do not see as how a terrorist attack should stop the American people from voting. I am strongly opposed to this idea, as I feel that we are leaning more towards some kind of Totalitarianism State rather than a Democracy. I am in no way a conspiracy theorist, but this current thought process portrayed from the top is making me extremely nervous. -Jenna, Texas, USA http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/talking_point/3887049.stm
Are We Ready for Terrorist Attack?
Psychiatrist Stanley Greenspan comments (Wash. Post)
Perhaps the most compelling evidence that this is so is the answer to this simple question: Would the average person really know what to do if there were a nuclear, biological or chemical attack in his or her neighborhood? Do people know a great deal more now about what to do than they did before Sept. 11?
The answer is no.
Almost as compelling is a logical follow-up question: Are there fully developed, organized plans between the federal, state and local governments to handle any type of nuclear, biological or chemical attack? If these plans are organized, in place and well-rehearsed, does the general public know about them?
The answer is no.
Have we fully solved the pre-Sept. 11 challenge of agency coordination and response to terrorist threats? It's been three years. Are we treating this challenge as a true emergency and harnessing our best efforts? Have we used every bit of skill, leadership and leverage available to fully engage the international community in preventing terrorism?
It was heartening to hear in Sept. 11 commission testimony that if a rogue airplane flew toward a major U.S. city today, we would be able to respond much more efficiently than we did before Sept. 11. But that information does little to prevent or deal with the consequences of the next attack, unless, of course, we really expect the next one to be an exact replica. http://65.54.186.250/cgi-bin/linkrd?_lang=EN&lah=2aa8045e27ee4ec9e383ec9c2e996786&lat=1089647320&hm___action=http%3a%2f%2fletters%2ewashingtonpost%2ecom%2fW6RH05A0A19F8EBA439543F962BA40
Logging Rule Changes. Still another example…
The Bush administration on Monday proposed scuttling a rule from the Clinton administration that put nearly 60 million acres of national forest largely off limits to logging, mining or other development in favor of a new system that would leave it to governors to seek greater - or fewer - strictures on road construction in forests.
The announcement abandoning the so-called roadless rule was made by Agriculture Secretary Ann M. Veneman in Boise, Idaho, where opposition to the rule issued by President Bill Clinton as he was leaving office was most pronounced.
Ms. Veneman described the proposal as a way to sidestep the tangle of litigation over building roads through national forests and to improve local participation and federal flexibility in determining the use of national forests.
"State governments are important partners in the stewardship of the nation's lands and natural resources," she said.
A spectrum of environmental groups reacted with disappointment and outrage to the announcement. http://www.nytimes.com/2004/07/13/politics/13forest.html?pagewanted=print&position=
Son of Star Wars. In case you forgot, it’s still out there. Kerry’s position?
The US Department of Defense is negotiating with Poland and the Czech Republic over positioning a missile defense site and related advanced radar stations in central Europe, reports the Guardian.
Pentagon officers have been scouting the mountain territory of southern Poland, pinpointing suitable sites for two or three radar stations connected to the so-called "Son of Star Wars" program... . Senior officials in Prague also confirmed that talks were under way over the establishment of American advanced radar stations in the Czech Republic as part of the missile shield project.
From its first days in office the Bush administration planned to build a missile interceptor shield to defend the US and its allies from rogue missile attacks. Two sites are currently being built in the US - one in California, the other in Alaska.
A site in Poland would be the first outside US territory and the only one in Europe. http://www.csmonitor.com/2004/0713/dailyUpdate.html
MEDIA:
Political Action: CBS-or was it Fox?- News Deserves a Complaint
CBS News carried the following report last week. Do note.
When Andrea and Dennis Cariello got married last year, they thought their taxes would go up, and were dreading writing out that check on April 15. But instead, they got back $4,000.
"It was just a tremendously wonderful surprise that we weren't being hit at the same rate I'd expected, and we weren't being hit with the marriage penalty," says Dennis Cariello.
The Cariellos are putting the money right back into the economy, and that means fixing up their house.
They've got just one request. "I'd tell the President to keep doing what he's doing and hopefully drop taxes down even further," says Dennis Cariello. http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2004/07/05/eveningnews/main627510.shtml
The trouble with this “news” item is that Dennis is the President of the NYC Young Republican Club. http://www.nyyrc.com/Officers.html
Don’t like this faux news? You can send a complaint to CBS via the following form. http://www.cbsnews.com/htdocs/feedback/fb_news_form.shtml
Outfoxed: The gist of the documentary is that the Fox News network is not news, is not ‘conservative’, but rather is an organ of the (far right) Republican Party. ‘Outing’ Fox is critical, as the other networks emulate it, to varying degrees, and otherwise commonly ‘report’ whatever the RNC / White House provide.
From outfoxed.org: “Outfoxed examines how media empires, led by Rupert Murdoch's Fox News, have been running a "race to the bottom" in television news. This film provides an in-depth look at Fox News and the dangers of ever-enlarging corporations taking control of the public's right to know” plays well with their core constituency that they have grown with repetition, dumbed down messenging, and attitude more than information. and the like. And it looks like some of it is NOT working as well as they hoped
From Salon’s Andrew O'Hehir:
As media critic Robert McChesney says in the film, it is much easier to propagandize a public that believes in its own freedom, and does not expect propaganda, than it was in a Soviet-style system where people were always suspicious of official pronouncements. In that context, it's no longer accurate to haul out the tiresome leftist chestnut and refer to a development like the rise of Fox News as "Orwellian." It's subtler, lusher, more sweeping and far more effective than anything Orwell ever imagined. http://www.salon.com/ent/indie/2004/07/13/outfoxed/index_np.html
Jon Stewart helps Wolf Blitzer look back: From Monday’s Daily Show;
STEWART: So what does the media do differently [now]?
BLITZER: I think we learned from our mistakes and try to do it better next time.
STEWART: Specifically. BLITZER: Specifically, we learned from our mistakes and try to do it better next time. We look back and we say, "You know what, we should have been more skeptical."
STEWART: But...Wolf...Come on! It was a...
BLITZER: We're trained to be skeptical by our very nature, that's what journalists...
STEWART: Why weren't you? Because people...
BLITZER: I think we could have been more skeptical, I think we...
STEWART: Are they afraid of the Bush administration? Is the Bush administration so ham-handed that - ham-handed, and this is coming from a Jew who knows nothing of ham - but are they so forceful that they have intimidated the press corps into NOT asking those questions?
BLITZER: No. The answer's no.
STEWART: So...is the press corps, and again I'm gonna use the word, suffering from groupthink? OR...OR...or another word, retardation?
(Audience explodes in cheers as Stewart grabs Blitzer by the shoulder and rocks him)
STEWART: Come on! Tell me the truth! I want to know! I'm really curious. I'm baffled.
BLITZER: It's groupthink. Not retardation. You know, when you're told repeatedly - and I was told going into the [Kuwait] war...everybody said the same thing. There is no doubt, there are stockpiles of chemical and biological weapons and it's only a matter of time before he has a nuclear bomb. Condoleezza Rice said on my show..."We can't wait for a smoking gun to be a mushroom cloud." You remember that?
STEWART: And as it turns out, Pakistan had already sold mushroom cloud material to every country in the area BUT Iraq! It's crazy! The whole thing's crazy!
http://hoffmania.blogspot.com/2004_07_11_hoffmania_archive.html#108970204769365157
E.J. Dionne on Bush Campaign emphasis on Values
Bush gave a powerful speech in York, Pa., last week describing his "values." He declared: "The culture of America is changing from one that has said 'If it feels good, do it, and if you've got a problem, blame somebody else' to a culture in which each of us understands we are responsible for the decisions we make in life."
That's a great idea. Applying it to the president means that he, not the CIA, is responsible for the case that was made for the war in Iraq. By the president's own logic, he can't blame a bunch of bureaucrats ("if you've got a problem, blame somebody else") for his administration's eagerness to offer the most lopsided picture possible of the threat Hussein posed.
"If it feels good, do it." Bush is absolutely right that this is an inadequate approach to the decisions we face in life. The "values" that lead Bush to reject this concept should pertain especially to decisions to start wars and to the methods used to sell them. http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A45366-2004Jul12.html
Republican Convention: Who Controls the Billboards?
From the WaPost (Michelle Garcia)
A public interest group on Monday accused media giant Clear Channel Communications Inc. of stifling speech by reneging on a contract to post an antiwar billboard in the heart of Times Square during the Republican National Convention in August.
In a lawsuit filed in federal court here, the Berkeley-based Project Billboard said Clear Channel, a company whose leaders have been strong supporters of the Bush administration, had breached a contract to put up the highly visible billboard that depicted a bomb with the words "Democracy Is Best Taught by Example, Not by War."
Clear Channel Outdoor, the division that controls the company's billboard leasing, rejected the ad, calling it "distasteful" and "politically charged," according to an e-mail the company sent to Project Billboard. After negotiations over the imagery, Project Billboard offered to replace the bomb with a dove but still failed to win approval. http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A45134-2004Jul12.html
Polls: I know it’s politically ‘incorrect’ to keep citing ‘em, but the public is curious.
From SurveyUSA:
Florida: Kerry 47-44%
Arkansas: Bush 49-47%
Missouri: Bush 48-46%
Virginia: Bush 50-45%
Rasmussen:
Virginia: Bush 48-45%
Michigan: Kerry 46-44%
Nationwide: Newsweek: Kerry 51-45%
USA Today/CNN/Gallup: Kerry 50-45%
-R
Monday, July 12, 2004
Intelligence Failure: From the horse’s mouth:
[W]e need to bolster human intelligence. In other words, one of the best ways to figure out what the enemy is thinking is to get to know the enemy firsthand, I guess is the best way to put it -- is to have as much human intelligence as possible. Good quality intelligence and enough human intelligence agents, assets out there so that we can cover the globe. – Bush, on the Senate Report
That Senate Report: CIA Guilty, Bush Innocent That’s what the text says; all of the Dems signed on. But Senate Democrats laid the groundwork for their own political defeat in February when they agreed to delay the second phase of the investigation until after the November election. Too trusting, too passive, too often. So, they, not the press, deserve most of our ire.
Of course, in separate statements, some Democrats demurred. So, we have the weird scenario of the Senate where Rockefeller seemed to say that what he signed was not representing what he believed, that it was incomplete or very misleading.
As to the scapegoating, we knew this was coming. Long ago, the FBI was targeted as the scapegoat for 9/11, the CIA for the failed Invasion-Occupation. As for the latter, we can’t forget that the CIA is not independent, that it is overly responsive to the President.
As for accountability, when Kennedy took over, the Bay of Pigs invasion was very much planned; in his third month, he was unable to resist the Eisenhower-initiated venture. Yet, while he ultimately fired the CIA director, he took ‘full responsibility’ for the failure. The Iraq Invasion was in Bush’s third year, yet he remains unaccountable, the victim of bad intelligence.
Senate Report Confirms that Saddam’s Army was Weak
Another well-known fact, “confirmed” by the Senate report. Again, anyone who read the minimum of published information would have known that all estimates agreed that Saddam’s army and economy were MUCH weaker in 2002 than in 1991, the year of the Gulf War, that they were a threat to no one.
The Senate's report on prewar intelligence about Iraq, which asserts that warnings about its illicit weapons were largely unfounded and that its ties to Al Qaeda were tenuous, also undermines another justification for the war: that Saddam Hussein's military posed a threat to regional stability and American interests.
In a detailed discussion of Iraq's prewar military posture, the report cites a long series of intelligence reports in the decade before the war that described a formerly potent army's spiral of decay under the weight of economic sanctions and American military pressure. http://www.nytimes.com/2004/07/11/international/middleeast/11MILI.html
Media Verdict: Washington Post leads the way: Dana Milbank and Walter Pincus go as far as anyone-
The larger question is whether voters will blame the White House for these two massive mistakes. Though officially agnostic on the White House role in using Iraq intelligence (that will come in a later report), the committee gives ammunition both to Bush and Democratic opponent John F. Kerry.
On the question of Iraq's weapons of mass destruction, the bipartisan committee report absolved administration officials of pressuring CIA analysts to inflate the case against Saddam Hussein. And while making no judgment on whether the administration distorted the intelligence it was given, the committee made plain that the CIA's case against Iraq was plenty exaggerated on its own. Without "any evidence" of administration coercion, the committee found, the intelligence community's judgments on Iraq's weapons were "either overstated, or were not supported by, the underlying intelligence reporting."
On the issue of Iraq's relationship with al Qaeda, however, the committee's findings imply that the White House, not the CIA, is to blame for making dubious claims that there were working ties between Osama bin Laden's organization and Hussein's Iraq. "The Central Intelligence Agency reasonably assessed that there were likely several instances of contacts between Iraq and al-Qaeda throughout the 1990s, but that these contacts did not add up to an established formal relationship," the committee found, echoing the Sept. 11 commission staff's finding of no "collaborative relationship" between the two. http://www.washingtonpost.com/ac2/wp-dyn/A39833-2004Jul9?language=printer
Ridge Non-Alert--> Kerry is the candidate of terrorists: Like Ashcroft’s, Ridge’s alert was meant to keep people off balance, if not terrified, and, arguably, to change the subject from ‘Edwards’ is the VP’. And, they keep looking for opportunities to put out the line that Condi raised in April and, more recently Bush, that terrorists might attack in the United States to affect the outcome of the November presidential election. http://www.nydailynews.com/front/story/200619p-173035c.html.
They have been issuing this ‘warning’ to build on the misleading statements they’ve made following the Madrid bombings. According to the Spanish press, that government was thrown out for trying to pin the bombings on Spaniards, not because they were the ‘strong on terror’ party. Also, one should consider the statement issued by the Abu Hafs al-Masri Brigades, which took responsibility for the Madrid bombings. This group which claims to have links to al Qaeda, trumpted its support for Bush’s reelection, since Bush "deals with matters by force rather than with wisdom." http://uk.news.yahoo.com/040317/325/eotq9.html
Book Review of work by ‘Anonymous’ (former CIA official, author of Why the West is Losing the War on Terror) Michiko Kakutani, reviewer.
He sees the American invasion of Iraq as "an avaricious, premeditated, unprovoked war against a foe who posed no immediate threat but whose defeat did offer economic advantages. "U.S. forces and policies are completing the radicalization of the Islamic world, something Osama bin Laden has been trying to do with substantial but incomplete success since the early 1990's… As a result, I think it fair to conclude that the United States of America remains bin Laden's only indispensable ally." http://www.nytimes.com/2004/07/09/books/09BOOK.html?pagewanted=print&position=
AP report on nuclear proliferation: Guilty Parties
An investigation of the black market supplying nations wanting nuclear arms has spread to more than 20 firms — some of them North American — the chief of the U.N. atomic agency told The Associated Press Friday. A senior diplomat identified one of the firms as U.S. based....
The diplomat said at least one of them was in the United States. He declined to elaborate, saying the agency "was not yet at the bottom of that story." But he said what is known about that company sheds new light on the activities of the network, known up to now for primarily supplying technology to North Korea, Libya and Iran as part of the process allowing them to make enriched uranium that can be used either to generate electricity or make weapons. http://story.news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&cid=518&e=3&u=/ap/20040710/ap_on_re_eu/nuclear_black_market
Disillusionment: Anne Applebaum, Wash Post centrist reporter and author, looks back: Typical
Instead of responding truthfully to the European debate, the Bush administration flatly denied that any invasion of Iraq was imminent. Instead of engaging the European public, Bush said he was still "explor[ing] all options and all tools at my disposal." No one believed him--and, of course, they were right not to…
Looking back on it, this was also the point at which I should have questioned some of my early assumptions about the Bush administration…
The truth, of course, is that, for all its talk of universal human rights, this is not an administration that actually perceives itself as a part of something greater than the United States. For all of its talk about spreading American values to benighted foreigners, this is not an administration that even likes foreigners. It never occurred to me that American troops would arrive in Baghdad and have absolutely no idea what to do next, or who was important, or who was on their side. But then, I hadn't realized that the Pentagon leadership had no interest in or knowledge of the Iraqi people. I thought these were cold warriors, whereas in fact they are narrow-minded American nationalists, isolationists turned inside out. http://www.tnr.com/doc.mhtml?pt=jRnKUph7Tk8Ifrp9wv8YzB%3D%3D
Values:
1) Bush and the Churches:
Robert Reich had an unusually pointed piece in the American Prospect:
It was recently reported that the Bush campaign had e-mailed members of the clergy, soliciting help in identifying "friendly" congregations that would do the campaign's bidding in their areas. When the e-mail came to light, legal experts warned that any religious organization that endorsed one candidate over another could lose its tax-exempt status. A few days later, House Republicans added a measure to a tax bill working its way through Congress called the "Safe Harbor for Churches" act, which would allow any religious organization to make as many as three "unintentional" political endorsements in a calendar year without jeopardizing its tax-exempt status.
When questioned about all of this, Steve Schmidt, a spokesman for the Bush campaign, said, "The campaign wants people of faith to participate in the political process." Clearly, the Bushies want more than this. Because any exemption from paying taxes has the same economic value to its recipient as a direct subsidy from the government, the Bush campaign wants religious groups to enter the political fray -- with costs offset by the federal government. http://www.prospect.org/web/page.ww?section=root&name=ViewPrint&articleId=7858
2) Bushies and Health/Science: Another Critique
For years, Advocates for Youth, a Washington-based organization devoted to adolescent sexual health, says, it received government grants without much trouble. Then last year it was subjected to three federal reviews.
James Wagoner, the president of Advocates for Youth, said the reviews were prompted by concerns among some members of Congress that his group was using public funds to lobby against programs that promoted sexual abstinence before marriage. Although that was not the case, Mr. Wagoner said, the government officials made their point.
"For 20 years, it was about health and science, and now we have a political ideological approach," he said. "Never have we experienced a climate of intimidation and censorship as we have today."
Mr. Wagoner is among the professionals in sex-related fields who have started speaking out against what they say is growing interference from conservatives in and out of government with their work in research, education and disease prevention. http://www.nytimes.com/2004/07/11/politics/11sex.html?pagewanted=print&position=
3) Conservatives put Gay Marriage into campaign
Two weeks before the Democratic convention and under pressure from conservatives, President Bush is escalating his support for a constitutional amendment banning gay marriage, moving the issue to the forefront of the campaign and underscoring what his aides said was a critical difference between the president and Senator John Kerry. http://www.nytimes.com/2004/07/12/politics/campaign/12REPU.html
What’s Happening, Iraq: Casualties: This week I counted at least 18 Americans that were acknowledged to have been killed in Iraq. The total is about to hit 900. Observe the diminished media attention
Latest Greenwald Film Exposes Fox News; NY Times profile:
''Outfoxed'' has been made in secret. The film is an obsessively researched expose of the ways in which Fox News, as Greenwald sees it, distorts its coverage to serve the conservative political agenda of its owner, the media tycoon Rupert Murdoch. It features interviews with former Fox employees, leaked policy memos written by Fox executives and extensive footage from Fox News, which Greenwald is using without the network's permission. The result is an unwavering argument against Fox News that combines the leftist partisan vigor of a Michael Moore film with the sober tone and delivery of a PBS special. A large portion of the film's $300,000 budget came in the form of contributions in the range of $80,000 from both MoveOn and the Center for American Progress, the liberal policy organization founded by John Podesta, the former chief of staff for Bill Clinton; Greenwald, who is not looking to earn any money from the project, provided the rest.
After scrutinizing the initial footage, Greenwald and a team of researchers compiled a list of what they saw as Fox's telltale themes and techniques: stories questioning the patriotism of liberals; relentlessly upbeat reports on Iraq; belligerent hosts who scream at noncompliant guests. http://www.nytimes.com/2004/07/11/magazine/11FOX.html?pagewanted=print&position
Cable Wars: Drudge Report, a conservative organ, reports on the above:
CABLE WAR: FOX NEWS VOWS TOP FIGHT BACK AGAINST RIVALS WHO TOUT DOCUMENTARY
**Exclusive**
A new documentary claiming to show Republican bias at FOX NEWS will debut in New York City on Monday. But FOX NEWS executives are preparing to hit back hard -- if rivals self-servingly hype the film!
The DRUDGE REPORT has learned that FOX NEWS executives are lining up a parade of FOX NEWS employees who formerly worked at CNN & MSNBC and have been downloading information on how editorial decisions are made at these networks, including the agenda for how stories are supposed to be covered.
A senior FOX NEWS executive tells DRUDGE: "We have enough ammunition to nail both MSNBC & CNN." Sources say FOX is prepared to go public with these accounts if necessary. http://drudgereport.com/foxf.htm
Developing DeLay Scandal: Weep Not (Wash. Post, R. Jeffrey Smith)
In May 2001, Enron's top lobbyists in Washington advised the company chairman that then-House Majority Whip Tom DeLay (R-Tex.) was pressing for a $100,000 contribution to his political action committee, in addition to the $250,000 the company had already pledged to the Republican Party that year.
DeLay requested that the new donation come from "a combination of corporate and personal money from Enron's executives," with the understanding that it would be partly spent on "the redistricting effort in Texas," said the e-mail to Kenneth L. Lay from lobbyists Rick Shapiro and Linda Robertson.
The e-mail, which surfaced in a subsequent federal probe of Houston-based Enron, is one of at least a dozen documents obtained by The Washington Post that show DeLay and his associates directed money from corporations and Washington lobbyists to Republican campaign coffers in Texas in 2001 and 2002 as part of a plan to redraw the state's congressional districts.
DeLay's fundraising efforts helped produce a stunning political success. Republicans took control of the Texas House for the first time in 130 years, Texas congressional districts were redrawn to send more Republican lawmakers to Washington, and DeLay -- now the House majority leader -- is more likely to retain his powerful post after the November election, according to political experts. http://www.washingtonpost.com/ac2/wp-dyn/A43219-2004Jul11?language=printer
Finally: Kerry Addresses the lies: For example, this weekend Bush again claimed that Kerry has opposed funding for the troops, including armor, but Kerry has not rebutted this lie. So, here’s an exception. Jim VandeHei and Dan Balz of the Washington Post report on Kerry’s rare comments on the ongoing lies.
President Bush has governed in a dishonest fashion, trampling values on every issue except fighting terrorism and leaving voters "clamoring for restoration of credibility and trust in the White House again," John F. Kerry and John Edwards said in an interview.
"The value of truth is one of the most central values in America, and this administration has violated" it, Kerry said in an interview with The Washington Post aboard the Democrats' campaign plane Friday. "Their values system is distorted and not based on truth."
The Democratic nominee and his running mate said it was that kind of anger toward the president that prompted entertainers at Thursday's Democratic fundraising concert in New York to attack Bush as a "cheap thug" and a killer. "Obviously some performers, in my judgment and John's, stepped over a line neither of us believes appropriate, but we can't control that," Kerry said. "On the other hand, we understand the anger, we understand the frustration."
http://www.washingtonpost.com/ac2/wp-dyn/A41190-2004Jul10?language=printer
…and they critique Bush on Iraq:
Senator John Kerry and Senator John Edwards declared on Friday that slipshod intelligence invoked by President Bush to invade Iraq had cost the nation lives, billions of dollars and international prestige, signaling that the Iraq war would be a central issue in their White House campaign.
The presumptive Democratic candidates for president and vice president, in a 30-minute joint interview given after the release of a Senate Intelligence Committee report challenging the prewar Iraq intelligence, said Mr. Bush's policies abroad had probably increased, rather than decreased, the prospects of domestic terrorist attacks.
And they said the discrediting of much of Mr. Bush's case for going to war had fed cynicism toward government by young Americans, reminiscent of the mistrust of authority that swept the country when Mr. Edwards and Mr. Kerry came of age during the Vietnam War.
"They were wrong and soldiers lost their lives because they were wrong," Mr. Kerry said as Mr. Edwards, in an adjacent seat in the front of their chartered Boeing 757 jet, nodded in agreement. "And America's paying billions of dollars because they were wrong. And allies are not with us because they were wrong." http://www.nytimes.com/2004/07/11/politics/campaign/11TICKET.html?pagewanted=print&position=
Dems Platform: Iraq not a mistake, but…
The platform calls for continuing the substantial troop presence. It notes: "The U.S. will be able to reduce its military presence in Iraq, and we intend to do this when appropriate so that the military support needed by a sovereign Iraqi government will no longer be seen as the direct continuation of an American military presence."
Supporters of presidential candidate Dennis Kucinich, still campaigning despite Kerry's evident victory, said the language was not what they had wanted but called it a victory. They agreed to withdraw amendments to the platform on Iraq in exchange for the new language. http://abcnews.go.com/wire/Politics/ap20040710_688.html
Another take: Jonathan Steele of the Guardian sees their stance as more troubling:
Kerry would keep US troops in Iraq far longer than Bush The Democrat looks like the one with the long-term imperial agenda
Here's a dinner-party talking point that can run and run, certainly until November and, if the Democrats win the US presidency, for several months beyond. Would John Kerry, far from quickly bringing US troops home, keep them in Iraq even longer than George Bush?
My answer, regrettably, is yes - which means that the Democratic convention in Boston later this month will be a sad affair for the people of Iraq, where polls consistently show a majority in favour of early withdrawal. ...
Kerry …looks increasingly like the candidate with the long-term imperial agenda. It would not be as raw as the one pushed by Bush's neoconservative apostles of privatisation, but it would be imperial none the less, dressed in the classic garb of Democratic party multilateral interventionism…
The notion of Bush as an ideologue and Kerry as a realist is too simple. Each has elements of both, and it may well be that a second-term Bush would recognise the cost of his first term's mistakes. Flushed by victory, Kerry might be less clear-sighted. http://www.guardian.co.uk/print/0,3858,4967143-103677,00.html
Polls: “Interesting” that the Panetta Institute survey finds that there is “a major decline in students’ perceptions that voting really matters. The Pew Research Center poll found “young voters today are significantly more likely to be giving the election a lot of thought than they were four years ago.”
Go figure.
Meanwhile: Michigan: Kerry 50%, Bush 43%, Nader 2% (American Research Group)
New Mexico: Kerry 49%, Bush 42%, Nader 3% (American Research Group)
National: Kerry 47%, Bush 43%, Nader 3% (Newsweek)
But it's only July...Kerry's month.
-R
[W]e need to bolster human intelligence. In other words, one of the best ways to figure out what the enemy is thinking is to get to know the enemy firsthand, I guess is the best way to put it -- is to have as much human intelligence as possible. Good quality intelligence and enough human intelligence agents, assets out there so that we can cover the globe. – Bush, on the Senate Report
That Senate Report: CIA Guilty, Bush Innocent That’s what the text says; all of the Dems signed on. But Senate Democrats laid the groundwork for their own political defeat in February when they agreed to delay the second phase of the investigation until after the November election. Too trusting, too passive, too often. So, they, not the press, deserve most of our ire.
Of course, in separate statements, some Democrats demurred. So, we have the weird scenario of the Senate where Rockefeller seemed to say that what he signed was not representing what he believed, that it was incomplete or very misleading.
As to the scapegoating, we knew this was coming. Long ago, the FBI was targeted as the scapegoat for 9/11, the CIA for the failed Invasion-Occupation. As for the latter, we can’t forget that the CIA is not independent, that it is overly responsive to the President.
As for accountability, when Kennedy took over, the Bay of Pigs invasion was very much planned; in his third month, he was unable to resist the Eisenhower-initiated venture. Yet, while he ultimately fired the CIA director, he took ‘full responsibility’ for the failure. The Iraq Invasion was in Bush’s third year, yet he remains unaccountable, the victim of bad intelligence.
Senate Report Confirms that Saddam’s Army was Weak
Another well-known fact, “confirmed” by the Senate report. Again, anyone who read the minimum of published information would have known that all estimates agreed that Saddam’s army and economy were MUCH weaker in 2002 than in 1991, the year of the Gulf War, that they were a threat to no one.
The Senate's report on prewar intelligence about Iraq, which asserts that warnings about its illicit weapons were largely unfounded and that its ties to Al Qaeda were tenuous, also undermines another justification for the war: that Saddam Hussein's military posed a threat to regional stability and American interests.
In a detailed discussion of Iraq's prewar military posture, the report cites a long series of intelligence reports in the decade before the war that described a formerly potent army's spiral of decay under the weight of economic sanctions and American military pressure. http://www.nytimes.com/2004/07/11/international/middleeast/11MILI.html
Media Verdict: Washington Post leads the way: Dana Milbank and Walter Pincus go as far as anyone-
The larger question is whether voters will blame the White House for these two massive mistakes. Though officially agnostic on the White House role in using Iraq intelligence (that will come in a later report), the committee gives ammunition both to Bush and Democratic opponent John F. Kerry.
On the question of Iraq's weapons of mass destruction, the bipartisan committee report absolved administration officials of pressuring CIA analysts to inflate the case against Saddam Hussein. And while making no judgment on whether the administration distorted the intelligence it was given, the committee made plain that the CIA's case against Iraq was plenty exaggerated on its own. Without "any evidence" of administration coercion, the committee found, the intelligence community's judgments on Iraq's weapons were "either overstated, or were not supported by, the underlying intelligence reporting."
On the issue of Iraq's relationship with al Qaeda, however, the committee's findings imply that the White House, not the CIA, is to blame for making dubious claims that there were working ties between Osama bin Laden's organization and Hussein's Iraq. "The Central Intelligence Agency reasonably assessed that there were likely several instances of contacts between Iraq and al-Qaeda throughout the 1990s, but that these contacts did not add up to an established formal relationship," the committee found, echoing the Sept. 11 commission staff's finding of no "collaborative relationship" between the two. http://www.washingtonpost.com/ac2/wp-dyn/A39833-2004Jul9?language=printer
Ridge Non-Alert--> Kerry is the candidate of terrorists: Like Ashcroft’s, Ridge’s alert was meant to keep people off balance, if not terrified, and, arguably, to change the subject from ‘Edwards’ is the VP’. And, they keep looking for opportunities to put out the line that Condi raised in April and, more recently Bush, that terrorists might attack in the United States to affect the outcome of the November presidential election. http://www.nydailynews.com/front/story/200619p-173035c.html.
They have been issuing this ‘warning’ to build on the misleading statements they’ve made following the Madrid bombings. According to the Spanish press, that government was thrown out for trying to pin the bombings on Spaniards, not because they were the ‘strong on terror’ party. Also, one should consider the statement issued by the Abu Hafs al-Masri Brigades, which took responsibility for the Madrid bombings. This group which claims to have links to al Qaeda, trumpted its support for Bush’s reelection, since Bush "deals with matters by force rather than with wisdom." http://uk.news.yahoo.com/040317/325/eotq9.html
Book Review of work by ‘Anonymous’ (former CIA official, author of Why the West is Losing the War on Terror) Michiko Kakutani, reviewer.
He sees the American invasion of Iraq as "an avaricious, premeditated, unprovoked war against a foe who posed no immediate threat but whose defeat did offer economic advantages. "U.S. forces and policies are completing the radicalization of the Islamic world, something Osama bin Laden has been trying to do with substantial but incomplete success since the early 1990's… As a result, I think it fair to conclude that the United States of America remains bin Laden's only indispensable ally." http://www.nytimes.com/2004/07/09/books/09BOOK.html?pagewanted=print&position=
AP report on nuclear proliferation: Guilty Parties
An investigation of the black market supplying nations wanting nuclear arms has spread to more than 20 firms — some of them North American — the chief of the U.N. atomic agency told The Associated Press Friday. A senior diplomat identified one of the firms as U.S. based....
The diplomat said at least one of them was in the United States. He declined to elaborate, saying the agency "was not yet at the bottom of that story." But he said what is known about that company sheds new light on the activities of the network, known up to now for primarily supplying technology to North Korea, Libya and Iran as part of the process allowing them to make enriched uranium that can be used either to generate electricity or make weapons. http://story.news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&cid=518&e=3&u=/ap/20040710/ap_on_re_eu/nuclear_black_market
Disillusionment: Anne Applebaum, Wash Post centrist reporter and author, looks back: Typical
Instead of responding truthfully to the European debate, the Bush administration flatly denied that any invasion of Iraq was imminent. Instead of engaging the European public, Bush said he was still "explor[ing] all options and all tools at my disposal." No one believed him--and, of course, they were right not to…
Looking back on it, this was also the point at which I should have questioned some of my early assumptions about the Bush administration…
The truth, of course, is that, for all its talk of universal human rights, this is not an administration that actually perceives itself as a part of something greater than the United States. For all of its talk about spreading American values to benighted foreigners, this is not an administration that even likes foreigners. It never occurred to me that American troops would arrive in Baghdad and have absolutely no idea what to do next, or who was important, or who was on their side. But then, I hadn't realized that the Pentagon leadership had no interest in or knowledge of the Iraqi people. I thought these were cold warriors, whereas in fact they are narrow-minded American nationalists, isolationists turned inside out. http://www.tnr.com/doc.mhtml?pt=jRnKUph7Tk8Ifrp9wv8YzB%3D%3D
Values:
1) Bush and the Churches:
Robert Reich had an unusually pointed piece in the American Prospect:
It was recently reported that the Bush campaign had e-mailed members of the clergy, soliciting help in identifying "friendly" congregations that would do the campaign's bidding in their areas. When the e-mail came to light, legal experts warned that any religious organization that endorsed one candidate over another could lose its tax-exempt status. A few days later, House Republicans added a measure to a tax bill working its way through Congress called the "Safe Harbor for Churches" act, which would allow any religious organization to make as many as three "unintentional" political endorsements in a calendar year without jeopardizing its tax-exempt status.
When questioned about all of this, Steve Schmidt, a spokesman for the Bush campaign, said, "The campaign wants people of faith to participate in the political process." Clearly, the Bushies want more than this. Because any exemption from paying taxes has the same economic value to its recipient as a direct subsidy from the government, the Bush campaign wants religious groups to enter the political fray -- with costs offset by the federal government. http://www.prospect.org/web/page.ww?section=root&name=ViewPrint&articleId=7858
2) Bushies and Health/Science: Another Critique
For years, Advocates for Youth, a Washington-based organization devoted to adolescent sexual health, says, it received government grants without much trouble. Then last year it was subjected to three federal reviews.
James Wagoner, the president of Advocates for Youth, said the reviews were prompted by concerns among some members of Congress that his group was using public funds to lobby against programs that promoted sexual abstinence before marriage. Although that was not the case, Mr. Wagoner said, the government officials made their point.
"For 20 years, it was about health and science, and now we have a political ideological approach," he said. "Never have we experienced a climate of intimidation and censorship as we have today."
Mr. Wagoner is among the professionals in sex-related fields who have started speaking out against what they say is growing interference from conservatives in and out of government with their work in research, education and disease prevention. http://www.nytimes.com/2004/07/11/politics/11sex.html?pagewanted=print&position=
3) Conservatives put Gay Marriage into campaign
Two weeks before the Democratic convention and under pressure from conservatives, President Bush is escalating his support for a constitutional amendment banning gay marriage, moving the issue to the forefront of the campaign and underscoring what his aides said was a critical difference between the president and Senator John Kerry. http://www.nytimes.com/2004/07/12/politics/campaign/12REPU.html
What’s Happening, Iraq: Casualties: This week I counted at least 18 Americans that were acknowledged to have been killed in Iraq. The total is about to hit 900. Observe the diminished media attention
Latest Greenwald Film Exposes Fox News; NY Times profile:
''Outfoxed'' has been made in secret. The film is an obsessively researched expose of the ways in which Fox News, as Greenwald sees it, distorts its coverage to serve the conservative political agenda of its owner, the media tycoon Rupert Murdoch. It features interviews with former Fox employees, leaked policy memos written by Fox executives and extensive footage from Fox News, which Greenwald is using without the network's permission. The result is an unwavering argument against Fox News that combines the leftist partisan vigor of a Michael Moore film with the sober tone and delivery of a PBS special. A large portion of the film's $300,000 budget came in the form of contributions in the range of $80,000 from both MoveOn and the Center for American Progress, the liberal policy organization founded by John Podesta, the former chief of staff for Bill Clinton; Greenwald, who is not looking to earn any money from the project, provided the rest.
After scrutinizing the initial footage, Greenwald and a team of researchers compiled a list of what they saw as Fox's telltale themes and techniques: stories questioning the patriotism of liberals; relentlessly upbeat reports on Iraq; belligerent hosts who scream at noncompliant guests. http://www.nytimes.com/2004/07/11/magazine/11FOX.html?pagewanted=print&position
Cable Wars: Drudge Report, a conservative organ, reports on the above:
CABLE WAR: FOX NEWS VOWS TOP FIGHT BACK AGAINST RIVALS WHO TOUT DOCUMENTARY
**Exclusive**
A new documentary claiming to show Republican bias at FOX NEWS will debut in New York City on Monday. But FOX NEWS executives are preparing to hit back hard -- if rivals self-servingly hype the film!
The DRUDGE REPORT has learned that FOX NEWS executives are lining up a parade of FOX NEWS employees who formerly worked at CNN & MSNBC and have been downloading information on how editorial decisions are made at these networks, including the agenda for how stories are supposed to be covered.
A senior FOX NEWS executive tells DRUDGE: "We have enough ammunition to nail both MSNBC & CNN." Sources say FOX is prepared to go public with these accounts if necessary. http://drudgereport.com/foxf.htm
Developing DeLay Scandal: Weep Not (Wash. Post, R. Jeffrey Smith)
In May 2001, Enron's top lobbyists in Washington advised the company chairman that then-House Majority Whip Tom DeLay (R-Tex.) was pressing for a $100,000 contribution to his political action committee, in addition to the $250,000 the company had already pledged to the Republican Party that year.
DeLay requested that the new donation come from "a combination of corporate and personal money from Enron's executives," with the understanding that it would be partly spent on "the redistricting effort in Texas," said the e-mail to Kenneth L. Lay from lobbyists Rick Shapiro and Linda Robertson.
The e-mail, which surfaced in a subsequent federal probe of Houston-based Enron, is one of at least a dozen documents obtained by The Washington Post that show DeLay and his associates directed money from corporations and Washington lobbyists to Republican campaign coffers in Texas in 2001 and 2002 as part of a plan to redraw the state's congressional districts.
DeLay's fundraising efforts helped produce a stunning political success. Republicans took control of the Texas House for the first time in 130 years, Texas congressional districts were redrawn to send more Republican lawmakers to Washington, and DeLay -- now the House majority leader -- is more likely to retain his powerful post after the November election, according to political experts. http://www.washingtonpost.com/ac2/wp-dyn/A43219-2004Jul11?language=printer
Finally: Kerry Addresses the lies: For example, this weekend Bush again claimed that Kerry has opposed funding for the troops, including armor, but Kerry has not rebutted this lie. So, here’s an exception. Jim VandeHei and Dan Balz of the Washington Post report on Kerry’s rare comments on the ongoing lies.
President Bush has governed in a dishonest fashion, trampling values on every issue except fighting terrorism and leaving voters "clamoring for restoration of credibility and trust in the White House again," John F. Kerry and John Edwards said in an interview.
"The value of truth is one of the most central values in America, and this administration has violated" it, Kerry said in an interview with The Washington Post aboard the Democrats' campaign plane Friday. "Their values system is distorted and not based on truth."
The Democratic nominee and his running mate said it was that kind of anger toward the president that prompted entertainers at Thursday's Democratic fundraising concert in New York to attack Bush as a "cheap thug" and a killer. "Obviously some performers, in my judgment and John's, stepped over a line neither of us believes appropriate, but we can't control that," Kerry said. "On the other hand, we understand the anger, we understand the frustration."
http://www.washingtonpost.com/ac2/wp-dyn/A41190-2004Jul10?language=printer
…and they critique Bush on Iraq:
Senator John Kerry and Senator John Edwards declared on Friday that slipshod intelligence invoked by President Bush to invade Iraq had cost the nation lives, billions of dollars and international prestige, signaling that the Iraq war would be a central issue in their White House campaign.
The presumptive Democratic candidates for president and vice president, in a 30-minute joint interview given after the release of a Senate Intelligence Committee report challenging the prewar Iraq intelligence, said Mr. Bush's policies abroad had probably increased, rather than decreased, the prospects of domestic terrorist attacks.
And they said the discrediting of much of Mr. Bush's case for going to war had fed cynicism toward government by young Americans, reminiscent of the mistrust of authority that swept the country when Mr. Edwards and Mr. Kerry came of age during the Vietnam War.
"They were wrong and soldiers lost their lives because they were wrong," Mr. Kerry said as Mr. Edwards, in an adjacent seat in the front of their chartered Boeing 757 jet, nodded in agreement. "And America's paying billions of dollars because they were wrong. And allies are not with us because they were wrong." http://www.nytimes.com/2004/07/11/politics/campaign/11TICKET.html?pagewanted=print&position=
Dems Platform: Iraq not a mistake, but…
The platform calls for continuing the substantial troop presence. It notes: "The U.S. will be able to reduce its military presence in Iraq, and we intend to do this when appropriate so that the military support needed by a sovereign Iraqi government will no longer be seen as the direct continuation of an American military presence."
Supporters of presidential candidate Dennis Kucinich, still campaigning despite Kerry's evident victory, said the language was not what they had wanted but called it a victory. They agreed to withdraw amendments to the platform on Iraq in exchange for the new language. http://abcnews.go.com/wire/Politics/ap20040710_688.html
Another take: Jonathan Steele of the Guardian sees their stance as more troubling:
Kerry would keep US troops in Iraq far longer than Bush The Democrat looks like the one with the long-term imperial agenda
Here's a dinner-party talking point that can run and run, certainly until November and, if the Democrats win the US presidency, for several months beyond. Would John Kerry, far from quickly bringing US troops home, keep them in Iraq even longer than George Bush?
My answer, regrettably, is yes - which means that the Democratic convention in Boston later this month will be a sad affair for the people of Iraq, where polls consistently show a majority in favour of early withdrawal. ...
Kerry …looks increasingly like the candidate with the long-term imperial agenda. It would not be as raw as the one pushed by Bush's neoconservative apostles of privatisation, but it would be imperial none the less, dressed in the classic garb of Democratic party multilateral interventionism…
The notion of Bush as an ideologue and Kerry as a realist is too simple. Each has elements of both, and it may well be that a second-term Bush would recognise the cost of his first term's mistakes. Flushed by victory, Kerry might be less clear-sighted. http://www.guardian.co.uk/print/0,3858,4967143-103677,00.html
Polls: “Interesting” that the Panetta Institute survey finds that there is “a major decline in students’ perceptions that voting really matters. The Pew Research Center poll found “young voters today are significantly more likely to be giving the election a lot of thought than they were four years ago.”
Go figure.
Meanwhile: Michigan: Kerry 50%, Bush 43%, Nader 2% (American Research Group)
New Mexico: Kerry 49%, Bush 42%, Nader 3% (American Research Group)
National: Kerry 47%, Bush 43%, Nader 3% (Newsweek)
But it's only July...Kerry's month.
-R
