Friday, September 10, 2004
“News organizations should not mix with political campaigns. Even opinionated commentators like myself must refrain from actively helping someone get elected. That would be an abuse of my power. News agencies should not ally with politicians in any way. That’s what happens in totalitarian countries.“ - Bill O'Reilly, September 8, 2004
No, he wasn’t talking about Fox; He actually was referring to CNN!
And just what are you doing to mark National Preparedness Month? Learn more from Tom Ridge at http://www.dhs.gov/dhspublic/display?content=3991
Health Care: Insurance Premiums up more than 11% ...amongst the many markers of a failed health care system. Also:.
The cumulative effect of rising health care costs is taking a toll on workers: There are at least 5 million fewer jobs providing health insurance in 2004 than there were in 2001, according to the survey of 3,017 companies by the Kaiser Family Foundation and the Health Research and Educational Trust. http://story.news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&e=2&u=/ap/20040909/ap_on_re_us/health_care_costs
What’s Happening, Iran
UK sets Iran deadline to end nuclear bomb work. The Guardian reports on European efforts to deal with Iran’s development of a nuclear capacity.
The British government yesterday set a November ultimatum for Iran to suspend all activities linked to production of a nuclear bomb - a deadline that effectively marks the failure of more than a year of negotiations between Tehran and the European troika of Britain, France and Germany.
Refusal by Iran to comply would produce a new Middle East crisis in which the issue would almost certainly be referred to the United Nations security council, which could opt for punitive action.
Although the deadline is designed to pile pressure on Iran, the early signs from Tehran are that the theocratic regime is unwilling to comply unconditionally and that it is seeking major concessions from the west in return, including a trade agreement and transfer of civil nuclear technology. http://www.guardian.co.uk/international/story/0,,1300271,00.html
What’s Happening, Russia: Pre-emptive Doctrine Endorsed
A top Russian general has warned Russia could launch preemptive strikes on terror bases anywhere in the world as a $15m bounty was placed on the heads of two top Chechen rebels involved in last week's deadly school siege. "We will take steps to liquidate terror bases in any region" in the world, Russian Chief of Staff General Yury Baluyevsky said outside a meeting with US General James Jones, NATO's supreme allied commander for Europe.
Baluyevsky noted that the doctrine of preventive military action against terror targets had been spelled out publicly before and said such steps were only an "extreme measure" that did not include use of nuclear force.
His remarks nonetheless reflected a hardening mood in Moscow a day after a television network aired video footage of scared children and parents sitting in the school gym in southern Beslan as masked militants rigged bombs over their heads. http://www.news.com.au/common/printpage/0,6093,10707990,00.html
Bush, Sharon, Putin: Allied Against Islamic Terrorism?
The always thoughtful Naomi Klein explains
Let me be absolutely clear: by Likudisation I do not mean that key members of the Bush administration are working for the interests of Israel at the expense of US interests. What I mean is that on September 11, George Bush went looking for a political philosophy to guide him in his role as "war president". He found that philosophy in the Likud doctrine, handed to him ready-made by the ardent Likudniks ensconced in the White House. In the three years since, the Bush White House has applied this logic with chilling consistency to its global war on terror - complete with the pathologising of the "Muslim mind". It was the guiding philosophy in Afghanistan and Iraq, and may well extend to Iran and Syria. It's not simply that Bush sees America's role as protecting Israel from a hostile Arab world. It's that he has cast the US in the same role in which Israel casts itself, facing the same threat. In this narrative, the US is fighting a never-ending battle for its survival against irrational forces that seek its total extermination.
And now the Likudisation narrative has spread to Russia. In that same meeting with journalists, Putin made it clear he sees the drive for Chechen independence as the spearhead of a strategy by Chechen Islamists, helped by foreign fundamentalists, to undermine Russia by stirring up its Muslim population. http://www.guardian.co.uk/print/0,3858,5012729-103677,00.html
What’s Happening, Indonesia:
The bombing there outside the Australian embassy in Jakarta is reported to be the work of Malaysian Azahari Husin, dubbed the “Demolition Man” by local papers, suspected of being Jemaah Islamiah’s top bomb maker. The Australian government issued a statement that it was sure that the bombing had nothing to do with its support of the Iraq.
Bill Moyers’ NOW on 9/11
The program has but 2 months left, then it goes to ½ hour and right-wing stuff moves in. So, treasure the remaining episodes.
This one- in Greater Boston Friday at 8, Sunday at 11AM and 6PM- addresses 9/11- the lack of serious planning and preparation for a terrorist attack and then the panicky, counter-productive reaction to the attack. The report will at least mention some of the damning (and rarely underscored) points of the 9/11 Commission- that Cheney ordered the shoot-down of planes without talking to Bush, that Rumsfeld was out of the loop, that planes were belatedly scrambled, but weren’t sure what they were doing (including one pilot who thought he was responding to a cruise missile attack from Russia.) Condi Rice will be shown to be the incompetent security chief that she’s been.
“We’re attacking them there so we won’t have to fight them here.”
That’s the Bush line of the last two weeks. As with so many others, it might be effective, but it’s wildly off the mark, as our attacks “there” motivate- and recruit- radical Islamists to attack us wherever. Similar sentiments come from one Ivan Eland.
The continued occupation of Iraq and Afghanistan has inflamed radical Islamic passions all over the world—bringing in money and recruits—and could lead Islamists to further attack the U.S. homeland. Al Qaeda has been more active since September 11 than it was beforehand. Al Qaeda could very well try to inflict as much pain on the United States as the Chechens recently did on the Russians. What happened in Russia should be a warning to the United States.
In sum, although savage attacks against civilians should never be condoned, the harsh reality is that Russia, Israel, and the United States must expect further attempts by Islamist terrorists to attack their soil until the underlying cause of the terrorism is removed. That underlying cause is “infidel” meddling in and occupation of Islamic lands. http://www.independent.org/newsroom/article.asp?id=1360
Kerry:
Trails in polls ranging from 2 to 9 points, with some outliers. He can win, but only if he has a steady strong message- if he consistently and repetitively attacks the failures of the Bush-Cheney group, especially targeting Bush as a failure in the so-called ‘war on terror’, and how they have consistently mislead us, deceived us, lied to us. Paul Krugman, forever a blunt truth-teller, addresses the latter point.
It's the dishonesty, stupid. The real issue in the National Guard story isn't what George W. Bush did three decades ago. It's the recent pattern of lies: his assertions that he fulfilled his obligations when he obviously didn't, the White House's repeated claims that it had released all of the relevant documents when it hadn't.
It's the same pattern of dishonesty, this time involving personal matters that the public can easily understand, that some of us have long seen on policy issues, from global warming to the war in Iraq. On budget matters, which is where I came in, serious analysts now take administration dishonesty for granted. http://www.nytimes.com/2004/09/10/opinion/10krugman.html?hp
No-Showing the National Guard: The Usual Penalty
Writes one Tom Moore of Hurricane, West Virginia:
After seeing the latest info on Shrub's guard service I just have to comment. I was in the WV Air National Guard in the early 70's. At the same time Shrub was pulling his no show performance, we had a young enlisted man who didn't show up for drills for about eight months. He was arrested, handcuffed and escorted to base by Army MP's. Then they court marshalled him, activated him and transferred him to the Army for the rest of his enlistment. I guess it pays to have political connections. http://msnbc.msn.com/id/3449870/
Election Year and The Environment:
Kerry’s record is vastly superior to Bush, the issue is important and should be a winner. But, he says little. Why? Undoubtedly, Kerry dares not risk offending the very powerful fossil fuel interests. He is especially cognizant of the coal industry and possibilities of winning West Virginia, and thus talks up the oxymoron “clean coal”.
There’s also the failures of the press- which in part reflect the dumbing-down of the public- in ignoring the issue. Robert Kennedy, Jr, environmentalist, addresses the press’s failings.
"The press won't cover climate change; It's not fast-breaking. They will cover security issues. You have to frame an issue in terms of security…
During the Gore campaign, people were complaining that he wasn't talking about the environment. But I talked to the Gore campaign and they said, 'We're talking ourselves blue in the face about it. It has no traction in the press.' They want to cover the political battle -- the red states vs. the blue states. And if you look, that's what they're covering now.
"Kerry's basically reduced to fighting a battle of platitudes because that's the only thing the American press now understands. The entire White House press corps should all drink poison Kool-Aid. That's the only way that they could bring dignity and integrity back to journalism. They are not journalists; they are stenographers for White House press flacks." http://www.salon.com/tech/feature/2004/09/10/kerry/index.html
Political Effectiveness: To Demonstrate, or Not to Demonstrate?
How to be politically effective? I have weighed in on this at various times. Based on the sense that these are extraordinary times, I’ve argued that we need to move out of our comfort zones, doing only what’s familiar, that comes easily. We know that middle aged folk are terribly familiar with demonstrations; they are winsomely social and terribly familiar. But, are they effective? Are they the best use of our time. I have long had my strong doubts. Here, Matt Taibbi of the NY Press registers his similar opinion.
There was a time when mass protests were enough to cause Johnson to give up the Oval Office and cause Richard Nixon to spend his nights staring out his window in panic. No more. We have a different media now, different and more sophisticated law-enforcement techniques and, most importantly, a different brand of protestor.
Protests can now be ignored because our media has learned how to dismiss them, because our police know how to contain them, and because our leaders now know that once a protest is peacefully held and concluded, the protestors simply go home and sit on their asses until the next protest or the next election. They are not going to go home and bomb draft offices, take over campuses, riot in the streets. Instead, although there are many earnest, involved political activists among them, the majority will simply go back to their lives, surf the net and wait for the ballot. Which to our leaders means that, in most cases, if you allow a protest to happen… Nothing happens. http://www.nypress.com/print.cfm?content_id=11002
Speaking of Efficiency and Effectiveness: Calling Talk Radio
Some of you know of my enthusiasm about calling conservative Talk Radio. It’s hard to over-praise the efficiency and power of the method, having hundreds of thousands of listeners hear progressive points effectively presented in a forum usually dominated by right-wing views.
Talk Radio is an effective grass roots tool that can be used by those willing to challenge the reigning dogma and to inspire people to do something. It is also very efficient because it reaches a very large audience.
More at http://www.fairnessintaxes.org/pages/talkradio.html
Let me know if you’re interested. It’s great fun, as well.
"During the 2000 campaign, when Bush said he was against nation building, I didn't realize he meant only our nation." – Al Franken
-R
No, he wasn’t talking about Fox; He actually was referring to CNN!
And just what are you doing to mark National Preparedness Month? Learn more from Tom Ridge at http://www.dhs.gov/dhspublic/display?content=3991
Health Care: Insurance Premiums up more than 11% ...amongst the many markers of a failed health care system. Also:.
The cumulative effect of rising health care costs is taking a toll on workers: There are at least 5 million fewer jobs providing health insurance in 2004 than there were in 2001, according to the survey of 3,017 companies by the Kaiser Family Foundation and the Health Research and Educational Trust. http://story.news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&e=2&u=/ap/20040909/ap_on_re_us/health_care_costs
What’s Happening, Iran
UK sets Iran deadline to end nuclear bomb work. The Guardian reports on European efforts to deal with Iran’s development of a nuclear capacity.
The British government yesterday set a November ultimatum for Iran to suspend all activities linked to production of a nuclear bomb - a deadline that effectively marks the failure of more than a year of negotiations between Tehran and the European troika of Britain, France and Germany.
Refusal by Iran to comply would produce a new Middle East crisis in which the issue would almost certainly be referred to the United Nations security council, which could opt for punitive action.
Although the deadline is designed to pile pressure on Iran, the early signs from Tehran are that the theocratic regime is unwilling to comply unconditionally and that it is seeking major concessions from the west in return, including a trade agreement and transfer of civil nuclear technology. http://www.guardian.co.uk/international/story/0,,1300271,00.html
What’s Happening, Russia: Pre-emptive Doctrine Endorsed
A top Russian general has warned Russia could launch preemptive strikes on terror bases anywhere in the world as a $15m bounty was placed on the heads of two top Chechen rebels involved in last week's deadly school siege. "We will take steps to liquidate terror bases in any region" in the world, Russian Chief of Staff General Yury Baluyevsky said outside a meeting with US General James Jones, NATO's supreme allied commander for Europe.
Baluyevsky noted that the doctrine of preventive military action against terror targets had been spelled out publicly before and said such steps were only an "extreme measure" that did not include use of nuclear force.
His remarks nonetheless reflected a hardening mood in Moscow a day after a television network aired video footage of scared children and parents sitting in the school gym in southern Beslan as masked militants rigged bombs over their heads. http://www.news.com.au/common/printpage/0,6093,10707990,00.html
Bush, Sharon, Putin: Allied Against Islamic Terrorism?
The always thoughtful Naomi Klein explains
Let me be absolutely clear: by Likudisation I do not mean that key members of the Bush administration are working for the interests of Israel at the expense of US interests. What I mean is that on September 11, George Bush went looking for a political philosophy to guide him in his role as "war president". He found that philosophy in the Likud doctrine, handed to him ready-made by the ardent Likudniks ensconced in the White House. In the three years since, the Bush White House has applied this logic with chilling consistency to its global war on terror - complete with the pathologising of the "Muslim mind". It was the guiding philosophy in Afghanistan and Iraq, and may well extend to Iran and Syria. It's not simply that Bush sees America's role as protecting Israel from a hostile Arab world. It's that he has cast the US in the same role in which Israel casts itself, facing the same threat. In this narrative, the US is fighting a never-ending battle for its survival against irrational forces that seek its total extermination.
And now the Likudisation narrative has spread to Russia. In that same meeting with journalists, Putin made it clear he sees the drive for Chechen independence as the spearhead of a strategy by Chechen Islamists, helped by foreign fundamentalists, to undermine Russia by stirring up its Muslim population. http://www.guardian.co.uk/print/0,3858,5012729-103677,00.html
What’s Happening, Indonesia:
The bombing there outside the Australian embassy in Jakarta is reported to be the work of Malaysian Azahari Husin, dubbed the “Demolition Man” by local papers, suspected of being Jemaah Islamiah’s top bomb maker. The Australian government issued a statement that it was sure that the bombing had nothing to do with its support of the Iraq.
Bill Moyers’ NOW on 9/11
The program has but 2 months left, then it goes to ½ hour and right-wing stuff moves in. So, treasure the remaining episodes.
This one- in Greater Boston Friday at 8, Sunday at 11AM and 6PM- addresses 9/11- the lack of serious planning and preparation for a terrorist attack and then the panicky, counter-productive reaction to the attack. The report will at least mention some of the damning (and rarely underscored) points of the 9/11 Commission- that Cheney ordered the shoot-down of planes without talking to Bush, that Rumsfeld was out of the loop, that planes were belatedly scrambled, but weren’t sure what they were doing (including one pilot who thought he was responding to a cruise missile attack from Russia.) Condi Rice will be shown to be the incompetent security chief that she’s been.
“We’re attacking them there so we won’t have to fight them here.”
That’s the Bush line of the last two weeks. As with so many others, it might be effective, but it’s wildly off the mark, as our attacks “there” motivate- and recruit- radical Islamists to attack us wherever. Similar sentiments come from one Ivan Eland.
The continued occupation of Iraq and Afghanistan has inflamed radical Islamic passions all over the world—bringing in money and recruits—and could lead Islamists to further attack the U.S. homeland. Al Qaeda has been more active since September 11 than it was beforehand. Al Qaeda could very well try to inflict as much pain on the United States as the Chechens recently did on the Russians. What happened in Russia should be a warning to the United States.
In sum, although savage attacks against civilians should never be condoned, the harsh reality is that Russia, Israel, and the United States must expect further attempts by Islamist terrorists to attack their soil until the underlying cause of the terrorism is removed. That underlying cause is “infidel” meddling in and occupation of Islamic lands. http://www.independent.org/newsroom/article.asp?id=1360
Kerry:
Trails in polls ranging from 2 to 9 points, with some outliers. He can win, but only if he has a steady strong message- if he consistently and repetitively attacks the failures of the Bush-Cheney group, especially targeting Bush as a failure in the so-called ‘war on terror’, and how they have consistently mislead us, deceived us, lied to us. Paul Krugman, forever a blunt truth-teller, addresses the latter point.
It's the dishonesty, stupid. The real issue in the National Guard story isn't what George W. Bush did three decades ago. It's the recent pattern of lies: his assertions that he fulfilled his obligations when he obviously didn't, the White House's repeated claims that it had released all of the relevant documents when it hadn't.
It's the same pattern of dishonesty, this time involving personal matters that the public can easily understand, that some of us have long seen on policy issues, from global warming to the war in Iraq. On budget matters, which is where I came in, serious analysts now take administration dishonesty for granted. http://www.nytimes.com/2004/09/10/opinion/10krugman.html?hp
No-Showing the National Guard: The Usual Penalty
Writes one Tom Moore of Hurricane, West Virginia:
After seeing the latest info on Shrub's guard service I just have to comment. I was in the WV Air National Guard in the early 70's. At the same time Shrub was pulling his no show performance, we had a young enlisted man who didn't show up for drills for about eight months. He was arrested, handcuffed and escorted to base by Army MP's. Then they court marshalled him, activated him and transferred him to the Army for the rest of his enlistment. I guess it pays to have political connections. http://msnbc.msn.com/id/3449870/
Election Year and The Environment:
Kerry’s record is vastly superior to Bush, the issue is important and should be a winner. But, he says little. Why? Undoubtedly, Kerry dares not risk offending the very powerful fossil fuel interests. He is especially cognizant of the coal industry and possibilities of winning West Virginia, and thus talks up the oxymoron “clean coal”.
There’s also the failures of the press- which in part reflect the dumbing-down of the public- in ignoring the issue. Robert Kennedy, Jr, environmentalist, addresses the press’s failings.
"The press won't cover climate change; It's not fast-breaking. They will cover security issues. You have to frame an issue in terms of security…
During the Gore campaign, people were complaining that he wasn't talking about the environment. But I talked to the Gore campaign and they said, 'We're talking ourselves blue in the face about it. It has no traction in the press.' They want to cover the political battle -- the red states vs. the blue states. And if you look, that's what they're covering now.
"Kerry's basically reduced to fighting a battle of platitudes because that's the only thing the American press now understands. The entire White House press corps should all drink poison Kool-Aid. That's the only way that they could bring dignity and integrity back to journalism. They are not journalists; they are stenographers for White House press flacks." http://www.salon.com/tech/feature/2004/09/10/kerry/index.html
Political Effectiveness: To Demonstrate, or Not to Demonstrate?
How to be politically effective? I have weighed in on this at various times. Based on the sense that these are extraordinary times, I’ve argued that we need to move out of our comfort zones, doing only what’s familiar, that comes easily. We know that middle aged folk are terribly familiar with demonstrations; they are winsomely social and terribly familiar. But, are they effective? Are they the best use of our time. I have long had my strong doubts. Here, Matt Taibbi of the NY Press registers his similar opinion.
There was a time when mass protests were enough to cause Johnson to give up the Oval Office and cause Richard Nixon to spend his nights staring out his window in panic. No more. We have a different media now, different and more sophisticated law-enforcement techniques and, most importantly, a different brand of protestor.
Protests can now be ignored because our media has learned how to dismiss them, because our police know how to contain them, and because our leaders now know that once a protest is peacefully held and concluded, the protestors simply go home and sit on their asses until the next protest or the next election. They are not going to go home and bomb draft offices, take over campuses, riot in the streets. Instead, although there are many earnest, involved political activists among them, the majority will simply go back to their lives, surf the net and wait for the ballot. Which to our leaders means that, in most cases, if you allow a protest to happen… Nothing happens. http://www.nypress.com/print.cfm?content_id=11002
Speaking of Efficiency and Effectiveness: Calling Talk Radio
Some of you know of my enthusiasm about calling conservative Talk Radio. It’s hard to over-praise the efficiency and power of the method, having hundreds of thousands of listeners hear progressive points effectively presented in a forum usually dominated by right-wing views.
Talk Radio is an effective grass roots tool that can be used by those willing to challenge the reigning dogma and to inspire people to do something. It is also very efficient because it reaches a very large audience.
More at http://www.fairnessintaxes.org/pages/talkradio.html
Let me know if you’re interested. It’s great fun, as well.
"During the 2000 campaign, when Bush said he was against nation building, I didn't realize he meant only our nation." – Al Franken
-R
Wednesday, September 08, 2004
Monday, September 06, 2004
The Commissions
No tyrannical father presiding over an intimidated household was ever tiptoed around with greater caution than is the figure of President George W. Bush in the Senate Intelligence Committee's fat report of its investigation into the scary stories about Saddam Hussein's weapons of mass destruction cited by the President as all the justification he needed for going to war in Iraq. http://www.nybooks.com/articles/17413
So begins Thomas Powers’ review essay on the Senate Intelligence Commission. Indeed, both Commissions wound up tiptoeing around Bush- not out of politeness, but due to ‘power considerations.’ Powers helps us address our current predicament: The Bush misdeeds have been so numerous, so dire, that the public denies and the opponents and the media cringe from making basic criticisms, such as ‘You’re destroying the environment; You lied us into a catastrophic war. You don’t deserve re-election; in fact, you should be impeached.’
Powers lays out what the Commission found to be the ‘errors’:
The basic sin came in many varieties—ignoring evidence, misrepresenting evidence, exaggerating evidence, overstating the evidence, going beyond the evidence, interpreting some evidence as strong when it was weak, sometimes even reaching conclusions without any real evidence at all. The report reaches 117 separate conclusions about the October 2002 NIE and other matters relating to prewar intelligence about Iraq, and it is fair to say that almost every one contains a more or less stinging rebuke of the CIA. The report does not say, but unmistakably implies with persuasive detail, that the exaggerations, overstatements, and misreadings of the CIA's estimate writers all fail in one direction—describing Iraq as more dangerous than it really was.
But, he reasons, you can’t ask the CIA to stand up to its boss, the President.
Asking CIA analysts if they have been cooking the books while their bosses sit in the room reminds me of those well-meaning Western lefties who paid visits in the 1930s to prisoners in the Soviet gulag and returned with assurances that the prisoners all agreed the food was great and they were getting plenty of outdoor exercise. Understanding how the CIA came up with its "high confidence" NIE requires the Senate to connect the dots, but it shouldn't be hard. There are only two—the White House and the CIA. Which way does the committee think the influence runs? But the Senate Intelligence Committee has declined to hazard a guess on this point, and its careful wording amounts at best to a Scotch verdict—not proven. But the rest of the report, with its numerous examples and close analysis of evidence used to build a case for war, raises troubling questions about the CIA's ability to dig in its heels when a president insists that a grab bag of ambiguous information is all he needs to prove a "gathering threat" or a "growing danger."
Where does that leave us? He notes the limits for this and other committees and poses the basic question:
Perhaps holding presidents accountable is more than any commission or Senate committee can fairly be asked to do; perhaps only the electorate can properly hold a president accountable. We shall see…
But the failure to act before September 11 and the unnecessary war with Iraq cannot fairly be blamed on intelligence organizations or anyone else. The White House is the problem, not for the first time. Iraq is President Bush's war. He insisted on it, and nothing can save us from the same again until we find the will to hold the President responsible.
Indeed, we shall see. Some backbone, please, Mr. Kerry?!
9/11 Commission. Another superb essay, this from veteran Washington observer Elizabeth Drew on the Administration’s interference with the 9/11 Commission.
We know about the non-cooperation, Bush refusing to testify under oath and only with Cheney present, etc. They also sought to browbeat the Commission, seeking to reshape the conclusions by taking out or inserting sentences/paragraphs. It’s a withering indictment, yet Drew, like others, lists her observations, but avoids the obvious conclusions as to the Administration’s behavior.
The administration fought the commission at nearly every turn—at first denying it sufficient funds, then opposing an extension of time, refusing it documents, trying to prevent Condoleezza Rice from testifying in public. The White House, in a preemptive move, told the commission that Bush would not testify under oath, and insisted that he appear along with Vice President Cheney. The main partisan division within the commission, I was told, was over how hard to press the White House for information that it was holding back. In its effort to achieve a unanimous, bipartisan report, the commission decided not to assign "individual blame" and avoided overt criticism of the President himself. Still, the report is a powerful indictment of the Bush administration for its behavior before and after the attacks of September 11.
In fact, the commission gives a devastating picture of the chaos within the Bush administration on the morning of the attacks, when the President famously remained in the Florida classroom for some five to seven minutes (according to the report) after learning of the second attack on the World Trade Center. But this is just one of several examples that morning of questionable judgment on the part of the President, as well as of the officials traveling with him, including his chief of staff, Andrew Card, and his political mentor, Karl Rove. Bush told the commission that he attributed the first crash, which he learned of before he entered the school classroom, to "pilot error," but this seems strange, since it is unlikely that a pilot would accidentally stray into a very tall, prominent building in a highly controlled air space on a clear autumn day. Subtly but damningly, the report makes it clear that after Bush left the classroom, "the focus was on the President's statement to the nation"—his "message"—rather than on taking charge of the nation's response to the attacks.
The White House, I was told, pressed for two things about these hours to be included in the final report. First, it wanted the commission to publish Bush's statement, as it did, that he remained in the classroom because he "felt he should project strength and calm until he could better understand what was happening"—though the fact that a calamity had taken place wasn't exactly a secret. Second, the White House wanted the report to include Libby's description of Cheney's very quick decision—"in about the time it takes a batter to decide to swing"—that United Flight 93, which was believed to be headed toward Washington, should be shot down. Some commissioners found this description hardly flattering, but at the Republicans' insistence it remained in the final report.
The White House was apparently so upset by the staff report's account of Cheney's deciding on his own to give the order to shoot down the planes that it overlooked the statement in another staff report, presented at the same time, that though there had been "contacts" between Iraq and al-Qaeda—involving al-Qaeda representatives seeking help from Iraq but not receiving it—"they do not appear to have resulted in a collaborative relationship."
Once it received prominent attention in the press, this clear contradiction of one of the administration's principal arguments for going to war— which had been repeated only two days earlier by Cheney—could not be left unchallenged by the White House. Bush said that the staff report validated his claims of "ties" between Saddam and al-Qaeda. In a television interview the day after the staff report was published, Cheney attacked the press for reporting accurately what the commission had said. (One commissioner, Jim Thompson, made similar comments on Bill O'Reilly's show.) In the final report, the commission said there had been no "collaborative operational relationship." One commissioner told me the word "operational" was added for clarity; another said that it was intended to underscore the fact that Bush's and Cheney's assertions were wrong. In announcing on August 2 his proposals for acting on the commission's recommendations, Bush, ignoring the language of the report, repeated his vague claim that Saddam Hussein "had terrorist ties." http://www.nybooks.com/articles/17390
Kerry Follow-up?
The question is whether his midnight (tepid) speech marked a beginning of trying to win. The more sagacious pundits noted that his first opportunity would come Friday morning at 8:31AM when mediocre job stats were to be released. Indeed, the fact that less jobs were created (144,000) than are necessary to even keep up with population growth (150,000) was such an opportunity. He and his fellow Dems were hardly deafening. The media followed, as they basically only compared the figure to what economists had predicted (150,000). Then, he Kerry off Sunday… for his daughter’s birthday. Sweet, but sends a bad signal to his supporters.
Beyond Michael Moore: Bob Graham addresses the Saudi issue
So, now, retiring Sen. Bob Graham’s book, noted in the Miami Herald. Elsewhere? Anyone screaming about this?
Two of the Sept. 11, 2001, hijackers had a support network in the United States that included agents of the Saudi government, and the Bush administration and FBI blocked a congressional investigation into that relationship, Sen. Bob Graham wrote in a book to be released Tuesday.The discovery of the financial backing of the two hijackers ''would draw a direct line between the terrorists and the government of Saudi Arabia, and trigger an attempted coverup by the Bush administration,'' the Florida Democrat wrote. http://www.miami.com/mld/miamiherald/9584265.htm
California I: ‘Whatever it Takes’: We tend to frown on conspiratorial thoughts. But, the other way to look at it: the well-organized Republican Right will do, as the Bush text last week often noted, “whatever it takes” to hold power. So, in that vein, we should bear witness to stories such as the following:
In California the Republican governor has frozen election funds that would
normally be used "to train poll workers, educate voters or adequately monitor electronic voting systems." http://www.smdailyjournal.org/article.cfm?issue=09-02-04&storyID=34419
California, II: Arnold and Corporate America (cont.)
AP Exclusive: Chevron Influenced Schwarzenegger Reorganization Plan, Made Large Contributions
Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger's ambitious plan to reorganize almost every aspect of state government was influenced significantly by oil and gas giant ChevronTexaco Corp., which managed to shape such key recommendations as the removal of restrictions on oil refineries.
http://biz.yahoo.com/ap/040903/schwarzenegger_chevron_6.html
What’s Happening, Iraq: “Insurgents” of various stripes are all over the country, i.e. it’s a country-wide “insurgency” that leaves our troops in enclaves from which they periodically emerge to attack, aside from relying on bombing.
Over the past few months, insurgents in Samarra have deposed the U.S.-picked leaders and put to death people suspected of collaborating with them, making the northern Iraqi city the latest no-go zone for Iraqi and American troops. http://story.news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&cid=540&e=2&u=/ap/20040903/ap_on_re_mi_ea/iraq_rebel_territory
Casualties: Worst yet: Not the sense we’ve gotten from the Conventions and the Media. And, the article below was written before 7 were announced as killed on Monday.
About 1,100 U.S. soldiers and Marines were wounded in Iraq during August, by far the highest combat injury toll for any month since the war began and an indication of the intensity of battles flaring in urban areas
U.S. medical commanders say the sharp rise in battlefield injuries reflects more than three weeks of fighting by two Army and one Marine battalion in the southern city of Najaf. At the same time, U.S. units frequently faced combat in a sprawling Shiite Muslim slum in Baghdad and in the Sunni cities of Fallujah, Ramadi and Samarra, all of which remain under the control of insurgents two months after the transfer of political authority. http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A62425-2004Sep4.html
But, of course, in our 1984 world these casualties prove the Administration to be “successful, on the right track, etc.”, for it means that “we’re fighting the terrorists over there instead of over here.”
What’s Happening, Afghanistan: Not improving. From the BBC:
A top election observer body has said Afghanistan's security situation makes it impossible to monitor its first-ever polls, due in October.
In a report obtained by the BBC, the Organisation for Security and Co-operation in Europe said it was not safe for "meaningful" monitoring.
The OSCE added that examining the elections too closely at this stage could actually undermine the process.
It also appears there will be few other monitors to fill the gap. http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/south_asia/3617790.stm
What’s Happening, Australia: Docs protest the Invasion Lies:
Fifty-six of the nation's most eminent doctors will today drag Iraq back onto the election stage with an open letter accusing the Government of taking Australia to war on "false and misleading" grounds.
They will call on an incoming Howard or Latham government to make amends for a policy they see as immoral and a "tragic mistake", and for a war still killing and injuring Iraqis without an end in sight http://www.theage.com.au/articles/2004/09/04/1094234080677.html
Media Distort Jobs Report:
What else is new? As is well known, and as was noted above, the economy must produce 150,000 jobs each and every month, or on average, to keep up with population growth. August produced 144,000 in a recovery phase; that is not good economic news. But, CNN thought otherwise.
The report could give a lift to the Bush campaign, coming just hours after the Republicans renominated him. The president and his advisers like to point to the nearly 1.7 million jobs created since August 2003.
But the Kerry campaign notes that despite the recent job gains, the economy has still lost 1 million jobs since Bush took office in early 2001, meaning Bush is likely to become the first president since the Depression era's Herbert Hoover to complete his term with an overall drop in U.S. payrolls.
Roger Altman, senior economic advisor to Kerry, told CNNfn that even with the most recent gain, the administration's job performance has been weak.
"You need about 150,000 new jobs a month to keep even with growth in population," he said. "Taken in proper context, it's just not a very good record." http://money.cnn.com/2004/09/03/news/economy/jobless_august/index.htm?cnn=yes
Will SOMEONE in the media do the math? If each month should produce 150000 jobs, then Bush is not merely “minus 900,000 jobs”, but rather is almost 8 million behind where we’d hope to be.
-R
No tyrannical father presiding over an intimidated household was ever tiptoed around with greater caution than is the figure of President George W. Bush in the Senate Intelligence Committee's fat report of its investigation into the scary stories about Saddam Hussein's weapons of mass destruction cited by the President as all the justification he needed for going to war in Iraq. http://www.nybooks.com/articles/17413
So begins Thomas Powers’ review essay on the Senate Intelligence Commission. Indeed, both Commissions wound up tiptoeing around Bush- not out of politeness, but due to ‘power considerations.’ Powers helps us address our current predicament: The Bush misdeeds have been so numerous, so dire, that the public denies and the opponents and the media cringe from making basic criticisms, such as ‘You’re destroying the environment; You lied us into a catastrophic war. You don’t deserve re-election; in fact, you should be impeached.’
Powers lays out what the Commission found to be the ‘errors’:
The basic sin came in many varieties—ignoring evidence, misrepresenting evidence, exaggerating evidence, overstating the evidence, going beyond the evidence, interpreting some evidence as strong when it was weak, sometimes even reaching conclusions without any real evidence at all. The report reaches 117 separate conclusions about the October 2002 NIE and other matters relating to prewar intelligence about Iraq, and it is fair to say that almost every one contains a more or less stinging rebuke of the CIA. The report does not say, but unmistakably implies with persuasive detail, that the exaggerations, overstatements, and misreadings of the CIA's estimate writers all fail in one direction—describing Iraq as more dangerous than it really was.
But, he reasons, you can’t ask the CIA to stand up to its boss, the President.
Asking CIA analysts if they have been cooking the books while their bosses sit in the room reminds me of those well-meaning Western lefties who paid visits in the 1930s to prisoners in the Soviet gulag and returned with assurances that the prisoners all agreed the food was great and they were getting plenty of outdoor exercise. Understanding how the CIA came up with its "high confidence" NIE requires the Senate to connect the dots, but it shouldn't be hard. There are only two—the White House and the CIA. Which way does the committee think the influence runs? But the Senate Intelligence Committee has declined to hazard a guess on this point, and its careful wording amounts at best to a Scotch verdict—not proven. But the rest of the report, with its numerous examples and close analysis of evidence used to build a case for war, raises troubling questions about the CIA's ability to dig in its heels when a president insists that a grab bag of ambiguous information is all he needs to prove a "gathering threat" or a "growing danger."
Where does that leave us? He notes the limits for this and other committees and poses the basic question:
Perhaps holding presidents accountable is more than any commission or Senate committee can fairly be asked to do; perhaps only the electorate can properly hold a president accountable. We shall see…
But the failure to act before September 11 and the unnecessary war with Iraq cannot fairly be blamed on intelligence organizations or anyone else. The White House is the problem, not for the first time. Iraq is President Bush's war. He insisted on it, and nothing can save us from the same again until we find the will to hold the President responsible.
Indeed, we shall see. Some backbone, please, Mr. Kerry?!
9/11 Commission. Another superb essay, this from veteran Washington observer Elizabeth Drew on the Administration’s interference with the 9/11 Commission.
We know about the non-cooperation, Bush refusing to testify under oath and only with Cheney present, etc. They also sought to browbeat the Commission, seeking to reshape the conclusions by taking out or inserting sentences/paragraphs. It’s a withering indictment, yet Drew, like others, lists her observations, but avoids the obvious conclusions as to the Administration’s behavior.
The administration fought the commission at nearly every turn—at first denying it sufficient funds, then opposing an extension of time, refusing it documents, trying to prevent Condoleezza Rice from testifying in public. The White House, in a preemptive move, told the commission that Bush would not testify under oath, and insisted that he appear along with Vice President Cheney. The main partisan division within the commission, I was told, was over how hard to press the White House for information that it was holding back. In its effort to achieve a unanimous, bipartisan report, the commission decided not to assign "individual blame" and avoided overt criticism of the President himself. Still, the report is a powerful indictment of the Bush administration for its behavior before and after the attacks of September 11.
In fact, the commission gives a devastating picture of the chaos within the Bush administration on the morning of the attacks, when the President famously remained in the Florida classroom for some five to seven minutes (according to the report) after learning of the second attack on the World Trade Center. But this is just one of several examples that morning of questionable judgment on the part of the President, as well as of the officials traveling with him, including his chief of staff, Andrew Card, and his political mentor, Karl Rove. Bush told the commission that he attributed the first crash, which he learned of before he entered the school classroom, to "pilot error," but this seems strange, since it is unlikely that a pilot would accidentally stray into a very tall, prominent building in a highly controlled air space on a clear autumn day. Subtly but damningly, the report makes it clear that after Bush left the classroom, "the focus was on the President's statement to the nation"—his "message"—rather than on taking charge of the nation's response to the attacks.
The White House, I was told, pressed for two things about these hours to be included in the final report. First, it wanted the commission to publish Bush's statement, as it did, that he remained in the classroom because he "felt he should project strength and calm until he could better understand what was happening"—though the fact that a calamity had taken place wasn't exactly a secret. Second, the White House wanted the report to include Libby's description of Cheney's very quick decision—"in about the time it takes a batter to decide to swing"—that United Flight 93, which was believed to be headed toward Washington, should be shot down. Some commissioners found this description hardly flattering, but at the Republicans' insistence it remained in the final report.
The White House was apparently so upset by the staff report's account of Cheney's deciding on his own to give the order to shoot down the planes that it overlooked the statement in another staff report, presented at the same time, that though there had been "contacts" between Iraq and al-Qaeda—involving al-Qaeda representatives seeking help from Iraq but not receiving it—"they do not appear to have resulted in a collaborative relationship."
Once it received prominent attention in the press, this clear contradiction of one of the administration's principal arguments for going to war— which had been repeated only two days earlier by Cheney—could not be left unchallenged by the White House. Bush said that the staff report validated his claims of "ties" between Saddam and al-Qaeda. In a television interview the day after the staff report was published, Cheney attacked the press for reporting accurately what the commission had said. (One commissioner, Jim Thompson, made similar comments on Bill O'Reilly's show.) In the final report, the commission said there had been no "collaborative operational relationship." One commissioner told me the word "operational" was added for clarity; another said that it was intended to underscore the fact that Bush's and Cheney's assertions were wrong. In announcing on August 2 his proposals for acting on the commission's recommendations, Bush, ignoring the language of the report, repeated his vague claim that Saddam Hussein "had terrorist ties." http://www.nybooks.com/articles/17390
Kerry Follow-up?
The question is whether his midnight (tepid) speech marked a beginning of trying to win. The more sagacious pundits noted that his first opportunity would come Friday morning at 8:31AM when mediocre job stats were to be released. Indeed, the fact that less jobs were created (144,000) than are necessary to even keep up with population growth (150,000) was such an opportunity. He and his fellow Dems were hardly deafening. The media followed, as they basically only compared the figure to what economists had predicted (150,000). Then, he Kerry off Sunday… for his daughter’s birthday. Sweet, but sends a bad signal to his supporters.
Beyond Michael Moore: Bob Graham addresses the Saudi issue
So, now, retiring Sen. Bob Graham’s book, noted in the Miami Herald. Elsewhere? Anyone screaming about this?
Two of the Sept. 11, 2001, hijackers had a support network in the United States that included agents of the Saudi government, and the Bush administration and FBI blocked a congressional investigation into that relationship, Sen. Bob Graham wrote in a book to be released Tuesday.The discovery of the financial backing of the two hijackers ''would draw a direct line between the terrorists and the government of Saudi Arabia, and trigger an attempted coverup by the Bush administration,'' the Florida Democrat wrote. http://www.miami.com/mld/miamiherald/9584265.htm
California I: ‘Whatever it Takes’: We tend to frown on conspiratorial thoughts. But, the other way to look at it: the well-organized Republican Right will do, as the Bush text last week often noted, “whatever it takes” to hold power. So, in that vein, we should bear witness to stories such as the following:
In California the Republican governor has frozen election funds that would
normally be used "to train poll workers, educate voters or adequately monitor electronic voting systems." http://www.smdailyjournal.org/article.cfm?issue=09-02-04&storyID=34419
California, II: Arnold and Corporate America (cont.)
AP Exclusive: Chevron Influenced Schwarzenegger Reorganization Plan, Made Large Contributions
Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger's ambitious plan to reorganize almost every aspect of state government was influenced significantly by oil and gas giant ChevronTexaco Corp., which managed to shape such key recommendations as the removal of restrictions on oil refineries.
http://biz.yahoo.com/ap/040903/schwarzenegger_chevron_6.html
What’s Happening, Iraq: “Insurgents” of various stripes are all over the country, i.e. it’s a country-wide “insurgency” that leaves our troops in enclaves from which they periodically emerge to attack, aside from relying on bombing.
Over the past few months, insurgents in Samarra have deposed the U.S.-picked leaders and put to death people suspected of collaborating with them, making the northern Iraqi city the latest no-go zone for Iraqi and American troops. http://story.news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&cid=540&e=2&u=/ap/20040903/ap_on_re_mi_ea/iraq_rebel_territory
Casualties: Worst yet: Not the sense we’ve gotten from the Conventions and the Media. And, the article below was written before 7 were announced as killed on Monday.
About 1,100 U.S. soldiers and Marines were wounded in Iraq during August, by far the highest combat injury toll for any month since the war began and an indication of the intensity of battles flaring in urban areas
U.S. medical commanders say the sharp rise in battlefield injuries reflects more than three weeks of fighting by two Army and one Marine battalion in the southern city of Najaf. At the same time, U.S. units frequently faced combat in a sprawling Shiite Muslim slum in Baghdad and in the Sunni cities of Fallujah, Ramadi and Samarra, all of which remain under the control of insurgents two months after the transfer of political authority. http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A62425-2004Sep4.html
But, of course, in our 1984 world these casualties prove the Administration to be “successful, on the right track, etc.”, for it means that “we’re fighting the terrorists over there instead of over here.”
What’s Happening, Afghanistan: Not improving. From the BBC:
A top election observer body has said Afghanistan's security situation makes it impossible to monitor its first-ever polls, due in October.
In a report obtained by the BBC, the Organisation for Security and Co-operation in Europe said it was not safe for "meaningful" monitoring.
The OSCE added that examining the elections too closely at this stage could actually undermine the process.
It also appears there will be few other monitors to fill the gap. http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/south_asia/3617790.stm
What’s Happening, Australia: Docs protest the Invasion Lies:
Fifty-six of the nation's most eminent doctors will today drag Iraq back onto the election stage with an open letter accusing the Government of taking Australia to war on "false and misleading" grounds.
They will call on an incoming Howard or Latham government to make amends for a policy they see as immoral and a "tragic mistake", and for a war still killing and injuring Iraqis without an end in sight http://www.theage.com.au/articles/2004/09/04/1094234080677.html
Media Distort Jobs Report:
What else is new? As is well known, and as was noted above, the economy must produce 150,000 jobs each and every month, or on average, to keep up with population growth. August produced 144,000 in a recovery phase; that is not good economic news. But, CNN thought otherwise.
The report could give a lift to the Bush campaign, coming just hours after the Republicans renominated him. The president and his advisers like to point to the nearly 1.7 million jobs created since August 2003.
But the Kerry campaign notes that despite the recent job gains, the economy has still lost 1 million jobs since Bush took office in early 2001, meaning Bush is likely to become the first president since the Depression era's Herbert Hoover to complete his term with an overall drop in U.S. payrolls.
Roger Altman, senior economic advisor to Kerry, told CNNfn that even with the most recent gain, the administration's job performance has been weak.
"You need about 150,000 new jobs a month to keep even with growth in population," he said. "Taken in proper context, it's just not a very good record." http://money.cnn.com/2004/09/03/news/economy/jobless_august/index.htm?cnn=yes
Will SOMEONE in the media do the math? If each month should produce 150000 jobs, then Bush is not merely “minus 900,000 jobs”, but rather is almost 8 million behind where we’d hope to be.
-R
