JUSIPER
Monday, May 31, 2004
Wild Bill's pardons
Just days before the Herseth/Diedrich special election, the big news in South Dakota remains, as always, the man they are going to replace, the state's favorite politician: convicted drunk driver and murderer "Wild Bill" Janklow, who gained his early notoriety laying down the law at Indian reservations before the first of his several terms as governor.
Just before leaving office, Wild Bill pardoned 218 people without giving the public to know their names or crimes. This week, a court ruled that the details of those pardons be made public. Among the pardoned were the former governor's son-in-law, known for his high visibility and pleas for clemency during his father-in-law's manslaughter trial, as well as his chief legal counsel. Ironically, both were accused of drunk driving, although some were accused of drug possession as well, something Wild Bill was ordinarily known for being very tough on--particularly juvenile offenders, for whom he built specialized boot camps where he would eventually house their corpses.
I am all in favor of giving nonviolent offenders less jail time, but then again I have never favored the inflexible and overly punitive sentencing guidelines that folks like Janklow and most in the Republican Party have pushed for. Hence the irony of Janklow being defended by perpetrators of lesser crimes who defend the former governor's actions, saying their crimes should not stain their records forever. Of course they shouldn't, but that's what most Republican reforms in the criminal justice system are intended to do: incarcerate them for long periods and mark them for life as felons (and most particularly if they are black, or, in South Dakota's case, Native American, so that they are no longer eligible to vote). I wonder how many of the pardoned and those who sympathize with them vote for the same Republican senators and congressmen who would push to continue the disgusting and counterproductive policies of our criminal justice system; I suspect quite a few.
Missing, however, was a pardon for the man who raped and murdered fifteen year old Jancita Eagle Deer so many years ago. I suppose there was no need for it; South Dakota voters pardoned him decades ago. Who knows, if he were on the ballot tomorrow, they might have done it again.
1:10 PM | Post or Read Comments (0)
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Collateral damage
There are many effects of an elective war that armchair strategists never have to deal with. Here are some they will never have to worry about:
Colonel McClure, now an Army chaplain, is here to warn the hundreds of soldiers before him who had returned five days earlier from Iraq, their uniforms still mildewed from the months away, that whatever they think right now, coming home may not be as easy as it seems. After the first embraces with cameras clicking, the homecoming parties, life may get complicated in unimagined ways.
You may find yourself driving your tiny Honda too fast down the center of a Kansas highway, the way you did with your Humvee in Iraq, he tells them. You may get claustrophobic at Wal-Mart, or shaky when a car backfires or a bright light flashes. While you crave sex, your wife may crave conversation. And you will surely get 'dumb question No. 3' from those who never set a boot in Iraq: Did you shoot anyone over there?
Colonel McClure, who did two combat tours in Vietnam, shares his own crass retort: 'I don't know. I never went to look.' But as laughter seeps through the rows, he turns sensitive again. Never answer the shooting question, he advises, because it will only prompt another: How did it feel?
'Don't let them get to that follow-up question,' he warns the soldiers, now silent. 'That one hurts.'
[...]The far more serious problems — combat flashbacks, panic attacks — cannot be solved with flowers or dates, Colonel McClure, the chaplain, acknowledges. Talking helps, he tells the soldiers. Call your buddies, he says, but if symptoms persist, call a doctor.
Like most soldiers here, Sgt. Jeremy Kerr, 26, says he is fine. He is happy to be safely home, watching afternoon cartoons with his young daughter, Alexus, and son, Jacoby.
Sergeant Kerr says he is not getting counseling. He does not need it, he says. He says he has a deep faith in God, a Christian wife and a strongly supportive church.
Still, when he drives, he says, he finds himself scanning the roads, imagining bombs in bags of trash and potholes. Sometimes he studies Junction City rooftops for snipers. And he often wakes from dreams with the rattling boom of an explosion right beside him.
"My whole head will be ringing and buzzing like the real thing, and then I wake up," he said.
But this, he said, is an improvement. Sergeant Kerr came home to Junction City in February after an improvised bomb went off next to him in Iraq, sending shrapnel into his legs and leaving scars like lunar craters. The two Fort Riley soldiers beside him died.
For a week, he said, the image of a colleague with no legs and his face ripped apart haunted him. He could not sleep.
He and his wife, Felicia, admit that they struggled to get along at first. He was in a wheelchair then, and Felicia had to tend to his every need. He could not go to the bathroom alone.
"He was kind of getting on my nerves, to tell the truth," Ms. Kerr said. "I had kind of gotten things set up around here, and I wasn't ready to do that, too."
"It drove me crazy, too," Sergeant Kerr said. "I felt worthless."
1:00 PM | Post or Read Comments (0)
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No communion for gays
You almost begin to wonder whether it might be an electoral plus for Kerry if the Opus Dei influenced clerics of the American Church chose to bite the bullet and deny him communion for once and for all. Here's the latest:
Gay-rights supporters wearing rainbow-colored sashes to a Roman Catholic Mass were denied communion on Sunday, while dozens of fellow protesters in Minnesota had to walk around parishioners blocking their way to receive the holy sacrament.
About 10 people wearing the sashes stood in line to receive communion at Holy Name Cathedral in Chicago, but priests refused to give them the eucharist. One priest shook each person's hand; another made the sign of the cross on their foreheads.
'The priest told me you cannot receive communion if you're wearing a sash, as per the cardinal's direction,' said James Luxton, a Chicago member of the Rainbow Sash Movement, a nationwide organization of Catholic gay-rights supporters.
An internal memorandum from Cardinal Francis George of the Chicago Archdiocese that became public last week instructed priests not to give communion to people wearing the sashes, which the group's members wear every year for Pentecost. The memorandum says the sashes are a symbol of opposition to the church's doctrine on homosexuality.
12:33 PM | Post or Read Comments (1)
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Obama rules
He is ahead of Jack Ryan by twenty-two points in the latest Chicago Tribune-WGN poll.
He even leads among white voters 46-34 and gets 31% among "very conservative" voters. And Ryan's divorce records haven't even come out yet.
11:22 AM | Post or Read Comments (0)
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Sunday, May 30, 2004
Hooray for Madonna
A bitter Robert Novak reports on Madonna's fundraising activities:
Madonna, who has launched her racy new ''Reinvention World Tour,'' is the featured attraction of a fund-raiser by one of the ''527'' Democratic fund-raising committees designed to get around the McCain-Feingold Act's ban on soft money.
Two tickets cost $5,000 for ''an evening with Madonna'' June 14 at the MCI Center in downtown Washington. It is sponsored by the Great Plains Leadership Fund, supposedly ''independent'' but actually a Democratic fund-raising organization.
The fund's ''honorary chair'' is Democratic Sen. Byron L. Dorgan of North Dakota, an advocate of the McCain-Feingold bill. Its headquarters is nowhere near the Great Plains, but is located on Capitol Hill in Washington.
Since John Kerry's $76 million will have to last him from July 30th through November 2nd, the DNC and those pesky 527's may become many people's choice for donations.
So once again, our monthly call for rich musicians out there to do the same. Shut up about your politics (unless you're Bruce Springsteen), fill a few stadiums and send the money to the 527 of your choice.
8:47 PM | Post or Read Comments (0)
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Ohio madness
The Cleveland Plain Dealer poll of 1500 Ohioans was the largest one taken in the state this year, and its results fly in the face of every other poll taken this year. Bush leads 47 to Kerry's 41 and Nader's 3. ARG's recent poll had Kerry ahead 49-42-2. The most competitive region of the state appears to be the Southeast, which include Appalachia.
3:53 PM | Post or Read Comments (0)
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Saturday, May 29, 2004
Great quote
From today's Los Angeles Times:
"'Is Sharon Finished?' asked a headline in the mass-circulation daily Yediot Aharonot, over an analysis by Nahum Barnea, one of the country's most respected political commentators.
'The irony is that Sharon, who wanted so badly to place himself in the center, discovered that the center may have a majority in the public, but no political power — certainly not in the present structure of the Likud,' Barnea wrote.
9:17 PM | Post or Read Comments (0)
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The anti-Bush online adventure
This is unbelievable, and I didn't even get to the game.
8:25 PM | Post or Read Comments (0)
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We'll have to fix this
But it's way too late for this election cycle. Hopefully the McCain wing of the GOP will finally come around to accepting public financing and compulsory free airtime as the primary reform to current campaign financing:
Republicans tried to stall the work of [527] committees by claiming the activity was illegal. But earlier this month, the commission declined to regulate these groups, and Republicans, failing to beat the Democrats, decided to join them.
'Republican 527's are playing catch-up, but they will be out there on the field,'' said Susan Hirschmann, a former aide to Representative Tom DeLay, the House majority leader, and now president of a Republican 527 called the Leadership Forum.
Because Republican organizations are just now starting to raise money in earnest, it is not clear how much they might bring in. Not only are they getting a late start, but large corporations that traditionally contribute to Republicans have so far held off giving to groups with no track record, officials say.
'It won't be companies,'' said C. Boyden Gray, a former White House counsel in the first Bush administration who is a member of Progress for America's advisory board. 'Companies are very reluctant to get back into the game.''
While Republicans receive support from businesses through the United States Chamber of Commerce and other lobbies, many corporations have been loath to contribute to 527 committees. The handful that have, like the BellSouth Corporation and Pfizer, have given to both parties and only in limited amounts, according to PoliticalMoneyLine, which tracks campaign finance.
[...]"The floodgates appear to have opened,'' said Mr. Paxon, a former congressman from upstate New York who now works as a lobbyist. "Donors across the country are watching with growing frustration the Democratic 527's and are looking for a vehicle to counter them.''
Democrats say the Republican rush to embrace 527's is hypocritical, but do not doubt it will be effective.
"Republicans have a vast network of wealthy people who can write big checks at the drop of a hat,'' said Ellen Malcolm, a top Democratic fund-raiser. "They can raise an infinite amount of money.''
5:21 PM | Post or Read Comments (0)
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Risk Premiums
Today's attack on foreigners and support staff in a key area for oil production in Saudi Arabia will almost certainly roil markets worldwide:
Gunmen opened fire on Saturday on three complexes used largely by Americans and other foreigners in Saudi Arabia's Eastern Province and seized a large group of hostages, bringing the terrorist attacks that have plagued the country for the past year into the heart of its oil-producing region.
[...]The latest strike at another oil company compound, following a similar attack on May 1 on the western Saudi town of Yanbu, seemed clearly intended as a new attempt to start an exodus of the thousands of workers on whom Saudi Arabia depends to keep its oil industry running.
The attack on Saturday hit at the core of the relationship between the West and the Saudi kingdom. Most of the oil production and the American and other Western technicians who keep it flowing are based in and around the urban centers of Khobar, Dammam and Dhahran, clustered together near the shores of the Persian Gulf, just across from Bahrain.
At a time of skyrocketing oil prices, the area has become even more crucial as much of the excess capacity Saudi Arabia has said it will bring into production after an OPEC meeting in Beirut next Thursday in an effort to bring prices down runs through the production centers grouped in the Eastern Province.
There was a jump in prices after the attack against a petrochemical complex in Yanbu, on the opposite, Red Sea coast of the kingdom. After the attack in Yanbu, which killed six Westerners and a Saudi, about 100 foreigners and their dependents left Saudi Arabia.
One Western analyst said that the militants surely saw the success they had in shutting down that project and decided to carry out more of the same, especially since the Saudi Interior Ministry has repeatedly been able to track down and defuse the kinds of booby-trapped cars that have been used several times against residential compounds in Riyadh starting a year ago.
'This is easier than a vehicle bomb that can be discovered,' said the analyst. 'There are thousands of targets you can choose for this type of assault. It is very very hard to defend against.'
5:08 PM | Post or Read Comments (0)
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Why Kerry's a leaner and Bush's a liar
More (yes, even more) brilliant analysis of political speech by Slate's William Saletan, along with Jacob Weisberg. Heartening too.
11:27 AM | Post or Read Comments (3)
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Friday, May 28, 2004
Bob Dole on Today
Yes, of course he said Americans would be remembered as liberators in Iraq. But when asked whether it was appropriate to ask why we were in Iraq, Bob Dole replied,
I think it's always appropriate. There always should be questions about any conflict. People are being killed--Americans, others. Yes, I think it's a serious question. But in World War II we were all making sacrifices--not just the guys in uniform and their families, but all Americans. Nobody makes a sacrifice now except those families and loved ones and the guy over there.
12:55 PM | Post or Read Comments (0)
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Does this mean Bertucci's is going out of business?
Italy gets tough on fake Napoletana pizza.
1:14 AM | Post or Read Comments (0)
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Thursday, May 27, 2004
The likelihood of new foreign troops under "sovereign" Iraq?
Thanks to George W. Bush's brilliant efforts at diplomacy, the answer is zero.
8:13 PM | Post or Read Comments (0)
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Could we win Virginia with this guy as VP?
Congratulations to Governor Mark Warner of Virginia for succeeding in maintaining his state's AAA Bond Rating by getting wingnut Republicans to do the impossible and approve a tax increase:
"Like any family or business, we value our good credit," Warner said. "We have now restored Virginia's balance sheet to good standing."
Sen. John H. Chichester (R-Stafford), the chairman of the Senate Finance Committee, said he was "elated" by the news. Chichester, who had proposed an even larger tax increase than Warner, said the state needs to continue its vigilance against overspending in the future.
"If we had done nothing, I'm convinced we would be at a AA rating now," Chichester said. "Now, it depends on how we conduct ourselves. We have to closely watch our debt."
[...]Del. Robert G. Marshall (R-Prince William), an ardent anti-tax lawmaker, criticized Moody's, saying the analysts at the firm 'are acting like politicians with a liberal agenda rather than bankers.' He added that 'Virginia should be run by Virginians, not Wall Street.'
Told of the comment, Warner said 'the absurdity of that statement ought to stand on its own.'
8:06 PM | Post or Read Comments (0)
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Regarding that decision to accept the nomination at the convention ...
The headline in today's Boston Herald screamed, "Sen. Flip-Flop Does It Again," above a giant photo of Kerry spreading his arms wide, as if to say, "Hey, it's me!"
Yet another opportunity for Republicans to paint Kerry as the politician willing to say anything, right? No good could possibly come of this latest public reversal? Perhaps.
But now, all of a sudden thanks to the publicity Kerry got with his indecision, millions of people are aware that Bush will have a big edge going into the GOP convention. In all likelihood, that was news to most Americans.
7:21 PM | Post or Read Comments (0)
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Quinnipiac Pennsylvania poll
Kerry is ahead 44-41. Nader is at 6, but without him Kerry's retains a three point lead. Bush's favorable/unfavorables are at 34/42 and Kerry's are 32/27. Kerry leads among independents, 44-34. There is a 16 point gender gap; Bush leads 46-41 among men, while Kerry leads 49-38 among women.
A 34% approval rating and 41% poll result against a challenger are troubling indeed for an incumbent president. Equally troubling: 51% now think going to war with Iraq "was the wrong thing to do" and that Bush and Kerry are now nearly even on handling Iraq (48-45). And 50% think Kerry would do a better job of the economy, as opposed to Bush's 41%.
Bush's rating among union households is an incredibly low 27/49. It is worth noting, however, that when pitted against Kerry, Bush polls substantially better in this demographic than his approval rating would indicate, getting 35 to Kerry's 45, with Nader at 7. This may, however, simply reflect the 14% of union households say they haven't heard enough about Kerry to form an opinion.
Finally, even though Bush's overall favorable rating is 34%, the rating among independent voters is 24/47, which is nothing short of stunning.
Pennsylvania remains a battleground, particularly if Bush can get a tidal wave turnout among conservatives (which would have to leave the state's conservatives with a bitter taste after his support of future Judiciary Committee ranking member Arlen Specter). But if this poll is accurate, it's hard to see him winning under any other circumstance. And indeed; the higher turnout this election is even from the middle, the worse it will be for Bush.
12:21 PM | Post or Read Comments (0)
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Novak: GOP realignment ending with nervous breakdown
Novak reports bitter GOP infighting over Tom Coburn's Senate candidacy in Oklahoma.
Coburn's problem is that he takes seriously the professed Republican agenda: limited government, entitlement reform and anti-abortion advocacy. He was a rare sincere GOP supporter of term limits, leaving the House after three terms as he promised to do. The result is scant support for Coburn from the Republican establishment.
That situation suggests the current realignment cycle in American politics is nearing an end after 36 years, with the Republican Party displaying symptoms of a nervous breakdown. The party's leadership, from President Bush on down, went out of its way to push the undependable Republican Sen. Arlen Specter to victory against a staunch conservative in the Pennsylvania primary because he was considered a stronger general election candidate. In contrast, dependably conservative Coburn gets no establishment support in the contested Oklahoma primary, though he is the best bet in November.
11:58 AM | Post or Read Comments (0)
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Al Gore on Abu Ghraib, accountability and responsibility
Yesterday's speech at NYU was the most comprehensive indictment of the moral and strategic miscalculations of the present administration's foreign policy delivered by a major U.S. political figure. As such, it deserves to be read by every thoughtful American; you can also watch it here.
A few excerpts, but you should read it in its entirety, particularly since a) TV coverage will almost certainly focus only on his call for Rumsfeld's resignation and b) the speech makes so many points that excerpting doesn't work well:
The soldiers who are accused of committing these atrocities are, of course, responsible for their own actions and if found guilty, must be severely and appropriately punished. But they are not the ones primarily responsible for the disgrace that has been brought upon the United States of America.
Private Lynndie England did not make the decision that the United States would not observe the Geneva Convention. Specialist Charles Graner was not the one who approved a policy of establishing an American Gulag of dark rooms with naked prisoners to be "stressed" and even - we must use the word - tortured - to force them to say things that legal procedures might not induce them to say.
These policies were designed and insisted upon by the Bush White House. Indeed, the President's own legal counsel advised him specifically on the subject. His secretary of defense and his assistants pushed these cruel departures from historic American standards over the objections of the uniformed military, just as the Judge Advocates General within the Defense Department were so upset and opposed that they took the unprecedented step of seeking help from a private lawyer in this city who specializes in human rights and said to him, "There is a calculated effort to create an atmosphere of legal ambiguity" where the mistreatment of prisoners is concerned."
Indeed, the secrecy of the program indicates an understanding that the regular military culture and mores would not support these activities and neither would the American public or the world community. Another implicit acknowledgement of violations of accepted standards of behavior is the process of farming out prisoners to countries less averse to torture and giving assignments to private contractors.
[...]In my religious tradition, I have been taught that "ye shall know them by their fruits. Do men gather grapes of thorns, or figs of thistles? Even so, every good tree bringeth forth good fruit; but a corrupt tree bringeth forth evil fruit... Wherefore by their fruits ye shall know them."
The President convinced a majority of the country that Saddam Hussein was responsible for attacking us on September 11th. But in truth he had nothing whatsoever to do with it. The President convinced the country with a mixture of forged documents and blatantly false assertions that Saddam was in league with Al Qaeda, and that he was "indistinguishable" from Osama bin Laden.
He asked the nation , in his State of the Union address, to "imagine" how terrified we should be that Saddam was about to give nuclear weapons to terrorists and stated repeatedly that Iraq posed a grave and gathering threat to our nation. He planted the seeds of war, and harvested a whirlwind. And now, the "corrupt tree" of a war waged on false premises has brought us the "evil fruit" of Americans torturing and humiliating prisoners.
In my opinion, John Kerry is dealing with this unfolding tragedy in an impressive and extremely responsible way. Our nation's best interest lies in having a new president who can turn a new page, sweep clean with a new broom, and take office on January 20th of next year with the ability to make a fresh assessment of exactly what our nation's strategic position is as of the time the reigns of power are finally wrested from the group of incompetents that created this catastrophe.
Kerry should not tie his own hands by offering overly specific, detailed proposals concerning a situation that is rapidly changing and unfortunately, rapidly deteriorating, but should rather preserve his, and our country's, options, to retrieve our national honor as soon as this long national nightmare is over.
Eisenhower did not propose a five-point plan for changing America's approach to the Korean War when he was running for president in 1952.
[...]Make no mistake, it is precisely our moral authority that is our greatest source of strength, and it is precisely our moral authority that has been recklessly put at risk by the cheap calculations and mean compromises of conscience wagered with history by this willful president.
Listen to the way Israel's highest court dealt with a similar question when, in 1999, it was asked to balance due process rights against dire threats to the security of its people:
"This is the destiny of democracy, as not all means are acceptable to it, and not all practices employed by its enemies are open before it. Although a democracy must often fight with one hand tied behind its back, it nonetheless has the upper hand. Preserving the Rule of Law and recognition of an individual's liberty constitutes an important component in its understanding of security. At the end of the day they (add to) its strength."
[...]Moreover, the administration has also set up the men and women of our own armed forces for payback the next time they are held as prisoners. And for that, this administration should pay a very high price. One of the most tragic consequences of these official crimes is that it will be very hard for any of us as Americans - at least for a very long time - to effectively stand up for human rights elsewhere and criticize other governments, when our policies have resulted in our soldiers behaving so monstrously. This administration has shamed America and deeply damaged the cause of freedom and human rights everywhere, thus undermining the core message of America to the world.
President Bush offered a brief and half-hearted apology to the Arab world - but he should apologize to the American people for abandoning the Geneva Conventions. He also owes an apology to the U.S. Army for cavalierly sending them into harm's way while ignoring the best advice of their commanders. Perhaps most importantly of all, he should apologize to all those men and women throughout our world who have held the ideal of the United States of America as a shining goal, to inspire their hopeful efforts to bring about justice under a rule of law in their own lands. Of course, the problem with all these legitimate requests is that a sincere apology requires an admission of error, a willingness to accept responsibility and to hold people accountable. And President Bush is not only unwilling to acknowledge error. He has thus far been unwilling to hold anyone in his administration accountable for the worst strategic and military miscalculations and mistakes in the history of the United States of America.
He is willing only to apologize for the alleged erratic behavior of a few low-ranking enlisted people, who he is scapegoating for his policy fiasco.
In December of 2000, even though I strongly disagreed with the decision by the U.S. Supreme Court to order a halt to the counting of legally cast ballots, I saw it as my duty to reaffirm my own strong belief that we are a nation of laws and not only accept the decision, but do what I could to prevent efforts to delegitimize George Bush as he took the oath of office as president.
I did not at that moment imagine that Bush would, in the presidency that ensued, demonstrate utter contempt for the rule of law and work at every turn to frustrate accountability...
So today, I want to speak on behalf of those Americans who feel that President Bush has betrayed our nation's trust, those who are horrified at what has been done in our name, and all those who want the rest of the world to know that we Americans see the abuses that occurred in the prisons of Iraq, Afghanistan, Guantanamo and secret locations as yet undisclosed as completely out of keeping with the character and basic nature of the American people and at odds with the principles on which America stands.
I believe we have a duty to hold President Bush accountable - and I believe we will. As Lincoln said at our time of greatest trial, "We - even we here - hold the power, and bear the responsibility."
3:05 AM | Post or Read Comments (3)
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Congratulations to Fantasia Barrino
The brilliant interpretive singer is the new American Idol. In a season marked by incomprehensible voting that led to the ouster of monster talents like Jennifer Hudson, America in the end did the inconceivable: it chose the best vocalist, and the only true artist the show has ever produced.
The 19-year-old single mother from Highpoint, N.C., edged out Diana DeGarmo when results were announced tonight (May 26) during the live two-hour season finale of the Fox reality show/talent contest.
When the announcement was made at the end of the show, Barrino immediately grabbed DeGarmo in a hug and cried. When asked for her reaction by Seacrest, a still sobbing Barrino said, "I always say, 'I've been through some things but I worked hard to get where I'm at.'"
More than 65 million votes were cast during the four-hour window opened after last night's final performance show aired on the East and West Coasts, according to host Ryan Seacrest. Previous "Idol" voting periods have been restricted to two hours. In another move to accommodate more access to voting, three designated phone numbers were assigned to each contestants to capture votes.
I close with a few words from Shonda at IdolRant, who, along with Sandie, has been covering the show for months now:
I've said it before: American Idol is nothing more than a better, smarter, brighter version of The Miss America Pageant. In the end, someone wears the crown, the confetti falls and we all cry. What's the big deal?
The big deal is it was good.
It was great TV.
It was almost mythic.
It was poor teen single mom overcomes all obstacles to make it to the top of a heap that was 70,000 strong. It was the little girl from North Carolina taking over the world. It was FANTASTIC.
I've watched the end at least six times now and every single time I am struck with one absolute truth: that girl is a HUGE STAR. You wanna watch her. You can't help but watch her. You can't help but watch and want to dance.
America got it right. My faith in humanity is restored.
Large lips. Weave-bangs. The Bo-Bo. Ghetto Earrings.
All is right with the world.
2:55 AM | Post or Read Comments (0)
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Still more evidence
This time it comes from Spain, but it could have been any democracy. The emerging lesson to leaders around the world? It's rather simple, really: expect to be voted out of office if you are George W. Bush's friend.
2:40 AM | Post or Read Comments (1)
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Wednesday, May 26, 2004
No new religious voters for you!
Karl Rove's strategy to cut into the Democratic base by attracting Catholics, Jews and blacks into the Republican fold is struggling. Ryan Lizza has details from a new survey that shows not-so-good news for Bush on the religious front. Among the findings:
The survey divides Catholics up by there [sic] religiosity. "Traditionalist Catholics" are pro-Bush, while "Modernist Catholics" are pro-Kerry. The group that is up for grabs is what Green calls "Centrist Catholics," who represent eight percent of the American electorate. Kerry is beating Bush among Centrist Catholics 45 percent to 41 percent.
...
Kerry retains the traditional Democratic advantage among Jews, beating Bush by 70 percent to 24 percent.
...
Only twelve percent of black protestants say they will vote for Bush.
However, as Sini has been pointing out a lot, Kerry has to ramp up his efforts to inspire black voters to turn out for him:
Kerry does have some work to do in the church-going black community. He is at 61 percent in the poll, yet Nader is at ten percent and undecideds are relatively high at 17 percent.
12:34 PM | Post or Read Comments (1)
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Al Qaeda stronger than ever after Iraq invasion
Well that shouldn't surprise us, since nearly every military and strategic expert outside the present administration warned us that the focus on Iraq and the would distract our military from the war on terror. That knowledge does not make it any less alarming when one reads it in this AP story, particularly given our underfunding of homeland security even after 9/11:
Far from being crippled by the U.S.-led war on terror, al-Qaida has more than 18,000 potential terrorists scattered around the world and the war in Iraq is swelling its ranks, a report said Tuesday.
Al-Qaida is probably working on plans for major attacks on the United States and Europe, and it may be seeking weapons of mass destruction in its desire to inflict as many casualties as possible, the International Institute of Strategic Studies said in its annual survey of world affairs.
Osama bin Laden's network appears to be operating in more than 60 nations, often in concert with local allies, the study by the independent think tank said.
[...]'Al-Qaida must be expected to keep trying to develop more promising plans for terrorist operations in North America and Europe, potentially involving weapons of mass destruction,' IISS director Dr. John Chipman told a press conference releasing 'Strategic Survey 2003/4.'
[...]The report suggested that the two military centerpieces of the U.S.-led war on terror — the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq — may have boosted al-Qaida.
Driving the terror network out of Afghanistan in late 2001 appears to have benefited the group, which dispersed to many countries.
And the Iraq conflict 'has arguably focused the energies and resources of al-Qaida and its followers while diluting those of the global counterterrorism coalition that appeared so formidable' after the Afghan intervention, the survey said.
It could take up to 500,000 U.S. and allied troops to effectively police Iraq and restore political stability, IISS researcher Christopher Langton told the news conference.
Such a figure appeared impossible to meet, he said.
The London-based institute is considered the most important security think tank outside the United States. Its findings on al-Qaida's expanding structure and growing support by allied terrorist networks track with similar assessments from governments and other experts."
2:35 AM | Post or Read Comments (0)
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Tuesday, May 25, 2004
News coverage is always more favorable to Republicans in the heartland, right?
Not anymore. This is the lead news story on yesterday's Iraq speech. And comes not from Mother Jones or the "liberal" New York Times but from the St. Louis Post-Dispatch.
WASHINGTON - President George W. Bush's decision to give yet another speech on Iraq Monday night reflects the difficulty he is having maintaining the robust support his Iraq policy once enjoyed.
"This is not anything he expected he would have to do, or wanted to do," said Norman Ornstein, veteran political analyst at the American Enterprise Institute. "But necessity is intervening here. Politically this is an extremely tough time for the president and the White House."
A year after the triumph of ending Saddam Hussein's tyranny, Bush finds himself on the defensive about Iraq. Public support for his policy has dipped to barely above 40 percent in recent polls, amid troubling news of insurgent attacks, U.S. casualties and the Abu Ghraib prison abuse scandal.
To stem the decline in support, Bush needed to "outline a strategy for the defeat of the enemies of freedom in Iraq," said Clifford May, president of the Foundation for the Defense of Democracies.
But there was virtually nothing new in Monday's half-hour speech. Bush cited five steps the United States plans in Iraq, but they are largely already known or even under way: handing over sovereignty on June 30, establishing security, building up the infrastructure, gaining more international support and moving toward an election by January.
[...]"I think what's most surprising is that Iraq has become a test of President Bush's leadership," said Michele Flournoy, a former Pentagon official who now heads the post-conflict reconstruction project at the Center for Strategic and International Studies.
"The Bush team has always assumed that foreign policy was their strong suit, and now with Iraq it's become potentially an area of great vulnerability or liability going into the election."
[...]"Clearly the area which had been his greatest strength is under siege right now, and there's a growing unease out there in the country that he doesn't have a plan for Iraq," Ornstein said. "He doesn't want to have to go on TV to rally support. He doesn't want to have to go up to Capitol Hill and give a pep speech to Republicans."
[...] [R]etired Maj. Gen. William Nash, the first commander of U.S. forces in Bosnia and now an analyst with the Council on Foreign Relations, said the problem is deeper than getting out the message.
"It's impossible to try to communicate a policy until you've done some very serious thinking on how to develop it," Nash said, "and that has not been done to date."
The major question, said Pat Towell, an analyst with the Center for Strategic and Budgetary Assessments who spent 27 years at Congressional Quarterly, is whether the relatively upbeat assessment of Iraq's future Bush continues to give will jibe with the pictures people have formed of the situation there.
10:03 PM | Post or Read Comments (0)
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More brilliant analysis of political speech
From Slate's William Saletan, on Bush's address.
9:56 PM | Post or Read Comments (0)
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Reasoning with faith
The blog reader survey results that Sini referenced last week made no mention of the religion or religiosity of its readers. It would certainly be interesting to see some stats on that, but the survey's omission itself is telling. If advertisers aren't interested in it, it must not be much of a factor, right?
Okay, so advertisers don't dictate evrything that's important. But the readers of most political blogs probably see religion as more an obstacle to their political aims than as any help to them. I'm talking mainly about the liberals, but as I understand it, even the conservative blogs mentioned in the survey are more libertarian than anything else. Correct me if I'm wrong, but I'm guessing that few of Andrew Sullivan's readers tune in to his blog out of empathy with his Catholic identity crisis.
Which brings me to the point of this post: in Slate today, history prof Richard Wightman Fox makes the important argument that it's unwise to leave the task of stemming the dangers of religious fanaticism solely to blindly anti-religious secularists. That is, atheists, secular humanists, and the like need to see progressive people of faith as friends, not foes. With authority, Fox says: "Liberals stand a better chance of containing the religious right if they revive John Dewey's and William James' religion-friendly pragmatism rather than Robert Ingersoll's religion-averse freethinking."
If they do, Fox writes, history will be on their side. Reason and faith have had a much closer relationship than a lot of us want to believe, and together - not apart - they have been responsible for a great deal of good.
9:21 PM | Post or Read Comments (0)
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Brilliant
Hooray for the women of the California legislature! Don't miss the picture... and the last paragraph.
State lawmakers staged a "domestic revolt" Monday, some donning kitchen aprons and scarlet "M's" to protest a pastor who characterized female legislators with young children at home as sinners.
Democratic Sen. Debra Bowen went barefoot on the Senate floor, bringing along a toaster and other kitchen accessories to her desk.
"Today, I'll be serving up a billion dollars in savings for PG&E customers, identity theft legislation ... along with bacon and eggs, getting my shopping list together and preparing to can," she said.
State legislators were offended by what the Rev. Ralph Drollinger, who leads a Bible study class for lawmakers, wrote during a Bible lesson in April.
"It is one thing for a mother to work out of her home while her children are in school," wrote Drollinger. "It is quite another matter to have children in the home and live away in Sacramento for four days a week. Whereas the former could be in keeping with the spirit of Proverbs 31, the latter is sinful."
[...] Capitol Ministries' Bible study classes once met in the governor's suite of offices, but Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger told Drollinger to move when Drollinger referred to Roman Catholicism as a false religion. Schwarzenegger and his wife are Catholic.
4:16 PM | Post or Read Comments (0)
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Sounds like a doozy
Today's email from Gorecast, an organization of Al Gore fans:
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GORE TO CALL FOR RESIGNATION OF BUSH TEAM MEMBERS RESPONSIBLE FOR IRAQ FIASCO
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Major Address Will Cite Imminent Risk to U.S. Soldiers & Homeland from Bush Failure to Hold Top Officials Accountable
Former Vice President Al Gore will deliver a major foreign policy address in New York City on Wednesday, sponsored by MoveOn PAC, calling for the resignation of five members of the Bush Administration team and one member of the military command responsible for the failed policy and abuse of prisoners in Iraq.
Gore will identify the various ways in which all Americans--soldiers in Iraq, residents and travelers abroad, and citizens at home--are endangered by the bitterness created throughout the Islamic world--and beyond--by US policy.
He will also explore the linkages between the President's Iraq policy and the torture of prisoners at Abu Ghraib prison.
3:54 PM | Post or Read Comments (1)
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I hate waiting for the one day pass too
But this Tom Tomorrow cartoon is worth it.
12:55 AM | Post or Read Comments (0)
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No Jessica sitcom
ABC makes the announcement to heartbroken standup comics everywhere.
Fortunately, Jessica Simpson has found a new forum for her talents: old media.
She has a 41-show North American tour this summer, and the size of the audiences at her live shows and her record sales have been impressive. She is even meeting with book publishers.
12:50 AM | Post or Read Comments (0)
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Record Insider Selling
What's this all about?
The surge of selling also suggests that many executives realized that stocks remain decidedly expensive, despite the bear market of 2000 to 2002. The Standard & Poor's 500-stock index closed on Friday at a price-to-earnings ratio of about 20, well above its historical average.
Insider sales have slowed in recent weeks as the market has fallen, but the amount of money made this year remains impressive. Executives sold $14.4 billion worth of stock in the first four months of the year, up from $4 billion in the period last year, according to Thomson Financial.
'We have been tracking insider sales since 1971, and in the last few months they have never been higher,' said David Coleman, editor of Vickers Weekly Insider Report. 'There has been some pullback in the last few weeks.'
12:05 AM | Post or Read Comments (0)
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Monday, May 24, 2004
Losing the battle, losing the war
Our attacks in Shiite holy cities have enormous repercussions for our national interest in the long term. They will make anti-terrorism strategy in South Asia hugely problematic by limiting what little pro-American wiggle room Musharraf and anti-Sunni fundamentalist forces in Pakistan have left. I'm sorry to quote Juan Cole again--originality is an important virtue in a blog--but he is right on this one:
The demonstration in Islamabad, Pakistan, was small, but there were anti-American sermons in Shiite mosques throughout the country. Pakistan's population is 140 million or so, and I estimate Shiites at 15%. If I'm right, that's 21 million angry South Asians. Pakistani Shiites are afraid of al-Qaeda and its allies, like the radical Sunni group, Sipah-i Sahabah (Army of the Prophet's Companions), who assassinate Shiites for sport. They had been a support for Gen. Musharraf's policy of turning against the Taliban and allying with the US. Now Bush's attacks on Karbala and Najaf have begun deeply alienating them from the US.
It's worth remembering that Pakistan is the one Islamic nation that has a nuclear program. It has also shown a willingness to proliferate--and that's when it's our "ally." Elements of its intelligence services were the training ground for Taliban and almost certainly continue to retain ties to the remnants Al Qaeda. Pakistan is a neighbor to Afghanistan, Iran, China and India (which is the primary reason that it has always gotten a sweeter geopolitical deal from the United States despite its poor behavior--it has far more strategic borders to offer).
The nation's limited democratic process remains a check to Musharraf's power. The 2002 elections greatly strengthened Sunni fundamentalists' hand in the government. The emerging hatred of the United States among Shiites could easily combine with the growing hatred among Sunnis to result in a future Parliament that continually demanded an anti-U.S. foreign policy. That's a short to medium term problem for the United States.
The long term (and greater) problem is not electoral but revolutionary change. Musharraf has already escaped two assassination attempts, one of which just barely missed. Just think about what could happen if there was a coup there. Who would take over? What would that mean for Afghanistan? What would it mean for Iranian nuclear prospects?
Even neoconservatives should have been more concerned about Iran and Pakistan than Iraq. We are about to lose Iraq; in the process of pursuing that elective war, we may have lost our shot with two far more critical nations as well.
I shudder to consider the consequences.
1:30 AM | Post or Read Comments (0)
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Yikes
Hack compares today's generals and politicians to Ike, and finds them wanting. And he is furious.
12:29 AM | Post or Read Comments (0)
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Sunday, May 23, 2004
Zinni on 60 Minutes tonight
The dark horse VP candidate takes the gloves off and, naturally, promotes a book:
In the book, Zinni writes: 'In the lead up to the Iraq war and its later conduct, I saw at a minimum, true dereliction, negligence and irresponsibility, at worse, lying, incompetence and corruption.'
“I think there was dereliction in insufficient forces being put on the ground and fully understanding the military dimensions of the plan. I think there was dereliction in lack of planning,” says Zinni. “The president is owed the finest strategic thinking. He is owed the finest operational planning. He is owed the finest tactical execution on the ground. … He got the latter. He didn’t get the first two.”
Zinni says Iraq was the wrong war at the wrong time - with the wrong strategy. And he was saying it before the U.S. invasion. In the months leading up to the war, while still Middle East envoy, Zinni carried the message to Congress: “This is, in my view, the worst time to take this on. And I don’t feel it needs to be done now.”
But he wasn’t the only former military leader with doubts about the invasion of Iraq. Former General and National Security Advisor Brent Scowcroft, former Centcom Commander Norman Schwarzkopf, former NATO Commander Wesley Clark, and former Army Chief of Staff Eric Shinseki all voiced their reservations.
Zinni believes this was a war the generals didn’t want – but it was a war the civilians wanted.
“I can't speak for all generals, certainly. But I know we felt that this situation was contained. Saddam was effectively contained. The no-fly, no-drive zones. The sanctions that were imposed on him,” says Zinni.
“Now, at the same time, we had this war on terrorism. We were fighting al Qaeda. We were engaged in Afghanistan. We were looking at 'cells' in 60 countries. We were looking at threats that we were receiving information on and intelligence on. And I think most of the generals felt, let's deal with this one at a time. Let's deal with this threat from terrorism, from al Qaeda."
6:51 PM | Post or Read Comments (0)
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Bye bye, Bayh
A new poll commissioned by the Indianapolis Star shows Bush over Kerry, 54 to 33, with 6 for Nader. Bush's job performance approval/disapproval is 52/43.
Even bigger news on the Veepstakes front:
Even if Kerry selected U.S. Sen. Evan Bayh, D-Ind., as his running mate, only a very small number of voters said they would consider switching their support to the Democratic ticket.
This presumably makes Vilsack and Gephardt the frontrunners should Kerry opt for a Midwestern strategy.
2:28 PM | Post or Read Comments (0)
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Crazy Jerry
He will run to be the next Attorney General of California. I'm sure he'll make a great one, although I have to wonder whether Jacques Barzaghi will go to Sacramento with him. His agenda actually seems pretty inspiring:
Brown has met with inmates at San Quentin and with parolees who have just returned to Oakland after serving prison time. He has said that much of state's violent crime problem is attributed to ex-convicts who return to their communities after serving time for minor drug offenses or parole violations -- including about 3,000 in Oakland.
'Each year we release thousands of parolees who are angry and absolutely unprepared to function in society,' Brown said. 'There are thousands of inmates who just cycle in and out of the prison system and never gain any job skills or education level beyond elementary school ... They have no employment skills and they end up going back to same drug corners.
Brown also conceded that as governor in 1978 he made a 'big mistake' by signing a law that got rid of indeterminate sentencing which made the parole system less flexible.
'We never should have gotten rid of indeterminate sentencing -- we lost the ability to rehabilitate offenders,' Brown said last year at a hearing on parole by the state's Little Hoover Commission.
2:14 PM | Post or Read Comments (0)
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Oil politics
Hard to see how this issue is going to work for Bush, when only 14% of the nation thinks drilling for more oil is the best response to gas prices. A good 41%, on the other hand, think the best solution is more fuel efficient cars, while 40% think the solution is to fine oil companies that gouge consumers. If Zogby has it right, 81% of the country has not-so-Republican views on a subject that hits them where they live.
2:08 PM | Post or Read Comments (0)
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Yet another Bush ally down
Unlike Tony Blair, however, Rupert, I mean, Silvio, doesn't have to face the music till 2006. Otherwise, he would go the way of Aznar.
2:01 PM | Post or Read Comments (0)
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Throwing them to the wolves, part II
Robert Kaiser slams the administration's conduct of the war, but accepts the emerging GOP party line, as advanced by Will, Buchanan, Carlson (and, soon, a lot more Republicans, just you watch) who accepted neoconservatives and their political ideology so long as the Iraq war advanced George W. Bush's political fortunes:
As George Will and others have argued, administration policy has been 'neoconservative,' rather than hard-headed and just plain conservative. A neoconservative believes that certain things must happen, Will wrote, whereas rational conservatives would only say that those things can happen. In his recent column on these subjects, Will pleaded for more reliance on empirical evidence -- in other words, on pragmatism: 'This administration needs a dose of conservatism without the prefix.'
1:40 PM | Post or Read Comments (0)
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Feel safer now? Part XXIV
Just months after Bush took office, North Korea, which actually has WMD, sold two tons of uranium to Libya.
A giant cask of uranium hexafluoride was turned over to the United States by the Libyans earlier this year as part of Col. Muammar el-Qaddafi's agreement to give up his nuclear program, and the Americans identified Pakistan as the likely source.
But in recent weeks the International Atomic Energy Agency has found strong evidence that the uranium came from North Korea, basing its conclusion on interviews of members of the secret nuclear supplier network set up by Abdul Qadeer Khan, the former head of Pakistan's main nuclear laboratory. Two years ago, the United States charged that North Korea was working to build its own uranium-based nuclear weapons, which would require the same raw materials.
The uranium shipped to Libya could not be used as nuclear fuel unless it was enriched in centrifuges, which the Libyans were constructing as part of a $100 million program to purchase equipment from the Khan network.
If enriched, the fuel Libya obtained could produce a single nuclear weapon, experts say. But the Libyan discovery suggests that North Korea may be capable of producing far larger quantities, especially because the country maintains huge mines that the Federation of American Scientists has described as "four million tons of exploitable high-quality uranium."
At a moment when the Bush administration is focused on Iraq, the fresh intelligence on North Korea poses another challenge to the United States.
[...]"The North Koreans have been selling missiles for years to many countries," one senior Bush administration official said recently, referring to the country's well-known sales to Iran, Syria, Egypt, Pakistan and other nations. "Now, we have to look at their trading network in a very different context, to see if something much worse was happening as well."
[...]In recent months, intelligence agencies in Europe and in the United States have picked up indications that North Korea has nuclear ties not only to Libya but also to Iran, which has embarked on a sprawling nuclear effort that Iran claims is peaceful but was also secretly aided for many years by Dr. Khan and his atomic black market.
Yet another reason so many in our intelligence services and security community have been so worried, for so long, about George W. Bush's foreign policy priorities.
1:06 PM | Post or Read Comments (0)
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Iraq: Putting the grownups in charge
We sure didn't. Then again, I have low expectations of MBA's to begin with.
1:01 PM | Post or Read Comments (0)
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Throwing them to the wolves
This morning on the Chris Matthews Show, ratboy Tucker Carlson continued the slow-building Republican effort to blame the neocons for Iraq by stating it rather baldly: "It was never a conservative war."
11:38 AM | Post or Read Comments (0)
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The other shoe
This is so shocking that I don't even know what to make of it or what its consequences will be:
A military lawyer for a soldier charged in the Abu Ghraib abuse case stated that a captain at the prison said the highest-ranking U.S. military officer in Iraq was present during some 'interrogations and/or allegations of the prisoner abuse,' according to a recording of a military hearing obtained by The Washington Post.
The lawyer, Capt. Robert Shuck, said he was told that Army Lt. Gen. Ricardo S. Sanchez and other senior military officers were aware of what was taking place on Tier 1A of Abu Ghraib. Shuck is assigned to defend Staff Sgt. Ivan L. 'Chip' Frederick II of the 372nd Military Police Company. During an April 2 hearing that was open to the public, Shuck said the company commander, Capt. Donald J. Reese, was prepared to testify in exchange for immunity. The military prosecutor questioned Shuck about what Reese would say under oath.
'Are you saying that Captain Reese is going to testify that General Sanchez was there and saw this going on?' asked Capt. John McCabe, the military prosecutor.
'That's what he told me,' Shuck said. 'I am an officer of the court, sir, and I would not lie. I have got two children at home. I'm not going to risk my career.'
Shuck also said a sergeant at the prison, First Sgt. Brian G. Lipinski, was prepared to testify that intelligence officers told him the abuse of detainees on the cellblock was 'the right thing to do.' Earlier this month, Lipinski declined to comment on the case."
12:20 AM | Post or Read Comments (0)
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Saturday, May 22, 2004
Idol Wisdom
From Tim Cuprisin of the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel.
11:15 PM | Post or Read Comments (0)
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