Enemy Combatant
Thursday, September 30, 2004
Daily Show Again Caught Telling Painfully Unfunny Truth
Here's a transcript of last night's Daily Show, courtesy of Angry Bear:
JON STEWART: …Can we talk a little bit about what’s really going to happen at the debates tomorrow?
ED HELMS: [Sarcasm] Ookaay. This is the report I’m going to file. [grabs notebook and starts reading, in a quick monotone]. The two candidates exchanged pointed barbs about our Iraq policy and the war on Terror. Senator Kerry made strides towards shedding what some of his analysts call a patrician image…yadda yadda yadda…but the president with his plainspoken words was more effective in communicating his vision by relentless ...
STEWART: [interjecting] Ed. Ed, I’m sorry. You’ve written your report as though it's already happened. This is, is…
HELMS: Yeah, I wrote it yesterday.
STEWART: You write you stories in advance? And then put it in the past tense?
HELMS: Yeah. We all do. All the reporters do that.
STEWART: Why?
HELMS: We write the narratives in advance based on conventional wisdom, and then whatever happens, we make it fit that storyline.
STEWART: Why?
HELMS: We…We’re lazy. Lazy thinkers.
STEWART: But what happens if actual news happens?
HELMS: That’s what bloggers are for.
And here's what ABC News had up on its site until just a few moments ago (courtesy of Atrios's Eschaton):
CORAL GABLES, Fla. Sept. 30, 2004 — After a deluge of campaign speeches and hostile television ads, President Bush and challenger John Kerry got their chance to face each other directly Thursday night before an audience of tens of millions of voters in a high-stakes debate about terrorism, the Iraq war and the bloody aftermath.
The 90-minute encounter was particularly crucial for Kerry, trailing slightly in the polls and struggling for momentum less than five weeks before the election. The Democratic candidate faced the challenge of presenting himself as a credible commander in chief after a torrent of Republican criticism that he was prone to changing his positions.
Bush was expected to confront questions about leading the nation into war on the still-unproven premise that Iraq had weapons of mass destruction. He also has faced accusations that he lacked a strategy to deal with the violence and chaos that have left more than 1,000 Americans dead and that the Iraq war has diverted U.S. attention from al-Qaida and other terrorists.
Now, tell me again -- who's the real newscaster here, and who's the joke?
Wednesday, September 29, 2004
The Eminently Sensible Prof. Jack Balkin:
Ashcroft: We Need More Death
JB
Attorney General Ashcroft is unhappy that juries around the country seem less and less interested in killing people, the Los Angeles Times reports:
Shortly after arriving at the Justice Department nearly four years ago, Atty. Gen. John Ashcroft was faced with a new internal study that raised serious questions about the application of the federal death penalty.
A small number of federal districts, including pockets of Texas and Virginia, were accounting for the bulk of death cases. Experts decried the geographical disparities.
For Ashcroft, an ardent supporter of capital punishment, the solution was to seek the death penalty more often and more widely.
Since then, he has pushed federal prosecutors around the country — often over their objections — to be more aggressive in identifying prosecutions that could qualify as federal capital cases. Much of that effort has been in states that have banned or rarely impose capital punishment.
But Ashcroft's quiet campaign, which has been overshadowed by his prosecution of terrorism cases, has made few inroads.
With public support for the death penalty in decline, jurors have rebuffed calls for the death penalty in 23 of the 34 federal capital cases tried since 2001, according to the Federal Death Penalty Resource Counsel Project, a court- funded group that assists defense lawyers in capital cases.
Whether one supports or opposes the ability of the state to sentence people to death, one should applaud rather than decry the fact that juries in this country seem less willing to impose it. That trend has been produced by the individual decisions of members of the local communities all over the United States, who are supposed to represent, however imperfectly, the conscience of their communities. Even if one grants, as one must, that prosecutors and existing legal precedents play a role in the decrease in jury sentences of death, the trend is clear.
Juries all over the country are telling the courts that death is a matter of last resort, to be used sparingly, and only in the most serious cases. In many places they do not want it to be used at all. This is not timidity. It is not lack of empathy for victims. It is not insufficient concern with justice. It is civilization. By comparison with these juries all around the country, who regard the taking of a criminal defendant's life with supreme seriousness, Attorney General Ashcroft seems a savage, bloodthirsty brute.
Why is such a man the nation's chief law enforcement officer?
Posted 9:11 AM by JB
If Kerry Won't Give Bush The Smackdown On Iraq, The People Have To
from salon.com:
In a TV commercial released Wednesday, Cindy Sheehan, a 47-year-old woman from Vacaville, Calif., whose 24-year-old son was killed in Sadr City in April, speaks directly to George W. Bush.
Shot in black-and-white, her soft voice cracking, she says, "I imagined it would hurt if one of my kids was killed, but I never thought it would hurt this bad, especially someone so honest and brave as Casey, my son. When you haven't been honest with us, when you and your advisors rushed us into this war. How do you think we felt when we heard the Senate report that said there was no link between Iraq and 9/11?"
This is one of four new ads featuring relatives of soldiers killed in Iraq, produced by a new political action committee called RealVoices.org. At a time when soldiers' parents have been arrested at Bush rallies and thrown out of the Republican National Convention for trying to make themselves heard, Real Voices was formed to broadcast the excruciating messages of those who feel that their loved ones' lives were wasted in Iraq.
Before they decide whether to give Dances With Goats four more years to slide us all further toward mayhem and entropy, the American people need to hear from these families -- repeatedly, on television.
I just sent them $25. How about you?
Tuesday, September 28, 2004
Here's A Good Soundbite, Mr. Kerry
Are you listening?
Monday, September 27, 2004
Why Wait Until Friday Morning? Write Your Own Debate Postmortem Here
From Democratic Underground:
Don't be surprised! Here's how the media will cover Kerry's and Chimp's debate performance:
Kerry: If he's serious, they'll say he's glum, gloomy, pessimistic, and uninspiring.
If he's jovial, they'll say he's phony and trying too hard.
Bush: If he's serious, he's, presidential, the war-time commander in chief.
If he's jovial, everybody wants to have a beer with him.
Kerry: If he's forceful, they'll say he's too aggressive, mean, negative, desperate.
If he's calm, they'll say he's weak, unsteady, dull, lacks energy.
Bush: If he's forceful, he's strong, resolute, unwavering.
If he's calm, he's prepared, on-message, disciplined, reserved.
Kerry: If he's specific, they'll say he's wonkish, presenting "laundry lists," being overly-intellectual, show-offy, and nobody likes the smart kid.
If he's not specific, they'll say he's vague, criticizing but not offering solutions, not addressing the issues, and nobody knows who he is.
Bush: If he's specific, he "lays out his plan" and "makes his case."
If he's not specific, he's spanning the issues, giving a global presentation, painting a broad outline of his plans.
Kerry: If he jokes, they'll say he lacks gravitas, trivializes important issues, doesn't understand troops are in harm's way, nation's at war, disrespects the president, etc.
If he doesn't joke, they'll say he needs to lighten up, he's too stoney, he's wooden.
Bush: If he jokes, he's a man of the people, a regular guy, people relate to him.
If he doesn't joke, he truly cares about the American people and his sincerity resonates with voters in this difficult time.
Plus, if he finds his podium and doesn't trip on his way to it, he's surpassed all expectations. (Extra points for correct pronunciation of "Abu Ghraib" or "nuclear.")
Sunday, September 26, 2004
Question #1 At The Debate:
Has Bush ever stopped doing drugs?
CRAWFORD, Texas (Reuters) - President Bush said he had no regrets about donning a flight suit to give his "Mission Accomplished" speech on Iraq in May 2003 and would do it all over again if he had the chance, according to excerpts from an television interview released on Sunday.
Kerry's already begun pummelling Bush about the head and shoulders for this, and rightly so.
Of course, if we any longer lived on the proper side of the Looking Glass, where what the President said and did got close and ruthless scrutiny by the media, Bush would already be long gone from office, shipped off to the Hague, and on trial alongside Slobo . . .
Friday, September 24, 2004
Does Bush Really See The World Through Rose-Colored Glasses
or is the tint deliberate, and accurate -- when everything and everyone around him is drenched in blood and red ink?
Thursday, September 23, 2004
Holy Cripes! There Are Some Wingnuts Out There!
And sometimes they call into CSPAN:
PETER SLEN, HOST: Kenner, Louisiana, good morning.
CALLER (in a very airy voice): Good morning. I’m going to vote for President Bush because, after all, you know, God made us there, you know, in His image, free from any black color and all [Host looks up, surprised]. The only church that Kerry can go to is where they say the Black Mass, and that is in the Merriam-Webster Pocket Book dictionary, where it says that that is the devil worshippers. [Host looks uncomfortably off-camera, at producer?] I would never vote for, you know, Senator Kerry . . .
I'm more determined than ever to vote -- if for no other reason than to cancel out this propellerhead's vote.
Once Again, Kerry Turns His Swift Boat Into The Gunfire
If you can get past the Republican self-congratulatory onanism in this Wall Street Journal story (and since when has their editorial-page mouthfrothing bled into their journalism? But I digress), you'll see that Kerry has made the crucial choice for his campaign between now and Judgment Day -- making the Iraq War the central focus of his argument Why We Need To Get Rid Of Bush.
Considerably more wetted-fingers-to-the-wind to get to this point than I would have liked, but hey, we're finally here.
Jimmy Carter got elected in 1976 by telling Americans he'd never lie to us. We've just been through, like, five Watergates, only without a single indictment, let alone a conviction or a resignation. Hell, even a firing.
It's Bobby and LBJ all over again, folks. (Only minus the Sirhan2, this time.) Kerry pounds Bush on this nonstop between now and November 2nd, and the distinct odor of lightly burned bread will commence to be smelled around the old Crawford soundstage (er, "ranch").
Wednesday, September 22, 2004
I love it when Google does this stuff:
It's Ray Charles's birthday:
The Incomparable Mark Morford, On Our "Squanderful" SUV Culture
You just gotta love the fact that some semitruck company somewhere called International Truck and Engine Corp. is now coming out with what they claim is the world's largest production pickup, called the CXT, all 9 feet high and 8 feet wide, a whopping 21 feet long and 14,500 pounds and 18 million excruciating earthly groans of it.
And in most states that don't give a crap for their roads or the environment or any human life that might be existing in the various passenger cars surrounding it, you don't need a commercial truck license to own or drive the CXT, a vehicle that makes the Hummer H2 look like a Honda Civic and that makes all the manly thick-necked boys go, ooohhhyeessss, and that the company itself claims, oh so tellingly, will absolutely guarantee your title of "king of the dirt pile."
See, there is this point. There is this point where it all becomes just beyond silly and absurd and surreal. There is this threshold you reach where you finally just have to toss in the moral and spiritual and intellectual and commonsensical towel and just laugh out loud and shake your head and sigh and then run off to the woods with a bottle of fine sake and the collected Coltrane. This is what you have to do. Especially when faced with such wicked absurdities as, say, Kraft Lunchables. Or John Ashcroft. Or Dr. Phil. Or the CXT.
Tuesday, September 21, 2004
Everybody Must Go AWOL!
In the ongoing yet neglected narrative of how Emperor Tipsy Dixit has brought our military to its knees, here are a couple of interesting tidbits:
Fort Drum has seen 645 warrants for desertion issued since Sept. 11, 2001.
40 percent of Army reservists fail to report to Fort Jackson
At this rate, I figure, there'll be a major return to battlefield fragging in no time.
Thursday, September 16, 2004
An Army Captain Tells It Like It Is On The NewsHour
"Well, I mean, the first thing we need to note here is that the president is a failed commander- in-chief. President Bush sent soldiers like me to die for weapons that we can't find.
If that doesn't prove that he's failed his last four years as president, frankly, I'm not sure what does. Sen. Kerry is the only one of the two candidates who has the credibility to bring allies to our side.
Our force levels in Iraq are so high that soldiers like myself, who spent, you know, an entire year . . . or some of them have spent entire years in Iraq, have come home for a year, and are now going back. 43 percent of Operation Iraqi Freedom Three is going to be guard and reserve forces.
This president has broken this military. And John Kerry's the only one of the two who's given us any alternatives or any possibility of hope. He's the one who supports increasing the size of the army by 40,000 soldiers, not President Bush.
He's the one who has the credibility to go back to the world, because let's be honest, the world isn't against the United States; they're against our president.
And I'll tell you what, going it alone hurt soldiers like me. Going it alone burdened our American army to a point where we've had to back draft people in our military.
I went to war because of this backdoor draft. Even though my time was up, I still went, and I did my duty. But the American public has a right to know the truth about this war.
We can talk all day long about what Sen. Kerry said at the National Guard today, but, you know what, he leveled with the national guardsmen. He didn't make any crazy attempts to link al-Qaida and Saddam Hussein. He leveled with the soldiers and said, "you know, you guys are fighting hard."
And I'm going to be honest with you, President Bush continues to mislead our country about the direction of our war. And he hasn't even . . . this is a guy . . . this is a president who will not even support mandatory funding for our health care.
It was a dark day for me when I had to return home from the war in Iraq, have some bad dreams, go to my veterans hospital only to find out that the same man who sent me to war has turned his back on me when I came home, and decided that he was going to close our veterans hospital here in Pittsburgh on Highland Drive. "
* * *
"My experience on the ground was that, you know, we had a president who, prior to 9/11, his policies in Europe going against the Kyoto Accords, and deciding he wanted to build super-duper missile defense systems, had no credibility to build a coalition, spent our defense money on, you know, things like missile systems when we needed body armor and tanks.
My unit did not have body armor when we went to Iraq. When we got on the ground, I went from Kuwait to Baghdad in a convoy. Baghdad's very different from the southern part of the country where there's a British contingent.
Baghdad has lost . . . we've lost more American soldiers in Baghdad than any other place. That's why we're footing 90 percent of the bill for the war and 90 percent of the casualties.
And when we went to Baghdad, I heard my president tell our country that our mission was accomplished, and that same night I had two RPG's flung at my convoy and one of my trucks blown up. He clearly wasn't leveling with the American public. And then when I was in Baghdad, we started losing soldiers every day.
Every day we went out, there was combat. And when one of my soldiers died, I had to hear my commander-in-chief so eloquently entice my enemy with, "Bring it on," a deep sorrow day for me as an officer inside Iraq."
Army Capt. Jon Soltz, Iraqi occupational forces, May - September 2003 -- now Pennsylvania state co-coordinator, Veterans for Kerry
Sunday, September 12, 2004
Presciently, H.L. Mencken Advises The 2004 Bush Campaign
from his vantage point, on the pages of The Chicago Sunday Tribune, July 25, 1926:
. . . No normal human being wants to hear the truth. It is the passion of a small and aberrant minority of men, most of them pathological. They are hated for telling it while they live, and when they die they are swiftly forgotten. What remains to the world, in the field of wisdom, is a series of long tested and solidly agreeable lies.
This Young Man Reassures Me, Where The Old Man He's Become Does Not
"It takes a special courage to speak out against a cause for which you were once prepared to die."
-- Jeffrey Smith, a West Point-trained C.I.A. man and Kerry contemporary, on John Kerry's 1971 Congressional testimony
Maybe If The Democrats Distributed The Information On Free Software
as magazine inserts, some of the "undecided" voters might finally get the point?
Saturday, September 11, 2004
Time To Re-Don
those alcoa fedoras:
Blast, mushroom cloud reported in N. Korea
Sept. 11, 2004 | SEOUL, South Korea (AP) -- A large explosion occurred in the northern part of North Korea, sending a huge mushroom cloud into the air on an important anniversary of the communist regime, a South Korean news agency reported Sunday.
As soon as I get my absentee ballot, I'm taking a decisive act to defend my country -- and it won't take me seven minutes to decide what to do. That way, on Election Day, I'll be free to help others get to the polls.
We've got to get rid of these incompetent clowns. They're going to get us all killed.
Cheney Says It Straight Out; Bush Just Gestures
. . . or maybe this is his signal to Condi that he's pissed at Laura?
Friday, September 10, 2004
We're Not In Lake Wobegon Anymore
The party of Lincoln and Liberty was transmogrified into the party of hairy-backed swamp developers and corporate shills, faith-based economists, fundamentalist bullies with Bibles, Christians of convenience, freelance racists, misanthropic frat boys, shrieking midgets of AM radio, tax cheats, nihilists in golf pants, brownshirts in pinstripes, sweatshop tycoons, hacks, fakirs, aggressive dorks, Lamborghini libertarians, people who believe Neil Armstrong’s moonwalk was filmed in Roswell, New Mexico, little honkers out to diminish the rest of us, Newt’s evil spawn and their Etch-A-Sketch president, a dull and rigid man suspicious of the free flow of information and of secular institutions, whose philosophy is a jumble of badly sutured body parts trying to walk. Republicans: The No.1 reason the rest of the world thinks we’re deaf, dumb and dangerous.
-- Garrison Keillor
Wednesday, September 08, 2004
Bush, "Staying The Course" During The Vietnam War, Courageously Volunteers To Stay Home:
from their (fascinatingly surreal) 2/8/04 interview:
Russert: Were you favor of the war in Vietnam?
President Bush: I supported my government. I did. And would have gone had my unit been called up, by the way.
Russert: But you didn't volunteer or enlist to go.
President Bush: No, I didn't. You're right. I served. I flew fighters and enjoyed it, and provided a service to our country. In those days we had what was called "air defense command," and it was a part of the air defense command system.
The thing about the Vietnam War that troubles me as I look back was it was a political war. We had politicians making military decisions, and it is lessons that any president must learn, and that is to the set the goal and the objective and allow the military to come up with the plans to achieve that objective. And those are essential lessons to be learned from the Vietnam War.
Gee, and here I thought an "essential lesson" to be learned from the Vietnam War was something about the government *lying* to the American public about motives, tactics, "progress" and outcomes of an unwinnable guerilla war against nationalist insurgents trying to drive us out of their country . . .
But what do I know? In February of 1968, for me, it was quite the ethical quandary: either (1) sign up for Vietnam; or (2) finish fourth grade . . .
Tuesday, September 07, 2004
Historical Newsflash: Elephant First Used To Symbolize Republican Voters -- Timid, Stupid, Easily Stampeded Republican Voters
Ah, the things we learn from history. Straight from the pachyderm's mouth:
The symbol of the elephant first appeared in Harper’s Weekly on November 7, 1874 in a cartoon by Thomas Nast.
Two unconnected events led to the birth of the Republican Elephant. In the political arena of the time, Ulysses S. Grant was midway through his second term as President and considering a third term. The New York Herald and illustrated journalists were depicting Grant wearing a crown raising the cry of "Caesarism." The Democrats had taken up the issue during the mid-term elections in order to disaffect Republican voters.
At the same time, in a completely non-political arena, the Herald was involving itself in a delightful hoax known as the Central Park Menagerie Scare of 1874. They ran a story, totally untrue, claiming that the animals of the zoo had broken loose and were roaming New York’s Central Park in search of prey.
Cartoonist Thomas Nast took the two events and put them together in a cartoon for Harper’s Weekly. He showed an ass (symbolizing the Herald) wearing a lion’s skin (the scary prospect of Caesarism) frightening away the animals in the forest (Central Park). The caption quoted a familiar fable:
"An ass having put on a lion’s skin roamed about in the forest and amused himself by frightening all the foolish animals he met within his wanderings."
--From William Safire’s New Language of Politics, Revised edition, Collier Books, New York, 1972.
One of the foolish animals in the cartoon was an elephant, representing the Republican vote -- not the party. It showed the Republican vote being frightened away from its normal ties by the phony scare of Caesarism. In a subsequent cartoon, after the election in which the Republicans did badly, Nast showed the elephant in a trap, illustrating how the Republican vote had been decoyed from its normal allegiance. Other cartoonists picked up the symbol and it soon ceased to represent the voters, but came to represent the Party itself. The jackass, now referred to as the donkey, made a natural transition from representing the Herald to representing the Democrats who had frightened the elephant.
Monday, September 06, 2004
Q: What's The Opposite Of A "Yellow Dog Democrat?"
A: It's a "Zell-oh Dog Democrat," of course!
Sunday, September 05, 2004
Republicans, once again displaying that "compassionate conservatism" for which they're famous, here and abroad.
From TalkLeft:
Watch this ABC news video of a young Republican supporter kicking a female protester inside Madison Square Garden as she was lying on the ground being held by three secret service agents. The protesters were arrested. The young Republican was not. A search is on for his identity. Have you seen him?
Memo To Dick: Learn Serbian -- We Plan To Make You And Slobo Cellmates
"Senator Kerry says he sees two Americas. It makes the whole thing mutual. America sees two John Kerrys."
-- Dick Cheney, 9/1/04
That's not true, Dick, but -- for you and Chicken George -- come November 3rd, it'll only feel like there were two John Kerrys.
Swift Boat Inspectors-General For Partisan Hatchet-Jobs
Homeland Security may be suppressing the information domestically (who knows), but according to at least one Tory rag from across the pond (where journalists, right and left, still seem to cling to the quaint notion that their job is to "ferret out the news"), the Pentagon is launching an investigation into whether Kerry earned all his medals in Vietnam. The nugget of the story -- what looks to be the trigger for the investigation -- is this:
Among other records to be examined is a citation of Mr Kerry for bravery that was apparently signed by the former Navy Secretary, John Lehman, and contributed to the award of his silver star. The glowing citation states: "By his brave actions, bold initiative and unwavering devotion to duty, Lt Kerry reflected great credit on himself." But Mr Lehman denies all knowledge of the commendation. "It's a total mystery to me," he said last week. "I never saw it, I never signed it and I never approved it." The inquiry will also investigate other reports and citations leading to the award of Mr Kerry's medals.
Gosh, Bush's chief hatchet man on the Kissinger -- er, Keane 9/11 Commission, suddenly has an attack of Alzheimer's over a commendation he made 35 years ago, and the Bush campaign gets to enlist the U.S. military into the Swift Boat Veterans' Kerry-Sniper Brigade? That's "changing the tone" in Washington, all right -- to a Stalinesque march.
Naturally, the American media, wishing to get to the bottom of this, will immediately begin peppering former Navy Secretary Lie-Man -- er, Lehman, about: (a) how many commendations did he, in fact, make, during the Vietnam Era; (b) what were their names, and individual circumstances; (c) how did it come about that he was asked, and agreed, to make each commendation; and (d) what records does he have to contradict the existing Pentagon records?
And naturally, the American media (and more importantly, the American *public*) will insist that, if an investigation like this goes forward in the last 60 days of an election, there *MUST* be a tandem, equally-vigorous investigation into Bush's military records, and that any reports on both must be announced in tandem, as well.
Right?
{sigh}
I'm not holding my breath.
Wednesday, September 01, 2004
Separated At Birth?
thanks to Mark Abbott for flagging this one down
