A Partner in Peace
Palastinian leader Mahmoud Abbas’s response to the bombing of a karaoke bar in Tel Aviv on Friday night should leave no doubt that Abbas is exactly what Israeli prime minister Ariel Sharon has long insisted was the missing link in the peace process: a partner for peace. Abbas spoke out immediately against the attack, calling those who orchastrated it terrorists, and promising to bring them to justice, not because it is what the Isrealis want but because it is what the Palastians need, saying, “We will not allow anyone to sabotage the ambitions of our people.”

Breaking with the tradition of his predecessor, Yasar Arrafat, Abbas didn’t pay lip service to the western press and then praise the attackers as martyrs to the Arab press. Instead, he put words into action, ordering the Palastinian police to find those responsible for the attack, resulting in three arrests within 24 hours.

What is left to be seen is whether Isreal will match Abbas in his refreshingly sincere break with the old responses to terror. Some Isreali talking heads hit the airwaves on Saturday with the same old broken record: the Palastinian’s need to put words into action, its up to them to police their people, if they can’t do it, we will. For now at least, Sharon is keeping his mouth shut.

Events in the Middle East can spiral out of control in response to a single event. The catalyst for the second intafada was Sharon’s own decision, in September 2000, to march into the al-Aqsa mosque in Jerusalem with a large cotery of armed gaurds, inciting a clash with locals that left seven Palastinians dead. What followed was four years of horrific bloodshed.

The moral of the story is that neither side can afford any misteps in their handling of the flare ups that will enevitably arise despite the truce that Abbas has wrung out of the major terrorist organizations. Sharon’s recent policies indicate that he is serious about peace. With Abbas as his partner, he stands a fairly good chance of joining the growing pantheon of hawkish conservatives who manage to achieve peace where liberals have failed. Maintaining a measured response to these rogue attacks (although a West Bank cell of Islamic Jihad claimed responsibility for Friday’s attack, the organization’s leaders in Gaza have vehimently denied any knowledge of it) will be tremendously difficult for Isreal’s government, its press, and its people. They, like Abbas, will need to keep their eyes on the prize.

Update: 2/26, 11:19 PM: Islamic Jihad is now taking responsibility for Friday's attack.

- posted by Simon Marcus @ Saturday, February 26, 2005 0 comments

 
The Return of Real Politick?
Watching the Bush administration over the last few weeks, I have to say that I have been fairly pleased with their foreign policy activities. I like the approach they are taking on North Korea. I think their approach to Israel is being largely vindicated (even if a third intafada breaks out, I don’t think it will reflect badly on the administration’s approach). I even think they are handling Iran about as well as it could be handled. We can’t ignore the problem, on the other hand, there isn’t much we can do other than act tough, playing bad cop to Europe’s good cop.


The Condi trip to Europe followed very quickly by the Bush trip was very well orchestrated. In his approach to Putin, Bush gave some depth to how it might be possible to live up to the words of his inauguration speech without starting wars all over the world. All in all, from my perspective, a pretty good start for the second term following a disastrous first term.

Then again, maybe it just feels right to me because it’s a return to real politick. At Bard college, years ago, I studied under the James Chace, a former master practitioner of the art of real politick who became, in his later years, one of its foremost historians and analysts. Chace was all about the mid-century diplomats who made the best they could out of the two-power world, given the fact that the other power was basically the biggest rogue state of all time.

The neo-cons cheered when Reagan broke ranks with the practitioners of real politick and waged what amounted to open verbal warfare against the Russians. History now shines favorably on Reagan’s approach, while most of the old real politickers are disappearing into the fog of the past. Today, I wonder how the neo-cons feel about Bush’s recent return to the old style of international diplomacy. Some of them, no doubt, blame the failure of real politick in the post cold war era for the birth of the modern terror movement, and they are probably right to some degree.

Still, there is something very comforting about seeing adults acting like adults, and to a large degree, that is what real politick really was. Its about smiling across the dinner table over thanksgiving even though you really hate your families guts. Will it work in the war on terror? Only time will tell.

- posted by Simon Marcus @ Friday, February 25, 2005 0 comments

 
What Liberal Media?

Seriously. Something funny's afoot in the kind of press Bush is getting these days. There was that bombshell of the secret tapes, in an impressively spinless (or spineless, to the Bush haters) piece in the NYT. Every president could use such a scandal. There's the subtly appreciative tone in the article linked in the title, from the foreign press, which depicts Bush doing his usual thing. I can imagine a very different spin on Bush lecturing Putin, with Bush being portrayed as a clumsy and aggressive cowboy who unwittingly humiliated his Russian counterpart. Oh wait, that is more or less how the BBC sees it , except that now they're saying that's kind of a good thing:

The president is wonderfully un-European - refreshingly so in the view of those of us who have worked in Brussels.

He is unsmooth. He stumbles over his sentences. He uses short, plain, sometimes almost babyish words, while the sophisticated multilingual Euro crowd prefer obfuscatory long ones.

And he gets a clear message across, like it or not. He has no need of spin.

It was interesting that on the White House bus back into town, the journalists did not need to compare notes or discuss the president's words and what they meant.

On the other hand, for Chirac and Schroeder there was a discussion that would have made an old-style Kremlinologist blush.

Much of it was over my head, but my clever colleague Alec Russell from the Telegraph held his own rather well, I am pleased to report, in an argument with a Dutchman about whether a particular message was "implicit" or "explicit" in a text.

Some people think Schroeder said one thing about Nato and some think he actually meant another. Others claim that Chirac really believes Schroeder wanted to say... etc etc.

Welcome to Europe, Mr Bush.

Did these journalists finally get the memo about kowtowing to the bigwigs, or are they perhaps starting to take Bush seriously?

UPDATE: Is Bush really pulling a Hasselhoff? More here. It's an opinion piece in the Telegraph.

...as I listened to George W Bush telling Europeans that his campaign for liberty and democracy arose directly from ideals that had originated with them. You could almost hear the injured bewilderment in his voice: this was all your idea in the first place.

- posted by Anonymous @ Friday, February 25, 2005 1 comments

 
The Tyranny of the Majority
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"It is emphatically the province and duty of the judicial department to say what the law is. Those who apply the rule to particular cases, must of necessity expound and interpret that rule. If two laws conflict with each other, the courts must decide on the operation of each."

— Chief Justice John Marshall

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Activist Judges, Midnight Appointments, the Power of the Presidency. February 24th is witching day. Man I gotta tell ya the history of the Supreme Court is sexy sexy sexy.


First let's just establish that I am not a lawyer so this is all based on my reading. In fact please don't picture me as a lawyer I don't need you all thinking even worse of me (I kid! I kid!).



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William Marbury was a member of the Federalist Party from Maryland.



James Madison, at this point in the story at least, is the Secretary of State, in a few short years he would become the fourth POTUS. He proposed the first 10 amendments to the Constitution, AKA the Bill of Rights.



Couple more guys are involved...

Thomas Jefferson (a Jeffersonian Republican), the FIRST Secretary of State, the SECOND Vice President and the THIRD President of the US (for you frat boys and sorority girls - check out the "Flat Hat Club" Jefferson founded it).



John Adams first vice president, second POTUS, his son John Quincy, 6th POTUS



John Marshall (pictured above) Secretary of State, under Adams AND Chief Justice at the same TIME.

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Ok so Adams was Jefferson's boss while Marshall was Adams' Secretary of State, THEN Jefferson became President, Marshall became Chief Justice and Madison became Secretary of State. Got that? It gets worse Jefferson and Adams where on opposing sides the Federalist vs The Jeffersonian Republicans. To make it clear how opposite... the Jeffersonian Republicans where an evolution of the Anti-Federalist party, I think that is pretty clear. Even better Marshall is Jefferson's COUSIN...

When Adams took over from Washington he was pissed because there where no judgeships to give out to people, so at the end of his term, at the last minute after Jefferson had been elected, but before Jefferson was in office Adams and his party controlled Congress created 42 new judgeships and filled them. Marbury was one of the last approved and apparently didn't get his commission before noon when Jefferson became President, which meant that Jefferson's new Secretary of State, Madison had to deliver it to him, which he refused to do setting up:

William Marbury v. James Madison

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I can't decide if this is all better drama than deciding if the local DA should care who is buggering who in the privacy of their own bedroom, but it seems like everyone is in bed with or trying to screw everyone else and the portraits are really cool.
---

In the end Marshall, on February 24, 1803 produced this:

"The question whether an act repugnant to the constitution can become the law of the land is a question deeply interesting to the United States; but, happily, not of an intricacy proportioned to its interest. It seems only necessary to recognize certain principles, supposed to. have been long and well established, to decide it.

That the people have an original right to establish for their future government such principles as, in their opinion, shall most conduce to their own happiness, is the basis on which the whole American fabric has been erected....

The powers of the legislature are defined and limited; and that those limits may not be mistaken, or forgotten, the constitution is written. To what purpose are powers limited, and to what purpose is that limitation committed to writing, if these limits may, at any time, be passed by those intended to be restrained?

"If an act of the legislature, repugnant to the constitution, is void, does it, notwithstanding its invalidity, bind the courts, and oblige them to give it effect? Or, in other words, though it be not law, does it constitute a rule as operative as if it was a law? This would be to overthrow in fact what was established in theory; and would seem, at first view, an absurdity too gross to be insisted on."

-- Chief Justice Marshall

The very essence of civil liberty certainly consists in the right of every individual to claim the protection of the laws, whenever he receives an injury. One of the first duties of government is to afford that protection. [The] government of the United States has been emphatically termed a government of laws, and not of men. It will certainly cease to deserve this high appellation, if the laws furnish no remedy for the violation of a vested legal right.

-- Chief Justice Marshall

If you are having trouble reading that... it basically says, based on the Constitution of the United States, which only the Supreme Court has the right to interpret, the Supreme Court will decide if the laws passed by Congress are consistent with the constitution. Or... the Supreme Court is an equal partner to the Legislative and Excutive branch. In short Marshall establishes the precedent of "Judicial Review" used by activist judges everywhere to this day... This is big stuff, you may want to go read the Federalist Papers #78 for some more insight, it too was authored by these same guys.

(Appointing Judges for life) In a monarchy it is an excellent barrier to the despotism of the prince; in a republic it is a no less excellent barrier to the encroachments and oppressions of the representative body. And it is the best expedient which can be devised in any government, to secure a steady, upright, and impartial administration of the laws.

Federalist Papers #78

Marbury v Madison is the cornerstone on which court has expanded individual civil rights.

For a more, some would say, "academic" or "accurate" interpretation check out The 200th Anniversary of Marbury v. Madison: The Reasons We Should Still Care About the Decision, and The Lingering Questions It Left Behind

The Court would not declare another act of Congress unconstitutional until 1857 in the Dred Scot case (hey didn't Bush just mention Dred Scot?)...
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Hey man what about the sexy sexy sexy part... oh yeah I almost forgot.

Close your eyes... now imagine... damn it this isn't going to work open your eyes, you'll just have to do this with your eyes open. Ok first imagine an outhouse just outside Lynchburg. Now imagine Jerry Falwell, you know the founder of the "Moral Majority", the guy gave us this great insight into the cause of 9/11:

...throwing God out successfully with the help of the federal court system, throwing God out of the public square, out of the schools. The abortionists have got to bear some burden for this because God will not be mocked. And when we destroy 40 million little innocent babies, we make God mad. I really believe that the pagans, and the abortionists, and the feminists, and the gays and the lesbians who are actively trying to make that an alternative lifestyle, the ACLU, People for the American Way—all of them who have tried to secularize America—I point the finger in their face and say "you helped this happen."

9/13/2001, Jerry Falwell

Still can't picture him? This might help:



Ok, so to review, we got an outhouse and Jerry. Now, throw in Jerry's mom, I can't really help you there. Outhouse, Jerry, Jerry's mom. Now imagine Jerry drunk having incestuous relations with Jerry's mom in the outhouse... but wait there is more!! Now imagine hiring someone to write up your sick fantasy world and publish it in a national magazine. If I was Jerry, I would be pretty pissed at you right now, and in fact Jerry was really pissed, at Larry Flint, publisher of Hustler Magazine.

Personally in my imaginary world I don't get much past the outhouse, Jerry and Mom stage, but clearly there are people out there with better imaginations than me.

One more quick trip back to imaginary land. Imagine a President or Congressman actually defending Larry Flint at this point. Yeah I came up with a blank too. Not to worry though... because on February 24, 1988 the Supreme Court of the United States decided 8-0, for the perv, in Hustler Magazine, Inc. et al. v. Jerry Falwell... Tyranny of the (Moral) Majority vanquished again!!! Hazzah!

- posted by Anonymous @ Thursday, February 24, 2005 1 comments

 
Discussion Piece II: The World Bank
I may get off on a rant here, but try and stick with me. It appears that the World Bank members have agreed to significantly increase the funds available to struggling economies. Before we get too excited, the Bank committed to increasing the funds by 30% last year, but many member countries, most notably Uncle Sam, didn't cough up their share. Nonetheless, the question for debate is this: Does the World Bank model work?

Here is my take (lame and meandering as it may be): Sometimes. If you've ever seen the documentary "Life in Debt," it is clear that some Jamaicans do not have a favorable perception of the WB. The austere measures prescribed by the Bank are often nothing short of political suicide for sitting governments. Moreover, the measures often represent a recipe for collective suffering. Yet, there have been instances, most notably in Eastern Europe, where a country was so committed to growth and recovery, that they were able to endure the tough times. Perhaps, the WB tough times were no worse than the USSR tough times the country had already experienced. Unfortunately, I am not sure how the WB can effectively measure the collective pain threshold of a developing nation.

Nonetheless, I am believer that free markets and an open global economy will benefit us all (well, will benefit most of us). It will not benefit us equally, and there are definitely losers along with winners. I would think that the current nation-building, democracy-spreading, uniting-not-dividing, Bush administration would see the value in bolstering the global economy and pay their dues. But, what do I know. Maybe failing to meet our financial commitments to education (NCLB) and to economic development (WB dues) makes sense. Maybe democracy and economic prosperity is more rapidly proliferated through carpet bombing. What do I know? Now I ask you, "What do you know?"
- posted by Anonymous @ Thursday, February 24, 2005 1 comments

 
Hezbollah's Political Ideology
In a comment to a post on the new "Baghdad Rules" ANSR had the following to say:

This being said, military actions against groups such as Hamas and Hezbollah are as fruitless and irrelevant to our nation's security as actions against the IRA and Tamil Tigers. These groups fight for political ideology, not the personal vendettas of a Bin Laden.

This breezy elevation of Hamas and Hezbollah's status to political (freedom?) fighters was off-putting to me, and it didn't jive with what I knew of H & H. I asked if ANSR was familiar with Hezbollah's political ideology, and got no response.

Here are some excerpts from a very recent speech by Hezbollah secreteray general Hassan Nasrallah, translated by the folks at MEMRI for our edification (full speech linked in the title). Here's a highly biased dossier on the man from a pro-American perspective. Here's one from Al Jazeera.

Hassan Nasrallah:"Israel is our enemy. This is an aggressive, illegal, and illegitimate entity, which has no future in our land. Its destiny is manifested in our motto: 'Death to Israel.'"

Crowd:" Death to Israel"
"Death to Israel"
"Death to Israel"
"Death to Israel"
"Death to Israel"

Hassan Nasrallah: "The American administration is behind Israel. I must clarify that when I say 'America' I do not mean the American people, most of whom are distant and ignorant of what is going on in the world, and of what its government and army are doing in the world. Nevertheless, we consider the current administration an enemy of our [Islamic] nation and of the peoples of our nation, because it has always taken a position of aggression, of occupation, and of supporting Israel with weapons, airplanes, tanks, money, as well as political support, and unlimited protection.

"We consider it to be an enemy because it wants to humiliate our governments, our regimes, and our peoples. Because it is the greatest plunderer our treasures, our oil, and our resources, while millions in our nation suffer unemployment, poverty, hunger, unmarriagability, ignorance, darkness, and so on. America… This American administration is an enemy. Our motto, which we are not afraid to repeat year after year, is: 'Death to America.'"

Crowd: "Death to America"
"Death to America"
"Death to America"
"Death to America"
"Death to America"
"Death to America"

[from another speech]
Hassan Nasrallah:"How can death become joyous? How can death become happiness? When Al-Hussein asked his nephew Al-Qassem, when he had not yet reached puberty: 'How do you like the taste of death, son?' He answered that it was sweeter than honey. How can the foul taste of death become sweeter than honey? Only through conviction, ideology, and faith, through belief, and devotion.

"We do not want to live merely in order to eat, drink, and enjoy life's pleasures, and leave our homeland to Israel so it will slaughter it upon the altar of its aspirations, desires, hate, and historic vendettas. Therefore, we are not interested in our own personal security. On the contrary, each of us lives his days and nights hoping more than anything to be killed for the sake of Allah.

"The most honorable death is to be killed, as the Leader Imam Al-Khamenei said when 'Abbas [Musawi] was martyred. He said: 'Congratulations to 'Abbas, congratulations to 'Abbas.' The most honorable death is death by killing, and the most honorable killing and the most glorious martyrdom is when a man is killed for the sake of Allah, by the enemies of Allah, the murderers of the prophets [i.e. the Jews]."

Yeah, I guess that's a political ideology. And I suppose one could find comfort in the fact that he distinguishes between ignorant American people and the administration, though I don't. Maybe if we'd elected a different president Nasrallah would like us more, but I doubt it.
- posted by Anonymous @ Wednesday, February 23, 2005 2 comments

 
If you play more than two chords, you're showing off.
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Ah... Woody Guthrie there is a man I would have liked to hang out with, he probably wouldn't have thought much of me, but he's always been a hero of mine. Listening to him speaking on the The Library of Congress Recording as I write this I somehow hear my grandfather. I don't know if it is the cadence or the vocabulary, but it brings me back and lets me see my gramps in a whole other light. Gotta love when that happens.

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This guy LIVED. He survived the Great Depression, the Great Dust Storm, World War II. He served as a merchant marine (was torpedoed twice during the war) and in the Army. He didn't duck or hide he wrote honestly about it all, including the massive unrest that accompanied the early labor movement. He wrote two novels and seemly endless songs.
He was even blacklisted for his political beliefs, to which he replied:

"I ain't a Communist necessarily, but I been in the red all my life."

Hot damn... Wasn't much a fan of being told what to do either. While in leaving NYC city he wrote:

I got disgusted with the whole sissified and nervous rules of censorship on all my songs and ballads, and drove off down the road across the southern states again.

Woody got down in the blood and guts of the American Dream and fought hard. He wrote songs during some of the hardest times this country has ever seen. He did it cuz he loved his country.

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"I hit the road again and crossed the continent twice by way of highway and freights. Folks heard me on the nationwide radio programs CBS and NBC, and thought I was rich and famous, and I didn't have a nickel to my name, when I was hitting the hard way again."

---

Born Woodrow Wilson Guthrie on July 14, 1912, in Okemah, Oklahoma.
Woodie described his home town as:

Okemah was one of the singiest, square dancingest, drinkingest, yellingest, preachingest, walkingest, talkingest, laughingest, cryingest, shootingest, fist fightingest, bleedingest, gamblingest, gun, club and razor carryingest of our ranch towns and farm towns, because it blossomed out into one of our first Oil Boom Town

Woody Guthrie died on October 3, 1967 at Creedmoor State Hospital in Queens, New York, from Huntington's Disease

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On the way to New York hitching and freight riding from California Woody wrote:

This Land is Your Land

This land is your land This land is my land
From California to the New York island;
From the red wood forest to the Gulf Stream waters
This land was made for you and Me.

As I was walking that ribbon of highway,
I saw above me that endless skyway:
I saw below me that golden valley:
This land was made for you and me.

I've roamed and rambled and I followed my footsteps
To the sparkling sands of her diamond deserts;
And all around me a voice was sounding:
This land was made for you and me.

When the sun came shining, and I was strolling,
And the wheat fields waving and the dust clouds rolling,
As the fog was lifting a voice was chanting:
This land was made for you and me.

As I went walking I saw a sign there
And on the sign it said "No Trespassing."
But on the other side it didn't say nothing,
That side was made for you and me.

In the shadow of the steeple I saw my people,
By the relief office I seen my people;
As they stood there hungry,
I stood there asking Is this land made for you and me?

Nobody living can ever stop me,
As I go walking that freedom highway;
Nobody living can ever make me turn back
This land was made for you and me.

"This song is Copyrighted in U.S., under Seal of Copyright # 154085, for a period of 28 years, and anybody caught singin it without our permission, will be mighty good friends of ourn, cause we don't give a dern. Publish it. Write it. Sing it. Swing to it. Yodel it. We wrote it, that's all we wanted to do."

Woody was what some might call a Populist.

---

"I hate a song that makes you think you're not any good. I hate a song that makes you think you are just born to lose. Bound to lose. No good to nobody. No good for nothing. Because you are either too old or too young or too fat or too slim or too ugly or too this or too that...Songs that run you down or songs that poke fun of you on account of your bad luck or your hard traveling. I am out to fight these kinds of songs to my very last breath of air and my last drop of blood. I am out to sing songs that will prove to you that this is your world and that if it has hit you pretty hard and knocked you for a dozen loops, no matter how hard it's run you down nor rolled over you, no matter what color, what size you are, how you are built, I am out to sing the songs that make you take pride in yourself and your work. And the songs I sing are made up for the most part by all sorts of folks just about like you."

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I think today I might go on down to Woody Guthrie Foundation & Archives at 250 West 57th Street (right around the corner) and just hang out with Woody's words for a bit, maybe I'll even get to see the original "This Land is Your Land" lyrics signed "Woody G., Feb. 23, 1940."

Source Material:

• http://memory.loc.gov/ammem/wwghtml/wwgessay.html


• http://www.woodyguthrie.org/


• Library of Congress

- posted by Anonymous @ Wednesday, February 23, 2005 0 comments

 
Truth and Consensus
This morning on NPR I heard a segment that reminded me that the major media outlets still have an important role to fill, even if they are not always successful in doing so. The piece was an analysis of the struggle going on in defense strategy circles regarding the balance between the physical war on terror and the battle for hearts and minds, particularly with regard to the situation in Iraq. The reporting was truly balanced, giving a fair amount of time to a number of perspectives, including the position, taken by a number of the Administration’s advisors and many in the military, that what some would cast as a “battle of ideas” is actually “a test of will,” that will be decided entirely on the battlefield.

This is not a defense of the mass media in general, and it is certainly not a defense of NPR in particular, which often skews hopelessly to the left. What it is, is a suggestion that, as much there may be real benefit to society from the development of “the people’s media” in the form of the blogosphere, something will certainly be lost if we are not able to develop and sustain a few mass media outlets that can provide us with deeper, non-partisan analysis of complex issues. What was so striking to me about the segment this morning was that there was no manipulation of the terms of the debate. The reporter provided context without inserting weighted language intended to promote one position over others.

It seems to me that it is overly optimistic to assume that the emergence of the blogosphere will improve the objectivity of the mass media. Instead, there is a great deal of evidence that the blogosphere provides partisans tremendous leverage to manipulate the terms of the discussion. So far, the right has had much greater traction in this endeavor than the left has, but there is no particular reason to believe that this will continue. The longer the right remains in power, the more adept the left will become at attacking it from the grassroots.

The most troubling result of the “capture” of the mass media by partisans is that it becomes increasingly difficult to build national consensus on any issue. The political scientist Robert Dahl argues that the only real guarantor of democracy is a culture imbued with a certain degree of intellectual and moral homogony. In other words, democracy requires that a majority of citizens agree about more than they disagree about, so that we can operate within the context of consensus world-view. It is impossible to achieve this if we are never able to reach consensus on the basic facts - aka “the truth” - and it is impossible to reach consensus about the truth if we continue down the path towards getting our information only from partisan sources.
- posted by Simon Marcus @ Wednesday, February 23, 2005 2 comments

 
An Injury to One is an Injury to All

"Whenever the United States shall be engaged in war, any person or persons who shall utter, print, write or publish any disloyal, profane, violent, scurrilous, contemptuous, slurring or abusive language about the form of government of the United States, or the constitution of the United States, or the soldiers or sailors of the United States, or the flag of the United States, or the uniform of the army or navy of the United States…or shall utter, print, write or publish any language calculated to incite or inflame resistance to any duly constituted Federal or State authority in connection with the prosecution of the War…shall be guilty of sedition."
---

"[W]e had no business sticking our nose in there and we should get licked for doing so. In the first place we don't have any soldiers to amount to anything and those that did amount to something didn't have any guns and those behind them would have to wait until the first ones dropped so the other fellows could pick up the guns and fire; that one German soldier could kill 5 or 6 American soldiers without any trouble, because we didn't have any experience and were not trained and didn't know anything about war..; that if people here could read the German papers they would get the right news and that U.S. papers were not getting the facts...”

Martin Wehinger
Born in Dorbein, Austria, in 1860.
Sentenced 3-6 years

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"In substance as follows: that we (meaning the people and citizens of the United States) would have hard times unless the Kaiser didn't get over here and rule this country."

Fred Rodewald
Born in Hanover, Germany, in 1875,
Woodworker
Sentenced: 2-5 years

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Witnesses testified that Janet Smith "advocated turning the stock into the crops to prevent helping the government." They said she declared the Red Cross to be a “fake,” and that "while she didn’t mind helping the Belgians with the relief work, the trouble was that the damned soldiers would get it." She allegedly sent back War Savings Stamps supplied by the Post Office Department. She denied all the allegations.

"If I could follow the dictates of my own judgement, I would either sentence you to a term in the state prison for your natural life, or I would order you banished entirely from the country…I would send you straight to Germany, where you would flourish and glory among the savages and barbarous people the Germans have shown themselves to be." -- Judge Spencer at sentancing

Janet Smith
Janet Smith, 42, born in Iowa
Postmistress, Sayle, Montana
Sentenced 5-10 years.
Husband Sentenced: 10-20 years and $20,000 fine

---

"Mr. Pollard, this is a rich man’s war," Kahn ventured.

Pollard warned him he could get in trouble for saying things like that.

Kahn turned to the food regulations enacted by the U.S. Food Administration under Herbert Hoover, popularly known as Hooverism.

"There’s nothing to that, it’s all a big joke," he said.

Pollard got up and walked over toward his office. Kahn followed.

"Well, if you feel that way about it, you must justify the sinking of the Lusitania," Pollard exclaimed.

"[The Americans] had no business in that boat," Kahn replied. "They were hauling over munitions and wheat."

“Anyone who says that is either a pro-German or an I.W.W. or a damn fool,” Pollard growled.

Kahn walked out of the hotel and visited several saloonkeepers on business. By lunchtime, he had been arrested for sedition.

The jury promptly found Kahn guilty...

Ben Kahn
Traveling Salesman, Sierra Campo Wine and Brandy Co., San Francisco.
Sentanced 7 1/2 to 20 years

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1918, 87 years ago today Montana enacted the Montana Sedition Act. World War I had started, and though many in Montana refused to be drafted their fear of German spies and domestic Labor agitation prompted them to pass a law severly restricting their own rights. Three months later the US Goverment would pass the Sedition Act, which is now widely seen as the most sweeping violation of civil liberties in modern American history.

The Montana Sedition Act was used to convict 63 men and one woman in 1918 and 1919. The law had harsh criminal penalties 10 to 20 years in prison and a $20,000 fine (in 1918 Dollars).

This has happened again and again and again...


The Sedition Act of 1798

SEC. 2. That if any person shall write, print, utter. Or publish, or shall cause or procure to be written, printed, uttered or published, or shall knowingly and willingly assist or aid in writing, printing, uttering or publishing any false, scandalous and malicious writing or writings against the government of the United States, or either house of the Congress of the United States, or the President of the United States, with intent to defame the said government, or either house of the said Congress, or the said President, or to bring them. or either of them, into contempt or disrepute; or to excite against them, or either or any of them, the hatred of the good people of the United States, or to excite any unlawful combinations therein, for opposing or resisting any law of the United States, or any act of the President of the United States, done in pursuance of any such law, or of the powers in him vested by the constitution of the United States, or to resist, oppose, or defeat any such law or act, or to aid, encourage or abet any hostile designs of any foreign nation against the United States, their people or government, then such person, being thereof convicted before any court of the United States having jurisdiction thereof, shall be punished by a fine not exceeding two thousand dollars, and by imprisonment not exceeding two years.

Smith Act of 1940

Required all aliens to be registered and fingerprinted. It also made it a crime to advocate or teach the violent overthrow of the United States, or to even belong to a group that participated in these actions. The United States Supreme Court upheld the constitutionality of the law in the case of eleven communist (Dennis v United States.) This decision was later modified in 1957 (Yates v United States.) The Court limited conviction to direct action being taken against government, ruling that teaching communism or the violent overthrow of government did not in itself constitute grounds for conviction.

§ 2385. Advocating Overthrow of Government.

Whoever knowingly or willfully advocates, abets, advises, or teaches the duty, necessity, desirability, or propriety of overthrowing or destroying the government of the United States or the government of any State, Territory, District or Possession thereof, or the government of any political subdivision therein, by force or violence, or by the assassination of any officer of any such government; or

Whoever, with intent to cause the overthrow or destruction of any such government, prints, publishes, edits, issues, circulates, sells, distributes, or publicly displays any written or printed matter advocating, advising, or teaching the duty, necessity, desirability, or propriety of overthrowing or destroying any government in the United States by force or violence, or attempts to do so; or

Whoever organizes or helps or attempts to organize any society, group, or assembly of persons who teach, advocate, or encourage the overthrow or destruction of any such government by force or violence; or becomes or is a member of, or affiliates with, any such society, group, or assembly of persons, knowing the purposes thereof--

Shall be fined under this title or imprisoned not more than twenty years, or both, and shall be ineligible for employment by the United States or any department or agency thereof, for the five years next following his conviction.

If two or more persons conspire to commit any offense named in this section, each shall be fined under this title or imprisoned not more than twenty years, or both, and shall be ineligible for employment by the United States or any department or agency thereof, for the five years next following his conviction.

As used in this section, the terms "organizes" and "organize", with respect to any society, group, or assembly of persons, include the recruiting of new members, the forming of new units, and the regrouping or expansion of existing clubs, classes, and other units of such society, group, or assembly of persons.

Senate Sub-committee on un-American Activities headed by Joseph McCarthy

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"It is the first responsibility of every citizen to question authority." -- Benjamin Franklin

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Source Material:

• The Montana Sedition Project
• studyworld - The Sedition Act of 1798

1st Draft: Author reserves the right to edit/modify this post

- posted by Anonymous @ Tuesday, February 22, 2005 0 comments

 
Notes on the Death of the American Dream

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I like this book (Kingdom of Fear), and I especially like the title, which pretty well sums up the foul nature of life in the U.S.A. in these first few bloody years of the post-American century. Only a fool of a whore would call it anything else.

It would be easy to say that we owe it all to the Bush family from Texas, but that would be too simplistic. They are only the errand boys for the vengeful, bloodthirsty cartel of raving Jesus-freaks and super-rich money mongers who have rules this country for at least the last 20 years, and arguably for the past 200. They take order well, and they don't ask too many questions.

The real power in America is held by a fast-emerging new Oligarchy of pimps and preachers who see no need for Democracy or fairness or even trees, except maybe the ones in their own yards, and they don't mind admitting it. They worship money and power and death. Their ideal solution to all the nation's problem's would be another 100 Year War.

Coming of age in a fascist police state will not be a barrel of fun for anybody, much less for people like me, who are not inclined to suffer Nazis gladly and feel only contempt for the cowardly flag-suckers who would gladly give up their outdated freedom to live for the mess of pottage they have been conned into believing will be freedom from fear.

Ho ho ho. Let's not get carried away here. Freedom was yesterday in this country, It's value has been discounted. The only freedom we truely crave today is freedom from Dumbness. Nothing else matters.


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My life has been the polar opposite of safe, but I am proud of it and so is my son, and that is good enough for me. I would do it all over again without changing the beat, although I have never recommended it to others. That would be cruel and irresponsible and wrong, I think, and I am none of those things.

Kingdom of Fear - Dr. Hunter S Thompson

He wrote to provoke, shock, protest and annoy.

"These are bad times for people who like to sit outside the library at dawn on a rainy morning and get ripped to the tits on crank and powerful music..." -Hunter

"Objective journalism is one of the main reasons that American politics has been allowed to be so corrupt for so long. You can't be objective about Nixon. How can you be objective about Clinton?" - Hunter

"The Edge... there is no honest way to explain it because the only people who really know where it is are the ones who have gone over." -Hunter

Weave a circle round him thrice,
And close your eye with holy dread,
For he on honey-dew hath fed,
And drunk the milk of Paradise.
--Samuel Taylor Coleridge

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- posted by Anonymous @ Monday, February 21, 2005 0 comments

 
First Beinart. Then Anderson. Now Peretz.
I think the link to this article on Drudge took the New Republic site down for a few hours today.

I used to subscribe to the magazine. Discovering it in high school was an intellectually thrilling experience. I even read Stanley Kaufman's film reviews. To imagine what my parents must have thought I was doing when I would spend hours upon hours in the bathroom! Ah, youth.

If there were no internet, I'd probably still be subscribing to it. I guess it's not fair to call the writers/opinion makers at the magazine liberals, since they haven't really been in some time. But it's not a conservative magazine (though it once was considered the prime organ of the emerging neoconservative movement, when Sullivan ran it...hard magazine to pigeon-hole).

Now Marty Peretz jumps on the "liberals, let's take our medicine" bandwagon.

I know Simon said the stakes here at our blog are low. But maybe he's selling us short. Peretz is either reading this blog, because it looks like he's plagiarized Simon here, or this is common knowledge:

But he [Bush] may be the first president who apparently does not see individual people in racial categories or sex categories. White or black, woman or man, just as long as you're a conservative. That is also an expression of liberation from bias.

Regardless of how you feel about the rest of the piece, it contains a clear-eyed and important discussion about Dems, liberals and race.

Then Peretz comments on liberal sympathies for Castro and other revolutionaries. Peretz seems to be making a similar point vis a vis the questionable moral distinction between fascists and communists that I attempted to make in a little-noticed and hardly remarked upon post about an obscure right-wing propaganda website:

But let's face it: It's hard to get a candid conversation going about Cuba with one [a liberal]. The heavily documented evidence of Fidel Castro's tyranny notwithstanding, he still has a vestigial cachet among us. After all, he has survived Uncle Sam's hostility for more than 45 years. And, no, the Viet Cong didn't really exist. It was at once Ho Chi Minh's pickax and bludgeon in the south. Pose this question at an Upper West Side dinner party: What was worse, Nazism or Communism? Surely, the answer will be Nazism ... because Communism had an ideal of the good. This, despite the fact that communist revolutions and communist regimes murdered ever so many more millions of innocents and transformed the yearning of many idealists for equality into the brutal assertion of evil, a boot stamping on the human face forever.

His strongest words, with which he ends the piece:

It [complaining, gloomy predictions about Iraq] is a permanent affliction of the liberal mind. It is not a symptom; it is a condition. And it is a condition related to the desperate hopes liberals have vested in the United Nations. That is their lodestone. But the lodestone does not perform. It is not a magnet for the good. It performs the magic of the wicked. It is corrupt, it is pompous, it is shackled to tyrants and cynics. It does not recognize a genocide when the genocide is seen and understood by all. Liberalism now needs to be liberated from many of its own illusions and delusions. Let's hope we still have the strength.

Ouch. I share Peretz feelings about the United Nations as it exists today. It was when I first started really thinking about this execrable institution that I began to question liberal precepts about foreign policy.

Maybe after "beat up the liberals" week ends in the liberal press, next week will be "buy a beleaguered liberal a drink" week. So guys, what's your poison?
- posted by Anonymous @ Friday, February 18, 2005 0 comments

 
I think it's 'cause he smells so good
From the Rogue Agent, a softball:

In a recent Hotwire.com survey of 2,688 adults, former President Bill Clinton topped a list of preferred presidential airline seatmates, beating out John F. Kennedy, George W. Bush, and Ronald Reagan.

Twenty-seven percent of those surveyed said they'd like to sit next to Clinton, followed by 19 percent who preferred John F. Kennedy and 18 percent who pointed to President George W. Bush.

Seventeen percent chose Ronald Reagan, 10 percent Jimmy Carter, 8 percent Franklin D. Roosevelt, and 1 percent Richard Nixon. The survey offered just seven presidents as optional seatmates.

While the nation's current president wasn't as popular as Clinton among the respondents overall, among women Bush was in a dead heat with Clinton, with 23 percent of women choosing Bush and 23 percent Clinton. Another 20 percent of women opted for John F. Kennedy and 15 percent preferred Ronald Reagan.

Men, on the other hand, were far more interested in chatting with Clinton than Bush. Thirty-one percent of men opted to sit next to Clinton versus 13 percent who preferred Bush. And, in men's estimation, two deceased presidents topped Bush, with 19 percent choosing Ronald Reagan as a preferred seatmate and 17 percent hoping for John F. Kennedy.
- posted by The Long Shot @ Friday, February 18, 2005 0 comments

 
Peggy Noonan on Blogs
Interesting editorial on blogs in WSJ. What an instantly self-referential medium this is. Here're some choice quotes:

There are blogs that carry political and ideological agendas. But everyone is on to them and it's mostly not obnoxious because their agendas are mostly declared.

I don't know if the blogosphere is rougher in the ferocity of its personal attacks than, say, Drew Pearson. Or the rough boys and girls of the great American editorial pages of the 1930s and '40s. Bloggers are certainly not as rough as the splenetic pamphleteers of the 18th and 19th centuries, who amused themselves accusing Thomas Jefferson of sexual perfidy and Andrew Jackson of having married a whore. I don't know how Walter Lippmann or Scotty Reston would have seen the blogosphere; it might have frightened them if they'd lived to see it. They might have been impressed by the sheer digging that goes on there. I have seen friends savaged by blogs and winced for them--but, well, too bad. I've been attacked. Too bad.

Most of the blogstorms of the past few years have resulted in outcomes that left and right admit or bray were legitimate. Dan Rather fell because his big story was based on a fabrication, Trent Lott said things that it could be proved he said. But coming down the pike is a blogstorm in which the bloggers turn out to be wrong. Good news: They'll probably be caught and exposed by bloggers. Bad news: It will show that blogging isn't nirvana, and its stars aren't foolproof. But then we already know that, don't we?

UPDATE: More on the same topic from Simon's favorite bathroom aid.
- posted by Anonymous @ Friday, February 18, 2005 3 comments

 
What the OMFUG?
You boys (and it is all boys, isn't it? What's wrong, Simon Marcus, with a little womanhood in this community? Maybe the feminine touch is just what this sometime acidbath needs to give it the reason you so soundly seek) would do well to join me in my new battle against the forces of the so-called free market. I'm a poor professional writer with an axe to grind. And I have this to say: We live in a society that despises art, shuns unprofitable innovation, and has turned its back on beauty. It is also afraid of Rock. Witness me, grinding my axe:

I once groped two willing women in the backstage stable of CBGBs. We all three were drunk. I had just played a Rock Concert (see "Art... Innovation... Beauty" reference above) onstage, and these two women - girls, really, redolent of cigarettes and bubble gum - met me afterwards for the post-show reverie. We rolled around for a while on the filthy floor, and I felt, if only for a moment on a smoky night at the turn of the century, like one of NYC's chosen, a swinish and smiling czar.

[Profanity warning] So fuck the Man and his petty motivations, his mendacious, immoral $40,000 rents. Let's burn the block down.
- posted by The Long Shot @ Friday, February 18, 2005 2 comments

 
A Good Choice
From everything I have been able to gather, John Negreponte looks like a great choice for national intelligence czar. Negreponte is a very seasoned public servant with nothing to prove, meaning that he might actually focus on getting the job done. I am glad that the initial response from the Dem leaders seems measured and largely positive. This is going to be a thankless job that I doubt very many people would be willing to step up for. Really, I think this is maybe the best appointment of either Bush administrations.

Right now I can see only two lines of thinking developing against Negreponte: Some are pointing out that he has no intelligence experience. As a manager who has moved around through at least three industries I feel fairly strongly that what is necessary in a good manager is that he or she be a good manager, not that they have prior experience in the detailed particulars of the field that they are entering. This is a non-starter.

The other line of attack, being developed in the diaries at Kos right now, is that Negreponte should be denied the position because he served as Ambassador to Honduras during the Contra-scandal era and “turned a blind eye to human rights abuses.” That sounds pretty weak to me.
- posted by Simon Marcus @ Thursday, February 17, 2005 1 comments

 
Why America Rules
I learned about this by way of the subscription only Business Week (for my money the best magazine published in America today, and no, I am not kidding).

American banks, led by the Jewish-owned Chicago bank, DEVON BANK, have begun offering financial instruments that meet the needs of American Muslim’s who are bound by injunctions in the Koran against engaging in activities involving interest. Among the products currently being offered by DEVON and others, including, on a limited basis, FANNIE MAE and HSBC, is a mortgage that works like this: the client identifies a property they want to own, the bank then buys it and sells it to them at an asking price that has the projected interest payments built into it. DEVON and others are offering these loans for home-owners, but perhaps more importantly, for commercial loans as well.

Land of Opportunity? Damn straight.
- posted by Simon Marcus @ Thursday, February 17, 2005 0 comments

 
A Word From Our Sponsor
I have let some time pass since I last weighed in on the front page as the “conscience” of our little community. Having returned from a short trip to New York to find my inbox brimming with comments about things that went on in my absence, I am feeling like this is a good time to log a brief return to that role.

First of all, I want to welcome the new contributors who have done a great deal to liven the place up in the last few weeks. Your contributions are valued. I also want to thank everyone for how diligently we have stuck to keeping our jousting off the front page.

Overall, I have been very pleased with the way that the site is growing, especially since there were days just a few weeks ago when I felt certain that this little experiment was over. I continue to be troubled, however, by the tenor of some of the discussions. I can also say, based on some conversations that I had in New York and the content of some emails I have received recently, that others are bothered as well.

Before I go any further I need to offer up an apology for some poor judgment of my own. In a response to a post by Rogue Agent I behaved like a stupid bore, and I apologize to him and to the community for doing so. Please accept this evening’s entry as notice of my commitment to work harder to keep things civil around here.

This brings me to the point at hand. As I have written before, I created this site to see if it was possible for a group of intelligent, well-meaning citizen’s to reach across the political divide and, at the very least, find a way to respect each other’s point of view. Thus far, my query has been answered with a resounding no. Well, I am not yet ready to give up.

The discourse on this site has been largely dominated by four of us. At the risk of oversimplifying, I think that we spread out fairly well across the spectrum of politically engaged individuals in this country. Sarge comes down solidly on the right. His Catholic faith informs a great deal of his thinking. Cyetain comes down just as solidly on the left. Dani often comes down on the same side of an issue as Sarge does, but, unless I am reading things wrong, Dani’s thinking is informed in part by his libertarian leanings and in part by a strong sense of what used to be called “real politic.” My extreme displeasure with the Bush administration has lately driven me into alignment with Cyetain, and in fact, caused me to switch my party registration from the Republican to the Democratic column this past October, after a period of 10 years in which I was registered Republican and voted for numerous Republicans at the local, state and national level. Were it not for the Iraq war, I would join Sarge and Dani in preferring the aggressive, preemptive approach to the war on terror preferred by Republicans.

It is no surprise, then, that the four of us have butted heads more than we have agreed. This was to be expected. What bothers me, and many others, is how often we have allowed the conversation to dip into base and meaningless invective. If this experiment is going to continue, and I hope it will, than the four of us must make a commitment to the site’s purpose. Perhaps the fault for the current state of things lies with me, in that I may not have been clear enough in my intention for the site. Any lack of clarity should be cleared up by this post.
This community is neither liberal nor conservative. As such, no one who takes the time to present a reasoned argument of a heartfelt position can be considered a troll. If you are looking for a community in which your posts will only be read by others who share your political persuasion, there are plenty of those around and I suggest that you go register at one of them.

Last night I had a conversation with a friend who reminded me of what I had hoped for this site. “I kind of liked Sarge’s abortion matrix,” said this decidedly pro-choice friend of mine, “It made a lot of sense on a certain level. For a minute there I almost became pro-life.” My friend was kidding, of course, but the point for me was that someone had actually had the opportunity to assess an opposing view point deeply enough to make them think about their own.

With a few small changes I believe that we can effect a major change in the tenor of the site. I am hoping that I am getting my point across here without getting into specifics. I have neither the time nor the inclination to police this site, but I also have no intention of continuing to provide a platform for people I respect to disrespect each other.
- posted by Simon Marcus @ Thursday, February 17, 2005 4 comments

 
Key Republicans Ask What Emergency?

House Republican leaders said yesterday that they may cut some of the nonmilitary parts of President Bush's $82 billion budget request for Iraq and anti-terrorism efforts because they are not emergencies.

"...in our initial review of this president's request, we have found some items in foreign aid that probably do not qualify as immediate emergencies," DeLay said.

"It's certainly not what most of us envision as an emergency supplemental," she (House Republican Conference Chairman Deborah Pryce ) said. "There's a lot of probably routine spending in there."

Republicans said they were especially rankled by plans for the $658 million embassy in Baghdad, which the State Department said would have the largest staff of any U.S. embassy. The number of employees will not be released for security reasons, the staff said. Several Republican lawmakers said the embassy appeared to be a clearly foreseeable capital expense that did not belong in an emergency budget.

Rice, questioned about the embassy at an afternoon appearance before the House Appropriations Committee's subcommittee on foreign operations, said the money is part of the emergency request because the government believes the job can be completed in 24 months if it is begun right away, and the administration would "really like to get started."

Damn if you can't rely on your own friends to help you swindle the american public who is a president to turn to? (How do you spell lame duck?)
- posted by Anonymous @ Thursday, February 17, 2005 0 comments

 
Iraqi Election Results


Nearly 8.5 million Iraqis voted,
58% of the registered electorate

- posted by Anonymous @ Thursday, February 17, 2005 0 comments

 
Shout out to my Homies
Rogue and Mike both know that Granite Staters have a special way of lettin someone know they aren't interested... Good to see after sending Bush packing in the election, they are still at it.

Bush strikes out in N.H. on Social Security

White House aides collected empty chairs in an echoing Pease International Tradeport hangar before Bush took the stage since only about half of the 2,000 free tickets were taken.

- posted by Anonymous @ Thursday, February 17, 2005 1 comments

 
How much of your money does Bush wanna give to his friends?



Many will have seen. For the rest it would be worth your time.

- posted by Anonymous @ Thursday, February 17, 2005 0 comments

 
The Next Phase?
I'm sure all of you would have read this independently, but two things are worth noting. First, "Baghdad Rules" wouldn't have been possible had George Bush not had the vision and courage to enforce UN resolutions and stab at the soft underbelly of Middle East tyranny. Second, the liberals' private hope and public supposition that our good and necessary work in Iraq isn't having a profound and positive effect in the Middle East is just on-its-face ridiculous.

I wrote in the comments section of Andrew's post the other day that I'm fairly confident what Bush is doing is correct, and that we'll look back at his time in the Oval Office the same way we now look back at Reagan's. Feeling the wind blowing on history's face, maybe it won't take us so long this time to realize the tectonic impact this man - this leader - is having for good in the world.

The question is, how do we fight against people and states who use "Hama Rules" when we have a polticial class here in the US that is reflexively against the use of force against evil for the defense of our country?
- posted by Anonymous @ Thursday, February 17, 2005 0 comments

 
Kurt's Hobbesian Choice
Kurt Anderson, liberal journalist bigwig, novelist and media man about town, has an interesting piece in New York magazine. Without commentary but a mere suggestion that you read the whole thing, here're some excerpts:

Each of us has a Hobbesian choice concerning Iraq; either we hope for the vindication of Bush’s risky, very possibly reckless policy, or we are in a de facto alliance with the killers of American soldiers and Iraqi civilians.

...

At a certain point during the Vietnam War, a majority of Americans—those of us who were in favor of unilateral U.S. withdrawal—were in a de facto alliance with the North Vietnamese, the Vietcong, and the Soviets. Unpleasant but true.

...

This Groundhog Day, as we all looked forward to watching a Beatle perform on TV (and on a Sunday evening in early February, just like in 1964), a fiftyish antiwar friend of mine in Park Slope dismissed the election in Iraq as “just like the election in Vietnam in 1967.”

I didn’t know what she meant, because I had not yet read the posting by Kos, the lefty star Markos Moulitsas’s nom de blog, of a certain Times clip from 1967—about how “United States officials were surprised and heartened . . . at the size of turnout in South Vietnam’s presidential election despite a Vietcong terrorist campaign to disrupt the voting.” Kos commented, “January was the third bloodiest month for U.S. and allied troops. Will that cease now that Iraqis have voted? Nope . . . The war will continue unabated.” One senses a wish for further war. One of Kos’s regulars then wrote, “I hope I’m wrong on this,” and my disingenuousness alarm went off. When people are deeply invested in any set of analyses and predictions, do they ever sincerely hope they’re wrong?

...

One day during the U.S. election campaign, President Bush accidentally uttered a plain truth about the war on terror. “I don’t think you can ‘win’ it,” he said, which immediately provoked attacks from the Democrats. A month later, John Kerry inadvertently told the same truth—“We have to get back to the place . . . where terrorists are not the focus of our lives, but they’re a nuisance”—whereupon Bush pounced, saying he “couldn’t disagree more.” Later the same month, the president slipped and retold the same truth—“Whether or not we can be ever fully safe . . . is up in the air”—and Kerry, inevitably, replied: “You make me president [and] it’s not going to be up in the air.”

It was that kind of dishonest, automatic attack and counterattack that made me relieved, on November 3, when I was once again free to read and watch the news from Iraq without considering whether it was good or bad for Kerry’s chances.

Hmm...dishonest, automtaic attack. Reminds me of someone.
- posted by Anonymous @ Wednesday, February 16, 2005 0 comments

 
Iran vows to support Syria against the Thugs out West.
Let's see, we tell Iran they better not pursue nuclear weapons, then we recall our ambassador to Syria in response to the killing of former Lebanese PM Rafik Hariri, and now we learn that Iran's got Syria's back against Bully Bush. To Condi I say "Welcome to the Jungle, Baby!" Does the current administration have a comprehensive foreign policy, or are they simply asserting their egos whenever and wherever they see fit? Do they understand the repercussions of their actions? I wonder.
- posted by Anonymous @ Wednesday, February 16, 2005 0 comments

 
Labor of Love Lost
The link is to a site dedicated to the taxonomy, biography and publicity of the creature known alternatively as the liberal/leftist/progressive/radical/marxist/communists (or simply by the non-sectarian term idiotarian, my personal favorite).

I have been enjoying the latest manifestation of internet power, something I've written a bit about on this blog (as has Mike "unvarnished glee" Guy). Over the past year alone, the internet revolution has wrought blog/citizen's media bringing unparalleled transparency to once shadowy corridors of power, in particular by bringing a new accountability to the mainstream media. I think it's fair to say that this process has of late been harder on lefties (see Raines, Rather, Jordan and Kerry). At the same time it's been something of a boon to right-wing culture warriors and electoral hopefuls, though by no means will this necessarily remain the case. But I hope that we can put partisan politics aside and enjoy together the greatest benefit of citizen's media, which is more diverse, better, and more accurate information for all (well, maybe for all who look for it, at the moment, though that's improving).

As someone with a strong populist streak, I can dig this revolution. But as someone with a strong populist streak, perhaps I should remind myself not always to be so damned up with people. Though I think there's not yet been a major example of the phenomenon, citizen's media/the blogosphere can and likely will someday soon actually resemble, if only for a brutal moment or two, the scalp-hunting angry mob Mike Guy and others in the MSM fear are about to crash down the gates (btw, there are no more gates). I hope not, but careers and/or lives may be undeservedly ruined. To many people, the website linked to in the title will appear a harbinger of this moment.

Maybe certain factors particular to the exploding medium will keep citizen's media more responsible than old media ever was, even its grand heyday. There are a few things that citizen's media has going for it, among them thousands of fact-checkers, its instantaneity and its conversational model, that will help it recover its bearings and senses quickly, if/when it loses them, in any case.

Which brings me back to the website I linked to. I spent a couple of hours there today. I read about some people I regard very highly, even a personal hero or two, and about many more people I hold in much lower esteem. The site is the work (primarily) of David Horowitz, of FrontPageMagazine demi-fame. He's a former leftist, and this site is apparently something he's been working on for a long time, though it's just opened (that's where my clever title comes from, for those whose boiling blood has impaired their sense of humor). There are some jarring juxtapositions there, such as the appearance of Barrack Obama's picture right next to Ayatollah Khomeini's when you click the "Individuals" link. More generally, grouping prominent figures of the left, from Katrina van den Heuvel to Rashid Khalidi, with outright terrorists is bound to raise some hackles.

People will find a lot to hate and fear in the website. I'm a little creeped out by it, and I sympathize with muscular anti-communism and anti-anti-Americanism. More than anything else (yes, more even than McCarthyism and the HUAC), the site reminds me of some of the signs I've seen in Union Square park protests, linking every powerful white man of the past 200 years through their affiliation with the Trilateral society or some collegiate fraternity.

Except for one critical difference. The quality of the information at the site is much higher. While strong bias and pungent ideology abound, outright mendacity and tinhat theories do not (or they're concealed by a thin veneer of temperate prose, if you prefer to get conspiratorial, which is fair given the site's name and purpose). There are (quality) links, too.

There is, increasingly, no place to hide. Even if you think this is a good thing, as I do, it will take some getting used to.
- posted by Anonymous @ Tuesday, February 15, 2005 1 comments

 
Lynne Stewart, Part Deux
A liberal law professor's take, and a conservative prosecutor's take. Both are worth reading.
- posted by Anonymous @ Tuesday, February 15, 2005 0 comments

 
Something We All Have in Common


Fun pictures!
- posted by Anonymous @ Tuesday, February 15, 2005 0 comments

 
Discussion Piece
Missle Defense. It seems the government spent $85 mln on its recent failed attempt at testing a missle defense system. Where do the contributors to this Blog stand on the Bush administrations continued funding of a scaled down star wars? This NYT article briefly states a few position points, but fails to dig into this significant issue. I believe we need to shelf the Gipper's foolish dream and allocate the funds elsewhere. Perhaps towards education or job training programs. I simply don't see the value in dumping $85 mln into the Pacific every few months. I yield the floor.
- posted by Anonymous @ Tuesday, February 15, 2005 2 comments

 
Reaching In From The Outside
This from a guest contributor, the Rogue Agent:

I find the election of Dean to the head of the Dem party to be disheartening. I think this a huge mistake for the Dems and very bad news for the country. Another centrist Clinton-like figure is what the party needs to increase their base and keep the GOP in line. In retrospect, would it have been a good idea for Mondale to be elected head of the Dems in 1985? Dean is as polarizing a figure as I can imagine, which I think will further marginalize the party and allow room for a further strengthening of the right wing of the Republican party. This is bad news for everyone except the evangelicals.
- posted by The Long Shot @ Tuesday, February 15, 2005 1 comments

 
UA embraces a softer, but not subtler, diplomacy.
Yushchenko has always looked to the West as a better economic model. With his recent appointment of a Putin rival to an advisory role, Yushchenko is clearly choosing a softer diplomacy than the Bush administration has ever employed. He hasn't labeled Russia as an Axis of Evil, but he has clearly sent a message that Ukraine is no longer the submissive sibling to big brother Russia. Will this approach be effective or is it but the first of many missteps for this fledgling administration? Let's sit back, relax and enjoy the show!
- posted by Anonymous @ Tuesday, February 15, 2005 0 comments

 
An Ugly Lesson

The murder of former Lebanese prime minister Rafik Hariri and 14 others, almost certainly at the hands of Syrian agents, should serve as a wake up call to those on the left who still refuse to take the terrorist threat seriously. In Syria, we are dealing with a state element that apparently thinks nothing of potentially reigniting one of the most devastating civil wars in Middle East history. Even more to the point, they apparently think nothing of attracting the ire of the Unites States, despite George Bush's constant bellicosity on the subject of terrorists.

Too many on the left have convinced themselves that terrorism is a figment of right-wing imaginations. It is not. I know many reasonable people who voted for George Bush on the sole basis that they know that he takes the threat from terror seriously. Try as I might to convince my conservative friends that the Administration’s ant-terror efforts have largely made things worse, not better, even I can not go so far as to say that we would be better off with no action at all.

It is important for the loyal opposition to pay close attention to the Administration's performance in the war on terror. Where there are tactical or strategic missteps, it is our responsibility to point them out. When certain factors, such as the Administration's apparent fascination with torture, threaten the very moral fabric of our nation, then it is our duty to draw the people's attention to it.

Even so, we can never hope to regain the trust of the American people if we allow our criticism of the Administration to overwhelm our sense of the seriousness of the threat of terror. The American people have shown that they desire strong leadership on this issue, and the Democratic party has done very little to demonstrate that it is worthy of our trust. It is time for Democratic leaders to devote at least as much energy to developing a positive vision for defeating terror as they are wasting developing negative attacks on the administration.

- posted by Simon Marcus @ Tuesday, February 15, 2005 1 comments

 
Eason Down the Road
Friday evening, CNN's Chief News Executive Eason Jordan resigned after having evidently hung himself on remarks he made at the Davos Forum about U.S. military targeting journalists. Dani posted about this earlier, expressing his unvarnished glee at what he seems to view as evidence that check and balance do indeed work (that is, the balance of brave crusading radio show hosts and bloggers against the sinister, nation-toppling forces of rotten mainstream media). I have little alliegance with CNN, which is often enough an amateurish and hysterical news purveyor, and I dislike defending top news executives, who are nearly always unsympathetic figures, to say the least. Anyway, I'm going to refrain from commenting on this coup de grace since I care not to be referred yet again to blogs I don't much care to read. Instead, I've pasted below today's editorial from the Wall Street Journal, whose dark, virulent halls are part of what Bill O'Reilly has pithily dubbed the MSM (Main Stream Media).

The Jordan Kerfuffle
February 14, 2005; Page A18

The writers of these columns believe that, in addition to having opinions, we are ultimately in the same information business as the rest of the press corps. Which is why we try to break news whenever we can if a story merits the attention.

So it was only normal for our Bret Stephens to report a January 27 panel discussion he attended at the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland, during which CNN's Eason Jordan appeared to say -- before he tried to unsay it -- that U.S. troops had deliberately targeted journalists in Iraq. Mr. Stephens's story appeared the next day in our Political Diary, an e-mail newsletter for subscribers that is part of our OpinionJournal.com Web site. It is the first account by any news organization of what has come to be known as Easongate.

By now, everyone on the Good Ship Earth knows that this particular story ended Friday with Mr. Jordan's abrupt resignation from CNN. This has certain pundits chirping delightedly. It has been a particular satisfaction to the right wing of the so-called "blogosphere," the community of writers on the Web that has pushed the Eason story relentlessly and sees it as the natural sequel to the Dan Rather fiasco of last year.

But Easongate is not Rathergate. Mr. Rather and his CBS team perpetrated a fraud during a prime-time news broadcast; stood by it as it became obvious that the key document upon which their story was based was a forgery, and accused the whistleblowers of the very partisanship they themselves were guilty of. Mr. Rather still hasn't really apologized.

As for Mr. Jordan, he initially claimed that U.S. forces in Iraq had targeted and killed 12 journalists. Perhaps he intended to offer no further specifics in order to leave an impression of American malfeasance in the minds of his audience, but there is no way of knowing for sure. What we do know is that when fellow panelist Representative Barney Frank pressed Mr. Jordan to be specific, the CNN executive said he did not believe it was deliberate U.S. government policy to target journalists. Pressed further, Mr. Jordan could only offer that "there are people who believe there are people in the military who have it out" for journalists, and cite two examples of non-lethal abuse of journalists by ordinary GIs.

None of this does Mr. Jordan credit. Yet the worst that can reasonably be said about his performance is that he made an indefensible remark from which he ineptly tried to climb down at first prompting. This may have been dumb but it wasn't a journalistic felony.

It is for this reason that we were not inclined to write further about the episode after our first report. For this we have since been accused of conspiring on Mr. Jordan's behalf. One Web accusation is that Mr. Stephens is -- with 2,000 others -- a fellow of the World Economic Forum, thereby implying a collusive relationship with Mr. Jordan, who sits on one of the WEF's boards. If this is a "conflict of interest," the phrase has ceased to mean anything at all.

More troubling to us is that Mr. Jordan seems to have "resigned," if in fact he wasn't forced out, for what hardly looks like a hanging offense. It is true that Mr. Jordan has a knack for indefensible remarks, including a 2003 New York Times op-ed in which he admitted that CNN had remained silent about Saddam's atrocities in order to maintain its access in Baghdad. That really was a firing offense. But CNN stood by Mr. Jordan back then -- in part, one suspects, because his confession implicated the whole news organization. Now CNN is throwing Mr. Jordan overboard for this much slighter transgression, despite faithful service through his entire adult career.

That may be old-fashioned damage control. But it does not speak well of CNN that it apparently allowed itself to be stampeded by this Internet and talk-show crew. Of course the network must be responsive to its audience and ratings. But it has other obligations, too, chief among them to show the good judgment and sense of proportion that distinguishes professional journalism from the enthusiasms and vendettas of amateurs.

No doubt this point of view will get us described as part of the "mainstream media." But we'll take that as a compliment since we've long believed that these columns do in fact represent the American mainstream. We hope readers buy our newspaper because we make grown-up decisions about what is newsworthy, and what isn't.

- posted by The Long Shot @ Monday, February 14, 2005 1 comments

 
One for Sarge and the rest of the Chickenhawks over at the Corner

- posted by Anonymous @ Monday, February 14, 2005 0 comments

 
The Liberals' True Nature
With all the blegs of Chairman Dean ("...,you ain't gonna make it with anyone anyhow..."), Bush spending his political capital to a 45% approval rating, and natural, slow growing ginseng, I thought I would remind the blog about the true feelings of many liberals.

Kos, as I'm sure you know, is the official unofficial spokesblogger for the radicalized Democratic minority.

"Support the Troops" and all that goes with that (including supporting the large number of civilians who are aiding Iraqi freedom) is obviously said through a clenched jaw, not grinning teeth. If mainstream Americans had not thoroughly shamed liberals into supporting those who provide our blanket of freedom, who knows what additional things they might be saying.

Hat Tip: The Corner
- posted by Anonymous @ Monday, February 14, 2005 1 comments

 

- posted by Anonymous @ Sunday, February 13, 2005 0 comments

 
Show your love.
Contribute to the DNC! Show your love for Dean...

  Contribution amount:
  $

- posted by Anonymous @ Saturday, February 12, 2005 0 comments

 
Chairman Dean
Ed Kilgore, by way of Josh Marshall, does a great job of explaining why we have nothing to fear from Chairman Dean: New Donkey
- posted by Simon Marcus @ Friday, February 11, 2005 0 comments

 
Playing The Snow Crab Card
Good for Japan! Wish our "friends" in Western Europe would play the same type of anvil to our hammer with Iran.
- posted by Anonymous @ Friday, February 11, 2005 2 comments

 
Bush: the anti-Robinhood
Disclaimer: I love Paul Krugman. In his NYT editorial, Krugman highlights some lowpoints in the Bush budget. He cites specific line items that suggest Bush is the anti-Robinhood. In brief, the budget suggests cuts to funding for foodstamps, while looking to make the tax cuts for the wealthy permanent. Admittedly, I am a simple man, but I just can't see any logic behind these proposals. Krugman asserts, and I think it is important to reiterate, that the Dems can not afford to let these tax cuts become permanent. It would be both bad policy and bad business. The American people deserve better from our leaders.
- posted by Anonymous @ Friday, February 11, 2005 0 comments

 
The Lynn Stewart Case

Even though I play one in my mind, I am not a lawyer, so I don't think that I fully understand the legal context of this case, however some things seem relatively clear.

Lynn Stewart signed an agreement with the government which clearly stated the limits of her ability to represent the Sheik to the public. Stewart may have decided to violate the "gag rule" in order to test the constitutional parameters of the limitations themselves. We need lawyers who are willing to take this kind of task on. However, when they put themselves in direct violation of the law, then they must do so with the knowledge that, if they lose, they will pay a personal price.

What really sinks Stewart morally, in my mind, is the nature of the information that she chose to communicate. She certainly could have tested the gag rule without informing the Sheik’s followers that he wanted them to return to committing acts of terror in Egypt. I doubt that Stewart is a “bad” person, but her judgment was reprehensibly bad, bad enough that, to my mind, she clearly deserves to be punished. As a baseline, separate from any gag-rule issue, a lawyer should not be protected if they act as a conduit for passing criminal instructions between elements of a criminal enterprise.

As far as the gag-rule issue itself, it seems to me that the government needs to have the ability to gag certain criminals if their ability to communicate poses a demonstrable threat. I imagine that this right is rather clearly established at this point, but I don’t know. If there are not appropriate safeguards in place to ensure that the government cannot assert this right inappropriately, then Stewart should have been testing the mechanisms of applying the gag-rule, not helping a terrorist send orders to his troops.

If any real lawyers read this today, I would love to hear your thoughts.

- posted by Simon Marcus @ Friday, February 11, 2005 0 comments

 

- posted by Anonymous @ Thursday, February 10, 2005 0 comments

 
Good News For People Who Hate Bad People
A strong and sonorous warning for those who help advance terrorism, specifically for people who use the rubric of attorney-client privilege to promote their hate of America and American values.

- posted by Anonymous @ Thursday, February 10, 2005 0 comments

 
A well articulated argument against sanctions.
From the editorial section of the NYT, Mr. Kristof lays out a pretty good case for why Dubya is screwing things up in North Korea. Kristof posits that more pressure on the despot would arise from opening the boarders than from further isolation of Kim Jung mentally- Il. It is a good point. Furthermore, as the Chinese government feverishly attempts to manage their percolating economy, there appears to be an opportunity for the US to gain support for opening the gates to the North Korean economy.

- posted by Anonymous @ Wednesday, February 09, 2005 1 comments

 
Dick Morris makes a good point...
In his article, Dick suggests that the Republicans have a very strong anti-Hillary candidate in Condi Rice. Moreover, her legitimacy will only grow as she gains more exposure and sharpens her diplomacy skills as SoS. On the one hand, I am not a huge fan of her socially conservative hawkish beliefs. On the other hand, it would be a great step forward for our nation to have our two party system offer the masses two female candidates. Gender aside, these two competent candidates could revive the electorate from their post-2004 stupor. Will 2008 be the year the US finally takes a great leap forward???

- posted by Anonymous @ Wednesday, February 09, 2005 3 comments

 
Put Up Or Shut Up
As mentioned below, Howard Dean will assume the Chairmanship of the DNC next week. I am not Dean's biggest fan, but I think the guy probably deserves a shot and, what the hell, its not like we can do any worse.

My wife and I will join those in the netroots who intend to make a mass donation to the DNC next week to show our solidarity and support for the good Doctor. I strongly encourage anyone else who wants to see what Dean can do if he is given a chance to donate as well. Once its clear when Dean will take over his new office, I will post a link the DNC ePatriots site.

- posted by Simon Marcus @ Tuesday, February 08, 2005 0 comments

 
Is this a great Idea?
From David Brooks, the closet realist, comes what might just be a great idea: KidSave. Read on, and then come back and tell us what you think.

- posted by Simon Marcus @ Tuesday, February 08, 2005 0 comments

 
What’s News Today, and the Last Week (or so)
There is so much going on current events-wise these days, and so much is changing so quickly, that it is difficult to pin anything down long enough to write about it.

This is one of the reasons that I have been so impressed with Josh Marshall at Talking Points Memo recently. Anyone who keeps up with Marshall knows that, for weeks now, he has focused his considerable energies on one issue: saving Social Security from the privatizers. Day after day, hour after hour, Marshall keeps tabs on the wrangling around the issue, paying particular attention to two groups that he has christened “The Fainthearted Faction” (Weak-kneed Dems who might go over to the dark side)and the Conscience Caucus (Republicans who are taking a stand against the phase-out). Marshall’s single-issue focus is a great model for marshalling (sorry) the power of the blogosphere and may even point the way to a good model for the Democratic party.

Unfortunately, I share none of Marshall’s ability to focus, laser-like, on a single issue, and so, here is a quick rundown of the stories that I find fascinating right now:

The Note: National Enquirer for the Cool-in-D.C. Set, or Human Bidet for the Republican Elite, you be the Judge
It was getting on my nerves towards the end of the 2004 election cycle, but it has gotten a lot worse recently: The Note barely has any time to actually report on anything, what with how frantically it has applied itself to, on the one hand, crawling very, very far up the Republican's ass, and on the other, taking every possible opportunity to bash the Dems while they are down. Not a day passes when Halprin and his Monkey’s don’t take it upon themselves to offer up some sternly worded sagacity to the poor, bumbling party leaders. Today’s lessons are for Harry Reid and Howard Dean. I, for one, can barely read the thing anymore.



The DNC Chair
Howard Dean is now officially the presumptive DNC Chair. I came out of the 2004 campaign thinking that Dean deserved a lot more credit then he got for awakening the Democratic Party out of the utter complacency of the pre-war period, but personally, I think there were better candidates for this job (Simon Rosenberg, in particular). Still, I am going to remain hopeful that Dean will figure out how to shake things up without providing The Note with a new dish every day.

The Budget
Its too soon to say anything meaningful about this now, but its sure worth watching.

Democracy in Iraq
Juan Cole at Informed Consent has been consistently offering valuable analysis of the situation in Iraq from the perspective of a critic of the administration who opposed the war but wants very much to see the situation in Iraq turn out well for the Iraq’s, the U.S. and the rest of the Middle East. Here is a recent post of interest: Shiite Religious Coalition Dominates Parliamentary Voting

Political theorists rarely respond to world events in real time so it is unlikely that we will hear any detailed analysis of the situation in Iraq from Yale professor Robert Dahl anytime soon. Dahl is a leading theorist on democratic systems who has been productive in the field for something like six decades. Dahl is particularly well known for work he has done in debunking the myth that forms the basis of the constitutionalist movement in American conservative circles.

One of Dahl’s major contributions is his study of what he calls polyarchal democracy, defined as having seven features: elected officials, free and fair elections, inclusive suffrage, the right to run for office, freedom of expression, alternative information, and associational autonomy. It is clear that the Iraqi election did not come anywhere near meeting these goals in full, though Dahl would be one of the first to note that the long term success of a democratic system does not depend on all of these features being present from the outset.

Along with his sometimes partner, the economist Charles Lindeblom, Dahl has devoted a great deal of attention to the problem of intense minorities within democracy. Intense minorities (like Southern slave holders during the American foundation) are subsections of the polity that can influence political outcomes to a degree that is out of whack with their simple numerical weight. Often, as was the case with the Southerners in this country, their power lies in their ability to opt out of the system altogether.

The situation in Iraq appears to be one in which the problem of intense minorities will again be front and center. Will the Sunni, who were largely disenfranchised from this round of voting, stay engaged in the political system long enough to become active participants? Will the Kurds be able to square themselves with a federal system rather than a Kurdish state? Will Ayatollah Ali al-Sistani’s UIA, the clear winner in the elections, have to turn to smaller, more radical Shiite factions to build the coalition government, and if so, will those small groups wield as much power as, for example, the ultra-right wing wields in conservative Israeli coalition governments?


- posted by Simon Marcus @ Tuesday, February 08, 2005 0 comments

 
Cowboy or superhero?
Caveat: this post is unlikely to impress fans of nuance, nor will it encourage those who worry that Americans are simple-minded rubes. But it's fun, promise.

When I was in college, I read about and watched many Westerns (still do, actually), but we didn't talk too much about superhero stories. Douglas Kern thinks that the superhero has replaced the cowboy as our central representative myth. He makes a pretty convincing case, and you don't have to agree with the politics in his piece, or even that America is right or good, to agree with Kern's assertion. If you ever wondered why superheros wear garish costumes and don superhero personnas before going out to fight crime, Kern has a novel explanation (hint: it's not cause they're gay).

The central dilemma of the superhero story centers on the problems of power. How shall it be used? Who has the right to use it? How does it affect those who use it? And nearly every superheroic story resolves this problem in part through creation of an iconic superhero persona. Superheroism demands the creation of a second self, grounded in the same morality and history as the original self but with brighter colors, greater swagger, and an unstinting sense of self-sacrifice.

The superhero's solution to the problem of power is America's solution, also: we have created a second self. Domestically, we prefer a laissez-faire government that leaves us alone to pursue our own projects. But internationally, we recognize an obligation to confront threats to world peace -- and we detect that we are the only agent with the power and the will to do so. Thus, when evil looms large, America the tolerant and unimposing becomes America, the mighty and relentless. America, the purveyor of soft post-modern values, becomes America, the exporter of surly pre-modern men with rifles. The government that leaves you alone becomes the government that pulverizes you with its super Marine strength and Tomahawk Missile vision. The administration that couldn't find your country on a map yesterday becomes the administration that renames the cities on your map tomorrow. Off go the glasses, on goes the costume, and America becomes a superhero, fighting with astonishing powers in the name of the very ideals that give it the illusion of weakness and indecision.

Parents, take those guns, ten-gallon hats and fake Indian headdresses away from your children and buy them some damn Underoos! And dads, if your kid likes to put on his aquaman skivvies (and nothing else) and run around the house pretending to fight underwater crime, don't worry. He's not necessarily playing for the other team, he's just, err, acting out being American (yeah, that's what I was doing). It's probably good for him.

So the question must be asked: GW...is he more (or rather, does he imagine himself more) Wyatt Earp or Captain America? I always say, if the tights and cape fit...

- posted by Anonymous @ Thursday, February 03, 2005 0 comments

 
Trained Killers Gone Wild
I open the floor...

- posted by Anonymous @ Thursday, February 03, 2005 1 comments

 
Promises to Keep
More often then you might imagine, I find myself drawn to the ideas expressed in the president’s speeches. In fact there is plenty of evidence that the president and I have a great deal in common. I believe that we share a somewhat old-fashioned belief that strong families can help to build better people and communities and even strengthening the nation. We both believe, I think, that there is no greater good then the spread of freedom. We share a conviction that economic freedom and political freedom are indivisible, that the former can never survive without the latter, and vice versa. The president and I share a deep respect and even awe for the men and women of our armed forces who serve in our name.

We also share a preference for the bold move. We like decisiveness and certainty.

I imagine that the exact same feeling that welled up inside me tonight while watching Safia Taleb al-Suhail lift her ink stained index finger for us to see was welling up in the presidential chest as well.

And, so, it is not that unusual, when I am listening to one of the president’s speeches, that I find myself connecting with what he is saying.

When the president lays the rhetorical groundwork for a revolutionary repositioning of America as an active force for democracy in the Middle East, I want to believe him so badly it hurts. I want to believe that he means it, and that it can be done (In the absence of any alternative approach from the Democrats, I have always harbored a sort of nagging hope that the neo-cons dream of defeating terror by spreading democracy at gun point is not complete insane).

When the president decides to “take on social security” some part of me can’t help but root for him. Here is a man who has shown true gumption in pursuing his political goals. He stakes out clear positions and, with amazing consistency, sticks with them. Taken in the context of a Washington establishment in which no one stands for anything but the status quo, these are laudable traits.

But then there always comes the moment when I remember that the whole fucking thing is just a pack of lies, and I am left alone, nursing a broken heart.

- posted by Simon Marcus @ Thursday, February 03, 2005 6 comments