Heinz-Kerry

For a detailed description of the Theresa Heinz-Kerry incident in which she told a reporter to “Shove it!,” follow the link below. As happens all to often in the mainstream press, the facts and context paint a picture of a remarkably patient and gracious woman pushed a bit too far.

Clark Quote

Nice quote from Wesley Clark's address:

The safety of our country demands urgent and innovative measures to
strengthen our armed forces. The safety of our country demands credible
intelligence. The safety of our country demands cooperation with our allies.
The safety of our country demands making more friends and fewer enemies.
The safety of our country demands an end to the doctrinaire, ineffective policies
that currently grip Washington.

Enough is enough! A safe America - a just America - that's what we want, that's what we need. And with John Kerry and John Edwards, that's what we will achieve.

Post Speech Thoughts

I’ve had some time to think about the Kerry speech. Overall, I think it would be ridiculous to have expected much more than we got. Rhetorically, I thought it was brilliant. The delivery was quite good, too. I don't think you can expect Kerry to ever deliver with the smooth rhythm of Clinton (but remember, it took him a few years to be able to consistently deliver good addresses). I especially liked him taking bush and pummeling him on what the CW says is bush's issue: security. He went after him nicely. He (like Clinton and Obama) had many references that will excite the angry Democrat, and will not scare the aloof swing voter.

My question now is, "What the hell does Nader think he can add to the debate?" After listening to Kerry and his listing of most of the key issues progressives want addressed, Ralph, wouldn't you be happier being commissioner of the FTC (or Attorney General, for that matter)? Now that I'd like to see.

Good Watchdog Site

Media Matters, a project led by former right-wing reporter who exposed the vast right-wing media machine, David Brock (see The Republican Noise Machine and Blinded by the Right), is a great site devoted to pointing out the errors, lies, and distortions by the conservative media and punditry.  There’s a short article, for example, that quotes Heinz-Kerry’s clarification about the “shove it” incident.  She’s right; she was misquoted.  The link is on the left under “LINKS: NEWS AND POLITICS.”

Clinton Speech Reviewed

Actually an interesting review of Clinton’s Monday night speech in a staunchly conservative rag.  Is it any wonder that republicans hated Clinton so much because he scared them so?

What were they thinking?

If there is anything weirder than this column that Ann Coulter wrote for USA Today (before being told to hit the bricks), it’s the fact that USA Today actually hired her in the first place.  I imagine her walking on the floor of the Fleet Center, clearing a path 30 feet wide so people don’t get her vile aura.

From ABC News:

Consumer advocate Ralph Nader's quixotic presidential campaign says it submitted about 5,400 signatures to get on the Michigan ballot, far short of the required number of 30,000. Luckily for him, approximately 43,000 signatures were filed by Michigan Republicans on his behalf…

Amazes me.  Isn't this the same "The enemy of my enemy is my friend" attitude of our foreign-policy that gets us in so much trouble?

DNC Blogger Site

The link below is a gateway to all the convention bloggers who are at the Democratic convention, for those who might want to know.

 

Fishing with John

This show is really, really funny, especially if you watch it in a bit of an altered state.  It’s about a guy who doesn’t seem to know a whole lot about fishing, yet manages to get a bizarre collection of characters to go on exotic fishing trips:  Tom Waits (you have to see it to believe it), Dennis Hopper (twice!), Jim Jarmusch, Matt Dillon, William DaFoe, et al.  If only he could get Christopher Walken, Anthony Perkins, or John Malkovich to go.  I most strongly urge John to get Courtney Love on.  Perhaps the best part is the narrator, who comes up with non sequitor after non sequitor.  Check out the link:

bush's color problem

What a cynical, disingenuous asshole!  So bush announces to the Urban League that black voters have “an alternative this year.” He asks if it’s a good thing to have only one party representing the African-American constituency.  It’s no wonder black voters preferred Gore by a 9-1 margin.  Let’s see, besides the annual snub of not meeting with the NAACP (which every other president since Hoover has done), what has bush done to help this group?  How about his complete and dishonest opposition to affirmative action?  (Remember during the debate with Gore, he called it Affirmative Access—Gore correctly showed that bush didn’t even know what it was.)  Maybe he could sell them on his efforts to curtail the payment of overtime to some 8 million low- to middle-income workers.  Cutting CHIPS (the children’s insurance program designed to make up for the gap between Medicare and private insurance)?  How about cutting aid to urban areas in many ways?  How ‘bout the race-baiting of the bush campaign in the South?  I could go on and on.  I am amazed daily at how audacious bush is in his mendacity.

Nader's Traitors?

So Kafoury accuses Democrats of playing “dirty tricks.”  I find it interesting to listen to Nader and his supporters claim that Nader is altruistically giving the voters another choice.  It rings a bit hollow to me at moments like this.  He claims it’s about choice, yet when some people, including many Democrats, I’m sure, opted to not support Nader at his Benson High convention, or when the Green Party did the same, Nader and his supporters cry “Betrayal!”  But it’s also Nader who is enthusiastically accepting the support of the worst of right-wing republicans.  I long ago realized that Nader is in this race not simply to give the voters another choice or for the betterment of his country—he’s in it because his ego demands it.  What a shame to witness the diminution of this once fearless public advocate.

sorry, sci-fi fans

Bummer, Jean-Luc.  No more traveling to parallel universes through black holes.  Have to find another kind of singularity, I suppose.

bush's real agenda

"Although we have not found stockpiles of weapons of mass destruction, we were right to go into Iraq ... We removed a declared enemy of America who had the capability of producing weapons of mass murder and could have passed that capability to terrorists bent on acquiring them."--bush, July 12, 2004, Oak Ridge, Tennessee

Note the underlying premises here:
"...declared enemy..."   By whom?  bush?
"...capability of producing weapons of mass murder..."  Guess the nuclear club is getting bigger all the time:  US, UK, France, Russia (and who knows how many former Soviet republics), France ("cheese-eating surrender monkeys"), China, India, Pakistan, South Africa, Israel, North Korea, Iran--did I leave anyone out?
"...could have passed that capability to terrorists ..."  My god, how many conditionals does it take to start a war?

As James Galbraith said in Salon, "Remarkably, Bush's cataclysmic sentence was reported respectfully in our press instead of being widely singled out for what it is: prime evidence of a lethal contempt for reason. Plainly, a man prepared to overthrow foreign governments by force on the strength of such arguments is unlikely, on the face of it, to have deep respect for the democratic process in his own." (See link below for full article.)

Great book

Reading a new book by Judith Butler (author of "Gender Trouble: The Subversion of Identity") called "Precarious Life: The Powers of Mourning and Violence."  Excellent look at how an alternative, non-violent reaction to post-9/11 politics might be.  Butler has a really good handle on how to view 9/11 as a vile occurrence without excusing the suppression of dissent and criticism.

Subscription

I added the ability for visitors to receive e-mail notification whenever there's a new post.  Not that I think anyone's that interested, but I thought it was cool (yes, I'm both a geek and a dork), but also, if we get some political dialogue like before the 2000 election, I wouldn't mind my site being a forum.  Anyway, to sign up, it's at the end of the page.  (You can also unsubscribe.)

impeach bush, the war criminal

The missing point to all the controversy over uranium from Niger, WMD, etc., is that bush could not legally go to war even if all those elements were present.  First, under the UN Charter, you get to go to war under three circumstances: if your nation is under imminent threat of attack, if you or an ally of yours is attacked, or if the Security Council decides to intercede to prevent or limit a humanitarian crisis.  So regardless of whether WMDs are found, bush is arguably guilty of the war crime of prosecuting a war of aggression.  (Remember that most of the Japanese war criminals convicted after WWII were convicted of this crime rather than other atrocities.)
 
Also, and I think this is the most politically pertinent aspect of the situation in an election year, the president broke the law by not following the requirements of the law Congress passed regarding the use of force in Iraq.  Congress, in its resolution, required that the president make two formal findings of fact in a determination and present them to Congress either before hostilities began or within 48 hours after they began.  A finding of fact is a legal term of art that means one can make an inference of a fact given stated evidence.  The two findings required are a) hostilities can begin only after all diplomatic solutions to the problem (the existence of WMDs in a threatening form) have been exhausted, and b) military action can only be undertaken as part of the war on terrorists, including being a response to 9/11.  These are specific requirements that bush simply finessed by stating the requirements, word for word, as conclusive findings of fact.  This is in no way adequate.  He did not provide ANY evidentiary basis for these findings.  This is like asking your parents to borrow the car if you promise to do your homework beforehand.  As they hand you the keys, you tell them you did so, knowing that you didn’t.  This is nothing more than a lie, and in the president’s case, it is an impeachable offense.  We know this from historical analysis; lying to Congress about matters of war was mentioned as an impeachable offense by the founders and also by members of Congress investigating Nixon’s illegal 14-month campaign of bombing Cambodia.

svengali

These guys are very good at misdirection; I suppose the republicans are totally disciplined.  Why is it that even good journalists get the story wrong.  Joe Wilson never said his wife "had nothing to do with it"; he said she relayed a request to see if he'd be willing to attend a meeting on the issue.  C'mon!

bush disdain for law

Excellent article by Jonathan Schell in The Nation about the predictable (certainly after Bush v. Gore) contempt for the rule of law held by this administration:

brand new

So I’m new to the blog-o-sphere. Guess I’ll have a new outlet for my rants and ad hominem attacks of Rebublicans. I’ll try to use facts as I understand them, but I’m sure I’ll resort to locomm.