Boortz and the Boogie Man

You may remember that some of the pre-release reviews of Spike Lee's "Do the Right Thing" in 1989 castigated Lee for having made a film that was surely going to provoke riots in the streets of major urban centers. Of course there were no "Do the Right Thing" riots, and to my knowledge, no mass purgings from Arts and Entertainment pages of the critics who were so quick to sound the false alarm, alas.

For a more recent, sleazier version of racist chicken little social/cultural commentary check out rightwing hack, Neal Boortz's dire predictions (thanks red rabbit) of race riots should Tookie Williams be executed. Accordingly, Boortz disdainfully predicted that the governator's fear of violent unrest would prompt a stay of Williams's execution.

The next morning, finding himself wrong on both counts, Boortz did the honorable rightwing thing these days--blame the weather. With no Category 4 hurricane to point to, Boortz decided it was just too damn cold in LA for the Negroes to get worked up. Someone tell me this isn't the 1880s.

This is of interest only because it gives you some idea of how willing the right is to use the specter of black urban unrest to explain/justify anything and everything--and their sense that democrats are still vulnerable to the soft-on-crime charge.

The punitive anti-crime/anti-terrorist police-state policies the Right has been pushing can't get enough of boogie men, domestic and international, for whom extreme measures are presumed to be the only possible measures.

Federally Funded Fairy Tales

I missed this in February, but just guess where $167 million of your taxes are going... c'mon, guess again. Alright, your money and mine is going to abstinence-only programs in high schools around the country. Here's a little snippet:

Deep inside every man is a knight in shining armor, ready to rescue a maiden and slay a dragon. When a man feels trusted, he is free to be the strong, protecting man he longs to be.

Imagine a knight traveling through the countryside. He hears a princess in distress and rushes gallantly to slay the dragon. The princess calls out, “I think this noose will work better!” and throws him a rope. As she tells him how to use the noose, the knight obliges her and kills the dragon. Everyone is happy, except the knight, who doesn’t feel like a hero. He is depressed and feels unsure of himself. He would have preferred to use his own sword.

The knight goes on another trip. The princess reminds him to take the noose. The knight hears another maiden in distress. He remembers how he used to feel before he met the princess; with a surge of confidence, he slays the dragon with his sword. All the townspeople rejoice, and the knight is a hero. He never returned to the princess. Instead, he lived happily ever after in the village, and eventually married the maiden—but only after making sure she knew nothing about nooses.

Moral of the story: Occasional assistance may be all right, but too much will lessen a man’s confidence or even turn him away from his princess.

Oh, and, if your subscription to Seventeen has expired, not to worry. The U.S. government has come up with a list of 5 things you need to know about your knight or your princess:

5 Major Needs of Women:
Affection, Conversation, Honesty and Openness, Financial Support, Family Commitment

5 Major Needs of Men:
Sexual Fulfillment, Recreational Companionship, Physical Attractiveness, Admiration, Domestic Support

I think they skipped the chapter on Brokeback Enchanted Forest, where Lance and Galahad have fun with swordplay, with nary a thought of princesses or dragons.

And You Thought Waterboarding Was A Sport

Sidney Blumenthal's piece on Condoliar Rice's trip through Europe exemplifies what has become a familiar strategy for this administration: issue a categorical statement denying wrongdoing and then in subsequent encounters with the media, qualify, qualify, qualify, until you finally admit that you're doing exactly what you denied doing in the first place, but that you are justified in doing so.

On that note I thought I heard Charles Krauthammer on NPR's "The World" yesterday defending the practice of waterboarding ("it gives you the sensation that you're drowning," farted Charles (perhaps not an exact quote) before going on to claim that we have not had a terrorist attack in this country since 9/11 because of these sorts of interrogation practices.

Please Check Your Advisors at the Party Door

Is there any truth to the Washington Post's take on how the Democratic Party is NOT the well-oiled machine we've come to love and respect and count on? Maybe. And maybe Nancy Pelosi should've flipped before she flopped. I have to admit it was a pretty boneheaded move to balk for several days before agreeing with Murtha's call for a rapid withdrawal of U.S. troops from Iraq. But maybe it's her advisors who are flailing. You know, the ones on the Republican payroll?

Marshall Wittmann, a former Republican political strategist now with the centrist Democratic Leadership Council, said Pelosi may have resurrected her party's most deadly liability -- voters' lack of trust in the party on national security.

A former Republican strategist??!!?? Is it any wonder they usually do such a good job gumming up the Democratic works, the Democrats come off sounding and acting like warmed-over Republicans? I can't help but wonder if someone's wising up and purging the ranks because, apparently, Nancy's not listening, Marshall, and the Democrats in general are looking downright LIBERAL these days. But is it too much to ask for a little cohesion? A statement we can all get behind? The professor offers a little jumpstart:

“By attacking Congressman Murtha, Congresswoman Pelosi, and the Democratic Party for criticizing Bush’s failed war strategy the Administration and the Republican Party once again display their arrogance and their alienation from the American people. An overwhelming majority of the American people knows this war has been mishandled. These same Americans know that the road to security and peace is an exit strategy from Iraq that the Administration doesn’t have. The Bush Administration’s response to criticism of its flawed "Plan for Victory" demonstrates its contempt for the very citizens who are paying the taxes that support this war. Scandalously, the Republican attack shows what they think of the citizens whose sons and daughters, husbands and wives, and whose fathers and mothers are paying for this mishandled war with their lives.”

Digby Does Demographics

Dear Democratic Leadership, read this now!.

Democrats can look to the future and find a populist message that doesn't cater to white fear and tendencies to scapegoat minorities. And we can add the Hispanic community permanently into our coalition, denying Karl Rove his most coveted goal. Or we can take the easy way out and catch a few Bubbas until the economy turns around, at which point they'll go right back home to the party that really knows how to feed their worst instincts on regular basis --- the Republicans.

A Warrior Evolves

“Give not that which is holy unto the dogs, neither cast ye your pearls before swine, lest they trample them under their feet, and turn again and rend you.” Matthew 7:6

What do you call a man who first served his country for 37 years in the military, with two Purple Hearts, a Bronze Star with a Combat "V," and the Vietnamese Cross of Gallantry; and then further served his country for 31 additional years in Congress?

If you're a Republican swine whose closest encounter with war is trying to prevent your local TV station from airing "Saving Private Ryan," then you call John Murtha a coward. But this may be John Murtha's bravest moment. The old soldier has come full circle. The idealism and arrogance of youth has given way to the wisdom and clarity of age and experience. The realization that the deaths of 2000 young American soldiers, and the deaths of tens of thousand of Iraqi civilians, are just so much collateral damage to the men in power, the real cowards, who roll relentessly over anyone and anything in their path, amassing wealth and power, not even bothering to wash the blood from their hands.

John Murtha looks into the eyes of wounded soldiers today and finally sees his dying buddies in Viet Nam. He's come full circle and cannot sit by quietly while another generation is damaged and discarded. I only hope that the swine who turned on Representative Murtha and tried to tear him and his pearls of wisdom to pieces will recognize the evil in themselves and jump headlong over a cliff, just like it says in the good book.

Senator Durbin was Right

Anyone who slammed the senior senator from Illinois for calling into question the Bush/Cheney torture policy owes him an apology. Not only is that dick, Cheney, trying to strongarm Congress into looking the other way while our designated torturers do his dirty work, the United States of America is shanghai-ing suspected terrorist types and smuggling them to countries where they can be secretly tortured. "Black sites" in countries that allow torture...countries like, oh...POLAND.

...the CIA is maintaining secret facilities outside the U.S. where it is holding suspected terrorists. The point of these extra-territorial holding pens... is "to hold and interrogate suspected terrorists for as long as necessary and without restrictions imposed by the U.S. legal system or even by the military tribunals established for prisoners held at Guantanamo Bay."

Wait a minute...so what the CIA is doing to these suspected terrorists is illegal in the U.S., and probably illegal in other western democracies like ROMANIA and POLAND. But somehow what Dick Durbin said was going way too far and he was forced to apologize on the floor of the Senate?

Don't even get me started on why a blowjob in the privacy of your oval office = impeachment, but stealing two elections; disenfranchising millions of voters; allowing a major terrorist attack to occur on U.S. soil; invading two countries, the second invasion occurring after cooking pre-war intelligence, lying mightily and often to Congress and the American people about said intelligence; detaining and torturing countless innocent people; revealing the identity of a covert CIA operative, and thus compromising national security in an attempt to destroy a whistleblower; failing tremendously and on worldwide television to respond to thousands of American citizens left stranded and without food or water in the wake of the worst hurricane disaster in our history (and that's just off the top of my head) = diddly-squat.

Give 'em Hell, Harry!

I guess a kick in the pants feels like a slap in the face if you're Bill Frist. But if you've become accustomed to Democrats rolling over at the slightest breeze it must come as a shock when all it takes are good old fashioned rules and the truth to call you to account. Harry Reid invoked little-used Rule 21 to force the Senate into closed session on Tuesday, but not before publicly blistering the Republicans with a laundry list of derelictions of duty:

Unfortunately the unwillingness of the Republican-controlled Congress to exercise its oversight responsibilities is not limited to just Iraq. We see it with respect to the prisoner abuse scandal. We see it with respect to Katrina. And we see it with respect to the cronyism and corruption that permeates this Administration.

Even Lou Dobbs can read the manual:

Ed, a couple of points if I may. One, you suggested the Senate melted down today. There are those who would argue that the Senate began doing its job today.

As that other Harry put it, "just give 'em the truth, and they'll think it's hell."

Epistolary Fun

(Thanks to Mark and Spence)

Letters of support received by I. Lewis (Scooter) Libby:

Dear Scooter,

Dick tells me you were on his staff or something, and that you were having some kind of law thing. Jeez, I'm really sorry about that. Boy oh Boy - I cannot even begin to tell you what it's been like for me here lately - what with the tragedy in New Orleans (poor, poor Brownie), that whole 'war thing' and then that nice judge lady who up and quit on me, this place is in shambles! Anyway, listen, if you get through this thing, I may have something else lined up for you, so try to pay attention to all the legal stuff when you're in court, it'll make the confirmation hearings better.

- The Prez

Dear Scooter,

What a travesty of justice! You train someone from scratch in the black arts, share with them the ecstasy of the hunt and the glory of the kill, and then BAM! Some uppity prosecutor goes and unloads a round of buckshot in you! Truly a shame. That having been said, I need you to understand this - if you turn on me, I will gut you like a Wyoming trout! I will hunt you down like an elk and fire a crossbow into your heart. Otherwise - all the best!

- Dick Cheney

Dearest Loving Scooter,

In the wilds of Connecticut where you vacation, the poplars are just turning to the amber hues of autumn. They all turn as if on cue, because their roots are as deeply connected as you and I. We have shared wonderful moments together, and please know that I will wait for you - however long it takes.

Lovingly - Judith Miller

ps - Most of the guards are pleasant, but watch out for Johnson - he can be a real bear in the morning!

Hey Scoot -

I call top bunk!

- Tom Delay

Dear Scooter -

I saw you on TV - it's made me see you in a whole new light! Gosh - you're famous now! I think you're the best - the absolute best. I hope you know that I think you did a fantastic job and I am so so so proud of you. Please write me as much as possible, and I'll keep the autographed photo you gave me last Christmas right by my bed.

- Harriet Miers

Scooter -

Tom's crazy if he thinks he's getting the top bunk. I outrank him. Besides, he was like a bug killer before politics - I'm a Doctor! Plus, I don't snore.

- Bill Frist

Dear Mr.. Libby -

Thank you Thank You Thank you! This has been a great week for us. Now if we could only find a way to capitalize on all of this. Some kind of message or something.

- Harry Reid and Nancy Pelosi

2K

"We scoop out a grave in the sky where it’s roomy to lie"
--"Death Fugue"by Paul Celan

Powell: Bush & Cheney Briefed on Plame

AfterDowningStreet serves up red meat:

...in the past several days, former secretary of state colin powell had a meeting with senator john mccain (R-AZ), primarily about the mccain-sponsored amendment on inserting a rider prohibiting torture onto the us defense budget (a bill which powell has himself been lobbying heavily for, against objections of president bush).

during the meeting, powell recounted to the senator that he had traveled on air force one with bush and cheney, and brought to their attention a classified memorandum about the issue of whether there was indeed a transaction inolving niger and yellow cake uranium. the document included ambassador joe wilson's involvement and identified his wife, valerie plame, as a covert agent. the memorandum further stated that this information was secret. powell told mccain that he showed that memo only to two people--president and vice president. according to powell, cheney fixated on the wilson/plame connection, and plame's status.

powell testified about this exchange in great length to the grand jury investigating the plame case. according to sources close to the case, powell appeared convinced that the vice president played a focal role in disclosing plame's undercover status.

Thanks to Bartcop for the link.

UPDATE: It was Jan Frel at AlterNet serving up the red meat. Apologies all around, but thanks to everyone for the delicious meal.

Out on a Ledge

Bush's Brain is in big trouble, mister. No word on Bush's Conscience.

Rory Carroll UPDATE: Whew!

This must be a great relief for, not only Carroll's loved ones, but to the other journalists working in Iraq. According to Reporters Without Borders 73 journalists have been killed in Iraq since March 2003.

Grannyinsanity reminds us that this isn't just a tragedy, it's policy, baby!
From March 20th, 2003.

Should war in the Gulf commence, the Pentagon proposes to take radical new steps in media relations - 'unauthorised' journalists will be shot at. Speaking on The Sunday Show on Ireland's RTE1 last Sunday veteran war reporter Kate Adie said she had been warned by a senior Pentagon official that uplinks, i.e. TV broadcasts or satellite phones, that are detected by US aircraft are likely to be fired on.

Oh, and granny pointed me to Project for the Old American Century. While I'm generally wary of any one who hankers for the "good ole days," this site has lots of neat lists and charts and links to documents released by the Freedom of Information Act, not to mention timely reporting. Thanks granny!

SouthSIDE

I knew it was serious when grown men began crying on the radio

Despite our lead blogger's anti-sports proclivities, I just want to remind you all that this is a Chicago blog, and a historic moment (hopefully ending in a party on Oct 30th) in Chicago sports history. Go Sox!

Missing Irish Journalist Criticized "Out of Control" U.S. Military

The Guardian is confirming that journalist Rory Carroll is missing in Iraq.
Just a month ago Carroll wrote a scathing article linking the increased number of deaths and injuries of journalists covering the invasion of Iraq to "out of control" U.S. troops.

It was a routine assignment that, like too many in Iraq, went wrong. Tipped off that police had clashed with gunmen in western Baghdad, the Reuters news agency dispatched Haider Kadhem, a cameraman, and Waleed Khaled, a soundman, to the scene. As their car headed down Ghaziliya bridge American troops opened fire, hitting Khaled in the face and the chest, killing him instantly and spattering blood over the US military and Reuters press cards clipped to his shirt.

By the time relatives and colleagues arrived American armoured vehicles had sealed off the street and Kadhem, slightly wounded from fragments, was under arrest. Having found nothing suspicious the troops allowed the car to be towed away and handed relatives a body bag. One soldier told them not to look too closely at the corpse. "Don't bother. It's not worth it." Other soldiers standing a few feet away joked among themselves.

For Reuters and many other foreign media organisations in Baghdad the August 28 shooting was further evidence that American troops are out of control. Since the 2003 invasion US forces have killed at least 18 media workers in incidents for which no one has been charged or punished. "Whitewashes. There have been no satisfactory investigations that we know of," said Rodney Pinder, director of the International News Safety Institute (INSI), a Brussels-based advocacy group.

Read the whole article. It's quite an indictment of the military mindset when it comes to media coverage:

In addition to shooting them, US forces have a habit of detaining journalists without charge. Weeks can pass before a bureau is able to confirm that an employee has been arrested, possibly injured, and held incommunicado in Abu Ghraib or another prison. A driver for the Guardian, accredited with the US authorities, was held without explanation for five days.

It kind of makes you wonder...

Liar of the Free World

The New York Daily News drops the other shoe

An angry President Bush rebuked chief political guru Karl Rove two years ago for his role in the Valerie Plame affair, sources told the Daily News.
...
A second well-placed source said some recently published reports implying Rove had deceived Bush about his involvement in the Wilson counterattack were incorrect and were leaked by White House aides trying to protect the President.

"Bush did not feel misled so much by Karl and others as believing that they handled it in a ham-handed and bush-league way," the source said.

No pun intended.

Okay, did anyone else know this?

Patrick Fitzgerald interviewed President Bush (at least, he was interviewed by his team; I don't remember whether it was Fitzgerald specifically who conducted it, though I would assume it was). The president's lawyers succeeded in getting Fitzgerald to agree that the interview not be under oath. Still, though, an interview took place and at the top of the list of questions must have been just what happened and what the president knew.

I know they pulled that bullshit with the 9/11 Commission, but I guess I must have missed the massive media coverage and general outrage when they pulled the same old shit with Fitzgerald.

Truthiness = Goodiness

The Colbert Report

Laughed my ass off. The couple of times I saw Steve Colbert host TDS when Jon couldn't be there he was really good. He never tried to BE Jon and he doesn't try on the new show. We'll see how it holds up. It's greatest strength may be that it channels the same creative strength as the TDS.

Meanwhile O'Reilly is on with Jon tonight. Yikes!

Oh It's On

Please?


Pretty please?

How About a Human Being for President

Screenwriter, Shermen Yellen asks Can a Man Become President? I found myself reading this and mentally replacing "human being" for real man because it made more sense that way.

Wikipedia defines a human being as having "a highly developed brain and consequent capacity for abstract reasoning, speech, language, and introspection."

Ok, this would disqualify George "Bootsie" Bush from being a human being much less President of the United States--or as he pronounces it U-ny-ed States.

Raping the Corpse

Hey, I calls 'em likes I sees 'em.

Conservatives have already used the storm for causes of their own, like suspending requirements that federal contractors have affirmative action plans and pay locally prevailing wages. And with federal costs for rebuilding the Gulf Coast estimated at up to $200 billion, Congressional Republican leaders are pushing for spending cuts, with programs like Medicaid and food stamps especially vulnerable.

"We've had a stunning reversal in just a few weeks," said Robert Greenstein, director of the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities, a liberal advocacy group in Washington. "We've gone from a situation in which we might have a long-overdue debate on deep poverty to the possibility, perhaps even the likelihood, that low-income people will be asked to bear the costs. I would find it unimaginable if it wasn't actually happening."

Mr. Greenstein's comments were echoed by Representative Rosa DeLauro, Democrat of Connecticut: "Poor people are going to get the short end of the stick, despite all the public sympathy. That's a great irony."

But many conservatives see logic, not irony, at work. If the storm exposed great poverty, they say, it also exposed the problems of the very policies that liberals have supported.

"This is not the time to expand the programs that were failing anyway," said Stuart M. Butler, a vice president of the Heritage Foundation, a conservative research and advocacy group influential on Capitol Hill.

While the right has proposed alternatives including tax-free zones for businesses and school vouchers for students, Mr. Butler said, "the left has just talked up the old paradigm: 'let's expand what's failed before.' "

Doubt about the effectiveness of some programs is only one factor shaping the current antipoverty debate. Another is political muscle: poor people do not make campaign contributions. Many do not even vote.

A third factor is the federal deficit, which leaves little money for new initiatives. And a fourth is the continuing support for tax cuts, including those aimed at the wealthiest Americans, which further limits spending on social programs.
Indeed, even as he was calling for deep spending cuts last week, Representative Mike Pence, Republican of Indiana, who leads the conservative caucus, called tax reductions for the prosperous a key to fighting poverty.

"Raising taxes in the wake of a national catastrophe would imperil the very economic growth we need to bring the Gulf Coast back," Mr. Pence said. "I'm mindful of what a pipe fitter once said to President Reagan: 'I've never been hired by a poor man.' A growing economy is in the interest of every working American, regardless of their income."

Ah yes. The Reagan years, a period of great economic prosperity. No, sorry, those were the Clinton years. These were the Reagan years.