Bush and Tom Ridge Fear Cat Stevens?!

Cat Stevens, now known as Yusuf Islam, has been denied entry to the United States. Good God, if Barry Manilow takes up Islam, Bush would probably go hide!

(Actually, this does raise significant and serious issues of the extent to which the restrictions on travel are being used to silence voices and opinions, but I'll save those thoughts for a later post.)

Something Beautiful

Because it's Friday, and because there is so much strife and bitterness in the air, I share this with you. Republicans, Democrats, Religious, Agnostics, Atheists, males, females, gays, straights, whatever - please take a moment before going on to the next blog or making your next comment, or allowing the shadow of political ugliness to lay another pale shade of gray over your soul. It doesn't answer anything or prove me right or you wrong. It is a delightful short story, and it calls to mind Auden's words from In Memory of WB Yeats:

You were silly like us; your gift survived it all:
The parish of rich women, physical decay,
Yourself. Mad Ireland hurt you into poetry.
Now Ireland has her madness and her weather still,
For poetry makes nothing happen: it survives
In the valley of its making where executives
Would never want to tamper, flows on south
From ranches of isolation and the busy griefs,
Raw towns that we believe and die in; it survives,
A way of happening, a mouth.

The Coming Draft

While the Kerry/Edwards team has pledged that there will be no draft if they are elected. The Bush/Cheney ticket, thus far, has remained mum about its plans.

Given what is going on in Colorado, though, it appears that the military is using every trick it can devise to keep its numbers up at least until November. Soldiers there are being told that they can either reenlist, or be sent to Iraq. In other words, "volunteer" or take a chance at being blown up by a roadside bomb.

"W" Stands For Women?

Well, as long as they know their place, and speak when spoken to . . .
AP Photo

Bush vs. the Environment

One shocking area of weakness for the Republicans is the Bush environmental record. To me, the willingness of the Bush administration to drill for oil in environmentally sensitive areas and to support polluting Yellowstone Park with snowmobiles (and on and on and on) is a demonstration of how far the Republicans have strayed from their conservative roots in favor of neo-anarchist libertarianism. The Bush crew is willing to inflict permanent damage on our environment so that they can call themselves "anti-regulators".

Most students of governmental roles agree that the environment is an area where the free market is ill-suited to serve effectively. It's called the tragedy of the commons, though, given the baseness of the current administration, "tragedy of the common" probably fits better.

Connect the Dots - Business is Good

James Baker III is the lawyer Bush is using to negotiate the terms of the debates. His law firm, Baker Botts, is also defending the Saudis on claims presented by the victims of 9-11. In his spare time, he serves as Senior Counselor to The Carlyle Group, which is hauling in billions of dollars in Bush's "War on Terror".

Meanwhile, more than 1000 young Americans, and untold thousands of Iraqis are dead. This is truly a happy anniversary of 9-11 for Bush and his cronies.

New Link on the Side

I have resisted focusing on polling data, because I believe it feeds intellectual laziness and starves concentration on legitimate issues. Furthermore, many of the polls are intentionally or unintentionally skewed - it appears, for example, that the 14% margin for Bush in Missouri this past week was due to sloppy dialing.

That said, I'm adding the link to the Current Electoral Vote Predictor to my sidebar, because it seems to be the most authoritative and balanced source of polling information for those who cannot resist the attraction of political peepshows (myself included in that category).

(I had intended to add the link when Bush had the lead, to insulate myself from charges of unseemly gloating. Unfortunately for my spotless reputation, Bush's lead didn't last until the weekend.)

What Kerry Said

I fear that the American people are accepting as a given that, regardless of what the truth of the Swift Boat excursions is, Kerry's anti-war activism was somehow dishonorable, and that he slandered his fellow veterans. I did a tiny bit of research, though, and found the actual transcript of his testimony before the senate. It was delivered with a day's notice, after a sleepless night of controversy over an encampment of fellow veterans. In such trying circumstances, it would be understandable if he launched into an intemperate tirade, but, instead, his words were well-thought-out, articulate, and important.

The next time you hear someone complain of Kerry's "treason" or "betrayal", ask him or her to take a little time and read his words:

Mr. Kerry: Thank you very much, Senator Fulbright, Senator Javits, Senator Symington, Senator Pell. I would like to say for the record, and also for the men behind me who are also wearing the uniforms and their medals, that my sitting here is really symbolic. I am not here as John Kerry. I am here as one member of the group of veterans in this country, and were it possible for all of them to sit at this table they would be here and have the same kind of testimony.

I would simply like to speak in very general terms. I apologize if my statement is general because I received notification yesterday you would hear me and I am afraid because of the injunction I was up most of the night and haven't had a great deal of chance to prepare.

I would like to talk, representing all those veterans, and say that several months ago in Detroit, we had an investigation at which over 150 honorably discharged and many very highly decorated veterans testified to war crimes committed in Southeast Asia, not isolated incidents but crimes committed on a day-to-day basis with the full awareness of officers at all levels of command.

It is impossible to describe to you exactly what did happen in Detroit, the emotions in the room, the feelings of the men who were reliving their experiences in Vietnam, but they did. They relived the absolute horror of what this country, in a sense, made them do.

They told the stories at times they had personally raped, cut off ears, cut off heads, tape wires from portable telephones to human genitals and turned up the power, cut off limbs, blown up bodies, randomly shot at civilians, razed villages in fashion reminiscent of Genghis Khan, shot cattle and dogs for fun, poisoned food stocks, and generally ravaged the country side of South Vietnam in addition to the normal ravage of war, and the normal and very particular ravaging which is done by the applied bombing power of this country.

We call this investigation the "Winter Soldier Investigation." The term "Winter Soldier" is a play on words of Thomas Paine in 1776 when he spoke of the Sunshine Patriot and summertime soldiers who deserted at Valley Forge because the going was rough.

We who have come here to Washington have come here because we feel we have to be winter soldiers now. We could come back to this country; we could be quiet; we could hold our silence; we could not tell what went on in Vietnam, but we feel because of what threatens this country, the fact that the crimes threaten it, no reds, and not redcoats but the crimes which we are committing that threaten it, that we have to speak out.

. . .

But the problem of veterans goes beyond this personal problem, because you think about a poster in this country with a picture of Uncle Sam and the picture says "I want you." And a young man comes out of high school and says, "That is fine. I am going to serve my country." And he goes to Vietnam and he shoots and he kills and he does his job or maybe he doesn't kill, maybe he just goes and he comes back, and when he gets back to this country he finds that he isn't really wanted, because the largest unemployment figure in the country- it varies depending on who you get it from, the VA Administration 15 percent, various other sources 22 percent. But the largest corps of unemployed in this country are veterans of this war, and of those veterans 33 percent of the unemployed are black. That means 1 out of every 10 of the Nation's unemployed is a veteran of Vietnam.

The hospitals across the country won't, or can't meet their demands. It is not a question of not trying. They don't have the appropriations. A man recently died after he had a tracheotomy in California, not because of the operation but because there weren't enough personnel to clean the mucous out of his tube and he suffocated to death.

Another young man just died in a New York VA hospital the other day. A friend of mine was lying in a bed two beds away and tried to help him, but he couldn't. He rang a bell and there was nobody there to service that man and so he died of convulsions.

I understand 57 percent of all those entering the VA hospitals talk about suicide. Some 27 percent have tried, and they try because they come back to this country and they have to face what they did in Vietnam, and then they come back and find the indifference of a country that doesn't really care, that doesn't really care.

John Kerry testified as an honorable man, and I expect him to serve as an honorable president. Those who accuse him of betrayal are either uninformed or dishonorable.

Jimmy Carter Opens the Large Can on Zell Miller

I don't know how Josh Marshall got his hands on a private letter from Jimmy Carter to Zell Miller, but I'm glad he did.

You seem to have forgotten that loyal Democrats elected you as mayor and as state senator. Loyal Democrats, including members of my family and me, elected you as lieutenant governor and as governor. It was a loyal Democrat, Lester Maddox, who assigned you to high positions in the state government when you were out of office. It was a loyal Democrat, Roy Barnes, who appointed you as U.S. Senator when you were out of office. By your historically unprecedented disloyalty, you have betrayed our trust.

Great Georgia Democrats who served in the past, including Walter George, Richard Russell, Herman Talmadge, and Sam Nunn disagreed strongly with the policies of Franklin Roosevelt, Harry Truman, John Kennedy, Lyndon Johnson, and me, but they remained loyal to the party in which they gained their public office. Other Democrats, because of philosophical differences or the race issue, like Bo Callaway and Strom Thurmond, at least had the decency to become Republicans.

Everyone knows that you were chosen to speak at the Republican Convention because of your being a “Democrat,” and it’s quite possible that your rabid and mean-spirited speech damaged our party and paid the Republicans some transient dividends.

Perhaps more troublesome of all is seeing you adopt an established and very effective Republican campaign technique of destroying the character of opponents by wild and false allegations. The Bush campaign’s personal attacks on the character of John McCain in South Carolina in 2000 was a vivid example. The claim that war hero Max Cleland was a disloyal American and an ally of Osama bin Laden should have given you pause, but you have joined in this ploy by your bizarre claims that another war hero, John Kerry, would not defend the security of our nation except with spitballs. (This is the same man whom you described previously as “one of this nation's authentic heroes, one of this party's best-known and greatest leaders -- and a good friend.")

I, myself, never claimed to have been a war hero, but I served in the navy from 1942 to 1953, and, as president, greatly strengthened our military forces and protected our nation and its interests in every way. I don’t believe this warrants your referring to me as a pacificist.

Zell, I have known you for forty-two years and have, in the past, respected you as a trustworthy political leader and a personal friend. But now, there are many of us loyal Democrats who feel uncomfortable in seeing that you have chosen the rich over the poor, unilateral preemptive war over a strong nation united with others for peace, lies and obfuscation over the truth, and the political technique of personal character assassination as a way to win elections or to garner a few moments of applause. These are not the characteristics of great Democrats whose legacy you and I have inherited.

The Missing Editorial Writer

During his acceptance speech, Bush mocked the press for not acknowledging how "in control" the Iraq situation is. Bush put the nattering nabobs of negativism in their place:

In 1946, 18 months after the fall of Berlin to Allied forces, a journalist in The New York Times wrote this: 'Germany is a land in an acute stage of economic, political and moral crisis. European capitals are frightened. In every military headquarters, one meets alarmed officials doing their utmost to deal with the consequences of the occupation policy that they admit has failed.' End quote. Maybe that same person's still around, writing editorials.

Maureen Dowd gives Bush the background he apparently lacked:

She isn't. Anne O'Hare McCormick, who died in 1954, was The Times's pioneering foreign affairs correspondent who covered the real Axis of Evil, interviewing Hitler, Stalin, Mussolini and Patton. She was hardly a left-wing radical or defeatist. In 1937, she became the first woman to win a Pulitzer Prize in journalism, and she was the first woman to be a member of The Times's editorial board.

The president distorted the columnist's dispatch. The "moral crisis" and failure she described were in the British and French sectors. She reported that the Americans were doing better because of their policy to "encourage initiative and develop self-government." She wanted the U.S. to commit more troops and stay the course - not cut and run.

Mr. Bush Swift-boated her.

(Thanks to the outstanding Eschaton for the heads-up.)

Voting Often

Absolutely incredible. The Kansas City Star had a story yesterday about people who have voted multiple times in recent elections, including a local lawyer.

• Prairie Village businesswoman Lorraine E. Goodrich, 39, who said the issue for her was helping Bartle Hall. She wanted to support the hotel and restaurant tax increase on the Kansas City ballot in November 2002.

“I felt very strongly about it,” said Goodrich, who owned a staffing agency in an office at 912 Baltimore Ave. and is registered to vote in both states. “I certainly felt more strongly about that than anything that goes on in Kansas.

“A lot of things happened in Missouri that I wanted to have an opinion about.”

So she cast an advance ballot in Johnson County, then crossed the state line to go to the polls near her downtown business address, records show.

“I'm trying to think what spin I can put on this,” said Goodrich, who promotes businesspeople meeting in a party atmosphere, which is called a “marty” — a combination of the words meeting and party. She describes herself as Kansas City's “marty diva.”

“I probably shouldn't have voted in Kansas,” Goodrich said. “That was a mistake. Whoops! Oh my God, I'm going to get in so much trouble, aren't I?”

Umm, yeah, I think you are . . .

As for the lawyer, he is refreshing in his directness:

“I was wrong in what I did,” said James D. Scherzer, an attorney who acknowledged to the newspaper that he voted in Kansas City and Kansas City, Kan., in the August 2000 primary election.

Then he did it again in elections in November 2000, August 2002 and November 2002.

. . .

• Scherzer, 68, who said he acted on his own with no particular motive.

“I don't have some rationale, or a highfalutin story,” he said.

Scherzer, who has law offices in Kansas City and Kansas City, Kan., said he expected to lose his law licenses in both states or see them suspended over the matter.

“They hold attorneys to a high standard,” Scherzer said. “You just can't do something this wrong and then say, ‘I didn't know any better.'”

I often shake my head when I realize that a stupid person's vote counts as much as anyone's, but it really bothers me to see that sometimes counts twice . . .

Why I Support Senator Kerry

My last several political posts have amounted to rhetorical cheapshots - intended to entertain or inflame, but not really to persuade. In my defense, I suspect that most visitors to this site come here with their beliefs set, and are seeking confirmation, amusing perspectives, or spirited debate. But, on the off chance that one of the rare "undecideds" happens by, and also to make certain that I can honestly articulate a rational position, here are some of the major issues of the day, and why I believe that Senator Kerry would be a better president than President Bush has been.

Iraq: To me, this is the central fact of the Bush administration. The Bush administration came to power with the goal of toppling Saddam Hussein. Many of the Bush team, including Rumsfeld and Wolfowitz, wrote a letter to President Clinton in January of 1998 urging him to remove Hussein's regime from power. When the US Supreme Court gave Bush the presidency, his team set out to accomplish that goal.

Almost a thousand American soldiers and many thousands of Iraqi citizens have died for this goal. We have added billions of dollars to the debt our children and grandchildren will have to pay. Our national prestige has been squandered and our moral beacon has been dimmed.

I wouldn't mind the cost, though, if I thought that the prize justified the price. Here, I cannot believe that. Yes, Hussein was a terrible despot, and someday, the Iraqi people as a whole may be better off without him. So far, I am not sure that they are better off, living under occupation with a sham government over them, but they may someday get to a better place. I hope that happens.

That possibility, though, did not and does not justify the war. Bush campaigned on his unwillingness to "nation build", and yet his advisers entered the White House with plans to do exactly that. We were misled into a costly war. I believe that the Bush administration manipulated weak intelligence to gain American support for a war they wanted to wage. To paraphrase Senator Kerry, we rushed into battle because we wanted to, not because we needed to.

Now that we are in a costly quagmire, some apologists for the Bush regime want to focus solely on the future. I completely understand why - the question of what to do now is far murkier than the issue of how we were misled into war. Kerry does have plans to help make our occupation more multi-national, and to help America recapture some of its international stature, but, even if I believed that Kerry would spend the next four years doing precisely what Bush would do, I would still call upon our nation to send Bush from the Oval Office in disgrace for what he has done.

Tax Policy and the Economy: I am not a competent economist, so I cannot say with certainty that the economy would be significantly better today if Gore had won the Supreme Court's vote. I cannot say with certainty that we would not have lost the thousands of jobs that have been lost under Bush; I cannot say with certainty that the millions who have lost their health insurance under Bush would still be insured; I cannot say with certainty that the millions more living in poverty would be better off without Bush in office. I canot say these things with certainty, but I believe them in my heart.

I can say with certainty that Bush's tax plan was an act of aggression by the wealthy against the poor and middle class. Bush was handed a massive surplus, and he decided to turn that economic ship around so that he could hand out tax breaks to the super-wealthy. The vast majority of the tax savings went to the wealthiest people in the nation, while the vast majority of Americans were bought off with a $300 check. He repealed the estate tax on estates over $1,000,000, favoring dead millionaires over the living midde class! Our children, though, get an inheritance in the form of a massive deficit.

John Kerry has a better plan. He supports strengthening the middle class, as opposed to the ultra-wealthy. He supports a raise in the minimum wage, placing dollars in the hands of those who will spend them on food and clothing rather than foreign luxury cars. He would cut the deficit and enforce our trade agreements.

Whether or not Bush deserves all the blame for the current state of the economy, he clearly deserves some of it. The Bush regime has clearly mismanaged our economy, and consistently favored the ultra-wealthy over the middle class. We cannot afford Bush for the next four years, and future generations cannot afford him for the next several decades, while they pay off the Bush deficit.

Civil Liberties: During the national panic following September 11, the Bush regime came up with the Patriot Act, which allows for unbelievable amounts of government snooping on average citizens. Bush has given us John Ashcroft. The Bush administration has nominated right-wing zealots to the bench. The right to choose is in greater danger than it ever has been, and the Bush administration has consistently sought to restrict access to emergency contraception. The line between church and state is getting blurred by Bush's "faith-based initiatives." The Bush administration has frequently sought to gag social service organizations that challenge the party line on such matters as health care for poor children and HIV prevention. Bush and Ashcroft have seized the frightening power to declare that any one of us an enemy combatant, and lock us away in a prison without access to lawyers or the courts.

In an era when far too many Americans are willing to trade freedom for security, the Bush/Ashcroft regime has been an eager trading partner. Not only can John Ashcroft find out what books I've read, he can prevent me from knowing that he knows. Anybody who has read any history knows that law enforcement will push their new-found power to its maximum, and use it to stifle dissent. These are truly frightening days in which we live, but we must remember that the threat comes from Ashcroft as well as bin Laden.

Environment: Kerry has long been recognized as an environmentalist, and deservedly so. Bush, on the other hand, is unwilling to protect our environment if it means upsetting industry lobbyists. Bush rolled back the Clean Air Act, and signed a tax break to encourage the use of SUVs. The record on this one is so clear and detailed that I won't even bother to set it out in detail - suffice it to say that if you support clean air, clean water, and wilderness areas, you must vote for Kerry.

Conclusion: I have tried to hit the high points and focus on real issues, with real distinctions between the candidates. Of course, there are many other, more slippery or subjective issues that drive my views. For example, I sincerely believe that Bush will reinstate the draft if given another term, and that belief is a strong motivator for me, but he denies it. Bush has, in my view, been a disaster for this country, and it is important that we elect John Kerry to get our country back on the right track.

Republican Career Ruined

Tom Tomorrow has a shocking clip of a young male Republican viciously kicking a young female AIDS protester as she lies helpless on the floor of the convention. So far, it looks like we have a rising young star in the mold of Dick Cheney, but, unfortunately, when confronted by a reporter, he just denied doing it and then stared blankly when told they had it on tape. If he had the right stuff to be one of the greats, he surely could have improvised a way of blaming the Democrats.

Bush's Speech

I watched Bush's acceptance speech, and then went to bed. I haven't taken the time to read anyone else's views of it, so this is just me.

What a dud! He had no energy, no ideas, and no depth. He was willfully stupid in putting forward the Kerry "I voted for it before I voted against it" meme, and I'm hopeful that Kerry will swat that one back in his face.

I would have expected his speech to go over well at least with the party faithful packed into the hall, but even they seemed restless and disappointed. You could sense that they were hoping for more protester interruptions, because that at least got some excitement going in the hall.

What is it about Bush that prevents him from delivering a serious line in a straight fashion? Even when he would throw out some tired cliche about God or patriotism, you'd see him smirking or smiling at one of his buddies. He's like a fraternity boy at a party delivering a pick-up line, but paying more attention to his buddies watching him than to the one he is supposed to be impressing. His lack of sincerity is demonstrated by his foolish posturing.

Frequently, watching the convention has sent me to bed in a negative mood. Last night, I slept very well. If that's their candidate, bring it on.