MAX BLUMENTHAL

Connerly Gets His Due
For his years of service keeping the number of minority students in California's state university system outrageously low, black conservative Ward Connerly is finally getting his reward -- from the good white folks at the Bradley Foundation.

(AgapePress) - One of America's most prominent black conservatives has been selected to receive a $250,000 award for his work in promoting equality, democratic capitalism, and the American ideal of succeeding through merit and initiative rather than special preferences.

On February 16, the Milwaukee, Wisconsin-based Lynde and Harry Bradley Foundation will honor longtime activist Ward Connerly, the chairman of the California Civil Rights Initiative. Connerly and three other recipients will be presented the awards during a ceremony to be held at the John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts on Wednesday, February 16, 2005.

Michael Grebe, President and CEO of the Bradley Foundation, says Connerly is being recognized for "achievements that are consistent with the mission statement of the Foundation" and for embodying "our legacy of honoring meritorious achievement." In particular the foundation spokesman lauds the great job the honoree has done in educating the public about the need to move beyond racial and gender preferences.

While Connerly may use this money to publish some new work or conduct more groundbreaking research into the failures of the black family, he doesn't have to. The Bradley foundation has given him a slush fund, a party favor for doing the conservative movement's bidding:

The foundation head points out that the $250,000 stipend attached to the award comes with no strings or stipulations. "We don't attach any strings to it," he explains, "in part because the tax laws prevent us from doing that -- since we are a private foundation -- but also because we believe the people we select for these kinds of awards don't need to be tied down to a contract. They're the kind of good people who will use the prize for the right purposes."

The Bradley Foundation, of course, granted biological determinist Charles Murray hundreds of thousands of dollars to write his book, "The Bell Curve," which asserted that blacks and other ethnic minorities are genetically predisposed to having lower IQ's than whites.

Of UFO's and Covert GOP Propaganda
As usual, this year's congressional GOP retreat was closed to journalists and the public. But even without media present, it's plainly obvious that the focus of discussions there was on devising new strategies for deceiving the public into voting against their own economic interests.

In a possible sign of what to expect in 2006, Republican senators heard presentations about the strengths and weaknesses of Mr. Bush's presidential campaign and about how to reach blacks, Hispanics, Jews and blue-collar workers, groups not traditionally drawn to the Republican Party, people present said. The sessions were closed to journalists.

The presentations underscored the effectiveness of Mr. Bush's appeals to those groups on public expressions of faith, traditional values and especially the issue of marriage, including opposition to same-sex marriage, aides said.

In another presentation, Senator John Thune of South Dakota introduced senators to the meaning of "blogging," explaining the basics of self-published online political commentary and arguing that it can affect public opinion.

It's unfortunate that readers of the NY Times -- especially those who don't read blogs -- won't be informed as to what Thune's understanding of blogging is. To him, it's just another form of covert propaganda.

Little over a month ago, the first Senate party leader in 52 years was ousted when South Dakota Republican John Thune defeated top Senate Democrat Tom Daschle. While more than $40 million was spent in the race, saturating the airwaves with advertising, a potentially more intriguing front was also opened.

The two leading South Dakota blogs – websites full of informal analysis, opinions and links – were authored by paid advisers to Thune’s campaign.

The Sioux Falls Argus Leader and the National Journal first cited Federal Election Commission documents showing that Jon Lauck, of Daschle v Thune, and Jason Van Beek, of South Dakota Politics, were advisers to the Thune campaign.

The documents, also obtained by CBS News, show that in June and October the Thune campaign paid Lauck $27,000 and Van Beek $8,000. Lauck had also worked on Thune’s 2002 congressional race.

Both blogs favored Thune, but neither gave any disclaimer during the election that the authors were on the payroll of the Republican candidate.

In their surreptitious campaign to seize control of government and civil society, it's no wonder the GOP has stolen a page from the CIA's playbook. It's one thing to deceive Americans; most politicians do it. But it's another thing altogether to deceive them through tactics the CIA honed to sway public opinion in hostile foreign countries.
Don't know what I mean? Check out this 1953 memo from Langley, Va CIA headquarters to its station chief in Guatemala. The government of Jacobo Arbenz, a democratically elected socialist leader whom Eisenhower government was attempting to overthrow, had just exposed the CIA coup plot. In order to distract the public from the expose, the CIA devised the following scheme:

Memorandum from C.I.A. headquarters, Nov. 5, 1953:

Station was instructed to mail "mourning cards" for 30
successive days to Arbenz and top Communist leaders. Cards were
to mourn the purge or execution of various Communists in the
world and to hint forthcoming doom to recipients.

Telegram from PBSUCCESS headquarters in Florida to C.I.A.
headquarters, Jan. 30, 1954:

White Paper [issued by the Guatemalan government] has
effectively exposed certain aspects of PBSUCCESS . . . If
possible, fabricate big human interest story, like flying
saucers, birth sextuplets in remote area to take play away.

If sophisticated GOP operatives can succeed in controlling legions of bloggers and reporters the same way the CIA controlled its own front media operations, just imagine the results. And imagine the damage that will do to the "American way of life" the CIA had done all of its dirty tricks in the name of.
The Pentagon has already achieved some results through "black" propaganda. Just ask DoD spokesman Lawrence Di Rita:

"In the battle of perception management, where the enemy is clearly using the media to help manage perceptions of the general public, our job is not perception management but to counter the enemy's perception management," said the chief Pentagon spokesman, Lawrence Di Rita.

Though Di Rita does not exactly qualify as a GOP operative, any pro-war "perception management" is in fact Republican propaganda.

On Hillary's Abortion Strategy
It doesn't look like Hillary Clinton's conciliatory tone toward abortion opponents has drawn any support from the other side. Not only will the clinic-bomber wing of the anti-abortion movement continue to use her image for fundraising appeals, anti-abortion groups like the National Right to Life, which were created by mainstream Catholic clergy and maintain close ties to the Bush administration, have attempted to silence her.

BUFFALO, N.Y. -- Republican abortion opponents on Friday urged a Catholic college to withdraw its speaking invitation to Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton because she is pro-choice.

The Democrat senator is scheduled to speak at Canisius College on Monday on the government's role in caring for the sick. The address is part of the college's "Corporal Works of Mercy" lecture series.

An aide said Clinton would not discuss abortion as part of her speech, and never intended to. Nor had Clinton considered canceling her appearance because of the objections.

"She's absolutely planning on being there," spokeswoman Jennifer Hanley said.

The Diocese of Buffalo received about 20 calls of protest by early Friday afternoon, spokesman Kevin Keenan said.

"People are upset that a Catholic college would be hosting Senator Clinton because of her pro-choice position when it comes to abortion," Keenan said.

The Buffalo Right to Life Committee, by the way, is a virtual arm of the Buffalo Catholic Diocese. I suspect Buffalo is still an important center of anti-abortion organizing since the 1992 "Spring to Life" protests, which drew hundreds of Operation Rescue activists and local abortion foes together in the front yard of Barnett Slepian, a local abortion doctor. Later, of course, Slepian was assassinated by James Kopp, a member of the radical Catholic fringe of the movement. In his book, "What's the Matter with Kansas?" (which nobody can seem to shut-up about), Thomas Frank describes how another early-1990's Operation Rescue "Spring to Life" campaign in Wichita laid the groundwork of a permanent anti-abortion organizational infrastructure.

But back to Hillary. William Saletan has written a lengthy column explaining what should be plainly obvious to anyone who hasn't undergone a lobotomy: Hillary has adopted right-wing language on abortion not to win over conservatives, but to repackage traditional Democratic social issue positions for a supposedly conservative era. Of course, as the demise of John Kerry showed, words have consequences.

If you're in congress, crafty Republican sleazeballs will slap last-minute riders onto appropriations bills specifically to force to force you to backslide. For instance, John Kerry may have voted against the late-term abortion ban if a parental consent provision was not included; Max Cleland and a slew of Democrats who were taken out in 2002 on their national security credentials would have voted for the 2002 Homeland Security appropriations bill if the Republicans didn't insert a disgusting provision restricting DHS employees from unionizing. The worst instance, of course, was the $87 billion appropriations bill for Iraq, which, along with a bevy of contracts for Halliburton, earmarked a hefty slush fund for Donald Rumsfeld. That's the bill Kerry voted for before he voted against it.

The point is, it may be fruitful for the Democratic party to cast itself as the party that prevents abortion (this is what Planned Parenthood has been advising for years), but to reach out to abortion adversaries who harbor transparently theocratic intentions and who will hate you no matter what, or to flatly endorse parental consent, as Hillary has done, will put the party in an awkward position.

Word has it that the Republicans are soon to introduce the "Unborn Child Pain Awareness Act." It's a bill designed to incrementally chip away at abortion rights while "changing the conversation" on abortion. In lieu of a reversal of Roe v. Wade, the Republicans will wage a long, protracted battle to turn the tide against legalized abortion (I'll be writing about this more in the next two weeks). When she's finished with her rhetoric, Hillary will have to decide whether to play along with this wedge strategy or to hold the line. The further she blurs that line, she more she opens herself up to the "flip-flopper" meme.

By the way, if E.J. Dionne is right, John Edwards might have the right approach:

Moral issues matter, Edwards says, but Democrats won't look moral by getting into a bidding war over how often they can invoke the name of God. Instead, Democrats should speak with conviction about an issue that has always animated them: the alleviation of poverty. "I think it is a moral issue, it's something we should be willing to fight about and stand up for," he says.

Those who counsel caution, he says, would let calculation push Democrats away from their historic commitments. "They think it's associated with some political label," he says, carefully avoiding the L-word himself. "They think that a lot of people who live in poverty don't vote and don't participate and so they don't think there's a lot of political capital there."

I'm back for a second. If you have a few extra pennies to spare, which I doubt anybody does, the only abortion clinic in Mississippi is under unrelenting pressure to close since neanderthal governor Haley Barbour bought his way into power (with a Confederate flag pin on his lapel all along the way). Here's how to help.

I don't know how much I'll be able to post today since I'm trying to bang some new articles out. I've never done an open thread before, but here goes.

From jabbs:

On the eve of Bush's second-term inauguration, Republican Nevada Congressman Jim Gibbons told NBC News that anyone who opposes the corporate-funded inaugural parties is a "communist."

Reporter Lisa Myers interviewed Gibbons for a Jan. 19 story about how corporate money paid for roughly $40 million of inauguration partying last week. Myers concluded: "But one congressman has no use for complaints about corporate-funded celebrations. 'Anybody who is against that obviously must be a communist,' says Rep. James Gibbons, R-Nev."

Here's my belated Johnny Carson tribute (can you imagine Jay Leno being this lucid?):

"What Democracy Means to Me" by Johnny Carson

"Democracy is buying a big house you can't afford with money you don't have to impress people you wish were dead. And, unlike communism, democracy does not mean having just one ineffective political party; it means having two ineffective political parties. ... Democracy is welcoming people from other lands, and giving them something to hold onto -- usually a mop or a leaf blower. It means that with proper timing and scrupulous bookkeeping, anyone can die owing the government a huge amount of money. ... Democracy means free television, not good television, but free. ... And finally, democracy is the eagle on the back of a dollar bill, with 13 arrows in one claw, 13 leaves on a branch, 13 tail feathers, and 13 stars over its head -- this signifies that when the white man came to this country, it was bad luck for the Indians, bad luck for the trees, bad luck for the wildlife, and lights out for the American eagle. I thank you."

I wonder if Al Gonzales was in charge of vetting this character:

WASHINGTON - A delegation sent by President Bush to Ukraine's presidential inauguration last weekend included a Ukrainian-American activist who has accused Jews of manipulating the Holocaust for their gain and blamed them for Soviet-era atrocities in Ukraine.

"Big money drives the Holocaust industry," Myron B. Kuropas wrote in August 2000.

The inclusion of Kuropas in the U.S. delegation to Sunday's inauguration of Ukrainian President Viktor Yushchenko, which was led by Secretary of State Colin Powell, appeared to be an embarrassment for the Bush administration.

A White House official, who refused to be identified by name, said Tuesday, "We were not aware of his previous statements. Had we been aware of such comments beforehand, we would not have invited Dr. Kuropas to be a member of the delegation."

The Christian Right and the Fascist Aesthetic
It comes as no surprise that members of the Christian Right have embraced what started as a far-right trend called "Braveheartism," to inject their doctrine of Spiritual Warfare with new energy.
A former Focus on the Family cadre is at the spearhead of this movement. From Reuters, of all places:

Jim Chase, an advertising copywriter from La Crescenta, California, has had a replica of the sword actor Mel Gibson used when he played legendary Scottish warrior William Wallace in "Braveheart" hanging above his desk since attending a Wild at Heart retreat with 350 other men last year.

"It is just a reminder that we are in a battle every day. It can be just facing boredom and routine, but it is a battle," Chase said.

"Life isn't just about going to work and sitting in front of a computer and bringing in as much money as you can. We all have a story. God has written a story and we are meant to find out what the story is and live it," Chase said.

He said, for example, that the book inspired him to teach his 15-year-old son to ride a motorcycle.

Eldredge, who is a trained counselor and worked for 13 years for Christian organization Focus on the Family, said we are currently living in a "fatherless age" with many men having abandoned their children if not physically then emotionally...

Eldredge said he used characters such as Mel Gibson's warrior Wallace in "Braveheart" because the characters often embody men who are engaging their passions by fighting noble battles, rescuing women and finding adventure.

Eldredge and Chase may not know it, but in their fascination with the Braveheart archetype, they have kindred souls among the international neo-fascist movement. And like Chase, one prominent neo-fascist, Italian politician Umberto Bossi, has an image of William Wallace by his desk. This is an excerpt from a 5/5/02 piece by Allan Brown for the Sunday Times of London, which is not available online anymore:

Euan Hague, an academic who has investigated the development of Celtic supremacist ideas in the United States, describes the perception of "a pure white culture where the men are strong and the women dance. For most American followers, Highland games mean having a beer and a laugh with 10,000 other people. But, for some, they can be a way to assert their whiteness".

That the KKK was founded by two emigres from Paisley is embarrassingly well-documented, a matter of historical record dating back to the 1860s.

Far more recent, however, is the passion of the other parties for Celtic racial mysticism; traceable almost entirely, believes historian Tom Devine, to the rise of "Braveheartism" in the mid-1990s, which overnight made William Wallace the new kid on the neo-Nazi block.

As their battles contracted to squabbles over the need for secession from larger states or economic protectionism in the face of rampant immigration, Wallace and his efforts were recast in the extremist mind as a kind of medieval Neighbourhood Watch scheme.

A particular fan was William Pierce, the "Farm Belt Fuhrer" and head of the National Alliance in America, whose novel of white supremacism, The Turner Diaries, was published under the pseudonym (or nom de guerre) of Andrew Macdonald in tribute to his Scots ancestry. He considered Braveheart a hymn to the need for personal sacrifice in the name of one's cause.

"That, I think, is one of the strongest things in our people and is something we need to call on and recognise, and for more people to be willing to do whatever is necessary, as William Wallace was," Pierce said.

In Italy, meanwhile, Umberto Bossi was heading the fascist Northern League in its attempt to secede from the southern half of the country. By displaying a Braveheart poster on his office wall he was equating the struggle of Wallace with his own against Roman dominance. These days, the newly-respectable Bossi serves in Berlusconi's government and his fondness for nebulous ideas of racial integrity has given way to a more naked aggression against all forms of economic immigration.

"Bossi has no real international outlook and no real passion for Scottish politics," says Joe Farrell of Strathclyde University. "He capitalised on something that was in the air at a certain time. The downside is that the follow-up is so tainted with racism."

And in Scotland, Braveheart has been used as a recruiting tool by young American fascists seeking inroads into the country. From the Scottish Sunday Mail:

Hate-filled Nazis are using Brave-heart fever to recruit Scots.
They urge people who want to do something about the "browning of our country" to watch Mel Gibson's movie about Scots patriot Sir William Wallace.
The sick rantings are contained in envelopes which have been dropped through letter boxes in central Scotland.
Inside is a letter from the American National Socialist White Peoples' Party - headed Resistance.
It asks Scots to watch Braveheart and turn against non-whites.

It might be unfair to label Eldredge, Chase, and by extension, Focus on the Family and the whole Chrristian Right as a bunch of fascists, especially since "fascism" is so difficult to define. But the question is, is it a mere coincidence that they have chosen the same icon to reflect their ideology as so many neo-fascists have? I would argue not.

The narrative of Gibson's films, in particular "Braveheart" and "The Passion of the Christ," are defined by an all-out, violent struggle between good and evil, a battle not unlike that portrayed in Andrew MacDonald's race-war pulp-polemic, "The Turner Diaries." This book, of course, inspired Timothy McVeigh's existential battle against the federal government, which was marked by a bomb-blast at the Oklahoma Federal Building. Like MacDonald's Aryan guerrillas, Gibson's protagonists are hyper-masculine, stoic and self-concious of their ethnicity.

A more apt comparison to Gibson, though, would be Leni Riefenstahl. Indeed, the scenes Gibson employs to highlight his protagonists' personalities are eerily reminiscent of Riefenstahl's. For instance, a seminal scene in "Braverheart" depicts Gibson's William Wallace character running alone along a hillside, looking down at the valley before he leads his men into battle against the English.
In her essay, "Fascinating Fascism," Susan Sontag explains the fascist appeal of such mountain imagery:

The character that Riefenstahl generally played was that of a wild girl who dares to scale the peak that others, the "valley pigs," shrink from. In her first role, in the silent The Holy Mountain (1926), that of a young dancer named Diotima, she is wooed by an ardent climber who converts her to the healthy ecstasies of Alpinism. This character underwent a steady aggrandizement. In her first sound film, Avalanche (1930), Riefenstahl is a mountain-possessed girl in love with a young meteorologist, whom she rescues when a storm strands him in his observatory on Mont Blanc.... As usual, the mountain is represented as both supremely beautiful and dangerous, that majestic force which invites the ultimate affirmation of and escape from the self—into the brotherhood of courage and into death.

MacDonald's "Turner Diaries" also features a bizarre mountain scene in which his Aryan heroes peer down from the hills at their mortal enemies:

Coming through the mountains just north of Los Angeles we encountered a long column of marchers, heavily guarded by GI's and Organization personnel. As we drove slowly past, I observed the prisoners closely, trying to decide what they were. They didn't seem to be Blacks or Chicanos, and yet only a few of them appeared to be Whites. Many of the faces were distinctly Jewish, while others had features or hair suggesting a Negroid taint.

In her essay, Sontag goes on to weave scenes from Riefenstahl's later films together into a grand analysis of the "fascist aesthetic" Riefenstahl's cinematic style, and to a lesser extent, MacDonald's narrative style, embodies. She explains this concept most succinctly in her discussion of Riefenstahl's "The Last of the Nuba," a documentary about the Nubian people of Africa:

Although the Nuba are black, not Aryan, Riefenstahl's portrait of them evokes some of the larger themes of Nazi ideology: the contrast between the clean and the impure, the incorruptible and the defiled, the physical and the mental, the joyful and the critical. A principal accusation against the Jews within Nazi Germany was that they were urban, intellectual, bearers of a destructive corrupting "critical spirit." The book bonfire of May 1933 was launched with Goebbels's cry: "The age of extreme Jewish intellectualism has now ended, and the success of the German revolution has again given the right of way to the German spirit." And when Goebbels officially forbade art criticism in November 1936, it was for having "typically Jewish traits of character": putting the head over the heart, the individual over the community, intellect over feeling. In the transformed thematics of latter-day fascism, the Jews no longer play the role of defiler. It is "civilization" itself.

What is distinctive about the fascist version of the old idea of the Noble Savage is its contempt for all that is reflective, critical, and pluralistic.

No doubt Gibson's William Wallace fits Sontag's profile of the noble savage. Gibson's Jesus character also represents a version of the noble savage, particularly in his willingness to endure massive amounts of pain in service to a higher cause. Applying the Braveheart archetype to a modern fatherhood model, as Eldredge has, is an implicit rejection of the "civilization" which Sontag claimed had replaced the Jews in "the thematics of latter-day fascism."

While I sympathize somewhat with Chase and Eldredge's rejection of the emasculated, careerist father figure who has become common in the information age, there is a danger to their alternative. Someone like their ideal father-figure, who defines himself in battle against the enemy, whomever that may be, must uphold a crude, Manichean worldview. He must take sides, even in his white-washed, exurban tract-housing development where everything is the same and beef is what's for dinner. There can be no room for pluralism or tolerance; those concepts only blur his view of the battlefield. Dragons must be slayed, damsels must be rescued, and SpongeBob must be squeezed dry. The Braveheart dad does not subscribe to the ideology of political violence, but he is a dedicated culture warrior. Thus, he has embraced a softened version of the philosophy of Herman Goering, who declared, "When I hear the word culture, I reach for my gun." The Braveheart dad is a crypto-fascist.

Joementum!
"Brave men and women of color like Dr. Rice have, working with others, changed our nation. And now she can, and I believe will, help lead our nation to change the world and in doing so, to advance our values and protect our security for our children and grandchildren as well." - Sen. Joe Lieberman

The Global Forum Against Anti-Semitism has issued its annual report on European anti-Semitism. While I'm sure it's accurate, I wonder if some the report's conclusions are clouded by the fact that the Forum operates directly out Ariel Sharon's office. One obvious point of contention is the report's assertion that "years of hostile reporting by the British press" on Israel have fueled the flames of European anti-Semitism.
What will be interesting to see is how pro-Israel conservatives in America (like the National Review's house jingoist, John J. Miller) seize on these findings. So many of them seem obsessed with proving that France is corrupted with an endemic anti-Semitism that somehow justifies the White House's hostility to trans-Atlantic diplomacy. However, the report identifies Russia as Europe's real trouble spot, while anti-Semitic incidents in France, most of which are usually committed by angry, Muslim youth, did not increase one bit.
I have not noticed any criticism of Russian anti-Semitism from pro-Israel conservatives that even comes close to the level of vitriol they direct at France. Does this have anything to do with Vladimir Putin's friendship with Bush?

Lawrence Summers' Greatest Hits
While I don't agree with Lawrence Summers' soft-peddled Eugenicism in the slightest, I do find the uproar over his comments a little bit ironic. After all, there wasn't even close to the level of outrage in the US when Summers, as World Bank vice president, issued the following memo:

DATE: December 12, 1991
TO: Distribution
FR: Lawrence H. Summers
Subject: GEP

'Dirty' Industries: Just between you and me, shouldn't the World Bank be encouraging MORE migration of the dirty industries to the LDCs [Less Developed Countries]? I can think of three reasons:

1) The measurements of the costs of health impairing pollution depends on the foregone earnings from increased morbidity and mortality. From this point of view a given amount of health impairing pollution should be done in the country with the lowest cost, which will be the country with the lowest wages. I think the economic logic behind dumping a load of toxic waste in the lowest wage country is impeccable and we should face up to that.

2) The costs of pollution are likely to be non-linear as the initial increments of pollution probably have very low cost. I've always though that under-populated countries in Africa are vastly UNDER-polluted, their air quality is probably vastly inefficiently low compared to Los Angeles or Mexico City. Only the lamentable facts that so much pollution is generated by non-tradable industries (transport, electrical generation) and that the unit transport costs of solid waste are so high prevent world welfare enhancing trade in air pollution and waste.

3) The demand for a clean environment for aesthetic and health reasons is likely to have very high income elasticity. The concern over an agent that causes a one in a million change in the odds of prostrate cancer is obviously going to be much higher in a country where people survive to get prostrate cancer than in a country where under 5 mortality is is 200 per thousand. Also, much of the concern over industrial atmosphere discharge is about visibility impairing particulates. These discharges may have very little direct health impact. Clearly trade in goods that embody aesthetic pollution concerns could be welfare enhancing. While production is mobile the consumption of pretty air is a non-tradable.

The problem with the arguments against all of these proposals for more pollution in LDCs (intrinsic rights to certain goods, moral reasons, social concerns, lack of adequate markets, etc.) could be turned around and used more or less effectively against every Bank proposal for liberalization.

To this day, when confronted about the memo, Summers claims he was being "provocative." Perhaps his comments should have been read as a window into the mind of an intellectual ogre rather than as a reprehensible, but ultimately excusable folly. Over ten years later, Summers is still abusing his position to be "provocative."

In case anyone hasn't noticed, Bush's post-inaugural approval rating, according to Rasmussen, is 44%. 44%! Some honeymoon.

The Speech: Cheapening JFK, and Even Reagan
Bush's speech may have been big and bold, but if anything, it represented little more than the conservative movement's empty attempt to supplant Reagan with Bush as the icon of the Republican aesthetic. It is no wonder Peggy Noonan has taken such umbrage at Bush's language. Her disapproval of his speech seems like a veiled expression of her frustration with Michael Gerson's appropriation of Reaganism to define a lesser struggle -- and an even lesser president.

Bush has gracefully adapted Reagan's anti-communist rhetoric to his vaguely defined battle against tyranny, but he is unable -- and probably unwilling -- to match Reagan's sunny salesmanship of free market democracy. Bush's brazen, stentorian admonishments to the perceived enemies of America are seldom accompanied by an earnest presentation of tyranny's alternative. When Bush does explain the merits of freedom, he appears self-serving: Freedom, he invariably says, must be promoted merely because "free" countries will not threaten the United States, not because it will improve anybody's life.

Bush's speech may have been influenced by the high-minded writings of the right-wing former Soviet dissident Nathan Sharansky, but given his arrogant tone, Bush is unlikely to inspire any future Sharanskys. Indeed, Cuba's leading dissident, Oswaldo Paya, has publicly rejected Bush's paternalistic plan for a "free Cuba." Similarly, in Iran, leading reformers are terrified of the nationalistic backlash the US is likely to produce in their country with an attack. Any savvy dissident would never cast his or her lot with an administration so obviously poised to take all the credit for what they achieved against authoritarianism from within.

Almost as absurd as the backwards logic undergirding Bush's address was his (or shoud I say, Michael Gerson's) over-indulgence in pseudo-poetic, and often mixed, metaphors. By the end of the speech, I was wondering if Gerson was some kind of pyromaniac: "A day of fire," "By our efforts we have lit a fire," "The untamed fire of freedom..." Of course, Gerson's fire references weren't entirely original; they were essentially a cynical reprise of JFK's famous phrase from his 1961 inaugural:

The energy, the faith, the devotion which we bring to this endeavor will light our country and all who serve it -- and the glow from that fire can truly light the world.

But Kennedy's fire was to have been lit within America by a youthful spirit of community and national service. The glow of Kennedy's America would have inspired the world without imposing upon it. It was the classic notion of America as a role model, a beacon of democracy. Bush's America is to sap its domestic resources, both material and human, in an exhausting quest to bring the fire to the world -- in many cases, literally. And it does so as a kneejerk response to 9/11, the "day of fire." Fighting fire with fire: that's the Bush doctrine.

In the context of the Bush doctrine, Bush's call for national service is a cruel reversal of Kennedy's. As Bush said,

You have seen that life is fragile, and evil is real, and courage triumphs. Make the choice to serve in a cause larger than your wants, larger than yourself and in your days you will add not just to the wealth of our country, but to its character.

In using words like "evil" and "courage" to inspire young, middle class people to national service, Bush reveals his "cause" as a macho military adventure. Aimlessly patrolling American-occupied Third World slums -- is that the life Bush envisions for America's best and brightest? And what about young women who want to serve their country but legally aren't allowed in forward combat divisions? Should they just stay home and entertain the children with tales of their far-away daddy?

Bush's denunciation of racism was also colored by his identification with interventionist militarism. In Bush's words, "our country must abandon all the habits of racism, because we cannot carry the message of freedom and the baggage of bigotry at the same time." Racism, according to Bush's logic, must not be abandoned because it is inherently immoral, but because it impedes America's imperial mission. Bush spoke of racism as if he was discussing containment policy, denouncing it purely on tactical grounds. It did not help that he was sworn in by William Rehnquist, who spent 1964 involved in "Operation Eagle Eye," a Republican plan to intimidate Mexican voters in Arizona.

One little-noticed aspect of Bush's speech was that it was peppered with evangelical codes, particularly with respect to social policy. Why was Bush interrupted with applause when he declared, "Americans, at our best, value the life we see in one another, and must always remember that even the unwanted have worth." Was the applause a reflection of conservatives' fervor for ending poverty? Somehow, I think not. The "unwanted" Bush spoke of are not homeless people, they are fetuses and microscopic bundles of stem cells, which the Republican National Convention platform referred to as "future forms of life," a phrase that reminds me of space aliens for some reason.

Whether or not Bush's lofty rhetoric stands a chance of becoming reality, he should be held to his word. Bush should be publicly called to account for his opposition to abortion and gay marriage. Does he intend to ban gay marriage and all forms of abortion? He should also be called on to identify exactly where and how he intends to spread freedom. As careerist as the White House press corps has become, I don't think these questions are too audacious for them.

This is the year of inflated Republican expectations. And if Bush is held to account for his pledges, 2006 could be the year when the bubble bursts.

 

Hillary, James Dobson-lite
First she bashes immigrants, now she embraces Bush's clerical patronage system in the tackiest, most insincere way possible. Hillary, you're losing me. Or maybe you've lost me.

On the eve of the presidential inauguration, US Senator Hillary Rodham Clinton last night embraced an issue some pundits say helped seal a second term for George W.

In a speech at a fund-raising dinner for a Boston-based organization that promotes faith-based solutions to social problems, Clinton said there has been a "false division" between faith-based approaches to social problems and respect for the separation of church of state.

"There is no contradiction between support for faith-based initiatives and upholding our constitutional principles," said Clinton, a New York Democrat who often is mentioned as a possible presidential candidate in 2008.

Addressing a crowd of more than 500, including many religious leaders, at Boston's Fairmont Copley Plaza, Clinton invoked God more than half a dozen times, at one point declaring, "I've always been a praying person."

She said there must be room for religious people to "live out their faith in the public square."

Besides the question of what the hell a "praying person" is, the real issues is, will conservative Christians take Hillary seriously? Of course not, unless she goes to the Right on abortion. At this point, I wouldn't put a thing past her.

Will Roy Moore vie for governor? If he does, polling suggests he has a good shot of imposing his theocratic beliefs on Alabama. Moore's candidacy could potentially be as provocative as David Duke's when he ran for the Louisiana governorship. Of course, when Duke ran, polling was extremely volatile until election day. I think that may be the case here as well:

A Mobile Register-University of South Alabama poll of likely Republican primary voters shows Moore with a lead of 8 percentage points over Riley in a hypothetical primary matchup. Moore drew support from 43 percent of respondents, while the governor garnered 35 percent.

The statewide survey, published Sunday and conducted last Monday through Thursday, included responses from 400 adults who identified themselves as likely voters in the GOP primary. The results are supposed to be accurate to within plus or minus 5 percentage points.

Ousted from the Alabama Supreme Court over his refusal to follow a federal judge's order to remove a Ten Commandments office from the court building, Moore has been traveling the country speaking to conservative organizations and religious groups.

The poll found that Moore had a favorable rating of 72 percent — a number University of Alabama political scientist William Stewart described as potentially "intimidating to the governor."

To Iran?
Sy Hersh's discussion of covert US activity within Iran really didn't come as much of a revelation to me. What any relatively informed observer of the Bush admininstration's international shenanigans must assume is that it has been working with local agents -- Kurds, indigenous Jews and Coptic Christians -- in Syria and Iran for some time. In a country like Cuba, which makes the neocons' axis of evil B-team, their destabilization operations are a mixture of the overt and covert, with collaboration from supposedly "pro-democracy" NGO's like the National Endowment for Democracy.
What's disturbing is Hersh's illustration of the degree to which Rumsfeld is usurping control of the US's intelligence services and making them less accountable to congress. In the scenario Hersh paints, Porter Goss is a weak figure, a nebish charged with presiding over the castration of the CIA. The agency's analysts are being fired in droves or pressured out, its covert operations branch is losing funding and it will soon be a shadow of its former self (which explains why so many people are coming out of the woodwork to talk to Hersh). Meanwhile, the Pentagon has cynically seized on the 9/11 Commission's recommendations to basically supplant the CIA. But given the CIA's checkered past, why is any of this disturbing?
During the 1970's, when it was revealed that the CIA had spied on American citizens, overthrown democratically elected foreign governments, and done probably worse things, the agency was finally forced to be accountable to congress thanks to the work of Sen. Frank Church (who was one of the first liberals ousted by a religious right grassroots voter push, by the way). Later, in the 1980's, the Boland Amendment required that the president sign off on any covert operation the CIA wanted to undertake. That way, the president would ostensibly be more reserved about sanctioning a covert terrorist operation in another country because his fingerprints would be on it.
Now, with Rumsfeld in total control of America's intelligence services, it will be impossible to know what's really going on until after it happens. And it's doubtful any of the right people on the House or Senate Intelligence Committees, people like Rep. Jane Harman, will be fully informed either. The neocons, whom Rumsfeld has co-opted or may be one of, have free reign over covert operations so long as there is no push for a conventional war with Iran.
The neocons' view, as Hersh suggests, is that by attacking 3 to 4 dozen key Iranian military installations, the disillusioned Iranian masses will rise up against the mullahs and magically install a pro-Western reformist. Anyone who remembers the outpouring of Iranian nationalism that occurred in the wake of Bush's "axis of evil" speech, which was penned by neocon propagandist David Frum, will beg to differ with that assessment. Indeed, any attack on Iranian soil will shore up the power of Iranian conservatives and probably provoke a wave of brutal domestic repression to pre-empt a reformist uprising.
The Bush administration's response to Hersh's piece has been no less revealing than their response to his Abu Ghraib story. Remember DoD spokesman Lawrence DiRita's answer to Hersh's revelations of high-level sanctioning of torture at Abu Ghraib? Hersh "threw a lot of crap against the wall and he expects someone to peel off what's real," DiRita said then.
Now what pleasantries does DiRita have to offer? "Mr. Hersh’s article is so riddled with errors of fundamental fact that the credibility of his entire piece is destroyed," he said. And in attempting to rebuke Hersh's charge that Doug Feith has been collaborating with Israel on covert ops within Iran, DiRita borrows the neocons' favorite meme, accusing Hersh of anti-Semitism: "Here, Mr. Hersh is building on links created by the soft bigotry of some conspiracy theorists." In any case, DiRita's responses are classic non-denial denials.
Hersh's article isn't the only suggestion that there is a major neocon push for military escalation against Iran. As during the run-up to the invasion of Iraq, the neocons have embarked on another inane search for monarchic exile groups to prop up as future leaders of a "free and democratic" Iran. This effort, according to the Financial Times, is led by a gruesome twosome -- Iran-Contra scumlord, Michael Ledeen, and Swift Boat washup, Jerome Corsi -- along with AIPAC and a laundry list of wingers in congress:

The Alliance says it is in partnership with the rightwing Hudson Institute. Alliance members are also inspired by Michael Ledeen of the American Enterprise Institute, an influential neoconservative policy group, who is a veteran campaigner for regime change.

Mr Ledeen said he had not advised the group. “Change in Iran depends on people inside the country and on western government policies,” he commented.

A prominent backer of the Alliance is Jerome Corsi, well known for his role in the Swift Boat Veterans and POWs for Truth campaign against John Kerry, the Democratic presidential candidate. He believes the freeze on nuclear development agreed between Iran and the European Union will collapse by March and that Israel, supported by the US, will then launch military strikes.

In Congress, the proposed Iran Freedom and Support Act, sponsored by senators Rick Santorum and John Cornyn, calls on the administration to back “regime change” and promote and fund the transition to a democratic government through alliances with opposition groups that renounce terrorism.

Some exiles believe around $100m (€75m, £55m) will be laid out. Others say this figure is too high.

A similar bill in the House is proposed by Ileana Ros-Lehtinen, a Florida republican and fierce anti-Castro campaigner. Regime change is not in the language, but the bill would back pro-democracy groups. It also seeks to strengthen existing legislation that would penalise foreign companies investing in Iran's energy sector.

The proposed act draws on experience gained from the 1998 Iraq Liberation Act which enshrined regime change and the 1996 Helms-Burton law on sanctions on Cuba. It has the backing of the American Israel Public Affairs Committee, a powerful pro-Israel lobby group.

Funding of $3m for Iranian opposition activities has already been inserted by Congress in the 2005 budget on the initiative of Senator Sam Brownback, a Kansas Republican.

So will Ledeen and Corsi be lining their pockets with tax-dollars? Who is their Ahmed Chalabi? And are they supporting any freelance covert operations in Iran?
Ileana Ros-Lehtinen is an interesting figure in this saga. After all, she was humiliated when an Iranian exile group she openly supports, the People's MEK, attacked US troops during the invasion of Iraq. A cult-like organization, the MEK operated within Iraq for years and gained funding from Saddam Hussein to conduct cross-border terror operations against Iran. They also have a lobbying office on Capitol Hill. What is their role in the rush to war with Iran? That needs to be investigated. And are they being groomed by US forces in Iraq as a surrogate for attacks on Iran? Another question that bears looking into.

There is a Wonder-Working Power in Bribery
It's really difficult to keep tabs on all the organizations that have received chunks of the whopping $1 billion doled out by HHS under the rubric of the Office of Faith Based Initiatives, particularly because the Office has yet to make a public accounting of all those groups. One of the central contentions of critics of the Faith Based program is that it will turn the federal government into an ATM machine for groups that openly proselytize and thus, violate the establishment clause. Since many people in the administration seem to think the establishment clause is some kind of a myth, I, like every other taxpayer, am forced to bankroll insidious missionary organizations like MentorKids USA:

(RNS) A U.S. district court judge has ordered the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services to halt its funding of a faith-based organization in Phoenix that mentors children of prisoners.

Judge John C. Shabaz of the U.S. District Court for the Western District of Wisconsin agreed Tuesday with the Freedom from Religion Foundation, which argued that the grant to MentorKids USA violated the First Amendment’s Establishment Clause.

Shabaz noted that HHS had suspended funding of the program after the Madison, Wis.-based foundation sued. He said that the department was “effectively conceding that federal funds have been used by the MentorKids program to advance religion.”

Shabaz noted that the program hires only Christians as mentors and encourages them to share the gospel with the youth they mentor.

“We are completely encouraged,” said Annie Laurie Gaylor, co-president of the foundation. “We believe that the faith-based initiative is unconstitutional.

But the Faith Based Intiative does not really serve as the spearhead of some government plot to evangelize the whole of America. In fact, it serves a far more cynical purpose: bribery. If anyone's wondering how Bush increased his share of the black vote by 2 points -- a considerable number for any conservative Republican candidate -- all they have to do is factor in the predominately black congregations he lavished federal money on.

MILWAUKEE — Bishop Sedgwick Daniels, one of this city's most prominent black pastors, supported Democrats in past presidential elections, backing Bill Clinton and Al Gore.

This fall, however, the bishop's broad face appeared on Republican Party fliers in the battleground state of Wisconsin, endorsing President Bush as the candidate who "shares our views."

What changed?

After Bush's contested 2000 victory, Daniels felt the pull of a most powerful worldly force: a call from the White House. He conferred with top administration officials and had a visit in 2002 from the president himself. His church later received $1.5 million in federal funds through Bush's initiative to support faith-based social services.

The White House's bribery is so shameless, Bush's Christian Right backers openly admit the Office of Faith Based Initiatives is little more than a political tool:

"The political benefits are unbelievable," says the Rev. Louis P. Sheldon, chairman of the conservative Traditional Values Coalition, which helped shape the administration's faith-based strategy and the GOP's outreach to black Christian voters. "The Democrats ought to have their heads examined for voting against this."

The discourse on religion is so slanted now, even though the Initiative is a blatant attack on the establishment clause, any criticism of it as a breach of the Constitution will be greeted with the inevitable cries of anti-Christian bias. Nevertheless, it is still vulnerable when framed as a Rovian mechanism to pimp the clergy, which it is.

Are Arabic femme fatales out to avenge the deaths of their husbands/brothers at the hands of US forces, or are they agents of Syrian and Iraqi Ba'athists exerting their influence in Iraq through the insurgency? Whatever the case, it's a truly compelling story that undoubtedly speaks to a wider phenomenon.

A WOMAN pulled a pistol on Iraq's defence minister in his office -- but then broke down in tears in a failed assassination plot.

Hazim al-Shaalan said the woman, 40, had drawn the gun, loaded with poisoned bullets, during a meeting with him more than a week ago.

She had said she wanted to pass on some important security information to Mr Shaalan, the al-Hayat newspaper reported.

The woman, an Arab from Kirkuk, was the wife of a man jailed over a Baghdad car bombing.

Mr Shaalan said the plan had been hatched by a Syria-based Iraqi group led by an Iraqi Baath party official. A half brother of Saddam Hussein was also involved, he said.

Mr Shaalan said the woman had revealed a wider plot involving a group of 50 women chosen for terrorism and assassinations in Iraq.

They were wives or relatives of people jailed or killed by US-led forces.

Mr Shaalan said they had been trained in Syria under the supervision of Iraqi terrorist elements.

Remarks by the President at Camp David, September 15, 2001

Q: Sir, are you satisfied that Osama bin Laden is at least a kingpin of this operation?

THE PRESIDENT: There is no question he is what we would call a prime suspect. And if he thinks he can hide and run from the United States and our allies, he will be sorely mistaken.

Monday, January 17, 2005, from CNN:

Asked in the Post interview why he thought bin Laden had not been found, Bush replied, "Because he's hiding."

Only a few weeks into the year, it appears more and more likely Jim Dobson will soon be threatening Bush. I'm lovin' it. From 365Gay.com:

(Washington) Conservative groups that supported President Bush's reelection wasted no time in reacting to his suggestion Sunday that he would not push for a constitutional amendment to ban gay marriage in his second term.

Bush made the remarks in an interview with The Washington Post. (story)

"The point is, is that Senators have made it clear that so long as DOMA is deemed constitutional, nothing will happen. I'd take that admonition seriously," Bush told the Post.

But within hours of the Post hitting newsstands Bush aide Dan Bartlett and other conservatives were on the TV Sunday talk show circuit to "clarify" the president's statement.

Bartlett said the president was only speaking about the reality of getting a two-thirds vote in the Senate, adding that it doesn't change Bush's position that an amendment is needed and that " he'll continue to push for an amendment."

The switchboard at the White House "lit up like a Christmas tree" shortly after the Post article hit the streets noted one White House employee.

America, What Could Have Been
By the time this picture was taken, Martin was basically radicalized and Malcolm had abandoned the reactionary "black Muslims" for a more traditional strain of Islam. Both were increasingly internationalist in their worldview. While Malcolm was more of an enigma who was in a period of personal turmoil and transition at the time of his assasination, Martin's unapologetic anti-war stance provided much more of a window into where he wanted to take the movement.
I find one of Martin's last speeches, his chilling address to assembled clergymembers at Riverside Church in New York City in 1967, to be one of his most direct articulations of the importance of internationalizing the civil rights struggle, and to do so for America's sake (there is a downloadable Real Player file of his speech at that link). I can only imagine that if Malcolm and Martin had survived the concerted attempts to destroy them both physically and personally, they would have emerged as powerful voices against the resurgent conservative ideology that has transformed a distinctly un-American brand of colonialism into American foreign policy.

As I have walked among the desperate, rejected, and angry young men, I have told them that Molotov cocktails and rifles would not solve their problems. I have tried to offer them my deepest compassion while maintaining my conviction that social change comes most meaningfully through nonviolent action. But they asked, and rightly so, "What about Vietnam?" They asked if our own nation wasn't using massive doses of violence to solve its problems, to bring about the changes it wanted. Their questions hit home, and I knew that I could never again raise my voice against the violence of the oppressed in the ghettos without having first spoken clearly to the greatest purveyor of violence in the world today: my own government. For the sake of those boys, for the sake of this government, for the sake of the hundreds of thousands trembling under our violence, I cannot be silent....

In a way we were agreeing with Langston Hughes, that black bard of Harlem, who had written earlier:

O, yes, I say it plain,
America never was America to me,
And yet I swear this oath-
America will be!

Now it should be incandescently clear that no one who has any concern for the integrity and life of America today can ignore the present war. If America's soul becomes totally poisoned, part of the autopsy must read "Vietnam." It can never be saved so long as it destroys the deepest hopes of men the world over. So it is that those of us who are yet determined that "America will be" are led down the path of protest and dissent, working for the health of our land.

 

I never knew David Frum had a blog on National Review until recently. (What was the name of that Ozzy Osbourne album? The diary of some guy, but I just can't remember who.)
Frum's unsettled tone on the appointment of Robert Zoellick as Condi's number two instead of Mr. Armaggedon, John R. Bolton, and his characterization of Bolton as "clear-eyed," is simply hysterical:

Rice has many virtues, but nobody has ever called her a forceful bureaucratic manager. Unsupported by a clear-eyed deputy like Bolton, there is a very real risk that the department will run her, rather than the other way around.

It's worrying, very worrying. In the first Bush term, conservatives often swallowed their unhappiness with the Bush domestic agenda because of the administration's tough approach to foreign threats. The president would be wise to proceed with Social Security and other conservative reforms in the second term: because there's a very real possibility that he's going to need to give conservatives some reason to choke down their growing unhappiness with his foreign policy.

Unofficial Washington
Too bad Newsweek sent one Evan Thomas to report from a preppy bar and an evangelical church in the heart of sector L-7. That's like assigning Christopher Hitchens to a story on functional alcoholics. So much for contrarianism.

Those preppy bars in Georgetown where the Bush twins hang are witness to some of the most surreal perpetuations of white stereotypes. Just imagine the spectacle of a pasty pile of sexually retarded, emotionally illiterate Bush staffers and Heritage foundation cadres drunk and grinding to Puffy tracks after a hard day of crushing the lives of millions of people from the seat of a $600 Aeron chair.

Beyond the inherent comedy of G'town's preppy bars, it's just maddening to recall the type of abuse the prim, bookish Chelsea Clinton endured -- and continues to endure -- at the hands of right-wing tabloids while considering that the decadent exploits of the slatternly Bush twins seem unknown to a middle America drunk on the illusion of their father's moral piety.

The Bush twins remind me of so many of the children of Third World oligarchs and middle Eastern monarchs I was unfortunate enough to have met while growing up in DC. And while Washington's diplomonsters and global grotesques generally shared Bush's Manichean worldview, at least on class issues, their children seemed like the ultimate existentialists. I still wonder what the prince of Malaysia was doing selling chronic to rich kids in Potomac.

The bar itself is a bit of a dive, a hangout for private-school Peter Pans who wish to relive those wild nights at the frat house. It succeeds in part by an old barkeeper's trick: keeping the wanna-bes lined up out on the street even when the place is mostly empty. The real regulars, who are on "The List," usually arrive late, sometimes after "pre-gaming" (downing a few shots at home). On this particular Saturday night, Barbara appears first, surrounded by burly boys, sipping a Bud Light as she heads for the bar. She is wearing a designer coat and her jeans are tucked into big, Jessica Simpson-style boots. Jenna arrives later, wearing a gold top with skinny straps, her head on the shoulder of her boyfriend. The dance floor after midnight is pretty raunchy, with couples grinding away, but the Bush girls steer clear. "The girls are probably more tame than a lot of people," says one Smith Point regular who worked in the Bush White House.

Smith Point has become a clubhouse for low-level administration staffers, who tend to have wealthy fathers and know each other. Still, the scene is slightly awkward. When they started coming, the Bush girls fit in easily with the Southern fraternity boys and the Texas Rich children of Bush-Cheney officials and contributors. "Now," says a regular, "it's the two girls on one side and a whole lot of people on the other side and then some people in the middle who are trying to act like they don't care at all that Jenna and Barbara Bush are in a room with them." The average age is twentysomething. An older crowd showed up after the election, when the top echelon of the Bush campaign stopped by. The waitresses wore BUSH-CHENEY '04 hats.

Could Bush have cynically exploited his base for political gain? Impossible.

The president said there is no reason to press for the amendment because so many senators are convinced that the Defense of Marriage Act -- which says states that outlaw same-sex unions do not have to recognize such marriages conducted outside their borders -- is sufficient. "Senators have made it clear that so long as DOMA is deemed constitutional, nothing will happen. I'd take their admonition seriously. . . . Until that changes, nothing will happen in the Senate."

Well, at least he'll move heaven and earth to protect the United States from its sworn enemies, wherever they are.

As for perhaps the most notorious terrorist, Osama bin Laden, the administration has so far been unsuccessful in its attempt to locate the mastermind of the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks. Asked why, Bush said, "Because he's hiding."

Zephyr Teachout on being an animal in the gutter:

"If I get hooked on anything, it may be this. I mean, I'm not that good at staying with one thing, but I love the connectedness of it. It's the most imperfect art, and you really have to get down in the gutter. I love how, at the same time that it's just this ugly sport, at the core its aspirations are so high. Listening to so many different people express their political views is very moving. We're political animals. I like that -- "political animals" -- it expresses it in one phrase. The highest and the lowest."

But more of the lowest these days.

Don't Ask, Don't Smell
This should be the kind of thing a bunch of sexually repressed frat-boys come up with after a case of Milwaukee's Best, not a bunch of scientists drunk on self-importance and grants from DoD and Darpa. From New Scientist, a pretty credible magazine:

THE Pentagon considered developing a host of non-lethal chemical weapons that would disrupt discipline and morale among enemy troops, newly declassified documents reveal.

Most bizarre among the plans was one for the development of an "aphrodisiac" chemical weapon that would make enemy soldiers sexually irresistible to each other. Provoking widespread homosexual behaviour among troops would cause a "distasteful but completely non-lethal" blow to morale, the proposal says.

Yeah, make love -- and war.

No more Mr. Man-on-Dog sex?

Earlier this week, polling data purportedly paid for by the DSCC began popping up on various Democratic-leaning websites. It showed that the current Pennsylvania state treasurer, Bob Casey, Jr., led Sen. Rick Santorum 52 to 38 in a poll of likely voters. The leaking of the polling data came coincidentally less than a week after both Schumer and Reid had begun courting Casey to run against Santorum. Casey, a pro-life Democrat, and son of the legendary Pennsylvania Gov. Bob Casey, is said by associates in Pennsylvania to have warmed to the idea, but only if Schumer and Reid could assure him that the Democratic primary field would be cleared for him.

"He asked about it and Schumer guaranteed him a clear field," says a political consultant with ties to the DSCC. "That polling data, wherever it came from, is probably the first step toward getting Casey in line, and running off a few folks with eyes on running against Santorum"

Santorum was already girding for a bruising re-election battle, having been targeted by Democrats as Enemy No.1 in this election cycle, and Casey would make the campaign a tough one. "He's right on the issues that Catholics in Pennsylvania vote on, and moderate enough to get strong Democratic support," says the consultant. "He scares the hell out of Santorum's people."

Indeed, 2006 will probably be the end of one of the real phillistines in American politics, something that nearly happened in 2000. Then it's lame duck time for Bush.

2005 by George Bush:

Bush also said he "plans to fulfill his pledge to halve the record
$413 billion federal budget deficit by submitting a 2006 budget next
month that includes nothing for some programs. He wouldn't name
them."

And: "The theme of his inaugural speech, which he said is 'aimed at
history,' will be 'Liberty is powerful, and freedom is peace.'"

1984 by George Orwell:

Chapter 1

The Ministry of Truth -- Minitrue, in Newspeak -- was startlingly
different from any other object in sight. It was an enormous
pyramidal
structure of glittering white concrete, soaring up, terrace after
terrace, 300 metres into the air. From where Winston stood it was
just
possible to read, picked out on its white face in elegant lettering,
the three slogans of the Party:

WAR IS PEACE

FREEDOM IS SLAVERY

IGNORANCE IS STRENGTH

A friend working in the pro-consul's office in Baghdad has leaked me this sneak-preview of John Negroponte's last day in Iraq. I don't think AP will be able to pick it up for a few months, though. 

The right-wing pushback on the Armstrong Williams scandal is, as usual, loud and distorted.
The Williams scandal has nothing to do with him working simultaneously as a consultant and media figure, as Kos (and Carville, Begala, etc.) have done -- and publicly disclosed; it is about him covertly accepting taxpayer funded bribes to promote a policy he at one point criticized. To attempt to conflate these two scenarios is to follow in Armstrong's shameless footsteps.

Jimmie Massey's voice is already part of a chorus of anti-war Iraq veterans. But who's listening?

The American marine entered Iraq as part of the initial American invasion in March 2003 and was witness, and in some cases took part in, the killing of innocent civilians.

He says that in one 48-hour period, he witnessed the killing of some 30 civilians by U.S. gunfire at highway checkpoints.

What changed Massey's view of the occupation was the sheer brutality of the American military's actions.

The former Staff Sergeant was horrified by what was happening and began to speak out to his superiors about the actions undertaken by the U.S. military.

Massey was bundled out of Iraq and 'diagnosed' with depression and post-traumatic stress disorder. He was labeled as a conscientious objector by his commanders but sought legal advice and won his honourable discharge in December 2003.

As a recruiter with the American military, Massey began to question the methods used by the Marines which targeted young people from economically depresses areas.

"I'm not going to say that the Marine Corps is all flat-out lies, but it is very misleading the way we enlist recruits. A lot of the kids joining the military are from the 'barrios' and 'hoods,' or the poor parts -so they're sweeping them up."

Once again, Cobb County's theocratic bent has been stifled by the dreaded federal government and ACLU. This one is certain to rouse the shock troops:

School officials in suburban Atlanta say they were showing tolerance, not religious activism. But a federal judge has disagreed. He's ordered officials to remove stickers in high school biology textbooks that call evolution "a theory, not a fact" -- saying they're unconstitutional.

For a little history on how the Christian Right gained influence in Cobb County, see here.

# posted by max blumenthal @ 3:37 PM 1 comments  

Will Sam Brownback run for Prez? Whether or not he has a real chance of winning, his presence in the primaries will force the GOP well to the right, and will force Santorum in a corner, since Brownback seems to be more popular among the Christian Right's grassroots base. I almost can't wait.

• Confidants talk privately about his interest. One, incoming Kansas GOP Chairman Tim Shallenburger, characterized Brownback as “testing the waters. I think there's been interest with Sam Brownback for a long time that someday he would be interested in doing that.”

• When asked about his interest in a presidential run shortly after trouncing his Democratic opponent in November, Brownback politely demurred. “I'm focused on Kansas and tonight,” he said. In political speak, that hardly qualified as a denial.

• Then there are those repeated trips to Iowa. That's always a clue, because that state traditionally holds the first major presidential test every four years. In addition to his quiet forays into Iowa, Brownback also has made stops in South Carolina, which holds a key early primary

Theodore says,

Seriously, sometimes I wonder if there's a single columnist other than Victor Davis Hanson and me who knows anything about military history.

Seriously?

At least one paper has in effect disendorsed concentration camps for Muslim-Americans.

One Anti-Semite's Dirty, Little Secret
Vox Day has every right to air his opinions about the Jews, but he shouldn't front. Besides being a "Christian libertarian," a rabid misogynist and anti-Semite (just click here, here and here to read his views on the Jews), he's also a third-rate heavy metal musician, science fiction writer and spoiled rich-kid named Theodore Beale.

While it's true he's been cursed with a crappy name, Theodore Beale might have also chosen to write under an alias to hide the fact that he got his column at Joseph Farah's WorldNetDaily because his (tax-evading) daddy is one of WND's major stockholders. Conwebwatch has all the details on Theodore's dirty, little secret.

I think it's worth asking Theodore why he won't acknowledge his true identity in public. Write him at: vday@worldnetdaily.com

Let's pause and hear from a regular guy named Randy waking up on the morning after:

Randy Thomasson, president of Campaign For Children And Families, expressed outrage that the often raunchy Rock was asked to take part in the inauguration:
"I just read Kid Rock's sexually explicit lyrics and feel ashamed and dirty for even looking at his songs. If this sex-crazed animal, whose favorite word is the F-word, is allowed to sing at Bush's inauguration this will send a clear message to pro-family Americans that the Republican Party has taken them for a ride and ditched them in the gutter."

Not that you would care, Randinator, but Kid Rock played at the RNC. Maybe you should have jumped off the bandwagon then.

Dances With Wolfowitz
Will Wolfowitz be sent out to pasture after Iraqi elections, which are nearly certain to become a dark satire of the neocon fantasy of "expanding the zone of freedom?" His departure could -- and should -- bring about a tectonic shift in the administration's foreign policy thinking. Already, Mr. Apocalypse, John R. Bolton has been forced out and Robert Zoellick, a rare internationalist in the administration, is in. A sign of things to come?

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Deputy Defense Secretary Paul Wolfowitz, a leading architect of the Iraq war, said on Friday he had been asked to remain in the Bush administration and will do so.

But a spokesman declined to answer further questions, including how long Wolfowitz might stay in President Bush's second term, which begins on Jan. 20, or whether he might have been offered another position....

Though I haven't seen it yet, I hear the Nelson Report says Wolfowitz may become UN envoy. Great.

I know Chertoff isn't exactly who I would have wanted to head DHS, but I'm not quite ready to rip into him yet, though I might be later. I mean, I can only imagine the gallery of ultra-ideologues and hustlers standing in line behind him. And the fact is, Chertoff might even be an improvement over Tom Ridge, who also dabbled in questionable detention policies (take a look at his handling of Pennsylvania's "Supermax" prisons, which gave rise to a generation of jack-booted thug guards, including Specialist Charles Graner), and was the architect of the color-coded terror alerts which were among the worst, most embarassing creations of the Bush administration. We could do better than Chertoff, but we could do a lot worse.

Who is James C. Ho?
Unlike Gonzales, some fellow torture advocates went completely under the radar. Well, almost completely:

Senate Judiciary Democrats and liberal allies have been hoping for months to get their mitts on internal administration documents relating to torture and prison abuses -- some of them involving attorney general nominee Alberto R. Gonzales.

There's little or no chance they'll get any of them. The American Civil Liberties Union, for example, last week listed CIA, Pentagon, Justice Department and other memos and cables it wanted made public. One item was described as a "memorandum from James C. Ho, attorney-advisor, [Justice Department] Office of Legal Counsel, to John Yoo, deputy assistant attorney general, OLC, re: interpretation of Geneva Conventions' Common Article 3 (Feb. 1, 2002)."

Most unlikely they'll find out what that one says. Besides, Ho and Yoo have both left the department. Yoo is teaching law at Berkeley, although Ho is said to be in this area.

Wait a minute! Who was that good-looking guy sitting behind Sen. John Cornyn (R-Tex.) during Gonzales's hearing on Thursday? Son of a gun. It's James Ho, now Cornyn's chief counsel on the Constitution subcommittee.

Last night, I decided to check in on some right-wing AM talk radio. As soon as I flipped the dial to 790 AM, an ad for the California National Guard blared through my speakers. The ad featured actors playing new enlistees explaining why they signed up. One of them, a brawny-sounding guy, stated, "I joined to engage and destroy the enemies of the United States in close combat."
In close combat? Who is the National Guard trying to appeal to? Skinheads?
The ad was followed by a commercial for Cialis and then, for a plumbing company with plumbers "of the highest moral character." That sequence must have been appealing for the impotent skinhead afraid the plumber will fuck his stay-at-home wife while he's out bayonetting members of the Mahdi army.

Christian Libertarianism, Adolescent Ranting or Just Plain-Old Anti-Semitism (or All Three)?
Just when I thought anti-Semitism was confined to a small faction within the Right's paleoconservative wing and within the White Nationalist movement....
I come across Vox Day, a mohawked pseudo-cyberpunk "Christian libertarian" columnist for United Press Syndicate and WorldNetDaily who spent his December howling about the liberal plot against Christmas. Vox, the innovative cyber-nerd, always pushing the envelope and giving the status-quo the finger, has punched out a post on the "merits of anti-Semitism."

The Jews are far from the only historical victims of genocide. They are not even the most recent victims. Now some of them seem to wish to make make a profession out of running around screaming "never forget" while simultaneously ignoring or even supporting the very same sort of evil being unleashed in places like the Sudan and the abortion clinics around the world.

I'd never understood how the medieval kings found it so easy to get the common people to hate the Jews in their midst. But if those medieval Jewish leaders were anything like the idiots running the ADL, the ACLU and the Council of Jews, one can see where the idea of persecuting them would have held some appeal.

Endorsing the medieval mindset that mandated the forced ghettoization, repression and slaughter of the Jews (or at least, liberal Jews) -- is that what passes for a cyber-punk, "Christian" libertarian position? How radical.

I just received Gary Bauer's latest "End of Day" mass email. Here's his send-up of the Dems' attempt to, in the words of Al From, "close the cultural gap:"

Soul Searching

Minutes ago, I received a phone call from a reporter with a major
newspaper who is writing a story about how the Democrats are desperately trying
to recapture the “religious vote.” Nancy Pelosi was evidently reading
from the Bible at a press conference recently and Ted Kennedy, of all
people, will be speaking about why “values voters” should support Democrats.

They just don’t get it! The American people are tired of the radical
Left’s assault upon all things religious. “Faith and family” is not
just a campaign slogan – they are words millions of Americans live by every
day.

For a party so dominated by Michael Moore’s Hollywood, liberal academia
and the ACLU, it’s going to take a lot more than politicians quoting
Scripture to win votes. On fundamental issues like the sanctity of life and the
meaning of marriage, the party of Kennedy and Clinton has a very clear
record that rhetoric alone cannot hide.

If there is any hope about Mahmoud Abbas's election among America's far-right (which seems to be getting closer to the center each election cycle), it is rooted in the fantasy that he will emerge as a new Shah, a Western surrogate who concentrates on internal repression and the eternal deferment of Palestinian dreams. I have a bad feeling the American and Israeli right won't be so satisfied a year from now. Anyway, here's a "hopeful" Christian Zionist report on Abbas:

A former official with the Israeli prime minister's office says there is feeling of optimism in the Jewish state about the victory of Mahmoud Abbas in this past weekend's Palestinian election. Victory Mordecai will soon be in the United States speaking to Christian groups about what Abbas' election means to the peace process.

The author and lecturer says Israel hopes Abbas will be different then former PLO leader Yasser Arafat. "The optimism on the Jewish side is that maybe Mahmoud Abbas will be able to reign in the fanatic Moslem terrorists," Mordecai explains. "He got 62 percent of the vote, so actually the Palestinians are the pride of the Islamic world. They are the only ones who have their own kind of democracy." But Mordecai says Abbas, who is also knows as Abu Mazen, has made demands that are not acceptable to Israel. "Will the world crush Israel into going back to the borders of 1967? Should Israel take four million Palestinian refugees?" he asks. "Everybody understands Israel would be committing suicide [by doing that] because then the population balance would be in favor of the Moslems. And of course, giving them Jerusalem is something that no one in Israel would agree to."

Mordecai says the key to success for Abbas will be if he is actually willing and able to reign in the terrorist attacks -- something Arafat refused to do.

While anti-abortion activists are lambasting Mike Leigh's film, Vera Drake, for its sympathetic portrayal of an underground abortion doctor in the 1950's, a few doctors are attacking it, too:

The eponymous heroine of Mike Leigh's film aborts foetuses by injecting soapy water into the wombs of young girls.

Peter Bowen-Simpkins, a consultant gynaecologist and spokesman for the Royal College of Obstetricians and Gynaecologists, said that such a procedure could kill a young mother, or at least cause serious infection.

"It could cause an embolism – when something gets into your blood stream and circulates and then gets into your lungs," he said.

Well, maybe so. But injecting soapy water is a little less harmless than coat-hanger procedures. And sadly, both of these techniques will become familiar practices in as many as 30 states if Roe is struck down.
Already, wingers in the North Dakota legislature are pushing a bill that would mandate murder charges against abortion doctors in the state. Though the bill probably won't pass, it's clearly meant to build up momentum for a state-level challenge to Roe if and when Scalia is anointed Chief Justice.

It's Getting Drafty
It's nice to know that even though there is a plan in place to institute a military draft, the military will still allow conscientous objectors to serve in "alternative" ways. From Ethics Daily:

(RNS) Leaders of the Church of the Brethren say they will follow through on a request from the Selective Service to have “alternative service” programs in place for conscientious objectors if a draft is reinstated.

As one of the historic “peace churches” that shun military service, Brethren officials were “cautious” after an unannounced visit by a draft official to a church center in Maryland last October. Officials were worried that the visit signaled that a draft may be at hand.

In follow-up meetings, draft officials urged the church to dust off long-standing “alternative service” programs that allow conscientious objectors to serve in two-year domestic service projects in lieu of military service...