Category: Politics

The massive bomb that killed 14 Marine Reserve troops from Ohio earlier this month has made August 2005 — not even half over — the deadliest month so far for National Guard and Reserve troops in Iraq.

Only a month ago,, the Pentagon officer in charge of National Guard forces — Lt. Gen. Steven Blum — held a breakfast meeting with defense reporters to tell them that media exaggeration of the dangers faced by Guardsmen was the reason recruiting goals weren’t being met. He asserted that Iraq duty isn’t that dangerous, saying “I lose, unfortunately, more people through private automobile accidents and motorcycle accidents over the same period of time.”

As our comparison showed at the time, that statement could only be possible if the vehicular fatality rate for Guardsmen was at least three times higher than for the general population of the US, or 250% higher than that of a multi-year study of regular Army vehicle fatalities.

I’ve been meaning to post this clip of an A. Whitney Brown “The Big Picture” segment from a 1986 Saturday Night Live for a while because:

1. It’s pretty funny.
2. It shows in a startlingly clear contrast just how bad Dennis Miller always was as a comic.
3. It makes a point about how hair plays an (if you’ll pardon the phrase) overblown role in big-time success. The unfunny Miller, of course, has had several failed TV shows; A. Whitney Brown is — I believe — a writer for Air America Radio.
4. It illustrates how nothing under the sun is really all that new. This piece aired almost 20 years ago, during the Iran-contra scandal, while the US was combatting the Nicaraguans who — we were told — were waiting to swarm over the borders of Texas, while we were supporting the Iranians who were supplying arms to Afghan freedom fighters/terrorists fighting the Soviets. Good times.

But I’m making sure to get it online now because of the general discussion by Mithras of the dearth of funny conservative bloggers (or, in my opinion, funny conservatives, period).

A Los Angeles Times story today tells the 11-year-old tale of a woman who had sex with a Catholic seminarian in Oregon and got pregnant. She sued the Archdiocese of Portland for child support, as the father was a church worker. The archdiocese’s attorney filed a pleading in the name of then-Archbishop William Levada denying responsibility, claiming the mother had engaged “in unprotected intercourse … when (she) should have known that could result in pregnancy.” Pretty funny coming from the Catholic Church, no?

It gets better. The seminarian? He was ordained as a priest the same year that he agreed to pay $215/month in child support in exchange for the mother dropping the lawsuit and agreeing to confidentiality. Archbishop Levada? He’s got Pope Benedict XVI’s old job, as prefect of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, upholding — among other things — the church’s stance opposing contraception. The entire article is definitely worth a read.

On 3 August 2005, author Gerald Posner (Secrets of the Kingdom: The Inside Story of the Secret Saudi-U.S. Connection) was a guest on Air America Radio’s “Morning Sedition” program, where he talked to hosts Mark Riley and Marc Maron about Islamic extremists and terrorism.

One particularly interesting observation came after a question from Mark Riley about what benefit the Saudis get from not clamping down harder on the money hose. Essentially, said Posner, they prefer to fight them “over there” rather than at home.

Sounds like a strategy to me (my own transcript follows, you can listen to the whole interview by downloading the MP3 for that day’s show from Air America Place’s archive, this section begins at 1:38:19).

MARK RILEY: Now, Gerald Posner, we see on the one hand all that you’ve just talked about, uh, and about how the United States government will give the Saudi government, uh, a pass on some of these things, but on the other hand, we also see the Saudis funding, uh, uh, uh Wahabbist Islam, madrassas throughout the Middle East, in Africa, in southern Asia. How does the royal family benefit by allowing this kind of — because it’s a very tightly-controlled society, my assumption is the royal family could cut this money off tomorrow if they wanted to — how do they benefit by, by walking this line between being friendly to the United States but also being eh, essentially friendly to jihadists?

GERALD POSNER: Yeah. You know, Mark, you ask such an interesting question because they have this real schizophrenic relationship when it comes to this extreme form of Islam. I, I write about this in, in Secrets because the problem for them is that they founded this country seventy years ago together, uh, with the founder of Wahabbi Islam. I mean, it was a joint partnership, so it’s always been a country based on this extreme form of Islam to, uh, that really brings everything back to the fourteenth century, doesn’t like technology, doesn’t embrace the outside world. It’s the basis for fundamentalism and terrorism, no question about it. But over time, the royal family’s become more Westernized in many respects. It’s been [in] this partnership with the West and that’s why the real fundamentalists have turned against them.

But they believe — at the royal family level — that if they cut this money off, if they don’t fund the madrassas, if they don’t fund the hard-core Wahabbi Muslim clerics around the world in mosques, that they will have all of that form of Islam turn against them en masse and they will lose their power base in Saudi Arabia. Probably true.

So what they try to do is fund it outside of Saudi Arabia largely. They’re funding the madrassas; the schools that teach the next generation of suicide bombers in Pakistan; they’re sending money to America, to Britain, to southeast Asia, as you just said. And their view is, let it sort of grow around the world. Let’s be good Wahabbists in sending the money out, but let’s keep it outside of our borders.

For all you numerologists and code fanatics out there, a reverse progression of the interior two letters of potential ’08 Democratic Presidential candidate Sen. Evan Bayh’s (DLC-IN) surname:

BAYH
BZXH
BYWH
BXVH
BWUH
BVTH
BUSH

It works the other way around, too, it’s just more steps.

Apparently, despite the fact that the Bush administration has totally screwed up the fight against terrorism, hasn’t gotten bin Laden, has let Afghanistan slide into a warlord-run heroin hothouse, and can’t maintain order in Iraq after over two years of occupation by the most advanced fighting forces in the world, Bayh thinks that Democrats can’t criticize him because they don’t have any credibility. You have to wonder what would give us credibility in Bayh’s eyes, if that doesn’t. Even the left being right isn’t enough for Evan.

As you’re probably well aware, President Bush has come out in support (again) of teaching intelligent design/creationism in schools. At least it sort of looks like he has; as he frequently is when off-script, he’s so tongue-tied and spacy that he makes Spongebob Squarepants look almost serious by comparison. Here’s the relevant portion of the roundtable transcript from 1 August 2005; I’ve italicized questions and bold-faced relevant portions of Bush’s responses:

Q I wanted to ask you about the — what seems to be a growing debate over evolution versus intelligent design. What are your personal views on that, and do you think both should be taught in public schools?

THE PRESIDENT: I think — as I said, harking back to my days as my governor — both you and Herman are doing a fine job of dragging me back to the past. (Laughter.) Then, I said that, first of all, that decision should be made to local school districts, but I felt like both sides ought to be properly taught.

Q Both sides should be properly taught?

THE PRESIDENT: Yes, people — so people can understand what the debate is about.

Q So the answer accepts the validity of intelligent design as an alternative to evolution?

THE PRESIDENT: I think that part of education is to expose people to different schools of thought, and I’m not suggesting — you’re asking me whether or not people ought to be exposed to different ideas, and the answer is yes.

Q So we’ve got to give these groups —

THE PRESIDENT: Very interesting question, Hutch. (Laughter.)

It may just be me, but he seemed to be evading the "validity" question.

Personally, I’d like to see this question posed to more politicians, at every level of government from school boards on up. But I’d like to see another line of questioning followed, as well, about what advantage the interviewee sees instruction in ID/C giving American children competing in a global marketplace over children in countries like Japan, China, India, Russia, Germany, France, the UK, and Italy where they learn science in their science classes, not "debate".

I know many politicians are likely to soft-peddle any qualms they might have about ID/C in their urge to triangulate religious voters. But sometimes you have to tell people unpleasant truths. Intelligent design isn’t science. Creationism isn’t science. It belongs in church, not in biology class. And the people who are intent on introducing it into public school curricula are undermining three-quarters of a century of American scientific leadership in the world, something we used to be proud of. That last point can’t be said often — or forcefully — enough.

Back in June, I wrote a letter to Sen. Gordon Smith (R-OR) about Karl Rove’s comments to the New York Conservative Party dinner in which he said liberals wanted to endanger troops and give therapy to terrorists.

Today’s post contained Sen. Smith’s mostly pro forma remarks, but this caught my eye (emphasis mine):

I noted your specific concerns regarding comments allegedly made by White House Deputy Chief of Staff Karl Rove.

The letter from Sen. Smith’s office is dated 14 July. News reports from as far back as 23 June carried video of Rove saying exactly what news accounts reported. It sort of makes you wonder what it takes to crack the cocoon of lies the Republicans seem to have woven around themselves. And what’s wriggling inside, waiting to hatch out.

Yes, Will Marshall of the Democratic Leadership Council’s Progressive Policy Institute joined Karl Rove in impugning the patriotism of liberals, saying that they “seem torn” about it, accusing us of “anti-Americanism,” and decrying our fixation on Bush’s disaster in Iraq. “Decidedly dovish” is how he puts it, although he might as well have said décidément pacifique.

Still, I’m willing to listen to the leaders of the DLC: people like Tom Vilsack, Tom Carper, Hillary Clinton, and Artur Davis. All they have to do to get my attention is to tell the truth about Iraq, which, regrettably, they’ve failed to do so far. President Bush, famously, hasn’t been able to think of any mistakes he’s made in the war on terror. We know that there have been many, many mistakes made. When the leaders of the DLC are ready to start talking publicly about the mistakes that have been made in the prosecution of the war on terror, instead of, say, sex in video games; when they can act as something other than enablers for the Bush administration and start telling the American public the truth, yeah, I’ll listen to them.

I got my weekly emailed newsletter from “The Daily Show” while I was out for lunch, and have to wonder whether the show’s talent booker is laughing her/his ass off.

===== This Week on TDS =====

Monday, 7/25: SENATOR RICK SANTORUM, of Pennsylvania

Tuesday, 7/26: DIANE LANE, star of "Must Love Dogs"

And, of course, the money quote:

SANTORUM: … That’s not to pick on homosexuality. It’s not, you know, man on child, man on dog, or whatever the case may be. It is one thing. And when you destroy that you have a dramatic impact on the quality —

AP: I’m sorry, I didn’t think I was going to talk about “man on dog” with a United States senator, it’s sort of freaking me out.

Atrios’s “Wanker of the Day” last Wednesday, CJRDaily writer Paul McLeary, penned these immortal words on the fight over whether bloggers qualify for the legal protections of other journalists.

Say that blogs are granted the same protections as news organizations. What is to stop, say, corporations or trade unions from setting up stealth blogs to promote their agenda, while collecting funds from the public or to spend on ads to promote their own interested point of view?

I wrote this in an email to him.

From: Darrel Plant
Subject: Blogs
Date: Wed, 20 Jul 2005 17:34 -0700 (PDT)

Mr. McLeary,

This is a slightly edited version of your second-from-last para:

“What is to stop, say, the Republican Party from setting up a television network to promote their agenda, while collecting corporate advertising revenue to promote their own interested point of view?”

Personally, I’d like to see a return to the days of the equal time rules, but that doesn’t seem to be on the horizon. The fact that Fox News can be considered a “news organization” worries me more than “stealth blogs”.

And got this breezy response.

From: Paul McLeary
Subject: Re: Blogs
Date: Fri, 22 Jul 2005 20:19 -0400 (EDT)

Thanks for the email, Darrel. FOX shouldn’t worry you all that much.
Those who believe will tune in, knowing exactly what they’re
getting, those who don’t believe, won’t.

Which just seemed to me to be so amazingly simple-minded in its disconnect with reality that I responded.

From: Darrel Plant
Subject: Re: Blogs
Date: Fri, 22 Jul 2005 18:43 -0700 (PDT)

That sounds like you’re shooting down your own argument about “stealth blogs,” Paul. I think that the average person would give more credence to a news source that appears in their cable listings and features interviews with government officials all the way up to the Vice President and President than they would to a site they ran across on the Internet.

McLeary apparently worked with Eric Alterman during the Republican campaign last fall, so I have to assume that he’s not an idiot. But to say something as politically tone-deaf as that only people who believe will tune in to FOX makes me seriously question his judgment. I know people who watch FOX. I know people who used to be Democrats who watch FOX and believe the things FOX tells them. Why shouldn’t they? They’re on the public “airwaves” in the minds of many people. Major government figures appear every day on the channel. If they were lying, someone would be stopping them wouldn’t they?

Pretending that someone could come in to the blog world at this point and set up disinformation sites that would have more of an influence than FOX News is just amazingly naive about the amount of sway it has.