An Interview with Senator Kerry

Light Posting today, because I'm a little out of it, but I did want to point you towards an interview Senator Kerry gave to Salon Magazine.

But you voted in October 2002 to give Bush the authority to use force in Iraq. Was that vote a mistake?

No. My vote was the right vote. If I had been president, I would have wanted that authority to leverage the behavior that we needed. But I would have used it so differently than the way George Bush did.

Would there have been a war in Iraq if you had been president?

I can't tell you that. If Saddam Hussein hadn't disarmed and all the world had decided that he was not living up to the standards, who knows? You can't answer that hypothetical. But I can tell you this. I would never have rushed the process in a way that undoes the meaning of going to war "as a last resort."

And that's what you thought you were authorizing -- war as a last resort?

Absolutely. You know, we got a set of promises: We're going to build an international coalition, we're going to exhaust the remedies of the U.N., respect that process and go to war as a last resort. Well, we didn't.

And not only [did we] not go to war as a last resort, they didn't even make the plans for winning the peace. They disregarded them. They disregarded [U.S. Army General Eric] Shinseki's advice, disregarded Colin Powell's advice, disregarded the State Department's plan. The arrogance of this administration has cost Americans billions of dollars and too many lives.

The argument that the administration disregarded and disrespected the military seems to resonate strongly with the people who come to see you.

Well, the truth is the truth. The truth has a force of its own. I'm just going out there and telling the truth.

Anyway hope you are having a nice memorial day, and you can look forward to a new look on Monday.

Your Weekly Lamp

Although since you already got one or two this week, this might be more often than weekly. Still I sometimes comment on Rush Limbaugh more than once in a week so I guess it's ok.

Something Else You Might Find Interesting

Representative Henry A. Waxman (D, California) has prepared a website to provide, as it puts it, "a searchable collection of 237 specific misleading statements about the threat posed by Iraq made by the five Administration officials most responsible for providing public information and shaping public opinion on Iraq: President Bush, Vice President Cheney, Defense Secretary Rumsfeld, Secretary of State Powell, and National Security Advisor Rice."

Well worth reviewing.

You weekly Rush

Posted on this in the last post, but now that Rush Limbaugh has updated his website to reflect the contents of todays show, I can post the actual quote.

"Fom the Vietnam War on, the modern era of the Democratic Party does not believe in a victorious America and will undermine a victorious America because they think it's somehow sinful for the U.S. to be the lone superpower. And if you add a political year, an election year, and a president they absolutely despise and hate, then you have them appearing as though they actually are siding with our enemies. Now, they will say, "Don't you dare challenge my patriotism" and I will say we're not, we're challenging your judgment. But you will tell me, how would, if you were siding with our enemies, be any different? From what you're doing now?"

Here's the link.

What I Would Do Differently If I Were Someone Completely Different!

Driving around at lunch today listening to the Rush Limbaugh show. Rush was talking about Democrats and walking a very fine line. See, if Rush comes out and says that Democrats are more or less Terrorists than there would be an uproar. On the other hand, Rush clearly thinks Democrats are more or less Terrorists, or in the same realm as terrorists.

So here's how he finessed the issue today. After making it clear that he wasn't challenging our patriotism, but our reasoning, he commented, "What would you do differently if you were supporting the terrorists?"

Provocative question. When I first heard it, it almost provoked me to jam my fist through my windshield. But let's consider it seriously for a moment.

The flip answer is to contrast what the Terrorists want with what President Bush wants. The terrorists are pretty well convinced that God (or Allah) is on their side. They want to engage the United States in war, because they don't believe that Allah will allow them to lose. So if I were an American believer of this particular Islamist philosophy, I suppose I would strongly support President in his choice to engage the Muslim World in a military struggle.

Of course I would applaud the abuse at Abu Ghraib prison; after all such abuse is only going to bring more recruits to the cause I and Osama bin Ladin believe in (if I were allied with Osama bin Ladin, which in real life I'm not). Why I might even try to minimize it with such statements as, "Who are these guys [detainees at Abu Ghraib]? They're shooting at Americans. They have attempted to kill Americans. You've got to put this stuff in perspective. It has to be put in context."

I suppose if I were in philosophical agreement with Osama bin Ladin I would look upon the candidacy of John Kerry with a certain amount of trepidation. I would think I could count on President Bush to invade Syria or Iran (or possibly both). But John Kerry is a fish of a different scale. I'm not sure I can count on a continual belligerence towards the Middle East with Kerry in the White House. Plus any fool should realize that much of al-Qaeda's funding and support comes from Saudi Arabia, a country with which President Bush has close ties, and one which he is unlikely to get tough with. On the other hand, Kerry, lacking such ties, might be tempted to crack down on Saudi Arabia.

But I suppose that's not really the way I'm supposed to respond to Rush's statement. Instead I'm supposed to think, "My God! What a fool I've been. By trying to get John Kerry in the white house, and by criticizing the mistakes of the Bush Administration, I'm clearly no better than a terrorist. Maybe I'd better call my local FBI office and turn myself in."

'Round the Horn Issue 15 - Lobsters Ate My Femur

Not sure what that title means, but it came to me, so I had to put it up there. At any rate, check out these other bloggers.

Steve Bates, The Yellow Doggerel Democrat has the scoop on another useful technique our soldiers are using to extract information from a people we are trying to liberate. We're taking hostages, apparently.

bloggg has an interesting and well written reaction to Dr. Cosby's speech earlier in the week.

Kick the Leftist has a well reasoned response to those who would argue that we should spend less time on Abu Ghraib and more time on Nick Berg. He also has a great post on the Washington Time's coverage of Bush's falling off a bike.

Ricks Cafe Americaine has a piece on the passing of Doug Pappas.

Sooner Thought has a piece on efforts to get Rush Limbaugh off of Armed Forces Radio. While I generally take a hardline against censorship in any form, this might be a special case due to the lack of balance (there's no aggressively liberal counterbalance to Rush's rantings), and due to the lack of media options available in the armed services.

Echidne of the Snakes has a bit on advertising, and how it sometimes promotes values that run counter to sanity.

Rooks Rant has a comparison of President Bush to a certain Monty Python Character.

Respectful of Otters has an interesting point on the idea of government privatizing their services. Namely, there is a conflict between the companies need to protect it's secret and the publics right to know what's going on with their money. She also has a good follow up post here.

blogAmy has an anecdote on unsolicited phone calls, and an intriguing question related to said anecdote.

Analyzing Ann

I'm taking a bit more scientific approach to analyzing Ann Coulter's latest column. I've broken it down sentence by sentence. Her latest column is generally about how the war in Iraq is going better than we think it is, but it is only Liberal and Media perfidity that keeps you from knowing this. So I broke Ann's sentences (there were forty three of them) into three groups. Those that were attacks on liberals, those that were reports of positive progress, and those that were more or less neutral.

Obviously a tough distinction, but by my analysis, 10 sentences were neutral (or 23%), 13 were positive (or 30%) and 20 were attacks (47%, nearly half). So Ann Coulter is more interested, at least in this article, in attacking liberals than she is in putting forward any positive program or defense of President Bush.

It doesn't help that a number of Ann's positive statements seem factually challenged. For example, she continues to suggest that Saddam Hussein reached out to Osama Bin Ladin, despite the lack of proof (and the pretty consistent debunking of "proofs" her colleagues have put forward.

Ms. Coulter also suggests that we have found weapons of mass destruction. Someone should pass that information along to the Bush Campaign so they can trumpet it. I mean if we really did find caches of Weapons of Mass Destruction that threatened the United States, well, that's something the American People ought to know before they go into their voting booths in November. Unless, of course, Ann is referring to discredited reports.

She also spends a lot of time knocking down arguments made by Mr. Nicolas Kristol before the war. Easy enough to do, I suppose. Apparently Mr. Kristol thought our troops would face stiffer resistance from Iraqi troops, but we actually beat the Iraqi army pretty quickly. Apparently Mr. Kristol thought that capturing Hussein would be dangerous and cost the lives of many men, but we caught him easily and without it being bloody. Nice little strawman argument as it doesn't answer any of the questions about the difficulty of occupying Iraq. I mean, I'm certainly glad we beat the Iraqi Army and National Guard, but I kind of expected that, truth to tell.

On the other hand the current phase of our occupation of Iraq is proving to be a bit more difficult.

On the attack side, she calls Liberals and the media (which, just to be clear, are one and the same) Liars, Pusillanimous, womanly, and 1984 style toltalatarians. She also suggests that if the terrorists invaded Manhattan, it would immediately surrender. I wonder why Ann hates Americans so much. Or at least Americans who happen to live in New York City. Or who happen to be liberal.

Our New National Pastime!

What a grabber of a headline! It grabbed me when I saw Larry Elder use a variation on it for his article this week. But it wasn't as good as mine, because he revealed the new national pastime right in the title. See I made you read a few lines before revealing, but his title gives it right away; "Bashing President Bush takes over as our No. 1 national pastime."

He then quotes a number of harsh words spoken by members of the press, but then presents anecdotal evidence that many don't like Bush. The examples are
- A friend's doctor, who compared Bush to a "little monkey."
- A guest at a small house party who said, "That clown, Bush, has to go."
- A house painter, working for Elder, who asked what he thought of our "idiot president."
- A person who refused to talk to a Bush supporter.
- A waiter who was berated as being a Bush Supporter because he was screwing up an order.

These are all pretty regrettable incidents, and I have to say that the people in these stories, particularly the last two, aren't all that great. But, and this is a big but, I disagree with Elder when he places the blame entirely on the Democratic side of the fence. I myself have received mild abuse (along these lines) for my support of the Democratic Party, and there are others who have received much worse.

I have to say that the conservative movement to a much greater extent than the liberal movement has created the intellectual framework that supports such actions. Perhaps Mr. Elder should spend some time reading the works of Ann Coulter, or listening to Michael Savage.

Love Can Damage Your Health

And on that note, here's a picture of a lamp.

Mistakes were Made

I would imagine a lot are going to be pointing to this story in the New York Times, in which they admit they may have echoed the administration line a little to closely in the run up to the war in Iraq. Kind of a sad day for the paper.

Hooray for Hollywood

Linda Chavez writes an article today on the way movies used to be.

"Remember when movies aimed to entertain? You could take the whole family, from grandma to the kids, and escape the quotidian for the silver screen, watching bigger-than-life heroes engage in daring and admirable deeds. Or you could share a few G-rated laughs without worrying about offensive double-entendres or scatological references."

She then rips into three movies. Michael Moores "Fahrenheit 9/11" which many on the conservative side of the fence don't think you should be allowed to see, "The Day After Tomorrow" and "Shrek 2." The first two movies are bad because of their political message, "Shrek 2" is bad because the voice of the ugly step sister is Larry King (which makes her a cross dresser apparently. I don't see it myself, I just thought that was part of being the "ugly" stepsister.).

Her criticisms of Michael Moore's movie as an indictment of Hollywood don't make a lot of sense. Moore has always made independent and highly personalized films. To criticize Michael Moore for doing what he's always done is like criticizing John Woo for having a lot of Gun Fights, or criticizing Frank Capra for his upbeat assessment of the American Character. It's what they do.

As for "The Day after Tomorrow," I'm a bit torn. I mean to me the set up sounds like a great premise for a disaster movie. And the visuals from the previews are pretty astounding. But in for a penny, in for a pound. How do you do a movie with massive climate change without it being an environmental picture? So does that mean that any story that might have political implications shouldn't be filmed? Tricky one that, although I suspect that what it works out to is any story that might have liberal political implications should not be filmed.

As for some wish for us to go back to some Hollywood Golden Age, firstly it's not possible, secondly, movies of that time generated just as much criticism for their political messages as movies do today. Look at good old "Citizen Kane," for example.

While we're on the subject of films, let's check in with good old PABAAH (Patriotic Americans Boycotting Anti American Hollywood). Well, Jane Fonda and Barbara Streisand are going to be staring in movies that you aren't supposed to see. In other shocking news, George Clooney held a fund raiser for his father. Just so you know, any celebrity who donates to the Democratic Party or any Democratic candidate is anti American (according to PABAAH). Some Madonna fans weren't satisfied with her latest performance, so she should refund the money she received, and just play her old timey songs. And a couple articles about how much they hate Michael Moore.

Failure is not an Option!

So speaks Cal Thomas today, in an article praising President Bush's speech Monday night for "thinking big." He then goes on to say, in short, "Hey support President Bush or else get blown up, you idiots." But why be short when I can fill up inches quoting him.

"I wonder if those who have switched from approval to disapproval of President Bush in the polls fully understand what is at stake in Iraq. Failure is not an option. If the United States fails to achieve its objectives, we might as well issue printed invitations for the terrorists to turn up the heat. They will surely gain new recruits and be emboldened to stage more outrageous attacks.

It is important for some of those nations that have carped and lobbed rhetorical missiles from the sidelines at U.S. policy in Iraq to participate in rebuilding that country. Terrorism is a threat to every nation, including the surrender monkeys who think they can buy off the killers through appeasement. No free nation is safe from them, and if they aren't coming after certain nations now, they will later unless they are stopped."

The first step to convincing someone to agree with you is reminding them how stupid they are to disagree with you in the first place. That always works. Once people realize how stupid you think they are, they will quickly inquire as to how they can change their opinions to match yours.

Cal Thomas uses this technique by suggesting that those who disapprove of President Bush don't understand the situation, and by suggesting that those nations who don't agree with President Bush are "surrender monkeys" and appeasers. Gosh I feel like agreeing with Mr. Thomas already. But let's look at his argument.

Interesting how Mr. Thomas and some liberal critics of the occupation of Iraq see things differently. Mr. Thomas assumes that al-Qaeda will have an easier time recruiting if we leave Iraq because they won't be afraid of us. I'm not sure how that works (why would suicide bombers be afraid of us anyway. Are they worried we might kill them?). And some liberal critics suggest that if we stop occupying Iraq and, you know, doing the bad things we are doing, that they will be less likely to focus on us. I'm not sure either is a viable option (preferring the plan of the next President of these United States, John Kerry).

His paragraph directed to other nations (by which, we assume he means France) is the same old game. It's called the force. It's an old magicians trick to get you to pick the item the magician wants you to. In this case, Thomas presents exactly two options for fighting Terrorists; complete devotion to President Bush and any plan he chooses to follow or capitulation to the terrorists. Those are your only two options France. And, one would assume, those are our only two options as citizens of the United States.

Of course we can look forward to this argument all summer long; a vote for Kerry is a vote for surrender. But in order for that argument to work, President Bush's conduct in the War on Terror has to be pretty unimpeachable. And, as I'm sure you've noticed, it's not. Even if you think invading Iraq was a good idea, it's clear that President Bush and his foreign policy staff failed to prepare properly for the war. It's clear that Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld wanted to fight this war on the cheap, and so failed to plan for contingencies that were predicted before the war, and have since come to pass. So maybe President Bush isn't the only solution to the world terrorism problem.

Another great article by Paul Krugman

I'd advise reading the whole thing, which covers recent economic news. Mr. Krugman takes the novel step of providing a website where one can verify his claims. Not a bad idea.

It ends with these words.

"In April, the economy added 288,000 jobs. If you do the math, you discover that President Bush needs about four years of job growth at last month's rate to reach what his own economists consider full employment.

The bottom line, then, is that Mr. Bush's supporters have no right to complain about the public's failure to appreciate his economic leadership. Three years of lousy performance, followed by two months of good but not great job growth, is not a record to be proud of."

Still I've noticed that Rush Limbaugh and other conservative figures have been suggesting since President Bush took office that the economy was in recovery or had recovered, and the Media was hiding the truth from you.

The President's Big Speech

Here's a link to the speech, if you missed it (as I did). A couple of random thoughts.

The President continues to link 9/11 to Iraq. Obviously nobody's proven a direct link, and it's very frustrating to some to hear the president making this connection. But, if I understand him correctly, the President may not see a direct link, but an indirect link.

Still, given what we know about the build up to this war, it's clear that the Bush administration wanted to invade Iraq regardless of what happened. Kind of like that old saw about Bush's economic policy ("We have a surplus and the economy is going great; thus we should give out tax cuts." "We have a deficit and the economy is stalling; thus we should give out tax cuts.")

There's also the question of how much sovereignty the new Iraqi government is going to have if we continue to occupy that country, and they have no control over our comings and goings. The real power of the new Iraqi government will not be the support of the people, but ability to influence the American occupiers. Which is, in the long term, going to drain legitimacy from the new government like a sieve.

The New York Times has a good assessment I think.

"It's regrettable that this president is never going to admit any shortcomings, much less failure. That's an aspect of Mr. Bush's character that we have to live with. But we cannot live without a serious plan for doing more than just getting through the June 30 transition and then muddling along until the November elections in the United States. Mr. Bush has yet to come up with a realistic way to internationalize the military operation and to get Iraq's political groups beyond their current game of jockeying for power and into a real process of drafting a workable constitution."

There were things to like in President Bush's speech, but there were far more generalities than specifics. One might argue that this contrasts more or less equitably with his democratic rival, John Kerry. The difference is that Kerry has provided more specifics, and, more to the point, he's not the President now. Whatever we may think of President Bush as a candidate, he is, in fact, the current president. And therefore he's responsible for running our campaign against terrorism. So it's more of a problem when he fails to provide specifics.

The Latest Kerry Besmircher

edwardpig has the lowdown on the latest brave soldier to come forward and slander future President Kerry. Go check it out!

I was fighting in the sky

Here's my latest lamp. It's metallic.



If any of you have any cool lamp pictures you'd like me to post or photoshop e-mail them to me. And I'll do the rest.

Hip Hip hypocrisy!

Sam asks Bruno and Connie, "Do you know what we're talking about here?" There's a lot of repetitious back-and-forth here while everyone ascertains that everyone knows what everyone else is talking about, which is, as Sam puts it, "unlimited, unregulated money that can be raised in staggering amounts." Sam states, "Understand, it's not like there's a law that envisions soft money; it's just that there's no law that specifically bans it. It's a loophole so big you could race the America's Cup through it. How could the President be opposed to soft money one year and take it the next? Where's he going to be on campaign finance reform tomorrow?" Bruno replies, "Exactly where he is today: leading the charge against it. In the meantime, Congress and the FEC have been sitting on their hands. Is that our fault?" Connie dutifully states, "No." Bruno continues, "So now Bartlet's supposed to obey a law that doesn't exist? What's next, imaginary speed signs?"
- Television Without Pity, Recap of The West Wing Episode, "Gone Quiet"

Once again we have helpful conservatives encouraging liberals to chop their legs off. You know those helpful folks who have suggested that if you claim to be a liberal and you aren't giving any excess income you earn to the government, you are a hypocrite. Who suggest that any wealthy liberal, or any upper middle class liberal, is by definition a hypocrite. Who suggest that any criticism of the president is dirty campaigning and hypocrisy (after all Liberals didn't like it when they were accusing President Clinton of murdering Vince Foster and raping White House staffers, so we shouldn't go around saying that his plans for post-war Iraq were largely based on fairytales and faulty intelligence).

Well, now that Senator Kerry, who may be our president down the road, is acting like he wants to win this race, well, they think he's a hypocrite. Or so a Wall Street Journal editorialist suggests.

"Even better, this Kerry trial balloon exposes campaign-finance limits as a monumental farce. The Kerry camp is considering this maneuver so it can keep raising and spending money as long as possible without having to abide by spending limits that kick in once a party formally nominates its candidate. . . .

This is always the way with campaign-finance limits. Politicians endorse them to sound holier-than-thou but then immediately turn around and exploit or invent loopholes and exceptions."

Of course, this person presumably has little problem with the Republican party scheduling their convention so late so as to take advantage of September 11th celebrations. The fact of the matter is that Senator Kerry is not suggesting anything illegal or immoral. He's suggesting running his campaign the same way President Bush is running his campaign. Now I might agree that it would be nice if both parties agreed to a set limit to how much they could spend, but I know that they aren't.

Secondly President Bush's campaign staff is channeling his money into flatly dishonest campaign ads. I don't need to go over this again, but the accusations against Kerry's voting record on defense have been met. If President Bush is going to continue to air such negative ads and John Kerry goes off the stump (as this editorialist would suggest) than how is he to answer these charges? The answer is obvious, he won't be able to. I can understand how this Wall Street Journal Editorialist would enjoy that, but I'm not sure it's the best strategy for Kerry to follow.

I mean lets take this argument to it's logical conclusion. Liberals are well known for complaining about the negative influence of money in governing. So why is Kerry spending any money at all running his campaign. Doesn't that make him a hypocrite? He should just spend as little as possible if he's going to be true to what conservatives think liberal ideals are.

On the other hand, maybe I'd best not give them any ideas.

I Told You!

I have always suggested that I was a Centrist Democrat. Others have suggested I was a liberal zombie or a secret freeper. But now I have scientific Proof. According to this test, I am a 32 on Non-Fiscal Issues (with 1 being completely liberal and 100 being completely conservative) and a 24 on Fiscal Issues.

So take the test yourself and see where you stand. You may be pleasently surprised. Or not. What do I know?

Infallibility

In the grand scheme of things this may be a small story, but let's look it over anyway.

Daily Kos reported that Bush fell at the end of a 17 Mile bike ride. One of Bush's flacks commented. "It's been raining a lot and the topsoil is loose. You know this president. He likes to go all-out. Suffice it to say he wasn't whistling show tunes."

I'm not sure why I should care whether or not the President was whistling show tunes, but let that go. The main point is that it was raining a lot. Except, as the Daily Kos's research shows, it really wasn't.

A couple of months ago, Future President Kerry was skiing in aspen and he took a tumble. He cussed out the secret service agent who, apparently, knocked him over, and the whole incident was, according to right wing columnists, an insight into his character. Among other things it showed that he was an elitist (because he played expensive sports like skiing instead of throwing the football around) and ungrateful (because his secret service agent is sworn to take a bullet for him).

So you have to ask yourself, what does this experience teach us about President Bush's character. President Bush, or one of his handlers, chooses to lie about falling down, particularly this sort of lie that is relatively easy to investigate. Why not just admit error, instead of trying to make this tumble about the strength of his character?

These Heavy Notions Creep Around

I had the most number of hits in a single day on Friday, and also more hits than normal over the weekend. Things are really lifting off here at "Make me a Commentator!!!"

Don't think I don't know why that is. My new policy of putting up photoshopped pictures of lamps is drawing you like flies to the honey. Not that I intend to insinuate that there is anything fly-like about my readers. No, I've always thought of you as some of those rare Amazonion beatles--the kinds with really intricate shells.

Anyway, here's another picture of a lamp.

New Quote

There's a new quote up at the top, and of course a new Quotes Page. And in honor of this weeks quote, here's a picture of a lamp.



You might also swing over and check out this post at Respectful of Otters. Paints a bit of a scary picture.