Bring On the Burqas

Earlier this month, the citizens of Minnesota's 5th Congressional District elected Keith Ellison to be their Representative, and in doing so sent the first Muslim to Congress. This has caused some of the wiggier elements of America's right wing to go completely nuts. Good Lord, you'd think Ellison demanded that Nancy Pelosi be required to wear a burqa on the House floor. But he is actually quite moderate and not at all like the hate-crazed, suicide-bombing, honor-killing stereotype stamped into our national psyche.

But to the real fruitcakes, Islam itself is the enemy. And any American Muslims are traitors.

For example, take Glenn Beck, a O'Reilly-esque right-wing blowhard given a nightly talk show on CNN Headline News to counter the America-haters who otherwise dominate the network's talking-head lineup. (What's that? There aren't any? Oh well, maybe it'll draw some viewers from Fox.) When Beck had Ellison on his show, he showed off his inability to tell one Muslim from another, challenging the Representative-elect to "prove to me that you are not working with our enemies."

Now Dennis Prager, a columnist who moonlights as the religious right's token Jew, has gotten into the act as well. In his latest column for the TownHall website, he worked himself into a fine snit over Ellison's request to take his ceremonial oath of office on a copy of the Koran instead of the Bible. This request should be denied, he froths, "because the act undermines American civilization," and wonders what would happen if a racist asks to take the oath on Hitler's Mein Kampf. (Why not ask Trent Lott?) And if that weren't enough, he darkly warns that Ellison's request "will embolden Islamic extremists and make new ones."

Prager and Beck, and others like them, expose themselves as pure idiots whose bigoted rantings should embarrass thinking Americans everywhere. All Muslims are not the enemy, no matter what they think.

Way to Support the Troops, George

President Bush may talk the talk about "supporting the troops," but let's face it, it's just an act. He doesn't really seem to give a damn about the men and women he sent over to fight and die in the desert for his grand delusions.

Earlier this month, Bush hosted a White House reception for newly-elected members of Congress. It just so happens that James Webb, who defeated George "Macaca" Allen in Virginia's Senatorial election, has a son serving in Iraq as a lance corporal in the Marines. Bush asked Webb how his son was doing, and Webb responded by saying he wanted his son to come home.

"I didn't ask you that," Bush snapped back testily. "I asked how he's doing."

Webb naturally took exception to this display of pure callousness and later told a friend he wanted to "slug" the President, but refrained from doing so. I can think of quite a few parents who would not have been so restrained.

Especially those whose kids will never come home.

Way to go, George.

What Mission?

During the 2000 election campaign, then-Governor Bush made a talking point out of deriding President Clinton's (in)famous habit of constantly changing his positions as the situation warranted, calling it "waffling." He promised that as President, he would stick with it no matter what.

Well, he was right about that.

President Bush, the man who never ever ever changes his mind, has forcefully responded to the Iraqi civil war and the spectacle of American men and women caught in the crossfire as Sunnis and Shi'ites slaughter each other by the thousands. "There's one thing I'm not going to do," he talked tough in Latvia. "I'm not going to pull our troops off the battlefield before the mission is complete."

Which begs the question: what exactly is "the mission?" Frankly, that depends on which day it is.

Once upon a time, it was Saddam Hussein's gigantic WMD stockpiles. When it became painfully clear that such stockpiles did not in fact exist, the purpose of the invasion changed into Saddam's connections with al Qaeda. Nope, those didn't exist either. From there, the definition of "the mission" has wandered all over the place, from building democracy to defeating terrorism to controlling Iraq's oil - the last one being an extremely rare example of Bush actually being honest about something. Now, it has settled into this vague, amorphous mass of "finishing the job" and "completing the mission."

The simple truth appears to be that Bush et al have no idea what to do in Iraq other than staying the course. Except it's no longer called "staying the course." If our supposed leaders really have no clue what we're doing there anymore, it's a pretty good bet that it's time to get out. Now.

Gee, Ya Think?

Someone over at News Corporation - chairman Rupert Murdoch, for one - should have realized a long time ago that this would end badly. Very badly.

HarperCollins, a publishing company owned by Murdoch, announced that they would publish If I Did It, by former football star/actor/double murderer O.J. Simpson. And Fox, a television network also owned by Murdoch, announced that they would air a two-part interview billed as his "confession."

Yes, O.J. Simpson, You know, the guy whose "Trial of the Century" for killing Nicole Brown Simpson and Ron Goldman, his ex-wife and her friend, captivated America during the mid-nineties. The guy who to this day scours the golf courses of Florida looking for "the real killers." That O.J. Simpson.

Where most Americans see someone who literally got away with murder, HarperCollins publisher Judith Regan saw dollar signs. More dollar signs, in fact, because she was the person who would have interviewed Simpson for the Fox special. Indeed, the entire spectacle reeked of greed, ratings and publicity.

Not only that, there are reports that News Corporation attempted to buy the Brown family's silence with millions of dollars in hush money. And the company is reportedly attempting to sell the book to another publisher.

Granted, bad taste has never stopped Murdoch before. After all, his Fox network brought us such televised abominations as:

• Who Wants to Marry a Multimillionaire?, featuring a "millionaire" with restraining orders filed against him by numerous ex-girlfriends
• The Swan, in which the "winner" of a beauty pageant whose contestants underwent cosmetic surgery was served with divorce papers on live TV
• Who's Your Daddy?, where various men tried to con a woman adopted at birth into thinking he was her real birth father

But something about this one struck a public nerve. It was so crass, so tacky, so tasteless, that America responded with one gigantic retch.

For once, Murdoch listened. The TV special will not be aired. The book will not be published, although a couple of already-shipped copies are reportedly for sale on eBay.

Maybe it was because we're sick unto death of O.J. smugly insisting that he's innocent, all the while smirking at the thought there are some rubes out there who fall for it. Maybe it's the reported $3 million price tag, surely a low point in checkbook journalism. And maybe it was the sheer cheek of tabloid TV and tabloid publishing attempting to get away with ever more outrageous publicity stunts.

But whatever the reason, the American people have spoken, loudly and plainly. And good on us for it.

In His Defense, He Didn't Meet Any Vietnamese Citizens During the War, Either

"Well, if you'd been part of the President's motorcade as we've shuttled back and forth over the course of the day...the President has been doing a lot of waving and getting a lot of waving and smiles... So I think the President has a very good sense and will go back to the United States and tell the American people that these are a people that are very open to and solicitous of good relations with the United States."

-- National Security Advisor Stephen Hadley on President Bush, who was kept far away from average Vietnamese during his blink-and-you-miss-it trip to Vietnam

No Reality In Sight

The Bush Administration, led by the man in the Oval Office, is notorious for refusing to face reality. It is well known that President Bush and his inner circle are content to live in their own little fantasy world, where everything works properly and everyone loves us. (Of course, this gets an Orwellian makeover around election time, when the world is suddenly transformed into a mortal threat.) This goes a long way towards explaining Bush's poll numbers, which haven't seen the sunny side of 50% in months.

For anyone who reads the news and pays attention, it has been obvious for a very long time that our Iraq strategy of "stay the course" just isn't working. Our soldiers are getting slaughtered on a daily basis trying to keep the peace in a land where there is no peace. Indeed, American military commanders admit that we cannot even secure the capital city of Baghdad, much less the rest of the country.

Bush took to the cameras this morning for a rare press conference which was billed as a major announcement but which turned out to be - well, more of the same. No change in strategy, no realization that the (official) goal of a democratic Iraq is in ruins, no meaningful deviation from "stay the course." In fact, the only change of sorts is that Bush abandoned the macho "stay the course" slogan while continuing to embrace the disastrous "stay the course" mentality.

How typical for a White House which sees failing policies not as evidence that the policy needs to be changed, but rather that a new sales pitch is needed as the old one wasn't working.

He did claim that we "are constantly adjusting our tactics to stay ahead of our enemies." He did not, of course, mention that if the overall goal is unattainable and the strategy doesn't work, all the tactical adjustments in the world aren't going to make the slightest bit of difference.

In a very small concession to reality, he grudgingly admitted that "some of the Iraqi security forces have performed below expectations." In fact, the fledgling Iraqi army has been the source of many if not most of the sectarian death squads bringing so much killing and misery to the "wrong" Iraqis.

Overall, it was little more than the same stuff we've been hearing for years. "My administration will carefully consider any proposal that will help us achieve victory," Bush said. This appears on its face to be moderation, but here's the catch - he defines victory, so he defines anything that will help him "achieve victory." Anything that disagrees with his version of victory is by definition anti-victory and will therefore be ignored, just like all the other experts he brought in for photo ops and then tossed aside once their usefulness had been exhausted.

But let's face it - Bush's audience was not the soldiers he put in harm's way, nor their families, nor the Iraqi people. His audience was the American voting public, whom he is terrified will finally deprive him of his rubber stamp on Capitol Hill and replace it with a Congress which stands up to him for a change.

Never Mind What I Said

"Well, hey, listen, we've never been "stay the course," George. We have been - we will complete the mission, we will do our job, and help achieve the goal, but we’re constantly adjusting to tactics. Constantly."

-- President Bush, speaking to George Stephanopolous on ABC's This Week on October 22, 2006, claiming his Iraq War strategy has never been about "staying the course"

"We will stay the course."

-- President Bush, 8/30/06

"We will stay the course, we will complete the job in Iraq."

-- President Bush, 8/4/05

"We will stay the course until the job is done, Steve. And the temptation is to try to get the President or somebody to put a timetable on the definition of getting the job done. We're just going to stay the course."

-- President Bush, 12/15/03

"And my message today to those in Iraq is: We'll stay the course.

-- President Bush, 4/13/04

"And that's why we’re going to stay the course in Iraq. And that’s why when we say something in Iraq, we’re going to do it."

-- President Bush, 4/16/04

"And so we've got tough action in Iraq. But we will stay the course."

-- President Bush, 4/5/04

You Better Not Vote, Amigo

With Republican poll numbers rapidly heading south less than three weeks before Election Day, some GOP dirty tricksters are bringing out the mud buckets. Ohio gubernatorial candidate Ken Blackwell, for example, accused his Democratic opponent of supporting porn and pedophilia. You know, the usual nonsense. But a story out of California is pretty appalling.

The Los Angeles Times reported that Tan Nguyen, the long-shot GOP candidate for Rep. Loretta Sanchez's Congressional seat, mailed Spanish-language flyers to about 14,000 Democratic voters in Orange County with a not-so-subtle warning: "You are advised that if your residence in this country is illegal or you are an immigrant, voting in a federal election is a crime that could result in jail time." (Emphasis added.)

Legal immigrants are, of course, allowed to vote.

Orange County's population is about 30% Hispanic, which reliably votes for Sanchez. The flyer was an incredibly crude attempt at suppressing the Democratic vote by scaring Hispanic voters away from the polls.

Nguyen, himself an immigrant from Vietnam, disowned the flyer once the story became public and claimed to have fired one of his staffers, saying he had no idea the mailing had taken place. He was promptly contradicted by, of all people, the chairman of the Orange County Republican Party.

"I've learned that Mr. Nguyen was involved in expediting that mailer," Scott Baugh was quoted as saying. "I've had conversations with the attorney general and folks involved with the mail house. He called the mail house himself and told them to expedite the mailing."

Facing pressure from the GOP to drop out of the race, Nguyen has not said whether he will stay on the ballot. But it seems pretty academic at this point. Another Republican candidate has been caught red-handed trying to pull a fast one on the voters. He should quit now.

Swift Injustice

A few years ago, Salim Ahmed Hamdan was arrested in Afghanistan, accused of being Osama bin Laden's driver, declared to be an "enemy combatant" and blocked off from appealing his detention in the American court system. Hamdan was appointed a military lawyer, Lieutenant Commander Charles Swift, a Navy officer for twenty years and a Judge Advocate General lawyer for more than a decade.

When he got the job, Swift's superiors informed him that he was expected to throw the case. Never mind actually defending Hamdan, just get him to plead guilty at his show trial and make an example of him.

"I was deeply troubled by the fact that to ensure that Mr. Hamdan would plead guilty as planned," Swift testified before the Senate Judiciary Committee in June 2005, "the Chief Prosecutor's request [for Swift's assignment as Hamdan's attorney] came with a critical condition that the Defense Counsel was for the limited purpose of 'negotiating a guilty plea' to an unspecified offense and that Mr. Hamdan's access to counsel was conditioned on his willingness to negotiate such a plea."

Swift, however, had a different view, taking seriously his oath to provide his client with a "zealous defense." He proceeded to do just that, defending Hamdan all the way up to the Supreme Court. In June, the Court ruled that the Administration did not have the right to bar Hamdan from the American justice system nor to try suspects before what were widely regarded as military kangaroo courts.

One would think that a lawyer as good and effective as Swift would go far in his military career. Unfortunately, that did not happen.

Proving once again that in the topsy-turvy world of the Bush Administration no good deed goes unpunished, reaction from the Pentagon brass was quick. Less than two weeks after the Supreme Court ruled in his client's favor, Swift was informed that under the Navy's "up or out" rule, he was being denied promotion and was therefore being kicked out of the military.

That's right, he was punished for winning his case.

Whoever made the decision to ruin Swift's military career, whether it was Defense Secretary Rumsfeld or an approval-seeking underling, not only punished Swift. They also punished the military and the country. Any system which rewards toadying mediocrity while penalizing those who do the right thing despite orders from above is a dangerously unjust one.

What an Incredible Coincidence

The Republicans are now so far down in the polls that they rank just above the Black Death. Poll after poll says the American people think the party in power is living in a dream world and has no idea what real life on Planet Earth is all about. The question is not whether the Democrats will wipe the floor with the GOP in next month's elections, but how hard the wiping will be. GOP insiders outside the White House bubble of unreality have pretty much conceded that they will lose control of the House, but still retain some hope of holding on to the Senate.

In the long sad saga of the Iraq War, Bush has gotten minor poll bounces out of such "milestone" events as the capture of Saddam Hussein, the "handover of sovereignty," the killing of Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, and others. Of course, such bounces are quickly extinguished as reality sets in, but they still exist for a few days.

It therefore seems just a touch too coincidental that our puppet government in Iraq has announced that the verdict in Saddam's long-running trial will be revealed on Sunday, November 5 -- just two days before the midterm elections. Nobody seriously doubts that Saddam will be convicted and sentenced to death.

To this, I have three reactions:

1. A helpless here-we-go-again feeling that once again, the White House is attempting to distract our attention with yet another well-timed "milestone" which is utterly meaningless except in its short-term political impact.
2. An even more helpless feeling that even after all the lies, deceptions, political manipulation, etc, people will still be fooled into thinking the GOP is a can-do party that gets things right.
3. A distinctly disgusted feeling that Bush et al have such a low opinion of us, seeing the American people as so bovinely stupid that the same dishonest scams will work again and again.

Of course, there's always the possibility that the same people who were tricked in 2004 realize how the Republicans played them for suckers and are determined not to get conned again. But I always remember H.L. Mencken's immortal observation that "nobody ever went broke underestimating the intelligence of the American people."

It remains to be seen what impact such a transparently political event will have on the voting public. I hope that we, as a nation, are smarter than to be deceived once again.

Those White House Seances Are Channeling the Wrong President

"I said we gotta win. He [Democratic challenger Jon Tester] wants to pull out. He wants everybody to know our plan. That's not smart. If you had a plan in order to win are you gonna tell the enemy? He's not — the enemy’s not gonna tell us! That is absolutely unbelievable that anyone would take that approach! He says our president don't have a plan. I think he’s got one. But he's not gonna tell everybody in the whole world. And if you wanna go out and spar for a fight or you gonna tell your enemy what your plan is? I don't think so. And that's the way we'll win it, because we want to win it."

-- Senator Conrad Burns (R-MT) insisting that President Bush has a secret plan to win the Iraq War, echoing Richard Nixon's 1968 equally fraudulent claim that he had a secret plan to win the Vietnam War

Homey Don't Play That

Black Man #1: "If you make a little mistake with one of your ho's, you'll want to dispose of that problem tout suite, no questions asked."

Black Man #2: "That's too cold. I don't snuff my own seed."

Black Man #1: "Maybe you do have a reason to vote Republican."

-- A Republican radio ad trying to convince black voters to vote for anti-abortion GOP candidates

This From a Man Who Demonstrates Dishonesty, Cowardice, Lying and Jingoism

"By demonstrating values such as integrity, courage, honesty, and patriotism, all Americans can help our children develop strength and character."

-- President Bush, declaring October 15-21, 2006 to be "National Character Counts Week"

How About "Actually Making Progress and Not Having Our Soldiers Killed Endlessly?"

"I don't know. How do you define 'winning?'"

-- White House Press Secretary Tony Snow, responding to a reporter who asked "are we winning" in Iraq

It's Almost At the Point Where You Can Drive Down the Street in Only One Tank

"Well, I think there's some natural level of concern out there because in fact, you know, [the Iraq War] wasn't over instantaneously... If you look at the general overall situation, they're doing remarkably well."

-- Vice President Dick Cheney insisting on Rush Limbaugh's radio show that the Iraq War is going just fine, neglecting to mention that (a) the war has now lasted almost as long as World War II, and (b) it's a disaster over there

So a Vote Against Me Is a Vote for Satan

"God then called me to run for the United States Congress, and I thought 'What in the world will that be for?' and my husband said 'You need to do this,' and I wasn't so sure, and we took 3 days and we fasted and we prayed and we said, 'Lord. Is this what you want? Is this your will?' and after long about the afternoon of day two, he made that calling sure."

-- GOP Congressional candidate Michelle Bachmann on why she's running for election

"Inexplicably Upbeat"

There must be something in the water at the White House. The Administration's poll numbers are stuck in the cellar, GOP candidates are refusing to have party bigwigs appear at fundraisers, the Republicans are beset by scandal left and right - but according to the Washington Post President Bush and Karl Rove are "inexplicably upbeat." Indeed, the same White House that refused to plan for Iraq, Katrina, etc, has refused to plan for a Democratic-controlled Congress, insisting that everything will be just fine.

I can think of three possible explanations:

1. Bush et al are so insulated from reality, so happy in their fantasy world, that the possibility of an electoral defeat next month literally has not crossed their minds. Given this Administration's track record of delusion and wishful thinking, this one seems the most obvious.
   
2. A rally-round-the-flag military attack on Iran is in the works. This may not be so farfetched; the battle group commanded by the aircraft carrier USS Eisenhower was sent to the Persian Gulf ahead of schedule earlier this month, and Rove bragged to GOP insiders in September that an "October surprise" was on deck to happen before the elections.
3. With electronic voting systems now in place in most electoral districts, the possibility of hacking the vote (officially or otherwise) is scaring the tar out of a lot of computer-security experts. Especially in close races, some carefully aimed shenanigans could keep the GOP in control of the House.

Wait and see, I suppose...

The Liberation of Death

Three and a half years after the Great Liberation, the death toll in Iraq mounts daily. Fifteen killed in a car bombing here, twenty-five dragged off a bus and slaughtered there. Meanwhile, sixty corpses are found somewhere else, be it a construction site or a river. The streets of Baghdad have become almost unfit for human habitation due to lack of electricity, running water and now even waste collection. You see, garbage collectors are refusing to go to work, sensibly afraid of being killed for picking up the trash. Sunnis and Shiites massacre each other by the thousands all over the country, producing new religious enclaves by driving out or simply killing anyone from the "wrong" branch of Islam.

Meanwhile, the British medical journal The Lancet, which a couple of years ago claimed 100,000 civilians had been killed in the Iraq War, has now published a peer-reviewed study giving a rough estimate of 655,000 casualties. With a total Iraqi population of about 26 million, that works out to just over 2.5%, or one out of forty.

Just to give you an idea of scale, the United States' population is just now passing the 300 million mark. A 2.5% death toll for the US would mean about seven and a half million dead (give or take a few tens of thousands), or more than 2500 times the death toll on 9/11.

Think about that. Two thousand, five hundred 9/11s, one right on top of the other.

The number is simply too large for the mind to process.

Of course, the White House promptly attacked the study as "not credible," and indeed the death toll might not be that high - the study was based on representative sampling and not on a comprehensive death count. (It certainly doesn't help that the US government refuses to compile civilian casualty counts, and ordered the Iraqi government to refrain as well.) But no one can deny that this war and occupation, which was originally sold to us as a war of liberation, has gone horrifically wrong, producing for the people of Iraq a liberation of death.

President Bush, secure within his bubble, manfully proclaims that we shall "stay the course" in Iraq. Vice President Cheney, defying all logic and indeed common sense, stubbornly declares that even if he had known all that was to happen (no WMDs, stunning corruption, civil war, ethnic cleansing, etc) he wouldn't change a thing. This is not steely resolve, this is catastrophically inept arrogance.

In an attempt to buy some favorable coverage for a change, the White House some months ago allowed the creation of the Iraq Study Group, a bipartisan panel headed by veteran diplomat and Bush family friend James Baker III. The report, now almost complete but to be released only after next month's elections, is expected to conclude that victory is no longer a viable option. Indeed, the only realistic options now are:

1. Concentrate on fortifying Baghdad while negotiating a peace with the insurgents
2. Withdraw American troops entirely and let the Iraqis fight it out

Neither option is likely to be welcomed in the Oval Office, where Bush claims that minor changes to tactics might be considered but changes in the overall strategy or goals are unacceptable. Then again, the ISG represents a voice of reason, something long ignored by the Bush Administration. Will they receive the brush-off as well?

Thirty Days Hath February

"This morning my administration released the budget numbers for fiscal 2006. These budget numbers are not just estimates; these are the actual results for the fiscal year that ended February the 30th."

-- President Bush, demonstrating that in his fantasy world in which Iraq is a huge success and everything is just peachy, the calendar is different as well

It's Really Not That Bad When You Consider the Alternative

"I know the speaker didn't go over a bridge and leave a young person in the water, and then have a press conference the next day...Dennis Hastert didn't kill anybody."

-- Representative Chris Shays (R-CT) attempting to deflect attention from the Congressional-page pedophilia scandal by attacking Senator Ted Kennedy (D-MA) over his fatal car accident at Chappaquiddick almost forty years ago

The Foley Fiasco

It seems just too good to be true - a Congressman caught exchanging some highly salacious and quite inappropriate E-mails with teenage pages. And he made a name for himself loudly denouncing the very sort of behavior in which he engaged. And the House leadership knew of his, er, activities long before it became public but kept it quiet, not only from the authorities but also from other Congressmen on the Page Board, which oversees the page program.

Once the story broke and it became clear that he had protected Mark Foley for months if not years, House Speaker Dennis Hastert floundered about, blaming everyone except himself. The Democrats did it! George Soros did it! ABC News did it! Matt Drudge floated the theory that the pages themselves had conspired to trap Foley, and Newt Gingrich actually claimed that Foley had been allowed to get away with it for as long as he did because the GOP leadership didn't want to be accused of gay-bashing.

It all adds up to the best free entertainment in town, with more acrobatics than Cirque de Soleil.

Not to be outdone, Fox News promptly dredged up the tale of one Gerry Studds, a Congressman who actually slept with a page. Of course, the story was from a quarter-century ago, and Studds was most definitely not protected by the leadership, but hey, who cares? Sex is sex.

The fiasco has demolished the GOP's standing in the polls. Voters are deserting the party in droves, from "security moms" dismayed at how the party has made a hash of the War on Terror to evangelical "values voters" disgusted that the leadership shielded a known stalker purely for political reasons. Current projections have the GOP losing as many as thirty House seats in next month's midterm elections, with significant hits in the Senate as well.

Life is sweet.

Simply Amazing

Let's face it - we all know that President Bush is not the sharpest crayon in the box. He is intellectually lazy, actively hostile to differing opinions, and prefers to be spoon-fed by his staff rather than think for himself. But the latest evidence of that brought me to a slack-jawed halt, gaping in horrified amazement as I realized just how embarrassing and dangerous it is that this man is the leader of our nation.

As the New York Times reported, four scholars who recently met with Bush at the White House to discuss the Iraq War said that the President's main concern was not the seemingly endless line of American soldiers coming home in body bags, nor the Shi'a slaughtering the Sunnis, nor the Sunnis slaughtering the Shi'a, nor anything like that.

No, he was most frustrated over the fact "that the new Iraqi government -- and the Iraqi people -- had not shown greater public support for the American mission."

Um...what?

Is Bush really that shallow? Does he really believe that it's all a matter of getting the Iraqi people to say "thank you?" Does he really not understand that thanks to more than three years of incompetence and plunder combined with an increasingly brutal occupation, we are now only slightly more popular than bubonic plague over there?

And if that weren't enough, Peter Galbraith, the former US Ambassador to Croatia, now says that Bush had no idea that Iraq was composed of two different sects of Islam. During a meeting at the White House, three Iraqi-Americans spent some time explaining the Sunni-Shi'a divisions to the President, whereupon Bush said, "I thought the Iraqis were Muslims!"

That was just two months before he ordered the invasion.

With Iraq disintegrating into sectarian civil war and proof all around that the current Iraq strategy (whatever it is) just isn't working, Bush proclaims the only way is to "stay the course" with absolutely no change in anything. And this is the man itching to attack Iran, seeing as how our grand experiment in spreading freedom and democracy proved so effective in Iraq.

The thought of that much power in the hands of someone so ignorant of even the most basic facts should give us all nightmares. God help us all.

Just Plain Evil

The Swift Boats are setting sail again!

You may recall that during the 2004 election, a GOP front group called Swift Boat Veterans for Truth made a lot of hay out of trashing Democratic Presidential candidate John Kerry's Vietnam War record, saying that he didn't really deserve his decorations. President Bush (who was schmoozed into the Texas National Guard and promptly went AWOL) and Vice President Cheney (who defended his five Vietnam-era deferments by saying "I had more important things to do") remained noticeably silent as their minions smeared Kerry eight ways to Sunday. Indeed, the attacks and Kerry's weak response to them were a significant factor in his election loss.

Now it's happening all over again.

In November, Rep. John Murtha, a decorated Marine Corps veteran who fought in Vietnam, came out against the Iraq War, saying we had accomplished all we could over there and it was time to bring the troops home. Nor surprisingly, he was promptly attacked by war supporters as someone who, in the uproar-causing words of Rep. Jean Schmidt, would "cut and run." Murtha's long history of supporting the military combined with his weekly visits to military hospitals to visit wounded troops made him a difficult target for the swift-boating treatment that Kerry received.

Now they're trying.

The Cybercast News Service posted an article last week claiming that Murtha did not deserve the two Purple Hearts he won back in 1967 while fighting in Vietnam. CNS is a hard-right website run by David Thibault, an acolyte of Brent Bozell, the self-proclaimed "media critic" who says the media is filled with liberals, unreformed Communists, gays, lesbians, al Qaeda sympathizers, and so on.

There is, of course, no serious reason to doubt that Murtha earned his decorations honestly and honorably. Demonstrating admirable restraint, Murtha said that "questions about my record are clearly an attempt to distract attention from the real issue" and that "my record is clear."

Thibault, to his (very small) credit, doesn't even try to pretend that his smear is unrelated to Murtha's antiwar statements. "The congressman has really put himself in the forefront of the antiwar movement," he told the Washington Post. "He has been placed by the Democratic Party and antiwar activists as a spokesman against the war above reproach." In other words, if Murtha had just kept his opinions to himself, echoed whatever is the latest mantra for staying in Iraq, and not raised a peep, nothing would have been said.

Once again, we see how the Republicans, who claim to venerate military service above all else, won't hesitate to slur any veteran who fails to toe the line. Max Cleland, who dared to dissent from the Bush Administration's war plans, lost his Senate seat in 2002 thanks to GOP ads smearing him as an ideological comrade of Osama bin Laden and Saddam Hussein. John McCain, the fiercely independent Republican senator who was a POW in Vietnam for five years, was attacked by his own party during the 2000 primaries. Not only was he called a possibly traitorous nutcase, but he was the target of a truly despicable whispering campaign saying there was something wrong with him because he and his wife adopted their daughter from Bangladesh.

It seems that some veterans are more worthy of praise than others. If you shut up and salute at the right times, you are held up as a paragon of military virtue. If you dare express any dissenting opinion, you are smeared as a fake hero, a fifth columnist, an enemy within. Insisting that veterans are required to hold certain political beliefs while attacking anyone who thinks differently is wrong, and smearing veterans who don't fall into line is just plain evil.

Picking and Choosing

When Senator John McCain, a dedicated Vietnam War veteran and survivor of Viet Cong torture, introduced an amendment to the Defense Department funding bill banning all forms of torture by the American government, he was speaking from hard experience. Americans, he said loud and clear, are better than to stoop to torture. Displaying a truly stunning political tone-deafness, the White House fought hard to derail the amendment, claiming that Americans should be able to torture prisoners. Fortunately, the American people loudly disagreed, and President Bush was forced to back off and sign the bill.

Well, not quite. For Bush also issued a "signing statement" claiming:

"The executive branch shall construe Title X in Division A of the Act, relating to detainees, in a manner consistent with the constitutional authority of the President to supervise the unitary executive branch and as Commander in Chief and consistent with the constitutional limitations on the judicial power, which will assist in achieving the shared objective of the Congress and the President, evidenced in Title X, of protecting the American people from further terrorist attacks. Further, in light of the principles enunciated by the Supreme Court of the United States in 2001 in Alexander v. Sandoval, and noting that the text and structure of Title X do not create a private right of action to enforce Title X, the executive branch shall construe Title X not to create a private right of action. Finally, given the decision of the Congress reflected in subsections 1005(e) and 1005(h) that the amendments made to section 2241 of title 28, United States Code, shall apply to past, present, and future actions, including applications for writs of habeas corpus, described in that section, and noting that section 1005 does not confer any constitutional right upon an alien detained abroad as an enemy combatant, the executive branch shall construe section 1005 to preclude the Federal courts from exercising subject matter jurisdiction over any existing or future action, including applications for writs of habeas corpus, described in section 1005."

Translated into plain English, this means three things:

1. The President has the unilateral power to ignore this law as he sees fit.
2. Anyone who claims to have been tortured in violation of this law cannot go to court for redress.
3. Federal courts are barred from taking the case of anyone declared by the President to be an "enemy combatant," even for habeas corpus (wrongful imprisonment) petitions.

Bush routinely issues such statements when signing bills into law, meaning he believes he can pick and choose which laws he can condescend to follow and which laws he can ignore.

This is not new from this Administration. From warrantless spying on American citizens to secret overseas prisons to redefining torture to a host of other outrages, President Bush has always said he has the unilateral power to do whatever he wants, the law be damned. When Congress and the courts dare tell him what he can and cannot do, he just flips them off them and goes on his merry way.

When the President says he can override any law at will, regardless of the justifications, that is not democracy. That is a dicatorship in the making.

This is why Democrats have to take back the Senate and the House this year. Once we have a Democratic Congress in place, we can impeach both President Bush and Vice President Cheney for flagrant abuse of power and have the Democratic Speaker of the House become President.

If At First You Don't Succeed...

Even having filled his Administration with cronies and yes-men, it appears President Bush had a hard time getting his own people to sign off on his plan to secretly wiretap Americans' communications without the legally required court orders. According to the New York Times, the White House in 2004 asked the Justice Department to approve the continuation of its secret spying program, but Deputy Attorney General James Comey balked, saying the program was most likely illegal.

In response, chief of staff Andrew Card and counsel (now Attorney General) Alberto Gonzales went to Attorney General John Ashcroft's hospital bedside - he was recovering from gall bladder surgery - to get him to overrule his deputy and approve the wiretapping. Ashcroft also said no.

While neither Ashcroft and Comey have commented on the story, neither one is a particular friend of terrorists and neither one would have given it a second thought. Indeed, Ashcroft has publicly called antiwar activists terrorists, and he would not have hesitated for a moment in giving his approval to spying on them.

The fact that both of them refused to approve the wholesale spying should raise the serious question of just who was being tapped. Rumors are flying that the program's target was not al Qaeda sympathizers or even antiwar activists, but prominent Democrats and the Kerry campaign.

Where will this lead?

Just a Piece of Paper?

"It's just a goddamned piece of paper!"

According to three witnesses, that's what President Bush called the United States Constitution in November. Republican congressional leaders had gone to the White House to talk with Bush about the difficulties involved in renewing the USA Patriot Act. In the four years since the law's post-9/11 passage, some conservative leaders have joined with prominent liberals in expressing uneasiness about the Act's reach and its effect on civil liberties. In general, the Administration's relationship with the GOP right wing has been strained of late, most notably in Bush's doomed attempt to nominate the highly unqualified (and insufficiently conservative) crony Harriet Miers to the Supreme Court.

In the meeting, GOP leaders reportedly told Bush that his high-pressure sales pitch to renew the Patriot Act was pushing more conservatives further away.

"I don't give a goddamn," Bush said. "I'm the President and the Commander-in-Chief. Do it my way."

"Mr. President," one lone brave aide piped up, "there is a valid case that the provisions in this law undermine the Constitution."

"Stop throwing the Constitution in my face," Bush shot back. "It's just a goddamned piece of paper!"

If Bill Clinton had called the Constitution "just a goddamned piece of paper" or called political dissenters "motherf---ing traitors," Congress and Fox News would be building a bonfire on the White House lawn. But since it's George W. Bush we're talking about, such revelations are barely mentioned, if at all, and quickly allowed to be forgotten.

In his actions as President, from classifying everything possible to his warrantless spying on the American people, Bush doesn't strike me as someone who has a lot of respect for the Constitution. It is, after all, only the bedrock of our civil society. And since he feels the need to spit all over everything this country was founded upon, you'd think he'd hold back on invoking the Constitution in his speeches all the time.

But then again, it's apparently just a goddamned piece of paper.