Blah Blah Blog

Much easier to give than to try and talk about it.

Labels: in the news

President Bush, in his address to military families in Idaho yesterday:

The will of the majority, coupled with minority rights and human dignity and rights for women is important for a free society. They understand that. (Applause.) But what's important is that the Iraqis are resolving these issues through debate and discussion, not at the barrel of a gun. (Applause.)

Meanwhile, on the other side of the world:

Political violence surged Thursday along many of Iraq's ethnic and sectarian fault lines, while Shiite and Sunni Arab political leaders haggled past a third deadline without reaching accord on a draft constitution.

As the two-day death toll around Iraq reached 100, fighting between two powerful Shiite militias in the southern city of Najaf subsided, with 19 reported dead overall. The clashes Wednesday night and Thursday between the Mahdi Army, loyal to Shiite cleric Moqtada Sadr, and fighters allegedly linked to the government-allied Badr Organization were the deadliest between Iraqi militia forces since the U.S.-led invasion in March 2003.

And as for the women's rights the president is championing?

Here's some perspective from Iraqi women's rights activist Safia Souhail, who was used as a prop during the president's Feb. 2005 State of the Union address:

When we came back from exile, we thought we were going to improve rights and the position of women. But look what has happened — we have lost all the gains we made over the last 30 years. It's a big disappointment.

Billmon says it best. As usual.

Perhaps she would have had more realistic expectations for the constitution the White House has come to support if she'd been wearing one of these on her ear during the State of the Union address.

Bill Moyer, 73, wears a "Bullshit Protector" flap over his ear while President George W. Bush addresses the Veterans of Foreign Wars at their 106th convention Monday, Aug. 22, 2005, in Salt Lake City. Moyer served in Korea and Vietnam, and in the post- WWII occupation of Germany. AP/Douglas C. Pizac.

Labels: in the news

Check this headline:



Sigh.

There is no leadership from this administration.

Just salesmanship.

Everything is a public relations campaign.

Like here. And here. And here.

At least some of President Bush's fellow conservatives are waking up.

At least some of his fellow conservatives are running away from the idea of just doing more of the same.

Like here. And here. And here. And here. And here.

I blogged the following on the Reality Based News page after the most recent such public relations campaign in June.

This is what I find so infuriating about this administration. They are perpetually in campaign mode. Everything is about the sale, not the substance. There's no governing, no real leadership - just flacks, polls and fake town hall meetings.

They've had every opportunity to change some of the policies that have lead us into a quagmire - send more troops, send more armor, secure the border, cooperate with neighboring nations, require their top terrorism and Middle East intelligence hires to have a knowledge of terrorism and the Middle East, listen to (the few) dissenters within their own administration. But they refuse. They just change the words used to describe the situation, and the reasons we're there, for the thousandth time.

The White House even happily admits that Tuesday's address to the nation was the result of hiring a war PR team. And what has that team told them? That deaths don't matter if you just act confident.

Let me say that in another way.

Your tax dollars went to hire a PR team that told your president that if he addresses the nation with confidence, deaths don't matter.

Again: it boggles my mind that conservatives aren't more angry than liberals about this type of so called leadership. Especially during wartime.

And we have always been at war.

That I could just cut and paste those words with no editing so soon after they were first written to describe yet another PR campaign to turn public opinion on the Iraq war speaks volumes, methinks.

Within those two months, no changes in policy.

Just changes in words used to describe the policy. (Which the president soon changed back again. Zero sum.)

Just crossed fingers over a constitution establishing a government that looks more like Iran than America.

Sprinkled with a dash of more tired, sad invoking of the murder of 3000 innocents on September 11 that Iraq had nothing to do with.

In the meantime, a soldier speaks.

Go read it.

The whole damn thing.

Peace,

B.

Labels: in the news

A conservative speaks:

It's time for us conservatives to face facts. George W. Bush has pissed away the conservative moment by pursuing a war of choice via policies that border on the criminally incompetent. We control the White House, the Senate, the House of Representatives, and (more-or-less) the judiciary for one of the few times in my nearly 5 decades, but what have we really accomplished?

[snip]

While we remain bogged down in Iraq, of course, Osama bin Laden remains at large somewhere. Multi-tasking is all the rage these days, but whatever happened to finishing a job you started? It strikes me that catching Osama would have done a lot more to discourage the jihadists than anything we've done in Iraq.

A conservative speaks:

For what it's worth, this is where I get off the bus. The principal mission of the so-called "war on terror" – which is actually a war on militant Islam – is to destroy the capacity of the international network of jihadists to project power in a way that threatens American national security. That is the mission that the American people continue to support.

[snip]

Now, if several reports this weekend are accurate, we see the shocking ultimate destination of the democracy diversion. In the desperation to complete an Iraqi constitution – which can be spun as a major step of progress on the march toward democratic nirvana – the United States of America is pressuring competing factions to accept the supremacy of Islam and the fundamental principle no law may contradict Islamic principles.

But even if I suspended disbelief for a moment and agreed that the democracy project is a worthy casus belli, I am as certain as I am that I am breathing that the American people would not put their brave young men and women in harm's way for the purpose of establishing an Islamic government. Anyplace.

You've been had.

We've all been had.

Thanks for acknowledging.

Now: whaddya gonna do about it?

Labels: in the news

This one speaks for itself.

From today's Washington Post - page one, above the fold:

U.S. Lowers Sights On What Can Be Achieved in Iraq
Administration Is Shedding 'Unreality' That Dominated Invasion, Official Says

By Robin Wright and Ellen Knickmeyer
Washington Post Staff Writers
Sunday, August 14, 2005; Page A01

The Bush administration is significantly lowering expectations of what can be achieved in Iraq, recognizing that the United States will have to settle for far less progress than originally envisioned during the transition due to end in four months, according to U.S. officials in Washington and Baghdad.

The United States no longer expects to see a model new democracy, a self-supporting oil industry or a society in which the majority of people are free from serious security or economic challenges, U.S. officials say.

"What we expected to achieve was never realistic given the timetable or what unfolded on the ground," said a senior official involved in policy since the 2003 invasion. "We are in a process of absorbing the factors of the situation we're in and shedding the unreality that dominated at the beginning."

So who do you think that leaky "senior official" is?

Excellent sleuthing by Dr. Tom Rice at Daily Kos has a best guess - and the answer may surprise you.

Hint: this leaker has leaked before.

Labels: in the news

I hope everyone was able to get their popcorn at the concession stand before the show officially started yesterday.

And what a great opening scene it was.

The Associated Press has the story.

Crooks and Liars has the video.

Goes sumpin' like this:

During a discussion of U.S. Rep. Katherine Harris' chances of being elected to the Senate, Robert Novak stormed off the set of CNN's Inside Politics after calling "bullshit" (literally) on a rib-poking comment from his arch-nemesis, former Clinton aide James Carville.

Which seemed like the usual rib-poking, until you read between the lines.

CARVILLE: [Novak]'s got to show these right wingers that he's got a backbone, you know. It's why the Wall Street Journal editorial page is watching you. Show 'em that you're tough.

NOVAK: Well, I think that's bullshit, and I hate that. Just let it go.

And then he was gone.

Stood up, pulled off his mic, tossed it, he's outta there.

But why would Novak storm off in a discussion of Katherine Harris?

It's the bit about "backbone."

Novak appears to have been first in line to spill the beans about his sources to the grand jury in the CIA leak case, possibly because he honestly believed he had nothing to hide, but more likely because he and Rove colluded on their testimony beforehand. Matt Cooper's notes and testimony have since rendered a lot of their collusion inoperative, and may have further implicated them in a crime.

So a lot of White House apologists are wishing that Novak had kept his big mouth shut right about now, a la Judith Miller, who's still sitting in jail under civil contempt charges.

That's why Carville's "show 'em that you're tough" comment hit home.

It's also clear that the next topic for discussion was to have been the CIA leak case, as host Ed Henry explained afterward:

...And I'm sorry that Bob left the set a little early. I had told him in advance we were going to ask him about the CIA leak case. He was not here for me to be able to ask him about that. Hopefully we'll be able to ask him about that in the future.

So Bob knew it was coming, and most likely was stressing over the large copy of Who's Who in America sitting next to Henry on the news desk during the heated discussion. So what, you say? Well, that's the book Novak claimed he used to discover Valerie Plame's name, under Joseph Wilson's listing, as part of Rove's "I never revealed her name" wink-and-nod, lawyerly, Clintonian defense. Novak knew he was about to be grilled about it, and called on his many contradictory statements about it.

Also weighing heavy on ol' Bob: Republican Senator Arlen Specter is charging Bob with libeling his staffer.

The buzz is that perjury and obstruction of justice indictments in the CIA leak case are just a matter of time.

And that those charges may be the least of it.

So that was the big action opening yesterday.

Starring Bob Novak as himself.

Today, we establish the setting for the rest of the picture:

Approval of Bush's handling of Iraq, which had been hovering in the low- to mid-40s most of the year, dipped to 38 percent. Midwesterners and young women and men with a high school education or less were most likely to abandon Bush on his handling of Iraq in the last six months.

American troops have suffered heavy casualties in Iraq in recent days. On Wednesday, 14 Marines were killed in the Euphrates River valley in the worst roadside bombing targeting Americans since the war began in March 2003.

William Anderson, a retired Republican from Fort Worth, Texas, said Bush "has the right intentions, but he's going about them the wrong way. Iraq is one of the issues that everybody has a problem with," Anderson said."There are some big discussions about it around town. Everybody's got their agreements and disagreements. It seems like there's no end. Is it going to end up another Vietnam?"

Continuing worries about Iraq may do more than drag down Bush's standing with the public. They could become a major issue in the 2006 midterm congressional races, and if the war is still going in 2008, they could be a factor in the presidential race....

A factor in 2006? You bet, if Republicans in Texas are talking truth like William Anderson.

Because it's the trust, stupid:

The drop in the number of people who see Bush as honest was strongest among middle-aged Americans as well as suburban women, a key voting group in the 2004 election. A further erosion of trust could make it tougher for Bush to win support for his policies in Congress and internationally.

"The reason that trust is so important has to do with the long-standing belief that you could trust him, even if you don't always agree with him and don't understand what he's doing," said Bruce Buchanan, a political scientist at the University of Texas. "The honesty dip is partly caused by a loss of faith in his credibility on Iraq."

And the unscientific visual:



Keeping in mind that the "Most E-Mailed" stories on Yahoo are typically the stuff of the science of why men have nipples and teachers licking wounds.

As I write this, the article on the new poll is also the "Most Viewed" and "Most Recommended."

Just sayin'.

And the piece de resistance: this warning from a guy from Georgia named Newt Gingrich, who knows a thing or two about tumultuous mid-term elections:

Former House speaker Newt Gingrich (Ga.) warned fellow Republicans yesterday not to ignore the implications of the party's narrow victory in Tuesday's special election in Ohio, saying the public mood heading into next year's midterm elections appears to helping Democrats and hurting Republicans.

"It should serve as a wake-up call to Republicans, and I certainly take it very seriously in analyzing how the public mood evidences itself," Gingrich said. "Who is willing to show up and vote is different than who answers a public opinion poll. Clearly, there's a pretty strong signal for Republicans thinking about 2006 that they need to do some very serious planning and not just assume that everything is going to be automatically okay."

In Tuesday's special election, Republican U.S. Rep. Schmidt beat out her challenger, Iraq veteran Paul Hackett, by a mere 4 percentage points in a GOP-heavy district that voted for President Bush over Senator Kerry nearly 70-30 in November 2004.

Just sayin'.

Labels: in the news

Tess gets the last word in today's Times Union:

[Tess] Collins, the refreshingly blunt owner of Tess' Lark Tavern in Albany, cares deeply for her customers; she loves to make them happy with food and drink. She's liberal with beverage rounds on the house, has used past customer complaints as suggestions to improve business and is known for distributing free appetizers to tables that wait overlong for entrees. But she has her limit.

"I may not agree with them, but I'll still try to do something to make things better for them," Collins says. "But if I think they're handling themselves poorly, if they're getting abusive to my staff, I'll tell them, 'I don't want to see you again.'"

Indeed.

Thanks again to everyone who came out to the CD release/video premiere party at the Lark last Saturday. (Check the pics.)

And as I said that night, never in my wildest dreams did I imagine that Mother Judge would be closing out the evening by singing about my "big black behind."

Oh yeah: Spy Love Box is now at CDBaby.

Cheers y'all,

B.