July 2003 Archives

Senator Joe Biden gave a foreign policy speech at the Brookings Institute today and though I'm loath to consider voting for someone who came up with the RAVE Act and was involved in most other major legislative aspects of the drug war, this is the most sensible beginnings of a foreign policy platform I've seen from any of the potential candidates - other than Hart of course. He takes both the multilateralists and the neo-cons to task and proposes a middle ground of "enlightened nationalism":

one that understands the value of institutions but allows us to use military force, without apology or apprehension if we have to, but does not allow us to be so blinded by the overwhelming power of our armed forces that we fail to see the benefit of sharing the risks and the costs with others.

In my view, the stakes are too high and the opportunities too great to conduct foreign policy at the extremes.

It's somewhat long but you should read the whole thing if you want to know how things should have been done and need to be done from here on out.

Some in my own Party have said it was a mistake to go into Iraq in the first place, and the benefit is not worth the cost. I believe they're wrong. The cost of not acting against Saddam would have been much greater, and so is the cost of not finishing the job. The President is popular. The stakes are high. The need for leadership is great.

I wish he'd used some of his stored-up popularity to make what I admit is an unpopular case. I wish the President, instead of standing on an aircraft carrier in front of a banner that said: "Mission Accomplished" would have stood in front of a banner that said: "We've Only Just Begun." I wish he would stand in front of the American people and say: "My fellow Americans, we have a long and hard road ahead of us in Iraq, but we have to stay in Iraq. We have to finish the job. If we don't, the following will happen. Here's what I'll be asking of you and, by the way, I'm asking the rest of the world to help us as well. And I am confident we'll succeed and as a consequence be more secure."

I'm waiting for that speech.

Me too.

[via Political Wire]

Tom Daschle is dipping his toe in the blogging waters. Is the party leadership starting to get it, or is this an attempt to co-opt Dean's online thunder? My guess is the latter but I'll give him the benefit of the doubt until he demonstrates otherwise.

Welcome to my travel web log. For the last ten years, I’ve gotten in my car every August and driven all over South Dakota – no schedule and no staff. My “unscheduled driving tour” is always one of the highlights of the year for me. I find it an invaluable tool for keeping in touch with needs and concerns of South Dakotans. Every year I meet the most fascinating people, have the most amazing experiences, and end up with great stories to tell.

[via Political Wire]

MSNBC has an interesting article on a mostly untapped voting block - 18-25 year old's.

New York University senior William Boyle has strong views on what is best for this country. Education funding and the environment sit atop his list. Although he seems a prime recruit for the nation’s political parties, like many voters his age, Boyle says he is not active in politics and that few organizations have made an effort to reach out to him. However, this fall, that is set to change.

According to the article they make up 23% of the electorate and 59% say they will vote in the next election but only 45% are registered to vote. Provided they follow through, they could seal the deal for someone close to the edge. Unsurprisingly, Dean appears to have this market cornered for the moment and appears to be the only one actively targeting it.

I haven't been too impressed with John Edwards so far. Lots of style, not much substance. But I found this entry at the TNR Primary interesting. I'm going to have to read his actual proposal closer, but I like the idea - With the privileges of citizenship comes responsibility.

But Edwards has an important wrinkle in his plan: He'd make insurance for children mandatory. Parents would be legally responsible for providing their children with insurance or obtaining government insurance if private coverage was unaffordable. To enforce the mandate--and extend coverage to kids who might fall through the cracks--hospitals, clinics, and schools would check for insurance in the same way they now check for routine childhood vaccines.

Taking this step--policy wonks call it an "individual mandate"--is important as policy because, done properly, it would mean Edwards gets closer to truly "universal" coverage for children than either Dean or Kerry, at least at the outset. (Gephardt's plan would probably do as well when it comes to insuring kids, since it has a mandate, too. The difference is that Gephardt's mandate is for employers, not individuals.) It's also classic Clintonian politics, because it emphasizes the responsibilities citizens bear in return for their rights to government-guaranteed benefits. As Edwards himself put it, "The only way we can tackle the health care problem is to ask for responsibility from everyone. Responsibility from parents to make sure their children have health care. Responsibility from government to help families get insurance and deal with the rising costs of health care."

This week's TNR has a disturbingly fascinating "insider" story (subscription only - 4 week free trial) about the "traditionalist" agenda behind Mel Gibson's new film, The Passion.

Mel Gibson's newest historical drama, on the death of Jesus Christ, is not anti-Semitic. So complete is his commitment to historical authenticity that he has eschewed subtitles, and will tell his story entirely in its original ancient languages, Aramaic and Latin. Gibson bankrolled the entirety of his forthcoming film, and he co-wrote the script; but the Holy Spirit directed it. "The Holy Ghost was working through me on this film," Gibson has recounted when asked about The Passion. "I was just directing traffic." Unfortunately, a group of Catholic and Jewish scholars, alert to Gibson's effort, engaged the services of a mole, ... illegally obtained a copy of the script, and then began to pressure Gibson to revise his story to conform to their own ideas about history and theology. Gibson's lawyers quashed their attempted extortion, however. The scholars withdrew their criticisms. And Mel's movie, in various private screenings, has already begun to move hearts and minds.

All the sentences above are culled from recent articles in assorted media--The Wall Street Journal, The New York Times, NewsMax.com, Zenit, Religion News Service, the New York Daily News, Australia's Sun-Herald. Some of the statements are true. Gibson did co-write the script. His company, Icon, did produce it. His attorney did accuse critics of attempting extortion. And at least one viewer at a private screening in June, moved to tears and prayer, has called the film "a miracle." Whether the Holy Ghost helped out during the shoot I cannot say. All the other statements, I do know, are false.

Interesting

It's not official yet, but she's off and running. That was the message at Arianna Huffington's home in posh Brentwood, Calif., on Sunday afternoon, where several dozen political activists and advisors gathered to hear the author and Salon columnist make her case for jumping into the race to recall California Gov. Gray Davis. The only thing that would keep Huffington out of what is shaping up as an electoral free-for-all would be the sudden entry of a major Democratic rival to Davis -- and Sen. Dianne Feinstein, the only likely such 800-pound gorilla, is still rejecting entreaties to rescue the party from the rapidly melting Davis.

[via Dave Cullen]

It's happened again. Before the Governor could call a second special session to try and ram through the re-districting thats already struck out twice, Texas state Senate Democrats have bolted for Albuquerque.

Eleven Senate Democrats did not show up today for the beginning of a second 30-day special legislative session called by Republican Gov. Rick Perry to advance GOP desires to redraw congressional districts to give them more U.S. House seats. Their absence immediately prevented the Senate from convening because it lacked a quorum, or 21 of 31 members.

TNR's Montreal Diarist updates us on whats been going on in Canada the last 6 years or so. (subscription only)

The results of these economic and political changes have been impressive. Canada posted the highest growth rates of any industrialized country last year, it added over 500,000 new jobs in 2002, and it has become the only deficit-free Western nation. While Boeing's planes pile up unused, Bombardier, Montreal's innovative small-jet manufacturer, has been swamped with orders. While U.S. movie capitals have struggled, Canada, which is cheaper and offers filmmakers incentives, has emerged as the locale of choice. Nearly 60 films that supposedly took place in Chicago have been shot in Canada since 1985. In fact, though many Americans view their northern neighbor as an unchanging, frozen morass, Canada has emerged as a serious rival to America's role as the hemisphere's economic dynamo and champion of liberal political ideals. In posting strong growth while the United States struggles, Canada is demonstrating an alternative economic model: a major economy where, unlike in Europe, leaders reduce the power of the state and, unlike in the United States, maintain enough of a safety net to give the poor a fighting chance. Canada has always boasted a larger welfare state than the United States, but, in the past, state intervention hindered growth so much that Canada could hardly claim to be a true rival. Now, perhaps it can. According to The New York Times, Canada's five major banks have spent more than $8 billion acquiring U.S. companies since 1996. 

I've always thought Condi Rice was one of the more reasonable voices in the Administration, tempering the steel of Cheney and friends. So I'm a bit disturbed to hear this idea floating around. Cheney needs tempering.

As White House officials try to control the latest fallout over President Bush's flawed suggestion in the State of the Union address that Iraq was buying nuclear bomb materials, there's growing talk by insiders that National Security Adviser Condoleezza Rice may take the blame and resign.

Ronald Asmus and Ken Pollack have a good editorial in Tuesday's Washington Post regarding some of the issues I touched on in comments yesterday.

A consensus is emerging in Washington that the greater Middle East constitutes the primary strategic challenge of our time and that the West must fundamentally rethink the way it approaches this region. In the past, Washington assumed it didn't have to care about the internal order of these countries so long as they accommodated our interests in their foreign policies. If things got really bad, Washington would step in and intervene, in a modern-day version of the popular game whack-a-mole.

But whack-a-mole isn't a very good game, and it's an even worse foreign policy. Sept. 11, 2001, taught us the price we pay for ignoring the underlying problems of the region. The question now is how best to transform the Middle East so that it no longer produces people who want to kill us in great numbers and increasingly have the ability to do so.

I've always enjoyed Hunter S. Thompson, especially his occasionally published ESPN column. He's returned from his recent hiatus to regale us on Kobe Bryant, "This goofy child president we have on our hands now" and the state of America.

The American nation is in the worst condition I can remember in my lifetime, and our prospects for the immediate future are even worse. I am surprised and embarrassed to be a part of the first American generation to leave the country in far worse shape than it was when we first came into it. Our highway system is crumbling, our police are dishonest, our children are poor, our vaunted Social Security, once the envy of the world, has been looted and neglected and destroyed by the same gang of ignorant greed-crazed bastards who brought us Vietnam, Afghanistan, the disastrous Gaza Strip and ignominious defeat all over the world.

The Stock Market will never come back, our Armies will never again be No. 1, and our children will drink filthy water for the rest of our lives.

The Bush family must be very proud of themselves today, but I am not. Big Darkness, soon come. Take my word for it.

Dick Morris, former Clinton advisor, has some interesting thoughts on the possible result of Bush's falling polls:

The lower Bush drops, the more likely it is that Hillary Clinton runs for president in 2004. She and her husband cannot permit a Democrat not named Clinton to beat Bush in '04. If one does, she can't run in '08 against an incumbent Democratic president. She'd have to wait until 2012, by which time she would be 65 and out of the White House for 12 years. The weaker Bush gets, the more likely a Hillary Clinton candidacy becomes.

[via Political Wire]

The next few days should be interesting. The 9/11 Commision report comes out tomorrow and amongst many other things it concludes there are no links between Saddam Hussein and al-Qaida (previous to us declaring war presumably). I wonder why the Administration delayed this report for so long?

[via Talking Points Memo]

Josh Marshall cuts through all the bullshit coming from both sides regarding the Little Yellow(cake) Lie and does a fine job of explaining what the REAL problem is with lying for a potentially good cause. The problem in this case isn't so much the lie, as it is the lack of expectations setting that might occur in a public debate over the "Pagano Doctrine" - aka the neo-con domino-theory of Middle East realpolitik. I include an excerpt to give you an idea, but be sure to read the whole thing.

Now, a few points about the dishonesty at the center of all this. It's bad just on principle not to fundamentally level with the public about why you're getting into a war and just what sort of war you're getting into. Quite apart from that, however, doing so gets you into some practical difficulties. If you don't level with the public that you're getting into a very long-term, extremely costly enterprise you may find that your tough talk about having the staying power to finish the job isn't matched by public sentiment, or that you face a backlash over getting the country into far more than you led voters to believe. You may find that the public really isn't on board for what you're trying to accomplish. And that's a big problem if the public doesn't have the staying power and you have to leave the task half-finished, because this is one of those things that is better not to have tried at all than leave half-done.

So, why is this little matter of the uranium statements such a big deal? Because it is a concrete, demonstrable example of the administration's bad faith in how it led the country to war. To date that bad-faith has been all too apparent on many fronts. But the administration has cowed much of the press into remaining silent or simply not scrutinizing various of the administration's arguments for the war. And success makes up for many sins. No doubt it's painful for the president's partisans to see this stuff dug into. And it produces glee for Democrats who think -- rightly or wrongly -- that it gives them a potent issue to use against the president in the 2004 elections. But quite apart from partisan considerations on either side, we're never going to figure out what we're doing in Iraq, do it well, or accomplish anything good for the future security of the United States unless and until we start talking straight about why we're there, what we need to accomplish, and how we're going to do it.

More good news. The "sneak and peek" was one of the creepier aspects of the PATRIOT act. Good to see our Representatives starting to represent again.

The U.S. House of Representatives voted overwhelmingly on Tuesday to roll back a key provision, which allows the government to conduct secret "sneak and peek" searches of private property, of a sweeping anti-terrorism law passed soon after the Sept. 11 attacks.

Good news! Saddam hopefully won't be far off.

Ousted Iraqi leader Saddam Hussein's sons, Qusay and Uday, were killed Tuesday in a gunbattle with U.S. troops in the northern Iraqi city of Mosul, the commander of U.S. ground forces in Iraq said.

I can't wait to see the Administration reaction to this one. I almost feel bad for Scott McClellan, what a week to take over for Ari. The Perfect Storm is rising.

File this under "holy shit": there's a reason Cheney was so adamant about keeping the deliberations of the Energy Task Force secret. It wasn't about Enron or ANWAR (although I'm sure they surely had their role), it was about divying up Iraq's oil fields. It really was about the oil.

The Scrum does a nice job of tracking down the source of an "incriminating" photo. The dirty tricks campaign is off and running:

Are expensive cars the new umbrellas? Apparently so, since yesterday, someone thought that a photograph of Bob Graham and a Jaguar was politically incriminating enough that they saw fit to leak it to the Drudge Report. Here at The Scrum, we're not sure the photograph is that big a deal.

First off, the evidence is not too convincing. From the photo, it's not clear that Graham was actually riding in the Jaguar. He could just as easily have been walking from the gold car behind the Jag, which, for all we know, is a Ford Taurus.

Second, the logic of why riding in a Jaguar is a bad thing isn't terribly sound. Sure, we understand the he's-not-a-man-of-the-people charge. But don't politicos usually ride around in nice cars? Okay, maybe not Dennis Kucinich

However, as is usually the case in this sort of situation, the most interesting thing whenever someone leaks something isn't the leak itself, but who did the leaking.

Check out the full post for the REAL incrimination.

As I commented at The Scrum, "Everyone knows authentic men-of-the-people arrive at political events in S-3B Viking's wearing snug-in-the-crotch flight suits."

[via Political Wire]

I can't tell if this is a swipe at Bush or John Edwards

Senator Hart pointed out that any man who runs for President really ought to know something about the job before he even runs; that he ought to know what the responsibilities of the job are and how to conduct himself in those responsibilities. A man or woman running for President because he or she has a winning image or personality is absurdly inadequate.

[via Wake-Up Call]

Will Saletan artfully (as always) breaks down the Bush defense on the State of the Uranium issue:

1. It's the CIA's fault
2. It's the speechwriter's fault
3. It's true that Britain said it
4. It's part of the larger truth
5. It's time to move on

In Will's words:

When George W. Bush ran for president, one of his big selling points was responsibility. Americans were tired of Bill Clinton's fudges and legalisms. They were tired of hearing that the latest falsehood was part of a larger truth, or that it was OK because the president had attributed it to somebody else, or that the country should "move on." Bush promised to end all that. He promised an "era of responsibility" in which leaders and citizens would no longer "blame somebody else."

For those of us interested in transparency in government, check out Bush's searchable database of donors to his campaign. In addition, you can get the list of his Rangers and Pioneers who bundle individual donations into $100k+ amounts. This is a highly commendable action and hopefully one on which the Democratic candidates will follow Bush's lead.

This is just too perfect.

Working at his desk in the Oval Office, President Bush reviews the State of the Union address line-by-line and word-by-word.

[via Political Wire]

Some more from the News on Hickenlooper's vision for Denver as home to the Creative Class

John Hickenlooper, who becomes Denver's 43rd mayor next week, wants the city to become the "creative capital of the West."

At the inaugural "Breakfast On Deadline" meeting at the Denver Press Club, he told about 35 people that he wants a city with a true "street culture."

It's not enough to have a great symphony and a great art museum, Hickenlooper said, adding that the Denver Art Museum will instantly become an "international cultural destination" in 2006 when the Daniel Libeskind wing is completed.

"You want more jazz bars, you want more clubs with music, you want more coffeehouses where people read poetry, you want to celebrate your local authors and make sure they're honored and celebrated and meet with your local business leaders," Hickenlooper said. "There's a cross-pollination there."

The country right now is at war, our economy is bad, 455 billion dollar deficit, and the Democrats are saying: 'How are we going to beat this guy?'

David Letterman on last night's show. To Quote The Note:

The audience was silent, at first, and then, as the meaning sunk in, began to laugh, and, finally, applaud.

People are waking up.

I have a theory.

Given the likelihood that there are WMD's in Iraq - everyone agreed on this before the war and no one would have seriously suggested that Hussein had nothing - what are the chances that they've already been found or will soon be found, and not immediately revealed?

This allows the Democrats to continue working themselves into a lather until they're all screaming that there were no WMD and Bush is a big fat lying liar and then Bush unveils the WMD, chopping off most of the Democratic field at the knees.

It's a theory, but it illustrates why the focus should be on the misuse of intelligence to paint a long-term threat as imminent rather than misusing intelligence to fabricate a non-existent "WMD" (quotes for Guanubian) threat.

Just a theory.

And there, dear readers, exists the firm basis for bringing a charge of impeachment against the president who employed lies to lead us into war.

It's premature, but the "I" word is starting to get tossed around.

The American people have given the Bush administration great leeway to combat terrorism. So far they have given the President the benefit of the doubt. But our tolerance is being strained and our credulity sorely tested. I sense we’re reaching the “tipping point” where it all starts going south.

More is at stake than George Bush’s future or partisan advantage. The honor and reputation of the United States is now at stake. We cannot claim to be “the world’s leading democracy” and commit the power of the United States to a war that, so far, has been justified on false grounds. The wheels of justice grind exceeding fine. And judgment day is coming.

The Senator is still feisty and his latest posting sums up my feelings on the issues of the day.

See ya Ari.  It's been fun.

The Young Republicans convention broke down into shouting and some physical contact on Friday as delegates for opposing tickets clashed over amendments being considered by the Young Republican National Federation's (YRNF) Constitution and By-Laws Committee

Future Republican leaders work hard at learning how to properly carry out the parties policy of bloody-knuckled parlimentary shenanigans.

[via Drudgereport]

"I've got confidence in George Tenet. I've got confidence in the men and women who work at the CIA and I...look forward to working with them," Bush said in Abuja during a visit to Nigeria.

Asked whether he considered the controversy over, he said: "I do."

 Well, guess we should all stop talking about it then.

Wob *REALLY* wants one of these:

WHAM!DURAN - T-shirts

Consumers are about to get a better idea of just how unhealthy some brands of potato chips, cookies, even margarines really are: Food labels will soon be required to reveal how much artery-clogging trans fat they contain. Trans fat helps make such foods as doughnuts, french fries, crackers and fried chicken taste good. But it's at least as dangerous to the heart as its better-known cousin, saturated fat _ and many doctors consider it worse. Yet today, consumers have no way of knowing how much trans fat they eat.

Under regulations to be announced by the Food and Drug Administration Wednesday, that will change.

The nutrition label will get a new line listing the amount of trans fat in each food under the amount of saturated fat it contains, say consumer advocates and industry representatives familiar with FDA's decision. Adding the two lines will show the total of heart-risky fats in every serving.

This is good - trans fat is bad.

[via Salon contributor and fellow Denverite Dave Cullen]

What do you think of President Bush’s using war imagery as a political tool, like when he recently flew onto an aircraft carrier?

The world expects something more of an American president than to prance around on a flight deck dressed up like [a] pilot. He’s expected to be a leader. That’s my fundamental issue with it. It doesn’t reflect the gravitas of the office. Furthermore, it’s a little phony.

Sweet.

[via Political Wire]

More on who Rove [ed. i mistyped Dean earlier] fears. First Kos on some recent "leaks"

In the first instance, why the heck would Kerry's people be talking to the Rightwing Nutso Reactionaries over at the American Spectator? Had the New Republic run the piece, or the Boston Herald, then perhaps there would be something there. But the Spectator? Those guys ran the Arkansas Project, for gods sake!

In the Drudge instance, do you think anyone in the Dean camp would waste his or her breath talking to that slimeball? Yeah, and Karl Rove calls me up to fill me in on Bush's game plan for 2004.

And in any case, why the heck would Dean be worried about the DNC or McAuliffe? And who in that camp would be so stupid as to think that a NH victory would give Dean the power to strip McAuliffe of his position? And regardless of any hostility toward McAuliffe, do you think the Deanies are stupid enough to create dissension and disorder within the party so close to a presidential election?

Jeez. As I said, consider the source when reading about Dean or any other Democrat. The jokers on the Right don't have our interests at heart -- they speak for the enemy. EVERYTHING they write is designed to further the GOP's ascendancy.

Josh Marshall follows up on the Drudge story

How exactly is Dean going to clean house after -- presumably -- winning the New Hampshire primary? Even though a presidential nominee controls the party apparatus after he gets the nomination, there are a number of reasons why they seldom install their own chairman at the DNC before even winning the presidency. But they certainly don't -- or rather can't -- fire the chairman of the party during the middle of the primary campaign.

Why?

Basically for the same reasons that I've so far refrained from firing New York Times Executive Editor Joe Lelyveld or the fact checker of Ann Coulter's ridiculous new book Treason (of which we'll be saying more soon): because I can't.

Let the games begin.

I was reminded tonight of Aaron Feuerstein by a profile on 60 Minutes about the 3rd generation owner of Malden Mills of Lawrence, MA. Six years ago, the mill burned to the ground, and Mr Feuerstein rebuilt the mill on the same spot, and paid his employees out of his own pocket while they got the business up and running again. This is a man who has done the right thing at every turn and was rewarded by having to declare bankruptcy. Malden Mills is set to emerge from bankruptcy, but unless Mr Feuerstein can raise approximately 90 million dollars by the end of the summer Malden Mills will be largly owned by creditors, who almost certainly won't be as interested in running the company in the current manner. Support Mr Feuerstein and Malden Mills by taking the 'Polartec Promise' and buy some Polartec gear (which was invented by Malden Mills) in the coming weeks. Dont' let virtue - especially in today's business world - go unrewarded. Put up or shut up and pass the word along.

As a dozen people marched toward Dana Place wearing Dean for President T-shirts and carrying Dean for America signs, Rove told a companion, " 'Heh, heh, heh. Yeah, that's the one we want,' " according to Daniel J. Weiss, an environmental consultant, who was standing nearby. " 'How come no one is cheering for Dean?' "

Then, Weiss said, Rove exhorted the marchers and the parade audience: " 'Come on, everybody! Go, Howard Dean!' "

Who is Karl Rove scared of?

[via Untelevised]

The Colorado Avalanche has signed unrestricted free agents Paul Kariya and Teemu Selanne to one-year contracts, the Associated Press learned Thursday.

Who needs goaltending...

This is an unbelievable deal. Kariya agreed to a 1.2 million dollar contract. We get one of the greatest hockey duos ever for 7 million dollars. All Praise Pierre.

In the words of Adrian Dater of the Denver Post:

The Avalanche's power play figures to be fearsome, perhaps one of the greatest combinations of talent in NHL history. Rob Blake and Derek Morris should man the points (although Kariya has done the same in the past with Anaheim) and Colorado will have a choice of Forsberg, Selanne, Kariya, Sakic and Hejduk down low for their rotation of three forwards.

Unbelievable, indeed.