SteveAudio's blog

Some of us are illegal, and some are not wanted

2008-01-13T16:44:42-05:00

Illegal immigration is a problem for this country.

There, I’ve said it. But it’s not quite the problem some make it out to be:

According to a New York Times article on April 5, 2005, “…the estimated seven million or so illegal immigrant workers in the United States are now providing the system with a subsidy of as much as $7 billion a year….Moreover, the money paid by illegal immigrants and their employers is factored into all the Social Security Administration’s projections.”

However, since illegal immigrant workers are here illegally, and ostensibly presented fake ID to the US employer, they will never collect Social Security benefits. “For illegal immigrants, Social Security numbers are simply a tool needed to work on this side of the border. Retirement does not enter the picture,” reports the New York Times.

The Social Security Administration remains solvent in large part due to deductions taken from the paychecks of illegal immigrant workers, yet Social Security will never pay benefits to those workers. The workers pay in, but they never receive back.

Wouldn’t the federal government detect fake Social Security numbers? According to that April 6, 2005 New York Times article, “Starting in the late 1980s, the social Security Administration received a flood of W-2 earnings reports with incorrect—-sometimes simply fictitious—-Social Security numbers. It stashed them in what it calls the ’earnings suspense file’ in the hope that someday it would figure out whom they belonged to.

The file has been mushrooming ever since: $189 billion worth of wages ended up recorded in the suspense file over the 1990s, two and a half times the amount of the 1980s.

But that’s not important right now. Look, a government run solely by business interests will never, ever, do anything to control immigration. Want proof of this, as well as proof of Republican hypocrisy? Here it is:

Some conservatives are labeling U.S. Sen. Kay Bailey Hutchison a traitor after she slipped an amendment into the federal budget bill passed last month that some say effectively kills the border fence.
The conservative radio world and blogosphere has been buzzing with outcry that the amendment — which removed the requirement under the Secure Fence Act for a double-layered fence and gave Homeland Security Secretary Michael Chertoff flexibility in its placement — did just that.

Nationally syndicated columnist Michelle Malkin decried the “incredible shrinking border fence.” Others called Hutchison “Benedict Arnold” and said the Texas Republican used the “cover of Christmas” to ram the measure through.

Hutchison, while a real conservative, isn’t completely insane. She is, however, solidly in the pocket of business, especially oil companies. She responds:

“Border patrol agents reported that coyotes and drug-runners were altering their routes as fencing was deployed, so the amendment gives our agents discretion to locate the fence where necessary to achieve operational control of our border,” she said.

Customs and Border Protection said it is committed to building the fence and this week announced plans to take legal action against 102 border landowners, including 71 in Texas who were not letting federal workers on their land to survey the areas.

Wait a minute. Who are the 71 landowners who refuse to let surveyors onto their land? Are they bleeding-hear libs, who welcome illegals with open arms?

Unlike other border states, much of the land on the Texas border is privately owned.

Local business leaders and politicians were incensed to learn in May that a map was already circulating showing a fence that could cut farmers from water, wildlife from habitat and cities from the river.

Rep. Henry Cuellar, D-Laredo, said Hutchison wrote a good amendment that will allow environmental and property right concerns in border communities to be considered.

“It gives flexibility to the secretary to look at alternative means,” he said.

Texas landowners just see themselves in the middle.

In Granjeno, residents say they have not gotten any threatening letters and are hopeful the government has decided not to cut through their town.

Landowner Eloisa Garcia Tamez, a professor at the University of Texas at Brownsville, said she’ll fight to the end to keep the government off the last of her ancestors’ 1767 land grant.

No, it’s folks, some of whom might be truly conservative, who think, somewhat foolishly, that they actually have control over their own land. And that according to the Constitution’s 5th Amendment:

No person shall be held to answer for a capital, or otherwise infamous crime, unless on a presentment or indictment of a Grand Jury, except in cases arising in the land or naval forces, or in the Militia, when in actual service in time of War or public danger; nor shall any person be subject for the same offence to be twice put in jeopardy of life or limb; nor shall be compelled in any criminal case to be a witness against himself, nor be deprived of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law; nor shall private property be taken for public use, without just compensation.

Probably communists or something. After all, a true conservative would gladly give up all their rights to support Fearless Leader’s Global War on Whoever He Says We’re Fighting Today.

Seriously, unless the fence is the equal to China’s Great Wall, it’s stopping no one. If someone is willing to hike hundreds of miles to the border, they’ll likely hike 10 or 20 miles around the small piece of fence blocking their path:

Fence supporters, meanwhile, feel the Department of Homeland Security has gradually been reneging on the plan, with initial plans for 854 miles of double-layered fencing in five locations whittled to 370 miles of what may be single-layered fencing, Kasper said.

Almost two years after the bill passed, only 5.2 miles more of double-layer fence has been built, in Arizona, with 70 more miles single-layered, he said.

Indeed. And the silliness of the whole fence movement is like trying to stop kids from grabbing candy from a burst piñata; as long as it’s there, they’ll dive and grab for it:

According to Catholic priest Dr. Daniel Groody, Associate Professor at University of Notre Dame and a director of the university’s Center for Latino Studies, “If they make it across the border, most immigrants will work at low-paying jobs that no one except the most desperate wants. They will de-bone chicken in poultry plants, pick crops in fields and build houses in construction.

As one person in Arizona noted, ’It looks like entering the US through the desert as undocumented immigrants is some kind of employment screening test administered by the US government for the hospitality, construction and recreation industries.’

Willing to work at the most dangerous jobs, an immigrant a day will also die in the work place, even while for others the work place has become safer over the last decade.”

And undocumented workers, grateful for any job, will work for lower wages and minimal or no benefits, therefore enabling employers to make higher business profits.

Cheaper labor costs and lesser working conditions equal greater profits for business owners.

How has the GWBush administration taken Big Business on regarding illegal hiring?

In 1999, under President Bill Clinton, the US government collected $3.69 million in fines from 890 companies for employing undocumented workers. In 2004, under President George Bush, the federal government collected $188,500 from 64 companies for such illegal employment practices. And in 2004, the Bush Administration levied NO fines for US companies employing undocumented workers.

And this:

The Bush administration, which is vowing to crack down on U.S. companies that hire illegal workers, virtually abandoned such employer sanctions before it began pushing to overhaul U.S. immigration laws last year, government statistics show.

Between 1999 and 2003, work-site enforcement operations were scaled back 95 percent by the Immigration and Naturalization Service, which subsequently was merged into the Homeland Security Department. The number of employers prosecuted for unlawfully employing immigrants dropped from 182 in 1999 to four in 2003, and fines collected declined from $3.6 million to $212,000, according to federal statistics.

In 1999, the United States initiated fines against 417 companies. In 2004, it issued fine notices to three.

In other words, total and complete hypocrisy, and capitulation to the wishes of big business. Perhaps those in the investor class who feel immigration is a problem should take a look at their portfolios:

In March 2005, Wal-Mart, a company with $285 billion in annual sales. was fined $11 million for having untold hundreds of illegal immigrants nationwide clean its stores.

“The federal government boasts it’s the largest of its kind. But for Wal-Mart, it amounts to a rounding error—-and no admittance of wrongdoing since it claims it didn’t know its contractors hired the illegals” wrote the Christian Science Monitor on March 28, 2005.

Who is invested in Wal-mart? Lots of people:

And inside the Republican Party, are they really true believers?

Major work-site crackdowns have run into trouble in the past. A spring 1998 sweep that targeted the Vidalia onion harvest in Georgia, and Operation Vanguard, a 1999 clampdown on meatpacking plants in Nebraska, Iowa and South Dakota, provide case studies of how the government fared when confronted by a coalition that included low-wage immigrant workers and the industries that hire them, analysts said.

The Georgia raids netted 4,034 illegal immigrants, prompting other unauthorized workers to stay home. As the $90 million onion crop sat in the field, farmers “started screaming to their local representatives,” said Bart Szafnicki, INS assistant district director for investigations in Atlanta from 1991 to 2001.

Georgia’s two senators and three of its House members, led by then-Sen. Paul Coverdell (R) and Rep. Jack Kingston (R), complained in a letter to Washington that the INS did not understand the needs of America’s farmers. The raids stopped.

Right. Not in my back yard.

RIP Rep. Julia Carson (D-IN7)

2007-12-17T04:10:53-05:00

Recently I added some new contributors over at my place, and I’m constantly thrilled by the quality of what they write.

Sailor, who lives in Rep. Carson’s Indiana 7th, wrote this poignant piece today:
It is my sorrow to report that Congresswoman Julia Carson, of Indiana’s 7th district, has passed away.

She always voted her conscience, she always said what she thought, she always represented the least of her constituents as if they were her biggest donors, she always spoke truth to power and she always seemed so strong, so dynamic that it seemed she would always be with us. She was a true representative of the people.

… … …
I just looked back at what I wrote and it looks like every damn political tribute ever written. I wasn’t trying to do that, I was just trying to do justice to one of the best people I’ve ever met and one of the best ever elected.

Her life story puts Hollywood screenwriters to shame.
Raised by an unwed mother who cleaned white folks’ houses to put her thru school.
After high school she married and had 2 children.
It didn’t work out and she put herself thru college while raising the children.
In 1965 Julia was working as a secretary for the UAW when newly elected Congressman Andy Jacobs hired her as his legislative assistant.

Just think what it meant that in 1965 a white congressman in his first term hired a black woman to run his office.

And Julia did that until Andy knew he’d lose the 1972 election after his district had been gerrymandered. He insisted she run for statewide office and she served in the Indiana House and Senate until 1990.

Andy Jacobs won the election in 1974 and retired in 1996 and Julia ran for his US Congressional seat. And won.

She was always outspent, and even tho her district was gerrymandered and reapportioned, she never lost an election. The only fight she ever lost was to cancer.

Julia Carson was the epitome of the ideal of our democracy.

And in these dark days of our country, I grieve her loss but take hope that we can survive and flourish as Julia did.

His orders come from far away no more

2007-11-11T23:00:17-05:00

Luis Sinco / Los Angeles Times

To every Right-winger who cheered this war on; to the hawks on the left who seriously thought it was a good idea; to the 101st Fighting Keyboarders who still talk in glowing praise of GWBush’s Noble Adventure™ in Nation Building™, I dare you, I DARE YOU, goddamnit, to read the story of James Blake Miller, who became the iconic image of the tough Marine, the brave soldier fighting for democracy, the poster boy for the Neo-con dream, and who, like a real human, paid a terrible price for your blood-soaked fantasies.

From today’s LATimes, and the photographer who snapped that image and thus became inextricably joined to Miller, for good and bad:

The young marine lighted a cigarette and let it dangle. White smoke wafted around his helmet. His face was smeared with war paint. Blood trickled from his right ear and the bridge of his nose.

Momentarily deafened by cannon blasts, he didn’t know the shooting had stopped. He stared at the sunrise.

His expression caught my eye. To me, it said: terrified, exhausted and glad just to be alive. I recognized that look because that’s how I felt too.

I raised my camera and snapped a few shots.

Thus was a relationship forged. High drama, much press coverage, and a Pulitzer nomination followed. For the photographer, Luis Sinco. What followed for Miller was real life, with consequences:

In January 2006, I was on assignment along the U.S.-Mexico border when my wife called. “Your boy is on TV. He has PTSD,” she said. “They kicked him out of the Marines.”

I’d spoken with Miller by phone twice, but the conversations were short and superficial. I knew post-traumatic stress disorder was a complicated diagnosis. So once again, I dug up his number. Again, I offered simple words: Life is sweet. We survived. Everything else is gravy.

Nice try, Luis. I might have said the same thing. You know, buck up, “I never promised you a rose garden”, etc. But Sinco traveled to Kentucky to follow up on Miller:

Mobile homes and battered cars dot the rugged ranges. Marijuana is a major cash crop. Addiction to methamphetamine and prescription drugs is rampant.

Kids marry young, and boys go to work mining the black seams of coal. Heavy trucks rumble day and night.

Miller showed me around. At an abandoned mine, he walked carefully around a large, shallow pool of standing water that mirrored the green wilderness and springtime sky. He picked up a chunk of coal.

“Around here, this is what it’s all about,” he said. “Nothing else.

“It was this or the Marines.”

Like so many in this damned war, the poorer among us are disproportionately represented. And they lack the resources to even begin to deal with the horrors that can affect them in unpredictable ways. And We The People have allowed our government to refuse all but the most perfunctory help to them:

He returned to Camp Lejeune, N.C. His high school sweetheart, Jessica Holbrooks, joined him there, and they were married in a civil ceremony.

Then came the nightmares and hallucinations. He imagined shadowy figures outside the windows. Faces of the dead haunted his sleep.

Once, while cleaning a shotgun, he blacked out. He regained consciousness when Jessica screamed out his name. Snapping back to reality, he realized he was pointing the gun at her.

He reported the problems to superiors, who promised to get him help.

And then Hell truly opened its doors to Miller:

Miller bought a motorcycle and went for long rides. He and Jessica drank all night and slept all day. He started collecting a monthly disability benefit of about $2,500. The couple spent hours watching movies on DVD, Coronas and bourbon cocktails in hand. Friends and family gave them space.

Miller had hoped to pursue a career in law enforcement. But the PTSD and abrupt discharge killed that dream. No one would trust him with a weapon.

But at least he didn’t have to go back to Iraq. He started to realize he wasn’t the only one traumatized by war.

Self-indulgent, weak, irresponsible, some might say. Some like Goldberg, or Kristol, or Rumsfeld, or Bush. The list goes sadly on and on. But none of them have seen what Miller saw, had someone shoot at them like Miller did, seen bodies of friends and foes with broken limbs, covered in gore, dying while they watched . Thus, their opinions are empty, vacant, like the ideals they throw around.

Miller tried to help, to do right by his fellow Marines, to try to tell his story:

Three days after their wedding, I tagged along as the young couple flew to the nation’s capital. Easily distracted by the offer of free drinks for an all-American hero, Miller stayed out until 3 a.m. He was hung over when he met with House members a few hours later.

Miller chatted up GOP Rep. Harold Rogers, the congressman from his district. He smoked and frequently cursed while recounting his combat experiences. I cringed but stayed on the sidelines, snapping photos.

Miller shuffled from one congressional office to the next, passing displays filled with photos of Marines killed in Iraq. As he told his story over and again, the politicians listened politely and thanked Miller for his service. One congressman sent an aide to tell Miller he was too busy to meet. No one promised to take up his cause.

No promises, no support. Kill for us because its noble, the cause you fight for. But are you worth our time, our commitment, our love? Only while the cameras are rolling.

The next day, I found Miller in a back bedroom at his uncle’s house. He told me that he had come close to committing suicide the night before. He had thought about driving his motorcycle off the edge of a mountain road.

He showed me the morning newspaper. His divorce was the lead story.

I felt torn. I didn’t want to get involved. I desperately wanted to close the book on Iraq. But if I hadn’t taken Miller’s picture, this very personal drama wouldn’t be front-page news. I felt responsible.

Sometimes, when things get hard to witness, I use my camera as a shield. It creates a space for me to work — and distance to keep my eyes open and my feelings in check. But Miller had no use for a photojournalist. He needed a helping hand.

I flashed back to the chaos of combat in Fallouja. In the rattle and thunder, brick walls separated me from the world coming to an end. In the tight spaces, we were scared mindless. Everybody dragged deeply on cigarettes.

Above the din, I heard what everybody was thinking: This is the end.

I’ve never felt so completely alone.

I snapped back to the present, and before I knew it, the words spilled out.

“I have to ask you something, Blake,” I said. “If I’d gone down in Fallouja, would you have carried me out?”

“Damn straight,” he said, without hesitation.

“OK then,” I said. “I think you’re wounded pretty badly. I want to help you.”

He looked at me for a moment. “All right,” he said.

That is the price many pay. Do the Right-wingers who yearn for “victory in Mesopotamia” care about Miller? Do the administration hacks who sold us this debacle? Do the National Review writers who still prattle on about “exporting democracy”?

Absolutely not. They will claim it’s all worth it. It’s for the greater good, for whatever tortured ideological fever-dream they wake to every day. But their dreams are nothing compared to James Blake Miller’s. He has lived your dream, people. You own him and his story, every second of it. His crisis of psyche is yours.

May you wake in his Hell tomorrow; may you be the Sin-eater he deserves. May you scream and be tortured in Hell until the end of time. He surely doesn’t deserve his pain.

But you do.

Celebrate Veterans’ Day by honoring Mr. Miller. Don’t send any more Americans to join in his pain.

SteveAudio.blogspot.com

the seed inside ya, baby, do you feel it growin'?

2007-10-06T04:58:50-04:00

(photo by Marianne Mather/STNG)

I love to read mystery novels, for pure escapism and fun. And my special subset of interest is female protagonists, in books written by women. The absence of visible testosterone makes these books more interesting and intellectual, IMO.

One of my favs is Sara Paretsky, who authors the V. I. Warshawski series of books. But it seems she also writes some riveting non-fiction as well, about the totalitarian and authoritarian goals of the religious Right towards womens’ reproductive health in her beloved Chicago:

My grandmother watched her father die when an anti-Jewish mob broke into their small home and shot him as he lay in bed with his wife. The mob was jubilant and exuberant at his death; their neighborhood priest in Vilnius, Lithuania, led the crowd through the streets chanting a Te Deum to show their thanks to the Lord at the death of someone they considered a nonbeliever.

Most members of that crowd called themselves Christians. I think of them when I look at the mob in Aurora that is trying to keep the Planned Parenthood health center there from opening.

I have been working around these protesters and their associates for 20 years, trying to help women get through their ranks into clinics for medical appointments. On a recent stint at an obstetrics-gynecology health center under siege on the North Side of Chicago, I was trying to escort a woman with ovarian cancer through the horde so she could see her doctor.

Part of the crowd surrounded us, chanting “Christ killers!” and “Baby killers!” Briefly, I felt the fear my grandmother must have known.

The hypocrisy of these folks seems without limits, yet their agenda is clear, while misrepresented. They claim to be against abortion under any circumstances, yet the clear goal is no birth control or any other reproductive rights for women. They’re not only after Roe v. Wade, they’re after Griswold v. Connecticut.

Don’t remember that one? You should. Here’s what a synopsis of major Supreme Court decisions on reproductive rights from FindLaw says about Griswold:

Griswold v. Connecticut, 381 U.S. 479 (1965). In this case, the Supreme Court held that the right to privacy, which flows from the Bill of Rights (the first ten amendments to the U.S. Constitution), includes the right of married persons to use contraceptives.

Interesting the the far Right, who claim to value personal freedom and responsibility, and lack of government intrusion, feel a need to tell people that they can’t even use birth control. No abortions, and no way to keep from getting pregnant. This makes the old Rhythm Method seem like scientific advancement. Oddly, the great rush to canonize marriage as a sacred act between one man & one woman by the Right doesn’t seem to include a married couple’s right to privacy in re: their right to birth control.

And think about the specifics of the case, that prior to 1965, a state told its citizens they couldn’t make their own birth control decisions. And it wasn’t until 1972 (Eisenstadt v. Baird, 405 U.S. 438(1972), that:

… the Supreme Court held that a statute that allowed giving contraceptives to married adults but prohibited the same conduct with respect to unmarried adults violated the equal protection clause of the Fourteenth Amendment. If the right of privacy means anything, explained the Court, it encompasses the right of all individuals, married or single, to be free from unwarranted governmental intrusion into matters so fundamentally affecting a person as the decision whether or not to conceive a child.

Not that long ago. We seem to have barely escaped from the dark ages. And now zealots on the far Right want to take us back there. Here’s an article from Prevention Magazine that makes some important points about the Right-wing lies about birth control:

In the past decade or so, the “hormonal birth control equals abortion” view has quietly grown roots in the antiabortion underground. It’s spread from doctor to doctor, through local newsletters, in books with titles such as Does the Birth Control Pill Cause Abortions? (written by Randy Alcorn, an Oregon-based antiabortion pastor and author), and through lobbying groups that have encouraged lawmakers in Arkansas, South Dakota, and most recently Mississippi to enact “conscience clauses.” These legislative provisions protect health care professionals—in this case, pharmacists—who refuse to provide services they oppose on moral, ethical, or legal grounds. At press time, similar legislation had been introduced in 11 more states.

An Internet search turns up thousands of Web sites containing articles with titles such as “The Pill Kills Babies,” “Are Contraception and Abortion Siamese Twins?” and “The Dirty Little Secrets about the Birth Control Pill.” Hundreds of physicians and pharmacists have pledged not to provide hormonal birth control. Among them: 450 doctors affiliated with the Dayton, OH-based natural family planning group One More Soul; some members of the 2,500 doctors in the Holland, MI-based American Association of Pro-Life Obstetricians and Gynecologists; and a growing number of the 1,500-member Web-based Pharmacists for Life International, says Brauer. Not even anti-Pill groups know how many doctors and druggists are involved. And while the total is still a small percentage of the 117,500 family physicians and OB/GYNs and 173,000 pharmacists in the US, they are making their presence felt in women’s lives and among law and policy makers on both the state and national levels. Their influence is far-reaching and disproportionate to their size—a quiet version of the public shock waves produced by the nation’s relatively small number of antiabortion activists.

“Refusing women access to the Pill is a very disturbing trend,” says Gloria Feldt, president of Planned Parenthood Federation of America. “The war on choice is not just about abortion anymore. It’s about our right to birth control.”

When their sons go to fight and lose their lives

2007-08-23T04:06:45-04:00

Quote of the day, from Paul Rieckhoff on Hardball:

“Our troops are not political props, and they aren’t chew toys”.

Indeed.

Remember that Rieckhoff is an Iraq War vet, and founder of Iraq and Afghanistan Veterans of America. He was responding to the GWBush speech today to the VFW, and also to Ari Fleischer’s (R-Warmonger) new war porn group.

Here’s from the IAVA response to the speech:

“President Bush failed to adequately address many of the urgent issues facing veterans today. The last thing these veterans needed was a history lesson. They remember America’s wars because they actually fought them. Instead of making references to previous conflicts, we need the President to take more seriously the myriad of issues facing veterans and their families right now. There were glaring omissions in his remarks, including answering who will replace Veterans Affairs Secretary Jim Nicholson when he steps down in October,” said Paul Rieckhoff, IAVA Executive Director. “Instead of offering a history lesson, President Bush should be specific about taking immediate action on the recommendations of the Dole-Shalala Commission to fix the deplorable conditions and poor care at Walter Reed Army Medical Center. These are matters of life and death for America’s newest generation of veterans, but on these critical issues, President Bush came up short.”

IAVA Director of Government Affairs, Todd Bowers, attended President Bush’s address to the VFW. “While IAVA commends the Veterans of Foreign Wars for hosting such an important gathering, we were disappointed by what President Bush said, and more importantly, did not say this morning. It’s critical that President Bush place a higher priority on implementing the recommendations of the Dole-Shalala Commission to ensure that veterans receive the honor and care they deserve.”

Here’s more about Ari’s new play date club:

Beginning today, Freedom’s Watch, a new right-wing front group for the White House, “will unveil a month-long, $15 million television, radio and grass-roots campaign” to pressure Congress to continue supporting President Bush’s disastrous Iraq strategy. The group, which is “funded by high-profile Republicans who were aides and supporters of President Bush,” is headed by a familiar face from the Bush war effort: former White House press secretary Ari Fleischer.

Swell. As usual, zombies are those who don’t have the good sense to quietly go off and die.

Update: via email from Paul Rieckhoff:

Steve,

Great blog. Thanks for running that quote and for supporting our work.

Also, here’s another from Think Progress wherein Paul rebuts Ari.

SteveAudio.blogspot.com

Time will tell on their power minds, making war just for fun

2007-08-18T17:51:07-04:00

(picture from worldwide anti-war protests, Feb. 15, 2003)

My friend Kevin Drum takes on the war skeptics, who, as he says:

This meant that war skeptics had to go way out on a limb: if they opposed the war, and it subsequently turned out that Saddam had an advanced WMD program, their credibility would have been completely shot. Their only recourse would have been to argue that Saddam never would have used his WMD, an argument that, given Saddam’s temperament, would have sounded like special pleading even to most liberals. In the end, then, they chickened out, but it had more to do with fear of being wrong than with fear of being shunned by the foreign policy community.

Perhaps. His reasoning, and further commentary about the Very Serious Foreign Policy Community, with quotes from Atrios and Steve Clemons, are pretty good.

But this:

At any rate, it would be instructive to find out who these closet doves were and invite them to a Foreign Affairs roundtable to talk about why they knuckled under to the hawks prior to the war. To the extent they were willing to be honest, it would be a pretty interesting conversation. I won’t be holding my breath, though.

Dude. I was and still am a dove. Nothing closeted about me in that regard. I don’t have the large readership Kevin does, but there were and still are many writers on the national stage, as well as C-Level bloggers like me who were dead set against the war.

Below is some evidence, I think, that some indeed did think that the WMD talk was greatly overblown. But before we get to that, I have one word: containment. Here’s what 2 Very Serious Foreign Affairs guys said in Foreign Affairs magazine, Aug., 2004:

On the way to their misjudgments, it now appears, intelligence agencies and policymakers disregarded considerable evidence of the destruction and deterioration of Iraq’s weapons programs, the result of a successful strategy of containment in place for a dozen years. They consistently ignored volumes of data about the impact of sanctions and inspections on Iraq’s military strength.

Ya think? Saddam was smart enough to know that, after years of blockade, flyovers, and sanctions, that the US would bomb Baghdad instantly if any WMDs were used, anywhere in the Middle East, by his forces. It wouldn’t take a war-mongering GWBush to make that decision, it would have been made just as quickly by President Gore or President Kerry.

For those on the hawkish side of the Left who believed the hype (cough Peter Beinart cough), there was no real “trigger” in evidence, no “there” there. There was simply a belief that aggression was a better tool than containment and diplomacy. They were wrong. Sorry Kevin, we, the war skeptics, were right.

Here is more about the WMD sales pitch:

In 2002 David Kay, UNSCOM Chief said:

Iraq has not abandoned its efforts to acquire WMD. A recent defector has stated that an explicit order to reconstitute the nuclear teams was promulgated in August 1998; at the time Iraq ceased cooperation with UN-led inspections. There should be no doubt that Iraq, under Saddam, continues to seek nuclear weapons capability and that given the time it will devote the resources and technical manpower necessary to reach that goal.

Thing is, there was evidence before the war that Curveball, the above named defector, was feeding the US bullshit:

German officials said that they had warned American colleagues well before the Iraq war that Curveball’s information was not credible - but the warning was ignored.

It was the Iraqi defector’s testimony that led the Bush administration to claim that Saddam had built a fleet of trucks and railway wagons to produce anthrax and other deadly germs.

Here is a concise recount of the run up to the war from National Security Archive:

As a result of the U.S. and British campaign, and after prolonged negotiations between the United States, Britain, France, Russia and other U.N. Security Council members, the United Nations declared that Iraq would have to accept even more intrusive inspections than under the previous inspection regime - to be carried out by the U.N. Monitoring, Verification, and Inspection Commission (UNMOVIC) and the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) - or face “serious consequences.” Iraq agreed to accept the U.N. decision and inspections resumed in late November 2002. On December 7, 2002, Iraq submitted its 12,000 page declaration, which claimed that it had no current WMD programs. Intelligence analysts from the United States and other nations immediately began to scrutinize the document, and senior U.S. officials quickly rejected the claims. (Note 2)

Over the next several months, inspections continued in Iraq, and the chief inspectors, Hans Blix (UNMOVIC) and Mohammed El Baradei (IAEA) provided periodic updates to the U.N. Security Council concerning the extent of Iraqi cooperation, what they had or had not discovered, and what they believed remained to be done. During that period the Bush administration, as well as the Tony Blair administration in the United Kingdom, charged that Iraq was not living up to the requirement that it fully disclose its WMD activities, and declared that if it continued along that path, “serious consequences” - that is, invasion - should follow.

The trigger for military action preferred by the British government, other allies, and at least some segments of the Bush administration, was a second U.N. resolution that would authorize an armed response. Other key U.N. Security Council members - including France, Germany, and Russia - argued that the inspections were working and that the inspectors should be allowed to continue. When it became apparent that the Council would not approve a second resolution, the United States and Britain terminated their attempts to obtain it. Instead, they, along with other allies, launched Operation Iraqi Freedom on March 19, 2003 - a military campaign that quickly brought about the end of Saddam Hussein’s regime and ultimately resulted in his capture. (Note 3)

FAIR has an overview of the media hype before the war:

By the time the war against Iraq began, much of the media had been conditioned to believe, almost as an article of faith, that Saddam Hussein’s Iraq was bulging with chemical and biological weapons, despite years of United Nations inspections. Reporters dispensed with the formality of applying modifiers like “alleged” or “suspected” to Iraq’s supposed unconventional weapon stocks. Instead, they asked “what precise threat Iraq and its weapons of mass destruction pose to America” (NBC Nightly News, 1/27/03). They wrote matter-of-factly of Washington’s plans for a confrontation “over Iraq’s banned weapons programs” (Washington Post, 1/27/03). And they referred to debates over whether Saddam Hussein was “making a good-faith effort to disarm Iraq’s weapons of mass destruction” (Time, 2/3/03).

But here’s what Scott Ritter said in Sept., 2002:

I have never given Iraq a clean bill of health! Never! Never! I’ve said that no one has backed up any allegations that Iraq has reconstituted WMD capability with anything that remotely resembles substantive fact. To say that Saddam’s doing it is in total disregard to the fact that if he gets caught he’s a dead man and he knows it. Deterrence has been adequate in the absence of inspectors but this is not a situation that can succeed in the long term. In the long term you have to get inspectors back in.

Sigh.

SteveAudio.blogspot.com

oh where oh where can my baby be?

2007-06-29T00:55:24-04:00

The OCRegister, in what I’m sure is a Libertarian rant with no intention of irony, says:

And Paris Hilton is in jail only because of this entirely arbitrary government fiat.

Whether the level is 0.08 percent or 0.10 percent, why should someone’s blood alcohol level in itself be a crime?

Maybe having that much alcohol in their blood makes some people less likely to drive safely. But there are lots of perfectly legal things that can make you a less-safe driver. Cell phones and iPods are common distractions. A law school professor of mine was known to read books while driving. Then there’s one of the biggest, most dangerous distractions: the person sitting next to you. And don’t forget noisy kids in the back seat.

OK. In the hands of Richard Pryor, this might be funny. But here’s more:

Why should alcohol consumers be singled out for punishment – as demanded by the 19th century Woman’s Christian Temperance Union – except that the prohibitionists’ modern-day counterparts, such as Mothers Against Drunk Driving, are organized against them?

… In general, we don’t punish people because of some factor that may simply make them statistically more likely to harm others.

Really. Interesting. How about those on the Do Not Fly lists? How about those held in Guantanamo because someone turned them in for a US Army Reward? How about those sex offenders on Megan’s List?

This has to be intended as irony, humor. How else do we explain this:

Miss Hilton went to jail not for the drunken driving itself, but for driving again after her license was suspended. This, too, is an injustice.

After all, driver’s licenses have nothing to do with safe driving. As anyone who’s traveled Southern California freeways knows, having a license does not make one a competent driver. And there are plenty of people without a license who undoubtedly would be fine drivers. Even without licensing, you already have a much stronger incentive to drive safely than the government could ever provide: Your own life is at stake each time you get behind the wheel.

Ah, the credo of the righteous Libertarian. Responsibility rests with the person, to know what is right, and to know what is best for one’s self. And the corollary to the driver’s license analogy is, as expected, is gun registration. Not mentioned, indeed, but never far from the hearts of Libertarians.

This is just simple-minded foolishness. Following this logic, there is no need to ticket speeders, until they kill someone. There is no need to arrest someone waving a gun in public, until they shoot someone.

This is childish thinking, juvenile logic. But it’s the OC Register, Libertarian beacon to the world. Or something.

SteveAudio.blogspot.com

Doctor Robert, he's a man you must believe

2007-06-11T03:35:17-04:00

Dr. Preston Burke isn’t the only doc with an employment problem these days. Much has already been written about GWBush’s seemingly tone-deaf nomination of Dr. James W. Holsinger, Jr., for Surgeon General. From Think Progress:

But as BarbinMD points out, Holsinger’s nomination to be “America’s doctor” is troubling. He has a long history of prejudice toward gays and lesbians. Some examples:

– Holsinger founded Hope Springs Community Church, which “ministers to people who no longer wish to be gay or lesbian.” Holsinger said that he sees homosexuality as “an issue not of orientation but of lifestyle.” [Lexington Herald-Leader, 6/1/07]

– In serving on the United Methodist Judicial Council — the “court” that resolves “disputes involving church doctrine and policies in the nation’s second-largest Protestant denomination” — Holsinger “opposed a decision to allow a practicing lesbian to be an associate pastor, and he supported a pastor who would not permit an openly gay man to join the church.” [Lexington Herald-Leader, 6/1/07]

And Steve Benen writing at Crooks and Liars has this:

Following up on an item from last week, Dr. James W. Holsinger Jr., Bush’s nominee for Surgeon General, has a record of activism that suggests a strong anti-gay bias. Opposition to his nomination has been growing, but it’s been unclear whether there was enough information available to sink his chances.

Maybe this will do the trick. Holsinger wrote a paper in 1991 arguing that, from a medical perspective, homosexuality is unnatural and unhealthy, a position rejected by professionals as prioritizing political ideology over science.

Holsinger, 68, presented “The Pathophysiology of Male Homosexuality” in January 1991 to a United Methodist Church’s committee to study homosexuality. (Read the .pdf paper here.) The church was then considering changing its view that homosexuality violates Christian teaching, though it ultimately did not do so. Relying on footnotes from mainstream medical publications, Holsinger argued that homosexuality isn’t natural or healthy.

“A confirmation fight is exactly what the administration does not need,” said David Gergen, a former adviser to Presidents Nixon, Ford, Reagan and Clinton, who predicted the paper would cause a “minor storm” among Democrats on Capitol Hill.

“You have to wonder given the quality of some of the nominations that have gone forward recently, whether the selection group in the White House has gone on vacation,” Gergen said. “There has been a growing criticism the administration favoring ideology over competence, and this nomination smacks of that.”

Sorry, David, you’re wrong. Karl Rove thinks a confirmation fight is exactly what the Far-right wing of the Republican Party needs right now, and here’s why:

The nomination, which requires the approval of the Senate Committee on Health, Education, Labor and Pensions, has raised questions in the Senate. Senator Edward M. Kennedy, Democrat of Massachusetts who is chairman of the health committee, released a statement saying he was “disappointed” that the administration had chosen a doctor “whose record appears to guarantee a polarizing and divisive nomination process.” Senator Barack Obama, a committee member and a candidate for the Democratic presidential nomination, said in a statement that he had “serious reservations” about the nomination.

Get it yet? Maybe this membership list of the Committee will help:

Edward Kennedy (MA)
Christopher Dodd (CT)
Tom Harkin (IA)
Barbara A. Mikulski (MD)
Jeff Bingaman (NM)
Patty Murray (WA)
Jack Reed (RI)
Hillary Rodham Clinton(NY)
Barack Obama (IL)
Bernard Sanders (I) (VT)
Sherrod Brown (OH)

Now does it make sense? Rove would like nothing more than to stage an event where 3 of the Democratic candidates for President ask his nominee why he hates Teh Gay. He can spin that back to energize the religious Right, wary because of Romney’s cult, Giuliani’s divorces, and McCain’s … well, lunacy.

This gives James Dobson more ammunition, heck, it gives Fred Phelps a wink and a nod. This is a master-stroke from a political Ninja who, while on his way out, still has the power to Screw Things Up™. Rove knows Holsinger is a fringe wacko, yet hopes to parlay opposition to him as support for forced abortions, needle exchanges, and Halloween Parades in the Castro in San Francisco.

It’s up to the Committee to spin this right back into Rove’s face, by discussing medical issues and not moral ones, to show Holsinger as truly outside the mainstream in America.

Good luck, kids.

SteveAudio.blogspot.com

Dream yourself a dream come true

2007-05-26T14:59:53-04:00

The Right-wing pundits sure know how to pour gas onto their own funeral pyre:

Of course, the big difference is that the Democrats don’t have a Ronald Reagan to take advantage of the situation. Nobody will ever confuse Hilliary’s (sic) shrill denunciations with the twinkle in the Gipper’s eye when he zinged an opponent. Nor will anyone fail to see the difference between the inspirational yet empty platitudes of Obama with Reagan’s soaring rhetoric that touched something so American in people’s souls.

Hillary is shrill. Dude, how do you react when your wife asks you to take out the garbage, do you call her shrill?

And the twinkle in the … dammit! Stop calling Reagan that movie name! He was an actor, a bad one at that. He did absolutely nothing to connect himself with anyone tough or brave, he was a f***ing actor!

The twinkle was acting, reading words written by Peggy Noonan, while he tried to feed school kids ketchup and erect a big umbrella to prevent the awful Ruskies from sending missles to attack us. Stop it, just stop it! Soaring rhetoric my ass.

I don’t know about Obama yet, but he has a college education, has written books, and actually has thoughts that are deeper than “tear down this wall”.

Look here at Democracy Now for some insight into Reagan’s effect on California and working people while he was Governor, but that’s not important right now.

Seriously, the Right’s pining for another Reagan is just sad; a fantasy about a guy who can bankrupt the country, raise taxes with no benefit to the middle class, and spout slogans written by the woman who wrote this crap about poor Elian Gonzales:

a miracle that when he tired and began to slip, the dolphins who surrounded him like a contingent of angels pushed him upward;

There’s Reagan’s brain: a science-fiction fantasy that has the Righties yearning for Jack Bauer to take over their world and save them, and take away their Constitutional rights at the same time.

After all, they weren’t using them.

And our pundit ends with this:

A Guiliani or Romney candidacy would alter the face of the party at least temporarily and give hope to some of the more moderate elements in the GOP.

From your mouth to God’s ears. But not for the reasons you believe.

SteveAudio.blogspot.com

Bang bang, that awful sound

2007-04-19T03:50:25-04:00

The Right is quick to try to legislate morality-sometimes.

Today’s SCOTUS vote has the Right wetting their collective pants for joy. From The Corner:

John McCain said:

Today’s Supreme Court ruling is a victory for those who cherish the sanctity of life and integrity of the judiciary. The ruling ensures that an unacceptable and unjustifiable practice will not be carried out on our innocent children. It also clearly speaks to the importance of nominating and confirming strict constructionist judges who interpret the law as it is written, and do not usurp the authority of Congress and state legislatures. As we move forward, it is critically important that our party continues to stand on the side of life.

Here’s what Mitt Romney said:

Today, our nation’s highest court reaffirmed the value of life in America by upholding a ban on a practice that offends basic human decency. This decision represents a step forward in protecting the weakest and most innocent among us.

And here’s what Rudy Giuliani said:

The Supreme Court reached the correct conclusion in upholding the congressional ban on partial birth abortion. I agree with it.

And the Right, as portrayed by the Bush Administration, is still pushing abstinence, with pretty sorry results:

WASHINGTON — Students who took part in sexual abstinence programs were just as likely to have sex as those who did not, according to a study ordered by Congress.

Also, those who attended one of the four abstinence classes that were reviewed reported having similar numbers of sexual partners as those who did not attend the classes. And they first had sex at about the same age as other students _ 14.9 years, according to Mathematica Policy Research Inc.

The federal government now spends about $176 million annually on abstinence-until-marriage education. Critics have repeatedly said they don’t believe the programs are working, and the study will give them reinforcement.

However, Bush administration officials cautioned against drawing sweeping conclusions from the study. They said the four programs reviewed _ among several hundred across the nation _ were some of the very first established after Congress overhauled the nation’s welfare laws in 1996.

So clearly the Right wants to legislate morality.

So my question is, why is the Right so dead set against legislating morality when it involves gun ownership? From The National Review after the ’04 election:

President of the United States: The people of the United States defied the United Nations, and reelected their pro-rights president. President Bush’s reelection helps ensure that the 2006 United Nations conference on small arms will not become a back-door path to destroying the Second Amendment. President Bush will almost certainly sign any pro-rights legislation that passes Congress. After lawsuit reform, the most important bill would be the restoration of Second Amendment rights to citizens of the District of Columbia.

Setting aside the chronic mis-read of the 2nd Amendment, the mass delusion of the Right-wing pundits historically, and especially after Virginia Tech, is somehow less than Christian:

Michelle Malkin:

Is it too early to ask: “What if?” What if that bill had passed? What if just one student in one of those classrooms had been in lawful possession of a concealed weapon for the purpose of self-defense?

John Derbyshire:

As NRO’s designated chickenhawk, let me be the one to ask: Where was the spirit of self-defense here? Setting aside the ludicrous campus ban on licensed conceals, why didn’t anyone rush the guy? It’s not like this was Rambo, hosing the place down with automatic weapons. He had two handguns for goodness’ sake—one of them reportedly a .22.

Hot Air:

I still don’t understand how he managed to be so lethal while shooting randomly. 32 killed, 20+ wounded; how often does any sort of attack result in more dead than hurt? The cops did say that he lined some students up and executed them sequentially, but that’s strange too. He’s one guy, with (let’s assume) 10 guys in a line in front of him. After he shot the first two or three and the rest realized what was about to happen, wouldn’t they have rushed him?

Note the common thread: Blame the victims, because if they only had the good sense to pack heat, they might be alive.

So let’s re-cap: Legislate for abortion bans, for abstinence, against gun control.

Here’s what the Bible says:

⁵Blessed are the meek,
for they will inherit the earth.
⁶Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness,
for they will be filled.
⁷Blessed are the merciful,
for they will be shown mercy.
⁸Blessed are the pure in heart,
for they will see God.
⁹Blessed are the peacemakers,
for they will be called sons of God.
¹⁰Blessed are those who are persecuted because of righteousness,
for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.

Now, don’t get me wrong. No one except a saint truly lives that way, turning the other cheek. But for the Bible-thumping Right-wingers to put such faith in legislating for violence boggles the mind.

But then, I remember, the Iraq war is wholly owned by these guys. I guess the operative phrase is still:

it became necessary to destroy the town to save it

Bastards.

SteveAudio.blogspot.com

Surrounded by guards and barbed wire, I dreamed of returning to you

2007-04-06T21:46:34-04:00

(Image from Sailor at VidiotSpeak)

From the NYTimes we learn that the 101st Fighting Keyboarders have a British battalion:

Seized March 23 while conducting a routine operation in the disputed Shatt al-Arab waterway, just north of the Persian Gulf, the captives were repeatedly displayed on Iranian state television, sometimes looking relaxed and smiling. In several cases, they confessed to and apologized for having trespassed on Iranian territorial waters.

The images were jarring, verging on the bizarre. At one point they lined up for handshakes and chats with President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad. The latest videotape showed the detainees sipping cups of tea, accepting goody bags of gifts and answering questions from Iranian journalists about things like whether Iran reminded them of Wales. Several appeared to go out of their way to thank the Iranians for releasing them.

Wait for it, here comes the money shot:

In The Daily Mail, the columnist Steven (sic) Glover compared the captives with those from other conflicts. “I do not blame the hostages for their apparent willingness to confess and apologize,” he wrote. “But we had better be honest with ourselves. In no previous era — not during World War II or Korea or Suez or the Falklands — would British servicemen have behaved in such a manner.”

Righ, bro. I’m sure that if you were there, you would have kicked some Eyeranian ass, dude.

I found the Daily Mail piece, and here’s more from Glover:

Let me enter some caveats. Conceivably some or all of the captives were tortured, in which case their confessions would be entirely understandable, and they would be beyond any reproach even from the most censorious. I am quite certain I would not be able to withstand torture for more than about 15 seconds. Even if they were not mistreated, they must have been disorientated and possibly even traumatised, and were in some degree acting under duress.

Equally, in co-operating so fully with the Iranians, they may only have been acting under orders. The old rule that captured personnel should only reveal their name, rank and number appears to have been abandoned in favour of a more flexible approach designed not to aggravate particularly unpleasant captors. Those eager to cast stones should perhaps direct them towards military bosses rather than the unfortunate sailors and marines themselves.

Even so, I cannot conceal the feelings I had when the paraded hostages confessed and apologised so apparently readily. It was not shame so much as shock - shock, of course, that the Iranians should have dared to put our servicemen in such a position, but shock, too, that they should have complied so readily.

Since Glover is so tired after that gymnastics effort, let me explain:

They might have been tortured. Boy, I’m glad that didn’t happen to me, ’cause, you know, I would have wet myself. Or worse.

And maybe it’s not just “name, rank, and serial number” anymore, so we shouldn’t get pissy about it.

But eww, it was so icky seeing them paraded by the mean Iranians, and them acting like, well, wussies. They should have been tougher. Stiff upper lip and all.

Oh grow up. Try being sent as decoys into non protected waters, taken by folks you assume are going to kill you and eat your liver with some hummous and a nice Shiraz, and tell me how you would act. If you thought the best chance of survival, to come home to your wife, husband, kids, parents, would be to put on a Howdy Doody costume and sing the Notre Dame fight song in Farsi, you would have hopped on stage faster than Sanjaya after snorting an amyl nitrate in Simon Cowell’s dressing room.

Bastard.

SteveAudio.blogspot.com

Could it be I've fallen in love?

2007-04-01T14:08:05-04:00

I was always a little uncomfortable watching 3 Stooges films while I was growing up. Sure, they were funny, sort of, but I always wondered when Curly, after being endlessly poked, slapped, and abused by Moe, would just say “enough!”

That’s about how I feel reading the revelation that Matthew Dowd has ’lost faith with Bush’:

A top strategist for the Texas Democrats who was disappointed by the Bill Clinton years, Mr. Dowd was impressed by the pledge of Mr. Bush, then governor of Texas, to bring a spirit of cooperation to Washington. He switched parties, joined Mr. Bush’s political brain trust and dedicated the next six years to getting him to the Oval Office and keeping him there. In 2004, he was appointed the president’s chief campaign strategist.

Looking back, Mr. Dowd now says his faith in Mr. Bush was misplaced.

Ya think? How low does the bar have to be set, Matt?

That such a heartfelt apologia comes only after record breaking disapproval poll numbers for GWBush shows …well, certainly not courage. Maybe self-delusion, refusal to even examine reality? The kind of thinking I always wished Curly would show, if he were to stand up to Moe?

More about Dowd:

Mr. Dowd, a crucial part of a team that cast Senator John Kerry as a flip-flopper who could not be trusted with national security during wartime, said he had even written but never submitted an op-ed article titled “Kerry Was Right,” arguing that Mr. Kerry, a Massachusetts Democrat and 2004 presidential candidate, was correct in calling last year for a withdrawal from Iraq.

Yep. More courage. “…written but never submitted”. Why, Matt? Afraid to rock the boat, offend delicate sensibilities?

Jim Rutenberg, author of the piece, throws Dowd a life preserver with this bit of tortured rhetoric:

Mr. Dowd said he had become so disillusioned with the war that he had considered joining street demonstrations against it, but that his continued personal affection for the president had kept him from joining protests whose anti-Bush fervor is so central.

No, Jim, it’s the policies, not the man. The man has wound himslef up so tightly in his “true believer” image that it’s almost impossible to separate the two. But the so-called “anti-Bush fervor” is directed at the policies. For God’s sake, did you even bother to read any of the signs at the demonstrations, saying such anti-Bush things as “Stop The War”? Idiot.

“It’s almost like you fall in love,” he said. “I was frustrated about Washington, the inability for people to get stuff done and bridge divides. And this guy’s personality — he cared about education and taking a different stand on immigration.”

That’s just sad. Thanks for the mea culpa, Matt. Now get some therapy. And go away.

SteveAudio.blogspot.com

You may say that I'm a dreamer, but I'm not the only one

2007-03-24T16:07:00-04:00

Sometimes, even in the deepest, stinkiest dungheap, you find a flower growing. From Dean Barnett at Hugh Hewitt’s place:

I CAN’T TELL YOU HOW BAD I FEEL FOR ELIZABETH AND JOHN EDWARDS. I’m familiar with the body-blow of a sudden diagnosis that turns your world upside down. It’s incredible – you walk into a doctor’s office and within a span of minutes you find out your life will never be the same. In the back of your mind you nourish the hopes of miracle cures or that you might be like that guy in Dubuque who got the same diagnosis but oddly enough lived forever, but the reality of the situation sits there in your mind. You can’t shake it – it just won’t leave.

But you try to carry on. I think I may know some of what the Edwards are feeling. They’ve been running for the White House for seven years now. And make no mistake – as Hugh points out in his book, running for president is a family affair. It’s more than a dream and an ambition for them. It’s a big part of what defines their lives.

So they walked out of that doctor’s office refusing to let her disease take their lives away. Some people are calling their decision courageous; others find it puzzling. Having been in a situation analogous to theirs, I think I have some understanding and I know I have some sympathy. They’re working through all of this. Their first instinct is not to surrender. That’s good, and it’s what you would have expected. People who seek the presidency aren’t the types who give up or even compromise easily.

…
But as we approach that end, we finally realize that all along they were what mattered most. As a consequence, life often remains beautiful and worthwhile right up until the end. The past several years for me have been a journey to what’s at the center of my life. One of the things I found there that I didn’t expect to was writing. (You lucky people.)

The Edwards have begun their own journey of that sort. Whether they still find presidential politics at the center of their lives a few months from now is an open question. Regardless, the journey is theirs, and one would have a heart of stone to wish them anything other than good luck and Godspeed.

Of course, Dean described his own journey info Cystic Fibrosis (serious stuff, we lost a friend in ’93) thus:

Over time, as my condition worsened and got more serious, denial was no longer an option. Compromise became the order of the day. On the golf course, I used to carry my bag for 36 holes a day. First I began to take a caddy. Then a cart. Soon I was playing twice a week instead of twice a day.

Yep. There’s some sacrifice. Golf. Don;t get me started.

Digging into Dean’s comments, we see a few really nice ones:

* Well said. I wish her a speedy recovery. I know that this is a very serious diagnois. Perhaps it is bravado, but there is always hope.

* But life goes on. And yes you prioritize. My attitude about a lot of things has changed. I’m sure the same will happen to the Edwards’. Just not right away. My prayers are with them.

* The news about Elizabeth Edwards sounds grim, but we aren’t privy to the exact extent of the cancer or the prognosis of her doctors. She and her husband may have some grounds for optimism, or at least hope. Only they, with that information, are able to weigh the alternatives and risks so as to determine whether it’s worth continuing John’s Presidential race.

* In the best of cases, if there was a good chance of successful treatment and recovery, I can easily understand their decision to go on with the campaign. It’s equivalent to getting on with their lives, and not giving in to fear or despair. If they just quit, it’s another victory for the cancer.

And then, as I predicted yesterday, we have these:
Russell writes: Thursday, March, 22, 2007 6:15 PM Power It is amazing that Edwards would be willing to sacrifice the last years he may very well have with this wife to campaign for the Presidency.

How appalling it is to see a person want power that bad.

Its scarry that there are people out there who are that power-hungry.

God save us from them.
PokerGuy writes: Thursday, March, 22, 2007 6:57 PM Politics So, this required a full-blown press conference with cameras et al because…

It could not have been handled by a succinct statement focused on Edwards’ wife, her cancer, her condition, all legitimate cause for sympathy, because…

There could not have been a follow-on conference, after say 24 hours, involving Edwards alone and addressing his continuing political ambitions because…

Does it need to be any more obvious? Cancer is a huge emotional hook that touches a large part of the population. The medical news worked as intended by being conjoined with the political statement, thus powerfully creating the new triumvirate - candidate Edwards/wife/cancer. It’s a form of imprinting. Thinking off. Feelings on. Hook in. Continue. /end
Russell writes: Friday, March, 23, 2007 1:07 AM Too Harsh? Geez, I’m suprised that others don’t feel the same way I do.

If my wife had malignant cancer the last thing I would think about is “How can I STILL run for President.”

No my friends, this man has a taste of power and wants it more than life itself.

He, and people like him, are to be feared.
SJR writes: Friday, March, 23, 2007 2:54 PM Edwards is a fraud I hope his wife gets well. Those two statements can co-exist.

But here is the best, the denouement:

lilly writes: Friday, March, 23, 2007 8:57 AM Can’t Win I am old enough to remember the last twelve presidents and I can’t remember a nastier political climate than the one introduced by Karl Rove’s masterful manipulation of divisiveness. A candidate of the opposite party is now viciously attacked for personal attributes rather than ideology, for to destroy him or her by smear and ridicule is to kill any chance of that ideology coming to the fore. A week ago all we heard about John Edwards was that he was a pretty boy who combed his hair too much. Now that his wife’s cancer has recurred, we hear that he is heartless to stay in the campaign. But if he had announced yesterday that he was withdrawing, it would have taken about thirty seconds for the Ann Coulter-esque crowd to be saying, “Well, THAT was convenient timing—-Edwards knew he couldn’t win so he used this excuse to quit”. Yesterday I even read a townhall post “I wouldn’t put it past this slimy sleazebag to have made up the story about the cancer to get the women’s vote”. Meanwhile, of course, you folks are sure to remind us that you are all PRAYING for these people you have been doing all possible to destroy.
Indeed!

She's a devil in disguise

2007-03-03T16:35:15-05:00

In re: Ann Coulter, Andrew Sullivan, pictured above with Compassionate Conservative™ Mary Matalin, almost gets it right, once in a while:

Dreher lets her have it here:

Hard to imagine Russell Kirk (or Ronald Reagan, for that matter) standing before an important conservative gathering (or any gathering), and denouncing someone as a “faggot.” That tells you something about the state of the Right today.

Reynolds here. Ed Morrissey here:

Bottom line: Coulter’s remark was indefensible. She had the right to say it, but that doesn’t make her right for saying it, and she deserves every bit of criticism she’s getting.

This response seems to me to capture the underlying truth:

I tend to look at someone like Ann Coulter as a barometer of the country’s general political direction. When she could make wry observations about some of the unfortunate tendencies of liberals (and their fellow travelers) and sell a million books, you knew that the conservatives were in ascendancy. When she has to call candidates rude names to get some lukewarm attention, it would seem that the liberals are on the rise.

I hope that conservatives finally repudiate Coulter for reasons other than opportunism. The issue is not that she makes other conservatives look bad; it’s that she is cynical poison for any serious political movement. Conservatism should be about expanding opportunity for all, not restricting opportunity for the already-marginalized. That it has morphed from one to the other is a sign of something deeper than cosmetics and manners. It’s time to acknowledge and deal with that.

(image from ChickenhawkCards.com)

Now it’s time? Only now? Dude, where have you been? Coulter’s been the court jester for the right, the Republican Party, the Conservative Movement for years!

And now you’re outraged. But last year, when she said “raghead”, not so much? Is it her level of vile invective in general, or that she finally pissed you off when she said “faggot”?

“First they came for…” ah, hell, you know the rest.

Oh, and Dreher saying that it’s hard to imagine Reagan using derogatory language? Try this:

Reagan said that Hispanics are suited to using el cortado (the back-breaking short-handled hoe) because they are “built low and close to the ground.”

Not as vile, certainly, just stupid. But then there’s this:

“If there has to be a bloodbath, then let’s get it over with.”

Charming.

Andrew, it’s just sad that it’s taken you this long to realize exactly how foul the Right has become. But at least now you do.

Chicago Dyke says it better, of course, but I had to add my $.02.

SteveAudio.blogspot.com

Come on all a'you big strong men, Uncle Sam needs your help again

2007-01-30T04:43:29-05:00

My favorite Right Wing Nut lays a big one today. First comes the bait:

I was too young for the May Day protest against the Viet Nam War held in Washington, D.C. in 1971. My friends and I talked about going for weeks prior to the event, seeing ourselves as something as a cross between Che Guevara and Abbie Hoffman.

(April 1967 war protest rally)

… Those not alive at the time cannot fathom the depth of feeling engendered by the anti-war movement. It was magical, powerful, uplifting, and joyous. We thought we were changing the world. We thought we were ushering in a new era of democracy.

But now comes the switch:

What we didnâ€™t know was that the gimlet eyed radicals who were really in charge of the anti-war movement could have cared less about us, about the United States, or about the war for that matter. They wanted to use the anti-war movement to sweep the old guard from power and install like minded socialists in government.

… I know what I would do if I actually believed the United States was in danger of slipping into some kind of authoritarian, anti-Constitutional nightmare. And it wouldnâ€™t be sitting at this keyboard trying to come up with cleverest way to skewer my political opponent. And I know I wouldnâ€™t be alone either. The fact is, the left is not blessed with any special insights into what evil George is trying to do to the Constitution. They are a small, pitiful minority of paranoid, self aggrandizing mountebanks who are courageous when it comes to calling people names but abject cowards when it comes to actually standing up for their beliefs and putting iron behind their words of change.

What a load of crap. “I was against the war before I was for it”!

First, no one on the right is doing any street action at all. Maybe there are still a few Ã¼ber-patriotic misfits standing on a few corners waving “Support The Troops” signs. But nothing of any significance.

(CNN/AP image)

But because we don’t shout loud enough to satisfy your perverse sense of proportion, we are “unserious”. Because 75% of the electorate sides with us, we are “unserious”. Because everything your guy has done, supported by the entirety of the Republican Pity Party hasn’t worked, we are not worthy.

The logic fails, your ideals fail, you utterly fail in an attempt to paint us as weak:

As it stands now, youâ€™re all just a bunch of intellectual exhibitionists with as much commitment to ending the war and saving democracy as my pet cat Aramas.

And since you don’t believe ” the United States was in danger of slipping into some kind of authoritarian, anti-Constitutional nightmare”, you do just sit in front of your keyboard and write oh-so-serious crap like this.

You would hate and have no respect for the left no matter what we did, whether we blogged, or protested in numbers large enough to meet your flexible standards for importance.

And I know I wouldnâ€™t be alone either.

Dude, other than your brethern and cistern(intentional sic) in the Right Wing Wankosphere, you are pretty much alone.

Bastard. Poor, deluded bastard.

SteveAudio.blogspot.com