I got a call from one of my program managers this morning. The budget for the project I'd worked with her on didn't add up and she wondered what had happened. It turns out that one of the pages of the budget had either vaporized or I'd forgotten to click on "Save As..." and lost it. Note to self: always print out a hard copy before you go on to the next page.
Coincidentally, today is Primary Day here in Florida. Our contract allows us "reasonable" time to get to the polls to vote, so with the blessing of my boss, I left the office a half-hour early and made it to my new polling place within twenty minutes. And who should greet me there but my good friend The Old Professor who was handing out endorsement cards from
SAVE Dade Action PAC, the group that fought two years ago to keep the gay-rights provision in the county charter. Good thing he gave it to me; other than the Senate race, I had no clue who to vote for in the myriad county races in my precinct.
My new registration in hand, I was checked in easily - they actually had me on the voter roll! I used the touch-screen machine - I'd used one last spring in the March primary - and everything went smoothly. But other than the little sticky badge one of the pollworkers gave me, I have no proof other than my signature when I checked in. I still think they need to have some kind of hard copy print-out - just like I should have done with that budget. Budgets can always be re-created...but poll results? Why take the chance?
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Get the latest five-day projected path
here. It looks like it will make landfall around Vero Beach and be on top of Orlando on Sunday - their second hurricane hit in less than a month.
Meanwhile, I have food, water, a flashlight, batteries in the radio, and a lot of hope that Miami will dodge this one, too.
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It's
Primary Day here in Florida. The ballot is really packed with seven Republicans and four Democrats running for the Senate seat being vacated by Bob Graham. Mel Martinez, former HUD secretary in the current Bush administration, is in a tough battle with former US Rep. Bill McCollum, who was an impeachment manager against Clinton in 1999 and who lost in the last Senate election to Bill Nelson in 2000. It's gotten nasty.
The Martinez campaign had earlier circulated a flier accusing Mr. McCollum of pandering to the "radical homosexual lobby" by co-sponsoring a failed hate-crimes bill that would encompass crimes based on the victim's gender, sexual orientation or disability. It also coordinated an attack on Mr. McCollum by leaders of several conservative groups, who criticized him for his support of the hate-crimes bill and expanded stem cell research.
The St. Petersburg Times went so far on Monday as to rescind its endorsement of Mr. Martinez, accusing him of bigotry and of "hateful and dishonest attacks" on Mr. McCollum. "No matter what else Martinez may accomplish in public life," the newspaper wrote in an editorial, "his reputation will be forever tainted by his campaign's nasty and ludicrous slurs of McCollum in the final days of this race." [New York Times]
It seems somewhat dangerous to be running in a state as diverse as Florida as the more right-wing whackjob and expect to win in the general.
On the Democratic side, the front runners are Betty Castor, the former state education commissioner and university president, and US Rep. Peter Deutsch. Castor is the more moderate of the two - Deutsch is running ads showing him being endorsed by Michael Moore - and while the campaign hasn't gotten as mean as the Republican race, it's not without its fireworks; Deutsch accused Castor of coddling terrorists when she was running USF because she didn't immediately fire a professor who expressed sympathy for the Palestinians.
Anyway, if you're in Florida, be sure to vote - and make sure you do it correctly!
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From the
Sun-Sentinel:
Jerry Regier, head of Florida's problem-plagued Department of Children & Families, announced his resignation Monday, taking credit for "tremendous progress" but admitting he had not been able to move the agency out from under a persistent cloud of mismanaged contracts, morale woes and possible ethical violations.
Glad to see him gone. He's a right-wing nut-job with a medieval approach to family rearing and a taste for cronyism.
He has been prone to criticism from the start. He came on as a replacement for Kathleen Kearney, a former Broward County Judge who was Bush's first DCF secretary and another bitterly controversial figure in his administration.
Even before he accepted the job, Bush critics attacked Regier for having worked for the Christian conservative Family Research Council and for being associated with writings saying parents had a right to spank their children, even if it caused welts. Religious overtones occasionally surfaced in his administration, including his development of a program to have churches pray for social workers.
In the end, it wasn't Regier's social conservative views that ran him aground.
Instead, there has been a crescendo of complaints, including calls for Regier's resignation, since an audit last month by Bush's inspector general that concluded that Regier and two top aides took favors from contractors. The audit placed Regier in the center of scandal, and raised questions as to whether he has been too trusting of private-sector lobbyists and key advisers who've socialized with them.
Don't let the doorknob hit you on the ass on your way out.
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McCain, Guiliani, and Schwarzenegger - Profiles In Courage!
John McCain is definitely a man of courage. Not only did he make it through five years in a Vietnamese prison camp, he faced Dubya in a primary battle, which was as rough a go as the Hanoi Hilton. Guiliani, sure; he divorced his wife, took up with his mistress in public, and ended up rooming with a gay couple (word has it that NBC is filming a pilot episode of a sitcom update of
Three's Company based on this premise...), and still has the guts to ally himself with the party of hypocritical moral values and gay-bashing. But Schwarzenegger a hero? Huh? Because he didn't whimper during his last bikini wax?
Brooks leaves himself wide open with his final comment:
The coming weeks will be so tough because the essential contest - of which the Swift boat stuff was only a start - will be over who really has courage, who really has resolve, and who is just a fraud with a manly bearing.
For the record, David, John Kerry did
not stride across the deck of the USS Lincoln with a sock in his jock and declare "Mission Accomplished!" John Kerry did
not say "Osama bin Laden dead or alive" and six months later say "Never mind..." John Kerry did
not tell the Iraqi insurgents to "Bring 'em on!" and paint a target on the back of every American soldier. And John Kerry did
not get his cronies in Massachusetts to come up with a planeload of Texas Air National Guardsmen to say that George W. Bush did not earn the fillings in his teeth. So, David, don't get cute about a "fraud with manly bearing" unless you're willing to put your man to the same test.
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archy has an incisive and articulate
warning about Karl Rove and his tactics. Read it. And when you're done, go back and read the profile of Rove in
The New Yorker from May 2003. I know I've linked it before, but if you haven't read it, you should.
Let no one be lulled into a false sense of security that once one attack from the Bush side is quashed there won't be others.
Sharpen the stakes, people. We need to defeat the beast before it strikes again.
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From the
Sun-Sentinel. The link will take you directly to the current five-day projected path of Hurricane Frances. I've gotten complaints that the pictures take up too much space or take long to load on some computers.
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Leonard Pitts in the
Miami Herald today:
What would it take to get you to stand up for me?
Let's say I'm routinely discriminated against and in some cases outright despised. Let's say I'm often used as a scapegoat and there's an ongoing debate over what rights I do and do not deserve.
Under what circumstances would you be willing to break with the pack and speak a word on my behalf?
Would it be enough that you simply saw a wrong being done? Or would you need to have some emotional investment in me before you spoke up? Would we, for instance, have to be kin?
The question is occasioned by something Dick Cheney told an audience in Davenport, Iowa, last week. Namely that, as far as he is concerned, the issue of gay marriage should be left to the individual states. "With respect to the question of relationships," he said, "my general view is that freedom means freedom for everyone. People . . . ought to be free to enter into any kind of relationship they want to."
A DIFFERENT VIEW
The veep's view, which he also stated during the 2000 campaign, puts him sharply at odds with his fellow conservatives, chief among them his boss. President Bush has thrown his support to a constitutional amendment banning same-sex marriage.
Cheney, the good soldier, refrained from criticizing Bush for that. "The president," he says, "makes policy for the administration."
Still, it's an awkward position Cheney finds himself in, championing a view that is anathema in his political circles. If the folks in Iowa wondered about his reason for doing so, well . . . she was sitting in the audience. Her name is Mary, she is the daughter of Dick and Lynne Cheney, and she is a lesbian.
As Cheney put it, "Lynne and I have a gay daughter, so it's an issue that our family is very familiar with." In other words, he sees the matter differently than he otherwise might, because he has a personal stake.
[...]
One imagines that it changes everything, forces a moment of truth that mere reasoning never could. And maybe you find yourself doing what Dick Cheney does, championing a cause people like you just don't champion. Doing the right thing for . . . imperfect reasons.
"Freedom means freedom for everyone," said Cheney. Which is a sentiment I wholeheartedly endorse. But if every conservative home is going to have to have a lesbian daughter before we can accept it, then freedom will be waiting a very long time.
He says it a lot better than I
did.
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Josh Marshall at
Talking Points Memo is all over the story about former Texas Lieutenant Governor Ben Barnes and his role in securing a spot in the Texas Air National Guard for George W. Bush back in the late 1960's. Here's the
link to the video itself where Mr. Barnes talks about what he did, and Josh also supplies the transcript
here. Josh also follows up with the inevitable backlash from the Bush campaign and their Nazguls as in
Robert Novak. Notice that no one, however, at Bush/Cheney, is
denying Barnes' story with any factual evidence to support their side.
This little video has been around for a while - a pro-Kerry site in Texas got it and ran with it in June. But in light of the SBVT campaign, it has suddenly come forward. Ah, the power of the 'net.
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In the old days, families with children or relatives who were perceived as being "teched" - as in nuts - were kept out of sight from visitors; usually relegated to a room in the attic. Apparently that's what the GOP is doing with one of their most volatile members.
NEW YORK (AP) -- Republicans are putting forward a softer, more moderate face at their convention this week. That's no place for Tom DeLay, the combustible, conservative House majority leader. DeLay is decidedly off-stage here, but not invisible.
[...]
The 57-year-old Texan is viewed by some as the real power driving the chamber's Republicans, despite his status as No. 2. He and House Speaker Dennis Hastert, R-Ill., DeLay's one-time protege, deny that claim.
Irrefutably, the hard-charging DeLay plays a far more public role than the low-key Hastert. He often laces debates and news conferences with tart rhetoric aimed at skewering Democrats, and while he reaches out to all of his chamber's Republicans, he is closest to the conservative wing, for whom he often serves as a spokesman.
His role this week is a sharp contrast to four years ago when DeLay, then his party's whip in the House, lined up train cars donated by Union Pacific outside Philadelphia's Fleet Center to host breakfasts, dinners and schmooze time for donors, lobbyists and GOP officeholders.
This year, DeLay is not hosting any major parties or fund-raisers and there won't be any train car for donors. They'll still have access, however, at a number of events he'll be attending surrounding the convention.
It's too bad - I really think that the GOP is doing DeLay and the conservatives a huge disservice by keeping him under wraps. After all, he is the true voice of the party. Just ask him; he'll tell you that.
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This is becoming a regular feature out of my desire to inform my readers of articles that might not come to their attention. It's also a way for me to put together a nice little post and then get back to the New York Times crossword puzzle. In ink.
Dahlia Lithwick writes about something I wrote about back in June: the biggest impact of this election hinges on three little words: The Supreme Court. (Try to keep up, Dahlia.)Bush whistle-stopped along I-75 in Ohio and ended the day in my old hometown of Perrysburg. He held a rally at Fort Meigs, a fort that was built during the War of 1812. (Hey, NTodd, remember going there on field trips?) Ohio is still a dead heat.My friend Bob noted that Bush's stump speech on the economy is still using the "turning the corner" meme, and that Bush is saying, "I know things are still a little behind in [insert state or town name here], but things are picking up in other places." Well, let's just see how many places he uses that line, keeping in mind that the GDP is still sickly and 1.3 million more people are in poverty. Pretty soon Bush is going to run out of "other places."
And we're still keeping an eye on
Frances. A week from now, hopefully we will have dodged another bullet. I'll keep you posted. Meanwhile, the only thing we can do is wait and see. But it didn't keep me from joining some friends for a nice Sunday morning car club cruise this morning out to Key Biscayne.
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From the Washington
Post:
The FBI is investigating a mid-level Pentagon official who specializes in Iranian affairs for allegedly passing classified information to Israel, and arrests in the case could come as early as next week, officials at the Pentagon and other government agencies said last night.
The name of the person under investigation was not officially released, but two sources identified him as Larry Franklin. He was described as a desk officer in the Pentagon's Near East and South Asia Bureau, one of six regional policy sections. Franklin worked at the Defense Intelligence Agency before moving to the Pentagon's policy branch three years ago and is nearing retirement, the officials said. Franklin could not be located for comment last night.
One government official familiar with the investigation said it is not yet clear whether the case will rise to the level of espionage or end up involving lesser charges such as improper disclosure or mishandling of classified information.
According to other news reports (which refuse to mention Franklin's name), this man works under Paul Wolfowitz and Doug Feith, the architects of Bush's foreign policy.
Correct me if I'm wrong, but if this had occurred during a Democratic administration, there would be congressional hearings and conservative pundits screaming from the top of the Washington Monument for the head of the Secretary of Defense to be delivered on a stake. But it's Rummy, so....
Let's not jump to any conclusions about Mr. Franklin or what he did or didn't do; which is a benefit of the doubt you're not likely to hear from the conservative side. And there's going to be attempts at espionage regardless of who's in the White House. But given the track record of this Pentagon, you have to wonder what does it take before someone who really matters gets their ass handed to them.
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Bush came to
Miami yesterday. I found out about this when traffic got all botched up on the drive home.
In typical style, Bush offered no explanation behind his latest political act that was designed to show he has balls when it comes to dealing with Castro - in June the administration sharply tightened the rules for Cubans living in America to visit or send money back to Cuba. This has actually blown up in his face; many Cubans who once supported Bush are now extremely honked off - the restrictions do nothing to Castro and it isolates family members who can't even go back on an emergency basis, such as to be there when a parent or child is dying. Instead, Bush attacked John Kerry for not backing the final version of the 1995 Helms-Burton law that restricted trade with Cuba - a law that is so haphazardly written that it has never been fully enforced.
Polls show that while
los viejos on Calle Ocho will back Bush to the tune of 80%, it's the only Hispanic voting bloc he can count on. You gotta know you have a problem when a Republican has to campaign for votes in Little Havana, the Bob Jones University of Cuban exile true believers. As it was, he was barely able to fill half of the cavernous Miami Arena. Apparently his campaign didn't know that they would be competing with the MTV Video Music Awards at the American Airlines Arena down the street.
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Here's Michael Moore's latest e-mail:
August 26, 2004
It Takes Real Courage to Desert Your Post and Then Attack a Wounded Vet
Dear Mr. Bush,
I know you and I have had our differences in the past, and I realize I am the one who started this whole mess about "who did what" during Vietnam when I brought up that "deserter" nonsense back in January. But I have to hand it to you on what you have uncovered about John Kerry and his record in Vietnam. Kerry has tried to pass himself off as a war hero, but thanks to you and your friends, we now know the truth.
First of all, thank you for pointing out to all of us that Mr. Kerry was never struck by a BULLET. It was only SHRAPNEL that entered his body! I did not know that! Hell, what's the big deal about a bunch of large, sharp, metal shards ripping open your flesh? That happens to all of us! In my opinion, if you want a purple heart, you'd better be hit with a bullet -- with your name on it!
Secondly, thank you for sending Bob Dole out there and letting us know that Mr. Kerry, though wounded three times, actually "never spilled blood." When you are in the debates with Kerry, turn to him and say, "Dammit, Mr. Kerry, next time you want a purple heart, you better spill some American red blood! And I don't mean a few specks like those on O.J.'s socks -- we want to see a good pint or two of blood for each medal. In fact, I would have preferred that you had bled profusely, a big geyser of blood spewing out of your neck or something!" Then throw this one at him: "Senator Kerry, over 58,000 brave Americans gave their lives in Vietnam -- but YOU didn't. You only got WOUNDED! What do you have to say for yourself???" Lay that one on him and he won't know what to do.
And thanks, also, Mr. Bush, for exposing the fact that Mr. Kerry might have actually WOUNDED HIMSELF in order to get those shiny medals. Of course he did! How could the Viet Cong have hit him -- he was on a SWIFT boat! He was going too fast to be hit by enemy fire. He tried to blow himself up three different times just so he could go home and run for president someday. It's all so easy to see, now, what he was up to.
What would we do without you, Mr. Bush? Criticize you as we might, when it comes to pointing out other men's military records, there is no one who can touch your prowess. In 2000, you let out the rumor that your opponent John McCain might be "nuts" from the 5 years he spent in a POW camp. Then, in the 2002 elections, your team compared triple-amputee Sen. Max Cleland to Osama bin Laden, and that cost him the election. And now you are having the same impact on war hero John Kerry. Since you (oops, I mean "The Swift Boat Veterans for Truth!") started running those ads, Kerry's polls numbers have dropped (with veterans, he has lost 18 points in the last few weeks).
Some people have said "Who are you, Mr. Bush, to attack these brave men considering you yourself have never seen combat -- in fact, you actively sought to avoid it." What your critics fail to understand is that even though your dad got you into a unit that would never be sent to Vietnam -- and even though you didn't show up for Guard duty for at least a year -- at least you were still IN FAVOR of the Vietnam War! Cowards like Clinton felt it was more important to be consistent (he opposed the war, thus he refused to go) than to be patriotic and two-faced.
The reason that I think you know so much about other men's war wounds is because, during your time you in the Texas Air National Guard, you suffered so many of them yourself. Consider the paper cut you received on September 22, 1972, while stationed in Alabama, working on a Senate campaign for your dad's friend (when you were supposed to be on the Guard base). A campaign brochure appeared from nowhere, ambushing your right index finger, and blood trickled out onto your brand new argyle sweater.
Then there was the incident with the Crazy Glue when your fraternity brothers visited you one weekend at the base and glued your lips together while you were "passed out." Though initially considered "friendly fire," it was later ruled that you suffered severe post traumatic stress disorder from the assault and required certain medicinal attention -- which, it seems, was provided by those same fraternity brethren.
But nothing matched your heroism when, on July 2, 1969, you sustained a massive head injury when enemy combatants from another Guard unit dropped a keg of Coors on your head during a reconnaissance mission at a nearby all-girls college. Fortunately, the cool, smooth fluids that poured out of the keg were exactly what was needed to revive you.
That you never got a purple heart for any of these incidents is a shame. I can fully appreciate your anger at Senator Kerry for the three he received. I mean, Kerry was a man of privilege, he could have gotten out just like you. Instead, he thinks he's going to gain points with the American people bragging about how he was getting shot at every day in the Mekong Delta. Ha! Is that the best he can do? Hell, I hear gunfire every night outside my apartment window! If he thinks he is going to impress anyone with the fact that he volunteered to go when he could have spent the Vietnam years on the family yacht, he should think again. That only shows how stupid he was! True-blue Americans want a president who knows how to pull strings and work the system and get away with doing as little work as possible!
So, to make it up to you, I have written some new ads you can use on TV. People will soon tire of the swift boat veterans and you are going to need some fresh, punchier material. Feel free to use any of these:
ANNOUNCER: "When the bullets were flying all around him in Vietnam, what did John Kerry do? He said he leaned over the boat and 'pulled a man out of the river.' But, as we all know, men don't live in the river -- fish do. John Kerry knows how to tell a big fish tale. What he won't tell you is that when the enemy was shooting at him, he ducked. Do you want a president who will duck? Vote Bush."
ANNOUNCER: "Mr. Kerry's biggest supporter, Sen. Max Cleland, claims to have lost two legs and an arm in Vietnam. But he still has one arm! How did that happen? One word: Cowardice. When duty called, he was unwilling to give his last limb. Is that the type of selfishness you want hanging out in the White House? We think not. Vote for the man who would be willing to give America his right frontal lobe. Vote Bush."
Hope these help, Mr. Bush. And remember, when the American death toll in Iraq hits 1,000 during the Republican convention, be sure to question whether those who died really did indeed "die" -- or were they just trying to get their face on CNN's nightly tribute to fallen heroes? The sixteen who've died so far this week were probably working hand in hand with the Kerry campaign to ruin your good time in New York. Stay consistent, sir, and always, ALWAYS question the veracity of anyone who risks their life for this country. It's the least they deserve.
Yours,
Michael Moore
mmflint@aol.com
www.michaelmoore.com
PS. George, I know you said you don't read the newspaper, but USA Today has given me credentials to the Republican convention to write a guest column each day next week (Tues.-Fri.). If you don't want to read it, you and I will be in the same building so maybe I could come by and read it to you? Lemme know...
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From
CNN:
Doctors grow new jaw in man's back
LONDON, England (AP) -- A German who had his lower jaw cut out because of cancer has enjoyed his first meal in nine years -- a bratwurst sandwich -- after surgeons grew a new jaw bone in his back muscle and transplanted it to his mouth in what experts call an "ambitious" experiment.
Gives a whole new meaning to the term "backbiter." [Rimshot]
Sorry, couldn't resist that one.
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These guys are industrious, I'll give them that.
Aug. 27, 2004 | SARAJEVO, Bosnia-Herzegovina (AP) -- In what could qualify for Ripley's Believe It or Not, seven thieves stole an entire 13-yard bridge near the southern Bosnian town of Mostar, police said Friday.
Over several days, the group dismantled the metal bridge built during the Austro-Hungarian empire 150 years ago, transported the parts to a local junk yard and sold them, a police statement said.
While it all happened in a remote mountainous region, local villagers saw the thieves loading parts of the bridge into vans and alerted police last Friday. The seven men were arrested and are being held pending a decision by a prosecutor.
Without disclosing their names, police said the Gypsies, or Roma, sold the metal parts for $170.
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From
CNN/SI:
ATHENS, Greece (AP) -- Gymnastics officials asked Paul Hamm to give up his gold medal as the ultimate show of sportsmanship, but the U.S. Olympic Committee told them to take responsibility for their own mistakes.
Paul Hamm
In a dispute over scores that has turned into a political squabble, the head of the International Gymnastics Federation suggested in a letter to Hamm that giving the all-around gold medal to South Korea's Yang Tae-young "would be recognized as the ultimate demonstration of fair play by the whole world."
FIG president Bruno Grandi tried to send the letter Thursday night to Hamm through the USOC, but the USOC refused to deliver it.
In a letter back to Grandi, USOC secretary general Jim Scherr called the request "a blatant and inappropriate attempt on the part of (FIG) to once again shift responsibility for its own mistakes and instead pressure Mr. Hamm into resolving what has become an embarrassing situation for your federation."
What a steaming pile.
They make the mistake and they want Paul Hamm to give up his medal? What the hell kind of logic is that? And after the debacle with the Russian gymnast the other night, FIG is in no position to demand anything from anybody. Their judges have proven themselves incompetent beyond question; they're the ones with the problem.
Rumor has it the suspended judges are being interviewed to oversee the Florida election this fall.
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First, note the addition of a little feature at the bottom of this and other entries; the little envelope with the arrow means you can click on that and e-mail the posting. Nice if you want to share - just be sure to tell them where you got them.
Okay, it's Friday and time to look around; this time keeping it local - for the most part. Florida weather being what it is, we are in the middle of our rainy season, which runs from May through October. It also is the hurricane season - as our fellow Florida bloggers can testify two weeks ago when Charley came through. It's our version of cabin fever - we can't get out and do the things we'd like to do becuase of the weather. Not that you have to shovel the heat... Anyway, let's look at what the locals are doing.
Tuesday, August 31 is primary election day; we'll be choosing candidates to run for Bob Graham's senate seat, plus hundreds of other offices, including congress (three Democrats are vying to run against Ileana Ros-Lehtinen in my district) and the school board. Elsewhere:
BlogWood has a listing of the candidates running in the St. Petersburg neck of the woods.Florida Politics has the run-down (literally and figuratively) in the Republican primary for the Senate. It's pitching Bill McCollum - you remember him as one of the impeachment managers...the bespectacled helmet-haired harpy - against Mel Martinez, the Bush cabinet member (he was so inconsequential that I can't remember what he was Secretary of. Perhaps the Department of Token Latinos?) and it's getting nasty. On the Democratic side, Betty Castor, the former state education commissioner and university president, is leading in her race against Rep. Peter Deutsch and former Miami mayor Alex Penelas. Castor has a wide lead (45% to 31%) against Deutsch, and Penelas is way behind with 9%.Sticks of Fire has the run-down on all the races in the Tampa area. Excellent job, Tommy; if there's a blog in the South Florida area that does as good a job of covering the local politics, I'd like to see it (don't expect me to do it - I haven't been back here long enough to know the right people).South of the Suwannee takes a whack at Jeb and the legislature for trying to circumvent the state constitution.Ocean Guy is raising the banner for Bush along A1A.Michael at Discourse.net is worried - as we all are - about the sketchy voting system here and seems to know who the culprit is.
But politics isn't the only thing going on down here.
There are still some people recovering from Hurricane Charley, such as spacecoastweb: blog, who made it through but lost his computer's hard drive in the process, but still manages to keep going.News From the Sixth Borough is calling for a one-day Boycott for Equality on October 8 to show America what would happen if all the gays and lesbians didn't show up for work.Kop ponders about having a celebrity (Oprah) sit on a jury.Blunted on Reality has a lot of e-mail to read.Abstract Appeal looks at Florida's parental notification law and the route it's taking for resolution.Poor Richard's Anorak goes to the movies. (And thanks for the plug!)
Of course there is a lot more to read out there, including the usual suspects at
TLC. Have a great Friday.
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From
Newsweek/MSNBC (no, really):
Aug. 26 - A previously undisclosed Navy record obtained by NEWSWEEK supports John Kerry’s claim that he was under fire when he rescued a U.S. Green Beret who had pitched overboard from Kerry’s 50-foot Swift Boat during a short but intense engagement in Vietnam's Mekong Delta in March 1969.
Kerry was awarded a Bronze Star for his actions that day. But the organization Swift Boat Veterans for Truth, a tax-exempt "527" advocacy group, has challenged Kerry’s Vietnam record—in particular that Kerry was under hostile fire when he pulled the Green Beret, Jim Rassmann, from the water.
Kerry’s was one of three Bronze Stars awarded for actions during this incident. Another went to the commander of a second Swift Boat, Larry Thurlow. Thurlow is now one of the core members of Swift Boat Veterans for Truth. He has sworn an affidavit saying the Swift Boats were not under hostile fire during the rescue. Thurlow’s own Bronze Star citation contradicts this, but Thurlow insists the citation is false and has suggested that Kerry wrote it.
The third Bronze Star was won by one of Thurlow’s own launch crew, Robert Eugene Lambert, who was radarman and the senior noncom on Thurlow’s boat. NEWSWEEK obtained a copy of the citation for Lambert’s Bronze Star from the National Personnel Records Center in St Louis under a Freedom of Information Act filing. This citation, like the others, says that following a mine explosion that wrecked one of the Swift Boats, the flotilla of five boats “came under small-arms and automatic weapons fire from the river banks.” Lambert won his Bronze Star for an action precisely paralleling Kerry’s: Lambert picked someone out of the river. In Lambert’s case, that someone was his skipper, Thurlow.
Thurlow had steered his Swift Boat to the aid of its companion damaged by the mine, personally leaping into the foundering craft to aid its badly wounded crew while Lambert “directed accurate suppressing fire at the enemy,” according to the citation. In the swirling confusion, Thurlow was then knocked overboard from the wrecked launch. Lambert “from an exposed position and with complete disregard for his personal safety” pulled Thurlow back on to his Swift Boat, the citation says. It concludes by commending Lambert’s “coolness, professionalism and courage under fire.”
Lambert’s surviving military records do not include the initial recommendation for this medal, so there is no way to know who filled the required role of witness to vouch for Lambert’s actions. But the citation contains such detail about the actions of both Thurlow and Lambert—actions that Kerry cannot have known since his launch was on the far side of the river—that it seems implausible Kerry could have written the recommendation. [Emphasis added.]
Lambert’s military record shows he retired from the U.S. Navy in 1978. Efforts to trace him have been unsuccessful. A spokesman for Swift Boat Veterans for Truth said Wednesday that Thurlow was traveling and out of contact.
Chickens, here's your roost.
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From the
Miami Herald:
A conservative Christian organization has asked candidates for Miami-Dade mayor and other local positions to sign a pledge to oppose gay marriage and domestic partnerships "with my votes, powers and privileges of public office," reopening a debate that has long polarized South Florida and national politics.
One who signed the Miami-Dade Christian Family Coalition's pledge was retired Judge Leslie Rothenberg, a candidate for the GOP nomination for state attorney. Legal experts said she could face ethical questions for signing -- a contention that she disputes.
One mayoral candidate, former Commissioner Miguel Diaz de la Portilla, signed the full pledge, and another, former Miami Mayor Maurice Ferré, signed but crossed out parts of it.
Both Broward County and the city of Miami Beach offer a domestic partnership registry, but Miami-Dade does not officially recognize gay couples.
The marriage pledge calls domestic partnerships and civil unions "marriage counterfeits" that undermine traditional marriage. It says marriage between a man and a woman is the strongest foundation for a child.
Diaz de la Portilla said he signed because "I believe a marriage is between a man and a woman."
Ferré said he struck out clauses that would have required him to oppose domestic partnership benefits and civil unions.
Of the other mayoral candidates:
• Former Police Director Carlos Alvarez said he doesn't recall being asked to sign the pledge. He said he opposes gay marriage, but said he does not know enough about domestic partnerships to take a position.
• Businessman Jose Cancela said he did not sign. "I didn't even read the thing that they gave me to be honest with you," he said. "I'm not going to opine on issues that divide this community even more."
Cancela said he supports domestic-partner benefits.
• Restaurateur Jay Love supports partnerships but opposes gay adoption. He refused to sign the pledge: "It was just too far to the right."
• Commissioner Jimmy Morales said he hadn't seen the pledge, but would not have signed. He is the only mayoral candidate who took a public vote to add gays and lesbians to the county's human rights ordinance. He has been endorsed by the gay-rights organization SAVE Dade, which calls the current pledge discriminatory.
Miami-Dade has been having this on-again/off-again battle over gay rights since 1977 when Anita Bryant made such a stink (and lost her endorsement gig with the Florida Citrus Growers in the process) about equal rights for all. And just two years ago the Religious Reich tried to have the equal protection clause taken out of the charter - it went down in flames (pun intended). Now it's back with this blood oath, and it looks like Jimmy Morales is the only one with
cojones to tell them to take a flying fuck. (Jose Cancela clucked out with the mystifying "I'm not going to opine...." What the hell does that mean?)
What really pisses me off is that Miami-Dade has far more serious problems than worrying about same-sex marriage. Let's get our priorities figured out here, people.
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Dana Milbank of the
Washington Post does some comparisons on what John Kerry said and what Bush or Cheney
says he said. For example:
"I will fight this war on terror with the lessons I learned in war. I defended this country as a young man, and I will defend it as president of the United States. I believe I can fight a more effective, more thoughtful, more strategic, more proactive, more sensitive war on terror that reaches out to other nations and brings them to our side and lives up to American values in history. I lay out a strategy to strengthen our military, to build and lead strong alliances and reform our intelligence system. I set out a path to win the peace in Iraq and to get the terrorists wherever they may be before they get us." -- Kerry, Aug. 5
"Senator Kerry has also said that if he were in charge he would fight a 'more sensitive' war on terror. America has been in too many wars for any of our wishes, but not a one of them was won by being sensitive. . . . Those who threaten us and kill innocents around the world do not need to be treated more sensitively. They need to be destroyed." -- Cheney, Aug. 12
Okay, I know we're in the heat of a campaign, but you would expect that the people who are nominally in charge of running the country could at least be counted on to actually read and comprehend just what the other person said before they make hash of it. It's one thing to disagree about a person's point of view and their political philosophy, but to completely mangle the shit out of it and then cite it as what they said is another thing entirely. (It reminds me of the old pol in Texas who would use fancy words to confuse his audience: "My opponent's family are all avowed
homo sapiens," or "I saw that man commit a piscatory act down at the pond," - the guy was fishing.) Read the rest - it gets worse. And while you're at it, catch the update at the end of the article about the new charter airline being hired to fly the press corps to Bush campaign events. They have a safety record on a par with Kamikaze Airlines. Talk about killing the messenger...
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It's a basic rule of business that the boss is ultimately responsible for the performance of his employees, and the boss must accept both the credit and the blame for their performance. I assume it's that way in the military; having never served, I have no first-hand knowledge, but I find it hard to believe that with such a powerful system of rank and position, any commander would not be expected to accept responsibility for the people under his command, and that goes all the way up to the top. JFK knew it and took the rap for the Bay of Pigs, even though it was a plot conceived under the Eisenhower Administration, as did Jimmy Carter for the ill-fated hostage rescue attempt in Iran in 1980.
That is why I agree with those who say that the culture of abuse that took place in in Iraq and in Afghanistan was not limited to just a "few bad apples" having a frat party and that the punishment should go up the chain of command and follow whatever branches it leads to, be it in the Pentagon or in the
intelligence community.
Of course, given the history of American military justice, I doubt anything will happen. After all, the My Lai massacre in Vietnam was pinned on one lieutenant. But we don't want to open old wounds again, do we?
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Gotta love this headline:
Swift Boat Writer Lied on Cambodia Claim
By ELIZABETH WOLFE, Associated Press Writer
WASHINGTON - The chief critic of John Kerry's military record told President Nixon in 1971 that he had been in Cambodia in a swift boat during the Vietnam War — a claim at odds with his recent statements that he was not.
"I was in Cambodia, sir. I worked along the border," said John E. O'Neill in a conversation that was taped by the former president's secret recording system. The tape is stored at the National Archives in College Park, Md.
In an interview with The Associated Press on Wednesday, O'Neill did not dispute what he said to Nixon, but insisted he was never actually in Cambodia.
"I think I made it very clear that I was on the border, which is exactly where I was for three months. I was about 100 yards from Cambodia," O'Neill said in clarifying the June 16, 1971, conversation with Nixon.
Chad Clanton, a spokesman for the Democratic presidential candidate, said the tape "is just the latest in a long line of lies and false statements from a group trying to smear John Kerry's military service. Again, they're being proven liars with their own words. It's time for President Bush to stand up and specifically condemn this smear."
O'Neill served in Vietnam from 1969-70 and says in a recent book that he took command of Kerry's swift boat after the future Massachusetts senator returned home from the war.
O'Neill has emerged as a leading figure in the attacks on Kerry's war record. He is co-author of "Unfit for Command," which accuses Kerry of lying about his record, and is a member of Swift Boat Veterans for Truth, which has aired two television commercials harshly critical of Kerry.
In the book, O'Neill wrote that Kerry's accounts of having been in Cambodia on Christmas Eve of 1968 "are complete lies."
"... Kerry was never ordered into Cambodia by anyone and would have been court-martialed had he gone there," he wrote. O'Neill wrote that the Navy positioned its own craft along the border area to make sure no American vessels strayed across the border from Vietnam.
In an interview Sunday on ABC's "This Week" O'Neill said: "Our boats didn't go north of, only slightly north of Sedek," which he said was about 50 miles from the Cambodian border.
Kerry's campaign has acknowledged that he may not have been in Cambodia on Christmas Eve of 1968, as he has previously stated. The campaign says Kerry does recall being on patrol along the Cambodia-Vietnam border on that date, although it's unclear if he crossed into Cambodia.
There's something Shakespearean about how Richard Nixon's ghost and his paranoia-generated taping system may bring down the SBVT and their campaign of lies, bullshit, and balderdash. Irony, sweet irony with a tinge of justice.
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From the
Sun-Sentinel:
Cuban woman ships herself to Miami in crate
A woman was found inside a wooden box at the DHL cargo terminal at Miami International Airport on Tuesday night, officials said.
DHL employees said this occurred shortly after 10 p.m. A photograph taken by one of the employees of the box showed it to look like a large wooden crate, according to news partner NBC6.
The workers did not know who discovered the unidentified woman but said she appeared to be in good condition.
Employees said the box had been on a flight that originated in Cuba and flew to Nassau.The plane flew to Miami from the Bahamas.
U.S. immigration officials said late Tuesday they were not aware of the situation.
Business class must have been sold out.
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If you thought that Bush was being craven and cruel to Cuban exiles by cutting back on allowable visits by family members to Cuba, take a look at what a Florida state representative is proposing.
A Miami Republican who prodded President Bush to get tougher on Fidel Castro is one-upping the president: He's proposing to strip food stamps and health insurance from those who travel to the island.
Dubbed the "Travel and Commerce with Terrorist Nations Act," a bill proposed by State Rep. David Rivera, R-Miami, would punish those who travel -- even legally -- to Cuba by cutting off access to Medicaid, food stamps and housing assistance for a year.
Rivera said the legislation is aimed at stopping recent arrivals who come to the United States, apply for benefits and then travel back to visit Cuba.
Though such travel is legal, Rivera argues that the money spent on the island only helps prop up Cuban leader Castro.
"It's an issue of gratitude," Rivera said at a news conference Tuesday. "People are sick and tired of people living here, taking advantage of taxpayer generosity and then providing financial support to the Castro regime by traveling back to the island."
Under the bill, anyone who has lived in Florida for less than five years and travels to any country the U.S. Department of State lists as a sponsor of terrorism would be ineligible for state services for at least a year.
Besides Cuba, the countries include Iran, Iraq, Libya, North Korea, Syria and Sudan. Because direct charter flights from Florida to any of the other nations are essentially nonexistent, the bill ultimately applies only to Cuba.
[...]
The proposal illustrates the complicated landscape Bush faces as he tries to bolster his standing among the voting bloc of Cuban Americans who are key to his re-election effort.
Polls suggest that new restrictions that limit travel and cash remittances to families have been embraced by hard-line exiles, who had urged Bush to take a stronger stance against Castro or risk losing Cuban-American support at the polls in November.
Rivera was among a dozen legislators who wrote to Bush last summer, warning him that Cuban Americans would be less than enthusiastic about his re-election if he didn't tighten sanctions on Castro. The new restrictions went into effect in late June.
But many younger Cuban Americans have decried the restrictions as too harsh, and Democrats have sought to court those voters, calling the restrictions harmful to families.
Several groups have vowed to launch voter registration drives to register younger Cuban Americans. [Miami Herald]
Thank you, Rep. Rivera, for all the new Cuban-American Democratic voters.
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Vice President Dick Cheney shocked the family-values storm troopers of the Republican party yesterday by saying - apparently for the first time in public - that he had a gay child and that he believed "that 'freedom means freedom for everyone' to enter 'into any kind of relationship they want to.'" [
New York Times]
This is basically what he said four years ago when he debated Joe Lieberman during the 2000 campaign. The conservatives are all twitterpated because this flies in the face of the constitutional amendment pushed by Bush.
Say what you will about Cheney - and there's plenty to say - you have to give him at least some credit for saying that gay marriage is ultimately not a matter for the government to be meddling in and the idea of a law that would be literally carved in stone is unappealing. I am willing to bet that the most vocal advocates of the Federal Marriage Amendment either have no openly gay siblings or children, or they are in deep denial for their own tormented personal reasons if they do. But any parent who has a gay child - or a straight one - can only truly want one thing for that child: to be happy and to be able to live their life with all the freedoms and responsibilities that this life offers. We may snicker at the "family values" crowd, but that's because they have proved themselves time and again to be hypocrites, not because we disparage their goals. And while Vice President Cheney has proved himself to be a dark and shadowy figure in matters of governing and policy, I will give him his due as a father who stands by his child even at the risk of the wrath of Phyllis Schlafly (speaking of poor role models for mothers of gay children...) and the rest of the congregation of the Church of I Hate You [Jed Bartlet].
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Just because I got off a good
rant yesterday about putting the SBVT story in perspective, it doesn't mean I'm going to stop posting about it; hey, if things keep developing, I am going to post about it. News is news, and if there are things to be snarky about, I'm there.
Just look at what's come up in the last 24:
A lawyer for the Bush campaign admits he gave legal advice to SBVT.Tim Grieve in Salon.com (subscription/Day Pass yadayada) does a take-down on the Rove connection.Matthew Yglesias and Sam Rosenfeld go after the talking heads who say that Kerry brought this on himself by bragging about his service in Vietnam.
Meanwhile, at Cooper Union in New York, Senator Kerry took my advice and turned his campaign to
addressing the failures of the Bush administration and detailed what he plans to do when he is elected.
Traditionally the presidential campaigns kicked off on Labor Day. Nowadays Labor Day is the start of the last lap. No wonder we're already exhausted.
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I will admit that I have enjoyed the fireworks surrounding the SBVT and watching them go through the torture of having their stories ripped to shreds as veteran after veteran emerges (some, like Jim Russell, literally coming out of the woods of Colorado) to corroborate Kerry's story of what happened over thirty-five years ago on a river in Vietnam. I've derived an almost visceral joy in watching John O'Neill break out into flop-sweat under that ridiculous toupee as he's had to endure the withering fire from the likes of Tom Oliphant and John Podesta. And I heaved a tentative sigh of relief as the mainstream press finally began to do their job of uncovering the lies and the links to the scruffy critters behind the ads, and I wondered what would happen if they devoted as much energy to looking into the records of what happened in Alabama in the summer of 1972.
But in spite of all this, I don't want this election to be about that. There are so many other things we could be talking about and winning over not just the mercurial Undecideds but anybody who is conscious with a conscience. Just look at what we have to run against. We have a record of four years of a presidency that is analogous to a teen-aged boy stuffing a sock in his pants to make himself look like he's got something more than what nature intended. We have a Justice Department that hunts down librarians and a Department of Homeland Security that launches terror alerts based on shades of news from the Clinton Administration. We have an administration that views science as something one step away from alchemy and where "the jury is still out" on the theory of evolution. And leading them all is a man who lacks the courage to stand up for himself and defend his record - a difficult task to be sure - but instead finds a crop of snivelling bullies to go out and do the hard work for him. George W. Bush hasn't demonstrated the first level of moral or physical stamina at anything he's ever attempted in his life, and when he inevitably fails, he leaves it to others to clean up the mess and make the appropriate excuses.
Poll after poll has shown that the American people are slowly coming to the realization that they have been royally had. They are itching to get rid of the Bush administration if they could be convinced that the alternative is better, and so that only way for Bush to win is to show not that he's worthy of being re-hired but that his replacement would be worse. That's why the campaign from the Bush side has said nothing at all about what they will do if they are re-elected - only about what they think will happen if they're not. Fortunately, history has proven that tactic to be a loser - think of Jimmy Carter trying to scare us about Ronald Reagan in 1980.
John Kerry has to bring the debate back to the issues that matter today, not what happened in 1969. The war today is in Iraq, not Vietnam. The circumstances are similar - a war based on a lie and paid for with the blood of young men for a cause that is as nebulous as it was then, but it has to be discussed not only in terms of logistics and defense but in how we perceive ourselves as the only remaining superpower. This election has to be about how we teach our children and how we take care of the sick, not just how we divide up the wealth among the wealthy and rely on their better nature to spread it around.
As much fun as it is to watch the conservatives squirm and use the same serpentine logic to defend their man as they accused the Clintons of using during the depths of the Dark Time, we need to get back to the here and now and the future of this country. For John Kerry and the Democrats to lose this election - especially to a man who has proven a complete lack of moral courage, maturity, and the simple ability to see things in the third person - would not be a tragedy of mythic proportions; this country has survived worse. But it would be a dark predictor of what we will become, and the return to the right way will be all the harder.
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When John Kerry was young he was passionate and often reckless. Now he's old and careful. Why would we ever elect him as president?
As opposed to the immature and heedless example of dissipation we now have in the White House?
For Brooks to call Kerry a liar ("The passion is gone. The pompous prevaricator is in.") takes a lot a gall, given the man he is supporting.
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Go read
Steve Bates'
homage to Gilbert & Sullivan in modern dress. I guarantee you will not be able to get it out of your head.
Good going, Steve! Sheer brilliance.
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Here's a tidbit of rather telling campaign rhetoric:
For what is apparently the first time, an environmental group is using Spanish-language advertisements to attack President Bush's environmental record.
Issues more usually associated with Hispanics are immigration, healthcare and education. The environment has never been used as a hot-button issue to sway Hispanics, said Miami-based political consultant Sergio Bendixen, who advised the group that is running the ads.
The ads, which will run in Florida, New Mexico, Arizona and Nevada, are the product of the Environmental Accountability Fund, a nonprofit political action committee.
One of the Florida ads shows a Hispanic family at the beach, and says the Bush administration's policies allowed 58 million gallons of raw sewage to be dumped off Florida's beaches. Another shows a Hispanic family sitting around a fresh fish for dinner, and says the Bush administration's policies have led to fish heavily tainted with mercury.
"There's considerable opinion research that shows Hispanics care deeply about these issues," said Greg Wetstone, executive director of the fund.
Bush's campaign team responded that the fund's attack on Bush is "reckless disregard for the truth" and said that the Bush administration will actually mandate reductions in mercury from power plants for the first time ever.
"Consider the source," said Bush campaign spokesman Reed Dickens. "It's a blatantly partisan group with zero credibility on policy issues." [Miami Herald]
Note the use of the future tense in the bolded bit. In other words, they haven't done anything yet about reducing mercury, but boy howdy, they will if they are re-elected. Uh huh.
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From
CNN:
CHARLESTON, West Virginia (AP) -- A man who heckled President Bush at a political rally was fired from his job at an advertising and design company for offending a client who provided tickets to the event.
The fired graphic designer said Saturday he won't try to get his job back.
"I'm mad less about losing the job -- I'm more mad about the reasons," said Glen Hiller, 35, of Berkeley Springs. "All I did was show up and voice my opinion."
Hiller was ushered out of Hedgesville High School on Tuesday after shouting his disagreement with Bush's comments about the war in Iraq and the search for weapons of mass destruction. The crowd had easily drowned out Hiller with its chant: "Four more years."
"He surrounds himself with people who support him," Hiller said of Bush. "Your opinion ... is viewed as right or wrong."
When he showed up for work at Octavo Designs of Frederick, Maryland, the following morning, he said he was told he'd embarrassed and offended a client who provided tickets to the event -- and that he was fired.
The client was a public relations worker who represents the Berkeley County school district, he said. "It's just bizarre that you disagree with them and it all turns evil," Hiller said.
Messages left with Octavo Designs were not immediately returned Saturday.
Wilkommen em Nuremberg, West Virginia!
Yes, I know that
Corrente has been all over this (good job over there), but what's interesting to me and my friend Bob is that the client that was ticked off was the Berkeley County School District. That's quite a lesson to be teaching those students - speak up, get hosed. So much for the civics lesson of the day...
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Slate seems to have resolved the trivial
issue as to whether or not Paul and Morgan Hamm, the Olympic gymnast twins, are identical or fraternal. Their parents say fraternal, citing physical differences, but science says they're identical, citing a raft of genetic and biological reasons and going into detail that boggles the mind.
Fraternal? Identical?
I am the son of a twin - my dad has a twin brother. We - and they - have always assumed that they were identical twins. After all, when twins of the same gender were born in 1926, it was pretty much assumed they were identical, and as far as I know, no genetic testing has ever been done to determine if they are, indeed, identical.
I could always tell the difference between my dad and his twin. Even looking at photographs of them when they were children sitting side by side in matching clothes I could spot my dad. He had some of his mother's features, and my uncle had some of his father's. As they grew older and went on with their separate lives they aged differently, too. And my uncle's two sons don't look anything at all like me or my siblings, even though genetically they could be my half-brothers. So much for the
Patty Duke Show theory of genetics.
I bring this up apropos of nothing other than it seems the more you look into something that you assumed to be a simple question, the more complicated it gets. All very fascinating, but a little unsettling at the same time.
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It seems that veterans who back Kerry's accounts are now beginning to speak up. Josh Marshall at
TPM found this
letter to the editor in the Telluride, Colorado,
Daily Planet (it's a real paper - the company I used to work for had an office there).
Since I happened to be along on one of the "excursions" where the boats that we were on were attacked and after which Lt. Kerry was cited for valor, I thought it appropriate to give my recollection of that event. This happened on March 13, 1969. I was assigned as Psychological Operation Officer for the Swift Boat group out of An Thoi, Vietnam, from January 1969 to October 1969. As such, I was on No. 43 boat, skippered by Don Droz who was later that year killed by enemy fire. We were second in line while exiting the river and going through the opening in a fish trap when a mine blew up under the No. 3 boat directly in front of us and we started taking small arms fire from the beach. Almost immediately, another mine went off somewhere behind us. All boats, except the one hit, immediately wheeled toward the beach that most of the fire came from (a tactic devised by Lt. Kerry, I later learned) and commenced showering the beaches with so much lead, that it could probably be now mined there. The noise was of course, deafening.
Three things that are forever pictured in my mind since that day over 30 years ago are: (1) The No. 3, 50-foot long, Swift boat getting huge, huge air; John Kerry thought it was about two feet. (He was farther away from it than I). I think it was at least four feet and probably closer to six feet; (2) All the boats turning left and letting loose at the same time like a deadly, choreographed dance and; (3) A few minutes later, John Kerry bending over his boat picking up one of the rangers that we were ferrying from out of the water. All the time we were taking small arms fire from the beach; although because of our fusillade into the jungle, I don't think it was very accurate, thank God. Anyone who doesn't think that we were being fired upon must have been on a different river.
[...]
To say that John Kerry or any of us were on that river to intentionally collect Purple Hearts really does every soldier and sailor, past and present, a disservice. We were going up those rivers (with an ongoing casualty rate of 86 percent at the time) on the orders of the same people who approved of Kerry's medals and who are now joining in the attacks against Kerry. Unbelievable.
I would hope that the American public sees these evil extreme right wing attacks for what they really are and also pray that the veterans being used by these unpatriotic right wing extremist political operatives will divorce themselves immediately from them and speak to the real issues as to why they oppose John Kerry. I just don't understand how anyone can align themselves with those who intentionally and gleefully painted a decorated triple amputee (Max Cleland) from Vietnam as unpatriotic. I think that this is the most disastrous, un-American thing that can be done to our servicemen and women, especially now with another unending war going on. Your ends cannot possibly justify these means. Come on!
Jim Russell
Vietnam veteran,
USN (1966-71)
As Josh notes, a reporter should look into Mr. Russell's claim. But it seems interesting that the veterans who are now speaking up are supporting Kerry's account, and they all seem to be independent of any political campaign. Are there any independent corroborations of the SBVT version(s) of their claims? I haven't heard any.
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I've been doing a lot of work on
Bobby Cramer the last couple of weeks; I passed page 700 (Courier 12, double-spaced) last week. One of the things I had to do was go back to the beginning of one section and do some major re-writing. When I first wrote the section several years ago I basically sketched in an outline and told myself I'd come back to it and flesh it out later. Well, it's later, and pieces are falling into place. I've done a lot of re-reading, too, and correcting little glitches like anachronisms - the storyline takes place in 1979 and I have to be sure I don't include things like cell phones and laptops - and be sure that my music references are in tune with the times - remember Supertramp's
Breakfast In America? I also made up a nice little chart that reminds me of details such as the birthdates and ages of some of the major characters.
Anyway, it's coming along nicely, thank you.
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The RNC plans to put on a happy and moderate
face for the world to see in New York.
[A]fter months in which Mr. Bush stressed issues of concern to conservative supporters - from restrictions on stem cell research to a constitutional amendment to bar gay marriage - the convention will offer its national television audience a decidedly more moderate face for the president and his party. If "strength" was the leitmotif of the Democratic convention in Boston, "compassion" will be the theme in New York, marking the return of a mainstay of Mr. Bush's 2000 campaign, party leaders said. [New York Times]
No Pat Buchanan, no Pat Robertson, no Alan Keyes, no firebreathing dragons of the right. Everyone will be holding hands and singing
Feelings. Just as the Republicans accused the Democrats of remaking their party for prime time, they're just as craven. But the problem for the Republicans is that they have a four-year track record - ten years if you count the Gingrich era starting in 1994.
To quote Bill Clinton, you can put lipstick on a pig and call it your Aunt Mathilda, but it's still a pig.
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From the
Boston Globe:
Imagine if supporters of Bill Clinton had tried in 1996 to besmirch the military record of his opponent, Bob Dole. After all, Dole was given a Purple Heart for a leg scratch probably caused, according to one biographer, when a hand grenade thrown by one of his own men bounced off a tree. And while the serious injuries Dole sustained later surely came from German fire, did the episode demonstrate heroism on Dole's part or a reckless move that ended up killing his radioman and endangering the sergeant who dragged Dole off the field?
The truth, according to many accounts, is that Dole fought with exceptional bravery and deserves the nation's gratitude. No one in 1996 questioned that record. Any such attack on behalf of Clinton, an admitted Vietnam draft dodger, would have been preposterous.
Yet amazingly, something quite similar is happening today as supporters of President Bush attack the Vietnam record of Senator John Kerry.
[...]
While a few details and dates of Kerry's Vietnam record are open to question, most of the accusations are laughable. Kerry's record of service in Vietnam is clear and, one would think, unassailable. Given the contrast in their Vietnam-era records -- Bush even let his pilot's license lapse while still in the Guard -- Bush might be expected to change the subject.
Yet the Kerry opponents, working with funders and political operatives closely linked to Bush personally, are attempting what is known in politics as the big lie -- an effort simply to contradict the truth repeatedly.
There's a good news/bad news aspect to this saga. The good news is that the SBVT story has been blown out of the water, so to speak, and it was exposed long enough before the election that it will - I hope - be completely discredited by November. The bad news is that this gives Karl Rove two more months to come up with something even worse. And don't think he hasn't planned for this contingency.
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After you've made your way through the updates to the Swift Boat stories, including William Rood's account in the
Chicago Tribune and Maureen Dowd's
column in the
Times, let's look at the
funnies - while we can. Some papers are cutting back on comic strips to save space and make more room for ads. In doing so, they're finding that there's a very loyal core of readers for strips like
Mary Worth and
Judge Parker. (I thought the only paper in the world that still ran
Mary Worth was the
Toledo Blade because the cartoon's creator, Allen Saunders, was from there.) Which makes me wonder - what has happened to some of the old strips that I used to read when I was a kid, like
Dondi and
Dick Tracy? Not that I miss them; Dondi was a syrupy soap opera, and Dick Tracy was basically J. Edgar Hoover's agit-prop - without the dress. Itwas dropped from
The Blade when the editors determined that the story line was getting too violent for the funny pages. Ironically, it was replaced by
Doonesbury, which was relegated to the op-ed page during the Reagan Administration and to make room for the likes of
Funky Winkerbean and
Crankshaft.
Some of the best strips have gone by their creators' choice:
Calvin and Hobbes,
Bloom County,
The Far Side all demonstrated the best of humor and cutting social commentary. Fortunately they've been replaced by some great new strips like
The Boondocks and
Zits. That makes up for having to put up with
The Family Circus,
Mallard Fillmore, and
Rose Is Rose.
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Robert Greenwald releases another film that examines the lies and exaggerations that led us to war in Iraq.
Robert Greenwald’s latest documentary, Uncovered: The War on Iraq, takes on the administration’s pop-eyed rhetoric, intelligence-data manipulation, and low-blow tactics against dissenters. Made in collaboration with MoveOn.org and the Center for American Progress, Uncovered is a blistering prosecutorial brief against the Bush administration’s case for war in Iraq, though a deeply noncinematic documentary. Talking heads flap away well over an acceptable words-per-minute speed limit, dizzying montages of administration officials flash by, and viewers will wish for a rewind button and a little white space amid the thicket of words. Were it not for the reliable elegance of a chronological structure to carry us through, Uncovered would be an insurmountable slog.
But as a rebuttal to the administration’s version of history, the film is devastating. As he’s proven in Outfoxed, his takedown of the right-wing, “fair and balanced” FOX News Channel, Greenwald is fascinated by the rhetorical battle being fought in U.S. politics, this war of words that shapes our understanding of the uncertain past, shifting present, and wildly contested future. Greenwald sharply delineates his adversaries; his array of experts include diplomatic, intelligence, and security personnel with staggering amounts of experience, going up against the administration and portrayed in collages of sound clips. You could argue that Greenwald stacks the deck by not allowing the administration to speak live as well. But you could also argue that the administration has done such a devastating job of co-opting the mainstream media, threatening and discrediting government opponents, and bamboozling us with its alarmist rhetoric that it’s hogged more than its fair share of the spotlight. [The American Prospect]
Now if we could just get
The Princess Diaries out of the Megaplex...
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Garrison Keillor, host of the popular radio program
A Prairie Home Companion, explains why he is anti-Bush and pro-Democrat.
What a disaster this shallow and deceitful president has been! But Mr. Kerry is wise enough to know that reasonableness and high principle must anchor his campaign. Anger doesn't play so well as a theme in presidential politics. And much depends on fate. He is jousting, showing the colors, rallying the faithful, and biding his time.
Read the rest
here in
Salon.com (subscription/Day Pass required).
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Kerry lands a big
punch on Bush.
Ashcroft announces the
arrest of "terrorists."
Sir Isaac Newton knew his stuff.
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I don't normally do reviews of shows I haven't seen, but Ben Brantley's
review of
Dracula, The Musical (as opposed to
Dracula on Ice?) is too much fun to pass up.
Expectations were exceedingly low for this latest offering from the unstoppable Mr. Wildhorn — the composer of the expensively dressed clunkers "Jekyll and Hyde," "The Scarlet Pimpernel" and "The Civil War" — and expectations have not been disappointed. So go ahead. Take your shots. Say something, if you must, about toothlessness or bloodlessness or the kindness of hammering stakes into the hearts of undead shows. Think of every appropriate variation you can involving the verbs to bite and to suck.
Ever the obliging blogger...
O.K., now that that's out of your system, perhaps you'll concede that it just isn't much fun to trash something that's so eminently, obviously trashable. "Dracula, the Musical," which features a book and lyrics by Don Black and Christopher Hampton and is directed by Des McAnuff ("The Who's Tommy"), isn't simply bad, which is an aesthetic state of being that is kind of fun if you're in the right mood. (Gee, remember the ripely terrible "Dance of the Vampires"?) It is bad and boring.
My favorite review of all time was Walter Kerr's one-line review of
I Am A Camera (which was turned into a musical called
Cabaret) when it opened on Broadway: "No Leica."
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Josh Marshall at
Talking Points Memo on the psychology behind the Republican's attack mode.
Let's call it the Republicans' Bitch-Slap theory of electoral politics.
It goes something like this.
On one level, of course, the aim behind these attacks is to cast suspicion upon Kerry's military service record and label him a liar. But that's only part of what's going on.
Consider for a moment what the big game is here. This is a battle between two candidates to demonstrate toughness on national security. Toughness is a unitary quality, really -- a personal, characterological quality rather than one rooted in policy or divisible in any real way. So both sides are trying to prove to undecided voters either that they're tougher than the other guy or at least tough enough for the job.
In a post-9/11 environment, obviously, this question of strength, toughness or resolve is particularly salient. That, of course, is why so much of this debate is about war and military service in the first place.
One way -- perhaps the best way -- to demonstrate someone's lack of toughness or strength is to attack them and show they are either unwilling or unable to defend themselves -- thus the rough slang I used above. And that I think is a big part of what is happening here. Someone who can't or won't defend themselves certainly isn't someone you can depend upon to defend you.
Demonstrating Kerry's unwillingness to defend himself (if Bush can do that) is a far more tangible sign of what he's made of than wartime experiences of thirty years ago.
Hitting someone and not having them hit back hurts the morale of that person's supporters, buoys the confidence of your own backers (particularly if many tend toward an authoritarian mindset) and tends to make the person who's receiving the hits into an object of contempt (even if also possibly also one of sympathy) in the eyes of the uncommitted.
This is certainly what Bush's father did to Michael Dukakis and, sadly, it is what Bush himself did, to a great degree, to Al Gore.
In other ways, Bush's bully-boy campaign tactics play to his strengths, albeit unstated and unlovely ones. Many of the polls of the president have shown that while people don't necessarily agree with the specific policies he's pursued abroad many also intuitively believe that there's no one who will hit back harder. There's some of that 'he may be a son-of-a-bitch but he's our son-of-a-bitch' quality to the president's support on national security issues.
This meta-message behind the president's attacks on Kerry's war record is more consequential than many believe. So hitting back hard was critical on many levels.
After watching John O'Neill on
The Newshour last night, I'd say that the timing is right and that it's going to be a very interesting two months.
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Hurricane Charley and forgetting to set the alarm helped me forego last week's trip around the block. But it's back.
Natalie finds WMD's.Scout shares the music.archy on Scott McClellan's transformation.Amy with a picture that stifles 1,000 words.Chris on the price of housing in Fresno.Collective Sigh goes to the sports page for a car vs. donkey race.Corrente wonders where the money went.NTodd imagines Ted Kennedy as Jerry Seinfeld.Echidne teaches us about charter schools.The Fulcrum joins the chorus of outrage over the SBVT's.The Gamer's Nook relives Hurricane Charley.The Gotham City 13 goes to the movies with Steve Gilliard.Norbizness gets Serious.Iddybud on Zell, the last Southern Democrat.The Invisible Library passes on some interesting bits of fact.Tony's had enough.Welcome Jon at Kick the Leftist, who's working with Peter, and check out his thoughts on Alan Keyes.Left Is Right has the infallible Florida voting device.Bryant on the view from Reality.Mercury X23 on the Olympics.Michael bemoans his grueling research schedule. Quelle domage.Elayne's up for another blogging recognition. Would I vote for her? Absolutely!Rivka directs us to a posting by Arkangel.Rick's Cafe Americain on civility for the RNC.Rook's Rant on Catholic guilt.Rubber Hose sends a travel postcard.Sooner Thought provides the link to the "Best Blog" award nominations. Go for it (and remember who sent you).Speedkill on campus activism in Montana. No, seriously.T. Rex is still around.Trish on the sounds of the night.WTF Is It Now?? with a picture of the redecorated Oval Office.Steve at The Yellow Doggerel Democrat has the truth on what the kids are up to.
And while the Olympics are on, CBC Radio Two is not allowed to stream
any live radio broadcasts because of some rule the IOC has about broadcast rights. So I've been listening to my old favorite,
Interlochen Public Radio recently and enjoying hearing about what's going on back up in northern Michigan. It's already getting to sound like autumn up there.
Anyway, happy Friday!
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John Kerry hits
back against the Swift Boat Veterans.
After weeks of standing by as a group of Vietnam veterans criticized his wartime record, Senator John Kerry fired back today, saying the group, Swift Boat Veterans for Truth, is "a front for the Bush campaign" and that the president "wants them to do his dirty work."
Members of the organization, led by a commander of one of the Swift boats that served alongside Mr. Kerry's boat in Vietnam in 1968 and 1969, have accused the Massachusetts senator of lying about his wartime record to win several medals.
The Bush campaign has declined to denounce the Swift boat advertisement, saying it had nothing to do with it and did not itself question Mr. Kerry's wartime service. But today, speaking at a convention of the International Association of Fire Fighters in Boston, Mr. Kerry did not mince words in accusing Mr. Bush of disingenuousness in trying to distance himself from the ad and the group.
"Here's what you really need to know about them," Mr. Kerry told the cheering firefighters. "They're funded by hundreds of thousands of dollars from a Republican contributor out of Texas. They're a front for the Bush campaign. And the fact that the president won't denounce what they're up to tells you everything that you need to know — he wants them to do his dirty work."
In his remarks to the firefighters, a group that supported him even when his campaign to win the Democratic nomination was foundering early in the primaries, Mr. Kerry talked of heroism and sacrifice. He likened the courage of men and women in the military to that of firefighters and police officers, who risk their lives daily and sometimes lose them, as hundreds did on 9/11.
"As firefighters you risk your lives everyday. You know what it's like to see truth in the moment. You're proud of what you've done — and so am I," he said. "I'm not going to let anyone question my commitment to defending America-then, now, or ever."
This comes on the same day that the
Washington Post torpedoes author Larry Thurlow's claims in his best-selling work of fiction,
Unfit for Command.Newly obtained military records of one of Sen. John F. Kerry's most vocal critics, who has accused the Democratic presidential candidate of lying about his wartime record to win medals, contradict his own version of events.
In newspaper interviews and a best-selling book, Larry Thurlow, who commanded a Navy Swift boat alongside Kerry in Vietnam, has strongly disputed Kerry's claim that the Massachusetts Democrat's boat came under fire during a mission in Viet Cong-controlled territory on March 13, 1969. Kerry won a Bronze Star for his actions that day.
But Thurlow's military records, portions of which were released yesterday to The Washington Post under the Freedom of Information Act, contain several references to "enemy small arms and automatic weapons fire" directed at "all units" of the five-boat flotilla. Thurlow won his own Bronze Star that day, and the citation praises him for providing assistance to a damaged Swift boat "despite enemy bullets flying about him."
As one of five Swift boat skippers who led the raid up the Bay Hap River, Thurlow was a direct participant in the disputed events. He is also a leading member of Swift Boat Veterans for Truth, a public advocacy group of Vietnam veterans dismayed by Kerry's subsequent antiwar activities, which has aired a controversial television advertisement attacking his war record.
Of course the Bush campaign denied any connection with SBVT. That's not the question. The question is whether or not the Bush campaign condones what's being said by SBVT. They can certainly speak to that point, can't they? When MoveOn.org ran their ad questioning Bush's military service, Kerry didn't like it and said so.
But at last he's going on the offensive. And the timing couldn't be better. Bush is holed up in Crawford prepping for the convention, and he's going to have to spend the next week figuring out how to wiggle out of this one. And it's about time.
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