The Hermeneutist of Suspicions

I've Moved!

2005-04-07T19:02:00.000-05:00

Come and visit me! This world has ended... Blame it on

Maybe you don't, but I find this kinda surprising.

2005-03-21T22:52:00.000-06:00

Bacardi 151
Congratulations! You're 134 proof, with specific scores in beer (120) , wine (100), and liquor (104).

All right. No more messing around. Your knowledge of alcohol is so high
that you have drinking and getting plastered down to a science. Sure,
you could get wasted drinking beer, but who needs all those trips to
the bathroom? You head straight for the bar and pick up that which is
most efficient.

My test tracked 4 variables How you compared to other people your age and gender:

You scored higher than 64% on proof
You scored higher than 96% on beer index
You scored higher than 92% on wine index
You scored higher than 92% on liquor index

Link: The Alcohol Knowledge Test written by hoppersplit on Ok Cupid

While I was Out....

2005-02-15T11:13:00.000-06:00

A bunch of stuff happened. So now, with a moment between grading papers and indexing the book, some thoughts about a few things hitting close to home.

First off, full props to my man, Dr. Howard Dean, new chair of the Democratic National Committee! I've said it before, and I'll say it again: Give 'em Hell, Howard!

Second, the issue of academic freedom has been in the news quite a bit recently. I'm not going to deal with the remarks on women's advancement by the President of Harvard University, because I find the whole controversy minor and boring. But if you want to see what my dad has to say about it, and my response in the comments, then click here!

More important are the controversy over the essay by historian Ward Churchill, and the legislation promoting an "Academic Bill of Rights" in Ohio. Both of these stories strike at the very heart of what it means to be in the academy, but for quite different reasons.

Academic freedom plays a role in both, to be sure, but I believe that it applies to Dr. Churchill only insofar as no one should ever be fired because people were offended by what you wrote. That is the very definition of academic freedom and the very justification for the protections of tenure. My university had a University Conference today, in fact, on "Liberal Arts for Civic Engagement," in which the keynote speaker and Baldwin Lecturer, Donald Harward, stated quite accurately that the job of the academic in the liberal arts is to be an "engaged contrarian," constantly challenging society's preconceived notions about itself and the world. Not comfortable stuff, to be sure -- hence America's anti-intellectualism and generally low opinion of educators (while, paradoxically, making a great fuss about the value of education).

That said, though, academic freedom is not license to be an idiot. In fact, being an "academic" means you're not allowed to put any old crap on paper and call it analysis. Churchill's essay in question, "Some People Push Back: On the Justice of Roosting Chickens," is the sort of thing that gives both academics and liberals a bad name -- and I would have graded it very harshly had it been submitted in even my 100-level survey course. The central point I agree with, too: the 9/11 attacks were in response to decades of American foreign policy that, whatever else it achieved, created the conditions of both real and perceived injustice for innumerable people in the Middle East. Of course, immediately after 9/11, any discussion of the specific complaints that peoples of this region have with the U.S., especially concerning Israel, was verbotten. "You're sympathizing with the terrorists!" Fox-watchers would scream. "You hate America!" No, not at all. I just think if you are going to respond to an attack, you should try to understand the reason for the attack. "They hate freedom" is not the reason. "They would like the same freedoms we have but ensure they don't have" is closer to the mark.

So what's wrong with Churchill's essay? We can all agree it's this: not only blaming the victims of the attacks on the World Trade Center, but calling them "little Eichmanns, " a reference to Adolf Eichmann, who oversaw Hitler's Final Solution against the Jews. Here is a case where Godwin's Law applies -- named for Mike Godwin, who observed "As an online discussion grows longer, the probability of a comparison involving Nazis or Hitler approaches one." Usenet tradition then held that whomever invoked the Nazis or Hitler automatically lost the argument. It's a way of saying that comparing anyone or anything to the Third Reich is an incredibly easy and incredibly lazy way of scoring rhetorical points, without advancing any kind of actual argument or demonstrating any real analysis at all. Boom, Nazi trump card! Game over.

This is exactly what Churchill does. Those people who died were Nazis, so they deserved what they got, and we don't have to feel sorry for them. Case closed.

Excuse me, my professor brain thinks, who's a Nazi? Just the people in the WTC? Not, by your reasoning, everyone in America? My, wasn't that convenient for them all so have shown up there on the same day. Was there some sort of foreign policy Nazi convention at the WTC on 9/11? I don't think so. So what's your argument, Ward? In a democracy, we are all partially responsible for our government's actions? Certainly that's true in an abstract sense, but 9/11 demands specificity, not abstractions. Those nearly 3000 lives lost were not abstractions. How many among them had possibly fought for justice in that region of the world? How many had opposed those policies? How many were not American? Were they also "little Eichmanns" just by virtue of being in that place at that time? And what of those who either didn't know anything about American foreign policy in the region, or who supported administrations -- Republican and Democratic -- who executed those policies? That's the exact equivalence of personally overseeing the murder of 6 million Jews? There's no difference to you between direct action and tacit complicity? Here's an analogy of my own: If the police catch a serial killer, and he's sentenced to death, would you advocate that the state execute his whole family too, since they supported him, even if they didn't know what he was doing? They still made it possible for him to commit his crimes, so they're complicit, right?

It's embarrassments like this that give rise to the sentiments behind Ohio's proposed "Academic Bill of Rights." Ostensibly, it is to prevent egghead professors from "presenting opinions as fact or penalizing students for expressing their views. Professors would not be allowed to introduce controversial material unrelated to the course." But the comments from the bill's sponsor say a lot more...

"'I see students coming out having gone in without any ideological leanings one way or another, coming out with an indoctrination of a lot of left-wing issues,' said bill sponsor Sen. Larry Mumper, a former high school teacher whose Republican party controls the Legislature."

"Mumper said he is concerned universities are not teaching the values held by taxpaying parents and students. He questioned why lawmakers should approve funding for universities with 'professors who would send some students out in the world to vote against the very public policy that their parents have elected us for.'" [Emphasis mine.]

Deep breath. Sigh. So much for "engaged contrarians." So much for college students as adults who can make up their own minds. So much for the free market of ideas. Nope, apparently a univerisity's job is to deepen a student's appreciation of the rightness of the status quo, and how mommy and daddy were never wrong about anything ever. Because, you know, if you don't want your kid's 18 year old ideas about the world challenged, by all means send 'em to college. And make sure it's a good liberal artsy one. 'Cause they're not there to learn anything new, apparently.

And once again, I'm happy not to live in Ohio.

[Boy, was that the longest and best linked post ever from me?!]

Bill Moyers: Too Important not to Post

2005-01-31T09:19:00.000-06:00

I had seen part of this speech Bill Moyers gave upon receiving the Global Environmental Citizen Award from the Center for Health and the Global Environment at Harvard Medical School excerpted in Salon's War Room blog, but it was just e-mailed to me in full. Bill gets the big picture. What Democrat (besides Howard Dean and possibly the new and improved Al Gore) also does? (Note: despite the environment being his baliwick, Nader doesn't get it either).

Bill Moyers on what's happening - "There is no tomorrow"

>>
>>One of the biggest changes in politics in my lifetime is that the
delusional is no longer marginal. It has come in from the fringe, to sit in the seat
of power in the Oval Office and in Congress. For the first time in our
history, ideology and theology hold a monopoly of power in Washington.
>>
>>Theology asserts propositions that cannot be proven true; ideologues hold
>>stoutly to a worldview despite being contradicted by what is generally
>>accepted as reality. When ideology and theology couple, their offspring
are not always bad but they are always blind. And there is the danger: voters
>>and politicians alike, oblivious to the facts.
>>
>>Remember James Watt, President Ronald Reagan's first secretary of the
>>interior? My favorite online environmental journal, the ever-engaging
Grist, reminded us recently of how James Watt told the U.S. Congress that
>>protecting natural resources was unimportant in light of the imminent
return of Jesus Christ. In public testimony he said, "after the last tree is
>>felled, Christ will come back."
>>
>>Beltway elites snickered. The press corps didn't know what he was talking
>>about. But James Watt was serious. So were his compatriots out across the
>>country. They are the people who believe the Bible is literally true --
>>one-third of the American electorate, if a recent Gallup poll is accurate.
>>In this past election several million good and decent citizens went to the
>>polls believing in the rapture index.
>>
>>That's right -- the rapture index. Google it and you will find that the
>>best-selling books in America today are the 12 volumes of the "Left
Behind" series written by the Christian fundamentalist and religious-right warrior
>>Timothy LaHaye. These true believers subscribe to a fantastical theology
>>concocted in the 19th century by a couple of immigrant preachers who took
>>disparate passages from the Bible and wove them into a narrative that has
>>captivated the imagination of millions of Americans.
>>
>>Its outline is rather simple, if bizarre (the British writer George
Monbiot recently did a brilliant dissection of it and I am indebted to him for
>>adding to my own understanding): Once Israel has occupied the rest of its
>>"biblical lands," legions of the antichrist will attack it, triggering a
>>final showdown in the valley of Armageddon.
>>
>>As the Jews who have not been converted are burned, the messiah will
return for the rapture. True believers will be lifted out of their clothes and
>>transported to Heaven, where, seated next to the right hand of God, they
>>will watch their political and religious opponents suffer plagues of
boils, sores, locusts and frogs during the several years of tribulation that follow.
>>
>>I'm not making this up. Like Monbiot, I've read the literature. I've
>>reported on these people, following some of them from Texas to the West
>>Bank. They are sincere, serious and polite as they tell you they feel
called to help bring the rapture on as fulfillment of biblical prophecy. That's
why they have declared solidarity with Israel and the Jewish settlements and
>>backed up their support with money and volunteers. It's why the invasion
of Iraq for them was a warm-up act, predicted in the Book of Revelations
where four angels "which are bound in the great river Euphrates will be released
>>to slay the third part of man." A war with Islam in the Middle East is not
>>something to be feared but welcomed -- an essential conflagration on the
>>road to redemption. The last time I Googled it, the rapture index stood at
>>144 -- just one point below the critical threshold when the whole thing
will blow, the son of God will return, the righteous will enter Heaven and
>>sinners will be condemned to eternal hellfire.
>>
>>So what does this mean for public policy and the environment? Go to Grist
to read a remarkable work of reporting by the journalist Glenn Scherer --
"The Road to Environmental Apocalypse." Read it and you will see how millions
of Christian fundamentalists may believe that environmental destruction is
not only to be disregarded but actually welcomed -- even hastened -- as a sign
>>of the coming apocalypse.
>>
>>As Grist makes clear, we're not talking about a handful of fringe
lawmakers who hold or are beholden to these beliefs. Nearly half the U.S. Congress
>>before the recent election -- 231 legislators in total and more since the
>>election -- are backed by the religious right.
>>
>>Forty-five senators and 186 members of the 108th Congress earned 80 to 100
>>percent approval ratings from the three most influential Christian right
>>advocacy groups. They include Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist, Assistant
>>Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, Conference Chair Rick Santorum of
>>Pennsylvania, Policy Chair Jon Kyl of Arizona, House Speaker Dennis
Hastert and Majority Whip Roy Blunt. The only Democrat to score 100 percent with
the Christian coalition was Sen. Zell Miller of Georgia, who recently quoted
>>from the biblical book of Amos on the Senate floor: "The days will come,
>>sayeth the Lord God, that I will send a famine in the land." He seemed to
be relishing the thought.
>>
>>And why not? There's a constituency for it. A 2002 Time-CNN poll found
that 59 percent of Americans believe that the prophecies found in the book of
>>Revelations are going to come true. Nearly one-quarter think the Bible
>>predicted the 9/11 attacks. Drive across the country with your radio tuned
>>to the more than 1,600 Christian radio stations, or in the motel turn on
>>some of the 250 Christian TV stations, and you can hear some of this
>>end-time gospel. And you will come to understand why people under the
spell of such potent prophecies cannot be expected, as Grist puts it, "to worry
>>about the environment. Why care about the earth, when the droughts,
floods, famine and pestilence brought by ecological collapse are signs of the
>>apocalypse foretold in the Bible? Why care about global climate change
when you and yours will be rescued in the rapture? And why care about
converting from oil to solar when the same God who performed the miracle of the
loaves and fishes can whip up a few billion barrels of light crude with a word?"
>>
>>Because these people believe that until Christ does return, the Lord will
>>provide. One of their texts is a high school history book, "America's
>>Providential History." You'll find there these words: "The secular or
>>socialist has a limited-resource mentality and views the world as a pie
... that needs to be cut up so everyone can get a piece." However, "[t]he
>>Christian knows that the potential in God is unlimited and that there is
no shortage of resources in God's earth ... while many secularists view the
>>world as overpopulated, Christians know that God has made the earth
>>sufficiently large with plenty of resources to accommodate all of the people."
>>
>>No wonder Karl Rove goes around the White House whistling that militant
>>hymn, "Onward Christian Soldiers." He turned out millions of the foot
>>soldiers on Nov. 2, including many who have made the apocalypse a powerful
>>driving force in modern American politics.
>>
>>It is hard for the journalist to report a story like this with any
>>credibility. So let me put it on a personal level. I myself don't know how
>>to be in this world without expecting a confident future and getting up
>>every morning to do what I can to bring it about. So I have always been an
>>optimist. Now, however, I think of my friend on Wall Street whom I once
>>asked: "What do you think of the market?"I'm optimistic," he answered.
"Then why do you look so worried?" And he answered: "Because I am not sure my
>>optimism is justified."
>>
>>I'm not, either. Once upon a time I agreed with Eric Chivian and the
Center for Health and the Global Environment that people will protect the natural
>>environment when they realize its importance to their health and to the
>>health and lives of their children. Now I am not so sure. It's not that I
>>don't want to believe that -- it's just that I read the news and connect
the dots.
>>
>>I read that the administrator of the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency
>>has declared the election a mandate for President Bush on the environment.
>>This for an administration:
>>
>>• That wants to rewrite the Clean Air Act, the Clean Water Act and the
>>Endangered Species Act protecting rare plant and animal species and their
>>habitats, as well as the National Environmental Policy Act, which requires
>>the government to judge beforehand whether actions might damage natural
>>resources.
>>
>>• That wants to relax pollution limits for ozone; eliminate vehicle
tailpipe inspections, and ease pollution standards for cars, sport-utility vehicles
>>and diesel-powered big trucks and heavy equipment.
>>
>>• That wants a new international audit law to allow corporations to keep
>>certain information about environmental problems secret from the public.
>>
>>• That wants to drop all its new-source review suits against polluting,
>>coal-fired power plants and weaken consent decrees reached earlier with
coal companies.
>>
>>• That wants to open the Arctic [National] Wildlife Refuge to drilling
and increase drilling in Padre Island National Seashore, the longest stretch
of undeveloped barrier island in the world and the last great coastal wild
land in America.
>>
>>I read the news just this week and learned how the Environmental
Protection Agency had planned to spend $9 million -- $2 million of it from the
>>administration's friends at the American Chemistry Council -- to pay poor
>>families to continue to use pesticides in their homes. These pesticides
have been linked to neurological damage in children, but instead of ordering an
>>end to their use, the government and the industry were going to offer the
>>families $970 each, as well as a camcorder and children's clothing, to
serve as guinea pigs for the study.
>>
>>I read all this in the news.
>>
>>I read the news just last night and learned that the administration's
>>friends at the International Policy Network, which is supported by Exxon
>>Mobil and others of like mind, have issued a new report that climate
change is "a myth, sea levels are not rising" [and] scientists who believe
>>catastrophe is possible are "an embarrassment."
>>
>>I not only read the news but the fine print of the recent appropriations
>>bill passed by Congress, with the obscure (and obscene) riders attached to
>>it: a clause removing all endangered species protections from pesticides;
>>language prohibiting judicial review for a forest in Oregon; a waiver of
>>environmental review for grazing permits on public lands; a rider pressed
by developers to weaken protection for crucial habitats in California.
>>
>>I read all this and look up at the pictures on my desk, next to the
>>computer -- pictures of my grandchildren. I see the future looking back at
>>me from those photographs and I say, "Father, forgive us, for we know not
>>what we do." And then I am stopped short by the thought: "That's not
right. We do know what we are doing. We are stealing their future. Betraying
their trust. Despoiling their world."
>>
>>And I ask myself: Why? Is it because we don't care? Because we are greedy?
>>Because we have lost our capacity for outrage, our ability to sustain
>>indignation at injustice?
>>
>>What has happened to our moral imagination?
>>
>>On the heath Lear asks Gloucester: "How do you see the world?" And
>>Gloucester, who is blind, answers: "I see it feelingly.'"
>>
>>I see it feelingly.
>>
>>The news is not good these days. I can tell you, though, that as a
>>journalist I know the news is never the end of the story. The news can be
>>the truth that sets us free -- not only to feel but to fight for the
future we want. And the will to fight is the antidote to despair, the cure for
>>cynicism, and the answer to those faces looking back at me from those
>>photographs on my desk. What we need is what the ancient Israelites called
>>hochma -- the science of the heart ... the capacity to see, to feel and
then to act as if the future depended on you.
>>
>>Believe me, it does.
>>
>>© Copyright 2005 Star Tribune. All rights reserved.

Not so surprising

2005-01-17T11:32:00.000-06:00

You are a Deconstructionist! Everything is
relative, stretched along an unending chain of
signifiers. You cannot even read a take-out
menu without deconstructing and destabilizing
the meaning of the text. You are one of the
chosen few who understand the writing of
Jacques Derrida! You delight in making meaning,
and taking meaning, trashing meaning and
bashing meaning, slaying meaning and playing
meaning. And you also like green eggs and ham.
No one understands you or really likes being
around you, but you don't care; they may not
exist anyway.

What kind of literary critic are you?
brought to you by Quizilla

In case you were wondering

2005-01-16T20:42:00.000-06:00

For what it's worth...

2005-01-10T11:45:00.000-06:00

Hello out there in the blogosphere! I apologize to you few brave souls that have missed my rantings on this site, but I was finding it hard to give a damn after the election. Still am. But it's time to emerge from my self-imposed exile -- until moderate left intellectuals such as myself are rounded up and sent into actual exile...

Heh heh. Just kidding. Or am I...?

Anyway, you can see the mood I'm in. The fact of the matter is that, with the clear public -- and federal -- rejection of decision making based on "fact" and "reality," it's hard to see on what grounds ideologues and theocrats can be challenged. If you want to see what we're in for, look no further than Pennsylvania and the battle over evolution in school science cirricula.

And even though the election was still a close one, and really nothing radically changed in terms of the Republican/Democrat, rural/urban, conservative/liberal divide, what was ratified was the state of things: There may be a divide, but one side of it has ALL the power.

That means no checks and balances anywhere, including and especially Congress. But what I find bizarre, still, is this: Regardless of your politics, if you are in Congress, your role is to be separate from the Executive Branch and to exercise oversight over it. Yet from No Child Left Behind to the War in (on) Iraq to the Medicaid drug benefit, the Bush adminstration has flat out lied to Congress, embarrassed its members, shamed even its allies. Bait and switch. Cook the books.

So why, when it comes to confirming nominees, such as Alberto "The Geneva Conventions are Quaint" Gonzales, or looking to destroy Social Security as we know it, does Congress believe ANYTHING this adminstration tells it? It should have zero credibility; and yet, as if the election wiped out all of the criminality of the first four years, Republicans and Democrats both can wait to support any whim that is placed in the President's head.

Face it. If democracy depends on informed citizens and an open and often contentious debate of ideas in the governing bodies, we have reached the end of democracy in America.

Got advice?

2004-11-07T13:44:00.000-06:00

Here's my response to Terry McAulffe's request for feedback for the Democratic party:

I am a professor of Religious Studies in a liberal arts university in a Red State (Truman State University, Kirksville, MO).

I teach critical thinking and a deep understanding of religious traditions, including fundamentalism and apocalypticism. I think the Dem. party has to get attuned to BOTH the ways these traditions view the world, and how these ways are basically un-democratic and un-American.

The number one motivator of these groups is a sense that they are under attack by secular society. They dismiss information from the secular world: journalists, scientists, academics, and informed politicians. This is a problem for how American politics has been conducted in most of the histor of this society.

If Democrats are going to take back the more high ground, they have to defend something unimpeachable: the tradition of the informed voter, the tradition of individual freedom, not imposed by the govt. or the church, the tradition of open and accountable government.

The Republicans have ceded being the party of small government and personal liberty -- Democrats MUST sieze on this. Hypocricy is not moral. Supporting an unjust war launched for false reason is not moral. It is a sin.

If you want a Biblical model for how Democrats effect change now without betraying their traditional values, look at the Old Testament prophets, who railed against a corrupt King and Priesthood, who led the nation into bloody wars and in comfort while their people, their widows, their orphans suffered.

Just as important, the great fear of liberals and progressives is that this Bush Administration will tell us, and the whole country, what we can do and not do -- the same fear that conservatives have had about liberals for half a century. They didn't like it when it affected them, but they'll love it when they can do it to others.

Of course, the hypocricy here is that Democrats as liberals wanted to increase freedoms. Conservatives are not for freedom; they are bothered that people are free to do things they disapprove of.

The moral values the Democrats stand for, and MUST make relevant in EVERY campaign:

Liberty for all, and accountiblity for those in power, both in goverment and in business.

The Day After

2004-11-03T23:02:00.000-06:00

Well...

There's lots I could say, but you're probably saying it all too. But if you thought this was a long four years, just wait...

Often, it's best just to quote "The Simpsons":

"This stupid country!"
-- Mayor Quimby

Nomenclature is Destiny

2004-11-01T08:50:00.000-06:00

Okay, now it's crunch time:

I have two Presidential predictors that will either be affirmed or wrecked tomorrow (or whenever the vote counting stops):

1) Incumbent Presidents with 4-letter last names do not win re-election (or in Ford's case, election).

2) The candidate with more "n"'s in his name wins. If neither has an "n," then the one with more "r"'s wins.

By both counts, fate dictates that it's Kerry's day tomorrow....

Of course, by #2, Gore should have won against Bush. Of course, he actually did. But he would have lost in 2004 -- perhaps against McCain?

If Kerry wins, he's in trouble in 2008 against McCain or Gulliani. But if he doesn't, Hillary Clinton takes 'em both!

And She's the Democrat

2004-11-01T08:46:00.000-06:00

Apart from the Prez race, there's another important race that will affect me directly, the one for Missouri's governor. As faculty at a state school that has seen its share of financial stress the last three years -- largely due to the Republican legislature's determination to cut taxes everywhere, and then tie its hands when new revenue is needed -- my colleagues and I will be in more trouble if we don't have a governor who gives a rats ass about higher education.

The Republican is a 33 year old product of nepotism, Matt Blunt, currently Mo's secy of state. In short, shallow and incompetent. The Democrat, Claire McCaskill, knocked our sitting governor, Bob Holden, out of the running in the primaries, largely because he withheld millions from education when his budget, which included tax increases to make up for budget shortfalls, was rejected by the state legisature. Same old story -- can't raise taxes, but then people get cranky when you cut funding for their services.

So, after being largely absent in Adair County, Claire finally puts in an appearance at Truman State. Some advice to you all, if you ever consider running for this office:

1) If you are speaking to a college after a tumultuous couple of years of funding (an issue you ran on in the primary), it would be wise to mention "higher education" at least ONCE. More talk about schools and less talk about old folks homes is a good rule of thumb.

2) If you tell a long anecdote about how you will take questions from anyone on radio call-in shows and your opponent won't, it's good form, then, TO TAKE A COUPLE OF GODDAMN QUESTIONS FROM YOUR AUDIENCE!!!!! Especially if you bill the event as a "Town Hall."

She hasn't earned my vote, but she'll get it, because I trust a Democrat with education (and every other issue) over a Republican any day. But note to Green Party: The Libertarians have a candidate in the race. The theocratic -- and ironically named -- Constitution Party have a candidate. I have been waiting for you to run good candidates in important races that you could actually win since college. Instead, in 2000 you think that Ralph Nader would actually be a good executive for the entire country.

If you want to change things, get in positions to do it. That means doing the hard work of getting legitmate experience, showing results, getting people to like and trust you, raising money, and applying it smartly. That's how the Christian Right took over the Republicans. Tired of the Democrats acting like the GOP? Put up a better candidate, take over the Dems from the inside, or shut up.

Let me get this straight....

2004-10-28T13:29:00.000-05:00

Bush says, concerning the 380 tons of explosives gone missing in Iraq: "If Senator Kerry had his way ... Saddam Hussein would still be in power, he would control all those weapons and explosives, and could have shared them with our terrorist enemies."

So.... Before the invasion, we knew where these explosives were, the UN's international atomic energy watchdog group were keeping track of them and warned the US to secure them in the course of the invasion....

But.... The Bush Administration ignored these warnings and after the invasion, the explosives go missing, and are now definitely in the hands of "our terrorist enemies"....

And now.... Somehow we are better off regarding those explosives than if we hadn't invaded?

Needless to say, I don't get the President's point. As he himself points out:

"A political candidate who jumps to conclusions without knowing the facts is not a person you want as your commander in chief."

You better believe it, W. That's why you're fired November 2.

Finally, Someone's Said It

2004-10-27T13:18:00.000-05:00

You know, I used to respect the compromise that the Electoral College represented. Now I see who it gives an inordinant amount of electoral power to, and I say, fuck 'em. Let the majority rule!

Oddly, I don't think a single Democrat offered a Constitutional amendment eleminating the E.C. after 2000....

Once again, from Salon's War Room:

Are people who live in cities real Americans? NRO says no!

Of all the Republican arguments for maintaining the Electoral College, the one that Gary L. Gregg makes today in the National Review Online is both the most honest and the most appalling. Gregg's piece, titled a "Counting the Real People's Vote" argues that without the electoral advantage given to small, rural red states, American elections would be dominated by "a metropolitan elite who distain the cultures and values of middle America." In other words, the urban vote needs to be diluted because it's so Democratic.

It's perfectly fair to argue that the Electoral College is needed to protect the interests of minority voters against the tyranny of the majority. But Gregg's argument is more sinister. By separating voters into "real people," whose votes should be given extra weight, and the "secular urban base" who don't quite count as fully legitimate citizens, he reveals one of the driving forces behind the modern Republican party -- a party which professes to embody Americanism while hating a great part of America. "Al Gore demonstrated in 2000 that the national popular vote can be won by appealing to a narrow band of the electorate heavily secular, single, and concentrated in cities," Gregg writes. This is an amazing statement -- if this band is so "narrow," how can it also be a major part of a popular majority? The answer, in the right-wing imagination, is that only a certain kind of citizens constitute real Americans, and thus are implicitly deserving of power despite the fact that they're a minority.

"The electoral college is a democratic way of electing presidents that has produced good and moderate candidates in the past and gives some voice to the men and women who serve in the military, raise our families, and keep our communities of faith vibrant entities," he writes. Herein lies a central assumption that has infected America's political discourse -- that people in the so-called red states are somehow more virtuous, more hard-working and more patriotic than the decadent coastal elites. This assumption is why George Bush can so cavalierly insult Massachusetts -- a state that, as president, he ostensibly represents as much he does Alabama -- while John Kerry must genuflect before heartland culture of guns, NASCAR and beer. It's why the patriotism of people on the coasts is considered suspect while the loyalty of the red states is regarded as unquestionable, despite the fact that so much of Southern culture is devoted to celebrating the region's Confederate treason.

Although the self-loathing media perpetuates red-state chauvinism, there's no factual basis for it. As the Economist reported in 2002, despite the American heartland’s reputation for self-reliance and entrepreneurial zeal, "Sadly, its true characteristics are not vigour and independence but economic decline and government handouts. The small communities that are supposed to embody the American spirit are, in fact, haemorrhaging jobs, people and wealth." Meanwhile, the kind of poverty and moral decay that the original neoconservatives lamented in America’s inner cities are even more endemic in the middle of the country. "What about the heartland's much-vaunted moral qualities?” The Economist asked. "Here again the image of small-town piety bears little relation to reality in rural America. The states that Mr. Bush won in 2000 boast slightly higher rates for murder, illegitimacy and teenage childbirth than the supposedly degenerate states that voted for Mr. Gore."

But the argument that red staters deserve more power because of their virtue would be pernicious even if they were, in fact, virtuous. As Richard Hofstadter tells us his "Anti-Intellectualism in American Life," Hiram W. Evans, the Imperial Wizard of the Klu Klux Klan, wrote in 1926 of the struggle between "the great mass of Americans of the old pioneer stock" and the "intellectually mongrelized 'Liberals.'" The language has changed, but the idea remains. Like other Republicans, Gregg seems to believe that some Americans, because of their racial or spiritual authenticity, have the right to rule others. There's a name for that, but it's not democracy.

-- Michelle Goldberg

UofC Divinity School to the Rescue!

2004-10-22T17:01:00.000-05:00

Finally, my Ph.D. Alma Mater swings into action! From Salon's War Room:

Hitting Bush high and low

Bush may not be in touch with "the reality-based community," but he dresses up good. First he donned that manly flight suit to swaggeringly pronounce that we had kicked Iraqi ass -- in those happy days when his belief that there weren't going to be any casualties was still operative. Now he's draped himself in the spotless robes of Christian piety, preaching that the Iraq war is part of God's righteous plan to spread freedom throughout the world.

Alas, not all the nation's divines see the war, or Bush, in quite such a holy light. Today, 31 faculty members of the University of Chicago's Divinity School released a statement blasting Bush for invoking religion to justify the war. "It is often observed that the flag is a scoundrel's last resort, and that even the worst policies can successfully be wrapped in Old Glory. We believe the Bush administration is making similar misuse of religion in its attempt to justify the debacle in Iraq," the statement opens.

The academics continue: "Of greatest concern to us, the President maintains that America's sole interest in Iraq is to establish freedom, thereby serving God's plan for humanity. Thus, in his convention acceptance speech he described America as called to lead freedom's cause, freedom being God's gift to the world. And in the third debate he proclaimed: 'I believe that God wants everybody to be free. That's what I believe. And that's been part of my foreign policy.'

"We are persuaded that motives for the war were more varied and more questionable than the President acknowledges. Geopolitical calculations, desires for vengeance, military opportunism, and corporate interest (most notably greed for oil) all accompanied, and at times overshadowed the religious and moral considerations. To package this motley collection under the heading of 'freedom' is deliberately misleading: an offense to language and reason, but a familiar political strategy. To justify it as God's will, however, seems little short of sacrilege.

As faculty members of the University of Chicago Divinity School, we deplore this attempt to wrap failed policies in religious rhetoric. We call for the repudiation of Mr. Bush's war and his misuse of religion to defend or sanctify it."

Et tu, theologians? And the fact that this blow comes from the University of Chicago, home of the Strauss disciples who are heavily represented in Bush's administration, makes it an even unkinder cut. Still, Karl Rove and Co. probably aren't rushing into emergency session. Even if a new Council of Nicea was convened, pronounced Bush anathema and had him ritually burned in effigy as the Antichrist, Team Bush wouldn't much care unless it cost them a swing state.

How Great is This?

2004-10-18T08:19:00.000-05:00

Not only is it a light bulb joke attributed to John Clesse, but I got it from William Gibson's (Neuromancer, Virtual Light) blog!

"How many Bush administration officials does it take to change a light bulb?

None. There’s nothing wrong with that light bulb. There is no need to change anything. We made the right decision and nothing has happened to change our minds. People who criticize this light bulb now, just because it doesn’t work anymore, supported us when we first screwed it in, and when these flip-floppers insist on saying that it is burned out, they are merely giving aid and encouragement to the Forces of Darkness."

-- John Cleese

One More Question

2004-10-12T11:02:00.000-05:00

Why is it that when Richard Clarke, Bush's former counter-terrorism czar, asserts that Bush was asleep at the wheel before 9/11 on Al-Qaeda (including before the 9/11 Commission), a whole raft of people say, "oh, he's just trying to sell his book" -- but when the Swift Boat Veterans for "Truth" make allegations against John Kerry's service in Vietnam in a paid political advertisement that coincides with the release of their own book, that same sort of skepticism is largely absent in the same people?

Mo' Debates, Mo' Questions

2004-10-11T10:27:00.000-05:00

How many former Presidents, Democrat or Republican, liberal or conservative, were spinning in their graves when Bush asserted at Friday's debate that he wouldn't have a litmus test, but he also wouldn't pick a nominee for the Supreme Court who would rule against "Under God" in the Pledge? Bush claimed that he thought that would be a case where the judge was ruling based on personal opinion, not the law.

However you stand on this issue, it's a pretty appalling understanding for a President to have about the Courts and how they work. Not only was he (A) most certainly applying a litmus test, but (B) he was asking prospective nominees to declare how they would rule on an case before they were presented with the arguments from both sides -- literal prejudice. And what certainly didn't get noticed with this kind of emotional, if subliminal, appeal to "values" and "tradition" -- it never does -- is how intellectually bereft this stance is.

What Bush is saying, essentially, is that there is NO reading of the law or the Constitution that would decide that asking all public school students to declare the existence of God and His Sovreignity over the U.S. is a violation of the separation of church and state. Look, I think smart and principled people can, and should argue about this. That's EXACTLY why you need an impartial Court. But how can Bush simply declare that coming out on one side of the debate reflects "personal opinion" and the other the "application of the law"? We DON'T KNOW how the law applies -- that's why we ask judges to review and rule on these cases.

Besides, is there a clear difference between opinion and how one rules? Aren't these rulings, in fact, CALLED "opinions"? It is a judge's opinion the law should apply such and such a way, and then there's an argument to defend that opinion, which other judges -- and the public -- can evaluate in terms of its legal logic.

Of course, this is all just typical Republican projection. What Bush, and many others, actually want IS a judge whose personal opinion is that "under God" should stay in the Pledge, and will rule accordingly. The law in the United States pretty consistently rejects the notion that it is okay to place overt expressions of faith in places that are supposed to be neutral with regard to belief and where citizens do stand to suffer consequences if they are not -- schools, courthouses. A Federal Court, of course, struck down "under God" -- and the Supreme Court did not reverse that decision, it said that it the case was improperly filed by the plaintiff on behalf of his daughter. Every applicable court ruled against "Ten Commandments Judge" Roy Moore in Alabama, including his fellow Justices.

How can it be that every one of these rulings were based on "personal opinions" from "unelected judges trying to rule from the bench"? Answer: They're not. But sadly, especially now that the House of Representatives has passed a law that would curtail the judicial branch's oversight on laws involving references to God (we'll see about the Senate), it's clear that more and more, personal opinion WILL become the rule of law in American life.

New Debate Topic: Partial Birth Abortion
Question: Why didn't Kerry state the obvious in response to Bush's assertion that there's nothing complicated (nothing ever is for him) about voting on banning this procedure -- you're either for it or against it?

The obvious? That the stance Kerry holds is that there must be an exception to protect the life of the mother, and the law banning the procedure does not have it, which is why Kerry voted against it, and also why it's been struck down by federal courts everwhere it has been challenged. Why? Because otherwise, if circumstances arises where there is the COMPLICATED ethical dilemma requiring this procedure or the mother will die -- and it's rare, but it happens -- the people involved DO NOT HAVE A SAY: The Bush Administration has already decided the mother will die. It doesn't even mean that the baby won't.

The Republicans are all about letting you have your choice when it comes to putting tax money back in your pocket (rather than using it to pay down the deficit, or fund education, or insure people for health care), but they DO NOT want you to have ANY VOICE in your own life and death decision. Did anyone realize that is the implication of Bush's stance during the debate? I don't think so.

Furthermore, it is complicated anytime you are trying to draft language that will create standards covering many different people in many different circumstances. If you've ever had to do this for a manual of operations, bylaws of an organization, catalogue language for college courses, etc., etc., it's tough, contentious work, and the law of unintended consequences always lurks down the road if you're not careful, and even if you are. Writing laws, especially about medical procedures, is hard -- something the former Governor of Texas, apparently, never had to do.

My thoughts exactly.

2004-10-09T09:10:00.000-05:00

For a while, I thought he was doing a Seinfeld impression.... From Salon's War Room:

Whine merchant

Bush succeeded in squelching his scowls this time, even joking in response to one Kerry broadside, "That answer almost makes me want to scowl." All right, the line had all the spontaneity of a Karen Hughes pre-debate strategy session. But at least the scowls were replaced by intent, if somewhat vacant stares while Kerry was speaking, and of course, the requisite mad scribbling. But the other little problem from last week’s debate was, unfortunately, very much in evidence: the whine.

What is it about President Bush that makes him confuse a resolute tone with a screechy one? For 90-minutes plus, Bush hunched his shoulders and delivered a steady stream of high-pitched hectoring. His supporters always go on about Bush’s firm convictions. But for a man who supposedly possesses such deep belief, he sounds awfully pleading and uncertain.

Bush’s nagging tone of voice is all the more irritating, because it sounds as if he’s trying to explain something obvious to a simpleton. But the simplest person in the room is usually him.

What it comes down to is Bush generally has very little to say, and even the 90 seconds allotted to him in debates seem to stretch out endlessly before him. Did he really answer the question about his criteria for picking a future Supreme Court justice, after stumbling around aimlessly for awhile, by suddenly latching onto the 1857 Dred Scott decision, that reaffirmed the institution of slavery, as an example of something he’s against? This will come as an enormous relief to all runaway slaves currently on the loose in America – although he might have risked alienating the Trent Lott wing of the party with his bold stand.

-- David Talbot

[20:32 PDT, Oct. 8, 2004]

Cheney-Edwards: Whatever.

2004-10-06T10:31:00.000-05:00

Well, I thought the VP debate was pretty much a wash, though Edwards did nail home the fact that Saddam Hussein had nothing to do with 9/11, something that can't be repeated enough. On the other hand, to make that point and others, he often had to not answer the question at hand, which I always find annoying. Still in the long run, probably the more effective strategy.

He missed a few obvious places to score reverberating blows on Cheney's credibility:

1) On the issue of gay marriage, Cheney asserted the the Mass. Supreme Court ruled that the state Constitution would have to be revised to allow for gay marriage. WRONG. This is simply a subliminal way to underscore the nefarious conservative talking point about "activist judges legislating from the bench."

In fact the opposite is true: It ruled that the then-current Constitution already ALLOWED for gay marriage, in that it did not prohibit it, and therefore same-sex couples could not legally be denied a marriage license. The ruled that the state would EITHER have to find some way to accomodate those couples, OR change the constitution to explicitly exclude them. We know which way that went.

An obvious point, which Edwards failed to make.

2) The issue of the "flip-flop" of support on No Child Left Behind (which Edwards co-sponsored). Here's what Edwards could have said clearly, and said eventually in a roundabout way, but without much clear impact:

"We supported NCLB when you promised to fund it fully. We stopped when you didn't."

[I'll leave aside for the moment that this is an execrable piece of legislation, designed to take money and control away from public schools which fail to teach to a "standard" idea of what students should know on a subject adequately enough. The very notion of such a "standard" is so subjective itself and subject to so many competing or ungrounded assumptions as to be all but arbitrary.]

3) One that I couldn't confirm at the time of the debate, but had my suspicions about: Cheney's zinger about having never met Edwards before that very debate. Elizabeth Edwards corrected him immediately afterwards: They had met first at a prayer breakfast in 2001, and then at least twice after that. There's even a photo!

You'd think Edwards would have remembered that better than Cheney. Or his wife. Oh well, whatever.

Debacle Debate

2004-10-04T09:50:00.000-05:00

A post to a listserv I belong to called "The Commune." One member called the Iraq war a "debacle," and one of the conservative members disputed the term. One response to him is in the quoted section below, then mine is above.

*****************************************

Actually, I'd argue that point one is the stronger and more damning on its own, though I personally agree with two also. But all military intervention has to be seen in context, and most Americans do care about the distinction between lives sacrificed for a "just war" and for a mistake (or worse). Because we're Americans, we believe we are always on the side of good, so all of our wars are just. It takes an awful long time -- and some honest reporting, including an awareness of the toll on soldiers and civilians -- for people to decide that our rhetoric about the war does not match the reality.

Here's one place where the Vietnam analogy is the strongest -- which is exacly why the Bush administration won't allow coffins to be shown on TV and why he has yet to attend a single funeral for a solder in Iraq (despite the reference to loving the war widow "as best he can" at the debate). The ONLY justification for pre-emptive war is a solid evidence of an imminent, substantial threat, as noted by the Quadrenial Review, below, so regardless of what you think about the war now, if the President of the United State pulled the ultimate trump card for war, WMD's, and there were no WMD's, the intelligence was all wrong, the war is unjustified and a "debacle." We sometimes forget (conveniently) that there are actual laws regulating war -- our own, and the international community's. You may think it's fine to ignore international law, but what message does that send countries you're trying to convert TO the rule of law? But when we ignore OUR OWN principles concerning the most powerful thing the most powerful nation on the earth can do, then we are aggressors, and there is no way to convert the invasion into a just war retroactively by calling it "Operation Iraqi Freedom."

I also wonder just how much support this war -- and this President -- would have if there were a tax hike to pay for it, instead of putting on the national credit card (financed by China, Saudi Arabia, etc. etc.). I saw two "Freedom Isn't Free" magnetic car ribbons yesterday, and I thought, unless y'all have loved ones serving, then you haven't paid a damn thing for this war. Yet. We will all be paying for it the rest of our lives, though, one way or another. (Offer does not apply to the upper 2% of the income bracket...)

dd

>
> On Oct 3, 2004, at 03:39pm, mac@e-insight.biz wrote:
> > So, why, exactly, do you think it is a "debacle"?
>
> I think the invasion qualifies as a debacle because 1) the reasons
> given by the Bush administration for entering Iraq are entirely
> fallacious, and 2) a lot of people--soldiers and citizens both--are
> dying as a result of it.
>
> Perhaps you disagree with point 1, but point 2 might make the case for
> "debacle-hood" all by itself. Can the debacle threshold really be
> quantified? ;)
>
> [Incidentally, the final (and most ironic) case for war made by the
> Bush administration--to liberate the Iraqis from a brutal tyrant--is
> addressed pretty clearly by Joseph Wilson, formerly of the U.S. Embassy
> in Iraq: If one of the reasons for our invasion had indeed been for
> "moral war"--to liberate the Iraqis--we would/should have participated
> in an official debate at the international Genocide Convention (which
> has allowed countries to intervene in another country in the event of
> genocide). No such debate ever took place. Secondly, the U.S.'s
> official military doctrine, as defined by the Quadrennial Review,
> contains no provision for wars of liberation (or humanitarian wars). As
> he says, "Our armed forces exist to defend this country from foreign
> threats." This does not include preemption.]
>
> Too much thinking for a Sunday! Off to watch movies... :>
>

Condi sez it all...

2004-10-03T21:03:00.000-05:00

"I don't understand 'proving to the world that you did it for legitimate reasons,'" [Condolezza Rice] said, quoting Kerry's remarks during Thursday's night's debate, on CNN's "Late Edition."

"Rice said the administration had gone as far as it could have in that direction, offering 'explanation after explanation' of why it was necessary to invade Iraq."

Maybe if there were only one explanation, and it held up under scrutiny, that would be better, Condi. That might be considered "proving to the world that you did it for legitimate reasons," even.

(More about the debate, an' other stuff, later this week.)

If It's a Sign, What Does It Mean?

2004-09-24T11:37:00.000-05:00

I saw something cool last night. I can tell the story, or I can write a haiku about it. Or both...

Anyhoo, I was playing my weekly game of Ultimate Frisbee with other Truman faculty about 6:30 or so. It had been threatening rain for most of the afternoon, but had held off until evening. But the front was moving in just at sunset.

We play at a field that has a steep slope down to a flat plain (where we actually play) and a creek (hence the name we give it, Creek Field). But up the hill on this particular evening, some of the ROTC students from the Military Science division at the University were running drills in full camo fatigues. Obligatory jokes were made about tackling the soldiers in a all-out frisbee battle.

Then, this happened: A rainbow started to emerge over the cadets -- a full, one-side-to-the-other rainbow. At one end of the field, if you looked up the hill, they were perfectly framed; preparing for war directly under a perfect rainbow.

Ya just don't see that everyday.

Better Late than Never?

2004-09-20T12:50:00.000-05:00

Kerry questions Bush's judgment on Iraq

- - - - - - - - - - - -
NEW YORK (AP)

Sept. 20, 2004 | By Nedra Pickler -- Sen. John Kerry said Monday that mistakes by President Bush in invading Iraq could lead to unending war and that no responsible commander in chief would have waged the war knowing Saddam Hussein didn't possess weapons of mass destruction and wasn't an imminent threat to the United States.

"Yet today, President Bush tells us that he would do everything all over again, the same way. How can he possibly be serious?" Kerry said at New York University.

Kerry, a fourth-term Massachusetts senator, voted to give Bush authority to wage the war and he said in August he still would have voted that way had he known there were no weapons of mass destruction in Iraq.

The Democratic presidential candidate makes a distinction between granting a president war-making authority as a member of the Senate and, as commander in chief, actually taking that fateful step. Republicans have accused Kerry of waffling on the war.

Kerry said Monday, "Is he really saying that if we knew there were no imminent threat, no weapons of mass destruction, no ties to al-Qaida, the United States should have invaded Iraq? My answer is no because a commander in chief's first responsibility is to make a wise and responsible decision to keep America safe."

"Saddam Hussein was a brutal dictator who deserves his own special place in hell," Kerry said. "But that was not, in itself, a reason to go to war. The satisfaction we take in his downfall does not hide this fact: We have traded a dictator for a chaos that has left America less secure."

Bush campaign spokesman Steve Schmidt said Kerry's goal of pulling U.S. troops out of Iraq in his first term sends "a clear signal of defeat and retreat to America's enemies that will make the world a far more dangerous place."

Kerry's speech was timed one day ahead of Bush's scheduled address to the U.N. General Assembly in New York. Bush planned to strike back at Kerry's increasingly aggressive criticism on Iraq, aides said.

Kerry said Monday, "The president's insistence that he would do the same thing all over again in Iraq is a clear warning for the future. And it makes the choice in this election clear: more of the same with President Bush or a new direction that makes our troops and America safer."

He said Bush's invasion of Iraq has created a crisis that could lead to unending war and raises questions about whether Bush's judgment is up to presidential standards. He offered his own four-point plan starting with pressing other nations for help.

-- Get more help from other nations.

-- Provide better training for Iraqi security forces.

-- Provide benefits to the Iraqi people.

-- Ensure that democratic elections can be held next year as promised.

Bush's mistakes, Kerry said, "were not the equivalent of accounting errors. They were colossal failures of judgment -- and judgment is what we look for in a president."

Kerry contended that Bush has not been honest about the war's rationale or costs. He said the president's decision to go to war against Iraq has distracted from a greater threat to the United States -- more terrorist attacks.

"In Iraq, this administration has consistently over-promised and underperformed. This policy has been plagued by a lack of planning, an absence of candor, arrogance and outright incompetence. And the President has held no one accountable, including himself," Kerry said in remarks prepared for delivery.

With six weeks remaining until Election Day, the Massachusetts senator was pressing the debate on an issue that has given him trouble in his bid for the White House.

The Republicans have accused him of staking out unclear, even contradictory, positions on Iraq. His speech was aimed at explaining his stance and drawing clear differences with Bush's leadership at a time when troubles in Iraq are mounting.

Kerry tried to turn the criticism back against the president by pointing to varying administration arguments for going to war.

"By one count, the president offered 23 different rationales for this war," Kerry said. "If his purpose was to confuse and mislead the American people, he succeeded."

Kerry said Bush's two main rationales -- weapons of mass destruction and a connection between al-Qaida and the Sept. 11 attacks -- have been proven false by weapons inspectors and the bipartisan commission investigating the attacks.

"This president was in denial," Kerry said. "He hitched his wagon to the ideologues who surround him, filtering out those who disagreed, including leaders of his own party and the uniformed military. The result is a long litany of misjudgments with terrible consequences."

Kerry can now point to other Republicans who are also voicing concern about the president's leadership in Iraq. Among them is the chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, Indiana Republican Richard Lugar, who said Sunday problems with reconstruction show there is "incompetence in the administration." Sen. John McCain, R-Ariz., said he would like to see the president be more clear about the dangers in Iraq.

Wistful for Dean

2004-09-16T11:09:00.000-05:00

The sentiment gaining increasing volume about the Kerry campaign is that he’s running out of time to voice a number of clear, indisputable, and damaging facts about Bush, the war in Iraq, and the security of the U.S. For months now, Kerry has played right into Bush’s (and Rove’s, and Cheney’s) hands, trying to make a distinction between voting to authorize the war while disagreeing with everything done in its execution. In the end, all he does is wind up playing catch-up on Bush’s playing field, or “frame” as some call it.

<>This very issue was a primary factor in my support for Howard Dean’s candidacy. Dean realized that if you don’t want to fight the election on Bush’s terms – and you don’t – you have to change the frame. You show that the war in Iraq actually makes us more vulnerable to attack, as it has in so many ways, then you show that every move Bush has made has been the wrong one. Kerry has FINALLY picked this up with his “W stands for Wrong” theme (as one joke has Bush responding, “My middle name doesn’t begin with an “R”), but his mouthpiece has got to become very loud, very fast, and already he’s squandered opportunity after opportunity to hammer that home.

My stance on Dean was, even if he loses, this is the message the Democrats need to convey, for the long-term sake of the country. You know, be an actual opposition party. By no means am I a lovable loser or uncompromising idealist kind of Democrat. If Kerry can win where Dean couldn’t, then Go Kerry. But the Dean candidacy turned Kerry into a better candidate, he won the nomination handily – and then he promptly turned back into the guy who trailed Dean by 40 points in New Hampshire.

Kerry’s stance on the war, as it evolved, is a defensible position – not one that I agree with, but it’s one that could resonate with a lot of people. I said at the time that Kerry has to make this election about a sense of betrayal, and accountability. He could state convincingly that on many issues – No Child Left Behind, Iraq, etc. – he had stood with the President out of a sense of bi-partisan support, to give Bush the chance to lead, and in every case he lied about his intentions, and even the facts, and stabbed his Democratic supporters in the back. And, just as tangibly, Bush stabbed every American who supported him and the war in the back. Someone who does that as president cannot be trusted, and needs to be held accountable. Impeachment is impossible, for all intents and purposes in the Republican Congress, but the voters can deny Bush a second term.

Bush’s major advantage over Kerry as a candidate is that, for whatever whacked-out reason, voters identify with him in a way that they don’t with Kerry. This is Kerry’s empathy card. We have all been lied to and betrayed by the President. And until Kerry makes us feel that betrayal, personally, and makes us feel that he has been personally affected by it, and is motivated to be a better president by it, his grasp over the electorate will slip further and further out of this reach.

Just the facts....

2004-09-07T01:32:00.000-05:00

Stealing from my dad's blog, I'm adding FactCheck.org to the "Primary Evalutation" links. It's the fastest way to find out what's true and not true in all those annoying Presidential Campaign ads.

My dad turned 64 yesterday. Happy Birthday! Yes, we do still need you, we will still feed you, now that you're 64.

It figures....

2004-08-26T12:20:00.000-05:00

Well, I had just written a nice long post about how dispirited I am right now about Kerry, Bush, the Republicans, etc. -- and of course, with one more thing to link to, the browser froze up and I lost it all.

Suffice to say, I'm not any happier than I was before. I may tackle it again, but not now.

But in short:

John Kerry should stop letting his campaign be dictated by whatever Bush sez on the stump. It's a set up, John! Haven't you been paying attention the last 4 years? (Part of his problem is that often he seems like he hasn't...)
Bush and Cheney are making this campaing about who's the manlier man -- even Kerry's war wounds aren't manly enough!
I think what bothers Bush about the 527's as much as the fact the most of them have been harsh but effective critics of his Presidency in a way that Dems (Howard Dean excepted) have not is that it's a chink in the Republican controlled media armor -- how DARE actual citizens can HAVE A VOICE ON TV when they only contribute $10, $20, $50 -- or nothing at all! Don't you know, if you aren't rich, you're opinion doesn't count?

If you really want to get riled up (or, maybe, curl into a fetal postion), read these stories in Salon:
And you thought his first term was a nightmare By Charles Tiefer
All Kobe, all the time By Robert F. Kennedy Jr.
The downloading of the president '04 By Farhad Manjoo (though I disagree with the thesis of this piece, that concerns about electronic voting will supress votes -- what his examples seem to show better is that the problems the have ALREADY resulted from electronic voting (lines, breakdowns, lost information, clueless election workers) are exactly the kinds of problems that can suppress voting, and would have been avoided if A) concerns about the systems had been addressed before they went online and B) if the right lessons had been learned in Florida: low-tech machines weren't the problem, confusing ballots and systemic disenfranchisment of voters was.)

Liberaliest Sunday Ever!

2004-06-29T12:10:00.000-05:00

Well, it's been almost a month and I'm about recovered from the book push (and have written off -- literally -- the Scientologists from that project as they have declined use of their materials, despite having worked with them for 9 months to assure that our presentation of them would be okay), so it's time to GET MY BLOG ON!

Went to St. Louis this weekend and wound up unexpectedly going not only to the Gay Pride Parade but also to "Fahrenheit 9/11," contributing to its record-shattering weekend gross. The parade was a lot of fun -- what else? -- but the best part was almost the whole bunch of us having our tarot read at the festival afterwards. I've seen many good readings, some bad ones, but this woman was dead on. She pegged Jen and Karl's job dilemmas and frustrated creativity. She pegged my unexpected raise the day before and my insomnia. And despite my nagging fear, she doesn't seem to think that any catastrophes are in the offing. Here's hoping she, and the cards, are right....

Then, Michael Moore. The film was practically sold out in St. Louis, but we found a place were it was playing on three screens, showing every hour. Much of the information, as others have noted, is available elsewhere, including Moore's own Dude, Where's My Country? (best title ever). But seeing the narrative put together with the visuals from start to finish is almost overwhelming. It is Moore's heaviest film while being his least heavy-handed -- relatively few gimmicks (appropriately so, tho I do like his gimmicks). It also is his most visually striking film as a filmmaker, achieved through a good deal of slow-motion archival footage. One daring choice, near the start, is to run the audio of the two planes slamming into the Twin Towers, but keep the screen black. One's senses, dulled to the imagery of that attack, now are alert to the horror in a different way. Then close-ups of the New Yorkers watching, and long shots of the ashes and office paper swirling on the streets, like the snow in "The Day After Tomorrow," but as the real disaster movie that the other couldn't even pretend to be.

Will it change minds? I can't say. Lot's of stuff that should have changed minds by now has not. But as long as it remains a story in its own right -- the censorship drives, the box-office records, etc -- people with be forced to deal with its existence and the existence of the issues it raises. Over time, that should have its own force.

The Sound of One Hand Blogging

2004-06-19T23:46:00.000-05:00

Hi, y'all. This is an actual post. The book really took it out of me (don't even ASK about the Scientologists!), and once it was off to the publisher, the last thing I wanted to do was sit in front of a computer and type. I have been also a little disinterested in the whole political game, though I have been keeping up my reading on Salon, etc. Things seem to be in a weird kind of stasis--everyone knows things are really wrong right now, but nobody knows what to do about it. I think Kerry's being smart in slowly building the public's knowledge about him and not committing to any particular strategy in Iraq (one of the reasons this invasion was such a bad idea was that there were no good outcomes, realistically), but his tentativeness makes me miss ol' Howard Dean all the more.

Waiting for "Farenheit 9/11" to come to Kirksville -- and then monkeys might fly out of my butt! But hey, "Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind" came, believe it or not.

I'll get more posts up in the near future, but for now, I'm taking a much needed vacation from thinking too hard.

Somehow, I always knew...

2004-06-19T23:44:00.000-05:00

What Famous Leader Are You?
personality tests by similarminds.com

2004-06-08T21:39:00.000-05:00

The Cutest Thing In The World

I'm Done with the Book, and I'm...

2004-06-07T23:32:00.000-05:00

What Classic Movie Are You?
personality tests by similarminds.com

The Judgment of History -- er, historians, will not be kind....

2004-05-19T13:04:00.000-05:00

From the Salon.com War Room blog:

"One for the history books"

How will historians tell the tale of George W. Bush's presidency? Some history professors aren't waiting 50 years to weigh in. The History News Network conducted an informal poll of professional historians -- eight in 10 said Bush's tenure has been a "failure." Twelve percent said Bush's presidency is the worst in all of American history.

Here's how historians finished the sentence "Bush's presidency is the worst failure since ____" and how they came to their conclusion.

REAGAN: "I think the presidency of George W. Bush has been generally a failure and I consider his presidency so far to have been the most disastrous since that of Ronald Reagan--because of the unconscionable military aggression and spending (especially the Iraq War), the damage done to the welfare of the poor while the corporate rich get richer, and the backwards religious fundamentalism permeating this administration. I strongly disliked and distrusted Reagan and think that George W. is even worse."

NIXON: "Actually, I think [Bush's] presidency may exceed the disaster that was Nixon. He has systematically lied to the American public about almost every policy that his administration promotes." Bush uses "doublespeak" to "dress up policies that condone or aid attacks by polluters and exploiters of the environment . . . with names like the 'Forest Restoration Act' (which encourages the cutting down of forests)."

HOOVER: "I would say GW is our worst president since Herbert Hoover. He is moving to bankrupt the federal government on the eve of the retirement of the baby boom generation, and he has brought America's reputation in the world to its lowest point in the entire history of the United States."

COOLIDGE: "I think his presidency has been an unmitigated disaster for the environment, for international relations, for health care, and for working Americans. He's on a par with Coolidge!"

HARDING: "Oil, money and politics again combine in ways not flattering to the integrity of the office. Both men also have a tendency to mangle the English language yet get their points across to ordinary Americans. [Yet] the comparison does Harding something of a disservice."

McKINLEY: "Bush is perhaps the first president [since McKinley] to be entirely in the 'hip pocket' of big business, engage in major external conquest for reasons other than national security, AND be the puppet of his political handler. McKinley had Mark Hanna; Bush has Karl Rove. No wonder McKinley is Rove's favorite historical president (precedent?)."

GRANT: "He ranks with U.S. Grant as the worst. His oil interests and Cheney's corporate Haliburton contracts smack of the same corruption found under Grant."

-- Geraldine Sealey

"The Republican Noise Machine" by David Brock

2004-05-11T09:45:00.000-05:00

"The Conscience of an Ex-Conservative" comes out hard again, showing how the right-wing take-over of the media is undermining your democracy. Ignore this at your own peril. Or read this excerpt in Salon.

Truer words....

2004-05-04T09:41:00.000-05:00

"People who govern in the name of God attribute their own personal preferences to God, and therefore recognize no limit in imposing those preferences on other people."

-- Alabama Supreme Court Justice Douglas Johnstone, on Chief Justice Roy Moore, the "10 Commandments Judge," before Moore's suspension from the bench, in an article in Salon about Moore's possible challenge to President Bush from the right this November

Women's Issues "Disappeared" By Bush Administration

2004-05-01T11:41:00.000-05:00

Sorry for the delay in an original post, but the end of semester crunch is in full force. In the meantime, this report from the Reuters news agency pretty much speaks for itself...

****************

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The Bush administration has stripped information on a range of women's issues from government Web sites, apparently in pursuit of a political agenda, researchers reported on Wednesday.

"Vital information is being deleted, buried, distorted and has otherwise gone missing from government Web sites and publications," Linda Basch, president of the National Council for Research on Women, said in a telephone interview.

"Taken cumulatively, this has an enormously negative effect on women and girls."

A council report said the missing information fell into four categories: women's health; their economic status; objective scientific data; and information aimed at protecting women and girls and helping them advance.

The deletions and alterations appear to hew to a political agenda, rather than providing the nonpartisan, unbiased data that has been the tradition of U.S. government reports, the council said.

Its report cited a fact sheet from the Centers of Disease Control that focused on the advantages of using condoms to prevent sexually transmitted disease; it was revised in December 2002 to say evidence on condoms' effectiveness in curbing these diseases was inconclusive.

The National Cancer Institute's Web site was changed in 2002 to say studies linking abortion and breast cancer were inconsistent; after an outcry from scientists, the institute later amended that to say abortion is not associated with increased breast cancer risk.

25 PUBLICATIONS DELETED

At the Labor Department's Women's Bureau Web site, the report said 25 key publications on subjects ranging from pay equity to child care to issues relating to black and Latina women and women business owners had been deleted with no explanation.

Key government offices dedicated to addressing the needs of women have been disbanded, according to the report. These include the Office of Women's Initiatives and Outreach in the White House and the President's Interagency Council on Women.

At the Pentagon, the Defense Advisory Committee on Women in the Services was slated to be dismantled but was saved after an outcry. However, the report said this committee now focused on issues such as health care for servicewomen and the effects of deployment on families, but not on equity and access issues.

In the area of scientific objectivity, the report said two advisory committees recommended the Food and Drug Administration approve a contraceptive known as Plan B as a nonprescription drug but were blocked by political pressure from doing so.

Regarding violence against women, the report said the U.S. attorney general, as of March 2004, had failed to conduct and publish a study required under the 2000 Violence Against Women Act to investigate discrimination against domestic violence victims in getting insurance.

The White House did not immediately return a call for comment.

Mark Shields: Howard Dean Was Right

2004-04-14T09:22:00.000-05:00

Time for apologies

Monday, April 12, 2004

WASHINGTON (Creators Syndicate) -- Do you remember when Saddam Hussein -- who at the time was dividing his time between a hole in the ground and a shed piled with dirty clothes and was obviously not commanding any organized opposition -- was captured last December 14?

Former Vermont Governor and then-Democratic presidential candidate Howard Dean actually dared to spread the ugly truth that, while a very good thing, "the capture of Saddam has not made America safer."

Such candor brought down the wrath of Dean opponent Sen. Joe Lieberman, D-Connecticut, who fumed, "Howard Dean has climbed into his own spider hole if he believes the capture of Saddam has not made America safer."

Lieberman looks like the soul of restraint compared to Wall Street Journal opinion columnist James Taranto, who wrote: "It's not easy to cram so much idiocy, mendacity and arrogance into nine words. ... Dean's assertion is impossible to support rationally."

As more young Americans daily make their last, long trip home from Iraq -- in body bags -- how many of their families and neighbors feel safer because Saddam Hussein is today in custody?

Do you think any one of the 40,000 or so foreign policy-national security gurus who ridiculed and condemned Howard Dean, last December, has for so much as a microsecond thought about apologizing or had even a flash of self-doubt?

Everyone, of course, is entitled to her own opinion, but not to his own facts. In a democracy, the informed consent of the governed depends upon their free access to the truth.

Americans were urged and encouraged by the nation's leaders to make the most serious of all judgments -- the awesome decision to go to war -- because of the weapons of mass destruction the despot controlled and would not hesitate to use against the United States.

None of that was true.

But because Saddam Hussein is out of power, the United States' pre-emptive war against Iraq -- which continues to cost a billion dollars a month, the loss of friends and trust around the globe, the enmity of millions, and more young widows and orphans -- becomes somehow retroactively the " right" thing.

The lies continue. President George W. Bush boasts of the nation's all-volunteer armed forces: "We have seen the great advantages of a military in which all serve by their own decision."

The truth is that as of last month, no fewer than 44,500 American soldiers who had fulfilled their contractual obligations, completed their enlistments and made plans to return to civilian life or retirement were frozen -- by an arbitrary "stop-loss" order -- on active duty.

A survey by the military's Mental Health Advisory Team found the suicide rate among GI's stationed in Iraq to be 35 percent higher than among Army troops wordwide.

We do not have an all-volunteer service today. The reality is that we now have a limited military draft. But the only Americans who are subjected to the current "draft" are those who have already demonstrated their patriotism by volunteering to serve in the military and have then served honorably.

There is a class difference, too, in proudly classless America. All the sacrifice of this war is being borne by the minority of our population who overwhelmingly do not go onto college. While nearly 50 percent of the U.S. adult population has some college, barely six percent of our military recruits have any college.

One of the "advantages" of the all-volunteer military the president chooses not to mention is that under the draft, which was in effect until 1973, fewer than 10 percent of the draftees failed to complete their obligation.

In the vaunted all-volunteer military, more than one out of three of today's soldiers fails to complete his initial enlistment. Among white male recruits, the failure to complete their enlistment rate is 35 percent, and among white female recruits, it is 55 percent.

The official duplicity and deception that characterized American policy in Vietnam must have taught us all that the credibility of every American leader is fragile and perishable.

The leader who misleads his countrymen reaps the whirlwind. The leader's punishment is the mistrust of his fellow citizens. Mistrust is the father of cynicism, and cynicism breeds alienation -- which will wound the nation more profoundly than Saddam Hussein in or out of custody.

Letter to Salon.com

2004-04-12T09:59:00.000-05:00

Here's what I wrote to Salon.com in response to its interview with Ralph Nader:

Ralph Nader states of the Green or any other third party: "If they're trying to build a party, they've got to go all out in 50 states" to compete in a Presidential election.

My understanding is that if you want to build a party, especially a progressive one, you start at the grassroots level, not the Presidency. Do what the Christian right did: Get people elected to school boards, city councils, local offices. Build an information and fundraising network. Show that you not only have ideas, but can effectively get things done (which, Ralph, involves compromise, I'm sorry to say), and people will elect you to offices with more responsibility. THEN you can "go all out" at a national level.

What has Nader done in 3 years to help elect progressives to actual power? Where was his voice during the build up to war? How has he connected to Americans not already in his choir?

Earlier in the article, he deflects the "spoiler" question by saying "Well, look, I would have got more votes if [Gore] didn't run either." Maybe, Ralph, but you wouldn't be President, and neither would Bush. Whether he admits it or not, there's a difference.

When Worlds Collide

2004-04-10T23:43:00.000-05:00

My God, Spock, What Have You Done???

Arianna Huffington Loves Blogs!

2004-04-08T10:14:00.000-05:00

A nice piece on the significance of political blogging.

Doesn't "media" somehow suggest "mediation"?

2004-04-06T13:35:00.000-05:00

[This is a comment I posted on a message board called The Commune.]

I'm very concerned with how much of our news "reporting" and "commentary" has turned into "here's an issue, let's ask a lot of people to get their 2 cents in." This has its place, to be sure, but it does not subsitute for actual factual presentation, fact checking, and developed, cohesive argument.

As the recent CNN mishaps have illustrated -- Wolf Blitzer's further mischaracterization of a Bush ally's original mischaracterization of Richard Clarke's book; announcing the White House claim that David Letterman's show doctored video to show a hilariously bored youth behind the President, then denying that the White House ever claimed that when the accusation turned out to be false -- there are literally no consequences for being completely wrong or dishonest on camera. This goes beyond a "conflict of interpetations" -- the most powerful people in the world can appear before the vehicle that is supposed to both convery AND critique their statements, state an absolute untruth that flies in the face of logic and all other known data, and they will not be challenged at all. Their message gets out clean.

Honestly, when have you last seen, on the major broadcast networks or cable news channels, a careful examination of a political statement or position by someone who is in a position to make such an evaluation?

US News and World Retort

2004-04-05T09:42:00.000-05:00

Sorry that posting will be sporadic until June -- that's when the textbook on New Religious Movements I'm co-editing will be at the publishers! For now, indulge a bite-size rant against the columnists in U.S. News and World Report.

I get USN&WR free with my subscription to Salon.com, which is an ok deal, as the hard news reporting is probably a cut above Time magazine's and leaps and bounds above the pablum of Newsweek. But the general smartness of the reporting only throws into relief the inanity of their columnists -- John Leo and Charles Krauthammer especially, but there's enough disdain to be spread around, including to its editor-in-chief, Morton Zuckermann. With this blog, I'll finally have the chance to respond in a fuller fashion than a letter to the editor (which, strangely, I have never seen concerning one of the magazine's columns). Heck, the Daily Howler can't do it all....

The one that got me going this week is On Politics, Gloria Borger's (co-host of CNBC's "Capital Report") "And Let Slip the Dogs of Spin." Her central point is fine: When an Administration flies into attack mode, as Bush's has against Richard Clarke, it's a sure sign it's in trouble. She writes, "Now, of course, the white House is calling Clarke a lot worse: a disgruntled bureaucrat (his job was downsized by the Bushies), . . . and a 'nut' (who spent his time fighting other bureaucrats, not terrorists. . .). He has also been dubbed an egomaniac who 'wasn't in the loop' (according to the Vice President) and, alternately, a man who was in the loop with some shared responsibility for policy since he was 'in every meeting that was held on terrorism' (according to [NSA Condi Rice])."

Now here's the rub. To demonstrate this point with another Administration, she cites the Clinton years. Surely no problem finding examples there, you would think. But this is her best case: "Bill Clinton fans started calling Paula Jones names after she dared suggest inappropriate behavior on the part of the governor. And what of that 'stalker' Monica? Wasn't she just another misguided, trashy gal who wouldn't leave the poor, hardworking President alone?"

Are these two examples parallel to the Bush case? Hardly. The attacks on Clarke are coming from the highest levels of the Administration itself. But who receives the attribution in the Clinton case? "Clinton fans" against Paula Jones, and. . . well, no one against Monica L. -- despite putting the word "stalker" in quotes! Whom is Berger quoting? She never says; plus, it's followed by a rhetorical question. I don't know, Gloria. Was Monica another misguided, trashy gal? Who asserted that she was?

While I certainly know that the notorious Misses P and M were characterized in this fashion, I cannot recall the Clinton Administration itself using this language. Please correct me if I'm wrong -- did Al Gore ever call either of these women such names? Hillary or Bill himself? Misguided, maybe, but "trashy"? "Stalker"?

With regard to the Paula Jones case, there's something even more inappropriate about Borger's comparison. Jones wasn't vilified by anyone because she "dared" to suggest that Clinton had been inappropriate with her -- it was because she made the claims at a news conference orchestrated by conservative anti-Clinton groups, led by Richard Mellon Scaife and assisted by the now repentant David Brock, who documents the fabrication of the Jones case in his book Blinded by the Right: The Conscience of an Ex-Conservative. Regardless of the truth or lack thereof of her claims, it was hard to ignore the context in which they were made. The case was ultimately dismissed for lack of evidence. (Coincidently, I was in the Clinton hometown of Hope, AK, literally in the Bill Clinton gift shop, when the news was announced. Funny how that seemed a lot more significant at the time....)

The frustrating thing about Borger's article is that she has a case to make, but is such a sloppy thinker, she undermines it. As bad as the Clinton/Bush comparison turns out to be, she does much more damage to her own credibility as a reporter with her final assessment of Richard Clarke. "As with most things in life, there are bits of truth in all that we have seen in the Clarke-White House brawl. Sure, Clarke was the ultimate bureaucrat and was hopping mad because he wasn't invited to the important meetings." Hopping mad? Where, pray tell, does she get this? There's been nothing rancorous about his testimony to the 9/11 commission. In his book, he expresses frustration that after having met with the Principals of the Clinton Administration, who passed his daily terror briefings on to the President and who took the Al-Qaeda threat seriously, he was "downsized" -- her word. After months of trying to make himself heard concerning this truly imminent threat -- now dealing with deputy officials, not Principals -- he accepted reassignment and then, eventually, retired.

Again, where does Berger get "hopping mad"? And if he was frustrated with the Administration, it certainly wasn't because he didn't get "invited to the important meetings" -- which, her own article suggests, wasn't even true. (She doesn't even touch the absurdity of the Vice President -- who "oversaw" anti-terror policy at the time of 9/11, even though he never met on it once -- suggesting that it was somehow a reasonable thing for the Bush Administration not
to keep its top terrorism advisor "in the loop" on its meetings on terrorism -- that they never held...). It was because, as a 30-year veteran of 4 Administrations -- 3 Republican, including the President's father's -- who had been monitoring levels of chatter from Al-Qaeda not seen since the preparations for the millennium, was desperately trying to get the President to act to protect the safety of the American people, his primary responsibility as President.

The President and his Administration made that impossible. They failed, and now the man who could have helped them do what they were supposed to do is making that known. (By the way, in an earlier blog, I wondered why Clarke waited so long to put this information out. Turns out, he had to get clearance from the White House to use the documentation he produces to make his case. That took a year after writing the book, which he didn't do until after he retired and could speak freely. So not only was this information not politically timed, but the Bush White House approved it before it came out.)

In the larger scheme of things, Borger's article is small potatoes. But if professional scribes can't even put together 150 accurate words that produce a cohesive argument, exactly why do they continue to get paid to do so?

The tax break that never was!

2004-03-28T23:50:00.000-06:00

Well, I did my taxes today. I get $255 back from the Feds; I have to send $259 to the State of Missouri. This is with pretty much the most standard figures you can have doing taxes -- one W2, filing singly, etc.

In other words, guess where W's vaunted tax break goes? That's right, your poor, poverty stricken state. He gets to play Santa; they have to decide which programs to cut and which teachers to fire, and you foot the bill. This is what Howard Dean called the Bush tax increase -- did your tuition go up? Your health care premium? Your state and local taxes?

Well, one guess why.

If you haven't had enough of Lord of the Rings.....

2004-03-27T16:19:00.000-06:00

http://www.albinoblacksheep.com/flash/gollum.php

Yo, God! -- The God Detector

2004-03-23T09:26:00.000-06:00

Don't you love it when the Web justifies your existence?

(And all existence everywhere, in this case?)

http://www.yo-god.com

One Year Later: Everyone feel safe now?

2004-03-22T08:56:00.000-06:00

Well, as we all know, it's been one year since the invasion of Iraq -- which was a war ON Iraq, not a war WITH Iraq. Despite the Admin.'s (and Fox News') incessant equation of it with the War on Terror, Iraq only became the "central front on the War on Terror" by creating the conditions for localized terror strikes there, as we've seen now for months since the war "ended" and which escalated with the advent of the one-year anniversary. As I said to political cartoonist Ted Rall, who was visiting the University last spring, "Bush has turned us into Israel." I guess that's one way of becoming the Promised Land....

What can be said about this war that hasn't already been said? What wasn't said, somewhere, before the war started? Following former Treasury Sec. Paul O'Neill's lead, another Bush administration official, Richard Clarke, the frickin' White House couterterrorism coordinator, has lambasted the Prez in a book for being asleep at the wheel before 9/11, then trying to make the attacks an excuse to invade Iraq. Here's what the AP story today says:

"Richard A. Clarke, the former White House counterterrorism coordinator, accuses the Bush administration of failing to recognize the al-Qaida threat before the Sept. 11, 2001, terror attacks and then manipulating America into war with Iraq with dangerous consequences. He accuses Bush of doing 'a terrible job on the war against terrorism.' Clarke, who is expected to testify Tuesday before a federal panel reviewing the attacks, writes in a new book going on sale Monday that Bush and his Cabinet were preoccupied during the early months of his presidency with some of the same Cold War issues that had faced his father's administration. 'It was as though they were preserved in amber from when they left office eight years earlier,' Clarke told CBS for an interview Sunday on its '60 Minutes' program. CBS' corporate parent, Viacom Inc., owns Simon & Schuster, publisher for Clarke's book, 'Against All Enemies.'"

That pretty much says it all, eh? Except why he didn't make this clear to the rest of us before the war. Guess you wouldn't want to queer any book deal down the road by actually preventing the war....

Still, at some point, it seems there will be a critical mass of voices critical of the Administration, not from the usual lefty places, right as they may be, but from former officials, families of those currently deployed in Afghanistan and Iraq, and the families of the victims of 9/11. The twisted logic that has been used to dismiss and impugn even the most reasonable and even-handed objections to the actions of the Bush Administration will sound more and more hollow each time it's trotted out -- as it has been already -- against the moral authority possessed by these groups.

That twisted logic has always been what has so infuriated me about this group in power, what with being a college professor and all. Later in this blog when I have time (which probably means this summer), I'll really try to put together all the ways the Bushites would have failed my classes simply by virtue of their abysmal critical thinking skills. How is that people who cannot reason better than remedial high school students are running the country and leading us into war? And why have so few (Howard Dean and The Daily Howler excepted) called them on it?

One last note: That twisted logic reached legendary status last weekend when Don Rumsfeld, on one of the Sunday a.m. political talk shows ("Face the Nation," I think) stated categorically that only a "few critics" ever used the phrase "imminent threat" to describe the Admin.'s evaluation of Iraq in making its case for war -- only to be read his own words using that very phrase, and another quote that essentially said the same thing. (You can click on this link to Moveon.org to see the video of it; it was also posted at the database of the Bush Admin.'s statements on Iraq maintained by the Democrat Henry Waxman in the U.S. House of Representatives linked below).

This is fabulous and long overdue, of course, but I have yet to hear anyone ask or address the underlying question that all of the discussion about the claims the Admin. made or didn't make before the war raises. Anytime one of them argues semantics and says that W. or any of his underlings never said Saddam was an imminent threat, the fact that this is patently and demonstrably false is beside the point. It only confirms what bold-faced liars they are, and how little shame they have about how they mislead the American people.

No, the real point is this: If Saddam was NEVER an "imminent threat," which would be the only explanation for claiming to have not SAID he was, then THERE WAS NEVER ANY JUSTIFICATION FOR A PRE-EMPTIVE INVASION. Let's put that another way: Every time Bush or Rummy or Scott McClellan or Powell or Condi or any one of the war architects tries to avoid being pinned down as having made this claim, he or she admits that there was no reason for the war. Again, why has this line of questioning not been pursued? Because neither our government officials or the press corps charged with keeping their actions on our behalf out in the open could evaluate a statement for factuality or coherence if their lives depended on it, perhaps?

I'm not a theologian, but I play one on TV...

2004-03-17T08:39:00.000-06:00

Well, the piece for which I was interviewed was a mixed success. The interview itself was fine, covering everything from the "Passion" (which I have not seen yet, but have read a lot of interesting things about from all sides), gay marriage, separation of church and state, etc. Having been through this before, I was cautious to craft statements that would introduce new and useful insights (as far as I'm concerned, anyway) on these subjects.

The two main points I wanted to get across were that (1), despite what a lot of religious folks like to believe, neither the founders nor the foundation of the country were Christian. This fallacy arises from the fact that the US really has two beginnings: The 17th century Puritanical one, where persecuted Protestant "Pilgrims" (say that 3 times fast) left England to set up a religiously-governed society -- and hence immediately became just as intolerant as the Anglicans who forced them to leave (gee, I wonder why...); and the 18th century revolution which was guided by the Enlightenment political philosophy of America's intellectual class. These two "starts" are more often than not conflated and confused. In short, the "Founding Fathers" were NOT the Pilgrims, and the Bible and the 10 Commandments specifically are NOT the source of law and government in this country. While the 1st Commandment makes the basis of the authority of the law "I AM THE LORD YOUR GOD" (Lord ["Adonai"] being a reference to royal sovereignty, though of course this is the euphemism for Yahweh, "the king"), the Constitution begins "WE THE PEOPLE...." That is, it is EXPLICITY anti-monarchy, as the entire American Revolution was. The leaders of the Revolution and architects of the Declaration of Independence and, later, the Constitution were ambiguously religious, some Unitarian, some Deist, some atheist, some openly hostile to Christianity, some embracing it. But the fact of the matter is, they had the opportunity to make the US a Christian state, and not only did they not (again, reacting against the theocratic abuses of the Anglican church), they went out of their way in the 1st Amendment to make sure it never happened. Yet the religious America continues unbroken from its Puritan history, and after the 2nd Great Awakening of the 19th century set the stage for the Fundamentalist movement, we have the political situation we have today. Point (2) was simply that the debate over gay marriage reflects this conflation of the two Americas -- a quest for the Constitutionally guaranteed equal protection under the law becomes an "attack on a sacred tradition and mainstream values" -- neither of which is the US government supposed to protect, regulate, or impose on people.

I got these points into the interview, as well as some others. On "The Passion," I suggested that the film was supposed to be viewed like an icon, where believers bring so much meaning to each image and symbol that they cannot help but be moved by it. The problem has been Gibson's relentless, arrogant, and obtuse promotion of the film as the "most accurate depiction of what really happened." If he had discussed the film as a "faith portait," a creative and symbolic representation of the meaning and message of Christ to him, as all tellings of the Christ story are -- including each of the 4 Gospels -- then there would be a lot of room to take the film on its own terms. I haven't seen it yet, but it sounds visually interesting, at the very least, and, having been raised in the Lutheran Church, I can appreciate the sense that something important is lost when other versions of the Crucifixion soften its horror. But this insistence that something that's clearly not even 100% faithful to the Gospel texts (and even the one it is most faithful to, John, is already an interpretation of the tradition from the point of view of a mystical, dualistic, and polemical Christology from about 110 c.e., much later than Mark, Matthew, and Luke) is "what really happened" is disengenuous at best, faith-baiting at worst. (I won't comment on the anti-Semitism charges until I see the movie, but this dishonestly about what this portrays plays right into the tradition of anti-Semitism derived from the Gospels, especially John).

Anyway, I thought I gave a good interview, and there was a lot in there that would enhance what a news program might bring to such a story. Alas, while the piece itself was reasonably well presented, and it did give me one good soundbite (where I state that even George W. Bush originally thought that gay marriage was something that should be decided by the states), the second soundbite had me running through the Biblical condemnations of homosexuality in Leviticus and Paul's Epistles as an "abomination." The reporter did leave in my preface that there are only a small handful of references to homosexuality at all in the Bible, but all the other contextualization and criticism of this stance never made it in.

And to add insult to injury, the piece identified me not as a Professor of Philosophy and Religion, or as a religious scholar, but as a "theologian," which not only is factually inaccurate (reporters should do better) but somewhat implied that the "theological view" of homosexuality that I restate in the interview is justified (or worse, that I might hold it). But my main problem with the inclusion of that part of my interview was that IT IS NOT NEWS that people use the Bible to attack gays -- IT IS THE PREMISE OF THE PIECE ITSELF. The reporter did not need me on camera say what it says in the Bible. If you're going to come to me for my expertise, use my expertise. Show how that view is challenged others who take religion seriously, whether they are believers or scholars. Show how the view is far from mainstream even in the Bible itself -- and certainly never appears in the Gospels. Jesus never attacks gays.

In the end, I'm not angry about the way the interview was used, but I consider it a lost opportunity to say something NEW on the NEWS. This reporter is a good one, and I know she cares about these issues in this community as much as I do. But I have long said that the true bias in reporting is not liberal or conservative, but laziness. It's quite likely that the reporter's editor, not her, saw what had always been said in my interview, and just latched onto that.

Oh, well. So it goes....

Interview by KTVO today!

2004-03-15T10:07:00.000-06:00

I've been asked to be interviewed by the local ABC affiliate's newsroom on the separation of the sacred and the secular in American culture today, what with Janet, Mel, gay marriage, etc. stirring the waters of Kulturkampf these days. The reporter is actually fairly well-informed on such things -- she interviewed me before on the 1st anniversary of 9/11 on Islam and apocalypticism, and briefly before the War on Iraq (as a man-on-the-street, tho I was in a coffee house). I'll report back after the piece airs.

2004-03-11T23:10:00.000-06:00

Dereck's Blog

This is Dereck's blog. Last night I couldn't get the comments function to appear, so this morning, I changed the template for the entire blog.

Now, I can't change any of the colors for the template to customize it, but at least the comments functions work.

I'm going to leave this for now. Dereck says he doesn't have time to have a blog, and yet last night he asked me to help him with this.

I think he will find he has more time for it than he thinks...