April 30, 2004
Daily Op/Eds Wrap-up
Paul Krugman: In Front of Your Nose
"Others say we should seek more support from other countries. There may once have been a time - say, last summer - when the U.S. could have struck a deal: by ceding a lot of authority to the U.N., we might have been able to persuade countries with large armies, like India, to contribute large numbers of peacekeeping troops. But it's hard to imagine that anyone will now send significant forces into the Iraqi cauldron..."
John Nichols: Too bad president needs a minder
"In other words, in the unlikely event that Bush or Cheney might let a snippet of truth slip out, the elaborate White House spin machine will be able to take advantage of the deliberately vague record to "clarify" the statement. The absence of a taped record also allows the administration to avoid the embarrassment of having to explain why, when the commander-in-chief is asked questions, the vice president answers..."
Arianna Huffington: The 9/12 Effect
"It's a puzzling paradox: Recent polls show that voters are more worried that we are losing the war on terror, more convinced that we're about to be attacked, and more certain that the invasion of Iraq has put America at greater risk from terrorists. And yet, these same voters overwhelmingly believe that President Bush will do a better job of protecting them from terrorists than John Kerry.
Isn't that like believing that the embezzler who just ran off with your life savings is the perfect guy to manage your finances?..."
Senator Robert C Byrd: Mission Not Accomplished
"How long will America continue to pay the price in blood and treasure of this President's war? How long must the best of our nation's military men and women be taken from their homes to fight this unnecessary war in Iraq? How long must our National Guardsmen be taken from their communities to fight and die in the hot sands in Iraq? How long must the fathers and mothers see their sons and daughters die in a far away land because of President Bush's doctrine of preemptive attack? How long must little children across our land go to sleep at night crying for a daddy or mother far away who may never come home?..."
Minneapolis Star-Tribune: War on terror/Iraq is hurting, not helping
"President Bush continues to define the war in Iraq as an essential piece of the struggle against terrorism, a war that is making America and the world safer. Americans continue to believe him. A new poll from the University of Maryland reports that 57 percent of Americans believe that Saddam Hussein gave substantial support to Osama bin Laden's Al-Qaida; 45 percent said "clear evidence" has been found to prove that support. An equal number, 45 percent, said Saddam had weapons of mass destruction shortly before the United States invaded Iraq; 22 percent say he had a "major program for developing them."
Get a grip, folks: There is not one shred of credible evidence that supports any of those views. None. There is much evidence that those views are wrong..."
H.D.S. Greenway: The making of a quagmire
"I have another memory that haunts me more than any comparison with Vietnam. Sitting on a hillside with an Israeli artillery company 22 years ago, I watched the shelling of Beirut. Smoke and dust rose from the city as if it were a rug being beaten. The soldiers spoke of how the Shia of Lebanon had welcomed them when they invaded. Israel had great hopes of transforming Lebanon into an ally, and Israel's army could not be defeated in open battle. But 18 years later the Israelis left Lebanon, harassed to the last by those same Shia whom the Israelis had thought they had liberated..."
Daniel Schorr: Why hide flag-draped coffins?
"Considering that no individual identification is visible in the pictures, it is hard to understand the justification for clamping the secrecy lid on the solemn procession of flag-draped coffins being carried off the cargo planes. I cannot avoid the suspicion that President Bush - who has yet to attend a funeral service for any of the honored dead that he sent to war - has no interest in calling attention to the mounting number of casualties in a battle that was far from over last May 1, when the president declared "major combat operations" in Iraq had ended..."
Gregory Palast: Vanishing Votes
"First, the purges. In the months leading up to the November 2000 presidential election, Florida Secretary of State Katherine Harris, in coordination with Governor Jeb Bush, ordered local election supervisors to purge 57,700 voters from the registries, supposedly ex-cons not allowed to vote in Florida. At least 90.2 percent of those on this "scrub" list, targeted to lose their civil rights, are innocent. Notably, more than half--about 54 percent--are black or Hispanic. You can argue all night about the number ultimately purged, but there's no argument that this electoral racial pogrom ordered by Jeb Bush's operatives gave the White House to his older brother..."
Bill Berkowitz: The Military's Mounting Mental Health Problems
"At a time when the Bush Administration seems intent on shutting down veterans centers and closing down VA hospitals, what will happen to traumatized soldiers when they return to the states?..."
Randolph T. Holhut: Lifting the shroud of secrecy on Bush's War
"President George W. Bush didn't have a problem with using a photograph of a flag-draped body bag being carried from the ruins of the World Trade Center in New York City for his first commercial of the campaign season.
Heroic sacrifice is fine if it helps the president's campaign, but pictures of flag-draped coffins returning from Iraq and Afghanistan must not be seen. Likewise for the thousands of wounded soldiers who are flown back to the U.S. under cover of darkness. No one must see the human cost that's being paid for the folly of the Bush administration..."
April 28, 2004
Morning Op/Eds Wrapup
I've got a new job and will try something different with my postings than usual. Bear with me and we will see how this all works out.
Richard A. Clarke: To learn from this catharsis
"It is a battle not only of bombs and bullets, but chiefly of ideas. It is a war that we are losing, as more and more of the Islamic world develops antipathy toward the United States and some even develop a respect for the jihadist movement..."
David R. Obey/Robert C. Byrd: Show Us The Money
"When the Congress provided the extraordinary authorities in response to the Al Qaeda attacks of Sept. 11, 2001, it expected that tax dollars would be managed carefully so as to provide assistance to the victims of the attack, to secure our homeland and to improve our national security. The letter of the law and consultation with the Congress in the expenditure of appropriated funds provides our citizens with assurance that their tax dollars are spent in accordance with congressional intent. Transparency in this regard is critical. We need a full accounting of the entire $40 billion Emergency Response Fund..."
Harold Meyerson: Prince Hal vs. King Henry
"There are days in this campaign when Kerry must think he's still up against Nixon and his thugs. The same slanders that Dick and his boys cooked up then -- Kerry as dangerous radical, Kerry as inauthentic liberal -- are being served up now by Nixon's ethical heirs..."
E. J. Dionne Jr.: GOP attack dogs smear Kerry's war record
"McCain recalled that he had worked with Kerry on "POW/MIA issues and the normalization of relations with Vietnam" and wanted to stand up for his war comrade because "you have to do what's right." Speaking of Kerry, McCain said: "He's my friend. He'll continue to be my friend. I know his service was honorable. If that hurts me politically or with my party, that's a very small price to pay..."
"Cheney is on weak legal ground, as both the trial court and the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit have ruled. Many of the legal issues are arcane procedural questions about when pretrial discovery orders can be appealed. But the case also raises more substantive issues about the degree to which a vice president can claim to be above the law. As the Supreme Court held in a landmark case involving President Richard Nixon's Watergate tapes, executive privilege has its limits. Cheney may be entitled to ask that the disclosure requests be narrowed, but there is no basis for exempting him entirely..."
Newsday: Cheney: hypocrite on defense
" The thing is, as secretary of defense in the first Bush administration, Cheney proposed cutting or actually did cut many of those same programs. In fact, under Cheney defense spending shrank from almost 5 percent of gross domestic product to almost 2.5 percent. And you know what? Cheney should be, and has been, praised for that. The Cold War had come to an end and it made no sense to keep many of the weapons systems built to fight the Soviets..."
Howard Kuttner: Remedy to outsourcing: better US jobs
"Most of the solution to the outsourcing problem, however, is domestic. In recent decades, institutions that once produced a more equal society have been dismantled or weakened. These included government regulation of wages and working conditions, of industry practices, of a worker's right to choose a union (or not), as well as various social investments that once contributed good jobs. If we can rebuild these, the loss of some jobs overseas will continue to be a problem, but a manageable one..."
Los Angeles Times: Peril in the Air for Bush: Howard Stern
"A strange new sound has been crackling over the nation's radio airwaves, the same airwaves that have been dominated by Rush Limbaugh and other specialists in right-wing Sturm und Drang. Suddenly, in the thick of an election year, a left-leaning equivalent has emerged, riling a mass audience with scathing, eloquent attacks on the Bush administration..."
Philadelphia Inquirer: Enemy Combatants
"Have no illusions that the detainees are all innocent bystanders. Without question, U.S. officials had to interrogate these prisoners to uncover links to terrorist activities. But locking hundreds in enduring legal limbo without any independent oversight is untenable. It's unworthy of a democracy based on the rule of law which is actively seeking to export those values around the globe..."
I despair of the future
It was 38 degrees Fahrenheit this morning when I dropped my daughter off at her high school. It's not supposed to get above 60 today and will probably stay in the mid-50's. As I drove away I saw a kid wearing flip-flops exiting a car.
April 26, 2004
William Rivers Pitt: Falluja, Najaf and the First Law of Holes
"Instead, Bush has mobilized anti-American sentiment to such a staggering degree that Shi'ite and Sunni, enemies for generations past counting, have united to fight us. The invasion and occupation has spurred an al Qaeda recruitment drive that has swelled the ranks of that organization. A lot of people are dead, American and British and Spanish and Polish and Iraqi alike. Nine Americans and 28 Iraqis were killed this weekend alone. The light at the end of this tunnel is an oncoming freight train.
That's not the worst part, however. The worst part is yet to come, in two cities called Falluja and Najaf. Americans paying attention to the spiral of violence in recent weeks will recognize those names, for they have been at the center of heavy combat since the month of April began. Bush administration officials, rocked back on their heels by the eruption of death there, were forced at one point to sue for a cease fire with the 'insurgents' they had supposedly defeated last May, when the mission was declared accomplished and the end of major combat operations was declared over during a photo-op on an aircraft carrier several time zones away from the violence.
The cease fire has failed, and American forces are at this moment surrounding Falluja and Najaf with the intention of invading these cities and routing the 'insurgents.' A showdown is coming, and nothing good will be made of it..."
Editorial: Many women/Marching to choose, and to live
"And the current occupant of the White House couldn't be more hostile to the notion of reproductive freedom. He favors virtually every proposal ever offered to make the right to choose meaningless -- and has audaciously snubbed the world's women by breaking a U.S. promise to give the United Nations Population Fund $34 million in international family-planning money. The cut-off has spurred millions of unwanted pregnancies and abortions -- and untold numbers of maternal deaths. The president's dreadful move has spurred the 34 Million Friends campaign (www.34millionfriends.org), now urging Americans to reach into their pockets to do for the world's women what the White House will not do itself."
Jonathan Schwarz: Business As Usual
"Today, thank God, things are completely different. Now if the Bush administration were to make false statements about banned weapons in Iraq, The New York Times, The Washington Post and the networks would be all over them like a cheap biochemical suit.
Ha ha! No, just kidding, of course. Nothing has changed since the media swallowed the WMD garbage in the runup to the U.S. invasion of Iraq.
The administration is still making blatantly false statements about banned weapons in Iraq, and the American media still won't call them on it. In fact, the media barely seem to notice?even when the false claims are made by President Bush, on primetime television..."
Matt Bai: The Multilevel Marketing of the President
"The notion of translating the MLM concept into politics is visionary -- and also a little disquieting. Pyramid-based companies have proved amazingly successful at raising up armies of enterprising Americans; Amway, the world's most successful MLM, has more than 3.6 million distributors. But some MLM's thrive by imposing their own strange and insular cultures on their recruits, and while they offer the illusion of self-employment, those at the top of the pyramid often demand a rigid kind of uniformity and loyalty. Amway has often been compared to a cult -- so often, in fact, that on its own Web site the company feels the need to answer such frequently asked questions as ''I've heard rumors that Amway is a cult; is this true?'' and ''Why do Amway meetings appear to some people like a cult?'' When I met with Ken Mehlman, Bush's campaign manager, in suburban Washington, and suggested that the Bush campaign could fairly be compared to Amway in its approach, he agreed without hesitation. ''Amway, no question,'' he said..."
Editorial: War doesn't mean Bush can ignore Constitution
"The plain facts of the matter are these: The U.S. Constitution applies all the time, in war and in peace. The president may do only what the Constitution allows, and he must do what the Constitution tells him he must. He has no powers not specifically set out by the Constitution, and it is the courts' role to stay the president's hand if he reaches too far.
In this case, Bush is reaching too far..."
Editorial: Give us a break
"What do bow-and-arrow makers, foreigners who gamble in the United States and Oldsmobile dealers have in common? They all deserve a tax break, according to Congress. Tax cut fever has gripped lawmakers, and they're beginning to act delusional..."
Lucy Komisar: How Big Business Evades Taxes
"Were you stunned by the revelation, days before your taxes were due, that nearly two-thirds of companies operating in America reported owing no taxes from 1996 through 2000? That over 90 percent of large corporations ? with at least $250 million in assets or $50 million in gross receipts ? reported owing taxes of only 5 percent or less?.."
Cathy Young: The attack on secularism
"The history in Jacoby's book is fascinating. She makes a convincing argument that, contrary to the assertions of many conservatives today, the Founding Fathers did in fact intend to create a secular government. The Constitution's lack of any reference to God or divine sanction was not an accidental oversight, or an omission of something that everyone implicitly took for granted anyway. On the contrary, the godlessness of the Constitution, along with its rejection of a religious test for public office, was a source of major controversy during the ratification debates. Religious traditionalists warned that the Constitution's irreligiousness would bring God's wrath down on American citizens -- in language reminiscent of claims by some of their modern-day descendants after Sept. 11 that God withdrew his protection from America because Americans have turned away from him..."
Jackson Diehl : Dubious Threat, Expensive Defense
"Only he didn't -- at least not in one large respect. The president may have declared war on terrorism and launched invasions of Afghanistan and Iraq. But for the past 21/2 years, his Pentagon has quietly but implacably persisted in pursuing, without alteration, the previous No. 1 mission. The result is a breakneck, hugely expensive and quite risky attempt to build and activate a national missile defense before the November election..."
Editorial: Punish voting system cheater
"In misleading state election officials, the touch-screen voting company destroyed its credibility and damaged voter confidence in elections. It used uncertified software; equipment malfunctions created havoc in March's elections in several counties..."
"That coincidence illustrates how Sharon manipulates Washington.It has long been accepted that the only basis for a compromise is a formula that exchanges territory for refugees - that is, an Israeli acceptance of the Palestinian demand that territorial negotiations begin (but need not conclude) at the 1967 border in return for Palestinian agreement that the right of return apply de facto only to the new Palestinian state. That compromise has been precluded by Bush..."
Editorial: Sierra Club Back to Basics
"Sierra Club members were quite clear in their vote to conserve the original mission of their organization: They would not mix their message of environmentalism with an anti-immigrant agenda..."
Fredric U. Dicker: (NY) State GOP scared stiff
"NEW YORK Republicans see a "catastrophe looming" in the November elections, with President Bush - unpopular in the state - dragging down their U.S. Senate, congressional and state legislative candidates.
April 25, 2004
April 24, 2004
Editorial: Galling smears
"Perhaps it should no longer surprise, but it does: the guiltless ease with which the Karl Rovian forces of the far right smear a perfectly fine person. They did it with former U.S. Sen. Max Cleland; they did it with Sen. John McCain, and now they are attempting to do it with Sen. John Kerry, the presumptive Democratic candidate for president this fall.
A clandestine slime campaign against Kerry has been ongoing for many months on the Web. It surfaced this week when Republican National Committee Chairman Ed Gillespie demanded that Kerry open all his military records from his Vietnam-era service, as Kerry had pledged to do last Sunday in an appearance on "Meet the Press." Kerry complied by posting his record on the Web for all to see.
What Gillespie was tapping into was an ugly rumor mill whispering that Kerry didn't deserve the three Purple Hearts, one Bronze Star and one Silver Star he earned while commanding a high-speed gunboat on the rivers of Vietnam in 1968-69. Kerry has been accused of seeking out the medals, of somehow planning his injuries and awards to plump up his resume for political office, of war crimes, of receiving his awards under "fishy circumstances," of not deserving the Purple Hearts because his injuries were minor, of serving in Vietnam for only four months, and on and on..."
Editorial: Punish voting system cheater
"In misleading state election officials, the touch-screen voting company destroyed its credibility and damaged voter confidence in elections. It used uncertified software; equipment malfunctions created havoc in March's elections in several counties..."
Randolph T. Holhut: Making the Monster
"After the Vietnam debacle, Mamdani writes that the U.S. made a conscious decision to shift its strategy against the Soviet Union from direct military confrontation to the use of privatized, stateless proxy forces to do the fighting. From UNITA (the National Union for the Total Independence of Angola) and RENAMO (the Mozambican National Resistance) in Africa, to the Contras in Nicaragua, to the mujahedeen in Afghanistan, the idea was to create "an international cadre of uprooted individuals who broke ties with family and country to join clandestine networks with a clearly defined enemy."
The one thing all these forces had in common, besides CIA assistance, was that all used the random killing of civilians as a way to sow fear and paralyze the governments they were fighting against..."
Robert B. Reich: Always Wal-Mart
"Yet there's another tradition of American antitrust that may be relevant here. We don't hear much about it any longer, but a century ago, antitrust was also concerned about companies becoming so large they distorted the political process. In fact, the danger to democracy posed by large corporations was the primary reason for antitrust laws being enacted in the first place..."
Editorial: Taxes and Politics
"Two of the news releases were primarily information for taxpayers. The other two were entitled "Millions of Individuals and Families Are Benefiting From Tax Relief Plan" and "Tax Relief Reinvigorated the U.S. Economy and Is Driving Job Creation."
The pro-Bush, anti-Kerry message could not be much plainer..."
Dave Zweifel: Press fails to press Bush for answers
"This administration gets away with saying we won't tell you anything, so goodbye, go away," she said.
"And they do," she added, referring to the press..."
April 23, 2004
Paul Krugman: What Went Wrong?
"Cronyism and corruption are major factors in Iraq's downward spiral. This week the public radio program "Marketplace" is running a series titled "The Spoils of War," which documents a level of corruption in Iraq worse than even harsh critics had suspected. The waste of money, though it may run into the billions, is arguably the least of it - though military expenses are now $4.7 billion a month. The administration, true to form, is trying to hide the need for more money until after the election; Mr. Cordesman predicts that Iraq will need "in excess of $50-70 billion a year for probably two fiscal years."
More important, the "Marketplace" report confirms what is being widely reported: that the common view in Iraq is that members of the U.S.-appointed Governing Council are using their positions to enrich themselves, and that U.S. companies are doing the same. President Bush's idealistic language may be persuasive to Americans, but many Iraqis see U.S. forces as there to back a corrupt regime, not democracy..."
Molly Ivins: Fantasyland of the free
Is Bush in hock to the Saudis? Plus, more reaction on that nutty press conference
"Meanwhile, the Heathers (as Washington's lightweight pundits are collectively known) are atwitter over the new Bob Woodward book. From reading secondhand accounts of it, the item that stopped me was not when Bush decided to invade Iraq -- as per Clinton's testimony to the 9-11 commission and Paul O'Neill's book, Bush apparently wanted to invade from before he was sworn in -- it's the Prince Bandar story that left me whomper-jawed. Do you remember when someone who was connected to someone who was connected to someone who was connected to China was found to have raised money for Bill Clinton? The right wing came completely unglued over it, and all manner of hideous conspiracy theories were advanced. Maybe the Saudis trying to influence our elections shouldn't startle me -- the new book "House of Bush, House of Saud" is all about that connection. Still, the non-denial denials from the White House and the Saudis smell like rotten meat. Just what we need: a prez in hock to the Saudis..."
Jim Lobe: US Majority Still Believe in Iraq's WMD, al-Qaeda Ties
"Despite statements by such officials as the Bush administration's former chief weapons inspector, David Kay; its former anti-terrorism chief, Richard Clarke; former chief United Nations weapons inspector Hans Blix, as well as admissions by senior administration officials themselves, a majority of the public still believes Iraq was closely tied to the al-Qaeda terrorist group and had WMD stocks or programs before U.S. troops invaded the country 13 months ago..."
John W. Dean: A Controversial Choice for the Position of Archivist of the United States
Part of the Bush Administration's Secrecy Strategy?
"Why is President Bush so eager to switch archivists? Bruce Craig of the National Coalition for History explains that the Administration is likely motivated both by "the sensitive nature of certain presidential and executive department records expected to be opened in the near future," and also by "genuine concern in the White House that the president may not be re-elected."
Craig also notes that "in January 2005, the first batch of records (the mandatory 12 years of closure having passed) relating to the president's father's administration will be subject to the Presidential Records Act (PRA) and could be opened..."
Jonathan Schell: Politics and Truth
"Such is the archeology of the dilemma that Kerry and the Democratic Party face today. Their flip-flopping, which is real enough, is between the truth as they see it and politics as they know it to be. The party is an antiwar party that dares not speak its name. Its candidate is energized, but with a borrowed energy. He has a backbone, but it is a borrowed backbone..."
Joyce Marcel: The Golden Mean is gone
"In my darkest thoughts, I believe that none of this is really being done in the name of God. I believe it is being done in the name of power. Whether it's Osama bin Laden trying to bring down Western civilization, or whomever is running Hamas this week trying to make sure that when Palestine becomes a state, they're the ones running it, or Ariel Sharon building a morally indefensible wall and Jewish fundamentalists teaching their children how to defend it, or President Bush and his cronies trying to convert the Iraqis to Christianity and corporate capitalism, God is only the burqa. God is the shield behind which they hide..."
John Nichols: Bush should go publicly before 9/11 panel
"If Bush refuses to answer reasonable questions in public, the indelible impression is left that he has something to hide. That impression is reinforced by the White House's insistence that Vice President Cheney sit with Bush at the hearing. The president cannot afford to convey the image that he is afraid to appear on his own. And neither the 9/11 commission nor the public should permit a behind-closed-door session for anything except national security information..."
Jonathan Zimmerman: Feel-Good History Hurts Kids
"To understand history, students must do more than simply "see themselves" in it; they need to grapple with its enigmas, its ambiguities and its inconsistencies. But they'll never do that if we're overeager to protect their psyches, which are far less delicate than most adults suspect..."
April 22, 2004
Mark Morford: Why Won't Dubya Apologize?
Botched 9/11 info, two botched wars, a gutted economy, global scorn. Why can't W be a man?
"But then there's Dubya. He is, apparently, immune. He is perfect and flawless and without the slightest taint of guilt or error, and, despite looking like a bowl of Jell-O salad in a universe of divine tiramisu, he is, apparently, an angel of purity and light. It's true.
For here is Dubya, mumbling his way through another shockingly insulting news conference just recently, screwing up both his face and his intelligence data (again) and still a-huntin' for nonexistent WMDs in Iraqi turkey farms (?) as reporter after reporter asks him, point blank, why he won't simply come clean.
They ask him, repeatedly, why he cannot find a single mistake in any policy his slithery admin has unleashed upon the nation, much less confess to any rampant missteps and botched decisions and oily ulterior motives and blatant screw-ups regarding 9/11 and Saddam and WMDs and his fetish for warmongering and for rewriting intelligence data to suit his corporate needs, all while taking more vacations than any president in history..."
Dave Zweifel: Bush not feeling pain of troops' kin
"Those of us who don't have friends or relatives in Iraq can't fully comprehend the anguish that these folks are enduring. The only ones who have had to sacrifice to fight this dubious war are the young men and women who volunteer to serve in the military and those who enlisted in the Guard or Reserve - and, of course, their families..."
Maureen Dowd: The Body Politic
"Not since Jane Goodall lived with chimps in Tanzania has there been such a vivid study of the nonverbal patterns of primates engaged in a dominance display.
Bob Woodward's new book, "Plan of Attack," reveals that President Bush decided to go to war based mostly, believe it or not, on body language..."
Thom Hartmann: Bush Fails History...Jefferson Predicted Iraq
"Discussing the French Revolution, the Terror that followed, and the reign of Napoleon, Jefferson noted that building democracy is an organic process: The democracy movement in the colonies had been fermenting for a century prior to Jefferson's birth.
"A full measure of liberty is not now perhaps to be expected by your nation," Jefferson wrote, about the democracy movement within France, "nor am I confident they are prepared to preserve it. More than a generation will be requisite, under the administration of reasonable laws favoring the progress of knowledge in the general mass of the people, and their habituation to an independent security of person and property, before they will be capable of estimating the value of freedom, and the necessity of a sacred adherence to the principles on which it rests for preservation..."
Joe Conason: When a flip-flop actually makes sense
"Any impulse to laugh, however, is stifled not only by the continuing peril to our troops and to millions of innocent Iraqis, but by the haunting possibility that the President may have come to his senses too late..."
Marc Lynch: Humiliating Our Friends
"Two years ago, George Bush stunned and outraged virtually the entire Arab world by warmly describing Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon as a "man of peace" at the height of the brutal Israeli reoccupation of the West Bank. Last week, Bush did it again, endorsing Sharon?s demands to end the right of Palestinian return and legitimizing decades' worth of illegal West Bank settlements. He did so even as Israeli assassinations of Hamas leaders and the bloody American campaign in Iraq had Arab anger at an almost unprecedented pitch. And he did so without any coordination with moderate Arab leaders or any attempt to explain himself to Arab audiences. When the final damage is calculated, the greatest victims of Bush?s latest episode of public non-diplomacy may well be a group which Bush himself claims to most want by his side: Arab moderates..."
Sean Gonsalves: Shifty Tax Cuts
"For fiscal years 2002-2004, state governments filled approximately $200 billion in budget gaps by raising state taxes and fees and by cutting services. And during those same years, newly enacted federal tax cuts delivered about as much money - $197.3 billion - in new tax breaks for the wealthiest one percent of Americans (households making more than $337,000 a year).
"Had that money instead been directed to state fiscal aid, it could have prevented virtually all recent tax hikes and service cuts at the state level, which fall hardest on low- and middle-income Americans," write the report's authors..."
Marci Hamilton: The Bush Presidency and Power:
"There was a time--now ancient history--when the Republican party swept into power on a platform of limited federal government. But that was before they gained control in the White House and the Congress..."
Editorial: Privatizing war
"It's one thing for the U.S. military to outsource food and laundry services to private firms, as it started doing aggressively in the 1990s, but it's quite another to outsource the actual fighting. That is what the Pentagon is perilously close to doing in Iraq. The grisly deaths of four American security contractors in Falluja last month underscored America's troubling reliance on hired guns. After the 130,000 American troops, the nearly 20,000 people employed by private security firms now form the second-largest contingent - surpassing the British - in the coalition of the willing, although a private guard's services cost as much as $1,500 a day..."
Molly Ivins: Be there-March for Women's Lives is a life-or-death decision
"This is it. It's all on the line now. Everyone who thinks she's too old, too tired and has done this too many times before, be there. Everyone who has never been to a women's march, who thought all the rights had long since been secured, who thinks feminism is old hat and has nothing to do with your life, be there. Bring your daughters, mothers, nieces, friends, husbands, sons and significant others. If you can't be there, get in touch with a local women's organization and help raise money for a "scholarship" to send someone else to represent you..."
Editorial: Corporate taxes/Do something about dodgers
"When corporate profits hit a record high, yet state corporate income tax receipts miss the forecasted mark by more than 13 percent in the last two months alone, something's amiss in the way Minnesota taxes business..."
Charles Kennedy: Blair has lost his grip
"...If Tony Blair is finding it difficult to persuade people that he is right, it might be because a heavy-handed and good versus evil approach in Iraq and a one-sided policy in the Middle East is seen by most observers as self-evidently wrong. If the Prime Minster wants more support he needs to display a more coherent and autonomous grip of international realities and to put some distance between Britain and a US administration pursuing policies which are not in our interest."
Editorial: President's parks stewardship more dismal than any expected
"Had Bush met even those low expectations, America's national parks, wildlife refuges and wilderness areas would be in better shape than they are today. In three years, Bush has shown that his idea of stewardship is somewhere between neglect and outright abuse. As staff writer Paul Rogers details in today's Mercury News, Bush's record is the worst of any administration of either party in generations..."
April 21, 2004
Kerry vs. Bush
John Kerry, Patriot:
George Bush, Coward:
Notice to Republican Slime Machine: You REALLY don't want to go there.
No Updates until later
I started a new job today so until I get in the groove my posting will be a little light.
April 20, 2004
Paul Krugman: Questions of Interest
"But how far will rates rise? Let's not get into Greenspan Kremlinology, parsing the chairman's mumbles for clues about the Fed's next move. Let's ask, instead, how much rates will rise if and when normal conditions of supply and demand resume in the bond market..."
Editorial: Mr. Ashcroft's Smear
"IN HIS TESTIMONY last week before the Sept. 11 commission, Attorney General John D. Ashcroft loosed a remarkable attack on Jamie S. Gorelick, a commission member who served as deputy attorney general during part of the Clinton administration. The "single greatest structural cause for the September 11th problem," Ashcroft said, "was the wall that segregated or separated criminal investigators and intelligence agents," and the "basic architecture for the wall . . . was contained in a classified memorandum" from 1995 -- which Mr. Ashcroft had conveniently declassified for the hearing. "Full disclosure," he said, "compels me to inform you that the author of this memorandum is a member of the commission" -- that is, Ms. Gorelick. Mr. Ashcroft's allegations, which triggered criticism and demands for her resignation from prominent Republicans, are grossly unfair..."
Jamie S. Gorelick: Ashcroft is wrong to blame me for 'the wall'
"...This history has all been well-rehearsed in publicly available briefs, opinions and reports, all available to the 9/11 commission. I have -- consistent with the policy applied to all commissioners -- recused myself from any consideration of my actions or of the department while I was there. My fellow commissioners have spoken for themselves in rejecting the call by a few partisans that I step aside based upon false premises. I have worked hard to help the American public understand what happened on Sept. 11. I intend -- with my brethren on the commission -- to finish the job."
John M. Glionna: Bush Losing Ground in Rural America
" But cracks have surfaced in President Bush's once-solid rural constituency. From places like Sherman County to Montcalm County, Mich., and Mahoning County, Ohio, some Republicans are so concerned about crop prices and high unemployment that they're considering voting Democratic for the first time..."
David Corn: George Bush, Self-deluded Messiah
"Bush told Woodward that he remained certain the war had been the right move because he has a "duty to free people." That is not how he had depicted his obligations before the war. Then he claimed his duty was to defend the United States. This remark ? coupled with Bush's comment that "there is a higher father that I appeal to" ? does make it seem that Bush believes he is on a mission from God..."
Robert Scheer: With God on His Side...
"In contrast, the younger Bush vocally disdains world opinion and international bodies like the United Nations, seeming instead to relish his role as an avenging Christian crusader who seeks ? under the guiding hand of the Almighty ? to cleanse the Arab world of 'evildoers.'..."