Feb
28
The slippery slope gets greased
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Much of the criticism of the Bush Administration’s admissions that they have been tapping phones without warrants, reading first class mail and locking people up without due process eventually leads to what most consider a hypothetical: if the government can get away with all of that when they are chasing down terrorists, what’s to stop them from using those extra-Constitutional tactics against their political enemies. It is, we are warned, a very slippery slope. I think an op-ed in Monday’s NYT shows just how slippery that slope might be getting.
Adam Cohen writes about the recent rash of firings among US Attorneys–seven in the last few months compared to three in the previous twenty-five years. Tops on the list is Carol Lam, who has been enormously successful prosectuing Congressman Randy Cunningham and indicting a top Pentagon official as she runs down the bad guys in the defense contracting scandal. Also among those now looking for work is a US Attorney in Arkansas who the Justice Department admits was doing a good job, but nonetheless was replaced by a Karl Rove protege, known for his success in conducting “opposition research” for the Republicans.
Feb
27
Man using laptop while driving Honda Accord meets Hummer. Death ensues.
Feb
27
“We’ve always been at war with Eastasia.”
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The Bush Aministration has decided to throw America’s dwindling clout behind Sunni Muslims in the face of increasing tensions between the Sunnis and Shias in the Middle East, according to Sey Hersh’s latest New Yorker piece.
Hersh reports that before the Iraq invasions, the neo-cons had the Administration placing their bet with Shiite groups, like those that are backing the current Iraqi government. The idea was that the Shiite would counterbalance the Sunni extremists (like al Qaeda.) But that, apparently, hasn’t worked out too well and the Administration has now decided that it’s really the Sunnis that are our friends.
Sunnis make up the vast majority of Muslims world-wide. It’s only in Iran, Iraq, Bahrain and Lebanon where Shiites are in the majority. Administration officials were surprised when the US backed Shiites in the current Iraqi government ended up being friendly with their Shia brothers in Iran. (Hmmmm….who could have predicted that?)
Feb
27
Michael Winship
In the late spring of 2004, when I was in Jerusalem, a white Episcopalian minister who had grown up in the deep South told me that if he had the choice of being a black man in the 1950’s Mississippi of his childhood or a Palestinian man in the West Bank today, he’d choose life in Mississippi.
That’s how bad it is here, he said. Admittedly, he was showboating a bit for the benefit of my pad and pen, but the point survives his embroidery. His words came back to me in the midst of all the sturm und drang over former President Jimmy Carter’s best-selling book, “Palestine: Peace Not Apartheid.”
President Carter has taken an enormous beating from many for using the provocative word “apartheid.” Provocative because it conjures images of the cruelest, inhuman abuses of South Africa before the freedom of Nelson Mandela; of inflamed bigotry, violence and forced separation of the races. Yet anyone who has spent even a small amount of time traveling in the Palestinian villages and towns of the West Bank can attest that if it’s not apartheid in the worst, old Afrikaner sense, it’ll do until something more invidious this way comes.
Feb
26
So TOTALLY annoying
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There so TOTALLY ought to be a law against anyone this perky on TV:
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24
O Canada
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Let me start by saying this: I have never met a Canadian I didn’t like. There is just something so nice about them. Bottom line: I like Canada, I like Canadians.
But I must admit that, when pressed, it’s hard for me to come up with a very long list of significant contributions that our neighbor to the north has made to civilization. Curling, Helen Reddy, The Beachcombers and Canadian Bacon are about the best I can do. Oh yeah, and the robotic arm that was mounted in the cargo bay of the space shuttle. After that the list sort of peters out for me. Until now.
Now I can add a fundamental respect for human rights to my list.
Feb
20
Michael Winship
As they used to say about Dracula, you can’t keep a good man down.
Even when you stretch the definition of “good” to include Richard Nixon.
After losing the presidency to John F. Kennedy in 1960 and an unsuccessful run for the governorship of California two years later — resulting in his notorious, self-pitying “You won’t have Nixon to kick around anymore” speech — the final nail seemed pounded into Nixon’s political coffin.
But come 1968, following several, self-deprecating and favor-banking years of campaigning for GOP candidates, he warded off the garlic and crucifixes long enough to win the White House.
Nor was the ignominy of Watergate and resignation enough to dampen the spirits of his diehard devotees. There always were a few fans who wanted Nixon back, for the sake of the satire industry if nothing else. “Tanned, Rested and Ready” announced a mock Nixon campaign button in 1988. And after he passed away in 1994, there was a “Death Is No Excuse” draft movement.
(All of which conjures memories of the famous story Bob Dole told describing the scene at the 1981 funeral of assassinated Egyptian president Anwar Sadat, to which Ronald Reagan sent a delegation of three ex-American presidents: Carter, Ford and Nixon. “There they stood,” Dole recalled. “See no evil. Hear no evil. And evil.”)
Which circuitously brings us to Newt Gingrich and Al Gore. Inasmuch as the media’s already panting in rabid pursuit of Hillary, Barack, Rudy, Mitt, McCain, Edwards, and, to a lesser degree, the others who have indicated their 2008 presidential aspirations, we’d all do well to keep in mind that this whole mad pursuit can shift in a heartbeat. When that happens, especially in a time of crisis, a nation can suddenly find itself looking elsewhere — somewhere familiar, perhaps — for help.
Feb
18
When Fox News strays away from headlines like “Who do you think is more likely to cheat at poker, John Kerry or Al Gore?” they really get themselves into trouble.
Fox is trying to create a conservative version of the Daily Show, operating on the mistaken and paranoid assumption that anything popular on television must be the product of liberals and demands a conservative response. There response is to produce a very lame parody of a regular newscast. (Wait a minute, isn’t that what FNC has been doing all along????)
Here’s a sample, complete with a 1970s era sitcom laugh track:
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16
Or both?
Conservatives have been using a “quote” from Abraham Lincoln in which he supposedly said members of Congress who criticize the war ought to be hanged. It is an entirely fabricated quote that first appeared in a magazine published by the Washington Times three or four years ago. The magazine refused to correct the “error” and this week it featured in the lead of a Washington Times column. (If it was a mistake the first time, they have no excuse the second.)
Republican Congressman Don Young used the quote–claiming it came from Lincoln–this week on the House floor. Young’s hometown newspaper in Fairbanks called him on it, but I doubt that will phase him. After all, this is the Congressman behind the notorious “bridge to nowhere”–a $223 million bridge named “Don Young’s Way.”
Here’s Young’s speech: Loading...
Feb
16
The Crusher
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My 11 y.o. daughter Sally, my brother Ben, my tractor and a barbecue. How could we not have fun?
(This video might take up to sixty seconds to load—but I think it will be worth the wait.)
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