We Have Met the Enemy – And He is a ‘Moran’
Day: June 27, 2005
Franken: News Media Accepts Low Ethics from Fox
“[Fox news anchor] Bill O’Reilly took [leading Democrat senator] Joe Biden’s appearance on ABC’s This Week with George Stephanopoulos and deliberately misrepresented what Biden said. Biden was calling for an independent commission to look at Guantanamo and other US detention camps. When pressed by Stephanopoulos, Biden said that although he personally thought the US should close Guantanamo, he said that he had introduced legislation to get a bipartisan commission to make the recommendations.
“Two days later O’Reilly cuts it together to make it sound like Biden had simply said ‘Close Guantanamo’, leaving out any mention of legislation and independent commissions. Then O’Reilly himself said ‘I believe there should be an independent commission.’ He not only misrepresented what Biden actually said, he then claimed for himself the senator’s idea. I mentioned this to Howard Kurtz, who writes about the media for the Washington Post. He replied, ‘Well, people expect that of Fox’. No one in the mainstream press holds them to any standards at all.”
— Al Franken in the Guardian
Now GOP Slimes Itself – Norquist Blasts Senate GOP ‘Girls’ & ‘Nutjob’
Just days after Karl Rove slimed liberals and others who opposed the iraq war as terrorist appeasers the Republican message machine emitted another major slime Friday night, but this time it was aimed into the GOP’s own ranks.
Addressing a session of a college-age Republicans convention, Norquist slammed Republican senators who did not toe the line on filibuster:
[Norquist] referred to them as “the two girls from Maine and the nut-job from Arizona” – Sens. Susan Collins, Olympia Snowe and John McCain
“He referred to them as “the two girls from Maine and the nut-job from Arizona” – Sens. Susan Collins, Olympia Snowe and John McCain…”
But it was the broadside by Norquist – who is president of Americans for Tax Reform and ran the College Republicans when Abramoff was its chairman – that raised eyebrows among the students, particularly the reference to McCain.
McCain is chairman of the Senate Committee on Indian Affairs, which is investigating Abramoff’s lobbying on behalf of tribal casino interests. Tension between the two intensified last month, when the committee subpoenaed the financial records of Norquist’s nonprofit group, including the organization’s donor list. Testimony and records showed some tribal funds were directed to Norquist’s organization. But there has been no allegation of wrongdoing by Norquist.
McCain and Collins were unavailable for comment Friday. But a spokeswoman for Snowe said her “only constituency is the people of Maine.”
Pew Poll: The Whole World Hates Us
According to a Pew Global Attitudes Survey completed in April and May, most people in the world continue to have a low, if not downright hostile, opinion of the United States (surprise!). The poll surveyed 17,000 people in 16 countries, and found that the U.S.’s rep is even worse than its president’s approval rating here at home.
In a sign that outsourcing works, however, the study found that the U.S. was most highly regarded in India, where 71% of those polled expressed a positive opinion of the United States, compared with 54% three years ago. That was our highest rating. In the world. A full 62% of Poles think we’re okay, though.
In France, 85% of respondents believe the EU or another country should emerge as a military rival to the U.S. (as long as it’s not France, of course).
In Europe, we’ve gained a little of the ground lost after Herr Bush started stomping on Iraq, but China actually is viewed more positively by the Europeans than the country that saved their asses in WWII. The former Axis powers of Japan and Germany, and reliable France are all more highly regarded than the United States among European countries. Even (our friends)the British and (our neighbors to the North) the Canadians have a more favorable view of those three nations than they do of America.
Most Muslim countries still hate us, of course, but extreme hostility has faded slightly, with people in some Muslim countries perceiving the U.S. as supporting democracy in the Middle East. U.S. approval ratings are 23% in Turkey and Pakistan, and 21% in Jordan.
Although European publics view China more favorably than the United States, fortunately, they are opposed to the idea of China becoming a military rival to the U.S. Majorities in every European nation — except Turkey believe China’s emergence as a military superpower would be a bad thing. In Turkey and predominantly Muslim countries, where they hate us, a majority think a Chinese challenge to American military power would be a good thing (except for all that nucular fallout — unless it fell on Turkey).
There is widespread support across every country surveyed for some country or group of countries to emerge as a military rival to the U.S. In France, 85% of respondents believe the EU or another country should emerge as a military rival to the U.S. (as long as it’s not France, of course). The United States does not agree, and wants to remain the world’s biggest bully.
When asked about their perceptions of Americans, the rest of the world gets downright personal:
In most Western countries surveyed, majorities associate Americans with the positive characteristics “honest,” “inventive” and “hardworking.” At the same time, substantial numbers also associate Americans with the negative traits “greedy” and “violent.” Canadians, who presumably have the greatest contact with Americans, agree with Europeans on the negatives, but are less likely to view Americans as honest. And Canada is the only Western nation in which a majority (53 percent) regards Americans as rude.
Muslim publics, including Indonesians, are highly critical of Americans in many respects. In particular, they are much more likely than others to view the American people as immoral. Yet people in predominantly Muslim countries also see Americans as hardworking and inventive.
The Chinese are also largely critical of Americans. They are the least likely of these 16 publics to consider Americans hardworking (44 percent) and just over a third (35 percent) see Americans as honest. A majority of Chinese associate Americans with being violent (61 percent) and greedy (57 percent). The one positive trait most Chinese associate with Americans is inventive (70 percent).
By contrast, Indians hold largely positive views of the American people. Clear majorities see Americans as inventive, hardworking and honest (86%, 81% and 58%, respectively). None of the negative traits is linked with Americans by a majority in India.
But hey, we hate ourselves, too: a large percentage of the U.S. public (70 percent) characterizes American people as greedy, and nearly half (49 percent) see their fellow countrymen as violent.
Schwarzi Sends New Guard Spy Unit to ‘Monitor’ Mother’s Day Protest
You think it can’t happen here? It already has, baby! California elected a governor whose father, an Austrian policeman, was (at best) a Nazi sympathizer – and who has himself expressed admiration for the Nazi cause. Now comes this:
Last month, a group of anti-war activists, including the parents of American soldiers killed in Iraq, held a small Mother’s Day rally at the Vietnam Veterans Memorial near the California Capitol to call for the return of all National Guard troops by Labor Day.
Three days before the rally, as a courtesy to the military, an aide in Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger’s press office alerted the Guard to the event, according to e-mails obtained by the Mercury News.
The information was passed up the chain of command directly to [Maj. Gen. Thomas] Eres and other top Guard officials including Col. Jeff Davis, who oversees O’Neill’s operation.
That would be Col. Robert J. O’Neill, a veteran intelligence officer who is director of a new California National Guard survelliance unit called – get this! – the Information Synchronization, Knowledge Management and Intelligence Fusion program.
Guard officials said the new unit would not collect information on American citizens, but, as it turns out, it already has:
“Sir,” Guard chief of staff Col. John Moorman wrote in the e-mail to Eres that was copied to Davis and other top commanders. “Information you wanted on Sunday’s demonstration at the Capitol.”
In response, Davis indicated that Guard intelligence officers were tracking the rally.
“Thanks,” Davis wrote. “Forwarding same to our Intell. folks who continue to monitor.”
That rainy Sunday, the protest organized by Gold Star Families for Peace, Raging Grannies and CodePink drew about three dozen supporters.
Guard spokesman[Lt. Col. Stan] Zezotarski said the monitoring did not involve anything more than keeping tabs on the protest through the media and that no one went to observe the demonstration…
“It’s nothing subversive,” Zezotarski said. “Because who knows who could infiltrate that type of group and try to stir something up? After all, we live in the age of terrorism, so who knows?”
Nothing to see here, folks. Move along, move along.
It may seem farfetched to suggest that Arnold Schwarzenegger has fascist tendencies. For one thing, it gives him credit for being a much deeper thinker/strategizer than he shown himself to be over the years.
A better (or real) politician would go out of his way to avoid drawing attention to his crypto-fascist background by sending his military surveillance unit to monitor grannies at a war protest. Why does he care who goes to war protests? This is another ham-fisted, tin-eared action by Das Guber – but it’s a development with a dark undercurrent that ought to give even his most ardent Republican supporters pause.
MoveOn Out of Iraq
MoveOn.org is currently running a poll to see if its supporters want to back a movement to get U.S. troops out of Iraq — ASAP. The proposed campaign would support the Jones-Abercrombie resolution currently before Congress that would require Herr Bush to put together a plan by the end of 2005 for bringing home all U.S. troops from Iraq, with withdrawal beginning no later than Oct. 1, 2006.
So far, of the 103,015 people who have voted, 83.9 percent want MoveOn to move on with the Jones-Abercrombie resolution. The other 16.1 percent say that MoveOn should concentrate on other issues or should try another route to get U.S. troops home. Vote here.
