Month: September 2006

Olbermann: What Would Bush Say to Jefferson?

Jon Ponder
Between your confidence in your infallibility, sir, and your demonizing of dissent, and now these rages better suited to a thwarted three-year old, you have left the unnerving sense of a White House coming unglued – a chilling suspicion that perhaps we have not seen the peak of the anger; that we can no longer forecast what next will be said to, or about, anyone who disagrees.
— Keith Olbermann

During President Bush’s mini-meltdown last Friday, brought on by former Sec. of State Colin Powell’s letter disagreeing with Bush’s plan to continue torturing terrorist suspects, the president blurted out, “It’s unacceptable to think that there’s any kind of comparison between the behavior of the United States of America and the action of Islamic extremists.”

Keith Olbermann believes that the phrase “it is unacceptable to think” should never be uttered by an American president:

[When] a President says thinking is unacceptable, even on one topic, even in the heat of the moment, even in the turning of a phrase extracted from its context, he takes us toward a new and fearful path — one heretofore the realm of science fiction authors and apocalyptic visionaries.

That flash of lightning freezes at the distant horizon, and we can just make out a world in which authority can actually suggest it has become unacceptable to think.

Thus the lightning flash reveals not merely a President we have already seen, the one who believes he has a monopoly on current truth.

It now shows us a President who has decided that of all our commanders-in-chief, ever, he alone has had the knowledge necessary to alter and re-shape our inalienable rights.

This is a frightening, and a dangerous, delusion, Mr. President.

If Mr. Powell’s letter — cautionary, concerned, predominantly supportive — can induce from you such wrath and such intolerance, what would you say were this statement to be shouted to you by a reporter, or written to you by a colleague?

“Governments are instituted among men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed. That whenever any form of government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the right of the people to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new government.”

Those incendiary thoughts came, of course, from a prior holder of your job, Mr. Bush.

They were the words of Thomas Jefferson.

He put them in the Declaration of Independence.

Mr. Bush, what would you say to something that anti-thetical to the status quo just now?

Would you call it “unacceptable” for Jefferson to think such things, or to write them?

Between your confidence in your infallibility, sir, and your demonizing of dissent, and now these rages better suited to a thwarted three-year old, you have left the unnerving sense of a White House coming unglued – a chilling suspicion that perhaps we have not seen the peak of the anger; that we can no longer forecast what next will be said to, or about, anyone who disagrees.

GOP House Leaders Won’t Force Prison-Bound Rep. Ney to Step Down

Jon Ponder

“That’s a decision that he and his family are going to have to make.”
— GOP House Majority Leader John Boehner

Last week, Ohio GOP Rep. Bob Ney pled guilty “to federal corruption charges, admitting to prosecutors that “he had accepted tens of thousands of dollars in illegal favors from Abramoff and from a Syrian businessman nicknamed ‘the Fat Man.'”

Rep. Ney was reportedly in rehab for alcohol abuse but otherwise is still a member in good standing of the U.S. Congress. When asked if Ney should resign, GOP House Majority Leader John Boehner, who is also from Ohio, did not think so:

That’s a decision that he and his family are going to have to make.

Ney is now the poster child for GOP corruption in the Congress so it’s hard to imagine that Boehner and Speaker Denny Hastert are happy that he plans to stick around until it’s time to check in at the hoosegow. And Ney has resigned from his leadership posts.

Don’t be surprised if Ney has a change of heart and exits the stage before the election season goes into high gear.

It Would Appear the Pope Was Right About Islam

Buck Banks

Pope’s no dope: I’m sure your reaction to the news that Pope Benedict said that Islam is a religion of violence was similar to mine — What kind of incense are they burning at the Vatican these days? I mean, look at what’s going on in the world, Bennie. Read a paper, listen to NPR, watch the “O’Reilly Factor.”

Maybe he figured that, since he was speaking German, the Muslims wouldn’t suss out what he said. Sorry, Leader of All Christendom, but there are German Muslims nowadays who understand the language and can translate for the other guys.

Since the Pope’s speech the felafel has really hit the fan.

Since the Pope’s speech the felafel has really hit the fan. It’s gotten so bad that Benedict said he regretted that some people didn’t like what he said. He didn’t apologize, and from where I’m sitting, that’s a good thing because it appears he was right about Islam.

In a Reuters story today, Islamic leaders and groups really don’t sound like they’re ready to forgive and forget the Pope’s remarks:

“We tell the worshipper of the cross (the Pope) that you and the West will be defeated, as is the case in Iraq, Afghanistan, Chechnya,” said a Web statement by the Mujahideen Shura Council, an umbrella group led by Iraq’s branch of al Qaeda.

“We shall break the cross and spill the wine,” said the statement, posted on Sunday on an Internet site often used by al Qaeda and other militant groups.

I don’t believe that those guys mean breaking the cross and spilling wine in a good way. And they burned the Pope in effigy, which is the next best thing to perpetrating real violence.

But there is real violence aplenty out there, too. On Sunday in Somalia an Italian nun and her bodyguard were shot an killed in what is presumed to be retaliation for the Pope’s slander of Islam. In Gaza, Palestinians are vandalizing Christian churches.

So it would appear that Pope Benedict really was right — Islam is basically a cult that uses violence as a means of suppressing dissension and denying alternate viewpoints. The Pope merely said what many people already believed — and he backed it up with some insightful medieval philosophy too; he didn’t resort to burning an effigy of Iran’s Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei.

Still, I wish he hadn’t said it.

Bush Lacks Credibility on Torture Guidelines

Trish

Bush keeps pushing the case for uplifting the morale of folks on the front lines of torture by “clarifying” the Geneva Conventions. But those same people are still smarting from the exposure of a CIA agent’s identity by, it now appears, not one but three members of his administration. And ain’t nobody talking about clarifying the rules on that.

None of Bush’s threats and arguments whose theme is, “What are you? Stupid?” about a fair playing field for our torturers will have any credibility until he addresses the flagrant anti-American game playing among his own staff

Well, actually Palm Beach Post columnist Tom Blackburn is.

Mr. Novak, that bull in the china shop, now writes that the revelation of Mr. Armitage as the source doesn’t fit “the left-wing fantasy of a well-crafted White House conspiracy to destroy Joe and Valerie Wilson.” Mr. Armitage was not a mouthpiece for Mr. Rove or Vice President Cheney.

Maybe so, but it’s not that easy. Mr. Rove and Mr. Libby did mention Ms. Plame’s name to other reporters. So maybe it wasn’t well-crafted and maybe it wasn’t a conspiracy, but the revelation of a covert officer’s name was not a fantasy. For a while, it seems as if “Valerie Plame is a spook, and she’s Joe Wilson’s wife” replaced “have a nice day” among Washington pleasantries. Why Ms. Plame’s name was on so many lips doesn’t alter my point. It never should have been there.

Blackburn reminds us why all this matters.

We don’t reveal CIA officers’ names because if a foreign government knows, it can find out whom the officer had contacted. The foreign government can unmask its own leaks. With some regimes, that can mean death. At least it can cost someone who helped the United States his or her job.

When that happens and is known to have happened, it makes work more difficult for other agents we have around the world. Who is going to talk to an American whose name may turn up in Mr. Novak’s column?

None of Bush’s threats and arguments whose theme is, “What are you? Stupid?” about a fair playing field for our torturers will have any credibility until he addresses the flagrant anti-American game playing among his own staff. We’re waiting.

What Angelides Must Do to Beat Schwarzenegger

Jon Ponder

Unfortunately, Phil Angelides, the Democratic candidate for governor, has proven he is no match for Gov. Schwarzenegger’s celebrity status. Still, here is advice for Angelides from Los Angeles Times political columnist Geroge Skelton:

As fall approaches, Treasurer Phil Angelides seems to have only two accessible paths to reach the governor’s office, both of them steep.

– He must wrap President Bush so tightly around Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger in voters’ minds that they “send a message” about the botched war and other Bush blunders by rejecting the governor’s reelection bid. Schwarzenegger, after all, did play a significant role in reelecting Bush.

– Angelides must remind voters of Schwarzenegger’s inconsistencies in rhetoric and behavior since being elected and get people seriously thinking about whether this governor should be trusted again.

Beyond that, Schwarzenegger could stumble badly, embarrassing and disgracing himself. But forget it. That’s every losing candidate’s fantasy and it almost never happens.

Schwarzenegger’s handlers seem to have him well under control. And aides likely won’t be providing any more links on the governor’s public website to his recorded private bull sessions.

Iraq Insurgency’s ‘Last Throes’ Escalate

Jon Ponder

Reuters:

Sept 18 – Following are security and other developments in Iraq reported on Monday, as of 1100 GMT:

BAGHDAD – Fourteen bodies, tortured and with bullet holes in the head, were found in different districts of Baghdad on Monday, a Ministry of Interior source said.

NEAR KUT – Three border guards were killed and six wounded by a roadside bomb when they were searching a village near the Iraqi-Iranian border east of Kut, 170 km (105 miles) southeast of Baghdad, police said.

KERBALA – Gunmen killed four men in different incidents in the holy Shi’ite city of Kerbala, 110 km (68 miles) south of Baghdad, police said.

BAQUBA – Gunmen killed four members of a Shi’ite family and wounded five as they were leaving their homes after receiving death threats in the religiously mixed city of Baquba, 65 km (40 miles) north of Baghdad, police said.

HIBHIB – Gunmen killed two members of a Shi’ite family and wounded two others as they were leaving their home after receiving death threats in the small town of Hibhib, near Baquba, police said.

MOSUL – Police found the bullet-riddled corpses of four women in different districts of Mosul, 390 km (240 miles) north of Baghdad, police said. One of the bodies showed signs of torture, police added.

MOSUL – Three civilians were wounded when a roadside bomb went off near an Iraqi army patrol in Mosul, police said.

MOSUL – A man and a child were wounded when several mortar rounds landed in and around a police station in Mosul, police said.

MOSUL – Four policemen were killed when insurgents ambushed them in Mosul, police said.

BAGHDAD – Iraqi army killed two insurgents and arrested 36 suspected insurgents during the last 24 hours in different parts of Iraq, the Defence Ministry said.

ANBAR PROVINCE – The Iraqi army with Anbar province tribal leaders killed 27 insurgents during the last week, the Defence Ministry spokesman said on Monday.

At ‘Jesus Camp,’ Children Taught to Die for Christ, Worship Bush

Jon Ponder

ABC News reports on “Jesus Camp,” a new documentary about the religious right’s proto-Hitlerjugend indoctrination programs:

Speaking in tongues, weeping for salvation, praying for an end to abortion and worshipping a picture of President Bush — these are some of the activities at Pastor Becky Fischer’s Bible camp in North Dakota, “Kids on Fire,” subject of the provocative new documentary, “Jesus Camp.”

“I want to see them as radically laying down their lives for the gospel as they are in Palestine, Pakistan and all those different places,” Fisher said. “Because, excuse me, we have the truth.”

“A lot of people die for God,” one camper said, “and they’re not afraid.”

“We’re kinda being trained to be warriors,” said another, “only in a funner way.”