Posts

Showing posts from January, 2007

Bush and Cheney in the National Kitchen

If there were one overarching metaphor for the current U.S. political situation I think it would be this. U.S. politics in January 2007 is like a huge stove top, like one might find in an industrial kitchen, with 16 or 20 open burners, a huge frying surface and all sorts of ovens, broilers and grills...all of them in active use. On each cooking surface we can find what we might call one of the "issues and controversies of the day" in various stages of preparation. Iraq...Bush's "surge" and the Congressional anti-surge resolutions...is clearly the main course. Iraq is hot. Minimum wage is simmering on a side burner. As is the Scooter Libby trial, the 2008 Presidential race, the Gonzales recess nominations, the national debt, our nation's health care crisis. There are all sorts of smaller dishes...Jim Webb's speech is cooking right along side Dick Cheney's CNN interview and George Bush's State of the Union address. Pretty much anything one can thi

Senator Kyl and the lies that keep us in Iraq

A few days ago I heard an interview on NPR with Republican Senator John Kyl of Arizona. This interview made an impression that so deeply disturbed me that I made a promise to myself to look it up and write a response. So, with that in mind, today I've gone back and typed out a transcript of a portion of Senator Kyl's interview with Renee Montagne so that a broader readership might be able to parse the import of the Senator's words. These are no small rhetorical flourishes... These are the lies that keep us in Iraq . :: First, a bit of context to this interview. This January 10th, President Bush, in a major address to the nation announced the framework of his new strategy in Iraq. This strategy was in fact under way even as he spoke. Whatever one thinks of the concept that an escalation of our troop levels in Iraq will achieve peace and stability where we haven't achieved that objective in the entire three years and nine months of our occupation , one statistic stan

the turning point

It should come as no surprise that President George Bush, having led this nation into two simultaneous and ongoing wars in the Middle East, repeated one week ago the formulation that has become the bitter and ironic mantra of his presidency: Failure in Iraq would be a disaster for the United States. Most observers would put it slightly differently: failure in Iraq has been a disaster for the United States. It has also been, one must note, a disaster for the Iraqis themselves, if not our world. The dystopic vision of failure that the President uses in that speech...describing a potential post-U.S. Iraq as full of "radical Islamic extremists growing in strength and numbers," the use of oil revenues to "topple governments" and an "Iran intent on building nuclear capacity"...reads instead like a litany of present-day ills that Mr. Bush has crafted in no small part with his own two hands. Nevertheless, this President insists that for the safety of American

the era of President G.W. Bush

The era of President G.W. Bush began sometime in the late-1990's when a coalition of Conservative Republican fundraisers, Texas "energy" men and former members of President George Herbert Walker Bush's administration assembled behind the prospective candidacy of the first Bush's eldest son, George W. Bush. Given what we've learned during President George W. Bush's six years in office, during which time, in partnership with his extraordinarily powerful Vice President, the younger Bush has exhibited both gross inadequacy in presidential leadership and successive substantive policy failures at home and abroad, it is remarkable that neither the media nor the Republican establishment saw fit to question the then Governor of Texas's ability and suitability to lead this nation through the first decade of the 21st Century as President of the United States. George W. Bush the candidate was, for pretty much the entirety of the 2000 campaign, simply a "lika

wow, KSFO doesn't get it

Wow, these on air "hate personalities" are out of control . They get paid to sell hate as entertainment, and then choose to play the free speech victims and mock sincere, rational callers to their special community outreach program? I don't buy it or get it. I think everyone in this country knows that right wing shock radio has been out of control for years now. These guys are talking themselves out of their own jobs. Sheesh. It doesn't take a genius to figure out that if you want to spew hate and mockery AND have corporate sponsership of your radio program, at some point one or the other is going to have to give. Sounds like these guys want more sponsers to pull their ads. That's fine by me.

the unibrain at work: the tuna storm

One thing about GOP bloggers, "they get the memo." You may have heard of the unibrow , these folks work as a unibrain . This shitstorm-in-a-can over the minimum wage bill has been drummed up by the Washington Times . It's a non-story now playing nationwide on NPR courtesy of what I am guessing is another instance of Steve Inskeep's sense of "fair play." This attempt to create some drama out of a non-existent Pelosi / Tuna industry connection is just the latest example of coordinated and distorted GOP attacks that weasel their way into the mainstream media. Democrat George Miller, Chairman of the Education and Labor Committee, crafted left one exemption in the recently passed minimum wage bill that exempts American Samoa. This is the same exemption that was in the 1999 version of this bill. You may agree or disagree with the provision, intending to help Samoan factories compete in their region, but the GOP is claiming this is due to a connection between Pel

One Graph says It All about the "Surge"

Today's SF Chronicle featured a graphic that says everything anyone needs to know about Bush's proposal for an "escalation for victory" in Iraq. Here it is. There have previously been three separate occasions where the United States has had 150,000 plus service personnel in Iraq: March 19, 2003 : U.S. Troop Levels 150,000 Overthrow Saddam Hussein Jan./Feb., 2005 : U.S. Troop Levels 155,000 Post Fallujah, Pre Iraqi Government Oct., 2005 : U.S. Troop Levels 160,000 Iraqi Constitution Approved The graph makes clear the logical fallacy behind Bush's ill-fated proposal to add an additional 21,000 troops to the 132,000 currently serving in Iraq. How will bringing U.S. troop levels to 150,000+ one more time allow us to control and pacify Baghdad when it didn't in the three previous times we had that many service members stationed in Iraq? It is January, 2007. How much longer will it take, how much clearer can it be that the Bush Administration has done nothing but li

thank you Spocko

This article highlights just what a favor the SF blogger known as Spocko has done all of us. Right-wing shock radio has developed a culture that is highly deserving of a check from the rest of our society. Right wing "invective as entertainment" has been way over the line in this country since well before the events in Oklahoma City reminded all of us that hate speech has consequences: hate speech is no laughing matter. Should corporations feel free to buy ads on radio shows, like those on KSFO , where right wing hate jocks advocate using physical violence on our fellow citizens and our politicians because of their political views? Should outrageous and bigoted rhetoric that runs counter to the official corporate policy of a show's advertisers be sponsered by those very corporations? The simple answer is no. Bigotry may sell, but that doesn't mean the rest of us have to buy it or tolerate it. It's a free country, but that doesn't mean we have to buy into

billmon, Michael Berube, Jeanne D'Arc

I wrote the following as a comment on post by Skippy at dailykos: Ah, Ted Barlow Disease ... It's ffff'd. Hits hardest during seasonal affective disorder season. The days are so goldarnerd short, why spend them inside? Dirty little secret of blogging, you've pointed it out Skippy, is that there's this huge trap that makes you ask: Why should I endure writer's block, eye strain, carpal tunnel, the obligation to READ so much other stuff...for free...even, perhaps, at a cost to my personal and professional life? It's the question of sustainability. That's the word I come back to. When I think of bloggers like billmon, Jeanne D'Arc and Michael Berube, however, one core thing comes to mind...it seems like such an utter waste for them to leave off what is, I think, the most critical aspect of their blogs: They are INFLUENTIAL voices; we respect them. That...more than fame, or power, or money or, even, political dedication, is what makes them so valuable, a

blog thoughts for a new year

I wish that I had a succinct and brief way to sum up where we find ourselves at the beginning of this new year in politics. For a taste of what's to come, I find myself looking back reflexively at last year. It's weird to look back. Even my personal trajectory tells a story. Starting immediately in the aftermath of the 2004 presidential election, I found myself focusing on 2006, Congress, local politics and local blogs. I wrote a piece about reforming the Democratic party called "To Be a Fighting Democrat" on Dailykos...and that term, which I think was already well in the air, only grew in usage and prominence as the election cycle wore on. In October of 2005, joining a chorus of early opponents of former Congressman Richard Pombo in CA-11, I wrote a piece here called "We all live in Richard Pombo's District." Again, that phrase, this time one I know that I coined, grew and took on a life of it's own eventually becoming a slogan that greeted ever

Conventional Dis-Wisdom from the NYT

Nancy Pelosi, first woman Speaker of the House, arrived at that position because American voters overwhelmingly turned the House over to the Democratic Party. The people put Nancy Pelosi in charge of the "people's chamber." So, what does the NYT give us for analysis at this historic moment? Try this craptastic piece from Carl Hulse. Democrats realized their political and legislative dream Thursday. Now they must face reality. As they take control of the House and Senate, members of the new majority must reconcile diverse ideological factions within their ranks and make a fundamental choice. They can spend their energy trying to reverse what they see as the flaws of the Bush administration and a dozen years in which conservative philosophy dominated Congress. Or they can accept the rightward tilt of that period and grudgingly concede that big tax cuts, deregulation, restrictions on abortion and other Republican-inspired changes are now a permanent part of the legislative

read this story

because you should .