Harriet Miers - the sequel?

As I said when the nomination of Henry M. Paulson was announced it was strange. Considering that Mr Paulson is chairman of the board of the Nature Conservancy it was not surprising that the right would be upset. Max Sawicky finds a number of other things he doesn't like about Paulson and over at Human Events Robert B. Bluey is really unhappy and describes is as another Harriet Miers moment.

No posting until later

I will be gone most of the day. Perhaps something later.

Jumping Ship - Again

It would appear that the neocons have given up on a failed president but not their failed ideology.

Neo-conservative commentators at the American Enterprise Institute wrote last week what amounted to an obituary of the Bush freedom doctrine.

“Bush killed his own doctrine,” they said, describing the final blow as the resumption of diplomatic relations with Libya. This betrayal of Libyan democracy activists, they said, came after the US watched Egypt abrogate elections, ignored the collapse of the “Cedar Revolution” in Lebanon, abandoned imprisoned Chinese dissidents and started considering a peace treaty with Stalinist North Korea.

The neo-conservatives offered no explanation for desertion of the doctrine, other than a desire to make quick but transitory short-term gains. “The president continues to believe his own preaching, but his administration has become incapable of making the hard choices those beliefs require,” they wrote.

But the ranks of the neo-conservatives are also being depleted. In his new book, America at the Crossroads, Francis Fukuyama, perhaps the movement’s most outstanding intellectual force, confirms his defection from the brand concepts of “pre-emption, regime change, unilateralism and benevolent hegemony as put into practice by the Bush administration”.

“It seems to me better to abandon the label and articulate an altogether distinct foreign policy position,” he writes.

So where so the neocons go. They are attempting to take over the Democratic Party and it would appear they have already taken over the DLC. We have talked about the DLC's Marshall Wittmann's attacks on those "lefties", most recently this morning, and how Hillary Clinton has become the new Goddess of War. And of course we have neocon Joe Lieberman. The attacks by Wittmann and the other DLCers would indicate that they think they are losing. Don't be too surprised to see a third party before 2008 made up Joe Lieberman, Hillary Clinton and John McCain. Don't forget, most of the original neocons started out as Democrats.

Politcs Grand Ronde style

Over at Wagon Tongues Jack K. has an excellent piece on the attack ads sponsered by the Grand Ronde tribe during the recent Oregon primary election. Life after Abramoff? Check it out.

If you're going to hire criminals as advisers, at least hire smart ones!

I thought we needed some humor as we all return from our various Memorial Day breaks, and this story is one for the books. You may recall that, during the 2002 elections, the Republicans came up with a doozy of an idea. They would hamper Democratic voter turnout by using a telemarketing firm to jam the phone lines of the Democratic get out the vote effort. Clever, but not nearly clever enough since several Republican operatives went down over that one. Among them was Charles McGee, the former executive director of the state Republican Party. Old chuck did some time in the Big House for that one, but he's back out on the streets now and he's found himself a new job. Doing what, you may ask? Well, he's not asking if you want fries with that.

A major figure in the Election Day phone-jamming scandal that embarrassed and nearly bankrupted the New Hampshire GOP is out of prison and back in the political game.

Charles McGee, the former executive director of the state Republican Party, pleaded guilty to conspiracy and served seven months for his part in the scheme to have a telemarketer tie up Democratic and union phone lines in 2002.

He's back at his old job with a Republican political marketing firm, Spectrum Monthly & Printing Inc., and will be helping out at the firm's "GOP campaign school" for candidates.

Richard Pease, the firm's co-president, said McGee would be available to advise candidates at the two-day event, planned for next weekend in Manchester. McGee's role at the school was reported Thursday by the New Hampshire Union Leader.

So, New England Republicans, get out there and sign up for Chuck's services fast. I understand he's selling like hotcakes.

Strange!

I'm not sure what to make of this:
Bush taps Paulson for Treasury Secretary

WASHINGTON - Treasury Secretary John Snow resigned Tuesday and President Bush nominated Goldman Sachs chief executive officer Henry M. Paulson Jr. as his replacement — another chapter in the shake-up to revive Bush's troubled presidency.

Now it's not really surprising that Snow is out but Paulson would seem to be at the polar opposite of the Bush administration when it comes to global warming and conservation. Think Progress reports:

President Bush’s new nominee for Treasury Secretary, Goldman Sachs Chairman Henry M. Paulson Jr., not only endorses the Kyoto Protocol to limit greenhouse emissions, but argues that the United States’ failure to enact Kyoto undermines the competitiveness of U.S. companies. Here’s a statement from the Nature Conservancy, where Paulson serves as chairman of the board:

The Kyoto Protocol is a key first step to help slow the onslaught of global warming and benefit conservation efforts…Until the United States passes its own limits on global warming emissions, innovative companies based here will lose out on opportunities to sell reduced emission credits to companies complying with the Kyoto Protocol overseas. Additionally, without enacting our own emission limits, U.S. companies will lose ground to their competitors in Europe, Canada, Japan, and other countries participating in the Protocol who are developing clean technologies.

They also report that:

Paulson’s nomination is strongly opposed by a coalition right-wing groups seeking to cast doubt on climate science, such as the National Center for Public Policy Research, describing Paulson as “diametrically opposed to the positions of [the Bush] Administration.”

It will be interesting to see where this leads.

Desperation at the DLC

Jane Hamsher reports that Joe Lieberman is in serious trouble against Ned Lamont, so much trouble in fact that Republicans are coming to his defense. A Lieberman primary loss would also be a big loss for the DLC and they know it. As a result the DLC's Marshall Wittmann is in full attack mode this morning. In his post titled The GOP Good News he once again resorts to vicious name calling:

But there is a silver lining. Some Democrats are rushing into the grasp of the loony tune lefties.

Move On has moved on to Connecticut to attempt to purge one of the most esteemed centrists in the party - Joe Lieberman. They are joined by the flotsam and jetsam of the internet and Howard Dean's organization in an attempt to demonstrate to the country that hawkish moderate liberals are not welcome in the Democratic Party.

At a time when the Democrats should be presenting a reassuring centrist face to the country - they are in a rush to lurch to the left. This upcoming weekend the leadership of the party will be headed to Vegas to pay homage to a far left wing internet impresario. And this is how they are sending the message that they will not follow the Republicans' example and pander to the base?

Wittmann is of course talking about the YearlyKos convention.

Neocons are not centrists!

In his next post Wittmann sounds like a neocon beating the drums of war. In Containment he repeats the neocons talking points on Iran. Steve Soto reported yesterday that even many Republicans are turning against aggression against Iran but not the neocons in the DLC.

Haven't we had enough......

....of the inferior Bush gene pool?
Yes people are still talking about Jebba the Nutt as a presidential candidate. You would have thought that this would have been enough or that his idiot brother's near record breaking low approval ratings would have done it, but no:
A Few Years, and Then Another Bush?

Bush III? Or has the dynasty run its course?

Those are the questions some Republicans are asking themselves as political talk bubbles up yet again about President Bush's brother Gov. Jeb Bush of Florida and his interest in the White House. The chief driver of the mini-buzz is the current occupant of the White House, who has said twice this month that his younger brother would make "a great president."

Of course this piece is by the NYT's Elisabeth Bumiller. But then there is this:
Gingrich: Gov. Bush could be president

His brother's approval ratings are in the cellar, and that whole dynasty thing doesn't help. But don't underestimate Jeb Bush's prospects as a future presidential contender, says former U.S. House Speaker Newt Gingrich.

And to think that Newt had actually been making some sense recently.

Memorial Day - 2006

Well it's Memorial Day once again. I've taken my mother on the yearly trek to cemeteries in Western Oregon, a tradition that will end when my mother is gone. Memorial Day is a day to remember those who fell in battle. At 60 my entire life was shaped by the Vietnam war. The American people were lied to by both a Democratic and Republican administration and over 58,000 young Americans died for those lies. But the toll is much higher. I also remember the 10's of thousands who were never able to realize their potential because their bodies and minds were broken as a result of that conflict. Now I don't know anyone who has served in Iraq but I knew many who died in Vietnam and many more who carried the pain of that war through their entire lives. My mistrust of the government began 40 years ago and has only been reinforced over time. Young men still die for corporate profits and political power. And over 30 years later history repeats itself:
Four marines singled out in Iraq massacre investigation
Young men will be punished for doing what they were trained to do - kill - and those ultimately responsible will go unpunished. Still more broken lives.

Truman - I don't think so!

The other day I had a post on historian Robert P. Watson's thoughts on the legacy of George W. Bush. Watson saw George W. down there with the bottom dwellers Harding and Buchanan.

Bush will likely be remembered much as is Warren Harding, who was disinterested in policy details, brought a group of corrupt cronies to the White House and stumbled through one mishap after the other. He is remembered as something of a jovial but incompetent puppet for corporate interests, and for setting the nation on a course to the Great Depression.

But it is James Buchanan, president from 1857-1861, who often earns the dubious title of "worst president" because he lost the Union to civil war on his watch, and failed to change course until it was too late.

Well dubya has compared himself to Harry S. Truman. Joe Gandelman points out that there is a serious flaw in this comparison.

Truman believed "The Buck Stops Here" and had a sign that said so in his office. Yours truly remembers during the 60s when HST had his own filmed television show how the peppery old President was blunt spoken and every word that came out of his mouth seemed like it came from his gut and his soul. Like him or not, what you saw was what you got — and he every centimeter of his being seemed to scream that out to you.

With George Bush, the buck stops everywhere except at his desk.

The difference of course is that Harry Truman was an adult and George W. Bush is a 60 year old adolescent.

WTF

WTF - That's Jane Hamsher's reaction to the the reaction of congress over the FBI search of Rep William Jefferson's office. There are indeed so many wheels within wheels, plots within plots and motivations within motivations it's really difficult to sort it all out. As Jane says:

To say I do not understand WTF is going on between the Justice Department, the OVP, the White House and Congressional Republicans in the William Jefferson affair would be an understatement. I doubt right now if many can claim to know what this weird dance is all about.

Abu Gonzales has never found a position so base he could not justify at Dubya’s request — from torture to illegal wiretapping to threatening journalists and rubber stamping all manner of unlimited executive overreach — but he’s finally drawing a line in the sand over returning documents seized in a bribery scandal?

Dennis Hastert has gleefully played marionette to perhaps the biggest crook in the House, Tom DeLay, and has happily facilitated the White House’s efforts to hack off limbs of Congressional authority, but now he’s ready to force a constitutional crisis defending a member of the Black Congressional Caucus?

Dick Cheney, chief pimp for the theory of the Unitary Executive, is telling the White House to back off? That’s like Simon Cowell walking on to the set of American Idol and ordering everyone to stop being so mean.

With corruption scandals a plenty on the horizon you can understand how Mr Hastert and the Rethuglicans, and to be "fair and balanced" probably a few Democrats, would be nervous about the FBI checking out their offices. And then there is Darth Cheney, he's already about as popular as a pit viper in the living room so I can see how he could be nervous about ticking off anymore Republican lawmakers.

But was it legal? Robert F. Turner at the WSJ Opinion Journal makes a good case that it was. I can't really argue with anything he says. Do I still have a problem with it? The answer is yes! As Digby explains:

The reason to be against this is political and constitutional, not legal. It's entirely possible that the warrant they got was proper and that their cause is just. And I have no doubt that Hastert had a hissy fit and got Bush to seal the documents to cover his own ample ass. But the bigger issue is something that someone wrote in an email a couple of days ago: This Republican Justice Department, led by a lifetime Bush loyalist and good friend to Karl Rove now has every Democratic strategy memo that ever came across Congressman Jefferson's desk. Trust 'em?

This is not a case of potential political abuse by a Justice Department controlled by the White House but a case of probable abuse. And that's not limited to this administration.

Now I would like to see every crook in Congress put away but the potential/probable abuse is too great to justify the methods used. Another problem I have with this case is it would appear they already had Mr Jefferson nailed. So why search his office and set this precedent? Was there an additional political motive there? That would be my guess.

Wagon Tongues

Kevin Hayden of The American Street has a new site, mostly dedicated to Oregon and Northwest Politics, Wagon Tongues.com. Check it out and add it to your bookmarks and blogrolls. The fight will be won in the trenches close to home.

Bull Shit Meter off scale!

If it looks like a steaming pile of BS and it smells like a steaming pile of BS it probably is a steaming pile of BS. I'm talking about this:
Justice Dept. Talked of Big Resignations If White House Agreed to Return Papers

The Justice Department signaled to the White House this week that the nation's top three law enforcement officials would resign or face firing rather than return documents seized from a Democratic congressman's office in a bribery investigation, according to administration sources familiar with the discussions.

The possibility of resignations by Attorney General Alberto R. Gonzales; his deputy, Paul J. McNulty; and FBI Director Robert S. Mueller III was communicated to the White House by several Justice officials in tense negotiations over the fate of the materials taken from Rep. William J. Jefferson's office, according to the sources, who spoke on the condition of anonymity because of the sensitivity of the issue.

Now Taylor Marsh says good for them and I would agree except this just doesn't pass the smell test. Since the spin won't work anymore the administration and the Republicans are just falling back on outrageous BS.

Update
Steve Soto has a slightly different take on the entire event and he see's Cheney involved.

Homer Simpson - Philospher

"The satirical cartoon world is essentially a philosophical one because it reflects reality by abstracting it, distilling it and presenting it back to us, illuminating it more brightly than realist fiction can"

The Simpsons are certainly a world phenomenon and for those of us who live in the Portland area a local one as well. The creator of the Simpsons, Matt Groening, grew up on the west side of Portland and graduated from the same high school I did. The names and places in the show are familiar ones to me, Flanders, Lovejoy, Quimby etc, are the names of Portland founders and street names in NW Portland. In The Simpsons as philosophy philosopher Julian Baggini explains why the Simpsons is philosophy.

With the likes of Douglas Coupland, George Walden and Stephen Hawking as fans, taking the Simpsons seriously is no longer outre but de rigeur.

It is, quite simply, one of the greatest cultural artefacts of our age. So great, in fact, that it not only reflects and plays with philosophical ideas, it actually does real philosophy, and does it well.

How can a comic cartoon do this? Precisely because it is a comic cartoon, the form best suited to illuminate our age.

To speak truthfully and insightfully today you must have a sense of the absurdity of human life and endeavour. Past attempts to construct grand and noble theories about human history and destiny have collapsed.

We now know we're just a bunch of naked apes trying to get on as best we can, usually messing things up, but somehow finding life can be sweet all the same. All delusions of a significance that we do not really have need to be stripped away, and nothing can do this better that the great deflater: comedy.

One example he gives is Homer Simpson on religion:

For example, in the episode Homer the Heretic, Homer gives up church and decides to follow God in his own way: by watching the TV, slobbing about and dancing in his underpants.

Throughout the episode he justifies himself in a number of ways.

• "What's the big deal about going to some building every Sunday, I mean, isn't God everywhere?"


• "Don't you think the almighty has better things to worry about than where one little guy spends one measly hour of his week?"


• "And what if we've picked the wrong religion? Every week we're just making God madder and madder?"

Homer's protests do not merely allude to much subtler arguments that proper philosophers make. The basic points really are that simple, which is why they can be stated simply.

There is much more and the rest of Julian Baggini's piece is a good holiday weekend diversion.

More than meets the eye?

Jazz and I have talked about the outrage of both the Republicans and Democrats over the FBI search of Rep. William Jefferson's office here, here and here. Hypocritical on the part of the Republicans? Of course it is; why should they suddenly care about the constitution after letting Bush run roughshod over it since 911. Because he finally stepped on their toes? Perhaps. But then upon returning today I saw this WSJ piece over at memoerandum, Lawmaker Raid May Come Back to Bite Bush.

Anger in Congress Could Cost The President Some Allies And Curb His Legislative Influence

It starts out as a rehash of the congressional reaction to the FBI raid and Speaker Dennis Hastert's charge that the report that Speaker Dennis Hastert himself was a subject of the federal corruption probe was leaked to punish him.

In the middle of the WSJ article is the box you see on the left. It's a rather anemic list of incidents where the congress has "stood up" to Bush. Not much there. And then this puzzling conclusion:

"For an administration that needs allies in order to come back," the Justice Department's actions are "dumbfounding," says David Gergen, a veteran of Republican and Democratic administrations.

Mr. Bush has, in some ways, aggravated congressional Republicans since the beginning of his presidency, when he sought strict loyalty from legislative partisans, arguing that his success and theirs were inseparable. Now, many fear that they -- and not Mr. Bush -- will pay an electoral price for backing what is now an unpopular war in Iraq, and the president's plunging approval ratings.

Yesterday afternoon, House Republicans gathered in a windowless basement room for a private meeting aimed at sorting through the roller coaster of the past few days. They left the meeting carrying talking points from Republican leaders: "No one is above the law," the paper said. "Just as no branch of government is above the Constitution."

So the question is, is this just a charade by the house Republicans to distance themselves from Bush with an issue that really has little significance and is the WSJ giving them a helping hand?

The problem with humanity, Part 3 of our 2,498 part continuing series

Even though you may not remember it, when you were an infant you had a mother, or older sister, or primary caregiver singing you a song in your crib. Don't try to deny it. You know it's true. Do you recall the lyrics now... as an adult?

Rockabye baby, on the treetop
When the wind blows, the cradle will rock.
When the bough breaks, the cradle will fall
And down will come baby, cradle and all.

And you wonder why the nation is chock full of dysfunctional loons? What the hell kind of a song is that to sing to an infant??!!?? I mean, COME ON! At least when the itsy bitsy spider got hit by Typhoon Waterspout and was washed away like so much flotsam and jetsam he at least got the chance to crawl back up the spout again, even if it was doomed to be a neverending, Sisyphusian effort. But the kid in the lullaby is strapped to a gurney and getting dropped from the top of a Dutch Elm. That's not a very survivable situation.

I'm going to drive home this weekend and smack my sister up the side of the head.

Have a good weekend.

Friday Iris Blogging

Here is a picture of my favorite iris that I did yesterday.
I will be out most of the day so no more posts until later. Don't forget that you can find more flowers and other images over at Just Pictures.

Turning points or going around in a circle?

George W. Bush and Tony Blair talked about Iraq last night. It seems to have generated little but yawns. Bush did for once admit some mistakes. The few reactions there were from the left and right were negative. The chorus from the left was too little too late and the kook-aide drinkers on the right were not happy to see chinks in Rambo's armour. So what's really going on. Sidney Blumenthal gives us a more realistic view in "Victory"? Forget it.

Bush has been proclaiming Iraq at a turning point for years. "Turning point" is a frequent and recurring talking point, often taken up by the full chorus of the president ("We've reached another great turning point," Nov. 6, 2003; "A turning point will come in less than two weeks," June 18, 2004), vice president ("I think about when we look back and get some historical perspective on this period, I'll believe that the period we were in through 2005 was, in fact, a turning point," Feb. 7, 2006), secretary of state and secretary of defense, and ringing down the echo chamber.

This latest "turning point" reveals an Iraqi state without a social contract, a government without a center, a prime minister without power and an American president without a strategy. Each sectarian group maintains its own militia. Each leader's influence rests on these armed bands, separate armies of tens of thousands of men. The militias have infiltrated and taken over key units of the Iraqi army and local police, using them as death squads, protection rackets and deterrent forces against enemies. Reliable statistics are impossible, but knowledgeable reporters estimate there are about 40 assassinations a day in Iraq. Ethnic cleansing is sweeping the country. From Kirkuk in the north to Baghdad in the middle to Basra in the south, Kurds are driving out Turkmen and Arabs, Shiites are killing Sunnis, and the insurgency enjoys near unanimous support among Sunnis. Contrary to Bush's blanket rhetoric about "terrorists" and constant reference to the insurgency as "the enemy," "foreign fighters are a small component of the insurgency," according to Anthony H. Cordesman of the Center for Strategic and International Studies.

Patrick Cockburn, one of the most accurate and intrepid journalists in Iraq, wrote last week in the Independent of London that "the overall security situation in Iraq is far worse than it was a year ago. Baghdad and central Iraq, where Shia, Sunni and Kurd are mixed, is in the grip of a civil war fought by assassins and death squads. As in Bosnia in 1992, each community is pulling back into enclaves where it is the overwhelming majority and able to defend itself."

That's right, after the latest "turning point" we still have an Iraq that is tearing itself apart at the seams. We still have "an Iraqi state without a social contract, a government without a center, a prime minister without power and an American president without a strategy". But "victory" is still Bush's mantra even though no one seems to know what that means or how to get there.

In his speech on Monday referring to another "turning point," President Bush twice spoke of "victory." "Victory" is the constant theme he has adopted since last summer, when he hired public opinion specialist Peter Feaver for the National Security Council. Feaver's research claims that the public will sustain military casualties so long as it is persuaded that they will lead to "victory." Bush clings to this P.R. formula to explain, at least to himself, the decline of his political fortunes. "Because we're at war, and war unsettles people," he said in an interview with NBC News last week. To make sense of the disconcerting war, he imposes his familiar framework of us vs. them, "the enemy" who gets "on your TV screen by killing innocent people" against himself.

In his Monday speech, Bush reverted yet again to citing Sept. 11, 2001, as the ultimate justification for the Iraq war. Defiant in the face of terrorists, he repeated whole paragraphs from his 2004 campaign stump speech. "That's just the lessons of September the 11th that I refuse to forget," he said. Stung by the dissent of the former commanders of the U.S. Army in Iraq who have demanded the firing of Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld, Bush reassured the audience that he listens to generals. "I make my mind up based not upon politics or political opinion polls, but based upon what the commanders on the ground tell me is going on," he said.

Yet currently serving U.S. military commanders have been explicitly telling him for more than two years, and making public their view, that there is no purely military solution in Iraq. For example, Gen. John Abizaid, the U.S. commander, said on April 12, 2004: "There is not a purely U.S. military solution to any of the particular problems that we're facing here in Iraq today."

Bush and Rove based everything on the war in Iraq and now:

But while war may be the game changer for Bush's desire to put in place a one-party state, forge a permanent Republican majority, redefine the Constitution and the relationships of the branches of the federal government, and concentrate power in the executive, Bush has only the rhetoric of "victory." He has not stated what would happen the day after "victory." Although a victory parade would be his political nightmare, now the absence of victory is his nightmare. With every proclaimed "turning point," "victory" becomes ever more evanescent. He has no policy for victory and no politics beyond victory.

Update
Talk about yawns, this is Condi Rice and Josh Bolton's reaction to the Bush/Blair show last night.


Reuters Photo, Hat tip to Steve Soto

Bi-Partisan idiocy

John Cole reports that The National Review and dKos are in agreement on the the bi-partisan brouhaha over the FBI search of Rep Jefferson's office. Head over to Balloon Juice for the details but here is John's closing paragraph.

When I see the Republican and Democratic leadership closing ranks to protect a crook, it briefly makes me want to go apologize to all the Naderites for making fun of their paranoid conspiracy theories.

The times they are a-changin'

Wednesday was Bob Dylan's birthday. Forty years ago he was a leader in a growing revolution which scared the hell out of the power structure at the time.

Come gather 'round people
Wherever you roam
And admit that the waters
Around you have grown
And accept it that soon
You'll be drenched to the bone.
If your time to you
Is worth savin'
Then you better start swimmin'
Or you'll sink like a stone
For the times they are a-changin'.

Earlier I wrote that what the powers that be in the Catholic Church really feared about the Da Vinci code was not ideological but that they saw and feared that they were losing power. Well this new revolution impacts more than the church.

Come writers and critics
Who prophesize with your pen
And keep your eyes wide
The chance won't come again
And don't speak too soon
For the wheel's still in spin
And there's no tellin' who
That it's namin'.
For the loser now
Will be later to win
For the times they are a-changin'.

Yes the internet has put the press on the defensive. Their monopoly on punditry has been broken. Until recently if you had a problem with a commentary about all you could do is scribe a letter to the editor. Now you can post your response within hours or minutes and that response will be read by hundreds of even thousands of people. The same can be said for poor reporting. The power of the press is being eroded and the response of the press is to attack those who are real time critical.

Come senators, congressmen
Please heed the call
Don't stand in the doorway
Don't block up the hall
For he that gets hurt
Will be he who has stalled
There's a battle outside
And it is ragin'.
It'll soon shake your windows
And rattle your walls
For the times they are a-changin'.

Senator Joe Lieberman is finding out that "the times they are a changin'". He and his friends at the DLC feel their power eroding. As I have pointed out here the DLC spokeman, Marshall Wittmann, has gone into the attack mode, for example:

These netroots types think they are something cutting edge when they are merely McGovernites with modems.

And the establishment favorite for 2008, Hillary Clinton, is getting a cold reception from the Democratic base.

The line it is drawn
The curse it is cast
The slow one now
Will later be fast
As the present now
Will later be past
The order is
Rapidly fadin'.
And the first one now
Will later be last
For the times they are a-changin'.

Yes, the times they are a-chagin'.

Ya, they are guilty!

Lay, Skilling found guilty at Enron trial

HOUSTON - Former Enron Corp. chiefs Kenneth Lay and Jeffrey Skilling were convicted Thursday of conspiracy to commit securities and wire fraud in one of the biggest business scandals in U.S. history.

The verdict put the blame for the 2001 demise of the high-profile energy trader, once the nation’s seventh-largest company, squarely on its top two executives. It came in the sixth day of deliberations following a trial that lasted nearly four months.

Lay was also convicted of bank fraud and making false statements to banks in a separate trial non-jury trial before U.S. District Judge Sim Lake related to Lay’s personal banking.

This of course comes as no surprise to anyone including Lay and Skilling. These two men had become the personification of corporate evil. Their defense was lame and a no sale from the beginning but while it was lame it was the only one they had.

I still think a better punishment for Lay would be to make him live out the rest of his life on Social Security and Medicare.

Before we get too excited we should recognize that they will never spend a day in prison. The verdicts will be appealed and that process will take over two years. Even if the appeal fails it is safe to assume the George W. Bush will pardon them both on his last day in office.

The Three D's and the Bush legacy

Every few years historians and scholars are asked to rank the Presidents of the United States. Robert P. Watson of Florida Atlantic University has been asked to contribute to the latest and the first that will include George W. Bush. He explains his thoughts in Under the Cold Eye of History.

There is much agreement by scholars as to the greatest presidents; they are Abraham Lincoln, Franklin Roosevelt, George Washington and Theodore Roosevelt, with Harry Truman, Thomas Jefferson and Andrew Jackson not far behind. These great leaders provide a standard by which all presidents are measured -- and clues as to how Bush measures up. From the great presidents we know that the country is well-served by leaders who exhibit the following traits:

• Humanity, compassion, and respect for others


• A governing style that unifies, not divides


• Rhetorical skills and the ability to communicate a clear, realistic vision


• Willingness to listen to experts and the public


• Ability to admit error, accept criticism and be adaptable


• Engaged and inquisitive, with a sense of perspective and history


• Integrity, inspiring trust among the people


• Moral courage in not shrinking from challenges

Unfortunately, Bush's presidency has been the polar opposite of this list. This brings up the matter of who are our worst presidents. Again, scholars are in agreement, listing Warren Harding, Andrew Johnson, Franklin Pierce and James Buchanan.

Like them, Bush has been tone deaf, disinterested in advice and evidence that contradict his beliefs, intellectually disengaged from the crises that have enveloped his administration, and arrogant in exercising power. Bush's failure is most apparent in the major crises of his presidency, namely mishandling the war in Iraq and Hurricane Katrina, recklessly amassing the world's largest deficits and debt, and failing to lead on pressing challenges such as the skyrocketing costs of health care, fuel and a college education.

In each case, he steadfastly refused to adjust, adapt or alter his flawed strategy. These missteps bode poorly for Bush because a president's ultimate legacy is how he responds to crisis, particularly war.

So where will George W. Bush rank among presidents? What will be his legacy?

Bush will likely be remembered much as is Warren Harding, who was disinterested in policy details, brought a group of corrupt cronies to the White House and stumbled through one mishap after the other. He is remembered as something of a jovial but incompetent puppet for corporate interests, and for setting the nation on a course to the Great Depression.

But it is James Buchanan, president from 1857-1861, who often earns the dubious title of "worst president" because he lost the Union to civil war on his watch, and failed to change course until it was too late.

When history renders its cold assessment of George W. Bush, I believe he will find himself alongside Harding and Buchanan as one of the worst presidents in American history. Bush's legacy will likely be that of death, deficits and deceit, and it could well take this nation a decade or more to recover from his presidency.

That's right, the Bush legacy will be the three D's; Death - Deficits - Deceit.

To the ends of the Universe... and BEYOND!

Those of you readers who may be on the far side of the hill, age-wise, probably remember the excitement surrounding the launch of the Voyager missions by NASA back in the seventies. Well, believe it or not, those little energizer bunnies of the space age are still going. And now, Voyager II is within sight of the actual edge of our solar system and is about to become only the second man made object to leave the Sun's realm entirely and head out into true "deep space." (Voyager I did it last year.)

(SPACE.com) -- Voyager II could pass beyond the outermost layer of our solar system, called the "termination shock," sometime within the next year, NASA scientists announced at a media teleconference Tuesday.

The milestone, which comes about a year after Voyager 1's crossing, comes earlier than expected and suggests to scientists that the edge of the shock is about one billion miles closer to the sun in the southern region of the solar system than in the north.

Scientists determined that Voyager I was approaching the termination shock when it began detecting charged particles that were being pushed back toward the sun by charged particles coming from outside our solar system. This occurred when Voyager 1 was about 85 AU from the sun.

The whole concept of the "termination shock" has always been interesting to me. It's a boundary where the charged particles and radiation from the solar wind meet the incoming "wind" from the rest of the galaxy, nearby stars, etc. While theories abound, nobody really knows for sure what goes on in true "deep space" (the area between the stars) so this is pretty exciting. It's just a shame that we didn't have the technology in the seventies to pack a bunch of sensors on Voyager to send back information on exactly what it finds out there.

Of course, we left a map showing how to get to our planet on that craft, so if any wandering extraterrestrials happen to pick it up out in the deep black... well, set an extra place for dinner. Who knows? We may have company.

Now they notice!

I was going to write a piece on the ridiculous hypocrisy of this:

F.B.I. Raid Divides G.O.P. Lawmakers and White House

but Steve Soto on the left and John Cole on the right both said it all - much better than I can.

FBI spying on Portland mayor, council?

Portland mayor Tom Potter and the city council removed the city from the FBI-led Joint Terrorism Task Force in April. Today Mayor Potter announced that the FBI was trying to spy on Portland gov't.

Portland Mayor Tom Potter on Wednesday accused the FBI of using "big brother" tactics in his city by trying to recruit an informant inside the offices of City Hall.

The FBI said it "strongly disagrees on the significance of the incident described."


Dan Nielsen, the FBI's acting special agent in charge for Oregon, said an agent and a city employee "came across each other in day-to-day activities, Starbucks and they work out in the same gym."


He said the agent made no secret about who he was, and when the city employee was "clearly uncomfortable about the situation," he told her she was free to report the contact."

The FBI may be right but this is an example of what's wrong in this country; when it comes to the federal government under George W. Bush and Alberto Gonzales everyone expects the worse. No matter where you turn it seems they are spying on US citizens without probable cause.

Here is Mayor Potter's letter:

An Open Letter to the Portland Community:


On Thursday, May 11, 2006, a Special Agent of the Portland Office of the Federal Bureau of Investigation stopped a City employee and showed her a badge and ID. He asked if she knew any City Council members. He asked if she would be willing to pass information to him relating to people who work for the City of Portland . He said that while he had duties in other areas, the agency was always interested in information relating to white collar crime and other things.


One important and legitimate role of the FBI is to investigate public corruption within government entities. For example, recently the FBI arrested a member of Congress for public corruption. But federal officials have told me they know of no public corruption in our city. Federal officials say they are conducting no investigation of the City of Portland.


The only conclusion I can draw is that the agent in question was trying to place an informant inside the offices of Portland ’s elected officials and employees, in order to inform on City Council and others.


The actions of the FBI – even if they are the actions of one agent acting on his own - come at an uneasy time for many Americans. In the past few weeks, we have learned that our phone records are not private, and conversations are monitored without warrants. Journalists exposing these actions have been threatened with prosecution.


Even if this incident is nothing more than the work of one overzealous agent, it represents an unacceptable mindset within the agency. When there is no information to indicate ANY public corruption on the part of City Council members or employees, the FBI has no legitimate role in surreptitiously monitoring elected officials and city employees.

As a city, we will continue to cooperate with the FBI on investigating criminal activities and terrorism, to ensure our community is as safe as possible.


But in the absence of any reasonable suspicion of wrongdoing, I believe the FBI’s recent actions smack of "Big Brother." Spying on local government without justification or cause is not acceptable to me. I hope it is not acceptable to you, either.


Thank you,



Tom Potter

Mayor

Pelosi does the right thing......

.....Jefferson doesn't!
Last night I suggested it was time for Rep William Jefferson to go. Well according to Raw Story Nancy Pelosi agrees.
Unfortunately Mr Jefferson doesn't agree. It's time for you to go Mr Jefferson for the good of the country and the party.

A "Liberal Left" Christian on Right Wing Radio

One of Oregon's own card carrying members of the Liberal Left Christian Community, Chuck Currie, appeared on FOX news radio station in Seattle yesterday. Here is Chuck's description of the appearance:

My twenty minutes on The John Carlson Show in Seattle turned into an hour long appearance after the FOX News radio station received a rush of phone calls from conservative listeners upset that someone would have the nerve to call James Dobson and his allies on the Religious Right what they are: disingenuous partisan hacks. Seattle mega pastor and prominent gay rights opponent (and former NFL player) Ken Hutcherson even called in to protest. He said he knew Dobson wasn’t a partisan political activist because Dobson told him so when they attended a Republican gala fund raiser together (you try and figure out that logic). The truth is that the Religious Right misuses their churches for partisan political gain and the Republicans are the beneficiaries. Hutcherson challenged me to a debate on the issues. My response: name the time and place.

Demand Jefferson's resignation

Over at dKos VirginiaDem gets it right, Rep William Jefferson should be told to resign at once. The Democrats can show Republican John Cole that he's right.

First, I find it difficult to compare the personal corruption of Rep. Jefferson to the systemic abuse of power as demonstrated by the DeLay/Abramoff/Reed “Axis of Crony.” Jefferson appears to be a cheat and a crook, much like the Duke, but it is not, to me, evidence that the Democratic party is suffering from a culture of corruption. It looks to me like he was taking money to fatten his pockets- not quite the same thing as the culture of corruption that the Democrats intend to run against (and I think there is more than ample evidence of widespread systemic corruption in the current GOP).

Mr Jefferson's denials sound as hollow as those of Tom DeLay. He must resign at once.

Da Vinci Code, Religion and Power

I have had trouble getting excited about the outrages de jour but I have been thinking about the Da Vinci Code phenomenon. There was an interesting article in the New York Times on Sunday, It's Not Just a Movie, It's a Revelation (About the Audience). The objections of the Catholic Church and the Evangelicals is more about a concern about a loss of power and influence than it is about spiritual ideology. I few months ago a watched the movie Luther. Luther's translation and distribution of the bible upset the church as much as any of his other activities. Making the Bible available to the common man reduced the power and authority of the church because the common people could read the "word of God" themselves and did not require the priests to read it to them. This from the NYT article:

"I don't need someone to interpret God for me," Mr. Jacobs said. "When I want to commune with others, I go to church."

This is representative of a new personal spirituality, no clergy required thank you. So what about American?

"Americans by and large consider themselves to be Christian, but when you try to drill down to figure out what they believe, you find that among those who call themselves Christian, 59 percent don't believe in Satan, 42 percent believe Jesus sinned during his time on Earth, and only 11 percent believe the Bible is the source of absolute moral truth," said Mr. Barna, a conservative evangelical who regards these as troubling indicators.

While the Catolics and evangelicals may be upset not everyone is.

Da Vinci Christianity is not so disturbing to Gregory Robbins, an Episcopalian who directs the Anglican Studies program at the Iliff School of Theology in Denver.

"When I talk to groups, they say, tell us about the Dead Sea Scrolls, the discovery of the Gnostic gospels, what went on with Constantine, was there a massive book burning by the church in the fourth century" — all elements woven into the Da Vinci plot, Mr. Robbins said.

He said he emphasizes in his talks that in its first few centuries, Christianity was not monolithic. There were Palestinian Christians, Jewish Christians, Pauline Christians who appealed to gentiles, Gnostic Christians, and Ebionite Christians who saw Jesus as merely a prophet.

Among Christians today, he said: "I have found a willingness to entertain the idea that early Christianity was very diverse. Then they're able to talk about the diversity that characterizes Christianity in the 20th century."

Organized religion has always been more about consolidating power than spirituality. Those who have the power will fight anything that threatens it.

Amnesty International Condemns Human Rights Violators. We Win Again!

The awards going to the United States under the leadership of George W. Bush continue to pile up. This time we are honored by Amnesty International.

Rights Report Condemns U.S, China

LONDON, England (AP) -- Amnesty International said Tuesday that the relentless pursuit of security by powerful nations had undermined human rights, draining energy and attention from crises afflicting the poor and underprivileged.

In releasing its 2006 annual report, the human rights watchdog condemned countries such as the United States, China and Russia for focusing on narrowly defined interests, diluting efforts to solve conflicts elsewhere -- such as Sudan's Darfur region.

They have some particular bones to pick with a few administration policies.

"(The United States) has basically mortgaged its moral authority on the streets of Fallujah and Baghdad -- and lost moral authority to speak on this issue," Khan told AP Television News in regard to Darfur.

Amnesty also called for the closure of the Guantanamo Bay prison camp, and for full disclosure on prisoners implicated elsewhere in the "war on terror." It also asked for the U.N. Human Rights Council to insist on equal standards "whether in Darfur, Guantanamo, Chechnya or China."

"Guantanamo prison camp is an aberration under international law," Khan told AP. "It places people outside the rule of law. And it sends a message to other regimes around the world -- like Egypt or China -- that they too can ignore human rights. They too can lock people up in the name of national security."

Strong words indeed. Of course, none of this will phase the Cheney administration, and you can rest assured that the right wingnut bloggerati will be coming out in full force now to decry Amnesty International as some sort of liberal Democrat conspiracy. Set your watch now. I give them less than an hour in the pool.

Ron Paul - The sane Republican from Texas

If Iran through President Ahmadinejad is indeed a threat we have one man and one moment to blame for it. The man is George W. Bush, who believes that a politician can never have too many external threats, and the moment was January 29, 2002 when Bush invented the "Axis of Evil". There is very indication that Iran was moderating up to that point and being threatened by the worlds number one bully, George W. Bush, set in motion a political movement that resulted in the election of certified nutcase Mahmoud Ahmadinejad being elected president. Ron Paul correctly tells us that President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad does not control the nuclear program.

Government power in Iran is divided, and President Ahmadinejad – the man responsible for hateful comments about Israel – does not control their nuclear policy. We should ignore him as a pariah, and deal instead with Ali Larijani, head of Iran’s National Security Council, who has made several reasonable statements about the US and shows a desire to have direct diplomatic talks.

The US should be talking to the people who are really in charge not the firebrand that is not calling the shots.

Ron Paul is always worth a read so go read the entire commentary, Avoiding War With Iran

Peace Rose

My first Peace Rose
Bloomed today
It seemed so out of place
In a world where
Madmen rule
And seem to be in a race
To destroy the earth
To destroy the joy we could know
A world where peace
Has little meaning
And life has little worth

~Ron

Spinning Bull

Marshall Wittmann used to spin as a Republican. Since he infiltrated the Democratic Party he has continued to spin. The latest example is Netroots Lose, Again.

The Moose observes that the McGovernites with Modems cannot do math.

By an overwhelming majority, Joe Lieberman is the officially endorsed candidate of the Connecticut Democratic Party. No matter how you spin it, if you are on the short end of 67 to 33 - you lose - unless if you live in the parallel universe of the netroots. It is there that Howard Dean is President of the United States. In that territory, Rodriguez defeated Cuellar back in Texas.

Yes Lieberman did receive two thirds of the vote from establishment Democrats but just a few short weeks prior to the convention no one really thought that Ned Lamont would get the 15% he needed to force a primary, he got twice that. Witmann admits that:

Joe Lieberman continues to face a fight for re-election because he has stood for principle, pure and simple. While others have retreated, Joe realizes that defeat in Iraq would be disastrous to America and to the Iraqi people. For that stand, Joe is confronting the wrath of the left.

So when is undercutting fellow Democrats in appearances on the FOX/Rove news network principle. Paul Krugman gets it right

Mr. Lieberman's defenders would have you believe that his increasingly unpopular positions reflect his principles. But his Bushlike inability to face reality on Iraq looks less like a stand on principle than the behavior of a narcissist who can't admit error. And the common theme in Mr. Lieberman's positions seems to be this: In each case he has taken the stand that is most likely to get him on TV.

You see, the talking-head circuit loves centrists. But a centrist, as defined inside the Beltway, doesn't mean someone whose views are actually in the center, as judged by public opinion.

And Marshall Wittmann, as usual is full of bull.

You can help Ned Lamont defeat Joe Lieberman and Marshall Wittmann here.

Israel Rattles the Bear's Cage (again)

Despite estimates from most international intelligence resources that Iran is anywhere from three to a dozen years from coming close to being able to build a nuclear bomb, (assuming that they are actually working on one) it seems that Israel has taken it upon themselves to announce that Tehran is only months away from having one.

WASHINGTON (CNN) -- Iran is only months away from joining the club of nations that can make a nuclear weapon, Israel's prime minister said in a recent interview.

"The technological threshold is very close," Ehud Olmert said on CNN's "Late Edition" in an interview taped Thursday and broadcast Sunday.

"It can be measured by months rather than years."

The article then goes on to mention that Israel is issuing a "sort of denial" that they are planning to act unilaterally to attack Iran, or that the United States is working with them to do so. But it also tellingly points out that, when faced with a similar situation some years ago, they bombed Iraq. Condi Rice had to be quick to get in on the act, saying, "Iran is a troublemaker in the international system, a central banker of terrorism. Security assurances are not on the table."

How nice. Tell me... am I the only one who finds it somewhat ironic that Israel is rattling sabers over the need to stop a "dangerous nuclear power" from arising in the Middle East? I mean, it's only one of the most open secrets in Washington that there is already a nuke wielding power over that... and it's Israel. Nukes or me, but not for thee.

Not the Center

I don't like Joe Lieberman and the hawkish corporatists of the DLC. I have made that clear here, here and here. Joe Lieberman may be many things, like a neocon, but a centrist he's not. Well today Paul Krugman takes a look at Talk-Show Joe.

Friday was a bad day for Senator Joseph Lieberman. The Connecticut Democratic Party's nominating convention endorsed him, but that was a given for an incumbent with a lot of political chips to cash in. The real news was that Ned Lamont, an almost unknown challenger, received a third of the votes. This gave Mr. Lamont the right to run against Mr. Lieberman in a primary, and suggests that Mr. Lamont may even win.

What happened to Mr. Lieberman? Some news reports may lead you to believe that he is in trouble solely because of his support for the Iraq war. But there's much more to it than that. Mr. Lieberman has consistently supported Republican talking points. This has made him a lion of the Sunday talk shows, but has put him out of touch with his constituents - and with reality.

Mr. Lieberman isn't the only nationally known Democrat who still supports the Iraq war. But he isn't just an unrepentant hawk, he has joined the Bush administration by insisting on an upbeat picture of the situation in Iraq that is increasingly delusional.

Moreover, Mr. Lieberman has supported the attempt to label questions about why we invaded Iraq and criticism of the administration's policies since the invasion as unpatriotic. How else is one to interpret his warning, late last year, that "it is time for Democrats who distrust President Bush to acknowledge that he will be Commander-in-Chief for three more critical years, and that in matters of war we undermine Presidential credibility at our nation's peril"?

And it's not just Iraq. A letter sent by Hillary Clinton to Connecticut Democrats credited Mr. Lieberman with defending Social Security "tooth and nail." Well, I watched last year's Social Security debate pretty closely, and that's not what happened.

In fact, Mr. Lieberman repeatedly supported the administration's scare tactics. "Every year we wait to come up with a solution to the Social Security problem," he declared in March 2005, "costs our children and grandchildren and great-grandchildren $600 billion more."

This claim echoed a Bush administration talking point, and President Bush wasted little time citing Mr. Lieberman's statement as vindication. But the talking point was simply false, so Mr. Lieberman was providing cover for an administration lie.

There's more. Mr. Lieberman supported Congressional intervention in the Terri Schiavo affair, back when Republican leaders were trying to manufacture a "values" issue out of thin air.

And let's not forget that Mr. Lieberman showed far more outrage over Bill Clinton's personal life than he has ever shown over Mr. Bush's catastrophic failures as commander in chief.

On each of these issues Mr. Lieberman, who is often described as a "centrist," is or was very much at odds not just with the Democratic base but with public opinion as a whole. According to the latest ABC News/Washington Post poll, only 40 percent of the public believes that we were right to go to war with Iraq.

Mr. Lieberman's tender concern for the president's credibility comes far too late: according to a USA Today/Gallup poll, only 41 percent of Americans consider Mr. Bush honest and trustworthy. By huge margins, the public believed that Congress should have stayed out of the Schiavo case. And so on.

Mr. Lieberman's defenders would have you believe that his increasingly unpopular positions reflect his principles. But his Bushlike inability to face reality on Iraq looks less like a stand on principle than the behavior of a narcissist who can't admit error. And the common theme in Mr. Lieberman's positions seems to be this: In each case he has taken the stand that is most likely to get him on TV.

You see, the talking-head circuit loves centrists. But a centrist, as defined inside the Beltway, doesn't mean someone whose views are actually in the center, as judged by public opinion.

Instead, a Democrat is considered centrist to the extent that he does what Mr. Lieberman does: lends his support to Republican talking points, even if those talking points don't correspond at all to what most of the public wants or believes.

But this "center" cannot hold. And that's the larger lesson of what happened Friday. Mr. Lieberman has been playing to a Washington echo chamber that is increasingly out of touch with the country's real concerns. The nation, which rallied around Mr. Bush after 9/11 simply because he was there, has moved on - and it has left Mr. Lieberman behind.

That's right, it's about more than the war. Joe Lieberman has been supporting George W. Bush and bashing Democrats since 2000. Yes Mr Lieberman is out of touch - living in the same alternate universe as all the other kool-aide drinking Bush fans. Many of them are giving up the kool-aide but not Mr Lieberman.

Ron Howard thanks the Vatican all the way to the bank

The Da Vinci Code had the second biggest global box office opening ever. I guess the Catholic Church still has a lot of clout, people line up to do what they tell them not to do.
"Da Vinci Code" unlocks $224 mln in world sales

LOS ANGELES (Reuters) - All the protests and all the bad reviews could not prevent "The Da Vinci Code" from recording a $224 million worldwide opening, the second-biggest debut ever at the global box office, its distributor said on Sunday.

The controversial adaptation of Dan Brown's best-selling novel, the story of a Vatican cover-up involving Jesus Christ and his supposed offspring, sold about $77 million worth of tickets at movie theaters in the United States and Canada during its first three days, according to Columbia Pictures.

[....]

A Catholic lay organization, the American Society for the Defense of Tradition, Family and Property, took out full-page ads in USA Today on Friday calling for worshipers to stage prayer vigils outside at least 1,000 theaters nationwide.

I guess instead of prayer vigils they bought some popcorn and watched the movie instead.

Frank Rich Today

I referred to Frank Rich's column briefly in the post below but the entire thing is worth a read.
The Rove Da Vinci Code

IF we're to believe the reviews, "The Da Vinci Code" is the most exciting summer blockbuster since, well, "Poseidon." But the "Da Vinci Code" marketing strategy is a masterpiece: a perfect Hollywood metaphor for the American political culture of our day.

The Machiavellian mission for the hit-deprived Sony studio was to co-opt conservative religious critics who might depress turnout for a $125-million-plus thriller portraying the Roman Catholic Church as a fraud. To this end, as The New Yorker reported, Sony hired a bevy of P.R. consultants, including a faith-based flack whose Christian Rolodex previously helped sell such inspirational testaments to Hollywood spirituality as "Bruce Almighty" and "Christmas With the Kranks."

Among Sony's ingenious strategies was an elaborate Web site, The Da Vinci Dialogue, which gave many of the movie's prominent critics a platform to vent on the studio's dime. Thus was "The Da Vinci Code" repositioned as a "teaching moment" for Christian evangelists - a bit of hype "completely concocted by the Sony Pictures marketing machine," as Barbara Nicolosi, a former nun and current Hollywood screenwriter, explained to The Times. The more "students" who could be roped into this teaching moment, of course, the bigger the gross.

Ms. Nicolosi remains a vociferous opponent of the film. On her blog she chastises Sony's heavenly P.R. helpers for coaxing "legions of well-meaning Christians into subsidizing a movie that makes their own Savior out to be a sham." But you do have to admire the studio's chutzpah, if the word may be used in this context. It rivals Tom Sawyer's bamboozling of his friends into painting that fence. The Sony scheme also echoes much of the past decade's Washington playbook. Politicians, particularly but not exclusively in the Karl Rove camp, seem to believe that voters of "faith" are suckers who can be lured into the big tent and then abandoned once their votes and campaign cash have been pocketed by the party for secular profit.

Nowhere is this game more naked than in the Jack Abramoff scandal: the felonious Washington lobbyist engaged his pal Ralph Reed, the former leader of the Christian Coalition, to shepherd Christian conservative leaders like James Dobson, Gary Bauer and the Rev. Donald Wildmon and their flocks into ostensibly "anti-gambling" letter-writing campaigns. They were all duped: in reality these campaigns were engineered to support Mr. Abramoff's Indian casino clients by attacking competing casinos. While that scam may be the most venal exploitation of "faith" voters by Washington operatives, it's all too typical. This history repeats itself every political cycle: the conservative religious base turns out for its party and soon finds itself betrayed. The right's leaders are already threatening to stay home this election year because all they got for their support of Republicans in the previous election year was a lousy Bush-Cheney T-shirt. Actually, they also got two Supreme Court justices, but their wish list was far longer. Dr. Dobson, the child psychologist who invented Focus on the Family, set the tone with a tantrum on Fox, whining that Republicans were "ignoring those that put them in office" and warning of "some trouble down the road" if they didn't hop-to.

The doctor's diagnosis is not wrong. He has been punk'd - or Da Vinci'd - since 2004. Though President Bush endorsed the federal marriage amendment then, there's a reason he hasn't pushed it since. Not Gonna Happen, however many times it is dragged onto the Senate floor. The number of Americans who "strongly oppose" same-sex marriage keeps dropping - from 42 percent two years ago to 28 percent today, according to the Pew Research Center - and there will never be the votes to "write discrimination into the Constitution," as Mary Cheney puts it.

The real Republican establishment - including Laura Bush, who has repeatedly refused to disown the many gay families at this year's White House Easter Egg Roll - senses the drift of the culture. "Will & Grace" may have retired to reruns last week, but it's been supplanted by a gay "Sopranos" tough guy who out-brokebacks Jack and Ennis.

The religious right's hope for taming that culture is also doomed, however much Congress ceremoniously raises indecency fines in an election year. The major media companies, heavy donors to both parties, first get such bills watered down, then challenge the Federal Communications Commission's enforcement in court.

The mogul most ostentatiously supportive of Republican causes, Rupert Murdoch, may perennially fan the flames of a bogus "war on Christmas" on Fox, but he's waging his own, far more lethal war on the Christian right by starting a companion TV network this fall to match MySpace.com, his hugely popular and hugely libidinous Internet portal. Mr. Murdoch's new gift to America's youth, My Network TV, "will showcase greed, lust, sex," according to The Wall Street Journal. Conservatives fretting about his fund-raiser for Hillary Clinton don't even know what's about to hit them.

But for all these betrayals, Dr. Dobson and Company won't desert the Republicans come Election Day. If Mr. Rove steps up his usual gay-baiting late in the campaign, as is his wont, maybe the turnout of those on the hard-core right will eke out a victory for the party that double-crossed them not just on cultural issues but also on secular conservative principles (like fiscal responsibility and immigration-law enforcement). If so, they'll promptly be Da Vinci'd yet again. A Republican retreat on stem-cell research is already under way. If there's electoral fallout from the South Dakota Legislature's Draconian abortion ban - the Republican governor's job-approval rating fell from 72 percent to 58 percent in a single month after he signed it - the pro-life checklist in Congress will suffer as well.

Whatever happens in November, the good news is that the religious right leaders most stroked by Mr. Rove, many of them past 70, may no longer command such large blocs of voters anyway. As Amy Sullivan writes in the latest New Republic, Mr. Rove has reason to worry about "another group of evangelicals: the nearly 40 percent who identify themselves as politically moderate and who are just as likely to get energized about AIDS in Africa or melting ice caps as partial-birth abortion and lesbian couples in Massachusetts." The bad news is that no sooner does the religious-right base show signs of cracking in a youthquake than the Democrats trot out their own doomed Da Vinci strategy.

This idiocy began the morning after Election Day 2004, when a vaguely worded exit-poll question persuaded credulous party leaders that "moral values" determined their defeat (as opposed to, say, their standard-bearer's campaign). Their immediate response was to seek out faith-based consultants not unlike those recruited by Sony, and practice dropping the word "values" and biblical quotations into their public pronouncements. In the House, they organized, heaven help us, a Democratic Faith Working Group.

As the next election approaches, they're renewing this effort, to farcical effect. The Democrats' chairman, Howard Dean, who proved his faith-based bona fides in the 2004 primary season by citing Job as his favorite book in the New Testament, went on the Pat Robertson TV network this month and yanked his party's position on same-sex marriage to the right. (He apologized for his "misstatement" once off the air.)

Not to be left behind, Senator Clinton gave a speech last week knocking young people for thinking "work is a four-letter word" and for having TV's in their rooms, home Internet access and, worst of all, that ultimate instrument of the devil, iPods. "I hope that we start thinking some very old-fashioned thoughts," she said. (She also subsequently apologized, once her daughter complained, joining the general chorus of ridicule.) However "old-fashioned" Mrs. Clinton's thoughts, don't expect her to turn back Mr. Murdoch's campaign cash in protest against his steamy new TV channel.

The one New York politician even more disingenuous in this racket is Rudolph Giuliani. He outdid John McCain's appearance with Jerry Falwell by campaigning last week for Ralph Reed in the lieutenant governor's race in Georgia. Any religious conservative who mistakes "America's mayor," an adamant supporter of abortion rights and gay rights, for a fellow traveler is in desperate need of an intervention, if not an exorcism.

But that hypothetical, easily duped voter may no longer exist. Like the Bush era, the cynical Rove strategy of exploiting faith-based voters may be nearing its end. For proof, just take a look at the most craven figure in American politics: the Senate majority leader, Bill Frist. To flatter the far right, this Harvard-trained surgeon misdiagnosed Terri Schiavo's vegetative state from the Senate floor, and justified abstinence-only sex education in AIDS prevention by telling ABC's George Stephanopoulos that he didn't know for certain that tears and sweat couldn't transmit H.I.V. But increasingly it's not only liberals who see through him. One of his latest stunts, a proposed $100 gas-tax rebate, provoked Rush Limbaugh to condemn him for "treating us like we're a bunch of whores."

When senators as different as Mr. Frist and Mrs. Clinton both earn bipartisan ridicule for their pandering, you have to believe that there's a god other than Karl Rove watching over American politics after all.

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Religion in America

Caryle Murphy and Alan Cooperman write in the Washington Post that Religious Liberals Gain New Visibility. The title is correct but the article seems to paint this as some kind of new revival, it's not, they have always been there. The change is in the media. The unholy alliance between the corporatists of the Republican Party and the Mullahs of the religious right is coming to an end. As a result it is now politically OK to recognize the existence of the liberal Christians.

The latest issue for the mullahs is gay marriage and that issue is going no where as Frank Rich points out in his column today.

Though President Bush endorsed the federal marriage amendment then, there's a reason he hasn't pushed it since. Not Gonna Happen, however many times it is dragged onto the Senate floor. The number of Americans who "strongly oppose" same-sex marriage keeps dropping - from 42 percent two years ago to 28 percent today, according to the Pew Research Center - and there will never be the votes to "write discrimination into the Constitution," as Mary Cheney puts it.

The real Republican establishment - including Laura Bush, who has repeatedly refused to disown the many gay families at this year's White House Easter Egg Roll — senses the drift of the culture. "Will & Grace" may have retired to reruns last week, but it's been supplanted by a gay "Sopranos" tough guy who out-brokebacks Jack and Ennis.

I have a new quote in the header above; "No prejudice is ever debated that isn't already dying". This is from an interview with Rt. Rev. John Shelby Spong, formerly the bishop of Newark, N.J, in the Oregonian.
Bishop says gay rights secure

The next volley about gay rights in the Episcopal Church may come next month, but one retired bishop says the battle has already been won.

The Rt. Rev. John Shelby Spong, formerly the bishop of Newark, N.J., and a spokesman for progressive Christians, visits Oregon next week for two free public lectures. The author of more than a dozen books, including "The Sins of Scripture: Exposing the Bible's Texts of Hate to Reveal the God of Love," he is an outspoken critic of conservative Christians.

Spong's visit comes less than a month before delegates of the U.S. Episcopal Church will gather to discuss their response to the Windsor Report. Issued by the Lambeth Commission on Communion in 2004, the report criticized the U.S. church for the selection of an openly gay bishop the year before. Ten Episcopalians representing the Western Oregon diocese and Bishop Johncy Itty will attend the 75th General Convention on June 13-21 in Columbus, Ohio.

Earlier this month Episcopalians in the Diocese of San Francisco voted not to ordain an openly gay bishop, but the issue will be on the table again at the convention. The American church will focus on its strained relationship with the worldwide Anglican Communion. For his part, Spong said in an interview that a church divided over the issue is better than a unified church that fosters discrimination. His answers have been edited for clarity and brevity.

What makes you think the gay-rights war is done?

No prejudice is ever debated that isn't already dying. The reason we debate a prejudice is because it isn't holding anymore. We saw black people as being less than human. But we began to see them as human beings. It took a while to work that out. We used to define women as dependent, weak, emotionally hysterical, incapable of bearing responsibilities. Women began to challenge that in the 20th century. The same thing is happening with gay people.

And now the church has an openly gay bishop, the Rt. Rev. V. Gene Robinson of New Hampshire.

He is the first honest gay bishop. We've had gay bishops and priests for years.

Do you honestly see this acceptance of gay bishops as an inevitable development in the life of the church?

Yes. I grew up as a racist in a segregated world (in Charlotte, N.C.). Over time, my mother changed -- but not a lot. I changed more because I had more opportunities. I grew up looking forward to having a wife who was a servant, and then I looked in the eyes of my daughters and I didn't want them to be part of that.

It used to be that gay people were (considered) mentally sick or morally depraved, that they needed to be cured or converted. If you couldn't cure them or convert them, it was OK to repress them, even to kill them. And then came Matthew Shepherd, who was killed seven years ago. We still have hate crimes, but we condemn them; we didn't condemn them back in the 1930s in the South. All those people went to church, and they didn't condemn the Klan and they weren't convicted for lynching.

These are examples of the "change of consciousness" that you talk about?

It has to do with the fact that human life is always rolling. We elect a president every four years and, in those four years, people die and we have new voters. There can be a complete turnover in four years. That goes on with prejudices, too.

And it doesn't worry you that this issue could break the American Episcopal Church apart from the larger Anglican Communion?

I've lived too long. We were told when we ordained blacks that it would split the church; when women were ordained, it would split the church; when women became bishops, it would split the church. The issue is what is right and what is wrong. I have never known a church to be helped by what is wrong. Unity is a virtue in the church, but not the supreme one. Truth is higher.

The Religious left has always been there. The only change is that it is now OK for the media to talk about it.

Note
Frank Rich's commentary is behind the wall at the NYT but you can find the entire thing above and it's worth a read.

Before the bombs

The Bush administration understands very well that before you start a shooting war you have to wage and win a disinformation propaganda war. That was done in the lead up to the debacle in Iraq and it would appear that it's going on again. The blogosphere has been abuzz about this story from Amir Taheri, A colour code for Iran's 'infidels'.

The law mandates the government to make sure that all Iranians wear "standard Islamic garments" designed to remove ethnic and class distinctions reflected in clothing, and to eliminate "the influence of the infidel" on the way Iranians, especially, the young dress. It also envisages separate dress codes for religious minorities, Christians, Jews and Zoroastrians, who will have to adopt distinct colour schemes to make them identifiable in public.

Well now we learn that report of badges for Jews in Iran is untrue.

Hormoz Ghahremani, a spokesman for the Iranian Embassy in Ottawa, said in an e-mail to the Post yesterday that, “We wish to categorically reject the news item.

“These kinds of slanderous accusations are part of a smear campaign against Iran by vested interests, which needs to be denounced at every step.”

Sam Kermanian, of the U.S.-based Iranian-American Jewish Federation, said in an interview from Los Angeles that he had contacted members of the Jewish community in Iran — including the lone Jewish member of the Iranian parliament — and they denied any such measure was in place.

This should lead us to ask - who is this Amir Taheri who wrote the original article. Well Taylor Marsh asked the question and found out that -

Now let's talk about Amir Taheri for just a second. It didn't take long to find out he's part of Benador Associates. Guess who's also part of Benador? Charles Krauthammer and many other neocons.

I guess Judy Miller just isn't available anymore.

Update
Juan Cole has some thoughts that are worth a read, Another Fraud on Iran: No Legislation on Dress of Religious Minorities

Cheney Concedes Lack of Perfection at Commencement Address

Regular MEJ readers are already accustomed to the theory that, at least in terms of political intrigue and government malfeasance, it's all about Cheney, but this week the Veep took to the stage of academia and admitted that his past held a few steps off the beam. Addressing the grads at Louisiana State University, Dick took a moment to try to appear a bit more "folksy" by recounting some of his own slipups in a misspent youth.

Vice President Dick Cheney, his favorability ratings even lower than President Bush's, gave college graduates a good-natured tour Friday of some of the detours in his life as he counseled them to be ready to roll with life's punches.

Life rarely turns out as planned, he said. Cheney said that when he graduated from the University of Wyoming, he expected to go on to graduate school, a doctorate and a life in academia.

The vice president, 65, cited his first disastrous meeting with now-Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld back in the 1960s, when Rumsfeld was a congressman and Cheney was interviewing for a fellowship on Capitol Hill.

"Things didn't go all that well," Cheney recounted. "In fact, he pretty much threw me out of his office."

Cheney also poked fun at himself for never quite getting around to writing the dissertation to complete his doctorate work.

"I'll get started as soon as I think of a topic to write about," he promised.

He confessed that he had started his college years at Yale, but dropped out after a few semesters.

"Actually, dropped out isn't quite accurate," he added. "'Asked to leave' would be more like it. Twice. The second time around, they said, don't bother coming back."

As you would expect, having Darth Cheney show up in front of a bunch of college students, even in the very red state of Louisiana, drew some objections. The most curious one, however, came from one of the students with a rather... "unique" academic background.

Not all students were happy with the choice of Cheney as commencement speaker. Some complained about Bush administration policies on the war in Iraq and other topics, and others said selecting Cheney was inappropriate given displeasure with the administration's Katrina response.

"Graduates need better inspiration," said Jessica Ketcham, a graduate student in rhetoric.

I'm sorry... did you just say a "graduate student in rhetoric"???? Sounds more like she's studying to work in the Cheney administration than to criticize it.

Lamont wins while he loses

Lieberman wins nomination, but Lamont forces primary

HARTFORD, Conn. -- U.S. Sen. Joe Lieberman was nominated for a fourth term by state Democrats Friday night, but his anti-war challenger garnered enough delegates to force a primary in August.

Backers of Ned Lamont, a Greenwich businessman who has sharply criticized the moderate senator for his support of the war in Iraq, shouted with delight after learning their candidate will be the first to challenge Lieberman to a primary.

Lieberman won 1,004 of the 1,509 delegates, while Lamont won 505. Lamont captured 33 percent of the delegates, well more than the 15 percent he needed to force the primary.

This has to be a wake up call for Lieberman. Since Lieberman gets much of his support from Republicans in general elections he may have some real problems in a one on one primary. Cocky appearances on FOX News isn't going to help him either. He'd better tell Sean Hannity to cool the endorsements for a couple of months. This will be a hard fought primary with lots of outside money. This is a good opportunity to show Marshall Wittmann and the DLC how powerful the netroots are. You can help Ned Lamont out here.

Democratic "Centerists" - Digby gets it right

Anyone who reads this humble on line pamphlet knows I have no use for Joe Leiberman, Marshall Wittmann and his friends at the DLC. You can find a long list of posts here. Well digby gets it right when he discusses the article in the New York Times, Lieberman's Support for War Leaves Him Embattled on Left. On Lieberman - it's more than the war.

But the reason the netroots are taking on Joe Lieberman is because he enables Republicans on a host of issues and consistently shows disloyalty to the party in a hyper-partisan era. Alone among Democrats at the time, he went on the floor of the Senate and excoriated Bill Clinton for personal failures (that's what the speech was about) and gave support to the hypocritical Republican witch-hunters. Then, once again, alone among Democrats, he stood up for George Bush as it became obvious that the justification for the war in Iraq was based upon lies and hype. These are just two telling examples of where Lieberman tends to come out on issues that mean something to the Democratic party in a larger sense.

He comes from Connecticut. There is no excuse that he's in a Red State and has to pander to conservatives. He does this completely for its own sake. And inevitably, he gets the highest accolades from Republicans for doing so; he actually seems to revel in his position as George Bush's favorite Democrat. It is understandable that a Democratic senator lauded constantly by the right wing noise machine is going to be suspect among Democratic partisans.

And on the DLC:

Since the DLC became the guiding force in the Democratic establishment the Party has lost everything. We are making a lot of noise because assholes like Al From have allowed the Republicans to turn liberalism into a bucket of warm spit --- and put the government entirely in the hands of the far right. It's not about the war. That's just the most visible example. It's about having no standards, no loyalty, no principles --- and losing because of it!

Amen digby! Go read the entire thing.

What do you think now Joe?

I wonder what smokin Joe Lieberman thinks of King George's misadventure in Iraq now?
US fumes as Iraq backs Israel boycott

The US-backed Iraqi government sent an official representative to this week's meeting of the Arab League Boycott Office in Damascus, The Jerusalem Post has learned, prompting criticism from members of Congress and the Bush administration.

Liaison officers from 14 countries met for four days this week to discuss ways of intensifying the Arab embargo against Israel. Among those taking part were delegates from several ostensible US allies, such as Iraq, Morocco, Saudi Arabia, Qatar and Kuwait.

Tom Casey, a spokesman for the US State Department, told the Post that Washington was unhappy with Baghdad's action.

"We are disappointed by the decision of the Iraqi government to attend this meeting, and will be noting our concerns with Iraqi officials," he said. "We have raised this issue with Iraqi officials in the past and expect to raise it with them again."

As I recall one of the almost unlimited number of lame justifications for the illegal invasion of Iraq would be a Democratic friend of Israel in the middle east. Well not too surprisingly that justification has gone up in a cloud of smoke just like the rest. Instead of a Democracy friendly to Israel we are at best going to end up with an Islamic theocracy allied to Iran. And it doesn't even look very likely that Dick Cheney's buddies in the oil industry are even going to get any oil.

Even one of my favorite wingnut whackos, Debbie Schlussel is enraged.

Where is our government and Secretary of State Condoleeza Rice on this? Too busy telling Bono and The Independent that "Rocket Man" reminds her of her first boyfriend, apparently.

We should be telling Iraq that if they boycott Israel, they don't get funds. But we won't. Just like we gave in and gave our tax $$$ to HAMASastan's government.

But don't hold your breath. Our foreign policy is consistent on one thing: Those who run it simply don't have the guts. Despite all their self-promotion, PR, and hype about their physical fitness work-outs, when it comes to the real tests of strength, President Bush and Clueless Condoleeza are just plain wimpy.

Parallel Universe

Watch this YouTube clip of Al Gore on Saturday Night Live giving his address to the nation six years after he beat George. W. Bush and became president in 2000. You'll laugh. Then you'll cry thinking about what might have been. But give credit to Al for having a sense of humor about the vagaries of his own life.