« August 2004 | Main | October 2004 »
September 28, 2004
If Bush Can Take Office Again, Why Not Saddam?
Now here's a real test of the Bush administration's commitment to democracy in Iraq:
Overthrown Iraqi leader Saddam Hussein, who was arrested by US forces last December, reportedly plans to run as a candidate in the Iraqi elections scheduled for January 2005.
Saddam's lawyer Giovanni di Stefano told Denmark's B.T. newspaper that Saddam decided during one of their discussions that he would declare his candidacy for the elections.
Will they let Saddam run? Will they not interfere in the election process? Will they let Saddam take office if he wins?
I think we know the answers to all of those questions. Still, it should be interesting to watch.
(Link courtesy Antiwar.com.)
Posted by Mike Tennant at 11:21 AM | Comments (0)
September 24, 2004
How to Avoid Becoming an Anti-American
Via the Antiwar.com blog, here's a step-by-step guide called "How to Avoid Becoming an Anti-American." It begins:
A specter is haunting America - the specter of anti-Americanism. All the powers of patriotic America have entered into a corporate alliance to exorcise this specter: draft-deferrers and women-gropers, grammar-challenged and duel-challengers, oil diggers and grave diggers. It is the duty of all upstanding American citizens to fully understand and identify the leading symptoms of anti-Americanism, so that our homes, homeless shelters, reading chambers, torture chambers, chocolate refineries, weapons factories, and places of worship, such as churches, temples, and Wall Street, are completely free from the poison of anti-war sentiment. The patriotic American must save both himself and others from becoming an anti-American American by learning to be an active, honorable, anti-anti-American American. It is with this pressing obligation in mind that the following signs of anti-Americanism have been compiled and exposed.
This is political satire at its best--pointed, humorous, and right on target.
Posted by Mike Tennant at 04:18 PM | Comments (0)
September 23, 2004
Federal Airport Security Bombs
Undercover investigators were able to sneak explosives and weapons past security screeners at 15 airports nationwide, according to a government report on aviation security.
The government watchdog for the Department of Homeland Security, Clark Kent Ervin, delivered the results of the tests in a classified report to members of Congress. "The performance was poor," said Ervin, the department's inspector general, in releasing a less detailed version Wednesday.
I'm certainly glad we put the federal government in charge of airport security. Just look how safe we are now! Never, ever trust the government to protect you.
Posted by Mike Tennant at 08:56 AM | Comments (0)
More Violence Means We're Winning!
Iraq's interim prime minister, Ayad Allawi, using his robust self-confidence to try to counter growing pessimism over conditions in his country, said in an interview on Wednesday that the rise in the number and ferocity of terror attacks in the country by insurgents was proof that they were getting not stronger, but weaker.
"They are becoming more deadly because we think they are getting more desperate," said Dr. Allawi, visiting the United States for the first time as leader of his country and delivering a relentlessly upbeat assessment of his embattled nation.
Boy, is this guy a U.S. puppet, or what? He certainly knows on which side his bread is buttered. This is the same refrain we've been hearing from the Bush administration ever since the invasion of Iraq. They know how to pick their colonial governors well.
The New York Times article continues:
He criticized news coverage of Iraq, saying that it focused only on violence and other setbacks and failed to capture the gains for Iraqi society.
"Of course, the media will report these suicidal crazy persons who will come and kill us, that is obvious, but the media overlooks that there are other areas which are improving," he said.
I had no idea there were neocons in Iraq, too!
Posted by Mike Tennant at 08:40 AM | Comments (0)
September 22, 2004
John Kerry Tells the Truth About a War
We've all heard that the Swift Boat Veterans are just ordinary guys who are outraged over John Kerry's lies about U.S. atrocities in Vietnam. (By the way, did you know that the leader of the vets, John O'Neill, was used by Nixon, Colson, and Haldeman to counter Kerry back in 1971? He's hardly some apolitical, ordinary guy.) Well, the facts tell a different story, according to Nicholas Turse in the Village Voice:
The archives have hundreds of files of official U.S. military investigations of such atrocities committed by American soldiers. I've pored over those records—which were classified for decades—for my Columbia University dissertation and, now, this Voice article. The exact number of investigated allegations of atrocities is unknown, as is the number of such barbaric incidents that occurred but weren't investigated. Some war crimes, like the Tiger Force atrocities exposed last year by The Toledo Blade, have only come to light decades later. Others never will. But there are plentiful records to back up Kerry's 1971 testimony point by point.
Turse then goes on to provide sample evidence of every allegation Kerry made. It's a good read.
Thanks to Antiwar.com for the links.
Posted by Mike Tennant at 01:50 PM | Comments (0)
Another Intelligence Failure?
President Bush, determined to put an optimistic face on deadly conditions in Iraq, said on Tuesday that the CIA was just guessing when it said the war-racked country was in danger of slipping into civil war.
"The CIA laid out several scenarios. It said that life could be lousy, life could be OK, life could be better. And they were just guessing as to what the conditions might be like," Bush told reporters during a picture-taking session with Iraqi Prime Minister Iyad Allawi. . . .
The classified document, known as a National Intelligence Estimate, predicted three possible scenarios ranging from a tenuous stability to political fragmentation and civil war.
So intelligence that fits with your preconceived notions (such as that which indicated mountains of WMDs in Iraq) is accepted, but intelligence that contradicts them is not. Remind me again why I should vote for you in November, Mr. President.
(Link courtesy Antiwar.com.)
Posted by Mike Tennant at 01:20 PM | Comments (0)
You've Gotta Be Crazy to Vote
I heard a radio DJ discussing a court case about whether people who are insane have the right to vote. He said, "Of course people who are insane should have the right to vote, because you've got to be crazy to vote for either of these two guys."
We're winning!
Posted by Rob at 12:43 AM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
September 21, 2004
Hurricanes for Bush?
Maybe God really does want George W. Bush to be reelected.
After all, if you were Bush, you couldn't ask for better weather than we've been experiencing the past few weeks. He gets to go to Florida repeatedly (as pointed out on the STR home page today) and then to Pennsylvania, two must-win states (not to mention several others), and pretend he cares about people he's never met before and will never see again. Plus, he gets to buy lots and lots of votes in those states by declaring them disaster areas and spreading around billions of other people's money. What more could he want? Perhaps an earthquake in California would come in handy, too.
On a related note, a local conservative talk-show host was talking to our purportedly conservative Republican senator, Rick Santorum, on his show yesterday. The entire discussion was about what money people could get from the federal government as flood assistance and how they could get it. Not once did either of these guys suggest that maybe the federal government isn't authorized to do this under the Constitution and shouldn't be doing it even if it were authorized. Some conservatives!
Posted by Mike Tennant at 11:19 AM | Comments (0)
September 17, 2004
How to Ride Out a Hurricane
"It was hell,'' said Tonja Elberfeld, who rode out the storm at a motel 10 miles from the beach in Gulf Shores, Ala. "It beat and it banged....We were crying and singing 'Jesus Loves Me' just to stop the noise."
Posted by Rob at 02:45 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
Programs! Get Your Programs!
Rereading my blog entry in which Bush contrasts his "programs" with Kerry's "programs" and comes to the utterly ridiculous conclusion that Kerry is for big government but Bush isn't, I was reminded of a quote by the great Joseph Sobran, to wit:
"Anything called a 'program' is unconstitutional."
Posted by Mike Tennant at 01:17 PM | Comments (0)
Who's the Candidate of Big Government?
Seeking to gain ground against John Kerry, President Bush said Thursday that his Democratic opponent "wants to expand government" in education, health care, taxes and virtually every other area of domestic policy.
"We have a difference of philosophy in this campaign," Bush told supporters. "It's a clear difference: my opponent's programs will expand government. Our programs will expand opportunity."
HAHAHAHAHAHAHA!!!
This from the man who pushed for and signed the No Child Left Behind Act, the largest entitlement program in decades (Medicare prescription drug coverage), and a bazillion other programs and spending increases.
What's sad is that there are lots of conservatives and Republicans who will eat this up.
Posted by Mike Tennant at 10:05 AM | Comments (0)
September 16, 2004
Privacy? What Privacy?
Northwest Airlines Corp. breached no one's privacy when it shared passenger data with federal researchers weeks after the September 11 attacks, the Transportation Department ruled in dismissing a complaint filed by the Electronic Privacy Information Center.
What a surprise! The government rules that giving people's private information to them is A-OK! Who would've thought it?
The CNN report continues:
Samuel Podberesky, assistant general counsel for aviation enforcement, wrote that Northwest didn't violate its privacy policy -- and even if it had, the policy was unenforceable because he said Northwest is required to share passenger data with the government upon request.
"Privacy is not, as EPIC would have it, an absolute 'personal and fundamental right ... particularly in the context of air travel," Podberesky wrote in the ruling, filed Friday.
There are no "absolute 'personal and fundamental right[s]'" as far as the government is concerned; and expecting justice from the government's courts, especially when the government is being challenged, is like expecting an elephant to lay an egg.
Posted by Mike Tennant at 04:47 PM | Comments (0)
Avoid DVDs in the Remainder Bin Laden
Remember how we were told that buying illegal drugs funds terrorists? Well, now drugs are a secondary issue. What's really funding terrorists is . . . DVDs! Says the Australian Courier-Mail:
Australia is being flooded with pirate DVDs - and the money is helping fund global terrorism. . . .
And Interpol is warning that counterfeit discs have overtaken drugs as the biggest source of income for organised crime gangs based in South-East Asia.
A United Nations report said 1kg of counterfeit discs was worth more than the same weight of marijuana.
Watch out the next time you buy a cheap DVD on eBay! You may be paying for Osama bin Laden's next turban.
Posted by Mike Tennant at 01:27 PM | Comments (0)
September 14, 2004
State Identity Theft
From a reader: Recently I relocated to Michigan with my identification paperwork a bit of a mess. I would be applying for a Michigan ID card. I did so some two weeks ago, just a few days before Labor Day.
Exactly three business days later, I got a piece of snail-spam encouraging me to register to vote and it was from the Republican National Committee in
Washington, D.C. A hundred bucks says that they are not encouraging people to vote in Democratic areas. Northern Michigan, unlike the Detroit area, is highly Republican with a few exceptions. I am not much of a Republicrat or Demopublican but I take exception to ANY political party or special interest group knowing my personal information, especially when it has not been divulged to ANYONE except Michigan's Secretary of State (the Michigan equivalent of the Department of Motor Vehicles).
The Republican National Committee has no business having its eyes where they are!
Posted by Rob at 07:10 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
Socialized Medicine a Bitter Pill
Canada often boasts its universal health care program shows it is more caring than the United States, but the system is creaking alarmingly, with long wait lists for treatment, and shortages of cash and doctors. . . .
As the politicians bicker, Canadians spend more time waiting in line. A study by the right-wing [gasp!] Fraser Institute this month said that average waiting time for treatment in 2003 rose to 17.7 weeks from 16.5 weeks in 2002. . . .
Some delays are much longer. Patients in Ontario who require major knee surgery can wait six months to see a specialist and then another 18 months for surgery.
Socialism, as always, is a complete failure. One might expect the government to see this and try moving in the direction of freedom instead, but one would be mistaken.
Ottawa has in the past withheld health care funds to provinces experimenting with for-profit clinics and new federal Health Minister Ujjal Dosanjh took up his job in July with a vow to "stem the tide" of privatization.
Like all government types, he first refuses to admit that the government is the problem and then demands more government to solve it. (Sound familiar?)
Canadians are going to experience shorter, less healthy lives as time goes on, and so are we Americans as our system gets closer and closer to theirs--thanks, in no small measure, to the "compassionate conservative," George W. Bush.
Posted by Mike Tennant at 04:45 PM | Comments (0)
News Flash: Government Not Responsible for Intelligence Failures
Internal reviews still under way at the Central Intelligence Agency and recently completed at the Justice Department, examining their performance in the run-up to the Sept. 11 attacks, have not resulted in any disciplinary actions, government officials said on Monday.
What a surprise! Nobody in the government is responsible for the biggest intelligence failure in U.S. history.
"Three thousand people were killed on 9/11, and no one has been held accountable," Kristen Breitweiser, whose husband died at the World Trade Center, said in an interview Monday. Ms. Breitweiser said the intelligence overhaul now under discussion in Washington would be essentially meaningless "unless you get rid of the people who were shown to be incompetent on 9/11."
But counterterrorism officials say that the problems were systemic and that it would be foolhardy for survivors or lawmakers to hold individuals responsible for broader organizational shortcomings.
"Mistakes were made." It was a "simple bureaucratic snafu." It's the same old same old from our friends in Washington.
Posted by Mike Tennant at 10:42 AM | Comments (0)
NJ Turnpike Takes a Big Toll on Motorists
Speaking of the New Jersey turnpike, here are just a few of the most outrageous complaints submitted by turnpike patrons. I think it's safe to assume that nothing of consequence happened to any of the toll collectors who were the subject of these complaints.
Posted by Mike Tennant at 09:32 AM | Comments (0)
Col. Mustard With the Lead Pipes in Nepal
Daniel Pipes, everyone's favorite Israel-lover and Islam-hater, has written a column describing the difference between the Nepalese and French reactions to the taking of hostages in Iraq.
The Nepalese reaction: assaulting Muslims; throwing rocks at, ransacking, and setting fire to a mosque; burning Korans; looting Muslim-owned businesses and homes; and ultimately doing $20 million in property damage. The Nepalese hostages were killed.
The French reaction: working with Islamic organizations in both France and the Middle East to save the lives of the French hostages. The French hostages are still alive, though not out of the woods yet.
Guess whose response Pipes prefers. Naturally, he chooses the Nepalese response of attacking innocent people for the crimes of others in distant countries who happen to share their religion. Oh, he does throw in an obligatory side comment that the violence was "abhorrent," but his conclusion makes it clear that he doesn't really mean it:
If history is a guide, the Nepalese have made a repetition of atrocities against themselves less likely. And the French have made such a repetition more likely.
Yes, my friends, resorting to violence against innocent people is the preferred response, even though it didn't save the lives of the hostages, while negotiation and cooperation are denigrated, even though they have (at least to this point) saved the lives of hostages.
Not surprisingly, this is the same guy that George W. Bush appointed (during a recess, to avoid messy Senate confirmation hearings) to the (cough, cough) United States Institute of Peace. Big Brother would be proud.
Posted by Mike Tennant at 09:25 AM | Comments (0)
September 13, 2004
Govt. Toll Collectors
From a friend in New Jersey: Eighty percent of the tolls collected on the Garden
State Parkway go to pay the people who work in the tollbooths. Their jobs are worthless and everyone knows it.
Posted by Rob at 06:50 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
September 12, 2004
Protecting the Homeland
From the Corpus Christi, TX police blotter:
4800 Eider Drive: A 71-year-old woman reported finding a photocopied flier in her mailbox that stated in part: "Lost! Radio controlled airplane." She said she didn't know who put the flier in her mailbox but "with the world situation the way it is," she would like to have this documented.
Posted by Rob at 06:23 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
September 10, 2004
TSA = Taxpayer Soaking Administration
The Transportation Security Administration said Friday that it will pay an average of $110 each to 15,000 airline passengers who claim their possessions were lost, stolen or damaged when their bags were screened for bombs and weapons.
That's $1.5 million of your money and mine (not including 1,800 other claims already settled in the last 22 months) being shelled out to people when it's not even certain if all the claims are owed by the TSA. Some of them, particularly damage claims, could be the airlines' responsibility; but nobody knows who's responsible for what, so the government is only too happy to pay travelers from our pockets.
[Air Travelers Association president David] Stempler said the TSA failed to anticipate the problem when it began screening checked bags.
"We had warned them about this problem when they started inspecting bags outside of the view of passengers," he said. "We told them to be prepared but they weren't.
What a surprise.
Posted by Mike Tennant at 04:29 PM | Comments (0)
September 08, 2004
Things Bought With Homeland Security Money
[As reported by Dave Michaels of the Dallas Morning News, Louisiana Advocate, Oakland Tribune, LA Daily News and AP]
- A $30,000 custom trailer for Madisonville, TX, population 4,200. City officials say it will be useful during the annual mushroom festival.
- A $19,596 grant to the Kickapoo Traditional Tribe of Texas even though the tribe had asked for nothing.
- $59,600 worth of binoculars and $52,000 worth of traffic cones for Harris County and San Antonio.
- 17 digital cameras for the Webster TX police department to be used at car accidents and crime scenes.
- Throckmorton County, which has one deputy and no jail, got two digital cameas and a pair of night vision goggles.
- $30,000 for catering for the Louisiana Office of Emergency Preparedness.
- $1,600 in restaurant tabs.
- $180 for an artificial Christmas tree.
- A $76 shopping trip for Skittles, York Peppermint Patties and other candies.
- Office supplies, including a $130 personal calendar, engraved bbrass nameplates for office doors, a Palm Pilot and a leather journal.
- San Francisco and Oakland used homeland security money to pay overtime to police anti-war demonstrations.
- Desert Hot Springs police ordered night-vision goggles to monitor gangs.
- An agriculture commissioner in central California got intelligence-gathering software to file monthly pesticide reports.
Posted by Rob at 01:07 AM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
September 07, 2004
(by Travis McLane):
On August 19, the Northern Virginia Journal commented in its "Our Opinion" section on the $42.2 billion spent for federal contractors last year in the Washington metro area (p. 10). A George Mason University study was cited: "The unique relationship between the public and private sectors ... work
together to make the region the healthiest metro economy in the nation." The NVJ editorial continued: "As long as the federal spigot remains on, [the local
economy is] recession proof as well."
Found just below, in the "Your Opinion" section, was a thought-provoking exchange with a reader who identified herself as a teacher from Arlington.
Question: "Do you consider the Washington metro region recession-proof?"
Answer: "I think to a degree. The homeland security [money has helped]. There's been a lot of restaurants and hotels benefiting from the contracting. As long as we're in a state of fear, I think we're OK."
Sounds like a good campaign slogan -- that last sentence, I mean. In fact it's so good it could be used by either Bush =or= Kerry!
Reposted by permission from The Last Ditch at www.thornwalker.com/ditch © 2004 WTM Enterprises. All rights reserved.
Posted by Rob at 07:01 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
Insider Trading (Continued)
Here's a link to the story Rob referenced below. It begins thus:
If Martha Stewart is still looking for ways to beat the stock market, she might turn to the U.S. Senate for advice.
Members of the Senate, who belong to social and professional networks that may give them unique access to information, have managed to beat the market by nearly one percentage point per month, according to a recent study.
Posted by Mike Tennant at 02:58 PM | Comments (0)
The Real Inside Traders
A recent study by professor Alan Ziobrowski found that U.S. senators profit significantly in their personal investments by using information not available to investors in the general public.
Posted by Rob at 10:58 AM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
God as Micro-Manager
From an Orlando Sentinel story:
At a mobile home park in north Fort Pierce, Timothy Fellows emerged from
the storm to find a neighbor's trailer demolished but only a fence down on
his property.
"My trailer survived!" the barechested Fellows shouted as he walked through
his yard. "Because I believe in God. Even my mailbox survived. That tells
you something."
Posted by Rob at 10:56 AM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
More Election Rigging in Iraq
From the Los Angeles Times:
Iraq remains on course to hold landmark elections in January, but violence could force authorities to exclude hotspots such as the western city of Fallouja from voting, a top U.S. general said here Sunday.
Lt. Gen. Thomas F. Metz, operations chief of more than 150,000 mostly U.S. troops, said in an interview that the "cancer" of anti-American militancy in places such as Fallouja would not derail national elections.
A "contingency" plan, Metz said, is to bypass Fallouja — and perhaps other violent enclaves — and concentrate on ensuring electoral security in Baghdad and other population centers where hostility is lower.
Conveniently, these "hotspots" are also the places where people are most likely to vote against Uncle Sam's preferred candidates. We can't have votes getting in the way of "democracy" now--can we?
Posted by Mike Tennant at 10:44 AM | Comments (0)
September 06, 2004
Al-Jazeera's Baghdad Offices Raided and Sealed
"Iraqi security officers stormed al-Jazeera's Baghdad offices and sealed the newsroom with red wax at the weekend after the US-backed interim government banned the Arabic television station from broadcasting in the country," reports the U.K. Guardian.
Ah, freedom!
Al-Jazeera said the decision was "reminiscent of the way certain other regimes have behaved".
Indeed.
Posted by Mike Tennant at 10:55 AM | Comments (0)
George W. Bush: Father of Our Country
According to the Boston Globe:
White House Chief of Staff Andrew Card said yesterday that President Bush views America as a ''10-year-old child" in need of the sort of protection provided by a parent. . . .
''It struck me as I was speaking to people in Bangor, Maine, that this president sees America as we think about a 10-year-old child," Card said. ''I know as a parent I would sacrifice all for my children."
Now here's Rush Limbaugh on a similar remark from 1992:
During the October 15, 1992 presidential debate, an audience member who became known as "the Ponytail Guy" rose to ask President Bush, Governor Clinton and Mr. Perot, "[H]ow can we, as symbolically the children of the future president, expect the two of you - the three of you - to meet our needs." This made me puke, because it's just how liberals look at the people: as a bunch of idiot children who can't get along without the government.
That's why Clinton, with his lip-biting promise to feel the Ponytail Guy's pain, nailed the idiotic question.
OK, Rush, we're waiting for you to puke now that your man in the White House has become Clinton and the Ponytail Guy all rolled into one.
Posted by Mike Tennant at 10:49 AM | Comments (0)
September 03, 2004
A Marxist "Libertarian"
Yesterday I had a long discussion of the upcoming election and what I thought of Bush and his wars with two people, both of whom said they agreed with me in principle but then turned around and supported Bush and his wars because all I have are pie-in-the-sky ideas (like the evil "isolationism").
One of the men described himself as a libertarian, and although it should be obvious from the foregoing paragraph that he hardly qualifies, what really struck me was his lack of faith in free markets.
At some point in the discussion both men extolled the virtues of Reagan's arms buildup and how it brought down the Soviet Union. I agreed that it perhaps hastened the collapse of the Soviet economy but said that communism was doomed to failure by its very nature, as is socialism.
What did the self-described libertarian say in response? "Well, capitalism's going to collapse at some point, too."
At that point I knew there was no point in continuing the discussion any more.
It seems to me that libertarian is fast becoming nearly as meaningless as conservative and liberal already are.
Posted by Mike Tennant at 09:08 AM | Comments (0)
September 02, 2004
Terrorism Rising
Since Bush inaugurated the war on terrorism, terrorist acts have increased dramatically worldwide. According to NBC, since 9-11, terrorists have killed 2,929 people worldwide, and 58 percent of them - 1,709 - have died this year alone.
Evidently, NBC didn't include Bush's contribution in the total.
Posted by George F. Smith at 10:43 AM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
It All Depends on Your Definition of "Safer"
As speakers at the GOP convention trumpet Bush administration successes in the war on terrorism, an NBC News analysis of Islamic terrorism since Sept. 11, 2001, shows that attacks are on the rise worldwide — dramatically.
Of the roughly 2,929 terrorism-related deaths around the world since the attacks on New York and Washington, the NBC News analysis shows 58 percent of them — 1,709 — have occurred this year.
But America and the world are safer now that Saddam Hussein is out of power. Right, Mr. President?
(Link courtesy Antiwar.com.)
Posted by Mike Tennant at 10:34 AM | Comments (0)
"A Nation of Happy Hallucinators"
Bill Bonner's take on American politics was summed up nicely by Hemmingway, whom he quoted:
"The first panacea of a mismanaged nation is inflation," wrote Hemingway. "The second is war."
Bonner says:
"Government has proved completely inept at fighting illiteracy, poverty and drugs. Liberal activists found that they could no longer expand government spending – and their own authority – except by becoming 'neo-conservatives' and focusing their do-goodism on foreign policy. Besides, who will oppose war spending when the nation is in danger?
"Of course, the nation is in no danger at all. A handful of murderous fanatics represent a threat to Americans – along with muggers, rapists and reality TV – but not to America itself. Only by reacting to terrorists in an absurd and hysterical way can the nation defeat itself."
Posted by George F. Smith at 09:07 AM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
September 01, 2004
Justice Department Drops "Terror" Convictions
Yet another great "success story" of the Bush administration's "War on Terror" falls apart--with ironic timing.
In a dramatic reversal, the Justice Department acknowledges its original prosecution of a suspected terror cell in Detroit was filled with a "pattern of mistakes and oversights" that warrant the dismissal of the convictions. . . .
The department's decision came after a monthslong internal investigation uncovered several pieces of evidence that prosecutors failed to turn over to defense lawyers before the trial last year. The probe exposed deep differences within the government over the course of the case and the quality of the prosecution's evidence.
Of course, no one in the government will be punished, let alone fired or charged, for this miscarriage of justice.
Posted by Mike Tennant at 02:23 PM | Comments (0)
The Will to Criticize Bush
George F. Will is starting to get a little frustrated with the lack of differences between the Democrats and the Republicans these days. Among other things said in this column:
- President Bush's convention challenge is to tell voters, who already know America is at war, how the parties differ. Last week he made it dismayingly clear that, in the parties' contempt for the First Amendment, they don't.
- Bush, a supposed critic of the imperial judiciary, wants a court to order the Federal Election Commission to, in McClellan's words, "shut down" all such groups. And if a compliant court cannot be found, McClellan says Bush will try legislation. First try judicial fiat, then legislation as a last resort. Ah, conservatism.
- From the New Deal through the civil rights revolution, liberalism strove to use expanding government to drive the alteration of society. Conservatism's mission was largely restoration -- rolling back big government. Neither persuasion is now plausible.
- Kerry insists he is not a "redistribution Democrat." But of course he is. And Bush is a redistribution Republican.
- The vocabulary of the two-party argument just a generation ago now seems as anachronistic as the 1890s argument about the free coinage of silver. Liberals have next to nothing to say about poverty or, because of their servitude to the public education industry, about the calamitous inadequacy of inner-city schools, which is both a cause and a consequence of the social pathologies of poverty. Conservatives, whose party has delivered on its 2000 promise to increase federal involvement in education and health care, no longer invest even rhetorical energy in the cause of "small" or "limited" government. And now their presidential nominee wants an even bigger government role in policing speech.
Go get 'em, George!
Posted by Mike Tennant at 12:45 PM | Comments (0)