I was reading the BBC's website today and came across 3 five-minute video clips of a sit-down interview with Samantha Power. They're brand-new. For those who need a break from the madness (and those who don't), check 'em out. She's very impressive.
I just listened to Mark Shields and David Brooks on the Lehrer News Hour, and Shields singled out Obama's supposed pledge to accept public financing as a litmus test for assessing the purity of his political motives, with the implication that if he reneges on it, he will be exposed as... the politician with impure motives, I guess. Well, I wanted to learn more about the issue and found an informative article by Mark Schmitt. For our general edification, then, here's the key paragraph:
Please let me know what you, fellow Kossacks, think about some guidelines I would propose for the prosecution of the war against Al-Qaeda. Seven points are listed below the fold. All comments and suggestions for revision are welcome. Since I'm not a lawyer, I would especially welcome any input from lawyers with or without experience in international law. Peace to everyone!
This afternoon I read a diary by pollbuster that alerted me and all Kossacks to a video documentary of the attempted (and failed) right-wing coup against Hugo Chavez several years ago. It's on Google Video, a film by two Irish filmmakers, and it runs just over an hour. The link (a live one provided in the comments by The Hindsight Times) is: http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=5832390545689805144
DON'T READ THE COMMENTS IF YOU DON'T WANT TO KNOW THE RESULTS! The results are now in on the teams who will be playing the second semifinal. We're down to the final four! If you don't want your taped World Cup experience "spoiled," you should already have stopped reading! The field is open: who are your favorite players, your favorite moments, the most egregiously bad calls by referees? And feel free to load on just about any World Cup trivia you want. The game's afoot!
After a thrilling come-from-behind victory, Germany beat Argentina today - as all you World Cup fans know by now - and Italy handily beat the Ukraine, so it's a classic match-up, Germany Vs. Italy next Tuesday. Personally, I'm a German fan, and I won't say anything to back that up, because one's favorite teams are sacrosanct and utterly subjective! But I look forward to a great game. So who are you rooting for? (We don't yet know who will be in the other semifinal, so I've left out the other four teams).
From the NYT on Patrick Fitzgerald for 22 Oct 2005. For cat-people and any other fans of "the bulldog":
Though he is a workaholic who sends e-mail messages to subordinates at 2 a.m. and has never married, friends say the man they call Fitzie is a hilarious raconteur and great company for beer and baseball. Ruthless in his pursuit of criminals, he once went to considerable trouble to adopt a cat.
And further on:
During his time in New York, Mr. Fitzgerald's hapless bachelor ways became legendary. For months he did not bother to have the gas connected to the stove in his Brooklyn apartment. Once, in a fit of domesticity, he baked two pans of lasagna, recalled Amy E. Millard, a New York colleague. Distracted by work, he left them uneaten in the oven for three months before he discovered them, Ms. Millard said. When he tried to adopt a cat, she remembered, he was turned down because of his work habits and only later acquired a pet when a friend in Florida had to give up her cat and had it flown to him to New York.
Fitz the Cat is after the Rat!
All generous contributions are welcome! And relevant tags.
A simple question: will Bush give the order for our troops to assault Falluja, Ramadi, etc. before the election? I think it's very likely. And just plain disgusting. An orgy of death to make America proud? To show he's not an abject failure as President (even though it's more proof of that failure)? As always, killing will breed more killing, and this, as with nearly every other military operation since the initial invasion of Iraq, will fail. Just consider for a moment: 100,000 Iraqis killed so far, the majority - as always - civilians. The percentage equivalent of just over 1 million Americans. Families. Kids. Innocents. (Oops, I forgot: those folks whose houses we've been bombing have been sheltering insurgents, and we can't help it if they were forced to provide such shelter at gun-point.)
This story is big. If you haven't read the full-blown piece in the Sunday NYT re: the Bush administration's failure in Falluja several weeks back, I HIGHLY recommend it (sorry, link not handy).
DUBAI (Reuters) - The chief negotiator in the rebel-held Iraqi town of Falluja said Monday the government had canceled indefinitely talks to avert a military assault on the town. "I was told that the negotiations have been canceled," Sheikh Khaled al-Jumaili told Arab satellite television Al Jazeera.
The Times piece is excellent, chronicling misstep after misstep, all born of 'imperial hubris.'
Iraqi authorities fear that the country's security crisis will discourage international monitors from coming here for the January election -- a development that could cast doubt on the legitimacy of the crucial vote. An American official familiar with election planning said the U.S. State Department has been unable to find non-governmental organizations or foreign governments willing to send experts to monitor the election -- largely because of security concerns.
The Poles have made it clear they want out of Iraq. The Dutch have announced March as their pull-out date. The director of CARE was kidnapped by insurgents on Tuesday.
The coalition that never was is shrinking by the day. Bush must be defeated. The world depends on us.
Bump up this story on YahooNews. Talk about it with everyone. It comes right on the heels of one platoon's refusal to go on "suicide missions" with trucks in disrepair, no protective armor, and inadequate supplies in general. Kerry should use this immediately as proof of Bush's incompetence and lack of human compassion. Compassion for the men and women he has so gallantly sent into combat undertrained and poorly supplied. Mr. Bush, you took this nation to war at the wrong time, for the wrong reasons, and without a plan to win it. Think how far we are from "winning the peace."
There's no more denying it: by ignoring the North Korean nuclear threat (dropping the ball on the diplomatic track that Clinton was pursuing, proclaiming North Korea a member of his precious 'Axis-of-Evil'), Bush has dramatically endangered our national security. Someone please correct me if I'm wrong, but North Korea's longest successfully-tested missile can reach the West Coast. Kerry should run with this immediately and hit Bush hard on it. On TV ads, mentioning it in press releases and speeches. This presents a perfect opportunity to destroy the myth of Bush as competent commander. Add the shunning of Iran which is soon to have completed its own nuclear arsenal. Splice in footage of Mandela, Annan, and other world leaders who have accused Bush as having MADE THE WORLD MUCH LESS SAFE BY HIS POLICIES.
In reply to Schieffer's question whether, given the widening gap between rich and poor, we should perhaps increase the minimum wage, Bush follows Kerry by explaining he will help "the worker you're referring to" (the one who makes $5.15 an hour) with - you guessed it - the No Child Left Behind Act! Besides being a ridiculous evasion of the question, Bush's words are strikingly anti-immigrant (i.e. Latino) and anti-African American. From the transcript of the final debate:
"Listen, the No Child Left Behind Act is really a jobs act, when you think about it. The No Child Left Behind Act says we'll raise standards, we'll increase federal spending. But in return for extra spending, we now want people to measure, to show us whether or not a child can read and write or add and subtract. You cannot solve a problem unless you diagnose the problem, and we weren't diagnosing problems and therefore kids were being shuffled through the school. And guess who would get shuffled through? Children whose parents wouldn't speak English as a first language just moved through. Many inner-city kids just moved through. We've stopped that practice now by measuring early, and when we find a problem, we spend extra money to correct it."
You read correctly: besides those notorious "inner-city kids", it's those kids whose immigrant parents "wouldn't speak English as a first language." Not couldn't, but wouldn't, mind you. I would suggest this is a classic example of a Freudian slip (accidentally saying what one thinks but would normally want to conceal) and not a consequence of Bush's well-known incapacity with the English language.
I don't know about you, but I suggest writing a letter to the editor of your local paper, especially if you live in FL, AZ, NM, CO, or NV.
After the last debate, Mr. President, you attacked my reference to a "global test" that must be applied when the President faces a decision like that you faced: whether to go war with a small coalition supporting you and a large coalition opposing you, or to allow the weapons inspectors to do their work, ensuring that a true coalition of nations would support us if and when the UN uncovered WMD and there was no alternative to war. Mr. President, you chose the former option - going it alone and snubbing the United Nations, including the Security Counsel. Quite simply, the global test I'm talking about is the test of global leadership, of going to war knowing that we have levelled with the American people so as to prepare them for the sacrifices we ask them to make, and that we command the respect and support of our most important allies. Unfortunately, Mr. President, you failed this test in your rush to war in Iraq, and in your mishandling of the reconstruction of the country. I understand why you said repeatedly in the last debate that you were "worried" about the losses we have suffered in Iraq. What I don't understand is why you said "Look, I'm not happy we didn't find any weapons."
The key is to use the President's words against him. The audience for the last debate will remember the prior debates, and this presents us with an advantage we must exploit.
Newsflash: with the latest of several "final" reports concluding that Iraq possessed no stockpiles of WMD, and the litany of contradictory statements by the administration regarding any working relationship between Saddam's Iraq and 9/11, Dkos readers should read (and rate!) some of the latest wire stories coming out now (12 noon Thursday) on Yahoo News. Donald Kay's remarks are damning and perfectly timed to provide Kerry with more ammunition against Bush in tomorrow's debate (I sure hope Kerry uses them). Also note the two wire stories that compare statements by Bush and Cheney before and after the invasion. They should make every American cringe. The line of attack that repeats Bush's denial of reality, his living in a world of spin, should be continued relentlessly. Go to Yahoo News now (free and easy signup), read and rate these stories. Go Kerry Go!
I'm 43 and have voted in every Presidential election since I was 18. I've also watched every debate since. I can't be the only one to notice how Democrats win the arguments while the media - and yes the voting populace at large - don't seem to notice this at all. I therefore take it as a given that 1) Bush will smile with a kind of jesting self-confidence, stick rhetorical daggers into Kerry's armor, and then flash that smile again. The networks, before panning to Kerry, will be sure to show that second smile too. So how to neutralize this more or less pre-ordained moment? Of all the debating tips one might offer, which are likely to be the most effective for Kerry and harmful to Bush?
We already know Kerry must refute the negative CW out there ('flip-flopper, anti-war therefore anti-American protester who disgraced his country, New England liberal who will make us militarily weak, putting The War Against Terrorism at grave risk, and driving us to economic ruin through 'reckless tax-hikes on the middle class'). Personally, to choose just one suggestion, I would urge Kerry to frame the debate at the earliest possible moment, so that the ensuing questions, inded the whole dynamic of the debate, allows him to stick his own well-placed daggers in Bush's heart. And repeatedly. One good exchange won't do it. Two good exchanges won't either. Bush must be on the defense throughout the debate. The media will then be unable to resist discussing questions along lines that are finally favorable to us: "Well, the question as to Kerry's mettle has been answered (he has it), so the real question becomes: "Jeez, do you think Bush succeeded in defending himself effectively enough?" While Kerry's team preps for the debate, let's have our own, shall we? What's important is not what refutes an argument but what makes one, both on offense (preemptorily, which has obvious advantages) or defense (in which the rebuttal must be equally stinging and common-sensical as they attack).
There are many lines of attack, and the pros will always say they know better (and they know a fair amount), but I want, and I'm sure the Kerry campaign wants, to hear our own ideas.
It's pretty simple. If you believe that 1) war creates an irresistible dynamic of reciprocal violence, in which the political aims of each side are doomed to fail so long as killing is the only accepted means of communication, such that 2) to stop the killing each side must acknowledge the political suffering that led them to choose killing in the first place, then 3) each side must shed its delusions of innocence and choose to stop the killing by negotiating the other's right to non-violent self-determination.
So we should call Kofi Annan, acknowledge that we made a grave mistake in seeking to conquer and remake Iraq, apologize from the bottom of our hearts to the families of the dead on both sides, cede any presumed right to interfere without provocation in the Islamic world, and invite the United Nations to administer a democratic transition of power there and everywhere else. We would maintain our sovereignty, our right to veto any Security Council resolution incompatible with our values, and reaffirm our conviction that all nations have the right to self-determination.
That's not cutting and running. It's called leading. Being the best we can be. It would secure our future from serious terrorism - and enhance our geo-political power - for posterity.
