Is it November yet? September 12, 2006
Posted by Brendan in Politics.add a comment
For me, one of the most interesting — if completely unscientific — methods of guaging public opinions after a significant event is to check the most emailed stories on Yahoo! News.
This morning, I expected the number one slot to belong to some thoughtful commentary on September 11th; its meaning and impact on our national life, etc.
But the most popular story this AM isn’t a tribute to the fallen, or memories of that fateful day – it’s a commentary by MSNBC’s Keith Olbermann taking George Bush to task for, well, just about everything.
Here’s Olbermann:
[Post 9/11/2001] Terrorists did not come and steal our newly-regained sense of being American first, and political, fiftieth. Nor did the Democrats. Nor did the media. Nor did the people.
The President — and those around him — did that.
They promised bi-partisanship, and then showed that to them, “bi-partisanship” meant that their party would rule and the rest would have to follow, or be branded, with ever-escalating hysteria, as morally or intellectually confused, as appeasers, as those who, in the Vice President’s words yesterday, “validate the strategy of the terrorists.”
They promised protection, and then showed that to them “protection” meant going to war against a despot whose hand they had once shaken, a despot who we now learn from our own Senate Intelligence Committee, hated al-Qaida as much as we did.
The polite phrase for how so many of us were duped into supporting a war, on the false premise that it had ’something to do’ with 9/11 is “lying by implication.”
The impolite phrase is “impeachable offense.”
Hear, hear!
Where can I get one of these? September 9, 2006
Posted by Brendan in Religion.add a comment
In the movie Raising Arizona, “Glen” responds to an obvious question by positing: “Does the Pope wear a funny hat?”
Well, you tell me…
The hat is called a Capello Romano (lit: Roman Hat) or Saturno (because the brim is said to remind one of the rings of Saturn. I don’t see it…)
Pope Benedict has made a habit (pardon the pun) of telegraphing his conservative orientation by dressing in more traditional papal duds than his immediate predecessor. Here’s a portrait of his namesake, Benedict XV (who reigned during WWI) in his saturno.
I don’t know why the pope’s wardrobe fascinates me but it does. In any case, I have to have one of these hats…
And, yeah, I definitely need a hobby.
John Kerry on the Brain… September 5, 2006
Posted by Brendan in Politics.1 comment so far
It’s been a John Kerry kind of day. I think I’m in mental communication with the man.
Has that ever happened to you?
First, in a comment on James’ post here, I mentioned the immortal John Kerry line; “How do you ask a man to be the last man to die for a mistake?”
Then, a few hours later, I was reading through news reports of the Emperor’s latest Iraq propaganda. In a speech to the Military Officers Association of America, Bush played the long-forgotten Osama card:
WASHINGTON – Quoting repeatedly from Osama bin Laden, President Bush said Tuesday that pulling U.S. troops out of Iraq would fulfill the terrorist leader’s wishes and propel him into a more powerful global threat in the mold of Adolf Hitler.
[snip]
“History teaches that underestimating the words of evil and ambitious men is a terrible mistake,” the president said. “Bin Laden and his terrorist allies have made their intentions as clear as Lenin and Hitler before them. The question is: Will we listen? Will we pay attention to what these evil men say?”
So my first though was, “Yeah? Then why didn’t you capture the sonofabitch when you had the chance and why does every neocon pundit tell us that Osama “isn’t important” if, according to you, he could be a threat on par with freakin’ Hitler?!”
Then, reading deeper into the article, Senator Kerry popped up:
“If President Bush had unleashed the American military to do the job at Tora Bora four years ago and killed Osama bin Laden, he wouldn’t have to quote this barbarian’s words today,” said Sen. John Kerry, D-Mass. “Because President Bush lost focus on the killers who attacked us and instead launched a disastrous war in Iraq, today Osama bin Laden and his henchmen still find sanctuary in the no man’s land between Afghanistan and Pakistan, where they still plot attacks against America.”
Um, yeah… Kind of makes me wish I’d voted for the man. (No it doesn’t)
In any case, I’ve found myself saying. “John Kerry was right” far too often lately. I think it’s cause for grave concern…
More sensitivity… September 5, 2006
Posted by Brendan in Life in America, Religion.add a comment
…from the diversity crowd:
[click image to enlarge]
Standing firmly on the free speech ideals of its illustrious founder (Thomas Jefferson), the University of Virginia’s Cavalier Daily thinks portraying the Virgin Mary with a sexually transmitted disease is high comedy.
Alas, Mohammed with a bomb in his turban didn’t seem to pass the editors’ tickle test.
I guess, some sacred persons are just funnier than others…
__________________
Worth a read:
- Fascists Under the Bed Pat Buchanan in the American Conservative.
- Preaching, Pondering and Predicting Col. Karen Kwiatkowski on Rumsfeld’s American Legion speech.
- Another Connecticut Marine dies in Iraq… Lance Cpl. Philip A. Johnson († 9/2/06), 19 of Enfield, is the second native of this tiny state to die in Iraq during the past two weeks.
[The full list of Joe Lieberman's constituents who have been killed in Mr. Bush's war can be found here.]
The difference between us September 2, 2006
Posted by Brendan in Politics.add a comment
When Michael Ledeen (a man with the finest of neocon pedigrees) isn’t hyping up a case for an American attack on Iran, he’s reminding people like me why we began to hate neoconservatism in the first place.
To illustrate, here’s a line or two from his latest column:
In any event, the first time I encountered the notion that Syria is really our friend was in the mid-Eighties, when I was working on counterterrorism. The synagogue in Vienna had been savagely attacked by terrorists carrying hand grenades and a machine gun. We had learned that the terrorists had gone to Damascus, and then directly from Damascus to Vienna. They had not stopped between the Vienna airport and the synagogue.
I suggested that we might contemplate doing something mean to Syria.
Ok, so the obvious question here is: WHY should WE do something mean to Syria in response to an attack on a synagogue in Vienna? Isn’t that, properly, the responsibility of the Austrians?! (Or the Israelis, for that matter.)
The United States Government should have condemned the attack and shared whatever intel it had with the Austrian authorities. Period. End of story. Time to move on.
It was, by the way, exactly what the Reagan administration did. (The above incident occured over twenty years ago.) But for Ledeen, it seems, American restraint in a matter that didn’t involve us in the least was, naturally, [get ready for it!] appeasement.
These are the people who are in charge of our foreign policy, folks. For the love of God, vote Democrat in November…
(WHO said that???!!!)
Lawyers…. August 29, 2006
Posted by Brendan in Life in America.add a comment
Apparently aren’t the brightest bulbs on the tree. To wit:
Boulder, Colorado District Attorney Mary Lacy on her decision to fly a lunatic from Thailand to Boulder (via California) when exculpatory evidence could have been gathered in Bangkok — thus saving Colorado taxpayers thousands upon thousands of dollars:
DA defends decision to arrest Karr
“We felt we could not ignore this. We had to follow it,” she said. “There was a real public safety concern here directed at a particular child” in Thailand, and a forensic psychologist said Karr “was dangerous, this person was escalating.”
That’s great but, typical power trips of American elected officials notwithstanding, her authority does not extend to Thailand. She’s the Boulder, Colorado DA for pity’s sake! His behavior in Thailand is the responsibility of Thai authorities. Period.
By all means, share whatever info Boulder has with the Bangkok police, but… awwww, forget it. She should be removed from office, but she’ll probably win the compassion vote and remain DA until she grows old and dies.
_____
And then there’s the email I found waiting for me this morning… It was a collection of ethnic jokes (everyone was bashed: Blacks, Mexicans, Irish, Italians, Blonde women, all men, and, of course, Southerners). It had been forwarded (and forwarded again) at least half a dozen times. The thing is, it orginated at a very prominent local law firm. No one had enough brain cells to strip the original headers before forwarding it…
Should I send eight lawyers to the unemplyment line?
Why the losses? August 28, 2006
Posted by Brendan in History, Politics.add a comment
I think Andrew J. Bacevich (professor of history and international relations at Boston University) hits the nail on the head in The Islamic Way of War.
Bacevich writes: Muslims have stopped fighting on Western terms—and have started winning:
What are we to make of this? How is it that the seemingly weak and primitive are able to frustrate modern armies only recently viewed as all but invincible? What do the parallel tribulations—and embarrassments—of the United States and Israel have to tell us about war and politics in the 21st century? In short, what’s going on here?
The answer to that question is dismayingly simple: the sun has set on the age of unquestioned Western military dominance. Bluntly, the East has solved the riddle of the Western Way of War. In Baghdad and in Anbar Province as at various points on Israel’s troubled perimeter, the message is clear: methods that once could be counted on to deliver swift decision no longer work.
Defeatist? Well, maybe Hannity would say so but it’s a point-of-view rarely discussed in the media. Is it possible that we’ll be fighting endless wars of attrition against an enemy who cannot (and will not) be beat?
It’s likely if we don’t get at those “root causes” that we’re never allowed to mention.
A terrible coincidence August 27, 2006
Posted by Brendan in Life in America, Politics.add a comment
On the very day (August 25th) that I blogged that Cpl. Stephen Bixler was Connecticut’s most recent fatal casualty in Iraq († May 2006), Marine Cpl. Jordan C. Pierson of Milford was KIA in Anbar Province.
Cpl. Pierson (pictured at left, below)…
…was 21 year old.
Requiem aeternam dona eis, Domine, et lux perpetua luceat eis.
Putting a face on it August 25, 2006
Posted by Brendan in Life in America, Politics.2 comments
“Stay the course” sounds appealing in the abstract because, let’s face it, nobody likes a quitter and most people desperately want their country to succeed. But when you get behind the political rhetoric and focus on the human toll of Bush’s Iraq policy, the slogans seem barren and not a little repulsive. I’m a big fan of critical analysis (at least in others) and I tend to eschew emotional arguments but I don’t think you can examine a war policy from a completely detached position.
This young man, who doesn’t even look old enough to shave, is Marine Cpl. Stephen Bixler. He is, sadly, Connecticut’s most recent casualty of the Iraq war. He was killed May 4, 2006 while on foot patrol in the province of Fallujah.
The Hartford Courant wrote: “Bixler leaves behind his parents, Richard and Linda; a twin sister, Sandra; and dozens of people who knew him as intelligent and athletic, and as a quiet but strong leader, whether it was in the Boy Scouts or on the high school cross-country team.”
The only reason I’m writing about this is because I saw a Chris Matthews interview with Van Taylor, an Iraq war veteran who is running for Congress in the district that includes Mr. Bush’s Crawford ranch. He’s a Republican and he favors “seeing Iraq through” to victory.
He supports the president, he supports the continuation of the war and, despite being a Congressional candidate, he cannot tell us why we invaded Iraq:
MATTHEWS: So why did we attack Iraq then? Why did we attack Iraq then?
TAYLOR: Regardless of why we may have started fighting, and I served as a marine …
MATTHEWS: I‘m asking the question, why did we attack Iraq? Why did we go into Iraq?
TAYLOR: That‘s not the question that we need answered.
MATTHEWS: It‘s mine.
TAYLOR: It‘s what do we do now?
(CROSSTALK)
MATTHEWS: What‘s wrong with me asking the question? We are in a war.
Pearl Harbor started World War II.
TAYLOR: That‘s a question you can ask …
MATTHEWS: What start it? Why did we go into Iraq?
TAYLOR: That is a question you can ask historians, but today we need to send people to Washington who understand the war on terror. There is not a single member of the United States Congress that has served in the war on terror, and there are only two dozen combat veterans. I will be the very first. We need to send people like me in Washington. [Full transcript here]
In three months we will have been in Iraq as long as we were in WWII and the supporters of this war still can’t tell us why we’re there. (During Vietnam — before this blogger’s living memory — they couldn’t tell us how we’d get out, but at least they told us why we were there!)
As Election Day approaches, Americans — foremost among them people like the Bixler family — have an absolute right to have that question answered.
American Exceptionalism August 24, 2006
Posted by Brendan in Life in America, Politics.add a comment
Is a subject that fascinates me.
In political debates I’ve always ascribed Evangelical views of America as the “New Zion” to a warped, if exclusive, interpretation of exceptionalism. (America as promised land; favored by God, etc.) In any case, I’ve always thought of it as a philosophy with religious — or, at least, quasi-religious — overtones.
Enter Scott McLemee at Inside Higher Education and my position is found to be lacking. (I really hate when that happens…)
In The Global Exception, McLamee touches on the right-wing religious brand of American Exceptionalism, but he also writes of the liberal, or left-wing, component:
The other form of American exceptionalism has a more left-wing genealogy. It emerged from debates over the peculiarities of the United States compared to other highly industrialized nation-states — especially the lack of a labor party or a mass-based socialist movement of the kind that became standard elsewhere in the world.
[snip]
In either version, the United States stands as a nation apart — somehow the product of forces cutting it off from the rest of the world’s history.
That last sentence is played out daily in Mr. Bush’s foreign policy. Have a look at the article, it’s a very good read.
