Good for a laugh

I was on my way to a Sunday evening get-together when I heard it, on the top-of-the-hour NPR news.

The story was about President Bush's Middle East trip, where he was busy hobnobbing with his oil buds in Abu Dhabi and giving speeches on freedom and democracy. He used the occasion to once again denounce Iran and generally try to ignite World War III.

But the part that made me burst out laughing was a clip of Bush attempting to directly address Iranians, telling them, "You have a right to live under a government that listens to your wishes...."

Hah! If Bush really believed that...well, we'd be out of Iraq by now and he would have signed the S-Chip bill to provide health care for low-income kids. Hell, we might even be doing something about global warming.

Too bad Bush doesn't believe his own propaganda.

Here's a link to Bush's speech. For another perspective on his trip, read NYT columnist Maureen Dowd's Faith, Freedom and Bling in the Middle East. Just to whet your appetite, here's an excerpt:

Puddle jumping through Arabia, the president saw his share of falcons in little leather hoods — presumably not a Gitmo reference — and Arabian stallions, including one retired stud from Texas — presumably not a W. reference. But there was a distinct dearth of wives and dissidents....

Another Bush speech, another slogan

So now it's "Return on Success," a slogan vague enough to need it's own official government fact sheet.

"The principle guiding my decisions on troop levels in Iraq is 'return on success,' " Bush said in his televised speech last night. "The more successful we are, the more American troops can return home."

Judging by our level of success to date, that won't be anytime soon.

"Return on Success" replaces a long list of previous upbeat slogans, including "Victory," which replaced "Plan for Victory," which replaced "Stand Up, Stand Down," which replaced "Freedom is on the March," which replaced "Stay the Course," which replaced our all-time favorite, "Mission Accomplished." Nothing like a good slogan to get the patriotic juices flowing.

Of course, I'm sure a missed some of them. There have been so many. These days, it's as hard to keep up with Bush's changing slogans as it is to keep up with his changing missions in Iraq. The more recent ones seem less memorable, probably because they're running out of ways to rephrase the same old, same old.

In last night's speech, Bush also described our mission in Iraq as "evolving"...an interesting choice of words, I thought, for a guy who doesn't seem to believe in evolution. But if he's looking for signs of "intelligent design" in our Iraq policy, I think it's safe to say he might as well give up.

As Peter Scheer notes on the blog, TruthDig, "The mission is “evolving” because it is the best way to conceal that there is no longer a coherent mission, if there ever was one."

While the president keeps changing his slogans and redefining our mission in Iraq, one thing doesn't change: his determination to keep us mired in Iraq through the end of his term in office...what better way to postpone the day of reckoning for his many failures and to try to blame the mess he's made on someone else.

Oh, and if you're wondering who he plans to blame next...just look in the mirror. You've heard the recent rumblings about the only way we can lose in Iraq is if Americans give up by giving in to their frustrations and impatience with the war? Well, I know a set-up when I see one.

P.S. If you're actually thinking maybe we should just be patient just a bit longer, I urge you to review this War Room blog post, and to remember the Iraq War is costing us approximately 100 U.S. lives and between $2 billion and $3 billion per week. Yes, you read it right -- that's per week.

Surge...schmerge!

I spent the morning after Bush's speech calling my elected representatives to tell them I oppose the president's plan to send more troops to Iraq. As far as I can see, the only result of a surge in soldiers will be a surge in casualties.

I also told my reps that a non-binding resolution against the troop increase is not enough...it's too little, too late. It's time to stop funding this war. (You know the old saying...when you know you're in a hole, first stop digging.)

Before the fall elections, I thought Bush might listen if it was clear that most Americans no longer support his war. I thought talk of impeachment was a waste of time and energy. But no more. I think it's time to remove Bush from office. That's what he does to people who don't agree with him, so maybe it's the only language he understands.

Want to take action too? Here are three toll-free numbers you can use to call your members of Congress: 800-828-0498, 800-459-1887 and 800-614-2803.

Disgraceful? I call it heroic

President Bush called the recent New York Times article that revealed the administration is tracking international financial transactions "disgraceful." I call it heroic.

The Times did what the media is supposed to do -- they told us what our government is doing. That's especially important when our government is secretly doing things that are unethical and illegal...and when there's so much pressure to give the administration our unquestioning support.

As I recall, it wasn't that long ago that Bush got mad when word seeped out that his administration was tapping our international phone calls, without a warrant or judicical oversight. Then, of course, we found out that it wasn't just our international calls they were monitoring, it was domestic calls too. Oh yeah, and later we found out that they're trying to monitor all our e-mails and web browsing trails too.

Given the latest revelation, how much do you wanna bet they're only tracking international financial transactions? Fat chance.

Yeah, I know some consider it unpatriotic to question anything done in the name of the war on terror (and that includes the president, apparently). But we didn't get to be known as "the land of the free and the home of the brave" by acting like a bunch of stupid, compliant sheep. Our nation's founders weren't afraid to question authority, and we shouldn't be either.

Today's NYT editorial page offered a strong defense of the story, noting that this latest revelation about the administration's spying program "looks like part of an alarming pattern." Here's an excerpt from that editorial, "Patriotism and the Press":

Ever since Sept. 11, the Bush administration has taken the necessity of heightened vigilance against terrorism and turned it into a rationale for an extraordinarily powerful executive branch, exempt from the normal checks and balances of our system of government. It has created powerful new tools of surveillance and refused, almost as a matter of principle, to use normal procedures that would acknowledge that either Congress or the courts have an oversight role.

...A half-century ago, the country endured a long period of amorphous, global vigilance against an enemy who was suspected of boring from within, and history suggests that under those conditions, it is easy to err on the side of security and secrecy. The free press has a central place in the Constitution because it can provide information the public needs to make things right again. Even if it runs the risk of being labeled unpatriotic in the process.

We need to run that risk. Democracy is too important to leave to the politicians.

The dreaded "L" word

Someone finally said it. Someone in the news media...on air, and for the record.

Yes, it's the dreaded "L" word...and perhaps not the one you think. Not liberal, not lesbian. LIE. LIAR.

"We are surrounded by people who lie to us," said Daniel Schorr, NPR senior news analyst, in his Week in Review on NPR this morning.

And then he pointed to President Bush, who keeps saying that Americans don't torture people, even as his recently revealed memos make it clear that we do...to Blackwater, whose representatives keep saying they don't kill Iraqi civilians, even as recent news reports and congressional reports make it clear that they do...and to Olympic gold-medal winner Marion Jones who recently confessed that she lied when she insisted -- repeatedly and publicly -- that she had not used steroids to win.

After years of beating around the bush, it's about time people in the media started telling it to us straight, instead of using "give-'em-a-pass" euphemisms like "misspoke." After all, a lie is a lie is a lie. And those who tell them are liars. Even when that person happens to be the president.

If a tree falls...

If a tree falls in a forest and no one is around to hear it, does it make a sound?

And if a story lands on the front page of the New York Times, but other reporters and news organizations ignore it, does it still count? That's the question asked in this From the Frontline blog post, What No Inquiry?

I've been asking myself the same question. After all, in the past month we've heard some startling news.

• We found out that the Bush administration had enlisted a group of retired generals to shill the Iraq War for them all these years...without disclosing their "special relationship," of course. (See Behind TV Analysts, See Pentagon's Hidden Hand, NYT, 4/20/08. Also see this 2003 NYT story, which foreshadows the larger story.)
  
• We found out that Bush, Cheney, Rumsfeld, Rice, Tenet, Powell and Ashcroft sat around on multiple occasions discussing exactly how to torture detainees. And that our dear president approves of their decisions. (See Cheney, Others OK'd Harsh Interrogations, ABC News, 4/11/08)
  
• We learned that military justice apparently is an oxymoron, as the former chief prosecutor at Guantanamo Bay told how he was pressured to convict someone...anyone...because it wouldn't look good to admit that most of those being held and tortured all these years were innocent. (See Guantanamo Prosecutor Says Why He Quit, Philadelphia Inquirer, 4/4/08, and Former Guantanamo prosecutor says trials tainted, Reuters, 4/28/08)
  

Real news...all buried under a barrage of "horse race" campaign coverage, speculation about Reverend Wright, and heavy breathing over the Texas polygamy raid.

Ah, yes, the mainstream media has so many more important things to do.

Threats 'n fightin' words

I don't know if you've read about the death threats made against blogger Kathy Sierra and the blogosphere's response, including discussions about the need to foster a culture of web civility.

If not, you can catch up with this post and link from Sierra's blog, this joint statement by Sierra and Chris Locke (some of the threatening comments and images were posted on Locke's meankids.org blog, in addition to on Sierra's blog), and this NYT article, "A Call for Manners in the World of Nasty Blogs," that discusses the issue and offers links to some suggested codes of conduct.

This morning, I read "Bloggers, Don Imus and free speech," a column in today's Salon.com by Joan Walsh, who earlier wrote this thoughtful piece about the Sierra threats, "Men who hate women on the web." It got me thinking about it all again.

I don't know how I'd react to such threats online. However, I do clearly remember getting a nasty, anonymous note in response to a "letter to the editor" I'd written (criticizing some Bush administration policy) that was published in the Mercury News a few years ago. It was unsettling to think that some warped individual was angry enough and motivated enough to look up my home address and send me an obscene, threatening note. It made me feel like I should be looking over my shoulder; it made me wonder if this nutcase was motivated enough to show up on my doorstep someday. It was kind of scary.

Clearly, that note was meant to intimidate me...to shut me up. Unfortunately, I have to say it did...at least for a while. It made me think twice about submitting any more letters to the editor. It didn't totally stop me, but it did give me pause...and if I'm completely honest, it probably deterred me from writing a few times...before I got over it.

And that was just one threatening letter. I really don't know how I'd deal with an onslaught of nastiness and threatening comments on one of my blogs.

None of that has stopped me from blogging. And if you've read my blog, you know I don't shy away from criticizing the Bush administration. But, hey, my blog isn't exactly well-known or popular, so it's not exactly an issue at this point.

What I do know is that I'd have no qualms about deleting blog comments that are offensive, or blocking comments from mean, nasty or threatening individuals...on this blog or any of my class blogs. Maybe it's the teacher in me; maybe it's because they're my blogs.

I've never had to remove a student post, although I have talked to a student about a post that I felt was inappropriate. I explained why, and I asked the student to modify the post. That took care of it.

I hope that's the most I ever have to do.

Oh, if you have a moment, please check out Kathy Sierra's blog, Creating Passionate Users. Right now she's put up a "best of" series of posts that's simply fascinating. She's an original thinker, and it would be a loss to the rest of us if we let nasty web trolls knock people like her off the web.

(A version of this post is cross-posted on one of my class blogs.)

For once, Bush is right

President George W. Bush spoke honestly about the situation in Iraq this week. "This business about a graceful exit just simply has no realism to it," he said.

No shit, Sherlock. At this point, it's hard to picture any way we can exit Iraq gracefully. No doubt about it...it's going to be a mess.

Where's the beef?

Take one unresponsive government agency, hobbled by years of Bush budget cuts and misdirection, add some big meat companies with minimal federal oversight, plus a dash of YouTube...and what do you get? The largest beef recall in history and a big fat scandal that exposes just how badly the Bush administration has eviscerated the Department of Agriculture's food safety division in favor of making life easier for businesses.

Huzzah for the Humane Society, which took undercover video of the abuse of sick and disabled cattle at a Chino, Calif., meat packing plant and posted it on YouTube, where it has created such a furor that Agriculture officials had to respond. Boos and hisses for the U.S. officials who tried to downplay the problem by saying they thought it was an isolated incident (if they're not stationed at these plants, how can they know?) and that most of the recalled meat had already been eaten.

As you read the New York Times story, Largest Recall of Ground Beef is Ordered, consider that "downer" cattle are banned from our food supply to keep us from contracting mad cow disease, a fatal brain-wasting disease that has killed people in Great Britain and Canada. Then consider that "of the 143 million pounds that were recalled, 37 million went to make hamburgers, chili and tacos for school lunches and other federal nutrition programs...."

Just one more reason why we need change in Washington.

(Author's note: In the 1980s, I worked for a livestock industry trade association.)

Category of Duh!

A News Flash from today's New York Times:

"Americans increasingly see the war in Iraq as distinct from the fight against terrorism, and nearly half believe President Bush has focused too much on Iraq to the exclusion of other threats, according to the latest New York Times/CBS News poll.

"The poll found that 51 percent of those surveyed saw no link between the war in Iraq and the broader antiterror effort, a jump of 10 percentage points since June. That increase comes despite the regular insistence of Mr. Bush and Congressional Republicans that the two are intertwined and should be seen as complementary elements of a strategy to prevent domestic terrorism."

Maybe you really can't fool all the people all the time. I was beginning to wonder.

First the good news...

I was heartened by the California appeals court ruling this week in a case that pitted bloggers' rights to protect their sources against Apple Computer's right to protect its trade secrets.

I think the appeals court rightly decided that Apple's right to know who leaked product information ends where the First Amendment begins. The appeals court essentially said online and print journalists are equally protected by the First Amendment to the U.S. Constitution, and that Web sites are covered by California's shield law protecting the confidentiality of journalists' sources.

The Electronic Frontier Foundation called it a "huge win." EFF Staff Attorney Kurt Opsahl, who argued the case before the appeals court last month, said the decision was "a victory for the rights of journalists, whether online or offline, and for the public at large."

Blogger Pamela Jones of Groklaw.net, which filed an amicus brief in the case, described it as "a *huge* win!" She added, "Now journalists can feel safe knowing that they can protect their sources’ identity no matter in which medium they choose to disseminate news."

Here's an excerpt from the opinion:

"We can think of no workable test or principle that would distinguish 'legitimate' from 'illegitimate' news. Any attempt by courts to draw such a distinction would imperil a fundamental purpose of the First Amendment" which guarantees freedom of the press."

Link to PDF of the full decision in this case: http://www.eff.org/Censorship/Apple_v_Does/H028579.pdf

Now for the bad news...

The Bush administration appears to be misusing the Patriot Act to track the phone calls of journalists who are reporting on its domestic spying program and allegations of secret prisons in Europe, including reporters at ABC News, The New York Times, and The Washington Post.

Under the Patriot Act, the administration can use a National Security Letter (NSL) to get phone records without having to go through a judge or notify the people involved...which means journalists won't find out about it until it's too late to get an injunction to protect their sources. No more Judith Millers. Why bother to threaten reporters with jail time for not revealing their sources when you can just secretly tap their phones or get their phone records and find out who they've been calling...and who's been calling them.

Remember when we were told domestic spying was just about tracking terrorists?

Writing in his The Online Beat blog, John Nichols of The Nation said, "If the administration has begun reviewing the telephone calls of reporters not to catch lawbreakers but to prevent revelations of its own lawlessness, then this White House has strayed onto dangerous political turf."

Pointing to President Nixon's enemies list, which included a number of well-known journalists, Nichols noted that "the Bush-Cheney administration would not be the first to go after journalists in order to protect itself from challenges to its authority."

To see what news reporters are saying about the situation, check out Joe Strupp's article in Editor & Publisher.

Spirals & Tipping Points

It's rare to see a full-blown spiral of silence come undone. But that's exactly what happened this week.

After years of being squelched, opponents of the Iraq war found their voice in Rep. John Murtha, D-Pa., an ex-Marine and a Vietnam veteran who proved to be unsmearable. His blunt critique of the Iraq war, and his call for a quick pull-out, provided the tipping point, making it safer for others to wade into the treacherous waters of open criticism of the war.

Thus, the tightly wound spiral of silence on Iraq, which has held public criticism of the war at bay for three years, started to come undone.

So, what's all this about a spiral?

The Spiral of Silence is a theory of media and public opinion developed by in the 1980s by Elisabeth Noelle-Neumann. In essence, it says that most people would rather keep their opinions to themselves than risk being perceived as being out of step with the mainstream, or risk being ostracized for their views. And the fewer contrary views are heard, the more people perceive themselves to be in the minority…and the fewer of them are willing to speak up. Thus, the spiral of silence tightens.

Of course, spirals of silence don't just happen. They usually have some help. In this case, the Bush administration did a masterful job of suggesting -- sometimes subtly, sometimes with all the subtlety of a sledge hammer -- that it was unpatriotic to question the Iraq war or its conduct.

For the most part, it worked. After all, who wants to be accused of hurting troop morale or of aiding and abetting the enemy? So most criticisms of the war were muted or silenced. People with opposing views mostly squelched themselves. And the Bush administration was able to shrug off the criticisms of lonely liberals and people like Cindy Sheehan, the Vacaville woman who lost a son in the war, as being partisan attacks or hysterical outbursts.

Then Murtha spoke out. His comments proved to be the tipping point…and the spiral came tumbling down.

You could watch the administration's desperate attempts to restore the spiral of silence: the initially harsh response from the president, the now-predictable accusations of disloyalty from the vice president, and even name-calling from a junior congresswoman who tried to imply that Murtha was a coward.

This time, though, it didn't work. They'd overplayed their hand. No one bought the image of Murtha as a traitor or a coward. The congresswoman, Rep. Jean Schmidt, apologized; the president, speaking in China, tempered his tone…he respects Murtha, of course, and his right to say what he thinks, he just doesn't agree with him.

Suddenly, it was safe to go in the waters again…and critics of the Iraq war began speaking their minds…and the U.S. Congress began discussing how best to get out of Iraq.

Let's call a spade a spade

Note: If you're an ardent Bush supporter, or you think the Iraq War is a truly righteous endeavor, you may want to skip this posting.

When I got an e-mail this week from a colleague touting New York Times reporter Judith Miller's appearance at a recent journalism confab (including a photo of said colleague with Miller), my first reaction was probably not the one he expected. You see, I cringed.

That's because, from the get-go, I've had reservations about the media's adulation of Miller's decision to go to jail to protect her sources. I've had this sneaking suspicion that her decision was, at least in part, a CYA move.

Maybe that's because we now know that much of the "evidence" Miller reported about the threat posed by Iraq in the run-up to the U.S. invasion (remember those WMDs?) was misleading. Wait, let's call a spade a spade: it was a pack of lies.

To my mind, that leaves two choices: either Miller was a gullible sap (and a bad reporter) who got conned by the Bush administration into reporting those lies and exaggerations...or she was a willing participant who happily pushed propaganda. Either way, she doesn't look much like a media hero to me.

Watching all the recent hoopla about Miller, I've been waiting for the other shoe to drop. And now it has. Well, maybe not the whole shoe, maybe just the insole. But whatever it was, it's hit the floor with a thud.

In what an AP story termed a "dramatic e-mail" to NYT staff, Executive Editor Bill Keller said that Miller "appeared to have misled" the newspaper about her dealings with I. Lewis "Scooter" Libby, Vice President Dick Cheney's chief of staff, on these issues, and on her knowledge of Libby's possible role in the "outing" of CIA operative Valerie Plame (the subject of an ongoing federal grand jury investigation, as discussed in this AP article).

However, I think Keller's missing the real point: Miller didn't just mislead the paper and her colleagues; she helped scam the entire nation. If something's printed in the Times, people tend to take it seriously.

I agree with Jack Shafer of Slate. Asserting that "journalistic standards were betrayed at the Times," he wrote:

"…Miller continues to haunt the New York Times two and a half years after her Iraq work was widely discredited, because the paper has yet to document how she botched the story of the decade and catalog the role she played in the current White House imbroglio.

"…The Times won't break free of Miller's malevolent spirit until the paper commissions an exorcism in print, akin to the ones it conducted following the Blair and Lee possessions."

Let the exorcism begin.

Already Missing Molly

We lost one of the country's sharpest and funniest political writers yesterday: Molly Ivins.

When it came to skewering mean, vapid and greedy politicos, there was no one like Ivins. You could always count on her to knock the high and mighty down a few pegs, and make you laugh and feel outraged at the same time. It was a hellava combination.

The Chronicle carried a wonderful tribute to her, written by her long-time friend and editor Anthony Zurcher, as well as an obituary.

Do yourself a favor and read her last column, Stand Against the Surge. As Ivins put it,

We are the people who run this country. We are the deciders. And every single day, every single one of us needs to step outside and take some action to help stop this war. Raise hell. Think of something to make the ridiculous look ridiculous. Make our troops know we're for them and trying to get them out of there. Hit the streets to protest Bush's proposed surge.... We need people in the streets, banging pots and pans and demanding, "Stop it, now!"

Then do our country a favor and take her advice.

Commemorating four years in Irag

If you want to see how far we haven't gotten in Iraq, read today's post by Jonathan Schwarz on the This Modern World blog.

Schwarz lets two quotes from President Bush tell the story -- one from the start of the war four years ago, and one from today. That says it better than I ever could.

by Tom Tomorrow is one of my favorite political strips. You can read the latest one on Salon.com.

Censoring Iraq

If it starts to seem as though things aren't going quite so badly in Iraq, for a change, maybe it's because of Bush's surge...

...or maybe it's because Iraq's interior ministry "has decided to bar news photographers and camera operators from the scenes of bomb attacks," as noted in this ABC News Online article.

...or maybe it's because the Pentagon is now limiting web access for troops stationed in Iraq, as noted in this AP news story by reporter Lolita A. Blador. (If our enlisted men and women can get to an internet cafe, they're okay, but they can no longer use the Defense Department's computer network to access sites like MySpace and YouTube.)

If you want to get a more accurate picture of the situation in Iraq and Afghanistan, one good place to start is the news releases link at the Department of Defense web site.

Here's what I found today:

Here's a link to the news release at the top of the list -- it announces the death of "Spc. Rhys W. Klasno, 20, of Riverside, Calif., [who] died May 13 in Haditha, Iraq, of wounds suffered when an improvised explosive device detonated near his vehicle."

And, as you can see, there's lots more where that one came from.

The court's circular logic

Let me see if I've got this straight...the Bush administration's NSA secret wiretapping program is so secret that nobody can find out whether or not they've been secretly spied on, or prove whether or not they've been injured by being secretly spied on. That's the reason two of the three appeals court judges gave for dismissing the case, saying none of the plaintiffs has grounds to sue.

Sounds like circular logic to me.

Link to NYT coverage of this decision.

500 days

The Bush countdown has reached a landmark: just 500 days left in office.

Of course, it's daunting to think how much he can still screw up in the next 500 days.

Too bad we couldn't just move up the election to this fall and get on with it. The 2008 presidential campaign is in full swing already, so what have we got to lose?

P.S. Thanks to Dona for giving me this nifty keychain so I can track the countdown.

Peter Pan politics

John McCain says we can't leave Iraq now. Referring to Vietnam, he says he's "seen this movie before."

So have we. Maybe he forgot the ending?

Of course, this is the same guy who, after losing some key campaign staffers because he's out of money, says, "I'd describe the campaign as going well...I think we're doing fine."

Yeah, right.

Reminds me of a couple other big-name politicians who are in denial. First, there's Joe Leiberman, who's still running around saying we're winning in Iraq (what's he been smoking?).

Then, of course, there's the irrepressible George W., who's now taking a "Peter Pan" approach to the war...if he just "believes" hard enough (and gets the rest of us to say we believe too), his "Tinkerbell" war will come back to life...and he'll be remembered as a war hero, not as "the goat."

Fat chance. Baah!

Wanna read more?
SF Chron: Bush fights growing chorus for exit
NYT: McCain campaign drops top aides; new doubts rise

Flashback to a war protest

I'd just scanned an article about the Iraq War protests, and moved on to an article about a student free-speech case, when I ran smack-dab into a flashback.

What set it off? It was this paragraph in the NYT article, Free-Speech Case Divides Bush and Religious Right:

Mr. Fredericks’s ensuing lawsuit...pits official authority against student dissent. It is the first Supreme Court case to do so directly since the court upheld the right of students to wear black arm bands to school to protest the war in Vietnam, declaring in Tinker v. Des Moines School District that “it can hardly be argued that either students or teachers shed their constitutional rights to freedom of speech or expression at the schoolhouse gate.”

I remember that. I remember wearing a black arm band at school, and I remember Mr. Day, the conservative civics teacher, angrily challenging me and another student in the hallway. "Do you know what you're doing?" he asked, sure that we were just following the crowd, thoughtlessly aping the college crowd whose protests were then making headlines.

I may not have know exactly what I was doing, but I knew this: the Vietnam War was still raging, the draft was still in place, and a couple of my good friends had just drawn low numbers in the draft lottery...which meant that if they weren't accepted into a college, they'd have to decide whether to enlist, wait to be drafted...or make a run for Canada.

Tough choices, especially for young men who hadn't even finished high school yet. Beyond the mounting death toll and our growing awareness of the utter futility of the war, that one thing was enough to warrant black arm bands...a visible sign of mourning for all the lives already lost, and for the next crop of young men about to be thrown into the war's relentless maw.

Today marks four years and counting for the Iraq War. Is the situation really any different now (except for the draft, of course)?

Maybe it's time to start wearing those black armbands again.