Texan Razorback Hogs

Presidential Pigs

The President gets off the helicopter in front of the White House, carrying a baby pig under each arm.

The Marine guard snaps to attention, salutes, and says: "Nice pigs, sir."

The President replies: "These are not pigs, these are authentic Texan
Razorback Hogs. I got one for VP Cheney, and I got one for Defense Secretary Rumsfeld ."

The Marine again snaps to attention, salutes, and replies, "Nice trade, sir."

Thanks to Janette

Gary Permalink on 6/04/2004

UN Envoy: 'Bremmer is the Dictator of Iraq'

Lakhdar Brahimi, wrapping up his U.N. mission to bring an interim government to Iraq, looked a little tired and disheartened Wednesday as he said the compromise he negotiated was the best possible under American control.

When the U.S.-appointed Governing Council announced this week that it had selected a new prime minister, Brahimi seemed to be caught flat-footed. The man tapped for the post, Iyad Allawi, has close ties to the CIA. Almost immediately after being named prime minister, he called for the United States to keep its troops in Iraq, a position unpopular with many Iraqis.

Asked how big a role the American administration had in forming the government and selecting the prime minister and president, Brahimi reminded reporters that American Ambassador L. Paul Bremer runs things in Iraq.

"Bremer is the dictator of Iraq," he said. "He has the money. He has the signature."

He later added: "I will not say who was my first choice, and who was not my first choice ... I will remind you that the Americans are governing this country."

Gary Permalink on 6/04/2004

Rumsfeld Personally Approved Extreme Gitmo Procedures
Rumsfeld OK's All Extreme Interrogations

Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld must personally review the use of four types of interrogation methods before they can be used on foreign terrorism suspects at the U.S. naval base at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, a senior Army general said on Thursday.

Gen. James Hill, who as head of U.S. Southern Command is responsible for Guantanamo Bay, pointedly refused to reveal the nature of these four methods, although he denied guard dogs were used in interrogations or that prisoners were given chemicals or injections of any kind.

Human rights activists have accused the United States of using torture at Guantanamo, where prisoners are held indefinitely and most without being charged.

U.S. policy is that the prisoners are not covered by the Geneva Conventions establishing rights for prisoners.

Hill declined to answer when asked whether U.S. forces subjected Guantanamo prisoners to interrogation techniques including sensory deprivation, sleep deprivation, isolation for longer than 30 days, dietary manipulation and placing inmates in body "stress positions."

Hill said four techniques that deviate from the military's traditional interrogation methods require him to notify Rumsfeld in advance. Rumsfeld then has seven days to either reject the request or allow the technique to be used, Hill said.

Gary Permalink on 6/04/2004

Three Harsh Reports on CIA Due Out

NYT - Current and former intelligence officials noted that Mr. Tenet was anticipating heavy criticism from three reports expected to assail the agency either over its failure to detect the Sept. 11, 2001, terror plot or the assessments that Iraq possessed unconventional weapons before the American invasion last year.

Most damaging among them is a Senate Intelligence Committee report, due this month, which is expected to single out errors made by the agency in its prewar judgments.
Some Republican senators, including Pat Roberts of Kansas, the chairman of the Senate Intelligence Committee, signaled to the administration in the past two weeks that the report's conclusions would be so critical that it would raise questions about who should be held accountable, an official said. Another official said the highly critical nature of the report was widely known at the White House.

The two other reports expected soon are from an independent commission investigating the Sept. 11 attacks, due in late July, and from Mr. Tenet's own weapons hunter in Iraq, Charles Duelfer, who is expected to issue a progress report sometime this summer.

Under Mr. Tenet, the C.I.A. has been the subject of blistering critiques for what its detractors have called the two worst intelligence failures of the last 50 years: not anticipating Sept. 11 and exaggerating the threat of Iraq's unconventional weapons.

"If criticism either actual or anticipated was a factor, he would have left a long time ago," said David Boren, the former Democratic senator from Oklahoma and a mentor to Mr. Tenet who talked to the director on Thursday afternoon. "It's been months of his desiring to leave."

Mr. Tenet had talked so often of leaving, friends said, that last December Mr. Bush personally asked him to stay.

el - oddly detailed accounts from unnamed sources then discuss Tenet's decision with his family and Bush's reactions.

Gary Permalink on 6/04/2004

Operations Direction Of CIA Also Steps Down

The man in charge of the spies and dirty tricks branch of the CIA announces retirement.

A second top CIA official is to retire from his post, less than a day after the surprise resignation of the agency's director George Tenet.
James Pavitt, deputy director for operations, who was in charge of the agency's spies, is said to have made the decision some weeks ago.

The CIA says Mr Pavitt's decision was unconnected with Mr Tenet's departure.

But analysts say the move will mean more upheaval at a critical time for the agency.

The BBC's Ian Pannell, in Washington, says it is his department's record in gathering intelligence in Iraq that has come in for the strongest criticism.

In particular they are criticised for not having enough good human intelligence on the ground, that they placed too much credence on badly sourced material.

Gary Permalink on 6/04/2004

'George Tenet is clearly the first sacrificial lamb here.'

Explosive Interview - Democracy at Stake?

Democracy Now interviews ex-CIA analyst Ray McGovern: George Tenet is clearly the first sacrificial lamb here. Things are going quite badly here in Washington. Somebody has to start being held accountable. And Tenet is sort of a tragic figure because he did all he could to help George Bush, much more than he should have as an objective intelligence professional. For example, the estimate that was prepared in September and October of 2002, which was used to persuade our Congress that Saddam Hussein was about to rain mushroom clouds upon us. That was George Tenet actually corrupting the Intelligence process to the policy that had already been decided. The decision for war antedated that estimate by six or seven months at least. And so we had the bizarre experience of a decision for war before there was any intelligence estimate, and the intelligence estimate sort of playing catch-up ball so that the Congress, that needed to approve this war, would be deceived.

I am more frightened now than at any time over the last three and a half years, that this administration will resort to extra-legal methods to do something to ensure that there are four more years for George Bush.

Ashcroft’s statement last week, gratuitous statement, uncoordinated with the department of, CIA, with the Department of Homeland Security, his warning that there is bound to be a terrorist strike before the US elections. That can be viewed and this can be reasonably viewed as the opening salvo in the justification for doing, taking measures to ensure that whatever happens in November comes out so that four more years can be devoted to maybe changing that war crimes act or protecting at least these vulnerable people for four more years.

As is well known, it has been the Pentagon that had sort of adopted Chalabi. The CIA and State department dismissed him as a swindler several years ago. I don’t see any direct connection there between George Tenet’s resignation and the Chalabi thing. But I must say that if it weren’t so sad, one could sort of, one could sort of focus and then say, well there’s poetic justice for you, you know? The folks that were running Chalabi or vice versa as the case may be that is, the folks that were being run by Chalabi, were the Neo-cons who are responsible for the fix that this country is in now in Iraq. They groomed him and they went out drinking with him, and I can easily believe the story that was printed in the press yesterday that one of them got a little too potted. Intelligence officers often, sometimes are guilty of the same fault, but you like to brag a little and somebody told Chalabi, you know those Iranians, we’ve got ‘em pegged, we’ve got their communications and we can read everything they’re saying. Chalabi goes and tells the Iranian in Baghdad and the fool puts that message on the same code as has been broken. And so the CIA and NSA now has no doubt is a transcript of Chalabi saying, this is what I learned from, and there’s a good chance that there might be a name in there. And one can guess about five people who may have told him that. And most of them, yeah most of them reside in the Pentagon.

With respect to Tenet, you know, the Senate Intelligence Committee is just about to come out with a report that is going to bring him over the coals. It’s going to be very acerbic. Pat Roberts is no longer his defender. For the first time in George Tenet’s political existence he does not have support on the hill and that is the death knell for him. And the president will be able to point to this and say, well we did get rid of one of the malefactors, and maybe that will shield Rumsfeld and Wolfowitz for another month or two.

Gary Permalink on 6/04/2004

Bush Knew About Leak of CIA Operative's Name!

Bush permited blowing Valerie Plames Cover

Witnesses told a federal grand jury President George W. Bush knew about, and took no action to stop, the release of a covert CIA operative's name to a journalist in an attempt to discredit her husband, a critic of administration policy in Iraq.

Their damning testimony has prompted Bush to contact an outside lawyer for legal advice because evidence increasingly points to his involvement in the leak of covert CIA operative Valerie Plame's name to syndicated columnist Robert Novak.

The move suggests the president anticipates being questioned by prosecutors. Sources say grand jury witnesses have implicated the President and his top advisor, Karl Rove.

White House spokesmen, however, dismiss the hiring of outside counsel as a routine precaution.

Bush has been an outspoken critics of leaks, saying they can be very damaging, but he has expressed doubts that the government's investigation will pinpoint who was responsible. While Bush has said he welcomed the leak investigation, it has been an awkward development for a president who promised to bring integrity and leadership to the White House after years of Republican criticism and investigations of the Clinton administration.

Even though he has a White House counsel, Bush is dependent on outside lawyers for private matters. A memo distributed to the staff last year reminded officials that the counsel's office works solely for the president in his official capacity and is not a private attorney for anyone.

Disclosure of an undercover officer's identity can be a federal crime. The grand jury has heard from witnesses and combed through thousands of pages of documents turned over by the White House, but returned no indictments.

The probe is being handled by Chicago U.S. Attorney Patrick Fitzgerald, appointed after Attorney General John Ashcroft stepped aside from case because of his political ties to the White House.

Wilson has suggested in a book that the leaker was Lewis "Scooter" Libby, chief of staff to Vice President Cheney. But Wilson's book, "The Politics of Truth," gave no conclusive evidence for the claim.

Sources within the investigation say evidence points to Rove approving release of the leak. They add that their investigation suggests the President knew about Rove's actions but took no action to stop release of Plame's name.

el - Anytime the President has to get a lawyer something big is coming.

Gary Permalink on 6/04/2004

Nude Bike Riders Has Church Upset

Did You Want The Nude Bike Ride or the Church Youth Group Ride Today?

A planned nudist bicycle tour in the Netherland's so called bible-belt has upset local churchmen who are holding their own youth charity bike ride the same day.

They have tried in vain to get local authorities to ban the nudists to stop them clashing with the youth chapter of the Reformed Church when they both take to the road in the eastern town of Apeldoorn on June 12.

The nudist tour is part of the World Naked Bike Ride which also takes place in London, Chicago, Los Angeles, Montreal, Toronto and Pforzheim in Germany.

The organizer of the church bike tour told the ANP news agency Thursday he had tried to coordinate the routes with the nudist tour to avoid any embarrassing meeting but had obtained no reply.

He is now asking the 300 or so cyclists on his youth tour to call the police if they see any nudists.

"Nudity in public is provocative and illegal," he said.

Or perhaps he is worried about what else could happen: "Nine naked men walking down the road would cause a heap of trouble for all concerned." avi video.

Gary Permalink on 6/03/2004

The Bizarre Tenet Resignation Announcement

Bush has an afterthought, Oh, BTW the head of the CIA is resigning.

Gary Permalink on 6/03/2004

The Choice This Year Is Between Empire and Democracy

Thom Hartman's Latest Compares Dreams Of Empire

For the first time since George Washington outspokenly warned us of engaging in foreign entanglements abroad, that the neocon vision of Empire has largely taken over an American administration.

Vision is a two-edged sword. The upside of people holding a vision is that they will work to fulfill a vision in a way that mere money can never animate. This is true from companies to nonprofits to churches to nations. A powerful and positive vision is the key ingredient for the success--particularly long term--of any venture.

The downside is when the vision is toxic and dysfunctional (think Jim Jones or Hitler) it can cause generations--centuries--of suffering, war, and desolation.

Empire and democracy are mutually exclusive--ultimately a nation must choose one or the other.

Interestingly, in all of history, no two fully democratic nations have ever gone to war with each other. Emmanuel Kant was right when he wrote, back in 1795, that the idea of a world of democratic nations, which was only a flickering experiment in faraway North America and just catching fire in France, might eliminate for all time the scourge of war.

Will we pursue, as most recently did Hitler, the historic--and failed--vision of empire, sustained by wiping out the wealth of our commons and our middle class while spilling the blood of our children? Or will we pursue democracy--helping create a humane, multilateral, cooperative world while working for greater social justice at home?

Those of us who share this latter vision of democracy must--in the best grassroots traditions of the historic vision-driven populist, progressive, civil rights, and anti-war movements--help bring it about by awakening our neighbors, friends, and co-workers; and by infiltrating the Democratic Party to challenge the corporatist vision of the Democratic Leadership Council (DLC), which is even today struggling to seize the soul of the Democratic Party in service of corporate rule and empire.

Shall we move back towards the failed darkness of bloody empire, or forward into the light of worldwide democracy?

The choice, this year more than most in the history of America, is ours.

Gary Permalink on 6/03/2004

Medicare drug discount card program is a huge failure

‘Seniors have overwhelmingly rejected’ it says Sen. Daschle

While the Republicans try to put on a brave face at disappointing uptake numbers, the Democrats are saying the new law is a joke, they say it helps drug companies and insurance companies more than elderly patients.

The full Medicare prescription drug benefit goes into effect in 2006, the discount card is designed to carry patients (elderly ones) through to that moment.

Even with the discounts, American seniors can get far better prices if they buy from Canada. The Families USA health advocacy group said that the 30 most popular drugs for the elderly had gone up in price so many times, on average four times (ten times in some cases) that any discounts achieved with the Medicare discount card were meagre in comparison to the recent price increases.

Seniors on low incomes will also get a $600 a year subsidy for their prescriptions. However, the Democrats say that low income seniors who already get care assistance from their states cannot get this subsidy.

The number of seniors getting their cards has been a huge disappointment – less than 500,000 so far, plus 2.2 million who automatically get a card because they have been in a Medicare health maintenance organization. With 41 million on Medicare, this number is pathetic, say many experts.

Gary Permalink on 6/03/2004

Chalbi's Turnover of US Tapping Iran Codes Probed

Why does Bush-Cheney Hate America? Next time Chalbi visits why don't they have the Marines escort him to Jordan where he would be thrown in jail for bank fraud conviction?

Chalabi was once held in high enough esteem to sit behind first lady Laura Bush during the state of the union address. He is alleged to have met in Baghdad with a top Iranian agent and disclosed to him that the U.S. had cracked Iran's secret codes and was eavesdropping on all Iranian intelligence messages.

Chalabi told the Iranians he learned about the code intercepts from an American who was "drunk" when he told him. What followed was a frantic exchange of messages between the Baghdad Iranian agent and his headquarters in Tehran all of which were intercepted and decoded by U.S. agents back here.

That led to a raid last month on Chalabi's Baghdad headquarters and an end to his hopes of joining in the new leadership coalition in post-war Iraq.

A small number of civilian Pentagon employees are being given lie detector tests in an effort to determine who told Iraqi leader Amhad Chalabi that the U.S. had broken secret codes used by Iran, according to the New York Times.

Gary Permalink on 6/03/2004

Congressman Goes To War On Bush's Middle Class Squeeze
How the Bush Administration and GOP congressional policies are failing the middle class

The Middle Class Squeeze highlights how Bush Administration and Congressional policies are failing middle-class Americans. Stagnating or declining real wages for workers, exploding health care and college costs, and record-high gas prices -- among other challenges -- are damaging most Americans' way of life. Meanwhile, the Bush Administration and Congress have passed trillion-dollar tax cuts that mostly benefit the wealthy, and have pushed a variety of policies that hurt workers and their families. Taken together, these developments are squeezing the middle class, and threatening most Americans' valued way of life. Congressman Miller, as the Senior Democrat on the House Education and Workforce Committee, will document the squeeze on the middle class each week.

May 27, 2004, Issue #2 -- Prices at the Pump: The Bush Gas “Tax"

May 20, 2004, Issue #1 -- Paychecks: Workers Feeling the Squeeze

Gary Permalink on 6/03/2004

Media Bias Wars

So-called liberal NPR mostly uses republican and administration sources.

Despite a perception that National Public Radio is politically liberal,
the majority of its sources are actually Republicans and conservatives,
according to a survey released today by Fairness and Accuracy in
Reporting, a left-leaning media watchdog.

"Republicans not only had a substantial partisan edge," according to a
report accompanying the survey, "individual Republicans were NPR's most
popular sources overall, taking the top seven spots in frequency of
appearance." In addition, representatives of right-of-center think tanks
outnumbered their leftist counterparts by more than four to one, FAIR
reported.

NPR ombudsman disputes bias and FAIR responds.

We compared the tilt toward Republicans in 2003 (61 percent to 38 percent) with that found in 1993 (57 percent to 42 percent) to indicate that the tilt is not based on which party is in power--with control of the White House and both houses of Congress reversed, the imbalance remains.

National Media 'Reporters' not conservative

According to a new survey, only 12 percent of local reporters, editors, and media executives are self-described conservatives, while twice as many call themselves liberal. At national news organizations, the gap is even wider - 7 percent conservative vs. 34 percent liberal.

el - The survey did not split out the publishers and editors who decide what stories get played and how played where the bias is in the opposite direction. BTW - here is the resume of that reporter, a feature I will try to do more of.


Gary Permalink on 6/03/2004

Abortion and Florida Key Kerry Concerns Now

Events Forcing Abortion Issue on Kerry

With a divided nation on abortion Kerry doesn't want this issue but can't avoid it.

Sen. Richard J. Durbin (D-Ill.) yesterday released the results of a study that examined nearly two dozen votes and bills to determine which senators supported Catholic teaching most consistently. Kerry's record was the most pro-Catholic. Durbin and his staff denied that they cherry-picked issues to make Kerry come out on top. They said they spent three weeks combing the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops' annual legislative report and looked at every bill on which the bishops took a clear stand, from abortion and war to raising the minimum wage.

Meanwhile Kerry learned lessons from Gore on how to take back Florida. (el - I would say avoiding spanish speaking media was Gore's key problem.)

Gary Permalink on 6/03/2004

CIA Head Resigns

AP - Personal Reasons? Or Taking heat For Failures of Intel Despite Cheney - Rumsfeld Bypass of CIA?

Oh, how silly, the CIA being bypassed isn't in this story. What liberal media?

Gary Permalink on 6/03/2004

Valerie Plame Affair Back In The News

A Year Ago Someone Outed A CIA Agent Protecting Americans From Nuclear Weapons, Now The Prez Gets A Lawyer?

BTW, Did The NYT cover it better above, the AP, the Washington Post, or the LA Times? How about CBS News for first reporting the consultation with the lawyer?

How come most people don't know know what this is about - people at the top putting political payback over protecting America from terrorists? Some liberal media.

Gary Permalink on 6/03/2004

Bush Attacks On Kerry Unprecedented
Bush Leads In The War Of Lies

Kerry did not question the war on terrorism, has proposed repealing tax cuts only for those earning more than $200,000, supports wiretaps, has not endorsed a 50-cent gasoline tax increase in 10 years, and continues to support the education changes, albeit with modifications, all contrary to Bush TV ads.

Scholars and political strategists say the ferocious Bush assault on Kerry this spring has been extraordinary, both for the volume of attacks and for the liberties the president and his campaign have taken with the facts. Though stretching the truth is hardly new in a political campaign, they say the volume of negative charges is unprecedented -- both in speeches and in advertising.

Three-quarters of the ads aired by Bush's campaign have been attacks on Kerry. Bush so far has aired 49,050 negative ads in the top 100 markets, or 75 percent of his advertising. Kerry has run 13,336 negative ads -- or 27 percent of his total. The figures were compiled by The Washington Post using data from the Campaign Media Analysis Group of the top 100 U.S. markets. Both campaigns said the figures are accurate.

The assault on Kerry is multi-tiered: It involves television ads, news releases, Web sites and e-mail, and statements by Bush spokesmen and surrogates -- all coordinated to drive home the message that Kerry has equivocated and "flip-flopped" on Iraq, support for the military, taxes, education and other matters.

"There is more attack now on the Bush side against Kerry than you've historically had in the general-election period against either candidate," said University of Pennsylvania professor Kathleen Hall Jamieson, an authority on political communication. "This is a very high level of attack, particularly for an incumbent."

Gary Permalink on 6/02/2004

New York Magazine On Scandalous Judy Miller of the Times

Colleagues Tell On Fake WMD Reporter

A Formerly Great Paper in dysfunction from the top with a Mata-Hari Mafia bitch as its star reporter.

What, it doesn't quite go that far? That's why you have bloggers to tell what they are covering up.

Dysfunction from the top allows propaganda swill to spill as Kautilyan tells on the only reporter he ever loathed.

Mafia daughter bitch sleeps with her sources and channels her and her friends neocon fantasies and more as you learn how to read a magazine story from Steve Gilliard.

Links from Cursor.org.

Gary Permalink on 6/02/2004

John Kerry intern scandal - Alexandra Polier's account

Kerry Intern Tracks Down Her Own Scandal

Falsely accused of having an affair with John Kerry, the “intern” sifts through the mud and the people who threw it.

I was too overwhelmed and confused to know what had happened. I had never had an affair with John Kerry. Who was trying to make me the next Monica Lewinsky?

The Beginning

“Get in touch with my office. Maybe there’s something you can do for the campaign.”

He introduced me to his finance director, Peter Maroney. We were the youngest people in the room by fifteen years, and after discovering the coincidence of growing up in the same hometown, we hit it off. I found him charming, smart, and charismatic—a cuter version of his boss. A phone friendship with Peter followed, and we started dating that spring.

While finishing at Columbia, I got an editorial-assistant job at the AP. As Kerry’s campaign switched into high gear, Peter had little time or energy left for me. Eventually the relationship fizzled out, but we remained friends, talking often.

The Scandal

When I left the States last fall, we stayed in touch via e-mail, and Peter would send me links to articles mentioning his successes. His name popped up in my in-box on the morning of Matt’s dinner party, and I clicked it open. “Al,” it read, “there’s a rumor going around the office that you slept with my boss.”

Though my name wasn’t mentioned in the initial Drudge “exclusive,” it made its first appearance in the British tabloid The Sun on Friday, February 13. The article, by one Brian Flynn, referred to Kerry as a SLEAZEBALL in the headline and said I was 24 (didn’t I wish). It purported to quote my father at home in Pennsylvania discussing the senator, saying, “I think he’s a sleazeball.” The article also claimed to quote my mother as saying Kerry had once chased after me to be on his campaign. My mother was not even home when Flynn called, and Flynn didn’t tell my father—who at this stage was unaware of the Drudge allegations—that he was interviewing him. My father, a Republican, who believed Kerry had flip-flopped on various issues, said, ‘Oh, that sleazeball.’ ”

My father, in spite of his Republican leanings, suspected a right-wing conspiracy, so at my suggestion he concluded his statement: “We appreciate the way Senator Kerry has handled the situation and intend on voting for him for President of the United States.” Our denials made the front pages from New York to Calcutta.

By the end of the week, the reporters had gone, empty-handed. But millions of people around the world still thought it was true. My name would be forever associated with a sex scandal.

Tracking the Story

I began by calling political reporters and strategists, who told me that as early as the New Hampshire primary, on January 27, two weeks before the story appeared on Drudge, there had been rumors swirling that Kerry had an intern problem. “We shook the tree,” says one reporter, who spent three weeks reporting it for The Hill only to come up empty-handed. “A bunch of names fell out, and yours had the most flesh to it.”

“The John Kerry campaign has just been rocked by the scandal that people who knew John Kerry have been quietly predicting for months,” opined David Frum, a former Bush speechwriter, on The National Review’s Website. “Now we know why Teresa Heinz was reluctant to bankroll her husband’s campaign.”

Damning stuff, except that Frum was merely working with the rumors that everyone else was spreading around. That’s how opinion culture has evolved, and it’s been enabled by the Internet. Who cares if you’re wrong? As it happens, Frum says he does.

As I began to trace the rumor, I learned that the vaguer it was, the easier it was to spread. Without a specific intern’s name attached, the story was initially impossible to disprove.

As I continued to dig, it occurred to me that Bush wasn’t the only one with a motive. Clark, Dean, and Edwards all stood to gain if Kerry imploded. “This story played into so many agendas, everyone wanted it to be true,” says one reporter who covered the Clark campaign.

Drudge had posted a leaked private e-mail from Craig Crawford, a political columnist at The Congressional Quarterly, to some colleagues at MSNBC: “Drudge item on Kerry intern issue is something Chris Lehane has shopped around for a long time.” Drudge quickly dropped the posting, and Lehane complained to Crawford that it wasn’t true, but Lehane’s name was familiar to me. I knew he was feared by rival campaigns as a master of the black art of leaking political-opposition research.

Joe Trippi, Howard Dean’s former campaign manager, told me he’d also heard Lehane had been shopping the rumor—presumably on Clark’s behalf.

The Sources

I called Lehane himself, who, having backed the wrong team, is now running his own political PR firm in San Francisco. I asked him where he’d first heard the rumors about Kerry and me. He blamed political reporters. I asked him if he had used the rumors to try to help Clark. He denied it. “There are just so many media outlets out there now, Alex, that these kind of baseless rumors can easily get turned into stories,” he said smoothly, and then the phone went dead.

On February 6, six days before Drudge, an obscure political Website called Watchblog.com ran a commentary by someone calling himself Son of Liberty. “Rumor has it that John Kerry is going to be outed by Time magazine next week for having an affair with a 20-year-old woman who remains unknown.”

“Someone who ran off to, where did she go, Kenya? It made an excellent opportunity for someone to finger-point at her.”

No single person had to have engineered this. First came a rumor about Kerry, then a small-time blogger wrote about it, and his posting was read by journalists. They started looking into it, a detail that was picked up by Drudge—who, post-Monica, is taken seriously by other sites.

Drudge’s initial posting on February 12 claimed that ABC News, Time, The Hill, and the Washington Post were all working on stories about a Kerry intern. “It had been looked into.”

My relationship with Peter had put me close to the senator, and I certainly hadn’t kept it a secret that I had been excited to meet and talk to Kerry. The more people I talked to, the more one supposed source kept coming up, a woman whom Drudge had called my “close friend.”

I couldn’t believe one of my closest friends would tell such a thing—we went all the way back to tenth grade. I had even asked her to be a bridesmaid. She denied it again, then softened her position. “I may have told Bill that you knew Kerry. Look, I was once with you when you phoned Kerry’s office and then he called you right back. And I thought, How amazing, and I got excited and I told friends about it.” She started to cry. “I’m very, very sorry,” she sobbed. “If all this leads back to me, it wasn’t intentional.”

I called Jarrell and asked him what he thought. “Come on Alex,” he said. “Who else could it be?”

“I was calling to ask you who your source was for your story which named Alex Polier as the intern in the Kerry story,” she said.

“Ah, many people have asked me; it was a fantastic source,” he said. “I broke that story to the world, you know,” he added proudly. “But your source was wrong,” she pointed out. He paused, startled. “You’ve just ambushed me,” he cried. “You’ve ambushed me!”

“Why did you quote my mother when she wasn’t even home?” I persisted.

“I really can’t talk about this right now, Alex,” he said.

The End

My final call, inevitably, had to be to Matt Drudge, who said he couldn’t talk for long as his father had just arrived for the weekend. In fact, we spoke for nearly 40 minutes. “In retrospect, I should have had a sentence saying, ‘There is no evidence to tie Alex to John Kerry.’ I should have put that,” he told me. Then he added, “If Clark had not gone out there and said, ‘Kerry is going to bomb,’ I never, ever, would have gone anywhere near this.” Once he’d posted his initial story, he was then encouraged and gratified by the prompt coverage in the UK press. “When the London Times made it a banner headline, like we’re going to war, I realized this must be true. Murdoch is going all the way with this! For me to do media coverage was one thing, for them to jump from media coverage to say this is actually an affair between her and him and all the rest was something else!”

I started out as an ambitious young woman inspired by politics and the media. I’ve ended up disenchanted with both. If I had been an ambitious young man, this story would not have happened. I’m never going to know exactly what happened, but that matters less to me now. I lost a good friend and learned a few lessons. I am struck by the pitiful state of political reporting, which is dominated by the unholy alliance of opposition research and its latest tool, the Internet.

It was important for me to set the record straight. I don’t mean to dredge up old news by writing this, and I’m not trying to create any now, though I’m not unaware of the irony that I am adding to the ink spilled on this story. I don’t intend to discuss it again in public either. But for me, this painful experience will be hard to forget. It may be only a minor footnote to the campaign, but it has changed my life completely.

Digested from New York Metro.com, New York Magazine

Gary Permalink on 6/02/2004

Sen. John F. Kennedy: What is a Liberal?

Sen. John F. Kennedy defined what a liberal was and why he was proud to wear the label.

If by a "Liberal" they mean someone who looks ahead and not behind, someone who welcomes new ideas without rigid reactions, someone who cares about the welfare of the people -- their health, their housing, their schools, their jobs, their civil rights, and their civil liberties -- someone who believes we can break through the stalemate and suspicions that grip us in our policies abroad, if that is what they mean by a "Liberal," then I'm proud to say I'm a "Liberal."

Gary Permalink on 6/01/2004

Memorial Day Messages

To those who serve and pay the price, with no say in right or wrong, good or bad, just or unjust. Spend wisely the flower of our nation and be sparing with the lives of those who answer the call of Duty, Honor, Country. -- Jim

I have officially become a friend of KPFT, link to program schedule. Without a contribution, just a willingness to help and spread the word about alternative non-commercial media. Live in Houston/Galveston or live worldwide on the web.

Other Liberal Airwaves - Radio Air America - listen here.

Mary Ann in Milwaukee wrote to Charles Auld:

Because people spoke out, Bush suddenly seemed vulnerable. Now, like a roar of shouting, the voices multiply: As more and more people awaken to incompetence, masquerading as leadership.

Because people spoke out, the New York Times was forced to recant its reporting of Weapons of Mass Destruction prior to the war. The voices of many people prompted the Times to bow to the truth, that there were no weapons and thus no foundation for a "war of pre emption."

Because people spoke out against misleading campaign advertisements, the Washington Post published a long article (5.31.2004)detailing the lies being presented by the Bush campaign in its desperate fight to pre-empt Kerry. The Post too has bowed to truth.

There's a pattern here: The Bush administration attacks false premises, non-existent weapons, truth tellers. It promotes fear and promises to "save" us from conjured dangers and gathering threats WROUGHT BY THEM!

Because one lower-rank military person spoke out, by placing a note and a CD under the door of an officer, scandalous mistreatment of prisoners has come to light. History may recount that one lone voice brought down generals and an administration, as citizens bowed to the truth.

Yes, one voice can make a huge difference. And many voices together can change our country's direction.

A citizenry that assumes its power, voices its concerns, and engages in dialogue across the chasms (often erected by lying politicians), that is true democracy. Yes, true democracy is indeed a danger - a danger to the truth-betrayors.

Archives

An page of mine from last year that includes a gratuitous Coupling reference to Lesbian Spank Inferno.

Another archive - What was I writing about one year ago today. A lot of stuff, as usual. One thing I notice is that both of these archives include adult language. This is actually not common on my pages. A year ago a European Union legal website devoted to US and EU relations, they are bad - they explain why, was pointing to my website to get progressive views on what was going on here. The link is not on that main page anymore which has been greatly redone. They still have a link on another page. I am under American Information, News, Politics. A year ago I started with political bigotry, went on to the CIA, a lot of current political hot topics, and closed with bring back Buffy and Willow.

BACK TO IRAQ NEWS

To those who think that reporters aren't supporting the war effort enough and refuse to report good news, well, here's a shocker: There isn't much good news to report. The security situation is growing worse. The power is still bad (three hours on, three hours off, or so.) Major U.S. contractors are bypassing Iraqi companies, leading to growing resentment. What kinda sorta good news there is is being pretty well covered. The (maybe) truce between Moqtada al-Sadra's Mahdi Army and U.S. forces in the south, the coming together, however shakily, of a caretaker government. I refuse to reprint the press releases that pour out of the CPA on any given day. Most of the 'good news' they release has to do with passing out free soccer balls to kids. Is this what should be reported when U.S. troops and Iraqis are dying every day?

Like the woman on the day of the car bomb who wailed that "The Americans did it!" I got some flack for just quoting her, but I included her not because I believed her (I don't.) but because her reaction is part of the story. To those who think the press doesn't pay enough attention to the Iraqis: This woman is a prime, albeit exaggerated, example. I would honestly be shocked if the U.S. had done this and I don't think it did. You have to examine Iraqis' statements critically. This one was easy, others are not.

To those who criticized me for even quoting her, if you don't like that Iraqis feel this way and express themselves by blaming the Americans, well, too damn bad. The occupying forces, including the Americans, are responsible for security under the United Nations resolution. So far, they haven't done a very good job of providing it.

My point in all of this is that the reporters I've met so far are smart, talented and very good at what they do. Many of them most emphatically do not stay in the Green Zone. Most live and run around Baghdad in constant fear for their lives. All of us are trying to a do a job and stay safe at the same time, which is the same thing Iraqis are trying to do every day. And like Iraqis, the journalists I've met are frustrated with the security situation.

Kerry Honors War Dead

John Kerry took a break from politics on Monday to pay tribute to America's war dead, but made a statement nonetheless by choosing Republican-leaning Virginia to show that his presidential bid will be different.

With Virginia Gov. Mark Warner -- whose name has been mentioned as a possible vice presidential running mate -- by his side, Kerry watched a parade in Portsmouth after quietly visiting the Vietnam Veterans Memorial in Washington. He did not speak publicly.

No Democratic presidential candidate has carried Virginia in 40 years, but Kerry told reporters aboard his chartered jet; "I don't care what's usual or not. There's not much usual about this campaign."

Gary Permalink on 5/31/2004

Graduation Day
Survivors,What does it take not to be left behind today?

Vanessa Perez started Austin High School with 1,000 other students four years ago. This week she graduates with a senior class of 284 kids.

Did Vanessa Perez prosper because she's so smart and determined, or because some dedicated teachers wouldn't let go? Obviously, yes to both.

And what does that say about the children left behind? The ones who weren't quite clever enough? The ones who didn't have enough self-starter to them? The ones who never got the best teachers, who never got that bit of extra help? The ones who didn't get that kind word at the most necessary moment?

You know those kids. We all do. They're the ones who'll be cleaning up after us when we finish eating in a restaurant tonight. If Vanessa Perez won't forget them, then neither should we. Even in times of celebration.

Gary Permalink on 5/31/2004

The President: Paying the Price . . .

Thoughtful Opinion on the Aggressive Choices Bush Made And His Shrinking Uncomfortable Bed

Bush is losing support among independent voters and has not nailed down moderate or even moderately conservative Republicans. Bush has signaled his own weakness by buying time on the Golf Channel, more a home to Republicans than to swing voters (except, perhaps, where the game itself is concerned).

By failing to embrace his opportunity to be a president of national unity, Bush has endangered the great project of his presidency: remaking Iraq. And he has offered Kerry the chance to be as tough as Howard Dean was -- but in the name of uniting Americans at a moment when solidarity is desperately needed.

This is why Kerry has reason to hope that his identity as a Vietnam veteran can trump his history as a Massachusetts liberal. And it's why President Bush, lacking the political insurance he should have sought, is right to be running scared.

el - I am not crazy about E.J. Dione but he has been spinning around D.C. long enough to know when someone is running scared.

Gary Permalink on 5/31/2004

Like What's Up With Bases Anymore?

The New York Times Magazine Discovers Teen Sex

The decline in dating and romantic relationships on college campuses has been deplored often enough. By 2001, it had become so pronounced that a conservative group, the Independent Women's Forum, was compelled to take out ads in college papers on the East Coast and in the Midwest pleading with students to ''Take Back the Date.'' But their efforts don't seem to have paid off. The trend toward ''hooking up'' and ''friends with benefits'' (basically, friends you hook up with regularly) has trickled down from campuses into high schools and junior highs -- and not just in large urban centers. Cellphones and the Internet, which offer teenagers an unparalleled level of privacy, make hooking up that much easier, whether they live in New York City or Boise.

And yet, still, many date. Or sort of, falling out of romantic relationships into hookups and back again. When teenagers do date, they often do so in ways that would be unrecognizable to their parents, or even to their older siblings. A ''formal date'' might be a trip to the mall with a date and some friends. Teenagers regularly flirt online first, and then decide whether to do so in real life. Dating someone from your school is considered by many to be risky, akin to seeing someone from the office, so teenagers tend to look to nearby schools or towns, whether they're hoping to date or just to hook up.

It's not that teenagers have given up on love altogether. Most of the high-school students I spent time with said they expected to meet the right person, fall in love and marry -- eventually. It's just that high school, many insist, isn't the place to worry about that. High school is about keeping your options open. Relationships are about closing them. As these teenagers see it, marriage and monogamy will seamlessly replace their youthful hookup careers sometime in their mid- to late 20's -- or, as one high-school boy from Rhode Island told me online, when ''we turn 30 and no one hot wants us anymore.''

Regardless of which end of the political spectrum they find themselves on, parents and teen-sexuality experts tend to agree on one thing: hooking up is a bad thing for teenagers. They insist that it's bad emotionally and potentially bad physically. Female adolescents ages 15 to 19 have the highest incidence of both gonorrhea and chlamydia, and according to the latest C.D.C. figures, 48 percent of new S.T.D. cases reported in 2000 occurred among 15- to 24-year-olds. Many of the teenagers I talked to told me that no one they know uses condoms during oral sex, only during intercourse.

''I don't understand the base system at all,'' Jesse said, lying on the floor and staring at the ceiling. ''If making out is first base, what's second base?''

''We need to establish an international base system,'' Brian said. ''Because right now, frankly, no one knows what's up with the bases. And that's a problem.''

Jesse nodded in agreement. ''First base is obviously kissing,'' Brian said.

''Obviously,'' Jesse said.

''But here's the twist,'' Brian said. ''Historically, second base was breasts. But I don't think second base is breasts anymore. I think that's just a given part of first base. I mean, how can you make out without copping a feel?''

''True,'' Jesse said. ''And if third base is oral, what's second base?''

Gary Permalink on 5/31/2004

Religion and Repression
Worries about Democracy and Free Speech and Free Art In Russia

Director of an Art Museum Faces Charges

After pressure from the Church, church ativists and nationalists in Government, Samodurov and others associated with the show have recently been indicted for inciting religious hatred. They face up to five years in prison.

The case began in January 2003, when Russian Orthodox activists vandalized an exhibition in the Sakharov Museum titled "Caution! Religion." One work showed the image of Christ on a Coca-Cola advertisement that included the words "Coca-Cola: This is my blood." Another showed human figures nailed to crosses and a swastika. Still another showed a church made of vodka bottles.

The activists, who spray-painted some works and broke others, were charged but later acquitted. Church officials condemned the art show, and the lower house of the parliament, up in arms, overwhelmingly passed a decree ordering the state prosecutor to act against the exhibit's organizers. A commission of art historians, asked by the prosecutor's office to evaluate the exhibition, did not find it to have incited religious hatred -- to the consternation of Orthodox officials and nationalists. Another commission, this time including a psychologist and a sociologist, was appointed. It found unanimously that the exhibition had indeed incited religious hatred.

In its second decade after the fall of communism, Russia is showing worrisome anti-democratic signs. Most troubling is probably the state's increasing control of media organizations, resulting in the government's ever-greater influence over, and manipulation of, television and radio, especially evident during recent elections. But increasing nationalism, favoring the Orthodox Church at the expense of other churches and religions, is no less troubling.

Before the 1917 revolution, nationalism and the Orthodox Church were dominant. After the revolution, the church and personal liberties were repressed. In both periods, democratic freedoms were unknown. Now that the Soviet era has ended and those freedoms have entered Russian national life, it would be a pity if Russia were to lose them and end up combining the worst of both worlds.

Gary Permalink on 5/31/2004

The handover that became a shambles

UK Independent - Ten U-turns on the road to 'peace'

Just Two of Bush's Flip-Flops

The constitution

In mid-November 2003 came the biggest course correction of all. With plans for a new constitution foundering and US forces growing more unpopular by the day, Mr Bremer rushed back to Washington for consultations. Instead of waiting for a new constitution to be drawn up - a process that could take years - the US junked its existing seven-stage, multi-year plan and decided to transfer power to the transitional government that assumes power in 32 days' time. That government would preside over elections for an assembly This body is meant to produce a constitution, on the basis of which Iraq would hold its first election for a permanent government, all by the end of 2005. But Mr Bush still dares not set a firm date for the withdrawal of US troops. Critics accordingly accuse him of still lacking an exit strategy. The President says "full" sovereignty will be transferred on 30 June. But what does "full" mean?

Disbanding the army

The US was supposed to train a new Iraqi security force, but this has proved woefully inadequate. In the past two months the CPA has twice reversed course. De-Baathification was ditched when the US gave responsibility for policing the flashpoint Sunni city of Fallujah to a force under a senior Saddam-era Iraqi commander. The same could happen in the Shia south, where the US struck a deal with the rebel cleric Moqtada al-Sadr in Najaf under which local militias are taking over some security tasks. The about-turn is further admission that the US doesn't have the troops, or the respect of the local citizenry, to do the job.

President Waffle.

Gary Permalink on 5/31/2004

Right Wing Wants A New Wargame

Like my Grandpa always said, there were no naked human pyramids in Starcraft.

I want a War Simulation. A real one. I don't want little cartoon tanks jostling around in a video sandbox chewing down each other's health meters while a preteen opponent insults my sexuality using every key on his keyboard except the ones with letters. I want an RTS game that will give me a stress headache after an hour and an ulcer after a week. I want to identify experienced players on the street by their Thousand-Yard Stares.

From 20 of his wants for the game:

14. I want fat, left-wing documentarians carefully editing the only the most incriminating footage, countered only by low-IQ country music singers crooning my praises while in American Flag-colored cowboy hats.

15. About every five minutes I want one of my helicopters to crash, completely on its own, for some fucking reason.

16. I want a fourth of my casualties to come from friendly fire and non-combat or training accidents. I want a big-name hero unit who rallies the troops with his Magical Sword of Slaying, only to be killed when an ammo crate falls off a loading dock.

Gary Permalink on 5/30/2004

Presidential Race - Memorial Weekend 2004

Isn't this early? Yes - so?

The race is Kerry's to lose. Bush has to make up the ground he's lost in recent months.

Greenberg - The Two America's - has polled a 4% drop in the groups that supported Bush last election which would clearly cost him the election now and lost him the popular vote last time. Greenberg predicts Karl Rove's response: "The White House probably has no choice but to fan the cultural flames to get more votes." So a nasty fight is coming after Labor Day.

Prediction Site by David Leip (nice maps) has the count right now at Dem 284 - Rep 254. Kerry carries New England and all the Yankee States, all the MidWest except Indiana, West Coast, Hawaii and New Mexico. Considering that there are some toss-up states I might place in the Kerry camp that are awarded to Bush that is encouraging.

Zogby had made my prediction earlier, that the race is Kerry's to lose and polling done by the 18th gives his lead as 320-218. Here is a Star-Tribune article discussing this interesting poll. This poll might be overstated as that was done by internet savvy respondents, who are more informed and thus more anti-Bush. That could be corrected in how the responses are handled but it is a difficult modeling job.

The site by a Bush supporter has, with tossup states,: Kerry 255 -Bush 227. He has the popular vote going the other way Bush 45.1%, Kerry 43.9%. His Classic page, only going by polling, has Kerry 327, Bush 211 with the tossups. I should add his blog to my intelligent but very wrong Republicans list. He nailed a very bad Dean moment which cost him Iowa, from another site. That moment greatly disturbed Janette who is a Dean fanactic.

Here are a couple more conservative sites tracking states.

Hedgehog report - Bush 296, Kerry 242, supposedly purely on last poll but has more polls than most.

Electoral College Bush 276 Kerry 262 from the "objective" and Kerry-bashing Washington Dispatch.

Here is where you can bet on who carries what state. It would have a bias toward Bush ($$$). Overall Bush winning 2004 is bid 56.2 ask 56.9.

National Rasmussen Polls has Bush 46 - Kerry 43. Some states are covered. It is a bit of an outlier on national, some have that reversed.

Kerry Surges ahead in 12 Swing States - from Zogby polling.

FLASH - NEW IRAQI PM Allawi was Responsible for 45-Minute WMD Claim

Gary Permalink on 5/30/2004

Very Bloody Memorial Day Weekend in Iraq

Nine dead in last 24 hours

So we have another Memorial Day with U.S. troops far from home being killed and wounded as they provide manpower in another country's "defense." And what will be the killed-in-action total as of Memorial Day 2005? -- Axis of Logic reflecting on America's four years in Vietnam after Vietnamization started and Iraq today.

Bush silent on Iraq as he lauds heroes

Molly Ivins thinks this all is as depressing as divorce and Rumsfeld should have the same standards imposed on him he authorized to use on prisoners.

Gary Permalink on 5/30/2004

Iraq War Woes Deepen Internal Pentagon Tensions

Iraq has caused the military to hate Rumsfeld more

Even before the Iraq war some senior officers chafed under the guidance of Rumsfeld and his team, including Deputy Defense Secretary Paul Wolfowitz, Under Secretary of Defense for Policy Douglas Feith and Under Secretary of Defense for Intelligence Stephen Cambone.

Retired officers and defense analysts said the problems have worsened during a war in which critics accuse Rumsfeld's team of neglecting to provide enough troops to stabilize Iraq after ousting Saddam Hussein, botching the planning for the postwar period, and failing to anticipate and later comprehend an insurgency that threatens the mission with failure.

Rumsfeld was seen as particularly hard on the Army, undercutting its former top officer, Gen. Eric Shinseki. Rumsfeld and Wolfowitz dismissed Shinseki's assertion a month before the war that several hundred thousand U.S. troops might be needed to stabilize postwar Iraq.

"The Shinseki thing is really ironic because not only was he badly treated, he was right," Nash said.

Gary Permalink on 5/30/2004

Left Behind Politics

Bush is trying to tie up the religious vote.

He hasn't succeeded and his strategy appears unwise.

Ryan Lizza reports on MYTHICAL EVANGELICALS, SKEPTICAL CATHOLICS, and Missing Religious Blacks and Jews.

Since we are on Left Behind, slacktivist has been blogging about this funny series and movement.

You want "biblical literalism," look at St. Francis -- a man who literally turned the other cheek, walked the extra mile and sold all he had to give to the poor. Of course, if you ask a premillennial dispensationalist like Tim LaHaye about such literal biblical imperatives from the mouth of Christ, he will explain that such teachings do not apply to our current "dispensation." The Sermon on the Mount, like most of Jesus' teachings, applies only to some future millennial kingdom, he will tell you -- it's one of those passages that those of us living in the present age are free to dismiss. This is what passes for "biblical literalism"?

As a Christian, I believe that our best indicator of the character of God comes from the example of Jesus Christ, and I have a rather hard time picturing Jesus roasting pagan babies on a spit.

This so-called-theology precisely parallels the plot of many an episode of Buffy the Vampire Slayer. Zealous fanatics loyal to some secretive prophecy try to bring about the signs that will summon their master and bring about the apocalypse and the death of nearly everyone on earth. (Buffy and the gang, contra the Apostolic Congress, regard this as a Bad Thing that should be stopped.)

"Where your treasure is, there will your heart be also," Jesus said. So where is L&J's newfound treasure?

Then the fateful day arrives. In the twinkling of an eye, his teammates and opponents vanish. He is confronted with stark, incontrovertible proof of the existence of God. Life, he realizes, does have meaning -- there is a basis for faith, hope and love. And so he kills himself.

Slacktivist has a lot of good non-Left Behind posts too. Thanks to Off the Kuff for pointing my way.



Gary Permalink on 5/30/2004

Kerry/McCain 14 Points Over Bush Cheney

Kerry/Edwards 10 Points Up

The Kerry/ Edwards slate holds Democrats and draws a few more conservatives and Independents while dropping a bit with liberals. The Edwards addition also closes the gap with veterans.

el - I'm surprised it drops with liberals.

Gary Permalink on 5/30/2004

The Anti-Bushgame

Hulk Hogan rallies America's greatest heros to eliminate the evil that is Bush. Very crude humor, very informative. Can be downloaded or played online.

Gary Permalink on 5/30/2004

End of Cheap Oil @ National Geographic Magazine

If National Geographic has it that makes it official.

It could be 5 years from now or 30: No one knows for sure, and geologists and economists are embroiled in debate about just when the "oil peak" will be upon us. But few doubt that it is coming. "In our lifetime," says economist Robert K. Kaufmann of Boston University, who is 46, "we will have to deal with a peak in the supply of cheap oil."

>Oil Production peaked in 2000, if Saudi really turns on the spigot we
>might get back up to 2000 this year or next year. No one I know thinks
>the peak could be later than next year. Why do you think GM is spending
>billions to have hydrogen cars in mass production by 2010 to 2014?

From my reply to Charles who informed me of the link.

Gary Permalink on 5/30/2004

Weapons of Mass Distraction?

The New York Times examines why it trumpeted the lies

As one reader asked, "Will your column this Sunday address why the NYT buried its editors' note - full of apologies for burying stories on A10 - on A10?"

The failure was not individual, but institutional.

War requires an extra standard of care, not a lesser one. But in The Times's W.M.D. coverage, readers encountered some rather breathless stories built on unsubstantiated "revelations" that, in many instances, were the anonymity-cloaked assertions of people with vested interests. Times reporters broke many stories before and after the war - but when the stories themselves later broke apart, in many instances Times readers never found out.

The contract between a reporter and an unnamed source - the offer of information in return for anonymity - is properly a binding one. But I believe that a source who turns out to have lied has breached that contract, and can fairly be exposed. The victims of the lie are the paper's readers, and the contract with them supersedes all others. (See Chalabi, Ahmad, et al.) Beyond that, when the cultivation of a source leads to what amounts to a free pass for the source, truth takes the fall. A reporter who protects a source not just from exposure but from unfriendly reporting by colleagues is severely compromised.(While I'm on the subject: Readers were never told that Chalabi's niece was hired in January 2003 to work in The Times's Kuwait bureau. She remained there until May of that year.)

A dysfunctional system enabled some reporters operating out of Washington and Baghdad to work outside the lines of customary bureau management.

In 1920, Walter Lippmann and Charles Merz wrote that The Times had missed the real story of the Bolshevik Revolution because its writers and editors "were nervously excited by exciting events." That could have been said about The Times and the war in Iraq. The excitement's over; now the work begins.

Gary Permalink on 5/30/2004

Power of Prayer Study Taken by Con Man

Exposed: conman's role in prayer-power 'miracle'

It was a miracle that created headlines around the world. Doctors at one of the world's top medical schools claimed to have scientifically proved the power of prayer.

Many Americans took the Columbia University research - announced in October 2001 after the terror attacks on New York and Washington - as a sign from God. It seemed to prove that praying helped infertile women to conceive.

One of the study's authors is a conman obsessed with the paranormal who has admitted to a multi-million-dollar scam. Daniel Wirth, now under house arrest in California awaiting sentencing, has used a series of false identities for several decades, including that of a dead child.

Wirth is at the centre of a network of bizarre scientific research, often working with co-researcher Joseph Horvath. Horvath has pleaded guilty to fraud, has used a series of false names and is accused of burning down his house for insurance money.

Many scientists are now questioning how someone with Wirth's background was able to persuade Columbia University Medical Centre to unveil his research in such a high-profile way. They also want to know why it appeared in the respected Journal of Reproductive Medicine, whose vetting procedures are usually strict. 'We are concerned this study could be totally fraudulent. It is an amazing saga,' said Dr Bruce Flamm, a clinical professor at the University of California.

el - This prayer study shot down, what can a person do besides pray?

HERE IS SOME REAL HEALTH WORK PEOPLE CAN DO (good flash)

June 19th, National Day of Action for Americans Without Health Insurance

In the last 60 seconds,
five more people lost their health care coverage.

By this time tomorrow,
7,000 more will lose theirs.

Eight out of ten
of the 44 million who lack health insurance come from working families.

Gary Permalink on 5/29/2004

GOP Politics

Christian Reconstructionism - The Foundation of Modern Conservativism

Christian Reconstructionism is a little heard of religious philosophy that preaches that every aspect of society must come under biblical law. In their view, secular governments are in opposition to the word of God, and therefore they seek to eliminate all legal barriers between church and state. Founded in 1973 by R.J. Rushdoony, it has had wide influence in the modern Republican party.

el - Here in Texas it pretty much is the Republican Party.

It varies very little in its goals and practices from the brand of Islamic fundamentalism forced upon the people of Afghanistan by the Taliban -- a totalitarian religious order, doling out justice according to their twisted interpretations of a religious text, and forcing the people to believe as they do or suffer violent consequences.

Long article and discussion.

Molly Ivins has a good summary column on how prisoner abuses started at the top.

Salon: Cynical compassion

Behind closed doors, Bush and his Republican allies are devising a federal budget for 2006 that ignores those most in need in order to make their tax cuts permanent.

Gary Permalink on 5/29/2004

Kurds Sold Out Again

Kurds Unhappy with UN Resolution

Senior Kurdish officials have expressed dismay at a proposed U.S.-British U.N. resolution on Iraq, saying it ignores Kurdish rights and guarantees of federal self-rule that were included in the interim constitution hammered out last March.

Many Kurds now openly question how long they can be expected to remain part of the country if the chaos and instability threatens to engulf their own, largely successful region.

Gary Permalink on 5/29/2004

A Speech That's No Joke

Herbert Agrees - Gore Is Right

The speech was extraordinary — blunt, colorful and delivered with the kind of passion you seldom see in politics anymore. The former vice president described Mr. Bush as incompetent and untrustworthy, and said his policies had endangered the nation.

The president, said Mr. Gore, had "planted the seeds of war, and harvested a whirlwind."

Those who disagree with Mr. Gore should challenge him on his facts. Those who agree must look for ways to defend the honor and perhaps the very identity of the United States as we've known it.

It may be that the president never understood what made the U.S. great. In that case, he'd be among those who could benefit most from a reading of Mr. Gore's speech. If he followed that up with a look at the Bill of Rights (it would only take a few minutes), he'd have a better understanding of what this country, at its best, is about.

TRANSCRIPT OF GORE SPEECH

Gary Permalink on 5/29/2004

For Almost Two Weeks This Has Stayed Popular

The Wastrel Son

It seems increasingly likely that the nation will end up disowning President Bush and his debts.

Normally an article or opinion stays topical for a couple days. Eleven days after publication this Krugman opinion is still one of the most emailed New York Times articles.

Maybe I should forward it to some people.

He was a stock character in 19th-century fiction: the wastrel son who runs up gambling debts in the belief that his wealthy family, concerned for its prestige, will have no choice but to pay off his creditors. In the novels such characters always come to a bad end. Either they bring ruin to their families, or they eventually find themselves disowned.

George Bush reminds me of those characters — and not just because of his early career, in which friends of the family repeatedly bailed out his failing business ventures. Now that he sits in the White House, he's still counting on other people to settle his debts — not to protect the reputation of his family, but to protect the reputation of the country.

One by one, our erstwhile allies are disowning us; they don't want an unstable, anti-Western Iraq any more than we do, but they have concluded that President Bush is incorrigible. Spain has washed its hands of our problems, Italy is edging toward the door, and Britain will join the rush for the exit soon enough, with or without Tony Blair.

At home, however, Mr. Bush's protectors are not yet ready to make the break...

Gary Permalink on 5/29/2004

From Salon Archives

French Women - La Passion

"There is so much pressure on American women to be happy. To sweep away all traces of loneliness, to forget who you are in your search for a lover or a spouse. In France young girls learn that happiness is elusive; we learn that happiness is less important than passion."

As girls we Americans sit in our field of daisies and pull off petals with, "He loves me, he loves me not, he loves me, he loves me not." Meanwhile French girls sit in their meadows with their marguerites and pull off petals with: "He loves me a little. A lot. Passionately. Madly. Not at all." Why does the little French girl innately think in nuances and increasing levels of passion while we're mired in the black-and-white of total love or utter rejection?

French women are a bundle of alluring contradictions that seem to perfectly coexist, like the unlikely mélange of sweet and sour. They're often annoyingly coy and darkly wanton. Many of them are not great beauties and yet are gorgeously compelling in the way they reconcile their imperfections. They tend to be more concerned with experiencing pleasure than with being liked and far more passionate about having a life than making a living.

In her classic "The French and Their Ways," Edith Wharton had already singled out this sophistication back in 1919. The French woman "is in nearly all respects, as different as possible from the average American woman," Wharton wrote. "Is it because she dresses better, or knows more about cooking, or is more 'coquettish,' or more 'feminine,' or more emotional, or more 'immoral'? The real reason is not nearly as flattering to our national vanity. It is simply that the French woman is more grown-up. [Wharton's italics.] Compared with the women of France the average American woman is still in kindergarten."

Excusez-moi: Did you say kindergarten? I suppose if Wharton were comparing French and American women over the long course of history, then we Americans would be the innocent toddlers. When I was a girl I used to marvel at French women in history books precisely for this reason. They led armies of querulous men. They were burned at stakes. They got their heads chopped off for being petulant little queens. They were sexy and bellicose and bare-breasted. Even the symbol of the French Republic, the fair-haired Marianne, stormed Paris with (if we take Delacroix's depiction of her as our reference) her impudent and perfectly pulpy breasts exposed. French girls grow up with this legacy of women who were utterly feminine and totally kick-ass; a legacy of bare breasts, revolutions, royal courts, sex, death, blood, guts and great hair. Meanwhile, my generation of American girls grew up with Betty Crocker, Girl Scouts and training bras -- and Julia Child was as French as it got. How unfair is that?

"We're a grown-up culture. America is a super power but historically you're barely adolescent. We were dismissing the Church because of its corruption hundreds of years ago while you Anglos were naively embracing it. History has taught us that you can't rely on dogma or doctrine. Relationships burn brightly, then die. We have our passions, our human tragedies, our loves and our losses. We have a couple of centuries of living and dying over you Americans."

Our heroine runs down the street toward an unknown future, a liberating and strangely happy glow on her face.

As long as you have the 24-hour access to Salon explore the archives.

Gary Permalink on 5/29/2004

A presidential aura

Salon Premium - Kerry, Kerry, Next President Kerry

With the crowds growing, the campaign money flowing and the media swarming, John Kerry is looking more and more like the front-runner.

"I'm not going to let the Republicans pretend that they're doing something better or have the better ability to do that," Kerry told Salon Thursday night. "I think these guys have made America less safe, and I think I have a plan to make us stronger."

Gore said this week that Kerry needn't be more specific about his Iraq plans: "Kerry should not tie his own hands by offering overly specific, detailed proposals concerning a situation that is rapidly changing and, unfortunately, rapidly deteriorating," Gore said. Rather, in words that invoked Watergate, the former vice president said Kerry should "preserve his, and our country's, options to retrieve our national honor as soon as this long national nightmare is over."

It's a view shared by many who support Kerry. A Kerry aide familiar with the deliberations that led to Kerry's national security address Thursday said that there was no point in Kerry repeating the plan he set forth last month. And Sandy Berger, the former national security advisor who is now advising Kerry, said that the presumptive Democratic nominee "doesn't feel the need to jump into the news cycle" and comment every time something goes wrong in Iraq.

To the extent that the Kerry audience is the Democratic base, that conclusion is probably right. While Dennis Kucinich and others on the far left have called for the U.S. to withdraw from Iraq immediately, many Democrats view that as an unlikely and unreasonable course of action, at least for now. And many more are so troubled by the Bush administration's failings in Iraq that they're ready to sign on with Kerry's plan, even if they don't know what it is.

After shoring up his support on the antiwar left -- in recent weeks, Kerry charmed Ralph Nader, campaigned with Howard Dean and received Al Gore's public permission to tread a little lightly on Iraq -- Kerry is pushing himself hard as a tough-on-defense leader who rejects the Democrats' traditional second-fiddle role on issues of foreign policy and national defense.

Although some polls still show Kerry and Bush running neck-and-neck, the latest CBS poll shows Kerry leading by 8 points. Perhaps more encouraging for Kerry is a new poll showing rising favorable impressions among voters where it matters, in 20 key battleground states. And on Friday, his increasingly confident campaign announced that Kerry would even challenge the president in Republican-leaning Virginia, a state where Bush beat Gore in 2000 by a solid 8 points.

Democrats have fretted that Kerry hasn't defined himself yet, but that process is now in high gear. With the primary season behind him, Kerry suddenly begins to come off not as one of eight guys on a stage with Al Sharpton, but rather as someone who looks and acts like a president. He's so in demand by the TV news that his campaign staffers run him through five or six or seven or eight satellite interviews a day, one after another in rapid succession, with just enough time in between for a press aide to tell Kerry which city is next and remind him of a few salient facts about it.

When the local newspaper ran a photo of Kerry on the front page Friday morning, the campaign had what it wanted: a shot of the candidate, veterans arrayed behind him, and a big American flag overhead.

Green Bay Local story:

If the Washington Redskins lose or tie the game before the presidential election, the party in the White House gets ousted. A Redskins win is a win for the incumbent party. At least that’s how it has played out in the past 18 presidential elections.

“No matter what it means to the New England Patriots … you’re looking at the biggest Cheesehead in America,” Kerry told the crowd, which responded by banging green and gold noise makers. “Right here — here I am. Go Pack.”

“I’m running for president to help remind Americans that we have to be wary of false patriotism,” Kerry said. “We have to be wary of those who say to Americans that what we fought for denies us the right to stand up and be critical of a government that makes bad decisions.

“Let’s reclaim our democracy. Let’s reclaim the White House. Let’s go out and get the work done. Let America be America again.”

As Chuck Berry’s “Johnny Be Good” blasted through the sound systems, confetti exploded into the crowd and streamers rained down.

Other Salon Content - 24 hour hour access after watching short ad, take advantage of it.

The Kerry Interview

Iyad Allawi, the new choice to lead Iraq, isn't Ahmed Chalabi -- but that's about the only thing to commend this wily member of the old-boy, CIA-sponsored exile club.

Not fit to print How Ahmed Chalabi and the Iraq war lobby used New York Times reporter Judith Miller to make the case for invasion.

"You know what," she offered angrily. "I was proved fucking right. That's what happened. People who disagreed with me were saying, 'There she goes again.' But I was proved fucking right." But she is proved fucking wrong.

How Ahmed Chalabi conned the neocons

House divided GOP enforcer Tom DeLay and his former partner Dick Armey are locked in a nasty dispute over the future of the Republican Party.

America's laziest fascist Infamous shock jock Michael Savage bombed in a bizarre, half-baked stage show this week, but his 6 million listeners just heard him call for the U.S. to murder millions of Arabs. Does the FCC care?

Trust us Defending the administration's enemy-combatant policy, the Justice Department told the Supreme Court that the U.S. doesn't torture prisoners. Just hours later, the Abu Ghraib story broke. Did the Administration intentionally mislead the court?

This Modern World By Tom Tomorrow and other great comics.

BUT THEY REMOVED SEX AS A TOPIC!

Gary Permalink on 5/29/2004

Gitmo Training Preceeded Abuses

Rumsfeld's Get Tough Policies in Action

The teams from Guantánamo Bay, which had operated there under directives allowing broad latitude in questioning "enemy combatants," played a central role at Abu Ghraib through December, the officials said, a time when the worst abuses of prisoners were taking place. Prisoners captured in Iraq, unlike those sent from Afghanistan to Guantánamo, were to be protected by the Geneva Conventions.

The 519th Military Intelligence Battalion, from Fort Bragg, N.C., also played a major role in setting up the new interrogation unit at Abu Ghraib last fall. In its ranks was Capt. Carolyn A. Wood, who had led an interrogation team at the Bagram Collection Point in Afghanistan.

Two Afghan prisoners died in Bagram in December 2002 in what investigators have ruled were homicides, during the time Captain Wood's unit was in charge of interrogations. An Ohio-based Army Reserve unit, the 377th Military Police Company, was guarding Bagram at the time, and Army investigators are now pursuing what they have said are indications that enlisted soldiers from one or both units abused the Afghan prisoners before they died.

An Army Reserve spokesman confirmed that among the unit's duties was guarding prisoners at Bagram Collection Point. In interviews, some members of the unit acknowledged that they were interviewed by criminal investigators in the last three months, but said they had no knowledge that the prisoners who died had been abused.

But one member of the 377th Company said the fact that prisoners in Afghanistan had been labeled as "enemy combatants" not subject to the Geneva Conventions had contributed to an unhealthy attitude in the detention center.

"We were pretty much told that they were nobodies, that they were just enemy combatants," he said. "I think that giving them the distinction of soldier would have changed our attitudes toward them. A lot of it was based on racism, really. We called them hajis, and that psychology was really important."

Gary Permalink on 5/29/2004

Huge Ratings For Air America

Liberal Radio Beats Limbaugh

No wonder he's whining so much lately.

Gary Permalink on 5/29/2004

Back to Iraq 3.0: A Day in Hell

Eyewitness Account of Car Bombing

Gary Permalink on 5/29/2004

Free Speech Correction

Evidently the reports were wrong about the rightwing nut school principal banning poetry and posters and firing teachers.

Thanks for natasha for following up on this.

Gary Permalink on 5/29/2004

Iraq Today

CIA Gets Their Man In Charge of Iraq

The United States has warmly endorsed a decision by the Iraqi Governing Council to select a longtime exile with strong ties to the CIA to be the new prime minister of Iraq's interim government despite U.N. concerns over his past links.

Intelligence Agents Accused of Widespread Abuse

Several U.S. guards allege they witnessed military intelligence operatives encouraging the abuse of Iraqi prison inmates at four prisons other than Abu Ghraib, investigative documents show.

Interrogators hid identities, Army insisting small group of guards responsible

Efforts to determine who orchestrated the abuse of Iraqi detainees at Abu Ghraib prison may be complicated by the ways in which many military intelligence officials, covert U.S. agents and civilian contractors obscured their identities.

Meanwhile, military prosecutors appear to be developing a theory of the case that dovetails with the stance taken by top officials at the Pentagon: that the abuse was not systemic and was the work of a small group of low-level soldiers.

more...

Fallujah may be a glimpse of Iraq's future

With U.S. marines gone and central government authority virtually nonexistent, Fallujah resembles an Islamic mini-state - anyone caught selling alcohol is flogged and paraded in the city. Men are encouraged to grow beards and barbers are warned against giving "western" hair cuts.

"After all the blood that was shed, and the lives that were lost, we shall only accept God's law in Fallujah," said cleric Abdul-Qader al-Aloussi, offering a glimpse of what a future Iraq may look like as the U.S.-led occupation draws to a close. "We must capitalize on our victory over the Americans and implement Islamic sharia laws."

Besides Halliburton - Massive Looting Operations Underway In Iraq

As the United States spends billions of dollars to rebuild Iraq's civil and military infrastructure, there is increasing evidence that parts of sensitive military equipment, seemingly brand-new components for oil rigs and water plants and whole complexes of older buildings, are leaving the country on the backs of flatbed trucks.

In what some experts call a massive looting operation, at least 100 semi-trailers loaded with what is billed as Iraqi scrap metal are streaming each day into Jordan, just one of six countries that share a border with Iraq.

In the past several months, the International Atomic Energy Agency, based in Vienna, Austria, has been closely monitoring satellite photographs of hundreds of military-industrial sites in Iraq.

Initial results from that analysis are jarring, said Jacques Baute, director of the agency's Iraq nuclear verification office: entire buildings and complexes of as many as a dozen buildings have been vanishing from the photographs.

Gary Permalink on 5/29/2004