You know as well as I do that had this not been an election year, Bush would have never made his Thanksgiving day trip to Iraq. However, if you aren't convinced that the trip was politically motivated, here is an excerpt from a Washington Post article:
"The Bush administration moved quickly to promote Thursday's images at home and abroad. In Iraq, officials at the U.S.-run Coalition Provisional Authority said they plan to distribute the president's remarks in Arabic, along with computer disks containing photos of the event for easy use by fledgling newspapers.
"Bush's Saturday radio address will be devoted to the topic, and national security adviser Condoleezza Rice, two hours after returning to the president's Texas ranch from the Baghdad sojourn, appeared on five network TV morning shows."
You have to give them points for political savvy. They certainly know how to use our troops for clever photo-ops, but they are also good at allowing them to be used as target practice in fraudulent wars. Go figure.
Most Americans are celebrating Thanksgiving today. (By the way, Happy Thanksgiving.) However, most Iraqis are not very thankful, nor do they have much reason to be thankful.
Bush made a secret visit to Iraq today. He obviously realized that he was taking some punches for not visiting troops these past months; he saw a political opening, and so he exploited it.
Nevertheless, Wired News reports that Bush's visit gave the troops "a big morale booster on Thanksgiving Day." That is certainly a good thing, and political or not, it was necessary for Bush to make a visit to Iraq, and his handlers knew that Thanksgiving day would strike just the right emotional chord with an always dramatic American public.
I think it needs to be pointed out that Bush spent only two and a half hours in Iraq, whereas he left behind thousands of troops that would love to be home for the holidays. He left our soldiers behind in a country that is so insecure that even Bush's plane had to land in the dark, and without its lights on.
What do Iraqis think of Bush's surprise visit? Well, here are some clips from the article in Wired News:
"As far as I'm concerned he's welcome to come and he's more than welcome to leave.""We welcome Bush as we welcome any guest who comes peacefully. But we want to draw attention to the fact that there is no security, no jobs and no services well into the American occupation of Iraq."
"If the situation continues, Iraqis will use everything they have to throw the Americans out, including stones."
"To hell with Bush. He is another Mongol in a line of invaders who have destroyed Iraq."
"Look at what we have to go through. Our living conditions have become deplorable. The U.S. situation in Iraq will only become worse if things do not improve."
"Bush has zero popularity here."
Just a quick note about the RNC attack ad that is stirring up some well deserved criticism. First off, Democrats need to sit back and let the RNC and Bush shoot themselves in the foot. Because I think they will, and I think they will shoot both feet, and on more than one occasion. This ad is a perfect example of how out of touch this party, and this president, is with this country. Only extremist right-wing idealogues believe that Democrats are attacking the President's so-called War on Terrorism. Most Americans make a distinction betweent the war on terror and the war in Iraq. So, this shows that the Dems can attack the President on Iraq and remain vigilantly supportive of the war against terror(whatever that means).
The RNC ad, with its ominous string music, and its obvious, shameless display of fear-mongering is appealing to a country's fear, essentially playing to the country's ignorance. Now, certainly America has more than its fair share of ignorant voters, but even those that don't pay too much attention during an election know the difference between fear and hope. I think Howard Dean, who I believe is now just about assured the Democratic nomination, will offer up more hope, even in his anger, then Bush will in an election that he will try to make about fear.
I think this RNC ad is just the first misstep in a long election, and as I said, I don't think it will be the last misstep. I mean, Bush is the incumbent and he is unchallenged in the Republican primary. So, why is he running ads? Because he is afraid, and his handlers are afraid. So, they will try to win us over with fear, but instead they will be running scared from voters that are tired of being frightened of the invisible boogey-man.
This just proves how out of touch the Republican party is right now. They produce an ad that could only appeal to far-right wackos, and they are unopposed in the Republican primary. So, this ad has to be an early attack against the Dems, an ad that is trying to appeal to independent voters. Well, if they think this sorry journey into melodrama will win them voters with rational people, they are sorely mistaken.
Here's Joshua Micah Marshall's reaction to the ad from Talking Points Memo:
"'Some are now attacking the president for attacking the terrorists.'
"Is that how it is?
"That's the line from a Republican party ad about to go on air in the primary states of Iowa and New Hampshire.
"Meanwhile, back on planet Earth we have a batch of unsettling news from the real war on terrorism."
The race for the Democratic nomination is becoming less and less of a race every day, as it should. Howard Dean continues to prove to all those that didn't think he would be a good candidate that he is not a good candidate, he is a great candidate. Who would have thought in the Summer that Howard Dean would be beating John Kerry in Kerry's home state of Massachusetts? Well, according to the Boston Globe a new poll "shows Dean getting 27 percent of the 400 likely Democratic primary voters, with Kerry receiving 24 percent."
When I first started getting involved in this race a few months ago Dean was moving up in the polls, but people were generally hesitant to take him seriously. However, he has proven to me, and to thousands of other voters, that his campaign is by far the most organized, his message is the one that most resonates with the electorate, and the combination of organization and message helps to make it the most financially successful. Therefore, I agree with Ted Rall from Yahoo! News:
"Howard Dean has the best chance to beat Bush.
"Brilliant, aggressive and moneyed (that's Dean Witter to you, pal), Dr. Dean has a corner on the single most important issue to Americans: health care. His politics are surprisingly centrist, in both the refreshing sense (he's pro-Second Amendment and he came out for class-, rather than race-based affirmative action) and in the disappointing, Clintonian sense (he opposed invading Iraq, but not Afghanistan). He's got traditional Democratic constituents (he just stole the biggest AFL-CIO union's endorsement away from Gephardt) and fresh new ones (twentysomething bloggers have mailed him $25 million in crisp twenties).
"Dean's got lots more going for him, not the least of which is running as an insurgent small-state governor disliked by his own party's top leaders (the ex-governor thing casts him as even more of an outsider). Polls show Dean leading his nearest rival, John Kerry, 33 percent to 19 percent in the crucial New Hampshire primary. Coming out early and hard against the war in Iraq wins him major props with the liberal base and makes him seem ahead-of-the-curve to everyone else. Most importantly, he's his own man. 'He doesn't really owe his current standing to any of them, not to labor, not to minority groups, not environmental organizations, so he'll have more leeway as a nominee to follow his own course,' says Darrel West, a political science professor at Cornell.
"But the rubber would really tear up the road at the presidential debates, where Dean's dry, sardonic Long Island wit would devastate the hapless Bush--and charm television viewers. His natural pugnacity could help Dems deal more aggressively than usual with the nasty attack ads they can expect in the campaign ahead. Frankly, the other Democratic contenders don't have what it takes to stand up to Karl Rove's brutal war."
The Guardian is making some interesting connections between terrorist attacks and the economy. We all saw how the markets took a tumble after 9/11, and you may have even noticed the drops after the Istanbul bombings yesterday. These market anomalies can not be predicted by analysts and experts on the NYSE. We have been told over and over again that this market has turned around, and that an economic recovery is on the way, but we also have to realize that the world that Bush has created since 9/11 is a world full of uncertainties. We know nothing about what could happen to effect the markets. As we saw in Istanbul this week, the attacks don't have to happen in this country in order for them to adversely alter our financial markets. In a Bush Economy nothing is safe, and nothing can be predicted. If there is anything that we can be certain of as long as Bush is president it is that nothing is as certain as chaos, and that's the way his campaign team likes it best. There is nothing that measures quite as high as fear when you want to strike a chord within the electorate.
Here's an excerpt from the Guardian article:
"The combination of prolonged guerrilla warfare in Iraq and increasingly frequent terrorist attacks on Americans and their allies will doubtless chafe at economic confidence. However, only if terror returns to the US itself is there likely to be any material impact on economic activity. Next year is presidential election year, hence likely to be one of strong growth as the incumbent primes the pump to bring electors to the polls. President Bush, bedevilled by the elusiveness of Osama bin Laden and Saddam Hussein, will have his managers pumping for all they are worth."
If you are anything like me, and you're probably not, then you have been wondering what the differences are between civil unions and gay marriages, and what this distinction might mean in the light of today's historic decision by the Massachusetts Supreme Court. Well, Josh Levin attempts to help us out in Slate.
"In 1999, the Vermont Supreme Court declared that the state was 'constitutionally required to extend to same-sex couples the common benefits and protections that flow from marriage,' but left it to the state legislature to decide how to best remedy the situation. The Vermont legislature passed a bill setting up a parallel institution, the civil union, which conferred the same basic rights and benefits as marriage. The bill was signed in 2000 by Gov. Howard Dean.
"The Massachusetts court's decision lies somewhere in between. While the ruling does state that preventing gay couples from participating in the institution of marriage violates the state's constitution, it does not require that gay couples be allowed to receive marriage licenses immediately. Instead, the court is staying judgment for 180 days to allow the state legislature to come up with a remedy.
"The options before the state legislature include: approving same-sex marriage; getting rid of civil marriage altogether and replacing it with a type of civil union available to every couple on an equal basis; or doing nothing, in which case on the 181st day, the Massachusetts Superior Court would be required to issue an order implementing the higher court's decision and allowing gay couples to obtain marriage licenses.
"It seems that a civil union bill similar to Vermont's wouldn't fly, as the court ruled that it was discriminatory to prevent a same-sex couple from obtaining a marriage license. It is possible that the legislature could pass some kind of civil union bill, but it remains to be seen if that would pass muster with the court."
Normally this Tuesday's Topic theme I've been following these past few weeks offers a link to an article making an argument for the topic, and a link to an article which offers a counter-argument. However, while researching today's topic, Dean/Clark 2004, I honestly could not find a single source that thought that a Dean/Clark ticket was a bad idea. So, I will just offer two seperate viewpoints.
But before I do that, I would like to encourage everyone to add a comment to this post. Let me know what you think about a Dean/Clark candidacy in 2004.
Viewpoint 1:
This viewpoint is brought to us by the letter P, and also by Alan Hunt Badiner on Alternet.
"A Dean/Clark ticket unites the two most prominent critics of the Iraq war, and gives countless millions who have vowed to vote for 'anybody but Bush' a reason to believe he can be beaten."
"Adding Clark to the ticket also gives the Dean campaign at least a hint of a Southern strategy, as well as comfort to those who might fear that Dean is too soft on defense. Clark's 'New American Patriotism' emphasizing compassion and service over anger and bombast adds appeal to those put off by Dean's sharper attacks. Clark also brings considerable foreign policy experience to the table."
Viewpoint 2:
Andrew Sullivan writes in his blog:
"But he[Clark] has a critical element that the Democrats desperately need: some national security credibility and a Southern background. After all, that's why he gained traction at all. So isn't the ideal combination a Dean-Clark ticket with Clark as the vice-president? He'd be Howard Dean's Dick Cheney, the father-figure who reassures nervous centrists that they aren't just electing a crunchy, liberal space-cadet as president in a dangerous, terror-ridden world. Before Clark entered the race, Dean observed that he would make a great running mate. And, from the Democrats' point of view, it's a dream combination: you'd run on conciliating allies, focusing on nation-building in Iraq (which Clark did in the Balkans), cutting the deficit, and providing healthcare to America's children. In an electorate exhausted by the traumas of the Bush presidency, it might be quite appealing."
Hillary Clinton is not running for President. I am sure of that. Those of you who are reading this are probably wondering why it is that I even have to state such an obvious fact. Well, it is because there are still a few fringe wackos out there who believe that she is running, or at least that she is still considering it. Of course, one group is the Draft Hillary movement, which has very little support and has politely been ignored by Senator Clinton. Then there are the real wackos in the Hillary for President equation: the conservatives.
The conservative will not give up on the delusion that she still intends to run. They will not let it die. Last night on CNN's Capital Gang, Robert Novak asked the L.A. Times' Ron Brownstein, who was reporting from a dinner in Iowa, "If Hillary delighted the media and surprised everybody by announcing for president tonight, you don't believe that that would really shake up everything in Iowa, as it would all over the country?" Brownstein responded like any rational person would have, "If there was an earthquake and the -- you know, the U.S. fell off west of the Rockies, it would shake up the race, too. But I think that, no, I think -- of course it would shake up the race. She's enormously popular, but it's not going to happen. I mean, they're more likely to, you know, Bob, turn to you frankly I mean at this point. I mean Hillary has said that she is not going to run in 2004." Like me, Brownstein was almost shocked that Novak asked such a stupid question, but the problem is that these wacko conservatives have been chomping at the bit for Hillary to run since this Summer.
Even when Wesley Clark was coming into the race, William Safire (pumpkin head that he is), wrote a whole editorial in the New York Times about how Clark was just a stalking-horse for Hillary. I watched Safire talk about this on both Meet the Press and Newshour with Jim Lehrer, and on both occasions he got so excited I thought he might actually have an orgasm. I wonder if it is possible for a group of people to hate someone so much that they begin to love them, just because they miss having them around to hate. I think that is what has happened with the conservative in this country when it comes to the Clintons.
However, I an not the first person to make this observation, Timothy Noah fromSlate has written a three-part series(Read Part I, II, III) on the subject called "Republicans for Hillary". Here's a piece from part III: "Hillary Clinton's under-the-radar presidential candidacy—which, as Chatterbox observed previously, was invented by conservative commentators to fulfill various practical and psychological imperatives and has no reality outside their imaginations—has ended. That's a relief! With the passage of time, the real Hillary Clinton's repeated denials that she was running for president in 2004 grew more and more plausible, putting the right in a real quandary."
Maybe, Noah didn't see Bob Novak this weekend. I think Noah spoke too soon. The conservatives still think she will run. They must still be having delusions about the good 'ol days under President Clinton.
The Hill reports that a staffer for the senate majority leader, Bill Frist, sent a controversial memo to other Republican staffers regarding the approaching thirty hour talk-a-thon that the Republicans had planned about the Democrats' refusing to vote on Bush's judicial nominations.
"After Republicans walked into the Senate chamber together to begin the extraordinary session, Democrats argued that their move was not a show of unity but rather a television stunt orchestrated for Fox News. They pointed to a memo from Manuel Miranda, a staffer for Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist (R-Tenn.), which said:
"'It is important to double efforts to get your boss to S-230 on time ... Fox News Channel is really excited about this marathon and Brit Hume at 6 would love to open with all our 51 senators walking onto the floor -- the producer wants to know will we walk in exactly at 6:02 when the show starts so they get it live to open Brit Hume's show? Or if not, can we give them an exact time for the walk-in start?'"
The Democrats wanted to wait until 8 p.m. to start the talk-a-thon. They hoped they could take a few hours to finish work on the HUD/VA appropriations bill, but I guess that wasn't important enough for Republicans to waste their time on. As Sen. Orrin Hatch said, "hardly anything is more important" than clearing the President's nominees for the bench. I guess Orrin Hatch is more interested in talking for thirty hours than he is in clearing funds for housing for the poor and benefits for veterans, or maybe he just realizes that he'll never be able to open Brit Hume's show with a senate session on the HUD/VA bill.
The L.A. Weekly contains a must-read interview with writer and social critic Gore Vidal. It is an extremely insightful interview that may help put the Bush administration's policies in historical perspective.
Here's a piece:
L.A. Weekly: "Speaking of elections, is George W. Bush going to be re-elected next year?"
Gore Vidal: "No. At least if there is a fair election, an election that is not electronic. That would be dangerous. We don't want an election without a paper trail. The makers of the voting machines say no one can look inside of them, because they would reveal trade secrets. What secrets? Isn't their job to count votes? Or do they get secret messages from Mars? Is the cure for cancer inside the machines? I mean, come on. And all three owners of the companies who make these machines are donors to the Bush administration. Is this not corruption?
So Bush will probably win if the country is covered with these balloting machines. He can't lose."
Argument: Southend argues that a draft may be inevitable. “Of the 130,000 troops currently deployed in Iraq, 60,000 are members of the National Guard or Reserves, and their support for the war has also fallen due to repeated extensions of their service. An opinion poll last month in Stars and Stripes, the Army's official newspaper, showed that 49% of the soldiers in Iraq are either 'not likely' or 'very unlikely' to reenlist.”
So, in other words, something’s gotta give.
Evidence of the military’s worries about future troop levels were on a Department of Defense website that called for people to serve their country on their local draft boards (Read the Hot Gun Spy entry about this website as reported on Oct. 24). The site has since been removed by the Pentagon because of intense media questioning.
Counter-Argument: Pat Schuback, a spokesman for the Selective Service System, argues that there are no immediate plans for reinitiating the draft, and that the employment information on the Department of Defense website was nothing more than routine policy. Schuback told the San Francisco Chronicle, "There are no secret discussions. We aren't doing any planning that we don't do on a routine basis. It's a plan on paper. We're just an insurance policy. If we're needed, we're here; we're ready."
I am glad Schuback is ready. However, the bigger question is whether or not the youth of the United States are ready to be drafted to fight an unjustified war that our government initiated preemptively and unilaterally. If the establishment thought the burning of draft cards was unsavory in the 60’s, then wait until they see what I do with mine.
For more information, or for further developments on this story visit StoptheDraft.com.
The San Francisco Chronicle reported that John Kerry said, when he was asked about ditching his campaign manager today, "Watch over the next few weeks and you'll see it. You guys watch, we're doing great." What is funny about this quote to me is that it really is somewhat representative of the kind of confusion that Kerry and his campaign has been projecting for the past few months. In the first part of the quote Kerry seems to elude to how things will be better in a few weeks, and then you can see that political bulb in his head light up and he suddenly realizes that such a comment may be a concession that his campaign has been doing poorly (as if the firing of his campaign manager and his dismal poll numbers in New Hampshire wouldn't let us know that already). He then tries to correct his earlier faux pas by saing, "we're doing great." It is this political bulb that has been planted in Kerry's head that has caused me to turn against him.
I saw Kerry several months ago on Meet the Press. He was magnificent, and I found myself immediately wrapped up in the campaign as a Kerry supporter. However, as the weeks past I noticed that the frankness and intellect that drew me to Kerry initially was beginning to wane. I don't think that Kerry lost his ability to be smart and spontaneous. I simply believe that he became the puppet of his handlers, and it killed all that was great about him as a candidate.
Pollster Rich Killion from New Hampshire told MSNBC that Kerry's shake-up “seems to confirm the growing unease within the epicenter of his key supporters over message and strategy. With the New Hampshire primary 11 weeks away, the opportunity cost for the campaign to overcome this dynamic is running out.”
I personally think Kerry's chances of winning the nomination have all but run out. By changing his campaign manager just over two months before the Iowa caucuses, he just illustrates his lack of confidence in the campaign's direction, which can't give his supporters any sense of confidence that they are supporting a winner. Also, if there are still questions regarding the campaign's strategy and message, then how do they expect to win the undecided vote? I suppose Kerry could just keep telling everybody, "we're doing great."
However, he still has a very slim chance to get the nomination. First, everyone agrees that he has to win New Hampshire, and he is behind Dean by double-digits in all the polls I have seen. So, in order for Kerry to win New Hampshire two things have to happen. One, Dean would have to screw-up bad, which is not out of the question. Two, Kerry would have to turn the political bulb off. I don't mean that he would have to stop listening to his handlers, but he certainly would need to stop letting them talk for him. Sure they have given him a few funny one-liners at the debates, but they are hurting him in the long run.
All, and one more thing, don't go shooting pheasants so that you can talk about the NRA. It just makes you look like a giant ass. In addition to that, don't go on national television and defend yourself by saying you eat what you kill. You are a millionaire, you jackass. It is not as if you are hunting to survive. We all know why you were hunting, it was because your handlers told you that it would offer a nice photo-op to appeal to southern voters, and it would also give you a chance to breech the subject of Dean's conservative position on guns.
That light needs to go, before it burns out.
Al Gore will deliver a policy speech tomorrow on freedom and security. The event is sponsored by MoveOn.org and the American Constitution Society, and will be presented live at 2:00 pm on C-Span and on a live webcast, also sponsored by MoveOn. An e-mail I received from MoveOn described the speech this way:
"In this, his third major speech on the Administration's response to terrorism, Mr. Gore will describe the Administration's assault on our civil liberties as un-American and will charge that the Bush/Ashcroft attack on the Constitution is actually a smokescreen that obscures the Administrations fundamental failure to meaningfully protect our national security, and that their efforts have weakened rather than strengthened America.
"In August, Mr. Gore delivered a speech (read the speech here)sponsored by MoveOn that opened a space for other leaders to speak out against the Bush Administration's deliberate use of false impressions to mislead the nation on war, taxes, the economy and the environment. That speech did nothing less than shift the terms of the national debate, and we expect this speech to have as big an impact."
I watched Gore's speech in August, and it only made me sorrier that he wasn't running for president this time around. I suspect that this speech will provide more of those same yearnings I have to see him run. Contrary to popular belief, I think Gore writes inspired speeches and I think his delivery, though sometimes wooden, doesn't fall as short on passion as others claim. I think Gore's speech might fill the void that is present in the lack of passion that we are getting from the current crop of Democratic candidates, and though many will say that he is trying to steal the other democrats' thunder, I say that he is just raising the bar in an attempt to push them to reach further.
I highly recommend watching this speech. I don't think you will regret it. However, even if it turns out to be a bad speech, you are not going to hear me say it. I like Al too much for that.
In two weeks Bush will be travelling to Great Britain, where he is expected to be consistently greeted by throngs of protesters. New York Times reports that, "Bush is the least popular American president in memory with Britons."
Bush's campaign has been extremely careful on other foreign trips to steer clear of protests. "In Manila, demonstrators were kept far from Mr. Bush, and his arrival at the Philippine Congress was delayed until a large crowd could be dispersed."
However, he has been unable to completely avoid protests. He was shouted down during a speech in Austrailia, after which he gave the administrations stump response, something to the effect of 'loving a free society.' Yea, he loves freedom, he loves it to death. Bush is like Lenny from "Of Mice and Men". Lenny loves rabbits so much that he can't help murdering them. Well, Bush is to our liberties as Lenny was to his rabbits. Can't you just see the imbecile Bush petting freedom, telling it how much he loves it, then gritting his teeth, and squashing it with his bare hands, or rather he might have Cheney and Rumsfeld do the squashing while he watches with that idiotic smirk on his face.
But I digress. Bush was shouted down for a moment in Austrailia which might explain his brief stay in the country. "On his recent visit to Australia, another ally of the United States during the Iraqi war, Mr. Bush left after 21 hours and was whisked down roads clear of ordinary people. He avoided Sydney, where tens of thousands had come out to protest the war earlier this year."
It will not be so easy for Bush to avoid protests during his trip to Britain. Sir John Stevens from Scotland Yard explains, "There will be substantial demonstrations over President Bush's visit — as much as 50,000 to 60,000 people. Apart from ensuring his safety, which is our primary concern, we have to ensure the demonstrations are allowed to take place in the normal way we do in this democracy." Wow! That is a change. It sounds like there is still a country in modern civilization that embraces its citizens' right to freely express themselves. Sir John continued, "A central problem for Bush in Britain is that while he is greeted with wary respect at 10 Downing Street, his unilateralism and folksy Texas style don't go down well with the chattering classes, who regard him as exceedingly dangerous and something of a buffoon."
I offer one caveat to the British People, whatever you do when Bush visits, be sure to keep the buffoon clear of all petting zoos.
Paul Krugman wrote today in the New York Times that, "Some Americans may share the views of the Republican congressman who said that progress in Iraq was 'a better and more important story than losing a couple of soldiers every day.'" The congressman that Krugman is referring to is Washington congressman George Nethercutt. Some are accusing Krugman, and others, of taking Northcutt's comments out of context.
Argument:
Andrew Sullivan accuses Krugman and Maureen Dowd(another New York Times editorialist) of taking Nethercutt's quote out of context, and distorting the quote for political advantage.
Counter-Argument:
Joshua Micah Marshall of Talking Points Memo argues that Nethercutt's comment is misguided no matter what the context.
You can read the original report of Nethercutt's comments at the Seattle Post-Intelligencer.
Filmmaker Robert Greenwald has made a documentary detailing how the Bush administration misled Americans into accepting the first preemptive war in American history. The movie was supported by the Center for American Progress(watch the trailer for the film here) and Moveon.org, and you can purchase the video at truthuncovered.org.
Howard Kurtz from The Washington Post is reporting that, "All the networks gave Greenwald permission to use interview footage -- except for Fox News, which would not grant approval for two excerpts involving national security adviser Condoleezza Rice." Greenwald's reaction to the Fox News snub was, "I'm not a conspiracy theorist," but maybe they are "trying to protect her."
What was Fox News' reaction to not giving Greenwald permission to use these clips? "I never heard of him. It could have been some fly-by-night organization for all I know." That was what Fox Vice President, Dianne Brandi, said about Greenwald. Well, a simple Google search will show that Greenwald has directed eight mainstream Hollywood movies.(Read his filmography here.) So, it is clear that the reason Fox News didn't give permission to Greenwald wasn't because they had never heard of him. If they had taken a second to find out who he was, they would have known he wasn't just some hack(even though he did direct "Xanadu"). They just were not going to allow any of their footage to be used by a documentarian that they knew was anti-war.
I wish all those uptight, blood-thirsty warmongers over at Fox News could just take a break from salivating over the war they help promote, and watch "Xanadu". Perhaps, watching Olivia Newton-John, circa 1980, in her roller skates would dislodge whatever is stuck up their asses.
You may remember that it was only a few months ago that Fox News sued Al Franken for his use of the term 'Fair and Balanced' in his book, "Lies and the Lying Liars Who Tell Them: A Fair and Balanced Look at the Right". Fox News claimed that they had trademarked the term 'Fair and Balanced'. Well, they apparently were the only ones that didn't see that this case was nothing but nonsense. Even the judge called the charges, "wholly without merit." Of course, the case totally backfired on them, and instead of preventing the sale of what would have probably been only a decent selling book, the lawsuit launched the book to the top spot on the New York Times Bestseller List.
You might think that Fox News would have learned its lesson. Well, apparently not. Matt Groening, the creator of The Simpsons, told NPR's Fresh Air that Fox News threatened to sue The Simpsons over a parody of FOX News' conservative bias on the cartoon. What did Fox News find so offensive about The Simpson's parody? Well, it was a news ticker at the bottom of a fictional Fox News program. According to Yahoo! News, some of the news that ran across the cartoon ticker included: "Do Democrats Cause Cancer? Study: 92 per cent of Democrats are gay... JFK posthumously joins Republican Party... Oil slicks found to keep seals young, supple..."
Apparently, the Fox network threatened to sue The Simpsons, a Fox Network cornerstone, if they used the ticker, but they used it anyway. As Groening said, "We called their bluff because we didn't think Rupert Murdoch would pay for Fox to sue itself. So, we got away with it."
As if all of that wasn't crazy enough, Groening went on to say, "Now Fox has a new rule that we can't do those little fake news crawls on the bottom of the screen in a cartoon because it might confuse the viewers into thinking it's real news." What? What kind of idiot would confuse a news ticker at the bottom of a cartoon with real news? Well, maybe, Fox News knows its audience better than I thought they did.
In case you didn't hear the economy grew 7.2% this past quarter. This is obviously very good news. Of course, the Republicans and Bush are taking all the credit for this growth, and many have even dubbed this single quarter's rise the "Bush Boom." It seems a tad premature to be calling a single quarter's growth, impressive as it may be, a boom. Especially when the job numbers still dropped in the past quarter. Still, there is no doubt that Bush does deserve some credit for this growth. He, after all, did give out billions in a giant tax cut. Among the cuts he gave were to people who actually could use it. The cut that I am talking about is the cut that gave people a higher child tax credit. To me, this is the most significant of the cuts, as far as consumer spending is concerned, and these cuts, I think, are a sizeable factor in the growth we saw this quarter.
Paul Krugman notes that "housing grew at a 20 percent rate, while spending on consumer durables (that's stuff like cars and TV sets) — which last year grew three times as fast as the economy — rose at an incredible 27 percent rate last quarter." Do you think all the wealthy people were out buying new televisions? No. Middle-class people who got a few hundred extra bucks on a child tax credit bought televisions, and help grow the economy. I know that my analysis sounds incredibly simplistic, and in a way it is. Obviously televisions didn't account for a 7.2% growth, but I am sure that the child tax credit was a major factor in the jump in consumer spending.
As for the rest fo the jump, Paul Krugman writes that "last quarter's consumer splurge was 'borrowed' from the future: consumers took advantage of low-interest financing, cash from home refinancing and tax rebate checks to accelerate purchases they would otherwise have made later."
So, does Bush deserve some credit for the growth we saw this past quarter? Yes, he does. If you give people money who will actually spend it, like the middle-class, then they will spend. However, if Bush is so eager to take credit for this growth then he also has to take responsibility for his record deficit and for not adding a single net job to our economy since he was elected. Also, once this supposed Boom proves to be nothing more than a burp then Bush will have to take responsibiltiy for the subsequent job loss, and his cronies will also have to stop blaming the bad economy on the Clinton presidency. After all the smoke and dust from this burp settles, we will realize that it is like many other burps: abrupt, loud, and stinky.