PBS's Frontline broadcast a documentary entitled, "The Jesus Factor." It was an hour long program about Bush's relationship with God. One thing that I have learned, having grown up in an Evangelical Christian home, is that Christians can not, and will not, seperate Christ from the decisions they make in their lives. In fact, it is completely contrary to their interpretation of the Bible. If you are an Evangelical Christian, then you live life through God's good grace alone. So, needless to say, it would be very difficult, and surprising, if we elected an Evangelical Christian as our president, and to ask that president to consult the Constitution before he consults the Bible. So, unless you want the seedlings of a theocracy to be planted, then it is best not to elect an Evangelical president. Well, too late.
In Slate today, Dana Stevens wrote this about "The Jesus Factor":
"If you have the conservative Christian vote in an American election, you can dispense with almost everyone else. Doug Wead, a Bush family friend and political consultant on matters concerning the religious right, estimates that evangelical Christians make up 25 percent of the nation, and that of those who vote, a solid two-thirds are Republican."
Bush has been pulling this country so far to the right that it is not hard to see why Evangelicals will vote for him. However, I have always been under the impression that oftentimes people turn to God because of hard times. Isn't it strange that we have had some of the toughest years under a Bush presidency? I wonder how many Christians he's converted, or, perhaps the better question is: How many Bush voters has he converted by being an abysmal president?
It is strange to me, as someone who is passionately curious about religions in general, how believers can find comfort in some of the most discomforting situations as long as their God is being invoked. Bush constantly evokes God, or good, in his war on terrorism rhetoric. How is it that many Christians can find comfort in a president that believes that it his duty to spread freedom around the world? Don't they realize what kind of terror that president would have to expel on those nations that he is attempting to free? Perhaps, sadly, they don't realize. Maybe, their heads have been bowed so low for so long that they can't take the time to look up and see the mess Bush has made in God's name.
Here is one more quote to leave you with from Slate:
"Southern Baptist leader Richard Land recalls the afternoon of Bush's second gubernatorial inauguration, when Bush gathered a few trusted colleagues in his office to announce, 'God wants me to be president.'"
That has to be the most horrifying display of arrogance I have ever heard.
You can also hear an audio report about "The Jesus Factor on NPR's Fresh Air.
Obviously the Bush campaign and the Republican National Committee has decided that Kerry's Vietnam war record is fair game. There are lots of strategic reasons that they might be doing this, and almost all of them could backfire. The only reason I think they are going after his record is to make it as difficult as possible for him to continue using it on the campaign trail. If they convince the public that Kerry, a war hero, was not heroic, then it would seem strange for Kerry to continue to use his service as an asset, indirectly pointing to Bush's lack of service as a liability.
However, the reason that this could backfire is that the Bush campaign still has many unanswered questions about Bush's National Guard record. All of this new chatter about Kerry's Vietnam has inevitably opened up all the old chatter about Bush's Vietnam, and I'll bet the White House hoped that that story was out of the headlines. Well, Salon has a new article on Bush's service record, and the author, James Moore, asks a perfectly legitimate question:
"If the president truly wanted to end the conjecture about his time in the Guard, he would allow an examination of his pay stubs and any IRS W-2 forms from his Guard years. These can be pieced together to determine when he was paid and whether he earned enough to have met his sworn obligations."
The funny thing about all this is that when this story blew up a couple months ago, the White House dumped a load of Bush's National Guard papers on the press, and considered the story over. Now, every time the story would get brought up, the White House could say, 'We gave you everything that we had.' End of story. Right? Wrong.
It turns out what the Bush administration released were merely portions of the entire microfiche printout that were sent from the National Guard. Salon reports:
"According to two separate sources within the Guard who saw the printout and spoke with me, the microfiche was shipped to the office of Maj. Gen. Danny James, commander of the Air National Guard Bureau in Arlington, Va. James' staff printed out all of the documents on the film and then, according to those same sources, James vetted the material. Subsequent to being scrutinized by James (who commanded the Texas Guard and was promoted to Washington by Bush,) the records were then sent to the White House for further scrutiny prior to release to the news media."
Joshua Marshall had an interesting question after reading the Salon article:
"But why exactly can't the president just release his records the way McCain did?"
John McCain's 2000 campaign released all of his records to the media without going through a vetting process. So, why isn't the Bush administration doing this? Well, that is such an easy question to answer that I won't even waste the words.
After the media misinformed the public by drastically shortchanging the number of participants during last year's Iraq war protests, I decided to play close attention to the reports of today's amazing turnout for the abortion-rights demonstration in Washington D.C. Well, after some web searching I have found some interesting headlines.
Earlier this evening on CNN's website, there was a headline that read something like, 'Thousands Demonstrate for Abortion-rights.' The reason I am paraphraisng their headline is that they eventually changed it to, 'Abortion rights protest packs National Mall.' Of course, the word 'packs' gets them out of having to lede with a number.
The Associated Press headlined with, 'Tens of Thousands of Women Gather for Abortion-Rights Rally.' So, we go from thousands on CNN to tens of thousands from the AP, which is strange because within both stories even the conservative estimates show well over 250,000 participants.
Then, and this one is very interesting, Reuters UK has a story entitled, 'Hundreds of thousands protest Bush abortion policy,' but the Reuters US story is entitled, 'Thousands Protest Bush Policies on Abortion.' This might not seem like that big of a deal until you start to read the U.S. Reuters story and realize that it is the exact same story as the Reuters UK story. Both stories were written by Deborah Zabarenko. Who would have changed the headline from hundreds of thousands to thousands? That is a really big change. How is it more important for the UK readers to know that hundreds of thousands protested then it is for the Americans to know it?
The reason that I am focussing on the headlines of these stories is because we all know that the headline is as far as most people get with a story. It is the soundbyte, so to speak. The way these numbers are reported is extremely important because it gives the general public a reflection of the importance of a story. Thousands demonstrating for abortion-rights might get an eyebrow raise, but hundreds of thousands will probably get someone to tell someone else about it. It really can mean the difference between just a few people paying attention, and a whole country sitting up and taking notice.
This from Michael Moore's website:
"I just got word that my new film, 'Fahrenheit 911,' has been selected by the Cannes Film Festival to premiere there in competition next month!This is only the second time in the last 48 years that a documentary has been chosen to be in the main competition (the first being "Bowling for Columbine" in 2002). The non-fiction film revolution rolls on!"
That is very impressive, and certainly deserving of a 'congratulations.' So, Congratulations!
I, however, am equally impressed that Moore wil have the film done by next month's competition. The last time I heard him talk about the film, he sounded as if it were going to be tight to meet the summer U.S. release date. Also, I think it would be difficult to finish a documentary about the after effects of 911 when there is a constant stream of new information coming out all the time. Regardless of how or when it is done, I have very high expectations for this film. I was only moderately happy with Moore's last book, but his strength does seem to be in film. So, I am optimistic.
The Progress Report, from The Center for American Progress, which I receive everyday, had this to say about an interesting allegation that Woodward has made in his new book:
"Desperate to tamp down outrage from Congress, the White House and its allies yesterday spun out various responses to Bob Woodward's allegation that the administration secretly took $700 million from the hunt for al Qaeda in Afghanistan and diverted it into Iraq war planning in 2002. Yet no one provided any proof that Woodward's charges were inaccurate. As a new American Progress backgrounder shows, if Woodward's charges are true, the administration's actions not only raise constitutional questions, they also raise statutory questions; federal law required the president to notify Congress before moving any money. While the administration sent two documents to Congress outlining some spending, both the 8/9/02 and 10/17/02 White House notifications in question said nothing about Iraq, instead only mentioning deliberately vague things like 'increased situational awareness' and 'increased worldwide posture.'"
April 20th
John Kerry's campaign blogs 3 times.
George W. Bush's campaign blogs8 times.
The Kerry campaing needs to get on the ball. This perpetual incompetence is unacceptable. It is not that hard to keep a consistent blog, keeping supporters involved. Take a page from the Dean campaign already. I thought that Zack Exley from MoveOn.org was going to help with Kerry's web operations. It looks like the Kerry campaign needs more help. Kerry's blog sucks. They better do something about it, sooner rather than later.
Nebraska Senator Chuck Hagel, one of my favorite Republicans (seriously), said on the senate floor today that it was time for the country to seriously consider the possibility that the draft should be reimplemented.
Tonight, on Newsnight with Aaron Brown, Brown began his show with a comment on Hagel's speech. He made an excellent point that I had not considered before, but one that should certainly be considered. He said, and I am paraphrasing here, that a serious debate about the draft may give us an accurate indication of how the country truly feels about the war in Iraq.
Oftentimes, it is hard for an individual to really look hard at an issue until it involves the safety of their own family. Americans especially, I think, are selfish in that way. We are often not as nationalistic as we think. How many people have flags up on their houses, or on their cars, and how many of those people actually vote? Not many. There are far too many people that will say that they support the troops, but only as long as the troops are an abstraction. As soon as the government starts talking about your son, your daughter, or your family, then we start to ask serious questions. Well, this country needs to start asking hard questions. There have not been enough questions asked, and we have no one to blame for this war but ourselves. All I keep thinking is: We could have stopped this. We could have thwarted Bush's march towards war.
But we didn't. I did nothing and I am an ashamed American. What did you do? It is time to take responsibility.
I am feeling more and more that the press is getting sick and tired of bending over for this administration. I have been following the editorials in many of the major newspapers for months now. It has always seemed to me that even when a paper criticises the administration they always feel a need to note something positive about their efforts. There has been such a fear of being dubbed the "liberal media", that no one wants to be overly critical. The fear of the liberal label has become so pervasive largely because of the popularity of the right-wing radio and the Faux News Channel, but also because nobody has defended themselves against the charge. However, I sense a thawing in the media, a shift of the glacial divides. I don't have a sense that the media will defend itself against the charge of liberalism, but i do have a feeling that they might start ignoring it altogether. That is, after all, the best way to deal with someone else's paranoid nonsense.
Here is an excerpt from a very interesting Op-Ed piece by Bob Herbert from the New York Times.
"President Bush may truly believe, as he suggested at his press conference last week, that he is carrying out a mission that has been sanctioned by the divine. But he has in fact made the world less safe with his catastrophic decision to wage war in Iraq. At least 700 G.I.'s and thousands of innocent Iraqis, including many women and children, are dead. Untold numbers have been maimed and there is no end to the carnage in sight.Meanwhile, instead of destroying the terrorists, our real enemies, we've energized them. The invasion and occupation of Iraq has become a rallying cry for Islamic militants. Qaeda-type terror is spreading, not receding. And Osama bin Laden is still at large.
Even as I write this, reporters from The Times and other news outlets are filing stories about marines dying in ambush and other acts of mayhem and anarchy across Iraq. This was not part of the plan. The administration and its apologists spread fantasies of a fresh dawn of freedom emerging in Iraq and spreading across the Arab world. Instead we are spilling the blood of innocents in a nightmare from which many thousands will never awaken."
After listening to the Bush administration, including Paul Bremer, consistently espouse the June 30th deadline for turning over sovereignty to the Iraqis, it was strange to read this on the MSNBC website:
"'It is clear that Iraqi forces will not be able, on their own, to deal with these threats by June 30 when an Iraqi government assumes sovereignty,' Bremer said in a statement issued by the U.S. coalition."
You may remember that Bob Woodward took a great deal of heat in 2002 for writing what was essentially thought of as a puff piece on Bush, "Bush at War." The White House gave Woodward unprecedented access to PDB's(Presidential Daily Briefings), as well as lots of private interviews with the president. Well, we all know that they gave Woodward the access because they knew he was writing a puff piece. However, now the access they gave Woodward may be coming back to haunt them.
The lede on an Associated Press story reads:
"President Bush secretly ordered a war plan drawn up against Iraq less than two months after U.S. forces attacked Afghanistan and was so worried the decision would cause a furor he did not tell everyone on his national security team, says a new book on his Iraq policy."
This, of course, is the third book that makes the assertion that Bush was bound and determined to go to war with Iraq. The first book, "The Price of Loyalty" by Ron Suskind, stated that Bush's Treasury Secretary, Paul O'Neill, was stunned to hear people discussing war with Iraq in cabinet meetings in early 2001. The second book was the recent "Against All Enemies" by Richard Clarke, which asserted, among other things, that the president pushed Clarke to find a connection between Saddam and Bin Laden.
However, the Woodward book seems all the more damning. For one reason, books by respectable people just seem to keep popping up making the same accusations. The administration just looks foolish calling claim after claim untrue. It just happens to them too often over the same issues. Secondly, because the book really pushes forward the idea that Bush was strangely secretive about making up plans for going to war, even with the people closest to him. According to the AP article:
"Woodward says Bush pulled Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld aside November 21, 2001 -- when U.S. forces and allies were in control of about half of Afghanistan -- and asked him what kind of war plan he had on Iraq. When Rumsfeld said it was outdated, Bush told him to get started on a fresh one.
"The book says Bush told Rumsfeld to keep quiet about it and when the defense secretary asked to bring CIA Director George Tenet into the planning at some point, the president said not to do so yet.
"Even Bush's national security adviser, Condoleezza Rice, was apparently not fully briefed. Woodward said Bush told her that morning he was having Rumsfeld work on Iraq but did not give details."
Never before have we heard anyone claim that Bush was pulling the strings in the process leading up to war. Somehow or another he has always been able to pass the buck. It looks like Woodward might have found a way to paint Bush into a corner.
It is not surprising that Woodward will be on "60 Minutes" this Sunday. I wonder how far the adminitration will go to crucify him. I guess we'll just have to wait until Sunday to find out.
Good News. As of Friday night, Woodward's "Plan of Attack" was #1 on Amazon.com's sales rankings.
I had some technical problems getting onto the internet last night. So, I missed a great deal of the reaction and analysis regarding Bush's press conference. However, the blogosphere still seems to be buzzing over the rare event(only Bush's third prime time press conference).
My friend Claudius Flauberius picked up on this interesting, to say the least, comment that Bush made and that nobody else seems to be reacting to:
"Some of the debate really centers around the fact that people don't believe Iraq can be free; that if you're Muslim, or perhaps brown-skinned, you can't be self-governing and free. I strongly disagree with that."
Josh Marshall takes a shot at the always deserving Fox News:
"He then called on Bill Sammon (of the Washington Times and Fox News) who rewarded the president by helping him regain his balance with this laughable strawman question: 'You have been accused of letting the 9-11 threat mature too far, but not letting the Iraq threat mature far enough. First, could you respond to that general criticism?'"
Tom Tomorrow has a pretty thorough review of the speech as well, which includes this hilarious characterization of Bush's speech patterns:
"It's hardly a surprise when a politican gives evasive answers at a press conference. It's just that Bush is so terrible at it--he has maybe eighteen pre-programmed sound bites ready to go, and if none of them are applicable to the question, he just starts sputtering like a computer on the original Star Trek, after Captain Kirk has just irrefutably pointed out the illogic of its basic programming."
"One thing is for certain, though, about me, and the world has learned this: When I say something, I mean it. And the credibility of the United States is incredibly important for keeping world peace and freedom."
"The Iraqis who have risen up against the occupation are not "insurgents" or 'terrorists' or 'The Enemy.' They are the REVOLUTION, the Minutemen, and their numbers will grow -- and they will win."
"There is a lot of talk amongst Bush's opponents that we should turn this war over to the United Nations. Why should the other countries of this world, countries who tried to talk us out of this folly, now have to clean up our mess? I oppose the U.N. or anyone else risking the lives of their citizens to extract us from our debacle. I'm sorry, but the majority of Americans supported this war once it began and, sadly, that majority must now sacrifice their children until enough blood has been let that maybe -- just maybe -- God and the Iraqi people will forgive us in the end."
A new American Research Group Poll basically confirms the numbers in the Newsweek Poll, which had Kerry at 50% and Bush at 43%. Here are the numbers.
Bush's Job Approval Ratings
Approve 46%
Disapprove 50%
Undecided 4%2004 Presidential Ballot(w/o Nader)
John Kerry 50%
George W. Bush 44%2004 Presidential Ballot(w/Nader)
John Kerry 48%
George W. Bush 43%
Ralph Nader 2%
The White House finally decided to release that famous Presidential Daily Briefing from Aug 6, 2001. Of course, they waited to do it on a Saturday, and on a holiday weekend to boot. I think they are seriously hoping that this story will get lost in the rush of holiday traffic, but let's hope not. There is some really important material in that PDB.
As Josh Marshall said, there is really nothing "thermonuclear" in the document, but there is several very delicate points of warning that were directed to the President. Reuters reports, "President Bush was told a month before Sept. 11, 2001, that al Qaeda members were in the United States and the FBI had detected suspicious activity 'consistent with preparations for hijackings or other types of attacks.'"
You would hope that this kind of information would put the President on high alert, but according to the Washington Post, he was quite relaxed on the day after receiveing the PDB. "The day before, the president had received an intelligence briefing warning 'Bin Ladin Determined To Strike in US.' But he seemed carefree as he spoke about the books he was reading, the work he was doing on his nearby ranch, his love of hot-weather jogging, his golf game and his 55th birthday."
Now, it is certainly true that we don't want our presidents to be physically shaken by every piece of delicate intellgence they receive. Also, I do not want to make it sound like I believe Bush would not have done evertything in his power to stop the attacks if he believed they were coming. Here in lies the problem, Bush didn't believe they were coming. No one in his administration, at least nobody that was being heard, did. The problem is, it doesn't sound like they ever really took the threat of Bin Laden seriously. After countless warnings from the Clinton administration, after countless warnings from the CIA director and the Counter-terrorism professional Richard Clarke, this administration did nothing, and the United States paid the price.
Should a president be held responsible for attacks on the homeland during his watch? Was Bush, or his administration culpable in their negligence? Well, that is one serious question that we will have to answer as a nation this November.
However, 9/11 was not Bush's only failure. If you turned on your T.V. sets at any point this week, you got to see first hand a glaring example of this administration's ineptitude.
November is too far away.
"When bloggers decide that something matters, they chomp down hard and refuse to let go. They're the true pit bulls of reporting. The only way to get them off a story is to cut off their heads (and even then you'll need to pry their jaws open). They almost all work alone, but, ironically, it's their collective effort that makes them so effective. They share their work freely, feed off one another’s work, argue with each other, and add to the story dialectically."And because blogs are ongoing and daily, indeed sometimes hourly, bloggers will often start with a small story, or a piece of one -- a contradictory quote, an unearthed document, a detail that doesn't add up -- that the big outlets would deem too minor. But it's only minor until, well, it's not. Big media can't see the forest for the trees. Until it's assembled for them by the bloggers.
"I also love the open nature of the form -- the links, the research made visible, the democratic back and forth, the open archives, the big professorial messiness of it all. It reminds me of my schoolgirl days when providing the right answer wasn't enough for our teachers -- they demanded that we "show our work." Bloggers definitely show their work. It's why you don't just read blogs -- you experience them."
It is funny, just today I was wondering again, 'What is the point of all this blogging nonsense?' I was already considering another extended sabbatical until I read Arianna's piece.
Just when I think I'm out they pull me back in.
By the way, You can experience Arianna's recent entry into the blogoshere here.
Just some quick food for thought.
This from the Boston Herald:
"The Boston Herald covers Senator McCain's recent criticism of the President Bush and the G.O.P. 'I believe my party has gone astray,' McCain said, criticizing GOP stands on environmental and minority issues.
"'I think the Democratic Party is a fine party, and I have no problems with it, in their views and their philosophy,' he said. 'But I also feel the Republican Party can be brought back to the principles I articulated before.'
"McCain said the U.S. should seek more U.N. involvement in Iraq. 'Many people in this room question, legitimately, whether we should have gone in or not,' he said, adding that that debate 'will be part of this presidential campaign.'"
And from the Boston Globe:
"Pelosi also said that the selection of Republican Arizona Sen. John McCain would be 'a gesture to bring the country together,' but she said she had no reason to think that would happen."
And from today's New York Times:
"Democrats close to Mr. Kerry, including some advisers, said Senator John S. McCain, Republican of Arizona, remained a highly alluring choice. One adviser said that choice would almost guarantee Mr. Kerry's election. Mr. McCain, who like Mr. Kerry is a Vietnam veteran, has said he does not want to cross party lines to join a Kerry ticket, though some of Mr. Kerry's aides held out the hope of a personal entreaty by Mr. Kerry."
I don't know if it will happen. It seems unlikely that McCain would cross party lines, but both he and the Kerry campaign are sure not doing a lot to end the speculation.
After listening to Air America's prime time line-up again today, my feelings about the liberal radio network have already begun to shift. Both, "The O'Franken Factor" and "The Majority Report" were much improved. Al Franken and Janeane Garofalo were much more relaxed today than they were yesterday, and the show's were much more enjoyable as a result. They seem to be fast studies, and perhaps yesterday's missteps were nothing more than first day jitters. Let's hope they keep it up. If they do, then this liberal network thing might work out after all.
Also, check out "The Majority Report" blog for daily guest lists and lots of interesting viewer comments.
