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SUNDAY
2.08.04 / 10:52
AM / LINK You can't always get what you want, but if your try sometime, you can get what you want... intelligence to fit your needs, that is. What James Goodwin suggests in his column today is that there's a tailor set up in the bowels of the executive branch whose job it is to sew together swatches of intelligence to fit the political desires of the moment. George Bush patronized such a one, but the suit his seamster fabricated has been falling apart for the last year or so. No problem though, everyone at the White House is pretending the guy does fantastic work. "What, what?" says the three-headed gargoyle, Bush-Cheney-Rumsfeld in its tattered faux-Armani, "I don't see any holes." TOP 2.08.04 / 10:00 AM / LINK Wearing a wire at some casa de blanco dark-force caucus Thomas Friedman in today's column: "I was actually at the Super Bowl. Yup. And I too was upset about the halftime show — but not just because of Janet Jackson's antics. After the show ended, I said to my wife: How can we present something to America and the world that is this frivolous and gross when we have 115,000 U.S. soldiers at war in Iraq, dying at one per day? I realize this is irrational — there's no rule that says the Super Bowl show must honor America's soldiers at war. But that halftime show has become a kind of national moment and the grotesque way it came out really captured what has bothered me most about how this war is being conducted: The whole burden is being borne by a small cadre of Americans — the soldiers, their families and reservists — and the rest of us are just sailing along, as if it has nothing to do with us." But Tom is only partially right. There are many of us who bear the frustration of seeing what this administration is doing to the character of America, largely through the prosecution of this war, but also in numberless other ways. He's right-on about this though: "..what bothers me even more is that this dichotomy is exactly what the Bush team wants. From the outset, it has adopted the view that this war will be handled by the Pentagon alone. We don't need the State Department and its ideas about nation building. We don't need the U.N. We don't need our traditional allies. And most of all, we don't need the public." And this position is exactly why the Bush administration is ultimately a grave threat to democracy. They don't just think they know best. They know they know best. Here are the words Friedman put's in the adminstration' mouth. "You all just go about your business of being Americans, pursuing happiness, spending your tax cuts, enjoying the Super Bowl halftime show, buying a new Hummer, and leave this war to our volunteer Army. No sacrifices required, no new taxes to pay for this long-term endeavor, and no need to reduce our gasoline consumption, even though doing so would help take money away from the forces of Islamist intolerance that are killing our soldiers. No, we are so rich and so strong and so right, we can win this war without anyone other than the armed forces paying any price or bearing any burden." This sounds so true to life you'd think Friedman was a fly on the wall wearing a wire at some casa de blanco dark-force caucus. Now remember, Thomas Friedman is a conservative. He has strongly supported the war, and still does, even in light of the no WMD thing. But even though Friedman is dicing the war-fruit in his own peculiar fashion, what he says about the Bush adminstration's moral stance is on the mark. What he says is this: "This outlook is morally and strategically bankrupt." What he should add is that Americans who support the Bush administration share this moral bankruptcy. TOP 2.08.04 / 10:00 AM / LINK If it's broke don't fix it. "Works for me." --George Bush What idiot would want to fix a system that managed to give him the presidency despite the fact that he didn't win the election? What, and screw up his odds in this one? Not George Bush... So George has decided not to fund election reform the way he promised. Duh. TOP 2.08.04 / 8:07 AM / LINK Just in from the Department of Faith: Being honestly faith-based is usally an all-or-nothing deal. It's a heave-the-baby-with-the-bathwater bargain --unless faith is being used as a political lever. Then, of course, you can pick and choose your poison like every other sinner. Life is so confusing. This is why a godly state must have a Department of Faith. Somebody has to interpret God's law. TOP |
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….”There
are five—five!—Democratic seats in the Senate up for
grabs in the South. We could lose four. I think we will. And
the Republicans could have a majority for thirty to forty years.
Do you understand what’s at stake? George Bush with no concern
about reelection, a filibuster-proof Senate, a G.O.P. able to
raise a billion dollars a year, packed courts, government shrunk
to whatever level they like, gerrymandered districts.” In the current February 26 issue of The New York Review of Books, (Paul) Krugman reviews American Dynasty: Aristocracy, Fortune, and the Politics of Deceit in the House of Bush, by Kevin Phillips; and The Price of Loyalty: George W. Bush, the White House, and the Education of Paul O’Neill, by Ron Suskind. Krugman begins the last paragraph with this question: "So what is the state of the union? Let Phillips have the last word." Krugman then closes with this quote from Phillips’ book: "The advent of a Machiavelli-inclined dynasty in what may be a Machiavellian Moment for the American Republic is not a happy coincidence…. National governance has, at least temporarily, moved away from the proven tradition of a leader chosen democratically, by a majority or plurality of the electorate, to the succession of a dynastic heir whose unfortunate inheritance is privileged, covert and globally embroiling. (page 6)" ---The Wars of the Texas Succession, Paul Krugman, The New York Review of Books, February 26, 2004 issue, pages 4 to 6. TOP Read the statistics here. "That was worse than an intelligence failure. That was dishonesty." What we do know is that these are seriously flawed men running the country. And that's based upon excellent intelligence.
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All original materials by Jim Culleny copyright 2004 / noutopia.com