Politics

Politically, I’m very liberal — about as far left as one can go without sliding into Libertarianism.

Federal Marriage Amendment rejected

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Excellent news: the proposed Constitutional amendment to ban gay marriage has been shot down.

The House emphatically rejected a constitutional amendment banning gay marriage Thursday, the latest in a string of conservative pet causes advanced by Republican leaders in the run-up to Election Day.

The vote was 227-186, 49 votes shy of the two-thirds needed for approval of an amendment that President Bush backed but the Senate had previously scuttled.

(via Terrance and Len)

iTunes “Age of Love, The (Jam and Spoon Watch Out for Stella)” by Age of Love, The from the album Club Cuts EP Vol. 1 (1990, 6:39).

First Presidential ‘debate’

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(The following are my hastily-scribbled thoughts while watching tonight’s presidential debate — unpolished, written on the fly. Be warned. [grin])

Well, the C-Span video feed is working (RealPlayer, ugh, but it works).

Jim Lehrer’s getting everyone in the audience set up…looks like we’ve got a few minutes to kill before things get started. He just told everyone to kill their cell phones and pagers. Pretty exciting, huh? ;)

“We’re gonna have a great debate,” says Lehrer. What kind of debate doesn’t let the participants ask each other questions?

Umbrella topic: Foreign policy and homeland security.

Y’know, forget the whole buzzer thing when they talk too long. Just take a page from the old TV show You Can’t Do That On Television and replace the flashing red “shut up now” light with buckets of green goo. Hmm — no opening statements (scratch that — Kerry just took a few moments out of his speaking time to thank everyone).

Part of this is just because of the low quality of RealPlayer, but while Bush listens to Kerry and keeps looking back and forth, he looks like a ventriloquist’s dummy.

Wow — Sept. 11th was the first thing Bush dropped out of his mouth after fumbling a response to Kerry’s thanks. No big surprise there. He’s also going on about what we’re doing around the world…in response to a question about Homeland Security.

Bush is playing the fear cards hard — protecting children, Iraq and/or terrorists are going to keep trying to kill us all, etc., etc., yadda yadda.

Kerry’s taking notes while Bush talks — I wonder if Bush will do the same.

Kerry’s also not pulling punches — directly accusing Bush of mismanaging the country and the war and changing the excuses for the war mid-stream.

Kerry’s listing Bush’s misjudgements: telling the country he’d make a true alliance when he didn’t want to in the first place and then was unable to…promising to go to war as a last resort, then rushing into it…pushing our allies aside in order to go to war…ignoring Afghanistan’s troubles in order to focus on Iraq.

Bush is pulling Kerry’s comments about the world being better off without Saddam out of context as his response. Says Saddamn had no intention of disarming, that he was systematically deceiving the inspectors — funny, I don’t remember WMDs suddenly popping up in the last day or so.

Bush is claiming we have the capability to go after both Saddamn and Osama bin Laden. “We’re making progress.” Progressing in the wrong direction…(that’s me).

Nice one from Kerry — “Iraq was not even close to being the center of the war on terrorism before he decided to invade it (paraphrased).” “This president, I don’t know if he sees what’s really happening over there.”

Kerry’s really hammering on the mistake of switching our focus from Osama to Saddam.

Kerry’s contrasting the money flowing into Iraq for reconstruction with the lack of money being spent in America and the cuts Bush has made to police, fire, and city improvement programs here.

Bush wants to know how Kerry will pay for what he wants to do (actually a good question, as he won’t leave Kerry any money).

Bush says we’ll bring our troops home when Iraqis take charge and can defend themselves. Funny, but I bet that’s what the “terrorists” and “insurgents” that keep attacking us think they’re doing.

Kerry’s bringing up Bush Sr.’s decision not to go into Iraq because we’d have no good way to get out. Pointing out that the only building in Baghdad we guarded was the Ministry of Oil, and left many other buildings unprotected.

Another thing I’m noticing — no matter what Bush says, Kerry is keeping a smile on his face. Bush keeps looking more and more pissed when Kerry speaks — like he’s getting closer to losing his temper.

How frequently can Bush talk with other country leaders when he’s on vacation as much as he is?

Apparently, according to Bush, the reason we’re having problems is because we went in too fast — the war won’t be over quickly because it went too fast. Or something like that.

Good, Kerry — he brought up North Korea’s burgeoning nuclear capability.

Kerry mentioned that he’d been working with some of these world leaders longer than Bush has — since C-Span is using a split-screen for the entire debate (Kerry on the left, Bush on the right), I got to see Bush get a wonderfully ticked expression on his face at that one.

Bush is bringing up the Kerry “flip-flop” attack, saying that he keeps changing his positions as the politics change. As for myself, I’m a lot more comfortable with someone who can change their mind when presented with new facts instead of blindly clinging to an idea that’s obviously not reality.

Bush isn’t answering the question about whether the 1,052 lives lost in Iraq are a worthy cost — instead, pulling out a tearjerker story about a mother and son who lost their husband.

Kerry: “…or you can have the President’s plan, which is four words: ‘more of the same.'”

Kerry’s certainly presenting himself far better than Bush — Bush is stumbling more and more, pausing, stuttering, while Kerry is solid straight through.

Good point from Kerry, that we’re presenting the picture of having long-term designs for Iraq, which isn’t going to help the Iraqis to trust us.

Bush: “The enemy attacked us.” Which is why we’re in…Iraq? Who didn’t attack us?

Rue the day? Who talks like that? (I never thought I’d be quoting Real Genius during a Presidential debate…)

Good — Kerry picked up on Bush’s “the enemy attacked us” comment, and is pointing out that it wasn’t Saddmn Hussein or Iraq that attacked us, but Osama bin Laden, who is still on the loose. “Outsourced the job [of finding and killing bin Laden] to Afghan warlords.”

Kerry: “35 to 40 countries in the world had a greater capability than Iraq when we invaded.” And continuing on this line. Excellent.

Excellent — comparing DeGaulle’s statement that “the word of the President is good enough for us” during the Cuban Missile Crisis when photographic proof of Cuba’s missiles was offered with Powell’s apology for the bad intelligence presented to the U.N. during the runup to the Iraq war.

After Bush’s rather nonsensical ramble about North Korea, Kerry’s doing a wonderful job of pointing out where Bush stumbled on Korea (reversing our policies, not talking to North Korea, etc.).

Dammit, Kerry, answer the question on Sudan, leave Iran for later.

Once he got into it, he did point out that our military is seriously over extended, people aren’t being allowed to leave, etc. I’m not sure how he’s going to fix that, though.

Now Bush is back on Iran…just stick to the subject. Grr.

Wow — Bush got asked about potential character issues that Kerry might have, and he’s falling back on the same old mixed message/flip-flop issue. He could easily have gone for some of the more Bible-belt issues…did he stay away from that intentionally, or is he just so stuck on the flip-flop argument that he can’t go for anything else?

Kerry: “Talking about character isn’t my job or business.”

No hesitation from Kerry on the question about the single biggest danger to national security — “Nuclear proliferation.” Pointed out that Bush cut money to track down loose nuclear materials, and has found less in the two years since 9/11 than in the two years prior. Also that we’re telling the world that they can’t have nukes while pouring money into researching and building more of our own.

Bush is, of course, still banging away on missile defenses (the latest version of Star Wars, Reagan’s own wet dream).

Nice that Bush thinks that “establishing good personal relationships with people is important” — we’ll just have to ask France about that. ;)

Interesting that Bush went on about how close he is with Putin and how good friends they are, and then Kerry pointed out the censorship and political imprisonments of Putin’s foes.

Kerry: “[Saddamn] was a threat. That’s not the issue. The issue is what you do about it.”

Time for the closing statements — Kerry’s first.

Kerry: “I believe that the future belongs to freedom — not to fear.”

Bush: “The military will be an all-volunteer army.” Until they run out of cannonfodder and need to reinstate the draft… The rest seems to be more of the usual fear tactics — if Bush doesn’t stay in office, we’re all going to die. Ugh — “I’ve climbed the mighty mountain and seen the valley below, and it is the valley of peace.”

Final thoughts:

First off, it wasn’t nearly as much of a “joint press conference” as I was afraid it was going to be. I still wish it were more of a real debate format, but it wasn’t as bad as it could have been.

Secondly, if one is going to talk in terms of “winning” and “losing” in a debate like this, I’d quite honestly give the win to Kerry here (and just for reference, in the 2000 debates the win pretty much went to Bush every time, even though I couldn’t stand him — Gore just didn’t do well back then). Where Kerry stayed calm, cool and collected through the entire debate, Bush often looked testy, annoyed, and kept stumbling all over himself, far more than I’d expect (debates have traditionally been one of his stronger areas, after all).

It’ll definitely be interesting to see the wrap-ups in the news and across the blogosphere in the coming days.

Lastly, a quick schedule of the debates, courtesy of C-SPAN’s page:

  1. 1st Presidential Debate: Thursday, September 30, University of Miami, Coral Gables, FL
  2. Vice Presidential Debate: Tuesday, October 5, Case Western Reserve University, Cleveland, OH
  3. 2nd Presidential Debate: Friday, October 8, Washington University, St. Louis, MO
  4. 3rd Presidential Debate: Wednesday, October 13, Arizona State University, Tempe, AZ

iTunes “Sunshine” by Alice in Chains from the album Facelift (1990, 4:44).

WSJ’s Farnaz Fassihi on life in Iraq

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Recently, a letter from Wall Street Journal reporter Farnaz Fassihi started getting passed around the ‘net, detailing just what day-to-day life in Iraq is like at the moment. That letter has now been confirmed as genuine.

Readers of any nailbiting story from Iraq in a major mainstream newspaper must often wonder what the dispassionate reporter really thinks about the chaotic situation there, and what he or she might be saying in private letters or in conversations with friends back home.

Now, at least in the case of Wall Street Journal correspondent Farnaz Fassihi, we know.

A lengthy letter from Baghdad she recently sent to friends “has rapidly become a global chain mail,” Fassihi told Jim Romenesko on Wednesday after it was finally posted at the Poynter Institute’s Web site. She confirmed writing the letter.

“Iraqis say that thanks to America they got freedom in exchange for insecurity,” Fassihi wrote (among much else) in the letter. “Guess what? They say they’d take security over freedom any day, even if it means having a dictator ruler.” And: “Despite President Bush’s rosy assessments, Iraq remains a disaster. If under Saddam it was a ‘potential’ threat, under the Americans it has been transformed to ‘imminent and active threat,’ a foreign policy failure bound to haunt the United States for decades to come.”

Read on for the full text of Fassihi’s letter…

Being a foreign correspondent in Baghdad these days is like being under virtual house arrest. Forget about the reasons that lured me to this job: a chance to see the world, explore the exotic, meet new people in far away lands, discover their ways and tell stories that could make a difference.

Little by little, day-by-day, being based in Iraq has defied all those reasons. I am house bound. I leave when I have a very good reason to and a scheduled interview. I avoid going to people’s homes and never walk in the streets. I can’t go grocery shopping any more, can’t eat in restaurants, can’t strike a conversation with strangers, can’t look for stories, can’t drive in any thing but a full armored car, can’t go to scenes of breaking news stories, can’t be stuck in traffic, can’t speak English outside, can’t take a road trip, can’t say I’m an American, can’t linger at checkpoints, can’t be curious about what people are saying, doing, feeling. And can’t and can’t.

There has been one too many close calls, including a car bomb so near our house that it blew out all the windows. So now my most pressing concern every day is not to write a kick-ass story but to stay alive and make sure our Iraqi employees stay alive. In Baghdad I am a security personnel first, a reporter second.

It’s hard to pinpoint when the turning point exactly began. Was it April when the Fallujah fell out of the grasp of the Americans? Was it when Moqtada and Jish Mahdi declared war on the U.S. military? Was it when Sadr City, home to ten percent of Iraq’s population, became a nightly battlefield for the Americans? Or was it when the insurgency began spreading from isolated pockets in the Sunni triangle to include most of Iraq? Despite President Bush’s rosy assessments, Iraq remains a disaster. If under Saddam it was a potential threat, under the Americans it has been transformed to imminent and active threat, a foreign policy failure bound to haunt the United States for decades to come.

Iraqis like to call this mess the situation. ÊWhen asked how are things? they reply: the situation is very bad.

What they mean by situation is this: the Iraqi government doesn’t control most Iraqi cities, there are several car bombs going off each day around the country killing and injuring scores of innocent people, the country’s roads are becoming impassable and littered by hundreds of landmines and explosive devices aimed to kill American soldiers, there are assassinations, kidnappings and beheadings. The situation, basically, means a raging barbaric guerilla war.

In four days, 110 people died and over 300 got injured in Baghdad alone. The numbers are so shocking that the ministry of health, which was attempting an exercise of public transparency by releasing the numbers– has now stopped disclosing them.

Insurgents now attack Americans 87 times a day.

A friend drove thru the Shiite slum of Sadr City yesterday. He said young men were openly placing improvised explosive devices into the ground. They melt a shallow hole into the asphalt, dig the explosive, cover it with dirt and put an old tire or plastic can over it to signal to the locals this is booby-trapped. He said on the main roads of Sadr City, there were a dozen landmines per every ten yards. His car snaked and swirled to avoid driving over them. Behind the walls sits an angry Iraqi ready to detonate them as soon as an American convoy gets near. This is in Shiite land, the population that was supposed to love America for liberating Iraq.

For journalists the significant turning point came with the wave of abduction and kidnappings. Only two weeks ago we felt safe around Baghdad because foreigners were being abducted on the roads and highways between towns. Then came a frantic phone call from a journalist female friend at 11 p.m. telling me two Italian women had been abducted from their homes in broad daylight. Then the two Americans, who got beheaded this week and the Brit, were abducted from their homes in a residential neighborhood. They were supplying the entire block with round the clock electricity from their generator to win friends. The abductors grabbed one of them at 6 a.m. when he came out to switch on the generator; his beheaded body was thrown back near the neighborhoods. The insurgency, we are told, is rampant with no signs of calming down. If any thing, it is growing stronger, organized and more sophisticated every day. The various elements within it — baathists, criminals, nationalists and Al Qaeda — are cooperating and coordinating.

I went to an emergency meeting for foreign correspondents with the military and embassy to discuss the kidnappings. We were somberly told our fate would largely depend on where we were in the kidnapping chain once it was determined we were missing. ÊHere is how it goes: criminal gangs grab you and sell you up to Baathists in Fallujah, who will in turn sell you to Al Qaeda. In turn, cash and weapons flow the other way from Al Qaeda to the Baathisst to the criminals. My friend Georges, the French journalist snatched on the road to Najaf, has been missing for a month with no word on release or whether he is still alive.

America’s last hope for a quick exit? The Iraqi police and National Guard units we are spending billions of dollars to train. The cops are being murdered by the dozens every dayÜover 700 to date — and the insurgents are infiltrating their ranks. The problem is so serious that the U.S. military has allocated \$6 million dollars to buy out 30,000 cops they just trained to get rid of them quietly.

As for reconstruction: firstly it’s so unsafe for foreigners to operate that almost all projects have come to a halt. After two years, of the \$18 billion Congress appropriated for Iraq reconstruction only about \$1 billion or so has been spent and a chuck has now been reallocated for improving security, a sign of just how bad things are going here.

Oil dreams? Insurgents disrupt oil flow routinely as a result of sabotage and oil prices have hit record high of \$49 a barrel.

Who did this war exactly benefit? Was it worth it? Are we safer because Saddam is holed up and Al Qaeda is running around in Iraq?

Iraqis say that thanks to America they got freedom in exchange for insecurity. Guess what? They say they’d take security over freedom any day, even if it means having a dictator ruler.

I heard an educated Iraqi say today that if Saddam Hussein were allowed to run for elections he would get the majority of the vote. This is truly sad.

Then I went to see an Iraqi scholar this week to talk to him about elections here. He has been trying to educate the public on the importance of voting. He said, “President Bush wanted to turn Iraq into a democracy that would be an example for the Middle East. Forget about democracy, forget about being a model for the region, we have to salvage Iraq before all is lost.”

One could argue that Iraq is already lost beyond salvation. For those of us on the ground it’s hard to imagine what if any thing could salvage it from its violent downward spiral.

The genie of terrorism, chaos and mayhem has been unleashed onto this country as a result of American mistakes and it can’t be put back into a bottle.

The Iraqi government is talking about having elections in three months while half of the country remains a no go zone — out of the hands of the government and the Americans and out of reach of journalists. In the other half, the disenchanted population is too terrified to show up at polling stations. The Sunnis have already said they’d boycott elections, leaving the stage open for polarized government of Kurds and Shiites that will not be deemed as legitimate and will most certainly lead to civil war.

I asked a 28-year-old engineer if he and his family would participate in the Iraqi elections since it was the first time Iraqis could to some degree elect a leadership. His response summed it all: “Go and vote and risk being blown into pieces or followed by the insurgents and murdered for cooperating with the Americans? For what? To practice democracy? Are you joking?”

(via Boing Boing)

Future past tense? Past future?

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There’s sure a lot of past tense in this article about the presidential debates — which don’t happen for another five hours or so.

After a deluge of campaign speeches and hostile television ads, President Bush and challenger John Kerry got their chance to face each other directly Thursday night before an audience of tens of millions of voters in a high-stakes debate about terrorism, the Iraq war and the bloody aftermath.

The 90-minute encounter was particularly crucial for Kerry, trailing slightly in the polls and struggling for momentum less than five weeks before the election. The Democratic candidate faced the challenge of presenting himself as a credible commander in chief after a torrent of Republican criticism that he was prone to changing his positions.

(via Atrios)

Debate rules

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Just overheard on KEXP, during a momentary digression to talk about tonight’s presidential debate…

“You’ll be happy to know that the podiums are lucite, clear. So there won’t be anybody scratching their balls during this debate.”

(long pause)

“Did you just say what I think you did?”

“Yup.”

“I don’t know if you can say that!”

“Oops! I hope the boss wasn’t listening.”

“We crossed a line. I didn’t know there were any left.”

— Cheryl and John

Incidentally, they’re in the midst of their pledge drive. If you don’t listen to KEXP yet (and you don’t even have to live in Seattle, thanks to the miracle of streaming audio), you should…and if you do, toss ’em a few dollars. I just did. :)

Bush’s hometown paper endorses Kerry

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Ouch. That’s gotta sting — the newspaper for Bush’s adopted hometown of Crawford, TX has expressed its discontent with Bush’s presidency and endorsed John Kerry for President.

The weekly Lone Star Iconoclast criticized Bush’s handling of the war in Iraq and for turning budget surpluses into record deficits. The editorial also criticized Bush’s proposals on Social Security and Medicare.

“The publishers of The Iconoclast endorsed Bush four years ago, based on the things he promised, not on this smoke-screened agenda,” the newspaper said in its editorial. “Today, we are endorsing his opponent, John Kerry.”

It urged “Texans not to rate the candidate by his hometown or even his political party, but instead by where he intends to take the country.”

(via Terrence, via The Agonist)

Update: Here’s the editorial itself.

Few Americans would have voted for George W. Bush four years ago if he had promised that, as President, he would:

  • Empty the Social Security trust fund by \$507 billion to help offset fiscal irresponsibility and at the same time slash Social Security benefits.
  • Cut Medicare by 17 percent and reduce veterans’ benefits and military pay.
  • Eliminate overtime pay for millions of Americans and raise oil prices by 50 percent.
  • Give tax cuts to businesses that sent American jobs overseas, and, in fact, by policy encourage their departure.
  • Give away billions of tax dollars in government contracts without competitive bids.
  • Involve this country in a deadly and highly questionable war, and
  • Take a budget surplus and turn it into the worst deficit in the history of the United States, creating a debt in just four years that will take generations to repay.

These were elements of a hidden agenda that surfaced only after he took office.

(thanks to The Daily Kos)

A Day in the Life of Joe Republican

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Found on This Modern World, an e-mail that’s apparently making the rounds:

Joe gets up at 6 a.m. and fills his coffeepot with water to prepare his morning coffee. The water is clean and good because some tree-hugging liberal fought for minimum water-quality standards. With his first swallow of water, he takes his daily medication. His medications are safe to take because some stupid commie liberal fought to ensure their safety and that they work as advertised.

All but \$10 of his medications are paid for by his employer’s medical plan because some liberal union workers fought their employers for paid medical insurance – now Joe gets it too.

He prepares his morning breakfast, bacon and eggs. Joe’s bacon is safe to eat because some girly-man liberal fought for laws to regulate the meat packing industry.

In the morning shower, Joe reaches for his shampoo. His bottle is properly labeled with each ingredient and its amount in the total contents because some crybaby liberal fought for his right to know what he was putting on his body and how much it contained.

Joe dresses, walks outside and takes a deep breath. The air he breathes is clean because some environmentalist wacko liberal fought for the laws to stop industries from polluting our air.

He walks on the government-provided sidewalk to subway station for his government-subsidized ride to work. It saves him considerable money in parking and transportation fees because some fancy-pants liberal fought for affordable public transportation, which gives everyone the opportunity to be a contributor.

Joe begins his work day. He has a good job with excellent pay, medical benefits, retirement, paid holidays and vacation because some lazy liberal union members fought and died for these working standards. Joe’s employer pays these standards because Joe’s employer doesn’t want his employees to call the union.

If Joe is hurt on the job or becomes unemployed, he’ll get a worker compensation or unemployment check because some stupid liberal didn’t think he should lose his home because of his temporary misfortune.

It is noontime and Joe needs to make a bank deposit so he can pay some bills. Joe’s deposit is federally insured by the FSLIC because some godless liberal wanted to protect Joe’s money from unscrupulous bankers who ruined the banking system before the Great Depression.

Joe has to pay his Fannie Mae-underwritten mortgage and his below-market federal student loan because some elitist liberal decided that Joe and the government would be better off if he was educated and earned more money over his lifetime. Joe also forgets that his in addition to his federally subsidized student loans, he attended a state funded university.

Joe is home from work. He plans to visit his father this evening at his farm home in the country. He gets in his car for the drive. His car is among the safest in the world because some America-hating liberal fought for car safety standards to go along with the tax-payer funded roads.

He arrives at his boyhood home. His was the third generation to live in the house financed by Farmers’ Home Administration because bankers didn’t want to make rural loans.

The house didn’t have electricity until some big-government liberal stuck his nose where it didn’t belong and demanded rural electrification.

He is happy to see his father, who is now retired. His father lives on Social Security and a union pension because some wine-drinking, cheese-eating liberal made sure he could take care of himself so Joe wouldn’t have to.

Joe gets back in his car for the ride home, and turns on a radio talk show. The radio host keeps saying that liberals are bad and conservatives are good. He doesn’t mention that the beloved Republicans have fought against every protection and benefit Joe enjoys throughout his day. Joe agrees: “We don’t need those big-government liberals ruining our lives! After all, I’m a self-made man who believes everyone should take care of themselves, just like I have.”

Don’cha just hate those liberals?

What if…?

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This is really worth reading and thinking about: What if America were like Iraq?

What would America look like if it were in Iraq’s current situation? The population of the US is over 11 times that of Iraq, so a lot of statistics would have to be multiplied by that number.

Thus, violence killed 300 Iraqis last week, the equivalent proportionately of 3,300 Americans. What if 3,300 Americans had died in car bombings, grenade and rocket attacks, machine gun spray, and aerial bombardment in the last week? That is a number greater than the deaths on September 11, and if America were Iraq, it would be an ongoing, weekly or monthly toll.

And what if those deaths occurred all over the country, including in the capital of Washington, DC, but mainly above the Mason Dixon line, in Boston, Minneapolis, Salt Lake City, and San Francisco?

What if the grounds of the White House and the government buildings near the Mall were constantly taking mortar fire? What if almost nobody in the State Department at Foggy Bottom, the White House, or the Pentagon dared venture out of their buildings, and considered it dangerous to go over to Crystal City or Alexandria?

It goes on from there, and it’s not a pretty picture. Might give some a better mental concept of just what the situation in Iraq is like right now.

(via Backup Brain)

iTunes “Thank You” by Duran Duran from the album Encomium: A Tribute to Led Zeppelin (1995, 4:33).