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Notes & comment on politics, culture & society

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Steve Trumbull is a photographer and photo researcher based in Charlottesville Virginia. He has done many photo projects including the current C'ville Images, focused on photographs of his hometown.

30 June 2005

Monkey To Man

An article in this month's National Geographic explains how religion and politics are undermining potential advancement in science, specifically in stem-cell research.

The author further points out that this may in turn undermine a significant industry that could help the U.S. economy: "With more and more countries aggressively developing stem cell therapies, the United States is in real danger of being left behind.

Meanwhile,in Newsweek, George Will argues that the creationism vs. evolution debate is not going away any time soon. Anti-evolution seems to be as strong today as it was 80 years ago when John Scopes challenged the Tennessee law prohibiting teaching of "any theory that denies the story of the divine creation of man."

George W. Bush has called the theory of evolution "iffy".

In the U.S. it sometimes seems we are sleepwalking back through time toward the Dark Ages.

British Musician and Songwriter Elvis Costello went to Clarksdale, Mississippi, to record his song "Monkey To Man." In the tune he gives the ape's perspective:

"Every time that man struggles and fails,
He makes up some kind of fairytales
After all the misery that he has caused
He denies he's decended from the dinosaurs
Points up to heaven with cathedral spires
All the time indulging in his base desires
Ever since we said it
He went and took the credit
It's been headed that way since the world began
When a vicious creature to the jump
From Monkey to Man"

29 June 2005

Home Run Highlight

"Highlights are the ruination of sport. They show all the wrong things: dunks, fights, holes-in-one by golfers not in contention. And home-runs."

-Sports commentator Frank Deford

28 June 2005

Poll Reading

"According to the latest polls, Americans are not saying that U.S. troops should leave instantly. They're saying they feel the country is bogged down in a war that was a mistake in the first place, they're saying they feel misled by the president and have lost confidence in him, and they're saying they want to know the way out.

They're not saying abandon the troops; they're saying support the troops. They're not saying dishonor the dead, they're saying stop the dying. They're not saying let the terrorists win; they're saying they don't think that victory in Iraq will have a major impact on terrorism elsewhere."

-Dan Fromkin, White House Breifing column in The Washington Post

24 June 2005

Apology Chicken

It seems the nation’s capitol is engaged in a game of chicken. Apology Chicken. Each side seeks out some spoken offense of the other side and then demands an apology. They go on talk shows and radio and spread the “outrage” until the offender is forced to respond.

The most recent example is the flack received by Sen. Dick Durbin after drawing comparisons to the torture at the hand of American forces to the torture done in the past at the hand of some foreign forces. What Durbin said was that if you were to read the description of what was done by American troops it would be hard to distinguish it from things done by Nazi or Soviet troops.

Republicans came out of the woodwork demanding an apology.

Sen. Durbin held fast.

The Republicans kept up their demands and continued to feign outrage at this attack on “our men and women in uniform”.

Durbin flinched. And apologized.

Democrats demand apologies too. As they did this week when Karl Rove insulted them by saying that Democrats were soft on terrorists. (Actually, the more telling thing that Rove said was that in the wake of 9/11, Republicans prepared for war. Which, we have seen, they did indeed.)

What the Republicans do brilliantly is take offense on someone else’s behalf.

Democrats make the mistake of demanding an apology for some affront to Democrats.

They forget: that’s the Republicans’ job - to insult Democrats.

I’m not sure what they think. The Bush team has not and will never apologize for lying to the American people, sending more than 1700 American forces to their deaths, over 10,000 to lives as handicapped persons, and easily more than 100,000 Iraqi men, women, and children to their own horrific deaths. Does anyone think they would say they are sorry for making some Democrat feel bad?

If it were up to me, I wouldn’t call on Sen. Durbin to apologize. I would call on him to resign. For apologizing. Along with any other spineless Democrat who can’t say something and stand by it.

23 June 2005

Purple Fading

"We sacrificed our souls and went out to vote. What did we get? Simply nothing."

-Baghdad resident Karima Sadoun

Hall Of Mirrors

"The hall of mirrors serves as amplification of statements and has become so powerful and the willingness of partisans to parse every utterance for potential error is so great that it is difficult to ratchet down the rhetoric once something like this begins. It just takes on a life of its own."

-Illinois Sen.Barak Obama on partisan political rhetoric

22 June 2005

Blind Faith

Illogical Trust

Writing for The Nation magazine Eric Alterman wonders why Americans seem to trust Bush and the Republicans on national security issues when all the evidence shows an abysmal track record:

“Osama bin Laden remains free, and Al Qaeda has been allowed to regroup.

Iraq, which was not a terrorist threat before Bush attacked it, now accounts for the killing and maiming of Americans daily.

North Korea, the world's most dangerously irrational regime, stands poised to test a nuclear bomb.

Iran, another regime motivated by fear and hatred of the United States, also stands poised to develop a nuclear weapon.

The most obvious terrorist targets in America--nuclear and chemical plants, water and food supplies and transportation networks--remain as vulnerable to terrorists as they were on September 10, 2001, endangering as many as 12 million people in a single attack.

Outside our borders, America is hated as never before, inspiring terrorist recruitment across the Islamic world.”

Mission Message Muddle

The Ever Changing Definition of “Mission” In Iraq

(Thanks to Think Progress for this)

A headline in the Washington Post today declares “Bush Defends Strategy In Iraq, Pledges to ‘Complete the Mission’.” The trouble is that Bush has changed the definition of “mission” so many times, it’s hard to have any confidence in his most recent declarations.

THE PRE-WAR MISSION WAS TO RID IRAQ OF WMD…

Bush: “Our mission is clear in Iraq. Should we have to go in, our mission is very clear: disarmament.” [3/6/03]

AFTER THE WAR BEGAN, THE MISSION EXPANDED…

Bush: “Our cause is just, the security of the nations we serve and the peace of the world. And our mission is clear, to disarm Iraq of weapons of mass destruction, to end Saddam Hussein’s support for terrorism, and to free the Iraqi people.” [3/22/03]
Bush: “Our forces have been given a clear mission: to end a regime that threatened its neighbors and the world with weapons of mass destruction and to free a people that had suffered far too long.” [4/14/03]

THEN THE MISSION WAS COMPLETE…

Bush: “On Thursday, I visited the USS Abraham Lincoln, now headed home after the longest carrier deployment in recent history. I delivered good news to the men and women who fought in the cause of freedom: Their mission is complete, and major combat operations in Iraq have ended..” [5/3/03]

BUT THEN IT CONTINUED AGAIN…

Bush: “The United States and our allies will complete our mission in Iraq.” [7/30/03]

THEN THE MISSION WAS TO DEVELOP A FREE IRAQ…

Bush: “That has been our mission all along, to develop the conditions such that a free Iraq will emerge, run by the Iraqi citizens.” [11/4/03]

Bush: “We will see that Iraq is free and self-governing and democratic. We will accomplish our mission.”
[5/4/04]

AND TO TRAIN THE IRAQI TROOPS…

Bush: “And our mission is clear there, as well, and that is to train the Iraqis so they can do the fighting; make sure they can stand up to defend their freedoms, which they want to do.” [6/2/05]

NOW, COMPLETION OF THE MISSION IS FAR FROM CLEAR…

Bush: “We’re making progress toward the goal, which is, on the one hand, a political process moving forward in Iraq, and on the other hand, the Iraqis capable of defending themselves… And we will – we will complete this mission for the sake of world peace.” [6/20/05]

21 June 2005

Bush's Control

Rules Of The Oval Office

This from the Houston Chronicle:

"Coming to office after the more casual Clinton administration," President Bush "imposed a strict dress code and standards of promptness for employees, visitors and even the rumpled press corps.".

"Members of the White House press corps understand that, as a rule, touching the furniture in the Oval Office is strictly forbidden. Even when Bush brings a group of journalists in for an informal chat, he does not invite them to sit."

A little spooky?

20 June 2005

New Take

It seems Condoleeza Rice is pitching the administration's new take on the length of time we'll be in Iraq:

"The administration, I think, has said to the American people that it is a generational commitment to Iraq."

Of course, early on we were told by Bush this war would be "short and affordable".

A "generational commitment" doesn't sound either short or affordable.

19 June 2005

Disconnected

Chuck Hagel, who initially supported the war in Iraq and who is also considering a run for the White House in 2008, had this to say about Bush's handling of Iraq:

"Things aren't getting better; they're getting worse. The White House is completely disconnected from reality. It's like they're just making it up as they go along. The reality is that we're losing in Iraq."

Acccording to the latest polls, about 60% of Americans agree with him.

10 June 2005

Half-right

“When President Bush says 'polls go up, and polls go down,' he's about half right.”

-Dan Froomkin writing in his column today titled "The Increasingly Unpopular President"

07 June 2005

Take the Pastrami

Leave The Bologna

"If you are worried about the federal deficit (and you should be), ask yourself which would do more to improve the country's finances -- President Bush's latest budget or a pastrami sandwich. The administration made much of the fact that the budget Bush proposed in February was his tightest yet and was projected to reduce the deficit by half, to $207 billion, in 2010. What the administration did not make much of -- you had to look deep in the fine print -- is that the deficit would actually decline a bit more between now and 2010 if the Bush plan were not enacted and existing laws were just left alone.

"In other words, go with the pastrami. It is fiscally sounder, plus it's good with mustard and a dill pickle."

-J.Rauch in The Atlantic Monthly

06 June 2005

Cleansing The System

Lesley Stahl On Free Press

CBS reporter Lesley Stahl (who covered Watergate as a rookie journalist) was interviewed by Chris Matthews on Thursday. Here are a few comments she made on covering government officials and some compelling arguments for the use of anonymous sources:

“You cannot cover the United States government in any deep way unless you accept the fact that the only people who are going to tell you what‘s really going on are people who aren‘t going to want their name revealed.

[If an official speaks out] their job would be on the line if they contradicted the president and the orchestrated line of the day.

Just—was it yesterday or the day before? The president had a news conference. Rumsfeld, Cheney and Richard Myers, the general, all were saying the same thing. That was the point of the day. You know, Iraq is fine. That is—that is what happens in the morning. The line is put out. Anybody who tries to help a reporter get behind that and find out what it means, whether it is true, whatever is being put out, is never going to do it with his name on it.

You‘re never going to cleanse out the system. You‘re never going to figure out who is corrupt and what‘s going on unless you accept you‘re going to have to take anonymous sources.

I was heartened by a poll that showed that Woodward and what he did are viewed by young people as heroes. You know, other systems [of government in other countries] have a lot of corruption. You look at a system that doesn‘t have that kind of penetrating press, free to roam and take anonymous sources and print them, they have a layer of corruption.

This is how we keep our system clean. This is how the United States, after all these years, gets to clean itself out, because the press is allowed to do this and is free to do this. And if people start—the public starts clamping down on our ability to ferret around like this, it is not healthy for the whole system.

To look back and say it wasn‘t in everybody‘s interest to clean out the corruption doesn‘t make any sense. And it was corrupt.”

Many would argue the system needs a good cleansing right about now.

Nixon's Shadow

And Bush's Hiding Place?

Astute political analyst Craig Crawford made this observation this week:

"Bush’s insular White House, known for an unprecedented control of leaks and a neutered Cabinet, makes it seem unthinkable that he could be undermined by anyone inside his government. But that is what we thought about Nixon early into his second term. His power was unassailable, earning his office the name Imperial Presidency."

"Yet, just like Nixon’s, this presidency could be one Deep Throat away from unraveling. Not that anyone suspects the Bush White House to be running anything remotely similar to the criminal enterprise of Nixon’s crowd. But the revelation that Deep Throat was a well-placed mole inside the administration might encourage the media to hunt down that one killer source from within the beast itself."

Meanwhile, when Newsweek magazine asked if he thinks a new Deep Throat could “materialize in the shadows" of the Bush Administration, Bob Woodward said: "I believe so. And I think they know in the Bush administration that it's always a real possibility."

And this from broadcaster Keith Olbermann reporting this afternoon:

“Failed presidential candidate John Kerry said that he intends to confront Congress with a document touted by critics of President Bush as evidence that he committed impeachable crimes by falsifying evidence of weapons of mass destruction in Iraq.
The memo purports to include minutes from a July 2002 meeting with Tony Blair, in which Blair allegedly said that President Bush's administration "fixed" intelligence on Iraq in order to justify the Iraqi war.”

It seems to me that, given the high profile critics of this administration, there would certainly be some insiders willing to blow this whistle on abuses of power (oh, yeah-if there are any) in the high levels of government.

The question is: Are there other journalists with the patience of Woodward and Bernstein, and are there other editors with the courage of Ben Bradlee, out there?

03 June 2005

Mr. Bush's War

Bad to Worse

While the Bush team continues to claim that things are going well in Iraq, Bush himself did slip up this week and admit that he feared for American lives in Iraq.

As well he should. We continue to lose American soldiers and contractors there at a very regular pace even though this press is getting a little bored with reporting on it. Yesterday, three more were killed but you wouldn’t hear much about it if you turned on the TV news.

But American deaths are only part of the bloody costs of the war. What Bush left out of the equation was the number of Iraqis killed by the chaos that has ensued since Iraq was “liberated”. The Iraqi Interior Minister is putting that number at 12,000. 12,000 lives that have been sacrificed because of lack of patience and forethought.

Can Bush sit down with the families of those killed and tell them it was worth it to do it his way?

And this may just be the beginning of the chaos. All of these 12,000 have been killed in ambushes and car bombs and gunfire.

Now it has been discovered that weapons equipment that could be used for making long-range missiles or even bio- or chemical weapons have gone missing from 109 different sites around Iraq. U.N. inspectors, who have been banned by the U.S. from retuning to Iraq, discovered this using satellite imagery.

With all the concern for “weapons of mass destruction” this equipment has never been secured. Who knows now where it will show up and how many more lives it will add to the tally.

Parade Of Nixon Aides

Journalism Jamboree

Here's political watcher Chris Matthews on what he calls the "journalism jamboree of the last 24 hours":

"I think it’s important in this discussion that we listen to reporters for the facts; not the flacks and the hacks. You have to go to the editors and the fact-checkers on a story like this.

All these guys are incredible—Pat Buchanan, Charles Colson, John Dean. But they were all involved in it, in the situation, in the White House… Pat is a Nixon loyalist.
Woodward and Bernstein weren’t questioned on the facts. No one is challenging them on the facts. You can’t get confused between the fire and the fire brigade here. The good guys are the ones catching the bad guys doing the bad things.

The problem with the journalism jamboree of the last 24 hours is that people are coming on TV that have cases to make on behalf of Nixon still, on behalf of their own biographies. But talk to Walter Pincus of the Post, Woodward and Bradlee.. those are the truth-tellers here."

Chris Matthews, of course, hosts one of the shows that give a forum to "the flacks and the hacks" that attack the investigative work of the reporters.

Attack Tactics

The attack on Watergate Informer Mark Felt should come as no surprise.

During the current administration we have seen ruthless attacks on those willing to speak up. Richard Clark and Joe Wilson are just two examples of those who have served their country admirably and were trashed in the wake of their criticisms of the White House and for being willing to step up and tell the truth.

Both Republican politicians and right-wing commentators jump in to discredit anyone who attempts to speak out.

But some journalists are pointing out fairly, that this phenomenon is not limited to conservatives. They quickly go back to the Clinton years and point out the criticism leveled at that great American hero…Linda Tripp.

02 June 2005

Attack The Informer

With the revelation of Mark Felt as the source known as "Deep Throat" during the Watergate scandals of the Nixon Administration, the attack on this arguably brave, certainly bold, whistle-blower is in full force.

The blogger known as the Bull Moose comments on the “emergence of the Nixon Big House Vets for Deceit.”:

”The Nixon Big House Vets for Deceit are attempting to replicate the success of the Swift Boat Vets. Instead of Kerry, their target is Mark Felt.”

”Forget about the trashing of the constitution- Felt's "betrayal" must be punished! Upright law and order types like Liddy and Colson are now lecturing us on ethics. Talk about defining deviancy down! Chuck - what would Jesus do - keep his trap shut to defend criminality? The Tricky Dick Vets are ably assisted by their Communications Director and Gauleiter Pat Buchanan who is taking a much deserved break from his efforts to discredit the Allies' decision to fight the Nazis.”

”Yes, the right has learned much since the Old Man went down in '74. Never defend, always attack. Deflect attention from Nixon's crimes with the charge of disloyalty. Make Felt the criminal. Never retreat. Always advance. The media is the enemy. Vietnam was lost by the quislings on the home front. Of course, we want strict constitutionalists on the court. But if the constitution is an impediment to power - it is only a document for sissies.”

Bush's Bandwagon

And The Democrats Who Still Want To Ride

Potential Democratic Presidential candidate John Edwards has returned to the stump.

On Thursday he told an audience this: Despite Bush’s frequent speeches on liberty around the world, “freedom does not belong to one political party.”

I can’t help but think statements like these may be the key problem with the Democrats. They campaign and talk with a sort of “me too” rhetoric that praises the opposition in a roundabout way saying “we can be like that too”.

The Democrats (and progressive-minded independents) need to explain why Bush’s version of freedom is disingenuous and that he has fought against liberty in many ways, especially here at home. They need to point out that he has neglected opportunities to foster freedom and democracy, especially among African nations. They need to show that democracy's spread in the Mideast is dubious at best and not without an unnecessarily heavy price.

But, instead, the Dems keep making speeches like John Edwards’ saying, in effect, “we want a seat on Bush’s bandwagon.”

Bush's popularity is sinking fast and any potential candidates for the White House in 2008 need to look at the reasons why he has lost that ground. Trying to walk like Bush, talk like Bush, and be like Bush doesn't exactly seem like a winning formula.