A flip flop by any other name . . .
   It's hard to tell which is more lame: President Bush's Monday statement to NBC interviewer Matt Lauer that "I don't think you can win it," referring to the war on terror; or, Tuesday's hurry-up backtracking.
   A news story quotes Bush speaking at a veterans gathering in Nashville today:
   Bush's original statement is actually defensible in the sense that in the face of overwhelming U.S. military might and technological advantage, poorer, less-developed nations and rogue groups with spite or aggression in mind will inevitably turn to terrorism tactics. And, there's an infinite range of easily affordable, low-tech harmful things they can do to us along those lines.
   Perhaps the reason Bush hasn't offered that defense of his statement is that it's a prima facie admission that all the hundreds of billions we spend annually on conventional forces and weapons come nowhere near making us safe and secure. That's really not the kind of thing a pro-corporate, pro-big-money investors Republican president wants to get caught saying.
   Today's wrap-me-in-the-flag statement reveals not the kind of in-depth appreciation of our situation that might be hoped for from a savvy commander in chief, but rather the rah-rah jingoism of a college pep squad leader.
   A more sensible back-and-fill exposition might've gone something like this: We cannot once and for all eliminate every hateful, hate-filled and violent person in the world who might attack us. We can go after and eliminate known groups and individuals, as we are going after al Qaeda, the Taliban, and others. We can reduce their numbers and raise the risks and costs of failed attempts, of discovery. At the same time, we can work to change conditions that foster terrorism and deal with places that harbor and train them.

   Bush's ungainly pirouette with foot in mouth, of course, is not to be mistaken for or in any way likened to a flip flop. Oh, heavens no!
   Remember, when Pravda ran obituaries a day or two ahead of people being "liquidated" in Stalin's Soviet Union, it was not an official mistake but rather evidence of socialist efficiency. And, when President Richard Nixon decided after long years of foot dragging to liquidate our involvement in Vietnam, he called turning over the country's defense to the functional equivalent of a group of half-trained and quarter-motivated boy scouts "Vietnamization." (We thought at the time of a poor pig being subjected to baconization.)
   OK, so for now at least we'll try to resist the really big temptation to throw the charge "flip-flop" back in his face, even though he's more than got it coming. However, we reserve the right to mention that Bush was for saying we can't win the war on terrorism before he was for saying we can win the war on terrorism. Or, the other way around, depending on when you want to start timing his shifts of position.
  — By S.W. Anderson
¶ 9:18 PM

 
Administration has weakened our hand
   "We have seen what this administration's approach does to our standing in the world. It isolates us. It costs us respect from our allies. It means we must face these new challenges alone. And their failed leadership means that they cannot deal with the new threats we face in America."
  — By S.W. Anderson
¶ 3:13 PM

 
First lady outpolls the president
   President Bush can be glad his wife doesn't have personal political ambitions. If she did, he'd be sunk. According to this news story, first lady Laura Bush enjoys a favorable rating of 66 percent, an unfavorable rating of 12 percent. George W. Bush's favorable is just over half, while more than 40 percent view him unfavorably.
   To that insight we will add our hunch that if Laura Bush were a contender, it's quite likely more Americans would favor her policy preferences than those of her husband. However, that's not saying a lot. Since before he was installed in the White House, polls have consistently shown most Americans are at odds with George W.'s position on most policy matters.
   We view the inconsistency between people's policy-preference responses and the latest favorability poll results for President Bush as the amount of suspension of disbelief $100 million worth of propaganda can buy.

   Excuse us, but your imbalance is showing: Are we imagining things or are Democrats a little thin on the tube this evening, as the Republicans get their convention going? We distinctly remember that, beginning the weekend before it opened, the cable news and talk shows' coverage of the Democratic convention was wall to wall with Republicans commenting on every aspect of the gathering — Ed Gillespie here, Marc Racicot there and acrid old Bob Dole everywhere. And when they took time out to go to the john or something, there was Matthew Dowd or Rep. David Dreier to take up the slack.
   While we're on convention coverage, we'll add an admittedly subjective judgment that the, ahem, journalists covering the GOP convention have spent the day tossing marshmallows to the accomplished spinmeisters and cheerleaders of the right. The deference, the kid-gloves approach smacks of a bunch of closet neocons and weak weenies who've checked the latest polls and made a craven calculation: Bush might just be around for another four years, which means news types who ask especially difficult and unwelcome questions could be in for four years worth of access problems with the powers that be. Couldn't have that now, could we?
   Pass the nausea pills, please.

   Does this guy know how to call 'em or what?: In an Aug. 2 story for the U.K. Independent, Andrew Buncombe laid out the Republicans' strategy for bashing Kerry's post-convention bounce in the polls away:
   We trust Buncombe thanked Karl Rove. While we're at it, we'll point out Kerry's tour in the Vietnam war zone was more like a year. His Swiftboat duty was an additional four months. Imparts a whole different impression when you tell the whole story.

   Remedial geography classes meet in Room 208: The James Jones family moved from Hempstead, N.Y., to an Atlanta suburb in Gwinnett County, Ga., not long ago. Son Terrell went to school wearing a "Hempstead 516" T-shirt. Big mistake. An ignoramus school administrator hauled the young man out of class, claiming the shirt had something to do with marijuana — hemp, get it? And Terrell couldn't get back into school until he got school officials to go on the Internet and look up Hempstead, which has a phone area code of 516.
   It's not like Hempstead is some little, out-of-the-way place. As the news story on this points out, it's the country's largest township, with 759,000 residents. James Jones says he wants an apology, and one should be forthcoming. Then, that administrator ought to be enrolled in a good course in American geography, preferably one with lots of maps and pictures.

   None are so deaf as those who will not hear: White House Communications director Dan Bartlett appeared on CNN today, in a cozy convention sit-down with Wolf Blitzer and Judy Woodruff, who just sat there like bobbing-head toys, letting the guy make his fast-talk, hard-sell infomercial-style pitch. Almost no questions, nary a challenge of any of the guy's spin, distortions, factual errors and whoppers. Sometimes you have to wonder if Wolf and Judy and Candy and the rest are being paid for their decorative value, because content wise they have these lapses when they just seem to be out to lunch way past lunch hour. But, if George Bush was a Salad Shooter, he'd have had it it made when Bartlett got through. Thank you, CNN.
   Anyway, somewhere in Bartlett's blather, he said John Kerry really didn't make clear at his convention what he would do about Iraq.
   No, Dan, Kerry was loud and crystal clear about that. You've either been off the planet, had your head buried in talking points memos or chose not to hear what the man said.
   As a special favor, we'll give Bartlett and anyone else who missed it the short version: Kerry will straighten out the godawful, failed, deadly, horrendously costly Iraq mess President George W. Bush bungled other people's sons, daughters, husbands and wives, brothers and sisters, and hard-earned money into. He will arrange for more full partners to provide more help in stabilizing the country. He will proceed with a substantial withdrawal of U.S. forces as a high priority. He will not spell out specifics in detail because to do so would be to spill the beans to al Qaeda and others who do not wish us well.
   Now do you get it, Bartlett? If not, we'd be glad to recommend you for a job with the Gwinnett County, Ga., schools.
  — By S.W. Anderson
¶ 11:32 PM

 
New York, New York, it had to be you
s the Republican convention gets under way in heavily Democratic New York City, amidst a steady string of demonstrations by people with little use for Republican policies and politicians in general, and for President Bush most especially, some have paused to ask, "Why New York City?"
   The typical answer is that New York was chosen to show support for the city most hurt in the 9-11 attack. One talking head said Bush feels a special bond with New Yorkers. Both are plausible answers and may be factors, but we suspect other answers are more to the point.
   First, a funds-strapped and hurting New York City appealed to the federal government for help back when Bush's father was president. All Bush 41 gave the city was a cold shoulder, causing some New Yorkers to react angrily. The elder Bush famously responded that NYC could go to hell. He also repeatedly refused to show up for the national meetings of cities organizations. Some believe those decisions helped bring about his early retirement, an outcome Bush 43 wants to avoid for himself.
   Another reason for picking the Big Apple has to do with going where the money is — one thing at which George W. Bush excels. Madison Square Garden isn't far from Wall Street, home many of Bush's biggest and most faithful contributors, including the investment firms of Bear Stearns, Lehman Bros., Merrill Lynch and Goldman Sachs. These outfits are in business to put money where they're assured of big returns. That certainly describes George W. Bush. During his presidency the big-money men and women of Wall Street have enjoyed both personal and business tax breaks along with about every form of accommodation from the federal government their little hearts desired. No wonder, then, that Bush feels so at home in their town.
   Elsewhere across the land, where so many factories have closed for good; where so many call centers have closed for good; where millions of better-paying jobs have been sent to Third World countries, making the Bear Stearns-Merrill Lynch types ever wealthier while leaving millions of others to join the steady four-year increase in the total of Americans living in poverty, a Republican convention might be received with less enthusiasm than in New York.
  — By S.W. Anderson
¶ 8:18 PM

 
E-voting adds to election credibility concern
   "I'm very worried that if the election is very, very close, the outcome will not be believed by a lot of people."
  — By S.W. Anderson
¶ 3:18 PM

 
Swiftboat veterans with pants on fire
   How ironic, that Sen. John Kerry's poll numbers have sagged a bit under the weight of all the falsehoods and mud slung by a pack of liars and vengeful incompetents named Swiftboat Veterans for Truth.
   What must be understood is that their truth is of the Matt Drudge-Rush Limbaugh variety. That is, it doesn't have to be based on verifiable facts and unimpeachable sources. What it does have to be is plausible enough to satisfy hard-core Kerry bashers desperate for some good old politics of personal destruction.

   "Hey, Jerry-Joe Jeff, quit suckin' up that Lone Star and give me your cell phone, we're gonna whoop us some Massachusetts-liberal butt."
   "Uh, say what?"
   "You heard me, boy. I'm gonna call good ol' Bob Barr over in Georgia, get that S.O.B. Kerry IM-peached! Maybe you forgot, but I was on one of them Swiftboats back in '69. I never seen Kerry get shot at."
   "Aw cut it out Billy-Bo. You got busted for smokin' pot after a day and a half on that Swiftboat and spent 90 days in the brig before being shipped out to the Aleutians. Besides, you can't IM-peach no candidate. He'd have to be elected first."
   "Hey, keep your voice down 'bout my service record. You sure 'bout that having to get elected first?"
   "Course I'm sure. We learnt it in ninth grade. Course, that explains why you wouldn't know, heh heh."

   Let's consider the credibility of Swiftboat Veteran for Truth Alfred French, a Clackamas County, Ore., prosecutor who served in the same unit as Kerry in 1969. French appears in one of the group's scurrilous commercials calling Kerry a liar.
   The following is from a Portland Oregonian story:
   Well, what do you know? Here we have an attorney — a prosecuting attorney — educated and trained in the rules of evidence, yet, relying on hearsay before appearing on TV in an ad calling another man a liar. And, here we have an officer of the court, yet, signing an affidavit attesting to the truth of the statements made in the ad — based on that hearsay.
   The mind boggles. But hold on, Hoss, 'cause there's more to the story. Going on TV across the land to lie about Kerry isn't French's one and only little trip-up.
   The story goes on to say French's action in signing the affidavit for the Swiftboat Veterans for Truth ad is also under investigation by the Clackamas County prosecutor's office.
   So, we can add an admitted liar and fellow attorney — in case anyone mistook that professional status for ironclad assurance of honesty and reliability — to Kerryphobe John O'Neill's menagerie. French will fit right in with O'Neill's now-infamous co-author, Jerry Corsi, who will long be remembered for his Web postings badmouthing Pope John Paul, Jews and Muslims.

   Just for good measure, let's throw in another — you guessed it — lawyer: Benjamin L. Ginsberg, the Bush-Cheney campaign's legal beagle. You'd think someone practicing in such a rarified atmosphere as presidential politics in the nation's capital, with the president and vice president for clients, would know and toe the mark, right?
   Well, Ginsberg apparently had a Republican anything-to-win moment when asked to represent — coincidence here, we're expected to believe — the Swiftboat Veterans for Truth, and so said yes. Said yes, even though he damn well knew what he was doing was against the law. But oh, mercy to heavens, don't anyone dare to even suggest that there's even the slightest coordination or collusion between the Bush-Cheney Campaign and the Swiftboat Veterans for Truth — just because they've got the same lawyer.
   After all, Ginsberg is a respected professional, a lawyer, trusted by Bush himself. Would a man like that lie? Would a man like that represent a group of people who would lie?

   These characters who obviously consider the rest of us gullible idiots, then, are the sort of people who make for a Republican election-year smear campaign. Are any of them telling the full, unvarnished truth about anything besides how much they detest Kerry? Who knows? But the more we learn about them, the less reason we have to believe any of them about anything.

   "Hey, Jerry-Joe Jeff, maybe I'll just e-mail Rush. Hell, he'll go with anything; he don't give a sh . . ."
   "Billy-Bo, like your ol' lady says, why don't you get a life? Now, it's your turn to buy a round. How 'bout it?"
  — By S.W. Anderson
¶ 12:17 AM

 
New York's finest handled protest wisely
   As a kickoff to the week's unofficial, unauthorized and uninhibited Republican National Convention protest festivities, a group of dedicated AIDS activists bared their bodies across from New York City's Madison Square Garden on Thursday.
   To no one's surprise, the protesters attracted plenty of attention not only from passers-by, but also from the media and New York's finest. Along with lots of skin, the small group displayed a banner and regaled the crowd with chants calling for the U.S. to forgive poor countries' debts so the money can be used to fight AIDS.
   News reports said police let the protesters do their thing and have their say for about 10 minutes before cracking down. Those who quickly donned their duds were allowed to depart. Those who remained nude were removed, with no tussling involved, presumably to face charges of some sort. Interestingly, the stories say police didn't specify charges.

   Oh!pinion salutes the New York Police Department officers on hand for having the good sense and decency — yes, decency — to just let it be for a few minutes. As officers of the law they must enforce the law. So, if the law says naked people aren't allowed out in public, well, there you go. But the officers do have leeway in how quickly and assertively they enforce it.
   Somebody in blue realized the jaybird contingent wasn't really hurting anyone or being hurt by anyone, that all they wanted was their moment in the sun. By going along with them briefly, police averted the kind of angry struggle public protests have degenerated into so often in the past. Good for them.
   And good for the protesters. No doubt realizing they had been indulged, the protesters either dressed and booked or let themselves be peacefully taken away for booking. Fair enough.
   In a week marred by contention over the goings on of 30-plus years ago, it's encouraging to see police and protest types have both learned a few things. Back in the bad old days, the protest would've concluded with a knock-down, drag-out battle, literally, and hard feelings all around.
   More on the protest can be seen at Actupny.org.


  — By S.W. Anderson
¶ 5:14 PM

 
More Swiftboat vet truth surfaces
   "There was a lot of firing going on, and it came from both sides of the river."
     — By S.W. Anderson
¶ 7:42 PM

 
Smear-job artists exploit a perfect setup
   Tom Oliphant describes the anatomy of the "politics of personal destruction" beast in his Aug. 22 column in the Boston Globe. Especially insightful is Oliphant's explanation of how political slime-job specialists work the media:
   There's a case to be made that the 24-hour news cycle is as much curse as blessing. Likewise, that the worth of what squawk-show talking heads have to say is usually inversely proportional to the number of them squawking about a particular topic, the amount of squawking they do and how much news coverage their output subsequently receives.
   Oliphant associates the traction smear jobs get today with lowered standards since the advent of cable channels. He's right.
  — By S.W. Anderson
¶ 5:53 PM

 
Love for lesbian daughter enlightens
he Republican platform-writing committee is including a plank not only opposed to same-sex marriage but to any form of civil union for gays and lesbians.
   Meanwhile, as this story reports, social conservatives' tongues are getting a workout reacting to Vice President Dick Cheney's Tuesday statements on the matter.
   Cheney said states ought to define what constitutes marriage. Furthermore, Cheney did the unthinkable, expressing an opinion different from President Bush's. Cheney said he doesn't support a constitutional amendment banning gay and lesbian marriages because, "freedom means freedom for everyone" to enter "into any kind of relationship they want."
   That sentiment seems perfectly in keeping with old-line conservative beliefs about not imposing the power of federal government into states' affairs and, especially, into the personal decisions of individual adult citizens. But those traditional conservative beliefs were filed and forgotten when the Republican Party became a willing vehicle for fundamentalist Christian hustlers seeking political power back in the late 1970s. Now, those fundamentalists form the core of Bush's political base.

   What has Cheney on a different page from his boss and from one of the two power centers of his party (the other being big-money business and financial interests) is that Cheney has a daughter, Mary, who is a lesbian. This experience, obviously, has caused Cheney to examine his heart, his values, certain realities of life and to reach conclusions at odds with Bush, the religious right and his party.
   To put it another way, those in Republican/religious right ranks who want to shove gays and lesbians back into the closet, back into lives of shame and self-loathing, believing they're abominations in the eyes of God, are ignorant of something Cheney has learned thanks to a life lesson.
   Note this from the above-cited story:
   Let's try to make this simple for Combs and others like her. Cheney loves his daughter. He realizes she got her sexual orientation the same way he got his and Combs got hers, by being wired for it at birth. He expressed his differing belief, obviously, because he loves his daughter and thinks how society treats her and others who are lesbian and gay is important.
   From her statement, it seems likely Combs hasn't had to confront this situation at home or among loved ones. Or, if she has, perhaps she's of the opinion that lifelong repression of one of a human being's most basic drives and needs should be imposed from within and without, while hiding one's true nature and feelings by living a lie.

   Combs, her Christian Coalition members and the Republicans would do well to be mindful of a stunningly humane and logical admonition from an impeccable source: "Do unto others as you would have them do unto you."
   On this matter, at least, Cheney's on the right track. Now, if only Bush had a son trying to support a family with a nonunion, low-wage job after having been laid off from a much better-paying job because of outsourcing.

  — By S.W. Anderson
¶ 3:03 PM

 
Could've been a hero, chose to be a zero
   Life has a way, now and then, of bestowing an opportunity to reach down deep inside for the wisdom and imagination to do some decent, unexpected thing that ends up winning others' admiration.
   We're not talking about battlefield heroism or the steely selflessness that sends a person into a raging river to save a life. Nor are we referring to embracing a firefighter at the scene of a great tragedy where many of his comrades had lost their lives, worthwhile though such a gesture is.
   What we're talking about relates more closely to exhibiting a combination of character, confidence, openness of heart and bigness of spirit.
   President George W. Bush got one of those rare opportunities today, and he just blew it off.

   Max Cleland is a former U.S. senator, former head of the Department of Veterans Affairs and a decorated veteran who lost three of his limbs in Vietnam. Although he's very much a Democrat and supports Sen. John Kerry, Cleland is also a good-hearted, thoroughly decent man.
   Today, Cleland showed up at Bush's ranch in Crawford, Texas. He came asking, respectfully, to see Bush for a few minutes so he could deliver a letter signed by himself and nine decorated-veteran members of the U.S. Senate, including one who holds the Congressional Medal of Honor, the nation's highest award for valor.
   As reported on CNN today, the letter basically urges Bush to ask or tell those behind the Swiftboat Veterans for Truth's smear campaign to stop what they're doing. (Kerry has already asked Moveon.org to stop using its ad questioning Bush's National Guard service.)
   Instead of graciously inviting Cleland in, spending a few minutes with him and accepting the letter, Bush sent the Texas commissioner of agriculture out to the gate to get whatever Cleland had. Bush's spokesman, Scott McClellan, later called Cleland's attempted visit "a stunt."
   Call it a gesture, call it stunt. Either way, Bush comes off as puny and bad mannered. His response was strictly crass and no class. It was about as no class as having the mighty Casey step up to the plate, toss his bat away and give the pitcher the finger before slinking off the field in a soreheaded funk. It was about as low class as if Gen. Ulysses S. Grant had said, "Now, go f_ yourself," after receiving Gen. Robert E. Lee's sword in surrender at Appomattox Courthouse.

   Imagine the different impression, especially to veterans, had Bush welcomed Cleland in for coffee and a brief chat, taken the letter and then shook hands as the wheelchair-bound veteran departed.

   First, what could Cleland have said?
   "President Bush graciously invited me in and listened to what I had to say. I gave him the letter and we briefly discussed all this back-and-forth, dirty campaigning about what happened 30 years ago. I can't say we got any firm agreement from him, but he said he'd give us fair consideration. I thank him for that much and just hope we can get on with talking about important issues facing the country today."
   Then, what could Bush have said?
   "As you know, I had an unexpected guest today, Sen. Max Cleland. Although we're on opposite sides politically and even though we're in the middle of a campaign, I realize it's important for me to remember that I'm the president of all the people, even ones who disagree. I also wanted to show respect for Sen. Cleland's service to our country, in and out of uniform, and especially for his tremendous sacrifice when he was in Vietnam.
   "So, we talked and I received the letter he brought for me. I reiterated my position that all these 527s ought to stop what they're doing. I'm not prepared to commit to anything right now, but I told him I will take it under advisement. We'll just have to see what develops in the coming days.
   "I do accept that Cleland was sincere in wanting to get the campaign back on a higher plane and I want that, too. We shook hands and I wished him a safe trip home."

   That's how easy it would've been for Bush to end up looking good. Trouble is, the man just doesn't have it in him.
  — By S.W. Anderson
¶ 2:52 PM

 
Clean water talk, special interest walk
   From President George W. Bush's Oct. 17, 2002, proclamation of the Year of Clean Water, 2002-2003:

   From a news story, Tuesday, Aug. 24, 2004:
   The main source of mercury pollution is coal-fired electricity generating plants.

   From "Top Quid Pro Quos of the Bush Administration," by Dick Bell, The Official Kerry-Edwards Blog:

   The Bush administration's plan is to require utilities that currently dump 48 tons of mercury into the atmosphere each year to reduce emissions 70 percent — 14 years from now.
  — By S.W. Anderson
¶ 12:21 AM

 
GOP behind Fla. suppress-the-vote drive
   As with so many things, when it comes to spreading and defending Democracy, Republicans talk a good game. But if you look around, away from where they want you to pay attention, toward areas they'd just as soon you wouldn't notice, you just might see them playing a very different game.
   At a cost of about 1,000 U.S. soldiers' lives and 200 billion in American taxpayers' hard-earned dollars, the Bush administration's swivel-chair crusaders have arranged for the possibility of some semblance of Democracy in Iraq a few months hence. That is, if the country doesn't descend into full-scale anarchy or civil war in the meantime. But for now, and despite its being a deadly shooting gallery with our people the prime targets, attacks on them averaging 49 a day, Iraq is where Bush & Co. want you to look.
   Meanwhile, in Florida, democracy is under threat and the short-term prospects are very much in doubt. It is there, especially in Orange County, that Florida State Police have been going to the homes of elderly African Americans, doing interrogations, purportedly investigating voter fraud.
   In his revealing Aug. 23 column, "A chill in Florida," Bob Herbert charges this investigation is part of a systematic effort by Republican Gov. Jeb Bush and the state GOP to intimidate blacks and thus suppress their participation in the November election. Republicans' motivation for doing this couldn't be clearer: a large turnout of African American voters in Florida will ensure a Kerry victory there.
   The media, everyone, should keep a close eye on Florida between now and the post-election period — especially because Republicans don't want that, especially because what happens there may be crucial to the future health and safety of democracy all over this country.

   Unsavory at any spin: Things haven't been going well for Ralph "I'm Not a Spoiler" Nader in the ballot-qualifying department lately. Just last week, for example, his bid to get on Virginia's fell way short, although some kind of recount is apparently in the offing.
   Because of the difficulties, Nader and the amalgam of delusional acolytes and cynical Republicans-in-Independent-costume who back him have been filing legal actions thick and fast, which costs money. In that department, Nader hasn't been doing half bad — with a little help from his new best friends. This story sheds light on what's going on, including:
   The story notes that, so far, known-about Republican contributions represent only about 4 percent of Nader's funding. But, as they say around Washington, D.C.'s, K Street and the secure, undisclosed locations where Vice President Dick Cheney receives energy industry wish lists, there's plenty more where that came from.

   As the twig is bent: One of the most disgusting things we've seen out of the Middle East lately is a CNN segment, shown Monday and today, of a 10-year-old, automatic-weapon-toting Iraqi "insurgent" decked out in the full jihadist face mask and getup. And shown with this wet-behind-the-ears Muslim warrior is his proud papa, who, the boy says, taught him how to shoot.
   Especially disturbing is the scene in which father and son, weapon at the boy's side, are shown at prayer time in a mosque. In America we have a saying, "The family that prays together stays together." Maybe a different saying would be more appropriate for the Middle East: "A fool and his son are soon parted."
  — By S.W. Anderson
¶ 2:01 PM

 
Distinction with a difference being ignored
   Let's say one day you're hanging out in a park, reading and enjoying the sunshine. Several punks take up a nearby bench, jostling and wisecracking. You mostly ignore them, until their banter takes an unsettling turn.
   "See that liquor store across the street?" one of the men asks.
   "Yeah, what about it?" another replies.
   "You know, that place got ripped off a couple years ago. Somebody got away with six grand, just like that. Got some booze, too."
   "Whew, six grand," says another punk sarcastically, "wouldn't it be awful if that happened again?"
   Then there's laughter — a kind of evil, knowing laughter. The punks soon disappear and you go on reading. But a half hour later you hear sirens and see police cars pulling up to the liquor store. A crowd forms. An ambulance arrives and someone from inside the store is taken away. You suddenly feel sick.
   You cross the street, speak to a uniformed cop and she takes you to a detective. You tell him what you heard. He records your statement and descriptions of the punks, asks a few questions, then tells you you're under arrest. Your head is spinning as he recites your Miranda rights. Then, you are stood up against a patrol car, frisked and handcuffed.
   As you're being put into the car, you call out to the detective: "I came over here to give you information. This isn't right. Why are you arresting me? What's the charge?"
   "Accessory to grand larceny and felonious assault" comes the terse reply.
   All the way to the station you protest. "I had nothing to do with the robbery. I just came forward and told what I'd heard, that's all." But all your words fall on deaf ears.

   If you can appreciate the unfairness, the gross injustice, in the above story, you can appreciate how Sen. John Kerry must feel. For weeks he's been viciously and dishonestly attacked by a group of fellow swift boat veterans. The group's leader, John O'Neill, has nursed a grudge against Kerry for more than 30 years, based on Kerry's testimony before Congress during the war. In that testimony, Kerry spoke of atrocities and war crimes committed by some U.S. troops.
   O'Neill and those in his group have undertaken a well-funded publicity campaign to destroy Kerry's reputation and chance to become president. O'Neill has written a book trashing Kerry's reputation that he wants you to buy. The group has a Web site and is making a series of vicious, patently dishonest attack-ad videos.

   There is a critically important distinction about Kerry's testimony that O'Neill and his group refuse to recognize.
    That's no surprise, since their goal is to do personal and political damage, not pursue truth or justice in any form. What's surprising — and appalling — is how journalists and news organizations all over the place are failing to recognize and report this distinction. (To his credit and CNN's, Wolf Blitzer just now did note the distinction, at long last.)
   Kerry's testimony about war crimes, cited in his enemies' attack ads, consisted of what he had heard from other Vietnam veterans, mostly at a gathering in Detroit. Kerry didn't make things up, didn't claim he'd witnessed atrocities, didn't claim every soldier in Vietnam was a monster committing war crimes.
   It's true that he was, as he has since acknowledged, angry and impassioned at the time. He felt the war was corrupting good young men serving their country. He felt political leaders had let them and the country down by persisting with a war that was a mistake from the start — views shared by millions of Americans in and out of the military back then.
   Those are things the misnamed Swiftboat Veterans for Truth carefully avoid. And their shamefully misleading ads deliberately leave out the lead-in to Kerry's testimony, which makes clear the distinction that he was relating what others had said.
   For his honest testimony and anger over the war, for his willingness to stand up and speak out, Kerry deserves respect — just like the hapless person in our example above. And just like the person in our example, he's being treated unfairly and unjustly.

   Two weeks ago, after Sen. John McCain spoke out against a Moveon.org attack ad questioning President Bush's military record, Kerry called on the group to kill the ad. McCain has also spoken out against the Swiftboat group's ad, but all Bush will say is that all 527 group ads should cease. A phone call or word to his political major domo, Karl Rove, is all that's necessary to end this unseemly episode, but Bush won't make the call.
   Since Kerry spoke to Moveon.org, the Swiftboat veterans have come out with a new ad and its members have been all over TV and talk radio. And in the interim, Republican talking point directives have Bush surrogates characterizing Kerry as being angry and "wild-eyed."
   Kerry acted to tone things down, but Bush has not reciprocated, which says a lot about how committed Bush really is to his alleged born-again-Christian morality. Bush is obviously unwilling to risk turning the other cheek.
   Links between the Bush campaign organization, the Republican Party and those funding, organizing and handling the Swiftboat Veterans for Truth are being found out. This scummy conspiracy is a direct descendent of the nine-year Republican campaign to destroy Bill Clinton; the lowdown, dirty drive to destroy McCain's 2000 presidential primary campaign; and the despicable 2002 Georgia senatorial campaign trashing the patriotism of Max Cleland, who lost three limbs in Vietnam.

   Voters, be warned: If you reward Bush and the Republican Party with victory, you will have to live under the rule of ruthless, cynical, grossly dishonest people who covet power over honor and decency, who believe the end of winning justifies any means they may apply to get there.
  — By S.W. Anderson
¶ 3:42 PM

 
Politics behind terrorist-bust story?
he sensational story broken early this month about the capture of al Qaeda figure Muhammed Neem Khan raises some disturbing questions. Two chiefs ones are who let the information out and why it was made public?
   During a Senate Intelligence Committee hearing last Wednesday, Sen. Barbara Mikulski, D-Md., said she wants to know the answers to those questions and a lot more, and has sent a formal letter to President Bush requesting an investigation. In a news release, Mikulski is quoted:
   Mikulski told the committee her letter to Bush was framed not in a partisan way, but as a concerned American, because the consequences of the leak have ramifications for the security of everyone in this country.

   Oh!pinion's view: Mikulski's nonpartisan bid to get at the facts is laudable and probably futile in the partisan fever of this election year.
   Not inhibited as Mikulski must be, we will pass along a thought that occurred to us early on about the Khan revelations.
   This story surfaced just after the post-Democratic convention terror alert in which security for financial centers in three or more cities was beefed up and getting to and fro in Washington, D.C., was made more difficult, all with much publicity, some controversy and quite a bit of criticism. Suspicions quickly arose about this ratcheting up of the specter of terrorism based on old information, that perhaps it was all intended to steal John Kerry's thunder and to divert attention from events in Iraq and the U.S. economy that weren't going well for the Bush re-election effort.
   With Kerry departing the convention having made a good impression, with a modest bounce in the polls, with his party united as it has rarely been, with no unseemly incidents marring the gathering, there was certainly cause for concern at Bush & Co. headquarters. Could that concern have led to a decision to jigger public attention back toward Bush as the guy keeping citizens safe? Seems not only possible but likely.
   However, as the facts behind the laying on of more guards and checkpoints, etc., came out, negative reactions set in. The threat had been known for some time, the information was old — not the desired results. So, on to plan 'B', perhaps?
   The British have busted this guy, Kahn, got his computer, discs, more arrests are being made reaching into several countries. News of this looks good — getting the drop on these terrorists, rounding them up and putting them away.
   Yeah, that's more like it. So, let's tell people about it. Hey, after all, we've got an election to win!
   Would Karl Rove, Andrew Card, Ed Gillespie and/or Marc Racicot hijack an important takedown in the war on terrorism to boost Bush's re-election prospects? Would they sell out an important piece of the war on terror if they thought doing so would buy Bush another term?
   We're admittedly speculating here, just going by what we know about how these people have operated in the past, how thoroughly determined they seem to be to win at any cost, no matter what. In our opinion, this mischief, unconscionable though it is, is not only a strong possibility but the most likely explanation for the self-serving leak.
   Although we admire Mikulski's sound intent and diligence, we won't hold our breath waiting for any meaningful investigation findings from the Bush White House. They're no more likely to be forthcoming now than when the outing of Valerie Plame was being, ahem, investigated.
  — By S.W. Anderson
¶ 4:12 PM

 
Most believe they were misled about Iraq
   Sixty percent of Americans now believe they were misled by their government about weapons of mass destruction in Iraqi hands and about Iraq's ties to al Qaeda, according to a new Harris poll.
   It's as though President George W. Bush, Vice President Dick Cheney and key members of the administration had arranged for enough suspension of disbelief to sell the public what they claimed was a showroom-fresh Hummer. But in time, the papier mache mockup body has fallen away to reveal a battered, sputtering Yugo.
   And now, the wheels may be coming off. That 61 percent is up from 53 percent in June and up from 45 percent one year ago.

   Asked whether the Iraq invasion strengthened or weakened the war against terrorism, only 50 percent of the 1,012 adults surveyed between Aug. 10 and 15 said yes. Forty percent said no and 10 percent said they're not sure.
   Interestingly, since both major-party presidential candidates are courting independent voters in an effort to get an edge by election day, nearly as many independents, 47 percent, as Democrats, 53 percent, feel the invasion weakened the war on terrorism.
   That 75 percent of Republicans say the invasion strengthened the anti-terrorism war comes as no surprise, considering the war was and continues to be the centerpiece of their incumbent's foreign policy agenda.
   Should a large number of U.S. troops remain in Iraq until the country has a stable government or should most of the troops be withdrawn within a year? Forty percent say keep the troops in country, up from 39 percent in June — but down from 45 percent in February.

   A majority of Americans were skeptical of the need for war during the months preceding the invasion. While the survey results can be read as showing continuing patience with the project by about half the population, evidence of softness and crumbling at the edges abounds. Persistence of support shown in the survey is likely bolstered considerably by current public sentiment, which is strongly supportive of our troops in the conflict. We'd like to see questioning that seeks to ascertain the extent to which ongoing support relates to supporting the troops, as opposed to necessarily supporting the administration's pre-emptive war and nation-building policy in Iraq.
   For now, it seems reasonable to expect that if U.S. forces suffer a few severe setbacks, the crumbling could quickly degenerate into a wholesale collapse of public support.

No one's rooting for that to happen. We point it out because appreciating the precariousness of the situation we're entangled in — the chaotic shooting gallery our troops were recklessly and needlessly sent into — is vitally important. This is an election year and voters must decide whether those who made crucial decisions about the veracity of intelligence and sources of intelligence about Iraq, those who made the decision to go off to war half-cocked, should be allowed to continue making peace-war/life-death decisions for another four years.

  — By S.W. Anderson
¶ 12:09 PM

 
Writer blasts 4 years of Bush misrule
   Hal Crowther is a former writer for Newsweek, Time, the Buffalo News and the North Carolina Spectator and now writes a column for, among other publications, the weekly Independent in Durham, N.C. In 1992, he won the H.L. Mencken Award for column writing.
   Crowther has weighed in at A-Changin' Times with a withering assessment of George W. Bush's presidency. Not a particularly partisan opponent, he is definitely an appalled and deeply dissatisfied citizen.
   Here's a sample, in which Crowther zeroes in on the stakes in the upcoming election:
   Crowther's broadside is a fairly lengthy read, but a very worthwhile one throughout. To partake, click.

  — By S.W. Anderson
¶ 12:17 AM

 
Many in for loss of overtime pay
   "If you work hard, then you should be rewarded for that effort. It is a time-honored tradition. It is what built this country.
   "Why would anyone support this new rule which could mean a pay cut for millions of Americans who have already seen their real wages drop again this year?"

  — By S.W. Anderson
¶ 1:24 PM

 
Republicans editing out the truth again
   In their latest scurrilous slime-job video, the political hit squad known as Swiftboat Veterans for Truth applies the Bush administration technique of editing out unhelpful words. Truthful completeness can be so counterproductive when all you care about is winning.
   The attack ad shows a young John Kerry testifying before Congress decades ago, telling of atrocities committed by U.S. soldiers in Vietnam. Deliberately left out is what he said before relating the atrocities. Kerry began by saying he was passing along what others who had served in Vietnam had told him.
   To put a fine point on it, the atrocity tales Kerry cited were not charges he was making. He was relating things told to him by others. This is a significant distinction that the Bush-Cheney campaign, the Republican National Committee, Swiftboat Veterans for Truth, the right-wing propaganda industry and other Bush surrogates don't want you to know.
   Now you do know.

   Sensitivity training, anyone? National security adviser Condoleezza Rice heads a National Security Council that has come under fire in recent days. There was criticism in the 9-11 Commission report for failing to critically scrutinize intelligence when President Bush was high-pressuring everybody about a supposedly dire need to invade Iraq, citing weapons of mass destruction that didn't exist. The report also said U.S. relations with Arab Muslim countries are the worst they've ever been. Sens. John Kerry and John Edwards have been less than complimentary about the Bush administration's handling of relations with Muslim countries, as well.
   Speaking at the U.S. Institute for Peace Thursday (story), Rice allowed that the U.S. hasn't done a very good job of reaching out to Muslims worldwide and needs to work harder and spend more money to change hearts and minds.
   Wisely, Rice managed to avoid using the term "more sensitive war" in describing the need to get more Muslim countries in our corner and fewer hating us. It's a good thing for her that she did. Utter the word "sensitive" and Vice President Dick Cheney goes ballistic, jumping to the conclusion you're talking about coddling terrorist crazies. No kidding — just ask Kerry.

   It's amazing how some trash avoids the landfill: Houston authorities are taking down the incredible tale of abuse allegedly inflicted on seven innocent children by the adoptive mother from hell, 47-year-old Mercury Liggins, with charges soon to follow.
   No ordinary cruel and neglectful parent, Liggins appears to have set a benchmark for creativity in harming children, shipping them all the way to Nigeria, where they were abandoned and well on their way to dying of disease and starvation. There's reason to believe the kids were mistreated long before being dumped in Africa and that they had been adopted in the first place so Liggins could collect more than $500 a month per child.
   The kids were accidentally discovered by a missionary. They have been returned to Texas.
   If justice were really to be done in this case, Liggins would face seven charges of attempted murder. Yeah, she should get her fair trial. Then, upon being fairly convicted, Liggins should rot in jail for the rest of her despicable life.
  — By S.W. Anderson
¶ 11:18 PM

 
USDA no longer on Keyes' hit list
   Sudden Senate candidate Alan Keyes showed up for Republican Day at the Illinois State Fair Thursday and regaled the crowd with his fast-and-furious backpedaling act. (News story)
   During his vote-seeking foray into Midwest farm country, Keyes at first denied having said the U.S. Department of Agriculture should be abolished. Shortly, he acknowledged he had said that when running for president in 1996, but added he no longer feels that way. That no doubt came as a relief to farmers, many of whom depend on the department for a wide variety of services. A minor relief, however, considering Keyes' chance of beating state Sen. Barack Obama lies somewhere between infinitesimal and nonexistent.
   Keyes, an outspoken Christian fundamentalist whose speaking style is reminiscent of an angry carnival pitchman, explained that in '96 USDA was a too-big, too-expensive bureaucracy that is so changed under Republican rule that it ought to be kept around.
   Illinois voters, farmers and otherwise, shouldn't be fooled by Keyes' display of election-season moderation. He's a fire-and-brimstone religious zealot and right-wing extremist at heart. President Bush's "my way or the highway" approach is tame compared to what Keyes would do if he were to ever get his hands on the levers of power.
  — By S.W. Anderson
¶ 8:42 PM

 
Administration soft pedaling Iraq — for now
   "The American people have already decided that Iraq‘s sort of a losing proposition, that it wasn‘t worth it. That's the majority view in America now. And the Bush administration knows that. They‘re playing down Iraq. They‘re not putting their spokesman on over there. You haven‘t seen John Negroponte once on television. You know, he took Paul Bremer‘s place. I have never seen him. And neither have we seen the military.
   "So we're — our military, our administration leaders in Iraq — are doing their best to downplay it and make the Iraqis take the lead. That's not illogical, but what will happen as we go later into this is the American people will then be confronted in October by George Bush saying what a great job he‘s done in Iraq. It isn‘t so."

  — By S.W. Anderson
¶ 7:31 PM

 
RNC, Bush sticking with fraudulent ad
   When George W. Bush ran for president in 2000, it was anything to win. So, he talked of being a "compassionate conservative," of being a uniter and not a divider.
   All too soon we learned compassionate conservatism was really about breaching the church-state wall of separation and getting people used to the idea of channeling tax revenues to religious organizations.
   Bush's White House crew kicked off the uniting of the country by charging — falsely — that Clinton staffers had damaged and booby trapped offices, computers and other equipment before moving out. Before Bush's term was half over, he'd split the NATO alliance, squandered the post-9-11 good will of several traditional allies, told the U.N. to get in step with his Iraq war plan or lapse into irrelevance, and waged a stridently partisan campaign to send more Republicans to Congress.

   Now, it's 2004 and Bush is running for re-election. He and his campaign, his surrogates and the whole right-wing noise machine and dirty-tricks apparatus are going full tilt. MSNBC's Chris Matthews called out Bush campaign senior strategist Matthew Dowd Monday (show transcript) about a particularly blatant bit of dishonesty based on a Kerry interview on Matthews' program, "Hardball," last winter.
   Matthews' goal was to get Dowd to renounce a misleading video ad produced by the Republican National Committee in which Kerry is shown uttering the first couple of words from a lengthy statement. This tactic is so grossly dishonest as to be on par with editing word bites to make Kerry appear to be saying something he never has or would say. The goal of Bush supporters responsible for the video ad is to "prove" anew their fabricated case that Kerry is a flip-flopper.
   Bush has been citing Kerry's clipped response in stump speeches, posing it as evidence Kerry has switched positions on the Iraq War.
   The question, posed by Matthews to Kerry caught on the fly during the primaries, in a moment when the senator appeared tired, was:
   It was a long question and it took Kerry a few seconds to process it. Then, Kerry responded:
   What these Bush backers are doing is a dishonest, unethical cheap shot — anything to win, in spades.
   But here's what Matthew Dowd, the Bush-Cheney campaign's chief strategist, had to say after Matthews had shown the ad repeatedly and pressed Dowd to admit it was dishonest:
   There was a lot more sparring back and forth, with Matthews repeatedly showing the RNC video clip and Kerry's whole statement. Dowd did a song and dance that amounted to saying it's our story, we're sticking to it and you can't do anything about it.
   Matthews, rightly, was not satisfied and said he would put the video and Kerry's full answer on MSNBC's Web site. To see it, click.
   Is Kerry and his campaign any better? The senator Tuesday, in response to complaints from Bush supporters, asked Moveon.org to kill an ad belittling Bush's military service.

   Anything to win, including lies, distortions and cutoff videos. But remember, we're not supposed to call Bush a liar, even though he promised in 2000 he'd never do anything to bring dishonor to the office.
  — By S.W. Anderson
¶ 9:13 PM

 
SCREWBALL on a mission to get Kerry
   A new group, Swiftboat Crewmembers Righteously Energized With Beating All Loony Liberals, has been formed "with a mission of doing such a number on John Kerry that even the ketchup lady will decide he don't cut the mustard," according to a press release.
   The group's founder, F. Lee Bagg, 42, of Brokenfridge, Tenn., says SCREWBALL's mission will be to publicize his "personal, official, on-scene, eyewitness account" of events when Lt. John Kerry crawled out on the bow of his boat to pull a man aboard, for which Kerry won a Silver Star.
   According to Bagg, "There wasn't no shooting going on. What was pelting Kerry's boat was actually love beads being thrown by a couple of Vietnamese hippies on the shore. They was trying to get the boats to come over and buy some trinkets, postcards and weed. I knew about them because me and the guys in my crew had bought stuff off of them."
   Bagg follows that charge by saying, "In fact, Kerry wasn't even crawling out on the bow, either. He had been laying out there on the bow, working on his suntan and taking a nap when he heard somebody beating on the hull. It was really just a guy who was taking a dip to cool off, that's all."
   Bagg says a big reason he's forming the group, other members of whom "will be coming along real soon, once the word gets out about the funding," is because he's "so PO'd about all them lies and nasty things" Kerry said about some U.S. troops when he testified before Congress. A secondary mission of the group will be to clear the name of Lt. William Calley "because everybody knows that whole My Lai thing was just made up by a bunch of anti-war liberal crazies and the liberal media."
   Bagg's news release says SCREWBALL is being created with financial backing from a mysterious donor. This person sent "a big check" after seeing Bagg's idea for the group posted on the Internet.
   "I have no idea who this patriotic individual is," Bagg says. "I received an envelope containing a cashier's check and there's a note about starting the group, and it says there's plenty more where this came from. The return address just says 'Undisclosed Location.'"
  — By S.W. Anderson
¶ 1:45 PM

 
What 25 years of greed, ignorance buys
hings didn't used to be this way, with so many people stuck for a decent job, with a job-loss "recovery" of more than three years that's left the country 1.8 million jobs in the hole.
   Things didn't used to be this way, with towns, cities and some whole states suffering severe economic consequences because businesses and whole industries are shutting down plants and offices, sending jobs out of the country, turning work over to robots and immigrants, legal and otherwise.
   Things didn't used to be this way, with newspaper business pages filled, day after day, with revelations of lying, cheating, stealing, conspiracy, illegal insider activities and other forms of fraud, with investigations, indictments, perp walks, pleas and sentencings. And preceding those, there was so much news of huge corporations tanking, stocks losing nearly all their value, employees by the tens of thousands losing their jobs and, too often, most or all of their retirement savings as well — unlike the lying, cheating, stealing CEOs and top executives who managed to exit the companies they ruined with millions, even billions, with which to fight a rear-guard legal action to keep them out of prison for years.
   Enron is the prime example and its fast-talking ex-CEO, Ken "Kenny Boy" Lay, is the poster child for what's gone so wrong. But Lay and his criminal enterprise masquerading as a legitimate business empire have plenty of company. Look at Bernie Ebbers and his scam, Worldcom. Shareholders who put their faith in Worldcom and believed Ebbers was doing his best to reward them by growing the business in sound, sensible ways saw their shares plummet from a high of $64.50 to 11 cents. Measure the losses in homes that couldn't be bought, businesses that couldn't be started, college tuitions that would have to be paid for some other way, years without a vacation, retirements postponed, dreams destroyed.

   Greed has gotten completely out of hand among a bunch of ruthless, egotistical, power-hungry people who've gained control of excessive wealth, economic power and political clout. Because their corporations are so huge and they have so much wealth and power, they're a menace to everyone, not just their employees and investors.
   Arianna Huffington charts the regeneration of this scourge in her excellent book, "Pigs at the Trough."
   Yes, the pigs whined, but let's remember they had enablers, cheerleaders and pro-corporate, deregulating ideological choirmasters. Think Ronald Reagan, telling us government should get out of the way so free enterprise could really be free. Think economist Milton Friedman. Think former U.S. Rep. Jack Kemp. Think Newt Gingrich, Dick Armey, David Dreier and hundreds of like mind.
   Americans ignorant of history, ignorant of "the last great era of capitalism run amok, the 1920s," elected those people and paved the way for what we've suffered ever since. Only when a sufficient number of Americans have had enough of neoconservative, anti-government, anti-regulatory, pro-corporate governance and what it's doing to them will this 25-year trend start to be reversed.
  — By S.W. Anderson
¶ 6:17 PM

 
Bush sees, helps one of the two Americas
iddle- and lower-income Americans are seeing a perfect storm of things going wrong when it comes to jobs, income, taxes and expenses. At the same time and for many of the same reasons, they're experiencing rude shocks that shake their usual optimism about future prospects and economic security.
   Even many who don't have their own job shipped to another state or country, who don't spend months looking for another job, then taking one that pays 40 percent less and with minimal benefits, hear from the less fortunate. Those include the neighbor forced to retire too early, the friend from college seeking to leverage his own job-seeking dragnet by networking with everyone in his address book, the former co-worker asking if there'll be any openings where you work, the son who asks to move back in after being laid off for the third time in two years.
   This Associated Press story by Leigh Strope, "Gap between haves, have-nots widens," covers much of what's going wrong well, albeit with two comments from an oft-quoted expert that just don't ring true. Those are from Wells Fargo economist Sun Won Sohn.
   Tens of thousands of laid-off programmers, engineers and other high-tech workers — and out-of-workers — from Massachusetts to Armonk, N.Y., to Redmond, Wash., to Silicon Valley, across to Texas and back up to the Carolinas could tell Sohn, from personal experience, how out of date his rosy assessment is. Big high-tech companies, including Boeing, Hewlett-Packard, IBM, Intel, Microsoft and, just this week, Gateway, are shipping jobs out of the country, mostly to Pacific Rim destinations and to India.
   CNN's Lou Dobbs has on several occasions pressed guests on his show to specify exactly what high-skill, high-tech jobs they consider safe for people to retrain for, after the guests had made their own bullish predictions. After some hemming, hawing and being further pressed, these "experts" invariably mumble something about health care and education — not electronics, computers, software or any kind of manufacturing, product design or development. But, at least, health care and education are relatively safe, given that it's not yet cost-effective to ship grandmas with a broken-hip to Bangalore for surgery or kids to Manila to do sixth grade at 70 percent less than the U.S. cost.
   Sohn follows up his previously quoted insight by saying, "This really has nothing to do with Bush or Kerry, but more to do with the longer-term shift in the structure of the economy."
   Uh, isn't that like saying that if Sohn is on an airliner knocked off course by a shift in the jet stream, so that the plane heads for the Arctic Circle while running low on fuel, the situation has nothing to do with the pilot, it's just a matter of the plane being acted on by a big external force? Maybe Sohn meant to be politically neutral but his statement comes off as vacant stoicism.

   For his part in the economic chicanery dogging working- and middle-class Americans, President George W. Bush is neither neutral nor stoic. Almost a quarter century into a steady rejiggering of the relative standing of competing interests in our country — de facto class warfare — he makes it his business to intensify and accelerate the flow of wealth to the wealthy, of breaks to those already sitting pretty, and government beneficence from families and individuals to investors and corporations.
   And, why wouldn't he? Bush is a man of, by and for the corporations and the wealthy. He pays lip service to a secondhand appreciation of how some Americans need jobs, "So, we've still got work to do." But the reality he feels in his bones is generated in boardrooms like those he's worked in and at $25,000-a-couple fund-raising dinners where he mingles with supporters.
   Bush's view of America is arrived at in carefully arranged speaking engagements at military bases and at businesses owned by backers. He holds ask-the-president sessions with carefully screened supporters who voice only politically helpful questions (story). Certainly, there's nothing gritty about how the nonwealthy and not well connected are faring in what he sees and hears at the White House, where he reportedly doesn't read newspapers; or at his family's Kennebunkport compound; or at his ranch in Crawford, Texas.
   It's not surprising, then, that Bush insists we're turning the corner, that the economy is growing wonderfully well and that lots and lots of jobs are being created. As throughout his life, he's sheltered from the storm — in this case, the perfect storm of economic bad things happening to millions of Americans.
  — By S.W. Anderson
¶ 7:22 PM

 
Bad omen for free trade and globalization
   "I'm probably a Libertarian at heart. I'd normally vote conservatively." But the prospect of losing his job "opened my eyes to what's going on in the country. This one hits home."
  — By S.W. Anderson
¶ 11:16 PM

 
Iranian exhibits lack of sportsmanship
   In the Iranian rendition of the spirit of sportsmanship and international good will, judo champion Arash Miresmaeili has announced he won't compete in the Olympics because he would have to go up against an Israeli.
   Miresmaeili is quoted in a news story as saying, "I refused to play against an Israeli rival to sympathize with the oppressed Palestinian people." The speaker of Iran's parliament praised Miresmaeili's "brave decision."
   Delight over the 2001 and 2003 world judo champion's refusal wasn't universal among Iranians, however. The story says the secretary of Iran's national Olympic committee complained about it causing frustration in other members of the team.

   Oh!pinion's view: If the athletes of every nation with a gripe or grudge against some another nation were to pull out of the Olympics, there soon wouldn't be any Olympic games. The overwhelming majority of the world's young athletes, to their credit, get that. But a fanatical Muslim twit who clearly doesn't measure up in the sportsmanship department is the exception that proves the rule.
   If Miresmaeili really wants to help the Palestinian people, he'd do better to pray for Allah to free them from their foolhardy allegiance to an antiquated thug whose dim-witted, selfish "leadership" has brought them nothing but pain, poverty and needless loss of life for decades.
  — By S.W. Anderson
¶ 7:23 PM

 
Bushwatch sees red . . . white and blue
   The person behind Bushwatch describes his Web site as "a chronicle of the disasters imposed on this country by George W. Bush and his band of robber barons."
   The Bushwatch's red, white and blue pages make clear how this person has lived — and suffered — the Bush years experience in the manner of millions, as opposed to millionaires. That means, in part, a layoff and period of unemployment followed by a big comedown in the replacement job he could get.
    However, a career setback and economic drubbing are only a part of why this camper is unhappy. He's created an itemized list to help others understand more fully and in a systematic way.
   For a sample, here's No. 6 in his list of reasons you should want to hand Bush a layoff notice this November:
   And what does he think a president should be working to deliver?
   Not at all radical, plenty of color but few fancy graphics, written with conviction and the kind of decency that puts laying out reasons ahead of name calling and nose thumbing. Give Bushwatch a look.

   Note: The Bushwatch featured above is not only place on the Web with the Bushwatch name. Bushwatch.com is also worthy of a look-see.
   The AFL-CIO's Bush Watch, as you might imagine, is slicker and more elaborate than either of the previously mentioned sites. The organized labor giant has been compiling its case against Bush throughout his time in the White House and offers a categorized list of well-prepared, informative items. Here's the into:
   Our only quibble is with the word "sobering." "Outrageous" is much more like it.
  — By S.W. Anderson
¶ 10:55 PM

 
Bush visit costs air service $75,000
ome added expenses and disruption are to be expected when the president of the U.S. comes to town, especially in a time of heightened security concerns. Most communities, people and businesses understand and are gracious about the downside, even if the president isn't their favorite and is campaigning or raising funds.
   While the president is preceded and surrounded by Secret Service agents and other security personnel, most communities wind up launching an all-hands turnout by local law enforcement officers, incurring significant unanticipated overtime costs.
   Sometimes the imposition becomes outrageous. That's what happened last week when President Bush's visit to Seattle completely shut down a seaplane air service, Kenmore Air, for 18 hours. As this story explains, Kenmore Air's ports on Lake Union and Lake Washington were just inside the Secret Service-imposed restricted air space.
   A company official said Bush's visit was costing the company $75,000, with no compensation. Worse, the air service had customers on lakes in Canada it was supposed to pick up, including some who couldn't be contacted because they were out in boats. Essentially, they were in for being stranded without warning.
   Asked about the situation and cost, the Republican National Committee said it was a Secret Service matter — the functional equivalent of saying tough luck.
   Negative, expensive impacts of presidential visits and campaign travels are proliferating in proportion to today's longer-running campaign seasons and the more-extensive forays today's candidates can undertake, thanks largely to the availability of so much money.
   Clearly, reforms are called for. Campaign organizations should be forthcoming about sharing costs and easing disruptions. So should the Secret Service and other federal agencies. Without such reforms we're likely to see a situation develop in which communities roll up the welcome mat and discourage the president, vice president and challenger candidates from visiting. That would be unseemly and diminish respect for and participation in the political process — trends already too well developed.
  — By S.W. Anderson
¶ 4:26 PM

 
Make PC worm author break rocks
   No sympathy here for Jeffrey Lee Parson of Hopkins, Minn., who admitted in court this week to having infected the Internet with a computer worm variant that crippled millions of PCs worldwide last summer. The 19-year-old high school senior will learn Nov. 2 how long he'll spend in jail, with 18 to 37 months on the menu. He's also subject to having to pay millions in restitution, according to this news story.
   Parson has also admitted to launching other attacks against the recording and motion picture industries. What a piece of work.
   However long Parson's sentence, we just wish it would involve some very low-tech, very hard labor. Something like shoveling long, long snow-covered walks and big parking lots all winter and reducing boulders to gravel next summer. With just a few keystrokes Parson caused millions of innocent strangers grief, time and effort beyond anything his young, undisciplined mind can appreciate. Idle time in a cell isn't fitting; he needs to learn about the grief of having to expend lots of seemingly needless, unwanted effort.
   We do have sympathy for Parson's parents. They likely had no idea what their offspring was up to and are no doubt dealing with crushing disappointment and embarrassment.

   Blimey, they're bloody starkers: Following on the unshod heels of nude news anchors in Russia, Canada, Hong Kong and the U.S.'s "The Naked News," comes an all-female British rendition. From a news story:
   Here's hoping this doesn't go mainstream. The thought of CNN's Bob Novak, MSNBC's Pat Buchanan and Fox's Beltloose Bores in the buff . . . yikes.

   A cultural revolution Mao never envisioned: Although racy nightclubs have sprung up in southern provinces of the People's Republic of China in recent years, the country overall remains pretty straightlaced. However, there's a move afoot to start a venue for Chinese nudists. Well, maybe once some initial roadblocks are cleared. From the news story:
   Maybe supporters of the plan could soften things up by getting the Hong Kong "Naked News" carried on local cable, or something.

   How the other half lives in denial: How many times have we heard that government is too big, too meddlesome, too clumsy, too expensive — the problem and not the solution — and on and on, ad nauseam? While government is imperfect and can always stand improvement, on an average day it takes a lot more bitching, moaning and bashing than it fairly deserves. Let's face it, if it was really so completely awful, it would've been gotten rid of long ago.
   Here's a delightfully contrary, humorous take on all that negativity and the people who spout it endlessly. It's billed as "A TvNewsLIES reader contribution" by John Gray of Cincinnati, Ohio, and it's titled, "Day in the Life of Joe Middle-Class Republican." (Credit: buzzflash.com).
  — By S.W. Anderson
¶ 11:14 PM

 
Know Kerry bashers by their words
   "So this is what the last days of the Catholic Church are going to look like. Buggering boys undermines the moral base and the lawyers rip the gold off the Vatican altars. We may get one more Pope, when this senile one dies, but that's probably about it."
  — By S.W. Anderson
¶ 12:44 PM

 
Cheney gaffe epitomizes what's wrong
f we were rooting for the forces of darkness and economic Darwinism, we'd be calling for someone to hustle Vice President Dick Cheney off to his undisclosed location for a long break from campaigning. The guy's demagoguery is becoming an embarrassment.
   Cheney's latest exercise in twisting words and leaving out essentials to argue a point not in dispute came today (story) in Dayton, Ohio:
   We'd write this off as a reading comprehension problem, but Cheney is the less likely member of the Republican ticket to suffer that. Maybe it's a case of selective hearing loss.
   Whatever's responsible, it's a remarkable turn of events when the incumbent Republican vice president's stump-speaking nonsense is so outlandish that it becomes the subject of a Fox News story setting the facts straight. Remarkable but true, with reporter Carl Cameron actually pointing out that Cheney had too-conveniently left out the rest of what Kerry said, then completely twisted the meaning of Kerry's remarks by seizing on only the word "sensitive."
   Fox then showed Kerry making this statement:
   Cheney's demagoguery is all the more ironic because it comes from the No. 2 in an administration that could probably get a patent on its tried-and-proven process for Getting Big Things Wrong. The cheering and applause that followed is testimony to the ignorance of many Americans about history.

   The collective security arrangements forged during and after World War II saw this country, Europe and the rest of the world through 45 years of Cold War conflict in which nuclear annihilation was a real and ongoing threat. Excellent people who grasped the stakes and possibilities, who had learned lessons from history, knew the staggering costs of war and appreciated the alternatives diplomacy offers forged those arrangements — NATO, SEATO, the United Nations and others.
   Those excellent people included Democrats Franklin Roosevelt, Harry Truman, George Marshall, Dean Acheson and W. Averill Harriman. They included Republicans Dwight Eisenhower, John Foster Dulles and Arthur Vandenberg. Of different parties, they shared a common, hard-earned appellation: statesman.
   The year 2000 came during one of those rare, brief interludes in which time and events seemed to have lightened up, demanding less of these United States. In such a time, people of George W. Bush and Cheney's modest caliber and capabilities come to the fore and sometimes get elected.
   Now it's 2004 and history has taken the measure of Bush and Cheney's leadership. Time and events are making new, fearsome demands on America. John Kerry is speaking up and reaching out in the manner of a statesman. Dick Cheney is twisting Kerry's words, leaving things out and getting things wrong.
   There's the crux of Election 2004.
  — By S.W. Anderson
¶ 6:09 PM

 
Bush term no time to redo labor laws
t's probably fair to say Col. Sanders had nothing against chickens. It's just that slaughtering, frying and selling them to hungry customers was his business.
   Likewise, it's probably fair to say President George W. Bush has nothing against hourly wage workers. It's just that screwing, shorting and shafting them to make the rich richer, the powerful more powerful and big corporations bigger is his political way.
   Had Sanders come along promoting some sort of kindly old-age care plan for chickens, he would've had a big credibility problem, with people if not with the birds.
   Similarly, when Bush comes along hyping changes in wages-and-hours laws with patter about providing workers "time to spend with your families, spend with your parents, spend for being re-educated," working people head for the exits muttering, "Nothing doing, no way, no how."
   In a less-than-brilliant bit of campaigning in Ohio, Bush mentioned his overtime/comp time and flextime scheme - reportedly just once. The idea is that workers could elect to receive comp time instead of overtime pay, and could accumulate comp time by working more-than-40-hour weeks to build up longer periods of time off.
   Both ideas have some appeal. But then, the worm on a fisherman's hook looks good to the fish. The first devilish, off-putting detail is that there doesn't seem to be provision for accruing comp time at a time-and-a-half rate when a worker goes past 40 hours in a week. There's no equitable or rational reason for not compensating overtime work with comp time at the same enhanced rate as pay for overtime requires.
   The trouble with Bush's flex time "benefit" proposal is that it appears to be a syrupy coating to make the pill of doing away with 40-hour weeks go down easier. The U.S. Chamber of Commerce Crowd and others seem to be angling for flexibility that will do anything but make it possible for workers to spend more time with kinfolk — at least until layoff time rolls around. And here, too, there's that not-so-subtle leaving out of protection for overtime pay, or time at time and a half, when a worker exceeds 40 hours.
   This news story says the AFL-CIO was so taken with Bush's ideas that it launched a "massive" lobbying campaign to kill them in the incubation stage. Remarkably, given Republicans' hegemony in Washington, D.C., the union succeeded, at least for the time being.
   The news item includes Bush's pitch on jobs and the reaction of an Ohio out-of-worker:
   A central question of this election year is whether $200 million in saturation attack ads, resort to wedge issues and ceaseless spin can overcome the realities of Bush's attitude, policies, proposals, decisions and the legislation he's backed. Hancock's concisely worded conclusion, polite understatement though it is, gives hope they can't and won't.
  — By S.W. Anderson
¶ 2:44 PM

 
Too many are boobs about breastfeeding
   It's easy to understand why generations of American mothers have chosen to bottle feed their babies, convenience being the main reason. But it's really hard to understand — and impossible to be understanding about — the negative attitude some people have toward the sight of a woman breastfeeding. They deem this most basically human and natural of activities as something unseemly. They even demand breastfeeding be done in hiding, as though it's the functional equivalent of a bowel movement.
   That's what happened to Lorig Charkoudiann (news item) when she was breastfeeding her 15-month-old daughter in a Silver Spring, Md., Starbucks back in July. An employee asked her to cover up with a blanket or use the bathroom.
   This kind of reaction to breastfeeding is a manifestation of ignorance — about the human body, about sexuality and, in Charkoudiann's case, about Maryland law, which specifically protects women from being hassled for breastfeeding. Unfortunately, only 20 states have such laws.
   Credit Charkoudiann with pursuing the matter up Starbucks' chain of command until she got an apology and a letter saying the company's Maryland stores have been made aware of the law. But that wasn't enough. The annoyed mother wants the chain to welcome breastfeeders at all of its 5,882 U.S. locations. That's why last weekend she led a "nurse-in" demonstration of more than two dozen breastfeeding mothers at a Maryland Starbucks.

Nurse-ins may be helpful but they're not the answer for this nonsense. The real solution is for America's mothers to start teaching their children, at an early age, that female breasts have a natural, wholesome function, one that kept the human race in business for millennia before bottles came along. Soon enough, inevitably, the kids will learn breasts are a focus of sexual attraction in our society.
   Dads, especially, can help this enlightenment effort by impressing on their sons that each pair comes as part of a real, whole human being who has feelings and a desire to be respected, just like they do. Will adolescent boys still look down girls' tops and stare at any Playboy centerfold they can get their hands on? Of course they will. Hormones, basic drives and youthful curiosity combine to form one the most powerful forces in the universe, after all. But with a little time and curiosity satisfaction, positive messages from parents will assert themselves in the thinking and behavior of most young men.
   Even though studies in recent years have shown breastfeeding offers both health and psychological advantages, the hectic pace of life in America makes it seem unlikely an overwhelming number of mothers will opt for it over bottle feeding. But no matter how rare or common breastfeeding is, it should be universally accepted, without embarrassment or discomfort, as normal, natural and even nice.
  — By S.W. Anderson
¶ 2:43 PM

 
Party switch highlights need for reform
   U.S. Rep. Rodney Alexander of Louisiana is shocked . . . shocked!
   After running and winning as a Democrat in 2002, and after receiving financial and other support from fellow Democrats this year, Alexander last Friday, at the very last minute, decided to re-file for re-election — as a Republican.
   Not surprisingly, Democrats who want desperately to regain control of the House reacted angrily, as did some members of the Senate. House Democrats now will have to win more than a dozen seats to take control. Louisiana Democrats say Alexander's last-minute switch virtually assures a Republican will win in the 5th District, whether it's Alexander or someone else.
   Amazingly, Alexander was surprised at the outrage his move provoked.
   A news story quotes Sen. John Beaux, D-La., as saying Alexander had pulled an "underhanded maneuver that effectively prevented the people of his district from having a choice. Rodney is a confused politician who has placed loyalty at the very bottom of his priorities."
   A Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee spokeswoman, Kori Bernards, said, "We have no use for turncoats like Rodney Alexander in the new Democratic majority."
   Alexander had voted with Republicans much of the time, feeling, he said, that was what his constituents wanted. He had been courted by Republicans, although he at one point had denied that. One news report indicated he was ultimately tipped into making the switch when a woman filed to run against him in the open primary. He's also reportedly said he will give $90,000 back to Democrats.
   Perhaps to assuage any slight pangs of conscience Alexander might be feeling, President George W. Bush wasted no time calling Alexander Friday night to say welcome aboard. Republicans also rushed to stuff Alexander's campaign coffers with $10,000 and said more will be provided.

   Oh!pinion's view: By world standards, U.S. political parties lack discipline. Reform is clearly needed.
   People vote on the basis of how politicians represent themselves, a big part of that being party affiliation. An election winner should keep faith with those who voted for them as a member of a particular party by maintaining that party affiliation for the full term. The honorable way to switch is to resign the position and then run anew in a subsequent election as a member of the newly joined party. After a party switcher resigns, the seat vacated should go to a member of the party the exiting member belonged to when the seat was won.
   This reform should be made law, if for no other reason than to discourage development of shadow warfare in which parties resort to bribery and extortion to gain "converts."
   And yes, we feel the same thing should've applied when Sen. Jim Jeffords of Vermont made his switch from Republican to Independent.
  — By S.W. Anderson
¶ 2:21 PM

 
Ag imports inspector shortage inexcusable
   With a terrorism war going on and imports of all kinds running at all-time highs, you might expect items coming into the U.S. to be inspected like they've never been inspected before — especially edibles.
   However, more-comprehensive and more-rigorous inspecting requires more inspectors — people Bush administration decision makers decided awhile back we could get by with fewer of.
   Now, according to this story, the Homeland Security Department, which agricultural inspectors were made a part of, are trying to play catch-up by hurriedly training hundreds of agricultural inspectors. The "good" news is that these new inspectors should all be on the job by April 2006.
   Incredibly, the brain trust at Homeland Security decided they could have immigration and customs inspectors check agricultural items, so a lot of agricultural inspector vacancies were left vacant. The story cites falling numbers of interceptions of problem agricultural items. A Homeland Security spokesman offers explanations and assurances that come across like so much butt-covering backing and filling.
   The federal government is big and diverse, and is good for a few revelations about boneheaded decisions and gaffes in any season. But something as elementary and vital as making sure agricultural goods are thoroughly inspected by agricultural specialists in our current circumstances is a complete no brainer.
   This is especially the case with President George W. Bush selling himself as our protector in chief and with Homeland Security Secretary Tom Ridge regularly reassuring us his people are right on top of things.
   It's reasonable to question whether a lapse like the one in agricultural import inespections would be less likely if this administration, from the president on down, had a less negative attitude about government oversight and regulation. It's also reasonable to wonder if the Department of Homeland Security would be doing a better job if Ridge was spending more time managing and less time issuing colored alerts based on years-old information at moments likely to be politically helpful to his boss.
  — By S.W. Anderson
¶ 3:59 PM

 
Las Vegas must deal with being a target
   Are the powers that be in Las Vegas putting profits ahead of people's lives and safety, despite serious evidence of a potential terrorist threat?
   Information from a federal prosecutor and the FBI being reported by the Associated Press indicates Las Vegas law enforcement and casino officials mostly chose to ignore a chance to view surveillance videotapes made by al Qaeda operatives in 1997 and later.
   Las Vegas Mayor Oscar Goodman denies having been told about the tapes, which were found in Detroit and Spain two years ago. Executives of casinos cased in the videotapes are quoted in the story. One denies knowledge of the tapes, the other is evasive. But the story also includes this:
   Tourism and conventions are the economic lifeblood of Las Vegas, with millions of visitors flocking to the glittering city every year. Even for nongamblers, it's an exciting and fun destination. The desire of private- and public-sector officials to not throw a wet security blanket over the city's image as an enjoyable place of escape and good times is understandable.
   But with its huge hotel casinos like the MGM Grand, Excalibur and New York, New York, which were subjects of the al Qaeda tapes, Las Vegas is a made-to-order target for terrorists. The city is studded with venues filled with tens of thousands of people whose minds are on anything but terrorism and security.
   This is no time — and Las Vegas is no place — for denial and the profit motive to trump common sense where public safety is concerned. The truth about who knew what and when, and what action or inaction resulted, should be arrived at as well and as quickly as possible. Then, whatever occurred thus far, Las Vegas civic and business interests had better get serious, openly, about preventive security, public and private awareness, and emergency preparedness.
   Anyone who doubts the seriousness of this situation should think carefully about the following, from the same news story:
   Recalling what happened to some 3,000 innocent Americans on Sept. 11, 2001, risking people's lives to keep profits up is one gamble Las Vegas had better not make.
  — By S.W. Anderson
¶ 12:37 PM

 
And across the land, millions said amen
   "People who start talking about raising the retirement age are people who may not have worked at real jobs for a lifetime."

  — By S.W. Anderson
¶ 12:32 PM

 
Loose cannon not our best defense choice
   Sen. John Kerry said today that had he known then what he knows now, he still would have voted to give the president authority to invade Iraq.
   Kerry's statement was made in response to a challenge Friday from President Bush for Kerry to state his feelings on the matter. Bush apparently hoped to prod Kerry into making a statement that Bush could characterize as either a flip-flop or weakness of resolve.
   If that was the goal, Bush failed.
   Kerry did make a significant distinction about his vote to authorize military action against Iraq. Kerry, like most other senators, expected the president would really exhaust all measures short of war before exercising the authority. Instead, Bush charged ahead, not unlike a kid with his allowance burning a hole in his pocket.
   Kerry faulted Bush for recklessly invading Iraq without the necessary diplomatic preparations.
   This news story quotes Kerry challenging Bush with some questions of his own:
   Kerry said if he's elected, he'll work to add other nations' support and stabilize Iraq, with the goal of beginning withdrawal of U.S. troops within a year if stabilization can be achieved.

   Oh!pinion's view: Despite the attack rhetoric from Bush, Vice President Dick Cheney and their surrogates, Kerry has been consistent about seeing the mission in Iraq through and gaining more and better support for that from other nations.
   The willful ineptitude of Bush administration foreign relations has so muddied the diplomatic waters that only a change of presidents and administrations can begin to repair the damage. Fortunately, Kerry's approach makes good sense.
   Meanwhile, in his stump speeches, Bush continues to wrap himself in the flag, defending his decision to invade Iraq as something that has made the world and the U.S. safer, even while admitting no weapons of mass destruction were found in Iraq. But, Bush emphasizes, Saddam Hussein had the potential to build WMD. So, he says, the necessity of his decision to invade was clear, that he would make the decision to defend the United States every time.
   In fact, Bush went of half cocked in invading Iraq. It's become clear there was a determination to bring down Saddam Hussein among Bush and his key policy advisors from the beginning of his administration, with only the details of how and when remaining to be decided. The president's questions to those providing intelligence and advice were posed on the basis of that mindset, which undoubtedly affected the responses to those questions.
   Now, disingenuously, Bush tries to justify a poorly justified invasion, the sacrifice of well more than 900 of our soldiers' lives and 200 billion deficit dollars, and the alienation of peoples and governments around the world with the lame excuse that Saddam had the potential to build weapons of mass destruction.
   Well, several countries that qualify as dangerous enemies with evil leaders not only have the potential to create WMD, they have WMDs, including nuclear. It's fair to believe, based on his statements about Iraq, Bush might at any time rush off to unilateral, pre-emptive war against North Korea, Iran, etc. On Nov. 2, voters had better terminate Bush's contract. He just might mistake re-election for a mandate to set off World War III.
  — By S.W. Anderson
¶ 10:44 PM

 
Iraq — same news is practically non-news
   If the handover of authority in Iraq from our diplomat-in-charge to our selected Iraqi-in-charge was supposed to tamp down the violence, it's not working. Kidnappings are rampant, as are bomhbings, and there are at least as many pitched battles with militants, including Moqtada al Sadr's fighters, and more American soldiers were killed in July than in June.
   The main difference is that the media seem to have decided to shift the tempo and prominence of coverage. The question is, is that because they have a short attention span or because they think we have a short attention span?

   Slip-slidin' away: The cumulative U.S. merchandise trade deficit for the years 1990 to 1994 was $611.40 billion. The projected merchandise trade deficit for 2004 — just one year — is $684.28 billion.
   Credit for this factoid goes to AmericanEconomicAlert.org, which will send you an eye-opening weekly newsletter via e-mail if you're swift enough to sign up for it. Highly recommended.

   The giant echo chamber that is the right wing of the blogosphere is filled with posts and me-too comments about the Swift Boat Veterans For Truth's scurrilous slime-job attack ad against John Kerry. Over at the Balloonjuice weblog, John Cole has practically written a book. We sense manic desperation at work in all this.

   News coming out of Florida has it that a 27-year-old with a criminal record for assault and three people he allegedly hired have been charged with murder for the grisly slaying of six people in Deltona. The victims, who were beaten to death with baseball bats and stabbed with knives, were discovered Friday.
   The sheriff investigating believes the alleged ringleader, Troy Victorino, was enraged because of the theft on an Xbox video game machine and some clothes. The sheriff believes it was a "you can't do this to me and get away with it" thing.
   We say, let's have fair, speedy trials all around, followed by the kind of electro-shock therapy for those found guilty that will "cure" for all time their anger issues and murderous self-control problem. Call it society's way of making clear to these scumwads, and maybe some others like them, exactly what can be done to them and gotten away with.

   One of President Bush's favorite stump-speech lines, delivered in his down-homiest, folksiest drawl, goes, "See, we think it's your money, you earned it, so we oughta cut taxes so you get to keep it."
   One of these times, someone in the crowd is going to reply:
    "Thanks, Mr. President for lowering my federal income tax $300. But don't expect me to say thanks for all the increases I've had to pay in city, county and state taxes and fees, for the staggering increases in my kids' college tuition and expenses, and for the outlays I've had to make because various services have been cut or eliminated. I figure your tax cuts are into me for a net loss of more than $3,000. Please, don't do me any more favors."
  — By S.W. Anderson
¶ 5:51 PM

 
Limbaugh serves up baloney lunch story
   On July 30, just after the Democratic convention, the Kerry-Edwards campaign buses rolled into Newburgh, N.Y., where the candidates and others made a lunch stop. In keeping with an Edwards family anniversary tradition, they dined on chili and burgers at a Wendy's.
   You'd think such a mundane thing a would be controversy-free, but in the current rabid political atmosphere nothing is presumed to be, or allowed to be, simple and innocent. Evidently, the night before, the Kerry campaign staff had called ahead to another eatery in the area, a new local place called Nikola's, to order 19 bagged lunches to go. These were picked up and put on the buses.
   Next thing you know, right-wing radio's pompous windbag extraordinaire, Rush Limbaugh, was telling the dittoheads who lap up his droppings that the Kerrys, Edwardses and crew had ditched their fast-food lunches in the garbage so they could hurry onto the bus and dine on gourmet goodies from a posh, five-star restaurant. A similar but somewhat toned-down version of the story appeared in that bastion of news accuracy, the New York Post, and elsewhere.
   As this story in the Middletown, N.Y., Times-Herald Record, reports, Limbaugh and the others got it wrong. Kerry and crew ate their Wendy's food, whether or not they also ate the Nikola's food on the bus later. What's more, the five-star rating comes not from the Michelin Guide but from the Record's own reviewer.
   One of the "fledgling" restaurant's own people shrugs at the suggestion the place is "posh" or "exclusive." And what did these supposedly gourmet lunches cost? About $8 apiece. A Kerry staffer said they had a lot of people on the buses, so even with the Wendy's stop, the additional bagged lunches came in handy.
   Limbaugh's object, and the Post's, apparently, was to make the Kerrys and Edwardses appear to be phonies out to impress the public with how regular they are by eating at Wendy's, when what they were really about was eating fabulously expensive food from a fancy restaurant in secret.
   What this rancid story about lunches has really done is leave some faces with egg all over them. We'd say it probably left a bitter taste in Limbaugh's mouth, but we long ago concluded he lacks taste of any kind, along with scruples of any kind.
   Note to Dittoheads: If you're going to Dumpster-dive for your "news," don't be surprised if you end up with a mind full of garbage.
  — By S.W. Anderson
¶ 3:18 PM

 
Nader wants to usurp Greens' ballot slot
   Ralph Nader's place in the Brass Monkey Hall of Fame is assured several times over. For those not familiar, this elite status is bestowed on those who demonstrate, repeatedly and nationwide, that they have more nerve than a brass monkey.
This week, Nader's effort to get on the California ballot fell more than one-third short of the 153,035 signatures needed. According to this news story, Nader's California campaign coordinator says Nader may try to displace Green Party candidate David Cobb as that party's candidate on the ballot. The coordinator admits that's not likely to happen.
   Nader could've been the Green Party candidate, had he played nicely with the Greens in 2000. The word late last year was that Nader might run but not as a Green. We soon learned that was more than OK with the Greens, who decided one demolition derby ride with Nader was enough. Now, when it suits his ego-driven purpose, he'd like to bump the Greens' own longtime loyalist — who is a Californian. Unbelievable!
   Nader is revealing himself, again, as a calloused, selfish user. He doesn't care jack squat about Greens, about advancing their agenda or building their party, any more than he cared about becoming a Democrat so he could work from the inside, responsibly, for the reforms he espouses.
   The next award up with Nader's name on it: Political Pariah of the Decade. He's more than earned the distinction.
  — By S.W. Anderson
¶ 12:25 PM

 
Bad economic policies creating few jobs
   July employment numbers from the Bureau of Labor Statistics are in and they're not pretty. Just 32,000 jobs added — one-fifth the number required to stay even with growth of the labor force.
   But that's not all the bad news. A Reuters story reports:
   Not surprisingly, with Wall Street types anticipating July to be good for an additional 228,000 jobs, the Dow Jones industrial average dove 147 points, to 9,815, the lowest it's been this year. And paving the way for bad news to come on the country's staggering trade deficit, the dollar's value took a tumble.
   A variety of reasons are being offered for the pathetic showing. High oil prices and employer anxieties about a possible terrorist attack were the ones most mentioned.
   The news story includes the Bush administration's predictable and by now familiar response:
   Oh!pinion's view: The paltry job growth numbers are the result of bad policy. People who know a lot more about economics than President George W. Bush and his ideologically agreeable economic advisers predicted a three-year binge of recklessly huge tax cuts would likely yield poor results at exorbitant cost. They were right.
   President Bush, when he was pushing for his big tax cuts and signing the legislation for them, predicted growth in jobs variously between 5 million and 7 million by now. He was wrong.
   Bush's huge tax cuts have had an effect. As we saw last fall, the growth in gross domestic product could be made to jump. As we saw a few days ago, certain favored folks in the Bush/Republican scheme of things, America's top CEOs, enjoyed an average 15 percent one-year increase in their fabulous annual incomes in 2003. That's in sharp contrast to the barely perceptible average 2.2 percent pay increase in 2003 for the majority of working Americans. Factor in inflation and the growth in real buying power comes to one-tenth of 1 percent. For the first time in modern U.S. economic history, workers are not sharing in substantial gains in productivity.

   Bush's pro-corporate economic policies favor big businesses enjoying record-high profits and unprecedented productivity gains as if they were in need of incentives to grow or a boost from the federal government to remain afloat.
   Bush's Robinhood-in-reverse tax policies shift even more of the tax burden from big investors and the wealthiest income earners to middle- and lower-income wage earners. This, as though there is a need to channel more money into savings and investments, the better to make working capital cheap and plentiful for businesses trying to expand.
   In fact, Americans, with retirement-bound baby boomers leading the way, have spent nearly 20 years pouring trillions of dollars into 401(k)s, IRAs, mutual funds and every other kind of investment and savings vehicle. There's no shortage of investment capital today and there has been no shortage since the early 1980s. If anything, there is a glut.
   Bush's massive tax cuts, aside from scratching an ideological itch, were a hideously costly solution for problems that did not and do not exist. They were the wrong thing to do.
   What Bush's policies have actually done is facilitate the offshoring and outsourcing of more jobs, businesses and industries to foreign lands, and increased this country's unsustainable trade imbalance, estimated to be well over a half trillion dollars this year.
   On top of all that, Bush's policies have run up a record $445 billion budget deficit this year and incurred what some predict will be $4 trillion to $6 trillion in debt before his three and a half-year borrow-and-spend spree is finally resolved.
   Not since the end of the 1920s have Americans faced the consequences of economic policies so broadly, drastically and persistently wrong. The cost of even one term of a president who is ignorant and/or incompetent about economics is punishingly high.
  — By S.W. Anderson
¶ 10:26 PM

 
Snow jobs even stand test of time warp
   As Treasury Secretary John Snow was being interviewed by CNN's Carol Lin yesterday, we experienced a moment of satirical transport to another time and place.
   Listening to Snow blithely spin his way through Lin's softball questions about the jobs situation, especially July's abysmal numbers, we momentarily imagined Snow sitting there in the uniform of a World War I Army colonel. We imagined him spinning results of a different sort. . .

   Lin: Live from the Western Front in France, we have with us Col. John Snow, commander of the American Expeditionary Force's 12th Infantry Regiment.
   Col. Snow, it's good to have you with us. Your troops went over the top at first light, bayonets fixed, to face the Hun in close-order battle this morning. A smokescreen generated to give them cover quickly drifted away, exposing them to withering fire. Then, as they closed with the Germans, that smoke drifted back, making the air stifling, causing eyes to tear and making it hard for them to aim or even see. Our correspondent says 210 were killed and 320 were injured. Did your people fail to adequately check the wind currents?
   Snow: Our superbly trained and equipped troops were raring to go this morning, Carol. They fought like tigers for more than six hours. Quite a few enemy soldiers were killed and injured. It was a great battle. We gained significant territory. Our meteorologists do a splendid job, but of course breezes can be changeable.
   Lin: How much territory did your soldiers gain?
   Snow: Well, it's not just a matter of yardage, you know. Being pushed back has an effect on the enemy, on their morale. And, of course, gaining territory boosts our morale.
   Lin: Yes, colonel, but how much territory did your people actually take?
   Snow: Well, Carol, we don't formally put a tape measure to it, but some estimate we're about 200 yards closer to Berlin than we were yesterday. You know, you keep fighting, you keep winning territory. That's how wars are won. We're fighting hard and moving forward, we're gaining. That's what will win this war.
   Lin: We lost 210 men, more than 300 injured, to move 600 feet?
   Snow: It's a shame, but men must sacrifice to take territory. War involves losses. But we'll keep fighting, keep moving forward. Today it was 200 yards. Tomorrow maybe we'll move them back a quarter mile. That's how we'll achieve victory.
   Lin: Thanks for being with us and good luck to your men.
   Snow: Thanks for having me. And remember, we won't be back 'til it's over over here!
  — By S.W. Anderson
¶ 10:26 PM

 
Texas millionaire funds vets' slime job
   Bob J. Perry, a Houston homebuilder, evidently wants the best government money can buy and he's ponied up $260,000 of his money for federal-level candidates since 1999. He reportedly pumped $1.5 million into Texas politics in 2002.
   Now, according to an AP story, at least $100,000 of Perry's money is behind the TV ad sliming Sen. John Kerry's medal-winning heroism in Vietnam.
   The attack ad features disparaging comments of a handful of swift boat veterans who did not serve on Kerry's craft. Their remarks contrast sharply with the proud, sometimes emotional endorsements and eyewitness accounts of Kerry's crewmembers and a Special Forces soldier who happened to be on board when Kerry crawled onto the bow to save a man's life. Not surprisingly, the man Kerry saved wholeheartedly attests to Kerry's bravery under fire.
   The news story says the Kerry bashers have bought $500,000 worth of TV time in Ohio, Wisconsin and West Virginia for the ad. It also says Perry contributed most of $158,750 the group reported in June.

   Ohpinion's view: Just step back and look at this. Here are these swift boat veterans who finished their military service and went their separate ways, who presumably had busy lives in separate locations. Kerry went on to a career as an attorney, prosecutor, lieutenant governor, U.S. senator and ran for president back in the 1980s. A very public figure, in other words.
   So after 30 years, just since spring when Kerry sewed up the Democratic nomination, these swift boat veterans in different places, by sheer coincidence, were all suddenly overcome with one burning desire. They must put their lives on hold, find each other and go forth together to tell the world how unworthy of hero status Kerry is.
   Never mind that recommendations for medals are investigated, with facts verified by witness statements, then reviewed up the chain of command before awards are made. Never mind about eyewitness testimony 30 years ago, and now, by multiple persons, all of it verifying his honesty and bravery.
   Add to this how remarkable it is that these dedicated truth tellers haven't had to spend a dollar of their own money to spread their story across several states. Thanks to the generosity of a multimillionaire businessman who, presumably, didn't know any of them existed a few months ago , it's all taken care of.
   To top it off, this open-handed businessman is from Texas, just like Bush. My, what a small world this is. And chock-full of coincidences.

   Some of us are skeptical. We remember what happened to Sen. John McCain when he ran against George W. Bush for the Republican nomination in 2000. In North Carolina, where McCain's campaign was run off the trail, there were whisper campaigns. One was about McCain fathering an illegitimate, mixed-race girl. Another was about his wartime heroism being exaggerated if not outright phony.
   McCain, we later learned, does have a dark-skinned daughter, an orphan he adopted. And the stories sliming his war record? All were lies.
   We also recall author David Brock's account in "Blinded by the Right" of a shabby comedy of errors set back in the early '90s. A Chicago millionaire named Peter Smith bankrolled an "investigation" and article Brock was to write. It was to be a sliming of Bill and Hillary Clinton based on the accounts of four Arkansas state troopers. As it turned out, the troopers had dollar signs in their eyes and were as flaky as a box of Wheaties. Their stories were so questionable, even Brock, then a right-wing true believer, recoiled. He also had problems with the troopers and their handlers' money grubbing and dishonesty.
   In one illuminating passage, Brock notes, "None of the trooper allegations that could be independently checked turned out to be true." Somehow, that didn't surprise us.
   When it comes to Republicans — especially ones involved in presidential campaigns — there's a pattern in which people with a salacious story to tell about the opposition link up, as if by magic, with oh-so-generous millionaires anxious to finance the telling.
   A couple of years from now, we'd like to see an investigation of the Swift Boat Veterans For Truth, to see if they, by some coincidence, have come into a windfall.

  — By S.W. Anderson
¶ 4:22 PM

 
For once, Bush tells it like it is
   "(It is) "essential that when an American president speaks, he speak clearly, and when he says something, means what he says."

   "Our enemies are innovative and resourceful, and so are we. They never stop thinking about new ways to harm our country and our people, and neither do we."

   From Bush's economic "policy" to what his administration has done to the environment, from reducing the number of police and other first responders to letting the semiautomatic weapons ban expire, to going off half cocked and invading another country for invalid reasons, and without a sound plan for the aftermath, we couldn't agree more with what he said today.
   Indeed, Mr. President, Oh!pinion credits you with meaning what you say and saying what you mean, at least this time, even if it was just a Freudian slip.

(News story for the Maumee quote here; news story for the bill-signing quote here.)


  — By S.W. Anderson
¶ 6:39 PM

 
Bush jobs talk understandably selective
   Campaigning in Davenport, Iowa, Wednesday, President Bush bragged that his economic policy has created 1.5 million jobs since last August. That would be his policy consisting of three huge tax cuts and loads of goodies and special favors desired by big corporations and big-money interests.
   Bush neglected to mention new jobs are barely keeping up with growth in the labor force and that about 340,000 people are filing for unemployment weekly. What about the backlog of more than 2 million jobs lost in the last three and a half years? Bush didn't go there.
   Bush also neatly avoided mention of who is getting most of the new jobs created. New York Times columnist Bob Herbert looked into that and in his July 23 column wrote:
   Bush definitely didn't get into inconvenient details of what happened to the approximately 2.2 million Americans who exhausted their unemployment benefits between January and July — after which they were no longer counted as unemployed, whether they found a job or not. Only people who qualify for unemployment and are actively, verifiably, seeking work get counted.
   Had Bush really opened the Republicans' skeleton closet to the good folks in Davenport, he would've explained that for more than a year Democrats in both houses of Congress repeatedly tried to get unemployment benefits extended. That's what has been done in all previous extended periods of high unemployment. Republicans in Congress scuttled or stonewalled every attempt, with the White House's blessing.
   Why would they do such a thing? It certainly wasn't because extending unemployment benefits would worsen Bush's record-high budget deficit. Unemployment benefits come from a dedicated fund built and replenished with money workers pay in when employed. The money is already available, more than $17 billion, and It's outside the budget.
   Oh!pinion can come up with four reasons why Bush and congressional Republicans would deny extended unemployment benefits to millions of workers struggling to get through Bush's job-loss recovery:
   1 — Denying the benefit extension ensured that the official total of unemployed people would go down substantially each month between January and July of this election year — whether jobs were being created at an increasing rate or not and whether the long-term unemployed could find work or not.
   2 — Extending the benefits would've called attention to the fact that Bush's economic policy has been of little or no help to many Americans most in need of help.
   3 — Forcing an increasing number of people to take, in desperation, whatever job they can get benefits employers, drives down wages and weakens unions — all in keeping with the ideological preferences of conservative Republicans, all to the advantage of Republicans' corporate and big-money supporters.
   4 — An attitude of suspicion that extending benefits encourages people long out of work, maybe with bill collectors closing in, a phone being disconnected, a vehicle being repossessed, a home being foreclosed on, to kick back and watch soap operas all day instead of really trying to find work.

There's one other detail of his record of making gargantuan, unwise tax cuts, supposedly to grow the economy in the thoroughly discredited supply-side way, that Bush spared his Iowa listeners. Back when he was signing some of his tax-cut legislation, Bush claimed the country would be more than 5 million jobs to the good by now.
  — By S.W. Anderson
¶ 11:03 AM

 
Dean's suspicions: It's all in the timing
   Gov. Howard Dean probably spoke for millions of Democrats and other nonfans of President Bush's leadership at the beginning of the week, when Dean raised suspicions about the timing of the latest terrorism alert:
   "I am concerned that every time something happens that is not good for President Bush, he plays this trump card, which is terrorism. His whole campaign is based on the notion that, 'I can keep you safe (therefore in times of difficulty for America) stick with me.' And then out comes Tom Ridge."
   Tuesday, MSNBC's Chris Matthews interviewed Dean on "Hardball." Here are highlights of that interview.
   Matthews asked Dean to put himself in the president's place, then say what he would've done about the information.
   Matthews asked Dean if he thought publicizing of the mishandling of copies of classified material by former Clinton advisor Sandy Berger had been deliberately timed. Dean said he thought the timing was "very peculiar." He also said the Bush administration has brought suspicion on itself because of being less than honest and accurate in the past.
   Matthews pressed Dean to cite a particular operative in the administration making these timing decisions and such. Not surprisingly, the name Karl Rove was mentioned. Dean demurred.
   Dean did note, however, that two years ago Rove authored a memo saying Bush would run for re-election as a wartime president.
   Matthews explored whether the Kerry campaign had prior knowledge about Dean voicing his suspicions; whether Dean had cleared what he was going to say with anyone in the Kerry organization. Dean flatly denied any contact or discussion with Kerry people about the matter. Dean then emphasized a distinction:
   Near the segment's end, Dean delivered a withering assessment of Bush's performance getting the U.S. into war in Iraq and handling the postwar mess that resulted:

   Oh!pinion's view: As Dean at one point made clear, all the evidence about timing for political advantge is circumstantial. We'll reserve judgment for now about whether the latest terrorism alert was deliberately timed to lessen, if not steal, Kerry's thunder.
   We agree with Dean that the administration was right to publicize the infornmation, especially since it involved some specifics.
   However, as to the timing, we wouldn't be surprised in a few months or years to see revelations emerge that the Bush administration waged a campaign of deliberately timed announcements calculated to benefit the re-election effort. We've seen other dirty tricks, other "can't prove anything but it sure looks suspicious" things before and have noticed that there's usually someone who fails to keep his or her mouth shut. As the old saying holds, the truth will out.
  — By S.W. Anderson
¶ 3:13 PM

 
Reject poll palaver and horse-race hot air
   Karl Marx referred to religion as "the opiate of the people." We refer to horse-race questions and poll-results discussions as the opiate of campaign-covering journalists.
   They're the old standby, the staple, the easy way out. And they seem to be as inevitable in election years as fund-raisers and attack ads.
   The only preparation required for an interview or talk segment based on horse-race questions is jotting down some fresh poll results. Just look at the notes and the questions will suggest themselves.
   So, governor, you've done six months of hard campaigning, spent $30 million and you're still 18 points behind your opponent in the latest Blather survey. Isn't it time to consider selling shoes at the mall or something?
   For a more-substantive interview or discussion, the media type must review the candidate's history and track what the candidate has been saying. Even more demanding of time and effort, the media type must study the issues in some detail.
   Not surprisingly, the two approaches offer the public something like the difference between a vending-machine snack and one of mom's hot meals. That's because most poll results satisfy only momentary curiosity: Where do the contenders stand today?

   Aside from providing little really useful information, endless trumpeting of poll results may actually skew elections. There's truth to the old saying that everyone likes to win with a winner. That means candidate X, who enjoys positive poll results early on, is likely to benefit from momentum added by those early poll results. Meanwhile, candidate Y may suffer on election day because his or her disappointing poll numbers serve to discourages supporters from turning out to vote for a sure loser.
   With today's evenly split electorate, polls show President George W. Bush and Sen. John Kerry in a statistical dead heat. One or the other pulls ahead here and there, but by little more than the polls' margin of error. This knife-edge ride has been going on since Kerry locked up the Democratic nomination in March. Barring some dramatic event, such as a major terrorist attack at home or a big calamity in Iraq, the seesaw poll tallies are likely to continue.
   Thus, even more than in most presidential election years, media types do us and the candidates a disservice by continually bringing them up and insisting on discussing them.

   The only remedy we can offer is to encourage everyone to e-mail negative feedback to networks and newspapers whenever their reporters and pundits lapse into asking horse-race questions and/or discussing poll results.
   Candidates seem to have gotten the word people are tired of negative campaigning. Maybe the media can be persuaded we've also had it with horse-race and poll-numbers filler material.

Postscript: For a look at how Sen. John Kerry deftly avoided playing a reporter's foolish game, see the post below.
  — By S.W. Anderson
¶ 6:00 PM

 
Kerry rebuffs silly questions, talks issues
   Political campaigns should be about making candidates' ideas, attitudes and intentions clear to voters. What issues a candidate chooses to discuss and positions on those issues are important. Issue avoidance can be equally revealing.
   Unfortunately, as discussed in our previous post, too many printed and televised interviews bypass the complexities of meaningful issues to focus instead on horse-race questions and poll results.
   Commendably, Sen. John Kerry demonstrated Monday that he intends to do better than play that game.
   Interviewed during a stop in Grand Rapids, Mich., by CNN's Bill Hemmer during the "American Morning" program, Kerry firmly rebuffed repeated attempts to turn him away from important issues and settle for a junk-news copout.
   To be fair, Hemmer began by asking Kerry about homeland security, moving to Kerry's political relationship with Howard Dean on the issue. Over the weekend Dean had voiced suspicions about the Bush administration coming out with another terror alert whenever it wants to distract attention from something favorable to Democrats or perhaps unfavorable to Republicans.
   Then, from the show's transcript:
   Kerry continued on, talking about jobs, the economy and health care. Hemmer tried to steer the interview back toward horse-race nonsense.
   Kerry went on, talking about how he's been consistent and about the proposals and issues he's stressed all along.

Good for Kerry. This kind of firm insistence on substance over meaningless same ol', same ol' is what candidates and voters deserve. Here's hoping Kerry's pushing back will catch on among candidates and campaign organizations across the country.
   Media people shouldn't get away with lowest-common-denominator questioning.
   Voters shouldn't opt for whoever's ahead or behind in the short-run polling. They should vote for the candidate who's making the most sense about issues important to them and to all of us in the long run.
  — By S.W. Anderson
¶ 5:59 PM

 
Replace Raw Deal with the Real Deal
   "Seventy Years ago, Franklin Delano Roosevelt gave this country hope, and a New Deal. A decade later a bold president, Harry S. Truman, gave the neediest in this country a Fair Deal. For the last three and a half years all we've been getting is a Raw Deal.
   "Now it's up to all of us, this November, to give America the Real Deal. Join us in sending John Kerry and John Edwards to the White House."
   

  — By S.W. Anderson
¶ 5:37 PM

 
Bush-Cheney campaign race inquiry lame
   Since when is a news photographer's race a legitimate security concern in efforts to keep Vice President Dick Cheney safe?
   The Bush-Cheney campaign evidently thinks so, going by this Arizona Daily Star story.
   Cheney was to speak over the weekend at the Pima County Fairgrounds. In advance of that, the newspaper submitted to campaign security people the usual ID information about staffers who'd be covering Cheney's visit.
   On Friday, a campaign representative called the paper to inquire about the race of a photographer who was to cover Cheney's appearance. One editor, then another, then the paper's managing editor refused to give that information.
   The story says an organizer called back to say the photographer would probably be allowed to do her job anyway, explaining they were just trying to ensure Cheney's safety. This person also told the paper they were trying to be careful because someone else might have the same name, Mamta Popat.
   Oh!pinion's view: The vice president's safety is a legitimate concern, so it makes sense to do routine background checks on news people who'll get close to him. However, determining the racial background of someone with an unusual name makes little sense and smacks of race-based paranoia.
   It makes more sense for security people to ask how long reporters and photographers have worked in their professions, and how long they've been with their news organization.
  — By S.W. Anderson
¶ 2:27 PM

 
Cut taxes and spend, cut taxes and borrow
   Wow, put the White House's budget deficit forecast of $445 billion together with the projected half-trillion-dollar trade deficit, factor in a little politically motivated butt covering, you're at a cool $1 trillion.
   That's $1 trillion racked up in debt for one year, a record but only the latest of the annual red-ink extravaganzas President George W. Bush has brought us. Well, let's qualify that a little. Bush has deliberately left out $50 billion or so more for Iraq that will be requested between late November and early 2005. After the election, in other words.
   Make no mistake, like that little attempt at cleverness, Bush's very deliberate decisions on spending and policy have piled up this staggering, ever-growing mountain of debt.
   In a few weeks, when Republicans gather in New York to heap praise on what they deem the brilliant leadership of Bush and Dick Cheney, it will be interesting to see how they present themselves as fiscal conservatives.
   We expect to witness a nauseating blend of bland, baldfaced and largely misleading happy talk with whining about what a rough patch this country's been through, what with 9-11, the "inherited" recession and all.
   What we're not likely to hear is any truth or good sense about what Bush's lame-brained, enrich-the-rich tax cuts have done to most of us. Nor are we likely to hear any specifics about the budget surplus Bush had forecast for this year when he was pushing the first of his huge tax cuts three years ago.
  — By S.W. Anderson
¶ 5:49 PM

 
Bush bypasses confirmation process again
   Never one to overdo it where constitutional norms and Washington, D.C., customs are concerned, President George W. Bush is piling on 20 recess appointments while Congress is out of town. (This news story provides names and details of the 20.)
   While "recess appointment" sounds sanitary enough, the reality is that Bush is pulling a whole lot of end runs around the system — something less-ideological, less-extreme presidents rarely resort to.
   The system Bush is avoiding exists for sound reasons. The president routinely makes appointments to fill a broad range of executive branch positions. Then, the appointees sit down before various Senate committees for confirmation hearings.
   This process serves good purposes beyond the obvious one of screening out individuals who are clearly unsuitable. As appointees respond to senators' questions, they are made aware of areas of special concern, about priorities, future funding prospects and more. They also are made aware that their agency and what it does are subject to review and oversight by the legislators who help set policy and write the checks.
   Sometimes, an appointee considered likely to pursue some policy or approach that's particularly controversial or out of the mainstream may be told, in so many words or explicitly, "Even if you're approved, you'd better watch your step."
   A senator who strongly believes an appointee is unsuitable can block the nomination. That's what Sen. Ron Wyden, D-Ore., did to Bush's pick for a new Federal Trade Commission chairperson. According to the news story, Wyden "said there was no evidence she would change FTC policies that benefit oil companies and hurt consumers."
   Having now named former Deputy Attorney General Deborah Majoras of Virginia as a recess appointment, Bush will get his way. And consumers? Well, if Wyden's concern turns out to be well founded, we'll probably be paying somewhat more for oil and gasoline, at least for about 18 months.
   The one downside to recess appointments, from the Bush administration's point of view, is that whereas regular appointments are usually for an indefinite period, recess appointments are of limited duration. The current 20 run only until the end of 2005.
  — By S.W. Anderson
¶ 3:51 PM