August 30, 2005

Wanted: Leaders
(The real kind)

Whatever happened to real leaders? I just turned 60 and remember a time when the people I looked up to deserved it. But these days it seems that almost any individual who rises to a position of leadership is, in one way or other, damaged goods.

Cindy Sheehan got me thinking about this leadership deficit. I was listening to NPR yesterday as I drove and they were interviewing Cindy live from her Crawford encampment. I was already more than a bit leery of Cindy, having read some of her earlier quotes. She was clearly one of those left-wingers I dislike as much as their right wing counterparts – you know the kind, everything is a conspiracy. On the right the conspirators are the Trilateral Commission/world government cabal, on the left it's the corporate/Israeli/military industrial complex robber baron bunch. Both groups embrace views that are simplistic caricatures of reality. And neither offer anything even close to useful solutions.

The program Cindy was on was Talk of The Nation, a made-to-order venue for Cindy's message. But when the interviewer asked her to recount how the President treated her during her first, and only, meeting a year ago, she snapped at him. "I have already talked about that meeting many times," she said in a scolding voice, "Why don't you ask me about what's happening down here now?"

The host explained that, while she may have told the story before he had not heard it and would appreciate her recounting the experience. She complied, but like a spoiled school girl forced to recite a speech she did not want to give. Then he asked her about some of those controversial statements the right was criticizing her for, like "this country is not worth dying for," and that the US went into Iraq at the behest of Israel.

This was less than three minutes into what had been scheduled as an hour-long session of talk and listener calls. But Cindy apparently decided that NPR was not pandering to her enough and cut the interview off. "I have to go. Goodbye." Click.

Yeah, her son was killed in a war built on lies. And, yeah, her son died for a country filled with people who don't deserve such a sacrifice. And yeah, Cindy is a grieving mother. But, yeah, Cindy is also an enchilada or two short of a combination plate.

But she has plenty of company out there in the public spotlight. The same can be said for most of the guys and gals who have found their way into public leadership positions, either by vote or, like Cindy, default. George W. Bush is demonstrably the least intelligent human to walk the halls of the White House since Dan Quayle spent his days cutting out paper dolls waiting for W's dad to drop dead so he could "get the big desk."

And don't even ask me to go through the list of leading Democrats who can't see they have feet of clay because they have their heads so far up their posterior orifice.

This country desperately needs a lot of things right now; a real energy policy, fiscal responsibility, a real national heath care plan, a real policy for cutting greenhouse gases, investment in our crumbling infrastructure, an exit plan from Iraq. But what we need most are genuine leaders who have both the intellectual capacity and ethical fiber to formulate such policies, explain them and execute them. And right now I can't name a single one.

It's not that there are none, there are a few who could be the real deal. Sen. Pat Leahy of Vermont might be one. He's a very wired guy for 65-year old. That bodes well because it reveals a hungry and forward looking mind. Sen. Russ Feingold of Wisconsin, may be another. He broke with the Hillary/Joe-Joe "stay the course in Iraq wing of his own party by proposing the administration set a benchmark deadlines for withdrawal -- not a "cut-and-run" strategy as Bush calls it, but target dates for staged troop withdrawals, the purpose which would be to focus the Iraqis attention on getting their act together, a fast.

But those in Feingold's own party who lust to be America's next leader -- and who voted for this disgraceful war -- are doing everything they can to avoid confronting that mistake.

"If there's a moment that could stand for the Democrats' irrelevance it came on July 14, the day Americans woke up to learn of the suicide bomber in Baghdad who killed as many as 27 people, nearly all of them children gathered around American troops. In Washington that day, the presumptive presidential candidate Hillary Clinton held a press conference vowing to protect American children from the fantasy violence of video games." (NYT- Frank Rich)

So here I am, like so many Americans, adrift in my leaky little boat surrounded by rising seas. Water, water everywhere and not a drop to drink – or in this case, leaders, leaders everywhere and not a one worthy of my admiration or vote.

I have a feeling a lot of Americans are drifting out here with me. In fact, I suspect more and more voters, Red and Blue, are joining us castaways each day.

Red state voters are paying three bucks a gallon for gas, and plenty of them are the SUV/pick-um-up truck drivin' demographic. Each time they pour $75 into their American-dream-birthright gas guzzlers and then read that oil companies are reporting record profits, they wonder why the oil guy they put in the White House is doing this to them. Duh.

Many Red State voters are also prime candidates for credit card addition. The average balance now is $7800 in high-interest credit card debt per family. In the months ahead millions of "values voters" will have an opportunity to reflect on the conservative values revealed by the new bankruptcy restrictions their compassionate leader signed into law - restrictions that will lock working families into near-perpetual bondage to CitiBank.

Republican voters in Biloxi, Mississippi rummaging through debris that yesterday was home, may also be reconsidering the wisdom of Bush's refusal to sign the Kyoto protocols on reducing hothouse gases.

Then when the housing bubble deflates and takes a few trillion dollars of paper wealth with it, millions of would-be middle class Republican voters will discover they've been living a lie, a lie financed by the very roof over their family's head – a roof that may be blown off by the an approaching hurricane of adjustable interest rate increases.

Bush's chickens seem to be coming home to roost all at once; the war, deficit spending, ever mounting trade deficits, the worldwide scramble for finite and diminishing fossil fuels, the soaring cost of driving and heating, the gutting of the American labor force, a "zero" national savings rate and finally the threat to home and hearth itself. And amidst it all, an appalling lack of genuine leadership.

Ah, but what about homeland security? Aren't I afraid? Yes, I am. But I am far more afraid of the fallout from bad leadership than I am of some swarthy character with a bomb in a knapsack. Good leadership will lead to good homeland security. Bad leadership has made us less safe than we have ever been. Bad leadership makes non-threatening folks take their shoes off at airports, reveals their library reading habits, and sends troops (many of them first responder reservists) halfway around the world. Good leadership secures our porous boarders.

Ironically, even as this administration works feverishly to build a national unity government in Iraq, it is this country that needs one the most. From George W. Bush all the way down to Cindy Sheehan, America's fate is in the hands of leaders who really don't deserve the authority they wield.

It's moments like this that decide a nation's fate. When World War II broke out two genuine leaders materialized, Churchill and Roosevelt, and together they saved mankind. Have they stopped making leaders like that? Leaders who will tell us the hard truths, make us take the bitter medicine when we must while inspiring us to be all that we can and should be? I don't even care which party they belong to, or any party at all. I don't care if they are male or female, white, black or purple, from the northeast, the south or the west. I just want them to be smart, selfless, honest and willing to fight for enlightened, far-sighted, fair and equitable policies. I want them to care as much about the environmental climate as they do the business climate, public welfare as much as corporate welfare.

Where are such leaders today? Right now, I can't tell you. I don't see them. But I continue to hope they're out there somewhere and will stand up once again -- before it's too late.

August 29, 2005

Theo-Fascists:
Have We Been Tolerant To A Fault?

I have said for years that the fastest way to get right wing-nuts and fundamentalist Christians out of our hair is to let them have their way. Because the more you learn about them the less you like them, or what they believe in. Strip away all the fluffy talk about "families, values. God and the sanctity of life," and what you discover are white bread closet fascists. The good news is that the more they are emboldened by concessions and pandered to by elected officials, the more they expose their genuine proclivities. (We saw that this week the evangelical's Pope, Rev. Pat Robertson, felt free to put on a hit on an democratically elected president of another country. )

We are also seeing hardcore Red State voters more and more clearly as tensions raise over the Iraq war. In recent days we have seen pictures of these self-described patriotic, God-fearing Americans, shouting insults and obscenities at antiwar mothers of GI's killed in Iraq. Lovely. Compassionate conservatism on full display.

So, as we watch and listen more and Americans are asking themselves, "are these really the kind of low-rent intellects we want running America?"

If not, the time is now to start confronting them, as the Gold Star Moms are doing. Provoke them to expose themselves, to blurt out the hatred they harbor for all things enlightened and progressive. Confront them by example because they are simple folk, they cannot be told anything, they must be shown. When they show up at your school peddling superstition as science treat it as teaching opportunity. Intelligent design in biology class? Okay, but then insist, to be fair, the school add the teaching astrology in astronomy class as well. Then watch the sparks fly. And don't back down til they do.

Stop pussyfooting around the proudly ignorant. Start going out of your way to annoy them, confront them, push their buttons with hard facts. Don this, not to be mean, but provocative. Because when simple-minded, closet fascists get angry they tend to involuntarily de-cloak. And when that happens what is exposed is at once ugly and frightening.

Listen up. The next national election is only a year away. Time is short. The Gold Star Moms are showing the way. They have made the right angry, rush to Crawford, Texas and reveal themselves as the narrow minded, hate filled pack of anti-intellectual knuckle-draggers that they are.

"My country, right or wrong," is back after a 40-year rest. It has again become the refuge of "God fearing patriotic Americans." These are the same folks who say abortion is wrong, evolution is wrong, birth control is wrong, gay marriage is wrong – but lightly excuse the possibility that a war waged in their name is wrong. The contradictions and double standards embraced by these dim bulbs are beyond explanation -- and contempt.

So, enough! Basta! The time for accommodation is over, because such people cannot be accommodated. Much of what they believe is pure, utter nonsense -- and often downright immoral. But they cannot be reasoned with. They are not only unenlightened, but anti-enlightenment. If there were such as thing as non-surgical social/religious lobotomies, these folks would be the result.

Before we can turn this mess around we have to first accept our own responsibility for letting it get this far. We have been politically correct enablers, terrified that we would appear intolerant and bigoted it we aggressively confronted them. The time has come for this politically correct tolerance of provable nonsense must end. Because it plays right into their hands. These folks have learned how to use our tolerance to create a society in which only their beliefs and interests will be tolerated. They are the most intolerant people in America, and deserve nothing less in return.

I am old enough to remember when the nation was all atwitter over "creeping Communism." Well, now we must fight an even more serious threat -- creeping theo-fascism – the Islamic and Christian versions.

So far though they are winning, not because of the force of their arguments, but because of our failure to un-embarrassingly confront their nutty beliefs, and to do so as brutally as they have confronted our progressive values. (The earth is only 6000 years old -- created by a supernatural being in six days? Those are some of the stupidest things come out of the mouth of a full-grown adult. So, tell them that. Flat out. Just because it's their religious belief doesn't mean it deserves an ounce of respect.) If people want to believe goofy things, they are free to do so. What they are not free to do is insist goofy ideas be codified into law.

So, get out there and do your bit. Annoy, annoy, annoy. Get right up in their noses. Make them angry. Force them to de-cloak or, as Ben Jonson wrote, "Speak, that I may see thee."

Have a nice weekend. (And get out there and annoy a theo-fascist for your country.)


Quote of the Times
"All propaganda must be so popular and on such an intellectual level, that even the most stupid of those toward whom it is directed will understand it... Through clever and constant application of propaganda, people can be made to see paradise as hell, and also the other way around, to consider the most wretched sort of life as paradise." A. Hitler.

August 25, 2005

Sons of Baghdad Bob

Remember Baghdad Bob? We all laughed when, in the final days of the assault on Baghdad, he stood before TV cameras denying that US troops were anywhere near the city. Meanwhile, just behind him, in camera view, the fighting could be seen and heard. Bob set a new standard for stubborn denial.

But Iraq is not unique. Governments are full of Baghdad Bobs. In fact governments and corporations have something in common in that regard. Baghdad Bobs thrive in both. It's a symbionic relationship. The organization provides them status they could never have attained on their own, and in return they unconditionally believe.

I saw this in action during my 4-year stint in dot-com land. Millions upon millions of dollars where invested in ventures unable to figure out how to make money. Nevertheless those company's Baghdad Bob dudes, and their Wall Street enablers, issued non-stop glowing predictions right up to the day a bankruptcy trustee sold their desk and ergonomic chair right out from under them.

While Saddam had only one Baghdad Bob the Bush administration houses dozens of the little buggers. I watched one of them, Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld's news conference yesterday. I thought I was having a flashback to that scene when the original Baghdad Bob had to shout over exploding US bombs and shells to declare victory. (Bob should sue for copyright infringement. God knows, he has a case!)

The gap between what is really happening in Iraq and what Bush & Co. claim is happening have diverged to such an extent now that it makes one wonder. Are they just still lying to us, or is it worse than that? Are they no longer just politically invested in the myth, but become one with it?

After listening to Rumsfeld's upbeat assessment yesterday I awoke this morning to news that dozens of insurgents had launched an audacious attack on a main Iraqi police headquarters. That fight was still going on at this writing and, of course, US troops had been called in to pull the Iraqi's chestnuts out of the fire, again.

But today's attack may be just a prelude to a Tet-style offensive being planned for later this week when Iraqi leaders approve a draft constitution. If that happens, trust me, Rumsfeld Bob and Bush Bob will confidently describe the carnage that results as just further proof the insurgents are "desperate," and in their "last throes."

In order to get a raw and unfiltered version of what's really afoot in Iraq you have to read the international press. This story the UK's Guardian caught my attention. It is a remarkable piece of reporting. Compare this story to Rumsfeld's upbeat assessment on same day:

Under US noses, brutal insurgents rule Sunni citadel
Guardian gains rare access to Iraqi town and finds it fully in control of 'mujahideen'

Omer Mahdi in Haditha and Rory Carroll in Baghdad
Monday August 22, 2005
The Guardian

The executions are carried out at dawn on Haqlania bridge, the entrance to Haditha. A small crowd usually turns up to watch even though the killings are filmed and made available on DVD in the market the same afternoon.

One of last week's victims was a young man in a black tracksuit. Like the others he was left on his belly by the blue iron railings at the bridge's southern end. His severed head rested on his back, facing Baghdad. Children cheered when they heard that the next day's spectacle would be a double bill: two decapitations. A man named Watban and his brother had been found guilty of spying.

With so many alleged American agents dying here Haqlania bridge was renamed Agents' bridge. Then a local wag dubbed it Agents' fridge, evoking a mortuary, and that name has stuck.

A three-day visit by a reporter working for the Guardian last week established what neither the Iraqi government nor the US military has admitted: Haditha, a farming town of 90,000 people by the Euphrates river, is an insurgent citadel.

That Islamist guerrillas were active in the area was no secret but only now has the extent of their control been revealed. They are the sole authority, running the town's security, administration and communications. (Full Story)

Please read the whole story. These reporters risked their lives to get it.

Memo to American reporters holed up in the Green Zone:
Be ashamed.

Memo to Rumsfeld: Look behind you. You're losing. And, we know it.

Christian Taliban Leader's Fataawa
This is too easy. I feel guilty even mentioning it:

Pat Robertson, the television evangelist and Christian Coalition founder, has set off a diplomatic fracas with Venezuela by calling for the assassination of its populist president, Hugo Chavez...."We have the ability to take him out, and I think the time has come that we exercise that ability," Robertson said Monday on his Christian Broadcasting Network. "We don't need another $200 billion war to get rid of one, you know, strong-arm dictator. It's a whole lot easier to have some of the covert operatives do the job and then get it over with." (Full Story)

What you may not understand is that the reverend was simply following the lead of Jesus who, at the last supper, put a hit out on Punctus Pilot. You may not have known this because King James, fearing for his own safety, had that part of the gospels sanitized. But recently translated Dead Sea scrolls reveal that Rev. Robertson was in fact following the lead of his savior.

From the lost scrolls:
Jesus whispering to Peter:
"We haveth ways to taketh him out, and I thinketh the time is uponest us to doeth it. Now Peter, passeth the wine. Jesus needeth another drink."

Of course, Jesus didn't know Judas was on Pilot's payroll, the plot was foiled and Jesus got nailed instead. The rest is history.

Rev. Robertson's Judas is the media, which ruined his plot by telling. Damn you, liberal media!

Just In: Women Have Balls
I need to make a brief observation about the American anti-war movement. It took a handful of middle-aged women to finally kick start real opposition to this disgraceful war. And it's women keeping that opposition alive.

They are stalking the President. Yesterday Bush thought he could escape the Gold Star Moms camped outside his Texas ranch by heading off to conservative Idaho.

DONNELLY, Idaho - President Bush spent Tuesday at a resort in the Idaho Rockies, mountain biking around a rugged trail circuit before going fishing in a small pontoon boat on a wind-whipped lake... "I'm kind of hanging loose, as they say," Bush said earlier outside of his lodge at the Tamarack Resort, where he was spending two nights away from his Texas ranch.

But "they" were waiting for him in Idaho too. Women inspired by Cindy Sheehan's Crawford protest had replicated it for Bush's visit.

“Everywhere he goes, there’s going to be a Cindy Sheehan in every community,” said one woman, whose son is stationed in Iraq.

This reminds me of the Edgar Allen Poe story, "The Telltale Heart," where a murderer tries to hide his victim, not just from others but from himself, only to be followed everywhere he goes by the sound of a beating heart. These Moms are Bush's Telltale Heart, from which there will be no escape. Because, as they say, "Hell hath no furry...."

Memo to Men: Be ashamed.


NOTICE: I have things to do tomorrow. Real things. So I am taking the day off. See you Friday. Oh, and one more thing – click on the link to the full Guardian article. I know you skipped over it above and I have to warn you, there will be quiz. So here's that link again. Then email it to your elected Rep. (Full Story) http://www.guardian.co.uk/Iraq/Story/0,2763,1553969,00.html

August 23, 2005

It's a Boy !
( Boy oh boy, is it ever ! )


Congratulations George W. Bush, you are the father of a bouncing baby Islamic Republic!

What-ya mean you want a paternity test? Who else could be the father? Saddam was dictator and despot but a secular one. He used to have troublesome mullahs whacked. Anyway, you have him locked up. He sure didn't do it.

No, George, I am afraid you have to take responsibility for your little mullah. Come on now, don't be ashamed, stuff happens. You thought you were just going in for some heavy petting and, wham – the next thing you know you've created a another Islamic brat that's going to blame you for everything that's wrong with the world. Sharper than a serpent's tooth, huh?

Of course you may have a hard time explaining this to your fundamentalist Christian town folk. Lots of us tried to get you to abort this thing before it got to this point, but now it's too late. Now you will have to explain why a couple of thousand US kids had to die just so Iraqi men can marry girls as young as nine, and then legally beat the crap out of them if they don't toe the Islamic line.

I wonder what your pal, the most reverend Jerry Falwell, will have to say about grown men marrying pre-teen girls? But there's no escaping it George, it's your doing. Maybe you can make Rev. Jerry feel better if you explain that Muslims also hate abortion. So, if the guy knocks the little girl up, she will have a playmate in nine months. You can tell Jerry that and see how it floats.

Half the humans on earth are women. But in your new Islamic Republic, George, half of all Iraqis will be less than half as equal than the other half. Women will have to cover up or risk being beaten by misogynistic thugs masquerading as "religious police." Whatya gonna say when TV footage of that reaches Red State women voters? How about "They were asking for it dressing like that? " It's worth a try.

Maybe you should ask those mothers camped out by your ranch about how to handle this. After all, their kids died helping deliver your new baby. First notice that none of those women are wearing berkas. This is a clue. It's hot in both Iraq and Crawford. But at least in Crawford women can wear shorts. This may not be the case in your new Iraq where, despite temperatures over 100 degrees, women will be pressured to cover up in heat-absorbing black, head to toe – and not because black is slimming, either. As they sweat viewing the world through eye-slits, they will have you to blame for that, daddy.

You may also want to start work on how you are going to break this news to those in your administration so enamored by "the sanctity of marriage." They may be surprised to discover that under Islamic law a guy done with a wife just has to say, "I divorce you," three times in a row, and she's out on her berka covered butt. Talk about quickie divorces! Eat your heart out, Nevada.

This divorce thing may give you some trouble with those Catholic voters you have been catering to with all this traditional family stuff. But you may be able to mitigate the damage by pointing out that Islam and Catholisim have a lot in common. Islam doesn't allow women to become mullahs just as the The Church does not allow women to become priests. You can sell that as "common ground."

How about alimony? Forget about it. Women have no community property rights under Islamic law, not even the right to the children they bore during a marriage. But you may find some allies for this in Utah because Muslim men can have more than one wife – at the same time! (I wonder how your pal, the most pious, Rev. James Dobson, at Focus on The Family will feel about that? His mantra is that only "One man, one women" is marriage. You may be able to soothe Dobson's ire by reminding him that homosexuality is a capital crime under Islamic law. He'll like that. )


George, George, George -- your father had the sense to pull out early, but oh no, you just had to go all the way. Now look what you've done -- created a new playmate for the militant Iranian gang next door.

It's too late to do anything about all this now, George. But don't be too hard on yourself. You're not the first father to have a kid go sideways on him. Jeffrey Dahmer, Charlie Mason, Ted Bundy, O.J. Simpson, Adolf Hitler, Richard Nixon, they each had daddies.

All you can do now is spend the rest of your life trying to convince history that you gave the kid every chance in life but he still went bad on you. It probalby won't work though. History is cruel that way. There are no spin-masters in history classes. Just facts set in cement.

August 22. 2005

Democrats:
Slouching Towards Irrelevance

It just gets worse, doesn't it? On Friday I wrote, "General Dean's Hollow Army" (see below) complaining that party chairman, Howard Dean, gets fragged by his own troops any time he tries to engage the enemy. I have said for months that what the DNC needs most is a brutal, no-holds-barred, no-celebrity-politician-spared, purge -- a colonic – a Fleets enema delivered by tanker trucks.

We know what's gumming up the works -- old hack machine Dems lead by the likes of Hillary, Biden and Lieberman and their triangulating minion led by Shrum, Carville and Begala. The DNC will not have a prayer until the party flushes these valueless connivers from it's system.

As long as they and their kind remain the party will lose – not just elections – but Democrats. What prompted this rant is an email I got this morning from reader Karin Dicker pointing me to the following Washington Post story:

Democrats Split Over Position on Iraq War
Washington --Activists More Vocal As Leaders Decline To Challenge Bush Democrats say a long-standing rift in the party over the Iraq war has grown increasingly raw in recent days, as stay-the-course elected leaders who voted for the war three years ago confront rising impatience from activists and strategists who want to challenge President Bush aggressively to withdraw troops.....Amid rising casualties and falling public support for the war, Democrats of all stripes have grown more vocal this summer in criticizing Bush's handling of the war. A growing chorus of Democrats, however, has said this criticism should be harnessed to a consistent message and alternative policy -- something most Democratic lawmakers have refused to offer. (Full Story)

Karin added that she shot Howard Dean an email too.

"I GIVE UP-I AM OUTTA HERE. I CANNOT TAKE THE PAIN ANYMORE. I JUST CANNOT! Howard - get out of the DNC leadership--and run for President. Perhaps we can have a party called American Progressive party. Our democratic party will never win as long as the backbone is totally gone from our leaders. My God, George Bush is falling deep in the polls and we have no leaders. We have made no gains! Get out of that DLC bastion of bullshit now!"

If there ever was a moment of truth for the Democrats, it's now. I understand that some of the party's biggest big shots – in particular Hillary and Joe-Joe, have a problem – they supported the war and can't quite seem to bring themselves to admit the mistake. In that regard they have more in common with George Bush than the rest of us out here.

And it only gets worse. How ridiculous is this – several top Republicans – led by Senator Chuck Hagel, are now to the left of the top Dems on the war? One would think that that alone would shame Hillary and Joe-Joe into changing their quisling "now that we are in there we have to stay the course," dodge..

Instead it took a simple mother, whose kid got killed in Iraq, to lay the foundation of "get out of Iraq," movement. Cindy Sheehan is hardly a paragon of truth, justice and the American way herself. Like most humans she holds some pretty nutty ideas. The only difference is, as someone who has not made a career being a public figure, she didn't know which of those ideas to just keep to herself.

But Cindy is dead right about the war in Iraq. She's also right that her son died in a war cooked up on a pile of lies by a pack of lying neocons who believe their self-described noble causes always justify the means. On that point Cindy is way ahead of Hillary and Joe-Joe, and has displayed more integrity and courage than the three of them, combined.

So what explains top Dems reluctance to join the "get out of Iraq," movement mushrooming around them? Simple. Geniuses like Bob Schrum remind them that polls show voters don't think Democrats are butch enough when it comes to national defense. And, if they come out in favor or a withdrawal from Iraq, they will only reinforce that view and be tagged as "cut-and-run" sissies by their GOP opponents.

Well, there is a middle ground here, and Dems should claim it before moderate Republicans do. It's true that cutting and running once the shooting starts is just a good way to get shot in the back. It would indeed be a bad idea. And just picking up and leaving Iraq in a mess of our making would hardly burnish our International image. So, what Dems need is an alternative plan to Bush's "stay the course,"(which by the way, is just another way of saying, "let's drag this war out long enough for us to get out of Washington so we can blame failure in Iraq on the next administration.")

Back on July 13 I offered just such a plan. Apparently Hillary and Joe-Joe were on vacation and missed it. So I am repeating it below. This is a real alternative and if the Dems embrace it, fight for it and explained it to voters, it would resonate with war-weary voters and at the same time inoculate them from GOP attempts to sissify them.


A Realistic Withdrawal Plan For Iraq

This is how to salvage Bush’s failed Iraq policy, as my old Marine Corps drill instructor used to say, “by the numbers.”

1) Alert Iraqi authorities they have until January 2006 to get their own troops ready to take over all operations inside Iraq’s borders.

2) Begin now preparing temporary bases, at roughly 100-mile intervals, along Iraq’s borders with Iran and Syria and Saudi Arabia. (The math: 2000-mile plus border would require roughly 25 bases. If we used just half the 160,000 US troops in such an operation that would be 40 soldiers to patrol each mile of the border. )

3) Come this January US and other coalition forces are moved to these border bases where their mission – their only mission -- would be to seal their 100-mile section of border.

4) Each border base would be equipped with state of the art drones, helicopters, sensors and whatever other gear is needed to seal their section of border -- but no Iraqi troops. The reason for that should be clear. The Iraq military has been heavily infiltrated by insurgents and sympathizers. The last thing we need is them pointing out the weak spots in our sealed borders strategy. Border bases would have to be manned, supplied and run entirely by coalition forces. (And of course Halliburton would make another bundle on this. There's no escaping Halliburton.)

5) The only US troops that would remain in Iraq’s interior after January would be a handful of U.S. military advisors serving with the Iraqi military and Special Forces teams collecting intelligence, training and occasional joint surgical operations.

6) The US would agree to continue providing close air support when requested by Iraqi troops -- but only with the clear understanding that, if civilians are injured or killed in an Iraqi-ordered air strike, Iraqi commanders will take the rap – the whole rap, immediately and publicly. Otherwise our planes will be no-shows the next time they dial 911.


This plan would break the current deadlock. The insurgency, supported from the outside and from within, is eternally sustainable. This plan would shuffle the deck in various ways to disrupt that continuum:

1) It would cut the supply of fresh jihadist recruits streaming into Iraq from Syria and Iran.

2) It would force Iraqi troops to stop relying on US military backup when the going gets tough.

3) Then, if Iraq forces rise to the occasion, they could kill off those insurgents trapped inside Iraq's sealed borders or convince the rest to put down their arms and join the political process.

4) It would greatly reduce US casualties beginning immediately on January 2. (I would bet it would reduce US casualties by up to 90%, simply because they would no longer be in urban settings where car and roadside bombs have proven so lethal.)

5) Most importantly it would mark the beginning of the end of US occupation. No longer would ordinary Iraqis see westerners frisking Iraqis or invading the privacy of their homes and mosques. They would like that. But the message to the Iraqi people would also be as clear and unambiguous as it could be: we are leaving, and sooner rather than later. So, you guys better get your own act together.

Even if this plan were not entirely successful, how much worse could it be than what we have now? If nothing else it would serve cut the class size of what has become the Islamic terrorist world's equivalent of West Point. Our border-based troops would either kill or capture such terrorists-in-training before they even get to their first class. And, as the chances of making it into Iraq alive dim the number of those trying would dwindle.

Finally, sealing the borders with Iran and Syria would also disrupt a myriad un-wholesome and unhelpful cross-border activities by those two antagonistic, un-wholesome and unhelpful players.

That's the plan Democrats should embrace. Of course, this plan could fail too. But if it does at least then our troops would be deployed just a few feet away from the exits. Besides if in the end a finite number of insurgents trapped within a sealed Iraq defeat US-trained and lavishly supplied Iraqi government forces, then they probably don’t deserve their own country anyway.

The Bush administration would complain that January is too soon, that Iraqi troops will not be ready to fight on their own yet. Maybe they can sell that bogus bull to some folks, but not me. I arrived at the Marine Corps Recruit Depot on July 14, 1965 a 128 pound pussy fresh from suburbia. I left twelve weeks later for two more months of infantry training at Camp Pendleton.

By December 1965 I was trained and ready. (Maybe not entirely willing, but definitely ready.)

So, either the Iraqis are not fighting material, or they are dragging their feet, or they are not just not willing to die for George Bush's vision for their country. Whatever it is if they can't be trained to fight in six months another six months or year of training ain't gonna do it either. (After all, military training is not exactly rocket science. We are talking a course of study dominated by subjects such as do what you're told, run, point, shoot, fall, crawl, blow things up.)

Critics claim a withdrawal before total victory would turn Iraq into a new base of operations for al Qaida. Well here's a news flash George, it already is. Our invasion of Iraq turned the country into a live-fire terrorist military academy – al Qaida's own West Point -- with live US targets.

In fact whether Iraq becomes a democracy, theocracy or Saddamist dictatorship after we leave is entirely out of our hands, no matter what we do. As we are seeing this month as Iraqis try to write a constitution, these folks have other issues, and lots of them.

The most likely outcome is the Yugoslavia-ization of Iraq. The Kurds would go their own whey (sorry, couldn't resist) and lay claim to the northern part of the country they already govern. There would be a fight for Kurkuk and the oil fields around it, but if the Shiites could not defeat minority Sunni insurgents they wouldn’t have a prayer against the Kurds.

After that bloody process plays itself out what we now call the “Sunni Triangle” would become Sunniland with Baghdad as its capital. (Since there's no oil in Sunniland it would become an impoverished ward of Syria, which was recently kicked out of Lebanon and will be delighted to lend a hand.)

The southern part of Iraq would become oil-rich Shiiteland and a defacto province of Iran.

Anyway, that outcome is what the Iraqis would have to understand is "Plan B," if they don't get their act together, and fast. And the sooner Iraqis are confronted with such a prospect the better.

So, Dems, there's your alternative to "stay the course." Move our troops to the Iraqi borders and keep them there until it becomes clear that the Iraqis are either going to defeat the insurgents or lose to them.

In either case, we’re outta there.

(Or, let the Hillary, Joe-Joe wing of the party continue vacillating and triangulating and more and more Democrats will join Karin in sayiing, "we're outta here.")

August 20, 2005

General Dean's Hollow Army

If General Eisenhower had the kind of troops on D-Day Howard Dean is stuck with today we'd all be wearing lederhousen. Every time Dean says anything even remotely true about the mess Republicans have made – domestically, fiscally or internationally – his own party leaders feel compelled to rush out and apologize. They remind me of an abused spouse who, after every beating from her abuser, refuses to press charges blaming herself for saying the wrong thing.

Dean sent Democratic Party mice running for cover again last weekend when he (correctly) stated that if Iraqi's adopt a constitution based on traditional Islam's rules for (mis)treating women, Iraqi women would be worse off than they were under Saddam.

Now, that statement is demonstrably true. A high school freshman on her first day in debating class could win that side of the debate without cracking a book. Just look at Iran, Saudi Arabia or even "liberated" Afghanistan, where traditional Islamic law (Shahria) calls the tune. In those countries women are treated (oppressed actually) in ways that would send Sen. Barbara Boxer into orbit if it were happening anywhere in the US. And, rightfully so.

Iraqi Shiites are demanding just those kinds of laws in the newly liberated Iraq. Nevertheless top Dems elbowed their weasely way to the nearest CNN microphone to denounce Dean's (completely correct and defensible) observation. Leading the Democrat damage control squad, the dapper senator from Delaware, Joe Biden, who wants to run for President in '08. He was the first to find an open mic and once again denounced Dean's statement.

It was the second time Biden cut the ground out from under Dean. The first was last June when Dean described Republicans as "evil," and that House Majority Leader Tom DeLay "belongs in jail." (Which in fact may come to pass since he is under criminal investigation in Texas.) Biden was sent right out to hoist a white flag before GOP snipers took offense:

"He doesn't speak for me with that kind of rhetoric and I don't think he speaks for the majority of Democrats," Biden told ABC News, flashing his overly-whitened teeth, used car salesman grin. People are starting to take note of this Dem strategy of "surrender early and often."

The Democrats' problem is partly a lack of strong leadership. Its main spokesman on foreign policy has become Sen. Joseph Biden, a man who -- how to put this politely? -- seems more impressed with the force of his own intellect than an objective evaluation would warrant. Listening to Biden, you sense how hungry he is to be president, but you have little idea what he would do, other than talk . . . and talk. (Full Text)

And talk he did. Asked if he thought Democrats needed to rein Dean in, Biden said, "I don't presume to suggest that I could rein in any chairman. But I think that the response from the bulk of the elected Democrats - I don't imagine would be much different."

That statement is true, up to a point. If Biden is referring to fellow Democrat office holders, yes, he is sadly correct. They are a scared and beaten bunch. Their nerves have been shattered and frayed by ten years of no-holds-barred bombardment from GOP storm troopers. Democrats now suffer from the political version of post-traumatic stress syndrome, flinching at any sound or movement that might trigger an enemy counter attack.

Pity poor General Dean. He inherited an army that can no longer fight. Instead they surrender faster than Italian soldiers offered the choice between a fight or chocolate bars and American cigarettes. Dean's troops have no fight left in them. They need a rest. A long rest.

Which brings me to an observation my pal Tony Seton made in an email to me this morning: "This would be so the time for the eruption of a third party to take 30 congressional seats."

I suspect most non-Republicans, (and the growing number of former Republicans) feel the way I do. They find little in either party to inspire or motivate them to even bother voting any longer. If the Dems insist on putting up one of their tired old-guard leaders, like Hillary and Biden, then they will lose four elections in a row.

So, Tony is right, this is a rare moment of opportunity for solid and sane independent candidates. And they should grasp it because the field has opened for them in ways not available before. In the past independents didn't have a chance because they lacked the financial support and organizing muscle of a party apparatus. But there is a valuable lesson for independents in what Cindy Sheehan pulled off down in Crawford this month. I don't even have to tell you what it was, because you have been bombarded with Sheehan's protest on the news for two solid weeks.

It's the same lesson I and other anti-war organizers learned during the Vietnam era. We could get our message on the evening news any time we wanted to. All it took was a compelling news hook and a dash of gorilla theater, and the media came running.
The media have become like a pack of stray dogs. Put some food out for them and they show up. Keep putting out fresh goodies and they keep showing up. Voila! All-you-can-eat of free publicity.

Underfunded independent candidates can do the same because, if there's anything the media loves it's a good underdog story, like Cindy's. They lap it up. News satellite trucks are magnets – for other news satellite trucks. Get one to show up and the others will show up shortly. (Hell, MSNBC will even airlift their newest media maven, chubet Rita Cosby, in by helicopter to beat the others out of that all-important exclusive interview with the "maverick candidate who is bucking the system..." etc, etc. blah, bladdy blah.)

So, instead of bemoaning the shallowness of today's news media, go ahead and just use them. It's okay, they actually like it. It makes their job easier if you just cut to the chase and tell them what the news is, otherwise they have go find it themselves. They hate it when that happens.

And, if a candidate can supply the media a ripping good yarn about his/her candidacy, they will take it from there and embellish it further. That's what I call the big "M" – media buy in. Once you have it, it's hard to lose it.

I know that sounds a bit cynical coming from a former newsman, but I am afraid that's the state of the media today. So, use it or lose. The Bushites certainly know how and have beaten Democrats silly using it.

Maybe if 20 or 30 independents unseat incumbents in '06 and '08 it would spark a renewal --not of the Democrat or Republican parties, but of America and our own decaying democracy.

Watch the Rats

There's an old saying that goes, "You don't need to ask what's happening when you see the smartest rats jumping off a ship." The Daily Kos spotted just that this week and presented the evidence:


"You can support the troops but not the president." --Rep Tom Delay (R-TX)

"Well, I just think it's a bad idea. What's going to happen is they're going to be over there for 10, 15, maybe 20 years." --Joe Scarborough (R-FL)

"Explain to the mothers and fathers of American servicemen that may come home in body bags why their son or daughter have to give up their life?" --Sean Hannity, Fox News,

"[The] President . . . is once again releasing American military might on a foreign country with an ill-defined objective and no exit strategy. He has yet to tell the Congress how much this operation will cost. And he has not informed our nation's armed forces about how long they will be away from home. These strikes do not make for a sound foreign policy." --Sen. Rick Santorum (R-PA)

"I had doubts about the bombing campaign from the beginning . . I didn't think we had done enough in the diplomatic area." --Senator Trent Lott (R-MS)

"I cannot support a failed foreign policy. History teaches us that it is often easier to make war than peace. This administration is just learning that lesson right now. The President began this mission with very vague objectives and lots of unanswered questions. A month later, these questions are still unanswered. There are no clarified rules of engagement. There is no timetable. There is no legitimate definition of victory. There is no contingency plan for mission creep. There is no clear funding program. There is no agenda to bolster our over-extended military. There is no explanation defining what vital national interests are at stake. There was no strategic plan for war when the President started this thing, and there still is no plan today" --Rep Tom Delay (R-TX)

Judicial Activism, You Say?
Memo to White House Press Corps: Ask the President if he considers this an example of "judicial activism:"

A Navy man's wife who had an abortion after her fetus was diagnosed as brain-damaged with no hope of survival, must repay the government $3,000 because federal law bars funding of such abortions in the military, a federal appeals court ruled Thursday. (Full Story)

Memo to Howard Dean: Check with Biden before you call this an example of Christian fundamentalist driven judicial activism. It might offend a voter in Kansas. And dare I say, God forbid.
August 18, 2005

Who hasn't watched a dog chase a car and wondered what the hell he thinks he's going to do should he catch it.

Well, this week the Palestinians caught that car. Now what?

The Israeli withdrawal from Gaza is the materialization of Arafat's worst nightmare -- the day when Palestinians would no longer have the Israelis as a foil and diversion to obscure their own deeply seeded shortcomings.

For those who elbowed, embezzled, even murdered, their way to the top of the Palestinian "leadership," the Israeli occupation has been a gift -- their own version of bin Laden and the Axis of Evil boogymen. Any Palestinian reformer who tried to blow the whistle on corrupt Palestinian leaders was branded a traitor to the cause or a collaborator. They were either "with us or against us." Opposing Palestinian leaders was, "aiding the Zionists," and talking about Palestinian corruption was "letting the Israelis win."

Well, starting this week Palestinian leaders will finally have to stand up and deliver. As you know I am not a big fan of governance in the Arab world. After all, what's there to be a fan of? Even the two Middle Eastern nations that would like to become more progressive and democratic, Egypt and Jordan, dare not try. Because the ultimate power over the minds and actions of their people resides not within their state houses, but within their mosques. Even the smallest steps towards western-style government or human rights (particularly women's rights) are made literally at the risk of their leader's lives.

The Palestinians actually have a leg up in this regard because of their large Palestinian Christian community and a history of secular tradition lacking among their Arab neighbors. But, if those secular forces are to prevail the very first thing the Palestinians must do is deal with the Islamo-fascist Hamas forces that currently have the run of Gaza.

HAMAS was formed in late 1987 as an outgrowth of the Palestinian branch of the Muslim Brotherhood. Various HAMAS elements have used both violent and political means, including terrorism, to pursue the goal of establishing an Islamic Palestinian state in Israel. It is loosely structured, with some elements working clandestinely and others operating openly through mosques and social service institutions to recruit members, raise money, organize activities, and distribute propaganda. HAMAS’ strength is concentrated in the Gaza Strip and the West Bank. (Full Intel Report)

But I remain pessimistic. The Middle East has never bought into the West's idea of representative government. The Middle East has been, and largely remains a collection of tribes. Their idea of governance finds a lot in common with governance as practiced by US inner city street gangs. Living within artificial nations whose boundries were dictated by others, these tribes interact only at the fringes, at friction points where tribes must rub against each other for geograhical or mercantile reasons. First they talk, and if that doesn't work – and it usually doesn't – they'd fight. One way or another matters of tribal-state are resolved until the next friction point flares.

What central government services there are in that part of the world are doled out by tribal leaders. That's why when Saddam, a Sunni, ruled Iraq the Sunni tribe was rolling in clover while the Shiites and Kurds sucked canal water. (Saddam's idea of welfare reform was killing a few hundred thousand Shiites.) Which also explains why the Iraqis can't agree on a constitution. The idea that all tribes would be treated equally is entirely foreign to them, even objectionable.

In Gaza it's been Hamas handing out the goodies while the so-called official Palestinian "leadership" busied themselves embezzling billions in foreign aid. (Investigators are still trying to find roughly $1 billion Arafat stole and secreted out of the country before he died, which is why his widow, now living very well, in France has been so quiet.) None of the new Palestinian leaders, some of whom also worked for Arafat, and must know, or at least suspect, where that money went, are saying nothing. For them the money was stolen fair and square and it's time to move on. Apparently the Bush administration agrees and is cutting new checks (reportedly $3 billion) for both Israel and this new batch of Palestinian leaders. We can only hope this bunch is less larcenous than the last.

So this week the world – including the Arab world – watched Jews expelling Jews from Gaza. It was all televised live, and for a reason. Israel wanted the Arabs to see them expelling Jews from Arab land. Moderate Jews were finally telling crazy fundamentalists Jews, "enough with the Bible Title reports! Comply with what your nation's leaders have democratically voted, or else."

This week we saw Israel actually enforce the "or else" part.

Now it's the Palestinians turn to deliver a similar message to the religious/tribal nuts on their side: "Hamas, turn in your weapons or put your militias under Palestinian government control and behave, or else."

More than just Israelis will be watching. Donor nations of the West which have, for the last quarter century, poured good money after bad too many times already. This time the Palestinians either stand up and deliver, or else. And that begins right now by proving they can govern tiny Gaza. If they can't do that then I believe any sympathy Palestinians now enjoy will disappear, and with it their dream of a state of their own on the West Bank.

Because the last thing the world needs is another Arab state filled with angry young Arabs with nothing to do with their lives but itch for a fight.

August 18, 2005

From the
"Be Careful What You Wish For"
Department

Who hasn't watched a dog chase a car and wondered what the hell he thinks he's going to do should he catch it.

Well, this week the Palestinians caught that car. Now what?

The Israeli withdrawal from Gaza is the materialization of Arafat's worst nightmare -- the day when Palestinians would no longer have the Israelis as a foil and diversion to obscure their own deeply seeded shortcomings.

For those who elbowed, embezzled, even murdered, their way to the top of the Palestinian "leadership," the Israeli occupation has been a gift -- their own version of bin Laden and the Axis of Evil boogymen. Any Palestinian reformer who tried to blow the whistle on corrupt Palestinian leaders was branded a traitor to the cause or a collaborator. They were either "with us or against us." Opposing Palestinian leaders was, "aiding the Zionists," and talking about Palestinian corruption was "letting the Israelis win."

Well, starting this week Palestinian leaders will finally have to stand up and deliver. As you know I am not a big fan of governance in the Arab world. After all, what's there to be a fan of? Even the two Middle Eastern nations that would like to become more progressive and democratic, Egypt and Jordan, dare not try. Because the ultimate power over the minds and actions of their people resides not within their state houses, but within their mosques. Even the smallest steps towards western-style government or human rights (particularly women's rights) are made literally at the risk of their leader's lives.

The Palestinians actually have a leg up in this regard because of their large Palestinian Christian community and a history of secular tradition lacking among their Arab neighbors. But, if those secular forces are to prevail the very first thing the Palestinians must do is deal with the Islamo-fascist Hamas forces that currently have the run of Gaza.

HAMAS was formed in late 1987 as an outgrowth of the Palestinian branch of the Muslim Brotherhood. Various HAMAS elements have used both violent and political means, including terrorism, to pursue the goal of establishing an Islamic Palestinian state in Israel. It is loosely structured, with some elements working clandestinely and others operating openly through mosques and social service institutions to recruit members, raise money, organize activities, and distribute propaganda. HAMAS’ strength is concentrated in the Gaza Strip and the West Bank. (Full Intel Report)

But I remain pessimistic. The Middle East has never bought into the West's idea of representative government. The Middle East has been, and largely remains a collection of tribes. Their idea of governance finds a lot in common with governance as practiced by US inner city street gangs. Living within artificial nations whose boundries were dictated by others, these tribes interact only at the fringes, at friction points where tribes must rub against each other for geograhical or mercantile reasons. First they talk, and if that doesn't work – and it usually doesn't – they'd fight. One way or another matters of tribal-state are resolved until the next friction point flares.

What central government services there are in that part of the world are doled out by tribal leaders. That's why when Saddam, a Sunni, ruled Iraq the Sunni tribe was rolling in clover while the Shiites and Kurds sucked canal water. (Saddam's idea of welfare reform was killing a few hundred thousand Shiites.) Which also explains why the Iraqis can't agree on a constitution. The idea that all tribes would be treated equally is entirely foreign to them, even objectionable.

In Gaza it's been Hamas handing out the goodies while the so-called official Palestinian "leadership" busied themselves embezzling billions in foreign aid. (Investigators are still trying to find roughly $1 billion Arafat stole and secreted out of the country before he died, which is why his widow, now living very well, in France has been so quiet.) None of the new Palestinian leaders, some of whom also worked for Arafat, and must know, or at least suspect, where that money went, are saying nothing. For them the money was stolen fair and square and it's time to move on. Apparently the Bush administration agrees and is cutting new checks (reportedly $3 billion) for both Israel and this new batch of Palestinian leaders. We can only hope this bunch is less larcenous than the last.

So this week the world – including the Arab world – watched Jews expelling Jews from Gaza. It was all televised live, and for a reason. Israel wanted the Arabs to see them expelling Jews from Arab land. Moderate Jews were finally telling crazy fundamentalists Jews, "enough with the Bible Title reports! Comply with what your nation's leaders have democratically voted, or else."

This week we saw Israel actually enforce the "or else" part.

Now it's the Palestinians turn to deliver a similar message to the religious/tribal nuts on their side: "Hamas, turn in your weapons or put your militias under Palestinian government control and behave, or else."

More than just Israelis will be watching. Donor nations of the West which have, for the last quarter century, poured good money after bad too many times already. This time the Palestinians either stand up and deliver, or else. And that begins right now by proving they can govern tiny Gaza. If they can't do that then I believe any sympathy Palestinians now enjoy will disappear, and with it their dream of a state of their own on the West Bank.

Because the last thing the world needs is another Arab state filled with angry young Arabs with nothing to do with their lives but itch for a fight.

August 17, 2005

Rants Aplenty

I woke up this morning in a Lewis Black mood. I mean, some days I just wonder why I don't just stop the morning paper, unplug the TV and dedicate the remaining days to gardening, heavy drinking and shouting obscenities at passers by.

Here's what drove me nuts this morning:

Compassionate Conservative Speaks
President (and US Commander-in-Chief) explaining why he will not take time from his 5-week vacation to talk to Cindy Sheehan:

"I think it's important for me to be thoughtful and sensitive to those who have got something to say. But I think it's also important for me to go on with my life, to keep a balanced life ... I think the people want the president to be in a position to make good, crisp decisions and to stay healthy. And part of my being is to be outside exercising. So I'm mindful of what goes on around me. On the other hand, I'm also mindful that I've got a life to live and will do so."

Yes, George you have right to live. So did Cindy's son, you arrogant, swaggering, drugstore cowboy, clueless prick.


News Flash: Bush Reads Books Without Pictures
It must have been feeding time for the White House Press Corps last week. So, the White House spinsters tossed what they claim is Bush's summer reading list into their cages. Gullible to a fault the media rushed the presidential reading list into print, as though it was real news. Here it is:

Salt: A World History,
The Great Influenza: The Epic Story of the Deadliest Plague in History.
Alexander II: the Last Great Tsar

We are being asked to believe that the man we already know moves his lips when reads, and is shallow and proudly uninformed, but opinionated, shoot-from-the-hipster, chose these three weighty and timely texts to curl up with on the ranch.

No way Jose. These titles have Karl Rove written all over them. They are stage props, painstakingly selected to try and convince us that George W. Bush – the man who believes the literal biblical creation story and not evolution, chose to read these three books because he understood the historical nuances in them that relate to today's problems.

Salt, for example, is the story of a time in ancient history when salt was as valuable as what? Oil. And how worldwide competition for sources of salt and speculation drove the price of this critical resource through the roof.

Now, come on. The idea that Bush could make a connection between white salt and black oil is beyond credulity. I am offended by the fact the very idea that they could get us to simply accept that as fact. I don't.

The Great Influenza is the tale of the 1918 Spanish flu that killed tens of millions around the world. Here we are being asked to believe that uncurious George picked this book so he could be ready when the deadly bird flu hits in a year or so. Sure he did. I can just see him laying there in bed with Laura, yellow highlighter in hand.

"Hey Laura, did you know that a retro-virus can alter it's DNA in order to fool the RNA receptors on the hosts' cells into not rejecting the virus? How about that!"

Yeah, right. That's the George we all know, for sure. NOT.

I have no idea why Karl threw Alexander II: The Last Great Tsar into this fancy reading list, but it worries me.

Since the press dutifully disseminated this little piece of White House propaganda as news, they must do penance. Their penance is they have to read these books themselves. Then, at his first Fall news conference, give George a little pop quiz. Ask two questions about the content of each book the answers to which would only be known by someone who actually read the damn things. (I don't think there's a Classic Comics version of any of them yet.)

I would pay admittance to attend that news conference. But then, wouldn't we all.

What's News?
There seems to be some confusion about just what constitutes "news" these days. I remember back when CNN was launched 25 years ago. News junkies, like me, were in pig heaven – it was news, news, news, news and more news, all day, all night, all the time.

CNN – (and now MSMBC )– are still there, all the time, but the news part isn't. (FOX is not a news channel, which is why I don't include it here.) Some geniuses at cable news networks seem to have decided that what has traditionally been considered news – revolutions, riots, congressional and presidential actions, assassinations, disasters, crime, poverty, public and private corruption – needed to be broadened. Now when I watch CNN or MSNBC riots. bombings and famines are juxtaposed with "breaking news" items like this:

CNN BREAKING NEWS.... BREAKING NEWS!... BREAKING NEWS... (Queue the graphic and thumping music.)
Madonna falls off horse on her birthday... breaks wrist.....

Memo to ALL News Directors
Hey! Yeah, I'm talking to you. Nothing an entertainer or steroided sports celebrity does is news unless it involves a gun, a public official and at least one dead body. Period. Got it? These people are NOT public figures in any sense that matters, or should matter. They are modern-day gladiators and court jesters. Most of them are idiot-savants -- good at one thing and complete imbeciles at anything else. (Exhibit A: Tom Cruise.) So, whatever a celebrity does, says, draws, sings, or thinks it is not news. If you must report on such things they belong on entertainment channels provided for those whose own lives are so apparently so empty they need to live them through air-head entertainers. But none of that stuff is news. So, knock it off and just give me the f—king news! Thank you for your immediate attention to this matter.

Sharper Than a (GOP) Serpent's Tongue
They owe her control of the White House, but there is no honor among thieves, and so now they are turning on her.

I am, of course referring to Kathleen "Vote-counter" Harris.

PENSACOLA, Fla. - Two local businessmen active in Republican Party politics say the GOP is courting cable TV host Joe Scarborough to replace U.S. Rep. Katherine Harris in the 2006 Senate race against incumbent Democrat Bill Nelson.
(Full Story)

What Ms. Harris does not seem to understand is that her party already paid her bill in full for her election-stealing services. They paved the way for the obscure little former registrar of voters to bag an open House seat. That was it. A Senate seat was never part of the deal. (The House is where parties put their loyal, though often somewhat dim, foot-soldiers. The Senate is reserved for the heavy hitters.)

So, when Kathy decided, on her own and against the wishes of her party bosses, to run for the Senate, that was a seat too far. Hell, she hasn't even been in Washington long enough for a cadaver dog to pick up her scent. And, picking Joe Scarborough as the person to whack her, is telling. Joe, while conservative to be sure, has a practical and common sense streak in him that often put him at odds with his own party when he served in the House. Joe's a Chuck Hagel or McCain kind of Republican rather than the Tom DeLay variety, And, he is certainly not a mindless, do-as-we-say GOP sycophant like Harris. So, the Florida GOP has clearly decided that it's worth risking electing unpredictable-Joe to losing that seat if Harris is the candidate.

You see, karma always eventually comes home to roost. (Maybe Harris can get her old job back miscounting votes. I suspect the GOP will need her bank on that in 2008 more than ever.)


Reading the T-Shirt Tea Leaves
How do you know when a trend is over? Watch the t-shirts. For example, highly paid economists pouring over national housing numbers can't seem to figure out whether or not the nation is in the midst of a dangerous housing bubble. But I know, and they would too, if they just read the t-shirts:

FLORIDA: Striking a chord with uneasy U.S. property investors, T-shirthumor.com's latest design -- "Mr. Housing Bubble" -- has become its best seller in less than a week. The parody of the decades-old Mr. Bubble bath foam package offers a "Free Balloon Mortgage Inside." But the smiling pink house-shaped bubble also warns: "If I pop, you're screwed."

Anthony Phipps, T-shirtHumor.com communications director, said the Austin, Texas-based t-shirt design and marketing firm has sold hundreds of the $20 cotton shirts since they went on sale last week. He said the design had the right mix of market timing and dark humor.

"I think it's pretty clear that there are a lot of people in fear over the potential of a housing bust," Phipps said. "A lot of individuals have made some interesting moves financially with interest-only mortgages and the idea of suddenly having all that equity disappear is something that scares home buyers and policy-makers alike."

Of course those who have made a bundle off housing prices lately at not amused. Realty Times, a newsletter that caters to realtors and mortgage companies, accused the T-shirt company of trying to scare people in a story headlined: "Mr. Housing Bubble T-shirts Indicate Market Confusion."

You see, there is no bubble, and if you think there is you are "confused."

But Phipps, the guy selling the $20 T-shirts, disagrees: "If this thing does pop, a lot of people are going to need an affordable shirt to wear."

Wal-Mart Nation Update
The economy is roaring and creating jobs. Yep. That's true. Well, sorta true. Just don't look too closely:

Oakland, California -- For all the criticism that Wal-Mart receives for its low wages and minimal health benefits, the retail giant says more than 11,000 people in the Bay Area are clamoring to get a job at its new Oakland store. The country's largest employer plans to welcome customers into its 148, 000-square-foot store on Edgewater Drive next Wednesday, and it says it already has filled 350 of its 400 openings. (Full Story.)

Wal-Mart, America's new company store. I wonder how many of those 11,000 folks trying to get a low-paying, no-benefits job at Wal-Mart used to make the stuff Wal-Mart now wants to hire them to peddle, stuff now made for Wal-Mart in cheap-labor China?
Just wondering...

I'm mad about other stuff but I have to go. My tomatoes need a severe talking to.

August 16, 2005

Gut Check Time

The gut never lies. Even when it tries to tell us something we don't want to believe, deeper down, we know the gut is right.

America's gut is telling us the war in Iraq is a fool's errand. And, every day, more Americans are listening to their gut on that one. It took a long-ass time, but the majority of American's now believe invading Iraq was the biggest mistake since Custer's second in command warned, "There's an awful lot of Ingin's down there, General. I don't think we have enough troops."

To which Custer responded (with a smirk,) "Bring em on!"

In this case it was General Eric Shinseki who tried to warn the Neocon Custer's itching to charge that sea of Muslim tents. They fired him. There would be no trip back to the White House for General Bad News or a Medal of Freedom like failed CIA boss George "Slam Dunk" Tenet got when he left office.

"Bring em on," smirked our Commander-in-Chief, a man who – by design -- sat out the Vietnam War playing fighter pilot over safe Texas skies, (at least on days he was sober enough to fly.)

Since "brining them on," nearly 1900 other parents' sons and daughters have been killed for Bush's moment of clueless, sophomoric bravado – not one of them even remotely related to the Bush clan. George "Custer" Bush, claims those deaths have been "worth it." But apparently not worth enough for either of his (service aged) daughters to risk their lives for.

But it's a different story for other people's kids, like Cindy Sheehan's son. His death was worth it too, he says, and he just wishes she'd get that.

So, would someone to get that damn woman off my doorstep. Didn't she get the talking points, damn it? Okay, okay, her son got killed in Iraq, but it was worth it lady. Get it? Worth it. So what's with all the whining and pissing and moaning and sitting out there ruining my vacation? Aren't there anti-loitering laws? Isn't there something in the Patriot Act about pestering the President when he's trying to kick back for a few weeks? Well, there should be.

Meanwhile back at Little Big Horn with mosques, US kids continue dying to "liberate the Iraqi people." (BTW, who liberated us? Oh that's right, we did it ourselves.) You see, when people don't liberate themselves, but are dragged kicking and screaming to Camp Liberation, they become wards of their "liberators." And that's just what happened.

For weeks now Iraq's new "leaders" have been arguing over how to carve up the pie the US ripped off Saddam's table for them.

George W. has never been big on details, so I am sure he is only now discovering that there really are no "Iraqis." If you want to get really "historical" there's really not even an "Iraq." That whole chunk of Middle Eastern real estate was dreamed up by the colonial British surveyors in 1914.. What we call Iraq is more like an tough inner city carved up by warring street gangs -- the Kurds, Sunnis and Shiites. And, like any successful street gangs they have their own colors, their own rules and will dropped an opposing gang member in his tracks if he messes with them.

Today were supposed to see the finished draft of the constitution this collection of Home Boy leaders have hammered on. It's already lat and will get later. But trust me, whatever comes out of that conference will matter not a whit. Iraq will continue being Sunni v. Shiite and Kurd v. everyone else. The Kurds will go their own way, as they always have. That will leave the Shiites and Sunnis who will quickly replace the now retired IRA and Protestant insurgents as the world's most brutal sectarian thugs.

Iraq like Vietnam, (and yes dear neocons, it is just like Vietnam) will go down in history as one of America's biggest geopolitical mistakes --- ripples from which will complicate our international relationships, cripple fiscal budgets and slap against our national psyche for generations to come. (Bring em on, and on, and on.)

Unfortunately once a mistake this big become a political liability to those in charge, it can't end quickly. No, we are going have to endure months, maybe years, of what I call the Kabuki dance of death. This is where those in office most responsible for killing thousands of people for all the wrong reasons, will try to buy time to bury the evidence and obscure that fact. Vietnam dragged for years while this dance of death first tried to obsolve the Johnson bunch then the Nixon gang, which is why the Vietnam Memorial Wall is so large, and so sad. (And why Robert McNamara continues pacing the floor at night muttering, "Out damn spot, out!")

How long it takes this time depends entirely on how long we are willing to let the dance of death continue. If allowed to have their own way, the Bushites would like to pass the Iraq problem on to the next administration. That way they would have time to get out of Dodge before the shit hits the fan and the inevitable "what went wrong?" congressional hearings begin.

John Kerry put it best over 20 years ago after returning from fighting in Vietnam, "What do you tell the last soldier who died for a mistake?"

This time around I would put the question differently;


"What should George Custer Bush tell a grieving mothers who's sons die for his mistake?

Apparently his advisors have not figured out an answer for that question yet, which is why he refuses to talk Cindy.

I'm sure that when Custer charged at Little Big Horn he too was convinced the bloodshed was "worth it." But at least Custer had the guts to fight his own battles.

A Glimmer of Hope (?)
The Israelis could teach George Custer Bush a few things about the futility of fighting a popular insurgency.

Which is why the Israelis are hightailing it out of Gaza this week. After the 1967 war powerful right wing Israelis "realtor" party figured they could bag some valuable oceanfront property out of the deal. Unfortunately for them the folks already living there were foursquare against the idea and have been killing Israelis ever since.

So, the Israelis have decided to give back the land Gaza they stole. Now what?

For starters we get to see if these two habitually warring parties can just friggin leave one another alone for a while. The Palestinians need time to make the switch from insurgency to self-governance, which is much harder and a lot less "fun," than shooting at Jews.

And, if the Palestinians make a serious effort at that, then the Israelis need to start minding their own business for a change. And they need to put those 5000-year old Biblical title reports they have been using to justify the unjustifiable in a museum, where they belong.

It's really that simple. Now, let's see if either side can resist screwing it up.

Know Nothings Rally
If they awarded medals for arrogant ignorance they would have handed out a lot them yesterday.

NASHVILLE, Aug. 14 -- Prominent conservative political and religious leaders called Sunday night for Senate approval of Supreme Court nominees who will vote to end the constitutional right to abortion, against recognition of same-sex marriage and for fewer restrictions on religious expression in public places.

The Family Research Council –(the Christian branch of the Taliban) – has suddenly become a bur under the Bush administration's saddle over the John Roberts nomination. It seems the born-agains looked at some of Robert's statements and opinions and behavior and decided he is simply not crazy enough for them.

This is what happens every time a demagoguing politician hitches his ambition wagon to a pack of crazy people. Oh, sure they are enthusiastic and easy to get all fired up. And sure they are just chuck full of energy and will do damn near anything for any pol that promises to toe their crazy-party line. But none of that changes the basic fact:
They are c-r-a-z-y.
All you have to do is listen. Here are a couple of direct quotes from yesterday's rally:

"The Supreme Court has sanctioned "the right to kill unborn children" and opened the door to legalized "homosexual sodomy," declared Tony Perkins, president of the Family Research Council, which co-sponsored "Justice Sunday II."

(Tony Perkins is one of those holier than thou Elmer Gantry characters that you just know will get caught some day pulling a PeeWee Herman in a XXX rated movie theater – and I can't wait.)

James Dobson, founder of Focus on the Family, told the 2,200 mostly white people in Two Rivers Baptist Church: "It doesn't matter what we think. The court rules." The Supreme Court, he said in a video broadcast, has created "an oligarchy. It's the government by the few."

(Dobson won his Christian Taliban spurs bashing gays. He's said things about gays that would be considered hate speech if he said them about blacks. The born-agains love it when he talks like that. (It's a little known fact that Jesus bashed gays too, a fact that went little noticed during the years he wandered the desert accompanied only by twelve men in bath robes.)

House Majority Leader Tom DeLay (R-Tex.) said "activist courts" are imposing "state-sanctioned same-sex marriage" and "partial-birth abortion" and are "ridding the public square of any mention of our nation's religious heritage" in what amounts to "judicial supremacy, judicial autocracy."

(Tom DeLay gives hypocrites a bad name. Tommy is currently under criminal investigation in Texas for lying and cheating and illegal campaign contributions. But the good Christians at yesterday's rally embraced him nonetheless because he is one of them – in more ways than one.)

The good news is that the crest of the Christian Right movement in America has passed. What we will see in the 2008 race for the White House is a Republican Party moving back towards the center. Because, once Bush's crazy Christian base got a taste of power they wanted the GOP to become the Inquisition Party. And that started scaring folk, even Republican folk.

From the "Let them eat cake" Department
Oh, lookie here.

"The board of an Illinois pension fund planned to ask District-based Carlyle Group last week about millions of dollars it paid a politically connected lobbyist for help in winning half a billion dollars in investments from the fund." Full Story

The Carlyle Group. To the crazy left the Carlyle Group has become the new millennium's version of the Trilateral Commission, where all the "real" geopolitical/business decisions are made in secret.

Nah. Not really. It's just a giant-ass piggy bank exclusively for retired movers and shakers who have proven themselves worthy of enormous quantities of easy money.

George's dad, H. Bush, is listed as the investment group's "senior advisor." His former Secretary of State (the guy they sent to make sure the Florida recount came up Bush) James Baker, is listed as "senior counselor."

While they might not be making the decisions, they are never far behind when anything potentially lucrative is in the works. And nothing is more lucrative than a good little war.

"Like everyone else in the United States, the group stood transfixed as the events of September 11 unfolded. Present were former secretary of defense Frank Carlucci, former secretary of state James Baker III, and representatives of the bin Laden family. This was not some underground presidential bunker or Central Intelligence Agency interrogation room. It was the Ritz-Carlton in Washington, D.C., the plush setting for the annual investor conference of one of the most powerful, well-connected, and secretive companies in the world: the Carlyle Group. And since September 11, this little-known company has become unexpectedly important." (Full Story)

I just thought you would want to know that maybe, just maybe, a prosecutor in Illinois might get a piece of the Carlyle Group this time. The Justice Department has been investigating business dealings with Illinois state boards, and the probe is continuing, said Randall Samborn, a spokesman for the U.S. attorney's office in Chicago.

That's it for today. I am taking tomorrow off.

You got a problem with that?

August 13-14, 2005

Where's Watermelon Man
When We Really Need Him?

There's nothing Republicans like better than a juicy scandal. It really gets their juices flowing. Sen. Norm Coleman, R.Minn. for example, jump from well-deserved obscurity to the national spotlight by mining the UN's Oil for Food scandal. Senator Coleman just hates those lying crooks at the UN. Since Coleman's supporters also hate the UN itself, the Oil for Food scandal was like manna from heaven. Coleman is now an expert on all things sleazy at the UN.

At least in the Oil for Food caper was real. Remember Vince Foster? When poor Vince was found dead in a Maryland park from a single gunshot wound to the head? Republicans and their allies in the Clinton-hating industry went nuts. Foster, they claimed, did not kill himself, he was murdered! And they could prove it.

And prove it they tried. Veteran Republican, Rep. Dan Burton, invited reporters to his backyard to watch as he shot at watermelons showing, he claimed, that Vince did not shoot himself. Burton's antics earned him his own little tune:

"Watermelon Dan, Watermelon Dan,
Out to get the Clinton man,
Hell will freeze before he can,
But he'll keep trying,
Watermelon Dan."



Foster's suicide was quickly woven into a vast-right wing conspiracy theory that had the Clintons pegged as nothing less than serial murderers. To listen to them the entire state of Arkansas was little more than a dumping ground for the bodies of those who ever crossed the Clintons or "had something on them."

What brings all that Republican prosecutorial vigor to mind now is the indictment yesterday of Republican power-broker, Jack Abramoff. That indictment is just the first of what promises to be a string of long overdue indictments against Abramoff.

If Rep. Burton still enjoys freelance murder investigations he might want to rush out and buy some more melons and ammo. Because there's another body with holes in it and lot more than just sleazy politics this time. And, right smack in the middle of it all, Jack Abramoff and at least one other of Tom DeLay's closest former aides.

MIAMI, Aug. 11 -- Washington lobbyist Jack Abramoff and a business partner were indicted by a federal grand jury in Fort Lauderdale on Thursday, charged with five counts of wire fraud and one count of conspiracy in their purchase of a fleet of Florida gambling boats from a businessman who was later killed in a gangland-style hit. (Full Story)

I wrote about this case over three years ago. At that time the only place I could get it published was on AlterNet. The mainstream media was not interested – the same MSM that hung on every lurid detail and wacky claim made by the right in wake of Vince Foster's death.

But, as I noted in my March 2002 piece, Abramoff and close associates of House Majority Leader Tom DeLay, were up to their necks in gangland sleaze, allegedly fraudulent loans and maybe worse.

First let me point out that dragging Tom DeLay's name into this is not a gratuitous. Abramoff's relationship with Tom DeLay is far from incidental. Jack Abramoff has served as nothing less than Tom DeLay's financial godfather, power broker, arm-twister and free-market ideological soul mate. The two men share an unquenchable thirst for money, large sums of money, preferably under the table, in cash, hard to trace. And there's no better place to find that kind of money than in casino counting rooms.

Abramoff became one of Washington's most steadfast supporter of Indian gaming, for which he was paid millions by Indian tribes wanting to open casinos. (Abramoff is likely to indicted again soon for screwing those tribes blue. But that's not what we're talking about today. The issue today is Abramoff's investment in floating casinos. )

The story here is simple enough to follow:

* In 2000 Abramoff and former Reagan HUD official Ben Waldman had invested in SunCruz, a troubled gambling cruise line based in Florida.
* Abramoff's other partner in the SunCruz deal, Adam Kidan, is known by authorities to have had ties to members of both the Gambino and Gotti crime families. (In 1993 Kidan's mother was murdered in Philadelphia by a mob assassin tied to the Bonanno crime family after Kidan's New York business franchise "Dial-A-Mattress" failed.
* I In November 2000, Kidan was disbarred as a lawyer by New York State for allegedly misappropriating $100,000 of his step-father's assets.
* Abramoff and Kidan negotiated to purchase troubled SunCruz Lines from its then owner, Gus Boulis. Boulis. They offered him $25 million.
* Boulis agreed and accepted a $5 million check and a note for $20 million personally guaranteed by Abramoff and Kidan
* Months later Boulis accused Abramoff and Kidan of stiffing him. First the $5 million down payment check had bounced, he said, and then the two men stopped making payments on the note as well.
* Boulis was not amused and started rattling Abramoff and Kidan's cages. Kidan filed a harassment complaint against Boulis with Miami police claiming that Boulis tried to stab him with a penknife.

But Kidan would be fine, which is more than can be said for Boulis.

On the night of February 6, 2001, Boulis was gunned down in an ambush worthy of an episode of Miami Vice. In a carefully coordinated attack as he was driving away from his office, two cars boxed Boulis' car in a narrow ally where a gunman pumped four bullets into his head. Florida authorities described it as "a classic mob hit."

To this day, no one has been charged, though at the time Florida newspapers fingered Abramoff's partner, Kidan as one of the prime suspects and the local press began speculating:

"Abramoff and his partners can expect to be contacted soon by homicide detectives, seeking clues as they sift through the complex business dealings between Boulis and his casino antagonists." (Miami Daily Business Review, Feb. 2001)

With such publicity threatening Abramoff's reputation in Washington, Jack sent Tom DeLay's former aide, Mike Scanlon, out on damage control. Scanlon had just left DeLay's employ when Abramoff hired him as spokesperson for his SunCruz operation. Scanlon told reporters that, while Boulis's murder was "unfortunate," that Jack's had nothing to do with it and that he was sticking with the deal. Scanlon protested any allegations that Abramoff had unsavory connections to the gambling underworld. "I think it's a bit premature to follow a storyline about how a Washington lobbyist fellow, like Jack, now finds himself in this tumultuous world of murder for hire," Scanlon said.

Within weeks of saying he was going ahead with the SunCruz deal though Abramoff dropped it like a radio active hot potato. How? By signing his 35% share over to the murdered man's estate.

(Personal observation: Imagine if Clinton had signed his interest in Whitewater over to Vince Foster's family. What do you think Republicans would have had to say about that? Hell, I figure Rep. Burton would have retired from Congress to become a full-time melon shooting researcher.)

By dumping SunCruz, Abramoff had to abandon another gambling-related deal he had going in which DeLay could have played a key role. Even as police investigated the Florida murder, Kidan and Abramoff pushed forward on a planned $100 million junk bond offering to expand SunCruz operations. And where were they planning to expand SunCruz's floating casino operations? To Tom DeLay's favorite place on earth -- the US protectorate – and sweatshop capitol of the Pacific, the Mariana Islands, which DeLay describes this way: "It's like my Galapagos Island."

There you have it. A real scandal with real bad guys and at least one for real murder. Those Dudley Doright Republican crime fighters should be all over this puppy. So, hey, Rep. Dan "Watermelon Man" Burton, how about it? This should be a lot more fun than your Vince Foster investigation because poor old Vince was only plugged once. Boulis took four slugs in the ole melon! Lock and load, Watermelon Man!

And where are all those Arkansas state troopers who claimed during the Clinton years that they had sniffed out scores of hits by the Clinton mob? They even had list! Well, here's a really juicy case for those redneck Inspector Clouseaus to chew on, so where are they? -- (Watching the new "Dukes of Hazard" flick maybe?)

No one may ever be charged in the Boulis death which, unlike Foster's death, really was a murder. But more charges against Abramoff are on the way, a fact that must be keeping Tom DeLay awake nights. If anyone knows just how much of a snake Abramoff is, it's fellow snake, Tom DeLay. And when snakes tangled with the law they turn on one another. If it's not yet "Let's Make a Deal" time for Jack Abramoff, it will be soon. And, I have no doubt... none, not a scintilla ... that Jacko was smart enough to salt away some insurance, bargaining chips, get-out-jail-free cards, in a safety deposit box someplace. And some aspiring prosecutor will figure out just the right stress-position needed to get Jack to cough them up. Because locking up Jack Abramoff is one thing, but locking up the House Majority Leader at Camp Beefcake for 20 years would be a real career builder for the DA who pulls it off.

Anyway, now that Abramoff has finally been charged with an actual crime I figure it's now safe for the mainstream media to (belatedly) explore the DeLay/Abramoff relationship fully. At least as fully as they detailed the Clinton's relationship hapless Little Rock, wise-cracker, Jim McDougal.

Number of GI's Killed in Iraq
1850

Number of funerals attended
by their Commander-in-Chief
0

August 11, 2005

Iran to the US:
"Go ahead, make our day."

That was the message yesterday from Iran's ambassador to the UN when asked if his country was worried that the Europeans and US would push for UN sanctions against Iran. He just smiled and said Iran had the right to pursue it's nuclear ambitions and that the west would be wise to just let it. But, he added darkly, should western nations pursue sanctions, Iran would retaliate.

And just how would little Iran retaliate against the combined power of western nations? Easy. They'd just cut us off, that's how. Of course I am talking oil here, not area rugs. And, as the world's second largest oil exporter, that threat carries weight.

Our position here reminds me of a conversation in the HBO Series, "Sex and The City," when the girls were talking about the pros and cons of oral sex. One felt it was demeaning to women. But one the other gals, let's call her "Iran," had a completely different take on it.

"Sure you might be on your knees, but you've got him by the balls." To which the Mullah's in Iran say, "Amen sister."

As US soldiers spend their days ducking and covering next door in Iraq, just a few miles away Iran is busily working towards it's own nuclear arsenal. Nice going George. What ya gonna do now, cowboy?

The answer to that question is that, considering Iran has our energy balls firmly in hand, nothing. In fact, we are already doing just that -- nothing -- as the Europeans, including the French, push for sanctions against Iran. What a switch-a-roo huh? Suddenly all those tough-talking Neo-cons around Bush have fallen silent while the French stand up to Iran. The Bush response? "If the Europeans want to take Iran to the UN, fine, but we are not taking the lead." What happened?

Well you sure won't find the answer by reading the front page stories about all this. Instead you find them buried in the business section. Here, look:

LONDON (Reuters) - Oil stayed within striking distance of Thursday's $65 record high after a top energy body said non-OPEC output was falling short of expectations. The International Energy Agency, adviser to 26 industrialized nations, also nudged up its world oil demand growth forecasts for this year and next, leaving already stretched OPEC to fill the supply void. (Full Story)

And

AP – August 10 -- While fliers haven't yet had to add that problem to the list of headaches associated with air travel, it may not be far away. Airports in Arizona, California, Florida and Nevada recently came within a few days — and at times within hours — of running out of jet fuel... Because of supply bottlenecks, airlines were forced to fly in extra fuel from other markets and scramble for deliveries by truck. But these are expensive, short-term fixes that do not address what airline executives consider to be the underlying problem: with passenger traffic rising above pre-9/11 levels, the nation's aviation business is slowly outgrowing the infrastructure that fuels it....What started as routine supply tightness in these markets quickly snowballed following disruptive events that included a hurricane, a canceled fuel shipment and, ironically, the airlines' own efforts to prevent shortages, according to several airline executives. (Full Story)

And

Aug. 10 (Bloomberg) -- Crude oil in New York jumped to a record $64.35 a barrel after the government reported U.S. gasoline inventories fell for the sixth straight week amid strengthening demand. Motor-fuel stockpiles dropped 2.1 million barrels to 203.1 million last week, the Energy Department reported. Gasoline demand was up 1.4 percent for the four weeks ended Aug. 5 compared with the same period a year earlier.

You get the point. If Iran pulls its 4 million barrels of oil a day off the market, even if only for just a matter of weeks, the oil-dependent West -- particularly the SUV capital of the world, America -- chaos would reign. I am old enough to remember the last time people in the Middle East decided to put the squeeze to our energy-balls. That was back in the 1970s. Cars lined up for gas and states imposed rationing in the form of "odd/even" license number days. We are many times more dependent today on that oil than we were forty years ago and we won't get off that easy this time around. Imagine jetliners lined up for fuel this time, and not getting it because it's not there.

With crude oil prices at historic highs, OPEC nations like Iran are awash in petrodollars. They have more money than they know what to do with. So, cutting us off for a few months wouldn't cause them to break a sweat. And there's not a thing we could do about it. If this were a chess game it would be, "Check," advantage, Iran.

Iran, you see, knew that Iraq was a bier patch built atop a tar pit. They lost a million men making the same mistake Bush made. Which is why Iran just pulled it s key chess pieces out of harms way and let the US charge into the Iraq trap. Now that the US is stuck in Iraq, as Iran knew it would be, they have moved it's pawns into action to make sure we stay stuck there. But it's oil that remains Iran's most power chess piece, and yesterday they moved it into play. Check.

( Excuse me, I need to vent: Stupid George. Stupid, stupid, stupid. You fell right into the trap and took the rest of us with you. You sir, are an imbecile, unquestionably the worst President ever – ever! Disagree? Go ahead, prove it isn't so. I dare you. I double-dare you. If your IQ dropped one more percentage point your internal organs would fail. - Whew, sorry, but I needed that.)

Of course you didn't hear mention of any of this during this week's energy bill signing at Bush's Texas ranch. Nor did you read anything like this in the reporting about it. The energy bill Bush signed might as well have been drafted in 1960 for all the current problems it addresses. It's just chuck full of same old, same old, like enormous tax breaks for big oil companies... which are reporting recording earnings.

Meanwhile Iran is holding our balls in a vice as it move ahead replacing it's exhaustible oil weapon with inexhaustible nuclear weapons. The Iranians figure they can make the switch over seamlessly now that the US can't do squat about it.

Meanwhile, on the other side of the world, North Korea is watching and learning, even as it provides Iran with some of the expertise and gear it needs to catch up with them. North Korea already has maybe a dozen nukes and long-range missiles capable of hitting Alaska, Hawaii and maybe LA and San Francisco as well. Iran just tested it's own long-range solid fuel missiles too. They can already hit Israel and, by the time the Iranians finish making a few dozen nuclear warheads of their own, they will be able to hit parts of Western Europe as well. Then what?

We Westerners like to think we are smarter than those dusky devils in Middle East and the starving North Koreans. But, while we were congratulating ourselves they were busy making shrewd chess moves of their own. The happiest day of their lives was the day they saw a swaggering, smirking George W. Bush grab his Knight and charge deep into the Iraqi side of the board.

So, is it just "check," or could it be "checkmate? Only time will tell. But one thing is for sure. George W. Bush is no certainly no Garry Kasparov.


Site of the Week
Tell Bush: Meet With Cindy!
http://www.meetwithcindy.org/