Januray 20, 2005

So, Let’s Talk Privacy v. Security

If you feel like someone is watching, you are right. They are. And they will be watching a lot more as time goes on. And, there isn’t a thing we can do to stop it.

The choice that confronts us in this increasingly crowded and hostile world reminds me of the old Jack Benny gag. when a mugger confronted the old tightwad with the traditional threat, “Your wallet or life?” Benny did not respond. When the mugger repeated the threat Benny snapped back, “Give me minute to decide!”

That pretty much sums up the choice Americans face today between the extraordinary level of person privacy we cherish and the new threats we face. While the Bush administration has demagogued the terrorist threat for its own narrow political purposes, there is no denying such threats exist. If you doubt it exists just ask Spanish train riders, Israeli bus passengers, or any of the 9/11 families.

It would be nice if we could have a national discussion about this and agree just how much privacy we are willing to trade for security. But no such discussion is going to happen. That’s because security has taken on a life of its own. It’s one thing when the government says it’s going to start tracking millions of people – because we know they can’t do it. Hell, they can’t even keep track of what their own government employees and contractors are doing much less the rest of us. For example, we just learned that the FBI’s anti-terrorism division wasted $170 million on a computer system and database that does not work and will have to be chucked. (Tip: ever hear of Dell, dudes?)

But it’s quite another thing when private sector companies say they are going to do it, because, if there’s enough money in it, they can -- and they are. Read, for example, this morning’s story in the Washington Post about Alpharetta, Ga.-based ChoicePoint Inc.

The company began in 1997 to sell credit histories to the insurance industry. But in the process the company was sucking in all kinds of data on you and I. When Admiral Poindexter’s plan to build a super-database of real-time consumer behavior blew up in his face when it became public a couple of years ago, it was ChoicePoint that stepped up to the plate. The company has now become a one-stop source of personal financial. Among its clients today, the Dept. of Justice, the CIA and dozens of other government law enforcement and intel agencies.

"We do act as an intelligence agency, gathering data, applying analytics," said company vice president James A. Zimbardi.

And ChoicePoint is just beginning to tap the government market for personal intel. chief executive Derek V. Smith said he'll be reaching out to Capitol Hill in the coming months.

"We have a new responsibility to society, and we want to make sure that's legitimized," Smith said. "We'd like everybody to play by the same rules and standards that society believes are correct."

When a private sector information gatherer like this mates with government agencies a massive transfer of information is inevitable. In return for providing access to, say credit card histories, law enforcement agencies agree to share their criminal databases with the company, which then markets that information to, Say, bail bond companies who will, in return for pricing consideration, share their client information as well. And so it goes, on and on, piece by piece, a mosaic is created of individuals lives and behavior until there are few aspects of an individual’s life not more than a keystroke away from a curious commercial or government eye.

At the other end of the privacy v. security debate are people like Chris Hoofnagle, associate director of the Electronic Privacy Information Center, a nonprofit group in the who describes ChoicePoint’s data base as a " 'Scarlet Letter' society,” where no one will ever be able to escape any aspect of their pasts. A reformed drug addict will have to live with his addicted persona forever – because data is never reformed, never changes, never dies.

Is there a middle ground? Maybe. But, if there is, it’s eroding fast. Because more powerful forces are at work here than even our robust democracy may be able to resist.

It is a statistical, demographical fact that the world of 2005 bears no resemblance to the world of 1776, or 1876, 1946 or even 1996. Quite simply the world is becoming overcrowded.
Competition for finite natural resources, ores, oil, fresh water, grows by the hour. As populations grow and spread, incompatibilities between once far-flung cultures, races and religions will flare as the edges of each meet, each trying to push past the other. Christians fight Muslims. Muslims fight Christians and Jews. Hindus fight Muslims.. possibly with nukes.

And each of those nation states will also spawn thousands of zealots, who will take up their nationalistic/religious causes in the form of terrorism -- some in organized groups, others as freelancers. The first wave of these zealots are already at work, Islamic terrorists. But do you believe for a moment that America can be hit more than a couple of more times by terrorists before our own nutcases grab their guns? You know the ones I’m talking about, the Timothy McVea’s, the Ruby Ridgers, the Waco-apologists, the Walter Mitty- filled “militias” of balding, beer-bellied low brows just itching to shoot a “raghead” (or raghead-sympathizers.) And, since these white guys with red necks would stick out like sore thumbs low-crawling around Middle Eastern countries, these militia types will take their fury out on US soil, against Mosques, Synagogues, family planning clinics, and foreign and US government buildings. You can put money on it.

So then, what of privacy and security in such a world? Clearly the days of lassie faire privacy are over – whether we like it or not. If government doesn’t get into the business of watching what’s going on out here the private sector will. And, as we see they already are.

The trouble is we citizens don’t seem to know what we want either. We are schizophrenic on this issue. The very people out there who are clucking their tongues about intrusions into personal privacy are the same people who will condemn the powers that be for doing too little to protect the nation when the next mass murder occurs on US soil. The privacy v. security equation is a lose/lose for anyone holding power from now on. Apply too much security, and citizens hate you for it. Apply too little security and we will blame them for being too lax on security every time a terrorist strikes.

But in a very real and fundamental way this argument has already been taken out of our hands. There is no force on earth, not terrorism, not democracy, not authoritarian rule, that can stop commercial self-interest. If you need proof look no further than the international drug trade. No matter how much money, military force, police resources, boarder searches we throw at it, the drug trade not only persists, but flourishes. An authoritarian government that bans goods from the West gets what? Smugglers. Commercial self-interest will always serve itself first. Always. Sometimes that’s a good thing. Sometimes it’s a bad thing. But, as long as it needs to get something done to make reach its revenue goals, it will always find its way around obstacles put in its path.

And today security has become the business of business, for two reasons. First, commercial trade requires international stability. Terrorism is bad for business. Simple as that. The other reason is that money – big money - can be made selling the stuff. Security is a product now. Selling security services and intel has become a multi-billion dollar growth industry. Try as we may we will not, cannot stop it. Just like drug dealers, companies will find ways around any laws passed designed to deprive them of access to all those honey pots of data out there. And your personal information is right at the top of their wish list.

So what to do? Well, first get used to it… at least up to a point. Too much security is a bit like pornography -- hard to define but you know it when you see it. So we can, and should, throw a fit when we feel they have gone too far. Go to court, sue the bastards and push back.

But you can forget about ever being invisible again. If you live in a city and leave your house a security camera will see you. If you buy something, even with cash, the transaction will eventually wind its way to ChoicePoint, some other data miner or government database.

And a national ID card can only be one more major terrorist attack away -- two at the most. Such a card will serve as a national drivers license as well. It will contain biometric data, a fingerprint most likely. So that when someone checks in for a flight the print on the card will be scanned and checked against the one on the passenger’s finger. While that is happening both prints will be compared electronically with the print “they” have on file.

Now, don’t get me wrong. I am not endorsing any of this, simply saying it’s inevitable -- and for reasons that are quite out of our control. As realtors like to say when trying to sell a piece of land, “you know, they ain’t making this stuff anymore.” But we are making people. Billions of the little critters, 6.43 billion at this writing and millions of new ones added every month. It’s getting crowded and will get a lot more so. Scientists have studied the effects of over-crowding and you will not be surprised what they found. Whether it’s animals or people, when they crowd them into a finite space they get cranky… very cranky. Then they get nasty – real nasty.

We had been in the cranky phase. But after 9/11 I think it’s safe to assume we have moved into the nasty phase. It will be interesting to see what kind of America emerges.

By Stephen Pizzo
Raconteur at Large

January 19, 2005

Steamed Rice

If there was any doubt that George Bush and Condoleezza Rice were joined at the brain those doubts were put to rest yesterday. Rice’s confirmation testimony could have been delivered by Bush himself.

Mistakes? What mistakes? We don’t make mistakes in this administration.

Lies? What lies? We don’t lie to the American people.

WMD in Iraq? What....hey, did I tell you guys about how honest I am? How dare you insinuate otherwise!

So what we learned from Rice’s testimony was, in a word, nothing -- at least, nothing new. As she moves from the White House to her new post as America’s top diplomat, the irony will not be missed on the rest of the world.

We did learn one other thing from Rice’s demeanor at the hearings. If the Bush administration needs another Secretary of State to stand up and lie to the whole world again, Condi is their gal. And this time they will not have to waste time lying to her first as they had to do to get Powell out there.

Rice is a team player, a real standup gal – a natural born liar.

Knuckle-dragger Watch
Step right up boys and girls and get your biblical lobotomy right here at school. High school students in Harrisburg Penn. are now required to listen to their biology teachers instruct them on ``intelligent design' as well as evolution. That’s right, science teachers will be instructing public school students that evolution is just a theory and it is equally likely that the universe was created just the way it is a supernatural being (AKA, God.)

Now let me get this straight. Even though there laboratories and museums around the world chuck full of evidence supporting evolution, and not a single piece of physical, much less scientific, evidence to support the religious theory of “intelligent design,” the two have to be taught as equals in science class. Yep. And the knuckle draggers are deeeeelighted.

``The revolution in evolution has begun,'' said Richard Thompson, the law center's president and chief counsel. ``This is the first step in which students will be given an honest scientific evaluation of the theory of evolution and its problems.''

Okay, time to turn the tables by demanding that astrology be taught alongside astronomy. The logic.. their logic anyway, would make this argument easy. In fact there's a direct and solid comparison:

• Astronomers believe we can study the distant past in the stars.
• Astrologers believe we can study the future in those same stars.
  
• There's lots of proof that astronomers can actually see the way the universe looked billions of years ago.
  
• While there is no proof the future can be predicted from studying the stars.
  

So there you are. There’s no proof for intelligent design either. But, to the zombified bible thumpers scientific process is just another tool of Satan.

So if parents in this school district who want to put a stop to this nonsense they should go straight to the school board and demand that as long as “intelligent design” is required in biology class then astrology must be added to the astronomy curriculum as well.

As I have repeatedly said in this space, the only way to teach religious zombies why separation of church and state is critical to our way of life is to show them. They will not listen, they must be shown. And the best way to show them is to match and raise them every time they pull a stunt like this.

If they get prayer in school then immediately insiste on Buddhist chants and Muslim prayers five times a day as well. And if they refuse, which they will, take the hypocrits to court.

Of course, you don’t want Buddhist chants or Muslim prayers in school, but neither do they. That’s the point, a point they clearly do not get. So, help them get it.


Head up Butt Award
What possesses otherwise smart people to say really stupid things, out loud, in public? I don’t know. Maybe people are more like computers than we think and, every now and then, a .dll file gets lost or corrupted resulting in a pile of intellectual gibberish.

How else can you explain what former Clinton economic wizard Larry Summers said this week at a public gathering of science professors. Summers, in case you didn’t know, parlayed his White House job into a cushy post as president of Harvard U.

While rattling off the top of his head at the conference Summers mused that fewer women become scientists because maybe they are wired wrong when it comes to math and science.

He dug this hole deeper with an tale about how he came to this conclusion. He said when his daughter was a little girl he gave her a gift of two trucks, one larger than the other. He said within a couple of days she was referring to the trucks as “the daddy truck and the baby truck.”

Nice going Larry. Maybe next time stick to a script.

It’s the Larry Summers’ Improv Special!

“Hey girls – wait, don't leave. I got a million of them. How about that PMS, ladies? Talk about an albatross. Let me see a show of hands – how many of you lady scientists are feeling grouchy today and just want to split the hell out of an atom or something? Just kidding…” Wacka wacka wacka…

Now for a round of dumb blond jokes.

Larry, Larry, Larry...... go to your room.

By Stephen Pizzo
Raconteur at Large

PS: My pal Tony disagrees with the above.

Choice and Truth (01/18/05)
He wasn’t relegating women to second-class citizenship; he was saying that gender-wise predilections should be studied. To say that there aren’t innate differences between the sexes is absurd. To say that we shouldn’t learn more about the differences is heresy.

January 18, 2005

Reforming Bush's Reform Agenda

I was thinking this morning about Bush’s agenda for his second four years at the wheel of our bus. In his first four years his driving skills were more akin to those of Mr. Magoo than Dale Earnhardt. All we can do now is hope he learned something the first time around the track.

Nevertheless, I am not suggesting that Democrats should simply discard Bush’s stated second term agenda out of hand, but to embrace it. Well, not as currently written, of course. Democrats need to make these issues their own – take them away from the Republicans by first acknowledging the problems, embrace Bush’s desire to fix these ills, then rewrite Bush’s prescriptions so they do good rather than harm.

Reform Social Security
Republicans never liked Social Security or Medicare, both of which they see as little socialist tumors festering in our capitalistic body. And now, for the first time in half a century, they have majorities in both houses and a President in the White House. Now is the time to begin cutting out that tumor, one piece at a time. The first step is to sell Americans on privatizing a portion of Social Security. Their argument is that, by letting people invest a portion of their Social Security withholding in the stock market workers will get a better return on their money than they do in the government run Social Security Trust Fund.

What Democrats need to say is, “Fine. If you Republicans in Congress really believe that then let’s do it today. If you Republicans are right that there are higher returns just waiting to be harvested in stocks and bonds, then let’s simply cut to the chase and pass a law today that allows the Social Security Trust Fund to be invested in stocks and bonds. What are we waiting for? If that’s true then we are violating our fiduciary responsibilities. We must remedy that immediately. So let’s just cut to the chase and start investing in the markets.”

You will hear a pin drop in the room as Republicans stare in wide-eyed terror. Because, the last thing they want is their fingerprints on the body. By proposing that workers be saddled with the responsibility to make stock and bond investments with this money if they win or lose becomes their problem, not Washington’s. If the market crashes or returns fail to meet expectations, well, you made poor decisions. But, if the government is investing the money then that’s a different matter.

Democrats need to push this hard, as though they really want it. And, then let Republicans explain why they do not want to pass a law that begins harvesting all the stock and bond profits they claim are just there to be had.

That is not an argument I have heard Democrats make yet. And they should, because it would prove the lie that private accounts will somehow generate better returns for future Social Security recipients.

It’s not like no one has tried this. We learned when Great Britain tried the same thing that the only people whose returns grew were financial institutions that skimmed up to 15% in fees off this high pressure stream of revenues suddenly flowing into their hands. Compare that to the average half a percent it costs for Social Security to manage that money today and you can see that those private accounts Bush wants would have to out perform the historical average of stock and bond returns by several percentage points to pay off.

So, cure what ills Social Security really has? Sure go ahead. But make sure the prescription is written by Dr. Welby, not Dr. Kavorkian.

Reforming the Tax Code
In his first four years in office Bush already reformed a portion of the national tax system by cutting taxes in ways that provided a few crumbs to working Americans and cake and caviar to the already wealthy. All that extra money dumped on those at the top was supposed to trickle down. Some did. Yacht sales have skyrocketed, luxury resorts, hotels and restaurants were forced to add a sixth “Star” level of luscious service, and private jet services are booming. The rest of us are still waiting for the trickle, staying at Motel 6, eating at one-star Denny’s and flying coach – if we’re lucky.

If Bush really wants to use tax policy to spur domestic economic growth there is no better or faster way to do that than to cut the payroll tax. But, since he shot our national wad giving nearly $2 trillion in tax cuts to the rich, the only way he can cut the payroll tax now is if he would agree to repeal some of his earlier tax cuts to the rich.

That’s where Democrats need to come out swinging. When you cut the payroll tax you put dollars in the pockets of working Americans, many with families to support. The big selling point here is that there is no need to wait for some questionable “trickle down” affect to materialize. This money goes right to people who spend it as fast as it comes in, not because they are spendthrifts, but because they no discretionary income. What they do have are fundamental human expenses that need to be met each month and which they struggle to make on their shrinking hourly earnings. So they spend those extra dollars the same week they get their hands on them. And, they spend them on the kind of stuff that really does create new jobs – furniture, clothing, cars, TVs, and other durable goods.

Of course none of that spending will create many US jobs unless we reform one more thing:

Reforming Trade
Democrats need to really dig their heels in on trade. If all those working American dollars end up going to firms producing goods in China and India all that will do is deepen our already horrendous trade deficit. While we must never go back to protectionist trade policies, we must insist on fair trade.

What is fair trade? It’s easier to explain what unfair trade is, because that’s what we have now. While the Bush administration feels it has every right to tell other countries what form of government they should have, they seem to believe they have no right to tell them how they should treat their workers or the environment.

American manufacturers must – rightly - toe the line, at great expense when it comes to worker pay and safety. And, they comply with expensive methods to dispose of hazardous materials. Meanwhile in China and India and other developing countries workers have no such protections and hazardous materials are cheaply dumped on the ground, into rivers or released into the atmosphere.

There’s no way an American manufacturer of widgets can compete with a Chinese widget company if the Chinese factory can simply dump its toxic widget wastes, pay its workers peanuts and, as for worker safety well, if a worker is gets his or her hand eaten by a widget press, it’s just too bad – for the worker. Workman’s Comp? Are you kidding?

Since Americans are not about to go back to the bad old days of worker mistreatment and polluting factories, we have to insist that any foreign manufacturer that wants to sell their goods in America adhere to some fundamental standards of environmental responsibility and treatment of workers. Otherwise we will continue to lose jobs here and despite all our environmental rules here, the world environment will grow increasingly toxic.

Let’s review:
Reform Social Security: Private accounts are a smoke screen. If higher returns are really available someplace then it should be the responsibility of Social Security administrators to go get those returns – right now. And, unless they are lying, why shift the responsibility for making winning choices on the backs of 60 million American workers? Make the bastards answer that question.. in public. And, if more money is needed to keep the fund solvent into the next century the fastest way to do that is to simply remove the income cap and start tapping all income. The retired rich get Social Security checks every month too, even though they hardly need the money. So take the caps off. Then if that still leaves a gap, start means testing benefits. And if the Republicans scream that that's "redistribution of wealth," remind them about the Bush tax cuts. If that wasn't the biggest redistribution of wealth in our history I don't know what it was.

Tax Reform: Give tax breaks to people who actually need a few extra bucks a week, not to those who will only pile that money up in some family trust fund, offshore accounts, or both.

Trade Reform: If a foreign manufacturer wants to sell his products and services to the lucrative American market, make them following the same rules American manufacturers must follow. If they think that’s a bit pushy, tough. Take it or leave it.

Jesus, I’m getting crotchety in my old age.

By Stephen Pizzo
Raconteur at Large

January 17, 2005

Okay, so this is where I get sideways with my pacifist friends. I’ll lose some readers over this column. But, just as I hate the simplistic thinking on the right, I hate the same on the left. So, here we go.

This past weekend Seymour Hersh broke the news that, since at least last summer, the US has been sending spies into Iran to locate and verify that country’s secret nuclear facilities -- not the ones Iran admits to and allows UN inspectors to check, but the facilities where they are alleged to be working on nuclear bomb technology.

The idea, according to Hersh’s sources, is make sure we get it right this time -- that there really are prohibited facilities and activities in Iran. The first step in assuring that is to collect the proof ourselves this time rather than relying on Iranian opposition groups – since, you might just recall, that kind of lazy-ass intelligence gathering didn’t work so well in Iraq.

If we are able to confirm (really confirm this time) that Iran is working on a nuke at these facilities, and if Iran’s diplomatic initiatives turn out to be a ploy to stall until they have a bomb, then the US can – and should -- preempt an almost certain Israeli strike with air strikes of our own. (Because an Israeli strike on an Arab nation would set an whole different bunch of Arab world dynamics into motion, none of which would be helpful to anyone.)

So, if such US spying in really going on, as Hersh claims, I see it as good news. I only hope those doing the spying are very good at their jobs and the Bush administration will listen to them this time if they return without the kind of proof the administration wants.

But if they are good spies, and if they come back with proof certain that Iran is about to join the nuclear club, bombing the snot out of those installations would be the lesser of evils. The greater evil would be to allow Iran to have The Bomb.

But notice, I said bomb, not invade. Some months ago I posted my national defense policy dubbed the “Don’t Do That” policy. Under that policy we clearly state our absolute bottom line position on key national security issues. We tell those involved “here’s what we are willing to live with. But cross this line and we will respond militarily.”

“That line,” in this case, should be this: “We will NOT allow ANY new members to join the nuclear club. Period. And, any nation or group we discover is about to do so will be stopped, with force if necessary.”

There are some things the modern world can adapt to and live with. Conventional terrorism, for example, is a deadly nuisance, but nations can and do learn to live with it. But, a world bristling with nuclear and biological weapons is not something we can live with. Once nation or terrorist groups possess such weapons they have the ability to kill millions of people in a single attack. At that point the whole equation changes – in their favor.

Yes, I know we’ve heard that argument before. And that’s what worries me most. Americans – and most of the rest of the world -- have been so turned off by the lies the Bush administration told to justify his attack on Iraq that no one will believe our spies if they do come up with the goods about someone’s WMD plans. The Bushies cried wolf and then insulted anyone who dared to suggest that particular wolf was a mirage.

As it turned out there were wolves, just not in Iraq. The Bushies had three choices among their “Axis of Evil” nations and managed to pick the only one of the three that didn’t have active WMD programs. The other two, North Korea and Iran, did, and do, have them.

Now if either is allowed to proceed with their WMD ambitions the game is over. We all might as well forget about putting money into those new private retirement accounts Bush wants to give us and use that money instead for a backyard nuclear/bio shelter. It will be back to the 1950s for Americans, back to MAD (Mutually Assured Destruction,) Only this time the MAD equation won’t as a deterrent as it did against the sane Soviets. Radical Islamists don’t give a fig if they die. (In fact for some who have no chance of getting laid in this life, dying a “martyr” is preferred.)

The answer is to stop things before they get to that point. And the best way to do that is to let those who have to satisfy the daily needs of such countries that having nukes is jut not worth the bother. While extremists in Iran may not care if they die, those who have to run that country care a lot, for example, whether or not their infrastructures gets reduced to rubble by US cruise missiles. Infrastructure is expensive to replace having to continuously replace the same bridges, highways and other key infrastructure is not something they are anxious to do.

A strict militarily enforced embargo is also a pain in the neck.

A key portion of my “Don’t Do That” doctrine is that the only time we send US troops abroad is on surgical missions. Send in Special Forces teams with a specific target, do it, and come home.. one week, in and out. If you can’t do it right and fast with a small force, then find go back to plan A… bombs the snot out of the target. No more US troops stationed in conflict zones. Period.

One argument you will hear from the left against such a policy is that the US is being hypocritical. We have nukes, our European brothers have nukes and the Israelis have nukes. So does India and Pakistan, now a US ally. What right do we have to tell Iran, or anyone else that they can’t have them too?

Man, is that one dumb-ass argument. In fact, it’s not an argument at all; it’s a suicide pact. We need fewer nations with nukes, not more. In fact the nuclear club needs to shrink. First we need to get them away from both Pakistan and India. And, we need to send in a team to nab H.Q. Kahn, the Pakistani scientist who sold nuclear bomb designs to Iran, Libya and North Korea. A message has to be sent that people who trade in this deadly technology if they do that they will never live to spend the money.

And, if things ever settle down in the Holy Land, we need to convince the Israelis to destroy its nukes and come in under the US nuclear umbrella.

Sooner or later, someone is going to have to call North Korea’s bluff. Either they give up their nukes and get with the program right now or no more talking. Preparations begin to remove those weapons “through other means.” I suspect if we made such a statement, made it credible, that bombing N. Korean sites would not be necessary. The last thing China wants is the US bombing the stuffing out of N. Korea. It would extend US power into Asia and would burden China with a flood of N. Korean refugees. Since N.Korea can only survive with uninterrupted Chinese aid, China can, and would, pull Kim’s plug before the US could act. But, if China does not do so, or cannot do so, then we should be act unilaterally.

So, instead of wasting $200 billion a year trying to drag unwilling horses to the democracy well, we should invest a faction of that in smart bombs, smart missiles and surgical strike teams and use them to degrade rogue nation’s capabilities and infrastructure until they comply.

I know many readers will disagree with this. Some will be revolted by the very idea that the US has the right to bomb the snot out weapons facilities in countries that have not attacked us – yet.

But it will take just one nuclear weapon to go off in or near an American city to change that view. Of course, then it will be too late, at least for the people in that city. But once people are reminded just how much death and destruction one small nuke can cause, they will understand that, while bombing other countries may seem mad, allowing new member to the nuclear club is the real madness.

Of course the key here is good intelligence. The US must.. must… MUST have the real goods the next time we go on a WMD hunt. It has to be the kind of evidence able to withstand independent scrutiny. I understand that even real evidence will not convince some. All you have to do it remember two initials to know this is so: “OJ”.” But, while a small number of certifiable imbeciles continue to believe OJ is innocent, the mainstream knows otherwise. And so too will be the case if the US gets the goods this time before it acts. Assuming we do it right the next time, such a preemptive strategy would not only cost us a hell of a lot less in treasure and lives, but less diplomatic damage as well.

And, a steadfast policy like this would put nations that may harbor nuclear and biological weapons ambitions on notice that all they will get for their investment in WMD is some busted up infrastructure. And the same goes for nations who harbor terrorist groups who espouse WMD attacks. No more allowing such host nations the luxury of pretending they don’t know terrorists are using their sovereign territory as a logistical base. After losing a few bridges or pipelines such nations would have to choose between them or their troublesome guests.

My fear is that Bush’s Iraq misadventure has convinced everyone that efforts to stop proliferation of WMD must only be diplomatic -- that any credible military component to such diplomatic efforts are now so discredited they are now useless. Thanks to Bush’s Iraq misadventure, I fear the pendulum has swung too far to the left when it comes to using military force. Not all use of force is wrong. It’s when and how we use it that matters.

Refusing to include a military component to WMD negotiations is simply an invitation to nations like Iran and North Korea to use diplomacy to run out the clock – to jerk everyone around by engaging and disengaging and reengaging in negotiations until they can build up their own nuclear/biological arsenals. Then disengaging for good.

After that we can turn our attention to talking to our kids about what to do when they see a bright flash or smell something funny in the air. It will be back to the future. It’ll be “duck and cover time” again kids. And, if you thought that tsunami made a mess, just wait til you see what a 65-pound-suitcase nuke can do.

(You can read my full “Don’t Do That” national defense strategy HERE.)

January 14 - 16, 2005

Al Qaida - Moving on Up

How’s the war against terrorism going? Fine. In fact, if you’re a terrorist, times have never been better. While al Qaida sprouted in Taliban-run Afghanistan, it now flourishes in Iraq. A new study just released by CIA think tank National Intelligence Council says Iraq has become the West Point of terrorism.

“Iraq has replaced Afghanistan as the training ground for the next generation of "professionalized" terrorists,” the NIC report said.

“Iraq provides terrorists with a training ground, a recruitment ground, the opportunity for enhancing technical skills," said David B. Low, the national intelligence officer for transnational threats. "There is even, under the best scenario, over time, the likelihood that some of the jihadists who are not killed there will, in a sense, go home, wherever home is, and disperse to various other countries."

The NIC report was no slapdash deal. It took a year to produce and includes the analysis of 1,000 U.S. and foreign experts.

"The al-Qaida membership that was distinguished by having trained in Afghanistan will gradually dissipate, to be replaced in part by the dispersion of the experienced survivors of the conflict in Iraq," the report says.

So, the next time the President brags to reporters that Iraq is better off today than it was under Saddam, one of them might want to ask him if the world is better off. The CIA clearly seems to thing not.

Compassionate Conservative Update

What’s a President to do when he wakes up and discovers that he broke the bank when he wrote all those tax rebate checks to the already rich? Well, he could ask the rich to relinquish some of those tax breaks. But no, that would be wrong. Instead the best place to begin tightening the fiscal belt is where the belt is already about a tight as it gets – squeeze the poor one more time. Balance the budget on the backs of the poor.

So yesterday the compassionate White House announced it would slash the budget of Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD.) They figure they can “save” about $8 billion by killing dozens of economic development projects, scrapping a rural housing program and folding high-profile anti-poverty efforts into the Labor and Commerce departments, administration officials said yesterday. It’s all part of Bush “lean and mean” 2006 budget – with apparent emphasis on “mean.”

Among the programs to be cut, Youthbuild USA, a $62 million program to teach teens from poor families home-construction skills, the $24 million rural housing and economic development program will be eliminated as will be the $260 million in economic development projects in poor areas. In all HUD would ultimately lose a quarter of its $31 billion budget.

At the other end of the economic scale Bush $1.6 trillion in tax cuts, which most benefited the rich, go untouched. Yo, George. Where’s the trickle down? So far the only thing rolling down hill is … well you know.

Royal Genes

If you need proof that inbreeding among royals remains a problem, look no further than young Prince Harry, third in line to the British throne. In case you have not heard, the young prince showed up at a costume party dressed as a Nazi officer, swastika armband and all. This just two weeks before Queen granny meets with Holocaust survivors to mark the anniversary of the liberation of Nazi death camps. Nicely done young man. The timing, the costume – you got it all wrong. Maybe for your next costume ball you go as Jeffery Dahmer while munching a human leg.

Poor Harry. What can we expect from a lad burdened by chromosomes from a father who clearly carries the mutant dorkus-maximus gene and a mother who suffered from chronic dittsyittus?

But before we Americans start feeling any smug satisfaction, remember, we have Uncurious George running things here – a man who thinks a chromosome is something shiny on a car fender.

Drugball

I am not a sports guy. In fact the first thing I do in the morning is shake the sports section out of the paper so I do not accidentally come across it while reading real news. But I did take note of the big deal major league baseball made yesterday out of their new steroid testing policy.

What a disgrace. I mean, either using performance enhancing drugs is cheating or its not. And if someone gets caught cheating they should be thrown out of the game for good. I have zero tolerance for cheaters. But okay, I am willing to give even cheaters a second chance. Everyone makes mistakes. But only born cheaters keep cheating. So, the second time I am done with them forever. Fool me once, shame on you. Fool me twice shame on me.

So then you can imagine how monumentally unimpressed I was with baseball’s new drug policy. Get caught once using performance enhancing drugs and you get a 10 suspension…oooooooooo. How strict is that? Get caught again and it’s a 30-day slap on your grotesquely oversized wrist. Get caught again and your 280 pound ass has to sit out for 60 days. You have to get caught five times before you get your now incredible hulk kicked out for an entire season. But just one season. You can return next year, bigger than ever.

This is not an anti-doping policy. It’s a game within the game.

Oh, and little noticed by most was that the league dropped any mention of punishment for using uppers (AKA “greenies”) that are so common in the dugout. So, let’s see, they can’t dope up on steroids but they can pop amphetamines with impunity. Are you little leaguers out there paying attention? Want to speed up your game a few notches?

Come on boys of summer! If you are serious about getting the drug cheaters out of your sport bite the bullet and adopt the same drug testing program and punishments the world applies to Olympic athletes. Otherwise just drop all the pretense and go for it. Let baseball become a sport with teams made up of men with necks bigger than their waists, legs like tree trunks, arms like backhoes. Then rename the sport “Freakball.” Let the games begin.

Grunt, grunt.

Computing for Dummies

Even my hometown pet shop can do it. The local tire retailer does it. The regional grocery warehouse can do it. Corporations around the world do it every day. Only the US government can do it.

Do what? Set up and operate computer systems. We got the latest proof of this incomprehensible incompetence when the FBI announced that the agency has wasted $170 million on a computer system that does not work. The system, a key cog in the national war on terrorism, was supposed to help agents share data about terrorist threats and other criminal cases. Trouble is after two years of fiddling with the hardware and software it still does not work. Not even a little bit. (An FBI spokesshill said that the failure of the system “is not affecting the FBI’s pursuit of terrorists.”

(Yes, I am sure it is not affecting it – positively anyway.)

I have used computers in my work since 1980 and, annoying as they can be, I have always gotten more than my money’s worth out of every system and system upgrade I bought. I have NEVER had to throw one out because it did not work. Never. The very thought of doing so boggles a private sector mind.

But the US government does so all the time. For example, the Federal Aviation Administration has been trying for the past TEN YEARS to upgrade its air traffic control computer systems. They paid IBM over $1 billion for a system that still does not work. The contract was taken over by Lockheed, which is now milking the FAA cow. Meanwhile airport towers across the US are still using computer systems designed during the 60s and 70s and so old they use increasingly scarce vacuum tubes.

Maybe those pro-private sector Republicans in Congress might just want to ask what the hell is going on here. Why can’t government buy hardware and software like everyone else and get it to do whatever it is they need to get done? Oh, and why did IBM bet to keep the $1 billion for failing? And just who got the $170 million for the FBI computer systems now being carted to the trash bin?

Can’t anyone up there spell “refund,” or “lawyer?”

Just wondering. I mean, if we are going to cut HUD’s budget…. Well, you get the point.

See ya’ll next week.

By Stephen Pizzo
Raconteur at Large

January 13. 2005

Tale of Two Mistakes

Let me get this straight. CBS falls for a bogus document about George W. Bush’s Air National Guard service and all hell breaks loose. Republicans demand an investigation and that heads roll, and so there is an investigation and heads roll at CBS.

Okay. Fair enough. But wait. Wasn’t CBS’s false report about the same guy who took the world to war based, at least in part, over a false document that purported to show Iraq had bought uranium yellow cake from Niger?

Yeah, I am pretty sure I’m right about that. Bush even featured that document in a State of the Union message, if my memory serves me. Yep. Just checked. He did.

Well, so I’m just scratching my head here wondering about proportionality. Dan Rather doesn’t like George Bush – no secret there. So when a document that he wants to believe is true falls into his hands he acts on it. Bad Dan. Bad. No, seriously, that was bad.

Okay, but then we have George W. Bush who we know hates Saddam Hussein. No secret there either. And, when a document falls into his hands that he wants to believe he acts on it.

The two cases are similar except that in the first case no one died. In the second case roughly 200,000 people died – and more die every day.

Still, it’s the guy who made the deadly mistake who gets his knickers in a twist at the guy who made the non-deadly mistake, and heads roll. But no heads roll for the deadly mistake.

I’m just thinking out loud here, trying to grasp the enormous gap between the reaction to the two cases, the sheer chutzpah, the shameless lack of shame, the shitafruckingmuthaduckingassasukingroveadickingbushalyingdoublecrossingorwellinging of the way these two events were handled.

Dan Rather, George W. Bush. Both men are ninnies. But only one killed or maimed nearly a quarter million people the past two years for reasons that have proved to be false. Only one used false information as a pretext for war. War…you know, where people lose arms and legs and die. He led us into a real, honest to god, blowing up, blood and guts, civilian killing and maiming, war – based on false info.

And, while Dan Rather at least apologized for his mistake, Bush refuses to do so. Heads have rolled, just not at the White House or anywhere else in the Bush administration.

But wait, it gets worse. While four people were fired at CBS and Dan Rather forced into early retirement, just the opposite happened over at the White House. Over there Bush awarded the guy who came up with the false WMD documents, George Tenet, the highest civilian medal for his service. The snookered awards the snookeree. No shame. No accountability. No wonder this administration opposed the World Court of Justice.

Is it just me, or is something just all catawampus? If you followed the news you would think that these two stories had no relation to one another at all. Nothing in common. Nothing worth a mention. In fact the non-CBS mainstream media took obvious delight in reporting CBS’s disgrace and subsequent groveling. They gave White House mouthpieces all the air time they wanted to perform ugly little victory dances and make pompous, self-righteous pronouncements about CBS’s mistake.

But not one.. not a single one of those blow-dried, over-paid, stuffed-shirt/blouse, thumb-sucker anchors thought to ask them why Rather’s mistake, letting himself be suckered by bad documents, was a disgrace but Bush starting a war over false intel wasn’t. Instead they just let the White House shills kick CBS in the ribs while it was down with total impunity.

That’s all I have to say on that subject. Thinking about it any more just makes me want to drink myself senseless.

Meanwhile In Other News

No WMD? Yep.
Oh, crap! Seems I was wrong. I am forced to revisit the WMD issue one last time. Yesterday it was reported that last month the US quietly ended its search for Iraq’s non-existent weapons of mass destruction. Oh, you missed that White House news conference? No you didn’t. There was no news conference. You can bet your sweet bippy there would have been one had they found a single WMD, but they didn’t. So, no news conference. No White House spokeshills on the news. The whole reason we went to war turned out to be wrong, but the White House had nothing to say about it until asked. And when asked what did they say?

“The President has been clear on this. Iraq is better off today than it was when Saddam was in power and, even knowing what we know now, he would do the same thing.”

Yep. That’s what the White House said. Now, what if Dan Rather had said that, even though he now knows the documents he used for his story were false, he would do it again? Hmmm.

Torture
Remember last week when Attorney General nominee, Alberto Gonzalez, said that he and President Bush opposed all forms of torture? That was lie. We learn in today’s news that, at the urging of the White House, Congressional Republicans scrapped a legislative measure last month that would have imposed new restrictions on the use of extreme interrogation measures by American intelligence officers – methods human rights groups uniformly agree constitute torture.

Gonzalez is expected to be confirmed it would appear we are about to replace the current psychiatric case, John Aschroft, with a liar. Is lying a conservative value? Do you Red State Republicans teach your kids that God wants them to tell the truth all the time, or just when it’s convenient? Just wondering. I mean you guys were all steamed up over Bill Clinton’s lies.

So, are Republican lies venal sins and Democrat lies mortal sins? Wink, wink, nod, nod.

Party Hardy
Hey, I haven’t gotten my invite to the inauguration. Of course I also didn’t donate a zillion dollars to the Bush reelection either. But those who did got their invitations. And all you have to do is read down the list of who they are and how much they gave to turn you into a socialist.

The nuclear industry is there. President Bush supports lowering barriers to building nuclear power plants. To show it appreciates that the nuke industry lobby coughed up a $100,000 to help pay for his inauguration. “He's a big supporter," said John E. Kane, chief lobbyist for the Nuclear Energy Institute. "Our donation is just a small way of supporting him."

Hey, why not ask George if you can put one of your reactors in Crawford.

“Wall Street investment firms seeking to profit from private Social Security accounts; oil, gas and mining companies pushing the White House to revive a stalled energy-subsidy bill; and hotels and casinos seeking an influx of immigrant labor are among the 44 interests that have each given $250,000 and the 66 that have donated $100,000 to $225,000. And the money keeps pouring in.” (Washington Post)

Well, the Post should know. Even the Washington Post wants to be on the winning side. The Washington Post Co. has pledged $100,000 to the inauguration, which it’s reporters will be covering with all the impartiality they can still muster.

Texas oilman T. Boone Pickens gave $250,000 to the inauguration. Pickens played a major role in the election by giving $2.5 million to the Swift Boat Veterans for Truth. The group used the money to attack John F. Kerry's record in Vietnam. He gave another $2.5 million to the pro-Bush action committee, Progress for America.

In all the bill for the party stands at about $40 million, not counting the $12 million District of Columbia taxpayers will have to cough up to provide security.

Basta! See you tomorrow.

By Stephen Pizzo
Raconteur at Large

January 12, 2005

Memo

To: The Democratic National Committee
From: Us.

Okay DNC. You’ve had two months to lick your wounds, pretend you were cheated and finally come to understand you simply lost – big time. Now you have to pick a new DNC leader. The person you chose will determine if we invest our faith in the party going forward, or start looking around for another choice.

So, here’s a tip. Howard Dean wants to lead the party out of the wilderness. Let him try.

Why? Because he is the only national Democrat who has demonstrated he has the balls to do what must be done to save your party from the little gray men and women who now control it. That’s why.

Yes, I am talking to you.. Hillary, John, John, Bob, Mike, Paul, Terry, et al. I could put you folks into a time machine and transport back to 1950 and drop you into a chair at the Soviet Politburo and neither you nor the Russian apparatchiks around you would notice a thing had changed. You guys have become little more than a pack of valueless, principles-for-sale, political gamers. When winning becomes your only goal and value, winning itself loses all value.

And what do you do even when you get elected? Forty million Americans – most of them members of the prime Democratic demographic – play medical Russian roulette every day because they have no health insurance. That number was, just a few years ago, 25 million, but you did nothing. Then it was 30 million, and you did nothing. Then 35 million and, nothing. Now it’s 40 million… and you still have no plan to solve this problem that you are willing to FIGHT and, if necessary, DIE for.. (politically speaking.)

The past four years Republicans have gutted the national treasury – GUTTED IT – with tax givebacks to the already wealthy, and you guys did NOTHING to stop them. In fact, many of you voted FOR those tax breaks. The resulting federal budget deficits now threaten what few social programs for the poor and working families that remain.

After your November election loses one would think you would be in a fighting mood. With an unpopular and illegal war raging, deficits mounting, Social Security under direct attack, what did you do? You elevated Mr. Milquetoast (Sen Harry Reid) to lead your party in the Senate. HELLO! If old Harry were being mugged on the street he would be so eager to mollify his muggers he’d offer to fetch some friends so the robbers could mug them too.

And let’s not forget that, when Bush wanted to attack Iraq, you guys let him do it. ONLY Howard Dean had the guts to say it was wrong – you remember WRONG? As in, some things are simply wrong? Democrats used to know that and used to fight wrong – discrimination, poverty, corruption, pollution….. No longer. Now your strategy hinges on what the meaning of “wrong” is.

You guys have triangulated yourselves into ideological pretzels. Democratic pretzels cannot defend us against Republican ramrods.

And you have drained the party of passion. Passion can’t be faked. You can try, and you have -- but it never works. Voters don’t hear real passion, they feel it. Anything less is acting and we know it. John Kerry had all the passion of a beached jellyfish. John Edwards’ passion was real but was the kind of passion you feel when a realtor wants to sell you a house because he can almost taste the commission.

Okay DNC honchos, who are you going to pick to fix this mess you’ve created? Or maybe that’s the wrong question. Maybe we should ask if you want to repair it at all. After all, you have a pretty sweet deal there at DNC headquarters. Like a corrupt labor union that sells its members down the river, you still have desk, a title, and expense accounts. And, as long as nothing changes you can continue to convince your mothers, friends and yourselves that you are a real mover and shaker – a “player” on the national stage. And, of course, you will continue getting a nice-size paycheck, which is more than can be said for a lot of working families you claim to represent.

So, who you gonna pick? Well let’s see who’s on the shortlist:

Former representative Martin Frost of Texas. Marty’s a loser – literally. He lost his reelection bid in November. Marty is the quintessential little gray man who got hoisted on his own petard when his machiavellian redistricting of Texas was out-machiavellianed by Tom DeLay’s redistricting. Great choice. Just the thing the DNC needs to change its image as valueless, conniving pack of valueless connivers.

Former representative Timothy J. Roemer of Red State Indiana. I call Roemer the triangulation candidate because he opposes a woman’s right to chose. Get it? The Madison Ave. message here is that the Democratic Party is inclusive. And who wants him to be DNC chair? Roemer said he was urged to run by Senate Minority Leader Harry M. Reid and House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi. These folks want the DNC to be a “big tent,” just like the Republicans say the RNC is. It says that Dems let people who disagree with even the party’s deepest held beliefs,belong to their party. How sweet. Maybe David Duke and Louis Farrakhan should be on the list as DNC Chair candidates then as well. Big tent? You betchya – a circus tent.

Oh, and listen to the kind of advice coming from Joe Lieberman’s peanut gallery:

"I think Dean did a tremendous job in the primaries -- energizing people, making statements of principle -- and that he has a lot to contribute to the debate," said Dan Gerstein, former press secretary to Sen. Joseph I. Lieberman (D-Conn.). "That said, I think he would be a disastrous choice to head the party…”

Oh Poleasssseee! Gag me with a crowbar. Lieberman? If you want a poster boy for what’s wrong with the Democratic Party today, look no further than the Sen. Toady.

Back when Howard Dean looked like he might just win the presidential primaries you guys at the DNC were shaking in your boots. And, while history will credit Dean’s enthusiastic “yeeeehaaaa” as the reason he lost, we all know DNC operatives had been behind the scenes for weeks trying to figure out how to saw the legs out from under this guy. By the time he let out that yell you guys had already prepared his political grave. Dean scared the hell out of you guys because he suffers fools poorly – and knows one when he see one.

But I am forced to ask you to consider, in retrospect, what if Dean had won the primaries? Could he possibly have done worse than the uninspiring John Kerry? Dean had energized the Democratic Party base, a pool of voters who until then (and now once again) wallowed in hopeless despair. What if Dean’s energy, passion, commitment to core Democratic values and pure guts had boosted the Democratic vote by just a couple of more percentage points? What then fellas?

He would have won… that’s what. And we would not now be forced to live through another four years of this nightmare. That’s your fault -- you little gray people at the DNC. You did that to us, you bastards.

And now you are burning the midnight oil trying to connive a way to keep your phony baloney jobs by appointing a new DNC head who will not rock the boat… your boat.

Well, we are watching. Do you represent working Americans, those without healthcare coverage, the elderly, many of whom now have to chose between buying food or medicine? Or do you represent yourselves?

Your choice will tell us all we need to know -- about you.
By Stephen Pizzo
Raconteur at Large

January 11, 2005

This Winter of Discontent

Jesus H. Christ this has been an awful winter – and I am not talking about the weather. For progressives (formerly known as “liberals,”) these are the worst of times and the worst of times. Each morning I turn on the news and pick up my newspaper with a mixture of dread and resignation.

The news -- I brace myself -- will be bad. And it is. And it just gets worse.

Throw a dart at any page of the main section of the paper and you will hit a story that hurts your head to read.

Whoooosh…THUD!
“Ukraine Pulls Troops for Iraq.” The coalition of the willing just shrunk by another 1800 troops yesterday as Ukraine became the latest to pull its troops out of that pus-pot of nation, Iraq. Little by little Bush’s phony “coalition” is being exposed for as just that – phony – a PR stunt with guns. A Wag the Dog tale cooked up by Karl Rove’s evil elves in the White House Spin Dept.

Whoooosh… THUD!
“CBS Fires Four in Fake Story Flap.”
No one who really knows George W. Bush’s personal history doubts for a second that he dodged his military obligations during the Vietnam War. No one. But leave it to Dan Rather to screw up a sure thing.. and he did.

All of us who covered Bush over the years knew that Bill Burkett – the guy who pawned the fake docs off on CBS – was an anti-Bush wing nut. Rather, who is himself from Texas, should have known that as well. (A simple Google search would have told hm all he needed to know. For example.

But not Dan Rather, who has spent the last twenty years trying to convince himself that he really was a worthy heir to the Cronkite legacy – even though not a single other living creature agreed. So, when he jumped the gun on the Bush Air National Guard story, got it wrong, once again failing to live up to his own self-image.

Rather did accomplish two things though. First, he helped get George W. Bush reelected as some voters who had been on the fence were blown to the right by Rather’s rush of hot air.

But even more depressing he accomplished something rightwing Republicans have been trying to do for years – discredit and intimidate the news media.

"It's an unprecedented moment as far as conservatives are concerned," said Republican media consultant Keith Appel, whose firm worked with the Swift boat veterans group that fought Democrat John F. Kerry's presidential candidacy. "I think it's a warning to the rest of the media."

A “warning to the rest of the media?” Does that include FOX News? And just think ... that crack comes from a guy whose company produced the Swift Boat ads? Gadzooks …. The arrogance, the goose-stepping arrogance of it all, takes the breath away.

Meanwhile FOX News.. a wholly owned subsidiary of the Republican Party escapes condemnation while CBS fires four of its own.

Well, you can be sure the media got the message, which was -- cross these goons and they will get you. But, work with them and you will prosper.

Remember when Bush said he “looked into Vladimir Putin’s soul?” Well what he saw while he was in there was Putin’s plan to tame the free media in Russia. And, he liked what he saw.

Whooooosh…THUD
“Bush Pushes Social Security Cuts.”
Even during the biggest collapse in the history of capitalism, the Great Depression, conservatives hated the whole idea of providing ordinary working folks with a retirement safety net. Doing so, they complained, was creeping socialism. Nearly three quarters of a century later conservatives see their best chance in decades to begin dismantling this hated program. But, they know how many voters depend on Social Security so they will come to the battle in sheep’s clothing. Their argument: “We have to destroy Social Security to save it.”

“.. Bush and top strategist Karl Rove, the political force behind the Social Security plan, are convinced that the politics of Social Security have changed over the past six years -- and in a direction that could help the GOP cement a durable governing majority…This view is supported by many congressional Republicans, who, like Rove, see an even bigger payoff for Republicans in the long term. They believe Bush can do for Republicans what Franklin D. Roosevelt did for Democrats when he proposed the program more than seven decades ago: create a generation of voters who see them as the guardian of their retirement program." (Washington Post 1/11)

Go ahead. Laugh. You don’t think they can pull it off? Think again. These guys have raised Orwellianism to a fine art. They dress turds up in torqued verbal logic all the time, and it works all the time. Clear Skies Initiative -- No Child Left Behind -- Operation Iraqi Freedom.

Each was the polar opposite of what their name suggests. And, each time, we bit.

Whooosh…THUD
“Bush’s Dress Posh for Inauguration”
Next week, while you are surfing the cable channels you will still see heartbreaking images of families destroyed by the tsunami. And, you will see images of US boys and girls bleeding and dying in Iraq. But you will also see this:

“The inaugural gown that first lady Laura Bush will wear next week is an ice blue and silver embroidered tulle V-neck dress with a matching duchess satin coat by Seventh Avenue designer Oscar de la Renta.”

Ah yes. As Mel Brooks said in his satirical film, History of the World, “It’s good to be the King.” And what of the peasants? “Pull!” he shouts as a peasant is launched into the air for target practice rather than a clay pigeon.

And so the Bush’s will spend $40 million dollars celebrating themselves next week.

And, while they have sent 1500 other family’s sons and daughters to their deaths in Iraq, their Doublemint Twins will be showing off their designer duds as well:

“While Mrs. Bush enlisted the aide of three designers for her inaugural week wardrobe, her daughters, Jenna and Barbara, had the combined forces of four design houses: Lela Rose, de la Renta, Derek Lam and Badgley Mischka. With their choices, they have opted for the familiar, the traditional, the new and the va-va-voom.”

Va-va-voom is definitely more to their liking than the ka-booms 150,000 of their peers will have to endure in Iraq even as the Doublemint Twins party down for daddy’s inaugural.

I’m sorry to drag the girls into this again but there just seems something wrong with all this. Even President Johnson had family fighting in Vietnam. The Bush’s leave the dirty work to other people’s kids.

It is good to be the King -- AND the king's daughters.