Is the president irrevocably damaged at last? Yes, says MG; no, says SP

Mark Gisleson: Bush is toast. Our Wonderbread president is about to get singed by the Valerie Plame scandal. The accusations and spin are flying, but with every White House attempt to defuse this matter, Josh Marshall seems to have a counter fact. Novak denies? Marshall cites a conflicting quote. I realize that investigations into leaks rarely go anywhere (in fact, I don't think there's ever been a conviction under the act this action violated). This time, however, the facts are simple enough for the general public to follow, and the set up is a veritable whodunnit.

The Internet is all over this story and press coverage has gone from MSNBC on Friday, to 1,399 related links at Google News this morning. The most credible suspects range from Karl Rove to Dick Cheney, but even the potential sacrificial lambs are high ranking administration officials like Lewis "Scooter" Libby and the now retired Ari Fleischer.

Steve, I know you're going to try to burst my bubble, but I'm telling you now the next few months are going to be fun. Not since Watergate have the accusations been so venal, or the conspirators so easy to dislike.

Nixon's biggest crime was Cambodia, but he went down over a third-rate burglary. Bush will never be held fully accountable for Iraq, but there's a chance he's already accessorized himself by trying to provide cover for Rove.

Yum.

Steve Perry: Well, we agree that the exposures of misconduct involve gravely serious stuff. We differ in that you believe the "process" of contemporary politics is far more rational and rigorous than I think it really is. We shouldn't let the brewing fierceness of the battle for the Democratic nomination lull us into thinking the eventual winner will necessarily run a competent or vigorous campaign in the general election, or that he will have any sort of motivated party apparatus behind him. In other words, the "opposition" here is still very much a question mark to me, though I do think either Clark or Dean would land some blows.

The media are the wild card that makes it too early to say whether Bush will lose. People like you and me and most of our readers, who read about this stuff a lot, are always at risk of failing to see how the thing is playing on television, which after all is where 70 percent of the public gets most or all of its news.

I spent a little while this morning cruising the news channels and the network morning shows. There was discussion of the Plame/Novak affair, but it was fairly sanguine--another partisan squabble in government (and yes, the talking heads did emphasize this point). The story has no fire on television, and until it does, it's got no fire, period.

You might say, well, TV's got to come to the table eventually. But they don't. When did TV news come to the table on Iran/contra? Or on the real basis of this war, beyond the falsified uranium claims? I don't think the tenor of television news has ever been this uniform or this committed to cheerleading the sitting administration as far as possible. Part of it's the influence of Fox News, no question. But Fox News didn't invent the specious, punitive version of patriotism that says no good American will ask questions of his or her government in wartime. That ethic was a long time taking shape.

So, in the end, I think you're saying that there's simply too much trouble out in the open for Bush to recover. I don't think that's true. The public memory has never been shorter or more incomplete. If the economy makes a serious rebound by next summer, Bush probably still wins. But I don't know any serious economist who thinks it will. For the first time I'm willing to say, he'll probably lose. But I'm still not convinced of it.

Mark Gisleson: It's still a bit early to know how significant this is, but immediately after Clark announced his candidacy, the spinning went into overdrive. He was accused of flip-flopping and not being ready for primetime by almost the entire major media. What happened? Clark kicked butt in the polls the very next week.

Thug punditocracy has run its course. You say we're Internet junkies and our perceptions don't count, but I think the everyday Americans who take the lead in shaping grassroots political opinion have switched from the tube to the monitor. Spin doesn't make a Guardian article go away, and lies can't take down a webpage (and even when a Diebold tries to silence a critic, they just move the page to another site).

The news magazines are being very aggressive as well, and have been challenging Bush over Iraq and the economy. This is a presidency that was destined to unravel, but it took a determined David Corn and Josh Marshall to get the major media to tug on the loose string.

I am looking forward to seeing Time or Newsweek run a cover filled with headshots of administration officials with the caption "Which one(s) leaked?" Maybe we can't crucify our lord, but some of the thieves he hangs out with might get nailed. Works for me.

Steve Perry: I was reading an editorial last night in Capitol Hill Blue, which has been doing some great, feisty writing about the Bush scandals. And it was talking about the Republicans' absolute imperative, which is to do serious damage to Clark and do it quickly.

So far they've failed. But I really wonder whether they've done all they can with the Kosovo story, about a precipitous order issued by Clark decision that his Brit subordinate refused to follow; Clark's decision was later scorned by Washington and London alike.

But I don't imagine there's much more. Clark strikes me as smart enough to stay out if he had serious skeletons lying around.

But I also wonder whether the Clinton wing, the DLC, which got behind Clark's running in an open way, were thinking of Clark as a winning bet or simply a means of derailing the outsider Dean, who is not a familiar of the party poobahs. It could be that the DLC faction got behind Clark hoping that he would tie up Dean and allow someone like Kerry or Gephardt to mount a rally.

Or maybe Clark really is the party's anointed one. Is Wes Clark really a DLC kind of guy? It depends on what he believes in and the deals he's made to be in this position. And those are two subjects we know almost nothing about. We can already see the outlines of his style, how he thinks--what kind of a manager he might be. But he would be more than a manager, and we still know almost nothing about what he values or what his limits are.

by Mark Gisleson

Plamegate was all over the news this weekend, but we've covered most of this ground in this blog already so I'll just link to my frontpage blog entry which has beaucoup links on this matter. For daddy's opinion on this kind of stuff, scroll to the bottom of the post for the Quote of the Day.

Without getting too deep into the particulars, I do think it's interesting that it has taken this long to get the major media to seriously cover this story. Even Howard Kurtz has taken notice of the time lag:

When syndicated columnist Robert Novak reported on July 14 that "two senior administration officials" had told him that the wife of a prominent White House critic did undercover work for the CIA, it barely caused a ripple.

Former U.S. ambassador Joseph C. Wilson IV talked about the leak in interviews and at the National Press Club soon after, telling Newsday the message was "that if you talk, we'll take your family and drag them through the mud." Nation writer David Corn called the leak a "thuggish act," and New York Times columnist Paul Krugman called it a "criminal act." After Sen. Charles E. Schumer (D-N.Y.) called for an investigation, the New York Times, Washington Post and Buffalo News ran inside-the-paper stories.

But it was not until this weekend's reports that the CIA has asked the Justice Department to examine the matter that the story hit the front page of The Washington Post and the Sunday talk shows, sparking questions not just about White House motives but about media conduct.

[more]

I think the "blogosphere" was overly impressed with itself after the ousting of Trent Lott, but in the case of Plamegate, I think everyone owes David Corn, Joshua Micah Marshall, Mark A.R. Kleiman and others a big debt of gratitude. And to think, once upon a time the major media was capable of breaking news stories all by themselves. Makes you wonder what they missed then. (Here's one under-reported story Josh Marshall has uncovered that has some bearing on the present mess.)

If you hurry, you can also check out the Cursor links to more Plamegate stories, and Billmon analyzes the situation with the five anonymous journalists who are currently sitting on the identity(ies) of the leaker(s).

* *

Hesiod over at Counterspin has a counterquote to go with Wes Clark's widely touted pro-Republican quotes:

"I've know Wes Clark for 20 years. He's one of the most gifted soldiers that I have ever had work for me."

— Colin Powell

* *

Diebold, Bev Harris, and electronic voting. If this isn't on your political radar yet (and this has been widely reported online), be sure to read Buzzflash's interview with Harris. Here are a few of the many highlights:

When a system that belongs to the public becomes secret, it becomes doubly important to make sure we can completely trust those who run it. Voting machine companies are not required to tell us who owns them. Two of the top six firms have been foreign-owned: Election.com, owned by the Saudis until an acquisition by Accenture recently, and Sequoia, now owned by DeLaRue (Great Britain). Three of the top six firms have owners and/or directors who represent vested interests....

Diebold, the second largest voting machine company. CEO is Wally O'Dell, who recently visited George W. Bush at his Crawford ranch along with an elite group of Bush supporters called the "Rangers" and "Pioneers.” Days later, he penned a letter to Ohio Republicans promising to help "deliver the votes" for Bush. O'Dell sponsored a $600,000 fund raiser for Dick Cheney in July. Diebold director W.H. Timken is also a Bush Pioneer....

Voting systems have always had people trying to rig them, with varying degrees of success. What has changed is scale. Whereas it used to be that one had to run around bribing someone to shave the wheel on each lever machine, or collect up ballot boxes and stuff them in a trunk, nowadays a programmer can, essentially invisibly, create a back door into the vote system for millions of votes at once. Whereas vote-rigging has always required physical access before, modems and wireless communications devices now open up possibilities for remote vote rigging that no one can observe....

The voting industry is spending literally millions of dollars, and going through amazing feats of contorted logic that can best be described as marketing gymnastics, to convince us that we should discontinue proper auditing. They want us to eliminate the ballot which you verify, and trust the secret system instead.

[More]

* *

A final quote from one of my favorite revolutionaries to end today's post:

"Be not intimidated... nor suffer yourselves to be wheedled out of your liberties by any pretense of politeness, delicacy, or decency. These, as they are often used, are but three different names for hypocrisy, chicanery and cowardice."

— John Adams

* *

UPDATE: Depending on when you read this you may have to scroll down, but Steve Gilliard has a great Plamegate analysis up that makes the definitive case for Dick Cheney, not Karl Rove. Interesting.

UPDATE: National Review Online is now claiming that Valerie Plame's status as a CIA operative was well known. If that's really the case, it doesn't say much for this administration that such information is bandied about so casually.

UPDATE: The WaPost has just uploaded an online Q&A with Walter Pincus. Needless to say, the questions focus on Plamegate. Also, Drudge plays fire extinguisher and tries to defuse the Novak angle with full cooperation from the Prince of Darkness.

by Mark Gisleson

I'm never quite sure what to think when the Washington Times scoops the rest of the American media in running a negative story about Iraq. Edited by the Confederacy-loving Wes Pruden and owned by the notorious cult leader Sun Myung Moon, the Times is more than a little cozy with the Bush clan.

Jack Kelly's "Blackout on progress in Iraq?" isn't too hard to figure out. Biased news reporting out of Iraq is undermining the war at home for our hearts and minds, which in turn undermines the morale of our otherwise cheerful, determined and resolute troops.

So there you have it. Censoring the news isn't a negative story, it's a necessary development. Too bad this article is all justification and no news. You probably already know that the puppet Iraqi Governing Council has banned Al_Jazeera and Al-Arabiya from covering Iraq. Only a few Americans get their news from these foreign outlets, so I'm thinking this is a warning to CNN and other western news gatherers to cool it and get back to toeing the administration's line.

I'm sure they will.

* *

Knight-Ridder hasn't gotten with the new news containment program yet. I'm sure the powers that be took note of yesterday's Joseph L. Galloway report, "How to ruin a great army? See Donald Rumsfeld." Galloway rips Rummy for 1) working the army to death, 2) neglecting training, 3) politicizing the promotion system for generals, 4) inventing "newer, cheaper way[s] of fighting.

Another defense secretary who could not admit he'd erred was Robert Strange McNamara, who, like Rumsfeld, was recruited from corporate America. By the time he did, it was too late.

Josh Marshall's been posting a lot of great stuff lately, but this item about New Bridge Strategies, LLC, is, as Marshall says, "Un-#$%@#*&-believable." Is there anything lower than a war profiteer? How about a person that helps start the war, then leaves government to take their share of the loot?

Ret. General Anthony Zinni keeps expressing his concerns about the intelligence that led us into Iraq. Tony baby, that is so last week! You're at least two scandals behind in the news cycle.

* *

In all candor I don't know why anyone would care what the California gubernatorial candidates' positions are, but KQED has a "vote by issues quiz" for those who do care, or (more likely) have a dread fascination with this slow-motion train wreck / recall election.

Bryan Keefer is my least favorite debunker at SpinSanity, but I'll link to him when it suits my purposes. For the most part, Keefer gets it right when he dissects the spin on Wes Clark's "phone call flip flop." You can track and document the Mighty Wurlitzer, but it just keeps playing the same discordant music. For more, check out Phil Carter on Rush Limbaugh's recent assault on Clark.

by Mark Gisleson

Bush Wars readers who aren't journalists might be surprised at all the good political info Jim Romenesko links to, and political junkies will find that Romenesko's links are often to stories you wouldn't find on your own, or through another links page. Here are some of Jim's current links that you might find interesting:

Why is Tom Shales steamed? Well, that's Romenesko's headline (more or less), but as you're scrolling down take note of the fascinating items on White House decor in a Dean presidency, concerns about the White House press corps fraternizing with Scott McClellan, Jubilation T. Cornpone, the impending and all-but-certain exit of Paul Wolfowitz, unseemly gloating from Junior over Andrew Rosenthal's demotion, Powell rumors (Jr & Sr), ex-office holders cashing in, millions for Miguel Estrada, lies from Joe Scarborough, accolades for Tom Toles, and — just three items up from the bottom of the page — the Tom Shales item being linked to.

An L.A. Times article regarding Todd Gitlin and Jay Rosen's challenge to the boadcast media to take on John Ashcroft, who, as we all know, refuses to talk to print reporters.

Criticism of Paul Krugman in the New York Press (with some grudging admiration thrown in for good measure).

Brit papers decide to go with the f-word in reprinting Alistair Campbell's July 4 diary entry.

I admit to being a Salon fan, even though their penchant for publishing rightwing nutcases (Horowitz, Sullivan) annoys me considerably. But they also provide a forum for some of my favorite writers. Nonmembers should grit their teeth, watch the commercial and then read this excerpt from Molly Ivins and Lou Dubose's "Bushwhacked!", Ruben Bolling's latest cartoon, and John Gorenfeld's outstanding exposé on the Rev. Sun Myung Moon and the Bush clan (an oft told story that just never seems to show up on the major media's radar).

Dan Gillmor isn't a political writer, but in his blog he links to some great political stories that touch on technology. If you hate RIAA, you'll love this story Dan links to in his blog today. Not content to beat up small children for their lunch money, RIAA went after a 66-year-old Massachussetts sculptor, accusing her of stealing music via Kazaa. One problem, this senior uses a Mac and there is no version of Kazaa that runs on a Macintosh.

Those are some of my favorite links links, but I've skipped some of my "must read" destinations because I assume you all read them too. Eschaton (Atrios), TalkLeft, Daily Kos, and BuzzFlash should be daily stops for anyone who's concerned about politics and this administration. Check 'em out and bookmark the whole set. You'll be glad you did.

by Mark Gisleson

Another lawsuit has been filed that threatens the American way of life™*. Maurice Clarett, a running back at Ohio State has been suspended from NCAA play for taking compensation and lying to investigators. Clarett doesn't dispute the charges and isn't suing the NCAA or Ohio State University. He's suing the NFL for its rule that prohibits college students from being eligible for the draft until they've been out of high school for three years.

I suspect many Bush Wars readers aren't overly familiar with college or pro sports, and may question my assertion that this legal action imperils the Republic, but believe me, it does. If Clarett wins, and it's hard to imagine him losing such a no brainer, the door is open for 18-year-olds to play pro football, just as they are eligible to play in the NBA, the NHL, or major league baseball. So what's the big whoop?

How will American sports fans react to seeing an 18-year-old crippled for life by a "legal" tackle? As a lifelong Oakland Raider fan with an admittedly spotty memory, I don't remember any penalty flag on the field when Jack Tatum put Darryl Stingley into a wheelchair. I don't remember any shocked gasps when Jim Otto was inducted into the Football Hall of Fame while sitting on stage in his wheelchair. And, after Googling the hell out of the 'net, I can't even tell you how many NFL players are in wheelchairs, even though the league most certainly has those numbers, probably under lock and key. I can tell you that Jack Tatum recently had a leg amputated as a result of diabetes.

John Crumpacker assessed the current season in yesterday's San Francisco Chronicle: "The season is only three weeks old and already guys are out for the duration, done in by ankles, knees, elbows, spinal cords, necks and concussed brains that were never meant for football."

But, an astute reader might say, why doesn't the players union raise holy hell about this? Crumpacker continues, "As anyone who has ever played, coached or even covered pro football knows, the game comes down to who is most healthy most often. Players quickly learn to distinguish between pain and injury. Fortune smiles on teams that minimize their injuries."

The entire culture of football is all about "being a man," sucking it up and not letting the other guy see you cry. Despite my current 6-foot, 290-lb. frame (yep, I've lost 10 lbs. in recent weeks — thanks for noticing), I only came in at 5-10, 145 lbs. In high school, and never got past the hamburger squad, even in my senior year. But I will always remember the day I walked off the practice field, looked down and saw a four-inch bleeding gash on my right elbow. I hadn't even noticed. I was very proud of myself, and even though the scar has shrunk to less than two inches, I've been known to show it off at parties. It is, after all, a battle scar.

Years ago at a union meeting, I was treated to the cheery news that rubberworkers (I worked in a tire factory) who worked right up to the age of 65 had an average life expectancy of less than one year. Well, if you've ever tried to Google anything involving the insurance industry, you know how impossible it is to find the stats for something like that, but if the mortality rate at Local 310 was any indicator, that stat was right on the money. I mention this because it was at this meeting that I first heard the story that pro football players had an average life expectancy of only 55 years. That doesn't appear to be true (a NYTimes report indicates it was a players union stat since debunked), unless the stat I heard was for linemen only:

The three-year mortality study of nearly 7,000 former NFL players concluded that they are not dying younger than the national life expectancy for males of 72. It also concluded, however, that offensive and defensive linemen, chiefly because of their bulk, have a rate of heart disease substantially higher than that of the general populace.

[source]

There's an easy caveat here: linemen are prone to steroid abuse, and even the drug-free players bulk up to insane levels through scientific weight training. I'm sure sumo wrestlers are equally short-lived. How big is big? Back in 1999 (and players have gotten even bigger since), 279 NFL players weighed over 300 lbs. A year later Arizona fielded a starting offensive line that averaged 328 lbs. apiece.

Imagine what it's like to be hit in the open field by a 300-lb. man wearing protective pads. Then think what it would have been like when you were 18. Do we really need actuarial tables to tell us that this is terribly, terribly wrong?

Bread and circuses.

* Used with permission from Fox News.

by Mark Gisleson

E.J. Dionne Jr. writes about "Anti-Bush Moderates" today in his WaPost column. Dionne is one of the most readable of Leonard Downie's increasingly conservative op-ed team members, and he offers a solid analysis of the Democrats today:

The analytical mistake is to assume that the anti-Bush feeling, which is there, leads straight to the fever swamps of radicalism. In fact, the dislike of Bush among Democrats is more personal and partisan than it is ideological. Democrats are not, in fact, moving to the far left.

This explains why retired Gen. Wesley Clark could jump so quickly in the polls -- witness his top billing in this week's Newsweek survey of Democrats. Clark has won support from figures as diverse as Michael Moore, the angry, irreverent anti-corporate filmmaker, and Mickey Kantor, the smooth, resolutely pro-business Democratic insider. To beat Bush, they are willing to back a general whose views on many issues are unknown -- and who appears to have voted for Ronald Reagan. Whether they are right or wrong about Clark, pure ideologues don't do stuff like that. They back Dennis Kucinich.

Dionne's stablemate Richard Cohen continues his descent into near incoherency today, inexplicably contrasting Wesley Clark with Arnold Schwarzenegger, Arianna Huffington, Michael Bloomberg and Jesse Ventura. As TCB, the "author" of Babelogue's front page blog, the first thing I do every morning is pull together quotes and blurbs about other blogs and then string them together to form a semi-coherent general blog. To do so I use trickery, allusions, nonsequiturs and a host of other literary tricks to bring order to unrelated items. I don't do that in this weblog because politics is a bit more complicated than that.

Even when posting dozens of links at Bush Wars I present them in sequential order, only tying links together when they share a common theme or if they present an interesting conflict of views. Cohen's effort to link an actor, social activist, billionaire and ex-"jock" turned professional celebrity with a four-star general pretty much collapses under its own weight when you stop to consider the politics involved in being a military administrator.

Just so you don't think I'm too hard on Cohen, here's what a real media whore has to say about Clark.

* *

Moja Vera is back home, and he promises to post more about that later.

* *

Josh Marshall's Talking Points Memo is must reading today. A .pdf of Dick Cheney's Public Financial Disclosure Report, an assessment of Clark's truthfulness, and part II of his interview with former Ambassodor Joseph Wilson. [Part I]

Hesiod reports that the Iraq Governing Council is planning to ban al-Jazeerah and al-Aribaya from their borders.

Senator Clinton went after Bush recently. Good reading. Just to keep you up to date, the latest groundless speculation concerning Hillary is that Clark would appoint her to be Attorney General in his administration, charging her with undoing the damage done to Ashcroft. That's a scenario I'd hate to see happen, and I attribute it to a deep-seated wish for retribution. Getting back to my recent moderate theme, I don't think that's a good idea. "Borking" the right for what they've done to this country would be like a second Civil War. It's going to take years to recondition the country away from the right's favorite tropes: fear, and more fear.

A hostage situation in Saudi Arabia seems to have been resolved. I'm tempted to start a quick pool to see how long it takes for someone to call it the Saudi Waco.

by Mark Gisleson

I had a dark fantasy this weekend. Half asleep as the news reported on a Minnesota man who died in Iraq, I was thinking whether I should go to the airport when his body comes home, or if that would even be possible. As I started nodding off, the scene shifted and I was standing, a bit uncomfortably, next to a crowd of mourners and military family members watching his casket deplane. Off a ways, a small angry crowd waves placards and shouts disrespectfully. The weird vibes are shifting, and I feel hostility building among the people I'm with. A wave of responsibility (shame?) washes over me and I reluctantly walk over to the protesters to see if I can defuse the situation. Even in my dream I don't hear the words of our conversation. All I see are angry faces. "Please," I say, "this is just making things worse. These military families are turning against the war, but you're making it harder for them to break away. Please stop and disband." Then a prominent local organizer gets in my face and I punch her out. Even in my semi-unconscious state this makes me sit up straight.

I've never believed that anti-war protesters spat on returning troops from Vietnam. That, or if it did happen, it was most likely the result of an FBI Cointelpro-style dirty trick. At worst, I rationalize that any such protest could have been led only by a David Horowitz type, one of those antiwar protest leaders who went on to a life of stock trading or agitating while on the Scaife payroll.

I'm pretty sure I know why I had this dream/fantasy. I cross the Marshall-Lake Street bridge a couple of times a week, and often catch the antiwar show. Usually there's a vastly outnumbered but angry pro-war crowd on the other side of the bridge. Invariably the antiwar folks provoke a twinge of guilt in me for not joining them, just as the pro-war crowd angers me with their arrogant assumption that the troops can be honored only by obeisance to this illegitimate regime.

I'm not a stranger to protest. I didn't leave home and go to college until 1971, so the only real anti-Vietnam protest I ever attended was the take over of the Iowa State ROTC building in '72. In all candor, for me that was less about protesting than it was about climbing up the fire escape and hanging out on the roof. My involvement in late '70s labor protests in Des Moines was quite a bit more serious, and helped me gain an understanding of protest dynamics. That experience was very helpful to me when I went back to college in the mid-'80s and got involved in the anti-Apartheid protests at the University of Iowa, where I finally paid some minimal dues by getting arrested for occupying the hallway outside the Dean's Office (133 arrests — there wasn't room enough for all of us in his office).

Finishing my degree work in Iowa City afforded me numerous opportunities to help with other protests, and, almost by default I ended up doing a lot of security work. Next to a former heavyweight wrestler, I was the biggest guy in the movement, so I got tabbed to defuse drunken frat boys checking out candlelight vigils. Later, I was the person designated to take the "pie" when Angela Davis appeared on campus and the conservatives made idle threats (pies were big that year).

Aside from other labor protests over the years and the usual Take Back the Night rallies, these are my bona fides. Trespassing, destruction of property and arrests make for a checkered list of qualifications, and dismay as many people as they impress. There's no glory in being a revolutionary unless you win. And, unless you win or go to jail or get killed, you're really only a revolutionary wannabe.

So back to the fantasy/dream. Shortly after moving to the Twin Cities, I visited Women Against Military Madness (WAMM) headquarters to buy a Christos Institute poster for my office. They had recently made the news for saying they'd be protesting Michael Dukakis's upcoming visit to Minneapolis, and I made the mistake of asking one of the women why. The next thing I knew I was getting ripped a new asshole for daring to suggest that Michael Dukakis was anything but a tool of the military-industrial complex. The woman doing the ripping, as it turned out, was one of WAMM's leaders, but the deeper I dug, the harder I found it to find anyone who really supported her position. Sadly, however, no one seemed to have the guts to tell her to shut up.

The Left is like that. Our assholes get all the press, and do a great job of motivating the other side. I believe in the widely held theory that much of the new Right is a result of recruiting in the aftermath of the antiwar movement in the '60s and '70s. More and more, however, we have discovered that some of the worst of it was instigated by Nixon's minions seeking to discredit the movement. I doubt we know even half of that story, and there is tremendous irony in the fact that the new Right may owe it's existence to dirty tricksters working for Nixon and J. Edgar Hoover.

In my heart, I still believe in revolution. In my heart, I still think I have the 'nads to put my life on the line for a cause. In my gut I think this is the only way we'll ever achieve our goals of economic and social justice. But in my head, I want to win the next election so we don't have to have a revolution. So I worry about things like whether or not Johnny Ashcroft has planted an agitator down at WAMM, who, even as I type, is trying to get everyone to sign off on some bad idea that will blow up in their faces and make the national evening news. "Spit on the coffin — that'll get their attention!"

Bush had to ignore millions of protesters to start his war, and protests aren't going to end it, not unless we have some flag-waving, pickup-driving patriots leading the parade next time around. A few women with young children who have no father will have more impact on our collective hearts and minds than millions of the usual suspects marching on the Mall.

This time let's hold a bake sale to feed the families of the Air Force mechanics who service the bombers. I'm beginning to believe that the real front line for real change will come from the ranks of those who didn't vote for Gore or Nader last time around. The Left hasn't changed their minds: Bush has.

Support for this war is unraveling. I want to help speed that process up, but I think it might go even faster if I just tried shutting up and letting some new faces do the talking and marching.

by Mark Gisleson

A digression from the usual today. The short post yesterday was necessitated by my running downtown to attend an editorial staff meeting at City Pages where Steve Perry and I discussed this whole Babelogue blogging experiment, and outlined some of the coming changes. I'll let those be a surprise for now, but in the meantime, I'd like to solicit some feedback.

What do you like about Bush Wars? What don't you like? Come early December this entire project is going to be restructured, and now's the time to let us know what you think. Don't limit yourself to us alone. Let us know which political sites you think work best, and which major web destinations are a bust (in your opinion). E-mail me here with your thoughts.

Thanks.

* *

I've got a busy day again today, but I always find time to do some quick surfing and reading. Here's some interesting new stuff I came across.

Slate's Fred Kaplan with an analysis of the corrupt decision to let WorldCom/MCI build Iraq's cellular network.

One of the reasons Paul Bremer has let the phone situation in Iraq go to hell is that he's too busy flogging the next war. Iran's to blame for bombings in Iraq according Bremer. [via Antiwar.com]

"Iraqis dance in streets at troop attacks." Here's more on why they had the street dance.

European leaders have scheduled a summit meeting for this Saturday to discuss Iraq. Here's hoping they demonstrate some class and integrity and vote to help out, despite the Bush's administration's inexcusable rhetoric in the build-up to this avoidable war and occupation.

Israel just bulldozed another house. Frankly, I don't care why. I'm just sick of the never ending belligerence. I also write a "This day in history" feature as part of the front page Babelogue blog. A recurring feature I employ is to take note of the anniversary every historic breakthrough in the Middle East that was touted as bringing peace to this war-torn region. Yesterday was a double-header: the 25th anniversary of Camp David, and the second anniversary of Israel pulling out of the areas around Jenin and Jerusalem following a Sharon-Arafat agreement. Where the hell is Muhammed ben Gandhi when you need him?

TBogg has a list of things that have happened in the last 12 months. It reads like the annotated version of the Chinese curse, "May you live in interesting times."

John Ashcroft snuck into the Twin Cities last night with no advance warning. G.R. Anderson Jr., City Pages' local government guy got wind of it and e-mailed me the details of Ashcroft's 8:00 am arrival at 4:00 this morning. Well, yeah. I missed my only opportunity to heckle a world-class civil liberties abuser. But I think it says a lot that Johnny A. has been reduced to making sneak forays into blue states. Dan Kennedy comments on "Big Brother's contemptible sneer" at the Boston Phoenix.

Wes Clark mobbed in Hollywood, Florida. Drudge has a picture. Try to imagine our president plunging into a mob comprised of the general public. Yeah, you can think about it, but if you think out loud, expect the Secret Service to knock on your door.

No details, but Drudge has this mini-headline up: "REPORT: PLANE CARRYING DIXIE CHICKS SAID DOWN..." I doubt I'll be posting more on this, so check Google News for updates.

UPDATE: Well, I didn't expect Drudge to get the story while I was still spellchecking this post, so here's the story on the Dixie Chicks — so far.

UPDATE TO THE UPDATE: I kept digging and here's the BBC story on the Chicks' brush with catastrophe. No injuries, but welcome to the breathless world of Drudge-style real time reporting. I'm sure readers pulling this up later tonight will find all of this to be fascinating.

 

by Mark Gisleson

Tight schedule today, but regular readers will enjoy these two links from Jim Romensko's weblog:

Ari Berman in The Nation on the claims that al-Qaeda and Iraq were working together, and how leading news organizations buried the immediate criticism of those now rejected allegations.

Harry Jaffe writes about the WaPost's resistance to promoting the work of 70-year-old reporter Walter Pincus, who, to date, has been the most aggressive journalist working the national security beat. [The Washingtonian]

Stuart Carlson has a new cartoon (sorry, no link but you can access it through the WaPost op-ed page) showing Bush covered in what appear to be very ugly chickens. Each is labeled with the name of a problem that has come home to roost. The next few months may be interesting for media watchers as corporate news tries to deal with the de-mythification of the Bush administration.

by Mark Gisleson

This blog is part of Twin Cities Babelogue, which is a part of City Pages, an alt-weekly newspaper, which is owned by Village Voice Media. On the local front, City Pages considers itself to be in competition with the two local daily newspapers, the Minneapolis Star Tribune, and the St. Paul Pioneer Press, and nothing makes CP editors or staff happier than scooping the big boys on a local news story.

City Pages' "turf" is, like many alt-weeklies, music and the arts, local news and political views often overlooked by the major news media. We are the proverbial breath of fresh air in the local news market. Still credit must be given when credit is due, and today the Star Tribune published a blistering editorial on Dick Cheney's lies. Sure, that's the kind of thing we do every day here, but this blog's record readership to date is about 11,000 uniques, and the Strib (as we locals call it) has almost that many websites linking to its front page.

Does a major newspaper deserve kudos for finally publishing the obvious truth? Probably not, but I dare you to find another daily newspaper that would lead off an editorial with these two grafs:

Dick Cheney is not a public relations man for the Bush administration, not a spinmeister nor a political operative. He's the vice president of the United States, and when he speaks in public, which he rarely does, he owes the American public the truth.

In his appearance on "Meet the Press" Sunday, Cheney fell woefully short of truth. On the subject of Iraq, the same can be said for President Bush, Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld and his deputy, Paul Wolfowitz. But Cheney is the latest example of administration mendacity, and therefore a good place to start in holding the administration accountable.

I'm going to have to start reading the local paper of record a little more often. The truth is I found this link by reading Atrios, not the Strib. And, for more on Cheney's lies, and former Ambassador Joseph Wilson's take on the Meet the Press love-a-thon between Dick and Tim Russert, check out Steve Gilliard (click while it's fresh, Steve doesn't archive by comments but by date).

And, thanks to Buzzflash, here's another blistering editorial, this one from the Los Angeles Times:

Vice President Dick Cheney has long acted as though the best defense is a good offense, no matter what the damage to truth or common sense. It was Cheney who CIA analysts say personally pressured them to deliver worst-case estimates about Iraqi capabilities and then declared in July that "it would have been irresponsible in the extreme" not to have acted on those very CIA estimates. Even so, Cheney, in commenting about Iraq on Sunday during a rare television appearance, broke new ground. He not only defended the Bush administration's record in rebuilding Iraq but he upheld sweeping, unproven claims about Saddam Hussein's connections to terrorism....

On Aug. 26, 2002, Cheney announced to the Veterans of Foreign Wars that "simply stated, there is no doubt that Saddam Hussein now has weapons of mass destruction," and in mid-March he declared that U.S. troops would be "greeted as liberators." Since then, no weapons of mass destruction have been found and American troops face up to 17 attacks a day.

Also courtesy of Buzzflash, here's an Arizona Daily Star story about compensation Cheney has received from Halliburton since he took office.

* *

A big lawsuit is about to hit the fan. One of the Bush administration's "victims" is fighting back. TalkLeft has the details about Lotfi Raissi, an Algerian who was accused of being the lead instructor for the 9/11 hijackers. British courts can't seem to find any compelling evidence to back up US charges. Makes you wonder how many American terrorists would be out of jail in a New York minute if they ever got to see the inside of a courtroom.

What to make of Wesley Clark. Here's some of the better takes I've seen lately:

Start with Ron Fournier's WaPost AP story if you haven't read any basic accounts of Clark's announcement.

Mark A.R. Kleiman: I am convinced that he would be the strongest candidate against Bush, and have a weaker but still distinct belief that he might well make the best President as well.

Eric Boehlert: "Wesley Clark: The new Howard Dean?" [must watch commercial or be a Salon subscriber]

Joshua Micah Marshall: I think this has the potential to turn the primary race completely upside-down.

Kevin Drum comments on a WashTimes report that Hillary Clinton may co-chair Wesley Clark's campaign.

Hesiod Theogeny on the probable rightwing attacks that will come Clark's way.

For what it's worth, Boehlert's headline comes close to capturing my personal odyssey regarding 2004 Democratic candidates. Like a true believer I stayed with Kucinich until the numbers started shrinking, not growing. I then leaned Dean, but the more I learned, the more I found Clark attractive. If you're going to settle for a moderate just to make sure W's butt gets kicked properly, we might as well get one who appears to be a genuine liberal in many regards, unlike Dean who consistently comes across as more conservative the harder you look. The whole Dean is a liberal thing is nothing more than Republican trash talking. I can't wait to see how those draft-dodging chickenhawks try to trash Clark.

UPDATE: One more link from one of our readers, this one to FAIR's media advisory on Clark and the War in Iraq.