Mixed Messages

Poor commander-in-chief. Watching that walnut-sized brain work overtime in tonight's debate was as painful for me as it obviously was for him. The smirk was in full bloom. The chicken neck was visible in moments of complete cluelessness, and we now know without question that a free and democratic Iraq will solve all of our problems. Glad I watched.

Bush's mantra for the evening: mixed messages-- we can't send mixed messages; my opponent sends mixed messages, messed mixages, (he started to say that at one point), blah, blah, blah.

How ironic that the focus of the debate, the Iraq mess, a policy failure of staggering proportions, was, and continues to be, based on nothing but mixed messages.

I was hoping for Kerry to bring that up and use it to his advantage, but as usual, I was left wanting.

Indefensible

National defense! National Security!! Weak on defense! Weak on security!! Defense! Defense!! Defense!!! Defense!!!! Defense!!! We need more defense!!!!!!

400 billion? That's not enough to protect ourselves from evildoers with boxcutters and dirty bombs? Watching the GOP (Zell Miller, Dick Cheney), on TV you would think that the security of this country was as rickety as a grass hut in a Vietnamese monsoon.

As they have for the past fifty years, the Republicans, (more correctly, the right wing of the party), have framed the national debate around the central issue of national defense. We are under constant threat. Danger lurks at every corner. We must keep our powder dry in anticipation of the imminent attack.

The people quail and quake. Candidates pander to the fearful multitudes. Pundits pontificate and bloviate their self-aggrandizing opinions upon the huddled masses who quietly succumb to the incessant marketing tactics of the slick and powerful, surrender their collective will to the perceived wisdom and competence of the powerful few, and march, in a state of delusional confusion, to the polls. Such is the state of "democracy" in America.

Where's Waldo?

The stench from the current political climate has become so malodorous that Mother Nature has stepped in, with yet another Florida hurricane, and seized the current news cycle, if only for a moment, to cleanse the fetid air of the cable/radio wind bags and their suckling swine, the putrid punditocracy.

The latest gaseous cassus belli? The “forged” Bush National Guard documents, which have taken their place in history with Stern Magazine's “Hitler Diaries”, and the unforgettable Clifford Irving “authorized” biography of Howard Hughes. While the RNC and their shouting-head foot soldiers on cable and radio regurgitate the requisite talking points with surgical precision, they succeed once again, in turning our gaze away from the cockroach crawling across the white carpet.

Lost in the mayhem, of course, is the central question: where was Bush in 1972? Why, after all of this time, is it still a mystery as to where he was? Why hasn’t a single, solitary human soul come forward to say, “I was there with GW...? Perhaps because he wasn’t there? Doesn’t all of the confusion demand some,...uh,...clarification? Some definition? What’s the problem?

Well, could it be that the official record disputes Bush’s story? You bet it does. Yet, before this latest round of “Where’s Waldo?”, the uncomfortable truth had been ignored by every strata of the “liberal” media since before the 2000 election. Now that Bush has been morphed into Philip of Macedonia his indiscretions, (not to mention his outright fabrications), are somehow off limits and impolite.

The “forged’ documents have become more of a story, and a valuable political tool, than the facts at the center of the story, facts, which can be found at mediamattersforamerica.org., and countless other watchdog websites. Facts are facts, neither left or right, unless you inhabit O’Reilly’s “no spin zone”, where, expecting "real journalism" you may encounter the March Hare and the Mad Hatter, and come away thinking that you've been informed and enlightened.

Some facts, (according to MMFA):

The Dallas Morning News reported on September 15 that Marian Carr Knox, former secretary for Lieutenant Colonel Jerry Killian, purported author of the memos, said that although she did not recall typing the memos reported by CBS News, they accurately reflect the viewpoints of Killian and documents that would have been in the personal file. Knox told The Morning News: "The information in here was correct, but it was picked up from the real ones. ... I probably typed the information and somebody picked up the information some way or another."

Colonel Bobby W. Hodges, Killian's superior officer, has also confirmed that the content of the memos reflects Killian's true sentiments. He [Hodges] said he had not authenticated the documents for CBS News but had confirmed that they reflected issues he and Colonel Killian had discussed -- namely Mr. Bush's failure to appear for a physical, which military records released previously by the White House show, led to a suspension from flying.

Richard Via, another former Texas National Guard officer, told USA Today that "the documents were fakes but that their content reflected questions about Bush that were discussed at the time in the hangar at Ellington Air Force Base, where he had a desk next to Killian's."

... but primetime shows focused only on forgery question.

So we’ll continue to hear about Dan Rather, CBS News, Liberal Media, Bush-Bashing, Forgery Experts, Xerox Copies, yada, yada, yada.

Will anybody bother to ask “Where was Bush?” Don't count on it.

A Defining Moment

When did Bush with the megaphone at Ground Zero become the eqiuvalent of Washington crossing the Delaware? Or the flag raising at Iwo Jima? I've repeatedly heard the pundits point to this too-good-to resist photo op as a "defining moment" of the Bush presidency. Chris Matthews referred to it as a "Reagan" moment (whatever that means). Tim Russert mentioned it in an interview with James Carville, the implication being, of course, that Bush with a megaphone in his hand was an inspiration to his countrymen and struck fear in the hearts of the evildoers at a pivotal point in the history of the nation.

I was on the planet then. I saw the moment in question on live television. I thought, "yeah, OK, nice". But now the moment has acquired some mythological significance with the punditry, whose interpretation of the imagery serves to bestow a badge of heroism and strength of character, possesed by but a chosen few, upon GW Bush.

I fail to see the connection between the megaphone moment and any real accomplishment. Moreover, given the overwhelming incompetence of Bush's prosecution of the "War On Terror", we should all grab megaphones, march up to the White House and create our own defining moment, ("...you'll soon hear from all of us!!"). That would be a moment to remember.

Fear Itself

I remember having just left for work that Tuesday morning at around 6:45, and was half-listening to some report about a plane flying into the World Trade Center, and then. while making the left turn onto Escondido Avenue, hearing Bill Handel on KFI announce, in an unusually serious and grave tone, that a plane had just hit the Pentagon. An hour later I watched as the buildings tumbled to the ground.

In the days following the terrorists attacks of September 11 we were met with an overwhelming barrage of words and pictures, of sound and fury, that struck at the tightly wound nerve that binds the national conscience and that, sadly, continues to put an emotional stranglehold on the collective will to reason. What I remember most about that day is not just the fear, anxiety, hatred, and wreckless talk of vengeance, but the few voices who had the courage to ask why someone would do this to us.

I remember standing outside my classroom talking to a colleague, who was quick to remind me that world events don’t unfold in a political vacuum, and that men who could methodically conceive and execute such a catastrophic plan should not be dismissed as “madmen”, “lunatics”, or least of all, “cowards”. Perhaps there was some cause for such an extreme action that was worth discussion and examination.

I agreed with him, but advised him to keep his mouth shut, as that was the last thing that anyone would want to hear on a day such as this. How chilling then, that in a few days Bush’s press secretary Ari Fleischer would be advising the press, and by extension, everyone to “be careful what you say”. Comedian Bill Maher had the nerve to state his opinion on national television and was subsequently fired for doing so; Susan Sontag wrote a sober five-hundred word essay in the New Yorker and was vilified across the spectrum.

The ultimate irony in all of this is that those who continually spout of our “freedom” and our “values” are usually the first to try to take one away and violate the spirit of the other; and how willing the people are to let them get away with it.

Skyscrapers can be rebuilt and life will go on for the families of the victims, but the decietful betrayal of the people by a secretive, and ever more powerful government is the most dangerous legacy of 9/11. Fear the terrorist, perhaps, but don’t take your eye off of those who claim to keep you “safe”. They are the ones that scare the hell out of me.

By The Numbers

Now that the death toll from “Operation Iraqi Freedom” has reached one-thousand, maybe the American public will finally begin to sober up to the fact that, well, people are really dying “over there”, and begin to question the competence and policies of those that got them into this mess.

Sadly, the voices of dissent are muted and scattered. While the far-right media juggernaut continues to slice and dice--Kerry has been spun into a traitorous wimp, Bush into patriotic überman--the larger questions of policy are lost in the backwash of who’s the more manly man. Soldiers continue to die in a hostile foreign land that was, and is, no threat to us, and the commander-in-chief that put them there continues to gain in stature. How strangely comforting it would be if Rod Serling were to step into the frame and offer his calm assurance that yes, we are in the Twilght Zone.

Not one of the reasons given for the Iraq war has turned out to be true. Such egregious miscalculations (lies?) would, you would think, be met with a resounding political thumbs down from a betrayed electorate. Not so in BushCountry. The Bush team, and the Republican Party, have masterfully changed the debate to their advantage, while those who opposed this calamity (anybody remember Howard Dean?) have been politically marginalized, with little, if any, help from the inept Democratic presidential candidate and the National Democratic Party. Half of the electorate still believes that it was a good idea to go into Iraq. That is a marketing miracle that puts Goebbels to shame.

As we continue to “stay the course” the next thousand take their place in line. Who do you think will be the last to die for this mistake? He or she is somewhere out there as we speak. Maybe someone you know.

Hannity

Every time I'm within earshot of the loathsome Sean Hannity, the most toxic of all right wing junk dealers, (yes, topping even the poisonous Michael Savage, who makes no claim to being "fair and balanced", he's just insane), I marvel at his almost unique ability to be so incredibly stupid with a straight face, and make a lot of money in the process. Were he not a reverberating voice of the neocon punditocracy he could be laughably dismissed as the charlatan that he is.

Vice's Verses

The latest excretion from the Republicans on the "unwavering leadership" of George W. Bush comes on the heels of Vice's (himself a heel with considerable credentials) comments regarding the ever present danger of the imminent terrorist attack. To wit, "vote for Kerry/Edwards and expect to be attacked", or, more succinctly, "vote for John Kerry and you will DIE!". Was Cheney (gulp!) politicizing the War On Terror!? Do ya think?

Before the words had barely left Vice's sneering lips the RNC dispatched its foot soldiers, a familiar cast of sycophants, supplicants, and apologists, to cable TV, including the perennially gnathonic Congressman David Dreier (R-CA). Dreier is as loyal a toady as a toady can aspire to be. On Keith Olbermann's cable show "Countdown", Dreier was quick to point out the mite's mass of validity in Cheney's comments. After all, we haven't been attacked since September 11, have we?

Well, yeah. Wouldn't you say that we all were caught completely by surprise that September morning? That in the intervening three years we have been, perhaps, a little more diligent in keeping our eye on the eight-ball? Other than the terror alert color-wheel offered us by Tom Ridge, what, if anything, has the Unwavering One and his sinister sidekick done that has been so extraordinarily effective in keeping you and me "safe"? (Answer: "well...we haven't been attacked again").

Why didn't the Japanese bomb Pearl Harbor a second time? Maybe because the Americans would have been watching and waiting, (we were expecting bombs over Los Angeles, weren't we?).

Al-Qaeda prepared for years to pull off the attacks of September 11. Given the element of surprise, we're damn lucky that there weren't planes falling in every major city that day. They had their moment of opportunity and they used it very effectively. Now they're on everyone's radar, even the CIA's, the FBI's and that of the White House, (I won't rehash all of the chatter that the "Unwavering Leader" and his heroic henchman chose to ignore while vactioning in Crawford during August of 2001. Read the "9/11" report. It's no "Warren Report".)

It's not surprising to me that there hasn't been a subsequent attack on US soil. What's surprising is how this "war president" has shamelessly used the attacks to inflate his craven image to comically heroic proportions.

What's even more sadly comical is the image of the fugitive bin Laden and his lieutenants, God (Allah) knows where, patiently planning their next hit, while the princely Bush and his cabal of PhDunces, in control of the massive resources of the mightiest military force in the history of the world, frantically attempt to anticipate the shadowy shiek's next move, of which they haven't a clue.