The Great Divider

Today's New York Times Editorial highlights a trend in President Bush's speechs that makes me queasy:

In Mr. Bush’s world, there are only two kinds of Americans: those who are against terrorism, and those who somehow are all right with it. Some Americans want to win in Iraq and some don’t. There are Americans who support the troops and Americans who don’t support the troops. And at the root of it all is the hideously damaging fantasy that there is a gulf between Americans who love their country and those who question his leadership.

This rhetorical device, that somehow anyone who doesn't agree with him is at best unpatriotic, and at worst, treasonous, is extremely dangerous and divisive.  While Bush can't actually produce any of these straw men who want the U.S. to fail, he always attempts to make it seem like anyone who questions his actions or policies is anti-American.

What really frightens me, is that he might actually believe what he's saying.  For if, his political opponents support terror, as he insinuates, then what's the next step? 

If Mr. Bush truly believes that his political opponents want to to encourage terrorists, want the United States to fail in Iraq, and that want our soldiers to die, then why isn't he imprisoning them?

Are we a democracy or a dictatorship?  Do we treasure the free exchange of ideas and differing opinions, or are those who would dare to question him going to be declared enemies of the state?

The Beginning of the End of America

Keith Olbermann continues to be one of the loudest voices opposing this administration, and the damage done to the writ of Habeas Corpus:

We have handed a blank check drawn against our freedom to a man who may now, if he so decides, declare not merely any non-American citizens "unlawful enemy combatants" and ship them somewhere--anywhere -- but may now, if he so decides, declare you an "unlawful enemy combatant" and ship you somewhere - anywhere.

And if you think this hyperbole or hysteria, ask the newspaper editors when John Adams was president or the pacifists when Woodrow Wilson was president or the Japanese at Manzanar when Franklin Roosevelt was president.

And if you somehow think habeas corpus has not been suspended for American citizens but only for everybody else, ask yourself this: If you are pulled off the street tomorrow, and they call you an alien or an undocumented immigrant or an "unlawful enemy combatant"--exactly how are you going to convince them to give you a court hearing to prove you are not? Do you think this attorney general is going to help you?

Midwestern Mythmaking in Iowa

Since Jim Nussle, our crappy congressman, is now trying to be our next crappy governor, that has left our congressional seat open, and a really nasty campaign is now underway to fill it.  The non-partisan Factcheck.org weighs in with reality checks on the campaign commercials of our two lead candidates, which are both bad, though I'd argue that Whalen's (R) commercials are worse than Braley's (D).  An out-of-context quote is pretty shitty, but calling someone a Communist and attempting to make a pre-9/11 defense budget strategy seem like a current plan to gut the military is prime Republican sleaze.  And, frankly, a candidate has no control over who "endorses" him.

So, I hereby form a group called "The Coalition to Force Our Children to Be Gay Atheist Terrorist FemiNazis" and I'm endorsing Mike Whalen as our choice for Congress.

If yogurt is outlawed, only outlaws will have yogurt.

My wife muses on the ramifications of disease-fighting yogurts.

Hydrogen: A Red Herring

While I'm glad that President Bush has stopped pimping for Big Oil long enough to endorse hydrogen as an alternative energy strategy, I have to point out that hydrogen is not an energy source. How do you get hydrogen? Well, that's simple, you run electricity through water and collect the hydrogen, right? Then, you burn the hydrogen in your car. How much energy do you get from burning it? Less than you used to separate it from the water in the first place, quoth Wikipedia:

It is currently very difficult to obtain hydrogen gas without expending energy in the process. The process of splitting water into oxygen and hydrogen using electrolysis consumes large amounts of energy. It has been calculated that it takes 1.4 joules of electricity to produce 1 joule of hydrogen (Pimentel, 2002). If oil or gases are used to provide this energy, fossil fuels are consumed, forming pollution and nullifying the value of using a fuel cell. It would be more efficient to use fossil fuel directly

That said, I think hydrogen could be useful to power our cars, as long as we use nuclear, solar, or wind energy to get it from our water, with nuclear making the most sense. So now, to power our fleet of hydrogen cars, we just need a bunch of new nuclear plants, which most "green" activists won't abide. So now what?

Holiday Hypocrisy

Hopefully most people don't pay any attention to Bill O'Reilly, but lately he's been blathering on about how there's a liberal secular conspiracy to do away with Christmas and replace "Merry Christmas" with "Happy Holidays". I'm a secular liberal (but neither from Hollywood, nor a Jew, so I guess I'm not 100% evil in O'Reilly's book, only about 75%) and I really don't care what people say. I'm not offended if someone says Merry Christmas, because we celebrate it in my family, though mostly in a secular commercial sort of way that involves buying things wrapped in plastic. I think it's kind of silly that stores bend over backwards to avoid the C-word (no, not THAT C-word) this time of year, but it's hardly something to be outraged about. What is something Bill should be outraged about is that Fox News is selling "The Bill O'Reilly Holiday Ornament". Not the Bill O'Reilly Christmas Ornament, mind you. Apparently, even his own employer values profits above Christian ideals. It does beg the question of what other holiday or religion uses shiny balls, as I doubt many of them will be hanging from Menorahs....

Update: It appears Fox has now changed the ornaments to Christmas ornaments, in order to appease the almighty Bill.

I'm an ally of terror!

Well, according to Bill O'Reilly, I'm an ally of terror. Look out, I'll get you all! He didn't name me, personally, but he said anyone who supports the ACLU is, and I'm a card-carrying member. Well, now that my secret is out, I guess I can scrap that trip to Pakistan for my terrorist boot camp next year, and I was so looking forward to living in a cave... So, if the terrorists "hate us for our freedoms" as Bush suggested, O'Reilly's solution is to take them away?

Have we already lost the "War on Terror"? Excuse me, I meant the "Global Struggle against Extremism". If people in favor of civil liberties are the new enemies of the state, it would appear so.

Ken Mehlman: Spinning out of control

Today's edition of Meet The Press had me yelling back at the TV, especially this bit:

MR. RUSSERT: One more point. I'll bring in Mr. Podesta. When one is given classified clearance, they are asked to sign an oath, and they are given a briefing book with form--Standard Form 312, it's called. And if you read this briefing book, it says this: "Before...confirming the accuracy of what appears in the public source, the signer of"--"SF 312 must confirm through an authorized official that the information has, in fact, been declassified. If it has not...confirmation of its accuracy is also an unauthorized disclosure."

So by confirming a story from Robert Novak or sharing information with Matt Cooper, no matter where it came from, if, in fact, it was classified information, without seeking to determine whether it was declassified, it is an unauthorized disclosure.

MR. MEHLMAN: Well, you're making an assumption that it's classified information. In fact, what the story on Friday, you pointed out, shows, and what earlier stories have shown is that this information at least came to Mr. Rove from journalists, not from a classified source. But, again, here we are speculating. We should have confidence. I have tremendous confidence in Pat Fitzgerald. He's a career prosecutor. He's a tough prosecutor. That's why he was put in charge of this case, because people want to get to the bottom of it. And that's why it is so outrageous that these partisan smears would occur this past week. The question is this: Do the people that are smearing Karl Rove not have confidence in Mr. Fitzgerald? Do they not think, in fact, he's going to get to the bottom of it? Or would they rather, than getting to the facts, try to make political gain?

Uh, the information can still be classified, no matter where you hear about it. I think Tim just covered that, reading from the book. The book was very clear. So the only question remaining is whether or not Valerie Plame's identity as a CIA employee was confidential. If Pat Fitzgerald (who Ken feels is competent) has been on the case for about two years now, I'd think he'd have established that the information was classified, or this investigation would have stopped in about the second day.

But anyhow, let's hear what Ken has to say about this prosecutor that he has so much confidence in:

MR. RUSSERT: You say you have tremendous confidence in Pat Fitzgerald.

MR. MEHLMAN: I do.

MR. RUSSERT: If, in fact, he indicts White House officials, will you accept that indictment and not fight it?

MR. MEHLMAN: First of all, I'm the chairman of the Republican National Committee. I'm not an attorney for anybody. The fact is I look forward to his getting to the bottom of this. I can't speak for...

MR. RUSSERT: But if he indicts White House officials...

MR. MEHLMAN: Right.

MR. RUSSERT: ...will you pledge today, because you have tremendous confidence in him, that you will not criticize his decision?

MR. MEHLMAN: Again, I'm not going to speculate. I have tremendous confidence in him. I look to getting to the bottom of this. Whatever he does, I can assure you, people are going to follow and are going to look to abide by.

MR. PODESTA: Just say "yes," Ken.

MR. MEHLMAN: But I think it would be inappropriate for me as the RNC chairman to say what legal strategy people may take in the future.

MR. RUSSERT: But if you have tremendous confidence in him, then you will respect and accept his decision.

MR. MEHLMAN: I look forward to hearing what he has to say, and I intend to respect what he has to say, but, again, I'm not going to speculate on what he might do.

Wow. Mehlman won't even put his mouth where his mouth is, never mind his money. So, the Republican line is this: the Democrats are using "partisan smears" and we should wait for what Fitzgerald has to say, but if Fitzgerald comes to the same conclusion (though we have utmost confidence in him) then he's obviously wrong too, and then we will attack him, despite our confidence.

Celestial Navigation

Wow, the White House Press Corps took Scott McClellan out behind the woodshed today, as this video shows. I had flashbacks to the West Wing episode where Josh disastrously intimates that the President has a "secret plan to fight inflation". Scott was in hyper-weaseling mode, absolutely refusing to answer ANYTHING about the leak regarding Valerie Plame, and not even willing to stand by previous comments that he or the President made about the matter in the past, he just kept repeating the "ongoing criminal investigation" mantra.

McClellan implied that the prosecutor asked him not to talk about the case, and that's why he clammed up, but he refused to say when the prosecutor asked him to stop talking about it, since he's been quite willing to talk about this "ongoing criminal investigation" in the past. He even ducked the question of whether or not the President would stand by his pledge to fire someone who was found to be the leaker, under the "criminal investigation" white flag. So, let me get this straight, there's an ongoing criminal investigation, which is clearly very serious, so we can't talk about it. But, if we actually find this serious criminal at the end of this serious investigation, we're not actually ready to commit to firing him or her.

Save PBS and NPR!

I sent off an e-mail to my senators and representatives about the proposed slashed budget (a 23% cut!) for NPR and PBS, and I encourage you all to do the same:

You know that email petition that keeps circulating about how Congress is slashing funding for NPR and PBS? Well, now it's actually true. (Really. Check at the bottom if you don't believe me.)

Sign the petition telling Congress to save NPR and PBS:

http://www.moveon.org/publicbroadcasting/

A House committee has voted to slash half of the public funding for NPR and PBS, starting with "Sesame Street," "Reading Rainbow," and other commercial-free children's shows. If approved, this would be the most severe cut in the history of public broadcasting, threatening to pull the plug on Big Bird, Cookie Monster, and Oscar the Grouch.

The cuts would eliminate more than $200 million for NPR, PBS and local stations immediately, with more cuts likely in the future. The loss could kill beloved children's shows like "Clifford the Big Red Dog," "Arthur," and "Postcards from Buster." Rural stations and those serving low-income communities might not survive. Other stations would have to increase corporate sponsorships.

The House will vote on the cuts as soon as Tuesday. Can you help us reach 1 million signatures calling on Congress to save NPR and PBS? http://www.moveon.org/publicbroadcasting/

Thanks!

P.S. Read the New York Times story on the threat to NPR and PBS at:

http://www.moveon.org/r?r=753