Category: observations

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“It’s a “slick smear,” says Digby, because “[a]ll these right wing vets get filmed saying ‘he’s unfit to be commander in chief’ without providing any details. They don’t say specifically why, but you are left with the clear impression that 200+ Vietnam vets think Kerry’s lying about his record at best and that he’s a coward at worst.” Digby suggests a way to counteract the slurs, “I think the way to frame this issue is that these men are smearing the United States Military by saying that all those glowing reports and medal recommendations were lies.”

This is what I have been saying for months now[1]: anyone who tries to undermine a veteran’s service record by claiming they didn’t earn their medals (Max Cleland left three limbs in Vietnam, and some people think he didn’t earn a Purple Heart?) is attacking the credibility of commanders in the field specifically and the military honor code generally.

fn1. And again, I have to ask, why the continued emphasis on the wounds sustained by then-Lt Kerry? What’s the point there? Why keep on impugning the integrity of his commanders? Are you a decorated veteran? Have you commanded under fire? Have you made the judgment as to whether or not someone deserves a purple heart?

It turns it’s a lot easier to give stuff away than to get things through this. The whole notion of responding through email makes it seem like a game show (I have the buzzer with the intermittently faulty button, apparently). And it seems there are some attitudes I didn’t expect to find in something that seems to be rooted in generosity and conservation. I got some weird pushback from some folks who didn’t feel I was enthusiastic enough about picking stuff up: driving to West Seattle/Alki at rush hour to pick up some kids project materials doesn’t make a lot of sense. If this is rooted in some kind of conservation ethic, dropping everything to collect this stuff seems to defeat the purpose. I have tried to be accommodating about this stuff I gave away, to the point where I almost regret giving it away at all. I’ve essentially been told, I’m putting this outside NOW and the first person to come get it wins.

Yesterday, someone posted a WANTED: cash email, with the additional information that they were expecting a baby in a few weeks and were broke. Last I checked, the normal gestation period was 9 months, so the arrival should be no surprise: I don’t want to seem uncharitable, but that seems like the “internet as wishing well” writ large.

So I just posted my last OFFERED listing and have dropped off the mailing list. I may get back on but I think it will just be to get rid of stuff. It’s not worth the hassle to take anything. I did stay on long enough to see a car go up on the list: a 1976 BMW 530i, trashed interior and dubious drivetrain, but free.

If it’s true that you are known by the enemies you make, Kerry seems to be pretty solid: when the president singles out an unknown Navy vet for his enemies list and creates a group to undermine his credibility, that’s credibility itself.

Swift Boat Veterans for Truth – Disinfopedia:

“Nixon’s chief counsel, Charles Colson, didn’t just tap John E. O’Neill to attack Kerry, he also formed an entire group around him called Vietnam Veterans for a Just Peace: [2]

“[Kerry] was an immediate celebrity. He was also an immediate target of the Nixon administration. Years later, Chuck Colson — who was Nixon’s political enforcer — told me, ‘He was a thorn in our flesh. He was very articulate, a credible leader of the opposition. He forced us to create a counterfoil. We found a vet named John O’Neill and formed a group called Vietnam Veterans for a Just Peace. We had O’Neill meet the President, and we did everything we could do to boost his group.”

‘Swift Boat Veterans for Truth’ be seen as merely a 21st century reinvention of Vietnam Veterans for a Just Peace.
Joe Klein, “The Long War of John Kerry,” The New Yorker, January 5, 2004 (Courtesy of Matt Gunn and Mike Stark)

I wonder if the folks who leave comments like this are unwitting dupes of a clumsy smear or if they know they’re lying.

When I lived in the south, it wasn’t hard to find folks for whom the Civil War had never really ended: some attribute this to the stock from which many southerners descended — ill-used Scots and Irish who had a lot of practice at nursing grudges and inculcating them into new generations. When I read about this kind of thing here in the 21st century — some ugly Nixonian hangover — I wonder if, for some, Watergate and Nixon’s Imperial Presidency will ever end. The fact these facts have been out for quite awhile but unremarked, that O’Neill’s ties to Nixon and Colson and his years toiling in the Republican vineyard have been documented but not factored into the attacks on Kerry’s service, is frustrating. Ignoring these attacks isn’t enough: it’s not as if these are casual comments by disinterested veterans. It’s a calculated astroturf campaign that should be exposed for what it is. These kinds of attacks on the truth, on the facts, need to be stopped.

I have two CafePress shops, with some fun stuff available.

It’s a wonderful world will be where I put my nature and other assorted stuff: I have a couple of items there, but CafePress will only let you sell one item with a given image in their free storefront. If any of this stuff moves, I’ll upgrade to the Premium shop and diversify.

This is my initial foray into this stuff. Seditious commentary you can wear . . .

I’ll see what else I can find that might be appealing. If you like the image but want it on a different item, let me know.

Want to scare civil libertarians, librarians, and other suspects? Pick up a Crank’s Accessories shirt or mug and make life interesting . . . .

Geez, I suppose I could have looked for another source of the transcript . . . . Drudge has an auto-refresh on this page that forces it to reload every 4 minutes. Perhaps he claims additional page views as a result, I don’t know. I do know it’s annoying.

DrudgeReportArchives.com © 2004:

Michael Moore: Say ‘I Bill O’Reilly would sacrifice my child to secure Fallujah’

Bill O’Reilly: I’m not going to say what you say, you’re a, that’s ridiculous

Michael Moore: You don’t believe that. Why should Bush sacrifice the children of people across America for this?

Bill O’Reilly: Look it’s a worldwide terrorism—I know that escapes you—

Michael Moore: Wait a minute, terrorism? Iraq?

Bill O’Reilly: Yes. There are terrorists in Iraq.

Michael Moore: Oh really? So Iraq now is responsible for the terrorism here?

Bill O’Reilly: Iraq aided terrorists—don’t you know anything about any of that?

Michael Moore: So you’re saying Iraq is responsible for what?

The parts that lead up to this are just as illuminating: to O’Reilly, if you believe a lie — your own or someone else’s — you can use that as a defense. “I didn’t know it was wrong,” a standard of the pre-school set, is now standard equipment for world leaders as a justification for a thousand dead soldiers and a devastated country or two.

I just watched Bill Clinton’s keynote at the Democratic National Convention and was struck a couple of his points. He was definitely on his game, relaxed and confident, speaking in an almost conversational tone at times. [transcript available here: tip to Michael]

I was surprised at issues he raised: one being the fact that he is a beneficiary of the GOP tax cuts — the 1% who got the lion’s share of that largesse — and that he tied his own choices to avoid service in Vietnam with Bush and Cheney.

His play on the class divisions strengthened by the current administration’s policies, their beliefs made real, was fun for him: after the abuse heaped on him by the GOP and its minions in the media, he seemed to enjoy exposing their strategy of pulling the ladder up behind them by pushing the tax burden down on others.

Whether or not you think Lt Bush fulfilled his obligation, there is no doubt about his decision on going to Vietnam. And his wingman, if you will, took five deferments, claiming he had “other priorities.” Clinton, while perhaps not proud of his decision, has never shirked it and tonight he made it a point of comparison with the incumbent Commander-in-Chief and the man who would replace him. He never claimed to have done anything other than follow his principles, and by linking his choice and the differing justifications with those of the president and vice-president, perhaps he can undermine their claims to a just war and their various other moral imperatives. (Sweet irony to use Clinton as a moral club, but hey, it could be fun to watch.)

Billmon has a (somewhat grouchy) summary of the events: like him, I do miss Clinton’s gifts. I first saw him at the 1988 DNC in Atlanta, as a member of a local press bureau. That was the year he gave an address and just kept going: I think he was introducing someone else, and overran his time wee bit. Who would have guessed he would be the nominee and eventual winner four years later?

Will Rogers said it best.

The New York Times > National > Correcting the Record on Sept. 11, in Great Detail:
“Correcting the Record on Sept. 11, in Great Detail”

This makes for some frustrating reading. The 9/11 attacks were made simpler by a lack of attention to detail at all levels, it appears. From border guards and immigration officers who didn’t catch altered documents or pursue visa violators to intelligence analysts who misunderstood the nature and capabilities of the threats to executives who, even given flawed but alarming information, didn’t react, it seems like there was a collective tune-out. Given that increasing intensity and boldness of the attacks — the 1993 attack on the WTC, the Khobar Towers attack, the US embassy attacks in east Africa, the crippling of the USS Cole, a briefing with the title Bin Laden Determined to Attack in U.S. should have aroused some interest. While I don’t claim the president should have leapt into action at this revelation, I’ve wondered about the culture of an executive branch that would take such a passive approach to such alarming news.

Continue reading “it’s not what we don’t know, it’s what we know that ain’t so”

Scott Ritter, UN weapons inspector in Iraq, analyzes the current situation in Iraq from the perspective of someone who spent some time there. The bottomline?

IHT: Saddam’s people are winning the war:

The transfer of sovereignty to the new Iraqi government of Iyad Allawi is a charade that will play itself out over the next weeks and months, and with tragic consequences. Allawi’s government, hand-picked by the United States from the ranks of anti-Saddam expatriates, lacks not only a constituency inside Iraq but also legitimacy in the eyes of many ordinary Iraqi citizens.

The truth is that there never was a significant people-based opposition movement inside Iraq for the Bush administration to call on to form a government to replace Saddam. It is why the United States has instead been forced to rely on the services of individuals tainted by their association with foreign intelligence services, or drawn from opposition parties heavily infiltrated by agents of Saddam’s former security services.

Regardless of the number of troops the United States puts on the ground or how long they stay there, Allawi’s government is doomed to fail. The more it fails, the more it will have to rely on the United States to prop it up. The more the United States props up Allawi, the more discredited he will become in the eyes of the Iraqi people – all of which creates yet more opportunities for the Iraqi resistance to exploit.

And the more American troops will be targets for the resistance and the US homeland a target for attacks from jihadists or other dangerous types.