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Thomas Friedman, Liberal Sadist?

The acclaimed New York Times columnist Thomas Friedman has often voiced enthusiasm for violent destruction by the U.S. government. Hidden in plain sight, his glee about such carnage is worth pondering.

Many people view Friedman as notably articulate, while others find him overly glib, but there’s no doubt that he is an influential commentator with inherently respectable views. When Friedman makes his case for a shift in foreign policy, the conventional media wisdom is that he’s providing a sober assessment. Yet beneath his liberal exterior is a penchant for remedies that rely on massive Pentagon firepower.

And so, his July 27 column in the Times -- after urging Americans “to thoughtfully plan ahead and to sacrifice today for a big gain tomorrow” -- scolds the commander in chief for being too much of a wimp and failing to demand enough human sacrifice. Friedman poses a rhetorical question begging for a militaristic answer and then dutifully supplies one: “If you were president, would you really say to the nation, in the face of the chaos in Iraq, ‘If our commanders on the ground say we need more troops, I will send

The function of political scandal

Given the enormous disaster of the U.S. onslaught on Iraq, the monstrous suffering engendered by the occupation, the violence around the world that this same occupation has spawned, how strange it is that the counter-attack on the Bush administration should have come most effectively in the form of the Plame scandal.

Millions of words have now been written about the outing of Valerie Plame, CIA-tasked wife of Joe Wilson, who undercut the claims of the Bush administration that Saddam's Iraq was on the edge of having nuclear capability. A special prosecutor, Patrick Fitzgerald, has now labored for months. A female reporter on the staff of the New York Times, Judith Miller, is in jail for not answering Fitzgerald's questions. Bush's senior political adviser, Karl Rove, stands in danger of indictment for lying to Fitzgerald. He already has been exposed as a liar.

These are all big events, yet after all these months I find it hard to understand what the fuss is all about and to take the Plame scandal seriously.

Speaking truth to Roberts

From the moment the John Roberts nomination was announced, the media called it a done deal. NPR and the New York Times gushed over his humility, humor, and congeniality. With Roberts’s belief system barely mentioned, you’d think Bush had just nominated Mister Rogers.

In the wake of this media love fest, I keep encountering people who oppose everything Roberts has stood for, but see no use in trying to stop what seems his inevitable confirmation. But we can make a powerful impact by raising the discomforting truth that Roberts may be closer to a smiling Antonin Scalia. However the Senators vote—and it’s not foreordained, the more we raise key issues and principles, the more they’ll echo down the line around future nominations and policies.

Roberts is being hailed as the brilliant Harvard lawyer who gets along with everyone. He’s conservative, but reasonable. He doesn’t froth at the mouth. He barely barks. Unlike Bush’s three most recent Appeals Court appointees, he hasn’t led a right wing ideological charge. He’s being praised as a nomination Bush should be proud of.

John Roberts and the Federalist Society*

AUSTIN, Texas -- Sheesh, all I knew about John Roberts was that everyone says he has lovely manners -- and already I was prepared to be against him. Knee-jerk liberal? No, congratulations to the White House, Sen. John Cornyn, Fred Thompson and everyone else involved in "managing" Roberts' confirmation process. Can't these people do anything without being devious about it?

My first reaction to Roberts was: "Sounds like that's about as good as we can get. Quick, affirm him before they nominate Bork, Bolton or Pinochet." A conservative with good manners and no known nutball decisions or statements on his record? Hey, take him. At least he's not (whew!) a member of the Federalist Society.

No such luck. Cornyn, who I would have sworn is not this stupid, apparently signed off on having the nominee "forget" he was a member of the Federalist Society, and Roberts obliged, which is strange considering his reputation for brilliance and a spectacular memory.

The AFL-CIO, CWC, SEIU, and tough SOBs

AUSTIN, Texas -- Solidarity Forev ... ooops, make that, Solidarity Later.

Organized labor is weak, but unorganized labor is a hell of a lot weaker. That's what's splitting the AFL-CIO. You may think this is none of your beeswax, but if you work in this country, you owe labor, big time. And I'm talking to you, white-collar worker.

This is not about the old stuff -- 40-hour workweek, unemployment insurance, health benefits, safety regs, etc. This is about right now, today. The money that controls this administration is out to screw you -- it's your pension on the line, your salary on the line and your job on the line. If your company can replace you cheaper, you are gone, buddy. And this administration is pushing jobs overseas just as fast as it can.

The split is not a case of good guys versus bad guys -- it's good guys versus (we hope) some better guys.

Help Rep. Babara Lee's inquiry into the Downing Street memo

ACTION NEEDED ON REP. LEE'S RESOLUTION

Congresswoman Barbara Lee and 29 co-sponsors are backing a Resolution of Inquiry which, if passed, will require the White House and the State Department to "transmit all information relating to communication with officials of the United Kingdom between January 1, 2002, and October 16, 2002, relating to the policy of the United States with respect to Iraq."

If the Downing Street Documents are not accurate, this is the White House's opportunity to prove it.

If your Representative is not a co-sponsor (http://tinyurl.com/8mzrn), we need you to ask him or her to become a co-sponsor of H.Res. 375. Many, even possibly some Republicans, will co-sponsor this, but they have to be asked.

Please do all three of the following:

Email your congress member:
http://www.democrats.com/peoplesemailnetwork/50

Phone your congress member:
http://www.usalone.com/get_instantcongress.htm

Rovegate



http://mattbors.com

None dare call it stolen - Ohio, the election, and America's servile press

While commentators, prompted by Republicans, claimed Bush won the 2004 election through the votes of a silent majority concerned with “family values,” Mark Crispin Miller writes that when voters were asked to state, “in their own words the most important factor in their vote,”only 14 percent named “moral values.”  He details how the press (except for Keith Olbermann on MSNBC) ignored “the strange details of the election—except, that is, to ridicule all efforts to discuss them…It was as if they were reporting from inside a forest fire without acknowledging the fire, except to keep insisting that there was no fire.” 

Then he lists the copious evidence pointing to a stolen election, easily available on the web or in paperback, from Michigan Representative John Conyers’ report, Preserving Democracy:  What Went Wrong in Ohio.  More than dirty tricks, it covers “the run-up to the election, the election itself, and the post-election cover-up,” listing “specific violations of the U.S. and Ohio constitutions, the Voting Rights Act, the Civil Rights Act of 1968, the National Voter Registration Act, and the Help America Vote Act.”

How the United States Marked the 3rd Anniversary of the Downing Street Memo

Hundreds of people were turned away today as capacity crowds packed public forums in U.S. cities to discuss the Downing Street Memo and related evidence that President Bush lied about the reasons for war.  Halls were filled to capacity and beyond in LA, Oakland, Seattle, Detroit, Northampton, New York, and elsewhere, for events led by Congress Members, including Maxine Waters, Barbara Lee, Jim McDermott, John Conyers, and Maurice Hinchey.

For the second time in the two months since we launched the www.AfterDowningStreet.org campaign, I've been overwhelmed by what we've tapped into.  The first time was when we put up a website about the Downing Street minutes and a demand for an investigation into grounds for impeachment.  I'd never seen a coalition grow so quickly or a website receive so much traffic.  Today we saw crowds of people in red and blue states chant "Impeach Bush!" at events with leaders not yet ready to use the I word.  The much maligned American Public is way out ahead of us – I'm telling you.

Business as usual with Judge Roberts; straight corporate, with Pepto-Bismol chaser

Unless they discover John Roberts dropped acid at Harvard or had been funneling insider stock tips to his wife, it looks as though he's a shoo-in for confirmation as a member of the U.S. Supreme Court. In his last job in the private sector, as a partner at Hogan & Hartson, an elite Washington, D.C. law firm, his gross income in 2003 was $1,044,399.54, so his gamble in accepting a seat on the federal appeals court on the D.C. circuit has certainly paid off. Already he's being talked up as maybe the next chief justice, replacing William Rehnquist, the justice he formerly clerked for.

Both the liberals and the Christian Right had amassed colossal war chests of around $20 million, expecting a convulsive confirmation hearing stretching far into the fall. They'll be hard put to spend the money, since Roberts's footprints have been purposively indistinct almost since he left the cradle.

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