Op-Ed
AUSTIN, Texas -- Now is the time for all good men -- and women -- to race to the aid of their country. Liberals and libertarians unite! The Sinclair Broadcasting Group has moved this election into the realm of creeping fascism, state propaganda, Big Brother and brainwashing. What me, hyperbole?
This is SO simple -- how would you conservatives feel if NBC, CBS or ABC decided to pre-empt primetime programming a week before the election to air Michael Moore's "Fahrenheit 9/11"? And then announced, "But we've offered President Bush a chance to reply"?
Sinclair has also offered President George W. Bush the inestimable service of diverting attention from his record and is using OUR publicly owned airwaves to do it.
This is SO simple -- how would you conservatives feel if NBC, CBS or ABC decided to pre-empt primetime programming a week before the election to air Michael Moore's "Fahrenheit 9/11"? And then announced, "But we've offered President Bush a chance to reply"?
Sinclair has also offered President George W. Bush the inestimable service of diverting attention from his record and is using OUR publicly owned airwaves to do it.
In an election likely to be decided as much by voter turnout as by convincing the remaining undecided, how do we maintain the hope that’s necessary to keep making the phone calls, knocking on the doors, funding the key ads, and doing all the other critical tasks to get Bush out of office?
Even those of us working hard for change hit walls of doubt and uncertainty about whether our actions really matter. Our spirits rise and fall as if on a roller coaster with each shift in the polls. In a time when lies too often seem to prevail, we wonder whether it’s worthwhile to keep making the effort.
We need to remind ourselves that we never can predict all the results of our actions. A few years ago, I met a Wesleyan University student who, with a few friends, registered nearly three hundred fellow students concerned about environmental threats and cuts in government financial aid programs. The Congressman they supported won by twenty-one votes. Before they began, the student and her friends feared that their modest efforts would be irrelevant.
Even those of us working hard for change hit walls of doubt and uncertainty about whether our actions really matter. Our spirits rise and fall as if on a roller coaster with each shift in the polls. In a time when lies too often seem to prevail, we wonder whether it’s worthwhile to keep making the effort.
We need to remind ourselves that we never can predict all the results of our actions. A few years ago, I met a Wesleyan University student who, with a few friends, registered nearly three hundred fellow students concerned about environmental threats and cuts in government financial aid programs. The Congressman they supported won by twenty-one votes. Before they began, the student and her friends feared that their modest efforts would be irrelevant.
AUSTIN, Texas -- President Bush may not be dumb, but he sure does think the rest of us are.
You have to assume your audience is a bunch of borderline morons to tell as many whoppers as he does. True, short-term memory loss is creeping up on a lot of us, but even I can remember what Bush told us about why we had to invade Iraq.
There was about a rationale a week, but the main contenders were because: (A) Saddam Hussein had weapons of mass destruction and (B) links to Al Qaeda, so the WMD might get into terrorist hands. The supposed Saddam Hussein-Al Qaeda connection was so often trumpeted that by the time the war started, 70 percent of Americans believed Saddam Hussein was behind 9-11.
You have to assume your audience is a bunch of borderline morons to tell as many whoppers as he does. True, short-term memory loss is creeping up on a lot of us, but even I can remember what Bush told us about why we had to invade Iraq.
There was about a rationale a week, but the main contenders were because: (A) Saddam Hussein had weapons of mass destruction and (B) links to Al Qaeda, so the WMD might get into terrorist hands. The supposed Saddam Hussein-Al Qaeda connection was so often trumpeted that by the time the war started, 70 percent of Americans believed Saddam Hussein was behind 9-11.
PHILADELPHIA -- We all had our debate moments, but the one that stunned me was, "It's (Iraq is) hard work. I see it on the TV screens."
Watching it on TV, boy that is tough work all right. And what was the "hard work" thing about? Did Rove poll and find out people think the president vacations too much?
I also came to a full stop after the one about sending troops to die. "I never -- when I was running -- when we had the debate in 2000, never dreamt I'd be doing that." He never dreamt it?
It never occurred to him? Was this man prepared for the job? Help!
I lean to the "bubble president" theory of Bush's peevish, petulant performance in debate. They've kept him surrounded by people who keep telling him he's great. I blame Karl Rove, of course. Bush is not used to being questioned. In Bob Woodward's book "Bush at War," the president is quoted: "I'm the commander in chief, see, I don't need to explain, I do not need to explain why I say things. That's the interesting part about being president. Maybe somebody needs to explain to me why they say something, but I don't feel like I owe anybody an explanation."
Watching it on TV, boy that is tough work all right. And what was the "hard work" thing about? Did Rove poll and find out people think the president vacations too much?
I also came to a full stop after the one about sending troops to die. "I never -- when I was running -- when we had the debate in 2000, never dreamt I'd be doing that." He never dreamt it?
It never occurred to him? Was this man prepared for the job? Help!
I lean to the "bubble president" theory of Bush's peevish, petulant performance in debate. They've kept him surrounded by people who keep telling him he's great. I blame Karl Rove, of course. Bush is not used to being questioned. In Bob Woodward's book "Bush at War," the president is quoted: "I'm the commander in chief, see, I don't need to explain, I do not need to explain why I say things. That's the interesting part about being president. Maybe somebody needs to explain to me why they say something, but I don't feel like I owe anybody an explanation."
In an election likely to be decided as much by voter turnout as by
convincing the remaining undecided, how do we maintain the hope that's
necessary to keep making the phone calls, knocking on the doors, funding the
key ads, and doing all the other critical tasks to get Bush out of office?
Even those of us working hard for change hit walls of doubt and uncertainty about whether our actions really matter. Our spirits rise and fall as if on a roller coaster with each shift in the polls. In a time when lies too often seem to prevail, we wonder whether it's worthwhile to keep making the effort.
We need to remind ourselves that we never can predict all the results of our actions. A few years ago, I met a Wesleyan University student who, with a few friends, registered nearly three hundred fellow students concerned about environmental threats and cuts in government financial aid programs. The Congressman they supported won by twenty-one votes. Before they began, the student and her friends feared that their modest efforts would be irrelevant.
Even those of us working hard for change hit walls of doubt and uncertainty about whether our actions really matter. Our spirits rise and fall as if on a roller coaster with each shift in the polls. In a time when lies too often seem to prevail, we wonder whether it's worthwhile to keep making the effort.
We need to remind ourselves that we never can predict all the results of our actions. A few years ago, I met a Wesleyan University student who, with a few friends, registered nearly three hundred fellow students concerned about environmental threats and cuts in government financial aid programs. The Congressman they supported won by twenty-one votes. Before they began, the student and her friends feared that their modest efforts would be irrelevant.
AUSTIN, Texas -- This column is not about the presidential debate. It's about Other Stuff. Particularly eye-catching are the updates on the price of gasoline, your overtime pay, why the company most likely to hold the mortgage on your house could go broke, why you're getting peanuts from new tax cuts just passed by Congress and how the government is kicking hundreds of thousands of kids off health insurance while promising not to. Cheer all around.
-- The price of a barrel of oil went over $50 for the first time early this week, and the price of gassing up my vehicle, Truck Bob the Ford, is now $36 a pop. According to oil-ologists, this is on account of the unrest in oil-producing countries and rising global demand destabilizing world energy markets. Don't you love the jargon? The petro experts also say this ain't gonna get better.
-- The price of a barrel of oil went over $50 for the first time early this week, and the price of gassing up my vehicle, Truck Bob the Ford, is now $36 a pop. According to oil-ologists, this is on account of the unrest in oil-producing countries and rising global demand destabilizing world energy markets. Don't you love the jargon? The petro experts also say this ain't gonna get better.
AUSTIN --- Alice, we're in the Twilight Zone of Wonderland. Whee! John Kerry is disrespectful of our allies! Donald Rumsfeld thinks an election in three-fourths of Iraq is good enough. The No. 1 best seller in our nation is an untrue, vicious and ugly attack on a genuine, bona fide, certified war hero. Despite everything you have seen, read or heard about Iraq, all is tickety-boo over there, and anyone who says different is helping the terrorists.
More than a year after "Mission Accomplished," we have still not restored water or electricity in Iraq back to Saddam Hussein's pitiful standards. The electricity is out between four and 14 hours a day in Baghdad, there is no potable water because of pipe breaks and contamination, the garbage is uncollected, and sewage runs in the streets. A year after Congress voted to spend $18.4 billion reconstructing Iraq, only $1 billion has been spent, and most of that has gone to overhead, contractors' profits, security service, insurance and property losses. The jobs have gone largely either to Americans or other foreigners in Iraq, with little benefit to the Iraqis.
More than a year after "Mission Accomplished," we have still not restored water or electricity in Iraq back to Saddam Hussein's pitiful standards. The electricity is out between four and 14 hours a day in Baghdad, there is no potable water because of pipe breaks and contamination, the garbage is uncollected, and sewage runs in the streets. A year after Congress voted to spend $18.4 billion reconstructing Iraq, only $1 billion has been spent, and most of that has gone to overhead, contractors' profits, security service, insurance and property losses. The jobs have gone largely either to Americans or other foreigners in Iraq, with little benefit to the Iraqis.
AUSTIN -- Thomas Frank, author of "What's the Matter With Kansas?" is a subscriber to the theory that so-called "values politics" and lifestyle issues are just sophisticated versions of that old carnival con the shell game, in which the object is to keep the rube's eye off the shell with the pea under it.
"The trick never ages: The illusion never wears off. Vote to stop abortion; receive a rollback in capital gains taxes. Vote to make our country strong again; receive deindustrialization. Vote to screw those politically correct college professors; receive electricity deregulation. ... Vote to stand tall against terrorists; receive Social Security privatization."
"The trick never ages: The illusion never wears off. Vote to stop abortion; receive a rollback in capital gains taxes. Vote to make our country strong again; receive deindustrialization. Vote to screw those politically correct college professors; receive electricity deregulation. ... Vote to stand tall against terrorists; receive Social Security privatization."
A Zogby International poll taken on the eve of the Republican National Convention in New York City found 49.3% of New York City residents believe that some of our leaders “knew in advance that attacks were planned on or around September 11, 2001, and that they consciously failed to act.” The key question is how many members of the Bush clan knew, or does Cheney have them on a need-to-know basis only.
MASON, Texas --- Letter from a non-swing state. Every political reporter and his hamster is covering the swing states. Here's the news from the rest of the country. This column is dedicated to all the Democrats in the red states and all the Republicans in the blue states, with affection for all.
In Mason, Texas, pop. 2,148, there are new yellow ribbons up all over town in memory of young Mathew Puckett, the first Mason man to die in military action since World War II. Though Masonites are united in sorrow, the debate over Iraq has only become more embittered. "Now they've killed one of ours. Now you have to support the troops," say the Republicans.
"Now don't you wonder, 'Should we be there?' Now don't you have to ask, 'What good are we doing?'" say the Democrats.
Local Democrats participated in the Mason County Round-Up parade this year. A few people waved at them from regular shoulder-height, but more waved from hip-level, just with their hands, not wanting to attract attention. It's not popular to be a Democrat in Mason County.
In Mason, Texas, pop. 2,148, there are new yellow ribbons up all over town in memory of young Mathew Puckett, the first Mason man to die in military action since World War II. Though Masonites are united in sorrow, the debate over Iraq has only become more embittered. "Now they've killed one of ours. Now you have to support the troops," say the Republicans.
"Now don't you wonder, 'Should we be there?' Now don't you have to ask, 'What good are we doing?'" say the Democrats.
Local Democrats participated in the Mason County Round-Up parade this year. A few people waved at them from regular shoulder-height, but more waved from hip-level, just with their hands, not wanting to attract attention. It's not popular to be a Democrat in Mason County.