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CBS' cowardice and conflicts behind purge

Network's Craven Back-Down on Bush Draft Dodge Report Sure to Get a Standing Rove-ation at White House

"Independent" my ass. CBS' cowardly purge of five journalists who exposed George Bush's dodging of the Vietnam War draft was done under cover of what the network laughably called an "Independent Review Panel."

The "panel" was just two guys as qualified for the job as they are for landing the space shuttle: Dick Thornburgh and Louis Boccardi.

Remember Dickie Thornburgh? He was on the Bush 41 Administration's payroll. His grand accomplishment as Bush's Attorney General was to whitewash the investigation of the Exxon Valdez Oil spill, letting the oil giant off the hook on big damages. Thornburgh's fat pay as counsel to Kirkpatrick & Lockhart, the Washington law-and-lobbying outfit, is substantially due to his job as a Bush retainer. This is the kind of stinky conflict of interest that hardly suggests "independent." Why not just appoint Karl Rove as CBS' grand inquisitor and be done with it?

Say, waiter, where's the blood on my margarita glass?

The new year promises a rich manure of hypocrisy and bad faith. Take the current tumult here in the United States about the U.N. high command and the oil-for-food imbroglio, which right-wing columnists are gnawing on with relish. There are no good guys here, just vistas of corruption and bad faith stretching into the distance.

Certainly, weep not for Kofi Annan, whose servility toward the imperatives of Empire was comically revealed in the very same press conference where a pertinacious journalist extorted from the reluctant secretary general the grudging admission that the war on Iraq was illegal. Later on, Annan offhandedly invoked "our allies," a term that should be alien to the lips of any U.N. secretary general but that accurately reflects political realities.

The private dealings of the Annan family may well be fragrant with corruption, but it's hard to get too excited about alleged skims off the oil-for-food deals against so vivid a backdrop as hundreds of thousands of Iraqi civilians, many of them infants, being starved to death or dying for lack of suitable medicines under the U.N. sanctions commanded by the United States.

These people are slicker than bus station chili

AUSTIN, Texas --- Excuse me, but is that smoke in your ear?

I wouldn't go calling anyone a liar, but as we say in our quaint Texas fashion, this administration is stuffed with people who are on a first-name basis with the bottom of the deck. They've been telling us only four out of the 18 provinces in Iraq will be too unsafe to vote in. Doesn't sound that bad, does it? Unless you happen to know that about 50 percent of the population lives in those four provinces.

Will someone explain to me what earthly good they expect to do by misleading us? If, God forbid, the Iraqi election turns out to be a disaster, will we be better off for not having expected it? How long are Bush and Cheney going to sit there pretending the problem is that the media won't report the "good news" out of Iraq? Be a lot more useful if they paid attention to some of the bad news.

Framing the issue

Gonzales

Boxer was A.W.O.L. in 2000

I'm writing in response to your coverage of the Congressional protest of the clearly flawed Ohio 2004 vote count to point out that in contrast to 2004, in 2000, Senator Boxer was A.W.O.L. as was the rest of her democratic Senate coleagues. Our country is now suffering terribly and needlessly because of Bush's theft of the 2000 election. What happened in Ohio in 2004 is a sad continuation of what happened in Florida in 2000. Howver, unlike Kerry in 2004, Al Gore was clearly the people's choice in 2000 since he won both the popular vote and the electoral college vote. The truth will always be that Al Gore got the most votes in Florida and that Florida law required that the uncounted votes be counted. While Al Gore fought alone to have the uncounted Florida votes counted, Senator Boxer and the rest of her democratic Senate coleagues hid in their cushy, ivory Washington towers. It must never be forgotten that when it really mattered to stand up and defend our democracy from the Bush 2000 coup as their oath of office requires, Senator Boxer and her democratic Senate coleagues were A.W.O.L.

The fight against voting fraud -- a fight we must win!

Thank God For The Black Media, CSPAN, WWW, Bloggers, The Free Press, and all the Independent Media!!! On January 6, 2005 a group of “American Super Patriots” made presentations that more than rivaled the “Gettysburg Address,” Or “Nathan Hales Give me Liberty or give me death.” This group was made up of both white and Black Congresspersons alike. The subject was “Voter Civil Rights” and “The Stolen Elections of 2000 and 2004.”

On January 8, 2004 in reviewing the news on all traditional News Channels. You could count the number time this event was carried on three fingers. In contrast, the WWW, CSPAN, Independent Media and Bloggers violated the covenant of the Traditional Media and went against the Military and Administration and decided that this event did not jeopardize our country at war and "did not provide aid and comfort to an undeclared enemy," the terrorist.

Dean Should Be The National Democratic Party Leader

While every declared candidate for Chairman of the Democratic National Committee would do a good job, Howard Dean clearly offers some unique qualities and insights that would help advance both the Democratic Party agenda and future electoral prospects. Dean created in 2004 an energy in the grassroots activist base of the Democratic Party that was unmatched by any of the other Primary contenders. He would be a great public face and manager for the national Democratic Party.

Howard Dean understands the power of the Internet as a tool for matching the Corporate Media dominance of the rival Republican Party. Dean understands the threat to American democracy posed by media concentration. It is clear that Dean would act aggressively to support the creation of an alternate Democratic media outside the control of Corporate Republican interests. His list of roughly 3 million Democratic activists email addresses, developed in his Presidential race, would be an amazing asset for the Democratic Party and rivals closely the entire existing list currently being used by the national Democratic Party.  

Affairs of the heart

Vice President Cheney's health has long been a source of concern, given his heart problems. And now there are suggestions that the condition of President Bush's heart might be a cause for concern. We are not dabbling in hypotheticals here or metaphors about his initial stinted response to the tsunami disaster. I draw your attention to a riveting report by C.L. Hallmark, run just before Christmas by Indymedia, Houston (http://houston.indymedia.org/
news/2004/12/35839.php).

Using file photos, Hallmark demonstrates, convincingly, in my view, that George W. Bush "is wearing a medical device for 'persons at risk of cardiac arrest.' It is a LifeVest wearable defibrillator. He started using it sometime after his January 2002 fainting spell, which was attributed to choking." This was the notorious pretzel incident, when said pretzel lodged in Bush's throat, thus stimulating the vagus nerve to send a signal to his heart, slowing it down and reducing blood flow so much he passed out, according to White House physician Col. Richard J. Tubb, M.D.

Prior-roarities

AUSTIN, Texas -- In the Texas legislature, they are called "prior-roarities," such a happy coinage. What should come prior?

When the pitter-patter of falling year-end columns comes again, not necessarily next year, but certainly four years from now, I fearlessly forecast a dismal unanimity: that the Bush Administration II suffers from bad and dumb prior-roarities.

Actually, the passage of time is not required for proof -- look around. The Bushies are about to launch a $50 million to $100 million dollar propaganda campaign to convince us the Social Security system is in crisis. Actually, it's not. It's quite robust and has astonishingly low administrative costs, less than 1 percent.

According to President Bush's own Commission to "Strengthen Social Security," the administrative costs of keeping track of private accounts will be 10 to 30 times the cost of administering the current system.

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