What Will Condi Say?

Next Thursday or Friday, Condi Rice will testify publicly and under oath to a congressional commission investigating terrorism in the United States, and the search for Al Qaida. She will have to answer to published charges by Richard Clarke, that the administration did little to nothing prior to 9/11 about Al Qaida, and that the $200B, 600 American lives and 3500 casualties invasion of Iraq was pushed by Rumsfeld and Wolfowitz as an end to itself, not a logical requirement of rooting out Al Qaida, as the invasion of Afghanistan was (does anyone know what that cost in treasure and lives?).

This means that Condi: (1) must describe what the administration did, and it has to be more than what Clarke says, since if it is no more than receiving Clarke's Jan 24 2001 memo, and futzing around until Sept 4 to install it, then that's going to look bad; (2) singlehandedly and convincingly justify the war in Iraq in front of people who are ready to take the administration down in a political sphere -- not comfy little journalists who give her the pass on the veracity of her statements, just to get her to be on the record.

I expect this will be a major dressing down - of historic proportions. My prediction is that she will take 100% responsibility for all pre-9/11 planning, and as being a major force behind the war in Iraq. Her testimony will be calibrated to make it seem like she did it all -- pushing the war in Iraq as the most important and worthy goal in the war against terrorism. She will make as strong a case for it as she can, but her major goal will simply be to set herself up as 100% responsible for that war.


This is meant to have 2 effects: (1) to increase her political stock among conservatives, and more importantly (2) to set her up as the lightning rod on the issue. If the Dems are going to take anyone down on it, it will then have to be her -- not Rummy or Wolfowitz -- and she gets martyr status. Sure, she'd resign in a month or so, taking the controversy with her. And she'd likely not get a job in a WII administration. But, she'd be there in 2008 for Powell presidency, with major conservative chops. And, if she survives the onslaught next week, she wins big time among conservatives as the architect of the Iraq war.

What do Condi and Gambling to get out of Debt Have In Common?

The big news today is that Condi has done a 100% 'bout face and is going to testify in front of Congress' 9/11 comission, under oath. It will be nice to hear how she diffuses the furor which has come out about Clarke.

But, even more provocative -- this Casino ran TV ads which said: "..those credict card bills just keep piling up? Well, Isleta Casino Resort comes to your rescue," advertising gambling as a means to dig yourself out of debt.

Another reminder that, just because you hear it on TV, doesn't make it true.

Only in the Arab-Israeli Conflict

Only in the Arab-Israeli conflict would a peace overature be used to distract people from Sharon's political woes. Sharon's office is complaining about how irresponsible the recent call for his indictment on bribery charges is, just as he was seeking American agreement to his plan to withdraw settlers and soldiers from the Gaza Strip and West Bank.

Kevin Smith is a Hack.

Because everyone deserves a second chance, I saw JERSEY GIRL last night. With a hackneyed script with stock characters, it is almost quality of made-for-TV; the development was sit-com worthy. Cute-kid scenes, conflict of acting like a loving father vs. single-minded pursuit of a career.

No Hydrogen? What a rip!

Whoops! Yep, you're right -- got to have H tanks, can't pull that straight from the atmosphere! Duh.

But Derek, note that Jamie thought I was talking about perpetual motion -- which I don't think I was, I just skipped past the point that you need to carry your H fuel, you can't harvest it like you do the O.

Scramjets and the 2nd Law of Thermodynamics

Rockets are inefficient, by comparison to airplanes, because they have to carry both their fuel and their oxidizer. Thus the space shuttle main engines are powered by liquid hydrogen and liquid oxygen, fed from that gargantuan external fuel tank.

A Scramjet gets back to airplane-like economies by grabbing its oxygen from the atmosphere. It still needs to carry its own fuel, however; luckily for us, the atmosphere of our planet is not itself combustible.

In other words, Jamie's right, and Bob got a little carried away there. Don't worry, Bob, we won't tell your students--

Scramjets

What's interesting about NASA's experimental scramjet is that it powers itself by travelling supersonically and burning oxygen it scoops up from the atmosphere. As such, in principle, it could fly indefinitely in a suborbital flight. It would have unlimited range -- it can just circle the globe as a drone, forever and ever.

Is Frist Actually on a Congressional Power Grab?

Bill Frist wants to declassify Clarke's historical testimonies in front of Congress, because he wants to show that Clarke is inconsistent.

Apparently, the body to decide what to declassify isn't Congress, it's the White House. This means that the White House will have to figure out if they will declassify testimony to give firepower against its critics, to help dig themselves out of the political Hole to China they are in.

If they do so, in addition to using the machinery of government to wage political wars, they will also set precedent: if Congress asks White House once to declassify information and they comply, then procedure requires that they do so every time in the future . That would be a tidy little power for the Senate to have, I'm sure it has not escaped Mr. Frist's attention.

On the other hand, they could comply now to get Clarke, and refuse in the future, and say to Congress, "so sue me", and separation of powers settled in the courts will re-instate the status-quo.

The Republican Hatchet Machine Kicks into Gear

David Brooks starts the day with derisize mocking of Clarke's opinions. It's a typical Brooks Apologist Screed, complete with his famous "actually, we're all to blame for this" and mixture of historical and pop cultural references.

Bill Frist chops him up cold, in an exceedingly effective counterattack. First, Frist accuses Clarke of lying before Congress, by portraying the administration previously of acting vigorously before 9/11 to oppose Al Qaeda, only to say now the opposite. "Loyalty to any Administration will be no defense if it is found that he has lied before Congress."

Frist's main critique: if everything Clarke is saying is true, then he has long "known better" than the administration, and why didn't he threaten to resign or raise the public alarm about Al-Qaeda? Frist says if Clarke kept quiet within the Bush administration just to keep his job, then "shame on him for putting partisanship above principle".

It's a disgengenuous argument, because a Presidential advisor first gives the President their best advice, and then when the president has made his decision, backs the President's policy, regardless of what they might personally feel. For example, it's common knowledge that Colin Powell was giving Bush different advice about what to do than Bush eventually did, and then comes to Congress and elsewhere do defend that decision. No one argues that's a bad order of things: it's your responsibility to answer to the President with advice, but present and defend the president's policies to the public.

Otherwise, we'd have people who weren't the President making policy. But while this is true enough, the argument could stick with Joe Blow: "Why didn't he protest if he was so against the Administration's policies?" Example quote :

I myself have fortunately not had the opportunity to work with such an individual who could write solicitous and self-defending emails to his supervisor, the National Security Advisor, and then by his own admission lie to the press out of a self conceived notion of loyalty only to reverse himself on all accounts for the sale of a book.

There are a couple of ways Clarke can overcome this attack. First, if called before Congress to account for "lies" of believing one thing, and presenting another, then he can come out with the above: "As a member of the administration, I owe advice to the President and represent the President's policies to everyone else." Frist will attack this as "lies, saying one thing then and another thing now, and partisanship above principle".

But, most importantly, what Frist is doing is changing the conversation to "Did Clarke lie to congress?" and that's a potentially successful strategy.

Derek's Ad Run

Derek's got a good ad run here. Just as interesting, Derek has the order correct to hit the issues between now and October.

First, he put his finger on something important: the time to hit Bush on Iraq and Terrorism is NOW, not in 6 months. First, it's in the news, and on everybody's mind. But more importantly: we do not know what will happen 6 months from now, and if a major attack should be staged, critcising Bush on Iraq and terrorism will seem petty or -- worse -- even wrong. Kerry can piaint bush as Sure But Wrong now, and it will be dry in a month.

Second: Iraq and WMDs. Once Bush's credibility is shot, you've got the stick to hit him with on every single issue, and the first one to spank home is WMDs, just as Derek says. Better to do earlier rather than later (see above).

Third: The economy -- sad to say -- is probably more sure than the terror alert level, and so putting the economy and jobs at issue in October is probably outstanding timeing, as naught gets better, and Bush remains to blame. Also a good time to look at that accumulating deficit.

So, Derek: applause! An outstanding run of ads.

Bush: Sure of his policies, but wrong on the facts

Bob asks for a tagline for the current Presidential campaign; above is my suggestion. Basically, the idea is to focus on the lies that Bush has told, without calling him a liar (which as we know, can quickly degenerate into base name-calling). I see the tagline appearing at the end of each of a series of 30-second ads.

First ad: Iraq and Terrorism - Bush claims Saddam is connected to Al Qaeda, even though CIA (Tenet) denies this, and orchestrates invasion of Iraq instead of continuing the pursuit of Al Qaeda. Clarke testimony about the damage this did to the war on terror.

Second ad: Iraq and WMDs - Bush claims Saddam possesses WMDs, even though the CIA denies this, and orchestrates invasion of Iraq. No WMDs are found. Kay testimony on the damage this did to our standing internationally. Bush continuing to insist WMDs may be found.

Third ad: Bush and Jobs - Bush designs his tax and budget cuts in a time of huge budget surpluses. Within six months of taking office the budget has plunged into deficit, the nation is in recession, and job losses are mounting. So what does he propose: More tax and budget cuts! The promise is that these will create jobs - but they were not designed to do that. And in fact job losses continue to mount, all the way through 2002 and 2003.

"Bush: Sure of his policies, but wrong on the facts - time and again."

Another answer to Bob's question

Here's an alternate reason why Qaddafi earned a visit from Mr. Blair. Shell announced a deal yesterday to enter Libya's oil and gas industry. The ink on this deal was dry before Blair's feet touched the Libyan soil.

I very much doubt that North Korea would get this sort of treatment even if they decided to dismantle their WMD programs.

Poor Prof. Singer

The response from the White House: "Oh, we're not rationally consistent? We'll get right on that."

Jokes aside, this is a great article, because it distills the issues to simple facts. Which can now be distorted into soundbites by the Kerry campaign. I'm still liking "What kind of wartime president is it who attacks the wrong country?" A perhaps better refrain is "He has no ideological core, except abusing whatever power he can get his hands on as far as he can." But something catchier is needed -- kind of like Bush's "Gore will say anything to be President of the United States."

Peter Singer on Bush

Princeton Ethics Professor Peter Singer has today given us his thoughts on the nature of our President's moral compass.

The change of seasons really seems to be bringing our nation's academics out of the woodwork.

Science and the Bush Mars Program

I am regularly asked what I as a scientist think of the Bush Mars Program. In lieu of composing a thoughtful 20,000 word essay on the subject myself, here is Physics Nobelist Steven Weinberg's.

Qaddafi Validates Iraq

I'm not sure whether Bob meant for his question to be taken seriously, but on the off chance that he did:

By agreeing to dismantle his (in any case moribund) nuclear weapons program, within a year of the US Army's entry into Baghdad, Qaddafi has validated the WMD case for war against Iraq.

This is quite a feat, since as we know, Iraq had no WMDs. In the whole entire world, probably only Qaddafi and Kim Jong Il could have accomplished this - and Kim is holding out for a better offer. So Qaddafi gets the prize.

Friedman: So do terrorists want Right-wing governments, or left wing ones?

Thomas Friedman makes the claim that the weapons of terror to be used in the new war were honed and perfected in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. He states that the election-eve bombing of Madrid is a Palestinian tactic, to affect the outcome of the election.

However, in Israel, he says, the tactic was applied to effect election of right-wing politicians, to make bad political decisions and further radicalize and destabilize the situation. But that's not what happened in Madrid, where the right-wing party was thrown out of power, and the left wing party was installed -- so left wing, that they are being accused of withdrawal and appeasement.

These are about as different political states as can be, so it must be said that the direction that an election-eve bombing pushes depends strongly on the political inclination of the voters. In both Israel and Madrid, bombs go off on public transport, but in Israel, people elect Sharon, who pops a missile down on the leader of Hamas, while in Madrid, people elect a government strapping Nike's onto their soldiers feet in Iraq so that they can sprint on out of there.

Friedman says Al Qaida doesn't do polling, it does big picture. But, for the blunt tool of public bombings to have completely opposite political effects -- and for Friedman to claim that both the PLO and Al Qaida meant to have exactly those political ends, and not the undesirable opposite end -- means that they know exactly how the population will respond to bombing. You can't throw an election 10 points in either direction if you don't know what the effect of the bomb is going to be -- Al Qaida must do polling, then?

Hogwash! Balderdash! The fact is that bombing kills people and scares the population into thinking the terrorists are in charge. The electoral result can be either one in the direction of right-wing crackdowns eliciting radicalization, or withdrawal and appeasement, and arguments can be made in both cases that that helps the bombers. But the bombers aren't bombing to have specifically one or the other effect. They're bombing so that they matter, at all, so that they are not as powerless as their numbers and logical basis should dictate in a world of rational democracies. They're bombing because their votes count for nothing, and they demand reaction -- any reaction -- to what they want.

I can't even guess

After more than a decade of being an international pariah, I cannot even guess what it was that Muammar Qaddafi did to warrant a state visit from Tony Blair. Six months ago, the US and England would more likely have shot the guy if we got that close.

What was it that he did to come so far so fast? Did he know the spider hole where Hussein was hiding? Did he provide Bin Laden's exact location, and now we're just waiting for the best time? It's not because he decided to give up a WMD race -- that's not enough to get Tony Blair on a plane. Any guesses out there? I can't even guess.

Chatterbox Takes Ari's Bait

See the results as Ari Fleischer Rides Again.

Calling Technical Assistance

Now, when I call technical assistance, I fake an Indian accent as best I can. That way, when the Indian person faking a Canadian accent says "You're from Montreal? I'm from Toronto!," I can respond "Actually, I'm from Mumbai!"

It's fun to wink at each other like that.

Another Wrinkle in Duck-Gate

Two Yale professors (one Law, the other Business) point out another wrinkle in Justice Scalia's duck-hunting ethics quandary, in the NYT today.

Promissory fraud, indeed...

Even Ari Can't Make it Sound Plausible

Ari Fleischer, in a letter to the NYTimes, takes umbrage at Paul Krugman's characterization that Ari's famous quote that Americans should "watch what they say, watch what they do" was ominous. Ari unbelievably asserts that he was answering an *earlier question*, not the one about Bill Maher which had just been posed to him.

I guess Ari lives 45 seconds in the past. Which would explain a lot, come to think of it.

My Newest Country Song.

I'm working on a new country music song, which I think is going to be popular at Democratic Parties. I've got the Lyrics -- it's a minimalist tune, with just one refrain, to be sung over and over again:

"What kind of a war-time President is it who attacks the wrong country?"

Imagine the lilting sort of feeling you get from hearing that sung gently, over and over again.

David Kay Re-Iterates that there were no WMD in Iraq to be Found.

We've heard it all before -- but some people still don't get it. So, David Kay on Tuesday had this to say about the fact that there were no WMD in Iraq to be found: "'We are in grave danger of having destroyed our credibility internationally and domestically with regard to warning about future events,' he said. 'The answer is to admit you were wrong, and what I find most disturbing around Washington ... is the belief ... you can never admit you're wrong.'"

Arnold Scwarzennegger is Right

We really ought to let people who have been citizens for twenty years run for President.

David Brooks Changes the Subject, Again.

Today, David Brooks asserts that those who want to secularize American federal government don't understand that the civil rights movement, with Martin Luther King, could not have happened without religion -- apparently missing the fact that Martin Luther King wasn't part of the federal government. Hey David, Martin Luther King didn't hold elective office and he wasn't enforcing federal policy. In fact, he was fighting federal, and state policy as a private citizen. Good for him that he found support and inspiration from his religion -- but our Federal Government should not, it should draw support and inspiration from our Constitution, and our Constitution only.

Brooks then goes on to say that those who want to remove the part of the oath we know as the Pledge of Allegiance which requires Americans to assert subservience of the United States to God don't realize that we can't beat Al Qaeda without understanding how religion works. Probably true, but understanding how religion works doesn't require we take an oath to being subservient to God. We can take religion classes for that.

Brooks asserts that if we want to fight terrorism, we must be a functionally Christian nation, and that the secular Europeans are failing because they aren't Christian enough. The argument Brooks puts forward is that, if we don't become a theocratic christian nation, we will loose to Islamic terrorists. This is wrong, because the strength of our society is in democratic values and freedom as enshrined in our Constitution, and it is for these values we are under threat from Al Qaeda.

Two more people the administration called liars and destroyed

Paul Krugman reminds us of two more people who, in contradicting the administration, were threatened by the administration:

8. General Eric Shinseki (who retired soon after).

9. Richard Foster


They eat their own.

Cheney proves Clarke's point.

Dick Cheney gives a delusional defense against Richard Clarke's statments that the Bush Administration hasn't been fighting terrorism, they've been fighting Iraq -- different. He says that Richard Clarke -- the administration's terrorism Czar -- couldn't possibly know what they were doing about terrorism because "He wasn't in the loop, frankly, on a lot of this stuff" as Cheney told Limbaugh.

Dick, if your terrorism expert wasn't in on the anti-terrorism policy planning, then you weren't doing anti-terrorism policy planning, you were doing anti-Iraq planning.

The list

Q: What do the people on this list have in common:

1. George Tenet
2. Hans Blix
3. Scott Ritter
4. Paul O'Neill
5. Richard Clarke
6. Joseph Wilson
7. David Kay

A: They are all experts in their field where the Bush Administration criticizes them as being wrong.

Does Money Talk?

If it does, Kerry's going to be drowned out by Bush. Bush as $110M on hand for his re-election, while Kerry has $2.4M . Of course, Bush has been fundraising since 9/11, and Kerry only just got going.

Kennedy Calls President Bush A Liar

On Meet the Press: Unequivocally, Ted Kennedy says this morning that the justification given for the Iraq war by President Bush: "Weapons of mass destruction, tie to Al Qaeda -- that's the distortion, that's the misrepresentation, that's the lie".

Blogspy

I'm bothered by the fact that our content is being scanned and the subject matter accurately gleaned.

You can bet that someone, somewhere, is looking at a bar graph, titled "subject matter discussed on blogs".

Orange Alert!

Is it just me, or is everybody waiting for an "Orange Alert" just so we can see Ernie in the sidebar instead of Bert?

The Folly of Unilateralism

We now get to suffer the folly of unilateralism.

Since we failed to convince our allies that terrorism is an equal threat to everywhere in the developed world prior to going into Afghanistan, and sure the heck didn't do it prior to the previously irrelevant Iraq, those who came with us to Iraq were there for one reason only: to favor the US, a sentiment which does not go deep.

Spain did not throw out Anzar because he went into Iraq, they threw him out because he went into Iraq using our lies about WMD and Saddam's connection to 9/11 -- not by convincing the people that Islamic terrorism is a dogma which threatens all other ideologies. The people were reminded of Anzar's dishonesty-by-association in the wake of the Madrid bombings; and out he goes, replaced by a government who saw that Iraq didn't matter a year ago, although it sure as hell matters now, and believes the US is not to be trusted to manage it, demanding a UN command.

But more important for Bush's campaign this fall will be the many smaller countries who look on in horror at the bombings in Madrid. They have the luxury of an option to pull out RIGHT NOW, without the sting which would come if they waited until after an Al Qaeda bombing in their own country. They can claim that they expected a UN command after the war, and none is coming, so they will leave until one is in place.

Parthian shot: Tony Blair's government has got to be losing popularity over Iraq -- how long can it survive? If Blair is brought down, that will hurt Bush here.

Bush's Strategy until June: Make You Hate John Kerry

We are about to see the Republican party do what they do best -- rip a person to shreds. In 90 days, if anyone is left thinking that John Kerry can be a leader to trust, it will because they don't watch TV.

And if you think Bush doesn't have the credibility to get away with this, you are bluer than blue.

Target Marketing

Steve pointed out to me that if you look above, the banner advertising for google is targeted at people who might be interested in Gay parenting, gay marriage, etc...

but if you go to Bob of Montreal, what you see there looks targeted based on words in the blog there.

Al Qaeda endorses Bush

Al Qaeda has endorsed Bush for the next election. In a letter from the group who claims responsibility for the recent Spanish rail bombings:

"Kerry will kill our nation while it sleeps because he and the Democrats have the cunning to embellish blasphemy and present it to the Arab and Muslim nation as civilisation."

"Because of this we desire you [Bush] to be elected."

Bush's house of cards begins falling

It appears that Honduras is pulling their troops out of Iraq, with the Dutch right behind them.

To paraphrase Bob, this means "instead of 160,000 troops in Iraq, we'll only have 158,493!". I expect that as more countries learn that they can stand up for themselves, the house of cards (Coalition of the Willing) will begin to crumble. What these other 25 countries should be afraid of is not terrorist attacks on their own soil, but more lies from the Bush Administration.

Can an LCD roar?

I've mentioned the rumors of Apple display updates before. But oh my goodness!

It looks like an escapee from Jurassic Park.

Bush Says Kerry Has Iraq's WMD

I'm expecting to read a headline like that someday.

Here's a NYTimes article on the Bush Attacks.

Sedna -- How Important Will It Be For Astrology?

In all the excitement of a new body out there, people have forgotten what a potential headache this can be for astrology. In this article, several astrological researchers comment on the implications.

Some think it will take years before they know anything, correlating its orbit with things going on in the world using charts and graphs. Others want to wait until it's decided whether its a planet or not, and are thinking very hard about what the name means, as an Inuit god of abundance in the sea (a need to improve our present fish stocks?).

It's remarkable that people can talk about these things.

This cannot be correct.

Dowrys in parts of Afghanistan reach $3000 making marriage difficicult in a country where the average annual incomeis only a few hundred dollars.

But, according to this article: "Under the strict Islamic rule of the fundamentalist Taliban regime overthrown in 2001, sex outside of marriage or bestiality were punished by stoning to death or flogging."

So there's an allowance in strict Islamic law for bestiality, but not pre-marital sex? I find that difficult to believe.

Some Responses Kerry Could Give

So Bush Wants to know who among the world's leaders want him out? Here are some suggestions I have for Kerry:

1) "Every single one of them."
2) "All the ones I've asked."
3) "I'm not going to tell you, for the same reason I'm not going to tell you who my parents are voting for -- it's their personal opinion, and they shouldn't to have to defend it to George Bush. By the way, who are your parents voting for, Georgie-boy?"
4) "Sure: Blair, Putin, Schroeder, Prodi, Chirac and since Sunday, Anzar. Oh, but Anzar doesn't count anymore does he?"
5) "Well, there were a lot of them, but the one who really sticks out in my mind is Colin Powell. I mean, where's the loyalty?"
6) "Not counting Bill Frist?"
7) "I wasn't serious -- they all think you're swell. Especially Kofi Annan. And Tony Blair."
8) "How is it that a 8 foot tall Wookie comes from the same planet as 3 foot tall Ewoks? It just does not make sense!"

E-Voting Letter Published

My E-Voting letter to the LA Times was published in the Sunday (March 14) edition.

Apparently the more attention-getting voting-related piece (2 letters, to my one on E-voting) was written by a 27-year old who noticed that it was mostly old people working and voting at the polls.

Umm... yeah. Good point.

3700 in San Francisco and not counting, but 2200 in Oregon and counting.

I had assumed that gay marriages were over in the US for the time being, but then I happened on this news article, which explains that over 2,200 marriage licesnces have been issued in Multnomah County Oregon since March 3 (2 weeks), and that in spite of a state Atty General's declaration of the licenses to be illegal, continues to issue them today, while the issue advances to the courts.

24 Hours Behind the Times

In a NYTimes OpEd (Rewarding Terror in Spain), it is argued that removing the Popular Party from power and replacing them with the Socialists was done with the following logic by the electorate:

1) Fighting terror by attacking Iraq upset Al Qaeda, which prompted the bombings.
2) The Popular Party is for the war in Iraq, and the Socialists are against it.
3) Thus, by voting out the Popular Party, and in with the Socialists, we can pull out of Iraq and not be bombed by Al Qaeda anymore.

In this interpretation, the Spanish are cowing to terrorism.

There is an alternative interpretation:

1) The War in Iraq was an adventure to remove Hussein from power because he was not liked by the American President, which is expensive and does nothing to promote the war on terror and Al Qaeda.
2) The Iraq war was based on outright lies (to not be kind) pushed by the Popular Party including that Hussein directly contributed to the 9/11, and that WMD existed in the country.
3) Following the bombing, the Popular Party continually pointed at the ETA, against growing evidence. This PR campaign mirrored that for war in Iraq, where the government pushes a set of false conclusions to suit its political desires.
4) Thus, voting out the Popular Party punishes those who use lies about the fight against terror to push their political agenda.

The only way to distinguish between these two scenarios is to poll those who voted in the socialists -- and I don't know that anyone has done that.

Minutes of Hilarity!

Also good for passing the time when you're bored, this Slashdot article generator hits it pretty well.

Not Voting The American Way

We've heard it's hard to oust a President in wartime. In Spain, however, the ruling party lost power in Sunday elections only 4 days after the multi-bomb attack on Madrid's subway, killing 190 and injuring 1,500. The party installed -- the Socialists -- ran pledging to remove the 1,300 Spanish troops from Iraq, and now it seems they will do so, in July, when their tour of duty is over. Interestingly, the vote seemed entirely motivated to disengage from Iraq so that they don't get hit by Al Qaeda because, other than the Gov't unpopular stance of supporting the US in Iraq, they did no wrong: "In one fell swoop, voters ousted Aznar, whose party was favored to win just days ago, even though he brought Spain eight straight years of economic growth, made it a founding member of the euro single currency, cut unemployment in half and brought a degree of prominence to a long-ignored country."

One can argue that this was an enlightened vote to put into power a party to withdraw from a war which had nothing to do with fighting terrorism. Except that argument ignores the fact that Anzar's government was heading toward electoral victory before Thursday -- they were derailed by the bombings. In other words, Spain was intimidated out of Iraq by terrorist actions.

We used to joke about this ("If I don't eat a second piece of cake, the terrorists will already have won"). But it seems possible that Al Qaeda scored an electoral victory by bombing the Spanish people into submission.

Powell Uses the Chewbacca Defense

One of the most difficult arguments to turn is a factually reasonable position which has emotional overtones as well - the kind of argument that John Kerry makes about Bush's foreign policy. On a Sunday Morning talk show today, Colin Powell used one of the few effective parries -- the "Chewbacca Defense".

Powell simply counters, "I don't know what Senator Kerry is talking about. He just does not make sense." What Powell is doing here is trading on his enormous reputation for reliability and fairmindedness, so that those who have heard what Kerry has to say, and hear that Powell doesn't understand it, come to the conclusion that it must be that Kerry isn't making any sense, because Powell does so. This is an impressively effective defense! As long as you are willing to give Powell credibility, you must believe that Kerry isn't making any sense to him at all -- even if what Kerry says seems reaonable to you, you come to the conclusion that Powell sees Kerry's argument for what it is, while you are too simple-minded to get it.

How does one overcome the Chewbacca Defense, when it is leveled at you? I don't know -- the most obvious approach is to destroy Powell's credibility. That takes doing. Probably the easiest way is, "Aw, that's just Powell pretending he doesn't understand to get on Bush's good side, like Powell always does, like all those clubby cabinet members do." -- a turn on Reagan's "There you go again,". That'd be my advice.

Remember when a Billion Dollars in Corporate Fraud Meant Something?

According to the WSJ (and I don't subscribe, so the link just gives the front page where I found the item), quoting: "MCI RESTATED results for 2000 and 2001, reducing pretax income by $74.4 billion. Fraud appeared to account for about $10.6 billion of the adjustment. Oklahoma dropped its criminal case against the company in exchange for cooperation in prosecuting former executives."

So, they brought in $74B less than they had said. And $10B was due to lies. I guess the rest was just, um, stupidity? The TYCO scandal was only like $7B, wasn't it?

E-Voting LA Times Letter

In response to the LA Times story that Steve blogged for us earlier this week, I wrote a letter to the LA Times editors. Today I received a call informing me that it is under consideration for publication in the Saturday (March 13) edition of the paper. Here is the letter as I submitted it:

Dear Editor:

Regarding your story, "7,000 Orange County Voters Were Given Bad Ballots" (California, March 9):

Contrary to what the Orange County Registrar, Steve Rodermund, seems to think, the issue at stake is not whether the results of any particular March 2, 2004, race are thrown into jeopardy by the problems with Orange County's electronic voting machines. Rather, the issue is that if any race had been close enough to be threatened by these irregularities, there would have been no way to verify the election result short of a complete revote.

After all, once an electronic ballot has been tallied, there is no possibility for a recount or appeal -- the count is the count and we must accept it, "right or wrong".

Our Secretary of State and the various County Registrars should be working now to implement mandatory paper records of all electronic ballots by the November election. This is the only way to enable a legitimate recount should any election results be contested.

Sincerely,
Derek Fox

Here's hoping that it makes the final cut!

SF Gay Marriages Stopped

At least temporarily: San Diego Union-Tribune (AP) story. The Supreme Court has ordered a halt to the proceedings until it can hear the court case - first hearings in a couple of weeks.

What next for SF? Well according to this Slate analysis from several weeks back, Mayor Gavin Newsom would be within his rights to put a full stop to any and ALL marriages in SF. Straight couples would have to go to another county to get their paper work. If he wants to continue the civil disobedience campaign, this is the way to do it.

It is far from clear that he is interested in doing this however. With at least two court cases pending, and the mayor-ordered gay marriage bug spreading across the land, he may well conclude that he has wreaked enough havoc on behalf of gay civil rights for the time being, and go back to the rest of his mayoral duties.

Oh - note that Bob beat me to the punch on this one. His comments below.

Gay Marriages Over in SFO

[WaPost]. California Supreme Court blocked 'em, so no more until constitutionality is decided i May or June. The number of couples married stands at ~3700.

The gay, estranged son of Pete Knight -- the California State representative who introduced the law in California banning gay marriage -- was married Tuesday in SFO.

Oooh: the kicker. The way that Atty General Lockyer got it blocked was by arguing that couples may think they are protected by legal benefits of marriage -- such as inheritance rights -- which they may not be, and which can result in real losses if not addressed in this iterim when the constitutionality of gay marriages is not decided.

So it's to protect the couples.

Lies and the Lying Liars...

Here's a hypothetical: Say you're a leading Congressional Republican. The presumptive Democratic nominee has been caught on microphone calling you and your Republican colleagues "the most crooked, you know, lying group I've ever seen." What is your response?

1. "We're not lying when we start saying that Senator Kerry is the old-time Democrat of tax and spend."
2. Who cares, Kerry is just "Ted Kennedy on a South Beach diet."
3. "Politics in Washington have reached a sorry state when a Senator can refer to his longstanding colleagues with such venomous disrespect."

Okay, so that last was a joke, but the first two are for real: (1) House Speaker J. Dennis Hastert; (2) Rep. Jack Kingston (R-Ga.).

Interesting and weird

[reuters]. This Maryland woman is charged with conspiracy, acting as an unregistered agent of a foreign government, and taking money from a government that supports terrorism.

What the article says she did was visit multiple times the Iraqi Mission at the UN; meet members of the Iraqi Intelligence Service (IIS) between Oct 1999-March 2002; visited Baghdad in Feb/March 2002 and took payment of $10,000. In 2003, she sent a letter to the "home of a US Gov't official" saying she had access to members of the Hussein regime.

Based on what's said in the article, I can't tell if she's a CIA agent who turned for $$, or a prostititute who contacted Colin Powell to say she is sleeping with Tariq Azziz. But the latter sounds more likely.

Half Support Gay Marriage

WaPost-ABC News poll shows a jump of 6 points in the past month to 51 percent nationwide.

Even so, I'd bet that in 5 months time, it's not at 81 percent approval.

Two to Chew On

Courtesy Dana Milbank at the WP, here's some material to chew on as you review Krugman's job creation and prediction charts this evening.

Scroll to the bottom of Dana's piece for the good stuff.

Presidential Debates

Now that Kerry has started floating some options for Presidential debates, I will take a moment to state for the record that I have a bet outstanding with my father, asserting that ultimately there will be no one-on-one Democratic Nominee v. Bush debates in the whole of 2004.

Here are David Broder's thoughts on the subject.

Zero confidence

LA Times reports: 7,000 Orange County Voters Were Given Bad Ballots

Most notable item in this article is that in some polling places, they had greater than 100% turnout. The chairman of InterCivic, David Hart, explained that it would be impossible to identify which ballots were cast in the wrong precinct because of steps taken to insure voter secrecy.

Don't third world countries have better safeguards to ensure a democratic process?

Remember 2 years ago when Iraq had "free" elections, and Saddam received more than 100% of the vote and the democratic world just lauuuuughed?

Who's laughing now?

>100%, my ass.....
 

Iraq Plunging Straight Into the Teeth of Civil War

Based on this appraisal by CIA Director George Tenet, it seems all but certain that Iraq will soon be embroiled in a bloody civil war before the June 30 handover.

Democracy in Action

Amazing how the actions of Object A, when transmuted by the combined effects of critical press coverage and an impending election, wind up impacting the actions of Object B.

Democracy in action, folks. It's a marvelous mechanism but it only seems to work for a few months prior to each of our elections, so enjoy the spectacle while it lasts.

We Have Charts And Graphs To Back Us Up So Fuck Off

Krugman shows a chart of the administration's jobs growth predictions for 2002, 2003 and 2004, on which they make all their other economic predictions. And it's freaking hilarious.

John Kerry should wear this as a T-shirt.

Heck *we* should wear this as a T-shirt.

Maybe we should send letters to bait Bush, saying: "Gosh, George, I notice that your jobs growth predictions are slightly below the job growth that Clinton actually acheived. Don't you think you should do better job growth than Clinton did?"

SFO, NM, NY, OR and now WA and NJ

The mayor of Seattle issed an executive order requiring the city to recognize same-sex marriages by municipal employees. A bit of a half-measure by a mayor who says he lacks legal standing to issue same-sex marriage licenses, but a step. This, while Asbury Park, NJ will start issuing same-sex marriage licenses under equal protection on Tuesday.

Next, they'll have to sign up for the draft

Mercury News is reporting that John Vasconcellos (D-Santa Clara)is proposing that 14 year olds get the vote." Under the plan 16 year olds would get a half vote, and 14 year olds get a quarter vote. Under the 3/5ths compromise, slaves were worth 3/5ths of a vote. So what are we trying to tell California kids here?

Speaking of ads

The RNC has warned TV stations across the country not to run ads from moveon.org, claiming that the money used for these ads violates campaign finance reform.

Even the Democrats Do Not Get It

The Sunday Morning Talk shows have framed the controversy about "9/11 images" for his ad campaign around using *any* images invoking 9/11. None of the commentaters -- Ed Kennedy, Cokie Roberts, James Caraville, Maralee Matalin, to give an example, and noting that some do it purposely -- get that the issue is not using 9/11 images.

The issue raised by some of the 9/11 victim's famillies is Bush using the corpses of their loved ones, draped in flags, as a political image. It is patently offensive to see the dead body of your husband or wife draped across the political ad of Bush, if you oppose the man's policies. To say that "we all own these images" groups someone's corpose with the picture of a flag in front of the WTC -- and clearly the two are different. It is using your wife's picture to help his political position, when that image is powerful, and your wife -- and you, for that matter -- are against Bush's policies. The dead, who cannot speak for themselves, should not have their images used so contrarily to their beliefs, particularly if they could have stopped it if they were alive.

On the other hand, they probably could not have stopped the use of their image for political purpses if they were alive. So, there's no legal issue, it's simply a political one. Which means that people can complain all they like, that's what they should do, and no one need do anything about it.

McCain Gives some Straight Talk

John McCain, on This Week with George Stephanopolous, couched his opinion on gay marriage and the proposed amendment against it in words of not wanting to violate the sacredness of the document unless absolutely necessary, and letting DOMA work. "Oh, and by the way," he ended, "that constitutional amendment: there isn't a super-majority for it in the House or the Senate."

Narrative Discontinuity in Doonesbury

If you follow Doonesbury and travel, then you've noticed that some newspapers cut off the first two Sunday panels -- some papers give 8 panels, other only the last 6. This means that every Sunday, the first two panels are basically throwaways -- they are narratively discontinuous with the final six. This might be an opportunity to work in an extra joke. Usually, though, it's just some silent musing by one charcter -- completely boring, as exhibited here.

2Fer Film Night

After watching LOST IN TRANSLATION last night, I turned around and watched MONSTER.

LOST IN TRANSLATION: This is a movie in search of a subject. I think what we see is the semi-autobiographical sentiment that Sofia Coppola herself is going through, because she makes the classic mistake of such endeavors of not displaying the logical conflict faced by the protagonist, thinking that the emotional conflict is self-evident and compelling. In fact, we simply have a post-Yale undergrad Philosophy major tagging along with her photographer husband and his shallow colleagues in Japan -- cultural displacement as metaphor for fish-out-of-water, which you'd think I'd be sympathetic to having lived in Munich and now Montreal, but in fact I'm not -- feeling disconnected and uncertain. She looks to an aging actor, and they have an interesting emotional connection, the sexual aspect gets cut off. HEllllllloooooo father figure, welcome to the film Francis. The film lacks a traditional narrative arc -- but what we end up with at the end is: you confused young people who don't know what to be, what kind of person to be? It's a mistake to look to the older generation, they are just as confused as you are. And the advice they have for you is grabled at best, compeltely incomprehensible. We're all just finding a way through, imperfectly.

MONSTER: I have less to say about truly biographical films, because they don't usually offer thematics, unless they become preachy or cautionary. However, Theron gave a compelling performance, and her physical transofrmation was -- ahem -- huge. I wish she had forgone the prosthetic teeth, because I thin kshe could have carried it off without them, but I suppose her teeth as too perfect to permit that. And, she was memorably good. However, when she and Christina Ricci were on-screen, all that was in my head was "There's Charlize Theron and Christina Ricci on-screen" -- not nearly as self-effacing a performance as, for example, Nicole Kidman in The Hours.

Rudi Giuliani runs for VP on Meet The Press

Rudi and Russert exchanged the following information -- note that these are not quotes, I've summarized the statements, and focused on what I thought was most important.

Russert: Families of victims of 9/11 have criticized Bush for using pictures of a flag-draped coffin, trading on their deaths. Is that fair?

Giuliani: That ad summarized the challenges that Bush has faced. One hundred years from now, 9/11 will be remembered as the greatest challenge he faced. To not include it would be silly.

Russert: The head of the NY Firefighters union criticizes Bush for trading on the heroism of the 9/11 firefighters in his ads.

Giuliani: The firefighters back John Kerry, so some of that is political.

Russert: A Republican congressman for Oklahoma has said that a loss for Bush in 2004 would be a victory for Bin-Laden. Do you see a vote for John Kerry as a vote for Bin Laden?

Giuliani: A vote for John Kerry is not a vote for Bin Laden. If you want to vote for John Kerry, you vote for the most liberal senator in congress, who will raise your taxes.

Russert: We polled people coming out of the NY Democratic primaries, so these were Democrats, asking "Are you dissatisfied or angry with Bush

Giuliani: I don't think it's right for decision at this point. I don't think it's a critical issue.

Russert: If you were asked by the President to replace Cheney on the ticket would you?

Giuliani: I'm very happy what I'm doing. I think what this country needs is continuity, and keeping Cheney there would be good for the country.

Russert: Some GOP strategists say that you could be a contender for President in 2008. One recommendation is for you to take on Hillary Clinton for her senate seat in 2006. This would make you a big political hero to conservatives in Iowa and New Hampshire, who disagree with you on abortion.

Giuliani: I'm not looking that far into the future.

Oh, Breakfast!

[NYTimes Magazine]. A Glorious ode to breakfasts, oh! My favorite meal of the day! So many of my best memories are at breakfasts, and the first paragraph rattles a litany of memories of the authors, which captures this.

The easiness brought to breakfast, combined with the opportunity to sate a real hunger born of privation due to unconsciousness, makes it the only meal which asks for itself. Never so full as after, nearly anything can be eaten. And friends for breakfast -- an hour or two of casual regard, lounging about before the day rolls into view.

Maryland Bills Against Gay Marriage Defeated

[WaPost] There are only 12 states left which *don't* prohibit same-sex marriage licenses. Maryland is not one of them -- they've already codified the man/woman requirement. However, the two bills were to make the man/woman codification a constitutional provision, and to not recognize marriges performed elsewhere.

I especially love the quote by the director of the Family Protection Lobby, which gets those key words of "fear" and "confusion" enveloping Maryland as a result.

What's that you say? Not 250,000 Jobs per month?

In order to make up the 2,000,000 new jobs that President Bush promised for his first term, Krugman pointed out some time ago that the economy would have to produce 250,000 new jobs per month until the November Election. So far, that's not happening. Why, just last month in February job growth stalled in February, to only 21,000 new jobs.

Prediction: the Republicans will fulminate that Democrats are purposely turning down jobs and remaining unemployed in order to keep the numbers artificially low. Everybody knows that the unemployed are all Democrats!

Bob Takes Steve Up on that one

It's a bet: Resolved, that Bin-Laden will be taken into custody in September or October of 2004.

Pro: Steve.
Con: Bob.

Terms: 1 Luxury caffienated beverage.

Shocked!

After posting that last blog, I found this article which says that Bin Laden evaded the Pakistani raid.

If they keep publishing that his whereabouts are known, and publish their strategy, he's got advance warning that they're coming. On the surface this seems idiotic, unless they are planning to keep him on the move in this fashion, and then when he hides in an opportune location, they will feed his false sense of security by allowing supplies to get through.

Bin Laden getting the squeeze

Not that this news is new, but Bob thought it deserved blogging.

Apparently, Pakistan ISI knows EXACTLY where Bin Laden is hiding, and they are currently squeezing the supply line to his hideout, presumably to weaken any counter attack when they move in. This leads me to the next thought: Assuming they know where he is, does anyone expect Bin Laden to be captured before October? If they can wait 2 weeks before moving in on him, AND let the news outlets publish those facts, is Bin Laden going to be shocked that he was captured ("I had know idea they knew where I was hiding!")?

Prediction: more and more articles will start appearing claiming that one intelligence agency or another knows the whereabouts of Bin Laden, then suddenly mid-August there will be nothing. Late September or early October he'll be caught. I'll take coffee bets on this one.

Sounds like a Trend

Michael Eisner is no longer Chairman of the Board over at Disney; Michael Dell is no longer Chief Executive at Dell .

Hmmm.... no longer chief executive..... Who could be next?

Who? Who? Is no one safe?

Google Search: 13 Dickinson St.

You know, it still blows me away that if you do a Google search on 13 Dickinson St. , this blog appears at the top.

I mean, it's a blog.

NY City turns away gay couples for marriage.

[NYTimes Article]. Gay couples tried and were turned away in NYCity to obtain licenses from the clerk's office.

Who will now likely sue to marry in the state of NY.

US, Iraqi Governing Council at Odds over the number of Bodies?

The most interesting line in a WaPost Article on a different subject was: "On Tuesday, simultaneous suicide bombings of Shiite Muslim worshipers in Baghdad and Karbala left at least 117 people dead, U.S. officials said. The Iraqi Governing Council put the number at 271, in addition to 400 injured."

The 117 number was widely reported in the US press. Why is it that when the Iraqi governing council counts bodies, they get 154 more dead people than the US did? Is the US undercounting deaths in Iraq from terrorism by a factor of 2, which could be motivated by propaganda efforts? Or is there some reason that the Iraqi governing council would inflate the number of dead by a factor of 2, which I can't even imagine the motivation for?

How Far It May Go

Bob, to address your point (several posts back) about how far the gay marriage thing will go, and why that matters -

The reason it matters is because the more gay marriages we actually have in the U.S., the shriller the opponents of gay marriage get, and the more hysterical they sound when they panic about the consequences for our morals, institutions, and character as a country. The increasing numbers of happily (and unhappily!) married gay couples demonstrate to the straight and conservative - but inclined towards tolerance - majority that gay marriage is not such a big deal after all, and simultaneously, drive the intolerant fringe into greater and greater paroxysms and agonies. The first trend is causing the ground to shift beneath the feet of the opponents of gay marriage, and I expect opinion polls to register this shift, by the Republican convention if not before. The second trend is causing the intolerant fringe to alienate a greater and greater fraction of the tolerant middle; even those who do not change their views on gay marriage per se will be reluctant to identify themselves with the extreme positions (e.g. Constitutional Amendment) that the fringe is pushing.

As you have pointed out, Bob, the President's support for a Constitutional Amendment banning gay marriage has already been backed down to the point where he is willing (according to his spokespeople) to allow for Civil Unions. The NYT had a story about evangelicals in Michigan who were against gay marriage and supportive of the President in general but had their doubts about the Amendment (in general, those who expressed this view had gay friends or relatives). Just yesterday, Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist painted a vision of gay marriages spreading "like wildfire" over the country if the Senate does not act soon on an Amendment. Yet it is far from clear that an Amendment can prevail in the Senate even today, much less one or two months from now when the polls will have shifted - and with any luck, Bill Frist's nightmare will have been made real.

E-Voting in Action

Avi Rubin, the Johns Hopkins University professor who co-authored one of the first academic papers attacking the "security" of the Diebold E-voting machines served as an elections judge in Maryland yesterday and has written an account of his experience and subsequent thoughts.

Worth a read, for all of us who care about this democracy (such as it is).

More Places Performing Same-Sex Marriages Nationwide.

According to this NYTimes article, whie the NY attorney general has declared same-sex marriages in NY invalid on the basis of the Domestic Relations Law's references to a "bride and groom" and "husband and wife", the may or Nyack, NY will start officiating at weddings for same-sex couples this week, and Oregon is beginning to issue marriage licenses to gay couples today. Also, Ithaca, NY is granting five same-sex marriage licenses, by forwarding them to the NY State Department of Health (apparently, the state authority).

Following up on assholes

On Steve's earlier post regarding Central American politics and the projection of American Presidential power , according to the Altavista Babelfish translation service , the English "asshole" translates directly into "asshole" in Spanish. Thus, according to the same service, a "stupid asshole" is "asshole estupida", and "fucking asshole" is "asshole de mierda". Thus, Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez, referring to "that asshole George W. Bush" (or, plaintively, "George W. Bush is an asshole") would probably have said "ese asshole George W. Bush," or "George W. Bush es un asshole."

I note that "asshole" was given a masculine article "un" instead of feminine "una", which seems to me inconsistent with the feminine ending of "estupida" above. Are assholes feminine or masculine? Perhaps as an adjective, "asshole" is treated as a feminine modifier, and as a noun, the gender depends on the gender of whose asshole we're talking about, in a similar way that in English, gentlemen (or rather, not) are referred to as "dicks" but never "cunts" and ladies (again, not) are called "cunts" but never "dicks", in the same manner of gender assignation for genitailic insults -- except, of course, when the gender assignation is a desirable point of the insult, in a somewhat unenlightend way (as in, "that bitch Harvey Weinstein").

But that's just me, talkin'.

Now That The Nom is Locked

Now that Kerry has locked up the nomination, I can be Officially Freaked Out. I still don't believe that Kerry can bring the fight to Bush. Beating Bush requires that you know how to mix it up -- and note that Bush does so with none too much respect for the truth, or fairness. Bush has never been in a debating club.

I fear a slaughter.

And I'm not just trying to get out of the 10,000 coffee bets I made that Bush will not be re-elected.

On the plus side, Bush's polls are low, so I expect his campaign to be willing to debate, although the campaign has already stated they expect Bush's numbers to remain low through the summer. Which means, no public debates until September.

Water on Mars? Didn't Dan Quayle Tell Us This Years Ago?

So the JPL scientists operating the Mars Rovers have reported strong evidence that the crater one of the rovers landed in was once drenched with water. This should not, however, take away from the acheivements of the planetary theoritician Dan Quayle who said:

"Mars is essentially in the same orbit... Mars is somewhat the same distance from the Sun, which is very important. We have seen pictures where there are canals, we believe, and water. If there is water, that means there is oxygen. If oxygen, that means we can breathe.

-- Vice President Dan Quayle, 8/11/89 (reported in Esquire, 8/92)"

It's remarkable that, despite quotes like this, Dan has been consistently underestimated. Grammarians already believe, as Quayle foresaw, that 60% of the American population will be spelling "potato" with an "e" by 2018. If only he had had the vision to tack the word "compassionate" in front of "conservative" -- an alliterative obviousness -- Dan might well have been a second term President today.

What's Spanish for "asshole"?

Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez may be right when calling President Bush an asshole, but didn't his mother ever teach him "If you don't have anything nice to say, don't say anything at all?"

Whoops -- Does Kerry Know his Factors of 1000?

Kerry's quote in the WaPost: : " 'He thought you wouldn't notice all of those jobs being lost, a million-dollar-a-day deficit. . . . Every minute two jobs are lost across this nation.'"

Um, John, that's billion-dollar-a-day deficit.

A million dollars a day deficit could be paid off with the profits off Mel Gibson's "The Passion".

Oakland, CA to issue marriage licenses to same-sex couples

According to this article, a resolution has been put before the Okalnd City Council to begin offering marriage licenses to same-sex couples. It is expected to be approved on March 16.

An Awesome Argument

Today, David Brooks produces a glittering soroptimistic toe flutter. In an article to criticize John Edwards, he says John Edwards talks about poor people as if all they need is jobs and more money.

It used to be, he says, that liberals said that poverty could be treated by more money, and conservatives said that poverty resulted from culture. Brooks goes on to state that the welfare reforms of the 1990s have demonstrated that poverty can be treated by demanding cultural change -- graduate high school, wait until you're married to have children, hold down a full time job (doing whatever) and you will not be poor. Working mothers, he says, have made big gains since the 1990s, although they are having a hard time getting into the middle class; some support programs are needed, but the conservatives basically had it right: just demand responsibility and people will no longer be poor.

Then comes his stabs into Edwards: "All of this is absent from the world Edwards describes on the campaign trail."

In other words, Mr. Brooks -- you are on a completely different subject from Mr. Edwards. You are talking about how to treat poverty. What Mr. Edwards is talking about is how to avoid pushing millions of Americans into poverty -- to keep manufacturing in the US to provide employment for all the working mothers for whom you're interested in providing babysitting for (incidentally, I know a few such working mothers who can use your free babysitting -- I'll give them your phone number).

On second thought, this is not an impressive argument. Brooks is just using classic "define your adversary before he defines himself". Brooks is attempting to force the argument into the area of poverty because that's where he can make a strong argument ("ha ha! Conservatives were right on welfare reform and you 'give money to the poor' types were wrong!"). Where he can't make a strong argument is in the battlefield Edwards has staked out: American jobs are disappearing to overseas, and the Bush Administration has failed to create the 2M new ones they promised in the last campaign, failed even to stem the shutdown of our employment economy in which 3M jobs have been destroyed.

So we can argue about the best way to treat poverty Mr. Brooks, because Mr. Bush's policies are pushing millions of American families into poverty, and they're going to eventually need the benefit of your expertise on poverty. Right now, though, the conversation is on how to stop Bush from shoving of millions of Americans into poverty. Care to join in? Or are you only interested in treating the patient after he's already dead?

Big Surprise in the Iraqi Constitution

Although Powell seems excited about the new Iraqi Constitution, the Administration didn't mention that they had failed to install an amendment against gay marriage THERE too. Gay Iraqis are already lining up at Bagdad City hall.

DemNom's Content of Character

When the NYTimes asked John Edwards and John Kerry to write about an incident early in their life which shaped their character, John Edwards wrote about how we won $3.7M jury award instead of accepting $0.75M settlement from a doctor who had prescribed Antabuse to a patient well over the normal quantity, apparenly putting him into a coma and debilitating him for life. This is either a shrewd attempt to get what would be a point of criticism in an Edwards-Bush contest in front of people in advance -- but which should have happened before now -- or a tin-ear description of an episode which Edwards apparently might not realize that, while emotional, few voters are likely to identify with.

John Kerry described -- in a completely impersonal way -- learning about the deaths of two friends in Vietnam, and subsequently deciding to campaign against the war.
It's a bizarre article. The sequence of events is clear, but by failing to reflect on the roots of his emotional attachments to these friends, the motivations of his transition are opaque.

This is a fearsome situation. Kerry failed to make the emotional connections between what he had witnessed and his decision to fight against the Vietnam war. I must presume this is a studied failure -- he is, after all, a successful politician by most standards, and he must know that he cannot simply jump up on the soap box of anti-Vietnam and the bad time of the 60's, and be guaranteed to take the crowd with him; more likely, they would see it as anachronistic prostyletising. Instead, we come away understanding that, gosh, bad things both personal and public seemed to be involved in his decision to turn against the war, but it's completely unclear to what degree any of them do. Kerry presents the information of the situations, as if the appropriate emotional responses were self-evident -- and while they can be inferred, leaving emotional responses as self-evident instead of describing them robs the reader of the opporunity to identify with the writer. Kerry is, again, a cold fish.

On the other hand, we have a bit more of emotional insight into Edward's predicament -- should he accept the $0.75M on behalf of his first client, who commuinicated via computer "Take it, I trust you.". It was the latter half of that message which stuck in his craw; Edwards seems to respond, "Well, if I'm to live up to that trust, I have to tell you to do something which appears against your short-term well-being. If I'm to be worthy, I have to give you my best advice." The message is that if you trust him, you'll get the payoff in the end. Even so, the payoff lawsuit does not ring quite as easily as good vs. evil, and it's unclear what Edwards accomplished other than winning a liability lottery for his client -- the derived moral of the story is "I'll get you the payoff."

These are both tin-ear stories. Neither connects traditional democrats to larger themes.