Yeah, I thought the De-Baathification Reform was a good idea...

But I was sort of counting on them getting it right.

Spencer Ackerman's saying it got screwed up.

I know the Bush Adminstration likes to talk about milestones reached, but it helps if you're not celebrating empty victories, such as loophole-laden laws that might lead to even greater disenfranchisement.

Repeat after me: results matter.

That's Why This Man Scares Me

Apparently, Bush has decided to ignore another inconvenient truth.

Fortunately, this one only has the potential to embroil the Middle East in near-perpetual warfare, not cook the planet on HI.

Do any of these people get that provoking needless conflict will make defending Israel more difficult than plain Diplomacy will? So many people out there think of war as being the Gordian knot strategy cutter of all time, but many times, it can entangle the knot even more.

The problem with the Neocons is that they nearly always underestimate the complexity of military force and its consequences. They are accustomed to being the stinging gadflies of tough foreign policy, but in practice, they've become blusterers and bluffers who who hope for the best and blunder after it. Their policies, in both Israel and America, have made us less safe rather than more, as they'd desire.

The sooner these people lose power, the better.

Fascio-Fascism

I kind of shake my head at calling Jonah Goldberg "the doughy pantsload", but I've already had the privilege of taking shots at his previous pronouncement on his fascism.

Well, I think he just robbed a bakery, because this takes the cake.

Mussolini got labelled a fascist because he supported WWI.

Just one problem: Mussolini WAS the original Fascist. He founded the party that gave the 20th century a name for totalitarian, brutal governments.

The real problem here is that some people identify fascism with any political cause that steps on their toes by preventing them from indulging whatever impulse they want, or does something they can't keep them from doing. Hence, Jonah's previous equation of Ivy-League educated school teachers with Nazi brownshirts.

At the end of the day, what Jonah can't tolerate, is somebody teaching or advocating what he disagrees with, in a way where he or others can come back in and reverse the "damage". He wants control, and fears the Left's influence on all levels.

And this is how, Ironically enough, they justify indulging in the paranoia and political acts that get them defined as fascists. Fascism, more than anything else, is defined by the impulse towards authoritarian control of society. Now, bureaucracy and government intrusion can be part of this, when not balanced by civil liberties, but what truly defines fascism is the vicious will to employ violence and other abuses of power to maintain power over the society, and the impulse to use violence to untie the Gordian knot of problems both internal and external.

Are the Republicans Fascists? No. But the party's become the closer of our two to that. The Democrats once strayed in that direction, and paid the price for it.

If we wish to stay clear of this problematic kind of politics, we must realize one thing: at the end of the day, we may have adversaries in politics, but we have very few true enemies.

While we're on the subject of charming...

Let's try the new catchphrase in the war: Iraqi Solutions. Which more or less amounts to saying, we're not going to force policy changes on unwilling Iraqis, we're just going to let them sort out things for themselves.

Naturally, it should beg the question: if we're going to let them sort out things for themselves, why are we keeping tens of thousands of soldiers in Iraq? Oh, that's right, so they don't kill each other sorting things out. Brilliant!

But should that be our job, for the indefinite future, especially given the fact we're running low on referees- sorry, peacekeepers- to send over there?

If they're going to sort things out themselves, eventually it's going to come down to them sorting it out between themselves, and that's either going to happen with us in the middle and in the way, or with our presence minimal. I don't think we should suffer from the illusions that this is going to be pretty whatever course we pick. We should also, though, not suffer from the illusion that staying in Iraq will do anything but continue to aggravate the problem, and get Americans killed for the sake of procrastinating, ass-covering politicians.

You know, those likeable fellows. How many Americans have to die so that Congress and the President can save face and avoid political risks?

Are they naturally charming, or do they have to work at it?

In Blackwater's distinguished career, this has to rate as one of their more beautiful foul-ups, probably highly appreciated by our men and women in uniform: dropping tear gas on our own troops, not to mention a bunch of Iraqis, at an intersection in Baghdad.

The blog this links to notes that both the Helicopter in the air and the vehicle on the ground released this stuff, so it begs the question, not only why this was released, but why they had it to release in the first place.

Update: For those considering the innocent mistake defense for Blackwater, This Wired Blog entry on the matter should put that bad idea to rest. Repeat after me: Smoke grenades are yellow on green, CS grenades are red on grey. Unless Blackwater is employing visually impaired people just for the purpose of confusing these two different kinds of grenades, they ought to know the difference, and they ought to have people with the sense not to inflict tear gas on friendly forces.

Here endeth the lesson.

I Eat Plenty of Oatmeal...

But that's not going to make me vote for John McCain.

Just click the link, Will ya?

A Word of Advice from a Media Student to Bill O'Reilly

"We're sorry we had to have that little confrontation," O'Reilly added, "but no one on this earth is going to block a shot on The O'Reilly Factor. It is not going to happen."

Bill , mugging your future interview subject's employee will hardly endear you to him, nor will claiming that assault and battery, criminal behavior, is justified in the name of getting your shot. When I was videotaping a presentation, and the people got in the way, I raised the camera up, or planned the shot from a vantage point that I knew would be clear.

There is absolute no excuse for shoving somebody to get a shot.

Oh, another suggestion: if somebody blocks a shot, make lemons into lemonade. It makes it more cinematic to stage in depth, and as long as you frame it right, you can shoot over somebody's shoulder, and have them be in the foreground without getting distracting.

Biting Them in The Blindcheeks

Why does it seem that every time the Bush Administration's attempted to defend its aberrant policies, it ends up violating national security?

But I guess this is all okay, since it's patriotic administration officials doing this, and not dirty hippy commies with far left leanings (The main sign of which is opposition to the Bush administration, rather than any demonstrated political bias in that direction.)

You know you've really screwed up...

...When you've got the Terminator as an enemy.

I mean, how good can your environmental plan be if it's being opposed by a machine from a future where everything's been nuked anyways?

Well, that just takes the... Fruitcake. Ugh.

I don't know what staffer advised Rudy Giuliani to do this ridiculous ad, but whatever he's paying him, he should double it, and make him his campaign manager.

Why?

Because the crashing and burning of Rudy Giuliani Campaign has yet to have entertained me, or a million other Democrats and Independents quite enough yet. If you're going to go out, go out with style!

What? It’ll be a really nice fruit cake with a big red bow on it!

-Rudolph Giuliani, perhaps to be inducted into the hall of fame of
campaign destroying quotes, right alongside "Yeargh!".

Lindsey Graham? Collect call from the Memory Hole.

Yes, I'll hold.

Oh, yes. He said that you said that if there wasn't progress on provincial elections, reversing De-Baathification, and spreading the wealth on oil revenues, then it was very likely Iraq would become a failed state.

Yes, you said that. He said you even asked a rhetorical question about whether it would be worth keeping soldiers there if such progress weren't made.

Hello?

Hello?

Hello?

Darn it.

Another Brick in The Wall, or Up Against the Wall?

One has to wonder whether Jonah Goldberg had a very happy elementary school experience.

We don't need no education...
We don't need no thought control...
Teacher, leave those kids alone!

(apologies to Pink Floyd)

Cradle to grave indoctrination from the right, that's the only way!

What does a Broken Army Mean?

Push soldier far enough, put them in bad enough positions, and things like this happen.

I think many hawks nowadays have a poor appreciation for the human needs of war, and it's a good way to lose more wars. You can't simply grind your army into the dust and not have the above or worse happen.

I Just Somehow Knew...

When CNN's Political Ticker posted this article with the headline "Ticker: Dem V.P. nominee backs GOP hopeful", I had a very strong, sneaking suspicion who it was before I clicked through. What do you know? I was right!

Tortured Good Intentions

Kevin Drum posted this on the Washington Monthly site, and I'd like to register my response to the logic contained therein.

The logic is, we're doing this to save people. Funny thing is, they're doing it for that reason, too. Save people from us, from the pre-Islamic state of ignorance, from themselves, more or less. They're saving the world, for crying out loud!

At least, that is, in their own minds.

They are rightly considered cruel, violent, and extremist for their behavior. Which is the situation we are in to a lesser extent, when we think up wonderful ways to justify what is just basically torture. It's cruelty, and what's more, it doesn't work like it's supposed to.

Supposedly, it's a magic way to get perfect information just by threatening or hurting a bad guys. That, unfortunately, is something out of the movies. We're not hard drives, to be broken into by torturing hackers. When you break a person's will, you have no idea whether they believe that telling the truth fulfills what you desire of them. If you're rather insistent on a point, they might begin to see the merits of agreeing with you, whether or not they know it to be true. If they've kept their wits about them, they can feed you whatever BS they can.

It's not that torture can never reveal good information. It's just that being the interrogator, the person who wants to know, you yourself will probably be the last person to know where the truth is or is not within a tortured person's confessions.

The glorious vision of instant actionable intelligence is an illusion. If you don't know where the truth begins or ends, you will end up having to do follow up, or perhaps possibly missing the opportunity to take action elsewhere. If you will have to follow up anyways, and your instant intelligence turns out to be BS more than anything else, then you could end up no closer to the truth than somebody who stuck to normal interrogation methods and took their time looking up leads in the first place.

But instead of being better off then them, you're worse off. You lose reputation, you lose campaigns for hearts and mind. You make it easier for people who really do dislike us to become more hateful. You make it more difficult for America to take the moral high ground and fight against these kinds of injustices.

The more we become like the terrorists, the more paralyzed we become in opposing their evils.

A Little Thing Called Cooperation...

To be very blunt here, I don't think I've ever heard of Congress or the Judiciary being asked to back off in a situation like this. Strikes me as particularly arrogant of them. Things have a bad habit of disappearing around these people when they're allowed time to set their affairs in order.

The Truth About Frivolous Lawsuits

Here's a very interesting article about why many of the assumptions about frivolous lawsuit are wrong.

Update: A column in my local newspaper exposes more bamboozlement about frivolous lawsuits.

Harry Reid: when you're finished shooting yourself in the foot, I'd like to talk to you.

It's stuff like this which amazes me. I mean, really. Of all the wasted opportunities. Americans have no problem believing that Democrats are more like them in their values, better at protecting them, better in so many other ways than their rivals. Yet you and the rest of the Senate Democrats have them so frustrated that they feel the need for a third party.

It's pathetic. You're making us look bad. I mean, why are we giving the telecommunication companies immunity? Their people should have seen this coming. are we doing this because Bush will accuse us of being terrorist sympathizers? Take a nice long walk outside the swamp-gas saturated air of Washington, and you will find that most people are scared, not grateful for what our friends in the Maisson Blanche have been doing.

Let me tell you what you're doing: you're wasting valuable credibility, not to mention the opportunity to stand up to Bush when it really matters. Of course we'll be far less cautious when and if a Democratic party president is elected. But that won't tell people the depth of our committment to fight for them. What if another Republican is elected President, unlikely as that may be? What if we find ourselves dealing with another Oval Office tyrant?

I know you might want to be civil, not to make waves, not to offend people, but that only works if the other side is cooperating. These people are not. They are actively trying to stifle your agenda, and you are letting them do this. What will people think when they see this? That we're so gracious and bi-partisan? Or are they going to think what the hell are these people good for? At this point in time, our most valuable role as the majority is to be the antidote to the political poison that the former majority power has become.

We no longer have to go along to get along. We no longer have to tolerate their agenda of obstruction of anything and everything liberal. We have every right and every mandate now to change the equation of power, to quit letting victories flow in their direction. It's time for them to learn the true meaning of obstruction. They can filibuster us (or threaten it seems, since you don't hold them to such idle promises), but we can absolutely take anything everything they want an bring it to a screeching halt. We'll see how long they maintain their taste for such tactics when we put that flavor in their oatmeal for a change.

So far, the verdict for your Senate, and as a result this congress will be that you are a bunch of wimps who could back down the most unpopular president of modern times, or break the losing party on its way to losing more seats in that chamber. I could understand the brief lingering of timidity from the days of Republican Majority, but this is just convincing people that your folks are congenitally lacking in spine, and that is just going to get your butts into trouble in upcoming elections. If you really want to consolidate your power, don't be afraid to use it. If you want the Republicans to be able to show your party to be weak and ineffectual, you're doing a good job.

The Telepresent Tribune: Why I'm starting it.

I've already got a political blog, Watchblog, and are a member (newly minted) of Daily Kos and another blog of my own, The Telepresent Texan. Hell, I even have an online novel going (or will get going once I get back on track)

The trick though, I'd rather keep the last blog pure of this stuff, and the other two blogs, though I get my stuff out through them, only allow me so many posts in a day. I'd like a bit more freedom to respond to events in real time, so I've decided to collect and distribute news, information, and opinion (both I promise will be clearly labelled for what they are) in this new blog. I've always admired other bloggers like Josh Marshall and Kevin Drum, who are absolute newshounds, so I guess this is my way of giving them the sincerest form of flattery for having kept folks like me informed about things. I hope I do this right.

In the interests of full disclosure, I am a Democrat, and I am a Liberal. And yes, a Progressive, a member of the Left (though not the Far Left, I'd think.) However, I do invite any and all to read this blog. Those who don't like what I have to say can at least keep themselves informed of what people like me know and really believe. Hopefully, I'll also challenge some of you who would call me a fellow Democrat, Liberal, Progressive, etc. Lord knows we need a shake up.

With all that explained, The Telepresent Tribune begins publication.